June 09, 1997
- WCW and WWF both have house shows scheduled in the Los Angeles area on the same night later this month. WCW is treating it like all-out war, with a card loaded more than any PPV they've had in months and are billing it as "Saturday Nitro." Hogan and Sting are even expected to work the show and they sent Flair, Sting, Bischoff, and others to Los Angeles this week to promote ticket sales. Meanwhile, WWF isn't really treating it like anything different. They've added a bikini contest with Sunny, Sable, Marlena, and Chyna but otherwise, they're just running the same house show card they've been doing. If he's healthy by then, Bret Hart may be returning that night, but otherwise, same ol' shit for WWF.
- ECW and USWA have agreed to start doing a short inter-promotional angle, with the idea that some of the footage will also be shown on WWF TV as well. On USWA TV, Jerry Lawler challenged anyone from ECW to come face him, which will likely lead to Lawler vs. Tommy Dreamer. In turn, Lawler is expected to appear in ECW at the June 7th Wrestlepalooza show.
- Dave gives a big recap of the recent UFC PPV. Tank Abbott and his gang of hangers-on were again the talk of the weekend, with them spray painting graffiti all over town, punching holes in hotel walls, and getting into a 2:30am brawl with another group of people in the hotel. It didn't matter though, because Tank Abbott got annihlated in 52 seconds by Victor Belfort in the main event. Dave also recaps all the government efforts to get the show shut down at the last minute, the court battles, etc. Also of note, former WWF wrestler Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga) got murdered by Randy Couture in 57 seconds, and Couture ended up going on to win the whole tournament.
- Great Sasuke signed a 6-month contract with WWF and is expected to become the focal point of WWF's new light heavyweight division. Sasuke was offered a 1-year contract but would only agree to do 6 months because he still runs Michinoku Pro in Japan and didn't want to be away from it for too long. He'll be debuting later this month and will face Taka Michinoku in a match that will probably be the kick-off for the new division. It's believed Sasuke will probably win the title initially and then defend it against Michinoku Pro wrestlers, along with possibly some FMW and EMLL wrestlers, and probably a few WWF guys as well. The fact that Sasuke has signed with WWF has other political ramifications. Due to pressure from WCW, New Japan had informed Michinoku Pro that if any of their wrestlers worked for WWF, NJPW would cut ties with the company. NJPW basically hit them with an ultimatum and Sasuke pretty much told them to get fucked and did it anyway. No word on whether or not NJPW is planning to hold them to that ultimatum and cut ties with Michinoku Pro.
- For the last month, WCW Nitro has been moved around due to the NBA playoffs so WWF Raw was airing unopposed. This gave WWF a month to build up angles and try to generate interest. But this week, they were back head-to-head again and despite the heavily-hyped Undertaker's secret angle and Shawn Michaels returning to the ring, once again, WCW spanked them. But Raw did see ratings increase greatly during the 2nd hour, which isn't normal and they actually beat WCW in the final 15 minute segment. So it's a small victory for WWF.
- Speaking of ratings, Dave talks about a recent newspaper article about the Monday night wars that said both WWF and WCW are still losing money on the Monday night shows, which Dave says is true. This leads Dave into a rant about how it's weird that both companies are so busy pushing their Monday night shows so hard when the real money is still in PPV and house shows. He says big angles like the return to the ring of Shawn Michaels would be better saved for PPVs where it can generate money, rather than given away on free TV just to get a small ratings bump that doesn't amount to anything. Each side is so concerned with trying to outdo the other in ratings points that they're leaving money on the table when it comes to PPV.
- Former USWA announcer Dave Brown suffered a tragic loss this weekend when his pregnant daughter Stefanie and his 9-month-old granddaughter were struck by a drunk driver and killed (I know I've talked about it before but Dave Brown is sort of a legend in this city. He's also a meteorologist and up until 2 years ago, he had been the most trusted weatherman in the city for decades. Also, I've met Dave Brown and he's just the nicest dude ever. Anyway, to this day, Brown still works to prevent drunk driving. He works with MAAD and other organizations, gives speeches at high schools, and all that stuff).
- Promo Azteca is beating both EMLL and AAA in TV ratings right now. Speaking of EMLL, Dave says that there are some huge things going on politically behind the scenes that could explode within the next week or so and totally change the face of Mexican wrestling. As of the time I'm writing this (June 22, 2017 at 4:39pm), I have no idea what it could be but maybe we'll find out (update: Sept. 8, 2017 at 10:37am.....still no idea wtf he was talking about. Never explained).
- UFC fighter Don Frye has signed on to work 4 big shows for NJPW and is hopeful that he can turn it into a WCW job. He's been photographed in Japanese magazines wearing an NWO shirt and is trying to transition to professional wrestling.
- WWF's Ken Shamrock is expected to make an appearance at an upcoming FMW stadium show in September and do a worked shoot fight against someone (it ends up being Vader, but we'll get there).
- Fake Diesel and Fake Razor are still working indies and Mexico and recently, they've been feuding against each other in USWA. The storyline is that Fake Razor has admitted that he's not the real Razor Ramon and says Vince McMahon made him do it and now he's anti-WWF. Meanwhile, Fake Diesel is trying to get him to come back to the WWF side. Also, whenever USWA does shows in Louisville, Fake Diesel has been going by the name Unabom which was the name he (Glen Jacobs) used to wrestle under when he was in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Since SMW had a big presence in Louisville, he's using that name when he works there (only a few months left of this).
- 64-year old Gypsy Joe also debuted in USWA this week, in an angle with Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee (that dude continued to wrestle until 2011, when he was 79).
