Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 19, 1987

[NJPW] We start this week with one of the strangest matches in wrestling history, the Antonio Inoki vs. Masa Saito match on the empty island of Ganryujima on October 4. This is New Japan’s take on the Funk/Lawler empty arena match, and legend has it that the island is where samurai warriors would fight to the death. They had a ring set up and two tents for the competitors, and the only other people present were reporters and the camera crew. It was supposed to start at sunrise, and Saito came out twice with Inoki nowhere to be seen. At 4 pm, Saito came out one more time and Inoki jumped out of the jungle to ambush him and start the match. The official report is that Inoki won after 2 hours, 5 minutes, 14 seconds when Kotetsu Yamamoto (who does color commentary for the tv show) stopped the fight when Saito was put out with a sleeper. About 30 minutes of the match aired the next night, and apparently the actual length was something around 45 minutes total and mostly restholds. Photos of the match were all over the newspapers in Japan. What’s curious here is that Inoki and Saito have had three previous matches which drew among the biggest gates in wrestling history (two in the $400,000 range and one near $700,000), but this was purely to get tv ratings and put Inoki above Choshi in the minds of fans. It aired as part of a two-hour special featuring Choshu’s return to tv, and Dave hopes to have details of the show and ratings (very important here, as New Japan’s tv ratings are dangerously low as far as the network is concerned) next week.
New Japan isn’t the only company that had a wild brawl this week. Memphis and UWF both put big matches on as well. First, Chris Adams and Sting fought Eddie Gilbert and Terry Taylor in the concession stands in the “Battle of New Orleans.” It’s the best thing Dave’s seen on tv in months and the kind of thing people will remember for years. Memphis offered Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee vs. Carl Fergie and Don Bass with Brickhouse Brown. This one was mostly backstage for tv purposes, though that meant the lighting was bad and it didn’t come off as well as it could have. They still brawled for nearly twenty minutes, starting on the stage and heading back to the dressing room, and all five guys were covered in ice, beer, mustard, and blood by the end, with Lawler giving Fergie a swirly as the climax. Both brawls are must see.
Watch: from the Battle of New Orleans
WWF has announced the line-up for their November 11 Saturday Night’s Main Event taping. Hogan will face Bundy, with Andre in Bundy’s corner. Randy Savage will face Bret Hart in what should be an excellent match, given the network factor. Bam Bam vs. Hercules, Hillbilly Jim vs. Ted DiBiase, Duggan vs. Race, and Steele vs. Danny Davis (this last Dave hopes does not get taped). The show will proobably air on November 21 to help promote Survivor Series.
JCP has pulled a big surprise out of their hat by booking the Nassau Coliseum for a show the day before Thanksgiving. After getting tv in the area, it’s only been a matter of time before Crockett started putting shows on in the area, but most expected the first such show to happen in early 1988. There’s little doubt they’ll do big business for their first show there, but long-term success is more questionable. To help push the show over the top, they’re doing WarGames IV with Garvin/Windham/Rock’n’Roll Express vs. Arn/Tully/Bubba/Midnight Express. They’ll also have Flair/Luger vs. Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff vs. Eddie Gilbert in a Texas Death match, Steve Williams defending the UWF Title against Rick Steiner, and more.
In terms of Starrcade, JCP has announced one match officially on tv this weekend for the show: Steve Williams vs. Barry Windham for the UWF Title. They also announced that Starrcade will be available in “more than 100” closed-circuit locations. The announcement said the show would be Thanksgiving night, but mentioned no start time. Dave repeats what you’ve already read over the past few issues about the start time stuff and how that’s to make sure there’s no overlap, and how WWF has basically knocked Starrcade off the majority of potential ppv homes. With several companies offering Starrcade on ppv, though, it’s too late to change the time back to the evening. By the time the issue reaches readers, two more matches will have been announced: Flair challenging Garvin for the NWA World Title in a no dq cage match and Koloff vs. Taylor to unify the UWF and NWA TV Titles. TV seems to be building toward Dusty vs. Lex and Tully/Arn vs. Road Warriors, with the latter probably for the NWA Tag Titles. On the plus side, the Chicago card being aired via satellite will limit it to three hours, so that card will only have 7 matches which should let them develop for longer, rather than having 12 matches with most being limited in length. JCP will also run events in Greensboro and New Orleans for NWA and UWF, respectively, with each of those events having four or five matches and live broadcast of Starrcade from Chicago.
