January 21, 1991
- Dave starts the issue by giving some backstory on Sting and Flair. When Sting won the NWA Championship in July 1990, it was seen as WCW's attempt to phase out Flair and usher in Sting as the new face of WCW. But business tanked with Sting on top and so they decided to go back to Flair (his 7th reign, which tied him with Harley Race at the time for most reigns). They initially wanted to do it at Starrcade, with Sting dropping the belt to the Black Scorpion, but Sting balked at that because, duh, and so they did it about a month later. Sting was getting Cena-esque mixed reactions while Flair was the clear face to the crowd. TL;DR - Sting's first title reign in WCW was a bust, despite revisionist history that says otherwise. In fairness, some of it wasn't Sting's fault. The company was in shambles.
- Passing mentions of how Vince McMahon thought Butch Reed would be the biggest heel since Gorgeous George because he was a black man with blonde hair. Or how he thought Honky Tonk Man (imitating Elvis) would be a huge babyface because oldies radio stations were so popular. Basically, Vince has always been totally out of touch.
- The TV show "Inside Edition" has been at recent WCW tapings, filming Michael Wallstreet (aka Bray & Bo's dad) because I guess they think a character like that will bring in the Forbes audience for pro wrestling.
- Boxing promoter Don King has been meeting with EMLL wrestlers in Mexico recently, but Dave doesn't go into why.
- Vince is threatening legal action against UWF promoter Herb Abrams for using his stars, specifically Rick Rude and Honky Tonk Man, on UWF programming. Both guys had recently walked out of WWF while still under contract and Vince believes they have no right to appear on UWF's shows (like if CM Punk had immediately gone to TNA after quitting). Meanwhile, he's also claiming a copyright on Honky Tonk Man's name and gimmick. HTM is fighting it, saying he used the Honky Tonk name prior to working for Vince and that Vince has no right to trademark the gimmick of Elvis impersonators, since there's thousands of them.
- Looks like a war may break out any second in the Middle East (indeed it did) and this is putting pressure on Vince because Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hogan at WM7 is still the plan. However, the Iraqi Embassy (!!!) is upset at Vince because of the character. They have demanded he stop using Saddam Hussein's name to hype the Sgt. Slaughter character.
- Ricky Steamboat just signed a 2 year contract with WWF and should be starting soon.
- Japanese company Super World of Sports (SWS) top star Genichiro Tenryu is scheduled to wrestle a singles match at WM7 (it actually ended up being a tag match against Demolition).
- Brutus Beefcake is expected to return to action soon. The gimmick will be that, since he has a steel plate in his head, Jack Tunney has forbidden him to wrestle without a mask due to his lethal headbutts. In reality, doctors have forbidden him to wrestle without face protection because one errant punch or bad fall could collapse his entire face in. Most other wrestlers in the locker room don't want him to return because they don't want to work with him and risk being the one to injure him.
- Wrestlemania 7 still needs to sell another 70,000 tickets to fill the stadium and tickets are moving slowly. (They should probably move it to a small arena a month before and claim they were scared of terrorist threats or something...)
- Chuck Austin, the guy injured by Marty Jannetty last month, may not be able to walk for at least a year.
- Jake Roberts wants to turn heel after his storyline with Rick Martel finishes at WM7 (and boy, did he ever. Best work of his career).