Wrestling Observer Rewinder

March 21, 1988

March 21, 1988
It’s a really slow week for news, so Dave spends a lot of real estate giving his predictions for Wrestlemania and Clash of the Champions. Wrestlemania is first, and he starts with the tournament. There are only three real contenders there: Hogan, DiBiase, and Savage. Everyone else isn’t good enough to carry the company or has loads of baggage the company doesn’t want coming back up. The recent tv taping’s third hour was meant for post-Wrestlemania, so guaranteed non-winners are Andre, Duggan, Reed, Muraco, and Bigelow. Steamboat and Rude probably make it through a round, but not to the final. WWF has foreshadowed things a bit, though. Changing the brackets seems designed to get Savage to the finals, which really necessitates a heel opposite him, which rules out Hogan. Since DiBiase could have won the title in the old bracket without facing Savage in the final (they would have met in the semifinals), changing the bracket to put Savage in the final seems suspect from a DiBiase-must-win scenario. Secondly, the latest issue of WWF magazine has a photo of Elizabeth shopping, captioned “Elizabeth, manager of the World Wrestling Federation Champion Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage”). Red herring? Misprint? Clue? It’s hard to say. The magazine has been out for two weeks. Lastly, a reader swears they were at the taping and peeked behind the curtain and saw Savage carrying the title while doing a promo. Savage has Dave’s vote, as everything just adds up to it and has been since they changed the bracket. For the IC title match, Dave predicts the match will not only be terrible, but that Honkeytonk Man will no longer be the worst Intercontinental Champion ever. Beefer to win it, because somehow he’s managed to get more over than he has any right to be with this barber thing. The Islanders and Heenan vs. Koko B. Ware and the Bulldogs seems destined to go to the Bulldogs, in part because after Dynamite’s injury last year, somehow the company decided to use their time to get Matilda over and this is Matilda’s return. They’ve only got Heenan in so Matilda can chase him around the ring. For the tag titles, Dave predicts Demolition to win. WWF has booked a title change for the tag titles every Wrestlemania to include a tag title match so far, and curiously, Demolition seem to be getting over real well - the last show at the Cow Palace saw all the fans dutifully cheer every face and boo every heel during the announcement of the card with one exception: Demolition got cheered and Strike Force got booed. Dave really hopes Warrior vs. Hercules won’t be the template for pro wrestling in the 90s, as Dave’s only predictions are that this will be a worst match of the year candidate and that neither man will live to see the age of 50. He’s half right: Herc died at 47, but Warrior managed to make it all the way to 54. Lastly, Dave considers the battle royal, a bad concept that Bret Hart managed to single-handedly save and make work previously. There’s no stakes and no heat, it’s just a way to get everyone a payday. Dave’s predictions: babyface will probably win, George Steele won’t get in the ring, Roma and Powers will smile, JYD won’t do anything, Sam Houston takes the best bump going out if he doesn’t win, Harley Race takes the next best bump.
Over in Greensboro Coliseum, Crockett’s Clash of the Champions offers its own speculative fun. Flair vs. Sting will certainly go over 20 minutes with loads of near falls and all the usual stuff (Sting not selling the suplex, Flair getting plucked off the top rope). It’s a Ric Flair match, so it’s going to be exactly what you expect, which isn’t a bad thing really. But it does kind of take the excitement out of things. Flair’s gonna get destroyed, but he won’t lose the title and the finish will be one we’ve all seen before. Woo. Dusty and the Road Warriors vs. Ivan Koloff and the Powers of Pain in a barbed wire match seems to exist just for the sake of lots of blood, and barbed wire matches aren’t conducive to good wrestling. Dave figures Dusty wins to the disappointment of many while satiating fans’ blood thirst. For the NWA tag titles, Dave thinks Luger has improved enough to hold up his end of things and the other three are some of the best workers in the territory. Probably a DQ win for the Horsemen, but Luger and Windham winning the titles isn’t a negligible possibility either. On paper, it’s an easy 3.5 star+ match. For the U.S. Tag Titles, Midnight Express vs. the Fantastics looks like a title change. Cornette’s spent too long hyping the length of the Midnights’ title reign for it not to be, and you gotta put over the Fantastics now before fans have a chance to turn on them for being small and too much like the Rock & Roll Express. Rotundo vs. Garvin in an amateur rules match, Dave doesn’t have a prediction for the winner, but figures Rotundo will cheat somehow and Sullivan will do something dastardly, and a hot angle should spin out of it. Finally, Zbyszko vs. Shane Douglas will end, Dave guesses, in a time limit draw or some other kind of unclear finish. Shane’s gotten good, but with Magnum managing others for the Crockett Cup and the Dusty/Zbyszko feud going nowhere, it seems his push is being tweaked.