JCP and WWF will also be changing up their schedules in the coming months. WWF will drop one city per night on weeknights, so Dave believes they’ll be doing two shows a night Monday-Thursday, making up for it with double shots on Saturday and Sunday for three crews each working two shows a day on the weekend. JCP also looks like they’ll be dropping down to two shows a night rather than three which has been their norm lately. Theoretically fewer shows should let the wrestlers rest more and lead to stronger line-ups. It also means the guys lower on the card will get fewer dates and make less money. If the smaller promotions were in the position to offer good money to those guys, they could alleviate some of their talent woes, but that’s not likely to happen. AWA/WCCW/Memphis may get some workers, though, and they need them. The cutback on live shows also reveals something that’s been obvious to readers lately - the live side of the business in this country is at its worst level in years. This was inevitable for the smaller promotions due to the unwinnable battle they have against the JCP/WWF juggernauts. But, WWF has also been having unimpressive attendance (in all but a few hot towns - New York, Boston, Toronto, a couple others), particularly where Hogan is absent. JCP doesn’t have a Hogan (Flair and Road Warriors are their closest), so this change had better help rekindle fan interest.
With Starrcade certainly to be less of a big deal than JCP were initially projecting, it looks like they’ll be getting their second chance on January 24. There won’t be any ppv competition from WWF, as they’ll be in full Wrestlemania hype mode, so JCP ought to be available in several million potential homes and could potentially make a lot of money. They’ll be running out of Vegas or Nassau Coliseum. If the latter, expect the war between WWF and JCP to intensify.
The Crockett family sold their minor league baseball team, the Charlotte Orioles, this past week. Dave was told around a year ago they were looking to get out of baseball and focus only on wrestling, so this shouldn’t be taken as a sign of trouble for the promotion. Some trivia about the team: Francis Crockett, sister of Jim Jr. and David, was the general manager of the team and named Minor League Executive of the Year at one point by The Sporting News. Tony Schiavone also started out as the play-by-play guy for the team’s games before getting brought over to wrestling.
[All Japan] Bruiser Brody’s first match back was against Tiger Mask II on the October 6 show at Budokan Hall. He destroyed Tiger Mask, then interfered in the main event between Jumbo Tsruruta and Tenryu, attacking both men. Tsuruta got hit first, so he won by disqualification. Both men seem to smell money in a Brody feud, so they both want first crack. No confirmation on Brody’s status has been forthcoming, but given he’s in this position, it seems likely he will be back, probably in the tag tournament in December.
Owen Hart returned to Stampede on October 2, coming to the rescue of Johnny Smith. Due to the Canadian postal workers strike, reports from Stampede may be sketchy for the next few weeks.
Official word on the relationship between Memphis and the AWA is still nowhere to be found. The rumors have been swirling, though, so I’d expect something soon.
[Memphis] Rocky Johnson is being played down on cards, but still allowed to work while the case against him gets sorted out. Johnson was accused of rape last week, but the woman leveling the accusation has changed her story three times since then so it’s likely he’ll come out in the clear, legally. They had been building a feud between him and their Bubba when Bubba hit Johnson over the head with his ghetto blaster (a la Buck Zumhofe) and broke the radio.
Bob Geigel has officially pulled Central States out of the NWA and is dropping all NWA naming, forming his own national alliance called the World Wrestling Alliance. The WWA will crown a world champion in January. With such illustrious contenders as Rufus Jones, Rip Rogers, Bob Geigel, Earthquake Ferris, and Porkchop Cash, this will surely be the premier championship recognized the world over. Supposedly Memphis, Deep South (Georgia), and Continental (Alabama) will be part of the WWA, but with Memphis seeming to be solidly in bed with AWA, don’t count on that to be accurate.
AWA is going to crown a TV champion with a very convoluted tournament. There’s a whole points system: if you win a match you get 5 points. If you lose, you lose 5 points. If you win by DQ or countout, you get 2.5 points. If you lose by DQ or countout, you lose 2.5 points. First wrestler to 50 points wins the title.
