by Dave Meltzer
(November 17) WCW is thinking seriously about doing a cruiserweight tournament over several weeks with round-robin rules similar to the Japanese tour-long tournaments. The winner would be No. 1 contender for Eddie Guerrero’s title. Dean Malenko came up with the idea and would be in charge of booking it Japanese style where the results stay fairly even. WCW is also going to do a Tough Man division with the likes of Benoit, Finlay, Goldberg, McMichael, Meng and others, including creating a World championship in the division.
(January 5) On 12/22 before the Nitro show, Bischoff had a meeting with the wrestlers where he emphasized that he didn’t want any low blows, lewd gestures or any kind of swearing on the show. He emphasized it was important to differentiate the product from the WWF’s because of what he felt would be bad publicity and a potential sponsorship problem if both companies get painted with the same brush. However, at Starrcade, Sting did “crotch chop” ala Hall, Syxx and DX. Bischoff also made a point to say how Craig Leathers, Annette Yother and Kevin Sullivan had written a great television show.
Steven Regal
(August 11) The status of Steven Regal is questionable at press time. Regal was allegedly involved in some sort of disturbance on an airplane coming from to the United States from Japan for the G-1. We don’t have details, but Regal allegedly caused a major disturbance in first class which caused the plane to make an emergency landing in Anchorage. A felony charge stemming from this could affect his working visa and cause him to be deported which would cost him his job. Even if he’s not deported, there was considerable internal speculation that his job was in jeopardy because of the incident as the airlines don’t react well to problems in the air that cause emergency landings.
(August 18) Still not totally clear about the Steven Regal situation. What we know is that Regal, Scott Norton and Marcus Bagwell were on a flight back from Japan from the G-1 tournament. Regal was acting up to the point the plane made an unscheduled landing in Anchorage and all three wrestlers were made to leave the plane. Norton and Bagwell claim it was guilt by association although there were news reports that claimed they were rambunctious on the plane. Regal was supposedly worse with reports that he urinated not in the bathroom in first class. Supposedly WCW officials don’t even have the straight story of exactly what happened and aren’t clear as to what Regal’s future is. He was not at any of the shows this weekend.
(September 1) Update on Steven Regal is that he was charged with a misdemeanor over the incident on the airplane. The belief now is that he accidentally urinated on the flight attendant which caused them to have an emergency landing of the flight from Tokyo to Detroit in Alaska and boot Regal, Norton and Bagwell off. He won’t be deported, but he may not be allowed to fly for one year which would mean WCW couldn’t very well use him so his status is very much up in the air to pardon the pun.
NJPW Sets Records in Nagoya
(August 18) Shinya Hashimoto solidified his unique all-time drawing power record with his headlining a sellout crowd of 43,500 at New Japan’s first show ever at the Nagoya Dome on 8/10.
The show, entitled “The Four Heaven in Nagoya Dome,” set the all-time attendance record for any event in the new building that opened earlier this year, and easily was the largest crowd and gate ever for pro wrestling in Nagoya. It was the eighth time that Hashimoto has main evented a major show that has drawn in excess of 40,000 fans (actually he’s headlined nine shows that have drawn more than 40,000) and more than $3 million live, both figures that are likely unsurpassed in pro wrestling history (the latter figure is unquestionably the case and the former is most likely).
This isn’t to label Hashimoto as the all-time greatest drawing card in pro wrestling history although that record alone has to put him on at least the list as “one of the” most successful when it comes to drawing money on big shows in that he’s been the man on top while New Japan Pro Wrestling has drawn the most consistent big houses in the history of the industry. It also beat the crowd that K-1, which right now is a more popular promotion than New Japan, drew in the same building three weeks earlier for its first-ever Dome show.
Hashimoto retained the IWGP heavyweight title from Hiroyoshi Tenzan, who replaced an injured Masahiro Chono in an announcement made just one week before the show, in the main event of a show that featured two title changes. Kensuke Sasaki & Kazuo Yamazaki won the IWGP tag team titles from Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima, and Shinjiro Otani captured the seven belt J Crown title for the first time in an upset win over El Samurai.
