May 31, 1993
- Slamboree is in the books. Dave thought it was okay. The big story coming out of the show is that Scott Norton (who was scheduled to face Sting) walked out 2 days before the show because he didn't want to put over Sting. So Nailz was brought in to do the honors instead. On WCW Saturday night, they announced that "Nailz" would be replacing Norton in the match but they must have gotten a threatening letter from WWF, because the next night for the PPV, he came out as The Prisoner. WCW got a little jab in by announcing that The Prisoner was from Green Bay, WI. He's not, but Green Bay is where Nailz assaulted Vince McMahon, so it was a subtle reference to that.
- Jesse Ventura didn't do commentary at the show due to being hospitalized with blood clots in his leg. He attributed it to wearing tight kneepads for his role in the movie Demolition Man that he recently filmed.
- Sid Vicious made his surprise return to WCW at the Slamboree, beating Van Hammer in 35 seconds. Given the current investigation into WWF, Dave thinks it's insanity to have guys like Sid out there, which is just waving a red flag at the DEA. Also, 2 Cold Scorpio basically crushed Chris Benoit's face in the final move of the opening match and it's a miracle Benoit wasn't seriously hurt.
- Expect major changes within the structure of WCW soon. During July, WCW will be taping 48 hours of television at Universal Studios in Orlando. Depending on what shows the tapings are for, this means they will be taping anywhere from 3-6 months in advance, which is a risky move. If something doesn't get over, you can't change it. If someone is injured or leaves the company unexpectedly, which happens all the time, that can't be accounted for on TV. There's been talk of severely cutting back house shows and possibly even eliminating them altogether before the end of the year in a cost-cutting measure, given that this has been the worst month ever for house show business in WCW history and the company just can't keep sustaining these heavy losses without major changes.
- Hogan worked his first house shows since coming back and the results were disappointing, with the shows drawing basically the same crowds they were drawing without him, which has even Dave second-guessing whether or not putting the belt back on him was a good idea, after he's spent the last few weeks defending it as a good business decision.
- Jeff Jarrett and Eddie Marlin were injured in a truck accident this weekend. Marlin fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked. The truck was hauling the ring and both the truck and the ring were destroyed. Both Jarrett and Marlin were injured, but no word how badly. Jarrett will likely miss a few weeks of action.
- Dave writes a "correction" on last week's piece about the A Current Affair/Von Erich story. He corrects himself by saying he was too nice last week and shits on it some more for being willfully wrong and incorrect.
- The new PREDESA promotion, that was being formed to start a fake interpromotional war with EMLL is no more. Why? Because AAA just hired the PREDESA booker away from them. Ruthless. There's rumors that several EMLL/UWA holdouts, including top star Canadian Vampire Casanova, may be joining him in a few weeks. AAA just will not stop putting the boots to EMLL.
- Blue Demon Jr. is out with 2 fractured vertebrae in his neck. When the injury happened, everyone, even the doctor, panicked because it looked like he broke his neck and could be paralyzed, but he should make a full recovery in a few months.
- AAA wants to bring in Ultimate Warrior as a heel (never happened).
- Superstar Billy Graham appeared on Mike Tenay's radio show and read a letter that he had sent to Hulk Hogan a few weeks back, apologizing for dragging Hogan's name through the mud last year, saying it was un-Christian of him to do. And thus marks the first time Billy Graham throws a fit, trashes a bunch of people, then makes nice, only to turn around and do it again later. It became a recurring theme for the next 2 decades.
- ECW will be running it's biggest show to date in Philadelphia next month at the "ECW Arena" (first time I've seen that they've called it that in these issues) that will be headlined by Terry Funk vs. Eddie Gilbert in a chain match to determine the King of Philadelphia.
- In WCW, Ricky Steamboat will be debuting his "new" gimmick, which is really just the same gimmick he used in WWF with the dragon costume and breathing fire.
- Tom Zenk and Shane Douglas have both been released by WCW. In Zenk's case, it's not a surprise since he was barely used anyway. In Shane's case, Dave seems befuddled since Douglas (as part of tag team matches) has been consistently having the best matches every night, standing out at major shows and has made significant in-ring improvement. Guess this goes to show how much WCW cares about that, Dave says.
- In his first comments since leaving WCW, Bill Watts says that the racist comments he made were "taken out of context and misquoted." Dave says he's heard the audiotape of the original interview and that's simply not true. The quote is exactly as it was printed.
- Typhoon has been pulled from all WWF house shows immediately for unknown reasons (he would be gone 2 months later and then, well....we'll get there).
- Both Nailz and Phil Mushnick apparently failed to show up for depositions in the WWF lawsuits against them. WWF lawyers tried to get the judge to award them default judgments based on their failure to appear, but the judge declined and the cases continue. Nailz, meanwhile, has filed a counter-suit against McMahon and WWF, accusing them of the same sexual assault that he told the police when he was fired last year.
- In the Letters section, it's noted that Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) will be selling TV tapes and gives an address to write to. I Google mapped the address out of curiosity and it's just some apartment complex in South Philly. I love shit like that, just seeing the humble beginnings of this company that was apparently being run out of somebody's apartment (probably Eddie Gilbert's) back in 1993.