Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 24, 1997

In the spirit of the Monday Night Wars, it's only fitting that yesterday's post was the highest rated Observer Rewind in history.* Anyway, I'm glad everyone enjoyed it and thanks for all the compliments and gold and whatnot.
^**Not* counting* the* ^first* Southpaw ^Regional ^Wrestling* Observer ^Rewind which is like an Elseworlds version of this series and shouldn't count.
Once again, a HUGE chunk of the issue is devoted to the recent Montreal incident. A lot of questions have been raised about why Vince wanted to get Bret out of his contract and has people wondering about the financial stability of WWF. There have been rumors that they're trying to make the bottom line look better so they can go public and become a publicly traded company and having an expensive 20-year albatross hanging around the company's neck isn't a good look for that. There's also been rumors of wanting to sell a percentage of the company to outsiders, which would bring in new money but let Vince McMahon retain majority interest. But Dave has talked to 4 different high level execs at WWF this week and they've all said there's no truth to any of those rumors. In an AOL chat this week, McMahon addressed the question, saying "Yes, one day the WWF might go public but there are no current plans for that to happen." Reportedly, WWF has been operating in the red for the last 4 years and when Hart signed his 20-year contract last year, they were losing about $135,000 per week. However, recently, WWF has turned the corner and is finally operating in the black. Which means that even with Bret's huge contract, WWF's financial situation has gotten better since Bret signed his contract, not worse. Which begs the question: why did Vince want to let Bret go? Dave starts crunching numbers, looking at company revenue, percentages, etc. to determine if Bret was actually generating enough money for the company that he was worth what he was being paid. And the answer is a definitive yes.
So there had to be other reasons. Other top stars (Shawn, in particular of course) weren't happy about making so much less than Bret and it put Vince in a position of possibly having to pay more to keep guys like Undertaker or Steve Austin. And one WWF official told Dave that McMahon knew it was inevitable that either Bret or Shawn would eventually have to go and suggested that when Shawn walked out of the company a few months ago, he might have demanded Bret Hart be forced out as a condition of returning. With Hart being 40 years old and on the downswing of his career, with a big contract with 19 years left on it...and Shawn, only 32, with a more reasonable contract, Vince's decision might have been obvious. Dave talks about all the ways WWF tried to get Bret to restructure his contract, all of which Bret turned down.
On Raw this week, Vince McMahon gave an interview about the situation and implied Bret was unprofessional because he refused to drop the title in the ring and honor the tradition of jobbing on your way out. Dave thinks Vince McMahon talking about honoring traditions is laughable. That said, Dave does point out several occasions recently at house shows where Bret either refused to do a job or had a match finish changed against guys like Helmsley and even Austin. He did refuse to put over Shawn in Montreal, but was willing to do the job any time afterward as long as it wasn't in Canada. And if Vince insisted Bret lose the title in Montreal, why did it have to be Shawn? Dave points out the laundry list of Shawn's recent bad behavior, refusal to do jobs, faking injuries to get out of dropping titles, etc (this is part 1 of the infamous "Bret screwed Bret" interview).
Dave talks in detail about what the agreed upon plan had been, how the match was supposed to end, and then what would have happened the next night on Raw (Bret doing an interview with Jim Ross admitting he was leaving WWF) and staying around through the Dec. 7th PPV where Bret would lose the title to Shawn in a 4-way match without ever actually being pinned. That part was Eric Bischoff's decision. Bret's WCW contract starts on Dec. 1st and in order to let him work the WWF's Dec. 7th PPV, Bischoff had insisted Bret not be jobbed out. As you would expect, Vince wasn't thrilled that his most hated enemy Bischoff was in a position to have decision-making power over the WWF title and Dave thinks this might have been the reason Vince decided to go with the screwjob. There was also concern that Bret would show up on Nitro the night after the PPV with the belt, which obviously would have been a violation of his contract and Dave says that simply wasn't going to happen and he doesn't think that's the reason. Vince didn't like the idea of letting Bret cut a promo talking about leaving WWF either because he didn't want Bret putting over the move to WCW on his show. Also, Dave points out that they first approached Bret about restructuring his contract before he even won the title. So why WWF didn't get the belt off of him before it got this far (or why they even put it on him at Summerslam in the first place) makes no sense.
The question remains, how many people were involved? It's in WWF's best interest to keep the number low because the whole locker room already lost trust in Vince. If they lose trust in all the agents and producers too, it would be bad news. Dave says Vince, Jerry Brisco, and Earl Hebner definitely knew. Shawn Michaels almost certainly knew, even though he denies it. Pat Patterson likely knew, since he suggested the sharpshooter finish. The sound guy had to know, since Shawn's music was cued up to play immediately (even though the show was scheduled to end with Bret's music playing). Dave thinks the production crew had to know, since they immediately took the cameras off Bret for the rest of the show, plus they abruptly ended the show 7 minutes earlier than planned.
