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| Jim Crockett Promotions Briarbend Drive Office - Photo from the Charlotte Observer May 25, 1987 (Click Photo to Enlarge) |
Not many people may realize that the Charlotte office of Jim Crockett Promotions on Briarbend Drive (just off South Blvd.) in Charlotte was also home to a small makeshift studio where the local promotional spots were taped in the mid-1980s.
Prior to this time, the promos were taped at the TV studios in the 1960s and 1970s at WRAL in Raleigh, and then at WPCQ in Charlotte when they moved there in 1981. Sometime in the year or two following, those promotional spots were moved to the Briarbend Drive offices which resulted in cost savings by not having to rent TV studio time at WPCQ-36. Those taping sessions had grown in length, too, as the number of markets where Crockett Promotions aired Tv had grown substantially during that time.
I love this photograph, shot by Mark Sluder, that appeared in an article by Tom Sorensen in the business section of the Charlotte Observer on 5/25/87. You can make out the street sign in the foreground, the intersection of South Boulevard and Briarbend Drive. Also of note is a small trailer with the folded up sections of steel fencing that made up the famous cage matches for Jim Crockett Promotions.
You can also make out the convertable small sports car owned by Dusty Rhodes, the same one you see in the famous angle outside this very building where the Horsemen jumped Dusty Rhodes just seven months earlier in the months leading up to Starrcade '86.