Wrestling Observer Flashback
Rants

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 03.03.97

By Scott Keith on 10 June 2025

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 03.03.97 (Part 1)

Trying to get back into a regular pattern with these again and OF COURSE it’s a gigantic one in 1997, so this is part 1.

– So even with all of the things that were happening this week in wrestling, and there were a LOT of them, Dave’s biggest story is the signing of Ken Shamrock with the WWF on 2/24. It was apparently for a “low seven figure downside guarantee”. The contract is also exclusive, meaning that Shamrock is unable do any of the Ultimate Fighting he loves so much for the next 3-6 years. (Unless he flakes out and gets fired.).

– Shamrock showed up on RAW in a ringside cameo, dubbed “The World’s Most Dangerous Human Being”, and was interviewed a couple of times in order to make him seem like a big star. Dave notes that given the contract and buildup, he’ll either have to be a giant megastar or a giant flop, with absolutely no in between. (And yet he was mostly just in between. Funny how that worked out.) Shamrock reportedly signed with the WWF after a bidding war between WWF, UFC, New Japan, and even WCW. (Maybe WCW will just find their own shoot style tough guy pro wrestler and make millions! Nah, that’s silly, never mind.)

– New Japan was actually promoting a gigantic IWGP title match between Shinya Hashimoto and Shamrock when the news broke on RAW, and this kinda blows their whole plan out of the water and screws them over but good now. The plan appeared to be Shamrock getting the IWGP title and holding it for a good long while originally, but with Vince now booking Shamrock’s dates, that appears to be completely out of the question. The belief is that Shamrock’s understudy, Dan Severn, will get the shot instead, although Dave isn’t convinced that Severn can be a successful pro grappler.

– Apparently Shamrock will be featured at Wrestlemania 13, probably as the referee for some kind of submission match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin, which will lead to his in-ring debut. (Might be a good match.).

– OK, so let’s talk about Shawn Michaels.

– From within the WWF, the story more and more is that he’s probably not as seriously injured as he portrayed on Thursday RAW Thursday, and it’s more that he’s burned out and overleveraged emotionally and just needed a break from it. And he saw how Bret Hart managed to walk out and turn it into a big fat new contract and push for himself and said “ME TOO!” People acknowledge that yes, he has a real knee injury, but he could have worked through it had he really wanted to.

– It has been confirmed that he is NOT in any kind of rehab, “except for his knee”. (I heard that they tried to make him and he said “No no no”) Also he still has five years left on his contract and chances of him going to WCW at this point are pretty much zero unless Vince chose to release him from it. (I mean, he could just wait it out. WCW will still be around in five years, obviously.)

– Meanwhile, apparently Eric Bischoff has been trying to get TBS to buy New Japan, which Dave finds mind-boggling. New Japan has been one of the most lucrative companies in history recently, doing regular $5 million gates at the Tokyo Dome, which is numbers that no other company in history has achieved. (These days that’s just the take from the front row at a RAW taping. TKO would fire the entire front office if they just did a $5 million gate for a PPV.)

– Dave has a CRAZY prediction for wrestling’s future, which you can feel free to laugh at: “However, the future of pro wrestling on a world-wide basis is clearly not house show driven, but driven by not only PPV, but as a provider of cheap television programming that can draw better than competitive ratings on stations that only need fringe ratings to survive.”

(SWISH! Shaq! He’s a basketball player famous for hitting free throws, right?)

– Anyway, Eric Bischoff, genius of television, believes that New Japan might be good at making money with their “house show” strategy, but the real money comes from major players like Turner backing companies like WCW. Dave notes that, ahem, New Japan is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch, who can hold his own just fine in the TV world thank you. (Man I would have loved to be a fly on the wall with 1997 Eric Bischoff man-splaining to Inoki’s crew about how their little promotion needs his genius to survive in the future, when four years later WCW is dead and buried and Ted Turner is out of wrestling forever. You know who’s still around and still making money? New Japan and Rupert Murdoch.)

– Apparently this is all stems from Bischoff doing internet chats and basically revealing that he wants to buy New Japan and/or a Mexican promotion and raid their talent for himself. Dave notes that this would be functionally impossible in either case, as New Japan is a horribly complex conglomerate of corporations owning bits and pieces and there’s not really any way to “buy” the company.

– That being said, Paco Alonso of CMLL was at Superbrawl VII and appears to have struck some kind of talent exchange deal with WCW, which gives Eric a gigantic pool of Mexican talent to draw from now. Dave thinks that mostly this is going to screw over Konnan, who has heat with so many people in CMLL that he won’t be able to keep AAA/Promo Azteca talent guys on the same WCW shows without problems. (I don’t think this really led anywhere outside of Silver King getting a job, to be honest.).

– And now, Dave reviews Superbrawl VII! It was a financial windfall thanks to Hogan and Piper in the main event, although not to the same degree as Starrcade. (To be fair, Starrcade was a GIGANTIC show). The gate was the third highest in WCW history, although again they had the bad luck of booking a building that was too small and cost them an even bigger payday. Overall, mostly good, nothing really bad, just kind of a show.

