Wrestling Observer Rewinder

April 06, 1987

Wrestlemania 3 is in the books. It was the most impressive wrestling production in all of history, and everything about the show exceeded anything that has ever been done before in wrestling - from the hype, the production, the attendance. Everything about Wrestlemania was bigger than life. Speaking of attendance, Dave should have a pretty complete estimate of attendance and money next week, but suffice to say Wrestlemania 3 was the biggest grossing wrestling event ever and has set a standard that it will be very hard for WWF to top next year (spoiler alert: they come nowhere near it next year).
On the whole, Dave thinks the wrestling was pretty good. The main event was bad, worse than Dave had expected, but it succeeded in its purpose as drawing a monstrously large crowd. Sure, everyone could have predicted Steamboat and Savage would steal the show. Maybe if they’d gone on last some folks who went home feeling sour would have instead clapped their hands and felt the power. Anyway, Dave runs down the card. 2.5 stars for the Can-Ams vs. Orton and Muraco, 2.75 for Haynes vs. Hercules, 1 for Jim and Bundy with the little guys, 1 for Race vs. JYD, 1.5 for the Rougeaus vs. Valentine and Beefer, 3.5 for Piper vs. Adonis, 2.75 for the Bulldogs and Santana vs. Hart Foundation (incredibly sad to watch Dynamite here), 0.5 for Reed vs. Koko, 2.5 for Honkytonk vs. Roberts, 1.5 for the Killer Bees vs. Sheik and Volkoff. But the major highlights are the Intercontinental and World Title matches. Dave gives 4.5 stars for Savage and Steamboat, which he says is the first match of its calibre he’s seen from WWF in almost a year and was better than any match from the last Starrcade. Dave’s only real criticism is the Steamboat promo that made things a little silly to start with. Otherwise, it had everything Dave loves: lots of near falls, big spots, and a build of excitement. Dave says when Randy turns it on, he’s as good as anyone except Flair. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Hogan and Andre, which he gives -4 stars for threatening to be the worst match Dave has ever seen. Dave absolutely tears into this match, and I’m just going to quote the entire review here:
Hulk Hogan pinned Andre the Giant with a legdrop after a bodyslam in 12:00. This wasn’t the worst match I ever saw, but it threatened to be at times. Hulk proved all his critics right--in that he simply can’t carry a match. Andre was even worse than I expected. Now, I always heard that Gorilla Monsoon was a math teacher. Didn’t he ever teach his son Joey (Joe Marella) how to count past nine because they were outside the ring for 90 seconds at one point and Marella never counted to 10. Everything done except the first non-slam and the final slam was poor. And little was done. -**** (that’s negative four stars -- I’ll have nightmares about this one--Andre just standing there not moving for minutes on end, nearly falling asleep while holding Hulk in a four minute bearhug). But who can complain--in one day this match did more business than every Buddy Rogers vs. Johnny Valentine, Pat Patterson vs. Ray Stevens, Lou Thesz vs. Karl Gotch, Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Flair and Jack Brisco vs. Terry Funk match combined. And that’s something to think about.
So after Wrestlemania, what’s next? Andre and JYD seem to be heading out, and Piper’s gone for a while. Adonis vs. Beefcake is an obvious, though sure to disappoint feud. Duggan has some options, but you can’t push him to the top of the card right away. Jake Roberts vs. Honkytonk isn’t headline material because of Honkytonk. Bulldogs and Hart Foundation has too much else going on, and it’s not going to headline either. Outside of Hogan feuds, the only headline feud Dave sees possible is Savage vs. Steamboat, and that already peaked. Fortunately WWF has a month off to figure out how they’ll rebuild from here.
