The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two

by Dave Meltzer

  Curt Hennig

  (March 31) The latest chapter in the Hennig saga started at the Cauliflower Alley Club banquet in Studio City, CA on 3/15, and ended, or at least appears to have ended on 3/24 when Nitro opened with the appearance of Larry Hennig in the front row in Duluth.

  At the CAC, Larry Hennig introduced his son, who was being awarded, as a future WWF champion, and the two talked highly about Vince McMahon. The reports we received is that Hennig, whose Titan contract expires in a few weeks (he’s been sitting out until the contract expires when he’s legally able to sign his new WCW deal) and was expected to join WCW immediately as a full-time wrestler at that point, was in Titan Towers on 3/18.

  According to WWF sources, Hennig was expected to make a surprise appearance at WrestleMania, largely to return the Lex Luger favor from the original Nitro. When Eric Bischoff got the word about the CAC banquet and the Titan rumors, he contacted Hennig, which I believe was on 3/21, who told him something to the effect of it being him just screwing with McMahon, which Hennig has probably now done as much if not more than any wrestler alive.

  Of course, nobody was sure, being this is pro wrestling and there were those in WCW worried until Mania ended that he still might make a surprise appearance since he’s still under contract to Titan. WCW wanted to put it back in Titan’s face by opening Nitro with Curt Hennig, however, due to the WWF contract, they are still legally unable to do so, so they did what they figured was the next best thing and put Larry Hennig there to open the show and make it clear that Curt was on his way to their side.

  (April 7) Based on several different versions of the same story, Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard had a meeting on the Tuesday before ‘Mania with Curt and Larry Hennig. According to the version the Hennigs were telling at Nitro the next week, McMahon and Prichard were one hour late and they were just about ready to walk out when they came.

  The sides were talking about a return to the WWF and the Hennigs pulled out the letter Prichard wrote to Lloyd’s of London which resulted in Lloyd’s not paying Hennig his reported $350,000 lump sum disability deal. It was basically a deal where Hennig was talking to WWF at the same time about returning and WWF needed to get the legal situation straightened out with Lloyd’s as to what their situation was, and it wound up as the blow up which ended with Hennig walking out and agreeing to go to WCW.

  The meeting really didn’t go positively for WWF after that although the idea at that point that it was made clear that business between the two sides was done doesn’t appear to be the case either and there was talk all week of potentially getting Hennig back. The Hennigs claimed at Nitro that Prichard backpedaled from the point they pulled out the letter with his signature and he claimed he knew nothing about it, but WCW was afraid as late as while ‘Mania was going on that even though the Hennigs had assured them they weren’t going, that it was pro wrestling and anything was possible. WCW put Larry Hennig on TV specifically to show Titan that they had Curt. People in both companies noted that Curt was extremely large, much bigger than in the past.

  (May 19) Curt Hennig is now expected to start with WCW in June. There are all sorts of legal claims on Hennig that have to be sorted out. Even though Hennig’s WWF contract expires right around now, the WWF is claiming they still have him under contract using the same logic Pancrase used for Ken Shamrock after the date on his contract expired. WWF claims WCW tampered with contracted personnel and since Hennig no-showed a PPV that the WWF booked him on, he was technically suspended and they believe him being suspended means his contract doesn’t expire until he comes back from the suspension and fulfills the remainder of the term of the contract. Without seeing the contract, WWF would have an argument if Hennig had agreed to perform a minimum of dates within the contract (that was the Pancrase position with Ken Shamrock since it was a nine show, one year contract and their position was Shamrock hadn’t done the nine shows when the one year was over) and it’s doubtful that was in the contract but who knows. WCW is planning on using him in a few weeks anyway no matter what WWF claims.

  (August 4) There were reports that Hennig’s matches last week at Universal were so bad that they couldn’t even air them, but actually the matches were never taped. Hennig was working to get the ring rust out and there were no plans for his matches to be on television to begin with. There are several different ideas on what to eventually do with him and it goes back-and-forth. He may be a Horseman, although the original plans were for that not to happen.

