November 1, 2016
By Ryan Porzl
In March 1986, Wrestling Legend and Promoter Bill Watts attempted to go national when he transformed his Mid South Wrestling promotion into the Universal Wrestling Federation. On paper, Watts seemed to have just about everything to make it work. He was a great promoter and booker who could book episodic TV, he had some of the best wrestlers in America, many great young prospects, and raided World Class Championship Wrestling of some of their best. Unfortunately, The UWF would last until April 1987 when Watts sold to Jim Crockett who eventually shut it down in December 1987. Many have blamed the oil recession that occurred in the fall of 1986 as being the big reason why as The UWF was headquartered in the Mid South which was hit the hardest by it. However, if you look at it, The UWF likely was doomed regardless and we'll take a look at what they had going for them as well as against them.
Many things can be said about Bill Watts and one of those was he was a great booker, one of the best. During Watts' time booking Mid-South and UWF, he was an expert at creating episodic TV, amazing feuds, and stars. Among the stars created or gotten their big break from Watts includes legends like The Junkyard Dog, Ted Dibiase, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, The One Man Gang, Butch Reed, Magnum TA, Sting, The Ultimate Warrior, Rick Steiner, and The Second Incarnation of The Midnight Express ("Loverboy" Dennis Condrey & "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton). Watts was also responsible in transforming The Fabulous Freebirds from a tag team to a three man unit as he was the one who put veteran Buddy Roberts with Terry Gordy and Michael Hayes which wasn't common at the time. Watts was also responsible for many legendary feuds including JYD/Hayes, JYD/Reed, JYD/Dibiase, Dibiase/Duggan, Magnum/Mr. Wrestling II, and the legendary Rock n' Roll Express/Midnight Express (often considered tag team wrestling's greatest feud). Watts knew how to create stars and make legendary feuds which was a huge advantage The UWF had when Watts attempted to go national.
Watts also had the talent needed to succeed as well. When Mid-South first became The UWF, Watts had names like Ted Dibiase, Jim Duggan, Steve Williams, Terry Taylor, Buzz Sawyer, and Eddie Gilbert to name some while gaining great prospects such as Rick Steiner and The Blade Runners (which featured future legends Sting and The Ultimate Warrior). Watts also once again got the services The Fantastics while also hiring former World Class booker Ken Mantell which allowed him to raid the company's roster which gave him The Fabulous Freebirds, The Missing Link, One Man Gang, Chris Adams, Missy Hyatt, Jack Victory, John Tatum, and "Iceman" King Parsons. Watts had the talent that could rival The WWF, NWA, and AWA.
Watts had someone who could've been very helpful but not many would think of it and that's Eddie Gilbert. Gilbert was not only a legend as a wrestler but was a successful booker. After Crockett bought The UWF, Gilbert became the day-to-day booker and he enjoyed success. It was under Gilbert's idea who came up with a segment called The Battle of New Orleans which saw Terry Taylor cheat to beat Shane Douglas thanks to interference from Rick Steiner and the aftermath resulted in a huge brawl between Taylor, Gilbert, Chris Adams, and Sting that spilled all over the arena where all four wrestlers used anything they could pick up. Gilbert would also enjoy praise for his work in the Continental Wrestling Federation to the point where he won Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Best Booker award in 1988. With Watts getting older, there was a risk that he would get outdated especially with the business changing throughout the 1980s to the 1990s. Having someone like Gilbert would probably be helpful for Watts to transition to the 90s.
The UWF also offered something different with their TV show as they offered more star power on their shows as well as more title matches. Back in the 1980s, The WWF and NWA were known for mostly using a format where they're shows featured promos hyping local live events and squash matches. UWF TV shows more likely featured matches with stars taking on stars though there were squash matches. It also likely featured more title matches and definitely something a little different compared to what others, especially the WWF, was providing at the time.