Riki Choshu is still the major headline in Japan, and it’s clear he wants to jump to NJPW. He wants to bring his friends too, but one of them wants (Yoshiaki Yatsu) to stay with Giant Baba and the others are keeping quiet. A bit of background on Choshu. He started in New Japan and caught a big break in 1982, where he became the most popular wrestler in Japan before jumping to Baba’s promotion with 12 guys to try and cripple New Japan in 1984. This past year, New Japan ratings have been in the toilet and their tv is in jeopardy, with rumors flying that they’d be canceled any week which would kill the company. Bringing Choshu in would probably save the tv deal. As we’ve covered, Choshu missed shows with a hand injury lately, and Yatsu has said he’s staying with Baba, but also that they don’t need Choshu anymore. Choshu has tried to convince the others to jump, and Yatsu trying to convince them to stay, so now they’re on the outs with each other. Choshu’s contract with Baba expired in March, but he has a no-compete clause saying he can’t work for another Japanese promotion for a year after his contract ends, and Baba wouldn’t waive the clause. On March 23, Choshu held a press conference saying he and the rest of Japan Pro-Wrestling (the group of guys he jumped from Inoki with, operating as a renegade promotion partnered with All Japan) had agreed to operate independently and negotiate and appear with both NJPW and AJPW on a tour by tour basis. This has been hugely damaging to the reputation of wrestling in Japan, so much so that the sponsors of World Pro Wrestling (a show that compiles US and Mexican arena tapes) wouldn’t renew, so Tokyo channel 12 has canceled the show in Japan. New Japan’s tv is moving from Monday to Tuesday nights and will be highlights rather than live. Ichiro Furutachi, the voice of New Japan on tv, has bailed on the company. Saito missed a contract signing and Choshu was there in his place, which suggests Choshu may be working for both groups already, which only fuels speculation that Baba and Inoki are in cahoots.
Saturday Night’s Main event from March 14 has a final rating: 11.6 and a 33 share. That makes it the second most watched show in the history of its time slot (in ratings points, as more homes have television, it’s the most watched in terms of total viewership). Dave notes that currently tv ratings are the best way to determine interest in wrestling. Live attendance can be affected by a lot of factors, while tv is mostly affected by what else is on tv. Short version: wrestling is not some fad that’s hit its peak and there’s more interest now than ever before. So why won’t ABC or another network get wrestling for that prime 11:30 pm time slot that’s a proven winner? Wrestling would certainly do better than what they have in the slot now, and it’s much cheaper to produce wrestling, so ABC could pull itself out of the red if they did it. Won’t happen, but it should.
Speaking of tv, JCP and WPIX in New Work struck a deal for airing Worldwide. The inaugural show was scheduled for last week and even got printed in New York tv guides, but it fell apart because JCP has a deal with Turner that gives Turner the right to refuse any affiliates for the syndicated shows. It seems Turner considers WPIX is too direct competition for WTBS, so he canceled the deal and JCP remains with no tv in New York. We’re still not at WCW but this might be our first LOLWCW moment.
More controversy in UWF. Remember when Bill Watts did that interview blasting St. Louis officials for keeping him out of Kiel Auditorium? Well, the Kiel people have walked back some of their exclusivity deal with WWF and put forward a sealed bid proposal for exclusive rights to the arena. Basically, promotions interested in running the arena in the next year should send a bid (most money and dates), and all bids will be opened on April 7, with the highest bidder getting the rights. UWF is basically going to run the Arena in St. Louis instead. Bob Geigel’s Central States promotion is expected to send in a bid, but we can all laugh at that. So really it’s a contest between WWF and JCP for who puts up the most money and agrees to book the most shows. The record between the two speaks for itself - JCP is a failure in St. Louis, and while WWF hasn’t put their best foot forward, they’ve outdrawn JCP consistently over the past 3.5 years. So expect WWF to win this one.
In other UWF news, they had good matches but didn’t make a lot of money on their California tour. Their March 25 show drew a hair over 200 fans for less than $2000 at the gate. A weird moment from that show - Michael Hayes and Buddy Roberts beat Chavo Guerrero and Missing Link in a pretty good match, but Terry Taylor started as Link’s partner because Chavo was late. Chavo did make it and finished the match as Link’s partner while wearing his street clothes. I don’t think you’d ever see that in WWF or JCP.
Regarding the Freebirds in UWF, their status is unclear. They’ve been released from their contracts, but they’ll work full time through the end of April. Also Hayes’s album is coming out soon, and everyone knows he wants to make it in music. Terry Gordy’s big concern is his Japan deal, and working nightly in the US with a bad knee won’t be great for his chances there, so he might want to work limited dates.
