July 31, 2000
- Rare good news for WCW: tickets went on-sale for their upcoming October tour of Australia sold like hotcakes. Nitro in Melbourne sold out a 10,000-seat venue in less than 3 hours. Thunder also sold out a 10,000-seat arena in one day, plus 3 other house shows all doing big numbers. In fact, considering the high ticket prices for the Nitro taping, its possible that the gate may even break $1 million, which WCW has never done even at their hottest (they had 3 shows that came close during '98 and early '99). WCW doesn't really have a strong television presence in Australia and local promoters priced tickets well above what most people thought would sell. But Australia is a country rich with pro wrestling heritage and the WWF hasn't toured there in over a decade and evidently the country is starved for major league pro wrestling. Word evidently hasn't reached them yet that WCW sucks now (as I type this, it's July 24th. WWF has an Australia PPV coming up soon in a 100,000-seat stadium. Stuff like this makes me wonder if WWF actually has a chance of packing that place) (12/7/18 UPDATE: ended up being 62,000ish thousand according to Meltzer).
- Other notes from the PPV: Hardyz/Lita vs. T&A/Trish was good and Dave thinks Lita has real potential to be a star and hero to the teenage girl audience since she's not portrayed in the same stereotypical way as the other divas, plus she's exciting in the ring and does some really cool moves. And Trish has real limited experience but she's clearly working hard to learn and isn't afraid to take some serious bumps and the whole thing was better than anyone could have hoped for her to be. Rikishi did a giant splash off the top of the cage and Dave suspects it may have damaged the ring because there was a slight metal clanging sound on every bump afterwards for the rest of the show. Undertaker treated Angle like a jobber and pinned him clean in a short, bad match and Dave is dumbfounded as to why they'd book Angle like such a geek after pushing him so hard up recently. And of course, as mentioned, Triple H/Jericho and Rock/Benoit were both fucking awesome. They teased a Dusty finish in the title match, with Benoit seemingly winning the title and the crowd started pelting the ring with garbage until Foley came out and restarted the match.
- Dave talks about the Urban Wrestling Federation doing their first TV tapings next month and talks about how difficult it's going to be for a new promotion, with no stars of any name value, to get off the ground. Dave lists most of their top "stars" and of course, they were all nobodies back then. But a few of them went on to have some fame. Orlando Jordan, Jimmy Snuka Jr. (Deuce), and Jorge Estrada (worked in TNA in the early days).
- There's a warrant out for the arrest of Jim Cornette for aggravated assault and disorderly conduct stemming from an incident last week in Knoxville. Cornette has had a longstanding beef with local Knoxville promoter Terry Landel dating back to the SMW days. Cornette was in town working a show for Ron Fuller's promotion and found out that Landel was running a free show just down the street in an effort to compete and hurt Fuller's show. So Cornette drove on over to Landel's show to let him know what he thought about it, as only Cornette can. Witness reports are varied but some said that Landel tried to spray Cornette with pepper spray, so Cornette went after him with a baseball bat. During the ensuing scuffle, Cornette reportedly hit someone else with the bat, while Cornette's girlfriend was attacking Landel. Then Cornette and his girlfriend tried to flee in their car and, half blind from pepper spray, Cornette apparently hit someone with his car on the way out. So as for now, cops are looking for Cornette but he's presumably already left town.
- Monday ratings were more of the same, except even better for WWF. The Rock/Kane vs. Benoit/Angle main event drew almost 10 million viewers, making it the 6th most watched match in the history of cable TV.
- We're going meta! Dave has a few notes about the future of the Observer newsletter. Much like people in wrestling companies struggle under the workload of so putting out much weekly material, Dave is in the same boat. Between putting out this weekly long ass newsletter, doing a daily online radio show, building the new Observer website and whatnot, his workload has gotten insane. He's been relying on other people to help him out with some of these things but he hints that a lot of people don't seem to have it in them to put in the long hours and work that the job entails. So he's been asking around to see what people like and dislike the most about the Observer so he can make some changes. He notes that the thing everyone seems to enjoy most about the Observer is the business analysis. You can get the news by itself anywhere, but the analysis and historical knowledge is the strongest stuff (and Dave admits it's the part he enjoys doing the most). He also notes that the Observer is available weekly online and Dave figured most subscribers would have switched to the online version by now since you get it instantly without worrying about the post office screwing it up or paying extra for postage, but it's been far fewer than he expected. Most people he's spoken too have said it's because they like collecting the old issues. The multiple pages of show results or detailed TV rundowns...those are probably going away since you can get that info anywhere and it's time consuming to write. He also says he may cut back on some of the MMA coverage since really, PRIDE is the only promotion in the world doing much of anything in that sport. If UFC ever gets back on their feet, he'll cover them more thoroughly but basically, Dave seems to be saying he's burned out and isn't going to waste time detailing every little trivial thing that ever happens. He wants to devote more time to analyzing the major stories since he often finds himself constrained by the 18-page limit. This is all still experimental, so if you have any suggestions, Dave is all ears.
