*Due to their popularity in Japan, they still worked as a team in their continuing runs there.
*Including Chris Benoit.
*And, by this point, his brother-in-law. Smith had married Bret’s sister Diana in 1984.
*For whatever reason, the World Championship match between the Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage went on third to last. Second to last was the Undertaker vs. the “Ugandan Giant” Kamala.
*This is likely apocryphal; if it’s true, it’s probably the only time a powerbomb has been used in an actual fight.
*Wherein the heavyweight title was surreptitiously stolen from Smith’s brother-in-law Bret via collusion by Vince McMahon, Hart’s opponent Shawn Michaels, and the referee. See the chapter on Owen Hart on page 305.
*Also a Hart family brother-in-law.
*For the record, the (not entirely reliable) Ultimate Warrior disputes this claim, pointing out that Smith could hardly walk normally by this point, which is true, and that he and Neidhart were smoking crack regularly in those days, which is totally plausible but utterly unprovable.
*This was not the first attempt at the talk show format by the WWF; Tuesday Night Titans, a straightforward Tonight Show rip-off, though occasionally leavened by evident parodic elements, aired from 1984 to 1986.
*As a ringside color commentator, Hennig did it numerous times on live TV as well.
*Many consider this a borderline coup on Lawler’s part; after winning, he basically decided to keep it as a trophy around his waist and refused to defend the belt in the AWA, staying in Tennessee with the mainstream title belt and bragging rights that had long eluded him. He was eventually stripped of the title by the AWA, though he held on to the physical belt and continued to proclaim his supremacy on Tennessee TV.
*The real-life brother of “Macho Man” Randy Savage.
*Once televised wrestling—and, moreover, live telecasts—became the norm in the industry, the term house show was used to refer to the nontelevised shows, off-night (often small-town) events where the feuds of the day are presented but where storylines almost never advance. (That’s saved for TV and megashows.) A corollary is the “dark match,” which is a nontelevised match that occurs on the night of a TV show before the taping begins.
*As had his friend Rick Rude.
*Scott Hall was also fired, though he slept through much of the flight; it was reported that he had been in “bad shape” for the entire UK tour, and his release probably had as much to do with his ongoing substance-abuse issues as anything that happened on the plane.
*Studies have suggested that participating in a wrestling match is more or less equal to playing offensive line in a football game. Pro linemen play once a week, sixteen weeks a year, though, and wrestlers regularly go at it 200 nights a year.
*Sometimes he even wore a singlet, flesh-toned and airbrushed with veins and striations to approximate the old Warrior’s musculature.
*In the WWE-produced The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD, both Edge and Christian do passable impressions.
*Real name: Rick Wilson.
*It originally aired from the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom, which would later be the site of many memorable ECW and Ring of Honor indie wrestling events.
*This is “live” as in “live to tape.” The WWF had long aired footage of individual matches in segments from a remote studio, while the NWA kept to the old-school format of running an entire TV program, from start to finish, from within the confines of the arena, basically filming an episode in one take. It was cheaper and easier that way, and despite McMahon’s impulse to evolve, it was the way that wrestling fans preferred their product: immediate, interconnected, earnest.
*Vince McMahon often tells the story of Turner calling him and saying, “Vince, I’m in the rasslin’ business,” to which McMahon replied, “That’s nice, Ted. I’m in the entertainment business.”
*He had also been an announcer in the latter days of the AWA. Prior to that he had been an all-around gofer for the promotion and, as numerous insider jokes imply, apparently mowed Verne Gagne’s lawn on occasion. He supposedly got the interviewer’s gig when then-announcer Larry Nelson was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, and Bischoff was the only guy wearing a suit at the office that day.
*Due to a noncompete in his WWF contract, Flair spent much of his first year back hosting an often uncomfortable ’80s-bachelor-pad interview show called A Flair for the Gold, which was also the name he gave to his pursuit of Harley Race’s championship in 1983.
*Onetime wrestler and son of Eddie Graham, who owned and starred in the NWA’s Florida territory.
*The resultant show was WCW Monday Nitro, beginning in September 1995.
*Known in WCW—and frequently in ECW, though usage varied—as Paul E. Dangerously, a reference to Michael Keaton’s gangster character in Johnny Dangerously, he actually played more of an Alex P. Keaton role, a loudmouth yuppie with a giant cell phone always in hand.
*Crockett himself had just been freed from the noncompete that stemmed from his sale of WCW to Turner.
