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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2020 8:06:16 GMT -5
1992 seemed like a good year for WCW on-screen. I never knew how bad things were behind the scenes. Always wanted a basic education of early '90s WCW so this thread is bueno for me. I'm halfway thru this thread right now...slowly building a big wonky reply post to many things. Fascinating stuff. Not super duper detailed like I'd expected (virtually nothing about Flair leaving in 91, nor of Shockmaster's debut wtf man) but still great busy reading. "Ric Flair has told friends he is not retiring now, but when the day comes for his retirement, it'll be a real retirement and he won't be doing comebacks." So Ric still isn't retired even in 2020, then.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2020 11:18:06 GMT -5
I'm halfway thru this thread right now...slowly building a big wonky reply post to many things. Fascinating stuff. Not super duper detailed like I'd expected (virtually nothing about Flair leaving in 91, nor of Shockmaster's debut wtf man) but still great busy reading. A lot of the best Flair stuff apparently was in Matwatch (which I don't have) because you get Jim Herd on the record talking about it but I added some more Flair stuff (July 8 & 15 of 91) Shockmaster's debut gets about 2 lines saying it was unintentionally funny but aside from that it really doesn't get the reaction from Dave that you'd expect, his debut happened the same week that Dave wrote a massive feature on SMW so that whole Clash gets very little coverage.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 5:21:41 GMT -5
1996 July
July 1, 96
"Titan Sports on 6/20 filed both a lawsuit and a request for a restraining order against Turner Broadcasting, World Championship Wrestling and Eric Bischoff largely as a result of WCW's top angle involving Kevin Nash and Scott Hall invading WCW."
"The lawsuit has four counts. The first is Unfair competition under the Lanham Act, claiming WCW has used false and misleading descriptions of fact that is likely to cause confusion in the marketplace and deceive consumers that Titan is affiliated or sponsors an interpromotional angle."
"The second count is Trademark and Trade Dress infringement and False Designation or Origin, regarding WCW using the trade dress and persona of Razor Ramon, a Titan trademark."
"The third count in Connecticut Unfair competition, citing a violation of Connecticut law by WCW's misleading descriptions of fact in the angle constitute a deceptive act and that it's use of the Razor Ramon persona does the same. It also cites WCW circulating false rumors of impending bankruptcy of Titan Sports as a deceptive act and its constant disparagement of Titan Sports on television and on its hotlines as an unfair or deceptive act."
"The final count is a defamation and libel suit stemming from the 2/5 Nitro show when the lights went out in Lakeland, FL and Eric Bischoff and Steve McMichael made comments acting like it was the competition that may have had something to do with the power going out. Bischoff later apologized on the 2/12 Nitro show for any inference that Titan was responsible for the outage, although twice that week on the WCW Hotline, both Mark Madden and Gene Okerlund made statements not so much saying Titan was responsible, but certainly strongly hinting it was a possibility."
"Much of the lawsuit is contentions that WWF and McMahon have made all along, stating Turner wanted to buy the company and at several occasions has brought up the idea of doing interpromotional matches and was turned down every time. They suit stated WCW could have put Nitro on at any time on any day but chose to go head-to-head with WWF's most popular show, then started the program a few minutes early to get a jump. The suit claims Nitro was a vehicle to disparage, defame and libel WWF and its talent rather than promote WCW on its own merits. That at that point, WCW employees "constantly used their media power and unlimited checkbook" to suggest WWF talent should join WCW with promises of huge guaranteed contracts and that WCW and its employees and agents constantly circulated phony rumors of Titan's impending bankruptcy."
"WWF started its parody skits creating characters of Billionaire Ted, Nacho Man, Huckster and Scheme Gene which the suit claims the public grew to knew as WWF parody characters, and thus when Hall used those terms on the first Nitro, it would confuse the public into believing he represented the WWF."
"Titan is asking in the suit that TBS and WCW be required to disgorge all profits earned as a result of this angle, both for the 6/16 and 7/7 PPV shows because Titan is claiming WCW used bait-and-switch tactics on the 6/10 show leading viewers to believe Nash and Hall would wrestle as a WWF team on the 6/16 show before announcing that the match would take place on 7/7, and pay treble (triple) damages of those profits along with punitive damages and cost of attorneys fees."
"Titan filed a request for a Temporary Restraining Order asking WCW be prohibited from: 1) Making any statements or visual indications that the WWF is affiliated in any way with this angle or that any wrestler appearing on the WCW programs are in any way affiliated with WWF; 2) Using any misleading description of fact that is likely to cause confusion or deceive the public as to the affiliation of any of the wrestlers appearing on any WCW programs; 3) Using any of Titan's trademarks for names or dress that would cause confusion among viewers; 4) Making references to Scott Hall as either "Razor Ramon" or "The Bad Guy" or presenting him with a Hispanic accent or being from a Hispanic background, with slicked black hair with a single curl in the front, with a toothpick in his mouth or behind his ear, gold chain or chains around his neck, wrestling shorts, wrestling boots, a vest, elbow and knee pads; razor blade jewelry or designs on his clothing or anything else used by Hall during his WWF tenure that would cause consumers to believe he is portraying Razor Ramon; 5) Making any references saying Hall is currently affiliated with WWF; 6) Making any references to Kevin Nash as "Diesel" or "Big Daddy Cool" or presenting him in that character including a goatee-style beard and moustache, black tank-top, black pants, black leather boots, black vest, black fingerless glove or gloves, black sunglasses or anything else utilized by Titan during Nash's tenure with that organization; 7) Making any references saying Nash is currently affiliated with the WWF; 8) Presenting Hall, Nash or any other former Titan wrestler or personality without identifying that person by the character name they will use and explicitly stating which organization that performer is under contract to; 9) Prohibiting playing any videotapes on television or in commercials of Hall and Nash's appearances to this point on Nitro and the angle on the 6/16 PPV show; 10) State three times during every Nitro broadcast and on the preview show for the 7/7 PPV show that: "Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are both under contract to the WCW and all their actions since May 27, 1996 have been at the direction of WCW. Any statements made by us, or suggestion made by us, that Hall or Nash were affiliated with the WWF were false and misleading. The WWF was not, and has not been in any way affiliated with the portrayal of Hall and Nash since May 27, 1996 and there will not be any matches between WWF wrestlers and WCW wrestlers on Nitro, on any of our shows, or on any of our pay-per-views. Any statement or suggestion to that effect by WCW and TBS personnel was false. If you wish to view WWF wrestlers, you should watch the WWF's programs, including Monday Night Raw, which airs on the USA Network Monday nights at 9 p.m. EST."
"Titan claimed that on the 6/10 Nitro, that Bischoff deliberately tried to deliberately confuse consumers into believing that WWF vs. WCW matches would be on the 6/16 PPV show. It should be pointed out that there was the suggestion of that on the 6/10 Nitro show, but it was made clear on both Saturday morning and night shows on 6/15 that Hall and Nash would not wrestle on the PPV. On the PPV pre-game Main Event show it was made clear that on the PPV, WCW would give either a yes or no as an answer to the challenge and not that the match would take place."
"On the 6/16 show, and then repeated on 6/17 Nitro and on most (but not all) shows over the weekend, they aired the complete angle with Bischoff where Hall and Nash both stated they were not affiliated with the WWF. McDevitt contends that there was no disclaimer until the PPV show itself, which was viewed by far less people than had watched the TV angles to that point so they got the benefit of the PPV buys on 6/16 without letting anyone know that Hall and Nash didn't work for the WWF."
"In addition, after McMahon had stated on 6/3's Raw and subsequent Superstars on 6/8, that the two weren't affiliated with WWF, Mark Madden on 6/12 on the WCW Hotline stated, "On last week's Raw, Vince McMahon said that Big Daddy Cool and The Bad Guy were no longer affiliated with his promotion. But what else would McMahon say? I mean, when the good old US or A caught those dirty commie nuclear spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and fried them in the electric chair in the 50s, Russia didn't step forward and admit responsibility. Espionage is espionage. It's secret." "
"Among the key points in the hearing were WCW attorney David Dunn pointing out that over the past few years, there have been 41 wrestlers who have left one company to go to the other and in 28 of those cases, the wrestlers switched companies while maintaining the same name and basic persona and there has never been a lawsuit filed before. Dunn claimed that most of Hall's mannerisms, from his look, the style or trunks, the hair style, the toothpick and even referring himself as "The Bad Guy" were created by WCW for its Diamond Studd character and that it was Titan who copied all of that to create Razor Ramon. McDevitt argued that if they were to call he and Nash Diamond Studd and Vinnie Vegas they would have no problem but by not giving Hall and Nash a name, the public was believing they were still Razor Ramon and Diesel."
