September 02, 1996
- Lots of news coming out of WCW TV this week, between Nitro, and the Saturday Night tapings. Nitro ended with an angle involving Hogan, Nash, and Hall spray painting the letters "NWO" on several WCW wrestlers. The angle had nuclear heat, and once again, the ring was pelted with garbage by the fans. On the same show, Ted Dibiase debuted as the 4th member of the NWO and teased that next week there would be a 5th member revealed. The plan is for it to be Sean Waltman but if his WWF release situation isn't sorted out by then, they may have to go with a backup plan. The terms of Waltman's release are said to not allow him to portray a character with the "look or mannerisms" of 1-2-3 Kid which obviously leaves a lot of room for interpretation. As for Dibiase, he's expected to basically be a manager for the NWO and won't be wrestling. Nitro also set it's all-time ratings record this week since WWF's Raw was pre-empted by the U.S. Open (and will be next week also).
- At the tapings for WCW's other shows, Juventud Guerrera, Super Calo, and Chris Jericho all debuted. Dave notes that Juventud also wrestled on Nitro and did an interview after the match which was a disaster because he barely speaks English, which led to Guerrera getting booed even though he was the face. And it was made even worse by Gene Okerlund just walking away from him while he was talking, leaving Juventud standing there like an idiot. "I recognize in some circles Okerlund has a reputation for being great at handling interviews because he's got the wit, but in reality he's absolutely horrible in his job which should be to allow the wrestlers to get over, particularly new ones, and not for him to be the star of the television show," Dave says.
- Glacier also debuted at the taping after months of hype. Dave says he was wearing a ring outfit similar to Max Moon in the WWF and does mostly kickboxing moves (Dave seems completely oblivious to the fact that Glacier was meant to be a rip-off of Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat). They tried out a gimmick where he wrestled in blue lighting because he allegedly has super powers and since his blood runs cold, lights are his weakness. "Hey, I'm not coming up with this, I just report it," Dave says. It's still expected Glacier will be part of a group called Blood Runs Cold. Indie wrestler Jerry Flynn got a tryout and used martial arts moves and is expected to be part of the group (nope).
- There are a lot of questions about Bret Hart's future in the WWF. He has been off TV since Wrestlemania. Hart is scheduled to work WWF's tour of South Africa next week. He agreed to do the tour because it was a part of the world he'd never been to and he wanted to go, but beyond that, he has no commitments to WWF. Hart and Vince McMahon had a meeting a few weeks ago, where they agreed to an angle for Bret's return, though likely not until late-96 which would lead to a match with Steve Austin and probably a rematch with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania next year. But Hart hasn't committed yet and is reportedly weighing his options. WCW has made him an offer for wrestling and a 3-movie deal with Turner's film company. Hart's WWF contract expired months ago and he's a free agent right now. Dave says Hart is in the best bargaining position of any wrestler in history. Both WWF and WCW desperately want him and they both have deep pockets and are viciously competing with each other. Whichever side gets him, it will be the biggest coup yet. If Bret plays his cards right and plays both companies against each other, he can likely get the biggest guaranteed contract in wrestling history aside from Hulk Hogan. Hart has said in the past that he has no interest in going to WCW, but even if that's true, it's in his best interest to pretend he does and negotiate with them to leverage a better deal out of WWF.
- WWF drew it's largest paid crowd in North America in several years for a show at Toronto's CNE event. Ten years ago, WWF drew the largest crowd in history at the time to the same event, of 69,300 people for a show headlined by Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff. This show was nowhere near that, only 21,000+ people but still bigger than they've done in years. There was also a Special Olympics softball fundraiser that same weekend which saw Sycho Sid and a bunch of Special Olympians defeat an elephant in tug-of-war (can't find video on YouTube but you can find it on the Network on the Sept. 6 episode of Raw, about 27 minutes in. Here's a picture though).
