Jim Herd

Jim Herd born on (March 24, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri) was the Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling from 1988 to 1992, following Turner Broadcasting's acquisition of the NWA-affiliated Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988.

Early life and career

Before that, Herd had been a station manager for the St. Louis TV station KPLR-TV, which broadcast the then-popular wrestling show "Wrestling at the Chase". Later on, he served in an executive position for Pizza Hut of St. Louis. Herd resigned from WCW in early 1992.

World Championship Wrestling

Criticism

Many wrestling personalities, fans, and workers have openly criticized Herd for his lack of knowledge of the wrestling business. Ric Flair in particular stated that Herd "knew nothing about wrestling, other than the fact that the station he ran had a hot show." ["The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection", WWE Home Video, 2003] During his run in WCW, Herd tried to compete with Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation by introducing the same kind of "cartoon" gimmicks that were a part of McMahon's WWF at the time, alienating the diehard NWA audience. For example, he once tried to come up with a tag team called The Hunchbacks (with the gimmick in which that they can't be pinned because their humps would prevent their shoulders from touching the mats), and after that idea was rejected by the booking committee, he came up with the bell-wearing Ding Dongs. After that, he came up with Big Josh, a lumberjack with dancing bears. Stan Hansen left the organization after the idea was pitched to him to become a part of the comedic cowboy stable called The Desperados. Jim Cornette and Stan Lane also left the organization, breaking up the Midnight Express, leaving Bobby Eaton on his own, after Herd would blame his many failures on Cornette and others. Even the Road Warriors - as Animal has stated on WWE Home Video's Road Warriors DVD - had a fallout with Herd as well, and resigned from WCW in the summer of 1990.

Ric Flair

Herd regularly clashed with the then-NWA World Champion and booking committee member Ric Flair. According to Flair, Herd wanted him to drop his entire "Nature Boy" persona, shave his head (even though Flair's bleach blonde hair was one of his most recognizable trademarks) and adopt a Rome gladiator gimmick by the name of Spartacus in order to "change with the times". This didn't sit too well with Flair and the committee (Committee member Kevin Sullivan was quoted as saying, "After we change Flair's gimmick, why don't we go to Yankee Stadium and change Babe Ruth's uniform number?" ["To Be the Man", Ric Flair, WWE Books, 2004] ). Herd believed Flair's time was over as a main event player and the big money was with Sting and Lex Luger. This backstage feud hit its breaking point when, during contract renegotiation, Flair refused to take a pay cut and be moved away from the main event position (despite the fact that he was by far the company's biggest draw). He also refused to drop the title to Lex Luger as Herd wanted, saying that he had promised to drop it to Sting and Herd had previously agreed. Herd didn't care what he had said earlier and accused Flair of holding up the company but Flair said he was simply holding Herd to his word. Flair tried to compromise to Herd and offered to drop the title to fellow Horsemen Barry Windham, saying that Windham deserved the title. [Nature Boy Ric Flair: The Definitive Collection DVD] However as Flair was planning to leave to wrestle Windham so he could lose the title, on June 15, 1991, weeks before the "Great American Bash" PPV and one day after the Clash of the Champions, where Flair successfully defended the title against Bobby Eaton in a two-out-of-three falls match, Herd fired Flair from WCW and stripped him of the WCW World Heavyweight title. There was one small problem with that decision: Flair was still the NWA World Heavyweight champion and his title belt represented both factions.

Flair brings the belt to WWF's TV programs

Upon notification, Flair called Vince McMahon of the rival World Wrestling Federation to inform him of the situation; McMahon offered Flair a contract with the WWF in exchange of him sending McMahon the belt and Flair obliged. A couple of weeks later, promos were being shown of Bobby Heenan with Flair's belt on WWF-TV, which drew great intrigue and tremendous ratings to the promotion as many wrestling fans around the world knew full well what that belt represented but more importantly, who that belt truly belonged to. WCW officials, who were humiliated by the promos being shown by the WWF on national TV with their title belt, were outraged at Herd's actions and made one final, desperate attempt to save face by offering Flair substantially more money to return but their efforts failed. By his short-sighted actions, Herd inadvertently gave the WWF one of the greatest potential storylines in wrestling history, as many fans who had dreamed of a Hulk Hogan/Ric Flair matchup were going to finally get their wish (albeit in house shows only because of booking difficulties with Hogan, McMahon, and Flair before WrestleMania VIII, hence the double main event with Flair vs. Randy Savage and Hogan vs. Sid Justice).

Lasting impact on the NWA

Flair was in his legal rights to take the NWA/WCW world title belt with him to the WWF because Herd refused to give Flair back the $25,000 deposit that the NWA required of every wrestler upon winning the world title to keep him from appearing in a rival promotion (like the WWF); according to NWA bylaws, the deposit would be paid back upon losing, plus interest. Without Flair, the "Great American Bash" became what many fans consider one of the worst wrestling PPVs in history, as the Baltimore audience loudly chanted, "We want Flair!" throughout the entire show. Many fans there and on PPV also saw the title match between the top two contenders for the title, Lex Luger and Barry Windham, as a sham because Flair still had the actual title belt (they had to resort to taping 'World Champion' on one of Dusty Rhodes's old belts, due to their new WCW World title belt not being ready in time, and giving that to Luger after winning the match) and was never beaten for it, thus the 'real world champion' angle the WWF created upon Flair's arrival had more legitimacy than the Great American Bash did. The NWA suffered tremendously and to this very day have never fully recovered, losing most of its fanbase and TV audience to the WWF; most of them switched in order to see how Flair would do against the likes of Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan. Many fans switched back to WCW several years later during the Monday Night Wars with the WWF but the NWA never regained the fame and name recognition it once had previously and dissolved into a smaller, independent-based faction.

Legacy and aftermath

Many wrestling insiders look at this incident as the major reason why Vince McMahon took the WWF Championship title belt off of the soon-to-be departing Bret Hart in the 1997 Survivor Series in the infamous fashion he did (see Montreal Screwjob) in order to avoid it being shown on rival WCW's "Monday Nitro" show the following day (a similar incident occurred in December 1995 when Madusa Miceli came out with the WWF Women's title belt on "WCW Monday Nitro" and threw it in the trash can). Many felt that his company, who was losing the ratings war to WCW at the time, simply could not afford the same PR nightmare that had befallen the NWA back in 1991 and took extreme measures to prevent it by ordering the referee (Earl Hebner) to call for the bell seconds after Shawn Michaels put Hart in a sharpshooter submission hold and awarding the belt to Michaels.

The matter with Flair caused a lawsuit between the two companies but eventually the lawsuit was dropped. In Flair's 2008 WWE DVD ("") Flair kept the "Big Gold Belt". Ric Flair stated in the DVD that he was never paid back for his $25,000 initial deposit for the NWA title, plus interest, which totaled $38,000. Flair later gave the belt to Triple H as a gift, as also stated in the 2008 DVD. Flair also said that he told Triple H that he wished he could have given him that belt back in 1985. Months after Flair's departure, Jim Herd was fired and replaced by Kip Allen Frey in 1992.

References