February 23, 1987
- The JCP Ontario show ran against Roddy Piper’s Canadian farewell and there’s a bit of news with that. It was -4 degrees, but 17,000 packed Maple Leaf Gardens for Piper’s farewell to Toronto. 3,206 paid for the JCP show nearby at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. Key to the poor JCP showing, aside from the weather, included confusion over whether the show would happen or not. There was a bit of press putting it in doubt that suggested Jack Tunney getting a show approved for Hamilton the same day would lead to the JCP show being impossible due to the athletic commission. Angelo Mosca hitting the media had gotten Tunney to back off on Hamilton and focus on the Toronto show (and given Toronto is just 40 miles away, it’s still competition). Also Mosca’s tv was pre-empted for the previous two Saturdays, and in the go-home tv day it went head to head with WWF’s tv, which was far superior.
- As a result of the poor showing, plans for monthly returns to Hamilton and tv out in Toronto seem to be canceled for JCP. They didn’t announce any return date, but rumor has it they might try again in April. Curiously, the fans who showed up all came to support the Four Horesemen, chanting “Horseman, Horseman” throughout the Tully/Dusty match and the Flair/Koloff match. So Dusty and Koloff actually both wound up playing heel in those matches. Dave gives a brief rundown of both WWF and JCP’s results for those shows and ratings reported to him by a reader who attended.
- At the Toronto show, WWF announced the Frank Tunney Memorial Tag Tournament for their next Toronto show in March. Wrestling historians should probably re-check their records, because it’s Frank Tunney who brought tag-team wrestling to North America. Guess he found it in Australia, and Jess McMahon invented wrestling in the 1920s. All the teams in WWF will compete with the winner main eventing against the Hart Foundation for the titles.
- Dave watched a complete episode of WWF tv this week and says it’s impressive enough to be scary how they’ve built up Hogan/Andre. He thinks Wrestlemania will be bigger than either of the first two shows, despite the undercard being lacking. The single main event as opposed to Wrestlemania 2’s triple mains (a stupid battle royal, a terrible boxing match, and Hogan/Bundy in the cage). WWF will be taking a week off the road before Wrestlemania and three after, so everyone should be in tip top shape and the workrate should be well above the usual.
- Dave runs down the whole Wrestlemania card as he knows it. The Killer Bees vs. Sheik and Volkoff should be a nice opener with decent work, and he figures the Bees as slight favorites to win. Koko Ware vs. Butch Reed will probably see Reed win despite the fact that he knees are shot and Ware should be getting a push since he’s popular with the kids. The Rougeaus vs. the Dream Team could be the second best match on the card if Jacques is in good shape. Dave still thinks Martel & Zenk will win the titles after Mania and will need a heel challenger, so he’s figuring the Dream Team will win. Speaking of Martel and Zenk, they’ve got a match with Bob Orton and Don Muraco which could have been great if Orton and Muraco were their 1980 selves. Dave wouldn’t be shocked to see the heels win, but he thinks it would be stupid to have Martel and Zenk lose. The Hillbilly Jim & midgets vs. Bundy & midgets match will be pure comedy, and Little Tokyo has more ability than Jim and Bundy combined. Dave thinks the best thing they could do is have the little guys in most of the match. Jake Roberts should be a full babyface before Mania, and he’ll need to be part of the face side carrying WWF through the early summer. Dave figures this match will end indecisively to help start a feud. Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules should be a decent match, and Hercules is going to need to win here to keep Heenan from losing too much when Andre loses the main. JYD and Harley Race will probably be a terrible match with Race putting JYD over. Piper will probably go over in his match with Adonis, maybe an angle done at the end if he wants to come back. Bulldogs & Santana vs. Hart Foundation & Davis is something Dave doesn’t want to think about. Davey Boy is good, Santana can be when he tries, and the Harts are great when they have their working boots on, but the elephant in the room is Dynamite Kid being there. Dave’s hoping he’ll be able to hide how much he’s hurting, because WWF won’t mention it anyway. The Davis story has been pushed too much for Davis to lose here, so he’ll probably get the win and maybe feud with Santana in the summer. Dave expects Savage/Steamboat to save the show if it’s been bad or to make it great if the show’s been just okay. Dave expects Savage to bring it since he’s dropping the belt and it should be a highlight of the card. Forget the hype on Andre/Hogan - the crowd’s going to be worked up to such a fever pitch for this that it will not be boring to them at all as long as the match sticks around 6-7 minutes. Too short and fans will feel ripped off; too long and they’ll realize how bad a match they’re looking at. Andre hasn’t wrestled since August (the battle royal a few weeks back literally just had him stand there) and his health is a shambles, and jogging his memory gets him winded. Dave guesses Andre is basically retired but sticking around for one last payday, and this should be a huge one. Heenan has been soaking up the heat, not Andre, which is perfect because the vast majority of fans are expecting a title change and will pop huge for Hogan retaining and they can do something where Heenan’s interference backfires. That lets them have Andre come out of this a babyface again and everyone’s happy ever after, especially if there’s never a rematch.
