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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 14, 2021 18:11:45 GMT -5
No clue who the Scorpion is? You and WCW alike, Dave.
And I am sure we'll never hear any more about that 6'7" bouncer after this.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2021 4:14:45 GMT -5
Aug 20, 90
"The Meadowlands show had a $65,000 advance as of the last word I'd received, which is about 4,500 tickets. That's decent. The NWA's history in New York has been that the advances always look strong because they do have the hardcore following, but the late buys are comparatively weak because of the comparatively weak "casual" buys, of people who decide at the last minute to attend. I'd say that a gate of anywhere from $100,000 to $120,000 would be termed acceptable. The first Meadowlands show did about $130,000 and if this show approaches that one (and the advance on that one was something like $100,000 two weeks out but tickets slowed at the end), it would have to be termed a success"
"The WWF will push hard to keep the NWA out of the Meadowlands and its last two shows have done $201,000 (which is the largest gate for any arena in North America since Wrestlemania) and $128,000, so the Meadowlands is the WWF's hottest building at present (partially since Madison Square Garden has been closed all summer). If the NWA can't justify its existence in the market with gates at least in the ballpark, the WWF can threaten a power play with the building (threaten to pull out of the building if they book what they term a competing event in the same building) and has the leverage to win out"
"To make matters worse for the NWA, its television show didn't air on WPIX in New York this past Saturday due to a production screw-up on the NWA side, at least that is what has been reported. This is probably the single least opportune time for such a screw-up, but these things are the difference between a successful company and one that just exists from one day to the next."
"Why a promotion which already has three pushed heel tag teams all under contract needs to try-out three new ones on a national show doesn't seem to make sense. And really, of the three (Nasty Boys, Maximum Overdrive and Master Blasters), two appear to be in for more than one shot as Nasty Boys are booked for tonight's TV taping and Master Blasters are booked full-time after the Clash on road shows (mainly against Mike Rotunda & Tim Horner which means they'll be put over)"
"Just what the NWA needs to maintain its lone superiority point over Titan is to bring in guys who can't put on good matches"
"Nobody even seems to know who the Master Blasters are other than it's a vehicle to debut this guy who they are billing as 6-10 (I'm told he's really 6-7 but every bit as muscular as Sid Vicious) that they found as a bouncer at an Atlanta strip club"
"Sting vs. Black Scorpion is obviously a way to give Sting a clean win and allow Sid Vicious to do his run-in and leave Sting laying. The company apparently doesn't even have one mid-level heel they could put in that spot and put the world champion over so instead they are bringing this surprise masked man in"
"Debuting Terry Taylor on the losing side of a bad opening tag match will hardly remove the "jobber" image Vince McMahon gave the guy, and what's the point of even bringing the guy in if he's going to be as important to the NWA as he was to the WWF?"
"You lose Rick Steamboat, Terry Funk, Muta, Dr. Death, Terry Gordy, Road Warriors, Dan Spivey, Shane Douglas and have their places taken by Mean Mark, JFD, El Gigante, Paul Orndorff, Arn Anderson, Southern Boys, Rock & Roll Express and Barry Windham and you see a company that isn't making progress."
"Some of the losses were inevitable, such as the Road Warriors, whose value in their minds and in Jim Herd's mind were so far apart that no compromise was going to occur, or Williams & Gordy who simply earn too much money in Japan for the NWA to keep them because they'd have to pay them more than their value at the box office. Douglas and Spivey the company probably had no choice. Steamboat, Muta and Funk are different cases entirely, which have been brought up over and over again. But the point is, while some of the additions have been successful, the crew as a whole is not nearly as strong now as it was a year ago"
"Of the big three (Sting, Flair and Luger), one can question if in the ring any are as good as they were one year ago. Sting was spectacular then, and because of injuries, hasn't come close to that form. Luger works far better as a heel. Flair was coming off the greatest matches of his career because he had an opponent of his calibre, rather than simply having to carry people to the same very good match night-after-night"
"The one feather in Ole Anderson's cap is that the "B" team shows have done more consistent business. Not good business. You'd even have to stretch to call it decent, but is has improved and that's all you can ask for. And the improvement is not through hot-shot angles which give false-highs (such as the umpteen turns before Anderson was booker which would help crowds in the short run and confuse them in the long run)"
"The "A" shows are up a little, but remember the starting point we are talking about is an all-time low. And Flair vs. Sting rematches should draw. Sting's return should have drawn far better than it did but that problem is the company, again out of desperation, greatly overexposed Sting on television while he wasn't wrestling, so he was never "gone" to have a "comeback." "
"I can't help but believe the practice of advertising title matches on television, not announcing in the houses they are non-title, having the "challengers" win and not switching the belts will long-term do a lot more harm than good"
"The push of Sid Vicious is being done well on TV, but he never wins at the arenas, which the monster heel has to do leading up to the big show."
"Cable ratings have been good for this time of the year. In fact, far better than last summer. The reason isn't so much product quality, which isn't as good, but that Jim Herd has been able to get TBS to keep the shows in their time slots with a lot more frequency this summer as compared to last year, when shows aired at almost any time but their scheduled slot almost every week. But the ratings are nowhere even close to what they were six months ago"
"It seems there is too much plugging of coming up next, coming up on Sunday, coming up next Friday, etc. and not enough getting the personalities over. Maybe that's why none of the personalities are over to the point where they can sell tickets"
"They want characters for kids, yet either don't put those characters on television, or they don't work their gimmick. Is their a single more ridiculous gimmick than Brad Armstrong's Candyman routine? Has anyone ever seen him give out candy? No, they just tell us he does it which is a whole lot less effective than him doing it"
"Some controversy about whether or not Larry Zbyszko will be coming in. Apparently there are strong internal arguments on both sides. Word I've got of late is Zbyszko won't be coming in although before this goes to press we'll have a report from the TV taping, to know for sure. There are two sides. One side, and I'm not sure who is definitely behind it but believe Ole Anderson to be of this thought, wanted Zbyszko in and to be billed as AWA champion. The other side, which I believe is Jim Herd, didn't want anyone but Sting called World champion on the NWA television show. In this case, my feeling is Herd is correct"
"Doug Furnas has left for Japan and isn't expected back soon. He is being billed on shows anyway teaming with Brad Armstrong against Midnight Express and Brad Anderson is taking his place"
"Jim Herd and Ole Anderson aren't seeing eye-to-eye about usage of older talent like Bob Armstrong, Buddy Roberts, Ivan Koloff and even Stan Hansen. Bob Armstrong is only working the Clash, Roberts is working some TV's and the Clash. I haven't seen Koloff's name on future house shows but he did work around the horn this weekend since Ron Simmons wasn't available"
"Simmons went on vacation. Apparently he had a contract clause giving him two weeks vacation and he cleared that he was taking off until this coming weekend although the lines of communication aren't so good at times so lots of people who should have known he wasn't working didn't know"
"Tom Zenk also missed this past weekend. Don't know the situation there, although there are problems there as well. Zenk was fined $2,500 back in May for no-showing a date in Chicago. Since no-showing at that time, and even now, was somewhat of a frequent occurrence without fines anywhere near that level, Zenk's lawyer protested to management. This hasn't been resolved as far as I know"
"This past Tuesday, Sting was at a video convention in Las Vegas. Problem was, the Turner group advertised him for four days, but because he had wrestling commitments through Monday, he could only be there on Tuesday. So lots of ads saying Sting would be there on Tuesday. On Tuesday there's a huge line. Bigger than for the WWF wrestlers like Hogan and Warrior. Only problem is, the people in line thought they were going to see Sting the rock star, and most didn't even know who Sting the wrestler was. The line kept thinning out when people who had waited saw it wasn't who they thought it would be"
"Zbyszko didn't appear at TV 8/13 nor will he work for the NWA after all. Basically the described situation plus Verne Gagne insisted on being on TBS to promote himself and his promotion"
"Current NWA policy appears to be to put the babyfaces hand up at the end of the night without a screw-job finish. The only problem is, when heels have belts in the main event that means the match either has to have a screw-job finish or be non-title. Being non-title is now the decision of choice above screw-job finish. Of course, this way it's still a screw-job finish in another way"
Aug 27, 90
"Black Scorpion, whomever he turns out to be, will be working with Sting more than just at the Clash. In fact, Sting vs. Black Scorpion will headline at the house shows for the entire month of September instead of the originally talked about Sting vs. Barry Windham. There are many who say Black Scorpion will be Sid Vicious, which makes sense as far as how television is building, but Vicious is booked in different cities than Scorpion often in September. Of course Ole may want to kay-fabe the office which is always productive for a company to go in one direction with everyone keeping secrets from everyone else"
"Beetlejuice starts with the NWA on 9/18. While nobody is saying that it's Art Barr, Art's father has told people in Oregon that his son was going to be going to the NWA so I'm 90 percent sure that's who it is"
"No idea on who the second Master Blaster is going to be, but whomever he is will be working full-time and being put over because they want to push the partner right off the bat. Ricky Rice was asked by the NWA if he wanted to shave his head into a mohawk, which I understood as what the promotion wanted for the second Master Blaster, but Rice wants to be Ricky "The Prophet" Rice so he turned down the gig"
"Thunderbolt Patterson is going to be managing the Steiners, but probably just in Georgia. That sure makes sense to me"
"Several Doom vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson matches in about four weeks"
"Midnight Express vs. Freebirds 9/20 in Raleigh, NC for no apparent reason"
"Here's the story on Tom Zenk. The reason he missed the shows last weekend was simply to attend Johnny Ace's wedding, something that had been cleared with the office months earlier. That also explains why he, Ricky Morton, Ron Simmons and Doug Furnas were all booked on shows last weekend when it was well-known in advance (or I should say should have been well-known since all had gotten the time off but with the communication problems within the company there is a very good chance the bookers didn't know it and didn't advertise guys they knew weren't going to be there, but this doesn't say much for the company as a whole) they weren't going to be there. Things like that are what keep people from returning even when the action itself on the card is good"
"Some heat because the company hired a bodybuilder and put Sting's head on the guy's body for newspaper ads, since it basically says Sting's body wasn't good enough for the ads"
"Don't have the results, but the company got some rejuvenation when the Sting vs. Flair show on 8/17 in Jacksonville, FL drew a $68,000 house, which is one of the largest of the year for the company and one without any explanation like it was a major hyped show or in a huge market"
"Since the WPIX show didn't air last weekend, the New York tickets slowed down to a crawl and advance was $68,000 as of Friday, or just $3,000 in business during the past week. Looks like it'll be tough to hit that magic $100,000 market and there may only be 6,000 to 7,000 in the building unless it picks up this week"
"The combined gate for "A" team shows (with Sting and Flair on top in either singles or tags) in Detroit, Battle Creek, Toledo and Cleveland was just over $50,000 which is worse than horrible, which I guess explains why Jacksonville and the Omni look so impressive. The reason is obvious, however. When the angles involve so many regional values, it's obvious they'll play well in those regions and have little impact outside the region"
"The angle where Sid Vicious was "supposed" to leave five guys laying on TBS was completely botched up on the air. Right after they went to the break Sid laid out Bobby Eaton (and as it turned out, since Sid waited too long to get out of the ring, Bobby jumped on Sid again but that was supposed to be after the cameras went off, but as it turned out, the cameras went off with Bobby and Sid slugging it out). The whole idea of the angle to get Sid over as a monster was destroyed when the director cut away as he and Bobby were going at it so the impact of Sid destroying five guys wasn’t there and instead what people remember is that Bobby was standing toe-to-toe with the "monster heel" which makes him something less than a monster"
"Jim Ross does a good job, of course, but he is constantly trying to get a line of the week off. Also, his strength, giving background of the guys, is now almost non-existent. A wrestler with the storied background of Ivan Koloff was simply called "a real ring veteran." "
"All those 30 second interviews are a waste. With so many, none have impact. Even the great talkers like Cornette and Anderson (and speaking of Arn, where is Ole these days? The guy should be doing Sid's interviews with him because he'll get all the key points over and Sid's interviews come across just like any other guys)—oh, back to Cornette and Arn, their interviews have no impact unless they have time to say something. A few lengthy interviews that explain the issues slowly enough for the non-hardcores to understand would be beneficial for the major issues. And they make for better television than eight minute squash matches with the likes of Ivan Koloff or Jackie Fulton"
"While pro wrestling is a work, the wrestlers shouldn't act like it. When Scott Steiner beat Dutch Mantell after he had messed up several spots including the finish, Scott walked out of the ring like he had lost. While he screwed up moves, if it's a shoot, he should be "happy" leaving? the ring that he won and not act mad at least until he's in the dressing room"
"There is no reason for a wrestler to have two squash matches in one TV show like Luger and Sid did. It makes it look like the promotion doesn't bring enough wrestlers to do a television show"
"Those mentions of Zbyszko should have never aired and that Vader clip with no announcing should have never aired in that fashion. Cornette did an interview after the Vader clip talking about the match with Zenk & Pillman "coming up" which had aired 20 minutes earlier. I believe it was the same 30 second clip that aired in the keyed up box at the beginning of the match as well"
"Sting's lone interview should not have been with four other faces. For Sting to make it as the star he has to be singular, not part of a pack. Hogan would never do an interview with four guys around him except building for the Survivor Series because it's a 10-man tag. If they have 10-man tags booked, then it's fine, but when Sting vs. Flair is headlining the house shows, Sting should be by himself on interviews. So should Flair, but I figure the latter is already a dead issue"
"With all the talk of bringing in new faces and gimmick performers, they should check out Bob Holly. While Holly isn't sure if he's Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels or Bobby Eaton (but at least he's copying them, he could copy JFD or Sid or Bravo's style), he's a good looking, young (isn't that the word of emphasis these days) guy with good ability and would probably turn into a very good worker with regular work. I'd rather see them find a gimmick for him then just pull these guys off the street and try and teach them to be wrestlers"
"Technically Holly's match with Jackie Fulton wasn't bad, even though Jackie is still pretty green, but nearly nine minutes was too long for an audience not "into" either man. Too bad, because the work itself was better than most TV bouts"
"What happened to running the gauntlet?"
