April 15, 1996
- You know that little disclaimer I sometimes say about posting every day unless real life gets in the way? Sorry about no post yesterday. Real life got in the way. Memphis got hit by a ferocious storm Saturday night and knocked out power throughout much of the city. It's now Tuesday and I still don't have power at my house. But I've got an internet connection now, so let's do this!
- Bonus Fun Fact: back in 2003, Memphis had a similar storm like this that everyone locally refers to as Hurricane Elvis. Well in the last several days, this recent storm seems to be picking up the nickname Hurricane Lawler.
- We open this issue examining the PPV business. Dave talks about how other forms of entertainment and sports have tried and failed to find success on PPV. Only wrestling, boxing, and UFC have actually done well on PPV and even those have had misfires and flops. This all leads to Dave talking about how Pancrase is going to be debuting on PPV in America and he goes into a LOOOOOOONG history of Pancrase and how it compares to other shoot promotions like UFC and UWFI and all that stuff. I didn't plan to cover MMA news anymore and I had half this paragraph typed up before I realized that was the direction this story was headed in. Goddammit, Dave...
- Last week, the wrestling commission in Tijuana announced that they were suspending 24 of AAA's wrestlers from performing in the area, due to a battle royal that they say endangered fans. Konnan, who booked and promoted the show, was given an even longer suspension and they're talking about trying to suspend him from being able to work in Mexico at all. Those who saw the show say there was nothing out of the ordinary and that no one was in danger. The commission is said to be extremely corrupt and that Rey Misterio Sr. (not Jr.) is behind it, because he's recently had a war of words with Konnan and others in AAA. So for now, all future plans for AAA shows in Tijuana are out the window.
- AAA is in serious negotiations to steal El Dandy--who, by the way, is a jam-up guy and a serious professional--away from EMLL.
- Dan Severn will also be debuting for NJPW at the same show and Dave thinks it might be a mistake. Severn has a UFC fight against Ken Shamrock less than three weeks after, and he'll be making a 32-hour round trip flight and taking at least 3 days away from training to work the New Japan show. Taking a break from training for that fight, at a time when the training should be at its most intense, seems risky.
- Part of the reason for the NJPW vs. Weekly Pro magazine feud is because New Japan reportedly wants to start up their own magazine. This is similar to what happened in 1984 when Vince McMahon banned wrestling magazine coverage from his shows in order to start up his own WWF Magazine.
- USWA's TV show this week will be special since it's the 1,000th episode of Memphis wrestling to air on the WMC-TV network since they started airing there in 1977. The show is scheduled to air tons of classic highlights from the past 19 years of Memphis wrestling. (Here's a YouTube playlist, divided into 6 parts, but missing part 4).
- Jeff Jarrett is expected to return this week to USWA and start getting back in shape for a WWF return. Jarrett has been out for the last few months with a back injury.
- In ECW, Raven's injury angle on TV with him using the loaded boot is actually legit. He has some issue with misaligned bones in his ankle and may need surgery. Speaking of injuries, Stevie Richards suffered a broken orbital bone in a match with Rob Van Dam but probably won't need surgery, but he'll be out of action for awhile.
- Lou Thesz's biography has finally been released, in a self-published, spiral-bound book available at a single bookstore in Tallahassee. Dave says it's the best book he's ever read on the subject of wrestling history (It's available on Amazon now and it's called Hooker. You can get it on Kindle for about $10 bucks. Or you can buy it in paperback for over $100).
- Dave notes that retired wrestler Rocky "Soulman" Johnson showed up at an indie show recently. His son Dwayne Johnson played football at University of Miami and recently had a tryout with WWF.
- Herb Abrams is apparently back on the scene and planning to run shows in New York. "Just what this business needs," Dave says, exasperatedly. That won't be a problem for too much longer.
- WWF held a celebrity baseball game over Wrestlemania weekend. I only mention it because it gives me an excuse to post this video which is almost an hour of footage some guy with a camcorder took during WM12 weekend. There's scenes from the baseball game, but mostly it's just him zooming in on Sunny, and lots of other clips of this guy sticking cameras in wrestlers faces and annoying them.
