November 02, 1992
- Another somewhat slow issue this week. That tends to happen as we get close to the end of the year, I've noticed. But rest assured, there's still a few big stories left in 1992
- The industry is in bad shape and it's especially bad for WCW. The company looks to be heading the way of AWA's final years in terms of talent, product quality, and fan interest. The company has no direction, is losing talent, morale is at rock bottom, the shows are awful, ratings are tanking, and Watts' reign has been a clear failure. Dave says Halloween Havoc isn't the worst PPV ever (that title still belongs to Great American Bash 91) but it was one of the worst and WCW has never been in worse shape than it is now coming out of the PPV. WWF isn't doing much better, yet again setting record low TV ratings.
- Speaking of Halloween Havoc, Terry Gordy quit the company the morning of the show and was replaced by Steve Austin in the tag title match. Dave mentions here that Austin is good athletically, but lacks charisma. Oh, Dave.
- More on Halloween Havoc, Dave calls the Rude/Chono NWA title match one of the worst PPV title matches ever and then follows up by saying the same thing about the Simmons/Barbarian WCW title match. He's blown away that Rude and Chono had such an awful match, given how good their previous matches had been. He also bitches about the finish to the Jake/Sting match and about the out of control Erik Watts push. Dave really didn't like this show and hates pretty much everything about the company right now.
- Ric Flair's career looked to be in jeopardy this week, as he was initially told by doctors that his ear injury (again called "cupilathias" which still doesn't have a single google result and is evidently just a word Dave made up) would require him to take a year off from wrestling to heal. But a second doctor gave a better prognosis of 6-12 weeks. He has been told that any jarring blows could cause permanent damage to the ear and could be career-ending. So of course, in typical fashion, Flair is still scheduled to compete at Survivor Series in three weeks and is even booked for house shows before that.
- Flair also appeared on CBS and CNN news programs this week because he spent a day last week campaigning in the Carolinas with President Bush, who referred to Flair as "One of the greatest athletes of all time." I looked all over for videos or even pictures of those 2 together, but no dice. I did, however, find this tremendous article from a 1991 edition of the Weekly World News.
- Animal of Legion of Doom has quit the company. He claims he has a broken tail bone and is going to sit at home and collect on his Lloyd's of London insurance policy. But he has also said he was unhappy that the LOD tag team had broken up and doesn't really want to continue wrestling without Hawk.
- WWF cancelled several shows this week, including the Oct. 31st show in Memphis due to poor advance ticket sales. A 10-year-old boy in Memphis named me was VERY upset about this decision at the time. I remember they were even advertising a Halloween costume contest for that show and I was so excited. I was going to dress up as Papa Shango. I even had my grandmother make me a necklace like his out of chicken bones from KFC (which she was really uncomfortable with doing because she's religious and the voodoo chicken bone necklace wasn't appropriate for me, she thought, but she did it anyway). I was so going to win that contest. But then they cancelled the show for some reason. And now, 24 years later, I finally know why.
- The EMLL/AAA promotional war continues to heat up. EMLL lost its TV deal in Mexico City, which is a huge loss for them. Meanwhile, AAA had a TV taping scheduled in another city in Mexico, so EMLL scheduled two shows on the days before the taping, to try to "burn out" the local fans so no one would go see the AAA show.
- There are problems between New Japan and Big Van Vader stemming from his knee injury. NJPW planned to pay for his knee surgery because they wanted him back in time for their big tag team tournament. But Vader delayed getting the surgery and worked some WCW shows first. By the time he got the surgery, it was too late for him to recover in time for the tournament. NJPW is now wanting to withhold $30,000 of Vader's salary which he, as you can imagine, is upset about. Vader says he got the surgery in what should have been enough time, but the healing process took longer than expected.
- No deal has been made yet, but Dave hears there's a pretty good chance Hulk Hogan will be back in WWF by early-93.
- Latest tentative plans for Wrestlemania 9 are for the show to be held in Las Vegas.
- Jim Ross, who does radio announcing for Atlanta Falcons games, was reprimanded by the radio station for making some sort of off-hand remark about gay people that was deemed inappropriate. Not sure what the statement was, couldn't find anything online about it.