by Dave Meltzer
From an American standpoint, the biggest match on the show was what was billed as an Ultimate Fight rules cage match involving the WWF’s Ken Shamrock and Vader. The original match plan was for Shamrock to sell the rib injury theoretically suffered in the 9/9 Muncie, IN match against Faarooq, and Vader taking advantage of that injury would lead to his upset victory in Shamrock’s specialty match, largely to build for a rematch similar to the idea behind the Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith finish in England last week.
Ultimately, that was the basic storyline of what happened, although they may have gone to the finish early. Shamrock had been out of action since coughing up a lot of blood in Muncie, suffering what was first believed to be a perforated lung, but later diagnosed as a lung infection. On his second big bump of the match, taking a power bomb from Vader, he again began coughing up blood.
According to reports, both Vader and WWF representative Bruce Prichard appeared very concerned in the ring at that point and they went right to the finish with Shamrock being unable to get up by the count of ten and the referee stopping the match at 7:17. Vader in the cage was screaming to get a doctor into the ring. Shamrock was scheduled to be examined by his doctor early in the week after returning home and his status for the 10/5 St. Louis PPV show depended upon the extent of his internal problems.
Originally when FMW and WWF agreed to send Shamrock to this show, the plan was for him to face a martial arts star in a worked match, with him going over in front of a huge crowd overseas in what would be purported as a shoot match and have the match air on Raw the next day. As it turned out, FMW was unable to get a martial arts star that would both fit the qualifications of being able to have the box office chemistry with Shamrock to make the fee FMW was paying WWF for Shamrock’s services and agree to do the job for a price within their budget.
Instead they went with Vader, one of the biggest foreign attractions in Japanese wrestling history, as a package deal, believed to be a $100,000 to the WWF for both men, and again with the idea of Shamrock going over before a huge crowd to be broadcast on American television. The finish was likely changed since they had decided to instead book a rematch between the two in Japan rather than a one match series and it was felt it was better to put Vader over in the first meeting.
With Vader’s face turn in the United States being decided after the agreement for this match was in place, this match doesn’t make storyline sense to air in the U.S. as was the original plan and isn’t likely to be aired. However, the WWF acknowledged the match and its result on Raw the next night.
NOVEMBER 17
Atsushi Onita canceled all plans for big shows in December that were to include WWF and ECW talent and won’t be working with either group for anything in the future at this point. WWF is attempting to open up talent relations with All Japan. Onita wants to build the whole promotion around FMW vs. Zen, so the original NWO-like Funkmasters of Wrestling angle has been dropped and the only foreigner they are keeping is Gladiator, so it appears they won’t be using Terry Funk or Head Hunters any longer.
15 – Vader Arrested in Kuwait
APRIL 28
Leon White aka Vader found himself in the middle of a strange legal situation somewhat replicating the famous David Schultz/John Stossel incident from 12 years ago while appearing on the television show “Good Morning Kuwait.”
White naturally was in the role of Schultz, the huge bully wrestler, while popular Kuwaiti morning show host Bassam Al Othman was in the Stossel role, actually with similar hair and moustache. White, 40, was immediately placed under house arrest at his hotel room after the incident, which took place on 4/11, and detained in Kuwait while the rest of the WWF tour returned home two days later. White had a hearing in Kuwait on 4/22 and was expected to be cleared to return to the United States the next day.
The incident very closely mirrored the Schultz/Stossel incident, which took place in December 1984 in the dressing room in Madison Square Garden and was a large factor in Schultz’s wrestling career taking a turn for the worst. Many have speculated the event was a publicity stunt by the WWF to get press coverage. The fact is the incident got a lot of press coverage nationally, much of which mentioned on both its 4/20 PPV show and its 4/21 Raw television show.
The WWF did air clips of the incident on its television over the weekend, although the clips were edited, but news of the incident made newspapers and entertainment papers around the country, generally in the personality or gossip section with humorous overtones, and a clip of the incident aired on “Good Morning America” on 4/18.
The WWF first publicized the incident itself on its 900 line on 4/14, sent out press releases during the week and made Vince McMahon available for interviews regarding the story, which furthered speculation that it was a work to garner the type of gossip column mainstream publicity that WCW has been getting over the past few months with Dennis Rodman and Reggie White. The WWF was tentatively planning to hold a press conference regarding the incident on 4/25, and was working on getting White booked on “Good Morning America” on that date.
Eric Bischoff publicly called the incident a hoax, claiming Titan was doing an angle based on the Stossel/Schultz incident that this closely mirrored. Jim Ross on the WWF hotline, in reference to that, claimed that it was very real and said those who call it a hoax don’t know what they’re talking about and said that when people do things that alter their minds, it messes up their thinking.
USA Today had begun working on a story, which included talking with McMahon, but because the incident may have been a publicity stunt, didn’t run the story because the state department couldn’t confirm the incident as legit. Nevertheless, all WWF wrestlers who were both on tour and not on tour were under the impression the incident was legitimate and front office officials are insistent the original incident itself was not an angle.
