January 06, 1996
- Once again, Ric Flair is WCW champion, winning the title from Randy Savage at Starrcade. Dave talks about how people were calling Flair too old back in 1989 and that they wanted to phase him out, but here he is 6 years later, still out-performing the people meant to replace him back then (Sting and Luger) and, despite being the champion, still playing second fiddle to Hogan and his friends.
- Due to the great matches on the undercard, Dave thinks Starrcade was the best WCW PPV of 1995, but the announcing was awful. He felt bad for Tony Schiovane, who had clearly done his preparation on all the Japanese wrestlers and was trying to really call the matches. But he was basically made fun of and shouted down by Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes and after about 3 matches, Schiovane mostly seemed to just give up, which left Heenan and Rhodes to make bad jokes for the rest of the show. Of note, the matches that Benoit and Guerrero were in were the two best of the show, no surprise. Randy Savage is so broken down and injured that he was basically carried in his match by 24-year-old Hiroyoshi Tenzan and then carried again by Flair in the title match later that night. Dave says Savage needs to take time off and get surgery or heal or something. And finally, in a weird unannounced main event, Kansuke Sasaki retained/lost the U.S. title in a terrible match with One Man Gang. It appeared Gang won the title but the match was restarted and then Sasuke won the match to retain it. Dave thinks they might have done that to protect Sasaki in Japan, since he didn't want it reported that he had lost 2 matches on the same show. Dave expects the footage of Sasaki winning will be used in Japanese media and they will make up a story about him vacating the title or something to explain why he doesn't have it anymore. But as far as WCW goes, One Man Gang is the new U.S. champion. It was a confusing mess and a bad match to boot.
- WCW is allowing blading again, as shown by Flair blading in his match with Savage. It's WCW's response to Bret Hart's blade job 2 weeks ago at In Your House. WWF hasn't officially reversed its policy and the "official" story is that Bret bleeding on that show was accidental, but Dave doesn't buy it. But Flair's blading was definitely intentional, planned and approved due to WCW believing that WWF is now allowing blood. It's just another step in the war between WWF and WCW trying to outdo each other.
- Dave looks at attendance figures for Japan in 1995. Basically, how many shows each promotion ran, what the overall total attendance was for all the shows to figure out an average. NJPW blew every other company out of the water (in both Japan and America) and in fact, their attendance increased by a whopping 42.9% over 1994 (I'm not sure if that's including the North Korea shows. Dave is vague on that. But those 2 shows would significantly change the number either way). Keiji Muto (Great Muta) was the top drawing star in the world for 1995. On the opposite end of the spectrum, UWFI's attendance dropped 51% from 1994 which explains why they're basically owned by New Japan now and don't really operate as their own promotion anymore. America's 1995 attendance figure breakdown will be in a future issue.
- ECW debuted in New York City at the Lost Battalion Hall and drew a legit sellout, with fans being turned away at the door. They're already talking about running a larger building when they come back. Paul Heyman opened up the show with a half shoot/worked promo, tearing into WWF, WCW, and Steve Austin. Austin was scheduled to work the main event but he didn't work the show. The comments about Austin were all a work. Austin had strep throat and Heyman was fine with him missing the show. But the tirade against WWF and WCW was shoot. Heyman had asked for Tom Prichard to work the show but WWF claimed Prichard was booked for a WWF show but it turned out not to be true. Sabu faced Cactus Jack and, continuing with his anti-hardcore gimmick, Cactus asked that the match be held under NCAA rules, with points being awarded for takedowns. He's also recently shaven his beard and looks clean-cut now and was giving out gingerbread cookies to the fans. And finally, Missy Hyatt debuted, doing a gimmick where she's trying to date Raven.
- Paul Heyman is negotiating with several new wrestlers to come to ECW. Among them are Ultimo Dragon, Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam (to work with Sabu) and Juventud Guerrera (to work with Rey Mistero Jr.). Also, Shane Douglas is definitely coming back but WCW has expressed interest in him.
- Sabu is working for both ECW and Dennis Coraluzzo's NWA promotion, often working for both on the same night. He works a show, then hops in the car, still in his ring gear and drives across town to the other show. Many people in ECW are upset about it because Paul Heyman has forbidden anyone else in the company to work for Coraluzzo.
- Sabu faced Devon Storm at an indie show and both men came out injured. Sabu suffered a shoulder injury but Storm got the worst of it and was basically knocked out during the match and had to be carried through it by Sabu. After the match, Storm got backstage and didn't know his name and couldn't remember the match. He was talking about having to get ready for the match and people had to tell him it had already happened. He went to the hospital and was diagnosed with a bad concussion and is expected to be out of action for a few weeks.
