Dark Side of the Ring S5 Episode 10 - Black Saturday The Rise of Vince
Dark Side of the Ring S5 Episode 10 - Black Saturday The Rise of Vince
Category
šŗ
TVTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - On July 14th, 1984, millions of loyal viewers
00:11 tuned into cable channel WTBS
00:13 to watch its most popular program,
00:16 World Championship Wrestling.
00:18 - Thank you so very, very much.
00:20 - But instead of a live broadcast
00:21 featuring the South's most popular wrestlers,
00:24 fans were shocked by the surprise appearance
00:26 of New York promoter, Vincent McMahon Jr.
00:30 - Thank you, it is indeed a pleasure
00:32 to be associated with WTBS.
00:34 - And everybody's mouth dropped open.
00:37 - It seemed like the world of wrestling
00:39 stopped at that time.
00:41 - I was watching the TV.
00:42 I had no idea it was coming.
00:44 - Nobody knew why.
00:45 You know, the fans of that promotion were furious.
00:48 - It was a day that would live in infamy,
00:50 forever known as Black Saturday.
00:53 - Vince McMahon's first step
00:55 toward his goal of total monopoly,
00:58 he had a vision that wrestling should be national
01:01 under one person.
01:03 - Far more than the tale of one man's ambition,
01:06 Black Saturday is the story of an epic behind the scenes
01:09 showdown between titans of the industry.
01:12 - They kind of hoodooed him and snuck it out
01:15 from underneath him, more so than him giving it up.
01:18 - Oh, he said, "Let's do a blood oath."
01:20 - The first one to break that oath was not us.
01:22 - So my father, he gets a call.
01:24 They've stolen the company.
01:26 - A high stakes power play that sets Vince McMahon
01:29 on the path toward building a billion dollar
01:32 wrestling empire.
01:33 - It was all the beginning groundwork of future warfare.
01:39 - Vince McMahon was a caster on the wrestling business.
01:42 - Vince won, he was the best at it.
01:44 He was the most vicious shark in the sea.
01:46 (dramatic music)
01:48 - Welcome to WrestleMania.
01:58 - For over 40 years, the wrestling business
02:03 has been dominated by World Wrestling Entertainment
02:05 under the singular control of its owner and mastermind,
02:08 Vince McMahon Jr.
02:09 But in the early 1980s,
02:14 Vince McMahon is just beginning to stake his claim
02:17 on an industry divided into regional promotions
02:19 known as territories.
02:21 - In 1983, most wrestling fans saw Vince McMahon Jr.
02:27 as the announcer of the WWF television program.
02:32 Now, everybody in the wrestling business
02:33 knew that Vince was Vince McMahon Sr.'s son
02:36 and was the guy who had just bought the WWF,
02:40 the World Wrestling Federation, from his father in 1982.
02:45 - Let's meet Jimmy Cornette and his dynasty of wrestlers.
02:47 - That's exactly right, let's meet me.
02:48 Where did you get that tie, Freddie Miller?
02:50 - I'm Jim Cornette, and through my 40 year career
02:52 in wrestling, I've been an historian,
02:53 specifically I've studied Black Saturday
02:56 and its effects on modern day pro wrestling.
02:59 When Vince McMahon Jr. bought the WWF,
03:03 the business in that part of the country
03:05 had almost never been stronger.
03:06 - Since the 1940s, regional promoters
03:10 like McMahon Sr. did business through a governing body
03:13 called the National Wrestling Alliance.
03:15 - Well, the NWA, they made these bylaws
03:19 and they had territorial boundaries
03:20 where you got this territory and you got this territory.
03:23 My name's Dave Meltzer and I'm the editor
03:26 of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter
03:28 and I've been covering pro wrestling
03:29 since the early 1970s.
03:31 In the NWA, there was always wars
03:33 and fighting and things like that.
03:34 - Wrestling has always been kinda like the mafia
03:37 without the cement overshoes.
03:38 Nobody ends up at the bottom of the river,
03:40 just a few black eyes every now and then.
03:42 Every year the NWA had a meeting,
03:46 all the promoters came.
03:48 It was like the Gambinos and the Bananos
03:51 and there's the Gottys, and it was all the families
03:54 that came together once a year and decided
03:56 the major decisions for wrestling in the United States
04:00 for the following year.
04:01 The other promoters looked at Vince Jr.
04:03 like an upstart kid.
04:05 They didn't realize he wanted to be
04:06 the Walt Disney of wrestling.
04:08 They didn't understand not only the plans that he had,
04:12 but the lengths that he was willing to go to
04:14 to have those plans come to fruition.
04:17 - While some territories showed signs of struggle,
04:20 Georgia championship wrestling was thriving
04:22 thanks to the shrewd leadership of Jim Barnett.
04:26 - Barnett was one of the great minds
04:29 in wrestling as a promoter.
04:31 When he needed to charm people, he could charm people.
04:34 And he had connections outside wrestling.
04:36 If you needed to discuss something with a politician,
04:41 if you needed to talk to a television executive
04:43 or a station manager or a big sponsor,
04:46 Barnett was the guy that they called to make the connection.
04:50 - Even in today's business, as off the wall
04:53 as the characters are, Jim Barnett would still stand out
04:56 as a very unique character.
04:58 I'm Gerald Briscoe, better known as Jerry Briscoe
05:02 in the wrestling circuit.
05:04 - Let's go see the world tag team champions
05:06 Jack and Jerry Briscoe in action.
05:08 - My brother and I became the only two people ever
05:11 to hold both of the Eastern championship
05:13 and the Mid-Atlantic championship.
05:14 - Right, brother.
05:15 - They say we're wild and we're mean.
05:17 We're creating a scene.
05:18 We're going crazy.
05:19 - I got along real well and learned so much
05:22 from Jim Barnett.