– In the dark match, Hugh Morrus pinned Joe Gomez with a moonsault in 5:25. *. And then Ultimo Dragon pinned Pat Tanaka in 4:53 with a rana off the top rope, with Tanaka replacing Regal due to injury. **3/4

  1. Syxx won the Cruiserweight title from Dean Malenko in 11:57. Dave thinks that the “stealing the belt” stuff with Syxx is getting old. Syxx worked the match with what appeared to be a legit knee injury, but he still took a bunch of bumps on it anyway. He played tug-of-war with Eddie Guerrero over the belt, but that resulted in Dean taking an accidental shot to the head with it, and Syxx got the pin and won the title for real. ***1/4
  2. Konnan & La Parka & Villano IV beat Juventud Guerrera & Super Calo & Ciclope in 9:51. Big story here is that DAVE DOESN’T KNOW CICLOPE’S REAL NAME. Best match on the show regardless, although Mickey Jay screwed up the finish and counted the pin on Juvy even though he actually kicked out of Konnan’s Splash Mountain finish. ***3/4
  3. Prince Iaukea retained the WCW TV title over Rey Mysterio in 8:56. Nobody cared about Iaukea and the fluke jobber title win deal isn’t getting over with him in that role. It was still really good thanks to Rey. Regal interfered to take out Mysterio, allowing Iaukea to win and retain the belt after missing the help. The finish was also botched here. ***1/4
  4. Diamond Dallas Page beat Marcus Bagwell via DQ in 9:46. Page got a big pop and Bagwell is really leaning into his new heel role. (You don’t say?) The NWO all ran in for the DQ after the Diamond Cutter and Page ran away into the crowd. Another lame finish. **3/4
  5. Eddie Guerrero pinned Chris Jericho to retain the US title in 12:02. Fans treated this one like it was intermission. (And now they chant Eddie’s name! Bunch of fickle hypocrites, wrestling fans are.). Work was good but they wrestled like it was Japan and didn’t play to the crowd. Dave calls it similar to the horribly disappointing Shawn-Bret Iron Man match but with even less of a crowd reaction. (Ouch! Someone get Bret some salve for that sick burn.). Eddie won with a sunset flip and then shook Jericho’s hand afterwards. ***1/4. (With all these three star matches it’s like the Cody Rhodes tribute show or something.
  6. Public Enemy won a three way dance over Faces of Fear & Harlem Heat in 7:43. Dave still hates three way matches in 1997. Match was better than expected. Johnny knocked Rocco onto Barbarian to reverse a slam attempt for the pin, which he calls the “first good finish of the PPV”. *1/2. (With all these bad finishes it’s like the DUSTY Rhodes tribute show or something.)
  7. Jeff Jarrett pinned Steve McMichael in 8:12 and joined the Four Horsemen. Better match than you’d think, thanks to Debra stealing the show. Debra basically turned on Mongo and helped JJ get the briefcase and win. *3/4
  8. Chris Benoit pinned Kevin Sullivan in a death match in 8:35. Biggest heat of the show from the crowd for this one. Woman and Jackie were strapped together and spent the whole match basically working a strap match while the menfolk brawled. Lots of low blows and strap shots, but Woman got noticeably blown up after a while and couldn’t keep up. At one point Benoit tried to slam Sullivan through a table and the table wouldn’t do business, brother, but Benoit got the pin anyway. Everyone did an ambulance gimmick afterwards and they all played dead. ***1/2
  9. The Giant & Lex Luger won the WCW tag team titles from the Outsiders in 8:53. Sort of. A very good match with good psychology. They got heat on Giant with a belt shot as he was forced to work the match alone, but finally Le Luger came out in street clothes to tag in and take out Syxx and then racked Nash for the submission, while Giant chokeslammed Hall and pinned him for good measure. And then the decision was reversed the next night on Nitro because Luger wasn’t supposed to be there. ***1/2. (I’m gonna be honest, I’m totally blanking on why Luger wasn’t allowed in the match.).
  10. Hulk Hogan beat Rowdy Roddy Piper to retain the WCW title in 10:52. Mainly low blows, choking and bearhugs. Dave thinks that Piper’s ego might be the most out of control in the whole company right now, and that’s a lofty statement. Sting and Savage came out to watch, but then Piper put out Hogan with the sleeper like at Starrcade, and this time Savage put Hogan’s feet under the ropes after the bell to make it seem like the move shouldn’t have counted. So the ref restarted the match, which made no sense, and then Savage gave Hulk brass knuckles and allowed him to knock out Piper and retain the title, thus joining the nWo. Surprisingly little heat for such a mammoth heel turn, with the fans seemingly just deflated by the terrible finish rather than mad at Savage. (Well he’d turn things around for them soon enough with his awesome heel run, at least.).

Coming tomorrow: One of the most batshit crazy episodes of RAW in history! Can I stretch this issue into another 2000 words? I’M GONNA TRY!