Wrestling Observer Flashback – 09.02.96
WCW actually has some noteworthy Disney tapings, Bret Hart ponders his future, and MORE!
– First up, the nWo did a hot angle on the live 8/26 Nitro, where they laid out Sting and Luger and the Horsemen and spraypainted the nWo logo on them to incredible heat. Dave thinks it was the best angle since the debut of the group and thinks that it might turn this nWo group into babyfaces because they’re so cool. But hey, it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t matter who gets cheered if the WarGames match does a big buyrate as a result! (What’s the worst that could happen? The death of the company five years later? YEAH RIGHT AS IF.)
– There were also teases of Ted Dibiase as the fifth man, with hints of him coming out of retirement and then introducing a mysterious sixth man, although Dave is pretty sure the plan is strictly to have him act as manager, with Sean Waltman being the sixth man. Apparently he’s ready to come in as soon as they work out the complex legal demands of the release, which basically says that he can’t use any looks or mannerisms of the 1-2-3 Kid, which Dave notes leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Which is why they’re making absolutely sure not to offend the WWF legal team.
– Nitro also set an all-time record with no competition from RAW, which was pre-empted by the tennis, doing a 4.3 rating. This is actually the biggest rating for any “non-special” WCW show since the mid-80s.
– Steve Regal won the TV title from Lex Luger on 8/20 in Texas, after Hall and Nash laid out Luger and put Regal on top.
– The Disney tapings on 8/25 saw the debuts of Juventud Guerrera and Super Calo, who both looked good. However, they made the mistake of putting Guerrera on the live Nitro the next night and letting him talk, which was a complete disaster thanks to Mean Gene big-timing him and walking away. Dave understands that some people still think Gene is good at his job, but in reality he is not. (I feel like Juventud will develop some charisma at some point.)
– Also debuting on 8/20 was Chris Jericho, who worked with Alex Wright on the 8/26 Nitro and didn’t end up looking great. Bischoff was talking him up pretty big on commentary, so they’ll probably “take care of him” moving forward.
– After months of hype, GLACIER finally debuted on 8/23 and worked a bunch of matches with Big Bubba. He looked so-so and it’s likely that the matches from the Disney tapings won’t ever air and will just be used as tryouts to work out some stuff with the gimmick. The gear was said to look like Max Moon and he does kickboxing moves. Since, you know, Bischoff loves him some kickboxing. They also taped various match variations, once with regular lighting and then again with the lights out and blue light covering the ring. You see, (Dave explains apologetically for even having to bring this up), he has ninja super powers, but because his name is Glacier he has a weakness to light and has to wrestle in cold blue light in order to maintain his powers. (Sadly he didn’t have the ninja super power to draw money.) Also he missed his finish in both versions of the match.
– Konnan worked in a tag team with Kevin Sullivan on the tapings, so he’ll likely end up with the Dungeon of Doom.
– Harlem Heat appears to be splitting from Sherri and Col. Parker, since they didn’t appear together at the tapings.
– Bobby Eaton has been split off from the Bluebloods, going back to his original name and finish.
– Florida wrestler Jerry Flynn worked tryout matches in an audition for the Blood Runs Cold group with Glacier, but he looked bad. (Don’t see how that would have prevented him from being part of that group, if we’re being honest. Bar wasn’t set really high.)
– To the WWF now, with talk that Bret Hart might not return to the WWF despite all the talk about him on TV over the past few weeks. Bret had been in South Africa filming a show called “Sinbad” and was working the WWF tour there as a favor to them. Basically he had never been there and wanted to see it. Reportedly Vince and Bret had a meeting where Bret agreed to a scenario where he’d return to WWF TV in early 1997 and work an angle with Steve Austin. (Hey, if you can’t trust the word of Vince McMahon, who can you trust?) The plan was seemingly doing a program with Austin and then building to a Wrestlemania rematch with Shawn Michaels, but now people in his circle seem to think he’s changing his mind about continuing to work for the WWF after the tour.
– Another report says that WCW has continued to make a play for Bret, with the latest offer being a combined deal with wrestling and a three movie deal with Turner, which would really help him out when he inevitably transitions to life after wrestling.
– Really, Dave notes, Bret is in in best position of any wrestler in history right now, being a free agent in the middle of a vicious wrestling war between two companies with lots of money to spend. In fact, Dave is pretty sure that if Bret plays his cards right, he can put together the biggest guaranteed contract in wrestling history for himself.
(Guess we’ll find out.)
