Wrestling Observer Flashback – 12.30.96

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 12.30.96

OK let’s finally wrap up this year.

– In this week’s top story, UWFI finally announced the worst kept secret in wrestling, that the company would be folding at the end of the year. The rumor is that Takada would end up back in All Japan, along with two guys named Yoshihiro Takayama and Kazushi Sakuraba. (Did we ever hear anything from those guys again?).

– Dave notes that basically the appeal of UWFI was that it was a pro wrestling group that looked like real fighting, but then once actual real fighting came along, the group looked like pro wrestling again and fans lost interest.

– Over to ECW, as Request Television officially cancelled the ECW PPV debut due to the violent product, and would furthermore be breaking their contract with ECW due to a “series of incidents that they were unaware of beforehand and were now uneasy about”. It seems that the Mass Transit incident was the incident that made them the most uneasy and has now cost the promotion PPV coverage. (WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS SHOCKING TWIST IN THE STORY? NO ONE I TELL YOU!). Request covers most of the country for PPV distribution, and the decision was made on 12/20, with Paul Heyman desperately trying to keep the PPV date to save things. Viewer’s Choice PPV had already decided against carrying ECW on PPV before this happened, so the amount of homes left to potentially buy an ECW PPV is now pretty small. In the case of Viewer’s Choice, however, they based their decision on the Sandman-Raven angle.

– Heyman is reportedly still holding out hope that the PPV companies might change their minds and carry a second show, and will likely go ahead and present his first show anyway, even if it was some kind of tape delayed TV show special. Either way it will likely feature Sabu v. Taz for the main event and Raven v. Terry Funk underneath.

– Unsurprisingly, Heyman is claiming that no one from Request told him beforehand that they didn’t want him presenting a product with blood, swearing, brawling in the crowd, or beating up women. And in fact had someone informed him of these silly demands, he would have been willing negotiate and give up ONE of them. (I can speak for everyone when I say that Paul should have stuck to his guns and kept in all the women getting beat up! AMIRITE, FELLAS?). Also, he pointed out, the other guys don’t do any of that stuff, so really he needs to have it all in his product in order to differentiate himself from the competition and be successful. (I mean…that’s not the worst logic in the world.).

– Dave thinks this might hurt the future ability to retain talent, since he’s been dangling the carrot of PPV in front of them for months now, and at this point a lot of them are likely to just use the promotion as a stepping stone to where they really want to end up.

– One interesting thing also working against ECW as a brand is that they’re no longer the cool counterculture choice for wrestling nerds, and are now viewed as something of a third major promotion. The counterculture movement is now the New World Order, with fans treating THEM as the cool alternative. Heyman himself actually recognized that and made a counter-counterculture movement by creating the Blue World Order shirt line to cash in on it. (This onion has some layers to it!).

– One more factor limiting them now is that when they were the alternative, they built it on having the best wrestling in the country, but now that WCW and WWF have acquired so many of the guys who built that reputation, they too have in-ring product on the same level as ECW and it’s no longer an “alternative”. (COUGH COUGH ALL ELITE WRESTLING COUGH COUGH)

– Over to the WWF, who are supposed to have their new “Shotgun Saturday Night” show debuting in literally days, and no one has any information about what the show actually is. We know it’ll air live in New York from 11pm until midnight and come from The Mirage nightclub on 1/4. Most of the crew will be working a house show in Stockton that night so talent choices are limited. It’ll probably be more risqué than other WWF shows. The WWF is claiming that the show will revolutionize the business like Saturday Night’s Main Event did. (Spoiler: It didn’t.).

– Dave takes a look at the upcoming Royal Rumble 1997, which features a completely obvious Bret Hart win because there’s no way that they do anything but Shawn Michaels v. Bret Hart II at Wrestlemania 13. Dave thinks that worst case, if they do a crazy swerve where someone other than Bret wins the match, they’ll still find a way to get him into the title match. (I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, RIGHT?).

– Hey you know how I’ve been talking about how they dropped the Hunter-Droese hair-cutting angle kind of cold in the 96 Superstars rants lately? Turns out that Vince was just playing the really long game. Dave runs down the scene in Puerto Rico, and apparently WWF is working with a group called the WWA, which is run and booked by Savio Vega, and the main angle right now is Hunter defending the IC title against Duke Droese. So to build it up, they’re using footage of the haircut angle from earlier in the year, with Droese apparently having waited all this time to get his revenge.

