The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two

by Dave Meltzer

  It’s funny how Japanese think based on the past. Sasuke was a huge wrestling mark growing up and a mark for major promotion belts so the idea of being WWF light heavyweight champion and being a Japanese wrestler who is successful in the United States which was the elusive Japanese dream in previous decades is a big deal. As is the case in almost every instance, people who grew up as wrestling fans have something in their blood that tend to make them take those extra chances, work extra hard and ignore the injuries and become the top caliber of worker which Sasuke has made himself in just seven years as a pro.

  But the idea of appearing in Madison Square Garden, which when he was growing up was portrayed in the Japanese wrestling magazines as the ultimate, is more important to him than appearing on a major PPV show, which today really is the ultimate in the United States.

  (June 16) WWF officials claim Great Sasuke was never offered a one-year contract as he claimed in Japan, nor has he signed a six-month contract, nor was he promised the light heavyweight title belt to come in. However, it is 95% certain he’ll be coming in for six months. Sasuke had another press conference this week in Japan talking about wanting the WWF jr. heavyweight title because the old WWF jr. heavyweight belt was the historical foundation of the junior heavyweight division in Japanese wrestling from 1978-83 when it gained popularity in New Japan (when New Japan and WWF were business partners) under Tatsumi Fujinami and the original Tiger Mask.

  (June 30) There was a really weird incident at the Michinoku Pro show on 6/22 in Namia, which was Great Sasuke’s final appearance with the promotion before leaving for the WWF. Sasuke & Tiger Mask lost their dream tag match to Jinsei Shinzaki & Gran Hamada. After the match Shinzaki said he was going to go on tour to work with other companies, which fans believed to mean FMW.

  The main event was a singles match with Dick Togo vs. Super Delfin, however it was a weird match where Delfin stalled outside the ring nearly the entire match before losing. While he was out there he was doing the Zbyszko yelling and swearing at the crowd stall. Let’s just say it didn’t work. He may have been injured, or he may have been doing some sort of a protest in the ring or it may have been a really strange angle. Whatever it was didn’t turn out as expected, as the fans began a mini-riot throwing garbage at the ring. While this happens frequently at Nitro, it’s a rarity in Japan and when it does, it’s not a sign of “good” heat if you get my drift.

  Sasuke came out to calm the crowd down, but they were really upset and started screaming at him for leaving the promotion and abandoning his fans for the WWF. Fans were so hot that when they finally got the wrestlers out of the ring, the fans waited at the dressing room and were ready to continue to throw things and fight for one hour until they finally were able to break up the mob and people went home.

  (July 14) Lots of strange goings on within Michinoku Pro Wrestling, which appears to be falling apart at the seams with Great Sasuke possibly leaving for WWF. Sasuke’s WWF deal isn’t finalized, or at least wasn’t as of the weekend, as to anything other than doing the dates this past week. Michinoku Pro is now advertising Sasuke’s match on 7/19 as his final match in Japan before going full-time with WWF. Shiryu has left MPW and is now in Mexico. Jinsei Shinzaki has left and is working for FMW. The situation with Super Delfin isn’t clear either although he is booked on the 7/19 show, but at a press conference this past week Sasuke said that Delfin had also quit the promotion. Vampiro Canadiense from Mexico was fired since he missed a recent tour claiming an injury but the office found out he was working regularly in Mexico.

  (October 13) Just six days before its biggest show of the year, the Michinoku Pro Wrestling office in Japan announced that they would be suspending operations effective early next year.

  Great Sasuke (Masanori Murakawa) held a press conference in Tokyo on 10/4 and announced that the company, which has been operating heavily in the red, would suspend operations in January. At the same time, Sasuke said that he would be undergoing reconstructive surgery on his right knee which would keep him out of action for most of 1998. The belief is that Sasuke would restart the promotion when he’s able to return to the ring. In the interim, the heel group within the promotion called Kaientai DX led by Dick Togo, would probably promote some of their own shows, while wrestlers like Gran Hamada and Tiger Mask would wrestle full-time in Mexico.

