Loss

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 seemed to really want to put forward a good show, that it should help next year's show as a gimmick. * Brutus Beefcake & Blue Blazer & Sam Houston & Anabolic Warrior & Jim Brunzell vs Honky Tonk Man & Bad News Brown & Greg Valentine & Ron Bass & Dann Davis: All action with lots of heat, except for Blazer's submission to a figure four, which puzzled the crowd. Everyone worked hard, but the timing was off. ** * Battle of the tag teams: Really fast paced, 33-minutes of Japanese-style action followed by about 10 minutes of rest holds and power moves. The Bulldogs went out with a bang. The reason for the Powers of Pain turn was actually because the Road Warriors just turned heel in the NWA and the WWF was trying to further the perception that they were the Road Warriors. They decided to do the double turn since they feel the Powers of Pain can't stay over because they can't do interviews, while Demolition does fine interviews and doesn't need a manager so much. ***1/2, would have been ****, but the crowd didn't react to the double turn at the end. * Andre/Bravo/Rude/Race/Hennig vs Duggan/Roberts/Casey/Patera/Santana: The only bad match on the show since everyone but Jake, Rude, and Hennig are not in ring shape. Patera's farewell, but he had a good career and was great in the early 80s. Hennig is still really, really not over, but the WWF is determined to keep pushing him until he does get over. Dave can't figure out why Bravo is so protected. *1/4 * Hogan/Savage/Koko/Hillbilly Jim/Hercules vs Haku/DiBiase/Akeem/Rooster/Boss Man: Crowd was pretty silent when Hogan and Savage weren't in. Action was good once Hillbilly got out and the booking was fantastic. They are clearly teasing Hogan vs Savage for Wrestlemania. *** -- Overall, this was the best booked major card in years and the announcing was excellent. -- Ron Garvin will take Don Muraco's old spot and feud with Greg Valentine. -- 11/25 in Hartford, CT crew 9,800 fans headlined by Hogan vs Boss Man. 11/23 in Cincinnati drew 6,500 headlined by Hogan vs Boss Man. 11/20 in Grand Rapids, MI drew 4,300 fans headlined by Rude vs Roberts. 11/20 at the Capital Centre drew 2,500 fans headlined by Savage vs Bad News Brown. NWA -- "The daily soap opera, 'The Young and the Wrestless,' continued this week involving the National Wrestling Alliance. After missing the entire weekend with what is now known in wrestling terminology as the 'Dusty flu,' we got the word that the Dream was in hot water. In fact, Jim Crockett was ordered to replace Dusty Rhodes as NWA booker. Since Crockett knows that with the exception of Rhodes himself, there is only one person in this entire universe capable of booking the NWA, he was in a panic when he made the call to Colorado, but Crockett's panic was relieved a bit when the party on the other end of the phone said he'd drop all plans and arrive in Sumter, SC to take over the booking chores the next day. You could imagine the shock among the wrestlers Tuesday night when the new booker walked in. Yes, it was the Midnight Rider, in public if you will. "Unfortunately, the Dusty flu is a contagious disease and spread all around the NWA this past week and Battlestar Week was marred by several no-shows once again, including wrestlers in key matches most every night." -- Dave thinks Starrcade will be okay, but can't see it having the impact or buy rate of the Bash. Also, that show stood on its own while this one is right in the middle of some major oversaturation. -- They are planning a PPV for 2/19 in Chicago, which was originally called Chi-Town Heat II: Freddy's FInal Revenge (???) headlined by Flair vs Steamboat, or at least that's what they're hoping for. Dave says Chicago is not the city to do Flair/Steamboat because no one knows the rivalry outside of the Carolinas and Toronto. In the ring, it should be excellent, but they will have to really deliver some special hype for it to draw. -- They ran an angle with Dusty and the Road Warriors on Thanksgiving afternoon that aired on TBS on Saturday where the Road Warriors spiked Dusty's eye. This was planned for months from now, but Dusty needs an angle in a big way or he's going to find himself out the door. Dusty will work with a patch over his eye. -- 11/12 in Columbus, OH drew between 2,500 and 3,000 headlined by Flair vs Dusty with Flair actually winning by pinfall. 11/23 in Baltimore drew 9,000 and a $106,000 gate headlined by Sting & Luger vs Road Warriors in a ***1/2 match and Flair vs Rick Steiner. Thanksgiving at the Omni drew 8,000 and a $96,000 gate. 11/25 in Charlotte drew 5,000 fans and a $57,000 gate. 11/26 in Greensboro drew 7,500 fans headlined by Road Warriors vs Sting & Luger, with a notable Steve Williams vs Rick Steiner match that was **** underneath, and couldn't be followed. The ans were going crazy and Steiner did an incredible dive over the top rope out of the ring. Super heat and intensity. 11/27 in Richmond drew 3,500 fans headlined by Sting & Luger vs Road Warriors. -- The deal with managers is that only the managers associated with the top two matches on the show get to travel to the cities. -- The current plan is to bring back Gordon Solie to host the Sunday show with JJ Dillon, and Dave has no idea why Dillon. "The current plan is also to drop several managers early next year and they are trying to make sure Dillon stays. That seems like part of the reason they are holding Dangerously and Cornette from going to the arenas, in order to make it seem like Dillon is the No. 1 manager and assure his spot. It may work, and it may backfire completely." AWA -- 11/26 in the Twin Cities drew 1,500 fans and was headlined by Jerry Lawler vs Wahoo McDaniel. Kerry Von Erich and Ricky Morton, who were key in building up the show, both no-showed. Morton had flight issues. WCCW/CWA -- Thanksgiving on 11/25 in Dallas drew an $11,200 gate, the largest in a long time, and everyone was happy. The show was headlined by Lawler vs Kerry in a cage and Kerry won clean. -- "Lee Marshall was at the Sportatorium helping Marc Lowrance do the commentary and you know he needs the help." PORTLAND -- In what Dave says is "probably the first, last and only time that Portland Wrestling will be the lead story in the Observer", the Oregon State Athletic Commission closed down Don Owen's Big Time Wrestling Promotions for violating state regulations. Owen had his promoters' license pulled and had to close shop. -- This started on 11/5. Matt Borne was doing an interview to plug a match with Steve Doll on 11/12. Borne guaranteed blood, but the commission was adamantly against this, because Billy Jack Haynes had clued them in on how wrestling works. Not only did he guarantee blood for the first time in months, but also said the commission better be there, because there will be blood all over the place. Another wrestler, Abbuda Dein (Rocky Iaukea) said the same thing. -- At the 11/12 show Borne was posted by Steve Doll and gigged himself, and the referee immediately stopped the match. -- On 11/15, the commission issued a complaint about