June 19, 1995
- In a stunning move stemming from the recent meeting between Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner, WCW has announced a new Monday night television show on TNT, which will go head-to-head against WWF's Monday Night Raw. The show is still unnamed and will probably air live the same way Raw does (live every 3 weeks, with taped shows in between). The show will air in major arenas and supposedly contain main event-quality matches. The decision apparently stems from Ted Turner, who wants to be competitive against Vince McMahon. Nearly everyone in WCW claims that Eric Bischoff is obsessed with putting McMahon out of business. Many in WCW believe this amounts to a declaration of all-out war. There's already rumors that the new show will be titled "Head-to-Head" but that's not decided yet and a decision on the name will be made later this week. The pressure here is on WCW to succeed. If it fails, it's likely the end of Eric Bischoff's run of the company.
- Dave thinks the competition in the short term will be great for wrestling fans because both companies will be trying to put out hot shows to compete with each other. In the long term, he worries about overexposure since WCW isn't getting rid of any of their other TV shows. And they also rely heavily on Hulk Hogan and his considerable drawing power could be weakened if he's on TV every week, but WCW needs him for this to be successful.
- At the latest WCW tapings, Sting and Renegade came out with the U.S. Title and TV title belts. Since neither of them have won them yet, that pretty much gives away the results of next week's Great American Bash PPV, so expect them both to win their matches.
- Marcus Bagwell reportedly had a calf implant in his leg start to rupture and leak, which has caused a painful infection. He has been on crutches and no one is sure if he'll end up working the Bash PPV (nope, he missed it).
- WCW had negotiated to bring in the Rock & Roll Express to lose to Harlem Heat on TV, but the Express didn't want to be used as jobbers and also wanted more than the $750 each that WCW was offering, so the deal fell apart.
- WCW's Bash at the Beach PPV in July is being tied in with Baywatch, with stars from the show appearing at the PPV. The Randy Savage/Ric Flair match is a lumberjack match but will be billed as a Lifeguard Match with the idea to have "Baywatch babes in bikinis" surrounding the ring. (Not sure how that's supposed to work. Flair would have gotten counted out immediately. Anyway, that didn't happen. It ended up just being WCW wrestlers). Anyway, the reason this is happening is because WCW struck a deal which will see Hogan, Sting, Savage, Flair, and others all make an appearance in a future Baywatch episode.
- There's a ton of behind-the-scenes turmoil in ECW at the moment and no one knows what's happening exactly. No one knows the ownership situation, but right now, it appears Paul Heyman is running the company. Heyman also supposedly has made an offer to buy Tod Gordon's 50% share of the company. No deal has been reached yet. Gordon reportedly wants to stay involved in some way (figurehead commissioner on TV and probably still do some office work), but he is willing to sell his share.
- There's also turmoil on the ECW talent situation. The company's best wrestler, Chris Benoit, is being courted by WWF but as of press time, hasn't signed a deal yet because he doesn't want to give up his NJPW job. Shane Douglas was also backstage at the last WWF tapings and has been negotiating with them. He's reportedly upset about having to lose his ECW title to Sandman, so he's not on the best of terms with Paul Heyman at the moment. WCW is reportedly interested in Tommy Dreamer. Terry Funk is expected to work one more ECW show and then take some time off for injuries. And Sabu has been negotiating with Paul Heyman and Tod Gordon about returning, but Heyman is said to be iffy on it because he made an example out of Sabu and doesn't want to go back on it so soon. Heyman has also made a deal with AAA to bring in Konnan and he also wants to bring in other AAA stars, specifically Rey Misterio Jr. and Psicosis.
- There's a lot of question about how ECW can pay for all this. So far, the promotion has only successfully drawn big crowds in Philadelphia at the ECW Arena and not really anywhere else. With so many big name wrestlers being flown in for these shows, it's thought that even the ECW Arena shows might not be very profitable. It's part of the reason the promotion is thought to be in a lot of debt with no turnaround in sight and some wonder if the "extreme" nature of the promotion will ever be economically viable. There have been discussions of running PPVs to make up the losses, but Heyman doesn't think the company is ready yet and is hesitant to make that jump. SEG (the company that runs UFC PPVs) has expressed interest in putting ECW on PPV, but Heyman thinks that if they go on PPV before they have major national exposure and the first buyrate flops, it would hurt them in the long-term. Dave thinks he's probably right.
- WWF is hyping the In Your House II PPV in July that will reportedly feature the "singing debut" of Jeff Jarrett. It's part of an angle to split up Jarrett and Roadie and will be revealed that Jarrett is lip-syncing and Roadie is actually the one singing the song, ala Milli Vanilli.
- Davey Boy Smith's assault trial for last year's bar fight has been postponed until January. The trial stems from a bar fight where Smith allegedly assaulted a guy for dancing with his wife and left him with significant brain damage. The prosecution wants to claim that Smith used a piledriver in the fight and had a doctor who was going to testify on their behalf. But when they found out the doctor planned to testify that the victim's injuries weren't consistent with that wrestling move, the prosecution panicked and got the trial delayed, much to Smith's lawyer's displeasure (the idea of British Bulldog delivering a piledriver in a bar fight makes me giggle).
