In 1994, World Championship Wrestling was a big name in pro-wrestling, if still looking up at the then-WWF. In fact, by late 1994 Ted Turner's baby was picking up steam, and a few big names from Connecticut as well, as the stage was set for what became the vaunted Monday Night Wars. It was the calm before the storm, as the wrestling business was struggling to find an identity in a changing marketscape.
And so it was that both the WWF and WCW were trying numerous things to stay ahead of the curve and the competition, having finally given up the ghost of the 'Rock 'n Wrestling' era about 3 years too late. Rising star Eric Bischoff (as opposed to 'I created the NWO and won't let go of it' Eric Bischoff) decided to go the cross-promotional route, and established a working relationship with upstart Mexican promotion AAA (possibly the dumbest acronym ever associated with wrestling). This resulted in the co-promotion and broadcasting of AAA's pay-per-view event, When Worlds Collide, on November 6, 1994. Not the legendary event it could have been, perhaps, but it was a big deal, and emblematic of the potential of Eric Bischoff. It wouldn't be long before WCW pulled ahead in the ratings, and for the first time in their history WWF was forced to acknowledge their competition, even going so far as to establish 'talent exchange' programs that brought in performers from ECW and Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountian Wrestling. AAA enjoyed a brief surge in success, but a variety of factors in its native Mexico forced them to give up a good number of talented performers… many of whom headed back over the border to work for Bischoff and Paul Heyman, comprising a large portion of WCW's great cruiserweight division, and bringing authentic lucha libre action to the varied and chaotic ECW product.
20 years later, the landscape of professional wrestling is much different. WCW is long gone, having collapsed under its own weight in 2000, its legacy owned, and distorted, by WWE, it's imprint on the business fading fast. While WCW was the #2 company in 1994, and a strong #2 at that, that honor now belongs to Antonio Inoki's New Japan Pro Wrestling. On January 4, 2015 at the Tokyo Dome, NJPW will present Wrestle Kingdom, Japan's Wrestlemania, and for the first time a Japanese PPV will be brought to fans in States, thanks to the globetrotting exploits of second generation performer and promoter Jeff Jarrett. Double J's Global Force Wrestling is presenting the broadcast, and to sweeten the deal they've brought in the greatest living wrestling announcer, and in the minds of many, many fans the greatest ever, good old JR, Jim Ross.
So what does this mean? What does this say about the state of the industry now versus back in 1994?
Well… not a whole lot, really. But it's been so long since we had a foreign PPV event brought to the US like this, the differences are really what makes the comparison worthwhile. When Worlds Collide was something of a shot in the dark for WCW, while being a no-brainer for AAA. Jeff Jarrett has already tried going up against WWE; the saga of TNA/Impact Wrestling continues, stumblingly, without him. GFW is a new idea, or perhaps an old idea reworked for today's market. Cross-promotional supercards were a a rare but guaranteed draw back in the territory days; rivalries and backbiting in the seedy world of promoters made the logistics impossible most of the time, but the fans would turn up if they could get the damn shows together. As the business expanded into the 80's, a corporate structure replaced the territory system and WWF began swallowing up the competition, and the NWA was forced to band together to keep alive, leading to the formation of WCW. Currently, the big-business model of promotion has left things stale, and it's impossible to expect anybody to rival WWE, or even come close, by mimicing that business model.
So Jarrett and the GWF have gone back to the territories, so to speak. Today the whole world is fair game, and Jarrett is establishing relationships with promotions in every wrestling hotspot in the world. NJPW is the big one, of course, but if this all goes well we cold be seeing something unfold that combines the NWA-style confederation of promoters with a singular brand delivering their content.
Who wouldn't want to see, just for the sake of argument, the top guys in South Africa, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and Japan face off in an international tournament? Globespanning tag teams? Or maybe just the best matches from all the worldwide partners? A chance for U.S. wrestling fans, who have been stuck with only one style of wrestling for a decade and a half, to see how it's done the world over?
Sounds good to me. Now if only the PPV wasn't at 2 a.m. Ahahaha!
