January 16, 1995
- It's Observer Awards results time! These results are voted on by the readers so here is the results for 1994:
- Lots of news coming out of the NJPW Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show. Hiroyoshi Tenzan made his return to the promotion after spending a couple of years in Europe and was so impressive in his match that they plan to push him hard to receive a shot at the IWGP title, making him the youngest wrestler ever to challenge for it. As expected, Sting participated in the one-night tournament and lost to Antonio Inoki in the finals in a terrible match. Overall, the show was considered average, but it drew a sellout crowd of 62,500 despite the heavy rain that day. The injured Jushin Liger and women's wrestler Akira Hokuto did commentary and Dave says it shows just how over and respected Akira has become because until recently, they never would have dreamed of having a woman call the show.
- Eric Bischoff was at the event as well and made an announcement during the show that WCW and NJPW had reached an agreement to do more talent exchanges during 1995. Japanese fans weren't impressed and one NJPW official was quoted as saying, "Our marks know more about wrestling than this guy (Bischoff)." NJPW's next major show is in April in North Korea and it's likely some WCW stars will work that show as well.
- Now that it's become clear that Antonio Inoki won't be indicted on any charges from his political scandals last year, the TV station that airs New Japan has lifted their ban on showing his matches.
- Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine in Japan is working on putting together a show featuring wrestlers from 11 different promotions. AJPW, NJPW, FMW, Michinoku Pro, WAR, UWFI, and more have all agreed to be involved. There's also a push to get ECW involved, which would be huge for them. When Eric Bischoff was in Japan, they asked about getting WCW involved as well, but they only waned a Hogan vs. Vader match, and that's a huge political mess to make that happen. New Japan has rights to WCW talent except Vader, who is the UWFI champion so those 2 promotions would have to agree to allow it to happen. And then Vader would have to be convinced to do the job because Hogan gonna Hogan. And UWFI flat out isn't going to let Vader do a job to Hulk Hogan in Japan (this show becomes a pretty big deal in the coming weeks).
- Dan Severn is over huge in Japan right now stemming from his UFC performance and UWFI has offered him a new contract and plans to push him as a main-eventer alongside Vader and Takada.
- The SMW angle where Chris Candido killed the cat was edited off show by the Atlanta TV station that airs it.
- In ECW, Shane Douglas and Tully Blanchard wrestled to a "60 minute" draw (really only about 43 minutes) and it was probably the worst received match in the history of the promotion. It was so bad that the fans turned their backs to the ring and began chanting "We want bingo!" and chanted for the match to end. Blanchard was reportedly blown up within the first few minutes, so they spent much of the match doing long, boring rest holds. Fans booed every time someone kicked out of a fall (I can't find video of this, I think ECW never aired it).
- That same ECW show featured the debut of Johnny Polo, using the name Raven and Dave says he was doing a gimmick from the movie The Crow. Al Snow also debuted for the promotion at the show, and got over strong. And finally, Ian Rotten turned on Axl Rotten at the end of the show (which led to one of ECW's most famous but somewhat forgotten feuds).
- Dave mentions that in February, ECW will be holding a convention for "fans from the internet from across the country." What's this "internet" you speak of, Dave?! (That ended up being the very first CyberSlam show, although it wouldn't officially get that name until 1996).
- ECW wanted to get Barry Windham to come in and face Shane Douglas, as another friend-of-Flair's, but Windham currently has a lawsuit against WCW claiming his knee was so badly injured wrestling there that he'll never be able to wrestle again. So he can't very well just go wrestle while that's ongoing.
- ECW had a short tribute to Art Barr on their show a couple of weeks ago. Barr never worked for ECW, but about a week before he died, Paul Heyman had been in negotiations with him and Eddie Guerrero to come in and work for them.
