Titan Sports has signed World heavyweight pro boxing champion Mike Tyson to referee the Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage match on the NBC special on 2/23 eminating from Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. The official announcement was made at a press conference on Thursday (1/25) afternoon where Hogan and Gene Okerlund appeared and Okerlund read a "telegram just in" from Tyson, who is training in Tokyo for his fight in a couple of weeks at the Egg Dome. In the telegram, Tyson was quoted as saying how he's not afraid of either Hogan or Savage (should he be?). Hogan made several hints to spread rumors for a forthcoming confrontation with Tyson. No monetary figures have even been speculated on as to the cost of landing Tyson, which is a tremendous coup for Titan.
The biggest celebrity payoff Titan has done thus far was when William "Refrigerator" Perry worked a Battle Royal at Wrestlemania II for $150,000 (a figure exagerrated as around three times that much in the press). Being that Tyson is in an entirely different financial league, well above Perry (as hot as Perry was as a marketing commodity in 1986, he probably earned less money from his entire celebrity run the Tyson does in two fights), one would think the cost would be even higher. Since Titan chose to use Tyson on a free NBC special, rather than Wrestlemania, opens up more speculation. While things are being kept mum about Wrestlemania plans, I've got it on pretty good authority that Tyson won't be part of the show. Still, the prospective gross revenue that a Hogan vs. Tyson match, worked or otherwise, would generate is astronomical. It is far more than Tyson could generate against any of today's heavyweight boxers and certainly McMahon could never market an opponent to the extent that he could draw with Hogan the kind of money that Tyson would for so many reasons you can't list them all. It is the kind of a match that could do a 10 to 15 percent buy rate at $40 a pop, which by the spring of 1991, if the PPV universe is at 20 million, as it is expected to be, you are talking about a PPV gate of $80 million plus and that doesn't include a live gate which would no doubt be $5 to $10 million and at least double that on closed-circuit. The biggest hold-up to such a confrontation, and you know that is the single biggest event PPV could get until the days of Super Bowls and the like moving to PPV, is what do you do once you've got the match done? If the match is worked, like pro wrestling, Tyson will destroy his reputation. If it isn't, most likely Hogan will have his reputation destroyed within a minute or two (even though Hogan has told friends he thinks he could beat Tyson, realistically inside of a ring, it's doubtful he'd last past one good punch nor would he have the stamina to go past a round or two even without holding gloves up but his legs would give out and he'd be a sitting duck). Even if it is worked, aside from the fact it would be awful, unless it was heavily rehearsed (and it would still be bad then) and they couldn't possibly keep those rehearsals secret like they did with Mr. T and Piper (who rehearsed over and over and still had the worst fiasco ever), what do you do about a finish? First off, Tyson won't play heel because the boxing people are working hard to manipulate his image to being a face. Hogan won't be a heel, of course. Neither guy will do a job. Hogan can't go 15 rounds, even in a fake fight. The only finish I can come up with, which would be universally called a fiasco but it's the only logical way out, would be for then to run-in several heels who are great bump-takers (Hennig, DiBiase and Savage for example) and have the two guys team together to run them off and have Tyson throw KO punches and have the heels take the bumps of their lives and finish with no decision and have them pose together at the end. Still, having said all that, $100 million is an awful lot of money to work out compromises for. Realistically, that is so much money that Hogan could even put the guy over, get his mega-payday, and just disappear from wrestling and the spotlight. But McMahon would still be in a situation where boxing beat wrestling, which means nothing, but he wouldn't agree to it. The last time an attempt to do something on this magnitude was in 1976 when Muhammad Ali, who was heavyweight boxing champ at the time, faced Antonio Inoki in Tokyo. That match was supposed to be worked all along, at least in Inoki's eyes. Ali wouldn't do the finish and they nearly called the thing off at the last minute, but so much money was at stake that they decided to go ahead with it. They continued to try and work on a finish (and apparently All was willing to do a worked match, but not do the job) February 1, 1990 up until just a few minutes before match-time and never worked things out. The result was a real mixed match, in which almost no contact was made between the two of them because Inoki layed on his back and tried to throw kicks to Ali's legs to knock him off his feet where he theoretically could pounce on him and off his feet he could maneuver him into a pin. All simply stayed away from Inoki and threw something like six punches over 15 rounds. The event was universally considered a bomb, did bad business in the U.S. on closed-circuit even with Ali's name because the boxing public thought it would be fixed and didn't care and didn't take it seriously, and wrestling didn't have the popularity with the masses it has today to generate the neccessary interest, and Inoki had no name value in the U.S. Actually, the only place the show did good business was in the Northeast, and most credit that more to a Bruno Sammartino vs. Stan Hansen grudge match than to Ali vs. Inoki or Andre the Giant vs. boxer Chuck Wepner (a worked match which appeared on the undercard). The show did awesome business in Japan where Inoki was already a legend and Ali of course was on a global level probably the most famous athlete in the world. However the Japanese rioted after the match and it took years before the wrestling business fully recovered from the fiasco in Japan.