AWA are also planning a tournament for the women’s title on November 28 in Las Vegas. There’s talk that they might give the title to Wendi Richter if they can get her in, but Madusa is the safe bet.
[WCCW] In pushing the October 17 Cotton Bowl show, Fritz Von Erich did an interview with Kevin, Kerry, and his granddaughter (I give you the official WON debut of Lacey Von Erich). Fritz said that his family has been up (clips of Kerry beating Flair in Texas Stadium) and down, and basically admitted the promotion has been in a slump. He promised to bring back the good old days and said the family would get back up again. Dave says the good old days won’t come back unless Fritz opens his wallet to pay for talent. I’d just like to point out the ego it takes to conflate the promotion with his family and try to make this about himself.
The Crocketts will be changing the UWF taping format again either this coming weekend or the next. Everyone agreed that the new format sucked, so they’re trying to fix things up and make it a bit more like a WWF taping where it won’t just be matches for the show, but additional matches for other programs. All the top names from both NWA and UWF will be present, just like how WWF does it.
Last week Dave reported WWF was leaving Denver, and he reported an attendance at their last show there of 1,200. In a correction, Dave tells us the number was closer to 1,500, but the paid attendance was only 700. JCP only drew 600 on October 10, so Denver seems like a disaster for everyone right now.
[JCP] Hiro Matsuda showed up at the tv taping on October 6 as the “master of the Japanese sleeper hold." He’s 49, but has great conditioning, and he put referee Tommy Young to sleep in a demonstration, then refused to revive him and put Johnny Weaver to sleep when Weaver tried to wake him. Dusty came out to make the save. Matsuda trained Luger (not something to brag about, but something they can use for the angle). It’d be logical, since Rhodes has put Luger to sleep in the past, for Matsuda to teach Luger the sleeper for Starrcade. That would give both guys a way to get heat in a match that will mostly be rest holds.
Watch: Hiro Matsuda demonstrates the Oriental Sleeper Hold
Dave says the Road Warriors are great, but their influence on the business has been bad. They have an excellent gimmick and they play their role well, and as long as you don’t mind no-selling they’re fine in the ring. But looking at guys like Petrov, the Kodiaks, Dingo Warrior, Warlord, Nord the Barbarian, things look dire. They all come in with the idea that you just have to be a musclebound meathead who doesn’t sell and doesn’t know how to work and you’ll get over. On the plus side for the Kodiaks, they’re young and aggressive and maybe they’ll get better by improving.
Not a lot of details from the last WWF tv taping, but they did an angle to set up Duggan/Race. Duggan stole the cape and crown from Race, then later Race and Heenan beat Duggan up with the 2x4. Dave hopes they don’t try to put this as the headliner for any towns.
WWF is making their drug testing a weekly thing now.
At the latest taping were Nick Bockwinkel, Boris Zhukov, Sheik Adnan al-Kaissey, and Princess Jasmine. Bockwinkel is through with the AWA and is in WWF as an agent, while Zhukov is now teaming with Nikolai Volkoff. Sheik Adnan was looking for a job, and Jasmine is probably going to get added to the Survivor Series match fro the women.
The Princess’ [sic] Bride (Dave is so much closer to getting the title right this week) opened in theaters to excellent reviews. Andre is getting great reviews for his performance as well, with Joseph Gelmis of Newsday magazine calling him “wonderful, lovable and a natural comedian.”
Watch: The cast and crew of The Princess Bride reminisce about Andre
WWF plans to run several shows in Chicago in November to combat Starrcade, all of them with Hogan. The first will be November 1.
Ricky Steamboat has been pulled from all his currently announced WWF appearances. No reason known.
A letter writer asks why Chavo Guerrero, Sam Houston, and Dingo Warrior never show up on tv. Dave explains they have their “C” team, which is like a farm team or developmental team of guys they want to potentially push in the future but aren’t ready to push yet. Dingo and Houston are on that squad (as was Tom MaGee before he went to Europe to compete in strongman contests), and the idea is that they don’t get tv exposure so when they do get their gimmick and initial push, it’ll be like your first time seeing them. Dave thinks it’s a smart idea, especially with Dingo because if he ever improves enough to be passably bad at wrestling, his physique will carry him quite far into stardom. Houston has lots of talent, but WWF wants him to gain weight so he won’t look scrawny next to all the roid monsters. Dave expects both to get their big break soon. In the case of Chavo, he helps do commentary for their Spanish broadcasts, so it’s not likely he’ll work television, and he’s been on-again-off-again lately.
