April 21, 1997
- Just a heads up, there won't be any posts on Wednesday and Thursday. I will be out of town those days. So only Mon, Tues, and Fri. this week
- ECW's first ever PPV, Barely Legal, is in the books. 53-year-old Terry Funk stole the show with a great performance and history making title win. Dave says the show wasn't perfect but it has to be considered a major success by ECW. It's believed that the show was probably a money loser financially, due to it not being carried by one of the two major carriers as well as other smaller carriers. Paul Heyman was telling people before the show that it probably wouldn't make any money and the goal was to put on the best show possible and hope that the other carriers would get onboard with a 2nd PPV in the future. Heyman has meetings lined up with Viewers Choice and Cablevision, both of whom didn't carry this show, but may carry future events. ECW announced a second PPV in August which they said would take place in a larger venue in a new city.
- Joey Styles handled almost the entire show on commentary by himself and was pretty much great the whole time, getting over all the major key points, all the wrestlers for first time viewers, and even managed to help explain all the Japanese wrestlers better than anyone else does when foreigners show up in WWF or WCW. The camerawork and audio was a little shoddy at points and some of the wrestlers were clearly nervous. There were no F-words, as promised to RequestTV (except from the crowd), and the blood wasn't gratuitous or used in every match. Overall, Dave says it was a better show than most WWF and WCW PPVs. The show drew a sellout crowd of 1,250 to the ECW Arena (which was given a new paint job and they had a nice pretty new ring). They also did a record gate of over $60,000 and set a new merch record also.
- Other notes from the show: JT Smith returned to work a dark match and got a surprisingly huge pop from the crowd. Bubba Ray Dudley suffered a broken ankle in the first match and was hospitalized after the show and will be fitted for a cast later this week. The crowd chanted "You sold out!" at Rob Van Dam since it's believed he's headed for WCW. At one point during the Van Dam/Lance Storm match, Van Dam pushed aside wrestling journalist Bill Apter outside the ring. After the match, Van Dam cut a promo saying he was insulted that he was chosen as a fill-in for the injured Chris Candido, which is true. Van Dam didn't want to work the show because he was pissed that he wasn't included in the original plans to begin with. He then hinted about going elsewhere, to play off the WCW-heat. The 6-man Michinoku Pro match was one of the best matches of the year. During this match, Joey Styles actually mentioned Dave Meltzer on commentary ("and didn't even set a bonfire to burn an Observer" Dave adds). Shane Douglas cut his usual promo, calling out guys like Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. Then he had a match with Pit Bull #2 that was so bad that Flair and Michaels could have done better "blindfolded with a crippling fever." Sabu vs. Taz was stiff as hell and both guys left banged up but the match seemed disappointing and didn't get over as well as you'd expect with the crowd after a year-long build. The handshake after was met with huge boos and the double-turn afterward was a huge mess. Also, contrary to what some people have said, the double-turn was planned before the Hart/Austin double-turn at Wrestlemania so this wasn't ECW copying WWF. Dave says he doesn't know where the drunk-gimmick with Sandman begins and ends because he seems to live the character 24/7 and worries about someone getting hurt if Sandman ever goes into the ring drunk. During the ladder match, the ladder accidentally flew into the crowd which was one of the things some of the PPV carriers were nervous about (fans getting hurt due to the wild nature of the show) but luckily no one was hurt. Tod Gordon could be seen frantically checking on people in the crowd after. Big Dick Dudley returned, saying he was out of prison (which is true, that's where he's been the last few months). The ending of the main event was botched due to the bell ringing earlier than it was meant to but the crowd was so hype that it didn't matter.
- And finally, one last pretty famous note from Barely Legal: literally only 24 seconds after the show went off the air, the generator blew and all the power for the television cameras went out. If it had happened just minutes earlier, it would have destroyed the end of the PPV. Talk about lucky timing.
- Judo star Naoya Ogawa debuted for NJPW and the debut is being hailed as a major success. Ogawa replaced Ken Shamrock as the opponent for Shinya Hashimoto at the Tokyo Dome last week. The show had a ton of mainstream publicity leading up to it and drew 60,500 which was better than NJPW expected and makes it the 2nd highest grossing show of the year, behind the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show. After a disputed finish that Ogawa seemingly won, a rematch was set for the Osaka Dome next month, this time with the IWGP title on the line. It's not known if Ogawa will win the title or not, but the original plan with Ken Shamrock was for him to win the title at the Osaka show.
- Dave says that Battlecade Extreme Fighting (the MMA promotion often confused with ECW by clueless politicians) have announced they are folding. They were pretty much a victim of the political landscape with people trying to ban the sport and with the PPV carriers declining to carry the fledgling promotions' events.
- Nitro in Philadelphia (the night after the ECW PPV) drew the 2nd largest crowd (16,256) and gate ($219,816) in WCW history and set an all-time merch record as well ($143,000). The Nitro scheduled for June in Boston is expected to break all of those records also, with early ticket sales already doing huge numbers. Aside from WCW being the hot promotion, Dave says they deserve credit for doing great local promotion in all these cities where house show business is booming. Their local promotion is handled by a company owned by Zane Bresloff and Dave says that aside from Hogan, Bresloff has been more important than just about anyone in WCW when it comes to the turn around in house show business.
