December 07, 1987
- Starrcade and Survivor Series are in the books It’s far too early to say how they did financially, but Dave’s gut says Survivor Series did well both in terms of hampering Crockett and making money. Starrcade sold out in Chicago, did decent business in a few cities, and did awful in a few others. In terms of the wrestling, Survivor Series wins the day. WWF’s wrestlers had their working boots on while Starrcade was the worst Starrcade to date. A big disappointment when Crockett needed to put on a big show. WWF had excellent production and commentary (as long as Monsoon is with Ventura, Dave’s not even disliking Monsoon much anymore), and the crowd was enthusiastic at all the right moments. Interviews did what they needed to do and everything seemed well planned out. Starrcade was none of that. The live camera missed several key shots (Sting’s tope, JJ Dillon attacking Weaver and stealing the key, the ref bump in Dusty’s match). Comparatively, the only technical issue for WWF was the ten-team tag match, simply because so many bodies led to guys being in the way of the camera. Commentary for Starrcade was disappointing - J.R. and Tony Schiavone just didn’t have chemistry together and tried too hard to sell bad matches as great. The interviews were transparent timewasting for setup and teardown of the scaffold, and the guys who are best at interviews never talked. All that and the matches for Starrcade were rushed. It just did not come off as a good show at all.
- Before reviewing both shows in full, Dave gives some bests and worsts for the shows. The ten team tag match was the best match overall for Dave, and Bret Hart gets best performer. WWF gets most spineless booking decision because Hogan must pose even though Andre should have had his triumphant moment. Sting’s tope wins best move of the night, and Garvin’s near win on Flair after the flying press from the top only for Flair to kick out at 2.9 wins the best moment. Dave lists those who could have done a worse job booking Starrcade (“Tony Atlas, David Crockett, Leo Nomellini, Bo Derek, Ed Farhat, Thunderbolt Patterson, Leon Spinks, former Atlanta promoter Paul Jones, Karen Ann Quinlan, Karl Lauer, former Pittsburgh Steeler great Ernie Holmes”) and those who could have done better (“Any human not mentioned, several other higher forms of mammals and a few multi-celled reptiles”).
- Survivor Series was a great show, and Dave gives it full review treatment. The Savage/Honkeytonk teams had an okay match, marred a bit by a long period heavy in restholds after Ron Bass got eliminated. Steamboat did the heavy lifting, and Savage’s interactions with Honkeytonk were disappointing. Team Savage winning was the right move, though. The women’s match was okay, but it was very funny watching Moolah get booed every time she entered the ring even though she was playing babyface. The Jumping Bomb Angels had some great spots, though, as they had the finish to the match for themselves. The ten-team tag match gets 4 stars. Everyone worked hard and the match had total unpredictability, especially at the end when it came down to two teams that would have been easy picks for early elimination (Bees going over the Islanders at the end). The main event was very good. Andre didn’t look good and the only action he was involved in was selling some punches for Hogan and the finish, but WWF booked the match really well to keep fans from picking up on that. If anything, WWF strengthened their position going into Wrestlemania here.
- Watch: Team Hogan vs. Team Andre
- Starrcade was not a great show., and the review pulls no punches. Michael Hayes/Jimmy Garvin/Sting vs. Rick Steiner/Larry Zbyszko/Eddie Gilbert went to a draw. The match was good and started strong, but slowed down while the ref seemed to get in the way. But the match had no flow, so it was only good in the sense that the wrestlers looked good individually. Steve Williams retained the UWF Title against Barry Windham in a dud of a match that got boring chants after the first minute. The match was meant to start a heel turn for Williams, but nobody watching picked up on that and commentary did nothing to tell the story. The scaffold match between the Rock & Roll and Midnight Expresses was good, but Ricky Morton going low and running away was not to Dave’s taste - faces just shouldn’t run away from heels. The match was as good as you could ask for, but scaffold matches have a ceiling and it was pretty much the same as last year’s. Koloff won the TV title unification match, and the first ten minutes were so bad the match very well could have won worst match of the year if that were the whole thing. Somehow they figured it out and the last eight minutes were good. Tully and Arn beat the Road Warriors by DQ in the best match of the card (3.5 stars). The Road Warriors didn’t have their usual entrance of “Iron Man” because the show was being taped for video (need rights if you want to sell a video, while free tv is fine as long as the artist doesn’t mind). Anyway, it was a very solid match, but nobody wanted the Dusty finish (Roadies threw Arn over the top, while the original referee was down after a ref bump, then pinned Arn while Earl Hebner counted. Then the original ref reversed the decision). Dusty Rhodes beat Lex Luger (now spelling his name with an e) for the U.S. Title. Dusty got 50/50 boos and cheers, Lex got mostly boos. Dave loved the finish with Dillon tossing Luger a chair that led him to take a DDT on the chair to lose enough that he gives the match a star, rather than negative stars like his friends would have. The main event saw Flair win back the NWA World title and get cheered by about 70% of live fans, who also chanted “Garvin sucks.” The match was basically the same as their match in Detroit, but worse, and it’s the worst Flair match Dave’s seen in 16 months. The final three minutes were spectacular, though, enough to get the match to 2.5 stars.
- NWA’s debut show in New York at Nassau Coliseum was the day before Starcade. Honestly, running this show the night before Starrcade probably contributed to the off feeling for Starrcade, but all reports say this show was excellent. They drew $150,000 and around 11,500 fans.
- WWF ran Madison Square Garden two days before Survivor Series and drew 17,000. The Glamor Girls vs. Jumping Bomb Angels was reported to Dave as the best match in MSG in years. Also, they did a stretcher job on Danny Davis following his match with Jake Roberts, so we’re probably rid of him now.