05:24 - All the other promoters were ex-wrestlers
05:26 or they were loud and braggadocious.
05:29 Jim always wore a beautiful suit with a tie
05:33 and he had the hair slicked back and he had jewelry on.
05:35 - Did wrestling incur violence?
05:37 - I don't think so, no.
05:40 I never thought so.
05:41 - He was very different from a wrestling guy.
05:44 I mean, he was interested in wrestling,
05:45 but he's more interested in fine arts,
05:47 which is kind of unique for a wrestling promoter.
05:50 For a while, they wouldn't let Jim in the NWA
05:52 until, geez, like 70,
05:55 because they didn't want somebody gay
05:56 in their old boys club.
05:59 - Behind the scenes, he was a cutthroat.
06:03 The ability to cut your balls off
06:06 and shove them down your throat
06:08 and you'd thank him for it.
06:10 - Known as a powerful liaison to TV executives,
06:13 Jim Barnett is close to media tycoon Ted Turner,
06:17 who airs Georgia Championship Wrestling nationally
06:20 on his cable network, WTBS.
06:24 - Wrestling was the first hit on cable television.
06:26 It was Georgia Championship Wrestling.
06:28 Turner just took his local Atlanta Channel 17 TV station
06:31 and put it up on a satellite
06:33 and everybody thought he was nuts.
06:34 Who's gonna wanna watch a local Atlanta television show
06:36 in San Francisco, right?
06:38 There wasn't so many options for TV,
06:40 so it was one of the stations she got.
06:41 She could watch the Atlanta Braves
06:43 and Andy Griffith was big.
06:44 But wrestling was the biggest show on the station.
06:46 You know, that was like must-see.
06:48 - Coming up next, Georgia Championship Wrestling.
06:50 - All the stars of the National Wrestling Alliance--
06:52 - Surprise!
06:53 - Flew into Atlanta every weekend
06:55 to appear on the two-hour television program.
06:58 (crowd cheering)
07:01 - A severe amount of punishment to the head.
07:03 - It was the number one TV show on cable TV.
07:06 That's how hot it was.
07:08 I mean, what made it so hot
07:09 was the unique combination of Gordon Soley,
07:12 the voice of Championship Wrestling,
07:14 and the available talent.
07:18 There's so many Hall of Famers
07:20 on that original list of talent
07:22 that it's mind-boggling that that kind of group of talent
07:26 could assemble in one small territory like Georgia.
07:29 I think what made it so special is it was TBS,
07:33 first TV station to go all over the country,
07:36 and I got to wrestle the best of the best.
07:38 I mean, the cream of the crop.
07:40 My name's Tommy Wildfire,
07:43 rich former NWA World Heavyweight Champion.
07:46 - Thank you very much, Gordon.
07:48 - It was crazy.
07:50 A lot of times you sit back and watch people
07:53 and it would be as big a show watching them
07:55 as it would be watching the wrestling, you know.
07:57 Oh Lord, you have the Georgia Peaches
08:00 and the grannies love me too.
08:02 I see grannies take their cane
08:03 and beat Ole Anderson up with it
08:05 'cause he's beating me up, you know.
08:07 I put the TV ring up every Saturday at the TV station.
08:11 It was cramped.
08:13 Studio would only hold 100 people
08:14 and you packed them in like sardines
08:16 to get 100 in there.
08:17 Boy Scout groups, Girl Scout troops, church groups,
08:21 just fans that loved to come every week.
08:23 My name's Bobby Simmons.
08:25 Started working for ABC Booking
08:27 when I was 14 years old running errands
08:29 and then went to work for Georgia Championship Wrestling.
08:32 We had good crowds and we did sell out a lot of arenas.
08:35 - The day-to-day operations are handled
08:38 by matchmaker Ole Anderson.
08:39 - Ole Anderson.
08:42 - A veteran wrestler who rules Georgia Championship Wrestling
08:45 with an iron fist.
08:47 - Ole suckered him that time.
08:48 - Ole was very intelligent.
08:50 One of the most intelligent guys,
08:52 one of the most well-spoken guys.
08:54 He was loud, he was opinionated.
08:56 - Why don't you be quiet for about two seconds
08:58 and let me talk and take some.
09:01 - But Ole was a great wrestler
09:03 and he had also gotten quite a reputation
09:06 as a matchmaker and a booker.
09:07 - Either you hate him or you love him,
09:10 or well, you don't love him,
09:12 but either you hate him or you like him.
09:14 He's kind of hard to love.
09:16 My name is Joe Hamilton Jr.
09:19 I refereed and wrestled as Nick Patrick
09:22 throughout my entire career.
09:23 I stopped to match myself.
09:25 - Two, Nick Patrick, Barry.
09:27 (shouting)
09:28 - I heard Ricky Morton one time say,
09:29 I don't think Ole Anderson even likes ice cream.
09:32 And I agree, he probably didn't.
09:35 He was just so old school and grouchy,
09:37 but a lot of the old timers back then were like that.
09:40 They was being hard ass on the young guys
09:42 and making them learn.
09:43 - He was what you saw.
09:46 My father was very no-nonsense.
09:49 I think the guy that you saw on the screen
09:51 was very much the same guy that ate breakfast
09:53 with me the next morning.
09:54 And I think that's really part of the reason
09:56 he was successful,
09:57 is because people could believe what they were seeing.
10:00 My name is Bryant Rogowski,
10:02 and I'm the oldest son of Ole Anderson.
10:04 My father obviously spent years bumping in the ring
10:08 and suffered a lot of physical injuries.
10:10 And some years ago he was diagnosed with MS,
10:13 and right now he's just in a state
10:14 where he can't really do a lot for himself.
10:17 I think he was all about business.
10:20 It wasn't long into his wrestling career
10:23 that he began to think about being in charge.
10:27 Eventually he bought into the Georgia company.
