October 03, 1988
- The big news this week is that Eddie Gilbert, Paul E. Dangerously, and several other wrestlers have left the Continental Wrestling Federation following some kind of falling out this past Thursday. It appears to be the result of a buildup of multiple business disagreements that finally got out of control, and the biggest fallout of this departure is the near-certain demise of continental’s hopes to rise above the minor league level. Gilbert and owner David Woods had different opinions on expansion and bringing in big names, with Woods feeling Gilbert’s ideas were too expensive and that they simply weren’t ready for their big October “Road to Birmingham” show and the tournament to crown their first champion. At the same time, local promo tapes and even the tv show tapes more than once failed to make it to the stations because the office didn’t send them with overnight shipping. The show that Dave reported on last week where the tape didn’t make it to FNN in time? They sent the tape via first class mail (cost: ~$2.40) rather than overnight (cost: $6-7). And then paychecks came in, with Woods cutting checks down significantly, particularly for those in Gilbert’s circle, with several wrestlers believing this was done to provoke Gilbert. Among Gilbert’s detractors in the promotion, even they predominantly agree he was a creative booker who was trying to expand the promotion too fast, but not that he was driving the promotion into the ground. This all throws the October 3 Road to Birmingham show and tournament into uncertainty, with Bob Orton, Chris Adams, and Gilbert all being gone now. Terry Gordy was supposed to come in, but the promotion may not be willing to pay to get him in anymore. Overall, the total crew will be a scant 14 wrestlers, including new booker “Bullet” Bob Armstrong. Good news for Sid “Lord Humongous” Eudy, at least. This probably means a main event push for him.
- Dave has a tentative lineup for Superclash III on December 13. By next week, he should have a complete lineup, but the stuff currently penciled in is as follows: Lawler and Von Erich in a match where there must be a winner to unify the World Class and AWA titles, a “Beverly Hills Lingerie” battle royal in the second spot from the top featuring the POWW wrestlers trying to strip each other (Dave says this probably isn’t a good fit for a general audience, but concedes there probably isn’t a general audience for this show anyway), Sgt. Slaughter vs. Col. DeBeers, Ron Garvin vs. Greg Gagne for the AWA TV title, and Wahoo McDaniel vs. Manny Fernandez in a strap match. Verne plans to get the show cleared for up to 3 million potential homes, but being sandwiched between the Survivor Series and NWA December ppvs, that’s a tall order. And connecting to the above story, Dave expects Continental to try and get in on this somehow now that Eddie Gilbert is involved, since Gilbert didn’t want to while Woods did. Now, in 2021 we know this was pretty much a giant failure and didn’t lead to anything, but check out Verne’s optimism: he’s already planning for them to run another ppv in February.
- The next few issues are going to be a bit odd in scheduling, so the dates are going to be wonky. This is because Dave's traveling, and long story short next issue is going to be long and the the issue after next is going to be a double issue, which means it’s going to be 18 pages long, so strap in for that.
- Lawler and Von Erich did another unification match at the Sportatorium, this time with the result seeming to only apply in Texas. They went to a double disqualification and emphasized before and during the match that World Class rules applied, so both titles could change hands by DQ. Well, the double disqualification led to the announcement that both titles were vacant pending a Texas Death Match on October 15. But they’re only vacant in Texas, apparently, as Lawler appeared the next morning in Memphis with the AWA title around his waist and promoting a defense against Ron Garvin for September 30.
- Jim Crockett and Fritz Von Erich’s negotiations fell through this past week. Crockett wanted to basically take over World Class and their tv network, keeping the Von Erichs and a couple other wrestlers, while Fritz wanted a simple talent exchange. Personal story time. I think my dad thought Crockett actually got what he wanted in this deal, because I remember him telling me that this was part of how Crockett came to being WCW - they took over World Class and dropped the Class from the name in conjunction with the Turner buyout. Obviously, not correct, but still, interesting how this tied into that.
- Jim Crockett is still trying to settle his debts, and his offer to Bill Watts did not go over well at all. Crockett still owes Watts a rumored $3 million or so, and he was offering to settle up for $1 million. Watts, in response, is asking for more money and to drop the no-compete clause from the sale contract. Dave’s sources in TBS say they expect the sale to be finalized this coming Friday, but it’s doubtful Crockett can clear his debts that fast.
- So far as Dave knows, Starrcade is still planned for November as a weeklong series of shows in Baltimore, Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Norfolk, and Richmond.
- [Stampede] To give a cover story for Makhan Singh’s tour in South Africa, he was suspended for attacking Ed Whalen a few weeks back.
- [Stampede] Following the tradition of Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid, Biff Wellington has a hair vs. hair match against Johnny Smith before he goes to Japan. The Bulldogs used to alternate losing hair matches before going to Japan so one would wrestle bald over there.
