May 02, 1994
- WWF's Wrestlemania Revenge house show tour is doing huge business. They've raised ticket prices, but they offset it by loading up the shows with all the top stars and upgrading the look and presentation so it looks more like WWF shows do on TV and it seems to be working. Despite the higher ticket prices, they're selling more than usual in pretty much every market and therefore making a lot of money, despite Bret Hart defending his title against a relatively weak heel (Owen Hart) in the main events. They're doing lots of fan giveaways in between matches, contests for fans to be the ring announcer for a match, and bringing a kid out of the crowd to be Bret's manager in the main events. All these gimmicks are designed to combat their negative image and present WWF as a fan/kid-friendly product. It's believed the costs of all the production upgrades is about $15,000 more per show, but it's led to them drawing about $50,000 more than "normal" gates.
- Rumor has it Mr. Perfect has been fired by WWF. He was already out injured with a broken foot anyway, but on Raw last week, he was buried as they said he no-showed because he was afraid of Lex Luger and said he had been suspended indefinitely. Curt Hennig's contract expires near the end of the year, but word is he has enough money saved up that he doesn't need to work if he doesn't want to.
- The Steiners also reportedly quit the company this week. They have been unhappy for months about their pay after years of making so much money in WCW ($300,000 a year) and Japan ($12,000 per week). It is believed they will have to sit out the remainder of their contract, which expires in December, before they can work anywhere else in North America, but they should still be able to work Japan dates. Recently on TV, WWF had been hinting that the Steiners didn't get along, which was believed to be the start of an angle to split them up and Rick and Scott made it clear they had no interest in that. In fact, a couple years ago in WCW, Bill Watts also wanted to split them up and they threatened to quit if he did. It's likely there was a similar situation here, as neither of them want to break up the team.
- The charges against WWF and Vince McMahon have been re-written and new charges have been added. Vince now faces 3 charges and WWF faces 2. They're all still pretty much the same really: possession with intent to distribute steroids, conspiracy to distribute, etc. However, these changes increase the maximum penalty against McMahon, who now faces 11 years in federal prison instead of 8.
- An article in the New York Daily News revealed that the government is alleging that in 1990, McMahon ordered WWF employee Howard Finkel to fraudulently take an HIV blood test for Hulk Hogan, which was required by the NY state athletic commission. A Current Affair is working on a story based on this info, and essentially asking if this was some sort of drug test or is Hulk Hogan trying to hide that he has HIV? 1990 was a year and a half before the Magic Johnson HIV story broke and as far as Dave can tell, the NY commission wasn't doing HIV testing back then. Really, it sounds like it might have just been a drug test as part of a physical and the HIV part might be misinformation. It would definitely make a lot more sense for Vince to have Finkel take a drug test on Hogan's behalf.
- The 4/18 episode of Monday Night Raw set an all-time record, with a 3.7 rating. Meanwhile, WCW's TV ratings have been dropping, even with the upgraded production and the ongoing hype on TV about Hulk Hogan coming in, which can't be seen as good news.
- Tonya Harding will not be wrestling. Her lawyers broke off negotiations with All Japan Women after it became evident that the two sides weren't anywhere near an agreement on financial terms. While AJW had publicly claimed they were offering Harding $2 million, when they got down to actually negotiating, they only offered her $380,000 to work 50 shows over the next year. Harding and her team decided to pass. However, at the end of the day, the promotion generated a lot of publicity and didn't really have to pay a dime for it, so they still come out okay.
- Galavision, the cable network that airs AAA in the United States, has cut back from airing 7 hours of wrestling per week down to two hours. AAA wanted to cut back due to concerns about overexposure. Funnily enough, those two hours of AAA air on Saturday nights, head-to-head against WCW. Even more ironically, AAA has been negotiating with WCW about putting together a working agreement. Fortunately for both sides, there's not a whole lot of crossover between AAA fans and WCW fans, so it shouldn't cut into each other too much.
- New Japan's annual 5/1 Fukuoka Dome show takes place next week, featuring the return of the original Tiger Mask, Satoru Sayama after 9 years of retirement. They also tried to get Hulk Hogan on the show but were unable to because he was expected to testify in the McMahon trial. By the time they found out that the trial had been pushed back to July, it was too late. The most interesting part about the show is that it's main evented by Antonio Inoki vs. Great Muta. However, the TV network that airs their show in Japan has banned anything involving Inoki from airing on their network due to his political scandals from last year so the main event isn't being hyped or talked about at all on TV except for random, vague clips of Great Muta without any explanation of why they're advertising him for the show. One of the clips does address Inoki though, it's a clip of Muta looking into the camera and saying, "Inoki, I kill you, faggot." So, umm...there's that.
- Triplemania II-A, the first of 3 shows under the Triplemania II banner, takes place next week also. Last year's show set the all-time gate record in Mexico and it's expected this year's show will have a surprise major angle similar to last year's show when Jake Roberts showed up unannounced to cost Konnan his retirement match.