"Brad Anderson is going to Portland and Ole & Arn did interviews for Don Owen's TV talking about him being part of the original Anderson family"
"Paul Orndorff gave notice and his last night will be 9/16, so there won't be a heel turn after all. The guess is he simply was tired of the travel and wanted to spend more time at home and pick when he wanted to work indies"
"Muta's problems were many. He was ineffective as a draw as a heel but he himself, possibly because of Gary Hart, actually probably because it would have probably meant the end for Hart if he had turned, didn’t want to turn. He was also upset about getting zero points in Starrcade after he hadn't had to do a job for something like eight months. When he was finally going to be turned, he quit, and he's now a big star in Japan and probably has little desire to return"
"Kerry Von Erich was pursued and in fact booked for two television tapings, both of which he no-showed. He'd have received a big push had he come in and might have gotten over. He was the one who didn't show up"
"Rhodes left the NWA in early 1989 when his contract expired. He was earning something like $585,000 a year from Jim Crockett as booker-wrestler. When TBS took over, Rhodes, who originally was going to be kept as booker, did a few things that he was expressly told not to do, no-showed several dates, and was dumped as booker. TBS offered him somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000 per year to stay, but he didn't want to stay and not be boss anymore and went to Florida where his great drawing power would turn the local Florida promotion into a force. When crowds, after Dusty's first appearance in each city, were no larger than they were before he got there, he quickly abandoned the group, leaving numerous debts in his wake, and went to Titan Sports"
"As far as I know, Mean Mark isn't under contract which means he could be lured away"
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 15, 2021 16:16:44 GMT -5
Mean Mark lured away? I'm sure it wouldn't be a big deal.
Yeah I can't see Hogan getting big by being surrounded by 4 or more guys either.
Armstrong was never seen giving out candy? So...another Wrestlecrap invention?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2021 4:42:28 GMT -5
Sept 3, 90
"Rick & Scott Steiner won the U.S. tag team titles from the Midnight Express in 15:41. Just like at almost every NWA show I've seen this year, a dead crowd (and this crowd was dead up until this point) woke up when the Express came out. For the life of me I can't see why they've been buried the way they've been"
"Stan Hansen pinned Terry Taylor with the lariat in 4:43. It was interesting, since-when Taylor came out, there were no Rooster comments or Rooster yells. This was scheduled as Tommy Rich, but Rich hurt his neck last week courtesy of Stan's gentle ring style. Nobody complained about the change, in fact the crowd seemed thrilled. Stan jumped him at the bell and just annihilated him with really stiff moves and pinned him clean. After the match Hansen continued to abuse Taylor choking with the rope and hitting him with the bell and decked the ref, then threw Taylor over a few tables. When the match was over and Taylor so established as a jobber since he got virtually no offense and was pinned so cleanly, there were a lot of "Go back to the WWF" and Rooster comments"
"The whole match was built up to Sid vs. Gigante. They finally got it, did a test of strength with Gigante getting a slight advantage but Sid not selling the advantage. They went into the corner, Gigante threw a lame-looking punch and the place groaned, but Sid didn't sell the punch one bit and the place popped big again for him. Then Sid tagged out and people booed"
"This was one of the "smartest" wrestling crowds I've ever seen in the U.S. judging from the reactions since they popped for the solid work and cheered heels as much as the faces"
"Dangerously worked so hard at ringside that his voice was hoarse after the match when he yelled that he was never coming back to New Jersey. The thing didn't get a big pop because Mantell had said the same thing after losing the opener"
"A guy next to me pointed at Doom and told his friend that he remembers them when they were WWF tag team champions in 1983 (that was Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas), which was the comment of the night"
"Sting pinned Ric Flair in 26:07 to keep the NWA world title. Flair got a standing ovation and virtually all cheers. Sting came out and got all cheers as well, although his cheers were much louder. Comment from the guy next to me: "I know my wrestling. These guys are tag team partners down south. They probably take their steroids together." At the six minute mark the guy said, "All the other matches are telegraphed but this one's real." At the ten minute mark this brain surgeon told his friend, "He's (pointing at Flair) great. He's the real champ." "
"In the early portion, every time Sting got Flair in a hold the crowd would turn to the dressing room as they expected a run-in and Flair would have to do something immediately to get them back into the match"
"Sting got the scorpion on in mid-ring 25 minutes into the match and everyone again turned to the back "knowing" it was time for the run-in. Of course, that's what happened and the fans actually cheered and some were even waving in Anderson & Windham"
"They announced the next Meadowlands card for January 11, 1991 which got a big groan from everyone since most wanted them back a whole lot sooner"
"The gate was $111,744 which means the crowd was slightly less than 8,000"
"Mean Mark gave his notice at the TV tapings 8/27 in Gainesville, GA. It's been rumored that Mark was WWF bound and there have been talks, but New Japan has been talking with him as well. He was never given a contract and that may have been a major problem since he was the only main eventer not under contract so he was earning less than all the other top guys and even a lot of the prelim guys like Tom Zenk who has been in openers but still earns $3,000 per week"
"Sid Vicious' status is up in the air right now. Vicious got over huge in New York on Friday night, then missed the rest of the weekend claiming a bad back from a bad bump on Friday. The only thing is, he didn't take any bumps on Friday. As of Tuesday, the office was considering it a hold-out"
"Thunderbolt Patterson will only be managing the Steiners at house shows in Georgia and I'm told he won't be put on national television tapings and only do interviews for the Georgia towns. I'm told T-Bolt doesn't mean anything even in Atlanta anymore as they've already exhausted his nostalgia impact by using him so many times. My guess is that as long as they use T-Bolt, he won't campaign against the promotion claiming racism (which the promotion is sensitive about in Atlanta) nor will he campaign for the new wrestling commission which he and Jim Wilson have been pushing for years. T-Bolt stops working for that whenever he's employed but whenever he's unemployed, he goes back to talking about a commission"
"Only competitive matches at the taping (which airs the weekend after the Clash) saw Steiners beat Samoans (who were furious about having to do a job on TV) and Luger beating Windham via count out"
"Art Barr will be coming in under the ring name "The Juicer" but with the same gimmick as in Oregon. The reason is to avoid problems with the people who did the movie Beetlejuice"
"Paul E. Dangerously starts back this coming weekend on the Power Hour-via orders of Jim Herd. Since one of Ole Anderson's first moves as booker was to remove Paul E. from that show, I sense some problems lurking"
Sept 10, 90
"Mean Mark was scheduled to leave effective 9/11 but it ended early as his last match was this past Sunday night in Knoxville. Mark will work for New Japan although he has talked with the WWF and there is a good chance he'll be there sometime in 1991. Mark's spots on all the house shows will be taken by a guy called The Blade Hunter or Blade Runner, I'm not sure which, but it'll be Al Greene"
"Paul Orndorff is supposed to be finishing up in a few days and his spots will be taken by Wendell Cooley. Orndorff was taken off the Clash this week, probably because he wouldn't do the job for Stan Hansen on television and was to be replaced by Tom Zenk, who would"
"Sid Vicious ended his holdout by reaching an agreement with management on Thursday, but missed all his scheduled main event matches over the weekend before returning to work at the TV tapings on Monday night in Gainesville, GA"
"Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane were both fined $500 for missing a TV taping a few weeks back that neither was ever told they were to be on"
"Luger & JFD beat Moondog Rex (Randy Culley) & Mean Mark (bad, heel team both subs for Vicious & Windham)"
"That Master Blasters video was really something, wasn't it. Two sets of boots walking in a junkyard. That had to be the single worst promotional video I've ever seen and it sure made the announcers look bad having to say how impressive two sets of boots walking looked"
"Match between Sting and Mean Mark was so bad that road agent Ron West decided that for 9/2 in Knoxville to instead put Harley Race in the main event with Sting so they could have a good main event match"
"They started the Running the Gauntlet with Brian Pillman. Pillman pinned Tim Horner on Power Hour and Buddy Landel on WCW before losing on ME to Danny Spivey"
"Status of The Juicer is in jeopardy because TBS legal department is worried about a copyright violation because the gimmick is straight out of the Beetlejuice movie and television show and the NWA doesn't have the rights licensed to use the character"
"Bringing in a truckload of Japanese or Mexican wrestlers wouldn't get over at first, although with the right propaganda, almost anything can work to a degree (look at Sapphire and Dino Bravo if you don't believe me). But no, I don't think it will happen. But I can't believe that with the proper promotion, that one or two matches on a show with a guy like Jushin Riger (and remember, lighter Americans should be able to perform as well as the Mexicans and Japanese once the style is exposed to them to copy and refine on their own) wouldn't be a better addition to the show than anything put on the mid-cards right now"
"The WWF shows that are traditional wrestling cards headlined by Hogan vs. whomever in a singles grudge (or last year in the tag grudge with Zeus since they couldn't put the guy in by himself) do far better on PPV than the gimmick shows. Even with Titan's tremendous hyping of its PPV shows, the Royal Rumble does roughly the same business as an NWA PPV show and Survivors, even with the advantage of being on Thanksgiving, doesn't approach the business of Summer Slam. But the WWF, because of its exposure, can do less than its best business and still do profitable shows. The NWA meanwhile doesn't have that base and for shows to do half of what they now do because there is no singular grudge or world title match and rely on a gimmick like a Battle Royal or War Games or tournament, the shows wouldn't be successful. The Starrcade tournament was an attempt at doing something of that type, as the buy rate was awful despite the fact TV ratings at that time of the year were the highest in a few years. A Crockett Cup, which was never that successful considering how much time was spent on promoting it, would probably bomb on PPV just as WWF bombed when it tried the Wrestling Classic (a tournament) on PPV many years back"
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Apr 16, 2021 5:23:17 GMT -5
Master Blasters? Sounds familiar.