the blood and the guard rails, which failed to meet safety standards. Owen's lawyer claimed the blood was accidental and that since they stopped the match, they were compliant with the commission rules. They also argued that the guard rails were within guidelines. Owen said wrestlers are independent contractors and he can't control what they do in a match. The judge ruled in favor of the commission and said Owen's promoters license should be rescinded. Owen appealed, but the judge again ruled in favor of the commission, so he had to cancel his 11/26 Thanksgiving card, which was expected to sell out. -- The story made Portland newspapers for four days and also made the national AP and UPI wires. -- It is expected in the next week that Owen and the commission will reach a compromise because they need each other. Owen obviously needs to be reinstated, but tax revenue from wrestling is what funds the commission. This happened one week prior to local businessman Mel Saraceno and Moondog Moretti opening a rival promotion on 12/3. DAVE AND WADE KELLER ON THE LETTERS PAGE From Wade: "All of this controversy about smart fans, what they are, what they think, what their responsibilities are is getting very old, very fast. First of all, since smart fan is a slang term, there is no definite definition. A lot of people feel a smart fan is one who reads the Observer, Torch, Forum or other insider sheet. Others think a smart fan has to know everything about the business to be truly smart. Some think it's anyone who doesn't think wrestling is real is smart. And so on. Maybe Trent Walters was correct in saying Bill Kunkel and Ed Garea are the only true smart fans he knows of, but that is simply because they fit his definition of smart fans. When Jon Gallagher wrote the article, "Dealing With Wrestlers" in the Pro Wrestling Torch Annual, he said, '...Perhaps the easiest way to end your meeting quickly is to call the wrestler by his real name. Though this will let the wrestler know that you are smart, that is the only purpose it serves. The wrestler already knows his own real name and chances are that he will not stick around for the conversation.' Jon did not mean the wrestler will assume that the fan knows the complex business of wrestling inside and out. I interpreted that he meant that the wrestler will think this fan has been smartened up to the point he knows angles are predetermined and personalities are contrived. Generally, most wrestlers feel uncomfortable talking to that type of fan. The point is, Trent Walters doesn't seem to realize his definition of a smart fan isn't everyone's. As far as good matches go, it is okay for him to like a match with good ring psychology, but since match endings are predetermined, a lot of fans like exciting matches and rate wrestlers who execute good moves often higher than those who don't. Those fans aren't wrong. They just don't agree with you. Owen Hart hurts the business? I don't think so. An Owen Hart match doesn't expose the business, at least not compared to anything else in the business. The cartoon image of the WWF and things others portray does hurt a whole lot worse. The general media treating pro wrestling with laughter and contempt is what hurts the business. When a fan watches a wrestler sit there and not move out of the way when Randy Savage comes off the top rope or when the referee pretends not to see a foreign object that the heel doesn't try to hide might expose the business. Owen Hart shows tremendous athletic ability and durability. Absorbing tremendous punishment and coming back from this punishment may be unrealistic, but exposing the business, it does not. Trent also says, 'Please don't hurt the business. I have never tried to smarten anyone up. I don't talk smart.' Is he telling me to lie to my friends? Should I tell them it's real? When I got my first copy of the Wrestling Observer, it didn't hurt the business. If anyone reads the Wrestling Observer, it doesn't hurt the business. If every single wrestling fan read the Observer, it probably would hurt the business, but since that isn't conceivable, it is nothing to worry about. The business of wrestling has to be run with the assumption that its fans are pretending that it's real, even if it is common knowledge that this isn't the case." Dave: "There are those who believe the knowledge that pro wrestling is worked hurts the business. But think about this. Of the several million fans who watch pro wrestling on TV each week, what percentage do you think truly believe it is a legitimate sport? I'll bet 10 percent would be overestimating the mark. What percentage of those at house shows truly believe? I don't mean they suspend disbelief or fool themselves or pretend while they are at the show, but truly believe in their heart of hearts it is true sport? That varies by the promotion, but at the WWF it is less than 20 percent. At some of the smaller promotions the percentage would be higher since they have no general public appeal. I've had several wrestlers tell me the last promotion where the fans really believed was Bill Watts' Mid South, and they didn't believe for the most part by 1986. If tomorrow, all wrestling fans who believe wrestling is a work were to all give up watching and following wrestling and leave it to the marks, so to speak, what would happen. TV ratings would drop 90 percent. Virtually every wrestling TV show would disappear from the airwaves within six months. House show gates would drop more than 80 percent because not only would those who don't believe be gone, but those who do would lose interest without the television to keep them interested. Every promotion would be obliterated, except the WWF, which would be badly wounded. Most wrestlers would be unemployed, and those who would be employed wouldn't make anywhere near what they earn today. So saying that pro wrestling is for the marks is gaga. Wrestling is for all wrestling fans, all of whom have different tastes. A promoter either has to figure out what the public wants and give it to them, or be such a good promoter that he can convince the public to like what he wants to give them, and most wrestling promoters fall into the latter category of thought. The problem is, with the exception of Vince McMahon, none are good enough promoters to turn a profit doing it. Jerry Jarrett turns a profit, but his company tries to give the public what it wants, while Titan tries to lead the public into wanting what it feels like giving. But saying that unless you pretend in public that wrestling is real you will destroy the business is ridiculous. Nobody exposes the business more than the promoters in the first place. And it takes no great knowledge or incisiveness to be able to figure out whether wrestling is real for yourself in the first place. I do believe most all fans want the wrestlers themselves to pretend it's real, tho. If Andy Rooney were commenting on the latest raging controversy within wrestling fandom, he'd probably say: "Didja ever notice how obsessed some people are with how smart they are? Didja ever wonder why?"

