Wrestling Observer Rewinder

February 15, 1988

The Main Event is in the books. WWF came up with the perfect finish for Andre vs. Hogan at The Main Event, and Dave hopes whoever came up with it got a nice bonus. It’s been 33 years since the last time wrestling was on prime time network tv (and Dave says it still isn’t there, but WWF came out looking good anyway). Everything they wanted to accomplish they accomplished, and they did it successfully. Andre didn’t get hurt, Hogan dropped the title without having to do a real job, Wrestlemania has been set up, and the finish was so weird it distracts completely from the weaknesses elsewhere in the show. Doing a screwjob finish to take the title off someone as over as Hogan could well lead to new heights. For the overseas audience, Dave recaps the show. Only two matches aired (and the show was live), and the result of Hogan dropping the belt to Andre was so well known Dave suspected this was a purposefully leaked thing to throw people off the scent. And it was hard not to know, as several radio stations reported the title change Friday morning before the show aired that night and it was in the San Jose Mercury that morning at the front of the sports section as well. All this because WWF launched its advertising blitz for Wrestlemania with the tagline “Hogan tries to regain his title.” WWF wasn’t even concerned about the spoilers, because their goal was to use the publicity to drive up ratings. They opened with Honkeytonk vs. Randy Savage for the Interconinental Title, and Savage carried the match to watchable status. Production for the show was much less slick than usual, with the camera missing shots (Jimmy Hart’s interference on several occasions). Anyway, Dave gives the match two stars.
As for the WWF Title match, a good match was never in the cards and it’s probable that Andre is no longer physically capable of a good match. He’s lost a lot of weight, and he performs well as a heel, but he has no business in the ring. Andre did nothing but stand still for the first three minutes and change, and when he and Hogan did go at it, Andre never went down. Dave doubts if Andre would be able to get up again if he had. They did the Ric Flair bump from the top, Andre choked Hogan and you could see he was running out of gas. He tried to kick Hogan but couldn’t support himself on one leg, and Dave imagines Vince seeing $25 million “flying out the window.” Andre got back to choking, though, and the crowd shots indicate, from all the waving and mugging for the cameras, that they weren’t paying much attention at all to the match. Hogan got his comeback, then Andre did a bad hiplock that was supposed to be a vertical suplex, and covered Hogan to win when the referee counted three even though Hogan kicked out at one. No riot like at Sumo Hall, as Dave Hebner shows up right after Andre handed off what he called “The World Tag Team Championship” to Ted DiBiase before the fans can go nuts, and Vince and Ventura exclaim their shock at the identical (not even close to identical) referee situation. Earl tosses Dave out of the ring, then Hogan tosses Earl but Hogan tossed him too far and DiBiase and Virgil couldn’t catch him.
Watch: Hogan vs. Andre for the WWF Title at The Main Event
So where does all this lead in terms of Wrestlemania? The story seems to be that DiBiase paid for someone to get plastic surgery to look like Dave Hebner and steal the belt. The syndicated shows the next day said that Jack Tunney has banned commentators from talking about the occurrence on February 5 (remember, they were taped before February 5, so that’s good cover). They even played it up as the heel commentators trying to talk about it, but getting censored, with Ventura storming off set and complaining about the censorship. Everything worked so well Dave’s even guessing his $25 million estimate for Wrestlemania may be a conservative estimate. Ted DiBiase appeared on February 6 at WWF shows in Boston and Philadelphia billed as WWF champion, but next weekend’s syndicated shows will announce that the title will be held up (Dave says he’s not sure of it, but it all seems to be going that way), which leaves us several potential routes to Wrestlemania, and potentially even out to the August ppv. Hogan could face DiBiase at Wrestlemania, then Andre in August. DiBiase could drop the title to Hogan, then Hogan defends against Andre (or he doesn’t drop and Hogan gets a rematch in August to win it). Dave thinks up several convoluted things, but thinks it’ll be a lot simpler: Hogan and Andre in a cage for the held up title with Hogan winning at Wrestlemania.
