Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Telling it Like It Is (Baltimore 1984)



 "World Championship Wrestling is the best. The best! To me, and I'm double sure by saying...World Championship Wrestling is far better than Hulk Hogan, the World Wrestling Federation champion. I come to see Ric Flair and the guy that...you know, here's two guys that are twice World champions, they come down here, and you let Baltimore have it. This is Georgia Championship Wrestling come to Baltimore, and it's far better than Madison Square Garden."
by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Preach! This was one of the great TV moments in the final months of Georgia Championship Wrestling on WTBS in 1984.

Ole Anderson talks to an obviously knowledgeable fan at ringside in Baltimore before Georgia Championship Wrestling's big show at the Baltimore Civic Center on April 7, 1984. This was during the time Georgia Wrestling was attempting to expand into the traditional WWF territory after Vince McMahon's WWF was aggressively making inroads into every territory in the country.

The main event that night in Baltimore was Ric Flair defending the NWA World Heavyweight championship against former champion Jack Brisco in what would be one of Brisco's last shots at the NWA title.

The WWE Network recently added the Flair/Brisco match to its "Hidden Gems" section of the the Vault. The video began with some of the footage shown on WTBS of Ole Anderson talking to several fans that was shown on WTBS. But they understandably omitted the footage above. That gentleman passionately spoke for a lot of true wrestling fans at the time, and represented the genuine excitement fans felt about Georgia wrestling and the NWA champion coming to Baltimore.

Sadly, three months later, the WWF would take over the TV time of Georgia's "World Championship Wrestling" on WTBS. Black Saturday.

The video is from the show that aired on Saturday, April 14, 1984.