Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 12, 1987

The Megapowers? Looks like things are heating up. We’re about seven weeks to go until Thanksgiving, and WWF and JCP are now not only trading blows on tv but in the lawyers’ offices as well. The Megapowers name is yet another barb at Dusty. First they named Virgil after him, and now they’ve done a take off Dusty’s own name for his team with Nikita Koloff the Superpowers. Dusty had some things to say this weekend on WTBS about Survivor Series. As for the lawyer front, an article in the September 21 issue of Multi Channel News says that attorneys for Crockett’s syndicated package have sent written request to WWF asking them to drop the clause in their cable contracts which prohibits them from “promoting, marketing, advertising or presenting any other wrestling event 60 days prior to or 21 days after a WWF event.” WWF’s Vice President in the office that handles pay-per-view, James Troy, says it’s a necessary clause to prevent confusion in the marketplace and that WWF will not waive the clause to accommodate Starrcade.
So what’s all the stuff about ppv mean? Well, WWF has deals with around 280 cable companies for ppv for Survivor Series and Crockett has less than 10. Moving Starrcade to late afternoon so cable companies could air both shows without them conflicting has been basically for nothing. The success of Wrestlemania III means WWF has significant clout with ppv companies, and the clause is aimed squarely at hamstringing JCP and Starrcade. WWF has also offered better deals regarding Wrestlemania IV for companies that pick up Survivor Series. So if this is a chess game, WWF just called check and JCP is going to need a big move to avoid checkmate. Internally, there’s got to be no way JCP folks can hide themselves from the fact that Starrcade will not be the success they were expecting it to be all year. Dave doesn’t, however, see them changing any current plans or making a big move just yet. They’re determined to get on ppv, and Starrcade will even if these factors mean it’s a small debut. But Crockett has plans for more major ppv events in 1988, so Starrcade will at least be a dry run. Based on Wrestlemania’s current placement in late march, JCP will have to place their next ppv event before January 27. It will be interesting to see if WWF tries to interfere there (interfere they will - this is going to lead to the Royal Rumble being placed on USA against JCP’s second attempt at a ppv).
Plans for Survivor Series have been finalized. It’ll be at the Richfield Coliseum in Cleveland, starting at 7:30 pm local time. The main event, already announced, will be the Hogan/Orndorff/Patera/Graham/Bigelow vs. Andre/Butch Reed/Bundy/Rude/One Man Gang Survivor Series elimination match. Another Survivor Series elimination match will have Randy Savage captaining a team of babyfaces (Dave guesses JYD, Billy Jack Haynes, a freshly recovered Brutus Beefcake, and Hillbilly Jim) vs. Honkeytonk Man and his team of heels (Dave guesses Ted DiBiase, Harley Race, Killer Khan, and Hercules Hernandez). A third Survivor Series elimination match, comprising ten teams will feature Martel & Santana/Killer Bees/Rougeaus/Powers & Roma/Bulldogs vs. Harts/Valentine & Bravo/Demolition/Islanders/a team to be announced which Dave speculates will be Volkoff and Boris Zhukov). Not clear how the specifics will work, but Dave expects elimination of one member of a team to eliminate the whole team. Lastly, there will be a 10-woman Survivor Series match featuring Moolah and her face team of Debbie Combs (what a pairing, given their history) and Velvet McIntyre plus two more vs. Sherri Martel and her heel team of Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, and two more. Dave thinks they should call the show the Confusion Series because nobody will be able to keep things straight, but it’s definitely a success given how much they’ve maimed Starrcade.
