1997 June
June 2, 97"Several in WCW, in particular Konnan and Tenay had been trying to make Mexican trios matches a regular feature on Nitro and PPV shows after the Clash match in Denver and PPV match in San Francisco went so well, but Kevin Sullivan had other things on his agenda. With Terry Taylor booking, he gave it a chance so there was a lot of pressure on the guys to perform because if they had a sloppy match, they might not have gotten another shot."
"Mike Tenay did a great job getting over the new wrestlers (Garza in particular) and explaining the Mexican trios rules while Larry Zbyszko did everything he could to undermine him and make sure it didn't get over."
"Psicosis pinned Alex Wright in a surprise in 4:09 with a legdrop off the top. That result was another example of a booker change."
"After the match Gene Okerlund said that if Madusa lost she might have to be walking the streets, pause, looking for a job."
"As Kimberly came down the aisle, Okerlund said, "Man is she stacked." I bring this up because it's the trend of both companies to see just how much they can get away with saying on television each week."
"Show finished with Hogan and Bischoff yelling about Sting. A fake imposter Sting (as opposed to the real imposter Sting who is in Japan) came up from under the ring. It was Marcus Bagwell in a wig with a Sting mask on. Actually I noticed the shoulders were too buffed to be Sting, so I thought it was Chyna in costume."
"The entire NWO came out, including Muta and Chono, to attack Sting. Sting was supposed to fly with the rope back to the ceiling but the timing got all screwed up. The show was about to go off the air without the climax while the NWO guys all had to stand there like idiots and not attack the guy with like an eight-on-one advantage until he got himself hooked up, and by that point even Ray Charles could see where it was going. Sting started tugging the rope so they'd raise him and it was another of those time stands still moments before they raised him and the show went off the air."
"As far as PPVs are concerned, the Spring Stampede show in April did about an 0.58 buy rate and Slamboree is expected to do about an 0.60. This is basically about the same range as WWF's last two In Your House shows that have been between 0.50 and 0.60. No matter what anyone says, WCW's buy rates drop significantly when Hogan isn't on the show, even for a show which included the return of Ric Flair and had Roddy Piper, Nash, Hall and the football players."
"For PPV revenue, even though buys are pretty much the same of late, WCW takes in significantly more money since it's last two shows were priced at $27.95 to WWF's $19.95. For the May shows, the WWF Cold Day in Hell did about 159,000 buys and $1.27 million while the WCW Slamboree did about 165,000 buys and $1.88 million."
"The reason they are doing a new opening graphic on the hour for Raw at 9 p.m. is that they are copying Nitro's ratings gimmick. Nitro breaks the ratings down as if the show is two separate one hour shows, thus in the Neilsen accumulated syndicated ratings, it gets credit for two highly rated shows instead of one, so Raw is doing the same."
June 9, 97
"On 5/26, Nitro drew a 3.28 rating (3.18 first hour, 3.38 second hour) and 5.48 share to Raw's 2.78 rating (2.28 first hour, 3.28 second hour) and 4.41 share. Nitro replay did a 1.6 rating and 3.9 share. It had to be considered an overall victory for WCW in that they won despite having been out of their regular time slot for one month and with WWF hyping several matches including the return to the ring of Shawn Michaels in a tag team title match and the Undertaker's secret angle while WCW didn't push anything in particular going in."
"WWF having the finish of the Michaels & Austin vs. Owen Hart & British Bulldog tag title change and the Undertaker interview where he went back with Paul Bearer won the final quarter by a 3.9 to 3.3 margin. WCW had the finish of Harlem Heat vs. Jeff Jarrett & Steve McMichael and the latest Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Sting deal at the same time. Since WCW always ends the show with a major scene, usually involving the NWO, it has owned the last 15 minutes for the past year. WCW won the other seven quarter hours, only a few of which were close, but peaked early with a 3.6 for the Great Muta-Masa Chono angle."
"For whatever this is worth, I was asking around about Ernest Miller, the WCW karate guy who supposedly holds an ISKA world heavyweight point karate championship (and he probably does the way they dispense world titles like a pez dispenser) and nobody, and I mean nobody, had ever heard of him."
"Jarrett challenged Malenko to a title match (which will take place on 6/9 Nitro) and called him an uncharismatic block of ice. If that's the case, what's Jeff?"
"At the finish, Bobby Heenan said he was surprised about the win because Damian & Ciclope haven't been together that long. It would be dangerous if some day the announcers in WCW had a clue what was going on in wrestling. But how can Heenan be expected to know wrestling, during the hype for Los Angeles he mentioned Sacramento as a suburb of Los Angeles, which would be like hyping a card in Madison Square Garden and thinking Richmond, VA was a suburb."
