December 30, 1996
- This is it for 1996! I'm going to take about 2 weeks off to write up some more of these and get ahead. The 1997 Observer Rewind shall resume this on Aug. 7th. Thanks for reading!
- Both Request Television and Viewer's Choice announced this week that they were cancelling ECW's scheduled PPV for this spring. Request's president said they were ending its deal with ECW after learning of some things about ECW that he wasn't aware of. Viewer's Choice said they made the decision due to unease over the ECW product (specifically the angle with Sandman's young son Tyler being a Raven's desciple and with Lori Fullington's character basically being Raven's slut). ECW has been negotiating with both PPV channels, desperately trying to save the deal. Without those 2, the only other PPV channel is Action TV which only covers about 30% of the available PPV market, which wouldn't be financially feasible for ECW. This week, Paul Heyman said there's no chance Viewer's Choice will carry the show, but he hoped they might air a second show sometime in the future. Heyman was still hopeful he could convince Request to change their decision. Even if the show doesn't air on PPV, Heyman is still planning to run a major show on April 13th with the long awaited Taz/Sabu and Raven/Terry Funk matches as the main event.
- Request TV's president Hugh Pinero made the decision to cancel the ECW PPV after finding out about the Mass Transit incident a few weeks ago, where New Jack bladed a 17-year-old kid nearly from ear-to-ear. Pinero also learned about the 1995 incident where fire got out of control and the lights were turned out, causing a panic and burning some fans. That, along with multiple incidents of fans and wrestlers getting into fights and other typical ECW stuff all led to the decision. Dave goes into a long bit about how ECW has quietly revolutionized the business that's really interesting. But the downside is that it has led to WCW and, to a lesser extent, WWF stealing all of ECW's big stars. In order to stop losing guys to the other companies, ECW is going to have to grow and become more than just a stepping stone to WCW or WWF. ECW is in a catch-22 of sorts, because all of the things that make them different from WWF and WCW (blood, swearing, sexual content, etc.) are the things that prevent them from truly taking the next step in growing the promotion. But they can't give those things up without alienating their fanbase. Dave also says that the cultural phenomenon around ECW seems to be dying off a little, with the NWO becoming the new hotness among wrestling fans. Someone high up in WWF told Dave they used to constantly take away ECW signs from fans at WWF tapings, but nowadays, they're taking away more NWO signs. The NWO seems to have captured the "cool counter-culture" market of smark wrestling fans that ECW used to own.
- Dave also notes that ECW has lost most of its best in-ring talent. A year or two ago, ECW had some of the best wrestling in the U.S. But WCW took away Benoit, Misterio, Psicosis, Malenko, etc. and ECW hasn't had anyone at that level to replace them. Dave also says Paul Heyman has made the mistake of ignoring the warning signs. The company has gotten increasingly violent and the shows seem to be getting out of control more often, with regular incidents of fans getting too involved or fights breaking out, to the point where it has become a pattern and that pattern is the sort of thing that gets PPV events cancelled. The cultish nature of the fanbase and even those within the company is such that if anyone criticizes ECW, they are treated like the enemy and ignored. Dave ends it by saying, "The cancellation of the PPV show is a crippling blow to the company's chance of becoming something more than what they are; a small independent group that has now survived for several years, but has still never sold 2,000 tickets to an event in its history."
- The Royal Rumble will have 25 WWF wrestlers, plus 4 AAA guys (Mil Mascaras, Cibernetico, Latin Lover, Pierroth Jr.) and 1 Terry Funk. It's widely believed Bret Hart will win the Rumble match, in order to set up the Bret vs. Shawn rematch for Wrestlemania, although they may try to swerve fans and have someone else win the Rumble. But regardless of who wins, Bret vs. Shawn for the title is still the plan for Wrestlemania.
- In the Puerto Rico WWC promotion, they did an angle where Carlos Colon was being beaten down and his son Carlos III ran in to make the save and was also beaten down (I think Carlos III would be Primo? He would have just turned 14 at the time. The other option would obviously be Carlito, but he's "Carlos Colon Jr." so wouldn't that make Primo "III"? I dunno...)
- Konnan's new Promo Azteca promotion in Mexico has been running shows but despite having some of the best young wrestlers in Mexico on the roster, they've all been let-downs. Dave has been told most of the matches haven't been that great and the attendance has been disappointing.