- AAA has suspended Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis, Torero, and Super Muneco for 2 months without pay for working independent shows in Los Angeles during the Christmas break without permission. A promotion called IWC has exclusive rights to promote AAA stars in the U.S. and when they found out about it, they threatened to sue AAA for breach of contract. AAA was very apologetic and immediately suspended the wrestlers.
- Latest word on Lizmark Jr.'s broken leg is it was worse than thought and he might be out for the entire year (it actually ended up being longer than that. He didn't wrestle again until mid-96).
- Konnan turned babyface in AAA this week. He had previously been part of a heel trio with Eddie Guerrero and Love Machine (Art Barr). He came out with Eddie Guerrero (who almost broke down during the entrance, but managed to hold it together) and they worked as a tag team. During the match, they argued a lot, with Eddie doing a fantastic job heeling it up. Afterward, Konnan cut a promo saying the only reason he went heel in the first place was because he admired Love Machine so much and he wanted to team with him but he will no longer team with Eddie Guerrero. The turn got over huge, mostly due to Guerrero being such a strong heel.
- AAA wrestler Fuerza Guerrera is starting his own promotion and has announced that he's stealing pretty much every star UWA has left, which should probably be the final nail for that promotion. Guerrera's new promotion is actually okayed by AAA because the idea is to start this new promotion and then work inter-promotional storylines with AAA.
- AAA and WCW are negotiating to do another PPV together in April, but because of PPV deadlines, the decision has to be made by this week. Due to the declining value of the peso, it's in AAA's best interest to try to expand into the U.S. But with the way WCW seemingly sabotaged the last PPV by willfully not promoting it, they don't seem to have a whole lot of interest in it.
- Randy Savage made his in-ring debut for WCW at a couple of house shows in Alabama, facing Avalanche. Savage got only a polite response from the crowds and the matches were bad.
- Van Hammer was arrested last week on 2 charges of possession of illegally prescribed drugs. The doctor who wrote the prescriptions was arrested as well. No details on what the drugs were. When contacted by a newspaper covering the story, WCW said Hammer hadn't worked there in 2 years. Funny, since a guy who looks just like him, has the same name, and wrestles just as bad was on WCW TV just a few weeks ago, Dave says.
- WCW is considering using Sabu on a part-time basis for major shows, while allowing him to still work Japan and indies. But he wouldn't be allowed to work on any other U.S. TV shows (aka ECW).
- Ray Traylor is expected to drop the Guardian Angel gimmick and go back to using the Big Bubba Rogers name he used in WCW years ago.
- The 2-year anniversary episode of Monday Night Raw was unique, Dave says. WWF appears to be trying to back to what worked in 1984, which is doing anything they can to be associated with celebrities (aka, the same thing they still do now). William Shatner was a guest on Jerry Lawler's King's Court segment and got to beat up Lawler. Later in the show, Shatner managed Bret Hart and beat up Jarrett's manager The Roadie.
- At the latest WWF TV tapings, several newcomers worked dark matches and had tryouts. Chris Candido worked as a babyface against Barry Horowitz. Candido was said to be very nervous and those who have seen him before said they've never seen him look more uncomfortable in the ring. Kama worked his first match, also as a babyface, and got no reaction. Spellbinder (from USWA) worked as well and got a decent reaction doing his pre-match magic tricks. And Ron & Don Harris worked as the Bruise Brothers and were managed by Dutch Mantel. They also got little-to-no reaction.
- Pamela Anderson from Baywatch will be at ringside for the Royal Rumble and will accompany the winner to the ring at Wrestlemania.
- Speaking of, Vince McMahon contacted the producers of Baywatch recently and discussed doing a wrestling-themed episode of the show featuring several WWF stars, but was turned down (a year or so later, WCW would end up doing that).
- WWF has released the subtitles for several upcoming PPVs: "Wrestlemania XI: Brawl in the Family," "King of the Ring '95: Rage in the cage," and "Summerslam '95: The Undertaker...Alive!" Dave's response to that last one: "God, they aren't going to kill him again are they?"