Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 02/09 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: jeeves.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 01:02:24 GMT Lines: 280 - Weird rumours abound regarding Jesse Ventura. The most believable story has Jesse debuting as Shawn Michaels' replacement colour commentator on Monday Night RAW on 02/20. This is a little surprising after all that has gone done between Vince and Jesse since their first parting of the ways, but stranger things have happened in pro-wrestling. The stranger rumour has Jesse becoming part of a new organization that will feature the in-ring talents of Rick Rude, Don Muraco, and Jimmy Snuka. I've even heard an 02/28 date for a first TV taping, location unknown. - Dave Meltzer mentioned that he had heard stories of the Nasty Boys beating up Ken Shamrock two on one, which is a little different from Eric Bischoff's commentary (where he said that Jerry Saggs laid "a world of hurt" on Shamrock on his own). - Sid Vicious will apparently debut as Shawn Michaels' new body guard in the WWF, no doubt playing a key role in the likely title change at WrestleMania. Egad, a Vicious vs. Diesel feud is one of the worst non-Undertaker feuds the WWF could run. There was talk that Jean Paul Levesque would debut in the body guard role in his jump from WCW, but WCW has held Levesque to his contract so he will not be able to appear for any other promotion until late May. - Yokozuna will return to the WWF at some point down the road. - Speaking of Levesque, his brief tag team partner Lord Steven Regal has already been paired with a new partner. It seems Sir Robert Eaton has been hiding his royal heritage all of these years, but has finally decided to abandon the ruse. The two will team with the snappy tag name of the Blue Bloods. - At recent WWF SuperStars tapings, they held a Headshrinkers vs. Smoking Gunns tag title match which saw the Brothers Blu run in the ring for a "no contest" finish with all three teams fighting each other. This has led to some speculation that they may do a triangular tag match a la Smoky Mountain at WrestleMania. - WCW has SuperBrawl on 02/19/95. Tentative line-up has: - Hulk Hogan vs. Vader for the WCW Title - Sting & Randy Savage vs. Big Bubba & Avalanche - Jim Duggan vs. Bunkhouse Buck - Dave Sullivan vs. Kevin Sullivan - Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat for the WCW Tag Titles - Dustin Rhodes vs. Blacktop Bully - Alex Wright vs. Paul Roma - Koko B. Ware vs. Tito Santana (Cruiserweight tourney match?) Everything except the final match has been announced on TV, so maybe it will be dark or won't happen at all. Lots of talk that Ric Flair will debut in Vader's corner here and that the Steiner Brothers will make an appearance. It's expected that Ric Flair and Randy Savage or Sting will be worked into the Vader vs. Hogan feud since egos have apparently won out and tag matches are the only way we'll ever get a clean finish. - WCW will have a PPV on 03/19/95 called "WCW Uncensored." Rumored line-up has: - Hulk Hogan vs. Vader for the WCW Title - The WWF has WrestleMania XI on 04/02/95. Tentative line-up has: - Diesel vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title - Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lawrence Taylor - Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy - WCW has Slamboree on 05/21/95. This card will supposedly feature the in-ring return of Ric Flair, who was supposed to have officially retired at Starrcade five months earlier. Now, if they were bringing Flair back as a babyface, then the argument could be made that the fans would be happy with the move and not feel screwed by the violation of a previous stipulation. But with Flair returning as a heel, the only way they can legitimize it is if Hulk Hogan begs for it, so that, in theory anyhow, the fans support the move 'cause the top babyface wants it. That leads one to the conclusion that Flair will have to play a *major* role in something that is meant to really piss of Hogan and his fans. - I've had the chance to read some old Wrestling Flyer interviews (Thanks Jason) and have come across a few things that might be particularly interesting to the net at large. When WCW went to Hulk Hogan, there was some talk about Bill Watts' run a couple of years ago. Here is Bill's response in 01/93 to the question "What effects did all the happenings in the professional wrestling industry in the year 1992 have on the overall success, long-term well-being, and the existence of the wrestling business?" (any errors are probably not due to the scanner; they are probably just newsletter typos...please let me know if you enjoy this and I'll try to scan the few other interesting things): Well, I think we're seeing the overall effect of just the business. These other things (scandals, houses and TV hitting all-time lows) are just a part of it. I don't think those things are the cause, I think they're the effect of the overall status of the industry. I think the industry has been down-trending sinee '86. There was a mega-trend, a mega-change in the thing and you had the destruction of the infrastructure of this business, the very thing that kept it alive - all the independent areas that had places for new talent to get in, get experienced on a regular basis, and then as they rose up, they advanced to bigger and better areas. Also, the different areas as they had turnovers in ownership, you get better people in or worse people in. So, you had a constantly changing industry that had eighteen to twenty different places in this country to go work. and now you basically have two. At the time you had these two, one guy took it and made it a faddish event to be with a lot of tremendous media blitzing and positioning. At the same time, he totally killed the credibility of our business. It was always questionable, but he removed all doubt, and turned his empire into a cartoon comic strip