May 11, 1998
- AJPW's first ever Tokyo Dome drew a reported 53,000+ and was the biggest show in AJPW's history and is being considered a major success. The main event saw Toshiaki Kawada win the triple crown title from Mitsuharu Misawa in what many called a match of the year candidate, which is amazing considering the physical condition Misawa was in going into the match (2 injured knees, bad back, bad neck, broken finger, etc). Furthermore, Misawa suffered a legit concussion during the match and later didn't remember the finish. It was the first time Kawada had ever beaten Misawa. After the match, Giant Baba announced Misawa would be taking a couple of much-needed months off to heal up. Other notes from the show: Stan Hansen was the most popular person there. He teamed with Vader, the only WWF star on the show, against Kobashi and Johnny Ace in a great match. It was the first time Vader and Hansen had ever teamed up and also the first time Vader and Kobashi faced off, which the crowd was really into.
- ECW's Wrestlepalooza PPV also took place this week and from a wrestling standpoint was one of the worst PPVs in years. It's been over a year now and ECW has yet to ever produce a PPV as good as their first one. On the plus side, they sold a record amount of merch (averaging almost $19 per person). Shane Douglas, much like Misawa or Shawn Michaels at WM14, had no business being in the ring with all of his injuries but he still gutted out the match. Unfortunately for Shane, it was nowhere in the league of a Misawa or Michaels match. But Shane was in terrible shape, he couldn't fly to the show so he had to be driven to Georgia and was hospitalized again 2 nights before the PPV due to his sinus and pallet injuries. But he retained the world title although word is he may not wrestle again until the November PPV because he's getting elbow surgery. But they plan to keep the belt on him during that time regardless and build the show around RVD's TV title. Speaking of RVD, he's a great athlete but going 30 minutes with Sabu totally exposed him and the match had no heat. It had been built up as the match that would either make or break the show and it just didn't deliver. Also, the venue looked bush-league and Joey Styles desperately needs help on commentary. He cuts Joey some slack because it's hard to sell excitement when the show sucks, but still, carrying a 3 hour show by himself isn't working.
- Other notes from Wrestlepalooza: Paul Heyman spent $3,000 on styrofoam heads to pass out to the crowd for Al Snow's entrance. Taz's planned match was cancelled due to his leg injury so they had the FBI vs. Blue Meanie/Super Nova added to replace it. Justin Credible had the best match on the show for the 2nd PPV in a row and is the only one who actually wrestled at a top-tier level but he's not over with the crowd at the same level. At one point there was a big "Free Ric Flair!" chant. Junkyard Dog made a surprise appearance looking awful but got a huge pop (I think that ends up being his last wrestling appearance ever, since he dies less than a month later). Francine looked anorexic and Dave says she looked like Karen Carpenter with implants. New Jack got knocked absolutely loopy during the Bam Bam match, causing the match to fall apart and he didn't recover until well after the match backstage. Bam Bam basically had to carry an unconscious New Jack through the match. After the show, Paul Heyman got on the mic and ran down WCW and said that Atlanta is now ECW country.
- A&E aired their 2-hour pro wrestling documentary and Dave watched it and gives a looooong review. He basically says to imagine an NBA documentary that shows lots of cool highlights, but where Wilt Chamberlin or Magic Johnson are never mentioned, or if it claimed Michael Jordan invented the slam dunk. That was this. Basically, the documentary was inaccurate as hell and Dave spends paragraph after paragraph poking holes in everything they got wrong. It got a lot of positive reviews because of the SHOCKING! revelation that they admitted wrestling was fake and had lots of out-of-kayfabe interviews and thus, the critical reception was that this was an accurate inside look at the business, when it wasn't even close. Bruno Sammartino was never mentioned. Ric Flair's role in history was totally underplayed. The steroid scandals weren't addressed. The Monday night wars weren't mentioned. It basically claimed that modern pro wrestling was invented on the day Hulk Hogan bodyslammed the 9,000 pound Andre The Giant in front of eleventy billion people. Totally ignored the history of the NWA. So on and so forth. Dave goes way in depth filling in the gaps and correcting things the documentary got wrong about the early days of wrestling (pre-1950s). Once it got to the modern era, it featured interviews with all the big names like McMahon, Hogan, etc. And Dave gleefully spends multiple paragraphs picking apart the bullshit and lies they all spewed. All in all, Dave didn't really seem to be a fan of this. To a mainstream audience, it could definitely seem like a real and accurate history of wrestling but Dave's been a student of the game for decades and he pretty much found inaccuracies, omissions, or lies throughout every minute of this (I dunno, I think maybe he's being too hard on it. I enjoyed it. But it's a lot like the WWE documentaries they put out now. It's not kayfabe, but you're still hearing the version of the story they want you to hear and not the actual real truth. Anyway, I could only find it broken down into 7 videos. Here's Part 1 and it should automatically play the next part).
