Wrestling Observer Rewinder

February 22, 1988

The big story this week is WWF has announced a 14-man tournament for Wrestlemania IV. The word going around is that there will be four other matches: a battle royal (which ought to get another dozen guys on the card for the big payday, probably two tag matches (Dave speculates Demolition vs. Strike Force and Bulldogs vs. Islanders) and an Intercontinental title defense for Honkeytonk Man. The leading candidate for challenger there is Brutus Beefcake, so they’ll need to get on top of shooting an angle for that this week if they want to try and get it over. Anyway, the real meat of Wrestlemania is this tournament, and the bracket has already been announced on the syndicated shows.
Jack Tunney announces Wrestlemania tournament
Dave’s hand-drawn bracket
So looking at this bracket, what are the likely outcomes? Dave thinks there’s really only two possibilities, and there’s only two possibilities for the final match. Hogan vs. DiBiase is the obvious finals if Hogan is to win, and if Hogan’s filming schedule for his upcoming movie (it begins in April) allows for it, this will be the finals. If he can wrestle during the summer, Dave expects him to win, if not he expects DiBiase to win overall since the winner of the tournament needs to be a heel to drop it back to Hogan when the company decides the time is write (Dave thinks the ppv in August looks like that time). If DiBiase wins, Dave thinks it’s going to be Don Muraco he beats in the finals, however. Dave then goes down the bracket and explains who he thinks wins when, ruling out combinations of guys (if Roberts beats Rude, Bravo beats Muraco, so we get Roberts vs. Bravo, for example). Savage doesn’t go out in the first round, obviously, but neither should Steamboat lose to Valentine, so that’s probably our token face vs. face match leading probably to a draw or double elimination. Notice anything weird about this bracket, though? WWF changes plans and redraws the bracket. They swap Roberts/Rude and DiBiase/Duggan’s place so DiBiase is on the same side of the bracket before Wrestlemania, so all this speculation by Dave ultimately goes nowhere because that one shift completely changes the tournament. More on that change when it happens. Dave is definitely right about one thing, though: there are going to be way too many matches on this show, so they're definitely going to have to have some fuck finishes to get the number of matches down in the tournament so things work.
The Main Event’s final rating was a 15.1 and a 25 share, ranking 31st for the week. Dave feels like this has to be a major disappointment for WWF and NBC, as both figured the show would be in the top 10 easily. It won its time slot and the rating was better than the 11.6 average NBC has gotten in that slot with Rags to Riches, but it’s not as big a winner as they hoped. So in the LA Times and USA Today, Dick Ebersole (who co-produced the show with Vince) said that they weren’t interested in a weekly prime-time show because it would hurt live gates. But the reality is they won’t even be offered a slot, because they won’t be able to sustain competitive ratings. Dave was really surprised by the rating, and this show’s rating was the most interested he’s been in something wrestling related for a long time, because it was a test of just how much the general public would bite on wrestling. And what we’ve learned is that to the general public the biggest wrestling match possible, with the biggest hype possible (Andre vs. Hogan) with a month of buildup on all shows and even big news media attention (almost every newspaper ran a feature about the show at some point during the build) only got mediocre mainstream support. Wrestling fans are supremely loyal and will watch no matter the time slot, and the same show on Saturday night at 11:30 pm would have gotten at least a 12 rating), but moving to prime time didn’t get them a big increase in viewers. It renders moot the question of how first-time viewers will take the evil twin angle and such, because few of the viewers were first-time watchers. The audience was the same wrestling audience we’ve always had, and 85% of the general public just ignored the show and hype outright. Nothing wrong with that, people like and dislike what they want to, and WWF can still make loads of money off the 12-15% of people who do have an interest in wrestling.
But this really puts Hulk Hogan and his appeal/drawing power into perspective. To the cult wrestling audience, he’s bigger than any wrestling star has ever been in the U.S. But he’s not mainstream, not really. He can help get wrestling on prime time network television a couple times a year, but they can’t build wrestling on him to make a mainstream appeal. And Hogan, for as over as he is here, clearly falls short of the most over acts to have graced Japan (Inoki in his heyday) and boxing (Larry Holmes, for example). WWF did prove they can be put in a weak time slot during sweeps with a lot of hype behind a special card and win the slot, which is no small thing. We can probably expect another prime time special in the future, but probably no more than one or two a year. You won’t read about wrestling’s resurgence in Time Magazine, and networks won’t discover Crockett’s shows because nobody’s looking at wrestling as a hot item (if the show had cracked the top five, maybe they would). The long and the short of it is, WWF is no worse off than they were two weeks ago, and Wrestlemania will still make a lot of money. And although Vince has gotten WWF to the point where they are making more money off wrestling than any other promotion in history, their “mainstream” interest in this country doesn’t even come close to New Japan’s tv heyday (1982-1985), and Hogan’s ability to draw a rating is probably more than anyone else in the modern era in the U.S., but probably isn’t as strong as Chigusa Nagayo’s ratings drawing power is in Japan.
