July 17, 2000
- Other notes from Bash at the Beach: it drew 4,400 paid and another couple thousand papered, so a total of 6,572 people in the building. They still announced it as a sellout of 16,000 on the show, which is one of the bigger exaggerations WCW has made recently. Mike Awesome is apparently being given a gimmick where he tries to seduce fat women. Daffney vs. Miss Hancock gets a negative star. Vampiro vs. Demon in a graveyard match gets negative 2 stars. Then the Hogan/Jarrett "match" happened. WCW developmental wrestler Chris Harris was in a backstage segment dressed as a fake Sting and hit Vampiro with a bat and Hogan could be seen walking out of the building with his son Nick in the background. Russo came out and cut a bad, obscenity-laced "shoot" promo on Hogan with the crowd not having a clue what he was talking about because most wrestling fans aren't hardcore newsletter-readers. Russo talked about why he came back, due to his loyalty to WCW. "As everyone in the WWF will attest, if nothing else, Russo is loyal." Ha! Anyway, Dave enjoyed this well enough because he understood it, but the live crowd couldn't have cared less. Goldberg beat Kevin Nash which means Scott Hall's contract won't be reinstated because, as it turns out, WCW really doesn't want to bring him back, so that whole angle was for naught. And finally, Booker T won the new WCW world title (not the one Hogan walked out with) in the main event. (I can't find a video of Hogan laying down for Jarrett, but here's Russo coming out later and doing the shoot promo).
- WATCH: Vince Russo shoots on Hulk Hogan - Bash at the Beach 2000
- Hulk Hogan went on Bubba The Love Sponge's radio show the next day and told his version of the story. Hogan claimed he was willing to put over Jarrett, but then when he found out Russo had no plans to use him again after that, only then did he insist on winning the title, which made Russo go nuts and said Russo was cursing him out, while Bischoff was apparently on Hogan's side and was arguing with Russo over it. Then they all called Brad Siegel who agreed to Hogan winning the title and so that was settled and they (along with new agent Johnny Ace) worked out a match and finish, which involved Russo running in but Scott Steiner coming out and chasing him off and leading to Hogan winning the belt. Hogan said he knew something was up when Russo came out at the beginning of the match. After it all went down, he said he went looking for Russo backstage but WCW security head Doug Dillinger told him not to risk a lawsuit and escorted him out of the arena. Hogan also claimed that Russo had someone watching his back (reportedly Steiner) in case Hogan tried anything. Hogan said he wants to show up on Raw this week but he can't due to his WCW contract but said he's going to call up Vince McMahon and see if they'll let Hogan's son Nick come out on Raw and hand Vince the WCW title (that actually would have been hilarious). Hogan praised McMahon repeatedly during the interview. When Bubba asked if this whole thing was a work or shoot, Hogan responded, "I don't do works on your show." Most people in WCW are still under the impression that it's a work, but Russo continues to insist it's not and says you'll know it's a work if Hogan ever comes back and Russo doesn't quit. Dave openly ponders why, if Russo really had gone against Brad Siegel's orders and had really screwed over Hogan, why wasn't he punished? This whole thing seems to be leading to the company splitting with Russo feuding with Bischoff and each side having their own factions. It was announced this week that Russo will be in charge of Nitro and PPVs while Ed Ferrara will be booking Thunder, which would give them the perfect loophole to bring Hogan back to Thunder while Russo still "wouldn't have to work with him."
- Backstage, everyone is torn on whether it's a work. Some believe it is, others think it's a shoot. Some pointed out that Russo seemed nervous after it happened, as if he was worried he may get fired which, I mean, yeah if it was a shoot, why wouldn't he? Needless to say, Dave is still pretty sure this whole thing is a work (well, partly yeah. This story still has a long way to go and to this day, there's varying accounts of what happened from all 3 men. But if I'm not mistaken, the TL;DR is that it was mostly a work that turned into a shoot at some point, which led to the lawsuits. Who knows. Anyway.......that's it. The Hogan era has ended. He never returns to WCW).
- Lots of legal threats surrounding the USA/WWF/TNN/ECW drama. After losing in court, the USA Network is expected to appeal the decision to try to keep WWF's Raw on their channel. Because Raw is the highest rated show on the channel and USA has to show stockholders that they're doing everything possible to keep from losing its franchise show. Without Raw, USA is in grave danger of losing their spot as the highest-rated prime time cable network. But the appeal hasn't been filed at press time and as of now, everything is still a go for Raw to debut on TNN in September.