  Scott Hall

  (March 31) We have little in the way of details at press time, but Scott Hall, 37, voluntarily checked himself into rehab this past week, missing his WCW house show main event booking in Minneapolis, MN on 3/22 and his Nitro booking on 3/24 in Duluth, MN.

  On the live Nitro, it was acknowledged that Hall wasn’t there, with no reason given, although it was strongly hinted during the show that it was due to transportation problems as there was a legitimate snowstorm going on in Duluth, which was a very poor way to handle the situation because they gave no hints he wouldn’t be at upcoming shows where he’s the scheduled main eventer.

  There doesn’t seem to be a definite timetable known as to when he’ll return to action. On the show there were no announcements as to a change in the 4/6 Spring Stampede PPV, where the Hall & Kevin Nash tag team title defense against Rick & Scott Steiner was realistically the top drawing match on the show, nor a change in the card for 3/27 in Baltimore, where Hall is in the main event, the latter of which it is virtually a lock that Hall won’t appear on. At press time, we don’t have any word on how either of those shows will or won’t be changed.

  In Minneapolis, and most likely in Baltimore as well, Hall was replaced by Syxx in the main event, which was no longer a tag team title match, teaming with Nash against Lex Luger and The Giant.

  Kingdom

  (April 7) A new Japanese promotion which will basically be a reformation of the old UWFI, but apparently with a style change to being worked UFC-style matches, called “Kingdom” will be debuting with a show on 5/4.

  Takeshi “Ken” Suzuki, the long-time business manager of Nobuhiko Takada, announced the new promotion, which had been rumored for several weeks and reported on in the past both in Japanese newspapers and here, in a press conference on 3/30 in Tokyo. They announced that unlike UWFI, which Suzuki basically ran from a business standpoint, although it was Takada’s name as President, and went out of business at the end of 1996, that Takada would not have an executive or behind-the-scenes role in the new group, although he would remain the group’s top star.

  The first show will be 5/4 in Tokyo at the Yoyogi Gym. The matches will differ from the traditional UWF style, that was popularized in a big way in Japan in 1988-90 and largely continues in RINGS. This group will allow punches to the face and allow fighters to wear gloves, and also allow both punching and using elbows down from the mount position on the ground. The only difference between the rules of this and UFC rules are banning of blows to the base of the spine. In initial reports regarding the formation of this promotion, the belief was that it was largely being done to set up for a Tokyo Dome match later this year with Takada vs. Rickson Gracie, although nothing of the sort was even hinted about in the press conference.

  Besides Takada, other former UWFI wrestlers signed with the group are Yoji Anjyo, Yoshihiro Takayama, Yuhi Sano, Masahito Kakihara, Kazushi Sakuraba, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Kenichi Yamamoto, Ryuki Kamiyamato and Shunsuke Matsui. With the exception of Takayama, who worked for All Japan at Budokan on 3/1, and Sano, who worked the All Japan show in Nagoya on 3/30, all the aforementioned wrestlers have been inactive this year after UWFI closed up shop in December. Anjyo, Takayama and Yamamoto worked numerous indie shows in 1996 for a number of promotions as the Golden Cups.

  Apparently the group was put together by Anjyo’s older brother who got the money together, largely through major financing from Nishin Kensetsu, a real estate development company.

  Jim Cornette

  (April 7) Jim
Cornette will be managing again soon. He was replaced by Raymond Rougeau on the Challenge tapes this past week because he was suffering from a bad flu and had no voice. That’s probably why when he did the angle where he offered a contract to the Blackjacks and they ripped up the contract, that the entire angle was pantomimed rather than vocal. What I expect to happen is Cornette will end up managing a heel Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon who will feud with Blackjacks, and that mix doesn’t sound like it’s going to get either team over. Furnas & LaFon at first were going to be managed by Bob Backlund, but Cornette is a lot better fit.

  (September 8) Regarding all the rumors of Jim Cornette as a manager, Cornette has so much office work which includes writing the television shows and announcing on Shotgun and perhaps on Raw for the new season that he doesn’t have time to go on the road so he can’t get involved in any kind of a major program so that’s been holding up his going back to managing.

