May 18, 1991
- WWF returned from it's most successful overseas tour in history in the UK. WWF is apparently more popular over there than it is in America.
- WWF has kept their word and pulled out of all their future St. Louis dates, after the arena there gave WCW a show in July. Word is WWF is now looking to book 8-10 dates during the next year at the Omni in Atlanta, which is WCW's home base, in an effort to kill their drawing power in their hometown.
- One of the biggest upsets in recent history took place in Japan when Norio Honaga, a long-time preliminary wrestler, won a tournament for the vacated IWGP junior heavyweight title, defeating Pegasus Kid (Benoit) and Jushin Liger.
- Last week's Saturday Night Main Event rating was better than the show in February, but still down from previous years and doesn't look good for the future of prime-time specials on network TV for the WWF.
- Through the first quarter of 1991, WWF and WCW are neck-and-neck in cable ratings. WWF does much better in syndication however.
- Andre The Giant filmed an angle where he refused the services of all heel managers, leading to Jimmy Hart coming out, claiming he had gotten Andre to sign a contract with him to form a tag team with Earthquake. Then Earthquake clipped Andre's knees from behind and took him down. I actually remember this. It never really lead to anything though, mainly because by this point, Andre was basically crippled:
- There's a wrestler working in Tampa named Horace Boulder, who is said to be Hulk Hogan's cousin (nephew, actually) and is using the leg drop as his finisher (and indeed he was, and would later join WCW as Horace Hogan. Nice to see that dude was milking his Hulk Hogan relation from day 1).
- At an FMW show in Japan, a fan was killed. Not much info other than he was apparently trying to climb something and fell down. This will probably turn into a big news story in the coming days (as far as I can tell from reading ahead, it doesn't. I don't think Dave ever even mentions it again).
- Jeff Jarrett was in a car accident that could have been a lot worse. Was hit head on by an out of control car that had lost its brakes. Jarrett managed to get out of the car before it burst into flames and was treated and released a few hours later.
- The first AWA shows in almost a year took place on May 2nd and 3rd. And fun fact! Those would end up being the last AWA shows ever. So if you ever want to know the answer to the trivia question, the final match in the history of AWA was Greg Gange (of course) & Wahoo McDaniel vs. Mike Enos & Wayne Bloom (later the Beverly Brothers in WWF). Greg and Wahoo won. I googled like crazy and can't find any footage of this, sadly.
- WWF's first show in Los Angeles since Wrestlemania actually drew a larger paid attendance than WM did, even though Hogan wasn't even on the card.
- Over in WCW, a 400-pound guy doing a rapper gimmick named P.N. News is getting over huge and is expected to get a push soon.
- There's a lot of concern that Sid Vicious won't show up for the Superbrawl stretcher match against El Gigante and even if he does show up, it's almost certain that he won't actually do a stretcher job. WCW is making references on TV to Sid possibly not showing up for the match, in order to prepare fans to not be disappointed if he really does no-show. Dave expects he will show up, job cleanly, but won't do the stretcher job (nailed it).