WWF/E Tidbits from the past

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

I think a fan.........

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

The inspiration for Evad Sullivan.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I mentioned it in the WWE.com Legacy thread months ago, but speaking of bad venues, there is one that they taped some Raw's from in 1994 that looks like they booked an area warehouse to have it's stock removed and seats for fans put it. It's awful looking.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I mentioned it in the WWE.com Legacy thread months ago, but speaking of bad venues, there is one that they taped some Raw's from in 1994 that looks like they booked an area warehouse to have it's stock removed and seats for fans put it. It's awful looking.

 

Like when they ran Poughkeepsie and the like? Yeah, those venues looked like shit. It was depressing. Why didn't they just stick with the Manhattan Center?

[Richard 0]

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b195/defester/dm3.png

 

What MSG show is this from and how do i see it~!

 

Looks like John Nord.

[Slickster 0]

Here's a crap location for a WWE taping: the Bonnie Castle Resort in Alexandria Bay, NY. Mid-July, hotter than hell, and lit like your basement.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6d1ox_ji...y-night-r_sport

[rezinda 0]

Just watched SNME from 10/90. They were doing a whole Octoberfest theme & had Mean Gene hosting a sausage stuffing contest. A really faggy looking Genius with a blond curly wig was described by Gene as a "professional sausage stuffer, who has been stuffing sausage for a long time" - classic

[Enigma 0]

Here's a crap location for a WWE taping: the Bonnie Castle Resort in Alexandria Bay, NY. Mid-July, hotter than hell, and lit like your basement.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6d1ox_ji...y-night-r_sport

 

What a sterling venue for Jim Cornette to make his WWF debut.

[daileyxplanet 0]

I love Bobby Heenan getting so excited about Jim Cornette arriving.

[Diamonddust 0]

Interesting angle that never came to be as described by the 2/3/92 Observer:

 

The imbalanced tag team situation (four babyface teams/three heels teams) will be balanced as they're putting Ted DiBiase & Shawn Michaels together which should become among the top five tag teams in the world.

 

And since this edition highlighted the plans for the double-main event at WM8, I thought this was funny:

 

Latest on Ultimate Warrior is that those close to him say he has no interest in returning to wrestling.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Part of a new Bret interview

 

Vince knew that he was going to screw me from the time I came back after my little hiatus after Wrestlemania 12. I think Vince set it in motion so that he could drop the bomb on me at any time. He was just going to do it when the time was right for him, and that's what he did. He lowered the boom on me when I didn't expect it, and the whole thing turned into what it did. But I was just trying to draw money for him. People always say that Vince didn't have any choice, but it's totally not true. According to my contract back then, I had to wrestle 280 days a year for Vince McMahon. By the time I wrestled Shawn at Survivor Series that year where they screwed me out of the title, I had already worked something like 310 shows. I didn't even need to be there. I could've just told Vince that I already did my dates according to my contract. I could've told him to just take his belt and shove it and walk out. But I was a professional and I was giving him everything I could. I really didn't even have a problem losing the belt, but Shawn didn't have any respect for me and I didn't have any respect for him.

 

I call shananigans on that, as Bret had wrestled for less than a year at that point, and had spent like 2 months or so on the D/L with his knee injury.

[johnson316cane 0]

Part of a new Bret interview

 

Vince knew that he was going to screw me from the time I came back after my little hiatus after Wrestlemania 12. I think Vince set it in motion so that he could drop the bomb on me at any time. He was just going to do it when the time was right for him, and that's what he did. He lowered the boom on me when I didn't expect it, and the whole thing turned into what it did. But I was just trying to draw money for him. People always say that Vince didn't have any choice, but it's totally not true. According to my contract back then, I had to wrestle 280 days a year for Vince McMahon. By the time I wrestled Shawn at Survivor Series that year where they screwed me out of the title, I had already worked something like 310 shows. I didn't even need to be there. I could've just told Vince that I already did my dates according to my contract. I could've told him to just take his belt and shove it and walk out. But I was a professional and I was giving him everything I could. I really didn't even have a problem losing the belt, but Shawn didn't have any respect for me and I didn't have any respect for him.

 

I call shananigans on that, as Bret had wrestled for less than a year at that point, and had spent like 2 months or so on the D/L with his knee injury.

