July 08, 1996
- Ultimate Warrior's future with the WWF is in question after he missed several weekend house shows after the death of his father. Warrior's father, who he had been estranged from since he was 3-years-old, passed away last week. Warrior then no-showed the following weekend house shows. The wrestlers have been told that Warrior is gone, but there's no word if he quit or was fired. It makes a huge difference because if he quit, he wouldn't be able to go to WCW for the remainder of his contract, which has about 14 months left. If he was fired, he could work anywhere he wants immediately. In a couple of the cities, the ring announcer announced that Warrior wouldn't be there "because he refuses to wrestle in a city like [blank]," basically turning him heel and burying him. Dave recaps how much of a headache Warrior has been over the years, having been fired by WWF twice before, no showing events, holding Vince up for money to work PPVs, the messy lawsuits, how he refused to work a real match with Helmsley at WM12, his issues with holding up promoters in Europe and even walking out on an indie promotion in Las Vegas that he co-owned, the day before a show. As for this instance, one of the rumors is that it was due to a marketing dispute, with Warrior allegedly finding out that WWF was using his likeness for something he wasn't aware of and wasn't being paid for. He was also reportedly unhappy with his WM12 payoff and has had huge blow-up arguments with McMahon recently.
- WWF called Bret Hart, who has been out since Wrestlemania, and tried to get him to come back and fill in for Warrior on the shows that he had been advertised for, but Hart apparently shot it down. So Sid Vicious, who has been out of action for months, was brought in as a babyface to fill the role. Sid is reportedly bigger and more ripped than ever, for those of you who are keeping track of WWF's steroid policy.
- In an online interview last week, Warrior said he missed the shows because his father died and he didn't understand why they buried him like that at the house shows. Warrior said he plans to return at the 7/11 house show in NY but sources in WWF say he's done. On the upcoming Raw, which was already taped a week ago, Warrior gets a triple-team beatdown from Bulldog, Vader, and Owen Hart. If he's really gone, that's probably how they will write him out of the company (yup).
- Obviously, this has fueled rumors of Warrior being the third man on the Hall/Nash team at the upcoming WCW PPV. But word is Eric Bischoff has already decided who it will be and it's not going to be Warrior. And even if WWF is going to fire him, they wouldn't do it until after the PPV so it's pretty much a legal impossibility that Warrior will be the 3rd man.
- The 1996 Olympics are just a few weeks away and Dave writes a looooooooong piece about professional wrestling and its various ties to the Olympics. He talks about all the different amateur wrestlers over the years who did the Olympics and also dabbled in pro wrestling. Fun fact, while Kurt Angle might be the first Olympic gold medalist in WWE, he's by far not the first gold medalist to make the jump to pro wrestling. It's all super interesting if you're into historic stuff like that.
- At a WCW house show in New York, crowds greeted Konnan with chants of "You still suck!" and "ECW!" Konnan got on the mic and began swearing at the fans and running down ECW. Kevin Sullivan took the mic from Konnan and apologized and said those weren't the opinions of WCW and actually said some nice things about ECW. Konnan caught a lot of heat backstage for losing his temper. Surprisingly, the following show in Philadelphia was fine and even Jim Duggan got a good reaction. Bruno Sammartino was the special referee for main events at the shows and received a heroes welcome in New York but only a lukewarm response in the other cities.
- A multi-promotional memorial show for Rikidozan was held in Japan this week. Rikidozan is, to this day, the biggest superstar and national hero in the history of Japanese wrestling and was murdered in 1963. Nearly all the promotions in Japan participated, including both AJPW and NJPW. The highlight was the original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) facing off against the current Tiger Mask in a 30-minute draw in a great match.
- Tarzan Yamamoto, the editor of Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine in Japan resigned this week. Yamamoto had been embroiled in a feud with NJPW in recent months and the magazine had been banned from NJPW shows. Magazine sales started to decline and their competition, Weekly Gong, has seen their sales rise. As a result, Yamamoto resigned. Dave says that Weekly Pro has been the premier wrestling magazine in Japan forever and magazine coverage is bigger than TV there and that Yamamoto is arguably one of the most powerful and influential people in Japanese wrestling and some say in the whole pro wrestling world. His magazine took a critical approach to covering matches and revealing behind-the-scenes news and it's not a stretch to say that Yamamoto is responsible for creating the "dirtsheet"-type news coverage of wrestling that exists today and that Dave does. Some think that his resignation is simply part of a plan, that he will resign for a few years, write some books about wrestling, and then return in a new way, as powerful as ever (I don't know about all that, but he is still involved in the biz doing other stuff).
- There's rumors that Ken Shamrock will be going to New Japan when his contract with Pancrase expires next year. Dave doesn't think there's anything to the rumors yet but it's too soon to tell. It's well known that Antonio Inoki wants to create a "shooting" promotion under the NJPW umbrella.