10:29 - Ole isn't the only wrestler looking to increase
10:33 his fortunes by getting involved
10:35 in the financial side of the promotion.
10:37 - I started buying my stock in small increments
10:41 where it built up to over 10%,
10:44 and the same with my brother.
10:46 - In 1983, the stockholders in Georgia Championship Wrestling
10:50 were the original promoter Paul Jones,
10:52 a Columbus promoter Fred Ward, his son-in-law Ralph Freed,
10:56 Jim Barnett's business partner Jim Oates,
10:59 Jack and Jerry Briscoe, and Ole Anderson.
11:03 Although Georgia Championship Wrestling
11:05 is turning a profit,
11:06 Ole Anderson begins to question
11:08 whether all the live show earnings
11:10 are being accurately reported.
11:12 - Wrestling had always been a very cash-heavy business,
11:15 and money had always probably been siphoned off the top
11:18 to some degree.
11:20 We had to pay off the politician,
11:21 or we had to give some money to the commissioner,
11:23 or whatever it was.
11:25 And I think surely there was some truth to some of that.
11:27 But when my dad started to really pay attention in Georgia
11:30 and realized that it wasn't only him bringing Barnett
11:33 a few bucks after this show,
11:35 but it was seven or eight other guys
11:37 all doing the same thing,
11:38 he realized that that amount of money
11:40 surely couldn't all be used for those purposes.
11:44 - I had tremendous concerns, you know,
11:46 'cause I wasn't getting a dividend,
11:47 I'd invested tens of thousands of dollars.
11:50 We finally got Jim to expand into Michigan, Ohio,
11:53 and West Virginia, part of Pennsylvania,
11:56 and we started selling out right and left.
11:59 And I was actually doing the settlement
12:02 at the shows at the time.
12:03 So I personally know the amount of cash
12:05 that I was taking back to Georgia,
12:08 and it wasn't getting in anybody else's pocket
12:10 but Mr. Barnett's.
12:15 - Oli was the first one, maybe the only one at the time,
12:19 to question Jim Barnett.
12:22 The story went around that while Barnett was in Hong Kong
12:27 making his annual trip,
12:28 because he liked to go to Hong Kong
12:30 and get all his new suits made,
12:32 Oli either kicks the door in or busts the door in,
12:36 whether the accountant was in the office or not,
12:38 but Oli got into the books.
12:40 - It was like Fort Knox trying to get
12:42 to a box office statement,
12:44 because he had them on the lock and key
12:46 and the people working in the office were instructed,
12:48 don't let anybody in my office.
12:50 It was actually padlocked shut.
12:53 - Oli started examining the books and everything
12:55 and he saw Jim Barnett spending all kinds of crazy money
12:58 on phone bills, $3,000 a month phone bills,
13:01 and he had a personal chef and he had a personal driver.
13:06 So Oli just thought that Jim was embezzling money
13:09 from the company.
13:10 - They had a meeting of the Georgia Championship owners
13:14 at a hotel south of Atlanta in a conference room.
13:16 And Jim handed out the checks
13:21 from the proceeds of the calendar we sold.
13:23 Supposedly when Jim left,
13:26 that's when Oli came in and addressed the owners.
13:31 - Oli had rallied the troops and gotten the majority
13:37 of the other stockholders on his side.
13:42 (dramatic music)
13:44 - When I get to the office, Jim's doors open.
13:47 Lights on, I thought, what is this?
13:51 And I heard Oli go, Bobby, come here.
13:54 And Oli handed me all the checks that I had written
13:56 for the proceeds of the calendar.
13:58 He said, put this back in the bank.
13:59 And he told me that day, he said,
14:02 you don't work for Jim Barnett no more,
14:03 you work for me.
14:04 Oli told me, he says, I'm not out to hurt Jim,
14:07 I'm not out to put him in jail, whatever that meant.
14:11 He said, I think I can run this company
14:13 and we're gonna do it my way.
14:15 He thought everything was black and white,
14:17 there were no gray areas, that it was just business.
14:20 You acted like business people.
14:23 Well, he found out very quickly
14:27 that it didn't work that way.
14:29 - Hell hath no fury like Barnett scorned.
14:35 (dramatic music)
14:38 - After reviewing the accounts
14:44 for Georgia Championship Wrestling,
14:46 park owner Oli Anderson tries to convince
14:48 his fellow shareholders that manager Jim Barnett
14:51 is embezzling funds from the company.
14:54 - Oli would call me and say,
14:55 well, Jim's stealing all this money.
14:57 Oli, is he stealing?
14:58 Well, yeah, he's using it for his limousine,
15:00 he's using it for this.
15:01 Nobody approved those expenditures.
15:03 And which was true.
15:04 Jim would just explain it off as cost of doing business.
15:07 We had both sides of the story.
15:09 - Oli and Jim were not the best of friends.
15:12 They were not even good partners most of the time.
15:14 They were always at one another's throats.
15:17 I'm Louise Cochran, formerly known as Louise Bennett
15:21 in Georgia Championship Wrestling.
15:23 We were in a lot of debt
15:25 because Jim had promised the buildings and the TVs
15:28 so much per week or per month.
15:31 And it didn't matter if we didn't make money.
15:34 That was a power play for Oli to move in.
15:37 Think it was more just of a money power thing
15:39 than a Jim is tanking us with his spending thing.
15:42 - My dad and Ralph,
15:44 another stockholder in Georgia Championship,
15:46 went downtown to Barnett's penthouse apartment
15:50 and they had a talk with him.
15:52 I think my dad probably did most of the talking
15:54 and explained to Barnett,
15:55 my dad was gonna be elected president
15:57 of Georgia Championship.
15:59 That's the way it's gonna be.
16:01 And if you don't like it,
16:02 I'm gonna toss you over your railing.
