September 28, 1998
- The last 2 WCW PPVs were such disorganized messes that nobody, even within the company, knew what most of the matches were going to be until the day of the show and because of that, they did disappointing buyrates (Fall Brawl, with the War Games main event and Warrior's first WCW match, did the lowest buyrate of the year for WCW). WWF finds themselves in a similar situation this week, except it's due to injuries. Triple H was scheduled to defend the IC title against Mark Henry but he suffered a knee injury last week and can't work the show so the whole planned undercard has been scrapped and people are being shuffled around into new matches. So aside from the main event and the Dustin Runnels/Val Venis match, pretty much everything else may change. Triple H's knee injury is a torn meniscus and he had arthroscopic surgery a few days later so he's scheduled to be out for at least 3 more weeks. He may also have dislocated his patella, which if so would require another more extensive surgery and keep him out for several months.
- There's been talk of Great Muta coming in to WCW to challenge Goldberg for the WCW title (pretty sure that never happened).
- Ultimo Dragon held a press conference in Japan saying that he plans to sue the WCW doctors who did his botched elbow surgery.
- Bull Nakano has reportedly lost 109 pounds and is attempting to leave pro wrestling to join a Japanese women's pro golfing tour.
- The ridiculous Big Japan promotion is planning a gimmick match with a ring surrounded by crocodiles and alligators.
- This is a slow issue.
- At an ECW house show, Balls Mahoney did something pretty stupid. There was a girl in the crowd repeatedly flashing her breasts and getting pops for it, so Balls pulled her into the ring and got her to do it again. He then grabbed her breast. The big issue is that there's reports that she was only 16 years old, which legally is pretty murky territory obviously and especially a bad idea considering the recent Taz arrest. Speaking of Taz, his hearing is scheduled for this week.
- At the latest ECW show in Queens, as fans were leaving the building after it ended, Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer were at the exits handing out free videotapes of the last 3 ECW TV shows. The company recently lost their TV deal in the New York area and Heyman wanted the loyal ECW fans to still see the recent TV show. It cost ECW over $4000 to manufacture all the videos to give away for free.
- Rob Van Dam missed some recent ECW shows because he got married.
- There was someone backstage at the last ECW show shooting photos of all the wrestlers because ECW is doing action figures.
- The latest WCW/celebrity connection is expected to be Jackie Chan, with the idea of him facing Ernest Miller at a PPV later this year, likely at World War III (nah never happened).
- Nitro this week was "atrocious" and that's being charitable, according to Dave. He recaps the horrible angle of Warrior allegedly kidnapping Disciple and doesn't know how this whole Warrior storyline can possibly get any worse (just wait a couple of weeks until Hogan looks in the mirror). Dave says Bischoff must be using Nitro as a model for his new book entitled "How to kill the biggest wrestling company in the world" and says WCW is basically self-destructing. After Nitro went off the air, the newly brainwashed Disciple attacked Hogan while fans chanted "Boring" and "Nitro sucks!" Goldberg was at the building but didn't appear on the show. Why, you ask? Well, Goldberg has been getting a lot of positive press in Jewish publications so they didn't want to risk upsetting the Jewish community by having Goldberg wrestle on Rosh Hashanah. So he never appeared, which left the crowd upset.
- There was also a scary moment on Nitro when Villano IV took a botched powerbomb and landed on his neck. The match was stopped immediately and Raven broke character and looked concerned. Villano IV was laid out in the ring for awhile as they checked on him but eventually got up and was helped to the back where he was taken to the hospital. He was released later that night and diagnosed with a sprained neck. Everyone watching it had major flashbacks to the Buff Bagwell spot.
- Sandman can't use "Enter Sandman" for his ring entrance in WCW, nor drink beer or smoke cigarettes. They also don't want him using the cane, although they may change their mind on that one since, otherwise, the guy has literally nothing else to offer. He's expected to start in a month or so, because they want him to heal up from some lingering injuries first.
- Davey Boy Smith apparently attended a recent WWF show in Calgary, which WCW was just thrilled about, as you can imagine.
- Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler both missed Raw this week because they were filming the Jim Carrey "Man on the Moon" movie. Speaking of, they apparently did some sort of publicity stunt saying Lawler injured Carrey during filming and Carrey had to go to the hospital. The media outlets picked it up and actually treated it like a legitimate story, with Carrey claiming he refused to work with Lawler anymore and threatening a lawsuit, which is exactly how Andy Kaufman played the angle 16 years ago. Obviously, this is all a work between Lawler and Carrey and Dave is flabbergasted that the media seemingly bought it hook, line and sinker.
- There was an article in a newspaper last week about the recent Raw episode that showed Jacqueline's breast popping out of her top by "accident." The article featured these quotes from Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff. First, Vince said, "We don't have a leg to stand on. It was a live show. We took the risk and got burned. We burned ourselves. If we did a match of this kind ever again, in all likelihood it would be on a taped show. There was no doubt that this was an accident. It was not like we were trying to pull one over on the public. We recognize our responsibility to the fans." For some reason, they asked Bischoff's thoughts on it and as you'd expect, he saw it differently, claiming WWF's actions are hurting the entire business. "If you look at the list of advertisers, it's a very small pool. What (Vince) is doing is going to further stigmatize the product in terms of entertainment value. No one is going to want to be associated (with it). He knows just like every pimp on every street corner that sex sells. What is unfortunate for the USA Network and Barry Diller is Vince McMahon using the same M.O. to attract teens and pre-teens"
- The woman they've been showing at ringside during Sable matches is former LPWA women's wrestler Terri Power (later becomes Tori). Dave says she's had so much facial surgery that she doesn't even look like the same person. Anyway, they're apparently considering an angle where she will play Sable's sister and then turn on her. They're also looking at bringing back the WWF Women's championship soon.
- Kurt Angle has been the star of the recent WWF training camps, with the trainers comparing him to Ken Shamrock in the way that he's been so quick to pick up on everything. Despite that, they don't plan to debut him any time soon because they want to give him a major push and want to make sure he's ready for it when they do.
- WWF released a statement on their website about the upcoming NBC special revealing pro wrestling secrets. They basically trashed all the masked wrestlers who will be part of it, saying they were guys who weren't good enough to make it in WWF. Dave points out that one of those guys is Harley Race, who is one of the greatest of all time, and a lot of the indie guys on the show are better in-ring workers than much of the WWF roster.
- On NPR last week, sportswriter Frank Deford quoted Dave Meltzer when talking about football ratings being down at least partly due to the popularity of pro wrestling. Sports radio host Jim Rome responded to that by trashing wrestling and even ripping into Dave also. Dave seems un-bothered by the whole thing.