March 02, 1987
- Ann Gunkel, a former outlaw promoter, has passed away from cancer at the age of 50. Her husband, Ray, had been one of the owners of Georgia Championship Wrestling (same promotion that Vince would buy on Black Saturday) until his death in 1972. The remaining owners then tried to push her out of Ray’s share of the promotion. Just before the annual NWA Thanksgiving show in Atlanta, every wrestler who worked for the promotion up and quit to join Ann’s new All South Wrestling Association. She also filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NWA. As Dave understands things, the NWA settled out of court and bought her out, stabilizing the Atlanta scene. Ann’s influence is still felt - her promotion getting on WTCG (later WTBS then TNT) in Atlanta was the beginning of wrestling on what would become the Superstation, which would lead to Black Saturday giving WWF that coveted timeslot and channel which would start this wrestling war we’re covering right now between JCP and WWF (which would escalate into the Turner buyout of JCP, the Monday Night Wars, and WWE’s eventual virtual monopoly in the years to come, and now AEW is on TNT so we’re back at it again). Competing with Gunkel forced the Georgia office to up their game significantly, bringing in big names like Bill Watts and the Briscoes and making GCW one of the deepest talent pools in the U.S., which led to Watts and the Briscoes buying into the office. It’s also how Vince got his in, because they sold to him. After getting bought out, Gunkel remained on the fringes of the promotional side of the business, working occasionally with guys like Ole Anderson and Joe Blanchard, but never breaking back into major relevance.
- WWF taped Saturday Night’s Main Event (scheduled to air March 7) on February 21. It was a sold out crowd with a $200k+ gate at the Joe Louis Arena. The best match on the card was said to be King Kong Bundy beating Jake Roberts by DQ, and Roberts was over more than anyone, including Hogan. They did stuff furthering the Steamboat/Savage angle and closing out the “who gets Elizabeth” chapter of the Savage/Steele storyline. The main was the battle royal, which Hercules won. The big thing was the tease of Hogan/Andre without giving away much - their only interaction aside from staredowns was Andre bumping Hogan over halfway through. They wind up delaying the air date to March 14.
- Watch: Saturday Night's Main Event March 14, 1987
- Wrestlemania 3 has sold about 40,000 tickets as of the end of this past week. There are still five weeks left to sell, but it’s going to be hard to sell 50,000 tickets at this point now that all the big fans have theirs and the good seats are gone. Dave isn’t sure how they’re going to do it, but he figures they’ll find a way to pack in the people and fill the place. PPV will be blacked out in Michigan and Ontario to promote live attendance from people in the area.
- Latest Wrestlemania celebrities include Mary Hart (timekeeper), Bob Uecker (ring announcer) and Aretha Franklin (to sing at the intro). Alice Cooper, Bruce Boxleitner, and Samantha Fox are also said to be involved, and rumors are also placing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Rose there. Imagine if Pete Rose were at Wrestlemania 3 and got tombstoned by one of the Bulldogs.
- Dave issues a couple corrections. Last week he had the Midnight Express as winning the NWA US Tag belts, but they actually stole them which set up Cornette being suspended so he could go on his honeymoon. Also a couple weeks ago he had a wrong attendance figure for a WWF show in LA.
- Dave’s got some info this week on promotions that don’t usually get covered. In Deep South Wrestling, Mr. Wrestling 2 and Tommy Rich are the major draws. Also Fantasy (a valet) garnered enormous heat on the Feb. 20 show by individually insulting all 200 fans in attendance. Good on her. Capitol Sports in Puerto Rico has Chris Youngblood, whom Dave thinks is a potentially great wrestler if given a chance. Dave briefly covers Stampede, where Hiroshi Hase (working as Cong #1 of the Viet Congs) has just left to work in Japan (Dave predicts he’ll be a superstar). Hase’s looking even better in ring than Owen Hart in their matches together lately. Brian Pillman should be back soon (he had a separated shoulder), and Chris Benoit was in for a week between tours in Japan. International Wrestling in Montreal is hanging on by a thread. NWF is advertising their first tv taping for New Jersey and are advertising Scott Hall, Wendi Richter, the Samoans, Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody and more. Should be interesting if it comes to anything. Sgt. Slaughter’s upped his price to $3k per match, so he’s effectively priced himself out of the business.
