January 05, 1998
- Sup. Hope everyone is having a good Rusev Day. Let's do this damn thang! Reminder, from here on out, we're going to be on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule to make it easier for me to keep these going (I'm still not quite finished writing all of 1998 yet and I like to be a year ahead). So that's the plan unless real life gets in the way.
- Antonio Inoki is expected to announce his retirement at the NJPW Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show, with his final match expected to take place in April. Inoki is 55 and would probably have to be considered the biggest wrestling star of this generation. He had the famous match with Muhammad Ali, TV shows he wrestled on in Japan did ratings that Hogan and Nitro could only dream about, he headlined the largest crowd in history (North Korea, but you know how that goes), and he's been the long time face of NJPW which at several times throughout its history has been the #1 promotion in the world. He also parlayed that fame into a successful political career. No word on who his final opponent will be. From here, Dave recaps Inoki's life and career, which is deserving of a book (Inoki mostly kept his word. He had his retirement match in 1998 and aside from 2 brief "exhibition" matches in 2000, he really did stay retired.).
- Kevin Nash was scheduled to face The Giant at Starrcade but the day before the show, WCW got word that Nash had suffered a mild heart attack. Whether it was true or not was the big question everyone was asking. There's word that it may have just been bad heartburn or indigestion (which Dave says is actually a fairly common misdiagnosis). There were a lot of rumors that Nash just didn't want to put over Giant and this was his way of getting out of it. Nash's father died of a heart attack and word is Nash is pretty paranoid about a similar fate, so he may have just overreacted to some heartburn (in his book, Bischoff kinda implies the same thing. That Nash was paranoid that he was having heart issues like his dad at about that same age, plus he suspected Nash wasn't thrilled with putting over Giant).
- Konnan also missed the show because his girlfriend had given premature birth to their baby who was born stillborn. WCW convinced Randy Savage to fill the role in the 6-man match Konnan was supposed to do but they had to change the finish to get him to agree to do it. Konnan's team was booked to lose, but Savage only agreed to work the match if he got the win. Scott Steiner was none too thrilled about it and had a major argument with Terry Taylor backstage over the decision.
- Raven also missed the show after being advertised for a match with Chris Benoit. Raven has been out for weeks with an inflamed pancreas but WCW continued to promote him for the match, hoping he'd be better by then, but he wasn't.
- Dean Malenko had also asked months ago to be allowed to miss Starrcade because his wife was due to give birth around the same time. But WCW booked him for a match and advertised him for the show anyway. Malenko told them he wasn't going to be there. But after so many advertised matches began to fall apart, WCW didn't want another no-show, so they finally worked out a deal with Malenko to work the show, but to do it, they actually chartered a private jet to pick up Malenko, bring him to the show, and then take him back home immediately. So yeah, all in all, this show was a total freakin' mess. And unbeknownst to anybody at the time, this was also the peak of WCW. It's all downhill from here for the next 3+ years.
- Dave mentions that WCW Thunder debuts this week and says if you have any good ideas for the show, email them to Eric Bischoff ASAP because he could probably use them, as there's still no real plan in place for what Thunder is going to be and how it will be handled.
- We get a break down of star ratings for 1997 vs. 1996, while acknowledging that this is just one man's opinion and there are always limitations to a rating system like this. Dave lists the top 50 or so wrestlers based on the ratings he gave their matches, breaks it down to an average, then compares it to the year before. For example, the highest rated guy in 1997 was Kenta Kobashi, who averaged a 4.38 star rating. In 1996, he averaged 4.31 so he actually improved slightly this year. Dave points out some other interesting notes: Steve Austin was averaging 3.94 for the year up until his neck injury in the match with Owen Hart. Had he not been injured, Austin would have likely finished as the best rated in-ring performer of 97 in the U.S. Marcus Bagwell has gotten a lot of votes for Most Improved in the Observer Awards, but that's because he's doing great in his heel persona as a character. His matches still suck just as much as in 1996. Benoit's average suffered a significant drop but he was also paired with a lot of weak opponents and limited storylines for most of 1997 compared to 96. Bret Hart actually improved over 1996 and he likely would have ended the year as the top rated wrestler in America for the year if the Montreal match had played out to a real finish and gotten a better rating. Shawn was in the same ballpark but just a little bit below Hart. Chris Jericho seems to be one of the most underrated guys in the business. Rey Misterio Jr. would have been near the top but his average was dragged down by his multiple matches with Prince Iaukea. Keiji Muto went from being one of the best in 1996 to one of the most inconsistent in 1997. DDP has gotten a huge push and is positioned as one of the top guys, but his matches in 97 are slightly worse than in 96 and he's just not that good in the ring on a consistent basis. Randy Savage seems slightly revitalized and 1997 was one of the better in-ring years he's had in a long time, after most people had written him off as washed up.
