January 24, 2000
- WCW just underwent the most tumultuous 4-day period in recent history. It started when they got word that WCW champion Bret Hart would have to miss the Souled Out PPV due to a concussion. Just a couple of days before the show, Hart's doctor diagnosed his severe migraines and inability to focus as a severe concussion and not only wouldn't clear Bret to wrestle but refused to even clear him to fly or exercise. The concussion is believed to have happened after Goldberg hit Hart with an extremely hard kick during their Starrcade match and he also hit his head on the ground outside the ring during the ringpost figure four spot. Hart finished the match and continued working TV for the next week or two after, although he didn't feel like himself while doing it and didn't realize how bad his concussion was. So naturally, this left the Souled Out PPV without a main event 3 days before it was set to air. The very next day, Jeff Jarrett contacted WCW officials with a similar problem: he had suffered a concussion during the match on Nitro earlier in the week when Jimmy Snuka splashed him from the top of the cage and his doctor also ordered him not to fly or wrestle. That left the show without its semi-main event also (Jarrett vs. Benoit in a triple gimmick match, basically the 3 Stages of Hell gimmick). The PPV was already expected to do one of the lowest buyrates in WCW history and now it was without the top 2 matches.
- So the decision was first made to strip Bret of the title and crown a new champion at the PPV. Russo wanted to do a battle royal, with Tank Abbott coming out at the end as the surprise champion. A lot of people in the company have been unhappy with Russo's booking, which is clearly not turning things around, and the Tank Abbott idea was the last straw for many. People were also upset about Ed Ferrara (Oklahoma) winning the cruiserweight title and David Flair/Crowbar becoming tag champions, both of which were decisions that most everyone else in the company was against. Bill Busch had been second-guessing his decision to hire Russo for weeks while Kevin Sullivan had been openly pushing for the booking position for himself. Busch decided to put together a new booking committee, so that Russo's ideas would be filtered by people who have more, you know....sense. Similar to how McMahon acted as Russo's filter in WWF. It all came to a head on Friday, two days before the PPV, with Russo being removed from his position of total authority, but he was asked to stay on as a member of the committee, which would have also included Sulivan, JJ Dillon, Terry Taylor and Kevin Nash, among others. Russo did not decline the offer but was still weighing his options. But as of press time, he's said to be leaning towards leaving the company rather than taking a reduced role. Ferrara is still planning to stay in a reduced role and he also said he thinks Russo would stay as long as Sullivan wasn't on the committee, but as far as Dave knows so far, Sullivan isn't going anywhere.
- Russo has also been viewed as being inflexible when it comes to his ideas and wouldn't take advice or ideas from anyone else. Some have defended Russo, saying he had bad luck with injuries, especially Goldberg. Dave points out that Goldberg should have never been injured in the first place and it was Russo's stupid booking that put him in an angle where he was punching out real glass windows. Like Bret Hart said, they're wrestlers, not stuntmen. TV ratings haven't really done much under Russo. They briefly went up when he arrived and have slightly gone down in recent weeks but for the most part, they haven't changed much since Nash was in charge. But Starrcade's buyrate came in at a 0.3 which is nothing short of disastrous for the biggest PPV of the year. House show numbers are embarrassing. Merch sales are in the toilet. Russo had been promised 6 months to turn things around and was only given 3 but it only took 3 months for WCW execs to see that things were getting worse, not better, so they decided to cut their losses early.