- Taz was reportedly upset with the way the Paul Varelans match happened at ECW's show last week. Varelans was reportedly clueless about pro wrestling and had to be taught how to even apply a headlock, but was still apprehensive about doing the job. Many said that Taz could have easily beaten him in a legit shootfight because Varelans was so clumsy and clueless and Taz has legit martial arts training and amateur wrestling experience. Taz claims that, when Varelans was hesitant about doing the job, Taz went to Paul Heyman and asked to make it a legit shoot, but Heyman shot that idea down. Since the match, Varelans has made comments about how small Taz is and how he wouldn't have stood a chance with him in a real fight, which has Taz heated. "My size has nothing to do with it. His size is irrelevant. We're all the same size on the mat. He was wide open so many times in the match," Taz said.
- Terry Gordy worked a match against Raven on ECW's show last week and it was really good all things considered. Gordy is nowhere close to the worker he was before his drug overdose a couple of years ago but Raven did such a good job of carrying the match that it made him look like the Gordy of old.
- The third man of the Hall/Nash team won't be revealed until the PPV. Speculation is running rampant, but Dave suspects it'll be Hulk Hogan. Dave says a source on the set of a movie Hogan is doing overheard Hogan discussing it with Roddy Piper, saying that Bischoff had asked him to be the 3rd man and that he was probably going to do it but hadn't made a final decision yet. Dave thinks it might be the best thing for revitalizing Hogan's career but it's also a big risk because it's possible that Hulk Hogan as a heel won't have the same PPV drawing power. And since Hogan gets a 25% cut of PPV revenue, it might not be worth it if it cuts into his drawing power. Plus there's likely to be a significant drop in Hogan merch sales.
- WCW has huge momentum in the Monday night wars right now. Part of it is due to the 2-hour format, which gives them an hour jump-start on Raw but the other part has to be credited to the angle with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Speaking of, they're supposed to be heels, but they get huge cheers every week because they come out to the ring and are usually surrounded by cops with guns and half the WCW locker room, but they never back down, so it ends up making them look bad ass and cool (basically the same formula WWF would use for Austin a year later).
- WCW has a new character named Glacier coming in, as seen by the weekly promos on TV. Dave doesn't know who it is and has been told it's Chris Champion by some people (nope) and told that it was some guy who has never wrestled before that they are training (also no). He's also been told it will be more than one person and that it will be a futuristic martial arts team. Basically, no one knows who or what the fuck a Glacier is supposed to be.
- Kevin Nash is a new father, as his first son Tristen was born last month.
- One of the overweight women who used to occasionally appear on the old Tuesday Night Titans shows passed away this week from an E.coli infection. They used to bring these 3 overweight women onto the show in bathing suits for Bobby Heenan to make fun of and she also held up signs as a ring girl on the early Monday Night Raw episodes.
- Tracy Smothers debuted at the WWF tapings using the name Freddy Joe Floyd, billed from Bowlegs, OK. There's actually a story there. Bowlegs, OK is a real place and it's the small town where Jack and Jerry Brisco grew up. And Jack Brisco's real name is Fred Joe Brisco, and Jerry's real name is Floyd Gerald Brisco. So that's where the Tracy Smothers name and gimmick comes from.
- This was the week of bad debuts. Salvatore Sincere, T.L. Hopper, The Goon, The Pug, and Jim Neidhart under a mask all debuted at the same tapings. Neidhart's name is "Who?" and he's billed as being from "Who Knows Where?"
- WWF sent Marc Mero, Sable, Undertaker, Paul Bearer, Shawn Michaels and Sunny to the New York Toy Licensing Fair. They made a great impression, especially since they had Sunny parading around the building in her cowgirl outfit and had toy executives following her back to the WWF booth.
- Speaking of Sunny, she and Skip (Chris Candido) recently became engaged after being together for the last 6 years.
- WWF magazine had a piece this month burying Kevin Nash for leaving for money and basically calling him greedy.
- Barry Windham had a meeting with Vince McMahon this week and is interested in making a comeback at 36. He was said to be about 275, which is a little overweight for him. It's looking pretty likely that he will be brought in. Dave jokes that they could team him with Dustin Rhodes and call him Silverdust.
- Ron Simmons is expected to debut at the next tapings with a huge push and will be managed by Sunny.
- WWF house show business is doing great and the crowds have been way into the shows. Shawn Michaels in particular is getting rock star reactions from teenagers.
- Steve Austin missed all the house shows this week because his upper lip is still mangled from his match with Marc Mero at King of the Ring. Before the final match on that show, Austin got a mouthful of stitches and consulted with a plastic surgeon this week but it's looking like he won't need surgery to repair the damage.
- Bret Hart will wrestle on the South Africa tour in September but still no word on when he'll return to TV.