June 10, 1996
- WWF struck back at WCW this week, with Vince McMahon reading a prepared lawyer's statement on the 6/3 Raw, stating that Diesel and Razor Ramon are no longer part of the WWF but that they are portraying themselves as if they're still with WWF while under contract to a rival organization. They also released a statement on America Online with more info. The message states:
- "In an effort to further blur the lines between Ted Turner's wrestling organization and the World Wrestling Federation, Scott Hall, portraying the World Wrestling Federation character Razor Ramon, recently appeared on World Championship Wrestling television programming. The World Wrestling Federation wants to make it clear that there is no agreement with the Turner organization, nor will there ever be."
- WWF lawyers also sent a letter to Scott Hall, informing him that he is infringing on WWF's intellectual property by portraying the Razor Ramon character in WCW and that they will withhold all future payments (merchandise checks and PPV payoffs) until the matter is settled. The text of the letter is as follows:
- "Dear Mr. Hall:
- This letter will serve to put you on notice of your deliberate infringement of Titan's intellectual property rights in connection with your appearance this past Monday on the WCW's Nitro show. Having reviewed the tape of your appearance the text of the various statements made by you during your appearance and the explicit references to past and ongoing story lines of Titan Sports, it is obvious that you were attempting by your appearance to suggest to the consuming public that you and others from the WWF were now going to be appearing on Turner networks in WCW programming as part of some interpromotional matches. The entire theme of the program, buttressed by WCW personnel afterwards, was that WWF wrestlers were going to be wrestling WCW performers, and that you were leading a group of WWF talent in that effort. This is, of course, completely false and was intended to confuse the viewing public.
- To further this attempt to mislead and confuse the public, you stayed completely within the character portrayal of Razor Ramon, a registered trademark of Titan Sports, during your appearance on Nitro. Indeed, both you and WCW personnel never even mentioned the name you intend to wrestle under at WCW, choosing instead to tell the audience they knew who you were. You dressed like Razor Ramon and utilized the Hispanic accent given to you by Titan as part of the character portrayal.
- Titan, of course, has no objections whatsoever to you portraying a new or different character devised either by you or the WCW but will vigorously exercise its rights in connection with your attempt to pawn off or suggest to the consuming public that your WCW appearances are in the character of Razor Ramon, in the capacity as a WWF wrestler, or as part of some interpromotional matches involving WWF participation. Accordingly, this is to advise you that Titan has exercised its rights under the contract it had with you and will be withholding future payments from you until this matter is further clarified. Titan further reserves all rights it has to take any and all further action as may be appropriate."
- So far, the threats have made no difference to WCW, since Scott Hall appeared again on Nitro this week and continued the same angle, with the same character traits.
- Just in case Vince McMahon's week couldn't get any worse (don't forget the storm that crippled their PPV last week), Davey Boy Smith gave his 90-day notice that he plans to leave when his contract expires in August. Word is Smith doesn't actually want to leave and is just attempting to renegotiate his deal and to get McMahon's attention, since Smith is unhappy about some things and has complained in the past to no avail. For now, there are no plans for Smith to go to WCW. It couldn't come at a worse time for Vince, since Smith is currently the top heel, involved in a WWF title storyline with Shawn Michaels. There have been rumors of Owen Hart possibly leaving also, but so far he hasn't put in his notice and is still negotiating a new contract.
- Speaking of the PPV that was shut down by the power outage, both Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy were furious about how their match turned out. When they went out there to do their match, they apparently believed the PPV had pretty much been cancelled so they decided to only do a house-show quality match because they thought they'd get a chance to do the real PPV-quality match a couple of days later when they did the make-up PPV. Midway through their match, Earl Hebner got word that they were on the air and he informed both men that they were live and had to shorten the match to fit the PPV window. Michaels in particular felt the match was already beyond redemption, so he pretty much completely gave up on it. He also spent much of the match swearing at a heckling fan at ringside and pretty much threw a tantrum during and after the match. Both men were upset that they didn't get to do a rematch at the replay taping on Tuesday and Dave says in retrospect, Vince probably should have just called the original PPV a loss and should have redone the whole thing on Tuesday. There were also issues with some cable companies offering full refunds while others only offered partial refunds, all outside of WWF's control. It's expected that the final buyrate for the Tuesday PPV will be the lowest of all time for either WWF or WCW.
- Antonio Inoki's multi-promotional Peace Festival event took place in Los Angeles last week. Dave recaps all the ways Inoki has tried and failed to become a superstar in America over the years. In 1973, he bought a regional promotion in Cleveland, but it failed. In 1976, he did the match with Muhammad Ali, but Ali refused to cooperate and do the job, so it turned into an embarrassment for everyone involved. In 1979, he politicked his way into winning the WWF title from Bob Backlund but lost it back a few days later amid some controversy. WWF never recognized his reign in America and never acknowledged that Backlund had lost the belt. And now his latest attempt was to try and get all the major promotions to work together for a benefit show and that didn't go well either. WWF refused to participate while WCW was involved but refused to promote the show. Inoki originally hoped to hold the event at the 100,000-seat L.A. Coliseum but ended up moving it to the much smaller Sports Arena. In the end, the show only drew around 4,500 fans (many of them freebies) and likely lost a lot of money.