And you might be wondering if it’s appropriate to compare to Japan, or if the comparison is ridiculous given cultural differences. Dave notes that the U.S. is more tv oriented in Japan, which should put things in greater perspective - Hogan has all the advantages of American television culture and is still behind Nagayo and Inoki in terms of relative mainstream appeal/drawing power in their culture. In short, Dave had a conversation with a WWF employee a couple months ago about wrestling style (serious, hardcore vs. sports entertainment fast food) and if it was the style, being the best run promotion, or how much money they spend that makes WWF number 1. Their conclusion was that they couldn’t figure out a clear answer. No other promotion that offers a traditional product has hundreds in the front office, $250,000 to spend on every tv taping, etc. There’s no way to control for the sheer magnitude of advantages WWF has to be able to tell if they would be beatable, and the only way to know the answer about style would be if there was another promotion that had a traditional style but also had the production values, the front office staff, etc. And on the flip side, would people like Carlos Colon, Riki Choshu, Antonio Inoki, or Chigusa Nagayo be as over as they are if their local markets had a dozen different wrestling promotions on tv?
[Memphis] Financial News Network announced on Tuesday that they’ll start airing CWA Wrestling weekly beginning in April. Dave forgot to write down the time slot, but thinks it’s Saturday nights at 9 pm eastern. ESPN signed a new exclusive deal with AWA for 2 years, which kicks World Class off ESPN. Angelo Savoldi’s ICW in New England got a deal with Tempo cable, so all other wrestling will be dropped from that service.
AWA is “restructuring the company.” No word on what that means other than that their Las Vegas card this Sunday will be their last for about a month before they reopen in late March. Maybe they’ll change some major things about how they run? Dave thinks Verne’s gotten tired of people making decisions that cost him money, so he’ll probably be booker again. From what Dave hears, Curt Hennig will be the only wrestler getting paid during the time off, so expect Verne to fob him off to Memphis for the interim. The Midnight Rockers will probably also work Memphis in that time. No idea about the rest of the roster, but they’ll probably have to find new work in other territories if they can find work in wrestling, or regular jobs if they can’t.
Over in Puerto Rico they sold out on January 30 a big show at Roberto Clemente Coliseum. That’s roughly 32,000 fans to watch Carlos Colon vs. Iron Sheik for the Universal Title, with manager Chicky Starr in a shark cage above the ring. Carlos won, of course, as Sheiky baby is heading back to WWF. Dave talks a bit about Carlos - he’s over like Rover, but the man’s comebacks are dull as hell. It’s a bizarre thing, what gets over with crowds.
Stampede’s February 5 show had what was probably the best match in Calgary in months. Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman defended the International Tag Titles against Great Gama and Jerry Morrow, with three assigned referees (Wayne Hart, heel ref Jurgen Herman, and heel ref for Karachi Vice Akeem Singh). Herman wound up being the main referee, but got knocked down by Gama, and after that when Pillman went up top to do a dive, Akeem threw powder in his eyes and Gama did a cobra hold. When Herman came to, he saw Pillman passed out and awarded the match and titles to the heels and they celebrated with champagne until Wayne Hart told Herman what happened and the decision was reversed.
Les Thornton has been given a promoter’s permit by the Calgary Boxing & Wrestling Commission. He’ll start running shows against Stampede in the spring.
WWF is doing a Wrestling Challenge taping on March 9 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That’s about 20 miles from Greensboro, so they’re encroaching a bit on Flair country, which means they’re making moves to kill the competition dead.
WWF has a Saturday Night’s Main Event scheduled for March 12, to be taped on the 7th.