Wrestlemania 4 did finally sell out this past week for the live crowd. You can point out how last year’s show sold over 90,000 tickets to sell out and this show has only 13,500 sold tickets, but there are more things to consider. Last year, all of Michigan was blacked out for closed-circuit and PPV, meaning to see Wrestlemania you either had to leave the state or be in attendance. On the flip side, WWF has eight closed-circuit sites in New York City, eight more in New Jersey, one in Philadelphia, and PPV everywhere. So that’s a huge difference in accessibility, plus tickets this year were way more expensive. Last year’s average ticket price was $16.50, with a lot of $9 tickets for the cheap seats and $100 for the top price. The lowest price this year is $25, and the top price is $150. Overall, this year’s live gate will still be around $1 million, even with the smaller audience.
The Crockett Cup’s top ten seeds will be announced at Clash of the Champions. Dave has word about the top 10, and those are Arn & Tully, Dusty & Nikita, Road Warriors, Midnight Express, Powers of Pain, Luger and Windham, Fanatics, Mike otundo & Rick Steiner, Sting & Ron Garvin, and Ivan Koloff & Dick Murdoch. No big name outside teams look to be involved, since even if the Von Erichs and Inoki were to send teams over, they’d insist on them being seeded, if not outright making it to the finals. Crockett’s dropping hints about Puerto Rico and Japan, but there’s no indication other than that of any deals in the works. Steve Williams is returning, but don’t expect him to have a unification match with Ric Flair on night two - the scuttlebutt is that a face from one of the seeded teams will pull out of the tournament to challenge him.
WWF looks to be going with Andre vs. Duggan as their big angle following Wrestlemania. They shot the first thing for it on March 9 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Jim Duggan interrupted an Andre and DiBiase interview, only to get beat up and headbutted off stage before he tries to charge and is held back. This is set to air the day before Wrestlemania. The second part of the angle, set to air after Wrestlemania, has Duggan interfere in an Andre match until Andre chokes him and Duggan bleeds from the mouth until he can somehow get his 2x4 and knock Andre out. They bring out a stretcher for Andre but he wakes up and goes berserk, chasing Pat Patterson to backstage.
A bigger surprise from that taping, though, is Owen Hart. Apparently he worked the previous night in Bristol, Tennessee as well, but the big deal is he appeared using his real name. He jobbed in a squash in his first match of the show, then had a match in the third hour against Hercules where he got to do a lot of his really cool offense and the crowd was into it, and definitely seems like this match was taped for April 2. No idea if Hart is in for a try-out or what, though it makes little sense to Dave that they’d debut him as a jobber if this was a debut.
Outlet Communications, which owns both WATL in Atlanta and Pro Wrestling This Week, is for sale. They’re using it to fuel an angle on the show, announcing on this week’s episode that someone is attempting a hostile takeover.
