December 05, 1994
- Art Barr, known as Love Machine in Mexico, passed away in his sleep last week at age 28 at his home in Springfield, OR. So we lead off with a really long but fantastic obituary that I'll try to sum up in a few paragraphs. Barr's mother was unable to get ahold of him and got worried and went to his house. After banging on the door, she looked in a bedroom window and saw Barr and his 5-year-old son Dexter asleep beside each other in the bed. She pounded on the window and woke up Dexter, who let her in. When she went to check on Art, he was cold and there was blood coming from his nose and she called 911, who pronounced him dead and said he had been dead for anywhere from 6 to 24 hours (and right next to his son in bed the whole time. Fuck that's awful...). An autopsy was performed but no cause of death has been determined yet. There have been rumors of a brain aneurysm but the autopsy ruled that out. He had taken sleeping pills the night before, but the coroner hasn't yet been able to rule it an overdose either.
- Barr's death was a huge news story in Mexico but wasn't really reported much at all in America other than his hometown of Portland. Tributes have been pouring in from throughout the wrestling world. From here, Dave recaps Art Barr's troubled life and career, from his start in his father and Don Owen's Portland promotion through his criminal past. Barr was arrested at 18 for cocaine possession and most notably was charged with rape in 1989 and the case became a huge scandal in Portland that was later plea bargained down to 1st degree sexual abuse. Barr was given fines, community service, and probation. During a lie detector test, Barr admitted having sex with her and said he knew at the time she didn't want to have sex with him where they were (under the stairwell at the arena), but believed she was willing to have sex with him somewhere else. So...he just did it under the stairwell anyway. Barr accepted a plea deal to avoid jail time and make the case go away but was adamant until his death that he hadn't done anything wrong, but the public outcry in the Portland media mostly ruined his career there and he was stripped of his license to wrestle in the area. Later, he went to WCW, but the case followed him in the media (Dave actually implies here that WWF was responsible for faxing information about Art Barr to newspapers in cities WCW was appearing in, though he doesn't outright say it) and WCW dropped Barr soon after.
- From there, Barr jumped to Mexico and, especially after forming a tag team with Eddie Guerrero, he became a megastar, despite concerns over his out-of-the-ring lifestyle (he would get in fights and partied a lot). In the last few months, Barr was arguably the best heel in the business and his final match was a show-stealing performance at the recent AAA When Worlds Collide PPV that was likely the greatest performance of his life at the biggest event of his career. Dave says that, aside from Shawn Michaels, there was no wrestler on earth who was more likely to become a major star in the next 5 years. At the end, Art Barr was a troubled man with a dark past, but was one of the best wrestlers in the world and probably hadn't reached his prime yet.
- The issue also includes a poem about Barr that was written by Chris Jericho, who sent it to Dave to include in the newsletter (I think this might be in one of Jericho's books also, I can't remember):
- Trying to forget the news
- That you're gone so soon
- It leaves me crushed and broken
- So sad, I don't know what to do
- A brother is more than blood
- More than just a name
- Even though we have different families
- We were brothers just the same
- We weren't brothers in flesh and blood
- We were brothers of circumstance
- Sharing stories and good times
- Sharing the same visions and dreams
- I remember so many times
- When each other was all we had
- Helping to conquer the difficulties
- Of being two strangers in a strange land
- Yet I'm very thankful
- At the end of that one day
- When we exchanged the words "I love you"
- As only true brothers can say
- Because even though you have gone
- To a place we all shall see
- We shared respect, love, admiration and fun
- And you will always be with me
- Chris "Lion Heart" Jericho - Thanksgiving 1994, Mexico City
- Diesel became the new WWF champion this week at a house show this week in Madison Square Garden, capturing the title from Bob Backlund in 8 seconds, only three days after Backlund won the title from Bret Hart at Survivor Series (which we haven't even gotten to yet). The title change comes after Diesel had turned babyface on Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series. It's WWF's latest attempt to create a new top star after Hulk Hogan left and Lex Luger flopped. When Shawn's broken hand is healed, he's expected to feud with Diesel for the title.
- Ricky Steamboat has quietly decided to retire. During a match with Steve Austin in August at Clash of the Champions, Steamboat suffered a herniated and collapsed disc in his lower back, which pressed on a nerve in his left leg. Steamboat had hoped to come back in 1995 and wanted to wrestle through the end of that year before retiring, but 3 different doctors all advised against it, warning him there was a significant chance of further serious injury. Dave notes that Steamboat is near the top of almost everyone's list as one of the most respected people in the business.