The show was reported to us as being very good, with only two of the nine matches not being at least good matches. No gate figure was released at press time, but it was almost surely more than $3.5 million and merchandise sales looked to be huge as well. K-1, with a similar pricing structure, drew $3.75 million on 36,500 paid. New Japan drew the crowd without any major foreign pro wrestling stars, as the only non-New Japan full-time regulars on the show were former UFC star Don Frye, and his opponent, Cal Worsham.
Reports from this week are that Chono got a third medical opinion that he wasn’t going to need ankle surgery, which would have put him out of action for probably the rest of the year. Both an American doctor in Florida and New Japan’s doctors suggested surgery. Chono elected not to have surgery due to his having the pro wrestlers mentality about taking time off, particularly when he’s the focal point of the top feud in his promotion. Chono has been officially taken off New Japan’s next big show on 8/31 at Yokohama Arena and will be replaced by Hiro Saito in the six-man main event. The belief now is that he’ll be back in the ring for the September major shows.
WWF Discontent
(August 25) WWF is bringing back drug testing for a combination of reasons, largely to nip problems in the bud (a poor choice of phrases) before they become real problems. There was a scare on an airplane with a wrestler passing out coming at about the same time as the warning article in the Observer and the drug references in Phil Mushnick’s column and after past history, they made what is the best choice for long-term.
(September 15) Among the topics of seemingly consensus discontent among the WWF wrestlers seem to be:
A negative reaction to Sid being fired after being in a serious auto accident. WWF contractually in most contracts can let wrestlers go, as can WCW, with 90 days notice even on long-term deals if the wrestler is unable to perform. WWF has never exercised that option in the past and wrestlers are thinking if they start with Sid, they’ll make a habit of using it to get rid of highly paid guys when money is short. Of course the Sid situation is totally different. From a Titan standpoint, because he’s always injured and there is little doubt the auto accident injuries were legit, but people question some of the seriousness of other injuries, they didn’t fire him but wanted to change his deal where he’d get paid per date worked rather than guaranteed weekly paycheck. Since he just signed his old deal, he didn’t want to re-negotiate and then they used their clause to drop him. There is also a dispute over when his 90 days runs out as Titan is trying to make it three months from the auto accident but Sid claims it should be three months from the night in San Antonio where he showed up the last time.
The continuing push of Helmsley, which everyone believes is due to his friendship with Michaels, since with all his push, he’s still not over even when put together with Chyna who should make it easy for anyone to get over and he’s in line for an even bigger push.
Drug testing. Right now Titan has indicated it will test individuals but it’s not random testing as much as testing based on rumors and/or supposed behavior. Only one wrestler has been tested thus far. The fear is if there’s a problem that the testing would become regular and widespread and the wrestlers who partake in pot would have to give it up again. It has been confirmed and reported elsewhere that Hawk was the wrestler who passed out on an airplane several weeks ago, although he wound up being okay, it was the scare combined with the remembrance of the drug repercussions from the early 90s that along with a few other incidents and
no-shows caused testing to be considered again.
WCW Clash of the Champions Finished
(September 1) With TBS officially adding a new weekly live prime time wrestling shows on Thursday nights beginning on January 7, 1998, the future of the “Clash of the Champions” series becomes a question mark. Currently we’ve heard no official word that the show on 8/21, the 35th Clash in a history dating back more than nine years, would be the last one. But with Nitro, a two-hour live weekly show almost making the Clash obsolete, doing a second live show should finish the deal because if WCW goes through with its plans of two Clash specials in 1998, it would mean during those weeks it would have three night of prime time live wrestling.