- So......with all that going on, WCW had to figure out how to change the PPV card. To be fair to WCW, as soon as they got word that Hart and Jarrett were out, they announced it on their website, so they didn't continue to falsely advertise them. The match was changed to Sid Vicious vs. a mystery opponent that would be announced by 7pm on Friday. But with all the Russo drama, that deadline passed with no word on who Sid's opponent might be. By Friday night, WCW contacted Randy Savage, who's contract just expired, and asked him to replace Bret in a house show main event against Sid (fun fact: that ended up being Savage's last singles match ever). Then they talked about bringing Flair back and having him beat Sid for the title and then to bring Hogan back the next night on Nitro, but Hogan shot that idea down. Same for Savage, who worked the house show but couldn't agree on money with WCW to return full-time to work the PPV. So they decided against even asking Flair, feeling like the PPV was going to flop anyway, so why waste his return? So then they discussed the idea of Nash beating Terry Funk to become new commissioner and then declaring himself #1 contender and winning the title. Nash shot that idea down, wisely realizing he didn't want that kind of heat, especially since he just regained some booking power back. Immediately becoming the new champion as soon as he gets power back wouldn't be a good look and he realized it. So finally, after considering seemingly a thousand other options, the decision was made to go with Benoit in the main event and to have him become champion. Unfortunately, WCW didn't count on the fact that Kevin Sullivan has more enemies in the locker room than Russo, who most of the wrestlers personally liked, even if they hated his booking.
- In the past, several wrestlers talked about banding together if Sullivan was ever made booker again, which they expected to happen eventually because everyone saw that Russo wasn't working out, but nobody expected it to happen this soon. Benoit in particular has intense personal heat with Sullivan due to the whole Nancy situation and felt he could never work under Sullivan under any circumstances. On Saturday before the PPV a group of wrestlers (Benoit, Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Shane Douglas, Dean Malenko, Konnan, Juventud Guerrera, Rey Mysterio, and Billy Kidman) all got together as a group and went to Bill Busch and asked for Sullivan to be removed from the booking committee or for WCW to release all of them from their contracts. This put Busch in a tough spot, since he had just given the job to Sullivan and if he gave in to a wrestler mutiny, it would basically prove that the inmates are running the asylum. Busch asked for a week to think it over. In the meantime, they booked Benoit to win the title at the PPV. Dave thinks that was a dumb decision, but WCW apparently thought Benoit would "be a mark for the belt" and that he would stay if they made him champion and that if Benoit stayed, the others would fall in line since Benoit is the biggest star and has the most leverage. Turns they misjudged Benoit.
- Busch and others attempted to splinter the group of wrestlers, talking to them individually and trying to turn them against each other. Benoit was told he shouldn't align himself with the wrong people and that they had big plans for him. Saturn was told something similar and that they would put him in the NWO. Kidman was promised a major push into the US title picture, which was enough to sway him and he actually split from the group. Konnan was simply sent home with the threat that he would be giving up a high paying guaranteed contract. Basically, they played divide and conquer and, with threat of losing big money contracts, they got several wrestlers to back down from their demands. WWF is said to be interested in some, but not all of them. It's no secret that, aside from Goldberg, Benoit is the one WCW wrestler that WWF wants most of all. Dave breaks down all the different wrestlers and what WWF's interest may or may not be. Shane Douglas hasn't exactly endeared himself to WWF over the years. Juvi and Mysterio are too small for WWF to do anything with them or pay them near as much as WCW. But Dave thinks bringing them all in at once, as some sort of WCW-invasion type angle would be big money.
- Anyway, Benoit beat Sid to win the vacant WCW title in the main event and cut probably the best promo of his career after. But 18 hours later, it all went to shit. Before Nitro the next day, Busch once again met with the wrestlers who still wanted out and proposed a compromise, saying he wasn't going to fire Sullivan but they would make him booker of the Saturday Night show so that none of the Nitro stars would have to deal with him. That seemed to satisfy everyone. But later that day, Busch called them all again and said they were all being sent home as punishment for their attempted mutiny, except Benoit since he was champion and they had to build the show around him. But Benoit balked at that and said if his friends were being sent home, then he was leaving also. Busch threatened to strip him of the title and Benoit didn't hesitate to say he was sticking with his friends regardless. The group hung around until the company got them plane tickets home, and then Benoit handed the belt to Nick Patrick and they all walked out. On Nitro that night, they were careful not to bury Benoit on commentary but they showed footage of Sid's foot under the rope in order to negate his title win and as of now, the WCW title is still vacant. Russo was also not at Nitro. As for the U.S. title, after Jeff Jarrett was stripped of it at the PPV, they simply awarded it back to him again on Nitro because WCW is a total clusterfuck right now. Benoit and the rest of the group are expected to meet with Busch again soon but it's looking like he's going to grant them all their releases if he can't get them to reconsider.