- Hector Garza has jumped ship from EMLL to AAA. Antonio Pena reportedly offered Garza $260 per match, which was more than double what he was making in EMLL. Plus he claimed he would be able to get Garza full-time work in WWF and he would only work AAA part-time (spoiler: no). Pena is trying to put together a big AAA show in Mexico City with top WWF stars hopefully coming in to work the show.
- Atsushi Onita held a press conference announcing that FMW star Hayabusa wants to challenge AJPW triple crown champion Kenta Kobashi and said he would be negotiating with Giant Baba to make it happen. Onita and Baba actually go way back because Onita started wrestling for Baba when he 15 years old and became like a son to Baba for years, so they're close (Kobashi and Hayabusa end up eventually working against each other in 2 tag matches but that's as close as it ever got).
- Yuji Nagata wrestled his last match in NJPW for the foreseeable future. Next week, Nagata is moving to the U.S. to wrestle for WCW for a year (he actually stayed in WCW for a year and a half and now, 21 years later, he's killing it in the G1).
- Dave has heard reports that Jerry Jarrett has sold his 50% of USWA to Jerry Lawler, which if true would make Lawler the sole owner of USWA. Jarrett is reportedly planning to get out of the wrestling business entirely. Dave thinks the future of this promotion doesn't look good.
- At a recent ECW show, Bubba Dudley and Brian Lee had a match where they ended up brawling outside the ring, out of the arena, and into an adjacent hockey rink where a roller hockey game was actually going on (no video of this one that I can find).
- Former SMW wrestler Bruiser Bedlam (also known as Johnny K-9) was arrested by Toronto police as part of a major drug and weapons bust worth $12 million. Bedlam was believed to be the leader of the gang (this dude ends up having a ton of legal problems in the coming years, including bombing a police station, extortion, drug dealing, and eventually murder. He died in a halfway house earlier this year).
- Monday Nitro sold out the Macon Coliseum in Georgia, breaking the record the largest gate ever at that arena, which was a record set by Reba McIntyre.
- Dave says that Chris Benoit has improved so much on the mic during the past few months that he's actually getting votes for Best Interviews in the Observer Awards.
- Mike Awesome got a tryout at the latest WWF tapings. Awesome was a former world champion in FMW in Japan but on this show, he jobbed clean to Aldo Montoya.
- In an angle on Raw, Steve Austin lost a handicap match against 2 jobbers after Davey Boy Smith interfered. I only mention this because one of those jobbers was named Jason Arndt, who later became Joey Abs in the Mean Street Posse.
- The Executioner (Terry Gordy) probably won't be around much longer. They did an angle where Paul Bearer turned on him but Dave isn't sure if it will air on TV or not. But pretty much everyone in the company agrees that Terry Gordy just doesn't have it anymore and they're pretty much ready to cut him loose (yup, he was gone about a week after this).
- WWF has moved the next In Your House PPV from Memphis to Chattanooga, likely because WCW will be holding a Nitro in Memphis just a few weeks before (bwah!? I had no idea there was ever a PPV scheduled for here that got moved. 14-year-old me is disappointed now).
- They did an angle where Bart Gunn "injured" Billy Gunn and they're playing it up as if Billy Gunn is confined to a wheelchair now. They really poured it on about how he has a wife and kids (which is funny because just a few weeks ago, the angle was that Billy was obsessed with Sunny). Anyway, it appears that they're copying the Sandman/Tommy Dreamer angle from ECW a few years ago, with the babyface being apologetic about the injury, only to find out the heel was faking all along. Also, the woman who played Billy's wife in the segment was actually a WWF front office employee. Speaking of Billy Gunn...
- They announced Honky Tonk Man is coming in to be a manager for someone. No word on who it will be yet.
- A fan has filed a lawsuit against Shawn Michaels and WWF because she claims that after a match, Shawn was walking back to the dressing room, she yelled insults at him (like everyone does) and she claims Shawn slapped her. At the first hearing, the fan showed up to court in a neckbrace. On the WWF hotline, Jim Ross said that WWF has the tape and it shows Shawn going from the ring all the way back through the curtain and at no point did he ever slap anyone. The next hearing is expected to be next month.
- Vic Venom (Vince Russo "doing a Mark Madden gimmick") predicted on TV that Bret Hart will win the Rumble.
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley's new theme music is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for anyone wondering. It's also the theme music for NBC's show "Suddenly Susan."
- WWF is planning to add a European championship soon, with the initial tournament to take place in Germany in February.
- And that's it for 1996! Thanks for reading and I'll see ya soon for 1997.