Dave gives a brief overview of the career of Geoff Portz Jr., the Stampede wrestler (also known as Scott McGhee and Garfield Portz) who suffered a stroke last week. Portz is 40, and his father was a big name in England in the 1960s. He collapsed while pumping gasoline, and his prognosis looked bad at first, but he’s taken a turn for the better and can already speak again. Too early to tell if he’ll ever wrestle again. Turns out this is it for him, with the exception of two one-off matches in 1989 and 2010.
Dynamite Kid collapsed last week at the San Francisco airport before last Saturday’s show (the one Dave went to from last rewind). At least one radio station reported a heart attack, but it was a seizure of some kind. He’s already back in the ring. Also back in the ring following arthroscopic knee surgery is Bam Bam Bigelow.
The final Minneapolis Auditorium card for AWA had a disappointing turnout of 1700 fans. In part, the low turnout can be attributed to WWF deciding to run a show in the Twin Cities the next week as a “Mad Dog Vachon” night with plenty of their own old-timers (namely Bockwinkel, Blackjack Lanza, and the Crusher, whose name value are all bigger than the crew Gagne brought out. Speaking off, Gagne had Red Bastien, Bert Smith (Stan “Big K” Kowalski), Carl Eller (not a wrestler, but one of the Purple People Eaters front four for the Minnesota Vikings in the early 1970s), Butch Levy, Leo Nomellini, Hard Boiled Haggerty, Dick the Bruiser (they actually put him in the ring), Billy Robinson, and perennial jobber Kenny “Sodbuster” Jay. As far as the show itself, not much of interest. Tom Zenk went to a draw against Billy Robinson (who is 50 and retired), which makes little sense since Zenk’s the only viable babyface challenger for Hennig. Midnight Rockers retained the tag titles over Kevin Kelly and Mr. Go in a decent match. Greg Gagne pinned Curt Hennig (referee Leo Nomellini) in a cage match where it was never announced whether or not the title was on the line. Hennig did the job after he shoved Leo, who then did a football tackle to him and Gagne covered for the pin. Good work, having your world champion job to a 60 year old retired football player. Dave runs down Leo’s credentials in football (Leo played on the same team as Verne in college and is in the NFL Hall of Fame, and late in his career (the 1950s) did pro wrestling in the football off-season. Anyway, they later had an explanation for Curt being the champion: “a cage match can’t be a title match.” Okay then.
Watch: here’s a human interest piece on Kenny “Sodbuster” Jay
Other AWA news: Adrian Adonis won’t be back until March at the earliest (he won’t be back at all). No word on Paul E. Dangerously’s contract status, but negotiations don’t appear to have broken off. Nord the Barbarian is gone.
Rip Rogers has been a big surprise in Stampede and become a good worker. He had a really good match with Chris Benoit on January 29 in Calgary where he put Benoit in a Boston Crab after spraying something in Benoit’s eyes, and the referee immediately called for the bell instead of waiting for Benoit to submit, and declared Benoit was unable to continue. Heel referee, screwjob finish? Is Calgary just Albertan for Montreal?
Gary Allbright, a former All-American wrestler from Nebraska, has begun at Stampede. He’s been introduced as Makhan Singh’s half-brother and is being trained in the Hart Dungeon. He’ll debut in about a month, and word is he has major potential. I don’t know when, but I’m assuming after this at some point, is when he meets and marries his wife, Monica Anoa’i.
February 5 was the last Stampede appearance for Badnews Allen. Allen didn’t do any jobs on the way out per order of Vince McMahon, who didn’t want him doing anything that would weaken him going to WWF or strengthen Stampede on the way out.
Losing Sumo Hall due to the riot definitely hurt New Japan. They had to move the Choshu/Inoki rematch to Korauken Hall, which sold out easily but that’s only 2,000 tickets.
The finals of the NJPW jr. heavyweight tournament happened on February 7. Hase vs. Koshinaka for the final, no result reported yet. Hase is getting a big push, but he’s not the most over among the jr. heavyweights - Takada and Yamazaki are more over. Also Owen Hart returns in May, which means he’s not heading to WWF in the next few months, at least.
Little news for All Japan since they don’t start back up again until late in the month, but Dave does issue a correction. It regards the Asian Tag Titles and who won them when and he’s looking into getting the actual situation cleared up. I can't really follow what he's saying here, so I'm not even going to try.