  Real Life Fights in ECW

  (April 7) There was a backstage near fight after the 3/30 ECW show. Shane Douglas was the promoter of the two Pittsburgh area events (a lot of the ECW spot shows are promoted by the wrestlers—Buh Buh Ray Dudley does the Long Island shows, Chris Candido will be promoting the New Jersey shows).

  During the show, Brian Lee suplexed Pit Bull #2 through the concessions table. Several weeks back there was a brawl that broke the concession table that resulted in a lot of merchandise stolen, and the same thing happened this time and Douglas was hot at the wrestlers. Douglas wound up arguing with Tracy Smothers until Rich pulled Smothers out of there.

  There has been tremendous backstage stress of late over the situation with Van Dam possibly leaving, WCW coming into Philadelphia, and more than anything else, all the pressure because the PPV show is really about to happen and nobody really knows how well it’ll do.

  Heyman gave a 75 minute long speech after the show saying that this is the time everyone needed to pull together as a group. Apparently during the speech he talked about Sabu and everything Sabu has been through, apparently trying to put Sabu over, and had Sabu in tears and Sabu is now talking about staying for the long haul and even promoting ECW shows in Michigan and Indiana.

  Heyman also said that if anyone from the company went to the WCW show on 4/14, not to ever talk to him again and that any relationships, business or friendship, would be over. He said that if anyone wanted to leave the promotion, contract or no contract, to tell him now and he’d get anyone who wanted one a meeting with McMahon or give them a release to talk to WCW. Nobody said anything about officially leaving although Van Dam did tell Heyman he’s considering going to WCW and gave the impression he’d be staying through at least June at this point.

  (April 14) There was actually quite a bit more going on behind the scenes than in the ring over the weekend. Shane Douglas and Sandman nearly got into another fight, with the heat stemming from last week. Let’s just say that every version of the story I get from eye witnesses differs from the other, but the basic consensus is that last week when Brian Lee and Pit Bull #2 broke a table, Douglas, who was the promoter of the show backstage said they should be fired.

  The word got to Lee, and when Douglas found out he was screaming about the stooge who told him and how the dressing room had stooges and that’s what’s so bad about the WWF, etc. Anyway, when it came out that Sandman told him, the two pretty much started to fight and the guys broke them up. Douglas and Tracy Smothers also nearly got into a fight stemming from all that.

  This week in Scranton, PA on 4/4, they did an angle to “injure” Sandman, who wasn’t going to work because of his cracked ribs, and in the angle, Douglas used Sandman’s cane on him. Sandman was mad because somebody else was using his gimmick and backstage the two were about to go at it.

  At this point, the different versions of the story differ, and it was that they were first held apart, and for whatever reason, some of the guys acting at peacemakers said screw it and wanted to see them fight. Tod Gordon and/or Sabu or Pit Bull #2 were the ones who pretty much broke the thing up when it looked like it was going to happen, depending on which version you hear.

  Neither guy backed down, although with one week to go before a PPV show, the intelligent thing in this situation would have been to avoid the fight since it would be stupid to risk an injury before the most important show in company history, especially for Sandman who has never been on a show this big and is already going in with cracked ribs.

  Paul Heyman spoke to both (he was elsewhere in the building when all this was going on) and got them in a room together for a long time and they talked everything out.

  (July 21) From a news standpoint, the most talked about thing in ECW was an incident in Allentown on 7/12. We’ve heard about five different versions of what happened including by eye witnesses.

  It started with a fan taking a swing at Douglas as he was leaving the ring. Douglas went after the fan and before he got to him, was jumped on by a second fan. At this point Gabe Sapolsky, who works behind the scenes at ECW went backstage and was basically right there as it was going on (which was only 10-15 feet away) said that there was a problem with Douglas in the crowd. At this point, the dressing room emptied.

