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Post by mattywood on Jan 11, 2021 0:32:03 GMT 1
Everything seemed to be normal one morning for the Masked Avatar, that was until he started looking at old wrestling magazines and newsletters that he had collected, and noticed that something seemed fishy.
"World Class has become the top promotion in the USA with Hulk Hogan as the star attraction? And they're based out of New York?"
"The Four Horsemen have been running wild in the WWF, and they're managed by Gary Hart, who is the booker for the WWF?! And the WWF is based in Dallas?"
"The NWA is running out of the Carolinas. Well, finally, something that seems normal... Wait a minute... What is Verne Gagne doing running the NWA?!" "Why on earth are Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba working together in the same company? And they're loyal to each other?! Ricky Steamboat has become one of the top heels in North America, and his attitude outside of the ring makes him an even bigger heel? Where am I?!"
Little did the Masked Avatar realize that while he was asleep, a cosmic shift occurred that wound up somehow landing him on Earth 77, where the pro wrestling landscape is completely different than the one he was accustomed to... not to mention the history of said pro wrestling landscape.
So for those wondering, Elseworld 52 is still a project I would like to complete, but that may take longer than anticipated. This project is something that I've been thinking about recently and was inspired by Fleisch's old Earth 2 beta mod from TEW 2016. I have received his permission, by the way, to go through with this project. I figured that I might be able to churn this out quicker given that it will be a completely different timeline and I can create my own title histories and what not. As it is right now, this project will now be my top priority, while Elseworld 52 will be my side project.
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Post by Asaemon on Jan 11, 2021 18:01:46 GMT 1
So what would be the starting year and starting month of this alternative timeline mod?
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Post by mattywood on Jan 12, 2021 17:41:54 GMT 1
I completely overlooked posting the starting date. But it will be January 1989.
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Post by Asaemon on Jan 12, 2021 18:52:26 GMT 1
I completely overlooked posting the starting date. But it will be January 1989. Cool! I'll add it to the TEW2020 Download Index. |
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Post by mattywood on Jan 22, 2021 18:31:28 GMT 1
Over the next couple of days, I'll be posting the Earth 77 lore that will help set up the mod to where it starts in January 1989. I wrote it before diving headfirst into doing a bunch of work on the mod so that I would have a timeline to build off of when putting together title histories. I'll start with this introductory post: Introduction
The National Wrestling Alliance was the premiere sanctioning body of professional wrestling, and if you wanted to survive as a pro wrestling company, you had to be affiliated with the NWA. However, things began to crack when the WWF (then known as Big Time Wrestling) withdrew from the NWA in 1954 and declared their own World Champion in Gorgeous George after a screwjob finish involving George and Karl Gotch. Depending on who you talk to, World Class Championship Wrestling (now simply World Class Wrestling), headed up by Paul "Pinkie" George and Sam Muchnick, was responsible for what has since become known as the Manhattan Screwjob. However, this wasn't the first time there was trouble between the WWF and WCW. ==The Madison Square Garden Incident==
American professional wrestling had gone from being a legitimate sport to being a carnival sideshow attraction with worked matches in the early 20th century. Eventually, shows were being presented at arenas across the United States, with each region claiming their own local World Champion. Big Time Wrestling had at one time called New York its home dating back to when Jess McMahon founded the organization under the name of Capitol Wrestling in the 1920s after finding success promoting professional wrestling in New York City. However, one week before Christmas in 1934, the fans became rather unruly after it was announced that several wrestlers no-showed the event for what was said to have been the result of double bookings and thus they had "prior engagements." Making things even more complicated was that Jess McMahon had no idea about the no shows until he got to the building. Several wrestlers would later reveal that they were paid a big sum of of money by Paul "Pinkie" George, a promoter from Massachusetts, to no-show the event as he, along with his head booker, Sam Muchnick, had been wanting to take over the New York market after finding success running shows in Boston and Rhode Island.
Things came to a head when a fan threw a full cup of soda at Toots Mondt, then pointed over to another fan who was oblivious due to being caught up in the excitement. Toots Mondt would attack the wrong fan, who rightfully fought back. The already restless crowd became so irate that the NYPD had to call in backup. Thankfully, the police were able to quell the crowd as the show was stopped. Upon learning that the fan he attacked was innocent, Toots Mondt opted not to file charges. And knowing that it was a misunderstanding, the victim also opted not to file charges against Big Time Wrestling's local World Champion. Years later, several wrestlers would claim that the fan who threw the soda was actually a plant hired by Paul "Pinkie" George and Sam Muchnick. However, both men denied it all the way to their last days.
