April 07, 1997
- We open with the usual long obituary for Dr. Bill Miller, a top star from the 50s and 60s. He was known as Dr. because he was also a veterinarian. When other wrestlers were boozing and chasing women in their off time, Miller was known for hitting the books and studying vet medicine. It features quotes from a ton of different wrestlers all talking about how Miller was the most well-liked guy ever, never an ego problem, never had an issue doing jobs, was always reliable and on time, no drug or alcohol or marital problems, etc. Basically just a straight laced Boy Scout of a wrestler. However, he's most well known for being involved in 2 famous backstage fights. He was involved in the famous fight in 1962 that led to NWA champion Buddy Rogers getting his arm broken and throwing the NWA title plans into chaos. The other happened in Japan where the promotion he was working for told Miller to beat the shit out of a rookie they wanted to punish for some reason and, well, he did. He often worked as a masked heel and Dave recaps his career. Pretty interesting if you're a history buff.
- Another eulogy of sorts, this time for Extreme Fighting Championships, the MMA company that has basically been driven out of business by the government crack down on the sport. They just had a PPV event and at least they went out in style, saying the show was the best MMA event in America since the sport began. Dave reviews all the fights and talks about the Maurice Smith vs. Murakami Kazunari having the single most devastating knockout in American MMA history. This is a slow issue, so let's check it out, shall we?
- Nobuhiko Takada's new shoot fighting promotion in Japan will be called Kingdom (nope, ends up being PRIDE) and will feature "worked UFC-style matches." Many former UWFI wrestlers have signed on to join the promotion. (To this day, I think there's confusion and disagreement over how many and which fights in Pride were works and which were legit.)
- All Japan TV spent most of an entire episode airing tributes to their referee who recently retired. Dave loved it because they played tons of old AJPW clips from back in the 70s and 80s, showing this referee's most famous moments, all the ref bumps he took, famous match finishes he counted, etc. It was really interesting because these days, AJPW is known as a straight-laced, pure workrate, clean finish company with no real angles. But back in the day, they used to do tons of angles, screwjob finishes, bloody brawls, and gimmicks and Dave was loving getting to see all the old days of AJPW that I assume he'd never really seen much of before.
- Dave notes that Fake Diesel and Fake Razor are still working under those gimmicks at AAA shows in Mexico. WWF though, is pretty much done with them.
- Eric Bischoff and Sonny Onno showed up at a NJPW show last week and did an angle where Masa Saito quit NJPW to join the NWO. There's also reportedly plans for most of the NWO, including Hogan, Nash, and Hall if he's able, to go to Japan for a NJPW show at the Osaka Dome in May. The NWO angle is doing huge business in Japan. Also, on the same show, they introduced a new IWGP title belt that reportedly cost $90,000. Here's that belt for all you belt marks.
- Bison Kimura is the latest Japanese women's wrestler to pose nude for a magazine there (google is your friend).
- ECW made a ton of money on merch and ran 3 shows over the weekend. It's said to have been the most money ECW has ever brought in on a single weekend. Side note, before one of the shows in Pittsburgh, they frisked fans for weapons and found a ton of people trying to bring knives in that ended up getting confiscated.
- Chris Candido suffered a partial bicep tear and may need surgery that will keep him out of action for awhile (he missed about a month). Sandman also suffered 3 cracked ribs but is still expected to work the PPV.
- There's lots of rumors that Rob Van Dam may be leaving ECW for WCW. Over the weekend, someone asked Van Dam about his martial arts background and Van Dam told them, "Wait a few weeks and you'll hear about it from Mike Tenay." Word is Sabu has also sent out feelers to WWF, hoping they would bring him in, but word is WWF isn't all that interested due to Sabu's track record. Sabu is under contract to ECW until the end of the year regardless. Overall, there's a lot of stress in ECW backstage, mostly because the PPV is coming up and everyone's nervous, plus concerns over WCW being interested in poaching their stars. After a recent show, Heyman gave a 75-minute (!!!) speech to all the wrestlers that was basically a motivational, "let's all pull together as a group to make this succeed" and he talked about Sabu sacrificing so much for the company. The speech had Sabu in legit tears. WCW also has a show coming up in Philadelphia the night after the ECW PPV and Heyman said that if anyone from the company goes to the WCW show, not to ever talk to him again because any relationship they have (friends or business) would be over forever. He said that if anyone wants to leave ECW, to tell him now and he'd get them a meeting with Vince McMahon or he'd release them from their contract and let them negotiate with WCW. Van Dam was the only person to tell Heyman that he was considering the WCW offer, but that he would at least be staying with ECW through June.
- Missy Hyatt was on the Howard Stern Easter special this week, in a segment where Stern finger painted her boobs (can't find this anywhere).
- A student at the WCW Power Plant who wrestled under the name Sharkey was murdered in Mariette, GA after an argument with another driver turned violent and he was shot. The shooter turned himself in later.
- Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff missed Nitro this week because they were in Chicago for the premiere of Dennis Rodman's movie "Double Team" (with Jean Claude Van Dam).
- Scott Hall was obviously not at Nitro either and on TV, Nash explained it by simply saying that Hall is taking care of problems that are more important than wrestling. Word is part of the situation with Hall is that his marriage is falling apart and that was the breaking point that led to him checking into rehab. There's no word on whether Hall will be working the upcoming PPV this weekend (he's booked to defend the tag titles with Nash against the Steiners). Bischoff has been telling people that Hall will be there. WCW has handled this whole thing terribly because it's known that Hall isn't going to be at any of the upcoming shows, but they continue to advertise him, even pushing the idea on TV that he still may be at the PPV. It's blatant false advertising, which seems to be one of Dave's biggest pet peeves.
