Wrestling Observer Rewinder

July 31, 1995

Hiroshi Hase's wrestling career may have pretty much come to an end this week, as he was elected to the Japanese House of Councilors (equivalent to the U.S. Senate), becoming only the second wrestler to ever do so (Inoki being the first). Meanwhile, speaking of Antonio Inoki, he lost his re-election bid, and UWFI star Nobuhiko Takada also ran for office and lost. Inoki announced that he plans to stay in politics and run for another office position later in the year, while Takada is expected to return to wrestling for UWFI, but that promotion is reportedly in bad financial trouble. As for Hase, he was elected to a 6-year term in office so it's likely his full-time wrestling career is probably over since this will take up most of his time. He may still wrestle periodically, like Inoki has done, but there's no way he'll be able to keep up a full-time schedule.
WWF's In Your House II PPV took place this weekend and the biggest news is that Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie both quit the promotion immediately after their match. Details are sketchy for now but rumor is they were unhappy about the angle to split them up, which would reveal Roadie was lip-syncing Jarrett's songs. The angle to split them up was supposed to take place after Roadie cost Jarrett the match, but instead of splitting up in the ring, they just walked out of the ring, went backstage and left the building. WCW is reportedly interested in Jarrett, but he's still under contract to WWF so that's a pretty big hurdle to overcome. As for Roadie, he was being given his first career break and seems to have walked away from a pretty huge opportunity (we'll get a lot more on this in the coming days).
One of AAA's top stars, El Hijo del Santo has given notice that he's leaving AAA to go work indies throughout Mexico. It was expected because Santo hasn't been happy and it's believed he'll probably wind up in EMLL eventually.
In ECW, Eddie Guerrero lost the TV title to Dean Malenko, and it's believed Guerrero is heading to WCW soon.
There are a lot of questions about the current financial state of WWF after several high-ranking front office executives were let go over the past few weeks, with even some media outlets questioning the company's long-term future. Even more questions arose when several wrestlers were released this week. The Barbarian, Afa, Lou Albano, Doink and Dink, TV announcer Stephanie Wiand, Duke Droese, and road agent Tony Garea were all let go and it's expected more names are soon to follow. King Kong Bundy, Hakushi, Mantaur, Heavenly Bodies, and Tekno Team 2000 are all rumored to be on the chopping block. WWF has lost millions of dollars in the past few years from declining house shows, declining PPV buyrates, major legal bills (mostly from Vince's trial), and high real estate bills. Dave thinks things are bad, but not catastrophic yet. WWF's last resort options would be to sell a percentage of the company to outsiders and to move from Titan Towers to a cheaper office space. Since neither of those things has happened yet, Dave doesn't think the financial problems are a sign of impending doom. But if either of those things happen, then it'll be time to really worry. That being said, looking at Jim Crockett Promotions in the 80s or UWFI in Japan today will show just how quickly a thriving, successful company can crumble (spoiler: they weathered the storm).
Back to In Your House II, Dave's thoughts: he liked it. Shawn Michaels vs. Jeff Jarrett stole the show, with Dave calling it the 2nd best singles match he's seen in America this year (behind Guerrero/Malenko in ECW) and gives it 4.5 stars. Nothing else really notable though.
Summerslam is rumored to feature a match with Yokozuna/Owen Hart vs. NFL stars William "Refrigerator" Perry and Steve McMichael, which they hope will generate the same kind of mainstream publicity as the Lawrence Taylor match did. It's well known that both Perry and McMichael want to be pro wrestlers. Perry is available now that his football career is over, but last word is McMichael is still with the Green Bay Packers and if he's playing football, there's zero chance they'll let him wrestle and risk injury (didn't happen).
WCW's Halloween Havoc is expected to be headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Wight, who still doesn't have a wrestling name but is being made to look like Andre The Giant. And Starrcade may be headlined by Hogan vs. Sting in a face-vs-face match similar to the WM6 Hogan/Warrior angle.
Ultimate Warrior had his first match in the U.S. in over 2 years, working an NWC indie show in Las Vegas in front of 2,000 people. WWF had sent the promotion several nasty legal letters, threatening them over the use of the name Ultimate Warrior, so he was billed simply as The Warrior and beat Honky Tonk Man. Warrior was said to look just as ripped and juiced up as ever.