- AJPW's first ever Tokyo Dome show takes place in May and Giant Baba told reporters he would be interested in using WWF wrestlers on the show. As of now, there has been no discussions between Baba and Vince McMahon but it's considered likely that they will probably work out a deal (I think they end up getting Vader for the show but that's it).
- Hulk Hogan is no longer the wealthiest pro wrestler ever. That honor now resides with New Hampshire indie wrestler Jason Sanderson who just won $66 million in the New Hampshire lottery.
- The official word on the USWA lawsuit filed by Mark Selker is that Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton "conspired, colluded, aided and abetted one with the other and with others as yet not named as defendants to concoct a scheme and device by which to trick, cheat and deceive debtor by lies, tricks, misrepresentations by material omissions, conversion and other forms of theft designed to victimize persons later to become principals of and/or lenders, vendors, employees and other creditors of and to debtor into delivering to Lawler and/or Burton approximately $1,110,000." It's believed the total value of USWA was around $500,000 but Lawler and Burton managed to sell half of it to Selker for more than double that amount, allegedly by doctoring the books and lying about the financials of the company. Lawler simply claims that Selker didn't know what he was doing when he bought a wrestling company and immediately ran it into the ground.
- ECW's next PPV in March will be carried by Time Warner, which adds about 3 million more homes that can now potentially get ECW's PPV. Time Warner had previously been one of the outlets refusing to carry ECW PPVs over concerns about content. This is especially big news because Time Warner is the primary PPV carrier in New York City, where ECW also has a strong following, so this could lead to thousands more PPV buys for the company's next show. As it stands, Cablevision is the only major outlet still holding out and refusing to carry ECW.
- Stevie Richards had surgery to remove 2 vertebrae from his neck and word is he'll never have the mobility in his neck necessary to ever wrestle again so his career is most likely over (nah).
- Nicole Bass, a 6'2, 230 pound female bodybuilder showed up in ECW and powerbombed a guy. Bass has some fame from appearing on Howard Stern due to her freakish, manly physique. She's expected to be paired with Justin Credible and Jason, sorta like their own version of Chyna. The gimmick is that she will date Jason (self proclaimed "sexiest man on earth") and they will call her the sexiest woman on earth. So when Jason's making out with her, everyone will act like he's gay because she basically looks like a man and he'll be in denial and act like he doesn't see it. Anyway, there was already some heat on Bass because the second time she appeared at an ECW show and powerbombed someone else, she dropped him on his head in a dangerous way. Bass has no training so people were wondering why they had her out there in the ring doing spots without ever being trained. She's expected to start training at the ECW school this week.
- Random notes from the recent ECW show in Queens: New Jack brought out a 4 foot bong to use as a weapon and then he and Spike Dudley pretended to take bong hits in the ring. Al Snow got the biggest pop of anyone in the company and is well on his way to becoming the top babyface in ECW. He ended up in the balcony with the whole crowd chanting "Head! Head! Head!" at him.
- Sabu had to get some of his teeth wired together after the botched spot with a table a few weeks ago. But in typical Sabu fashion, he didn't take any time off and, in a match in Japan, he got hit and messed the teeth up again.
- Davey Boy Smith signed a deal with WCW after paying the WWF $150,000 to buy his way out of the remaining 32 months on his contract. He's expected to debut on the first episode of Thunder but he won't be able to wrestle for a few weeks after recently undergoing knee surgery (which also led to a staph infection in both legs). He has a torn ACL but decided against surgery for that because it would have kept him out for 6-8 months and instead had arthroscopic surgery which has a much shorter recovery time. Word is Smith had a conversation with Vince about the direction of WWF, feeling it wasn't suitable for his son Harry to watch. Vince offered him the chance to negotiate with WCW and to buy his way out of his WWF contract if he wanted to leave. Dave notes that Smith knows more about what went on backstage during the Montreal incident than nearly anyone because he was there for it every step of the way, from the finish of the match (he was waiting in gorilla to do a run-in before the Vince had them ring the bell) to the backstage fight afterward. He was reportedly so upset by it that Vince realized that if Smith was forced to stay, he was going to be miserable and unhappy and it would just be a bad situation for everyone (shame Owen wasn't given the same option).