"McMahon, in a press release by Titan, stated that he regretted filing the suit but said, "that I have finally been pushed up against a wall with no other options to protect my company. My wife and I have committed our adult lives to building the World Wrestling Federation. This company competes very well, and I dare say, stays ahead in a marketplace where quality of programming, creativity, start development and consumer interest reflects success. However, when a giant competitor uses your very creations to dupe and confuse the public, then the playing field isn't level, and you are forced to fight in a different arena." "
"In legal briefs filed by McDevitt, he claimed WCW is "deliberately trying to destroy the WWF's reputation by portraying it as sending its wrestlers on to a competitor's show to physically assault personnel affiliated with WCW. Indeed, the whole point of this fraud can reasonably be predicted. The finishes of all matches will be controlled solely by the WCW, and in the end the WCW wrestlers will no doubt trounce the WWF wrestlers, thereby demonstrating organizational superiority. The fact that Titan expects the WCW's supposed WWF wrestlers to perform poorly or lose matches contributes to the irreparable injury in this case precisely to make the WWF services look bad in the eyes of the consumers."
"As for the identity of the third party in the 7/7 main event, it's really a secret. Lex Luger, which was the original plan, I can't see happening because it would be almost an exact duplicate of the Steve McMichael angle and it's too soon to do it again. It could still happen but I don't think it will. Bischoff, Hall and Nash were discussing names this past week with Mabel as the top candidate, Crush being considered for a brief period and then dismissed. All agreed Bret Hart would be the best candidate and WCW even floated the idea it would be Hart on its hotline over the weekend (you'd think after the lawsuit they'd refrain from doing that crap) but Hart has turned down every offer thrown his way."
"Supposedly Bischoff has in the past few days told Hall and Nash to trust him on this one, but admitted that if they bring someone other than Hart in, and it isn't going to be Hart, that it will come across as a letdown. It also could be another WCW wrestler turning on the company."
"After the lawsuit was filed, they had to cut out a lot of Rhodes' commentary on the 6/22 Saturday Night show."
July 8, 96
"Biggest story was the profane outburst by Konnan after his U.S. title match with Kevin Sullivan, to fans that were chanting "You still suck," "ECW," and "Sandman kicked your ass." Konnan after swearing at the fans, which drew him a lot of heat among WCW officials, said that ECW was in a bingo hall and WCW was where the big boys played and they were drawing 5,000 people. Sullivan quickly got the mic away from him and basically did an apology saying that those weren't the opinions of WCW and that WCW wasn't feel that way and then said some politically very nice things about being a fan of ECW"
"It's really become strange trying to figure out some fans, because ECW was in Deer Park and drew maybe 400 people, so there were people chanting ECW at the WCW show instead of actually attending the ECW show in the same city going on at the same time, and perhaps even more people chanting ECW than attending ECW. It's as if some fans would rather chant ECW to get noticed at a so-called major event than actually attend ECW shows when they come to their city."
"Surprisingly, reports from Philadelphia is that there wasn't much in the way of a negative reaction from ECW fans, which surprised those at WCW who were expecting it in Philadelphia but not New York, to the point where even Jim Duggan got a big reaction. The only concession to location was in the Nasty Boys-Public Enemy street fight, the Nasty Boys played heel and Public Enemy got the win. However, in New York, the crowd was vocal and negative and some wrestlers, in particular Konnan and Eddie Guerrero (who the crowd booed probably more because his opponent, Chris Benoit, received such a thunderous babyface reaction), were noticeably affected in the ring."
"The third member of the heel team for the PPV won't be announced until the night of the show. Speculation is running rampant about who it is. I've been told that the deal was finalized last week for whomever it is. My feeling is that it's Hulk Hogan because a reader was working on the set of the movie Hogan is doing with Roddy Piper and said that Hogan told Piper he was asked to be the third guy and that he probably was going to do it."
"Aside from the fact that Nash is funny as hell, the other reasons (aside from the fact they are going to get cheered no matter what and it really doesn't matter who gets cheered as long as people buy tickets to see the match) the guys are getting cheered is that in every confrontation, it's two guys standing up to like 20 people, half of whom have guns, and they never back down."
"Renegade was on the top rope and it appeared they were going to do the same exact finish as in the opener, this time with Steve McMichael using the briefcase. However, Renegade either lost his balance or simply jumped off the top because McMichael was slow in getting in position. McMichael, trying to make the angle work, once Renegade took off, threw the briefcase in the direction of Renegade still trying to save the finish, but missed him by a mile."
"Randy Savage and Greg Valentine was even funnier. Since they were running out of time, you could hear the ref give them a 30-second cue and they were nowhere close to going home. So Valentine did a back suplex, and then laid there like he had knocked himself out so Savage could deliver the elbow for the pin."
July 15, 96
"After a 15-year babyface run that started by accident, Hulk Hogan turned heel amidst incredible heat in an angle that will be remembered for years as the climax of WCW's Bash at the Beach PPV show on 7/7 in Daytona Beach."
"Hogan's half-shoot, half-work interview was strong and focused enough that it incited enough heat that some fans in the building were ripping up and throwing down their Hogan merchandise and a few people were even crying."
"Hogan had agreed to do the heel turn about 11 days before the show, largely because there was no place left in WCW for him had he not chosen to do so. Hogan's contract with WCW was scheduled to expire after two more PPV shows, the "Hog Wild" show in Sturgis, SD next month and "Halloween Havoc" in Las Vegas where, by virtue of a sponsorship deal with Slim Jim's, they had long promised a Hogan vs. Randy Savage main event"
"In Hogan's usual great knack of timing, he left WCW to do a movie with Roddy Piper and Gary Busey just before the NBA playoffs changed the Monday Nitro time slot and wreaked havoc on the ratings, which appeared to be a great leverage move. However, in the expansion to two hours, the show's ratings have increased to their consistently highest level to date with Hogan not on any of the shows. This weakened his leverage position as compared with Bischoff's in negotiations to stay at his incredible money deal."
"Hogan's name was still a factor in buy rates, largely believed to be coming from young children who wouldn't be as apt to beg parents to buy the shows to see a heel Hogan. Whatever revenue WCW merchandise brings in was put at major risk as well, as Hogan was the top item seller and clearly those numbers should drop substantially."
"There was legit fear basically up until the last day that Hogan would change his mind at the last minute, as he's done in the past when it comes to major angles that would leave him laying or doing jobs that would elevate others to a parity position. A "Plan B" contingency idea was that Sting would do a heel turn and join the Outsiders, largely due to the belief that too many people had speculated about Luger turning (which was the original plan) or Savage turning but nobody had speculated on Sting turning and the company wanted a shocking finish to the show."
"WCW had attempted to keep the identity of the third man a secret, and largely succeeded, to the point where speculation had taken up a life of its own, with every WWF wrestler missing a show and his family members, whether under contract or not, becoming fodder for the rumor mill. Within the company, only a few knew it was Hogan although by the middle of the past week many who didn't know for sure were strongly expecting Hogan was the one and there were those who did know. Hall was telling people that he didn't know until two hours before match time although that's somewhat hard to believe."
"Sturgis will be five hours, from 6 to 11 p.m. Eastern, because they are doing the card on a Saturday night and will be doing a two-hour live WCW Saturday Night show preceding the PPV itself."
"Bubba pulled out scissors and teased cutting more hair (let's see, he got half the hair on his head, half his beard, I was scared he was going for the pubes next), but Tenta saved the day with the one of 225 low blows on the show."
July 22, 96
"Even though overall interest in wrestling appears way up, and WCW's television ratings picked up greatly in June with the new angle and WWF's arena business is up (although running so many fewer shows and more loaded shows makes comparisons misleading), the PPVs across the board continue a pretty noticeable decline."
"WCW decided against using La Parka because they felt American fans wouldn't like his costume or his comedy but invited him to come in sans both and he didn't want to do so."
"In WWF, guys lose when they get kissed by a member of the same sex, in WCW they lose when they kissed by a member of the opposite sex."
"Fans threw a ton of stuff at Hogan once again. It looked staged on television because it was all empty plastic bottles, but those live said it was definitely not staged and they were going after fans left and right because fans were nearly getting hit with all the stuff thrown."
"They really buried their own talent in the commentary because the entire show had the announcers say that with Sting, Flair, Savage and Giant gone, that the "only one left" was Luger (since he was the one they were doing the angle with) which pretty much tells everyone where the rest of the wrestlers stand."
"They had a screw-up in that the cheerleaders thought Greg Valentine was a face so they had the crowd cheer him wildly to make it appear he was really over."
"Still no sign of Blood Runs Cold, who were supposed to debut this month."
July 29, 96
"WCW is riding a crest of momentum as both the Monday night and Saturday television ratings show, but looking at the figures for the past two events (estimated 0.48 and 0.71's--the latter for a show with the company's best angle in years and a third man tease that gained tremendous attention to the point many in the industry thought the show would top a one buy rate), the buy rates aren't reflective of that. In fact, the Bash at the Beach with a Hogan-Vader cage match, the third meeting between the two after a pair of lackluster matches with bad finishes, did better than this year's show with the angle and tease of the year and a stronger undercard on paper."
"John Tenta was scheduled against Bubba all three nights, and in both Columbia, SC and Rock Hill, SC, it for some inexplicable reason was billed as the main event (Flair and Savage only worked Greenville). The WCW booking team, who somehow can't get their act together when it comes to Japan trips, failed to realize Tenta was booked in Japan this past weekend, a booking made months ago."