Watts also had potential to overtake the NWA as the number two as well. Remember, the UWF had Sting, Rick Steiner, Steve Williams, The Sheepherders, and The Fantastics on their roster. The former two were extremely important in NWA/WCW history. Imagine an NWA in 1987-1989 or so without Sting or Rick Steiner or Steve Williams. When Magnum TA was in his career ending car accident in 1986, the NWA had no successor to Ric Flair until Sting came along. Where would the NWA been in the late 80s and early 90s with no Sting? It's not just Sting. Look at Rick Steiner as he was not only successful but if he wasn't in the NWA that meant they wouldn't have gotten Scott and thus no Steiner Brothers at least for a few more years. Also, with no Steiner or Williams, that meant no Varsity Club cause all NWA had was Mike Rotunda and Kevin Sullivan. Meanwhile, The Fantastics were a big part of the NWA's tag team scene in 1988 with their feud with The Midnight Express getting critical acclaim. Imagine if they weren't there. Just look at the first Clash of the Champions. The two matches that people remember the most is Flair/Sting and Midnights/Fantastics but what if the UWF was still around on March 27, 1988? The NWA likely wouldn't have Sting or The Fantastics and the card would've lost it's two best matches. All in all, if The NWA couldn't have purchased UWF in 1987, they would've been more screwed than they were. The UWF roster was important as it provided The NWA with fresh talent and great prospects for the future. If you look at The NWA roster in 1988 without The UWF guys then it's awful. Ric Flair was stale as World Champion, turned 40 in 1989, and was out of his prime by the early 1990s. Dusty Rhodes, Ivan Koloff, and Ron Garvin were all well into their 40s, past their primes despite still being solid, and were all semi-retired within five years. Nikita Koloff abruptly left at the end of the year to take care of his dying wife and wouldn't return to regular appearances until 1991. The Rock n' Roll Express left and outside of a few appearances that year wouldn't return until 1990. The Four Horsemen were very stale while Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard abruptly left the company later that year. Meanwhile, the only future prospect The NWA had were Lex Luger and Barry Windham but Luger was still a few years away from being ready for the world heavyweight championship while Windham was wasted by being put with The Horsemen instead of a rivalry with Flair where they could've exchanged the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
Unfortunately, as many positives The UWF had, there were just as many negatives. For one thing, Watts is one of wrestling's most polarizing personalities with some praising and defending him while others have claimed he was a bully and by all accounts, had a bad and outdated attitude. Watts was like other old school promoters like Ole Anderson and Jim Cornette as he had a reputation of verbally and/or physically abusing his wrestlers. The Ultimate Warrior claimed he left The UWF after he refused to get on all fours and let Watts show him how to work a kick to the ribs since he heard stories of Watts purposely trying to kick as hard as possible and break wrestlers ribs. Kevin Nash brought up when Watts was in WCW that he ordered Nash (who is 7' tall) to bend over and proceeded to sucker punch him just because. Jake Roberts (Who absolutely despises Watts and the feeling is mutual) has accused Watts of being a bully and calling wrestling legend Ernie Ladd the n word. For decades, wrestling was like the wild west in that it's didn't operate with the same rules of the real world so wrestling promoters were allowed to call their employees every curse imaginable but by the end of 1980s with wrestling going into the real world and the corporate atmosphere came along, that behavior was no longer tolerated. Watts would never be able to change his attitude and it would've cost him. Speaking of his behavior, Watts lost talent because of the way he behaved. As mentioned, he lost The Ultimate Warrior back in The UWF but also cost WCW their top tag team The Steiner Brothers in 1992 when he reportedly lowballed their deal and had problems with Scott which led to them leaving for The WWF.