*The NWA, the former national powerhouse in the wrestling world, had been reduced to near nothingness after its divorce from WCW, and ECW, small-time as it was, was probably its most prominent outpost.
*He literally referred to it as such, which kind of diminishes the point, but still.
*Actually, Hogan said “new world organization,” but this was immediately edited to say “order” whenever the footage was reaired. In instances of confusion such as this, it’s easier to go with wrestling unreality than reality so as not to get too bogged down.
*The odd capitalization was a design element that infiltrated the grammatical world just as the nWo infiltrated WCW.
*ECW would eventually have TV shows on two different cable networks, but neither was a big success.
*Flush with Turner’s money, Bischoff paid exorbitant amounts to the wrestlers he poached.
*A submission hold called the Sharpshooter.
*A match that features one star and one nobody, where the ending isn’t in question, which serves solely as hype for the star involved.
*One of the long-standing jousts the two companies would have was the “overrun” of the show. Since they aired live, they would go an extra minute or two over the supposed end time, and when the two Monday night shows went head-to-head, their overruns became longer and longer, each company trying to grab two minutes of undivided viewership away from its opponent. WCW had more leeway on this front since the network was a part-owner. Even so, once the tide was turned, no amount of overrun could save it.
*The Nashville Network, later the National Network, and later still Spike TV. The deal was a three-year contract, which TNN tore up about a year in to instead make the deal with the WWF.
*Bischoff had attempted to buy the promotion, but without a TV deal, his financing fell apart.
*McMahon and company made a misguided decision in the early ’90s, while distracted by a lawsuit alleging that they trafficked steroids to their talent, to allow the World Wildlife Fund to operate as “WWF” everywhere except America, wherein McMahon’s company would be known as the WWF. (Outside of their realms, the companies would have to use their full names.) In the next decade, as Internet-driven globalization made such sequestration untenable, McMahon made the decision to simply change the name of his company.
*Punk actually said “Oops, I’m breaking the fourth wall” during the speech.
*Incidentally, there was a wrestler—or, rather, several wrestlers—who went by the name “Lord Humongous” in Mid-South (where star-promoter Jerry Lawler was notorious for swiping pop-cultural characters) and the CWA and probably a bunch of other places. They all looked exactly like the guy from the movie, e
xcept when promoters got lazy and it was just a guy in a hockey mask. Sid Vicious, who would later be a major headliner, played Humongous at one time, as did—allegedly—Scott Hall.
*This isn’t to be confused with the seminal moment when “Rowdy” Roddy Piper crushed a coconut on the head of “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka in 1984.
*After Borne was fired, though, others played the Doink role without missing a clown-shoed step.
*His manager upon his return was his lawyer, and he proclaimed the injustice done to Crush by the American legal system.
*Adams also worked in real life as Savage’s bodyguard at times, though one has to chuckle at the image of a fake fighter being protected by another fake fighter.
*Once Traylor followed him there, the two ovoid bruisers would eventually form a tag team called the Twin Towers, which, regardless of their respective heights, always seemed to be pointing out the wrong measure of their physical distinction.
*In continuing the regional designations of the Territorial Era, WWF/WWE is to this day called “New York” by industry insiders, and WCW was always called “Atlanta.”
*While often regarded as at best befuddling or at worst racist, the white Akeem character was actually a dig at Dusty Rhodes, who was a fat guy who talked and jived like a black man, or so the thinking went. The “African Dream” was a play on Rhodes’s “American Dream” moniker.
*Slick would eventually retire and become a preacher in Texas.
*Any incidental instance of a pro wrestling manager actually performing real-world managerial duties and not just provoking opponents is worth pointing out.
*The same guy who coldcocked the Dynamite Kid with a roll of quarters.
*Usually called by his guffaw-inducing initials, IRS, Schyster was the standout grappler Mike Rotunda functionally repackaged as Ted DiBiase’s financial planner. Indisputably his best angle was the time he took issue with Native American wrestler Tatanka for failing to pay taxes on a ceremonial headdress.
*He was a low-level poaching pitched as a big deal; WCW was stealing WWF stars in those days with huge contract offers that WWF couldn’t match, so with funds otherwise depleted, it lured in Ray Traylor types with promises of increased screen time.
*His backstage practical jokes—known as “ribs” in the biz—are the stuff of legend.
*It’s often assumed that the parody was aiming to encompass more than just the WWE—the very act that led to Owen’s death was partly a reference to Sting, a star for the competing WCW, who entered the ring from the rafters in similar fashion.