As for the backstage fight, Dave has talked to 4 witnesses and their stories are all basically the same: Bret laid out Vince with one hellacious punch that reportedly caused Vince to have blurry vision for a week after, a concussion, and a nasty black eye. Davey Boy Smith's lawyer has faxed a letter to McMahon, saying he injured his knee breaking up the fight and may need surgery (Smith reportedly pulled Shane McMahon off of Bret). People close to Vince are telling a different story, basically that Vince let Bret punch him and that if it had been a fair fight instead of a sucker punch, Vince would have won and that Bret backed down from Shane. Basically, immature machismo bullshit from Vince to try and save face after Bret bruised his eye and his ego. Vince even went on TV during his interview and implied that if it happened again, he'd wouldn't let Bret punch him and that the fight would have ended differently. Dave says both men were wrong for letting it escalate to a fight because they're both grown men and this is a business, not a schoolyard. "The end result was two 9-year-olds fighting and the one who got a black eye going on TV and crying about it" and that it's turning into a "my daddy can beat up your daddy" argument on the playground.
Many wrestlers talked of boycotting Raw (including D-generation X member Rick Rude but more on him in a moment) but when they spoke to Bret, he told them not to breach their contracts and go to work for their families. Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart were both wanting to leave the company but Vince has made it clear that he's not letting either out of their contracts, which both have about 4 years left. Smith hasn't been in contact with WWF at all. Owen worked one house show before having multiple meetings with Vince in Stamford and wanted an apology but Vince wouldn't give it and has now gone on TV blaming Bret. WWF is basically giving Owen a few weeks off but after that, they expect both he and Smith back at work and both guys are seemingly trapped.
All the pre-match hype worked. Word is the Survivor Series buyrate is the highest since the first Hart/Michaels WM12 match over a year ago. Bad news is that Canada seems to be responsible for a big chunk of that and if you subtract the Canadian buyrate numbers, the show did poorly in the U.S. This is bad news for WWF, since they just gave their top Canadian draw to their competition.
Dave recaps Vince McMahon's Raw interview, with the famous "Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart" line and everything else he said, basically burying Hart and even subtly threatening to file charges against Bret for the punch. Bret responded by basically shrugging off the interview and saying Vince is a liar (I should point out that Dave has a lot of direct quotes from Bret in here, meaning Bret was clearly talking to Dave in the immediate days after this happened. Bret had openly talked about disliking "dirtsheet" writers back then, but he later admitted that he went to Dave with his side of the story because he knew he could trust him to tell it truthfully). Bret says he will never work with Vince, Jerry Brisco, or Pat Patterson ever again, saying he has too much pride and that it would be like selling out his ethics to work with them again. Bret's ready to put this whole thing behind him and start a new chapter of his career in WCW.
Over in WCW, Rick Rude debuted on Nitro to everyone's surprise. Raw this week was taped and Rude appeared on Raw with a beard while also being clean shaven on a live Nitro at the same time. Bischoff introduced Rude as the newest NWO member who was a member of DX 24 hours before. Rude's first comments when Bischoff handed him the mic were, "Shawn Michaels never beat Bret Hart. Vince McMahon told the referee to ring the bell and rob Bret Hart of the title." Rude had been furious at Vince over the Bret situation but this WCW deal had been in the works for months because Rude was never under WWF contract. He was only working on nightly deal. Rude and WCW had to work out their legal issues because there was still bad blood between the 2 sides over his 1994 lawsuit, so they've been working on getting all that settled. But any thought that Rude jumped ship to WCW on the spur of the moment over the Screwjob is incorrect, because he had been talking to WCW for months.
To no one's surprise, WCW once again broke their all-time gate record with first day sales for the Starrcade PPV which will feature Hogan vs. Sting in the main event. They sold over 11,000 tickets on the first day and the show is basically guaranteed to sell out 6 weeks in advance.
A couple of new women's promotions have started up in Japan, rising from the remnants of all the wrestlers who quit All Japan Women recently. The most notable one is a promotion called Arsion, formed by Aja Kong that will start running shows in February.
Founding member of the Fabulous Freebirds, Buddy Roberts, was diagnosed with throat cancer last year. He's had some surgeries and now has a hole in his trachea. It's believed the cancer stems from smoking cigarettes (Roberts ended up living until 2012).
The latest on the Dan Severn/Dory Funk situation mentioned last week was that Dory was upset with Severn because Severn had refused to drop the NWA title to him a few months back. So they ended up working an indie show and after the show, words were exchanged and Dory challenged Severn to get in the ring and settle it. Severn didn't want to, but there were still 30 or 40 people hanging around after the show and he basically felt coerced by Dory and the booker to prove himself, so he eventually got in the ring. It went about like you'd expect, with Severn having his way with Dory until finally just saying fuck it and walking out of the building without showering and grumbling that he didn't like the wrestling business.
