Post by managermike99 on Apr 6, 2017 1:28:20 GMT -5
Welcome back to 1992 and a look forward to River City Wrestling's 13th year of operations.
So what was going on in 1992? Democrat Bill Clinton won the Presidential race with 43% of the popular vote, leaving little doubt that were it not for the strong showing of independent candidate Ross Perot with 19% of the popular vote, the election would have been won by Republican incumbent George Bush who picked up 37% of the vote. Of course it didn't help that Bush's Vice-Presidential candidate Dan Quayle couldn't spell "Potato" at an elementary school spelling bee. Civil war was ongoing in Somalia and in December Clinton would commit ground troops. The Teflon Don, John Gotti was sentenced to life in prison. Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida. The largest shopping mall in the U.S., Minneapolis' Mall of America was constructed. Los Angeles was gripped with the Rodney King riots. The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. George Bush and Boris Yeltsin formally declared an end to the Cold War.
In sports the summer Olympics were held in Barcelona Spain, and one of the biggest stories was the new Balkan countries competing after the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the fracture of Yugoslavia, and the unifed German team. 12 of the 15 former Soviet states (including Russia) however competed together as the Unified Team or Organization of Independent States finishing at the top of the medal count. With the admittance of professionals from the NBA the first American "Dream Team" competed featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.
The winter olympics were held in Albertville, France (yes the two Olympics were held in the same year back then). Bonnie Blair and Kristi Yamaguchi starred for the U.S., while in hockey Canada lost to the Unified Team in the Gold Medal game (NHL players did not yet compete; however holdout Eric Lindros did compete for Canada).
The Redskins defeated the Bills in the Superbowl; The Blue Jays defeated the Braves in the World Series; The Penguins featuring Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr defeated the Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup.
Compact discs surpassed cassette sales for recorded music for the first time; Johnny Carson hosted his final episode of the Tonight Show. A text based browser became available for computer users. I bought my first CD player and my first two discs were Extreme - Pornografitti, and Queen - A Kind of Magic (basically the soundtrack from Highlander).
The highest grossing films were Aladdin, The Bodyguard, Home Alone 2, Basic Instinct, Lethal Weapon 3, Batman Returns, A Few Good Men, Sister Act, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Wayne's World. Other movies that I saw in the theatre that year included Final Analysis, Medicine Man, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Article 99, White Men Can't Jump, Straight Talk, Thunderheart, White Sands, Far and Away, Patriot Games, A League of Their Own, Unforgiven, Stay Tuned, Honeymoon in Vegas, Sneakers, The Mighty Ducks, Under Siege, Passenger 57, and Toys. Boy I saw a lot of movies that year! I think A League of Their Own was my favorite movie of the year, with Sneakers and Far and Away also right near the top.
In music, Rap and Grunge were taking over, leaving Pop-Rock out of the mainstream. Some of the bands from the 80's still processed an album or two in the early 90's but with little air time they were not very accessible anymore. As such I began to listen to more Country, with acts like Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, and Brooks & Dunn filling the airwaves. And of course Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus. The top songs on the pop charts were by acts like Boyz II Men, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Kriss Kross, and TLC. Sure there was the occasional gem like Tears in Heaven by Clapton, Guns 'n Roses, U2, Genesis, Bryan Adams, and Def Leppard, but they were outnumbered by crap.
1991-92 Television season was still pretty much pre-cable (despite CNN getting a huge boost from the Gulf War), and the top shows were accessible for the whole family like #1 60 Minutes, #2 Roseanne, #3 Murphy Brown, #4 Cheers & Home Improvement. Even Murder, She Wrote managed to finish at #8. The NFL had not yet begun to dominate in ratings and ABC's Monday Night Football only finished at #12 while both CBS and NBC were still getting top 25 ratings with their Movie of the Week offerings. 1992-93 would see much of the same except Unsolved Mysteries cracking the top 20 and giving us a preview of reality television to come. Seinfeld and The Simpsons would also crack the top 30.
