by Dave Meltzer
On 6/10, McMahon sent an internal memo out to WWF executives saying, “Last night in Hartford, Shawn Michaels breached his contract by refusing to perform. We are hopeful Shawn will reconsider his position and return to work. Shawn has four years to go on his five-year contract. The door is open for Shawn to return under the terms of his contract.”
By virtue of that memo, at press time it would have to be concluded that unless a reconciliation takes place, that for the time being Michaels won’t be appearing on the house shows advertised or future television shows but there are no official replacements matches aside from the change in Calgary since the incident had just taken place.
What happens next should Michaels not return is a really tricky situation. If he doesn’t perform, Michaels could and likely would be suspended without pay. The question becomes can Titan theoretically if things don’t work out, suspend him for four years without pay. Would they continue to pay him his downside guarantee, believed to be close to $15,000 per week, for not working to keep them from breaching his contract and enabling him to go to WCW? Would they give him a limited release allowing him to work elsewhere in the world besides WCW, which is where he says he wants to go? Or could Michaels use the fight and other incidents in the past such as when he was given a scare by the Harris Brothers (who were on their way out at the time but eventually brought back) in the dressing room at Madison Square Garden and try to claim an unsafe working environment as a way to claim he should be legally let out of his contract to go to WCW, where he claims he wants to be.
Michaels and his father had a meeting at McMahon’s request on 5/18 to air out their problems, at which time Michaels told McMahon that he wanted out of his contract to go to WCW and McMahon claimed Michaels told him that if he went to WCW, “I could be set for life.” McMahon refused to let him out of his contract.
That statement about being set for life brings yet another question to mind, that of potential contractual interference by WCW, a charge that has been made whenever major stars under contract to either ECW or WWF have jumped to WCW and has been claimed by WWF in the Curt Hennig case. Reports that Michaels had a clause in his contract that guaranteed him being the highest paid wrestler in the company turned out to not be true, however Michaels has claimed he and McMahon had a verbal deal on such when he signed his contract.
Since that time Hart signed a far more lucrative 20-year deal with McMahon since he was the subject of a bidding war. Michaels also claimed to friends that McMahon told him that if he was ever unhappy in the WWF that he would be free to go. McMahon did make that promise to Ric Flair years ago and allowed Flair to return to WCW in 1993 despite having time left on his contract, but the situations were far different then as compared with now and others close to the situation are skeptical of the latter story if only because the whole reason McMahon has broken his longstanding business practices by signing every major wrestler in the company to guaranteed money long-term contracts is so he can keep them from going to WCW.
JUNE 30
After a week in which it appeared the future of Shawn Michaels in the World Wrestling Federation was uncertain in the wake of a legitimate backstage fight with Bret Hart, it now appears Michaels will be returning in a few weeks.
Michaels, 31, had cussed out Vince McMahon, reportedly saying something to the effect of “I’ll never work for your f***in ass again” while leaving the Hartford Civic Center about a half hour before the live Raw television show was to begin on 6/9. This came after a fight with Hart which was quickly broken up, but not before he had a large clump of hair pulled from his head.
Supposedly Hart and Michaels began a heated discussion largely about Michaels now infamous “Sunny days” remark on television saying he’d gone over the line. Supposedly Michaels responded with a cocky “What are you going to do about it?” type of remark which set Hart off and started the fight. The general feeling was that Michaels was provoking an incident with his retort, although Hart wasn’t considered blameless since he was the one who threw the first punch.
Michaels was telling people on Tuesday that he was done with the WWF and would sit out the next four years of his contract rather then return. Logically that wasn’t going to happen and the question was more when he’d return, although Michaels could have sat out a long period of time since he received a seven-figure inheritance from a wrestling fan of his that passed away and has made a lot of money in the WWF over the past five years as a singles headliner.
