August 09, 1999
- The WWF has officially changed its corporate name from Titan Sports, Inc. to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. and announced last week that it has filed papers to go public. This gets a little dry and stock-markety but hey, maybe we've got some stockbrokers or something here that will find it interesting. The initial offering will be for $172.5 million in Class A common shares and will be traded on the NASDAQ exchange as WWFE. There's no word on when trading will begin, this is just the first step in a long process. There had been talk of doing this months ago, but Owen Hart's death and the Sable lawsuit and the ensuing public backlash against the company seem to have delayed things. But with the Sable lawsuit settled and the criminal investigation into Owen's death completed (more on that in a minute), they're now moving forward. Company stock is currently owned 100% by Vince McMahon. His current salary as CEO of the WWF is $250,000 per year but will be raised to $1 million, plus another $1 million as a performance bonus after they go public. Linda McMahon, the President of the company, currently gets a salary of $190,000 but that will be raised to $750,000 with another $750,000 bonus when they go public as well. The money raised in the offering will be used as capital to continue current business and to start new business ventures (mhmmm...), some of which are already in motion. The WWF plans to expand beyond wrestling, with business ventures such as theme restaurants, theme hotels, and possibly a record label. "There has even been talk of potential expansion into other sports related industries."
- The Kansas City police department completed their criminal investigation into Owen Hart's death and no charges will be filed. There was a possibility that involuntary manslaughter charges could have been filed against the person who handled the rigging, but authorities determined there was no basis to file charges. WWF's website posted a note saying that the decision "further supports the World Wrestling Federation's belief as to the truly accidental nature of Owen Hart's death. Hart's accident was one of those extremely unfortunate tragedies that sometimes occur despite the best of precautions." A civil suit by the Hart family is, of course, still pending.
- It's time again for this year's Observer Hall of Fame. Well, not exactly. Results and newest inductees will be announced next week, as voted on by secret ballot from a number of different wrestling names (wrestlers, historians, other people involved in the business, etc.) But Dave decides to list all of the candidates who are eligible this year and give his personal opinions (he's only one voter of many) and tell which people he voted for. Out of all the eligible people, each voter gets to pick up to 10 people they think should be inducted. Anyway, first up, a list of people that were eligible but that Dave did NOT vote for: Lou Albano, Arn and Ole Anderson, Bob Backlund, Cien Caras, Masa Chono, Terry Gordy, Chavo Guerrero, Gran Hamada, Volk Han, Michael Hayes, Curtis Iaukea, Konnan, Lizmark, Wahoo McDaniel, Ben Miller, Gorilla Monsoon, Fabulous Moolah, Pedro Morales, Dick Murdoch, Bull Nakano, Masa Saito, Seiji Sakaguchi, El Satanico, Tiger Jeet Singh, Sgt. Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka, Wilbur Snyder, Kerry Von Erich, Steve Williams, and Eric Bischoff. He gives a paragraph or so of explanation for each person and why he didn't pick them. One other name on the list who didn't get picked: Carlos Colon. Dave says that by all rights, Colon probably should be in the Hall of Fame simply from his longevity and drawing power for so many decades in Puerto Rico. But for Dave, and for a lot of other people, the murder of Bruiser Brody taints him. Colon didn't kill Brody, but his name is forever linked to the whispers of a cover-up and Colon's decision to re-hire the guy who DID murder Brody and make him a top star is just too much for Dave to be able to vote for him in good conscience.
- So who DID Dave cast his 10 votes for? Lioness Asuka ("one of the best female workers who ever lived"), Hiroshi Hase (great worker and was part of the booking team that created the NJPW dynasty of the 80s and 90s), Shinya Hashimoto (has headlined more 7-figure gate shows than any wrestler in history, including multiple sold out Tokyo Dome shows), Mick Foley (no-brainer pick for Dave and he was only 1 vote short from being inducted last year), Jushin Liger (Dave calls this the easiest and most obvious pick, one of the best ever), Shawn Michaels (says Shawn's best in-ring performances are borderline unbelievable, they're so good. His career was cut short and he had an unprofessional rep, but he's simply too great for Dave to not vote for), Keiji Muto (was on the bubble before but this year has clinched it. Muto has been on fire in 1998-99 and that puts him over the hump), Ken Shamrock (controversial pick for sure, but Dave is voting on his shoot and worked-shoot credentials. This is more of a vote for Shamrock's MMA legacy rather than his wrestling legacy), Undertaker (headliner for the last 9 years and has made a gimmick work that no one else could have), and finally Jim Ross (best commentator ever). Anyway, those are just Dave's personal votes. There's no guarantee that all those names will be inducted, we'll find out next week (or Friday in 2018 time).