"Eddie Guerrero & Robert Gibson beat Bobby Eaton & David Taylor with Guerrero (subbing for Ricky Morton who missed the weekend because his father, former Jarrett ref Paul Morton, had a heart attack on 7/19) doing the Ricky Morton Southern babyface routine. Gibson and Eaton got a great reaction doing old Rock & Roll vs. Midnight spots. We had reports from all three weekend shows raving about Guerrero's performance doing the Ricky Morton routine basically saying he was able to combine the Southern babyface selling with 90s high spots."
"Even though he's doing nothing but jobs, the folks at WCW are impressed with Psicosis. Terry Taylor even called him one of the greatest workers in the history of wrestling and the talk among the booking committee is that he's got more potential for the U.S. than Misterio Jr., although done correctly, he doesn't because they are looking at Misterio Jr.'s lack of size as a drawback when in fact it's an attribute if used correctly."
"WCW is talking about cancelling some shows in August because the schedule legitimately is rough and the wrestlers are complaining. I can just see Ole Anderson rolling his eyes talking about when he was wrestling they did 300 dates a year and worked double shots every weekend and on holidays. Thank goodness for modern times."
"In advertising for house shows this coming weekend, when Nash & Hall start on the road against Sting & Luger, they are saying in those markets that Hall & Nash will be there, Sting & Luger will be there and anything can happen."
"Misterio Jr. was scheduled to defend the cruiserweight title against Brad Armstrong on Nitro, but again, people couldn't figure out scheduling and that Misterio Jr. couldn't make it from Tokyo to Orlando in one day and be there in time for the live show."
"They shot an angle in Orlando after the end of Nitro that'll probably air either Saturday or Monday where Sting & Luger are about to leave the park and Hall and Nash jump them and beat them up and have a video camera shooting the scene and they mock the two when they're down. This was done because of the fear that Hogan was overshadowing them to the point they've become background music."
"The Hogan-Giant finish will be most interesting. Put it this way, the result of that match will determine a lot who has how much power."
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Post by DSR on Aug 8, 2020 11:57:07 GMT -5
Pretty crazy to think about how badly the nWo routinely whooped mainline WCW wrestlers in hindsight.
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Post by DSR on Aug 8, 2020 12:21:04 GMT -5
Vince's continued insistence on portraying WWF/E as both a worldwide entertainment brand worth millions/billions AND as a rinky dink mom-and-pop independent small business is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating.
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Post by jason1980s on Aug 8, 2020 22:58:08 GMT -5
Vince's continued insistence on portraying WWF/E as both a worldwide entertainment brand worth millions/billions AND as a rinky dink mom-and-pop independent small business is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating. They spelled "wrussling" wrong in the press release. What amazes me is that a man who has made billions in the wrestling business is unable to pronounce the word correctly. You would think his ego and need for perfection would have forced him to get a language therapist, if that's the word, to help him. Very strange.
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Post by DSR on Aug 8, 2020 22:59:11 GMT -5
Vince's continued insistence on portraying WWF/E as both a worldwide entertainment brand worth millions/billions AND as a rinky dink mom-and-pop independent small business is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating. They spelled "wrussling" wrong in the press release. What amazes me is that a man who has made billions in the wrestling business is unable to pronounce the word correctly. You would think his ego and need for perfection would have forced him to get a language therapist, if that's the word, to help him. Very strange. Maybe his ego has him convinced that he's pronouncing it right and everyone else is wrong...?
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Post by jason1980s on Aug 8, 2020 23:03:21 GMT -5
You might be right on that one.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2020 4:43:04 GMT -5
1996 August
Aug 5, 96 "The greatest thing for the WCW wrestlers and the single greatest thing for the industry as a whole was Kevin Nash and Scott Hall jumping to WCW. It was great for WCW because it made the wrestling war that much more competitive. It forced the hand of Vince McMahon into giving downside guarantees on contracts, breaking a lengthy company policy against any type of guaranteed salary except for Hulk Hogan. The WWF was making more money in the late 80s, but at that point, McMahon didn't see Jim Crockett, who was offering guaranteed deals, as the threat he sees the current WCW, and basically got everyone to sign those legendarily one-sided contracts. No more. It shocks me so many WWF wrestlers are resentful of the rumored deal that "unproven" Brian Pillman signed, forgetting that in the real world, breakthrough deals like that eventually up the pay scale for the industry. The same with WCW wrestlers and Kevin Nash's deal."
"In September, we'll undergo yet another change in the industry's landscape. Titan Sports has made a decision to drop compensation when it comes to its syndicated package. This leaves the field wide open for WCW, which has no intention of changing its policy. WCW syndication (which is a misnomer and syndicated advertising is a combination of all syndicated and cable shows) has beaten out WWF's almost every week this season. The most recent figures, for the week ending 7/14 (the Monday night show and weekend cable and syndication shows following the Hogan turn), saw among the biggest gaps ever--WCW being seen in 6.49 million homes on 184 stations and cable (the vast majority of these viewers are on cable), while WWF was seen in 3.92 million homes on 155 stations and cable."
"Throughout the modern (post-1984) history of wrestling, the WWF's traditional strength has been in syndication, while WCW has often held the advantage in cable because of the history of wrestling in the Saturday and Sunday afternoon slots on TBS dating back to the infancy of cable."
"In years past, it was the syndicated shows that were the prime shows as far as development of angles, and fans who watched one show per week would watch the weekend syndication on their local station. Now everyone knows if you watch one show per week, to watch on Monday nights and house shows sold with ads bought on the Monday night shows can do profitable business."
"With the exception of cities like Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and a few other majors, running only once per year, the idea of traditional building of returns or putting heat on heels at the house shows aren't as important outside a few core cities, so you just get the guys out there, go through the paces and put the faces over at the end of the night so everyone goes home happy."
"In the case of WCW, the huge increase at house shows is a result of a few things, overall more interest in the company which mainly stems from the Monday Nitro show being live each week and drawing good numbers; and the Ric Flair-Randy Savage angle which headlined the vast majority of house shows this year and picked business up in a big way."
"The WCW tag titles changed hands twice over the weekend. On 7/24 in Cincinnati, in what was originally scheduled as a non-title match, Rick & Scott Steiner beat Harlem Heat when during a pre-match argument, Heat agreed to put the belts up. Steiners continued to beat Heat all weekend until the final show of the tour on 7/27 in Dayton where Heat regained the belts when Stevie Ray hit Rick over the head with the title belt leading to the pin."
"Jimmy Hart ran from the back and said the Outsiders were back there. He finally got everyone to stop the match and go to the back. When the camera got there, Arn Anderson and Marcus Bagwell were laid out. Scotty Riggs ran out and Scott Hall hit him in the head with a garbage can lid and laid him out (the problem here is Nasty Boys and Public Enemy have been destroying each other with much stiffer garbage can lid shots for months and most of the time they don't even sell the blows, let alone get taken away in the ambulance after one of them). Rey Misterio Jr. then jumped off a guard railing but Kevin Nash caught him and torpedo's his head into the trailer."
"The Outsiders (the only ones there were Nash and Hall but in storyline we are supposed to believe Hulk Hogan and a fourth person were involved so I guess it's the best angle Hogan has ever done and he probably wasn't within 3,000 miles of the place) then jumped in a limo with Randy Savage on the roof of the limo and drove away. They sold it forever (the selling of the angle was tons better than the angle itself) with Woman freaking out, Benoit nearly in tears, Sting and Flair going into the same ambulance to comfort Anderson and Bagwell, Misterio Jr. having his mask taken off before going into the ambulance and screaming to Guerrero that there were four of them, etc."
"While the angle itself was a ratings killer for the night, it'll pay off in the long run because the curiosity after the angle should help the ratings this coming Saturday and Monday and it should help the buy rate on 8/10. Bobby Heenan walked off the show claiming he's got a bad neck and couldn't risk being out there so Eric Bischoff did the second hour with Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko. It was one of those deals where they sold the angle for so long it got boring, and then kept selling it for so long it eventually made a bigger impact."
"Even with the Olympics, the Nitro opened with a huge audience because the Saturday show was moved back an hour and 35% of its regular audience didn't watch and Sunday was pre-empted, so that artificially inflated the Monday rating. However, after a 3.2 first hour, it fell to a 2.9 in the second hour, the second straight week with a drop."
"Nash & Hall debuted on the road working against Sting & Luger. Nash & Hall came out through the crowd to get big pops since obviously they shouldn't dress in a WCW dressing room according to the angle."
"Lee Marshall has been doing play-by-play on both Pro and World Wide of late. The only conclusion I can come to about that assignment, since Marshall is by far the worst of the WCW announcing bunch, is that Tony Schiavone (who is in charge of those assignments) wants to make sure the only guy who gets any visibility is a guy that nobody will ever think is a better announcer than he is."
Aug 14, 96 "Jacques Rougeau & Pierre Oulette signed their WCW contracts on 8/1 but they have no starting date scheduled." "Horace Boulder, the nephew of Hulk Hogan, also signed a $125,000 per year deal but again no imminent plans of him being used."
"Jeff Jarrett quit USWA and will sit out until starting with WCW in early October."
"Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas were scheduled to start this month but politics (they are All Japan wrestlers and New Japan is putting the screws to the deal) seem to have at least temporarily gotten in the way."