- ECW is being forced to make lots of booking changes due to injuries. Stevie Richards is expected to be out 6-8 weeks with a neck injury, which first occurred in a match with Terry Funk and was aggravated a few nights later in a match with the Eliminators (yeah, Richards didn't wrestle again until 3 months later, in WCW). Perry Saturn tore his ACL in a match the next day and will likely have major surgery later this week. Saturn is still expected to show up at Wrestlepalooza and probably drop the titles and then will likely be out for around 6 months (ended up not being that long, but he also didn't wrestle again until WCW a few months later).
- Raven's final ECW match is expected to be on the Wrestlepalooza show to finally put over Tommy Dreamer, and then the plan is for him to debut 2 nights later on Nitro. He won't be returning for the August PPV. Meanwhile, Raven has been getting a lot of criticism from people who say he's been sandbagging his matches lately and not putting in much effort because he knows he's leaving.
- Speaking of the next ECW PPV, it will be called Hardcore Heaven '97 and right now it's looking like it will take place in either Cincinnati, OH (nope) or Asbury Park, NJ (nope). Heyman is negotiating with all the PPV carriers to try and make sure this one gets carried by more providers than the last one.
- Taz is now being billed as "the toughest SOB in wrestling" which Dave thought was Steve Austin's gimmick. Tsk tsk, Paul...
- Mikey Whipwreck doesn't plan to get the knee surgery that he needs because he can't afford the surgery and also can't afford to be out of work for that long. So he's going to keep working hurt.
- On Nitro, Ric Flair faced Scott Hall and Dave says that Flair worked his ass off and the crowd got into it, but the truth is, Flair has never looked older in the ring. Admittedly, he's still recovering from a long layoff due to injury, but he both looked and moved like an old man. Dave says Flair still has a lot to offer and he still draws big ratings and gets great crowd reactions, but he's at the point where they need to use him sparingly, not have him wrestle every Monday night. The match was scheduled to go 20 minutes, but Flair ran out of gas quickly and called for the finish about 12 minutes early. It screwed up the timing of the show and left Gene Okerlund and Randy Savage to improvise and stall during their interview segment, but Okerlund and Savage are experienced veterans and they pulled it off well.
- Preston Manning, an ultra-right wing conservative politician in Canada was at a rally last week when someone in the crowd gave him the NWO hang signal and said "Too sweet!" Manning returned the gesture but it was clear he had no idea what he was doing.
- WCW has a company rule now that Hogan, Piper, and Flair can't be referred to as "old" in interviews. People can still use "dinosaurs" and "fossils" when referring to Piper and Flair. But not Hogan.
- Bobby Heenan was on a radio show in San Diego last week and was asked a few interesting questions. When asked about the Wrestling Observer newsletter, Heenan responded that he'd never heard of it or read it which, I mean, c'mon. And when asked about ECW, he simply had the radio host hang up on the caller and never acknowledged the question.
- At a house show, a heckling fan got under Booker T's skin so much that he left the ring and hopped the rail but was eventually kept away from the fan and the match resumed.
- Kevin Sullivan is still out for now but he's expected to resume as booker when he returns. But others in the company like the job Terry Taylor is doing now and want to keep him as booker.
- No word on Ted Dibiase's WCW status. He missed a few weeks with the company to travel to Tel Aviv in Israel with the 700 Club but ever since he came back, he hasn't been used on TV. There's talk of maybe turning him babyface eventually. His role was initially to be the manager of the NWO but now that Eric Bischoff has taken that role for himself, no one really knows what to do with Dibiase anymore.
- Booker T is in a new 1-800-COLLECT commercial, playing a boxer.
- Nasty Boys are still with WCW but Jerry Sags has a serious neck injury and he hasn't been cleared and it's unsure if he ever will be (they never wrestled together in WCW again and in fact, Sags was basically retired for the next few years. Knobbs continued to wrestle solo, but they didn't wrestle again as a team until 2001 and since then, they have only had occasional matches).
- WWF aired another segment of the ongoing Mankind/Mick Foley interviews, acknowledging his past as Cactus Jack and even showed clips of him in ECW and his death match footage. Dave says Mankind should be an actor instead of a wrestler, given how good he is at delivering these lines and says it was a great segment.
- Sid returned and immediately jobbed to the Undertaker. Sid reportedly threw a fit about doing the job but was basically told he'd be fired if he didn't, so he begrudgingly did it.
- During the Shotgun Saturday Night tapings, Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart got the crowd so pissed off that they began throwing debris at them. The ring announcer got on the intercom and told the fans they would have to stop the show if they kept throwing stuff, which only got the fans to throw even more garbage at them. Even Vince McMahon got on the mic to plead with them to stop. After the show was held up for about 10 minutes, they finally got everyone under control and resumed the taping.
- The plan for the Undertaker angle with Paul Bearer revealing a secret has been changed and Papa Shango won't be part of it anymore. No word on what the new plan is.
- WWF is negotiating with Dan Severn to come in and hopefully work an angle with Ken Shamrock.
- A photo of Shawn Michaels wearing a WCW Outsiders t-shirt appeared in Wrestling All-Stars magazine, which is sure to please WWF. Shawn has made no secret lately about wanting to leave and go to WCW.
- Steve Austin was told by a doctor that his recent neck injury could be the start of a serious issue and recommended that he retire. Austin is getting a second opinion.
- Vader had nasal surgery this week from the shattered nose he got in the Ken Shamrock match.
- Diana Smith (Davey Boy Smith's wife/Bret Hart's sister) will be competing in the Mrs. Calgary beauty pageant next week.