April 27, 1987
- ”Unlike his two older brothers who died tragic deaths, in Mike’s case it’s closer to the truth to say he lived a tragic life.” Mike Von Erich, age 23, died of an overdose of tranquilizers on either April 11 or 12 in an apparent suicide. He never was physically or mentally equipped for pro wrestling, yet he was pressured into it anyway and pushed so hard that even he seemed embarrassed by it. In his first promo ahead of his first match, Fritz and Mark Lawrence were pushing the idea that Mike was more talented than his three brothers, who were at the peak of their popularity. Mike never seemed comfortable with that comparison. And despite only ever losing a handful of matches in his career, Mike never was taken seriously as a big star, and even before the toxic shock syndrome incident nearly two years ago at least two promoters had told Dave that pushing Mike would kill World Class.
- Mike’s issues with addiction began during recovery from toxic shock. He had car accidents, DUIs, and regular appearances in the newspapers for small misbehaviors. On July 4, 1986 he returned to action and was billed as “The Living Miracle,” but it was clear he wasn’t fully recovered. On the morning of April 11 he was driving in Argyle, Texas (the same city Kerry had his motorcycle accident) and was pulled over. He was arrested for a DUI, possession of marijuana, and possession of a controlled substance before he was bailed out. That was the last he was seen alive. His family assumed the worst on the 13th and told friends that they thought he was dead. Police were called and his truck was found near Lake Lewisville with an unsigned suicide note in his writing. They tried to find his body in the lake for a few days, but no luck came. The news went public on April 15 when someone connected the Adkisson last name to the Von Erichs, a court reporter or a police department worker, most likely. His body was found by a police dog, zipped in his sleeping bag near the lake. His funeral was held on April 18 and about 500 fans attended.
- Dave’s not even going to speculate about what this means for World Class or the future of the Von Erich family. He just hopes Fritz doesn’t try to capitalize on it and make the May 3 show a David and Mike memorial show and try to profit off pictures and t-shirts with Mike’s face on them, but he already knows he’s wrong about that. Dave lived in north Texas in 1984 and remembers very well firsthand how World Class treated the death of David Von Erich, and he’ll never forget the “crass commercialization of the death--seeing the t-shirts raised to $20 and photos to $10--rushing out a record and a book that seemingly went public within days, etc.”
- The zombified corpse of UWF is shambling about in the news still. The April 18 tapings of Power Pro Wrestling have happened, and several Crockett ideas have been implemented. UWF will now have longer ring introductions (fans aren’t happy but will probably get used to it), Jim Ross has been put at ringside for ring announcing duties rather than having a podium in the back, and Big Bubba Rogers is the only JCP/NWA guy to come over so far. Magnum T.A. will be the new color commentator starting at the next tapings, and John Ayres of the San Francisco 49ers will be the new commissioner (his teammate, Russ Francis, has been doing color for AWA tapings in Vegas and refereed a few matches as well, and later on we’ll note he’s making his wrestling debut on the May 2 card there). Ayres was a teammate of Tully Blanchard, Manny Fernandez, Ted DiBiase, Tito Santana, and Kelly Kiniski in his college days at West Texas State. Ayres has talked about jumping to pro wrestling when his football career is done (which Dave figures is probably a year or so from now). Popping ahead to the future: Ayres won’t go on to a pro wrestling career after his football career, and will retire following his jump to the Broncos and loss in the SuperBowl in 1988.
- Anyway, there will be a brief UWF hiatus at the end of the month and UWF crew status is uncertain. The last house show currently scheduled is April 28 in Albuquerque, and there will only be tv tapings for UWF until Dusty’s happy with where the storylines are, which may take until June. The Houston office has switched allegiance to WWF, and the Fort Worth area is genuinely in danger of dying as far as interest goes. Buzz Sawyer, Sam Houston (to join his brother and father in WWF), Nickla, Missy Hyatt (to WWF) are all definitely gone. Probably leaving are One Man Gang (Dave says he’s likely to be Hogan’s next monster by late summer), Savannah Jack, and Bill Irwin.Eddie Gilbert is staying as Dusty’s booking assistant, as are Rick Steiner, Sting, Scandor Akbar, Angel Muhammad, Terry Taylor, Chavo Guerrero, Gary Young, and Chris Adams. No word yet on how where the Freebirds and Sunshine will land.
- Ted DiBiase and Steve Williams are the big question marks. DiBiase is currently in Japan, so no idea what he’s thinking, but both JCP/NWA and WWF want him, no doubt about it. Williams could stand to be the biggest winner here, for similar reasons, as he’s also highly coveted and hasn’t made a commitment either way.
