December 08, 1997
- WCW has booked Eric Bischoff vs. Larry Zbyszko at Starrcade with the winner getting control of Nitro, which is Bischoff taking a gamble by messing with the winning Monday night formula. As mentioned before, the plan is for WCW and NWO to split into separate entities, with each having their own TV shows and running their own house shows, but coming together for major events. The idea is Bischoff winning, thus giving the NWO control of Nitro, but that could change. Turns out, even though Starrcade and the new Thursday show are only a few weeks away, WCW has shockingly little figured out when it comes to future plans. WCW is doing the best business in company history so of course, it's a risk to rock the boat this much. Dave lays out the planned announce teams (Bischoff, Rick Rude, Mike Tenay for NWO Nitro. Schiovane, Heenan, Zbyszko for WCW Thunder). And in fact, speaking of the name "Thunder", that may not be happening because ESPN owns a trademark on Thunder for a motor sports TV show.
- Dave talks about how much of a risk this is, moreso than when Bischoff began Nitro. Back in 1995, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking on WWF head-to-head. Now, they're #1 and have everything to lose by trying to fix what isn't broken. Every time they have attempted to do NWO-themed programming, it's been a disaster. The NWO PPV was one of the worst PPVs ever and did a horrible buyrate. The 30-45 minute segments they've done sometimes on Nitro where the NWO takes over the show have been awful every time. Bischoff and Rude did commentary last week for 10 minutes and it was unbearble, etc. So it's a risk. Anyway, backstage, Kevin Nash has been pushing to get the Thursday show as the NWO show but no word on that.
- ECW's latest PPV November To Remember is in the books and answered a few questions: Is ECW a sustainable company that can probably have decent success on PPV? Yes. Is the company a legitimate threat to WWF or WCW? Absolutely not, Dave says. The show set all-time ECW records, drawing a sellout crowd of over 4,600 which is more than double what they've ever drawn before. It also set a gate record of over $100,000 plus another $40,000+ in merch sales, all of which are huge company records. It was a decent show but not great. There were also a ton of injuries. Tommy Rogers hurt his neck, Tommy Dreamer injured his good foot (other one was already injured) and had to be hospitalized after the show, Sandman injured his shoulder, his arm, and his ribs in his demolition derby of a match with Sabu, and Shane Douglas injured his elbow, which already needed surgery, but he made it worse. Stevie Richards made a surprise return to the company, and WWF wrestlers Al Snow, Brakkus, and Furnas & LaFon all made appearances. No Jenna Jameson or ICP. Before the PPV, Paul Heyman had negotiations with WCW about bringing in Chris Benoit. Word is they had made a deal for Benoit to work the show in exchange for Heyman not filing a lawsuit over the Raven/contract situation but for some reason, the deal fell through. Heyman also had negotiations with Dan Severn to maybe work a match with Taz but that also fell through. The Benoit thing is interesting because WWF wasn't thrilled with the idea. They feel like they give ECW free promotion and sends wrestlers to work their shows, and they don't want ECW bringing in any WCW people to be on the same show.
- Other notes from the show: Al Snow did a backstage interview talking to a mannequin head, full of insider references and jokes, referring to the Bret/Vince backstage fight. Dave thought it was hilarious but thinks it would go over a lot of people's heads, even the smarky ECW fanbase. Sabu vs. Sandman gets NEGATIVE 3.5 stars and Dave says it made the Hogan/Piper cage match look like Flair/Steamboat. Just every major spot blown, clumsy wrestling, and mindless stunts. Everyone expected Shane Douglas to get a huge hometown reaction, but he got a tepid, quiet reaction instead which shocked everyone.
- Dave reviews the latest AJPW TV show and gives the fabled DUD rating to 2 different matches. One of them is a tag match with Giant Baba and Dave says if Baba moves any slower, he'll be going in reverse. The other is a match involving Toshiaki Kawada, who has NINETEEN 5-star matches under his belt, but this one Dave says is probably the worst match of his career and earns him a DUD.
- Giant Baba turns 60 next month and was asked how long he plans to continue wrestling. He replied that he will never retire and will wrestle until the day he dies (almost. His last match was 2 months before he died and he spent those last months confined to a hospital bed with cancer).
- There's another weird gimmick in the Incredibly Strange Wrestling promotion. It's a wrestler who goes by the name HIV Kid and his gimmick is that he does run-ins and then clears the ring by openly blading himself and then chasing everyone off.
- On Nitro, referee Randy Anderson got hit in the head by a golf ball thrown by a fan and was hurting pretty badly for the rest of the night. Dave thinks WCW really needs to reign in the crowd and stop encouraging the behavior of fans throwing stuff.
- Alex Wright suffered some sort of injury or affliction after his match on Nitro 2 weeks ago. Dave doesn't have all the details but it was believed to maybe be some sort of brain aneurysm that left him blind in one eye for awhile and he was hospitalized (no idea on the details, but it must have been fairly serious. He didn't wrestle again for 6 months).
- Hogan is trying to get Yokozuna into WCW. "Remember, he still has a win he needs to get back," Dave says. But the state of New York revoked Yokozuna's wrestling license, which carries over to other states, so if they bring him in, he'd be unable to wrestle in over 20 other states, which is why WWF finally cut him loose.
