Wrestling Observer Rewinder

July 10, 2000

Now that WWF is officially going to TNN, the future of ECW is now in question, both as a television show and the existence of the promotion itself. As expected, TNN officially announced this week that ECW's show is being cancelled, with the final episode scheduled to air in September. ECW and USA Network have had talks in the past week but no deal has been reached and its unknown if USA intends to even keep airing wrestling at all. As far as FOX goes, word is FOX is looking to have more of a show aimed at young people (kids and teenagers) and ECW by no means fits that mold. Word is FOX is mostly interested in doing something with WCW or with Hulk Hogan independently. In their press release announcing the cancellation of ECW, TNN said, "ECW has failed to meet some of the criteria of the agreement, including ratings performance targets. We appreciate the efforts ECW and Paul Heyman have made to bring wrestling fans to TNN." When the deal first started, TNN had publicly been expecting ECW to draw ratings in the 2.0 range and sold advertising presuming that number. ECW never really came close to the 2.0 mark but they were still the highest rated show every Friday night on TNN. There's been a lot of back-and-forth bitterness between ECW and TNN during their relationship and especially now that ECW has been cancelled. Heyman has long complained about TNN failing to give ECW any significant promotion but in hindsight, it seems like they didn't bother promoting ECW because they knew all along that they were pursuing WWF. It's interesting because the deal ECW had with TNN stipulated that they could only cancel the show based on poor ratings if the number averaged 0.6 or below over the course of a month. ECW ratings never fell that low for even one week, much less for a month, so legally, they shouldn't really be able to claim they are cancelling it due to ratings.
With WWF's recent signing of NCAA heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, it leads Dave to go on a looooooooooong story about the history of other decorated amateur wrestlers going pro.** Lesnar is the 3rd NCAA champion currently under contract to WWF (the other 2 being Kurt Angle and developmental wrestler Sylvester Terkey). Dave says Lesnar was probably the most highly-recruited athlete to go into pro wrestling since Ken Shamrock several years ago (like Lesnar, Shamrock also turned down offers from WCW and NJPW to go to WWF). There's been 16 NCAA champions to make the jump and most of them have been successful. 5 of them were HOF-level stars (Earl McCready, Leroy McGuirk, Verne Gagne, Danny Hodge and Jack Brisco) and several others were major stars or had long careers, and after only one year, Kurt Angle has established himself as a big time star also. Only 4 of the 16 can be considered flops who washed out of the business. And those are only the champions. There's a lot more who excelled at amateur wrestling despite never winning an NCAA title, such as Gorilla Monsoon, Steve Williams, Dan Severn, Bob Backlund, etc. From here, Dave basically writes a big paragraph or two for every single one of these guys, telling their history in the business. It's interesting stuff, but it's pretty much just Wikipedia for amateur-turned-pro wrestlers. He notes that Kurt Angle initially turned down a WWF offer back in 1996 but eventually decided to give it a shot and excelled at it beyond anyone's expectations. Dave thinks that, barring an injury, Angle is almost certain to become one of the biggest stars in the business in the next 5 years (yup). Lesnar has the look and the physical athletic skills, but whether he can put it together in the ring and get over as a personality is the big question.
The E! network aired a one hour True Hollywood Story episode on Jesse Ventura that heavily focused on his wrestling career. Ventura came off great on the show and it featured interviews with Vince McMahon, Jimmy Snuka, Billy Graham, and others. Dave especially likes the fact that Adrian Adonis was finally given his due for his part in Ventura's success, because most biographies of him (including Ventura's own book) always downplay that part. The only part that Dave really takes issue with is that it spun the story of why Ventura fell out with McMahon, attributing it to Ventura trying to start a union. That happened in 1986 but Ventura stayed with the company until 1990 and left due to dispute over a video game deal Ventura had gotten for himself. McMahon once again confirmed that Hulk Hogan was the one who snitched Ventura out to him, which is also what McMahon testified to during the lawsuit with Ventura. For his part, Hogan still denies that he was the one who ratted out Ventura. The show ended with Ventura saying he wants to have a match against McMahon after he leaves office, which McMahon seemed open to.
