October 10, 1994
- No real updates on the Ric Flair/WCW retirement angle. The biggest hurdle WCW has is that no one thinks Hogan will lose the match, so they have to go out of their way to stack the odds against Hogan to make it look like he might lose. They filmed a segment with Flair and Mr. T to give the impression that Mr. T (the special ref in the match) might be in cahoots with Flair. It seems to be working. The advance ticket sales are well on their way to breaking the WCW all-time record, set by Flair vs. Funk in 1989 and the PPV buyrate is predicted to possibly be even higher than the Bash at the Beach buyrate when Hogan debuted. The current plan after Flair "retires" is to have him still be an on-screen personality somehow and Flair is currently negotiating a contract extension. For the record, no one really buys this as a real retirement and it's expected Flair will sit out for a few months before WCW gets desperate and calls him back to the ring.
- Dave discusses whether this whole thing is a good idea. Flair has been the centerpiece of WCW the entire time he's been there. When he was in WWF, chants of "we want Flair!" filled arenas for the almost-2-years he was gone. At 45 years old, he's still arguably the best in-ring performer in the company (with only Steve Austin and Brian Pillman being close) and still cuts the best promos. Dave isn't sure it's worth it to put Flair on the bench when the company could still really use him. He even brings math into it and figuring how much Flair probably earns the company vs. what they might make on this PPV by retiring him, which gets a little complicated. Getting rid of Flair and putting all their eggs in the Hogan basket is risky since Hogan hasn't really led to a consistent increase in TV ratings or house show attendance.
- Hulk Hogan is scheduled to face Vader at an upcoming house show in November, which leads to an interesting political situation. Vader is still the UWFI champion in Japan and the promotion isn't going to want Vader to do a job to any other world champions, especially Hulk Hogan. So you can expect Vader to either lose the UWFI title before then, or expect them to do a screwjob finish to protect Vader because he's probably not going to agree to job to Hogan while he's still got the UWFI title.
- Latest on Jushin Liger is that he broke his ankle in two places. While the injury is severe, it's luckily not expected to be a career-ender and they expect him back in February or March (turns out that was pretty optimistic. He really did end up missing almost a year and didn't come back until September of 95).
- Jim Crockett is expected to sign a 10-year lease to run weekly Friday night shows at the Dallas Sportatorium, replacing the now-defunct GWF. The only details so far is that Crockett plans to use some of the same GWF stars, but won't use Chris Adams, who was the top babyface in the area (and is presumably still searching for his lost ring). Crockett is expected to get a weekly TV spot on Channel 33 in Dallas and will run the promotion as the NWA TV show. Tully Blanchard and Scandor Akbar are expected to be bookers and Joe Pedicino will be brought in to do commentary. Blanchard will also be one of the top stars, along with the Freebirds (Garvin and Gordy, managed by Hayes).
- In NJPW, there's a lot of talk that Power Warrior will go back to using the name Kensuke Sasaki and that will spell the end of the Hellraisers tag team with Hawk. It's expected that Road Warrior Animal will return to the ring in early 95 to reform the Road Warriors team.
- Speaking of Hawk, he threw a little bit of a fit about putting over Masa Chono in Japan. He refused to do a submission to the STF and finally agreed to allow himself to be pinned by a roll-up, but he still kicked out right at 3 and jumped up to keep fighting and sell it as if he just barely failed to kick out in time. Scott Norton also refused to put over Chono and they ended up doing a DQ finish.
- Genichiro Tenryu has given up his position as president of the WAR promotion in Japan to his brother-in-law. WAR is reportedly in bad financial shape and it's questionable if they'll last long into 1995. Japanese bankruptcy law states that if you file for bankruptcy, you can't start up a new company in the same business for a certain number of years. By giving up the presidency, Tenryu won't be in charge if WAR folds and therefore, he would be able to start a new promotion immediately after.
