Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 29, 1997

The legal fight over USWA got messier and because of it, no TV show was taped or aired this week. Here's the ownership situation: an investment group from Cleveland, led by a guy named Mark Selker, owns 50% of the company. Larry Burton owns the other 50%. Selker filed a lawsuit against Burton and former owner Jerry Lawler, who sold Selker 50% of the company for $1 million. Selker is claiming fraud and is also attempting to get criminal charges filed against Burton and Lawler. Selker managed to get several USWA shows, including the TV taping, cancelled after Selker managed to get the company's editing equipment taken away so they couldn't put together a TV show. Instead they just aired clips of old USWA shows. Burton is planning to try to get a restraining order so they can get their video equipment back by next week. The Memphis TV station that airs USWA's show is reportedly unhappy about all this drama and with ratings down (since they moved the show to midnight), it looks like they're almost ready to drop USWA entirely.
In the lawsuit, Selker is asking for $1.5 million plus punitive damages from Lawler and Burton. The ownership history of USWA is as follows: for the last many years, Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett each owned 50% of the company. Last year, Lawler purchased Jarrett's half for around $250,000. Larry Burton then purchased USWA from Lawler. Then Burton went to Selker and claimed he had paid $2 million to get the company from Lawler and offered to sell 50% of the company (allegedly valued at $1 million) to Selker and a deal was made. But obviously, USWA wasn't worth anywhere near $2 million or even $1 million. From here, it gets really complicated and Dave explains it but I'm too simple-minded at math to make sense of it. But it basically looks like Lawler and Burton were fudging the numbers on the paperwork to make the company look far more valuable than it was, which is why Selker agreed to buy 50% of it and then he began investing a lot of money in the company, because he believed it to be a thriving business based on the fraudulent info. From here, Dave talks about the history of "money-marks" who invest in companies and lose their asses because they don't understand the business. (My take: it looks like Selker paid a lot of money to invest in a business he knew nothing about and without doing his homework, which is foolish. That being said, it also absolutely looks like Lawler and Burton defrauded the fuck out of this poor guy. And eventually the courts agreed because Burton ends up getting convicted for all sorts of fraud charges and goes to prison. Lawler, somehow, escapes free of the whole mess even though it sure looks like he was definitely guilty of it as well. I'm sure we'll get to all that, but this case drags on for years).
WWF ran its first ever PPV specifically for the British market last week with the One Night Only show. The show was headlined by Shawn Michaels winning the European title from British Bulldog, who dedicated the match to his sister who is suffering from bone cancer. The idea seems to be that it will build up to another UK show next year, likely in Bulldog's hometown, where he'll regain the title. Shawn also became the first ever grand slam champion by winning the belt. Dave isn't sure if it's the right move considering Shawn's behavior lately (stuffing his biker shorts on TV, cursing out Undertaker which was edited out of Raw, and although Dave doesn't explicitly mention it, the fact that Shawn is a drugged out mess right now). It's also surprising Bulldog lost since he's advertised for shows next month as European champion and because of the whole dedicated-to-dying-sister thing (yeah, there's quite the shitty Shawn story behind that one but it doesn't look like Dave knows about it yet).
Other notes from the show: The Patriot got the biggest heel heat on the show. Ken Shamrock vs. Owen Hart didn't happen because Shamrock said he had a punctured lung. In reality, he has a lung infection, which is why he was coughing up blood during his Summerslam match last month. The heat for the Bulldog/Shawn match was off the charts and by the end, fans were throwing debris at Shawn and it was said to have turned into a bit of a dangerous situation.
All Japan Women drew a surprising sellout of over 4,000 people to a show last week, but many feel like it may have been the final hurrah for the company. Many of the wrestlers who have left are reportedly planning to start their own promotions or join up with other women's promotions so it seems like the writing is on the wall for AJW (nope, they're gonna limp along for quite awhile longer).
Dave writes a brief obituary for Dick "The Bulldog" Brower, who was a heel who wrestled in the Northeast and Canada during the 60s and 70s and was one of Bruno Sammartino's regular opponents. After retiring in 1982, Brower was known as the leader of a white supremacist group and even appeared on radio commercials for the KKK. His last wrestling appearance was as a manager for Terry Funk in Joel Goodhart's TWA promotion in Philadelphia (which eventually became ECW).
