So I’m reading the newly posted Observer from January 96, and Dave drops this tidbit about the Billionaire Ted skits:
Most who called here thought the skit was hilarious. Even those in WCW. The one thing that should comfort everyone that doesn't like all the name calling (as if this is something unique in wrestling and you don't see it in every phone company commercial) is they should realize that if Hogan or Savage were to call Vince tomorrow, they'd be on top there the next day (and visa versa with top WWF talent), and that some day if WWF survives, Hogan and Savage will be back there and they'll all be best friends again.
Now certainly that proved to be true with Hogan, but this was written in January 1996 and apparently Savage didn’t have the heat with Vince at this point, so doesn’t that kind of discount the theory about Vince being pissed about him leaving in 94? I wonder when the Savage-Vince thing started to become common knowledge?
Also from this issue, another couple of amusing bits (to me, at least):
Brian Heffron of 2117 S. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19148 is looking for 1993 videos of Van Halen.
Mr. Heffron would of course make his ECW debut later in the year as the Blue Meanie.
And finally, from the letters page:
Is there any doubt competition benefits the consumer? As a result of the Monday Night Wars, we are seeing PPV calibre matches and can't miss shows every week. Seeing Hulk Hogan booed out of the arena and hearing Hogan sucks chants gives me goose bumps I was so excited. I'd like to see Hogan every week on Nitro just to see the bewildered look on his face. As pathetic as WCW is, and it's most entertaining stuff happens by accident, at least it has given Vince McMahon a much needed wake-up call. We may be witnessing the end of family entertainment and the advent of hardcore wrestling in the WWF. A wise business move? Probably not, but the success of UFC and ECW gives hope that a harder edged wrestling product can be more than just niche-based and small scale. In Your House was tremendous. Just reading the signs at ringside was worth the purchase price. If the change of direction doesn't work, well, at least it will be fun to watch for a few months.
Joe Fiore
Nahant, Massachusetts
DM: Competition definitely benefits the consumer in the short-run. However, if the long-term or end result is a serious weakening of the WWF, that benefits nobody except perhaps Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner, not the fans and certainly most of all not the performers.
Yeah, hopefully the WWF won’t end up seriously weakened by WCW winning the Monday Night Wars. Maybe WCW would even book an invasion angle where former WWF stars try to take over Monday Nitro, and then Vince McMahon could even get a job as the Nitro GM while Garrett Bischoff is awarded the World title.
If Savage wanted to come back, he would have comeback. It's as simple as that.
ReplyDeleteDoes that story actually discredit the '94 fallout? Is it possible that DM was just unaware of the heat at that time?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the heat was as simple as Savage NOT calling Vince for a job??
ReplyDeleteI didn't start hearing about the heat until Savage's name started coming up for the HoF. And knowing Vince's prospensity for holding grudges, it would not surprise me if Vince took offense to the fact he gave Savage the platform to be a mega-star and when WCW ended...Savage never tried to come back like every other WCW guy (save Sting) did.
As someone who majored in history while at college, I'm always fascinated to read people's thoughts at various time periods now that we have the benefit of hindsight. I was actually reading some of the old RSPW posts, including the 1992 FAQ and it was great. I also read Dave Scherer's email about the night in the ECW Arena when Shane Douglas threw down the NWA Title. Since I didn't get a computer until Christmas 1997 (I was 10) and didn't really start reading internet sites until sometime in 2000, I love reading smark first hand accounts leading up to and during the boom period. And this WON tidbit was no different. I should sign up for the WON just to read through the old issues.
ReplyDeleteWasn't there rumors in 1998 that Vince was trying to bring Savage back then?
ReplyDeleteOh, Dave and his WCW bashing.
ReplyDeleteAs you will see when they get to the fall of '96 with those old Observers, Vince and Savage (whose WCW contract had elapsed by then) were negotiating for Savage to return, but WCW won out in the end. So whatever major thing happened between them would have occured after that point.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, maybe Stephanie told Vince about an old dalliance a few years later ;)
I don't think that the Savage/Steph stuff made the rounds until about 2004 or so. I doubt there is any public acknowledgement prior to that and certainly not in the 1990s, not in any of the sheets anyway. I'm guessing if it is true that it is something Vince found out after the fact sometime in the early 2000s.
ReplyDeleteIn jest or not, this is actually along the lines of the rumor mongering I took to be "most credible." It wasn't until the HHH/Stephanie/Test story line ('99) that people were making more overt jokes backstage and eventually Steph came clean.
