December 07, 1998
- Only 3 issues left in 1998 and then I'm taking a month off. Wrestlemania week is coming up, I'll be out of town for that, and it just seems pointless to start 1999, only to pause for a week because I'm out of town right after it starts. So we'll finish up 1998 on Mar. 12th and then 1999 will begin on April 16th. Just gonna keep posting this reminder for the next few posts. Thanks for reading!
- WCW held an unannounced tribute show for referee Mark Curtis (real name Brian Hildebrand) at a house show in Knoxville this week and Dave just heaps praise on WCW for how well they handled it. Hildebrand is suffering from inoperable stomach cancer and has been given about a year to live. All the negativity in the business was put aside as the whole company came together to honor a man that most fans might not even deem that significant since he's just a referee, but to the guys backstage, he's one of the most beloved guys there. Ric Flair made a surprise appearance (he wasn't booked or advertised) and presented Hildebrand with a replica of the WCW title. The main event of the show was Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho & Eddie Guerrero, because it was the match Hildebrand wanted to see headline the show. Most wrestlers take it easy on house shows, but all 4 men worked harder than they usually would on a PPV in this case. The match ended with the original referee getting bumped, leading to Hildebrand jumping out of his ringside chair and calling the finish. The show opened with Mike Tenay giving a speech for Hildebrand and bringing in several people he has worked with over the years, including several backstage guys from Hildebrand's days in Jim Cornette's old Smoky Mountain Wrestling and even former SMW wrestler Dirty White Boy. All of them gave speeches, along with Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, and Bobby Heenan. He was also presented with a 1998 WCW Referee of the Year award and a Man of the Year award from Pro Wrestling Illustrated. Near the end of the show, Terry Taylor brought Hildebrand and his new wife (they were just recently married) into the ring and presented them tickets for a honeymoon vacation in Las Vegas when he's physically up to it. There were more speeches by Benoit, Arn Anderson, and Dean Malenko. All in all, in a business that can be so toxic, Dave was blown away by how great WCW handled this whole thing.
- WATCH: Shitty quality footage of the main event. Jericho's heel promo at the beginning trash talking Hildebrand is tremendous
- WWF and WCW wrestlers are both on the cover of TV Guide this week, with the magazine having 4 different covers, each one featuring Austin, Undertaker, Goldberg, or Hogan. TV Guide is the most widely read magazine in America so this is a pretty huge deal. To show how both companies are when it comes to the marketing side of things, WWF heavily promoted the Austin and Undertaker covers on TV, while WCW didn't mention the Goldberg/Hogan covers at all. It's sort of an example of how well-organized the WWF structure is. They're always on the ball when it comes to promoting and marketing things, while in WCW, it always seems like one department never knows what the other one is doing and always leads to messed up advertising or dropping the ball on things that could help the company.
- As for the article, it was interesting although like most articles about wrestling written by mainstream journalists, was full of inaccuracies. It listed WWF as a $500 million dollar company, which is the same lie that WWF told Forbes Magazine and they also printed it, with Dave once again explaining how WWF is really only a $200 million company and that's only if you're really stretching. It also featured an interesting line from Austin about the direction of the WWF, with him saying, "I can't say that I agree with every storyline we have. Every time you hear some racism or a bunch of the sexual stuff, that's a complete turnoff for me." It talked about steroids, which McMahon seemed to brush off and talked about how Bischoff claims WCW has a testing policy but he's deliberately sketchy on explaining how it's enforced (answer: it's not). Dave thinks McMahon's dismissiveness of the issue could come back to bite him. They've obviously had troubles with that before and with wrestling being so popular right now, they're only one high-profile tragedy away from the story being back in the media again like it was 4 years ago. And besides, even if it doesn't hurt the business at all, Dave thinks it's pretty heartless for him to seemingly not care about the health of these guys at all and to not take preventative measures to try to stop it from happening again. The Undertaker refused to break character for the interview, "refusing to acknowledge the existence of Mark Callaway." In the interview, when asked who would win between Undertaker and Mean Mark Callous, he seemed offended and said "Mean Mark Callous is dead." The article also claimed Austin makes $2 million a year. Dave says if that's true, he's the most underpaid person in the history of wrestling. If Austin is making anything less than $10 million this year, he needs to have a long talk with Vince and Dave estimates the real number is probably around $16 million this year. Dave suspects $2 million might be his downside guarantee on his contract but with merch numbers and other stuff, he's gotta be making far more.
