Wrestling Observer Rewinder

February 05, 2001

The WWF signed Justin Credible this week, which leads to a lot more questions about the state of ECW. Credible has been in an extremely tight financial bind due to being behind on pay from ECW, plus medical bills from his wife recently giving birth and was close to quitting the wrestling business entirely before the WWF deal came along. There's also word that WWF has been negotiating with Tajiri and Rhino. For months, WWF has said they wouldn't take any of ECW's talent until the company's fate was decided one way or another, so WWF signing ECW guys seems like a sign that they know something. WWF has also offered Paul Heyman himself a job to help write television but as of now, Heyman hasn't accepted it. The head booker of WWF is, was, and always will be Vince McMahon, so Heyman would only be one member of a team. As for rumors of WWF buying ECW, word is they aren't interested because they don't want to take on the massive debt that ECW has. Others have pointed out that WWF almost bought WCW a few months ago and they have way more debt. That's true, but they also have 2 prime-time TV shows on strong national networks and a lot of major stars under contract, none of which ECW has. If WWF wants any of ECW's stars, they can get them easily without buying the company. Heyman has made no secret that he's attempting to sell the company and apparently there were preliminary discussions with WWF about it, but they never went anywhere. ECW is said to be anywhere from $4-to-$7 million in debt, much of which is from Heyman himself and his friends and family that he has borrowed from to keep the company afloat. As of now, ECW isn't producing anymore television and it has lost nearly all of its syndicated TV deals it had around the country and there doesn't appear to be anyone interested in acquiring the company.
While WWF is now poaching ECW talent, they have promised to keep all ECW signings confidential in order to keep it from looking like ECW is losing all their stars while Heyman continues negotiating with TV networks. But of course, this is the wrestling business and almost nothing stays secret for long (Justin Credible's signing was all over the internet the day after it happened). ECW still has a PPV penciled in for March 11th but there's no building booked yet and it's looking less and less likely that it will really happen. Even if the PPV happens, ECW is pretty much dead. If Heyman can, he may still run sporadic spot shows here and there using the ECW name, but as a real promotion, they're all but finished. If the PPV happens, WWF has agreed to allow any new signees to still work the show, and even allow former ECW stars like the Dudleyz and Tazz to work the show if they want. As long as Heyman owns the ECW name, he'll always be able to round up enough indie stars to put on a live show or a PPV under the ECW banner. But without television, that's not a very profitable business.
WCW is known to be interested in several of ECW's stars and obviously WWF's decision to start signing them instead is at least partly to keep WCW from getting them. Both Tajiri and Super Crazy were offered tryout matches at the latest Nitro tapings, but the offer actually pissed both men off, particularly Tajiri who felt insulted at being asked to try out, considering everyone who pays any attention already knows how good he is. Tajiri is almost certainly going to WWF, though Super Crazy may not, since Vince is said to not be interested in him and he's never cared for Lucha Libre style wrestlers before. WCW is also interested in Kid Kash. Meanwhile, Steve Corino, Simon Diamond, and Dawn Marie were all at Nitro looking for work, and it's believed Corino has a good chance of getting signed. WCW is still hesitant to sign anyone without rock solid evidence that they aren't under an ECW contract, because they got burned in the past with Candido, Awesome, and Sabu. WWF doesn't have the same concerns, figuring that with everyone 10 weeks behind on pay, it'd be pretty difficult for Heyman to enforce anyone's contract. Plus, they're at least trying to work with Heyman to make things as easy as possible for him. As for other guys like Sandman, C.W. Anderson, Spike Dudley, etc.....there doesn't appear to be any interest in them from either WWF or WCW. It's believed Tommy Dreamer could always get a job in WWF if he wants it, as a writer or office worker. Jerry Lynn was expected to wind up in WWF, but apparently they low-balled him on their contract offer and negotiations have stalled. But much like Justin Credible, Lynn is in a financial crunch and can't afford to not sign with somebody sooner or later, so he may be forced to take the deal (and now you see why WWE having a monopoly for the last nearly 20 years has been bad for the wrestlers). And finally, there's Rob Van Dam. Nothing new with him right now. WWF doesn't appear to be interested, so WCW may be his best option.
