Ted DiBiase Thinks Wrestling Would’ve Died Had WWE Not Ended The Territories

On the latest episode of Everybody’s Got a Pod, WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase talked about Vince McMahon separating WWE from the territories in the 1980s, the importance of the NWA World Heavyweight Title, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

Ted DiBiase on whether anyone thought Vince McMahon would separate from the NWA: “I don’t know that anybody ever at that moment, or at that time, thought that that was going to happen. You know, I remember that he went to all of the promoters in the country of all of the territories, and basically offered them the opportunity to come on board with him and be a part of it. And of course, he probably knew in advance that most of those people weren’t going to do it.”

On the importance of the NWA World Title: “Well with all due respect, there’s not an independent wrestler out there right now that, in my opinion, has the talent or the savvy to carry that belt. Brother, I mean, that was the belt. And as NWA Champion, World Champion, you went to the territory to territory defending that belt. There was no other — in other words, WWWF was just a territory. But the NWA was a group of territories. Which now, Vince McMahon has said, ‘God bless you, and you know, you want to keep doing your own thing, go ahead. But I’m fixing to — I’m coming. I’m gonna come to your cities. I’m gonna bring my own show, I’m gonna bring my own crew, and that’s it.’ It was time to make a choice, and you had to make a choice.”

On whether he respected McMahon trying to go national: “Yeah, I respect that. I mean, okay. Marcus, I never in my wildest dreams envisioned that one day, I could walk into Walmart and see an action figure, and it’s me. Never. And what Vince McMahon, he took wrestling — I mean, wrestling back in the territory days was kind of like a blue-collar crowd form of entertainment. This man took wrestling and made it mainstream. You didn’t see a lot of khaki pants and polo shirts at ringside in wrestling until Vince took it and went with it. Sometimes, I’ll be honest with you, I think wrestling would have died. I think it would have died, because there were so — think of how many things there are to, different directions you could go in terms of entertainment. There’s so much out there now in terms of where you can spend your entertainment dollar, and pro wrestling? Like pro wrestling was like — you know, pro wrestling started in the carnivals.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Everybody’s Got a Pod with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.