by Dave Meltzer
Traditionally the Mexican wrestling fans haven’t supported promotions where the Mexicans work in supporting roles rather than as the top stars when it comes to Los Angeles mat history. In San Jose last year, which AAA drew big houses in during the heyday of that promotion, when WCW came to town, the Mexican audience was virtually non-existent despite a lot of promotion designed in that direction. There was a noticeable, but not overwhelming Mexican audience at the SuperBrawl PPV at the San Francisco Cow Palace.
The other major battleground for this week was Detroit. WWF ran Raw at Cobo Arena on 6/23, packing 10,863 fans into the building, however it was heavily papered with the paid attendance being 6,370 paying $113,858. WCW has already sold 8,093 tickets for $177,083 for the 8/4 Nitro at the Palace in Auburn Hills, MI and the expectations are that the company will break its all-time gate record set on 6/9 in Boston at this show.
However, WWF, despite the common perception of it being No. 2, still on a consistent basis is outdrawing WCW at arena events and its Meadowlands advance for SummerSlam on 8/3 is more money than WCW has ever done for any show in its history. WWF officials also claim WCW spends more money to promote its major shows that are doing the big houses in the major markets while WCW counters that claim.
JULY 7
After a few months of planning, the “Battle of Los Angeles” took place on the same night as the Tyson-Holyfield rematch. The winner? One would have to call it shrouded in controversy.
World Championship Wrestling, running 6/28 at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles claimed a total attendance of 10,948, with a paid of 9,705 and a $189,940 gate, figures confirmed by the Forum box office, in a building that seats about 18,000. The WWF, citing Ticketron as its source, claimed that their information was that WCW did a crowd of 11,629 fans, but with only 7,699 paid and a gate of $158,716.
Part of the dispute over the money figures and total paid attendance may be in regard to season ticket holders at the Forum. WCW made a deal with the building to get paid by the building a certain amount for each season ticket holder who attended the event and thus in the Forum box office figures they would be considered paid attendance, which is a highly unusual deal at arenas of this type in that usually season ticket holders aren’t figured into the paid attendance nor do the event promoters receive money from their attendance, although from a mathematical standpoint, that wouldn’t add up the numbers correctly either to explain a discrepancy between the two figures.
There were also according to Forum figures 780 ticket holders, virtually all comp ticket holders, that had tickets but didn’t attend the show which would explain part of the reason the Ticketron figures listed a higher actual attendance than the Forum figures, although as you can see, those numbers don’t add up perfectly throwing that in either.
The figures are by far its best showing from a gate perspective ever in Southern California, a market that neither WCW nor its predecessor, Jim Crockett Promotions, were ever able to sustain consistent business in although there have been a few solid crowds in the past.
Crockett’s debut show in the market in the mid-80s in the same building drew about 8,500 fans, and that was with a company that didn’t have a microscopic fraction of the promotional ability or promotional budget of today’s WCW and theoretically wasn’t nearly as over on a national basis although live wrestling attendance overall nationally was stronger in those days. However the history since then has been spotty, with the last paid show in the market being a 1994 Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair main event in Anaheim which drew less than 3,000 paid and $40,000, and a free 1995 PPV show at Huntington Beach which drew approximately 9,500.
However, given the intense marketing push and loaded show, the numbers have to be a disappointment, particularly since there was virtually no walk-up with lots of last week promotion aimed at the Hispanic community, and one would question how profitable the show was given the huge advertising budget, costs for all the production special effects given the “Saturday Nitro” theme, the live appearance of Hulk Hogan and the fact the Forum is among the most costly buildings in the country to run. Throwing in the merchandise figure of $82,000 would be the only way to make the difference between profitability and red ink for the show as a whole.
Although WCW has the more depth and thus had the stronger undercard, the WWF was able to counter, even with all the injuries and what seemed like weekly line-up changes, with a main event that put its three biggest stars in the ring against each other with the world title at stake. WCW instead had to push its biggest stars, Hulk Hogan and Sting, as appearing in a “face-off,” which sounds more like a debate than a match, since Hogan opted not to wrestle on the show wanting to save the first Sting match for PPV later in the year.
