June 03, 1996
- Shoutout to Cheeseburger! I see you...
- A power outage at last week's In Your House PPV led to one of the strangest PPV shows ever on 5/26 and 5/28. Early in the show, the power went out for over an hour due to a bad storm in the area. The show was off the air on PPV for 25 minutes before Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon came on, telling viewers to stay tuned and saying that matches were continuing in the arena and would air on the 5/28 replay. But the power stayed off so long that when it returned, they only had time for the main event (Shawn/Bulldog). While the power was out, they used battery operated cameras and used a generator to be able to barely light the ring so even people in the crowd could barely see the matches. The did no ring introductions or entrances. Because none of the footage was usable due to the lighting, they decided to just re-do the matches live on Tuesday night in a different city for the replay.
- On the Monday night Raw between the 2 PPVs, a change was made to the Steve Austin/Savio Vega match stating that, if Austin lost, Ted Dibiase would leave the WWF. The reason is because Dibiase put in his notice the other day that he is leaving for WCW when his contract expires in August. Dibiase has agreed to a 3-year deal to work as an announcer and manager. Dibiase has a Lloyds of London disability deal and is supposed to collect a major lump sum on that soon after suffering a career-ending neck injury awhile back, so he won't be wrestling in WCW, but he may be able to take occasional bumps as a manager. Instead of building up to his departure in August, WWF decided to just write him off TV immediately, thus the added stipulation for the Tuesday PPV.
- Other notes from the 2 shows: Shawn Michaels was off his game and spent half the match jawing with a heckling fan at ringside and appeared to be in a pissed off mood. After the match, Michaels threw another tantrum when his music cue was missed, but this was edited out of the replays. They also changed the finishes to a couple of the matches that they redid (Yoko beat Vader the first night, but Vader won when they redid it. And Goldust beat Undertaker in the casket match. The first night, it took 6 heels teaming up on Taker to beat him. The second night, they had Mankind cost Undertaker the match to set up that feud).
- Scott Hall debuted on WCW's Monday Nitro this week. He was pretty much acting the exact same as his Razor Ramon character and came out acting like a WWF wrestler invading WCW. He cut a promo talking about "Billionaire Ted, Scheme Gene, and The Nacho Man" from the WWF parodies. Dave says it's the biggest shot Bischoff has fired at WWF, even bigger than Lex Luger's Nitro debut, and it seems they are doing a fake shoot-style angle to play off the real-life WWF vs. WCW war. Hall cut another promo on Bischoff at the end of the show, heavily implying that he was still with WWF and challenging WCW to find 3 guys to settle the war in the ring instead of "newspapers or dirtsheets." The crowd didn't react that much to Hall's debut, seemingly due to pure shock.
- The plan is for Hall, Nash, and probably Lex Luger (pretending he's still been with WWF all this time) to face a WCW team of Sting, Savage, and either Giant or Flair at Bash at the Beach. Dave says this is similar to how NJPW drew record crowds by using UWFI wrestlers and pretending they were still with UWFI, even though NJPW had secretly already taken that entire promotion over. WWF had the opportunity to do something similar in 1991 when Ric Flair left WCW while still champion, but egos (Hogan and McMahon) got in the way and they refused to market Flair as an outsider who was on Hogan's level. A similar storyline also happened in Memphis back in the early 80s with Angelo Poffo's ICW promotion invaded Memphis, leading to record-setting Jerry Lawler vs. Randy Savage matches.
- WWF, as you would expect, isn't happy about all this. WWF still believes they own the intellectual rights to the Razor Ramon character (the slicked back hair, the accent, the toothpick, etc.) and since Hall used all of that during his first appearance, there's talk of a lawsuit, though it's unsure how WWF's fight would hold up in court.
- Pimpinela Escarlata captured the light heavyweight title from La Parka at an AAA show this week and Dave says it's one of the bigger upsets in wrestling history but Dave doesn't really explain why it's such a big deal.
- Dwayne Johnson debuted under the name Flex Kavana at the latest USWA show, teaming with Brian Christopher in a match against Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee. Kavana has only had about a half-dozen matches but word is he showed a lot of potential.
- Paul Heyman is looking to bring in a UFC fighter to put over Taz. One name that has been brought up is Paul Varelans since he's interested in becoming a pro wrestler.
- Antonio Inoki's peace festival inter-promotional show takes place this week and since there's no TV hyping it, there hasn't been much buzz locally in Los Angeles. They're hoping for a strong Latino walk-up crowd the day of the show. Even though WCW is involved, there has been no mention of the show on WCW TV.
- At an indie show in Alexandria, VA, a female fan at ringside stole the promotion's title belt, valued at $1,000. No one at ringside at the time saw her snatch it from the timekeepers area, and it was only later when they viewed a videotape of the show that they saw her steal it. They turned the video over to police who then aired it as part of the local news' Crime Solvers segment. The girl's parents saw it, recognized their daughter as the thief, and made her turn herself in. The belt was returned but is reportedly missing some of the diamonds in it.
- Ken Shamrock has a starring role in an upcoming movie called Champions where he plays--wait for it--a no holds barred shoot-fighting champion.
- Slamboree's buyrate is way down from last month's Uncensored PPV, which once again shows that Hulk Hogan is the one who pops WCW's big buyrates. There's other factors involved in the low buyrate, but it's hard to argue the fact that Hogan is the draw, when every PPV he doesn't appear on, the buyrate plummets.
