June 01, 1987
- Rewinder Note: Sorry about the lateness today. I had a student schedule a meeting today for posting time, so I didn't have time to prepare the post or get it up when I usually do. I'm also just not doing great right now, but I'll make it through that.
- ”For a guy who hasn’t wrestled since February, Riki Choshu sure has made a lot of news.” New Japan’s been advertising Choshu and his guys for the IWGP tournament for a while now, but they didn’t account for the legal issues that would come with trying to take a guy who is still under contract with a rival promotion and tv network. Giant Baba had initially come up with a deal where Choshu and his guys plus Tatsumi Fujinami would work All Japan shows for a percentage of the gate until they’d worked off the $715k Baba wanted in settlement. But that’s changed for a number of reasons. New Japan’s home tv station aired Choshu’s wedding (drawing double the usual rating for a New Japan show). On May 9, New Japan and All Japan agreed that Choshu and his guys would not wrestle in New Japan until all the issues were settled. Masa Saito, however, was given leave to work in the IWGP series.
- As for the IWGP series itself, New Japan came up with workarounds to All Japan’s condition that Choshu not appear in a New Japan ring. On the first night they brought Scott Hall in as a replacement in the tag match teaming with Masa Saito against Fujinami and George Takano. Choshu met Giant Baba the next day, but no deal was worked out, so New Japan put Saito in Choshu’s place on the May 13-14 shows, changing from Choshu vs. Fujinami then Inoki to Saito vs. Fujinami both nights, with Choshu seated at ringside (and not in the ring). Saito and Fujinami brawled outside, leading to Choshu hitting Fujinami with a lariat and challenging Fujinami. But New Japan didn’t put the match on even though they had Fujinami accept the challenge. So the next night, Saito knocked out the referee and put Fujinami in a tree of woe, and Choshu ran into the ring and started attacking Fujinami until Inoki made the save. And this is where Giant Baba felt that New Japan had gone back on their word, so it looks like Japan is ready for war. Between injuries and other stuff (Keiji Muto is filming a movie, Fujinami being written off from Choshu’s attack), this year’s IWGP tour is kind of a disaster. But we are looking at a Choshu vs. Inoki grudge match that might be soon, so there is that. That is, if Baba doesn’t have it stopped via legal injunction.
- Roddy Piper, who “retired” at Wrestlemania 3, showed up to do color commentary for Portland’s show on May 16. He said he’d be back on the 23rd, but Dave has no word yet on if he did. He also did a talk show interview saying he didn’t retire from wrestling, but quit WWF because they wanted to portray him as Hogan’s friend so he wouldn’t get more title shots. There’s been rumor that he might buy into the Portland promotion, as well as talk of him being involved in this west coast thing (the one that won’t get off the ground).
- The Global Wrestling Alliance is the first wrestling promotion to be syndicated and have a public stock option. They went public at 10 cents a share, then wound up opening at 30 cents a share. As of two weeks ago, they were 80 cents a share. And that’s where the good news ends. They did their first taping on May 10, intending to tape four hours of shows, but due to many problems only got two hours. Most of the big names they had advertised no-showed. They did manage to get Ivan Putski, Angelo Poffo, and Boris Malenko (who was supposed to wrestle but instead managed his sons Joe and Dean). And the Malenko boys broke the ring.
- Dave ordered a new typewriter about a week ago, but it hasn’t arrived. He apologizes for the visual quality of the issues recently, especially last week’s which he said he didn’t even want to read it was so bad. I can verify that it was not good, because I’m looking at scans rather than digitized stuff.
- Jerry Lawler is suing WWF and Harley Race over the “King” gimmick.
- Update/correction on the WCCW/Continental Productions deal. Continental paid Fritz Von Erich $226k in syndication fees for 1986 and Fritz got all the old WCCW tapes. Fritz’s new show will also be broadcast on channel 39 in Dallas. No idea what’s happening with Continental’s syndication package, but they’ll probably switch to Ken Mantell’s show (which is now named Wide West Wrestling) and Bum Bright will start syndicating WCCW soon.
