Wrestling Observer Rewinder

May 09, 1988

Over in Oregon the battle of May 7 is coming. Don Owen’s show in Portland will feature Hennig vs. Tom Zenk along with his regular crew, while Billy Jack Haynes’ Oregon-Washington Wrestling Federation debuts twenty miles away in Oregon City. No cards, partial or complete, have been announced, but Haynes has 16 guys including Tom Magee (yes, the one who only Bret Hart knew how to make look good), Steve Gatorwolf (fuck Steve Gatorwolf), Chavo Guerrero, Corporal Kirchner (due to be promoted to Colonel when WWF turns their eyes this way), Brian Adams, Fred Ottman (Memphis’s Big Bubba, whom you’ll come to love as Typhoon in a couple years), himself, and a bunch of other guys who I can’t make any interesting comments about.
Memphis’s Monday show after those will surely be the most talked about show of the weekend, though. Hennig defends the AWA Title against Jerry Lawler in a match where Lawler will retire if he doesn’t become champion. Most of the undercard is still unknown, but that match alone carries the interest.
Crockett has made a major retreat and given up the New York market. Nassau Coliseum accepted WWF’s ultimatum, and will now refuse to allow Crockett to run shows. Over Crockett’s four show run at the arena since November, it’s been rocky. They had a successful first show in November, but the second show was the Bunkhouse Stampede in January, which drew a gate of $80,000 (actually above WWF’s average there). But that show was so poorly received it killed them. The third show drew poorly, and they managed to improve a bit to $48,000, around WWF’s typical non-Hogan card there, for the fourth show. But with the ultimatum and the fact that gates have dropped to basically equivalent to a WWF card, they’re out. They’ve also lost their time slot in New York, leaving them without local tv access in New York and LA. Crockett may have pulled the plug on New York tv themselves. They were paying a rumored $6,000 weekly for access, and that just does not make sense to do when you can’t run local shows anymore. It will hurt their ad revenue, so it’s a mixed bag.
WWF taped Saturday Night’s Main Event on April 22 to air April 30. Dave mentioned the results last week, but upon airing some changes had been made. They didn’t air Andre/Roberts and instead put on a Rick Rude vs. Koko B. Ware match. Randy Savage is obviously the face of the company right now - they didn’t even mention Hogan on the episode. And it’s a big improvement to the wrestling quality having Savage as the main event over Hogan. Duggan’s work has significantly regressed. Bulldogs vs. Demolition was garbage and they were not working together at all. Rude vs. Ware was fairly good and the only match that didn’t involve a total carry job by one guy.
Joe Pedicino is collaborating with WATL-TV in Atlanta to do a 30 hour wrestling telethon on June 17-18. They’re even going to have over six hours of wrestling live in studio. As part of the telethon, they’ll have a bunch of syndicated wrestling shows as well as the Henry Winkler movie The One and Only (Dave’s favorite wrestling movie of all time) and the Alex Karras movie Mad Bull (not as good, but some good in it). They’re also going to do a segment on the history of pro wrestling in Atlanta. Proceeds will go to the Atlanta police department so they can buy bullet proof vests. Dave even has word that two WWF wrestlers will appear.
Dave’s regular typewriter is in the shop, so he’s using a different one that kind of sucks. He apologizes for any issues, and has gone with a smaller font to give more content as a make-good. Yay, more stuff for me to type about.
[All Japan] John Tenta accidentally broke Jimmy Snuka’s ribs on April 21 with a powerslam. Not much else of interest out of All Japan this week.
[New Japan] Antonio Inoki has a broken foot and is out of action. That’s gonna hurt New Japan at the gate. Riki Choshu vs. Vader has been made to replace Vader vs. Inoki for May 7. It’ll be an interesting test of Choshu’s remaining drawing power.
New Japan went really weird with a locker room scene on the April 22 tv show. The main event had Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami beating Vader and Masahiro Saito by dq, and the locker room scene had Inoki and Fujinami arguing. Fujinami then got scissors and started cutting his own hair until Inoki hit him and told him to wrestle Vader in Osaka on April 27 (at which show Fujinami declared he’d retire if he lost).
The major hype in Memphis still surrounds the Lawler/Hennig match set for May 9. They’re claiming Larry Hennig is leading the voting for referee over Jackie Fargo, but that’s obviously to drum up more support for Lalwer.