AGB, the other national ratings source besides Neilsen, came out with their ratings for The Main Event. They listed it 35th for the week out of 72 shows, with a 15.1 rating and 23 share (Neilsen had them at 31st place). WWF winning the time slot for the night, which looked really clear going by Neilsen, is now disputed, as AGB had the CBS Beauty and the Beast that aired at the same time ahead of it at 32nd place for the week. This is a huge blow to WWF. Vince had been claiming that Andre vs. Hogan would put them right at the top for the week and be the highest rated show in prime time all season. And now he can’t even definitively claim top of the time slot, nevermind beating Dallas (which both groups had ranking in the top 20).
In syndicated ratings, the week ending February 14 saw the WWF network rank 4th place with an 11.1 combined rating. Crockett had a 7.9, falling to 7th place.
The Sammartino family is in the news this week. Last week, Bruno quit WWF to promote a 900 hotline amid many complaints about the state of wrestling and WWF specifically. Bruno’s contentions have to do with insulting the intelligence of the fansand not trying to maintain credibility, but obviously Vince thinks differently about how to promote. He was also upset David never got a push, and when he gave his notice two weeks back, Linda McMahon called the next day to tell him they had the name Bruno Sammartino trademarked so he couldn’t use it in any outside business ventures. Considering Bruno’s drawing power in the 60s is the reason many believe Vince Sr. survived as a promoter and WWF even exists today, obviously that should be upsetting. It may be debatable whether or not he’s the sole reason WWF even exists today, but it isn’t debatable that his popularity is the foundation WWF built off. And to make matters worse, David Sammartino was wrestling in New York on March 9 and apparently assaulted a fan who was heckling him. David reportedly went after the fan and threw him out of his chair. He was arrested and given a court date of April 4, and he lost all of his bookings as a result.
Saturday Night’s Main Event, filmed March 7, aired March 12. The five matches that aired were part of a massive 14 match card that drew a 10,000 fan sellout, though the crowd was heavily papered as only 2,000 tickets had sold by March 4. Local radio did a deal where anyone who could name two WWF wrestlers got two free tickets. The televised matches saw 1. Beefer pin Valentine by kicking out during a double pin situation while Honketonk taunted him from ringside. 2. Hogan pinning Harley Race. 3. DiBiase beat Savage by countout, with Virgil ejected quickly and Andre interfering after a ref bump to cause the countout, then Elizabeth ran back and got Hogan to save him. 4. Islanders beat Killer Bees with Haku pinning Blair, and what aired was just the first fall - the live crowd got a two of three falls match that the Islanders won 2-1. 5. One Man Gang squashed Ken Patera. The unaired main event saw Andre squash Bam Bam Bigelow in 3 minutes, which shows where Bam Bam’s future is. Duggan’s been getting more and more over again and is primed to take the spot Bam Bam was set up for as #3 babyface after Hogan and Savage.
Watch: Savage vs. DiBiase from Saturday Night's Main Event
The annual Cauliflower Alley Club banquet took place this past Saturday. The Cauliflower Alley Club is a group of “wrestlers, boxers, and Hollywood types” mainly from the early tv era, and their banquet is something of a class reunion type deal every year. Lots of names Dave’s read about but never seen, and special honors were given to Fred Blassie, Roddy Piper, Buddy Rogers, Moolah, and Clara Mortensen (who was a pioneer in women’s wrestling alongside Mildred Burke). Loads and loads of old names there: John Tolos, Doc & Mike Gallagher, Ox Anderson, Count Billy Varga, Billy Darnell, Paul Boesch, Kit Fox, Donna Christanello, Toru Tanaka, Red Bastien, Ray “Thunder” Sterne, Reggie Parks, Bob Orton Sr., George “Crybaby” Cannon, Vic Christy, Mike Mazurki, and more. Fred Blassie hammed it up the entire night, but Piper was subdued and seemed happy to be out of wrestling, and Dave believes that Piper believes he’s got no intention of wrestling again (though never say never, if his film career doesn’t pan out). Buddy Rogers still has his trademark strut and look of arrogance, and his old manager Bobby Davis was with him. Davis apparently wants to work as a manager in WWF.
