July 18, 1988
- Not much new in the way of details on the deaths of Adrian Adonis, Pat Kelly, and the Canadian Wildman Dave McKigney. We have a time, direction (they were driving into the sunlight, which was pretty glaring), and they missed a turn which led to them going into the lake (we'll get a clearer picture of how they ended up in the lake next week). Mike Kelly survived with some broken bones. They were doing a small tour in small towns in northeastern Canada for McKigney, which has obviously been canceled. Given that Adonis was the biggest star of the three who died, Dave has the most information with which to provide a proper career retrospective for him. He covers his early career as “Gorgeous” Keith Franks in Canada, his time in Texas where he would offer $100 to any fan who could last 10 minutes with him (and apparently this was the real deal, no plants) because Adonis had the legit amateur background to do it, his big break in the AWA teaming with Jesse Ventura in the AWA, and the rest of his career since then. There’s a lot more to the story of Adrian Adonis than the past year of these rewinds can tell you about, because these only cover the tail end of his career after his weight issues and doing the exotico act hurt his ability to perform and to really keep over as a major figure in America. His short-lived final run in Japan showed that while he was bigger than in his prime and didn’t have the same stamina he used to, he still was a tremendous worker and was putting on a great show, and it’s a shame his life and career were cut short before the next step could be taken.
- Before Dave covers the Great American Bash ppv, he has to gush about the success of UWF. Folks who have been to Japan lately tell Dave that Maeda is hotter than Hogan’s wildest dreams. On June 26, tickets went on sale for their August 13 show at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, all 12,000 tickets sold out in under 6 hours, and at the prices they were sold at, the gate should be close to half a million dollars, which would make this a top 7 live gate in pro wrestling history. Andre/Hogan at Wrestlemania 3 didn’t even come close to selling that much value in tickets that quickly - it took a couple weeks. Not that Maeda could necessarily sell 93,000 tickets, but Wrestlemania 3 is basically the only real comparison point you can make to this sellout. All this with no television, no showmanship in the matches, an office of two, and only 6 full-time wrestlers. As Dave puts it, they’ve broken every assumed rule of how pro wrestling promotion and success works and succeeded beyond all expectations. Dave wound up watching their second show and he thinks it’s something most of his readers wouldn’t be into, and with the Maeda/Takada match at first he thought there was just no heat, but that wasn’t the case. That match had the silent kind of heat where the crowd is so intensely invested that they’ve lost themselves completely into believing the product. And that’s what makes them successful - they’re the only promotion that truly can make the general public buy into their product as legitimate. Dave wonders how long they can go without getting tv before interest wanes.
- The Great American Bash ppv is in the books. In a few words: good, but not great, and solidly middle of the pack for Crockett’s big shows of late. It’s far too early to say whether this show will have been good or bad for Crockett as a whole, but Dave can say for sure that everyone had their working boots on. Anyway, they sold out the arena (14,000 fans and a $208,000 gate) with a lot of heat, but the show peaked early and it’s clear to anyone watching that Sting’s the hottest act they have, but they’re not treating him like it. Given Luger/Flair had never happened and Rhodes/Windham was a natural match-up with history, it’s not hard to see that Sting kind of got lost in the shuffle because they couldn’t bury him in that triple cage abomination or put him in a meaningless non-title match, so things died off because his stardom couldn’t carry the show past the halfway point with him in the opener. The real puzzler is whether the finish to Flair/Luger was a good idea - the crowd left so pissed off that some have said it’s the hottest a crowd’s left in 15 years. Dusty took the finish from Roy Shires, who used to do it a couple times a year in Big Time Wrestling in California, but it’s not been used since they went under back in 1981, with the idea that it would get heat on the athletic commission rather than the promotion, but Dave’s not sure today’s fans really differentiate between the two. And at a big show like this with fans coming from around the country, a lot more fans are in the know that the promotion is really the one responsible for outcomes. They did what they set out to do, though. Flair’s still champion and they made it look like Luger would have won it anywhere else, but a lot of people are probably feeling that they got screwed out of a title change, especially when the blood was such a little bit that it undermined the finish.
