Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 02, 1998

That Gauntlet match tho. All hail King Rollins.
WCW's Halloween Havoc is in the books and ended in a broadcast catastrophe. At least 25% of the PPV systems ended the show right as the main event (DDP vs. Goldberg) was beginning. As a result, WCW was forced to air the match for free on Nitro the next night and it ended up doing a record 7.18 rating which is the highest of all-time for a wrestling match on cable (beating the Hogan/Goldberg match from a few months ago) and led to Nitro winning the ratings battle this week (although if you don't count that match, Raw would have won). It happened because WCW had only blocked out 2 hours and 50 minutes for the PPV originally, but earlier in the day, they decided to stretch it out to around 3 and a half hours. Because of the late decision, word apparently didn't get to many of the PPV providers and they cut the feed after the 2:50 mark as originally planned. Naturally, this led to thousands of angry phone calls. Most PPV providers offered the Tuesday replay for free or partial/full refunds. In the end, WCW is going to lose a TON of money on this (likely in the 7 figures) and there's a ton of heat on Bischoff from Turner execs. But Bischoff is putting the blame on the PPV providers who apparently missed the memo that the show was going long. The PPV providers are also furious at WCW because they gave away the Goldberg/DDP match for free on Nitro, which will significantly cut into the number of people who might have ordered the replay on Tuesday. So all in all, the whole fiasco ended up getting Nitro a 1-week ratings win, but it was a total clusterfuck in every other way and will severely cut into the overall profits from the show.
Other notes from Halloween Havoc: the heavily hyped Hogan vs. Warrior rematch from Wrestlemania 6 "may very well have been among the worst high profile wrestling matches of modern times." Warrior came out to "Warrior sucks!" chants and Dave offhandedly mentions that, by the way, Jim Hellwig here has legally changed his name to "Warrior." Anyway, Dave recaps this abortion, especially the botched fireball spot that nearly burned Hogan's hand and says it blows away the 1990 Clash of the Champions match between Sid Vicious and Night Stalker as the worst match of the last 20 years. He gives it the full monty here: NEGATIVE FIVE STARS! Anyway, what else? Most of the undercard matches were decent but forgettable. Dave shits on many of the continuity issues in WCW storylines, because god forbid a WCW angle make sense. He makes a passing comment about how amazing it is that WCW seems to be making all the same booking mistakes that eventually put Jim Crockett out of business a decade earlier. Davey Boy Smith was supposed to face Alex Wright but got pulled from the show the day of, with no explanation (not sure if Dave knows it yet but this is shortly after the crippling back injury he got from the Warrior trap door in the ring). And finally, the main event of DDP vs. Goldberg (which most people didn't even see until the next night) was a really good match but not enough to save the PPV.
Dave got to see an advanced screening of NBC's "Exposed: Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets" scheduled to air next week and says it's a condescending but mostly-accurate portrayal of how a wrestling match is worked and he says a lot of fans and people in the biz aren't going to like it. It featured masked wrestlers showing how basic moves are done safely, how they protect each other, how matches are called and booked, and tricks of getting heat from crowds and how the referee is in on things and often helps keep things together. Dave names most of the guys in it (it was no secret to anyone in WWF or WCW, so he's not really exposing anyone) and also says Butch Reed and One Man Gang were supposed to be part of it but backed out at the last minute. They were all paid $2000 for participating. The show acted like they were exposing huge secrets but Dave says there's nothing here that would surprise any real wrestling fan. Dave says they got about 90% of it right and points out the stuff they got wrong (like the stupid fake grandmother bit) and says overall, it was just simplistic and wasn't anything most people didn't already at least sorta know.
Dave recaps the latest MMA news, specifically Randy Couture losing to Enson Inoue in a fight in Japan. He talks about how UFC recently stripped Courture of the UFC title and discusses all the possibilities going forward. Ken Shamrock has expressed interest in returning to UFC but that would require Vince McMahon's permission. With Shamrock's fame and WWF's huge popularity, Shamrock challenging for the UFC title would normally be the biggest money match they could do, except the problem is PPV providers still aren't carrying UFC so it would be hard for it to make any real money, which in turn means UFC probably can't pay Shamrock what he'd want to do it. Of course, the other problem is that McMahon likes to have total control over things and Shamrock in an MMA fight would be out of Vince's control and a Shamrock loss could damage his credibility in WWF.
