Wrestling Observer Flashback–02.17.92

Hopefully we’ll have something meme-worthy this week.  Or not, I’m still a little upset about the breakup of JeriKO, to be honest.  JERICHO JUST WANTED TO BE HIS BEST FRIEND, DAMMIT!

Maybe working through it will make me feel better.  Unless someone dies this week.  But how likely is THAT?

– For those on the edge of their seat wondering about regulation of pro wrestling in Florida, the bill was defeated, although at that point Kip Frey immediately announced that WCW would be implementing some kind of steroid testing.  They’re also going to have a new policy where signs will have to be posted at house shows when advertised talent won’t appear.

(Sidenote:  The Elimination Chamber PPV completely fucked up the lineup for the house show here in Saskatoon this Sunday, as the only two advertised matches were a World title three-way with AJ Styles defending against the Miz and Dean Ambrose, plus Alexa Bliss defending the Women’s title against Becky Lynch.  So of course they’ve been advertising those particular matches on TV non-stop, even after AJ lost the title.  WWE.com wisely just does a “People appearing on the show” list on the website to avoid this kind of problem, but no wonder house show attendance is so far down these days, ya know?) 

– Basically, the bill was shot down immediately because legislators felt it was beneath them to be debating “fake wrestling” and there was no serious push to regulate it as a result.  As well, both WWF and WCW threatened to pull out of the state completely if the bill passed, with the public reason being because of taxes and the real reason being you-know-what.

– Yeah, that.  The state discussed removing the “event tax” portion of the bill to eliminate the public reason for the promotions to object, but that would mean the bill wouldn’t actually generate revenue for the state, and the legislature was like…

– Technically the bill could be reintroduced later, but for all intents and purposes it’s dead.

– Speaking of which, Buzz Sawyer sadly passed away on 2/7 at the age of 32.  And not surprisingly, the presumed cause of death is a massive drug overdose.  Dave runs down the obit, and the one line that stood out for me is that Buzz would always get fired from a territory, then turn up two months later somewhere else with even less hair and even more body weight for another push. 

– In a crazy surprise, the LOD dropped the tag team titles to Ted Dibiase & IRS on 2/7 in Denver, which was supposed to occur sometime before Wrestlemania but came completely out of the blue much sooner than anyone expected.  It was apparently decided at the last minute going into the show, and they didn’t even acknowledge the change on the SNME show on FOX or the weekly TV.  In fact, Dibiase & IRS hadn’t even debuted as a team yet!  Although LOD were promised that no cameras would be present for the title change, the WWF filmed it anyway, which didn’t exactly impress certain people.  The title change basically came so quickly because LOD’s contract expires in June and they’re quite openly talking about going back to WCW or Japan, and Vince didn’t want to take any chances with the titles.  Dave notes that “chances of them leaving aren’t slim”. 

– The speculated title match for Wrestlemania is now Dibiase & IRS v. Slaughter & Duggan, and Sherri will be exclusively managing Shawn Michaels.  LOD were still carrying the titles on house shows following the title change and announced as champions, so this won’t be acknowledged on TV for a while.

– Dave watched the new and improved Saturday Night’s Main Event on FOX, and wasn’t terribly impressed with the wrestling, but the Sid angle was FANTASTIC, as Sid is the closest thing they’ve got to replicating the success of Zeus from 1989 at this point.

1. Roddy Piper beat the Mountie in 3:24 to keep the IC title.  Mountie poured a drink on Piper and zapped him, but it turned out that Piper was wearing a shock-proof suit under his shirt, allowing him to grab the Mountie’s cattle prod and zap him for the pin.  Watchable.  *1/4

1a.  They showed the “new and improved” Rumble footage with redone commentary and redone crowd noise to make it clear that YOU WILL CHEER HULK HOGAN, PAL.  Dave was impressed with the technology needed to erase the boos and replace them with cheers. 

