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(Austin and Pillman) |
Some
background
When Slamboree
came around in May 1993, Shane Douglas and Tom Zenk's contracts were up
for re-negotiation. Zenk's old nemesis Ole Anderson was back and using
the same booking tactics he'd used the first time round to force highly
paid contract workers to accept lower terms or leave the promotion.
Pillman had managed to negotiate a $350,000 one year contract with Kip Frey before Frey had been replaced. With this degree of job security he was doing what he could for the Hollywood Blondes against a hostile booker. Douglas had been brought into WCW in 1992 by former UWF boss Bill Watts together with Steve Williams, Terry Gordy and a number of the old UWF talent. With Watts gone, and his contract expiring, Douglas was holding out for substantially better terms than Anderson was willing to consider. Zenk hadn't been booked for the PPV and hadn't been used on TV for some time (a repeat of 1990). He was effectively out of the 'A' team with Anderson trying to remove Zenk's remaining heat while his contract ran down. Once this was achieved, any new hiring of Zenk could be on severely reduced terms dictated by Anderson.
Since Slamboree
'93 was in Atlanta, Zenk was instructed to attend the Omni, to
sign some autographs and wait around the locker room in case of 'no-shows'.
There had recently been a spate of 'no-shows' by disgruntled workers.
Morale in the locker room was at an all time low. Ole Anderson was
surpassing himself in the awfulness of his management and booking
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In the following
match, third from the top, Douglas was booked to a WCW/NWA World tag title
cage-match with Ricky Steamboat against "The Hollywood Blondes" (Brian
Pillman and Steve Austin). Steamboat and Douglas had been running
a program with the Blondes which Douglas remembers as the high spot of
his second stint with WCW-
The Blondes victory
was followed by an upset in the lead up to the PPV, when the new
champions were defeated in a non-title match by two up-and-coming luchadores
- the masked Dos Hombres. The win earned the luchadores the
title match at Slamboree. In the days before Slamboree, there was
intense speculation on the identity of the masked men - though it
was hardly classified information that Dos Hombres were, in fact,
Steamboat and Douglas, looking to regain the titles.
Anderson had booked Steamboat and Douglas to lose the match with a screw job finish. Following the loss, the team was to be disbanded, Steamboat pushed in singles' competition and Douglas and Zenk re-hired on new, less secure, reduced money deals.
The cage match itself
was fast paced, a high action, crowd pleaser lasting 16.05. Steamboat and
Austin started the match, Dos Hombres, tagging in and out and dominating
their opponents early. Douglas gave Austin the first taste of steel, following
up with a Mexican
"jumping bean" shuffle. Steamboat tagged in again, hanging Austin off
the cage top, before launching Douglas like a
human cannonball against the upsidedown Blonde.
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Half-way into the match, the Blondes regained control, working over Douglas with illegal tactics. As the match moves to a climax, Pillman tries for a cross body off the top rope but Douglas blocks and Pillman goes down. Douglas crawls across the ring to hot tag Steamboat who cleans house. Austin attempts his escape but gets mooned; Pillman's escape ends with a rope ride. A double coconut for the Blondes as Douglas comes in to help finish them off.
With both Blondes
on the mat, Steamboat removes his mask and starts climbing the cage. After
"a spectacular crossbody off the top of the cage onto both men....."
In the previous match, the crowd's response to Nailz substituting for Norton had been ferocious. But, according to one of the wrestlers in the Omni that night, "when Zenk appeared, nobody in the crowd realized it wasn't Douglas. I was there and I heard nothing said about it .....and, after the match, nobody asked for their money back. A guy the bookers had marked down to jobbing portrayed the 'top guy' and nobody knew!!......Even Meltzer didn't know until I rang to tell him!!"
Two weeks later, some people still didn't know, with the letters section of WON including mail from a fan writing "Best match at Slamboree was Pillman and Austin vs Steamboat and ...... ?" (WON 6/7/93). Meltzer was still in a funk over failing to identify Steamboat's partner but concluded - "Overall a very good match with them creatively using the cage."
"had
Watts used Steamboat in the way that Dusty
had
used Steamboat, for his rub-off on Douglas"
The Dos Hombres incident has dogged Douglas ever since. As recently as May 1999, answering questions in an online chat session, Douglas was warmly congratulated (without irony) for his performance in the match. He has been ribbed about it in ECW - for example, when "Cactus talked about Shane's days as a Dynamic Dude, among other things, and finally referred to the Dos Hombres skit by putting on a mask and calling himself "The Masked Debater." Shane's response: "Well, OK, we've all got some blights on our careers ... (Summer Con '95: Back to the Extreme Friday, June 30, 1995).
It's an incident that Douglas would probably prefer to forget, for a number of reasons -
(1) the tactic Douglas had adopted to renegotiate his contract - threatening not to work the PPV - had backfired dramatically. Douglas had been out-maneuvred by an old promoter's trick - masked substitutions. "I had told WCW two-and-a-half months before the show [when contract renegotiations were underway] that I wouldn't be there to wrestle. They kept promoting it and I kept calling them and telling them to stop; but it was perfectly clear they were doing everything in their power to screw me." The fact that Anderson paid no attention confirmed that Anderson wanted Douglas out. "At this point, I realized, I had no future with WCW - and that was it";
(2) Douglas' no-show
at Slamboree '93 is incongruous with his current self-projection as a "do-anything-for
the-fans" performer. Consider this from, Douglas'
web-site -
(3) Anderson's real reasons for getting rid of Zenk, Pillman, Douglas have already been canvassed. However, Anderson's willingness to get rid of Douglas is also open to the interpretation that Douglas owed his contract at WCW primarily to friendship with his former UWF boss Bill Watts - i.e., to cronyism rather than simple ability. Steamboat's behavior lends credibility to this view. Steamboat's position with WCW was relatively secure. Yet instead of standing by Douglas, he worked both Dos Hombres matches, leaving Douglas dangling. In the cage match he did everything he could to get himself over, and everything he could to signal it was 'Douglas', not Steamboat, who was doing the job.
