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WCW Head Bookers


JerryvonKramer

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FWIW, in the Aug 9 1993 Observer Newsletter, the lead story is:

 

"After much discussion and speculation over the past week, World Championship Wrestling has reverted back to a

booking committee composed of those already involved on the previous booking team (Dusty Rhodes, Ole Anderson,

Eric Bischoff, Greg Gagne, Mike Graham, etc.). It appears the final decision-making power rests with Bischoff, who

seems to be the most influential individual in the WCW organization since Bill Shaw is crediting the Disney tapings as a

major success and Bischoff is getting the lion's share of credit for the shows. Both Terry Funk and Jerry Jarrett were

spoken with by Shaw and/or Bob Dhue over the past few weeks about a spot in the organization, but to the best of my

knowledge, neither were actually given a firm offer of a specific spot. Among many things, Funk felt coming in with

Bischoff having the final decision-making power wasn't an environment he wanted to be part of."

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Ok, thanks.

I'll never understand the relationship between Hogan and Savage at this point. There was some hostility dating back from his divorce with Liz which he partially blamed on Hogan and Linda, et Savage seemed to align with Hogan no matter what in WCW, and ended up playing the role of his bitch like he always has before. Why wouldn't Savage support a guy like Flair who was just much closer to himself in term of work ethic ? Savage vs Flair was the best thing Savage did in WCW next to his program with DDP. It's just bizarre to me why Savage would follow Hogan's lead, he was a big enough star on his own. Insecurity maybe.

Money. Savage knew being programmed opposite Hogan he was going to get more money. Being Hogan's partner means a good pay day. Politically opposing Hulk would have cost him money.

 

Meltzer mentioned on a recent podcast that if you combined their runs together, Hogan & Savage made more money working with each other then they ever did with anyone else.

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This came up reading the Observers for the podcasts but in December 88 after Dusty was fired but before the booking committee headed by Flair took over, JIM CROCKETT JR. HIMSELF was booking. He was the booker for Clash 4 and Starrcade 88. The committee took over after that.

 

I literally had no idea at all that Crockett ever booked any shows himself.

Cornette described his tenure succinctly in one of his shoots: "Jim Crockett knew wasn't a real booker, he was a Maintenance Booker. He could keep the boat floating (provided it didn't have any holes in it) until someone came along to paddle."

 

ALSO, Jim Herd had quite an extensive wrestling background pre-Pizza Hut that is never ever and I mean EVER discussed, mainly in St. Louis but also working for Vince Sr. for a while too. The WONs from around November and December of 88 are a real goldmine of info I've never seen anyone else.

Yeah, why does that never get mentioned? The standard line on Herd is that he was a completely inexperienced outsider who had absolutely zero knowledge of wrestling, which is simply not factually true.
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  • 2 months later...

Russo's first show was 10/18. I'm not exactly sure what Nash's last show was. I think he sort of faded out over time. I believe there was an in-between period where Kevin Sullivan and company were doing it. I don't think Nash was booking past Road Wild.

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9/6 Nitro was the last Bischoff Nitro but I'm with Loss in thinking he was faded out before that. I don't recall the WON's at the time really giving any in depth information, other than a new committee taking over with Busch, Sullivan, Nash, JJ Dillon, and a few I'm forgetting.

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Loss: can you use your Supreme Being Powers to edit the first post. Jerry said he did on the second page, but he seemed to miss the level of detail that Tim and then I point on for the "post-Nash to the end" period:

 

September 1999 - Sullivan/Taylor/committee

October 1999 - 1/16/00 - Russo/Ferrera

1/16/00 - 4/1/00 - Sullivan/Taylor/Ferrera/committee

4/10/00 - a week after Halloween Havoc (I think) - Russo/Bischoff

11/00 - 3/26/01 - Ace/Taylor/Ferrera

 

4/10/00 - a week after Halloween Havoc (I think) - Russo/Bischoff

Russo was in a strange roll prior to that as he did a lot of work at home selling PCS while being worried about his job. He was officially out at the 10/23 Nitro/Thunder tapings when Terry & Ace took over.

 

Eric... he wasn't really involved a ton for quite a while prior to that. Eric had some big picture stuff, but I suspect by the time of the Bash (i.e. shoot on Hogan), he was fading and instead was focusing on lining up money marks to buy WCW.

 

I would tag it as "Russo" through all of that period.

 

John

 

 

I haven't checked to see if others have detailed dates/months in the thread as well, but since the first post has the chance to be a useful long term reference piece, we might want to get it as detailed/accurate as possibly.

 

John

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Wasn't Nash's last booked show a thunder where he did the announcing with Larry and Tenay and was drunk? That show featured a lot of jobber matches and the main event of I think Luger/Steiner vs Buff and La Parka.

I don't remember this at all but it appeals to my sense of humor.

 

If I'm going down, it's not going to be pretty. Giddy up.

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Wasn't Nash's last booked show a thunder where he did the announcing with Larry and Tenay and was drunk? That show featured a lot of jobber matches and the main event of I think Luger/Steiner vs Buff and La Parka.

That was the last show before Russo, but I think Nash's booking run was over by this point.

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Wasn't Nash's last booked show a thunder where he did the announcing with Larry and Tenay and was drunk? That show featured a lot of jobber matches and the main event of I think Luger/Steiner vs Buff and La Parka.

I don't remember this at all but it appeals to my sense of humor.

 

If I'm going down, it's not going to be pretty. Giddy up.

 

Here are the highlights. I don't know about Nash being drunk, but he's clearly goofing around, doesn't give a shit, and it's hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ZL8wC8czg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Russo's first show was 10/18. I'm not exactly sure what Nash's last show was. I think he sort of faded out over time. I believe there was an in-between period where Kevin Sullivan and company were doing it. I don't think Nash was booking past Road Wild.

After watching the build to Road Wild, I will take a wild guess and say the commitee was already in place right after the Bash at the Beach debacle. There was a notable difference in how the TV done at that point.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I believe the first Australia show is the 09 October show, but I'd like to know exactly when they really got rid of Russo.

Yeah I'm curious to know more about exactly how and when he departed. I was just starting to go online at that time and I remember reading almost every other day that somebody left or was leaving WCW. I'm pretty sure that I read that about Russo alone about twenty times so when it actually did happen I just ignored it. That whole period of late 2000 to the end was so chaotic and depressing.

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I believe the first Australia show is the 09 October show, but I'd like to know exactly when they really got rid of Russo.

Yeah I'm curious to know more about exactly how and when he departed.

Okay, I got the 23rd October date from the KC 2000 Timeline, so I think it's a valid source (I suppose they check their chronology). On the show Russo said he didn't even fly off to Australia two weeks before so he was pretty much done by October 9.

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