April 14, 1997
- ECW will hold its first ever PPV event this week. It's been the most discussed PPV of the year within the whole industry and is more important to the future of ECW than any show they've ever held. Dave discusses whether the show will do a good enough buyrate to be considered a success. As for whether they will go over the line, Dave says no chance. They nearly lost their chance on PPV because of a series of incidents that went too far. Dave says there will be blood and swearing, but they aren't going to set the building on fire or slice open underage kids. This PPV is a basically a test, and if it does well, it will lead to more PPVs in the future and ECW won't risk doing anything to sacrifice that possibility. Dave says stress and tension in ECW has been through the roof, with so many wrestlers on edge due to the upcoming show. Many wrestlers have told Dave privately that they wish the PPV would hurry up and be over so they could get back to normal. There will also be a lot of eyes on Joey Styles, who will be calling his first live show ever, and will do it all solo.
- Dave breaks down all the matches and storylines on the show. The main storyline has mostly been built as old, sad man Terry Funk trying to win the world championship for one final time. Dave recaps all the various times Funk has "retired" and talks about how time is catching up to Funk. He's in his 50s and his body is destroyed. ECW has been promoting him as over the hill so much that fans are starting to believe it and he hasn't been getting much of a reaction at recent shows. But Heyman wants to end the show with the image of Funk pulling off the emotional victory and Funk clearly hasn't been the top level performer he once was. For the show to have the ending Paul Heyman envisions, it will require Funk to pull out yet another miracle in a career full of them.
- It's pretty much expected now that Rob Van Dam will be leaving for WCW in June, with many ECW fans chanting "You sold out!" at him at the latest show. There's also concern that Sabu will leave, but his track record of no shows and incidents in the last year or so has killed a lot of the interest in him from other promotions. There's also been interest in guys like Raven and Stevie Richards, but nothing major. As for the other main core guys (Taz, Dreamer, Dudleys, Eliminators, Sandman, The Gangstas, Shane Douglas, etc.) there's not really a lot interest in any of them from other promotions for various reasons.
- WCW's Spring Stampede PPV happened and was...fine, but otherwise forgettable. The announcing was only mildly atrocious this time. Dave also calls WCW reprehensible for the fact that they knew weeks ago that Scott Hall wouldn't be there but continued to advertise him for the show. Even during the pre-show right before the PPV started, they teased that Hall and Nash would be defending the titles, but after the PPV started, they finally told the fans that he wouldn't be there. Hall is still out dealing with personal issues (failing marriage and some other vices that landed him in rehab). They did an angle to have Scott Steiner "arrested" to explain why there wouldn't be a Hall & Nash vs. Steiners tag match. Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon stole the show. Benoit's hand was bleeding during his match because he cut it in a car accident earlier in the day and the wound re-opened. DDP vs. Randy Savage headlined and was a really good match also, but the crowd was waiting for Sting to show up and he never did, so that was a disappointment.
- Mankind will make a one-night return to FMW in Japan, under the name Cactus Jack, and will team with Terry Funk and The Gladiator in a hardcore match against Atsushi Onita, Masato Tanaka, and Kintaro Kanemura. The show will also be headlined by a women's electrified barbed wire match that will be the retirement for FMW women's star Megumi Kudo (anytime Megumi Kudo is mentioned, all I can think of is this damn powerbomb.)
- Indie wrestler Sean Morley has been drawing comparisons to 80s-era Lex Luger, with people saying he's really green in the ring but has a great physique (of course, within a year, he'd be in WWF as Val Venis).
- Konnan has a recurring role on a Mexican soap opera called Tric Trac.
- Fake Diesel and Fake Razor did an angle at the latest USWA show, where they came out and attacked everybody during the show. The whole thing is a "WWF is better than USWA" thing, with the USWA guys trying to defend their company against the WWF guys. Fake Diesel even cut a promo talking about how Jerry Lawler brought him into WWF (back when he was introduced as Isaac Yankem). Since Lawler works for both, the big angle is about who's side Lawler is on.
