May 19, 1997
- In August, WWF's Monday Night Raw is expected to change time slots, moving up an hour later from 9pm-11pm (EST). The decision was made by USA because they're shuffling around time slots of a lot of the network's TV shows. The later time slot should allow WWF to be a little more risque than they have been, although word is WWF didn't have any say in the decision and didn't really want to make the change. This story is just breaking so that's basically the only news Dave has on it as of now. There's no word if WCW plans to move Nitro but Dave doubts it. He has heard WCW is considering expanding Nitro to 3 hours, with the idea that the first 2 hours would air on TNT and the last hour would air on TBS. Turner wants a wrestling show on TBS because of how successful it's been on TNT. Initially, there had been discussions of adding a new show on Thursday nights, but if they do a 3 hour show on Monday night and split it between the 2 channels instead, it would give them a highly rated prime time wrestling show on both channels without the costs of running an extra live taping each week.
- WWF's latest In Your House PPV called Cold Day In Hell is in the books and the biggest question was how Ken Shamrock would do in his in-ring debut. The answer turned out to be pretty good. He and Vader had a stiff, nearly UWF-style worked shoot match and Shamrock showed a lot of potential as a wrestler. It was surprising how good Shamrock was but Dave also says Vader was probably the best person for him to face because he's a veteran with experience in working the Japanese-style worked shoot matches and he walked Shamrock through it. Dave then relates it to the story of the infamous Tom Magee/Bret Hart match from the 80s, where Magee was a rookie who had the look and athleticism to be a top star and was carried to a great match by Bret Hart. Afterwards, everyone was proclaiming Magee as the next Hulk Hogan, but then he was exposed by everyone else he got in the ring with and eventually washed out of the business entirely. The point being, first impressions are great and all, but what comes after it is what really matters.
- Other notes from the PPV: Dave basically says WWF has a great feud on top (Austin vs. Hart Foundation) but it's getting overexposed and they have pretty much nothing else interesting going on. The WWF roster depth is lacking. Both Vince McMahon and Jim Cornette missed the show due to personal reasons. A close family friend of the McMahon family named Rose Anderson (who the McMahon kids always called Aunt Rose) passed away the night before, so Vince missed the show for that. And Jim Cornette missed it because his girlfriend was hospitalized for what they thought was appendicitis but turned out to be less serious. Flash Funk lost his match against Hunter Hearst Helmsley and then had to take a bump where Chyna picked him up. Word is Funk was less than thrilled about doing the job and about having to let Chyna beat him up after. Mankind beat Rocky Maivia in a boring match that the crowd didn't care for, other than they occasionally booed Rocky (imagine going to the bathroom or concessions during a Foley/Rock match).
- Dave covers the death of roller derby star Joan Weston. Dave occasionally mentions roller derby, which I guess is basically sorta like wrestling on skates. But this is the most I've ever seen him write about it. He talks about the history of roller derby and how it was promoted in much the same way as wrestling and was really popular in the 60s and 70s.
- Jake Roberts no-showed 2 dates in AAA. Dave says you can't really know who to blame here. Jake obviously has a pretty bad track record these days, but AAA is such a disorganized mess that it's also not uncommon for guys to not even know when and where they're booked so things like this happen. Anyway, Jake was scheduled to team with Fake Razor and Fake Diesel who, for whatever reason, are still working in AAA using those gimmicks.
- The Patriot is expected to be starting with WWF in June or July (yup), likely under a different name (nope).
- Atsushi Onita has been telling people about his recent meeting with Vince McMahon, saying that a couple of FMW wrestlers will be wrestling in WWF soon and that he's trying to put together one of his usual exploding ring matches to air on a WWF PPV. Meanwhile, FMW will be helping WWF promote a tour in Japan later this year and there are discussions of doing a big interpromotional show with WWF, FMW, ECW, Michinoku Pro, and Pancrase.
- Ultimate Warrior is reportedly booked for an indie show next week, but Dave calls bullshit on it. It's a tiny company in a building that only holds 800 people. Since Warrior always demands ridiculous money to work indie shows, Dave ain't buying it (yeah, doesn't look like that ever happened. Far as I can tell, Warrior didn't wrestle again until 98 in WCW).
- Funny note when discussing UFC, Dave refers to the UFC ring announcer Bruce "My brother is famous" Buffer.
- Rick Rude is doing a gimmick in ECW where basically everything he says is a double-entendre and it's been hilarious. Rude said he'd been hungry and talked about eating the red snapper at Francine's restaurant.
- They did an angle at the most recent ECW show where Rob Van Dam and Paul Heyman argued, which is to set up a deal where RVD is expected to appear on Raw this week, to continue playing up his gimmick of wanting to leave ECW to work Monday nights for one of the big companies.
- Lots of conflicting stories on the future of Stevie Richards. He split from the BWO at the recent show and word is he's still negotiating a contract with ECW and has at least signed a letter of intent to stay and negotiate. No word if he has any other offers. Several other ECW wrestlers have received offers from WCW, but all are pretty much locked into ECW contracts.
