Introduction
In 1987, the Crockett family and booker Dusty Rhodes built on the fruits of that labor as they aggressively tried to keep the party going. They continued to promote what they knew (Horsemen! Dusty! Rock & Roll!), chased new territory (New York! Chicago!), bought Bill Watts’ UWF, and tried out a new guy as World Champion – briefly. It resulted in a year with as much quality and excitement as the one prior, though not the consistency and financial success.
It feels like a bridge between JCP’s sublime run in ’86 and an eventful ’88, but the influence of ’87 remains to this day: Rhodes, Flair, and the Four Horsemen reigned on top, while Sting, Lex Luger, and Jim Ross from Norman, Oklahoma were introduced to the masses.
This is a Year in Review (and other stuff too!) of Jim Crockett Promotions in 1987 based mostly on footage from the WWE Network: the wrestling, wrestlers, promos, platform, stories and standout stuff – generally, all that a year of pro wrestling made a fellow think and feel.
What Already Happened
JCP Angles, Promos, Matches and Squashes Worth Watching in 1986
Jim Cornette and “#1” Paul Jones ate losses and The Rock & Roll Express won back the Tag Team Titles, but JCP always kept its’ bad guys’ strongest: Dusty lost the TV Title to Tully Blanchard, Ron Garvin couldn’t put down Cornette’s Big Bubba, and Jones’ new team beat Rock & Roll a week later.
The transition from ’86 to ’87 was carried by the three B’s: Bunkhouse, Bubba, Barry Windham.
The Wrestlers & What They Did
Also – Lazer-Tron?? There was a man named Lazer-Tron.
’87 begins with The Four Horsemen continuing to carry a show built around them as a tag team tournament in April gives everybody something to talk about as the table is reset: confident Lex Luger charms J.J. Dillon and replaces the “uncommitted” Ole Anderson in the Horsemen, TV Champ Tully Blanchard beats Dusty bloody with a shoe (2/8), and Barry Windham both takes Flair to the limit and teams with Ron Garvin against The Midnight Express.
The major story of the year (besides Flair losing the title for two months) feels like the ascension of Luger, Windham, and eventually Sting as the company’s next big stars. Whether they moved on them faster with the loss of Magnum or not, it’s cool to see play out.
Dusty Rhodes feuds with Tully the first half of the year and Luger the second, while Ric Flair has plenty of mini-feuds but spends most of the Spring with Brad Armstrong, Summer with Jimmy Garvin, and Fall with Ron Garvin.
Arn Anderson spends ‘87 belittling Ole Anderson, wrestling Barry Windham, and eventually forming a tag team with Tully and getting chased by The Road Warriors. It is all great – all of it.
Early in the year Dick Murdoch joins the Russians and turns heel (2/14); a week later (2/21) Cornette throws a fireball in Ron Garvin’s eyes so Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin kicks his ass and turns face. In March pasty losers The Mulkey Brothers win their first ever match on TV and Mulkeymania is born!
In April Dusty & Nikita win the Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup over 23 other tag teams including semi finalists Giant Baba and young Arashi. Also in April Dennis Condrey is replaced in The Midnight Express by “Sweet” Stan Lane, who seamlessly slots in and adds a more athletic/showy dynamic to their matches.
In May there’s another tag tournament, this one for the U.S. Tag Team Titles after Murdoch is suspended for giving Nikita a brainbuster on the floor. The finals are a one-match show (5/16) with Garvin/Windham vs. The Midnight Express and it feels just astoundingly important. In June the Fabulous Freebirds arrive from Badstreet USA while Ravishing Rick Rude heads up North, and The Rock & Roll Express get the World Tag Titles back
Summer’s Great American Bash tour features the first ever WARGAMES!!! which is awesome and violent as promoted – the Horsemen get their asses kicked and J.J. is legit injured. Big Bubba puts on a mask and becomes the War Machine for WarGames II less than a month later in Miami, then J.J. returns to lose WarGames III two weeks later in Chicago. Seems like a lot.
During the Bash Luger wins the U.S. Title from Nikita, Arn & Tully make their team official, Dusty wins $100K in a Barbed Wire Ladder Match, and Flair beats Jimmy Garvin to retain the World Title and win a “Dream Date” with Precious too!
UWF regulars become JCP regulars weekly, from Jim Ross and Missy Hyatt to Dr. Death and Ron Simmons, all while UWF continued to run shows with Big Bubba as champ. UWF TV gets play too, including footage of Murdoch and Gilbert injuring Dr. Death‘s arm which is how he’s introduced to the people.
Sting shows up in the Fall mowing people down with the Stinger Splash and screamin’ stuff week after week, and After Gordy and Roberts depart over the summer, Jimmy Garvn slots in as a new Freebird.