 

Did his contract specify that he actually had to wrestle or just appear? If it was just appearances, I can see the 310 number b/c I think he was on every RAW during the time his knee was hurt if only to just do interviews with the rest of the Harts. Plus autograph signings and stuff like that may be factored in. If it’s actual wrestling appearances, then I have a hard time thinking he could miss two months and fulfill 310 dates.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

Just to add to the Rocky taking over the Nation storyline;

 

After SS in 1996 Rocky, starting to show some of the modern prima donna athlete character that was "The Rock", challenged Austin for the IC belt because he was the "greatest IC champion ever" etc.

 

Austin is forced to relinquish the belt after beating Rock at the D-X PPV and it was handed over to Rocky, who during the promo uttered the phrase "Vince, The Rock thinks you should fire him."

 

During that winter they kept teasing friction between Rocky and Faarroq, especially when The Rock presented Faarroq with a portrait of The Rock as a gift! Around this time during a Nation promo (Off hand, I think Rock and Faarroq were wrestling each other in some form on the WM card) was when Rocky instructed D-Lo, Henry and Mustafa (he wouldn't be The Godfather until Rocky took over) to kick Faarroq out.)

[Enigma 0]

Ha. I remember that. The Rock bought everyone Rolex watches, but he gave Faarooq a poster portrait of himself instead.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

This is a weird question, but were the locker rooms used for interviews in the early 90s just fake sets? In 90/91 they all seemed to be blue and exactly the same with all of these small lockers with doors, then in 1992, every PPV locker room became beige.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Courtesy of the latest Retro Observer (Feb 10/92):

 

- IRS replaces Shawn Michaels on the proposed Shawn/DiBiase team, Meltzer is baffled as to why. It was thought they would be facing LOD at Mania VIII, but it's mentioned later in the issue LOD didn't wrestle at the SNME tapings due to Hawk being injured.

 

- "In order to get the correct response in the building [for Sid turning on Hogan] and avoid what happened in Albany when the fans cheered the "wrong" man during the turn, they had Justice do a dark interview just for the live audience where he talked about how much he hated Texas"

 

- The "Doctor Harvey" character who used the stethoscope to check on the squash victims before they were stretchered out was Sid's idea. He had the same idea in WCW but they didn't go for it (the stethoscope part, anyway).

 

- The backstage segment where Undertaker stops Jake from hitting Liz with a chair (the cliffhanger to SNME, where Undertaker grabbing the chair was shown on Superstars later on) was actually filmed in a different arena.

 

- "Action Jackson (Perry Jackson) got a try-out in Amarillo doing a P.N. News rapper gimmick which got over pretty good so I'm told".

 

- SummerSlam - at least from what Meltzer was led to believe - was slated to take place at the Capital Center in Landover, MD.

[King Cucaracha 0]

- IRS replaces Shawn Michaels on the proposed Shawn/DiBiase team, Meltzer is baffled as to why.

 

I suppose it's easy to say in hindsight, and Meltzer was probably only thinking in terms of workrate, but IRS made more sense because of the gimmicks. Michaels and Dibiase could have worked but it would had been an odd mix assuming Michaels kept the Heartbreak Kid gimmick with Sherri too.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

That reminds me...what was the deal with Sherri briefly managing DiBiase before moving on to Michaels? Did they just decided DiBbiase didn't need a manager at that point, or something?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I wasn't being sarcastic or anything, the issue literally has him stating "for reasons which I have no idea" in regards to IRS. Of course, that could mean he didn't know the reason for the switch, but to me, the tone is "this is a let down". It worked itself out pretty well though.

[King Cucaracha 0]

I wasn't being sarcastic or anything, the issue literally has him stating "for reasons which I have no idea" in regards to IRS. Of course, that could mean he didn't know the reason for the switch, but to me, the tone is "this is a let down". It worked itself out pretty well though.

 

Probably a little of both. IRS wasn't exactly a big hit up to that point.

 

Personally I think Shawn/Dibiase would have been two great wrestlers teaming together, where-as Money Inc proved to be a great tag team.

[Diamonddust 0]

What was probably considered a throw-away news item at the time:

 

Todd Gordon, who worked as a financial partner with Joel Goodhart is going to start up a group called Eastern Championship Wrestling and use a lot of Goodhart's local wrestlers like J.T. Smith, D.C. Drake, Larry Winters, etc.

 

And so it began...

