by Dave Meltzer
DECEMBER 1
Mark Selker dropped his lawsuit against Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton on 11/14. No reason was given for dropping the suit. There wasn’t much left to win anyway. The most valuable assets the company had were the syndicated clearances, which are long gone, and the WMC-TV slot, which is also gone. So to win control, you have the rights to run a promotion with no television in markets where there is now one or two opposition groups in most cities, that were all big money losers to begin with, and you can inherit the past due bills in several of the markets to arenas and television stations just to restart under the USWA name.
DECEMBER 22
The investors in the now-defunct XL Sports (USWA Selker group) have filed an individual $1.4 million lawsuit against Jerry Lawler in Memphis, claiming he conspired to con the investment group out of money by misrepresenting the value of the company, and claiming he misrepresented to them the price he paid to acquire the other 50% of the company from Jerry Jarrett.
Lawler paid approximately $250,000 to Jarrett for 50% of the USWA, of which Jarrett received about $175,000 and Larry Burton, or Bergman or Bertman or whatever name he’s going by this week, received the difference as a brokering fee for putting the deal together. Lawler and Burton then sold the Selker group 55% of the USWA for $1.1 million. There are also hints of the Selkers filing an individual suit against Burton and filing criminal fraud charges, although those threats were also out there a few months back and nothing materialized.
This was the second similar lawsuit filed by the group, the first against Lawler & Burton was looking to obtain control of the promotion, but it was dropped and the promotion officially declared bankruptcy. The investment group then filed suit to get its money back.
JANAURY 5
The old USWA territory has turned into something of a hotbed of news outside the ring. The lawsuit between XL Sports, Limited (The Mark Selker group of investors) and Jerry Lawler was filed in bankruptcy court where the degree of proof is generally considered easier than a regular civil suit. XL Sports is suing Lawler to recover $1.11 million (the price they paid for their USWA purchase) and $300,000 in expenses claimed as a result of a fraudulent transfer.
The dropping of the original suit and subsequent filing of bankruptcy appeared to be measures to get the suit into what would be an easier court to recover money since the idea is no longer to gain control of the dead company (because all you would win was liability to pay owed money to television stations and arenas and the most valuable asset the company actually had, the television deals, have all been lost) but to recover the money spent.
The basic claim in the suit is that Lawler and Lawrence Bertman (Larry Burton) “conspired, colluded, aided and abetted one with the other and with others as yet not named as defendants to concoct a scheme and device by which to trick, cheat and deceive debtor by lies, tricks, misrepresentations by material omissions, conversion and other forms of theft designed to victimize persons later to become principals of and/or lenders, vendors, employees and other creditors of and to debtor into delivering to Lawler and/or Bertman/Burton approximately $1,110,000.”
The suit itself has a lot of wording but no documentation to back it up and not a lot of specifics as to what happened, other then the factual prices, that Lawler and Bertman bought Jerry Jarrett’s 50% of the USWA for $187,000 (the actual sale price would have been $262,000 but Bertman received $75,000 of that as a brokering fee for putting together the sale between Lawler and Jarrett) and immediately sold that 50% plus another 5% to XL Sports for $1,110,000.
The suit claims Lawler and Bertman misrepresented to both sides aspects of the sale. The suit claims that the maximum value of the entire company in which Lawler & Bertman sold 55% of would be $500,000. The suit also claims Lawler and Bertman conspired to deplete the assets of the company basically to run it down. It is rumored that the other person not named as defendants in the lawsuit is a very prominent current major wrestling official.
Lawler has always maintained that he simply made a big profit on a transfer of stock and that the Selkers had no idea how to run a wrestling company and after buying it, immediately ran it into the ground. The only action involving the suit is that Lawler’s attorney asked for a continuance until January.
Bertman and Mike Samples and Jerry Faith of Kentuckiana Championship Wrestling had been working together in a small way and Bertman, as Larry Burton, even appeared on the KCW television show introduced as the new General Manager of the company (a figurehead Jack Tunney role).
Bertman and Samples then had a falling out as Bertman is making noises of re-starting a promotion along with Lawler and Elliot Pollock. Lawler and Brian Christopher have been working regular casino shows in the Northern Mississippi area promoted by one of the Nunnery Brothers, who are long-time friends with Lawler.