  Michinoku Pro wrestling was formed in 1993 as a regional promotion in the Northeast part of Japan based in Aomori. Their trademark was running small school shows in gyms, usually before 200 to 400 fans with fans sitting on the floor rather than in chairs enjoying the Lucha Libre style action.

  Sasuke put the company on the map largely through a promotional affiliation with New Japan, an affiliation that fell apart when Sasuke started negotiating this year with the WWF. Those dealings largely fell through with the exception of the end result of Taka Michinoku joining the WWF. The group has a major show on 10/10 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo with a double main event of Sasuke vs. Michinoku in a street fight and Undertaker vs. Jinsei Shinzaki

  (October 20) Michinoku Pro Wrestling ran its biggest show of the year on 10/10 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo before 6,000 fans with some help from the WWF. Appearing on the show booked through WWF were Undertaker, who was managed on this show by Bruce Prichard, and Sunny, along with Chris Candido from ECW and Taka Michinoku and Victor Quinones as well.

  Show opened with Yone Genjin, managed by Miss Mongol from FMW, beating Magic Man in 1:53. Magic Man did his juggling and magic act before the show which was really good, but his wrestling was poor. Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada beat Chris Candido & The Convict (Super Boy from Los Angeles) in a match described as so-so because of the style conflict. Sunny was at ringside taking photos of this match. Satoru Sayama made El Satanico submit in 6:38 with a cross armbreaker. The story behind this match is that this was the first meeting between the two since March 28, 1980 when Satanico beat Sayama to win the NWA middleweight title in Mexico City. Undertaker pinned Jinsei Shinzaki, who for this match used his old WWF ring name of Hakushi in 12:08 with the tombstone, and then put him in a coffin after the match. Fans enjoyed the basic Undertaker gimmick show with the lights and everything. Then came the basic Michinoku style six-man with Super Delfin & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji beating Dick Togo & Mens Teioh & Shoichi Funaki in 18:44 when Delfin used the Delfin clutch on Togo. Main event was a street fight with Sunny serving as the ring announcer with Great Sasuke vs. Michinoku. She introduced Michinoku as being from the WWF and she sat at ringside in his corner but never interfered. The match was a high-flying spectacular ending in 28:21 when Sasuke got the pin with a German suplex. After the match Sasuke vowed to keep the promotion alive. The show aired over the weekend on the Samurai Channel.

  Strange IFC Main Event

  (May 26) One of the strangest, in a number of ways, situations involving an NHB show in the United States took place on Buddy Albin’s IFC show on 5/15 in Metairie, LA. The show drew a whopping 4,000 fans into the New Orleans suburb for a show sanctioned and allowed by the Louisiana Boxing Commission. The bad news is that after the fiasco of a main event, it may have killed NHB from returning to Louisiana.

  The main event was actually two pro wrestlers, doing a pro wrestling cage match in an octagon. Rod Price, billed as a former NFL football player (he was in a training camp although never made a team) against Dikembe Oluwanide of South Africa. The South African wound up being Perry “Action” Jackson, who was well known by some of the audience as an area pro wrestler. Fans began loud booing since they did a worked match, throwing junk and beer and chanting it was fake, which it was, although it appeared to be the only fake match on the show. The commission was so upset they held up the gate receipts from the show.

  The promoters claimed they had not booked a worked match, although they did agree that it was a bad match, but what do they expect when they put two pro wrestlers who have been working together for years in a shootfight, not to mention that neither has ever done this before, and that they fraudulently billed Jackson
as being from South Africa with a fake name.

  Two other pro wrestlers worked the undercard, with local wrestler Kevin Northcutt (who also works in the area as The Sandman, not to be confused with the ECW wrestler) winning a preliminary fight, and Carl Greco, who has experience with Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, lost a first round match in the over-200 tournament. Anthony Macias, an experienced NHB journeyman, won the under-200 tournament, while Gary Myers, who is 1-1-1 in EFC, (who did pro wrestling in Indiana indies many years ago) destroyed two opponents in a total time of 1:36 to win the heavyweights, just nine days before his Japanese pro wrestling debut with Pancrase against KOP champion Yuki Kondo on 5/24 in Kobe.

