February 07, 2000
- Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn debuted on Raw this week as a group called the Radicalz but it all seemed to fall apart the very next night when Guerrero suffered a serious elbow injury during the Smackdown tapings. The storyline was that they would have to earn their WWF contracts by defeating members of DX in a best of 3 series (which, for whatever reason, they were booked to lose 2-1). Guerrero wasn't even supposed to wrestle because he was already dealing with an elbow injury and hadn't wrestled since a Nitro episode back in November. But for whatever reason, he ended up in the match anyway and sure enough, he royally fucked up his elbow and had to be taken out of the ring, causing them to lose a match they were supposed to win. Later in the night, Triple H beat Benoit, thus making the Radicalz 0-3 against DX. Dave thinks this was pretty stupid booking all around because it basically buried the WCW guys on only their 2nd night in the company. Furthermore, WWF decided not to acknowledge Benoit as the uncrowned WCW champion which probably could have done pretty big business if promoted correctly against WWF champion Triple H. But instead he just jobbed to Triple H in his very first match and they never acknowledged that he left WCW as their champion. They were put over strong on Raw, probably more than WCW ever did with them, and WWF made plenty of subtle digs about how these guys were in front of full arenas for the first time in a long time. But man, the Smackdown taping the next night didn't do any of them any favors. They were paired with Mick Foley, who in storyline was pushing to get them hired. There had been serious talk of bringing back Vince McMahon to introduce them as his soldiers to go against Triple H and Stephanie but they decided to hold off on Vince's return for now.
- WATCH: The Radicalz WWF debut
- WATCH: Eddie Guerrero gets injured (about the 7:00 mark)
- WATCH: Chris Benoit vs. Triple H (Benoit's WWF debut match)
- Anyway, this whole thing has been a mess from the beginning. WWF had asked all 4 men to publicly claim WWF negotiations had broken down so that it would be a surprise when they showed up. All 4 men began telling people, even their friends, that they were going to go work in Japan when in reality they had already signed WWF deals. But word leaked out and finally WWF.com posted a story early on Monday admitting that all 4 would be on Raw that night. WCW gave them full releases last week which is why they were able to debut immediately. Konnan and Shane Douglas were also sent release forms but hadn't signed them yet because there's uncertainty over whether or not WWF is interested. There's no way WWF would give them nearly as much money as what they're making in WCW. If nothing else, WCW apparently wants to keep Douglas around because he's good on the mic, but they don't seem to give a shit one way or another if Konnan stays or goes and he's made some powerful enemies in the company (Dave notes that Lex Luger blamed Konnan for his bicep injury last year, for example). He's basically been buried since the summer of 1998 when he got pretty shockingly over on his own, but WCW shut that shit down quick. If Kevin Sullivan stays in power, it's unlikely they'll be brought back, but Russo apparently likes both of them and if he gets his power back, Dave thinks they'll probably both stay with WCW. As for Benoit and the others, money wasn't a factor anymore, they just wanted out of WCW no matter what. Word is Benoit's WWF deal is around $400,000 per-year downside guarantee, while the other 3 guys are in the $250,000 per-year range, which is significantly less than all of them were making in WCW. But with business doing so good, pretty much every WWF wrestler is making significantly more than their downside guarantees these days so it's kind of a wash.