Eric Bischoff has reportedly finalized plans for a temporary shutdown of WCW, expected to take place immediately after the SuperBrawl PPV later this month. It's expected that some sort of major angle will take place at the end of the show (rumors are that it may involve Goldberg and/or even Hogan), resulting in some announcement that Nitro and Thunder have been cancelled for a few weeks. As for shows that were already booked and have been advertised and have sold tickets for, they're all expected to be cancelled, or at the very least, they may still run them as house shows. Regarding the time frame of the shutdown, that's uncertain. It's believed to be about 3-4 weeks, likely with Nitro returning to TV on Mar. 12th in Knoxville. All the major stars will be on the show when it relaunches and it would act as sort of a reboot for WCW. While Goldberg will likely be there, he won't be doing much, as he just had shoulder surgery this week, which is why they wrote him off TV at the Sin PPV. WCW also doesn't plan to have a PPV in April, and will start back with monthly PPVs again with an event on May 6th in Las Vegas (that was the WCW Big Bang PPV that never ended up happening, but WWE.com wrote a big story on it awhile back and what the plans were. It's an interesting article for a few reasons. The big reason being that it proves how dead-on accurate Dave was about this stuff. I know nowadays, Bischoff is all about his podcast and doing his I-hate-Dave-Meltzer, he's-wrong-about-everything gimmick. But this article, from WWE and featuring quotes from Bischoff himself, confirms every single thing Dave was writing back in 2000 and early 2001. They were shutting down, they were going to be headquartered out of Los Angeles, run shows in Las Vegas, the FX negotiations, Turner wanting to keep them on their network, Joey Styles doing commentary, etc. Dave was reporting all of this, down to the tiniest detail, back when everybody was trying to keep it secret. Just keep that in mind next time Bischoff is talking shit about how Dave Meltzer is a quack who makes up rumors).
WATCH: AJPW 2001 Tokyo Dome show playlist
Remember awhile back when there was news about a Dr. Hackett in Indianapolis who was known to have prescribed drugs to several wrestlers, including some who died like Brian Pillman and Louie Spicolli? Well anyway, ol' Dr. Hackett got indicted this week on 48 different charges related to over-prescribing drugs and making false statements and a bunch of other shit. Hackett was the most well-known doctor in wrestling since Dr. Zahorian, who's downfall led to the WWF's early-90s steroid scandal. Dave doubts this case will be as big a deal, but given the fact that multiple wrestling deaths can be traced back to him, you never know. The pills Spicolli overdosed on were prescribed by Hackett. After Pillman's death in 1997, WWF banned Hackett and other well-known drug pushing doctors from its locker rooms. Many of the doctors were upset, none more than Hackett. He claimed he was pushed out due to racism (he's black) and made a big stink of it. Despite being told not to see him, several wrestlers in both WWF and WCW continued going to him because, well, he's easy to get drugs from. Anyway, Hackett is facing a bunch of charges, revoked medical license, prison time, and nearly half a million in fines.
Chyna is the latest WWF star to release an autobiography (ghostwritten, of course) and Dave's here to give it a not-so-glowing review. Chyna doesn't come across as very likable in the book, and we learn that she basically hates 90% of the people who have been a part of her life, including her parents and various surrogate parents from her childhood. She wrote about being upset when her dad came to see her wrestle and she refused to see him and got mad when other WWF wrestlers met with him. She described her trainer, Killer Kowalski, as a stereotypical out of touch old man and made fun of his looks, personality, and hairpiece to the point that she was just being cruel. There's no depth to the book at all, even shallower than Golderg's book. She talked about working a 1-900 phone sex job before wrestling. She trashed ex-boyfriends, co-workers, and especially ripped on every woman she's ever wrestled against. Flat out denied ever using steroids which, c'mon. In the publicity run-up for the book, a big selling point was that she would come clean about her various cosmetic surgeries. But aside from talking about her breast implants, not a word was written about the obvious amount of work she had done on her face. She talked about recently breaking up with Triple H (although they have since gotten back together), and talked about how pro wrestling is Triple H's real wife and she could never be more than his mistress (that's some poetic shit). Basically, a big chunk of the book was just Chyna talking about how much she hated everyone who has allegedly wronged her throughout her life. It did have a couple of good moments though, like the story of how Triple H and Shawn Michaels pushed Vince to hire her. And especially the story of what happened the night Jeff Jarrett held up Vince for more than $200,000 in order to put over Chyna during his last night in the company for the IC title. But otherwise, Dave ain't feeling this book.
We have an obituary for Rito Romero, a famous Lucha Libre wrestler from the 40s and 50s, who died at age 73. Romero is most famously remembered today for being the wrestler who invented the surfboard move. He was also a big star in Texas and the southern U.S. during that time, starred in movies in Mexico, and so on and so forth. Pour one out.
