Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 15, 1997

ECW founder Tod Gordon has split from the company this week amid a ton of controversy. Reportedly it stems from Gordon attempting to get several ECW wrestlers to jump ship with him to WCW, where the plan was to create a new outsiders-type angle with ECW talent. Dave says WCW booker Terry Taylor reportedly offered Shane Douglas a $300,00-per-year deal after speaking with Tod Gordon. And allegedly WCW had Raven contact Tommy Dreamer and tell him he could get $200,000 per year. Several other wrestlers reportedly told Heyman that Tod Gordon had approached them about going to WCW. None of them have accepted any WCW deals as of press time. It also appears that Bill Alfonso was somehow involved in this as well, and his future with ECW looks bleak.
As for the plan to create an ECW faction in WCW, Dave is skeptical. He can't imagine that Hogan, Nash, and Hall would allow a group of wrestlers with no mainstream name value to come into WCW and do an invasion angle while their NWO angle is still going on. WCW sources claim Gordon approached WCW with the idea of bringing in a few ECW guys who Gordon would manage, but WCW didn't think he'd be a good manager and nixed it. Dave thinks the plan must not have gotten too far along and that WCW's offers must not have been too serious, otherwise some of the ECW guys (who don't make that much) surely would have taken the big money to go work for WCW. Needless to say, ECW is claiming contract tampering on WCW's part and is once again making noise about lawsuits, just like he did with Raven, but so far nothing has been filed. Heyman also informed WWF of the situation because WWF has had a similar lawsuit against WCW over Hall and Nash. If both WWF and ECW can work together to prove a pattern of behavior with WCW tampering with contracts, it would look good for their lawsuit.
Publicly, Paul Heyman has only said it's a business split and isn't saying anything negative about Gordon, but behind the scenes is a different story. On the ECW Hotline, there was a story about a mole within the company attempting to steal wrestlers for WCW. Heyman has also been scrambling to cover aspects of the business that Gordon used to handle, such as booking the ECW Arena. Gordon has refused to comment on the situation at all when asked but has reportedly seemed somewhat pleased that he's coming off as a heel among ECW fans, as if he thinks it's all an angle when it's definitely not. From here, Dave recaps the history of ECW, how it was founded by Gordon after he took over Joel Goodhart's Tri-State Wrestling Alliance promotion and how it was on the verge of folding before it was taken over by Paul Heyman, who basically saved it through sheer brilliance.
WWF's Ground Zero PPV is in the books and was pretty much nothing special. Brian Pillman beat Goldust meaning he gets to have Marlena for 30 days. On commentary, they talked about Pillman and Marlena having a relationship in the past and Dave says there's some truth to that (also, a long running rumor that Pillman and Tom Zenk tag-teamed her or something). Scott Putski was injured in his match with Brian Christopher and reportedly suffered what's thought to be a torn quad and had surgery the next day. The injury caused the match to end early. The Savio/Faarooq/Crush match was one of the worst of the year. Austin gave Jim Ross a stunner and Ross was supposed to do a stretcher job, but they forgot to bring the stretcher back after Putski had to be legitimately carried out on it so he ended up being helped out by Sgt. Slaughter. Dave also notes that Vince McMahon seemed really tired on commentary. The Patriot was given a WWF title shot but was basically buried (lost by submission and then destroyed by Bret after the match). Shawn Michaels worked his ass off in the first ever match he's had with Undertaker, but the match was an overbooked mess.
Dave talks some more about the fallout of the NWO parody of Arn Anderson's retirement and basically says the same thing as last week. Most of the stuff was planned, but the Horsemen were supposed to run out afterwards and beat down the NWO but that got nixed. And apparently some of Nash's jokes about Anderson's drinking were apparently too far for some people. And then Flair refused to come out later in the night and cut a promo because he was so pissed. The heat between the Horsemen crew and NWO crew was said to be so severe that people were legitimately worried that something dangerous or bad might happen, and a lot of people still remember the Sid/Anderson scissors fight. Some people also think it might be an elaborate work being pulled on everyone backstage (ala Pillman). Dave thinks it's possible because Flair wasn't punished for refusing to go on TV at Nitro, and house show main events have also been changed to NWO/Horsemen and if there was really that much heat there (like Bret and Shawn), then one would think WCW would try to keep them apart, not make them work with each other in the ring. So if the heat is real, it must not be that bad.
