December 04, 2000
- ECW is in such turmoil right now that that Paul Heyman at first didn't want to even announce a card for this weekend's Massacre on 34th Street PPV because he doesn't know what wrestlers will appear. Most of the wrestlers and employees weren't paid again this week, which now puts everybody at least 6 weeks behind on pay. Then the Texas TV tapings were officially cancelled and as of right now, ECW only has 3 shows left on the books and the whole crew is basically in a state of panic. Faith in Heyman has completely eroded. He's continuing to tell people that he's still negotiating with USA and FOX for a new television deal but that's looking less and less realistic by the week. The cancelled TV tapings were going to leave ECW with nothing to air on TV later in the month, so they moved one of their planned New York shows up 1 week so they can film TV. That show will be at Hammerstein Ballroom and the Dudleyz are scheduled to make an appearance, so Heyman plans to charge higher than normal ticket prices to try and make some much needed money. There's a PPV on the schedule for Jan. 7th, but no arena has been booked for it yet.
- Heyman has said he will give some of his contracted wrestlers the right to negotiate with WWF and WCW. As of right now, Jerry Lynn is expected to be leaving soon because WWF is said to be interested in him and Heyman has made it clear that he won't stand in Lynn's way if he wants to go.
- Rob Van Dam is the first wrestler to file an official breach of contract complaint. By the terms of the agreement, after filing for breach, Heyman now has 90 days to pay RVD what he owes him and if not, RVD's contract will be voided and he'll be free to leave. As of right now, he hasn't quit but he wants the money he's owed before he will come back and it's believed that Heyman simply doesn't have it. He also can't afford to continue paying RVD his contracted salary. On his website, RVD posted the following:
- "I am owed a lot of money. A lot of guys are really concerned because the shows have been canceled the last couple weeks. There's a lot of speculation going on right now. There are also some good things that are noteworthy with ECW. Paul told me that he's talking to FOX as well as USA. Farmclub is supposed to be airing an ECW video every week. That's a little positive.
- As of today, I am definitely an employee with ECW and I haven't spoken with anybody else. The outlook from right now is somewhat questionable. Whenever I'm working for somebody, I'm there 110%, so, as of now, I'm still with ECW and I definitely hope to see it take off
- I wasn't able to see November to Remember. From what I've heard, they didn't mention Rob Van Dam once time during the pay-per-view. If that's true, then that may say something about ECW's outlook and their predictions for the future. By next week, I will most likely be able to give a little bit more solid information on the status of myself, my employment, the company and everything. Right now, my tongue is being held for protective reasons. Right now there is a lot of business talk going on that, until we see the outcome of that, there are certain things that I could say that can and will be used against me."
- As of press time, RVD is definitely not scheduled to be at the PPV this weekend. Heyman is looking at restructuring the salaries. In reality, he needs to have 3-5 "stars" under contract, at less than they're making now, and everyone else would need to be on a per-night basis. Cut back on transportation and go back to running shows just in their territory. If he has his way, the 5 stars Heyman wants to keep under contract are Justin Credible, Steve Corino, Rhino, Tajiri, and Super Crazy. Those are the stars Heyman thinks are top workers or that he sees long-term potential in. Meanwhile, Tommy Dreamer would of course always have a spot because he's one of Heyman's right hand men in running the company right now, but they don't plan to build the company around him. Guys like RVD, Sandman, Jerry Lynn, Mikey Whipwreck, etc. are not the future of ECW and Heyman knows it. Problem is, those 5 guys he wants to build around aren't happy either. Tajiri and Super Crazy are expected to work the PPV but have made it clear they will quit afterward if they aren't given the money they're owed. WWF has expressed interest in Tajiri. Corino has a 5-year-old child and is broke because he's not getting paid so needless to say he's unhappy.
