A few 1980s-based circuits

[loadedglove]

As a 30-year fan, my key points of departure tend to be in the 1980s. Right now, I'm in May 1989 of a circuit I started that spun out of Bill Watts selling thew UWF to Crockett Promotions in April 1987. As anyone who watched what follows can attest, Crockett immediately buried the UWF guys.

But what if he hadn't? What if Starrcade '87 had been a UWF v. NWA showdown? I booked the NWA and UWF as separate entities in the Spring, then took Wargames during the Bash month of July, and made both Wargames matches UWF vs NWA (I had 4 Horsemen and Dusty vs. Freebirds/DiBiase/Dr Death).

Since the NWA became packed with tag teams vying for titles, I moved the Midnight Express and Cornette to the UWF, where they won and lost the belts, feuding with the Freebirds.

So my Starrcade 87 was "When Worlds Collide," with three title unification matches: UWF Champ Steve Williams vs NWA Champ Ric Flair, UWF Tag Champs Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy vs NWA Tag champs Road Warriors, and UWF TV Champ Sting versus NWA TV Champ Barry Windham.

Other 80s based circuits I might start up when this one runs out of steam ...

* In 1985, Ted Turner originally planned to turn the TBS spots over to Mid-South, instead of Jim Crockett's NWA, after the mess the WWF had made of things. A Bill Watts takeover of TBS would likely have necessitated a name change to UWF a year earlier than it did, and the talent pool would be about 80% Mid-South roster (of Spring 85) with 20% disenfranchised Georgia/Crockett guys.

* In fall 1984, a bunch of promoters tried to start a coalition called Pro Wrestling USA, to battle Vince McMahon. It fell apart quickly, because of dueling promoters' egos. BUT, had it continued, it could have featured a mix of a few names apiece from the territorial groups that participated: Georgia, Mid-Atlantic, Memphis, AWA and Mid-South.

* Similarly, the Dec 1988 PPV Superclash 3 featured talent from the AWA, World Class, Memphis and Continental (alabama). WHat if they had been able to keep it going?

I have more, but based on the other threads I've read, I don't know if you guys are as interested in this timeframe as in the 1990s and up.

In any event, even though I just joined this forum, I've played TNM off and on since the late 1990s, and I really enjoyed some of the ideas I have read here, so thanks one and all for sharing thoughts.

[snabbit888]

Welcome aboard, friend!

I think there's a pretty diverse grouping of what people like and follow around here. We have modern circuits, 80's circuits... hell, my circuit started in 1963. The more the merrier.

You plan on posting your circuits on the forums?

[loadedglove]

I do plan on posting some of the stuff. I try to break down segments to fit into TV formats, plus house show highlights, and eventually, PPV and Clashes.

Thanks for the welcome!

[JoshiQ]

I love the '80s so I'd be more than happy to read a circuit based around that time period. All of your ideas are interesting, and it would give some nice air time to some guys that don't get much play here on the board.

[Flair4TheGold]

LoadedGlove, are You going to post anything? I'm interested in reading the UWF/NWA circuit.

[mdale2k]

For sure post...We love circuits!

I've been thinking of posting one again, but I want to get a while in so it doesn't fizzle when I am busy.

[loadedglove]

Hello, all -- mdale2k hit my problem exactly. I have been SWAMPED at work, family things and with some other stuff (order your copy of "Hacksaw: The Jim Duggan Story" from Amazon today! And if you've let your Observer subscription lapse, we're about to get into Hall of Fame season, which is my favorite time of year, as Dave gets in some AMAZING historical stuff, as he discusses the nominees).

However, I'm hoping to have up my first couple of shows this weekend.

I can offer some preamble-type info, largely because I'd like some feedback from the community. I'll repost the circuit-specific things when I put up my first show.

One of my first concerns was too-quick title reigns. I've activated the "Streak" influence (although I only set it on a 2 out of 5), because in previous circuits, I noticed that title changes occurred MUCH more frequently than I'd like. I'm a little old-fashioned, in that especially with my lead titles, I want longer reigns (with rare exception), and to avoid the "pass the belt around so everyone gets a turn" mentality. I want my titles to MEAN something. Anyone have thoughts on how to make title changes a little more rare? Of course, I'm making my own problem more, er, problematic, in that I really don't care if the TV title changes hands more frequently than, say, the world tag titles, but I want the world title changing least frequently of all. I don't simply want to book finishes, because I'm less interested in determining who wins than I am in keeping my main titles from changing every two weeks.

As for my UWF/WCW circuit, my idea is that even though the sale went down in April 1987, I'll treat it as if (in my alternate reality) plans were in the works for a while, to where I was able to get UWF teams into the 1987 Crockett Cup tourney. The first show I put up this weekend will have tournament brackets, in some form.

Using match times from the TNM simulations, I'll try to format UWF and WCW on TBS shows to fit my allotted airtime, and what I'll be presenting will be those TV shows, plus brief house show rundowns. The way I'm counting it, each "show" I'm able to sign a wrestler to will be a week, and non-televised house show matches that have no real bearing on booking direction will not be matches I actually do simulations on. Does that make sense? I will absolutely, however, anchor my house shows with matches I ran in TNM that I ended up not having room for on TV.

In effect, my show rundowns will actually be "This week in UWF/NWA" rundowns. Being of the Bill Watts school, I have disabled no-shows (I decided on this in a previous circuit, after a guy who'd won a first-round tournament match no-showed his second-round match THE SAME NIGHT), rationalizing it by telling myself no one would want to pay my Watts-inspired "no-show fine."

However, injuries are still possible, and between that, the occasional "So and So quit effective immediately" and the uncertainty of contract renewals, I think I have (approximately) covered the amount of booking/promoting changes/crises that can necessitate booking changes on the fly.

Thanks for reading, and sorry to take so long in following up on my original post -- it really has been a crazy few weeks.

Also, I'd like to see what you folks think of this as a possible assist to players looking for new circuits to start up -- I'm thinking of starting a new thread focusing exclusively on historical points during which a diverging event could have changed things dramatically, like the PW USA and Watts staying on TBS ideas I mentioned in my first post. What I'd hope is that anyone else with a similar idea for a "What If" would post it there, maybe help others fish out some ideas for circuits. Would anyone be interested in participating in such a thing? My guess is, we've got such a wide cross-section of fans of different eras and areas that we could end up with a bonanza of cool ideas to keep people interested in playing out new circuits. What do you guys think?

Thanks again, and I'll have some stuff up on my WCW/UWF circuit this weekend! Have fun, and keep playing!