Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 13, 2000

Talks between WWF and WCW over purchasing the company have broken down. During the initial talks, Dave says there was some concern from Viacom, which owns a 2.3% share of WWF, who were unhappy about the deal because it would mean WWF would be providing programming to rival cable networks TNT and TBS (keep in mind, at the time all this was going on, Turner still wanted WCW on their channels. So if this sale had happened, WWF would have been obligated to continue running WCW as a separate brand). There were a lot of other issues remaining also, particularly Turner wanting whoever buys the company to also take over all of WCW's other various deals that still need to be honored. If you recall, WCW has a tendency to kinda make really stupid business deals, like signing multi-million dollar agreements with Gene Simmons for KISS crossovers and shit, just to name one example. WWF doesn't want to inherit those dumb deals and be forced to honor them. WWF also wanted control over the advertising time, which is a deal they have with Viacom that is somewhat unusual in television and Turner wasn't going for that. WWF also wanted to cut WCW down to 1 prime time show per week, most likely on the Wednesday Thunder time slot (to avoid competing against themselves on Raw) and also wanted to cut back on the number of WCW PPVs. Turner didn't like that either, as they want to keep the 4 hours of weekly programming they have now. Overall, there seems to be a big disagreement between WWF and Turner over the value of the "WCW" brand.
Right now, it's looking like WCW's future is headed one of two ways. Either a group, led by Eric Bischoff, will purchase the company, or Turner will maintain ownership while cutting costs down to the bare essentials. If it's the latter, the cost-cutting would involve terminating a lot of the wrestlers who are under contracts that have 90-day cycles and then rehire them back at a lower deal. Considering the wrestlers wouldn't have much leverage (WWF isn't interested in most of them and even the ones they do, they aren't gonna match what WCW pays), they'd pretty much have no choice but to take the lower deals. There were rumors previously that Bischoff had pulled out of the negotiations, but they seem to still be going after all and a lot of people are saying that Bischoff and his group are indeed still interested, especially now that WWF is out of the picture.
ECW's latest PPV November To Remember is in the books and Dave says it may as well have been called The Night of the Blade. Now that they don't have a TV deal anymore, ECW went back to their "extreme" roots with a violent, bloody show. It was a disappointing crowd of 4,600, with only 2,600 paid. WCW had Nitro in the same city the next day and they actually outdrew ECW, which was a surprise because ECW had been regularly outdrawing WCW until now. The show also seemed like it was booked on the fly, with no real structure or long-term planning and ended with Steve Corino being crowned the new ECW champion. It's the 2nd title change in a month and Dave thinks ECW has missed the boat on putting the belt on RVD. For years, there have been good reasons to hold off. The money was always in the chase and there was no point in making RVD the champion before they got a national TV deal. But then he was injured and missed several months and then they lost the TV deal. There's been so many hot-shot title changes, to guys who the fans don't buy as credible champions (Justin Credible, Jerry Lynn, and Steve Corino, all of whom are great talents, but none of them are seen by ECW fans as true top stars). And now, the title feels devalued and RVD's quest to win the belt doesn't really feel like it means much anymore. Basically, they waited too long to pull the trigger. RVD wasn't even on this show since he's still in Thailand filming a movie (Dave still doesn't seem to know at this point that RVD has already quit the company over being owed so much money).
Other notes from November to Remember: the first match of the show had no announcing for the first 3 minutes. Dave's not sure if it was an experiment or technical problems, but if it was an experiment, it didn't work. Cyrus ended up doing commentary solo for a bit and seemed uncomfortable doing it. Joey Styles finally showed up for the 2nd match to save the show. Chris Chetti lost a loser-leaves-town match to Nova, because Chetti has recently signed a WWF developmental deal and is on his way out (his WWF deal ends up not panning out and he'll be back in a couple of months). Angel of Da Baldies was powerbombed through a flaming table and suffered 2nd degree burns to the back of his head.
Before the ECW PPV, Sinister Minister was seriously injured backstage. They had this little gun thing that shoots fireballs or something that they were going to use for the show. Minister was playing around with it and it went off, leaving a bullet-sized hole in his stomach, tearing off a piece of his thumb and forefinger, and badly burning his left hand. It also apparently cut an artery and he started going into shock. He was rushed to the hospital and had surgery which fortunately saved him from losing his hand. And the shrapnel in his stomach didn't hit any internal organs. It's believed he'll need a nerve transplant in his hand due to nerve damage. On the PPV, Paul Heyman came up with an excuse for him not being there, saying the FBI had attacked him backstage and cut off one of his fingers in a mafia-like hit. A lot of people in the company thought that was in pretty poor taste.