- Following TNN announcing the cancellation of ECW (effective in September), ECW is now threatening legal action against the network, claiming TNN violated their contract by not properly promoting ECW as was part of their deal. TNN is arguing that ECW failed to meet the expected 2.0 average rating that was expected, but Heyman argues that the contract stipulated that they couldn't be cancelled due to ratings as long as they didn't fall below a 0.6 rating, which they never did. A big part of it seems to be TNN's unhappiness with Heyman repeatedly bashing the network on his show. TNN claims that the whole anti-TNN stuff was just an angle to try and turn the fans against the network because Heyman knew they were likely going to get cancelled when/if the WWF deal got worked out. By portraying it as TNN vs. ECW, Heyman could make fans believe they were cancelled because the network had a grudge against them and because of WWF, rather than because of low ratings. Dave points out that despite not meeting the hoped-for 2.0 number, ECW has always been TNN's highest-rated Friday night show and if the WWF deal hadn't gone through, TNN almost certainly wouldn't have cancelled them. So claiming it's due to low ratings is clearly bullshit. And ECW probably has a decent argument about TNN not really doing anything to promote them, which Heyman claims is why they never hit that 2.0 mark. But Dave has consulted with a contract attorney about this whole situation and the wording in the contract (that TNN only promised to supply "promotion, publicity, and exposure" without any specifics) is so vague that ECW would have a hard time proving that TNN didn't live up to their end of it or that it made a significant ratings difference. Long story short: ECW is probably in the right here, but proving it in court would be difficult. And an expensive legal battle with a major TV network isn't exactly something they can afford. Anyway, if ECW isn't able to land another national TV outlet soon, it's going to be a huge blow to the company (yeah, that's putting it mildly. This was the death blow. ECW is on borrowed time from here on out).
- In brief MMA news, Royce Gracie had a big interview where he talked about various opponents he's faced. He trashed Ken Shamrock, basically calling him a UFC creation and paper champion. When asked about Wallid Ismail, who beat Gracie in 1998 in a 5 minute match, he made excuses about coming into the fight injured. When asked about Kazushi Sakuraba, who beat Gracie in a 90-minute match recently, he made a bunch more excuses, claimed Sakuraba tapped out earlier in the fight but the ref didn't see it, claimed Sakuraba spent the fight running from him, and that he was a dirty fighter and all that shit. Dave responds and says that early in his career, when Gracie was winning all the time, he was a very gracious winner and thinks it's a shame that Gracie can't be as gracious in defeat.
- Dr. Pepper is the latest company to pull their advertising from the WWF (and in fact, all wrestling programming) in the wake of the PTC's campaign. Even though WWF has heavily toned down their content in recent months, the PTC hasn't let up on them, likely because WWF decided to turn it into a personal feud which did nothing but piss off the PTC. The Steven Richards character is clearly a riff on the PTC and while Dave finds it funny, all it's doing is giving the PTC more reason to keep harassing their sponsors. UFC has proven that there's a domino effect to bad publicity like this and it's now happening with WWF, as sponsors continue dropping like flies due to PTC pressure and it probably would have been in WWF's best interest to work out a peaceful compromise when this all started. But Vince McMahon isn't exactly known for backing down from fights and instead he decided to antagonize the PTC and, well, here we are. The WWF was a sitting duck for this kind of thing to happen, given the raunchy product they were putting out combined with the fact that so much of their audience is children. They lost their first major sponsors before the PTC even got involved. When they lost Coca-Cola sponsorship, they started bashing Coca-Cola on the air. This just isn't the way a publicly traded company should act while sponsors continue dropping like flies and it's not helping the stock price.
- Kenta Kobashi is still saying he'll be back for next month's NOAH debut show, after undergoing double knee surgery 3 weeks ago. Doctor have told him there's no way he will be ready to wrestle that soon. (If you know Kobashi, you already know how this goes. Of course he wrestled.)
