January 09, 1995
- Dave gives quick results on the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show and promises to have more details next week because he didn't have time to get them in this issue.
- Dave takes a final look back at 1994 and says it will be remembered for several huge stories. Vince McMahon spent 3 weeks on trial for steroid conspiracy charges. Hulk Hogan signed with WCW. Ric Flair was forced into retirement, though it almost certainly won't be permanent. UFC became strong PPV competition for pro wrestling. Dave goes on to list basically every top story of the year (Diesel & Backlund as world champions, Jim Ross fired and rehired twice, Brutus f'n Beefcake main-eventing Starrcade, Lex Luger plummeting to midcard status, Undertaker dying and being resurrected, Roddy Piper returning and no one caring, Jesse Ventura getting canned by WCW, etc.) but those are the biggest.
- Hulk Hogan vs. Vader is scheduled to headline SuperBrawl. The problem is Vader is the UWFI champion in Japan and UWFI is very protective of pushing its product as "real" and they will have serious problems with their champion doing a clean job to anyone, especially Hulk Hogan, the poster child of "fake" wrestling. Dave thinks it's likely that Vader will lose the UWFI title before then because WCW is going to pressure Vader to put Hogan over. As for the match itself, Vader is at his best when he has opponents that don't mind his stiff work and Hogan ain't gonna go for that shit. Vader never looks good when he works light so Dave doesn't have high hopes for the match.
- Dave says the growth of UFC is one of the biggest stories happening and the wrestling promotions are concerned. Some feel that if UFC continues to gain popularity, the realism of it will make fans realize even more just how fake wrestling is. Others feel UFC is just a fad and that government regulations will eventually kill it. UFC's PPV buyrates are definitely worrying to both WWF and WCW. Dave basically says Japan is about 10 years ahead of America when it comes to wrestling trends and they've already dealt with situations like this back in the 80s, with the rise of UWF which presented a more realistic, stiffer style and forced AJPW and NJPW to adapt to survive. Dave thinks WWF will adapt and change first because when WCW loses money, it comes from Turner. But when WWF loses money, it comes directly from Vince McMahon's pocket and he's very serious about his bottom line. With Hogan running WCW, he doesn't think they'll change at all in 1995.
- A former pro wrestler in Zimbabwe named Oliver James Tengende (O.J.) committed suicide after confessing to murdering his girlfriend and her sister the night before. A year ago, he was cleared on murder charges when his wife was poisoned. These damn O.J.'s in 1994-95 just can't stop killin' folks...
- UWA champion Canek has been talking about retiring because business is so bad at the moment.
- At the latest SMW tapings, Glen Jacobs debuted using the name Unabomb, doing a Diesel-type gimmick where he's acting as Eddie Gilbert's bodyguard and no-selling everything.
- There's concern over the cat-squishing angle in SMW that was filmed but hasn't aired on TV yet. It's expected to air next week and there's concern that some of the TV stations might be upset by it. And speaking of controversial angles, Jim Cornette is continuing to get over as a babyface at house shows by making racist comments about the Gangstas.
- Tully Blanchard is coming in to challenge Shane Douglas for the ECW title this week, with the idea being that Tully is another member of Ric Flair's posse and Douglas is basically fighting and beating anyone associated with Flair.
- Abdullah the Butcher has opened up a restaurant in the Atlanta area called Abdullah's House of Ribs and Chinese Food. (And after running for over 20 years, it actually just closed down last year. Here's a cool post from redditor u/bruiserbrody45 who did a review of the place with a bunch of pictures).
- A Virginia newspaper did a story on Scott Norton, who was quoted talking about how much better the wrestling business is doing in Japan as opposed to America. Norton also hinted that he will be joining WCW soon. Dave says Hogan is always looking for new big monsters to feud with and Norton fits the bill. But he also said Norton reportedly works so stiff that he makes Vader look soft, and Hogan isn't going to want to work with someone who will stiff him.
- AAA's Lizmark Jr. broke his femur bone in 2 places and will be out of action for several months.
- The peso in Mexico has lost a lot of its value in recent months, down 43% from the dollar in just the last two weeks, which makes promoting shows in the U.S. even more important for Mexican promotions like AAA or EMLL. On the other hand, this gives U.S. promoters who want to use Mexican stars a lot more leverage.
- With WCW TV ratings continuing to plummet, the company is already looking for ways to bring Ric Flair back.
- WCW is wanting to put together a cruiserweight tournament, but it's been delayed for a bit because no one can seem to get their act together on it. Eric Bischoff was in Japan this week attending the NJPW Tokyo Dome show and is expected to try to bring in a couple of guys from there like Shinjiro Otani and Chris Benoit for the tournament. Bischoff also has a deal with AAA's Antonio Pena to bring it a couple of their wrestlers. Pena wants to send Jerry Estrada and Eddie Guerrero, but word is Eric Bischoff has no interest in Guerrero.
- Hulk Hogan is meeting with TV producers this week to revive Thunder In Paradise as a new show called Thunderforce which would star himself, Sting, Mr. T, and a female martial artist as a four-person team that would all be equal co-stars (didn't end up happening).
- WCW's financial losses are higher than ever this year. On paper, it doesn't look as bad because Hulk Hogan's salary comes from the Turner Home Entertainment budget, but if you include that, WCW has loses of more than $6 million for 1994. Because of this, there is intense pressure on WCW to cut about half a million from the payroll, so expect some heads to roll soon. As you can imagine, there's a lot of internal fighting over who's paychecks get cut or who gets let go.
- Jean Paul Levesque is reportedly strongly considering going to WWF. He was promised a tag title run with Steve Regal if he stays in WCW, but he wants to be a singles star and WWF has a reputation of being able to make stars out of nobodies, which is something WCW has almost never been able to do.
- The new WWF booking hierarchy is as follows: Vince McMahon remains at the top as primary booker. Pat Patterson and Bruce Prichard are in charge of writing television, and Jim Ross will be McMahon's assistant and will help as a TV producer, but won't be doing any announcing for now.
- Diesel missed a few shows last week because his mother passed away.
- Speaking of Diesel, there's already a lot of talk within the company that he's not the answer to their problems as a top draw and that Bob Backlund as a top star was a fiasco (which is being blamed on Pat Patterson, who apparently pushed for Backlund to get a main event run). It's likely that they will eventually go back to Bret Hart sooner than later, but there's also discussion of giving Shawn Michaels a run on top.
- Expect Kama to get a big push when he comes in because WWF wants to create a popular black superstar.
- A guy writes in to the letters section with a story about Hogan that I just want to copy and paste: "I had an interesting conversation with Terry Bollea about you a few weeks ago. He comes into my video store. I mentioned that Lanny Poffo and Brian Knobs come in also. I asked him if he's signed a new deal since his original one was up in December. He asked me how I knew and if that big mouth Knobs had told me. I told him I was an Observer reader. He said that he couldn't believe how someone who had never taken a bump in his life could make such a living in the wrestling business. I wanted to ask him the same thing."