Wrestling Observer Rewinder

December 18, 2000

WWF's final PPV of the year, Armageddon is in the books, and it was a total one-match show. Dave says the 6-man Hell In A Cell main event may have been the best WWF match of the year. It was also the first WWF PPV in over a year that didn't sell out. They gave out free tickets to anyone who bought season tickets for the Birmingham Bolts XFL team and papered the rest, so the building was still pretty much full even if 3,000 of them were freebies. The opening match (which took place on Heat) was supposed to be a tag team match but Steve Blackman had to pull out and was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, so it was changed to a singles. They spent a lot of the PPV plugging the Cell main event which Dave doesn't understand since everyone watching already bought the PPV and it really dragged down the show. But Dave says the HIAC gimmick is over enough that he can see it potentially becoming its own yearly drawing PPV some day, similar to the Royal Rumble (sadly, yes). Benoit vs. Billy Gunn was bad, with Gunn just totally blown up by the end of it and Dave says if you can't have a good match with Benoit, what are you even doing there? There was talk all week of doing an angle to get Triple H out of the main event since he's still dealing with a bunch of injuries but he was determined to work the match. Pretty much everyone in the match bladed, which leads Dave to wonder if Kurt Angle, after winning a gold medal in the Olympics, ever dreamed that 4 years later, he'd be a millionaire and slicing his own forehead open with a razor blade on live TV. Rikishi took the crazy bump off the top of the cage, into a heavily padded truck-bed. Dave says if you insist on doing those dangerous bumps, at least this was one relatively safe. All in all, a near-classic main event and Dave gives it 4.5 stars.
WATCH: 6-man Hell In A Cell - Armageddon 2000
Antonio Inoki held a press conference in Los Angeles to announce that the main event of his New Year's Eve show (entitled Inoki Bom Ba Ya) will be Keiji Muto & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Don Frye & Ken Shamrock, which Dave says has to be the weirdest main event for a major show all year. Dave recaps the history of Muto and Takada together, with 2 classic matches that were among the biggest in wrestling history at the time. To this day, Muto vs. Takada is still the biggest money-drawing live event feud in the history of the business, selling out 2 back-to-back stadium shows. Their first match drew a $6.1 million gate (just for reference, that's double what the Wrestlemania 17 gate will end up being) which was a record at the time until Inoki's retirement show broke it. The Muto/Takada feud was part of the NJPW/UWFI angle, which is what Eric Bischoff later copied and based the NWO/WCW angle on. The pairing of Shamrock and Frye is even crazier, both former UFC stars, and have actually had some real life bad blood between them in the past over things they've said about each other in interviews. Dave wouldn't be surprised to see this turn into an angle to lead to a Shamrock/Frye match down the road, either in wrestling or MMA. Anyway, the whole show is expected to be a mix of wrestling and MMA, with wrestlers from NJPW, fighters from PRIDE, and more all working the card. The show is expected to end with Inoki ushering in the new year by doing his "Ishi, Ni, San, Da!" catchphrase when the clock hits midnight. Although it hasn't been announced yet, Shinya Hashimoto has said that he will also be appearing on the show.
