Wrestling Observer Flashback–12.10.90

Previously in the Wrestling Observer Flashback… http://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2016/11/16/wrestling-observer-flashback-12-03-90/

Geez, ANOTHER promotion dies this week? What a downer 1990 is turning into.

But hey, on the lighter side to start…

– Continuing on from Dave’s NEWS FLASH last week, Ole Anderson was fired (or, as Dave puts it, “allowed to resign”) as booker last week. Although the Clash was a disaster of a show and one of the lowest rated ever, the decision was made weeks ago due to all the problems that Ole and Jim Herd were having. They can’t officially announce Dusty as the new booker because they’d sued for tampering, but it’s gonna happen. For the moment, the job is being done by the committee of Tony Schiavone, Ric Flair, Jim Ross and Kevin Sullivan. Terry Funk’s name keeps getting mentioned as a possibility, but everyone knows the real deal.

– The WWF announced the Rumble undercard, with Ultimate Warrior defending the WWF title against Sgt. Slaughter, and at this point Dave is more annoyed that the match will suck and not actually concerned that it might be a title change. Because that would just be CRAZY.

– There’s a strange situation that happened on the 12/1 UWF show, and Dave’s not quite sure what the details are. After Funaki beat Ken Shamrock in the main event, he called out Akira Maeda (who has been MIA from his own promotion due to the split with President Jin) and the two men shook hands, followed by everyone from the dressing room coming out to shake Maeda’s hand. He gave a press conference afterwards and said that he would never wrestle for the UWF again, but no further details were forthcoming. Technically they still have a show booked for the Tokyo Dome on 12/29, but there hasn’t even been a match announced yet. (Of course, we would soon find out that this was the final show for the UWF, with the finale being everyone coming out to show respect to Maeda one last time.)

– Giant Baba suffered a broken leg during a tag match against the Funks, and at 53 years old many are speculating that he won’t return to the ring again after this one. (He did, of course.)

– Although the tournament field is set for Starrcade’s international tag tournament, there’s now squabbling because Pat O’Connor’s widow doesn’t want his name or likeness used due to bad blood with Sam Muchnick, who is heavily involved with the show. Ironically, neither person’s name is ever mentioned in local advertising within St. Louis, which is the only place where it would mean anything.

– A Dallas newspaper actually ran a major story on “The Fall of the Von Erichs”, in the sense of the end of World Class, not the more obvious sense. The story claims that Jerry Jarrett cut their pay from $20,000/week to $1200/week, and Dave thinks that the second number is certainly close to truth. Jarrett claims that he swooped in and saved the company when it was $150,000 in debt with no money to pay it off, and once he made it profitable the Von Erichs wanted to switch from a 60/20/20 ownership deal to 33/33/33. He also claimed that Kerry double-crossed him by going to the WWF, but Kevin says that Kerry needed money and had a family, so it had to be done.

– The new GWF promotion is supposed to tape TV on 12/28 in Dallas, but word has been shockingly quiet from the group. (Almost as though the Nigerian investors are SCAMMERS or something!) Pedicino continues to make grand plans for touring and TV networks and such.

– In a slightly interesting twist, the Nasty Boys are still booked for January in All Japan, although everyone in the WWF is pretty much 100% certain they’re coming in right away.

– Riki Choshu defends the IWGP title against Tatsumi Fujinami on 12/26, and if Fujinami wins the title he’ll likely main event against the NWA World champion at the big joint Tokyo Dome show on 3/21.

– Look for the Rockers, Tito Santana and Haku to be sent to SWS as part of the talent exchange program. This might be a politically touchy situation because Haku is Baba’s guy, traditionally.

– Back to Texas, where Gary Hart’s new TWF promotion launched on TV and drew an excellent rating, with Hart promising long matches with good finishes and outcomes that are not obvious. (Still didn’t last, sadly.)

– Kevin Von Erich had been in contact with WCW for a wrestling gig, but he didn’t want to work FULL TIME or anything nutty like that. No, he was wanting a “co promotion” deal for Texas, where he could basically advertise NWA talent for his shows and get paid to work only local shows in Texas. Shockingly, no one took him up on that deal.

– In a weird situation even by her standards, Luna Vachon and the Blackhearts did a real life run-in at a wrestling show taking place at a local flea market. There was a pair of indy guys wrestling in bodysuits as the Assassins, and Luna hit the ring during their match and shot one of them with a stun gun! Turns out that someone tipped off David Heath about the guy making obscene phone calls to his girlfriend and they decided to exact some revenge.

– Oh come on, you knew it was coming someday.

– Herb Abrams was advertising Steve Williams and Greg Valentine for his last California TV taping on 12/6 in Reseda, but the problem is that Valentine is still with the WWF and Williams is in Japan that day. Dave doesn’t blame Herb for the Valentine issue, because the WWF fired him and then literally changed their mind a week later, after Greg had already filled out his calendar with indy bookings. As for Dr. Death, well, that’s just Herb being a liar.

– Mad Dog Vachon’s suit against the doctors who amputated his leg was finally brought to a conclusion after three years of litigation, and he was denied any compensation, unfortunately.

– OK, that’s enough out of you, Horatio.

– To the WWF, where the Friday night Main Event show was a bigger bomb than the one that threatened Wrestlemania VII. It actually finished last in the timeslot and in fact was lower rated than most of the SNME shows are. On the bright side, it was actually higher rated than Quantum Leap normally does.

– To the NWA, where talk is that the May show in Phoenix will be headlined by WarGames.

– Also talk of Steve DiSalvo coming in for TV as The Minotaur, wearing a contact lens like “blind” Jake Roberts does. (I remember that rumor!)

– Art Barr is being punished by a fate worse than jail on his way out of the company – doing nightly jobs for Buddy Landel. (I know he’s an admitted rapist, but some punishments just cross the line! What’s next, making him watch Dino Bravo matches?)

– With the Nasty Boys gone this week, The Steiners will be programmed against the Master Blasters for the time being.

– Larry Zbyszko tried to debut for the NWA again, but Jim Herd wasn’t informed and freaked out, to the point where he ordered all of Larry’s footage erased from the tapes and all mentions of his name removed. Apparently the AWA is still a real thing, despite not running so much as a house show in months, but Herd fears legal repercussions for using the “AWA World champion”, whatever that title’s worth now.

– And finally, for those who insist that the Sting-Sid finish at Halloween Havoc was smart, they drew 350 in Indianapolis, 750 in Toronto and 760 in Cleveland for the rematches this past week. That’s just embarrassing for Sting.

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