June 12, 1995
- WWF's prime-time NBC special was abruptly cancelled this week. Details are sketchy but WWF claims it was over uncertainty of the Sunday night schedule due to the NBA playoffs. Others are saying that someone higher up at NBC was on vacation when the decision was made to air a WWF show and when he came back from vacation and found out about it, he nixed it. WCW reported this on their hotline as well. WCW sent Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart to the NBA playoff games in Orlando and they were courtside and acknowledged during the game and Hogan even did his shirt-ripping routine during a commercial break for the crowd. So in the end, WCW ended up getting all the mainstream network publicity while WWF got nada.
- Monday Night Raw set a new ratings record this week, which begs the question of why Raw continues to get high, sometimes record-setting ratings, but can't seem to translate those ratings into more PPV buys or better house show attendance. Dave doesn't seem to get it either but for whatever reason, it just ain't happening. People will watch it on TV but they won't lay down money for it.
- The engagement of Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto continued to be major celebrity news in Japan. A press conference was held to officially announce the engagement. Sasaki gave Hokuto an engagement ring said to be worth $125,000. In All Japan Women, women traditionally retire after getting married, but Hokuto has said she plans to continue wrestling (she eventually announced her retirement in 2002 and then wrestled a handful of matches after that, but hasn't wrestled since 2006).
- Hiroshi Hase also held a press conference to officially announce his candidacy for the House of Councilors in Japan. His wrestling career is currently on hold and if he wins the 6-year term, it's likely that his career as a full-time performer is over (not quite).
- The Fabulous Ones are reuniting for the first time in about 5 years for a USWA nostalgia show, where they're bringing back a bunch of Memphis legends. Dave recaps the careers of the Fabulous Ones, who became one of the biggest draws in Memphis wrestling history in the 80s, alongside Jerry Lawler.
- Don "Ripper Savage" Ross, a wrestler in the 70s and 80s, died suddenly of a heart attack last week at age 48. Dave recaps his career. Ross was a heavy steroid user back before steroids were really a thing in wrestling, along with his friend and mentor Superstar Billy Graham. He got involved in the bodybuilding scene after leaving wrestling and is a big name in that industry. He was a vocal advocate for steroids and defended people using them. That clearly worked out well for him.
- Dave is predicting Shawn Michaels vs. Yokozuna in the King of the Ring finals, with Shawn likely winning, but Yokozuna is a possibility because WWF is so weak on the heel side that they may be giving him a renewed singles push. Dave says WWF is reverting back to its old "size-fetish booking."
- Vampiro made his debut as an amateur boxer this week and lost in the 2nd round against a college boxer when his corner threw in the towel. Vampiro has been criticized for making pro wrestling look bad because many say it makes all wrestlers look bad when a wrestler gets his ass handed to him by a college kid, but Dave says he does deserve credit for having the guts to put his reputation on the line by competing in a different sport against someone more experienced. Sounds familiar.
- Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn have both cancelled upcoming wrestling bookings to focus on their training for their upcoming UFC fight against each other.
- On SMW TV, they had a skit where Buddy Landell was hanging out in an expensive hotel suite when he got a phone call supposedly from Pamela Anderson saying she wanted to hook up with Landell because Diesel (remember, she came to the ring with him at Wrestlemania) was having male problems. "I guess he must have meant he was having trouble with his Observers arriving late," Dave quips. Get it?! MALE/MAIL?? OH DAVE, YOU WITTY SON OF A BITCH!
- Latest news on the ownership of ECW: a company called HHG Corp, which is 100% owned by Paul Heyman, is now signing the checks and the company is looking for investors. Tod Gordon is still involved in some capacity but Dave isn't sure to what extent. Gordon has said that ECW has paid off 90% of its debts and that the rumors of heat between he and Heyman have been exaggerated. There have been disagreements but they aren't as heated as rumors suggest.
- ECW has started trying to tone down the "cartoonish" gimmick of the Tazmaniac character by having him do commentary and play up his credentials as an amateur wrestler and shootfighter.
- The Sheik is still hospitalized in Tokyo after his heart attack last month and also can't walk due to nerve damage in his leg from the match he was in the day before his heart attack. At 69 years old, he probably shouldn't be wrestling anymore, but he's already trying to get future bookings for when he leaves the hospital.
