May 13, 1996
- We open with a long obituary for Ray Stevens, who passed away of a heart attack at 60 this week. As most of Dave's major obit pieces are, this one is simply awesome and recaps Stevens career in great detail. He was well before my time, so it was pretty much all new info and interesting to me. He was basically the Ric Flair of his era, considered the best in the world in the 60s who could carry a broomstick to a great match. It covers a famous angle when Stevens "crushed" the throat of Pepper Gomez which led to a feud that set attendance records in California, his years teaming with Pat Patterson as the Blond Bombers as the world's best tag team in the 60s, his years in AWA teaming with Nick Bockwinkel, and more. He was also notorious for his out-of-ring antics, bar brawls, women, booze, IRS troubles, etc. He never changed his lifestyle, ignoring doctors warnings after a heart attack last year, and was a hard-drinking, smoking, philandering partier until the day he died.
- FMW held their biggest show since Atsushi Onita retired, drawing 33,000+ to a show featuring the first ever women's "no rope electrified explosive barbed wire death match." WWF let Mick Foley (as Cactus Jack) work the show, but they insisted on changing his opponent. Foley was supposed to face Mitsuhiro Matsunaga and the plan was for both men to bleed. There is a rumor going around that Matsunaga has Hepatitis B (Dave doesn't know if it's true) so WWF insisted on changing opponents, so Foley ended up wrestling someone else instead. That match was a "barbed wire barricade spider net broken glass death match."
- EMLL's ring announcer Vittorino passed away during a show at age 37. He was sitting slumped over in his chair at ringside near the end of the show and fans thought he had just fallen asleep. It wasn't until they were closing the arena when someone noticed he was still there and wasn't breathing.
- Konnan made an appearance at a show in Tijuana but the commission wouldn't let him wrestle because he's still suspended there. So instead, he cut a promo. The commission had asked him to say he was injured and keep it light (because it was a Kid's Day celebration event) but Konnan decided fuck that and cut a promo saying that the commission won't let him wrestle because they want to decide what kind of wrestling the fans get to see. The commission was upset and this definitely doesn't help his chances of getting the suspension dropped any time soon.
- The latest on the NJPW vs. Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine feud is that both sides expect there to be a solution soon. The public is beginning to see both the promotion and the magazine as acting petty and it's not helping either of them, so expect them to solve their differences soon.
- All Japan Women is struggling lately, being unable to sell out Korakuen Hall for the last several shows they've held there. They used to always sell it out with ease. The problem is all the top women have faced each other so many times and none of the newer women have shown any potential to reach main event status, so the fans have basically seen everything this promotion has to offer now, until they manage to create some new stars. They still do okay for big, heavily-hyped shows and out-of-town shows, but the regular Tokyo events aren't drawing anymore.
- Jeff Jarrett doesn't want to return to WWF and rumor is he's currently booking USWA and is being groomed to be the top star to eventually replace Jerry Lawler. In other USWA news, even though business in Memphis is down, the territory as a whole is still profitable and is being carried by strong crowds in Louisville and Nashville.
- The reason ECW's TV show didn't air on MSG TV in New York last week was due to concerns over content. Specifically the lesbian kiss angle between Beulah and Kimona and also a bit where Missy Hyatt poured beer on her tits and Sandman licked it off. The kissing angle will mostly be used to sell videotapes.
- Dave says the In Your House angle where Diesel used Mad Dog Vachon's artificial leg as a weapon was very similar "and perhaps even copied" from something ECW did recently when Too Cold Scorpio used a fan's artificial arm in a match. "Actually a whole hell of a lot of WWF TV recently is strikingly similar to last year's ECW television," Dave notes.
- Billy Jack Haynes announced his retirement at age 42 on a radio show in Portland last week. It's not the first time he's made that announcement though, so take it with a grain of salt (on the contrary, it actually stuck. To this day, Haynes has never wrestled since).
- UFC fighter Paul Varelans was at the Dallas Sportatorium last week and is training to become a wrestler. (This guy is only famous because later in the year, he works an ECW show and didn't want to put over Taz. Missy Hyatt later claimed that she offered Varelans a blowjob in order to do it, so he went out there and lost to Taz. Afterwards, when he tried to collect, Missy told him she "doesn't blow jobbers" and Varelans got pissed and went on a rampage backstage breaking stuff and then was never heard from again).
- The FTC is reportedly considering blocking the Turner/Time Warner merger because of the monopoly it would give Ted Turner on the cable TV industry. Dave says the Billionaire Ted skits had nothing to do with this decision.
- Dave says the recent "Blood runs cold" promos that WCW has been airing are probably teasers for Kevin Nash and/or Scott Hall (nope, even bigger. Glacier!)
- New WCW signee Kid Flash is now going by the name Billy Kidman.
- Eric Bischoff was quoted in an interview disputing Marc Mero's (Johnny B. Badd) claim that he was working on a $150-per-night deal with WCW after his contract expired. Bischoff said, "We have never, ever paid Johnny $150. He knows it, and if it gets to it, I can supply copies of the checks to prove it. His contract was up, he was given a new contract, and he was being paid the same rate under his old contract. There was no change in his compensation. He's an emotional guy, and he may have meant something else when he said it. The problem with Johnny was that he's lazy and he's spoiled. And he didn't want to leave home, and he didn't want to do the things that the rest of the talent like Sting, Lex Luger, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage do, and that's promote the business. Now Johnny spent a lot of time talking in schools and churches and youth groups. And that's cool. I've even gone to one or two of those with Johnny. I'm very supportive of that. But the reality is that's something Johnny wanted to do and it made him feel good about himself. That didn't necessarily translate to major public relations opportunities for WCW. They didn't hurt us, and in intangible ways it helped us."
- Ultimate Warrior defeated Vader in 3 minutes at the latest WWF tapings, in a match where Warrior literally didn't sell anything.
- In other Warrior news, WWF has joined with Warrior in a business partnership where they will promotion Warrior's gym in Phoenix and promote his other merchandise, including his comic book. "In return, he hasn't left yet," Dave quips. These commercials aired on TV in 1996.
- WWF has signed two new wrestlers to developmental contracts. The first is Ben Buchanan who wrestled as The Punisher in SMW. The other is Dwayne Johnson, son of Rocky Johnson and grandson of Peter Maivia. They'll both get paid $300 a week or so and work in USWA to gain experience.
- The latest on Sunny is that her coming home from the Germany tour early was WWF's decision and not hers, because the company wanted to get her away from the situation because they're overly cautious about things like sexual harassment right now. Dave says the term "romantic triangle" that he used regarding Sunny last week isn't exactly accurate but doesn't give more details. He says both Sunny and Skip were bullied and harassed heavily by the Kliq during the tour.
- 1-2-3 Kid will be out of action for awhile after "showing up in no condition to work" at the latest tapings (he went to rehab right around this time). He also recently suffered another concussion, which Dave estimates to be #13 and says it's serious business because the brain can't take that many concussions without major damage and there's serious concern about his future.
- WWF house show business has more than doubled compared to last year and is doing great. Not late-80s/early-90s great or anything, but it's by far the best business the company has done since 1992.