The Fall of Jim Crockett Promotions

I wrote an earlier article about the greatest era in professional wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions. I thought I would give some reasons for the downfall of the promotion.

These reasons are from my personal feelings, along with published articles on wikipedia and from DVD's, The Rise and Fall of WCW and The Best of Starrcade.

Dusty Rhodes

Fans were getting tired of the Dusty finish. The people wanted to see a clear cut winner in the matches.

In addition, when Dusty was fired, the promotion did not have someone of Rhodes' caliber in the fan favorites or in developing new talent.

Magnum Crashes

The loss of this potential World champion had a huge impact on the promotion. JCP did not have a viable option after Magnum.

JCP decided to turn Nikita Koloff into a fan favorite, which backfired. Nikita was over as a monster bad guy and should have remained a reason for fans to boo.

JCP did a good job in writing why Nikita turned good, but in the end, Nikita should have stayed a bad guy.

Koloff was basically neutered as a good guy. The reason why he was so over with the fans was because he was so good as a monster.

Arn and Tully depart

No one could replace these two. Not only was the loss huge for the bad guy faction, the Four Horsemen were dissolved.

Later, Barry Windham moved up north and another huge loss for JCP.

Ricky and Ronnie as title contenders? Really?

Could any one believe these two could challenge the Nature Boy for the gold. Ricky may have been over with the preteen girl crowd, but serious fans knew he was no match for the Nature Boy.

The powers that be decided to put the belt on Garvin, which cost the belt some prestige. To make matters worse, they decided not to have the Hands of Stone defend the title for 45 days.

Why Garvin was chosen to be the World champion, stories abound on the internet, but most agree it was a disaster.

Failure to Capitalize on the UWF purchase

After JCP bought out Bill Watts UWF, the bookers decided to bury the superstars and the belts.

JCP could have taken over the fan base of the UWF and had expansion all the way into Texas and Oklahoma had they played the hand correctly.

Imagine the matches available to them at a Starrcade to unify the titles. JCP blew it worse than Vince did on the invasion storyline.

UWF champion Dr. Death vs. NWA champion Ric Flair, The Sheepherders vs. The Road Warriors. The Freebirds vs. the Midnight Express.

Eventual storylines could have included Hot Stuff Inc. vs. The Horsemen, Terry Gordy vs. Ric Flair, and a revisit to the Freebird/Warrior feud.

The infusion of talent could have meant more challengers to Flair's gold and replacement for those who left. Instead, JCP dropped the ball.

Over expansion and over spending

Starrcade and the Great American Bash were great successes when left in the south. But JCP decided to put the biggest card in Chicago, thus alienating fans.

Had JCP expanded correctly and pushed UWF correctly, they had a natural fan base in the former UWF territory. This was another business failure on the part of Jim Crockett.

Not the right matches

Basically fans were only treated to one major matchup with the Road Warriors and Arn/Tully for the gold.

That match left a bad taste in peoples mouths because not only did the Warriors not win the gold, but it ended in a Dusty finish. The fans were not treated to a few of these matches at pay-per-views.

How many people would have loved to see the Road Warriors destroy the Rock N Roll Express? It never happened in the JCP era. That was a match fit for a Starrcade.

The Warriors were finally given a title run, but it ended way to fast. The fans deserved a Warrior run.

The UWF merger had potential for great matches, but the fans did not get them. Imagine giving Terry Gordy a U.S. title run and then having Michael Hayes turn on him, setting up a lights out or streetfight for the title.

These two tore it up in other territories, and even Georgia Championship Wrestling.