- Jim Neidhart’s trial began on April 13. He’s accused of punching a flight attendant on a flight. The key witness for the prosecution, the head flight attendant, testified that she saw Neidhart punch the accuser on the left arm four times near the beginning of the flight, then again later and also slapped her with the back of her hand. Jerry McDevitt, our favorite WWF legal counsel, claims Neidhart merely tapped her on the arm and says he has many passengers willing to testify to this claim. Due to the accuser’s job as a flight attendant, the charge is interference with a flight attendant on duty and carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $275,000 fine.
- Riki Choshu has announced a new Ishingun stable. The new group includes Masa Saito, Kuniyaki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Hase, Nobuo Honaga, Shunji Takano, Super Strong Machine, and Hiro Saito. Yoshiaki Yatsu, Shinichi Nakano, Isamu Teranishi, Masanobu Kurusu, and Haruka Eigen have remained with All Japan. Animal Hamaguchi has announced his retirement rather than picking a side.
- Rather than settle the contract issues in court, Baba demanded Inoki settle out of court for $600,000. New Japan refused the demand, but if they don’t ocme to some kind of agreement then Choshu and his crew can’t legally work for Inoki so something’s got to give. Especially since New Japan is already selling tickets and advertising Choshu for shows. And while Choshu and crew jumping makes New Japan the place to look for the best wrestlers, they’ve got some obstacles. Choshu’s popularity has taken a big hit with all this controversy, and New Japan’s tv is a complete disaster. Their new show is kind of like Tuesday Night Titans and was mainly comedy, which is no good for New Japan. This show has replaced their old tv with arena main events, and it’s been plummeting in the ratings since it debuted, coming in at half of what the old show had been getting. It’s so bad that this might be the lowest rated show on prime time network tv in Japan currently, which would be disastrous for wrestling’s popularity in Japan. If all the young stars are seen on this show not wrestling and instead doing poor comedy, it’s hard to think it’ll work out well for viewership (did you hear that, WWE?).
- Ken Patera’s getting a big babyface push on WWF tv, and they brought up his time in jail. In 1985, Patera and Masa Saito were arrested after Patera angrily threw a rock through a McDonald’s window. They proceeded to assault the officers called in to deal with them, and Patera was eventually sentenced to two years in prison (he signed with WWF between the incident and his jail sentence). Okerlund brought this up, and Patera admitted remorse on tv, but literally every account Dave’s ever heard, even recently, has Patera maintaining innocence (his complete lack of remorse is why he was denied parole, supposedly).
- Just some notes on Puerto Rico. The style here is high on blood and violence, light on actual moves. Bruiser Brody is a face here after helping Invader #1 against Abdullah the Butcher and Jason the Terrible. The chase between Brody and Abby was comical as Brody had to zigzag to avoid catching up, prompting Dave to speculate that Brody could give Abby a 35 yard head start in a 40 yard race and still win.
- Dingo Warrior was fired in WCCW for refusing to job to Nord the Barbarian. Something a little ironic about Brody firing someone for refusing to job.
- Also that rich Texas guy Bum Bright? He seems to be cooling off on relations with Fritz Von Erich. Apparently he has a bit on his plate, as Dallas Cowboy Rafael Septien has pled guilty (he’s been on trial for some kind of indecent acts involving a minor).
- [JCP/NWA] Ricky Morton’s eye injury is just a scratched retina. He should be back in the ring in a few weeks.
- JCP ran their April 12 show in Marietta, Georgia against the UWF show at the Omni. Yes, they already owned UWF by this point. They drew 850 fans. The UWF show drew 8500 fans.
- Central States is doing an angle where Warlord is actually a Russian posing as an American. Dave finds this funny because Warlord is actually a statue posing as a wrestler.
- Also Debbie Combs beat Penny Mitchell in Central States to win the women’s championship. This is just a match result here in the newsletter, but it’s actually kind of an important result. After Moolah sold the title to Vince, there was no more NWA World Women’s Title, and Debbie wound up being crowned the next champion in 1986 in a quite possibly kayfabe battle royal in Hawai'i. After Central States withdrew from the NWA when JCP abandoned the territory and sold it back to Bob Geigel in February of 1987, the NWA World Women’s Title was suspended - Crockett had no use for it. So here we have a match for a vacant NWA World Women’s title in a non-NWA territory, but this win is going to be the basis for the continued lineage of the title up through 1996 and will be recognized by the NWA to this day.
- Shinobu Kandori, who recently retired, may be coming back to work with AJW. Magazine interviews have her challenging Chigusa Nagayo. Guess she liked wrestling enough after all (she’s still wrestling 32 years later, even while she’s been a member of the Japanese Diet for over a decade).
- AJW and WWF are negotiating a U.S. tour for the Jumping Bomb Angels. Dave thinks there are two things preventing this from getting over in the U.S. First is that WWF is full of Moolah’s girls, so there goes any point in having joshis wrestle here if you’re just going to hamstring them by putting them in the ring against wrestlers who are comparatively randoms pulled from the street. Secondly, they’re super small and that’s going to be a hard sell to WWF audiences. But hey, you never know. Maybe Vince will do good with women’s wrestling this time around. You never know, these things are possible.
