AWA

Scott,

Just finished watching the spectacular legacy of the AWA dvd and have some questions.

Had the AWA given Hogan what he wanted such as full merchandise royalties, Japan dates and the World title and he would have stayed to a long term contract would the AWA been a competitor. Was Hogan that big of a star in popular culture at the time due to Rocky III that people would have tuned in to watch him there regardless what Vince was doing with the WWF?

Also Jesse Ventura is heavily mentioned and featured as an important player for the AWA but I was always of the impression he wasnt. Is this just rewritting history for the sake of the DVD to have someone featured on there who had garnered fame elsewhere in the last decade or so?

Thanks.

​Hogan was a pretty big star after Rocky, but the AWA was basically regional in their promoting, so it was inevitable that Hogan was going to go even if Verne gave him the World title and loads of merchandise. The AWA just didn’t have the same pool of fans to draw from as the WWF (or even the NWA) did. Verne’s problems with getting into New York or the south didn’t stem from not having Hogan, it stemmed from the business changing and Verne being unable to adapt, and Hogan being there wasn’t fixing that.

And no, Ventura wasn’t like a huge AWA fixture or anything. It was definitely a blow when he jumped ship without notice (while Verne continued to advertise him as being there) but it didn’t exactly derail main events for months to come or anything. ​