March 21, 1994
- Dave missed last week, so this is a double-sized issue
- The big story in the industry this week is that the All Japan Women's promotion is claiming they are planning to make a $2 million dollar offer to Tonya Harding to become a pro wrestler with the promotion. The story first broke in Japan but then the AP in the U.S. picked it up and, as with everything else Tonya Harding-related lately, the story blew up and became one of the top news stories in America. Harding is scheduled to be in Japan next week for the World Figure Skating championships and All Japan Women execs have already contacted Harding's agents about setting up a meeting when she's there. So far, Harding's publicists have refused to comment on the rumors and while All Japan Women execs seem confident that a deal will be made, Dave thinks it's a long shot. She's still facing possible indictments in the U.S. and even if she did decide to become a wrestler, he doesn't think the other wrestlers in All Japan Women will be very welcoming to her. If they can get her signed, the idea is to spend a few months training her and then have her debut at the company's November show in the Tokyo Dome, to help them sell out the 63,000 seat arena and set the record for largest crowd ever for a women's wrestling show. There's also interest that, if they can make it happen, it could open doors for the promotion in the United States.
- After spending 2 pages talking about this, Dave kicks off page 3 with saying: "Reality check: none of this is going to happen." If the money is legit, it's definitely something she might consider, especially since Harding isn't exactly wallowing in endorsements at the moment. And she's an athlete, which would help her transition to wrestling if she chooses. But she also has recently earned $600,000 doing tabloid interviews and has offers to pose nude for men's magazines and star in movies. Those offers would pay good money and come with a lot less risk and still allow her to compete as a figure skater (assuming she doesn't end up getting banned from the sport). Dave also notes that if she were to become a full time wrestler for the promotion, it would mean living in Japan and that's a big life change, especially to dive headfirst into a dangerous business she knows nothing about, in a foreign country. He essentially says figure skating is a "pampered sport" and for her to move to Japan and spend months getting stiff kicked in the face and stretched by veterans in training is something she's probably unlikely to do.
- In other Japan news, word is Antonio Inoki will face Satoru Sayama (the original Tiger Mask) sometime in the next year at a major stadium show (likely the Jan. 4, 1995 Tokyo Dome show) in what would surely be one of the biggest wrestling events of all time. There's a lot of history here. Sayama, as the original Tiger Mask, was one of the most popular wrestlers ever in the early 80s. In 1983, Sayama was the leader of the group of wrestlers that successfully caused Inoki to lose his role of president of NJPW after going public that Inoki and his business manager were using company profits and funneling them into Inoki's outside business ventures, specifically a Brazilian cattle farm. Though Inoki lost much of his power in NJPW, he wasn't pushed out completely and, fearing retaliation from Inoki's friends, Sayama left the company in 1983 and retired soon after. But it seems as if both sides are now willing to put aside their past differences in the interest of doing business. (This match did eventually end up happening.....in 1997).
- As of press time, Hulk Hogan has still not signed a WCW contract, although as has been the case for the last few weeks, negotiations are ongoing and WCW is confident enough that it will go through that they are continuing to tease it on TV. WCW wants to do the match in July at their Bash at the Beach PPV but Hogan wants to hold off until August and do the match in Europe, at Wembley Stadium, which would probably have the potential to sell the most tickets.
- Wrestlemania X takes place this week. It's the last major event before Vince McMahon and WWF itself go on trial. Dave makes fun of the "celebrities" involved (Hair Club for Men president, scandal-infested Burt Reynolds, the New Kids on the Block kid, and Kelly from 90210). With $300 ringside tickets (the highest priced in the history of American wrestling), the sold out MSG arena is expected to gross nearly $2 million, which would be the largest live gate in the history of U.S. wrestling (record currently held by WM5).
- Latest rumors are that Mr. Perfect and Roddy Piper will be returning as surprise guest referees and that Jerry Lawler will return at the show as well. There's also rumors that Yokozuna will end the night as a babyface (which has been teased at house shows for the last 2 weeks) and that Luger might not be winning the title after all. Dave thinks it's hard to believe WWF would film an elaborate angle at a TV taping (see previous issue) just to swerve the small percentage of newsletter readers who will be watching, but it has to be a possibility since it's clear that Luger doesn't have the charisma or ability to carry the promotion as champion. And finally, despite rumors, Dave says Undertaker won't be returning at the event.