- Officials in WCW have been trying to downplay it, saying that due to their size, none of them are going to get over in WWF anyway. Dave ain't buying that shit. These 4 guys may not be a huge deal in WWF (they're doing pretty good these days with or without them) but losing all 4 of those guys at once is a huge blow to WCW that has gutted their midcard. WCW's one strength had always been in-ring match quality and for the first time, they're significantly weaker than WWF in that regard now. Dave looks at the WCW roster and it's mostly wrestlers who are past their primes, with reputations for being lazy and unreliable. A few are still good and productive in the ring or on the mic (Flair and DDP for example). Bret Hart's future is in question right now due to injuries. Goldberg is the only genuine young star they've created and even he means far less now than he did a year ago. Jeff Jarrett as a main eventer ain't doing anything for Dave. They have a lot of talented young guys (Shannon Moore, Crowbar, Kidman, Juventud Guerrera, etc.) but WCW has made it clear for years that guys like that aren't going to ever really be given significant chances. Benoit was the best guy WCW had and was the closest to busting through that glass ceiling and becoming a new main event star, and they lost him. Dave says Eddie Guerrero was in that same category, although he's never fully recovered from his car accident last year and Dave says there's other reasons why Eddie is considered sort of a question mark these days (Dave doesn't outright say it, but he's not-so-subtly hinting at Eddie's drug problems around this time). The backstage hierarchy of WCW is still a question mark also. Kevin Sullivan is currently the official booker in charge but that seems shaky at best and there's a lot of talk that he'll be replaced by a committee of Vince Russo, Ed Ferrara, Kevin Nash, Terry Taylor and Bill Banks, with Taylor possibly ending up in the Vince McMahon position of being the guy who filters out all of Russo's bat-shit ideas before they hit TV. Regardless of what happens, WCW is clearly in far worse shape now than it was even 4 months ago and something has to change ASAP. (In retrospect, the loss of those 4 guys was pretty much the death kneel for WCW. Things were already bad before this, but this moment is where the wheels totally came off and they never really recovered.)
- Lot of news and drama from the latest Pride MMA show in Japan. Huge show, huge budget, lots of pyro, celebrities (even Eric Clapton in attendance), and the biggest crwod in the history of MMA with over 48,000 in the Tokyo Dome. But the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Royce Gracie main event was a disaster. A boring fight that Gracie won by decision. They basically laid on the ground for 15 minutes while the crowd got progressively louder and louder in booing it. Takada refused to come out for an overtime after the 15 minute draw mark, so the judges just ruled it as a decision in favor of Gracie in order to help Takada save face and it didn't really seem like Gracie was even trying to truly finish him, though he looked like he could have at any time. Ken Shamrock returned and signed his Pride contract, the most lucrative in MMA history and announced he will be returning to fight in May. There's been talk of Shamrock's opponent being Takada but his drawing power is all but dead now. Takada always wants to do worked fights and has pretty much gotten his shit wrecked every time he's done real shoots. There was also a lot of controversy over various rule changes and such in the Guy Mezger match that had Shamrock pissed off and threatening to walk out on Pride. There's a lot more to this whole story but it's MMA sooooooo...
- The Rock's autobiography has topped the New York Times bestseller list, the 2nd wrestling book to do so in recent weeks. Of course, Mick Foley's book is a masterpiece and Rock's book, well....not quite so much. Reviewers rightfully ripped it apart. It was ghostwritten of course and reads like a WWF commissioned book would. It was full of inaccuracies, even about his own family (Rock's grandmother's name is even misspelled repeatedly throughout the entire book). The best parts of the book deal with Rock's life before wrestling, teenage years, growing up around the business, football, etc. Dave basically says this is what would happen if Hulk Hogan wrote a book. A bunch of colorful exaggerated stories that have no real basis in reality. Dave also calls bullshit on some of Rock's childhood stories (like Rock's claim that he tried amateur wrestling in high school, went in the first day having never done it before, belly-to-belly suplexed the star heavyweight with ease, and then decided it was boring and never went back. Sorry, but Dave just ain't buying this shit). Also, he totally only tried steroids once when he was 18 and never again, he's just naturally that way you guys. Rock also tells a story about how he challenged wrestler Lars Anderson to a fight when he was 13 because Anderson didn't want to do a job at his grandfather's tribute show and it turned into a big argument with teenage Rock wanting to fight the big bad wrestler. The fight never happened of course and that's the end of the story in