*Googles*
Okay, yeah, that one eventually paid off.... emphasis on eventually.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2021 3:39:43 GMT -5
Sept 17, 90
"Clash of the Champions XII turned out to be the most widely-viewed wrestling show in NWA history. It also turned out to be the least well regarded NWA show in recent years. Whether overall that constitutes a positive or a negative depends on your own point of view"
"The big story on the show was the ratings. Overall the show averaged a 5.0 rating, good for 2,760,000 homes, and an 8.4 share. The rating was even more impressive when one considers the Mets vs. Pirates game on ESPN drew a 4.0 rating, which I believe is the highest rated baseball game of the season on the cable network. USA network offered U.S. Open tennis in competition, which drew a 2.7 rating, which is also well above a typical USA Network Wednesday night audience"
"The final two matches (Sting vs. Black Scorpion and Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger) each drew a 6.8 rating, or 3.75 million homes (which translates into well over eight million viewers) which makes them the two most watched matches in the history of cable television (the old record was 3.36 million for last November's Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk match)"
"What this says, basically, is that they created a lot of interest with the Black Scorpion gimmick. Putting Flair vs. Luger on free television probably had a lot to do with it as well. Even though hardcore fans have seen that match several times this year on PPV shows (and house shows), the television audience has only seen them in a singles match once in recent years that I can recall (an impromptu bout on World Wide Wrestling when Flair had his George Washington hairstyle). Most NWA PPV shows draw maybe 200,000 homes, and since the two main matches were in roughly 19 times as many homes, what is old hat to you and me is actually a new match for the vast majority of the viewing audience"
"Of the ten matches, only one would even be labeled as better than average (Flair vs. Luger), which was actually a great match, but not enough to make the show. The main event, even with a unique finish with two Black Scorpions, was a bad match and shooting the double angle (two Black Scorpions followed by the Sid Vicious attack) diluted both angles to the point where neither of them are going to be a big deal in my estimation"
"Right now the promotion basically just wants the preliminary matches to do their time, not to anything fancy, and do their finish. Sounds more like WWF all the time"
"Master Blasters beat Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner in 4:50. The Blasters are definitely big guys. For the life of me I can't understand letting guys make their pro debuts on a show of this calibre. Actually, for their first match, they could have been a lot worse (the taller guy was okay for a first match, smaller guy pretty bad). The whole match move-for-move was worked out ahead of time, which was the safe way of doing it. The taller of the Blasters, who is billed as 6-10 although not as muscularly massive as Sid Vicious, is called Iron. The other guy is Steele. Really just another fifth-rate Road Warrior imitation tag team"
"Stan Hansen pinned Tom Zenk in 3:18 with a lariat. Hansen worked fast and stiff. It was fine given the time limitations since it was all action, but for the life of me if I had a guy who was under contract to earn $156,000 per year (like Zenk is) who is a pretty decent worker, I'd have at least made this a competitive match"
"Destroying Zenk in this fashion when he can mean a little in a tag team with Pillman (which they are putting back together again) and given his contract is about as smart as throwing S3,000 each week into a furnace (not one with big thighs, either)"
"Lex Luger retained the U.S. title beating Ric Flair via disqualification in 14:28. There was more heat in the ring entrances here than in the rest of the card combined. After watching eight subpar matches on a card billed as a major event, the reaction in Asheville to this match before it ever started was amazing. They were ready to pop for even a decent match, and this was a lot better than decent"
"It was funny, because it seemed Jim Ross, and really all the announcers (even Missy Hyatt, who it had to kill to have to praise Flair such levels) were trying to put Flair over as the greatest of all-time to the point he pretty well overshadowed everyone else on the card."
"Sting pinned The Fake Black Scorpion (Al Perez) in 8:10. Bad match for a lot of reasons. First off, the match was supposed to be a start-to-finish brawl, but Perez isn't a good brawler. Second, Perez was told to disguise his ringstyle so his identity wouldn't be known, but his ringstyle isn't well known enough to begin with where it would have made a difference, and he's not versatile enough to change it and still put it together. I had been told ahead of time it would be Perez, and watching the match, I actually believed they had just found some muscular guy with maybe one year's experience because nothing happened"
"At that point a second Black Scorpion (Dave Sheldon/Angel of Death) came up the aisle and we were told that Sheldon was the real Scorpion and this was all mind games. While nobody could understand how Ross would immediately know the other guy is the real Scorpion and how the first guy is a fake, one has to realize that pro wrestling has what we call poetic license in that angles don't have to make the least bit of sense. If I can accept that nobody knows who the Scorpion is, he's never won a match, yet he's getting a world title match on a major show when guys like Flair, Arn Anderson, Barry Windham, Sid Vicious, Stan Hansen, Van Vader, etc. are in the promotion and not in important matches, I can also accept that Ross knew the second Scorpion was the real one and the first one was fake immediately upon completion of the match"
"Tom Zenk filled in for Paul Orndorff who was taken off the card either because he wasn't going to do the job for Hansen on television or because the promotion didn't even bother to ask since he was leaving and just filled Zenk in in the place. That is the downside of not having guys under contract. When they are asked to do jobs, they can just pick up and go"
"Scott Steiner pinned Ric Flair in 11 minutes when Rick Steiner gave Flair a clothesline behind the refs back. My own thought here is that was the correct "upset" result to push Steiner as a singles star (in fact, something that should have been done back in February), but by having his brother help him, it doesn’t have nearly the effect that a clean win would have and still doesn't get him over as an upper echelon singles star"
"In a dark match, Doom beat Midnight Express. With the cameras off, this was just a so-so match. Reed pinned Eaton clean with the clothesline off the top rope while Cornette and Long were fighting outside the ring. Doom played face here, but not strong face and were cheered"
"Stan Hansen destroyed a jobber named Gonzales but was dq'd. Don't know if the guy's name really was Gonzales or if that was an inside joke"
"Another bout with no commentary (Hansen squash) was on WCW this weekend"
"Owen Hart has agreed to start with the NWA in January. Hart is working in Austria and Germany until the end of the month, then to Japan for the early October tour, then to Mexico until mid-November and back to Germany until Christmas. Hart is said to be enthused about coming in and showing what Titan didn't let him show"
"From the new NWA Wrap-up: "Hawk and Animal have left Sting and the NWA. They have decided to pursue their career where the focus is on entertainment rather than wrestling." "
Sept 24, 90
"The line-up, at least as of the weekend (and this is very much subject to change) for the 10/27 PPV show is: 1) Midnight Express vs. Rock & Roll Express; 2) Tommy Rich vs. "Silencer" of Maximum Overdrive (Jeff Warner); 3) Terry Taylor vs. Blade Hunter (Al Greene); 4) Southern Boys vs. Master Blasters; 5) Junkfood Dog vs. Moondog Rex; 6) Freebirds vs. Renegade Warriors (Mark & Chris Youngblood); 7) Steiners vs. Nasty Boys for U.S. tag team title; 8) Doom vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson for NWA tag team title; 9) Lex Luger vs. Stan Hansen for U.S. title; 10) Sting vs. Sid Vicious for NWA title"
"This line-up makes it more than obvious that the NWA is trying to phase down the guys under contract and replace them with cheaper and less experienced talent. For example, on this card, the Midnights, who have contracts, are phased down to the opener with mainly non-contract guys in the second through seventh match. Pillman & Zenk aren't even on the show, neither are Norman or Sheik, all of whom have a six-figure guaranteed contract"
"The idea is obviously with the exception of Sting, Luger, Vicious and to a lesser extent Flair, Steiners, Doom and maybe Arn Anderson, to make sure the contract guys don't get hot or have any noticeable following so when they are cut loose at the end of the contract it isn't a loss. So that is the business reason for these unknowns being pushed, simply because even though the NWA is committed to paying the other guys anyway, the new guys will work cheaper in 1991"
"The NWA had also decided to not allow its talent to appear on Arezzi's wrestling radio show anymore. Several NWA wrestlers have appeared, in particular Paul E. Dangerously, who has been on the show numerous times. Dangerously booked himself on the show and didn't go through the office, but the company doesn't want him appearing on the show anymore, although a breakthrough may have occurred since mid-week"
"The convention promoters had set it up for Sting to charge $6 per autograph and Sting refused to allow them to charge, citing WCW policy against its wrestlers charging for autographs, but the next day Dangerously was there charging $4 per autograph. The reason is because Dangerously booked himself to the convention and it didn't go through the company. In fact, the company didn't even know he was going to appear and apparently he won't be allowed to charge for autographs in the future"
"There was an athletic commission meeting held last month in Oregon to discuss the fate of Art Barr (Beetlejuice). After a lengthy discussion, the commission decided it would be a sticky situation if they revoked his license (head commissioner Bruce Anderson wanted to because of the rape charge). It was decided no action would be taken since he wasn't working the territory currently anyway. But in the hearing it came out that Barr has a 1986 felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance and since Barr, on his wrestling license, said he had no prior convictions, it was pretty well decided that since he lied on his application combined with everything else that his license won't be renewed so he won't be able to return"
"Art Barr debuted as The Juicer and they had some kids painted up to dance with him and like him. One person said he did great, the other said he did fair. He's awfully small (175 pounds) for this circuit but he is good inside the ring although he doesn't like to sell and for someone that small in this company, that won't work"
"This past week was just about the worst week as far as attendance thus far. Ironically this comes on the heels of a Clash which drew the largest TV audience the group has ever drawn. That either means all those people seeing the Clash have no interest in house shows, or the Clash was so bad that it's kept people home from NWA events"
"NWA made a play to use Big Van Vader full-time but he's under contract with New Japan so it'll be in-and-out"
"Doom was invited back on BET after their showing a few weeks back. Actually after seeing it all, thought Reed & Simmons did well and Long's rap was very good but that didn't seem to be what the host wanted. Simmons seemed a little mad when it was asked when they were going to try and beat the big stars in the WWF"
"It's virtually impossible right now to get any NWA wrestlers on Larry King because Turner's companies are overly conscientious about covering something in a sister company unless a case can be made that it's "news" rather than just publicizing unknowns from within the same organization. Arsenio Hall won't book any wrestlers not from WWF because WWF has threatened to pull its wrestlers from the show if they do and Hall likes them as guests. Ditto Regis Philbin & Cathie Lee, who the NWA actually had booked wrestlers on, then had the booking pulled when Vince threatened not to let his guys on anymore and Philbin loves working with the WWF. Probably a similar scenario happened to me when I was contacted by that show about being a guest and then canceled"
"Sting, Brian Pillman, Brad Armstrong, Tom Zenk and Jim Ross did Family Feud taping this past week and beat Glow girls all five shows. That doesn't surprise me. If they could win four of five with the Steiners, then adding Ross to the squad along with the rest should have made it a cakewalk"
"Stan Lane has apparently cleared up whatever problems caused him to be not allowed to wrestle in Florida these past few years, so he should actually show up on these next set of Florida dates"
"Sting pinned Ric Flair in 16 minutes *** (good but not one of their better matches. A fan dressed up as the Black Scorpion and walked to ringside and fans thought it was part of the show so it took heat away from the match)"
"The short Master Blaster has already quit. No word on the tall one but they'll probably have to come up with a new gimmick for him"
"Nasty Boys in full-time now, probably to take Master Blasters scheduled shots"
"Bobby Eaton ran the gauntlet on the 9/17 tapings (airing 9/28 to 9/30). On Power Hour he beat Tracy Smothers when Cornette interfered (not as good as it sounds on paper but still good), WCW saw him go to a 15 minute draw with Ricky Morton, then they went into sudden death and Eaton won when Lane interfered (best match at the tapings) and finally he loses to Vicious in four minutes with Vicious not selling a thing"
"The Danger Zone that airs Sunday with Teddy Long was a last minute impromptu thing. Originally a Zone was taped with Jim Cornette and when he and Paul E. were talking Cornette told Paul E. to shut up because he needs to save his wind to blow up his date tonight. Anyway, Ross, who oversees the television shows, told him to do the interview again without that line and Cornette walked out on the interview. Apparently Cornette was mad because he'd been asked to come up with an angle to start a program with the Steiners, and he came up with a tar and feather angle where they tar and feather Rick, but Jim Herd nixed the idea and as it turned out, the entire program has been nixed as well"