He said he refused to believe that Warrior and Honky Tonk Man could draw that well, so he credited Hogan and Brother Love, since they were both far more over than either Warrior or HTM at this point.

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' taping at the San Francisco Cow Palace on 11/15, which drew a slightly padded legitimate sellout crowd of 14,600 fans (12,200 paying and $142,000 and 2,400 freebies) and they did turn away about 100 fans, although they weren't turning anyone away until after 8 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. start. For reasons I'm unable to ascertain, the building was a good 2,000 shy of capacity, however as roughly 1,900 people who held tickets never arrived and there were plenty of empty seats noticable throughout the building, particularly up high, even though it was a turnaway event. One thing you have to give Titan credit for is the way they promote major events within the market. There was tons of local radio stations and even local television over the last two days. In reality, there was a lot of worrying about an empty arena because they had only 6,000 tickets sold the day before the event but had a huge walk-up, which on a Tuesday night is doubly impressive. My theory o this, which may not be worth much, is that doing tons of local publicity does work twice a year (which is all they do TV here) when Hogan is on the show because there were tons of casual fans, and that's really not what they were as I saw friends from high school and such the one time I wandered around the place and they wouldn't even be classified at wrestling fans in the least. It was simply a much-publicized thing to do and Hogan has name recognition with non-fans and can draw them once or twice, even if they don't care much about wrestling. Nobody else in wrestling has any pull anything near that with the non-fans. As one reader said, it was probably the highest IQ group ever to attend wrestling at the Cow Palace, but they also had the lowest wrestling IQ. We saw two turns, and fans didn't react to either of them. The only crowd reactions were the instinctive popping when music blared out and genuine heat during Ted DiBiase's match. The two most obvious lessons are that Titan can't run subtle turns here, because it was an audience that needed to be banged over the head to understand anything that occurred, and that for an organization that runs things so well, they really should be able to get a whole lot better quality of jobbers because even though the jobbers simply go into the ring and get squashed in two minutes, they at least have to know how to take bumps to sell the moves right and we had some outright disasters, particularly late in the show. The best thing about the show was the ring announcing by Howard Finkel. I've never really paid close attention to that before because I usually concentrate on the matches, but decided to concentrate on everything but the matches here. The guy belongs in the ring announcers hall of fame with Jimmy Lennon, and even Lennon wasn't so meticulously perfect." -- Demolition vs Rockers: Dave missed it, but was told it was a **1/2 match and was the second best match on the show. -- Ron Bass vs Ken Patera: DUD -- Superstars taping summary: Fans didn't understand how the tapings worked and chanted "refund" during Big Boss Man's squash, because hey thought he was Hogan's replacement, and didn't realize the match was later in the show. Barry Horowitz is the best jobber in North America. Akeem is amusing as a novelty act, but has no chance of drawing money with that gimmick. Brother Love is really over. Rude has lost some heat compared to six months ago with the Cheryl Roberts angle. Bad News Brown would have made a great heel in the 70s. Dave enjoys Andre as an actor, but not as a wrestler. Duggan's popularity and heat has suffered greatly because of his feud with Dino Bravo, who is not over at all. -- "Mean Gene came out to cheerlead for the intros to open the hours. They did two big opening cheers which did real good. Then Gene tried to lead fans in a chant of "Jesse, Jesse," but it was a real half-hearted response by the crowd which died almost immediately. When Gene previously announced Vince and Jesse's names, he paused for a big reaction to Jesse's name and it was surprisingly lukewarm with a few boos. Before I go on, there's one anecdote I've got to put in here. You know that Gene does those interviews with fans in the crowd (and yes, unlike anything else with Titan, these aren't plants). Anyway, Gene went up to this guy who looked like he was on furlough from a Massachusetts prison and started asking him all those stupid questions and the guy screamed on the mic, 'Mean Gene, you're a faggot.' Gene sprinted away from him lik ehe was Ben Johnson." -- Ted DiBiase vs Tito Santana was **3/4 and the best match on the show. -- Koko B. Ware & Blue Blazer vs Conquistadores was "okay if you don't mind watching Owen Hart wrestling while wearing an invisible straight-jacket." -- Paul Roma had "the best physique in the WWF and maybe in all of pro wrestling." -- "We went back to Superstars taping midway through hour #2 after an unplanned 10 minute intermission due to a wild brawl in the corner of the cheap seats. It took a long time