2. Hogan & Sid beat Ric Flair & Undertaker by DQ in 11:09.  The story was Hogan saving Sid, but Sid refusing to save Hogan.  **1/4

3. Slaughter & Duggan beat the Beverly Brothers in 2:37 in a squash.  *

4.  Randy Savage pinned Jake Roberts with the big elbow, as Savage worked harder than Dave’s seen him since his “retirement”.  **3/4

– More on the arrest of Marty Jannetty:  He was arrested on 01/25 at a night club when his date tried to use a fake ID to get in.  Police were called and Marty attacked the officer, resulting in an arrest for that and a search of his person that turned up cocaine and some sort of baggie of other stuff.  He’s either suspended or fired, but he did work the SWS show, so who knows.  I feel like there’s a lesson here.

– Well, Buzz Sawyer learned that one, too. 

– Just when you thought that the media couldn’t mine the steroid scandal any further, the LA Times will now be interviewing Billy Graham for a major story on the subject, which will likely ignite ANOTHER round of national TV coverage when the WWF is trying to just lay low and hope it goes away.

– As an update on the supposed split of WING into the wrestling and martial arts promotion, Dave notes that the WMA portion “folded before it even got started”, which explains why no one here in the present day ever heard of it.

– Giant Baba held a press conference to announce the signing of an amateur wrestling champion who they have high hopes for.  His name is Jun Akiyama. 

– Austin Idol’s return to Memphis (having survived the near-fatal plane crash arranged by manager Richard Lee) immediately set the territory on fire, tripling the usual gate.

– In Global, apparently the attendance figures reported (1200 or more for the past few weeks) have been greatly exaggerated to make Eddie Gilbert look good, and in fact with freebies the number is closer to 950.  Still good, but not great.

– Jerry Lynn is having ankle surgery soon, so he dropped the light heavyweight title to Barry Horowitz on the way out.  (That would stand as Barry’s one and only singles title of any note.) 

– Dr. Zahorian began his three year prison term on 1/31.

– Kendall Windham is still working shows on work release from prison, and has to be back in by 9 PM or else there’s TROUBLE.  (They let him out of jail to pretend to beat people up? That’s kind of messed up.) 

– Verne and Greg are rumored to be producing an amateur wrestling TV show.  (Well the AWA was sure amateur hour for a long time at the end!) 

– Terry Funk’s wacky cop-and-dog TV show is sinking to the bottom of the ratings rapidly.

– Vince McMahon’s syndicated WBF show is currently on hold because no one’s interested in airing it.

– Despite all the rumors swirling, Dave doesn’t buy for a SECOND that Hogan is quitting after Wrestlemania.  In fact, he’d bet on Flair v. Hogan headlining Summerslam in Landover. 

– Reports are now out that Royal Rumble did a 1.8 buyrate, or about 320,000 buys, which is good for WORST OF ALL TIME. 

– The advance for Wrestlemania is sitting at about 20,000 tickets sold.  (Better start giving out those freebies!) 

– At a house show in Vegas, Jimmy Snuka no-showed, so Shawn Michaels wrestled “The Silver Shadow”, who was apparently “the guy who sets up the ring”.  (Could you even IMAGINE 1997 Shawn being asked to do that?)  Kerry Von Erich also missed the entire weekend tour, which Dave notes, is happening with increasing regularity from him now.  (Tick tock…)

– Kip Frey went on a hiring spree, signing Missy Hyatt to a new two year contract, plus Nikita Koloff for a big singles push against the Dangerous Alliance, plus Greg Valentine & Dick Slater as a heel tag team.  Lord only knows why on the last one.  Scott Norton might be coming in between Japan tours, and Vader might be signing an exclusive deal to work a top program against Sting.  Still no deal on the Miracle Violence Connection, and the Jannetty deal is of course completely dead now.

– For some reason they’re doing yet another PPV show between WrestleWar in May and the Bash in July.  (That would be the really good Beach Blast show with the supremely underrated Sting v. Cactus brawl.) 

– And finally, Jesse Ventura made friends in New England when he went on a radio show and declared the town of Fall River, MA, to be “one of the only places he’d been that was worse than Vietnam”.  The town’s mayor wasn’t terribly happy about that.  (Hope they at least have good Pho there.) 

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Hope yours goes better than JeriKO’s did!