Wrestling Observer Rewinder

May 08, 2000

Dave opens with a big recap of the latest PRIDE show, arguably biggest MMA event in history. Mark Coleman won the big tournament, defeating 3 opponents in 1 night. Kazushi Sakuraba defeated Royce Gracie in a match with special no time limit rules (something Gracie insisted on) and it went 90 FUCKING MINUTES before Gracie's corner threw in the towel because he couldn't continue. It was Gracie's first ever MMA loss (and thus, Sakuraba's reputation of "The Gracie Killer" was born). And even after going 90 minutes with Gracie, Sakuraba still had to fight again in the tournament. He was actually winning his next fight before the exhaustion became too much. He took a beating for the last 5 minutes of the round but the fight was still so close that the judges ordered an overtime round, but Sakuraba's corner threw in the towel before it could happen. But regardless, Sakuraba came across as a superstar. And of course, this show marked the return of Ken Shamrock in a non-tournament fight against Alexander Otsuka. Shamrock won in a little over 9 minutes by knockout. And then Eric freakin' Clapton came out to the ring to celebrate with him, because he was there for whatever reason. Dave says Clapton was also at the PRIDE show back in January too. Apparently Eric Clapton liked early-era Japanese MMA. Who knew?
WWF's Backlash PPV is in the books and was probably the best PPV of the year. The show was highlighted by the return of Steve Austin, who came in and bashed a few people with chairs, leading to Rock winning the WWF title from Triple H. Austin was still very physically limited and can't even do a stunner yet, hence the chairshots. It was the most wrestling-oriented show WWF has done in ages. Most of the angles were as expected, but Dave says that's not a bad thing when it's what the fans want, and WWF delivered on everything people had been predicting and hoping for. Several of the matches were great and even the "bad" ones were decent. The only negative was the camerawork, which was WCW-levels of bad during this show, missing spots left and right. The show was legit sold out at 17,867 but for whatever reason, WWF still felt the need to lie and say it was over 19,000 which the building doesn't even hold.
Other notes from the show: X-Pac got cut open hardway at the end of the opening match by the ring bell and needed stitches. Plus, X-Pac was suffering from asthma symptoms and was totally winded by the end of the match and actually called for the finish several minutes early because he was spent. Malenko/Scotty 2 Hotty was a great match with a crazy dangerous looking finish. Big Show came out imitating Hulk Hogan and got a huge pop. He beat Angle which Dave thinks was entertaining, but Angle has such star potential and Dave doesn't want to see him getting squashed like a jobber in comedy matches. The announcers were specifically told not to bury Hogan on commentary because they didn't want to seem like they were stooping to WCW's level (Showster was HILARIOUS). The Dudleyz powerbombed Trish Stratus through a table. Apparently, before the match, Trish told Bubba not to protect her the way he's been protecting the other women who have taken the move and give it to her full force just like he would any male wrestler, because she wants to prove that she's not there just to be eye-candy. Bubba was reluctant, but he agreed to do it and Trish got absolutely blasted through the table and did a stretcher job. Chyna got her dress ripped off which is the first time they've shown her in her underwear before (the era of Chyna the sex symbol has begun).
WATCH: The Showster vs. Kurt Angle - Backlash 2000
The California state athletic commission has voted to legalize and regulate MMA as a sport. This should lead to California likely becoming the main place where MMA shows (in particular UFC) will take place from now on. So needless to say, this is good news for MMA in the U.S. Dave has a lot more info on this if it's the sort of thing you're interested in.
Raw this week did its 2nd highest rated show in history (7.4) while Nitro did its lowest rating since the early 1995 days of the show (2.46). The Rock vs. Shane McMahon cage match is now the 2nd most watched match in the history of cable TV. The unopposed first hour of Nitro was a disaster in the ratings and goes to show that the last week or so of TV (the awful episode of Thunder with Arquette winning the title in particular) seemed to have completely turned fans off of WCW. Smackdown also did a monster rating. Speaking of Thunder, the show did a slightly higher rating than normal, but the Arquette title win was the lowest rated segment of the show, and then the Nitro rating 5 days later was a nightmare, so needless to say, this Arquette fella doesn't exactly seem to be a draw.
