October 26, 1998
- Raw this week featured them re-creating a fairly unknown 1994 movie called Swimming With Sharks. It essentially consisted of Austin taking Vince McMahon hostage and spending the whole show teasing that he was going to kill him before firing a pop gun and leaving Vince to piss his pants. Throughout the show, they re-created many of the scenes from the movie. Dave thinks it was a little uncomfortable watching 13,000 people (many of them kids) enthusiastically rooting for Austin to literally murder someone but whatever. Raw dominated the ratings over Nitro yet again. Dave goes all into ratings statistics and talks about how WWF is hot right now and they're using that hot period to develop a whole new roster of young stars, whereas WCW is still living off its 1997 success and says that during their peak, aside from Goldberg and DDP, they haven't created any new stars and now they're paying dearly for it.
- The latest WWF PPV Judgement Day is in the books and was pretty much poop. Newcomer Christian won the light heavyweight title from Taka Michinoku (yes that title still exists) and Dave says the plan looks to be to put him and Edge together as a babyface team and portray them as brothers. He also says when you look at Christian's face, he looks to be in his 30s even though he's actually in his early-20s (if only they had a blue dot). X-Pac won the European title in the best match of the night, with Dave saying X-Pac might be the best worker in WWF right now and D-Lo is the most improved. The Rock doing his People's Elbow spot got the biggest pop of the entire show. The Undertaker/Kane main event ended with a non-finish, leaving the title vacant and likely leading to a tournament at Survivor Series where the Rock will probably win it.
- Vince McMahon (along with Undertaker) was featured in the cover story of this week's New York Magazine in an extensive article. The cover itself is an interesting story because they wanted Austin and McMahon but Vince wouldn't go along with doing a photoshoot with Austin considering their rivalry is the biggest thing in the business right now and he at least cares about kayfabe enough that he doesn't want the 2 of them doing magazine covers together. So then Vince offered to do the shoot with The Rock, claiming that he is soon to be the biggest star of the company. And get this; the magazine turned that down because they believed Rock was a wrestling star but not a mainstream star. Haaaaaaa! Anyway, they settled on Undertaker. In the story, they talked about the steroid trial and even interviewed Dave. In fact, Dave seems a little irked when the story (quoting him) talked about Brian Pillman's death in relation to steroids. Dave says he was adamant with the reporter that Pillman had used steroids early in his career, but stopped years ago and that steroids weren't the cause of his death, so Dave feels his words were taken out of context. They also talked about the hotel WWF bought in Vegas, with Vince saying there'd be an Undertaker themed tattoo parlor inside as well as a Sable lingerie shop. Vince says the character Steve Austin is basically playing the real life Vince McMahon. He also talked about his early life and the rise of WWF and all that. Dave points out the usual lies you get from any Vince McMahon interview, and talks about how the numbers in the story are bullshit. For instance, they claim WWF is a $500 million dollar company. Dave puts the real number at maybe $175 million and says WWF, WCW, and ECW combined don't even hit $500 million. Vince also talked about the low point of the company in 1993 or 94 and says they were close to going out of business before managing to turn it around. Dave says it makes for a nice comeback story but it's fiction. WWF wasn't doing great during those years, but they were never even remotely close to folding. All in all, a good story....and here it is in full if you wanna read it.
- Dave recaps the latest UFC PPV and talks about their plans to run shows in Brazil since they have so much trouble in the U.S. and also talks about their plans to try to get regulated by athletic commissions and how they hope to get PPV carriers in America to start carrying them again and all that fun stuff. Also talks about Randy Couture being stripped of the UFC title and signing with another promotion in Japan due to money issues.
- WWF's Mexican wrestling show will be called Super Astros and will debut next month. They don't really have any Mexicans of any name value signed up (WCW has most of them) and they'll be taping it prior to other TV tapings, so unlike the original plans, it won't be tailored to the Latino crowd or running their own shows in front of Latino audiences or anything. It's just going to be a bunch of no-name Mexican guys in front of WWF fans with no storyline or reason to care about them (aka, the early days of 205 Live). Anyway, WWF officials will be meeting with EMLL promoter Paco Alonso next week to discuss using some of their guys.