- All Japan Women's wrestler Takako Inoue posed for nude photos that will be released in magazines later this month, which has been the subject of some controversy in Japan. (Apparently she posed nude several times, including a 1995 book that is like, 90 pages of nude pics of her. Google image search has some of what you're looking for.)
- The big Sid Vicious vs. Jerry Lawler matches in USWA haven't been drawing well in Memphis, but it led to double the usual crowd for their Nashville show.
- Latest on the Jim Cornette vandalism charges, the damage is estimated at $1,200 so it would be a felony. The case has been postponed until February and Cornette is wanting to settle the case out of court, but O'Connor refuses to drop the charges.
- For months, SMW had been hyping up a mystery commissioner who was running the promotion but the storyline has apparently been dropped. Dave reveals that it was supposed to be Bill Watts, but last anyone heard, Watts is off somewhere in Australia and they couldn't find him, so they dropped the angle.
- Jim Ross and Cactus Jack both debuted at the latest SMW tapings, with Cactus in particular getting a huge response and seems to be set up to feud with Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch. They also still have Boo Bradley (Balls Mahoney) who essentially is treated like a dog by Candido and Sytch. At one point in the show, Tammy Sytch brought Bradley's beloved cat out and threatened to strangle it if Bradley didn't obey her, which he finally did. Cactus responded, saying, "This isn't the first time a little pussy has messed up a man's mind." The gimmick is apparently similar to Undertaker, where Bradley will be getting beat up and then Tammy will hold the kitten up like Paul Bearer holds the urn, which will give Bradley the power to come back and win matches.
- In ECW, they did an angle between Tommy Dreamer and Sandman where Dreamer took a cigarette and burned Sandman's eye with it. They played it up huge backstage for the cameras and even after the cameras were off, they treated it as a legit injury, to the point where even Dave isn't sure if Sandman was really hurt.
- Sabu has talked about going to WWF next year, but reportedly ECW has offered him big money to stay with them instead.
- The judge ruled that Jesse Ventura never actually moved out of his Brooklyn Park, MN home and therefore, he will remain mayor until the end of his term. He also ruled that the city council must reimburse Ventura's legal fees. Ventura did interviews later, making fun of everyone involved, saying that he had no legal training, yet he went in there and defended himself in court and won.
- Dave has never heard so much unanimous agreement on how bad the Herb Abrams show last week was. Everyone he's talked to said it was horrible. Among the lowlights was Abrams getting on the house P.A. system and announcing, "Let's hear it for the Jews!" and then when interviewing midget wrestler Little Tokyo, Abrams talked about one time "being married to a Jap." Curt Hennig was at the show and was scheduled to cut a promo, but he's still under WWF contract and Abrams apparently realized at the last minute that WWF would probably sue him, so Hennig didn't appear.
- Warlord, Sgt. Slaughter, and Tito Santana were all backstage at the latest WCW tapings, looking for work. Warlord was telling people he'd been off steroids for the last 18 months, but everyone who saw him felt he was insulting their intelligence.
- Hulk Hogan is trying to pitch the idea of doing a couple of made-for-TV movies for Thunder In Paradise to air on TBS but so far, no one seems interested. The TV series is pretty much dead.
- WCW wrestler Craig Pittman will reportedly be fighting at the UFC 4 PPV in December because Meng turned down the offer. Pittman is a former marine and is known to be pretty tough. Word is WCW offered Pittman $60,000 to enter the tournament, plus he can keep whatever prize money he earns at the event. WCW wants a pro wrestler in the event and UFC reportedly does also, since Ken Shamrock will likely not be participating this time because he's expected to be working the Pancrase show in Japan the same night.
- Bob Backlund's heel character is getting a huge push, but doesn't seem to be getting over that much. Regardless, he's scheduled to face Bret Hart for the WWF title at Survivor Series.
- There are rumors going around about both Ultimate Warrior and Sid Vicious returning to WWF. Dave clarifies that he's heard the rumors but hasn't heard any confirmation one way or the other from anyone who would know, so take them with a grain of salt for now.