Dave has a few pages of show reports from live shows, including one submitted by a fan by the name of Mike Tenay. Tenay saw the March 21 WWF tv tapings in Las Vegas which will air through April as Superstars and build the post-Wrestlemania angles. The show started 45 minutes late so the seats could fill up, so they stalled with some matches and introduced Missy Hyatt to the crowd as a face (they gave her a cheap heat line supporting the local college basketball team to ensure she’d be cheered later). The first hour included the debut of Missy’s Manor, which had an apartment type setting and Missy wore a new leather outfit each hour. The microphone starts on the floor each segment so she has to bend over to pick it up, and the interviews pretty much entirely consist of sexual innuendo. The first one saw Bobby Heenan try and fail to ask her out. Fans reacted well to that one, but started to grow restless in the second show’s segment when Jimmy Hart and Honkytonk were in the Manor. By the third one, the fans weren’t having any more of it even though the guests were Rick Martel and Tom Zenk. Long story short, the Missy’s Manor segments are not going to air and these are being treated as dress rehearsals and they’re planning to tape the first segments meant to air on April 23rd after airing a brief clip announcing her taking over the Pit on the 18th or 25th. In other news, Hogan showed up for the very last bit of the show and beat Hercules in a 9 minute match (it went so long because of a bearhug that went several minutes).
Dave, meanwhile, reports on the March 25 JCP show in San Francisco. The bottom of the card was pretty poor, but the final two matches did really well. The Road Warriors & Dusty vs. the Horsemen (Tully & Luger & Arn) for the trios titles was really good, mainly because Tully’s a master showman and that’s what you need going up against the Road Warriors and Dusty. Luger’s inexperience shone through at points, but for the most part he did a good job selling for the Road Warriors and looked good for the brief time he was in the match. Dave gives Nikita Koloff vs. Ric Flair in the main event 4 stars. The finish was an over-the-top rope disqualification, and while Koloff looked smaller than usual, he wrestled better than ever, including a sunset flip over the top rope. The crowd, Dave noticed, was almost entirely men ages 16-30, whereas WWF draws a much broader crowd. They announced a return for April 23 and some names, but those names were guys like Wahoo McDaniel, Baron Von Raschke, Vladimir Petrov, and Bob & Brad Armstrong, so the crowd was less than enthused and didn’t storm the ticket office.
He also saw the UWF show in Stockton on March 26. Chris Adams & Sam Houston vs. Sting & Rick Steiner was an excellent match that went to a twenty-minute draw, and Dave raves that it’s the best match he’s seen in California in seven months, citing Sam Houston’s skill especially. The Hayes & Roberts vs. Link & Chavo match got weird, as it had Nickla and Sunshine handcuffed together at ringside. Things went fine for the first 9 minutes, then Chavo dropkicked Roberts out of the ring, and it seems like Sunshine tried to get out of the way which pulled Nickla down. After that things fell apart and they devolved into a fight where Nickla practically killed Sunshine until Hayes, Roberts, Red Bastien, and Grizzly Smith had to get out there to calm them down (they failed) and finally separate them. Sunshine bolted to the dressing room and Nickla pretty well bowled everyone over chasing her down. Hayes and Roberts rejoined the match after everything got resolved and they went to the finish. There was also a First Blood, I Quit battle royal that was really good and better than WWF, AWA, and JCP battle royals Dave’s seen recently. Despite the small crowd (800), Dave says credit to the wrestlers working hard for the fans and putting on a better show than JCP did the night before.
Terry Taylor reportedly assaulted a teenage fan at a March 13 UWF show. According to the newspaper report, the show was at a high school with 150 in attendance, and the kids threw trash into the ring, so Taylor told school officials he wouldn’t come out until the ring was clear. After he came out, fans chanted “narc” at him and cheered for Eddie Gilbert the whole match. Taylor yelled back at some of the heckling fans as he returned to the back, and a few responded by saying they’d fight him. So Taylor confronted 16-year old James Shamblin and asked him what he said, to which Shamblin said “I just said it.” Taylor reportedly headbutted and punched Shamblin, knocking him out and breaking his nose. The incident is being investigated.
Junkyard Dog seems to be out the door while Ken Patera is in the door of WWF. JYD had a best of tape in production, but WWF halted production a few weeks back.
Dave’s figured out what put Wrestlemania 3 over the top for him as opposed to Wrestlemania 2 It was the commentary and atmosphere. Both shows had good and bad matches, but last year the celebrity guest commentators actively detracted from the match, whereas this year the commentary was good throughout. Gorilla Monsoon, whom Dave does not care for as a commentator, “even did a good job as a foil for Jesse aaaaaaaaaaaaa (my typewriter freaked out during that last sentence).” Guess it wasn’t used to typing compliments for Gorilla.