Meanwhile, Memphis is bringing in guys from WCCW for three matches on May 2. Dave’s heard conflicting stories. They’re there for just the one show, or they’ll be in again multiple times. Just have to wait and see, Dave supposes. Even with Lawler vs. Eddie Gilbert with Missy’s hair at stake, they’re billing Iceman King Parsons vs. Kerry Von Erich for the WCCW Title as the main event, and Dave doesn’t get the point in bringing in another world champion when you’re spending so much effort and time on hyping up the AWA title match for the next week. This is the beginning of the Memphis/WCCW alliance and eventual merger.
A funny story from Southern Championship Wrestling. They’ve got this local country western DJ on color commentary and he goes by Rhubarb Jones. For a few weeks, they did a bit where Paul E. Dangerously constantly called him “Rub Hard Jones” and Jones would correct him. Then the blowoff was Dangerously asking “How come whenever I call you Rub Hard you say it’s Rhubarb, but when Missy Hyatt calls you Rhubarb, you say Rub Hard?” This made it on the air. And honestly, it sounds like a fucking funny bit.
Stampede’s crowds have dipped a bit. It’s probably a bit of annual drop off as summer comes along, but also according to local fans it’s because the show has become so much less family oriented with all the blood and excessive violence lately. Kids have been the biggest demographic to drop, so that makes some sense.
Les Thornton is not content to start up a competing wrestling school to Stampede, but is now planning to start a competing promotion. He may get started as soon as May, and he’s planning to run Calgary too.
World Class is negotiating to get their syndicated package added to the All-Star Wrestling Network ad package. That’s the same one that has the AWA.
Big John Studd has sent out a country music demo to some record companies. He’s apparently trying to cash in on his fame as a wrestler as a selling point for how well his record would sell. One person in the music industry told Dave that Studd wrestles better than he sings, and Dave says if it does ever release not to buy it if there are any cats who live in your neighborhood.
UWF announced its May 12 Korauken Hall card. There will be three matches: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shigeo Miyato, Tetsuo Nakano vs. Yoji Anjo, and Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki. That’s the entire stable of wrestlers they have so far. Since they sold out so quick without announcing the card at all, it’s a good thing they’ve saved the best main event they have (Maeda vs. Takada) for June. Since there are only three matches, each match will likely be in the 30 minute range.
Dave hears word that Iron Sheik will be back in WWF if he can clean up his act. No more cocaine for Sheiky baby.
AWA has an interesting card for their May 14 tapings in Las Vegas. Tanaka and Diamond defend the tag titles against Chavo and Mando Guerrero, Greg Gagne defends the International TV title against Brian Knobbs, the Midnight Rockers take on Riki Choshu and Masahiro Saito, and Curt Hennig vs. Jerry Lawler for the AWA Word Title.
In addition to Memphis and the AWA, Continental now recognizes the AWA Title as a world title. The AWA title is quickly becoming the world title of the remaining independent territories. Related, in a recent interview Curt Hennig said that he’s the real world champion among himself, Ric Flair, and Randy Savage because they only defend their titles in one company while Hennig defends his in all companies.
The Fantastics beat the Midnight Express on April 26 in Chattanooga to win the NWA US Tag Titles in a 40+ minute match. They teased referee stoppage and Bobby Eaton, who was the illegal man, wound up pinning Robert Fulton. Cornette did a promo saying he was planning a party for this coming weekend because of course Jim Crockett would return the belts, but obviously that’s not going to happen, Dave says.
Ric Flair missed some shows this past week (April 25 in Nashville and Chattanooga, April 27, and April 28. Dave’s heard two stories - either a severe fever or a staph infection. Due to his absence, the NWA offered refunds for those who wanted them. He was supposed to wrestle Road Warrior Hawk in Nashville, and that show drew around 2,500 people.
Dave thinks it’ll be interesting to see if WWF tries counterprogramming the next NWA ppv. It’s set to air on July 10 with Flair vs. Luger and a triple tower of doom match (they should be glad that WCCW is using it first, it means they can see how it actually works in practice and figure out the bugs before doing it themselves). Correction time: the triple tower of doom WCCW has concocted wasn’t a Dusty Rhodes original. It was a Kevin Sullivan idea, which makes way more sense when I remember the doomsday cage match he came up with. Anyway, Dave thinks it would be smart if both stopped this game of countering each other’s big shows. It’s just costing both sides a lot of money and neither side has really benefited.
The 1988 NWA Great American Bash tour will run June 26-August 7 and have some 40 or 41 shows. A lot of those shows will have War Games matches. After the Bash tour, Crockett’s wrestlers are going to be getting a week off to make up for working 6 weeks straight.
NWA got the time slot WCCW used to have in Jackson, Mississippi and their first tape they sent had no commentary track. They had promos, but not one word of commentary.