I don't know of any other heavyweight boxing champ who worked a wrestling match while champion, although many, like Archie Moore, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Primo Carnera (who was a top drawing wrestler for many years after his boxing career ended, even though his ability would be comparable to today's Andre the Giant) worked matches after boxing title reigns and nearly every ex-champ has refereed wrestling somewhere along the way. I forgot Joe Frazier, who refereed a few times, was involved with Wrestlemania II, and worked a few mixed matches in Puerto Rico (and put over the wrestler in the process).
The complete card for the Detroit show underneath Hogan vs. Savage will be Anabolic Warrior vs. Dino Bravo for the Intercontinental title, Jake Roberts vs. Ted DiBiase, Roddy Piper vs. Rick Rude in a lumberjack match, Andre the Giant 6 Haku defend the WWF tag team titles against Demolition, Rick Martel vs. Brutus Beefcake, Dusty Rhodes vs. Mr. Perfect (Curt Hennig), Jimmy Snuka vs. Badnews Brown, Ron Garvin vs. Canadian Earthquake (John Tenta). The press conference didn't mention this was an NBC special, but instead talked of it like it was simply a live card for Detroit. When the question of NBC was brought up, the folks at Titan changed the subject without answering. I'm told this was because they don't want to announce the show as a live special locally until the building is sold out. Some Titan folks were talking that this would be a Maeda-like one-day sellout, but as it turned out, only the first four or five rows of ringside were sold by the time the box offices closed on Thursday (the day tickets went on sale) although a big run was expected on Friday when it would be more well-known about Tyson's involvement. Only two of the matches will be on NBC, most likely Hogan vs. Savage and Warrior vs. Bravo and some sort of angle has to be run to set up the Hogan vs. Warrior match at Wrestlemania
This whole thing is one of the biggest coups McMahon has pulled off as a promoter. One would think, coming off the relatively weak prime time ratings of the 1989 special, that he was on the hot seat with NBC when it comes to delivering competitive prime time network numbers this time or he wouldn't get a special next year to promote Wrestlemania. With Tyson, competitive ratings are guaranteed and they may even have strong ratings. With Tyson, they will get curiosity viewers from people who aren't even wrestling fans, and not even boxing fans, either. They will get mainstream outside media publicity. And they will most likely have the largest audience ever to watch pro wrestling in the United States right there when they shoot their big angle of the year.
The timing of all this isn't good for the NWA, which has its PPV card two nights later in Greensboro. While the shows aren't head-to-head-in which a viewer has to decide upon one and not the other, and the WWF show being free, in a tight budget the events aren't competition with one another, but where it hurts the NWA badly is the show that every wrestling fan is going to be talking about and thinking about in February is the WWF show. The NWA will still get its hardcores and probably put on a good show to boot, but it will be impossible no matter how hot the angles coming up at the Clash turn out to be to gain measurable new fan interest and strong interest from the casual viewer. The Greensboro line-up is strong, at press time with Ric Flair vs. Sting for the NWA title, Lex Luger vs. Steve Williams for the U.S. title, Steiners vs. Ole & Arn Anderson for the NWA tag team title (there was a lot of talk that Tully Blanchard would take Ole's place in this match and that Ric Flair wanted to debut Blanchard at this show but it appears management is still against Blanchard being hired), Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers in a street fight, Tom Zenk & Brian Pillman vs. Freebirds (my own guess is that this will be a U.S. tag team title match), Midnight Express vs. Rock & Roll Express, Cactus Jack Manson vs. Norman and Buzz Sawyer & Great Muta vs. Dynamic Dudes. Overall it's a strong wrestling line-up, and the scenarios leading up to everything may be interesting as well, but the timing is going to make it hard for the NWA to gain any ground in February.