- The guest house next to Stu Hart's famous Hart House caught fire last week and the case is being investigated as arson. Indie wrestler Teddy Hart had been staying in the house for the last month and the fire began in a pile of trash and old mattresses that Hart had thrown out while renovating it. The damage was estimated at $100,000-$150,000. Three people were in the house when it started and one of them reported seeing someone running away when it happened. The house has historically been where many of the most legendary wrestlers in the business often stayed when working for Stu Hart over the years. Even legendary boxer Jack Dempsy briefly lived there. It was destroyed once before by an electrical fire back in 1979 when Jim Neidhart lived there and was later rebuilt.
- On the latest OVW TV taping, they debuted Shelton Benjamin in a short match against The Collector. It was a shoot-style amateur wrestling type match and Benjamin (who was portrayed as just some jobber) got the surprise pinfall. Benjamin is a really good athlete but this was his first real match and he was still obviously green, but he has potential.
- WATCH: Shelton Benjamin vs. The Collector - OVW (2000)
- Paul Heyman apparently didn't think too highly of Raven during his most recent ECW run. Heyman says he felt like Raven did nothing for the company this past year and spent his time there partying and getting out of shape and says he didn't clean up and start trying to get back in shape until only recently, when he realized that WWF wasn't going to take him otherwise. As of this week, Heyman has not yet given Raven his release but he's expected to soon and Raven's already got his WWF paperwork in hand. Either way, his ECW deal expires next month so he's gone from the company soon one way or another.
- There was a weird incident with Bob Backlund at an ECW show and apparently it's not an angle. Backlund showed up to the ECW event in Poughkeepsie and was hanging out backstage before the show. Later, during a Kid Kash/CW Anderson match, Backlund went out into the crowd and started doing his usual gimmick, being wacky and arguing with fans and whatnot, right in the middle of the match, which distracted the crowd and pissed off some people backstage. Security ended up taking Backlund out of the building.
- Random WCW notes: Great Muta finally made his return to Nitro and got a shockingly huge pop considering his last major run in the U.S. was in 1989. Ric Flair and Konnan both had surgery from Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham on the same day, Flair for a rotator cuff and Konnan for a torn tricep. Flair hopes to be back in September while Konnan won't be cleared until October. Bret Hart is hoping to find out in a few weeks if he has any chance of returning to the ring. It's believed he suffered multiple concussions in a short period of time. Eric Bischoff's father passed away. WCW is planning a Nitro taping in London in November. Former wrestler and current ring crew guy Klondike Bill is in bad health and on a respirator, suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease (he dies in October). An ad for WCW's upcoming Australian tour listed Goldberg as "current world champion" but of course, he hasn't held the title since losing it in December of 1998 and isn't expected to win it anytime soon. And Kid Romeo has been released.
- Bob Ryder of 1wrestling.com wrote a big story on WCW and Goldberg which was a major topic of discussion in WCW this week. The basic gist of the article was about how WCW needs to get their house in order, stop letting the inmates run the asylum, punish people for misbehavior, don't reward bad attitudes, etc. But the part that made waves was Ryder suggesting that WCW should fire Goldberg to set an example, and accusing Goldberg of milking his arm injury to take extra time off during the first half of the year. For what it's worth, Dave says Ryder isn't the first person to suggest that about Goldberg's recent injury. Apparently a lot of people think he was milking it. Anyway, people warned Goldberg not to take the bait because if he threw a fit about it, it would just prove Ryder's point that Goldberg has become difficult to work with and has a bad attitude. Didn't work. Goldberg was furious about it and wasn't shy about making it known backstage.
- In similar news, Bill Banks wrote a story on WCW's own website talking about the current sad state of WCW. The general gist of the story was "Hey, WWF sucked in 1997 and they put all their faith in Vince Russo and look at them now. So we should do the same. Trust the almighty Russo." For what it's worth, Dave says it's clear WWF has continued succeeding beyond their wildest dreams after Russo left, and in fact, they never missed a beat, while WCW has continued to plummet with him in charge, so the claim that Russo is the main one who deserves credit for turning around WWF in 1997 doesn't really hold up that much. He also says you can't compare 1997 WWF to 2000 WCW because WCW is on pace to lose 10x the amount of money that WWF lost that year. Dave also goes into ticket sales and buyrates and all that other shit. Basically, WCW right now is in waaaaay worse shape than 1997 WWF ever was. Anyway, the article didn't last long as someone in WCW stepped in and ordered the story removed from the website.