Word is that a 6’7” masked wrestler called “The Texan” is coming to NWA to feud with Dusty Rhodes. Dave thinks they’re bringing in Dick Murdoch, who once wore a mask and attacked Rhodes, but 6’7”? Maybe if he had stilts.
WWF is instituting a new policy where managers aren’t being booked for house shows anymore, only tv tapings. The only exceptions are where they’re booked to actually get in the ring and wrestle a match. Elizabeth is a unique case, and Dave’s not sure where they’re landing on her yet, but she’s so integral to Randy Savage’s act that you can’t take her out without upsetting fans. The last Dave’s heard is they’re likely to have her only appear in certain markets and not regularly anymore.
Additionally, WWF has made significant cuts to the number of dates. Last year at this point they were running between 20-25 shows a week, and they’ve cut it down to 10, 12 on tv taping weeks. The new schedule has three shows on Saturdays and Sundays, two on Mondays and Fridays, and Tuesday-Thursday as days off (again, except on tv weeks). Well, that’s the schedule for the big names. The rest will work when they get work, with the third string guys working twice a week at most. With this severe a cutback, you can expect probably more guys to be let go. On the other hand, this new scheduling will give the wrestlers more chance to rest, and seems to be having positive effects on performance (though DiBiase/Savage and Hart/Badnews working together might also be a factor). DiBiase/Savage is the only major drawing match they have, so cutting dates means avoiding overexposing the match, too, so that’s a possible factor. This is evidence that pro wrestling as an arena spectator sport is in the worst place it has been in a long time and even WWF is tightening their belt, which only means that everyone else is probably feeling it a lot more.
One of the letters this week is about how fans smart to how the business works should act at shows. Not said in the letter is that they should shower, almost as if that’s a given. Anyway, the writer conjures up the image of the fan who goes to the show and calls the wrestlers by their government names and screams at Wahoo McDaniel to “blade!” when he gets posted and goes prone on the floor and how irritating those people are. Smart fans, our writer argues, should try to keep the heat up for the match. Cheer the faces, boo the heels, help encourage the marks around you to do the same. The writer is friends with a mid-level heel from a promotion not to be specified to protect the source, and the writer tries to make a point of going to that heel’s tv tapings. Some of the wrestler’s colleagues know our writer is an Observer subscriber and considers Dave a friend, but even so, after the last taping the writer went to and played it off like they were a total mark, one of the managers came over and thanked the writer for keeping the heat up and asked for thoughts on the angles and how they were getting over. You don’t get asked questions like that from the workers if you’re the kind of irritating, insufferable smart fan who has to show off how smart you are. Honestly, I really enjoyed this letter, because it definitely jives with my feelings about how to act at a show. Respect and engage with the performance you are presented. I remember going to a RISE show last year where I had a fantastic conversation with AQA, one of the women there who was coming from Booker T’s school, and she was asking me about how her elimination looked from my vantage, if I thought she hit her spots well, and that sort of stuff. I’ve had a lot of great conversations like that at RISE and SHIMMER shows and I’m really glad I got to have that conversation with AQA. By the way, she’s fantastic and is definitely on her way to having a big future once she hits the point of signing with Impact/WWE/AEW.
Another writer notes that he has a friend who now works part time for the Rhode Island State Athletic Commission. Said friend knows nothing about wrestling and can’t even answer questions about whether blading is allowed in Rhode Island because he doesn’t know what the question means. So yeah, that’s what you’re dealing with in athletic commissions.
Our most interesting letter of the week concerns the origins of the term “working.” A lot of people think it originates with the advent of tv and working for the benefit of the camera, but the term originates back in the early part of the 20th century. Wrestlers began using what they called the “working” system rather than shooting, which allowed them to turn wrestling into a traveling act. Wrestlers at that point still had to be capable shooters, of course, just in case someone didn’t want to go along with the script. And there were wrestlers like Jack Sherry who couldn’t adapt to working rather than shooting, and so they were on the outs with the major promoters of the era. Also, the writer found a membership list for the NWA from 1968. Just 20 years ago the NWA boasted 23 different member promotions in the U.S. and Canada. How much things have changed.
