February 23, 1998
- Just a heads up, no Observer Rewind on Friday. It's a work holiday for most of us here in the U.S. and I intend to still be recovering from my food coma that day. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!
- We start this week with the death of Louie Spicolli, who passed away this week from a drug overdose at age 27. He was found dead by a friend who had stayed over at his house that night and who was going to wake him up so he could catch his flight to Nitro. The friend smelled a bad odor and when he opened the door to Spicolli's room, he found him face-down on the floor with vomit everywhere and his body was already swollen and discolored. Spicolli had reportedly taken 26 Somas and washed it down with a lot of wine. His friends had been concerned about his pill usage and actually hid the bottle that night but he apparently searched the house and found it. He had built up an incredible tolerance to Somas, and often took 15 or so at a time without it affecting him and he usually took 25-30 every night to get to sleep. But on this night, the wine greatly multiplied the effects of the Somas. Sadly, most people who knew Spicolli have said they aren't entirely surprised, figured it was only a matter of time because he'd had so many close calls in the past and never stopped (I can't find it now, but I know I've seen a video online in the past that shows Spicolli when he was still in WWF and he's drugged out of his mind in a hotel hallway).
- Dave recaps Spicolli's life and career, saying he was a great high school athlete and had potential to possibly be a professional baseball pitcher, but he loved wrestling more and chose to follow that dream instead. He started as a WWF jobber and eventually was signed and took on the name Rad Radford. In 1996, while working for WWF, he overdosed on Somas (55 of them) and was found face down outside in the rain and was rushed to the hospital and was briefly clinically dead before being revived. When WWF figured out what happened, he was released. Then he went to ECW for a bit but his drug problems were too bad even for ECW and Heyman wanted to get rid of him, but Sabu always vouched for Spicolli and convinced Heyman to keep him. Eventually, Heyman learned that Spicolli had contacted both WWF and WCW and tried to broker a deal where he, Sabu, and RVD would all leave ECW at the same time and jump ship to one of the other companies. According to who you believe, Spicolli then either quit or was fired from ECW. Spicolli started with WCW last summer and soon after, he was again hospitalized for an overdose (something that reportedly happened many other times but he always survived). He tried to kick the drugs but then found out his mother was dying of cancer and he fell off the wagon. He also was stunned to find out how common drug use was in WCW and that made it much harder for him to stay clean. Ironically enough, 5 days before his death on Nitro, he had the breakout performance of his career with a comedy heel act where he did commentary and played a role in the Scott Hall/Larry Zbyszko feud and WCW was talking about doing more with him because he had impressed them so much.
- And now Dave talks at length about the drug problem in wrestling. In the 80s, it was cocaine and in the early-90s, it was steroids. Now the big drug problem is prescription pain killers and sleep aids and given the nature of the business, it's almost unavoidable that these things will be used and abused. Dave isn't sure that there's another sport or entertainment profession with a higher mortality rate than wrestling. Dave talks about the utter lack of drug testing, saying that WWF has only tested 2 wrestlers in recent months, one of which was Brian Pillman who ended up dead a few weeks later. He also says one major WWF star was recently in rehab, but he doesn't name who it is. In WCW's case, Scott Hall was very publicly in rehab last year. They tested a dozen or so undercard wrestlers after Pillman's death and several of them failed, but no one was punished. Dave laments the fact that the death of wrestlers in their prime has basically become routine and the show always just goes on and both sides mostly try to run from it or ignore the problem and hope that the next time it happens, it'll be on someone else's watch. He admits that drug testing isn't a foolproof solution, but not doing anything is even worse.
- Backstage at Nitro, the mood was said to be some sadness and surprise but mostly business as usual. Can't let the death of a prelim wrestler get in the way of a ratings war. There was also some incredibly poor judgement when they acknowledged Spicolli's death on air and Larry Zbyszko (who was feuding with Spicolli at the time of his death) basically stayed in kayfabe character and refused to say anything about Spicolli. Otherwise, WCW didn't acknowledge it beyond that.
- Shawn Michaels has been diagnosed with having 2 herniated discs in his lower back. The timing, of course, has people rolling their eyes and saying it's predictable, since he's scheduled to drop the title to Steve Austin at Wrestlemania. It comes almost a year to the day of his "lost smile" speech where he vacated the WWF title rather than do a job to Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13. Since that time, Michaels has won 2 more titles and has avoided doing every job in his path along the way. The current back injury stems from the casket match at Royal Rumble with the Undertaker, where he hit his back on the edge of the casket. Michaels was given cortisone shots and told to stay bedridden for a week, causing him to miss the No Way Out of Texas PPV. He was replaced in the main event 8-man tag match at the last minute by Savio Vega, much to the chagrin of the crowd. He couldn't even travel to the show to make an appearance. He's still expected to work Wrestlemania for now.
