Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Stories regarding Vince McMahon’s aggressive expansion in the mid-80s are legendary – whether it was leaving bags of money on promoters’ desks through to buying TV deals out from under them, nothing got in his way. In today’s piece, Brian takes a look at McMahon jr’s moves into Minnesota and onto the home-turf of American Wrestling Association.
For many years, Verne Gagne and the American Wrestling Association (AWA) had a stranglehold in the Minnesota area. It was essentially their home base for wrestling operations since 1960. By 1984, however, things were changing. Vince McMahon Jr and his ever-expanding World Wrestling Federation (WWF) were starting to feed on the smaller, weaker wrestling territories across the country.
While the much smaller territories had no shot of ever competing with the WWF, Verne Gagne was ready for a war. The AWA along with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), were two of the bigger, stronger promotions that felt that McMahon would never stand a chance if he ever thought about crossing into their territories. McMahon and the WWF did just that on June 17th, 1984 when they “invaded” the Minnesota area for the very first time.
The WWF made sure to bring along all of their big stars and a camera crew to videotape the entire event. The WWF held their first show in Bloomington, Minnesota at the famed Met Center. A week prior to the WWF event, the AWA did a show at the Met Center. It featured an AWA world title match between the champion Nick Bockwinkel against the challenger of the Crusher. The AWA show garnered an attendance of over 8,000 fans.
The following week, the WWF came into the same arena and brought their newly crowned world champion Hulk Hogan, who arrived at the venue in a brand new Lincoln Continental vehicle. Hogan came out of the car and greeted fans waiting outside to see him with the WWF title in tow. Hulk was also wearing a custom made tee shirt that read, “Your Real world’s champion” in the front and “The love affair continues” on the back.
The shirt was a direct shot at Verne, Bockwinkel and the AWA in general. You see, just prior to Hogan’s title win against the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden in January of ’84, Hulk was a member of the AWA roster. Hogan was arguably the AWA’s most popular wrestler at that time and despite his ever-growing popularity, Verne Gagne refused to reward him with the AWA world title. Gagne was a stubborn man and believed a guy like Hogan with a non-amateur background wasn’t worthy of being a world champion.
Despite teasing Hogan winning the AWA title a couple of times, Gagne never pulled the trigger. Vince McMahon swooped in a took Hogan to the WWF and almost immediately awarded him the WWF’s version of the world championship. McMahon’s gamble paid off and he was ready to shove it into Verne Gagne’s face. The main event for the WWF’s show pitted Hogan defending his world title against another AWA reject Dr. D David Schultz.
The special guest ring announcer for the match would be, you guessed it, another AWA alumni in ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund. As a matter of fact, the entire show was peppered with former AWA stars such as Mad Dog Vachon, Adrian Adonis, Jesse Ventura and ‘Big’ John Studd. The attendance for this show at the Met Center was believed to be around 11,000.
Hulk Hogan would successfully retain the WWF title against Schultz by using a clothesline to pin him. The entire show was a huge success for the WWF and proved that the AWA was on borrowed time. The AWA would survive another seven years before folding, but this was the first shot in that territorial war in Minnesota.