So years after it happened, Dave finally acknowledges that EMLL is mostly referred to as CMLL now. Of course, he turns right back around and keeps calling it EMLL so whatever. I'm calling it CMLL from now on. Aaaaaaanyway, CMLL and WCW reached an agreement, which will lead to an inter-promotional feud between WCW's Mexican wrestlers going down to Arena Mexico for some major shows. La Parka, Psicosis, and Rey Mysterio have never worked Arena Mexico so it should do big numbers the first time they do. Dave talks about how there has been controversy in the past because so many of WCW's contracted wrestlers were still working shows in Mexico when they weren't supposed to. There's so many small shows in so many remote parts of the country that it's impossible to monitor whether those guys are violating their contracts unless they work the big publicized shows. So they go home to Mexico on their off-days and pick up money on the side by working small indies. Part of the deal with WCW is that CMLL president Paco Alonso will help WCW keep tabs on its wrestlers and make sure they aren't working shows without permission.
Misawa is scheduled to face off against Kobashi in a tag match this week and Kobashi has been vowing to debut a new move he's calling the Kobashi Special (ends up being the Burning Hammer which was popularized by Kobashi and the move is usually associated with him, but it was actually invented a couple of years earlier by Kyoko Inoue).
Vader will work 20 weeks in 1999 for AJPW. Dave thinks it's a mistake to have Vader work that busy of a schedule because his body is already pretty broken down and he's not getting any younger. He thinks it would be a better idea to bring him in as a special attraction rather than have him working full tours.
Antonio Inoki's UFO promotion had their big debut show and it was mostly a success (6,500 people) but the matches sucked. It was basically a mix of pro wrestling and worked shooting and the crowd didn't know most of the wrestlers (other than Don Frye and Naoya Ogawa) and were only there to see Inoki, who showed up with his head shaved.
There's rumors that Riki Choshu will come out of retirement for the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show, a year to the day after he retired, to face Naoya Ogawa (doesn't end up happening. He stayed retired a little longer but, of course, he inevitably returned. They all do.)
At the latest Pancrase show, Minoru Suzuki lost in 45 seconds and Dave says it's sad because Suzuki was one of the founders of Pancrase but Dave thinks it's time for Suzuki to get out because he just can't hang with the current generation of stars anymore (yeah, this is the tail end of Suzuki's MMA career, he only fights a handful of times after this before giving it up for good and transitioning into a full-time career of torturing Young Lions).
The NWA held a 50th anniversary show in Cherry Hill, NJ and....it didn't go well. Only about 500 fans attended and reportedly Sandman and Tod Gordon, who were both working the show as part of the ECW vs. NWA feud both walked out before it started due to a disagreement with Dennis Coraluzzo (Sandman was allowed to appear at the show by WCW but wasn't booked to wrestle). There were a few other no-shows and also an incident with Abdullah The Butcher. The show was taking place at a Hilton hotel and everyone had been told in advance that this wasn't an ECW show and not to get out of control. Naturally, Abdullah ignored it and he and his opponent ended up doing a bloodbath match all through the crowd and hotel. Dave does point out that this is pretty much the only kind of match Abdullah is known for, so if he's not allowed to do it, why even book him?
Former WCW jobber Joe Gomez appeared on one of those daytime court TV shows. Apparently he was part of a deal where a woman bid on a date with him for a muscular dystrophy charity auction. She bid $500 and won the date, but Gomez never went out with her. The judge threw out the case.
Jesse Ventura has been getting a lot of publicity for his third party candidacy for Minnesota governor. Latest polls show him at 21% which is amazing because he hasn't spent much money at all on radio or TV advertising. He also did well in debates with the other candidates, which increased his poll numbers.
For ECW's upcoming November to Remember PPV, Tommy Dreamer will have a mystery partner against Justin Credible and Jack Victory. On TV, they've been teasing that it might be New Jack or Raven, but it won't be (Raven, of course, is still with WCW). Heyman has been interested in bringing in Vader for it, but Vader is saying he wants to rest up until he starts with AJPW so it probably won't be him. In other news, Heyman also wanted to bring in Yokozuna to do a job to Spike Dudley (thus furthering Spike's "giant killer" gimmick) but, as always when it comes to Yoko, the Louisiana athletic commission won't clear him so that's not happening.
Taz waived his right to a preliminary hearing for his Pittsburgh case of exposing himself to a teenage girl and requested that the case go straight to trial.