[Memphis] Lawler and Eddie Gilbert collide in their first match of their feud on March 14. It all started when Jerry Jarrett made an appearance presenting Lance Russel with a plaque for winning best wrestling announcer for his fourth consecutive year as voted by the fans (fun fact - 1987 was Lance Russel’s fourth consecutive year winning the Observer award for best wrestling announcer) and Russel noted that the tv show also won the fan vote for best tv show. Anyway, Eddie Gilbert and Missy Hyatt came out and started arguing and Lawler did a phone interview at the same time where he said he was waiting for a doctor’s clearance to wrestle. The main event of the show this week saw Gilbert vs. Steve Keirn, and Gilbert kept arguing with Jarrett and then Tommy Gilbert got hold of Jarrett and Eddie threw a fireball at him, and Lawler said doctor’s orders or not he was going to get his hands on Eddie Gilbert.
The Samoans were supposed to win the tag titles in Memphis on March 7. But they quit the week before the match.
March 14 for Memphis will also feature a cage battle royal with a key on a pole. The only way to win is to get the key from the pole and use it to unlock the door and escape. Vinny Russo, is this your idea?
Not a lot new in World Class, except for the fact that Al Perez is set to go to the NWA. He was supposedly meant to regain the title from Kerry on March 25 in Dallas.
The Fabulous Lance, formerly Lance Von Erich, is rumored to be returning to World Class next month. Last Dave had heard of him, he was wrestling in South Africa. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, given Fritz tried to bury him and outright stated he wasn’t a real Von Erich after he left.
[Stampede] Scott McGhee has returned to Florida to recuperate from his stroke. He’s made good progress, reportedly, but still no indication he’ll ever be able to return to the ring. Indeed, McGhee’s career is over. He’ll do two more one-off matches in 1989 and 2010, but otherwise, he’s past his wrestling days here.
The 8-man match on February 27 was, according to Ross Hart, one of the best matches in the history of Stampede. Wayne and Owen Hart teamed with Brian Pillman and Jason the Terrible against Akam Singh, Steve DiSalvo, Gerry Morrow, and Makhan Singh in a match that went 47 minutes and came down to Owen getting pinned by Morrow in the end. Wayne was the first eliminated, and Dave doesn’t know it but this was the last match of Wayne Hart’s in-ring career. I tried to find a video, but I couldn’t find one.
Not much news on the AWA front, but they are bringing in a new manager and giving him a big push at their Vegas tapings on March 19. On the one hand, they could have chosen Paul E. Dangerously who is dynamic and great at getting heat with his mic work. But this is the AWA, so they’ll choose someone who has been out of the game for 15 years over a young, hot act. So welcome to the AWA Stan “Big K” Kowalski, whose last relevant work was managing Ivan Koloff and Shozo Kobayashi int the early 1970s.
Global hasn’t folded yet, and they recorded six weeks of tv on March 5. The interesting angle saw the evolution of the feud between Col. Kirchner & G.I. Joe Palardy vs. Dr. Red Roberts and V.C. Minh. Last taping, Minh came out with a photo of American soldiers in bodybags being carried home from Vietnam, which caused Kirchner and Palardy to freak out. Roberts, whose gimmick is based on his real life day job as a psychologist, diagnosed Kirchner as having “Patriophobia” and invoked the Baker Act to get Kirchner involuntarily committed to an institution for evaluation. Given Kirchner’s promos, Dave notes that this is entirely consistent with his character, at least. Anyway, shenanigans and such, and the heels win a squash so bad they send out medics, and the medics turn out to be Kirchner and Palardy, who attack and beat up Roberts so badly he declares he’s retiring from wrestling to use his skills in his field to help young men work through drug abuse. Dr. Roberts’ real name is Dr. Michael Brannon, and he’d find himself embroiled in the world of wrestling again in 2001 when the Lionel Tate case happened, providing testimony as an expert against Tate, arguing Tate knew wrestling was fake all along. Who knew that this would tie in so neatly with one of the stories from a recent 2002 rewind?