Parker Lewis Can't Lose (a Ferris Bueller rip-off) did in fact lose, Herman's Head with Sam Kinison was a hidden gem, Married with Children was still breaking ground, and I loved the concept of Eerie, Indiana but it didn't last. NBC stuck with critically acclaimed but meager rated Law & Order. The Hat Squad and Covington Cross looked good, but really weren't. I was thoroughly engrossed in Knots Landing.
On the literary side of things, the 90's belonged to John Grisham. In '92 he had a hit with The Pelican Brief, while Michael Connolly's iconic LA detective Harry Bosch had "The Black Echo". The English Patient was well received by critics, most of us waited for the movie, but didn't bother to see that either. Robert Jordan released the 4th book of his Wheel of Time series "The Shadow Rising". The second book in the Outlander series was released, but most of us would not discover this series until 20 years later. Besides Grisham I was discovering and reading the Shadowrun (cyberpunk) novels with glee. I also discovered Michael Crichton's new release "Rising Sun" one of my favorite books of all time, and then went backward and read Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, and the Andromeda Strain. Michael Crichton became my favorite author of all time.
In the world of pro wrestling in 1992 WWF had some wrestlers I enjoyed watching including Bret Hart, The Undertaker, Jake Roberts, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Curt Hennig, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Davey Boy Smith, Repo Man, Big Boss Man, etc. However, the presentation was a bit lame unless you could shell out for the PPV's for the most part you watched squash matches and the build up of angles. Most of the competition had been killed off at that point, AWA, Stampede, and the NWA was only available occasionally on my television. Herb Abram's UWF was available on one of my channels, and I think we might have received some Grand Prix from Quebec with Hercules Ayala, Steve Disalvo, Gilles Poisson, Gino Britto Jr, etc. But overall wrestling was in a bit of a downturn for me, although probably picked up a bit from 1990 and 1991 when the WWF was even more cartoonish.
So turning to River City Wrestling, what to expect in 1992? Well the title changes, cards, rosters, and feuds that I have are enough to have another solid if not spectacular year of output. One of the things you will see is a return to more created wrestlers. Now I say created loosely, as some are truly created, others are based on real people, and others are cross overs into wrestling from other exploits. I am always open to answering questions about who is who. The last couple years the number of created wrestlers in RCW has dwindled to the point where there are usually only 1 or 2 on the main roster, plus a couple women wrestlers, and officials of course. The amount of created wrestlers will start to rise to almost half of the total talent. Looking through the notes with some of the talent I'm not even sure if they are real or created, so I will have to google them to sort it out.
With no TV contract RCW will once again have minimal shows, probably one show every two weeks. Because this is fantasy I will ignore the financial implications of bringing in wrestlers to a fairly far away city (Winnipeg) for sporadic shows. We can surmise that the wrestlers would also make appearances with other indy promotions in Minnesota and maybe Ontario. I have also stated that even though the shows are numbered it is not definitive that there were not other "spot" shows run that I don't post results for. That is why I will never make a big deal over a show based on the number (#500 for instance).
One other event to kick off the year will be a card in South Africa. It has been a tradition of sorts for cold climate promoters to hold a card in a warm climate in the middle of winter as a bit of a perk for some of the talent; last year RCW went to Reno, Nevada. RCW will have a long standing relationship with the South African Wrestling Federation (SAWF) which is a fictional promotion as well. I have title histories of the SAWF starting from around 1993, lots of rosters, and the occasional show result starting in 2002. If I ever catch up in RCW (ha-ha) and I feel the need for some retro action, then I will likely go back and do the SAWF.
Other things for 1992 include the question of whether there will be a Hall of Fame induction, what external superstars will be brought in for the 13th Anniversary show, will some of the past favorites come back or will it be new talent, and who will see the most success in RCW, created or real wrestlers?
I look forward to posting the 1992 results, and I hope you will take the time to follow River City Wrestling.
Thanks