Aug 19, 96 "Just over one hour before the WCW Hog Wild PPV was scheduled to begin, a major blackout occurred which encompassed parts of nine states, most heavily in California. Many people who did have power were unable to order or receive the PPV as well because computers at many cable companies had no power to process orders. Power returned at various times, but again, if the computers weren't working, orders for replay shows couldn't be processed." "The crowd itself, which was estimated by those live at about 5,000 (free outdoor show) although Bobby Heenan gave the figure at one point as being 300,000, were not wrestling fans and clearly don't watch the television as they had no idea what was going on most of the way." "It was a mistake to go with the same announcing crew for a five hour show (including a two hour live WCW Saturday Night show) with the addition of Bobby Heenan for the PPV itself being a subtraction since he appeared to be out to lunch much of the show. The show ended with five consecutive screw-job finishes, all based on a form of outside interference." "The fourth member of the NWO was scheduled to debut on the card, and it was Sean Waltman (1-2-3 Kid). However, Titan has yet to send him his legal contractual release after agreeing to do so, with the belief that they were simply screwing with WCW. Waltman was at the show and ready to do whatever but WCW wouldn't allow him on the show without the release." "Savage wasn't there at all. It was actually explained on Nitro the week before that Savage had traded his interview time on this PPV for a future title shot (which takes place in Las Vegas for Halloween Havoc). The feeling was if Savage was there, he'd have to attack Hogan, and if security stopped him, it would make the rest of the show where security wasn't going to stop a million run-ins, be ridiculous." "On the positive side, the potential risks involved in putting the five hour live television show on for a total biker audience, such as them getting mad and throwing bottles (as happened in front of the beach crowd last year in Los Angeles) didn't pan out. The audience didn't seem to have any idea what it was watching and was embarrassing in that the only wrestlers who got any kind of heel heat were Harlem Heat. It was clear it was because they were black and nothing else." "Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzales) pinned Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) in 11:35 to retain the WCW cruiserweight title. Dragon was billed as Ultimate Dragon. Sonny Onoo came out with Dragon to signify him as the heel. The fans chanted "USA" during the match which makes perfect sense." "The crowd, having no idea who these women were but being into the bike vs. bike gimmick, started chanting "Harley" since Madusa rode a Harley into the ring (at least I think that's what it was for, since Madusa really doesn't look much at all like Harley Race)." "Nakano was supposed to do a bridging back suplex and the ref would count, at the count of two Madusa would raise her shoulder and the ref would count three. Anyway, the women did the finish, and ref Randy Eller stopped his count at two. Neither women could figure out why and hesitated. They did the same spot again and again the ref didn't count three. Then a third time, and again Madusa raised her shoulder and the ref counted three but nobody knew it." "Heat got the best heat on the show for all the wrong reasons. I guess those bikers don't like the colored folks." "Hogan was cheered and the fans were chanting for him as they had no idea about the heel turn. Hogan looked to be about 60 years old as he had obviously dieted down so much for his birthday that his face was drawn and the sun made his body look real old." "With the angle being everyone in WCW was uniting against NWO, it was ridiculous that nobody came to Giant's aid although I guess had they done so it would have gotten in the way of the angle." "Konnan, working as a heel with fans chanting USA at him, beat Jim Powers in 3:19 in one of those matches the announcers ignored. Then he did an interview where he called NWO the New World Odor and basically ended the interview as a face even though the fans continued to boo him." "Ron Reis returned as Big Ron Studd (his mentor was the late John Studd) and was pinned by Chris Benoit after a superplex in 3:32 to set up Benoit vs. Giant on the Clash. Studd is a legit 7-2 and probably three or four inches taller than Giant, so you can imagine what it looked like when he was standing next to 5-8 Benoit." "Regal is getting the TV title because originally he and Eddie Guerrero were supposed to do a program over the U.S. title. However, the decision was changed to Flair keeping the title, and Diamond Dallas Page got himself worked into a program with Guerrero instead of Regal." "Ted DiBiase starts at the end of this month while Jeff Jarrett won't be legally available until the first week of October. 1-2-3 Kid will start as soon as Titan signs off on his release." "Page wants to do a deal where he would be the Stevie Richards flunky to Ric Flair, but Flair is said to not be so hot on the idea. Flair would in that scenario be Page's benefactor, since they started a benefactor storyline with no idea where they were going with it." "Add Lanny Poffo to the list who are under contract, although there are no plans of using him. Must be nice to be a nephew or brother to a top wrestler in WCW." "At one point Sting & Luger went into a vacant limo and found a wreath of flowers sending condolences to the death of WCW. That was a copy of something Jim Cornette sent to Jim Herd years ago for real." "As best as anyone can tell, the story on Randy Savage and Hawk from Japan on the July tour went something like this. Savage's music was playing, I believe for the match with Jushin Liger. But he never came out. After everyone waiting, the ring announcer nervously called for an intermission. When they found Savage, he was on the ground. As best anyone knew, apparently Hawk's current girlfriend, who was a friend of Hulk Hogan and his wife Linda and he was set up with her through them, also knew Savage and Savage must have said something and Hawk popped him."
"From the debuts of Raw and Nitro, starting with the Nitro debut on 9/4 and through 8/5, Nitro had a 2.8 average rating and 4.4 average show in 1.87 million homes on an average week. Raw has averaged a 2.8 rating and 4.1 share and in 1.866 million homes during an average week. The Nitro replay averages a 1.2 rating and 3.2 share in 826,000 homes per week."
"For 1996, it's basically also a dead heat. WCW averages a 3.0 rating and 4.8 share in 1.98 million homes to Raw's 2.9, 4.4 but in 1.986 million homes because USA network is available in more households than TNT now."
"Since WCW started the two-hour format, it averages a 3.1 rating/5.3 share in 2.073 million homes to Raw's 2.6/4.1 in 1.746 million homes."
Aug 26, 96 "In a consent order signed by both sides, WCW agreed to not have any employees or independent contractors who work for the company call Scott Hall either Razor Ramon or The Bad Guy or call Kevin Nash either Diesel or Big Daddy Cool. In addition, WCW is not allowed to state that either Hall or Nash currently work for the WWF. Since WCW wasn't about to do any of that anyway, it appeared to be pretty much an amicable deal. Apparently there is heat within WCW because WWF was able to find out about interoffice memos sent when Hall and Nash first started working for the company where they were called by their Titan names, which will no doubt be used by Titan in the lawsuit aspect of the case."
"Apparently WWF agreed to give Sean Waltman a release from his contract, and Waltman reached a deal with WCW and was going to debut on 8/10 as the fourth member of the NWO team. However, before signing the release, Titan listed not only the name 1-2-3 Kid but mannerisms, dress and look of the character that they claimed as intellectual property and since it wasn't settled and still isn't settled, Waltman is tied up. Waltman did a Prodigy interview with Bob Ryder believing that he's become a pawn in the lawsuit."
"Both WWF and WCW have been carefully scrutinizing the WCW hotline for veiled mentions of 1-2-3 Kid because since Waltman hasn't been released, if there are any mentions, WWF can use it as lawsuit ammunition that here WCW is still talking about bringing in talent that is under contract to Titan Sports"
"The Clash drew a 3.5 rating and 6.2 share in 2.2 million homes. It's not a bad number, although well down from the 4.5 that the January Clash did and that's with Hogan vs. Flair, which is the best mainstream match to deliver television ratings with the possible exception of Hogan vs. Savage. The basic feeling is that since it came a few days after a PPV, it wasn't hyped anywhere near the level of previous Clash shows and to most it was just a second edition of Nitro for the week and 3.5 is a great Nitro rating."
"They played music for Randy Savage, who never came out (maybe Hawk found him again). Actually he wasn't even there, they announced that he was injured on Nitro the previous Monday by Hulk Hogan. It's weird because they had never promo'd the match to begin with, so nobody would have been mad about Savage no-showing live except by playing his music and him not being there, then they were mad."
"In another match originally scheduled but never promo'd, Chris Jericho didn't debut on this show against Hugh Morrus. For whatever reason (like already having too many matches for two hours to begin with), the match was canceled, however nobody ever got around to telling Jericho, who didn't know what to do when a plane ticket for the show never arrived. Jericho is scheduled to debut for WCW this week now." "Nick Patrick did a post-match interview explaining what a great referee he was, and the scary part was this was a better interview than either Hogan or Flair did on the show" "Bobby Heenan made the lame comment of the show saying "Did you think you'd ever see people cheering Ric Flair and booing Hulk Hogan?" No, never, except just about every time they've been in against each other in the last eight months. The funny part was, the crowd was actually cheering Hogan more than Flair because NWO has become the cool thing because of how lame WCW has portrayed its side as being."
"There were lots of pro-Hogan and pro-NWO banners and even a "Hogan for President" sign."
"Most of the show was built around Patrick's heel turn as ref. One thing about the angle, Patrick does such a good job on interviews that they picked the right man for the job."