to separate, had the best actual heat of the night (the punches looked real, probably because they were) and the participants kept breaking away from security to start pounding on one another. I haven't seen a crowd brawl like this one in a long time. It was ironic that what was planned next was, you got it, a brawl all over the arena." -- More random taping thoughts: Sam Houston is taller and heavier than both Rougeaus, but has the rep of being skinny while they don't, so they get pushed and he doesn't. During the Rogueaus vs Houston & Stefan De Leon match, the building headed out for the concessions stands "like ants who had been given the message that Buddy Rose is unloading his picnic basket" ... "Rude's trunks now have a drawing of Rick Rude on them. Does that mean he wants to--wait, I better not even speculate." -- Curt Hennig vs Lee Hansen: Hennig had less heat than anyone on the show, including some of the jobbers. This got "boring" chants, but Dave says Hennig beat the shit out of the guy, and it was like watching Ashura Hara in the WWF and was incredibly violent. -- "It was off to Sacramento on 11/16 for a Wrestling Challenge and Saturday Night Main Event taping (for 11/26 air date). Sacramento had an awesome advance so freebies were limited, but they came just shy of a sellout with 15,900 (sellout would be 16,500) paying $170,000. "It totally mystifies me the crowd reaction for Hennig because they've given him such a big push but nobody cares. The theory among those who know more than I is that the problem is twofold: 1) Even though his character is not the same as DiBiase, his entrance to the fed is exactly the same and fans see it as nothing new. 2) Even though Hennig is a great worker and appeared to have a strong personality in the AWA, his interviews and personality which stood out amongst Kevin Kelly and Soldat Ustinov mean nothing when he's out there with guys with strong personalities who have their act down pat. Who really knows, all I know is it isn't working." -- Even though there were 13,000 fans in attendance for Leonard-Lalonde, the paid attendance was only 5,000. The WWF also reduced their buyrate claims to 5.8 percent and 630,000 homes, but Dave says these figures bear no relation with reality, because clearance was only 9.4 million. Dave is hearing a lot of interesting information from cable companies despite the WWF's gag order. -- "They Live" has already surpassed the $20 million mark. The move is expected to be a huge success internationally, especially in Europe because of Carpenter's reputation as a director. Observer reader and film critic Paul Sherman of the Boston Herald interviewed Piper. Here is a summary: * Piper would return to wrestling again if this failed, although it would hurt a lot to have to do so * Piper explained that he is loyal to Don Owen because Georgia tried to blackball him after they fired him, and Owen was the only promoter in the country that would hire him. So he never went against him, even though there was pressure to do so in the WWF. * He talked about being stabbed three times, being shot at, and living on the streets from the time he was 13 to 15 years old. He was a golden gloves boxer at 14 years old when he weighed 157 lbs and got picked on a lot because he didn't look like he could fight. * "It's a time when you really got to test your morals. It would be really easy to snatch some old lady's purse or something like that. With Carpenter, he would ask me and I'd tell him some things and some things I wouldn't. In that particular scene it was pretty hard for me because of what I was fighting. I'm a pretty shy guy, and when I wrestled I just kept everything closed and I was extra mean. It was a way of hiding everything that happened to me. Nobody asked me no questions because they didn't want to. When it came time to do this movie, it was just the opposite. They wanted you to open up. And I'm still afraid people will laugh at me for it. It just my feelings, and that hurts more than anything. So it's really a touchy thing, so I'm not sure where to go with it. I used to stay mean so they couldn't hurt me, now I'm opening up, and if they hurt me what do I do? Do I get mean and hit them? Do I take the heat and get my feelings hurt? Especially in the 'daddy scene,' it was just coming from Roderick Piper." * He retired from wrestling because his oldest daughter would cry when he would leave from the airport to wrestle. "Believe it or not, I have a heart way down there. It tore my heart out. I never had no family on my side. I worked my whole life to build a family, to have a little ranch up on the mountain. All of a sudden I was throwing it away for I wasn't sure what. How much glamour wa sI gonna get out of pro wrestling? Or how much more anything? It was a hard decision to make." * He was not a natural actor, and had to work hard. * Ric Flair is a stand-up guy and a credit to wrestling. "I printed these comments here but want to mention you should take most of them with a grain of salt. To clarify, on the Don Owen question, while it is true that the Georgia office fired Piper at the height of his popularity in 1981, the tour he worked with Owen the following week had been advertised for a long time previously, and it was a one-week