This week, Nitro more than doubled Raw's rating, which is the biggest gap between the 2 shows ever. In fact, even the REPLAY of Nitro later that night did a higher rating than the live final hour of Raw (less than a year later, WWF would regain the lead and never look back. Crazy how things can change so fast).
More bad news for All Japan Women, as 3 of their wrestlers just quit the company due to not being paid in months, and word is at least 6 more of their stars are close to walking as well. Things aren't looking good for this promotion.
Still turmoil behind the scenes in USWA, with no one really seeming to be sure who owns the company anymore or where the money is coming from. No one seems to be getting paid, but a lot of money was spent on cosmetic changes to make the TV show look better. Most of the wrestlers make anywhere from $40-to-$100 per show, but the company hasn't held any shows in over a week so no one's making any money right now. Tommy Rich has reportedly left the company, claiming they shorted him $10 dollars after a show a couple of weeks ago.
Former WCW jobber Hard Body Harrison worked a USWA show and came out to the ring with 2 women (I only mention this because Harrison was later arrested and sent to prison for basically keeping women hostage in his home and running a prostitution ring with them).
At the latest Ian Rotten IWA show in Louisville, Dennis Coraluzzo made an appearance and cut an interesting promo. First he accused Ian Rotten of trying to sexually molest his son. Then he made fun of the recent death of Princess Diana, saying that if she hadn't been giving a blowjob to an Arab in the backseat of her car instead of wearing her seatbelt, she might still be alive. Well....okay then.
Bruno Sammartino is filming a commercial for Social Security direct deposits soon.
Some notes on the Insane Clown Posse rap group that did an angle at the ECW PPV: The rappers are from Detroit and met at a WWF show 10 years ago. Their album Great Milenko has gotten a lot of publicity due to being banned by Disney-owned Hollywood Records but Dave says none of the media outlets have picked up on the "Milenko" title being a misspelled reference to Boris Malenko. The rappers have also wrestled on Michigan-area indie shows using the names Hector Hatchet and Sewer Dweller.
Jerry Lynn debuted for ECW, losing matches to Chris Candido and PJ Walker (Aldo Montoya). Word is the Lynn/Walker match was great. Walker is expected to get a big push soon.
Perry Saturn debuted in WCW against Billy Kidman in a dark match at Nitro. Saturn is still favoring his knee, but considering the severity of the injury, it's a miracle he's even wrestling at all. Saturn has been telling people he left ECW because he didn't want to team with Kronus anymore and that even if Kronus comes to WCW, he won't reform the team. He also said he left because WWF and WCW are the only 2 places to make real money in the business. Saturn's contract is for $100,000 per year for 3 years but there's a clause in the contract that if his knee gives out again in the first 90 days, WCW can cancel the deal. (Saturn only wrestled 2 or 3 matches during that first couple of months before eventually easing back into a full time schedule. But sounds like he probably never really let his knee heal the way he should have).
On Nitro, they did an angle where a mannequin dressed like Sting was lowered from the ceiling but dropped too fast and fell to the floor. They acted like he had fallen from the ceiling and wasn't breathing and brought a stretcher out and all that stuff, before finally revealing it was a mannequin that Hogan then beat up. Little awkward in retrospect now, knowing what happens to Owen in a year and a half...
During a Psicosis/Dean Malenko match on Nitro, a fan jumped the rail and got into the ring, but was brought down by the referee, which led to the announcers making fun of the fan.
The Giant was on an internet chat recently saying he was going to debut a moonsault in his house show matches against Kevin Nash, but that got scrapped because Nash refused to be the guinea pig for Giant trying to do a new move like that.
