June 14, 1999
- More bad publicity for WWF this week, as Sable quit the company and filed a $140 million lawsuit against them for sexual harassment among other things. The lawsuit couldn't have come at a worse time for WWF, which is still facing a ton of negative coverage after the Owen Hart tragedy and because they're still trying to get the pieces in place to go public and a major lawsuit isn't helpful. The issues have been going back for months and became somewhat public before the Royal Rumble, when Sable didn't want to wrestle a strap match against Luna, claiming she wasn't trained as a wrestler and was never signed to be one and didn't like doing it. At one point, she and Marc Mero both asked for their releases but they smoothed things over temporarily. Sable got a lot of heat for not wanting to wrestle since she was the women's champion. She also refused to wrestle on house shows or TV but was willing to wrestle on PPV since there's a lot of money to be made working those shows, which didn't exactly endear her to management or the rest of the locker room. She basically wanted the same contract that major WCW stars have: only work when she wants to, not do house shows, etc. In the WWF, not even Steve Austin has that sort of deal. WWF put up with it because she was so popular but it was becoming a problem more and more. Sable made an estimated $1 million last year through her Playboy and TV Guide magazine covers and her VHS tape that WWF put out which was a huge seller. But it led to a lot of resentment because a lot of people felt she got too full of herself. People in the company argued that there are a lot of beautiful women in the world, many who are better actors and athletes than Sable, and that she was only popular because WWF marketed her to be so. It's also felt that she only got her push because Sunny self-destructed. Sunny was seen as the more marketable of the two women, but she didn't want to go along with some of the more risque stuff that WWF wanted her to do, while Sable was fine with it, so she became the #1 woman in the company while Sunny ended up getting fired.
- The problems with Sable actually go back more than a year, to WWF Unforgiven 1998. At that show, she wrestled Luna in a bra and panties match and when the PPV buyrate came in surprisingly high, Sable felt she deserved an equal payoff to what Steve Austin made, claiming she was equally as responsible for the buyrate, if not more, which got her a lot of heat in the locker room. In her defense, the next month's PPV (which had the same Austin/Mankind main event and without the promise of Sable being stripped to her underwear did a much lower buyrate, so she may have had a point). The famous body paint bikini PPV also did a huge buyrate which she took credit for. During 1998, Sable wasn't really a TV ratings draw, but leading up to her Playboy issue earlier this year, she actually became one of the biggest TV ratings draws in the entire business, with her segments doing huge numbers. She didn't want to drop the title and by then, it was clear to everyone in WWF that her days were numbered, so they got her to agree to drop it to Debra in a dumb non-match on Raw where Debra "won" by being stripped of her clothes. Sable had requested to drop the title at a house show but Vince threatened to hold her in breach of contract if she didn't show up to do it on TV. Sable still refused and showed up to the show with her lawyers and that's when they worked out the Debra match. They even wrote out a handwritten contract for the match which both sides signed:
- Sable/WWF handwritten agreement before she lost the Women's title
- "Notwithstanding any agreement between us and because we disagree about the fashion I would lose my belt, and because of my concerns of humiliation and safety, it is agreed that I appear tonight solely upon your contractual assurances that I will not lose my gown nor wrestle, and that the girl with whom I am interfacing agrees with her role. My appearance in Manchester shall be no more then parading in the ring and shall not include wrestling. I agree to make a scheduled personal appearance outside the ring, otherwise, I will have complete hiatus from the WWF until May 23rd, at which time we hope to have our contractual concerns resolved. Until such time, neither I nor the WWF, its employees or subcontractors shall speak disparagingly about the other scripted or unscripted."
- After getting the title off her, WWF cancelled her future promotional appearances and pulled all her merch. On her last day with the company, backstage at the No Mercy PPV in England, someone smeared human shit all over her bags in the dressing room, which Sable later claimed should allow her to get out of her contract and keep her merchandising rights and the rights to the Sable name.
