Highlights
- Wrestling families have played a significant role in the history of pro wrestling, including the Watts family, with "Cowboy" Bill Watts as a key figure.
- Bill Watts had a successful in-ring career before becoming a highly influential booker and running his own wrestling territory, Mid-South Wrestling.
- Both Bill Watts and his son Erik Watts had involvement in football before pursuing careers in wrestling, and despite controversy, they both had runs in WWE and other promotions.
“Wrestling has more than one royal family” isn’t just a hot line from Cody Rhodes’ entrance theme. As long as there’s been wrestling, there have been wrestling families, with notable ones including the McMahons and Anoa’i’s. But there are other names who were important to the history of wrestling, like the Watts family.
RELATED: The 10 Best Pro Wrestling Families, Ranked
The crucial figure in the family was “Cowboy” Bill Watts, who was not only a wrestler, but a highly influential booker whose promotion Mid-South Wrestling would go on to contribute a crucial part of WCW. From there, Watts had several sons involved in the business in varying capacities, so let’s take a look at the whole family as it relates to wrestling.
10 Both Bill & Eric Played Football
Like many old-school wrestlers — and more than a few modern ones — Bill Watts didn't start out in wrestling, but in football. Playing since his high school days, Watts continued playing for the University of Oklahoma and eventually went pro, moving on to the American Football League’s Houston Oilers and later the United Football League’s Indianapolis Warriors. As fans know, Bill’s son Erik followed in his father’s footsteps in wrestling, but also did the same in football, playing for the University of Louisville.
9 Bill Watts’ In-Ring Career
While most fans know him for his work as a booker, Bill Watts started out in the pro wrestling business as an in-ring performer. Encouraged to enter wrestling by Oklahoma teammate and future wrestling legend Chief Wahoo McDaniel, Watts made his debut in 1992, wrestling across the various territories, Japan, and even challenging WWE Champion Bruno Sammartino on multiple occasions throughout the 1960s. Like McDaniel, Watts also did double-duty, competing in wrestling rings when he wasn’t on the football field.
8 Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling Was Influential
By the end of the 1970s, Bill Watts found himself running his own wrestling territory, namely the Mid-South territory which covered the territories of Oklahoma, Louisiana, and others. Until the promotion came to an end in the late 1980s, Mid-South proved to be one of the most influential of all time.
RELATED: 10 Things Fans Should Know About The Mid-South Wrestling Association
While televised wrestling mostly existed to promote local house shows, Watts’ Mid-South TV show took a different approach, featuring storylines continuing across episodes. In other words, Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling innovated the episodic style fans can see every week on shows like Monday Night Raw.
7 Bill Watts Ran WCW With An Old School Approach
In 1987, Watts sold his territory to Jim Crockett Promotions, which would eventually evolve into World Championship Wrestling. While Watts didn’t immediately enter the WCW fold, he ended up becoming the Vice President of the company a few years later in 1992. While his time running Mid-South was lucrative and influential, his time with WCW was characterized by a retrograde “old school” mentality. Seeking to bring wrestling back to the 1970s, Watts delivered edicts like banning top-rope maneuvers, which all but killed the company’s burgeoning Light Heavyweight division.
6 Erk Watts’ Entry Into The Wrestling Business
In the early 1990s, a young Erik Watts approached his dad expressing a curiosity about stepping into the ring. Encouraged by the elder Watts to go all-in, Erik was subsequently enrolled in WCW’s Power Plant, where he trained under founder Jody Hamilton — better known as the Masked Assassin. According to Erik Watts himself, he was only a few weeks into his training when WCW’s Dusty Rhodes began getting him a handful of bookings. After that first string of bookings, Watts officially had the wrestling bug.
5 Bill Watts’ WCW Run Ended In Controversy
While Bill Watts’ sensibilities regarding pro wrestling made him a controversial figure among wrestlers and fans alike, Watts also proved to be controversial in a much broader sense as well. Before starting at WCW, Watts spoke in an interview making various inflammatory comments about race and homosexuality. These comments resurfaced in 1993 thanks to the efforts of a wrestling journalist, who showed them baseball legend Hank Aaron, who worked at a high level elsewhere at Turner. As a result, Watts was reportedly fired from the company.
4 Erik Watts Was Hated In WCW
The younger Watts proved to be a controversial figure like his father, but in his case it was for wrestling reasons. By all accounts no great in-ring performer, Watts got a number of pushes that were considered a result of nepotism, considering his father was running the company.
RELATED: Why Cowboy Bill Watts' Time As WCW Booker Is Divisive
This view wasn’t just limited to fans, either — there was also a rumor in the locker room that the rookie got a Porsche as a signing bonus when he joined WCW. According to Erik Watts, this was not true.
3 Both Bill and Erik Watts Had Forgotten WWE Runs
The year 1995 saw Bill Watts come out of a brief retirement to work for WWE as a booker. Watts of course brought his old-school sensibilities to Vince McMahon’s company, but his time working there was also characterized by Watts pushing Brett Hart and Ahmed Johnson as well as hiring a young Vince Russo. During his three-month stint with WWE, Watts also brought in his son Erik to the promotion. There, Erik Watts became Troy, one-half of the forgotten futuristic tag team Tekno Team 2000.
2 Micah Watts Runs Universal Wrestling Archives
Erik Watts wasn’t the only of Bill Watts’ children to become involved in the pro wrestling business, however. One of Watts’ other sons, Micah, currently owns a company called Universal Wrestling Archives. Keeping the Watts family legacy alive, Universal Wrestling Archives sells DVDs of various Mid-South programming, including not only peak-era Mid-South Wrestling but also compilations of the Universal Wrestling Federation era, including the UWF minor show, Power Pro Wrestling. Through the Archives’ website, fans have the ability to buy the entire Mid-South library as a 100-DVD set.
1 Erik Watts Had A Run In Impact
After low-key runs in ECW, Japan, and a forgotten return to WCW, Erik Watts had what’s easily the most successful stint in any pro wrestling company when he debuted in Impact Wrestling — then known as TNA — in 2002. Sticking around until 2005, Watts’ most significant role in Impact was as the Director of Operations, the promotions on-screen authority figure. During his time with the company, Watts also formed a heel faction called Next Generation alongside fellow second-generation wrestlers Brian Lawler and David Flair.
