November 22, 1999
- The big story this week is that Steve Austin's career is in jeopardy due to a neck injury and the controversy about the way WWF handled it. Austin was advertised to wrestle in the main event of Survivor Series, even though WWF knew well in advance that he wouldn't be. But they tried hard to keep a lid on it for fear of hurting the buyrate and because of that, Dave doesn't know all the details just yet. What is known is that Austin underwent tests a couple of weeks ago on his neck which was originally injured by a botched piledriver from Owen Hart 2 years ago and was recently re-aggravated. The results of the tests were that doctors basically advised him to never wrestle again. WWF tried to keep it quiet but rumors started coming out just before the PPV that Austin wouldn't be working the show, though no one knew why. Needless to say, WWF had plenty of time to film angles to take Austin out of the match, and continuing to promote him for it is some pretty egregious false advertising. It's one thing to bait-and-switch fans on free Monday night TV shows. It's another to do it when hundreds of thousands of people are paying $30 each for the PPV. Sadly, this is becoming all too common, and WCW has done it far more often, especially on house shows because WCW always treated house shows as low priority. Though if you look at attendance now, WCW is starting to pay the price for all the towns they killed. This Austin situation is worse. He's the most popular star in the business and Survivor Series was pretty much a one-match show as far as fan interest goes. Most of the people who ordered that PPV were doing so specifically to see Steve Austin in the main event, period. So after the PPV started and Vince safely had everyone's money, they did an angle in the middle of the show with Austin getting hit by a car backstage to write him off TV for awhile. Then they replaced him in the match with Big Show, who went on to win the WWF title. As is usual for Vince, when it's a panic-situation, he goes with the big guy. But considering they're paying Big Show nearly a million per year on his downside guarantee (not even counting other income), they had to do something to justify it. The dumb Bossman/dead father angle wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire, so fuck it, make him the world champion I guess. As for Austin, no real news on the injury yet or how long he may be out. For what it's worth, the Nash Bridges people are still interested in doing a spin-off show with Austin so he could probably stay busy doing that.
- WATCH: Steve Austin gets hit by a car
- WATCH: Oklahoma's debut/Piñata on a Pole match
- Steve Williams' participation in the Jim Ross angle had some scratching their heads, but Williams was said to be itching to get back at Jim Ross, who he feels betrayed him when he was fired from WWF. Ross was the one who initially told Williams he was being fired, and when Williams came back with his lawyer and pointed out that the contract was guaranteed in the event of an injury (Williams was injured at the time) and that he couldn't be fired, Ross then ordered Williams to go make an appearance at an FMW show in Japan. But everyone knew that Williams wouldn't do that because of his loyalty to AJPW, and his refusal to do it gave WWF the legal justification to fire him for breach of contract even though he was still injured. And he blames Ross for it. Dave says it's really not fair because Russo was the one who decided he didn't have anything for Williams and McMahon was the one who made the decision to fire him, Ross was simply caught in the middle (and he's the one who got Williams the job to begin with and was basically the only supporter Williams had while he was there). With him gone, Russo made the decision to bring him into WCW, pretty much only for this angle and Dave says Williams is just a pawn in this war. Tony Schiavone worked with Ferrara and Williams on setting up this angle because it's said that Schiavone hates Jim Ross more than pretty much anybody, stemming back to TBS's decision 10 years ago to remove him from the lead announcer job on the Saturday Night show in favor of Ross, which Schiavone felt was because Ross forced him out and he's held a grudge ever since.
- An incident happened backstage at the latest UFC show which took place in Japan. Akira Maeda, president of RINGS, was backstage talking to reporters when a K-1 fighter named Yoji Anjo came up behind Maeda and attacked him. Police were called and charges were filed. Maeda hit his face on the wall when he fell and was bleeding badly. Naturally, since both Maeda and Anjo have past pro wrestling backgrounds and because this seems like a Japanese wrestling angle, a lot of people have questioned if it's real. But there's consequences for filing a fake police report, so Dave is skeptical that it's an angle because the police involvement was definitely real. Apparently Maeda and Anjo have had heat for years and there's a lot of history between them from their days back in UWF back in the 80s. Apparently there was an incident between them 3 years ago also, where Maeda slapped Anjo and this was the first time they'd seen each other since and Anjo attacked him. Dave says it's kinda poetic justice. Maeda's career pretty much took off after a similar incident back in 1987 when Maeda cowardly shoot kicked a defenseless Riki Choshu from behind, breaking his orbital bone. The incident caused NJPW to fire Maeda and he went on to create the new UWF promotion. But Dave says that for someone to run up behind Maeda and fuck him up is basically what he had coming to him. As for Anjo, he's mostly famous for an incident a few years ago where he showed up at Rickson Gracie's dojo unannounced and challenged him to a fight on the spot on behalf of UWFI. Gracie beat the shit out of him and embarrassed him and humiliated UWFI in the process, with many feeling it's one of the main reasons UWFI lost popularity and ultimately folded afterward.