  Of all people, Perry Saturn, tackled one of the guys who was on Douglas and held him down and Dreamer and Buh Buh Ray Dudley were out there trying to keep other fans from getting involved and to keep it from getting more out of hand. The whole thing was over in about three minutes, although it became a black eye to a point for ECW on the Internet with claims from people there that the wrestlers were fighting the fans and how unprofessional it was. Others said the incident was blown out of proportion although there was an incident, but not as bad as wrestlers fighting fans incidents that happened a few times before the April PPV show.

  Earlier in the show there was an incident where a fan threw a drink at Rob Van Dam, and Van Dam snatched him and in doing so ripped the fans’ shirt off. Heyman claimed that Douglas was going to press assault charges against the first fan, that he heard rumors that the fan would press charges against Douglas but didn’t know if it had happened, and has threatened to pull out of the building in Allentown unless he can bring his own security to the shows instead of using the local security which he blamed the problems on for not quelling bad situations before they happened.

  Reggie White

  (April 14) Future NFL Hall of Famer Reggie White of the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers signed to appear on the 5/18 WCW Slamboree PPV show in Charlotte, NC to face Steve McMichael in the semi-main event on the show. WCW had been negotiating with White on-and-off probably since January, when Kevin Greene suggested to White they form a tag team. The plan for a long time was for the two to work as a tag team with Jeff Jarrett to face Ric Flair & Roddy Piper & McMichael in the main event in Charlotte. The logic of that apparently felled that one as they realized Flair, Piper and Greene in Charlotte needed to be teammates since all would be huge babyfaces in Charlotte.

  At one time it appeared the deal for White looked to be dead since White’s asking price was $500,000, but WCW is generating huge money these days and a star of White’s caliber guarantees lots of mainstream publicity, particularly in May when sports news is at a slow period.

  Eric Bischoff put the deal together to get White to appear at Slamboree last week, and the news broke on 4/10, and it was carried on 4/14 nationally through the AP wire. White debuted that night at the live Nitro from Philadelphia, the city he played most of his career in as a member of the Eagles before joining the Packers after going through free agency and making a multi-million dollar contract.

  White is a long-time wrestling fan, having followed the old NWA shows at the Philadelphia Arena in the days of Dusty Rhodes and the Four Horseman, and has been considered at various times in the past of doing something in pro wrestling. He has also been friends with Doug Furnas for probably 15 years since the two were college teammates at the University of Tennessee.

  White joins Greene, an NFL star with the Carolina
Panthers, and Dennis Rodman of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls as superstar pro athletes who will work in the ring for WCW over the next three months.

  It was announced during the show that White had signed for Slamboree, and White was at ringside for most of the show. After his match, McMichael actually began heavily praising White, but said he’d beat him in their match and it wound up with White hopping the guard rail, charging the ring and tackling McMichael before the two were pulled apart.

  WWF and WCW Auto Accidents

  (April 14) There was a nasty auto accident before the WCW PPV on 4/6. Regal, Benoit and Nancy Sullivan (yes, they do their angle ALL the time) were coming from the gym to the hotel when an apparent drunk driver hit Regal’s four-wheel drive car that rolled over twice. Nancy was banged up a little and Benoit was bleeding from the hand (that opened up again during the Malenko match) but all were basically fine.

  (June 23) Four WWF wrestlers were involved in an auto accident on the late afternoon of 6/15 which left them all hospitalized, but as luck would turn out, with none suffering serious injuries and all but one checked themselves out of the hospital that night.

  The wrestlers involved were Sycho Sid (Sid Eudy), Doug Furnas (who suffered the most serious injuries), Phil LaFon and Flash Funk (Charles Skaggs). The accident occurred on the way to Ottawa, where the four were scheduled to wrestle that night, from Montreal, where the wrestlers were stationed after working the previous night in Toronto.

  Sid was driving a rented Lincoln Continental at a speed described as being around 100 MPH and apparently was adjusting the sun roof and the car went out of control, hit the shoulder of the road and rolled four times about a mile from the Ontario border on the way from Montreal to Ottawa near Pointe-Fortune, Quebec. The car was destroyed to the point of being unrecognizable and all four wrestlers were taken to Hawkesbury, ONT General Hospital in an ambulance.