- The Brian Pillman memorial show, featuring representatives from WWF, WCW, and ECW took place this week. The show drew a sellout of 1,002 fans to the middle school gym where it was held (the same school Pillman went to). Pillman's wife, only days away from giving birth to Pillman's child that he never knew about was also there (when he died, she hadn't yet told him that she was pregnant). Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho was the main event and Benoit was accompanied by Woman, making her first appearance since being let go by WCW and she was said to look great. They also had an auction, with a lot of autographed wrestling memorabilia being auctioned off. Steve Austin and Sunny basically hosted the show and cut promos but Dave doesn't really say anything else about it.
- Paul Roma was charged with 3rd degree assault for allegedly punching a 15-year-old high school freshman who apparently argued with him that wrestling was fake.
- Dave himself got some negative publicity in a Dallas newspaper article about wrestling being bad for the youth. Among other things, the author accused Dave of justifying the way wrestling has gotten more adult-oriented by misquoting something Dave said in a New York Times interview. Dave, of course, points out that the guy is attributing a quote to him that he never said (Dave Meltzer misquoted?! Perish the thought!). As for whether wrestling sets a good example for kids, Dave says that it doesn't. But it didn't 10 years ago either, so it's not a new thing.
- Bas Rutten spent 2 days in jail in Sweden last week. He was apparently at a night club and something happened and the bouncers wanted him to leave. He didn't want to. So they tried to make him. It went poorly for the bouncers.
- Trenton, NJ politician Pat Daddio made an appearance at an ECW show in Trenton, as the manager of the FBI. Daddio is currently running for mayor of Trenton and worked as a total heel. When interviewed after the show, Daddio said, "I thought it was all in jest and fun, but those people were acting like it was serious." (in case you're curious, I googled: he did not win the election and died in 2010 at age 75).
- Apparently there was some sort of backstage incident at the ECW Wrestlepalooza PPV between New Jack (of course) and Junkyard Dog but Dave doesn't know anything more than that (we find out more next issue).
- Due to the lack of Ric Flair and because of DDP and Raven also missing a recent house show, literally 200+ fans asked for refunds. To pacify them, WCW decided to book a TV title change between Booker T and Chris Benoit. It got a huge pop so....they decided to do it at every house show on the tour. During the following week, the TV title changed hands 5 times between those two guys at house shows. But it was never acknowledged on TV and apparently isn't being counted (according to the WCW TV title Wikipedia page, those title changes are listed and Booker T is recognized as a 6-time, 6-time, 6-time, 6....ah you get it. Anyway, Booker T holds the record for most WCW TV title reigns because of this but it was apparently never mentioned on TV).
- An upcoming Nitro in the Nassau Coliseum in New York sold out in 20 minutes, which Dave says is the fastest sellout for a major arena in the history of pro wrestling in New York. Not even WWF has ever sold out MSG that fast in the decades they've been running shows there.
- Nothing new on the Flair/WCW front. The 2 sides are at an impasse, with both Flair and Bischoff feeling they're in the right and refusing to back down. Dave once again insists that this is not an angle, contrary to what some people still believe. Dave mentions that lawyers can be disbarred for filing fake lawsuits and says that while people in wrestling have gone to extreme lengths to get angles over before, no one has ever filed a legitimate lawsuit to get an angle over, and even if Bischoff wanted to be the first, Turner execs would never allow their corporate lawyers to risk their careers for an angle.
- Marcus Bagwell was able to go home after his neck surgery but was rushed back to the ER again over the weekend after his blood pressure spiked and he nearly went into cardiac arrest. He was also having breathing issues and internal bleeding. But he's stable again now.
- After Sting refused to turn heel in order to be Hogan's tag team partner against the Wolfpac, Hogan has been pushing for Scott Hall or even Lex Luger to turn. Dave doubts Hall will go along with it either, since he doesn't want to work against Nash.
- Rick Steiner has a torn rotator cuff and will be out for several months. They did an angle on Nitro where Scott Steiner attacked him and injured his shoulder to write him off.
- Davey Boy Smith appears to be done with WCW. On Nitro a couple of weeks ago, he was asked to put over Scott Norton clean and refused. A week later, he simply no-showed Nitro and that's probably it for him. Dave says it's hard to know what's next for Smith. He's 35, is really banged up, and was basically a prelim guy in WCW. He didn't leave WWF on the best of terms (Screwjob aftermath). Dave says ECW is interested but he wouldn't fit in there. AJPW would probably want him just because of his look, but it's doubtful his body could handle the AJPW style (nah, he comes back to WCW in a month. But he'd be gone for good before the end of the year).