Weekly Pro Wrestling did its reader awards, and Tenryu won both Best Japanese Wrestler and Most Popular Wrestler. Clearly he’s the hottest thing going in Japan. Chugsa Nagayo vs. Yukari Omori from October 20, where Chigusa won the world title, won Women’s Singles Match of the Year. Crush Gals vs. Yumi Ogura and Kazue Nagahori from January 5 won Women’s Tag Match of the Year. Bam Bam Bigelow won Best Foreign Wrestler.
World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico had a big show at a baseball stadium and drew around 25,000 fans for a show main evented by Carlos Colón vs. Iron Sheik.
Chavo Guerrero (Chavo Classic) is now working in catering in Southern California and has apparently retired from wrestling.
The big news in Memphis is that they turned Bill Dundee heel. They did a battle royal on February 6, with the winner getting a shot at the CWA Title. Jeff Jarrett and Bill Dundee were the final two and Dundee threw Jarrett over. Jarrett skinned the cat while Dundee celebrated, then hit him with a couple dropkicks to eliminate him. Later in the show, Jerry Lawler defended the title against Jarrett, and Dundee came out and hit both of them with a chair and beat them both senseless.
Memphis has a tag team called the Choir Boys managed by a guy called Angel who’s doing a preacher gimmick. The whole act is getting their phones flooded with calls from religious groups who hate it. Angel’s deal is he’s on a mission to start “Wrestling Village USA”, a reference to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Heritage USA.
Dave gives a brief overview of Mexico. There are dozens of promotions and wrestling draws big crowds. Gates aren’t that big, due to the weak peso, so not a lot of Americans working there as even the main eventers make like $25-$30 for cards that draw thousands. In the Mexico City metro, there are five shows every Wednesday, seven every Friday, and ten every Sunday and even with that many shows the big cards draw over 15,000 fans. The big names include Perro Aguayo, Super Halcon, Super Muneco, Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras, and El Canek. One of the top heels in Mexico City is a guy called Beautiful Elvis who is doing a Honkeytonk Man ripoff gimmick.
This Southern Championship Wrestling promotion in the Atlanta area is getting pretty hot. They drew 620 and had to turn people away on February 6. Notable from that show was Bruiser Brody wrestling a mannequin that he called Dick Slater. Brody literally dismantled the mannequin and tore it limb from limb. Brody seems to have the most interesting stuff in this group, based off the summaries I’m reading - in the second hour of the show Brody wrestled Steve Bennet and shoved Bennet’s face into a plate of chicken (the shows are held at a restaurant/bar). Dick Slater came out then and they brawled to set up their match for the future.
Southern Championship Wrestling and Deep South Wrestling are lobbing shots across the bow at each other lately. Deep South recently made fun of Joe Pedicino (who is SCW’s tv announcer and famous for Pro Wrestling This Week) and Bonnie Blackstone (co-host of Pro Wrestling This Week). They had people parodying them, with the guy playing Pedicino getting stuck in his chair and the woman playing Blackstone playing bimbo. SCW and PWTW has mostly been quiet about this, though they did show a clip from Puerto Rico of Invader #1 (fuck Invader #1) vs. The Assassin, and said that “This is the Puerto Rican Assassin because there is nobody named The Assassin in the United States that can wrestle.” Jody Hamilton, who runs Deep South, happens to be their main event guy as The Assassin. Dave thinks the inside baseball can be pretty fun at times.
Michael Hayes was on an Atlanta area show this weekend and said of the NWA that “it may be the major league, but their checks are minor league.
Not a lot of news for Crockett, the biggest thing is that Ted Turner’s now involved. Turner’s trying to get them back on track with ppv. Crockett originally announced four for this year (Bunkhouse final, Crockett Cup, Great American Bash, and Starrcade). With McMahon undisputedly on top of the wrestling business having announced four for this year and the 60/21 day before and after clauses, there wasn’t really much hope for Crockett to have a future in ppv going forward. The future of wrestling as a business is in ppv and outside merchandising, not house shows, so being effectively locked out of ppv means that no matter what goes well for Crockett, there’s no way for Crockett to compete. So Turner’s getting involved and helping Crockett get an early Bash date for July on ppv (Starrcade and Crockett Cup on ppv have already been canceled). There are no current plans for another ppv until January, for Bunkhouse finals 1989 (Dave notes that the difference between Crockett and McMahon is that McMahon learns from his mistakes).
