Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
For pro wrestling in the 1980’s, it was all about expansion, expansion, expansion. We all know that Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation were ultimately the promotion who successfully achieved national expansion. They certainly weren’t the only ones trying to do it. Bill Watts rebranded his Mid South Wrestling to the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) in a failed attempt to expand nationally. Jim Crockett Jr and his Jim Crockett Promotions (most notably associated with the NWA) also had some moderate success in expansion.
Crockett had purchased the Florida territory and the Central States promotion in Kansas City, Missouri in hopes to garner an advantage over the WWF. While Crockett was quickly growing his promotion…Bill Watts’ UWF was rapidly declining in business. Add to that, Watts was becoming burned out creatively and wanted to get out of the wrestling business. Feelers were sent out to Crockett and initially he was not too interested in buying another promotion. It was Crockett’s booker Dusty Rhodes who convinced Jim Crockett to at least hear out Bill Watts. The Crocketts met with Watts’ representative Jim Ross in a private part of an airport in Georgia. According to JR, Watts didn’t particularly care for Jim Crockett and refused to make the trip. The rumor has it that Ross told Crockett that Vince McMahon was very interested in buying the UWF…which wasn’t the case at all.
That was enough to convince Crockett to buy out Watts promotion. It wasn’t so much about the talent the UWF had…which was plentiful…but all about the territory and the TV deals the UWF had in place. The thing was, apparently the UWF had to pay to syndicate their television. It was a debt that Crockett had to absorb in the deal. Dusty Rhodes was quick to move Crockett’s corporate offices from North Carolina to Dallas, Texas after the UWF acquisition was made.
While the UWF had a very strong roster of veterans and young talent…many jumped ship once the UWF was sold off and went to other territories including the WWF. Some of the wrestlers that stayed put were guys like Terry Taylor, Eddie Gilbert, the Freebirds, Dr. Death Steve Williams, Rick Steiner and a young Sting. Announcer and executive Jim Ross was also retained by Crockett. It was Ross who sat down with the Crockett family and tried to sell them on keeping the UWF a separate entity from the NWA. According to JR, his idea was to feature UWF wrestlers every other week on TBS television to get fans familiar with all the new influx of talent. Ross then said every year you can have a Super Bowl of wrestling where Crockett’s wrestlers faced off against the UWF wrestlers.
While Crockett initially tried to keep the promotions separate, it wasn’t too long before all of his wrestlers overtook the territory. The potential for an interpromotional style feud was scrapped and probably never seriously considered. Years later, Sting (who became a big star for Crockett) admitted that the promotion truly fumbled the ball by not building the UWF on its own and having dream like match ups. There were a couple of “interpromotional” style matches at Starrcade ’87 like Steve Williams defending the UWF title against Barry Windham and the NWA/UWF TV title unification match between Nikita Koloff and Terry Taylor.
Most of the time, the NWA wrestlers got over the UWF wrestlers. To add some insult to injury, it was usually the NWA mid carders beating the UWF’s top stars. Whatever the reasoning, the Universal Wrestling Federation was completely dissolved and absorbed by Crockett Promotions as if it never existed. The kicker to all of this, is the purchase of the UWF was one of the financial downfalls of JCP. Nearly a year later, Crockett was selling off his promotion to Ted Turner. Bill Watts never got the full asking price for the UWF sale. When Turner bought out Crockett, one of the sticking points was the money owed to Watts. In the end, Bill Watts only got 40 cents on the dollar for the sale of his promotion and Vince McMahon ultimately ended up with most of the Mid South/UWF video library.