Wrestling Observer Flashback – 01.06.97

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 01.06.97

Welcome to 1997. Took us a while to get there.

– In the top story, it appears that ECW has finally made a deal to get onto PPV, as soon as 04/13, thanks to a series of desperate negotiations with Request TV over the past two weeks. Originally Request had cancelled the show after President Hugh Panero saw a tape of the Mass Transit Incident, specifically “the wound the likes of which even some of the most hardened and callous people seeing the tape ended up being revolted by.” (Except for Jon Moxley, who saw that and thought “Yeah that’s what I want to do with my life”.).

– At this point the show isn’t quite back on the schedule yet, but Panero expressed his concerns for making sure that ECW talent was better trained and taking “greater safeguards against injuries” before he would approve anything. (Has he even MET Paul Heyman? Or Tommy Dreamer?).

– Even if they could get on Request, they still don’t have coverage on Viewer’s Choice, which covers 70% of the US and all of Canada. (By the time they actually broke into Canada, the company was basically dead anyway and it was too late.).

– As a part of his concessions to good taste, Heyman has promised that the show will have a lot of wrestling and “there will be no gimmick matches with blood connotations”. But he also said that the product presented will be ECW as it is today, with “no watering down”. (Tastes great! Less filling!).

– Dave notes that after the original cancellation story broke, some ECW hardcore fans kind of lost sight of the issues that caused the problem in the first place. (WHAT? WRESTLING FANS ACTING LIKE MORONS? THIS IS TOTALLY NEW INFORMATION! Good thing we’ve moved past those barbaric days and can now engage in civilized discourse on Twitter without being stupid.). Anyway, they all blamed Wade Keller of the Torch, mostly thanks to Paul Heyman blaming Wade Keller of the Torch and not based on any evidence that actually led to it being Wade’s “fault”. Wade basically just asked Panero about his reaction to the videotape of Mass Transit. Heyman had previously claimed to have already sent Panero that tape so he could see it for himself, but WHOOPS, turns out he lied and never did, so Request sought out a copy for themselves. (Frankly I’m disappointed we didn’t have a listing the Observer reader’s pages like “PPV company seeking tape of Mass Transit incident, will trade for Rolling Stones concert or porn”).

– Also, Dave himself finally got a tape of the incident, and he apologizes for downplaying it so badly in the original coverage because yeah it’s pretty horrific.

– Also, the reports that were somewhat blaming Kulas himself for “flinching” and causing the injury are patently ridiculous, as clearly New Jack set out to carve him up with an Xacto knife and prove a point. In fact Jack was already brutalizing the kid before even cutting him, smashing a toaster on his head full force while the kid’s father pleaded for mercy at ringside. Dave almost felt like he was watching a form of child abuse and a kind of pornography. Dave hopes that when all is said and done, this will be a wakeup call for ECW. (Narrator: It wasn’t.).

– Oh hey, WCW had Starrcade 96 this week as well, which continued their trend of a great undercard and dogshit main event.

– The show drew 9030 to Nashville, with scalpers getting as much as $200 for tickets, which is unheard of. (And now you pay that for “normal” seats at an AEW or WWE show if you want a good view.). Also they made a bundle on merch, doing a crazy $60,000, with most it being NWO shirts. Overall, Dave thought there was too many run-in finishes.

