April 09, 2001
- Wrestlemania 17 is in the books and Dave calls it the culmination of the wrestling boom. Much like Wrestlemania 3 was the peak of the 80s boom, Dave predicts this is the peak of this era (yup). From a business standpoint, WM17 is likely to be the biggest revenue generating wrestling event of all-time, drawing the 2nd largest paid crowd in U.S. history, only trailing behind WM3. Also pulled in a $3.5 million gate. the largest in North American history and double the previous record (NJPW has done bigger gates a few times, but that's it). There's a good chance it'll also break last year's WM buyrate record and with higher PPV prices, it's almost guaranteed to hold the PPV revenue record as well. It also shattered the merch record, doing $1.1 mil in sales. The production value of the show was state of the art and this was by far one of the best in-ring shows WWF has ever held. 1997's Calgary Stampede has long been considered by many the benchmark for WWF's best ever PPV but there's a case to be made for this show being even better.
- Of course, the big story of the show was Steve Austin turning heel and aligning with Vince McMahon. The plan had been in the works for months and back then, it seemed like a good idea considering Rock had eclipsed Austin in mainstream popularity. But in recent weeks, the crowds have turned and Rock was getting booed in most confrontations with Austin. And on this show, in Texas, the crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Austin and security confiscated a whole truckload of anti-Rock signs. In other news from the show, for the first time, other promotions (WCW and ECW) were openly referenced by the commentary team. Benoit was referred to as the former WCW champion who never lost his title, which is the first time they've addressed that, while Heyman repeatedly mentioned ECW during commentary. The introduction of WCW wrestlers was kind of a flop. It's too soon to shoot an angle for the WWF vs. WCW story so they flew in several of the WCW stars to sit in the skybox to support Shane in his match. Although Shane and WCW are clearly being portrayed as the babyfaces in the feud, the WCW wrestlers were booed out of the stadium when shown on the screen for the live crowd. And without any of the big names like Flair, Goldberg, DDP, etc. it came off as a pretty pathetic collection of guys when compared to WWF's roster. Several of the full time WWF wrestlers who didn't get to be on the show were upset about missing out on the big pay day and some were very vocal about it, particularly Steve Blackman and X-Pac. Their complaints were heard and they (along with some others) ended up being booked to work a dark match on Heat before the show in order to get them on the card.
- Other notes from Wrestlemania 17: during the Eddie Guerrero/Test match, there was a moment when Test got his ankle caught in the ropes and couldn't get out. Even the referee couldn't get him out and it forced Eddie and Perry Saturn to basically break character for a moment to get him free. Angle vs. Benoit would have been considered a near-classic on most shows but on this night, it was arguably only the 3rd best match (4.25 stars). The TLC match stole the show (4.75 stars). They had the gimmick battle royal, which was mostly just a chance for legends to do their entrances while Bobby Heenan and Gene Okerlund made jokes. Gillberg was going to be in the match but they pulled him from the show because they were worried fans would start chanting for the real Goldberg, which...yeah, probably. One Man Gang/Akeem ended up using the OMG gimmick because his old Akeem costume didn't fit because he's lost so much weight. Iron Sheik won simply because he was the only one so broken down that he couldn't actually take the bump over the top. And of course, Austin beat Rock, turned heel, and won the WWF title (4.5 stars) while the live crowd totally ignored it, booed Rock, and cheered Austin like crazy.
