The women in wrestling in the mid-to-late 80s were either virginal types (Miss Elizabeth), valets used as eye candy (Precious, Lady Blossom), or actual wrestlers (Sherri Martel, Wendi Richter). There certainly weren't crowds (or announcers) chanting for "puppies" or heckling a "slut," pregnancy/miscarriage angles, mud wrestling (at least not on TV), or a old lady giving birth to a hand on prime time television.

The fact that Watts worked for both WCW and the WWF after he sold the company would also suggests that the Cowboy may indeed have wanted to get out of the business, but he didn't in actuality. Selling the UWF was more of a business decision for Watts.

REASON #2. TALENT LOSSES TO THE WWF.

This is one of the major reasons, if not the biggest, that the UWF folded. Junkyard Dog, the most popular wrestler Watts ever had, left for the WWF before Mid-South morphed into the UWF. Likewise, Jake Roberts and Butch Reed both bailed to move up north before the name change. Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan both left by the spring of '87. All of the aforementioned guys were not just main-eventers but charismatic wrestlers that had a tremendous fan base. If Watts could have managed to hold on to 2 or 3 of the guys, the end result may have been different. But he couldn't, and it wasn't.

Kamala, the One Man Gang and Big Bubba Rogers (now known to the WWF masses as the Big Bossman) all established themselves in Mid-South/UWF and moved on to the financially greener pastures of the WWF. You can make the argument that fewer promotions provided more stars to the WWF than Mid-South/UWF did.

REASON # 3. IT WAS A BUSINESS DECISION FOR WATTS TO SELL TO JIM CROCKETT.

Restating reason #1, I would agree. The oil-based economy in the Oklahoma-Arkansas-Louisiana-Mississippi-Texas region was taking a beating by '86-'87. A significant segment of the working class folks who made up the majority of the UWF's fan base no longer had the disposable income to spend on tickets to matches. This naturally was a negative impact on the promotion.

When Watts decided to transform Mid-South from a regional promotion to the national company he envisioned the UWF to be, he went deep into debt organizing up his national television syndication affiliates He also incurred debt by signing wrestlers like the Fabulous Freebirds to exclusive contracts. Watts has stated that he was losing up to $50,000 a week before selling to Crockett. He has also said that he was ready to file an anti-trust suit against McMahon and the WWF, and he tried to use it as bait to get McMahon to buy the UWF. The Oklahoma cowboy must have not known that McMahon was no Yankee but Southern born and bred, because McMahon one-upped Watts by telling him to take the suit to court. Always confident, Watts has said that he could have won, but with the amount of money he was losing he could not have waited the length of time it usually takes to resolve such suits.

After finding out that McMahon wouldn't purchase the promotion, Watts had Jim Ross call Jim Crockett and tell him that McMahon actually was interested in buying the promotion (so much for honesty among competitors). The deal got done, but soon enough, Crockett would be having his own financial problems.

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. 

NEXT MONTH:

Part II of The End of the UWF