Steamboat's unwillingness to stand by Douglas suggests that their tag team was either a vehicle of convenience for Steamboat or worse, that Watts had used Steamboat in the same way that Dusty had used Steamboat, - to give rub-off effect to a young wrestler that he wanted to push. Neither of these interpretations would be palatable to Douglas.
(4)
Finally, and perhaps, worst of all for Douglas, was the fact that Tom Zenk
and Brad Armstrong, under masks, could do everything in the ring that Douglas
could, reprise his " match of the year-type candidates" and, in Zenk's
case, no-one could tell the difference. Although
Zenk and Douglas were friends and fellow 'victims' of the WCW cliques,
Douglas was always willing to do what it took to get to the top spot. On
this occasion his gambit had failed. The Dos Hombres match is a
reminder that despite all his bravura, Douglas was replaceable by wrestlers
who WCW, for political reasons, had reduced to mid card, *** matches and
jobbing. This is something that ECW's Franchise would probably prefer to
forget.
Summary - 'generic wrestler'
Under a mask, with
no match preparation, Zenk had 'carried the ball' for Douglas at
Slamboree '93. No-one had noticed as a 'generic' wrestler substituted for
a 'top star' in a major PPV match. The question then arises - "Why had
Douglas been made a 'top star' while Zenk was being forced out of WCW?"
The answer appears to be that Douglas, unlike Zenk, had been the
beneficiary of a major push from his old UWF buddy Bill Watts. With Watts
gone, Douglas' push was over.
Which quote belongs to which wrestler ... Tom Zenk or Shane Douglas? (answers later on the page) |
This wrestler walked out of a contract with WWF
after 4 months because of underpayment "Vince offered me a spot and told
me I'd become very wealthy on it. His exact words were he would "make me
a very wealthy man". .....Unfortunately, his 'wealthy man' promise
turned into $1,400 net at the end of 4 months of hard work. Not exactly
my definition of the word wealthy."
Was it .... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
According to this
wrestler - " I had to make payments on my house, and
I didn't think it was fair for me to take this job and become a "WWF Superstar"
only to lose everything I had worked for."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
This wrestler
went to WCW but found out very quickly that -"Ric (Flair) was very reluctant
to help any young talent in the business. He would use his position as
a booker or as the top talent in the territory to use and or hold down
younger talent at a time when he could have been helping groom the
next generation of great wrestlers. He chose instead to desperately
hold on and he hurt the business by doing it. In the late 80's and early
90's there was a great lull in new young talent. It was largely Flair's
fault."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
Besides Ric Flair,
is there anyone this wrestler despises?
" Let's make a list. Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, Vince McMahon. Those three rank in the same company as Ric Flair....and all for very similar reasons." .... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
Why Scott Hall? Well, this wrestler was forced
to work a program with Hall for several months and discovered "Hall is
just devoid of talent. With a guy like Scott Hall, a guy who has three
wrestling moves, there are very, very few things that you can do."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
This wrestler says
" I was always the guy they said would never make it to the big time..."he's
too bland". My whole point was I had so much stuff I wanted to do...but
nobody would let me do it."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
Both wrestler were
given lame gimmicks and became members of young baby-face tag teams that
were trashed by Ole Anderson. According to this wrestler - "We were under
the impression that we were going to be a Rock'n Roll Express-type team
with a slightly different angle. But the look they gave us wasn't what
we had in mind. As a tag-team, we were sugar-coated to such a degree
it was ridiculous.......we were more like a couple of guys that people
couldn't wait to see get their asses beat. And we were never allowed to
say what we wanted to develop the personas during interviews"
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
This wrestler quickly became disillusioned with
the underlying objectives and political cronyism in the WCW -"they
should be embarassed for having a proven commodity and they weren't able
to do anything with it."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
This wrestler
found - "They'll push you hard at first, make it sound like they'll
make you a millionaire. But when push comes to shove they put you in the
ring to make one of their clique look good, and when that happens, you're
done."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
According to this
wrestler "WCW have done nothing compelling with their
television. They have garnered ratings on the backs of a bunch of old wrestlers
that should have retired. I've not seen any brilliance there."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
For this wrestler - "WCW was the low point of
my career. Sure, it was the most lucrative, but it was also the absolute
worst part of my career....nobody, absolutely nobody in that company was
giving us any direction."
..... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
This wrestler feels
" real bad for young people trying to break in the business. It's difficult
to break in without some experience. .. It's bad for the younger
guys and I'm concerned about the longterm
effect on the business. It's a long process to take a person who has never
been in the ring and train them to be ready. I wish there were more territories."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
According to this
wrestler, the booking committee used their booking power to humiliate wrestlers
out of the promotion through endless jobbing, arguing "If you
lose too many matches on TV millions of people see it. After a while, people
stop following you."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
According to
this wrestler .."it was perfectly clear to me they were doing everything
within their power to screw me. At this point, I realized I had no future
with WCW - and that was it."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
According to this
wrestler "They starved me when I worked there (WCW)....A lot of changes
would have to be made before I would go there again. First of all Hogan
, Flair and Bischoff need to be gone. And then they'd have to make a commitment
to the younger talent... It gives me great pleasure to see them losing
in the ratings."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
"People would call
me and say "you're out of your mind, you're burning bridges, you'll never
be able to work again."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |
For this wrestler
- "The worst thing about this business is a two faced mentality. For me,
I've always believed it best to be myself."
.... Douglas [] or Zenk [] |