May 04, 1998
- Marcus Bagwell suffered a serious neck injury on the live episode of Thunder this week after a move gone wrong. Bagwell suffered 4 crushed vertebrae in his neck after jamming his head into Rick Steiner's back on a botched bulldog, leading to Bagwell being temporarily paralyzed from the neck down. The next day, Bagwell had extensive neck and spinal surgery to fuse several vertebrae together. Following the surgery, his blood pressure dropped drastically and there was fear that he would fall into a coma, but as of press time, he's back in stable condition. The prognosis is that the doctors expect him to eventually make a full recovery due to being young and in great physical shape, although it'll probably be a year before he'll be back in the ring. Bagwell was told that the injury was only 3 centimeters away from being identical to the injury that paralyzed Christopher Reeve and that his strong neck muscles probably saved him from a worse fate.
- The live TV show was halted for nearly 30 minutes so they could get the right type of stretcher for Bagwell (normal one too unstable for a neck injury like that I guess) before they could risk moving him. Tony Schiovane basically took over the broadcast and all 3 announcers were in a tough position of trying to keep the show going while doctors worked on Bagwell in the ring. Eventually, WCW producers chose to air footage of Hogan winning the title from Savage a few days earlier on Nitro, but they had the Thunder announce team doing commentary live over the footage, and all 3 (Heenan, Schiavone and Tenay) were noticeably shaken, which emphasized just how silly and unimportant a wrestling storyline is when real life tragedy is unfolding. It was a scary situation and Dave says that Schiavone and Heenan in particular did a wonderful job of maintaining composure and keeping the show going considering the dire circumstances.
- Nothing much has changed on the legal situation with Ric Flair and WCW. They're apparently at an impasse but both sides are at least talking and are cordial. Given that Flair still has 3 years on his contract, WCW has no intention of releasing him and letting WWF have him. Lawyers from both sides have been trying to work out the issue. WCW's lawsuit against Flair is still out there but may likely get dropped if/when they work things out. Dave thinks the lawsuit might have been more of a scare tactic, just in case anyone else who wants out of their WCW contracts thinks of no-showing. Reportedly, Flair wants to restructure his WCW deal and Bischoff wants Flair to make some sort of apology and admittance of wrongdoing, which would allow him to save face after he buried Flair in front of the entire locker room and swore he'd never return. Dave then spends a paragraph shooting holes in the theory that this whole thing is a work and pointing out why that's not the case, although he says WCW will probably turn it into a storyline if/when Flair returns. Anyway, the story (the lawsuit in particular) was picked up in all the media outlets throughout the Carolinas where Flair is, of course, a god. But for whatever reason, most of the stories seem to be focusing on the fact that the lawsuit admits that wrestling is fake and that Flair is being sued for not showing up to participate in a storyline and the media seems to be gleefully relishing in the "see, wrestling is fake!" aspect of the story, which is obviously just about the oldest news ever. There have also been large "We want Flair!" chants at both WCW and WWF shows since this all started.
- Raw and Nitro both took place live at arenas about 30 minutes away from each other this week in Norfolk and Hampton, VA. Both shows were sold out well in advance. However, Nitro was tape-delayed due to the NBA playoffs and, without competition, Raw did its best rating ever, breaking the old record by more than a full ratings point. The 5.71 rating made it the single highest rated pro wrestling show in the history of cable TV. WCW is going to be at a major disadvantage for the rest of the month due to NBA playoffs which are going to wreak havoc with WCW's schedule for both Nitro and Thunder, with both shows airing at different times, or in the case of Thunder, not airing at all for the next 2 weeks.
- Oh yeah, one other thing about Raw and Nitro being in nearby cities, turned out something else notable happened: DX drove a "tank" to Nitro (actually a small Jeep but whatever, why let facts get in the way of a good story). The segments aired throughout Raw, with DX driving to the Nitro arena before the show started taping and cut a bunch of promos in front of WCW fans. In one segment, they carefully spliced in footage of the marquee at the arena which announced free tickets for a different event to make it look like they were free tickets for Nitro. And they repeatedly referenced how WCW gave away a bunch of free tickets for the show. In reality, there were only 632 free tickets for this Nitro, which is actually an unusually low number for a WCW TV taping. In response, later during the show, Tony Schiavone announced that the show had been sold out for months (Dave says it was only weeks, but regardless, it was indeed sold out) and that WWF couldn't even give free tickets away (Dave says Raw was sold out in advance too so, yanno...both sides are full of shit). Some of the segments were lame (HHH trying to get fans to say "WCW sucks") but other parts were hilarious, such as X-Pac knocking on the back door wanting to talk to Eric Bischoff, or the part where HHH yelled "Let my people go!" in reference to Hall and Nash. Dave says the whole thing seemed petty and childish, but that's where the business is now in 1998. Anyway, the next day, a "top executive" from WWF (Dave doesn't say who) called up one of WCW's execs and apologized for the whole angle (funny how WWE always leaves that out of the re-telling).
