June 16, 1997
- Backstage fights took place in both WWF and WCW on Monday. Starting with WWF: Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart got into a backstage brawl that led to both men being pulled from that night's Raw less than an hour before the show went on the air, and both men were scheduled to play a big role in the show. Hart and Michaels have had a long ongoing feud based in professional jealousy with both men vying to be the top star of the company (which Dave says is ironic since both Steve Austin and Undertaker have pretty much become bigger stars than both Hart and Shawn in recent weeks) and it escalated a few weeks ago when Shawn believed Hart intentionally went long on his promo in order to make Shawn look stupid before the Raw went off the air. Shawn retaliated the next week with the "Sunny days" comment, which naturally caused Hart a lot of personal trouble at home, as you would expect, to the point that Bret has made it clear that he was going to attack Shawn when he got the chance, although most people didn't believe it since Bret has such a reputation as being a professional and because he's still got a hurt knee, so getting in a real fight wouldn't be wise. Prior to Raw this week, both Shawn and Bret had long meetings with Vince McMahon. At some point before the show, Hart went into Shawn's dressing room and yelled at Shawn about how his "Sunny days" comment had affected his personal life. The argument then got physical but was broken up quickly, but it seems Shawn came out the worse for wear. A few punches were thrown and a large clump of Shawn's hair was pulled out, to the point where he was apparently given a major bald spot and Michaels' face was puffed up from the punches. Hart also apparently aggravated his knee injury during the scuffle as well. Bret was on top of Michaels, punching him, when Jerry Brisco and Pat Patterson and a few other wrestlers broke up the fight. Soon after, Hart and Brisco were loudly arguing in another room for awhile until Hart left the arena at about 8:30 without ever appearing on Raw.
- Michaels was roughed up but still could have worked the show (he was scheduled to face Brian Pillman in the main event, replacing Austin who legit injured his knee the night before). But Michaels was going crazy after the fight backstage, saying he wouldn't work with anyone in the Hart Foundation group because he couldn't trust them. He eventually stormed out of the arena just before the show went on the air. As he was leaving, he was loudly telling people that he was quitting and said if he could make it to Boston in time (where Nitro was that night), he would just go there. At this point, they had to scrap the entire script for the show and put a new show together just minutes before they went on air. Mankind ended up filling in to work the match with Pillman, but he's not fully over as a babyface yet and Pillman is still working in tremendous pain and is limited, so the match fell flat. Plus, they had spent a week hyping Austin vs. Pillman, so the crowd was upset at not getting that. If Shawn won't work with the Hart Foundation members, it really screws up house show plans, since that's basically the advertised main event of everything for the next several weeks.
- On Raw, Vince McMahon acknowledged the incident, saying both Hart and Shawn had been sent home for unprofessional conduct to explain why they weren't on the show. Jim Ross acknowledged the fight on the WWF hotline and emphasized that it wasn't an angle and said Shawn had walked out of the WWF. The next day, McMahon sent out an internal memo to execs saying, "Last night in Hartford, Shawn Michaels breached his contract by refusing to perform. We are hopeful Shawn will reconsider his position and return to work. Shawn has four years to go on his five-year contract. The door is open for Shawn to return under the terms of his contract." If Shawn doesn't come back, he will likely be suspended without pay. The big question is whether or not WWF can suspend him for 4 entire years without pay, or would they continue to pay his downside guarantee to keep him away from WCW. Or could Shawn use the Bret fight and other incidents (like the time the Harris Brothers threatened him) to claim WWF is an unsafe work environment and try to get out of his contract through legal means? (Here's audio of Shawn talking about the fight from a 1999 shoot interview. Remember, this is 1999 so it's pre-Christian/still-druggie Shawn so take his version of the story with a grain of salt)
- Shawn Michaels and his father (bwah?) had a meeting with Vince McMahon several weeks ago, where Shawn asked to be released from his contract but McMahon refused. Michaels also claims he had a verbal agreement with McMahon that he would be the highest paid wrestler in the company, but then Bret signed a far more lucrative 20-year deal with WWF which upset Shawn. He's also upset because he claims McMahon once told him that if he was ever unhappy in WWF, that he would let Shawn leave. But now Shawn is unhappy, and Vince won't let him leave. McMahon did make a similar promise to Ric Flair several years ago and he did indeed keep his word and let Flair leave in 1993 to return to WCW, but times have obviously changed.