Genichiro Tenryu made a surprise return to AJPW and will be working the upcoming tour. It's especially interesting because it was thought Tenryu would never return to AJPW. He left the company back in 1990 to head up his own promotion, Super World of Sports, and when he left, he took several AJPW stars with him. Until his death, Giant Baba never forgave him for the betrayal. Many have said that if Baba were still alive, he never would have brought him back, no matter how desperate AJPW's situation is. But Motoko Baba apparently felt differently and, well, AJPW needs all the help they can get right now. So she made the deal and Tenryu has returned to AJPW, along with hell freezing over.
Speaking of, AJPW and NJPW officials met this week to discuss a possible inter-promotional deal but nothing was agreed to. NJPW expected AJPW to be more desperate than they were, but AJPW wants to have everything booked equally and evenly, but NJPW wasn't going for that. Considering AJPW only has one or two name stars left, NJPW felt they don't have the depth to be booked evenly with all of NJPW's stars. Kawada is the only real top star AJPW has, and if they go out of business, he'd almost certainly end up in NJPW anyway, so they aren't in any hurry to help prop up the company. It's also going to be interesting to see if this pans out because Giant Baba legitimately hated Antonio Inoki for decades, so it shows how desperate Mrs. Baba is right now to keep her company afloat.
Pride is said to be interested in bringing in Steve Williams and Bart Gunn to do some MMA fights. Dave thinks this is a bad idea and that both men would get slaughtered (Williams ended up doing one fight in 2004 for K-1 and...yeah, he got destroyed. Bart Gunn had 2 fights, both in 2006. He won the first one on a fluke technicality and lost the second by decision).
Just before the start of the latest AJPW tour, Johnny Ace informed the company that he won't be coming back and has taken a backstage job with WCW. Ace has been with AJPW since 1988, who only hired him because he was Road Warrior Animal's brother. But in the years since, Ace went on to become a bigger long-term star in Japan than his brother and played a big role in behind-the-scenes stuff for the company, helping to book foreign stars and things like that. Word is he's been ready to get out of AJPW for awhile because the physical style was taking a toll on his body. About a year ago, he had a tryout with WWF but they weren't interested. Most of the foreigners were said to be leaning towards staying in AJPW but with Johnny Ace, who was the closest to Mrs. Baba, leaving the company, it has a lot of them second-guessing. During an interview this week, Steve Williams claimed that Vader would be joining Misawa's new promotion.
Jumbo Tsuruta's gravestone is a 6'4 tall circular headstone listing his career history and featuring a photo of him wearing the AWA title.
Other random Japan notes: everybody in NJPW is injured. Scott Norton's arm, Saito's broken collarbone, Kenzo Suzuki with a back injury and Katsuyori Shibata and Don Frye with neck injuries. Tenryu worked a match against female wrestler Shinobu Kandori and it was a stiff worked-shoot style match, with Tenryu beating the shit out of her. Even in a worked environment in a match she agreed to, Dave is really uncomfortable seeing a woman getting the hell beaten out of her like that. Atsushi Onita is claiming again that he's retiring this year.
Naoya Ogawa officially vacated the NWA title this week so he can focus on training for an MMA fight against Rickson Gracie next year. He was originally supposed to drop it to Gary Steele, but he has an arm injury right now and instead of waiting for him to heal, they decided to just have him vacate it "due to injury" and do a tournament later to crown a new champion.
Dave saw a Discovery Channel show about Ultimate Pro Wrestling School in California. The highlight of the show was a guy named John Cena (Dave spells it "Sena" here) who has the look of a young Sting and does a gimmick called The Prototype. Dave says he has tremendous delivery in his promos. "Until you see him wrestle in the ring, he looks like a can't miss. Watching him wrestle, you see that he needs a lot of work, but if he gets that down, he has a shot at being a genuine star." Cena has a bodybuilder physique and they showed him stocking up on groceries for the week, buying 40 pounds of meat, 35 pounds of chicken, seven dozen eggs and several gallons of milk. Overall, Dave thinks the documentary was good because it showed how hard the road is to making it as a top star. He said the show features a lot of people you'll probably never hear from again and one or two people that may be big stars in 5 years.