[Swindle 0]

MoneyInc ruled.

 

MillionDollarMan/HBK seems more like one of those oddball monster heel teams that'd go up against another oddball monster face team, rather than a real tag team.

[Richard 0]

That reminds me...what was the deal with Sherri briefly managing DiBiase before moving on to Michaels? Did they just decided DiBbiase didn't need a manager at that point, or something?

 

Money Inc was managed by Jimmy Hart (until Hart's face turn).

[King Kamala 0]

Yeah but Sherri managed DiBiase for a couple months in late '91/early '92. I really don't know if they explained her being there (I'm guessing she needed something to do with Savage retired) or her leaving.

[bob_barron 0]

And in the DID YOU KNOW department, Jericho was originally supposed to be the final person Brock eliminated, but the injury to his eye halfway through the match caused concern in the back and they called an audible to have him eliminated. The original final four was going to be Jericho, Brock, Kane, and Undertaker. If I remember correctly, Brock was going to get taken out of the action by Kane and Undertaker with a double chokeslam. Kane and Undertaker would then have a big brawl and then both guys would be dumped by Jericho. Brock and Jericho would go at it for a little bit. Brock would get the better and dump Jericho with a clothesline, only Jericho would hold to the bottom rope and only one foot would hit the ground. Sound familiar? It’s the Shawn Michaels ‘95 finish. Brock’s music would hit, he would celebrate, Jericho would get back into the ring and shove Brock out… only Brock would hang on and F5 Jericho out of the ring. That would have been an awesome finish, but Jericho’s goosebump above his eye was deemed to dangerous to allow him to continue. Too bad. And again, it didn’t look that bad. Anywho, that’s the story behind the lame ending to the Rumble.)

 

Someone wrote that at SK's blog. Is that true?

[CookieMueller 0]

Yeah but Sherri managed DiBiase for a couple months in late '91/early '92. I really don't know if they explained her being there (I'm guessing she needed something to do with Savage retired) or her leaving.

 

I remember that too and I've wondered about it as well. I don't remember her reasons for leaving him (or being with him in the first place) being mentioned on air, but it must have been. Is it possible that they were going to feud Dibiase and Michaels at some point over her, but instead put Martel in that role as Dibiase was in Money Inc? Based on that Observer quote it seems like they wanted Dibiase and Michaels to work together.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

That reminds me...what was the deal with Sherri briefly managing DiBiase before moving on to Michaels? Did they just decided DiBbiase didn't need a manager at that point, or something?

 

I would hardly say that she "briefly" managed DiBiase. She was in his corner for nearly a year. My guess would be that they felt like a natural dichotomy since Virgil left DiBiase and Sherri lost her meal ticket after Savage was forced into retirement. And the Million Dollar Man instantly found himself aligned with Jimmy Hart after Sherri was paired with Shawn, so the "no need for a manager" theory really doesn't apply.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

And in the DID YOU KNOW department, Jericho was originally supposed to be the final person Brock eliminated, but the injury to his eye halfway through the match caused concern in the back and they called an audible to have him eliminated. The original final four was going to be Jericho, Brock, Kane, and Undertaker. If I remember correctly, Brock was going to get taken out of the action by Kane and Undertaker with a double chokeslam. Kane and Undertaker would then have a big brawl and then both guys would be dumped by Jericho. Brock and Jericho would go at it for a little bit. Brock would get the better and dump Jericho with a clothesline, only Jericho would hold to the bottom rope and only one foot would hit the ground. Sound familiar? It’s the Shawn Michaels ‘95 finish. Brock’s music would hit, he would celebrate, Jericho would get back into the ring and shove Brock out… only Brock would hang on and F5 Jericho out of the ring. That would have been an awesome finish, but Jericho’s goosebump above his eye was deemed to dangerous to allow him to continue. Too bad. And again, it didn’t look that bad. Anywho, that’s the story behind the lame ending to the Rumble.)

 

Someone wrote that at SK's blog. Is that true?

I highly doubt Vince would book an elimination where Chris Jericho eliminates both Kane and Undertaker at the same time? Another monster might get such a privilege, but not Jericho.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

If it's on Scooter's blog, it has to not be anywhere near true. I mean, he refers to himself as an author on that thing.

[Epic Reine 0]

Why did they discontinue the European belt shortly after WMXV only to bring it back that summer?