Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 22, 1993

Jerry Lawler, one of the biggest wrestling stars in this country, was indicted last week on 1 count of second-degree rape (statuatory, rather than forced), 3 counts of second-degree sodomy (oral sex) and 1 count of harassing a witness. He will be arraigned this week in Louisville, KY. The case involves an alleged encounter with a 13-year old girl. Lawler is also being investigated in southern Indiana for what are allegedly similar circumstances and the witness harassment charge seems to be about that other case (with a 14-year-old girl). The age of consent in Kentucky is 16 and the detective involved in the case said the charges were brought due to the girl's age, but that she was not forcibly raped. The charges involving the 13-year-old girl allegedly took place on 2 occasions earlier this year. A third incident, with the 14-year-old girl allegedly took place across the river from Louisville, in Selersburg, IN. One of the two girls reportedly told the grand jury, "As soon as we walked into Lawler's room, he said, 'Let's get naked.' We took off our clothes and all three got onto the bed. We had sex while we were watching cartoons." According to the testimony, after the alleged encounter, Lawler took the two girls to Value City and Taco Bell. Currently, Lawler is arguably the bigest drawing star in the U.S. right now, with his ongoing feud with Bret Hart drawing the biggest houses in the country and being the best part of WWF's weekly TV shows.
Even though he's the company's hottest heel right now, the WWF wasted no time immediately suspending Lawler without pay. They've recently been facing their own laundry list of scandals and the federal investigation is still looming, so they aren't taking any chances. It was briefly announced on Raw that Lawler is "facing legal problems" and Shawn Michaels would replace him in his match against the Hart Family at Survivor Series. Bruce Prichard (using the character name Rio Rogers, which will be a parody of Dusty Rhodes) will take over Lawler's hosting duties on WWF Superstars. But there are weeks of pre-taped material that has Lawler all over it. Some of it will be edited to remove him, but there was a Survivor Series preview show that has Lawler heavily involved (and also teased the beginnings of a Bret vs. Owen feud) and editing Lawler out would mess up the whole flow of the show. There is talk that WWF may do an emergency taping this weekend at a house show to create a new Survivor Series preview show.
Lawler will continue to wrestle for USWA in all the cities, except Louisville, where the alleged incident took place. Lawler and the girl involved have been banned from the building where USWA usually runs until the investigation is complete. The girl is reportedly a front-row regular at USWA shows in the city and was described by Lawler and others as "a groupie."
On top of everything, this has caused concern over the future of USWA, which is the last surviving territory from the old regional days. Lawler and Jerry Jarrett each own 50% of the company. Jarrett has been heavily involved in the booking for WWF lately and had recently been trying to sell his 50% stake. There's also rumors that WMC-TV, the station that has produced and aired USWA's weekly TV show in Memphis for years is possibly wanting out of the deal.
17 people, including Lawler, were called to testify in the hearing that led to the indictments. Outside the courtroom, Lawler told reporters he is fighting back and said the girls are lying. He also claims he has a taped phone conversation that will exonerate him. He has made similar statements in other interviews, saying that the girls are a couple of groupies who are trying to set him up. Lawler also referenced the story in a promo on USWA TV this week, saying, "I've got a lot of friends and family here in this town, and I want you to know that in the next couple of days, you're going to be hearing some stories or seeing some stories on some allegations made about me. And I just want to say right now that each and every one of these are totally false, and I guarantee you that I will prove that, if I have to, in a court of law. That's all I'm going to say about that." The story has received major media coverage throughout the country (for those who haven't picked up on it yet, I'm from Memphis and yeah, this story was HUGE here at the time. Lawler is a god in this city to a lot of people).
From here, Dave just dives into the problems facing the industry as a whole and says there's never been a time in the history of wrestling where so many different promotions are facing such grave PR nightmares. WCW had a brawl that nearly ended in a fatality, and they've spent more time and energy trying to cover it up than actually getting to the root of the problem. WWF is facing an 18-month-and-still-counting Justice Dept. investigation that is reportedly in it's final stages and the whole industry is bracing for the fallout. One of the top stars is now facing rape charges. There's been allegations of drug dealing, possibly an attempted suicide (Terry Gordy's overdose maybe? He doesn't clarify who...), WCW ignoring their steroid problem, and consumer fraud (willful false advertising, the 900-line scams, etc. Dave really isn't a fan of the 900-lines and having fans pay to vote on things when the office has already made the decision is the definition of fraud, he says. In fact, WWF caught so much heat for it last week when they had fans vote for whether or not to bring Shawn Michaels back that they are refunding the money to people who called.)