Starrcade in November gets setup like this: Dusty questions if he still has it when he fails to beat Luger, Nikita beats Tully foe the TV Title (8/29) and is challenged by UWF TV Champ Terry Taylor, and The Midnight Express helps Arn & Tully win the Tag Titles from the Rock & Roll Express.
Also, Ron Garvin beats Flair for the World Title. The crowds are SO unbelievably excited whenever this all business working man throws hands at the Horsemen, especially after he spent all of ’86 selling an injury to his hand. As a short-term twist in the Ric Flair run I liked it, though I’m still not convinced he was ever actually popular. Watch the TV though… it kind of all does make sense for a little.
Prior to Starrcade, Kevin Sullivan cuts a series of confusing promos that inexplicably make him the Starrcade hype man before he notices a few newcomers like Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner in need of guidance. UWF TV Champ Terry Taylor calls out Nikita Koloff, Chris Adams, and uhhh Shane Douglas too.
The Sheepherders and Johnny Ace debuts, Big Bubba Rogers returns behind Cornette, and Paul Jones introduces the shockingly friendly Mighty Wilbur. Jones picks fights with everybody from the Road Warriors to Bugsy McGraw to Wilbur himself, who doesn’t work out.
Starrcade ’87 was the first held outside Greensboro, but concluded status quo: Ric Flair regains the World Title, Dusty wins the U.S. Title, Nikita Koloff unifies the TV Titles, and for some insane reason Arn & Tully kept the Tag Titles after a DQ with The Road Warriors in CHICAGO.
The approach of keeping the bad guys escaping on top could keep matches fresh: Bash ’85 and Starrcade ‘86 shared top programs, for example. It also kept good guys from that big cathartic win, which as time went on meant more creative finishes to get out of a simple win or loss. Some overbearing efforts to slip by a satisfying conclusion to led to dwindling returns as the year went on… AKA they pissed people off.
After Starrcade, JCP kept moving (11/28): The New Freebirds are #1 contenders for the Tag Titles, Arn & Tully are cocky as hell, Nikita tosses aside the UWF TV Title, Zbyszko is talking shit, Kevin Sullivan’s charms are working, and Sting CALLS OUT RIC FLAIR!
The camera also zooms in on Lex Luger as Arn Andwrson rants about “some” of the Horsemen being too focused on Hollywood to keep their belts at Starrcade. Flair plays middle man and refuses to even publicly recognize a problem as Lex protests and Arn looks more livid than he has ever been.
By year-end Luger is a babyface, Jim Ross is a regular, and Sting is just BEGGING Flair for a title shot!
The Approach
An effort to maintain credibility at all times spans matches, gimmicks, decisions, promos. When Ron Garvin is blinded by a fireball (2/21), everyone has a thought. Men in tights hurt each other in the ring but men in suits make decisions out of it, and sometimes those men in tights put on suits to assist with those decisions. J.J. Dillon acts not as just a ringside manager but the man who books the Horsemen’s travel, negotiates match contracts, and I guess sets up their bang sessions at the hotel.
If the Horsemen beat somebody up, production and the handheld camera filming made it look good and gritty: a car door slammed on Dusty Rhodes’ arm in a parking lot or Ole Anderson left lying on a filthy bathroom floor (3/21) may not have played on MTV but feels like the best possible wrestling there is.
It wasn’t just the competition and violence, but the simplicity and straightforwardness of it. The feuds are personal, and with a straight face those involved can easily explain why their disagreement DOES call for an insane 10-man double Steel Cage monstrosity called WarGames. It’s less the wrestlers and more the overt promise of pain though that’s being promoted more than anything too.
JCP’s response to the monstrous WWF was equal parts thirsty and ballsy. Their trips out of the South weren’t usually financial wins, even if it probably felt awesome to say on TV they’d be going to the Nassau Coliseum the night before Starrcade and Dusty probably loved working the Celtics’ Garden. The trip to Chicago for Starrcade wasn’t smart, and threats from the WWF tanked its’ PPV buyrate too.
They struck gold with WarGames as a concept but it somehow feels stale by end of year. The pressure and art of delivering something without actually delivering anything could get to JCP, who protected the roster as far as not pinning their shoulders down but also wasn’t afraid to throw out ALL the gimmicks to make things temporarily exciting. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it overdid it.
The Florida Heavyweight, Western States Heritage, all of the UWF’s, and a bunch of other regional titles are more prominent. They didn’t touch JCP main events, but gave the midcard something to talk about and helped build guys to headline JCP-friendly territories.
Lazer-Tron aside, the Crockett’s make other attempts at capturing some kind of new… I don’t know, demographic? Phenomenon? Source of revenue?? Besides t-shirts and the Spam Slam of the Week, more effort was given towards if not production quality then production bells and whistles: sound effects, picture-in-picture, Medieval Time-themed WarGames commercial. Towards the end of the year, Crockett begins promoting “The Wrestling Network” which did not make it far.