- WWF seems obsessed with selling out the Silverdome. If the show isn’t sold out ten days in advance, there won’t be closed-circuit or ppv in Michigan, which they hope will drive sales in the final stretch. Ticket prices for the cheap seats are $9, ringside $100 (inflation is a bitch). So far they’ve sold 17,000 as of this weekend, and with the announcement of Hogan/Andre this weekend, Dave expects over 40,000 sold by next week. After that it’ll be harder. Reports are coming that Aretha Franklin will sing the anthem as well as a couple other celebrity names involved with the show.
- San Francisco 49ers tight end Russ Francis will referee two AWA cards. It's kind of interesting how Verne keeps trying to play Vince's game here.
- Legal roundup: Jim Neidhart’s trial is scheduled for March 16 and he’s pled not guilty. Mike Von Erich was acquitted of his assault charge on punching the doctor in the jaw. The jury deliberated for a few hours and came back with an acquittal, stating the prosecution didn’t have a strong enough case.
- Correction from the past few weeks: Super Ninja in UWF is not Kengo Kimura. Dave honestly has no idea who that guy is.
- That Sting kid keeps getting better every show. At this rate he’ll be a great wrestler by the end of the year.
- JCP did a heel turn for Dick Murdoch two weeks after turning him heel. No, that’s not a typo. He turned on Baron Von Raschke and Dusty & Nikita Koloff came to the rescue, so now two weeks later Murdoch’s teamed with them and turned on them right after the match. You'd think they would have learned. Petrov, the new guy, was completely lost and couldn’t figure out how to help beat on Nikita and Murdoch kept shoving him away as if to make the angle work despite the lost newbie. Dusty likes working with guys who can carry a match like Murdoch, and Ivan Koloff is getting worn out working with Petrov and needs some time off here and there. They expect Murdoch to be able to teach him the ropes. Unfortunately, while Murdoch can be really good, he can also shit the bed, and he never seems to have any middle zone between the two.
- JCP looks like they won’t be establishing a Nashville office anymore. Instead they’ll just send the better cards to the area every month or so.
- Jerry Lawler is already back in Memphis. He came out on the February 9 show and wrecked Austin Idol and Tommy Rich. He’s teaming against them with Nick Bockwinkel on the February 16 show.
- The AWA signed a 15 month lease with the Minneapolis Auditorium. Not much going on with AWA this week, really. They're definitely a distant #4 or even #5 in North America after WWF/JCP/UWF and possibly WCCW.
- Dave saw the movie Grunt. It was so bad that the only thing it does is make you glad Vince McMahon is on top of the wrestling world because if the producers and writers of this movie were, it’s too terrible to think of. The only good part of the movie was Adrian Street playing Adrian Street.
- In South America there was an Invisible Man gimmick happening. Other wrestlers can’t see him and neither can the fans, so the other wrestlers sell for nothing, kind of like when Flair sells for Mike Von Erich. It’s already fizzled out.
- California has put forth a bill to deregulate wrestling in the state. Dave isn’t so keen about wrestling without a regulating body, but he doesn’t see anything but an additional layer of bureaucracy being the result of regulation so…
- From a letter we get a funny anecdote about commentary while watching AWA. I’ll just quote it:
- Since I usually poke fun at Bill Mercer and Larry Nelson, I’ll try someone different this time...a man who is a legend in his own mind...Lord James Blears. The only reason I never criticized him before was because I was never listening to him. In one ESPN show, Blears came up with the following statements:
- During the Sherri Martel-Candi Divine match: “They are both very good looking...no, they are both beautiful...and they have great bodies...and they’re women!” And here I thought Blears had no idea what was going on. Another line was during a Rose & Somers tag team match when the crowd began chanting “Sherri sucks.” Blears comments to Rod Tronguard that he can’t say what the crowd is chanting, especially on the BBC. Tronguard then comes back with, “Well, it’s a good thing we’re not on the BBC.” Way to play along, Rod.
- This incident reminds me of the time Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson were doing commentary during a Samoans match. Vince says to Patterson, “They seem to be communicating in some foreign language. Pat, what language do they speak in Samoa?” Pat comes back with, “I think it’s English, Vince.”
- Blears had another gem on the same show, saying “We’re coming to you from the middle of the United States...Nevada.” And here I thought I knew geography. Do you get the feeling maybe Blears has wiped out one to many times on his surfboard?
- Luger seems to be doing well in JCP so far, and if he manages to become half of a Tully or Arn, Dave reckons he could be a big name of the future. The difference is probably that he’s not being expected to carry JCP as the number one star like he was in Florida.