1. Ultimo Dragon pinned Dean Malenko in 18:30 to unify the WCW Cruiserweight title into the J-Crown. Dave thinks the plan is that Dragon will drop the belts to Jushin Liger at the Tokyo Dome, but HE DIDN’T READ THE FINE PRINT and it turns out that only the J-Crown is on the line and then Dragon can return to the US and drop the WCW belt there. Dave calls this is a near perfectly worked match and nearly impossible to imagine a better technical pro wrestling match…and then only gives it ****1/2.
2. Akira Hokuto pinned Madusa to win the WCW Women’s title in 7:06. Noted women’s wrestling expert Lee Marshall was on commentary and referred to Hokuto as “Akida”, which is a Russian dog. Sloppy but decent match with too much interference from Sonny Onoo. Hokuto won after Onoo hit Madusa with her own flagpole, and used the Northern Lights bomb to win the title. *1/4. (And then it was never defended again.).
3. Roddy Piper did an interview that could be charitably called senseless.
4. Jushin Liger pinned Rey Mysterio in 14:16. Liger is a tiny wrestler to begin with but even he towered over Rey here. Mike Tenay get a great job telling the story of the match and Liger’s brain tumor, but there was something missing from the match despite the hard work. They missed some stuff but Rey is incredible at recovering from apparently missing spots. Rey did a rana off the top rope, but Liger landed on his feet and hit a koppo kick and powerbomb for the pin. ***3/4
5. Jeff Jarrett pinned Chris Benoit in 13:48. Benoit was his usual self and Jarrett actually managed to hang with him and they had a fast paced good match. Finish saw a parade of outside interference leading to Jarrett getting DDTd on the floor by AA, but ending up on top of Benoit in the ring for the pin. ***1/2. Afterwards, Mongo and Debra did an interview claiming that Jarrett was Horsemen material and maybe Benoit isn’t anymore. The Mongo/Debra team is growing on Dave.
6. The Outsiders beat the Faces of Fear to retain the WCW tag team titles in 11:52. Nick Patrick was doing the biased referee bit here. Hall got beat up for a while and Nash came in and powerbombed Barbarian for the pin. *
7. Eddie Guerrero pinned DDP to win the US title in 15:20. Crowd was dead for most of the match but it picked up at the end and they got into it. Dave notes that Page has done a great job getting the Diamond Cutter over. You don’t say? Hall and Nash interfered and took out DDP, leading to Eddie hitting the frog splash to win the title. ***
8. Lex Luger pinned the Giantin 13:23. Match wasn’t much but the finish was well done. Everyone was out after more interference, but Sting came out and whispered something in both men’s ears, then left the bat in the ring. Luger got the bat first, hit Giant in the chest and then knocked him out to get the pin and got a giant pop.
9. Roddy Piper beat Hulk Hogan in 15:36. The crowd, all wearing their NWO shirts, were cheering Piper and booing Hogan. (Wrestling fans are stupid, film at 11. Bet they didn’t wear deodorant, either.). They did what they could, which wasn’t much, but they both had so much charisma that they didn’t need to do much. A fan ran into the ring and got stomped down until the cops dragged him off, and then Piper put Hogan in the sleeper and got the win. *1/2.

– We’re running long this week so let’s jump to Memphis. Dave can now confirm the story about Jerry Lawler buying Jerry Jarrett’s 50% stake in USWA, and Lawler is now running the business end of the promotion with partner Larry Burton. Dave notes that Jarrett had been disconnected from the business for a while so his selling really isn’t that big of a deal. (Although as it turned out, it would lead to the death of the Memphis territory…so maybe a LITTLE bigger than Dave notes here.).

– Breaking news: They might be able to save the company with the feud that literally everyone has been waiting for: MO vs MABEL. Mo did an interview saying that he taught Mabel everything he knows. Dave thinks this is nothing to be bragging about.

– Apparently a group called Ring Warriors will be airing old New Japan tapes via the “internet” using something called a VDO player on their website.

– To WCW, where 911 debuting as “Tombstone” was likely a rib on Paul Heyman from Kevin Sullivan. Heyman broke into the business managing a guy named Tombstone in Florida.

– Kimberly is rumored to be returning soon.

– Apparently Woman and Debra have LEGIT HEAT and won’t get dressed in the same room together.

– The deal to bring in Bam Bam Bigelow has fallen through, because they wanted him to be a part of the New World Order, and he isn’t a big fan of working underneath Kevin Nash again. (Fair!). Tatanka may or may not be coming in still.

– Randy Savage still hasn’t signed a new deal and the sides aren’t close on money.

– To the WWF, as Vince Russo did indeed get heat for going on TV and giving away that Bret Hart is winning the Rumble, so he came out this week on Superstars and walked it back, saying that you “never know who can win a Rumble”.

– Speaking of which, “Terry Funk is in the Rumble basically for sure”, notes Dave.

– And finally, Shotgun Saturday Night debuts on 01/04, with matches listed being Sultan v. Rocky, Goldust v. Sal Sincere, and the Grimm Twins v. The Godwinns. They still haven’t released a list of stations who are actually carrying the show and aside from the one station on Long Island we know of, people can’t actually find anyone listing the show. (Ah, for the days when it was HARD to find WWE programming on TV!).

And that’s the news and I’m outta here!