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Jim
Nelson Interview - Part III:
The
Final Conflict
February 2004:
Video is getting ready to surface of the famous Greensboro
cage match in March of 1983 between Sgt Slaughter and Don Kernodle vs. Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood, promoted at
the time in Greensboro as "The Final Conflict".
I recently had the chance to speak with Jim Nelson again
about this show, what it was like living and working in
Alabama for Southeastern Wrestling after he left Crockett,
and the urban legend surrounding the tape that exists of the
"Final Conflict".
Q:
Let’s discuss this amazing show in
Greensboro, the culmination of a program that had gone on for months
leading up to this final match, called “The Final
Conflict”.
To
begin with who booked this whole “Sarge and his
Privates” angle?
A:
That was Sarge and Ole. Ole was booking the Crockett
territory then. I think Sarge initially came up with the
idea of having a recruit and I was picked to play that role.
This was late in 1981. Then Ole started booking his World
Tag Team tournament and was looking for teams and they came
up with turning Don Kernodle and making him the 2nd
Private. Don had been a popular babyface for years for
Crockett so it was a big shock.
Q:
How did they turn him?
A:
I think it was in a tag team match, he was partners with
Terry Taylor and Don left
Taylor
in the ring to get double teamed and basically came with
Sarge at that point. We were then a team for most of the
spring and summer of 1982, held the Mid-Atlantic Tag titles,
until they put Don with Sarge and they won the World tag
belts.
Q:
There was a lot of turmoil in the booking office for
Crockett during that time.
A:
Oh yeah, ever since George Scott left after having booked
there for so many years they went through several bookers
until they settled with Dusty in 1984. Ole got the book in
1981 when George Scott left, Wahoo briefly booked when Ole
left, and then Dory took over in late 1982 and was the main
booker until Dusty came in late 1983 or early 1984.
Q:
Usually, when there is a change in bookers a lot of
storylines get dropped or changed. A good example is the Tag
Tournament you mentioned that Ole was running. Out of
nowhere, it was just dropped, was that Dory that dropped it?
A:
No, that was Wahoo. I don’t know why, but basically when
Wahoo got the book, he just dropped the whole tournament
idea, right as they were about to finish it. Then not long
after Dory took over.
Q:
So the decision was made to pair Kernodle with Sgt.
Slaughter and they “won” the NWA World Tag Team
Championship in the finals of a fictional tournament in
Japan
. They decide to reunite Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood
as a tag team and they got the push to challenge Slaughter
and Kernodle for the belts during the fall and winter of
1982 and 1983. Did all the booking changes affect that whole
program in any way?
A:
Oh, absolutely. Dory basically wanted to drop that, too, and
Sarge went to
Jim
Crockett about it. Sarge really felt they had something
special going with Steamboat and Youngblood and didn’t
want the plug pulled on it. Crockett must have agreed,
because basically Sarge was allowed to book that whole
program, he and Crockett did it, and Sarge and Don and Ricky
and Jay put that whole thing together, including my turning
on Slaughter and Don to give Ricky and Jay the “secret”
to breaking the cobra clutch, etc.
Q:
I have heard before that this was an odd time for booking
(the 1982-1984 period), that you actually had different
people booking different states and things like that.
A:
That may have been so, but I remember Sarge and
Jim
Crockett were basically booking that program, and Dory was
booking most everything else.
Q:
So finally, we get to the big blow off to the feud between
Slaughter and Kernodle and Steamboat and Youngblood.
Slaughter was getting ready to go to the WWF, right?
A:
That is correct, and he actually was already going up to do
their TV in New York, that’s the way they worked it, you
would appear on their TV for weeks before you actually came
in to do house shows, so Sarge was already doing WWF TV
tapings before the final cage matches.
Q:
Tell me about that night, March 12 in
Greensboro
. Did they know they were in for such a big house?
A:
They knew it was going to be big, but no one really knew it
was going to be as big as it finally turned out to be. The
advance was good. I rode to
Greensboro
from
Charlotte
with Johnny Weaver, Ricky and Jay, and remember hearing as
soon as we got to the building that the walk up was huge.
Before anyone realized it, there was a huge traffic problem.
People who had tickets weren’t able to get to the building
because of all the crowd that was there trying to get
tickets. There were lots of people there from
Virginia
because people up towards the
Roanoke
area could get TV from
Greensboro
and knew about this match. The thing sold out quickly. One
of the boys had a radio in the dressing room, and local
radio was begging people to not come to the Coliseum, that
the show was sold out. There was a huge crowd of people
lined up at the box office to get in that were turned away
and they couldn’t leave because traffic was so bad due to
all the people still trying to get to the Coliseum.