As of Monday this week, both Sid Vicious and Arn Anderson are still employed by WCW, though a decision is supposed to be made about their future by the end of the week. Gene Okerlund was interviewed on a radio show this week and said both men had been fired, which Dave says is news to them. On TV, a previously aired segment showing The Kongs attacking Sid Vicious was aired. At the taping, Vicious eventually came back out and was fine at the end of the show, but they didn't air that part. They only showed the beatdown on Sid and Jesse Ventura sold it by saying that Sid's injuries could be career-ending, so it's likely that this is how he's being written off TV for now.
The Ultimate Fighting Championships PPV took place last week. Dave says it was unquestionably a shoot and the big star of the show was a guy from Brazil named Royce Gracie. Pro wrestler Ken Shamrock was the only one who seemed to stand a chance against him but ended up getting choked out. Shamrock was reportedly furious backstage after the fight, mad at himself for not knowing how to defend against the choke. Depending on how PPV buys go, they may do a second PPV next April.
AAA returned to the United States this week and once again, it was an overwhelming success. The L.A. show drew 11,600 and made almost $200K while the San Jose show drew 5,200 and made around $100K. The San Jose show was a near sellout, despite AAA doing no advertising for it. AAA's next U.S. show is in New York in January and is going to be a harder sell.
Despite now being the 2nd largest house show promotion in America, coverage of AAA has been non-existent in wrestling magazines and other media, which has some people upset. Dave essentially says that the success of AAA in America has caught most everyone off-guard and most magazine writers aren't familiar with the workers or the style and most of AAA's fans, even in America, are Hispanic and there's just a disconnect there with the magazines, thus no coverage.
Clash of the Champions happened. Ratings dropped like a rock during the show and Meltzer thought it was pretty much crap. In fact, he gives the first 2 matches negative-star ratings. Only Pillman vs. Austin was worth seeing. Fifi came out to the ring with Flair, so Missy Hyatt's hotline report about her being gone was wrong. After the show, Flair did a promo saying Sid Vicious would be his partner on WCW Saturday Night against Vader and Austin and put Sid over, which had a lot of people talking, considering Arn Anderson is one of Flair's best friends. Obviously that match won't happen so who knows what they're planning or why they had Flair cut that promo.
The Steiners are booked for a couple of upcoming New Japan shows, which is interesting because WWF has usually never allowed its wrestlers to work Japan unless it was through a working agreement (like they had with SWS), however, things have obviously changed in recent years in regards to WWF policies like that, so it might not mean anything.
ECW held their November To Remember show in Philly this week, drawing almost 1,492 fans, the promotion's largest crowd to date. King Kong Bundy made his return to the ring for the first time in about 6 years. Sabu pinned Terry Funk to win the ECW TV title, making him a double champion (he's already ECW champ). Madusa didn't show up and it was announced that she has signed with WWF and Vince McMahon wouldn't let her work the show. And finally, some guy named Tommy Dreamer and his partner Johnny Gunn won the ECW tag titles.
Jimmy Hart will be guest starring on Baywatch, "the most popular TV show in the universe", playing the manager of a country singer.
Hulk Hogan signed a deal with Disney to film Thunder of Paradise in Orlando. They will tape the first 20 episodes during the first half of 1994. With that kind of schedule, don't expect Hogan to do much wrestling.
Shawn Michaels returned to WWF TV this week with the original Intercontinental title belt. Dave's guess is that they'll probably do some kind of belt vs. belt match at Royal Rumble.
At the latest tapings, Jack Tunney made a ruling that there can only be one Doink, so then Santa Claus came out with a present for Doink. It ended up being a midget who will be called Dink.
Jerry Lawler did a hilarious King's Court segment at the latest TV tapings where Johnny Polo pretended to be Stu Hart and Harvey Wippleman pretended to be Helen Hart. Polo then faked having a heart attack and died but Harvey revived him with mouth-to-mouth. Dave says this will never air.
The entire Hart Family will be on Regis & Kathy Lee next week, promoting Survivor Series.
Bobby Heenan's contract expires in December. Madusa starts in December and will feud with Luna Vachon. Greg Valentine is reportedly working Survivor Series but nothing after that, so Dave thinks he'll probably be one of the masked Knights teaming with Shawn Michaels.
Vince McMahon, Jerry Jarrett, and Pat Patterson are reportedly the ones booking the company right now, with Vince of course having final say.