- Bad news for wrestling on TV in Japan, as New Japan's TV time slot has been moved to 1:30am on Saturday nights. On one hand, NJPW's TV show has a history of being preempted for other events (often golf tournaments) so at least this time slot guarantees they'll be on TV every week. On the other hand, 1:30am is pretty much a death slot. As for All Japan, their TV ratings have dropped drastically in the last year, to the point that the network that carries them is considering dropping the show altogether. For now, their show has been cut down from 1 hour to 30 minutes, which is going to require severe editing, since most of All Japan's main event matches usually last 20-25 minutes. That being said, none of this is terrible because TV isn't as critical to the wrestling industry in Japan as it is in America.
- The largest gate in the U.S. of 1994 was set last week by AAA's show in Los Angeles, drawing 13,000+ fans and bringing in over a quarter of a million dollars. Of course, this record will be broken in a matter of days by Wrestlemania X. However, the future of AAA in America is still shaky because there are disagreements over how big a cut the American promoters should get and there's also frustration because of the way the Mexican promoters involved in putting the shows together seem to do so very haphazardly and disorganized, which Dave says is just sort of the culture in Mexico. Almost all Lucha Libre shows depend on huge last minute walk-up crowds and they almost never promote matches more than a couple of days in advance, whereas in America, it's all about the build up and trying to sell out the arenas in advance. So as it is, the day of the show, they'll only have a couple thousand tickets sold and the American promoters are panicking, but then at show time, 10,000 people show up and buy tickets at the door. Anyway, as for the show, the only thing Dave mentions is that Rey Misterio Jr. did some sort of crazy out of the ring diving move that was the most spectacular thing anyone had ever seen.
- More about the way AAA promotes shows: the promotion cancelled their planned New York and Chicago shows because the American promoters wanted lineups 6 weeks in advance so they could promote the shows. For another example, AAA has three TripleMania shows scheduled for late next month and they haven't even gotten the arenas confirmed or matches planned yet. And these are shows that are expected to draw upwards of 50,000 people each. (I'm with the Americans here. That's insane. Can you imagine if Wrestlemania was a month away and we didn't even know for sure what city it was going to be in yet? I wouldn't want to work with that company either).
- SMW held a show in Georgia featuring several WWF stars (Lex Luger, 1-2-3 Kid, IRS, Owen Hart, etc.) The real action was backstage, however. Dory Funk Jr. was there, scouting for All Japan which may be forming a business relationship with SMW. Several WCW officials were backstage watching the show and Jim Ross was also there. Dave says Ross is still in a bad situation since he's still suffering from the Bells Palsy attacks and since WWF is planning to get rid of him, he needs to find a new job, but in his current condition, he can't really do job interviews and there's no way of knowing if or when his health will improve. Overall, the show outdrew WCW's last show in the same city, but was still disappointing because SMW had expected a bigger crowd.
- Brief obituaries for Ronnie Etchison and Eddy Creatchman, big names from past decades who passed away recently. Etchison was suffering from Alzheimers, which he attributed to years of taking bumps and shots to the head. And Creatchman had been nicknamed "The Brain" before Bobby Heenan took the name.
- Ron Reis made his debut last week. He's a legit 7'2, 370lbs and his trainer Big John Studd hasn't been shy about telling people that he will be the next Andre The Giant because of his size and athleticism. This guy was mentioned in one of last year's issues and his biggest claim to fame ended up being the role of WCW's Yeti.
- Royce Gracie once again won the Ultimate Fighting Championship's tournament at the 2nd UFC PPV. Ken Shamrock was scheduled to be on the show but pulled out with a broken hand suffered in training, but says he will compete at UFC 3. Dave recaps the whole show and basically says it was insanely brutal and Gracie looked unbeatable.
- Dave says that ever since he was hospitalized back in December, it's been painful to type due to an arm injury and doctors told him to stop for a few weeks. So he took last week off, which is why this issue is a double-sized issue. He also notes that he is scheduled for abdominal surgery at the end of the month so he's not sure how the regular the issues will be from here on out. Working through the injuries! That Dave Meltzer is a hell of a worker. I give this issue 4 and a half stars. Would have been 5, but he didn't type it from the Tokyo Dome so, yanno...
- Speaking of, Dave gives the rare 5 stars on a Giant Baba, Mitsuharu Misawa, and Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue, and Masanobu Fuchi match from All Japan and calls it a match of the year candidate.
- Chris Jericho is returning to EMLL for one last week, to drop the NWA Middleweight championship (likely to Negro Casas) and then will be heading back to work for SMW full-time afterwards.
- A promoter in Mexico has debuted a character called Konnan 2000, who looks and dresses exactly like Konnan and claims to be Konnan's cousin. The promoter is being threatened with a lawsuit if he doesn't drop the character. Konnan 2000 was Scott Putski, by the way.
