March 24, 1997
- The top story this week is that TCI Cable, the largest cable chain in the U.S., will no longer carry MMA shows. This will likely put the struggling EFC promotion out of business and severely hurts UFC as well. All interesting stuff, but not wrestling related. But what IS wrestling related is that Dave casually mentions that Cablevision is choosing not to air ECW's upcoming PPV due to content concerns. Cablevision is primarily the cable operator in the northeast of the U.S., aka, ECW's strongest base. Dave goes off on a tangent about how it's ridiculous because they regularly air R-rated movies with far more violence and adult content than wrestling or MMA. He also points out that this stuff isn't just freely available to children. It's PPV, it's content that adults have to seek out and specifically pay for. All in all, Dave just thinks it's bullshit censorship by the cable companies and it's not fair to either ECW or any of the various MMA groups that are affected.
- Steve Williams, the top American star in AJPW, was arrested this week at the Loredo, TX airport on drug possession charges. Williams has recently been in serious negotiations with WWF but this may put a stop to that. It's the 3rd time in his wrestling career that Williams has been busted with drugs at an airport. This time, they found undeclared pharmaceutical drugs in his luggage. 80 boxes of Neo-Percodan, 17 boxes of Valium, 16 boxes of Halcion, 15 boxes of Tamegesic, 26 boxes of Darvon and eight boxes of Ritrovil. All of which are pain killers which were likely purchased just across the border in Mexico. The story got major news coverage in Japan and made plenty of national papers in the U.S. also, so it likely kills his WWF deal and may also affect his AJPW position as well. In 1995, Williams was suspended by AJPW for a year after being busted with marijuana at the airport. In fact, Giant Baba showed how powerful he is in Japan because he pulled strings to get Williams allowed back after only a year. Many years ago, former Beatle Paul McCartney was banned from Japan for more than a decade for a similar drug charge. In 1988, Williams got caught at a Detroit airport with steroids and cocaine.
- WWF also recently signed Del Wilkes, better known as The Patriot, who has been one of AJPW's top foreign stars. In the past, working for AJPW was considered one of the best jobs in the biz because the pay is good, the travel is easy, there's almost no political bullshit, and there is job security. Steve Williams in the past has had no interest in leaving AJPW. But with WWF and WCW offering huge guaranteed contracts nowadays, that has changed as they have now taken Del Wilkes and were working on bringing in Williams before the arrest. Last year, WWF also managed to get Phil LaFon and Doug Furnas away from AJPW. Dave says if WWF steals Williams away, it will be a huge blow to AJPW.
- Other Uncensored PPV notes: Eddie Guerrero tore a pec muscle during his match with Dean Malenko, but he finished the match. No word on if he needs surgery yet but if so, it could sideline him for several months (he indeed missed about 3 months). Glacier and Mortis had a match that they literally spent months rehearsing at the Power Plant. It still sucked. Bryan Clark (formerly Adam Bomb in WWF) debuted during this match, but no word on what his new name will be (Wrath). The crowd spent most of the Prince Iaukea/Rey Mysterio Jr. match chanting "boring!" because Iaukea is seen as a jobber and WCW has pretty much killed Mysterio's heat by jobbing him out all the time, so the fans didn't give a shit about the match. And the main event (Team NWO vs. Team Piper vs. Team WCW) was a complete clusterfuck that didn't make sense with any of the booking for the weeks leading up to it, which Dave goes into in detail. Just nothing made sense, they randomly changed the rules without telling the crowd, the announcers didn't seem clued in on the eliminations, so everyone was confused, etc.
- Lots of rumors going around that Missy Hyatt is pregnant by her current boyfriend Scott Putski, and she recently missed some indie shows she was scheduled for because of it (not sure if true. Hyatt has admitted dating him but I've never seen anything saying she was pregnant).
- AAA president Antonio Pena filed lawsuits against Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr., Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera for breach of contract this week. The lawsuit argues that they were under contract to AAA when they jumped ship to Promo Azteca. The lawsuit calls for those 4 men to sever ties with both Promo Azteca and with WCW. It's not known if WWF is helping to fund this lawsuit, but it wouldn't be surprising. If it was successful, it could lead to them all being forced to work for WWF and would be a pretty big blow to WCW. The 4 wrestlers responded to the lawsuit by filing a countersuit against Pena for money owed to them. Pena also has lawsuits pending against La Parka (over ownership of the character and gimmick) and against several former mini wrestlers who left the promotion last year.