- An indie wrestler from Maryland named Neil Caricofe died this week under strange circumstances. He got into a fight with police at a hotel who used batons and pepper spray to subdue him. He then lost consciousness and died in the parking lot due to respiratory failure. Police had been called to the hotel because he was said to have been roaming around naked and causing a disturbance. When police arrived and attempted to take him into custody, he broke free and ran to the parking lot, flailing around. He didn't attack the officers but was resisting their attempts to subdue him. Caricofe's mother said that her son often suffered from seizures when he slept, due to neurological problems, and after having a seizure, she would sometimes find him roaming around the house with his eyes closed, unaware of what was happening. She said he often slept in his underwear or nude, which would also explain why he was roaming the hotel naked. So chances are he really wasn't aware of what was happening when he was, though it's not clear why he just up and died after the police subdued him.
- WWF's Summerslam reportedly did a 0.58 buyrate, which is a huge drop from last year's 0.9 buyrate for Summerslam. So, yanno....not great news.
- AAA is holding a big show in November at an outdoor stadium and has gotten agreements from WCW, NJPW, and WAR to send wrestlers to the show. Among the names expected to appear are Keiji Muto, Jushin Liger, Ric Flair, Randy Savage, The Giant and many more.
- There's belief that All Japan will probably bring in Nobuhiko Takada soon, in order to get a new face in the main event scene because the promotion has become stale lately, in spite of still having great matches with the same 4 or 5 people.
- Jushin Liger had a successful 50-minute laser operation on his brain last week to remove the benign tumor and returned home the same day. It's expected he'll be back in the ring as soon as next week.
- Scott Hall wants to put together a deal with NJPW, separate from his WCW deal, to allow him to work there more often. Several years ago, Scott Hall was a regular in NJPW and wants to work more shows for them.
- In USWA, Flex Kavana (Dwayne Johnson) lost a loser leaves town match against Jerry Lawler and is expected to start with WWF shortly.
- Missy Hyatt, Damien Kane, and Lady Alexandra are all gone from ECW. Sort of a weird situation that Dave doesn't elaborate on so I don't really know the details. But apparently Hyatt was blamed for Kimona Wanalaya quitting the company and so Heyman got rid of Missy. As for Damien Kane and Alexandra (who are married in real life), they were apparently fired for some sort of comments they made about Missy also. I think. It's confusing. But yeah, they're all gone. Doesn't Missy Hyatt have a book? Anyone who's maybe read it want to clear this up?
- Pit Bull #2 missed an ECW house show because he was picked up for an outstanding warrant and arrested. He was eventually released just in time to make it to the big TV taping at the ECW Arena the next night.
- Former Stampede wrestler Bulldog Bob Brown suffered a heart attack and was actually clinically dead for a few minutes before being revived.
- Dusty Rhodes is reportedly trying to politick himself into a role as WCW's manager or coach since the NWO now has Ted Dibiase in that role for them.
- WWF seems to be backing off the idea of a weekly Saturday night PPV after the plan got a unanimously negative reaction. They still may do a Saturday night show, but that's up in the air for now.
- Marc Mero is expected to win the IC title tournament. The title was vacated when Ahmed Johnson was injured and the original plan was for Faarooq to win the title to set up that feud when Ahmed returns. But WWF has decided that feud doesn't need the title, and Marc Mero isn't up to much these days, so they're planning to put it on him.
- Shane McMahon will be getting married in a few weeks.
- No word on when Skip (Chris Candido) will return. He had a fractured fifth cervical vertebrae and the doctors also found two fractured lumbar vertebraes that he's been working on for a few months that he didn't even know about (he doesn't return).
- Mark Henry's contract is reportedly a 10-year contract with a $250,000 per year downside guarantee. Several others have been offered 10-year deals recently. Dave believes the older wrestlers (over 35) might be smart to take such a deal. But younger guys shouldn't sign for more than 2 years because the salary level in pro wrestling is likely going to increase in the next few years at a fast pace due to the ongoing WWF vs. WCW wars. It would suck to be locked into a 10-year deal at a certain amount, only to see everyone else start making way more money a few years later.