November 16, 1998
- Sorry I'm late. Dock it from my pay.
- There's never been a time in history where pro wrestling has been the subject of so much mainstream attention in the U.S. than right now. As if the huge popularity of WWF and WCW wasn't enough, Jesse Ventura's shocking victory to become governor of Minnesota was front page news throughout the country. Ventura has been everywhere this week, including an appearance on Meet The Press where he took some shots at Hillary Clinton after she called his campaign a "sideshow." CNN did a 1-hour feature on him. The Today Show interviewed Vince McMahon about him, which Vince didn't seem thrilled about (probably since Ventura wiped the floor with WWF a few years ago in a lawsuit). But within days, everybody in the business got on board with it and began trying to attach themselves to Ventura in some way, "none more pathetically than Hulk Hogan." It's known that Hogan and Ventura have hated each other for years and yet this week, Hogan has been kissing Ventura's ass in the media while Ventura has responded by delightfully trashing Hogan at every opportunity. And if that wasn't enough, Hogan continued the pandering by making his own fake announcement that he's running for President, all in an attempt to get some of this Jesse Ventura media coverage to rub off on him (more on that later). On Raw, Vince McMahon went so far as to invite Ventura to the show next week, because even with all the bad blood there, WWF wants some of that mainstream publicity also.
- Interestingly enough, Ventura's win is the biggest win in a major election by a 3rd party candidate in recent times and has a lot of people talking about him as a potential Presidential candidate in 2000, but Ventura has already stopped that story by saying he intends to serve his full 4-year term as governor and doesn't plan to run for President in 2 years. Anyway, Dave does a long in-depth bio on Ventura's life and career and it's super interesting. The guy's had a hell of a life. Dave gives his own thoughts on Ventura, saying he's a guy who had more balls than basically anyone else in wrestling and always refused to back down if he felt he was in the right, no matter how it damaged his career, and never kissed anyone's ass. But he also says Ventura is thin-skinned and doesn't take criticism well and he's going to have to learn to get over that if he's going to be in politics (boy, doesn't that sound familiar). Dave also says he's like a lot of old-time wrestlers, who thinks everything is a con or a work, which isn't a good look. Also, for what it's worth, Dave talks about how Jesse Ventura's campaign commercials were hugely popular because of how weird and entertaining they were.
- WATCH: Jesse Ventura campaign commercial #1
- WATCH: Jesse Ventura campaign commercial #2
- Dave talks about all the mainstream stories about wrestling that are coming in the next few weeks. Spin Magazine, People Magazine, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Maxim, Time, Playboy, and more are all working on major wrestling stories and some of those magazines will likely have Steve Austin on the covers. Also lots of stories in major newspapers coming up. Plus a wrestling documentary on The Learning Channel, the Andre The Giant documentary on A&E, Wrestling With Shadows debuting in the U.S., and more. Basically, wrestling is everywhere right now.
- Speaking of, the Spin Magazine story is already out and is interesting. It talked a lot about the business and advertising side, especially with WWF's more crude product, with Eric Bischoff of course trashing WWF for selling sex to kids. McMahon and Austin also were quoted talking about Goldberg as an Austin rip-off, with Austin saying, "If Goldberg's not trying to copy me, I'd hate to see what would happen if he did." Dave of course argues that aside from the bald head and black trunks, the 2 guys couldn't be any more different but whatever. (Looks like Spin recently republished this article, so enjoy):
- Lots of possible new wrestling shows on the horizon. TNT has ordered WCW to tape a 4th hour after Nitro, which they will air on Tuesdays. It will be called Nitro Extra and as mentioned last week, it's being used to fill time that was originally scheduled for NBA games prior to the strike. Fox Sports is looking into starting their own wrestling promotion, but Dave thinks it would be a bad idea unless they are willing to lose a bunch of money for the first several years. TNN is also talking about starting its own wrestling show as a lead in for the Roller Derby show premiering next year.
- Dave reports the death of Sky Low Low, "without question the most famous midget pro wrestler who ever lived." He was 70 and died after a lengthy illness. Dave recaps his life and career.
- Raw beat Nitro in the ratings this week by the largest margin ever, with over a million more homes watching Raw. It was even crazier because Hogan was on Nitro this week (he wasn't last week) and the company got a lot of mainstream publicity from the recent deal where Hogan announced he was running for President (again, more on that later). In fact, despite using an endless stream of celebrities and getting near-constant mainstream publicity for the last several months, WCW's ratings and PPV buyrates continue to plummet. To make it worse, Raw beat Nitro during every quarter-hour segment of the show and, furthermore, they also beat them in every demographic (men, women, children, teenagers, old people. You name it, Raw won it). Dave breaks down the numbers and says the answer is really pretty simple. When it comes down to it, for most of 1998, Raw has been awesome and Nitro has sucked and the ratings are starting to reflect it.