- In a promo on Nitro, Brian Pillman started yelling at fellow Horsemen Chris Benoit and Arn Anderson, and made a comment about Benoit only performing well in the limo with a bunch of naked women, which got Pillman into some trouble backstage (this is, of course, the very beginning of the "Loose Cannon" gimmick. It's not really that special of a promo, especially compared to what he eventually starts doing).
- Eric Bischoff was watching Raw on his monitor during Nitro and repeatedly commented on what was happening. Early in the show, Bischoff revealed that the Smoking Gunns won the Raw Bowl and said it wasn't any good and called it the Toilet Bowl. Someone held up a sign on Raw saying "WWF is where the bigger boys play" which led Bischoff to say WCW is where the biggest boys play.
- On Raw, WWF aired a skit where they had guys dressed like Ted Turner, Bill Shaw, Harvey Schiller, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage in "Billionaire Ted's Wrasslin' Warroom" and made fun of Hogan and Savage being old. Most people thought it was hilarious, including some in WCW. Dave thinks it was funny but also says that if Hogan or Savage called Vince today and asked to come back, Vince would take them both back in a heartbeat and put them on top again so take it with a grain of salt. WCW is expected to respond to the skit next week (this ends up becoming a MUCH bigger deal over the next few months. As a kid, I just remember these skits being goofy funny jokes. Turns out they're a lot more than that and this is where the Monday Night War starts getting really nasty).
- Ricky Steamboat (or more importantly, his lawyers) heard about Gene Okerlund saying that there was going to be a Steamboat retirement ceremony on Nitro. The lawyers got involved and this week, Okerlund was forced by the lawyers to go back on the hotline and say that Steamboat wasn't going to be honored on the show and that Steamboat was in no way associated with WCW.
- There was apparently discussion recently of having Eddie Guerrero score an upset win over Ric Flair to win the WCW title, similar to how Ricky Steamboat became a star by scoring an upset win over Ric Flair in the 70s to win the NWA Mid-Atlantic Television Championship (that obviously didn't pan out, but can you imagine that happening in 1996?).
- WWF officially announced Vader will be in the Royal Rumble. He hasn't signed a contract yet, but it's expected he will work the Rumble and then start full-time with them soon after. He will also continue to work in Japan and will be working against Antonio Inoki at the Tokyo Dome this week. Vader needs shoulder surgery and was going to turn down the WWF deal because of it but Vince McMahon worked hard all weekend to get the deal done because he wanted a big bombshell announcement for Rumble and the Ultimate Warrior negotiations fell through. Speaking of...
- The Warrior deal is dead because they had agreed for Warrior to come in and film some promos and he never showed up. There were also big issues on both sides regarding money and "policy problems." Money-wise, Warrior wants an astronomical guaranteed contract and Vince isn't willing to pay it. As for the "policy problems," Dave doesn't clarify other than to say that it would create a double standard. Basically, Warrior wants the freedom to get away with something that others in the company couldn't. (TL;DR - Warrior doesn't want to have to take drug tests).
- Regarding the other names rumored for the Rumble: Jake Roberts hasn't given WWF an answer yet but they're expecting him to agree. Dan Severn wants to do it but isn't sure if it would be the right career move given his UFC career, so he's leaning against it. WWF has made a deal for Dory Funk to be in the Rumble in an attempt to open up a working relationship with All Japan, similar to WCW's deal with NJPW, and they want Funk to be the liaison between them. They're also bringing in Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka for the Rumble. This must mean the legal case with Tatanka has been settled since WWF was adamant about not bringing him back until it was.
- Dave wants to clarify that he's changed his opinion on something he said. In last week's issue, Dave scoffed at McMahon complaining about steroids in WCW and thought it was hypocritical. But the more he thinks about it, Vince is right. He's done an incredible job of cleaning up his company and has paid a massive price for the way WWF operated in the past. At this point, if Vince wants to complain that his competition is pushing steroid-monster wrestlers, it's a fair complaint.
- WWF will be doing a Slammy Awards show the night before Wrestlemania.
- Razor Ramon has been openly complaining about his feud with Goldust. He and other members of the Kliq hate the gimmick and have been taking it out on Dustin Rhodes instead of recognizing that he's just a guy "saddled with a bad gimmick who is just trying to do his job." Razor has been trying to get the feud switched so he can work with Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
- A few letters in the letters section about WCW vs. WWF. Some people feel Vince is kinda getting what he deserves, since WCW is only doing to him the exact same thing he did to the territories in the 80s. Someone else thinks the competition benefits fans because it's leading to can't-miss shows every week and he predicts that we might begin seeing a more grown-up, hardcore style in WWF, similar to ECW. Pffft, as if.
- Lots of letters complaining about the state of wrestling commentators and especially complaining about Dusty Rhodes and especially about how he has been purposely burying guys like Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero on commentary. Dave agrees and says Rhodes is clearly resentful that the business is changing and passing him by and wonders why he's even still on the air.