March 19, 2001
- The future of WCW is looking very questionable all of a sudden. As of press time, the company only has 3 shows remaining on the schedule: the Greed PPV on 3/18, Nitro on 3/19 and the spring break Nitro a week later in Panama City on 3/26. It's eerily similar to ECW's situation just a couple of months ago. There's no shows scheduled for April and nobody seems to know what will air in the Monday/Wednesday time slots for Nitro and Thunder during that month. There were plans for a PPV in May in Las Vegas (though no arena is booked yet) and Bischoff has reportedly been planning that as the launch date of the new WCW. Advertising for that PPV is already out and as of yet it hasn't been cancelled. But Bischoff has been waiting for months for this sale to go through and it hasn't yet, which has forced them to postpone major storyline plans (like the temporary 3 week shutdown that was supposed to happen last month). Word is the deal is still alive but both Eric Bischoff and current WCW head Brad Siegel were on vacation last week, which raised a lot of eyebrows. Since it doesn't really seem like the most opportune time for 2 of the major players in this time-sensitive deal to be taking vacations. Dave notes that Bischoff was in Hawaii and had no involvement at all with Nitro this week. (Unbeknownst to anybody at this point, WCW's fate has already been sealed. Bischoff later revealed that he was on the beach in Hawaii with his family when he got the news that Time Warner had decided to cancel the Nitro and Thunder TV shows, which ultimately killed the deal. So at the time Dave is writing this, Bischoff already knows it's game over. Side note, I'd really like to ask him about this. Why did he and Siegel both decide to just say "fuck it" and go on vacations at such a critical time?)
- There have been snags in the negotiations between WCW and Fusient in recent weeks. Fusient originally agreed to purchase the company for around $70 million but then lowered their offer to $50 million when WCW's financials for January came in, which were even worse than last quarter. WCW is losing an estimated $5-7 million each month. If the deal does go through, Bischoff still plans to shut down the company for several weeks. They hope it goes through soon so that they can shut down as soon as the upcoming Greed PPV. But as of now, they still plan to have a Nitro on 4/2. There's a building on hold, but it's not finalized and nothing has been announced. And at this late date, even if they do announce a Nitro for 4/2, it will be damn near impossible to get advertising out for it to promote, put tickets on sale, and draw a crowd in such a short time frame. A house show scheduled for next week in Mobile, AL was also cancelled this week.
- If Bischoff's planned shutdown happens, it's unknown how long it will last. They still have the 5/6 Big Bang PPV on the books, but if that PPV gets scrapped, there's been talk of shutting the company down for months and maybe relaunching in the fall, with a whole new look, new wrestlers, gimmicks, etc. The idea would be to run 9 shows a month out of one location (8 TV tapings and 1 PPV) and the TV tapings would air on tape delay rather than live, at least at first. Las Vegas is still the most likely location. Bischoff has been insistent on doing Nitro and Thunder tapings separately because the crowds for Thunder have been pathetic at the joint tapings because half the crowd leaves the building when Nitro ends.
- And then there's the other possibility: the sale doesn't go through and WCW could fold after the 3/26 Nitro. That could actually have potential upsides and downsides. If Fusient still wants to get into the wrestling business, they could still launch their own company without having to honor existing WCW contracts, which would allow them to rebuild the company's salary structure to something more reasonable than what it is now. Of course, that would depend on signing those people to new contracts, and if WCW folds, everyone becomes free agents and WWF will likely sign away all the best talent, leaving Fusient with a bunch of scrubs that WWF didn't want. The other major downside is that they wouldn't have the valuable prime time TV spots on TNT and TBS and they would have to try and cut a new deal with a new TV network. Wrestling is cycling downwards, with even WWF doing significantly lower ratings than they were just a year ago, and TV execs are very aware of that. A new company, with a bunch of WCW cast-offs, trying to get a TV deal are going to have a difficult time finding one unless they have someone like Hogan or Savage on board. But then, Fusient would be forced to make those guys the focal point of the company to appease the network and, well, shit like that is partly what got WCW into this situation to begin with. But that all depends on whether Fusient even wants to stay in the wrestling business if a WCW deal can't be made. If Fusient decides to pass, and WCW folds, that will leave a lot of talent on the market that WWF could sign for bargain basement prices. And hey, if another new promotion decided they wanted to launch, there would be a lot of available names. But any new company attempting to compete with WWF and produce television will have to be able to afford massive start-up losses. And with the wrestling business going the way it's along, with the current economic climate in America (this is right when the dotcom bubble was bursting and America was heading towards a bit of a recession), that's going to be more and more difficult as time goes on. But hey, it could probably be done, right? (side-eyes Jeff Jarrett)
- Dave got a tape of the debut of Shinya Hashimoto's Zero-One promotion to review. He says it was a good show (though not as good as WWF's No Way Out PPV the week before) but what next? The show was built around guys from other companies, mostly NOAH and NJPW doing inter-promotional matches. But both of those companies have no plans of working with NOAH full time, which leaves Hashimoto as the company's only real star.