- Oh yeah, there was a PPV. WCW Souled Out is in the books! They had to do the pre-show before the PPV live. It had been pre-taped days earlier but with the whole card being changed due to all this mess, they couldn't air that. Considering how much the company was in chaos behind the scenes, it was actually a decent show. The first match was Kidman vs. Malenko in a match where you lost if you left the ring. Malenko had a total brain fart and jumped out of the ring to stall, as heels do, but he forgot the rules of the match. Reluctantly, they had no choice but to call the match finished, which Malenko felt horrible about after. Former WWF star Ahmed Johnson debuted under the name Big T and if you're wondering what he's been doing lately, he certainly hasn't been missing meals. Before signing to WCW, Terry Funk had committed to working an indie show earlier that same day and he planned to fly back and be at the PPV in time. But there were problems with his flight and he almost didn't make it in time, leading to even more panic backstage. But he did, although the match was pretty sad because Funk is too broken down these days. And of course, Benoit won the "WCW Queen for a Day trophy" in the main event. Buyrate numbers aren't in yet, but preliminary numbers put it have it well below Starrcade, which is ECW territory when it comes to PPV buyrates.
- Did you know there's other news out there aside from WCW? True story. PRIDE has offered Ken Shamrock a 2-fight deal for $700,000. Shamrock has made no secret about wanting to fight again but he didn't want to give up his lucrative WWF contract, but the PRIDE deal would pretty much offset that if he chooses to leave WWF and take it. He'd basically get paid the same for 2 fights as he would for spending 200 days on the road wrestling. Word is Shamrock is expected to take the deal and WWF has agreed to release Shamrock from his contract so he can go fight for PRIDE. Shamrock recently had arthroscopic knee surgery but is expected to begin full-time MMA training this week and probably finish up with WWF by appearing in the Royal Rumble (nope). He's expected to come back to WWF in 2001 after he spends a year or so with PRIDE and there's been talk of having him make WWF appearances periodically to keep his name fresh. Shamrock is the biggest star any MMA company could have signed right now and Dave thinks this is a huge coup for PRIDE. No word yet on who Shamrock will face, although Kazushi Sakuraba and Bas Rutten have both been rumored. This is a lot longer story, but most of it is MMA related so yeah.
- Monday night ratings were up slightly for both companies but it's actually disappointing because they had no outside competition for the first time in months. No Monday Night Football, no Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, no award shows, etc. so the increase in ratings for both shows should have been higher than they were. Meanwhile, ECW on TNN continues to grow incrementally, and this week they did their biggest rating yet.
- Perro Aguayo announced his retirement tour this week. He will work a final AAA show in February, then work a few final shows in Japan, before his final match for CMLL in March or April (needless to say, it doesn't quite work out like that. He does indeed work his final AAA and NJPW shows but then he comes back to do his final CMLL show and....doesn't stop. He continues to work several times a month for CMLL for the next year before ultimately retiring for real. And even then, he came back for 2 more matches several years later).
- Gary Albright's death seems to have been due to a heart attack from pre-existing heart issues. Dave talks about wrestlers who have died in the ring or immediately after collapsing in the ring from heart issues, as well as people like Brian Pillman who died in part from undetected heart problems and talks about whether a lot of these could have been prevented if wrestlers were forced to undergo a full physical and heart exam before being allowed to wrestle, either from state athletic commissions or the major companies themselves. A lot of these pre-existing issues would likely have been detected if anyone had ever bothered to look for them (fortunately, WWE now does this sort of testing with the Wellness Policy and they have indeed detected heart issues with several people, most notably MVP and Io Shirai).
- If you recall, Atsushi Onita recently made a big deal of going back to school to get his high school diploma (he dropped out as a teen). Well, he did it and is scheduled to graduate next month. He's hoping to run a barbed wire match in conjunction with his high school graduation. He also wants to do an electric exploding ring barbed wire death match in May at whatever college he gets accepted to. Dave finds this hilarious.