40 – Bits and Pieces
WWF Shotgun Saturday Night
(January 13) The debut of Shotgun Saturday Night on 1/4 was largely a flop content and reaction-wise. The show didn’t air in this market but the reaction was 100% negative by those who called and faxed and strongly negative for that matter.
First show was from the Mirage, a New York night club, and drew 350 fans and a $6,000 house (they had talked about a 3,000 capacity for the show) as they charged $20 to get in the door for a risqué comedic show that wasn’t funny according to the reports we received. With all the hype nationally over the week before the show about the debut taping at the Mirage, that kind of a turnout was pathetic. Next week at the All-Star Cafe the show is going to be free admission and because it’s in a theme restaurant as opposed to a bar, the show will be less risqué. The third show on 1/18 will be done live at 9 p.m. Central time in San Antonio from a bar there.
The show was apparently like watching a poorly-lit minor league promotional cross between Incredibly Strange Wrestling and “Grunt: The Wrestling Movie” but with bigger name stars. It opened with The Flying Nuns (Glen Ruth & Chaz Warrington, formerly the Head Bangers) wearing nun outfits managed by Brother Love, using the ring names Mother Smucker and Sister Angelica, beating Godwinns when Brother Love hit Phineas with a loaded bible to lead to the pin.
Goldust beat Sultan. Sultan had the camel clutch on when Marlena jumped on the apron, pulled down the top of her dress (the camera shot her from the back, she was actually wearing pasties over her nipples) and Sultan, supposedly a celibate man under the tutelage of Bob Backlund, freaked out, and dropped the hold and Goldust won.
Ahmed Johnson beat Crush via DQ in a match which saw them brawl into the street. The NOD members (not Faarooq since he was in California) interfered and it wound up with Johnson doing the Pearl River plunge on former SMW wrestler D-Lo Brown on the roof of a car, which was said to have been the highlight of the show.
Final match saw Mini Vader lose to Mascarita Sagrada (the wrestler billed as Mascarita Sagrada Jr. in Mexico, not the original who appeared on Nitro a few days earlier although the WWF wrestler is the more spectacular of the two). Before the match Cornette picked up Mini Vader at a bus depot from Mexico and he had the runs and Cornette had to take him to the bathroom. Sunny (who did the announcing with Vince McMahon and they were said to have come off as unprepared) got in the ring and did the Macarena with Mascarita, but they called it the Mascarita and changed the words to what was termed a bunch of unfunny semi-racist Mexican lyrics. Match was said to have been good, but contextually is couldn’t be taken seriously. After the match Cornette got pants’d by Mascarita and was running down the streets of New York as the show was going off the air in his underwear.
Next week has Mero vs. Razor plus Furnas & LaFon appearing. There were ECW and BWO chants. A lot of the stations carrying Shotgun were stations that had been carrying AWF. Titan is paying for many, if not most, of the time slots to get back into syndication, but because they are only looking for late night time slots and the majority of stations are UHF’s, the costs aren’t what they were last season.
(January 20) My impressions of the firs
t Shotgun show: It looked like a public access wrestling TV show, which I don’t think is the intention. Bob Backlund was a riot but he wasn’t enough to carry an entire show. Most of the skits didn’t work. The deal where Todd Pettengill changed the words to Macarena to do the Mascarita wasn’t the slightest bit racist as I’d been led to believe, but it also didn’t work. Mascarita did debut the corkscrew plancha on American TV but it was in a setting and done at a time (just back from a commercial break) where it meant nothing.
The second Shotgun Saturday Night got mixed reports although most were strongly negative saying the only improvement was the lighting. The show was from the All-Star Cafe with free admission. I’ve heard various reports of the crowd but one person there live said that the number of people there for the wrestling was only about 150 and the rest were people who just happened to be there and casually watched the wrestling while eating.
Diesel beat Marc Mero in a match where Honky Tonk Man and Razor both interfered and Mero lost because he was saving Sable from them as he had the bout won. Afterwards Mero yelled at Sable and walked out on her, and she cried. Honky tried to console her but she kept crying. Then Rocky Maivia came out to console her, Mero came out and saw them together and they began brawling.