In comments that show how the culture has changed between 1987 and today, we get a letter from a reader who went to the first NWA show in Detroit. “I attended the NWA debut in Detroit and it was incredible. It had six title matches and there were only two matches on the card where you could watch the girls with your binoculars. It was three-and-a-half hours of excellence.” When you see a fly girl at the wrestling show, do the creep.
Another letter writer wants coverage of GLOW and complains there’s very little coverage of women’s wrestling. Dave says he actually gives very significant coverage of women’s wrestling, particularly Japanese women’s wrestling (I will note as the Rewinder that this “very significant coverage” is usually a small paragraph labeled “Japanese girls” and doesn’t actually give the name of either of the promotions, and there isn’t always coverage of them in each issue). Dave says if GLOW or POWW can show they can do business at live shows he’ll cover them.
Dave continues his award thoughts this week. For Tag Team of the Year, both versions of the Midnight Express (Eaton & Condrey, then Eaton & Lane) stand out above all other American teams. But Dave gives number one to Maeda and Takada. Lots of potential candidates for number three: Martel/Santana have been excellent, but haven’t been together long. The Hart Foundation are the most overrated team in wrestling (Bret’s a tremendous worker, but Jim Neidhart’s only talent is making faces). Tanaka/Diamond and Jarrett/Travis deserve consideration. The Road Warriors are popular and big draws. Dave thinks Rock & Roll Express deserve the number three spot. For Best Television Show, this is for weekly shows, so Saturday Night’s Main Event doesn’t count. WWF Superstars has great production. New Japan’s show has the best matches. Memphis has the best entertainment wrestling can deliver. Power Pro has lots of action, blood, and creativity. Dave gives New Japan, then Memphis, then Superstars the top three. For Worst Wrestler, Dave wants to clarify that rookies are ineligible. Although he looks out of place physically, Giant Baba still does more moves in a match than you’ll see in two WWF shows. Mike Von Erich was also out of place in the ring, but you knew he was trying hard. Dave figures Bob Geigel (age 63 and working full time), Dingo Warrior, Warlord, and Ivan Putski are good candidates and while Warlord and Dingo have only been around two years, Putski has been around two decades so “you’d think through osmosis something would penetrate his thick skull” (Rewinder note: ouch. Putski was my dad’s favorite growing up in the 60s and 70s). JYD, George Steele, and Outback Jack are also candidates. Dave really wants to pick JYD and hates not doing it, but he picks Putski.
Dave got a bunch of promotional material about Big John Studd and most of it is laughably false. There’s a claim that over 1 million John Studd action figures were sold in 1986. Only 3 million WWF action figures were sold in 1986, and half of them were Hogan. Studd’s Q rating (consumer popularity) is apparently a 47, higher than many other celebrities, such as Mr. T (a 17). Mr. T is among the most hated celebrities in the country, so this is meaningless. Studd has supposedly wrestled in front of over 70 million fans in the past year. Studd’s wrestled in front of the same number of people as Dave has in 1987 - 0. There’s also a claim he’s been on numerous nationally syndicated tv and radio shows. Sure, WWF is nationally syndicated, but that doesn’t really count. When was he on Donahue, Carson, or Oprah? Or radio?
Dave got a copy of the report for the Pennsylvania legislature regarding the athletic commission in Eastern Pennsylvania. The report recommends the state pass a wrestling act which would provide the commission no role in regulating wrestling. It would put some statutes into law, though. Every promoter would have to post a $10,000 bond to ensure that “only financially sound, reputable promoters” operate in the state. It would also require a physician present at all shows and an ambulance or paramedical unit present or on call at every match. Promoters would have to provide adequate security for all events, and blading would be banned. State tax on gates would be dropped from 5% to 2%, with the new figure still getting the state more money when figuring in the elimination of the costs the current way of doing things incurs.
Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee won the AWA Tag Titles from Soldat Ustinov and Doug Somers on October 11. This further confirms the AWA/Memphis alliance.
Watch: Lawler and Dundee win the AWA Tag Titles