Wrestling Observer Flashback–01.06.92

Previously on the Flashback… http://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2017/02/02/wrestling-observer-flashback-12-23-91/

Dave took a week off for Christmas and New Year’s (lazier than Kevin Nash…) but we’re back with a DOUBLE SIZED issue covering Starrcade and everything else that happened in the past two weeks!

– The top story is the steroid issue breaking wide open on Inside Edition, with interviews from Bill Graham and David Shults about to cause some major embarrassment for the WWF. Going beyond even the stuff previously discovered in the Zahorian trial, now Graham is claiming to have personally shot Hulk Hogan with steroids at various points. The show is putting MAJOR emphasis on this story, bringing in all their top producers to handle it.

– For their part, the WWF is saying they won’t respond to any of the charges made on the show, because it’s a dead-end issue. However, it’s not going away, as both 20/20 and 60 Minutes are preparing pieces on the steroid problem in the WWF. The defense will continue to be “We’re testing for steroids, nyah nyah!” but a story on ESPN showed how easy it is to beat the test. (As has been stated many times in the past, traditionally it was more of an IQ test. Just consider how much ridicule guys get today for getting popped!) WCW will of course continue to ignore the story and let the WWF take all the heat for it.

– In fact the larger problem is not the scandal itself, but what the long term affects of massive amounts of steroids can have on someone. (See: Benoit, Chris). Wrestlers believe that side effects are exaggerated and doctors have been lying to them for years, mostly because the people who trained the doctors lied to the doctors for years. Also, steroids were legal for years, all through the boom period, so everyone today thinks that it’s basically their right to inflate themselves like a helium balloon. In fact, at this point you can still go England and buy Primabolan over the counter. So guess what everyone was doing during the recent UK tour.

– Meanwhile, Dr. Zahorian was sentenced on 12 counts of steroid trafficking: 3 years in prison, a total of 24 years probation, a $12,000 fine and forfeiting half of his $3.7 million condo. The government is basically treating this as a warning to anyone else who calls themselves a doctor and distributes steroids. (Apparently Zahorian served his time and he’s been practicing again ever since.)

– Over to Starrcade, which Dave sums up as WCW producing a show not even as good as one of their weekly TV shows. It was a show where you kind of sat there waiting for something special to happen, and nothing ever did.

1. Jimmy Garvin & Marcus Alexander Bagwell beat Michael Hayes & Tracy Smothers in 12:42 when Bagwell pinned Smothers with a fisherman’s suplex. Dave’s TV went out during the match, and the blank screen almost won best match honors for the show. Bagwell seems to have potential.

2. Rick Rude & Steve Austin beat Van Hammer & Big Josh in 12:55. Hammer jobbed to the Rude Awakening, which tells you that the megapush for Hammer is done. No heat for the match, although Dave seemed amused by Rude no-selling Josh’s blows due to the POWER OF THE ABS. 3/4*

3. Dustin Rhodes & Richard Morton defeated El Gigante & Larry Zbyszko in 6:11. No wrestling to speak of, but the finish was good. Double dropkick from Rhodes & Morton to finish Larry. 3/4*

4. Jushin Liger & Bill Kazmaier beat DDP & Mike Graham in 13:08. Total waste of Liger, and Graham had no idea how to sell any of his stuff. 3/4*

5. Lex Luger & Arn Anderson beat Terry Taylor & Tom Zenk in 10:25. Taylor worked as a babyface and got a lot of stuff on Luger before a blind knee from Arn set up Luger’s piledriver. Blew away everything else on the show. ***1/4

6. Ricky Steamboat & Todd Champion beat Cactus Jack & Buddy Lee Parker in 7:48. Abdullah, pissed at not being chosen as Jack’s partner, beat up Parker in the dressing room in a funny bit while Jack worked alone. Parker finally crawled out in pain, and was immediately pinned by Steamboat. *1/2 (Pity we never got a Jack v. Steamboat program, because they had great chemistry here.)

7. Sting & Abdullah the Butcher beat Bobby Eaton & Brian Pillman in 5:37 when Sting pinned Eaton. Pretty exciting from start to finish. Abby and Jack brawled to the back after the match, which in a normal promotion would mean they were going to feud, but this is WCW, where the everything is made up and the points don’t matter, so who knows? ***1/4

8. Big Van Vader & Mr. Hughes beat Rick Steiner & The Nightstalker (Bryan Clark) in 5:06 when Vader pinned Stalker. Dave was impressed that Nightstalker nearly became the first guy in many years to screw up taking a big splash. *3/4

9. Scott Steiner & Firebreaker Chip beat Arachnaman & Johnny B. Badd in 11:16 when Scott pinned Brad with a suplex. Too long for this late in the show. *1/4

10. Ron Simmons & Thomas Rich beat Steve Armstrong & PN News in 11:44 when Ron pinned Armstrong with a spinebuster. Again, nothing to interest anyone this late in the show. 3/4*

11. Lex Luger & Sting won the two rings in the big battle royale finale, and battle royales always suck on PPV, especially with the second ring and overloaded action.

Anyway, there was some OK stuff here and there, but it was pretty bad overall. 1/2*

12. Sting threw Luger over the top to win the night at 6:29. Rude had given Sting a Rude Awakening before the match started, but Sting made his comeback and won. Predictable ending, but Luger has the next two months off due to WCW contractual stupidity, so they needed to do something to set up the title match in February while they could. **3/4

– Dave thinks that the blind draw gimmick would work for a free TV show, but not on PPV, although it doesn’t seem like the buyrate for this one will be too bad compared to other stinkers this year. But of course WCW couldn’t even gimmick the draw to produce “dream matches” that people would actually care about. This one just felt like a bunch of matches that felt like you wanted them to end so you could get to the battle royale, which you then also wanted to just end after 2 minutes.

