Bill Watts and the UWF was beginning to fall on hard times as well.  Although house show crowds were still strong, his Superdome shows began to show signs of faltering.  The Thanksgiving show drew only 12,000 people, and many of his wrestlers had to wrestle twice on the show.  The fact of wrestlers appearing twice on the show indicated that while he had good talent, he just didn’t have enough talent to fill out most cards.  That talent problem would begin to bite Watts in a major way in early 1987. 

Watts had lost wrestlers to Vince McMahon and others throughout the years, most notably the Junkyard Dog, Butch Reed, Jake Roberts, and on a lesser extent, Koko B. Ware.  Despite the losses, Watts still had lead babyfaces “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and Ted Dibiase.  Duggan ascended to the lead babyface role in 1985, and never looked back.  Dibiase turned face in 1985, and had been in the Freebird war for most of 1986.  Duggan was embroiled in a feud with Devastation Inc., most specifically with new UWF champion One Man Gang, the man who cost Duggan the belt in May 1986, during the UWF title tourney.  Although Watts was down, he still had Duggan, Dibiase, and Paul Boesch. 

As mentioned before in this column, Houston was the largest city Bill Watts ran in on a consistent basis.  Houston was also the premier television show of Bill Watts’ syndication network.  The man behind most of this was in fact promoter Paul Boesch.  So although Watts was facing an uphill battle, he still had some main players………until January 1987. 

Abruptly, and in the middle of a program with One Man Gang that was sure to bring him the UWF title, Hacksaw Duggan left the UWF for the WWF.  McMahon had struck again.  Duggan would never be the main event player in the WWF that he was for Watts, but he did have some memorable moments with such stars as Earthquake, and Andre The Giant.  Watts was shaken, as major storylines would have to be rewritten without Duggan.  Then, Chris Adams gets arrested for treating a stewardess like a pin ball over a flight in Puerto Rico.  Television crowds begin to decline to where it became noticable, even to a 13 year old kid like myself.   

In April 1987, Ted Dibiase began to negotiate in earnest with the WWF, and ended up signing in May 1987.  But something far bigger happened in April….far far bigger. 

Without warning in early April,  Paul Boesch moved his wrestling allegiance from the UWF to the WWF.  It was Black Saturday 2 for us fans in Houston.  The week before…the UWF.  The next week…a different opening.  No big deal, we have had different openings to Houston Wrestling before.  Then, we see the Pontiac Silverdome, as Paul Boesch welcomes us to “another exciting broadcast” of Houston Wrestling.  But this was different.  Instead of hard hitting UWF action, we were subjected to highlights from WrestleMania, and old clips of current WWF stars like the Junkyard Dog, Butch Reed, Nikolai Volkoff….and yes, Hacksaw Duggan. Many of my friends who were wrestling fans came to school the following Monday in shock.  So did I.  Our UWF was gone. Needless to say, Houston Wrestling fans were stunned. (at least this one was)  No one saw this coming, and there was nothing we could do about it.  Sure, we could catch the UWF on a different television network (KRIV FOX 26), but it wasn’t the same.  And we could never get used to Paul Boesch and his group promoting the WWF.  The WWF did have its fans in Houston, as the quarterly cards ran at the Compaq Center drew well.  But we were UWF fans.  And life would never be the same. 

In reality, the defection of Paul Boesch hurt worse than Hacksaw Duggan.  Watts sold the UWF later that month to Jim Crockett Promotions, and I can not help but think that his decision to do so was partially affected by Paul Boesch’s defection to the WWF.  At least we had a chance to say goodbye to Paul Boesch in August (which we will cover next month), but we never had a chance to bid our beloved UWF goodbye.   

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