Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Ask any fan of the NWA/WCW about Jim Herd and you are almost guaranteed to get a few eye rolls, winces and derogatory comments. Who was Jim Herd? What did he do? Why was he so bad? So many questions to answer, so let’s start from the beginning…
After Ted Turner bought out Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988, Turner assigned his head of Turner TV distribution…Jack Petrik to become WCW President. Petrik, not knowing all that much about the wrestling product and close to retirement, hired his good friend Jim Herd to become WCW Executive Vice President. Jim Herd would run the day to day operations of WCW, while Petrik handled all the finances.
Before his WCW gig, Jim Herd was an executive of the national pizza chain…Pizza Hut. What made Jack Petrik think Herd was capable of running a wrestling company? Previous to being a Pizza Hut exec, Herd was a TV station manager in St. Louis that aired pro wrestling. Seriously! So this was WCW’s upper management…Jack Petrik who was ready for retirement and Jim Herd a former station manager turned pizza boss turned professional wrestling honcho.
Jim Herd had no real experience in the wrestling industry, so to assist him with ideas, he established a booking committee led by Dusty Rhodes. At the time, there was legitimate heat between Dusty and Ric Flair (Who was also part of the committee) Jim Cornette, Kevin Sullivan and Ole Anderson were also involved to varying degrees with creative. Ultimately, however, the final say on angles, storylines and gimmicks came from Herd.
Jim Herd was responsible for bringing in a youngster by the name of Steve Austin. He also hired Eric Bischoff formerly of the AWA to be a possible replacement for Jim Ross as a broadcaster when negotiations between the two parties started to dissolve. His reasoning for signing Bischoff? ‘He was young and looked good on camera.’ Who knew that a few years later…Eric Bischoff would have Herd’s job and fire Steve Austin?
Jim Herd also brought in Ricky Steamboat that led to some of the greatest wrestling matches in pro wrestling history with Ric Flair. Unfortunately, he was also the man who sent Steamboat packing from WCW when he refused to meet Steamboat’s asking price on a contract and take a demotion on the roster.
Jim Herd was one of…if not the first person to introduce pyro on a wrestling show. Herd also wanted to utilize Turner’s news outlet CNN to advertise and cover WCW matches. Turner execs refused, yet covered the WWF on the night of Wrestlemania…the same night WCW held a Clash of Champions.
Jim Herd signed Mark Calaway (The future Undertaker)…but admitted he didn’t know what to do with him as a character…because “Calaway never smiled.”
Before Eric Bischoff became notorious for signing away WWF talent…Herd has claimed he had the same idea. As a matter of fact, he had a meeting with Randy Savage at his home…but couldn’t seal the deal because he claims that Jack Petrik (His boss) was really tight with the check book. Money issues became a common theme throughout Jim Herd’s tenure as WCW’s leader. He would low ball wrestlers and try to sign them on the cheap…perhaps knowing that Turner wasn’t going to pony up the money.
Herd wanted to change the focus of WCW under his rule. He strayed away from wrestling being the focal point of the company and instead create more storylines and characters much like their rivals in the WWF. That led to a lot of friction between him and his booking committee. He wanted wrestlers to no longer use low blows during matches and forbade commentators from using the “offensive” term ‘foreign object.’ Speaking of the commentators, Herd disliked his heel color commentators joking during broadcasts, because he believed that they were getting cheered more than booed when they were introduced to fans.
His battles with Ric Flair became legendary…not for the good reasons either. He once asked Ric Flair cut his trademark long blonde hair, ditch the sequined robes and wear an earring. Herd suggested that he wanted Flair to become Spartacus. When Flair’s contract was up for renewal, Herd offered him less than half his current pay and demanded Flair lose the title to almost every night. Eventually Flair had enough and bolted WCW with the world title in hand for the rival WWF.
He drove off Jim Cornette after Cornette became sick and tired of being blamed every time a gimmick, storyline or house show didn’t work or didn’t draw. The Road Warriors quit WCW as well, citing constant changes to storylines without notice. Stan Hansen quit after refusing to be a part of a comedy angle. He also let Sid Vicious walk and join the WWF…citing…’Sid was a head case and if the WWF wanted to deal with that…good luck!’
According to guys like Flair, Jim Cornette and others…Jim Herd began going outside the booking committe for ideas. He would chat away with friends and former old timers like Lou Thesz to garner ideas. Not only undermining his employees, but pissing them off as well.
He started cleaning house with all the old guard from the old NWA/Jim Crockett era. His ideas were more “Sports Entertainment” driven than wrestling oriented. His theory was that every wrestler needed some type of gimmick to attract fans…..even the jobbers. Let’s take a look at just a few…
Norman the Lunatic
The Desperados
Big Josh
He also introduced Robocop to WCW. The reasoning was because Turner had the video tape rights to the movie RoboCop 2 and wanted to use that to generate interest in the movie. Jim Herd signed wrestler Giant Haystacks to become a masked wrestler called Big Titan and have him feud with one of his top stars Lex Luger. Herd thought the idea of Luger defeating someone named Titan (The name of the WWF’s parent company) would look good. Unfortunately, Giant Haystacks had to quit WCW before the gimmick took flight because his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
The end came for Jim Herd in 1992, when he had a falling out with his head booker Dusty Rhodes. Apparently, Herd felt that Dusty was undermining his authority and trying to position himself for Jim Herd’s job as Vice President. A meeting was set up between Jack Petrik, Jim Herd and Dusty Rhodes. Jim gave Petrik an ultimatum…”Either Dusty goes or I go…” Jack Petrik accepted Jim Herd’s resignation that day. Not before Herd got one last parting shot for the American Dream. According to Jim Herd, he told Dusty…”You couldn’t book your way out of a paper bag” and stormed off.
While Jim Herd’s legacy is marred by failures and ineptitude…who’s really to blame? The man with no experience Jim Herd or the man who hired the Pizza Hut executive out of friendship…Jack Petrik? Choose wisely…because they certainly didn’t.
Seafort
I think Herd gets a bit of a bad rap. As your article states he was constrained by budget. It was the driver to his allowing the Road Warriors to walk, and for wanting Flair de-emphasized and signing a lower deal. As for Flair, he kept refusing to lose to Luger. Starrcade 88. Capitol Combat 90. WrestleWar 90. Great American Bash 91. A house show in 1991. Herd wanted Luger as champion, Flair refused to do the job for varying reasons, and Lex’s career was permanently altered as a result.
The same budgetary pressures affected Bill Watts and Eric Bischoff (1993), and neither closed the gap with the WWF any more than Herd. It was always about the budget, investing in the future of the company, and talent acquisition. A more robustly funded WCW could have had Roddy Piper in 1989 and Randy Savage in 1991, and that would have made a huge difference to the trajectory of the product.
177613735
I happen to agree with you to a point. Yes, he was constricted by budgetary issues and he did see value in certain wrestlers over others. I think his biggest mistake was trying to change the culture of WCW from wrestling based to more entertainment based like the WWF.
Kyle Prescott
In the end the real person responsible for this disaster was Ted Turner.
He made the hires and allowed the company to go in the tank.