Starrcade is being nicknamed Chitown Heat this year. JCP probably feels they can easily sell out the 10,300 seats at the Pavilion for the live show, but the 4 pm start time makes Dave think they shouldn’t be so sure. WWF’s Wrestling classic fell 4000 shy of a sellout in Chicago, and Wrestlemania 2 had William “Refrigerator” Perry (who was at that point a local superhero) in a battle royal and only half filled the Rosemont Horizon for their portion of the show. Starrcade’s card is still a secret and there haven’t been any leaks, but Dave says it’s not that hard to guess some of the matches. Gavin defends against Flair, Lex vs. Dusty, and Terry Taylor vs. Nikita Koloff to unite the NWA and UWF tv titles have all been pushed pretty obviously, and this weekend’s UWF tv show has started pushing what will likely be a Steve Williams defense against Barry Windham. Some, if not all, of those will have stipulations, plus other gimmick matches to be announced. Tickets for Starrcade become available on October 12.
The NWA World Title change last week isn’t the big deal in Dave’s mind that a lot of folks are treating it as. For one thing, the NWA world title isn’t by itself a big draw, and whatever drawing power it’s had of late comes from being attached to Ric Flair. This becomes obvious when you get out of the Carolinas, because it’s the Road Warriors and not Flair who is the biggest draw for Crockett. Garvin will absolutely not be a draw as champion except against Flair, and if he holds it for any significant length of time Dusty should be committed to an institution and Dave will be shocked. Dave doesn’t think they’re counting on Garvin to be a draw, though, so if he can or can’t is moot. The only way Dave sees the NWA becoming meaningful and having drawing power by itself is through a combination of factors. They’d need to get rid of every other singles title in the company except one. More titles means each title means less overall, and JCP has so many only hardcore fans try to keep up or care about them. They’d have to put the title on a charismatic babyface who can get into long feuds while ultimately winning against his challengers. So not Garvin, as he has the charisma of a rock. Sounds like Hogan? That’s because Hogan is what works in today’s market and a heel champ who scrapes by and never wins, pretty much surviving on ref bumps and fuck finishes, does not. They’d need to treat the title and everything about it as if it were front page news. They way they handled airing the title change downgraded an already too downgraded title. Four of the five shows in Crockett’s syndicated package didn’t even mention the title change, and half the country still doesn’t get cable (and WTBS ratings aren’t worthy of bragging about). These shows were taped before the title change for airing this past weekend, but they should have left a “hole” in the show like last weekend’s WTBS show did for the title change itself in order to at least edit in something about it. When the big title changes hands, Dave says you should open your show with the news and show clips right away.
In Puerto Rico they had one of the biggest wrestling spectaculars of all time on September 20. It was like Wrestlemania 2 with three buildings booked (Bayamon Stadium in San Juan, as well as indoor venues in Ponce and Mayaguez). The show had twelve matches (four live from each site) and satellite feeds on the big screen to show the matches from the other sites. All three locations sold out and they had to turn people away, netting an attendance of about 42,000 and a total gate near $400,000. The show went from 7:15 pm to nearly 1 am local time. Dave doesn’t have complete results, but Carlos Colon beat Hercules Ayala in a barbed wire cage match to regain the WWC Universal Title, Brody beat Abdullah the Butcher in a dog collar match, the Road Warriors and the Funks went to a double disqualification, Tony Atlas pinned Iron Sheik, and Invader #1 (fuck Invader #1) beat Chicky Starr in a mask vs. hair match so they shaved Starr’s head, chest, beard, mustache, and even eyebrows off. WWC in Puerto Rico may even be getting their tv show aired in some mainland markets with large Spanish-speaking populations and are making an English demo tape with Gordon Solie as the host if they get picked up for an English language show.
TV schedule changes in Northern California now have UWF airing opposite NWA. UWF’s tv show is now airing on San Jose channel 36 at 11 pm Saturday, which puts them head to head against NWA Worldwide on San Francisco channel 26. San Francisco and San Jose are for all intents and purposes the same market for tv, with the only difference here being that channel 26 isn’t on cable in San Jose. In other changes, Sacramento’s channel 40 has dropped Power Pro Wrestling and San Francisco channel 44 has dropped both GLOW and Pro Wrestling this Week. The latter has gained a 1 am time slot on channel 50 in Santa Rosa, though.