The WWF claimed Michaels had breached his contract by walking out in Hartford and he didn’t appear on the weekend shows in Montreal and Toronto where he was scheduled in singles matches against Davey Boy Smith for the European title. The contract breach basically meant that the WWF wasn’t going to have to pay him his estimated $15,000 per week guarantee until he agreed to return. As the week went on, Michaels disconnected his telephone making it impossible for WWF officials to attempt to smooth things over with him.
However, by the end of the week, his feelings seemingly changed. Michaels’ attorney sent the WWF a letter saying that Michaels hadn’t breached his contract, but that he was injured in the fight with Hart, claiming both knee and neck injuries and that he would be unable to wrestle for four to six weeks. He requested a meeting with McMahon in San Antonio on 6/19 for both sides to settle their differences and the WWF is making plans now with the idea that Michaels will start back around the latter part of July.
Plans seem to be from a storyline standpoint to keep Michaels and Hart apart so it isn’t like they’ll turn this into an angle for a SummerSlam match due to problems, as obviously it’s a match that people are interested in seeing. On the weekend Live Wire and Superstars cable shows, they read a statement from Jim Ross talking about the situation, saying that Michaels was in a contract breach and had seemingly left the WWF and that neither man was injured in the fight.
On Raw on 6/16, after hearing from Michaels attorney over the weekend, they opened the show saying that neither of those statements on the weekend television turned out to be true, that Michaels would return to the WWF, and perhaps be on television the following week, that Hart was expected on television the following week.
Hart wanted to do a live interview on the 6/16 Raw to turn his fight into a wrestling angle and give his side of the situation in his typical semi-shooting work fashion but for whatever reason, likely to avoid antagonizing Michaels, it was decided against using Hart on the live show for fear he might say something Michaels would take the wrong way on a live interview.
It was also said on television that both men were injured in the fight, citing Michaels’ aforementioned injuries and that Hart re-aggravated his knee injury (he’s expected back on 6/28 for the Anaheim house show), using that as the reason he wasn’t at Raw although they did show a tape of him doing an interview from 6/14 in Toronto.
The situation with the tag team championship was announced as them having a tournament on Raw, which began on 6/16, with the tournament winners facing Austin and a partner of his choosing in a title match. This idea was formulated when it appeared Michaels wasn’t going to be around, but since the tournament was already put on paper, with the idea Michaels will be around, they decided to go with it and Michaels may or may not be Austin’s partner when that match rolls around.
With just three weeks to go until the Calgary PPV, the line-up for that show is very much in the air. The only match officially announced is the main event, which is now scheduled as Bret & Owen Hart & Jim Neidhart & Brian Pillman & Davey Boy Smith vs. Goldust & Ken Shamrock & Steve Austin & Legion of Doom. Goldust was put in Sid’s original spot in a change that was made before the auto accident. Don’t know why that change was made—perhaps Goldust was put in to do the job since they may not have wanted to beat Sid again—perhaps they just felt it would be a more attractive show with a Sid vs. Vader match underneath.
Since we don’t know the extent of Sid’s injuries, the match with Vader has yet to be announced nor do we know at press time
if it will happen. Vader himself has not returned after surgery on his nose and he was originally scheduled back for the Canadian shows over the weekend.
They shot the angle to lead to the Undertaker vs. Ahmed Johnson WWF title match on the 6/16 Raw. The other scheduled match that should be etched in stone is Mankind vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley. In Japan it was announced that Great Sasuke would face Taka Michinoku on the Calgary PPV, and that is also planned to happen, although the final details on that match hadn’t been solidified at last word.
SEPTEMBER 22
Probably the biggest news of the past week revolved around Shawn Michaels’ behavior at the Raw taping on 9/9 in Muncie, IN. Neither Vince McMahon nor Undertaker were at the taping, and Michaels did an interview where he came out in tight biker shorts with a sock or socks stuffed in his crotch for whatever reason and proceeded to make some very lewd gyrations like acting as if he was humping Jim Ross, swearing during his interview and called out Undertaker who was on a tape on the video wall. Everything was able to be edited off the show, and if you didn’t know about the incident, you wouldn’t even know the interview was heavily edited.
