Wrestling Observer Rewinder

April 25, 1994

Wrestlemania X is in the books and Dave opens the issue by saying "Shawn Michaels put on one of the greatest individual performances in the history of the business at Wrestlemania X on 3/20 in New York's Madison Square Garden to highlight what the consensus is the best PPV show in WWF history." Dave says it's probably the best match ever on a WWF PPV and somehow overshadowed another one of the greatest matches in WWF history between Bret and Owen Hart (both of which he says were better than Steamboat/Savage at WM3). He can't remember any major wrestling event that has ever packed as good of a 1-2 punch as this one did with those two matches.
WATCH: Wrestlemania X in 60 seconds
That being said, the show looks to have drawn the lowest buyrate of any Wrestlemania in the past, though that was expected. Due to higher ticket prices, it broke the record for largest gate in American wrestling history.
Cactus Jack had his right ear ripped off in a match with Vader in Germany last week. It's an accident reminiscent of a famous incident between Killer Kowalski and Yukon Eric in which Eric lost part of his ear (which turned Kowalski into one of the biggest heels in wrestling). Cactus got caught up in the ropes and the pressure ripped off his right ear and cut his left ear badly enough that he needed over a dozen stitches in it. WCW ring announcer Gary Cappetta took the ear that fell off and put it on ice, however doctors were only able to save part of it. Cactus finished the match and reports are his hearing is okay and he's in remarkably good spirits about the whole thing. WCW's company newsletter (that was a thing?) made jokes about it, saying, "Jack did his best Vincent Van Gogh imitation" and joked that he was being sent home from the tour EARly. The article ended with, "If Cactus Jack hit the ropes differently, we could be making comparisons to John Wayne Bobbitt rather than Van Gogh." A photo caption told Cactus' friends to cross ear muffs off their Christmas lists this year. Dave thinks this is all in poor taste, but I think it's hilarious.
WATCH: Cactus Jack vs. Vader (rope spot at 12:05. Referee appears to pick up ear at 12:55)
On the same German tour, there were several other injuries and issues: Vader suffered a broken eardrum in a match with Sting and may need surgery. It caused problems with his balance and Vader had to be carried from the arena and hospitalized. Ron Simmons also suffered a torn bicep on the same show Cactus was injured in and depending on how bad the tear is, he could be out anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. Referee Nick Patrick had to return home due to a family emergency and referee Randy Anderson suffered a broken leg early in the tour as well. With both referees gone, WCW enlisted a hardcore wrestling fan that some of the guys knew and used him as a referee, but his inexperience reportedly caused numerous problems.
Back to Wrestlemania, various notes from the show: Little Richard sang America The Beautiful and then left without signing autographs or anything, which rubbed some of the wrestlers the wrong way. Jennie Garth was supposed to do some backstage skit, but refused and only came out during the main event and looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. Burt Reynolds got over great though because he's a legit wrestling fan and seemed to be really into the show.
Dave gives his match-by-match review of the show. He gives Owen vs. Bret 4.75 stars and while he wasn't surprised to see Bret lose, he was shocked that he lost clean in the middle of the ring. Yokozuna/Luger was awful because Yoko just doesn't have the stamina needed to work long matches and desperately needs to lose weight and the screwjob ending didn't help, though it served its purpose to turn the returning Mr. Perfect heel. And of course, he gives the Shawn/Razor ladder match 5 stars and says it will be remembered for years to come (indeed it was).
Vince McMahon dropped his lawsuit against Phil Mushnick and the NY Post this week, after the judge refused to put the lawsuit on hold during McMahon's upcoming steroid trial. The case was dropped with neither side admitting that the other was right and neither the NY Post or Mushnick paid any settlement to WWF.
In regards to the Tonya Harding/All Japan Women's story, on March 16th, Harding pled guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to probation, a fine, and was banned from figure skating. When asked by a reporter about the wrestling promotion's $2 million offer for her to become a wrestler, Harding's only response was, "Get real." Entertainment Tonight's lead story was about the promotion's offer and showed several clips of All Japan Women matches. All Japan's president is still saying he plans to meet with Harding's representatives, but they're currently swamped with all the media requests and other offers Harding is currently receiving and haven't spoken with the promotion yet. Furthermore, the terms of Harding's probation mean she might not even be able to leave the country if she wanted to, which would obviously kill the deal. Dave seems to think this whole thing is stupid and obviously has no chance of happening, and wishes he didn't even have to cover it. But the mainstream media has latched on to it, with reporters from all over the world and from ABC and the Wall Street Journal sending reporters to Tokyo to interview the promotion's execs. So all in all, this won't happen, but it's managed to turn into a hell of a publicity stunt for AJW.
Hulk Hogan made appearances on Regis & Kathy Lee and the Conan O'Brien show, mostly to plug Thunder In Paradise (which has gotten horrible reviews). In the interviews, Hogan claimed he'll make an announcement in a few weeks that will rock the wrestling world, which is expected to be the announcement of his signing with WCW. On the Danny Bonaduce radio show, Hogan plugged WCW's upcoming Flair/Steamboat match and challenged the winner, which further suggests he's headed for WCW, though as of yet, the deal hasn't been signed.