Dave gives the results to their latest online poll. One of the questions was "Will Eric Bischoff or Vince Russo hold the WCW title before the end of this year?" 58.9% voted "Yes." 17.1% voted "No, they'll want to but they'll be fired first." 5.9% voted "No, they'll want to but Goldberg will refuse to do the job." and the last 18.1% was "No, because it will hurt the credibility of the title." Give props to the damn near 60% who realized how stupid WCW was at this point, because yup: Vince Russo books himself to win the WCW title 4 months from now.
Bob Backlund has been fundraising for months for a Congressional run in CT. This week, Backlund officially entered the race. He's running as a Republican in a district that has been held by Democrats for the last 42 years so the odds are pretty stacked. None of the Republican party leaders came out to support Backlund's announcement.
Sabu won the XPW championship by winning a one night tournament at the latest XPW show. The belt was vacated when Candido (the champ) no-showed the previous night's show. Speaking of the show, former ECW wrestler Jeff Jones appeared and also cut a promo trashing ECW because apparently Heyman fired him by fax a few days ago. And one last XPW note, owner Rob Black (who also operates a porn company) is putting out a new bondage film featuring Nicole Bass and John Kronus (formerly of the Eliminators. I didn't look for video of this).
Minoru Suzuki got his first MMA win in nearly 2 years at the latest Pancrase event. Dave talks about how Suzuki is a former pro wrestler and one of the real pioneers of the sport, but his body is broken down and he hasn't been a great fighter for several years. Before this, he was coming off 5 straight losses.
According to Paul Heyman, TNN brought up the possibility of moving ECW from Friday nights to Tuesday nights, but he wasn't interested. Heyman says it's only a matter of time before they're kicked off TNN anyway, since they're about to pick up WWF's Raw, and he doesn't want to have to rebuild the audience on a new night. Heyman has been upset about the lack of promotion TNN gives to ECW and was especially upset because they had a hugely unique situation 2 weeks ago with a WWF wrestler facing a WCW wrestler, for the ECW title, on their show and TNN didn't do shit to promote it or get publicity for it. In fact, on the TNN show this week, after coming back from commercial, Heyman appeared onscreen and said they're sick of running commercials but TNN needs the money because they have to raise the $100 million to pay WWF (we're entering the final few months of this partnership, which is Heyman just going full scorched earth against TNN).
ECW's upcoming PPV in Milwaukee has sold 2,400 tickets so far. Insane Clown Posse's JCW promotion just ran the same building last week and sold it out.
The ECW and FMW relationship nearly fell apart this week. FMW was upset that Mike Awesome wouldn't be appearing at their shows this week, as advertised. The deal had been set up with ECW before Awesome jumped ship to WCW and FMW threatened legal action and ECW assumed it was a threat against them. On top of that, FMW owes Balls Mahoney several thousand dollars. Due to this, ECW pulled Balls and New Jack off the FMW show. But FMW has since said it was all a misunderstanding and that they were threatening legal action against WCW and Awesome, not against ECW. Speaking of, there's a lot of rumors that FMW is in bad financial shape right now (yeah, they're deep in debt to the Yakuza and the president of FMW eventually ends up killing himself so his family can use the insurance money to pay it off for their own safety).
Latest on Lance Storm is that he has committed to stay with ECW through the upcoming PPV but beyond that, he hasn't made a decision. Both WWF and WCW have expressed some interest but neither side has made a serious offer yet. Heyman has offered Storm an incentive-based deal to stay with ECW and promised he would feud with Justin Credible for the ECW title.
Jason Knight didn't work any of this week's ECW shows and in Poughkeepsie, we learned why. Ten state troopers showed up to the ECW show looking for him because turns out he has a bench warrant from years ago for a DUI and then jumping bail. He eventually turned himself in this week.
