Marc Raimondi
Editor’s note: On June 24, ESPN writer Marc Raimondi’s book “Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Professional Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America” will be published. This excerpt is from a chapter documenting when basketball Hall of Famers Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone took their NBA rivalry inside the wrestling ring for World Championship Wrestling.
Michael Jordan took a jump shot from the three-point line that caromed off the rim into the hands of Dennis Rodman. It was Game 6 of the NBA Finals on June 14, 1998, and the Bulls were on the road against the Utah Jazz. Rodman tried to dribble away, but Jazz star Karl Malone reached in and knocked the ball loose. He and Rodman got tangled up and both men fell to the floor as the ball came out. Rodman and Malone tried getting up, but their limbs became intertwined again, sending them back down. Then it happened a third time.
When they finally got up, Malone started running toward the other side of the court and Rodman got in his way. The two collided, sending both down to the hardwood again. Rodman was called for a foul.
Mark Madden, the wrestling journalist who became a WCW Hotline host, said he got a call from a friend who worked at WCW after the game who told him: “Look, the boys did it.”
Did what? Madden responded. His friend told him about Rodman and Malone, who had brought their impending professional wrestling storyline to what ended up being the deciding game of the NBA’s championship series.
“We compromised the NBA Finals,” Madden said.
Earlier in the basketball season, the Jazz were playing a game in Houston against the Rockets. Diamond Dallas Page was in the city for an autograph signing, and someone hooked him and Ross Forman up with tickets to the game. Malone saw Page in the stands and threw up the diamond sign with his hands as an acknowledgment. The two had never met before and Page and Forman were shocked Malone knew who Page was. Malone, then one of the NBA’s biggest stars, was a massive pro-wrestling fan.
“Ross Forman s— his pants,” Page said.
Page and Malone met after the game, exchanged numbers, and started talking on the phone regularly. Malone got Page tickets to the All-Star Game that year. After [Eric] Bischoff told him that Rodman was coming back to WCW, Page started recruiting Malone.
“I told [Malone], ‘I know you want to do this s—,'” Page said. “I said, ‘What about me and you against Rodman and Hogan?’ I said, ‘Would you have a problem with that?’ He goes, ‘No.’ He goes, ‘That might be interesting.’ I go, ‘Well, think about it. I’m gonna run it by Eric, but I didn’t want to do it without your blessing.’ He’s like, ‘No, go ahead and run it by him. We’ll see what happens.'”
Bischoff was able to broker the deal during a meeting with Malone and his wife, Kay Kinsey, in the kitchen of their Salt Lake City home.
Rodman returned on the June 8, 1998, Nitro in Auburn Hills, Michigan. He was part of a segment with Hogan, Bischoff, and Bret Hart where he hit a button with the Wolfpac in the ring that set off pyro fireworks from the four corner turnbuckles. Later on the show, Rodman was with Hogan and Bischoff and a few women in a VIP suite where it appeared that they were drinking champagne. Nash had a promo after that, asking Rodman why he was hanging out with “White Boys ‘R’ Us.” To cap the episode, Hogan and Rodman, who was wearing plaid pajama pants, attacked Page with chairs.
The story with Rodman, though, wasn’t so much about where he was and what he was doing. It was about where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing.
Rodman showed up on Nitro with the nWo right smack in the middle of the NBA Finals. A day earlier, the Bulls defeated the Jazz in Game 3. And the next day, after hanging out with Hogan on TV, Rodman “overslept” and missed practice, according to [Dwight] Manley, his then-agent.
Manley said Rodman had permission from Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and Bulls coach Phil Jackson to appear on Nitro. But he did not have permission to miss the following day’s practice. Manley said Rodman “had too much fun the night before.” Rodman was fined $10,000 by the NBA for missing practice and an undisclosed amount by the Bulls.
For WCW, it was another publicity coup. Rodman’s shenanigans on Nitro made every major television sports segment and all the big newspapers. And then, with Rodman and Hogan versus Malone and Page set for the upcoming Bash at the Beach pay-per-view, Bischoff had the idea to use the NBA Finals as a means to promote the match.
It was a tricky situation. Turner was one of the NBA’s broadcast partners, and Bischoff’s direct boss, Harvey Schiller, was the head of Turner Sports. Had Schiller known what Bischoff wanted to do, “Harvey might have shot me in his office,” Bischoff said.
So Bischoff spoke to Rodman and Malone before the game. He made it clear that he didn’t want them to do anything that would affect the outcome. (The Bulls ended up winning the decisive Game 6 to capture the NBA title.) But if there was an opportunity after a whistle when the ball was dead, Bischoff told them, “Don’t hit each other, just let us know you don’t like each other.”
“That’s all I said,” Bischoff said. “And they took it from there.”
Many would argue that Rodman and Malone got physical with each other down low in the paint just about every game. But while that was true, Manley acknowledged that Bischoff’s recollection has validity.
“[The wrestling storyline] 100 percent changed the dynamic between them,” Manley said. “Look at the other eleven games [they played against one another]. Never had it like that.”
Legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas, on commentary during the game, took a dig at Rodman and Malone, saying they are “regrettably scheduled to wrestle in one of those bogus events next month.
“Why Malone wants to lower himself to that is anyone’s guess,” Costas said. “And Rodman apparently wants to start the wrestling now.”
There was nothing Costas could do. “Bogus” pro wrestling had affixed itself to a game that included Jordan, one of the most culturally significant human beings of the 1990s or any other decade.