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2021 4:49:15 GMT -5
Oct 1, 90
"NWA Pro had Nasty Boys beating Tommy Rich & jobber when the power in the truck went out (how come this happens regularly at NWA tapings yet I've never heard of it at a WWF taping?) and they had to stop the show for 20 minutes and re-do the match when they got the power back"
"New taping policy takes effect in early October. Haven't been given an exact explanation, but all TBS shows will be taped every other Tuesday back at Center Stage in Atlanta starting 10/9. I believe syndicated tapings will take place on alternate Monday's, but they will tape four weeks worth of, for instance, World Wide shows on a Monday at a local arena for a month's worth of shows and then two weeks later tape four weeks worth of NWA Pro. For a group which makes so many changes in mid-stream, taping that far ahead sounds like a recipe for appearing even more disorganized on television"
"The Blade Hunter (Al Greene) is now part of the Master Blasters tag team with the tall guy. The short guy walked out and took the bus home from Detroit just one day before if he stuck it out that he had a plane ticket back home to Atlanta"
"Told gauntlet will be done every now and then from this point forward, not on a weekly basis"
"Thunderbolt Patterson worked in front of the cameras this week as the manager of the Steiners"
"Samoan Swat Team quit. It had been brewing for some time"
"9/20 in Raleigh drew 580"
Oct 8, 90
"Somehow I forgot to mention last week what happened to Tony Zane as Black Scorpion. He did the angle that was on television this past weekend, then was arrested on a marijuana charge in the parking lot before that same TV taping was over and was taken to jail"
"The NWA shot two angles at the house show on 9/30 in Chicago, with the Steiner Brothers being attacked and left laying and bloodied during a contract signing by the Nasty Boys, and Sid Vicious bloodying up and leaving Sting laying after Sting defeated another Black Scorpion in less than 90 seconds. There was a good deal of heat coming off the two angles and I'm told that ringside is already sold out"
"Buddy Landel was fired over missing two shows but then re-hired within a day"
"Simmons got potatoed on a dropkick by Robert Gibson 9/29 in Nassau and it drove his teeth into his gums and he needed dental work so is out of action right now"
"Horner pinned Mario Savoldi (actually Ted "Cheetah Kid" Petty without the hood using the name of the ICW promoter as a rib)"
"Master Blaster Steele pinned Tom Zenk in two minutes (basically it appears they are trying to get Zenk to quit and he hasn't yet so they are turning up the pressure)"
"Juicer looks good in the ring doing some nice moves. As for making him a hero to the kids, well, why waste time talking reality when it has nothing to do with the business"
"As the WWF is going back to localized interviews in major markets, NWA is giving up localized and going back to the generics"
"How did you like that NWA top ten singles this past week? No Scott Steiner after he beat Eaton, Flair and Anderson in a row, even tho Flair is still No. 3 and Anderson No. 4. Top ten in and of itself isn't a bad idea, but the way it's being utilized is so utterly stupid that they just make fools of themselves every time they list it on the screen"
"NWA Main Event this past Sunday opened with the wrong tape (instead were putting on syndicated version of the show the week before) but after the commercial, the mistake was corrected"
"Samoan Swat Team is back (that only took two weeks this time)"
"Ron Simmons worked and had a plate in his mouth"
"10/14 Omni has Flair & Arn vs. Doom in no DQ on top and Eaton vs. Vicious in a taped fist match. Originally the Omni was to run 10/20 (in fact, on TBS this weekend they were plugging the 20th as the next date) and at the last show, when the 20th was announced as next date, they ran an in-house angle to set up Sting & Luger vs. Hansen & Vicious. But with the date change, for whatever reason, that match isn't available (Hansen probably still in Japan) and I believe they are sending Sting to Key West High School for a show the same night"
"Scorpion was changed from Culley to Irwin because people picked up a chant of Moondog Rex in Baltimore during the main event"
"The WWF has the advantage of everything being done post-production and also the good sense to cut and start from scratch if somebody makes a glaring error whereas TBS, because of time problems, rarely does a second take"
Oct 15, 90
"Thunderbolt Patterson is apparently history because he walked out of the taping last Monday in a huff. The Steiners refused to go out to the ring with Patterson for a second week in a row so all the time they've been building up this role went for naught and there was no role for Patterson who will probably lobby to form a wrestling commission unless they find a new role to pacify him"
"It appears that Starrcade on 12/16 in St. Louis will have a tag team tournament similar to the old Crockett Cup, but obviously with a different name. The tournament will take place and Sting vs. Black Scorpion will headline and apparently Lex Luger vs. Stan Hansen will be the only other non-tournament match on the show. Pretty smart to put a tournament on PPV since every tournament ever on PPV has flopped when it comes to buy rates except the WM tournament, and that was a major disappointment as well. All the Crockett Cups were excellent tournaments (well, at least the final night, the opening nights were all pretty dull) but all were also disappointments at the box office"
"Tiny Lister (Zeus) talked with the NWA but the two sides didn't come to an agreement. He couldn't work as Zeus if he came in. And just think what a problem the guy must have been in the WWF when you consider how much time they spent pushing him and how quickly they dropped him"
"Samoans are gone once again. Apparently they worked last week's television tapings because of a prior agreement but that didn't constitute them returning"
"Robert Gibson blew out his knee after coming back too soon from his ankle injury. They're hopeful of him being back for Halloween Havoc"
"Tickets for Center Stage are $4 this time around instead of free as they were last year. Basic idea is if fans pay for the show, they won't be as apt to wander in and out as they did last year at Center Stage tapings"
"Jim Herd has banned some newsstand magazines from shooting photos at ringside at NWA matches. The mags banned were ones which had advertising unacceptable for kids. Herd's reasoning behind this is that since they are marketing their product for kids with Sting as champion, that they don't want photos of Sting (which would then cause kids to buy the mag) in magazines with that kind of advertising. Not saying I agree or disagree on the point, can see it both ways, but there's something about having this high moral stand and then hiring Art Barr to be a hero to kids. Barr is a good worker, which certainly isn't the point these days in this country for anything, but I can't help but get a negative feeling everytime I hear the announcers trying to push him as a hero to kids and a Pied Piper"
"The most excitement is that during a Mike Rotunda vs. Death Row (the 400 pound black jobber) squash match, somehow things got out of hand and it wound up breaking into a legit brawl in the dressing room with the other wrestlers having to pull them apart but not before some solid shots were thrown including Death Row biting Rotunda in the shoulder"
"It appears from the way November NWA bookings are shaping up that Jim Ross is wielding a pretty heavy influence since they are bringing in a patriotic tag team and new big green heels, which is how Bill Watts used to run things. Sometimes they worked (Jim Duggan, Barry Darsow) and sometimes they didn't (Kevin Kelly, Jeff Van Kamp/Humongous, John Nord)"
A letter from an NWA employee in the Oct 15 issue
"Things are great here. I've worked before 139, 129 and 212 people at house shows of late. In San Antonio, after they paid the security, the police and the ticket box, they got a check back for $6. Then they spent $15 to fed-ex the check back to Atlanta.
They are bringing in and pushing guys who have never worked on live national television. They had the Indian guy (Alan Iron Eagle) laying in the hallway two minutes before his television match teaching him how to do an Indian Deathlock. He had only had 23 matches in his entire career. Tony Zane went out in the parking lot after doing an angle with Sting and got busted. They handcuffed him and towed away his car in front of a lot of fans. I was told the actual paid house that night in Marietta was $200. The rest were freebies and there weren't many of them.
We were told Ole was supposed to be the booker who will put rear ends in our arenas. Right. Any fool can get decent TV ratings in 1990 when you put Sting, Ric Flair and Lex Luger on television every week. And our cable ratings are nothing special. Our syndication ratings totally stink and that's no secret. If the Detroit Red Wings weren't winning, would they bring back Gordie Howe? If the Lakers weren't winning, would they bring back Wilt? If the Red Sox weren't winning, would they bring back Yaz? No, and it doesn't work that way in wrestling either. Guys who are too green, too old or are simply 6-foot-8 or more seem to be the only guys getting a push here.
Did you catch the new TBS sports commercial they plug about every five minutes? T-The B-Best S-Sports. They plug SEC football, NASCAR racing, the Braves and the Hawks. Not even one clip or mention of the NWA. Someone should have included wrestling if the company cared about it"
Name withheld by request
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Post by jason1980s on Apr 18, 2021 7:49:52 GMT -5
I would say that Mean Mark and the tall Master Blaster wound up being the most famous of all WCW wrestlers from the time period we are reading about, other than maybe Ric Flair and I would say Undertaker is probably even more famous than Flair to non wrestling fans.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2021 5:06:15 GMT -5
Oct 22, 90
"While there are Titan employees who may be talking either formally or informally, and it's no secret that Bobby Heenan seriously negotiated with Jim Herd a few weeks back (most in Titan seem to feel that Heenan is staying, but he's definitely in the doghouse because he was negotiating to leave), the Turner organization is feeling its own financial strain coming off the multi-million dollar losses of the Goodwill Games"
"Barry Windham still hasn't had any conversations with the company since he left with a legit (company doctors examined him) injury. Company probably has stopped paying him to smoke him out but still no word so everyone assumes he's history"
"Seems Jim Ross doesn't have as much influence right now as I surmised. He and Schiavone put together the TV shows but it's still within the Ole Anderson booking framework"
"Master Blaster Steele is auditioning for a part in the next Ninja turtles movie"
"Robert Gibson will be out of action for six to eight months. He's undergoing major surgery on Tuesday for a torn cartilage, torn ligament and sprained knee ligaments. Rich & Morton will become a team while Gibson is out. Gibson will go on the road on crutches as soon as possible because since he's not under contract, he doesn't get paid when he's not working. Freebirds will be "blamed" for the injury so Rich & Morton vs Freebirds will become a feud which drops the Youngbloods thing cold"
"Steiners beat Midnights to "win" tag titles (it was announced Midnights won the belts in St. Louis the previous Monday, came in with belts and Steiners "won belts" so fans in the building could think they saw a title change at the house show—the announcement was made like this because it was thought Sting wouldn't make it and so they wanted to send fans home happy thinking they'd seen a title change)"
"Memo sent to the wrestlers. Heavy fines for anyone who arrives late to the building and heavier fines for no-shows"
"The Sunday Rock & Roll vs. Flair & Anderson match was one of the most depressing bouts I've ever seen. To see those four guys work before 100 fans, get almost no heat even though technically there was nothing wrong with the match just says something. And to see that open the TV show and Luger vs. Moondog billed as a main event is sad as well"
Oct 29, 90
"Jim Cornette made the front page of the Altoona Mirror newspaper on Saturday after an incident the previous night at the Jaffa Mosque. According to several who were present in the building, a fan, named Mark Williams, jumped the guard rail during a match between the Midnight Express and the Steiner brothers. Bobby Eaton caught and tied up the fan, and Cornette hit him square in the face with his tennis racquet and split him open. Cornette went for a second swing and Eaton motioned him off"
"While those type of incidents aren't completely rare in wrestling, the aftermath was unexpected. First, the security in the building didn't kick Williams out of the building, and he returned to ringside covered with blood, and the crowd took to him as a babyface as he got up from his ringside seat and continued to harass the heels. Finally, he was kicked out of the building but apparently some fans in the building called police and eight police officers came to the building to question the wrestlers. Before the show was over, another dozen or so police cars, complete with police dogs had shown up"
"The story wound up on the front page of the local newspaper, with quotes giving Cornette’s side of the story (which was basically confirmed by several others) and also a version from the wife of the victim which said that Cornette, unprovoked, had attacked the guy with the tennis racquet. The newspaper story also said that Williams collapsed in the lobby of the building and was hospitalized. According to the newspaper, police hadn‘t decided whether or not to press charges against anyone over the incident. Since the police report stated that Williams had jumped the rail, the only possible case against Cornette would be for using excessive force, which, if you understand the situation, is hard to really define."
