by Dave Meltzer
The story we have from sources close to Smith is that he was on the phone with Vince McMahon and somehow the direction of the WWF television came up and he, who is one of the bigger wrestling fans among the wrestlers since his son Harry, who is training to be a wrestler, is such a huge fan. Anyway, he apparently complained that the shows weren’t suitable for his son to watch and one thing led to another and McMahon offered him the opportunity to negotiate with WCW for ten days and if he couldn’t cut a deal, he could return to WWF. Supposedly two days later was when he got word about the $150,000 buy-out before he could get permission to negotiate with WCW or Japan, which held up the official leaving by a few weeks.
His leaving is largely due to knowing too much about the Hart-Michaels situation, from being ready to do the run-in for the finish and seeing all the pretending that went down there, to seeing Michaels throw the belt down and almost shatter it in the dressing room as he went through the curtain because he was so “mad” about the finish, to being in the dressing room for the actual post-match conversation between Hart and Michaels where Michaels promised not to bring the belt to television the next night or to act as if he had won the match, and actually physically involved in the fight (and injuring his knee in the process) dragging Bret Hart and Shane McMahon off, to witnessing the hotel charade for the boys between Jack Lanza and Earl Hebner where Hebner, in front of an audience of a few wrestlers since there was so much heat on everyone involved in the double-cross that night in Montreal, was claiming to know nothing about the finish and that he was double-crossed as well.
I don’t know how much details we’ve gone into about that aspect of the story, but after Earl Hebner sprinted from the ring into the awaiting car driven by Dave to get to the hotel room so there were no problems involving him in the dressing room, when he was in the lobby later in the night with several wrestlers, he and Lanza had a discussion loud enough for the wrestlers to hear. In the discussion, Hebner claimed he had been double-crossed on the finish, that he had no idea why the bell rang, and that he was flying home and quitting the promotion. Lanza talked him into staying in front of an audience of wrestlers claiming that everyone knew he wasn’t involved.
After all that, he felt it would be impossible to trust anyone in decision making power. WWF was pretty much aware of how vehement his feelings were and it’s most likely that had he stayed, he wouldn’t have been given any kind of a push and thus would have been unhappy and it was a situation bad for everyone.
35 – WCW’s Record Breaking Year
JANUARY 27
Just one day after WWF drew the second largest paid crowd for pro wrestling ever in the United States, World Championship Wrestling set the company all-time attendance record drawing a sellout of just over 17,000 fans paying $189,206 to the United Center for the 1/20 Monday Night tapings in Chicago. In addition, the company’s all-time single event merchandise record was devastated with nearly $107,000.
The gate was the fourth largest in company history, trailing the record mark of $224,660 set for last year’s Halloween Havoc in Las Vegas, which also set the merchandise record with $69,000. The largest paid attendance ever for a WCW house show would have been 14,082 for the 6/7 Ilio DiPaolo show in Buffalo, NY. Even dating back to the company that preceded WCW, Jim Crockett Promotions, you’d probably have to go back a good ten years to one of the successful baseball stadium shows in Charlotte to find a crowd of this size.
APRIL 21
The Nitro show in Philadelphia drew the second largest crowd and gate in the history of the WCW promotion and devastated the all-time merchandise record. The sellout crowd of 16,256 at the Core States Spectrum, which was largely sold out a week in advance although due to the typical weekly seating screw ups from the earlier site surveys, several hundred tickets were put on sale at the last minute. Paid attendance was 15,132—a few hundred shy of the company record 15,834 paid at the Nitro on 1/20 in Chicago. The gate of $219,816 fell just below the company record of $224,660 set for last year’s Halloween Havoc PPV show with Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage on top. Total merchandise sales was $143,000, which broke the record of $107,000 set at the aforementioned Chicago Nitro.