WATCH: UPW - Inside Pro Wrestling
Shawn Michaels must be almost as good a teacher as he is a wrestler. Dave has seen a few episodes of Michaels' TWA promotion that airs locally in San Antonio and says it's the best indie show around, due to the great in-ring wrestling and compares it to 80s-era Stampede. The top star is a guy named Spanky who is fun and has a lot of charisma but he's small (that'd be THE Brian Kendrick). Another guy there is American Dragon, who is a little larger than Spanky and has a lot of potential (and of course, that'd be Daniel Bryan). He does a lot of high flying moves, but hits them like a pro. Dave thinks he tries to do too much in every match but for as new as he is, he's a great worker. The other one who impressed Dave is a bigger guy named Lance Cade, who reminds him of a young Barry Windham, but not nearly as good yet.
Random ECW notes: Psicosis is expected to debut at the PPV. Bobby Eaton is also expected to debut soon. At the upcoming ECW Arena show, they're planning to have a going-away party for Raven since he's heading to WWF. Speaking of the ECW Arena, there's a lot of concern that this could be the last show there, but ECW has another one booked for August, if they last that long. A guy named Red Dog debuted (that'd be Rodney Mack). Vic Grimes' WWF developmental contract wasn't renewed because they felt like he hasn't improved enough. He's still technically with ECW but since money is tight right now, they aren't flying him in to shows (he lives in California).
At a Kansas City house show, RVD debuted a new move where he did a springboard dropkick from one corner of the ring to the other, into a chair in his opponent's face. He also did it at the house show the next night and is expected to debut it on the PPV against Scotty Anton. Nearly everyone who saw it said it was one of the most amazing spots they've ever seen in professional wrestling (that'd be the Van Terminator, which Shane McMahon later stole as his finisher).
Vince Russo is expected to be back this week and, speaking of, the upcoming Bash at the Beach PPV is expected to be headlined by Hogan vs. Jarrett but rumor is there's problems with the finish. Take it with a grain of salt, of course, because the story involves Hogan, Bischoff, and Russo and anything they say or do always has to be considered a possible angle. The plan is for Jarrett to win but Hogan, who has creative control in his contract, is balking at putting over Jarrett. Hogan was supposed to be on Nitro this week to shoot an angle to build to the match but due to arguments over the planned PPV finish, Hogan refused to come to Nitro. Again, Dave says you can never be sure if this is an angle given the people involved.
Notes from Nitro: Johnny The Bull was injured during his hardcore match with Terry Funk, with Bull doing a springboard legdrop outside the ring and it's believed he may have suffered a broken pelvis. He immediately told Funk to pin him to end the match, but Funk wasn't supposed to win and he felt this match was getting Johnny over (the crowd was really into it) so instead of pinning him, Funk kept it going for another minute or so despite Johnny being in obvious pain. After the match backstage he was throwing up and had blood in his urine. Dave says people backstage had warned Johnny not to do the move earlier in the day. He ended up having to be carried backstage after the match (turns out the injury was a lot more horrifying. Pelvis was messed up but he also busted his bladder and tore his urethra. And that's enough internet for me today). Jeff Jarrett brought out a bunch of fat women to sing the for the end of Hogan's career, and it was one of the worst segments on Nitro in months, and that covers a lot of ground. To make it even worse, they did this at 9pm, right as Raw was starting, because WCW. It ended with a fake standards & practices guy coming out and Jarrett laying him out with a guitar shot. The guy doing the angle was an actor but he used the real S&P guy's name and it turns out they asked the real S&P guy to do it, but he refused. "You know things are bad when guys who have never even been on TV are refusing to do your angles," Dave says. He also thinks it's hilarious that WCW keeps blaming S&P for their failure to write good television, meanwhile WWF is dealing with the PTC going after advertisers, toned their show down, and still manages to put out a good product most weeks (and in fact, Smackdown ratings went up after they started toning down the content). Yet WCW (particularly Russo) continues to whine about S&P being the reason WCW can't dig themselves out of their hole. Pretty much everything else also sucked.
