Newsletter recaps

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WWF -- Survivor Series was easily the best PPV event of the year, although the buyrate will probably be lower than any PPV since Wrestling Classic. Dave will have legit figures in about a week, but he's prediciting around a 4.0 buyrate. Because there was not a hot angle to sell the show, it probably won't be as high as Summerslam, but it's on the best night of the year for wrestling, so the difference should be minimal. The show drew 13,500 in a 21,000-seat arena, which Dave credits to tournaments and novelty shows not capturing the imagination of wrestling fans the same way singles main events that are heavily hyped do. Dave says the show was good enough, and the WWF se…

Can someone post more Observer recaps from 1984-1987 & 1989.

I've run this past Loss who has given me the OK to post this. I know there are some people on here who are also members of beejmi's board so they will be fully aware of this, but for those who aren't here goes. Basically, Jason Campbell has slowly been scanning and uploading a ton of old newsletters from the 60s up to the 90s. He has a thread over on beejmi's board which he updates saying when he has scanned new stuff and what he has added. This will have been a very lengthy and tiresome process, and one which he has been doing FOR FREE, and not asking anyone a cent for. I have seen on a couple of boards now that people are starting to sell Jason's scans, which I …

WELL OKAY THEN -- "There's some major news from the NWA that should open up the issue, but I'm more in the mood to start off talking about the WWF and covering a few other subjects first." WWF -- "The Titan steamroller came into town for television tapings Tuesday and Wednesday night. I almost feel like entitling this page, 'My Week with the Fed', (as a takeoff on an excellent article a few issues back in Wrestling Forum by a Titan jobber), but actually it was only one five hour show that felt like a week. Well, it really didn't, but it was a loooong show, and that's with skipping the first two matches and leaving before the main event. They held the 'Superstars' ta…

BRUISER BRODY -- Dave says no explanation has been provided for his murder, and if anyone other than Jose Gonzales knows anything, they aren't talking. Wrestlers are starting to talk of boycotting Puerto Rico, either out of fear, or out of respect to Brody. "I'm not here to make any suggestions to anyone about how to run their business, but a few things need to be said. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that there was any kind of conspiracy in this death. If you examine the situation, any conspiracy theory doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. I didn't want to get into this, but I'm pretty much forced to now. With the exception of the family and friend…

- Lead story is Jim Duggan asking for, and recieving, a release from his UWF contract. Dave says he's wanted to go to Titan for at least 3 months, and had asked for his release and been refused in September of 86. At that time Titan backed off, which Dave says proves well written contracts can prevent Titan talent raids. Dave thinks in addition to Jim wanting to leave, other factors such as Duggan being the UWF's highest paid wrestler, having a number of demands, and the belief by some that Steve Williams is ready to handle the top babyface spot led to Watts agreeing to this. While it's a blow to the UWF, he thinks after 5 years it was probably time for a change for b…

WWF -- Dave starts by making his predictions for Wrestlemania IV, first giving the disclaimer that he doesn't know any of the results, and if he did, he wouldn't make any predictions. Hogan, Savage, and DiBiase are the only ones Dave gives any chance of winning, and no one else in the tournament is strong enough to carry the title, "or have problems from their past that Titan is afraid of coming out should they be placed in the public spotlight." Dave is able to make some eliminations based on the fact that they have already done their first post-WM TV taping, and Andre the Giant, Hacksaw Duggan, Butch Reed, Don Muraco, and Bam Bam Bigelow were all there, with none of th…

WWF -- Dave starts off with the most ... homely looking version of the Wrestlemania IV brackets possible. I wish I had Fast Stone Capture at home so I could show you all a copy of it. -- Dave says Hogan, Savage and DiBiase are the only possible winners of the tournament at this point, and that while most people think Savage or DiBiase, he doesn't think you can rule Hogan out, although he has a lesser chance than the other two. -- Dave says because the bracketing has changed, something has gone "afoul" in their original plans, and he isn't sure what. -- Gladys Knight and the Pips will perform "America the Beautiful" at the beginning of the show. -- Bruno S…