Nitro this week featured the return of Dusty Rhodes which was particularly interesting because of how it did in the ratings. Dusty's return happened at the start of the second hour, right when WWF's Raw was starting. And yet, Nitro only lost 78,000 homes when Raw started. The usual number is anywhere from 600,000 to one million that switch over when Raw starts. So needless to say, the return of Dusty Rhodes was a HUGE draw for Nitro. And in fact, the segment (which featured Dusty giving bionic elbows to Road Warrior Animal and Ric Flair) did the highest quarter hour rating that Nitro has done in ages, and was within about 1 point of Raw during the same quarter hour, which is the closest the two shows have been in god knows how long. Nostalgia, if done correctly and in small doses, is a hell of a draw. But of course, Dave warns WCW not to take this as a sign that they need to build the show around Dusty now. He can pop a rating if used correctly, but don't get crazy.
Somewhat good news for Kenta Kobashi following his recent surgeries. Turns out his right knee wasn't as bad as they expected. They still did surgery, transplanting cartilage from his right elbow to his right knee, but there wasn't as much ligament damage as they feared. Kobashi is now talking about returning to the ring in 6 months, but that's just not enough time and Dave wishes Kobashi would stop being so stubborn and take off all the time he actually needs to properly recover. He's notorious for coming back way too soon from injuries because he has the mentality that the company needs him, and Dave says he's already shortened his career by doing this too many times and he's going to pay dearly for it later in life. Dave recounts a story from WCW just last year, when Keiji Muto was working there. A WCW doctor was examining wrestlers and asking them about their injuries and where they hurt. It led to Muto telling the doctor, simply, "my entire body hurts, all the time."
Speaking of Keiji Muto, he signed a new contract with NJPW this week and it's a unique deal. Muto signed on to work a maximum of only 50 dates, due to all his knee injuries, and he's the first wrestler in NJPW history who will be paid a percentage of the gates for shows he works rather than getting a guaranteed salary like everyone else. Masa Chono is hoping to get a similar deal, since his body is destroyed and he's not wanting to work as much. And Hashimoto is seemingly gone from the company right now. All of this explains why NJPW has gotten behind Kensuke Sasaki so much, making him the focal point of the company, because they don't really have any other believable full-time top stars.
Shinya Hashimoto is starting up his own Zero-One promotion, running his first show at Sumo Hall next month using himself and talent on loan from NOAH and Inoki.
Superstars of Wrestling, the promotion that ran shows in Australia last year with Dennis Rodman, announced another tour next month that will be headlined by Ultimate Warrior. It will be Warrior's first time back in the ring since his 1998 run in WCW. That being said, this is Warrior so who knows if this will even happen. He's notoriously flaky, so Dave ain't holding his breath that he'll even show up for this (nope, it doesn't happen).
The murder trial of 13-year-old Lionel Tate was decided this week when Tate was found guilty of first degree murder. The case stemmed from Tate beating a 6-year-old girl to death back in 1999. The case made national headlines when Tate's lawyer argued that Tate has been influenced by watching wrestling and attempted to subpoena Sting, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, and others to testify. The PTC latched onto this case, using it as an example of how WWF is responsible for children's deaths, which has been a big part of their campaign to get sponsors to pull out of Smackdown. The judge didn't allow the wrestling defense, with the prosecution arguing that the girl's injuries that killed her went far beyond just a wrestling move gone wrong, saying she was severely beaten for a lengthy amount of time and her injuries didn't lineup with Tate's version of "wrestling moves gone wrong." As for the lawyer who tried to bring wrestling into it, as part of their lawsuit against the PTC, the WWF also sued him. Anyway, following the guilty verdict, Tate now faces life in prison without parole.
There's talk of making Steve Corino the next NWA champion if he ends up not signing with WWF or WCW and commits to working NWA shows (he does end up signing with WCW but never debuts, they go out of business, and indeed, he becomes NWA champ soon after).
A bunch of ECW wrestlers worked an indie show in Queens this week at Elk's Lodge, which is the same building that hosted so many big ECW events over the years. Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch were there too, which surprised a lot of people because Sytch was just recently hospitalized the other day. No word why she was in the hospital, although there's a bunch of rumors going around that you can probably guess. But Dave can't verify anything other than the fact that she was in the hospital for a few days in bad shape.
The last few syndicated networks that still have ECW on the schedule ended up airing old re-run episodes from back in September, since the company has stopped producing TV. With the lack of shows and TV and everyone looking for work elsewhere, it's becoming more and more apparent that ECW is almost certainly dead.
Regarding the WCW sale, although it was officially announced last month by all parties involved, the sale won't actually be finalized for another month or two. There's a lot of red tape and details that have to be worked out on a sale of this magnitude so for now, Turner still owns WCW and is trying to run it as low-budgeted as they can while all the nit-picky stuff is settled. So while some creative changes may happen, until the sale is finalized, don't expect anything that costs money to change. So for now, WCW is just treading water until everything is finalized (turns out this is a pretty big deal...).