The incident left such a black eye for Capitol Wrestling that Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt had to leave New York and move to Dallas, Texas. They also opted to change the name of their company to Big Time Wrestling. Meanwhile, Paul "Pinkie" George and Sam Muchnick would take over the New York market as part of their regional expansion of World Class Championship Wrestling into the Tri State area. Eventually, the incident would turn out to be a strange blessing in disguise as Big Time Wrestling helped turn the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and the entire state of Texas for that matter, into a wrestling hotbed. |
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Post by mattywood on Jan 23, 2021 23:04:33 GMT 1
==NWA Formation==
Prior to the NWA's founding in 1948, regional wrestling outfits across the United States, as well as those companies that would start up around the world, recognized their own World Champion and had a gentlemen's agreement not to promote in each other's backyards. However, with the ever evolving landscape of communication, promoters agreed that it would serve their best interest to have one World Champion who would travel around the globe defending the title. Thus, a tournament was held, with Lou Thesz being voted on unanimously by the NWA Board of Directors to be the first ever NWA World Champion. Lou Thesz would hold the title until losing it to Karl Gotch on Gotch's birthday, August 3, 1953. Gotch's first NWA World Title reign would become synonymous with an infamous incident that occurred at one of the first interpromotional supercards.
==Manhattan Screwjob==
Vince McMahon Sr., who had taken over Big Time Wrestling after his father's passing in 1953, had made moves to try and persuade fellow NWA promoters that Gorgeous George would make a great NWA World Champion as he had proven to be a big television draw in various territories, and consistently drew well whenever he returned to Dallas/Fort Worth. Vince Sr. also noted that Karl Gotch's lack of charisma was hurting attendance at shows he headlined, as well as TV ratings. Vince Sr. had said that even other non-gimmick wrestlers had more charisma. The NWA Board of Directors voted to make Gorgeous George the next NWA World Champion, but after the vote is when things started to get interesting. Paul "Pinkie" George and Sam Muchnick made their case to other NWA Board members behind Vince Sr.'s back, making the claim that it had been several years now that Gorgeous George had been running around the nation with his gimmick and that it was bound to wear off at any moment, saying that it was a fad that was wearing out it's welcome.
On November 27, 1953, the night after Thanksgiving, at an interpromotional card held at Madison Square Garden in New York (the first time in years that a McMahon helped promote a wrestling card in NYC), only the referee, Paul George, Sam Muchnick, the NWA Board of Directors (minus Vince Sr.) and Karl Gotch knew what was going down that night. The bout was going back and forth, and it was turning out to be a great match when Karl Gotch quickly took Gorgeous George down with a headlock and the referee immediately called for the bell. The referee and Karl Gotch quickly got out of the ring, with the ref handing Gotch the NWA World Title belt and both men bolting to the back. Vince McMahon Sr., who had worked hard to put together this supercard that featured superstars from several regional promotions main evented by Karl Gotch of World Class Championship Wrestling against Gorgeous George of Big Time Wrestling, was flabbergasted to say the least. Even several wrestlers were appalled at what happened as they had been told that day of the title change that never happened. Oddly enough, Lou Thesz, who at first wasn't a big fan of Gorgeous George using a gimmick to get over, was the most upset and angered at what happened as he was a man of honor and had grown to respect George after being in the ring with him on more than one occasion. Lou and George had even become the best of friends. Lou Thesz would move to Dallas/Fort Worth and wrestle exclusively for Vince McMahon Sr., who seceded from the NWA and changed Big Time Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation, crowning Gorgeous George as the company's first World Champion after a fictitious tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Manhattan Screwjob actually wound up driving interest for professional wrestling. The industry was starting to wane a bit in popularity after the boom that came about from the advent of television. The infamy of this event led to another pro wrestling boom that lasted into the 1960s. With kayfabe very strong, people were debating if this was the work of bad actors looking to rig a professional wrestling match, or if these were people going off script. Gorgeous George was able to freshen up his character with a fire never before seen in his promos, and was even more braggadocious, which all helped drive interest into an eventual WWF World Title victory for Lou Thesz, who fans looked to as the one to finally shut Gorgeous George up. The WWF was also able to expand into Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico. Meanwhile, Karl Gotch became a huge draw on NWA shows as fans were rooting for him to lose the NWA World Title, feeling that he cheated to stay NWA World Champion. This inspired the NWA to book traveling World Champions as heels wherever they went, but as babyfaces in their home territories. However, the events of the Manhattan Screwjob made Karl Gotch a hated heel even in the Tri State and New England regions!