Some, if not all of those records, will be broken for the Nitro tapings on 6/9 in Boston at the Fleet Center. Buoyed by a tremendous job of local promotion including working with the Cam Neely Foundation and sending Ric Flair, The Giant and Gene Okerlund into town for a press conference, public and media appearances, WCW set its all-time company record for first day sales on 4/10 selling approximately 10,000 tickets for in excess of $170,000. As of the close of business on 4/14, the advance was 13,789 tickets sold for $217,242. The way they have the Fleet Center set up for the Nitro leaves only 800 tickets left unsold, however, they may change the set-up and could probably get as many as 4,500 more seats which would no doubt sell easily being that they have nearly eight weeks left to sell them.
While a lot of the turnaround in WCW when it comes to house show business has to be credited with the success of Nitro making it the hot promotion in the country, and also to several angles that got people back into going to matches (and as mentioned here many times, and it’s largely been not given its proper due, but you can trace the house show turnaround to the Ric Flair-Randy Savage angle involving Elizabeth in January 1996 and the Hogan-Hall-Nash NWO took it to the next level).
It also can’t be emphasized enough what a great job WCW has done of local promotion, something the company in the past had a tradition of doing poorly, most of which is headed by Zane Bresloff’s Awesome Promotions out of Denver. In the list of people that WCW got from WWF when it comes to importance to the company, with the exception of Hogan, Bresloff has been as—if not more—important than any of them when it comes to the turnaround in house show business.
OCTOBER 27
World Championship Wrestling once again broke its all-time gate record this past week. But the amazing thing is, it’s a show that is more than one month away.
WCW puts tickets on sale for its 11/23 World War III at the Palace in Auburn Hills, MI, announcing nothing locally except a 60-man three-ring Battle Royal and that WCW, the NWO, “exciting cruiserweights” and “high flying Mexicans” would appear, sending Larry Zbyszko and Bobby Heenan to do local promo work. By the end of the first day of ticket sales on 10/17, they had already sold 7,268 tickets for $247,671. The company all-time record house was set for the 6/9 Nitro in Boston which was $243,946. As of the end of business on 10/20, the Detroit totals were 9,153 tickets sold for $306,971, making it the first show in WCW history ever to break the $300,000 mark.
In the 80s, Jim Crockett Promotions, which was the predecessor to today’s WCW, did break the $300,000 mark on a few major occasions such as Starrcades in Greensboro and Atlanta. WCW will actually break the $300,000 barrier for the first time at the Halloween Havoc PPV on 10/26 in Las Vegas, as they are expecting a gate in the $315,000 to $325,000 range with 2,200 tickets still left unsold as of press time. One of the reasons these gate records are falling is because the ticket prices for WCW have been raised considerably as the live events, and in particular the Nitros and PPV dates, have become so much more of an in-demand ticket.
It’s become a really weird psychology when it comes to wrestling fans, in that there is a huge demand for high-price tickets in particularly the major markets, but lower priced tickets are difficult to sell, and the frequent Monday sellouts have been done simply by raising ticket prices across the board. On the surface, it makes no sense, but it again proves that pro wrestling tickets are an impulse rather than a rational buy, and thus normal economic factors in regard to pricing don’t apply.
NOVEMBER 24
To the surprise of virtually nobody, World Championship Wrestling broke its all-time gate record once again on the first day tickets went on sale for the Hulk Hogan vs. Sting WCW title match headlining Starrcade’ 97 on 12/28 at the new MCI Arena in Washington, DC.
First day sales on 11/15 were 11,036 tickets for $389,910. All of t
he expensive tickets went almost immediately, leaving only $15 tickets remaining in the building which at this point is being set up right now for an 18,975-seat capacity, although that number usually changes slightly once they set up the PPV and open up more seating. As of the end of business on 11/17, those numbers had increased to 12,501 tickets sold for $423,431. Since the show is still six weeks away, a sellout is a virtual lock and the gate is projected to be in the neighborhood of $537,000, which would be the largest live wrestling gate ever in the United States by a company other than the World Wrestling Federation.