- WWF was involved in getting the first Playboy deal for Sable, making sure it coincided with Wrestlemania. Sable initially turned it down, but when the money offer got raised, she agreed to it. Sable has another Playboy issue coming out in a few months and this time, she made the deal all on her own without going through the WWF. Needless to say, they weren't happy about that and threatened to use legal means to stop the issue from coming out if they weren't going to get their cut (since the whole reason the first issue sold so well is because WWF pushed it endlessly on TV). At that point, Sable and Marc Mero both asked for their release. WWF was willing to give Mero a full release (meaning he could go work in WCW if he wanted) but they wanted to enforce a non-compete clause on Sable meaning she couldn't show up for any other promotion for the remainder of her contract (until Aug. 2001) and she wouldn't be able to use the name Sable. Her lawyers have been fighting that point and part of the lawsuit is her attempt to keep the name Sable, since that's her whole public identity and nobody knows who "Rena Mero" is.
- Sable's lawsuit claims that "the WWF controls its performers through carefully designed programs of intimidation and humiliation, including scripted sexual provocation (in and out of the ring), and staged stunts that are inherently dangerous under contracts that absolve the WWF of all responsibility." It also says WWF repeatedly asked her to have her breasts exposed on TV in a "scripted mistake" which she refused. She said Vince called her a "prima donna" and said they would move on to the next woman in the company. The lawsuit goes through Sable's entire tenure in the company, saying that when Rena Mero accompanied her husband to a contract meeting in March of 1996, Vince McMahon told her he was struck by her beauty and suggested she should appear as a valet with the company and she ended up signing a deal around the same time her husband did. A year later, Vince asked her to wrestle, which she was hesitant to do because she wasn't trained and because of the health risks of bumping with breast implants. She said she expressed concerns about drug use in the company and about the risque product and wanted to limit her wrestling appearances to pursue acting, and says McMahon was agreeable. In 1998, she says Jim Ross put a new contract in front of her, demanding she sign and she said she wanted to consult a lawyer first, but Ross demanded she sign immediately. She says she was lied to when Vince told her he would enforce the drug policy and that they didn't let her pursue acting jobs as promised.
- She also claimed the company placed her in dangerous and morally compromising situations. She claimed male wrestlers would routinely walk into the women's dressing room "by accident" and that they would cut holes in the walls to watch the women dressing. The wrestlers also had "big nipple contests" and bragged about sexual encounters with women in the company. Sable was also asked to do a lesbian angle which she refused. She said that some wrestlers, in a "roid rage", threatened to physically harm her, including a specific allegation of a wrestler threatening to bite her face to ruin her career, and says WWF officials did nothing to stop the abuse and in fact participated in it. Her and other female wrestlers were told to engage in a sexually provocative manner that often made her uncomfortable. She also objected to things that Jerry Lawler and Shawn Michaels said about her on commentary: "Do you think she is horizontally accessible?" "She is accessible every which way from what I hear." And while holding the mic, "She certainly seems comfortable with that microphone up at her mouth like that." She says this violated the hand-written agreement that she wouldn't be disparaged on TV. All in all, she wants $10 million in loses from not being able to pursue acting as she was promised, another $10 million for the comments on TV, another $10 million for unsafe working environment, another $10 million because the environment caused her emotional distress, causing her to leave work and miss out on paydays, and another $10 million for emotional distress. Plus a lot of other shit that all comes up to $140 million. Dave says some of these allegations are silly but some of them have merit. That being said, $140 million is way over the top and Dave points out that she profited greatly from willingly exploiting her body for the company and went along with it for years and only seemed to have a problem with it after they started pushing Debra ahead of her (because she was less demanding). That being said, obviously no one should have to put up with the kind of sexual harassment mentioned in this lawsuit and just because she posed for Playboy doesn't mean the WWF should expect her to expose her breasts on live TV or in front of a crowd.