L. Brent Bozell of the PTC responded to WWF's lawsuit this week, calling the lawsuit, "one of the most malicious and dishonest pleadings ever placed before a court." Bozell's statement attempted to refute everything the WWF lawsuit claimed. Bozell stated that he doesn't hate homosexuals (WWF accused him of it in the lawsuit) and disputed that the PTC is a right-wing organization by pointing out that Democrats Joseph Lieberman and C. Delores Tucker are on the PTC's advisory board. Some of the comments, like comparing Vince McMahon to Larry Flynt, Bozell attributed to the late Steve Allen and denied saying it himself. So on and so forth. In regards to blaming the deaths of 4 children on WWF, Bozell tried to spin it as if he was blaming all of wrestling in general, not specifically WWF, although that's literally the only company they have targeted, so ya know. Bozell also spoke out about a website called ptcsucks.com that has been urging people to cut ties with them using the same tactics the PTC has used against WWF. Bozell called them "internet terrorist tactics that are being used against us" which is pretty obviously hypocritical since it's literally the exact same things the PTC is doing to WWF. He claimed that they didn't exaggerate the number of sponsors who had withheld of withdrawn support from WWF. He calls the WWF "the most ruthless enterprise in Hollywood" and added that he suspects WWF doesn't expect to win the lawsuit and is only trying to tarnish the PTC and shut them up. Dave actually agrees with that and figures this whole lawsuit is really just a way to drain the PTC of money and get them to go away. Bozell ended his statement with a full blown wrestling promo: "But they won't succeed. Too much is at stake. No, everything is at stake here. This is going to be, I tell you now, a bloody, ugly battle. But we're going to fight it with everything we've got. I'm absolutely confident that at the end of the day, the whole world will not only see us clearly vindicated, but will see the WWF unmasked for the wretched entity that it is."
lol they lose.
AJPW's annual tag team tournament is in the books (Steve Williams & Mike Rotundo won) and man, this company is in rough shape. To be fair, most people didn't expect AJPW to survive this long after the NOAH split so it's a miracle this tournament even happened. It's usually the biggest tour of the year for AJPW every year and many of the company's most legendary matches and moments happen during this tournament, but this year, the star power was terrible and most of the shows drew poorly. The final show was the smallest crowd AJPW has drawn to Budokan Hall since the 80s. Dave predicts a tough road ahead for them in 2001.
In the results from one of the website polls, the question is "Where do you see WCW and ECW one year from now?"
ECW in better shape, WCW in worse shape - 11%
WCW in better shape, ECW in worse shape - 31%
Both companies in worse shape or out of business - 37%
Both companies in better shape - 21%
Dave saw some tapes from recent NOAH shows and he's concerned about Vader's weight. He is probably heavier than he's ever been now which isn't good and at age 44, for his own health, Dave hopes he can get in better shape. Vader is already broken down with injuries and he's not looking very good in the ring lately. He still has name value because he's a legend in Japan so he can get away with it, but Dave is more concerned about Vader the person than Vader the wrestler.
Riki Choshu announced that he's coming out of retirement again for NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show in a tag match (not quite, ends up being a singles match with Hashimoto). Choshu retired in Jan. 1998 and came out of retirement for one match earlier this year against Onita before going back into retirement but he's evidently got the itch again. Dave thinks this shows just how concerned NJPW is about tickets moving slow for this show (yeah, Choshu pretty much started back full time after this and continues to wrestle to this day).
Women of Wrestling will be holding its first PPV in February. They are claiming to have a big name surprise for the announcing crew (spoiler: it's Heenan).
Latest on Sinister Minister's hand injury: he still has some numbness in 2 of his fingers following surgery. He'll start physical therapy on it soon. Right now, he can't really open it or grip anything and has very limited strength but doctors are hopeful that he'll fully recover within a year.
At this point, Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn are the only 2 wrestlers to ask to be released from their ECW contracts. Both are talking to other companies but neither has officially left ECW yet. RVD said he did suffer a knee injury while filming a movie in Thailand a few weeks ago but he says it's completely healed now and that's not why he missed the PPV. In a recent radio interview, he gave the impression that he's pretty much done with ECW, though he didn't totally shut the door on them. But he said he didn't think the company could afford him anymore and he's looking to sign a contract with some stability to it. However, RVD sided with Paul Heyman in regards to the TNN drama, saying TNN didn't pay ECW or cover any production costs. He also complained about TNN not properly advertising and promoting them. He said out of all the companies in the world, if he was getting paid, he would prefer to stay in ECW. He said he's still waiting on a lot of money, including paychecks going back to October, but seemed resigned to the fact that he'd probably never see it.
