February 01, 1993
- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Ric Flair has not yet officially signed with WCW although he will soon. Meanwhile, WCW did sign Davey Boy Smith and recieved a lot of media coverage in the UK for it.
- The Royal Rumble took place this week and according to early estimates, will be the 2nd lowest buyrate of any WWF PPV in history (behind 1991's Tuesday In Texas). Dave was there live and felt the show was decent but nothing great and the Rumble match in particular was awful. Lex Luger debuted as The Narcissist. El Gigante debuted (as Giant Gonzales) and started an angle with Undertaker. Bob Backlund lasted about an hour and was dreadfully un-over the entire time (Dave is, to put it mildly, not a huge fan of Bob Backlund during this period).
- WCW and SMW now have a working relationship, which saw Cornette return to WCW along with Stan Lane, Tom Prichard, and Bobby Eaton and led to a promo between Cornette and Watts. Cornette was mostly cheered while Watts was heavily booed.
- Both WWF and WCW TV ratings have shown noticeable improvement and were both some of the highest either company has had in about ten months.
- Kerry Von Erich was arrested on Jan. 13th on a drug charge, but there's no word on what the drug is because it hasn't been lab tested yet. Von Erich was released after posting a $5,000 bond. Von Erich is currently serving a ten year probation sentence for his previous prescription forging charges so this could very likely lead to his probation being revoked and Kerry going to prison for a long time (spoiler: this story doesn't end well...).
- Lex Luger made his wrestling debut at the latest TV tapings, doing two squash matches. The crowd rained down massive "boring" chants on him (and on Bob Backlund) during the show.
- Marty Jannetty was fired this week. Dave promises "more on that later" and then doesn't ever actually follow up on it until 2 weeks later.
- A wrestling convention took place in Philadelphia this weekend, with Ultimate Warrior, British Bulldog, Sid Vicious, Terry Funk, Road Warrior Animal, Kerry Von Erich and others all appearing. The local ECW and WWA promotions staged a joint show together during the weekend, with Terry Funk vs. Eddie Gilbert in a great match.
- Kerry Von Erich was asked to fill in for someone on the same show. Von Erich was supposed to wear a mask and appear as Woman's secret weapon. Von Erich went to the ring with the mask on, but had his ring jacket on which had "Kerry" on the back. Backstage, someone told him to take the jacket off, so he did. Then he walked about 10 yards, then seemingly forgot, and put the jacket back on and went out to the ring. Woman tried in vain to cover up the name on the back of his jacket, but to no avail and he took the mask off soon after and worked the match. We're quickly spiraling toward the end of the road for Kerry now...
- New Line Cinema has postponed Hulk Hogan's Mr. Nanny movie until June. It was test marketed in 4 markets and it didn't do great business, but the audience was almost exclusively kids. So they're postponing the movie until summer, when kids will be out of school.
- Superstar Billy Graham taped an anti-steroid PSA that will air on Nickelodeon.
- Steve Regal debuted at the latest WCW tapings. Dave hasn't seen him in action yet but has been told that Regal's wrestling is good, but he has no ring presence.
- Sid Justice/Vicious finally got his official release from WWF last week. Dave thinks he'll show up in WCW before too long.
- Robbie V (Rob Van Dam) passed his tryout with WCW and has been offered a 1-year contract.
- A couple of major newspapers wrote negative articles about a recent Doink/Crush angle, where Doink attacked Crush from behind with a cast and Crush was carried out on a backboard with announcers gushing about possible neck and vertebrae injuries. The angle was taped (in New York) just days after New York Jets player Dennis Byrd was severely injured and potentially paralyzed in a game. The papers say it was tasteless to do an angle with the same kind of injury, especially in the same city where it was such huge news just days earlier.
- Muscle Beach Newsletter awarded Vince McMahon the "Gluteus Maximus of the Year" award. The article harshly criticized McMahon's WBF and ICOPRO ventures and says he defrauded fans and ruined the careers of bodybuilders. Dave says there are even nastier claims in the article, but they're of a personal nature and revolve around unproven rumors and charges and as such, Dave won't repeat them (I assume the rape allegations?).
- Big time rumors that Hulk Hogan is negotiating with WCW and even Ted Turner has told people that they've had talks. There's also been rumors that he's been talking with Angelo Poffo about his local Florida promotion. Dave thinks Hogan wants these rumors to be out there because they help his negotiating power with WWF. He says the only real advantage that WCW can offer him over WWF would be movie work with Turner Broadcasting.
- Shawn Michaels, IRS, Repo Man, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, Mr. Perfect and others will all be appearing on Family Feud next week. Can't find that particular video, but here's a picture that at least proves it happened.
- At a recent house show, fans in the front row were heckling Paul Bearer, calling him "Percy!" and Bearer responded in his creepy voice, saying "Percy's in the urn." So now we know what was in there all those years!