- Vince McMahon's choice to air footage of wrestlers arriving at Owen Hart's funeral against the wishes of the Hart family has caused a lot of controversy. Martha Hart told the Calgary Sun she felt exploited by it and that she had asked McMahon directly several times not to air any video from the funeral. Also, she was angry because when she got to the funeral home on that day, the WWF had a big sign with a heart that said "Owen Hart" and had a big WWF logo on the side. Finally, she said that WWF did not pay for the funeral. Vince McMahon responded in the Calgary Sun a few days later, saying, "For the record, giving Martha Hart the benefit of the doubt in her time of grieving, I spoke to Martha after the death of Owen on approximately five occasions. At no time during any conversations did she ask me to not show footage from Owen's funeral. However, in fairness to Martha, she did indicate to Carl DeMarco (President of Titan Promotions--Canada, and, longtime Hart family friend) at one time, that she would prefer that the World Wrestling Federation not show the funeral footage. However, in a subsequent conversation, DeMarco explained to Martha that since she invited all other media to the funeral service and even to the burial, it would only be appropriate that the WWF show footage of Owen's funeral so that Owen's fans could say goodbye. Giving Martha Hart the benefit of the doubt, she may have forgotten that she changed her mind and addressed the situation with DeMarco and not me. I don't know why Mrs. Hart would publicly raise the issue of who paid for Owen's funeral. It was the WWF's expressed intention to Rob Wintonick of the McInnis and Holloway Funeral Home to pay for all funeral expenses. However, unbeknown to us, Mrs. Hart directed the funeral home that she would pay certain expenses. Incidentally, the WWF also paid for items such as: Limousine services, transportation of the body, flowers, service folders, video screen, public address system, buses, signage for buses, arm bands, catering, housekeeping, lawn cleanup, ladies and men's clothing, sunglasses, hairdressing, obituaries, a Canadian flag. The WWF also paid $152,200 U.S. for transportation expenses for WWF talent and personnel. Also, your article stated that Mrs. Hart instructed our flowers to be removed from the funeral home. Enclosed please find a rendering from our creative department to the local florist. In the funeral home, our flowers were indeed present. However, the WWF logo had been removed and Owen's initials, OH, stood in its place. I can only assume this was at Mrs. Hart's request. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Hart feels violated in any way, although her grief, which we share, is understandable. Out of respect for Owen and the wonderful human being that he was, I do not want to engage Martha Hart's allegations in a public form. I simply am writing so that you will have the facts."
- Needless to say, Dave thinks the letter, especially making a point to list everything they paid for, comes across as extremely tacky and further gives the impression that WWF is trying to save face in the wake of negative publicity. The war of words continued the next day, with Martha saying, "Vince McMahon can say whatever he likes but I know the truth. I said 'I have no control over your matches, but I don't want you to show Owen's funeral on your crappy show'--that's exactly what I said to him." She was especially outraged at Vince's suggestion that she may have just forgotten that she gave them permission. "Owen died in the ring and they were almost mad because they couldn't wait to scrape him off the mat and get on with the show. When the accident happened, I was very decent to Vince McMahon and he said, 'I can't believe you're talking to me.' Everything he did, he did for his own self-serving interests; having the wrestlers here so he could show them on his show; getting speakers so the wrestling fans could hear the service--things like that."
- Kansas City police revealed that there were no signs of drugs or alcohol in Owen's body and the harness that dropped him was tested and showed no signs of being tampered with and seemed to be functioning properly. It's now confirmed that Owen fell 91 feet and hit the corner ropes before bouncing in the ring. He did not die on impact, but he died about 6 minutes later and was already dead by the time they took him out of the ring. The cause of death was internal bleeding due to a ruptured aorta, which led to him bleeding to death internally extremely quickly. Owen was actually scheduled to win the IC title from the Godfather in the match and would have been a comedic champion. The "Higher Power" angle that they're doing on Raw now with Steve Austin was scheduled to have started later that night on the PPV but they scrapped it after Owen's death and delayed it for a week or two. Dave ends this part by saying that this is without a doubt the biggest story in the history of American wrestling.
