The Rise & Fall of WCCW

In my last instalment, I chronicled the history of the American Wrestling Association, one of the wrestling promotions that was show when satellite television was first introduced in Britain in 1989. The AWA, and GLOW, were more or less up-to-date when first broadcast, but when the Lifestyle channel finished the GLOW run, they turned back the clock a few years, showing classic wrestling long before The Wrestling Channel ever did.

Think of wrestling in Texas, and you immediately think of two things, the Von Erich family, and World Class Championship Wrestling.

When the GLOW run cam to an end, Lifestyle began showing World Class shows from the early eighties. This was when the territory was still a division of the National Wrestling Alliance, and before Vince McMahon purchased Capitol Sports from his father and began his national expansion.

We saw the early days of Kerry Von Erich, the self-styled "Modern Day Warrior", as he failed in his attempt to win the NWA World title from Ric Flair. We saw a young King Kong Bundy, reigning as United States Champion, and still with a full head of hair, as well as many other greats, including the last few matches of Jose Lothario, who many of you will remember as Shawn Michaels' trainer when he won his first WWF title in 1996.

World Class was mainly built around Fritz Von Erich and his wrestling sons. It seemed many of the major story lines centred around the family in some way. This wasn't surprising, considering that the Von Erich family is probably the most famous wrestling family to come out of Texas.

The elder Von Erich became the main promoter of the territory in 1986, and like other territories before, World Class left the NWA. For a while, the territory flourished, and the list of stars who passed through Dallas reads like a who's who of wrestling - the Ultimate Warrior, Rick Rude, Andre The Giant, Mil Mascaras, Chris Adams, the list is endless.

But while the territory is fondly remembered by the wrestling fans, it will forever be linked with the tragedies that befell the Von Erich family. One by one, through various tragic circumstances, four of Fritz's five sons died. Only one, Kevin, is alive today.

But those who attended the dark and dusky Dallas Sportatorium, and various other arenas in the area, will fondly remember the great matches of the time, such as Kerry Von Erich's eventual NWA title win in 1984, the legendary and often violent Von Erich/Freebird feud, Fritz's retirement bout against King Kong Bundy in 1982, Chris Adams turning on his long-time Von Erich colleagues, the vile tactics of General Skandor Akbar and Devastation,
Inc.

But with everything else that happened, Jerry Lawler's appearance, in 1988, set forth a series of events that eventually led to World Class' demise.

In 1988, the WWF was steam rolling all over the competition. Several territories had closed down after their talent left for New York. At the time World Class had an open door policy as far as talent was concerned, but it was still a surprise when AWA World Champion Jerry Lawler walked into the Sportatorium, and was challenged by World Class champion Kerry Von Erich to a title v title bout.

World Class, which was then run by Kerry & Kevin, signed a promotional deal with Verne Gagne's AWA, and Lawler's CWA. The three promotions staged a pay-per-view, Superclash III, in Chicago, headlined by the unification match between Kerry & Lawler.


However, World Class was struggling financially, and the company was strongly depending on the pay-per-view revenue in order to stay afloat. The show wasn't the success the promoters hoped it would be, and political infighting between the three promotions, which included Verne Gagne failing to part with the show revenue, and Lawler refusing to defend the new, unified title in certain territories, spelled the end, in a way, for World Class.

It was a short time later when Lawler and his business partner Jerry Jarrett purchased the World Class territory, merged it with their Memphis-based group, and formed the United States Wrestling Association. Jarrett ran the Texas side of things from 88-90, before handing over the reigns to Kevin Von Erich, who ran the show from 90-91.

Even though the days of the wrestling territories are long gone, a victim of Vince McMahon's national expansion and his war with Jim Crockett and Ted Turner, World Class Championship Wrestling will always be fondly remembered by everyone who saw the shows. Fans from all over the world flocked to the Sportatorium, a wrestling arena loved as much as Madison Square Garden in New York or the Viking Hall in Philadelphia. They
remember the classic matches, and the tragedies that surrounded one of professional wrestling's most famous families.

The last of the Von Erich brothers, Kevin, now lives away from the wrestling business. He still owns the rights to all the old World Class video footage, and the last I heard, he was looking to sell these rights. Many collectors would give their right arm to own this video collection. Hopefully, 21st century wrestling fans will get to see some of this classic action soon.