Honkeytonk Man was supposed to drop the Intercontinental Title at The Main Event but vetoed the title change. Lots of chaos backstage as a result of it, and the match was also supposed to be shorter than it wound up being. He held out and refused to job and he’s still champion, so in the end he got what he wanted. You might wonder why not just have Savage win anyway and not give in by having him shoot on Honkeytonk, but the key is Honkeytonk realized that Vince wouldn’t want to take a chance of anything bad happening on tv, and you definitely aren’t going to want a match turning into a shoot and getting real violence on live tv. This also probably explains why he’s not in the tournament.
Billy Jack Haynes apparently asked Vince McMahon for help starting a promotion in Oregon to run against Don Owen’s promotion. Vince wasn’t biting, and this ultimately is the real reason he was let go, probably, as those close to him say it wasn’t his health, but that he wanted to get out anyway because he wasn’t being pushed (and neither was Brady Boone).
Jesse Ventura will get to do color commentary this season on some New York Yankees games for local pay-tv. He’s apparently thrilled about this.
Correction: Bam Bam Bigelow didn’t have arthroscopic knee surgery. He just took a week off to rest his knee, and isn’t planning to get surgery until just after Wrestlemania.
Bam Bam also had a drug possession charge dismissed against him in Freehold, New Jersey on the grounds that the evidence was obtained illegally and that state police had no grounds to search his car. They found a small bag of marijuana under his seat and he got a misdemeanor possession charge, but again, no probable cause to search so that’s a 4th amendment violation. They pulled him over and searched his car, apparently, because he waved at the officers. If convicted, he would have been in big trouble because he’s still on probation from a 1986 conviction for threatening to kill a local sex worker (that’s a big yikes right there), so he would have caught a 5 year prison sentence for revocation of probation.
Memphis has a revolving door of talent, as Bill Dundee is leaving and Manny Fernandez, Scott Hall, and several others have disappeared. Dundee is going to the new promotion that will be running out of Knoxville. New to the area this week are the Rock & Roll Express, Tommy Rich, and Samoans Samu and Kokina. Samu is Afa’s son, and Kokina is, from the information Dave has, Sika’s son (he’s Afoa’s son, not Sika’s son). Kokina is impressively large at 400 lbs, but Samu is definitely the more impressive wrestler. Kokina, of course, will later on travel to Japan for a kayfabe sumo career and come back to the WWF as Yokozuna.
[Memphis] Tommy Rich is apparently a babyface, going by his recent interview. He apologized for all the bad things he did and said he was wrong to team with Austin Idol and Paul E. Dangerously, but he said he still hates Jerry Lawler. There’s legit heat between him and Lawler which is why Rich left last year anyway while he was a top heel. So he said he wanted all the fans in Memphis who hated Lawler to come support him. Expect a 50/50 crowd for their february 15 grudge match - although the promotion can’t draw without him, there is a large group of fans who don’t like that he’s constantly on top of the card.
Watch: Tommy Rich calls on the fans who hate Jerry Lawler
[Memphis] The manager with the preacher gimmick has dropped that gimmick, and the Choir Boys tag team are gone. Too much negative attention in the form of phone calls to the studio last week. The manager, Ernest Angel, now manages CWA Tag champs Max Payne and Gary Young, and his behavior has been toned down and he’s apologized somewhat for his behavior the previous week.
Continental (Alabama) had its last week this week as a unified promotion this week, since the Knoxville office ran its first show this weekend. They drew 7,000 in Knoxville on February 12. Dave’s not sure what the eventual talent split will work out, but known guys going to Knoxville are Johnny Rich, Bill Dundee, Hector Guerrero, Ron Fuller (didn’t he announce his retirement a few weeks ago?), Austin Idol, Lord Humongous, Doug Furnas, Mongolian Stomper, the Armstrongs, and Tracy Smothers.
[Oregon] The Frank Bonema Memorial Show is scheduled for February 16. Boneme was their long-time tv announcer who passed away five years ago. Curt Hennig vs. The Grappler (Hennig as babyface) for the AWA Title is the main event. The show will also have a battle royal for the TV Title, Mike Miller vs. Rip Oliver in a cage, The Assassin vs. Avalanche in a mask vs. headgear match (Avalanche lost his hair in a match and has been wearing headgear like Kurt Angle or Molly Holly to hide it), and a couple more matches.
Steve Estes, a former wrestler local to the Kansas City area, pleaded guilty to a Class B felony. The charge was related to the hold-up of a Mexican restaurant in October. He was charged with a Class A felony, but the charge was reduced on plea bargain. He faces five to fifteen years.
