April 27, 1992
- WWF just had it's most successful European tour ever, drawing monster crowds and setting records for merchandise sold. The tour earned the company more money than Wrestlemania did, even without Hulk Hogan. WWF now plans to run European tours 3 times per year.
- WCW will be announcing an NWA tag team title tournament. There will be 8 teams from WCW and 8 teams from other promotions competing for the titles. WCW will be showing videos documenting the history of the NWA and the territories in order to familiarize fans who may not remember the old NWA. Several of the outside wrestlers being brought in are also there so WCW can get a look at them and maybe hire them (particularly Chris Benoit, who's being brought in as part of a Canadian team). The tournament will take place over a few weeks and will air on the Clash of the Champions and the following month's Great American Bash. (basically the same formula WWE used for the Cruiserweight Classic). The NWA will be presented as a worldwide organization, and WCW shown as the American member. NWA champions will be crowned but won't be making regular appearances. Dave hopes it works out because it will be interesting to see these different guys being shuffled in and out sometimes.
- More on GWF's financial situation, the company still plans to run weekly shows out of Dallas (even with their depleted roster) and there's no indication that the company's ESPN deal is in trouble, since ESPN barely pays attention or cares about the quality of the wrestling show. It's just a time filler for the network. However, with only local talent, it's doubtful the company can keep drawing crowds to those ESPN tapings.
- The 20/20 segment about steroids finally aired and while it included things about wrestling and Hulk Hogan, the primary focus of the segment was about steroid use in bodybuilding and football, so overall, it probably wasn't that damaging to WWF.
- The Murray Hodgson lawsuit against WWF has depositions starting this week. Hodgson claimed he was fired as a television announcer after refusing Pat Patterson's advances. WWF flatly denies it. Dave goes into a long confusing explanation about why one side has to be lying and contradictory statements given by both sides and says it will almost certainly get settled out of court before it ever goes in front of a jury.
- The new talk-show format for the WCW Saturday Night show is a dud. The matches are too long with workers who aren't good enough (nobody wants to see Big Josh in a 38-minute match, and yet...), the guest hosts are awful, and the crowds are dead. He applauds them for trying something new, but it's not working.
- In Japan, SWS ran a couple of Flair vs. Tenryu matches, with each man winning one of them. Also on this tour, on one night they ran a 3-out-of-5 falls eight-man tag team match that lasted for almost 75 minutes, which makes it the longest wrestling match in many years.
- Dave interviewed another steroid expert who ripped apart the credibility of WWF's tests and says their claims are impossible. This is kind of a boring issue today, sorry everybody...
- And still moooore 1991 awards results!
- And from here, he goes on to recap all the winners at once, so that's it! Only took us 4 full months to find out everything.
- Andre The Giant worked a 6-man match in Mexico and the show was advertised as Andre's Final Match in Mexico.
- In USWA in Memphis, they did an angle where Moondog Spot came out to the ring with a bubbling liquid that was supposed to be battery acid and tried to throw it at Jeff Jarrett, but Eric Embry jumped in the way to protect him and ended up taking it in the face and eyes. The crew did a great job of faking a panic and grabbing fans drinks from ringside to flush Embry's eyes out and things like that to make it look realistic (man, this would be an awesome angle to steal now).
- Brad Armstrong's brother Scott ("that crooked ref Scott Armstrong!") is using Brad's old Arachnaman gimmick on the indies in Alabama.
- Kevin Wacholz is coming in to WWF this weekend as The Convict (not quite) for a feud with Big Boss Man. Advance ticket sales for upcoming house shows are week everywhere.
- Ted Dibiase is out right now for personal reasons, but also because his back is still injured (Dibiase has talked a lot about how this time in his career was bad for him personally with drugs and his marriage failing and his back eventually led to his retirement.)
- Warlord has been pulled from all bookings for 60 days for "unannounced reasons." Sure sounds like a suspension-length period of time to be off the road to me...
- WWF has decided to end Paul Bearer's Funeral Parlor and Brutus Beefcake's Barber Shop segments. Piper's Pit will stick around but will only be interviews from the ring, no special set. Speaking of Roddy Piper, he filmed a guest spot on an episode of Superboy (about Clark Kent in his younger years, ala Smallville) that airs next month. When asked by the star of the show if wrestling was fixed, Piper told the actor that the preliminary matches are, but that there's too much money involved in the main event matches for those wrestlers to take a dive. Leave it to Hot Rod to kayfabe fuckin' Superman.
- Sting is still out with injured ribs (2 broken and one chipped) and will likely be returning at the War Games PPV next month. WCW deserves a lot of credit because they almost immediately began announcing on TV that Sting was injured and would be missing all upcoming shows. From a company with so much history of false advertising, they deserve credit for making sure fans knew in advance that the top draw wouldn't be there. Not many promoters would have done that.
- Still no word about Jake Roberts, but he'll probably be showing up in WCW as soon as he's contractually able to. Vince McMahon has been burying Jake on commentary lately so it's safe to say he's not coming back.
- "Steve Austin has a new Bosworth hairdo." (an exact quote from Dave.)