January 29, 1996
- WCW's Clash of the Champions did a 4.5 TV rating, making it one of the top rated wrestling shows in history on TBS and between the Clash and Nitro the night before, there's been a ton of big news in WCW this week, which contributed to the record rating. The Road Warriors made their return, challenging Sting and Luger for their newly won tag titles. Miss Elizabeth made her return to wrestling at the Clash, accompanying Hogan and Savage and there have been a lot of comments about her looks and saying her face looks old and that she didn't look like the pin-up girl people remember from the 80s. Dave says hey, she's a 35-year-old woman who looks like a 35-year-old woman, what do you expect? Anyway, it's believed they may be planning an Elizabeth vs. Woman feud. Speaking of...
- Woman (Nancy Sullivan) from ECW showed up at the Clash and the plan is to put her with Randy Savage when he inevitably turns heel and make her the new, evil version of Elizabeth. Nancy showing up in WCW caused an issue with ECW because she didn't have permission from Paul Heyman to work the WCW show. Her husband Kevin Sullivan had been negotiating with Heyman all week to try and bring Woman in, even offering Heyman the use of several WCW wrestlers (including former ECW stars Public Enemy) in exchange, but Heyman wasn't interested unless the WCW wrestlers would put over ECW stars clean on TV (which Sullivan either wouldn't or couldn't agree to). Sullivan gave Heyman the impression that Hulk Hogan is the real booker and that Hogan wanted Nancy brought in and that if Sullivan couldn't make it happen, his job might be in jeopardy but Heyman wouldn't budge. There have been rumors for months that Nancy would be heading to WCW but everyone involved denied it. The real hangup is that Nancy wants to do both and now she's trying to save her ECW job. But from all reports, Heyman is done with Nancy after this.
- The Clash also featured a horrible "wedding" angle with Sister Sherri trying to marry Col. Parker, only to be attacked by Madusa, with the story that Parker had been cheating on Sherri with Madusa. Dave sarcastically says that this is WCW putting women back in their stereotypical "rightful place" of being sex playthings for all the men instead of actual competitors. (Fun fact: this is the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. Same place Triple H drove Stephanie through the drive-thru for their marriage. Double fun-fact: I also got married there in 2009).
- There was another incident on the Clash show during a Brian Pillman vs. Eddie Guerrero match. Pillman was running away from Guerrero outside the ring and ran up behind Bobby Heenan at the commentary table and grabbed his jacket and started pulling on it. Heenan, who has a very bad neck, freaked out because he thought Pillman might hurt him (Dave notes that half the company is legit scared of Pillman these days because he's just as out of control backstage as he is on TV). Heenan screamed, "What the fuck are you doing!?" live on the air and ran away from the booth. He returned later and apologized for losing his cool.
- Randy Savage won the WCW title from Ric Flair on Nitro and word is Flair was upset about the whole thing and has finally had enough of being Hogan & Friends' whipping boy. Flair was scheduled to do the job again at the Clash in the tag match after (what else?) a Hogan leg drop, but Flair balked at that and WCW changed the finish and had Savage do the job. Word is Flair has threatened to quit WCW if things don't change.
- There has been talk of moving Nitro to Las Vegas permanently and taping shows there in the same arena each week year-round (1 week live, 1 week taped) but no word if that will actually happen.
- In WWF, Roddy Piper replaced Gorilla Monsoon as the figurehead "president" of WWF after Vader attacked Monsoon and had him stretchered out, which Dave says was one of the best angles in years. Vader was "suspended" due to his actions, which will allow him to go get shoulder surgery and he should be back by Wrestlemania. Piper as president said he plans to let "anything and everything" go from now on, which will lead to WWF getting more crazy in an attempt to copy ECW's style that seems to be so popular.
- Royal Rumble is in the books and was decent but predictable. Dave wasn't a fan of the DQ ending of the Undertaker/Bret Hart match because it made Bret look weak as a champion. And he's facing Diesel in a cage next month and Dave says Hart will probably retain the title in another disputed finish, which makes him look weak for 2 straight PPVs in a row as he heads into Wrestlemania, where he's scheduled to lose the title to Shawn Michaels (I seem to remember Bret complaining about this in his book also, feeling that Shawn went into the show with all the momentum and Bret was booked like a chump for 2 months going into it).