WATCH: Johnny The Bull gets injured
Backstage at last week's Thunder tapings, Scott Steiner reportedly threw a fit when asked to put over Mike Awesome. In response, Steiner threatened to beat up Terry Taylor, who responded saying he'd sue if Steiner touched him, and Steiner cursed him out and called him a bunch of names for threatening to sue. This isn't the first time Steiner has had a temper tantrum at management backstage and even on TV awhile back, he cut an unscripted promo on TV against Ric Flair that led to him being suspended. Dave thinks this sort of behavior will continue as long as WCW refuses to grow a spine and actually punish wrestlers for unprofessional behavior. Dave also makes a not so subtle reference to 'roid rage and points out the obvious steroid issues still prevalent in WCW. Anyway, Steiner was pulled from the Thunder tapings but he's still scheduled to work the PPV and Dave says that's surely going to send a strong message about what happens when you threaten to beat up your boss. Steiner isn't the only person making waves lately. Kevin Nash also got into a bit of a verbal spat with Terry Taylor (who has been booking the shows in Russo's absence) and Nash allegedly said "If you're so smart, how come you never drew a dime?" And finally, Goldberg has been unhappy about his heel turn and is said to have a pretty short fuse lately also, and has been heavily pushing them to turn him back babyface.
The Great American Bash did a 0.19 buyrate. Just a reminder, that PPV featured both Hogan and Flair in loser-must-retire matches, plus a heavily hyped announcement that was supposed to "change the face of the wrestling industry" (ended up being Goldberg's heel turn). And they got about the same number of viewers as a poorly-lit low rated ECW TV episode.
They've been doing an angle for weeks where Kevin Nash is trying to bring Scott Hall back. Goldberg is facing Nash at the PPV and if Nash wins, Hall returns. One big problem though: WCW head honcho Brad Siegel has made it clear that he doesn't want Scott Hall back. Of course, the issues all stem from Hall's behavior and the last straw was several months ago in England when Hall was so trashed that he wasn't even allowed on the plane to fly back to the U.S. with the rest of the crew, which caused him to miss the go-home Nitro for a PPV he was main eventing. He got back the next day but threatened JJ Dillon over something and ended up being pulled from Thunder that week also. He did show up and main event the PPV but he suffered a legit neck injury in that match. Hall was expected to be fired after that PPV but the neck injury and subsequent surgery basically saved his job and he's been sitting at home earning $16,000 a week while he recovers. There was a lot of talk that Hall faked the injury to save his job, and in any other case, Dave wouldn't be surprised. But Hall legitimately had neck surgery for the injury, so it's pretty unlikely that he faked it. There's an added wrinkle to this because Hall was dating Brad Siegel's neice Emily Sherman and they had a very stormy relationship and apparently had a big public altercation with each other during the England trip. Anyway, considering they've already started the angle on TV to bring him back without ever consulting the head of the company to see if he would even allow him to come back, Dave says WCW is even more incompetent than he previously thought (indeed they were. Siegel sticks to his guns. Hall never comes back, thus rendering this storyline meaningless. But don't worry: the saga of Kevin Nash going into business for himself in order to get Hall re-hired is just beginning).
Various WCW notes: Curt Hennig's contract has expired, no word on his future. Rey Mysterio's knee is in bad shape yet again because WCW keeps putting him in the ring before he's healed and he keeps doing more than he should. There's talk of making Stevie Ray a commentator. Ric Flair is hoping to be back in the ring by September after undergoing shoulder surgery.
Chris Candido is apparently done in WCW. He suffered a broken wrist a few weeks ago and Bischoff was said to be unhappy about it since they just reformed the Triple Threat group with Candido, Douglas, and Bigelow and then a week later, Candido showed up injured. Bischoff also was unhappy with Bigelow, feeling he's out of shape. Candido is still under contract until September and hasn't been released but they aren't planning to use him anymore.
Shane Douglas is dealing with a neck injury but no one knows how bad because he refuses to seek treatment. He was injured on Thunder initially and then 6 days later again on Nitro and was clearly shaken up and unable to lift up his opponents to do his moves. But when told to get checked out, he's been insisting that he's fine. Dave says that's the attitude of a lot of people in WCW now because the company has started cutting people's paychecks in half when they're out injured, so no one wants to take time off.