Lots of behind the scenes problems in AAA, from allegations that the promotion's union has been embezzling money and complaints of guys not getting enough bookings. It's also been said that AAA's somehow blew a chance at a working relationship with NJPW, and criticism that they lost Eddie Guerrero (who is headed to WCW). Basically, they're still a disorganized mess and people are starting to notice.
AAA is negotiating to bring in Cactus Jack and Sabu as a foreign heel tag team, managed by Terry Funk (I don't think that ever happened, but man, what a dream team that trio is).
Axl Rotten has reportedly left ECW and he debuted in USWA this week as a babyface. Rotten wants to go to WWF and reportedly feels USWA is a better stepping stone to get there than ECW. Ian Rotten buried Axl on the mic at the next ECW show, saying he doesn't care about ECW fans and left to go "to the land of midgets and toe suckers, the USWA."
Taz suffered a neck injury at an ECW show this week after landing bad on a piledriver and is expected to be out at least a few weeks and possibly a couple of months (this is pretty much the beginning of the neck problems that ended his career. He never fully recovered. Taz has said it was so bad that when he went to the hospital, the doctors couldn't believe he'd even walked in on his own).
At an ECW show in Florida, Public Enemy invited fans to get into the ring and dance with them. As fans piled into the ring, the ring collapsed. No one was injured but the ring was badly damaged (ECW went on to use this footage repeatedly in tape commercials).
On ECW TV, they made multiple references to Ken Shamrock beating Dan Severn at UFC 6, because Severn is the NWA champion and Heyman wanted to rub it in the face of NWA promoter Dennis Coraluzzo.
At another ECW show in Florida, some fans chanted "boring" during a Taz/Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko/2 Cold Scorpio match. That led to other fans chanting "shut the fuck up!" at those fans and it turned into a mess. After the match, Eddie Guerrero grabbed the microphone and said, "You pay for your tickets and you have every right to cheer for who you want and what you want. But when you depreciate somebody's work, somebody's athletic ability, it only shows your education, brother." This reportedly got the biggest pop of the show since the majority of fans were into the match and appreciated it, while the "boring!" chant fans were just a vocal minority.
In the NWC promotion in Vegas (same promotion Warrior wrestled for), they're doing an angle where Virgil is feuding with a guy in a KKK outfit (the reveal for that one comes in a couple months...)
Roddy Piper does a radio call-in show in Portland, OR but was recently suspended by the station for a few weeks due to making racist and homophobic remarks (I can't find anything about this, so no idea what he said).
The first episode of WCW's Monday night show has tentatively been moved to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, and Hulk Hogan is scheduled to wrestle in the main event. WCW plans to try to put on at least one 20 minute "classic" match each week, using guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Sabu, Al Snow, Brian Pillman, etc, assuming they can get all those guys. Word is Guerrero is a sure thing, Benoit and Sabu are still maybes. Al Snow has offers from both WWF and WCW and is undecided. WCW offered more money, but WWF is widely seen as a better place for a new star to get over and they make new talent feel wanted.
The recent WCW Saturday Night episode had arguably the all-time worst-acted skit ever, with Hulk Hogan visiting the Dungeon of Doom (or being magically beamed into it) and everyone reciting terribly cheesy lines. This is, of course, the famous, "There's no Hulkamaniacs here!" moment and Dave just shits all over it. Behold, one of the dumbest things ever in wrestling.
Dave reveals that Renegade used to be a male stripper in the Boston area before becoming a wrestler.
WCW is taping vignettes for Disco Inferno and the plan is to bring him in to feud with Johnny B. Badd.
Expect Eric Bischoff's best friend Sonny Onoo to become a manager of several foreign wrestlers soon, playing an outdated Japanese stereotype role.
On the 7/24 Raw, WWF aired a vignette for the debut of Dustin Rhodes as "Gold Dust" as a cowboy from Hollywood (umm, not quite...). They also aired a vignette for Shane Douglas playing a character named Dean Douglas, doing a school teacher gimmick (which is also his real life profession). The show also featured Hakushi's last WWF match, as he recently requested his release. He had a great match with Bret Hart to end his run with (can't find either of those specific vignettes online for free but they're on that episode of Raw on the Network).
In the letters section, someone writes in and suggests UFC should have weight classes. Dave responds asking why bother, when the smaller guys have consistently been able to beat the larger guys?