November 16, 1987
- Jim Crockett Promotions announced this weekend that they would start their closed-circuit airings of Starrcade at 8 pm Eastern, putting them head to head with Survivor Series. The live show in Chicago will still be starting at 4 pm due to commitments with pay=per-view companies, but Crockett doesn’t want to go down without a fight. Pushing Starrcade to a 3-hour tape delay for closed-circuit should prevent the show from being a suicidally low take at the box office, as it will now be positioned for the best time on the best night of the year for getting wrestling fans into theaters. Starrcade, as it stands, should at least be a minor success now. If not for WWF’s interference, this should be the most successful Starrcade in history, owing to the greater strength of Crockett’s tv network now covering nearly the whole country and pushing out the show to more than twice as many cities as ever before. That said, and WWF aside, there are other reasons it won’t be as successful: the card isn’t being built to the same heights as previous years and crowd enthusiasm has dropped a lot since the summer. WWF looks on the surface to be the main factor, but they really only are affected in that their big national ppv debut is now pushed back to January 24, 1988. They won’t make the money they would have on ppv now for this Starrcade, but that wasn’t an option in previous Starrcades and those were considered successes. Survivor Series might capture some fans from Starrcade, but that will only be a small percentage who actually can. PPV is in its infancy, and only seven percent of homes in the US can even get Survivor Series. The two companies draw from very different audiences as well, so overall there’s not a huge competition between them in terms of ppv. The success of Starrcade this year can thus be measured on its own merits. It would be more successful if it could be on ppv nationwide and at a good time slot, sure, but that’s an extenuating circumstance and not a main factor to consider in determining the show’s success. The show’s success ought to be determined on what it can get out of its card and the hype for it on tv, and thus what it can pull at the gate. Last year’s Starrcade grossed nearly a million dollars, with roughly $650,000 of that coming from the live spots in Greensboro and Atlanta. This year’s show will have less than 10,000 seats available in Chicago, meaning a sellout will gross roughly $200,000, and that means lots of ground to make up before the show can be called any kind of success.
- WWF has finalized the Survivor Series card. The Billy Graham injury angle aired, and the teams for the women’s match have been finalized as Sherri Marte;/Glamour Girls/Dawn Marie/Donna Christanello vs. Moolah/Jumping Bomb Angels/Velvet McIntyre/Rockin’ Robin.
- The Saturday Night’s Main Event with the Randy Savage face turn did a 9.7 rating and a 30 share. On November 11 they’re taping a new one to air the Saturday after Survivor Series, and another will be taped on December 7 for January 2. Both of those shows are planned to have Hogan vs. Bundy, with Andre in Bundy’s corner. Andre is going to wrestle (Dave thinks wrestle “isn’t the correct adjective to use”, which is the exact same grammatical flub Kevin Nash would later make famous with the word play) a few matches before the end of the year. He’s scheduled to team with Rick Rude vs. Hogan and Orndorff on December 12.
- [WWF] Dave thinks crowds ought to pick up as a result of the cut down in number of shows. The roster on each show is deeper now and has fewer enhancement guys, so that should up the quality of things. They’ve also raised ticket prices everywhere by a dollar, which theoretically is because now there are more “name” guys per card.
- Stampede had a really good match between Jason the Terrible and Chris Benoit. Zodiak (Barry Orton) interfered and rammed Benoit’s head into the wall of the Pavillion and Benoit bled a lot. Eventually, after Jason pinned Benoit, Zodiac ran in and continued the beating until Owen made the save, which led to the main event as Owen retained his North American title against Zodiak by reversing Zodiac’s tombstone into one of his own and then pinned him with a dive off the top ropes.
- Watch: Zodiak vs. Owen Hart
- Stampede’s first show ever in the U.S., Dave believes, happened on November 11 in Great Falls, Montana.