*The name refers to the highest rank in sumo wrestling.
*Akebono himself did eventually make a WWE appearance, squaring off against the Big Show (who had no sumo background) at WrestleMania 21.
*The Man Show lent Yokozuna’s name to a prank that was basically a drunken, bare-assed variation of that “Banzai Drop.”
*From the point when he lost the belt to the Ultimate Warrior, Hogan’s WWF schedule was dictated by his movie career, such as it was, and his seeming general disinclination to wrestle full-time. Nonetheless, he was always the top dog when he was present in the WWF, and his wins and losses in championship matches more or less coincided with his erratic employment schedule.
*A role played decades earlier by the Iron Sheik, who ferried the belt between golden boys Bob Backlund and Hulk Hogan, and later, in 1994, by Backlund himself as he served as the middleman between champs Bret Hart and Diesel (a.k.a. Kevin Nash). These stories repeat themselves even as the participants change roles. Backlund once teamed with Jerry Brisco to take Georgia tag titles from Toru Tanaka and . . . Mr. Fuji. It’s inescapable.
*And although that wouldn’t have been true of many other Hogan sabbaticals, this time the boast bore some vague resemblance to the truth. During this next break he decamped for rival fed WCW, and he didn’t return to McMahon’s organization for nine years.
*Nickname: the “Narcissist.”
*’Taker had to construct an extra-large casket for the occasion.
*Fuji engaged the services of the Great Kabuki, Tenryu, Bam Bam Bigelow, Adam Bomb, Jeff Jarrett, the Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu), and Diesel to get the job done.
*In line with the long pro wrestling tradition of a change in facial hair signaling a change in heart, good-guy Yokozuna wore a scraggly beard.
*The coroner called the cause of death a fluid blockage in his lungs and listed his weight at 580 pounds.
*He was roommates with defensive back and current Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh.
*The styles of wrestling favored in Mexico and Japan, respectively.
*A reference to his time as an assistant in the AWA.
*Smart mark—often abbreviated as smark—is a term used to describe the modern meta-fan steeped in Internet rumors and insider info, an archetype situated between actual backstage insiders and oblivious fans of yore.
*Pillman’s ankle would eventually be fused into one position.
*a.k.a. Dustin Rhodes. Well, technically a.k.a. Dustin Runnels, but that’s beside the point.
*Imagine Pearl Jam, muscled up and less musically inclined.
*With whom Kanyon had worked on the set of the pitiable wrestling film Ready to Rumble.
*Some of McMahon’s top lieutenants, it should also be noted, have purportedly been gay.
*It still remains to be seen if history will judge them the Curt Floods of the squared circle, but it doesn’t seem likely.
*This match featured the infamous moment in which Eddie unlaced his own boot to allow himself to slip out of Angle’s dreaded ankle-lock finisher.
*Meaning he held the primary title, secondary title (Intercontinental or U.S. Championships), and tag team titles at various times.
*He actually wore a Lazer Tag chest sensor as part of his costume.
*Their eldest daughter is in the WWE developmental territory too.
*His most prominent American exposure, in early WCW as the “Juicer,” a wrestling version of the movie character Beetlejuice, was only slightly less embarrassing than Hector’s mainstream roles, but his ability in the ring stood out even so. Barr was released from WCW when a guilty plea he’d taken in an Oregon rape case became publicized via a fax campaign. His first nickname in Mexico was the “American Love Machine.” It’s unclear if irony was intended.
*The group also included Konnan and Louie Spicolli—the beloved American indie wrestler who died after overdosing on painkillers and wine in 1998, months after finally getting a WCW contract, and who performed in Mexico under the name of “Madonna’s Boyfriend.”
*Paul Heyman and his shifty office management skills are usually blamed for this lapse.
*In pro wrestling, wrestlers begin dating their on-screen valets about as frequently as they’re paired up on-screen with their real-life girlfriends; in many situations, the genesis of the relationship is indeterminate. It’s wrestling’s chicken-and-egg conundrum.
*Which is not to say that pre-WCW careers were meaningless, just that for those who started at the bottom, any sort of status advancement was near impossible.
*The seventh match ended in a no-contest, and so the series actually went to eight.
*In storyline terms, Benoit was stripped of the title when video replay showed that Sid’s foot was under the ropes as he was being pinned, theoretically invalidating the win.
The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling Page 37