July 29, 1996
- Dave opens the issue by talking about how PPV numbers for both WWF and WCW are down compared to recent years, even though TV ratings and house show business is up. For instance, this year's Bash At The Beach PPV, which had the hot Outsiders angle and the heavily-hyped "3rd man" reveal actually did a lower buyrate than last year's Bash At The Beach PPV which featured the 3rd PPV match between Hogan/Vader (and the first 2 had been disappointing).
- Which brings us to the latest WWF In Your House PPV, dubbed International Incident. As a live show, it was a huge success, drawing almost 15,000 fans. But it was also totally insignificant and skippable. Of note: the Bodydonnas manager Cloudy is no more because the WWF has gotten sensitive to all the bad publicity they caught from Goldust and didn't want to have a transvestite-type character and risk angering any more groups. Henry Godwinn filled in for Jake Roberts in his match with Mankind (more on that in a second). Steve Austin got a lot of cheers, despite being a heel. And a fan jumped the rail and almost got into the ring before being taken down by security.
- Jake Roberts no-showed the PPV and as of press time, Dave doesn't really know what the story is. Jake was scheduled to call in to a Toronto radio station to promote the show and never called. When the station contacted WWF about it, they were told that Roberts had gone AWOL and they didn't know where he was. Jake was scheduled to face Mankind and ended up being replaced in the match by Henry Godwin. They announced Roberts was injured, but that's a work to cover the no-show. For now, no word on why he really missed the event.
- Next month's Clash of the Champions will be headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair. It's interesting because it's the first time the two have ever faced each other with the heel/babyface dynamic reversed. Hogan is now going by the name Hollywood Hogan. The last time these 2 faced each other at the Clash, it set the all-time record for most watched wrestling match ever on cable TV (back in 1994).
- Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine's former editor Tarzan Yamamoto resigned from the magazine a few weeks ago amidst issues with NJPW, but his resignation doesn't seem to have ended the problems. After the magazine was banned from NJPW events, Yamamoto resigned due to pressure from the magazine's parent company and because there was a lot of personal bad blood there (no one liked Yamamoto). The issues stemmed from critical coverage of NJPW events (the magazine wasn't shy about calling out bad matches or angles) and revealing too much backstage info. Basically, NJPW didn't like that the magazine was open and honest about what they reported. But the new editor of the magazine has met with NJPW officials and apparently plans to continue the same type of coverage. So for now, NJPW has not lifted the ban. Dave explains how important print media is in Japan (much more so than TV coverage) and how this hurts both sides. The magazine has seen sales go down since they stopped being able to cover NJPW. But they're still the biggest selling magazine in Japan and not having coverage in there is hurting NJPW also.
- There's been a lot of heat between older and younger wrestlers in AAA. The older wrestlers, led by Perro Aguayo, want to keep the classic Lucha Libre style that they've been doing their entire careers. The younger wrestlers, led by Konnan, are doing more ECW-style brawling and hardcore stuff and the old timers don't like it. At a recent show, Aguayo was supposed to do a run-in but refused when the time came, saying he didn't feel like getting hit with a garbage can and feels like things like tables and ladders have no place in wrestling. Aguayo said he feels like Konnan is ruining wrestling in Mexico. It got so heated that many wrestlers almost got into a fight over it backstage.
- There was reportedly an incident between Road Warrior Hawk and Randy Savage when they worked the recent NJPW tour. No details on what happened other than there was apparently a fight and everyone says Hawk came out the winner.
- Taz and 911 got into an argument backstage last week. When 911 made his return, the idea was for Taz to choke him out and for 911 to lay there and sell it until he was revived with smelling salts. Instead, 911 got up too soon and stopped selling it. Backstage, Taz confronted him and they had words but were kept apart.
- New Jack did an interview on ECW TV calling Jim Cornette a racist and saying he still owes the Gangstas money. The interview was New Jack's idea, but it was approved by Paul Heyman as retaliation for multiple times where Cornette has written negative letters to the Observer about ECW and Heyman.