The WCW all-time record will be set on 11/24 in Detroit, which will be the company’s first show ever to top $300,000. As of the end of business on 11/17, the numbers for World War III were 13,882 tickets sold for $393,520 with 2,200 tickets left remaining. Up until the recent Halloween Havoc show on 10/27, no WCW event had ever topped $250,000.
The all-time record for Jim Crockett Promotions, the predecessor to the current WCW, was for Starrcade ‘86 at the Omni in Atlanta headlined by Ric Flair vs. Nikita Koloff which drew about $380,000, and the Starrcade at the Omni main event the previous year of Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes did nearly the same similar figure. The famous Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich match at Texas Stadium in 1984 drew $402,000, while all of the $500,000 plus gates in North American history, of which there have been in the neighborhood of 15, were for major WWF events, mostly WrestleManias.
While the WWF has definitely sold more than 11,000 tickets on the first day for a few major events in the past (the record is believed to be 22,000 tickets on the first day for the 1990 WrestleMania match headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior), the first day gate figure is certainly among the two or three biggest in North American history.
For world pro wrestling history, the SummerSlam on August 29, 1992 at Wembley Stadium in London sold more than 55,000 tickets (perhaps far more than 55,000 tickets as there have been claims as high as 80,000 although tickets actually were on sale for months after the big first day and the live estimate was a crowd in the 75,000 range) the first day which is believed to be the all-time record.
The biggest Tokyo Dome shows (the 1989 UWF’s Akira Maeda vs. Willie Wilhelm and New Japan’s 1995 Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada matches) that have sold in the 30,000 to 40,000 range of tickets on the first day, all of which would be first day sales in the several million dollar range. The 11/9 K-1 event at the Tokyo Dome sold out all 54,500 tickets the first hour tickets were on sale for a gate that probably topped $5 million.
36 – WWF Controversy
DECEMBER 1
Bischoff in a Prodigy chat ripped WWF for the degree of sexual content and racial overtones that play during children’s programming in the morning:
I read a copy of his [Vince McMahon] online chat where he compared the sexual content and racial content of his program, and he said he isn’t doing things that haven’t been done before and he singled out NYPD Blue. That’s the kind of poor judgment that if he does go out of business, he has nobody to blame but himself. While NYPD Blue has exposed derrieres and sexual content, one only has to look at the advertisers that ABC includes in that programming and you’ll see that clearly that program is targeted toward adults, while McMahon’s programming is clearly targeted to children, in many cases children under 12 years old. For the USA Network and Vince McMahon to suggest that it’s OK to produce programming with the degree of sexual content, racial overtones and in my opinion general bad taste while obviously selling their program to advertisers that are targeting children’s toys and candy, I think it’s nothing short of professional and social irresponsibility on the part of McMahon and the people who work with him, and the USA Network.
On the subject of creative control by wrestlers:
Given the circumstances that we unfortunately all witnessed, or at least have knowledge of, with regards to the Bret Hart situation, it’s clear to see why wrestlers would want creative control. If you can’t trust the people you work with and for, it’s very difficult to put your career in the hands of people who if given half a chance would attempt to ruin your career. Actors have an opportunity to look at a script before they accept a role, and then decide whether they want to risk their career with a specific script or director. Wrestling isn’t like that, as we all know. There is a big difference. I think violation of trust is one of the things that has created the kind of atmosphere that I have heard exists in the WWF locker room.
DECEMBER 22
After getting past the turmoil regarding the ending of Bret Hart’s tenure and the finish of the Survivor Series match, the World Wrestling Federation is now facing even more controversy coming from three different fronts, all of which in some ways are related to Shawn Michaels.
The WWF’s more risqué edge set a new standard for being gross on the 12/8 Raw show from Portland, ME. On the show, Michaels did an interview going on in descriptive detail about “a big smelly turd,” describing Owen Hart as being a small piece of the turd that keeps coming back up no matter how many times he flushes the toilet.
