Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives!
 |
|
You are here: Home>Regional Territories>JCP>#4
|
Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives! |
|
|||||
|
- Mike Campbell Wrestling was once dominated by big men. Nowadays you see guys like Kid Kash, Jeff Hardy, and Billy Kidman dominating their respective promotions but less than 15 years ago the big man was the ruler of the ring. One of the most popular and skilled big men was "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. He hit the NWA with such a fury in 1987 that everyone knew he was going to be something big. What people didn't know was that Williams was already very accomplished in the ring. He was the final champion of Bill Watts' UWF promotion and held the Mid South Tag Team Titles with Ted DiBiase in 1985. Jim Crockett bought the UWF while Williams was still the champion and Williams began to defend the title on NWA shows. Starrcade '87 marked the end of the UWF as the UWF and NWA television titles were unified. On that show, Williams defeated Barry Windham in a 5 minute squash. Crockett hired some other UWF talent some guys you may have heard of including: Rick Steiner, Eddie Gilbert, Terry Taylor, and some no name guy called Sting. Steve Williams was also picked up. Now in the bigger NWA "Dr. Death" (or Doc for short) had to climb the ladder of success from the bottom, in the UWF he was a top name but he was almost nothing to NWA fans. For the first few months he tried to hang in but he left for Japan in early 1988. Five months later the NWA was sent a tape from him that stated that he was going to return to the NWA and join the "Varsity Club". The Varsity club was a group led by Kevin Sullivan which included great amateur wrestlers like Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner. Steiner had recently been booted and Doc was to be his replacement. Doc returned and this time he was a bitter rulebreaker a mere shadow of his former rough tough football player image. At Starrcade '88 he teamed up with Kevin Sullivan to win the United States Tag Titles. Their reign was short and they soon lost the titles but in April of 1989 they scored the upset of the decade when Rotunda and Doc defeated the Road Warriors to win the NWA Tag Team Titles. The win was tainted by a crooked ref but the Varsity Club had the belts. One month later at WrestleWar '89 they had to give the Road Warriors a rematch with special ref Nikita Koloff. As the Warriors were about to win Sullivan and Dan Spivey attacked Koloff to give the Warriors a DQ win. More...
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