Eric Bischoff held a meeting before Nitro with the wrestlers and basically said that Johnny Ace is in charge for now. He said himself, Ed Ferrara, or Terry Taylor would be glad to listen to any ideas people have for angles or whatever, but the final yes or no on all those decisions is going to be Johnny Ace. He also talked about some of the wrestlers being out of shape, getting blown up in the ring, etc. and after the meeting, he met privately with a few guys to tell them to lose weight. Some wrestlers argued that it's hard to stay in ring shape when the company is only running one show a week and a lot of times, these guys only work one 2-3 minute match each week. Dave agrees. You can jog and exercise all you want, but it's not the same. Ring rust is real and being in ring-shape requires actually being in the ring. And that makes it especially difficult for young stars who are trying to improve so they can become bigger stars, but they barely get more than 2 or 3 minutes a week experience in the ring. The average WWF wrestler works 200 matches a year, give or take, and at WCW's current schedule, it'll take a WCW star 4 years to get that same amount of experience under their belt. In a company that desperately needs to create new stars, that's a big problem. But hey....the state of the company is what it is, so not much they can do about it. Anyway, Bischoff also asked everyone to start dressing and presenting themselves more professionally.
Bischoff desperately wants to split the Nitro/Thunder tapings. Having to tape Thunder every Monday night after Nitro is killing the crowds, which also kills the show. Dave also hints at the possibility of dropping Thunder altogether, which Bischoff would love, since he was against doing the show from day one.
Notes from Nitro: aside from the return of Dusty Rhodes, Dave calls it a depressing show. In a dark match, AJ Styles and Air Paris had a tryout against each other that was said to be really good. Even the Dusty return was depressing because it shows the current audience cares more about the mid-80s stars than anyone in WCW today. They did some fake DDP autograph signing skit, with Air Paris and AJ Styles playing the role of unruly fans. The show was in Baltimore so Buff Bagwell made some comments about Ray Lewis' murder arrest in order to get heat, which some found in bad taste (and now he's in the Hall of Fame. Lewis, not Bagwell). And Kevin Nash cut a promo saying, "Hey yo" to a big pop, because of course he did. Speaking of Scott Hall, he's been telling friends that Bischoff has told him to get ready to come back, so it looks like he'll be returning to Eric Bischoff's new WCW.
WATCH: AJ Styles & Air Paris in DDP segment from WCW
One last, weirdly hilarious note from Nitro and I'll just let Dave tell it: "Schiavone was waiting all day for the line talking about Misterio Jr. wrestling in Mexico, and then said, 'Mexico is bordered to the South by Guatemala, not Nicaragua, as everybody knows.' For the other three million viewers who don't have any idea why he said this, it's because about 11 years ago, there was this guy who did a wrestling newsletter named Steve Beverly who had the ear of a guy at TBS named Jeff Carr. Carr made the call that WCW Saturday Night, or whatever the show was called in those days which had Ross and Schiavone as co-hosts, should only have one host, and it was Ross. Schiavone was so mad he went to the WWF for several years, and has never forgiven Ross for the feeling he manipulated Schiavone out of the Saturday night job. He's hated Beverly ever since, and Beverly was always saying that Schiavone never stood up to the heels like Gordon Solie or Lance Russell. Anyway, last week on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," a contestant was asked what country bordered Mexico to the South and called Beverly, one of the world's most noted game show aficionados, for a lifeline and Beverly said Nicaragua and his friend hesitated, but went with Beverly's pick, and was wrong." Okay then.
It's widely believed that WCW will hire Road Dogg now that WWF has released him. Oh yeah, by the way....WWF released Road Dogg. Dave says it wasn't a surprise after he showed up to work a few weeks ago in no shape to perform.
Bryan Alvarez does a monthly article for Penthouse Magazine (I....didn't know that) and this month, the article was on women in wrestling. Anyway, remember that woman Marie (or Maria) who WCW brought in a few weeks back to play the role of Vito's sister? She appeared on TV a few times in an angle that seemingly went nowhere. Well, Alvarez couldn't find a picture of her to use in the article, so he contacted WCW, and they claimed to have never heard of her. Classic WCW.
Stacy Keibler is still under WCW contract but isn't being used and hasn't heard anything from them. So she's just sitting home getting paychecks mailed to her every week to do nothing. Last weekend, she was at the Super Bowl working for a Baltimore radio station because she used to be a Ravens cheerleader before joining WCW. Speaking of the Super Bowl, Hulk Hogan was there also and he made the local news when he tried to park in the VIP parking lot and was denied by security.