Since WCW has been able to pack crowds most Mondays promising nothing but personal appearances and advertising no matches, in most markets that would have been enough. New York and Los Angeles are both different from most markets in that in both cases, the WWF is the decided “home team” because of history, and that people who live in those cities expect only the very best from an entertainment standpoint not just in wrestling but across the board entertainment wise since they are the media capitals and something perceived as anything but the best product possible isn’t going to pack the building.
The World Wrestling Federation, which runs the market regularly and has dominated Southern California live wrestling business since the early 80s with the exception of a brief period where AAA was doing off the chart numbers, ran the same night at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim drawing 9,469 fans, of which 8,449 were paid with a $150,447 gate in a building that seats a little less than 16,000. The WWF also did $72,000 in merchandise business at the show. Those figures have to be considered successful even though the dollar figures are lower than the WCW figures.
It was going against the biggest money boxing match in history and with a rival show in the same basic market (in some ways Anaheim and Los Angeles, although within driving distance of one another, are also different markets) and still drew, with the exception of the 1996 WrestleMania, the largest paid attendance and gate for a WWF show in the market in more than two years, although it also was given a far bigger promotional push than a typical house show.
WCW considered it a victory because it drew the larger crowd and gross. WWF considered it a victory claiming their show was the more profitable because less money was spent on advertising, which is also the case since WCW spent slightly more than $100,000 just on advertising alone for the show.
Both sides pushed the show heavily with lots of public appearances. The WWF’s final promotional stop was a public workout by Ken Shamrock, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Chyna and Sunny at Venice Beach (about a 90 minute drive from Anaheim) the afternoon of the show. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Syxx came to Venice Beach to hang out with Helmsley and were there as well.
The WCW show, billed in some circles as “The show Eric Bischoff doesn’t want you to see,” was described as a good but not great show, with a very strong undercard and weak work in the main matches, similar to the typical WCW pattern. It was a heavy heel crowd, with the only main event faces to get major cheers being Roddy Piper and Sting, and described as being 25 to 30 percent Mexican.
There has been a lot of controversy about WCW being unable to draw Mexican fans in markets like San Jose and Los Angeles that these same former AAA wrestlers drew on their own years back, but that is going to be the case because those wrestlers have no Spanish language television as opposed to about seven hours per week when AAA was doing over $200,000 per show over a two-year period.
In addition, when promoting to ethnics, the ethnic stars in order for the promotions to be successful have to be the headliners, and in WCW’s case, the former AAA superstars are generally prelim wrestlers, which gives the former AAA fans no great incentive to follow them in WCW. This has probably greatly hurt their drawing potential for the future in the U.S. even if WCW follows through on its plan to develop a WCW Latino television show to fo
cus on Mexican wrestling and develop anywhere from quarterly to monthly Lucha Libre style PPV shows for the U.S. to hit the growing Spanish language market.
WCW geared much of its advertising over the last week to the Spanish language market and pushed the six-man tag team match, which turned out to be the opening match on the card, as the main event in the advertising and also focused on Rey Misterio Jr. and Eddie Guerrero, and downplayed Hogan, Sting and the rest, and the result was no walk-up at all.
The show opened with them introducing all the announcers, with Lee Marshall, a long-time Los Angeles DJ, being booed heavily. The other announcers all received smatterings of boos with the exception of Bobby Heenan, who was cheered wildly by this largely heel crowd.
