Jim Herd

Jim Herd died in October 2026 at the age of 87. The exact date, place and cause of his death have not been made public. News of his death was reported on 10 November 2026 by Conrad Thompson in his weekly Conrad's Corner column for Yahoo Sports' Uncrowned, which opened with the news and closed with the words "Rest in peace, Mr. Herd." No funeral or memorial arrangements had been announced.

James Herd was born on 24 March 1939. Little has been published about his childhood or family. He made his name in St. Louis, Missouri, where he became station manager of the independent television station KPLR-TV. The station carried Wrestling at the Chase, the long-running local program broadcast from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, and Herd worked as a producer on the show. During those years he also worked alongside Jack Petrik, who later rose to a senior position at Turner Broadcasting.

After leaving KPLR-TV, Herd moved into the restaurant business as a regional executive for a company that operated Pizza Hut restaurants. According to Conrad Thompson, Pizza Hut had struggled to break into a St. Louis market dominated by Imo's Pizza, and Herd, with his advertising and television background, turned the stores around financially. Wikipedia credits him with lifting sales through phone surveys and responding to customer feedback.

When Turner Broadcasting bought Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988, Herd was named the first Executive Vice President of the new World Championship Wrestling, with his tenure starting on 3 January 1989. He said in later interviews that his relationship with Ted Turner went back long before 1988. His remit was to make the division profitable and to broaden its appeal along the lines of the World Wrestling Federation. He moved the Saturday television show from the WPCQ-TV studios in Charlotte to the larger, better lit Center Stage in Atlanta, brought ramps and pyrotechnics to pay-per-view events and, from late 1989, introduced popular songs as entrance themes. He also served as president of the National Wrestling Alliance from 1991 to 1992.

Herd pursued sponsors and cross-promotions aggressively. WCW gained a Coors beer sponsorship, commercial deals with Roos and Budweiser, and its first trading cards and action figures. Under an edict from Turner Broadcasting, RoboCop appeared alongside Sting at the Capital Combat pay-per-view in May 1990, Elvira promoted Halloween Havoc 1990, and Brad Armstrong became The Candyman in an attempt to attract Hershey. Herd also tried to lure Roddy Piper and Randy Savage from the WWF, but budget limits set by Petrik stopped him making competitive offers. Gimmicks such as The Ding Dongs and The Dynamic Dudes were poorly received, and a proposed tag team of hunchbacks, which Herd later said had been suggested as a joke, became a byword for misjudgment.

His relationship with Ric Flair broke down in 1991 over Herd's wish for Flair to lose the world title and take a pay cut, and over a reported plan to repackage him as a gladiator called Spartacus, which Herd later denied. On 1 July 1991 Herd terminated Flair's contract and stripped him of recognition as champion, but Flair kept the physical belt and took it to the WWF. Herd resigned on 8 January 1992 and later worked in the casino business. In 2020 he gave his first wrestling interviews in almost two decades for a series on AdFreeShows.

Herd kept his private life out of public view, and details of his family have not been widely published. After leaving wrestling he largely stayed away from the business, and for years he declined to discuss his time at WCW, until the 2020 interview series in which he gave his own account of his tenure and his dealings with Ted Turner, the McMahons, the Crocketts and Ric Flair.

For more than three decades Herd's WCW run was mocked in shoot interviews and by commentators such as Dave Meltzer and Jim Cornette, and his firing of Ric Flair is still counted among the most consequential decisions in wrestling history. In his tribute, Thompson argued for a more balanced view: WCW lost money under every leader before Eric Bischoff, and Herd's years also produced Flair and Ricky Steamboat's celebrated 1989 trilogy, Sting's first world title at the 1990 Great American Bash and the arrival of Big Van Vader, the Great Muta, Scott Steiner and Terry Funk. Thompson also credited him as ahead of his time in bringing mainstream advertisers into wrestling.