"The police in Altoona were apparently still looking for Cornette the next day after he left the building for further questioning, as Tom Zenk and Al Greene were stopped by police the next morning and asked if they were Jim Cornette and Bobby Eaton (which sure must have made Zenk feel good)."
"New Japan has at least had preliminary talks with the NWA about co-promoting a show, figuring the NWA will be easier to work with than Titan and they can cut a more favorable deal with them. Some in the company feel the NWA would offer a more attractive product as well because they have more workers who can get over in Japan. Last year, only Hulk Hogan was a drawing card while of the WWF wrestlers, really only Randy Savage and Tito Santana got over to the Japanese crowd. It is thought that Ric Flair of course, and particularly the Steiner Brothers would be just as attractive"
"Some are taking the message from the good ratings at the last Clash that debuting a whole bunch of people is the correct selling point for a "big" show"
"As for any stories floating around concerning either Bobby Heenan or Jake Roberts leaving the WWF for the NWA, it isn't going to happen. Heenan did negotiate with the NWA about coming in as a television announcer (not as either a booker or a manager) but most feel it was simply as a negotiating ploy to up his value with Vince McMahon, and it was considered successful because he received a better contract offer from the WWF and is staying. As for Roberts, his asking price (said to be $500,000 per year but you have to take figures like this with a grain of salt) was considered by the NWA to be totally out of line. Roberts starts back with the WWF to feud with Rick Martel on 11/17 as the blindness angle will have a major turn this coming weekend"
"Even though Robert Gibson isn't under contract, the company is paying his medical expenses"
"El Gigante will be going home in December so he'll miss Starrcade"
"Jobber Rick Fargo (real name Arthur Lefler, 26) was involved in an auto accident Saturday night. Fargo allegedly ran a red light and in swerving to miss traffic, drove over a 60-year-old minister who was killed, Fargo, who was coming home from his job as a bouncer at the Gold Rush (an Atlanta strip bar), was charged with a DUI, running a stop sign, possession of marijuana and a possible vehicular homicide"
"This week's PPV will probably be the last one on a Saturday night to avoid the conflict of having WCW and the PPV go head-to-head which is plain stupid, especially since they are actually running an angle on the second hour of WCW while the PPV is going on"
"Arena attendance overall has decreased since 1984 and is actually at just about its lowest level since I've been following the business. Not only are the actual crowds down, but more importantly, the number of wrestling cards per night in the U.S. has declined greatly in the last six years. I would guess that attendance hovered between 12 and 15 million in the U.S. during the early 80s and probably peaked in 1984 or maybe in 1985, although 1986 was a strong year for the two major offices. But it has certainly declined since that time to probably less than four million for the U.S. this year"
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 19, 2021 18:11:07 GMT -5
Doom vs. Midnights? I'd be curious to see that. Between the Horsemen feud, then Sting replacing Ron in some house shows, they flirted with turning Doom face, didn't they?
Poor Rex could never escape his old gimmick.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2021 3:02:43 GMT -5
Nov 5, 90
"Creativity vs. Credibility. In pro wrestling, you really can't have both. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other. Everyone's tastes fall somewhere in the middle. Total creativity without any credibility would probably be GLOW wrestling. Total credibility (or, at least as much as pro wrestling could ever have) would be the UWF, which as far as booking, by its very nature, can't have any finishes more creative than a clean pinfall, a knockout, technical knockout or submission"
"I was talking with three different WWF officials (one liked it, one didn't, one didn't see it) and if there was one thing we agreed on, it was that when people pay for a PPV, they want to see a winner and a loser. And while the Sting vs. Sid Vicious match ended with a 1-2-3, nobody believes they saw a winner and a loser. By that, I mean in the main event. You can DQ in the undercard and really nobody cares, but if it's in the main event on any kind of a regular basis, people feel ripped off"
"The NWA really has tried to address the problem, but in somewhat backward fashion. In almost every PPV, they have clean wins up and down the card. The WWF doesn't. But the NWA is the one with the rep of screw-jobs because the NWA will usually gimmick finish the main event, while the WWF gimmick finishes in the middle and gives a clean winner always in the final match of the show—the one that leaves the lasting taste"
"Halloween Havoc had nine pinfalls in ten matches, most of which were clean. Two of them had back-and-forth distraction endings (which caused both Midnight Express and Southern Boys to lose, but at the same time further their program). The only non-pin finish was Doom vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson. And while the main event had a pin, it really was a disputed non-finish."
"On the other hand, given the circumstances at hand, the finish was brilliant. First off, there was a company directive to have a pinfall in the main event basically. Sting wasn't going to lose the title. In other words, Sid Vicious was going to get pinned. Vicious is also the hottest singles wrestler in the promotion and quite possibly would lose quite a bit of luster getting pinned clean. In this case, nobody really considers that Vicious got pinned, so he's still a strong main eventer in theory (not in fact, and this isn't his fault because nobody in the promotion can draw for reasons that have been gone into a million times but if he was a strong main eventer, his matches with Sting and Luger would draw houses)"
"Blasters are real green. There certainly is potential in the big guy and he showed some agility doing the leapfrog spot. However there have been so many Road Warriors and Road Warrior imitations that he needs a new gimmick to eventually make it when the time comes that he's ready for the real push"
"Freebirds beat Renegade Warriors (Mark & Chris Youngblood) in 17:28—which is about 20 minutes longer than they should have been out there for. It was bad enough watching it, so I don't want to make you suffer through reading about it"
"Scott Steiner basically stole the entire show (not the match, the card). Even with his weaknesses, he should be world champion as soon as they can get it to him in a logical manner (without rushing— this isn't going to happen, in large part because it would mean breaking up the tag team)"
"Rick did a brutal chair shot which busted Saggs open hardway (no blading allowed on the telecast) and by all rights should have knocked him unconscious on the spot. Saggs needed eight stitches after the match"
"Junkfood Dog pinned Moondog Rex in 3:15 with a head-butt. The WWF gives you a five minute intermission and ten minutes of interviews coming back from intermission"
"Flair & Anderson came out to Anderson's music, not Flair's. In a sense this match was sad to see Flair being phased down. The crowd still reacts to him well, but he‘s definitely losing that star aura"
"The double count out would have been a fine finish except on television the previous week they aired a match between these two teams and the finish was—a double count out. An identical looking double count out at that. You've already seen the finish for free, so it's stupid to repeat a finish everyone has seen in the first place, but even worse to do it on a show people are paying money for"
"Luger dominated most of the way since he was doing the job. When Stan had him down in near falls, nobody believed since they've never seen him do the job before"
"The live gate at the UIC Pavilion was $115,000, which is the third largest NWA gate of 1990 (behind Flair vs. Sting in Baltimore and Flair vs. Luger at the Meadowlands). The building was sold out, in a manner of speaking. The place was set up for 8,000 fans. There were about 7,000 paid and 1,000 freebies so it was a sellout. However, nobody was turned away. And if there had been a demand for more seats, they could have sold blocked off seating. So it was a sellout, but not a sellout like the WWF had at the Spectrum for Summer Slam where all tickets were gone five weeks out and people were actually turned away"
"The WWF was across town at the Horizon that night with Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage on top and drew 8,355 (8,176 paid) and $102,466."
"Tony Schiavone did interviews in a Halloween costume. It was fine early in the show, but it came off completely ridiculous interviewing Ric Flair & Arn Anderson while wearing that outfit"
"WWF denies that the 10/27 card in Chicago being moved to that date (head-to-head with the NWA show) was done as competition. The original schedule had both Chicago and the Meadowlands booked on 10/26 and with Hulk Hogan unavailable this weekend, they wanted Warrior on both shows so had to move one or the other. They wound up moving Auburn Hills to an afternoon show and moved Chicago to Saturday night, leaving Meadowlands with Friday night for the "A" team show"
"WWF has the Nassau Coliseum booked on January 11, 1991, which happens to be the same day the NWA has the Meadowlands booked next"
"Even though the show is now on in so few markets, the best syndicated show is the NWA Pro show because of the interplay between Lance Russell, Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin"
"Barry Windham isn't booked for any November dates. What a make-up job, huh? Supposedly the finish of the PPV main event was Windham's idea"
"The "A" team (Sting vs. Scorpion, Flair & Arn vs. Doom) drew just $11,000 in Norfolk on 10/25 and $13,000 in Richmond on 10/26"
"Jim Cornette didn't get into any trouble over the incident last weekend in Altoona since the guy went over the barricade and attacked Bobby Eaton first"
"Toronto on 10/25 with Luger vs. Vicious and Pillman vs. Black Scorpion as the double headliner drew a $12,000 Canadian gate. Think of the expense alone in sending a crew up there"
"NWA is going to start doing a customized television show for Canadian syndication, which will make ten hours weekly that the company is producing"
"There was an angle on the PPV where they did misdirection magic involving Sting and a member of the road crew and the Black Scorpion (and it was real obvious it was Ole Anderson's voice this time). Sting was doing an interview, Scorpion grabbed a girl from the stands who started screaming (wouldn't it have been nice if she wasn't wearing a WCW crew shirt to make sure everyone knew it was set up ahead of time) and jumped into some magic apparatus. Sting jumped in after and they disappeared and re-appeared on the other side of the stage. Lots of folks live saw that there were two girls and two Scorpions involved (misdirection grabs your attention to look in another direction, thus creating the illusion of magic). Reason I haven't commented is I simply forgot about it, which says something about how effective it was as an angle"
Nov 12, 90
"Talk about a TV wrestling glut over Thanksgiving weekend? On 11/18, WWF will have a Survivor Series countdown show on USA which it repeats three more times during the week including Prime Time on 11/19. The NWA Clash is 11/20. The PPV is 11/22 and a Prime Time NBC special is 11/23, plus all the regular TV"
"This past Tuesday, before a television taping at Center Stage in Atlanta, Jim Cornette and Stan Lane quit World Championship Wrestling. Bobby Eaton decided to stay, so the seven-year association between Cornette and Eaton, at least temporarily, will be over following the Tom Robinson benefit show Friday night in Drexel Hill, Penn"
"What actually happened is that Cornette was arguing with Ole Anderson about the fact that Eaton was booked to wrestle three times at the television taping and Anderson was basically ignoring him. Cornette got even madder when he was being ignored, and finally Anderson acknowledged him with remark that "if you don't like it here, you can always leave." At that point, Cornette supposedly said something to the effect of "that's the best idea I've heard yet" and quit. Stan Lane, who really had been wanting out from the hectic travel schedule anyway, left with him. Eaton, because of family obligations and a guaranteed six-figure contract through May 15, decided to stay"
"Cornette has been unhappy with the company for several months, even stemming from before when the trio was pink-slipped and their contracts nearly not renewed for this year. During that period, when the company wanted to break up the trio but keep Cornette, and Cornette refused, there were things said about Stan Lane that made Lane less than loyal. Ironically the Midnights were also the company's most consistent act nightly on the road, but at the same time, given virtually no push and almost treated as glorified jobbers for several months. They were low on just about every card, including the PPV show in which they lost in the opener, and a feud between them and the Steiners was nixed by management after it had already been worked out"
"Since, ironically, in recent weeks Cornette had been given more TV time and he and the Midnights were going to got more of a push on television and be involved in a few angles during November, there were those in the company who worked toward a reconciliation after the fact. Eaton was told on Thursday night by Ole Anderson to tell Cornette and Lane to try and work things out. A letter was also sent by Jim Herd requesting they appear at tonight’s television tapings and, in fact two different sets of format sheets were put together for tonight's taping, one with Cornette and Lane and one without him"
"But at the same time, one has to see Anderson's point in not being exactly thrilled that the company is bending over backwards trying to bring back someone who clearly defied the booker. This is all ironic since Cornette was one of Anderson's biggest supporters when he was first named booker, although that did change 180 degrees. But the truth is, Cornette wasn't happy with the direction of the company or their use of him (particularly at the PPV refusing to do an angle where the Southern Boys would break a pumpkin over his head) and wanted time off. Lane, as well, wanted a break from the road and was never really thrilled in coming back when this new contract was signed since, from his standpoint, the company was only taking he and Eaton to appease Cornette and only came back to keep the team together"
