Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 06, 1997

The main story is that the new Pride promotion in Japan (which will feature Nobuhiko Takada vs. Rickson Gracie next week) has also signed UFC fighters Dan Severn and Gary Goodridge to fight on the show. This has thrown UFC's next PPV (which was to be headlined by Severn 6 days later) into chaos. UFC had met with Pride to discuss helping each other but UFC feels like Pride then turned around and stabbed them in the back. If Severn gets injured in the fight, it would destroy UFC's PPV main event 6 days before the show (and yup, that's exactly what happened. Severn got injured in the Pride fight and had to pull out of UFC). So in the event Severn is hurt, UFC is putting together a back-up plan just in case (good thing they did). Dave goes into all the reasons why Severn chose to take a major fight in Japan 6 days before a UFC title shot and whether it's a good decision or not and UFC's reaction and yada yada. But, yanno....MMA, not wrestling. So moving on.
FMW in Japan drew one of their largest crowds in company history, thanks to help from WWF and AJPW. The show drew somewhere between 40,000-50,000 people depending on who you believe. Along with all the usual FMW matches, the show also featured Ken Shamrock vs. Vader in a worked shoot-style "Ultimate Fight rules cage match." However, Shamrock is still dealing with lung issues and on a bump early in the match (when Vader powerbombed him), Shamrock began coughing up blood again. WWF representative Bruce Prichard was at ringside and immediately called for the men to finish the match because they don't want Shamrock getting hurt on a non-WWF show. So the match was stopped while doctors rushed in to check on Shamrock. Word is FMW paid WWF around $100,000 to be able to use both Shamrock and Vader on the show. Also at the event, AJPW wrestlers stole the show with Kenta Kobashi & Maunukea Mossman vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki having what many called one of the greatest wrestling matches of all time. Dave hasn't seen it so who knows if that's actually true. It was actually the second match of the day for most of those men, as they had worked an AJPW show earlier in the afternoon. (this match was never released on video so Dave never rated it but there's fan-footage of it if you want to judge for yourself).
Atsushi Onita is still claiming he is working with WWF to attempt to do one of his exploding ring bomb matches in the U.S. Onita has had this dream for more than a year, but as of yet it hasn't taken place. If it does, it will almost certainly have to be at an outdoor arena because Dave doesn't think any of the major indoor arenas that WWF runs will allow that to happen. And WWF is strongly against running outdoor arenas due to the potential weather and lighting issues.
Dave discusses some changes to the Observer Newsletter. With the industry growing and so much news coming out, it's become nearly impossible to pack everything into a 12-page issue. As it is, he's already been editing each issue down to 12 pages every week, which requires cutting necessary info. So reluctantly, Dave is increasing the weekly issues to 14-16 pages (depending on how busy the week is) which will also require a small price increase due to the extra printing and mailing costs. Which means....my work just got a little harder in recapping these. I'm going to need everyone here to pitch in and throw some additional upvotes my way.
There's rumors that Nobuhiko Takada may be dealing with some sort of stomach injury, only a week away from his big Pride fight against Rickson Gracie. But there's also speculation that he may be faking the injury in advance so that he will have an excuse if (when) Gracie kicks his ass.
Nothing much new on the USWA front. Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton have still been unable to get their video equipment, so they aired another clip show on TV this week. Several house shows were also cancelled. The Memphis TV station that airs USWA is reportedly staying out of the legal mess, but if USWA can't tape a new show within the next week or two, they're expected to just cancel wrestling on their network entirely, which would almost certainly be the final nail in the coffin for USWA (yup).
An indie MMA show in Canada was scheduled to air on Canadian PPV this week but was cancelled after a bunch of backlash from the usual people who are trying to kill the sport. Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle was scheduled to be one of the judges but now the show is cancelled so that won't be happening.
The family of Eric Kulas have pressed charges against New Jack for assault and battery and assault with a deadly weapon stemming from the Mass Transit Incident last November. But the charges have already been thrown out and it was deemed the case would be better served as a civil suit rather than with criminal charges. The Kulas family hasn't filed a civil suit against ECW yet but it's expected that they will soon. Dave doesn't know how this case will go because Kulas has made a lot of really dumb statements in the media since it happened which could hurt his case. But of course, if the tape of the incident is played in front of a jury, that might be all it takes since the footage is so horrifying.
Both Tommy Dreamer and Sandman have been unable to work recent ECW shows due to injury. Dreamer has a deep heel bruise and banged up shoulder. Sandman's back injury still hasn't healed, but they did an angle where Sabu threw fire in his face to explain why he's not wrestling and he came out with bandages on his eyes. Speaking of eyes, Sabu recently suffered a detached retina and was told he'd need surgery. But in typical Sabu fashion, he's just wearing an eyepatch until match time, then taking it off and going to wrestle anyway.
