March 28, 1988
- Lots of news… next week. There’s some negotiations happening that could make the basis of the biggest story of the year, but nothing’s concrete yet so… Yeah. Turns out to be a bit smaller at this stage than Dave's been led to believe right now.
- Interest in Wrestlemania this year looks way down compared to last year. And it’s nothing to do with the Clash. The first Wrestlemania had media all over it, from newspapers to big magazines. The second got a lot of press as well, a lot driven by its major celebrity involvement. Wrestlemania 3 didn’t get a lot of national press, but it was the most successful financially and a lot of Michigan/Ontario papers spent a lot of time on it. This year? Practically nothing. No news coverage, no broad interest by the general public, nobody on the bus talking about the show. PPV means Wrestlemania won’t be a bomb, but it’s not going to be the giant blockbuster Dave anticipated at hitting over $25 million. He still thinks worst case scenario they gross $19 million, but the lack of buzz is going to affect WWF going into the summer.
- Billy Jack Haynes and Don Owen’s war for Oregon is the biggest story this week, as two of Owen’s biggest stars just quit on him. Rip Oliver and Mike Miller are presumably jumping over to start with Haynes when he gets going, along with rumors of Kevin Kelly, Chavo Guerrero, Big Bubba, and J.T. Southern. Tom Zenk and Curt Hennig got offers as well, with the latter being billed as appearing for Owens already.
- Over on Pro Wrestling this Week, their angle is that Paul E. Dangerously purchased controlling interest in the show and is doing a hostile takeover. Guess the ECW Invasion on Raw wasn’t Paul’s first invasion angle. The show for Wrestlemania weekend will see Paul fire Gordon Solie, Joe Pedicino, and Bonnie Blackstone, and Solie getting fired on air could make the show a collector’s item (well, I can’t find it online so it might actually be). Watch this Danger Zone, because Paul gives a really good early career promo here.
- Watch: Paul E. Dangerously announces his hostile takeover of Pro Wrestling This Week
- Dump Matsumoto’s final televised match, which aired March 6 in Japan, did a monster 13.2 rating. No doubt that sticks around as the second highest rated wrestling show of the year barring something absolutely amazing and unforeseen happening. Extra impressive, the show aired on a Sunday afternoon out of prime time. The main event saw Dump and Yukari Omori, also retiring, go against the Crush Gals to a no contest where all of them bled buckets. Chigusa Nagayo then grabbed the house mic and requested an impromptu exhibition teaming with Dump, one of her biggest rivals in her career. To Dave’s knowledge they have never teamed together. They went against Lioness Asuka and Omori for five minutes until tv time ran out, with a double pin happening at the bell where both Crush Gals were pinned by Omori and Dump. It’s pretty much tradition in joshi retirement shows that the retiree gets to be put over one last time by their friends and rivals.
- This week’s syndicated ratings report (for the week ending February 21) have WWF in 6th place and Crockett in 8th. WWF is at a 9.9 in 245 markets while Crocket’s got a 7.9 in 177 markets, both dropping over a point since the previous week’s report. GLOW has joined in with POWW, AWA, and Pro Wrestling this Week’s syndicated package, so that should probably go back up to the top 15 going forward. A note in Sports, Inc. magazine about WWF ad rates means WWF should be grossing between $15.6 and $18 million this year in pure advertising revenue. Crockett stands to gross around $10 million.
- Dave’s hoping to be able to get preliminary ratings info for the recent Saturday Night’s Main Event this issue. It should give a sense on how the general public reacted to The Main Event. If ratings are down a lot, it means that the general public probably got turned off by the whole business with the belt sale and referee twin magic. Ratings for the syndicated shows the week after the Main Event were very good because everyone wanted to know what happened, but the week after that saw a 1.2 drop. So we’ll see if this is a trend.
- Syndicators have already ordered 52 episodes of Learning the Ropes, the tv show Crockett’s going to be involved with. It starts in September and a lot of the Crockett main event guys are going to be involved playing themselves. Don’t worry - it’s only going to get the one season, so just 26 episodes exist.
