The Rise & Fall of the AWA

Last week I wrote about one of the wrestling promotions that appeared on satellite television when the Astra service was launched in 1989, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW), which was broadcast on the Lifestyle channel.

Lifestyle''s sister channel on Astra was Screensport. During it's time on air the channel showed a wide variety of promotions, including the National Wrestling Alliance, Jerry Lawler's USWA, and a few others. But at the start the most prominent promotion on the channel was at one time one of the big three in America, Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association.

However, the sad thing is that as far as British wrestling fans were concerned, we saw the AWA towards the end of it's existence. Although it had a national television contract with ESPN, poor business practices and an ever decreasing work force meant that by 1991, the AWA was no more.

The AWA began life much how the WWF did just a few years later. In 1960, after a series of disagreements in the NWA hierarchy regarding the World title, promoter Wally Karbo, with a little help from wrestler Verne Gagne, who was actually the real power man of the team, broke away from the NWA and formed the AWA. When then-NWA World Champion Pat O'Connor refused to wrestler Gagne, Gagne was awarded the title, and was recognised as
the first AWA World Heavyweight Champion.

Nothing much of note happened with the promotion during the first twenty years. Wally Karbo, despite being one of the bookers for the AWA, was still a member of the NWA. The AWA developed a strong fan following, and Gagne defended his title against several strong challengers, until he lost the title to Nick Bockwinkel in 1975.

But in the 1980's things began to change. Whereas in the 70's many of the regional territories had worked together, to the point where various World champions met in the ring, national television contracts meant that this would become a thing of the past, and while Vince McMahon Jr purchased the WWF from his father, and slowly began to emphasis the entertainment aspects over the sports aspects of wrestling, Gagne continued to promote the AWA around good, solid, old fashioned wrestling, although Gagne held a sports entertainment golden goose that he let slip through his fingers.

Before he sold the WWF to his son, Vince McMahon Sr fired Hulk Hogan for taking a role in Rocky III. When he finished filming, Hogan went to work for the AWA. With Hogan gaining mainstream media attention after his role in Rocky III, his popularity grew, so much so that it looked like Hogan would be rewarded with an AWA title victory over Nick Bockwinkel.

But it never happened. Despite the fact that Hulk Hogan was his most popular star and biggest draw, Gagne was set in his ways, and preferred to push the veterans on his roster, rather than the up-and-comers. Gagne even put the title on himself again, even though his best years as a wrestler were far, far behind him. The title was returned to Bockwinkel when Gagne retired afterwards.

When Hogan did get his hands on the AWA World title, it was taken from him moments later. At their Super Sunday show in April 1983, Hogan pinned Bockwinkel, but during the bout Hogan had thrown the champion over the top rope, a move which was illegal. AWA President Stanley Blackburn reversed the decision immediately, and a riot broke out. This cost the AWA dearly. Less than a year later, Hogan was headlining at Madison Square Garden,
pinning the Iron Sheik for the WWF title, and signalling the birth of Hulkamania.

One of the other problems for the AWA came when Gagne insisted on pushing his son Greg to the moon and back. Greg clearly wasn\'t a main event class wrestler, and outside the ring, he clearly had no head for the wrestling business. Despite this, Gagne continued to push his son, ahead of more talented wrestlers.

As the popularity of the WWF rose, that of the AWA dropped. In an attempt to steady the ship, Gagne entered into agreements with the NWA and All-Japan, but various things led to the ending of these agreements. The AWA was worn by quite a few wrestlers during this time, including Rick Martel, Jumbo Tsrutua, Otta Wanz and Stan Hansen, before eventually making it\'s way back to Nick Bockwinkel.

After this period of instability, Gagne began to develop his younger talent, which included putting the title on Curt Hennig in 1987. However, Gagne's major problem was that Vince McMahon started to make regular talent raids, with wrestlers such as Hennig and Martel, right down to the likes of Buddy Rose, leaving Minnesota for the brighter lights of New York City.

By this time, the AWA had a national television contract with ESPN, but with his roster leaving, and his new, home-grown stars not getting over with the fans, once again Gagne sought the assistance of other promotions.

A three-way alliance was formed with Jerry Lawler's CWA promotion in Memphis, and the Von Erich's World Class promotion in Dallas. As a result, Lawler defeated Hennig for the AWA World title, and as scheduled to unify that title with Kerry Von Erich's World Class title at the AWA's first pay-per-view, Superclash III in Chicago in 1988.

Despite months of promotion, Superclash III drew a paid attendance of around a thousand, and the pay-per-view buy-rate was extremely poor.

Backstage at the show, things weren't that better. Arguments between the three promotions meant that they all wanted their wrestlers to go over. This led to the disappointing finish to the World title match. Lawler defeated Von Erich when the referee stopped the bout because of Von Erich's blood loss. Nobody was pinned, and all parties went away happy. But the happiness didn't last.

Verne Gagne apparently lied about the profit Superclash III had made. At that point World Class were depending on the money to survive. At the same time Lawler refused to defend the new Unified World title because he hadn\'t received his share of profits either.

The AWA stripped Lawler of the title, and eventually, Lawler purchased World Class and merged the promotion with his CWA to created the new USWA.

Come 1989, the AWA had no World champion, and Gagne put the belt on his most loyal wrestler, Larry Zbyszko. The self styled Living Legend won the title in a battle royale. But the crowds got smaller and smaller. Gagne tried to develop new talent, but eventually, the likes of Wayne Bloom, Mike Enos, Dallas Page, Pat Tanaka, Paul Diamond and more left for either WCW or the WWF. Gagne's plan to put the title on Sgt. Slaughter, his most popular wrestler, also fell by the wayside when he joined the WWF as well.

Step forward Eric Bischoff. Lacking both direction and wrestlers, Bischoff came up with the Team Challenge series, with three teams fighting a series of gimmick matches. But by then the attendances had fallen so low that the series was held in an empty television studio.

The AWA's last name wrestler, Zybyszko, having dropped and regained the title from Japanese star Mr. Saito, was alter stripped of the belt for refusing to defend the title on a tour of Japan. No replacement champion was crowned, and Zybyszko joined WCW. By then it was all over. Verne Gagne had no champion, no television deal, and now, no wrestling promotion. In 1991, thirty one years after the company had formed, the American Wrestling Association
ceased to be.

The AWA is fondly remembered by it\'s die hard fans. The list of wrestlers who passed through the territory looks like the roster of a Legends of Wrestling video game. Yet while researching this article, I couldn't help but compare the AWA's situation to that of WCW ten years later. As I mentioned at the beginning, it\'s sad that fans in Britain only got to see the AWA when it was on it's proverbial death bed.

Verne Gagne will be remembered as one of the greatest promoters in the history of American wrestling. But he will also be remembered as a stubborn promoter who was unwilling to change his ways in order to keep up with the competition. It was this stubbornness that led to his downfall.