"When asked, Eaton refused to "bury" Cornette and Lane on an interview. Eaton told Ole Anderson that they were his friends and he won't bury them, just like if something were to happen to you, he wouldn’t go on TV and bury you"
"There is also a problem with the NWA name itself. Apparently the NWA board, which consists of Don Owen, Fred Ward, Elliot Murnick, Jim Crockett Promotions, Steve Rickard and Shohei Baba is involved in a legal battle with World Championship Wrestling over the rights to the NWA name. WCW never formally applied to use the NWA name, but has been using it for the two years since TBS purchased the company from Crockett Promotions. It's unclear exactly what the board wants, although they are looking for a financial settlement for WCW using the NWA name since it wasn't an NWA member over the past two years"
"Jim Herd sent a memo to not use the term "NWA" during any telecasts until this matter is worked out, although the NWA board is allowing them to call the TV shows NWA Main Event and NWA Pro Wrestling until everything is worked out, but don't want "NWA" used in newspaper ads or Sting referred to as "NWA world champion." "
"New Japan has the Tokyo Dome booked on March 21, 1991 and would like to run it as a joint show with the NWA (er WCW). Masa Saito and Hiro Matsuda were scheduled to have a meeting with Jim Herd on Tuesday morning to try and set up a joint show"
"Owen Hart is still supposed to be coming in January"
"WCW on 10/27 did a 2.5 (first hour did a 2.6, second hour which went head-up with PPV did a 2.4 which shows that the vast majority of the "regular" audience stuck with the show and not the PPV, although about 80 percent of the cable homes still don't have PPV capability)"
"There have been, talks about bringing Terry Funk back as an announcer now (and even suggestions about bringing him back as the Black Scorpion) but right now it doesn't look like it'll happen at the present time"
"Gigante pinned Moondog (subbing for Dr. X--that may be one of the first occurrences in history where a no-show was replaced by himself)"
"At the Toronto show the announcers were telling fans to order Havoc on PPV. Only thing is, there is no such thing as PPV in Canada"
"The Oregonian (Portland) had a column this past week about Art Barr in the NWA. It wasn't favorable. "Guess Ted Turner doesn't mind sex abusers as much as the Oregon State Boxing and Wrestling Commission does." You get the drift"
"Magnum Force debuted twice. The first Magnum Force were two guys about 5-8 each who it was described were "decent jobbers" and were put over, but I guess nobody was impressed because later in the show, at the taping for the 17th, when Magnum Force came out, they had The Ring Lords using the name and put them over so I guess Ring Lords are the Magnum Force that faces Steiners"
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Post by jason1980s on Apr 20, 2021 9:44:41 GMT -5
[ "Flair & Anderson came out to Anderson's music, not Flair's. In a sense this match was sad to see Flair being phased down. The crowd still reacts to him well, but he‘s definitely losing that star aura" [/div][/quote] I think the 1990-1991 version of the Horsemen was the only one where it seemed everyone was on an equal level. I know Sid was the least talented but he could pull something special when he wanted. In a sense he so bad he was good. Most times Flair was always THE Man. Even as a kid starting to watch around this time I saw the guys as a group rather than three guys with a leader. Also, I think Arn always had the cooler theme.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2021 3:50:54 GMT -5
Nov 19, 90
"A lot has happened in the last week in regards to The Juicer (Art Barr). Apparently someone in New York, with the blame being put in some quarters on Titan Sports (no proof at all of that) sent the syndicated TV stations in all the major markets a letter with Art Barr's press clippings from Portland in regards to the rape charge with comments about how your station could allow someone like that to be portrayed as a babyface hero aimed at kids. Anyway, because of the pressure, first word was that Barr was going to be fired and in fact he was taken off all cards as of last Friday. The current status on Barr is up in the air but with the likelihood that he'll stay with the company"
"According to Jim Herd, the company is awaiting word from the prosecuting attorney in the case as to why the rape charge was dropped and Barr plea bargained to a misdemeanor sexual abuse with the penalty being community service work (which he has already completed) and probation. Herd got a letter already from Barr's probation officer who said he’s been exemplary in his behavior. Herd admitted that if the company had been aware of Barr's offense beforehand, he probably wouldn't have been hired, but since he has been hired, he doesn't feel it is his position to continue to make him keep paying for an offense that he's already done his time, so to speak, for"
"According to newspaper reports in the Oregonian (Portland newspaper), Barr did admit when questioned by police that he had sex with the woman in question against her consent but that he felt she would be willing to have sex with him, but somewhere else (the incident is supposed to have taken place in a stairwell in the back of a wrestling arena). The girl claimed she wouldn't have have consented at any time. However, Barr was not convicted of a rape, but plea bargained to a much lesser offense just before the trial was scheduled to begin"
"Grizzly Smith will be promoting Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas for the group"
"The Dream Warriors from Windy City were the first Magnum Force tag team that lasted one squash match (which aired this past weekend) with the NWA. It'll be the Ring Lords working as Magnum Force at the Clash against the Steiners, however as they were so unimpressive at the taping they were dropped before the Clash even took place"
"The Starrcade tag team tournament will be called the Pat O'Connor Memorial International tag team tournament. They spent $1,000 on a 7-foot-8 inch trophy with a huge cup on top. They are negotiating with Sam Muchnick to present the trophy since the card is in St. Louis. On upcoming TV's they'll be talking about O'Connor"
"It was reported here last week that two muscular Larry Sharpe students would be brought in as the French team, however this past week WCW called Sharpe and changed its mind (after both guys had given notice at their work and had been doing double-shots in training sessions at the gym trying to improve enough to at least be decent) saying they wanted a legit French team"
"Konan starts at TV on 12/10 and has house show matches against Bobby Eaton before Starrcade"
"Arn Anderson missed most of the week with the flu so the headline matches on the "B" shows saw Flair & Brian Lee face Doom with Flair walking out on Lee and leaving him to be pinned"
"As for the NWA name itself, which I shouldn't be using but it's habit and it's still what everyone calls this group, they are still waiting for either acceptance or denial by the organization. Apparently they need approval of the NWA board, which consists of Jim Crockett (who is a minority owner of World Championship Wrestling), Elliot Murnick and Steve Rickard (of New Zealand) and Rickard hasn't been contacted yet to approve whatever WCW offered to be accepted into the NWA. If they are accepted, and right now it appears that is what will eventually happen, both names will continue to be used as in the past. If not, and until that time, the group will simply be called World Championship Wrestling"
"Barry Windham will probably be taking Flair's place in the tag team title match at Starrcade. The announcers have been told to simply say Doom vs. The Horseman, however at TV tapings on 11/12 in Gainesville, GA, which all air after the Clash, it was Windham (who didn’t wrestle) & Anderson who did the interviews together and Flair never appeared on camera"
"Stan Hansen is going to be offered a contract which is the first contract offered to someone new since Norman in February. Hansen was offered a $100,000 contract to work 100 dates (between his Japan tours) in 1991. But Hansen is in mainly because of his friendship with Ole Anderson and with Anderson's position anything but stable, it's not a given that he'll accept"
"TBS accountants going over the promotion in order to make cutbacks suggested making all bookings at least 30 days in advance so plane tickets can be purchased for the cheapest prices (they were buying expensive tickets at the last minute in many cases), concentrate on running shows all week in one general area so maybe one flight per week rather than flying guys around all over the country and also want the group to get out of the small markets and promote more in major cities next year. When a major city is being run, there will be only one show per night starting in January rather than splitting crews. For example, in January, the entire crew will work 1/11 at the Meadowlands, 1/12 at the DC Armory, 1/22 at the Forum in Inglewood, CA and 1/23 at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium and same for the big markets as the '91 schedule is being made"
"Big Van Vader turned total babyface. Storm & Horowitz had just lost a TV match to Tommy Rich & Ricky Morton when Freebirds came out and started pounding on Morton and held his leg for Vader to jump on it and give him the same injury as Robert Gibson. Vader instead beat up the Birds and will form a tag team with Luger down the road"
Nov 26, 90
"The rumor mill is flying hot and heavy coming off the news that Dusty Rhodes has given notice to leave the World Wrestling Federation at the same time many, if not most, of the NWA wrestlers are convinced that Ole Anderson is on his way out as booker. While the official company word from the NWA is that everything is status quo, it seems that almost nobody within the organization believes that"
"From the WWF side, it appears that most of those who follow this aspect of the business closely believe Rhodes gave notice because he had a deal to come back to the NWA as booker. Rhodes has given notice and will finish up at the house shows sometime in late December, but is scheduled to work the Royal Rumble on January 19. There is no opposition from Vince McMahon in Rhodes leaving, presumably to go to the NWA"
"Unless this entire giving notice by Rhodes is simply a tremendously executed scheme to get one last run with Titan or a front office position, or both, Rhodes could not afford to give notice unless he had a deal locked up because those close to him indicate he's simply not in the financial position to be able to not have big money coming in"
"In what could and really should turn into a major media move within the New York market for the NWA, the company has reached a deal with Lawrence Taylor. Taylor will do openings and closings on the WPIX shows leading up to the January 11, 1991 Meadowlands show from his bar in New York. In addition, Taylor will work the Meadowlands show as a second for Lex Luger & Brian Pillman in a tag team match against Motor City Mad Man & Big Cat (which I personally believe is a total misuse of his name value—he should be the special ref in the main event) plus do a Danger Zone with Paul E. Dangerously"
"The deal with Taylor, reportedly for somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000, was to offset the WWF coincidentally scheduling a January 11, 1991 date at the Nassau Coliseum. The main event at the Meadowlands is Sting against probably Ric Flair or possibly The Black Scorpion"
"A lot will have happened at the Clash, which has already taken place by the time you read this. They were to use a magician once again (but a better one this time) as the Black Scorpion who would turn himself into a bengal Tiger. It was the same magician used in a Janet Jackson video. Anyway, if they are now hiring magicians, why don't they ask them to perform some real magic— like turn Sid Vicious into a wrestler"
"The 12/1 show debuts Michael Wallstreet (Mike Rotunda playing a yuppie Million Dollar Man type gimmick). Rotunda came out with a PC, claims to have inherited millions, types something into the PC, reads the computer print out and it tells him how to beat his opponent. While the idea itself was Tony Schiavone's, it's a take-off on the Wall Street Warrior gimmick that Jim Herd originally wanted to turn Sting into back in late 1988 and early 1989"
"The latest on the Art Barr situation is that the company has decided to keep him and he was back working this weekend. However I can't imagine them giving him any kind of a major push because the situation is still a media time bomb. The claims that those in charge didn't know about the situation when they hired him makes those in charge either a) completely ignorant about what goes on within the business because the charges and plea bargain guilty plea were not only significantly covered in the newspapers in Oregon but very well-known within the wrestling business or b) not very creative in explaining why they so obviously put the guy in a role that was a timebomb waiting to go off"
"I also question a major double standard here. Why was Tully Blanchard not brought in when Ric Flair was booker along with Arn Anderson? Because he had failed a drug test administered by the WWF? He was never charged with any crime. Certainly never convicted. And while cocaine is illegal, if everyone in wrestling who did something technically illegal wasn't allowed to work in the profession, the only person left would be Bob Backlund"
"While the Barr situation may well have been blown out of proportion in the Portland media--sex crimes often are--the fact is he did admit to police to having sex with a woman against her will and he did plea bargain a guilty plea rather than stand trial"
"Master Blaster Steele is currently on leave as he's got a part in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II movie"
"Flair & Anderson beat Butch Reed & Buddy Landel in 23 minutes when Reed walked out leaving Landel against both and he was pinned"
"Reed missed every show this week except for Philadelphia because of personal problems he had to take care of at home. It was pretty much demanded he work in Philly because they already weren't going to have Midnights & Cornette and were going to have to replace them with State Patrol & Irwin in a six-man and it was felt adding to that with a main event no-show would kill the town for them even worse"
"Lots of work being done behind the scenes to get blood back into the picture next year"
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2021 15:40:14 GMT -5
"While the Barr situation may well have been blown out of proportion in the Portland media--sex crimes often are--the fact is he did admit to police to having sex with a woman against her will and he did plea bargain a guilty plea rather than stand trial"
f***ing hell Dave...