Watts would later show when he ran WCW in 1992 that he also got outdated. While Watts was still doing great wrestling in 1986/1987, his style was outdated five years later and likely wouldn't work long term. In WCW, Watts notoriously banned top rope maneuvers which wasn't popular and it didn't help wrestling was featuring more fast paced high flyers in the business by the 90s. Watts was also known for continuing to run shows in poorly lit arenas in the south and also run shows in small southern towns instead of trying to expand around the country. According to Jesse Ventura, Watts also didn't seem to notice that wrestling was becoming more about television than live events which was a bad sign for Watts since wrestling became more a TV business than a live event one by 1995. Watts also insisted on fan favorite wrestler never interacting with villains in real life even as it was becoming more clear to the average person wrestling wasn't real but predetermined. Watts also wanted his wrestlers to be legit tough guys and even had a rule that he would fire anybody if he found out they lost a fight outside of the business. Watts was more concerned with his wrestlers losing bar fights than them being unprofessional and getting into the fight. Watts was even quoted as saying when he was briefly working for the WWF in 1995 that if he was running things, he would've fired Shawn Michaels, The British Bulldog, and The 1-2-3 Kid because of the Syracuse incident where Michaels was beat up by a group of marines outside a bar in Syracuse, New York while The British Bulldog and the 1-2-3 Kid were blocked from leaving their car to help. In other words, Watts would've been perfectly fine firing three big names for the company including one who was six months away from main eventing Wrestlemania, winning the WWF Championship, and having the company centered around him for most of 1996 over losing a fight.
Speaking of television, Watts also did not have a national platform. Though he briefly had a deal with TBS in 1985, he lost it when Jim Crockett Promotions bought The WWF's slot. While wrestling was still more about events over TV, a national deal was important. By 1986, The WWF was on The USA Network, The NWA was on TBS, and The AWA as well as World Class were on ESPN. If Watts wanted to go national, he would've needed some national TV deal but this would've been unlikely since there were far less TV stations in The United States of America compared to 2016. If Watts couldn't get on a national cable channel then his chances of catching up with WWF, NWA, and AWA would've been highly unlikely. While Syndication was still popular in the 1980s with many shows enjoying success through it, it started losing influence a decade later. Without any national deal, The UWF wouldn't have as many eyes on it and would've made it harder for them to attract fans who weren't familiar with it especially those who didn't live in the Mid South United States where they were headquartered and had most of their shows.
Traveling was another huge issue. Among the things Mid South Wrestling/Universal Wrestling Federation was known for was having the most grueling road schedule in the business. Magnum TA best summed it up on the Legends of Mid South DVD when he said anybody who experienced it should've gotten a purple heart. The schedule was known for the fact that this was before wrestlers flew on planes and made 400 mile car trips as they usually had to go from New Orleans, Louisiana to Tulsa, Oklahoma within a day. While The WWF schedule was not better in the 80s, The UWF's schedule could've hurt them especially if they didn't star flying wrestlers because there's a good chance many wrestlers would've quit the company in the late 80s just on the car trips as it would've grinded the talent.
Finally, Ted Dibiase perhaps said it best on "Legends of Mid South" when he said that UWF may have been too little, too late. By the time The UWF started in March 1986, Watts lost a lot of big talent and a TV deal. In the eight years Watts was a promoter, the biggest star he had and created was The Junkyard Dog. Unfortunately, by March 1986, The JYD was long gone and in The WWF after defecting in the spring of 1984. Along with JYD, Watts also lost two red hot tag teams in The Midnight Express and Rock n' Roll Express as well as one of the biggest prospects in wrestling in Magnum TA who all left for NWA in 1985. Watts also lost another big name in "Hacksaw" Butch Reed who left for St. Louis before going to The WWF. The exodus didn't end before the formation either as "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan left in January 1987 for the WWF while Ted Dibiase and The One Man Gang weren't far behind as they went in the spring, around the time Watts sold to Jim Crockett. As mentioned, Watts had a national TV deal with TBS in 1985 but lost it to Crockett. It can be argued that had Watts attempted to go national in 1984-1985, he would've done much better and actually could've put The UWF on par with The WWF and The NWA and at the very least eclipsed The AWA as the #3 promotion. While Watts still had amazing talent and a successful syndicated deal, he lost too many resources by 1986.
In the end, hindsight is 20/20 and we'll never know how far The UWF could've went. While it likely was never meant to be long term and probably would've flamed out by the early 90s when Watts got outdated but with the 30th anniversary of The UWF this year, it really is interesting to see "what if" as it did have amazing potential to be a game changer in 80s wrestling.
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