Dave has read Goldberg's new book, "I'm Next" and is here to give us his review. Before getting into that, he says it's a shame this wasn't published 2 years earlier because WCW nor Goldberg are anywhere near as hot now as they were in, say, 1998 when this book would have likely been a monster bestseller. Anyway, it's basically a decently-written fluff book that tells Goldberg's life story. If you're looking for depth, you'll be disappointed, but Goldberg comes across as very honest in it. He is well aware of his shortcomings as a wrestler and how much of his career has been due to his being fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. He makes it clear he can't call a match and says that when he looks good in the ring, it's because someone else is carrying him. He even talks about his secret loss, before he debuted on Nitro, when he lost a dark match to Chad Fortune. So he was never really undefeated even before the streak started. He even downplays his own success in football. Dave compares the book to the Rock's book, saying they have somewhat similar stories. But Rock, who was a fringe player in college, was never a starter, and couldn't even make it into the CFL tried to portray himself as a huge star in college football. Goldberg, on the other hand, was a second-team All-American who spent several years in the CFL and the NFL, portrayed himself honestly, as someone who worked hard but ultimately wasn't quite elite enough of a player to achieve his dreams in football. He's pretty straight forward on his opinions of others. He likes Rick and Scott Steiner. He acknowledges that Kevin Nash is manipulative, but says he still likes him and that Nash has helped him. The only person he really seems to have a problem with is Scott Hall, due to his outside the ring behavior and writes that Hall treats other people badly. The one surprising story is, when he was negotiation with WCW, they were moving too slow and apparently, he was flown to Stamford and met with Vince and had even made a verbal agreement to go to WWF. But before he signed a contract, WCW finally came back to him with an offer and he chose to stick with WCW instead. Dave says WWF never would have pushed him, as a rookie, the way WCW did, so he obviously made the right decision. He was careful not to personally criticize Vince Russo (since, at the time the book was written, Russo was his boss), although he made it clear he didn't like the direction the company had moved in and criticized some of the booking decisions. Overall, Dave enjoyed it more as the story of an NFL player who didn't quite achieve glory rather than as a wrestling book, and found that stuff more interesting. But at the very least, Goldberg comes across as honest and humble and you won't feel like you're having your intelligence insulted if you read it.
Misawa is talking about trying to get Shinya Hashimoto to work an upcoming NOAH show in December. Normally, this wouldn't be possible politically but NJPW is doing an angle where Hashimoto is allegedly fired/quit the company so they may let him work the show to get the angle over (Hashimoto does indeed work the show....because he really was fired. Not an angle. But Dave doesn't appear to know that yet).
Bret Hart appeared on Jim Rome's show last week and there was some interesting stuff in this one. Bret talked about how dangerous wrestling has gotten and said when he started, wrestlers referred to fans as marks and said the goal was to pretend to be hurt to make the fans believe it. But now, Bret says the wrestlers are the marks because everyone is hurting themselves for real to impress the fans. When talking about the Owen Hart case, Bret claimed that the company WWF originally asked to do the rigging for the stunt refused to do it because they said it was too dangerous (a single cable, no backup cable, and a quick release button). They later got another company to do it, with a cable that was meant to release the sails on sailboats and wasn't meant to hold a human being. Needless to say, that's a pretty huge accusation that hadn't been previously disclosed and likely would have been a key issue in court if the case hadn't been settled before going to trial. Dave says it speaks volumes about why WWF was willing to pay a truckload of money to settle this out of court. Because if WWF really did go to a different company because the first company told them it was too dangerous, that makes a pretty strong case for negligence on their part. Jim Rome, who hates wrestling anyway, was extremely negative in everything he said about Vince McMahon and the WWF.
In regards to whether the show should have gone on after Owen's death, Bret obviously disagreed with the decision. He said, "Owen would not have wanted this show to go on. I don't think if you look at anyone with any common sense in their family, no one would have wanted the show to go on. If Vince McMahon would have dropped Shane McMahon from the ceiling and he splattered on the mat, I don't think he would have scraped him off the mat and sent the next match out. I actually know first-hand from the wrestlers involved, they wheeled my dead brother right past all the wrestlers and actually pushed wrestlers out the door and said, 'Go, go, go you're on.' That is really insensitive and really cold." Bret said Owen knew about the stunt days beforehand and didn't want to do it. Before he left his house to go to Kansas City, he had told Martha he wasn't going to do it. Bret doesn't know why Owen changed his mind.
Hey, speaking of Bret Hart, Dynamite Kid has chimed in on Hart being forced to retire: "Apparently Bret Hart has just announced his retirement. In his farewell speech he talked about a ladder match we had in Stampede back in the early 80s. I remember that match as well. I remember all our matches, taped fist matches, mixed boxing and wrestling matches. We both gave 100 percent and had the people up off their seats. They loved it. And to tell the truth, so did we. But I can't deny it was those kind of hard matches that put me in a wheelchair. I see people like Steve Austin, who get injured but come back to wrestling anyway, and I can't understand why any wrestler would want to end up in the same position as me. All said and done, you can't turn back time. Bret made the right decision to retire. I hope he has the sense to keep it that way."
