Universal Wrestling Federation

Oh my God, we had so, so much of a great pouring out of, of the fandom from Florida, from beyond, just another territory we, we added here to the projects on Regional Wrestling.

And Florida was honestly one of the very first territories I wanted to tackle, but I knew very little about Florida compared to some of the other territories that I more comfortably started with, which was Bill Watts and the UWF and Georgia Championship Wrestling.

Thanks to this guy named Harold, you may have heard of him.

The tapes have been floating around there forever.

So after they got after they left Memphis, they eventually went to go work for Cowboy Bill Watts down in what used to be known as the Mid-South Wrestling.

At this point, got rebranded into Universal Wrestling Federation or UWF.

And no, no, there is no connection to Herb Abrams as UWF.

So let me just go ahead and make that disclaimer.

Now, they had these vignettes where the Blade Runners were working out.

He would tag in Sting and Sting would run the ropes and do the running body splash, which is ironic because that became Ultimate Warrior's finishing move when he was in the WWF.

He'd press slam them, then run the ropes, hit them with the splash, and then that'd be one, two, three.

At that time, when they were in the UWF, JR was there as well, and he was a commentator.

The departure of Ken Mantell and a large portion of the World Class locker room in 1986 was devastating.

The Fabulous Freebirds, Chris Adams, Kamala, One Man Gang, and others would leave for Bill Watts' new Universal Wrestling Federation, becoming a major destination.

At the same time, the San Antonio territory was also effectively disappearing as an independent force.

Texas All-Star Wrestling lasted through the rest of 1986 before being purchased by World Class Wrestling Association in November, and Amarillo had already been gone for five years by this point.

... a great question, because he didn't, he didn't run anywhere from what I-

No, he didn't run anywhere, so w- what-

Yeah, that, that's what I was about to say is like, and Bill Watts, you know, changed to Universal Wrestling Federation, and Jim Crockett Jr., you know, he did what he did.

None of these guys changed anything else.

Carl's, of course, been on the Continental shows with me with Bo James.

I got that History of Smoky Mountain Wrestling series, the death of Jim Crockett from Emotions, the death of the Universal Wrestling Federation.

Those were in the early days.

I got ongoing series right now.

1984, Shawn Michaels makes his pro wrestling debut.

Took place for the UWF Mid-South promotion out of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

He wrestled under his name, Shawn Michaels, and lost to Art Cruz.

1984, The Great Muda and Masahiro Chono both make their pro wrestling debuts against each other.

So John Tate, who's John Tatum? Uh, he may not be a name familiar to many of you.

He was a mid card, lower mid card to mid card wrestler in a few territories, particularly world-class, but, uh, really, I think most people remember him from bill Watts, UWF, uh, Bill Watts had just transitioned mid-South wrestling to being UWF.

Jim Ross was still your commentator there.

Michael Hayes was his co-commentator.

They were a great tandem for UWF, much better than really at any point down the road.

They were fantastic.

And John Tatum was a face there.

And that is a very rural area, okay? It's...

i mean but that's like that was in missy hyatt you know she was a lot of people's uh dream i'm just gonna say it that way back in the day

and she wasn't even on in like the big time really right she was kind of in the smaller promotions like UWF.

And then she had a cup of coffee in WWF and then went to the NWA and WCW, but still wasn't like massive.

But like, man, when you got those wrestling magazines back in the day, you're like, dude, who is Missy Hyatt? Holy shit.

by Missy Hyatt.

I would love to sit and just trade stories with her, man.

Like, just ask her questions about the UWF.

Yeah, she has to have, like, stories.

But I was just shocked at how much Taylor, I mean, I don't think Taylor ever could have been a main eventer, but he was always lower mid-card to me, in my opinion.

I know that's different with the UWF, which I've admittedly never watched.

And I heard that's where he's great.

But he could have been a mid-card here.

And if you listen, I will never say there's a Quinn.

There's only two matches from a Terry Taylor that I would probably recommend.

One is the one against Chris Adams in the UWF.

in 87 and it would probably be this one as well those are probably the two best terry taylor matches i've ever watched and probably will ever watch ever again so um definitely go out of your way to check this one out if you're going to check something out on this show this one's pretty good his

Ricky Morton, 38 years old at the time, was one of the more popular wrestlers and best workers of the 1980s, with longtime partner Robert Gibson.

The two were the top drawing tag team during most of the successful business period for both Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling in 1984-1985, and Jim Crockett Promotions, 1985 to 1987.

His career as a major performer appeared to be over, as it was believed he was too old to get over [laughs] by playing a role designed for somebody...

Like, can you imagine somebody 38 years old in wrestling now? Like, WWE doesn't even start m- putting people on their active roster now till they're, like, 40.