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Post by Feyrhausen on Apr 21, 2021 16:37:53 GMT -5
"While the Barr situation may well have been blown out of proportion in the Portland media--sex crimes often are--the fact is he did admit to police to having sex with a woman against her will and he did plea bargain a guilty plea rather than stand trial" f***ing hell Dave... Cant really fault Dave for saying the media may have blew things out of proportion without knowing what the media were saying.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2021 5:09:56 GMT -5
Dec 3, 90
"Nearly everyone talks about Dusty Rhodes coming in as booker as if it is inevitable, and soon. Rhodes is still booked through the end of the year on WWF house shows and is scheduled mainly against Sgt. Slaughter (to put Sarge over of course) toward the end of his run. It's unlikely that Rhodes will walk out any sooner because of potential contract problems. Rhodes has a contract with the WWF but they were apparently willing to release him from it provided he worked through the end of the year at the houses and at the Royal Rumble PPV on January 19th."
"One of the NWA's problems is that they got locked into so many big money guaranteed contracts because they knew that if anyone not under contract were to get over, that Titan would take them. Then, when the profit-loss board became embarrassing, they dumped the guaranteed contracts and began pushing certain people without contracts, and then guys like Mean Mark and The Nasty Boys jumped to Titan, so they are left with major holes and unresolved programs"
"Conspicuous by his absence from Starrcade is Ric Flair. I'm assuming that the angle that airs this Saturday on TBS where Teddy Long is Flair's chauffeur for a day leads to a Flair "injury," which sets up Windham & Anderson going for revenge at Starrcade. Flair not being on the card, combined with Sting vs. Flair already announced as the main event on some cards in late December through mid-January leads Flair to be the prime candidate to be the Black Scorpion based totally on evidence out there without any inside info"
"If at first you do something completely stupid that doesn't work, then what do you do? Why, you do almost the exact same thing again. When you have a booker who longs for wrestling fans to believe in the product, hates what Vince McMahon has done to the believability factor, then does this ridiculous Scorpion angle that flopped except for one Clash rating, and puts on a show with a magic show with the Scorpion (supposedly a mysterious man) and in the closing credits lists the magician who played the Scorpion and credits thanking the people who delivered the leopard for the magic act, well there seems to be a small contradiction here"
"The show drew a 4.2 rating and a 6.2 share. Basically, this was the second lowest rating of the 13 Clashes thus far (only the June 1989 Clash headlined by Ricky Steamboat vs. Terry Funk--at a time when all TBS numbers were in the toilet for a variety of reasons did worse)"
"Freebirds beat Southern Boys in 4:50 when Tracy Smothers came off the rope, but was tripped by Little Richard Marley, stumbled and Michael Hayes hit him with a DDT. This was originally going to be a six-man tag with Bobby Eaton and El Gigante as the respective partners. The real story is that Gigante missed his plane and arrived late, so they sent Eaton (who may be the best worker in the U.S. on a nightly basis) back to the dressing room...By the way, if Gigante had been there, the other team would have won"
"Rhetorical question. Why has Pillman been buried in prelims and not even booked on the Clashes and PPV shows for the past several months?"
"Sgt. Kruger (Ray Apollo) and Col. DeKlerk (Ted Petty) won the African elimination match for the Pat O'Connor tag team tournament beating Kahlua (Larry Hamilton) and Bostwana Beast (Bill Tabb). Please explain why WCW is going through all the trouble of importing legit Mexicans, Japanese, Soviets, etc. when they ruined all anticipation and the entire concept with this match?"
"Sid Vicious pinned The Night Stinker in 3:30. Two weeks ago I saw a match between two guys, one of whom writes a newsletter and another of whom contributes to this, that, and other newsletters. And the match was real bad, too. But it was world's better than these two guys who are professional wrestlers. This was the worst match I've seen in years"
"If magic had anything to do with wrestling than Harry Houdini would have drawn big money against Strangler Lewis and David Copperfield would have had a legendary feud with Ric Flair. As one person, who is a reader who has done some magic called and said, "Jim Herd has already killed the wrestling business, now he's working on killing the magic business." "
"Now, figure this. Slick Ric offered Dancin' Teddy $500,000 just for one title shot which Teddy turned down, even though the two teams were booked in title matches every single night between then and Starrcade at every house show. And in the Starrcade ad, which ran prior to this match, it pretty much said Doom was going to wrestle Flair & Anderson (which isn't going to happen anyway, at least I don't think it will)"
"Nasty Boys gave notice the day of the Clash, which is why they ran away from the Steiners twice. I believe they finish on 12/9 but not exactly sure of the date. They'll be headed to the WWF to ultimately work a program with Legion of Doom"
"The Juicer will apparently finish up on January 3rd, but that could change depending upon what the new booker decides"
"Mike Rotunda's valet (Ms. Alexandra York) will only work television and Atlanta shows, not go on the road. Rotunda was given notice that his contract won't be renewed when it expires. Talk is that if the Michael Wall Street thing gets over, they'll re-sign Rotunda, but if not, they'll let him stay but not on any guarantee"
"The Juicer pinned Barry Horowitz (lots of fans were chanting "rapist" at Juicer because the local newspaper reported on the story)"
"11/25 at the Greensboro Coliseum drew a record crowd of 700 (smallest crowd ever for wrestling at the Coliseum—made even worse because it was done on traditionally the best weekend year-after-year for wrestling in the city) as Horner pinned Barry Horowitz *, Master Blasters beat Zenk & Alan Iron Eagle 1/2*, Taylor pinned Mad Man 1/2*, JFD pinned Sheik DUD, Rich & Morton beat Freebirds ** (only decent match on the card), Luger pinned Cat with Mad Man doing the post match run-in * and in a cage match, Simmons pinned Flair (Reed and Anderson both missed the show, one was ill and the other may have been as well) *"
"Ole Anderson out as head booker. Details next week"
Dec 10, 90
"As mentioned in last week's issue, Ole Anderson was dumped as booker (well, technically, allowed to resign) last Tuesday night, bringing about yet another change in direction for the NWA. Even though the last Clash may have been the worst major show for the NWA since the Turner buy-out two years ago, and the ratings were down as well, the decision to get rid of Anderson was actually made before the show had even taken place"
"While the rumors are going wild that Dusty Rhodes will be the new booker, if that were the case, nobody could officially say so now because it could lead to tampering litigation since Rhodes is still with the WWF until the end of the year (and will return and do one last date at the Royal Rumble PPV show)."
"While most seem to think this is just a formality, since Anderson wouldn't have been fired without a replacement in mind, and the fact that no replacement has even been mentioned leads everyone to believe it is Rhodes (after all, why would he quit the WWF if he didn't have another position locked up?), there has been talk that while Rhodes is certainly the leading candidate, this isn't totally locked up"
"A minor change has been made in the way the group will handle the involvement of Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants on the 1/11 show at the Meadowlands. This could wind up being an intriguing story if only because the Giants could be in a playoff game on 1/13. Instead of the originally planned tag team match, it will now be Lex Luger vs. Big Cat in a football match, which means that both wrestlers will put on football gear (helmet, pads, etc) and the object, similar to a sumo wrestling match, is to knock the other out of the ring"
"There are apparently some sort of minor problems regarding the Pat O’Connor name (yes, it was misspelled in the graphic on the Clash as O'Conner). I believe that Julie O'Connor (Pat's widow) approved the name, but then was mad that they are using Sam Muchnick (who in recent years Pat had a falling out with because Muchnick never publicly supported O'Connor's NWA promotion that O'Connor, Verne Gagne, Bob Geigel and Harley Race had bought from Muchnick when WWF came in to St. Louis and began running opposition and eventually the old St. Louis office went out of business) to give out the trophy to the winner"
"Eaton, whose NWA contract expires on May 15th of next year, was offered a substantial raise (supposedly from $120,000 to $156,000) to sign for 91-92"
"Kevin Von Erich was trying to arrange for a meeting with the NWA, but didn't want to work full-time with the NWA as a wrestler. Speculation he was looking for the NWA to co-promote a show with him in Dallas or use him on their Dallas shows"
"Brad Armstrong was replaced on the booking sheets starting 12/1 by Sam Houston, but hasn't officially been fired. Since his problems were with Ole Anderson, there is talk he'll be back in January"
"No word yet on Art Barr (The Juicer) after 1/3, which was supposed to be his last day. But he's putting Buddy Landel over now, and you know how often Buddy gets wins"
"A TV taping on 11/28 in Dothan, AL saw Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Flair and the Steiners, all of whom were advertised, fail to appear since Anderson had given them all the night off. Didn't sit well with the paying customers as you can imagine"
"Ironically, the TV ratings were strong in Ole Anderson's last weekend as booker. Thanksgiving weekend saw Power Hour (Flair vs. Landel) do a 1.6 rating, WCW (Flair vs. Simmons) did a 3.2 (its best rating since last spring) and Power Hour (Taylor vs. Anderson) did a 3.1 (best in several months as well)"
"Expect Junkfood Dog and Iron Sheik to be gone soon. Sheik surely as his contract expires in the next four to six weeks and it was only a clerical error that he's still around"
"Larry Zbyszko was brought in at the TV taping Monday night, but Jim Herd, who didn't know about it ahead of time, ordered all references of Zbyszko and all the commentary Zbyszko did to be erased from all tapes. Later in the week Herd and Zbyszko had meetings and it looks good that Zbyszko will be headed in, although he won't be referred to as AWA champion. AWA is trying to somehow get part of the WGN show, which if successful, will keep them in business but things look bleak for that group which hasn't even run a house show in several months"
"According to one reliable source. Nasty Boys were offered $156,000 each for one year"
"Houses were horrible this week again, with the largest ($26,000) in Chicago on Friday night and that was only 2,000 paid. Crowds in Indianapolis (350), Toronto (475) and Cleveland (760) for Sting vs. Sid Vicious were downright embarrassing. I hope nobody suggests now that the Sting vs. Vicious finish was a smart one. Definitely one of the most creative ones ever. But creativity isn't always smart"
"Liked Taylor vs. Anderson the past two Sundays but what a shame matches like that mean nothing. Top notch work from both, but the "10 minute" match lasted 6:54. I've heard of shaving time but that's performing surgery on time. Pretty sad hearing "two minutes to go" when you're only four-and-a-half minutes deep into a good match"
"Night Stalker (Bryan Clark) should also be finished after Starrcade"
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2021 4:02:20 GMT -5
Dec 17, 90
"Plenty of speculation continues over who the new NWA booker will be. While the timing of Dusty Rhodes giving notice and just how deep his burial with the WWF has become (over this weekend he did jobs every night to Virgil in less than 90 seconds clean in the middle—as someone joked, they've got Dusty doing jobs for valets this week, next week he'll be putting over the travel agents) makes him certainly the top rumored candidate, at the same time, the top brass in the NWA is insistent that they haven't even spoken with him about the job"
"First off, Ric Flair will team with Arn Anderson and face Doom in the street fight for the NWA tag team title. The change was made for various behind-the-scenes activities and compromises of which I'm really not completely sure of at this time. Ron Simmons, who blew out his knee earlier this week and missed all the cards this weekend (they brought in Larry Cameron to take his place and team with Butch Reed against Flair & Anderson) is expected to be able to wrestle at Starrcade but I was told this wasn't a certainty"
"Night Stalker (Bryan Clark) was fired so the tag team match that nobody wants to see is now Sid Vicious & Danny Spivey vs. Big Cat & Motor City Mad Man. It's an improvement, but I don't know how much of one it is."