the book. In reality, later that night, some other Samoan wrestlers from the family went to a bar and beat Anderson nearly to death over it, but Rock conveniently left that part of the story out. He talks about how his dad was making hundreds of thousands a year in the 70s which Dave calls a ridiculous exaggeration and says unless you were Andre The Giant, nobody was making that kind of money back then, and Rocky Johnson wasn't making Andre-money. He also talks about his dad being the first African American to hold various titles, including the WWF IC title and Dave points out that, uh, no. Rocky Johnson was never IC champ. He and Tony Atlas were the first black WWF tag team champions (and even there, Dave notes that Sonny King was one half of the WWF tag champions 11 years before that so it's not like Johnson or Atlas were the first black guys to ever hold that title). Rock wrote about how his dad refused to play a stereotypical black character back in those days and wouldn't do "jive interviews" and things like that. Dave points out that Rocky Johnson basically did whatever he was asked depending on what territory he was in. His WWF tag team was called Soul Patrol. He wrestled as Sweet Ebony Diamond, and he did "jive interviews" lots of times. Basically, don't go into this book looking for the truth. Once Rock gets to his WWF career, it's all typical WWF revisionism and defending the company against all the various criticisms they get, and a lot of it ends up being halfway in-character so it's just a mess, and of course, lots of silly exaggerations and inaccuracies there too (for instance, his grueling "35 minute" match with Ken Shamrock at King of the Ring, which of course was really only 14 minutes. Just silly dumb shit like that). TL;DR - this book is basically garbage, but to be fair, Rock didn't really write it so whatever.
- Newsweek ran a big cover story about WWF this week. The typical stuff, WWF is huge, they make a lot of money, should kids be watching this, etc. Jim Ross recalls an interesting story in the article. He talks about the time he was working for Bill Watts back in the territory days and says he was in a bathroom stall and overheard 2 unnamed promoters seriously talking about having Vince McMahon killed (back when he was running everyone out of business). Dave says given how hated McMahon was back then, he wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that's a true story. Otherwise, just the typical article, with a few factual errors but that's expected from mainstream media reports on wrestling.
- Turns out there was a lot of controversy over Mae Young going "topless" at Royal Rumble. The Madison Square Garden people were upset about it because they weren't told it was going to happen. But as it turns out, Young was wearing a body suit with fake prosthesis breasts so she wasn't really topless (and in fact, she was technically covered totally from the neck down), although it sure did look real to fans there live and even on TV. MSG released a statement saying, "Madison Square Garden is disturbed by what transpired at the WWF event on Jan. 23. The event was promoted as being consistent with traditional WWF programs, however there was an international and significant departure within the event which both The Garden and the public were unaware. Today, the Garden has received a guarantee from the WWF that the presentation of the next event on Feb. 28 will be consistent in every way with traditional WWF programs--and for that matter, so will any future event that maybe held at The Garden." Dave says MSG had no real right to be unprepared. WWF heavily promoted that someone was likely to get topless during the show for weeks in advance and the PPV even had an "N" rating which basically promises nudity, so that's on MSG if they didn't see it coming. A NYPost article by (who else) Phil Mushnick said that if Mae Young actually had been topless in the arena in front of fans, the show would have been in violation of city and state morality laws. MSG lawyers are reportedly investigating to determine whether WWF violated their conduct clauses in their contract with the arena. MSG also noted that they have banned some WWF merchandise from being sold in their arena due to it being deemed inappropriate.
- More bad news for Nitro ratings this week. The show did a 2.79 rating, which isn't technically the lowest rated episode ever but it might as well be (they'll be praying for 2.79's a year from now). The real lowest rated episode was a few months ago, but that was back in the 3-hour Nitro days and going head-to-head against both Raw and Monday Night Football. But now Nitro is down to 2 hours and there's no NFL on anymore, so this 2.79 rating is actually worse if you look at it in that context. Interestingly enough, when Nitro ended, a lot of fans switched over to Raw which actually doesn't happen as often as you would think. In recent years, it's seemed like each company has their loyal followings and when one show is over, only a small percentage switches over to the other show. But in this case, nearly 30% of Nitro's audience switched over to Raw as soon as Nitro ended, and Dave pretty much credits that to all the WCW guys (Benoit, Eddie, etc.) appearing on Raw.