Notes from Raw: Dave talks about the Hardyz and says Jeff in particular seems to be in a lot of pain these days. He adds that the Hardyz have a reputation for not taking pain pills so they feel the injuries a lot more than most guys (well that policy certainly changed over the years). They aired a risque commercial for the XFL featuring model and new XFL announcer Carol Grow taking her clothes off, which TSN in Canada actually censored. And Big Show worked the main event, sold nothing and looked possibly worse than he ever has in the ring and nearly ruined the match by being so bad.
WATCH: controversial XFL commercial
Shawn Michaels' contract expires in June and he's negotiating an extension. The plan is still to bring him back for a match at Wrestlemania, but WWF is hesitant to push him on TV unless he signs an extension. They don't want to make a big deal out of his return, have him work a high profile match, and then show up in WCW two months later. Michaels is planning to shut down his wrestling school and his TWA promotion has already stopped running shows, so he's attempting to get 100% back into being an on-screen performer, either as a wrestler or something else.
Bruce Prichard is taking more of a role on the writing staff, which is headed by Stephanie McMahon. Right now, there's 2 other writers on the team who are fans but don't quite understand the wrestling business the way Prichard does so they want him involved, plus there's a feeling that the writing in WWF has become stagnant so they hope to freshen things up with new people and new ideas on the team.
Smackdown is being pushed hard as the "A" show right now because it faces such strong competition on Thursday nights from shows like "Friends" and "Survivor." Raw this week was mostly just a 2 hour commercial to promote Smackdown on Thursday.
Bobby Eaton has been signed by WWF to be the head trainer in the Memphis developmental territory.
Val Venis and Edge both missed the latest TV tapings to attend the funeral of Venis' mother. Edge is married to (or engaged to, Dave isn't sure which) Venis' sister, so it was basically Edge's mother-in-law also.
On Smackdown, Rock cut a promo making fun of Big Show's weight and Lawler even joked about it on commentary. It was basically calling out the fact that Show didn't even remotely come close to losing the weight WWF wanted him to lose. Backstage, he's said to have the same bad attitude as when he first was sent to OVW, particularly when it comes to not taking advice given to him by the agents on ring-work and character suggestions. As you'd expect, there's a lot of resentment against Show from other wrestlers, feeling like he walked back into the company and was pushed right back into the main event ahead of more deserving guys who aren't lazy and work hard to stay in shape. Show claims to have lost 66 pounds, which absolutely nobody believes, and word is they still want him to lose another 40. It's believed Shane McMahon is the one who pushed for his return at the Rumble even though others were against it, but Shane convinced his father to do it.
There's talk of making Bradshaw a top singles heel as well as talks of splitting up the Hardyz. Dave thinks the Hardyz thing is a bad idea. A lot of people feel like Jeff Hardy could be the next Shawn Michaels after the Rockers split, which doesn't bode well for Matt Hardy, although Dave thinks Matt is light years better than Marty Jannetty and doesn't have all the personal problems either (and of course, a few years after this, JBL did indeed get the top heel singles push).
There's rumors that some more people might be let go by WWF soon. Mideon was released this week, which upset some people because he's popular backstage and reportedly really funny to hang out with, but they just didn't have anything for him. He also had sort of a Big Show situation, where they asked him to get into better shape and he didn't. And, well, one of them has a 10-year guaranteed big money contract and the other one doesn't, so one still has a job while the other doesn't.
Kurt Angle will be the next wrestler with an autobiography released. He's lived a really interesting life so Dave is looking forward to it, but it's expected to be ghostwritten like the others, so Dave just hopes it's better than Chyna's book (I've read it. It's pretty good).
Bob Orton Jr.'s son Randy is said to be showing a lot of improvement in a short period of time wrestling in OVW.
In an interview with Media Week promoting the XFL, Vince McMahon had this lovely little comment about female football announcers: "Football is a man's game. Don't put a woman on the sidelines to tell me about football. It's offensive. She might know more about the game than I do. But quite frankly, when she tells me she does, I resent her all the more. She's never played the game. When a woman tells me about football, I just think it's bad programming." Well then.
PTC head L. Brent Bozell sent out a fundraising letter that reeked of desperation, trying to raise money for a legal defense to fight the WWF. He claimed the WWF has hired a 600-man law firm which is, umm, decidedly false. He said the harassment from WWF fans has been brutal (Dave believes that) and that they have gotten emails with viruses sent to them that have destroyed their computers and the letter basically made it sound like this was all coordinated by WWF themselves, which of course is not true. Bozell said if WWF wins this battle, no one else will ever stand up to them again and that the legal costs could be in the hundreds of thousands so please send them money!