- Watch: Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls at Madison Square Garden
- AWA’s Thanksgiving show drew 1,800 fans and Greg Gagne apparently won the AWA World Title. The finish saw Larry Hennig try to interfere, but Verne ran in and hit Curt with a roll of coins and Greg pinned him. The AWA hotline is calling this a win for Greg, but odds are real good they reverse the title change soon enough (indeed, they do just that). The post-match saw Verne and Larry get into it, so the tag match is now built up for Christmas. Another match to avoid for Christmas will be Sheik Adnan al-Kaissey vs. Nord the Barbarian. Madusa beat Bambi (apparently her outfit was something to behold). Madusa also wound up being the prize, as D.J. Peterson won her for 30 days by beating Kevin Kelly. Dave suggests if she’s as good at holding a conversation as she is at promos, Peterson might want to give her back 29 days early.
- AWA also ran their last card in Denver on November 27. WWF will be taking over their tv time in the area and coming back with monthly cards starting January. AWA also drew under 50 for their November 22 card in San Jose.
- [Alabama] Continental’s Thanksgiving show in Knoxville was built around a tournament for a 1988 Monte Carlo. Interference in a match would result in both wrestlers eliminated from the tournament, along with any who helped (this clause resulted in Jimmy Golden vs. Steve Armstrong eliminating both men from the tournament, as well as Robert Fuller, Tony Anthony, Wendell Cooley, and Tracy Smothers). Doug Furnas wound up winning the final against Mongolian Stomper.**
- Dick Slater no-showed AWA’s Thanksgiving show.
- Chief Jay Strongbow broke his wrist in WWF’s old-timers battle royal.
- Gordon Solie has signed up to do color commentary for Global Wrestling in Florida. That’s the publicly traded promotion with Bob Roop booking.
- A couple bodybuilders challenged Nick Kiniski and Kevin Kelly to a fight at the AWA Thanksgiving show. Police broke things up and saved the bodybuilders, because those two aren’t guys you wanna fuck with.
- [Stampede] Mike Kirchner has now been promoted to Colonel. WWF doesn’t want him called Corporal Kirchner anymore, so he jumped a few pay grades and also got himself a commission.
- Mike Swain of San Jose, a college friend of Dave’s, just became the first American World Judo champion last weekend. Even Badnews Allen, who got Bronze in the 1972 Olympics in judo, never won a world championship in the sport. Swain is now a favorite to win gold in the 1988 Olympics (Swain ultimately gets Bronze, and remains one of only two American men to ever win a world championship in judo. The first American to win judo gold at the Olympics would eventually be Kayla Harrison in 2012 and again in 2016). Even Ronda Rousey hasn't won a World Judo championship.
- Mad Dog Vachon was released from the hospital in Omaha on November 21. No other info, but I’m assuming relating to his most recent surgery following the amputation of his leg.
- Sgt. Slaughter and Lou Albano are contributing columns to a newsletter called Mat Rap Monthly.
- There was apparently an issue of Penthouse Hot Talk with an article on wrestling groupies. One of the readers of the Observer, well, she’d appreciate a copy.
- Not a lot in the letters this week, but there is one where Dave responds and outlines some of WWF’s front office. Vince and Linda own the company 100%, and bought out the minority partners years back. Pat Patterson works in talent and booking with Terry Garvin. Jack Lanza, Jay Strongbow, Grizzly Smith (fuck that guy), Rene Goulet, Tony Garea, Pedro Morales, Gorilla Monsoon, and Arnold Skaaland are road agents. So is Nick Bockwinkel, Dave believes. Jim Barnett used to work for WWF and was in operations and headed costume design before he left to work for Crockett. Alfred Hayes is also in the front office in some capacity.
- Crockett won’t be coming back to Boston because the Boston Gardens only rented them the one date in April as an experiment. They drew a big crowd (over 10,000 with a $142,000 gate), but the Gardens have not been willing to have them return. Seems strange on the face of it, but WWF would cancel a lot of dates if they did, so the pressure is on the venue to keep that arrangement alive and that means not pissing off WWF.
- Dave also thinks a lot of folks lamenting UWF being merged into the NWA and not being run separate are missing something important: to compete nationally, you have to present nationally. Merging UWF and Florida into the NWA was inevitable. There’s no reason a well-run promotion with marketable stars and national reach shouldn’t be successful as a national promotion and not a regional one. But the way Crockett has conducted the “merger” and the result on tv has been a clear example of bad decision-making. They should have set things up after the Bashes and built toward unifications. Instead they tried to show NWA superiority and made a mockery of UWF, alienating a lot of fans in the old Mid South area (and they were planning to move their base of operations to that area, even). Aside from Flair and the Road Warriors, no NWA talent is a better wrestler or more marketable than the top UWF guys, but they’ve never let the UWF guys sniff the main event or get a real push. They’ve ignored Steve Williams and buried Terry Taylor and Eddie Gilbert, who all had potential to add some needed variety to the top of the card. But they’ve let the top of the card continue to grow more and more stale, and when they bought a bunch of ready-made good talent they slapped them down. It’s just terrible business all around, and somebody in WWF should have read this and committed it to memory for 14 years later but nobody did and we got the exact redux of this whole thing with the Invasion and now I’m annoyed about 2001.
- Jimmy Snuka is replacing Col. DeBeers as Bruiser Brody’s tag partner in All Japan’s tag tournament.
- Dave’s going to Japan, so next issue in two weeks. Sayonara.