July 20, 1992
- Big Van Vader became the first wrestler in history to win world titles in 4 different countries after defeating Sting at the Great American Bash to win the WCW title this weekend. He's previously held the IWGP (Japan), CWA (Germany), and UWA (Mexico) championships.
- WATCH: Sting vs. Big Van Vader - Great American Bash 1992
- The plan is for Vader to be a short-term transitional champion and drop the belt soon to Ron Simmons. Dave says it's obvious what the motive is here, given the recent racism controversy in WCW (there was a stink recently about how the company had almost no black employees other than Simmons and I think Teddy Long). Bill Watts had great success with pushing Junkyard Dog as his top star several years ago but race won't put butts in seats. JYD drew because he was charismatic and hugely popular. Most of the black stars Watts tried to push afterward flopped because they didn't have the it-factor that JYD did. So if Simmons is going to succeed as WCW's top star, he'll have to be more than just the first black guy they could find. And so far, he hasn't really shown anything special as far as in-ring skills or charisma go. He's a decent enough worker, but nothing special and there's at least half a dozen babyfaces in WCW that are more over than Simmons.
- The NWA belt that Ric Flair had is finally back in WCW's possession. Bill Watts showed the belt on the Great American Bash PPV and gave it to Hiro Matsuda and officially announced the NWA world title tournament taking place in Japan. Matsuda will award the title to the winner. It was announced that the winner of that tournament will then eventually face the WCW champion to consolidate the 2 titles into one championship. Flair was paid around $28,000 for it, which is less than the initial asking price and all the lawsuits were settled earlier in the week. Watts even mentioned Ric Flair in his promo, acknowledging him as the last NWA champion.
- WATCH: Bill Watts announces NWA World Championship Tournament in Japan
- The Great American Bash, the first PPV under the Bill Watts era, took place this weekend and it was a markedly different show. Less highspots. More matwork and holds and clean jobs. The company is clearly going in a totally extreme and different direction, which will take time to educate the fans on. The crowd seemed mostly bored throughout the show and "boring" seems to be the overall consensus of the show, though Dave seems to have mostly enjoyed it.
- Update on the numbers for the AAA show that happened a couple weeks ago in L.A.: it was a monster success. The 2nd largest grossing non-WWF show ever in California and by far the most successful indie show in US history, bringing in $120,000. For comparison, Dave notes that the biggest gate Jerry Lawler ever drew in Memphis was $80,000, which was for a Lawler vs. Flair NWA title match. Clearly there's a huge market for lucha libre in California.
- More word coming in that Hulk Hogan has agreed to a deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling. Japanese media reported that Hogan will start in September. A top NJPW star personally told Dave that Hogan had agreed to a deal for $100,000 per show and that Hogan would start at the Jan. 4 1993 show. Other sources tell Dave that Hogan hasn't agreed to anything yet, although there are definitely negotiations going on. Meanwhile, WWF wants Hogan back as soon as possible, but Hogan is taking his time. If Hogan does work the Jan. 4th show, it'll be interesting since the show is a combination NJPW/WCW event and will air 2 days later in the US as a WCW PPV.
- Dave announces that this is a double-issue this week because there's so much to get to but really, it just seems like he padded the issue with a bunch of backlogged letters from readers and, for some reason, a list of all the WWF wrestlers' real names and ages. He also gives reader results to the previous Question of the Week, about where everyone stands on the new Bill Watts rules. Only thing notable is that the top rope rule was met with almost unanimous dislike by the readers. The next question of the week is "What would you pick as the greatest match of the past 10 years?" (so from 82-92) and Dave will give us the results next time (this 'Question of the Week' feature dies off pretty quick so don't get used to it).
- In All Japan, Barry Horowitz has been using 2 Live Crew's "Pop That Coochie" as his entrance music, which is ruffling some feathers.
- .........
- Fuck it, why not?
