Wrestling Observer Flashback – 01.13.97

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 01.13.97

And now, the results of the 1996 Wrestling Observer Year End Awards!

– Wrestler of the Year was Kenta Kobashi, defeating Shawn Michaels, even though Shawn got more first place votes.

– Rey Mysterio Jr. won Most Outstanding, in a blowout over Manami Toyota.

– Shawn Michaels was Best Babyface, beating out second place Bret Hart.

– Steve Austin was Best Heel in a result we’ll probably never see again, winning handily over Masa Chono.

– Feud of the Year was WCW v. NWO in a complete destruction of Undertaker v. Mankind.

– Tag Team of the Year was Misawa & Akiyama, handily defeating the Eliminators.

– Most Improved was DDP in an obvious win.

– Most Unimproved was Hulk Hogan.

– Best on Interviews was Steve Austin, just barely beating out Shane Douglas.

– Most Charismatic was Shawn Michaels. (He has “the rizz” as the kids say)

– Best Technical Wrestler was Dean Malenko, edging out Chris Benoit.

– Best Brawler was Mankind, beating out Tommy Dreamer by a respectable amount. (Previously won by some guy named “Cactus Jack” for the past three years in a row.).

– Best Flyer was Rey Mysterio Jr.

– Most Overrated was, surprise, Hulk Hogan.

– Most Underrated was Leif Cassidy (Poor guy will never get ahead.).

– Best Promotion was New Japan, beating out All Japan.

– Best Weekly TV show was ECW, beating out New Japan AND All Japan!

– Match of the Year was Misawa & Akiyama v. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace from the Tokyo Dome on 6/7. (For those wondering, the Iron Man match finished at 5 with 26 first place votes.).

– Rookie of the Year was THE GIANT, handily beating out Yuki Kondo and some jabroni named Rocky Maivia. (Yeah I think that one was gotten wrong with hindsight.).

– Manager of the Year was Jim Cornette, followed closely by Sunny.

– Best TV Announcer was Joey Styles in a landslide over Jim Ross.

– Worst TV Announcer was Dusty Rhodes, surprisingly beating out Eric Bischoff. (Gotta disagree with that one.).

– Best Major Show was WAR Super J Cup 96.

– Worst Major Show was a clean sweep of the top 4 for WCW, with Uncensored winning, but followed by Slamboree, World War III and Hog Wild.

– Best Wrestling Maneuver was Ultimo Dragon’s Running Liger Bomb, beating out Sabu’s triple jump moonsault.

– Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic was, of course, New Razor and Diesel. (Shockingly, Billionaire Ted finished all the way down at 8.)

– Best Color Commentator was Jerry Lawler, edging out Mike Tenay

– Reader Favorite Wrestler was Ric Flair, in an award literally won by Flair every year but twice.

– In another shocker, Least Favorite Wrestler was Hulk Hogan.

– Worst Wrestler was Loch Ness, barely edging out Hulk Hogan. (Come on now, that’s pretty harsh for Hulk.).

– Worst Tag Team was the Godwinns. (Something of an upset in a year featuring The American Males AND High Voltage AND The Amazing French Canadians in WCW!).

– Worst TV show was AWF Warriors of Wrestling and I don’t think anyone can disagree with that.

– Worst Manager was Sonny Onoo, beating out Col Rob Parker. (In retrospect Onoo was…fine. It was mostly the racist overtones that sealed the win for him. Speaking of which, this win breaks up an epic run for Mr. Fuji as Worst Manager, running from 1984 until 1995, with only a break in 1986 for Paul Jones to break it up).

– Worst Match of the Year was the least surprising choice possible, the DOOMSDAY CAGE MATCH at Uncensored that somehow didn’t win every first place vote. (Seriously, 62 people thought HOGAN V. SAVAGE at Halloween Havoc was somehow worse than this abdomination?).

– Worst Feud was Big Bubba v. John Tenta, with WCW v. NWO somehow placing second in Worst Feud after winning Best Feud.

– Worst on Interviews was Ahmed Johnson. (How can you even understand him enough to know he’s the worst?)

– Worst Promotion was the AWF, somehow beating out the shambling corpse of the USWA.

– Best Booker was Paul Heyman in a rout of Jushin Liger.

– Promoter of the Year was Riki Choshu, tripling Giant Baba’s vote total.

– Best Gimmick was the NWO, beating out Stone Cold Steve Austin. (The Loose Cannon was robbed!).

– Worst Gimmick was, say it with me now, Fake Diesel & Razor.

– Most Embarrassing? You know that’s Hulk Hogan, brother. Narrow win over Goldust here.

– So after a lengthy recap of every major show of the year, we get to the news.