Since Undertaker wasn’t there, but since he was on a tape on the wall people thought he was, when Michaels kept insulting him, calling him a big chickenshit, and begging him to come out and call him more names when he didn’t come out, it made Undertaker look bad in the city, not to mention it being totally unprofessional. Whether Michaels was doing it in another attempt to get fired so he could go to WCW or he had other ideas up his sleeve, it’s definitely brought a lot more negativity toward him in a lot of circles.
17 – NJPW vs. AJPW
JUNE 16
All Japan and New Japan had a wrestling war of sorts with consecutive nights at Budokan Hall on 6/5 and 6/6.
From an attendance standpoint, All Japan, which traditionally runs its major shows in that building, won out. All Japan announced its crowd as a sellout 16,300 on 6/6. New Japan announced its crowd on 6/5 at 14,000. Reports from people who attended both nights said that All Japan’s show was totally full, while New Japan was almost, but not completely full.
All Japan, which always announces a sellout 16,300 at Budokan even though most of the time the crowds are closer to 14,000, ran its biggest singles match of the year on top with the annual Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada Budokan Hall classic. Apparently this match lived up to that billing as it was reported to us as the single best match of the year with Misawa scoring a pin with a German suplex in 31:22 to retain the Triple Crown. Kawada destroyed Misawa with moves such as a power bomb on the floor and a long stretch plum with Misawa getting to the ropes. Kawada dropped him on his head four times in a row, but Misawa got up and hit a desperation forearm. Misawa then used forearm after forearm to knock Kawada out, although he did a few dramatic kick outs before the German suplex finish.
It was the 15th time the two had wrestled in singles matches during their careers, dating back to 1982. Misawa won the first four meetings in 1982-83 when they were both undercard green wrestlers. They never met again in singles until October 21, 1992 at Budokan Hall, by which time Misawa was Triple Crown champion and made his first title defense by pinning Kawada in 29:52. All in all, Misawa has ten wins and there have been four 30:00 time limit draws. Kawada’s lone win came as part of the triangle match in the Champion Carnival finals on 4/19 at Budokan Hall which set up this match.
New Japan had a deeper show, headlining with the return of Keiji Muto after the NWO angle in the United States, challenging Shinya Hashimoto for the IWGP heavyweight title. The match was said to have been very good, although not nearly on the level of the match the next night. The big surprise is that Muto wrestled a total babyface style and Muto didn’t act as if he was part of the NWO. The intrigue in how Muto would behave was one of the major selling points of the match. Apparently the storyline is that Keiji Muto is a New Japan babyface, but Great Muta is an NWO heel. Hashimoto ended up winning the match after two DDT’s in 26:01.
Also on the show was the finals of the Top of the Super Junior tournament where El Samurai pinned Koji Kanemoto in 23:51. Kanemoto unmasked Samurai at 17:00 and Samurai wrestled the remainder of the match with his face totally exposed. He won the match after hitting three reverse DDT’s (slop drop) to capture his first ever junior tournament championship. In the other title match on the show, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi retained the IWGP tag team titles beating NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono in 14:15 when Kojima pinned Sting after a lariat.
There were three other key matches on the show. The legendary Satoru Sayama vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi feud from 1982-83 was revisited with Sayama wrestling as Tiger King and winning with a cross armbreaker in what was said to have been a so-so match. An eight-man junior heavyweight tag team match saw Gran Naniwa & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Chris Jericho & Jushin Liger beat Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Yoshihiro Tajiri & Hanzo Nakajima & Shinjiro Otani in 13:45 when Liger pinned Takaiwa with an inside cradle as Takaiwa was doing his series of power bomb finishes, cradling him after the fourth power bomb. The other interesting match saw Big Japan tag team champions Takashi Ishikawa & Kengo Kimura, who won the tournament two days earlier to become the first champions, come out wearing the belts on a New Japan show and beat Riki Choshu & Osamu Kido when Kimura pinned Kido in 10:55.