The original plan for the 5/11 PPV show was for Undertaker to headline against Vader, but apparently those plans switched to Undertaker vs. Steve Austin and Vader vs. Ken Shamrock in Shamrock’s first WWF match sometime in recent weeks. Without question, since the plan is for a match on 5/11, that WWF would have wanted Vader to shoot an angle with Shamrock either on 4/20 at the PPV or on 4/21 on the Raw, and his being detained made that an impossibility. Vader was also penciled in on 4/18 as Undertaker’s opponent for several house show title matches in May, taking the place of Bret Hart, who had to be pulled from those main event matches due to word getting around about his impending surgeries.
My personal feeling is that the incident, in regard to the detaining and the arrest, is very real, and the WWF decided several days after the fact to use it to gain as much mainstream publicity as possible. Even though the incident took place on 4/11, word really didn’t get out about it until the wrestlers returned home from Kuwait and began telling their friends several days later rather than WWF publicizing it immediately after the arrest took place.
The situation went something like this. White and Mark Calaway (Undertaker) were guests on the live morning television show and were told ahead of time what questions were going to be asked including whether pro wrestling was fake. According to the Titan side of the story, the English speaking producer told the wrestlers to “ham it up.” The question was asked, through an interpreter, to Calaway, who responded with an answer along the lines of it being entertainment, but with athleticism and that the injuries suffered are very real. White wasn’t asked the question, but starting off low-key, said he wanted to answer that question and said he’s not as diplomatic as his colleague.
At that point, White grabbed the host by the tie and began shaking him and said something about the question being “bullshit” and in his tirade said he was insulted by the question and shoved the terrified announcer down backward over some chairs and a table and flower plant wound up being turned over. As the show broke for a commercial, when it came back, both White and Al Othman were gone and Al Othman hasn’t been back on the show since. Police were called immediately and White w
as arrested both for assault and for lascivious conduct because it is illegal in Kuwait to swear on television.
There was a second incident involving White, although we’re not clear as to the details. It may have been on 4/21, and it was at the hotel White was being detained at, that he caused some sort of a problem that resulted in 20 police officers, people from the U.S. Embassy and his lawyer to have to calm him down. In addition, there was another situation we’re not clear of details on that was said to be minor involving him and a flight attendant on the trip to Kuwait.
McMahon claimed in press reports that Al Othman had indicated that if he received a $35,000 settlement, that he would drop the assault charges. McMahon said he would have accepted the offer but than Al Othman disappeared. Complicating matters is this all occurred during Ramadan, the Muslim country’s holiest holiday during which much of the country is undergoing a religious fast period and the legal system is shut down. The word among wrestlers returning from Kuwait was that the host of the show was rich and was offered a settlement by the WWF but had refused.
MAY 5
Leon White returned to the United States on 4/24 after spending ten days under house arrest in Kuwait while awaiting a hearing on charges of public aggression and public humiliation having to do with the incident on the “Good Morning Kuwait” television show.
In addition, White faces secondary charges of disorderly conduct and public drunkenness stemming from a second incident on 4/21 at the hotel he was being held at which ended up involving 20 police officers.
White, who had to promise to abide by the verdict in his trial, which is scheduled to take place in about one week before the Kuwait Court of Misdemeanors, at his hearing in order to get his passport returned and be allowed to leave Kuwait. The charges could result in a penalty of as much as one year in prison and fines, however the WWF believes ultimately the decision in all charges will only result in a fine.
After returning, the WWF attempted to use the first incident (while publicly ignoring from a television standpoint the second incident although they did acknowledge it on their hotline) to further White’s heel Vader character. To this end, they held a press conference on 4/25 in Manhattan with White, in his Vader mask and somewhat in character, saying that he wasn’t going to apologize for the incident and claiming that the television show’s host Bassam Al Othman had initially agreed to drop charges for $25,000, but several hours later instead asked for a figure in excess of $400,000 from the WWF to drop charges, calling it a case of extortion. By this point the incident, which was a shoot in that the charges filed against White in Kuwait are real, had been incorporated into the storyline so whatever happened from that point has to be considered part of a pro wrestling storyline.
That story about the host asking for $400,000 contradicts the initial story released from the WWF saying that the host had agreed to drop charges for $35,000, a figure that Vince McMahon was willing to pay for White’s release, but that the host then disappeared. The incident received substantial media play last week in the U.S., but the press conference was only covered strong locally in the New York media, although the television show “Xtra” was scheduled to do a piece on the entire incident on 4/30. The WWF’s attempts to book White on “Good Morning America” on 4/25, a show which aired the incident from Kuwait on its 4/18 show, were unsuccessful.