ReplyDeleteAt one time I was good friends with Savage's widow's (Lynn) daughter, as I was dating her friend. ive been to Savage's home outside Tampa...awesome experience. I asked Lynn once why Randy never went back or got in HOF and she said had to do with licensing/merch issues of the Maco Man name and trademark..Savage didnt wanna relinquish control of it. Simple as that.
ReplyDeleteVince never had a chance. With the amount of money WCW was handing out, and the way they were willing to let the guys work minimal dates, Vince couldn't come close to signing him away. A man as dollar hungry as Vince probably knows better than to take it personally.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there was any fall out in 1994. Vince gave Savage a nice send off on RAW -- which he never did back then for anyone leaving for WCW.
ReplyDeleteI think it was pretty simple for Savage -- he wanted a higher profile wrestling role than the WWF was willing to give him, plus things were going well business wise for WCW, which wasn't the case when he'd spoken with them previously in 1992. Plus ex WWFers clearly had a prominent role.
I believe too that there were rumors that some believed Savage wasn't ever in doubt of resigning with WCW, and that Bischoff intentionally leaked that Savage may be negotiating with the WWF so they could work it into the free agent angle which came to fruition in the United Center Nitro at the start of 1997.
ReplyDeleteAnother fun tidbit from late 1996 that I'd forgotten -- Vince more or less ended up screwing Curt Hennig out of his insurance and losing him to WCW by contacting Lloyd's of London without his knowledge during that angle with HHH and requesting clearance for him to wrestle, stating he was no longer disabled. Curt apparently had no intention to return to the ring, but lost his insurance payment, so he left the WWF to start training for his WCW run.
ReplyDeleteUgh, Scherer's whole "Flair is Dead" article is lame.
ReplyDeleteSide note: if this was Jan '96, then Meanie had already debuted at NtR '95, trading his "RSPW sucks" shirt with Stevie for his "Flock of Seagulls" shirt or vice versa or somesuch.
ReplyDeleteSavage v austin in 98 would have sold some tickets
ReplyDeleteMakes sense. Although the Randy/Stephanie rumour is infinitely more fun.
ReplyDeleteSo does Lynn own the rights now? Or Randy's mother or brother?
Savage did a video promoting his website where he put HHH on blast and claimed to have "took his woman."
ReplyDeleteInteresting, was that the genesis of the rumor then? I remember a lot of wacky stuff coming out of the Savage rap album promotion.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine did an independent film, and was freaking out when he told me he got a couple of wrestlers to sign onto the film. The way he was hyping it up, you would have thought he got the Rock, or at least Chris Jericho.
ReplyDeleteInstead, imagine my disappointment when I found out it was the Blue Meanie and Jim Neidhart.
But then I laughed my ass off when I found out Neidhart stole one of the producer's cell phone after he asked to borrow it for a phone call.
Here's the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0nLzr4EDnQ
ReplyDeleteHe actually says he "will" slap HHH and take his woman, Stephanie.
ReplyDeleteThe Apter mags reported Savage signed a 10-year deal but that was in late 96.
ReplyDeleteHe could still cut a damn good promo lol
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree. But I still find people's opinions during the time to be interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like it was unofficially a two year deal for $425,000 a year in 1994 and $1 million for one year when he resigned in late 1996/early 1997.
ReplyDeleteI remember being so pissed when Hennig left WWF in late 96. I was always a huge fan of his and was waiting since 93 for him to get back into the ring...and just when he seemed to be on the verge, he was gone to WCW. I was glad to see him wrestle there, but it wasn't the same.
ReplyDeleteNeidhart does seem like a pretty big d-bag based on most stories out there.
ReplyDeleteHe sure loved him some ECW.
ReplyDeleteWhere can one read some of these old RSPW posts, including the 1992 FAQ?
ReplyDeleteYeah, the ECW marks kind of ended up backing the wrong horse on that one.
ReplyDeleteI was referring to the Apter mags, in late 1996, stating Savage signed a 10 year deal with the WWF. Looking back, it was likely just to throw people off, as WCW started doing the Savage-joining the nWo- tease in Jan.
ReplyDeleteWasn't he on the ECW payroll, too? I seem to remember 1wrestlingpopupadswithmalware.com being an official source of ECW news or something, or somehow tied in with the ECW website.
ReplyDeleteI gotcha, yeah I think that was probably the idea.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of good archives of various stuff here:
ReplyDeletehttp://rspw.org/
Good question, that may have come later, similarly to the Bob Ryder deal with WCW. I think he was just a huge fan in the early 1990s though.
ReplyDeleteCocaine is a hell of a drug...
