August 19, 1996
- Good news in the Jushin Liger story. A biopsy has reportedly revealed that that tumor on his brain is not cancerous and his doctors have even cleared him to work a show next week that he was previously booked for. Liger is still scheduled to undergo surgery a few days after the show to remove the tumor. The recovery time depends on the size of the tumor and how much they will have to do in order to remove it. Liger is hopeful to be back in the ring by next month. Liger had been suffering from severe headaches and had also been deaf in his left ear for the last few years and it's believed the tumor is the cause. He discovered the tumor in June, but kept the secret to himself until after the G-1 Climax.
- The news for Ahmed Johnson isn't as positive. Johnson had emergency kidney surgery on Aug. 6th and is expected to be out of action for 3 months. They aired clips of his surgery on Raw and blamed it on the attack by Farooq. No word on what actually caused the kidney problems.
- Skip (Chris Candido) suffered a cracked vertebrae in a match last week. No word on how long he'll be out of action. He's scheduled for a 4-corners tag title match at Summerslam and it's not sure how that will play out (Skip ended up working the match and one more match a month later and then he was gone from WWF, never to return).
- WCW's Hog Wild PPV took place this week and was a bit of a disaster. An hour before the show, a major blackout affecting 9 different states (mostly in California) meant many people weren't able to order the PPV. As WWF learned a few months ago, when a power outage killed their PPV, most fans don't bother to order the replay, so the buyrate is sure to be affected by this. The setting of the show was also a negative. It took place outdoors on a platform over a bunch of dirt which cut down some of the outside-the-ring action. The show took place at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and the crowd was estimated at about 5,000 although at one point on commentary, Bobby Heenan claimed there were 300,000. It was all bikers who don't watch wrestling and weren't familiar with the heel turn, so Hogan got a huge babyface reaction from the crowd. The only wrestlers who got heel heat were Harlem Heat because they're black and the Sturgis crowd doesn't particularly care for that sort of thing.
- As for the show itself, some of the matches were good but the show was marred by bad finishes. Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko's match would have been a match of the year candidate in any other setting, but this crowd couldn't have cared less and it hurt the match. Hogan won the WCW title in a horrible match. Booty Man came out afterwards in an NWO shirt as if he wanted to be the newest member of the group, but Hogan, Hall and Nash turned on him and beat him down and then spray painted "NWO" on the belt.
- 1-2-3 Kid (Sean Waltman) was scheduled to debut on the show as the 4th member of the NWO but WWF hasn't yet sent him his contractual release after agreeing to do so, pretty much for no other reason than they wanted to fuck over WCW. Waltman was backstage at the show and ready to work, but without his official release, WCW couldn't allow him to do anything.
- ECW held 2 joint shows with IWA in Japan, for the biggest crowd most of the ECW wrestlers had ever been in front of. The first show was a dud, with terrible matches and half the arena empty. But the second show, at Korakuen Hall, was sold out with half the fans wearing ECW shirts and they were totally into everything. The Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer match is expected to air on ECW TV and was a bloodbath brawl. There was also an incident with The Eliminators against a couple of IWA guys being billed as an ECW tag team title match. However, Heyman had insisted before the show that it wasn't a tag title match and that the Eliminators weren't even the champs (they lost them to the Gangstas a few weeks ago). So even though they didn't have the belts, the ring announcer said it was an ECW tag title match and the fans in the building thought they were seeing a title match and it was reported it in all the newspapers the next day that it was. Overall, the best worker was Stevie Richards, who was familiar with Japanese wrestling and worked harder than everyone else and got over big with the crowd.
- FMW star Mr. Pogo suffered a serious injury during a match with Terry Funk. Pogo went face first off the apron into a box of broken glass and barbed wire, but the barbed wire caught his head and jerked his neck backwards. Pogo and was temporarily paralyzed (later found out he broke his neck). To make matters worse, Terry Funk didn't realize that Pogo was hurt and couldn't move, so he began using his branding iron and blowing fireballs at Pogo. So he was literally laying in a box full of broken glass and barbed wire, while Funk was throwing fire at him, and he wasn't able to move. Eventually they realized what was wrong and stopped the match and Pogo was rushed to the hospital. Latest word is it's a serious neck injury and he still can't walk (interesting timing on this story coming up today. Mr. Pogo just passed away on Friday).
