WWF News Update - June 1993
WWF Champion: Hulk Hogan (defeated Yokozuna; April 4, 1993)
WWF Intercontinental Champion: Shawn Michaels (defeated Marty Jannetty; June 6, 1993)
WWF Tag Team Champions: The Steiner Brothers (defeated Money Inc.; June 6, 1993)
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The biggest on-going piece of news within the WWF surrounds the contract situation of the reigning WWF Champion, Hulk Hogan. Right now, Hogan's contract is set to expire at the end of the year. Right now, the lure of Hollywood is calling Hogan and he's becoming more and more in demand. The TV-movie he has been filming, Thunder in Paradise, is now being turned into a television show. Initially many thought it would only be a syndicated show, but apparently there has been a lot of interest from some major networks.
There has been a lot of concern about keeping the title on Hogan with so much uncertainty around both his future with the WWF and wrestling in general. That being said, giving Hogan the belt in the first place appears to be a tactic to try and persuade Hogan to stick around. There were many backstage surprised and somewhat upset about the way Hogan won the title at WrestleMania IX and also that he didn't drop the belt to Yokozuna at King of the Ring. The ending to the Yokozuna/Hogan match also was heavily criticized, but the reasoning was to try and keep Yokozuna as strong as possible despite losing to Hogan twice in a row while still giving Hogan the win he wanted/demanded.
While the ideal situation for the WWF is to keep Hogan and even renew his contract, there have been a lot of rumors circulating about some contingency plans to replace Hogan should the need arise. One rumor involved potentially turning Lex Luger into a patriotic face character, but with his recent alignment with Luna Vachon still being fresh - that route seems somewhat unlikely at this point.
More on this story as it continues to develop but right now the plan seems to be run with Hogan as champ for the time being, despite his limited availability.
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King of the Ring featured several new faces joining the WWF roster officially.
First, after weeks of teasing he was searching America for the "biggest and baddest" man he could find to take down The Undertaker, Harvey Wippleman seems to have found his man at a biker bar in Ohio. A man who prefers not to be called "Kevin" but instead by Diesel.
Diesel most recently was working for WCW under multiple failed gimmicks including a Wizard of Oz insired character...Oz and then spent most of 1992 as Vinne Vegas, a member of the Diamond Mine with Diamond Dallas Page, Diamond Studd (now Razor Ramon in WWF) and Scotty Flamingo (more on that in a moment). When Nash's contract came up earlier this year, Razor Ramon was a big influencer in getting him noticed by the WWF. The Undertaker, pining to feud with someone who wasn't absolutely atrocious (he had ironically left WCW himself in large part due to the fact that they were going to put him in a program with El Gigante...Giant Gonzalez himself), also took a liking to Nash and wanted first dibs on him when he signed.
Speaking of the Diamond Mine alumni, WWF now has 3 out of the 4 former members under contract. Scott Levy made his official debut with the WWF at King of the Ring as well. Levy, the former Scotty Flamingo in WCW, was seen portraying the Fake Referee who assisted Doink the Clown during his attack on Crush. While we can assume his actual character won't be "Fake Referee" moving forward, there isn't much insight yet as to just what role he will play moving forward but it does look like he will continue to be associated with Doink. Rumor has it he was initially pitched the idea of being a spoiled, rich preppy manager but turned it down due to not wanting to be a full time manager.
The other debut at King of the Ring as that of Scott "Flash" Norton. Norton has spent the last few years working with New Japan Pro Wrestling, mainly in the tag team scene where he developed a friendship with The Steiner Brothers during the NJPW/WCW partnership. When it became known that WWF wanted to give Shawn Michael's a big, bad bodyguard type - The Steiners pushed for Norton and when Michaels had the chance to see him in action, he was a fan. Besides his recent experience with NJPW, Norton is also a world champion arm wrestler and briefly used that as part of his gimmick during a run with AWA in the late 80's and was featured in the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling flick, Over The Top. Rumor has it that this could be worked into his current character alongside HBK. And as Michaels mentioned, Norton has also served as an actual bodyguard in his past, and did in fact serve as Bodyguard during Prince's Purple Rain and 1999 tours in the 80's.
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The next Pay-Per-View spectacular is set to be Summerslam in late August, which is viewed as the second biggest event of the year for the WWF. We should find out in the next few weeks who will challenge for the WWF Championship. Some think we could be in line for another Yokozuna/Hogan match based on the finish of their KOTR putting. Others wonder if our King of the Ring, Razor Ramon, will be in line for a title shot. More to come on this in the next few weeks.
But before we get to Summerslam, WWF announced during the King of the Ring event that they would be holding it's first ever Stars and Stripes Challenge event on July 4th aboard the USS Intrepid. The event will be taped earlier in the day on July 4th and air as a special two hour event on the USA Network. The event is expected to be similar to WWF Saturday Night Main Event in that it will feature some higher profile matches than your typical weekly show while progressing us towards Summerslam.
