February 18, 1991
- Dave is still ranting about the Gulf War/Slaughter/Hogan storyline. Seems to have really touched a nerve with him. He goes into how it was a bad business decision because of WM7 being forced to move to the smaller arena. Even if you buy WWF's official story that the show is moving due to security concerns, those concerns wouldn't exist if Vince wasn't promoting this Sgt. Slaughter/Iraqi sympathizer storyline. In the end, WWF stands to lose anywhere from $1 to $2.5 million in profits due to the venue change, and no matter how you slice it, it's 100% Vince's fault.
- The 2/1 Saturday Night's Main Event special on NBC drew the lowest rating by far of any WWF program ever on NBC. The one a few months prior, without Hulk Hogan, did far better than this one, which had Hogan all over it. Meltzer attributes the current downswing to the controversial Slaughter storyline.
- Back to Wrestlemania 7, while there is some truth to the security concerns, the real reason for the move is indeed the lack of ticket sales. Contrary to what Dave reported last week, the actual number of paid tickets is anywhere between 11,900 and 15,000 (I think he ended up over-correcting there). WWF will not need to refund anyone's tickets, which means that a month away from Wrestlemania, they haven't sold even enough to fill up the L.A. Sports Arena yet, much less the 105,000-seat Coliseum. This story keeps getting messier in later issues.
- Legion of Doom is negotiating to leave WWF and go work in New Japan full-time but so far, the two sides can't come to a financial agreement.
- Andy Kaufman's wrestling clips were compiled for a documentary called "I'm From Hollywood" that will be released soon (you can find it on YouTube now, split into, like, 9 parts)
- WCW is running commercials with the tag line "We've Declared War" which is coming under fire from several media outlets, considering the situation with the Gulf War. WCW is going back and forth on whether to pull the commercials off TV.
- Scott Steiner doesn't want to split up his tag team with his brother, so a singles run is out for him. Brian Pillman is in line for a mega singles push soon, in the Magnum T.A.-underdog style. Early 90s Scott Steiner had megastar main eventer written all over him. I can't imagine how much money he missed out on because he didn't want to be a singles star.
- WWF is planning two $5.95 PPVs later in the year. The first will be a Best of Wrestlemania show and the next will be a Best of Hulkamania show.
- Forbes Magazine did an article about Legion of Doom's Zubaz pants business (Fun fact: LOD co-created Zubaz and were partners in running the business).
- Prime Time Wrestling will be changing formats a bit with more comedy sketches and will be done in front of a studio audience. And so it was.