The lawsuit over the infamous ECW fire incident from 1995 is scheduled to go to trial this week. If you remember, Terry Funk and Foley were in the ring and doing some shit with some fire and it got out of control and went into the crowd where some fans were injured. During the same moment, the lights went out (due to another angle that was happening) and needless to say, with fire going into the crowd in the darkness, it turned into a panicked stampede. A couple of people who were injured sued and it's finally going to trial.
Booker T was injured on a table powerbomb by Mike Awesome and will not be able to work his scheduled PPV match against Scott Steiner.
So about David Arquette winning the WCW title...Dave says everyone has their own opinion about it. It got a little mainstream media publicity, but nowhere near enough to justify it (and as evidenced by Nitro the next week doing a near record-low number, it damn sure didn't translate to a ratings increase) and Dave isn't exactly brimming with confidence that this is going to lead to a big PPV buyrate either, to say the least. Dave doesn't give his own opinion, but it's pretty clear he thinks this is just another boneheaded move from an increasingly desperate company. But for what it's worth, Arquette is said to be pretty well-liked by the wrestlers. The night he won the title, he was buying food and drinks at the bar for everyone after the show. Not just wrestlers, but also fans and hangers-on that were around. Even though most of the wrestlers realize this is a bad idea, they all like Arquette personally. Also, he's donating all of his wrestling earnings to the families of Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, and to Darren Drozdov.
Arquette was interviewed on the Observer website and, to his credit, he knows he's in over his head. Arquette revealed that he didn't find out he was winning the title until the day of the show and was asked to hold it until the PPV. "I said I felt alright, but I did feel kind of weird. Obviously, I don't deserve it. These guys are so skilled and it takes so much athleticism and gymnastics and strength, not to mention all the acting stuff that goes into it, it's really hard." Arquette said he's been training with Kanyon, DDP, and Shane Helms.
Notes from Nitro: along with Arquette, his wife Courtney Cox and actor Kurt Russell also appeared on the show. Cox's ratings drawing power on Friends did not translate to Nitro. Jericho's former sidekick Ralphus returned and he's expected to be involved in the hardcore title match at the PPV because this company has no sense. The crowd booed new champion Arquette. Billy Kidman got beat up by 2 Hogans (Hulk and Horace) and Kevin Nash at different points throughout the show, with Nash in particular going out of his way to make him look like a jobber. Dave is also particularly miffed at an angle with Nash and Mysterio, which required both of them to run. Nash has bad knees anyway and furthermore, he's still recovering from ankle surgery and hasn't been wrestling. And Mysterio, who is still months away from returning after knee surgery, was involved and also had to run. Dave says WCW has learned nothing from the dangerous Goldberg angle a few months ago and having these guys, still injured with knee and ankle issues, out there running around shows zero regard for the health of the talent, all for a stupid Russo angle that sucked anyway. Sting came down from the ceiling again, way too fast and had a bad landing. Dave really just rips this Nitro to shit.
Goldberg is said to have been upset with how Tank Abbott was booked on the latest Nitro. There had been plans for months to build Abbott up as a viable opponent for Goldberg, which is why he was doing the one-punch knockout gimmick and all that. But this week, due to DDP interference, Abbott got pinned by David Arquette, which is pretty much a surefire way to kill his momentum as a serious threat. Goldberg ("rightfully so" Dave adds) was upset, feeling this pretty much destroyed whatever aura Abbott might have had in a feud with him later.
Notes from the Thunder taping: there was a #1 contender's battle royal for the WCW title and among the people in it was Randy Savage. I only mention this because it ends up being Savage's last match in WCW and for all intents and purposes, it's honestly his last real match ever (he technically has one more "match" years later in TNA but I would barely call that a match, since he does literally nothing in it). And the ending of the show was massively screwed up. DDP and Jeff Jarrett were supposed to brawl towards a scaffolding area where David Arquette would be up there with a guitar and he would hit Jarrett, who would then fall through a gimmicked part of the stage. Problem is, earlier, Asya was leaving the ring and didn't know about it and she stepped into the gimmicked spot and fell into the stage. Then Arquette did the same thing, also falling through the stage. So the big hole there was already exposed. So DDP and Jarrett improvised and somehow DDP ended up taking a bump into the hole to try to save things. Dave has no idea how they're gonna edit this to make it good enough to air (turns out they just don't show it at all. One moment, you see them climbing the scaffold and a few seconds later, the camera cuts back and DDP is laying in the hole).