Juventud Guerrera, Lizmark Jr. & Damian beat Konnan, La Parka & Villano IV in 10:18 when Guerrera pinned Villano turning a power bomb into a huracanrana. This was said to have been a great fast-paced match, with Guerrera doing a Liger dive over the head of announcer Mike Tenay at ringside. Guerrera slipped on the planned finish, some sort of a springboard move, likely that somersault into a dropkick, but Villano did a great job of covering his mistake. ***1/2
Ultimo Dragon pinned Psicosis in 12:28 after a spinning huracanrana off the top rope and a tap out to a dragon sleeper submission. Dragon was said to have been really over with the crowd. Psicosis did a running springboard into a moonsault block off the top rope to the floor as the highlight. ***1/2
Eddie Guerrero pinned Dean Malenko in 16:31 with his feet on the ropes. Guerrero was mainly doing the Art Barr heel routine and was tremendous in his new role. This was largely considered the best match on the show and from reports from the previous night in Fresno, totally stole the show there as well. ***3/4
Steiners beat Marcus Bagwell & Masahiro Chono in 16:20. Most of the entertainment was provided by Bagwell’s antics. Rick pinned Bagwell with a belly-to-belly suplex while Chono’s back was turned and he was fighting with Scott outside the ring. After the match, Bagwell tried to explain to Chono that he was the one who had pinned Rick and that they had won the match. *3/4 Before the next match, Gene Okerlund did a live interview with Ric Flair. Flair was out there to turn himself heel for the match with Roddy Piper. Flair got a huge babyface reaction coming out, but then started insulting the fans, the Lakers and the women in Los Angeles with the typical old-style Flair heel promo. Even when it was over, he still got at best 50% of the fans turned against him.
The next match was scheduled as a cruiserweight title match with Syxx defending against Rey Misterio Jr. Before the match, Chris Jericho came out and challenged the winner to defend the title against him later in the card. Jericho wasn’t over a lick. Misterio Jr. accepted and then Syxx, to a huge face pop said something to the effect of nobody in this building even gives a rats ass about you and talked about having beaten him before on television, which was true since they largely didn’t. The two had a good match, although not as good as some of their previous bouts, ending in 11:33 with the buzzkiller submission. Highlight was Misterio Jr. doing the Liger flip dive springboarding off the back of the referee and Syxx doing the Michinoku driver II on Misterio Jr. for a near fall. ***
Jericho was challenged to get in the ring, and he came in, hit a leg lariat and pinned Syxx in :32 to capture the cruiserweight title. Jericho was booed out of the building for winning. The entire NWO, including Hogan, came out for an interview to a total face reaction. The crowd totally cheered Hogan. Hogan challenged Sting to come out then and there, but nothing materialized.
Roddy Piper beat Ric Flair with the sleeper in 8:10. Match didn’t have much heat but when Flair’s arm went down the third time there was a big pop. The only other big pop was Piper pulling Flair’s trunks down. Told it was watchable live but it would be a bad match if it were on a PPV. Since much of the crowd had already learned of the Tyson result, Piper started biting Flair’s ear to try and get heat. *1/2.
Diamond Dallas Page pinned Randy Savage in 5:16 after two Diamond cutters. Big early pop but told the match was a major disappointment as they appeared to both be phoning in the performance. 1/2*
Lex Luger & The Giant beat Kevin Nash & Scott Hall via DQ in 12:01 in a WCW tag team title match. Unlike Flair, who tried to get the crowd not to cheer him, Hall & Nash were doing everything to encourage the crowd to cheer for them. There were lots of chants of “Diesel” and “Razor” which is something that hadn’t been heard at arenas for months. Typical not good match with these four ending with Luger having Hall in the rack in the ring and Giant fighting Nash outside the ring. Hogan did a run-in and hit Luger with a pathetic shot with the title belt for the DQ. *1/4 The NWO beat on Luger and Giant until Sting came down from the ceiling for the save. Sting ended up putting Hogan in the scorpion deathlock with Hogan tapping out to make sure everyone registered it until Syxx broke it up by hitting Sting with a lead pipe. Sting ended up getting the pipe from Syxx and along with Luger and Giant, cleaned house momentarily. At this point Hogan went back to the dressing room. Hall, Nash and Syxx ended up going back to the ring. Sting gave Hall the scorpion death drop (slop drop), Luger racked Nash and Giant choke-slammed Syxx. While the other two continued to sell, Nash got up and went after Sting, but Sting destroyed him with a baseball bat shot. The faces left while the heels sold in the ring for a very long time until they finally got up and said that everyone knows Los Angeles is NWO country. Even though Hall, Nash and Syxx were the faces for the most part, the fans pelted the ring with garbage at the end, seemingly this has become the thing to do because people copy what they see on television. Nash actually caught a cup and drank from it, which considering what they sometimes put in the cups they throw in Los Angeles, isn’t necessarily the wisest idea.