Sabu's latest injury: he failed to catch a chair that RVD threw at him. Chipped 2 teeth, loosened some others, and had him bleeding heavily from the mouth. Naturally never missed a show.
Various WCW notes: Steve McMichael no-showed Nitro after "having too much fun" in Vegas the night before after the PPV. Dave thinks Juventud Guerrera is by far the best worker in either WCW or WWF right now. Many of the Arizona Cardinals football players and Charles Barkley were backstage at Nitro.
In order to get Warrior to agree to job to Hogan at the PPV, he signed a new WCW contract which will pick up when his current one expires. No word on the details, but you gotta figure it's heavily in his favor.
There's been talk of having Dusty Rhodes doing the commentary on the new Roller Jam show that will be on TNN. Dave thinks it's a bad idea since, you know, Dusty is terrible at all things commentary.
Word is Davey Boy Smith and Jim Neidhart are both gone from WCW. Bulldog's agent has apparently been trying to get him out of his WCW contract so he can return to WWF, but Dave would be surprised if they took him back.
Word is Sting may be kept out of action until January after the angle at Halloween Havoc where Bret Hart beat him with a bat. He spent all of last year getting paid to not wrestle, came back, worked 10 months, and is now getting another 3 months off. "It's a great job if you can get it," Dave says.
The New York Times ran a big story on that age-old WWF/WCW lawsuit involving Mark Madden and things he said on the WCW hotline. It's considered an important case when it comes to legally deciding what is and isn't a journalist. Courts have ruled journalists have privilege to maintain their sources but have not clearly defined exactly what a journalist is. The first court ruled that Madden was a journalist, but that was later overturned on appeal and it was determined that he is an entertainer. During the court proceedings, Madden was asked to provide names of his sources for various comments he made about Vince McMahon and the WWF. They claim that Madden uses the WCW hotline to disparage WWF. TL;DR - Madden is claiming he's a journalist and refusing to give up his sources and WWF is fighting REALLY hard for some reason to force him to name names. Anyway, this lawsuit ends up having huge implications in a couple of years.
A newspaper ran a story about Eddie Guerrero talking about his religious beliefs. Guerrero is deeply religious and admitted that he had fallen victim to the temptations of the wrestling business himself. He also talked about his former tag partner Art Barr. Guerrero claimed the autopsy showed no drugs in Barr's system (not true, Dave says) but admitted that both Barr and himself had been heavily abusing prescription drugs and alcohol back then. Guerrero also said he's offended by the direction of the wrestling business (especially WWF) and was also offended a few weeks ago when Hulk Hogan called himself the "God" of professional wrestling.
Let's just quote this one: "On the Time Magazine internet balloting for Man of the Century, Ric Flair is now in third place trailing Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. Raven is in ninth place."
Despite being back on TV, Flair's lawsuit with WCW still isn't quite settled. He has a court hearing next month to determine whether his contract is binding or not, although even if Flair wins, it doesn't look like he would leave. He'd probably just sign a new, better WCW contract. Anyway, until that's all settled, WCW isn't producing any new Flair merchandise.
There's going to be a world title tournament at Survivor Series, and most people expect The Rock to win the title. The feeling is that Steve Austin is so over that he doesn't need the belt to draw.
Triple H will likely not be back in time for Survivor Series due to his knee injury, but luckily, it doesn't appear he will need reconstructive surgery, which was initially feared. Triple H is also in the midst of renegotiating his contract. He still has 1 year left.
Various WWF notes: the storyline of Chyna being off TV due to legal reasons is actually because she's getting reconstructive facial surgery. The Rock recently signed a new 6-year contract. Gangrel signed a 3-year deal. The big bodyguard during Motley Crue's performance on Sunday Night Heat was actually Andrew Martin, who was recently signed and should be starting soon. An Undertaker comic book is coming out in January also.
The latest on everything Steve Austin: he's going to featured in People Magazine twice in their year-end issues, first as one of the breakthrough stars of 1998 and the other as one of the Sexiest Bald Men. He's also going to be handing out an award at the Billboard Music Awards and is expected to appear in an episode of Silk Stalkings in January. And he will have a featured article in this month's Rolling Stone magazine and may even be on the cover (not quite but here's the article).
After Mankind's insane match at King of the Ring earlier this year, Vince McMahon reportedly told Foley that he wanted to thank him for what he did but he never wanted to see him do something like that ever again (yup, Foley has confirmed this story).