Dave takes a look at WCW's money losses. After 27 years on the air, WCW Saturday Night has pretty much been cancelled. It was renamed WCW Saturday Morning and moved to a morning time slot and it's just a recap show nowadays. But Dave notes that the ratings difference amounts to about a 64% drop in ad revenue from what the show was doing in the evening time slot. And of course, Nitro has theoretically suffered a 42% drop so far this year due to cutting the show from 3 hours to 2 but in reality, production costs have gone up significantly so odds are they have lost even more money than that. Dave says the cutback to 2 hours was probably a necessity, for the sanity of everyone working there if nothing else, but it was a major factor in WCW's staggering losses so far this year. Plus, the idea of cutting back to 2 hours is that it would improve the ratings, which it should have and did in the short-term, but now they're back down to lower than ever. Not to mention PPV buyrates are in the toilet, no one goes to WCW house shows anymore, and merch sales are basically flatlined. TL;DR - WCW is still hemorraging money.
Hulk Hogan tried to lend his name to a political endorsement but it backfired. An ad aired on TV and had Hogan telling voters in Clearwater, FL to vote for a $300 million downtown revitalization project that they claim will create 2,000 jobs. In the commercial, Hogan claimed he and his family had lived in Clearwater for 12 years and said he was going to vote for the bill. Turns out Hogan doesn't actually live in Clearwater (although he is close to it) and isn't a registered voter there. The sponsors behind the ad called it a mistake and have since pulled the ad from TV.
Vampiro is apparently recording an album with ICP. According to Violent J, the band's label Psychopathic Records plans to release a Vampiro album later this year called Thrillkill, and Vampiro will go on tour with ICP around then as well. ICP is also hoping to get back into WCW because they love doing pro wrestling and neither WWF or ECW will bring them back (Vampiro album never happens. He eventually goes on tour with them for a few shows but it's right after he suffers a concussion and he ends up leaving the tour because the loud music was too painful).
Roddy Piper is still under WCW contract but there's no plans to bring him back to TV right now. But he's still contracted for several more PPV matches so it's bound to happen eventually (nah, WCW goes out of business before then, but I think Piper ends up suing them over not honoring the contract).
The New York Times ran a story about the WWF's victory in the lawsuit with USA. In the article, USA president Stephen Chao tried to downplay the loss, saying it would have a negligible effect on the network's ratings (which Dave says is a pretty stupid comment given how WWF is by far the highest rated product on USA) and basically acted like they didn't care. If USA wasn't that concerned about WWF leaving, they wouldn't have gone to such extreme legal lengths to try and stop it. Chao also claimed that it would have a positive effect on the network's profits because wrestling isn't as profitable to advertisers. But during the actual trial, USA execs testified that the WWF was highly profitable and touted Raw as the crown jewel of USA's schedule. So needless to say, they're trying to save face publicly but make no mistake, USA is taking a big hit by losing WWF.
There's also concern about how WWF moving to TNN will affect Canada. Right now, WWF is broadcast on TSN in Canada because the USA Network isn't available there. But TNN is. The belief is that TSN is probably going to be screwed in the long-run because they often pre-empt Raw for other sports and also heavily censor it, neither of which WWF is happy about. They still have 3 years left on their deal with TSN but for now, it's going to air on both channels. TSN has talked about picking up Nitro if they end up losing WWF.
WWF's after-tax profit for the first quarter of 2000 was $12,773,000 which is slightly down from last years first quarter profits. The reason is that WWF had lower expenses last year and this year they have already spent some money on legal fees and XFL start-up costs.
Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Kurt Angle are all going to be in high profile matches on the upcoming Fully Loaded PPV, with Benoit main eventing against the Rock for the WWF title, Jericho against Triple H, and Angle against Undertaker. There's a lot of pressure for this show to do a good buyrate because if it doesn't, those 3 guys are going to be blamed. Dave seems to think it's a little unfair that Benoit and Jericho just got eliminated in the first round of last month's King of the Ring PPV and haven't had any major wins on TV and now they're expected to draw a big PPV buyrate in main event spots. That's practically being set up to fail.