- Dave lists some business comparisons, contrasting Dec. 1998 against Dec. 1999 for all the major companies. The WWF numbers are basically what you expect (minor increases and decreases, but nothing significant) but the WCW numbers are something else. It's STAGGERING to see how far they fell in just one year. Average live attendance down nearly 65%. Average gate down 58%. In Dec. 1998, they sold out 35% of their shows. In Dec. 1999....not a single one. Monday night ratings down 30%. And what about buyrate and revenue from Starrcade 98 vs. Starrcade 99, you ask? A whopping 72% buyrate decrease and 67% revenue decrease. This company was already hemorrhaging losses at this point, and it's gonna get so much worse...
- While we're at it, things aren't great for AJPW either. Attendance and gate are both down 25%. No sellouts. 30% ratings decrease. NJPW is surprisingly still good on paper, business-wise, but they're just riding momentum from the previous years of being the biggest company in the world. Dave sees the signs and says the downturn is coming. And ECW numbers are down slightly also.
- Dave talks about the recent CMLL "flip-flop" show. Basically, it's an annual show they do where all the heels wrestle as faces and all the faces wrestle as heels apparently. Nothing notable from the show but that's just a weirdly interesting concept to me and it'd be neat to see WWE try that on a one-off show. Sure, it would totally expose the business and couldn't be treated as canon, but in a world where we're getting the weird ass Saudi Arabia Royal Rumble shows, nothing matters anymore anyway. I say just do it at a house show and throw it on the Network for shits and giggles (looks like I wrote this issue up back in April, before the first Saudi show, and now we're a month away from the next one. With Shawn Michaels returning. Like I said, nothing matters anymore).
- Lance Cade, who is the star student at Shawn Michaels' wrestling school, is heading back to Japan to work more shows for FMW and is booked for the main event on 2 shows, so he must have been impressive. Apparently this American Dragon kid ain't coming back with him this time. He probably sucks.
- Quote from Dave: "Atsushi Onita announced he's going to retire in May. Nobody cares this time."
- Apparently Rena Mero is shopping around the rights for her to do an autobiography called "Busting Out: My Life as Sable and Beyond." Dave thinks she's yesterday's news in wrestling and without the WWF machine behind her to push it, the book won't sell for shit, but publishers are apparently bidding on it. And considering her settlement with WWF forbids her from really saying anything negative about the company, he doesn't see how it could even be marketable. Also, some bio she's pushing for herself lists her as "the most popular break-out character in the history of wrestling." Yes, Dave sarcastically adds, when he thinks of the biggest stars in wrestling history, he thinks Rikidozan, Antonio Inoki, Gorgeous George, Andre The Giant, Lou Thesz, Hulk Hogan...and Rena Mero. The bio also talks about her popularity rivaling that of Pamela Anderson and he scoffs at that too. Dave seems to be pretty over Sable's big headed diva shit.
- Harley Race is having back surgery this week and may need neck surgery in the future also. Right now, he can't really stand up for any length of time.
- In Florida, a 12-year-old boy is being tried as an adult for killing a 6-year-old girl doing wrestling moves. The boy claimed he was imitating wrestling moves that he saw Sting do in a Sprite commercial. He's being tried as an adult due to the severity of the beating. The girl suffered a fractured skull and lacerated liver. He apparently put her in a bear hug and slammed her headfirst into a table and then swing her into a railing in the house. WCW and Sprite reps had no comment but WWF's PR guy was quick to point out that they broadcast "don't try this at home" messages, unlike WCW. (In case you're wondering, the kid was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the youngest person in U.S. history to ever be sentenced to life. It was later overturned in 2004. But then he violated probation and a bunch of other shit and now he's serving 30 years for some other stuff. So he's still in jail to this day. Also, his case becomes a MAJOR issue in the WWF vs PTC battle that wages throughout this year. Wikipedia for Lionel Tate
- WATCH: Sprite commercial starring Sting
- Bill Stone, the guy who promoted the disastrous Heroes of Wrestling PPV awhile back, did an interview with the Observer website and talked about what all went wrong. For starters, Abdullah the Butcher bleeding everywhere was unexpected and unapproved. Yokozuna and King Kong Bundy both refused to do jobs. Jim Neidhart missed 4 flights and showed up late and also refused to do a job. Jake Roberts was obviously trashed and everyone knows that story. He said the break-even number was 41,000 buys and they did not meet that goal and said he never plans to get involved in pro wrestling again.
