October 23, 2000
- There has never been a scarier time to be a full-time pro wrestler in the United States, as the futures of WCW and ECW are both up in the air. The possibility of WWF purchasing WCW became a lot more likely this week after reports that Eric Bischoff and his Mandalay Sports group had pulled themselves out of the running. If WWF buys WCW, the belief is that they will run it as a separate company for awhile and ultimately do an inter-promotional feud at some point down the road. But there's a lot of roadblocks in the way of a WWF/WCW deal, much of it to do with contracts. A lot of WCW wrestlers are on contracts that are re-evaluated every 90 days, which means they could be terminated and Vince, who would have all the negotiating leverage, could re-negotiate deals for a lot less money. With ECW being unable to afford anyone, Dave suspects there's going to be a lot of high-paid WCW wrestlers who might be about to undergo a major change in their lifestyles if this deal happens. Then there's the top stars who have major guaranteed deals without the 90-day clauses like Kevin Nash or Sting who are making more in WCW than everyone in WWF. Vince isn't going to want to bring them in under those terms and upset the pay scale within WWF. Same with Goldberg, who has a huge guaranteed deal with 3 years left on it. Dave speculates that TBS might help buy those contracts out in order to quickly facilitate the sale but that's just a guess. Anyway, Bischoff and his group had months of negotiations with WCW but they seemingly fell apart this week for reasons unknown. WWF CEO Stuart Snyder and some WWF lawyers had meetings with TBS officials this week and those close to the negotiations tell Dave they figure it's a near-certainty that McMahon will buy the company. So far there haven't been any meetings or discussions between McMahon and Ted Turner themselves and it's not expected that there will be.
- In the midst of all this contract discussion, Dave casually mentions that WCW released Scott Hall a couple of weeks ago, claiming breach of contract due to his unprofessional behavior from the overseas tour back in February. And he never mentions it again in this issue. Soooo...right on. Seems like a big deal to gloss over after months of "will-he/won't-he be brought back?" but whatever I guess.
- There's a lot of unrest in the WWF locker room about all these WCW rumors. Everyone realizes that competition is good for the wrestlers and if Vince buys WCW, that kills all the negotiating leverage for everybody when contracts come due. There's a very limited number of top spots within a single company, and if Vince owns everything, that creates a lot more competition for those top spots. The key to this is that TBS and TNT want to retain the prime time programming no matter who buys WCW and McMahon seems like the obvious choice if they want someone who can rebuild WCW and deliver ratings. So while this might end up sucking for the wrestlers, selling the show to Vince might be the best business move for Turner. At least in the short term. In the long-term, Dave thinks Vince owning everything is nothing short of disastrous for the industry. It also kills any chance of anyone ever starting a union (which never had much of a chance anyway).
- If this deal happens, it will give McMahon a near-monopoly on the wrestling industry in North America, which is something he has been striving for since he took over the company from his father nearly 2 decades ago. It almost happened in 1988, when Jim Crockett Promotions was on the verge of bankruptcy, but even then, there were a couple of fledgling territories still hanging on (much like ECW is now). This time, Turner is trying to drop WCW because the AOL/Time Warner merger is looming and they need to get WCW off the books because it's a huge money-loser. Dave thinks if Vince buys WCW, it will solidify his position as the most powerful man in the industry and that will probably go unchallenged for many years. With WWF's market share and and leverage, it will be virtually impossible for any new company to start over from scratch and actually become any kind of competition to WWF. In fact, he compares it to how difficult it would be for a start-up football league to try to compete against the NFL. You'd have to be crazy!
- Then you have to consider the futures of some people in particular. Certainly, Bret Hart and Lex Luger's careers would be in grave jeopardy. Bret is under WCW contract through Nov. 2002 although his career is already questionable anyway if he ends up having to retire due to his head injuries, which is heavily rumored. As for Luger, he left the WWF with no notice in 1995 and almost certainly won't be welcomed back and, at 42 years old, his options are limited. Same for Vince Russo, who isn't likely to be welcomed back into the WWF fold. What about Hogan or Bischoff? They might end up being under contract to Vince McMahon if he buys WCW, since they still technically have contracts. WWF is likely not going to incorporate much of WCW's office staff, so all the advertising, licensing, marketing, and merchandising people would probably be looking for new jobs. Do they keep Nitro on Mondays or move it to a new night so it doesn't cut into Raw ratings anymore? And on and on. Long story short, if WWF buys WCW, there's a million questions that will need to be figured out.
