July 27, 1992
- Great American Bash numbers are in and it looks like it pretty much tied last month's Beach Blast PPV for lowest buyrate ever. For comparison, last year's Bash PPV, widely considered the worst PPV ever and coming after Ric Flair left the company, did double the buyrate of this year's. So yeah...not good.
- It appears that WWF may have screwed up by lying about Summerslam ticket sales. The company initially announced that the show had sold out within the first 5 hours of going on sale. Truth is, they only sold 60,000 tickets within the first 5 days (which is still incredible), but now sales have stalled and they're having trouble selling the remaining 20,000 or so, because everyone thinks the show is sold out now, so they're not even trying.
- The future of Vince McMahon's WBF bodybuilding venture looks bleak. This week, the company issued a press release announcing that they are suspending publication of the WBF magazine and made comments about building relationships with the other organizations in the bodybuilding industry. According to WBF's spokesman, this only means that they've chosen to get rid of the magazine, but other sources are saying this is the beginning of the end. Several of the bodybuilders (including the winner of the last 2 championship events, Gary Strydom) have quit or are actively trying to get out. Word is the company is probably just going to dump all its contracts with bodybuilders and stop running shows and instead focus all their effort on promoting ICOPRO products. The BodyStars show may continue as well, but will likely just turn into a glorified ICOPRO infomercial (since WWF is paying USA to air it anyway like any other infomercial).
- Dave drops the usual brief obituaries for 1950s wrestling stars "Dangerous Danny McShain and George Arena, who both passed away this week.
- The teenager who was in the crowd at the Donahue show taping and claimed Vince McMahon coached him is in the news again. Turns out he wasn't a ringboy, but he was a member of the Boy Scouts who attended the show with his Scout troop and got to go backstage. He claims he wanted to meet his favorite wrestler who was Bret Hart. So Kerry Von Erich told him to talk to Mel Phillips and he'd introduce him to Hart. Instead, Mel Phillips allegedly sexually abused him somehow. Other sources have told Dave that there are possibly upwards of 20 other underaged teens who have similar stories of being sexually abused by Phillips or others.
- Meanwhile, the Murray Hodgson lawsuit against WWF is ongoing, although Dave thinks it will all come to a head sometime in the next few weeks (likely an out of court settlement or Hodgson dropping the suit). Hodgson gave a deposition recently in the case and although it's sealed by court order from being released or talked about publicly, word is WWF is a lot more confident in their case now that they've heard Hodgson's full story.
- Dave notes that in 1985, the first Great American Bash show debuted at the Charlotte baseball stadium, drawing a sellout crowd of 27,000. This week, in 1992, WCW returned to the same stadium and only drew 2,200. And that was the still the biggest crowd they've had on the current tour.
- Missy Hyatt and Jason Hervey were bruised and shaken up after a hit-and-run driver knocked both of them off a motorcycle. They went to the hospital but were released without having suffered any major injuries. It was apparently intentional, after Hyatt and Hervey had an altercation with the driver previously. Police eventually tracked him down and arrested him on a whole slew of charges, from DUI to assault with a deadly weapon.
- Several of WWF's top stars (Undertaker, Legion of Doom, Ric Flair, Randy Savage, and Ultimate Warrior, among others) have been announced as appearing at a show in September for Genichiro Tenryu's WAR promotion. Tenryu will be challenging the WWF champion (likely Savage or Warrior) in the main event.
- In FMW, Tiger Jeet Singh did an angle where he attacked one of the women wrestlers with his sword and she bladed. He then attacked "fans" in the audience. I couldn't find video of this :(
- In Smoky Mountain Wrestling, The Heavenly Bodies defeated The Fantastics in a street fight in what was said to have been a legit five-star match, but Dave hasn't seen it himself yet.
- GWF wrestler John Tatum has also been handling the booking for the company, but quit after he was denied a raise and was insulted for even asking. Word is he will stick around as a wrestler and Gary Hart or Manny Fernandez will take over booking.
- The LPWA had a taping scheduled for this week but it was cancelled. And indeed, I'm pretty sure that was it for that promotion.
- In the wake of the recent controversies, ABC 20/20 is planning on re-airing the 1985 segment on they did on the WWF, which is famous for the incident where Dave Schultz assaulted ABC reporter John Stossell, which is one of the most famous moments in the show's history. The fact that everything else from that 1985 show regarding the business is outdated now doesn't seem to matter to them.
- Every week now, when giving the results of various indie promotions, Dave has been including results from Tod Gordon's Eastern Championship Wrestling. For instance, the most recent show drew 275 fans and featured later ECW stars like Sandman and J.T. Smith. Also, Jimmy Snuka is the ECW champion during this time. It's just interesting to kinda feel like we're watching this seed slowly grow into something.
- During the latest WCW tapings, they made a point to put the WCW world title over huge, with every wrestler, from the curtain jerkers to the top challenging Vader for a title match and making it seem like everyone in the world is gunning for the title. On commentary, Bill Watts even said he had gotten phone calls from Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Lex Luger, and Sid Vicious, all wanting a shot at Vader's title.
- There's rumors of a major heel debuting in WCW soon, and word is it might be Jake Roberts. Although latest word is that WWF is trying to legally prevent Roberts from using the "Jake The Snake Roberts" name. Most people expect Roberts will still be headed to WCW at some point. Jim Neidhart is also rumored to be coming in as a heel soon.
- AAA held a show recently and Dave just raves about how great this high flying Rey Misterio Jr. kid is.
- Konnan debuted for WWF in a dark match, wearing a full space-suit and using the name Relampago, which is Spanish for "The Flyer." Also at the taping, Razor Ramon did 3 squash matches, but got very little crowd response.
- Hulk Hogan appeared on Entertainment Tonight to promote his latest movie and people were shocked by how small he looks now, even lacking muscle definition. His weight is estimated to be between 235-250 now.
- In the letters, a couple of interesting ones. One guy writes in to say he understands that it's news, but he's really tired of reading all the boring legal mumbo jumbo regarding all the WWF scandals and wishes Dave would trim it down to the bare necessities. Me and you both buddy. The shit I've been posting here is just the highlights. Dave has spent a LOT of time covering that stuff this year and it is indeed pretty tedious to wade through at times, although it is necessary and exceptional reporting work.
- Another person writes in regarding Jerry Lawler's comments in a recent interview where he says newsletters like this one are detrimental to the wrestling business. Lawler says he personally enjoys reading it himself but he wishes fans didn't have access to it because he thinks it turns them off to the business. And since Dave gets all his info from inside sources in the industry and since everyone in the industry already knows all this stuff anyway, he just doesn't see the point in it. Dave has no comment.