- AAA's first Triplemania show took place and began to push the AAA vs. PROMELL angle. PROMELL is the "dummy" promotion started earlier this year, designed to be a promotion vs. promotion feud, even though PROMELL is still basically owned by AAA. They legitimately raided most of UWA's talent earlier in the year and several AAA stars "jumped" to PROMELL.
- Dan Severn will defend the NWA title at an IWA show in Japan against Tarzan Goto. NJPW offered Severn more money than IWA did, but NJPW wanted Severn to put over Keiji Muto and he wasn't having that so he agreed to the IWA show instead. Dave thinks Severn's style would work better in Pancrase or UWFI and is surprised Severn is working for IWA, which is basically a blood and guts promotion like FMW, with barbed wire exploding ring matches and whatnot. In return, NWA promoter Dennis Coraluzzo will be holding a show in New Jersey where Severn will defend the title against IWA wrestler Tajiri (yes, the same).
- The Gangstas have given SMW notice that they are leaving and are heading for ECW.
- A tag team called The Headbangers debuted at the latest SMW tapings.
- At an untelevised ECW house show in front of about 300 fans, Cactus Jack had a weird match with Ian Rotten. Cactus said the fans had seen enough bloodshed and that he was going to have a scientific match. And he did. Then he grabbed the mic and started leading the crowd in a "boring!" chant. Then Cactus told the crowd that if anyone was faxing a report to Dave Meltzer of this show, tell him it was a 5-star match. After a bunch of rest holds, the match finally broke down and they both started bleeding and using chairs. The gimmick seemed to be that both men wanted to have a scientific match, but couldn't because violence runs in their veins (sounds like Cactus was testing out the new gimmick he would use later in the year).
- In a story that could have major ramifications for pro wrestling, Don King is trying a power play with Mike Tyson's first fight back. King is demanding a 65% cut from PPV operators or he won't let them air the fight, which is sure to be a huge money maker. So far, the PPV companies aren't biting. But if King can negotiate even a 55% cut, that would set a precedent that the wrestling promotions would follow and even that small cut would mean around an extra million dollars or so per year for both WWF and WCW.
- In San Francisco, an indie show saw the debut of a wrestler called The Abortionist who uses a coat hanger as a gimmick (pretty sure someone else did that gimmick at a show in one of the 1991 issues because I know I've written that before).
- Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga) has a small role in Die Hard With A Vengeance. Can't find a clip of it, which means I'm going to go watch the whole movie later because god I love that flick.
- Gordon Solie has once again quit WCW. No word why.
- Terry Taylor has been added to the WCW booking committee. It drew heat from Hulk Hogan and his friends who believe Taylor is a Flair ally. And apparently, WCW is now split backstage along pro-Hogan and pro-Flair sides.
- The North Korea show will be airing on PPV in August and the name has been changed to Collision in Korea. Mike Tenay will do commentary with Eric Bischoff. It's expected that the PPV will just be a collection of the best matches from both of the North Korea shows.
- Johnny B. Badd and Dallas Page wrestled to a double-count out at the latest tapings. Badd was supposed to do the job, but apparently threw a fit about putting Page over, so the finish was changed.
- Kevin Sullivan wrestled in a new red outfit with horns painted on his forehead and used the name Taskmaster. They also filmed skits with Sullivan in a cave, talking about something called the Dungeon of Doom.
- WWF injury report: Diesel is expected to work King of the Ring, but won't work before then because he recently got bone chips removed from his elbow. Roadie has a staph infection in his knee. Razor Ramon has bruised ribs and is questionable for the PPV. Tatanka's knee is hurt but he's working through it. Owen Hart suffered a concussion at a house show but refused to get checked out after the show. And 1-2-3 Kid is expected back around July from his neck injury.
- Vince McMahon was reportedly very upset that NBC cancelled their scheduled prime-time show last week. Someone from NBC reportedly told McMahon that wrestling was an 80s fad and now that it's 1995, they don't want to do wrestling. Dave says that Vince "is insulated by yes-men and is far removed from actually knowing how the general public perceives wrestling today." Ah, some things never change.
- The latest rumors are that either Mabel or Roadie will win King of the Ring, with Mabel being the more likely of the two. Shawn Michaels is the obvious should-win choice, but it's possible WWF will try to swerve fans with someone else winning. Dave just thinks this is stupid because "obvious" isn't always a bad thing and the object is to make money. And neither Mabel or Roadie is going to draw money and having one of them win would be foolish (surely they won't be that foolish would they?!)
- Yokozuna is being billed as 641 pounds and he looks every bit of it. He's by far the largest wrestler WWF has ever had (Haystacks Calhoun was billed as 601 but in reality was only 450). Dave says it's amazing Yoko can still move around the ring like he does, but he badly needs to lose weight.
- Someone writes in talking about the sad story of Dynamite Kid and asks, given the way they wrestle, if we'll be hearing the same sad stories about Cactus Jack and Sabu in the next 10 years, where they are crippled and financially broke. Dave responds that he doesn't know their financial situations, but he suspects old age isn't going to be very physically pleasant for either of them. He wasn't wrong.