Wrestling Observer Rewinder

January 29, 2001

The Royal Rumble is in the books and Dave calls it one of the best PPVs in WWF history. Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit in a ladder match was the first MOTY contender for 2001 and Austin won the Rumble match to set up the planned Austin vs. Rock match at Wrestlemania. The Rumble also had 4 surprise entrants: comedian Drew Carey (as part of some cross promotion for an Improv All-Stars PPV he's doing and that was enough to get him into the Hall of Fame), Honky Tonk Man, Big Show making a surprise return, and most notably, Haku. You might recall that just last week, Haku (under the name Meng) won the WCW Hardcore title. Well, in WCW's infinite wisdom, they put the title on a guy who wasn't under contract and was only working on a per-night deal. And, well, this is what happens. Haku/Meng isn't exactly a big draw or anything and is on the tail end of his career, so putting him in the Rumble was seemingly nothing more than Vince McMahon giving Eric Bischoff one last kick in the dick just because he can (WCW's Hardcore title was retired after this. Vince was just taking victory laps for fun at this point).
Other notes from the Royal Rumble: Dave gives the Jericho/Benoit ladder match 4.75 stars. They did an injury angle with Chyna, pretending she was paralyzed, with Lawler and Jim Ross doing their Owen Hart "this is real life, not a storyline" voices. Lawler even left the desk to go check on here, just like he did after Owen's fall. Big Show returned in the Rumble and Dave questions the scales in OVW. The company had talked very publicly (Jim Ross even wrote about it on the WWF's website) that Big Show wouldn't be brought back until he got down to 400 pounds or less. For weeks now, reports have been coming in that he's been dropping weight and was allegedly around 430 last Dave heard. But he came out at the Rumble looking basically exactly the same as when he left, and definitely not a guy who has lost 80-100 pounds as they claimed. Anyway, Austin won the Rumble while Kane set a record for most eliminations.
WATCH: Royal Rumble 2001 highlights
Injuries have finally caught up to Kenta Kobashi. It was expected that he would need knee surgery after NOAH's upcoming February tour, which they hoped would only keep him out a couple of months. They tried to put off the surgery until then, but last week, he totally blew out his right knee and now they can't wait any longer. Kobashi had double knee surgery in June of last year and ended up returning months earlier than he should have to work NOAH's debut shows and has been having problems ever since. He's been noticeably nowhere near as good as he used to be since those surgeries. Kobashi's body is all sorts of fucked up and after examining him, they planned multiple surgeries that will keep him out for at least a year and it's believed his career might be in jeopardy. This week, Kobashi had a nearly 5-hour surgery on both his right knee and right elbow. Later this week, he will have a similar surgery on his left knee and left elbow. The doctor also recommended a joint replacement surgery for his right knee, but that would almost certainly end his career. Doctors have said he needs a knee replacement no matter what, so really it's just a matter of do it now and retire now or do it later, make things worse, and retire later. The doctors told him he has the knees of an 80-year-old man and his elbows aren't much better. It can't be overstated how huge of a blow this is for the struggling NOAH promotion, which starts on network TV in April and was planning a tournament to crown a new champion soon. Losing Kobashi for the rest of 2001 is devastating to the main event scene in the promotion just as they're trying to get off the ground.
The short-term plan for WCW appears to be for the company to do a temporary shut-down for a few weeks and then relaunch under Eric Bischoff when all the sale details are finalized. It's thought that there will be a major angle at SuperBrawl leading to the company shutting down and then it would likely start back up again for Nitro on 3/12 and promote the next week's scheduled PPV. During the shutdown, there's expected to be a massive advertising campaign to hype the return of the shows. During the weeks they're off the air, TBS and TNT are expected to air non-wrestling programming during the usual Nitro and Thunder time slots. None of this is finalized, but that's been the gist of the discussion. There are problems with this. For starters, WCW has already started promoting their yearly "college campus" tour, which goes from mid-February through Mar. 26th, ending in Panama City so if the company goes on hiatus, many of those shows would have to be cancelled (little do we know it at the time, but that Mar. 26th Nitro is the end of the road). Deposits have already been put down for arenas through then. No shows have been booked at all yet for April, so it's possible they could do the shut down then. The relaunch of WCW is expected to be a "soft relaunch." When it returns, some things will look and be different but not too much, and the plan is to gradually change things, with a whole new set, new graphics, new production, new announcers, etc.
