Today In Wrestling History 7/9: Vince Russo Gets WCW And Himself Sued By Hlk Hogan, More

* 28 years ago in 1987, the WWF ran possibly their all-time weirdest/worst major market/major arena house show main event. A show a the Meadowlands/Brendan Byrne Arena/Continental Airlines Arena/Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey was headlined by George "The Animal" Steele defeating "Dangerous" Danny Davis in a steel cage match. They drew 5,469 fans, which was actually up from the previous two cards (headlined by a tournament for a tag title shot that night and a bunkhouse battle royal) and only slightly down from the 6,000 fans drawn by Randy Savage. Ricky Steamboat in February. They rebounded big on August 1st, with 15,000 fans to see a show headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Killer Khan.

* 21 years ago in 1994, WCW did a live "interactive" episode of WCW Saturday Night at Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, the first of several such shows they'd do in the next year or so. The idea was that you had a locker room of babyfaces and a locker room of heels, and fans could call the WCW Hotline for however much it cost at the time to vote for the match they wanted. WCW always made it incredibly obvious which match they wanted and it always won. Here, it was Ric Flair vs. Sting, coming off of Flair turning heel, aligning himself with Sherri Martel, and unifying his world title with String's.

They had a short, disappointing match that built to Sting getting Flair in the Scorpion Deathlock. A man in a Charlie Chaplin outfit with suspiciously long fingernails ran into the ring and eye gouged Sting, which led to Hulk Hogan running in and the man revealing that he was actually Sherri in drag. Sting's injury was sold as being serious enough that he had to miss his match with Lord Steven Regal at Bash at the Beach on July 17th. That didn't stop WCW from using him at whatever house shows they had booked, so he wore an eye patch in cities like Albuquerque. Even though he was too injured to wrestle a match happening a few days later.

WCW, ladies and gentlemen.

* 15 years ago in 2000, WCW held the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. It's best remembered for one of the weirdest...angles? Double crosses? Shoot angles? in wrestling history. It's really confusing.

The advertised WCW World Heavyweight Championship match of Jeff Jarrett defending against Hulk Hogan went out. Everyone had solemn looks on their faces.The bell rang and...Jarrett laid down for Hogan? Who won the title? Per Hogan, this was supposed to lead to a tournament for the title and the tournament winner would eventually unify his claim to the title with Hogan's. Hogan acted annoyed at the lack of match Then Vince Russo walked to the ring, and...well?let's allow Judge Andrews of the Court of Appeals of Georgia explain this:

After Hogan won the Jarrett match by default, Hogan left the arena with the championship belt, pretending to be mad because Jarrett would not wrestle him. Then Russo came on the air and delivered a speech known as a "promo," which Bollea claims was not part of the story line. In this speech, Russo called Hulk Hogan a "god damn politician" "who doesn't give a s–t about this company." Russo said that Hogan always "wants to play his creative control card," and Hogan knew that his beating Jarrett was "bulls–t." Russo promised that they would "never see that piece of s–t again." He said that Jarrett would defend his title against Booker T. who had been "busting his ass" for 14 years in the WCW and couldn't "get a god damn break because of the Hulk Hogans." Russo closed with "[a]nd Hogan you big bald son of a b—h ... KISS MY ASS!"

The title that Booker T beat Jarrett for later in the night became the regular title. Hogan never returned to WCW, then sued the company for breach of contract, also looping Russo into the suit with claims of defamation and invasion of privacy. WCW filed a counterclaim for breach of contract. WCW's assets were sold to WWE, so this became one of the lawsuits that kept the Universal Wrestling Corporation (WCW minus the WCW) alive as an on-paper company. Time Warner was willing to pay for Russo's defense as long as he wasn't working elsewhere in wrestling.

From the appeals' court decision:

Bollea also acknowledged that he had given negative speeches about other characters in the scripts and other characters had given negative speeches about him. When asked how the Russo speech at the July 9 event was different from the many other negative speeches made about the Hulk Hogan character, Bollea responded: "The difference in that negative speech as compared in any other negative speech that's been said about me is it's the first time anyone has ever given a negative speech without running it by me and consulting with me and all of us agreeing on it that were involved."

There was, of course, also the matter of Hogan's creative control clause, which was a large part of why he was suing for breach of contract:

The Agreement between Bollea and WCW provided: "Bollea shall have approval over the outcome of all wrestling matches in which he appears, wrestles and performs, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld." Bollea claims WCW breached this agreement when it allowed Russo to do a "promo" which was not approved by Bollea. WCW claims that the promos were used to develop the story lines and there is nothing in the Agreement that gives Bollea the right to approve the story lines which relate to his fictional character.

But, as the trial court pointed out in the hearing, control over the outcome of the wrestling match is worthless if half an hour later the outcome is totally changed. Bollea's attorney who negotiated the contract said that Bollea was to have control over anything that had any impact on his character, on his performance, or on his story line. Bollea testified at his deposition that he understood "outcome" to mean the way a story line would end, not just a match.

Eric Bischoff, a one-time president of WCW, who was working at the time of the July 9 event with Russo on the creative aspect of the matches, testified at his deposition that he discussed the outcome of the match at the July 9 event with Bollea and Russo. Bischoff agreed with Bollea's description of how the story line was to play out. Bischoff stated that Russo's promo and the match for the championship between Jarrett and Booker T. had not been agreed to in *98 their meeting and were changed without his knowledge.

It all dragged out until 2005, with Not WCW prevailing over Hogan.