- Survivor Series is in the books. The biggest notes from the show: Diesel finally turned babyface on Shawn Michaels, Bob Backlund won the title from Bret Hart in a nearly 40-minute match that Dave was bored to death by. Backlund held Bret Hart in the chicken wing for over 9 minutes before the towel was thrown in. And Undertaker won a casket match against Yokozuna, with Chuck Norris being the outside-the-ring enforcer to keep the heels away. Undertaker's ring entrance was cool, which is about the only good thing Dave has to say about that.
- A few weeks back, the Mexican wrestling commission made a list of ridiculous rules that wrestlers had to adhere to. No change on all those rules, and this week, they've added 2 more: no more brother vs. brother matches. And all wrestlers must be within 10kg (22 pounds) of each other.
- Perro Aguayo is telling people he wants to retire after next year's Triplemania show.
- Expect AAA to change the booking of many of the top angles in the promotion, because Art Barr was expected to be such a big part of basically everything that was planned to happen in the next few months.
- Louie Spicolli is likely finishing up with AAA soon and headed to WWF in the next couple of months.
- At the latest WCW tapings, Rick Rude and Curt Hennig both showed up (in suits & ties) and were introduced to the crowd and signed autographs. It won't make TV, it was just for the live crowd. Rude has been trying to settle his lawsuit with the company and Hennig was there negotiating to come in.
- On the WCW hotline, Gene Okerlund has been claiming that WCW is in negotiations with Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart. Of course, neither of which is remotely true and Okerlund is a snake. Also, Bret Hart has been openly very critical of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. And with Hogan basically running the company and Flair being the booker, it probably wouldn't work out well for him even if he was to jump ship.
- Brian Pillman is expected to get a renewed push soon as a heel cruiserweight champion. Pillman also recently filmed an episode of Baywatch.
- Randy Savage will make a WCW TV appearance before showing up at Starrcade and will be teasing that he's going to Starrcade to confront Hogan. They're playing it up as if they don't know whether Savage will be heel or face, but Dave says he's definitely going to come in as a babyface and will almost certainly have a run with the WCW title in 1995.
- There is a ton of heat among the older WCW crew who are upset about the pushes that are being given to all of Hulk Hogan's friends, especially Jim Duggan, who has been routinely beating Steve Austin in squash matches.
- Expect an influx of new talent showing up to WWF soon. Among the names Dave has heard are Kensuke Shinzaki, as mentioned last week (he became Hakushi), Louie Spicolli, Mark Canterberry coming in as a new Hillbilly Jim-type character using the name Henry Godwin, and Brian Lee is expected to return with a new gimmick soon. Also, there have been rumors of bringing in Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch, trying to recreate a Blond Bombers type tag team with Candido and another wrestler, managed by Sytch.
- The ICOPRO company was sold and is no longer part of Titan Sports or WWF. Seems like a good time to check out an old ICOPRO commercial with Bret Hart at the end.
- Jacques Rougeau and Vince McMahon have reportedly had a major falling out. Rougeau was trying to put together a show in January at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal on behalf of WWF. The stadium wanted $280,000 up front to rent the stadium and for setup fees. WWF refused. Rougeau managed to negotiate the price down to $154,000 and just as he was ready to sign off on the deal, McMahon changed his mind and said he didn't think the time was right or that the city was hot enough to try to run a show at the 60,000 seat stadium. The media picked up on it and painted Rougeau as the good guy because he planned to donate $1 from every ticket sold to a children's charity in the city and they painted McMahon as the grinch who hates kids. But Dave thinks he made the right decision because they would have a hard time drawing enough for that show. They could probably only draw 15,000-20,000 in the city and that would look bad in a building that large. So Rougeau contacted Jimmy Hart to talk about bringing WCW in to work the stadium instead and even talked about coming out of retirement to team with Hogan for the show. No word on if that will happen yet, but WCW has no real TV presence there, so trying to run a WCW show in a 60,000 seat stadium in Montreal would be a disaster, even if Rougeau did come out of retirement (only 3 months after WWF gave him a huge emotional sendoff). TL;DR - all of this has created a lot of bad feelings between Rougeau and McMahon.
- Yokozuna is having some minor surgery and is expected to return to WWF in April, although his contract expires soon and WCW is reportedly interested in bringing him in.