- [WWF] Jake Roberts’ face turn aired this past weekend. Honkytonk hit him over the head with the guitar, and Jake should get over great. Also, one thing I haven’t really mentioned much here is that Dave has a tendency to use nicknames for a lot of the wrestlers, especially for ones he thinks poorly of (such as the Flabulous Moolah, the Glamour Ghouls, Junkfood Dog, etc.). It’s something that has been going on for years at this point. There’s occasionally a letter that comes in asking him to not use the nicknames, and then you get letters defending it and Dave defends it as well, and it’s a thing. All this is to say that here he calls Roberts “Jack the Snack” and I’m highly amused because of how that reads to 2019 eyes.
- Watch: Jake the Snake turns face
- JCP has a couple things going on behind the scenes. They’re pulling their guys from the Central States by the end of this week. Plans to run a territory in opposition to Jarrett and Lawler are scrapped, and so they’re going to stick to monthly shows in some of the cities in the area instead. Rumors are swirling about a top secret meeting in Florida between Dusty Rhodes, Jim Crockett, and Mike Graham. The leading theories are that Crockett will take over Florida (with Graham getting a percentage on Florida revenues), a complete buyout of Florida by JCP, or no deal and both sides will continue to run shows in Florida. Dave expects confirmation in the next couple weeks, but suspects one of the first two is the case.
- [JCP] Ole Anderson’s face turn should happen in the next week or two, and in the leadup Ole gave a promo on how the four horsemen formed that rivals Vince McMahon’s story of how his grandfather invented pro wrestling. Dave’s wishing for Ole to stay a heel, because the idea of face Ole just isn’t fun.
- UWF had their biggest crowd for a Power Pro taping yet with 2,200 in Fort Worth on Feb. 21. Dave has results and a few other notes, but nothing super big. Steve Williams has been acknowledged as going to Japan, so former University of Tulsa football player Steve Cox has been billed as his apprentice and gotten put into some prominent spots (counting the pin in a surprisingly good Ted DiBiase vs. One Man Gang match, for instance). Dave thinks he has potential, but don’t expect awesome matches at this stage (he never will make it to the big leagues).
- Kendall Windham’s injury that he suffered working in Florida earlier in February is legit. He broke his leg and continued to wrestle on it for about a week until it got discolored and a doctor told him to take eight weeks off. In other Florida news, Ron Simmons was the subject of a major article in a Miami newspaper (I can’t find the article). Unfortunate timing since it looks like he’s gone now to work for JCP and will be out of the territory.
- In other Florida news, they’re leaning hard into the sexual innuendo lately. Dave notes their tv show is heavy on it, specifically citing a comedy bit they’re doing where fans can write in for a dream date with heel Ed Gantner. Practically every promo for this that Scott Hall, Tracy Smothers, and Steve Armstrong are doing seem less like they’re trying to build fan interest and more like they’re advertising for groupies (let’s be real, that’s probably the only reason this angle is happening at all).
- In weird Florida news, Keiji Mutoh was on the Feb. 10 show. This was all part of an angle for back in New Japan, though, where they have a whole story about him getting attacked by gangsters who have issued death threats whenever he comes to the U.S. So Mutoh was supposed to wrestle the match, but gets attacked by a masked fan from the audience who pounds on him with a cane. They never unmasked him, and Dave’s sure it won’t come out, but it was Antonio Inoki under the mask.
- Minor notes: Al Scott, a jobber in Alabama, was on the Price is Right as a contestant. Bam Bam Bigelow’s deal with New Japan is for $52k for 10 weeks. Magnum T.A. was able to walk 100 yards with a walker. WWF will start drug testing their wrestlers for cocaine and speed with a two strikes system. Randy Savage allegedly punched a 9 year old fan (Randy’s story is the kid tried to touch Elizabeth’s hair, the kid’s family’s story is the kid tried to give Randy a high five).
- Dave clarifies last week’s rundown on Wrestlemania that those were his predictions. He says if he knew what the results were he wouldn’t print them.
- Someone in the letters section asks if Dave thinks Baba or Inoki will follow the lead of AJW and try to get on US tv. Dave thinks it’d be a hard sell for the most part, with small audience appeal, but could work in neutral territory and be as popular as any of the smaller promotions. Dave figures Baba wouldn’t be interested, and Inoki might be but would have to be approached by a US station. Dave’s still trying to figure out how AJW wound up with tv in the US.
- [NJPW] Bam Bam and Inoki sold out Sumo Hall. IT’s the first time in recent memory a rookie has main evented Sumo Hall, let alone a rookie American. They did an interference spot with Bam Bam’s manager saving him from submitting to Inoki’s octopus hold, then Bam Bam stood tall at the end. There will be a rematch in April.
- Joshi update on attendance: AJW is drawing 1500-3000 most nights, while JWP just hit a high point so far of 1900 (they had a Jackie Sato and Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori and Nancy Kumi tag match for that show).