- Latest on the Road Warriors and WCW: the deal they signed isn't exactly a contract, but it's an "offer sheet" for a certain amount of money. When they heard what Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were making, they were unhappy about what they were offered and wanted to jump ship to WWF. However, the offer sheet requires a competitor to meet the same price and since WWF doesn't do guaranteed contracts, the Road Warriors would have to sit out for awhile before they could go work for WWF. So they begrudgingly decided to stay with WCW for now.
- Wrestlemania 12 buyrate looks to be about the same as last year, maybe slightly higher, but nothing significant.
- The original plan for the Ironman match was for both men to be tied at 2 falls each going into sudden death, but it was eventually changed to zero falls each. The plan afterwards was for there to be a Bret/Shawn rematch at Summerslam, possibly as a ladder match, with Michaels going over clean. But Bret Hart has no plans on returning in the foreseeable future, especially not to put over Shawn again.
- Speaking of heat between Bret and Shawn, in his latest column, for the Calgary Sun, Bret wrote about taking time off and deciding his future later. As for Shawn, he wrote that he doesn't think Shawn is a good role model for children and suggested Michaels got beaten up in Syracuse because he behaves like an asshole a lot of the time. He also throws some shade at Ultimate Warrior, saying that Warrior was more tired after his 2 minute match with Helmsley than Bret was after going 62 minutes with Shawn.
- The taped segment of the Roddy Piper/Goldust backlot brawl match was actually filmed nearly a month ago. Piper legitimately broke his hand during the brawl by stiffing Goldust on a punch. Piper has been wearing a cast on his hand ever since and had to remove the cast when they did the live, in-arena portion of the match.
- Raw was unopposed this week since Nitro was pre-empted and they capitalized by airing an edgier show than normal, including a promo with Warrior cursing at Goldust, ("Whatever you're into, I don't give a shit!"). In other news, Raw is going to begin going on the air at three minutes early, at 8:57pm to get the jump on Nitro. Dave says you can probably expect WCW to respond by starting at 8:56pm next week.
- At the latest tapings, they started an angle with Fatu (still doing his positive "make a difference!" gimmick) who was wrestling when suddenly, 2 other Samoans dressed like gang members (dressed to look like Public Enemy) are shown scouting him from the crowd. Those 2 Samoans are Samu and another larger guy that Dave doesn't know (that would later be Rosey from 3 Minute Warning and teaming with Hurricane).
- Fun Trivia Time! The finishing move that Mankind is using (sticking his fingers down someone's throat) was actually invented by former 1960s wrestler "Killer" Sam Sheppard, who is most famous for being the guy who the movie The Fugitive was based on. In 1954, Sheppard's (who was a doctor) wife was bludgeoned to death and Sheppard was later convicted of the murder in a controversial trial. After serving 10 years in prison, his case was appealed and he was re-tried and acquitted. A few years later, Sheppard began wrestling and was a big draw due to his fame and notoriety since he may or may not have killed his wife. The gimmick was that he used his anatomical knowledge from his previous career as a doctor to develop a new submission move, called the Mandibal Claw, which is what Mankind now uses.
- Ultimate Warrior did an America Online chat during Wrestlemania weekend and over 1,500 people joined the chat, causing it to crash. Ah, the baby days of the internet...
- The Connecticut Post ran a story about gay groups protesting the Goldust character, with many saying it's horrible that they have this character out there who's only purpose is to upset people by being homoerotic towards them and then get beaten up for it, "particularly when gay men are being beaten and even murdered in real life" all the time.
- Letters section: people really liked the Iron Man match. Lots of letters about Goldust. Some people think he's great, others think he's inappropriate for kids to be watching, and others think it's terrible that WWF is basically encouraging gay bashing. Someone else thinks Kevin Nash and Scott Hall are going to be total flops in WCW and that WWF is way better. Someone else says Vince McMahon is a total hypocrite is awful for bringing back Ultimate Warrior and marketing a degenerate like Goldust to kids. Fans are just all over the map this week.