- Rob Van Dam, ECW's biggest star, looks to be out for the next 2 months after suffering a broken fibia during a match with Rhino in a freak accident. He was just doing a baseball slide and his foot caught the mat wrong and snap! Considering all the crazy spots he does, Dave is surprised he got hurt on such a safe, simple spot, but that's how it goes sometimes. This basically wrecks the company's plans for the March PPV, which was to be headlined by RVD/Tanaka vs. Awesome/Sabu. It was expected that RVD would pin Awesome, in order to build to their eventual singles match and RVD's inevitable world title win. RVD miiiiiight be ready by then but they aren't sure and they don't want to chance it, so they've scrapped plans for promoting that match (yeah, RVD ends up being out for 4 months and Awesome ends up jumping to WCW in April anyway).
- New Jack is banged up from years of diving off balconies in ECW and is getting foot surgery this week.
- In New Orleans, an ECW match had Rhino and Steve Corino against Tommy Dreamer and New Orleans Saints player Josh Wilcox. It ended with Wilcox turning heel on Dreamer. The angle got over big in New Orleans, but it aired on TNN and nationally, nobody knows or gives a shit about Wilcox outside of Saints fans. They did an angle where Wilcox claimed he was quitting the Saints and got the crowd to turn on him. In reality, his contract expired and he's a free agent and it's been well-known that he wasn't returning to the team, but it was a pretty awesome wrestling angle that turned him heel in the city he played for (Wilcox never played in the NFL again, but he was a member of the XFL next year).
- Before the recent ECW on TNN taping, the entire locker room came out and they did a 10-bell salute for Bobby Duncam Jr. and talked about how he was good friends with RVD and Sabu (who were noticeably crying during it). Needless to say, this is more than WCW (the company he actually worked for when he died) ever did for him. Speaking of Duncam Jr., the official cause of death is listed as an overdose on the painkiller sentonyl (far as I can tell, I think this is an early version of Fentanyl). He had about 10x the safe amount in his system. WWF wrestler Bradshaw and Sabu attended his funeral. By the way, if you're curious, over the last two years, 6 different WCW personnel have died, only one of which was from natural causes (Brian Hildebrand). The rest were drug overdoses, car accident, and suicide. All of them were fairly young also and Dave says this is yet another scary stat that will go ignored by the industry.
- Notes from Nitro: Ron and Don Harris were made full-fledged members of the new NWO. So much for the idea about not watering down this version of the group, Dave quips. Booker T and the former Ahmed Johnson are now feuding over the letter T, with Harlem Heat claiming he can't use the letter or the theme music because they own it. Dave thinks maybe they'll file a lawsuit against Sesame Street next. What if Booker T and the MG's want to tour again? Ric Flair came out, tried to cut a promo to turn heel, but the crowd just didn't want to boo him and in fact he got the biggest reaction of the show. Lenny and Lodi trashed their Standards & Practices gimmick, calling it stupid and calling WCW uncool and breaking the 4th wall entirely. Dave can't even with this company.
- Various WCW notes: Steve Regal has been released by WCW again. No reason given but ya know....drugs. The DDP/Bagwell angle has been dropped and Dave says it was basically the only good angle in the company right now and since WCW is allergic to doing anything good, that's probably why. Kevin Nash slipped on ice getting out of his car at Nitro and injured his ankle and had to have surgery. He's expected to be out for about 6 weeks but he'll be on TV in the meantime. Because of his injury, Nitro had to be totally re-written right before the show because he was heavily written into the script.