tour, and after that, he went to work full-time for the Crocketts in the Carolinas (for much of '81 he was splitting time between the Crockett Carolina office and Ole Anderson's Georgia office). His story about meeting John Carpenter at WM3 seems strange as if the acting career was a fluke as many months before his retirement it was well-known he was trying to market himself as a movie actor and had three film offers before he ever retired from wrestling or even thought of retiring for that matter." -- Brian Blair was brought to California to do a TV job, but refused, so he was fired again. -- 11/17 in Los Angeles drew 10,000 and a $128,000 gate headlined by Hogan vs Boss Man. 11/18 in St. Louis drew a sellout 9,600 and an $89,000 gate headlined by Hogan vs Boss Man in the biggest turnout in over two years. 11/15 in Champaign, IL drew 14,000 fans headlined by Hogan vs Boss Man. 11/11 at Nassau drew 12,149 fans headlined by Hulk Hogan vs Brother Love (!!!) with Hogan stripping him down to polka dot underwear, a gate that Dave says throws every rule of promoting wrestling out the window. 11/11 in Albuquerque drew $43,000 headlined by Roberts vs Rude. -- Vince is keeping the Rougeaus and Bulldogs apart, but they are both part of Survivor Series, which is the last show for Davey Boy & Dynamite. NWA -- The Fantastics vs Sheepherders match for the Clash has to be cancelled since the Sheepherders are headed to the WWF to fill the spot on the card made vacant by the departure of the British Bulldogs. -- Dusty Rhodes is trying to get Ric Flair vs Rick Steiner on top for Starrcade, along with Roadies vs Sting & Luger and Barry Windham vs Dusty Rhodes. "I have to carefully tread on this story, but this past Monday afternoon, Ric Flair had a meeting at TBS and was informed of his match and of the finish. Flair stormed out of the meeting, missed the TBS TV tapings that night, and for a 24-hour period it was tough-and-go whether he'd finally go to Titan since he's been talking of late about the matches he could have with Randy Savage (although he doesn't realize what he'd have to give up to have them, basically his wrestling dignity, and those matches would never live up to expectations because they wouldn't be given the time). Well, Jack Petrik of TBS has learned more about the wrestling business over the past seven days then most learn in a year and by Tuesday talked Flair into staying. At that point the main event was Flair vs. Luger with the two matches underneath uncertain, but that was the deal made between Petrik and Flair, with Rhodes not involved in the decision-making. Rhodes was furious, as you can imagine and he and Jim Crockett tried to explain to Petrik various reasons why the scenario he had wouldn't work (I can't go into details because it would give away a possible finish) and tried to talk Petrik back into seeing things their way, and then failing, tried to talk him into switching the main event to Flair vs. 'that Jap' (Genichiro Tenryu, who Flair himself wanted to wrestle despite the fact it would have no box office impact because he wanted a great, stiff, realistic match and also wanted to get himself and the NWA title 'over' as the real World title in Japan and wanted to open up Japanese style more to U.S. fans). Later Crockett dispatched Jim Barnett to convince Flair to see things Dusty's way on Thursday, but the last word I have is that it will be Flair vs. Luger on top. The story doesn't end here, because this weekend has been full of turmoil and disaster for the NWA. There have been several no-shows each night, finishing off with a near-record 12 no-shows tonight in Chicago (if you include managers). Most importantly, Dusty Rhodes missed all three major cards this weekend and it isn't clear to anyone as to why, whether the pressure of being accountable and not having 100 percent carte blanche when it comes to booking is taking its toll or whether its a protest for being overruled or whether it is something else. However on Friday night at the DC Armory in Washington, Rhodes was scheduled to wrestle Flair for the title on top and no-showed without leaving any word. They waited until 8 p.m., the show's starting time, for his arrival and since he gives finishes, had nothing worked out for the card. When he didn't arrive, Kevin Sullivan and Gary Juster had to frantically put together a replacement card and work out match finishes and actually completed the show with very few mishaps. Road Warrior Hawk missed Thursday and Friday with a bad back, but was back to work on Saturday and the injury was legit. He was in town to work Friday but was in so much pain and with Rhodes not there they decided to turn the main event into Flair & Road Warrior Animal vs. Sting & Luger with Sting pinning Flair for the finish. Bobby Eaton missed the weekend as well but the absence was excused. Then came Sunday night in Chicago and check out the list of no-shows: Stan Lane and Bobby Eaton and manager Jim Cornette (Cornette was advertised but wasn't scheduled to go there because of the decision not to send the managers on the road in many situations to save travel costs); Dusty himself; Bam Bam Bigelow (who got fed up with the way the organization was being run the previous night in Philadelphia but is still