[WWF] Dave thinks Roddy Piper might actually be hanging it up. For now. His last Pit was real good, and didn’t set up a return angle. Dave is skeptical Piper can get the wrestling disease out of his system for good, but it’s possible he’s the rare one who can. Lol nope.
Some All Japan notes. Ric Flair and the Road Warriors helped draw a record 12,900 to Budokan Hall on March 12. Flair had a match with Hiroshi Wajima where Wajima didn’t look great but Flair carried him through. John Tenta has been told by Giant Baba to lose 65 lbs before he can debut.
[JWP] Shinobu Kandori has announced her retirement from pro wrestling. She’s a former world judo champion and has been a headliner for Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling and the UWA in Mexico since she debuted eight months ago. And now she’s quit after deciding she doesn’t like pro wrestling.
New Japan notes: The IWGP Tag Title tournament has come to a close and the new champions are Shingo Koshinaka & Keiji Muto. Only odd part is Muto is taking off until May 11 to film a movie called Hikara Onna. Also, on the March 16 tv, The Viking (same outfit Inoki wore when he attacked Muto in Florida) attacked Tatsumi Fujinami with a stick and hid out on the foreign wrestlers’ bus. He’s going to be the leader of a new heel group, and the next week they aired a message he read on tv saying their purpose is to ruin and destroy New Japan. Two surprising names announced for the IWGP series from May 11 to June 14 are Kerry Von Erich and Andre the Giant. No way either of them shows up, Dave says, correctly.
A young fellow named Paul E. Dangerously has been managing a 6’8” rookie named Lord Humongous in Memphis. Humongous is humongously bad, but reports say Dangerously is dangerously good.
Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano are the original Heavy Machinery. Dave does a brief reveal of some of the joshi stars’ real names, and notes that Dump and Bull took their ring names from the English words dump truck and bulldozer.
AWA did a tv taping with 17 squash matches. One of the better matches, Despina Montaguas vs. Sherri Martel, wasn’t even taped for tv. The only other really noteworthy thing here is that apparently Verne hates the term “ghetto blaster” so Buck Zumhofe’s blaster is just a “radio.” Anyway, they did a thing where Sheik Adnan blasted Zumhofe with the blaster.
Over in Stampede, Owen Hart won the North American title. Other notes include Brian Pillman being back, feuding with Makhan Singh and Ron Starr. The young Japanese wrestler with the brain hemorrhage from a couple months ago has recovered and is trying to get back to wrestling. Also, 72-year-old Stu Hart has taken over some training again and stretched some of the trainees so bad they needed to be hospitalized.
World Class drew about 3000 fans for a $12,000 gate (kids got in for $3 if they were enrolled in school). It led to a crowd much like the glory days of the promotion, full of teenagers, and the card was better than usual (not hard to do now). They’ve been doing a two minute challenge as part of building Jeep Swenson, and at this show Red River Jack came out and lasted the two minutes because he’s Bruiser Brody and Brody doesn’t lay down for anyone. Jeep is absolutely monstrous - if Hogan’s arms are 24 inches, Jeep’s are 28.
In the letters section we get information on a Tampa heavy metal band called Nasty Savage. Apparently pro wrestlers Luna and Lock sing on it, and in the inner sleeve are pictures of Kevin Sullivan, Bob Roop, and Sir Oliver Humperdink.
Another letter asks if there’s pro wrestling in Cuba, as the writer’s parents grew up there and used to talk about a wrestler called La Menaca Roja (The Red Menace). Dave’s never heard of pro wrestling in any communist country (reasoning wrestling is a very capitalist enterprise, and we have evidence that the Soviets didn't appreciate women's wrestling). The potential for getting China wired for tv and running live shows would be immense if you could do it. Dave knows wrestling was big in the 50s in Cuba, but isn’t sure if anything remained after the Castro takeover. There was a guy back then, Pedro Godoy, who was a big star in those days before coming to the States in the 60s and 70s, who could potentially have been La Menaca Roja.