In the ratings, WWF’s syndicated package has placed 3rd with a 10.6 national rating. Crockett’s package is ranked 12th with a 6.5 rating.
[NWA] Sting’s catching fire as a young babyface. He’s even surprised Dave with how quickly he’s been rising and that he’s surpassed Barry Windham and Lex Luger. Dave worried Luger would lose steam, but didn’t imagine he would lose it this soon. It’s okay, though, Dave. Luger’s on track to get betrayed by Barry Windham, which should work well for both. Back to Sting, Dave thinks he might still need work on promos, but he does some amazing things in the ring and has a connection to the audience that’s undeniable. In a year or so he could be built to carry the promotion.
There looks to be no hope of reconciliation between Crockett and Michael Hayes/Steve Williams/Rock & Roll Express. The Express claim they have a June start date with WWF (Dave’s skeptical) and will be finding independent work until then. Meanwhile people are calling the Crockett offices about them and the official company line is that they aren’t gone, just renegotiating. Hayes looks to be going to World Class, but he has been talking to WWF (as have a couple other folks in JCP). Williams is just going to stay in Japan, but Dave thinks he should get in with World Class for spot duty to help keep his conditioning up in between tours of Japan.
Bad news aside, Dave does think Crockett’s booking has been getting back on track. The Road Warriors bench pressing angle was great and Dave thinks it’s going to do well money-wise for Crockett. Anyway, Dave wants to revise his previous assessment that the weights were legit. He has a friend who legit benches 500 lbs, and watching the angle Dave thinks the weights were fudged. He thinks they did the 470 too easily for it to be real, even if they can legit bench in the 550 range. Looking at the plates, Dave ballparks the 470 at 365 and the 600 at 505. Anyway, they’re going to be working ladder matches (with $50,000) on top of a wooden ladder) against Warlord and Barbarian. Dave also tips his hat to whoever came up with saying that Animal broke the orbital bone in his eye. Using technical terms makes things sound legit.
Dave decides to revisit Tully Blanchard vs. Barry Windham from several weeks back because it really is a slow week in Crockett news. The match went for 27 minutes and was heavy on limb work and selling injury. Windham and Blanchard know how to work that style, and the match was technically, compared to the wrestling Dave grew up with, a good match. Lots of readers enjoyed it. But the issue is that the fans were not buying into it. 22 minutes in, Tully had Blanchard in a figure four after having worked the leg for 12 minutes, and the crowd’s only response was the call the match boring. This could be a sign of things to come, because if crowds keep reacting like this long matches could go the way of the dodo. Dave remembers a Flair/Windham match in Houston last year that went 30 minutes and which he considers a 4 star match. They did their usual deal - 7 minutes slow start then turn up the heat, but in those first 7 minutes hundreds of fans left the arena. So what Dave thought was a great match (and which those at ringside seemed completely into) was not well received by those in the bleachers who left. Matches with slow builds like this simply may not appeal to the fans of today, and Dave doesn’t want to get into that too much, but he’s seen too many examples of fans not sustaining interest in long matches that he thinks slow, story-focused matches simply may not be viable as entertainment for modern wrestling fans.
Watch: The last 12 minutes of Blanchard vs. Windham
In WWF trivia, about 14 months ago the Hart Foundation defeated a jobber team of Owen James and S.D. Jones. Owen James was, of course, Owen Hart. Even then, you could see how much better he was than pretty much anyone in WWF. This would have been the September 14, 1986 Denver house show. I can’t find any video of it, unfortunately.
Dave watched the January 25 MSG main event of Hogan/Bigelow vs. DiBiase/Virgil. It was a very good match and DiBiase is the perfect opponent for Hogan. He gets the best out of Hogan, and despite Virgil being abysmal and Bigelow not being in much due to his knee acting up, the match was an easy 3.5 stars for Dave.