- Despite WWF's offer to waive their exclusivity deal through the end of the year, ECW and TNN couldn't reach an agreement. As a result, ECW has now been cancelled on TNN. Heyman held a meeting at a house show with the talent and told them the news. He said the PPV schedule will continue as planned. It's believed some house shows that don't have strong advance ticket sales may be cancelled. Heyman explained his difficulties in getting the company a new TV deal, saying there are offers on the table that he could take, but that just getting on TV is the least of their problems. They need someone willing to pump money into the company, not just put it on TV and he said that signing a bad TV deal would doom the company. Needless to say, the ECW roster is worried and many of them have privately reached out to WWF and WCW. But right now, WCW is in a hiring freeze and WWF has told people that they won't negotiate with anyone without Heyman's approval. So there's really nowhere for the ECW wrestlers to go. Obviously, the odds of Heyman pulling this off and keeping the company alive look bleak, but he's been in this position before and managed to save ECW from what appeared to be certain death at the last minute. As for why the ECW and TNN negotiations fell apart, there were lots of things. For starters, there's obviously bad blood on both sides. TNN feels entitled to a percentage of ECW's PPV revenue, while ECW obviously disputes that. ECW has also bitterly complained that TNN never promoted them well. ECW also wanted more commercial time during the 1-hour show to sell ads to make more revenue, but TNN wouldn't go for that. Lots of things added up to all this basically. So finally, talks broke off and TNN officially canceled ECW without warning.
- To make matters worse, the day after TNN pulled the plug on ECW, the Parents Television Council decided to get involved, issuing a press release regarding ECW's ongoing negotiations with USA Network and declaring that ECW is even worse than WWF when it comes to inappropriate content. That really sucks because USA president Barry Diller is known to be concerned about the political climate surrounding television content and the PTC turning their attention towards USA is likely to give them serious reservations about making a deal with ECW, especially after all the headaches they have caused WWF for the last year.
- Dave has finally seen the NJPW/AJPW Tokyo Dome show with Toshiaki Kawada defeating Kensuke Sasaki in the main event. Even though he lost, Dave thinks it's the first time Sasaki has truly come across as the star NJPW wants him to be. Sasaki has headlined the Tokyo Dome before and was the IWGP champion, but he was never over the way guys like Muto, Hashimoto, or Chono are. He also doesn't have a reputation as a great worker and has never really been accepted as the top star. But in this, the biggest match of both of their careers, Sasaki delivered and then some. Both men practically killed themselves with a brutally stiff match that got over huge. In-ring wise, it wasn't the best match of the year but for drama and emotion and storytelling, it was up there with Foley/Triple H and Atlantis/Villano III. Dave gives it 4.25 stars which honestly feels low considering how heavily he praised it. Probably would have been 5 if it happened in the Toky.....oh. Never mind.
- WATCH: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kensuke Sasaki (AJPW vs. NJPW)
- Raw this week did its lowest regular time slot rating since 1998. Nitro didn't pick up the difference though, with Nitro also doing its lowest rating since the early days of the show back in 1995 with a 2.33 rating. The total number of homes watching wrestling this past Monday was 7.6 million which is the lowest non-holiday total in years. Dave doesn't know what to blame. The Monday Night Football game rating was below its usual number too, so it probably wasn't that. Raw is obviously suffering the effects of recently moving to a lower-rated network but still. The Olympics are over so you can't blame that either. A Mets/Cardinals playoff game did a bad rating too. So who knows. Basically, everything was down on Monday, not just wrestling. Well, everything but Everybody Loves Raymond which did monster numbers. But Dave does give some details on demographics, in case you're curious. The average Raw viewer is a 26-year-old male, while the average Nitro viewer is a 35-year-old male. Another fun fact, when Raw began, a staggering 44% of Nitro viewers changed channel and flipped over to Raw. One other interesting stat, network and cable ratings are figured differently because of the availability. So even though Smackdown's ratings numbers are lower than Raw, it turns out Smackdown actually gets more viewers. So in case you were wondering, Smackdown is WWF's most watched show, not Raw.
- Mitsuharu Misawa has started to show how Pro Wrestling NOAH is different from other companies, and this week, the promotion started doing classic American-style booking, with run-ins, blading, and DQ finishes. AJPW pretty much banned blading back in 1990 (although Abdullah The Butcher was still allowed to do it occasionally since that's his entire gimmick) so it was a big deal to see it come back in NOAH. One of Misawa's big complaints in AJPW that led to friction with he and Motoko Baba was because Misawa wanted to modernize the promotion, while Mrs. Baba wanted to keep things the same old traditional way they had always been.