- Hulk Hogan did a rare clean job to Jacques Rougeau at WCW's show in Montreal. Rougeau was the promoter of the show and was expected to be the hometown hero, but the crowd was actually split between he and Hogan. It was a non-title match and Rougeau pinned Hogan clean with a small package which sets up a return match the next time they come through Montreal. It was Hogan's first totally clean pinfall loss since losing the WWF title to Ultimate Warrior at WM6 in 1990.
- Eddie Guerrero was the winner of last year's NJPW Top of the Super Juniors tournament (as Black Tiger) but he won't be able to work it this year due to a torn pec injury.
- Jake Roberts made his first wrestling appearance since being fired from WWF, showing up in AAA to do a run-in.
- Abdullah the Butcher is scheduled for some upcoming shows for WAR in Japan and Dave notes that Abdullah, at 61 years old, is probably the oldest active wrestler in the world. I feel like that's gotta be wrong. Maybe he means full-time active? I dunno.
- Lots of behind the scenes turmoil in USWA. Mike Samples has quit as booker and will be replaced by Dutch Mantell. Word is Samples wanted to stop booking Bill Dundee because he feels Dundee, at 57, is too old. But Jerry Lawler disagreed and overruled him, which led to Samples quitting. Also, Larry Burton, the guy who has been running the business end of USWA (and has clashed with pretty much everyone in the company) is reportedly planning to leave as well (nah Burton ain't going anywhere. He sticks around to the bitter, messy end).
- The night before the ECW PPV, they held a banquet in honor of Terry Funk and everyone says it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. Funk brought his entire family in for the event and was in tears for most of it. Many ECW wrestlers and personalities gave speeches. Among the highlights was Beulah, who talked about her father being near death from cancer and then started crying and saying that she wants Funk to walk her down the aisle if she ever gets married (here's the whole thing, it's 2 and a half hours long and yeah it's a tearjerker from start to finish. Paul Heyman gives a 30 minute speech and it's as great as you'd expect).
- Dan Severn was backstage at the ECW PPV and talked with Paul Heyman about possibly coming in, likely to work an angle with Taz. Given that Severn is the NWA champion and considering ECW's history with the NWA, you can imagine how well that would go over with them. In fact, Severn was asked to drop the NWA title to Dory Funk the night before the ECW show but he refused because they asked him at the last minute. NWA is reportedly anxious to get the title off him since there are rumors of him going to either ECW or WWF.
- WCW referee Nick Patrick, Dean Malenko, Rocco Rock, and one of the members of Harlem Heat (Dave doesn't say who) showed up at the ECW Arena about half an hour before the PPV started (they were in town for the Nitro the next day). Many in the ECW dressing room were ready to go out and start a fight with them, but Heyman calmed everyone down. After the PPV ended, Kevin Sullivan, Hugh Morris, and Dave Penzer also showed up to hang out and were cordial with everyone.
- Dennis Coraluzzo ran a second Eddie Gilbert memorial show this week and drew over 1,000 fans. He managed to get Jim Cornette, Flash Funk, and Goldust from WWF along with several other big indie names and former WWF stars. A local wrestler named Lance Diamond got rave reviews for being the best wrestler on the show (that would be Simon Diamond, later of ECW and TNA fame).
- An indie show scheduled in a high school gym in Virginia was cancelled due to complaints, first by the American Arab Anti-Defamation Committee. The Iron Sheik was scheduled to work the show and they were upset about the heel character he has played on TV during his career and complained. So the indie promotion agreed to take Sheik off the show. But then another group started complaining about the midget wrestlers being a negative portrayal and wanted them removed from the show as well. Finally, the school where the show was being held just pulled the plug on the whole thing.
- Former ECW valet Kimona Wanalaya debuted in WCW in a dark match at the Nitro tapings. The match will be aired later on one of the syndicated weekend shows. She was the manager of a jobber tag team called The Extreme. No word on what her WCW name will be (seems this may have just been a one-off appearance. Far as I can tell, she never actually signed with WCW for real until 1999).
- More drama in WCW among all the usual suspects. This gets a little convoluted so bear with me: Earlier in the week, Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash, Ric Flair, and Roddy Piper got together to discuss the plans for the Slamboree main event. The face team is Flair, Piper, and Kevin Greene vs. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and......? Hogan doesn't want to work the show so it won't be him. Nash and Hall said they wanted Syxx to be their partner but Flair and Piper don't want Syxx in the match because they feel he's not a big enough name to main event a show in a match with a famous NFL player involved that will get mainstream media coverage. Kevin Nash argued that, given the "talent" in the match, Syxx would be the only one capable of actually making it a watchable match and he basically insulted Flair and Piper to their faces about their age and even called Flair a comedy act. There's also heat between Nash and Piper because Nash apparently didn't sell for Piper during their Uncensored PPV match. Basically, the old guys feel like the young guys don't respect the legends and the young guys feel like the legends don't respect the new generation. Anyway, on Nitro, Piper and Flair cut a promo vaguely alluding to all this and rambling about their history in the business and about respecting the veterans and all that. Dave says that unless you're a hardcore insider fan, most people probably can't even make sense of all the promos in WCW these days. Dave criticizes Flair and Piper and said that 2.8 million people were tuned in during that interview, but they cut that promo for 1 person: Kevin Nash, who was probably laughing through the whole thing. In fact, he says a lot of people backstage in WCW were probably laughing because it just made Flair and Piper look insecure. Anyway, they still haven't figured out who the 3rd NWO member will be in the match, so for now, they just announced it as "The NWO" instead of naming 3 people (it does end up being Syxx. So chalk one up for Nash).