- Eric Bischoff had a meeting with all the wrestlers before Nitro and announced that Kevin Sullivan is taking a 4-8 week hiatus as booker due to burnout and other personal issues (losing his wife to Benoit, I assume) but insisted it was just a break and that Sullivan isn't being replaced as booker. Sullivan recently cut a promo on the Saturday night show talking about having a shoot fight with Benoit in a bar (which happened back in January in New Orleans and the general public that doesn't read newsletters obviously had no clue what Sullivan was talking about) and talked about how Nancy is still family to him. Overall, it was just sorta weird. In the meantime, Bischoff, JJ Dillon, and Terry Taylor will be doing the booking. During the meeting, Bischoff also talked about how the stories of backstage dissension coming out in the dirtsheets was hurting the company. Dave says Bischoff shouldn't be worried about the stories leaking out and should worry about fixing the problems.
- WCW asked Kevin Greene to turn heel and turn on Flair and Piper at their upcoming PPV match in Charlotte, but he turned it down since he's pretty beloved in Charlotte (he plays for the Carolina Panthers).
- Let's just quote this one in full: "On the 4/19 TBS Saturday show, for some reason there was no commentary during an entire Jeff Jarrett vs. Scotty Riggs match. People were saying it was the best announced match on Saturday in months." Oh Dave, you cheeky bastard.
- Akira Hokuto won the WCW women's title at Starrcade a few months ago but after Hokuto left the country recently, WCW did a phantom angle where they announced Madusa was the champion. Problem is, no one told Madusa and when she showed up at Nitro last week and they were talking about her being champion, she had no clue what they were talking about. As for Hokuto, when reports in Japan asked her about losing the title, she also didn't know because no one told her either.
- At the latest WCW tapings, a new guy named Bill Goldberg debuted. He's a former football player and showed a lot of potential considering it was his first match.
- WCW jobber Big Al (formerly 911 in ECW) is upset and has been complaining about doing nothing but jobs since he arrived in WCW because he was a crowd favorite in ECW.
- Hulk Hogan will be starring in a TV movie for TNT called Assault on Devil's Island, which also stars Carl Weathers and Shannon Tweed. It's expected to air in October.
- In Japan last week, after the Osaka Dome show and at a bar after a lot of drinks, Eric Bischofff and NJPW referee Tiger Hattori made a bet with each other that Hattori couldn't take Bischoff down. Hattori is 10-years older than Bischoff and smaller but he was a great amateur wrestler back in the 70s. Bischoff, of course, practices martial arts. Anyway, they cleared all the tables out of the way and went for it and...Bischoff won the bet. Hattori couldn't take him down.
- Curt Hennig is expected to start with WCW in June. There are still some legal issues to work out with his WWF contract and WWF is alleging contract tampering on WCW's part. WWF also claims Hennig is still under contract (which should have expired by now) because a few months ago, Hennig no-showed a PPV and WWF suspended him. Their claim is that due to his suspension, his contract was frozen until he returns from suspension. Dave hasn't seen the contract but judging what he knows about other WWF contracts, he doesn't see this holding up. WCW apparently doesn't either because they're planning to bring him in next month regardless.
- Notes from the latest Raw: Dave says the Austin/Hart storyline is overexposed and that while Austin has great delivery, his promos on Bret are getting repetative, and Hart's anti-American promos are running on too long and starting to sound like an only slightly more articulate Iron Sheik. The show ended with Bret Hart calling out Shawn Michaels and then insulting him. But Bret's promo ran on too long and the show went off the air before the climax of the angle, which was Shawn Michaels superkicking Hart (this ends up being an issue between them because Shawn felt like Bret intentionally ran long so that the show would end with Bret talking down to Shawn while he just stood there taking it). Ivan Scott Putski debuted and didn't get over. Paul Bearer vowed to reveal a secret about Undertaker (hmmm). And they aired the second part of the Goldust interview which wasn't as good as the first.
- Rob Van Dam debuted on Raw, doing a squash match against a jobber named Jeff Hardy. RVD also cut a promo before the match running down ECW and calling himself Mr. Monday Night. The goal is to build RVD as a an outsider heel for ECW. Heyman was at the taping to make sure everything went right. There were people in the front row chanting "You sold out!" at RVD which Dave thinks is funny: fans, at a WWF show, telling a guy he sold out because they think he's joined WWF. Oh, speaking of Hardys as jobbers, Leif Cassidy won a similar squash match against Matt Hardy on the same show.
- Speaking of Leif Cassidy, he gave notice to WWF that he wants to leave when his contract is up in July. In reality, it was mostly just an attempt to leverage WWF to do something with him. They have discussed a gimmick where he would wear a luchador mask and do a gimmick as The World's Greatest Mexican Wrestler (holy shit, Al Snow almost did the El Generico gimmick first!). Cassidy doesn't have a guaranteed contract and he's only working occasional shows, so he's not making much money and is frustrated, as you'd imagine. That being said, as great as he was on the indies, Dave says he hasn't been that impressive since arriving in WWF.
- Mankind's still negotiating a new contract with WWF and word is he plans to stay. He still has a lawsuit against WCW stemming from the ear injury so that leaves ECW and FMW as his only real options and they don't pay nearly as well. So don't expect him to go anywhere.
- The Goldust interviews have led to rumors of Dusty Rhodes going to WWF, but he still has a year left on his WCW contract so it's not happening.
- Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon were originally planning to do an anti-American gimmick where they diss American fans and praise fans in other countries, but then Bret Hart did it instead. There has been talk of adding them to the Hart Foundation, similar to the way Brian Pillman is loosely affliated with the group but not entirely a member but no word if it's going to happen (nah).
- Rene Goulet, George Steele, and Jay Strongbow are all still with the company as agents but they haven't been booked for any shows lately. Ring announcer Lance Wright and wrestlers Bill Dunn and Barry Horowitz have been released.