- Notes from Nitro: Dave says they're simply killing Benoit with this terrible feud with Raven's Flock and now they seem to be pairing Benoit with McMichael which is even worse. Mortis is talented and they need to more with him. And he thinks they should break Booker T off as a singles wrestler because he's really good.
- WWF has been doing good ratings during their unopposed 2nd hour each week, and Dave thinks WCW will probably start doing more 3-hour Nitros so that Raw stops having an unopposed hour every week. In fact, it's worth noting that WWF's ratings have noticeably been up ever since Montreal. The screwjob seems to have generated interest in WWF and after more than a month, that interest is holding strong (the comeback begins...).
- Speaking of Montreal, Bret Hart recently ran into the Hebners at the airport in Charlotte. Word is Bret was cordial to Dave but not to Earl and the two men didn't speak.
- Bischoff held another meeting with the roster before Nitro last week and once again emphasized that he didn't want any low blows, lewd gestures, or swearing on Nitro. He said he wants to differentiate WCW from WWF and he believes WWF will start having sponsorship and publicity problems soon due to their new edgy product and he doesn't want WCW in that situation.
- Alex Wright was backstage at Starrcade and it looks like he'll be able to return to the ring eventually, after suffering an aneurysm a few weeks back.
- On Raw, they kept teasing something involving Mike Tyson to keep people tuned in and then at the end of the show, they announced that WWF was negotiating with Tyson to get him at Wrestlemania. Dave thinks the big money would be in doing a shoot match with Tyson vs. Shamrock but says there's 0% chance that will happen because Tyson's people wouldn't risk putting him in that situation. And a worked match would probably upset the athletic commissions and would hurt his chances of ever being unsuspended from boxing. So that pretty much just leaves a special ref role or something and Dave thinks his name won't mean much as far as generating PPV buys and it may hurt his image, which is already in tatters and his people have been trying to repair his image so they probably won't like it either. Plus it would likely get WWF some bad publicity, since Tyson is basically public enemy #1 these days (well, I think we can safely say Dave was pretty far off base on this one but he changes his tune soon enough).
- HHH is currently out of action with a dislocated knee but Dave also notes that he was supposed to drop the European title to Owen Hart on Raw this week before the injury so, yanno....make of that what you will.
- Terry Funk debuted on Raw as Chainsaw Charlie, doing the Leatherface gimmick from Japan. He helped Cactus Jack chase away the New Age Outlaws. Despite wearing a stocking over his face, the crowd immediately broke into a "Terry!" chant but the announcers never acknowledged that it was obviously Terry Funk.
- Undertaker has been getting booed in his recent confrontations with Kane, while Kane has been getting a babyface reaction. It hasn't gone unnoticed by WWF. The plan is for them to feud and then eventually team up.
- Jim Cornette is expected to lead a group of "traditional" wrestlers against the current WWF roster. The angle came about because Cornette has been legitimately complaining about the direction of WWF. At the tapings for next week's Raw, it led to Cornette bringing out NWA president Dennis Coraluzzo and NWA VP Howard Brody to talk about the history of the NWA. They also had a match to crown the NWA North American champion between Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham, but it was awful. Word is Dan Severn (the legit current NWA champion) may be involved in the angle if/when they bring him in.
- Last week it was mentioned that Crush had been released. The story had to do with an angle the week before where Kane had attacked all the members of DOA. At one point, Crush was legit injured when Kane dropped him wrong. Crush was upset about it and threw a tantrum backstage and that pretty much led to his release.
- Contrary to rumors, there are no plans for WWF to bring Sid back. He's still not healed from his neck surgery but said that when he is, he will never work in WWF again because he's still bitter over how he was fired.
- Mick Foley will likely be working as Dude Love at house shows, which allows him to work a less physically demanding style, and then he'll break out the Mankind of Cactus Jack characters at major shows and do all the crazy shit he's known for. They figure they can prolong his career a little longer this way.
- WWF returned to Canada for the first time since the Bret Hart incident for a show in Ontario. The crowd was about half of what they expected, so it was a pretty huge drop-off. Whether that can be blamed entirely on the Bret situation, who really knows but it was a sharp decline. Shawn Michaels got hit by a thrown drink and got on the mic, saying he wouldn't wrestle until the fan was thrown out (which he was).
- Letters section is all over the place, but there's at least a couple of people who think WWF is making a mistake by going in this new edgy direction and that the company is just going to keep getting worse. This is why they don't listen to us.