March 17, 1997
- NBA star Dennis Rodman has become the latest mainstream celebrity to get involved with pro wrestling after signing a deal with WCW. Rodman, the often-suspended bad boy of the NBA, will join the NWO and debut at WCW's Uncensored PPV and they also plan for him to wrestle, with his first match tentatively scheduled for July's Bash at the Beach PPV. WWF had been negotiating with Rodman as well and reportedly offered him $1 million for 2 appearances. The first would have been Rodman in Goldust's corner at Wrestlemania in order to help Goldust try to get over as a bizarre mainstream figure (like Rodman himself) and the second would have had Rodman and Goldust form a tag team at Summerslam. Rodman's team then went to WCW to see if they could beat WWF's offer and evidently they did. WCW managed to get the story on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Aside from Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman is arguably the biggest sports star in Chicago these days, and the story stole much of WWF's local thunder just 2 weeks before Wrestlemania takes place in Chicago.
- During the NBA season, Rodman's contract will prevent him from actively participating in wrestling. He can be in the NWO's corner, but won't be able to get involved. But when the season ends, Rodman will be an unrestricted free agent and can wrestle as much as he wants. Hogan and Rodman made the media rounds to promote the signing this week, most notably on the Howard Stern show, where Stern apparently said something that upset Roddy Piper, since Piper went on Nitro later that night and tore into Stern (Dave hasn't heard the Stern episode yet I guess). The story also got major coverage in Japan because Rodman has appeared in a lot of TV commercials there and NJPW's president said he would be interested in having Rodman team up with Hall and Nash to work a show at the Tokyo Dome. All in all, this story has gotten a lot of good publicity for WCW.
- Dave looks at ECW's chances on PPV in a couple of weeks. He notes that other promotions have tried to run PPVs that all failed, but ECW is well-established and has a rabid cult fanbase. And pro wrestling right now is the hottest it has been in many years and the angle on Raw should help them get some curiosity buys. Dave then looks at all the other various promotions who have tried to run PPVs with varying degrees of mostly failure. Superclash III, the multiple Herb Abrams attempts, LPWA, etc. But the biggest comparison is 1994's AAA "When Worlds Collide" PPV. Dave does an in-depth comparison, noting that AAA also had very little national recognition and a loyal fanbase, and had backing from WCW much like ECW is getting from WWF. But AAA had a much bigger following than ECW does, drawing much bigger crowds to shows in California and Chicago than ECW has ever drawn anywhere. AAA also had bigger name stars and their PPV wasn't banned on one of the two major PPV carriers. On the flip side, no one is better than ECW at building angles and promoting their product, which AAA has never been good at. Some of the storylines leading into this ECW show have been building for a year. WWF has given ECW a lot more publicity than WCW ever gave AAA. Bottom line, Dave says ECW is the most unique promotion in the world and the eyes of the wrestling world are watching to see if ECW succeeds or fails on PPV, and to see if they're just a small promotion that makes a lot of noise or if they're legitimately capable of becoming a force in the industry.
- It's been awhile since we've had any 5 star matches, but Dave gives 4.75 stars to 2 different Jushin Liger matches this week, which is close enough. Two near-classics in a matter of days has to be a record, right? (Well, it was when I wrote this. But then Kenny Omega came along at the end of the G1...) Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Otani gets the nod as well as Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto.
- AAA plans to only run 1 Triplemania show this year instead of the usual 3 (nah, they ended up doing 2). They also plan to have several major WWF stars come in to work the show. In April, the idea is to do a Bret Hart vs. Latin Lover match, with the winner facing Pierroth Jr. at Triplemania (none of that happens).
- Perro Aguayo is expected to retire within the next few months, probably after the Triplemania show. Aguayo recently turned 51 years old (nope, he continued wrestling sporadically up until 2007).
- Blue Demon Jr. is out of action for a few weeks after suffering burns on his chest when his opponent blew a fireball at him that went awry.
- In the ongoing NWO angle in New Japan, they're doing the Sting-gimmick with Keiji Muto, where he's just quietly keeping to himself and no one knows who's side he's on and both sides are trying to recruit him.
- Several Michinoku Pro guys have been working ECW shows recently and, when they returned to Japan, they were still doing the BWO gimmick there. Dave says he's never seen a gimmick catch fire the way the NWO gimmick has, with variations of it showing up in WCW, NJPW, ECW, Michinoku Pro, WWF, and AAA. The NWO gimmick has essentially touched most major promotions throughout the entire world (much like Bullet Club has today).
- An entertainment newspaper in Boston called the Improper Bostonian had an amazing 6-page story about ECW that Dave says was one of the best stories about pro wrestling that he's ever seen in the media and said the author had a total understanding of the wrestling business, more so than 99.5% of "smart fans" and even other alleged wrestling experts. It wasn't a puff piece and while it was a fair article, it didn't shy away from covering both the positive and negative aspects of ECW and featured quotes from Paul Heyman and Eric Kulas, the 17-year-old from the Mass Transit incident. (Dave quotes a few lines from the article and it sounds awesome but I can't find it anywhere online. I even went so far as to contact the author on Twitter and she remembered it and responded back and told me to follow her so she could DM me. I followed her, but never heard back again. Wish I could find it).