Depressing ratings news for WWF. Raw aired live from Madison Square Garden this week and WWF spent weeks hyping up how it was going to be a historic show in the world's most famous arena. The result? The rating was lower than last week's taped Raw from Muncie, IN. Even more depressing for WWF, after Nitro went off the air, Raw still showed almost no growth in the ratings for the second hour, meaning everyone turned off Nitro after it was over and nobody really switched over to see the last hour of Raw. As for Nitro, ratings are still great and they're holding up strong against Monday Night Football. But there is concern because for the last few weeks, there's been a significant drop in the ratings before the main event segment. Sting hasn't been doing his weekly drop-ins from the ceiling lately, so that could be why. And the main event matches have been Curt Hennig, DDP, and Lex Luger, so maybe they aren't keeping fans engaged. Or maybe fans are just getting bored with seeing basically the same ending each week on Nitro for the last year. But either way, fans are tuning out before the end of Nitro in droves right now.
AAA has brought in a new guy named Psicosis and he has the same outfit and gimmick as the real Psicosis. This is basically similar to the La Parka thing, where Pena feels he owns the rights to the gimmick, so he made a new Psicosis. Dave expects this one to end up in court.
In a cost-cutting measure, Stan Hansen will only work 5 tours for AJPW next year instead of his usual 7. Word is Hansen is the highest paid foreigner in the company but he's no longer a main eventer and is clearly winding down his career, so they decided to cut back on him.
It was believed Riki Choshu would face Kensuke Sasaki in his retirement match at the NJPW Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show but that won't be happening now. Instead, Choshu will face Sasake in November at a Fukuoka Dome show. Sasaki is expected to win, since he's Choshu's protege and Choshu wants to put him over before he retires. By doing the match now, Choshu gets to put over Sasaki but potentially still win his retirement match on Jan. 4th, against whoever it may be.
Sid is reportedly training again. His neck is almost totally healed from the surgery but he's still having problems with his hip (they took a piece of bone from his hip for the neck surgery). He won't be medically able to wrestle again until January and he's hoping to go to WCW at that time. For now, his lawyers are still fighting WWF over his contract status, but no lawsuits have actually been filed yet. As for WCW, word is they're interested in him as long as there isn't too many complaints from the rest of the locker room (on top of the fact that, well, he nearly stabbed Arn Anderson to death, Sid is also disliked by both Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan). And even if WCW does bring him in, it will only be on a per-night deal and not a guaranteed contract due to his track record.
The latest ECW Arena show was said to be the best in a long time. With all the criticism about the company only being sloppy brawling and blood, Heyman is trying to change that by trying to have better in-ring matches.
PJ Walker, better known as Aldo Montoya in WWF, is doing a new gimmick in ECW now. He has his head shaved like Steve Austin and is using the name Justin Credible. Paul Heyman is really high on Credible and wants to get him out of his WWF contract to use him full-time for ECW. Speaking of WWF wrestlers working here, tag team Furnas and LaFon are here now also for a few weeks until they return to WWF.
ECW was expected to have some sort of presence on the MSG episode of Raw but it didn't happen. Heyman claims that WWF told him in advance about the Austin/McMahon angle (more on that in a minute) and he figured that no matter what ECW did, nobody would be talking about them because of that angle, so he decided to just not even bother. WWF's side of the story is basically Paul Heyman is lying and WWF doesn't want ECW wrestlers on Raw anymore. WWF is still willing to send him wrestlers that they aren't using, in hopes that they can re-invent themselves in ECW and then return to WWF fresh, but beyond that, WWF has no interest. The WWF source also claims Heyman basically begged WWF to let him use Furnas and LaFon.
Sabu threw a fireball at Sandman at the same show, which is interesting because it's the first time fire has been used in the ECW Arena since the famous 1995 incident where it got out of control. Heyman had vowed to never use fire again in ECW but yanno how that goes.
Finally on the show, there was a Dreamer/Beulah vs. RVD/Bill Alfonso match. Dreamer was legit injured during the match and had to be taken out and RVD left the match after. This left Beulah vs. Alfonso, which was the planned finish before the Dreamer injury anyway. During the match, Alfonso bladed and cut a vein and later needed 16 stitches. Reports say Alfonso bled more than anyone ever at the ECW Arena. He was hospitalized for blood loss but was released later that night (yeah this one's pretty famous and legend has it that this saved Fonzie's job after the Tod Gordon/WCW debacle).
ECW's next PPV is supposed to have a good bit more PPV coverage so even if the buyrate goes down from the previous PPV, it should still make a lot more money simply due to the fact that more outlets will be carrying them.
Paul Heyman did an online chat this week and said he has so much confidence in the ECW product that if any fans who attend the shows don't like what they see, they can get a refund all the way up until intermission.
Kevin Nash tore some ligaments in his knee last week and missed Nitro. Initial prognosis is that he will need surgery and will be out for about 3 months but there's pressure on him to just get the knee scoped so he can come back quicker. But for now, he's off all house shows and off of Halloween Havoc. Scott Hall will be teaming with Syxx to defend the tag titles in his absence. Speaking of Hall, he has also been complaining about a bad back and may miss some shows as well.