16:04 - Here you are, 285 pound monster
16:08 and you're bullying this old man.
16:10 - You did not want to get on the bad side of Jim Barnett
16:15 because he could actively (beep) with you
16:18 in your wrestling career.
16:19 Now, Oli has taken it to a whole new level.
16:22 He didn't just no-show Barnett or stand him up
16:24 or hold him up for more money for a main event or whatever.
16:28 He's run him out of the company.
16:31 If Barnett knew that he might not be able
16:33 to do anything about it then,
16:35 you just know that he definitely knew
16:38 he was gonna do something about it eventually.
16:41 - While Oli reorganizes the company
16:45 under his own management in early 1983,
16:48 Vince McMahon has been quietly strategizing
16:51 to expand his own promotion into other NWA territories.
16:56 - When Vince bought the company from his father,
16:58 at first everything maintained a status quo.
17:01 He had plans but he didn't start putting them
17:04 out front of everybody where they could tell
17:06 what he was doing.
17:07 But behind the scenes, Vince Jr. has these plots in mind
17:12 before even the other promoters know
17:14 that he's gonna do it.
17:15 And the first thing that he's thinking about is television.
17:18 - Vince McMahon's scheme to steal the airwaves
17:24 from other promoters begins by hiring an unlikely ally
17:27 as his director of operations, Jim Barnett.
17:30 - In 1983, they have the annual meeting,
17:34 all the promoters are there.
17:37 Barnett comes in, so does Vince McMahon Jr.
17:40 And they both give their resignations.
17:46 That couldn't be good.
17:49 What the (beep) is gonna happen?
17:51 They were all blindsided for sure.
17:54 When they resign from the NWA,
17:56 that would mean they're either gonna get out of wrestling
17:58 or they're gonna run opposition.
17:59 That's the only two things it can mean.
18:02 And that seems to indicate that they're gonna go
18:04 into business for themselves,
18:05 with themselves in some other fashion.
18:09 Oley smelled it.
18:10 He said, "Okay, then the gloves are gonna be off."
18:13 Well, the problem was you couldn't handle
18:16 the wrestling business in 1983 and '84
18:19 like you handled it in 1953 and '54.
18:22 And secondly, Vince wasn't gonna play that game.
18:26 He had one of the most powerful wrestling personalities
18:30 of the last 30 years in his corner
18:32 who knew absolutely everybody.
18:35 - Barnett hated Oley.
18:38 And Barnett also was looking at survival.
18:40 He was getting up there in age,
18:41 but he needed to keep working.
18:43 He needed to keep that income coming in
18:45 to maintain the facade that he was a millionaire.
18:49 - I had Bob Roop, 13-year amateur wrestler,
18:52 15-year professional wrestler,
18:54 five-time Hall of Fame member.
18:57 So, Ben Senior asked Oley to come up and meet with Junior
19:03 and see if they could make some kind of arrangement.
19:06 And Oley said, "No."
19:07 He said, "Absolutely not.
19:09 "He's trying to steal my territories and stuff."
19:12 There was this unspoken agreement
19:14 that people honored each other's territory.
19:17 I'm sure Barnett was talking to McMahon right away
19:19 and starting to sabotage Georgia Championship.
19:23 Things started to happen around that time
19:27 that had never happened before.
19:29 - McMahon would go to a station that we were on.
19:32 We had a show running and offer them 2,000 bucks a week
19:36 to take his show.
19:39 But they had to get rid of Oley's show.
19:41 Nothing on paper.
19:43 There was no contract.
19:44 Nothing said that they had to honor
19:45 the championship wrestling from Georgia.
19:48 So, the station would say, "Okay."
19:51 - Next, you start losing buildings.
19:53 You call to check on the building
19:54 and see how ticket sales are going.
19:56 They say, "Well, we stopped selling them."
19:58 Bunch of police cars roll up outside the TV station.
20:01 "Take somebody away."
20:03 They got an anonymous tip that he's dealing drugs.
20:07 Or they're searching the guys at the airport.
20:09 Things that just had never happened before
20:11 that were just a constant thorn in his side
20:13 and making things difficult to operate.
20:16 More so than usual.
20:18 - Is it certain that this was all
20:19 Vince McMahon Jr.'s doing?
20:21 - I don't think he ever had any proof
20:23 and I don't know how he would.
20:24 But, like I say, it was stuff
20:26 that never happened until then.
20:28 - Vince was infiltrating everybody's territory.
20:31 Vince got the USA Network time slot
20:36 from Southwest Championship Wrestling,
20:38 another regional promotion out of San Antonio.
20:40 - Ladies and gentlemen,
20:42 the US Tag Team Champions.
20:43 - They couldn't afford the slot anymore.
20:45 Vince jumped in and took it.
20:47 And All-American Wrestling debuted on the USA Network.
20:51 He would call different promoters and say,
20:53 "Hey, I've got this cable show now.
20:55 If you'll send me tapes,
20:57 then I'll put your wrestlers on it
20:59 and I'll get them over to a whole new audience."
21:02 But the people that he was getting the tapes of
21:04 and showing are people that he wanted to sign for the WWF.
21:09 He gets the Junkyard Dog from Mid-South Wrestling.
21:13 He gets Steamboat from the Carolinas.
21:15 He got Kerry Von Erich in Dallas.
21:19 - He was buying out talent from other areas.
21:23 You know, Hulk Hogan was on top in the AWA for Vern
21:27 and all of a sudden he went to New York.
21:30 - Hulk Hogan shows up to win the WWF Championship
21:35 from the Iron Sheik in Madison Square Garden.
21:39 Now Vince has the superhero on the top of his cards
21:44 that he wants to put in every arena in the country
21:47 and all over television to lead his national expansion.
21:51 He knew that if you controlled teams
21:53 and all the top wrestlers,
21:55 and that's what he wanted to corner.