- Sean Morley has had tryouts with both WWF and WCW in recent weeks. Eric Bischoff has reportedly told Morley that whatever WWF offers him, he'll match it or beat it.
- Steve Austin met with 2 more neck specialists this week. One told him that as long as he doesn't take any dangerous neck bumps, he should be fine. The other doctor still insisted that one wrong landing could result in paralysis and said he should retire. Austin is said to be a little freaked out by the diagnosis but he's still working short house show matches.
- Dan Severn had more negotiations with WWF and it looks like they want to do a Severn vs. Shamrock match at Wrestlemania. But Severn doesn't want to come in just to put over Shamrock so they offered him another storyline. Severn said he wants to get it in writing first so that's where it stands right now.
- Goldust's gimmick seems to be getting more extreme, with him now having bright pink hair, wearing a spiked bra and thongs. He has a whole S&M gimmick going on with Luna Vachon and Dave won't be surprised if they lose sponsors over it sooner or later.
- Steve Austin is scheduled to face Rocky Maivia at the PPV for the IC title and Dave says the pop for Austin as a face and heat for Rocky as a heel is incredible. Looks like those 2 guys might do okay for themselves.
- Sable will be one of the ring-card girls at Oscar de la Hoya's fight on PPV this week. Butterbean also has a fight on the undercard of the show and they may film an angle between him and Marc Mero to build for their PPV match. Also, it appears Butterbean may have more than just a one-time deal with WWF (Sable is a ring girl for the Butterbean fight, you can see her a few times here and there. Not sure if she was shown during the de la Hoya fight).
- Vince McMahon is taking himself completely off commentary for now. He's done this in the past but he always ends up returning, so who knows if it will stick. For now, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler will handle announcing duties.
- At a house show in Cleveland, after the main event, Shawn Michaels got on the mic to rile up the crowd and said he heard that the fans in Cleveland have the worst aim. You can imagine how that went. One fan at ringside was hit with something and hurt but luckily that's all.
- Stevie Richards had a meeting with WWF and at the ECW show last week, he was telling people that they had offered him a spot in DX, but he turned it down. WWF sources confirm that Richards was offered a great spot in WWF, but didn't confirm if it was a role in DX (if this story is true and Richards actually turned it down, holy shit what a bad decision).
- Latest updates on the Montreal Screwjob: Bret Hart will appear on TSN's Off The Record show this week to address the issue. It's also been confirmed that both Earl and Dave Hebner were aware of the plans well in advance, contrary to rumors that Earl found out just before going to the ring. That means Earl had plenty of time to warn Bret if he'd chosen to, but he obviously decided against it. Earl had all his gear packed and ready to go and Dave Hebner was in the car waiting to drive Earl away as soon as it happened. Also, while it was believed Pat Patterson must have known because he suggested the sharpshooter spot, it looks like he may have actually not known. Reportedly, Vince came up with the sharpshooter spot and told Patterson to pass the word on, but he didn't know the real plans. So who really knows. For what it's worth, the idea that Bret refused to drop the title and that McMahon was in the right seems to be gaining traction in the locker room. It's one of those repeat-a-lie-long-enough-and-it-becomes-the-truth situations, with several people in the locker room being fed the propaganda from Vince's side, and obviously Bret isn't around anymore to defend himself. But a lot of people in the WWF locker room are reportedly turning on Bret and choosing to believe Vince's side of the story now.
- Shawn Michaels did an interview with a Charleston newspaper and was quoted saying the following about Bret Hart: "At one time Bret was a fantastic wrestler. But I've been in the ring with a lot of people. He ranks up there with exceptionally average. His brother Owen is ten times the talent he is. The man's very different. He sees the wrestling business very differently. He really believes he's a hero in Canada. We all love the feeling you get when you have the adulation of the fans, but you have to learn to control that. This is the wrestling business. This isn't real life. My God. Get a grip. I've never had a problem with Bret Hart. He mostly had a problem with me. There's nothing I can really do about that. I'm just having fun and trying to be entertaining and controversial. Bret is from the old school, which is fine, but obviously it doesn't mix. He takes it much more seriously than I do. You should be able to have fun at your job. I don't take things that seriously. I didn't even have a problem when he attacked me in the dressing room. I just defended myself and that was it, I left. The situation got out of hand. At that time I needed to stay away--my good old fake knee injury. Bret was harboring a lot of bitter, bitter feelings that were really his problems. He's the guy who has to work through them. Not us. The world should know this was not Bret Hart leaving, this was Vince McMahon asking him to leave. He simply didn't feel Bret was giving what he was getting. He was always late. He only did personal appearances in Canada when he felt like it. As WWF champion, I did everything. The Undertaker still does everything. Steve Austin does everything. There's a lot of legwork that comes with working in the WWF. Bret didn't want to do any of it. It wasn't convenient for him. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted but he wasn't willing to give."
- Letters section is more of the same: all about Montreal. Most people still saying fuck Vince, I'm never watching again, etc. But there does seem to be a quietly growing contingent of people who are also in the "Bret should have just done what he was told" camp. The backlash on Bret is slowly building.