- Dave talks about the other USWA guys who are actually under contract to WWF, which is basically a faction called the Truth Commission. The Commandment is a decent run-of-the-mill manager. Tank, who used to be Mantaur, is awful, even worse than he was before. Recon (Barry Buchanan) isn't necessarily good, but he's the best of the group. And "the tall Canadian" (Kurrgan) is really terrible. Also, the former bodybuilder Achim Albrecht is working here, under the name Brackus and is super green. But Dave says he's better than both Ultimate Warrior or Sting were when they worked in Memphis back in the 80s, so maybe he'll turn out okay (nah, he washed out of the biz a year or two later).
- Sandman and Shane Douglas nearly got into a backstage fight at ECW this week. Dave has heard a million different versions of the story but in short, Shane Douglas wanted Brian Lee fired for some reason. Sandman reportedly told Lee about it which led to Douglas calling Sandman a stooge and they had words and had to be pulled apart. Then a few nights later, they were doing an angle in the ring and Douglas used Sandman's cane on someone. Sandman felt it was infringing on his gimmick and they started to fight again. Paul Heyman spoke to both of them separately and then got them in a room together and the 3 of them talked it all out for a long time and eventually the situation was settled. Speaking of Brian Lee...
- Brian Lee suffered a hairline fracture of his C-5 and C-6 vertebrae in his neck during a match with Terry Funk. He worked the next night against Stevie Richards, but it was only a 15 second match. Lee is expected to see a doctor this week (that was it for him in ECW. He never wrestled there again and turned up 2 months later in WWF).
- Stevie Richards and Axl Rotten both had major heat in ECW this week. Richards went on Mark Madden's radio show and joked about going to WCW if they would pay him more than Chris Jericho. Then he worked an indie show where he put over Disco Inferno clean. Heyman was upset because Richards is supposed to be in a major match at the ECW PPV next week and they didn't want him doing clean jobs to guys like Disco Inferno before the biggest show in company history. As for Axl Rotten, he went to WCW's show in Baltimore and was used as one of the security guards who broke up a Chris Benoit/Kevin Sullivan fight. Needless to say, Heyman (who hates WCW) wasn't thrilled.
- Sandman and Balls Mahoney did an angle where Balls challenged anyone who could go blow-for-blow with him on chairshots. Sandman eventually answered the challenge and the two men took turns trading hard chairshots to each other's heads. The idea is to build up Balls as a guy who is willing to take crazy chairshots to the skull, thus earning Sandman's respect, and they will eventually form a tag team. And that, folks, is how you get CTE.
- Disco Inferno has been telling indie promoters that he isn't available for any dates after July 1st, so he's probably headed to WWF at that point (nope).
- Randy Savage suffered torn ligaments in his ankle during the match with DDP at Spring Stampede. Savage apparently didn't feel any pain during the match and didn't know it until he woke up in intense pain the next morning. It's believed he'll be out for several months.
- Remember in the last issue where WCW officials were joking that the Debbie Combs vs. Akira Hokuto match was going to lose in the quarter-hour ratings against Raw, and then someone else chimed in and said, "Unless WWF has Sid on at the same time." And then, sure enough, Raw put Sid on at the same time. Well, turns out WCW was right: not only did the Combs/Hokuto match beat Raw during that segment, but it ended up being the 2nd highest rated segment of Nitro. People REALLY didn't want to watch Sid I guess.
- There's a lot of behind the scenes heat between different "factions" in WCW. Kevin Sullivan has his own group of supporters and Hulk Hogan has his, and they're butting heads. Dave gives an example from the recent Nitro when Kevin Nash (who is in the Hogan camp) cut a promo where he was supposed to tease issues among the NWO members. Instead, Nash cut a promo talking about "Little Napolean" (Sullivan) backstage giving orders to people.
- AAA president Antonio Pena has filed a lawusit against WCW claiming that the Mexican wrestlers who signed WCW contracts did so illegally because they're still under contract to AAA. Part of Pena's agreement with WWF was that Pena promised he could get all of the Mexican stars working in WCW to come to WWF because he claims he has valid contracts with them. Interestingly enough, the lawsuit names most of the Mexicans that WCW is using but doesn't name Rey Misterio Jr. which is the main wrestler WWF wanted most of all.
- Miss Elizabeth was recently engaged to a lawyer from Miami (the marraige doesn't last long).
- Dave says that the Rey Mysterio Jr./Jennifer Aniston story in the National Enquirer has gotten a lot of coverage and once again reminds everyone that it's complete bullshit. In other Mysterio news, his wife (yes, he's married, which also adds a fun wrinkle to the Aniston story) gave birth to a baby boy named Dominic last week. It was a big joke in the locker room because the baby was pretty big and everyone joked that it must have been Kevin Nash's son.