– To Japan, where Atsushi Onita is now campaigning to get Hayabusa a Triple Crown title shot against Kenta Kobashi, and he indicated in a press conference that he would be contacting Baba about making it happen. (I don’t believe that actually happened but you have to admire Onita’s hustle.).

– To Memphis, where there are unconfirmed reports that Jerry Jarrett has exited the promotion and sold his 50% to Jerry Lawler. (And in turn Lawler sold THAT to various people over and over…) This seems like a bad sign for the future of the USWA, notes Dave.

– To ECW, where the Eliminators won the tag team titles from the Gangstas on 12/20 and then we had a tease of the Gangstas breaking up afterwards. (I’m honestly shocked it took THAT LONG for Heyman to get the tag titles off them after the Mass Transit deal.).

– A spot show the next night in Staten Island saw Brian Lee and Buh Buh Dudley brawling into the neighboring hockey rink and interrupting a roller hockey game at one point. (Are we sure it wasn’t RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROLLERJAM?)

– In the final end of the AWF promotion, their syndication company sent out a letter to all cable companies currently carrying it, indicating that the last one sent out would be the finale.

– Former SMW wrestler Bruiser Bedlam was busted by Toronto police on 12/19 for being the leader of a gang accused of $12 million worth of drug and weapons trafficking. (To be fair, it’s only like $4 million in drugs and weapons after conversion.).

– To WCW, where the Nitro on 12/23 drew not only the largest ever gate for pro wrestling in Macon GA, but also the biggest gate for the arena, period, beating a record set by none other than Reba McIntyre. (I suggest we measure future wrestling gates in units of Reba to commemorate this acheievement by WCW.).

– Dave notes that Chris Benoit has been improving so much on interviews lately that he’s actually been votes for Best on Interviews. (Sadly his vote totals for Husband of the Year have been declining even faster.)

– The rumored main event of the nWo PPV in January is Hogan v. Giant, but Hogan is actually fighting against it because he doesn’t want the Giant to turn so soon. (Ah, remember the days when we were actually concerned about Paul Wight turning too many times?).

– Also the idea for a Miss nWo pageant was dropped. (Whew, we really dodged a bullet there.).

– To the WWF, where Mike Awesome got a tryout match at a Superstars taping, losing to Aldo Montoya. He’s actually the current FMW World champion. (Good thing we know that Mike Awesome would never jump ship to another promotion while holding a World title!).

– Dave notes that it’s interesting to see a World champion doing a job to Aldo Montoya of all people. (Good thing we know that no one would ever be dumb enough to make him their World champion!)

– Justin Bradshaw is doing a deal where he’s trying to entice Barry Windham into teaming with him, but Windham is fighting him on it. Dave thinks they’ll end up as a team in the end. (Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen?).

– They did what sounds like a rib on Jim Cornette during an angle on the show, as he got beat up by Undertaker and put into a body bag. So the agents “helped” Cornette to the back by carrying him in the body bag, but kept “accidentally” dropping him on the way and laughing about it.

– Paul Bearer turned on Executioner at the tapings and left him laying with the urn, which was just a way to get Terry Gordy off TV and probably won’t even air.

– The current angle with Billy Gunn has him doing interviews while confined to a wheelchair with a neck brace, selling the “injury” sustained against Bart Gunn. (As if anyone could get over doing a gimmick where they’re in a wheelchair with a neck brace.).

– Honky Tonk Man announced that he’s coming in as a manager and looking for a new talent to mentor. (What’s the worst that could happen?).

– Dave corrects his previous music faux pas, noting that although Hunter’s new theme is used for the opening of “Suddenly Susan”, it’s actually better known as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and then acknowledges he’s not really up on classical music.

– They’re going to be doing a tournament in Germany and creating a new “European title” in February.

– And finally, in one of those low key moments that changed the business but we didn’t realize it until months later, Vince Russo did his Vic Venom gimmick in the WWF Magazine and predicted that Bret Hart would win the Royal Rumble, in order to get himself over. (Insert dominos falling gif here. I would but doing those media inserts are kind of a pain in the ass.).

And that’s the news and I’m OUTTA HERE!