It was estimated that as many people were turned away
as there were in the building, which is saying something
because
Greensboro
was a big building. This is where Dory and Crockett got the
idea that eventually became Starrcade, because there were so
many people turned away from that show, they knew they had
to do something like closed circuit, which is what they did
for Starrcade.
Q:
So you left Crockett right after the angle with the Briscos
breaking your leg on TV, right?
A:
That’s correct. I was working a notice, getting ready to
go work for Bill Watts in
Louisiana
, and they decide to use me in the angle that was turning
the Briscos heel on Ricky and Jay.
Q:
Did you have a copy of the tape of the Final Conflict show
before you left?
A:
I think it was that following Monday after the
Greensboro
show, we knew the show had been taped, so we asked Emerson
Lawson, who produced the TVs then, if he would make us a
copy, and he told us he would if we brought him a VHS tape.
There wasn’t room for the Flair/Valentine broadway so he
didn’t include that. I bought the best quality VHS blank I
could find and brought it to him.
Q:
So you have this with you, and you left Mid-South to work
for Ron Fuller in
Alabama
?
A:
Right, I went to work for the Fullers and the Armstrongs who
were running Southeastern Wrestling out of
Dothan
,
AL
. I had moved to Gulf Breeze, FL and was sharing an
apartment with Arn Anderson, who was also working the
territory at the time.
Q:
All you guys lived in the
Florida
panhandle on the beach?
A:
Yes, all the boys lived in or around
Pensacola
,
FL.
It was a great territory to work. It was so relatively small
that you could make all your towns and always be home at
night. The furthest regular trip was
Birmingham
. So we would
hit the gym every morning, hit the beach every afternoon,
leave for whatever town we had by late afternoon, work the
town, and be home by
midnight
. Back to the gym and then the beach the next day.
Q:
What a life!
A:
It was wonderful! And because you had very low expenses
being able to make the towns all in one day, you were able
to make good money because you weren’t spending it on the
road, you didn’t have all the wear and tear on your
vehicle, no overnight stays in a motel. During the better
spring and summer months, I had several $700-$1000 weeks,
which was excellent money back then. And no expenses.
Q:
What were the towns on your regular run?
A:
Pensacola
,
FL
on Sunday nights,
Birmingham
on Mondays,
Mobile
on Tuesdays. Wednesday we had off. Thursday was either
Montgomery
or a spot show. Spot show on Friday. TV at channel 4 on
Saturday mornings in
Dothan
,
AL
and
Houston
County
Farm
Center
(
Dothan
) on Saturday nights.
Q:
So you’re on the beach every afternoon, and working every
night.
A:
I loved working the Southeastern territory.
Q:
So what’s the story of the tape of the
Greensboro
show and how the pinfall finish was accidentally erased?
A:
Arn Anderson and I shared an apartment, and I had shown the
Greensboro
tape to him early on. He loved it. He loved watching it over
and over. He was so amazed by that whole deal and the huge
crowd it had popped. Arn was constantly having the boys over
to our apartment to show them this tape. Everyone working
there at one time or another was at our apartment to see
that tape. The Armstrongs loved it, too. We watched it all
the time.
One
afternoon, I came back to the apartment and wanted to tape a
news program about Russian terrorists to use as something in
my Russian gimmick I had then (Boris Zhukov), and I had put
a blank tape in earlier and so I hit record. Arn asked what
I was doing, and when I told him he screamed "No! The
cage match is in there!" and I immediately hit the stop
button, but it was too late. I had recorded a few seconds on
there.
As
it turns out, while I had been out that afternoon, Arn had
put the
Greensboro
tape in to show someone else and had then left it in the
recorder. I came back and did not know that it was in the
machine.
Q:
Were you ready to kill him?
A:
Well yes and no. If he hadn’t realized what I was doing
and told me to stop, I would have recorded over the rest of
the tape, which was basically just the celebration and Don
and Sarge leaving the ring, but that wouldn’t have been
good. So he was being lauded and cussed at the same time!
Q:
But the timing of that interruption is awful. You see
referee Sandy Scott go down for the final count and just as
he counts one, “Washington Week and Review” begins, and
then approximately 12 seconds later, we come back to the
ring as
Sandy
is raising Ricky and Jay’s hands.
A:
The way those old recorders worked, when you started a
recording they would back up over the last several seconds.
Arn had stopped the tape right after the three count, and so
when I pushed “record” it backed up a few seconds from
there.
Q:
Amazing. So years later, this story finally gets out.
A:
Other than the guys working in
Alabama
at the time, I never knew anyone knew that story. Then about
6 months ago, nearly 20 years later, Dave Meltzer writes
about it in his newsletter. How he found out that story, I
have no idea.
Q:
So Arn gets all the heat for this, right?
A:
(laughing) Yep, Arn is responsible!
-Jim
Nelson/Boris Zhukov, February 2004
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