– Meanwhile, 10 years to the day of The Big Event in 1986, the WWF again drew a giant crowd on 8/24 for the “WWF X Press” show in Toronto’s annual exhibition, doing 21,211 in a sold show. That means they didn’t make revenue off the gate, but were paid a guaranteed deal by the venue instead. This would be the largest crowd in North America in three years, and the largest paid crowd since Wrestlemania VIII.
– Also Sid won a tug-of-war with an elephant at a special show earlier in the weekend. (But the elephant likely won the battle of wits.)
– The main event saw Shawn Michaels beat Goldust to retain the WWF title in a ladder match, although Dave doesn’t have much in terms of details on the show otherwise.
– Preliminary estimates for Summerslam put it at a 0.58 buyrate (or about 145,000 buys) which would be a YUUUUUUUUGE drop from last year’s show, which continues Dave’s false narrative of PPV being a dying industry.
– To Japan, where Jushin Liger had a successful surgery on 8/23 to remove his brain tumor with a 50 minute laser operation.
He actually was able to leave the hospital and go home, and should be ready to return to the ring by September.
– Satoru Sayama is suddenly doing a bunch of wrestling matches in Japan again, due to building up a huge amount of debts while acting as figurehead president of Vale Tudo and then getting pushed out behind the scenes. He’s working the indie scene and charging $5000 per appearance.
– Mr. Pogo is taking a bunch of time off after nearly dying in his 8/1 match with Terry Funk in FMW, but he’s expected to return in a few months to build up to one final match before retirement, scheduled to be against Onita on May 5 97 at the baseball stadium. (Pogo’s “retirement” ended up the same as Funk’s and Onita’s.)
– To Memphis, where they moved the shows from Mondays to Fridays as the promotion circles the drain. They drew about 900 people to the Flea Market, same as what they had been doing.
– In an attempt to freshen up the roster, they’re using top talent from Bert Prentice’s group, like Colorado Kid, Flash Flanagan, Mike Samples and even Prentice himself. (And yet even that didn’t save them!)
– To ECW, where there’s DRAMA. Shocking. Missy Hyatt was fired after taking the blame for Kimona quitting the promotion. She ended up doing an angle with Sandman where he caned the hell out of her after she agreed to drop her harassment lawsuit against Stevie Richards, and that’s her exit. And then Damien Kane and Lady Alexander were also fired after Paul Heyman got his own promoter’s license and didn’t need to use Kane’s in Philly any longer.
– They did a show on 8/22 in Reading PA called “Requiem for a Pit Bull”, which was intended as a tribute to Pitbull #1 after his injury that put him out of action. The main event was scheduled to be RVD against Pitbull #2, but the Pitbull no-showed due to being arrested for an outstanding warrant in Reading and had to miss the show. (ECW, ladies and gentlemen!)
– Bulldog Bob Brown suffered a major heart attack and was clinically dead for a period during the ambulance ride to the hospital, but is recovering. (They probably had to stop at an indie show on the way so he could put himself over first.)
– The New York state commission still won’t license UFC, so they had to move the 9/20 PPV show from Syracuse to Augusta GA (home of many WCW TV tapings) because otherwise they would have run out of time. (And then they didn’t return to New York for a very, VERY long time!)
– Back to WCW, where Dusty Rhodes is trying to get into the position of “WCW coach” to oppose Ted Dibiase. (I know, Dusty trying to get in on a hot storyline? When does that ever happen?)
– To the WWF, where Superstars is moving to the USA Network starting on 9/22. Dave assumes this means the end of Action Zone.
– Reaction to the weekly PPV idea from last issue is said to be overwhelmingly negative and it’s not happening.
– The general belief is that Marc Mero will end up winning the IC title tournament, since Faarooq doesn’t really need it.
– That Flex Kavana kid got a tryout as a babyface at the Superstars taping on 8/20, working with Owen Hart.
– Mr. Perfect has been stealing Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s arm candy during the tapings, so that’s probably building to something between them.
– The Bruise Brothers were repackaged again, into “The Grim Twins” this time. (Man I always forget about that one.)
– Skip went in for surgery on his neck and doctors found additional broken bones in his spine that he wasn’t even aware of. So he’ll be out for a while longer.
– Ahmed Johnson is said to recovering much quicker than expected. (Now there’s a sentence we’ll never see again in these things.)
– And finally, this Mark Henry guy was offered a 10 year contract with a downside of $250,000 per year, and apparently he’s not the only one that’s getting a ridiculously long term contract offer thrown at them. Dave thinks this is fine for the old guys, old being “over 35”, but if you’re younger then you should go with short term deals instead because the bidding wars are only going to heat up and the money train won’t last forever. (Well at least we know that if Bret does sign a long term deal, they’ll take good care of him forever.)
And that’s the news and I’m OUTTA HERE.