- Watch: Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair, Great American Bash 1988
- Anyway, Dave spends a lot of ink rating the matches, but I’m going to keep it short and sweet here. Tully and Arn drew against Sting and Nikita Koloff to retain the NWA tag titles in a 3.5 star match. The Midnight Express beat the Fantastics to win the U.S. tag titles with Jim Cornette in a straight jacket and suspended above the ring in a cage (Dave says Cornette deserves an Emmy for his pre-match performance, but I wouldn’t quite go that far) in a 4 star match. The triple tower of doom was a 20 minute affair where the babyfaces won and the match was a bit better than the one in World Class, but the gimmick is so stupid and convoluted it really kept things confusing. Somehow Dave gives it 2.75 stars. Barry Windham retained the U.S. title against Dusty Rhodes in a 1.25 star match. Finally, Ric Flair retained the NWA World title against Lex Luger due to the Maryland State Athletic Commission stopping the match in a 2.5 star match which would be very good for anybody else but is disappointing for Flair. Overall, the workrate was good, camera work was improved, and most matches didn’t have completely predictable finishes. Overall, the impression seems to be it was a good show, but nothing to rave about.
- Watch: Jim Cornette is put in a straightjacket and suspended above the ring
- Some minor notes and final thoughts about the Great American Bash. The Philadelphia area didn’t get the show due to a ppv malfunction, the tower was supposed to be up more quickly than it was but an issue with the door to the top cage held them up, and Dave wishes the guys had a couple days to rest before this big show. Dave thinks Jim Ross tried a touch too hard to sell each match as an all-time classic legendary match (especially the triple tower). Flair’s the best worker in the company, but he needs a shakeup because right now he’s stale and it’s keeping the title from meaning what it could. Luger and Sting are both not quite ready in different ways (Luger still can’t really have a great match, even against Flair, while Sting still needs to expand his moveset), but Sting’s almost ready to be the guy pushed to beat Flair unless they have Flair turn face on the Horsemen.
- Owen Hart debuted this past week for WWF as the Blue Angel (Dave’s gonna need to wait for the show to air to get Blue Blazer right). Preliminary reports are that his moveset’s been pretty much neutered, as his matches are largely stalling and lack any of his spectacular offense.
- Watch: The Blue Blazer’s tv debut
- WWF drew a couple big houses in Canada this past week with DiBiase vs. Savage main eventing. A $100,000 Canadian gate in Vancouver and a $90,000 Canadian gate in Saskatoon equate to roughly $82,000 and $75,000 American.
- Dave’s gotten to see the Brother Love gimmick in action and loads hate the whole concept and execution, while some think Bruce is doing a good job with a terrible idea. Dave’s only seen the Brother Love Show with Rick Rude and he thinks Prichard’s good, but he thinks this gimmick only really has the one thing to it and will wear out its welcome real fast. The bit with Rude was good for WWF, which is to say simple enough to get the gimmick concept over to the fast-food type fans. And if you’re offended by how the character parodies religion, Dave says to “remember that entertainment is a parody of life, and the WWF is a parody of entertainment. Besides, that’s exactly the reaction they want you to have.”
- Yumi Ogura and Mika Komatsu made their Stampede (and North American debut) on July 8. I believe Ogura had done some stuff in Canada before this, but sure, debuts for both, I guess. The match wasn’t as good as you’d expect because they tried to work to North American psychology without really having a solid understanding of what they were doing in that respect, but on the plus side they still had a lot of really good moves to carry them through and keep things interesting and decent. On the same show, Chris Benoit and Johnny Smith had a 4.5 star banger of a Commonwealth title match and Dave says it’s the most underrated feud in terms of match quality across North America with the way everyone passes them over to talk about Savage/DiBiase and Fantastics/Midnight Express. Dave says the match would have been five stars if the beginning hadn’t been so slow.
- On the July 10 Stampede show in Edmonton, Ogura dropped the AJW Championship to Komatsu, which caused a stir in the Japanese press what with the title change happening in Canada. The finish was apparently a superplex by Ogura where Komatsu landed on top, with Ogura bumping so convincingly even the wrestlers thought she might have injured her neck, because there’s nothing joshi wrestlers hate more than necks. Anyway, Dave has this here at 3.5 stars, but I think that’s from whoever his on-site report came from and not from Dave himself, for whatever that’s worth. I’ve tried to find the match, but all I can find is one where based off the commentary Mika was defending against Ogura and they did the same finish, but from a top-rope arm drag. Still, here’s that clip, at least.