- Vader has come to an agreement to start working regularly for AJPW, which is pretty big news for the promotion as it creates a lot of new potential matches. If handled correctly, Vader and Stan Hansen especially should draw big money both as opponents and as teammates, which AJPW is in desperate need of right now. WWF has also agreed to allow Bart Gunn to work some shows for AJPW since they aren't doing anything with him.
- A press conference was held in Japan to announce the retirement of women's wrestler Cutie Suzuki, who will finish up her career with a show in December (she almost stayed retired permanently, but it looks like she came back for one last match 15 years later, in 2013).
- A bomb exploded outside of Jesse Ventura's political office last week but police don't believe it was politically motivated. (That's all Dave said but I researched it and it was apparently one of those bottle bombs that you can make with a 2 liter bottle and Dran-O. Doesn't really do anything, just makes a loud boom. Found an old newspaper story saying 2 more went off at a nearby church and it mostly just seems like a high school kid prank or something. This was back in the pre-9/11 days where kids could make things go boom in public as a prank without ending up in Guantanamo).
- There's been a lot of attempts to bring back the sport of roller derby, which was similar to pro wrestling in a lot of ways and was popular in the 60s and 70s. Turns out television network TNN is going to be putting together a revival of it called RollerJam. There had been negotiations with TBS and even Eric Bischoff was involved in maybe trying to make it happen. But TBS passed on it so TNN is picking it up. Dave thinks TBS probably made a mistake because if there was every a time for roller derby to make a comeback, it's now, to capitalize on wrestling's exploding popularity. They'll probably treat it much like wrestling and play it up with pyro and sex appeal and stuff like that (this ends up becoming a much bigger deal way down the road when ECW also ends up on TNN, but we'll get there).
- Jeff Jarrett's grandmother Christine Jarrett suffered a massive heart attack and is in ICU. Christine Jarrett has helped promote the Jarrett family's shows for decades in the Nashville area.
- Paul Heyman wants to put the ECW tag titles on the Dudley Boyz but Sabu and RVD are the current champs and Sabu in particular is apparently making a big fuss about not wanting to drop them.
- Nicole Bass and Big Dick Dudley were backstage at Raw (Bass ends up in WWF within a few months).
- This week's Scott Hall drama: his ex-wife Dana was on a radio show in Orlando saying that she might write a book about the business and that 99% of wrestlers are using drugs. Then Jim Duggan's wife called in disputing it and saying it was maybe only 10%. And then, as if it wasn't weird enough, WWF wrestler Billy Gunn called in and said none of them use drugs and his wife would kick him out if he ever did. Hall's wife responded saying almost all of the wrestlers fool around on the road, get blowjobs from ring rats, and that wrestler's wives are naive if they think their husbands aren't doing it. Dave says Dana Hall isn't the most popular person in wrestling circles right now, probably because she's telling the truth. As for Hall, his latest incident was apparently a "skirmish" with Buff Bagwell at a hotel bar. Even Hall's close friends have said he's impossible to deal with right now and they wonder why WCW hasn't sent him home. He's wrecked 3 rental cars recently, along with the multiple arrests. He's been to rehab repeatedly and it hasn't helped and he's shown up to countless WCW events in no condition to work. Dave thinks WCW continuing to use him right now despite his obvious issues (and even booking his character as someone with substance issues) is pretty unforgivable.
- Nitro notes: a "fan" jumped the barricade to challenge Ernest Miller and got taken out by security in an angle (I only mention it because that "fan" would be Chuck Palumbo making his first ever appearance). In an 8-man match featuring the Mexican wrestlers, La Parka turned heel on his team to join the LWO. The announcers were paying such close attention that they didn't even realize La Parka had turned on his team and pretty much just talked about other shit all the way through it. The show was in Minneapolis so they had the mayor of the city out there and she even got involved in an angle with Bischoff. The crowd booed her and chanted for Jesse Ventura in response. And Hulk Hogan attacked his nephew Horace Hogan and legit busted him open with a chair shot that required him to be taken to the hospital after the show. Scott Norton suffered a shoulder injury which is bad news because he's also the IWGP champion in NJPW and was scheduled to fly over this week for a title defense (he was fine).