21:59 - Everything had been done a certain way
22:01 and now everything was different.
22:03 And Vince was public enemy number one.
22:05 Some of the promoters and they're talking about,
22:06 "What if we put a hit on the guy?"
22:08 And you know, it's a wild story.
22:10 I don't doubt that it's true at all
22:13 because you know, like these are bad dudes.
22:17 Just like, you know, Vince is breaking the rules.
22:20 - Through Barnett's calculated maneuvering,
22:22 Vince has seized TV time from promotions across the country.
22:26 But one remains for the taking,
22:29 Georgia Championship Wrestling
22:30 and its nationwide slot on WTBS.
22:34 - And when Barnett comes to him
22:36 with a grudge against Ole Anderson,
22:39 who has the widest distribution
22:42 of any television program in wrestling
22:45 and Barnett says to Vince,
22:48 "I think I can get it for you."
22:49 And that's all he needed to hear.
22:51 If he could take over and control television
22:55 across the country,
22:56 then he could take over every territory in the country.
23:06 - While Vince McMahon scoops up talent
23:08 in TV spots from territories across the country,
23:11 Ole Anderson tries to hold
23:13 Georgia Championship Wrestling together
23:15 by any means necessary.
23:17 - Maybe Ole thought he could do everything
23:19 at that point in time,
23:21 but Georgia Wrestling, it still had the reputation,
23:24 but the product was starting to suffer.
23:27 - Yeah, I think he was trying to run a business
23:29 with second tier guys, people that weren't gonna draw.
23:33 I mean, he'd employed just about everybody
23:36 in the business at one point or another,
23:38 and it was those guys who were now working for Vince
23:41 in WWF and becoming his superstars,
23:44 leaving my father just scratching around for leftovers,
23:47 and that just wasn't gonna sell tickets.
23:49 - Ole had changed the concept
23:52 where we weren't bringing in a lot of outside talent.
23:56 Our live events were not drawing the money
23:58 because we weren't spending the money on the talent
24:00 that we were spending on before,
24:02 and the top guys quit wanting to come to our territory.
24:06 And we were actually getting phone calls
24:08 from some of the top talent around the country,
24:11 "Hey, what's going on?
24:11 "You better watch Ole."
24:14 And not only took their word for it,
24:15 but we're out there on several big shows
24:18 and experienced that the payoffs weren't the same.
24:22 - Frustrated that their investment
24:23 is no longer paying dividends,
24:25 the Briscos decide Ole isn't cut out to manage the company,
24:29 but in order to push out Ole,
24:31 they will have to get their fellow shareholders
24:33 to agree with a majority vote.
24:36 - We called a stockholders meeting
24:38 'cause we were gonna take over Ole's dictatorship
24:41 and do it ourself.
24:43 And we flew into town,
24:45 already met with the lawyers,
24:46 and the lawyers said,
24:47 "Guys, you can't do this stockholders meeting.
24:49 "It's illegal," because we didn't state a purpose.
24:51 The meeting got put off, of course,
24:53 so we went back to the hotel and wanted to drown our sorrows
24:56 so we were sitting in the hotel bar.
24:58 And who all of a sudden shows up in this bar
25:01 is Ole Anderson.
25:03 His purpose struck us down
25:04 to find out what the hell we were planning on doing.
25:08 And we weren't shy.
25:09 We laid out that we're here to take you out of office.
25:11 - Wanna know how much money there is in the bank.
25:17 He tells them, "Well, why can't you pay it out?"
25:19 And so I'm sure for the hundredth time,
25:23 he tries to explain to them
25:25 how you've gotta have some operating capital
25:28 to run this business.
25:29 You know, I've gotta pay deposits on buildings.
25:31 I've gotta pay for advertising.
25:33 I gotta buy plane tickets.
25:35 Once we get another 100,000 in the bank,
25:37 then I'll write the dividend checks.
25:39 Of course I want to.
25:40 I'll get one too.
25:41 - We were done drinking as much as we could drink
25:46 and argued as much as we could argue.
25:48 And, "Ole, I'll come up to the room with you.
25:51 "I got a deal for you."
25:52 He said, "Okay, well, listen, one last pitch."
25:54 "Ole, you were going to God,
25:56 "yeah, I got this deal with you.
25:58 "If you guys agree, let's do a blood office."
26:00 So we're all on the same page.
26:02 - The deal was, if anybody was gonna sell stock,
26:07 they had to offer it to the other shareholders
26:10 in Georgia Championship Wrestling first
26:13 before they could sell it to anybody else.
26:15 My dad has a little pocket knife,
26:19 sticks it in his head, gigs it down, gets some color.
26:25 They look at him like, "Oh my God, what's wrong with you?"
26:29 - Ole, my word means more than blood.
26:33 I mean, to me, I mean, if I give you my word,
26:35 I'm gonna live up to it.
26:36 I don't need these little gimmicks to certify my honesty.
26:41 Probably took him about 10 minutes
26:45 to convince Jack and I to do the same thing.
26:48 (laughs)
26:50 That was the only solution to our problem.
26:53 - We just got ourselves to bleed on each other.
26:56 - My dad was such a man of his word
26:59 that if he shook your hand and said
27:00 he was gonna do anything, he would do it.
27:02 He believed people because he would never tell a lie.
27:07 - As part of the blood oath agreement,
27:11 the Briscoes will focus on increasing ticket sales
27:14 in exchange for regular payouts,
27:16 but the deal doesn't last for long.
27:19 - So first one to break the oath was Ole
27:21 because he quit paying us what he agreed to pay us.
27:23 So we felt that we had an open water there
27:26 to do what we wanted to do.
27:28 That lit a fire under us that if we stick
27:30 in this situation too much longer,
27:31 we're not gonna have anything.