"The Main Event show which is mainly second-run matches, will be moved from Sunday to the early Saturday morning time slot. The Pro show, with all new matches, will be moved from Saturday morning to Sunday at 5:05 p.m. Eastern time and be used primarily to hype Nitro the next day. Because the show is being moved one hour earlier, on Sundays when there is a PPV show, they will no longer do the live pre-game show from the building. The belief is it was making the crowds sit too long on the big shows, although I thought it was a great vehicle for last-minute PPV buys. Now there will be a one-hour gap between the end of the Pro show and the beginning of the PPV shows."
"Based on demographic break-down figures for the television shows on 8/12, where WCW won the night by a 3.3 to 2.0 margin, the margin of victory is far more significant when it comes to adult viewership. Of WCW's total audience, the break-down was 79.25 percent 18 and over and 20.75 percent children and teens. For the WWF, the break-down was 62.25 percent 18 and over and 36.75 percent children and teens, which means in total viewership on 8/12 head-to-head last week, WCW garnered a 68 percent to 32 percent share of the adult viewers or a more than two-to-one ratio."
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Post by jason1980s on Aug 9, 2020 7:54:50 GMT -5
Quebecers is a team version of singles like Mabel, Bull Buchanan, pre Rikishi Fatu, Crush, Prince Albert in never connected with fans yet always seemed to have a job. They would last a little longer than their 1998 WWF run but still not very long. As a kid, and now as an adult, I never understood why they would keep getting hired. The 1993 WWF run was really only memorable because of how bad the tag team heel scene was.
Ric Flair talked pretty poorly of Diamond Dallas Page in his To Be The Man Book so it's not surprising he wouldn't want to do an angle with him. I'm sure when Page was at the HOF in 2014 Flair probably gushed over him and probably does so now because of how famous Page became outside of wrestling. With Mark Madden doing the editing of the book, that probably also contributed to the negative portrayal of DDP in the book. Page would probably become more popular than Flair over the next year or two.
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Gecko
Grimlock
FAN Pyrite Member. Muahahaha
Posts: 13,295
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Post by Gecko on Aug 9, 2020 8:00:43 GMT -5
Just jumping in to say that I'm enjoying this thread a lot. Good job, keep it up.
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XIII
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 18,536
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Post by XIII on Aug 9, 2020 11:52:39 GMT -5
LMAO at Titan claiming trademark on Nash’s goatee and mustache and Hall’s slicked hair and single curl
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Post by Terry McConkey on Aug 9, 2020 22:12:49 GMT -5
I never knew Honkytonk was a gym teacher. That like Virgil level of school teaching. It's pretty normal for Tito to be a teacher but Virgil and Honky are true to the gimmick. Eric was pretty petty during this time period it seems. I do think he was spot on about Jean Paul though. Well, it worked out well for Hunnah. Bischoff is wrong.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 5:08:52 GMT -5
1996 September
Sept 2, 96 "The current plan is to introduce either Sean Waltman or someone else as the next NWO member on the 9/2 Nitro as I believe there may be a back-up plan if Waltman's deal isn't worked out. The WWF in its release that they've offered him that hasn't been completed refuses to allow him to portray a character that has the look or the mannerisms of 1-2-3 Kid, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation of look and mannerisms." "They teased DiBiase as being the fifth member of the Horseman and teased that he looked in great shape and would come out of retirement, and would introduce a sixth member next week. The real plan for now is he'll be the manager/coach of the NWO team and not wrestle." "Chris Jericho also debuted on 8/20 in Dalton, GA and actually got more of a heel reaction. His Nitro debut on 8/26 was against Alex Wright, with them doing the same finish that they handicapped Eddie Guerrero with in his WCW debut. It was the old babyface being injured and the other babyface refusing the victory which used to work well in opening matches and everyone would clap at the end back in the early 70s, but always gets booed in the 90s because nobody likes cleaner-than-thou babyfaces anymore." "They taped a match with regular lighting, then tried out a gimmick where all the ring lights were turned down and they wrestled in blue lighting with the gimmick that Glacier has super powers, but since his blood runs cold and his name is Glacier, that his weakness is the lights so his matches must be done in blue light or he loses his powers. Hey, I'm not coming up with these scripts, just reporting them. He missed his finish both times." "Dusty Rhodes is trying to work himself into the role as coach of the WCW team to counteract DiBiase." "There is another "Outsider" on the booking sheet starting on 9/28 in Columbus, OH as Outsider #4 (assumed to be Waltman) faces Jim Powers and #5 teams with Hall & Nash vs. Flair & Anderson & Benoit. I don't believe Jeff Jarrett is free for another week. Davey Boy Smith's original contract was up this week and I hadn't heard that he had officially signed but he's certainly being pushed in WWF as if he's in their long term plans since they seem to be grooming him for the tag team title. Whoever #5 is has to be a big name because he's going to work a singles program with Sting."
Sept 9, 96 "The NWO came out and in typical heel fashion, the three members beat up eight WCW wrestlers, half of whom would be considered top names (and people think it's surprising that people are cheering NWO). Finally The Giant came running down the aisle to apparently make the save for the out-manned WCW side (jeez), but instead turned on that side, getting a huge face pop from the hot crowd of 5,893 fans in Chattanooga, TN, and joined NWO (as if they were needing any help by this point) and began destroying everyone in sight. Finally Randy Savage did a run-in and began hitting the NWO members with a chair. Since eight guys weren't nearly enough to stand up to three, Savage had little chance going against four and wound up being overpowered by the four and leg dropped three times by Hogan." "After an interview where they started by talking about Ted DiBiase's money being the catalyst for the Giant turn, Giant started talking about being in this giant house with 20 Harleys but instead of continuing with the DiBiase money storyline, instead was talking about Hogan's house." "At one point in the middle of the ranting and raving, the Horsemen and Dungeon again came to the set to do their eight-on-four attack and the NWO members once again pounded them into the ground as if it were nothing, and continued the interview nonchalantly." "They are back in the syndrome of Kevin Sullivan, Arn Anderson and Jimmy Hart putting together all the television shows, and then Hogan shows up on Monday and re-does everything. Right now nobody can complain about it because ratings are up, but it's killing the other bookers because all their long-term plans are constantly having to be thrown out the window such as the Giant vs. Nash and Hogan impending feuds." "The Giant turn was WCW's last minute panic move since it had promised to introduce two new members of the NWO on the 9/2 television show. The other new member in the original plan, Sean Waltman, was also not introduced on the show, apparently because he's also being held up as a pawn in the legal battle between the two companies." "The turn itself was another of those last-minute plans when the original plan of trying on the first anniversary of Nitro, to duplicate the angle that put the show on the map where Lex Luger surprised everyone out of nowhere strolling onto the set after wrestling on the previous nights' WWF house show. This time it was supposed to be Davey Boy Smith. However, four days before Nitro, on the day his WWF contract was set to expire, Smith signed a five-year contract, believed to be with a $250,000 per year downside guarantee, with the WWF." "The last minute turn will changes already scripted plans in regard to house shows and upcoming PPV events. Giant was scheduled to wrestle Kevin Nash at Halloween Havoc on 10/27 in Las Vegas and obviously that will have to be changed." "The plan to make the Horseman look like jobbers wasn't the original angle, but a revised angle came up with by Hogan which has caused at least a few of the wrestlers to complain once again Hogan is booking for his own ego rather than for business. The original plan was to create a situation where the Horsemen would be involved in a scenario where they would jump and run off Hall and Nash, and about that time Hogan would arrive and be by himself. As he was being beaten on, then the Giant would come out for the finishing touches on Hogan, but instead Giant would choke slam all the Horsemen. However, Hogan refused that scenario and came up with the one that was used." "The opening sequences with Sullivan trying to figure out how to work with McMichael are some of the most unintentionally hilarious moments you'll see."