- WWF is cancelling its Superastros show and will be scrapping the entire Lucha Libre division entirely, mostly due to the addition of Smackdown and because Superastros was actually a money-losing show. Univision was paying WWF approx. $17,000 per week for the tapings, which didn't even pay for the talent they used, much less the production costs. Vince McMahon tried to renegotiate the deal months ago, to expand the show to 1 hour and get the budget increased to $50,000 but Univision shot it down. The ratings were also lower than Univision wanted. WWF made it a big priority when they first decided to do the show but by the time they started hiring people and put it on the air, they had already seemingly lost interest and never treated it as a priority. There were never any real storylines, no titles, and it was mostly just a throwaway show from day one. Anyway, Savio Vega has been working as an announcer since he's still not medically cleared to wrestle after a recent injury and with the cancelling of Superastros, they've decided not to renew Vega's contract. He's expected to return to work in Puerto Rico.
- WWF is working to bring in the Dudley Boyz and Stevie Richards from ECW. None of the contracts are signed yet but the Dudleyz reportedly reached a deal with Jim Ross this week and they already started an angle in ECW to write them out of the company. Stevie Richards is also due to come in and they would have hired him earlier, but there was concerns about his neck. But he just recently passed a WWF physical, so he's headed in also. Vince Russo has reportedly been interested in using the Dudleyz for months and pushed for their signing and talks got serious a few weeks ago. WWF has been keeping Paul Heyman in the loop in order to keep things amicable, and that's why the Dudleyz surprisingly lost the tag titles at Heat Wave. Word is the Dudleyz were making $600 each per show with ECW. After WWF made them an offer, they reportedly went to Heyman and said they would stay with ECW if he could give them a raise but Heyman told them he couldn't afford it and encouraged them to take the WWF offer. Neither Joel Gerner or Sign Guy Dudley will be joining them. WWF only wants Bubba Ray and D-Von. There's a lot of people wondering if they can cut it in WWF or if they'll become another Public Enemy (who basically got exposed outside of ECW as a team that didn't belong in the major leagues). Bubba can cut great promos, and while they're not the best wrestlers, they work hard and are willing to take crazy bumps and do whatever they can to get over, so Dave thinks they may do pretty well. As for ECW, Bubba in particular is also a big figure behind the scenes handling business stuff, so losing him is an extra big loss for the promotion.
- A New York state senator has opened an investigation into the wrestling industry and is looking into the possibility of enacting legislation to restrict wrestling and make it an adults-only event for shows run in the state. There's actually some precedent for this. Back in 1957, after a riot at Madison Square Garden following a wrestling match, wrestling was nearly banned in the state of New York and the athletic commission ended up banning children under 14 from events at MSG. The ban lasted for nearly 20 years before it was lifted. That being said, Dave doesn't think anything will come of this. There's way too much money and political issues involved in pro wrestling for this to amount to anything. Plus, some promotions are worse than others. For example, is it fair for kids to be banned from a WCW show in New York just because ECW isn't kid friendly? Speaking of, Dave thinks ECW probably should voluntarily ban children from their shows. It might even be good for them. It would give them some publicity and differentiate themselves from the competition. They could truly present themselves as wrestling for adults. It would allow them to have wilder shows without the fear of the media backlash of "how dare they market to kids" like WWF is getting. But since ECW recently started selling action figures that are being sold in toy stores, that's probably not going to happen now.
- Nothing really new to report for the ratings, we all know how it went. Raw basically doing double the ratings of Nitro. One thing worth mentioning though. Not only is Raw crushing Nitro, but Sunday Night Heat is also routinely beating Nitro by a full point or more every week. That's how bad shit has gotten for WCW. In fact, the lowest rated segment of Nitro this week did a 1.98 rating, which is in the Saturday morning WWF Livewire range.
- Things in AJPW aren't looking great. As sad as it is, the company has spent most of 1999 coasting on the momentum and publicity surrounding Giant Baba's death. But that's slowed down now and crowds are down. Furthermore, the matches haven't been great lately, with guys like Misawa and Kobashi having only decent matches and all the top stars are broken down. Plus, the production values of the recent shows Dave has seen look more and more amateurish, and TV ratings are down (yeah, the slow decline of AJPW has begun and to this day, they've never really recovered).
- A Brian Hildebrand benefit show was held last week and featured the rare instance of WWF and WCW wrestlers appearing together. Eddie Guerrero, Billy Kidman, Hugh Morrus, Shane Douglas, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko from WCW worked the show, along with D-Lo Brown, Al Snow, Chris Jerico, Terry Taylor, Mick Foley (as a special referee) from WWF. Shark Boy, Chris Candido, and even Bruno Sammartino appeared as well, which just goes to show how well-liked and respected Hildebrand is. If you recall, he is still suffering from terminal stomach cancer. In less heartwarming news, WCW employee and hotline reporter Mark Madden got into an argument backstage at the show with Sammartino about something Madden wrote about Sammartino in the past. Jim Cornette also has beef with Madden but he agreed to avoid Madden at the show and not make a scene out of respect for Hildebrand.
- Still no real info on the terms of the Sable/WWF lawsuit settlement. Both sides signed confidentiality agreements and also agreements not to bad-mouth each other publicly. The new issue of Playboy with her came out this week and they use the name Sable all throughout, so obviously some sort of deal was made there and WWF is surely getting a cut. But yeah, new Playboy is out. Google is your friend here.