We don’t have as much detail on the WWF Anaheim show.
Rockabilly pinned Flash Funk with a DDT off the ropes. Funk got a bloody nose in the match.
Faarooq & Kama beat The Blackjacks when Kama pinned Windham.
Ken Shamrock, who got the biggest pop on the show except for Austin and Undertaker, beat Jim Neidhart.
The tanning contest went a too-long 22:00. It turned into a strip show atmosphere with fans throwing money, which Sunny was only glad to collect. Similar to the Slammys, Sable worse the least and got the biggest pop to win. After it was over, Honky Tonk Man began insulting what Chyna was wearing and she bodyslammed him.
A Triple Threat match billed as to determine the No. 1 contenders for the tag team titles saw Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith win over Godwinns and Legion of Doom when Hart pinned Phineas in what was described as a bad match.
Vader pinned Goldust due to distraction from the Hart Foundation.
Mankind beat Hunter Hearst Helmsley via DQ due to interference from Chyna. After the match, Mankind put the mandible claw on Chyna to a big pop.
Undertaker retained the WWF title in the Triple Threat match over Bret Hart and Steve Austin. Bret was said to be about 50% of his usual effectiveness as he’s not fully recovered from knee surgery. Said to have been the best match on the show ending when Undertaker pinned Bret with a choke slam. After the match, Paul Bearer came out and talked about revealing the surprise on Monday and Undertaker knocked him out of the ring.
20 – Wrestling’s Drug Problem
JULY 14
The arrest of Gary Wolf and Anthony Durante, ECW’s Pit Bulls, by federal authorities on 7/2 on three counts of steroid and marijuana trafficking just adds to the list of arrests of pro wrestlers this year predominately on drug charges.
It once again points to an industry that, while in many ways is thriving on the outside, seems to be in other ways a ticking time bomb that may be setting itself up for the same collapse that befell it only five years earlier.
In recent months, we’ve seen nine arrests and a few trips to rehab or drug suspensions of wrestlers, which may not sound like that huge a total, but it is when you consider it’s only a six month period we’re talking about and it’s an industry that really only has about 200 or so wrestlers in it. It
’s a problem that goes far deeper than any individual promotion and problems have taken place internally in most major promotions in the world.
Pro wrestling and drug problems is hardly a new story. In the mid-80s, the problems were cocaine and downers and to a lesser extent steroids, which led to several major deaths of wrestlers that quite frankly had they lived would have changed the entire landscape of the industry, and a no-show problem of major stars. Ironically, even with the body count, that drug story didn’t hurt the industry’s growth since the media never picked up on it.
But in 1991, when Dr. George Zahorian was convicted of illegally distributing steroids to a number of WWF wrestlers, it set the stage for a scandal that got a good deal of media coverage and greatly damaged the WWF, not that it was alone in having a drug problem but the fact is it was a company at the time built on the back of steroids. Its top stars, marketed to fans as clean-living anti-drug super heroes were people like Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan. Hogan painted the bullseye on both himself and Vince McMahon by lying under pressure, and there are circumstances remarkably similar in the profession today, including more media attention than ever before, right down to a few doctors known in the industry as being handy men with the prescription pad (although none with the visibility and name recognition inside the profession like Zahorian had during the 80s and with the laws on steroids changing and use decreasing, those are no longer the drugs in question), that may set the stage for history repeating itself, particularly if a major star either gets busted or collapses in public.