February 05, 1996
- For the first time in wrestling history, most of the major promotions in the U.S., Japan, and Mexico have agreed to come together for Antonio Inoki's show tentatively titled World Wrestling Festival which is scheduled for May in Los Angeles. It will feature wrestlers from WWF, WCW, AAA, EMLL, and NJPW. Inoki's business partner Steve Nakada met with Linda McMahon last week and got her to agree for WWF to take part in the same show as WCW. It's also expected that RINGS, Pancrase, and AJPW will also take part but that's not yet confirmed. AJPW is pretty isolationist and usually refuses to work with any other promotions. If it's successful, Inoki hopes to make it a yearly event and is already talking about holding the 1997 or 98 show in Havana Cuba (also, Dave offhandedly notes here that when Inoki met with Fidel Castro last week, Castro renamed a small island in Cuba "Inoki Island" as a gift to him. Not sure how true that is, and there seems to be conflicting stories if you google it, including that Inoki bought an island on Cuba because Castro convinced him there was treasure buried on it or something). The show takes place as part of a 3-day international peace festival happening in Los Angeles and reportedly Linda McMahon was impressed with the idea of tying wrestling in with that, hoping it would elevate WWF's image. Eric Bischoff, meanwhile, only agreed for WCW to be involved if they were treated as equals with WWF.
- The plan is for each promotion to send one match and book its own finish. Last year, all the promotions in Japan got together for a similar show like this at the Tokyo Dome and the end result was every promotion sending the best wrestlers they had, trying to steal the show from the other companies, and it led to a great show full of main event caliber matches. Given the multiple companies involved, especially WWF and WCW, it's highly unlikely this will air on PPV or be released on video. It'd be far too complicated to work out the legal logistics.
- On Raw this week, WWF showed a real letter that Eric Bischoff sent to Vince McMahon, threatening legal action for the Billionaire Ted skits. Bischoff wasn't mentioned by name and they only referred to him as a WCW "executive" because WWF is trying to portray this war as Vince McMahon vs. Ted Turner, rather than Eric Bischoff. WWF has also been advertising a Huckster vs. Nacho Man match at Wrestlemania, but it's likely that WCW will try to get that squashed to keep it from happening. WWF showed the letter because they're trying to play up the angle of the big bad billionaire trying to bully the WWF.
- This week's Billionaire Ted skit was a press conference, with reporters asking Ted a bunch of questions to make WCW look stupid. They had the Huckster say, "It's in my contract that I never lose" which Dave says is pretty much true. They even poked fun at Ted Turner's health problems (he takes lithium for bipolar disorder) and the New York Daily News story from a few weeks ago that said Ted Turner was a hillbilly who wears cheap suits.
- Hulk Hogan put over Ric Flair on Nitro this week (not clean of course), something most people never thought they'd live long enough to see. It likely stems from Flair threatening to quit recently because he was tired of being Hogan's whipping boy and was upset that they took the WCW title off him after only a few weeks because Hogan was previously booked to win the match before it was changed at the last minute. Flair is also expected to get a bonus or raise of some kind in order to keep him from leaving. Because of the Monday night wars and paranoia from both companies about guys jumping ship, it gives all the wrestlers more negotiating leverage than they've ever had.
- The big show that was taped at the Dallas Sportatorium a few weeks ago, with the hour long "football" match will air on PPV this week. They're pretending the show takes place at Alcatraz Prison with the teams being bandits vs. guards or something like that. Can't find video, but here's a recap of sorts.
- WCW has been actively promoting blood lately, hyping the fact that there will likely be bloodshed in the 2 cage matches at the upcoming SuperBrawl show and showing Hogan's bladejob on Nitro last week. Given how rarely blood has been used in recent years, it will probably be effective in the short term but like anything else, if they overdo it, it will lose effectiveness.
- 1-2-3 Kid is facing Razor Ramon in a match at In Your House where the loser has to wear a diaper. Both Kid and Razor were against the idea of the match, especially Kid since he's likely the one who will lose. Kid was so upset about it that he left the current tour and missed several house shows. He later returned and was punished by putting over Duke Droese in squash matches and the diaper match is still scheduled to happen.
- Royal Rumble did a shocking 1.2 buyrate which is way better than anyone expected, more than triple the buyrate for last month's PPV. Obviously the Shawn Michaels angle (collapsing in the ring against Owen Hart and then making his triumphant return) worked huge. Even the house shows Shawn worked this week drew huge gates way above the usual, with rabid crowds that are losing their minds for Michaels. Overall business is still down, but Shawn Michaels is a legit draw right now.
- Dave reviews the 2nd Super J Cup tournament that took place in December but was just released on video. No 5-star matches but five of the matches were 4-stars or higher and nothing was under 3 stars. He calls it a must-see show.
- Vampiro has reportedly quit EMLL to focus on getting his music career going.
- Konnan is still running weekly shows in the same small venue in Mexico using AAA wrestlers and the shows are basically carbon copies of ECW shows. They're doing well though, selling out the 3,000-seat arena every week.
- Canek is still negotiating to join AAA and the hold-up is that they want him to drop the UWA title to an AAA wrestler, but Canek doesn't want to. UWA is all but dead now but AAA wants the rub of having one of their guys win the belt to really put the final nail in.
- An AAA show got out of hand when the fans nearly rioted after La Parka lost the light heavyweight title. The fans began throwing chairs at the wrestlers. Not in a fun ECW way, but actually attempting to hit them. Psicosis ran into the crowd with a barbed wire baseball bat that had been used earlier in the show and was about to start swinging at fans, but Konnan restrained him, which is good because otherwise, Psicosis would probably be in jail now.