- Oh yeah, Survivor Series. Anyway, the PPV is in the books and....eh. The Austin bait and switch left a lot of people unhappy with the show and most of the other matches were boring, the crowd was dead, and it mostly just sucked or was forgettable. Kurt Angle debuted and they played his debut perfectly. He came out doing his clean cut 1970s babyface schtick and within 30 seconds, the whole building was chanting boring and then spent the rest of the match booing the hell out of Angle, simply for doing good wrestling moves. Angle ended up turning heel on the crowd, telling them not to boo an Olympic gold medalist. Angle looked impressive and it was a good debut that worked perfectly to get him over as a heel. Dave says that "X-Pac is the best wrestler I've ever seen that almost always has bad matches on PPV." Big Show vs. Bossman and Prince Albert was real bad. Dave says "I guess it could have been worse, but that's like saying a mugging could have been a shooting" and gives it negative-1 star. Chyna vs. Jericho was bad because even Jericho couldn't carry Chyna to something watchable in a long singles match. Chyna was so bad that the crowd turned on her and began cheering Jericho, despite Jericho doing every heel trick in the book to try and get booed. During the Hollys/Too Cool vs. E&C/Hardys match, Dave talks about the commentary. Normally Jim Ross and Lawler's gimmick of not getting along is part of the act, but it seemed to be getting pretty real during this match, as they seemed legitimately annoyed with each other at times. And of course, Big Show won the title in the main event that Austin was not in because he got hit by a car.
- Several documentary shows regarding wrestling aired this week. In the first, A&E aired a documentary piece on Steve Austin that was mostly accurate, talking about his high school days, his start in wrestling, his time in WCW, etc, It talked about him getting fired by Eric Bischoff because he didn't think Austin was marketable, which Dave says "will no doubt go down in wrestling history as the single biggest bonehead personnel move ever made." It claimed that after being fired from WCW that Austin's career options were pretty negative and playing it up like his career might not recover, which is one part the documentary got wrong. In reality, everyone in the industry knew that Austin had superstar potential and he pretty much had his choice of where he wanted to go, and while he was in ECW, he had both WWF and AJPW fighting to sign him him. But overall, it was a good documentary.
- WATCH: Steve Austin - Lord of the Ring
- WATCH: Wrestling at the Chase documentary
- The last one was a Mick Foley documentary released by WWF that is probably pretty good normally, but since Dave recently read Foley's book, the documentary was pretty lacking in comparison. But if nothing else, it's interesting because Undertaker appeared out of character, interviewed as Mark Calaway, and seemed uncomfortable doing it. But overall, it was mostly just a fluff piece that basically played it as "Mick Foley did a few things in Japan and was a struggling nobody until Vince McMahon made him a star" and left out a ton of other important stuff. Dave was unimpressed.
- Dave reports the death of Wolf Ruvikskis, a famous Mexican wrestler and actor, dead at 78. The media coverage for his death was huge. He was one of the most famous heels in wrestling during his day but was even more famous as an actor. We also have the death of Tony Rumble, a wrestler and promoter for NWA New England, which is evidently a pretty successful indie company. Long obits for both.
- Raw and Nitro was more of the same, with Raw winning the ratings battle by more than 3 full points. That being said, a lot of people felt Nitro was the better show this week, but no matter how hard Russo is trying, the numbers just aren't really moving. Meanwhile, Smackdown did an all-time high rating. ECW on TNN did about the same rating it usually does, but there was at least a positive sign because the number grew during the show, meaning people were hooked. So that's good.
- Bull Nakano once again failed to qualify for Japan's women's pro golf tour.
- Tully Blanchard's wife has charged him with assault. The couple are legally separated and going through a divorce and she accused him of grabbing her hand and trying to pull her wedding ring off, twisting and bruising her arm and hand. He was released on bond.
- On Power Pro Wrestling this week, there was no mention of Doug Gilbert or what he said last week. He wasn't on the show, nor were other people involved in the angle (Brian Christopher, Tommy Rich, etc.) and none of them were even referenced. It's believed Lawler is going to likely file a lawsuit against Gilbert for what he said. Instead, Jim Cornette came in with a few of his OVW wrestlers like Nick Dinsmore (Eugene!), Scott Sabre, BJ Payne, Trailer Park Trash, and Seven (Kevin Thorn! Mordecai!) and they based the show around them.
- Vic Grimes is now working in ECW, at the suggestion of WWF and he even moved to Philadelphia to be closer.
- Notes from Nitro: The Harris Brothers, going by the team name Creative Control, are now using the individual names Gerald and Patrick (you know, Brisco and Patterson). Russo was all over this show, although not shown onscreen, but cutting promos off camera. There was an utterly racist "piñata on a pole" match featuring several of the luchadors that Dave is pretty disgusted by. It was made even worse because the pinata kept falling off the pole. After the match, Steve Williams ran in to attack everybody and apparently didn't bother to fake things too much, since he ended up sending 3 of the luchadors to the hospital. Dandy with a possible broken collar bone, Juventud Guerrera with an AC joint injury, and Psicosis injuring his ankle. All from Williams throwing them around. Asya vs. Kimberly Page was just an excuse for Torrie Wilson to referee the match in a striped bikini (with Bobby Heenan saying she "looks like a zebra with speed bumps!"). Luger sent flowers to Sting, then gave Sting brownies with Ex-Lax in them because ha-ha I guess. Bret Hart vs. Kidman was given 4 minutes while Kevin Nash vs. Sid was given 8. And that's basically WCW in a nutshell right now.