- WWF’s latest Madison Square Garden show was unremarkable, except for it featured a match between the NWA World Women’s Champion and the WWF Women’s Champion. Debbie Combs, who won the NWA title in the Kansas City territory after Jim Crockett Promotions basically decided to abandon the NWA Women’s Championship, wrestled The Fabulous Moolah for Moolah’s WWF Women’s Championship. Moolah lost via countout. It was not a good match (-1 star from Dave), and Moolah and Combs (and Combs’s mother) have been political rivals for a long time. Combs worked hard and looked good in spots, but it’s Moolah.
- Watch: NWA World Women's Champion Debbie Combs vs. WWF Women's Champion The Fabulous Moolah
- Dingo Warrior turned down WWF’s offer to be a non-televised prelim guy. He’ll be back in WCCW by the time this issue is out. Also WCCW is dwindling significantly - they drew 50 for their May 14 show in Shreveport for a card meant to be headlined by Kevin Von Erich vs. Nord the Barbarian (both of whom no-showed due to Nord leaving and Kevin being injured). They’ve also canceled the annual July 4 Star Wars card.
- **Badnews Allen is working in Stampede, which surprises Dave. Not because there’s a bad relationship there, but more because he’s wondering if anyone else has realized that Koko Ware is the only black babyface working in all of North America.
- JCP/NWA have paired Tully Blanchard with Dark Journey. Dave supposes that putting a black valet with a white wrestler might outrage some people, but he seems to think it’s better than what they’ve been doing with Tully. He finds Tully very stale right now and Journey lacks personality, so maybe this can shake them both up a little.
- Watch: Tully and Dark Journey in a promo
- Rick Rude has missed his last two NWA dates. Dave thinks something might be up.
- JCP/NWA showed Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner as UWF tag champs before the title change airs on tv. Dave questions the logic of doing that.
- Another letter about the Jeff Blatnick/Lou Albano debate, this one with some additional context. The writer finds that Blatnick’s points against pro wrestling came down heavily on the side of how pro wrestling is immoral and harmfully deceiving American children. He also said that it hurt amateur wrestling (I’m reminded of the South Park episode now), before concluding that pro wrestlers were selling their souls out to make a buck. Could probably have had someone better to represent pro wrestling than Captain Lou, but it was pretty much a no-win situation and Lou just gave back what he was given. Blatnick won the debate, but the whole thing was stupid to begin with. Dave replies to the letter, calling it an excellent one, but I think the best part of it is this line ”Amateur wrestling is the toughest sport I’ve tried and pro wrestling is the most entertaining one I’ve watched.”
- For those who want to argue about intergender wrestling and talk about realism and bring size differentials in men’s matches into question, I’m just going to give you this letter. Do with it what you will:
- What is your opinion of wrestlers like Sam Houston and the Rock and Roll Express? I think they are good wrestlers, but they are having a negative effect on pro wrestling. The sport should have a bit of realism to it. Wrestlers like Houston remove all realism. The only way a guy like him could win is if the match was one-sided with Houston doing nothing but punches. Once a guy like the Animal or Rick Steiner got a hold of a guy like Houston or Ricky Morton, it would be all over. There should be a minimum requirement for size, or at least for muscularity.
- Dave, for his part, responds and says he thinks small guys bring a lot of excitement. Small guys with only average ability probably shouldn’t be pushed, but if they’ve got the talent to get the crowd excited, they deserve the push. The problem is often the bigger guys who won’t sell for the little guys because they think it’ll make them look lesser. Also, realism is overrated in wrestling - it’s so stretched that pushing a guy like Ricky Morton has never bothered him, since Morton appeals so well to the crowd.
- Yumi Ogura is now using a tombstone off the top rope as her finisher. That’s a broken neck waiting to happen (Akira Hokuto knows what’s up). In fact, Dave hasn’t seen it or heard about it yet, but it’s already happened.
- Dave saw a Raja Lion exhibition match. Dave’s pretty sure he’s nowhere near 7’5” and pegs him at between 6’10” and 7’ tall, and probably under 260 lbs. He’s built like an NBA center, and moves well but is gangly and seems uncoordinated.