- Latest on the proposed WCW Thursday night show is that it may not happen after all. There have been no arenas booked for Thursday tapings and they would have to be booked months in advance if it was going to happen. "TBS offered big money for the show, but apparently common sense may win out after all since it'll destroy the personal lives of most of the office and a lot of the wrestlers, not to mention possibly dilute the winning Monday night formula," Dave says. Yeah, common sense wins out.....for now. In his book, Eric Bischoff basically says Thunder was the beginning of the end because he didn't want to do the show but was pretty much forced to. He says it overworked him and everyone else and he hated it.
- In the WWF vs. WCW lawsuit about the hotline that has been mentioned off and on, the judge ruled that Mark Madden is a journalist and thus wasn't required to reveal his sources about...whatever it was he said on the hotline. I don't even remember anymore. Madden was also recently suspended by WCW for a week for using the phrase "Say hello to the bad guy" on the hotline, which led to WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt sending another threatening letter to WCW.
- Scott Hall is expected to return any day now after being out the last month or so dealing with personal issues.
- WCW is really trying to get Kevin Sullivan out of the ring to retire. Nearly a year ago, Eric Bischoff told Sullivan that when his feud with Chris Benoit runs its course, he's done in the ring. So Sullivan (who is the booker) has done a masterful job of keeping his storyline with Benoit going for about a year now and to give credit where it's due, it has been an extremely popular angle that has launched Benoit into a legit star. But WCW is really putting the pressure on Sullivan to wrap it up and be done in the ring now.
- A few weeks back, Paul Heyman held a meeting with the ECW locker room telling them that if anyone went to WCW's Nitro when it came to Philadelphia to not ever speak to him again because that person would be dead to Heyman. Well, the only ECW person who went to Nitro was Bill Alfonso so read into it what you may (Alfonso later denies he was there).
- Raw sucked this week and was taped from an outdoor stadium in South Africa (with a few pre-taped American arena matches included also). The main event of Crush vs. Ahmed Johnson was a worst match of the year candidate. "They did nothing and were missing everything."
- The highest ranking non-McMahon in WWF resigned this week. Neville Meyer was hired back in September and was made co-CEO (along with Linda McMahon). His vague job description was "taking the business to a new level" but nothing ever really changed with his hiring and his leaving didn't seem to cause much of a stir.
- Sid reportedly has a herniated disc in his back from a weightlifting injury, but there's a lot of skepticism. For one, it's Sid and well, it's softball season. And secondly, there's a lot of concern about people following "the Shawn Michaels lead" (aka faking an injury so they don't have to put over Bret Hart). Sid was scheduled to put over Hart at the upcoming PPV but the match has been changed to a Hart vs. Austin rematch.
- Tiger Ali Singh (son of legend Tiger Jeet Singh) debuted on WWF's Kuwait tour and won the Kutaiti Cup tournament. But word is he was really green and out of shape and so despite getting a huge push on the tour, WWF has no plans to use him in the U.S. right now.
- WWF is claiming that they haven't changed their blood policy and that Steve Austin decided to violate company policy at Wrestlemania. Nobody's really buying it though.
- As for the poor buyrate of Wrestlemania, WWF officials are blaming it on the Shawn Michaels "injury." Basically, they had spent about a year slowly building up to a Michaels/Hart rematch and then, a month before the show, Michaels lost his smile and went home, leaving the company scrambling without the marquee match they had built up to.
- The Michinoku Pro wrestlers who wrestled at the ECW PPV have a meeting scheduled with WWF this week in Connecticut.
- WWF has had no talks with Disco Inferno, despite what he is apparently telling people.
- At a TV conference in Canada, some filmmakers were shopping around plans for a documentary about Bret Hart (this would, of course, become Wrestling With Shadows and, well, it eventually becomes pretty important in the aftermath of the screwjob).
- WWF has had discussions with UFC fighters Don Frye and Scott Ferrozzo but they've led nowhere.
- A guy named Paul Guay writes in and says he was the co-writer of the movie Liar Liar and said he appreciated Dave referencing the movie in a recent issue. He says the kid who played Jim Carrey's son in the movie is a huge wrestling fan. There was a scene filmed for the movie featuring Sting and The Giant that didn't make the cut, but he describes the scene. It would have taken place early in the movie. Jim Carrey takes his son to a wrestling show but he works on legal briefings instead of enjoying the show with his son. Unfortunately the scene was cut from the movie, but the writer says Sting was super professional and The Giant was hilarious and was goofing around between takes and mooning people.