with the group and only missed the show); Fantastics and Sheepherders (since Sheeps quit and Fantastics had nobody to work with), Paul E. Dangerously (although his team was there, same story about managers), Paul Jones (ditto) and J. J. Dillon and Oliver Humperdink. Even at this Wednesday's kick-off to Battlestar Week in Baltimore, the promotion's hottest city, they don't have Cornette and Dangerously on the show. The story I got is that when TBS heard about all this about managers advertised in promos not showing up that they were 'very upset' because they want to run a first-class operation and just for practical business reasons, no-shows hurt the town's future gates worse than almost anything you can think of. That isn't the only problem. Another major problem on the scene is that since the wrestlers were ordered to move to Atlanta by 11/1, all air reservations were bought from the Atlanta airport. This mean those who hadn't relocated to Atlanta, like those who stayed in Charlotte (many of them did) would have to drive to Atlanta to catch their plane to wherever (something like a six hour drive) and drive home from Atlanta. Some did the drive and others paid out-of-pocket to purchase their own plane tickets out of Charlotte. Apparently Steve Williams has a similar problem living in Shreveport and his deal when he joined the NWA was they would fly his leg from Shreveport to Dallas and then Dallas to wherever. Some tickets come out of Dallas since many of the wrestlers still live there including Crockett, Dusty and J.J. Dillon, however those on the East Coast's tickets are all out of Atlanta. Anyway, Williams' promise was reniged upon and he's been driving from Shreveport to Dallas to catch his plane flights. This should help some of you understand why in certain circumstances that some of the matches may be below par. The wrestlers were told that TBS ordered them all to move, but I'm wondering. Why would TBS, in its first month of owning the company, do something like this which is certain to destroy morale, which is already at below zero?" -- The Dusty situation remains up in the air, but Dave thinks he's "already cooked his goose" (My note: I am Southern and have NEVER heard that expression) and knows it. There has still been no explanation for his missing the shows. "The real story behind this in my mind is that there has been a major power play going on behind the scenes ... between Rhodes and Ric Flair. One time Flair woke up and realized how much he had allowed himself and the title to be abused and also realized just how little the title meant to the casual fans because of the cheap way the champion had been portrayed, particularly over the past year with all the ref bump DQ finishes. Flair refused to do those finishes, particularly wth Lex Luger, and Rhodes and Crockett tried to paint Flair as a prima donna and not a team player to Petrik. Part of the reason also is that Flair had received a very lucrative offer from TBS and TBS is working on marketing Flair as the focal point of their promotion in 1989 as a babyface and are working on a Flair book, Flair videotape, etc. to come out next year after the turn. There was also a clause in the deal that gave Flair unprecedented power for a World champion and Rhodes and Crockett were upset Flair was given that type of power and Rhodes felt Flair went 'behind his back' in negotiating the contract and getting that certain power. In response, Rhodes only booked Flair for five shows the entire month of December and attempted to get the title from him at Starrcade, but it appears the entire situation backfired on him. As far as I know, Rhodes is still the booker but I assume Kevin Sullivan is in reality the booker and that the promotion is in a shambles temporarily due to a lack of leadership and guidance which has to be addressed quickly and my own opinion is that it will be very difficult to salvage anything from Starrcade because valuable build-up time has been lost in the in-fighting and petty-burying. Rhodes also had planned to bring his son Dustin (18-years-old) in along with Kendall Windham as the Texas Broncos tag team and give them a decent babyface push, and his timing in doing so couldn't have been worse." -- Jimmy Garvin has quit, and is expected to end up in Texas teaming with Michael Hayes. -- 11/16 in Raleigh drew $8,000 headlined by Midnight Express vs Road Warriors in a cage match. 11/19 in Philadelphia drew 5,000 fans headlined by Road Warriors vs Sting & Luger in a **** brawl. -- "They also announced that they would be doing a live 'Straight Talk with the Boss' (Magnum T.A.) segment at Starrcade and in this week's update showed a three minute video of Magnum running on the beach with his mom that was taped many years ago to build up a Flair vs. Magnum match in Norfolk (a 60 minute draw which sold out the place). What is the purpose? Last year they had to rush certain matches to fit in a 2 1/2 hour show and hold the card to seven matches--this year they've got three hours bu probably will have more matches and they don't have time for a live Magnum's Pit-- it's just not the show to do it in. The video was great, but it should have been a new video done on whomever was wrestling Flair for the title or on Sting & Luger as a team or whatever. I personally enjoyed it but it was another waste of a Starrcade update on something and someone who isn't going to be selling tickets to a PPV event." -- 11/18 in DC drew 3,000 headlined by Flair & Animal vs Sting & Luger. 