- Dave notes that subscription prices will be increasing soon and the newsletter will be expanding because there's so much news in the business lately. In turn, I am now increasing the cost of these Reddit posts.
- In USWA, a tag team called The Eliminators debuted. One of the guys is Perry Saturn, but Dave doesn't know who the other guy is yet. Apparently, they weren't very impressive from what he's heard.
- The Thrillseekers (Chris Jericho and Lance Storm) have major star potential and are getting over big in SMW. Dave thinks the team could do well in either WWF or WCW. Speaking of Chris Jericho, Dave has learned that his father, Ted Irvine, played 11 seasons in the NHL in the 60s and 70s.
- When Jim Ross' health improves, Dave thinks he'll probably end up doing color commentary for SMW. Ross was living in Connecticut but has recently moved back to Atlanta. He's still at least a month away from being able to get back on TV again after his recent Bells Palsy issues.
- The ECW/WCW working agreement so far is only for one show, coming up in 2 weeks. Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton will work the show and in exchange, ECW will plug WCW's upcoming PPV in Philadelphia. Tod Gordon has said that he is open to doing future business with WCW, but since booker Paul Heyman has a problem with it, he doesn't want to put Heyman in that position, so it's unlikely the relationship will continue beyond this show.
- ECW has signed Sabu to an exclusive contract within the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, which means he'll no longer be working indies in those locations. They're trying to work out a similar deal with Terry Funk. Meanwhile, ECW is looking at holding weekly shows now, instead of monthly shows they've been doing previously (which were then chopped up and edited for TV over the course of several weeks).
- Circo Magazine (the Mexican equivalent of People Magazine) listed Vampiro as one of the 50 most beautiful people in Latin America. Vampiro's marginal wrestling ability is actually acknowledged in the magazine, saying, "The truth is he isn't much of a wrestler and never really knows what to do in the ring. But people don't like him for how he wrestles, but rather for how he looks. I don't think Ian (his real name) ever really cared about wrestling. His real thing always was rock and now he has his band and he's happy. Maybe he can't wrestle and can't sing -- but the fact is he is wrestling and singing." Ouch. It also noted that, at the peak of his popularity, Vampiro was earning upwards of $30,000 a week, which Dave thinks sounds suspect.
- Word is 2 Cold Scorpio was fired from WCW after failing several drug tests, and not for steroids. In related news, WCW surprised the wrestlers this week with a surprise drug test, though as always, if they're serious about their drug testing policy, then a lot of the roster is going to be suspended soon (they weren't serious about it).
- Vader suffered a broken wrist at Spring Stampede but hasn't missed any dates.
- Evad Sullivan is out indefinitely after blowing out his knee, so Kevin Sullivan will now be teaming with Cactus Jack, who has decided to postpone his reconstructive ear surgery.
- The A Current Affair segment on Missy Hyatt's lawsuit against WCW stirred up a hornet's nest. There was tremendous heat on Cactus Jack for something he apparently said when interviewed for the show. Apparently it came off as if Jack was encouraging Missy's lawsuit because she could make a lot of money off Ted Turner from it. WCW claims they didn't fire Missy, but simply let her contract expire because they didn't plan to use her anymore. But Dave calls bullshit on that because when Sherri Martel was brought in, she was brought in as a babyface and WCW had started the wheels in motion on a Sherri vs. Missy feud. When Missy left, they abruptly turned Sherri heel. It's proof that WCW had plans for her prior to her contract expiring and perhaps lends credence to Missy's claim that she was fired when she confronted Eric Bischoff about the sexual harassment she allegedly endured.
- Eric Bischoff did an interview in the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter. Regarding new talent, Bischoff claims the first thing they look for is in-ring skill. If that's true, Dave wonders how Harlem Heat got jobs and Sabu didn't (eh, time sorta proved Bischoff right on that one. Booker T ended up being a much bigger success than Sabu). Bischoff also claimed that no one in WCW was upset about the Disney TV tapings exposing the business by filming months of shows in advance, but Dave says most of the wrestlers he talked to definitely had a problem with it.
- Tom Zenk's contract with WCW won't be renewed when it expires this month.
- Apparently the plan for Slamboree is for Rick Rude to defend the WCW International title against Vader. This obviously means that Rude will be winning the title back from Sting in their match in Japan this week (yeah, Rude did indeed win the title back but it doesn't go well for him).
- WWF is involved in a lawsuit with Chuck Austin, the jobber who was injured in a match by Marty Jannetty back in Dec. 1990. The case went to trial last month and is ongoing. Austin is currently able to walk using crutches. He filed suit in 1991 against Jannetty, Shawn Michaels, and WWF for assault and battery, negligence, and misrepresentation. Both Jannetty and Michaels have testified in the trial. Dean Malenko and Killer Kowalski were brought in by WWF as expert witnesses to testify. Chuck Austin's side brought in Bruno Sammartino to testify on their behalf. Because lord knows, he's impartial.
- Expect Undertaker to show up unannounced at King of the Ring (nope).