Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Bill Watts

American professional wrestler and wrestling promoter (born 1939) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bill Watts
Remove ads
For those of a similar name, see Billy Watts (disambiguation) and William Watts (disambiguation).

William F. Watts Jr. (born May 5, 1939),[1] better known under the ring name Bill Watts, is a retired American professional wrestler, promoter and former American football player. Watts garnered fame under his "Cowboy" gimmick in his wrestling career, and then as a promoter in the Mid-South United States, which grew to become the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF). Watts also worked under the ring name Doctor Scarlett which was sometimes stylised as Dr. Scarlett.[2][3][4]

Quick Facts Birth name, Born ...

In 1992, Watts was the Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) but after clashes with management over a number of issues, as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over an interview in which Watts supported a business owner's right to refuse service, he resigned.[7] He was subsequently replaced by Ole Anderson.[8]

In 1995, Watts briefly worked as a booker for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now WWE). In 2009, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Remove ads

Football career

Summarize
Perspective

Watts played as a linebacker for his high school football team, the Putnam City Pirates.[9][10] Bud Wilkinson recruited him to play for the Oklahoma Sooners, where he played as a guard during his sophomore and junior years.[11] However, his junior year was marred by a near fatal car accident involving him and his mother, resulting in him going into a coma.[12] When he came out, he had lost a significant amount of weight,[13] and had to put it back on, despite the coaches at the time preferring their players to be small and quick, which Watts had struggled with before the accident.[14] Former Sooners teammate Wahoo McDaniel (then of the Houston Oilers of the AFL), introduced him to professional wrestling for the first time, something McDaniel did in the off-season.[15] Watts turned professional in 1961 and joined the Oilers, but did not last long there, and according to a shoot interview, he left after knocking out a coach.[14]

Through McDaniel's friendship with defensive coach Bob Griffin, Watts played for the Indianapolis Warriors of the United Football League, while also being able to wrestle for NWA Indianapolis.[16] Watts then had a try-out with the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL), but after a discussion with general manager Jim Finks, who wanted him to quit his wrestling career, Watts left the Vikings having decided he could make more money back in Oklahoma.[14]

Remove ads

Professional wrestling career

Summarize
Perspective
Thumb
Watts in 1968

Wrestling career (1962–1979)

As a professional wrestler, he famously feuded with WWWF Champion Bruno Sammartino, but was unable to win the title. In the 1960s, he wrestled in many areas, such as San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, and even Japan for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). During these periods, Watts challenged for both the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and American Wrestling Association (AWA) versions of the World Title. Watts also had a successful run winning tag belts with Buck Robley in the NWA Tri-State/Mid South Wrestling before he became head promotor in the Oklahoma/Louisiana areas.

Booking career (1979–1995)

Mid-South Wrestling / Universal Wrestling Federation (1979–1987)

Thumb
Watts during his time as Mid South Wrestling booker, c. 1986

Watts is perhaps even more famous for being a pioneering promoter in the Mid-South area of the United States, with his base of operation being in the Shreveport, Louisiana area. His promotion was known as 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 "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, The Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan. He is 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.

After losing over half a million dollars, Watts sold the UWF to NWA Mid-Atlantic's Jim Crockett Promotions, who kept many of their stars, such as Sting. Instead of having UWF as 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. In April 1989, after firing George Scott, WCW offered Watts the chance to book, but he declined the offer and WCW instead decided to go with a booking committee, which included Ric Flair and Kevin Sullivan.

World Championship Wrestling (1992–1993)

Watts became Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling, succeeding short-tenured Kip Frey in 1992. He took many of his old-school values with him, such as minimizing action outside the ring and banning moves from the top rope and the babyfaces and heels separation among other series of rules that he reportedly detailed in a memo to wrestlers. His tenure was not long, nor were his ideas overly embraced. According to his autobiography, Controversy Creates Ca$h, Eric Bischoff, who worked under Watts at the time, felt Watts would intimidate anyone he was talking to and was only interested in taking the WCW product back to 1970s standards, with poorly lit arenas and house shows in remote, rural towns.

The circumstances of Watts' departure in 1993 are controversial. Prior to taking the job with WCW, Watts had given an interview to Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch. After a lengthy interview on wrestling, Watts commented on Lester Maddox, a 1960s restaurant owner and segregationist, as well as a former Governor of Georgia, who refused service to black customers. Watts supported the owner's position, illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that any business owner had a right to discriminate as did Watts in his business. Watts further expressed his view that slavery was beneficial for bringing black people to America. He also made numerous other controversial statements pertaining to race and sexual orientation, including using numerous highly offensive slurs:[17] "If you want a business, and you put money in it, why shouldn't you be able to discriminate? It's your business... That's why I went into business, so that I could discriminate... Who's killed more blacks than anyone? The fuckin' blacks."[18] However, in February of 1993, wrestling journalist Mark Madden brought the interview to the attention of Hank Aaron, himself a vice president in the Turner organization with the Atlanta Braves, as Madden had seen Aaron conversing with Watts on a TV special. Aaron, who dealt with plenty of racial abuse in his career as an African American baseball player, particularly when he broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974, pushed for Watts' removal.

Around the same time, Watts was already tired of the way WCW was going. February 1993 saw the company decide to take management of pay per views and programming entirely out of his hands and stated that he would be part of a large booking committee. Watts left prior to SuperBrawl III. In a letter he wrote in April 1993 addressed to Aaron, Watts contended that he resigned for his own reasons from WCW while arguing his comments were taken out of context and that the interview “was in the possession of TBS executives prior to my hiring in WCW; and I had already responded to that very allegation prior to being hired.” [19][20]

World Wrestling Federation (1995)

Watts later went on to a position of booking power in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). His tenure there was short, as he stated in later interviews that he was only there on a three-month contract and had no interest in staying long-term.[21] On April 4, 2009, Watts was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a part of the Class of 2009.[22][5]

Remove ads

Personal life

Watts has five children. From his first marriage, he has a son, William III (nicknamed Biff), and from his second marriage, he has three sons, Joel, Erik, Micah and a daughter, Ene.[23] 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.

Watts served as co-host of a sports talk radio show on The Sports Animal in Tulsa, Oklahoma until late 2008. He was a longtime resident of Bixby, a Tulsa suburb.[22]

Championships and accomplishments

Thumb
Watts being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.
Remove ads

References

External links

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads
Remove ads