- Former Nitro Girl Fyre has been publicly complaining about being released by WCW. She claims she was fired because she refused to be a wrestler. She says she was hired to be a dancer, not a wrestler, and when she refused to go along with angles where she'd take bumps, they fired her.
- Goldberg did a radio interview recently and said he was originally scripted to use a sledgehammer to bust out the limo windows but he didn't think that was consistent with his character so he decided to just punch them out instead, which obviously resulted in him cutting his arm to shreds. He blamed himself for the mistake, saying he should have just used the hammer and says he's frustrated by the lack of progress when it comes to the injury healing. But he hopes to be back on TV within a month or so. He also talked openly about being unhappy with all the backstage turmoil in WCW. He also said there's 2 people in WCW he hates working with, but he only mentioned one: Scott Hall, who he said is a cancer in and out of the ring and bad for business. When asked about Russo and Ferrara, he said he hated the increase in profanity and sexual content on the show since they arrived and says it makes him feel like a hypocrite when he goes to promote the company, because he tries hard to be a good role model for kids. He spent the last 2 years making appearances and promoting WCW as family friendly, and now he can't say that. He said the most recent Nitro was embarrassing and said WCW needs to take better care of its wrestlers if they want to beat WWF.
- Ric Flair worked some house show main events recently and they did an angle where the figure four was banned. Of course, Flair used it and the matches ended in DQ which the crowds hated. Dave says that might be fine on TV, if it's building to an angle. But to do that on house shows, with no follow-up, is the textbook definition of how to kill a town. Dave half-jokingly is starting to almost question whether or not someone in WCW is actively trying to kill house show business. And it wouldn't surprise him, since most of the shows are booked by guys like Kevin Nash, who hate working house shows anyway, so hey, why not just kill them off so they don't have to do them anymore? It's getting to the point now where attendance is so bad that it's almost more profitable to not even run them (soon it would be, and they stop).
- Undertaker suffered a torn pec while training and will likely be out for another 4 months now. He was due to return soon but not anymore (yup, he doesn't come back until Biker Taker debuts).
- Steve Austin made his first live TV appearance since Survivor Series, doing an at-home sit-down interview during Halftime Heat (Sunday Night Heat during the Super Bowl). Austin was in a neck brace and appeared to be in pain. He acknowledged being engaged to Debra, which is the first time their relationship has been acknowledged on TV. It was somewhat of an out-of-character interview, and they even acknowledged Sammartino and Hogan as icons of the sport the way Austin is now, and Dave is shocked that either of those names would be mentioned in glowing terms on WWF TV. Austin estimated he would be out for another 3-4 months but said he wouldn't come back at all if he can't go full speed. He looked to be in really rough shape and probably doped up on pain meds (he was kinda slurring his words) and a lot of people afterwards felt like it might have been better if they hadn't done the interview and kept him off TV longer (this is just highlights, I can't find the full interview anywhere).
- WATCH: Steve Austin interview clips
- In the Cactus Jack/Triple H match at Royal Rumble, there was some sleight-of-hand with the barbed wire 2x4. The one that was used on Foley was real barbed wire but at some point behind the Spanish announce table, it was switched out with one that had fake barbed wire, which is what was then used against Triple H.
- WWF produced 3 commercials for this year's Super Bowl but only 2 aired. The other was rejected by ABC. One was a group of babies dressed like WWF characters and the other was a beauty contest. Dave thought they were pretty amusing. Also, subtle reference: in the beauty contest one, the Miss Congeniality winner was wearing a Connecticut sash and the loser who attacked her but still got beat up was, you guessed it, Miss Georgia. The rejected commercial featured old people in a nursing home imitating Val Venis and Godfather and saying "Show me the puppies!" (I can't find that one but here's the baby commercial. The Miss Congeniality one was in Wednesday's post)
- WATCH: WWF Babies SuperBowl commercial
- Notes from Raw: Mae Young announced she was pregnant. Aww shit, here we go...