come to life concept. And he thought that, it was so big and making so much money, it would go on and on forever. And this company here evolved into it and all of a sudden, they had people that in my opinion, TV executives, that didn't understand the industry and didn't even understand how to pay attention to their own research. They started copying it and combined with that, this company had a bunch of TV executives that knew nothing about it and they started guaranteeing talent huge contracts that had no basis for performance or incentive. So they didn't give a damn whether they made the event or didn't make the event or had a good match or had a bad match, they got paid. The NFL experienced the same thing back in the early '60s where they had guaranteed contracts and they would end up with a lot of #1 draft picks sitting on the bench. They quit doing it. When you sign a contract with the NFL, you get your bonus and if you don't make the team, they get rid of you. So they're not long-term tied to you on anything guaranteed. You've got to have a "dog eat dog" concept of survival of the fittest in all the sports. The other aspect is that the WWF bought all the big stars. The wrestling stars were all owned by this company, but this company got top-heavy contract-wise so there was no way to influx anything new. The wwf never has developed anything on its own, so it took all the top stars. Well, you had a total stagnation of turnover. In other words, since both areas, where every tv they showed goes nationwide, all the top stars and everything you had in wrestling was being exposed every week on television nationwide. Whereas in the old days, if you were a big star in one small regional area, and another area was down and its talent was stale, they could bring you in and a couple of guys and you would rejuvenate or spark the local area, because you were new and you were doing things different. Well, pretty soon, Vince McMahon went through his repertoire... hulk hogan hit an era vhere he became the new success point of wrestling, but it also had gotten so big through Vince's very, very shrewd marketing and positioning, he made so damn much money that he got bigger than the business. As he got bigger than business, he no longer needed to meet the demands and the rigors of a daily schedule, he didn't need to stay as focused in one aspect. As he (Hogan) retired and then Andre the Giant and all these great established people retired, they didn't replace them with anybody. And as they came down and tried to replace them with guys like the Ultimate Warrior, who has never had any credibility in my opinion, and who didn't know shit from shinola, and never's had any integrity in my opinion, and different people like that that couldn't carry the mantle and wouldn't even keep their word, and they got into chaos. Then they established stars- The Macho Man, he's been there forever, the DiBiases, the Ric Flairs, they've all ended up in ruts and they've all been there forever. So it's a culmination of all these things. So you finally reach a point, down-trend, down-trend, down-trend, but then it reaches saturation for all these effects to take total charge, and it's like it fell off a cliff. So it wasn't 1992, 1992 just saw it finally hit the bottom. It is in the worst crisis it has ever been in because you can't reach out to another regional territory and pick up a superstar to rejuvenate it. And they all think, well gosh, we've got to go find the next Hulk Hogan. Well, there's no next Hulk Hogan out there right now. That's a phenomenon that just comes along once in a while and it has to have all these right things in places for it to happen, because Hulk Hogan truly became a mega-star, he developed into as big of a star that has ever been in this business. It was on a much bigger level than Bruno Sammartino. He had a longer lifetime and a longer regularity and everything of drawing money, but back then, it was limited to just the east coast. Whereas, Hulk Hogan's projection was world-wide. He still hasn't stood the test of time like a lou thesz, a Bruno Sammartino, or anybody else, but he was projected so much bigger because McMahon did it in such a bigger method and a bigger presentation. And now, Hulk is not here, Flair's hit his golden years in this business and he's now with an outfit that doesn't really feature his best abilities. He's like a square peg in a round hole with the WWF and they haven't stayed with him and they're sitting there grasping at straws trying to figure out who's going to be their savior and they don't have any. And at the same time, with this infrastructure gone, where do the new kids learn to get the experience to do what the made the business great. So what these guys all say to us guys from the past, "the business has changed." I want to tell you, the business has not changed. The same emotion that makes somebody want to watch a match or not watch a match is still out there. The only difference in the business that's changed is that we used to draw money, all over, in every little area, and these areas ran on a regular basis. The wrestling fan and the wrestling industry has been destroyed. So we have to rebuild it out of the ashes of this chaos and take it back- I don't mean back it up like, take a 1993 car and make it a 1950 car- but we have to re-establish the traditions of this business where the athletes have a bond between the wrestling fan, their peers, and the promotion to have the integrity to show up for their bookings, be in condition, drug free, and be able to go out there and bust their ass and to give the people their money's worth. You can go back to one or two other major factors, the AIDS aspect and blood, but that's just a small effect. The major effect has come about because you had a mega-trend where your industry is down to two places that expose everything that they do nationwide every time they do it, and there has been nothing new. You