- Remember Johnny The Bull getting injured on Nitro last week? He suffered a ruptured bladder and some other pelvis injuries and "a torn up buttocks" (whatever that means) and is expected to be out of action for about 2 months (turned out to be a torn urethra).
- Vampiro is pushing to work an angle with Great Muta and Dave thinks that's actually pretty smart because a history with Muta would make him more valuable to NJPW if/when he ever leaves WCW.
- WCW is planning to make a big push in September to try to bring in fans because they're hopeful that WWF's ratings will drop when they move to TNN. Dave doesn't see that happening and notes that Viacom is spending $8 million on an ad campaign to hype the switch to TNN so he doesn't think Raw's ratings are going to take much of a hit and fans will ultimately follow them to the new channel.
- Bam Bam Bigelow recently made news for saving several children from a house fire and suffered second-degree burns on his body (Dave doesn't have more info on that at the moment and never really follows up on it, but yeah. He was burned on more than 40% of his body and was hospitalized for 2 months. Real hero shit there).
- Kevin Nash hasn't been shy about telling people that he plans to return to WWF in 15 months when his contract expires. He hopes to have a final run of matches with top guys like Austin and Rock and then retire from wrestling and hopefully become a booker. Dave thinks McMahon would take Nash back, but most people in the WWF offices are said to be very negative on the idea of bringing him back because of his locker room reputation. Dave also notes that Nash could be saying all this to use as leverage to negotiate a new WCW deal. On WWF's website, Jim Ross wrote an article about old, injury-prone wrestlers using WWF for contract leverage and saying WWF has no interest in them. Dave doesn't see any good reason to bring guys like Nash, Hogan, or Luger back to the WWF. Sure, there's short-term money in all of them (especially Hogan) but in the long-run, what purpose do they serve? WWF has a winning formula right now and he doesn't think it's a great idea to mess with what works just for some short-term gains that come with a lot of baggage.
- Hogan's WCW contract calls for him to work 2 more PPV shows, one before the end of this year and another before April 2001. He also has creative control in regards to the match finishes as well. He could conceivably ask for his release before then if he wanted it and WCW could grant it but if they don't, then they're required to make those PPV matches happen.
- There was a weird situation with Roddy Piper's daughter Anastacia who went missing last month from their home at 3am, having either ran away or been kidnapped. Piper's wife reportedly saw the daughter getting into or being pulled into a small red truck and managed to get the license plate but lost the truck. Police didn't have any luck and Piper himself went out looking for her, and spent days doing his own investigation. They eventually found her a week later in a mall parking lot in Eugene, OR so she's back home and safe. But that's all Dave knows (wtf. No idea, we never find out anymore about this).
- Dave was at the latest Smackdown tapings and The Prototype (real name "John Sena") beat Damian Steele in a dark match (and that right there folks is the very first time John Cena steps into a WWE ring). Dave says the match was really bad but Prototype "showed a ton of charisma and is going to make it some day."
- Steve Austin is said to be getting in great shape but he's still at least another month or two away from returning. And he still has to meet with doctors to get an idea of just how much he'll be able to do when he does. Austin has been telling people that he wants to return but if he can't perform at the level he wants to be at, then he won't because he doesn't want to come back and just live off his name value like Hulk Hogan while not being able to deliver in the ring. If he can't wrestle, Dave says there's plenty of demand for him in Hollywood, including the still-possible Nash Bridges spin-off series based on the character he's played on that show several times.
- Davey Boy Smith and his wife Diana are getting divorced. Smith was also hospitalized again this week, no reason given.
- Lots of letters about the Hogan/Bash at the Beach situation. Most people saying they think it's a work but admitting that they aren't sure. Also the general consensus that "worked shoots" suck and that Bischoff and Russo's constant reliance on them is becoming tiresome. "Imagine if during an episode of Friends, Courtney Cox breaks her Monica character and starts complaining about her contract and the executives at NBC," someone writes and points out that most of the audience would be confused and annoyed because none of them give a shit about that stuff. They want to be entertained by the TV show, they don't care about behind-the-scenes contract disputes and politics. You want to suspend your disbelief and when they constantly interrupt that suspension of disbelief, it ruins everything else on the show. Why admit Hogan has creative control and that all the matches are predetermined? Sure, everyone knows it but you don't want to be told about it during the show.