  Kevin Nash vs Roddy Piper

  (June 16) An incident took place after the conclusion of the Nitro show, in Roddy Piper’s dressing room, when Kevin Nash came in to complain, blaming Piper for perhaps the single worst match thus far in 1997 when he and Scott Hall faced Piper and Ric Flair in the Boston main event before the largest crowd and gate in WCW history.

  It was actually a worked match in the ring that precipitated the real problems. Flair & Piper were wrestling Hall & Nash in a non-title match. The early part of the match consisted of Flair and Hall brawling in one corner and Piper and Nash in the other. Nash claimed that Piper wasn’t doing what they agreed on doing, although Nash also didn’t appear to want to sell much for Piper.

  The match storyline was that Piper would work and sell the match, leading to Flair’s hot tag. However Piper looked horrible and even with the star power, the match was killed and was well into the negative stars. Piper also called for the finish way early, about 6:00 into a match scheduled for 12:00, which meant the post-match brawl to end the show literally lasted forever. After the show went off the air, it was Hogan and Savage, and not Hall and Nash, who remained in the ring to brawl with Flair and Piper and for Flair and Piper to clean house on, and Piper ended up in the ring holding the WCW heavyweight, tag team and cruiserweight belts up in the air while Flair finished the fight.

  After the show, Nash went to Piper’s private dressing room and knocked on the door, very hard apparently. Finally Craig Malley, Piper’s bodyguard (the guy who did the boxer gimmick in the famous Piper team skit) opened the door. Nash basically pie-faced Piper, which is throwing something of a palm blow and shoving him into the wall. Piper tried a kick to Nash’s bad knee before Malley and Ric Flair, who was there with Piper, acted as the peacemakers and quickly broke it up before anything serious took place, but also leaving the heat between the two unresolved.

  According to two versions of the story, Nash and Malley did nearly go at it as well but Malley, who is obviously much smaller, backed down. Most of the internal heat within WCW was on Piper for not doing what they had agreed to do in the ring and then calling for the finish early and making the show-ending brawl go so long it totally lost its focus as well. There have been problems with the Wolf Pack and Flair and Piper stemming from the beginning of the hype for the six-man tag in Charlotte, where Flair and Piper didn’t want Syxx in the match feeling he wasn’t a big enough star, and where Kevin Greene didn’t want to turn on Flair as the company wanted.

  At one point the entire match was in jeopardy because Piper didn’t want his team to lose, which was the original plan, and since he has creative control of his programs, asked to do a singles match with Syxx who he liked personally and thought he could prove he could still work and felt he needed to prove it to some of the wrestlers who saw him as someone existing totally off his past made name, by having a good match with him. The compromised was reached where the NWO team agreed to not only do the job, but not have Syxx do it because that would be the predictable finish, but instead have all three basically do the job at the same time to show that they were the more professional of the two teams.

  The company feeling in WCW seems to be that hopefully everyone will be professional and the match on the 6/15 PPV show won’t be ruined. After that point, they’ll all be programmed in a different direction and Piper will be feuding with Flair and kept apart from Hall & Nash so those problems in the ring regarding selling and the like won’t be an issue.

  Billy Travis

  (July 14) The angle last week involving Billy Travis being arrested on live USWA television was only partly an angle. Apparently Travis’ daughter was flipping the dial on 6/21 and saw her father on the wrestling show. Apparently the ex-wife and daughter had no idea he was back working in wrestling, which is really scary, since he’s been pushed there for months. They called the police since he allegedly owes child support and alimony and the police showed up at the studio on 6/28. Jerry Lawler, who apparently knew the officers, asked them to wait until the show was over to take him but they said they had a job to do. Lawler then talked it over with them to try and make it an angle, apparently saying they could take him while he was on TV and he’d fight them off as a work in exchange for them agreeing not to try and add resisting arrest charges which all agreed to and that was what happened. On television to explain the situation they had Brian Christopher claim he pressed charges against Travis for vandalizing his truck to make it part of their feud. Apparently to make matters worse, Travis’ daughter was watching TV on 6/28 and seeing the police fighting with her father and arresting him and she went hysterical to the point she had to be taken to the hospital.