- Bunch of All Japan results. Ted DiBiase’s on this tour, as are Tommy Rich and Carlos Colon. Colon left the tour after April 10 because he’s not cut out for this style. Fans didn’t care for Tommy Rich and thought he wasn’t good enough as a wrestler to hang, which made it hard to take him seriously.
- The IWGP tournament is looking to be really hot this year. It’s got a big line up Inoki, Kimura, Mutoh, Mada, Fujiwara, Choshu, Saito, Kevin Von Erich, Kobayashi, Steve Williams, and more). Andre the Giant and Kerry Von Erich are officially announced as not part of the tournament. Meanwhile, Dick Murdoch was at an All Japan show in the dressing room, but Baba claims he’s not trying to poach him.
- Someone writes in wanting to know who the most effective heels are in Japan. Dave comments that Japan doesn’t really do heels the way we do over here - the context is primarily about athletic rivalry, so fans cheer both guys as they please. When they do boo someone (Lance Von Erich, for example), it’s because they don’t want to see him, not because he’s getting heat. So let it be known that the originator of X-Pac heat was Lance Von Erich.
- Another letter asks why Bruiser Brody isn’t signed with anyone worthwhile. Dave says that what Brody probably likes is he has something no wrestler working for a major promotion actually has: independence. He works when he wants, isn’t beholden to anybody, and still makes good money (and when he was working Japan regularly, he was probably one of the highest paid wrestlers around). Dave figures his independence means a lot to him, although he suspects if the business continues to narrow we may see Brody sign somewhere (Unfortunately, Brody has about 14 months left before he’s murdered and we never find out if he would have signed somewhere).
- A few letters react to the buyout of UWF. Everybody agrees it was shocking. One writer doesn’t want to think about what it’ll be like without Watts running the show, but loves the idea of getting to see Ric Flair and the Road Warriors. Another says the only thing that could be as shocking this year is if Hogan dropped the title, and “that’s certainly not going to happen.” (Only missed it by two months). Another worries that Crockett might tone down UWF’s tv and hopes that things can stay the same but with more talent available.
- We’re also still getting a lot of comments on Misty Blue and Dave’s remarks about Misty. The last letter writer mentioned above also commented saying he doesn’t agree with the comments saying Dave is sexist, but does think Flair and Okerlund should tone down the sexist remarks they make because kids are watching and what if a censor actually started paying attention/ Another says he was furious when they cut away from the match since women’s matches are so rare for Crockett. Why bother showing it if you’re going to just cut away and make yourself look inferior to McMahon in yet another way. He says the only reason he brings it up is he thought Dave’s comments about her looks were ridiculous and doesn’t understand why, whether Dave thinks she is or not, Dave would call her ugly in a newsletter. Lastly, another reader says Dave spends too much time apologizing here and he’s indignant about Dave being called a sexist. He wants us to know that he’s sure he speaks for the majority in saying that Dave’s remarks were inoffensive. He brings up Dave critiquing the powerlifter types and how male wrestlers who sell themselves as sex symbols (Magnum T.A. for example) might be hurting that by blading too much, also fans call women worse things so what about that?
- Memphis: Paul E. Dangerously has been renamed. He’s now Paul Dangerly, and he’s managing Austin Idol.
- [Florida] Pex Whatley was moving from Charlotte to Tampa and his moving truck was stolen. Everything he and his family owned is gone.
- AWA fired Col. DeBeers and Buddy Rose after that independent show. Rose is hoping to jump to WWF, but if he does it’ll be as a job guy.
- Here’s a look at what the tv offerings in the Bay area look like on Saturdays. From 11 to noon you have AWA (channel 20), NWA Pro (channel 26), Pro wrestling this week (channel 44), NWA Florida (channel 48), UWF Power Pro (channel 40). Dave says any of those groups thinking they’re going to get any kind of audience is a mistake. Then from 11 pm you have WWF (channel 31, plus NBC for Saturday Night’s Main Events every other month or so), UWF (channel 11), NWA Worldwide (channel 26). Also WWF(who dominate this market) has a 10 am Saturday slot, and they’re finally facing competition in the form of GLOW (channel 44), which shows that if you think wrestling is run by people who don’t make sense, that’s nothing compared to those who run tv stations in San Francisco.
- Jim Neidhart was acquitted of all charges. Dave finds it curious how the charges made all the papers, but the verdict not so much. More on this next week.
- Big Bubba Rogers beat One Man Gang for the UWF Title. This is just a quick note scrawled on the bottom. This is, in hindsight, where a lot of people peg Crockett’s takeover of UWF as failing.
- Watch: Big Bubba Rogers wins the UWF Title