July 10, 1995
- Two wrestlers, unknown to the majority of pro wrestling fans, fighting for a promotion without a TV show, may draw a buyrate approaching that of Wrestlemania this week as Ken Shamrock will face Dan Severn at UFC 6. The winner stands to greatly increase their marketing ability as wrestlers and in the shootfighting world and with Royce Gracie's UFC future in question, the winner is likely to be UFC's new top star going forward. Dave breaks down the fight and each man's strengths and yada yada and predicts Severn wins in 6 minutes. Not quite.
- AAA is holding their first U.S. show since last year's When Worlds Collide PPV in Los Angeles this week. It'll be the first show AAA has done in the U.S. that they've put together and promoted on their own. With only a few days before the show, AAA only just now began promoting it, which doesn't help the rumors that the company is a disorganized mess.
- WWF filed a lawsuit this week against Matt Osborne, the original Doink the Clown, to get him to stop using the Doink name and gimmick on independent shows. WWF is claiming trademark infringement because Osborne continued using the gimmick after being told to stop. Dave notes that there are tons of wrestlers on the indie scene right now using the Doink gimmick and WWF has vowed to go after anyone who does. Osborne has had 2 recent arrests (one for vandalizing a car and another for domestic abuse) which is probably part of the reason WWF doesn't want him running around portraying a character they own.
- ECW held 2 shows and an "Internet fan convention" this weekend. Of note from the first show: an angle with a girl at ringside (who Dave believes will be called Francine) got into a fight with Beulah. Shane Douglas had a "debate" with Cactus Jack, calling ECW "Extreme Championship Bullshit" and said that's why he's leaving to go wrestle for the promotion that has/had classier stars like Bret Hart and Bruno Sammartino. The crowd even chanted "We want Flair!" at Douglas. The second show saw the debut of the Dudley Brothers (Snot Dudley and Dudley Dudley, managed by Big Dick Dudley. No Bubba Ray or D-Von yet...) and Dave says the two guys are "doing the Hansen brothers retard nerd gimmick from the hockey movie Slap Shot." And to end the show, Shane Douglas was "fired" by Tod Gordon and choke slammed by 911, which is how they're writing Douglas out of the promotion because he's going to WWF.
- AAA president Antonio Pena has created a booking committee to help him run the company and Konnan is part of it, along with Mascara Sagrada. Blue Panther will be the official boss in the locker room at shows now as well.
- Tatsumi Fujinami is telling people he wants to return to the ring for NJPW in October, but "it's one of those deals where no one cares about Fujinami anymore," says Dave. Ouch. New Japan has basically been paying him to stay home because they're pushing younger wrestlers and are trying to keep the older guys out of the way.
- FMW, which has been struggling since Onita retired, is interested in Sabu. It'll probably happen because Sabu has been openly unhappy with his position in NJPW and frustrated about being classified as a junior heavyweight.
- The original Tiger Mask, Satoru Sayama is training a new wrestler named Yoshihiro Yamazaki to be the 4th Tiger Mask. Dave thinks it's way too much pressure to give someone the Tiger Mask gimmick in his debut (to this day, Yamazaki still wrestles as Tiger Mask IV in NJPW).
- Latest word about Undertaker and Vader both working USWA's show: Jerry Jarrett made the deal with WCW to bring in Vader late in the week. Vince McMahon found out about it the day before and since he had already promised USWA could use Undertaker for the show, he decided to honor his word and still let Taker work the show, but he wasn't happy it.
- At the ECW Internet fan convention, New Jack and Cactus Jack both publicly made jokes about SMW saying the promotion bounced their paychecks, though Cactus Jack made sure to mention that he still likes Cornette personally.
- SMW star Al Snow has a tryout with WCW this week and WWF is reportedly interested also. SMW is also losing Unabom, who is heading to WWF (more on that in a bit).
- Terry Funk has been spending several hours a day in traction. He has some sort of serious back injury that keeps him in excruciating pain, but he's still planning to work his IWA shows next month. But at this point, there is considerable concern about his long-term future in wrestling (yeah, Terry Funk surely can't wrestle much longer, right?)
- Important note from Dave: "Apparently there is someone on American Online who is claiming to be me who isn't." People just going on the internet pretending to be other people?! Will wonders never cease?
- Ultimate Warrior is opening a wrestling school in Scottsdale, AZ. The brochure has this quote: "Fact: In 1975, I entered the world of pro wrestling knowing nothing of it and no one via a camp taught by a relative unknown. In 1992 I retired a multi-millionaire. Fact: Success in pro wrestling depends more on desire, unique individuality, and entertainment ability than it does on technical wrestling knowledge." Dave notes that Warrior started wrestling in 1985, not 1975, but hey, Warrior forgets things.
- Roddy Piper hosts a radio show in Portland, OR and has spent the last few weeks running down the athletic commission there, and had other wrestlers call in to back him up, claiming the commission has destroyed local wrestling. Wrestler Buddy Rose has his own radio show and disagreed, saying the commission is the best thing to happen to wrestling, because it protects the wrestlers. It led to Rose and Piper badmouthing each other on the radio.
- AWF announcer Ken Resnick has a part as a government agent in the upcoming movie Men In Black.
- Rumors abound of a booking change happening soon in WCW. Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair have apparently not been seeing eye-to-eye on several things and it's believed Kevin Sullivan will soon take over as WCW's head booker. Flair has been unhappy about the direction of some of the booking that is out of his control (aka the Hogan stuff). Flair wants to book the television shows around TV title matches but Renegade is the current TV champion and he's not capable of working more than 2 minutes without being completely exposed as awful. Flair wanted to put the belt back on Arn Anderson so they could fill up TV time with longer matches. And Flair is also against the idea of putting Vader in the Dungeon of Doom. Dave notes that if Kevin Sullivan ends up becoming the booker as expected, it's likely that his wife Nancy (Woman) will return to WCW in some role (she's currently working in ECW).
- Steve Austin is out for at least another 5 weeks and possibly longer with a muscle tear in his arm, which likely kills any chance of the planned reforming of the Hollywood Blondes and plus, by the time Austin returns, Flair almost certainly won't be booking anymore so the plan probably would have changed anyway.
- Eric Bischoff was on the Chet Coppock radio show this week and was grilled by the host, but Bischoff was prepared and instead of getting into a mud slinging battle against WWF like the host wanted, he primarily promoted WCW and didn't really say anything newsworthy. He tried to play it off as a coincidence that their new Monday night show just happens to be airing opposite of WWF's Raw.
- Dr. Isaac Yankum was revealed at the latest Raw taping to be Glenn Jacobs, better known as Unabom in SMW. Spellbinder from USWA also debuted.
- Texas wrestler Tony Norris is getting a tryout at the next WWF tapings (spoiler: he gets the job).
- The Headshrinkers have broken up, with Fatu going solo as a babyface, talking about his past as a street gangbanger-type and telling kids to stay in school and not use drugs. (Dave doesn't mention it but I just happened to notice graffiti on the wall at 41 second mark says "fuck" in multiple places and apparently slipped through and made it onto TV back in 1995).
- Dave pauses to once again talk about how pathetic it is that WWF is milking their Special Olympics charity work for PR purposes. He says it's great that they do that sort of stuff, but as soon as they go on TV and stroke themselves over how noble they are for it, it exposes the real reason they do it (20+ years later and nothing's changed).
- WWF jobber Barry Horowitz pinned Skip of the Bodydonnas, in what was played as a huge upset and they claimed Horowitz had never won a match before.
- Dave Scherer is publishing a newsletter called the Wrestling Lariat and Dave says the first issue is probably the best of any new wrestling newsletter he's seen in years.