- Stampede is also pushing a Makhan Singh vs. Corporal Kirchner feud. They haven’t had a match yet, but they’re building it up. Kirchner is claiming that Singh (who used to wrestle by his real name, Mike Shaw, before he “turned Muslim” in character) is a draft dodger, who used the name Mike Shaw as a pseudonym for his real name… Shawn Michaels.
- Watch: Corporal Kirchner promo on Makhan Singh
- [Alabama] Dutch Mantell beat Wendell Cooley in the finals of the Continental Title tournament on October 30. Four days earlier Mantell did a promo and talked about beating Cooley to win the tournament in the past tense.
- It looks like any negotiations Jerry Jarrett may have been making to buy the AWA have fallen through. Memphis is still trying to get on ESPN, though.
- [Memphis] Dr. Diablo (who briefly held the AWA Tag Titles with Hector Guerrero) has unmasked and is now called Corporal Anderson. When Lawler and Dundee regained the titles from Anderson and Guerrero, Guerrero threw hair-removal cream at Dundee, who ducked, leaving Anderson to take it all. Anderson now claims he has lost sight in one eye and is expected to start working as a babyface against Guerrero and Manny Fernandez. Anderson previously worked in Deep South as C.W. Styles and did the angle where the heels took out his glass eye and threw it on the mat.
- The accusations against Rocky Johnson have made front page news in some Memphis area newspapers lately. Charges have been reduced from aggravated rape to rape, and he was bound over to a Madison County grand jury on October 29. He still wrestles in Memphis, but he’s not being put over and never appears on television.
- Bruiser Brody is no longer working for World Class.
- [AWA] It looks like Verne Gagne won’t be getting in the ring on Thanksgiving. That could change, but the announced match is presently Curt Hennig vs. Greg Gagne in a rematch, with Larry “The Axe” Hennig saying his whole family will be buying tickets to the show. Other matches include Adrian Adonis vs. Tommy Rich where if Rich wins Adonis loses his hair and Paul. E. Dangerously must wear a dress and Kevin Kelly vs. D.J. Peterson where Peterson wins Madusa as a manager for a month if he wins and must leave town if Kelly wins.
- Downtown Bruno is facing Ric McCord in a loser leaves town match for Central States on Thanksgiving. All signs point to Bruno going to Continental to work with Lord Humongous, who recently worked in Memphis and whose real name is Sid Eudy. Fans aren’t supposed to know this isn’t the same Lord Humongous who made it big in the territory a few years back.
- In New Japan, tv ratings have not been significantly improved by the return of Riki Choshu to television. They doubled their average the first week, but below expectations. The next week saw most of Japan not getting to see the show due to baseball. The October 19 show with Inoki/Yamada vs. Choshu/Fujinami and the Choshu/Fujinami breakup drew only a 7.0 rating on Video Research and a 9.0 on Neilsen, which is only a little above what they were doing without Choshu. New Japan’s show airs in prime time. For a comparison point, All Japan Women’s October 18 show aired in the afternoon headlined by Crush Girls vs. Devil Masami and Yukari Omori and drew a 6.0 (VR) and 6.8 (Neilsen), while All Japan’s October 24 show was headlined by Tenryu/Hara vs. Tiger Mask II and Shinichi Nakano as well as a Road Warriors vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/John Tenta match oly drew a 4.2 (VR) and 6.1 (Neilsen) on Saturday afternoon.
- Watch: I believe this is the Crush Gals/Devil Masami & Yukari Omori match referenced above
- Bob Backlund is still making noises about returning to wrestling, and even has said he is going to tour Japan soon. No announcement has been made in Japan, but Japanese wrestling magazines are showing a lot of interest in Japan.
- International World Class Championship Wrestling, where Backlund’s talking about fighting Iron Sheik, is running a fake tournament for their World Title. It seems Sheik is destined to win the tournament and feud with Backlund over the title. Anyway, the advantage of a fake tournament is it’s easy to get major names to job when they don’t have the matches. The Mad Russian supposedly beat Jimmy Snuka in Hawaii, while Sheik “destroyed Bruiser Brody in Toronto.”