The women’s division has two matches on the studio show all year: in one (2/28) the camera zooms in on champion Misty Blue‘s butt while she applies chinlocks until the Four Horsemen interrupt, and in the other (7/11) TV time runs out while she’s applying a chinlock. That’s literally it.
If it wasn’t obvious, JCP could be needy and off-putting too. Yeah, yeah – wrestling.. still. It’s a wrestling person’s wrestling show, probably a tough sell for another person. There’s a lot of holds and singlets, you know? Acme people should just watch this for the best promos and matches, not the whole shows – get me?
The Wrestling
There are plenty of matches that go too long for their (or my) own good, but with easy access to the still semi-vibrant territory system the art of wrestling remained on TV: rope-running, hold-trading, babyface fire, clever finishes, punches, timing, tag teams, HEAT! Promos and angles set a tone, but mostly the wrestlers just wrestled.
A larger roster meant less familiarity, so the work doesn’t always feel as tight even if the variety is welcome. Lex Luger is clearly instructed to up his intensity right away, while Sean Royal tries one of those crazy corner post bumps once to try and fit in. Not sure if it’s a plus or minus that at one point Condrey, Murdoch, and Jimmy Garvin were all doing a brainbuster as their finisher.
TV studio squash matches rule, in moderation. Receiving a few chops from Wahoo McDaniel may be more appealing than one of his Celebrations of the Chinlock, but the approach of 10-12 jobbers getting slaughtered week after week does a lot to make everybody seem like they matter. This combined with charisma and whatnot makes all the times everybody “just wrestles” in the arena seem like the biggest god damn deal there ever was.
The Horsemen, Road Warriors, Ron Garvin, and Midnight Express are most consistent, masters of doing the work while getting their whole deal over. Arn spends 90% of a match on July 4th just rubbing a poor guy’s face in the mat.
The Platform
Tony Schiavone and David Crockett handle commentary most of the year: Tony plays both the amused acquaintance of both good guys and bad as well as the straight man who keeps us excited and on track, while David’s the excited fanboy and Crockett younger brother who pretends he does all that. He’s occasionally adorable but mostly the guy running off the cool kids, and UWF host Jim Ross’ outside sports analyst approach felt more natural for the tone JCP was going for – he replaces David by end of year.
In addition to the Bash ’87 and Starrcade ’87 VHS tapes, JCP released The Danger Zone as well which is promoted with a truly astonishing commercial where Magnum T.A. and Missy Hyatt hawk a free calendar as random People on the Street explain how the tape is “a lot more than just watching a match… you see them as human beings.”
The Promos
Dusty, Flair, Tully, Arn, Ole, J.J., and Cornette are just a few of the artists that talk the folks through ’87 with passion, anger, revenge, glee, and more often than not legit comedy. 75% of the JCP studio promos are just stand-up sets really. They’re also some of the greatest promos in wrestling history.
Dusty secures a wrestling fan’s love and attention with a careful cadence; Flair artfully mocks and talks up his opponents simultaneously – an obsessive, competitive, and insecure walking talking example of toxic masculinity. The improvisation, wit, and one-liners required of everybody up and down the card very quickly separates the good from the great to the best of all time.
Even when the one-liners aren’t great, most of the roster inhabited their character so well that it didn’t matter – if they didn’t do even that, they could usually just get away with being plainspoken dorks because the sports-like atmosphere allowed for it.
When it was time to promote a big thing, there was no better crew. Everyone wants to fight during Bash season, while Starrcade has everyone on the card filled with passion or at least an opinion week after week – whether about their rivalry or whatever Flair and Dusty were doing.
Random Happy Thoughts on JCP 1987
Dusty Rhodes splits time early in the year with a trip to the Boston Garden against Big Bubba Rogers in a Steel Cage, headlining and occasionally winning Bunkhouse Stampede matches, tagging with Nikita Koloff as the Super Powers, and reacting to Dick Murdoch turning on not just him but AMERICA!!
Bob & Brad Armstrong make it a few rounds deep in the Crockett Cup before losing an incredible match with Tully & Luger. Any appearance by The Bullet is welcome but it’s young Brad who gets a series with no less than Ric Flair. A phenomenal angle sees Brad pay for standing up for himself after Flair completely disregards him and interrupts interview time (1/25).
The Jimmy Garvin and Dick Murdoch turns are both quality old school angles, an entire year of angles milked out of the former and a a handful of matches out of the latter. Jim Cornette blinds Ron Garvin with a FIREBALL! (2/21) and the look of concern and “drop of the act” by usually sleazy Gorgeous Jimmy for his brother sells the angle. As Ron is checked on backstage by all the good guys, Jimmy rushes at and KICKS THE DOOR IN of the heel locker room before going after Cornette. It feels like an episode of Cheaters or something.