Time Warner put out an explanation for why they are refusing to carry MMA shows. When someone pointed out that it's less dangerous than boxing, they responded that boxing is a sport that has been sanctioned at the amateur, Olympic, and professional levels for decades, while MMA has been banned in several states and thus they don't feel comfortable carrying it. When someone asked them about not carrying ECW PPVs, they gave a similar answer about extreme fighting and promoting violence, which shows that the cable companies still have ECW wrestling confused with shoot-fighting.
ECW has a PPV next week so it's possible they may have some sort of presence on this week's Raw episode to promote it. If it doesn't happen, it won't be due to a lack of trying from ECW.
Speaking of ECW, Dave says it's obvious that Tommy Dreamer needs to take time off. He's been working injured (bad shoulder and some sort of heel injury in his foot) and it's almost sad to watch him right now, but he's considered a leader in the company and he's trying not to miss any dates. But Dave says your health is more important and Dreamer needs to take time and heal.
On the latest ECW TV show, there was a Justin Credible vs. Chris Chetti match. On commentary, Joey Styles was selling it huge, saying that in 5 years, those 2 guys will be main eventing PPVs. Dave says who knows, maybe Styles will have the last laugh on that in 2002, but as it is, that comment got a lot of laughs from everyone else in ECW. Despite his big push, Justin Credible still just comes across as a prelim wrestler. His spinning tombstone finisher is cool though.
Sean Morley got a tryout at the WCW Nitro tapings (later Val Venis in WWF).
Penthouse magazine is reportedly doing a story on WCW. Because you read it for the articles.
The new TBS show is going to simply be called WCW Thunder. They dropped the "Thursday Thunder" name because the show may be moved to Wednesdays when baseball season starts.
Stevie Richards, who just quit WCW, is telling people he's getting out of the wrestling business completely.
WCW referee Mark Curtis is currently undergoing chemo and radiation for his cancer.
Mike Tenay is helping WCW produce a video on the best of Brian Pillman in WCW, which they will release with all proceeds going to Pillman's family (don't think that ever materialized).
The idea for a round robin-style cruiserweight tournament has already been scrapped. Many of the undercard wrestlers who would have been in it are pretty pissed that it got cancelled.
Steve Everett, who plays football for the Philadelphia Eagles, was shown on camera on Nitro in the front row with a few other Eagles players. After Nitro, as he was leaing the arena, Everett was pulled over and arrested for DWI and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The plan is for Nitro to become the NWO show and it will likely result in the NWO splitting up into 2 factions. Hogan's original NWO vs. the Wolfpac NWO (probably led by Nash). Meanwhile, the new Thursday show will be the WCW show, with all the normal WCW guys feuding with each other. And then, they would all come together on PPVs and have interpromotional matches.
With Bret Hart now headed to WCW, Bruce Hart is talking about restarting Stampede Wrestling in Calgary and trying to build an affliation with WCW and use it as a developmental promotion. Because of course Bruce Hart is trying to worm his way into this.
In a dark match at last week's Raw taping, indie wrestler Adam Copeland beat Christian Cage. Copeland is a 23-year-old who has worked indies as Sexton Hardcastle and is said to have a great look. His opponent Christian Cage also works indies and the 2 have reportedly been working together for years.
On Raw, they showed Sable wearing sunglasses and when they came off, she had a black eye. They are implying that her husband Marc Mero hit her, but in reality the black eye is legit but it came from being kicked by a horse recently.
I just love this sentence because it sums up the Attitude Era so perfectly: "Vader was supposed to wrestle Goldust, who showed up wearing panty hose, said he was injured, and hit Vader on the head with a hammer."
Despite Eric Bischoff claiming that WWF is having trouble with advertisers, WWF has denied it and said they've had no negative feedback at all from advertisers since the company began going in a more adult direction. Of course, they've gotten plenty of flack from Phil Mushnick. Dave says that Vince McMahon recently called up Mushnick and berated him over the phone for his coverage of WWF. I'm sure that'll help.
WWF filmed new "WWF Attitude" commercials that are starting to air and Dave says the one he saw was great. Bret Hart had been a big focus of the commercials, so they recently had Ken Shamrock come into film stuff with him to replace Bret's parts in the commercials.
Dan Severn was recently in Stamford working out a deal with WWF and will probably be in soon. Both Severn and Ken Shamrock have roles in an upcoming episode of the CBS show Nash Bridges but they won't appear together.
Letters section is, of course, mostly about the screwjob. Some people saying WWF will never get another dime from them and they will never watch again. Other people saying Vince is the boss and Bret should have done what he was told to do. Basically, the same argument that goes on to this day. Also, lot of people writing into praise Dave. Between the Fritz Von Erich obituary, the Brian Pillman obituary, and the Montreal Screwjob writeup, people are basically telling Dave he's writing the best stuff of his career. Having read all this up to this point...I agree.