Notes from Raw: Dave thinks was the funniest wrestling show he's seen in forever and says whoever came up with the Mick Foley segments deserves a raise and that Foley should be working in sitcoms. The wrestling was really good too. Basically, WWF is still kicking ass right now while WCW is struggling to string together a single good segment on Nitro. Also, Stevie Richards is now Steven and is doing a censorship gimmick where he runs out and covers up half naked women and things like that, which is a riff on the whole PTC thing.
Various WWF notes: when it moves to MTV, Sunday Night Heat will likely feature less first-run wrestling matches and become more of a recap show with more music included. Bob Holly had surgery on a broken arm stemming from Kurt Angle landing badly on him doing a moonsault. Holly ended up needing plates and screws put into his arm and will be out for about 3 months. Tori has a separated shoulder and may need surgery also. Dean Malenko is working with a shoulder injury. Kurt Angle's 1996 Olympic victory celebration is being shown in NBC commercials for the upcoming 2000 Olympics. Big Show should be back on TV soon. Perry Saturn is dealing with a lot of back problems but is working through them. WWF has had talks with Kurt Angle's brother Eric Angle but he hasn't been signed as of yet. And on eBay this week, someone is auctioning off photos that he took live in the arena of Owen Hart's death.
It was made clear to Raven during meetings that he is being brought in to the WWF on probation. He's getting a relatively low downside guarantee compared to most contracts and has been told that he has to prove he's moved past all his known issues and that he's basically coming in with a zero tolerance policy. So if he screws up, he's gone, but if he doesn't, he'll be given a fair chance just like everyone else. A lot of guys who worked with him in WCW and ECW went to bat for him to help get him hired.
Just to show you how much things have changed in the business, The Rock is now a 5-time WWF champion in less than two years, which already ties him with Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart for most all time. Triple H is a 4-time champion in an even shorter period of time. Basically, world titles are passed around like hot potatoes nowadays.
Letters section this week. One guy writes in ranting about Vince Russo, blaming him for booking the match that led Terry Funk and Chris Candido into a position where they could have been killed by a horse on live TV and says clearly Russo has learned nothing from the dangerous stunt booking that led to Owen Hart's death. He also argues that Russo is racist for his comments about Japanese and Mexican wrestlers, comparing it to the statements Bill Watts made that got him fired from WCW back in 1993.
Someone else writes in, criticizing Jim Cornette for kissing Vince McMahon's ass during a recent interview. In fact, this is the guy who interviewed him. Cornette spent the interview trashing Vince Russo (whaaaa? No way, that doesn't sound like the Cornette I know) and portraying McMahon and the WWF as ethical and honest. He says when he pushed Cornette on the way Vince gobbled up the territories, Cornette claimed that Vince never stole away anyone's stars without letting the promoter know first, which is obviously bullshit. When he challenged Cornette on the way McMahon handled Owen Hart's death ("they pried Owen's dead body off the canvas without hesitation and continued on with the PPV"), Cornette said that was distasteful. The guy writing the letter says that the only thing distasteful is the way WWF handled that situation. Cornette complained that WCW and Vince Russo had ruined the integrity of wrestling while ignoring what WWF has turned pro wrestling into. And on and on and on. Basically, he says Cornette is right when he talks about how awful Vince Russo is but he says Cornette has blinders on when it comes to Vince McMahon. It's a long letter and the guy makes a lot of good points, but hey, Cornette was still on the WWF payroll at the time so, ya know. What'd he expect him to do, badmouth his boss in an interview?
NFL reporter (and, in 2018, SiriusXM radio host) Alex Marvez writes in with a brief letter to address something Dave wrote recently about steroids in the NFL as compared to wrestling. Marvez says that he's never seen rampant steroid abuse in the NFL or even minimal steroid abuse, and feels that the NFL's current testing process is effective.
And finally, comedy writer and Observer reader Desmond Devlin writes in with another long and hilarious letter that is once again worth reading in full:
Please, my tortured mind is whirling and only you can save me. Please answer my questions.