- Dave finally saw the Misawa vs. Kobashi match that was mentioned last week and says it was the best AJPW match of the year and gives it the full 5 stars. It's also worth noting that even though AJPW business has been down lately, this match was a huge success in every way. It drew the biggest crowd ever for wrestling to Budokan Hall and also did a monster 7.4 TV rating. Dave also notes that Giant Baba and Misawa are basically splitting the booking right now, with Baba booking the Triple Crown title scene and Misawa booking everything else. And Misawa actually didn't want to win the title yet, wanting to let Kobashi run with it for awhile before challenging him next year. But with business down, Baba wanted the belt on Misawa ASAP so that's why it happened. I posted the match in the last issue but screw it, here it is again.
- WATCH: Misawa vs. Kobashi - AJPW 1998
- Villano IV suffered a scary neck injury several weeks ago in a Nitro match with Raven. He tried to come back a week later and work a match but it was way too soon and the injury was worse than he thought. Turned out he needed surgery. So he had the surgery and now it looks like he'll be out for at least 8 more months.
- Lots of speculation about NJPW's upcoming Tokyo Dome show on Jan. 4th. Antonio Inoki's new UFO promotion has a show coming up in December and tickets are pretty much not selling at all. So Inoki is pushing the idea of starting the planned NJPW vs. UFO inter-promotional feud now. But others in NJPW want to wait and let it build slowly rather than rush into it. Of course, it's hard to say if this UFO gimmick will even survive that long, which is why Inoki is hoping to start it immediately at the Jan. 4th show. Also, Atsushi Onita made a big challenge to face anyone in AJPW or NJPW and there's talk that they may bring in Onita for the Tokyo Dome show. NJPW also hoped to bring in Goldberg for the show, but WCW has a huge Nitro scheduled the same night, in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, so there's absolutely no chance of NJPW getting any big WCW names that date, especially not Goldberg.
- The latest on Yokozuna turning down the WCW offer to do a run-in at Halloween Havoc is because word is he still has hopes of getting back in the WWF and knew it wouldn't be good if he showed up in WCW. For what it's worth, WWF has said they will bring him back if he can get down to around 400 pounds and get cleared by the athletic commissions but word is he's nowhere near 400 pounds so that probably won't be happening.
- Dave randomly talks about the origins of the power bomb, noting that it was pretty much invented by Lou Thesz, a version in which he drops the person down on their neck and shoulders and pins them that way. He famously used it to pin Rikidozan in a legendary match in the 1950s. The more modern version was basically invented by Terry Gordy when he was part of the Freebirds and later picked up by every big man wrestler afterwards.
- New WWF signees Erin O'Grady, Vic Grimes, Matt Bloom (using the name Baldo) and Shawn Stasiak all debuted on TV for Power Pro Wrestling in Memphis. They've been sent there to train for awhile before debuting on WWF TV.
- Superstar Billy Graham will have his 7th hip replacement surgery this week.
- Dave congratulates football writer Alex Marvez on publishing a new book called "Wild Ride" about the Denver Broncos. Marvez dedicated the book to several people, one of whom was Dave and he says it meant a lot to him and talks about how he knew Marvez when he was a teenager writing for his high school newspaper (Marvez has written for several major sports outlets and apparently has a sports show on SiriusXM now).
- ECW is in preliminary discussions with someone regarding getting national exposure for the promotion but no details yet (ends up being TNN). They're also looking at paying for a late-night time slot on Fox Sports Net affiliates around the country, especially in New York.
- On Nitro, Hogan came out (dressed basically exactly like Jesse Ventura) and announced that he was running for president and began "kissing Ventura's ass well past the point of nausea. Hogan is setting a record time from being the biggest money player in the game to becoming a pathetic old man right before our eyes." Tell us how you really feel, Dave. They were planning for Hogan to announce Ted Turner as his running mate, but Turner wisely wanted no part in this angle so the plan is to announce it next week. "He's got seven more days to find a celebrity dumb enough to let their name go up in flames in a bad angle." Dave also wonders if Hogan is the first presidential candidate to ever be given government immunity against prosecution to testify in a federal trial.
- The did another angle on Nitro with Goldberg taking out Jericho after Jericho talked a bunch of shit about him. Dave says the problem with this feud is that even though Jericho has been super entertaining in it, Goldberg doesn't want to work with Jericho for some reason, apparently only seeing him as a cruiserweight and he also doesn't like how Jericho is working the angle. So none of this seems to be leading to a match (yeah this was basically the end of the Goldberg/Jericho "angle" and it did absolutely nothing for either of them).
- WWF recently made an effort to buy the distribution rights to Wrestling With Shadows. I'm sure you can imagine why. Anyway, thankfully it didn't happen.
- A Rey Mysterio vs. Juventud Guerrera match was supposed to happen on Nitro a couple of weeks ago but it didn't happen because Guerrera got injured before the match in the dumbest way possible. He was backstage warming up by jumping up and down and when he jumped up at one point, he hit his head on an exposed pipe and knocked himself loopy so they scrapped the match at the last minute.