Dave is still catching heat in the letters over his remarks about Misty Blue. An anonymous letter writer takes issue with Dave saying that how she’s dressed justifies any remarks he might make, calling Dave out for clearly treating women differently. When’s the last time he offered an opinion on Flair or Luger’s ass? The writer points out Flair’s flagrantly sexist behavior in interviews and asks why is it okay for wrestling to treat women the way it does. They conclude by saying Dave is a sexist and he should just own up to it and not try to excuse it. Dave responds, saying he talks about men’s physiques a lot and he has called attention to the fact that a large part of the audiences are children, so he does think Flair and Rhodes should tack back on the flagrant sexist remarks for that reason. In the end, Dave says that Misty’s ability in the ring compared to wrestlers Crockett could have brought in (like Debbie Combs, Despina Montaguas, or Donna Day) and compared to the joshis is embarrassing, and he says that’s the basis of his original comments. On the other side of the issue, another reader writes in saying she doesn’t see ass-selling in wrestling as an issue. The muscle freaks certainly aren’t selling wrestling skill - they’re selling appearance.
Another writer feels ripped off by the Roddy Piper farewell show at the Milwaukee Arena on March 18. Mainly because Piper wasn’t there, and it didn’t become apparent he wouldn’t be there until the show was over. The main event was advertised as JYD & Jake Roberts & Piper vs. Race & Adonis & Honkytonk. Before the first match of the show they substitute “Da Crusher” in for JYD, citing severe injury the previous night to JYD (this was really just a no-show). Right before the babyface team is set to come out, they announce Piper was “severely injured” the night before and isn’t cleared to wrestle, which causes the crowd to chant that this is a rip off. To placate the crowd they said Piper is there and will make an appearance, and they replaced him in the match with Rick Martel. The crowd was expecting a save by Piper in the match or maybe a speech at the end, something. After the match ended, all that was said was an announcement that “Wrestlemania III will take place next Sunday” and that’s that. The letter ends with something all too familiar to WWE fans in 2019: “All in all, I felt burned, but it won’t stop me from popping for my $19.95 for my Wrestlemania party on Sunday. I should be ashamed.”
The story of how Mike Rotunda beat Ed Gantner for the Florida title is pretty funny. Remember that dream date with Ed Gantner angle that Adrian Street was supposed to win before backstage politics fucked things up? Well, they did a Dating Game style segment on the March 14 house show where Gantner asked questions to the girls and Mike Rotunda was feeding answers to one so she’d get picked. Gantner got so mad he attacked Rotunda and they brawled to the ring, where Mike pinned him in 30 seconds. They announced that since they were scheduled to have a match later anyway, that counted and so Mike won the title.
Crockett’s Florida people are trying to talk Jack Brisco into making an appearance, which shows how much things have changed. Jack’s brother Gerald promotes WWF in Florida and the NWA thought of Jack as the devil for selling his stake of Georgia Championship Wrestling to Vince. But now they’re wanting him to do business.
In Deep South they ran an angle where tv announcer and future NWO referee Nick Patrick got attacked by Randy Rose and Mike Golden. Heel wrestler The Assassin, who’s been a heel since the days of Socrates, ran out to make the save and admitted that Patrick is his son. That’s also a real fact.
There was a match of the year candidate in Alabama on March 16. The Nightmares wrestled Jerry Stubbs and Tony Anthony in a cage match where the rule was you had to get a pin then climb out to win. Everybody bled heavily and sold great, with multiple pins and failed escapes. Ken Wayne of the Nightmares got a pin and crawled out, but the ref was bumped and didn’t see it, so the heels doubled teamed Davis and tied his foot to the top rope by his laces while Tom Prichard threw powder in Wayne’s face and threw him back in. Stubbs then walked out the door, closed it, and locked it, and when the ref came to he saw the door locked and Stubbs outside so awarded the win to the heels. The heels beat down the Nightmares until Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden ran out to make the save.
Lastly, there are handwritten notes on Wrestlemania’s revenue at the bottom here which I think might be Dave’s handwriting. The notes read: “Wrestlemania Figures / Silverdome 90,873 paid $1,599,000 / US Closed Circuit 375,000 (est) $4,500,000 / Canada Closed Circuit 85,000 (est) $ 670,000 (U.S.) / Total 550,000 (est) $6.8 million (est) / Pay per view won’t be available for 3 weeks but figure w/ video, souvenirs etc. $20 million gross.”