Sept 16, 96 "WCW fell into the same trying too hard to swerve trap on Monday, running a fake Sting heel turn, where prelim wrestler The Cobra was dressed up as Sting, and attacked Lex Luger at just after 9 p.m. Eastern time....However one wishes to analyze what happened next or ignore the tale the rating tells is up to them, but the 4.2 fell to a 3.2 over a 15 minute period. While WWF showed decent growth during that quarter (2.1 to 2.5), 60% at minimum and probably more of the 700,000 plus homes that turned off Nitro during a 15 minute period simply turned off wrestling at that point." "Surprisingly, the show went off the air leaving the fans with no hints that it wasn't actually Sting that turned basically so that the WCW executives could read internet posts all week and congratulate themselves on being con men par excellence, getting in the way of the fact that their jobs are to draw television ratings and PPV buys." "Kevin Nash and Scott Hall knew nothing of the "Razor" and "Diesel" angle, finding out amidst a ton of commotion within wrestling while appearing on Friday night at the WCW house show in Shreveport. There is no loophole in the respective contracts which have more than two years left nor have their been any talks of them rejoining the WWF." "WCW really can't react publicly to deny the story because of the lawsuit, because by reacting and saying that Razor Ramon and Diesel (since the names Kevin Nash and Scott Hall have never been used) or even not using those names and talking about the wrestlers Titan is referring to being under contract and not leaving would play into WWF's hands in the lawsuit as it could be construed as an admission they were using Nash and Hall as Diesel and Ramon without using those names publicly." "There was a lot of internal turmoil over the past week regarding how the angle on 9/2 went down basically killing off the Horsemen. Ric Flair (whose contract expires in November) once again made noises about taking time off and Steve McMichael is said to be pretty unhappy about how everything went down." "Former SMW referee Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) is now a regular ref in WCW replacing Randy Eller, who appears to have been fired." "They had a commercial for the official NWO t-shirts (home made NWO t-shirts are a big thing at most of the arenas right now)." "Gene Okerlund called the Amazing French Canadians the Rougeau Brothers. Wonder if Vince will send a nasty legal letter since I'm sure he's got that trademarked." "Juventud Guerrera beat Joe Gomez in 2:12 with a springboard screw splash (called hiro con plancha). This match killed the show live. It was a horrible match to book because of the size difference, huge technical discrepancy not to mention style clash. Gomez really screwed the match up and was yelled at backstage, but the real problem was putting the match together in the first place." "They did a Dungeon of Doom interview with Konnan in his new guise as a Mexican gang member." "The fans live were furious, booing heavily after the show because they didn't know about the angles in the parking lot and all the saw were guys walking out in the middle of matches. All this wasn't lost on WCW, as they are going to buy a video wall and bring it to all Nitros starting in January (currently they rent one for PPV shows). They are also going back to Columbus, GA for a show in December and going to only charge $5 a head for tickets as a way to make it up to the fans in the city." "The 9/2 Nitro rating actually would have been a record 4.4 had they not ended the show nine minutes early which was a screw-up big-time. What happened was they didn't do the Steiners vs. Sting & Luger match because Scott is injured and can't work so they did a 39 second match when it was blocked off for 6:00, and the Randy Savage squash that week also went short and the eight-man didn't make up for the lost time for whatever reason. The angle at the end, while entertaining television, was poorly planned from a time management standpoint. And then Hogan and Giant did an estimated $40,000 damage to the set in something that wasn't planned." "On the 9/9 show, Bobby Heenan accidentally called Meng "Haku" and Bischoff did an elaborate on-air apology for it saying that Haku was his WWF name and he's in no way associated with the WWF."
Sept 23, 96 "Fall Brawl. Great undercard wrestling. Bad main events. And booking with more holes than Swiss Cheese. Welcome to WCW. That's how it has been. That's how it will be. If you want to see good matches, be happy because you'll get a lot of them on almost every PPV show now, just not on top." "Let's see the logic for this week. Randy Savage is a challenger that nobody believes has a prayer of winning the title from Hulk Hogan on the next PPV show. How does WCW convince its crowd that Savage actually has a chance? They beat him in a singles match, and then have him come back and get destroyed again in a later angle." "As explained the next night in Nitro by both Tony Schiavone and Eric Bischoff, Sting was in Japan last week doing a promotional tour and didn't know what happened. Only problem was, they forget to tell Sting his own angle before television, so he improvised on the live interview saying that he was in Atlanta after flying in from Los Angeles, saw Nitro on television and was so angry people didn't trust him that he decided not to talk to anyone, including his best friend, for a week." "Then there was a finish where it appeared Lex Luger submitted to the fake Sting's scorpion. Except the next night on Nitro they said Luger never submitted. So why did the match end?" "To top it all off, after Sting walks off and half turns heel, Flair and Anderson have a post-match brawl against Hogan, Hall and Nash, and get no help from Benoit or McMichael, and with no logical way to get them out of the picture, they simply walk off as well (this was off camera but there was no explanation on television as to where they had gone or why they weren't fighting other than perhaps the NWO had signed up a magician who made them disappear)." "Welcome, to the Twilight Zone of booking. Nothing has to make sense because whatever is booked is going to be changed at the last minute by HH, with no time to put the stories back together. But it doesn't matter, because ratings are good and because they've got the angle that can't be destroyed." "The undercard was great. Of course live, it was pushed as a one match show, the fans in Winston-Salem at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum came to see their Horsemen get revenge. And they left with all the air out of their sails. Too bad. It's been something like eight years since the Greensboro market has turned out like this for wrestling--11,300 in the building, 10,714 paid, $153,914 and another $52,000 in gimmick sales (mostly Horseman merchandise which outsold NWO four-to-one, something that is no doubt uniquely geographical and wouldn't happen anywhere else). They didn't care about the guys doing moves they'd never seen, even if their eyes were popping out a few times when they did them." "The funniest part of the match was at one point when the Nasty Boys were beaten up outside the ring, Bobby Heenan talked about how it would do Heat no good to win that way because they can't win the titles on a count out, forgetting of course that they were already champs to begin with. It appeared that neither Dusty Rhodes or Tony Schiavone recognized Heenan's lack of logic, but finally it appeared somebody from the back monitoring it gave them the word that it was Heat who were the champions." "Mike Tenay did an interview with Luger, Anderson and Flair, where Sting came out and said it wasn't him that attacked Luger. Luger didn't believe it. The highlight was Flair, who must be on remote control these days, calling Tenay "Gene." " "They didn't bring the teams out together largely because they wanted the element of surprise for the final two men in, and also because they didn't want the fake Sting at ringside for so long that the crowd would chant fake Sting at him and the announcers would be forced to pretend they didn't hear it and still sell him as the real Sting." "Gene Okerlund's contract with WCW expired mid-week is he's said to no longer be with the company. He said good-bye to a lot of people early in the week and on Thursday morning, all WCW employees got a memo saying that Okerlund was no longer with the company." "Between Okerlund's base contract and his cut of the 900 line, it was believed he was earning in the neighborhood of $420,000 per year and was looking for a raise. Depending upon which story one chooses to believe, Okerlund either a few weeks ago or over the past few days spoke with Vince McMahon about coming back but not a lot of interest was shown. Okerlund had been playing the going-to-Titan card in negotiations with WCW. Since the Titan card has been played, Okerlund is expected to come back to the negotiating table with WCW and most feel there is a good chance he'll end up returning." "They strongly played up that next week most of the top WCW wrestlers except Savage will be in Japan and pretty much told everyone that the NWO would be taking over the show next week, which I guess is the working plan." "Real story. A woman called the WCW offices last week complaining because her five year old had spray painted NWO on her one year old." "Paul Wight had to buy the Cadillac they destroyed in the angle that aired on Saturday. They got a rented Cadillac that was supposed to be Lex Luger's car and the NWO destroyed it. They had an agreement with the rental place how much damage would be done and basically totally exceeded it in the heat of battle and Wight became the scapegoat." "Lots of heat in Columbus, GA regarding the Nitro show on 9/9 because it was advertised locally that Hogan, Hall, Nash and Sting would wrestle on the show, none of whom appeared in the building in front of the fans as the angle was done outside and they had no video wall in the building." "Steve Regal was in England defending the TV title this past week and goes to Japan this coming week. That was all supposed to be talked about on WCW television but somehow I don't know if anyone even knows Regal has the title since it's never been mentioned on Nitro or even on the Saturday show except the show where the title change itself aired."
Sept 30, 96 "With most of its talent in Japan since the original plan was to do a taped show this week, they practically promised that the NWO would take over the show, which they did, to the point they took out an ad in USA Today practically giving the angle away." "Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were shown early on during Nitro, also live, and well before WWF unveiled its new men, they had "taken over" Nitro and were making a joke about accepting no imitations. WCW had its own inside joke during that show, introducing Michael Jones, formerly Virgil in the WWF (a name given as a knock on Dusty Rhodes, who was the NWA booker at the time the character was introduced), as the new Chief of Security for the NWO and named him Vince." "Glacier, who was over huge due to the ring entrance, pinned Pat Tanaka in 1:10, and then did another elaborate ring exit. As WWF has shown with Undertaker and Goldust, if you've got an elaborate entrance, people take the gimmick as being star quality." "The NWO destroyed Savage once again and took over the television show. Even though there was a whole crew of wrestlers there including guys on the show in the first hour, nobody helped Savage and nobody got involved as NWO took over the show." "Nash talked about Jim Powers saying he's all jacked up and juiced up (slang for being loaded with steroids) and said how all the boys in the gym are glad he's in town." "Behind the scenes Nasty Boys have been legit complaining to Hogan about things after working a series of matches against Hall & Nash, who played to the crowd as babyfaces and didn't sell, leaving Nastys to be booed and look stupid. Actually, that's the entire angle." "The NWO is totally over, but who wouldn't be with this kind of booking." "Either Savage's contract has expired but because of the commitment to Slim Jim's, which sponsored the Vegas show and basically booked the main event themselves, he's staying until the end of October, or his contract expires in November. Either way, there is legitimate concern he'll leave for WWF (and don't even think for a second WWF won't take him back) because he's been unhappy with the way things are going." "Typical snafu. After Ed Leslie did an interview saying he wasn't The Butcher and he wasn't The Booty Man, Tony Schiavone came back and said we've just heard an in-depth interview with the Booty Man." "Hogan wanted to piledriver Elizabeth at the Fall Brawl PPV but Bischoff overruled it figuring the word may get to Ted Turner and they'd all wind up in trouble."