- So last week Dave reported about Andre choking Duggan and Duggan bleeding from the mouth, and it really shows the difference between NWA and WWF. Andre accidentally hit Duggan’s lip, which led to Duggan’s tooth cutting his lip and he bled a lot. There was talk of Vince ordering a re-shoot because of how much blood. In the NWA, if there were a similar happening, they’d be ecstatic about all the blood and certainly wouldn’t consider a reshoot. No word on if they will reshoot, but we should know by next week.
- [WWF] The Killer Bees have been asked to turn heel. They did an angle during the lumberjack match in Philadelphia on March 12 where they attacked Hogan during his match with DiBiase. Of course, Hogan beat all three up.
- Demolition have been doing jobs everywhere, which Dave thinks is a good hint that they win the titles at Wrestlemania. WWF’s booking policy on tag teams has always been to have the future champions job relentlessly until they win, and this looks like more of the same.
- [Oregon] Curt Hennig was supposed to wrestle here on March 5, but his back and neck prevented him from working. The AWA Title was held up here pending a Hennig vs. Grappler match, but with Hennig out they subbed in the Assassin as his representative. Assassin beat Grappler, so Hennig is now the “new” AWA World Champion in Portland. Yeah, this is astonishingly dumb.
- [Memphis] About the only stuff going on right now of any interest is about the Gilberts. Dave watched the past couple weeks and credits Eddie and Missy Hyatt for breathing some life into the promotion, but there’s nothing on the undercard to really support it. Eddie threw fire on March 19, burning Randy Hales after he expressed frustration with the Gilberts trying to take over. Eddie came out for a match and lost via countout because he was arguing with Hales.
- The closest to anyone or anything of consequence happening in Central States was the Midnight Rockers were announced to replace the Rock & Roll Express for their March 17 show. They no-showed.
- [WCCW] The March 20 Star Wars show only drew 2,500 fans and started 15 minute late. It then ended at 11 pm (4:45 total length) because they spent so much time delaying between matches. The Simpsons now have both sets of tag titles, Hayes beat Parsons by DQ, Chris Adams beat Terry Taylor by countout when Taylor walked out after getting beaten absolutely bloody, and Kerry retained the world title against Terry Gordy when the referee, despite a ref bump, said he did in fact see Gordy throw Kerry over the top rope. They must make their refs out of tougher stuff in Texas. The Thunderdome cage match in the main event was absolutely bloody, but Dave’s coverage does not make clear who won.
- Not much going on in New Japan, but they’re pushing a tag team of pirates. One of the pirates is Bob Orton, playing Billy the Pirate. Billy wrestled Inoki on the live Nagasaki tv show on March 4 which drew a 10.5 rating, the company’s highest since December.
- Lots of results from All Japan, not a lot of news except for building a big Budokan Hall show for March 27. Tenryu and Hansen will have a rematch for the PWF Title while Brody challenges Jumbo Tsuruta for the International Title. Also appearing during that time period will be Big Bubba Rogers for a four-week tour before he starts with WWF, Tom Magee, and Jimmy Snuka.
- Here’s the real scoop with All Japan - rumor has it that somewhere down the road, possibly as early as the summer, they plan to unify the singles titles. That will probably be Tsuruta vs. Tenryu, based off current titleholders. The countdown to the Triple Crown Title begins.
- All Japan did a worked shoot take on the Choshu-Maeda shoot on March 5. It was designed to fool smart fans into thinking there’s potential for real violence in Hansen vs. Tenryu on March 9. Tenryu and Hara did a double enziguiri to Hansen, then Tenryu sold his ankle like he kicked too hard while Hansen collapsed, “knocked out.” He sold it super well while Terry Gordy got involved to throw them out so it wouldn’t be obvious why they weren’t trying to get the pin. About 45 seconds later, Hansen groggily finds his feet and goes absolutely nuts, diving through the ropes onto Tenryu and starts beating him with everything he can find and the match goes to a double countout. After everyone else is taken to the back following the brawl in the stands, Hansen roughs up an official and grabs the mic and says “Nobody potatoes me!” which even had Dave fooled for a bit. Tried to find video on youtube, no luck, but this sounds amazing.