- WCW's fight took place after Nitro went off the air, following the Nitro main event which was Hall and Nash vs. Piper and Flair which was arguably one of the worst matches of the year. Piper reportedly didn't go along with what they had planned, and in turn, Nash stopped selling for him. Piper looked horrible in the match and he also called for the finish 6 minutes earlier than planned, which meant the post-match brawl to end the show "lasted literally forever." After the show, Kevin Nash went into Roddy Piper's dressing room and blamed him for their match being so terrible. He banged hard on the door and when Piper opened, they argued for a second and then Nash pie-faced him and shoved him back into the wall. In turn, Piper tried to kick Nash in his bad knee, before Ric Flair and Piper's bodyguard (yes, he has a bodyguard) separated them. Then Nash and the bodyguard almost went at it, but the bodyguard (who is much smaller) backed down. Most of the heat has fallen on Piper for not going along with the agreed plan in the match and for calling for the finish early. WCW is hoping the 4 men can be professional for just another week until the next PPV and after that, they'll be booking them in different directions and keeping everyone apart.
- Overall, Dave says a lot of this is a consequence of the Monday night wars. It's a star-driven business and now the stars have more power than they ever have before. Neither WWF or WCW wants to really punish or release their top stars because they don't want them going to the competition. It's no secret that the situation has created a cancer in both locker rooms because the biggest stars seem to be above the rules and they know it, so they break rules, go off-script on live TV, fight each other backstage, ignore the drug policies, etc. And neither promotion wants to offend their stars by punishing them because they don't want anyone to jump ship.
- In possibly the biggest angle in ECW history, Jerry Lawler debuted at the ECW Arena to thunderous heel heat, getting one of the loudest responses in company history. The angle started that morning on USWA TV, where they announced Tommy Dreamer would be coming in to face Lawler next week. They aired a taped interview where Tommy Dreamer basically cut a shoot promo, talking about the sad state of USWA these days. Then, that night, at the ECW Arena, the lights went out and when they came back on, Lawler was in the ring and helped Rob Van Dam and Sabu destroy Tommy Dreamer and several other ECW faces, including Paul Heyman himself. Many are calling it the best angle in ECW history. Lawler is scheduled to face Dreamer at the August PPV. WWF is involved in the angle as well. Two nights later, Heyman and Dreamer appeared on Raw to a huge crowd response. Van Dam also worked a match on the show and eventually, Heyman and Dreamer got into a brawl with Van Dam and Lawler. The plan for this angle is likely for it to culminate in a match at Summerslam With Van Dam & Lawler vs. Dreamer and Sandman but that might change. If the match doesn't happen at Summerslam, it may happen at the next In Your House PPV in September.
- Speaking of Nitro, other news from the show: Lex Luger beat Hogan with the torture rack, which is Hogan's first submission job since 1981 in a match with Antonio Inoki in Japan. And as previously mentioned, Hall/Nash vs. Piper/Flair was one of the worst matches of the year, in the negative star territory.
- King of the Ring is in the books and featured an interesting little bit of irony. Last year, Hunter Hearst Helmsley was booked to win the King of the Ring tournament, but due to the curtain call incident, Helmsley was punished by not even being put on the PPV and spent the next few months as a glorified jobber. This year, Helmsley was eliminated from the tournament in a prelim match a few weeks ago on Raw, but due to Vader's injury, they booked an angle to put Helmsley back into the tournament and then they ended up making the decision to have Helmsley win the whole thing. Shawn Michaels faced Steve Austin and surprisingly, Shawn got louder cheers than Austin, although both men were super over with the crowd. Both men busted their ass and it was a great match with a bad double-DQ finish that the crowd chanted "Bullshit!" at.
- The Patriot has signed a multi-year deal with WWF and is expected to debut soon, but he still got a monster push on the latest AJPW tour, which surprises Dave. Patriot also suffered a torn tricep on this tour (he works through it for a few months in WWF but he ended up aggravating it again later in the year and it ends up causing him to retire in 1998).
- Sabu and Rob Van Dam have both quit AJPW. Sabu's reason for quitting was because he was upset at being booked as a lower-card guy who was only there to put over people and finally said fuck it and abruptly quit after being told to put over Giant Kimala II in a match. Van Dam had been considering quitting for awhile anyway for the same reasons (tired of being a lower-card nobody), so he chose to just leave with Sabu. They worked the Budokan Hall show because AJPW refused to pay them in advance for it because of fear they would take the money and no-show. During their match, other AJPW wrestlers were stationed around the ring just in case Sabu and Van Dam went off-script but they didn't. This is the 5th promotion in Japan that Sabu has quit on.
- WCW is trying to negotiate a deal with EMLL, for 2 reasons. For one, they don't want WWF to have access to any of the Mexican wrestlers. WCW already has a deal with Konnan's Promo Azteca company and if they can lock up a deal with EMLL, that would only leave AAA. And everyone in the wrestling biz believes AAA is too much of a disorganized mess for anyone to really have any kind of working relationship with, which is why WWF has already severed their old deal with AAA. And secondly, WCW wants a deal with EMLL because they want to take away some of Konnan's political power. Right now, Konnan is the only outlet WCW has for Mexican wrestlers, and he can change things at any time. If WCW can get access to the Mexicans from both promotions, Konnan won't have as much leverage over WCW anymore.
