August 03, 1992
- The Sept. issue of Penthouse Magazine (with Howard Stern on the cover) has an article about sex scandals in sports, focusing primarily on the WWF scandals. WWF sent letters to Penthouse to try to block the article from coming out, to no avail. None of the stories are new to Observer readers but the piece goes into detail on the alleged rape of female referee Rita Chatterton by Vince McMahon. It also touched on the mysterious death of Jimmy Snuka's girlfriend back in 1983 and hints at a McMahon cover-up in that case. The homosexual harassment of wrestlers and child sexual abuse of ringboys was also covered (I'd love to read this but I have no idea where one gets their hands on a 1992 issue of Penthouse magazine in 2016).
- Lots of rumors floating around this week and Dave lists them off and goes into debunking mode:
- 1. Hulk Hogan signing with New Japan - This is the only rumor with some legitimacy behind it. Negotiations are taking place but still nothing is official.
- 2. Sting and the Steiners jumping to WWF - no truth to it. Sting has the best guaranteed money contract in the U.S. right now and would be a fool to leave. The Steiners contract is up in December and it's possible Vince will go after them then, but not now.
- 3. Bret Hart, Ted Dibiase, and Ric Flair jumping to WCW - no truth. Flair negotiated a settlement with Bill Watts over the big gold belt but that's it. Dibiase and Hart haven't even spoken to WCW recently.
- 4. A trade that would allow Lex Luger to wrestle for WWF now in exchange for Flair coming back to WCW - not even remotely close to true.
- Some unknown wrestler named George Arena, who claimed to be the original Gorgeous George, passed away this week and a lot of media outlets covered the story, falsely believing Arena's claim that he was the original. It's a hoax of course, and the real Gorgeous George passed away back in the 1960s and this guy was a nobody.
- An indie show in a small town in California, on almost no notice and no advertising, drew a 900-people sellout crowd because rumor was several of AAA's top stars would be making surprise appearances. They were supposed to, but for whatever reason, they no-showed and the sold out crowd ended up seeing a show with a bunch of no-name local wrestlers. In fairness, the promotion announced beforehand that none of AAA's stars would be there and offered full refunds and to the people who chose to stay, they still refunded half the cost of their tickets, which Dave calls a display of fairness and honesty never before seen in pro wrestling.
- It's been over a year since the steroid controversy started and use is obviously way down throughout both WWF and WCW. While it's obvious there are a few guys on steroids, the companies deserve credit for making major progress. Word is that there's one top WWF star who has a "free pass" and Dave says it's definitely the first person you would think of (Dave doesn't say who, but it's almost certainly Ultimate Warrior) and the Penthouse article mentioned earlier also talks about sources saying that Vince McMahon has previously covered up failed tests in the past.
- The World Health Organization came out with guidelines for sports regarding the spread of HIV. The possibility of the disease being spread through contact with a person who is bleeding is considered minuscule. However, if both guys are bleeding, the WHO recommends immediately stopping the contest. Whether this will stop blading (or at least matches where both guys blade) remains to be seen.
- The results of the previous question of the week (greatest wrestling match in the past 10 years) and the result: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat at WrestleWar 89. Second place? Flair/Steamboat again, a month earlier at Clash of the Champions VI. Steamboat even gets 3rd place with his Wrestlemania 3 match against Savage. Hard to argue any of that.
- In FMW in Japan, Sabu has become known as "The King of Barbed Wire matches". In a recent match, Sabu, while barefoot, stood on the barbed wire and did a moonsault to win.
- In All Japan, Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada defeated Masa Fuchi and Yoshinari Ogawa in a match that Dave gives the full ***** to and says is one of the best matches he's ever seen. I can't seem to find this one.
- Good/bad news for GWF. They drew their largest crowd in ages to the Dallas Sportatorium due to a huge giveaway at a local car dealership. The crowd was about 1,250 people at the start of the show (only 102 paid though). However, by the time the main event started, there were only 55 fans left in the building. Daaaamn that's rough.
- Gordon Scozzari has officially folded his AWF promotion (if anyone remembers the last issue of 1991, he was the 20 year old kid who used an inheritance to start a promotion and got swindled out of everything).
- British Bulldog blew out his knee at the latest tapings and isn't expected back in the ring until Summerslam. Hawk is also out with a shoulder injury and Berzerker missed the recent tapings because his wife was in labor.
- A ladder match was held at the tapings for the IC title, featuring Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels, which Hart won. This is kind of a famous story, with it being the first ever ladder match in WWF. Bret has (surprise) been publicly kind of bitter about Shawn/Razor always getting credit for introducing the ladder match when it was actually him and Shawn.
- The final issue of WBF magazine has an article about Lex Luger, listing him as a "former world champion" which is a rare semi-acknowledgement of WCW. It also says Luger became interested in becoming a wrestler after watching Wrestlemania 3, which is funny since he had already been wrestling for 2 years at that time.
- Speaking of WBF, in an effort to boost ratings, the BodyStars show featured a tug-of-war contest between WWF wrestlers and WBF bodybuilders. That'll put butts in seats.
- WCW referee Bill Alfonso reportedly is jumping to WWF along with El Gigante. In WCW, Alfonso was Gigante's roadmate, helping him cope with foreign surroundings and translating for him, among other things.
- In AAA, Dave again raves about how fun Rey Misterio Jr. is to watch and also mentions Psychosis "who wears a Jushin Liger outfit and is a tremendous worker."