- WWF's Unforgiven PPV is in the books, drawing the biggest wrestling crowd in Greensboro, NC history (21,000+) beating the old record set by WCW Starrcade in 1986. The show was based around the idea that Vince was going to screw Austin out of the title and the main event ended with Vince doing a stretcher job after a chairshot, which was supposed to be dramatic and riveting, but fans were pouring out of the arena in droves during it and seemed disinterested in seeing if McMahon lived or died. In case you're curious, McMahon showed up on Raw the next night, not selling the injury at all.
- Other notes from the PPV: Ken Shamrock was in a 6-man tag match but was little more than a spectator due to a foot injury (torn ligaments). Sable also worked her evening gown match with Luna with a badly broken toe so it was kept short and wasn't much of a match anyway. She got a big pop when she walked out, which led J.R. to say, "You'd think Ric Flair just walked out here" which is only going to fuel more rumors of Flair-to-WWF. The crowd also chanted for Flair during the Jeff Jarrett segment. The Kane/Undertaker inferno match happened, and was a much safer version of similar matches that have happened in Japan. The match ended with Kane getting laid out with a chair outside the ring, with his arm under the ring. While Undertaker beat up Paul Bearer, the special-effects guys under the ring prepped Kane's arm for the spot where it was set on fire. And the Austin/Dude Love main event which featured Love giving an incredible performance and bumping all over the place to get the match over. The match ended with the ref unconscious and Austin simply counting the winning pinfall himself and his music played and that was it. (Turns out you can just count your own pinfalls to win matches. Not sure why more guys don't try that. This reminds me of the New Year's Revolution 2005 PPV, during the Maven vs. Shelton Benjamin match. There was a bit where Maven got outside the ring and got the microphone to cut a promo mid-match. And he started the promo by telling the referee not to count him out because he had something to say. And....it worked. He stood outside the ring foreeeeeeever cutting a promo and the referee never started counted. Turns out you can just tell a referee not to count you out. Who knew?!)
- Wrestling got a lot of mainstream coverage this week in the media. Some of it was due to the Flair/WCW lawsuit and there was also an A&E documentary special that got some coverage. Access Hollywood did a story on Steve Austin. Entertainment Tonight is doing a piece on WCW Nitro this week. Lou Albano appeared on a show called Lie Detector, hosted by Marcia Clark (the woman who lost the OJ Simpson case), where Albano is asked about wrestling being fake, which Dave once again says is such a stupid thing for people to obsess over these days, as if everyone doesn't already know the answer. The Wall Street Journal published a story about advertising and marketing in the wrestling biz and how WCW and Eric Bischoff in particular have brilliantly managed to increase WCW's ad rates by 70% over the past 2 years. Dave will review the A&E special next week. (Here's the Lie Detector segment. This is classic Lou Albano).
- Dave looks at the first quarter (Jan. 1 through Mar. 31) numbers for all the major companies and compares them to the same time period from years past. It's interesting to see just how much the business is booming right now compared to just a few years ago. Comparing 1998 numbers to 1995 numbers is crazy. For instance, average Q1 attendance for WWF in 1995 was 3,227 per show. In 1998, they're averaging 9,143 per show. WCW went from 2,020 to 7,865 over those same 4 years. In 1995, WCW didn't sell out any of their shows during the first quarter. In 1998, they sold out over 65% of them. Same thing goes for average gates, buyrates, cable ratings, etc. Just massive increases across the board during the last 4 years for both companies. Interestingly enough, things aren't quite as rosy in Japan. Both AJPW and NJPW have had slight increases over the last few years but nothing significant. Things are still strong, but essentially stagnant. Dave does note that the Japanese economy is in a huge recession right now and that most of the smaller promotions in Japan are really struggling, but the big 2 remain stable. Although for what it's worth, Dave says there are warning signs that business might be heading towards a downswing (yeah, AJPW and NJPW are both in for some tough times in the next few years).