Jim Ross revealed on WWF.com that Shawn Michaels will return to the ring for at least one more match. Michaels' contract expires this summer and he's been wanting to get back in the ring. Vince McMahon finally made the decision to allow Michaels to return, because there's obviously a lot of people in the locker room who don't want him back. But Michaels, who turns 36 this year, has said he recognizes he was difficult in the past but promises he has grown up (not quite yet). Michaels will return as a regular on-screen character and wrestle at least one match. Beyond that, they aren't making any decisions until they see how both his back and attitude holds up. A lot of people are looking at Steve Austin as an example. It was thought his career was over when he got the neck injury and even after he was cleared to return, nobody expected him to be able to go like he used to. Internally, the plan with Austin was for him to work PPVs and major shows for a few months and build to a big farewell at Wrestlemania. But ever since he's been back, not only is he working a full-time schedule, he's arguably just as good or better than he was before the injury. So now there's no hurry to rush Austin out the door. After 2 years off to rest his back and knees, the big question is whether Shawn Michaels might be able to do the same (yeah he did, and then some).
A Canadian newspaper ran a lengthy story on the Hart family issues surrounding the Owen Hart lawsuit and boy, it's a doozy. It mostly featured quotes from Owen's wife Martha and his sister Ellie Neidhart. Martha said she felt like she got what she needed out of the WWF lawsuit, saying, "I got my day of reckoning. I don't think that anybody pays that kind of money if they're not taking responsibility. I've done the right thing by Owen." Martha also talked about the early days of Owen's career, when she lived with him in Germany while he worked for Otto Wanz. Martha said she hated the living conditions there, traveling in a caravan with all the other wrestlers and all that. Dave says, for what it's worth, Owen had always told him that he loved his years working for Wanz and he once told Dave it was like getting paid to be on vacation. Evidently, Martha didn't feel the same. Anyway, she didn't want to raise their kids in a trailer in Germany, so that's why he returned to the WWF in 1992. Martha also said that Owen wanted to leave WWF after what happened with Bret in Montreal and that he felt uncomfortable in the company, but that Vince wouldn't let him go. Instead, he gave Owen a raise to get him to come back to work. Martha also said she invited Vince to Owen's funeral because she wanted him to see firsthand the pain Owen's death had caused their family. But when he got there, Owen's siblings Bruce and Ellie "bypassed me and hugged Vince McMahon. They never even hugged me or my children. They didn't give a damn about me. They didn't care what I lost. It was like, 'Owen's gone, gee, that's too bad, what can I get out of it.'" She said she had to be convinced by lawyers to include Stu and Helen Hart as co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit because she didn't want to at first, saying the whole family is jealous and backbiting and competitive with each other, and she only wanted justice for Owen. But she knew Owen would want his parents to have something, so she included them. And from that day forward, all the Hart siblings began bullying the parents, trying to get them to settle so they could get a cut and trying to undermine the lawsuit when they saw they weren't included.
Ellie Neidhart, naturally, has a different take. She claims she's afraid to go out in public now because she has been painted as the bad guy in the media. She's afraid people think she's a monster who sold out her dead brother. She agreed that WWF had some responsibility (along with the harness manufacturer) and said she thought the family should have heard what Vince had to say before suing him. She talked about how she had always been on good terms with the McMahons. There's a quote from Helen Hart in the story about how WWF never gave the family anything when they bought out Stampede. As the story goes, back in the 80s, Vince McMahon bought Stampede from Stu for $1 million, which would be paid $100,000 per year over the course of ten years, and in turn, Stu would be the local promoter whenever the WWF came to Edmonton and Calgary and would get a percentage of those houses. Vince paid the first $100,000, and Stu was the promoter in those cities for the next several years and got a percentage off the shows, but Vince never paid the remaining $900,000. Stu never took it to court because he didn't want to get into a costly legal battle with Vince that he couldn't afford, plus he didn't want to endanger the careers of Bret, Jim Neidhart, Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid, who by this time were all big WWF stars. Basically, Vince robbed Stu of 900k and ran his territory out of business. In response, Ellie simply said, "I guess Vince was a fairly ruthless businessman." In regards to the Montreal situation, Ellie sided with Vince again, saying, "Bret bit the hand that fed him." Ellie also noted that she and Bret recently had a big argument about it, with Bret saying she sold herself out to the devil. Ellie claims Bret spat on her and kicked her car. In unrelated news, Ellie also said that her husband Jim Neidhart still battles drug and alcohol issues and that he'd been addicted long before they started dating. They were recently separated but are reportedly back together.