- Dave's year-end Observer awards are usually covered in all the major Japanese magazines and newspapers but this year, that wasn't the case. The award for Best Show of the Year was won by the Weekly Pro Magazine show that was held at the Tokyo Dome. Because that show was put together by one of the magazines, all the other magazines and papers that see Weekly Pro as competition decided not to even mention the Observer awards this year.
- This week's USWA show in Memphis drew 410 fans for a gate of $2,900, making it one of the worst houses in the modern history of Memphis wrestling. It seems as though moving the shows to Wednesday nights hasn't helped. For what it's worth though, the weekly Louisville and Nashville shows are still doing great business.
- Woman (Nancy Sullivan) worked her last ECW show this week and Dave gives her credit for her professionalism in going along with the angle. They did a story where Woman tried to convince ECW champion Sandman and several other wrestlers to come with her to WCW. But they all turned her down and called her a bitch and a whore and then Too Cold Scorpio literally threw her out of the building. There's some bitterness here because she wanted to stay in ECW and work with both companies but Paul Heyman was mad at her for showing up in WCW without telling him, so he wrote her out of the promotion immediately (can't find video on YouTube but the whole thing is on the Network, ECW TV episode 147).
- Raven brought out a new valet named Kimona Wanalea ("Come on, I wanna lay ya"). Also, expect Missy Hyatt to get a big push in ECW soon.
- Cactus Jack worked the most recent ECW show wearing a shirt that said "WW f'n F" on the front and "Future WWF Superstar" on the back and cut a promo talking about how the fans will cheer him when he's doing rest holds against Mabel. Goddamn, that character was so brilliant. Also on the show, Jimmy Del Rey couldn't work due to a shoulder injury so he cut a promo saying he had been beaten up by 109 thugs outside of a bar in Syracuse (nice shot at Shawn Michaels). Shane Douglas also cut an anti-WWF promo, especially trashing Razor Ramon. Later in the night, Stevie Richards wore a Razor Ramon shirt when wrestling Douglas.
- There were also incidents with fans at an ECW house show. There was no beer being served at the venue, so the crowd chanted "We want beer!" throughout the show. Sandman got spit on by a fan and returned the favor by slapping the fan silly. And another fan was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got knocked loopy during a Raven/Sandman brawl and had to get medical treatment.
- There's some serious heat between Madusa and Sherri Martel in WCW. On Nitro this week, they had a match and after the match, Madusa gave Sherri a German suplex. Sherri wasn't told in advance about the suplex but Madusa reportedly got approval for it from someone backstage, but the word never got passed down to Sherri. She was legit knocked silly on the suplex. Sherri didn't even want to work the match to begin with but she's been on thin ice with the company since last year when she no-showed a Japan tour so she was afraid if she didn't agree to the match, she'd be fired. But she still insisted on winning if she was going to work it, which is why she won. (this post-match angle is brutal, especially knowing that Sherri really was basically unconscious).
- There was initially some heat on Bobby Heenan last week for dropping the F-bomb on live TV, but the heat seems to have shifted to Brian Pillman. Speaking of, Pillman's status with WCW seems to change by the minute and no one knows what's up with him. Dave thinks he's one of the best heels in the business right now, but he's apparently driving people crazy backstage because he's just as out of control there as he is on TV.
- Eric Bischoff has signed a new 3-year deal with Turner to continue running WCW.
- Several WCW wrestlers met with Vince McMahon during the NATPE convention last week in Las Vegas. They weren't official meetings. The wrestlers simply went up to the WWF booth and talked to Vince. Ric Flair reportedly talked to McMahon about being unhappy in WCW. Others who met with Vince were The Giant, The Nasty Boys, The Road Warriors, and Brian Pillman. McMahon was said to be uncomfortable with all the WCW guys approaching him, probably for legal reasons (they're all under contract and Vince can't negotiate with them without risking a lawsuit).
- Jacques Rougeau and Pierre Oulett will be heading to WCW as a tag team after Oulett's WWF contract expires in July and reforming the Quebeccers (obviously under a different name). Outlett officially quit WWF last month but can't sign with WCW until his contract runs out. Rougeau will be coming out of retirement and worked out a deal with WCW where he gets 25% of the revenue of any WCW shows that take place in Quebec.
- Razor Ramon missed house shows this weekend because his son Cody was hospitalized, no word why.
- The tentative idea for Cactus Jack's new name in WWF is The Mutilator but that's subject to change (Foley has talked about this before. I think it was going to be Mason The Mutilator or something and he haaaated it).
- Bam Bam Bigelow had major elbow surgery this week and will be out for awhile. It was supposed to be minor surgery but they found more damage than they anticipated while they were doing it. That's why he didn't work the Rumble, even though he was previously advertised.
- Jim Cornette is expected to move to Connecticut soon and join the WWF booking committee full-time.
- A follow-up to the incident at the Montreal show where a Canadians hockey player tried to hit on Sunny. At one point, Chris Candido and the hockey player got into a fight over it and local police had to pull them apart.
- After Eric Bischoff sent WWF a letter threatening to sue over the Billionaire Ted skis, WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt responded with a letter of his own, telling Bischoff that the skits were a response to WCW's disparaging remarks about them, for WCW's trademark and copyright violations (specifically Renegade copying the Ultimate Warrior gimmick), and interference with contracted wrestlers (Luger and Madusa, although neither was actually under contract to WWF when they jumped ship). The tone of the letter was basically, "Go ahead, sue us and we'll sue you right back." It's expected that the skits will continue and will likely get nastier, with rumors that it will imply WCW wrestlers are using HGH (undetectable in drug tests) and that Ted Turner doesn't care about the health of his wrestlers. Dave thinks WWF probably shouldn't throw stones in a glass house.