If the 8/21 turns out to be the final Clash, it’ll probably best be remembered by one of those unfortunate screwed up angles that seem to only happen at Clashes (remember when the Shock Master fell through the wall?). After the main event, they built to the Sting appearance. The angle was built up on Monday that Sting would have to speak to J.J. Dillon about what he wanted or WCW was going to break off negotiations with him. As it turned out, Dillon wasn’t even part of the planned angle. Sting was on the rafters while the NWO was celebrating a victory in the main event. With him was a buzzard. The idea was that when they would ask Sting what he wanted, the buzzard would fly from the rafters to the ring as the lights in the building were turned off with a note that said, “Hogan’s soul.” Well, somewhere on the buzzard’s trek, the note fell out of his clutches and he wound up on the ropes, with a group of NWO guys in the ring trying to avoid outwardly laughing and crying at the screw up with several minutes left to kill and nothing to do on a live television show. Actually even if the angle had gone as planned it would have been a stupid finish to the show.
Just to show how Clash is a name and concept from the 80s and considered passé, WCW, which has been packing them in for regular house shows and Nitros, drew a disappointing crowd of 4,122 paying $75,089 to the Nashville Municipal Auditorium despite a heavy local promotional push. The show drew a 3.64 rating and 6.36 share, which is a healthy number, although lower than they’ve been drawing with head-to-head competition on Monday nights for regular weekly television shows.
There isn’t much to say about the ratings. It started with a 2.6 and continuously built, peaking with a 4.5 rating for the Savage & Hall vs. Luger & Page main event. The overrun segment with the Sting/NWO angle with the bird fell to a 4.3. As a show, it had two title changes, one of which was a surprise (Steve McMichael winning the U.S. title from Jeff Jarrett) and the other which was expected (Alex Wright winning the TV title from Ultimo Dragon). It had three good matches out of seven, but in typical Clash fashion, the good matches were somewhat rushed. And it featured a show-long silly angle where two TBS movie hosts played fantasy wrestlers, doing a heel turn during the show and ending up with one of them getting a Diamond cutter from Diamond Dallas Page.
WWF vs NJPW
(September 22) WWF has threatened New Japan with a lawsuit over the company having the old WWF light heavyweight title belt as part of the J Crown since WWF is introducing a new light heavyweight title shortly. Once word got out, then Hisashi and Hisatsune Shinma got into the same act and threatened New Japan over the UWA belt that is part of the J Crown. The WWF went to Japanese reporters and asked if it would be better to file the suit or simply to get word to New Japan of the threat and not make a public spectacle out of it to allow New Japan to simply drop the belt on its own.
Jeff Jarrett
(October 13) Jeff Jarrett’s WCW contract expired on 10/7. He was offered $300,000 per year to stay but turned it down, and the general feeling is that he’s gone. Jerry Jarrett, who is handling his negotiations, smartly used media avenues to play up the contract expiring and get the word out he was negotiating with Titan to play all the leverage. He was still being advertised on Nitro and they even did an angle to build up a match with Steve McMichael where if Steve won, Debra would have to get out of the wrestling business, even though he wasn’t signed nor had he agreed to work the show without a contract.
(October 20) Jeff Jarrett’s WCW contract expired on 10/7 and he’s through with the promotion. There is a lot of speculation he’s WWF-bound, particularly with Jesse Jammes changing his ring name back to The Roadie and turning heel, and when he made the turn, they acknowledged his former partnership with Jarrett. Jerry Jarrett had been handling the negotiations with Eric Bischoff and had been, at least in Bischoff’s opinion (and I’d concur on this) negotiating in the media. Bischoff then went public and told the same people that he was pulling his $300,000 offer off the table because of that.
Bischoff, who clearly sees himself in a powerful, perhaps omnipotent position because of just how far the company has turned around, is playing lots of hardball in negotiations which naturally leads to ruffled feathers. Terry Taylor asked for a raise but was turned down. Bischoff put his foot down in regard to Konnan, canceling the bookings at the Universal studio tapings this past week of all the Mexican wrestlers scheduled to come in from Promo Azteca that weren’t already under contract and said he won’t bring in any new Mexican wrestlers until 1998.