- Similar situation for Justin Credible, who has a wife, a baby, he's broke, his credit cards are maxed out, and because he's under ECW contract, he can't negotiate with any other companies. He's also upset because he was under the belief that his ECW deal gave him full family medical coverage (at the time, Heyman was apparently promising people that and saying ECW would be the first promotion to offer that) but it never came through and after Credible's wife gave birth, he found himself on the hook for thousands of dollars. Credible is still expected to work the PPV since he's kinda legally required to right now and he can't afford not to show up on the off chance some money might trickle down his way. He's said he would like to leave but he legally can't, so he's just riding it out. He's maxed out his credit cards to make ends meet while not getting paid and says he's currently in the hole for tens of thousands of dollars. He's afraid to file for breach of contract because that means Heyman has 90 days to make good and Credible says, "If I filed for a breach, I can see Paul not paying me anything. My parents don't have any money. I've thought of it many times. I've been at the lawyers office ready to do it. But what do I do if he sits me down for 90 days and doesn't pay me?"
- Scott Hall made headlines with his latest arrest and car accident. Hall was supposed to pick up his kids for Thanksgiving weekend custody. His wife says she was at the meeting spot ready to hand over the kids and saw Hall drive past but not stop. Later, she got a call from his lawyer saying he wouldn't be able to pick up the kids because he was in a car accident. Turns out he was driving his car on the wrong side of the road and crashed it and totaled it. He wasn't seriously injured but was said to be abusive to the paramedics who tried to treat him. And here's the kicker: THREE HOURS after the accident, he was breathalyzed and blew a .27, which is more than triple the legal limit in Florida. So imagine how drunk he was at the time. Needless to say, he was then arrested. And it's even scarier considering it was hours after the actual accident and that he was planning to pick up his kids. When Hall worked the ECW shows a couple weeks ago, everyone said he was sober and on his best behavior and was taking pills that would make him vomit if he drank alcohol (Antabuse). Heyman is still willing to use Hall on the PPV because, well, he's desperate right now. But this latest incident has pretty well killed any chances of Hall getting back into WWF or WCW anytime soon.
- Other notes from the PPV: Konnan was supposed to work a match but his mother had a stroke the day before so he missed it. Last week on Thunder, Goldberg's new streak was 14 wins. When he came out on PPV, they announced it was 20. On Nitro the next night, they announced it as 25. So he somehow went from 14 to 25 with only 1 match in between. Goldberg got little more than polite applause for his match and Dave thinks it's a scary sign when even Goldberg isn't over. And despite being the heel, Scott Steiner was way more over with the crowd than Booker T in their match, with Steiner beating Booker to win the WCW title.
- Yoshihiro Momota, the oldest son of the legendary Rikidozan, passed away at 54 from liver cancer. Momota used to wrestle for AJPW and was recently working as a business manager for NOAH. He was one of the people who had worked behind the scenes for All Japan for years, but defected to NOAH with everyone else earlier this year. He was never much of a wrestler and was mostly an office guy.
- Antonio Inoki is still putting together his New Year's Eve show and says he wants to headline it with Nobuhiko Takada vs. Keiji Muto, which would be a rematch of their famous 1995 match that drew the 2nd largest live gate ($6.1 million) in the history of pro wrestling. They've had 2 matches before, each selling out the Tokyo Dome and each won once. So that's the tentative plan for the NYE show (it ends up not quite being that).
- Laila Ali appeared at the LLPW women's show in Tokyo to do her angle with Shinobu Kandori. After Kandori won her match, Ali got in the ring and said she would fight Kandori in a boxing match, but not a mixed wrestler-vs-boxer match. Kandori brought up the famous Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match. Ali invited Kandori to come to the U.S. in March where Ali will be facing Joe Frazier's daughter in a boxing match. Word is LLPW paid Laila Ali $95,000 just to do this angle, which Dave says is totally insane if true, especially since the show only drew around 1,000 people.
- The XPW show this week that was supposed to have Atsushi Onita and Sabu in one of his exploding barbed wire matches has been cancelled. This makes the 4th American promotion (WWF, ECW, CZW, and now XPW) to negotiate with Onita for one of those matches in the U.S., only for it to fall through. Apparently, XPW's new arena where they plan to hold shows in Los Angeles wasn't ready and, besides, there was no buzz about this match at all.
