[1990-05-19] Connie Chung's Wrestling Maniacs

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Connie Chung hates to break it to us, but -- wrestling is fake. But it's big business. It has literally THOUSANDS of fans.

 

We cut to TOD GORDON and his family watching the Royal Rumble! The WWF gives no access for this story since WCW was interviewed also, which makes Ric Flair being called "a pretender to the throne of Hulk Hogan" pretty hilarious. Luger claims to have made more money in 1989 than in his entire 7-year USFL career. Sting had no interest in wrestling until he found out how much money he could make. Wonderful thing for your top babyface to say!

 

Ted Turner apparently took a failing wrestling troupe and turned it around in one year, with WCW making $33 million in revenues in 1989! How amazing! Jim Herd and David Crockett are in a boardroom at CNN Center fretting over the costume design for El Gigante! They show a Michael Hayes sketch?? WCW's lighting guy says WCW events are bigger events than Madonna concerts. Green and purple represent bad guys, and pinks represent good guys apparently.

 

To make this even more surreal, we cut to a clip of Jim Wilson talking about being blackballed, and we get Muta walking around backstage without facepaint in a Sting t-shirt! They cover the real causes of Sting's injury and all I can think is wow that WCW allowed this to air. But that's okay, because SEVEN FOOT SIX GEORGE GONZALES is waiting in the ring.

 

THE most whaaaa segment on a yearbook so far.

[Strummer]

This sounds INSANE.

 

It's sad how desperate WCW was for any mainstream coverage at all. That they would be willing to have this filmed. Wow

[PeteF3]

THE NEW FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT.

 

Ted Turner is the "owner of the NWA." I can see a few prominent wrestling authorities' heads exploding as we speak.

 

$33 million in revenues the first year! Higher ratings than the baseball and basketball teams! Well, considering how awful the Braves and Hawks had been I'll buy the second one. (And of course Georgia was a ratings powerhouse and more or less kept the burgeoning SuperStation afloat during the rocky first few years).

 

WCW's shameless attempts to pander to kids in this segment are pretty galling. Appealing to kids is fine and desirable, but I think even the modern PG-rated WWE is less up-front about it. Jim Nelson gets about 3 seconds of lip service and then disappears. Connie levels us with the revelation that "million dollar salaries and championship titles" are decided more by public appeal than athletic ability. Jim Herd confirms this by saying he won't put a popular wrestler in with someone who can tear him apart. Christ, breaking kayfabe outright probably would have come across better than that.

 

Sting's knee injury resulted in millions in lost revenues for WCW, but nothing to fear--George Gonzalez is waiting in the wings.

[soup23]

Didn't even realize this was Tod Gordon. That makes this even more amazing. They hype for El Gigante was amusing considering how that turned out.

[Kevin Ridge]

Connie Chung with breaking news that wrestling is fake. She throws out some stats. Is that Todd Gordon as part of that family? Interview with Ted Turner. This whole segment feels really out of date. Like it would be done in 1984 instead. They show bunch of clips from Norman the Lunatic match. Connie is all over how Sting got injured. El Gigante!

 

Glad to confirm that it was Todd Gordon. That is just great.

[Cox]

Man, literally every figure cited here is just completely wrong. This is as full of shit a segment as you'll ever see.

 

I wonder how Tod Gordon got involved with this? Was he sponsoring Goodhart shows at this point? And how obviously fake was their cheering on cue during the Royal Rumble?

[garretta]

This was clearly done with the non-wrestling fan in mind. Loss asked how WCW could allow this to air; my best answer is that those who were fans were either on the Wrestling Hotline or watching the Capital Combat replay (this was aired the night of May 19), and that WCW knew that those who weren't fans wouldn't give a hoot how many secrets were revealed. It's CBS and Connie Chung, for God's sake. Who would dare say no just to protect the rapidly vanishing and outdated concept of kayfabe when there was national exposure to be gained? What is this, 1960?

 

All that said, I didn't like the wink-and-a-nod tone Connie used here, although I guess it's inevitable that people in the mainstream media see themselves as above such obvious bullshit as wrasslin'. Even Bob Costas, who's actually a fan (or was, at any rate), had to ham it up like that on his SportsWorld special in 1985; I suspect that a show that took pro wrestling totally seriously (which is definitely not the same as claiming that it's real) would be denied airtime by a "serious" news organization, then and now.

 

The one thing that kind of disturbed me, even more than Herd's claim about not putting popular guys in with guys who would tear them apart (which is sound business, if you think about it) was Sting saying that he had no interest in wrestling until he learned about the money he could make out of it. Look, no one's expecting a promo, Steve, but you sound exactly like Flair and the Horsemen here. You know, your sworn enemies? Next time you do something like this and the same question comes up, you might want to throw in a bit about making all the little kids happy and showing off your physique, that sort of thing. Just a friendly tip.

 

This wasn't a hatchet job, but it wasn't exactly friendly either. In other words, it was like most mainstream media pieces on wrestling at the time.

[drew wardlaw]

Somebody drop Connie Chung on that stack of dimes she calls a neck for exposing the business. I didn't know that was Tod Gordon. Totally takes this segment into a different realm.

[GSR]

Connie is some investigative journalist type who informs us that pro wrestling is fake and a completely choreographed show. I would never have known, thanks Connie!

 

We get some tape of the Gordon family from Pennsylvania at home watching the Royal Rumble and its Tod Gordon!!! Chung says that from this one TV show, Hulk Hogan and the company can rake in more than a Mike Tyson fight or a Rolling Stones tour. She claims that wrestling promoters are frantically searching for the next Hulk Hogan and one of the pretenders to his throne is ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair, World Champion of the rival National Wrestling Alliance. If it’s not him, maybe it’s Lex Luger, who played in the NFL or even Sting. Luger talks about making more money in one year in professional wrestling than he did in his whole career as an offensive linesman in pro football, while Sting says that he had no interest in wrestling until they started talking about the marketing and the money. Chung talks about how Ted Turner (who does get interviewed) bought the NWA and turned this fading troop into a staggering success, out rating his baseball and basketball teams and drawing $33 million in revenue in its first year.

 

Jim Wilson turns up calling wrestling a ‘stunt man, soap opera’ saying that the matches are choreographed and the participants know prior to the matches who is going to win and who is going to lose. Wilson says that promoters work out the details in meetings and claims that he was blackballed for refusing to go along with the script one night. He claims that he was told he would never wrestle for the NWA again and he never did. Chung says that those who stick to the script and do well at the box office are rewarded with million dollar salaries and championship titles.

 

Jim Herd is on and says that wrestling is basically a ‘popularity contest’ and they air the Sting injury and say how even the best laid plans can backfire with a little slip. Chung says how the promotions hopes for Sting are out the window, and claims that it will cost them millions in lost revenue. Fear not though! As waiting in the wings is 7’6”, Jorge Gonzales. The report closes with Tod Gordon saying that if you try to work out whether wrestling in real or not, the enjoyment is gone. The idea is just to sit back and escape from reality for a bit.

 

I imagine this might’ve been a pretty big deal back in 1990, but in 2016… It was interesting seeing the likes of Flair, Sting, Luger and the Road Warriors out of character, but someone from the NWA should have put their foot down and got them to edit out Sting’s comments about only being in wrestling for the money. I also enjoyed the brief look at the wardrobe department where they were working on El Gigante’s costume and the talk from the lighting director. The Jim Wilson appearance was odd. I’m guessing he was the only one prepared to speak out and where on earth did they get Tod Gordon from? It’s some coincidence for him to be on this.