- WWF's No Way Out of Texas PPV is in the books. They spent the show teasing the mystery replacement for Shawn Michaels, which of course lead to a collective groan when it ended up being Savio Vega. It mostly amounted to being a good house show, but with no Michaels, Undertaker or Tyson (which they teased), it meant pretty much nothing as far as advancing storylines as we approach Wrestlemania and was about as throwaway as a show can be.
- Other notes from the show: Rocky Maivia had a superstar-level performance in his midcard 10-man tag match. They did an angle to write Vader off TV (Kane hit him with a wrench) because Vader has to get surgery. In the famous match with Stan Hansen years ago when Vader's eyeball popped out of his head, he had to have a metal plate inserted near his eye. That plate was jarred loose in an angle on TV last week and he has to have surgery again to fix it. Savio Vega was heavily booed when they revealed him as Shawn's replacement. In order to appease a crowd they knew would be disappointed, WWF changed the main event to a no-holds-barred garbage match brawl, figuring the fans would enjoy it more than a regular match.
- WWF also aired 2 new commercials for Wrestlemania which were highly misleading. Both focused almost entirely on Mike Tyson and ended with saying Tyson returns to the ring at Wrestlemania, which is obviously meant to give the impression that he will have a boxing or wrestling match there when in reality, he will only be a referee. Tyson also had another meeting with WWF officials this week to discuss future plans from now until Wrestlemania and possibly beyond.
- Johnny Ace met with Paul Heyman last week to discuss having ECW involved in AJPW's upcoming Tokyo Dome show. Heyman asked to have Shane Douglas defend the ECW title in a match against an AJPW star that Douglas would win. He suggested Hiroshi Hase, since he would have no problem doing the job and it wouldn't ruffle any feathers. Heyman also wants the rights to air the match in the U.S. The idea is that Shane Douglas would be shown defending the ECW title in front of 50,000 people against a credible Japanese opponent and winning a good match, and Heyman would then show it on ECW TV. In exchange, Heyman told Ace that he was willing to send as many ECW wrestlers that AJPW wanted and they would put over anyone AJPW wanted. All in all, it was seen as a pretty reasonable offer from Heyman but Dave is skeptical that it'll actually happen (nope, it didn't).
- As mentioned a few weeks ago, NJPW is attempting to weed out the older, over-40 wrestlers by trying to get them to retire. They offered to pay them their full 3-year contracts if they retire this year. So far, Norio Honaga, Masa Saito, and referee Pete Takahashi have accepted the offer and announced immediate retirements.
- Great Sasuke had major knee surgery this week and afterwards, doctors said he should stay out of action for 1 year, but Sasuke is telling people he plans to be back in 6 months. In the meantime, Super Delfin is running Michinoku Pro shows and they're setting up an angle saying that Delfin basically tried to steal the company while Sasuke is gone, thus setting up a storyline for his eventual return.
- WAR in Japan has pretty much released its entire roster from their contracts and will be trying to run shows now by bringing everyone in on cheaper, per-show deals. Not looking good for WAR...
- Sabu and RVD worked shows in Europe this week. Word is Sabu found out about Louie Spicolli's death just as they were leaving Germany and that he was inconsolable and in tears for most of the flight back to the U.S.
- There were rumors that Sid was going to be the replacement for Shawn Michaels in the No Way Out main event. The rumor picked up steam when Sid abruptly cancelled an appearance at an autograph show the same night as the PPV. But turns out it was never even considered and Sid's no-show at the autograph event was just Sid being Sid.
- ECW's next PPV in May will be called Wrestlepalooza and will be in Marietta, GA which is obviously right in WCW's backyard. The decision has nothing to do with WCW though. There's a major cable TV convention in the building the day after the PPV and Heyman is hoping to get some TV execs to come to the ECW PPV and try to get some meetings. Dave says this PPV would probably be a good time to avoid carving each other up and bleeding everywhere.