"Flair beat Hall via DQ in 7:49 when Syxx continually interfered and finally Hall hit Flair with the tag title belt....This match was supposed to go about 20:00 but Flair ran out of gas way early and called for the finish. This left them with far too much time so Gene Okerlund and Randy Savage had to improvise for several minutes before starting their interview."
"Horseshoe Hank (Bill Goldberg, the second big bodybuilder in the famous Piper sketch) got a try-out but looked bad."
"The long-awaited grudge match saw Joe Gomez beat Renegade but Renegade got his heat (yeah, right) back by beating up Gomez after the match."
"The company interview rule is that Flair, Piper and Hogan can't be referred to as "old" although Flair & Piper can be called fossils."
"Bobby Heenan was on the radio this past week in San Diego to push the Los Angeles show. When asked about the Wrestling Observer, Heenan said he'd never heard of it or read it. But that was still better than when a caller asked him about ECW--he just had the host hang-up on the caller and never acknowledged the question."
"There are people who expect Kevin Sullivan to make a surprise appearance on 6/9 because the Boston show is such a big deal to him since it's where he grew up. Supposedly he's still not due back for a few more weeks. Most of the feeling now is that he'll be back as booker on his return, although there are wrestlers with clout who have complained to Eric Bischoff and want to have Terry Taylor stay in the spot."
"Ted DiBiase has disappeared. He missed a few weeks due to going to Tel Aviv, Israel with the 700 club, and came back for Nashville but wasn't used on television and wasn't even there this week. They talked with him about turning babyface since Bischoff pretty much took his spot."
June 16, 97
"On the WCW side, it was actually a worked match in the ring that precipitated the real problems. Flair & Piper were wrestling Hall & Nash in a non-title match. The early part of the match consisted of Flair and Hall brawling in one corner and Piper and Nash in the other. Nash claimed that Piper wasn't doing what they agreed on doing, although Nash also didn't appear to want to sell much for Piper....Piper also called for the finish way early, about 6:00 into a match scheduled for 12:00, which meant the post-match brawl to end the show literally lasted forever."
"After the show, Nash went to Piper's private dressing room and knocked on the door, very hard apparently. Finally Craig Malley, Piper's bodyguard (the guy who did the boxer gimmick in the famous Piper team skit) opened the door. Nash basically pie-faced Piper, which is throwing something of a palm blow and shoving him into the wall. Piper tried a kick to Nash's bad knee before Malley and Ric Flair, who was there with Piper, acted as the peacemakers and quickly broke it up before anything serious took place, but also leaving the heat between the two unresolved. According to two versions of the story, Nash and Malley did nearly go at it as well but Malley, who is obviously much smaller, backed down. Most of the internal heat within WCW was on Piper for not doing what they had agreed to do in the ring and then calling for the finish early and making the show-ending brawl go so long it totally lost its focus as well."
"At one point the entire match at Slamboree was in jeopardy because Piper didn't want his team to lose, which was the original plan, and since he has creative control of his programs, asked to do a singles match with Syxx who he liked personally and thought he could prove he could still work and felt he needed to prove it to some of the wrestlers who saw him as someone existing totally off his past made name, by having a good match with him. The compromised was reached where the NWO team agreed to not only do the job, but not have Syxx do it because that would be the predictable finish, but instead have all three basically do the job at the same time to show that they were the more professional of the two teams."
"WCW more than doubled the Raw audience again in the final quarter, doing a 4.3 for the star-laden Flair & Piper vs. Hall & Nash match and closing brawl. WWF and fell to a miserable 2.0 for the final quarter hour with Bart Gunn vs. Rockabilly and Pillman vs. Mankind."
"The Boston Nitro on 6/9 broke all previous WCW attendance records, drawing a sellout 18,003 fans, of which 16,025 were paid with a total gate of $243,946. On television, Tony Schiavone on several occasions claimed the crowd was 22,000. The previous records were 17,331 fans and 15,834 paid, both set on 1/20 in Chicago for Nitro. The company record gate was $224,660 set on 10/27 for the Halloween Havoc PPV in Las Vegas"
"Lex Luger did an interview early in the show saying the WCW championship committee was ordering Hulk Hogan to defend the title against him on the show because he hadn't defended it in so long. When Hogan came out with Eric Bischoff, to a huge babyface pop, they claimed they wouldn't defend the title. Apparently the story is that Luger simply screwed up the promo and was never supposed to say the committee said he was getting a title match that night. Luger wound up coming out and they did have a match, which was never explained as title or non-title, ending in 5:32 when Luger racked Hogan for the submission victory."
"Alex Wright beat Chris Jericho in 8:46 of a terrible match which saw the most heat come from the crowd bouncing around a giant beach ball. Wright as a heel worked like Michael Wallstreet and that's not a compliment, while Jericho was just off on everything."