27:33 - Desperate to cash out, the Briscoes begin shopping
27:38 their shares outside of the company,
27:40 starting with Jim Barnett, who turns them down.
27:43 Knowing the Briscoes are looking to sell,
27:46 Barnett knows someone who wants to buy, Vince McMahon.
27:51 - So Vince flew us up to LaGuardia
27:52 and still to this day, I rib Vince
27:54 about flying us up coach.
27:56 (laughing)
27:59 We met in LaGuardia airport.
28:01 He said, "Can you guys deliver me 51% of the territory?"
28:06 And I looked at him and I said, "Yes, sir, I can."
28:08 I had to make a call to Jim Barnett.
28:13 - Jim Barnett knew everybody that owned a piece of Georgia.
28:17 Jim Barnett knew who they liked, who they didn't like,
28:20 what they were mad about, what their weak spots were,
28:22 whatever the case, all Jim Barnett had to do
28:24 was point Vince McMahon in the right direction,
28:27 not only with the Briscoes, but anybody else,
28:29 or talk to them himself.
28:31 He could make you do something you didn't wanna do,
28:35 and by the time he was finished,
28:37 you'd think it was your idea.
28:38 In the end of the negotiations and all the transactions,
28:42 Vince ended up owning 67.5% of Georgia Championship Wrestling
28:49 and held the contract for the television program on TBS.
28:52 - There was an agreement in the Articles of Incorporation
28:56 that before anybody was to sell,
28:57 they had to first offer it to one of the other stockholders.
29:01 And he was told repeatedly by the attorneys
29:04 that that was going to protect him.
29:06 Well, turned out not to be true.
29:08 - Behind the back of Ole Anderson,
29:18 the Briscoes aligned with Jim Barnett
29:20 to give Vince McMahon control
29:22 of Georgia Championship Wrestling,
29:24 a move that will forever reshape the industry.
29:28 - In March of 1984,
29:31 my grandmother passed away very suddenly.
29:33 My father and I go up to Minnesota, Wisconsin,
29:37 and take care of the arrangements and family business.
29:39 He gets a call from the office.
29:41 I think it was Louise who called him.
29:44 - I was in my office,
29:45 and the door opens and Vince walks in.
29:48 Good morning.
29:49 I now own the company.
29:52 I called Ole and told him that Vince had sold the company.
29:58 I thought it was real sneaky.
30:02 It's not that they did it, it's just how they did it.
30:05 - He and I got on a plane right away.
30:10 He parked me in a hotel in Atlanta.
30:12 He immediately met with the lawyers.
30:13 They filed for injunctions,
30:15 and they fought for three or four months
30:17 before it was finally all over,
30:19 that he wanted to stop Vince
30:20 from taking over Georgia Championship.
30:22 - With Ole's legal efforts to block the takeover thwarted,
30:26 all that's left for him to do is concede.
30:30 - There was a deal in the bylaws for our corporation
30:34 that said if a majority of the stockholders
30:36 decide to change all the damn rules
30:38 that are written up here, they can do that.
30:40 And they just changed all the rules
30:42 that we'd been going by for years.
30:44 So we lost it because Barnett was smart enough
30:46 to realize that he could have done it.
30:47 I didn't know.
30:48 - I can remember the Saturday morning TV at TBS Studios,
30:51 Vince McMahon is in the building.
30:54 It's the only time I've ever been in the same room
30:55 as Vince McMahon to this day.
30:58 But from there, the fight was on.
31:00 - Vince was still at that point trying to talk to Ole
31:03 because Vince is a guy that used to get in his own way
31:06 and used to being able to talk people
31:07 into anything he wants them to do.
31:09 - I think Vince would say, "Ole, Ole, I'll give you a job."
31:13 Tried to tell him over and over,
31:14 "It's just business, it's just business."
31:16 Vince says, "Ole, I'd like you to meet my wife, Linda."
31:20 Well, my dad in a typical fashion responds,
31:24 "You know what, (beep) you and (beep) Linda."
31:27 - Despite Ole's fury, few outside the company
31:33 are even aware of the change in ownership
31:35 until Vince McMahon takes to the airwaves.
31:38 - So I go in there on this particular Saturday
31:41 and there's this guy standing there with his arms folded
31:43 and he's making this face.
31:44 As it turns out, the man was Vincent K. McMahon.
31:51 None of the talent knew anything.
31:54 It was all in or off of stuff.
31:55 Nobody knew who sold to what
31:57 or who was on what side or nothing.
31:59 The camera guys and all them, they didn't have a clue.
32:02 - I got a call, was told not to come to TV,
32:05 that we weren't gonna be taping that day.
32:07 - I didn't go to TV on Saturday that Saturday
32:09 because I just got fired.
32:12 Vince had a meeting with all the talent that was here
32:16 and he said, "None of you have jobs anymore."
32:18 He said, "If we wanna use you, we'll contact you."
32:21 And that was it, it was over.
32:22 - The wrestling program on TBS
32:26 had been an institution for years.
32:28 Every wrestling fan that was able to get cable
32:30 at that point in time
32:32 was gonna watch Georgia Wrestling every Saturday.
32:35 July 14th, 1984, they turn on World Championship Wrestling
32:40 and they didn't see Gordon Soley,
32:42 they see Freddie Miller.
32:44 - Hello everybody and welcome
32:45 to World Championship Wrestling.
32:47 - Freddie Miller introduced Vince McMahon.
32:50 - Here's Vince McMahon.
32:51 Vince, thank you very much, Freddie.
32:52 Welcome.
32:54 - When Freddie Miller introduced Vince
32:55 and just the silence of the dead air time,
33:00 no crackling fan, no nothing.
33:03 - Let's take you now to Minneapolis
33:05 and Jesse "The Body" Ventura.
33:07 - They started showing videotapes of matches
33:10 from other WWF television programs
33:13 and other WWF arenas and TV shoots.