- Vince McMahon filmed a taped promo for USWA TV this week, talking about how he made Fake Razor Ramon and how the guy was a nobody before Vince created him. Remember, Fake Razor and Fake Diesel are feuding in USWA over each man's WWF loyalty or some such shit.
- Bruno Sammartino was in a car accident this week that did over $15,000 worth of damage to his Mercedes. Sammartino was side-swiped by another car and suffered injuries to his back, neck, and shoulders. His doctor said if he had been in a smaller car, he'd be lucky to be alive.
- Perry Saturn's knee injury is far worse than originally though. Not only did he tear his ACL and meniscus, but he also broke the kneecap and tibia. He's scheduled to undergo major surgery this week and is expected to be out of action for a year, although Paul Heyman thinks he'll be back way sooner. Regardless, Saturn has continued working matches, although doing limited stuff. Even still, in one match, he even climbed the top rope and dropped an elbow (landing on the side of the good leg). And The Eliminators still didn't drop the tag titles this week as expected. And ending this note on the biggest burying of the lede I've ever seen, Dave casually mentions that Saturn's son died a couple of weeks ago also and then breezes right on to the next story. So yeah, he's had a rough few weeks.
- ECW has gotten their Sunshine Network TV deal in Florida back, so expect them to start running house shows there again soon.
- Other notes from last week's ECW Wrestlepalooza show: Tommy Dreamer ended up getting 20 stitches in the back of his head from a chair shot from Rob Van Dam. Terry Funk was in bad physical shape and had a pretty bad match, with a lot of people saying it was sad to watch. Stevie Richards cut a promo talking about his neck injury and how his career might be over. New Jack ran out into the crowd at one point after a heckling fan but nothing happened. But it's yet again another example of ECW having issues with wrestlers and fans getting into conflict. Taz did the job to Sabu which was Taz's first loss since Sept. of 1995, but then right after the loss, he had another impromptu match with Shane Douglas and won the TV title. Stevie Richards was originally supposed to face Douglas and win the title, but with him out due to injury, Heyman switched it to Taz.
- Madusa is putting her career on the line in a match with Akira Hokuto at the next WCW PPV and it's possible she might actually lose. There's been talk of transitioning her to a heel valet role.
- Barbarian threw a little bit of a fit last week about doing a submission job to Chris Benoit but Terry Taylor insisted because they're trying to get "tapping out" over as a thing for fans (reminder for younger fans: tapping out to signify submission hasn't always been a thing). Speaking of Taylor, everyone has been complimentary about the job he's doing as WCW booker.
- Kimberly Page will be in a PPV special called Best Built Babes Swimsuit Spectacular II. She basically just frolics around in bathing suits with other girls for awhile (couldn't find it, sorry).
- Ted Dibiase has been telling people he will be returning to WCW soon as a babyface announcer. He's been out for months now, travelling the world doing religious work.
- Turner Broadcasting has told WCW that they can't use any more words like "damn" or "ass." (Meanwhile, WWF is about to go waaaaay in the other direction).
- Notes from Raw: Hunter Hearst Helmsley cut a promo saying he should have won King of the Ring last year but said Vince McMahon's games and politics held him down. Dave says less than 1% of the viewing audience probably has a clue what he's even referencing so why do they waste time and get off track on promos like that? The average fan doesn't know about that one little thing that happened at a house show over a year ago so promos like that just confuse most fans. They started an angle where Marc Mero is upset/jealous at how Sable has been strutting around in sexy attire (that was the beginning of the angle that started Sable's launch into superstar). And they aired the final part of the Mankind interviews, which ended in Mankind attacking Jim Ross.
- Diana Smith won that beauty pageant that was mentioned last week.
- Steve Austin's neck injury has been diagnosed as severe erosion of the vertebrae. He got a second opinion from a doctor who told him he could continue to wrestle and won't need surgery but he's probably going to be in a lot of pain.
- Any plans for WWF doing an exploding ring match with Atsushi Onita have been scrapped and never really existed to begin with. It was discussed but never got past that.
- Vader's court date for the Kuwait incident is this week, but he doesn't have to go. His lawyer will be able to go and plead his case for him.
- WWF has signed a few new guys who are training with WWF trainers. One of them is a former pro football player named Darren Drozdov and they'll likely send him to USWA for a few months.
- Musician John Tesh has an interesting clause in his rider. Usually, artists have a "rider" which is a list of things the artist requests in order to do the show. Sometimes it's that the artist requests certain food or drinks in the dressing room and stuff like that. Anyway, John Tesh has a request in his rider that there always needs to be a WWF action figure in his dressing room. Tesh says he isn't a wrestling fan at all, but he put that strange request in there just to make sure that the venue is actually reading every line of the contract.