10 Ways World Class Championship Wrestling Changed The Business

10. Stable Wars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeD_UKAXdU8 Stables are often the backbone of wrestling storylines. The current war between the Shield and the Wyatt family is only the most recent example. Fans breathe names like the Four Horsemen, the New World Order and Degeneration-X with the utmost respect, and with good reason: when things get ugly between two gangs, it looks great on television. Fritz Von Erich knew this. He'd already turned his two eldest sons, Kevin and David, into fan favorites. The addition of third brother Kerry, a bona fide superman with an Olympic-level discus punch, only sweetened the deal. Fans €“ especially women €“ loved the clean-cut, photogenic trio. Enter the Fabulous Freebirds. The dangerous-looking Michael "P.S." Hayes, Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy, and Buddy "Jack" Roberts were well-known in Georgia Championship Wrestling, another NWA promotion. Their look was pure southern rock, long hair and rebel flags, looking like they'd stepped out of the cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Street Survivors, flames and all. They were the antithesis to the Von Erichs' pretty boy appeal. Hayes was booked as a special referee during a cage match between Kerry Von Erich and Ric Flair. Flair raised Hayes's ire, so Hayes clocked him. He instructed Von Erich to pin Flair, but the noble Von Erich refused. (In Hayes's words, it wasn't "the Texas thing to do.") Flair kneed Von Erich into Hayes, knocking him over. Gordy, standing outside of the ring, slammed the cage door into Von Erich's head in retribution. This simple clash of values began one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history, and introduced gang warfare to the sport. For the rest of WCCW's run, the Von Erich/Freebird war would take center stage. The promotion even allowed any two members of the Freebirds to defend the tag belts, beginning a tradition known as the "Freebird rule."