As for the case itself, Martha Hart initially didn't want to settle, saying it wasn't about the money. In order to try to get the entire Hart family and all the siblings on the same page, the lawyers drafted up a document for all of them to sign, saying that they supported Martha's side in the lawsuit. In doing so, they would get a share of the profits from their parents cut if the lawsuit was settled after they passed away. The idea was to just get everyone together so they'd stop fighting amongst themselves and making such a public mess of things. All but 3 of the siblings signed it (Ellie, Diana, and Bruce being the 3). Then Ellie stole and faxed a copy of the document to WWF's lawyers which nearly sank the case, led to Martha's lawyers being investigated, and ultimately forced her to settle out of court. The reason the settlement was so large ($18 million) is because the Harts had a smoking gun. Apparently, in the lead-up to the stunt that killed Owen, at least one or more riggers had refused to do it, telling the WWF that it was too dangerous, but they kept looking around until they found someone who would. But the fact that it was documented that WWF had been told ahead of time that it was too dangerous and went ahead with it anyway was viewed as textbook negligence. That almost assuredly would have sunk them in court if the case had gone to trial. Martha explained why she decided to finally settle. "It dawned on me that whether we go to trial or not, the only justice I get in the end is money in my bank account. Nobody goes to jail, nobody gets convicted. Then I just felt sick, so empty and hollow. It was meaningless. I couldn't believe I went through this nightmare and hell." (this Hart family drama only gets nastier through the rest of the year).
At a show in Mexico, Dos Caras teamed up with his son Dos Caras Jr. for a 2-out-of-3 falls match. In order to get his son over, they did an angle where Caras was injured and Caras Jr. fought the entire 3rd fall by himself and kept refusing to quit until his father threw in the towel to save his son from a beating (the son is, of course, Alberto Del Rio. Can't find video of this anywhere).
AJPW's big Tokyo Dome show takes place this week and they are making big plans for the Stan Hansen retirement ceremony. Hansen is arguably the biggest foreign star in the history of Japanese wrestling. At Korakuen Hall, they are setting up an exhibit on Hansen's career, with photos and memorabilia and Hansen will be doing meet and greets and Q&A's and whatnot in the day leading up to the show. Gong Magazine is releasing a special issue dedicated to his career. He was interviewed on a major network news show and talked about his plan to possibly return to being a junior high school teacher, which is what he did decades ago before he started wrestling.
Kenta Kobayashi (Hideo Itami) injured his shoulder last week at a NOAH show and missed the rest of the tour (this was the start of a rough time for him. He misses most of 2001 and half of 2002 with various injuries. Dude's body has had some serious wear and tear over the years).
Bobby Heenan is expected to be the big surprise announcer for the Women of Wrestling PPV next month (yup). He's also negotiating with iGeneration Wrestling in Australia, if that promotion can ever get off the ground. WWF doesn't seem to have any interest in him. As for Larry Zbyszko, he is expected to be brought back for a second audition with WWF and they are at least somewhat interested in him (never happened).
The coroner's report for Yokozuna came back and listed his cause of death as fluid in the lungs. Because of his size, the obvious assumption from many had been a heart attack, but nope.
Various notes: Randy Savage filmed his scenes for Spiderman this past week. 21st Century Insurance is filming a commercial with Savage in it also. Tommy Dreamer is going to start working for IWA in Puerto Rico now that ECW doesn't have anything else booked for the time being.
ECW wrestlers weren't paid again this week, although nobody realistically expected them to be. So payroll is now 9 weeks behind. Nobody wants to publicly admit that last week's shows in Missouri and Arkansas were likely ECW's final shows, but deep down, everyone seems to know it. Things are bad but there's still a possibility that if Heyman can strike the right deal, he might be able to pull the company back from the dead. He has pulled off miracles before to save the company, though never when things were this dire. But as each week goes by, that hope diminishes.