- ECW is planning to scale back their road schedule. Despite the TNN show, house show crowds have been dwindling and it's just not financially feasible to run as many shows as they were doing. So instead of 3 per week, they're cutting back to 2 per week. It's going to be a huge blow to a lot of the talent because approximately half the wrestlers in ECW are on a per-night deal so by losing that show, they're basically getting a 33% pay cut.
- Sandman missed the recent ECW PPV as well as several other shows because his sister was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. To make the story even more tragic, his older brother just died from similar cancer a couple of years ago.
- The 1/14 ECW on TNN episode was taped at Center Stage in Atlanta where WCW Saturday Night used to be filmed. Dave thinks the building looked a lot more impressive when WCW filmed there.
- Raven noted that his ECW contract expires in August and said he'd love to stay with ECW if they could make him a good offer but also acknowledged that he's not getting any younger and wants a chance to make big time money. But he also doesn't want to go anywhere and be a midcard guy, he wants to be a top star and said he wouldn't leave just for money. He also said that even if he leaves, he would like the option to still occasionally work ECW shows.
- The revised end-of-year numbers from Turner estimates that WCW lost around $15 million dollars in 1999, which is pretty much the same amount they lost during the entire 3-year period under Jim Herd at the beginning of the decade. AOL is in the midst of purchasing Time Warner for a reported $160 billion, with a B, so losing $15 million isn't really that much in the grand scheme of things for Turner, but WCW is still in heavy cost-cutting mode regardless, flying in less people for shows and there's expected to be another round of firings soon.
- Notes from Nitro and Thunder: more of the same. Dave just doesn't get this company. Plot holes the size of trucks. Guys like Kevin Nash going off-script in promos and saying things that basically just bury everyone around them. No continuity (like saying Scott Steiner still wasn't cleared to wrestle on Thunder, despite the fact that he wrestled twice on Nitro 2 days earlier). Old guys like George Steele, Tito Santana, and Jimmy Snuka being brought in to work matches, which just further solidifies WCW as a company full of old people. Even Terry Funk couldn't summon up a performance to save any of the shows. Anyway, DDP and Bagwell are still doing an angle where Kimberly is teasing leaving DDP. Dave hopes for DDP's sake that Kevin Sullivan isn't booking this since, well, you know. There were also lots of timing issues, missed camera cuts, and you could hear the director at times trying to direct segments. The hazards of live TV.
- Ric Flair recently made news talking about running for governor of North Carolina as a Republican. The story was picked up by a lot of news outlets in the region, as well as nationally by CNN. Dave doesn't buy it. The race is already crowded and Flair has not yet filed paperwork to run and would have to do so in the next 2 weeks if he's serious.
- Various WCW notes: Vampiro brought the Insane Clown Posse with him to Nitro last week. Not only did WCW refuse to allow them on TV with Vampiro, they actually kicked them out of the backstage area as well. Nitro Girl Fyre was recently "Fyred," Dave says. Oh, you cheeky bastard. Asya is engaged to Dale Torborg.
- Steve Austin had his neck surgery in San Antonio by Dr. Lloyd Youngblood. The surgery was successful but took longer than expected because Austin has more muscle in his neck than the average person. Youngblood said Austin should be able to wrestle again but did say that there were early signs of neurological damage from his injury. He said it could be up to a year before Austin can return.
- Kurt Angle is expected to face a mystery opponent at Royal Rumble. Dave speculates that it might be Ken Shamrock (nay).
- In a funny note regarding Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, Dave says: "Ever notice when the two of them are together that Stephanie is sort of convincing in that she's attracted to HHH, but HHH is totally unconvincing of being attracted to her? And he's the better actor of the two."
- WWF had discussions about whether to hire Kevin Nash or Randy Savage if they were to get free of WCW. In Nash's case, it was said that he's doing WWF more good by being a cancer in WCW's locker room and that they don't want that sort of headache in WWF's locker room. Dave thinks if Nash actually got free, they'd still jump at the chance to hire him anyway, because this is pro wrestling and that's just how it goes. As for Savage, he wants too much money and WWF isn't interested.
- Randy Orton, the 19-year-old son of Bob Orton, signed a WWF developmental contract this week. He's about 6'4 and 250 pounds and has a good look.