Wrestling Observer Rewinder

June 20, 1988

Clash of the Champions II: Miami Mayhem is in the books. And, well, Dave has some bones to pick with the advertising. The only match announced nationally, to the best of Dave’s Knowledge, was Arn and Tully defending the NWA Tag Titles against Dusty Rhodes and Sting. NWA’s goal with the way they advertised is pretty clearly to try and make seeing the NWA live the draw while the matches can be interchangeable, but that’s silly. Anyway, they wound up drawing only 2,400 to a 6,000 seat arena and will likely have a disappointing tv rating. Dave got 69 calls on Thursday and Friday about the show, and while the numbers are meaningless in terms of having anything to really say about the show, 27 didn’t like the show, 23 did, and 19 said they didn’t watch or forgot that it was even happening (nearly all of the 19 reported forgetting). Anyway, this is what the NWA was doing for advertising.
Behold: NWA Championship Wrestling
On to the show itself, Dave gives it a resounding “adequate” It wasn’t a big failure. It wasn’t some major success like the first one, either. The matches were better than they looked on paper, outside the opener. The delays between matches probably made it a chore for the live crowd (the four who were there live who called in hated it). That said, on tv the crowd seemed to respond appropriately, even if they weren’t super enthusiastic. Lighting and camera work were fine. The show was just okay. And while Dave enjoyed the matches and therefore the show as a whole, he feels the NWA missed the boat on several things. They had Jim Ross in the parking lot doing interviews instead of at the desk. Steve Williams did color commentary which just no. Jim Cornette, the best promo in the company, wasn’t even there on tape and that oversight alone has people wondering when he’ll jump to WWF. And just whenever they try to do something to look major league (limos, yacht, etc.) they just look more amateur because of it. If you’re going to use a limo to show someone arriving, have it be someone the fans recognize as a celebrity, not Frances Crockett or Gary Juster.
So, Clash of the champions II. Barry Windham beat Brad Armstrong in a 1.75 star affair. Then they had Lyle Alzado plugging his show Learning the Ropes in an interview. Then the Rock & Roll Express did an interview announcing their return and there just doesn’t seem to be much here for them. Then they did the Flair/Luger contract signing. The Horsemen gave an interview next after showing up late and missing Windham’s match. Then we saw Lex Luger arrive and get attacked by the Horsemen. They’ll repeat this segment structure two more times before the show ends. We still haven’t gotten the second match. Dave stopped watching the show at this point and came back to a tape of it the next day, and he feels Jeff Steele’s Pro Wrestling Digest description of the NWA as like the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of wrestling promotions is highly accurate, because everything after this point was actually pretty good. The Fantastics beat the Sheepherders to keep the U.S. Tag Titles in a 3.75 star match. The Garvins beat Rick Steiner and Mike Rotunda in a 1.75 star match mostly focused on Kevin Sullivan and Precious, becase Sullivan was in a cage by ringside and Precious had the key. Nikita Koloff beat Al Perez, 2.5 stars. Dusy and Sting beat Tully and Arn by disqualification, and Dave notes a spot where Arn gave Sting a DDT on the arena floor and Sting was making a comeback just 30 seconds later, and Dave says “The WWF ran Ricky Steamboat and Jake Roberts for six months off that move and these guys treat it as a transition.” That’s it, I blame Dusty Rhodes and Sting for Cena burying the Nexus. 3.25 stars.
Watch: Sting buries the Nexus
In 1986 Roddy Piper and Sam Fatu (Tama) filmed a movie called Bodyslam and Dave finally got a chance to see it. It’s a shit movie. Stupid plot, bad acting, Piper’s the only thing decent about it.
Watch: Bodyslam trailer
The ban on New Japan’s shows at Tokyo Sumo Hall will be lifted on August 8. They were banned from the building following the riot on December 27, in which fans set fire to the building because the Inoki vs. Choshu match was changed to Inoki vs. Vader, then having Inoki vs. Choshu happened in a paint by numbers 6 minute match before Vader squashed Inoki in under three minutes. The August 8 show will be a big production, aired live on TV Asahi.
[All Japan] Yoshiaki Yatsu and Jumbo Tsuruta won the PWF World Tag Titles on June 4 from Genichiro Tenryu and Ashura Hara. This sets the stage for the June 10 tag title unification match against the International Tag champions, the Road Warriors. Dave says it’s generally assumed that Yatsu and Tsuruta will win by disqualification or a countout, but after the Brody/Tenryu unification match ended in a double countout, it’s pretty clear they need a definitive winner. It’d be disappointing to the fans if they don’t unify the belts. Dave hasn’t seen the match, but it’s been hyped to him as a match of the year candidate.
Coming to the WWF is a new heel manager to be called Brother Love. Dave has a feeling he knows who it will be, but he’s going to wait until he actually shows up.
WWF did an angle to write off Rick Martel because his wife is having surgery and he’s going to stay home with her for a few months.
Dave saw the May 27 Savage vs. DiBiase match. He says DiBiase is trying to single-handedly change the truism about WWF workrate being garbage.
In Hulk Hogan movie news, Vince is trying to contract a non-WWF wrestler to come in and do the job for Hogan.
