For those of you that have read Mick Foley's "Have a Nice Day," the UWF matches in West Virginia that he worked happened in the spring of 1987. The promotion also ran a tour in California and stretched as far East as Atlanta to try and establish a fan base in the critical Georgia wrestling scene. But the main cities were in Texas and Oklahoma. On alternating weeks, the promotion would run a three-day swing on Saturday, Sunday and Monday in these key cities, with the television program being taped on those nights.

Houston, Ft. Worth, Oklahoma City and Tulsa were the main towns in the UWF. In Houston, Watts had a powerful promoter in Paul Boesch. Houston Wrestling was the top-rated show on UHF for years in the Houston-area. The early to mid 1980s, while promoting in combination with the Mid-South promotion, apparently provided a very profitable relationship for both Boesch and

Watts. The Sam Houston Coliseum was packed with, shall we say, "enthusiastic" crowds, and Mid-South benefited from the exposure of the nation's fourth-largest city. Without being overly sentimental or nostalgic, that is my favorite wrestling era. Boesch's Mid-South affiliation with Bill Watts was the most exciting wrestling I have ever seen.

However, when Mid South became the UWF and eventually was sold to the NWA in April 1987, Boesch, whose relationship with Watts turned quite bitter at the end, instead of joining up with the NWA, opened the door to negotiations with Vince McMahon, and McMahon closed the surprising deal in record time.

Whether Boesch was simply tired of the wrestling business (he was well into his 70s at the time) or whether it was just a case of two men who were set in their ways, the loss of the Houston alliance was another serious blow to Watts' attempt to build a national audience. The UWF continued to run cards in Houston until the promotion's end, but not in affiliation with Boesch.

Ft. Worth was the site of Billy Bob's, the self proclaimed World's Largest Honky Tonk, where the UWF filmed much of its syndicated programming. Somehow it's appropriate that the company which was universal would make its TV home there. The Dallas/Fort Worth area was splintered, however, by the remnants of the WCCW promotion. It was never truly a "UWF" town, much like Chicago was an AWA city or St. Louis a NWA stronghold.

Oklahoma City is home to Watts (well, Bixby actually is), and the Myriad Center had crowds of 13,000 to see Mid South and UWF cards. But as noted earlier, the declining oil business in Oklahoma hit the wallets of many of the UWF's customers, causing a corresponding decline in attendance in OK City, Tulsa and other towns. In addition, neither Oklahoma City nor Tulsa could provide the "big time" feel that NYC gave the WWF or Atlanta did for the Crocketts.

All of these fan bases were good, but each had its drawbacks and none had the clout that McMahon had on the East coast nor that the Crocketts had in the Carolinas, the Virginias, and into Georgia. Watts was able to land a TV slot on TBS, but that's a subject for next time.

Today, pro wrestling is a TV show. Without national television exposure, a promotion is limited to being a regional organization. Watts tried to make the UWF a truly national promotion, but just wasn't able to do so without a solid, distributed fan base and cable TV saturation.

Well, that's it for this installment. I hope I don't seem morbid for examining the reasons that the UWF folded. As I stated last time, it is a subject that is rather timely considering the current state of the wrestling business. I have read many times about how ECW could topple WCW as the number 2 company if it could only_____________ (fill in the blank). Like ECW when the company got its first national TV deal from TNN, the UWF in 1986 was considered a serious threat to other promotions, and within 18 months the promotion was gone. I hope I don't sound self-righteous, but these factors could serve as a valuable lesson to every wrestling promoter, from the smallest indy booker all the way up to Vince McMahon, Vince Russo/Brad Siegel, and especially Paul Heyman.

Thanks for your time. Stop on by the UWF section of the Kayfabe Memories message board sometime. I've got to go now - my own Kayfabe Memories music today involves listening to the Doors "L.A. Woman" 8-Track on my outdoor, second-hand stereo while barbecuing some chicken breasts. See, I knew I could wrap that shamelessly space-filling intro up somewhere!

NEXT MONTH:

Part 3 of The End of the UWF.