- Jerry Jarrett was brought in to a WCW show for an interview and was offered a full-time job of taking over the company and running it. But Jarrett has a bunch of outside business commitments and didn't want the responsibility of taking over the whole company. He wants to work as a consultant and try to help out but that's it.
- Nothing much new on the WCW sale rumors. Bischoff is still said to be putting together a deal and negotiating with Turner for it but that's it right now. If Bischoff does take over the company, it's believed they would tape weekly TV from Las Vegas as WCW's permanent home, which is something Bischoff wanted to do several years ago but it never happened.
- Booker T is going to be out for awhile to get some knee surgery done. He also has a cracked sternum. He's expected back around February.
- Notes from Nitro: they tried to put over how great the Mayhem PPV was the night before which obviously isn't true because it sucked. There was no mention whatsoever of how the 3 Count/Jung Dragons/Karagis & Noble match totally stole the show on the PPV and Dave points out the differences between WWF and WCW. In WWF, when an undercard match steals the show, they make a big deal about it and put it over huge. That's the reason Edge & Christian, The Dudleyz, and The Hardyz are all stars now, because they had classic matches and WWF treated them as such afterwards instead of forgetting about it 24 hours later. Kevin Nash and DDP did a promo and once again, Nash and DDP pushed for Scott Hall to come back, leading the crowd into chanting for him. There was actually some real heat on them for it this time because that was right after word had come out about Hall's latest arrest and, needless to say, WCW isn't interested in bringing him back. Everyone had been warned not to reference Hall or acknowledge the chants, but Nash and DDP did it anyway, because there's no discipline in this company and they know they won't be punished. Dave can't imagine this sliding in WWF and says Vince McMahon would have fired Nash months ago over this kind of repeated insubordination. And finally, Sid Vicious returned at the end of the show after being gone for the last few months.
- Buff Bagwell threw another temper tantrum backstage at Nitro. There was supposed to be a spot during the Bagwell/Steiner match where Sid Vicious would appear on the big screen and distract Steiner, leading to Bagwell getting a near fall on him. But the production people screwed up and that never happened. So Steiner ended up winning the match as planned, but Bagwell never got his near-fall spot. So he lost his shit backstage afterwards, screaming at everyone, complaining about the production crew, and shouting that he didn't care if he got fired, this whole company sucks, fuck all of y'all, so on and so forth. Though to be fair, the production crew did mess up the spot.
- So much for Larry Zbyszko's hope of not ending up like Bobby Heenan. Zbyszko has also been released by WCW in the latest cost-cutting move. Heenan is still technically employed but his contract expires later this month and they're not renewing it.
- Torrie Wilson is also on the chopping block. She was told that when her next 90-day contract cycle is over, she's going to be released. She was making nearly $250,000 per year, which was by far more than any of the other women. Now all the women in WCW are making around $52,000 per year. WCW was willing to keep her if she would agree to that pay cut, but needless to say, she turned it down. She turned down better offers than that before even signing with WCW, and WWF is said to be interested in her because she has obvious star potential. Her boyfriend Billy Kidman has been encouraging her to go to the WWF. On Thunder, they did an angle to write her out of the company (she makes one more WCW appearance at the final Nitro but otherwise, yeah that was it for her).
- Goldberg was on the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News this week and there wasn't much to it aside from O'Reilly asking him if he uses steroids. Goldberg responded no.
- Vampiro appeared on the Observer Live show with Dave and talked about his leaving WCW. He claimed he has suffered 17 concussions in his career, 3 of which happened over the course of the most recent Halloween Havoc weekend. He says doctors told him never to wrestle again but Vampiro made it clear he plans to still come back. He will work for Insane Clown Posse's JCW promotion and said he also hopes to wrestle for WWF. He's currently playing bass for ICP on their tour and said he could make more money in music than he did with WCW and said he has a 5-album record deal with ICP's Psychopathic Records. He was critical of Vince Russo but had mostly nice things to say about Terry Taylor.