- Dave takes a look at the future of several of WCW's stars. First he explains all the differences between WCW and WWF contracts. WCW almost always offers more money and less dates to work and it's a guaranteed deal so if you get hurt, you still get paid. WWF offers downside guarantees, which aren't as much. But if business is up and you're doing good, there's all sorts of bonuses and gate percentages and whatnot tied in, so if you're successful in WWF, you stand to make a lot more money than in WCW. But if you're injured, you only collect the downside guarantee. Rick and Scott Steiner both signed new deals with WCW this week, just days before their previous deals expired. They are estimated to be making between $500K-$700K each, which is almost double their previous salary. Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero have both yet to re-sign and Bischoff has made it clear that if they don't, they will no longer be pushed on TV, which is why Jericho lost the TV title and hasn't been given interview time in the last couple of weeks despite being the best talker in WCW right now. Rey Mysterio is a unique situation. WCW is offering him a substantial raise over his current deal but they're still offering him less than guys like Jericho and Benoit. The reason is they believe WWF probably wouldn't be that interested in Mysterio due to his size, so they figure he doesn't have as much leverage. Mysterio has also been told that if he doesn't sign soon, they will pull the offer from the table. Benoit's contract expires at the end of 1999 and he went on WCW's website during a radio show and said he plans to leave when it's up, which infuriated Bischoff. Jericho, Benoit, and Guerrero have all been offered around $500K to stay. Mysterio was offered substantially less. And The Giant was offered substantially more, but he's repeatedly turned down offers to re-sign and WCW has all but given up on keeping him. A lot of these guys say they feel bullied by Bischoff, who is counting on them to accept the guaranteed money rather than take their chances in WWF and is using threats of burial and pulling offers off the table in order to coerce them into signing.
- All Japan Women held their 30th anniversary show, their biggest show of the year, and....it didn't go well. The show only drew 5,000 people to an arena that holds 17,000+. The company has been in financial peril for awhile and has somehow been surviving on a day-to-day basis with money made from spot shows and has lost most of its top stars to other promotions. Many of those women were brought back for this show but concessions had to be made. In order to get other promotions to allow AJW to use their stars, almost all of the AJW wrestlers lost their matches to women from other promotions, including AJW's top star Manami Toyota losing in the main event. Basically, they had to let their competition walk all over them in order to even have enough big name stars to draw anybody to the show.
- Giant Haystacks, one of the top stars in British wrestling in the 70s and 80s passed away after a battle with stomach cancer. Dave recaps his career, saying he spent most of it in England but did have a brief run in WCW in 1996 as Loch Ness. At his peak, he legitimately weighed near 700 pounds but near the end of his life, due to the cancer, he had gotten down to around 350.
- Giant Baba is expected to attend WWF's upcoming February PPV (hey that was in Memphis!) so he can take a look at WWF's wrestlers in person and see if there's anyone he can try to bring in to AJPW next year, since both Vader and Bart Gunn have gotten over so big (Baba ends up dying in January so this obviously doesn't happen).
- With only a month until NJPW's Jan. 4 Tokyo Dome show, tickets aren't selling very well and they've only announced 1 match. There's still plans for several of Antonio Inoki's UFO fighters to work the show against NJPW wrestlers in alleged shoot fights but nothing is finalized yet and pretty much everyone agrees that they're pushing this UFO vs. NJPW angle too soon.
- The New York Daily News ran a big story on Superstar Billy Graham. He talked about his various health problems and was also complimentary of Jesse Ventura. He talked about steroids, saying that Hogan did a ton of them. He criticized the current direction of the wrestling business and also said he had recently sent a letter to Vince McMahon apologizing for causing them so much trouble back in the early 90s.
- TNN is still interested in having a wrestling show air on Friday nights to lead into their new RollerJam show. ECW has had negotiations with the network, and so has Music City Wrestling out of Nashville. Speaking of RollerJam, several wrestling personalities tried out for the announcing job on the show, including Missy Hyatt and Rick Rude. Neither were hired.
- Yokozuna, weighing around 600 pounds, showed up at an indie show in California. They wanted him to do a run-in and do the Banzai drop on someone, but he said his back was hurting so he just did a few clotheslines instead.
- Former pro wrestler Abe Stanklin died this week at age 96. He was nicknamed Pig Grease Stanklin because he used to wrestle greased pigs at old carnival shows many decades ago.
- AVN (Adult Video News) did a story about porn star Rob Black trying to get into ECW. Black told them he met with ECW but nothing has come of it yet. Black said he's willing to work for free just to get his name over and wants to sell his porn videos at the merch booth (this, of course, eventually turns into him starting his own XPW promotion in a few more months).
- Hulk Hogan announced his retirement on the Tonight Show and talked about running for President. Jay Leno threw a few questions at him regarding politics that obviously stumped Hulk though, so, ya know. If Jay Leno is throwing you off your game, you're probably not going to be able to stand up to the debates. He also talked about Jesse Ventura and buried him a little. Regardless, Hogan's retirement announcement got a good bit of mainstream coverage, including CNN and ESPN and treated it as if it was real. Dave is calling bullshit on the idea that Hogan is actually retiring.
- WATCH: Hogan retirement video (Leno part at 3:15)
- Scott Hall fell asleep at the wheel of a rented car and rolled it over 3 times. Luckily he was wearing his seat belt and wasn't seriously injured. He took a breathalyzer and passed and didn't show any signs of impairment so it looks like he was actually sober (or at least not drunk on alcohol) for this one and really did just fall asleep. Regardless, this is only one of, like, 5 rental cars that he wrecks during a few month period here.