- Arn Anderson is scheduled for neck surgery this week. He will be out for at least 6 months, if he's able to return at all.
- Chris Benoit, Nancy Sullivan, and William Regal were in a car accident when they were hit by a drunk driver. The car they were in rolled over twice. Nancy was banged up and Benoit got a nasty cut on his hand (which opened up and bled everywhere during his PPV match). Funny note, Dave says that Benoit and Nancy do their angle all the time, even when they're not on TV, which is why they were riding together. At this point, Dave apparently isn't aware that it's not an angle anymore. Benoit and Nancy were for-real dating at this point, even though she was still technically married to Sullivan.
- Recently, Ted Turner was quoted as saying that the recent Heaven's Gate cult mass suicide was "a good way to get rid of a few nuts." In the New York Post, Phil Mushnick (who else) responded by writing, "Ted Turner should watch his mouth about last week's mass suicide being a good way to get rid of a few nuts. If not for America's lunatic fringe and the disaffected, his WCW televised pro wrestling would be out of business."
- Kimona from ECW may be debuting for WCW at an upcoming Nitro in Philadelphia.
- Word is WCW Uncensored did a 0.9 buyrate, which would mean it did bigger numbers than WWF's Wrestlemania (0.77). Who would have ever thought that was possible a year ago, Dave asks.
- Sid missed the latest Raw and was pulled from the PPV due to a back injury.
- On Raw, Shawn Michaels cut a 15-minute promo that was basically a shoot. Dave says it was the best part of either show, but it got murdered in the ratings by Nitro. Shawn tore into Bret Hart and his family, and says Bret complained about losing the title to Shawn. He said Bret left the WWF for most of the year because he was waiting for business to plummet with Shawn on top but instead they did the best business they'd done in 6 years, and McMahon confirmed it. (At this point, Dave interjects and says yes, business was good on top with Shawn but let's not pretend he was a Hogan-esque draw. TV ratings reached all-time lows with Shawn on top, and PPV buyrates sunk. Yes, house show business in 1996 was stronger than it had been in years, but the best months for that were February and March....when Bret was still champion. House show biz stayed strong in the summer, but it dropped again in the fall, at which point Vince opened the wallet to get Bret back. Plus, Dave talks about all of Shawn's various hissy fits and temper tantrums throughout the year and pretty much sums it up as Shawn trying to re-write history. He was a decent draw by 1996 standards, sure, but he didn't set the world on fire or anything). Shawn then went on to say Bret used "a rival organization" to stab WWF in the back and get them to pay him more money (Dave calls that smart negotiating) and just basically spent the whole promo shitting on Bret and talking about how he can't separate wrestling from real life.
- They also did a worked MMA-style match on Raw with Ken Shamrock facing one of his trainees named Vernon White. Even with Shamrock holding back, White was legit bloodied up badly and needed stitches. The cameras tried not to show the blood, but it was everywhere and there were huge bloodstains in the ring for the rest of the show. Otherwise, Dave said it was a bad segment and that worked MMA matches look bad and showed that they have no idea how to book Shamrock yet. The crowd didn't respond to any of it because they aren't used to seeing a match end with punches.
- On Shotgun Saturday Night, Sunny has been doing a gossip segment and said that a 4th member of the Hart Foundation will be added and said it will be someone who started his career in Stampede Wrestling, which almost certainly means Pillman. She also hinted at another UFC fighter coming in to challenge Ken Shamrock and hinted at his nickname being The Beast, which obviously means Dan Severn. No word on how much truth there is to that one.
- WWF reportedly reached out to Atsushi Onita about coming in, but Onita has no interest in wrestling in the U.S. Instead, WWF will likely be bringing in FMW wrestler Kintaro Kanemura for a tryout soon (never amounted to anything, but holy shit, WWF wanted Onita??)
- Expect Yokozuna to return later this year. Word is he's lost a ton of weight (still nope).
