Back in the day when WCW and WWE (F) were both going strong, i always
wondered how the two companies decided where to book shows. I grew up
in Fresno and WWF always came at least once a year. WCW never made a
stop. WCW always played the Cow Palace in San Francisco, I cant recall
WWF doing that. Have any insight on this?
Yup. Back when the major promotions gave a shit about the individual promoters, each city would have a guy who set up the actual promotion from a local level, and basically they were either exclusively WCW or WWF (in exchange for whatever financial incentives, I’m sure) and god help anyone else who tried to break into that market. There’s some pretty famous stories about WWF coming into NWA markets and triggering a giant war of words and threats to the arenas and such, and it was deadly serious stuff at the time. Now, with WWE being the only game in town, things work totally different, given that they’re the only ones who can afford to run the bigger arenas anyway. But back then, the WWF would work a set circuit covering the Northeast and Northwest, whereas the NWA would hit their cities in the south, and the AWA would cover the North and Midwest. Everyone pretty much stuck to the same script.