- Other random Nitro notes: Prince Iaukea is apparently awful and Dave tends to reference it in every issue lately. He's basically a jobber that has been pushed way beyond his talent level. DDP faced some jobber named Lance Ringo, who showed potential (he later became Sick Boy in Raven's Flock). Curt Hennig was backstage and has been training for a wrestling comeback for when he joins the company in a few weeks.
- They did an angle where someone attacked Arn Anderson at his hotel, which is how they explained the surgery he needs. The plan is for it to eventually be revealed that Chris Benoit was the one who did it, which would lead to a Benoit vs. Flair storyline (after Flair is healed up from his recent shoulder surgery). The idea is for Benoit to form his own version of the Four Horsemen to go against Flair's. Benoit's Horsemen will likely be Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, and Steve Regal (shit, that would have been awesome).
- WCW's plan is for Starrcade to be their yearly big event (like their version of Wrestlemania) and the plan now is to hold off on the Hogan vs. Sting match until then and try to promote it as the biggest match in the history of the company. Worked out okay.
- Last week, you may recall that Dave said WWF had booked a show in Anaheim the same night as a WCW show just a few miles away in Los Angeles. To retaliate, WCW is heavily promoting the house show as Saturday Nitro. It won't air on TV, but they're treating it like a TV taping, with all the pyro, stage sets, big stars, celebrity guest appearances, etc. in order to try and hurt WWF's house show that night.
- The National Enquirer did indeed run a story this week saying that Rey Misterio Jr. is dating Friends star Jennifer Anniston but Dave says there's nothing to it. It's just WCW's idea to try to get Misterio some publicity because they want to give him a big push. Dave says maybe they should figure out how to book him effectively first instead of having him lose on the last 5 straight PPVs.
- Preliminary buyrate for Wrestlemania is 0.77 which, if true, is a downright disaster and down significantly from last year. it would be by far the lowest WM buyrate ever. Most of WCW''s recent PPVs have done better buyrates.
- WWF injury report: Vader has some knee issues and had to get it drained last week. Faarooq suffered a separated shoulder, bruised ribs, and a punctured lung from a bump during the Chicago street fight match at Wrestlemania.
- On Raw, they did an angle where Bret Hart joined forces with his brother Owen and British Bulldog. The plan is to form a new Hart Foundation group. There's been talk of adding Brian Pillman as a 4th member but that hasn't been decided for sure yet.
- They aired a lot of UFC footage for Ken Shamrock on Raw and there's more to it than just a video deal, as WWF and UFC have reportedly got some sort of working agreement in place. They will continue to trade footage, so if Tony Halme fights for UFC, you may see some WWF footage being used. They've also agreed not to say anything bad about each other publicly and WWF has agreed to promote the May 30th UFC PPV.
- Funny note from the Raw and Nitro ratings battle. On Nitro, they had a women's title match between Akira Hokuto vs. Debbie Combs. At the WCW booking meeting earlier that day, when they were laying out the show, someone made a remark saying that they would surely lose the quarter hour ratings during that match. Someone else replied and said, "Well, unless WWF puts Sid on at the same time." Lo and behold, during the Hokuto vs. Combs match on Nitro, Sid was cutting a promo on Raw. No word on what the ratings were for that quarter-hour period (we'll find out tomorrow!).
- Dave says someone sent him a magazine article with some photos about Chyna from before she started in WWF. He says "Let's just say that while she looked like a bodybuilder in the photos, she looked nowhere near as freaky as she does in her current role."
- Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard had a meeting with Curt Hennig and his father Larry last week at WWF headquarters in Stamford. Reportedly Vince and Prichard were an hour late and the Hennigs were just about to walk out and leave when they arrived. During the meeting, they discussed the possibility of Hennig returning but it reportedly didn't go well, as Hennig is still upset about WWF costing him his Lloyd's of London insurance policy (which would have paid Hennig a $350,000 lump sum payment). If you recall, WWF wanted Hennig to return to the ring a few months ago and in the midst of negotiations, WWF sent a letter to Lloyd's over the insurance issues, that resulted in Lloyd's cancelling Hennig's policy. Bruce Prichard reportedly sent the letter that caused the problem and in the meeting, he claimed to know nothing about it. In turn, Hennig pulled out a copy of the letter, signed by Prichard, and showed it to him. Anyway, the meeting didn't go well and WCW is confident that he'll be coming to their side when his WWF contract expires. Last week, they had Larry Hennig on the show to cut a promo, specifically to show WWF that Curt is with them. As for Curt, word is he's much bigger and bulkier than he has been in recent years (draw your own conclusions from that).
- WWF will be running a tour of Kuwait next week (there's gonna be a big story coming out of that).
- Shawn Michaels is expected back in the ring in May and they may do a Bret vs. Shawn match at King of the Ring.
- Honky Tonk Man has been hyping up a mystery man who he will manage. There's a ton of rumors that it will be Brian Christopher, but Dave says he doesn't think it will be him (indeed, it was not).
- WWF has rescinded their contract offer to Steve Williams following his recent drug arrest.
- There was a lot of heat on both Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley this week. In Shawn's case, people were upset about him throwing up the NWO symbol right into the camera at Wrestlemania. In Helmsley's case, it was due to the comments he made about Sunny at the Slammy's.
- Lots of rumors about Disco Inferno heading to WWF, but there have been no negotiations so far.