The biggest story of the week is out of Japan as Bruiser Brody is back to working in All Japan Pro Wrestling. Brody hasn’t worked in Japan in about a year, ever since contract disputes with Antonio Inoki. Baba’s been working hard to bring back big names of years past for his big tag team tournament that’s upcoming so he has something to compete with Inoki’s major success stemming from Riki Choshu jumping to New Japan. Stan Hansen, Dick Slater, Ricky Steamboat, Nick Bockwinkel, the Funks, Jimmy Snuka, Abdullah the Butcher (Snuka and Butcher most recently worked for Inoki when in Japan), and Terry Gordy are all on board for the tournament. Brody, however, hasn’t agreed to terms for the tournament. How did Baba get Brody? Well, Ric Flair was scheduled to be in Japan as NWA champion this week, but he is not NWA champion now and he was pulled from the tour “due to and injury” that is severe enough he can’t travel to Japan but not so severe he won’t be able to challenge Garvin all across the U.S. this coming week. It’s the third Japan tour of the past four that Crockett has pulled Flair from (reminiscent of McMahon pulling Hogan from New Japan in 1984-85 which led to McMahon and Inoki’s partnership breaking), and combined with Choshu’s return to tv being set for October 5, Baba was desperate to put together a big counterresponse on October 6 at Budokan Hall. He’s obviously met whatever terms Brody had, and Brody is back in business in Japan. He’s not reported yet for the tag tournament, but odds are pretty good he will be.
The first Saturday Night’s Main Event of the fall is in the books, and Dave thought the show was overall excellent. The Randy Savage angle is the best angle they’ve done since Wrestlemania, and they only had four matches which let them have enough time to develop and all but one told “told a story.” Quotation marks are Dave’s, not mine. Dave gives big credit to the workrate of the wrestlers which is unusual for WWF, and he gives extra credit on this front to Hogan, Savage, and most of all Orndorff who all had to carry their opponents. There were some negatives, though. “Bobby Heenan can’t carry Jesse Ventura’s lunch-box as a commentator. He overacts and generally isn’t funny.” Well. They sweetened the sound to add pre-recorded booing whenever a heel had the advantage because the crowd didn’t boo enough, and it was both obvious and annoying. The show was made to get Savage over as a face, but Hogan overshadowed him and when Hogan was getting triple teamed, Dave thinks it would have been better to have Savage make the first comeback, not Hogan. It was entertaining and suspenseful, but Dave doesn’t think it’s going to make Savage a bigger draw than he already is, and WWF’s issue is they have to try and get somebody else over and not just rely on Hogan. Hogan/Sika was better than expected, Savage carried Honkeytonk to the best match of the show, and Orndorff carried Bundy to a good match. Powers and Roma vs. the Harts was short but action packed.
Watch: The beginning of the Mega Powers
WWF’s latest Oakland house show was a major disappointment. The crowd was small (3400), the workrate was nonexistent, the atmosphere was bad, and there was only one decent match on the whole card. Only the Powers/Roma vs. Hart Foundation tag match and Sherri Martel vs. Velvet McIntyre got above one star from Dave on this one, and the tag only got 2 stars (an average match) while Sherri and Velvet got 1.25 for attempting to actually have a match, even if it wound up being boring. Siva Afi vs. Terry Gibbs was terrible, including a hammerlock with no movement or working the hold for 7 minutes.
[WWF] Dave runs through the most recent MSG show and the card for the next and he’s very high on Martel and Santana as a team. Martel is WWF’s best worker, Dave says, and he’s particularly looking forward to their 2 out of 3 falls against the Islanders scheduled for the next MSG show.
WWF may be abandoning Denver for a while. Crowds haven’t been good and at their last house show they didn’t announce a return date.
Dave listened to the Wrestling Album 2. It wasn’t good. Still better than Ricky Morton on Boogie Woogie Dance Hall, but nothing close to as good as Chigusa Nagayo or Michael Hayes either.