- Interesting note on TV ratings. WWF is obviously beating WCW but the margin is actually more than people realize. TV ratings are determined by the number of households the shows are available in and viewers per household and yada yada. Point being, the gap in actual viewers between WWF and WCW is bigger than people realize because TNN and TNT are available in a different number of households. TL;DR - WWF is winning this war by more than ratings percentages would lead one to believe.
- Good news for XFL ratings! The Saturday night game on NBC actually increased slightly over the previous week's number. It was still one of the 5th or 6th lowest rated shows ever in the history of network prime time television. But still better than last week!
- Still more ratings news: last week's Raw segment with Vince having Trish Stratus strip and bark like a dog did a pretty big rating and was the highest rated segment of the show. That's the good news. The bad news is, as soon as it was over, more than a million viewers (19% of the viewing audience) changed channels and most never came back and the main event of the show ended up being one of the lowest rated Raw main events in years. Which means people either were so disgusted by the controversial segment that they turned off the show or they loved the Trish segment and then didn't care enough to see anything that came after. Needless to say, neither is a good thing. And the people that left didn't switch channels to WCW, because it wasn't on. They just stopped watching wrestling that night entirely.
- Perro Aguayo is scheduled to face Universo 2000 in a hair vs. mask match at CMLL's upcoming big PPV event. Aguayo is telling people it will be his final match but you know how that goes. There was a time in the not-too-distant past that a real Aguayo retirement show would have sold out a stadium. Now Dave's skeptical if it will sellout Arena Mexico. There's been talk that Aguayo is already lining up bookings for April and is telling promoters to keep it quiet until after the CMLL show in order to protect the "final match" hype of this show. CMLL head Paco Alonso has said that Aguayo signed a contract promising to retire at this show and that legal action would be taken against him if he ever wrestled in Mexico City again, although they wouldn't be able to stop him from wrestling outside of the district. Dave's not buying it (turns out Aguayo was serious this time. He did come out of retirement several years later and worked a few more tag matches, including one in Mexico City in 2005. But for the most part, this was essentially his last real match).
- Scott Hall headlined NJPW's 30th anniversary show in a tag match. Hall looks to be in good shape for a 42-year-old guy. A little pudgier than usual but in far better shape than most 42-year-olds. But facially, he has aged significantly in the year since most fans last saw him on TV. Dave says he looks like one of those grandpa bikers in his 50s. He's lived a pretty hard and fast life the last year or so. Dave notes that Hall has also been wearing trunks with the word KLIQ on them.
- Lionel Tate was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Tate was the 12-year-old kid who ended up killing a 6-year-old girl and they tried to blame it on wrestling moves gone wrong. But the girl's injuries didn't match up with that story and it was reported that she had sustained a prolonged beating that had left her with multiple internal injuries that couldn't be explained by a kid just doing wrestling moves. Tate was only 12 at the time of the murders and just turned 14 recently and there's been a lot of national controversy over handing down a life sentence with no parole to someone so young. The case made headlines early on when Tate's lawyer tried to get The Rock, Hulk Hogan, and Sting to testify and then the PTC used the Tate case as ammunition in their war with the WWF. In response, the WWF later sued the PTC and Tate's lawyer. That lawsuit is still pending.