- Taka Michinoku is expected to be out for about a month due to a shoulder injury suffered on that bump at the Royal Rumble that they kept making jokes about. Ha-ha indeed.
- Business Week magazine had an article about Vince and Linda McMahon where they interviewed them They talked about producing a WWF spaghetti sauce (wtf) and also talked about Linda pressuring Vince to allow a biography to be written about him. They talked the stock price falling and Linda claims analysts are expecting the stock to jump back up soon when investors realize how strong the WWF brand name is (suuuure). There was also a quote from Vince about how he and Linda make their marriage work. Ready for it? "Her undying love and affection as a wife and as a mother, and great sex." Linda claimed WWF would soon have 24 hours a day of programming (only took 14 years) including an action-adventure show based on Miami Vice as well as a late-night talk show broadcast from the Times Square restaurant. It also had some of the usual revisionist history about WWF and WCW (Ted Turner hates Vince, holds a grudge, thus he used WCW to try to drive Vince out of business. Of course, the reality is that Vince was far more obsessed with Turner than he ever was with Vince). And in an attempt to be extra petty, Vince also gloated about Turner's recent separation from wife Jane Fonda.
- The PTC group is after WWF again. Head of the group L. Brent Bozell released this statement this week in regards to Smackdown: "When the WWF promised to tone down Smackdown, the PTC backed off from targeting advertisers who sponsored the show. The PTC has continued to monitor content through the past eight weeks, however, and a quick survey of these supposedly toned-down shows reveals that the WWF did not follow through with its promise. Accordingly, the PTC is resuming its advertiser education campaign. Smackdown reports will continue to be published on the PTC's web site. There reports will highlight the most offensive content of each show, giving PTC members accurate information to take to the sponsors when they contact them with complaints." The main complaints were in regards to the use of the word "ass" as well as out-of-ring violence like the Acolytes bar fights, people going through tables, and scantily clad women. Goddamn, this group sucks.
- If you have a KU-band satellite dish, you can watch Smackdown live on Tuesdays instead of waiting for it to air on Thursdays. WWF beams the show directly from the arena to Stamford, CT live for immediate editing so you can catch it that way if you have the right satellite. Or just wait until 2016 and watch it live on Tuesdays then.
- WWF cancelled a house show in Indianapolis mostly due to everyone in the company being pissed off about it. Everyone had been forced to stay an extra night in New York for the opening of the restaurant and then due to weather, a bunch of flights got cancelled so basically nobody got to see their families on their normal days off. So a week later, they cancelled the Indianapolis show in order to let everybody finally go home for a minute.
- Honky Tonk Man writes in to talk shit about Jeff Jarrett, Vince Russo, and WCW. Let's just read it in full:
- I was contacted as well by an indie promoter named Frank Goodman. He told me he'd been on the phone four or five times with Vince Russo throughout the day. Russo was looking for Superstars with big names to spice up the Monday show. He said they had contacted King Kong Bundy and he turned them down, as did Bob Backlund. He said they got George Steele and Jimmy Snuka to go on the show.
- Of course you can imagine what my response was. First, I asked why do they want or need us guys when they have so many people sitting at home making more than the $3,000 for what they were offering us? Then I offered them a piece of advice. If you want to get Jeff Jarrett over, good luck. There is nothing you can do for the guy that hasn't been done by both companies except for him to leave the guitar at home. It's death for him. As long as he carries it around, he'll always be a guy who stole someone else's gimmick. Besides, WCW is so deep in a hole that a back hoe can't dig them out. I closed by telling Goodman that if Jimmy Hart or Hulk Hogan aren't involved in the angle, tell them not to even bring my name up.
- I called Bundy to check out the story and it was all true. Russo had Blackjack Brown call Bundy to feel him out. Bundy said he would talk to them and Russo called Bundy to pitch him a deal.
- I didn't know "Super booker" Russo needed anything other than his vision and his nude women.
- Wayne Farris aka Honky Tonk Man