"There is some question behind the scenes about Stan Hansen, since he came in mainly as a favor to Ole Anderson. However the NWA does have a $100,000 for 100 dates in 1991 contract on the table which is an awfully good money deal to turn down. Everyone expects Hansen will be there, but because of the AWA title situation several years back (which, in reality, was a totally different situation), there is a little bit of fear."
"As for the Black Scorpion, with Flair being moved to the tag team match, I guess that eliminates him as a possibility."
"The NWA (which, it appears, is phasing out the NWA name just after winning rights to that name as on Sunday, the NWA Main Event show's name was changed to WCW Main Event) filmed several interviews over the weekend with Lawrence Taylor to help hype the 1/11 Meadowlands show. Taylor will be in the corner of Lex Luger for a football match (in football gear) against Big Cat who is managed for the night by Paul E. Dangerously. The Taylor interview will appear on 12/24 on the WPIX NWA show."
"The WWF is now doing customized opens and closes of all its syndicated shows for the New York market. Although they won't admit it, it's obvious that it is a reaction to the steady ratings increase the NWA has had on WPIX doing a customized show so WWF wants to make it appear that in their "home market" that they are also going to do a customized show for New York"
"The Minotaur (Steve DiSalvo) debuts on Christmas night at the Omni. He's booked everywhere against The Juicer, whose last booking is 1/3"
"Television taping on 12/4 at Center Stage in Atlanta before a sellout 890 was headlined by Zenk winning the TV title from Anderson after a dropkick off the top rope. Told it was a great match. They are doing a gimmick where Zenk has a 46 match winning streak so he's getting a big push now with the new booking team"
"Jim Herd had a funny quote in another newsletter where he said he really liked Ole and he thought he could bring him into the 20th century. Ole is now managing his saw mill in Wisconsin and those close to him say he's very happy and relieved to be out of the pressure cooker"
"On the New York show this weekend they had Gary Cappetta make the announcement that the Nasty Boys had been run out of the NWA by the Steiners and the Steiners would face Master Blasters at the Meadowlands. The very next match on TV had the Nasty Boys winning a squash with Jim Ross saying how he doesn't even expect them to show up for their match at the Meadowlands and pretty much burying them"
"On WCW, they ran one segment (with the Taylor vs. Wall Street angle which was pretty good) twice in a row"
"I thought the Flair limo video was pretty good but can't figure the purpose. Makes Flair a face which isn't what they want to do. I think Flair was originally supposed to be injured and be off these weeks, in fact, he was and the parking lot attack was to be the reason but they decided after filming and airing the thing not to keep him off. It all looked so disorganized watching it"
"There was a lead to a Great Muta clip on WCW which never appeared"
"WCW has alleviated the problems over the Pat O'Connor name for the tournament. Julie O'Connor and family were threatening to picket the show and complain to the media about using Pat's name because Sam Muchnick was going to give out the trophy. So as a compromise, Muchnick won't be giving out the trophy and Julie O'Connor is happy with everything"
"Nobody seems to think El Gigante will return from Argentina (he went home for the holidays) although if he does, he's booked Christmas week shows so if he doesn't make those shots we can assume he's history"
"The next Family Feud segment will be with some heels. I believe they'll use Tony Schiavone (he's not a heel), Dutch Mantell, Master Blaster Steele, Kevin Sullivan and someone else. Good job in getting your biggest drawing cards over to a mainstream audience"
"They were going to have a scientific match with Taylor vs. Sam Houston (who was to debut on TV) but Houston wouldn't do the job so it was scrapped"
"Renegade Warriors were back although nobody has a clue as to why"
"Race was injured in St. Joseph was JFD fell on him and broke his rotator cuff in his shoulder. Out for a while"
"Phoenix PPV show War Games will be Sting & Pillman (so I guess he'll be getting a push between now and then) & Steiners vs. Four Horseman"
"Ric Flair & Arn Anderson beat Butch Reed & Larry Cameron (best match on card) when Flair pinned Cameron"
"In Greenville, NC the Flair & Anderson beating Reed & Cameron in a cage match drew 2,000 which I believe was the largest crowd of the week"
"They did things to build up a Zenk vs. Eaton feud for the TV title, Pillman vs. Mantell (why are they wasting Pillman like that) and Steiners vs. Master Blasters (just last week they set up a program with Freebirds)"
"Cameron is managed by Teddy Long and challenged Luger"
Dec 24, 90
"DeKlerk tried to Jushin Riger dive over the top rope with a flip in mid-air, but Rick took one step back, so as not to "sell" the move, and caught him just enough to break the fall so he didn't break his neck and started laughing"
"Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich defeated The Freebirds in 6:13. Good fast-paced action with Little Richard Marley (Rocky King) in his farewell appearance as the NWA "scooped" Titan on the heel turns on the black valet on a PPV angle"
"Doom retained the NWA tag team title in a North St. Louis Street fight going to a double pin with Barry Windham & Arn Anderson in 7:19. This was an old-style quadruple juice brawl. For some reason, they had "cut men" in the corners like boxing (who turned out to be Porkchop Cash and George "Russian Brute" Petrosky with hair) although they really never got involved. Windham bled 90 seconds in. By the three minute mark, all four were bloody. Stiff chair hits. With the exception of the double pin finish, this match was exactly what it was supposed to be and more"
"The Steiners won the tag team tournament beating Muta & Saito in 10:53., Originally, Dick the Bruiser was supposed to be the referee of this match as was advertised on television. Well, then Masao Hattori (trivia note: Hattori was a U.S. AAU freestyle national champion at 136 in the early 70s) was coming in on New Japan business so they decided to have him as a special ref (but the announcers made a point that he wasn't going to be a heel ref) for this bout and move Bruiser to the street fight (which made sense since Bruiser is well-known as a street fighter)"
"On the good side, the ring entrance, where it appeared Scorpion came down from the ceiling in a flying saucer-like device was impressive. Bringing in all the previous Scorpions (hey, where was Tony Zane?) I guess at least finishes the story line although the only people that using Dave Sheldon, Bill Irwin and Randy Culley as Scorpion henchman meant anything to were newsletter readers (Sheldon had never been unmasked while the others were unmasked but the crowds viewing those cards were tiny) and the hardcores who still attend live"
"Bruiser looked like Tugboat's grandfather in the ring"
"Flair did about as good a job as possible in hiding his identity, and because of that, had the worst match I've ever seen him in (including the Clash match with JFD)"
"There is no official word about the NWA booking job. As of right now, those in charge insist that not only won't it be Dusty Rhodes, but that nobody has even talked with him. Virtually every wrestler in the company still believes it will be Dusty Rhodes, although again, this could simply be the original rumor feeding upon itself or it could be factual. As mentioned previously, until Rhodes is done with Titan (January 20th), for legal reasons having to do with tampering laws, WCW can't acknowledge talking to Rhodes about the position"
"As far as creating a reason for the Flair vs. Sting main events starting Christmas night and continuing through the month of January, they hurt their cause more than helped it. There is absolutely no "reason" for Flair to be considered a viable challenger after having lost once again, juiced, and then failed to get anything accomplished with a seven-on-two advantage in the post-match brawl (which, by the way, was nothing like it was supposed to be. Between the show running late and people being in the wrong place at the wrong time, if it looked like it was directionless, it's not because it was, but because what was supposed to take place—basically a replay of the famous 1985 Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes angle in a cage which drew incredible business for six months in 1986—somehow didn't materialize)"
"The introduction of blood on the show was a positive. Really, given the street fight and cage stipulations, the juice was mandatory. And given the fact WCW has to re-win its lost hardcore bloodthirsty audience, juice right now is neccessary. And you can count on it at the next PPV since they are doing War Games"
"We have a cage on this PPV. We have cage matches on just about every house show in January which no doubt will produce heavy juice (Anderson & Windham vs. Doom in most cities will be in cages). In February we have War Games. I see the situation being taken in the extreme in the other direction, which is okay in the short-run but over the long haul will do exactly what it did before—kill crowds. Of course, if cage match city is just for the first quarter, no problem. But if they get into the situation (which has happened before when Rhodes was booker) when virtually every card has a cage match, they kill the cage and the juice as gimmicks"
"On the Scorpion, I believe that Flair was going to be the Scorpion from day one. And there is more to this story than meets the eye. About two weeks ago, even though the angle was shot for Flair to be injured and explain why Barry Windham would replace him in the tag match (and free him to be Scorpion), some changes in original plans took place. It wound up with Flair being moved back to the tag team match, which is why on TV they stopped selling the injury immediately, and naturally at that point Windham was to be Scorpion. The Tuesday before the card, the situation changed again and Flair was moved back to the Scorpion spot (after the announcers had said he was fine and basically said it was 100 percent he'd be in the tag match) with Windham in the tag"
"When Flair was in the tag, Doom was supposed to go over since that tag was to set up Barry & Arn vs. Doom at the house shows for January since Flair was working with Sting. However, when everything switched again during the last week and Barry & Arn were to wrestle Doom, the office wanted a title switch to "start" the feud and use Doom as the challengers at the houses. But, somebody wouldn't do the job and the company was backed into the corner. They didn't want to have Arn & Barry lose, because that would kill any interest in rematches (and they were, unknown to anyone, on the road to killing Flair vs. Sting rematch interest because the best laid plans...) and the gimmick didn't allow for a DQ or COR and thus, we get the politician finish. Nobody wins and nobody loses"
"Obviously the Steiners are the hottest thing in the promotion but they are in a bad position in that right now they have no opponents. Nobody buys either Freebirds and Master Blasters as foes, so your hottest act isn't in a position right now to help draw"
"Larry Zbyszko was officially stripped of the AWA title because he's going to the NWA. On TV they are starting a story line that Zbyszko has been asked to defend the title in Japan (total work) and they don't know what actions Joe Blanchard might take against him if he doesn't go and there are hints he might not go. Of course, he's not going so that's the cover story to strip him of a title. Of course, since the AWA hasn't run a card in many months, I'm not sure what he's being stripped of"
"Konnan pinned Bobby Eaton (started out good for five minutes until Konnan blew out his knee and they were on the mat the next seven, but still the best match on a poor card)"
"Jim Ross criticized Titan's cage match rules of through the door or over the top on the WPIX show when he was talking about the cage match at the Meadowlands and how the match must end in a pin and how he felt cage match rules where you have to climb or leave the cage don't make any sense"
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Apr 24, 2021 0:56:06 GMT -5
Guessing Shooting Star Press here?
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Post by DSR on Apr 24, 2021 10:49:10 GMT -5
Oh hey, is this the end of the thread?
The previous one started with January 1991. Unless Dave did an update on 12/31/90, this would be the last one.
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Post by horsemen4ever on Apr 24, 2021 11:12:42 GMT -5
"Jim Ross criticized Titan's cage match rules of through the door or over the top on the WPIX show when he was talking about the cage match at the Meadowlands and how the match must end in a pin and how he felt cage match rules where you have to climb or leave the cage don't make any sense" Well he is not wrong.
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