July 14, 1997
- Both members of ECW tag team The Pitbulls, Gary Wolfe and Anthony Durante, were arrested by federal authorities last week on 3 counts of steroid and marijuana trafficking. Both were arrested at their homes and later released on bail until their trial. It's unlikely ECW will use them until all of the legal troubles are cleared up.
- This leads Dave to go off on a rant about wrestlers in the last 6 months who have been arrested, mostly on drug charges, some on other charges. Doug Gilbert, Tommy Rich, Steve Williams, Gary Wolf, Anthony Durante, Big Dick Dudley, Vader, and Billy Travis. Plus Scott Hall checking himself into rehab and Jesse James being suspended for failing a drug test. And that's not counting all the incidents of guys showing up in no condition to work or being so drugged out that they can barely cut a promo (coughShawncough). Dave talks about how drugs in wrestling are nothing new, but it's still a big problem. In the 80s it was cocaine, downers, and steroids. Nowadays, it's painkillers, plus the gradual return of steroids. Dave basically says the entire industry needs to look at all this as warning signs of a pattern that seems to be getting worse and nip it in the bud before it's too late.
- WWF's latest In Your House PPV Canadian Stampede is in the books. Going in, it seemed like one of the least anticipated PPVs ever, but it ended up being one of the best shows in WWF history, made even better by the "bizarro world" crowd atmosphere. It's Canada. They boo who they like MAGGLE! The Hart Foundation got one of the biggest babyface responses in history and they worked the match and angles like babyfaces as well, which was surreal to see for everyone who isn't from Calgary. Basically, it was just completely strange to see these dastardly evil villains work like good guys and get a heroes welcome while Steve Austin and his team were booed out of the building. The show only had 4 matches, because WWF's roster is currently riddled with injuries but they all delivered. None of the matches got less than 3 stars. (If you've never seen this, you owe it to yourself to at least watch the main event. The sustained roar as the members of the Hart Foundation are introduced one-by-one is insane and pretty much never lets up for the whole match. It's like the Punk/Cena Chicago crowd).
- The WWF/ECW relationship seems to be falling apart and the planned ECW match has been pulled from Summerslam. It was supposed to be Jerry Lawler & Rob Van Dam vs. Sandman & Tommy Dreamer. But it all fell apart over various issues. For starters, WWF claims that Paul Heyman had agreed to co-host Shotgun Saturday Night and that's why they filmed an angle "firing" Brian Pillman from the show. Heyman said he was never asked to do the show. WWF sent him a ticket to Des Moines where the show was and when Heyman didn't show up, WWF spent the whole day trying to get ahold of him and afterwards for the rest of the week, with no success. Chris Candido was there (he still travels with Sunny a lot despite not being in the WWF anymore) and they reportedly tried to get Candido to reach Heyman also, but he couldn't either.
- Heyman's reason for not wanting to do the Shotgun hosting job were basically because of his ECW responsibilities. He doesn't want ECW to be seen as a minor league promotion that's beholden to WWF, the way USWA and SMW have done in the past. WWF was also upset over the behavior of Sabu and Rob Van Dam, where both men didn't want to put over their WWF opponents in the way it was booked. WWF sources claim Heyman was apologetic and embarrassed by their behavior when he met with Vince, but Heyman denies that and claims he had Sabu and Van Dam's backs and he didn't think his ECW main eventers should be doing jobs to WWF prelim guys either.
- To further muddy the waters, ECW announcer Joey Styles has been openly talking about suing WWF because a video they've been using shows him. WWF made a video hyping Steve Austin and showed an ECW clip where Joey Styles is interviewing Austin. WWF had ECW's permission to use the footage but Heyman claims WWF only asked permission for a certain segment of footage and they used something else instead. Given the Jesse Ventura verdict where he successfully sued WWF for a lot of money over unpaid use of his likeness, Dave thinks WWF is probably really careful about stuff like this now. He assumes they probably wouldn't be stupid enough to use footage they didn't have permission for in writing.
- 1970s Australian wrestler and promoter Larry O'Day passed away from liver cancer. We get the usual obituary, this one's a little brief, but good. He was one of the top Australian wrestlers of the era, and had a brief run in the U.S. in Florida in the early 70s.
- The WWA promotion in Puerto Rico that was run by Savio Vega has folded. Many wrestlers had jumped ship from Carlos Colon's WWC promotion and were hoping to go back after the promotion failed, but it looks like WWC won't be bringing them back. WWC is having its own financial issues at the moment.
