December 04, 1995
- After a 4-year run, Smoky Mountain Wrestling is shutting down. Jim Cornette told the wrestlers at the 11/26 show that, barring a miracle, it would be their final show. In a symbolic gesture at the end of the show, all the faces and heels got together in the ring and attacked Cornette and left him laying in the middle of the ring. The promotion has struggled financially this year and was always run on a shoestring budget, but Cornette finally threw in the towel this week after deciding it just wasn't possible to run a regional territory successfully anymore. The company was $29,000 in debt and Cornette had fallen behind in paying wrestlers. Also, the primary backer, music producer Rick Rubin, decided not to continue funding the company back in August. Several SMW wrestlers came to Cornette and said they could secure financial backing, but Cornette decided against letting anyone else waste their money on a ship he didn't think he could keep afloat, feeling it would just delay the inevitable. Cornette was also exhausted, since he ran most every part of the business by himself.
- Dave recaps the history of SMW, how Cornette quit a high paying job with WCW ("basically out of hatred") to pursue his dream of running a territory. Cornette admits that the stress of running the company had turned him into "a raving psychopath," citing all the incidents in recent years of his temper getting out of control (so what's his excuse these days?). Cornette still maintains that his "old school" style of wrestling wasn't the problem, but says that the TV industry had changed and made it impossible to consistently run a successful promotion with regional TV coverage. To keep the company afloat in recent years, Cornette had made deals with WWF (which he had vowed to never do) which helped boost some SMW shows when WWF stars worked them. Cornette himself admits that he had basically run out of ideas for storylines and angles and that he had used up all his best ideas in the first few years. Possibly the biggest blow was when top stars the Heavenly Bodies left to go become jobbers in WWF. The controversial Gangstas storyline that followed saw crowds fall off and never recover. For now, most of the SMW wrestlers are trying to get work in USWA and other indies.
- WCW's World War III is in the books and the show began with one of the strangest promos in wrestling history. Hogan, Savage, and Sting game out with a burning trash can. Hogan held up a copy of the Observer Newsletter and began to go off on a tangent about "rag sheets" (referring to newsletters like this one) and said the reports about Randy Savage being injured was just a work and that they even worked the locker room (Dave calls bullshit and insists Savage really is injured and notes that his injured arm is noticeably smaller than the other one) and ranted about other things he claims the newsletters have gotten wrong. Hogan then threw the Observer into the burning trash can and said, "Observe this." He called the newsletter a dinosaur and said the internet is where the real story is at. Dave's response: "I suspect as his popularity and drawing power continues to drop he'll get even more bitter. Since it appeared to be directed at me, I took it as a tremendous compliment."
- As for the show itself, Dave says it was one of the best of the year in-ring, but as usual, the announcing was atrocious. Randy Savage won the WCW title by winning the 60-man battle royal but Hogan was never eliminated and when he was complaining afterwards, the fans were booing him so loud that they turned down the crowd audio.
- I pretty much stopped covering UFC news, but this one was interesting (and it's a slow issue otherwise). UFC's next big PPV, called the Ultimate Ultimate, now finds itself in the worst position ever: competing against a Mike Tyson fight. It's been announced that Tyson vs. Buster Mathis Jr. will be taking place the same night as UFC's PPV, and the Tyson fight will be on free TV on Fox. Depending on what time it airs, whether it's shown on a delay in the Pacific time zone, etc., this is likely to be a huge blow to the UFC buyrate.
- Gene Okerlund plugged the WCW Hotline, telling fans to call in for info about the WWF steroid scandal, saying it's not over. Of course, he was referring to the witness tampering investigation from the last issue. Dave thinks anyone in WCW talking about steroids in another company has a lot of nerve.
- SEG, the company that owns UFC, has been interested in getting into promoting wrestling. They have previously expressed interest in purchasing either AAA or ECW, but they have since signed a deal to work with Pancrase, figuring it would be a better fit as far as cross-promotion with UFC. Pancrase is a mix of shoot-fighting and normal pro wrestling and there will be 4 Pancrase PPVs in the U.S. next year, promoted by SEG, which just further saturates an already over-saturated market.
- Speaking of PPV, ECW will almost surely try to test the waters of running a PPV sometime in 1996. And WWF is raising the price of it's In Your House PPVs. The original idea of those PPVs being cheaper and hopefully leading to more buys didn't work out, as buyrates are lower than ever. Meanwhile, WCW PPVs at double the price are drawing better, so WWF is abandoning the idea of cheap PPVs. History has shown that the price doesn't really affect the number of PPV buys and fans are just as likely to order a show even if the price is higher (which is why WWE PPVs had gotten up to the $60-$70 range before the Network came along. Because we all willingly kept paying it every time they raised it). Also on the subject of buyrates, WWF Survivor Series looks to have done a 0.57 buyrate which is a staggering 37% drop from the previous year.
- Steve Austin is said to be strongly considering going to All Japan, which would allow him to also still work in ECW between tours. However, WWF is still very interested in him as well.
- Terry Funk is filming a part in a Bruce Willis movie in January (no idea what ever came of this, I can't find info).
- Bull Nakano worked last week's WCW Nitro and injured her knee, and it's thought to be serious. She could barely stand up after the spot (she ended up missing about a month before returning. After that, she worked a handful of matches in 1996 before pretty much retiring).
- Konnan is headed to WCW in January and has been telling the Mexican wrestling magazines that he is heading in to be Hulk Hogan's tag team partner.
- Michael Buffer will no longer be announcing UFC events because WCW gave him an us-or-them ultimatum. Since WCW runs more events, Buffer makes more money announcing the WCW main events, so he chose them.
- Word is Shawn Michaels will be out for about 8 weeks, dealing with the legit post-concussion issues he's still suffering after the Syracuse beat down. Word is he came back sooner than he should have, which is why they did the injury angle last week.
- Dean Douglas has given his notice to WWF and aside from a planned match with Ahmed Johnson at the next PPV, it's expected that he's already done. Word is his wife doesn't like him being on the road so much and he's dealing with a back injury as well.
- USWA's Brian Christopher is reportedly under contract to WWF now, but is still working in USWA and they don't plan to take him anytime soon because with Lawler barely there, he's USWA's top draw and WWF doesn't want to hurt them by taking their big draw. But he is still on the WWF payroll.
- There was a bomb scare at Titan Towers on 11/16 which caused a temporary evacuation of the building.