August 07, 1995
- Ricky Morton has been fired from both SMW and USWA stemming from an incident involving Morton, his girlfriend Andrea Calloway, Tracy Smothers, and Smothers' wife Angela. This gets a little confusing, so bear with me. After an SMW show last month, the 4 of them went to a club and Morton and his girlfriend got into an argument and she began hitting Morton, who covered up and didn't hit back. When Smothers tried to break it up, Morton's girlfriend attacked Smothers, which led to Smothers' wife fighting the girlfriend. Calloway later filed an assault charge, saying she was attacked by both Smothers and his wife, although pretty much everyone else involved says Smothers never hit anyone. Over the next few weeks, several more incidents took place. Morton no-showed an SMW event and got into a backstage fight with Smothers at another one. Jim Cornette and USWA promoter Randy Hales have both been trying talk to Morton to get his girlfriend to drop the charges, but his girlfriend refused and it led to Smothers and his girlfriend both being arrested on charges of assaulting Andrea Calloway. Because both Morton and Smothers were being used in both companies, and since both promotions felt Smothers was an innocent victim caught in the middle, both SMW and USWA made the decision to release Ricky Morton because the 2 men can't coexist in the same locker room together. Even though Morton didn't really do anything wrong either, his girlfriend is the one who won't drop the charges and since Morton can't seem to convince her to let it go, they decided to just cut ties with him.
- News of Tracy Smothers getting arrested for assaulting a woman (which most agree that he didn't actually do) made local news in all the cities SMW and USWA run. Smothers just recently regained custody of his son after a lengthy custody battle with his ex-wife and needless to say, this doesn't look good for him. Cornette and Hales have both told Morton they would rehire him if he could just make this go away (aka, get your girlfriend under control and drop the charges). Morton's career was on a bit of an upswing lately, as one the top stars in SMW and he was involved in the hottest USWA angle in years. So this is a big blow for both promotions and for Morton, who was reportedly making around $1000 per week from the 2 jobs he no longer has.
- The latest on Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie walking out of the WWF in the middle of the In Your House PPV is that both men felt that the split between them that was planned to take place on the show was too early in the storyline. They were scheduled to split up in the ring after the Shawn Michaels match, which would lead to a Summerslam match, but instead, they just went to the locker room and left. Jeff's father Jerry Jarrett did an interview saying Jeff was unhappy with the direction of his character and that's why he left. Usually, walking out of the company in the middle of a major angle would be an unforgivable sin, but WWF apparently thinks highly enough of Jarrett that they are still trying to talk him into coming back. Roadie reportedly left out of loyalty to Jarrett and would likely return if Jarrett returns, assuming WWF would take him back which certainly isn't a guarantee.
- WCW's plans to bring in quality workers for the Monday night show seems to be falling through. Al Snow has reportedly agreed to WWF's offer and will be starting there soon. WWF made a big effort to get Snow, sending a limo to pick him up and just all around making him feel like they wanted him, whereas WCW made a decent money offer, but otherwise seemed disinterested.
- Meanwhile, Eddie Guerrero's deal with WCW seems to have fallen through because they won't offer him any kind of guaranteed contract. Dave says Eddie is probably the best pure worker in the U.S. today and says he'll probably be staying with ECW for now. WCW has openly wanted Snow, Guerrero, Benoit, Sabu, and Malenko in order to up the workrate on the new show, and so far, they haven't managed to get any of them. Because the company hasn't really been able to get any new stars over in years, plus due to the treatment of guys like Pillman and Steve Austin, a lot of the hot indie stars are hesitant about going to WCW, for fear that their careers might stall and go nowhere.
- The financial situation in WWF isn't critical yet, but there have been layoffs. There have been about 25 people let go from the front office and people like Jack Tunney, Tony Garea and possibly Lord Alfred Hayes have also been cut. As far as wrestlers go, Barbarian, Afa, Lou Albano, Duke Droese, Mantaur, Heavenly Bodies, and Tekno Team 2000 have all been released. Doink and King Kong Bundy are still employed but won't be used much. There were rumors that Hakushi was leaving, and he originally was planning to, of his own choice. But after his fantastic match with Bret Hart on Raw last week, he has decided to stick around for a little while longer.
- Dave drops a 5 star rating on...wait for it...a match with Kenta Kobashi in it. I know, I'm shocked too. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Satoru Asako vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue/Tamon Honda gets the full monty with Dave saying it was great even by All Japan's already-high standards. I think those combination of guys have had several matches but I can't find video of this particular one.
- Vampiro was suspended for 1 week by EMLL for disciplinary reasons, but Dave doesn't have any details on the reason why.
- ECW drew about 1,400 people to an outdoor show in Middleton, NY which is impressive since they don't have much in the way of TV there. They're on the MSG network on cable, but the show moves around and doesn't even really have a time slot and seemingly airs at random. There was also bad weather, which made the crowd even more impressive. (This is on the WWE Network. Hardcore TV episode from Aug. 8, 1995.)
- Ricky Morton is negotiating with ECW fresh off getting fired from SMW and USWA and may come in as a member of Raven's group.
- It's almost a lock at this point that WCW's first Monday night show will air live from Mall of America in Minneapolis on Sept. 4th. The plan now is to film 3 hours every Monday night, with the 3rd hour airing live on Monday and the other 2 hours being taped to air on WCW Saturday Night later in the week (didn't end up happening that way).
- Word is WCW may be bringing in Scott Studd from USWA to team with Marcus Bagwell as a new Fabulous Ones-type tag team. (Yup. He came in as Scotty Riggs and they formed the American Males).
- During his last broadcast, Gordon Solie made a comment during a terrible Dave Sullivan match, simply saying, "And they wonder why I'm leaving."
- In recent promos, Hulk Hogan has been strongly hinting that Paul Wight is Andre The Giant's son. There has been talking of billing him as Andre The Giant Jr. when he faces Hogan at Halloween Havoc.
- Ultimate Warrior had a 3-hour meeting with WCW recently and said the only hold-up for him is money. However, WCW feels the deal is unlikely because they aren't sure how they can market and merchandise a character that WWF created. He wouldn't be able to use the Ultimate Warrior name and gimmick in WCW.
- Recently retired NFL star Steve McMichael just signed with WCW and will start as an announcer, possibly on the new Monday night show, while also going to training school to eventually become a wrestler (more on that in a moment)
- Wrestlemania 12 will likely be held at the Pond in Anaheim, CA.
- Vince McMahon's son Shane did the ring announcing at a few of the B-level house shows this week, which were headlined by Mabel vs. Bam Bam Bigelow.
- WWF had planned to bring in Steve McMichael and William "Refrigerator" Perry as an NFL-tag team to face Yokozuna and Owen Hart at Wrestlemania. Steve McMichael was just cut by the Green Bay Packers and is retired now, and he was willing to do whatever he needed to do to get into wrestling, but WCW came up with a plan for him first, so he went there. As for Perry, he wanted a guaranteed contract, and WWF simply doesn't do that for anyone, even famous NFL players, so talks broke down.
- At the latest Superstars taping, Shawn Michaels defeated Skip "and after the match, Michaels practically had sex with Sunny in the ring." Umm...not at all, actually. But these live reports are given to Dave from other people so he probably hadn't actually seen it himself yet. Maybe he meant in the locker room.