However, there were still some bad feelings. Several wrestlers left World Class for the WWF. Meanwhile, EMLL based in Mexico, and AJPW based in Japan, had just joined the National Wrestling Alliance, and both Salvador Lutteroth and Rikidozan were not afraid to share their feelings of distrust with the alliance given what had happened with the Manhattan Screwjob. Paul George and Sam Muchnick agreed to sell their shares of World Class to Jim Crockett Sr., who would help bring the New York based promotion to even bigger prominence within the NWA. Meanwhile, George and Muchnick opted to bide their time before moving to California and opening an outlaw group in Los Angeles, the Global Wrestling Association. Unbeknownst to many, it was a plan that a few other NWA members helped put together as they wanted the GWA to operate as a shadow organization for the NWA to help stave off any further expansion for the WWF or any other independent groups.
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Post by mattywood on Jan 26, 2021 13:25:12 GMT 1
==National Expansion==
Even though they had broken away from the NWA, Vince McMahon Sr. was not keen on the WWF expanding nationally just yet after seeing firsthand the underhanded tactics other promoters could pull. The WWF had built up a strong enough fanbase in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico, and going national could put the company at risk of losing too much money. However, that didn't stop Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling. Gulf Coast was promotion based in Alabama that dominated not only Alabama, but Mississippi and Tennessee as well, and was run by Ray and Ann Gunkel. They tried their hand at going national in 1977, expanding beyond their stomping grounds by running shows in Florida and Georgia. The first step was changing the name of the company to Continental Championship Wrestling so as not to be pigeonholed as a regional outfit. The next step was seceding from the NWA and changing the names of their regional NWA titles to CCW titles. So the NWA Gulf Coast Championship was now the CCW World Championship, and the NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Titles were now the CCW World Tag Team Titles. And the NWA Gulf Coast TV Championship was now the CCW World TV Championship. With a roster that included the likes of Jerry Lawler, Bob Armstrong, Ron and Robert Fuller, Jimmy Golden, Jackie Fargo, Adrian Street and his wife Miss Linda, the Bushwhackers, the Blonde Bombers (Wayne Ferris and Larry Latham) and even the young rookie sensation Hulk Hogan (then known as Sterling Hogan); and with a booker like Jerry Jarrett, it looked like CCW was ripe for success.
However, things didn't exactly go as planned. CCW tried expanding too fast by running shows in areas where they hadn't gotten TV yet, hoping that ads in the newspapers and on local radio and TV commercial breaks would be sufficient. This resulted in low attendance for shows they had in Florida and Georgia, where both Championship Wrestling From Florida and Georgia Championship Wrestling respectively both reigned supreme. CCW finally did get TV clearances in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. But they paid to have their TV show run opposite of the local wrestling offerings that were aired on other stations. Going up against NWA and WWF TV shows really hurt CCW's efforts in trying to expand. But the last straw was a final act of desperation that completely backfired. For weeks on TV, CCW hyped up a cage match that would pit Jerry "The King" Lawler against arch villain Adrian Street for the held up CCW World Title. It should've been a hit as the show was being held at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee. However, several wrestlers no-showed after not being paid what they were owed on the last show they wrestled. This included Jerry Lawler and Adrian Street (along with his wife Miss Linda). The ring announcer informed the fans of some of the wrestlers that no-showed, but kept them from getting too irate by continuing to promise the cage match between Jerry Lawler and Adrian Street.
It was time for the main event, and the steel cage was being set up. The ring announcer got into the ring, and informed the fans... that there would be no cage match. What made this worse was that both Ray and Ann Gunkel knew the week before that there would be no cage match. After all, CCW taped two weeks of TV at a time and had time to edit out the promos that Jerry Lawler and Adrian Street cut about their cage match. But alas, the Gunkels insisted on going through with selling the cage match despite Jerry Jarrett's pleas to the contrary. With his pleas falling on deaf ears, Jerry Jarrett walked out on the Gunkels one week before the show and left them to book it. Fans were irate and began pelting the ring with trash, with the visual of the ring announcer trying to avoid trash being thrown into the steel cage being shown on the 10 o'clock news. A number of fans actually got up and left, demanding refunds. The Blonde Bombers and the Bushwhackers, in an attempt to try to send the remaining fans home happy, were set to have their scheduled tag team match now be inside the steel cage. The two teams started inside the cage (so that the Gunkels could try to claim that they still delivered a cage match), but disgusted by what the Gunkels did, they decided to go into business for themselves and brawled all over the place and made their way to the concession area. However, the concession stand workers had no idea this was going to happen, so they had to scramble to get out of the way, with several workers getting hurt in the process as the two teams threw hot dogs, ketchup, mustard and nachos at each other in what has now become known as the "Memphis Concession Stand Brawl.". In the days that followed, lawsuits were filed against CCW, and in order to pay out the concession stand workers who were injured, CCW had to fold. This served as a lesson to anyone else who thought of expanding nationally, and was held up by Vince McMahon Sr. to his son, Vince McMahon Jr., as to why the WWF shouldn't expand, something that Vince Jr. tried to convince his father to do. Not long after the incident, the Gunkels would divorce.