- Dave gives a more detailed run down of the September 24 World Class show at the Sportatorium where Lawler and Von Erich’s titles got vacated (only in Texas). The show was really hot and nearly sold out the arena. The Lawler/Von Erich match went 15 minutes with Lawler heeling it up amazingly well and both guys punched out the referee, so Frank Dusek grabbed the house mic and stripped them of their titles. Lawler pitched a fit for several minutes until Dusek came back out and signed them to the Cotton Bowl match for the belts.
- Kevin Von Erich is tentatively scheduled to come back to World Class at the Cotton Bowl show, but his concussion issues are still ongoing. He has a lot of severe headaches due to them and at least one doctor has told him he shouldn’t be wrestling anymore and that he’s going to be more susceptible to concussions in the future. Sounds like CTE in the making to me.
- Kerry Von Erich is officially in charge of Word Class now. He’s the figurehead, with Frank Dusek and Scandor Akbar doing the bulk of the real office work, while Percy Pringle is their main guy for publicity (ooooh yeeeeessss).
- World Class has lost television in San Antonio. That’s a big blow, since San Antonio was their best drawing city of late.
- Departures from World Class include John Tatum and Kimala. They’re claiming Kimala caused Kevin’s concussion as part of their build for Kevin’s return, so good job wasting that by putting the heat on someone who’s gone. Also, Michael Hayes isn’t gone, in case you were wondering. He’s in Nigeria. And nothing more is said about that.
- [Continental] Apparently Tom Prichard was going to win the Road to Birmingham tournament. But that’s unlikely to happen now.
- The NWA has put pressure on Sting to not go to Japan for their upcoming tour, so he’s backed out and will instead make his All Japan debut in January.
- All Japan did a special tv taping on September 15 at Korauken Hall to show appreciation to the fans who brought gifts for Barbara and Geoffrey Goodish at the Brody memorial show on August 29. The big item on this show is that Jimmy Snuka and Tiger Mask II debuted as a team by beating Great Kabuki and Akio Sato. The only other interesting note here is that they had a 19 man battle royal and Dave says that if there’s one thing Japanese wrestling hasn’t figured out, it’s how to have an exciting battle royal.
- All Japan Women will be doing a two-night tag team tournament on September 26 and 27 in Honolulu.
- [Memphis] They drew disappointing crowds in Louisville and Memphis for the ESPN tapings on September 18 and 19, despite the big names brought in. Crowds were between 2,000 and 3,500 for Louisville and around 5,000 for Memphis. Looking over the results, not a lot of interesting stuff, though the unification match between Lawler and Von Erich had a double disqualification that led to arguing between Frank Dusek and Eddie Marlin to set up Memphis vs. AWA as a feud between promotions, which is kind of new for America. An interpromotional feud drew really well for New Japan vs. IWE back in 1981-82, so there’s some soundness to the theory, at least.
- Hector Guerrero is full time as a children’s gymnastics instructor in Tennessee now.
- Mick Foley now has a whip as a gimmick, which has played into the whole Brickhouse Brown vs. the Studd Stable feud. Ron Fuller claimed to still own Brown’s contract and since Brown doesn’t have money, he brought out Brown’s “aunt,” whom he’s extorting for money now. Brown started crying over this and it went over well and led to Fuller’s wife coming out crying and saying they’d give him back his contract, only for the whole group to jump Brown and choke him out with Foley’s whip.
- Bam Bam Bigelow is set to debut for the NWA on the September 27 tv taping as a babyface. You’d think he’d come in as a top heel, because they really could use a fresh new top heel, but they didn’t because they seem to be ready to turn the Road Warriors heel by attacking Dusty Rhodes, which would set up the Road Warriors vs. Rhodes and possibly Bigelow. Dave doesn’t get why they’re bringing Bigelow in this week, since he’s immediately heading to Japan for a month after this taping.
- Ric Flair made his first non-NWA appearance in a long while on September 20 for Don Owen’s Portland Wrestling. He wrestled Top Gun (David Sierra) and lost by disqualification for throwing Top Gun over the top rope in an NWA World Title match.
- WWF’s syndicated network drew a 9.6 rating for the week ending August 28. NWA got a 6.1 rating. Dave gives a more accurate picture of the ratings situation by noting that Superstars of Wrestling, WWF’s top rated show, draws a 3 average each week, as compared to shows like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, which draw a 12.4 and 11.4, respectively.
- Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson will debut at the WWF tapings next week as the Brainbusters, managed by Bobby Heenan and going up against the Rockers and the British Bulldogs in their arena debuts at the end of the month. Dave considers it likely they’ll get a good push, as it might hurt their chances of signing Ric Flair if they don’t.