The Dudleyz are scheduled to make a one-time only return to ECW's show in Queens this week. There's no plans to do an angle or bring them back for the next PPV or anything, it's just a one-time match because WWF is trying to throw ECW a bone right now and having the Dudleyz returning to ECW allows Heyman to jack up ticket prices for that show. Every dollar counts for them these days.
Brad Siegel held a meeting with all the WCW executives and department heads to discuss the situation with the company. For the first time, Siegel admitted that the company is for sale (which everyone has known for months due to all the rumors swirling around, but Siegel never officially confirmed it to his employees until now and had previously denied it). He mostly just talked about WCW's problems of high costs, not generating any revenue, and how the higher ups aren't happy about it because the AOL merger is happening and they see WCW as a money-loser that they want off the books. He talked about them cutting back on shows, saying it's cost-prohibitive to go on the road with a big production crew and fly talent out and run live shows. Dave says it's only cost-prohibitive because no one is buying tickets. Maybe they should figure out how to fix that. Dave suggest writing better shows. It's believed that even if there isn't a sale, WCW will still probably cut back on touring completely and start running weekly TV shows out of one location, likely Vegas or Orlando.
There's also been rumors running rampant of someone else taking charge of the company. It's believed that Terry Taylor, Johnny Ace, Craig Leathers, and Tony Schiavone have all made a case for and attempted to pitch themselves to take over. Dave thinks it's a job doomed for failure, because unless that person is given full authority to suspend or fire people who don't follow the rules, they're just going to get walked all over by the wrestlers.
There was a ton of heat within WCW because Nitro this past week aired on Tuesday instead of Monday, due to the live David Copperfield special TNT was airing. The problem is WCW somehow wasn't aware that they were getting bumped until 4 days before. So it was mentioned on Nitro or Thunder the week prior and fans had no idea that Nitro wasn't going to be on the usual Monday. And WCW had no way to promote the Tuesday airing other than posting about it on their website. Word is Craig Leathers informed Terry Taylor about it over a month ago, but Taylor never mentioned it to anyone and seemingly forgot and somehow it just went under the radar until it was too late. At least that's one person's story. But Leathers knew and he's in charge of production, so basically....c'mon. Vince McMahon's entire head would explode if that happened with Raw and Dave is baffled at how massive fuck-ups like this just keep happening with WCW.
WCW's TV schedule for the rest of the month really sucks for them. Due to Christmas, Nitro isn't airing at all next week. Thunder will air a highlight show called "Best of Thunder 2000" and Dave is genuinely curious to see if they can scrape together 2 hours worth of actual good material that happened on Thunder in 2000. But WCW still has obligations to air Nitro and Thunder in other countries so even though Nitro won't air in the U.S., they're going to film an episode of Nitro that will only air overseas. No storylines planned, just matches. Then basically the same thing the next week with New Year's. And of course, as mentioned, last week's Nitro was bumped to Tuesday which basically means TNT will have pre-empted Nitro 3 times in a 4 week span, right as they're in the midst of trying to build up for Starrcade. The next PPV, Sin, in January will also only have 1 Nitro and 2 Thunders before it airs so not much time to get that show over either. Dave says WCW is struggling to hold on to fans and a lot of them are probably only a step away from giving up on the company entirely. So suddenly having your premiere show bumped from its usual time slot for most of the next month is bad news. Although it's not like WCW has any momentum to lose anyway. These moves have given a lot of people concern that TNT doesn't really see WCW programming as a priority anymore, which is concerning (yeah, just a bit. The AOL merger hasn't even gone through yet and it already looks like TNT is already kinda over this whole WCW thing).
Notes from the Thunder taping: during the recap, Dave mentions that announcer Mark Madden is suspended and then just goes on with the recap without clarifying (we'll get more info next issue, but this was the end for Madden in WCW). Bam Bam Bigelow hyperextended his knee by slipping on coffee during a backstage skit where Reno & Vito threw coffee on him and attacked him and he ended up not being able to work later in the show as scheduled. Speaking of, the show ended with Sid chokeslamming Scott Steiner. He was supposed to chokeslam him through the ring and the ring was gimmicked for that to happen but when he hit the mat....it didn't happen. No one watching at home would have known the difference, since it just came off like a regular chokeslam, so it worked out okay. But yeah, he was supposed to go through the ring. Whoops.