"We were thankfully spared a Steve McMichael vs. Konnan match which was absolutely scary hearing the announcers say it was coming up next when Kevin Greene attacked McMichael and they brawled all over the place while Hugh Morrus cracked a broom over Konnan's head."
"Kevin Sullivan returned, and everyone was remarking about just how little of a pop he got in his hometown (where he was actually never a major headliner as Kevin's early career was mainly in the Southeast like Florida, Georgia and Tennessee). Sullivan did a nonsensical face interview and challenged Benoit to come out, which he did, and Sullivan, Jacquelyn (with no tease of a split anymore), Barbarian and Meng all destroyed Benoit."
"In Buffalo, some 22 former area wrestlers including Lou Thesz appeared at the show, which honored Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, legendary boxer Carmen Basilio and local martial artist Gary Castanza. Kelly got involved in an angle later in the show, as he came to ringside with Bills players Ted Washington and Ruben Brown and began arguing with Randy Savage. Savage took a bump for Kelly to a big pop before the match started, and the finish of the Savage vs. Page match ended up with Kelly distracting Savage, who appeared to have the match won, allowing Page to hit the Diamond cutter finish."
"Barbarian put up a fuss last week about doing a submission job for Chris Benoit but Terry Taylor insisted on it because they're trying to get the tap out over."
"The word came down from the top that Turner wants no more words like "ass" or "damn" used on the wrestling show."
June 23, 97
"From an organizational standpoint, it's a night-and-day difference with Terry Taylor running things as the announcers fed the eventual storylines much better than when they appeared to go out and call matches with no clue as to what is going on."
"Not to say that even under these circumstances that Bobby Heenan was all there although he only made one major faux pas, still not understanding the tap submission rule, which was one of the main things this show was designed to get over. In particular, after the replay showed Meng tapping for Chris Benoit's crossface, Heenan was still asking if Meng had submitted or if the referee had stopped the match because Meng had passed out. You'd think after not understanding the tap out on Nitro two weeks back with Barbarian, that he'd have figured it out by now."
"They tried to bill Wrath at 6-10 or 6-11 (more like 6-6 or 6-7). Even with all the trappings and throwing in some nice moves for a guy of his size, he's still got the charisma of Adam Bomb and the match really never got over."
"Akira Hokuto (Hisako Uno) retained the WCW womens title beating Madusa (Debra Ann Micelli) in 11:41. This match was far more significant than just the stipulations that Madusa would have to retire since she's going to become a valet, if she lost. This result truly signified the death of womens wrestling in the United States once again. Sure, womens wrestling will continue to exist on the indie level, but WWF gave it up at the end of 1995 and hasn't looked back, and now WCW by this result has given it up as well."
"While both groups tried to make Madusa the standard-bearer figuring her combination of some ability and sex appeal would be marketable, it didn't work in either federation. She didn't have break-through charisma, and more importantly, the only way gimmicks like women or minis can work in 1997 as any more than a once a year sideshow act is if they perform better than the men. On occasion, Madusa and Bull Nakano in WWF were better than the man, but not consistently and eventually nobody cared, and once they did the Bertha Faye feud, everyone knew the division was dead."
"They tried bringing in a Japanese wrestling legend in Hokuto and give her a storyline, but it never got over, and the Americans that they tried to put her against got over even less and couldn't have good matches with her. The bottom line was business, it cost too much to fly in opponents from Japan to feed her when they weren't going to have a great match and nobody cared about it anyway, and with the promoters perceiving that the male audience wanted to see T&A valets rather than women wrestle."
"It is unfortunate that due to the lack of real talent available in the States, that it'll probably be many years before womens wrestling resurfaces in WWF or WCW, and you know nothing presented with women before an ECW audience can be anything but a sideshow catfight."
"Nancy Sullivan is no longer associated with Benoit although no acknowledgement was made of it and no storyline reason given. As best we can tell, it's just another example of Kevin Sullivan losing power. There has been talk of Nancy resurfacing in someone else's corner or just disappearing from the scene."
"With the exception of people like Owen Hart, Hiroshi Hase and Jun Akiyama, all of whom had put in far more time training for pro wrestling, I don't know if I've ever seen such a natural from his third match as Kevin Greene. Due to his age and the fact he's probably never going to be a full-time wrestler, he'll surely never be the wrestler the aforementioned three turned out to be, but he is amazing given he's only had a few weeks total of training time, this was only his third pro match, and McMichael is hardly the great worker that Ric Flair or Arn Anderson were to carry him."
"Match had great heat and everyone seemed to be on the same page after the problems from a week earlier. Of course, Piper is so washed up that even when he's on the page, he isn't exactly a speed reader anymore."