Later in the show after doing an angle where he’d removed all his clothes with the exception of his underwear, he looked right at the camera and grabbed and shook whatever was in his pants. This has raised some issues about the direction of the company when talking about its past marketing and some of its current marketing toward young children. The recent characterizations of Goldust and Luna with the illusions of having an S&M bondage relationship have also come under the same criticism.
There is talk within the industry that the Los Angeles Times will be running a major story in the Entertainment section in approximately one week regarding the contradiction of WWF running adult-oriented programming and storylines while having its television shows viewed by a young audience which includes a sizable children under 12 audience, and the shows are even being sponsored by products aimed directly at a very young audience.
Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is also expected to run some sort of a short item regarding the Michaels interview, although it’s expected he’ll be an equal opportunity critic and also bringing up WCW in regard to the Raven’s cult angle and ECW for using porn star Jenna Jameson.
With reports in the industry of the Los Angeles article being on its way and faced with some severe criticism of the 12/8 show, the WWF fired its own preemptive strike on the 12/15 Raw in a short taped interview by Vince McMahon that appeared to have been done earlier in the day.
McMahon stated that the WWF was changing because they want to entertain the wrestling fans in what he described as a “more contemporary manner.” He categorized the new direction as more broad-based entertainment and tried to compare the programming with music videos, soap operas, Jerry Springer, Seinfeld and King of the Hill. He attempted to get pro wrestling, with the sports entertainment term used, as positioned as more entertainment, which because it is accepted as not being real, has a wider latitude toward what is acceptable than in a sporting event, saying they use the term sports entertainment even though they are entertainment simply because there are great athletes and great athleticism involved.
He said the public was tired of the same old good guys against bad guys, using those terms in a very condescending manner, and said the days of superheros telling kids to say their prayers and take their vitamins are passe. McMahon tried to come off as a nice guy, toning down some of the self righteous arrogance that made him such a big heel in his televised comments on Bret Hart.
Without exactly saying so, he gave the impression that they would tone down the first hour of Raw, that the second hour would be more risqué saying it was geared toward a more mature audience, and that most of the objectionable material from this point forward would be edited from the morning shows. He talked about the new direction causing a “huge increase” in the Raw ratings, which is an overstatement to a few week trend caused mainly from curiosity over a unique finish to a well-hyped match and every week attempting to keep that story alive.
A combi
nation of Nitro going three hours with the debut of Bret Hart and one of the hottest football games in years featuring the attempted miracle of the Jerry Rice return and the Joe Montana retirement ceremony put the Raw ratings back to its old level with a 2.71 rating (2.85 first hour; 2.58 second hour) and a 4.14 share. Nitro, probably somewhat due to Hart, did far better than expected going in against such strong football competition doing a 4.11 rating (4.38 first hour; 3.88 second hour; 4.08 third hour) and 6.30 share while the Nitro replay did a 1.55 rating and 4.19 share.
On the 12/15 show, which was taped before word of these articles surfaced, but the commentary was done live, Kevin Kelly and Michael Cole referred to Billy Gunn as B.A. Billy Gunn, without saying the words “bad ass” in the first hour. During the second hour, Owen Hart went on an obscenity-laced tirade worked shoot style interview with all the questionable language edited out. Plenty of questionable language in interviews by Steve Austin on the bridge and tapes involving Austin and Vince McMahon and their incident the previous week was readily visible through even a cursory reading of lips.
The fact is that things are only going farther in that direction, as on the 12/11 Raw show taped in Lowell, MA for airing on 12/22, there is a segment where Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley both remove all their clothing with the exception of t-back speedos, revealing the words “Merry” and “Christmas” written on their respective butt cheeks. And there remain weekly attempts to get Sable into as little clothing as possible, the end result making Sable on tour this weekend in at least some of the cities actually get a bigger pop than Undertaker.