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Post by evilone on Aug 10, 2020 5:44:13 GMT -5
Hogan going wild on booking card this early on should have been the sign for them to limit his creative control in the next contract but they kittened out. Bringing in Giant as nWo member never made sense but now we know why they did it; Hogan.
And LOL at WWF trying to intimidate them with Diesel, Razor and Kid gimmicks and mannerism and same LOL at WCW for falling for it. Can't call Hall The Bad Guy after your company called him exactly like that before his WWF run. Waltman's mannerism in nWo was pretty much X-Pack in WWF and yet somehow WCW has missed the boat on threatening WWF for using it.
The more I think of nWo the more I'm sure they should have dropped Hogan out of it within a year or so and replaced him with either Warrior or Bret Hart. Core of the nWo cool factor were Hall and Nash. Dropping Waltman was also a big mistake.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 7:21:17 GMT -5
Yep, which was why Fonzie was seen on WWF programming in 1993. He was to Gigante what Tim White was to Andre. Most infamous appearances: ref in the WBF vs WWF tug of war. And getting his car taken in the Coliseum Video "spend a day with Repo Man" vignette. The one that comes to mind immediately: being throttled like a rag doll (by his pal Gigante) at WM9 after the Undertaker match. "Reportedly before making his deal with Japan, Ted DiBiase tried to get a $250,000 deal to come here but was turned down." "DiBiase and WCW negotiated during the week but the negotiations broke off mid-week. DiBiase didn't get the money offer nor the number of dates he was after. The numbers we were given was that DiBiase wanted $100,000 to $125,000 for a 100-date deal and WCW didn't want to make that commitment which should tell you something about future contract negotiations with a lot of wrestlers because there aren't a lot of DiBiase-calibre performers in this country. He was also told his first match back would be a 30:00 draw with Dustin Rhodes in a U.S. title match at the Halloween Havoc PPV show (which would have replaced the scheduled Steve Austin in the spot), which he apparently didn't feel like was the appropriate way to begin with a new promotion." Wow, Ted in 1993 WCW. If things had only worked differently..... perhaps no injury in Japan (unless that'd been lingering from his WWF days?) that forced his quick retirement.. From Nov 1993. lofl. "The company signed Zane Bresloff, the WWF's leading independent house show promoter for the past nine years. Many believe the signing of Bresloff will result in the fiercest war between WWF and WCW in a few years because this deal pretty well guarantees a far more aggressive approach WCW will take to booking major arenas that it had been locked out of in the top markets." An underrated moment. Bresloff was a big reason WWF thrived the way it did in the '80s. He passed away in 2003 or so, and I recall an article where Bischoff (as well as a rep for WWE) greatly praised him, so apparently he did very well for WCW too. "An interesting inside comment made during this show by Bobby Heenan in references to bald-headed guys tape recording everything as being wanna-be announcers was in reference to Howard Finkel, who apparently has heat with Heenan because Finkel didn't attend Joey Marella's funeral (Marella was friends with Heenan) and perhaps because Titan hasn't acknowledged his death yet on television. I'm sure there are other professional rivalry reasons as well such as the belief within WCW and elsewhere, whether founded or not, that Finkel tape records everything everyone says on every hotline and plays them for Vince McMahon" This is very surprising, heat from Heenan towards Fink. I know there was unfortunate awkwardness at the time of Joey's death (Prichard on his podcast said Vince missed Joey's funeral because of the trial at the time) but was unaware of it spreading beyond that.. "WCW had been served with legal papers from Titan Sports a few days earlier claiming Savage appearing on WCW television would constitute a breach of his implied agreement with Titan, since he wasn't under contract." "Reports we received were that Savage and his attorney and WCW attorneys got together after the papers were served and felt Titan's case was so weak they wouldn't be taking a risk by continuing with the plan of debuting Savage on television," "The legal threats were funny because so many had been taken in by the "sincere" Monday Night Raw comments by Vince McMahon wishing Savage the best in whatever he decided to do. Heh. Vince pulls off quite sincere in that segment very well, doesn't he? Almost human. Not shocking - given, like, every single piece of info released & speculated since - that it was all fake.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 9:07:01 GMT -5
He was also probably still bitter about Andre's appearance for WCW hence why he was shown with the other three wrestlers in the commercial. I would rather take broken down Mexico 1992 Andre than Piper (the "new" in the commercial) who always seemed to stick his nose in a WWF PPV when he really wasn't needed. I wonder if WWF reached out to him or if he would come back to them every few years when a WrestleMania would be going down. Woulda liked it if they'd shown the old wrestlers in b&w. Alas.... FYI, later in 96 Sheik was was back as the Sultan's manager (taking bumps too) and in 97 Putski was back in a WWF ring for a match. Also, Piper is shown as the New section.
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Post by DSR on Aug 10, 2020 13:08:27 GMT -5
I'm mortified that a mother left spray paint in a place where a five year old can get a hold of it!
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Post by Terry McConkey on Aug 10, 2020 16:41:49 GMT -5
If anyone can point to a link to this I will be greatly appreciative. Vince is one petty mofo. LOL Eric was worse IMHO. I think that's what hurt Bischoff more than anything when the egg was on his face (WCW being bought out by WWF).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 4:45:33 GMT -5
1996 October
Oct 7, 96 "Sonny Onoo was Japan in with the WCW crew as Eric Bischoff's representative since Bischoff stayed back to do the Nitro show. Onoo was supposed to manage Kurosawa, but Kurosawa didn't want him in the corner so he had no role as a performer on the tour. The main business message he carried from Bischoff regarded WCW's heat with Animal Warrior. Bischoff told New Japan that he didn't want any of his wrestlers anywhere near Animal, which meant in the ring either with him or against him." "Monday Nitro on 9/30 in Cleveland drew 4,318 paying $52,000 for one of the worst Nitros in history. The live crowd reacted furiously pelting the ring with garbage after the show went off the air since the matches were for the most part terrible. The television show was built around the NWO (what else is new?) and they were all having a party at the hotel room so none of the NWO wrestlers, nor Ric Flair (shoulder injury), nor Sting (doing a movie), nor Randy Savage (hanging out at the hotel) appeared before the live crowd. To make things worse to the live crowd, they introduced Savage for an interview and he never came out, which may be effective television for telling a story but you can imagine what it does to a crowd pissed off legitimately for about a dozen other reasons to begin with. WCW is going to attempt to alleviate the problem by buying a video wall (they rent one for PPVs right now) so at least the live crowd can see the cut-aways." "Nasty Boys joined the NWO and Jerry Sags bent over and spread his cheeks saying he was doing an impression of Eric Bischoff on last week's TV show. Bischoff walked off the set early into the second hour for no explainable reason although what Sags did may not have been planned (although there is so much swerving going on these days that you never know) and nobody seemed to know ahead of time that Bischoff was going to walk off." "Elizabeth wound up at the party with a storyline that she's apparently signed an acting contract with Hogan but wants to get out of it, then Savage saw her leaving the room and freaked out with her screaming "You don't understand." Now that Liz is turning face, her outfits have changed from black to white and the necklines have gone up. Let's see, a bunch of guys throw you down and spray paint your nice dress, and then a few weeks later you end up in a hotel room with about nine of them alone. I can just imagine what those folks who thought Tyson was innocent were thinking of her." "Arn Anderson pinned Chris Jericho with a DDT in 5:34. The booking committee in almost record time is trying to make sure Jericho, who has potential, doesn't get perceived by anyone as being able to break into the upper echelon." "The WCW car now has a Sting face on it which supposedly is an apology from WCW to Sting for doubting him." "PE was to defend the belts on 10/1 in Canton, OH (to air on WCW Saturday Night on 10/5) against Harlem Heat and no doubt the knee will spell the difference. Grunge legit was going to undergo knee surgery (that's why they did the angle to set up them feuding with Faces of Fear) so he'll be out a few weeks. And in typical WCW fashion, on the promo package for Havoc that aired on Raw, they listed the tag title match as Heat defending against Hall & Nash." "The way they shot the angle made Misterio Jr. look to be only five feet tall. Then again, that's about what he is, but they really exposed his lack of size by not taking care in how the angle was shot as Tony Schiavone looked like Andre the Giant next to him." "Just in case people haven't gotten the clue that Jericho is a jobber, he teamed with Powers and lost to that awesome combination of Dick Slater & Mike Enos." "Bischoff had a pep talk before the 9/23 Nitro with the wrestlers saying he wanted to beat McMahon by 1.5 again. He told the wrestlers that Dillon would be coming in and apologized to Kevin Sullivan, saying Dillon would be his assistant because he's heard Dillon is a good organizer and said that he was apologizing because it was the first chance he had gotten to tell Sullivan about this." "The NWO segment, despite it being entertaining to many, was a ratings turn-off. When they did the take-over, Nitro had risen to a 4.1 rating and the following quarters dropped to 3.7, 3.1 and 3.2 which is another huge drop--the second straight huge drop when WCW did an NWO angle in the second hour. Those viewers that left for the most part didn't turn to Raw, which did 2.0, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.4 quarters." "It's clear that the company desperately needs to do two things--wipe out the NWO Sting so that just WWF and not pro wrestling in general gets painted with the same brush by fans tired of bogus performers; and do an angle that makes the WCW/NWO angle not look like a 73-0 shutout as fans are tuning out every week when the angles hit as opposed to the angles being the turn-on when NWO first came on the scene."
