On the latest episode of My World With Jeff Jarrett, the WWE Hall of Famer talked about the mindset of the territories in 1987 as WWE continued to go national, WrestleMania 3, and more. You can check out some highlights below:
On the state of wrestling in 1987 and WWE continuing to go national: “We [he and Jerry Jarrett] talked off and on through the years a lot about this… Yeah, to say bullish and he — well, he knew the fight that he was in. I think he candidly thought — and it depends on what year. I get my delusional optimism probably from him and a lot of ways. But in ’86, business obviously was starting to go down but here’s what he would always land back on in those years. You didn’t have overnight ratings. You didn’t get the ratings from Saturday morning TV on Monday. They used to call it the book, a book of ratings which would come out twice a year — and I know there’s there’s different things, but they took a May book, and they took November sweeps month, and then it evolved. But ratings books were kind of on monthly average or they took them individually, but they would just give you a boatload of data.
“But I say all this to say, Memphis ratings in ’87 were still astronomically high. Wave TV in Louisville, great. Evansville, really good. I’ll get into kind of the Nashville ratings, because we went from a youth station to the ABC affiliate. Anyway, ratings were still really good. Lawler was still rockin’ ‘and rollin’. The talent if you will — you know, and I’m a young kid listening — was still good. He just knew that, ‘Okay, we’re gonna fight Vince when he comes in once a year or twice a year or maybe three times a year. We just got to be prepared for that.’ But yes, he was absolutely bullish on it and kind of — I don’t get too far ahead. But for each individual territory, I can remember him saying things through phone calls in real time in ’87. But also, years later in I don’t know, early ’90s in conversations. Or even in late ’80s after this or early 90s. And he would just see, ‘Alright, see how this happened.’ Because we ’87, January of ’87 and January of ’88, the industry that my father knew had radically changed. I mean, radically changed. So, real-time conversation, real-time feedback that I got to hear. And then as the years went on, hearing all this, and the partnership between Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett, I got to understand. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I really gotta understand it so much more in ’87. It really — I knew they were business partners in ’86, and I knew they were ’85 and the Golden Age of the territories, ’82 through ’85, ’86. You know, everybody was making money. But ’87, my dad was definitely — a long way around, and I know I got granular there — ’87, he was still bullish.”
On his father’s reaction to the big success of WWE WrestleMania 3: “My dad was born in ’42, so he started his wrestling journey in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But Conrad, in the first — this is obviously my experience with them and hearing it. But his first kind of mindset, and you’ll probably be able to give stats, is that ‘Holy crap. In The Sheik’s territory, they’re going to sell 70,000 tickets.’ It wasn’t — and I’ll get to the PPV and closed circuit in a second. But the mindset of, ‘Vince is outside of his territory. The McMahon family runs New York, and now they’re over in Detroit at the Lions stadium, if you will. And The Sheik’s quote unquote, ‘old territory.’ And they’re doing this with this. And as the Observer reported about, you know, the Toronto — That was Maple Leaf [Pro Wrestling]. And the monster business (Hulk) Hogan and (Paul) Orndorff did. And just — my dad was much more geared, and this is a character flaw of his. He was looking at that live event business so much. Again, going back to kind of the core, that was his mindset was, that ‘Holy — look at what the live event business is doing.’
“And then you always start putting in — my dad, I don’t think he ever missed a Mike Tyson fight. [Marven] Hagler [vs. Thomas] Hearns… He always bought those PPVs, but the closed circuit, he understood it from the kind of mentality. And so as far as real data bringing in and all that, he was obviously amazed at that but he always stayed focused on the live event. And, ‘Okay, how are they doing this? And what TV did they have?’ Conrad, in ’87 — so USA Network was where? I’m just trying to think because those are the conversations on, ‘How they are putting the butts in seats? What’s their TV?’ Just, all of those kinds of mindsets. But he was geared to my recollection and my experience with him, he was amazed and dailed into, ‘They’re selling 70,000 tickets in Sheik’s territory. How the hell are they doing that? With what TV and what marketing?’ Yes, action figures. And yes, Hulkamania was running wild, and all that kind of stuff. But that was the big box office number that he would lean into. Then, the pay-per-view business was even bigger, obviously, and even more revenue. Yeah again, ’87, the transitional year that it was, it was across the board. Territories dying and pay-per-view exploding.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit My World With Jeff Jarrett with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
