Bill Watts

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Bill Watts
Statistics
Ring name(s)	BIll Watts
Born	May 5, 1939 (1939-05-05) (age 69) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.

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Bill Watts, (born May 5, 1939 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), is a former American professional wrestler and promoter. Watts was famous under his "Cowboy" gimmick in his wrestling career, and then as a tough, no-nonsense promoter in the Mid-South area of the United States, which grew to become the UWF.

In 1992, he was the Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling but after clashes with management over a number of issues as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, he resigned.^[1] He was subsequently replaced by Eric Bischoff.^[2]

1 Wrestling career
2 Booking career
3 Political allegiance
4 Radio
5 Autobiography
6 In wrestling
7 Championships and accomplishments
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Wrestling career

As a pro wrestler, he famously feuded with WWWF Champion Bruno Sammartino, but was unable to win away the belt. In the 1960s, he wrestled in many areas, such as San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, and even Japan, for All Japan Pro Wrestling. During these periods, Watts challenged for both the National Wrestling Alliance and American Wrestling Association versions of the World Title.

[edit] Booking career

[edit] Universial Wrestling Federation

Bill Watts is perhaps even more famous for being a pioneering promoter in the Mid-South area of the USA, with his base of operation being in the Shreveport area. His promotion was known as the Mid South Wrestling. He is often credited with creating the current and popular "episodic" style of TV wrestling, building solid creative storylines week-on-week, with an emphasis on solid in-ring action with dependable wrestlers like Steve Williams, The Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan. He's an outspoken critic on breaking kayfabe and "smart" wrestling fans. A Watts-run promotion always had face and heel wrestlers dress in different locker rooms and to have faces and heels not meet publicly. He has also been known to revamp his booking plans in order to protect the business from such fans. When a newspaper mentioned a wrestling event being the last one Jake "The Snake" Roberts would wrestle in Watts' territory and talked about the tradition of a wrestler jobbing in his last match to put his opponent over and to expect the finish to be in that fashion, Watts changed it so Roberts actually won the match and got put over on his way out of the territory.

After losing over half a million dollars, Watts sold the UWF to NWA Mid-Atlantic's Jim Crockett Promotions, who kept a lot of their stars, such as Sting. Instead of having UWF a separate organization, Crockett sent his mid-card wrestlers to the UWF and had them quickly win their titles. Eventually, the UWF folded, and Crockett would be bought out by Ted Turner in 1988.

[edit] World Championship Wrestling

Later on, Bill Watts became a Vice President of Turner Entertainment and was put in charge of World Championship Wrestling in the early nineties. He took a lot of his old-school values with him, such as banning moves from the top rope (due to its overuse at the time, but abolished it that fall), and the aforementioned babyfaces and heels separation. His tenure was not long, nor were his ideas overly embraced. He introduced his son, Erik Watts, to WCW around this time, who many felt was not ready for big-time wrestling yet. Bill was fired from his position in 1993, after comments from an interview he had done a few years earlier, which had comments considered racially insensitive to African-Americans, were brought to the attention of all-time Home Run King Henry Aaron, who himself was a vice president in the Turner organization with the Atlanta Braves by future WCW announcer Mark Madden, then just a wrestling journalist.^[2] It is ironic that Watts was fired for alleged racial insensitivity, because as a promoter, he often championed and pushed African-American wrestlers as his top stars—first Junkyard Dog in Mid-South Wrestling, as well as Ernie "the big cat" Ladd who he later inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and Ron Simmons in WCW—in order to appeal to the African-American fan base. In fact, under Watts' reign as WCW chief, Ron Simmons became the first African-American to hold a widely recognized World Wrestling Heavyweight Championship. Mick Foley referred to Watts' history of "creating a black babyface and building the company around him," while talking about his match with Simmons. He was replaced by Ole Anderson.

[edit] World Wrestling Federation

Bill later went on to a position of booking power in the World Wrestling Federation, his tenure there was short, as Watts stated in later interviews that he was only up there on a three-month contract and had no interest in staying long-term.

[edit] Political allegiance

Bill Watts is a Republican, and in an ROH shoot interview with Jim Cornette, he criticised Bill Clinton and the Democrats numerous times. He also said, "In the United States Constitution, it says all men are equal, but some men are more talented than others, and worth more". He has also been criticised for allegedly racist comments^[3].

[edit] Radio

Cowboy Bill Watts currently serves as co-host of a sports talk radio show on The Sports Animal in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[edit] Autobiography

In March 2006 Watts released his autobiography The Cowboy and the Cross: The Bill Watts Story: Rebellion, Wrestling and Redemption through ECW Press. The book chronicles his upbringing, his career as first a wrestler then a promoter along with events in his personal life. The book also details his becoming a born-again Christian.