Wrestling Observer Flashback – 11.04.96
Apparently it’s time for WCW to get rowdy.
– In our top story, Roddy Piper made a surprise debut at the end of the Halloween Havoc show, doing what Dave describes as an “undisciplined dialogue” with Hollywood Hogan that actually ran past the expiration of their PPV time.
– Hogan had actually just signed a new three year deal a few days before the show, after supposedly turning down a five year offer from the WWF. However, Randy Savage still has not signed a new deal and the future with WCW is uncertain. Technically Savage is now a free agent, although his leverage for negotiating with the WWF is all but dead with the signing of Hogan, as a potential return to the WWF was tied to Hogan also signing there. Dave notes that Hogan is claiming that he was offered “5 million per year” from the WWF, which “if you believe the stories”, would have kicked off with a Royal Rumble win and WWF title reign as a heel at Wrestlemania. (That sounds EXPENSIVE. Hopefully Vince wouldn’t have to default on that contract later in the year if he signed it!).
– The Piper deal isn’t known, although it’s supposedly for a lot of money based on a combination of movies and some rare pro wrestling matches. (Not rare enough unfortunately). Although they were negotiating with Piper at the same time as Bret, it’s not thought to have affected plans with either one. WCW has actually tried to sign Piper many times over the past decade, all of which ended up with Piper back in the WWF, to the point where it became an inside joke that Piper would use WCW as a negotiating ploy to get more money out of Vince every time.
– The WWF actually learned about the deal before the PPV, and tried to spoil the surprise as much as they could on LiveWire without actually plugging the show and helping the buyrate.
– So Piper had a mutual admiration showdown with Hogan at the end of the Havoc PPV, rapidly going over their allotted time while directors frantically signalled the end of their time.
(Pictured: WCW directors)
– The two actually rambled so long that many of the PPV companies cut off the show at 10:55PM, thus missing out on bon mots like Piper comparing Hogan to OJ Simpson, in order to show commercials for the replay. (Thankfully we now have the WWE Network to preserve the full craziness of Piper for future generations).
– Monday Night Raw will be moving up one hour on the USA Network, to 7:57PM EST, starting 11/4. This was kind of a last minute decision from USA, leaving everyone without much time to promote it. This means that WCW no longer has the first hour to themselves, in theory helping to stop the bleeding of Nitro destroying them in the ratings week after week. (Well it was a nice theory.). This also gives WWF a chance to market their show more strongly to the sizable audience of kids that are watching earlier in the night. (I mean, as long as they don’t do anything horribly offensive in their first week on a family friendly timeslot and nearly get cancelled one week in…but how likely is THAT?).
– Back to Halloween Havoc, which set all time records for live gate and merchandise sales, based on a $224,000 gate on 8390 tickets sold in Las Vegas. The giant money number was based on higher ticket sales rather than more tickets being sold. In addition, they did another $69,000 in merchandise (Nice!) most of which was New World Order. (Looking back, they should have called the post-Fingerpoke crew The Great Reset. 1999 Twitter would have EXPLODED if it was a thing that existed.)
– The show was the usual WCW pattern of great undercard and terrible main event.
- Jim Powers pinned Pat Tanaka in a dark match.
- Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera beat Damian & Halloween when Guerrera pinned Damian. Apparently they tore the house down.
- Dean Malenko pinned Rey Mysterio Jr. in 18:32 to win the WCW Cruiserweight title. They stole the show with all kinds of crazy flying moves from Rey. Malenko countered the rana into a powerbomb for a near fall at the end, and then won the title with a doctor bomb off the middle ropes. ****1/4
- Diamond Dallas Page pinned Eddie Guerrero in 13:41. This match “just wasn’t Guerrero’s day” notes Dave. He was suffering from a high fever and broke a rib at one point during the match, although they were having a pretty good match before the rib injury. DDP hit a diamond cutter out of nowhere and pinned him, which seemed anticlimactic as a finish. (Yeah that’ll never get over.) **1/2.
- The Giant beat Jeff Jarrett via DQ in 9:56 when Ric Flair interfered. Jarrett did a good job carrying him. **
- Syxx pinned Chris Jericho in 9:49 after a spin kick. Good match intended to get Nick Patrick over as a heel ref. He took forever counting Jericho’s falls, but then immediately counted him down after Syxx hit his kick. ***1/4
- Lex Luger beat Arn Anderson with the torture rack in 12:22. Another one better than you’d think. Usual match from them, but they were working hard. Arn did a stretcher job and was taken to the hospital to explain his absence for the next while. **3/4. (Unfortunately that ended up being something of a shoot.).
- Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit beat the Faces of Fear in 9:23. No heat at all for the match, although they did deliver the spot of the show in the form of Benoit taking a belly to belly superplex from Barbarian and flying so far that he nearly landed in California. Finish saw Mongo hit Meng with the briefcase and Benoit pin him with a diving headbutt. Match wasn’t much but the post-match angle with Benoit getting destroyed by the Dungeon of Doom was good. *1/2.
- The Outsiders won the WCW tag team titles from Harlem Heat in 13:07. Better than you’d expect again. Big chants of “Razor” and “Diesel”, which led Dave to wonder if the WWF would try to get a restraining order against the fans next time they’re in Vegas? (Long as they don’t chant for “Zack Ryder” I guess). Robert Parker tried to interfere, but then chickened out and just gave the cane to Nash, who broke it over Booker T and put Hall on top for the pin. ***1/4.
- “The ghost of Hulk Hogan pinned the corpse of Randy Savage in 18:37 of what turned into a Jimmy Valiant style comedy match”, notes Dave. Hogan was wearing a wig and sunglasses and spent the first 7:00 of the match wearing them. They had a million run-ins and it was a complete clown show, with multiple refs and ref bumps, finally ending with Giant chokeslamming Savage and putting Hogan on top to retain thanks to evil ref Nick Patrick. *
– The shit finally hit the fan in Mexico this week, as Konnan and all the WCW AAA wrestlers split off from the promotion to form their own new group, PROMO Azteca. (A new splinter promotion in Mexico? Unheard of!). The plan is for the new Konnan group to run a more ECW-style show with faster-paced matches and using American talent from WCW. (Spoiler: It didn’t last long, as WCW got tired of dealing with them in 1998 and pulled support, which killed the company completely.).
– To Memphis, where returning to Monday nights didn’t help at all, and they did another 375 person “crowd” at the Big Flea Market on 10/21. Even bringing back Jimmy Valiant didn’t boost the crowds! And since the RAW voiceovers are now done live every Monday in studio, that means Lawler’s “200 year run” as top babyface in Memphis is officially over since he won’t be available. The next week, 10/28, they did a little better with 800 people for the debut of MACHO WARRIOR RIC HOGAN, who won the USWA title with help from manager Randy Hales. (Sadly, one fourth of his personality held up the promotion for more money and got him fired, I hear.).
– Lawler has unsurprisingly turned the promotion into a complete comedy show at this point after taking over booking from Hales again. Highlights include new tag team The Devil Dogs, who were introduced as masked badasses but then spent 7:00 getting beat up by jobbers before walking out of the match and losing by countout because they didn’t want to waste their time before their tag title match. Also Mike Samples tried to counter Sean Venom’s snake with a “snake eating dog” named Hercules, who turned out to be tiny and completely tame.
– Olympic great Kurt Angle did guest commentary on the ECW TV show, during a match between Taz and Little Guido. This seems to be leading to Angle debuting for a feud with Taz. (Unless of course ECW does something horribly offensive before then to drive Angle away from the sport completely for the next three years, but how likely is THAT? Well, guess there’s nothing to do but move onto the next bullet point…)
– Oh also, Raven crucified the Sandman. (And there it is.). Apparently it was so extreme, even for a group literally called EXTREME Championship Wrestling, that Scott Levy came out afterwards and apologized to the crowd for it, out of character. This was said to have so completely offended Kurt Angle that he won’t be back again. (OH YEAH? What’s he gonna do, go to the WWF instead and become one of the biggest stars in their history and multi-time World champion? I’D LIKE TO SEE HIM TRY! HE’LL RUE THE DAY HE WALKED OUT ON ECW! RUE IT I TELL YOU!)
– Dave watched the AWF show, and notes that it’s like they took a WWF TV show from 15 years ago and put it on today using the same guys who all look 15 years older. “Definitely good for a few laughs at 2 am on Saturdays” is the verdict. (Sounds like his reviews of MLW these days.)
