May 18, 1992
- In a shocking announcement, Turner Broadcasting announced this week that they have hired Bill Watts to take over as Vice President of Wrestling Operations for WCW. Watts' duties will see him taking over all aspects of the wrestling side of the business and everyone within WCW will report to him. Kip Frey's new position is VP of Business Affairs (he will handle the boring business-side stuff).
- From here, Dave details Bill Watts' history in the business and speculates on how it could affect WCW. On the upside, he's a perfectionist who is known for getting across believable angles and getting new talent over, which are things WCW desperately needs. On the downside, he's been out of the business for 5 years and the industry is a whole different world in 1992 than it was in 1987, the advent of PPV and the concept of building around PPVs and TV rather than house shows being the biggest difference. Watts was successful regionally, but he may be out of his depth on a national level. Plus he never dealt with a corporate atmosphere like he will with Turner. All in all, expect a lot of major changes in the short term. Long term, Watts' success or failure depends on how he adapts to how the business has changed (take a guess how he managed on that front).
- WCW Wrestle War '92 takes place this Sunday in Jacksonville, which is WCW's top city. Only 1,400 tickets have been sold so far (the building seats 7,000) which isn't a good sign for the company putting on a PPV in their best city.
- Not much new on the Sid Justice suspension. As of now, most still expect he'll be back at the end of his 6-week suspension, but who knows. Chances are he will take the summer off and then jump to whichever company wants him most. It's possible he may wind up in New Japan or even back in WCW, although publicly, WCW is seemingly not interested in bringing Sid back.
- Regarding the EMLL split in Mexico, Antonio Pena announced the creation of a new company: El Asistencia Asesoria Administration. AAA for short. Pena also announced the signing of 32 wrestlers and announced the group's first live shows. Many of EMLL's champions, including 3 of their top stars (El Hijo Del Santo, Octagon, and Konnan) all jumped ship to AAA. Naturally, you can expect EMLL to book a lot of quick title changes to get the belts off their departing stars or likely several titles being vacated.
- Eddie Gilbert showed up in USWA in Memphis as the GWF champion...unbeknownst to GWF. Gilbert is apparently not going back to Dallas to drop the title in GWF and plans to work a unification angle with USWA and Jerry Lawler (he basically did to GWF exactly what Vince was afraid Bret was gonna do in 1997). He showed up on USWA TV with the GWF title and it was played up as if he was an outsider to the company who wasn't supposed to be there and security dragged him out. Meanwhile, GWF is officially stripping Gilbert of the title and holding a tournament to crown a new champion.
- WATCH: Eddie Gilbert as Global Wrestling Federation champion returns to USWA
- I'm skipping over more coverage of the steroid scandal because it's more of the same. I try to write the stuff in here that's new or different, but literally every week, there's 2 or 3 new newspaper articles or television pieces where they interview Billy Graham or somebody and they trot out the same accusations against Hogan and WWF. It's obviously news and Dave covers it, but at this point, it's mostly just the same thing week after week.
- Harley Race is involved in a civil suit in Kansas City concerning a boating accident 2 years ago. The plaintiff claims Race was drunk and recklessly crashed his boat into the plaintiff's cabin cruiser. Race's lawyer admits Harley had a few drinks but says he crashed into their boat because it was night time and they didn't have rear lights. Race then jumped into the water to rescue the woman and her husband. The woman suffered broken bones in her back and shattered legs and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Race then allegedly cursed out the cops and refused to take a breathalyzer test.
- Andre The Giant worked his final show in Mexico in a match that also featured a young wrestler named Black Scorpio (who wrestles as Flying Scorpio in New Japan) and Dave says he has tremendous potential. WWF, WCW, and ECW fans of the 90s may remember him as 2 Cold Scorpio or Flash Funk. Fans of Mick Foley's books may remember him as the guy Foley claims had the biggest dick god ever hung on a man.
- Lou Thesz was the guest referee in a UWFI match in Japan. Before the match, Thesz addressed the crowd and said that in the US, the top promotions are the WWF and WCW and called them a circus, while saying UWFI is what real pro wrestling is.
- WATCH: Lou Thesz smack-talks WWF and WCW in Japan at UWFI show
- FMW had a show which featured Sheik and Sabu vs. Atsushi Onita and Tarzan Goto in a no ropes barbed wire fire match. Dave doesn't have all the details, but apparently Sheik was badly burned and had to return back to America for treatment (that's putting it mildly. I don't think Dave covers it much in later issues, so long story short, he suffered 3rd degree burns in the match. Awhile later (I think a few weeks), he was still suffering effects from the match, was hospitalized and was briefly in a coma and by some reports, he almost died. Here's a cool link that explains it, plus has video):
- READ/WATCH: The Sheik nearly dying in a flaming barbed wire match in FMW
- Dave notes that Brian Christopher (Jerry Lawler's real life son) is becoming an amazing heel, much like his father was early in his career. Memphian here, can vouch. Most people only know him as Grand Master Sexay but having watched him most of his career, he was always at his best as a slimy chickenshit heel.
- Joel Goodhart did an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, explaining why he left the wrestling business. It's essentially what was already reported: he spent himself into debt by bringing in top stars for these indie shows. He claimed to have lost $95,000 of his own money trying to keep TWA afloat before selling it off to Tod Gordon.
- British Bulldog and jobber Chris Walker have been suspended by the WWF for 6 weeks each for failing drug tests.
- Lex Luger is scheduled to be a "guest poser" at the WBF PPV coming up in a few weeks (a motorcycle accident a couple of days before the show would sadly rob us of that one).
- This week's episode of Family Feud featured heel WWF wrestlers against a team of WBF bodybuilders.
- WATCH: Family Feud episode featuring WWF vs. WBF
- Expect Jake Roberts to debut in WCW at the Clash of the Champions next month, although they could change plans and end up doing it at one of the upcoming PPVs.
- From the letters, Dave Prazak (later ROH commentator and founder of SHIMMER) is looking for some old Smoky Mountain Wrestling videos, Apter Mags, and more.