- The new "Blood Runs Cold" promos you've been seeing on TV is because they're bringing Glacier back. It's a spoof on the old promos they did when he first debuted a few years ago. Except when he comes back this time, he's going to be a comedic superhero character instead of a Mortal Kombat rip-off. Dave wonders why they're doing stuff like this and bringing Glacier of all people back, when there's incredible talents like Tajiri or Jerry Lynn in ECW who are looking for a job. You know, the sort of stars WCW can start to rebuild around rather than a comedy gimmick that is sure to flop and be forgotten within a month.
- Latest Vince Russo speculation backstage in WCW is that he might not be coming back after all (indeed, he does not).
- The WCW/Battledome crossover appears to already be over. It was pretty much just for the November sweeps anyway and it didn't do fuck all for either show's ratings. Plus, there was apparently a dispute over money. Since the crossover was WCW's idea (specifically, Bischoff's), they wanted WCW to pay for transportation for the Battledome stars to be at the WCW shows. But WCW, in cost-cutting mode, refused and Battledome cancelled last week's planned Nitro appearance over it. Dave says the angle was actually somewhat successful with WCW crowds and the segments got a surprising amount of heat. And on the Battledome TV show, they did a better job of getting the WCW wrestlers over than WCW has done. The angle was apparently going to end with T-Money (Terry Crews) laying out Rick Steiner, but since the last appearance got cancelled and the partnership is over, fans will never see the payoff. Some in WCW are hoping to bring in some of the Battledome stars to be real wrestlers after they finish filming Battledome.
- In an interview with the Pro Wrestling Torch, Vince McMahon commented on the WCW sale rumors and said the main stumbling block was Viacom. "At the last minute, there was a snag with Viacom. Originally Viacom gave us the green light and indicated to us that the price to us, in essence, would not be severe. So we began negotiations in earnest and good faith with the Turner people and had really good negotiations and I have a good appreciation for that. Then, unfortunately, at the last minute, out of the clear blue, Viacom's price became astronomical. From there everything broke down because it didn't make any sense for us to purse that kind of give-back." He said if not for Viacom, the purchase would have happened. It's been talked about for weeks that Viacom was unhappy the idea of WWF providing weekly television for a rival network.
- Notes from Raw: they plugged Rock's upcoming appearance on the sitcom "DAG," leading Dave to point out that Kevin Nash was on last week's episode of "Nikki" but of course, WCW never mentioned it. Little things like that are important to creating stars and furthering your brand, and WWF never drops the ball on it. The Billy Gunn/Chyna pairing is already over, since they seemed to have less than zero chemistry together. And that's it. Uneventful Raw.
- The total money paid to WWF performers this year will be around $60 million which is about 14% of the total company gross. Percentage-wise, that's slightly up from the 12% figure a couple of years ago. But on a purely money-in-pockets basis, the pay has almost doubled over the past two years because WWF's revenue has nearly doubled. That being said, 12-14% of revenue going to the performers is still far below the percentages of other major sports, which is usually around 40-50% of the company gross. So wrestlers are still significantly underpaid.
- Notes from Smackdown: it was a Thanksgiving episode, full of skits. They had Funaki bring Kung Pao chicken to the Thanksgiving dinner. Dave says if you're going to racially stereotype someone, at least make sure you do it from the right part of the world, since Funaki is Japanese and Kung Pao chicken is a Chinese dish. And of course, it all ended in a predictable food fight. Dave is also perplexed as to why they keep calling Billy Gunn the best athlete in the WWF. Kurt Angle won a gold medal. Faarooq was a Heisman trophy candidate. Benoit is one of the best in-ring performers of all time. Billy Gunn is just an average wrestler who has been gasping for air in every match since he returned from injury and is only pushed because he's tall, blond, and has a good physique. But whatever.
- Remember that story a few weeks ago about Stephanie McMahon being up for the starring role in some movie? Well, Stephanie is denying it and said she's never been contacted or read for any movie role, so yeah that story isn't true.
- Former WWF wrestler Nicole Bass is suffering from pancreatitis and is in ICU at press time in bad shape (she had issues with severe pancreatitis for the rest of her life, due to years of steroid use).