April 27, 1998
- The situation with Ric Flair and WCW over Flair no-showing a live Thunder taping is still the main topic of discussion. In a meeting with the roster before Nitro last week, Bischoff buried Flair, calling him a bullshit artist and liar, and said Flair is done with WCW and that he will make an example of him and even vowed to sue him into bankruptcy for breaching his contract. As of now though, Flair has not actually been fired by WCW. Flair has made no secret that he's interested in going to WWF, especially since they have no strong opponents for Steve Austin right now and Flair could probably slide right into the title picture immediately and WWF is equally as interested in getting Flair since he continues to be one of WCW's strongest ratings draws no matter how many times they try to bury him. Any rumors that this was a worked-shoot angle were dispelled when WCW filed a very real $2 million lawsuit against Flair this week for breach of contract for no-showing Thunder, Nitro, Saturday Night taping, and a house show and claiming that Flair not showing up destroyed a planned angle (the new 4 Horsemen stable) that cost WCW significant loss of time and money. Dave thinks filing a $2 million lawsuit is pretty harsh, especially considering how many other wrestlers often no-show events but Bischoff did say he was going to set an example. As for Flair, he still claims he informed WCW well in advance that he would be missing the shows and that the time off had been approved. Others in the company have verified that Flair had indeed talked about attending his son's wrestling tournament weeks ago. On Nitro this week, Flair wasn't mentioned and the cameramen were instructed to try to avoid showing any Flair signs in the crowd. Dave says Flair and Bischoff haven't liked each other for a long time, although no one seems to really know an exact reason for the animosity.
- Many in WCW still believe it's all a work, lawsuit notwithstanding, for multiple reasons. For starters, during the meeting where Bischoff buried Flair, he actually encouraged the wrestlers to contact both Dave and Wade Keller (mentioning them by name) because he said he wanted his side of the story out there. Secondly, Arn Anderson was in the room during all this and didn't come to Flair's defense, which some were surprised by but Dave points out that Anderson has a family also and probably didn't want to risk his job by speaking up in defense of his best friend. Thirdly, just the simple fact that Bischoff would openly bury an employee over a contract situation to the extent that he did was seen as so unprofessional and vindictive that people are having a hard time believing Bischoff would do that. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time Bischoff has behaved like that, and Dave points out how he fired Sean Waltman for seemingly no other reason than to stick it to Hall and Nash and says Bischoff is disliked by most of the wrestlers. And finally, so many people in the business believe EVERYTHING is a work. Dave talks about people he knows in the industry who still believe the Montreal Screwjob was a work, UFC is a work, they even think the NFL and NBA are works. That's just how some people are and in these days of worked shoots and Monday night wars, it makes people even more paranoid that everything is a work.
- After having their 83-week ratings winning streak broken last week, WCW retaliated with a hot Nitro that saw 2 title changes: Hogan winning the WCW title from Savage one day after he won it, and Goldberg capturing the US title from Raven one day after he won it. Dave talks about how the business is moving faster than ever and fans are switching back and forth between the two shows and the heat is on to try and keep viewers from switching back to the competition, thus hotshot angles and title changes. Yet again, the ratings for the two shows broke records, which seems to happen every week now as the audience keeps increasing and the business keeps getting hotter. It seems like every week, a record number of people are watching pro wrestling in America and the numbers keep going up.
- Nitro also firmly established that Goldberg is a big money player. He's been receiving the biggest pops in the company for weeks but his matches haven't budged ratings until now. This was the first time Goldberg was positioned in a heavily promoted title match and boy, did he deliver. Ratings for the Goldberg match crushed the Raw ratings during the same quarter-hour. Plus Goldberg's merch is doing crazy numbers as well. Dave says that the obvious big money match now would be the undefeated Goldberg challenging Hogan for the title and it would probably do an all-time record buyrate if they do it on PPV. Because surely they'd never be foolish enough to just give that match away on free TV...
- Dave talks about the recent merger of 2 of the PPV providers and how they have decided to move UFC PPVs to one of their secondary channels, which are only available in a fraction of the homes as the primary channel. Basically, it means significantly less people will be able to buy UFC PPVs, which were already struggling as it is. UFC is considering doing a taped PPV rather than running live because it would be more cost-effective. Lots of people in the PPV industry are saying that this is likely the final mortal blow for UFC.