ECW is no longer listed in the TV listings for the Sunshine Network so it looks like ECW is done producing television. They still have a PPV scheduled on the books for March and the belief is that they will still hold that show with anyone on the roster who is still willing to work it. But there's still no arena booked and beyond that, ECW has nothing scheduled.
Tajiri and Super Crazy are working a JAPW show next month in the ECW Arena (real name, Viking Hall). Heyman has been upset in the past when his guys worked ECW Arena shows for other promotions but ECW no longer has any dates booked there, while JAPW is trying to run the building twice a month and hey, Tajiri and Super Crazy gotta make a living. Both of those men also worked a CZW show last week, while Corino, York, Matthews, and others worked another indie show. Basically, ECW guys are just picking up work wherever they can now.
Scott Steiner was arrested last week for an incident that happened at the WCW TV tapings. They did an angle where Steiner beat up a few guys (Christopher Daniels and Mike Modest actually) and as they were being stretchered out, Steiner started kicking one of the EMTs. Apparently Steiner thought they were indie guys being used for the angle but, nope. Real EMTs. Specifically, an EMT who had no idea he was about to get stomped out by Scott Steiner. He ended up pressing charges and the incident was edited off the show and didn't air.
They acknowledged at the beginning of Nitro this week that WCW was under new ownership but didn't talk about it much or act like it would change things (it's always struck me as crazy how far along this WCW sale seemed to be, with pretty much everyone on both sides seeming to think it was a done deal and WCW was even acknowledging it on the air. But then it all fell apart before they could dot the final i's and cross the final t's).
At the latest WCW tapings, there were about 5,000 people in the arena when Nitro started. When Nitro ended, it was estimated that about half the crowd left and throughout Thunder, they kept leaving in droves. By the time they taped the Thunder main event, there were only about 800 fans still in the crowd. Dave says some decisions have to be made here. From a production standpoint, it's significantly cheaper to run Nitro and Thunder tapings together, but it always leads to Thunder having tiny, dead crowds that come across awful on TV and kill the whole show.
According to people at Fusient, the company that is purchasing WCW, all contracts were transferable in the event of a sale, including Hogan's. There was talk about some of the top stars who's contracts are technically on the Turner books rather than explicitly WCW, but Fusient says that all the contracts are bound to WCW and they wouldn't have bought the company if the top stars weren't part of the deal. Hogan's contract expires in March anyway and he likely wouldn't be returning before then so it's kind of a moot point in his case. But guys like Nash and Goldberg will still be contracted to WCW when the sale goes through.
Eric Bischoff has had a minor role in booking things lately, mostly just from passing word along to Johnny Ace about certain things. The extra emphasis on the cruiserweights and clean finishes in recent weeks has been all Bischoff. Right now though, the existing booking team (Ed Ferrara, Terry Taylor, etc.) is still running things for the most part. The latest word is that WCW will likely move its headquarters to Los Angeles and TV tapings will air from a single location somewhere near the west coast, likely in L.A. or Vegas.
Sid Vicious was released from the hospital in Indianapolis 2 days after breaking his leg. He's expected to be out at least 6-8 months. TSN made the decision not to air footage of the injury so it was edited off Nitro in Canada.
Johnny Ace was interviewed on WCW Live on their website and talked about a lot of things. He said the last 6 months have been a struggle but felt like he was finally beginning to get some support behind him to force changes. He talked about WCW needing to get away from non-finishes and focus more on having a strong in-ring product with clean finishes. Said he wants to work with NJPW or NOAH, but said he didn't think AJPW had anyone WCW could use except maybe Kawada. Talked about Sid Vicious' injury and called it a freak accident and said it was a move they worked on together beforehand (Sid later claimed he was uncomfortable doing it because he's not a guy known for coming off the ropes. He said he tried to talk them into changing it but felt pressured by Johnny Ace to do it, so he did. He later sued WCW over it and lost). Ace called Sean O'Haire a possible breakout star and also put over the cruiserweights. He also talked about wanting to build long-term storylines rather than Russo-style hotshot angles that start and end in the space of a week or two. Said Hogan still has name value, put over Shane Douglas, talked about wanting to bring in Tajiri, Kid Kash, Super Crazy, and Christopher Daniels. He was especially high on Rob Van Dam. He also wanted to use Arn Anderson in a better role on-screen and backstage and said WCW needs to improve its production (this actually makes me sad. With Bischoff about to take over and Johnny Ace clearly having his finger on the pulse of things, it's obvious they saw HOW they needed to improve WCW, but they never got the chance. Makes you wonder what could have been if the sale had gone through and WCW had survived a little longer).
