Bruce Prichard On Other Promoters Hating Vince McMahon in the 1980s, Vince’s Overtures To Them

– On the latest Something to Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard recalled how hated Vince McMahon was in the early 1980s by owners of other territories. As is well-known by anyone with a knowledge of wrestling history, McMahon’s expansion of WWF into a national promotion in the early- to mid-1980s made him a wanted man among the other territories, as he was viewed as pushing them out of business. McMahon’s efforts eventually contributed to the collapse of the territory system and the rise of WWF as the face of pro wrestling.

Speaking about Jimmy Hart’s days in Memphis Wrestling, Prichard was asked about how much the promoters hated McMahon at that time and said that Vince tried to work with the promoters, but was met with hostility. Highlights and the full podcast are below:

On how hated Vince was among the other promoters in the ’80s: “Oh god, [he was hated] tremendously. And I think especially at this time, where the viewpoint of most of the promoters in the country were that they wanted to see Vince McMahon go away. Vince had, in their opinion, violated a ‘lifelong trust’ of, ‘You don’t come into my territory, I won’t come into yours,’ but ‘unless they wanted to’ type of a thing.”

On McMahon’s overtures to promoters: “The part that everyone leaves out of that story all the time is that Vince went to the promoters that had their fiefdoms in different parts of the country, and said ‘Hey, here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to work with you. I’ve got television. I want to go out and actually with my TV, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna that. Would you be interested in being partners, because I am gonna run here.’ So let’s say for example, you’re in Detroit and you’re The Sheik and you think you own Detroit. I don’t know — which is another funny thing about the wrestling business is how promoters, because you promoted in one spot [you thought that you owned it]. It’s like — let’s take your business for a moment, Conrad. You’re in the mortgage business. You’re in Huntsville, Alabama. You have a mortgage company in Huntsville, Alabama. Well, does that mean that you are the only person who can sell mortgages in Huntsville, Alabama? [No.] Because it’s America. And there’s freedom of trade, and we have anti-trust laws in this country. But in wrestling, it was different. If I promoted in Detroit, then I felt that I’m the only one that could promote in Detroit. In Houston, Texas Paul Boesch felt he was the only one that should ever promote in Houston, Texas because by God, that was his town. Bill Watts was the only person who could promote in the mid South and Tulsa and Louisiana.”

On the promoters’ reaction to McMahon’s overtures: “Vince went to each of these guys and said, ‘Hey. I’d like to either buy you out, or let’s work out a working relationship. We can use my TV, we’ll come in, we’ll co-promote shows.’ And to the man, with very few exceptions — Roy Shire and Mike LaBelle — they told Vince, ‘We’ll bury you. You come into my territory, and I’ll put you out of business.’ And instead of worrying about their own particular area, they started worrying about, ‘Well if Vince is gonna come into my area, I’ll go into Vince’s. I’ll go to New York.’ And that was the downfall of most of the promotions. Bill Watts in particular. He took his eye off the ball, the home court.”

On Memphis Wrestling outlasting the other promotions: “In Memphis, they were one of the last surviving territories. They were one of the very last to go, that continued on for a very long time after Vince went national. And that was a tough nut to crack.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.