March 16, 1998
- So that was a pretty unanimous "NAY" on the info in the titles haha so we'll just chalk that experiment up as a failure and move on with the show.
- There's a ton of behind-the-scenes turmoil in WCW regarding several wrestlers and seems to stem from the Hogan/Bischoff clique butting heads with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who feel they're being held down below Hogan's level. They also weren't happy that Hogan had brought Ed Leslie into the NWO since, well, he sucks and no one other than Hogan wants him around and it waters down the group even more than it already is. There had been plans to split the NWO with Hall and Nash forming the Wolfpac group to feud with Hogan, but Hogan nixed the plans, saying it was too soon to split the NWO up. Of course, Hall and Nash saw it as Hogan not wanting to work a storyline against them and trying to keep them below him in the pecking order of WCW. Even though Hall and Nash are feuding with Sting over the WCW title, the Hogan vs. Savage angle has been clearly positioned as the top angle in the company. There have been other issues also, like Nash being vehemently against an angle where The Giant would powerbomb him on Thunder, which was Hogan's idea. Nash was eventually talked into it but he wasn't happy about it. It's gotten so bad that both Hall and Nash inquired about being released but Bischoff said they're both under contract until 2001 and he has no intention of releasing them. So even if they quit, they would be forced to sit out for 3 years until they could go back to WWF. And in the midst of all of this, Syxx (Sean Waltman) was released from WCW this week and is reportedly already in touch with WWF about returning. That's all Dave really says about it right now but we'll find out more soon.
- Hall and Nash aren't the only ones unhappy lately. Chris Benoit got into a backstage argument with DDP and Raven because he felt like they are only using him to have great matches but are making themselves the main focus of their storyline. And earlier that week, Benoit, Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko all "bumped into" Vince McMahon, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, and other WWF wrestlers at a hotel near where both companies were doing shows. Word is the WWF guys all pretty much told the WCW wrestlers that they have main event potential and were being wasted in WCW, which only confirmed how they already feel. All 3 guys still have about 2 years left on their WCW contracts. A few weeks ago, Eddie Guerrero tried to get his release but Bischoff refused and threatened to tie him up in legal red tape if he quit, which is still reportedly a sore subject for Guerrero. As for Chris Jericho, WCW is said to be really high on him right now because he's gotten over great since turning heel. But everyone else in the industry is seeing Jericho's potential now also. And finally, there's Ric Flair, who still gets some of the biggest babyface reactions in the company but he's been unhappy about how he's been used and has talked of retiring, not because he wants to stop wrestling but because he's just that unhappy in WCW.
- In even more bad news for them, the WCW/NJPW relationship appears to be all but dead at this point for about a dozen different reasons. NJPW has been doing their own version of the NWO angle but have started phasing it out in recent weeks. WCW gets a cut of all the NWO merchandise sold and are unhappy that NJPW seems to be trying to put an end to the angle. There's also issues over booking angles, since WCW wants to have a say in who gets added to the NJPW version of the NWO and haven't been happy with some of NJPW's decisions. There's also been some money issues between each side, since they pay each other to use talent. The companies had a joint bank account where they each deposited or withdrew money as agreed upon for various things. NJPW recently withdrew all their money from the account and WCW did the same. NJPW's company magazine also stopped covering WCW news and there are no WCW wrestlers booked for the next couple of months tours. NJPW was also unhappy with the wrestlers WCW were sending. When they first made the working agreement a couple of years ago, WCW was letting NJPW use guys like Benoit and Guerrero. But recently, they only send castoffs like Fake Sting and Michael Wallstreet, who NJPW aren't really interested in. And even worse, WCW reportedly offered to send some wrestlers to work AJPW's upcoming Tokyo Dome show, which didn't make NJPW very happy since AJPW is their competition. All of this has led to rumors of NJPW possibly forming a new relationship with WWF, but Dave is skeptical of that ever happening.