"The original plan for Flair and Piper to turn on each other at the finish was changed because the company felt too many people knew about it. In other words, they're back to that mentality that they'd rather surprise one percent of the people than do angles that they believe when they formulate them are the best thing for the other 99 percent when it comes to business. Luckily WCW is in a hot position where they can survive that kind of defeatist mentality in that they allow outside forces to change their storylines for them. They'll probably eventually do the angle anyway just because Flair and Piper don't have a program at this point unless it's with each other."
"Rodman was clearly up to speed as he both times referred to Luger as "Lex Luther," the heel character in the Superman comic books."
"Eddie Guerrero watched the match and acted like a heel, and never helped his nephew. Guerrero was doing heel interviews backstage and people were both surprised and thrilled as how good a job he did in his new role."
"After the match Parka literally destroyed Calo with a sickening shot with a plastic chair. Calo legitimately was out backstage for a long time and taken to the hospital where he needed stitches on both his forehead and his nose and may have suffered a concussion. Word we got is that Parka actually felt worse because of guilt."
"Hall, Nash and Savage did an interview and Page was in the crowd and challenged Hall & Savage to a tag match with a mystery partner and looked to the sky to indicate his partner would be Sting."
"For the final quarter hour, in which WCW teased the Hogan & Rodman vs. Luger & Giant match and did the wild angle, WCW peaked at a 4.1, while WWF did a 2.4 for Undertaker & Johnson vs. Kama & Faarooq match and angle."
"The 8/9 PPV show has been renamed Road Wild instead of Hog Wild because HOG is a registered mark of the Harley Owners Group and they were causing legal problems over WCW using the name."
"Taylor wanted to book Jericho to beat Syxx for the cruiserweight belt a few weeks back but the title change wasn't nixed, but it was postponed, so it should happen sometime soon. The feeling from the NWO is that since Syxx had just done the big job in Charlotte, they wanted him to get a few wins like the Misterio Jr. one on Nitro to build his heat back up before the "upset" loss of the title."
"At the 6/6 show in Buffalo, Jim Kelly, unbeknownst to Savage, after causing him to lose to Page, dropped a series of elbows on him."
June 30, 97
"It seems that fans are now thinking the way to end the show is to throw garbage, and when they book big buildings like this, the chance of a front row fan getting nailed with a bottle that doesn't quite make it to the ring is fairly decent and they really need to exercise some crowd control before a major problem occurs."
"Buddy Landel was scheduled for a try-out on 6/24 at the TV tapings in Dalton, GA for a possible role as the NWO Nature Boy."
"It's almost a certainty that the mystery partner for Page will be Curt Hennig, although it hasn't been decided whether or not Hennig will turn on Page and join NWO or stay with him and work a program with the Outsiders. They're bringing Hennig in under bad circumstances because after Sting did the run-in at Nitro, everyone is expecting him to be Page's partner and since they've been waiting to see him in a match for eight months, when it won't be him, even with a big-name newcomer, it'll be a letdown to a lot of people which isn't what a surprise is supposed to be (although in the WWF, that's what surprises have ended up being)."
"WCW is still working on Mike Tyson appearing at the Las Vegas Nitro but with his fight two days earlier, it probably won't be a definite until the last minute."
"The E-3 video games conference was held this past week in Atlanta and WCW finally got to do something it's been wanting to do for years, present pro wrestling at the Atrium at CNN Center. They held matches from 6/19 to 6/21 featuring people like Wrath, Chip Minton, Bobby Walker, High Voltage, Billy Kidman, Ice Train and Mortis and had as many as 1,200 people watching from the convention during the lunch break on 6/19."
"WCW ran a five-show German tour from 6/18 to 6/22 which they played down because the feeling ahead of time is that it would be a disaster....Sting never wrestled, but every night after the Hall & Nash vs. Giant & Luger matches which ended with NWO outside interference DQ's, Sting made a grand entrance save, usually the power failure and lights go on and he's in the ring.... The "retired" Madusa worked with Luna Vachon every night."
"The 6/22 Chicago Sun-Times, which one week earlier ran a special WCW section leading to Nitro, ran a follow up backstage story called "Inside the inner sanctum" by Larry Hamel talking about behind the scenes gossip from the Nitro in Chicago. It talks about Glacier, Wrath and Mortis being together out of gimmick planning out their spots. It talks about booker Terry Taylor grabbing Konnan and screaming at him that this isn't Mexico because a fan got hurt when Super Calo did his flip tope and wound up in the stands and later a building Usher said that a kid broke his arm and they wanted to know if WCW had insurance to cover it. Page showed his wounds from the Savage match the night before and said that Hall dropped him on the finish and knocked him half silly. It talked about Luger, Giant, Rodman and Hogan huddling together to talk over their angle and after the angle Giant praising Rodman telling him how proud he was of him because when he was getting pounded on by Rodman, he didn't feel a thing."