- An Insane Clown Posse show was recently cancelled after a bomb threat led to a mini-riot in Shepherdsville, KY. Some religious group was protesting the show and after the bomb threat led to the show being cancelled, ICP fans began to riot and caused a bunch of damage. It took more than 50 police officers and a bunch of tear gas to clear the area. Vampiro was also at the show.
- March 11th has come and gone and the planned ECW Living Dangerously PPV obviously didn't take place. The show was originally announced back in January but everyone has known for weeks that it wouldn't happen. A few days before, ECW's website quietly posted an announcement that the show was cancelled. In its place, most PPV providers ran a replay of January's Guilty As Charged PPV.
- Notes from Nitro: just another show with the company stalling for time and waiting for something to happen with the sale. It was mostly written by Ed Ferrara and as mentioned earlier, Bischoff had no input into this episode at all. They were piping in fake crowd noise during some of the matches which Dave found annoying and distracting. Stacy Keibler returned and is now managing Shawn Stasiak. Dave thinks Stacy has charisma and she's got potential to be a star so at least they're using her for something. But he sure wishes she was paired with someone other than Stasiak. For some reason during the show, they were still promoting a 3/25 house show in Mobile which, as Dave mentioned earlier, has already been cancelled. (Only 2 more Nitros left...)
- Various other WCW notes: Crowbar was released by WCW. He was told it was because his contract was too high (he was making a little more than $100,000 per year). Several developmental wrestlers (nobody of note) and referees were also released. It's believed there's still more housecleaning to come, as WCW continues trying to cut the budget. Kid Kash from ECW and AJPW wrestler Jackie Fulton got tryouts at the latest tapings. Bart Gunn was backstage looking for work at Nitro. Arn Anderson's suspension is up but he still wasn't at TV this week. On Thunder, during the Lance Storm/Konnan match, you may have noticed them cut away to a crowd shot when Hugh Morrus ran in. That's because he slipped on the ring steps and busted his ass during the run-in, so they edited it out on TV. Vampiro is cleared to wrestle again and is still under WCW contract but isn't being brought back right now because he has a ton of heat for all the stuff he's said about the company while he was out.
- Time Warner is attempting to settle WCW's outstanding lawsuits as quickly as possible before the sale. Nasty Boys member Jerry Sags had a lawsuit against the company stemming from a chairshot he received from Scott Hall a couple of years ago that he says ended his career. If you don't remember the incident, Sags went into the match already concussed and warned Hall not to hit him in the head during the chair spot. Hall did it anyway. Sags then attacked him during the match and ended up busting up Hall's face so bad that he needed oral surgery to fix the damage. Sags has never wrestled since and later sued the company. But anyway, WCW settled that suit recently.
- There's some heat on Ric Flair because he's not making things easy for WCW with Sonny Onoo's racial discrimination lawsuit. A few weeks ago at a house show, during a match with The Cat, Flair called him "sambo" (look it up if you don't know) and then this week on television while jawing with fans at ringside, Flair threatened "I'll jap slap you!" Needless to say, Onoo's legal team picked up on all of that.
- Buff Bagwell signed a 2-month extension on his WCW deal. His contract was up and WCW isn't signing anyone to long-term deals right now until the sale goes through, so that's why it's a short-term deal. And the reason it's still with WCW is because WWF reportedly doesn't have any interest in him.
- Jerry Lawler wrote a long blog post on his website to talk about his leaving WWF. He said that if you want to know how many real friends you have at work, just lose your job and see who reaches out. He said since walking out, he's only heard from a few people: Jim Ross, Terri Runnels, Michael Cole, Steve Lombardi, Harvey Wippleman and, to Lawler's admitted surprise...Shawn Michaels. Beyond that, no one in WWF has reached out. Lawler talked about his decision to post the phone numbers and email addresses of WWF writers on his website and said WWF lawyers threatened him over it. He talked about fans at Raw with pro-Lawler and pro-Kat signs having their signs confiscated and sarcastically joked about WWF's famous "freedom of expression" policy. Lawler felt like Paul Heyman did a good job in his place and had nothing bad to say about him. And finally, he said he watched Nitro for the first time in a long time and said, "They need help." Needless to say, WCW is an option for Lawler but they're still in a holding pattern right now and Lawler is too, since he hasn't yet gotten his legal release from WWF yet. Word is he and Jim Ross have talked frequently over the last 2 weeks and it's said that if Lawler would be willing to return without Stacy Carter, there's a good chance they would take him back. But so far, he's not budging and isn't willing to return unless they also re-hire his wife, who he feels was unfairly fired.