- WCW has announced the signings of rapper Master P and former NBA player Dennis Rodman. In the case of Master P, he's currently the biggest star in rap these days and just started a sports agency called No Limit Sports. He's expected to debut at the Nitro next week in the New Orleans Superdome and will also appear at a Nitro next month at the Georgia Dome. Word is Master P has been bragging that he will sell out both buildings. Not a chance. Master P's bodyguard, a guy named Swoll wants to be a wrestler and Master P is trying to help him out. Several people in WCW urged Bischoff to sign them before WWF could.
- As for Dennis Rodman, he was just recently released by the Los Angeles Lakers and is basically unemployed now and seems ready to get out of basketball. Last year, Rodman headlined Bash at the Beach with Hogan, DDP, and Karl Malone and the show was the 2nd biggest PPV in WCW history. But despite being paid $2.25 million for that event, Rodman no-showed the Nitro 6 days before it and then showed up to the PPV in no condition to perform. And then, while the show was going on, he left the arena and WCW officials were panicking, not knowing if he was going to come back in time for the main event. Following the PPV, Rodman sued WCW for another $550,000 he felt he was owed. But that lawsuit was settled as part of this new deal and Rodman has signed a 5-show deal with WCW and will appear at the Georgia Dome Nitro and Bash at the Beach and Road Wild PPVs, along with a couple of other unannounced TV appearances. Speaking of Rodman, since being dropped by the Lakers, he's been a defendant in 2 lawsuits in Las Vegas. One is a woman suing him for assault and another woman is accusing him of grabbing her breast.
- Wanna guess who won the ratings battle again this week? Anyway, the highest rated segment of Raw was Debra in a bikini, which shows that Sable clearly isn't going to be missed. Raw more than doubled Nitro's rating (6.68 compared to 3.16).
- Keiji Muto is the current IWGP champion and Dave says that he might be the best all around heavyweight wrestler in the business right now (crazy to think he was still that good in 1999 but that was the end of it. His body starts to fail miserably within the next year). Anyway, after a recent title defense in NJPW, he issued a challenge to both Misawa and Kawada, so clearly the NJPW/AJPW angle is still unfolding.
- To show how bad things are in Japan right now, NJPW held a show at Budokan Hall and failed to sell out the building, despite a packed lineup and the return of Shinya Hashimoto (in his first match back since getting wrecked by Ogawa back in January).
- Vince McMahon's scheduled appearance on Larry King this week was cancelled. According to WWF sources, McMahon was "uninvited" on the day the show was supposed to air. After Vince McMahon was bumped, he was replaced by Jesse Ventura who spoke mostly about wrestling. Ventura tried to downplay Owen Hart's death, comparing it to an accident on a construction site. He talked about his lawsuit against McMahon a few years ago but also praised McMahon as a great marketer. He said wrestlers should unionize but disagreed that they were underpaid. He also balked at the idea that wrestlers are independent contractors and said they should have retirement benefits and collective bargaining. He talked about Hogan ratting him out on the unionizing talks back in 1986 and talks about how he didn't know it was Hogan until several years later when McMahon testified to it in court during their lawsuit.
- Tammy Sytch did an online auction where she sold the implants she had in her breasts while she was in WWF. She's gotten new ones since then so these are the old ones. They ended up going for $11,999 dollars. (dude....what?)
- Terry Funk beat Sabu at an indie show in Canada and announced that it was his retirement match. Dave says Funk has given more to the business than anyone and will be in pain for the rest of his life because of it. But he's also in his mid-50s and Dave says it's definitely time for him to hang it up. But he also says this is probably the 50th "retirement match" Funk has had since he first "retired" back in 1983 so...we'll see (of course not).
