January 17, 1994
- It's time for the 1993 Observer Awards results. Reminder, these were voted on by Observer readers:
- From here, Dave lists the biggest shows of the year, based on attendance, live gate, etc. New Japan's Jan. 4, 1993 Tokyo Dome show tops the list. But he also gives results for every big show which takes awhile. Then he starts clarifying most title reigns (Flair tops the list at 12, though WCW only recognizes him at 11). And then he lists all the results for shows in the last week. And finally.....after 49 MFin' pages of awards and show results, we get to some news.
- After Jerry Lawler assured everyone that the charges against him would be dropped at the hearing on Jan. 7th, that didn't happen and the charges are still ongoing. The next hearing is scheduled for March and a trial date has been set for April. The hearing in March will be the final chance for the charges to be dropped. The 14-year-old girl at the center of the case has already recanted her story and does not wish to move forward with the proceedings so it's hard to see how the case can proceed from here. Lawler has stated he believes the prosecutor is trying to press forward with the case in order to make a name for herself off of his reputation. But as of now, the charges still stand.
- Davey Boy Smith is wanted by Calgary police on a charge of aggravated assault stemming from a bar fight back in July that left a man seriously injured. The victim, a man named Kody Light, suffered a fractured skull, lost hearing in one ear, and was left with slurred speech and memory loss after the fight. This ends up being a bit of a famous story but I'm sure we'll get there.
- The Nasty Boys and Rick Rude have also been accused of assault and the alleged victims filed a $10,000 lawsuit against them. The victims claim they were assaulted by the wrestlers at a night club in Charlotte in August.
- And yet another assault charge may be forthcoming, if you recall the story from the 12/20 issue of Art Barr shooting on a wrestler named John Rambo in a match and injuring him. Dave says Rambo ended up needing an 8-hour surgery to repair damage done to the bridge of his nose and that he's considering filing a civil suit due to the injury but hasn't done so yet.
- Ted Dibiase is expected to undergo neck surgery for a herniated disc and will be out of action for approximately one year. He has a lucrative Lloyd's of London insurance policy so he'll be well off financially while he recovers but he may return to the United States in a manager or commentary role in the meantime (nobody knew it yet, but that was the end for Dibiase. He never wrestled again).
- CNN did a 3-minute news story about the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show that aired throughout the weekend. The feature reported the Dome crowd at 60,000 people (real number: 48,000) and said that Japan is going crazy over pro wrestling (Dave notes that CNN is about 35 years late to this story). They showed guys like Hulk Hogan, Hawk, and Hercules and acknowledged them as ex-WWF wrestlers and gave the impression that WWF stars are leaving to go work in Japan to make more money. Despite Ted Turner owning both WCW and CNN, there was no mention at all of WCW in the story.
- Speaking of the Tokyo Dome show, the Inoki/Tenryu match won't air on TV because TV-Asahi, the station that broadcasts New Japan, has banned Inoki from appearing on the shows on their network because of all his ongoing political scandals.
- Just as an interesting aside, of all the wrestling shows that have taken place at the Tokyo Dome since is opened, only 5 of them have failed to sell out. Dave then notes that, of those 5, Hulk Hogan headlined 4 of them. Point being, even though he's the biggest drawing star in history, his name still doesn't mean that much in Japan.
- Japanese women's wrestler Devil Masami is trying to meet with WWF about coming in to feud with Alundra Blayze (doesn't look like that ever panned out).
- Koji Kitao may be working with Tenryu's WAR promotion soon. This is notable because the last time Kitao made headlines was in 1991 when he worked for Tenryu's previous promotion, SWS. Kitao got into a legit shoot fight with Earthquake John Tenta during a match and then got on the mic and said pro wrestling is fake. He was immediately fired from SWS but looks like he and Tenryu must have made amends.
- Tri-State Wrestling in Kentucky has an interesting angle going on where Danny Davis (who is about 5'5 and 180 pounds) defeated Glen Jacobs (yanno...Kane. 6'9, 300 pounds) in a very one-sided squash match. It's expected to be a long-term storyline so maybe Jacobs will finally overcome and get the big win over this little guy (nope. According to what I found, he only worked four shows for TSW and never got his win back).
- Jerry Lawler will be a guest on Mike Tenay's radio show this week, which is ironic since Lawler was just saying a few months ago that shows like Tenay's are killing the business.
- Curt Hennig was featured in a segment on this week's episode of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous (I can't find it online anywhere.)
- Bobby Heenan starts with WCW at the upcoming Clash of the Champions. There's rumors that Heenan may end up being the new on-screen commissioner of WCW, but most likely that will still be Nick Bockwinkel and Heenan will only do commentary.
- Jesse Ventura has a small role in the upcoming movie Major League II.
- Ric Flair was on the Wrestling Insiders radio show and talked about how he wants to move to St. Maarten when he retires. He also mentioned wanting to become a booker when he finally hangs up the boots. A caller asked Flair about the promo he did when he put over Sid Vicious right after the Sid/Arn stabbing incident. Flair said, "It pained me as much to do it as it pained you to hear it, trust me."
- Rumor is there will be a confrontation between Vince McMahon and the wrestlers this week at the next TV tapings. The wrestlers are upset about their SummerSlam payoffs and about losing their frequent flyer miles (which are now being credited to the company rather than the wrestlers). WWF does pay for the plane tickets, so it would make sense that the company has the right to the frequent flyer miles, but the wrestlers had gotten accustomed to being able to use those flyer miles for free tickets to take their families on vacation and whatnot when they had time off. It's long been considered an unspoken perk of the job that has now been taken away and they plan to get together and confront Vince about it.
- Update on last week's news about WWF looking for martial artists. The New York Daily News is reporting that they are putting together a weekly TV show called World Martial Arts Federation. The concept appears to be worked martial arts matches with win-loss records, standings, etc. It's meant to be somewhat like a real sport, but will focus more on emphasizing spectacular moves and techniques, which is why they recruited martial artists via a casting call instead of trying to find legitimate top-level karate and kickboxing fighters (We don't really ever hear much more about this, but for those curious: this show ended up becoming WMAC Masters which aired from 95-97. WWF apparently backed out of it before the show ever went into production and never had anything to do with what the show became, but when it was being put together initially, WWF was involved).
- Dave is annoyed that the recent Howard Stern PPV is being hyped in every media source as "the highest-rated entertainment event in PPV history." The media outlets are constantly tripping over themselves to say that wrestling isn't a sport, that it's entertainment. And the Stern PPV drew well below just about everything WWF has ever put on PPV. "What, now all of a sudden, WWF has become a sport?" Dave says.
- WWF has come under fire for the conditions they left a school in. Apparently they did one of their B-level house shows at a school gymnasium in Carbondale, PA and the other parts of the school were used for the dressing room. The school board claims that "there were whiskey bottles left in the cafeteria, chicken bones thrown all over the locker room, a broken door, broken toilet paper racks, two truckloads of garbage overall and human feces found on a locker room floor. School principal Paul Kaczmarcik wouldn't comment publicly because he was so furious at the condition the school was in on Wednesday morning to discuss the situation rationally." The WWF has agreed to pay $200 for repairs to the broken door and toilet paper holders.
- Dave corrects himself on new WWF star Kwang from last week when he thought it was Taz. Turns out it's Juan Rivera, who wrestles under the name TNT in Puerto Rico (and later becomes THE LEGENDARY Savio Vega).