January 04, 1993
- It's 1993 time! As always, I'll try to post these once a day, unless life gets in the way. Let's get started...
- WCW's Starrcade is in the books. Dave credits the Steamboat/Douglas vs. Pilman/Windham match and the Sting/Vader match for saving what was otherwise a dreadful show. Hank Aaron was there presenting the Battle Bowl ring to last year's winner Sting and Dave says "the irony of seeing Aaron standing next to Bill Watts was probably lost on almost everyone watching" (and would get a lot more ironic soon, when Hank Aaron basically gets Watts fired).
- Rick Rude pulled out of the WCW title match with Ron Simmons 2 days before Starrcade with a bulging disc in his neck and is expected to be out for the next 8 weeks, which means he'll almost certainly be vacating the US Title.
- Dave says by the time you read this, he's willing to bet Vader will have won the WCW title from Simmons (indeed, he won it on Dec. 30th at a house show) to set up Sting/Vader for the title since that feud is so hot right now and considering how much of a failure Ron Simmons' championship reign as been.
- Ric Flair's status in WWF is in question right now. Flair's contract doesn't expire until September, but there's reportedly been discussions between Flair and Vince McMahon about getting a release before that time. As of press time, Flair is still with the company and is still booked for all upcoming shows. Dave says given who he is, WCW would probably open the checkbook to him if he wanted to come back, cost-cutting be damned. While Dave doesn't flat out accuse WCW of contract tampering by talking to Flair, he heavily insinuates that he knows it's happened.
- WWF is announcing that they will be donating all of the gate money from next month's MSG house show to the Red Cross relief effort in Somalia. WWF is expecting a lot of press from this and invited a lot of media people to the press conference to announce it.
- From here, Dave has a loooong transcript of a Jesse Ventura interview with Mike Tenay regarding Ventura's lawsuit against WWF. Ventura talks about how he gets royalties from movies and TV shows he does, but he's been on 140 or so WWF video releases, most of them with his voice from beginning to end, and has never received any royalties. He also gripes about not getting a fair cut of merch sales and about WWF's "independent contractor" status. He talks about the original contract he signed in 1984 and says that Gorilla Monsoon put a contract in front of him 2 minutes before a match and said, "Sign or you're gone." Having no other options (he had already burned the AWA bridge), he said he signed it under duress. After it expired in 1986, Ventura worked the rest of his career in WWF without a contract. He also gives his thoughts about the scandals and steroids and Hogan and Patterson and all that stuff.
- In USWA, they introduced a masked character named The Christmas Creature. He was unmasked in a match with Lawler and ran back to the dressing room so fast that people didn't get a good look at him, but many people thought he was Sid Justice. On USWA TV leading up to the match, they also repeatedly hinted that it was Sid under the mask without actually saying his name, in order to trick some fans into thinking it was. But in fact, it was actually a 6'8 rookie named Glenn Jacobs.
- Phil Mushnick (that guy again) had an article in the New York Post about the Nailz/McMahon incident, linking Nailz accusations that Vince sexually assaulted him to all the other scandals the company has faced. Speaking of that situation, Dave has more info on it. Apparently, the money Nailz was trying to extort from Vince was Nailz wanting to be paid in advance for the next few months of putting over Undertaker (which was his next planned feud). One wrestler tells Dave that Nailz had once said that "the only way to make money in this company is to claim somebody grabbed your dick."
- Max Moon (Paul Diamond) was released by WWF. Dave isn't sure why but says Diamond is an exceptionally talented wrestler who has been under a mask for so many years that he's not overexposed and somebody like WCW would be foolish not to snatch him up.
- Randy Savage is expected to be co-hosting the new Monday Night Raw show, and will do some wrestling here and there but won't be involved in full-time angles.
- WCW filmed an angle where Erik Watts and Arn Anderson get into a street fight in a 7/11 parking lot. They even got the Charlotte Police to help out and they filmed Watts being arrested. The angle will make it seem like Watts assaulted Anderson, but then they will find "Rodney King-like video from a passerby" that will exonerate Watts (I vividly remember this angle from when I was a kid, but I can't find a video. Anyone?)
- Sting missed the last 2 shows of the year because his contract has him booked to only work a certain number of shows and WCW had gone over the limit. While the fans were the ones who missed out, Dave says it's hard to fault Sting for refusing to do anything not specified in his contract, considering Bill Watts has been such an asshole.
- In the latest issue of Pro Wrestling Torch, Mark Madden wrote a hilarious parody piece about Bill Watts and others. The parody was about Dusty Rhodes and Erik Watts fighting over who gets to push their son the most. The notoriously thin-skinned Watts didn't like it and went off on Madden on this week's WCW 900 line. (Madden would get his revenge soon enough.)
- In Kathie Lee Gifford's new book, she talks about Rick Rude's 1989 appearance on her TV show as the lowest point of her career. Rude was on the show, doing his usual gimmick and tried to give Kathie Lee a kiss and actually chased her off the set while she was 2 months pregnant. Her husband Frank Gifford was so upset that he ripped into the producer who booked Rude on the show and said if anything like that ever happened again, Kathie Lee would quit the show. Behold the rapiest shit ever in wrestling this side of Heidenreich:
- In the letters section, a letter from a guy named "Michael Gendelman" writes in and his letter starts like this: "Monday Night Raw is an outstanding idea. Nothing beats the excitement of a truly live broadcast. They should be given a great deal of credit for this bold move. Anyone who knows what goes into producing their regular television shows should appreciate that." I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say "Michael Gendelman" has to be a Vince McMahon alias, right?