There’s a big letter from a couple guys in Maine that goes off on Dave for his “anti-WWF” bias and it’s a big enough deal that Dave actually responds. In brief, the letter says “we are disturbed by your continuing, and, we believe, unwarranted criticism of Titan Sports and Vince McMahon in particular. This anti-Titan attitude, while understandable, and in some cases laudable, has been of concern to us for some time, and we had intended to write soon, but your recent post-Wrestlemania newsletter moved up our timetable.” Fucking hell, that’s most of the opening paragraph and I am rolling laughing (literally, I am high as balls as I do this part). Their criticisms of Dave’s takes on Wrestlemania seem to be saying Ventura was great on commentary and Uecker was funny. And since Dave’s writing basically the newsletter of record on wrestling, he’s being derelict in his responsibilities. One good thing they suggest is that Dave try to keep commentary and news separate. Basically, they usually find themselves agreeing with Dave and are very confused and concerned that his opinions on Clash and Wrestlemania were opposite of theirs. The part that really ticks Dave off is that, “at risk of insulting” Dave, they conclude that his commentaries are tailored to satisfy certain constituencies of his readership rather than reflecting his own opinions. Dave even says that the one thing they got right was that he felt insulted by their letter, and not because they disagree with him. Dave even says “anyone who agrees with all my opinions is obviously letting me do their thinking for him.” There you go. He then gives a complete takedown of every point they made, pointing out where they ignored the context of his statements, pointed out how it wasn’t just him who felt how he did, points out his takes on Starrcade and Survivor Series to kill dead the idea that he has an anti-WWF or pro-Crockett bias, etc. As for biases, Dave does admit to a bias toward Crockett’s in-ring style compared to WWF’s, but it’s also hardly his favorite style (New Japan juniors, there’s his favorite style at this point), and he also admits to a bias toward how WWF handles publicity, its company, and its rotating talent in and out of the spotlight to keep things fresh.
So, Dave transcribed the first hour of Bruno Sammartino’s radio interview from 6 weeks back. A couple highlights, then I’ll just put a link to read the transcript yourself. He felt like the lone voice defending the old way of wrestling and nobody would listen. He says some wrestlers today, he might call them athletes, but Bam Bam Bigelow? He’s too fat to be an athlete. He calls Andre and Hogan sad because of Andre’s condition, and even worse because making it out like the match of the century is practically obscene to him. He doesn’t consider either of them to be wrestlers. Basically, he’s going to old man yell at the cloud of modern wrestling for a while and he said Vince doesn’t want commentary to refer to it as wrestling anymore. He tries to maintain some kayfabe about the legitimacy of wrestling in his day, but tries to claim it mostly was. There’s stuff about his son I’m going to be honest about not reading, I’m just not sober enough to care about David. He also says he never once saw a bladejob or blood capsule in his life and points to his scars above his eye “that came from being hit”. He is vague about Jimmy Snuka, but he says Snuka’s got serious drug problems and seriously messed himself up.
Read: Bruno radio interview transcript
There’s also a long letter about Bruno, so you can read that along with the transcript So click that link too. Smash that like button. Subscribe to my twitch channel. Words.
Read: end of transcript and letter
Dave also gives comments of his own on the transcript, letter, and Sammartino’s issues with McMahon. In short, the business of wrestling has changed a lot, especially lately, and change isn’t inherently bad. Some changes made wrestling more mainstream acceptable. Some caused the decline of regional territories, but were always inevitable. Some brought unheard of amounts of money to the business. Wrestling isn’t shooting, but entertainment isn’t a dirty word and things like wrestlers booking to suit their egos dates back to the 20s. Dave says the wrestlers who have learned to do today’s craft and not an outdated style that won’t connect, should be commended and respected. If you know how to work for your audience, can maintain conditioning, and work hard to get yourself over, you’re the kind of wrestler Dave respects. If you don’t respect the paying customers and think steroids can substitute for knowing your shit, Dave thinks less of you for it. Using steroids doesn’t disqualify you from respect - a lot of great workers are well conditioned and use the stuff to maintain the size that pleases the promoters. He just dead refutes the idea that wrestling was legit in Bruno’s day or that he never bladed. He also talks about Vince and that Vince has on the one hand had a very negative influence on ring style, but he’s opened wrestling up to the larger media landscape and that’s a good thing.
Dave rates Savage vs. DiBiase from the April 25 Madison Square Garden show 4 stars. A rare high mark for a WWF match at this point.
Watch: DiBiase vs. Savage at MSG
Harley Race will be out for several months. He ruptured his intestine and had to have 18 inches of it removed.
Big Bubba’s coming next week with a prison guard gimmick and will likely be built up for Hogan’s return.
Owen Hart is now apparently 50-50 on coming to WWF.
Ricky Steamboat has apparently quit WWF. He was scheduled for the MSG show against Greg Valentine, but wasn’t there and wasn’t on tv. It could just be a hiatus, but Dave reckons he’s gone.
Dave wants us to confirm, but does Matilda look different than she used to?