[Memphis] Despite the hype, they only drew 3,500 for the June 6 Hennig vs. Lawler rematch. Part of the reason for the low turnout is that the tv time got switched to 9:30 am that week and a lot of fans didn’t know. Lawler retained via disqualification when Hennig hit the referee. The June 13 show has a rematch with no disqualifications or time limit and will air as the Score Match of the Week on FNN.
Kevin Von Erich is going to do a publicity benefit wrestling match against Jessica McClure. McClure is the toddler who fell into a well back in October. Yes, everybody. Before Kenny Omega wrestled Haruka to a 3 minute time limit draw when she was 9 and Jim Cornette lost his shit over it, Kevin Von Erich jobbed to a two-year-old. Here’s a PWI article about the match.
Ken Mantell has started new Wild West Wrestling tapings. They don’t even have enough regular material to fill their shows, so putting a new show into the mix seems extra bad. The first taping drew under 75 fans, low enough that they’ve already scrapped the planned bi-weekly Houston shows. The only really notable thing is that Michael Hayes has been doing jobs for Buddy Roberts, and with the whole going AWOL and no longer being on the booking team it’s unclear what his future in World Class is.
On June 18 there will be a meeting in Dallas between Ken Mantell, Verne Gagne, Jerry Lawler, Don Owen, and possibly other independent promoters. This is going to be big news.
Stampede announced on tv that Owen Hart “won the Japanese world title.” It’s true, though they didn’t mention it was the jr. heavyweight title.
Over in Oregon, they’ve got Johnny Ace and The Terminator as a heel tag team called the Junior Road Warriors. They’re Road Warrior Animal’s younger brothers, so the gimmick infringement is somewhat warranted. I’m not 100% confident which promotion they’re working for, but I think it’s OWF, based on his note that the Terminator in Owen’s promotion is Rick Hazzard, who referees for World Class.
The Great American Bash ppv now has cleared 9.4 million potential homes. The word going around is that the money from this show will go to paying the guys they’re behind on paying. They won’t have any opposition, so they should get quite a few viewers, and if it’s in any way successful that’ll mean a big windfall for the NWA. Dave says the next step is to move Starrcade to Saturday rather than Thanksgiving night and run it on PPV so it doesn’t go up against Survivor Series. He also says it looks like discussions with Turner are still open, but not to expect any deal to be finalized between the NWA and Turner until after the Bash at the earliest. Turner is going to want to see how the Bash does before making any serious commitment.
WWF’s August ppv from Madison Square Garden will be called Summer Slam '88. The billed main event is the Megapowers vs. the Megabucks with Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant and Ted DiBiase, with Jesse Ventura as the guest referee. The other big match will be Demolition defending the WWF Tag Titles against the Hart Foundation.
Our final big news item of the week is that WATL in Atlanta will be running their wrestling telethon this coming weekend. Southern Championship Wrestling will be putting on live matches and there will be stuff featuring Paul E. Dangerously, Missy Hyatt, Eddie Gilbert, and others from studios, as well as a bunch of taped wrestling. Dave details the schedule, which includes a special called “The History of Wrestling in Atlanta” which originally aired in 1986.
Watch: The History of Wrestling in Atlanta
Vince McMahon is making his first foray into non-wrestling entertainment. He and Dick Ebersole are co-producing the new Bob Costas talk show on NBC. There’s a writer’s strike going on, and if that doesn’t get settled within a month, there’s talk of NBC offering Vince another prime time special for the fall because of their need for original programming.
Chris Adams will be running his first shows this weekend in Amarillo and Royce City, Texas. Hope he knows where his ring is.
Correction: Wahoo McDaniel and Ray Stevens were not fired by the AWA. The problems have been labeled as miscommunication. Anyway, they haven’t settled on their final pair for the new Midnight Rockers, but they’ve narrowed it down to three: Johnny Love, Ricky Rice, and John Paul Demann. Dave says there’s no chance in hell this gets over because you can’t just replace a gimmick with the same gimmick with different people (not that Vince won’t try in the 90s with fake Diesel and Razor, the New Midnight Express, and even the New Rockers).
AWA’s England tour has been canceled.
Fantastic Ladies Appearing in International Rings has its first tv taping on June 19 in Houston. I’m not sure if Dave’s changing the name up to be cute or if that’s an updated name, but apparently they’re taping bi-weekly for foreign distribution only, so that might be a real name change.
Three writers chime in to dispute the letter calling the WCCW Texas Stadium show good and WWF fans mental midgets. All are in agreement that Dave was right, and two of the three were in attendance.
NWA is billing Dusty Rhodes and The Sheik against Kevin Sullivan and Dick Murdoch for the July 31 Bash show in Detroit. Obviously, they’re hoping Sheik will be a draw, but Dave’s not sure Sheik’s drawn a house in Detroit since the early 70s. Every Sunday night during the Bash tour they’ll be broadcasting a live radio play-by-play of the card for that night on their 900 number.
Brother Love will be Bruce Prichard. Dave doesn’t think he’ll be doing actual manager work, but rather just doing an interview segment. Indeed, he’ll do the Brother Love Show and won’t manage anyone until he manages The Undertaker in 1990.
Gene Okerlund appears to have been fired by WWF. They look to be replacing him with Sean Mooney. Lol no, Dave.