Notes from this week's WCW TV: Dave also says they DESPERATELY need to get a new production team in here, because the number of production screw ups, audio issues, lighting issues, etc. is starting to get more than a little embarrassing. He also talks about how Nash and DDP cut a backstage interview on Thunder where they yet again talked at length about Scott Hall, against strict orders not to. And it was pre-taped! They could have just edited it out, but they didn't and still aired it. During the same interview, the lights started to go out due to an electrical issue. And they just left all that in too. Also, Stevie Ray was doing the interview and got tongue tied and there was a big awkward moment full of dead air while they tried to get back on track. Dave wonders why they didn't just say "Cut!" and do this whole shit over again, but there's no quality control in WCW anymore. And needless to say, Nash and DDP didn't get in any trouble for it. It was also apparent that the wrestlers themselves don't even pay attention to the storylines, with Mike Sanders cutting a promo and talking about his feud with Chavo and the MIA group, not even aware that Chavo quit the group, like, 2 weeks ago as part of the angle.
Vampiro is no longer on tour with ICP. He was playing bass on their shows but had to leave because the noise was causing him bad headaches stemming from his concussions.
Goldberg was on the Mancow radio show and had plenty to say. He talked about the Hogan/WCW situation and called it a travesty, blaming it on Russo. He also called Russo an idiot for booking himself in a match while suffering from a concussion. And best of all, Goldberg actually speculated about whether or not Russo was a mole sent from WWF to kill WCW. Dave says Goldberg's not the first person in WCW to make that suggestion. He doesn't think anyone really believes it, but everybody in WCW sort of half-jokes about it privately and there's enough conspiracy theorists in the business who probably do believe it's true.
Konnan did an interview in a Tijuana newspaper and...same story. He trashed WCW, talked about wanting to go to WWF, etc. He said WCW is so depressing that he'd rather be at home in Mexico making less money and talked about returning when his contract runs out. But he also mentioned that he's still got beef with Antonio Pena and Paco Alonso (AAA and CMLL promoters) so he doesn't have a whole lot of options in Mexico.
Speaking of Goldberg, he's been pushing hard to get Rick Steiner brought back for an angle. Goldberg reportedly doesn't go to bat for many people, but Rick Steiner has been one of his best friends since he started in WCW and Goldberg is trying to help him out.
Kanyon has been sitting at home for weeks doing nothing because WCW doesn't have anything for him. Dave has a suggestion: how about they finish that angle between him and DDP that they built up for months and then dropped for no reason without them ever having a single match?
Apparently the split between Bobby Heenan and WCW wasn't so friendly and they're threatening to withhold his last paycheck from him for some reason.
Stacy Keibler and Midajah will be filming a mud wrestling scene together for the movie "Bubble Boy" which is filming later this month (here, enjoy):
WATCH: Stacy Keibler & Midajah mud wrestling in Bubble Boy
Leia Meow is said to be concerned that she'll be out of a job if/when Eric Bischoff takes over the company. For starters, her biggest supporter in the company is Terry Taylor, who got her the job. Bischoff and Taylor have never gotten along. And secondly, Meow recently filed a harassment claim with Turner HR against Rick Steiner (Dave doesn't have any details and we never get an update. I even googled it and couldn't find any info), and Rick Steiner is close friends with Bischoff.
DDP and Scott Steiner were booked against each other for a house show recently but it got changed because they refused to work with each other. There's still bad blood between them stemming from the incident a few months back where Scott Steiner called Kimberly a "cunt" and then refused to apologize, which led to her quitting the company when he wasn't punished. Anyway, DDP vs. Steiner was scheduled to be the main event title match and they ended up calling in Kevin Nash and forced him to work the show. Nash was furious because he was supposed to be off that weekend and was planning to take his kids (which he only had custody of that weekend) to Disney World and had to cancel to go do the show (sucks for the kids, but let's be honest, Nash kinda had that coming).
