[dbryrocks]

Hey all!

New wrestling fan here. I recently purchased a sub to the network and I was glancing back at the year 1990. Now granted, I have a LOT to watch and learn about the company's past but something quickly jumped out at me.

In 1990, the WWE had the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania 6, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. But those PPV's were months apart from one another. I checked on Wikipedia and indeed, they followed one another with no in-between PPV's.

So, considering the fact that we have 12 PPV's now (not sure how long that has been going on), what did WWE do in those middle months in order to keep stories going and everything? It is pretty crazy to think that 4 or so months can go by from Wrestlemania 6 to SummerSlam without a PPV. Did they have tv shows that acted like PPV's but didn't cost anyone anything? How did they do it?

 

[Ethereal90]

If I can recall they used to air some shows on Saturday night here and there.

 

[dbryrocks]

If I can recall they used to air some shows on Saturday night here and there.

Wow. So they really must have spent a lot of time building up feuds and the guys must have had loads of time off.

 

[HardKor1283]

Yeah feuds were just really slow burning back then. I remember sitting about 6 inches away from the TV every Saturday morning for like two months waiting for then next promo or bit of news about the Warrior/Macho Man feud for WrestleMania VII.

There were also the occasional special show where something major might happen. Hogan lost his first title on the very first The Main Event in '88. He also won the title from the Undertaker at a show called "This Tuesday in Texas" in 1991. They were really still experimenting with how to do PPVs back then and didn't start having monthly PPVs until the whole "In Your House" thing started.

 

[Malakai]

it was ALOT different back then. For starters, their wasn't wrestler A vs wrestler B every week. example Bray Wyatt vs Dolph Ziggler wouldn't happen. Instead it would be Bray Wyatt vs random no name guy. Wrestlers rarely actually met in the ring in an official match until the PPV. This, along with the limited PPV schedule allowed them to really build up feuds and make the matches actually mean something.

 

[LeaderOfM.D.R.S.]

It was "less wrestling" more buildup promo's, if that makes any sense.

I think HHH wants to do a refined version of that. Kind of like a revamped edit of Ruthless Aggression era where wrestling was in abundance but so was the promo's.

 

[birthday_massacre]

They actually built proper story lines and didn't hot shot them in two weeks before the PPV.

 

[FlyingElbow]

Wow. So they really must have spent a lot of time building up feuds and the guys must have had loads of time off.

They really didn't. They were still working shows non-stop, they just weren't on TV. Keep in mind they did shows at Madison Square Garden all the time back then (sometimes every month), and they would often be running shows in two cities at the same time (with Warrior main eventing one in Massachusetts, Savage the other in Texas, to use your 1990 example). Feuds just built longer, and they didn't have to fill 3 hours of RAW, 2 hours of Smackdown, 1 hour of Main Event, etc every week. I'd argue that the on-air product today would be better with fewer PPVs, but they'd make less money, so you'll never see it go back to that.

 

[666_The_Game_666]

They would do long term booking back then. They would usually do 3-4 Saturday Nights Main Event shows to help bridge the gap between PPV shows in those days.

 

[Mifune Jackson]

It's really crazy how the business has changed. Basically, every week you had shows like Superstars and Wrestling Challenge, where you were just happy to see certain guys wrestle jobbers on TV. I was just happy to see Razor Ramon come out and hit his moves, or see Sid Justice squash some guy.

One thing of note is that a LOT (and I mean a LOT) more emphasis was put onto house shows. The Ultimate Warrior and The Undertaker had a huge feud, and none of the matches actually happened on TV at the time, BUT if you went to house shows, you'd actually get to see the Warrior-Undertaker matches and they did their finish for the live audience, even if it was a DQ (some bodybag matches had definitive winners, though).

That same summer, Mr. Perfect was in a heated feud against Davey Boy Smith for the IC Title, but none of the matches happened on TV and were resolved at house shows. By SummerSlam, it was all about Perfect-Bret.

And then, yeah, there was Saturday Night's Main Event and The Main Event, which set up a lot of the big feuds on national TV, and that was where you had more of a "RAW" like TV feel.

Because of the emphasis on house shows, there really wasn't a lot of time off. They were working even more, with sometimes two touring groups working shows every weekend and during the week even.

Occasionally, Superstars or Wrestling Challenge would have a special match between two superstars that wasn't a jobber match, but it was REALLY rare. Prime Time Wrestling featured more superstar vs superstar matches, but Superstars was still the main show until RAW came around. RAW really did change everything.

There was also the home video market, when the WWF would put out Coliseum Home Video exclusives, where you could pay for a VHS tape of big matches that you'd never see on PPV and that also helped fill the void between PPVs.


That was one of the advantages WCW had over the WWF at the time. They were less shy about having bigger stars working against each other on weekly TV and they had things like the Clash of Champions on TBS in between PPV events to set up matches and pay off some feuds.