Listen: The Wrestling Album II
WWF is doing a Slammy Awards special in December. It won’t be on MTV like the last one, and Vince is trying to sell it as a one-time special. Dave hopes it’s better than the first, which is among the worst wrestling shows he’s ever seen.
In Pennsylvania they’re working on a preliminary report toward a bill that may abolish the commission governing wrestling in Pennsylvania. Dave has some questions to ask readers: Should wrestling be governed by an athletic commission? If so, what powers should the commission have that would make it useful? Given the nature of pro wrestling, should the requirements for health and fitness for the wrestlers be abolished, kept the same, or strengthened? Should commissions regulate blading? Should commissions be able to act when promotions misrepresent their product, and what counts as misrepresenting the product? Should commissions regulate out of the ring brawling? Dave intends to do a feature on this in a couple weeks, and he thinks most folks are ignorant about what pro wrestling is really about and thinks readers probably have about as good an idea as anyone else not in the business, so why not see what they have to say.
Dave is officially rolling UWF news under the same heading as NWA news as JCP stuff because they’ve pretty much erased any difference there was. Putting Flair and Dusty videos in featured spots on UWF tapes and putting Williams against guys who are going to stall his momentum pretty much have killed the idea of them as even remotely separable entities.
Dave figures there’s likely to be some talent poaching back and forth between WWF and JCP after Thanksgiving. JCP always seem to lose a guy or two after Starrcade, and Starrcade is fixing to be a disappointment, but Dave expects them to fight back harder than they ever have before.
[Memphis] They announced on tv Saturday that the October 5 card was taped for ESPN. This is among all sorts of rumors of a working relationship (rumors that it’s deeper than we’ve seen so far) with AWA, and Jerry Lawler showed up in the AWA ratings this past week. It’ll be interesting to see what’s happening here between the AWA and Memphis. The October 5 show had Curt Hennig defending the AWA World title against Jeff Jarrett.
Rocky Johnson got bad publicity last week as he was accused of raping a 19-year old. The accusations hit some radio stations and newspapers in the Memphis area, but the promotion is sticking by him and continuing to book him. It is believed that the charges will be dropped.
Several have left AWA recently. Boris Zhukov, one half of the tag team champions, left and there’s no word what’s to be done on that front. Larry Zbyszko is leaving at the end of this month. Buddy Landel never came back after his first tv taping. Even Greg Gagne is gone, though in his case it’s for a vacation. The biggest news is that Nick Bockwinkel is apparently leaving to be a road agent for WWF, which suggests he’s going to retire as an active wrestler following the All Japan tag tournament in December.
With new ownership, two things are readily apparent about Continental (the Alabama territory). First, the tv show is pretty much all squash matches now. There’s one match featuring the guys they want to push, setting up an angle. The old show was split roughly 50/50 between squashes and matches with names. The change has been toward the dull side. The other clear thing is that they’re going to turn Wendell Cooley back to being a face.
Afa the Samoan appears in Laura Brannigan’s music video for the song “Shattered Glass.”
Watch: Shattered Glass
WWF’s Danny Davis is out with a knee injury.
[WWF] Saturday Night’s Main Event drew a 9.9 rating and a 28 share. It’s a strong rating, and the next one will be taped November 11 with a probable air date of November 21. No matches have been announced, but the Megapowers are likely to appear as a tag team and Dave expects a handicap match against the Harts and Honkeytonk Man.
