1979 Rax Roast Beef Wrestling Mystery Solved....

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

I am getting this book 1977 The War For Memphis and hopefully they make some reference to this.

http://www.memphiswrestlinghistory.com/mwh1977.html

The book is great. A friend of mine bought the books for 1977, 78 and 1982 and let me read them. 1977 was when Gulas lost Memphis to Jerry Jarrett. It is a sadly common story about old school promoter vs. new school promoter. Bill Watts' and Gary Hart's books tell similar tales. Across all of them, though, the common theme is that the old school promoters did everything they could to sabotage their own territories (whether intentionally or obliviously), which basically made McMahon's conquest of the business a foregone conclusion, rather than some kind of nefarious scheme.

Given what Mark James writes about Gulas in the 1977-78 books, I would be shocked that the 1979 show in Nashville drew anywhere near 1000 fans. In the newspaper clippings for show results, they had a tendency not to report attendance numbers below 1000. For what it's worth, the same building at the Fairgrounds is where NWA TNA started out. And, yes, it is a dump. TNA could only draw 1000+ by giving out 900+ free passes.

Awesome find in the set. I wonder if someone like Jim Cornette would have a set.