- Now that the ECW deal with TNN seems to be imminent, the locker room morale in ECW has gotten a lot better since it means the company is no longer in danger of folding at any moment. The deal hasn't been officially announced yet but it's expected to be done in a week or two and TNN is already selling ads for the show, projecting it will do a 2.0 rating. TNN took a big hit last year on the RollerJam show because they sold ads projected at 2.5 and the show ended up averaging 0.8. But ECW is expected to have a lot more appeal than RollerJam. It'll be interesting to see how it goes because ECW is going to have to tone down the product (blood will still be allowed) but they're also going to have to do more shows (4-5 per week) which is a busier schedule than ECW has ever done (ECW on TNN never even comes close to a 2.0 but we'll spend the next year reading all about that).
- New Jack was found not guilty on 2 counts (aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon) in the trial over the Mass Transit incident. In his testimony, the victim Eric Kulas testified that he was told he was going to face 2 dwarfs in a handicapped match but was instead put in the ring against New Jack, claiming it was an ambush and that he feared for his life. That testimony was contradicted by virtually every other witness who testified, saying Kulas knew what the match was and had agreed to be bladed well in advance. Of course, New Jack cut him far too deep causing massive blood loss and 50 stitches to close the cut. Tommy Dreamer testified that he was with Kulas for most of the night and that even after the match, Kulas had asked him if he'd proven himself and if he could get a job with ECW. Anyway, now that he's been acquitted, Heyman still intends to use New Jack, but not full-time.
- Neither Chris Candido or Tammy Sytch were at the latest ECW shows and appear to be gone again. Axl Rotten also no-showed a show and is apparently fired. And, of course, Sid Vicious missed a recent show, no reason given, but it's Sid so you know how that goes.
- Ted Dibiase, who is still under WCW contract, was asked to come in as a manager for Van Hammer, Erik Watts and Evan Karagis (doesn't happen).
- WCW has expressed interest in bringing in both Sid Vicious and Shane Douglas. They're expected to meet with both of them in the next week or so. Bischoff is the one who wants Douglas, but Nash (the booker) doesn't want him around so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. They're also still interested in bringing in Yokozuna for some stupid reason, even though he's banned from wrestling by every state that has an athletic commission, so Dave doesn't see the purpose.
- Goldberg had knee surgery and will be out until late July. He's still trying to renegotiate his contract.
- On the WWF side, Mick Foley also had both knees scoped and will be out until late-July as well. Undertaker is dealing with back issues and arthritis in his hip. Gangrel's elbow is inflamed and has been drained several times.
- The new WWF schedule will have 4 shows per week, Saturday-thru-Tuesday. One Sunday a month will be PPVs, the others will be house shows. Monday will be a live Raw and Tuesdays will be Smackdown tapings. Sunday Night Heat is going to be changed and be taped the week before or may become a recap show (I believe this is basically the same schedule they still do today. Although it will likely have to change starting next year when Smackdown moves to Fox).
- Raw notes: Bob Holly beat Kurt Angle in a dark match and word is Angle looks good in the ring and is ready to debut any day. They had a hard time putting out the fire for the Brood's entrance and it briefly caused a minor panic with the crew off-camera. Test asked Stephanie McMahon out on a date. "Those two need to go to acting school on their date," Dave says. Rodney and Pete Gas lost a loser-leaves-WWF match a few weeks ago, but they were back this week without any explanation given, which is some WCW-level shit. Too Much has been repackaged as a team called Too Cool which is basically a spoof of the Konnan/Mysterio team in WCW (eh, I dunno about that one).
- Insane Clown Posse was supposed to return to WWF this week but it didn't happen for some reason. Their new album "The Amazing Jeckel Brothers" just debuted at #4 on the Billboard charts, selling nearly 141,000 copies the first week. Woop woop.
- The negotiations between Shane Douglas and WWF fell apart. Basically, they made him an offer and wanted him to take a complete physical and a drug test because a lot of people told them that Douglas was damaged goods. His agent came back with a demand for $350,000 per year, and WWF basically said, "fuck that" and pulled their offer.
- A man in Tennessee was sentenced to 10 days in jail for wearing a Steve Austin shirt in court. He was there on DUI charges and the judge decided wearing the shirt was contempt of court. The man's lawyer is appealing it, saying the judge overstepped his authority.