September 13, 1993
- The NWA held their convention this past week to discuss various goings-on regarding the organization. The rise of WWF in the 80s and the subsequent closing of almost all the territories has pretty much rendered the NWA obsolete until Kip Frey decided to try to revive it last year in WCW with NWA tag title and world title tournaments alongside NJPW. (New Japan has recently cut ties with the NWA, however). Recently, Tod Gordon (ECW) and Jim Cornette (SMW) have applied for membership in the NWA, which in theory would legally allow them to use the NWA champion on their shows. Rick Rude is scheduled to win the title at the next WCW PPV and in future tapings, all references to "NWA" have been removed from WCW shows and Rude is being billed as simply "World heavyweight champion" (not to be confused with the WCW champion). Anyway, at the convention, ECW's membership was accepted and SMW's membership will be accepted as soon as some other minor issues are worked out.
- The biggest concern is the future of the NWA title. As of now, Flair is champion and is scheduled to lose it to Rude at the PPV. The NWA is expected to approve this title change, on the condition that Rude then loses the title to someone of the NWA board's choosing, at a non-WCW show (so in ECW or SMW). Dave suspects WCW won't agree to this and will continue to just book the title however they want and continue to ignore the NWA's existence. This is made even more complicated due to the fact that WCW owns the physical belt. It's likely WCW will simply merge the big gold belt in with WCW's world title, to create a unified champion, rumored to be Dustin Rhodes. Meanwhile, if NWA has their way, they would most likely book Road Warrior Hawk, Terry Funk, or Ted Dibiase as the next NWA champion. In the end, this is possibly heading towards a court battle.
- Got all that? Because sheesh...
- Speaking of legal battles, New Japan took WCW champion Big Van Vader to court this week, claiming they created the name and gimmick that Vader uses and accusing him of breaching his contract with them by working for UWFI. Dave doesn't have complete details, but he believes it went like this: since George Lucas owns the trademark on "Vader", NJPW can't prevent him from using it as his ring name. However, "Big Van Vader" was indeed ruled to be property of NJPW so he will have to drop the Big Van part. (He's been wrestling as Super Vader in UWFI anyway). The court also ruled to allow Vader to use the same costume and gimmick and the court also ruled in Vader's favor regarding the breach of contract. Since NJPW had ceased booking Vader for over a year prior to his signing with UWFI, the court ruled Vader had the right to seek work elsewhere. The whole thing may be appealed, but for now, Vader lost 2/3 of his name but wins big on everything else.
- And yet more Vader legal news, there's some issues between he and WCW over his contract. UWFI is planning to show a PPV in America next month featuring Vader, however, Vader's WCW contract gives them exclusive rights to broadcast and promote Vader in the U.S. Even though the PPV is guaranteed to be a massive flop (because no one in the U.S. has ever heard of UWFI), WCW is still pissed about it and plans to try and block them from airing any Vader footage in the U.S.
- Terry Gordy is back home in Chattanooga after being hospitalized in Japan after passing out on a plane. He's still expected to return in a couple of months (nope).
- In his first match back in All Japan since 1987, Ted Dibiase and Stan Hansen captured the tag team titles. Dibiase is back to doing his bad ass angry redneck cowboy gimmick.
- WATCH: Ted Dibiase & Stan Hansen win AJPW tag titles from Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue
- Keiji Muto (Great Muta) had knee surgery in Minnesota this past week.
- Vince McMahon did another interview on USWA TV this week, hyping the Jerry Lawler vs. Giant Gonzalez match taking place there. It hasn't happened yet, but many expect Vince to eventually end up working a match against Lawler. Dave says that Vince's heel promos are "so eerie, they're incredible." He's right. Vince is creepy as hell in these videos.
- WATCH: Vince McMahon USWA heel promo promoting Lawler vs. Giant Gonzales
- Lex Luger was injured in a match with Shawn Michaels at the latest TV tapings and flew home to Atlanta for emergency care. No word on how serious or how long he'll be out, but it's some type of back injury. If he ends up missing significant time, they will credit Ludvig Borga with the injury to get him over more.
- Summerslam buyrate is about on par with King of the Ring (and down 35% from last year's Summerslam) which has to be a disappointment considering how well the show was promoted. It also shows that the record high Raw ratings and additional viewers that show is getting doesn't seem to be translating into additional PPV buys.
- Steve Lombardi was given a new name as The MVP, doing a baseball player gimmick with face paint to make his head look like a baseball.
- With Mr. Hughes serving a suspension (actually was fired), IRS has been brought back from vacation early to replace him on the road. "I'll owe ya one," Vince presumably said.
- Former WBF bodybuilder Mike Quinn is suing Vince McMahon and Titan Sports for $750,000, claiming he was fired for failing a cocaine test and because the company claimed a hotel employee found syringes and HGH in his hotel room. Quinn says he is innocent on both counts.
- After losing their TV time slot on KPLR in St. Louis, WWF has cancelled all future shows in the city.
- This month's issue of WWF magazine planned to have a story about David Schultz (similar to the one last month about Billy Graham) but it didn't materialize. WWF blamed deadline pressure and promised it will be in the next issue. The magazine also acknowledged Ted Dibiase and Sensational Sherri leaving the company. Notably, it said Ted Dibiase had lost most of his money due to bad investments, thus seemingly killing off the Million Dollar Man gimmick.
- Dave says the opening of this week's episode of WWF Superstars, showing a fake Japanese newscast reporting about the Yokozuna/Luger match, was highly racist and essentially paints all Japanese people as villains, ala World War II propaganda.
- WATCH: WWF Superstars "Japanese Newscast" opening
- Sid Vicious walked out of a WCW show this week. According to several sources, he's been refusing to take drug tests and kept saying he'd take them in a couple of weeks (lol) and finally, WCW gave him an ultimatum, to take the test or be fired. Sid walked out instead, but both sides seems to have worked things out. It would be a disaster if they didn't, since Sid is all over the next few weeks of pre-taped TV and scheduled to main event the next few PPVs.
- Speaking of drug tests, after doing a company-wide drug test awhile back, WCW has suspended a grand total of nobody. Apparently the whole company is totally clean!
- Shane Douglas did an interview recently saying that he will never give up teaching again to go back to pro wrestling, but he will continue to work part-time for ECW on the side.
- In the letters, Dave responds to a letter talking about a reference book called Wrestling Title Histories that gives the history of pretty much every major pro wrestling title, lists the people who have held it, etc.