Rookie Bill Goldberg debuted on Nitro this week and beat Hugh Morrus. Dave says Goldberg looks "very much like Warlord slightly gassed down (not like this guy didn't look gassed up)" and says he's a former Atlanta Falcons football player. He has a lot of potential and was pretty agile for a big guy. He also got an accidental black eye during the match and walked out when Okerlund tried to interview him. They're trying a gimmick with him where no one knows anything about him and he's just sorta silent and mysterious and bad ass. Wonder if that'll get over...
Disco Inferno won the TV title and then started an angle with Jacqueline. It looks like Disco is going to have to put Jacqueline over in a match soon. His refusing to do that is what got him fired 6 months ago in the first place and WCW brought him back on the condition that he will lose a match to her.
They're doing an angle where someone within WCW is feeding info to the NWO. Bobby Heenan wants the role so it'll probably end up being him. If not, it'll likely be one of the other announcers. The plan is still for Nitro to become the NWO show after the new Thursday show starts so they'll need one of the announcers to turn and join the NWO to be the voice of their show.
There's been talk of adding Dean Malenko to the Four Horsemen as the new 4th member, but some certain top guys (basically Hall and Nash) are against it because they know they'll be feuding with the Horsemen and they don't want to have to sell for someone as small as Malenko.
Perry Saturn is expected to miss another month or two. He worked his first WCW match last week waaaaay sooner than he should have and re-aggravated his knee injury.
WCW has seriously been discussing bringing in Satoru Sayama for the cruiserweight division and Dave thinks that would be a great idea if it was still 1983.
Expect Madusa to eventually return as Eric Bischoff's bodyguard. In the meantime, she's been MIA from wrestling and is engaged to Cincinnati Bengals player Ken Blackman.
The current plan is for Hogan to drop the title to Sting at Starrcade, likely due to outside interference by Hall and Nash gone wrong, which would then lead to Hogan feuding with Hall and Nash in 1998. Of course, that can and likely will change between now and then because WCW plans tend to change by the minute lately.
Louie Spicolli was offered a 1-year contract for $85,000 by WCW.
Steve McMichael and his wife Debra are now separated in real life. Dave says they survived years together during his football career and her beauty pageant career, but it only took 1 year of pro wrestling to do the trick.
WCW announcer Chris Cruise's contract is up soon and he's almost certainly gone. Apparently he recently went to Eric Bischoff and asked if they had anything to discuss in regards to his contract and Bischoff simply said "No" and walked away.
Buddy Landel is telling people that he's going to WCW soon to be the "NWO Nature Boy." lol no.
On Raw, Brian Pillman came out with Marlena dressed in skimpy clothing and a collar around her neck which he pulled her around by and cut a promo talking about having her bent over and having sex with her and claimed he fell and broke his arm during the act.
In the big angle of the show, Vince McMahon tried to talk some sense into Austin about how he has a neck injury and they don't want him to get hurt. It led to Austin giving Vince McMahon a stunner, to a huge pop. Austin was then dragged out by police. The idea for now seems to be for Austin to work unsanctioned matches with the angle being that WWF won't sanction the matches because he's working against doctor's orders. On commentary, they sold it like Austin would definitely be fired for attacking the owner of the company. Vince sold the stunner like it killed him, but after the cameras were off, he pretty much got up and walked out without selling it (and thus the biggest storyline in the history of professional wrestling begins).
Also on Raw, Dude Love came on the screen and said he wasn't going to face Helmsley and then said Mankind was. But then Mankind came on and said he wouldn't either and then they both introduced Mick Foley as Cactus Jack (pretty historic Raw here). There were a lot of ECW chants for that one.
Jim Neidhart returned during an angle with the Hart Foundation fighting off Shawn Michaels and his group. During the angle, Neidhart hit Rick Rude a few times, which is interesting because due to his insurance policy, Rude can dish out punches and stuff but he isn't allowed to take any bumps or hits. He reportedly wasn't too happy about it afterwards. After about 3 hits from Neidhart, Rude bailed out of the ring looking noticeably pissed.
Steve Corino worked a dark match before the Raw taping and looked decent.
Don Callis has signed a WWF deal and will be starting soon.
Yokozuna is moving to Stamford, CT and is expected to return to WWF soon, as he's stil under contract (nope).
Ken Shamrock was heavily fined for missing a house show in Albuqurque last week. No word why he missed but it must not have been a great excuse since they fined him.
Missy Hyatt and Scott Putski did a porn film that aired on one of the PPV porn channels. Putski doesn't show his face in the video. There's a shower scene with both of them plus Hyatt does some stuff with other women in the video (uh...what? I've never heard of this?)