- Speaking of Juventud Guerrera, the idea is to do an illegal immigrant angle with him, but depending on how bad his injury is, that could get scrapped. Apparently the idea was suggested by a fan on WCW's internet show and Russo liked it and has decided to run with it.
- Bret Hart appeared on the Howard Stern show to plug Wrestling With Shadows. Stern hadn't seen the movie and didn't know the story, so they mostly talked about their respective divorces. Bret said he and his ex-wife are on good terms and trying to reconcile. They talked about WWF continuing the show after Owen died, which both Stern and Robin Quivers acted outraged by. They joked about Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels having a gay love affair and Bret didn't shoot it down but admitted he had no proof. 2 days later, Bret was on the Observer Live show with Dave and said he wished he hadn't said it but still said it was something that has been rumored.
- Apparently an incident took place between Randy Savage and Road Warrior Hawk backstage at a Kid Rock concert in Tampa. The incident also involved Savage's girlfriend Gorgeous George and Hawk's wife. There's various stories going around but it appears Savage sucker-punched Hawk (the 2 have heat going back years). During the fight that ensued, Gorgeous George got into it with Hawk's wife and began pulling out clumps of her hair. Hawk claims he saw Savage approaching and stuck out his hand to shake and Savage sucker-punched him instead to start the brawl. Hawk said if it was just them, he wouldn't be upset but since his wife got assaulted in the fight also, he's talking about filing a lawsuit. There was an incident backstage at a NJPW show back in 1996 where Hawk punched Savage unconscious right before his match. So this is an old feud and the two have had heat for years. Here's more details on this story.
- Various WCW notes: Rey Mysterio is getting surgery for a torn meniscus and torn ACL and will probably be out for 7 or 8 months. Shane Douglas is still out with a torn bicep but hopes to be back in a few months. Dave says Douglas has a history of trying to rush back too soon after serious injuries, often causing more damage, which is why he's so broken down these days. WCW was interested in signing Bob Holly but he just re-signed with WWF. Barry Windham, Kendall Windham, and Hector Garza were released. Stevie Ray is having his contract renegotiated because somebody in accounting apparently realized they were paying Stevie fucking Ray $750,000 a year. Several Power Plant guys were released also, and Dave names them, but only 2 of them are notable: Jamie Noble and Shark Boy.
- The reason they scrapped the Seven gimmick for Dustin Rhodes is because the Turner standards and practices people felt it too closely resembled a pedophile character from the movie Powder (that's not quite accurate. The movie Powder has nothing to do with that topic. But it was written and directed by a guy who was convicted of child molestation and when the movie came out, there was a big controversy about it).
- The Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine from Japan has a picture of Torrie Wilson with her nipple exposed. So...there ya go I guess. Or just wait a couple of years for Playboy.
- Random WWF notes: Test broke his nose during an early segment on Smackdown but still worked the main event later. Shane McMahon's wife Marissa is the new backstage woman doing interviews. WWF The Music Vol. 4 debuted at #4 on the charts, which is insane for an album with no radio airplay. Rage Against The Machine and Mariah Carey were #1 and #2 respectively, just to give you an idea of what the charts are like. (Dave doesn't say what #3 was but I'm an OCD nerd and had to look it up: Lil Wayne - Tha Block is Hot. Weezy been around for a minute.) Steve Austin appeared on Regis & Kathy Lee and acknowledged that Debra is his girlfriend.
- WWF execs are meeting with the PRIDE execs in Japan again this week to negotiate a deal for WWF to run a show at the Tokyo Dome next year. In return, PRIDE wants them to send Kurt Angle or some other WWF stars to a PRIDE show to make an appearance and help promote it.
- Darren Drozdov had spinal surgery last week, with plates and screws to re-align the vertebrae and stabilize the neck fracture so as to not cause anymore spinal cord damage. While there is hope for his recovery, those who understand the injury say it will be a miracle if he ever returns to his prior level of function and in reality, he'll probably never be able to walk again, let alone wrestle. He still has no lower body movement and his upper body movement is extremely limited also.
- Mankind is expected to take time off because his knees are in bad shape. Most people realize that he probably only has 1 or 2 years left, which is something even he's acknowledged and has admitted that he hasn't been what he once was for a long time and he doesn't want to be one of those guys who sticks around too long past his prime.
- WWF signed a few wrestlers to developmental deals. One of them is a valet named Bobcat who has worked the indies (she is mostly famous for being Godfather's ho that briefly won the Hardcore title) and the other is an indie guy named K-Krush (better known as R-Truth).
- More negative publicity over the Al Snow action figure. Target has now joined the other stores in pulling it off shelves and there's media stories about it that are turning into a bigger overall story claiming WWF promotes violence against women. Crazy how one little minor dumb thing can snowball into something much bigger.