June 05, 1995
- WWF has struck a deal with NBC to air a one-hour special this week, showing the top 2 matches from the most recent Wrestlemania (Shawn/Diesel and Bigelow/Taylor), airing in prime time after Game 7 of the Pacers/Magic NBA Playoffs game. It'll be the first WWF special on NBC since Saturday Night's Main Event was canned in 1991 due to low ratings. Even though this is only a one-time deal, if it does a strong rating, it will surely open the door for future specials.
- Two of the biggest names in Japanese wrestling, Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto, were engaged this week and the story made major headlines in Japan, dwarfing all other sporting news in the country. The two have only known each other for a few weeks, leading some to speculate that it's a publicity stunt, but Dave says that's not true and there's rumors that they already signed wedding papers and are already secretly married. For now, a formal wedding ceremony is scheduled for later this year (and 22 years later, they're still married and in 2006, were voted as one of Japan's top celebrity couples, according to Wikipedia).
- Hiroshi Hase made a surprise announcement that he plans to retire to run for the House of Councilors (Japan's equivalent to the U.S. Senate) in next month's election. The position would be similar to the office that Antonio Inoki currently holds, and Inoki is up for re-election next month also. Aside from wrestling, Hase has a strong academic background so he's not a joke or gimmick candidate and has a real shot of winning.
- Both WWF and WCW have been operating several million dollars in the red for the last few years but the rise of the PPV business has basically kept the companies afloat financially. Dave takes a look at the next 12 months of PPV business and figures out what they both need to average in order to stay the same or to become profitable. It starts getting all math-y with buyrates and percentages and stuff here. Overall, it's unlikely that either company will become profitable in 1995, even with the additional PPVs but that could change in 1996.
- WWF is claiming In Your House did a 1.0 buyrate. Other independent sources are saying 0.83. Either way, that's on the low end of what WWF usually averages and considering the price was about 40% cheaper than usual PPVs, it's hard to really call it a success. WCW is claiming Slamboree did an 0.8 but other sources are saying 0.57. Either way, so far, the monthly PPV competition isn't off to a booming start for either company. WCW's show probably would have made more money on the surface, due to the higher price of the show, but once you subtract Hogan's substantial cut, WWF probably made a bigger profit. WCW is concerned that this means Hogan's drawing power is dying off and if Hogan can't draw for WCW, they're completely screwed. Savage isn't the draw he used to be, and the last year of being Hogan's bitch has all but killed Flair's drawing power.
- WWF's next PPV is King of the Ring, which is expected to be the Shawn Michaels show and it's expected Shawn will win the tournament (oh if only we had been so lucky). But looking at the bracketing, Shawn will have to go through guys like Kama and Mabel so don't expect any great matches from it.
- Diesel underwent surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow and is expected to be out for a few weeks, but will still work King of the Ring. The injury is thought to have happened at the IYH PPV against Sid, when he landed wrong on the powerbomb and chokeslam spots. He worked through the injury on a few more house shows but then one of the chips lodged against a nerve and the pain became unbearable. Clips from the surgery were shown on the 5/29 episode of Raw.
- Manny Guzman, the head of the wrestler's union in Mexico, is under investigation for embezzling $300,000. There's talk that AAA president Antonio Pena will be offered the position of leading the union, which would give him a lot of political power as far as having access to more arenas in Mexico and help AAA in their battles against EMLL and UWA.
- Jushin Liger has been announced to be returning the first week of August after suffering a severely broken leg last year.
- Dan Severn was offered $15,000 by NJPW to put over Keiji Muto (Great Muta) in an IWGP title match, but he hasn't accepted yet.
- FMW crowds are waaaaaaaay down in the last couple of weeks since Atsushi Onita retired and with Hayabusa on top.
- The most recent SMW shows have only been drawing around 125-150 people per show. The clock is ticking on them.
- Jacques Rougeau has announced the formation of his own promotion and is running a show next month and plans to run 40 more shows throughout this year in Quebec. Rougeau's brother and sister promote shows for WWF in the area, which has been the source of a nasty family feud between them (this never amounted to anything).
- Tony Schiovane's neck injury actually got worse after his recent surgery and he may be out longer than expected.
- Reports of Gordon Solie being upset about the induction of Angelo Poffo at Slamboree were incorrect. While many others were upset about Poffo being inducted, Solie's beef had to do with the induction of Big John Studd. Solie was concerned about inducting Studd so soon after the recent news story that tied Studd's death to steroids in wrestling. Solie was fine with doing it later, but didn't think it was a good idea so soon after. The issue got so heated that Solie briefly quit the company before being talked into returning and they ended up inducting Solie himself into the Hall of Fame at the show to appease him.
- WCW wanted Michael Buffer to announce the Sting vs. Big Bubba match at the PPV, but Buffer refused, saying that his contract with WCW only requires him to announce one match per show.
- WCW held the final matches of the Slim Jin Challenge tournament live on WCW Saturday Night, at an outdoor venue. And of course, it rained and everything was wet, so the matches were terrible and people were sliding all over the ring.
- Former Diamond Doll Kimberly is clearly being groomed as a clone of Miss Elizabeth, with Dallas Page playing the jealous Macho Man role. Dave notes that Page has been pretty great in the role so far.
- Eric Bischoff tried to bury UFC on the Saturday night show while doing commentary. Bischoff came off as obnoxious, "to the point he came off like a child trying to insist that his dad could beat up someone else's dad." Bischoff tried to put over the wrestlers as being tougher, saying that Jerry Sags (of the Nasty Boys) once beat up Ken Shamrock and saying, "We have the police report to prove it." Dave says there's a lot to that story that Bischoff left out: it was a backstage fight years ago, before Shamrock had any shootfighting training, and Knobbs jumped in also, so really, Shamrock got beaten up by 2 people. Bischoff also said that WCW wrestler Craig Pittman could beat Dan Severn, which Dave completely scoffs at, listing all of Severn's credentials and noting that Pittman got beat by a nobody in his first shootfighting tournament. Bischoff has a background in kickboxing and Dave says a lot of kickboxers feel threatened by UFC and have been trying to discredit it because it has shown that kickboxing isn't a very effective form of fighting against a quality ground fighter.
- WCW's Bash at the Beach PPV is taking place live at Huntington Beach. Billboard Magazine did a story about it, saying that since it's happening on the beach, they won't be charging for admission so it's a free show for all who want to attend and WCW is expecting a crowd of more than 70,000 for the show (spoiler: they didn't even get 10,000 but then they spent years after claiming that they drew over 100,000. Because WCW.)
- WWF has offered Steve Williams a spot to come in as a top heel but he doesn't want to go on the road full time so he hasn't accepted.
- A trade publication listed WWF holding a casting call, looking for a "brunette beauty" between 17-24 to appear in a country music video. Dave assumes it's something to do with Jeff Jarrett.
- Dustin Rhodes has had conversations with Vince McMahon about coming in, but Vince wants to change his ring name and turn him heel (yeah, that's putting it mildly...)
- Bret Hart is expected to film 5 more episodes of the Lonesome Dove TV show next season.
- AP ran a story on Bob Holly saying that Vince McMahon put up $200,000 for the WWF racing team, with Holly as the driver (Bob Holly talks about all this in his book, which I highly recommend).
- Lots of letters about ECW this week. Some people still defending it as the best thing ever and still debating on whether Heyman was right or wrong to bury Sabu the way he did. Others writing in to say it's a disgusting bloodsport that shouldn't be called wrestling and that Joey Styles is a horrible announcer and that ECW fans are the worst.