What If? – Magnum T.A.’s Accident Didn’t Happen

TheChairshot.com asks the question…What If? Rob Bonnette discusses what if the Magnum T.A. never had his car accident!

If you’re a certain age of wrestling fan, Magnum TA’s car accident was one of the first wrestling tragedies you got to experience. I still remember when David Crockett opened up World Wide Wrestling in a somber tone of voice as if someone had died to break the news to us. Now back then, we didn’t have 24/7 paparazzi reports about everyone who’d been on TV for five minutes, so several months went by before we saw or heard anything from the man himself. After David broke the news, Magnum was essentially a ghost. But the loss was felt for a very long time, and had major ramifications in the NWA and the wrestling world for years to come. Promoter Jim Crockett would confirm what had been rumored for some time – that Magnum was being lined up to win the World Title from Ric Flair at Starrcade ’86. Magnum was all set to take the mantle from Dusty Rhodes as the company’s top babyface going forward and was going to be the next big thing in the NWA. Being out of action permanently left Dusty scrambling to find someone to take that booking, and Flair would not have a singular main antagonist for a while as a result.

Sometimes tragedy and the urgency it forces to do something drastic can yield some unexpected results, and that’s exactly what happened here. Dusty swung for the fences by turning Nikita Koloff, Magnum’s recent bitter rival, babyface on a dime and it was a great solution. Even with no buildup and little explanation afterwards beyond Nikita being moved to support Dusty out of respect for his rival, we took to it immediately and rode the wave. It added a new layer to Koloff’s career as he turned away from being a stereotypical 80s Russian heel (by way of Minnesota, of course) and into an awkward but loyal ally of Rhodes and his other friends. But no one was able to completely fill the role that Magnum was set to occupy, and as a result, Ric went through the rest of 1986 and all of 1987 facing a rotation of babyfaces with Rhodes and Koloff, but also the Garvins – Ronnie and Jimmy – as well as Barry Windham. It wasn’t until Sting and Lex Luger emerged in 1988 that they were able to find two babyfaces to have longer programs with Ric, and by then it was too late to turn around Crockett’s financial losses, forcing him to sell to Ted Turner.

But what if that didn’t happen?

In the best case scenario, Magnum wins the title and becomes the face of the NWA. He and Flair trade the title back and forth for a while and main event a couple of Starrcades. Then when Sting and Luger emerge, the company has a trio of babyfaces (or a duo if Luger started out as a heel like he did in real life) to take on Flair and the Horsemen while Dusty does more booking and production than wrestling. Koloff would be a more interesting case. He would have stayed heel in 1986 of course, and would have been a big challenger for Magnum in 1987, before he and Flair got back together. But I think he would have eventually found his way to being a babyface regardless, as things changed between the US and the Soviet Union in the real world. Would this have all been enough to save Jim Crockett? Maybe, but probably not. 1987 was a year that played out much better on TV than was actually going on behind the scenes, and the overspending to buy up the last few remaining NWA territories to hold the line against the WWF would have still been a problem.

There are a couple of other looming questions. Would Magnum have ever made the jump to the WWF? It seemed like everyone at least made one run there during the 80s and 90s, but Magnum is a loyal guy and would have been paid really well to be the top babyface in the NWA, so he may have been just fine sticking around. He’s also the kind of wrestler that Vince McMahon would not have understood in the least bit, which would not bode well for him. Magnum was the guy who’d have your back in any bar fight if he was your friend, always willing to dole out some extracurricular justice to the bad guys. He was also the kind of Southern man that Vince loathed to present as is, and would have wanted to give some awful gimmick to. The other big question is, assuming he never leaves, how would he have fit in during the NWO? Magnum is around the same age as Sting and Luger and would have made for a hell of third man to combat the NWO trio of Hall, Nash, and Hogan. Would it have changed the story any? It would have been fun to find out.

40 years later, we’re just happy that Magnum survived and was able to go on and live a normal life afterwards. But man, what could have been.