Nearly 40 years ago, a youngster from a small town in Ohio tuned into NBC on a fall evening in 1985 expecting to see the usual Saturday Night Live line-up. Instead, Jeff Gorman, who went on to earn a degree in journalism from Northwestern University outside of Chicago, found Saturday Night’s Main Event, the quarterly specials that were a key piece of the puzzle of Vince McMahon’s national expansion of the decade that saw the “Rock N’ Wrestling Connection” propel the popularity of the industry. On that particularly night, perennial top star, Hulk Hogan beat Nikolai Volkoff to give America the chance to gloat at the USSR’s expense in the midst of the cold war era.
That television program had such a profound effect on Jeff that he developed a passion for the ring that not only shaped the direction of his life, but continues to stay with him to this day. With aspirations to be a baseball announcer from the time he was a toddler, Jeff had a natural gift for broadcasting, something that he showcased during his years at Northwestern University when he called Big Ten baseball games.
Back at home, he started his journey as a wrestling announcer in 1994 for promoter Kid Collins, and has remained a fixture of the independent circuit for nearly thirty years. Throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, and several other states, Gorman earned a stellar reputation as informative, intelligent, and professional. Jeff’s voice has provided the soundtrack to everything from Ring Of Honor’s brutal Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe bout to mixed martial arts pay-per-view alongside the legendary Bas Rutten.
Jeff Gorman knew the wrestling game and the broadcasting business from the ground up.
He also went on to excel in the journalism field with the skills he learned at Northwestern. After college, he found work on staff at the Mansfield News Journal. Still today, Jeff balances his passion for the media through a series of ventures. He continues to cover legal news through his writing, and works as an announcer for the Lake Erie Crushers, a baseball team based in Avon, Ohio.
As is often the case in the wild world of professional wrestling, things went full circle for Jeff, as he found a way to combine all of his skills with the special memories he had from that Saturday night in the fall of 1985 from his childhood.
Gorman embarked on a literary venture that would provide a unique context to one of the most important aspects of history of the sport, pay-per-view. If you examine the true barometer of success for pro wrestling as a national entity, pay-per-view, regardless of its form or fashion, was the key to it all. The ability to sell the content at a premium to the casual audience is ultimately what decided if business entities survived the waves of the industry. Keep in mind, the emperor of sports entertainment, Vince McMahon once told cable companies in the 80s that they couldn’t offer NWA events to their customers if they wanted the ability to sell Wrestlemania on their systems that year. As a counter punch of sorts, when Wrestlemania was offered on pay-per-view for $29.95, Ted Turner, who rescued the NWA from collapsed because the organization couldn’t maximize its PPV revenue streams, put Ric Flair vs. Sting and Steamboat on free TV in 1988 and 1989 respectively.
Pay-per-view, especially throughout that era and into the boom period of the 90s, was the biggest revenue stream in sports entertainment, and those that drew the best buy rates were considered the top group of the industry. In his new book, “King of New York:Who was The MVP of The World Wrestling Federation?”, Jeff takes an in-depth look at all the pay-per-view cards in WWF history and provides an expert analysis as to how successful the event really was, particularly with a fair context.
“When the WWE Network came out in 2014, I felt like a kid in a candy store because I would watch all of the old pay-per-views. Since I’m a completist, I just started at the beginning with the first WrestleMania. I wrote down my thoughts on each PPV on the Death Valley Driver message board. I also awarded an MVP award for each show. Then I counted up the winners, and thought, ‘this would be a great idea for a book’ to cover the entire WWF PPV era and crown an overall MVP at the end of the book,” Jeff explained as to how the concept was developed.
The process and dedication to the high standard of quality that Gorman is known for throughout his career made the tedious project exhausting, but rewarding. Jeff didn’t gloss over anything, he put the time into this venture to give readers the relevant background information that fully explained the conclusions he drew for his ratings throughout the pages.
“The hardest part was filling in the blanks around the PPV. I wanted this to be a history book, so I had to add in all of the title changes, and just make sure I explain who everyone is. That way I can tell the individual character stories. Virgil is a great example, going from ‘the butler’ as my daughter called him, to capturing his boss’s Million Dollar belt. I also tracked the Undertaker’s streak and Big Show’s face/heel turns,” Gorman said.
However, this isn’t the first time that Jeff put pen to paper for professional wrestling, as he wrote his autobiography several years ago. Thankfully, through the improvements of modern technology, his “King of New York” venture will be much more accessible to readers, particularly through the easier publishing process, something that would’ve been a barrier for special projects in the past.
“It’s a lot easier than it used to be. You used to write a few chapters or an entire book, and then pray that a publishing company would accept it. Then you could self-publish, as I did for my “This Side of the Mic” announcing memoir, by paying a company to print your book. Now with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, you don’t have to pay a dime. You write a book, upload it, and share the revenue with Amazon,” Gorman commented.
A true historian that has worked in and studied the aspects of both wrestling and media, Jeff Gorman looks to give readers a comprehensive record of the WWF’s pay-per-view era that can be used as a resource of the history of the sport.
“The biggest story of King of New York is about the man who promoted every match in the book. Vince McMahon’s triumph over WCW was the defining moment, and it has shaped the last two decades of wrestling history. This series of history books is my gift to the pro wrestling world. Fans can collect them and hold on to great wrestling memories, while learning who were the real winners and losers of the wrestling wars and why,” Jeff remarked.
As someone that was in attendance live for the classic Flair/Steamboat bout at Chi-Town Rumble during his college days, Jeff already has his next publication in mind.
“I just finished watching all of the WCW pay-per-views, so I will start writing the next book, “King of Atlanta,” he concluded.
For more information about Jeff, you can follow him on Twitter @JeffDGorman to request an autographed copy of the book
To purchase the book, you can find it on Amazon
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Twitter @jimlamotta