- AAA president Antonio Pena has filed lawsuits against Psicosis and Konnan. The Psicosis lawsuit is due to Pena claiming he owns the rights to that name. Psicosis no-showed the first court date and if he misses the next one, the judge will rule in favor of Pena by default and Psicosis will be forced to change his name both in Mexico and the U.S. As for Konnan, the lawsuit is for defamation of character based on a recent interview Konnan gave where he evidently trashed Pena (you never find out what happens with all these lawsuits. Seems like every few weeks, Pena is suing somebody and it either goes nowhere or I guess is settled out of court because I never see the results of them anywhere).
- Dave mentions that the NWO gimmick is pretty much dead in Japan, as it's been almost completely dropped aside from Tenzan still wearing an NWO shirt sometimes but it's never mentioned anymore.
- In Power Pro Wrestling in Memphis, Austin Idol was scheduled for 2 shows but he ended up no-showing them. It's ironic because earlier in the week on the TV show, they did an angle where Jerry Lawler talked about how Austin Idol shouldn't even be booked in Power Pro because he always no-shows events and burns the promoter. And then, sure enough, Idol legitimately no-showed the very next shows.
- Shane Douglas was hospitalized this week after ignoring doctor's orders. It was mentioned last week that he had a broken bone in the roof of his mouth. He was going to get surgery but ended up putting it off. But the doctors told him not to fly. Douglas disregarded the advice and took a flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, figured it was a short flight and he'd be fine. He was wrong. Midway through the flight, "his sinuses exploded" and he was bleeding all over the place and had to be rushed to the hospital when they landed. He still appeared at the next day's ECW show but didn't wrestle and reportedly looked like a walking corpse backstage. The plan is for him to drive from Philly to Marietta, GA for the PPV (since he can't fly) and do whatever he can. He's scheduled to main event the show and defend the ECW title against Al Snow but it's unknown if he'll be able to wrestle now. He's also still dealing with a serious elbow injury that needs surgery as well.
- Kevin Nash and Randy Savage formed a new group called the Wolfpac on Nitro this week and introduced Konnan as the 3rd member. Scott Hall is expected to return next week and will likely end up in the group also.
- Randy Savage has decided against getting the knee surgery that he needs. WCW's doctor has told him that he is risking the possibility of walking with a limp for the rest of his life if he doesn't get it fixed (he eventually does).
- WCW (actually, Hogan) had the idea that Sting should turn heel so that Sting can team with Hogan in matches against Hall and Nash. But Sting refused. He doesn't want to be heel because it will kill his merch sales, although Dave says Goldberg's merch becoming such a huge hit has basically killed Sting's merch sales anyway.
- Mark Madden may or may not be fired from WCW. He was doing live internet play-by-play of Nitro and also did some commentary for the DirecTV specials that air Nitro without commercials. Anyway, apparently there were some missed cues during the DirecTV broadcast that led to Madden slamming down his headset and walking off during the show. WCW removed him from doing those broadcasts at that point but told him he could still do the WCW hotline messages. But then he apparently went on the hotline and talked about the Ric Flair situation so he was told they were taking the hotline away from him too, which doesn't really leave him with much in the way of job duties anymore.
- Adam Copeland worked a dark match before Raw as a heel, beating Darren Drosdov. Jackyl from the Truth Commission was Copeland's manager for the match. The next night for a TV taping, Copeland worked as a geeky babyface, beating jobber Matt Hardy.
- In the letters, someone asks Dave how many hours of wrestling he watches per week and how does he stay excited about it. Dave responds, saying, "I'd say realistically I watch 15-20 hours of pro wrestling every week. When it's bad wrestling, I don't get that excited about it, but the tact I take is that you try and learn something from everything. For me, when I stop learning something new when I watch current wrestling, it's means the Observer is going to quickly become outdated which is one of my prime motivating factors as I've seen so many people reach a point when they think they've learned everything about this business and then stop learning. As quickly as this business changes and evolves due to competition, they may make great historians, but they don't have a hell of a lot relevant to offer about the most important part of history, the present and the future."
- Bert Prentice writes in, complaining that Dave doesn't give his fledgling little bullshit indie promotion Music City Wrestling more coverage in the Observer. Someone else writes in and tells Dave to lay off the sarcasm about wrestlers and their religious beliefs. Apparently Dave said something recently about Nikita Koloff finding Jesus that was deemed sarcastic and offended this guy.