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Post by mattywood on Feb 5, 2021 17:47:47 GMT 1
==World Class Wrestling==
World Class Championship Wrestling had become the premiere organization within the NWA, being based in New York and dominating the Tri State and New England areas. However, Jim Crockett Sr. got into a power struggle with Verne Gagne, who had moved from Minnesota to North Carolina because of the warmer climate and founded Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling in 1970. The reasons for the power struggle seemed to swirl over Crockett and Gagne's disagreement over who should be NWA World Champion, as well as vying to succeed Frank Tunney as NWA President, who was nearing the end of his final term and grooming his nephew, Jack Tunney, to take over the Toronto based promotion, Maple Leaf Wrestling. Jim Crockett Sr. felt that Harley Race should win back the NWA World Championship given that he was a proven draw and still had plenty of years left. However, Verne Gagne felt that Nick Bockwinkel should remain champion, citing that he had plenty of gas left in the tank and was still putting on amazing matches for a man of his age. The NWA Board of Directors voted, and Harley Race was going to dethrone Nick Bockwinkel to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion.
However, on May 25, 1980, at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina, Verne Gagne and Nick Bockwinkel, with the backing of Eddie Graham from Florida, Ole Anderson from Georgia, and Bob Geigel of St. Louis, were able to pull off a screwy finish of their own. Approximately 21 minutes into the match, Nick Bockwinkel threw down referee Tommy Young, who had no idea what was going to happen. As a result, he had to call for a disqualification as referees were trained to call the match as a shoot even though it was a work. He was able to catch up with Nick Bockwinkel backstage and punched him square in the jaw as payback, then walked out. World Class Championship Wrestling would take "Championship" out of their name and simply become World Class Wrestling, WCW, then proceeded to secede from the NWA. After leaving the NWA, they held a tournament on television to crown the first ever WCW World Champion, with United States Champion Harley Race winning the tournament, then vacating the US Title soon after. By the end of 1980, Jim Crockett Sr. sold his company to his sons, and they began their march to take WCW national. This time, unlike CCW, WCW was able to succeed thanks in part to already being on WNBC, a superstation based out of New York that went national via cable television and shortened its name to NBC.
==NWA Changes==
After the incident in Greensboro, Verne Gagne, who had already put together a plan to consolidate the NWA, was voted unanimously as NWA President after Frank Tunney resigned to retire, with Frank helping to get his nephew, Jack Tunney, a job as WCW's on-screen President. Verne would consolidate the rosters of Florida and Georgia with Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling to form the NWA as its own company, and Central States would serve as a company to help develop talent for the NWA after Bob Geigel sold the territory to Bill Watts so that he could serve as a road agent for the NWA. Verne, however, was unable to get the Pacific Northwest, JPW and EMLL to agree to such a deal. JPW (who changed their name to All Japan Pro Wrestling, becoming AJPW) and EMLL declared their independence from the NWA, and Pacific Northwest opted to serve as a development company for WCW thanks in part to Rowdy Roddy Piper. The NWA already had a good TV deal with the USA Network, a cable network that broadcast Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Championship Wrestling From Florida and Georgia Championship Wrestling as part of a three hour block on Saturday mornings. The consolidation resulted in the NWA now having a two hour timeslot on Saturday afternoons on the USA Network.
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Post by Mike Haggar on Mar 12, 2021 21:19:59 GMT 1
So how is the progress going?
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Post by mattywood on May 11, 2021 22:12:09 GMT 1
I need to be completely honest here. Progression on Earth 77 has been stalled since last I posted here. I've been busier at work (not going to complain about that), and I've put my free time into other hobbies that I enjoy. Too bad there are only 24 hours in a day. So without committing to anything, I'll say that I hope to get back to cracking on Earth 77. It may become a long term project that may not see a release until a future game iteration (be it a future Pro Wrestling Simulator or TEW). Elseworld 52, that's filed under who knows what will happen. On the one hand, I'd hate to say I am cancelling anything. On the other hand, I can't say 100% for sure. I'd rather wait until I'm close to finished with either mod before saying anything further on them. My apologies that I have been out of the loop on everything of late, but sometimes real life happens.
EDIT: I've also contemplated re-retiring from modding and maybe be more of a contributor. But I'll cross that bridge if I get to it.
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