Oct 14, 96 "Harlem Heat regained the WCW tag titles on 10/1 in Canton, OH at the Saturday Night tapings from Public Enemy as expected....Probably more eventful than the title change was a disturbance during the match in the crowd when a few black fans were fighting a few white fans which distracted most of the crowd from the match itself. It was covered up on television by making it appear the crowd was distracted because the NWO was in the stands (which they were)." "Randy Savage did an interview, and with all the stuff he could talk about being that he's been destroyed in a million identical angles (with the million and first on the way), involved in a complicated story line with his wife that nobody except the bookers have a clue about, and is in the main event against Hulk Hogan on the next PPV, spent virtually the entire interview putting over the fact that the Slim Jim car finished 10th in an auto race on Saturday night while Kyle Petty crashed the NWO car (the Sting car didn't even qualify for those of you NASCAR fans who wondered what happened to that important part of the storyline)." "Eric Bischoff did make a hot phone call to the hotel room where Hogan and company were hanging out regarding Jerry Sags bending over and spreading his cheeks (and he didn't even know at the time what happened to the ratings after that)." "The Saturday Night show will consist of a regular taping on 10/8 in Greenwood, SC and one match taped at the gym with no fans with Nash & Hall beating up two jobbers as they each do the announcing while the other does the wrestling and the commentary is supposed to be inside and hilarious, with no fans but tons of fake crowd noise which is supposed to be a spoof on the WWF in case you don't figure it out." "All the wrestlers were sent legal letters saying they couldn't use terms like "WWF," "Diesel," "Razor Ramon," "Big Daddy Cool" and "The Bad Guy" on television." "In typical WCW quality control, on the Pro show over the weekend, Nick Patrick was on without the neck brace." "There is becoming more and more behind the scenes heat in the Hall-Nash-Hogan camp, not to mention the disenchantment of those not in the camp. Nash & Hall are tired of playing background vocals and mad about the money Hogan is making." "The video wall was brought to Nitro in Savannah and will be at all future Nitros."
Oct 21, 96 "WCW was extremely confident they were going to land Bret Hart because nobody in wrestling believed McMahon could afford to match the $3 million per year figure, or even the $2.2 million. Scenarios were worked on to lead to Hart's showing up as the savior of WCW and eventually building to matches with the likes of Hogan, Flair and even Sting." "Lawler did another interview trying to sabotage the Nitro. He brought out a copy of the 10/7 Observer, said what it was and even mentioned Dave Meltzer in California (and not even knocking it) and read what was written about the Nitro taping on 9/30 in Cleveland. He called WCW ripoff artists saying they advertise people and matches who don't appear and told people if they want to see Nitro, they should stay home and watch it on television, but then said if they had any brains, they'd watch Raw instead." "Nitro on 10/14 in Memphis drew 6,930 (5,650 paying $67,815). While there have been tons of larger crowds at the Coliseum over the years, to my recollection, I can only recall two larger gates, one for a Ric Flair vs. Jerry Lawler NWA title match and one for a Bret Hart vs. Lawler cage match for the WWF title." "Tony Schiavone on the air thanked "Mr. Lawler" for putting all the fans in the seats (on television they tried to claim it was a sellout and the largest crowd ever in Memphis) and said they'd see him at the Flea Market on Thursday." "Jarrett pinned Big Bubba in 6:41 of a good match. Jarrett got a huge reaction since it was Memphis and they made the point of saying that Jarrett can't sing a lick, but that doesn't matter in WCW. Fans were loudly chanting "Double J" which was never acknowledged in the commentary. I wonder if WWF can sue the fans for trademark violation?" "It was a good performance by Hogan as they pretended they've kidnapped Liz, who has apparently signed a contract with them after leaving the Horsemen (none of this has been made clear in the storyline so in order to make sense of the stories, we have to pretend we understand the missing links in the story)" "Scott Hall later said Harlem Heat weren't even from Harlem, they were two hillbillies from Texas." "At the Nitro from Cleveland on 9/30, if you had a dish, you could find the back-haul feed from the hotel room and see Kevin Sullivan after the NWO segments handing the guys their scripts, telling them where to sit and what to say. It's amazing something that bad was actually scripted. Anyway, after the show ended those watching on dishes could see Savage and Liz walk back into the room where Eric Bischoff, Sullivan and the NWO guys were all talking about what a great job they'd done."
Oct 28, 96 "Bischoff faxed his last WCW contract offer to San Jose and was somewhat confident as late as Saturday that he was still going to pull the deal out even after the WWF plugged Hart's appearance on Raw and strongly suggested his return to the WWF as a full-timer on its "Live Wire" show that morning." "The contract Hart was looking at from WCW guaranteed him $2.8 million per year over three years. It was broken down initially into an $800,000 per year deal for a maximum of 180 total dates as a pro wrestler, and two movie deals per year at a minimum $1 million per movie with the Turner Time Warner corporation....It circumvented the clause in the contract of Scott Hall, and probably Kevin Nash as well, that guaranteed that their contracts would increase individually if any newcomer signed for more money than they earned, in that they were guaranteed to always be, behind Hogan, the highest paid wrestlers in WCW. Hall and Nash are both earning $780,000 per year, so Hart's signing based on their contract clause, would have given each a small $20,000 per year raise, however if the contract was structured differently and it was a $2.8 million per year WCW offer alone, based on that clause, each of them would also have to be given raises to the same level--meaning basically to get Hart it would cost WCW nearly $6.8 million extra per year." "On Sunday night, Hall (and Nash if it was in his deal) agreed to waive that contractual clause as a way for Bischoff to increase the offer to Hart to another level without having to give each of them big raises since both felt it was important to them to have Hart in WCW." "During the head-to-head hour, WWF trailed during the middle of the show by only a half-point, only to have WCW blister them by a whopping 3.4 to 1.7 as WCW had Hogan doing the monologue where the NWO beat up the Nasty Boys going head-to-head with WWF having Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin in a singles match." "Lawler hasn't given up when it comes to the WCW show last week in Memphis. Lawler interviewed some fans in the crowd that had attended the WCW show. Lawler said that he tried to tell everyone what WCW was about but nobody would listen to him. He brought up how Tony Schiavone said it was the biggest crowd ever at the Coliseum. The fan estimated the crowd at 6,000 so Lawler brought up that Schiavone lied. He asked another fan about the signs pro-Lawler brought to the show and the fan said all the signs were confiscated at the door and another fan said they wouldn't let him in with a crown (although they eventually did let him in with the crown after he complained). Another fan said that the matches were very disappointing because the top names like Hogan, Savage, Flair, Nash and Hall didn't wrestle and Lawler said WCW stands for "We Can't Wrestle." " "They also did a taped interview with Hulk Hogan from Denver where he's doing the Three Ninjas movie where they revealed Hogan forced Elizabeth against her will to do the interview where she said she still loved Savage and at the end of the show Savage basically threatened to kill Hogan. Hogan looked more like his grandfather, no exaggeration, he looked in his 60s and I couldn't believe he'd let himself be on a wrestling show looking older than Lou Thesz does today. But he did a great heel segment." "Roadblock (Joe D'Aquisto) got racked by Lex Luger (he actually debuted a few days earlier at the Saturday Night tapings in Anderson, SC on 10/16) although it took Luger three tries to get him. Roadblock is a legit 6-7 (it was funny since Mike Tenay kept saying he was 6-5, and there he was four inches taller than Luger who they've been billing at 6-5 all through his wrestling career) and probably at least 400 and has gotten a lot better since the last time I saw him (he was really awful then). Anyway, he's best known in wrestling for about ten years ago when the WWF was doing a TV taping in Rochester, NY, he wanted to be a pro wrestler and Hulk Hogan blew him off at the gym that day, so he went to the show and just as Hogan was going to wrestle One Man Gang, he hit the ring and took Gang down (he was a good high school wrestler) and was pounding on Gang and a panicked Slick was pounding on his back with his cane and it was having no effect." "The reason Bischoff seemed off in the announcing was because he was very nervous about how Bret Hart was going to handle his interview since he knew WWF would want Hart to rub it in his face." "Brian Knobs was said to be very unhappy at how the angle where the Nasty's got jumped by the NWO went down since he came off looking like a geek." "WCW Saturday Night tapings on 10/16 in Anderson, SC drew 2,300 (2,000 paying $18,000). Nothing of note other than Savage vs. Roadblock ended up with Savage not being there and Roadblock beating up a jobber. After the show went off the air, Luger came in and racked Roadblock to make sure he'd be able to do it on the live Nitro match. Anyway, he did it a lot easier on this show." "Buddy Lee Parker has dropped the Leprechaun gimmick and is now Jack Boot. Believe it or not, some group complained about WCW's gimmick being a negative portrayal of Leprechaun's so they dropped the gimmick. Really." "On TV this past week, Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes were announcing a match where Dusty Wolfe worked as a jobber. Rhodes lost it so badly that he billed himself as Dusty Wolfe that he forced Schiavone to call him Scott Wolfe instead."
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