Mean Gene Okerlund’s son Todd is on the U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey team right now. At the time of writing the team will have won their first game, but their fortunes turn south over the rest of the group stage and they don’t qualify to go to the knockout rounds of the tournament.
Mad Dog Vachon is suing the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinic for several million dollars. His claim is that if he had received proper treatment he would never have needed to have his leg amputated. This starts a big series of cases lasting all the way until 1994, and you can read the final case summary here.
There’s a movie in Japan called “The Crazy Family” which includes the family’s 13 year old daughter doing nothing but weightlifting and training and singing so she can be like Chigusa Nagayo. It’s from 1984, so I don’t know why Dave’s only just noticing it now.
Watch: The Crazy Family (1:09:00 to see one of the training scenes)
Florida has dropped legislation that would have created a state athletic commission that would regulate wrestling. Legislators met with Duke Keomuka and Gerald Briscoe, and were subsequently convinced that wrestling is pure entertainment and not a sport at all.
In Southern California a new group is starting up called the American Women’s Wrestling Federation. They’re running ads for beautiful women who want to be trained as wrestlers. Mando Guerrero and Debbie Pelletier (The Killer Tomato, later Dallas in GLOW) will be training, and Dave remarks that Debbie doesn’t know the first thing about wrestling.
Bruiser Brody is promoting a show in St. Louis at the Fox Theater on March 4. He’ll face Jerry Blackwell in the main event, and Sam Muchnick will be there to raise the winner’s hand. The building is apparently the nicest building within 500 miles of St. Louis and not the sort of place that would ordinarily let wrestling in. Muchnick apparently felt used by the NWA at a recent taping by constantly showing him on camera and making it out like he endorsed the NWA and that they have continuity with the NWA he ran back in the day. So that’s why he’s on board. Crockett’s NWA has a show in St. Louis two days later.
Wrestling fanzine publisher David Leehy promoted a show that drew 200 in Richmond Virginia on February 5 for Virginia Wrestling Association.
Ohio’s state senate passed a bill that would put a 5% tax on all wrestling receipts, with money raised going to the boxing commission. The money would be earmarked for creating a medical advisory board for boxing. No regulation of wrestling is proposed in the bill, and the bill still has to pass the house. Seems a bit unfair.
Michael Hayes is back in WCCW as a babyface. No surprises there. They’re building to a Hayes concert on March 5 at the Sportatorium, and that’ll probably have a big angle. Somebody’s gotta attack Hayes. Won’t be Terry Gordy, since he’ll be in Japan, but somebody will.
WCCW’s tv show is airing mainly tapes of old matches. That’s fine in the Fort Worth area, since they had no live cards for two weeks, but Dave’s puzzled nonetheless. Maybe they somehow missed a taping?
Ken Mantell has this idea of reopening Wild West and starting their tv back up and having Wild West and World Class feud. Where’s the logic in that? Plus, there are enough promotions that this would only confuse the average fan.
Steve Williams told the press in Japan he’ll be coming to work in World Class. It’s not been announced stateside yet, but he said he’d wrestle in WCCW as UWF champion and defend the belt against the Von Erichs.
AWA is putting all the heat with the recent Hennig/Gagne title match on Stanley Blackburn. They’d billed the match as a title match, Gagne won and was presented with the title, but Stan refused to honor the title change because it was a cage match. Something to talk about in the month they don’t run shows, I guess, but this is what passes for creative in AWA.
AWA will use the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena as their new home base now that the Minneapolis Auditorium is gone. There’s some concern that the arena’s ban on alcohol will adversely affect ticket sales.
Despite some screw ups, New Japan did fairly good business with their most recent tour and jr. heavyweight tournament. Inoki beat Choshu decisively on February 4 to retain the IWGP Title, which puts a final end to Choshumania and any chance he had of regaining the popularity he’s lost over the past six months. On the final night of the tour, Shiro Koshinaka won the Top of the Super Juniors tournament. Vader and Inoki went to a double countout for the IWGP Title that saw the return of the masked pirate who was attacking Inoki last year.