- An ugly incident took place at an ECW show this week when the crowd started shitting all over a Chris Chetti vs. Little Guido match. First they started chanting boring and then they began throwing things at the wrestlers. At this point, Little Guido started throwing stuff back at the fans, and one fan got a busted nose from it. Then fans started throwing chairs before security finally stepped in and everything got back to normal.
- Jerry Lawler is expected to come to ECW to work an angle with Tommy Dreamer soon.
- Former Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle apparently worked an indie show in Pittsburgh last month (I assume it was just an appearance and not his first match ever. I can't find anything about this anywhere).
- Last week on Raw, Jim Ross took several shots at WCW, saying they had a bunch of old washed up wrestlers in their 40s and made a comment about wrestlers with only 1 hip (a reference to Roddy Piper, who has had hip replacement surgery). On Nitro this week, Piper retaliated saying that he was in WWF last year and beat Goldust with only 1 hip. He also said WWF was right, there wasn't one hip wrestler in the company because all of the hip ones are in WCW. Sick dad burn. During the rest of the promo, Piper ripped on basically everyone, like the people who criticized him for bringing in his friends during last week's awful segment. In short, Piper's ego is pretty much out of control and he's just going on TV and blabbering about whatever pops into his head and no one seems to be able to stop him.
- Nitro this week took place in Panama City at Club LeVela, with the ring basically floating in a large swimming pool. The crowd was made up of mostly out-of-towner college kids who were there for spring break. WCW jobber Hardbody Harrison ended up being the one to inevitably get thrown in the water during the show (I only mention this because in 2007, Harrison was sentenced to life in prison for keeping 8 women as sex slaves and pimping them out against their will). As for ratings, once again Nitro dominated even though WWF once again had the better show. Dave basically says star power is beating out quality programming right now because Raw is often the better show, but it just can't seem to compete with all the big name star power in WCW these days.
- Disco Inferno was fired by WCW this week because he refused to work an angle with Jacquelyn where he would have had to put her over in a match. Most of the other wrestlers sided with Disco on this, saying losing to a woman would have been a career-killer and that he was right to refuse.
- Public Enemy signed new 2-year deals with WCW. Bryan Clark (formerly Adam Bomb) also signed with WCW this week.
- Update on the lawsuit from about a year ago between Hulk Hogan and a woman who claimed Hogan sexually assaulted her. The incident allegedly took place the night of the first Nitro taping at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. The woman claims she was helping Hogan to sell merchandise for his Pastamania restaurant and went to deliver the leftover merch to him at his hotel room after the show. She says while in the hotel room, Hogan forced her to perform oral sex. Hogan denies it of course and sued the woman and her lawyer for extortion. The woman has since filed a counter-suit against Hogan.
- Eric Bischoff and Randy Savage recently taped an appearance for the Jeff Foxworthy Show (can't find video online but if anyone is looking for it, it's season 2, episode 21 - "Wrestling Opera").
- Arn Anderson is expected to be out for about 4 months and may get surgery to fuse three vertebrae in his neck. The injury (which he actually originally suffered 7 years ago in a match with the Steiners) has flared up in recent months and caused his hand to go numb. (This was the end of the road for Arn.)
- Fun note from the ongoing WWF/WCW hotline lawsuit, Jerry McDevitt in court said that Mark Madden "is to journalism what Heidi Fleiss is to dating."
- Eric Bischoff did an online chat, mostly talking about the Dennis Rodman deal but also discussed the rumors of WCW buying NJPW. Bischoff surprisingly gave WWF credit, saying that the working relationship with ECW was the best thing they've done in the last year. As for Piper's promo where he picked his partners, Bischoff admitted that he hoped Piper would let them change the match and give him new partners, but due to Piper's creative control in his contract, it's up to Piper.
- Dave notes that Billy Gunn looks a lot more muscular and ominously adds, "and he's not the only one lately." Yeah this is about the time steroids began slowly creeping back into the company.
- During the Paul Heyman vs. Jerry Lawler debate segment on Raw, Heyman asked Lawler how the action was down by the see-saw in Louisville (a reference to the statuatory rape case from 1993). Lawler responded saying Heyman's father was funding ECW and it was the only reason they're still in business (this is a pretty great segment that's mostly a forgotten part of the ECW/WWF angle. It gets shooty real quick).
- Just an aside from Dave about the current hottest star in the company: "Can you believe that just 18 months ago, WCW had Steve Austin put Renegade over on television not once but twice?"
- Raw filmed a new opening theme, with all new music and footage that was filmed in a rundown area of Brooklyn. They're also dubbing the show "Raw Is War" now.
- People Magazine is expected to do a piece on Sunny soon. Dave wonders if they'll mention Chris Candido (no idea if this ever happened, I couldn't find it).
- Brian Pillman is hoping to be back in the ring in the next 6 weeks. In the meantime, he's doing commentary for Shotgun Saturday Night.
- WWF star Flash Funk (formerly Too Cold Scorpio) did a speaking appearance at an elementary school in New York, telling kids to stay off drugs and all that fun stuff. Dave finds it ironic, since Scorpio was fired from WCW because he failed several drug tests.