WWF -- Dave just raves and raves about the finish to the Hogan/Andre match on NBC, saying that he hopes whoever came up with that finish got a nice bonus in their paycheck. He's so impressed because he says it's like they thought of everything -- they found a way to get the belt off of Hogan to do a job, Andre wasn't hurt, Wrestlemania was set up, and the nature of the angle was so shocking that it didn't set off a fan riot, which was at one point a concern about taking the belt off of Hogan. -- In the Bay area, radio stations were reporting the title change up to a week before it even happened. The San Jose Mercury ran a story about it the day before. This was out …

WWF -- SNME aired 1/2 on NBC and was taped 12/7 in Landover, MD. Dave felt Vince and Jesse did a much better job this time around than they did last time by ridiculously overacting. They've started putting Hogan's matches toward the end to build ratings for the whole show, where the previous mindset was that they put him early to ensure everyone would see him before going to sleep. Says the best match on the card was Strike Force vs The Bolsheviks, which was **1/2 and isn't saying much, and all the other matches were horrible, although the Andre run-in was really well done. Says he is starting to warm up to Andre as a heel, but it's going to end when he realizes he has t…

I thought with the start of 2008, I would start going through the corresponding WON 20 years ago this week and paraphrase what was the big news at this time, similar to how Stephen Lyon has been doing on the Observer website. Could make for some fun discussion. This takes FOREVER to type out, so if this isn't going to prompt a lot of discussion, I probably won't do it again. There are several things I didn't go into full detail on, and the readers pages were great fun, so I'd definitely suggest getting your hands on the WON back issues regardless of the information provided here. WWF -- Meltzer reported that NBC would be broadcasting a prime-time wrestling specia…

WWF -- The Wrestlemania IV card has been finalized. In addition to the tournament, Honky Tonk Man will defend the IC title against Brutus Beefcake, and Dave expects a title change in this match, if not before then. "Even though the word I heard is that Honky isn't in line for punishment, I find it hard to believe that an example won't be made of him quickly for his refusal to drop the strap to Randy Savage on the NBC broadcast." Also, the British Bulldogs & Koko B. Ware vs The Islanders & Bobby Heenan, Demolition vs Strike Force, where Dave also expects a title change, "plus a battle royal involving all those folks like Bret Hart, Sam Houston, Harley Race and the…

WWF/NWA WAR -- "The biggest news story in this business in probably the last few decades is the pro wrestling war and Vince McMahon's rise to prominence. The wrestling war, which began in November 1983 when Titan Sports signed Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund away from the AWA, is for all real purposes, over. No, the business competition is still there between Titan and the other promotions, particularly JCP. And the two groups will continue to attempt to play little mind games with each other. But whether or not JCP can make a small recovery, or even a full recovery from its recent troubles, and even pop big houses again, the gap between Titan and Crockett is only going to …

As I'm trying to sell these, I thought I post the first issue to help drum up sales. http://postimage.org/image/m1yf6iwsp/ http://postimage.org/image/exglxhpjd/ http://postimage.org/image/x2tkbjp1l/ http://postimage.org/image/8nlcahq4p/ http://postimage.org/image/6lkuw8s5l/ http://postimage.org/image/6x2b908ll/ http://postimage.org/image/zchomaxzd/ http://postimage.org/image/egveb21s9/

WWF -- The Powers of Pain have jumped from the NWA to the WWF. They had been negotiating on and off for two months with the WWF, and they officially quit the NWA last Sunday, and debuted with the WWF the following Saturday. Dave is surprised, but they will be pushed as babyfaces in the WWF and are expected to be pushed hard and feuding with Demolition by the end of July. They will be expected to do their own interviews, as they will not have a manager. Both guys apparently wanted out before the scaffold matches were scheduled to take place with the Road Warriors, because of the fear of guys their size taking such a huge bump and causing major knee damage. The NWA did ack…

WWF -- The 7/31 show at the 55,000-seat Milwaukee County Stadium will be headlined by Hogan vs Andre in a cage. Dave thinks they're doing this match as a dry run for a possible house show series in the fall, which if it happens, will probably be the biggest money house show program they've done since Hogan/Orndorff. -- Owen Hart is starting with the WWF. He will be under a mask as a C Team performer. He will probably debut on 7/13 in Lacrosse, WI, at the same taping as Terry Taylor. Dave also suspects Hogan will appear at either that taping or 7/14 in Cedar Rapids, IA. Regarding Owen's WWF run, Dave says the following: "There are a couple of ways at looking at this. …