- Dave talks at length about Stampede announcer Ed Whalen. There’s a letter later on that discusses Whalen as well, but some context before Dave gets to his point. Whalen has a career in legitimate broadcasting, which causes him to be in a bit of a bind with his wrestling work. He doesn’t do any hype work or build heat for Stampede because he has to preserve his credibility outside wrestling by not being seen to be a shill for wrestling. Stampede’s in a position where they need to build heat and hype for their characters, though. Despite having much worse wrestling, WWF’s recent show in Calgary had so much more heat because the characters are over and have defined personalities. Part of Stampede’s problem is that Whalen won’t sell gimmicks or angles because he’s protecting his personal credibility, and while it’s understandable, it’s hurting the promotion when he pulls the mic from the heels in the middle of their promos because he doesn’t like what they’re saying. He keeps things from getting too outlandish or out of hand, but outlandish and out of hand are what lead to characters getting noticed and getting over. So anyway, Dave’s finally come to his point - they also use Whalen as a bit of a censor. They did a bit where Great Gama threw fire into Owen Hart’s eyes to write him out of the promotion before his Japan tour, and they cut the feed to Whalen. Then you get Brian Pillman and Bruce Hart yelling about throwing fire, but the tv audience never saw it and have no context, and they do this a lot. Not that it’s some amazing angle, but what’s a booker supposed to do when the angle that’s supposed to help keep up interest when your biggest star leaves doesn’t even get shown on tv?
- The latest word on Inoki’s return to New Japan is that they’re trying to get Choshu and Fujinami vs. Inoki and Bob Backlund to main event the August 8 show. And honestly, Dave says credit to Inoki for keeping conditioned, but he needs to step down and pass the torch. Apparently Inoki has a blood disease, which is why he has so much less stamina than he used to have.
- Speaking of Tatsumi Fujinami, though, there’s a bit of criticism about him too. His repeated threats to leave are the main reason he’s been put over so much, and he’s currently working without a contract. Baba and Inoki have a handshake deal that neither will raid the other, so Fujinami can’t jump to All Japan, and Dave doesn’t see him going to UWF because he’d have to do the job to Maeda coming in. So he’s basically stuck with New Japan and his threats have no real teeth anymore. Most think it was too soon for Vader to do a clean job, and Dave thinks unless Vader’s winning the belt on July 22, that first job was a mistake because they’re trying to get Vader over as a Brody or Hansen equivalent for New Japan. Also, jobbing Choshu out to Fujinami seems to have killed any chance of resuscitating his popularity.
- Kenta Kobashi is looking to be the best candidate in Japan for this year’s rookie of the year. Dave’s struggled with finding anyone in the Americas who would be a good candidate, but there aren’t a lot of contenders. The best is probably Steve Blackman, who isn’t good but has at least shown some decent ability.
- Dave gives some notes on recent All Japan Women’s tv. The Crush Girls vs. the Jumping Bomb Angels gets 3.75 stars, but that’s disappointing given the standard those teams usually work toward. Dave’s of the opinion that the Angels have not recovered from their time in the WWF and blames their weight for them not being able to work the high flying style or go as long in the ring. Dave did get to see the title change where they dropped the WWF tag titles to Judy Martin and Leilani Kai, and he says the whole thing was ridiculous because they all got counted out and Martin was halfway in the ring, and the ref ruled that she was in enough for some reason. Earlier in the same show as the title change, Dave gives the Crush Girls vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki and Mika Suzuki 4+ stars. Speaking of the Crush Girls, all talk of Chigusa Nagayo retiring has faded away and she seems to be here to stay.
- World Class doesn’t have a lot going on, but the Samoans are interesting. The Samoan Swat Team of Samu and Fatu have come in and are being pushed as the promotion’s answer to the old heel Road Warriors. Buddy Roberts is managing them and calling them the Freebirds and claims to have the rights to the name and is threatening to sue Hayes and Gordy if they call themselves the Freebirds. Obvious feud setup is obvious. Roberts is also claiming he wrote all of the Badstreet USA songs and Hayes owes him royalties, just to drive the point home.
- Not much of interest in the letters. A couple comments on Hell Comes to Frogtown and how silly the movie is. A couple letters finding Bruno’s comments about Hogan’s in-ring ability terribly unselfaware. The letter about Stampede that also touches on Whalen mentioned above.
- A couple southern cable systems are reporting a 5% buyrate for the Great American Bash ppv. Crockett is strongest in the south, so that’s probably higher than the national average, and at least for those systems was better than Wrestlemania IV did.
- Ken Timbs is currently the biggest heel in Mexico. He’s doing your typical all-American character (think Lex Luger or what Kurt Angle’s early character thought he was), and it’s getting huge heat. He won the Middleweight title from Lizmark on June 26.
- Bob Holly and Pat Rose walked out on Memphis last week. Holly’s already back. Apparently Rose and the promoters had a dispute and so he and Holly walked, but Holly reconsidered and is back working prelim matches as a singles guy. How do you like him now?