Professional wrestling used to be a pretty quiet neighborhood. Each promoter had his territory and stayed out of his neighbors’ yards. Just look at Texas for instance. Several promoters operated within that single large state alone. Paul Boesch controlled the Houston market. Fritz Von Erich promoted in Dallas-Fort Worth. Joe Blanchard ran San Antonio. At one time the Funk family promoted out of Amarillo as well. The promotions would even cooperate to an extent and even do some talent exchanges. Across the country order was kept by the National Wrestling Alliance. Member promotions or other firmly established non-member promotions like the AWA and indeed Mid-South were protected from competition. When a competitor or so-called outlaw promotion sprung up that promotion was quickly run out of business by any means necessary and wrestlers who dared to join that promotion were often blacklisted to various degrees. From the inception of the NWA in 1948 the wrestling world was relatively peaceful. However, by the early 1980s the neighborhood started to get rowdy. 

Georgia Championship Wrestling had been seen on cable and satellite TV since the mid-1970s on WTCG, later known as WTBS, from Atlanta. As cable penetration increased, more and more fans saw this promotion and now local promoters were no longer the only game in town. GCW eventually became World Championship Wrestling and used its Saturday evening timeslot to eventually tour far beyond its usual Georgia stomping grounds. Joe Blanchard’s Southwest Championship Wrestling was on the USA Network. The WWF showed cards from MSG on USA Network as well. In 1982 Dallas based World Class Championship Wrestling was syndicated to TV stations across the country. Meanwhile the WWF resigned from the NWA and with the retirement of longtime St. Louis promoter and NWA President and power broker Sam Munchnick, the winds of war began to blow. It was a matter of time before something big happened and in late 1983 it did.