had the same model in New Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan three or four years ago. They were stale and they had their two top stars retire- lnoki and Sakaguchi, who had been carrying the mantle for tuenty years. They invested in the time and money to build the Sakaguchis, the Sasakis, the Mutas, and the Chonos, and the Ligers. They've got five Olympians in their program and as they took the time and invested and built them, now they're reaping the benefits, they've rebuilt their business. And they went back to vrestling and they went back seriousness. And the other thing they did is they didn't go out and buy big superstars with inflated egos, they made people, no matter who they uere, come into their system and learn to wrestle and learn to pay a price to be in this business because they wanted to be in this business. They didn't go kiss somebody's ass, they didn't go find some steroid freak that used to be a hairdresser or used to play in a band, they went and found people with athletic ability. They've got five Olympians in that program. It's that long range planning and it was going back to the basics, and that's to me, where this industry is now in the United States. It's in a crisis point. everybody says, "Oh, Vince loves the industry." Ah, excuse me, I think he loved the power and the money. I think he hates wrestling. If he loved wrestling, he couldn't pervert it and present it in the light that he presents it in. So it's going through its shake out phases. Naturally in our country, everything's very faddish. But, I always said that the wrestling industry has not been healthy for a long time. Where you hed every territory running one or two towns every night all over the United States, it got doun to two companies running one or two towns a night, and now it's not even that. It was just made into a farce and the talent had no respect for anything except themselves and the promoters had no respect for the talent. But, the talent wants to blame it all on management. But when the talent doesn't show up or miss bookings or have shitty matches, they're just as much to blame as the management. So that is my opinion on what got us here and uhere we are. Two things were happening when my territory went down. One thing, which killed the whole country, was Reagan's new tax package which devalued the greatest asset in this country, land, by some 40% when they said you could no longer write off your interest when you're buying property, unless you're buying it as a home. That wrecked every person that was investing in real estate as a long-term investment. All banks were collateralized based on land back then, so the banks went down. They now have banks collateralized based on your ability to repay, your cash flow. And you have an area that I vas in, the five states primarily, which was my cash flow, had that happen to it plus the oil impact as it crashed. You had total devastation. The entertainment market was affected too. Rock bands quit drawing, the country western quit drawing. It was like the money was shut off with a spigot. Fortunately, I had seen the mega-trend happening in wrestling, even though I couldn't stop it. I wasn't big enough, I wasn't in a big enough demographic area, I didn't have the backing. It uas a brand new era where we had started doing our own syndication, we were starting to get revenue from our program. But Vince was in the media areas and he had a million dollar war chest that his dad and he had accumulated. He was ahead of everybody and he was already in the biggest populated areas in the country. He could buy your top guy, put him on his preliminaries, and make him more money. He'd just come in and buy all your top talent out from under you. It was a well planned thing by him and he got away vith it. With all the other ingredients, it was apparently meant to happen. Here we are with all this accumulative effect, it's finally come home to roost. But, thank God it's also going to kick his ass! Here we are at WCW, we know where the industry is and we know uhere it's going. But we are fortunate in that it's a part of Ted Turner's situation and his vision, and he has the backing, he has the staying power. So if we just get ourself reorganized and get back to the basics and start looking for new talent which we re constantly doing, and hells' bells, I don't try to fool anybody that some of the young talent we're putting on are the next superstars. But, you've got to give them a chance. At least it's better to tune into our show and see somebody new than to watch the same old shit over and over again. Who wants to watch formula matches, or as you guys term them- squash matches, on every tv show? So we're trying to go back to exciting TV. The last thing I feel will react are the live gates. I think we'll do well with our television ratings, we'll do well with our PPVs, we'll do well with our Clashes, when we have what people want to see then you get up to the situation, we can hype market and we can book them, but your talent basically, most of them don't know how to carry the event. That's the big loss, they don't have the experience to carry the big events. We have to get them back to where they have the basics and they have the concepts to where they can then live up to what we can market. It's a crazy deal. - Booking Prediction Tourney: I'm gonna hold of with the SuperBrawl ballot until Sunday just in case they throw anything interesting at us on this weekend. - Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request. Basically, all of the tapes in my video collection are available. My tape list is on the r.s.p-w ftp site (istrain.health.ufl.edu) in the file herbtape.zip. I have made a total of five compilation tapes for the net: R.s.p-w 1, Japan 1981-1983, Japan 1984-1987, VideoMarinepiad I, and VideoMarinepiad II. If you are interested in details on any of these, just send some e-mail or browse the ftp site. Herb...