I've been looking at all of the published results from the Archive 1995 Wrestling Observers. This covers the 1/9/95 to 12/18/95 issues (49 issues). I tried to fix the names and combine the multiple identities, but there's over 6000 names, so at a certain point you just give up. It's an interesting exercise to see what groups were listed the most and how that corresponds. There's a lot of guys who pop up who would later be much bigger stars (Spike Dudley, Crash Holly, Doug Williams, Christopher Daniels) who had appearances in WO that year but didn't make my list here; it's always fun to spot some of their earliest results. After struggling with how to repr…

WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 1, 1986 The newswires have been pretty quiet leading into the Thanksgiving shows this year, which Dave should have the details on next week. “What a difference a year, or three, makes.” None of the Thanksgiving shows look all that interesting to Dave, although he expects Starrcade or the Superdome show to have a couple of surprise angles and good enough workrate to make them hot shows. The big news of the week is the opening of the Japan Cup Tag Tournament in New Japan, along with a power struggle between Antonio Inoki and Akira Maeda. Inoki and Fujiwara will wrestle Maeda and Kido next week, and it’s expected to draw a hal…

WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 30, 1985 Dave starts by reminding everyone that this is the final issue of the current four-issue set, so it's almost time to renew. He says the response to the poll has been great and that the deadline is on 1/6, so people should have their answers in the mail by 12/30. Dave opts to not run down the categories here, since they've run in the past three issues. Dave asks anyone who has a tape of the Martel/Hansen Comisky Park match to contact him to arrange a trade. ESPN keeps bouncing around Verne's time slot due to College Basketball (and also to purposely damage his ratings) so he doesn't see it very often, "and once in a…

REFLECTIONS AND A LOOK AHEAD "With 1988 now history, it's time to both look back and reflect, and at the same time, look ahead, at the state of pro wrestling. Certainly, few would categorize this year as any kind of a glory year for the sport/business of pro wrestling. While there were some positives from a business standpoint, pro wrestling getting its first prime-time network coverage in more than three decades in the U.S; the TBS purchase of the NWA giving the beleagured group new hope; an attempt at cooperation among the smaller promotions in the United States; several promotions having the chance to show their wares on pay-per-view and the single biggest success…

We go back in time a week because this is one of the issues I just got from Kurt. - Cover story: “El Pirata Morgan Wins Scalp From Masakre Again,” referring to a match on 2/28 at Arena Mexico. This was the second time that Masakre (of Los Intocables del Ring and formerly of Los Infernales) worked a hair match against a member of Los Nuevos Infernales (Morgan, MS-1, and Satanico) since he was kicked out of the group on October 16th, as he had won MS-1’s hair on December 15th. Morgan had previously won his hair on April 10, 1988. Anyway, the match was described as a ridiculously bloody brawl with the crimson flowing onto referee Javier “El Gato” Montini, the wrest…

I figured that I might as well start doing this to join in the fun since I have a pretty good collection of these and will be getting some of what I'm missing soon. Lucha Libre Weekly was Steve “Dr. Lucha” Sims’ newsletter in 1992-1993. Before that, he was a key source for both the Observer and Kurt Brown and Jeff Larson’s Viva La Lucha newsletter, sending them detailed news faxes every week. These newsletters are fantastic, so I figured that I’d do for them what Loss and others have done with the Observers. We start with the earliest issue I have, the fourth one. Let me know what you think of these and if you want to see more. - Cover story is "Upset of the yea…

Full credit to amdrag on the F4W board

Loss covered a lot of 86 and 88 so I thought I'd try and fill in the gap with 1987. It'll be mostly focused on the North American stuff. If there's an item that anybody wants more detail on I'd be glad to try and accommodate. I'll try to do one a week, time permitting. This one took a little longer than I expected. - Scott Hall had left the AWA, but "was tired of waiting around for Titan to call" and is back for what Dave thinks will be a short run - Dynamite Kid is being advertised on January shows despite being in traction after disc surgery. "Being the crazy and dangerously determined individual he is," he's expected back by early-mid February. Because …