- At the final AJPW show featuring all the NOAH wrestlers, Steve Williams (on behalf of AJPW) cut a promo challenging Misawa to a match. It was a grandstand challenge that Misawa was not privy to or involved with and obviously didn't happen. Afterwards, Williams tried to shake Misawa's hand, but Misawa refused and walked away. Anyway, needless to say things don't look great for AJPW right now. Their upcoming Korakuen Hall show isn't selling well at all and there's still tons of tickets left for such a small venue. Motoko Baba is hoping to just keep the company alive, at least until the 30 year anniversary which would be in 2002.
- Vader has picked his side and signed with NOAH. He will start with the company in October. For now, he is the only formerly-AJPW foreigner to choose NOAH.
- Dave saw a tape of the recent Genichiro Tenryu vs. Shinobu Kandori match. In case you're not aware, Kandori is female. It was a man vs. woman match and it was basically booked as a shoot. Tenryu mercilessly beat the shit out of this poor woman and Dave says it was really uncomfortable to watch. I can't find a video of this and frankly I'm not sure I even want to, but here's a (tiny) pic of Kandori afterwards and it's not pretty.
- Legendary announcer Gordon Solie is in rough shape lately due to throat cancer which has since spread to his brain. Dave notes that Solie is one of only 5 announcers in the Observer Hall of Fame. Several of his friends such as wrestlers Jack Brisco, Steve Keirn, and Brian Blair, along with baseball star Wade Boggs (may he rest in peace) went to visit him this week, pretty much to say goodbye. (Yeah, we get the Solie obituary in the next issue.)
- In the "Where Are They Now?" dept., Bob Orton Jr. is now 49 years old and says he's retired from wrestling for good after his match at the Heroes of Wrestling PPV last year. He's selling used cars near St. Louis. He says he doesn't like today's wrestling but noted that his 20-year-old son Randy has recently signed a WWF developmental deal (Bob, of course, returned to the ring for a few matches in 2005 and hasn't really stopped since. As I write this, he just worked a match on an indie show last month).
- XPW held another show in Los Angeles and were extremely paranoid that ECW fans in attendance might try to mess things up. Fans were told that any pro-ECW chants would get them ejected but they did hand out a bunch of pre-made anti-ECW and anti-Heyman signs. Four fans trying to start an ECW chant were indeed ejected. Rob Black cut a promo on Paul Heyman, saying they were going to sue ECW for what happened and ranted on for 10 minutes shooting on Heyman and ECW. Then they tried to get the crowd to chant "ECW sucks." Terry Funk was booked for the show and he's a pro so he went and worked it. But when he was in the ring, they tried to get him to participate in the anti-ECW hoopla and he refused, just standing in the corner and not saying a word. Many people who attended felt like it was a bad show and that the company was more concerned with bashing ECW than putting on a good product of their own.
- Tickets for ECW's Anarchy Rulz PPV in October are already on sale because WCW will be running Nitro in the same city the very next day. So ECW is trying to get an early jump on ticket sales to get ahead of WCW.
- At the latest TV tapings, ECW did an angle with Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan, who is a big wrestling fan. Corgan ended up smashing a guitar over Lou E. Dangerously's head and then Tommy Dreamer and Jerry Lynn came out to save Corgan from being attacked by the other heels. Corgan later got involved in the main event match and counted the pin. Speaking of the taping, New Jack, Da Baldies, Balls Mahoney, Dawn Marie, Mike Whipwreck, Sinister Minister, and others weren't flown in for the show due to budgetary reasons. Basically, they only flew in the handful of people they knew they needed to use.
- Early Bash at the Beach estimate put the buyrate at 0.19 which is, obviously, pretty bad. That number would net WCW around $1.2 million and more than half of it goes to Hogan, who as mentioned last week, gets $675,000 per show for working PPVs.
- WCW's 2-week streak of good Nitros ended with this week's episode. The only good match was Lance Storm winning the hardcore title, so now he has 2 belts. Dave recaps all of the show and man it just sounds so terrible. He also notes that Booker T is not getting over as champion, with fans only giving him a lukewarm response plus he got tossed around like a jobber by Goldberg in the main event which didn't help him any and pretty much established that Booker isn't in Goldberg's league.