WATCH: Randy Savage's final WCW match (and, for all intents and purposes, his last real match ever)
WCW has the Slamboree PPV scheduled for this week (May 7th) at the Kemper Arena where Owen Hart died. Dave says a lot of people don't realize it, but May 7th also would have been Owen's 35th birthday. Bret Hart isn't expected to be at the show. Dave's just praying they don't lower Sting from the ceiling like they've been doing the last couple of weeks.
Nitro next week is at the TWA Dome in St. Louis and they're expecting around 4,000 fans. The first time WCW ran that building, only 18 months ago, they drew 29,000 in the middle of a massive snowstorm. Bret Hart won't be at the show because he'll be in Kansas City giving depositions in the Owen lawsuit.
Former WCW ring announcer Gary Michael Cappetta has written a book talking about his 20+ years in the business and it's expected to be released in October (yup, called Bodyslams).
Some WCW roster updates: Maestro was given word that he will be released at the end of the month. Barbarian has already been released. Vampiro had a contract dispute that got ugly enough that he contacted WWF at one point, but both sides smoothed things over so he's still here. Lenny & Lodi were also released. Dave says Lodi had charisma but sucked in the ring. But Lane was good at everything they threw at him and Dave is baffled why they'd get rid of him. And Bobby Eaton's contract expired and won't be renewed. Eaton hasn't been used much at all the last couple of years but was kept around because he was well-liked and all the old-timers would go to bat for him anytime WCW talked about cutting him loose. In this case, poor Eaton literally never saw it coming. One day, his paycheck didn't arrive in the mail. He called the company to see what was up and was told he no longer worked there. Eaton was probably the longest tenured, uninterrupted wrestler there. He started with Crockett back in 1985 in the Midnight Express and had been with the company through the Turner buyout up until now (Dave actually has this wrong. Eaton was fired by Bill Watts in 1992 and spent about a year in SMW and NJPW before being rehired by Bischoff in 1993 after Watts was gone. So it wasn't uninterrupted).
Newly signed WCW wrestlers Michael Modest and Christopher Daniels have been told by WCW to be patient. Right now, they're trying to get over the wrestlers who have been with the company longer before they begin pushing the newly signed stars. Daniels is under contract but hasn't been used since he signed.
Dusty Rhodes will be returning to WCW to host the WCW Classics show on the Turner South Network. It'll be showing old WCW and Crockett matches from the 80s and early 90s.
There's talk that Dustin Rhodes may be repackaged with a character as legally close to Goldust as they can get away with.
Tazz tore his bicep on Raw when Bob Holly jumped on he and Saturn who were brawling outside the ring. He will be getting surgery this week. They did an angle the next day for Heat where Benoit attacks Tazz to write him off TV and set up a Tazz/Benoit angle when he returns. He'll probably be out for about 3 months.
Stu Hart called up both Benoit and Jericho this week to thank them for standing up for him and refusing to work the Stampede show when they found out he wasn't involved and that it was really just Bruce and Ross Hart trying to leech off of Stu's name and the anniversary of Owen's death in order to do a big show.
The FCC is expected to approve the Viacom/CBS merger, which will then become official soon after. The merger will lead to Viacom owning 41% of all television stations in the U.S. But the USA Network's lawsuit against WWF and Viacom is still pending so no word on how this will all affect the WWF deal just yet. TNN is expected to get new management and will drop its country music image in an attempt to draw younger, male viewers. CBS is also talking about running special events to maybe air occasionally on Friday or Saturday nights as made-for-TV movies that WWF would produce. Viacom also owns MTV which is where Sunday Night Heat will end up and WWF is hopeful that the MTV association will help since they're wanting to launch their own record label and try to sign big name artists.