– On the bright side, the Superbrawl show looks to have Sting/Luger, Rude/Steamboat, Eaton & Anderson v. Rhodes & Windham and maybe Liger/Pillman, so that should be one great show. (Yup.)

– Former legend Wilbur Snyder died in Broward County Hospital this past Friday at the age of 62, after being admitted for lymphatic leukemia and then suffering heart failure.

– The expected Inoki v. Tiger Jeet Singh match for the Tokyo Dome ended up being changed to Inoki v. Hiro Hase instead. They had shot an angle with Hase going to Singh’s house to challenge him, along with NJPW representative Hiro Matsuda, which ended up with Singh and his son (future WWF washout Tiger Ali Singh) throwing Hase into a frozen lake and presumably trying to kill him. This, as you would expect, set up a no rules Jungle Death Match between Hase and Singh on an island in Japan on 12/18 for the right to face Inoki. It ran 71:24, with no spectactors, and included such spots as setting a tent on fire and tearing up the ring. So you know, nothing we haven’t seen a million times before.

– Dave finally saw the tape of the SWS/WWF show, and it turns out that they never did any kind of spot based on the famous Inoki knockout. Also, sources in Japan are calling bullshit on the 30,000 paid figure, saying that the majority of the 40,000 people who were actually in the building where there for free. Basically you could just show up at the Super Opticals store and get 10 free tickets, and if you happened to standing around in front of the Dome that night, bam, 10 more free tickets for you. Pretty much SWS just lied about all the figures, mostly concerned with getting enough people in the building that they could claim 61,000 people and have it look reasonably possible.

– Also, the WWF used Mel Phillips for matches involving their guys and he did all the ring announcing in English, which is pretty much the utmost in arrogance, since the show is in Japan with Japanese audience. (Is this surprising to anyone?)

– In a huge shock that no one could have expected, the UWFI boxer v. wrestler show turned into a fiasco.

– Yup, amazing as it sounds, the main event with Takada taking on 39 year old Trevor Berbick turned into a complete circus, as Berbick spent the evening before the fight trying to get leg kicks banned, unsuccessfully. So when the “match” started, Takada immediately kicked Berbick in the hamstring and then kicked him in the head while he was cowering in fear. Naturally, Berbick ran from the ring in terror, at which point the crowd nearly broke into a riot and throw stuff into the the ring. And it was taped for American PPV airing, so, you know, looking forward to that!

– As if literally running from a fight wasn’t bad enough for Berbick, he made the news a few days later when he was arrested for Grand Theft and Mortgage Fraud after using an actress to portray his wife so he could secure a $95,000 housing loan. He also has charges pending for allegedly raping a babysitter. (Berbick did 15 months for the whole deal, became a preacher, and was murdered in 2006 by his nephew.)

– The issue of regulation in Florida has gone completely off the rails, as the original intent of bringing in steroid testing and curbing false advertising suddenly got sucked into a ridiculous bill from politicians that included “rules” like “no fighting outside the ring”, “no fixing of matches”, “no working more than once every 24 hours” and “no touching a referee”. Since none of this nonsense is actually enforceable in any reasonable sense of the word, the whole thing is likely going to die on the vine.

– In a note from Mexico, which I’m not sure if we covered before, former wacky FMW guy Monkey Magic Wakita is working as Ninja Sasuke. I was like “What? Sasuke?” and Googled it, but it’s actually Super Delfin! That’s still pretty cool. I feel like WWE is lacking someone named Monkey Magic in their cruiserweight division.

– Dan Spivey is gone from All Japan, with Johnny Ace taking his place as Stan Hansen’s regular tag team partner, but Dave isn’t sure about the circumstances.

– Roddy Piper returned to Portland for the last TV show, giving a tearful promo about Don Owen and his generosity in dealing with the wrestlers over the years, thanking the station for carrying the show for so many years and throwing money out to the crowd.

– In Global, Barry Horowitz is capitalizing on his first ever win by selling videotapes of the match for $49.95.

– In Memphis, Brian Christopher turned on New Kids partner Tony Williams, claiming to be “nobody’s job boy”. (Let’s not say anything we can’t take back, Brian.)

– Former Stampede manager Abu Wizal is trying to revive Stampede Wrestling yet again, but rent at the Calgary Pavillion is $2200 a night, so that’s why no one has been successful since the Harts shut it down.

– Dave talks about his recent appearance on the Sports Byline radio show, and the host said that Dave hadn’t been on in a long time because Vince McMahon paid them a special sponsorship deal, with the condition that Dave not be allowed to do the show.

– Joel Goodhart is taping TV on 1/27 and talking about taping every third week. Dave has no idea where this TV will supposedly air.

– Jesse Ventura filed a lawsuit against the WWF, claiming that they’re selling videotapes with his likeness and commentary without ever securing the rights from him. (That one went REALLY badly for them and cost a shitload of money to eventually resolve.)

– To WCW, where Jushin Liger won the light heavyweight title from Brian Pillman on Christmas at the Omni, in a match that Scott Hudson called the best one he’s ever seen live (not involving Flair).

– PN News returned from the UK tour with a black eye, stemming from a fight with Rick Rude in a bar after News was unable to beat Rude in an arm-wrestling with both arms to Rude’s one. (I’m still picking Rude in that one, too!) Things degenerated quickly from there.

– And finally, Luger has the entire month of January off and is heavily rumored to be gone soon, but Dave thinks he’d be crazy to walk about on that kind of contract. (Call him crazy, then.)