– New Japan’s Dome show drew a reported 62,500 fans despite the weak lineup announced in advance, and it ended up being a better show than it looked to be on paper.

– Chris Jericho worked the show as “Super Liger”, wearing a silver Liger costume in what is supposed to establish him as a rival to the real deal.

– Also on the show, Jushin Liger beat Ultimo Dragon to win the J-Crown, but didn’t win the WCW Cruiserweight title because he didn’t read the fine print and it wasn’t on the line. So Dragon returns to WCW with that belt still.

– WCW Monday Nitro on 12/30, the night after Starrcade, destroyed RAW by two full ratings points, resulting in RAW doing the second lowest rating in its history, only barely beating the Nitro replay if you expand out the rating to three decimal places. (But what about the DEMO?!?).

– Meanwhile, Starrcade is reported to have done a 1.0 buyrate, making it the biggest show since Halloween Havoc 94 and the highest drawing PPV in their history.

– To the WWF, where Shotgun Saturday Night debuted on 1/4 and was a complete flop. The reaction was 100% negative from Dave’s readership and the show didn’t even air in most markets. The debut show was taped at a New York nightclub called the Mirage, drawing 350 fans, which fell short of the 3000 people they were shooting for. They also charged $20 per person and presented a “risqué comedy show” that wasn’t funny. (I’m picturing Krusty going “Herpes, herpes, herpes!” while Vince laughs uproariously at Gorilla.).

– Dave, who didn’t see the show, heard it described as “like watching a poorly-lit minor league promotional cross between Incredibly Strange Wrestling and Grunt the Wrestling Movie, but with bigger stars.” (I don’t think that even sums it up properly.).

– The opener saw the Headbangers repackaged into the Flying Nuns, Mother Smucker and Sister Angelica, managed by Brother Love and beating the Godwinns with a loaded Bible to the head.

– Goldust beat the Sultan thanks to distraction from Marlena, who pulled down her dress to flash Sultan.

– Ahmed Johnson beat Crush via DQ in a match where they brawled into the street. The highlight of the show was Ahmed giving former SMW regular D-Lo Brown a powerbomb onto a car roof.

– The main event saw Mascarita Sagrada beating Mini Vader, setting up a finale of Vince McMahon and Sunny doing the Macarena in the ring, but with the lyrics changed to racist Mexican slurs. The show then ended with Jim Cornette getting his pants pulled down and running through the streets of New York in his underwear. (WHY IS THIS SHOW NOT ON THE WWE NETWORK?).

– Ace Darling and Devon Storm will be getting a tryout with WCW on 1/22.

– Ken Shamrock finally solved the mystery of Pancrase, as he went on a Texas radio station and admitted that it was a work.

– Correction from last week, as Dave claimed that Bruiser Bedlam was arrested in Toronto as a part of a major drug bust, but it turns out that members of his motorcycle gang were arrested, but not Bedlam himself. (Well give it some time.).

– At a WCW house show in Shreveport, Jerry Sags punched Scott Hall in a shoot and knocked some of his teeth out, resulting in dental surgery that kept Hall off the 1/6 Nitro. (That feels like it should have been a bigger story.). This was a receipt for another incident that had happened on Nitro, where Hall had hit Sags overly hard with chairshots and gave him a concussion. This led to the house show, where Sags had asked Hall not to hit him in the back with a chair because of neck surgery. So Hall hit him in the back of the neck with a chair instead. At that point, Sags snapped and beat the shit out of him, punching in the mouth several times, before they calmed things down and finished the match.

– Ken Shamrock was at the WWF show in Stockton and got mobbed by kids seeking autographs.

– The Grimm Twins were fired.

– Jim Ross and Vic Venom hosted the “new” Livewire, with unscripted calls in the last 15 minutes. Callers mostly asked about WCW, which prompted JR to quip that Hall and Nash should return and attend a WWF PPV because they haven’t seen any good ones since going to WCW. Also he denied rumors of trying to sign Randy Savage, because they were looking for young talent and not talent the same age as himself.

– Dave notes that the Sting storyline was supposed to culminate at Superbrawl, but with the Giant turn they can now “postpone it a little longer”. (That would be what we in the writing business call an “understatement”.).

– Nothing new on a potential ECW PPV show.

– ECW returned to Revere after the Mass Transit incident, with a VERY toned down show that featured almost no brawling and no bleeding. Killer Kowalski was at the show with the Eliminators and gave a clinic before the show for younger wrestlers. (Hopefully he taught them the proper way to pull someone’s ear off.).

– And finally, in Memphis, Tracy Smothers is the newest member of the Nation of Domination, as Shaquille Ali. (Hopefully Tracy learns his lesson about cultural appropriation and never does it again.).

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