- In slightly better news, the WCW issues with Promo Azteca seem to have smoothed over this week, and the Mexican wrestlers will still be allowed to work shows in Mexico. Word is at least 5 of the Mexican wrestlers were planning to ask for their release or even get themselves fired to get out of their WCW contract if they couldn't work in Mexico anymore. It seems to be on a trial basis right now, as the agreement for WCW-contracted wrestlers to work in Mexico is only for the next 30 days, at which point WCW will revisit the issue (this eventually ends badly for Promo Azteca. It never really seems to get covered though. But eventually, WCW pulls all their Mexican guys and don't let them work for Promo Azteca anymore, and the company quietly goes out of business).
- The tradition of Memphis wrestling will be returning next month with a new promotion called Power Pro Wrestling which will be airing on the same channel that USWA vacated a few months ago when they went out of business. In the glory days of early Memphis wrestling, the weekly Saturday morning show on WMC-TV 5 was possibly one of the highest rated wrestling shows in the world. Randy Hales, the long-time general manager of USWA, is the 100% owner of Power Pro Wrestling. He's expected to bring in Sid Vicious and Miss Texas (formerly Jacqueline in WCW) as the top stars but no word if Jerry Lawler or Brian Christopher will be involved, thought it''s expected that they will be. But Lawler's name is still tied up in a bunch of legal mess over USWA's folding, so they're being mum about it. But you can expect lots of old USWA stars to return like PG-13 and Bill Dundee, among others. They plan to run a full schedule in all the old cities USWA was running in and possibly run monthly shows at the Mid South Coliseum again.
- WWF and WCW have Raw and Nitro booked in basically the same area on the same night next month. WWF will be at the Coliseum in Hampton, VA while Nitro will be about 30 minutes away in Norfolk at the Scope arena (wonder if anything noteworthy will happen there...). WWF pushed their on-sale date up for tickets and got a 4-day jump on WCW, and they also sent Undertaker to sign autographs for people buying tickets. This will be the first head-to-head like this since last year in Los Angeles, which WCW slightly outdrew WWF. But WCW spent more than $100,000 in advertising and ran the show at a loss just to gain that moral victory, while WWF's show ended up being profitable.
- Must be a slow week because Dave decides to look at the HOF-credentials of active wrestlers. He talks about how Sports Illustrated did it recently, where they looked at active football players and tried to determine if their career is already Hall of Fame-worthy. So Dave goes through a whole list of names and basically gives his opinion on how he'd vote if they were up for election into the WON Hall of Fame. I won't name all of them, but here's some of the interesting ones:
- Steve Austin - not yet but if he has another year or two like he's had for the last year or so, he's probably a shoe-in simply based on star-power alone
- Chris Benoit - still young, never a major draw, but arguably one of the 2 or 3 best in-ring junior heavyweights ever so he'd have to be considered
- Eric Bischoff - too soon to say. Lots of promoters have hot runs, but he'd need to be judged long-term, not based only on the last 2 years of WCW.
- Scott Hall - he's got a lot of the right credentials but has never been a world champion and has only had a few memorable matches. Has lots of charisma but as of now, Dave doesn't quite think he should go in yet
- Owen Hart - not yet but he's accomplished more at this age than Bret did at the same age so time will tell
- Curt Henning - was a great worker in the 80s and early 90s before being derailed by a back injury. But he never really broke through as a top star and ever since 1991, he's only been decent at best and that doesn't help his case
- Paul Heyman - sorta the same as Bischoff, too soon to say, but he's innovated a lot of things about the business and is responsible in a lot of ways for the current direction the WWF is going.
- Jushin Liger - even if he never wrestles another match in his life, he's already a sure thing
- Shawn Michaels - already a sure thing
- Okay, I'm going to stop because when I started typing this, I didn't realize how many names Dave goes through. He lists most of the top stars throughout the world and gives his thoughts and there's a lot. Some of it is pretty interesting in retrospect and a lot of it would lead to surefire arguments. I can only imagine the cranky butt-hurt if Dave did this with today's stars.