Local one-off promotions result in plenty of neat mini-stories throughout the year too: The Road Warriors return to Minnesota and face The Russians, The Midnight Express vs. the hometown Mulkey Brothers in South Carolina, and Dusty Rhodes vs. Bill Dundee in Memphis are just a few.
Greensboro (6/6) is setup with two great angles (5/23): before contract signings were overplayed, the Horsemen, Dusty and Crockett rented a conference room and hammered out terms for a match with $100K and the TV Title on the line. Cash is stacked on the table and J.J. is such a LAWYER here: more impressive than how over-the-top things could get in JCP was how guys like Dillon just LIVED it with every line delivered. “Now let’s establish if Mr. Rhodes even HAS $50,000…”
Later (5/23) the Horsemen injure Dusty’s leg using a steel briefcase filled with the money / Dusty and Ricky Morton clinging to each other afterwards as Dusty reacts to a possible broken leg is such unbelievably good wrestling.
The TV on the afternoon of WarGames (7/4) has a lot going on: pasty shirtless J.J. Dillon proves himself a competitor doing terrible versions of Horsemen finishers, Dr. Death trains for his return from injury and a shot at Big Bubba, and Mike Rotunda goes to a 15-minute draw with Dory Funk Jr. before a sneak attack from freakin’ Black Assassin.
The Ric Flair/Precious Dream Date (7/25) is gold: J.J. explains to the (hired?) cameraman he wants everything filmed no matter how hot and heavy it gets – both creepy and logical, the NWA way. Flair chills at a hotel suite pool as J.J. prepares the room, like this is a regular thing they do. A faceless blonde comes in and knocks Flair out, then J.J. begs for mercy until he’s tossed in the pool.
Back from break J.J. he walks to the podium all confident with a piece of paper that he says is a legal order to not show the tape: “No problem, right?” “There is one problem,” says Tony. “We’ve already shown the tape” – WOOOOOO!
The crowd loses it for an angle (8/8) where Flair keeps young Rocky King trapped in a figure-four until Ron Garvin comes to the rescue and the first thing he does is LOCKUP with Flair. The Horsemen attack and Garvin holds his own, wildly throwing punches until he’s overwhelmed. Even Dusty shakes his hand afterwards like, “damn bubba good work.”
Flair’s response (8/15) is unhinged, stomping around the studio and screaming about Garvin not being ready to do what he does: wear a thousand suits, manage a financial empire, and sleep with any lady who wants to go to bed with The Champ – WOOOOOO!
As the team with Arn ramps up, Tully entertains challenges for the TV Title from Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, and Nikita Koloff. Ricky slaps him in the face (8/1) but can’t win the title, while Barry helps Nikita overcome interference, brass knucks, and a ref bump to do just that (8/29).
The Arn & Tully vs. Rock & Roll Express feud on TV is quicker than you’d expect, a 30-minute draw (9/19) followed by a pretty great belt whipping angle (9/26). Arn & Tully win the titles in a match (10/10) where Gibson has to valiantly wrestle alone after the Midnight Express attack Ricky. Gibson tries to prove he’s as good as Morton was at selling here – watch him curl up on the mat when his shoulder is driven into the turnbuckle.
Ron Garvin beats Ric Flair for the World Title in a Steel Cage at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit (9/25). The studio show (9/25) runs as normal, then cuts in with five minutes left to a bloody Flair landing nuts-first on the ropes before Garvin leaps off the top rope with a sunset flip and just WINS! It just HAPPENS!! The comeback didn’t get much, but the 3 gets a tremendous delayed but sustained shock reaction and Garvin’s slow realization and glee over winning is awesome.
The Dusty/Luger Starrcade feud is pretty straightforward, but they complicate it: Old Dust puts his career on the line, but the wording is careful and ends up being just 30 days in the U.S. J.J. demands it’s extended to 90 days and overseas, like there’s an audience that would be swayed by that.
Dusty choosing to up his game by learning the Weaver Lock sleeper from Johnny Weaver is a silly but lovable way to build a match, and J.J. brings in Hiro Matusda to teach Luger the exact same thing – but Japanese. The Weaver/Matsuda showdown (10/17) is incredible, Weaver ready to throw down until he’s bleeding from the mouth and a livid Dusty makes the save. The crowd is SO loud for this.
Heading into 1988
As Lex Luger is on the receiving end of a Horsemen beatdown for daring to disobey Dillon, Ole Anderson returns to make a heroic save and set up Lex & Ole vs. Tully & Arn at The Omni on January 1.
Some of the roster – Tully & Arn included – are also kind of pissed off in real life. There’s more travel and not so much money. A few top guys would jump to the WWF from JCP in ’88, while Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III would eventually decide to just buy the rest.
