Bill Watts had a great old school mind for professional wrestling. However, I think a major problem that Watts had was the same problem most of his contemporaries had: he was too single minded in his belief that his way was the best way and was unwilling to change with the times. I'm not necessarily saying all of his ideas were wrong exactly, though some of them clearly were, but I think most were just plain outdated and didn't work with modern audiences. By the mid 80s and into the 90s, pro wrestling wasn't really this fringe, underground market that it had been back in Watts' day. You weren't restricted to a certain geographical territory and weren't wrestling in front of the same fans month after month.

For instance, Watts was insistent on wrestlers not breaking kayfabe, he absolutely hates smart wrestling fans to such a degree that he would revamp booking plans in order to protect the business from smart fans, even to a financial detriment. Now, I dig the fact that some wrestlers try to protect the business because I grew up when wrestling still had mystique about it. However, at the same time, there's suspension of disbelief and there's downright insulting people's intelligence by expecting them to buy into the notion that everything they're seeing is real. I think there's a fine line between promoters respecting the fans and fans respecting the business only, nowadays especially, I think there are too many fans who don't really respect the business and feel that it's decisions should be catered to their immediate whims.

Watts got started as a booker in the late 70s when he bought the NWA Tri-State promotion from Leroy McGuirk and renamed it the Mid-South Wrestling Association. He had a great mind and his style was great for the time, but the time was coming to a close. Watts preferred poorly lit arenas and for the product to have a grungy sort of feel about it. He tried to bring that same mentality to WCW in the early 90s by taking them to poorly lit arenas in small towns that didn't bring in much money. If Watts had been born maybe 20 years sooner than he was and took and was booking in the 50s, 60s & 70s, he'd have flat out excelled and his company may have had THE promotion to work for in the United States for decades.

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