Cherie Dupre, the former wife of the original Gorgeous George, passed away this week at age 73. Dupre is thought to be the first ever valet in the history of professional wrestling, accompanying George to the ring during the later years of his career and getting involved in the storylines. As part of an angle in 1959, Dupre had her head shaved after George lost a hair vs. hair match, making her the first woman to have her head shaved in a pro wrestling angle. She divorced George just a year before he died in 1963.
Following Bob Backlund's failed bid for state Congress in Connecticut, Dave mentions that he actually had some funny campaign TV commercials, including one of him standing in a field with some guy shoveling horse shit all over his feet or something. Backlund ended up receiving 30% of the votes, running as a Republican (this isn't the horse shit commercial. I can't find it. But here's a different one with alternate takes, and holy shit it's hilarious).
WATCH: Bob Backlund congressional campaign commercial
Notes from Nitro: better show than normal thanks to a hot Chicago crowd, because Chicago is basically the strongest market in the U.S. for pro wrestling. Lex Luger cut a promo spending a long time making fun of Mark Madden's physique. It was unscripted and Madden had no idea it was coming and Dave says it's yet another example of people in WCW going into business for themselves with no repercussions. DDP made his return, to a huge pop, but then started cutting a promo repeatedly using terms like "it's a shoot" and "this is for real" which, just.....ugh. They had a segment with some WCW wrestlers confronting the stars of the Battledome show at ringside (Terry Crews!). Speaking of people going into business for themselves, Kevin Nash has stopped for now. Apparently he sees the writing on the wall for WCW and is trying to be on his best behavior now in case he ends up needing a job soon. WWF won't put up with that unprofessional shit the way WCW does, so he's being good now and even did a job to Booker T, although it wasn't clean of course. It involved Shawn Stasiak running in, and for the last couple of weeks, it seems WCW is getting behind Stasiak. Dave thinks WCW has the right idea of getting behind a young star and letting them interact with the main eventers. That's how you get people over and it's something WCW should have started doing 3 years ago instead of now. But of all the young talent on their roster, he's baffled why they picked Stasiak of all people. He's tall and has a good physique but beyond that, the guy doesn't have much else.
There's a lot of controversy over Vampiro's medical condition right now and Dave wouldn't be surprised if it turns into a legal issue. Vampiro suffered a severe concussion at the PPV and had numbness in his hand the next day, which he told the WCW trainers about. But even though they knew that, he was still pressured to work a tag match that night on Nitro, where he ended up suffering a 2nd concussion. WCW officials were said to be skeptical of it, since people in the company are known to fake injuries for time off (yay for guaranteed contracts!) and Vampiro just had a baby so he has reason to want to stay home. But later in the week, Vampiro was examined by neurosurgery doctors and was indeed diagnosed with a concussion and told not to do any work or even any light training for at least a month and didn't know when he could return to the ring.
A week or two ago on Nitro, they did some big thing after General Rection (Hugh Morrus/Bill DeMott) won the U.S. title and the whole locker room came out and clapped for him and Goldberg cut a promo putting him over. The reason is because it was WCW's way of basically apologizing to him. DeMott has been extremely unhappy lately, feeling he had given up so much physically for no reward. He's talked in the past about having so many concussions that his doctors have told him to retire and he can't read street signs and has problems going up stairs. But WCW never rewarded him for what he's done, despite promises in the past to push him and give him title runs. So he was almost ready to quit and try his luck in Japan, since he's had success there in the past. DeMott is well-liked backstage and so putting the U.S. title on him and having the locker room come out to show appreciation for him was WCW's way of trying to make it right.
Roddy Piper has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against WCW. Piper had a contract that stipulated he would work a certain number of matches, with a very high payday for each match. He still had a couple of matches left on the deal. But WCW released him, claiming he was injured for longer than 90 days and unable to get cleared to wrestle after a torn bicep he suffered late last year. The thing is, Piper continued working and making appearances after he tore his bicep and then he had it fixed and was ready to go soon after. But WCW wanted him to take a full physical to get cleared to return, all the while knowing that doctors would never clear him due to his artificial hip. Thing is, Piper never had to get a physical before and for the entire 4 or so years that he's been with WCW, he's worked every match on that artificial hip and WCW never cared before. Anyway, Dave also mentions that Piper is working on writing a book and that he recently considered running for Prime Minister of Canada as a publicity stunt but "thankfully he was talked out of it."
Several WCW wrestlers have been reaching out to Eddie Guerrero, to see if he can get them hired in WWF. Guerrero told Juventud Guerrera to lay low and stay out of trouble for a few months because WWF won't even consider him right now after the incident in Australia. Guerrero also said that the first person he's going to go to bat for is his nephew Chavo, when his WCW deal expires next summer.