- TV tapings for the dates after Wrestlemania have been taped, so here be spoilers. Ted DiBiase wrestled both tapings without the belt, so he didn’t win. Savage wasn’t on either taping, and about every other wrestler in the tournament except Hogan (gone for the summer) and Bam Bam (who blew out his knee and may not make Wrestlemania) showed up as a non-champion, so that clinches it for Savage. Also AP Wire picked up the bit from WWF Magazine about WWF Champion Randy Savage. So the two biggest events of the year, WWF has had the news media give away the results. The line in the magazine wasn’t a WWF plant, but a genuine error that made it to print. Beefer also appeared without the belt and Honkeytonk with, while Jimmy Hart had his hair covered, so there’s that result. And Strike Force appeared with the titles, so Dave concedes that he was only 1 for 3 in predicting the big title matches. Not so fast, Dave - you'll get up to 2/3 when the show happens.
- [WWF] They’re trying to reboot Ted DiBiase a bit. Heenan’s going to continue being Andre’s manager and they’re going to focus on portraying DiBiase as a good wrestler, not just a chickenshit who pays off the referee to win. They realized fans weren’t taking Ted seriously as a top tier wrestler, which really hurt his drawing power, which should have been much more given the level of push, gimmick, and ability he has.
- Also coming up after Wrestlemania will be a feud between Rick Rude and Jake Roberts. Rude’s gimmick is going to be kissing a planted woman in the audience each night, and on a tv show he’ll kiss Jake’s wife, which will set up the feud. Dave finds it amusing how in the old days they did everything they could to portray the wrestlers as single out of fear of losing women as fans and groupies.
- Several closed-circuit sites for Wrestlemania are being closed due to poor advance sales. WWF is now going on record that closed-circuit is the past and ppv is the future. Dave’s talked to people all over the country this week and it seems people just aren’t into the tournament concept. Maybe this is where Vince’s reputation for hating tournaments stems from?
- [AWA] Pat Tanaka and Paul Diamond won the AWA tag titles from the Midnight Rockers at the Vegas tapings on March 19. Adrian Adonis no-showed the taping, along with more than a half dozen others, including a new manager they were bringing in from Florida called Diamond Dallas Page. Well, that's sure a way to make your rewind debut with a bang.
- [AWA] Stan Kowalski won’t be in to manage, apparently, but to do “Big K’s Corner.” Should be as entertaining as Paul E.'s Danger Zone is, just like Baron Von Raschke is as entertaining as Takada.
- [AWA] Verne even had a GLOW tag match featuring Queen Kong, Hot Rod Andi, Malibu Doll, and another Dave didn’t catch the name of. Correction from last week: Kong didn’t wrestle as Mount Fuji in GLOW, but as Mathilda the Hun. Anyway, Dave quips that yes, this is indeed wrestling for serious fans, no gimmicks like the NWA and WWF. There was another women’s match between Debbie Combs and Olympia which was awful, since Olympia still doesn’t know what she’s doing. It was originally supposed to be Madusa vs. Olympia for the title, and then changed to a number one contender’s match, but that seems to have been tossed out since Madusa was in Debbie’s corner with her arm in a sling to cover for the real reason she was out: cosmetic surgery the results of which are fairly obvious.
- Watch? Debbie Combs vs. Olympia
- AWA’s world title build up to the March 19 Hennig vs. Wahoo McDaniel match sure was a rollercoaster. Zenk was supposed to have a non-title match at the February taping and a title match at this one, but he quit the day before the taping. Two weeks of promos hyping the match up after the non-title match that never happened, including hyping up how good Zenk looked at the shows he didn’t appear on. Then the commentators talk about how Wahoo now has the title match, because “as everyone saw, Hennig injured Zenk” and have since claimed it was a broken arm or leg. Not even World Class has gone so far as to claim that everybody saw something that never actually happened.
- Remember two weeks ago when Stampede had its best match ever? They did it again on March 12 but even better. Owen and Bruce teamed with Benoit, Pillman, and Jason the Terrible against Steve DiSalvo, Makhan Singh, Jerry Morrow, Great Gama, and Johnny Smith in an elimination cage match. Supposedly this was a five star classic to be sure. Another match in Edmonton that never made tv and thus is impossible to find.
