November 27, 1995
- Federal prosecutors are investigating possible witness tampering and obstruction of justice in last year's Vince McMahon steroid trial. The Justice Dept. received information that Marty Bergman, a TV producer who is the husband of McMahon's lead defense attorney, offered McMahon's former secretary (and key government witness) Emily Feinberg between $250,000 and $400,000 to change her testimony. Apparently, they have been investigating him since before the trial after reports came that Bergman had offered several other witnesses money to change their testimony. Bergman also used his job as a writer for a New York newspaper to write smear stories against the prosecutors that were later found to be false. This isn't the first time Bergman has been in trouble. In 1981, he was charged with bribery and tampering with public records and a few years later, he worked with the Geraldo Rivera show to trash the prosecution of another case that his wife was the defense attorney on. This investigation is trying to determine if they money Bergman offered witnesses came from Vince McMahon or McMahon's lawyers (surprise, surprise...Vince probably tried to bribe his way out of the trial).
- WWF did an angle with Shawn Michaels on Raw where he collapsed in the middle of a match with Owen Hart, with EMTs attending to him as the show went off the air. Many people in the arena believed it was legit. The angle was done to combat the Hogan vs. Sting match happening on Nitro at the exact same moment. The idea is to play off Shawn Michaels' injuries from the recent Syracuse beating he suffered, which is actually true. Michaels is suffering post-concussion syndrome issues from the assault and needs more time off, so this was done to write him off TV for awhile. Many people have said they feel the angle is in poor taste and believe WWF is playing off the real-life sudden death of Olympic skater Sergei Grinkov who collapsed and died last week but Dave doesn't think it was that bad. Whether it translates to ratings will be seen next week.
- The first ever Hulk Hogan vs. Sting dream match took place on Nitro and was totally overshadowed by the WWF angle and Dave thinks it was a mistake to hotshot a dream match like that with barely a week's worth of build-up on free TV. The show did an average rating and lost to Raw in the ratings this week.
- Survivor Series is in the book and Bret Hart is the new WWF champion, only the 2nd person (the other being Hogan) to win it 3 times. Nash yelled "Motherfucker!" after the pin and, along with some of the recent booking, Dave thinks it shows WWF is moving in a somewhat more adult-oriented direction, like sort of a toned-down ECW. Dave thinks it's also a response to the success and popularity of UFC. Mr. Perfect made a surprise return on the show as an announcer, but seemed unfamiliar with the storylines and obviously hadn't been following along in the last year and he also seemed to get on Jim Ross' nerves throughout the show.
- Other notes from Survivor Series: Public Enemy worked a dark match, losing to the Smoking Gunns but word is they're still leaning towards signing with WCW and of course, Paul Heyman is trying to keep them in ECW. Bob Holly replaced Avatar (Al Snow) in the opening match because Holly was unhappy about not working enough shows and was threatening to leave, so they bumped Snow and put Holly on the show to appease him. Marty Jannetty used the Rocker dropper on 1-2-3 Kid and Mr. Perfect said the move could break someone's neck, which surely thrilled McMahon since, yanno...it has. The All Japan Women flew 18 hours to work a rushed 10-minute match that was disappointing. Undertaker wore a scary looking face mask due to his recent orbital bone surgery. And Diesel seemingly turned heel after losing the title.
- Sabu made a surprise return to ECW at November to Remember as Heyman told the fans he had a surprise for them and then turned out the lights. When they came back on, Sabu was in the ring and he and Heyman hugged while the crowd chanted "Thank you!" For now, the agreement was only for one show, but both sides are still negotiating and it's expected Sabu will be sticking around. Sabu had been working with WCW but turns out he was never officially under contract. WCW has been upset with Sabu for several reasons lately. They don't want him brawling outside of the ring so much and he had been going long in his matches. Also, they were upset when his uncle The Sheik threw a fireball at the Halloween Havoc PPV, which wasn't a planned spot. Sabu was unhappy being a midcarder. On the WCW hotline, Mike Tenay announced Sabu had been fired, but as of press time, no one from WCW had told him that personally. But by showing up in ECW, Sabu effectively quit WCW anyway.