- American amateur wrestler Bruce Baumgartner has been doing interviews prior to the upcoming Olympics in Atlanta and when asked about going into pro wrestling, Baumgartner trashed the business and said he'd only do it if his family was dirt poor and he needed the money and called it embarrassing and said they're not real athletes (Baumgartner ended up winning a bronze medal in the Olympics in his weight class. Some other guy ended up winning a gold medal and eventually transitioned into pro wrestling).
- Ricky Steamboat and his wife Boni have opened a gym in their hometown in North Carolina. Steamboat is reportedly working 70-hour weeks at the gym, arriving at 5am and meeting with all the members, because he feels it's important to be on a first-name basis with all his customers.
- WCW ran the final wrestling show ever at the Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, SC (it's being torn down). The show was built around nostalgia and drew an older and more respectful crowd that cheered pretty much everyone, even the heels. The only person who was outright booed was Randy Savage, because he was facing Ric Flair and the entire crowd was there pretty much there just to see Flair. They even dubbed the arena "The house that Flair built." Flair was supposed to be the heel and he worked hard to try to turn the crowd against him, but it was useless. They popped huge for all of Flair's signature spots.
- WCW officials are super impressed with Psicosis, with Terry Taylor even going so far to call him one of the greatest workers in the history of wrestling and many feeling he has huge potential to become a star in the U.S., more so than Rey Mysterio Jr. Dave doesn't quite agree and still thinks Mysterio still has bigger star potential but does agree that Psicosis is incredible.
- WCW is considering cancelling some house shows next month because some of the wrestlers are complaining about the busy schedule. "I can just see Ole Anderson rolling his eyes talking about when he was wrestling they did 300 dates a year and worked double shots every weekend and on holidays. Thank goodness for modern times," Dave says.
- Latest on the never-ending Blood Runs Cold vignettes is one of the guys will be a character named Glacier but it will be a group of 5 or 6 martial arts guys that only face each other (in other words...WCW was trying to create their own Mortal Kombat faction). Dave says it doesn't sound promising, "but after seeing The Leprechaun, I figure any idea can no longer be the worst." Well that's random.
- WCW goofed up and advertised John Tenta and Rey Mysterio Jr. for shows in Florida while they were already scheduled to be working in Japan and wouldn't possibly be able to make it back in time. Because WCW.
- Gene Okerlund teased that he would reveal the 4th member of the NWO on the Hotline, but when you called it, he never even brought it up. It's expected the 4th member will be revealed at the War Games match in September.
- Scott Hall will give his deposition to WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt next week in the WWF vs. WCW lawsuit.
- Ron Simmons debuted at the latest Raw tapings "dressed up as an Egyptian" (not quite). His ring name is Faarooq Asad and he was managed by Sunny (Dave repeatedly mistakenly says "Farouk Asar"). On commentary, Jerry Lawler even said he looks like a bigger Ron Simmons. (This video shows both the Sunny cake thing and Faarooq's debut):
- There's some controversy regarding the new Goon character who does a hockey gimmick in WWF. Canadian indie wrestler Scott D'Amore came up with the idea and actually pitched it to WWF awhile back, including costume sketches and everything, with the idea that he would play the character. He never heard back from WWF and now, a few months later, his idea is on TV being played by another wrestler. Dave says word of advice, if you have a gimmick idea, trademark it before pitching it to a major promotion.
- The angle of Marlena flirting with Sable has been changed to Goldust being interested in Sable, because WWF got cold feet about doing a lesbian angle.
- Pat Patterson has been shown on TV a few times in recent weeks, breaking up on-screen brawls. Patterson retired a couple of years ago but recently moved back to Connecticut and has kinda just been hanging around at shows. Word is he wants to come back to work, but not full-time.
- Crush made his return to WWF this week, after being fired last year due to his arrest on gun and drug charges. The angle is that heel lawyer Clarence Mason forced WWF to re-hire him via legal means.
- Iron Sheik is expected to be returning to WWF as a manager next month. No word for who.
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley signed a new 3-year contract and it's expected he will start being pushed again now, after spending the last few months doing jobs as punishment for the curtain call incident.
- Letters section: lots of letters about WCW, mostly the same complaints. NWO angle is cool, but over-reliance on past WWF stars, not putting over the younger stars, etc.