- Mitsuharu Misawa, working with knee, back, neck, and finger injuries, still won the AJPW Carnival Champion tournament. Misawa is expected to drop his title to Kawada at the upcoming Tokyo Dome show and then hopefully take some time off to heal up (yeah, he finally takes about 3 months off).
- Speaking of injuries, Dave talks about how they seem to be piling up at an alarming rate and basically lists all the major stars in the biz who are dealing with serious injuries. Savage with the torn ACL, expected to get surgery and be out several months. Shane Douglas suffered a broken bone inside the roof of his mouth (ouch) and also has an elbow injury that needs surgery. He's expected to work ECW's PPV next week and then will be out for a long time (yeah missed about 4 months after this). Taz suffered an injury where a table spot went wrong and ripped all the flesh and muscle off his shinbone. He had to be rushed to the hospital to get 18 stitches and may need surgery and he'll be missing the PPV. Keiji Muto recently had surgery on both knees and is expected to be out a few more months. Ken Shamrock has an ankle injury and may miss the next WWF PPV. Sable had one of her toes broken in 3 places and may need surgery since it's such a bad break. Lodi recently suffered a broken ankle on Nitro and will need a second surgery on it. Dave lists several other guys, mostly in Japan, dealing with nagging injuries also.
- Masato Tanaka from FMW in Japan is expected to start full-time with ECW soon. It's also expected Atsushi Onita will come in later this year to set up a planned exploding ring match. If it happens, it probably won't be on PPV since they won't allow it. So expect it to take place at an outdoor arena and probably be sold on videotape later (never happened).
- Hulk Hogan appeared on Jay Leno's show a couple of weeks ago and raised a lot of eyebrows by not mentioning WCW at all, nor promoting the PPV that was only 6 days away.
- Erik Watts had another WCW tryout this week, losing to Yuji Nagata and didn't look good.
- The deal with fans attacking Raven recently started as a shoot but has turned into an angle. When it happened the first time, it was legit and the fan was arrested, but then they did it a few days later with a fake fan as an angle to try to make it look like Raven has so much heat that fans are attacking him. But the angle is being dropped because WCW realized it'd probably be a bad idea to glorify fans jumping the rail.
- Scott Hall is expected to return sometime in the next week or so. He's been out dealing with personal issues (rehab).
- Arn Anderson has written an autobiography called Arn Anderson: A Look Behind the Curtain which should be available in a few weeks "through the internet."
- A St. Paul newspaper ran a story about 72-year-old Verne Gagne and featured a large photo of him with no shirt on, wearing his old AWA title belt. Dave said he looks good for 72 but adds, "I just hope when we all get 72 and senile that the local paper doesn't shoot photos of us with our shirts off strutting around with make believe championship belts and quoting us being so bitter about the state of the industry that is setting new business records every week." Gagne talked about being unimpressed by Nitro recently selling out the local arena, saying AWA used to do that all the time. He also buried Jesse Ventura, saying no one would know who he was if not for AWA.
- On Raw, they had Dude Love beat Steve Blackman in what was basically a recreation of the Montreal Screwjob, with Earl Hebner as the ref ending the match when Blackman didn't submit. They implied that Vince will do the same thing to Austin at the PPV to get the belt off him. Dave says the Montreal match is the most famous wrestling finish in modern history and it's likely going to be copied to death for many years to come (yuuuup).
- There was some sort of backstage incident at Raw between Jerry Lawler and promoter Dennis Coraluzzo. Apparently Coraluzzo was trying to book Brian Christopher for one of his shows, but Lawler and Coraluzzo have heat for a bunch of different silly reasons so they had a little argument I guess. No real details.
- Someone writes in and asks what you have to do to get blackballed by the wrestling industry? Nailz attacked Vince McMahon but WCW reportedly wants to hire him. Jake Roberts has burned a million bridges and has known drug problems, but rumor is he's returning to WWF soon. Bryan Adams was arrested on guns and drugs charges and was brought back. The person thinks murder might be the only taboo but then he says there's still a lot we don't know about the Jimmy Snuka story, so maybe not even murder is enough to get you blackballed from wrestling.