In addition, they are going to take the mask off Rey Misterio Jr. in a mask vs. title match against Eddie Guerrero at Halloween Havoc. The Mexicans had been strongly against Misterio Jr. losing his mask. There had been office sentiment that the mask was keeping him from fully getting over in the U.S., and because he’s got a good look, it would help him, although many feel he looks so young without the mask on that he’ll look like a teenager and nobody will take him seriously. Either way, it’s probably 18 months to two years too early to remove his mask because it could be built into something incredible if it’s done correctly over time but nobody has any care or patience unless it’s the top of the card.
Survivor Series Changes
(October 27) The complete Survivor Series card as of a few days before press time was listed as Bret vs. Shawn Michaels, Owen vs. Austin, Mankind vs. Kane and a series of eight-man elimination matches—Ken Shamrock & Ahmed Johnson & LOD vs. NOD, DOA vs. Truth Commission, Vader & Patriot & Goldust & Marc Mero vs. Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart & Glenn Kulka (a former Canadian football league player who has been under a WWF developmental contract for some time and was trained by Bret Hart and Leo Burke and worked a few weeks in Eastern Canada where reports were he was exceedingly green but showed potential) and TBA, and Head Bangers & Blackjacks vs. Godwinns & Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes. After this line-up was released, there were words that Jim Ross was going to give the card a minor revision but we have no idea if or what that means. There had been some talk of bringing in a womens match using Aja Kong and Kyoko Inoue but I guess that must have fallen through.
(November 3) Updates on Survivor Series. Everything is the same as listed here last week except the Team USA vs. Team Canada match has some changes. The Patriot (Del Wilkes) suffered a torn tricep on 10/21 in Tulsa, apparently it tore upon impact delivering a shoulderblock to Jim Neidhart in a match taped for this weekend’s Shotgun show and surgery has been recommended and he’s expected to undergo the surgery in Columbia, SC sometime this week. If he has the surgery, he should be out of action about three months. Wilkes has a history of tricep tears dating back the last few years in Japan. His replacement on the U.S. team with Vader & Marc Mero & Goldust wasn’t going to be finalized until meetings later in the week, although Jeff Jarrett has been considered. Team Canada will be Neidhart & British Bulldog & Phil LaFon & Doug Furnas, so Glenn Kulka is out for now. Plan, at least for now, is for Furnas & LaFon simply to be part of Team Canada for this match but not for them to join the Hart Foundation, although that has been considered at various points. The funny part of Team Canada is that none of the four were originally from Canada and two of the four don’t even live in Canada. Neidhart is of course from Los Angeles (at one point he lived in Reno) and now lives in Tampa. Bulldog is originally from Manchester, England although he now lives in Calgary. LaFon was born in France, although
he grew up in Montreal and now lives in Calgary. And Furnas grew up in Oklahoma, but now lives in San Diego. There was consideration about doing a womens match at Survivor Series and bringing in Aja Kong. There is still talk of doing that for house shows although nothing is definite as to either if or when.
Sportatorium
(October 27) Another weekly wrestling tradition will be biting the dust in a few weeks. The Dallas Sportatorium, which has hosted wrestling dating back several decades, will be torn down in a few weeks and there will be a drive-through liquor store built on the property. The last pro wrestling event in the building will be the CWA show on 11/14. Negotiations to buy the land and put up the liquor store have been rumored for some time, and there was even an attempt to keep the building from being torn down by making it a local institution (insert your own joke). The Sportatorium housed weekly wrestling in Texas during its early 70s glory period on Tuesday nights, and then in the 80s moved to the Friday nights that became its new tradition during the heyday of the Von Erichs and the Freebirds. Since the folding of the World Class promotion, one new group after another has booked Friday night shows in the building, but none have had anything that could be labeled success in many years. The CWA, which was being run by wrestler Mike “Buster” Blackheart, had been drawing between 75 and 150 for the recent shows.
(November 10) The Dallas Sportatorium appears to have gotten at least a temporary reprieve. After news reports of its imminent demise, promoter Mike Blackheart on 10/24 told fans it wasn’t a done deal and if enough noise was made, they may save the building. Even though the shows draw between 75 and 150 fans weekly, the remaining die-hards made enough noise and the building lease to wrestling was extended and the building won’t be torn down.