- Sports Illustrated magazine took time out to shit on pro wrestling this week. Earlier this year, the New Jersey governor signed a bill eliminating the athletic commission regulations on pro wrestling. For years, WWF avoided running shows in Jersey because of those regulations. Sports Illustrated gleefully said that WWF had to admit that pro wrestling isn't a sport in order to get the regulations dropped. Which, as everyone knows, WWF admitted that years ago. The story says, "Pro wrestling had long tried to insult everyone's intelligence by claiming that matches were genuine contests and that practitioners were true athletes." Dave says Sports Illustrated is insulting his intelligence by claiming that pro wrestlers aren't great athletes because they absolutely are.
- The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper did a story about the resurgence of pro wrestling, with quotes from both Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff. Vince said his usual same complaints about Ted Turner trying to put him out of business and how WCW doesn't care about wrestling fans and all that. Eric Bischoff responded, saying: "Vince likes to cry about the deep pockets of Ted Turner and Time Warner, but we are a publicly held company. I can tell you that they have more production staff, better production facilities and a much bigger marketing budget. The difference is they don't have the talent. We do because that's where we spend our money." To that, Vince responded: "If Eric Bischoff says we spend more money in every area except talent, it's a blatant tie." In response, Bischoff: "We were profitable in 1995 and 1996. If Vince McMahon says differently, that's a blatant lie." And finally, one last one from McMahon:"They are willing to overpay for performers who are no longer in their athletic prime. There's no way I could match the exorbitant guaranteed figures of a billionaire willing to throw away his money."
- A fan writes in with 12 questions about WCW being shitty and Dave responds with 12 answers in varying degrees of snarkiness. Let's read it, shall we?
- Some whys about the 3/31 Nitro:
- Why did it open with that five-star classic between Giant & Lex vs. Rick Fuller & Roadblock? That really made me want to keep watching Nitro.
- 2) Why does Roadblock have a job with the most powerful wrestling organization in the U.S?
- 3) Why do they have a women's cruiserweight division when they hardly have a womens heavyweight division?
- 4) Why did those little Japanese women keep smiling during their match?
- 5) Why did Prince Iaukea set the chair back up on the ropes when it was falling? Does he enjoy getting chairs kicked in his face?
- 6) Why did Chris Jericho do his guard rail lean near a bunch of guys?
- 7) Why did Renegade run in the ring if he wasn't going to save or attack Jericho?
- 8) Why is WCW creating an angle involving Renegade?
- 9) Why didn't they bring in Beulah instead of Debbie Combs? She looks a lot better and is as good a wrestler
- 10) Why does Madusa think Akira Hokuto's name is Hokuto Akita?
- 11) Why did Lance Ringo spray paint NWO over Kimberly's picture?
- 12) Why is Nitro so bad?
- Kevin Lyons
- Fairbanks, Alaska
- DM: 1) Lex always draws good ratings and it's important to get the jump in the first segment; 2) He's a really huge guy who can go up for the rack and that makes Luger look impressive; 3) Beats me; 4) Because just before the match started they both found out that Sonny Onno wasn't going to manage either of them; 5) He had been studying tapes of Rob Van Dam's opponents from ECW. He figured then a whole bunch of guys would then rave it was the greatest match of all-time; 6) He doesn't cheat on his girlfriend; 7) He got lost on the way to the strip club; 8) Because they want to get the last laugh on all of us dummies that don't know the first thing about the business who laughed at their booking when they kept putting him over Steve Austin and Arn Anderson, to show us that of the three, he'll still wind up being a bigger star long-term; 9) Okay, I agree that Beulah looks better but not that she's as good a wrestler. I hope you don't confuse looks with workrate in real life like that. Sometimes I do and all it does it get me into trouble; 10) Madusa is secretly dyslexic. It's no big deal in wrestling but it has its problems in real life. A few months back a guy told Madusa in a bar he thought her butt was too small and next thing you know... Anyway, she calls her Akita because Madusa is fluent in Japanese and she knows that rib about Hokuto saying old lady bitch in the camera so she was trying to do the same thing telling people cryptically that Hokuto is a dog. Then again, has anyone ever given Beulah an engagement ring after the first date?; 11) What do you expect from a guy who can't decide whether he's copying Lance Von Erich or Ringo Starr? 12) Because Kevin Sullivan books angles that make perfect sense, and then at 7:45 p.m. 39 different guys say they don't want to do things that way and they all do what they want to do and say what they want to say with no regard to how it affects the overall storyline or builds up the next PPV, and what we see each week is the result. And maybe Kevin's angles may not have made perfect sense either.