- As for the show itself, it was decent but nothing amazing. Dave was there and said it felt like a New Japan show, with the way the matches were and how the crowd responded. Eric Bischoff got a loud "Bischoff sucks!" chant when he was introduced and Bischoff played along, even chanting it along with them. The crowd was an almost equal mix of American, Japanese, and Mexican fans and they all responded differently to different things, but they all seemed to hate WCW, with Chris Benoit being the only WCW wrestler to get a positive reaction (probably because he's so well-known for his years in Japan). Muhammad Ali was supposed to attend but couldn't make it and instead sent a long statement which they read to the crowd. (The show was later released on VHS, with all the WCW matches cut out. Here's the full show.)
- Diamond Dallas Page was originally booked to face (and beat) Great Muta at the Great American Bash PPV but NJPW nixed it because they didn't want Muta putting over Page. So WCW discussed chanting it to Page vs. Booty Man (Beefcake) but that got nixed also because someone (coughHogancough) didn't want Booty Man jobbing to Page either. So now it looks like it will be Marcus Bagwell doing the honors.
- Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are expected to make their WCW in-ring debut in a 6-man tag team match at Bash at the Beach with Lex Luger likely being the third man on their team. There have been rumors of Ted Dibiase or Jeff Jarrett being the third man but that won't happen because Dibiase is no longer wrestling and Jarrett's WWF contract won't be expired by then. Hulk Hogan is scheduled to return in August, likely to feud with Scott Hall.
- Brian Pillman made his first wrestling appearance since the car wreck that injured him awhile back at this week's ECW show, showing up in a wheelchair and getting into an altercation with Mikey Whipwreck. After the match, Pillman cut a promo insulting the ECW and other wrestlers. One of the comments he made was about The Gangstas, and reportedly used the N-word in some context (Dave doesn't know all the details but heard he might have been referencing the rap group NWA). Backstage, New Jack heard and went nuts and confronted Pillman when he came backstage and it turned into a heated argument. New Jack was threatening to quit the promotion but Paul Heyman apparently talked him down. They then worked out a compromise that New Jack would agree to stay and work his scheduled match as long as he could go out there and cut a promo about Pillman first and for some reason, Heyman agreed. New Jack proceeded to cut a promo asking why ECW would bring in people like Pillman who use the N-word and said to leave the racism in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He said this isn't coming from New Jack, it's coming from Jerome Young (New Jack's real name). He also said Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk were caught fucking each other in the showers in WCW, among other things (I know there's always been some long standing rumor of a Pillman/Zenk/Terri Runnels threesome or something. Anyway, I can't find video of any of these New Jack and Pillman promos so I assume Heyman didn't air it).
- In the ongoing angle where Steve Richards is trying to find "slutty" women for Raven, Richards brought out Divine Brown, who is famous for being the prostitute who was arrested last year for giving actor Hugh Grant a blowjob in his car. Raven turned her down, saying she wasn't slutty enough. Again, this angle is expected to end with Sandman's wife Peaches being the one Raven chooses, and starting a feud with them. Later in the show, Paul Heyman cut a promo assuring fans that the rest of the show was going to be incredible and that if it wasn't, he guaranteed Divine Brown would give the fans free blowjobs in the parking lot. But then New Jack's promo happened and it seemed to kill the crowd heat for the rest of the show and the rest of the matches and angles fell flat, and the crowd spent much of the show chanting "Where's our blowjobs?!"
- ECW injury report: Shane Douglas is out with a staph infection. Pit Bull #1 is out for 2 months with a torn bicep. And Sandman has been working on a bad knee and can barely get around.
- Former pro wrestler George Temple passed away this week. He wrestled in the 50s and was the older brother of famous actress Shirley Temple. It's been said that Shirley Temple was always embarrassed by her brother being a wrestler and tried to keep it quiet (here's an interesting article about him).
- Eric Bischoff has offered Chris Jericho a full-time WCW contract after seeing him perform at Antonio Inoki's Peace Festival show. He also spoke with Bam Bam Bigelow, but Bigelow can't go to WCW for a few more months due to the terms of his WWF release.
- Shawn Michaels recently apologized to a few of the wrestlers who were upset about the curtain call incident at Madison Square Garden last month.
- Ultimate Warrior missed the weekend shows due to a slight shoulder injury. Ahmed Johnson filled in for him. Speaking of, Johnson is over big right now and the company is grooming him to be the #2 babyface behind Shawn Michaels.
- The Samoan Gangster Party (the 2 big Samoan guys who have been watching Fatu's matches from the crowd) are already gone from WWF before they ever really got started. Samu was apparently about to be suspended for some reason and instead, he and Matt Anoa'i both quit instead. They showed up in ECW this week, as a team called Gangsters In Paradise.
- Steve Austin cut a promo this week saying that he was glad to be rid of Ted Dibiase and that he wasn't even trying to win the match with Savio Vega. Dave thinks the whole promo didn't make much sense (this was basically Austin shaking off the Ringmaster gimmick for the last time).
- Bob Holly may be leaving WWF soon (not for many more years, Dave).