- AAA officially announced that Vader, Mankind, Undertaker, and Paul Bearer will be appearing at Triplemania this year (this obviously fell through).
- NJPW's Tokyo Dome show scheduled for next month isn't selling well. The announcement of Naoya Ogawa replacing Ken Shamrock in the main event got a lot of mainstream attention but hasn't translated to ticket sales. They're hoping for a large crowd to walk up the day of the show to buy tickets.
- Dutch Mantel and Jerry Lawler's girlfriend Stacy handled the commentary duties for USWA this week with Lance Russell out on vacation. Speaking of USWA, there's a lot of talk about impending doom there, since business is down in every city they run. The most recent Memphis show only drew 250 people and it's beginning to look like the writing is on the wall for them.
- Another day, another New Jack incident. While getting ready for a spot where he would jump off the balcony, New Jack apparently got into an argument with another local wrestling promoter who was in the crowd and New Jack tried to throw the guy off the balcony. The guy managed to get away and flee down the stairs, so New Jack did his dive off the balcony and then chased the guy down (this time on ground level) and punched him a few times before the guy got away again. It's said Sabu pretty much saved the guy's life since he helped him get away and held New Jack back.
- Surprisingly, ECW's PPV show at the ECW Arena isn't sold out yet. Many of the regular ECW fans who attend all the shows are complaining about the higher ticket prices.
- Tony Halme (formerly Ludvig Borga in WWF) is in serious negotiations with UFC (he ended up getting wrecked by Randy Couture at UFC 13).
- Arn Anderson cut a promo on Nitro this week talking about his upcoming neck surgery and said he'd be back at some point, but reports are there's a very good chance he won't be able to return. WCW is considering making him a TV announcer and Dave thinks he'd be good at it. If not that, then maybe a manager.
- WCW has cancelled plans for another Clash of the Champions show in August because they hope to have their new 2-hour TBS Thursday night show on the air by then (turns out they didn't get Thunder started until 1998 and that Clash did end up happening after all. And it ended up being the final WCW Clash ever).
- The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue had an interview with famed sports photographer Walter Iooss and when asked who the worst person he ever dealt with on a photoshoot was, he said Hulk Hogan.
- Hogan and Bischoff attended the Bulls/Knicks game last week and wore NWO shirts. Bischoff was visible behind the Knicks bench for the entire game but the announcers never mentioned Rodman's wrestling adventures.
- Rob Van Dam was backstage at last week's Nitro, no reason given.
- Raw ended in controversial fashion, with a Bret Hart vs. Sid cage match that saw Bret go on an uncensored profanity-laced tirade after the match. Dave says USA Network must have approved it because WWF wouldn't risk doing it otherwise. But if it's anything like the Pillman gun angle, USA will run away from it and put the heat on WWF. The whole thing was part of a Bret Hart heel turn, with him getting increasingly bitter. After losing the match, Hart got on the mic and said, "This is bullshit!" and then he threw Vince McMahon to the ground. Vince was masterful in his acting during this segment. The words "goddamn" and "shit" were thrown around a couple of times, by both Hart and Sid. It's all part of an effort within WWF as a whole to get more of an edge to it. Dave isn't sure how well it will work out in the long-run (turns out, pretty decently).
- On Raw, Ken Shamrock put Billy Gunn in an ankle lock and Gunn tapped out. The crowd didn't react to Gunn "tapping out" as a submission because they're not familiar with it (and here, I believe, is the first instance of tapping out in the WWF. Nowadays, it's so commonplace that people forget before Shamrock, submissions were just the ref in a guy's face waiting for him to nod and say he submits). Vince McMahon on commentary sold this for all it was worth to try to get Shamrock over.
- Jesse James (Road Dogg) has been out for the last 6 weeks because he was suspended. No word why but you can probably guess.
- Jake Roberts was fired by WWF this week. Two weeks ago, he apparently got a rental car and disappeared for 2 days and no-showed a house show. Jake had been working in the office and was helping to write TV as well as occasionally still working matches.
- Mankind had an MRI done this week because he's got back issues. Dave has heard different stories on the results from 2 different sources. One says he has a herniated disc and that it's serious. The other source said it's a sciatic nerve problem and not that bad. Either way, for now he doesn't need surgery and will be taking time off after Wrestlemania.
- Bruce Prichard has been in contact with UFC to try to get the rights to use UFC footage of Ken Shamrock on WWF TV.