The Misawa-Kawada match was more like a monster movie than a wrestling match in that both competitors continually rose from the dead time-after-time. At the finish, both men collapsed and were taken to the dressing room. The traditional end of a Budokan show is the presentation of the title belt and trophy to the winner after the match, but Misawa never came back out for the presentation to sell just how physically taxing the match was supposed to have been.
The other important match on the All Japan show was the semifinal, where Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace & The Patriot beat Steve Williams & Gary Albright & The Lacrosse (real name Jim Roche). Kobashi & Ace & Patriot announced before the match their new team name at “GET” which stands for Global, Energisch (?), Tough. The finish of this match came at 22:00 when Williams was given a triple team power bomb and pinned clean by Ace after a cobra suplex. It was a huge surprise for the finish since Ace has never pinned Williams during his career and basically is another step in the attempt to position Ace at the same level as Williams and Stan Hansen when it comes to foreign stars.
It’s really surprising to see Patriot get this kind of a push because he has signed his multi-year WWF contract and is expected to debut toward the latter part of the summer and it’s believed his next All Japan tour, which ends 7/25, will be his last tour with the company. Besides Patriot, both Sabu and Rob Van Dam have also quit All Japan which actually led to a heated situation on the final night of the show.
Sabu quit the promotion because he was mad about how he was positioned as an undercard wrestler who put over the top names when he was in the ring with them. The straw that broke the camel’s back apparently was him having to put Giant Kimala II over on 6/4 in Takasaka and both Sabu and Van Dam quit that night effective the end of the tour two days later. Sabu’s lengthy All Japan deal wound up lasting all of three tours.
Van Dam had been considering leaving for quite a while so chose Sabu’s leaving to be his time to leave as well. Despite Van Dam’s stature in the U.S. going way up based on ECW, and on the verge of going up even more with the WWF feud, his stature in Japan hasn’t changed much since he started going to All Japan and really never has done anything big with the group since his memorable junior heavyweight title match against Dan Kroffat (Phil LaFon). On this tour he put over PWF jr. champion Yoshinari Ogawa in a singles title match.
Due to Sabu’s reputation from other groups in Japan, the promotion, which usually pays the wrestlers for the tour the afternoon of the Budokan show, refused to pay them until after Budokan, apparently trying to make sure they wouldn’t no-show the big show. At this show they, even though it was their final show, were put over Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi when Van Dam pinned Ogawa in 8:48
. However Sabu wasn’t allowed to do any of his gimmick spots during the match and apparently the wrestlers stationed around the ring were given orders to make sure the match went according to plans.
This makes the fifth promotion that Sabu has left in Japan over the past few years, including both majors. It’s expected that both Sabu and Van Dam will return to Japan as part of the ECW contingent when ECW makes deals to work with whatever promotion it ends up working with, which is expected at this point to be either WAR or FMW with the belief being the former is the more likely.
18 – Riki Chosu Retires
JUNE 30
The announcement of the retirement of Riki Choshu at a press conference in Tokyo on 6/19 was surprising, but only for the humorous candor.
Choshu, real name Mitsuo Yoshida, 45, announced that he would only wrestle eight more matches before retiring on the January 4, 1998 show at the Tokyo Dome to conclude a pro career of more than 23 years. He also announced an added show to the New Japan schedule, which would have a retirement ceremony for him, on 8/31 at the Yokohama Arena.
Choshu cited an injury to his right shoulder which makes it impossible to lift his famous lariat arm, as the main reason for the retirement. He strongly suggested and it was widely believed that unlike nearly every pro wrestling retirement of a major star, this one is legitimate.
Choshu has been hinting and talking retirement for nearly two years, first in late 1995 after exhaustion had taken its toll on him after an incredible last three-weeks of a promotion of the October 9, 1995 Tokyo Dome show with UWFI that resulted in what still is the largest live gate in pro wrestling in history, $6.1 million, and biggest crowd ever to attend an indoor sporting event in Japan, 67,000. A few days after that event, with Choshu claiming he hadn’t gotten much sleep over the previous several weeks, he strongly hinted he’d be out of the ring by early 1996.