- WATCH: 2 Live Crew - "Pop That Coochie" (Official Video)
- Genichiro Tenryu's new promotion WAR is having it's first major show in September and has planning to have 10 of WWF's top stars working the show, including the WWF champion (probably Ultimate Warrior by then, Dave thinks) defending the title on the show.
- Dave is a little perturbed at the lack of respect shown to "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers following his death last week. WCW at least acknowledged his death, but Dave feels they should have done more considering what an important figure he is in wrestling history. As for WWF, Dave's exact quote: "It speaks volumes for Vince McMahon to not even mention Rogers' death on any of his shows considering that in 1963, Rogers was literally dragged out of the hospital after a heart attack to drop the strap to Bruno Sammartino for Vince's father." Pro-wrestling was basically invented in the U.S. and Dave thinks it's sad that America doesn't really have a sense of history for the past of the business in the same way that Mexico and Japan do. Rogers was probably the biggest drawing heel in wrestling history and his death went almost totally ignored. In Japan, they still have annual memorial shows for Bruiser Brody and Feb. 5 is practically a national holiday in Mexico because it's the day El Santo died. Overall, Dave seems pretty disgusted with the industry as a whole.
- Speaking of disgusted, Dave thinks it's pretty shitty of WWF to be implying that guys like British Bulldog or Tatanka got their big muscular physiques by taking Vince's new ICOPRO workout supplement and goes on to call it old carny snake oil. Dave's feeling feisty this week.
- Verne Gagne did an interview in a Japanese magazine recently and talked about starting a new promotion using amateur wrestling stars.
- El Gigante has officially signed with WWF but won't be starting until around Janurary.
- WWF has hired a hot-shot PR firm in order to try and boost their image after all the recent scandals.
- Last week, a few people tried to picket a WWF show in New York over the sex scandals. One of the women, a housewife from New York, appeared on a radio show and claims that one of the wrestlers saw them picketing and tried to run her over as he was arriving to the show. On the other hand, she also said another wrestler, who's name she didn't mention but says he's one of the top stars, was very friendly to her and apologized for how other wrestlers were behaving towards them.
- On the same radio show, a kid who worked as a ringboy for WWF made some claims about a sexual harrassment incident that happened to him when he was 13. That same kid was in the audience at the Donahue show taping that Vince McMahon appeared on a few months back. At the time of the Donahue show, he still worked with WWF. He claims that before the Donahue taping started, Vince McMahon instructed and coached him to say a bunch of negative things about other people on the stage (Sammartino, Barry O, etc.) during the audience question portion of the show if he was picked to ask questions (and apparently, he was).
- WWF held a show in Charlotte, NC for the first time since Flair jumped ship. Flair received a hero's welcome, while his opponent, Randy Savage, was booed out of the building.
- Making his TV debut in AAA is a 17-year-old kid named Rey Misterio Jr., who previously worked locally under the name Colibri and gained a big rep for being a crazy high flyer.
- Morale in the WCW locker room has never been lower. Part of it is all the new rules (including the latest, all wrestlers are to remain in the building until after the main event is over and the Watts telling heels and faces that they can't even have contact with each other outside of the locker room). There's also concern that the company is trying to "run off" certain stars with big contracts by jobbing them into embarrassment and replacing them with good ol' boys like Dick Slater and Barbarian that Watts is close to. Guys who have guaranteed contracts and are apparently very worried include Brian Pillman, Tom Zenk, The Freebirds, and Marcus Bagwell, among others. WCW wants them to give up their big contracts and agree to smaller per-night deals and if they don't agree, Watts will job them out in opening matches until they do.
- Terry Funk is suing WCW over a back injury suffered in 1989.
- The rest of the issue is like, 10 pages of reader letters. In one, Dave responds and talks about the progression of great matches and says, "Buddy Rogers vs. Pat O'Connor may have been legendary in its time, but put it heads up with Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat and it looks primitive. Thirty years from now, Flair vs. Steamboat will look primitive." Well, it's been almost 30 years since the '89 Flair/Steamboat matches. What do we think, do they stand the test of time?