33:15 - One of the many stars here
33:17 in the World Wrestling Federation.
33:18 - The fans of Georgia Wrestling,
33:21 they practically rioted.
33:23 (dramatic music)
33:26 - They were just bombarding the TBS switchboards.
33:29 "We want our wrestling."
33:31 - Tommy Wildfire, it's just exploded on--
33:33 - Georgia Wrestling was a lot different
33:35 than Vince's wrestling.
33:36 (gunshots)
33:37 Vince brought his style down here
33:39 and I don't think they bought it
33:41 or just didn't like it 'cause it wasn't homeboys.
33:44 So I think that they just wasn't buying
33:48 what he was selling.
33:49 - He didn't want the Georgia Wrestling territory.
33:52 All he wanted was that TV.
33:54 - And I'm getting excited
33:55 because I'm seeing a new future starting to be made there.
33:58 I call it Green Saturday because it changed my fortune.
34:03 But obviously a lot of fans that were fans,
34:07 true fans of Georgia's Championship Wrestling
34:09 didn't see it the same way I saw it.
34:10 - Ousted from the promotion he helped build,
34:15 Oley makes no secret of his resentment.
34:18 - If Jack and Jerry had agreed with him
34:21 to wait things out a few more months
34:23 and then take advantage of the time
34:25 when he's dealing with his mother's funeral
34:28 to sell out behind his back,
34:30 I think that that would have really impacted his opinion
34:34 strongly for quite a while to the negative.
34:37 - And I was pissed at Briscoes
34:39 and they got whatever money they got.
34:42 - Oley had supposedly hired an armed guard
34:45 to stand there and actually do body harm to us
34:48 if we tried to get in the office.
34:49 Not the promoter, but Paul Jones, the old rasser,
34:53 called and said, "There's supposedly a hit man
34:55 "out on you guys.
34:56 "For two days, be very careful where you go
34:59 "and who you associate with because I think it's real."
35:02 (dramatic music)
35:05 - Oley Anderson is on the hunt for revenge
35:11 as rumors circulate about a potential plot
35:14 to have the Briscoes killed.
35:16 - We waited the two days, nothing happened to us
35:19 and we threw one of the biggest parties we ever thrown.
35:22 - You think he would have done that?
35:23 - No.
35:24 - First of all, he would have never got rid of the money.
35:26 And secondly, he would have done it himself.
35:29 He would have never asked anybody else to do it.
35:31 He would have been glad to do it himself.
35:34 - The only negative way that I think it affected us
35:36 is the loss of friendship and the negative things
35:39 that were said about me.
35:40 The threats that my brother and I got
35:42 during this time frame too was phenomenal.
35:45 I mean, our families were receiving phone calls,
35:48 you know, that we were no good, backstabber.
35:51 It was a very rough deal.
35:52 - Determined to keep the spirit of Georgia Championship
35:56 Wrestling alive, Oley sells his shares
35:59 and starts his own promotion.
36:01 - Oley was able to work out a deal.
36:02 He called up Vince and said,
36:04 Vince, I'm gonna sell you my piece too.
36:06 Which, you know, I guess, thank you Vince,
36:08 because Vince could very easily have just said,
36:11 okay, I'm closing up.
36:13 Your shares aren't worth anything.
36:15 - Oley went to Ted Turner directly and he said,
36:17 hey, the people wanna see the Georgia Wrestling
36:20 and the Georgia Wrestlers and I've got them.
36:22 Give me another time slot.
36:25 - And when I went to Ted Turner later on,
36:27 I said, who do you think's been winning this damn thing
36:30 for the last eight, nine years?
36:32 Me.
36:33 - So he gave Oley Saturday morning at 7.30.
36:35 - A very spirited crowd here today
36:38 at the WTBS Sports Arena.
36:40 We're very proud to bring you once again
36:42 Championship Wrestling from Georgia.
36:44 - While Oley attempts to mount a comeback,
36:47 Vince is struggling to connect with Georgia viewers.
36:50 - They were used to seeing a certain style
36:52 and it wasn't something that they'd seen before.
36:54 - They didn't know who these guys were.
36:56 They didn't care.
36:57 They were looking for the people they knew.
36:59 - Vince is getting crowded out
37:01 of the Saturday night time slot.
37:03 Turner's on his ass.
37:04 It's not doing him the good
37:06 that he thought it was gonna do him.
37:07 This is one of the first
37:08 and only Vince McMahon complete failures.
37:12 - Looking to offload his valuable WTBS time slot,
37:16 McMahon once again turns to Jim Barnett to land a deal.
37:20 Barnett finds a buyer
37:21 in one of McMahon's other major competitors,
37:24 Jim Crockett Promotions.
37:26 - How long did Vince's run last on TBS?
37:28 - One year.
37:29 Turner was gonna kick Vince off
37:31 as soon as he legally could.
37:33 And so Barnett opened the door to Crockett,
37:34 you know, that TBS time slot.
37:36 At the time, it probably sounded like a great deal.
37:39 - Vince will sell the time slot on Saturday night
37:43 on TBS to Jim Crockett Promotions
37:46 and Vince McMahon would get a million dollars.
37:50 And everybody becomes happy with that.
37:52 So, with Barnett putting all the pieces together,
37:56 Vince McMahon temporarily monopolizes cable TV wrestling
38:00 in the United States, but is a failure at that.
38:03 So he uses that flop to make money to finance WrestleMania.
38:08 Where he then started on the road
38:13 to put every other promoter out of business.
38:15 - The wrestling extravaganza of all time, WrestleMania.
38:20 - All in that 80s period, that's where he got the big jump.
38:23 WWE became the name brand of pro wrestling.
38:26 And he's got Cindy Lauper,
38:27 and he's building up WrestleMania,
38:28 Hulk Hogan's getting big.