While in the press, McMahon and Titan expressed sympathies toward White’s situation claiming his actions were because a producer of the show told him to ham it up, but apparently never told the host. Mark Calaway (Undertaker) was in the studio just a few feet away while the incident took place and never appeared to be alarmed by it and never even got up or attempted to calm White down. On television they portrayed it as an angle and he as a heel who had embarrassed the company by his behavior.
White was given the weekend off WWF house shows since he hadn’t been home to see his family in weeks, and returned on the 4/28 Raw taping in Omaha, NE. On that show, they teased a reprise of the angle with Jim Ross, acknowledging the “Is wrestling fake?” question, saying that every wrestler has been asked that question a million times and he should have known better than to do what he did. Vader knocked off Ross’ cowboy hat and grabbed his glasses and grabbed him by the throat and teased that he was going to attack him when Ken Shamrock did a run-in and gave Vader a belly-to-belly suplex and Vader fled the scene.
MAY 12
More on the trials of Leon White in Kuwait. Dave Hebner, a WWF road agent, and an English speaking producer of “Good Morning Kuwait” arranged all the questions that would be asked of Undertaker and Vader ahead of time. Supposedly Hebner at no point agreed to a question about wrestling being fake. When Undertaker and Vader got there, they received ahead of time a list of questions they would be asked, in order, and the fake question was listed ninth. Instead, it was asked first.
White was told by the English speaking producer to be in character and act menacing, so between that, and because the Kuwait tour wasn’t doing well, he figured he would do something on the TV show to try and build up the house for the rest of the tour and he knocked over the table and plants and grabbed the host. So he thought what he was doing was a work, but the host hadn’t been clued in and did call the police and the arrest and charges weren’t a work. At the police station, the English speaking producer told the police that it was all a work but they still pressed charges because the host didn’t know.
Several days later while not allowed to leave the country, White went to the U.S. Embassy to try and get out of the situation and had a few drinks and got sick. He was looking for something to take because he was sick and went to a doctor, who smelled the alcohol on his breath and that was the situation where he was arrested for being drunk in public and more than 20 police officers came and took him down to the station although nothing further is expected to happen on the public drunk charges. The aggravated assault charges figure to wind up with White paying a decent-sized fine but no prison time.
JANUARY 12
Vader was fined 50 dinor ($166) for the deal in Kuwait where he roughed up the Good Morning Kuwait TV show host. He’s still facing possible civil action in that country where the host is asking for 120,000 dinor ($398,000). He was on the KUSA news in Denver on 1/2 with tears rolling down his face saying that he was just doing what he was told, that he’s not the character he plays on television and his TV persona is all an act and he thought the host was in on the angle. He was referred to in the newscast as Big Van Vader, and all the clips shown were of him in WCW.
16 – Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
JUNE 2
If you turn the clock back 14 months, it appeared the future of the World Wrestling Federation was based around the two men nearly everyone would consider its two top performers, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. The two were expected to have a classic WrestleMania match with Michaels getting the title. Hart would take a few months off and they would re-start their feud and eventually build up to another WrestleMania main event.
Long-term planning is virtually impossible in a business built around trying to get attention and ratings points on Monday nights and Tuesday mornings. But even so, if one would have figured that Hart was going to return to the WWF last fall, few would have thought it would be possible that the two would have yet to meet in the ring, and the long-awaited rematch between the two is now nowhere in sight.
Officially, the participants have been told the Bret vs. Shawn match which wasn’t being pushed as the main event, but was easily the most anticipated match on the 6/8 King of the Ring show, will not be taking place. It will be replaced by Michaels vs. Steve Austin, which one would think would stem from an angle that will take place on the 6/2 Raw is War tapings from Huntington, WV. There are other changes on the card as well, which weren’t clear as of press time but would include a six-man tag with Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart against the Legion of Doom and someone else, and that Brian Pillman wouldn’t be wrestling on the show. The main reason i
s that Hart’s recovery from knee surgery has come a lot slower than expected and he isn’t expected to be ready to wrestle until sometime in July. However, the plan last week for the 10:00 match was based on the idea Bret wasn’t ready to work and they would turn the match into a short angle with Michaels getting screwed in the end. But there is far more, and was far more, to the story of both men, a story that seemingly changed several times over the past week.
As everyone knows, the jealousy and dislike between the two is strong. Nobody knows where the work ends and the reality begins. At times, it seems the two who can’t draw the line when it comes to the difference the most aren’t the fans or the other wrestlers, but the two protagonists themselves. Keep in mind that in the current wrestling environment, the post Pillman-Sullivan angle era so to speak, that we have companies that spend an incredible amount of effort in an attempt to work a small amount of people, oftentimes neglecting the fact that the masses watching don’t have a clue of the wool they’re trying to have pulled over their eyes.
At the same time, with live television every Monday night, guys have the opportunity to say what they want and do a lot of what they want and the script writers have to make changes as they go along. Mankind messes up a fire spot twice while a PPV is running, and the entire angle has to be changed when Undertaker improvises on the spot. And on and on it goes.
