Wild West was an outlaw promotion run by Ken Mantell during the summer and fall of 1987. Mantell, after booking World Class during its 1982-85 heyday, defected to Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation (formerly Mid-South Wrestling) shortly after the 1986 Parade of Champions show, along with a sizable chunk of WCCW's roster. When Watts sold the UWF to Jim Crockett Promotions a year later, Mantell launched Wild West, promoting matches at the popular Fort Worth nightclub Billy Bob's Texas. A number of former WCCW and UWF wrestlers joined Wild West, including Iceman Parsons, the Missing Link, Buddy Roberts, Wild Bill Irwin, John Tatum, Jack Victory and Fabulous Lance (the former Lance Von Erich, who had recently walked out of World Class)
The new promotion's TV show, like the weekly syndicated WCCW hour, was produced by Channel 39 (KXTX) in Dallas and was hosted by longtime World Class announcer Bill Mercer. However, it never really got off the ground as Fritz Von Erich, emotionally battered by the tragedies involving his sons, elected to leave the wrestling business only a few months after Wild West was established, selling WCCW to Mantell (who became a 40% owner), Kevin and Kerry (who each owned 30%). At that point, Wild West was absorbed into WCCW, and an interpromotional war angle was run on both groups' TV shows to explain the sudden return of numerous familiar faces to World Class following the 1987 Thanksgiving Star Wars card.
Although Mantell's promotion only produced about 25 to 30 TV episodes during its existence at Billy Bob's, a syndicated Wild West Wrestling show, consisting of WCCW bouts taped at the Sportatorium, continued to air outside the Metroplex area for a time. Reruns of these shows have aired in recent years on ESPN Classic Canada.
What titles were defended in Wild West?
The one and only championship the promotion established before closing its doors was the Wild West Tag Team titles. Here is the history (note that all title changes occurred in WCCW after the initial tournament):
| John Tatum & Jack Victory | 87/11/30 | Fort Worth, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
Defeated the Missing Link & Jeff Raitz in tournament final.
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| Steve & Shaun Simpson | 88/02/29 | Fort Worth, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
| John Tatum & Jack Victory (2) | 88/05/08 | Irving, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
Defeated Steve Simpson & Terry Gordy.
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| Steve & Shaun Simpson (2) | 88/07/25 | Temple, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
| John Tatum & Jimmy Jack Funk | 88/09/05 | Fort Worth, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
| Samoan Swat Team (Samu & Fatu) | 88/09/12 | Fort Worth, TX | ||||||||||||||||||
Unified with WCWA World Tag Team titles.
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