- The Road Warriors have quit WCW. It's the same situation from a month or so ago, when they heard how much Hall and Nash are getting paid and felt they should be making the same. WCW disagreed and they've been trying to work it out for the last few weeks, but it apparently didn't happen, so they're gone.
- Brian Pillman had a meeting with Vince McMahon last week and he was supposed to meet with Eric Bischoff soon after but the meeting never took place. Word is Pillman and WCW aren't agreeing on money and it's looking likely that Pillman is heading to WWF. He'll continue to do promos in ECW for now and word is WWF has agreed to let him work a match there with Shane Douglas after he's healed from his car wreck injuries so they can wrap up the angle they've already started (match never happened. It took Pillman way longer than planned to heal).
- WCW wanted Great Muta to put over Dallas Page at the next PPV but NJPW sees Page as a prelim wrestler and so they refused to send Muta to work the show.
- During a segment on Saturday night advertising WCW as "Where The Big Boys Play", they showed a lengthy several-minute clip of Cactus Jack losing to Kevin Sullivan in a match from 1994. Dave says it actually doesn't have anything to do with Mick Foley's WWF status but there's bad blood there because Foley is still in a lawsuit with WCW over the match where he lost his ear. So WCW aired the footage of Foley getting beat up and jobbing just to be petty. Dave says the show is only an hour long and calls this a colossal waste of valuable airtime and lists a dozen other various things they could have done instead, from hyping the new 2-hour Nitro format, airing video packages to get over new guys like Rey Misterio Jr., pushing all their upcoming house shows, etc. But nope, they just wasted time shitting on a guy who doesn't work there anymore instead.
- Hulk Hogan has a cameo in the upcoming movie Spy Hard.
- Brian Knobbs was court side at a Chicago Bulls game and after they won, Dennis Rodman gave Knobbs his jersey.
- Jacques Rougeau and Pierre Oulette were on a Montreal talk-show recently and claimed to be putting together a WCW show at the 46,000-seat Olympic Stadium in Montreal and said they will be teaming with Hulk Hogan in a 6-man match. Latest Dave has heard is that there's no deal at all, and that Rougeau is trying to put this show together himself, with hopes that WCW will allow Hogan to work it. Rougeau and Oulette are expected to start working for WCW in July.
- Kimberly Page was on an episode of Hard Copy being shown as a model on a fitness calendar. They didn't mention anything about her being a WCW star.
- A tag team called the Hardy Brothers (Matt & Chip Hardy...not sure if Jeff was going by Chip or if Dave just got bad info) got a tryout match at the latest Raw tapings. They looked pretty green. Also a guy named James Arndt worked a tryout match and looked good (later became Joey Abs of the Mean Street Posse).
- In a qualifier match for the King of the Ring tournament, Hunter Hearst Helmsley lost to Jake Roberts. Dave says this was almost certainly punishment for the curtain call incident last week. There was a lot of heat backstage from other wrestlers over the incident. Dave says that obviously Hall and Nash couldn't be punished since they were leaving (and apparently spent the weeks before flagrantly violating lots of other company rules) and Shawn Michaels is the golden boy and is the top draw, so they won't punish him, so they're making an example out of Helmsley.
- Steve Austin appears to be trying out new finishing moves. On the episode of Raw taped for 6/17, Austin pinned Savio Vega using a version of the Ace crusher (and thus, the Stone Cold Stunner was born).
- WWF sent out a memo to all wrestlers that they are going to start doing HIV testing due to pressure from some state athletic commissions.
- There's some question to whether or not 1-2-3 Kid will be returning to WWF (he would not).
- WWF is trying to get exclusive rights to some of the major arenas. In particular, they just got exclusive rights to run shows at the new arena in Buffalo, NY. This is interesting because WCW is doing the final show at the old Buffalo arena (War Memorial) and have actually already done a record-setting advance on ticket sales. But with WWF now having exclusive rights to the new arena, that means WCW won't be able to do a follow-up show in Buffalo. WCW is making noise about filing a lawsuit over it, but WWF has been getting exclusive deals on arenas to fuck over WCW going back to the Crockett days and they always talk about filing lawsuits but nothing ever comes of it.
- Vader looks to be the favorite to win King of the Ring, but WWF feels he hasn't gotten over as a killer heel like they hoped he would. They're blaming it on his weight, which Dave says has gotten a little out of control. But he also says that it's kinda hard to get over as a monster heel when you're not pushed like one. Vader has been doing clean squash jobs to Ultimate Warrior for weeks, for example.
- Apparently more top WWF stars are talking about leaving to go to WCW. Word is Vince McMahon offered Marc Mero and Brian Pillman big money deals (possibly even guaranteed deals) and there are many in WWF who have been top stars there and elsewhere who don't like the idea of making less than them (yup, Mick Foley has been really open about this. Marc Mero apparently got some crazy guaranteed big money deal and Foley was pretty pissed about making so much less than him).
- The plan for the Shawn Michaels/Davey Boy Smith/Diana Hart storyline was supposed to be the big reveal that Diana was trying to seduce Shawn and he turned her down. But word is neither Diana or Davey Boy were comfortable with that so that won't happen now (yeah, Diana later confirmed that in her book and says she now regrets not going along with the plan).
- Someone writes a long letter into the letters section, reviewing the UFC 9 PPV and giving his thoughts. I just sorta skimmed through it and didn't think much of it until I got to the end and turns out....it was Joe Silva, who very soon after this letter was hired by UFC and spent the next 20 years as UFC's matchmaker before retiring last year. Well I'll be damned.