- Dave talks about how All Japan Women's business is down significantly and explains how it happened, which is pretty much a history of AJW from their heyday in the 70s and 80s until it died off and then revitalized some in the early 90s. But it's back down again and they're having trouble selling out the same small venues they used to pack people into.
- After both WWF and WCW created their own Hall of Fames, Dave has decided to do an Observer Hall of Fame. Besides, WCW has seemingly dropped their HOF and Dave says you can't take any WWF HOF seriously after inducting someone like James Dudley and not Bruno Sammartino. So first, he addresses some of the problems of how to decide who goes in. Some guys were huge stars but bad workers. Some were great workers but never big stars. Others were world champions because they deserved it, some were champions because they booked themselves to be or they were friends with the right people. Plus, wrestling goes back 100 years and no one has seen all the best wrestlers ever in their primes. Comparing wrestlers from different eras or different countries is a hard task. So Dave came up with some criteria: star power, working ability, drawing power, and historical influence, etc. Also, the wrestler has to be at least 35 years old or have been active for at least 15 years.
- So Dave has polled a bunch of people in the business and come up with a list that pretty much everyone agrees belongs in the Hall of Fame without any debate. There are obviously dozens of others who belong in as well, and when the time comes, they'll surely be voted in. This is just the base to start with. In the future, they'll add 10 names per year, based on votes among those in the business and some other long-time Observer readers. 122 people were selected to start with and he gives a brief biography of each one. I'm not listing all of them. You can check the full list of initial 1996 inductees here:
- New Japan allowed Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine photographers back at ringside during the G-1 Climax, but they still didn't have backstage access to interview wrestlers. So the relationship seems to be a work in progress but it isn't fully repaired yet.
- Here's the story about Hawk and Randy Savage getting in a backstage fight in Japan several weeks ago: apparently Savage's music was playing for his entrance but he never came out. So the ring announcer abruptly called for an intermission to stall for time. When they found Savage backstage, he was laid out on the ground. Apparently Savage had said something to Hawk's girlfriend shortly before his match, so Hawk just straight up laid him out.
- Word is Ken Shamrock has had some negotiations with WWF about coming in after he finishes up his shoot-fighting career, but it's said he's demanding too much money right now and WWF isn't biting.
- Jerry Lawler "won" the USWA Unified title from Jeff Jarrett in one of those phantom title changes because Jarrett has quit the promotion.
- At the latest ECW show, they did an angle where Bill Alfonso and Beulah got into a scuffle and Beulah ended up legit breaking her wrist somehow. The show was also Chris Jericho's farewell show and he got a nice send-off and will be working with WCW full-time now.
- Kimona is reportedly gone from ECW as well, no reason given.
- On Nitro, Ron Reis returned to WCW. You may remember him from a year or so ago as The Yeti. This time he was wrestling as Big Ron Studd (his mentor was John Studd). Reis is legit 7'2 and he faced the 5'8 Chris Benoit. After the match, Benoit reportedly told him to go back to wrestling school.
- Ted Dibiase starts with WCW at the end of this month. As previously mentioned, 1-2-3 Kid will be there as soon as his WWF release is cleared up. And Jeff Jarrett is expected to start in October. Also, Randy Savage's brother Lanny Poffo is under contract to WCW but they have no plans to use him. "Must be nice to be a nephew or brother to a top wrestler in WCW," Dave says.
- Vince McMahon flew to Calgary a few weeks ago to meet with Bret Hart and finalize his new contract and storyline for his eventual return.
- WWF did a storyline with Olympic weightlifter Mark Henry, where Jim Ross interviewed him and then Hunter Hearst Helmsley came out, which led to Henry shoving Helmsley. There was a sizable "bullshit" chant when they announced Henry as the world's strongest man, since he finished 14th in the Olympics. In the interview, they announced that Henry signed a 10-year contract with the WWF and word is that's legit. Dave thinks it's a risk because weightlifters don't really have the best track record of transitioning into wrestling. That being said, Henry is surprisingly athletic and agile for his size.
- Duke Droese has quit the WWF and is reportedly planning to go to law school in the fall (nah).
- At the recent MSG show, the music guy accidentally cut Shawn Michaels' music off early during his entrance. Michaels, being the perfectly reasonable and professional person he is, immediately threw a fit and began cursing at anyone within shouting distance.
- Joe Silva (now the VP of talent relations for UFC) writes in and says he can't believe anyone falls for thinking Pancrase is legit.