WWF has hired Basil DeVito as the COO of Titan Sports. DeVito had previously worked for the company before but left, so this is a re-hire. He's basically going to be on the same corporate level as Linda McMahon and is only behind Vince on the totem pole. (DeVito would later become the president of the XFL and he is still with WWE today).
The reason Sgt. Slaughter is the on-air commissioner is because Gorilla Monsoon has been having health problems due to diabetes complications (this is basically the start of his health deteriorating, which eventually led to his death 2 years later).
Jim Cornette made some waves with what he said on WWF's Byte This audio show on the internet. I'll just copy and paste his rant in full because holy shit it's good. Especially the line about Konnan:
"I know a lot of people saw Arn Anderson's retirement speech a few weeks ago on Nitro. That was not only one of the greatest interviews I've ever seen, but one of the classiest things I've ever seen on a wrestling program. What Arn said and the way that he said it. But what I didn't see, but I've been told by a number of people, and I've read a little bit about, is this parody of it that the NWO goofs did. I'm glad I didn't see it, because I probably would have thrown up. I heard enough about it, and knowing the people involved, I can imagine how mean spirited it was, and what a big kick they all got out of it, because we all know how funny the NWO think that they are. It wasn't an interview, because if you know these guys personally, you know they meant everything that they said and they abused their position to make little statements and little comments about people. I'm going to say this right out front. I mean every word I'm saying and I don't care who knows it. It shows how little taste and how little class that the whole promotion has to begin with to do a parody of that interview, but I'm not surprised because of the quality of human beings that are involved. As far as the whole group of them goes, Konnan couldn't draw money if you dipped him in glue and drug him through Fort Knox. Bagwell, I don't know, maybe he was just trying to keep his job. But Nash, Hall and Syxx, I guess he's named after his IQ or the number of brain cells he has left, ya know all the fans think that these guys are so cool and they're so sweet. They got the easiest jobs in the world. All they got to do is go out there and be themselves, childish, obnoxious, adolescent, smartasses with a bad case of arrested emotional development and a fixation on trying to act macho. In my opinion, Kevin Nash is one of the biggest no-talents that ever stepped in a ring in this business. He's got six moves. No ability and his one talent is that he has enough timing to cover up for some of it. He got into this business because of accidental genetics and because he had a multi-million dollar promotion push him to the moon to make him a star. Then he leaves that promotion, the WWF, after giving his word that he was staying, so he's a liar too. He's had one good match in his career, and he had to pull a guy's wooden leg off to do that. He's made his entire living out of being a backstage manipulator. As far as Scott Hall goes, Scott Hall is a good wrestler. Good's about it, but he's the best of the bunch. He had the same multi-million dollar promotional company make him a star after he'd been in this business close to ten years without putting three asses in a seat. As a human being, he's about the quality as Nash in terms of honesty and/or integrity. Which means, if they tell you the sun is going to come up tomorrow, go out and by a flashlight. You're going to need it. As far as Syxx goes, he had a job because he carries the other guys' bags and they think he's cute when he gets drunk and throws up on himself. And that's the entire reason he's employed. He has the distinction of being, in case anyone hasn't noticed, the only guy on either side of the wrestling war to have been released from a valid wrestling contract to go and join the other side, which shows how valuable he is. For these guys to go out and try to make an ass out of Arn Anderson is ridiculous. He's one of the best talents to ever work in this business. He didn't get to be a star by having a multi-million dollar promotion behind him. He did it with talent, hard work and with putting asses in seats. Not going and whining to the boss. Not acting like a movie star, but by going out and getting matches and talent over. That was what was right for business, and as a business man, you could depend on him because he was honest and took pride in what he did. There's not one of those jackasses that could launder his jockstrap, and the one thing that remains above all else in my opinion is that no matter who gets the last promo, or who gets the biggest contract, or who hangs out with the boss, they're never going to be able to change the fact that Arn Anderson was just plain better at what he did then they'll ever be on their best night, and that is non-negotiable. I'm sure Arn Anderson and Ric Flair are upset, and I wouldn't blame them if they did either one of two things, either quit or took a baseball bat to someone's kneecaps. The only reason the NWO guys are in the position that they are in right now is because Eric Bischoff, even more than being a mark for his own face and voice, is a mark for hanging out with studly guys with long hair that smoke cigars and ride Harleys, so maybe some of that can rub off on his little pansy ass frame, so he throws a billionaires money around to prove that his johnson is bigger than the guys what put their own money on the line."
Cornette later did this same rant (with a few lines changed) on Raw when they were airing his weekly shoot promos. But the original one happened on the Byte This show when it was still just an audio show. And the Raw one doesn't have the awesome Konnan diss. But here it is anyway since I can't find the original Byte This audio.