Is pro wrestling really a good match for The Nashville Network? I mean, when you think about all that drinkin' and shootin' and car crashin', and incest and broken marriages, the WWF could end up being a really bad influence on country music.
Do you think Saddam Hussein's troops in the last war appreciated that they were "getting the rub" from the U.S. Army?
Looking back, don't you agree that Sid Vicious' consecutive win streak was underrated? Personally I thought it was the greatest sports accomplishment since Joe DiMaggio hit in 2,814 straight games.
WWF offered the public stock by saying, "Get a piece of the Rock." Considering what a fine investment it has turned out to be, shouldn't they have name dropped "Crash" Holly instead?
By the way, did Eddy Guerrero's wallet ever turn up?
Why were protesters upset over Lodi and Lenny's fellatio act, when, in fact, they sucked far less than most WCW wrestlers?
Why do people constantly complain that Vince Russo buries all non-English speaking wrestlers? Scott Steiner gets a push every week.
Why do people say wrestling is bad for children? It teaches us science (silicon is one of the 109 elements), math (Mark Henry showing Mae Young how many times 450 goes into 77), history (every PPV is the greatest PPV in history) and religion (do unto others, preferably with a kendo stick).
Since Samuel L. Jackson is over 50 years old, shouldn't he be in WCW vying for the "Rookie of the Year" award?
When you started the Observer, did you ever think the business would progress to a point where you would type the words, "Disco attacked Iaukea with a loaded fish" or "salad tongs to the groin?"
Why do people write the term, "Triple-HHH?" Wouldn't that make him HHHHHHHHH?
Is it true the next inductees to the WCW arm of Misfits in Action will be General Confusion, Major Screwup, Corporal Punishment and Private Vendettas?
Why is Stephanie McMahon still WWF womens' champion? We all saw The Rock give her the rock bottom and get a clean pin on her at the end of Wrestlemania.
Why should Rock get big money to star in "Mummy 2" when the true originator didn't make a dime. If I were Ron Reis, I'd be mad.
Is it true that Tazz walked past a Toys R Us register and it rang up a sale for a Hulk Hogan action figure?
A while back, Jim Hellwig offered to do a shoot match in ECW with the proviso that if he lasted 30 seconds, he'd own the company. Was Heyman afraid to agree to his terms because he thought Warrior might spend the entire 30 seconds speaking one sentence and leaving everyone in the arena unconscious?
If you turn up the sound on Nitro really high and see Reid Fliehr watching his father, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Terry Funk all running around, can you hear the kid whisper, "I see dead people?"
Everyone wonders who the toughest man in wrestling really is, Meng, Ken Shamrock or Tank Abbott? Isn't it obvious the answer is Jim Ross? One week after Helmsley broke his arm, it was already 100% healed and forgotten.
Will the XFL be suing the NFL to regain control of some of the franchise names that pro football owners stole from wrestlers? I'm thinking of The Patriots (Del Wilkes), The Giants (Paul Wight), The Oilers (Lex Luger), The Redskins (Brother Love), the Browns (Pat Patterson's underpants) and the 49ers (everyone who gets a push in WCW).
Those Linda McMahon segments are dynamite. Is she getting speech lessons from Stephen Hawking?
Does Steve Borden have any trouble getting a car loan or a mortgage after those 25 evil Stings, fake Stings and stuntman Stings ruined his credit rating?
And wasn't the Vampiro-Sting "set your opponent on fire" match nothing but a blatant attempt to recreate the kind of fan excitement the WWF had when the Undertaker set fire to Vince McMahon's teddy bear?
Is it true that WCW, always on the lookout for fresh faces, is looking into stealing away the promising WWF newcomer whose contract ran out, Fabulous Moolah?
Tank Abbott comes out to Goldberg's music. Sean Stasiak does Curt Hennig's act. Kanyon copies DDP's routine. Big Show imitates Hulk Hogan. Prince Iaukea acts like Prince. Terry Funk disguises himself as Ralphus. Everybody does the Rikishi dance. And every big match ends with a ripoff of the Bret Hart-HBK Survivor Series finish. I guess what I'm wondering is, how do we know you're the real Dave Meltzer?
Desmond Devlin
Battle Creek, Michigan