11/20 drew 4,500 and a $52,000 house headlined by Sting & Luger vs Road Warriors. 11/13 in Huntington, WV drew 5,000 headlined by Sting vs Flair. 11/10 in Johnstown, PA drew 1,549 and a $15,661 gate headlined by Sting & Luger vs Flair & Windham. 11/11 in Pittsburgh drew 3,400 and a $35,000 house headlined by Flair vs Luger. -- Later in the issue, Dave says Rhodes claimed he was ill and that's why he missed the weekend shows, but he is probably out as booker but may stay temporarily as a wrestler. -- The NWA wrestlers received their balloon payments from Crockett, but only at 40 cents on the dollar. The best estimate is that one major NWA star will wind up with around $120,000. CWA/WORLD CLASS -- Correction from last week: The Dallas office has not closed, but most of the major decisions are coming from Tennessee. Only Eric Embry and Bronco Lubich are working from Dallas now. -- Jerry Jarrett may be looking to replace Marc Lowrance because he has no credibility in World Class and it reflects badly on the product and hype. -- "Eric Embry pulled a Robert Fuller and ran the whole show around himself. Scandor Akbar now has a $50,000 bounty on Embry. During an interview, Iceman King Parsons and Botswana Beast beat up Embry who juiced and was stretchered out and it was announced to the crowd he was taken to the hospital. Later in the show Embry came back and attacked Iceman and Beast and they said that he refused to get in the ambulance to take him to the hospital and stayed in the building for revenge." -- Lawler did an interview to cover for his no-show on 11/11 at the Sportatorium, saying he was in town and WCCW personnel drove him all over Dallas. He claims Fritz Von Erich paid them off so he wouldn't hurt Kerry before Superclash. STAMPEDE -- The British Bulldogs will be in full-time starting 11/25. Don Muraco and Junkyard Dog will be in the first week of December. Dave expects crowds to pick up since they're all major league stars, but they all need heels to face, although Dave thinks Muraco teaming with Steve DiSalvo against the Bulldogs would draw. Dave can't see JYD staying over very long here because the fans are used to great matches. -- 11/11 in Calgary drew 1,000+ headlined by Benoit/Wellington/Bruce Hart vs Smith/Cuban Commandos -- The WWF is running Calgary on 12/9, so Stampede will run a day earlier that week. -- They ran an angle where Abdul Wizal threw ammonia in Steve DiSalvo's eyes, and they actually used real ammonia and some got in DiSalvo's eyes, so he had to wear a protective face mask. ALL JAPAN -- Ashura Hara has been fired. This is a huge loss for All Japan which Dave compares to Arn & Tully leaving for the WWF. He can't see anyone filling Hara's spot except maybe Toshiaki Kawada, but that would break up the popular Foot Loose tag team. Also, Kawada is too small to work on top. The story was that Hara kept piling up outside debt, and Baba kept helping him out, but Hara refused to help himself, and Baba got tired of doing so and got rid of him. -- Weekly Pro Wrestling, which Dave compares in some ways to the WON, just that they are more subtle and have more read-between-the-lines reporting, said that Tenryu vs Jumbo on 10/28 was fantastic, but had a weak finish that some are complaining was too revealing. -- Weekly Gong will have a 10-part interview with Barbara Goodish starting in a few weeks. NEW JAPAN -- 11/11 in Tokyo started the tag tournament. -- 11/12 in Matsumoto drew 2,230 fans. -- Lance Idol no-showed the tour, so Kendo Nagasaki is replacing him and will team with Buzz Sawyer & Manny Fernandez. -- Hiroshi Hase will be out several months with a staph infection, which could be career-threatening. UWF -- 11/10 in Tsuyuhashi drew 5,000 fans and a $175,00 gate headlined by Maeda vs Takada. -- The plan is to air the 1/10 show which will probably be Maeda vs Backlund in closed circuit, the first show of its kind in Japan. -- They had their first TV exposure ever over the past week, airing the main events on Ch. 6 in Tokyo, an independent station. It drew a national 12 rating, which makes it the third highest rated show of the year after Hogan vs Andre and Dump's retirement. Ch. 6 pushed the show hard, saying they would be airing real wrestling, with Maeda saying "All Japan and New Japan are fake and our fights are real fights." JWP -- Hisashi Shinma is starting JWP in large part due to his anger over Maeda's comments about other promotions. Devil Masami and Shinobu Kandori will have a big main event in January. MISCELLANEOUS -- "There is a rumor floating around that Merv Griffin was going to start a wrestling promotion that word I get is it was just a passing thought." -- Vader is running an indy show called "Superclash '88" on 12/2 in Boulder, CO. -- Lia Maivia and Lars Anderson were released on $20,000 bail. Maivia, Anderson and Ati So'o were required to surrender their passports, not leave Hawaii, and have no contact with any witnesses. -- Manny Fernandez was arrested for assaulting a fan in Hickory, NC where he wrestled Hector Guerrero.