- Other Rumble notes: WWF has really started playing up Sunny's sex appeal. Jake Roberts was over huge with the crowd, coming out of retirement for a one-time (for now) appearance. Goldust's real-life wife Terri Runnels debuted as his manager using the name Marlena (she used to be Alexandra York in WCW) and he won the IC title. Also, Vince McMahon has drastically toned down the gay references to Goldust, but that didn't stop Mr. Perfect from making a bunch of gay jokes, which McMahon ignored, and it didn't stop the crowd from chanting "faggot!" at him. Shawn Michaels won a subpar Rumble match. Henry Godwin was eliminated earlier than scheduled because he got injured and they rushed him out of the ring without acknowledging it on TV. Vader got over big as a dominant monster in the match and set up a feud with Yokozuna for Wrestlemania.
- The biggest story in Japan is about the speculation of Atsushi Onita coming out of retirement. Onita is probably a bigger mainstream star now than he was as a wrestler because he stars on a highly-rated samurai TV series. If Onita does return, it will be controversial since he made such a big deal of retiring and Japanese fans are usually pretty adamant about people sticking to their stipulations. Terry Funk did the same thing back in 1983, doing a big retirement tour and then returning a year later. It took years for the Japanese fans to finally forgive him and he never did fully return to being as big a draw as he was before retiring.
- Cactus Jack will go on one more tour for IWA in Japan before starting full-time with WWF in March.
- Paul Heyman has promised Sabu he will headline an ECW PPV before June of this year. There's still no definite date for when ECW will have its first PPV but obviously Heyman is hoping to do it in the first half of 1996.
- Former WWF jobber Jerry O passed away last month at age 32. It's notable because Jerry O's name was all over the FedEx lists for Dr. Zahorian steroid shipments back in the late 80s and early 90s that came out during the Zahorian trial and this makes 3 known Dr. Zahorian "patients" that passed away at a young age in 1995 (Eddie Gilbert and John Studd being the other two).
- Eric Bischoff responded to the WWF Billionaire Ted skits on the WCW hotline this week in a segment with Mike Tenay. Bischoff said he didn't think it was a gamble to go against Raw because he believes WCW has superior talent. He called the Billionaire Ted skits "a desperate man doing desperate things" and said even he was surprised Nitro started defeating Raw in the ratings so quickly. People are creatures of habit and he figured it would take a year or two for people to start gravitating toward WCW. Bischoff defended WCW's steroid policy and said he'd let Hogan and Savage's lawyers deal with the steroid allegations that WWF made about them. He also knocked the Goldust character, saying it's embarrassing what Vince is doing to Dustin Rhodes and said he feels sorry for Vince if that's the most creative thing he can come up with. He finished by saying McMahon is the Verne Gagne of the 1990s and his time has passed.
- Iron Sheik was backstage at the latest WCW tapings, looking for work. He's done this before and wasn't hired and probably won't be this time either.
- Terry Taylor issued an apology on the WCW Hotline for saying the ECW champion was a drug addict (Sandman, although Taylor didn't mention him by name). But then a week later, he doubled down and said he was calling the character a drug addict, not the person who portrays him.
- Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero have both signed two-year deals with WCW.
- The NAPTE TV convention was in Las Vegas again this week and both WWF and WCW were represented. There were long autograph lines for Hogan and Savage. The only WWF star to really have any line at all was Shawn Michaels and the nearby pizza lines were longer than his.
- Eric Bischoff had a meeting with Antonio Inoki this week about the big multi-promotional show he's trying to put together. Inoki tried to get Bischoff and Vince McMahon together at the same meeting, but McMahon declined. Inoki is supposed to meet with a WWF rep sometime later. Anyway, Bischoff agreed to have WCW take part in the show and will be sending some WCW stars to work the event.
- Antonio Inoki also met with Fidel Castro last week about trying to put together a wrestling event in Cuba sometime this year.
- Ric Flair is still making noise about wanting to leave WCW because he's unhappy about the current direction. Also, WCW wants to turn Flair babyface and make him into a living legend sort of character, but Flair wants to stay heel.
- This week's Billionaire Ted skit was Ted talking about wanting to come up with an original idea instead of stealing all their ideas from WWF. Then Scheme Gene chimes in and suggests calling the hotline for his idea. Dave says it was pretty weak.
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley faced Razor Ramon this week and Dave says it was the first time Hemlsley has showed real star potential since starting with WWF. He's also doing a playboy gimmick where he comes out with a different beautiful woman each week. "Speaking of which, are there any women in a regular role in wrestling who haven't had boob jobs?" Dave asks.
- John Hawk debuted on Raw under the name Justin "The Hawk" Bradshaw.
- The latest episode of Boy Meets World with Vader making his 2nd guest starring appearance aired this week and Dave thinks it's hilarious to see Vader doing his usual wrestling gimmick in a sitcom setting.