- Eric Bischoff spent 3 days this week giving depositions in the ongoing WWF lawsuit against WCW, all of which goes back to WWF claiming that WCW tried to deceive the public into thinking Hall and Nash were still WWF wrestlers when they joined WCW, among other things. A lot of people feel like the point of the lawsuit and deposition is simply for WWF to dig up dirt on Eric Bischoff which they can use to get him fired (similar to how Turner fired Bill Watts a few years ago when racist quotes from an old interview surfaced). The idea being that if Bischoff got fired, whoever succeeded him wouldn't be as aggressive or successful against WWF.
- Speaking of WWF/WCW lawsuits, the recent firing of Mark Madden in WCW raised some eyebrows. He got canned after incidents where he walked off the set during some commentary thing he was doing and then he went on the WCW hotline and criticized the company for the way they handled the Sean Waltman firing and Ric Flair lawsuit. A lot of people in WCW were surprised that Madden was fired, since he's a key person in the WWF/WCW lawsuit because a lot of WWF's claims stem from things Madden said on the hotline. So you'd think WCW would want to keep Madden employed and on their good side. ECW is interested in bringing Madden in also. Some in WCW are pushing to bring him back and keep him happy, at least until the lawsuit blows over.
- People Magazine was running an online vote for Most Beautiful People in the World. Some fans/trolls decided to push for Ric Flair and as of press time, he's #12 on the list.
- Kimberly Page has nude photos in the newest Playboy: Wet & Wild issue (google is your friend here).
- The vignette they aired on Raw showing a wrestler hanging out in the subway station was Adam Copeland. Apparently he will be called The Edge when he debuts on TV in a few weeks and he's "apparently doing some sort of Raven gimmick." Here's all the Edge pre-debut vignettes in one video:
- With the new storyline twist that Paul Bearer is Kane's father, there's been talk of bringing in Jerry Springer to reveal the results of a paternity test. But they have also discussed holding off on bringing in Springer until Summerslam. WWF and Springer are pretty much targeting the same audience these days so a business relationship makes sense. Speaking of Summerslam, Dave suspects the main event will be Austin vs. McMahon (nope).
- Porn star Jenna Jameson (last seen in ECW) was in the latest Val Venis vignette, acting like she was going down on him behind some bushes.
- WCW has been trying to enforce a 120-day no-compete clause on Steven Regal's contract to keep him from going to WWF. In response, WWF filed court documents intending to take legal action to free Regal up. Rather than defending it, WCW decided it wasn't worth the hassle and simply folded and allowed Regal out of his deal, so he's free to sign with WWF at any time now. WWF doesn't plan to debut him until August but they wanted to start airing vignettes on TV as soon as possible.
- Dan Severn is still the NWA champion but is, of course, now signed to WWF. He has been told not to wear the NWA belt on WWF TV anymore.
- Vince Russo will be dropping his magazine duties and spend more time writing the TV shows. "If he's in any way responsible for the Raw product of late, then he's doing one hell of a job." Oh man, Dave-haters and Russo-apologists on Twitter are going to LOVE that one.
- Shawn Michaels' back issues are apparently worse than thought. Word is Michaels is in severe pain when both sitting and standing and is having trouble sleeping. He had an injection in his back this week to hopefully relieve the pain. If that doesn't help improve it, he will need back surgery. The injury apparently occurred during his casket match with Undertaker at Royal Rumble.
- Earl Hebner was backstage at the latest WWF show. He's lost a lot of weight and is still having severe headaches from his aneurysm the night before Wrestlemania but they're hopeful he'll be back to refereeing in a month or so (so I guess that thing a couple of issues ago where they did a fake Screwjob angle wasn't Earl after all).
- Klub Kamikaze, the group of Michinoku Pro wrestlers that have been on TV the last few weeks, will have their name changed to Kaientai. Their manager will have his name changed to Yamaguchi-San and will do a Sonny Onoo-type gimmick. Choppy choppy pee pee!
- Apparently several WWF wrestlers are having their contracts changed and getting substantial raises (in some cases double what they were making) because WWF business is doing so good right now. Dave talks about how Austin is taking WWF by storm and says he is selling more merch right now than anyone in the history of wrestling, including Hogan. Dave doesn't know what Austin is making, but says if he isn't pulling in at least $5-10 million this year, then he's underpaid.
- The Unforgiven PPV reportedly did around a 1.03 buyrate which is waaaay higher than anyone expected and would make it one of the highest grossing shows in WWF history, which is crazy enough anyway, but considering it was basically a throwaway "B-show" makes that number even more insane.