In bad wrestling stuff in New Japan, Choshu’s performance has noticeably slipped and Buzz Sawyer seems to be trying to sabotage Owen Hart. Choshu just looks like he doesn’t even want to be in the ring anymore. As for Sawyer, he’s been teaming with Owen and when Owen starts up his more flashy offence, Sawyer starts barking, howling, and playing to the crowd to distract them from what Hart’s doing. Buzz Sawyer is a total buzzkill.
New Japan plans to tour Brazil in late March.
Steve Williams gave an interview saying he’s tired of touring all over the U.S. and he wants to spend more time with his wife. He also said the NWA broke a bunch of promises they made to him when they bought out UWF, and he seemed pretty upset that Dusty never followed through with the promised unification match with Flair. He said “I don’t go back to NWA Crockett promotions anymore. I’d like to wrestle for promotions which set a high value on ability. New Japan is good because they use Vader, Buzz Sawyer, Bob Orton and Owen Hart who can do hard wrestling.
All Japan Women is looking pretty healthy right now. They drew 3,500 fans on January 28 for a big grudge match pitting Yumiko Hotta and Hisako Uno against Yumi Ogura and Kazue Nagahori. It was last year on April 27 when Ogura tombstoned Hotta off the middle ropes and broke her neck, and there was worry that Hotta would never wrestle again. The next night they drew 4,500 as Ogura won the AJW Title (their tertiary belt after the “Red Belt” WWWA World Singles Title and the “White Belt” WWWA All Pacific Title) from Bull Nakano via disqualification. Both shows work out to over 100,000 gates given ticket prices in Japan, and AJW’s merch machine is better than anyone else, as they get more money selling merch per capita than any other promotion. Monster Ripper (Rhonda Singh from Stampede, in the future Bertha Faye), is working here now too.
Paul Boesch was elected/appointed to the NWA board of directors, making him the first non-promoter ever on the board. Back in the NWA’s glory days, the board would select the world champion, but that’s probably pretty much up to Jim Crockett now and the board is more or less a figurehead thing. The real value for the NWA here is using Boesch’s name value in the Houston area, and he’ll be starting as they return to Houston on March 4. He’s not on board as the promoter, however, and has no financial stake in the show, so it’s pretty much just a “Hey, remember Paul Boesch? He’s with us” kind of thing.
More details will be forthcoming about the Crockett Cup next week, but Dave has a bit to report right now. The original plan was two sites on two dates: April 9 in Greenville for the first round and April 10 in Greensboro for the finals, but they’re already advertising on tv now that the Cup will take place in Greensboro in late April. No information on if they’ll be filling out the 24 team slots with outside teams, but if they can get World Class and Stampede, maybe even New Japan involved that could help. But with the egos involved it might be impossible.
Crockett’s TBS show this weekend had a balding, blond jobber named Randy Hogan. Subtle.
Shane Douglass is back in Crockett and is using a sleeper hold for his finisher. He seems to be getting a bit of a push, but they don’t seem to know what they’re doing, as Schiavone is calling him the 1986 rookie of the year and Jim Ross is calling him the 1987 rookie of the year.
Road Warrior Animal’s eye injury is legit and he’ll be out of action for a few weeks. He broke his orbital bone when Konga the Barbarian botched a move on him and was nearly blinded (similar injury to what Maeda inflicted on Riki Choshu). They were billing him as returning this past weekend, which had Dave thinking it was a work at first. Dave’s not sure how effective the angle with the weights was in terms of increasing crowd turnout. So far, middling turnout says not very effective.
It’s astonishing how fast Luger’s face run has fizzled. Luger’s the kind of guy you can look at and in a snap decision decide he’s a future top babyface star and begin the push, but when you look at him close you realize he just doesn’t have it. He’s got the body, the good looks, the hair, all the surface level stuff you want in a guy. It almost convinces you he’s over and the future of the business. But having a good body and blond hair is pretty common, and his looks aren’t anything special either. He could still be a big star and almost certainly will be a star at some level in the future, but he just doesn’t have the connection to the audience that will make him the guy. He didn’t have it in Florida (the promotion literally died trying to get him over as a babyface in 1986), and he doesn’t have it now. Sting needs a lot of work on promos, and he’s not got the body Luger has, but he has the connection with the fans and has just eclipsed Luger in their eyes. And it’s super obvious to anyone watching. The crowd comes alive for every little thing Sting does, and they don’t really care about Luger and Windham when they talk. Sting’s look comes across as more cool to the fans too. Dave has this feeling that Crockett will want to keep all three at the same level, ensuring nobody gets over enough to make a difference. And Luger’s not to blame for the crowd reaction. The promotion wasted no time making him just one of the boys after his face turn, and Dave thinks they should have given him a few months of a major singles babyface push rather than just ruining the impact of his face turn by making him a tag team guy.