Despite appearing at Backlash and swinging a chair around, Steve Austin is still a long way from returning to the ring. He's only recently began light weightlifting. He still has some numb spots in his hand. Austin has made it clear that he doesn't want to be like Hulk Hogan and stay around past his prime, relying on his name value long after he can't work anymore, so it's really not even a definite that he'll ever actually return to the ring. But if he does, it's looking like it will probably be Summerslam at the earliest.
Various WWF notes: Undertaker is expected to return to the ring at King of the Ring (he worked a few TV matches before this but yeah it was his first PPV match back). Shawn Michaels is expected to return to WWF soon in his old role as commissioner. Jim Ross also teased it on the WWF website this week. Billy Gunn is still going to be out several months while he recovers from shoulder surgery. MCW wrestler K. Krush, real name Ron Killings, worked a few dark matches at the latest WWF tapings doing a rap gimmick. Viscera has a separated shoulder.
Wizards of the Coast gaming company filed a lawsuit against WWF to keep them from releasing a card game that supposedly copied designs from Wizards of the Coast trademarks. Wizards is actually releasing a game with WCW next month and one of their game designers had first met with WWF before shopping the idea to WCW and signed a deal with them. But WWF still apparently used the ideas the Wizards people presented them to make their own game, which is also scheduled to come out next month and would compete against WCW's game. So Wizards is seeking to block WWF's game (they both still came out).
WWF has had talks with amateur wrestler Brock Lesnar, who recently won the NCAA heavyweight championship. Dave says he has a great look for pro wrestling. WCW has also expressed interest and Lesnar has also had a meeting with Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo. But Lesnar also spoke with Kurt Angle and Gerald Brisco and is said to be leaning towards signing with WWF. If he signs, he'll be sent to OVW, where his former University of Minnesota training partner Shelton Benjamin is already working. Benjamin is said to have a great attitude for pro wrestling.
XFL update: all players will earn $50,000 per year with $3,000 bonuses going to the team that wins and additional bonuses for the team that wins the championship. Coaches will be paid $150,000 plus bonuses for winning. They're also hiring dance coaches to give each team their own unique touchdown dances that they'll be encouraged to do after they score. Kickoffs will be from the 25-yard line. They're also considering 4 points for any field goal more than 50 yards.
Dynamite Kid is expected to be in attendance at WWF's UK PPV Insurrextion this week, as a guest of Chris Benoit. It will be the first WWF show that the wheelchair-bound Dynamite has attended in more than a decade.
In an interview with the Observer website, Steve Regal discussed his addiction problems that he has been dealing with. He said his drug problems started when he injured his knee in a match in Japan with Chris Benoit. He said WCW encouraged him to get surgery at the time but he refused because he didn't want to take time off and he used painkillers to work through the injury. He re-injured the knee again later (yet again in a match with Benoit) and ended up having to get the surgery, which led to more pills. Then a neck injury, more pills, then muscle relaxers, but the pain was so bad he couldn't sleep, so then he went to sleeping pills. And then he and Benoit were in a car accident together in 1997 that aggravated his neck injury (starting to think maybe he should stay away from Benoit). He couldn't train so he gained weight and WCW released him. He went to WWF, but had 2 bouts of pneumonia which delayed his WWF debut plus he was still terribly out of shape. Went to rehab a couple of times, back to WCW, and now back to WWF. He said it's only been in the last few months that he started feeling healthy again. He's currently wrestling for MCW in Memphis to prepare for his WWF return and has lost about 50 pounds (I may be wrong but I think he's been clean ever since, unless you count the 2007 steroid suspension).
Lots of letters this week and you won't be surprised that they're mostly about WCW and David Arquette winning the title and booooooy, are people pissed. "WCW is a company run and booked by people who hate pro wrestling," says one guy. "How can I even fondly remember Ric Flair's title reigns when it's the same belt worn by David Arquette? I can't and won't watch anymore," says another. "So what's Russo's excuse of the week going to be this time? According to my calendar, Monday was the anniversary of the opening of the Empire State Building, so that must have been the reason for the ratings being what they were," adds another. And on and on and on. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Though to be fair, 2 other people write in and basically says that kids these days don't care or respect anything anyway, so who cares if WCW destroys the credibility of their world title, it's not like today's wrestling fans give a shit.