- Things behind the scenes in WCW are tumultuous to say the least with lots of people unhappy. Dave says it's hard enough to keep more than 100 contracted wrestlers happy even in the best circumstances. But in WCW, there's a glass ceiling and unless you're friends with the top guys like Hogan, Nash, Hall, or Savage, you have no chance of moving up. Ric Flair still hasn't signed his new WCW contract although he's almost certainly not leaving. Flair has actually brought up the idea of retiring to a couple of people and moving into a ambassador-type of role. It's not so much that Flair really wants to retire but he's frustrated because he feels like he's only being used to put over other people despite still getting the best fan-reactions in the company. He's also still better in the ring than most of WCW's top stars and cuts better promos than all of them too, but Bischoff seemingly only sees him as a guy to put over others. And Hulk Hogan also hasn't signed his latest WCW deal and he's milking that for all its worth (as he should, Dave says. It is a business after all). Hogan has used his creative control to essentially leverage the company into focusing on him more than ever. He gets more TV time than anybody (and more than he did a few months ago) and his segments are replayed throughout the shows. It's to the point now where, if Hogan leaves, it would leave a huge hole in the company. Dave says that's not accidental and Hogan pretty much politicked it to be that way. He's no dummy.
- Other midcard discontent in WCW: Eddie Guerrero went to Eric Bischoff and asked for his release but Bischoff refused and actually yelled at him, although he later apologized (this was actually a semi-famous incident because Bischoff allegedly threw his coffee at Guerrero, although Eddie later said he just knocked it off the desk by accident when he was slamming his fist on the desk while yelling. But Guerrero later referenced it in a promo when he poured coffee on himself while asking for his release in an angle. But we'll get there). Guerrero isn't the only one unhappy. Juventud Guerrera is upset about the plan for him to lose his mask against Chris Jericho at the next PPV but he agreed to do it if they played it up as a big angle and built it for a long time so it would mean something. Instead, WCW hot-shotted it and the plan is for it to happen next week, and Guerrera is pissed about it. There's a feeling that Bischoff doesn't respect Mexican wrestling traditions, as he's tried to get both Mysterio and Guerrera to unmask this year with little-to-no build up. Malenko, Guerrero and Chris Benoit are upset at the lack of upward mobility, just having the best showing every week and always getting over but never getting past midcard. They've often been told to be patient and wait their turn, but then they saw Bryan Adams (fresh off being the most boring member of DOA in WWF) debut in WCW last week and immediately get involved in the Bret Hart/Ric Flair/NWO storyline so you can imagine how well that went over. Malenko actually went to Bischoff and asked what his future was in the company and Bischoff told him that he and the others are great workers but they don't put asses in seats. Naturally, word of that got around the locker room and pissed off a lot of guys. The running joke in the locker room is that the only way to become a main eventer in WCW is to go to WWF first, let them make you a star, and then WCW will put you in the main event after they steal you back.
- When reviewing Nitro, Dave talks about Booker T and says that while he isn't the best wrestler in the company, he has a few really cool moves and shows a lot of potential as a possible headliner. He also considers the possibility that Eddie Guerrero might be a slightly better all-around wrestler than Shawn Michaels.
- Various notes from this week's Thunder: "Mortis with that mask making those faces reminded me of my dog at about the same point wanting me to switch stations after watching 400 hours of wrestling every week." They also had a Raven vs. Benoit match that ended in DQ which doesn't make sense because they just did a whole storyline where Raven would refuse to wrestle unless all his matches were no-DQ. But of course, that wasn't even referenced in this match.
- John Tenta worked a tryout match at the latest WWF tapings using his old Earthquake gimmick. He's lost a lot of weight.
- Lots of signs were confiscated at the door of the latest Raw tapings due to lewdness or just things the company didn't like, although some made it past the censors. Dave lists examples like "Rock has no cock" and "Sable 38:D" and "Bring back Bret."
- Former WCW star Jacqueline was backstage at Raw and will probably be getting a shot in WWF.
- There's been a lawsuit going on between Ultimate Warrior and WWF over the Warrior likeness. This week a judge ruled that Warrior is allowed to use the name "Warrior" and all the characteristics of the character (face paint, arm bands, etc.) in any marketing ventures. But the judge didn't make a decision on "Ultimate Warrior" so that one is still off-limits. This is part of the bigger breach of contract lawsuit between the two sides. Dave explains how there was a rumor of Warrior going to WCW last year, which led to WWF trying to get a restraining order to prevent it from happening (since they believe Warrior should still be beholden to the contract he allegedly breached) but the judge turned it down and it turns out Warrior was never going to WCW anyway and it was just an internet rumor.
- WWF is going to put together a New Midnight Express tag team as part of the ongoing NWA angle, to be managed by Jim Cornette. It will likely end up being Bob Holly and Bart Gunn, although they've discussed making it Adam Copeland and Sean Morley (luckily, it ended up being the first pair. Bombastic Bob and Bodacious Bart. But holy shit, can you imagine if that spot would have gone to Edge and Val Venis?)
- Apparently on Raw, in reference to Bill Clinton, Jerry Lawler made a joke saying, "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" (Holy shit, how did that fly under the radar? He'd be unemployed 5 minutes later if that happened now).