- The Barry Blaustein documentary about wrestling that will be released later this year will be titled "Beyond The Mat."
- Notes from Nitro: Dave points out that on this and every episode of Nitro and Thunder for the past several months, the crowds have been chanting for Goldberg during all the main event matches and promos. So every time you see Hogan or Nash or Sting or Flair or Savage on TV, you're usually hearing chants for Goldberg in the background. And yet this company can't seem to figure out that they should be booking the promotion around him and instead he's still stuck playing second fiddle to The Hogan & Nash Show. Anyway, what else...commentator Scott Hudson took a beating from Scott Steiner to be written off TV so they can bring Schiavone back. Dave says Hudson actually did a really good job during his few weeks as commentator, and he hopes someone in WCW took notice of it, but "then again, Juventud Guerrera and Blitzkrieg had the best WCW match of the year a few months back on PPV and see where it got their careers when it comes to even being booked on the shows." Country music singer Chad Brock will be performing on Nitro next week and Dave can only imagine how that segment is going to do in the ratings. Chad Brock actually briefly wrestled in WCW and trained at the Power Plant before becoming a musician and has had a couple of minor hits, but almost no one outside of a small segment of country music fans have a clue who he is. Dennis Rodman came out to cut a promo on Randy Savage and it didn't go well. The problem is Rodman is supposed to be the babyface in this feud, and well, let's let Dave tell it: "Then he talked about how he already had sex with Savage's girlfriend. The crowd didn't like that. Then in his infinite wisdom of how to play babyface, he said in front of a crowd of 99.9% white guys from South Dakota that once you've had black, you'll never go back. You can imagine the response but he got more heat than anyone on the show for it, which would be good if the idea was to turn Savage face. Rodman's lucky he's a celebrity millionaire because I had this friend, maybe acquaintance that I would run into every week at the beach would be more accurate, about ten years ago who used to constantly say that line to women and I never saw anyone get so universally shot down so hard in my life. It was one of the all-time worst pick-up lines I ever heard."
- If you remember, WCW is planning to run a Nitro Girls PPV soon, but neither TBS or TNT will allow them to run commercials for it because the premise of the PPV is basically just the women frolicking around in bikinis and the Turner execs felt it's not PG-rated enough and forbid them to air the commercials.
- Still a lot of media attention for Jesse Ventura working WWF's Summerslam, with lots of people saying it's unethical for him to use his fame as governor and exploit his job to earn a paycheck in wrestling. Dave disagrees and doesn't see why wrestling is any different than any other TV shows that politicians have appeared on over the years. However, he thinks it is a little shady that Ventura is going to such extreme lengths to hide the fact that he's making a 7-figure payday for it, while misleading people into thinking he's donating all the money to charity, when in fact he's only donating $100,000 of it to charity, which is only a fraction of what he's actually being paid.
- Big Show is being put with Undertaker as a tag team because they're hoping he learns something, because he kinda sucks and they're hoping some of Taker's dedication and work ethic will rub off on him. Big Show has gotten a notorious reputation of being pretty lazy since arriving in WWF. They're also wanting him to lose weight. He's a legit 440 right now and they want him down to 400. At his peak in WCW, he was 505.
- Kurt Angle's debut is being delayed until October or November because they don't want to put him on TV yet and expose him before they're sure he's ready (yup, ends up being at Survivor Series).
- Erin O'Grady is expected to debut soon in some sort of angle with Bob Holly (that'd be Crash Holly).
- Vince Russo is writing a pilot for a television series that takes place behind-the-scenes of a wrestling company.
- On the second episode of Off The Record that focused on WWF, it was mostly just a puff piece with Vince and Linda McMahon interviewed together. When asked why Stephanie McMahon was presented differently on TV than every other woman on the show, especially Debra (in other words, why is Stephanie the only strong, realistic character while all the other women are just out there in lingerie every week), Vince responded that Stephanie "isn't built like Debra." Anyway, Vince was then asked if he would ever book Stephanie to be in those type of sexual storylines, and Vince basically said maybe. But Linda then jumped in and said, "I'm not involved in the creative process but I might have to look at that one first."
- Someone writes in asking who Dave thinks are the legitimately toughest wrestlers in American pro wrestling. Dave says it depends what you mean by tough. What kind of fight? Change the rules and you change the outcome. Depending on whether it's a no-rules street fight or a boxing match under boxing rules or an MMA fight under UFC rules, you'll have different winners. Dave says Meng, Ken Shamrock, and Dan Severn are probably the first names that will come to mind if you ask people. If you're talking strictly grappling, there's nobody in the business that could hang with Kurt Angle. Guys like Goldberg, Scott Steiner (who everyone is afraid of), Dave Taylor, and Robbie Rage from the tag team High Voltage all have tough-guy reps in WCW. On the WWF side, Steve Blackman's got a reputation of someone you shouldn't fuck with. Mostly, Dave just sorta rambles. But he ends it by saying he thinks the toughest guy in all of wrestling right now is Brian Hildebrand.