Terry Funk was inducted into the West Texas A&M school's Hall of Fame. He was a lineman for the school's football team in the 60s. Terry joins his brother Dory who was also inducted several years ago.
At a recent ECW show, Bam Bam Bigelow threw Spike Dudley into the crowd from the ring (similar to the spot he did on the last PPV) but this time, the fans picked up Spike and body surfed him around the entire arena.
The story with Justin Credible/Aldo Montoya is that he's still under WWF contract until August 98, but he's trying to get out of his deal so he can sign with ECW. So far, WWF hasn't released him but Paul Heyman is working to make it happen. WWF's concern is they don't want to have a young talent like Credible leave WWF, go to ECW and become a hot star, and then have him jump to WCW.
Bill Goldberg wrestled his second match on Nitro, getting an "upset" win over Barbarian, who looked less than pleased about having to put him over. Goldberg has potential but this match was bad.
Just to show how much of a disorganized mess WCW is lately, they have been airing ads for the next 2 months of house shows advertising the Four Horsemen vs. the NWO. But on Nitro this week, Ric Flair disbanded the Horsemen so that group is done, and now all the promotional material and plans for the next 2 months of house show main events has to be scrapped and redone.
Nitro continues to kill Raw in the ratings. In fact, this week, after Nitro went off the air, Raw's second hour numbers actually decreased. The whole idea of changing the Raw time slot was that they would have their 2nd hour unopposed, with hopes that WCW fans would switch to Raw after Nitro ended. But not only is that not happening, but Raw's normal viewers seem to be tuning out also. Meanwhile, Nitro, going head to head with both Raw and Monday Night Football, is still doing phenomenal numbers.
On Nitro a couple weeks ago, they did an angle where Scott Hall beat up referee Mark Curtis. The angle was done to write Curtis (real name Brian Hildebrand) off TV because he was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. He underwent a nearly 5 hour surgery last week in which they removed his spleen and much of his stomach. It's believed the surgery was successful in removing all of the cancer and he should be back to work as soon as he heals up (sadly, not so much. He passed away about 2 years later, but we'll get to all that).
New York Post writer Phil Mushnick wrote a column this week saying that Ted Turner should help all the children in the U.S. by cancelling WCW. He criticized the company for promoting physical abuse of women, sexual harassment, terrorism (bwah?), negative ethnic and racial stereotypes, homophobia, vandalism, graphic violence....and Dennis Rodman. Dave breaks down each of these. Abuse of women is more ECW. Sexual harassment is more WWF. Terrorism is also WWF, somehow. Racial stereotyping is definitely more WWF. Homophobia seems to be toned down across the board lately. Graphic violence is more ECW. The only thing he gives Mushnick credit on is Dennis Rodman who, yes, is more WCW than anything else.
On Raw this week, Shawn Michaels and Helmsley were basically acting like total juvenile smart-asses, which was sorta hilarious but the act seems to be getting them a lot of heat backstage. Speaking of Shawn, after the incident a few weeks ago where he stuffed a sock down his shorts and cut a promo cursing at Undertaker, he was fined by Vince McMahon.
Ahmed Johnson is injured yet again. This time, he tore a tendon and some nerves in his hand when he hit an exposed nail on a table outside the ring at a house show. He needs surgery on the hand. Johnson was supposed to face Owen Hart in the finals of the IC title tournament but that's out the window now and Faarooq took his place.
Brian Pillman had another "XXX Files" segment with Marlena with the 2 of them in bed together while she looked unhappy to be there as he made a bunch of sexual references (this turned out to be Pillman's last TV appearance).
During the main event segment on Raw, the crowd chanted "Shawn is gay!" which led to Shawn turning and kissing Hemlsley. The show was taped so they edited that off before it aired. Speaking of, Dave basically says that Shawn, Helmsley, and Chyna are the new backstage "clique" that everyone dislikes.
Don Callis will be brought in as the manager of the Truth Commission group. The former manager, a guy named The Commandant, is actually from South Africa and was having issues with his visa. Plus, they want the manager to be able to take bumps and the original manager was an older guy who was an actor with no wrestling experience. Callis has been wrestling on the indies for awhile and can take bumps.
Olympic silver medalist Matt Ghaffari has not yet signed a WWF deal, though it's expected he will soon. Same goes for Taka Michinoku.
Letters section is mostly people bitching about the NWO parody of Arn Anderson's retirement and how Anderson has more talent in his pinky than Nash has ever shown and how he deserves more respect than that and yada yada.