April 24, 1995
- UFC 5's buyrate is in and it's looking to be around 1.05 which would make it slightly higher than the best buyrate WCW has ever done and about equal with many WWF buyrates. And this is with no TV and very little mainstream publicity. Dave says UFC buyrates will start surpassing Wrestlemania numbers by next year at the rate they've been going up. UFC wants to do a future Ken Shamrock/Royce Gracie rematch but they don't want another draw. So the UFC officials have been "scanning America Online and Prodigy reactions" to the fight in order to get ideas for how to proceed with a rematch. That's the most old fashioned sentence I've ever typed. Meanwhile, NWA champion Dan Severn has made the NWA relevant again after winning the UFC 5 tournament and is now fielding offers from pretty much every wrestling promotion in the world.
- Shane Douglas lost the ECW title to Sandman this week and after the match, he put on a WWF Monday Night Raw t-shirt and announced he was "going to a place where they do real wrestling" and walked out of the building and has since been telling everyone that he's heading to the WWF. Dave says there is truth that Douglas has been having serious negotiations with WWF lately, but as of now, ECW believes he's still with them and are still writing him into future plans until they hear otherwise.
- Sabu has joined up with ECW-enemy Dennis Coraluzzo and they are working together to promote a show in Michigan. Sabu's lifelong dream has been to run his own promotion like his uncle The Sheik and that's what Sabu and Coraluzzo are doing now. Sabu also has had negotiations with WCW but wants to work there part-time while keeping New Japan as his primary focus. Dave says he knows there are rumors about the Sabu/ECW situation being a work but assures people it's not and that Heyman publicly firing Sabu at the show last week was very legit. Sabu and Paul Heyman have reportedly since spoken and both sides agreed not to publicly bury the other anymore. And assuming Sabu doesn't sign with WCW, there's a chance they could work together again, but Heyman promised the ECW fans that Sabu would only be welcomed back if the fans forgave him, and judging by the constant "fuck Sabu!" chants at shows since then, that seems unlikely any time soon.
- Dave says the heat goes both ways. Sabu is upset that Paul Heyman buried him in front of the ECW fans. Heyman is pissed about Sabu's statements about ECW not being real wrestling and wanting more clean finishes, pointing out that just 3 weeks ago, Sabu refused to put over Chris Benoit clean at a show. Dave says Sabu was obviously in the wrong, as even he will admit that he screwed over ECW. But Dave also points out that Sabu was going to make $500 for the ECW show and makes a regular $3500 to work New Japan shows. With both promotions threatening to fire him if he no-showed, he had to make a choice and it was an obvious one, even if it wasn't the most morally correct one. Dave understands ECW and their fans being upset, but he also points out that this is the same Sabu who worked in the ECW Arena after cracking his ribs the night before, he worked in that arena 2 weeks after nearly breaking his neck, he wrestled there with a broken hand, he's worked ECW shows on a broken ankle, etc. Basically, he's bled buckets and worked his ass off to help build ECW from nothing. Dave says Sabu most definitely ripped the fans off last week, "but given all that, maybe they owed him one."
- 60 Minutes and Sports Illustrated are both reportedly working on stories about deaths in wrestling, focusing on the recent deaths of Big John Studd and Eddie Gilbert (both were linked to steroids and Dr. Zahorian during Vince McMahon's trial). Ironically, WCW is the most concerned about it because every story about steroids always comes back to Hulk Hogan, plus there's concern that Ted Turner's name could be linked to it, which would be bad news for WCW. From here, Dave goes on his usual tangent about steroids and how the business covered up its issues rather than trying to fix them until it became a PR problem, how they encourage steroid use by pushing bigger stars, etc.
- New Japan announced the lineup for May's Fukuoka Dome show and it will feature Terry Funk stepping inside a NJPW ring for the first time ever. Funk is one of the biggest names in the history of Japan, having made his name there in the 70s and 80s for AJPW but he's never worked for New Japan. The Road Warriors were scheduled for the show as well, but Road Warrior Animal pulled out of the show and all his other wrestling dates because he's apparently scheduled to collect a large balloon payment from his insurance policy and wrestling would invalidate it. This also means no more Road Warriors appearing in WCW any time soon.