ReplyDeleteThat's funny as hell in retrospect... 'we can't pay you Bret...we're bringing in Savage'
ReplyDeleteHow was Flair buried on commentary if you remember any examples?
ReplyDeleteThe one that sticks out in my mind is after losing to Perfect in their retirement match, Vince said something along the lines of "it's all downhill now for Ric Flair".
ReplyDeleteI suppose that could be taken as more of a shot at WCW than Flair to smarts, but I doubt the marks would differentiate after Flair dropped the loser-leaves-town bout. Then after being complementary of him for their WWF run, WWF champ Bret Hart started badmouthing him at every possible opportunity.
I remember when I was over there Randy's mom had dropped off boxes of his old outfits and such for Lynn to keep a few days prior..so im guessing maybe either one of them...this was back in August 2011, just a few months after he passed..it was difficult being a mix of star struck fan and respectful of her loss so I kinda kept the discission to a minimum..
ReplyDeleteI fucking fucking fucking fucking hate that one DVDR sleaze list for creating that ridiculous Steph/Macho rumour. Due to Macho's lack of comment and sad demise on what the exact reason was for leaving and everyone's assumption that WWF was feuding with Macho Man, there's still a sizable amount of people who believe the jailbait rumour due to the lack of anything else. If something gets repeated often enough and spoken enough, it becomes fact.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen anyone bring this up when it comes to the whole Savage/Steph deal; Vince loves to incorperate real life events into his tv shows and loves to blur the line between reality and fantasy and whether the rumor is true or not, I'm sure sure Vince is well aware of the rumor considering many wrestlers are aware of the rumor also, so if that's the case, you'd think Vince would've threw a bazillion dollars at Savage for the two to work a WM program together and it's doubtful this type of thing would be above Vince since the guy wanted to do an incest storyline with his daughter.
ReplyDeleteInstead, imagine my disappointment when I found out it was... Jim Neidhart
ReplyDeleteWho?
I don't get what you're saying - Do you mean that Stephanie came clean and admitted that the rumor was true? What source on this?
ReplyDeleteI freggin' loved watching that angle live and it still holds up today. As they say, the electricity was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. However, I had no idea that Savage was a free agent and didn't understand why he was claiming he had been black balled, I just blamed Bischoff. The standoff with Sting was just fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI've heard Dave Meltzer and Wade Keller both give the Savage/Steph stories some merit. Like there's more to the story and many within WWE believe it to be true.
ReplyDeleteMe too! That was the first really, really big Nitro too and the atmosphere in the building was incredible. They were having to give a lot of freebies away for the end of 1995 and early 1996 and then ran mostly small buildings through 1996. They did run a show at the Superdome that drew a really healthy paid
ReplyDeletenumber (a little over 10,000 as I recall) for WCW at that time, but the United Center show was really the first indication that Nitro was a very hot ticket, as they moved tickets extremely fast and ended up with a very quick legitimate sellout, doing the best paid crowd they'd ever done to that point.
Lanny Poffo has also given credence to it, shortly after Savage's death in an interview.
ReplyDeleteBut that's the thing. Vince doesn't really hold grudges. All he cares about is money. So it had to have been something big with Savage.
ReplyDeleteI've not heard Meltzer or Keller give credence to it, I've just heard them say ''Er maybe''.
ReplyDeleteWho actually downvotes this? Smh
ReplyDeleteI don't hear where Savage says HHH took his woman, but how Macho would actually take Steph from HHH. Still, it's a promo and for entertainment purposes. I'm sure there was some real animosity, but it's still wrestling.
ReplyDeleteIn an old Observer Radio episode Dave Meltzer said something happened, as it's the only thing that makes sense with the way Vince McMahon refused to do business with Savage. But according to Dave, only someone named "Oliver" knows the whole story.
ReplyDeleteWade Keller just talked about it on one of his VIP audio shows a couple of weeks ago, and said something happened but he's not sure on the exact story.
''In an old Observer Radio episode Dave Meltzer said something happened, as it's the only thing that makes sense with the way Vince McMahon refused to do business with Savage.''
ReplyDeleteSee, this is exactly the crappy detective work that keeps rumours like this in place. Just because it ''made sense'' doesn't mean it's true.
And fuck that, if someone slept with my underage daughter I wouldn't be thinking ''well, I won't be booking him again!''
That "Oliver" is Oliver Copp, for those who remember the old TNM simulator.
ReplyDeleteMeltzer's basic point as I recall is that he doesn't know one way or the other if the story is true, but that there are people of power in the company who believe that it is.
That was my point: Savage didn't want to come back and make more money for Vince.
ReplyDelete