- The Patriot has been fired by AJPW. Patroit has a torn tricep and told AJPW that he would be out of action for several months. He then went to the U.S., signed a contract with WWF, and wrestled a dark match against Rockabilly. So needless to say, AJPW fired him. There are rumors that Johnny Ace may be jumping ship from AJPW to WWF soon also (well, eventually, but in a totally different capacity. As for Patriot, he really did have a torn tricep but was trying to work through it. It eventually ended his career less than a year later).
- In similar news, Vampiro had been working for Michinoku Pro but was fired this week because he had claimed he was injured, but then they found out he was still working regularly in Mexico.
- A photo with NJPW wrestler Masa Chono and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo was on the cover of magazines throughout Japan this week, because Nomo is basically a god in Japan right now.
- There was a ton of media publicity this week about Disney's record label Hollywood Records dropping a band called Insane Clown Posse due to concerns over the musical content. The album is called The Great Milenko and one of the songs mentions Cactus Jack. They've already been signed by another label. Word is the Insane Clown Posse incorporates a lot of wrestling-related gimmicks in their look and music.
- UFC has banned the term "no holds barred" and will no longer use it in advertising and the announcers can no longer say it. The company is facing attempts on all sides to shut them down and "no holds barred" doesn't sound good when you're trying to get athletic commissions to allow your show or PPV carriers to carry it. Instead, the plan is for the events to be referred to as "mixed martial arts" from here on out.
- Since we're talking MMA, at a Vale Tudo show in Brazil, a guy named Gary Goodridge defeated a Brazilian named Pedro Otavio by squeezing his balls in the fight. At one point, he even stuck his hand down Otavio's short and grabbed his balls that way to squeeze and eventually got Otavio to submit. Well, that's one way to do it I suppose. The Brazilian crowd nearly rioted and wanted to kill Goodridge for it.
- Paul Heyman has given his side of the story about the agreement he made with Jim Cornette for his ECW debut. First off, there's no truth to the rumor that Heyman gave Cornette creative control over the angle he's working. Heyman said he'd welcome any input, but he has the final say-so. As for agreeing to apologize to Dennis Coraluzzo, Heyman says the deal was that he would allow ECW wrestlers to work for Coraluzzo as long as the deal was made through Heyman. Heyman never agreed to apologize in front of the locker room and says he was going to bring Coraluzzo to the locker room to say that it was okay to work for him but he didn't because so many in the ECW locker room still hate Coraluzzo.
- Eric Bischoff met with EMLL president Paco Alonso in Mexico last week and reportedly offered him $750,000 in exchange for letting WCW bring in 15 of their wrestlers. Alonso then went to WWF to see what they would offer but Vince McMahon told him to sign with Bischoff because he had no intention of matching that offer.
- Nancy Sullivan is definitely gone from WCW and she and Kevin Sullivan have definitely split up so the rumors were true. Kevin Sullivan is expected to return soon but he might not get all his power back since everyone has been thrilled with the job Terry Taylor has been doing as booker while Sullivan's been out.
- More WCW releases: Renegade, Lanny Poffo, Col. Rob Parker, Jerry Lynn, David Taylor, Pat Tanaka and the French Canadians. Some of these guys might still be used on a per-appearance deal or may get their contracts restructured but they have been released from their actual contracts.
- Lex Luger was on Regis & Kathy Lee last week, talking about how to get great abs. Dave suggests liposuction.
- Icon Magazine has an 8-page profile of Vince McMahon in this month's issue, written by Phillip Zabriskie. It's a sympathetic piece, with Vince talking about his life, from childhood through today and features quotes from others in the business, including some WCW names and even Dave himself. It's well-written but in typical McMahon fashion, he's full of shit about several of the things he talks about and lies throughout the interview (I looked and can't find this one online anywhere).
- On Raw, Paul Bearer continued the angle talking about Undertaker's badly disfigured brother "Cain." The crowd seemed completely disinterested and Dave says it was a lemon of a promo to go along with a real lemon of an angle.
- Shawn Michaels is expected to appear on Raw next week after finally meeting with Vince McMahon and working out their issues. Dave doesn't really elaborate any more.
- Sid has a problem with his sciatic nerve stemming from the car accident a few weeks ago. They want to do Sid vs. Vader at Summerslam but they haven't announced the match yet because they aren't sure he'll be ready by then (nope. Sid made a brief appearance on Raw that week and then never set foot in WWF again until 2012).