Faarooq beat Savio Vega. Maivia beat Razor. Lots of ECW and Rocky sux chants. Actually since the numbers there for the wrestling were so small, they cheered the heels in every match. Phil LaFon & Doug Furnas wrestled Head Bangers to a match which went off the air in progress (LaFon & Furnas won afterwards). Head Bangers didn’t use the Flying Nuns or Sisters of Love gimmick as WWF has already dropped that because of outside pressure. LaFon had beaten Thrasher of the Bangers in the pre-show dark match. They announced the Flying Nuns had been arrested during the show and that’s why they weren’t there.
Among the lame skits were Honky and Pettengill singing and Honky was really bad. They went out to talk to homeless people and when they saw a guy in a box, it was Nikolai Volkoff in the same Russian hat and suit he’s been wearing for the last 20 years. By the way, the Baltimore newspaper did a story on Volkoff getting a $25,000 a year government inspector job with the story saying that a series of bad investments left Volkoff with nothing from his wrestling days.
They announced Goldust was pregnant and showed a photo of him supposedly pregnant and announced he would give birth live next Saturday night. Maybe Pena will bring them a Mini-Goldust they can debut on the show. Or maybe the idea will be even more lame. The Sunny supposed sex video was apparently really lame with a Fondle Me Elmo doll and a bunch of moaning and no picture.
1/18 will be from a night club in San Antonio, 1/25 will be back at The Mirage (which is really scary that they’re already repeating locations especially when Mirage looked so bad the first time), no word on 2/1 and 2/8 is at Webster Hall in Manhattan.
AJPW Working with FMW
(January 20) AJPW seem to be building up an inter-promotional angle working with FMW. The storyline is that Atsushi Onita wanted to meet with Giant Baba to put together a match where Hayabusa would challenge Kenta Kobashi for the Triple Crown later this year. Onita was going to attend either the 1/2 or 1/3 Korakuen Hall shows to meet with Baba but the storyline was that Baba sent out word he wasn’t interested in meeting with Onita and didn’t want him at his show. Baba then got mad that the magazines were reporting on this inter-promotional angle and said he hasn’t talked with Onita. Rumor has it that the two will officially meet sometime this week and begin talks to set up that match.
(January 27) Major news stems from rumors concerning a meeting between Giant Baba and Atsushi Onita in Tokyo for 40 minutes on 1/16. The two met and agreed to work together, but exactly what capacity isn’t certain, although Onita was trying to put together a Kenta Kobashi vs. Hayabusa match for his 4/29 show at the Yokohama Arena.
When asked by press about the meeting and future of working together, Baba did his typical pretending not to know anything but what he reads in the newspaper act; Mitsuharu Misawa said it’s okay if FMW wrestlers come to All Japan but he has no interest in going to FMW and pretty much stated he didn’t think the FMW wrestlers were of the caliber of All Japan wrestlers; Kobashi made no comment while Toshiaki Kawada said he was against working with FMW basically saying why should they work with Onita who he called “Mr. Tell a Lie” in reference to Onita building up gates for one year with his retirement gimmick and then trying to come back very quickly and the only reason it took so long is because of public and media pressure.
Billy Jack Haynes vs Matt Borne
(January 20) This sounds like a 90s shoot angle but from all accounts it isn’t an angle. Billy Jack Haynes has switched personas once again.
On his 12/28 radio show, Haynes said he was ashamed of himself for jumping on the bandwagon to get rid of local commissioner Bruce Anderson, who has had a long-running feud with local promoter Sandy Barr, who is banned from promoting in Oregon and has to run his shows in the state of Washington instead. He said Anderson was doing nothing but trying to help the wrestlers. He than said that Barr, who has been at war with Anderson for years, was his friend but wasn’t crap when it comes to being a businessman.
He also went on the air and embraced the local wrestling newsletter Ring Around the Northwest that he had knocked hard numerous times on his show, saying that he now realizes the public knows more about wrestling than ever before and that times have changed.
