Wrestling personality James Cornette talks about WCCW

Many of you may have recognized a recurring theme on this blog no matter how erratically it may come up from time to time.

In any event you might have heard of James Cornette, he was often a manager in wrestling. You might have seen him in WCW, WWE, and currently in TNA. Some of you might have heard of a tag team he managed, The Midnight Express.

Cornette has been around a long time in the wrestling business. He talks honestly about what happened to one of the most successful promotions in the nation, WCCW - World Class Championship Wrestling. This is a promotion that started in Dallas, Texas and it was owned by the Von Erich Family. These days if you want to watch old WCCW programming you have to go thru WWE.

Anyway, Cornette talks a little about what made this promotion a success but he talks more about what caused its downfall. Now the Von Erichs (real family name was Adkisson) were Fritz who was the patriarch and of course his sons Kevin, Kerry, David, Mike, and Chris. You might have heard of Kerry Von Erich he wrestled briefly as the Texas Tornado in the WWF.

Of all the sons Fritz had outlived four of them. Well actually five since another son died in childhood. The only surviving son of Fritz is Kevin Von Erich. In fact you can watch him talk about his one of his experiences in professional wrestling. The other sons, grown sons if you will, has passed away either thru a drug overdose or suicide. This is sort of what Cornette was addressing.

Cornette says that Fritz' sons had no one to reign them in. On top of that they were stars in their early 20s. They had the world at their fingertips and yet it seems perhaps they weren't very happy. Cornette said that the Von Erichs had no responsibilities and they had fame and forturne very early.

Another thing discussed was the WCCW was a very successful promotion and then in a small time it was gone. It probably didn't help that several of the Von Erich brothers had met unfortunate demises. Still WCCW was known around the nation and eventually as Cornette said this case became a study on how not to run a promotion.

I should note that WCCW was based out of Dallas from a now demolished venue known as the Sportatorium. It might have the same amount of name recognition as the ECW Arena in Philladelphia. Although that venue now has a new name and is home to several wrestling promotions as well as other events.

Also WCCW apparently was syndicated but when they were on the air I was in no condition to take command of the remote control at home. My exposure to them began when I started watching ESPN and it would come on at 3 in the Afternoon and I'd watch matches from not only WCCW but a successor USWA. It sort of broke the monotony between WWF and WCW who were prevalent back in the early 1990s.

Those were the days, weren't they and with all these other feds today TNA, RoH, and I will even include CZW the days of differing wrestling promotions offering something different might be slowly returning. ECW, USWA, WCCW, and others are gone but the "sport" and notice I put that in quotes will survive so long as someone will keep professional wrestling fresh.