- Scott Steiner was apparently arrested awhile back for an incident that happened in April. He was accused of yelling at a guy conducting traffic and the guy wouldn't let Steiner drive into a closed lane. Steiner got out and threatened him, then got back in the car and lightly hit the guy with his car. He then told him to move again or he'd run him over. The guy didn't move and Steiner nudged him with the car a second time. So they popped him for aggravated assault and terroristic threats. Anyway, Steiner went to court this week and tried to accept a plea bargain for 5 years of probation and a fine, but when the judge heard the story, he apparently didn't feel it was that serious and dismissed the plea bargain and apparently dropped the case. So Scotty is off the hook (nope, Dave is mistaken. We find out more later, but Scott ends up on probation for it).
- Bret Hart has a legit groin injury and when the fans were booing him when he talked about it during a promo, Bret responded with a hilarious line, saying none of them even have groins. I only include this because I genuinely snort-laughed when I read it.
- Nitro on Jan. 4 will be at the Georgia Dome and ticket sales are actually slightly below what they expected. It's believed that Hogan will be appearing on the show to do some sort of farewell or possibly an angle leading to his return (boy, do they ever...)
- The Ric Flair/WCW legal issues are all pretty much cleared up finally. It hasn't been officially closed and signed off on yet, but it will be soon.
- Van Hammer appeared as an honorary cheerleader during the Cowboys/Vikings Thanksgiving game. Announcer John Madden even pointed him out by name.
- Raw notes: the Mark Henry/Chyna date angle was really well done and Dave says it's the first good thing Mark Henry has done in the wrestling business so far. WWF brought in Blue Meanie to be part of Al Snow's J.O.B. Squad group. He's on loan from ECW and isn't signed to a WWF deal. They're openly acknowledging that these guys are from ECW. They also tried to bring in Stevie Richards, but Paul Heyman didn't want them to because Stevie Richards isn't in ECW anymore and he didn't want them portraying Richards as an ECW guy. Plus, WWF is still concerned about Richards' ability due to his recent neck issues, so they decided against it. And finally, "Between the three ho's, Jacqueline and Runnels, they had enough silicon at ringside to create normal sized implants for every women in the province of Newfoundland." Dave's war on fake tits continues!
- At the Raw tapings that will air next week, they did an angle where Undertaker tied Steve Austin to a cross and they raised it up, basically crucifying him. Dave talks about how ECW got kicked off the air in some markets for doing a similar angle a few years ago, but times change. Plus, WWF was careful to call it "a symbol" and not a cross.
- Sable was scheduled to make an appearance at a department store in California last week but the store cancelled her appearance claiming they didn't want to be associated with the WWF's product. Dave thinks it's the first sign of what could become bigger problems if the company keeps getting more risque.
- The producers of the show Nash Bridges are wanting to get Steve Austin to do an episode (it happened, but we'll get there).
- The Winnipeg Sun newspaper ran a recent story on the Jackyl (Don Callis). Callis said he wants to someday be mayor of Winnipeg. (There's still time Don!)
- Some guy writes into the letters section with a great 2 sentence letter: "The 11/16 Raw was brilliant. It's about time they gave Hawk a push." (get it?! Because Droz pushed Hawk off the TitanTron. Ah, we're having fun.)
- Someone else writes a really interesting letter regarding the Tributes book that Dave recently released. It's basically a collection of obituaries Dave has written over the years for different wrestlers. Here's the letter:
- I enjoyed the Tributes book to the extent it was hard to put down, despite the fact that I had already read the vast majority of the stories upon initial release. I noted that, for obvious reasons, you predict that each premature death won't be the last and, without a doubt, another follows shortly thereafter. I'll bet that like me, many readers have the feeling that Scott Hall will be included in Volume 2.
- What is especially interesting to me is the affect the book has the potential to create among people who read it. Personally, I'm a 33-year-old male, professionally employed making a pretty nice living with a pretty steady habit of booze and recreational drugs, although likely nowhere near the level of the majority of those profiled. My pastimes include coke, marijuana, hash, etc. Despite repeated attempts, I've never been successful in stopping or really been that interested in slowing down. I know this isn't practical if I want to live to a ripe old age but, despite the sound advice of many friends and family members, I've maintained this lifestyle for several years now.
- What moved me is that, after reading the Kerry Von Erich, Brian Pillman and Louie Spicolli stories consecutively the other night, I actually found myself not lighting up that second joint or snorting that extra line. I've also noticed a greater consciousness about the volume of hard drugs like cocaine which I may ingest, and especially about mixing them with alcohol. While all this may seem like common sense, I can't recall anything else in a long time having this kid of an effect on my thought process. Frankly, the articles had an eerie feeling to them, especially when read consecutively, and I got scared. The effect seems to be a positive one and although maybe not permanent, it surely is a step in the right direction. I really don't want to go Cold Turkey right now, as I do enjoy this lifestyle and to date, have been pretty successful, but thank you for making me open my eyes. After reading this book from cover-to-cover, I know it really can happen to me.
- Name withheld by request