Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Grappling with Tragedy is a series of articles that deal with unfortunate, tragic incidents that have occurred throughout the history of professional wrestling. It is unlike the ‘Wrestling with Sin’ series that deals more with the seedier side of wrestling like arrests, murders and suicides. Grappling looks more at particular tragic incidents that have in some instances altered pro wrestling in some way.
Zane Bresloff
When talking about the biggest booms in professional wrestling history, we constantly mention the names of Vince McMahon during the Rock N Wrestling era and the Attitude Era or Eric Bischoff during the infamous Monday Night Wars. While both of these men were vital to the success of the wrestling industry in those periods of time, there was another very important individual who is credited for those successes. While not exactly a household name, Zane Bresloff was extremely instrumental to putting professional wrestling not only on a national level, but globally as well.
Bresloff was a very successful music promoter based in the Chicago, Illinois area. He along with his business partner Barry Fox formed Twogether Productions Management and booked some of the biggest bands in Chicago. Bresloff was also a longtime wrestling fan and it was that passion for the business that helped him become such a prominent figure in the wrestling industry the following years.
His journey into pro wrestling began in 1983, when Vince McMahon was attempting his national expansion. McMahon was having a tough time breaking past the Midwest into the west coast and Bresloff seeing an opportunity, got in contact with Vince and offered his expertise. Bresloff had many deep connections with several big venues and was able to gain access to McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation into those places. He also had a rolodex filled with countless local radio and television stations to help promote the WWF locally in those venues. Bresloff would become Vince’s exclusive promoter in the Denver, Colorado region. He helped the WWF fill those arenas and help facilitate the WWF’s expansion.
Bresloff helped promote most of the company’s biggest events including Wrestlemania III among others. He was there to promote the WWF during the Hulkamania years and with his know how and expertise, helped create a strong buzz about the product Vince McMahon was selling. Vince was so impressed and enamored with Bresloff’s tireless work ethic, that he planned to have his son Shane move to Denver and work exclusively under Bresloff’s tutelage and learn the fine art of promoting. Unfortunately for Vince, various factors came into play and Shane McMahon never did work under Bresloff.
In 1994, Zane Bresloff had a chance encounter with veteran booker/promoter Jim Barnett. At the time, Barnett was employed by World Championship Wrestling and through his conversations with Bresloff, was able to convince him to “jump ship” to WCW. When Bresloff first joined WCW, their live show business was tanking. So much so, Eric Bischoff began to cease house show business. Bischoff was not completely sold on Bresloff and the two had a somewhat icy relationship in the beginning. However, once Bresloff got to work in the very first year, he turned WCW house show attendance from an average of about 600 paid to over 2,000 paid. He was able to turn house show profits to roughly 40 million dollars and helped sustain the company to move forward.
Bresloff, who was a good friend of Hulk Hogan, was also instrumental to get Hogan to sign with WCW. The house show and live show business really took off after Hulk joined the company and he and Ric Flair were booked all over the country. Before long, Zane became Eric Bischoff’s right hand man and with the emergence of Monday Nitro, successfully overtook the WWF in TV ratings and house show business. While things were red hot for WCW, it was Bresloff who sorta predicted a shift in power between the rival companies. Eric Bischoff recalled that when he first heard the news that the WWF signed famed boxer ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, he really didn’t see it as a big deal.
It wasn’t until he was on a phone call with Bresloff that Bischoff had his eyes opened wide and put into a bit of a panic. On the phone conversation, Bresloff simply said…‘Man, you’re never going to believe this, but they’re bringing in Mike Tyson.’ Bischoff said it was the way Bresloff said it with a concerning voice that made Bischoff realize the wrestling war was about to get very intense. Bresloff’s concerns were justified and soon the power shifted back in the WWF’s favor. Despite WCW losing viewers and money, Bresloff remained by the side of Bischoff until the bitter end.
After WCW folded, Bresloff offered his services to return to the now WWE. Vince McMahon laughed at the offer and quickly turned him down. The reasoning was that McMahon felt betrayed when Bresloff initially left the company to join his rival and never forgave him for it. In May of 2003, tragedy struck when Bresloff was involved in a one car crash in Littleton, Colorado. Bresloff was critically injured and fell into a coma. Bresloff remained in a coma for 5 weeks, until his family decided to take him off life support. Zane Bresloff was just 57 years old at the time of his death and left behind a wife and two children.
Wrestling journalist/historian Dave Meltzer (who were friends with each other ) said this about Bresloff’s powerful influence…
“Bresloff had every major Bischoff decision bounced off him, and his influence was strong in particular when it came to making changes in Nitro and signing people like Randy Savage and Roddy Piper and the big 1996 and 1997 offers to Bret Hart, that Bresloff strongly pushed for. He was instrumental in Bischoff going all out to get Dennis Rodman, who WWF was planning on using at Wrestlemania in 1997 to try and give a mainstream rub to Goldust, and signing him to a multi-million dollar deal, which resulted in huge mainstream publicity and some of the company’s most successful shows… He was also a major force in getting the cruiserweight division off the ground, after seeing a tape of the second Super J Cup, and pushing the idea to Bischoff… Bresloff and Flair were the people most responsible for talking Hogan, who had quietly started working on starting his own promotion at the time, into considering WCW. According to Jimmy Hart, who was Hogan’s closest adviser, Bresloff and Flair talked Bischoff into offering Hogan a deal he couldn’t refuse, which included 25% of the company’s PPV gross on shows he was involved with, saying Hogan would turn the company around.”
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