- In an even weirder situation, Sabu has been working for Dennis Coraluzzo's NWA. WWF star Hakushi worked one of the NWA shows and Coraluzzo booked him against Sabu. WWF insisted that Hakushi not do a job to a WCW guy so the match ended in DQ. Sabu then immediately left the NWA show and drove across the river and showed up at the ECW show the same night, which upset Coraluzzo. Sabu claimed he decided at the last minute to work the ECW show because Heyman offered him a big payoff, but Dave doesn't buy it because he had heard rumors that Sabu was going to be at the show several days earlier. Sabu called Coraluzzo after the show and apologized, saying he didn't know until just a few hours prior to the ECW show if Heyman was going to come up with the money so that's why he didn't tell him.
- NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show was announced and it's expected Keiji Muto will defend the IWGP title against Nobuhiko Takada in a NJPW vs. UWFI rematch. In reality, NJPW pretty much owns and operates UWFI now so maybe now they can do the promotional feud justice without feeling the need to totally bury UWFI. Antonio Inoki is also expected to work the show but no word against who yet. There are also no foreign stars on the show, for the first time in years. It's thought that NJPW might be ending it's working relationship with WCW soon, as they mostly wanted to have access to Vader but when WCW fired him, NJPW has greatly lost interest.
- Other notes from last week's ECW November to Remember show: a guy named the Blue Meanie debuted as a flunky for Stevie Richards. Also, Steve Austin wrestled his first match, surprisingly putting over ECW champion Mikey Whipwreck clean. Austin looked rusty but was still good. Sabu worked his ass off in his first match back, flipping and crashing through everything. Cactus Jack wore 2 different shirts. One of them was a WCW Dungeon of Doom shirt. The other was a shirt with a picture of Eric Bischoff that said "Forgive me Uncle Eric" on the back. Terry Funk teased retirement at the end of the show and basically passed the torch of the king of hardcore over to Tommy Dreamer. Also, Shane Douglas was backstage.
- Woman has denied reports that she's leaving ECW. Meanwhile, Konnan worked his last ECW show and is reportedly heading to WCW. Konnan is still going to help Heyman book AAA stars though.
- Still no word on when or if Randy Savage is going to have surgery for his triceps injury. (Or is he even injured?! This finally pays off tomorrow).
- Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit had a 4.5 star match on WCW Saturday Night, if you watch it on mute. If you listen to the commentary, it subtracts a star because it's so bad and Dave says Dusty Rhodes basically buried them when Tony Schiovane tried to say Benoit and Guerrero are revolutionizing wrestling. Speaking of bad commentary, Sonny Onno is the shits and is ruining the build for all the NJPW guys. Dave really doesn't like Sonny Onno.
- Famous story time: reportedly, "The Clique" (Shawn, Diesel, Razor, Helmsley, & Kid) met with Vince McMahon while out on the road for some house shows and the purpose of the meeting was for Vince and the Kliq to evaluate everyone on the roster, one-by-one, and discuss whether they should be moved up or down the card or what should be done with them. Word is that some of the guys the Kliq liked were still doing jobs, while someone they thought was useless (Bob Backlund, for instance) was getting a renewed push so it's not looking like they had a whole lot of influence on Vince's decision making. Anyway, you can just imagine how happy everyone else in the locker room is about this.
- Kama and Bam Bam Bigelow officially gave notice and are planning to leave. Meanwhile, Bob Holly hasn't given notice, but he's apparently sitting home and refusing to come to work. Jean Pierre is out after having hernia surgery but no one's sure if he's coming back either. All of the above have been unhappy recently, with both the amount of shows they're working and with the Kliq influence.