An anonymous wrestler or referee from Oregon writes in about the latest athletic commission business in Oregon. Short version: Don Owen and the commissioner were arguing over enforcement of certain rules in the combined boxing and wrestling rule book. The commissioner wanted to regulate wrestling exactly the same as boxing. He saw a guy thrown over the top and saw the top rope break during a match, leading to a nasty spill. He told Owen that having four ropes would fix that problem, and he didn’t like seeing heels use foreign objects in front of the referee and would appoint a commission referee if that kind of stuff continued. Three weeks later, he came back with a changed point of view after meeting commissioners from other states. Clearly someone smartened him up about what wrestling actually is, and he changed his mind about the ropes and foreign objects, though he did want drug testing and a ban on blading. He lied in the media that he said what he said about the ropes and referees, but he did say it. In the writer’s opinion, the commission is on the right track now. They check tickets closely, seem concerned for the welfare of fans and wrestlers alike, and have introduced changes that the Northwest has needed for a while. It doesn’t solve the big problem out there, though. And that problem is that Don and Barry Owen run things like it’s the 1940s and are afraid to try new things. They also don’t want to pay well, and with the death of the territories happening, they can get away with it because there aren’t that many places to work. A lot of wrestlers would prefer if Sandy Barr ran things in the region, because he’s been seen as very fair. Finally, unrelated, a paragraph about shoot style and shooting that I think is very interesting as we see things like MMA begin to take nascent form in the next few years:
One other thing I would like to touch upon. That is the people who seem to get off on “shooting style” pro wrestling. Shooting is NOT pro wrestling. In fact it’s the very antithesis of pro wrestling. Why anybody who claims to be a pro wrestling fan would like to see it is beyond me. Pro Wrestling is an art form. Making it look good WITHOUT hurting anyone is what makes you a good worker. Good technique, a light touch and a gift for gab is what constitutes a top-notch pro. Wrestlers who deliberately hurt people in the ring may be feared, but they are not respected. We find many of these asses in Japan, but we have our share in the United States and Canada as well. When you give someone your body, you expect them to take care of it. People pay to see action and drama. Legitimate wrestling matches have never proven to be able to draw any significant following.
Another writer writes in about the Observer yearbook and how a large chunk of it was super professionally done and could be the basis for expansion into a proper book, but there’s also sophomoric and childish stuff (like the nicknames) that hurt it. The writer thinks Dave’s passed the point of just being a fanzine and shouldn’t bog down the quality of his publication with stuff of that sort. Dave, for his part, thanks the writer for his points, but maintains he’s never wanted or claimed the Observer as a professional publication. The Observer is a publication for hardcore wrestling fans and plays on a lot of the inside humor they want to hear.
There’s an entire page devoted to letters about The Main Event. Some folks think Andre should retire with what dignity he still has, because he just shouldn’t be in a ring anymore. Some loved the finish to the title match, others hated it and found it ridiculous. One reports that just before the show started, the local tv announcer pivoted from Wheel of Fortune to the show by saying “Join Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant next for live wrestling comedy.”
Correction on the above about Road Warrior Animal’s injury: He apparently hurt his eye the night before the bench press contest. A move was done wrong, or he took it wrong, but either way, his eye popped out of socket. Major credit to him showing up the next day to do the contest angle before going to the hospital. It explains Ellering’s comments about $50,000 not being worth the price of an eye, which didn’t make sense at the time.
New Japan has changed plans and their big show they were going to have in the Tokyo Dome (capacity 55,000) will now be at a tennis stadium in Tokyo (capacity 10,000) on May 7. Looks like he’ll wrestle Vader, Willem Ruska (a former gold medalist judoka), or Chris Dolman (a sambo wrestling champion), and none of those pairings has the drawing power to fill the Dome. If he really wanted to sell out the Dome he’d need Koji Kitao (who was recently kicked out of sumo) or a big name boxer like Michael Spinks or Larry Holmes, but he couldn’t get them. On Kitao, he recently was contacted by Wajima, which means Baba’s on the hunt for him, although things are so early they haven’t even had preliminary talks yet.