About the only news out of Japan is that All Japan’s March 9 card drew a near sellout for Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen. Tenryu pinned Hansen, Hansen’s third pinfall loss in Japan in seven years, to win the PWF Title, making him a triple champion alongside his United National and PWF Tag Titles.
The New York State Athletic Commission showed their double standard against independent groups earlier this month. They wrote a memo to Northeast Championship Wrestling citing Misty Blue’s attire as “too short.” Meanwhile, Vince gets to fly in the face of any and all Athletic Commission rules in the state. Granted, some of the rules are beyond asinine (it’s still illegal for a wrestling promoter to have a financial interest in a wrestler), but come on. It’s ring attire.
The Von Erich story in Penthouse looks pretty set for the July issue now. Nope.
Queen Kong/Mount Fiji from GLOW and POWW is setting up her own tv show called Rasslin Revival. You didn’t hear it from Dave, because he didn’t write it in the issue, but Queen Kong apparently also invented the phone sex line.
Read: The Woman Who Invented Phone Sex and Wrestled Bears
Barry Orton was convicted in his vehicular manslaughter trial. His sentence is six years, but he could be out in under two with good behavior. The conviction comes right as he was starting to do some of the best work of his career, but you know, someone’s dead so that should probably be the key takeaway.
A sportscaster who has worked with both Kirk Gibson of the L.A. Dodgers and Hulk Hogan called in to give his opinion on the comparison that was made forever ago and which still comes up in some of the letters. Anyway, the guy says Gibson is an asshole 99% of the time and Hogan is often quite nice and is easily 10 times more popular than Gibson on top of being friendlier in public. Good thing those numbers look reasonable, or I’d suspect the sportscaster’s name was Bulk Bogan.
A lot of Crockett contracts are set to expire in May, so expect WWF to make a play for several of them to retaliate for Clash of the Champions.
Almost everyone who called Dave this week had something to say about Jim Cornette’s comments on TBS this past Saturday. How the hell did he slip “beating meat” past Standards and Practices?
Ted Turner is starting a new tv network in October with a focus on sports and MGM movies, and Crockett may wind up switched to that new network. It’s going to be called TNT. Oh yeah, that network will definitely have wrestling on it in the future.
Something Dave does now and again that I usually skip over here is give rankings for who he feels are the top wrestlers. This week he ranks his top 25 men’s tag teams and top 40 men’s singles guys. Owen Hart is #1 for singles guys. Ric Flair has fallen all the way down to #3.
Fabulous Lance may not be coming into World Class afterall. Apparently his booker didn’t want him as anything but a babyface, while Fritz wanted him to partner with the Freebirds.
The Owen vs. Hercules match was apparently not supposed to be taped, so who knows if it’ll air. It definitely did wind up taped, so that’s all up in the air. It in fact did not air.
All charges against David Sammartino have been dropped in the case of the incident with the fan. It made a lot of press nationally for such a small thing, and it did result in David getting fired while other WWF guys have skated by with worse incidents. Apparently the fan was heckling David by using insider terms, which I guess absolves David from any responsibility for putting hands on the guy?
A reader writes in that as much as Dave complains about bad taste, he’s put out some really tasteless stuff himself. Namely, putting the info to help Al Blake (Vladmir Petrov) pay his legal expenses given his conviction for drug smuggling, and the writer would probably have let it slide if not for it being the Observer and how many readers “seem to live and die by the gospel according to Dave Meltzer.” The other instance he cites is admittedly less severe, but using one of his trademark denigrating nicknames (“Doggie” in this case) to refer to Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon regarding the hit and run that cost him his leg strikes the writer as blatant and callous disregard for Vachon’s dignity after what he went through. He also throws a plea to Dave to cover GLOW and POWW, “keeping in mind I’m wasting my time.” Or at least, let the readers vote on it. It’d be a better use of space than covering Central States (and if you’re wondering why you rarely see anything about Central States in the rewinds, it’s because nothing and no one of consequence is there).