- There was concern that All Japan's annual Champion Carnival tournament wouldn't sell out (they have an ongoing streak of consecutive sellouts) because there were terrorist threats before the show, with terrorists threatening to smuggle poison gas into the arena (and into a baseball game at Tokyo Dome the same day). Fans were heavily searched entering the arena and they still managed to sell out the show.
- Dave gives 5 stars to Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace in All Japan. Man, mid-90s All Japan was just having out of this world matches seemingly every week.
- UWA's television deal mentioned last week has apparently fallen through and no one will be jumping ship to them anytime soon, so that promotion is back on deathwatch.
- Bit of a unique situation in Memphis as Jerry Jarrett has begun a working agreement with WCW, which will see them sending their jobbers and trainees down to USWA to work and improve. Of course, WWF still has their own working agreement with Jerry Lawler, so now both WWF and WCW have separate agreements with USWA. Vince McMahon reportedly told Lawler that he's not happy about Jarrett's WCW arrangement but for now, he will continue to keep the WWF agreement going.
- New Jack has gotten into some trouble again. SMW had booked a show near Cincinnati but for various boring reasons, they canceled the show the night before. Well the building where the show was booked decided to run their own wrestling show, full of absolute untrained nobodies. For whatever reason, New Jack and D-Lo Brown showed up anyway and got themselves booked on this indie show. New Jack ran in during the main event and began throwing real punches at everyone in the ring, and gave one guy a cut that required 12 stitches. A security guard eventually realized that this had gotten out of hand and tackled New Jack and it led to more fighting in the parking lot after the show. The cops showed up but by then, he had already left. New Jack = piece of shit as always.
- The reason the Jim Cornette/Gangstas appearance on Jerry Springer fell apart is because the Springer show wanted to do a show about the Gangstas racist gimmick, but wanted to treat it as if it were real and turn it into a black vs. white issue on TV. None of the white SMW wrestlers wanted to participate, so Jim Cornette volunteered the play the racist white guy role himself. But when WWF got wind of it, they nixed the idea because SMW is relatively unknown and most people who see Jim Cornette on TV are going to think of him as the WWF manager and they didn't want someone associated with WWF going on TV and getting into a racist argument on Jerry Springer.
- Jim Ross has moved back to Connecticut and will no longer be doing regular commentary for SMW, though he says he will still show up to call the big shows.
- ECW featured an Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko match that many are calling the best match in the history of the promotion. Dave says that now that Eddie Guerrero is working regularly in the U.S., he's one of the top 3 workers in America, alongside Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels. Yeah, this one was pretty famous, and they'd end up having an even more famous one later in the year.
- A lot of people have suggested that ECW should start running their shows in the 4,000 seat Penn Hall arena in Philadelphia. The reason they don't is because a.) higher rent to run that building and b.) there's a $5,000 rights fee to film in that building.
- Gene Okerlund's health took a turn for the worse this week when his body began rejecting his recently donated kidney and he suffered blood clots in his legs. Okerlund has still been filing his 900 hotline report from the hospital.
- Steve Austin's job in WCW appears to be safe for now (we'll see about that...). Also, Hogan is reportedly politicking to get The Butcher (Beefcake) a new deal.
- The angle to get Ric Flair reinstated to WCW aired this week and the only thing Dave says about it is that it was "a totally stupid skit."
- Yup.
- The Wrestlemania final buyrate is looking to be a 1.1 which is even lower than previously thought and is borderline disastrous. Meanwhile, Monday Night Raw continues to do great, with the most recent episode doing a 3.7 rating, tying the show's previous highest rating ever.
- Alundra Blayze recently got a nose job.
- Michael "P.S." Hayes debuted in WWF this week as a commentator named Dok Hendrix. Missy Hyatt is also reportedly interested in coming in, but no word on that happening.
- Vignettes for Paul Levesque's WWF character aired on TV this week and it appears he's completely copying Steve Regal's royal blue blood gimmick and using the name "Hunter Helmsley" which is the first time Dave can remember WWF ever blatantly copying a gimmick from WCW.
- Glenn Jacobs was at WWF offices recently having discussions with their character development people, so it's likely he'll be coming in soon with some sort of gimmick. Yeah...
- WWF recently filmed a commercial for King of the Ring with Jerry Lawler, Owen Hart, King Kong Bundy and some celebrity impersonators that ends in a food fight.