- More on Paul E. taking over Pro Wrestling this Week. They’re going to announce this week that he takes full control on June 1.
- The New York Times ran an article on Thunderbolt Patterson and his new career as a blue collar labor organizer in Atlanta.
- Read: Ex-Wrestler Fights in a New Arena
- Saturday Night’s Main Event drew a 10 rating and 30 share. It’s a good rating, but definitely lower than previous ones and shows that The Main Event didn’t really add to their viewing audience. In the Bay area specifically, the show only managed a 5.5 rating, while in Dallas it was a 4.
- There’s talk of Jerry Jarrett working with Mike Graham to open a Florida promotion and they’ve already talked about getting Gordon Solie to do tv. Jerry does not appear to open a Florida promotion until 2002, when he opens up TNA.
- Bruno Sammartino did a candid interview about WWF on a Pittsburgh radio show. Dave’s hoping someone who taped it can send him the tape so he can hear it.
- Ted DiBiase is now using the cobra clutch as his finisher.
- Billy Jack Haynes’ new promotion has a name: The OWWF. That’s the Oregon-Washington Wrestling Federation, and they’ll also be running a wrestling school starting April 4, with Brad Rheingans and Haynes as coaches.
- Blackjack Mulligan won a legal case where he was sued for punching a business partner during an argument in 1986. His defense was that it was self-defense, and the jury believed him. Mulligan’s lawyer was so good he even got the accuser to say he felt sorry for Mulligan. As part of the proceedings, evidence turned up that recent bad business deals and a heart attack have pretty much kept Mulligan out of wrestling and even put him in such bad straits that he may lose his house.
- Two readers write in suggesting Dave start a letter-writing campaign so fans can put pressure on cable companies to show the wrestling they want to see, like New Japan or All Japan Women, and ditch wrestling they don’t want (like Financial News Network running NWF). Dave says rather than tell people what to write and organizing it the way these two are suggesting, he’ll start getting network addresses and publish those so fans can voice their genuine opinions if they choose to. Dave thinks writing to FNN, ESPN, or Tempo and requesting a specific show or thanking them for running a show they do run could have some influence if readers do this in numbers. As for The Nashville Network, which does sports all day Sunday and was brought up as an option by one letter, the owner doesn’t want any wrestling on his station. You’re gonna have to wait for ECW to hit TNN in 1999, fellas.
- We’re a week out from Clash and the NWA has only announced four of the matches for the show.
- Dave saw the NWA’s March 16 show in San Francisco, which drew surprisingly well at 4,500 fans who were very enthusiastic for the show. Nothing spectacular here, even the Flair/Sting match only gets 2.5 stars. The night before they were in Reno for their first show out there and drew so poorly that you can probably expect them not to come back.
- The new TBS Sunday show for NWA has the wrestlers excited because they get a nice bonus for appearing. The main event participants split a $7,500 bonus, which is huge if you’ve got a singles main event, and the semi-main splits $2,500. The show will be called NWA Main Event, and will have a three match format with interviews and become the new C show of Crockett’s syndicated package. The bonuses should especially keep the heels happy despite being asked to do jobs on tv, at least in theory. Dave predicts a lot of good matches and mostly disqualification finishes.
- NWA is planning a July ppv Great American Bash with Flair vs. Luger, but that’s in the 60-day window before WWF’s August show. Ted Turner’s supposed to clear athe ppv market up for them, so we’ll see how that goes and we can probably expect a free WWF countershow on USA at that time.
- [NWA] The Fantastics had a match against the Midnight Express that went 37 minutes and took up basically the entire episode of NWA Pro from this week. It looked like a heated match from what Dave saw on TBS, and he puts over how hard the Fantastics are working to get over. Dave would rather watch guys like the Fantastics who may not quite be the best but bust their asses to give you action than more talented guys won ego trips who don’t give you anything. The Fantastics vs. Midnights might just be the best series of matches going on in North America right now.
- Watch: NWA Pro March 26, 1988