  One Night Only Changes

  (August 4) The current plan, and this isn’t totally finalized but is almost a certainty, is to add a PPV show just for the United Kingdom on 9/20 from NEC Arena in Birmingham, England headlined by Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith, in a rematch of their famous SummerSlam match in 1992 at Wembley Stadium.

  (August 25) The “One Night Only” PPV from Birmingham, England was officially announced by Sky as a two-hour show starting at 8 p.m. on 9/20. No price has been officially announced for the show. As of 8/18, there were only about 200 tickets remaining in the 12,000 seat NEC Arena. The current plan for the PPV show is Bret Hart vs. Austin for the WWF title, Bulldog vs. Michaels for the European title, Undertaker vs. Ahmed Johnson (which will likely be changed since Johnson likely won’t be ready by then), Owen Hart vs. Helmsley and LOD vs. Godwinns. Vader vs. Tiger Ali Singh, Rockabilly vs. Flash Funk and Head Bangers vs. Savio Vega & Miguel Perez will likely be dark matches.

  WCW Backstage

  (August 4) At a meeting with the wrestlers last week, Eric Bischoff specifically said he doesn’t want any bad words, vulgar or distasteful gestures on the television shows. There were complaints from the higher-ups about these things. Among the new words banned for use on television is hosebag. Bischoff told the wrestlers to leave the dirty words and vulgar gestures to Vince McMahon.

  (October 27) Bischoff had a meeting with all the wrestlers before the 10/13 Nitro in Tampa. He talked about attending Brian Pillman’s funeral and then said that he wasn’t naive enough to think that there’s no drug problem in WCW but that he hasn’t personally seen any examples of major abuse. He asked any wrestler that if they have a problem to go to him and the company would take care of the wrestler and treat the problem like it was an injury and brought up that wrestlers that have been hurt on the job have been paid while injured.

  Actually there is a historical problem some had with that statement remembering both Steve Austin and Ricky Steamboat, particularly in the case of Steamboat, who may have been the most unselfish worker in the company’s history, who were both fired by the company after suffering injuries.

  He said that on the 10/6 Raw that they used the word “ass” 17 times (on 10/20 it seemed like they used the word 117 times) and said that WCW is going in the opposite direction of WWF. He said that Syxx could no longer do the bronco ride spot and that the NWO guys would no longer point to their crotch because he wanted a clear differential between the two products.

  His explanation was that there are very few national advertisers that touch pro wrestling to begin with and he was afraid the more lewd harder edge direction of the WWF would erode the advertising base for bo
th companies. He claimed that some of the advertisers are already on the verge of pulling out of WWF and that the direction WWF was going was going to hurt the entire business. He claimed WWF would be out of business within six months, actually I believe he used the word that he guaranteed, which I guess was his way of trying to scare people from jumping. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one)

  He said he was tired of all the whining among the wrestlers saying that they’ll look back at this period in the future as one of the greatest periods in their careers. He brought up that the schedule would be increasing next year. He also said something to the effect that there are only three wrestlers in the room that have ever put asses in the seats and said they were Hogan, Piper and Savage and said he was willing to debate anyone if they disagreed with that assessment.

  The description is that there was steam coming out of Ric Flair’s ears and several others were fuming on the inside as well. The belief is he dissed Flair since the two are in a major contract negotiation period and he was trying to sent the hint to Flair that the company doesn’t need him. As far as Flair’s future is concerned, there is no question he is considering a WWF jump, but to call it a sure thing at this point is way premature. No doubt Flair knows how the game is played and he’ll get word out to get the best offer.

  Bischoff’s deal with Jeff Jarrett was his own way to try and avert the leverage of negotiating publicly with both sides since Jarrett was far more expendable to make an example out of than Flair.