The Tyson signing knocks what would have been the biggest story thus far this year off the from page. For the first time in more than a decade, All Japan and New Japan will be working together to promote a card. These developments all took place in the last week and were finalized on Wednesday. Ironically, it was the NWA that brought the two sides together and will feature the best from both of the traditional style wrestling groups on the 2/10 card at the Tokyo Egg Dome. Originally, one of the feature matches at the Egg Dome was to be Ric Flair vs. Great Muta for the NWA title. Last week that match, which had been pushed in Japan for months, fell apart. Flair canceled the booking (which is not the first time Flair has canceled a Japanese tour at the last minute), with the given reason being that TBS was going to dock him one week's pay if he went to Japan for the show. Flair was to earn $15,000 for the Egg Dome match, but one week's pay for Flair is very close to that figure so as a business decision, he really wouldn't have come out much ahead by making the trip. In addition, the NWA is going to tape two or three sets of tapings during the five day period Flair would be gone, which would be the tapings one week before the PPV and Flair himself wanted to be there as booker to oversee and also to get everything neccessary accomplished in getting over his match with Sting. Another reason given is the Japan-phobia that many letters write and joke about in the NWA is no work, there was indeed a paranoia of a double-cross (although with Muta, who is an NWA wrestler, I'd be a whole lot less worried about that possibility) since New Japan did do that in 1979 with Bob Backlund when he was WWF champion. Anyway, with Flair canceling, this threw New Japan into a panic. While the debut of Koji Kitao was probably the biggest reason ticket sales were going well for the show, the most prestigious wrestler and most important acquisition to the New Japan line-up was considered to be Flair, who was considered the second most important person on the card and that match was considered the most important match. While tickets were not going at anywhere near a UWF pace, all the $350 ringside seats had been sold out by Jan. 1. This left New Japan with a huge advance for a main event that wasn't going to take place and put them in a major bind. New Japan President Seiji Sakaguchi opened up talks once again with All Japan's Giant Baba, who originally had said he wasn't going to help the opposition. With Sakaguchi desperate to pull a major promotional coup of his own, it put Baba in the stronger bargaining position and on Wednesday, an entirely new card was announced, featuring Genichiro Tenryu, Toshiaki Kawada, Stan Hansen, Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu. The new Tokyo Dome line-up features Big Van Vader (Leon White) defending the IWGP World title against Hansen (which pits the biggest foreign draw of each promotion against one another), Larry Zbyszko defending the AWA title against Masa Saito (originally this was to be against Tatsumi Fujinami, however Fujinami's back still hasn't recovered and it's becoming more and more likely Fujinami won't be able to return to the ring Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi come out of retirement against Masa Chono & Shinya Hashimoto (the two young New Japan stars who are actually in the middle of the group's biggest feud but team up against the two retired guys), Kitao vs. Bam Ham Bigelow, Riki Choshu & Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Tenryu & Kawada, Tsuruta & Yatsu vs. Kengo Kimura & Osamu Kido, Steve Williams (who will be the only NWA wrestler to appear on the card as Sakaguchi decided it would be no value in bringing Muta in against any opponent besides Flair or Sting and they couldn't get Sting for the card either) vs. Salman Hashimikov, Naoki Sano defending the jr. heavyweight title against the current tournament winner (probably Jushin Riger) plus prelims. It has been widely speculated that the AWA title will change hands here. When Fujinami was the challenger, I pretty well expected that to be the case since if Fujinami couldn't beat Zbyszko (who isn't respected as a big name by the Japanese) than it would hurt him, however Saito, who isn't being pushed much in Japan anymore because of his age, can fail to beat Zbyszko and it's no big deal. I also don't see why New Japan would buy the AWA title from Verne Gagne and put it on a guy like Saito who they have no plans to push anymore instead of a guy like Hashimoto.
Submitted March 01, 2015 at 10:34PM by DorkChopDX http://ift.tt/1ArYEwq TheDirtsheets
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