September 08, 1992
- Changing the date format a little in the title, hopefully err'body's cool with that. Meanwhile, Part 2 of this double-header and even this issue is 45 pages long so....buckle in.
- Summerslam is in the books and it was pretty much a 2-match show, but both delivered. The crowd was a legit 80,355, which makes it the 2nd largest crowd to ever attend a wrestling event behind Wrestlemania 3. Dave says Hart/Bulldog is possibly the best WWF match since Steamboat/Savage. The buyrate is looking to be an all-time low for Summerslam, but given the huge live gate, the company should still come out ahead of last year financially. Dave once again proclaims the demise of PPV, stating, "It's evident that wrestling on PPV was something of a fad." Yes. A fad that lasted another 22 years until the Network came along.
- The leg injury angle they filmed with Savage is a way to lead to Savage dropping the title to Flair, who will then go on to feud with Warrior while Savage moves on to a presumed feud with Razor Ramon. The company is clearly building around Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart as the new top stars of the 90s, now that it looks like Hogan won't be coming back anytime soon and his days of working on the road full-time are probably finished even if he does, and with Savage looking to wind down his career as well.
- Pat Patterson made his return at Summerslam. On camera, he was shown breaking up a brawl between Shawn Michaels and Rick Martel. However, for the live crowd, the company introduced various legends before the show and gave Patterson a big "one of the all-time greats, Pat Patterson!" intro. Roddy Piper also appeared at the show, playing bagpipes but couldn't actually work the show due to some sort of Actor's Guild issue or something and so this wasn't shown on TV.
- A television trade journal published an article about the decline of wrestling on PPV and blamed the fall on WWF and WCW raising prices, overexposure on television, and failure to create new stars to replace aging stars like Hogan. WWF responded by denying all of that and blaming the economy.
- No official announcement has been made (and Dave doesn't expect there to be one), but the WBF is history. BodyStars will air its final few episodes and the company will no longer produce more and no WBF events are scheduled for the future. Most of the bodybuilders are hoping to get back into the IFBB, but the IFBB warned anyone who left for WBF a year ago that they would be blackballed and not allowed back. IFBB has softened their stance a little bit, saying they will allow back any bodybuilder who is willing to pay a $50,000 fine. However, most of them don't have that kind of money so they're probably shit out of luck. Bodybuilder David Dearth claims Vince McMahon offered him a job as a wrestler. In the end, Dave says the organization never stood a chance because even at its most popular, bodybuilding has always only attracted a small cult following. Add in the steroid controversy and it was doomed from the start.
- The next bazillion or so pages are basically detailed reports of every Japanese show Dave attended while he was there. He reviews the NWA title tournament from Japan and talks about Rick Rude's match, the highlight of which: "Rude did his speech before the match and everyone cheered him like crazy since they didn't know the English language and didn't realize he was calling them puny, sleazy Nips. He seemed really perplexed because it got the exact opposite reaction of what he was trying to get." (You can see it in the video below and I don't know what Dave is talking about. Sounds to me like Rude gets monster heat for it). Masahiro Chono defeated Rude in the finals to become the new NWA champion in a ****1/2 match.
- Afterwards, Bill Watts gave a speech at a press conference saying that American wrestling has become a circus and that the NWA title is the most prestigious belt in wrestling and essentially said they're going to try to turn WCW into what NJPW is.
- Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada in a hair vs. hair match happened and Dave calls it one of the best matches he's ever seen and gives it the full *****
- At this point, I'm just skimming because the Japanese show reviews have literally gone on for 11 pages and counting now, and there's only so much recapping of matches a guy can read. I'm sure there's some interesting news nuggets in there somewhere, but I don't care anymore. Sorry. 18 full pages later, we finally move on to Mexico news and results.
- The legendary Blue Demon is said to be training for a comeback at 69 years old (he never did).
- Lou Thesz wrote a letter recently and sent it to the media. In it, he talks about how he won the undisputed world wrestling title in 1937 and says that today, too many companies claim to have a world champion. He challenges WWF, WCW, AJPW, New Japan, the NWA champion, AAA, EMLL and others to all send their champions to compete against each other in one tournament to determine the real undisputed champion of wrestling. Thesz is willing to give his 90-year-old championship belt that he owns to the winner. Obviously this stood zero chance of ever happening, but that would have been cool as shit.
- The WWF/USWA working agreement has started, as Jimmy Hart showed up on USWA TV, cutting a promo talking about how much better it is working for WWF and made fun of all the small towns USWA works. The Orient Express and Barry Horowitz are scheduled to appear at upcoming USWA shows.
- Kerry Von Erich pleaded no contest to the 6 charges of falsifying prescriptions and will be sentenced next week. He faces up to 60 years in prison and a $60,000 fine. Speaking of, Fritz Von Erich has expressed interest in re-launching World Class, using Kerry and Kevin Von Erich as the top stars, but when he contacted local TV stations about airing it, no one was interested.
- There has been a lot of talk about WWF adding a one hour show on Saturday nights on the USA Network to go head-to-head with the WCW Saturday Night show (didn't quite happen that way, but we'll get there).
- El Gigante has lost 60 pounds due to diabetes issues.
- Owen Hart is in a full leg-cast and will be out of action for several months.
- Samu & Fatu are coming in to WWF soon and will go by the name The Head Hunters.
- Chris Benoit and Shane Douglas are both scheduled to start with WCW later this month. Warlord and Butch Reed are also rumored to be coming in.