38:29 And he's just shooting way past everybody else.
38:33 And they don't have the outlet to compete with him.
38:36 - Black Saturday forever altered the trajectory
38:40 of the wrestling business.
38:42 Something no one understood better than Ole Anderson.
38:46 - Almost like he had just cleared his desk off
38:49 and scraped everything into it.
38:50 Honestly, the state my father is in today,
38:53 I don't know that he can hate anybody, sadly enough.
38:56 But I think he held a grudge against Vince for a long time.
38:59 I'm just trying to see what all I got here.
39:03 - Bill Watts, himself a pioneering promoter
39:06 in Mid-South wrestling, writes a letter to Ole in 1987,
39:10 reflecting upon the significance of Black Saturday.
39:13 - "Dear Ole, I know actions and words once said
39:16 or done cannot be recalled.
39:18 You were seeing the beginning of the metamorphosis of change
39:21 of the very fiber of our business,
39:23 all precipitated by McMahon, in my opinion.
39:26 I certainly agree his legacy will be the destruction
39:29 of an industry as we know it or knew it."
39:32 - After the Black Saturday incident,
39:36 Barnett was Vince's right-hand man.
39:39 But Barnett was still more old-time wrestling.
39:42 And Vince wanted to be modern.
39:45 And somewhere in '87, they had a difference of opinion.
39:49 And Vince let Barnett go.
39:51 (gentle music)
39:54 - Jim Barnett only worked for WWF
40:00 for a fraction of his long career.
40:03 But his actions during the company's expansion
40:05 helped solidify a new way of doing business in wrestling,
40:09 the Vince McMahon way.
40:11 - Vince McMahon, for 40 years, he made his business
40:15 based on taking TV time slots or companies
40:20 out from under people, doing takeovers,
40:24 buying stock, issuing stock,
40:27 public offering of the WWE that made him a billionaire.
40:30 But his downfall eventually came through the same way.
40:35 You know, there's an old saying,
40:36 "What goes around comes around."
40:39 And/or (beep) around and (beep) around,
40:40 pretty soon you won't be around.
40:42 - Well, Vince had, it came out in the Wall Street Journal
40:46 that he had allegations of paying certain women off,
40:49 you know, non-disclosure agreements for infidelities
40:52 and, you know, even worse.
40:53 - McMahon paid a former employee $3 million
40:58 to keep her quiet.
40:59 - You take a picture of Vince McMahon
41:02 and that there is the reason why
41:04 there is a human resources now in companies.
41:08 That is the reason why.
41:10 As far as revolutionizing our business, yes, he did.
41:14 Is there a dark side and a bad side?
41:16 Yes, there damn sure is.
41:18 There was enough of an embarrassment to the company
41:21 that Vince stepped down.
41:22 - They forced him out of the company
41:25 because his son-in-law and his daughter
41:27 and all these people that he's worked with and trusted
41:29 were saying, "Vince, you got to go.
41:30 "This is not gonna do the stock price any good.
41:33 "It's not gonna do our business any good.
41:34 "You got to step aside."
41:36 And the thing he learned from the Georgia takeover,
41:39 he still owns 80% of the company.
41:43 So, after six months, then he comes back
41:47 in a whirlwind of action.
41:50 - Let me just say, I made mistakes, obviously,
41:52 in both personally and professionally
41:54 through my 50-year career.
41:56 Owned up to every single one of them and then moved on.
41:59 - And then announces, "I'm coming back
42:00 "'cause we're gonna sell this son of a bitch."
42:03 And the time is right.
42:06 - Endeavor announcing WWE and UFC will combine
42:09 to form a $21 billion global live sports
42:12 and entertainment company.
42:13 - And that's what worries all the wrestling fans.
42:16 Say what you want about Vince,
42:17 at least it was the family business.
42:19 He's done it for 50 years.
42:21 Now Endeavor, what mental romantic attachment
42:26 do they have to the wrestling business?
42:29 To its history, to keeping it alive?
42:31 We're gonna lose a lot of history
42:33 and we're gonna lose the last vestige
42:37 of what old-time professional wrestling was for 100 years.
42:41 - I think Black Saturday was kind of a tipping point
42:44 in the wrestling business.
42:45 That was the moment it started to evolve
42:48 away from the wrestling business and into show business.
42:52 Black Saturday in and of itself
42:54 wasn't a groundbreaking moment.
42:57 It was the canary in the coal mine.
43:00 - That's the guy that put anywhere from hundreds
43:03 to maybe thousands of wrestlers out of work.
43:06 - Didn't Vince make a lot of those guys millionaires though?
43:09 - Maybe 3% of them.
43:14 The other 9%, 10% didn't get to work anymore.
43:18 - That's when all the change is going on
43:20 and you can't go back.
43:22 I mean, and that's life.
43:23 Just times change, you know?
43:25 And I'm just holding on to them 80s.
43:27 - Do you think guys like Barnett, Jack, Jerry Briscoe,
43:32 do people blame them for the demise of the territories?
43:36 - I don't think they blame the Briscoes,
43:37 but they definitely blamed Vince.
43:40 But it was the move.
43:42 It was the move to make.
43:43 - Who killed the territories was cable television.
43:46 And that would have been with Vince McMahon
43:47 or without Vince McMahon.
43:48 If it wasn't Vince McMahon going national,
43:50 it would have been Vern Garnier or Jim Crockett.
43:52 And they wouldn't have done as well as Vince did.
43:54 Somebody was gonna be successful.
43:56 Wrestling wasn't gonna go away.
43:57 But would they have been successful as Vince McMahon was?
44:00 I'm gonna say no.
44:01 (dramatic music)
44:03 (gentle music)
44:06 (gentle music)
44:09 (gentle music)
44:11 (gentle music)
44:14 (gentle music)
44:16 (gentle music)
44:19 (gentle music)
44:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]