Watch: Chaos in Bigelow and Hogan vs. DiBiase and Virgil
Wrestlemania ticket sales are not going as well as Dave had anticipated. As of February 8, only 5,000 tickets had sold, and there are 4,000 remaining. And rather than 2,000 freebies given out, there are almost 9,000 being given away, with a final maximum attendance of 17,800. Dave figures within the week they’ll be sold out then. Wrestlemania 3 sold around 20,000 in the first week, so it makes sense to move away from a big stadium this year. No way they’d fill it. Speaking of Wrestlemania 3, WWF is now claiming they grossed $20.4 million rather than $17.1 million last year. Dave’s worst case projected scenario for Wrestlemania 4 is around $23.5 million, with a likely $25 million. Wrestlemania 4 may be available via closed-circuit in 161 locations in North America, so there you’ll find a lot of profit to be made.
The first page of letters this week are largely focused on what was wrong with the Bunkhouse finals and how it proves Dusty needs to go. Another one mentions how the Rumble was a nice surprise as a counterpoint. There is a point about World Class mentioned in one, and Dave gives us the that Kerry and Kevin each own a third and Ken Mantell owns about 30%, according to the latest word Dave has.
I’m officially blaming rare book dealer and letter writer Earl Williams for breaking the star rating scale. He wrote a letter about how much he liked the 1987 yearbook (Dave used to do big yearbook special issues covering all the big stories for the year and the results of the annual awards voting, but the only one I have in my files is from 1986 and it’s practically unreadable it’s such low quality) and gives the yearbook 10 stars. Earl, you’re in Oakland. You can’t give ten stars. You’re too far from the Tokyo Dome for that.
If you’re wondering about Dark Journey, who was fired by Crockett last year, Dave has an update on her. She had an interview with WWF, but they wanted a wrestler not a valet, so she’s left wrestling and started up a business in Southern California.
Last thing from the letters, Dave writes in response to a question about if there are any wrestlers of color on the horizon to win major championships. His response to that part of the letter (and the part about wondering why NWA doesn’t market Ron Simmons) is worth putting in full:
We could probably do an entire book about the plight of minorities in pro wrestling. In an era where Cosby is the most-watched TV show in the country it’s obvious that pro wrestling promoters and bookers are living in the past when it comes to the belief that blacks must play stepin-fetchet characters or pimp roles to get over. Wrestling is way behind most every other sport and entertainment in this regard. [...] In all honesty, I don’t think Simmons is ready for a push yet although at one point there were plans to give him a big push this summer although I’m not certain if those plans have changed or not. He does have potential to be a big star, but then again, I can see them pushing the same old role on him, as every interview they have to continually harp on him coming from the ghetto and all that.
Global Wrestling, the one that’s publicly traded, is already showing old tapes for its tv show. That's not a good sign.
Roddy Piper’s doing great in Hollywood. Reports indicate he’ll never have to wrestle again unless he wants to.
Ken Mantell wants to put together a Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair match for May. If it happens, so long to any pretending the World Class Title is a major title. It doesn’t happen.
We ought to know the main event for Wrestlemania 4 for sure by next week, but it’s looking like a clear Hogan/Andre cage match with the title held up from what Dave’s seeing. He's really set on this cage thing.
The Main Event drew a 16.1 rating and a 26 share (ratings to be revised next issue). That makes it the most watched wrestling match in U.S. history. More details next time, but the basics are it did an average rating for prime time and did a lot better than Rags to Riches (which usually airs in that time slot). It probably hit around number 25 for the week, though some NBC people were talking top five or top ten. No weekly series will come out of this, but another prime time special is sure to happen. Dave expected better numbers as much as anyone involved, but guess there aren’t as many potential wrestling fans in the U.S. as Dave thought.
New Japan’s last prime time show will be on March 28 before they get moved to 4 pm Saturday. Of the remaining 40 weeks this year after the move, New Japan will be pre-empted for golf coverage on 14 of those weeks. That’s gonna hurt New Japan a lot, to the tune of $1.6 million just in rights fees from the network, nevermind exposure, live gates, and ad revenue.
Speaking of New Japan, they’re giving Samurai Warrior a push for some reason. Warrior is a Hiro Matsuda trainee and he’s got a singles match with Choshu on March 11. He’s awful and it makes no sense why he’s getting a push.
WWF won’t make Wrestlemania 4 available on satellite. They claim some bars and hotels got Survivor Series on dish and charged money to watch it, so there goes the dish market.
The last words of the issue, handwritten right before being sent out in the mail, are “Flash: WWF Title Vacated”