May 17, 1993
- The lead story this week is the insane exploding ring barbed wire match in FMW between Atsushi Onita and Terry Funk. The latest "can you top this" match in wrestling drew 41,000 fans and was a rousing success which means we can probably expect more of it. Funk actually trained Onita and the match was booked as a teacher vs. student angle. The bombs were set to explode at the 15 minute mark and as the timer ticked down, Funk was alone in the ring, but Onita ran in and threw himself over Funk's body to protect his mentor. After the match, Funk's nose was shredded from the barbed wire and Onita needed 72 stitches in his back and stomach. Also on the show was Sabu, who more and more people are beginning to praise as possibly one of the top 10 workers in the world today.
- WATCH: Atsushi Onita vs. Terry Funk - Exploding Ring Barbed Wire Deathmatch
- Dave also makes a case for Onita to be considered one of the biggest drawing stars in wrestling history, unlikely as it sounds at first. For years, he's consistently been the headliner, drawing tens of thousands of people to his crazy deathmatches and has actually drawn more money than most every other wrestler in history aside from the top tier guys like Hogan and Andre.
- Big Van Vader debuted in UWFI this week and while discussing all the legalities of the Vader gimmick being owned by NJPW, Dave drops a tidbit I didn't know. NJPW created the Big Van Vader gimmick and trademarked it in 1987. The plan was for that gimmick to go to one of two guys. It was either going to go to Leon White (who got it) or to Jim Hellwig (aka Ultimate Warrior). When Warrior signed with WWF just days before the decision was made, the gimmick went to Leon White. Anyway, Vader was still under contract to New Japan when he signed the deal with UWFI and they also have a deal with WCW to have exclusive rights to the WCW champion in Japan. New Japan has filed several lawsuits against UWFI over all this. Vader showed up in UWFI, with the WCW title belt, and was billed as Super Vader.
- Smoky Mountain did a match/angle that was basically like a one-match War Games gimmick, when the match ends after everybody on one team is handcuffed to the cage. After the faces won the match, there was a heel turn and Jim Cornette uncuffed all the heels and there was a 6-on-1 beatdown on Bob Armstrong where he was hit repeatedly with the tennis racket and legitimately needed medical attention after. The angle was so convincing that about two dozen fans went to the hospital after to check on Armstrong.
- ESPN (which apparently stopped airing GWF awhile back and I guess I missed it) started airing wrestling again this week, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. They aired a USWA tape from a few years ago, followed by a GWF show from two weeks ago. Word is the picture and audio quality was subpar and the graphics were filled with mistakes and goofs, including one graphic announcing "Coming up next: Calvin Knapp vs. Jobber!"
- A Current Affair will be airing a segment next week on the Von Erich family tragedies. Dave doesn't know the exact date but it will be this month sometime since they feel the Von Erich story is good enough for sweeps.
- Interviews with Hogan in Japan prior to the Great Muta match confused a lot of people, because Hogan talked about how he started his career in Japan (eh, not really, but close enough) and talked about how he was returning after 8 years. He repeated this "first time back in 8 years" claim repeatedly, which made a lot of people shake their heads since Hogan appeared in Japan several times in the last couple of years with SWS, and a hugely publicized match with Stan Hansen in AJPW just 3 years ago. Basically, it's a really weird thing to lie about since literally everyone in Japan knows that Hogan has wrestled there several times recently.
- A new promotion in Mexico has formed, called PREDESA but it's all a work. PREDESA is basically a "fake" promotion, established by EMLL and the idea is to let them build their own following and fanbase and then start an interpromotional war between PREDESA and EMLL. So while it's technically a separate promotion, it's not-so-secretly being ran by EMLL. Several EMLL stars have "quit" EMLL and have "jumped ship" over to PREDESA recently, to help the new promotion establish itself and have stars that can headline shows.
- In USWA, Jerry Lawler lost the world title to Papa Shango, after Scotty Flamingo interfered.
- WATCH: Jerry Lawler vs. Papa Shango - USWA Unified Title
- Dave notes that in SMW, Jim Cornette has somehow been encouraging fans to chant "HIV! HIV!" (not sure who it's directed at) and Dave notes that it's pretty tasteless, considering the very real possibility that people in the crowd may know someone dying of the disease (keep in mind, this was back in 92, when it was still pretty much a death sentence for anyone not named Magic Johnson).
- More on the new promotion that Paul Heyman is helping with in Texas, it appears Jim Crockett is involved somehow as well. That's all Dave knows so far.
- The original plans for WCW's Beach Blast PPV were for Ultimate Warrior and Sting to team up aginst Sid Vicious and Big Van Vader, but negotiations with Warrior fell through.
- Speaking of Sid, his return is pretty much a certainty at this point. Col. Robert Parker is in WCW now also, largely because Sid wanted him there as part of the agreement to come in. And in another interesting tidbit I didn't know, Sid is also reportedly trying to get WCW to bring in GWF tag team Ebony Experience (Booker T and Stevie Ray).
- Dave says that WCW really only has 2 bright spots going for it right now: the Flair for the Gold interview segments are great and The Hollywood Blonds have become the best tag team in the world, both in workrate and personality. "The improvement out of the ring in Steve Austin is tremendous," he adds.
- Johnny Polo (Scotty Flamingo, later Raven) came in as a manager for Adam Bomb (Bryan Clark) this week in both men's WWF debuts. Also, the Harlem Knights from USWA debuted under the name Men on a Mission, a rapping tag team.
- The Friar Ferguson gimmick has already been scrapped and Mike Shaw will be getting a new gimmick. Dave notes that the Friar gimmick was one of the worst ever. Oh Dave, just you wait until you see what they give poor ol' Mike Shaw next.
- Nasty Boys are currently suspended but Dave doesn't say why.
- Lightning Kid was on Raw again this week, this time using the name Cannonball Kid and was squashed again. Weird way to push a guy, Dave thinks.
- WATCH: Mr. Hughes vs. Cannonball Kid (with bonus Tatanka/ICOPRO and Macho Man/Slim Jim commercials
- Several people write in to the letters section, praising the Cactus Jack/Vader angle from a few weeks back while also voicing concern that Cactus will end up seriously injuring himself one day.