As if things weren't bad enough for All Japan's TV show getting cut down to 30 minutes last week, it was made worse this week when the network moved the show to a Saturday night 2:30am time slot, which is just about the worst time slot for a TV show and pretty much eliminates the casual viewer. Only people who set their VCR's to record it will be watching now. TV isn't as important in Japan because most of the big stars (Giant Baba, Stan Hansen, etc.) are such popular celebrities that they will draw even without a TV show. And they have tons of ardent followers in Tokyo who will still record and watch the show, so it won't really hurt there either, but this eliminates the ability to get newer stars over to the general public, which will hurt tremendously in the long run. Especially now that they only have 30 minutes a week to get those stars over. Few people believe that this will actually threaten the promotion though. All Japan Women lost their weekly TV show in the 80s and they're still doing fine without any TV at all.
At a New Japan show last week, Satoru Sayama made his first appearance in a New Japan ring since leaving the company 11 years ago and retiring. Inoki appeared with him and they made mention of working a match together soon (likely in May or January, Dave says). On the same show, Hiroshi Hase captured the WCW International World Title from Rick Rude, though it's expected Rude will regain it next week and the title change won't be acknowledged on WCW TV in America.
WWF held a Fan Fest event the weekend of Wrestlemania and word is they will be doing those in the future for big events like Wrestlemania. With the upcoming trial, the company is going all out to present a positive image and all the wrestlers who were there to sign autographs were gracious and friendly.
Dave is undergoing abdominal surgery this week for the burst appendix he suffered back in December, so there may or may not be an issue next week (spoiler: there is).
For the first time in years, All Japan Women failed to sellout the Korakuen Hall arena, which leads Dave on a rant about how there's just too much wrestling going on. Both AJPW and NJPW had shows in that building the day before and there are wrestling shows there every week. With over a dozen active wrestling promotions in Japan, mostly operating in and around one city (Tokyo), they're simply burning out the market.
On SMW TV this week, Dirty White Girl cut a promo hyping their upcoming match (where the match ends when the loser has been stripped of their clothing). DWG called Tammy Sytch a rat and said she "runs around from hotel room to hotel room, looking for new meat." (how true that turned out to be). Sytch responded that winning the match will be easy because all you have to do is pull out $10 and DWG will automatically start stripping.
An indie show fire deathmatch match between Flash Flannagan and Mike Samples ended with Samples getting 3rd degree burns when the fire surrounding the ring got out of control. Even the referee suffered minor burns.
At a recent AAA show, there was an "I Love La Parka" group of fans at ringside, with little kids chanting "I love you!" at La Parka (who is a heel). Because La Parka is simply the best.
Brian Pillman's contract has expired and his status is up in the air right now. He's still working dates he was previously advertised for and is still negotiating with WCW on a new deal.
Eric Bischoff was in Sweden last week trying to put together a TV deal in that country. They don't get WWF there, so WCW would have a huge advantage there if they can make it happen.
Tully Blanchard is apparently finally making his return to wrestling and will face Terry Funk at WCW's Slamboree PPV in May.
18-year-old wrestler Alex Wright worked WCW's UK tour and was said to be impressive.
Brian Knobbs and Rick Rude filed a countersuit against the men who are suing them over a bar brawl that happened back in December, saying the men started it and that one of them hit Knobbs with a beer bottle and another one cracked one of Rude's teeth. Both wrestlers are seeking damages of more than $10,000.
The angle filmed at the recent TV tapings with Lex Luger parading around as WWF champion was clearly a swerve, because apparently the decision to have Hart win the title at Wrestlemania wasn't a last-minute one. Dave says the decision to put the title on Bret is a rare admission from McMahon that the Luger push was a failure.
The Steiners are still under WWF contract until December but don't seem to be involved in any future plans. They're still being allowed to work their New Japan dates, but otherwise, there doesn't seem to be anything in the cards for them. The Quebeccers even did an interview over the weekend, talking about how they ran the Steiners out of WWF.
Stan Lane, Johnny Polo (Raven) and Shane McMahon are expected to start working as assistant TV producers and it's expected that Shane McMahon will start getting some TV time as an announcer, as they slowly groom him to one day be Vince McMahon's heir apparent.
In what is sort of a famous story, the New York Daily News reported all of the finishes for Wrestlemania on the morning before the show. This was based on conversation among several wrestlers that was overheard at a New York Steakhouse. Dave says someone obviously misheard the conversation because it was reported that Luger would win the title. The next day, after Mania, the same newspaper reported that Hart was given the title instead and Luger was being punished for allegedly talking about the planned finish where reporters could hear. Dave says this is all pretty much bullshit because Vince would have to be out of his mind to change the main event finish of the biggest show of the year simply because one newspaper reported it. He says Bill Watts used to be notorious for that in the 80s, and would change finishes if the word got out, even if the new finish didn't make sense, just because he wanted to swerve whoever had gotten word. But Dave basically says Vince isn't that foolish. But this story, combined with the TV taping of Lex as champion has led to a decades-long conspiracy theory that Luger didn't win the title because he blabbed the finish to a reporter the night before the show. Luger has repeatedly denied it and said he was never promised the title that night, but the rumor still lives on.