- Akira Maeda talked about Alexander Karelin's upset loss at the Olympics and actually tried to take credit for it in a recent interview. Remember, Maeda and Karelin had a "shoot" (*ahem*) fight in RINGS back in 1999 and Maeda said that the damage to Karelin's legs from Maeda's kicks in that fight may have contributed to his loss in the Olympics this year. Hey, might as well try to get yourself over, I guess.
- Speaking of Karelin, the guy who beat him, Rulon Gardner has said he likely won't do professional wrestling after all. He says he's been getting offers every day, including a $1 million contract offer and $250,000 to work 1 PPV, but turned them down because he feels he can still do more for amateur wrestling and wants to stick to that. Dave talks about how pro wrestling is frowned upon by most people in the amateur wrestling world and how even Kurt Angle's history is almost ignored by many amateur wrestling publications because of his decision to go to WWF.
- In Abruzzo, Italy, the place where Bruno Sammartino was born, they are renaming an arena there as the Bruno Sammartino Coliseum. They are also declaring the house he was born in to be a historical landmark, meaning it can't be torn down.
- A documentary called Wrestling At The Chase, about the history of St. Louis wrestling, won a Mid-American Emmy Award for best special program or something. Dave says if you're a fan of old-time wrestling, you should go out of your way to see this. I posted it in one of the issues last year, but here it is again.
- WATCH: Wrestling At The Chase
- Randy Savage filed a lawsuit against a Seattle porn producer because he's marketing a tape of Savage's ex-girlfriend Stephanie Bellers and advertising it under her WCW name of Gorgeous George. Turns out Savage bought the rights to the Gorgeous George name years ago, originally to give to his brother Lanny, but ended up using it for his girlfriend instead. Savage feels like using the name to promote porn damages the value of the trademark he owns (it sounds like this is different from the masturbation video she later did around this same time, but who knows). Speaking of Bellars, after a short-lived stint in ECW, she is back to working as a stripper, which she used to do before meeting Savage and going to WCW.
- All Pro Wrestling in San Francisco debuted a wrestler named Dalip Singh who is said to be around 7 feet tall and 400 pounds, with a body like Lex Luger (that would be Great Khali. And yeah, early in his career, he was shredded).
- Ted Dibiase's son is the starting quarterback for his Clinton, MS high school football team. The team is undefeated and ranked #1 in the state (that would be Dibiase Jr., prior to becoming a wrestler himself after leaving college his freshmen year).
- Now that Juventud Guerrera has been fired by WCW (more on that in a bit), the natural expectation is that he would go to ECW. But Paul Heyman says he loves Guerrera's talent but right now, they aren't in a position to bring in new stars. If they get a new TV deal and influx of cash, then maybe, but with most of the current roster behind on pay, Heyman feels it would be a slap in their face to sign anyone new.
- RVD had the weekend off because he was filming a movie in Thailand (some shit called Black Mask 2). RVD is also expected to miss shows this coming weekend (he'll be missing a lot more than that, but we'll get to that soon). Speaking of missing shows, ECW had a couple of shows in Virginia and couldn't afford to fly everybody in. So they asked the crew to drive in, but told them it was optional and wouldn't be held against them if they didn't go. Big Sal and Balls Mahoney are the only ones who didn't go.
- WCW officially fired Juventud Guerrera after the incident in Australia last week. Dave agrees with the decision. As talented as Guerrera is, you can't have guys doing PCP, stripping naked, and fighting the police. There's a lot of people in the company who feel like there's a double standard because there's lots of wild shit that goes on on the road that top stars are never punished for, but Dave says while that may be true, you still can't defend Guerrera here. ECW can't afford to hire him and Dave doubts WWF is going to bring him in considering why he was fired from WCW, so his American prospects look pretty dim right now. He can work in Mexico and probably be a big star but there's no money in it there, not compared to what he was making in WCW (and he had just signed a new contract). He could probably get some tours of Japan, but again, not even in the same ballpark money-wise. Dave thinks his best bet is to sit out for 6 months, behave himself and maybe WCW will take him back if he stays out of trouble. But if WWF ends up buying the company, that probably won't work either. No matter how you slice it, Guerrera really screwed himself out of a lot of money.
