August 26, 1996
- According to several sources, WWF is considering adding a weekly Saturday night PPV show. The experimental, one-hour show would be done live every Saturday night from New York City starting at midnight and be heavily aimed at an adult audience (ala, more like ECW) and "push the envelope" far more than they can on the USA Network. WWF has floated the idea to PPV providers and so far, none have expressed much interest. The idea is for the show to be $9.95 each week. Dave crunches the numbers and estimates they would probably have to do around 62,000 buys each week in order to break even, depending on how bare-bones the production is, and Dave doesn't think that would be sustainable for long. It may also end up on cable TV if PPV doesn't work out. After they stopped paying for syndication a few months ago, WWF has been looking to add a new TV show on cable, preferably somewhere other than the USA Network because they don't want to have all their eggs in one basket because if USA ever decided to drop them, they'd have no TV at all. (This eventually became Shotgun Saturday Night and did indeed end up being on USA was syndicated rather than PPV.)
- Dave says the reason WWF is attempting this likely stems from the fact that WCW is absolutely kicking their ass in the adult market ratings. 80% of Nitro's viewers are adult, while only 62% of Raw's are. The idea is to try to win back the adult viewers from WCW. There's also the problem with the New York commissions, who are pretty strict (especially after a recent boxing riot at MSG) so they wouldn't be allowed to push the envelope that much on a live NYC show. When ECW did a recent show in NYC, the commission laid out all sorts of ground rules that basically eliminated all the things that make ECW what it is (no fighting outside the guardrails, no foul language, no blading, etc.). A Saturday night TV show would also hurt house show business, because WWF runs house shows every Saturday night and they're the most profitable shows of the week and they would have to take big stars from those house shows and fly them to NYC every Saturday for a show that might be lucky to break even.
- Vince McMahon is seemingly done doing commentary on Raw. Kevin Kelly debuted on the latest Raw alongside Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. McMahon has talked about giving up his commentary duties for awhile now, because he wants to spend more time working backstage producing the show and dealing with talent. Kevin Kelly has been impressive since debuting with the company a few months back (Vince wasn't quite done yet, but he would be within a year or so).
- Speaking of commentary, Mike Tenay is expected to be added as the third man at the WCW Nitro commentary table alongside Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan during the second hour of the show.
- WWF's Summerslam is in the books and was pretty much just another show. On the pre-show, they had a beach thing with a bunch of wrestlers, which was just an excuse to see Sunny, Sable, and Marlena in bikinis, but Dave says the nameless model with Hunter Hearst Helmsley stole the show (nobody notable). Skip of the Bodydonnas technically worked the tag team match but was in a neck brace and didn't actually do anything since he has a legit neck injury, but he was at least there. In the Lawler/Jake Roberts match, Lawler poured a bottle of fake whiskey down Roberts' throat (I only include this because I believe Jake has since said that it was actually real whiskey and he was pissed at Lawler about it at the time because he really was struggling to stay sober). The Mankind/Undertaker boiler room brawl match was pre-taped the day before so they could edit it as needed but the in-arena stuff was done live and ended with Paul Bearer turning heel on Undertaker.
- Ahmed Johnson was hospitalized again this week with further kidney problems. The kidney was bleeding and he recently had surgery to fix whatever's wrong but it apparently didn't work and now there's concern that he may have to get a kidney removed.
- The Great Sasuke is said to be seriously injured, but the details are being kept quiet. He apparently fractured his skull during a match with Ultimo Dragon a couple of weeks ago and still finished the match (and in fact, it was the biggest win of his career, the finals of the J Crown tournament). He may need some sort of brain surgery and could be out for awhile (he ended up missing about 2 months. And to think, this ended up only being the first of several times that he broke his skull). By winning the tournament, Sasuke holds 9 different junior heavyweight championships but has already had to vacate one of them after missing a show and will probably miss several more so he may end up vacating more belts.
- The WWF vs. WCW lawsuit was settled out of court this week before it could go to trial. WCW agreed not to refer to Scott Hall or Kevin Nash as "The Bad Guy" or "Big Daddy Cool" respectively. WCW also is not allowed to state that they work for WWF. WCW wasn't planning to do any of that anyway, so it was an easy settlement. WWF is still moving forward with a separate lawsuit for trademark infringement. WWF reportedly got ahold of some internal WCW memos where Hall and Nash were referred to by their WWF gimmick names.
- 1-2-3 Kid (Sean Waltman) is still in limbo, as a pawn between the two companies. WWF agreed to release Waltman and so he negotiated a deal with WCW and was scheduled to debut as the 4th NWO member. But the terms of the WWF release also dictate that they own the name, mannerisms, dress and look of the character and Waltman is fighting that, so they're tied up on that. WWF has also been keeping close tabs on the WCW Hotline to see if WCW is careless enough to mention Waltman coming in because they feel they could use that as ammo in any current or future lawsuits.
- WCW had a Clash of the Champions show that felt like just another Nitro episode. Chris Jericho was scheduled to debut on the show, but they decided a few days before to delay his debut and push back the match. Which is unfortunate because no one told Jericho and he was confused when a plane ticket to fly him out to the show never arrived. Jericho is now scheduled to debut on Nitro this week.
- A 4th member of the NWO is expected to debut at Fall Brawl. If he's released from his contract in time, expect it to be 1-2-3 Kid. If not, then no telling who. Ted Dibiase will join WCW before the show, so it could be him, but he's not going to be wrestling due to injury and insurance reasons. And Jeff Jarrett won't be available until after the show, so it won't be him either. It may end up being a WCW star turning.
- All Japan president Giant Baba did an interview recently and shot down the idea of AJPW ever doing any inter-promotional matches with NJPW or the other Japanese promotions. Many of the promotions are run by former AJPW employees or people Baba has had issues with over the years and AJPW has always been very isolationist and has almost never worked with outside promotions.
- In ECW, both Stevie Richards and Missy Hyatt were injured. Richards suffered a broken rib when Blue Meanie hit him with a moonsault and accidentally brought a knee down on his ribs. And Missy Hyatt and Sandman's wife Lori had a segment where they were swinging canes at each other and Missy's elbow was injured. She went to the hospital and it's thought she might have a broken elbow but no word yet.
- Vampiro was scheduled to debut in ECW yet again, but blew out his knee in Mexico so it was postponed again.
- Raw taping notes: Rick Bognar (who wrestled as Big Titan in Japan and does a mean Razor Ramon impression...) had a tryout match. Flex Kavana from USWA also worked a dark match but he's already under contract to WWF. Barry Windham debuted doing his Stalker gimmick. He looked okay but the gimmick is dumb and too much like Skinner.
- Despite WWF's past threats to file a lawsuit against Lex Luger for jumping ship to WCW without notice, those plans have been dropped. Apparently, Luger's story about not being under contract at the time he left is true, so there's nothing they could do. Someone in WWF obviously dropped the ball on letting that happen.