Week 1 - Observer Notes

Wrestling Observer Notes:

(Taken from the 9/11 edition mostly, with some clarification on Luger matters in the 9/25 issue)

Lex Luger:

• Very interesting info on WWF Contracts at the time. All wrestlers were hired in under two-year deals, at $1500 to $2250 guarantee per year (based on $150 per television taping). The contracts would auto-renew if the wrestler did not give notice during the last 13 weeks of their contract. Wrestlers made their actual money on percentages of gates and merchandise. 
• Luger actually was the first WWF Superstar under a guaranteed deal due to his first year in the WWF being under his WBF (World Bodybuilding Federation) contract. 
• Due to the nature of their contracts, the WWF actually had to give permission for Luger to negotiate with WCW at all. They did this after McMahon wouldn’t meet Luger’s demands for money.
• Even so, WCW wouldn’t even meet Luger’s demands for money, only initially offering a deal at $1000 per night. 
• However, Big Van Vader and Paul Orndorff got into a fight at a television taping. Orndorff was on the booking committee, so Vader was suspended and later terminated. Since Vader was making a maximum of $750,000 a year, it opened up money for Luger to get the money he wanted. 

Tidbits:

• There were some interesting notes in there about Time Warner negotiating to purchase Turner. In September of 1995, Dave Meltzer called that there is no way that Time Warner would allow a money loser of WCW’s caliber to stay on the air very long. Come 5 years and change later, he would be right.
• Two guys named Dean Malenko and Eddy Guerrero debuted at the TV tapings for Saturday Night and the other syndicated programming. I sure hope they don’t suck!
• Diesel suffered a minor injury working against Mabel, keeping him off of the latest TV tapings.
• 1-2-3 Kid was already showing some neck issues at this point. He would have surgery on it in mid to late 1997.
• Goldust made his debut at the TV tapings that we are about to delve into next week.
• Tatanka was suspended from the WWF with no reason given, except that it wasn’t related to drugs.