Wrestling Observer Flashback
Rants

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 03.17.97

By Scott Keith on 23 June 2025

Wrestling Observer Flashback – 03.17.97

In our top story, WCW is about to be experiencing an attack from RODZILLA.

– Dennis Rodman became the latest celebrity to enter wrestling this week after being signed by WCW and put into the nWo. He will reportedly debut on the Uncensored PPV on 3/16.

– The WWF was also throwing money at Rodman, reportedy offering $1 million for two shows. (And yet they couldn’t afford to pay Bret’s deal, apparently.). The plan would have been Rodman appearing in Goldust’s corner at Wrestlemania and then teaming with him at Summerslam, in an effort to revive the failing babyface character. Wisely, Rodman’s reps went to WCW and asked them to match the offer, and they did so.

– Making the announcement in Chicago had the added bonus of further burying the media hype for Wrestlemania in the market. That being said, although WCW got some pub for the story, it wasn’t nearly as much as they pretended on Nitro. (A wrestling promotion that distorts the truth? WELL I NEVER!). In fact most of the pub came from Hogan and Rodman appearing on Howard Stern to promote the signing and the PPV, with Stern constantly shutting down Hulk’s attempts to promote the show and only wanting to talk about Rodman.

– Dave’s prediction: Rodman will spike ratings on TV in the short term, but he doesn’t see people spending $27.95 to watch him wrestle.

– To Japan, where the announcement was made that 1992 Olympic medalist Naoya Ogawa would be replacing Ken Shamrock against Hashimoto at the Tokyo Dome. Also it will under martial arts rules, so no IWGP title on the line. However, Ogawa is a much bigger name in the eyes of the general public, so this match is a much bigger deal from a mainstream standpoint than the Shamrock match would have been.

– ECW Barely Legal now has a finalized lineup, featuring a main event of Raven defending the ECW title against the winner of a three way match. The show actually will be carried on the majority of Request PPV systems, but not much else. Dave points out that to this point, there have been very few “third party” success stories on PPV, outside of the UFC, but lots have tried. (And failed.)

  1. AWA SuperClash III: Although the show is universally considered to be a flop, it was an overall decent show with a good main event. (SCALDING HOT TAKE from Dave here!). With a 0.5 buyrate at the time, it would actually be considered a success in today’s market, but regardless the multiple groups working together fell apart anyway.
  2. UWF Beach Brawl from 1991. The show wasn’t good (that’s quite the understatement) but it had a solid main event. Only did 5000 buys, which means it completely stiffed on PPV. But at the same time, everyone knew exactly who and what it was for and no one expected anything besides a Herb Abrams ego trip.
  3. The LPWA Super Ladies Showdown in 1992 completely flopped, but they had no names on the show or national TV exposure anyway.
  4. The UWFI from1993. The slogan was “Shootfighting: It’s Real!” (Narrator: In fact, the shootfighting was not real.) Did about a 0.48 buyrate, or about what WCW was doing at the time, but followups went nowhere.
  5. The WCW/New Japan Supershows in 91/92/93. Started out at a 0.6 buyrate, pretty good for a novelty show with no promotion. Collision in Korea followed in 1995 and did less than a 0.2 buyrate.
  6. The Continental Wresting Alliance did one taped show from the Sportatorium in 1996, which was based on an ego trip from a prison guard who wanted to be a pro wrestler, and no one even knew it happened. (I know of one guy on the blog who remembers it at least.).
  7. And Dave’s closest comparison to ECW, AAA When Worlds Collide. Similar concept of introducing a new style to US audiences on PPV, virtually no maintstream or crossover promotion. Both good cards on paper. AAA did a 0.24 buyrate, or 44,000 buys, which put it close to break-even. But they were available in way more homes and not banned from an entire country like ECW is going to be.

– So what is Dave’s prediction for Barely Legal? He thinks it’ll do OK but make way more off merch than PPV. And if there’s profits, it’s not like anyone from ECW is gonna see them for four months anyway. (Or ever, in some cases.) Dave points out that packing 1000 people into a tiny Bingo Hall every week is considered a major success by some even though many others would consider those numbers pretty tepid and not capable of sustaining a third major promotion. Which is why the WWF promoting the show on their TV may have saved the PPV. (In the end, the show did an OK 0.2 buyrate, or about 40,000 buys. So Dave’s comparison with AAA was dead on.)

