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I woke up the next day after a short night’s sleep. I was invited out after our Friday night headline house show, and needless to say, things got a bit rowdy. Babying a hangover, I could barely make my way over to the phone in time to catch the incoming call.
”Can you believe this loada’ horse mananeur?” A frazzled Fritz Von Erich said over the line.
”Huh? Fritz?” I could barely intake anything he was saying.
”That wanna be ‘playboy’ Gary is off booking for Geigel now! I knew he was a salty bastard. When I knew he would find out I was giving you the book, oh I avoided him for about an entire week, I reckon.”
“Fritz, what are you talking about?”
“Gary! Gary Hart! He took the book with Geigel up in the midwest!” He replied. Slowly putting things together, he must have been saying Gary Hart was taking over the booking position with Central States Wrestling, another NWA-affiliate owned by Bob Giegel. Their office was based out of Kansas City, Missouri, essentially neighboring some of what Fritz was looking to book. I certainly had no acquaintance with the relationship Fritz has had with Gary over the years, so I wasn’t one to judge his reaction. I simply listened, as much as I could take. Fritz ranted about Gary, about how Gary never respected him and never gave him the due he deserved for ‘being the one to put him over’. My thoughts on Gary Hart were that he was an essential piece to the landscape of World Class, but I could tell Fritz was ready to give him the boot.
“Woah, woah, Fritz, listen. You can’t blame a guy for going out and getting his money. Gary is a smart guy, and Giegel needs someone smart to run his booking, just like you need someone smart Fritz.”
“Oh yeah, that why I got you?”
“That’s right Fritz!” I said jokingly. This got him to lose a bit of his edge, but things soon ramped up when he learned additional news. Mid-South was making moves on the market, and they were quickly talking to a bunch of World Class guys… including Von Erichs. Kerry, our NWA American champion, got a big earful when Fritz learned Kerry was going to work dates for Bill Watts. But, I wonder if Fritz perhaps learned something from David running off earlier the year before… because for some reason Kerry didn’t back down and hasn’t said anything about decommitting from Watts. Besides, what else could he say when he learned Gino Hernandez had signed a deal with Watts first? Not only them, but Jake Roberts, Iceman King Parsons… I guess Fritz was forgetting a bunch of our roster already was working for Mid-South. That meant nothing in the face of Fritz spending hours going over how much of a crook Watts was, and how Mid-South Wrestling is a farce of a wrestling promotion. Called Watts a backstabber… a politicker… yeah yeah, aren’t you all Fritz…
Most importantly, nobody said they would prioritise Mid-South overworking World Class shows, so what was there to complain about. Besides, I was hoping to pick off some potential stars in other territories too. I say it’s fair game…I had other problems going on too. Mike Von Erich, Billy Jack Haynes, Tom Zenk, they were all skipping road agent meetings and I asked Fritz to give them a stern warning. Although, that kid Mick Foley really brought everyone together, if only briefly, when he found that old karaoke machine in the locker room closet and put on quite a performance for us.
Bringing me back to reality, Fritz asked to speak to me for a few minutes. He quickly ran over some, “guidelines”, he was passing across. He said if I didn’t have some goal posts to shoot for, how would I know where I was trying to score… or something like that. Anyways, he basically told me my number one priority was to grow World Class wrestling influence and size. He said he had done some deep digging on what I had mentioned, and was open to expansion, even if it upset the foundation of the National Wrestling Alliance. Also, he was very adamant that I was not allowed to hire any of those “comedian funny guy workers” and definitely “nobody doing anything crazy like David told me about in Japan, no guys jumping off the tunnel way entrances or anything”, I think he was referring to what he called “the new daredevil style”.
In my downtime, I was able to read-up on the latest in the World Wrestling Federation. Vince was getting closer to his so-called WrestleMania event. A giant pay-per-view supercard he had apparently been putting a lot of marbles on. As things appeared, it was shaping up for an epic showdown between Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff, as well as Andre the Giant against fellow big man Big John Studd. Needless to say, things were going to change drastically if this were to go off without a hitch, and these were damn good programs to put together ahead of supercard.