Various WCW notes: it's believed Vince Russo will return at next week's TV tapings. There's talk about what to do with Torrie Wilson since WCW is in cost-cutting mode and she has a $250,000-per-year deal which is far more than any other woman in the company. Several front office employees resigned over the weekend, leading to a lot of paranoia among the wrestlers since the office people are the ones who would know what WCW's real situation is and if they're jumping ship, it can't be a good sign. Goldberg is working on a pulled hamstring. WCW is putting together a deal with the NWA Wildside promotion to act as a developmental territory, similar to what OVW is for WWF. The R&B Security group that has been following Vince Russo around on TV was a bunch of Power Plant wrestlers who were being paid $1000 per week for the role, but that has since been cut also.
Bobby Heenan was told this week that his contract won't be renewed when it comes up for the next 90-day cycle. He was making $300,000-per-year and the only thing he does these days is voiceovers for the World Wide show that nobody watches. Heenan is thought to be interested in returning to WWF if they would have him.
Hulk Hogan's WCW contract expires in March and it's believed he will be starting up some kind of deal with FOX. Hogan has apparently been reaching out to Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior to be involved with it as well. But of course, this could all change if Bischoff ends up buying and taking control of WCW, in which case Hogan would likely return with him.
ICP was on Howard Stern and said they quit WCW to focus on their music and also because they refused to go along with an angle where they were asked to turn on each other.
Triple H suffered what's thought to possibly be a serious hip injury. He took a backbreaker from Kane and heard a pop. He had a big role on Raw the next night, where he was scheduled to turn heel again, so he still showed up and did his angle and he even took part in the 10-man tag main event.
Notes from Raw: this show took place the night before the Presidential election. Vince McMahon returned at the start of the show, encouraging fans to get out and vote and hyping WWF's Smackdown Your Vote thing. Vince was careful not to endorse any specific candidate. But they got the message across later in the show. During an RTC match, in what felt like a scripted routine, Jim Ross asked Lawler who he was voting for. Lawler responded that he would never vote for Al Gore because him and his VP candidate Joe Lieberman could be card-carrying members of the RTC (Lieberman is indeed on the advisory board of the Parents Television Council). Ross then did a little fake apology, "Lawler's views are his own" kinda thing, but then followed that up by pretty much saying he agreed with Lawler. So yeah, despite the "non-partisan" vote registration campaign, WWF made it pretty clear that they want their fans to go out and vote for George W. Bush. Anyway, in other news....Mona from WCW debuted as Molly Holly, coming out with Crash so they will apparently be re-paired with Bob Holly when he returns next week. Dave thinks the name and gimmick is a little too dumb and cutesy and too early-90s where we had gimmicks like T.L. Hopper and Freddy Joe Floyd. And of course, Triple H turned heel and revealed he was actually the one behind running over Austin.
This leads to Dave talking about how WWF is kinda lacking in good heels right now. Benoit has been devalued by reuniting him with the Radicalz in a midcard position. Rikishi just isn't clicking at all as a heel, which is probably why they switched to Triple H being behind the whole running-over-Austin thing in the first place and already had Austin beat him clean in a match on Raw. Kurt Angle is great but even though he's WWF champion, he's still being booked like a cowardly geek which isn't going to help him be seen as a legit threat or top draw.
Various WWF notes: it's expected that Davey Boy Smith will be fired soon (yup). The Naked Miedon gimmick is being dropped but Dennis Knight will still be kept around. Christian has seen 3 doctors about the stinger he suffered at No Mercy. All the doctors said they didn't think the injury was serious and the MRI showed no herniation of a disc or spinal cord problems so he dodged a bullet on that one, although he's not yet 100%.
There was talk of bringing back Scott Hall now that he's a free agent, but the reaction from almost everyone in the company was extremely negative to the idea. The wrestlers, the agents, even the front office were all opposed to bringing him back, so it won't be happening for now. It was said that even if Hall was clean and had his life together, he's still 42 years old and isn't really the kind of star they're looking to push these days. When you factor in his reputation for being a disruptive locker room cancer and his obvious personal issues, there's just no interest.
Last week it was mentioned that Rock won't be working any house shows in November. Turns out he won't be working any in December either, for the same reason. Basically, they're giving him some much-needed time off since he was carrying the company for most of the year during Austin and Undertaker's absences. With them both back on the road, Rock is getting a break.
Latest OVW weigh-ins had Big Show at 443 lbs while Mark Henrey was 348 lbs. Speaking of, Big Show was fined one week's salary recently for missing a weigh-in. Considering one week's salary for Big Show is nearly $20,000, that was a costly weigh-in to miss.