Blog question – Old NWA / WCW Rants.

By Scott Keith on 19 January 2018

Two quick questions re the old rants for PPVs :

1.
In your Starrcade 88 rant, you note that (as is well known) Flair vetoed jobbing the World Title to Lex Luger. In the match rant, you then say that Flair was subsequently told to go over clean, but insisted
on cheating to win. Was Flair just trying to not be a total jackass to Luger (given his use of veto) or was he genuinely trying to help Luger stay strong for future chokes?

2.
You make a couple of references to Bill Apter and / or PWI taking payoffs from NWA / WCW with regard to awards such as Wrestler of the Decade etc. Has this been confirmed / proven? Is it something Meltzer
referenced in his newsletters?

1. Yeah, he was trying to keep Luger strong for future rematches. Beating him clean as a heel would have been really short-sighted. The veto for the job to Luger was in 1990, though. Had they asked him to lose to Luger in 88 he wouldn't have had any issue with it, I don't imagine. Clearly Luger was the money guy that Crockett wanted on top eventually.

2. Does anyone have records of it? No, of course not. And hey, Bill Apter told me himself that he never took a dime from Crockett or Turner, so maybe it was all on the up and up. All I can say for sure is that WWF did not cooperate with them on photos and coverage, and the NWA cooperated extensively, and we know which side won the most year-end awards and got more cover photos.