Tonight, someone will have to apologize on the WCW's live show, "Monday Nitro," and make amends to all those Goldberg fans who didn't get to see him emerge from a wall of pyrotechnics, stick out his tongue, then beat the bejesus out of Diamond Dallas Page. Of course, you'd never, never, never actually replay a PPV main event like that for free, for everyone, the night after others paid $29.95 for it . . . unless, perhaps, such a breach might just ruin the night for a certain rival wrestling show. "You know we wouldn't do something that looks like some manipulative ratings ploy, now would we?" Bischoff asks. Then he takes off his Rolex, dons his leather jacket and prepares to go before a sold-out arena in Phoenix to assume his on-screen persona--of a smirking, scheming wrestling czar.
The Ultimate Grudge Match
Thirty-five million viewers. Two wrestling impresarios. One steel cage. (OK, we made that last part up.) But Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff are going toe to toe inside and outside the TV ring.
COVER STORY
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday November 29, 1998 Home Edition Calendar Page 87 Calendar Desk 2 inches; 38 words Type of Material: Correction
Wrestling czar--A Nov. 15 Calendar article incorrectly reported the disposition of a New York case in which Vince McMahon, the head of the World Wrestling Federation, faced federal steroid conspiracy and possession charges. McMahon was acquitted on all counts in 1994.
A ratings ploy? No, we wouldn't expect that at all. Certainly not from a wrestling outfit planning its own restaurant down the street from Mr. McMahon's casino . . . and did we mention the WCW stock car?
A Weighty TV Audience
In its own strange way, wrestling today offers perhaps the most honest competition on television.
A sideshow staple of the medium from its earliest days, when Gorgeous George pranced around in tights, wrestling has survived boom years and busts--and some premature obituaries--to move center stage like never before. The numbers are eye-popping: Six of the top eight cable ratings go to wrestling segments one week, seven of the top 10 the next. Sorry, Larry King--the Rugrats come close, not you.
Between TNT, TBS and USA, there's a dozen hours of new wrestling programming shown nationwide each week, drawing 35 million viewers. But the hot action is Monday night, when nearly 10 million Americans tune in to McMahon's two hours on USA, or Bischoff's three on TNT.
What you have, then, are virtually identical programs going head to head, with big dollars at stake, may the best man win. In that sense, it's not entirely unlike the competition among network morning shows, midday soaps or the evening news. But you don't see Susan Lucci--as her same character--suddenly abscond to a rival soap. And it's probably been a while since Brokaw's producer gleefully offered Rather's the finger during litigation.
What prompted the gesture among wrestling honchos? An argument over intellectual property.