Jim Ross did some kind of media conference call thing and had a lot of interesting things to say: he said the WWF has no interest in Scott Hall, Juventud Guerrera, or Torrie Wilson. Admitted they've had discussions with RVD's manager and had more scheduled next week. Said they definitely have a lot of interest in Jerry Lynn. Said if they sign Chris Chetti, he will likely be sent to OVW or Memphis first. In regards to Mick Foley, Ross said he didn't think we'd seen Foley's last match yet but there's nothing planned for the foreseeable future. Same with Shawn Michaels, nothing planned but he would love to see Michaels have the farewell match he deserves (more on that in a bit). Interestingly, he also admitted that there have been talks with Marc Mero and Sable about returning but the timing isn't right and he doesn't see it happening. There's a lot of hard feelings in the locker room towards both of them, especially Sable, and until time heals those wounds, they won't be bringing her back. And finally, he admitted that the whole angle with Steve Austin dropping Triple H's car from a forklift (in an angle that, in real life would have been certain death) was probably a little over the top and having Triple H return so soon after with not even a scratch on him wasn't plausible and they should have kept him off TV at least a few more weeks.
Speaking of injuries: Triple H is still dealing with a few of them. In particular, he worked the Hell in a Cell match with a herniated disc and is being treated with electrical stimulation. They hope to have him back wrestling again by the Royal Rumble. Al Snow has an injured wrist and will be off TV for awhile. Steve Blackman was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers. Eddie Guerrero is taking time off for a hamstring injury.
Mick Foley will be taking time off soon because his wife is expecting their 3rd child and he wants to be home with her during the pregnancy. He's also working on a sequel to his bestselling autobiography and has written a screenplay based on the first book. He's also been approached about playing a major recurring role in a sitcom.
There's still talk of Shawn Michaels working a final, farewell match, particularly at Wrestlemania since it's in his home state. But there's still heat with him over, well, the fact that he's Shawn Michaels and he's done nothing for the last few years except piss off everybody who comes into contact with him. Most of the top stars have no interest in working with him and don't want him brought back to the locker room at all, even for one match.
There's talk of having Mark Henry and Big Show return to fill a couple of spots in the Royal Rumble (Henry doesn't, but Big Show does indeed end up returning in that match). Speaking of, Henry is down to 330 pounds, which is about where WWF wanted him to get to. Big Show is down to 430. They've told him they want him to get down to 400 before they will consider bringing him back.
Former NFL bad boy Brian Bosworth got a tryout to do commentary for the XFL (he gets the job). Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are also still in the running to do XFL announcing (they also get the jobs).
Criminal charges against Davey Boy Smith, stemming from the death threats he allegedly made against his estranged wife and sister-in-law, have been dropped. In exchange, Smith had to agree to have no contact with either of them and to not use any non-prescription drugs. He's still under WWF contract, but there's no plans to bring him back, especially now that the Owen Hart suit has been settled.
WWF has signed Nathan Jones, an Australian wrestler, to a developmental deal. Jones has been training with UPW in California but he also is notable because he worked the first ever PRIDE event back in 1997.
"Smackdown 2: Know Your Role" is currently the best selling Playstation game ever in the UK.
Jimmy Hart is scheduled to return to TV for Memphis-based Power Pro Wrestling. It's weird because they're currently doing an interpromotional feud with the other local promotion, MCW, which is a WWF developmental territory. Dave thinks it's going to be interesting to see a WCW star on a show with so much WWF developmental talent.
Undertaker has stopped using Kid Rock's "American Bad Ass" as his entrance theme and is instead using some new Limp Bizkit song because WWF didn't want to pay to renew the rights to use the Kid Rock one.