– To WCW, where Nitro was a strong show on 10/28. They were teasing that DDP is joining the nWo. Mean Gene was supposed to return here but they still haven’t reached a new contract agreement yet. Apparently they’re trying to take away his hotline duties as a part of the negotiations.
– Glacier will be back soon, as they’re trying to redo his gimmick a bit and “have ordered more multi-colored lights for his ring entrances.” (Finally! I kept telling people that using only blue lights was clearly holding him back from being World champion, but did anyone listen? NO. Now he’s going to be a star and you’ll RUE THE DAY YOU IGNORED ME. RUE IT I TELL YOU!).
– Maxx Payne was backstage at Halloween Havoc and was telling people he’s retired from wrestling and is making a living playing the guitar.
– They’re going to be doing a tournament for a WCW Women’s title and Dave quips “The guesses who dominates that title.” (Shows what he knows, as Akira Hokuto ended up as the one and only champion. Maybe he should stick to watching Japanese women’s wrestling, because clearly he knows nothing about…oh wait that doesn’t make sense as a burn. Well never mind, clearly he’ll RUE THE DAY HE….oh never mind you get the idea.).
– To the WWF, where Brian Pillman had another ankle surgery on 10/23, which is why they did that angle with Steve Austin on Superstars. Dave notes that Austin is working really hard to get this character over and it seems to have turned him into a genuine headliner. Anyway, Pillman’s previous surgery didn’t take, so they had to re-break the ankle and start from scratch, which puts him another six months behind in recovery.
– Apparently Duane Johnson will go by “Rocky Maivia” to honor his family history. They did a segment at the Cauliflower Alley on 10/26 with Rocky and his dad, which was overshadowed by the Briscos and Dory Funk working an angle and getting into a pullapart brawl.
– Achim Albrecht is said to have a “tremendous attitude” when it comes to wanting to learn, which Dave notes is the exact opposite of Mark Henry. (Wait, I’m confused. That reads like Albrecht had the better attitude? I think he intended it the other way around.).
– Chris Candido actually quit because he was getting phased into a teaching role, which Candido thought wasn’t really a great career move for someone at 24 years old. Originally they were going to move into an Eddie Gilbert role with Barry Buchanan as the heater, but plans were dropped and he decided to leave and go work indies and Japan instead. Sunny still has a long term big money contract, so she’s staying. Finally, and I know this will come as a shock, Candido was motivated to leave because of heat with Shawn Michaels.
(I know, I’m as shocked as all of you are.).
– Vader was originally supposed to beat Sid at Buried Alive and win the title from Shawn Michaels, but then he broke his foot doing Boy Meets World. Dave doesn’t think that the injury had anything to do with it, though. (That’s exactly what they want you to think!). Dave thinks maybe with Hart coming back, they’ll hold off on switching the title so that they don’t muddy the waters by sidetracking Shawn with something else. Also Faarooq was supposed to win the IC title, but plans changed there as well.
– However, in the topper, the official explanation from Vince given to both Vader and Faarooq was that JJ Dillon was in charge of both storylines, and since he jumped to WCW they didn’t want the opposition finding out about their future plans.
– Dave thinks that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.
(That’s another one I’ve waited forever to work into these.).
– In their effort to combat claims of racism in the locker room, a caller on Live Wire asked Ahmed Johnson about racism and Ahmed claimed that there wasn’t any. The “caller” was actually Kevin Dunn.
– Flash Funk is actually patterned after the “Huggy Bear” character from Starsky & Hutch in the 70s.
– Billy Gunn walked out on Bart during the Superstars tapings, but Bart beat both New Rockers by himself anyway.
– Dave apologizes for leaving out the Buried Alive dark matches of Godwinns v. Rockers and Shawn Michaels v. Goldust last week. (He’ll RUE THE DAY HE MESSED WITH YOU NERDS IN THE COMMENT SECTION OF THE LAST ONE! RUE IT I TELL YOU!).
(YES I BROUGHT IT BACK ALREADY AFTER DROPPING IT A FEW PARAGRAPHS AGO! YOU’LL RUE THE DAY YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A DEAD RUNNING GAG! RUE IT I TELL YOU!).
– And finally, Clarence Mason will be managing Faarooq. (Well I’m sure that one won’t go anywhere notable.)
And that’s the news and I’m outta here!