- Notes from Raw: Dave loved it. Says he can't say enough good things about this Raw. All the matches were good and 2 of them were great. Shane McMahon's return was a strong angle. They made a serious effort to push Benoit and Angle as top guys. Heyman was great on commentary. Just a near-perfect show all around. It wasn't 100% great though. Jim Ross spent half the show pathetically and repeatedly begging fans to call and write their local TV station to ask for more XFL coverage, because that's where the XFL is at these days. But otherwise, excellent show from top to bottom. Benoit vs. Guerrero was an excellent match. Rock vs. Angle was even better, arguably the best TV match of the year. Angle was DQ'd for refusing to break the ankle lock, but Rock also tapped out to the move which got Angle and the ankle lock over huge as a legit threat. And the show-long build to Rock vs. Austin at Wrestlemania was done perfectly.
- Various WWF notes: Chyna is resistant to wrestle women and still wants to wrestle men, but none of them want to work with her. Al Snow signed a new 4-year deal and says it's the last wrestling contract he'll ever sign and he's done after that (nope). Rikishi got his ear drum busted from a Steve Austin punch on Smackdown and will have surgery this week. Kane is doing a Stacker 2 commercial. Paul Heyman is already making his WWF presence known by heavily lobbying Vince to push Benoit as a top star.
- WATCH: Kane's various Stacker 2 commercials
- Expect several ECW names to join WWF soon. The most definite is said to be Tommy Dreamer, although Dave doesn't know what they can do with him. He's so broken down, he can't do much in the ring. But there's always a possible backstage role.
- A national restaurant chain (which Dave has been specifically asked not to name, but says they're well-known, with hundreds of locations in the U.S.) is no longer airing Raw at their locations. Apparently, they always aired Raw every Monday night but last week, the Trish and Vince segment happened and some patrons in the restaurant complained that it was basically the same as showing porn. The chain has made the decision to no longer show Raw on the TVs in all its locations nationwide.
- Vince McMahon did an interview and discussed the XFL situation. He admitted they had made some mistakes along the way and that the rules still need tweaking. He also admitted he had gone too far with his shit-talking about the NFL. Said the media hasn't been fair to them and admitted that the ratings were a serious disappointment. But Vince still insisted that the XFL will survive, despite rumors going around this week saying there wouldn't be a 2nd season. NBC wants to try to separate the XFL from the WWF to get away from the negative wrestling stigma that the league has. They were apparently the ones who decided Jim Ross would no longer call the NBC games because he's too much of a wrestling-style announcer, so he was replaced this week.
- XFL also made fun of themselves, with commercials for the Saturday night game on NBC joking that, "Nobody is watching this stuff anymore" and "the ratings are dropping like bricks." It also heavily hyped this week's game featuring a camera going into the cheerleader's locker room during halftime, and in fact, that was all the advertising for the game was about. Dave calls it the first pro football game ever built and promoted around its halftime. The skit saw Vince, in full WWF heel character, ordering a nervous cameraman to go into the cheerleaders' locker room and then knocking himself out and having a dream sequence. Dave says the whole thing was just so, so bad (yeah, this was peak desperation for the XFL and one of their most ridiculed and lowest moments).
- WATCH: the infamous XFL cheerleader locker room halftime stunt
- A longtime friend of Edge & Christian named Nick Cvjetkovich was signed to a WWF developmental deal. He has wrestled under the name Sinn in Memphis (he would later become Kizarny for a little bit in WWE and has worked indies ever since. Also, you know how Lawler quit the WWF because they fired his wife Stacy Carter? Well they later got divorced....and she's now married to this guy).