- Referee Nick Patrick will be out because he needs knee surgery after injuring his knee during the Hogan/Warrior Halloween Havoc match.
- There were talks of WCW and Telemundo doing a deal for a Lucha Libre show, but Telemundo pulled out of the talks and is no longer interested. The problem was they didn't want to do a show built around all these Mexican guys as the top stars, while on Nitro, WCW continues to push them as basically jobbers. And since WCW evidently has no plans on ever changing that, Telemundo backed out.
- The plan is still for Nash, Luger, or Hogan to win the World War 3 battle royal (most likely Nash) and then win the title from Goldberg at Starrcade. Dave once again says that taking the belt off Goldberg right now would be nuts since he's doing big business as champion and no one else in WCW is as big of a draw as him right now. Dave points out that he really hasn't had a serious long-term storyline since he won the title and he's still been playing second fiddle to Hogan, which has wrecked a lot of Goldberg's star power. He says they really need to run with Goldberg on top seriously for awhile before they even consider taking the title off him.
- The Giant makes an appearance in the new movie The Waterboy, which was the #1 movie in the country this week.
- WATCH: Captain Insan-O!
- Public Enemy and Ultimo Dragon have both been released by WCW. Word is Public Enemy has already contacted ECW about returning and Dave figures they'll be back soon to feud with the Dudleys. As for Dragon, he's on disability insurance right now from his injury and botched surgery and if/when he's healed, WCW would definitely hire him back. But right now, he's collecting more on the insurance than his WCW paycheck anyway.
- Personal daprice82 side-note: if you're not a member of the site and you aren't logging in to read Dave's full weekly bashing of Nitro and Thunder in the 1998 Observers, why do you hate fun so much? If you're a fan of snarky Dave Meltzer, you find it in spades every week when he's trashing how bad WCW is getting during this time. That being said...
- Dave decides to look at some WCW numbers. A lot of people accuse the company of overpaying its wrestlers, but the total payroll for WCW is $36 million. In 1998, the company is expected to gross between $175-$200 million. If you compare that percentage to other mainstream sports, the wrestlers are actually underpaid compared to what those athletes make. Dave also breaks out some more math to show why Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone weren't worth what they were paid. Bash at the Beach grossed $7 million for WCW, but once you subtract Rodman and Malone's pay, the PPV actually grossed less than most WWF shows.
- There's apparently some issues between WWF and Steve Austin over a movie deal. There is an upcoming movie called Universal Soldier II starring Jean Claude Van Dam. Producers for the movie approached WWF about having Steve Austin in the movie and offered $55,000. WWF turned down the offer, saying it was too low, without ever consulting Austin. As a result, the producers went to WCW next and got Bill Goldberg for the movie. When Austin heard about it, he was told Goldberg was paid $250,000 for the movie. Pissed off thinking he missed out on an easy 250K payday, Austin went to Vince McMahon who informed him they only offered $55,000 and he also put the blame on WWF's licensing department for not informing Austin. Eventually, Vince sent Austin a letter of apology for how the whole thing was handled and it seemed to smooth everything over. No word on if the $250K for Goldberg is actually true. Austin was also upset when he recently learned that New York Magazine wanted him on the cover (along with Vince), but but Vince refused and tried to give the cover to The Rock instead (which NY Mag turned down, feeling he wasn't a big enough star). Also, The Rock was recently given a promotional deal with Walmart that was originally scheduled for Austin. In unrelated news, Dave mentions that Austin has some input over his creative storylines and talks about how he recently turned down an idea for Survivor Series, where Shane McMahon be the referee for his match, only to turn heel and cost him the title (he must not have had too much creative control because whether he turned it down or not, that's exactly what ends up happening).
- At the latest Raw taping, there was a Steven Regal vs, Golga match. It was a total mess, especially when Regal hit Golga and his mask flew off. Everyone stood around not knowing what to do and then the crowd began chanting "Earthquake!" at him until he ran and hid under the ring until someone could bring him his mask. Naturally, the match won't be airing since it was a taped Raw.
- Insane Clown Posse has quit WWF. Apparently they were working for free and were promised a commercial during Raw for their new album, but they didn't get it, so they quit. "Huge loss, huh?" Dave says.
- Kurt Angle continues to impress people at the training camps he's been doing and they have high hopes for him when he starts next year.
- Teddy Hart was fired this week. He had a WWF developmental deal but just couldn't stay out of trouble during the training camps, showing up late and starting shit with people, so they finally decided to just cut their losses.
- On the WWF hotline, Jim Ross talked about Wrestling With Shadows and called it "amateurish." Dave disagrees, naturally. But of course, WWF is in full-out assault mode against this movie since it's debuting on A&E soon.
- Despite still being advertised to face the Rock at Survivor Series, word is Triple H still isn't going to be ready and won't be wrestling because of his knee injury, so they'll have to find some way out of that.
- WWF is looking at running a show next year in the Georgia Dome, mostly just to stick it to WCW.
- Steve Austin is apparently booked to film an episode of La Femme Nikia (don't think this one ever happened)