While we're on the subject, I do believe that the WWF believed that WCW was able to get a competitive advantage over them because their top stars were bigger and had better physiques. But does anyone here really, truly believe that bodies had anything to do with WCW overtaking the WWF?

Stephanie McMahon is one of the more obvious examples, if you look at her in 1999-2000 and compare her to later. There's also That Victoria Picture.

She still doesn't understand that whether or not Russo wrote that specific segment, it's his mindset in play.

Yes, I also think Bill Apter is a no-brainer. Without question. For the record, Dave Meltzer should also be a candidate for his own Hall of Fame.

Quite the contradiction.

Where WWE helped Flair out so much is that they rebuilt his legend. Without the marketing of Flair as the best ever in WWE, I'm not sure he could command the money he's commanded on the independent scene. Considering how much damage had been done to Flair around the beginning of the 00s through aging and bad booking, I'm not sure Flair was more marketable than, say, Roddy Piper or Randy Savage, when he certainly is today. Interestingly enough, the retirement made him hotter than he had been in years. I agree that from 1997-1998, Flair wasn't much and was really embarrassing in some ways, but when he returned after the Bischoff lawsuit, I thought he did a great job building up matches with Bischoff and Hogan. Also, his heel turn in spring of '99, while ill-advised, had some fun moments. The Flair-Goldberg match from Nitro is really terrific, as are the matches he had around this time with Benoit and Sting. Still, he was 50 years old in 1999, which is just too old for anyone to be carrying the load as the top heel.

I always felt like 1999 was the last year where Flair looked a little older, but could still go on top if you presented him in the right way. I love the crazy President stuff. After that, no way.

In that shoot, Flair placed a lot of emphasis on guys who are willing to sell for anyone, have stamina, "stay open" so he can chop them, and just "keep working and working and working", which is how I think he said it. It makes sense that that's how he defines a great wrestler, as based on just that criteria, he's as much a candidate for greatest of all time as anyone else.

If it was a pro wrestling promo, it would be the HHH kind that everyone hates, where he makes light of his opponent's previous accomplishments and buries him. Is the word "promo" even in the lexicon in MMA?

My mistake then. Jericho had said it was just him talking about his career in an interview he did. The Hogan matches I understand including, if only because they were pretty decent, and resulted in Hogan being a huge Jericho fan and telling people he's one of the two or three best guys he's ever worked with.

I've read similar stuff, and have no idea what that means. What type of detail? What type of numbers? What specifically was she doing on the business side? It's a great stock answer to say Linda ran the business side and Vince ran the creative side, but in wrestling, the creative side is the business side because it is what drives the revenue, so then I'm again left wondering what her day-to-day responsibilities were.

No, one doesn't have to defend themselves when calling Vince an addict. He has very obviously used steroids for a long time. My beef is more with people overusing the phrase "coked out", and using it in a way where I can't always figure out if they're just referring to hyperactive behavior or if they're seriously accusing someone of being a cocaine user.

Which is funny, because it implies that no one knew that before 2006.

The way Jericho described it recently in something I read, it's him talking about his career, which is kind of unfortunate, as I'd be interested in hearing what other wrestlers have to say about him. If that is the case, the decision to not have other wrestlers praise him feels political, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've always been skeptical because people on wrestling message boards tend to assume anyone acting over the top about anything at all did it under the influence of cocaine. How many times have we heard someone talk about coked out promos that probably at least some of the time don't involve cocaine at all? With Vince, I could never figure out if everyone was accusing him of behaving like a coke addict because he's so strange at times, or if he was actually accused of doing cocaine. Same for Ric Flair.

What proof is there that Linda has been anything more than Vince's wife with a title?

Even if he had known, I doubt he'd care.

Bix or someone can probably explain better than me, but for several months in early 2007, when criticizing WWE or TNA booking for a lack of pure sports build, or building a PPV around multiple big matches instead of a singular main event, or a few other examples, Dave and Bryan would say that WWE or TNA has either not learned or forgotten the lessons of 2006, which was based on UFC overtaking WWE on pay-per-view, which Dave was insistent was because UFC had better booking to build their PPVs. They said it so many times it turned into a talking point for a brief period, and eventually became something people laughed about.

Yes, Matt's a nutcase and Jeff has drug problems, but I think the bigger issue with them fizzling out so fast was that I'm not sure how long tag teams can stay fresh when they aren't headlining. The Austin/HHH feud was actually a good idea, as they were popular and in theory Austin beating them up would draw great heat, but I don't think they were ready to be at that level yet, and HHH's Jeff Hardy burial at the time didn't help at all. They tried multiple times, but there was no money in a breakup feud because people liked them as a team. Had WCW still been strong when they peaked, they probably could have jumped there around early '02 when they had the falling out and were sent to OVW and had a good run, because they would be in a new environment and would be fresh. The reunion in 2006-2007 should have been pushed much harder than it was. It worked, but they should have been headlining shows against Edge and Orton at the time, who were the top heels and were teaming, and maybe even working six-mans with Cena in PPV main events. But WWE is a company overly focused on singles matches on top, for better or worse, so it's not something that really fits their vision unless HHH is teaming with Michaels. But really, and maybe I'm wrong here but I don't think I am, the Hardy Boys reunion in '06 could have had every bit the traction the DX reunion did had they been given the same opportunity and put in a headlining spot. But one problem at that time was that the pendulum swung so far in the babyface direction, and there weren't very many strong heels in the company (which just further puzzles me why DX vs MNM was never tried, but that's another thread).

At a JWP show no less.