Week five of going through the award categories and Dave giving his preliminary thoughts. For Feud of the Year, Dave thinks this is difficult because very few had a lot of heat. Lawler vs. Idol and Rich in Memphis is the clear number 1, but nothing else really stands out. WWF’s best was Savage/Steamboat. NWA doesn’t have a major feud that’s been great that sticks out. Road Warriors and Superpowers vs. Horsemen has had a lot of success, but has also gone on to the point of tedium (they’re still doing that match in cages. The car accident killed momentum for Terry Taylor and Chris Adams, which could have been good. Flair/Windham could be considered on strength of match quality. Owen Hart vs. Makhan Singh was really good. If not for the fact that they only wrestled once, Andre/Hogan is a good contender. New Leaders vs. Now Leaders is the biggest in Japan, and Inoki/Saito has to be considered on the strength of drawing power. Dave gives Steamboat/Savage and Inoki/Saito his second and third slots. For Best Wrestling Promotion, Dave thinks New Japan already had the best matches in the world, but adding Riki Choshu and his friends has made them untouchable. Their stable of talent is the best of any promotion ever, and their match quality is insane. WWF is Dave’s second pick, and he figures he’ll catch flack for it. But Wrestlemania III alone would put them in first by itself if live show quality weren’t something Dave thought was important too, and their live shows have an upbeat atmosphere but simply aren’t as good in ring as even minor promotions do. Third place is tricky. Crockett’s the number 2 in the U.S., but that’s almost seemingly by default a lot of the time. Memphis is great for what it is, but their talent pool isn’t great. All Japan is solid all around, but they lack charisma. So Dave puts them fourth behind All Japan Women. The ladies have action only beat by New Japan, and they sing a lot better than WWF’s guys. For Strongest Wrestler (yes, this was seriously a category), Dave says to take it on strength displayed in the ring. If going by weightlifting, Doug Furnas would be the clear number 1, followed by Ted Arcidi (who has a verified 700 lb bench press). But neither does impressive feats of strength in the ring. Steve Williams and Road Warrior Animal got nearly every vote last year, so Dave pretty much talks about them and notes that Williams is impressive (even with help, press slamming Big Bubba Rogers several times is still impressive), but Animal is a lot smarter about knowing what to do and when to do it for the purposes of getting over. Dave still gives Williams the slight nod.
WWF’s ring announcer Mike McGuirk is a second generation member of the wrestling industry. Her father is Leroy McGuirk, who promoted in the Oklahoma area before Bill Watts did.
[WWF] The Royal Rumble on October 4 was a big mess. Staggered entry battle royal, elimination over the top rope. But it turned out there were never more than three guys in at once and the eliminations all looked bad. And the two minutes between entrants seemed a lot closer to one minute, making the whole match last like 12 minutes with One Man Gang and Junkyard Dog going over together in the end and Gang getting awarded the win. On tv, they announced the winner of the Rumble would get a title shot against Hogan, but during intermission they announced Hogan vs. One Man Gang for November 7, so when Gang won the Rumble fans chanted “b.s.” and such on account of basically having the match result spoiled. The best match of the show was Velvet McIntyre vs. Sherri Martel.
[JCP] Lex Luger did his first job of the year to Dusty Rhodes on October 3. He both took the pin and bled in a non-title cage match in front of the smallest crowd in Charlotte all year, less than 2000 people. This match was to set up their match at Starrcade.
[NJPW] Kuniaki Kobayashi suffered a spinal cord injury and is out. He’s had to surrender his IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title. The severity is unclear, but it is known he’ll be gone at least a month, hence the title being vacated. Nobuhiko Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki, the second and third place finishers in the tournament for the title in August, will wrestle for the title on October 6, with the winner defending against Shiro Koshinaka on October 25 at Sumo Hall.
[AJW] The Jumping Bomb Angels look to be on the verge of a major push, as they defeated the Crush Gals on September 14. Chigusa Nagayo took the pin after two splashes off the top rope by each Angel. This is their chance to become major stars and emerge from the shadow of the Crush Gals. Nagayo, meanwhile, will be getting a shot at the Red Belt held by Yukari Omori on October 20.
Dave got to see some of Owen Hart’s matches in New Japan. Bad knee or not, Owen was phenomenal. He wasn’t used to the style or pacing quite yet, but his moves were better than anyone else on the planet. Dave doesn’t think he’s the best wrestler in the world… yet. He does think Owen is the most talented in the business right now. In fact, Dave gives his top 20 wrestlers right after this to close out the issue and he list Owen at number 3, just behind number 2 Ric Flair and number 1 Nobuhiko Takada.