Speaking of ECW wrestlers, WCW is interested in a lot of them. But after all the incidents in recent years with Mike Awesome, Sabu, Chris Candido, Tammy Sytch, etc. where they tried to jump ship to WCW but got caught in a bunch of legal mess due to their ECW contracts, WCW is refusing to even make offers to anyone until they can show in writing that they are no longer signed to ECW. Heyman has told his wrestlers that he'd be glad to let anyone out of their contract who wanted to go, but so far, no one has taken him up on it surprisingly.
Goldberg bought a '69 Ford Mustang for $60,000 on a televised car auction show on Speedvision. Cool.
A&E's show "Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden" filmed an episode at the WCW Power Plant which will air this week, head-to-head with WWF Smackdown. Because WCW just can't catch a break anywhere. (This is actually pretty cool, lots of rare footage from the Power Plant with faces you might recognize. Kind of crazy how much the Power Plant looks basically like a cheaper version of WWE's Performance Center).
WATCH: Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden: WCW Power Plant
Notes from Raw: after the incredible Jericho/Benoit match the night before at the Rumble, WWF barely acknowledged it on Raw the next night, which is the kind of shit WCW does. Drew Carey's brief Rumble appearance got talked about repeatedly during the show, but almost nothing about Jericho and Benoit killing themselves to have a match of the year. William Regal lost the European title in a squash to Test, because Regal has to take time off for a herniated disc. They did a big angle with Big Show taking out The Rock and Dave is skeptical about this. Big Show was taken off TV due to perceived laziness and weight issues, was sent to OVW and told in no uncertain terms to drop to 400 pounds and get into ring-shape. After several months, they brought him back at Rumble, looking no better than when he left, and immediately put him in a main event program with Rock. Dave thinks that's setting a pretty bad example to the rest of the locker room and isn't fair to the guys who do put the work in every day to stay in shape and work hard. But I guess they have to try and get some kind of return on that big ass contract they signed him to. Overall, Dave thought it was a pretty shitty Raw and wasn't much better than most Nitros these days.
Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross will have a lot more travel due to their new announcing duties, especially Ross who also has to do talent relations office work in Stamford. Ross's schedule will see him on the road Saturday doing XFL, then fly out Sunday to wherever Raw is (or a PPV if there is one), do Raw on Monday, then do Smackdown on Tuesday, then fly back to Connecticut for office work Wed-Fri and then back out again to wherever the next XFL game is. That's basically no days off, while calling 3 live nationally broadcast events each week, plus monthly PPVs. Not to mention all the stresses that come with Wrestlemania approaching. Dave thinks you can already see the signs of fatigue in their commentary.
There were rumors of Bret Hart making a surprise Rumble appearance which, of course, wasn't even remotely close to true. Bret is concentrating on writing his autobiography and has turned down multiple offers from wrestling companies around the world. After more than a year, he's still suffering from the effects of the concussion he suffered at Starrcade '99 in the Goldberg match. He's able to do light training but insists that he really is done with wrestling.
Random WWF notes: The reason a lot of wrestlers were wearing black arm bands on Raw is because Val Venis' mother passed away. On the Tonight Show, Jay Leno made a joke at Chyna's expense, when referring to her as the "Susan B. Anthony of the WWF," he said she was more of an Anthony than a Susan or some such dumb shit.
Part of the original plan when Rikishi turned heel was to bring in other members of the family, including Matthew Anoa'i (Rosey) and Ekmo Fatu (later Umaga). They're still expected to be brought in eventually (signed to developmental and they later become 3 Minute Warning).