- Last week's Nitro main event of Sting/Savage/Giant vs. Hogan/Hall/Nash was watched by 4,188,000 homes, making it the most watched wrestling match in history on cable television. The previous record was actually set back in August by....wait for it....Eddie Guerrero vs. Steve McMichael, on a night when Raw wasn't on. But this time, they were facing competition from Raw and still broke the record. It's also interesting because WWF had heavily hyped a Mike Tyson interview during that segment but the ratings didn't really change, which doesn't bode well for Tyson as a ratings draw. In fact, the only time the Raw rating really spiked during the show was during the Steve Austin/Vince McMahon angle (as if those 2 would ever be a draw. Pffft).
- Dave off-handedly mentions that Hollywood is making a movie about Andy Kaufman. Jim Carrey will star as Kaufman and the angle with Lawler will be featured in the flick.
- Pitbull #1 and #2 both pleaded guilty to charges of selling steroids and marijuana last week. Each of them were fined $2000 and given 3 years probation. They also had to give up over $7000 they had earned from the sales. They were given lighter sentences because they had worked with authorities to help them catch larger drug suppliers (snitches get stitches!). They recently contacted WCW about coming in for a tryout but were turned down and word is ECW isn't planning to bring them back either.
- Paul Heyman was reportedly extremely upset about the promo Dennis Coraluzzo cut at an Eddie Gilbert memorial show last week where he accused Heyman of backstabbing Gilbert and stealing ECW from him.
- WCW has given notice to Steven Regal, Bobby Walker, David Taylor, and Vincent. Basically, they have 90-day rollover clauses in their contract and if WCW doesn't give them notice during that time, the contracts renew. Anyway, point being, in 90 days, all 4 of those guys are out of a job. Dave thinks it'll be interesting to see what happens with Regal because he's one of the best in the biz when he's in shape and motivated, but he's neither right now. He thinks WWF will be interested if he can get back into shape. Dave also says Regal's match with Goldberg a few weeks ago likely played a part in his release.
- Ahmed Johnson sent feelers out to WCW but word is Eric Bischoff isn't interested. Johnson had proposed an idea of a feud between himself and Goldberg. Dave can't even fathom how bad that would be.
- Goldberg has been the most over wrestler at many of WCW's recent house shows. There's currently not any Goldberg merch but WCW is working on some and it's expected to sell through the roof when it comes out.
- Rick Martel is expected to be out for around 10 months after suffering a knee injury at SuperBrawl (nope, he was only out for 5....but he immediately re-injured the knee in his first match back and then retired).
- Bret Hart wrote a column in the Calgary Sun paper responding to Vince McMahon's comments about him on Off The Record. He talked about Vince's "cold eyes" and "forked tongue darting out" and calls him a liar. In response to Vince saying that Bret's body was breaking down and that he was missing shows, Bret responded by writing, "First off, I'm not breaking down and he's lucky I didn't sue him for saying so. And even if I was, he had a contract to pay me whether I was injured or not. He implied that it's okay for his 'boy toy' to be injured but because I was being paid more I was not entitled to get hurt. He fails to mention that only three days after extensive knee surgery, I was on his crummy Raw show."
- There's a hardcore porn coming out called Nude World Order which, as it sounds, is a parody of the NWO and pro wrestling (I tried to find this for, uh, science. But couldn't find it streaming anywhere. But it exists and was released in 1998).
- Dave talks about how one-sided the WWF developmental contracts are. They're 1-year deals with a small guaranteed salary. If WWF decides they like the guy, they can renew the contract for 4 more years for the same amount. So basically, guys are potentially signing away 5 years of their career for peanuts.
- Pete Rose will be getting paid $25,000 for his appearance at Wrestlemania.
- Jeff Jarrett's wife is recovering well from breast cancer.
- And now, words of wisdom from Dave Meltzer: "Do you realize that if silicon were magnetic, that once Sable and Luna got within the gravitational pull of each other there would be no force in the universe strong enough to break them apart? And if that wasn't bad enough, do you realize that if steroids were magnetic, then WCW's Power Plant would have to be renamed Hotel California. You could check out anytime you like, but you could never leave. You know, because of the magnetic force all the guys would have on each other and they'd be stuck." Oh Dave...