- Rickson Gracie did an interview and said he had been offered a lot of money to face Nobuhiko Takada in UWFI but he turned it down because he would never fight in any organization that isn't 100% legitimate. Since UWFI's top matches are usually works designed to look like shoots, Gracie doesn't want to do it. He said if Takada wanted to come face him in a legit promotion, he'd be glad to do it.
- This is an exact quote: "Ted Turner met with Eric Bischoff on 6/5 in Atlanta. No word on anything that came out of the meeting." And that's all Dave says. (Spoiler: something pretty damn huge came out of the meeting. We'll get to it on—appropriately enough—Monday.)
- Dave corrects a story about Jimmy Hart's mother passing away last month. All the details are pretty much the same, except she wasn't on her way to Slamboree when it happened. Dave also says that Jimmy Hart found out about it just before the main event but kept the news to himself because he didn't want everyone else in the match to know (particularly Hogan, since he's close to Hart and his family) and worried that it would upset everyone and hurt the quality of the match.
- Brian Pillman is involved in a very nasty custody battle with an ex-girlfriend over his 4-year-old daughter that led to his arrest this week. The ex-girlfriend failed to show up to pick up their daughter and missed a meeting with the custody rep and had been missing for several days. So Pillman went driving around some bad neighborhoods in Cincinnati where she was known to hang out, showing pictures of her and trying to find her. Police saw Pillman mingling in the neighborhood and pulled him over. They didn't believe his story about trying to find his ex-girlfriend, so they searched his car and found one pill, a prescription anti-inflammatory for back problems that wasn't in a labeled pill bottle, and arrested him. They also asked him to take a Breathalyzer, which he refused, and was charged with DUI. The news hit the local media, since Pillman is a former Bengals player and local celebrity and there was even footage of Pillman being taken into the police station in handcuffs. Pillman plead not guilty and volunteered to take a drug test to clear his name. The test came out clean and he had a prescription for the pill. But the DUI charge still stands because refusing a Breathalyzer test is an automatic charge. Meanwhile, an APB was put out on his missing ex-girlfriend, which further confirmed Pillman's original story. She was finally found the next day in Florida after being pulled over for a traffic violation.
- WCW is trying to get Little Richard to appear in Johnny B. Badd's corner at the Bash at the Beach PPV.
- Chris Benoit worked a dark match tryout at the latest WWF tapings, losing to Bob Holly. WWF is very interested in bringing Benoit in but if he took the job, he'd have to give up his other jobs, including NJPW and ECW. Word is no one in ECW knew Benoit was doing the WWF show and Heyman was a little upset about it. Word is Benoit was by far the most impressive wrestler on the entire show but the ending was messed up because Holly blew the finish twice.
- Skip and Sunny (Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch) debuted together and got a big reaction, mostly due to what Sunny was wearing.
- Tekno Team 2000 (Erik Watts and Chad Fortune) debuted and blew so many spots that they had to go back later in the night and redo the entire match. On commentary, Jim Ross still verbally sucked their dicks by raving about their football backgrounds though.
- On the In Your House PPV pre-show, Jim Ross was interviewing Sid live and Sid stumbled over a few words and asked to do a re-take, which led Ross to respond that they were live (yeah, that one's pretty famous).
- Steve Williams was in Stamford last week for a meeting with WWF but hasn't accepted a deal. They want to bring him in as a heel but he's got some personal and business issues that make him not want to go on the road.
- Shane Douglas was backstage at the latest Raw taping and they may bring him in as well. Apparently, Douglas was recently accepted into medical school but wouldn't start until next year.
- Dustin Rhodes is likely headed in soon also but it's not a done deal yet.
- WWF has signed Glenn Jacobs (Unabom from SMW) and he should debut soon with a new gimmick.
- Bret Hart talked in a newspaper about his acting in Lonesome Dove and says he has turned down action movies in the past because they wanted him to play a dumb tough guy. "I wanted to avoid that. And I haven't wanted to follow in Hulk Hogan's footsteps in the sense I never wanted to do some really lame movies just to make some money. I actually wanted to do it on a real serious level and show I'm not stupid." (Man, Bret just couldn't talk publicly about anything without shitting on Hogan or Flair back then).
- Gerald Brisco was interviewed in a Tampa newspaper and said WWF is considering starting its own training center in Florida (Pfffft, like that would ever work).