- Thunder wasn't any better. It opened with Nash doing a "shoot" promo, breaking the 4th wall and talking about not putting people over and things like that, because WCW spends far too much time booking for the 2% of hardcore fans rather than the other 98% who don't understand all this insider bullshit. Nash is also still mentioning Scott Hall every week which leads Dave to believe that the Hall/Brad Siegel drama must be a work because if he's not coming back, why keep talking about him? (Nope, not a work. WCW was just....like that.) Dave also speculates that it might just be Nash going into business for himself, talking about Hall in all his promos in order to create a demand and force Siegel to bring him back (yup that's exactly what it turns out to be. Didn't work). Anyway, Dave says Siegel is in a tough spot here. If it's a work, he probably loses respect for being involved in an angle like this while once again working the boys and trying to pretend it's a shoot. And if it really is a shoot, then Siegel has to stay strong and stick to his guns, because if he relents and lets Hall come back, it sets the precedent that the wrestlers can walk all over him. Also on Thunder, Tank Abbott beat Great Muta clean in 90 seconds. Dave wonders how WCW would react if they sent Nash or Goldberg to Japan and NJPW had them to do a clean job to one of their lower card guys in 90 seconds. Muta clearly wasn't happy about it either, since he immediately got back up to his feet right after the pin. In other news, Kronik nearly killed Disco Inferno with their finisher and Konnan was on commentary for the match. Brian Adams was pissed at Konnan for something he said about them while doing commentary and the 2 almost got into a fight backstage. Dave blames Russo because he tells guys to go out there and get on the mic and shoot. And so they do, and then the people who are getting talked about get upset because they know it's a shoot and it's all just stupid and WCW is just stupid and Dave can't even anymore.
- WCW is hoping to only lose $30 million this year and if that happens, it will be considered a huge success. But as it stands, they're on pace to lose around $60 million if not more. Aside from Australia and UK tours, there are no other house shows booked from October onward.
- Remember Scott Steiner spazzing out backstage on Terry Taylor a few weeks ago? Well, he was suspended for 2 TV shows (so basically one week) with pay. His suspension earlier this year after the promo where he trashed Flair was also short and paid. "And people wonder why WCW has so many problems." Steiner has reportedly been warned that if they have one more problem out of him, he's gone but given how big of a push he's getting, Dave doesn't buy that for a second.
- With Hogan and Bischoff gone (remember, Bischoff left with Hogan), morale backstage was said to be the best it's been in awhile among the younger wrestlers, although there's still concern about guys like Nash or even Hall coming back. But that morale came crashing down quick with this week's house shows, with the crowds being so small that most of the wrestlers complained that they should have been cancelled instead of the guys having to go on the road to work in front of tiny crowds. Dave understands how they feel but says that in order to rebuild those markets, it's going to take WCW going there, doing shows, and putting in hard work in front of nothing crowds in order to regain fan trust. Complaining about performing in front of small crowds isn't going to make it better. Dave says if guys like Flair, Funk, Hogan, Piper, or Sammartino had balked at working in front of the occasional small crowd, they wouldn't be where they are today.
- The red-headed woman with Kiwi is Kathy Dingman, who used to be B.B in the WWF until recently getting released. She's engaged to Bob Holly and WCW is planning to try and make a play for him when his WWF contract expires. They were going to use April Hunter in the role, who was one of the NWO Girls earlier this year, but she has a website and apparently some of the pictures of her on it are so risque that people in WCW got cold feet about putting her on TV and went with Dingman instead.
- Random WCW notes: lots of rumors that Bobby Heenan's contract may not be renewed when it expires. Elix Skipper and Christopher Daniels are expected to start on TV soon as cruiserweights. Bret Hart was asked to appear at Nitro, but they didn't tell him until the last minute and he had already booked an acting gig for that day (he's taping a show called The Immortal starring Lorenzo Lamas) so he didn't go.
- Speaking of Bret, still no word on his medical tests but doctors believe he suffered as many as 5-7 concussions during a 2-week span which are the cause of his problems and it's still unknown if he'll ever wrestle again.
- Notes from Raw: Mick Foley came out and heavily put over the 2 big main events from the PPV the night before, calling them some of the greatest matches in WWF history, which leads Dave to point out how that's one of the differences between WWF and WCW. During their glory years, WCW occasionally had better matches than either of those WWF PPV matches, but they never emphasized it at the time, never followed up after, and thus nobody got over because it wasn't treated as important. "Does anyone recall the Juventud Guerrera vs. Blitzkrieg match?" Dave asks. That was one of the best WCW matches in years and those guys basically disappeared from TV without a mention immediately after. Anyway, back to Raw...a Saturn/Crash Holly match that was announced earlier in the show ended up never happening due to time constraints. Godfather lost a match against Bull Buchanan who is part of the Steven Richards censorship group and therefore he can no longer bring the hos to the ring, which is a clever way to eliminate that controversial part of the show and put the heat for it on a heel. Lita is really over and came across as a big star. Dave also randomly notes that he's a huge fan of Edge & Christian these days.
- Dave got a look at some OVW tapes and is here to give his thoughts on some of WWF's developmental talent. Shelton Benjamin, in his first 2 matches, was green but clearly has tons of athletic potential. Mark Henry is in OVW right now after being told to lose another 50 pounds and Dave feels like they're trying to get him to quit so they can get out of their 10-year contract with him. They debuted a new wrestler named Leviathan, who's real name is Dave Bautista. He's actually been in OVW for months but had a torn bicep and just really started wrestling again. Dave thinks he looks like Warlord but hopes for his sake that he's a better worker (he is).