He also said he had changed his opinion in regard to Buddy Rose and Moondog Moretti, two local wrestlers that have publicly supported Anderson. Haynes also talked about blading on the show. He’s also contacted a local sportswriter about doing a tell-all book on pro wrestling in the 80s.
Barr then had Matt Borne and father Tony Borne (one of that area’s biggest wrestling legends in the 50s and 60s) come on and bury Haynes with Tony calling Haynes a loose cannon, saying he burned every bridge in his career, talked about Haynes using steroids and they claimed to have no idea what he was talking about when he talked about blading. Matt Borne than challenged Haynes to a fight.
Haynes then came back on his 1/3 radio show challenging Matt Borne to a boxing match with $10,000 winner-take-all (based on each man’s past athletic experience, one would expect Haynes, now 43, to hammer Borne in a boxing match while Borne, 39, should tear Haynes up in a wrestling match).
Haynes went so far as to say he lied under oath to the state police in his previous effort to destroy Anderson, and apologized for everything he had said in the past about Moretti. Haynes said he didn’t want a wrestling match with Borne because he didn’t want a promoter to ask him to take a dive but wanted to fight him for real, and then claimed during his career that he bladed himself probably 500 times.
Barr’s next show tried to blow Haynes off by calling him a has-been and when asked about the boxing challenge, dismissed it by saying Haynes didn’t have $10,000 to put up.
(February 17) The Billy Jack Haynes-Matt Borne feud continued on the radio in Portland this past month. Haynes, who is now claiming pro wrestling is a work on his radio show, has challenged Borne to a $10,000 winner-take-all shoot match. On Haynes’ radio show, former wrestler Scott Ferris called up and also admitted pro wrestling was a work. Haynes than called up Sandy Barr and Borne’s radio show and issued the challenge and called Borne a liar. Borne said he hadn’t told one lie all day. The conversation turned unintentionally hilarious at this point:
Haynes: Have you ever used a razor blade on your head?
Borne: I haven’t told a lie all day.
Haynes: Have you ever used a razor blade on your head in the pros?
Borne: I haven’t said a lie all day.
Haynes: Have you or haven’t you?
Borne: Listen, I didn’t mean to get under your skin.
Haynes: Point blank question Matt, have you ever used a razor blade on your head to induce blood?
Borne: Say what you got to say, and then I’ll speak my mind.
Haynes: Yes or No, have you ever used a razor blad
e on your head to force blood out of your head to make more money for the promoter?
Borne: Have I ever used a razor blade? I used one this morning.
It wound up with Haynes challenging Borne to fight again, and Borne telling Haynes to come down to the local wrestling matches and they’ll fight. After Haynes hung up, Borne said that he could whip Haynes because he’s only a boxer. The next week Borne called up Haynes show and told him to come down to the matches the next night. Haynes said if Borne put up $10,000 he’d fight him.
The two argued again until Haynes accused Borne of being on cocaine. Borne than called Haynes a liar because he said he had been propositioned by homosexuals when he was in the WWF. Haynes then asked Borne whatever happened to Doink the Clown. “You failed your piss test, didn’t you. That’s what you told me. Did you fail your piss test, Matt, Doink, whatever your name is? Borne then responded, “Tell me about being propositioned by homosexuals.” That was about the end of it.
Rick Rude
(January 20) A surprise appearance from a masked Rick Rude highlighted the first ECW Arena show of 1997 on 1/11, which, for a show with only four matches announced on television, still drew a packed house estimated at 1,400 fans with another 300 turned away at the door.
Rude wore the mask the entire time he was backstage and never admitted to anyone in the back who he was. The vast majority of the wrestlers figured it out before he went out, and virtually all the fans recognized him even before he began his distinctive interview pattern, which upset promotional plans to keep his identity a secret for the time being.
Before the scheduled main event, where Shane Douglas was to defend the TV title against Tommy Dreamer (who was stretchered out earlier in the show), Rude under the mask came out and said that his New Years Resolution was to f*** up the life of Douglas. When Douglas asked why he wouldn’t show his face, he said that if he took his mask off, Douglas would shit all over himself and he and all the fans would have to deal with the smell.