– Speaking of AAA, where (and I can’t believe I’m about to type this) Razor Ramon & Diesel are proving to be a huge draw with a sellout of 5500 people in Tijuana on 3/7 for a match against Canek & Cibernetico as the main event. Apparently there’s huge heat on the USA v. Mexico stuff. However, it seems that the big numbers are because fans in Mexico in fact thought that it was really going to be Scott Hall & Kevin Nash appearing. And in fact, many fans at the show actually thought Bogner & Jacobs were the real deal. (Well there IS a lot of booze being consumed there, so I hear.)

– To ECW, where they had a sold show in Trenton on 3/8, drawing a sellout 1300. So Paul Heyman tried to run a SECOND show at 11:30pm so he could sell tickets and merch to the crowd that were turned away, but the owner of the building didn’t like the noisy ECW crowd that was there for the first one causing trouble in the parking lot before the show, and wouldn’t let him do it. (That would have been a pretty slick hustle on Heyman’s part if he had gotten away with it. Also how obnoxious do you have to be to get banned in NEW JERSEY for being too loud?).

– Dave fully expects Jerry Lawler to come in after the PPV and work with Tommy Dreamer.

– In a minor note that will be unlikely to have any long term meaning for the wrestling business beyond this single paragraph, former Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle worked an indie show on 2/15 in Pittsburgh. (I’ve already forgotten the name.)

– To WCW, where they did a major pivot on the Uncensored main event after last week’s disaster of a show, and now the stips are somehow even more confusing. So now if the nWo wins, they get to appear on all WCW TV shows. If the WCW team wins, the nWo leaves WCW for three years and all the titles are vacated. And if Piper’s Horsemen win, then Piper gets a cage match with Hogan. (So of course they booked the lamest and most obvious result possible.)

– Piper also did a rambling interview that made no sense at all, built around the idea that he was loyal to his friends from last week forever before firing them from his team and replacing them with the Horsemen.

– Eddie Guerrero is dying fast a babyface with the US title, so they’re trying to give him more of a heel edge in hopes of getting him over. (Could work.)

– Although the ratings were closer this week due to RAW being a better show by far, Nitro still won with a 3.5 to 2.3 edge. Despite Vince reformatting RAW to be more like Nitro with the fast cuts and multiple angles, the rating actually dropped throughout the show. (Sounds like they need a drastic change of creative.)

– Disco Inferno was fired for refusing to do a program with Jacqueline and putting her over at Uncensored. Everyone sided with him over that decision.

– Apparently the reason why La Parka’s gimmick on WCW TV was toned down so much is that WCW wanted to give mostly the same thing to Kanyon for the new Mortis character. They actually told La Parka that he wouldn’t get over with the gimmick, but then retooled it for Kanyon instead.

– SECRET ORIGIN UPDATE: DDP did an interview in Sports Collector’s Digest, and we learned that young Page was nicknamed “Dallas” by his father as a kid because he was such a big Cowboys fan. (Shouldn’t he be “Cowboy” Page then? Actually never mind, some guy named Page with a cowboy gimmick would never get over.)

– Last heard, Arn Anderson is going to be our four months with his neck issues and may need surgery to fix it. It’s causing his hand to go numb. (Have to keep an eye on that one.)

– To the WWF, where TV ratings woes aren’t reflected at the house shows, with Sid/Bret cage matches doing big business around the horn.

– Apparently they reformatted the RAW show, so it now has a new “giant video wall” and is called “RAW is WAR” with all new graphics. (We need a catchy name for that video wall! I got it, VINCE-O-VISION!)

– And finally, a newspaper in Rochester NY did a story about Flash Funk speaking to kids at a local school about “saying no to drugs”, while promoting a PPV from that city coming up on 4/20. (Drugs might not get them, but they’re gonna die from the layers of irony in this paragraph smothering them to death!)

AND THAT’S THE NEWS AND I’M OUTTA HERE!