Week 1, January 1990

To start off the week, Greg Moe managed to re-sign Junkyard Dog to a two year contract extension, however paying more than he was wanting to. The deal pays Dog $16,000 a month and the NWA also had to give up 5% of merchandise sales. Though the signing was important to the company, it's a slippery slope when you start giving out incentives to wrestlers to sign a contract. The next guy who comes along may want the promotion to match this contract's incentives and so on and so on. However, with Junkyard Dog being so over with the fans right now, it was important not to let him go to the WWF.

In other news this week, The Sheik has announced that at the age of 63, he will be retiring from the ring and will soon hopefully find a job as a manager or road agent. He hasn't been working any where for the last four months, and insiders say Greg Moe may be interested in Sheik to work as a road agent for the NWA.

The NWA Worldwide show this week got good reviews, as did the WCW Saturday Night show with both having writers rate both as a "B." On Worldwide, Horseman Tully Blanchard successively defended his NWA United States title against recently healthy Bam Bam Bigelow. The newly revealed "Captain Lou's Misfits" stable, led by recently signed "Captain" Lou Albano, put The Wild Somoans out in the ring on the TV portion of the show and they beat Z-Man and Flyin' Brian. The main event was the Hart Foundation, Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart, with Elizabeth, defeating the Four Horsemen team of Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. It was another great match that sports writers gave an "A" ranking.

The WCW Saturday Night show was equally good with the main event being a three on three match, with the teams being Terry Funk, Sid Vicious and Television Champion Kevin Sullivan beating Rick Steiner, Junkyard Dog and "Hotstuff" Eddie Gilbert. The match drew a "B" rating and fans seemed to really be pulling for newly turned face, Gilbert. Other TV matches were "Misfit" Dan Spivey beating Mark Callous and Lex Luger defeating another of Lou's "Misfits", Bam Bam Bigelow who made the switch to the WCW brand right after his match with Blanchard on Worldwide.

With one week to go before SlamBoree, there is still a lot of heat between Lex Luger and Terry Funk. Though these two have faced each other three times since mid October, there is a chance the two may just be the WCW main event on the SamBoree PPV. If they do face each other again, and for the WCW World Heavyweight title, I don't think you'll see Funk dropping the title to Luger, though Funk has had some sub par matches with Bob Orton and Junkyard Dog, who are face main eventers on the WCW brand, so it's pretty certain Greg Moe is looking for a new WCW Champion to setup some good matches during the first of this year.

As mentioned above, "Captain" Lou Albano has revealed his new stable, he calls "Captain Lou's Misfits." In the stable, he has wrestlers from both brands and besides Bam Bam Bigelow and Dan Spivey, there is also "The Wild Somoans" Fatu and Samu. Rounding out the stable is wild man Kamala the Ugandan Giant. It's a pretty beefy group of monsters that he's put together, and they may be able to gather a strong push from Greg Moe over the next few months.