- Notes from WCW Nitro: it was the show in Melbourne, Australia and was fine, but it felt like watching a lame duck promotion. Johnny The Bull somehow broke his foot on a monkey flip spot right at the beginning of his match. They immediately went to the finish. He'll be out for about 6 weeks. Scott Steiner did commentary at one point but Dave has no idea what he said because 60% of it was bleeped out. He also spent half the time making a lot of mean-spirited comments about Torrie Wilson that were ridiculously unprofessional and says that's the difference between the 2 companies and that Scott's behavior would never be tolerated in WWF.
- WCW is doing an angle with stars from the TV show Battledome. It started with WCW wrestlers like DDP, Buff Bagwell, Rick Steiner and Ernest Miller showing up to the Battledome set and doing some stuff. Battledome stars are expected to appear on Nitro soon to continue the angle (this is only important because it gives us Terry Crews in WCW).
- At a talent meeting at Nitro, the wrestlers were instructed on things they could no longer say on TV. Specifically, Konnan had a lot of his act taken away. No more references to tossing salads, Richard Gere and gerbils, etc. Basically, they don't want anymore homophobic comments on the show.
- There were settlement talks in the Owen Hart lawsuit this week in Kansas City with Vince and Linda McMahon and their lawyers meeting face-to-face with Martha, Stu, and Helen Hart and their lawyers. Both sides made settlement offers but they were far apart. They tried to negotiate, but Martha's anger was evident and she ended up going off on Vince and the whole thing broke down from there. It appears that this case is probably going to end up going to trial.
- Undertaker had gall bladder surgery and will be out for several weeks. They hope he'll be back by Survivor Series though he'll likely be on TV before then.
- Notes from WWF Raw: Eddie Guerrero got injured in the opening match on....yup, a monkey flip, much like Johnny The Bull on Nitro. Jericho was trying to keep the match going and Eddie rolled out of the ring to buy himself some time and then back in to get away from Jericho when he came after him, clearly not ready to keep going. He seemed to have somehow injured his leg on the ropes and the referee stopped the match when he saw Eddie limping badly. After what happened with Paul Orndorff a few weeks ago, Dave is glad to see them not take chances with injuries (Eddie ended up missing, like, 2 weeks but he was fine). Also on the show, the 2 guys playing the Los Conquistadores were actually Christopher Daniels and Aaron Aguilera.
- Vince McMahon attended a Hollywood luncheon event and made some news when he talked about Hollywood needing to fight back against people like Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman in regards to their complaints about Hollywood marketing adult entertainment to children. Vince also talked about the rumors of buying WCW, saying it was a possibility, which is the first time he has publicly acknowledged the issue. He also said WWF will be producing a TV series called Manhunt.
- A follow up on the story from last week about Rock's father Rocky Johnson and things look a lot worse this week. Johnson was the subject of an investigation by the town's parks & recreation director at the youth camp where Johnson worked. This whole thing is complicated though because apparently Johnson is tight with the town's mayor and the town administrator kept taking information out of the report or some such shit. It's all confusing mess. Anyway, Johnson was suspended from his job and the investigation was turned over to police. But then, some of the people involved in the investigation ended up getting fired I guess? I dunno, Dave's explanation of all this is convoluted as hell. Anyway, one female camp employee claims Johnson groped her ass on 2 occasions, as well as asking her to take her shirt off. He also had another woman who didn't work there hang out with him in a back room, apparently having sex while on the job and was once interrupted by another employee while he was getting oral sex from the woman. A 16-year-old girl saw him shirtless and getting a massage from the same woman. And he's accused of asking a 12-year-old girl to play strip poker. He wore a t-shirt that said "Puta" on it (Spanish for "bitch") in front of children and apparently made a comment about the size of his dick in front of some kids. He also left several children unsupervised in a training room while they wrestled and boxed, and some kids got hurt. Johnson of course denies it and those close to him say he didn't do anything to or around any kids. As far as the women, Johnson was described by a friend as "one of the good ol' boys" who grew up in a different time and thinks it's still okay for him to talk to women in a certain way. This whole story is a mess. There's some other shit about town officials covering up some money deals, the mayor's involvement, etc.
- Various WWF notes: Stephanie McMahon is now heavily involved in writing the TV shows. Brock Lesnar made his TV debut in OVW in a tag team match with Shelton Benjamin against Sean Casey & Chris Michaels. Nora Greenwald (Mona from WCW) debuted in a dark match at the Raw tapings.