- Dave really wants to refrain from negative comments about Crockett’s NWA this week. Everything that can be said has been said lately, and it’s up to the people in charge to recognize the problems and address them. That means shaking things up with fresh angles at the very least, if not fresh talent in the top of the card. The Wilbur thing is the only fresh thing they have, and he’s opening shows and won’t even be on Starrcade, which rather speaks to itself. They have the talent and reach to be the second major force in pro wrestling if they do what they need to do. If they don’t, then Dusty might as well move to Dallas and keep booking himself in an ego-feeding way so he can keep being like Fritz Von Erich, who only three years ago had the hottest promotion in the country and now has a promotion knocking on death’s door.
- UWF is done. Most of the major wrestlers are sticking around Crockett, and Ron Simmons is the only UWF guy who got any kind of push out of the November 2 Power Pro tapings.
- Shane Douglas is back with Crockett. He was given notice and asked if he could leave early to go to school in Pennsylvania, then got told the notice was a mistake and they wanted him back.
- Benjamin Mora, who promoted the shows at Olympic Auditorium between Negro Casas and El Hijo del Santo, is trying to buy the lease on the Olympic alongside a local boxing promoter. The Olympic is scheduled to be torn down otherwise.
- WWF put the Strike Force title win on this week’s shows and are also putting on big matches for the next few weeks because of November Sweeps. Basically, they want to look good and draw big viewership for ad purposes, since these shows will help determine advertising rates for the next few months.
- In the letters this week, there are some amusing anecdotes about the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission. In 1969 Slugger Klingensmith, an ex-boxer, was commissioner and ruined a show at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena by stopping matches for kicking, choking, and whatever he determined was rule-breaking. He was eventually told to lighten up and wound up playing along with angles and ordering rematches where instructed. He also once explained blading to a newspaper columnist who asked about blood capsules.
- Another letter writer rips into Dave and asks what the difference is between GLOW and WWF. She says ex-GLOW girls are working WWF and other promotions and are the champions of tomorrow, and that Dave owes them an apology and some respect. He may not consider GLOW wrestling, but the letter writer doesn’t consider Dave’s newsletter “a wrestling publication either.” Dave responds even though he knows (and says as much) that he really shouldn’t. He notes that the only current GLOW girl working in WWF is Olympia Hartower, who did a year with GLOW after several years of advertized video clips in magazines, then trained with Moolah for months before WWF could put her on tv and she’s still totally green. Dave says he has nothing against GLOW, and his brother has done comedy at the same hotel they taped their show at and got to know several of the GLOW girls, but he’s firm that GLOW isn’t wrestling.
- More awards favorites from Dave. Hogan is the obvious choice for Most Charismatic, and Dave figures Riki Choshu for second and the Road Warriors for third. For Best TV Announcer, Lance Russel is always a good first place pick. He carries inexperienced guys through interviews and never gets in the way when a good performer is going strong. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone are Dave’s second and third place picks. Schiavone is good on interviews and announcing, but when a match has lots of moves he’s not good at calling things and he doesn’t help lay out the psychology for viewers very well. Ross is better at the play-by-play, but seems to be trying too hard. For Worst Match of the Year, Raja Lion vs. Giant Baba makes this easy. Dave then just lists a bunch of other bad matches. Worst Feud of the Year is something Dave thinks about a little. Koloff vs. Luger seems like a contender on the face of it, but the matches weren’t that bad. Kevin Von Erich vs. Al Perez had all the ingredients for failure (a face nobody wanted against an uncharismatic heel, a phantom title change, and awful matches), so Dave gives that second behind Stampede’s Bill Kazmaeir vs. Ted Arcidi feud, because there was just nothing good there at all. Even Kevin Von Erich was more capable of working a match than those two.
- WWF has fired Sika.
- Mat Results Bulletin is folding. That newsletter had been around for over six years and had recently been hit with financial troubles, forcing editor Bob Clossom to pull the plug. Dave hopes to keep in touch with Clossum and founder of the Bulletin Jay Steele in the future.