- Gorilla Monsoon’s father died, so he’s been off tv for a few dates. Vince McMahon has been filling in for him on Prime Time Wrestling (which has a lie of a name, since it airs at 12:30 am on Wednesdays).
- ”One Man Gang is now known as ‘Akeem’ and will be the first white wrestler pretending to be black. Actually the second, Kevin Sullivan did the same gimmick in Florida last year pretending to be Kareem Muhammad’s cousin.”
- Almost 30 years later, Corey Graves and Cathy Kelley attempt to explain this racist absurdity by having Corey wax nostalgic about those parts
- Someone writes in this week to criticize Irv Muchnick’s article in Penthouse on the Von Erichs because “Anyone of us that subscribes to the kayfabe sheets and especially the Observer is privy to information that if placed in inappropriate hands would be damaging to the wrestling business.” The writer continues on to say things like “if you are a friend of pro wrestling, you don’t go public with your inside info no matter how you got it,” “it is always wrong to expose this business on any level if you are a friend of pro wrestling,” “If David Von Erich was old enough to go to Japan, then he was old enough to make his own decisions about drugs,” and claims that if we accept Fritz exploited his family, we must logically accept that Irv not writing his article for free means he has exploited the Von Erich family for profit too and is just as bad. Can we take a moment to appreciate the big fucking blinders you have to have on to write a letter saying that you should never publish your information on the inside baseball of pro wrestling to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter? Like, does this person even know what the Observer is? This letter is amazingly stupid. Dave points out that Irv is a reporter, not shill for the business, and his responsibility is to the truth, not to massaging the feelings of people in the business, and publishing it doesn’t make Irv any less a fan.
- We also get a really fun description of the larval form of the internet wrestling community from another writer. This writer feels Dave’s trying too hard to evaluate all wrestling by the same criteria and he needs to accept that WWE will be something different to his tastes, similar to how you can’t judge a cowboy movie for not having rayguns.
- If you want to throw in the 25-30 folks on the computer wrestling board I frequent who are hardcore fans, several of whom subscribe to the Observer, the general impression [of Summerslam] was pretty much favorable. Nobody was going crazy as they did for the first Clash or Wrestlemania IV (Yes, your fabled failure drew mostly excellent notices online) but people were happy, especially with the Hart Foundation-Demolition match. How can you give that 1½ stars when in the same issue you rate a Phil Hickerson vs. Jeff Jarrett match with 3½ stars?
- Another week, another round of award favorites. For Feud of the Year, Dave considers the big feuds across promotions and comes down to Duggan vs. Savage as number one for having the best combo of drawing power, match quality, and interview quality. Second goes to the Midnight Express vs. the Fantastics because of their match quality and third goes to Lawler vs. Gilbert in Memphis on the strength of their interviews. Match of the Year is one of Dave’s favorite categories, and he already sees potential contenders in two matches that he hasn’t seen yet: the September 12 10 man elimination match in New Japan and the August 25 Lioness Asuka vs. Chigusa Nagayo match. Based on ones he has seen, he’d say first is The foot Loose vs. Shinichi Nakano and Shinji Takano in New Japan on July 19 in Korauken Hall, followed by the Midnight Express vs. Fanatics US tag title match on April 26 in Chattanooga, and third Ric Flair vs. Sting from the first Clash of the Champions. Finally, for Worst Manager, Dave figures Paul Jones and Mr. Fuji will likely be the top contenders, since they always seem to get the most votes and are still sticking around.
- Curt Hennig’s Mr. Perfect character will debut with clips of him being perfect in all sports. It begins.
- Enjoy the perfect playlist
- Lou Thesz was on the local tv sportscast in Washington D.C. with host George Michael this week. Michael asked Thesz, who is 72 years old, if he felt he could beat Hulk Hogan today and gave the impression that he felt Thesz could do it a few years ago, but that he thinks Thesz might not be able to at his current age. Thesz confidently said he’d win with no issue because Hogan doesn’t know how to wrestle. About a week earlier, there was an article celebrating former NWA chair Sam Muchnick’s 83rd birthday in a St. Louis newspaper and Muchnick also said that 72 year old Lou Thesz could beat Hulk Hogan. Dave recalls that a few years ago in 1985, they did a photoshoot of Thesz training Bruiser Brody during Brody’s feud with Inoki. The idea was Thesz was teaching Brody wrestling holds, and Thesz was still so quick and fluid with his holds that Dave thinks there’s a good chance he would have beaten Brody in a legit wrestling contest. Thesz did compliment Randy Savage as a great athlete and good wrestler.
- I can't find the clip, but here's another clip of Thesz talking about Hogan