- Despite cutting promos on him for weeks, Goldberg apparently nixed the idea of doing a feud with Chris Jericho. So Bischoff pitched the idea of a Jericho vs. Kidman feud but Jericho turned it down because he (along with Benoit, Guerrero, etc.) are trying to distance themselves from the cruiserweight division because it pigeonholes them as mid-carders. In return, Bischoff is once again heavily pushing for all those guys to sign new contracts so they won't all leave in a year.
- Villano IV ended up needing neck surgery after the injury he suffered with Raven on Nitro a couple weeks ago. They took a bone from his hip to fuse into his neck and he'll be out for about 6 months but was told he should make a full recovery.
- The idea for Raven is to do an angle where he goes on a losing streak, leading to his mother going on TV and saying he made up all those stories about his childhood. Apparently it's Raven's idea and he's been dying to do this angle for a long time. Speaking of, he doesn't seem to be too happy in WCW because when he was backstage at an ECW show last week, he was telling people he wanted to leave WCW and come back there. But Dave says Raven still has 2 years on his contract and that he honestly gets more creative control of his angles than pretty much everyone other than Hogan and DDP. He thinks maybe showing up at the ECW show and getting the rumor mill going about wanting to leave may just be an attempt to get Bischoff to push him more.
- Sandman will be allowed to use his cane in WCW and both DDP and Raven are fighting to make sure Sandman gets a real push when he debuts.
- Dave ponders how the finish for Halloween Havoc will go. He says Hogan needs to win because Warrior is totally dead as a draw and Hogan still has big money matches with Bret Hart, Nash, Goldberg, and maybe even Flair again. But getting Warrior to agree to lose isn't going to be easy.
- Goldberg and DDP have been at the Power Plant working out their match for Halloween Havoc so they're planning everything well in advance.
- Any plans to bring in Jackie Chan to WCW to do an angle with Ernest Miller have fallen apart. Won't be happening.
- Raw notes: Debra McMichael signed with WWF and debuted this week alongside Jeff Jarrett. They brought a woman out of the crowd, who was actually the Kielbasa Queen from Howard Stern, and she deep-throated a bunch of weenies during the Tiger Ali Singh segment.
- Apparently the Sable/Playboy deal has fallen apart over money. Dave says it's a big mistake by Playboy because as popular as wrestling and Sable in particular is these days, it would be a huge seller (they end up working things out and yes, it becomes a monster hit).
- Vader's release won't allow him to work with WCW until Dec. of 1999 which is when his contract would have expired. He's basically been given a conditional release allowing him to work anywhere except WCW, which is why he's joined AJPW. Also, there was apparently a clause in Vader's WWF contract requiring him to stay below 350 pounds and he had to weigh-in periodically. He barely made the last weigh-in after crash dieting to make it. Vince McMahon apparently promised him a huge push if he could get down to 320 but it never happened.
- Here's just a laundry list of short news bites: Steve Austin did a taping of the Ricki Lake show, no word when it airs. Sable is auditioning for movie roles. Her guest appearance on Pacific Blue did a big rating so expect them to try to bring her back for that. Summerslam 99 will be in Minneapolis (with governor Jesse Ventura, but no one knows that yet). They're trying to get a bunch of legit tough-guy types like Butterbean and ex-UFC guys to face Bart Gunn in Brawl For All matches.
- Someone writes in complaining about Nitro being 3 hours and that even watching in fast forward, the show is a drag. Man, I know that feeling. Dave agrees that it's no fun to watch, but so far, the ratings for the 3rd hour are still strong so business-wise, it's working and they probably shouldn't stop. When ratings start to suffer, then it will be time to go back to 2 hours.