- Terry Gordy will finally be making his long awaited return after his drug overdose last year, first in a quick tune-up match in GWF (with the other Freebirds) and then returning to All Japan in May.
- The Nasty Boys were supposed to work in New Japan but had to cancel after the shoulder injury Brian Knobbs suffered in the match at SuperBrawl.
- With Jerry Lawler's legal situation cleared up, the USWA/Vince McMahon angle is being revived. McMahon did an interview on the latest show welcoming Lawler back to the WWF and threatening him. As usual, Vince delivered a great heel promo.
- Missy Hyatt turned down USWA's offer to come in and work an angle with ex-husband Eddie Gilbert.
- SMW has a show booked next month called Bluegrass Brawl 2. One of the matches will be Dirty White Boy & Dirty White Girl vs. Brian Lee & Tammy Sytch and the match only ends when both members of the team have been stripped of their clothes and left in their underwear.
- The ECW TV title changed hands twice at the latest tapings. Sabu lost the title to the Tazmaniac, who then lost it to J.T. Smith. This apparently happened because Sabu refused to do the job for Smith but he was willing to lose to Taz, so booker Paul Heyman added a match and made Taz the transitional champion to get the belt where he wanted.
- Dutch Mantel is now the new booker for Carlos Calon's WWC promotion in Puerto Rico.
- Sandy Barr decided not to press his luck and isn't promoting shows in Oregon anymore, but has hired a new lawyer to appeal the commission's decision. In the meantime, he's moved his Saturday night shows across the river in Vancouver, WA so he doesn't have to deal with a commission.
- Sid Vicious is working his first match since the stabbing incident at an indie show in MD next month. There's a lot of heat within the industry on any promoter who dares book Sid because he's pretty much been blackballed by the business since stabbing Arn Anderson.
- Tully Blanchard did a radio interview last week and made it clear that he's looking to return to WCW. In the past, Blanchard said he wouldn't go back to wrestling because the business conflicts with his religious beliefs. Dave thinks it's funny because anytime someone like Blanchard or Satoru Samaya retire and say they aren't coming back, they always find themselves facing the reality that they won't get another chance when they get older (Blanchard is 41) and when the opportunity arises to make a lot of money quickly, they suddenly change their mind.
- Hulk Hogan was recently inducted into the Boston Garden Hall of Fame, which led to NY Post writer Phil Mushnick to write an article criticizing the Garden for inducting someone whose fame was built on steroids and who lied about it to the public and that Hogan didn't deserve the honor.
- Vince McMahon commented on the pending steroid trial in a Chicago Tribune story, saying, "I feel in the end I'll be vindicated. This investigation has been ongoing for almost two years. An investigation of that magnitude does impede the normal flow of daily business activity. You can't concentrate as well as you'd like to. It's been bothersome."
- SuperBrawl reportedly did a .67 buyrate, which, if true, would have to be considered a success and would mean WCW isn't trailing far behind WWF in PPV ratings. And it can only be expected to improve when/if Hogan comes in.
- In response to rumors that Jesse Ventura may be demoted in his commentary duties in favor of Bobby Heenan, Ventura has said that, since he gets paid more than any other announcer, he's the #1 announcer no matter what. His current WCW contract expires next year.
- Speaking of Ventura, his court case against WWF is scheduled to go to trial this week. He's suing them saying his previous contract with them was signed under duress and that he deserves a better cut of merchandise and percentage of videotape sales since his voice is used on so many of them.
- Many WCW wrestlers are upset because they've been asked to take pay cuts. Considering the company just spent $400,000 on renovating the Saturday Night set and they spent so much money on announcer contracts and since they're reportedly opening up the wallet for Hogan....obviously, the wrestlers being asked to take a cut aren't happy.
- Rick Rude reportedly doesn't want to drop the WCW International World Heavyweight Title to Sting, which is causing some heat.
- WCW aired some old Ric Flair matches on a show, which prompts Dave to say, "Anyone who thinks Bret Hart is even comparable to Ric Flair in his prime can't see the big picture, and I think Hart is great, but Flair did so many little things in matches and had so much more charisma that there is just no comparison."
- Someone writes in to ask about WCW putting together a highlight show of old Georgia Championship Wrestling clips. Dave responds and says that rumor is Ole Anderson simply threw away all the old tapes from the promotion years ago because he felt they were worthless and were taking up space. What a bummer that is in this day and age of the Network.
- Someone else writes in asking Dave if he thinks Sabu or Chris Benoit will ever make it in WWF or WCW. Dave thinks they both have a decent shot, especially Benoit who already works with WCW occasionally.