Curt Hennig will be turning on the Horsemen to join the NWO at the end of the Fall Brawl PPV.
Rick Martel signed a 2-year contract with WCW and will be starting soon (eventually suffered some injuries in 98 that end his career).
Eric Bischoff has been in discussions with Turner execs to bring new programming to TBS and TNT after all the success he's had with wrestling. It's still in the early preliminary stages of discussion, but there have been talks of bringing back Roller Derby and also working with the Japanese K-1 kickboxing promotion on an American expansion.
WWF's next PPV wil be called Badd Blood and will feature Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker in a match called Hell In A Cell, which is a cage with a roof on top. Dave lists a few other scheduled matches and one of them is Brian Pillman vs. Dude Love in a falls count anywhere match but sadly, that one won't be happening.
On Raw this week, Austin gave Sgt. Slaughter a stunner and then teased going after Vince McMahon. Austin has been telling everyone he feels fine and he's obviously well enough to do angles like this, so they're just waiting until he's medically cleared before allowing him back in the ring to have matches.
WWF is trying to get Taka Michinoku to sign a 5-year contract and move to New York and learn English. Also, in an effort to build up better relations with Japanese media, WWF is allowing magazine photographers at ringside again. WWF banned them back in 1984 after starting his own WWF magazine but they're trying to get on good terms with the Japanese media because Vince wants WWF to run a show in the Tokyo Dome in the next year or two.
Lots of people in WWF are upset about Sid being fired after his injuries suffered in a serious car accident a few months back. If a wrestler is unable to perform, WWF has always had the right to release them with 90 days notice, but they've never really exercised that option before until now. The fear is that with money being tight these days, people are afraid to get injured because they worry the company might release them rather than wait on them to heal and bring them back.
There's also people upset about Hunter Hearst Helmsley's recent push because everyone believes it's only due to his friendship with Shawn Michaels because even with Chyna and his mega push, Helmsley isn't remotely over right now. But he's still getting pushed hard, which has led to some resentment.
People are also upset about the drug testing situation. WWF had scrapped testing but then quietly brought it back, but not on a regular basis. Mostly just when they have a suspicion about someone, then they test them. But there's fear that the testing may become widespread again, which means everyone would have to give up smoking pot and all their other vices. Speaking of, testing was brought back a few weeks ago due to a wrestler passing out on a plane. It's been confirmed now that the wrestler was Hawk from LOD, but he ended up being okay. But the situation was scary enough that WWF decided to bring back limited testing.
Shawn Michaels was sent to England and Germany for a promotional tour to plug the upcoming PPV, but due to the death of Princess Diana, they cancelled the England part of it, since it would have gotten no coverage at all due to the 24/7 nonstop Diana coverage.
Olympic silver medal wrestler Matt Ghaffari met with WWF this week and hasn't signed but it's believed to be a good bet that he will (nope).
The debut of "Cain" will take place at the Badd Blood PPV. The idea is they won't have a match immediately because Undertaker will refuse until he's basically forced to fight him.
If the USWA ownership deal falls through, it's thought that WWF may take over the company and use it as a developmental territory. WWF's deal with ECW is similar, in that WWF will send contracted wrestlers that they aren't using to work in ECW (such as Al Snow and Aldo Montoya) to get repackaged and try out new characters.
The deal with Rick Rude in WWF is that he can hit people but can't really take any moves from anyone mostly due to his WCW lawsuit which was settled after Rude claimed his in-ring career was over due to neck and back injuries. So he won't be wrestling or taking any bumps.
The Brian Pillman/Marlena angle where she is Pillman's sex slave for 30 days is expected to end with her turning heel. She'll act like she's miserable for the whole time, but after the 30 days is up, she'll turn on Goldust and stay with Pillman (in case you were ever wondering how that was supposed to end, now we know).
In a similar angle, WWF wants to split Marc Mero and Sable, but Mero is resisting it because he's not comfortable with doing a split with his real-life wife on TV.