December 26, 1995
- That's it for 1995. Will pick up again with 1996 starting on May 8th. Thanks for reading!
- The Monday Night Wars took another memorable turn this week when Debra Micelli, formerly Alundra Blayze in WWF, showed up on WCW Nitro with the WWF women's title belt and threw it in a garbage can. Micelli's WWF contract expired last week and they chose not to renew it. A planned Blayze vs. Aja Kong match at Royal Rumble was cancelled the week before. WWF had been planning to send Blayze to All Japan Women and let her work there full time while periodically showing up in WWF but then scrapped that plan when they decided to abandon the women's division altogether. It was known that Blayze was negotiating with WCW but not that she had signed. Vince McMahon didn't find out about Blayze appearing in WCW with the women's belt until it happened on Nitro (at the same time Vince was doing commentary on Raw) and he was told about it during the show, which is why many said he seemed distracted on commentary for the rest of the night.
- There are rumors that Ultimate Warrrior is returning to WWF and Jim Ross teased it at the end of the Superstars show but it hasn't been addressed anywhere else. No one knows if it's true or if maybe it was a WCW-like tease in order to get last minute buys for the In Your House PPV. The rumor in the locker room is that he'll be returning at Royal Rumble, but no one seems to know for sure.
- Steve Austin debuted at the latest WWF Raw tapings as The Ringmaster and was given the Million Dollar Belt and uses Dibiase's Million Dollar Dream sleeper as a finisher.
- The latest In Your House PPV took place and was mostly awful up until the fantastic main event. Interesting note that WWF decided not to confiscate signs this time and the ECW fans in the crowd (the show was in Hershey, PA) basically stole the show with interesting signs that were on camera throughout the PPV, many of which were ECW-related. Jeff Jarrett made his WWF return on the show, and got no reaction at all. Buddy Landel replaced Dean Douglas, who appeared but didn't wrestle due to a back injury (ended up being his last WWF appearance). Hunter Hearst Helmsley won a Hog Pin match but ended up in the slop anyway, which was even worse because he had a cut opened on his back and still ended up in the mud and slop. And in the main event, Bret Hart and Dave Boy Smith had a fantastic match which surprisingly saw Bret Hart do a bloody blade job that the cameras tried to pan away from and Vince kept apologizing for on commentary (in his book, if I recall correctly, I think Bret did this without permission but ended up not really getting punished for it because he convinced them it was an accident).
- The Village Voice newspaper had a follow-up story about the government investigation into the husband (Marty Bergman) of one of Vince McMahon's lawyers who allegedly tried to pay off witnesses. The story is even more devastating than the original, and paints Bergman as a guy with a reputation for finding dirt on people and selling the info to anyone who wants it, from media outlets to law agencies. The story goes into a lot of detail alleging that Bergman dug up dirt about the prosecutor and conspired with TV tabloid show American Journal to use that dirt against the prosecutor during the trial. Furthermore, Bergman and Vince McMahon's lawyer Laura Brevetti allegedly worked together to keep several secret stories from McMahon's past from going public during the trial, including allegations of McMahon having a series of affairs with multiple secretaries and grand jury testimony telling a story of McMahon "snorting mountains of cocaine."
- The story also alleges that Bergman claimed to be a producer from A Current Affair and offered key witness Emily Feinberg $350,000 before the trial in exchange for a tell-all interview and to work as a consultant on a movie about McMahon. If Feinberg had accepted, it would have tainted her testimony once the trial began (which was the whole point). Feinberg did have a meeting with Bergman, after he repeatedly pestered her about it. Bergman allegedly said they could offer her more money if she wanted and also said the studio wanted Sylvester Stallone to play Vince McMahon in the a movie about the trial. Feinberg repeatedly refused the money. During the trial, McMahon's lawyers seemed to have an uncanny amount of dirt on Feinberg, which they say came from the lawyer's husband's attempt at witness tampering.
- The Stu Hart Stampede Tribute Show was a huge success, bringing together WWF, WCW, and former Stampede legends. However, both Dynamite Kid and Abdullah The Butcher no-showed the event, without ever calling to cancel. They just never arrived. Dean Douglas and Mongolian Stomper also didn't make the show, but they at least gave notice ahead of time that they couldn't make it. Dynamite Kid doesn't have a phone, so when he didn't arrive, they tried to contact him at the job where he works as a night watchman on a construction site and a co-worker eventually answered and told them Kid wasn't coming. They held a Hall of Fame ceremony earlier in the day, inducting many of the legends who helped build Stampede. WCW star Chris Benoit defeated WWF star Rad Radford (Louie Spicolli). And Bret Hart worked the show with a bad case of the flu. It won't be released on video because WWF and WCW won't let their contracted stars appear on outside video releases (there's a Wikipedia page for this show, but no video that I can find).
- Update on the status of UWA in Mexico. Evidently the promotion still exists, but pretty much in name only. They've only ran 2 shows in 1995 and the head of the promotion has begun renting out the UWA arena to AAA because he can make more money renting out the building than he can from running shows himself. So...yeah they're pretty much dead (this is the last time UWA is ever mentioned. R.I.P.)
- Speaking of UWA (okay, this is the last time they're ever mentioned), their long-time top star Canek debuted in AAA and worked a tag match and ended up against Konnan, with whom he has had long-time issues. The two worked stiff but kept it professional for awhile but eventually they began to have words and began shooting on each other and had to be separated, leading to Konnan walking out of the match. He eventually returned and they finished the match but afterwards, they reportedly got into each other's faces backstage and had to be separated again. Canek told AAA president Antonio Pena that he wants to stay in AAA but won't work with Konnan and meanwhile, Konnan told Pena that he doesn't want Canek in the company at all.
- AAA is desperately looking for anyone who has footage of the recent show in Los Angeles, especially the Star of Death cage match because the show wasn't taped and they want some footage to air on TV since the match was so wild (best I can tell, still no footage and it probably doesn't exist since even AAA couldn't find any. Shame, because from all reports, that star cage match was one of the craziest matches ever).
- Konnan is starting with WCW at the beginning of the year but will continue to help ECW book AAA wrestlers.
- Steve Austin did a great promo on the 12/19 ECW show, running himself down and saying he showed up to ECW out of shape and without rehabbing his arm and that's why he lost his match for the ECW title and said he's disgusted with how his career is going (it's on the Network but I can't find this on YouTube or anything).
- Paul Heyman is trying to get celebrities to attend the upcoming ECW Christmas-week show. The event is expected to draw the largest crowd in ECW history.
- WCW has reconsidered their plan to tape Nitro bi-weekly and will instead remain live each week. WCW believes that WWF is on its last legs right now so they don't want to let off the gas pedal now.
- Turns out the Bushwhackers are still under WWF contract, so forget rumors of them going to WCW any time soon.
- Public Enemy should be debuting on Nitro on 1/8 and will keep the name Public Enemy.
- Mark Madden was briefly fired from the WCW Hotline and then rehired soon after. It actually had nothing to do with the Woman controversy from last week. Reportedly, Eric Bischoff listened to Madden's recording and was furious that Madden talked about Hulk Hogan being booed and so he ordered Madden be fired. Later in the day, WCW's lawyer talked to Bischoff and pointed out that everything Madden says on the hotline was recorded ahead of time and approved by somebody before it was posted, so firing Madden could cause a legal headache. So he was re-hired but told not to mention Hogan receiving negative crowd reactions again. He was also told to never talk about UFC on the hotline again.
- Vince McMahon did another Q&A on AOL Online this week and reportedly wasn't as much of a smart-ass this time, but he dodged all the hard questions and nothing noteworthy came from it.