January 06, 1992
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- [1991 archive for anyone who missed them] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/4so8a9/wrestling_observer_rewind_12231991_final_post_for/)
- Back again! Time to get started with 1992. As always, I'll try to post these once a day, unless life gets in the way.
- Inside Edition's steroid story should air by the time you read this. Dave hasn't seen it yet, but word is that it has potential to be significantly damaging to WWF and Hulk Hogan in particular. It's considered such a big story that Inside Edition put their top producers on it and say that it has been examined by their lawyers more than any other story they've ever run, to ensure they don't get sued. WWF has refused to respond to it, saying it's a dead issue because of the company's new steroid testing policy.
- ABC's 20/20 is working on a steroid story as well (which Dave was interviewed for) and 60 Minutes may be doing one soon also. How this will affect others remains to be seen. Dave says that it's slightly unfair that Hogan is being made the face of the issue, when almost the entire company is on the juice. But it was his own dishonesty in interviews like the Arsenio Hall Show that put him in this spot. As for WCW, they'll likely continue to ignore it since WWF seems to be taking all the heat, but the problem exists in WCW also. Of course, the big question is what about the long-term health effects of all this steroid use? (Boy, we would sure find out later)
- Speaking of steroids, Dr. Zahorian was finally sentenced last week to 3 years in federal prison, 2 years of probation for each of the 12 counts, a $12,700 fine, and forfeiture of his $3.7 million dollar office/condo (because the jury ruled it was used for committing drug distribution crimes). Considering he was facing a possible 44-year sentence, he probably lucked out.
- Starrcade '91 happened. Long story short, Dave didn't particularly care for it. No real news coming out of it to talk about.
- Former 1960s star Wilbur Snyder passed away at age 62 from leukemia. Fun note: Snyder was billed as "the world's most scientific wrestler" and is known for inventing the abdominal stretch.
- At the upcoming New Japan/WCW Jan. 4th show in Tokyo, one of the top matches is Antonio Inoki vs. Hiroshi Hase. And rather than try to sum this up, I'll just copy and paste this insanity from Dave because holy shit:
- The Hase story has gotten a great deal of mainstream press in the past few weeks since Inoki is still a member of Japanese parliament. Hase went to parliament to challenge Inoki for the Dome, but since Inoki had already agreed to wrestle Singh, he told Hase he needed to get Singh to agree to give Hase the match. Hase and Hiro Matsuda went to Singh's home in Toronto with some photographers and asked Singh to let him have his dream match against the legendary Inoki. Singh, naturally, refused. They ended in Singh's backyard shooting an angle where Singh hit Hase from behind with a rifle and then he and his son threw him (Hase was wearing a business suit) into a frozen lake. Matsuda had to drag Hase out of the lake. This set up the second "Jungle Death match" on Ganryujima (an Island in Japan) on 12/18. The match, with no spectators, in the jungle going until one man couldn't continue, lasted 71:24. Both men juicing heavily and them tearing the ring apart and setting a tent on fire among other things before Hase won and Singh did a stretcher job. Ganryujima was the site of famous samurai fights in Japanese folklore hundreds of years ago and the first Jungle Death match occurred in 1987 between Antonio Inoki and Masa Saito.
- Linda McMahon is scheduled to testify on WWF's behalf at the next hearing in Florida regarding regulating pro wrestling in the state.
- Fun bit of trivia, a Mexican publication did a story on the history of masks in wrestling and apparently, the first masked wrestler was James Atts in Ft. Worth TX back in 1933. A few weeks later, a masked wrestler named The Masked Marvel debuted at MSG. The first Mexican masked wrestler was The Masked Man in 1934. Masks became the calling card of Lucha Libre due to El Santo, who began wearing his famous white mask in 1942 while making a, uh...a good...a good lucha thing. Also, the Parks & Rec Dept. in the Mexico City suburb of Coyoacan has announced plans to build a Luche Libre museum.
- Roddy Piper showed up at the television taping of the final episode of Portland Wrestling and cut a touching, heartfelt promo about promoter Don Owen and how great he is, causing Owen to tear up. (It's true. To this day, Don Owen is regarded as probably the most honest and fair wrestling promoter ever. Fun fact not mentioned here: Piper loved Don Owen so much that he vowed to never compete against him. True to his word, for years afterward, whenever WWF was in the region, on Owen's turf, Piper would refuse to work the shows.)
- Former Stampede Wrestling manager Abu Wizal is promoting a show dubbed as the return of Stampede Wrestling, although there is no involvement from the Hart family. If the show is a success, they will be running shows every other week (it was not a success).
- Dave was the guest on a sports radio show that covers wrestling, and was told after they were off the air that the reason they hadn't invited him on the show sooner was because Vince McMahon had paid for a sponsorship deal on the show on the explicit condition that they not have Meltzer on as a guest anymore.
- Sid Justice is scheduled to return at the television tapings next week.
- Jesse Ventura has filed a lawsuit against Vince McMahon, regarding the use of Ventura's announcing work on video releases and compilations that Ventura wasn't paid for. (Ventura had some sort of special contract regarding his commentary, where they essentially had to pay him every time it was used outside of the original event. For years afterward, even on later DVD releases showing old matches, Ventura's commentary was often edited out because of this. In fact, I think to this day, I believe Ventura still gets paid if they use his commentary.)
- At a recent TV taping, WCW filmed an angle where Mr. Hughes ran PN News into the ring post and damaged his eye. The reason for this is because there was an altercation in a bar between PN News and Rick Rude, which News came out on the losing end of. Apparently, Rude was arm-wrestling people and PN News was challenged to use both of his arms to only one of Rude's and he still couldn't beat him. Somehow this led to a fight and led to News getting a black eye. Dave says that even though other, bigger guys might look stronger, aside from maybe Scott Norton, there's probably not anyone in the business who could beat Rude at arm wrestling.
- The Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) missed Starrcade because he had surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow.
- Lex Luger has the entire month of January off and there is a lot of speculation that Luger won't be around much longer. But Dave says it's hard to imagine anyone walking out on the type of big contract Luger has. Imagine harder, Dave...