- WATCH: Steve Austin vs. The Rock - Wrestlemania 17 (FULL MATCH)
- Aside from the 24 contracts that WWF purchased when they bought WCW, the future of WCW's remaining stars is still unknown. The biggest name is, of course, Bill Goldberg, who still has more than 2 years left on a Time Warner contract that pays him more than $2 million per year. As soon as word came out that WWF was buying WCW, the dream match everyone immediately talked about is Austin vs. Goldberg. WWF could, if they wanted, spend enough money to buy out his contract, but it would upset the salary structure of WWF and probably piss off a lot of the locker room. But on the other hand, those wrestlers don't have a lot of options elsewhere so Vince can piss off whoever he wants now and they just kinda have to smile and deal with it. But since he's the only game in town, Dave doubts Vince is going to make Goldberg a big offer. Ric Flair is in a similar boat, with 2 years remaining on an $800,000-per-year deal and at 52 years old, WWF isn't going to offer him nearly that kind of money to buy out his contract. Sting, Kevin Nash, and DDP all have around a year or so on their big money contracts also. As of now, Booker T appears to be the only major WCW star that is headed to WWF in the near future. Meanwhile, Time Warner would really like to get rid of all these people. They're stuck paying these huge contracts to wrestlers without a company for them to wrestle in. There's not even someone within Time Warner who could book them out to other promotions because all those former WCW office employees are out of jobs (more on that in a bit) and the connections and corporate infrastructure to make those kinds of deals doesn't exist anymore.
- The New Jersey State Athletic Commission held a meeting discussing a list of uniform rules and weight classes within MMA that, if approved by the state, would likely then become nationally adopted by other state commissions. Dave breaks down all the details about weight classes, new rules regarding attire, what moves are and aren't legal, round length changes, stand-up rules, judging and referee rules, etc. and what it might mean for UFC. This all eventually became known as the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts and is still the basis for MMA rules to this day.
- Legendary 1970s referee Johnny "Red Shoes" Dugan passed away this week at age 89. Dave recaps his career, all the famous matches and moments he was involved in. Fun fact: NJPW referee Hiroyuki Umino, better known to us 2019 fans as Red Shoes Unno, uses the "Red Shoes" nickname in tribute to Dugan. Hey, while we're listing deaths, we also get an obituary for Rolando Vera, one of the biggest Mexican wrestlers of the 1950s. He was 86.
- Antonio Inoki did an interview and claimed Hulk Hogan had called and talked about doing a Hogan vs. Inoki match at the Tokyo Dome. Dave says that Inoki has as much credibility as Hogan, which is none, so take this with a huge grain of salt. That being said, Hogan's not doing anything right now, and with WCW shut down, the timing makes sense. But nostalgia acts don't last forever in Japan, as guys like Terry Funk, Mascaras, Hansen, etc. have proven. Hogan doesn't mean nearly as much in Japan now as he did in the 80s. When Hogan worked in Japan back in 1993 (during the time in between WWF and WCW), they did strong business, but he didn't exactly set the world on fire or anything. Dave doesn't really see Hogan vs. Inoki as a viable Tokyo Dome main event in 2001.
- Benny McCrary, better known as one half of the McGuire Twins, passed away this week at age 54. The McGuire Twins were famously listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's fattest twins. Benny and his brother Billy (who died in 1979) each weighed nearly 800 pounds at their peaks and worked as a tag team during the 70s (in his book, Jim Ross writes about having to help these guys wash themselves in the showers after matches because they couldn't reach all their nooks and crannies themselves).
- Dusty Rhodes announced plans to do a PPV for his Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling promotion in Florida and talked about joining the NWA and running shows using himself vs. Flair as the headline attraction. Dave points out all the problems with this. First of all, Flair's WCW contract will prevent it, unless he's willing to breach the contract and if he's willing to do that, he'll be going to WWF, not little ol' TCW. Secondly, all no-name attempts to draw on PPV (Heroes of Wrestling, WOW, iGeneration, etc.) have been huge flops. Thirdly, even ECW and WCW's recent PPVs were flops. PPV is just too difficult of a market to break into and be profitable unless you have major resources. And finally, speaking of that recent WCW PPV that flopped....one of the featured attractions was Flair vs. Dusty. This ain't the 80s anymore and there just doesn't seem to be much of a market for that feud anymore, much less one that can carry Dusty's no-name indie company on PPV or on a national touring schedule.
- For the first time since I started doing these Rewinds, there is no WCW section. Man, that drives home the reality of the situation. All WCW-related news is now listed under the WWF section, which is just surreal.
- As promised in the memo sent out last week by Brad Seigel, all WCW officials and staff got together on 3/28 for a big staff meeting at the Power Plant and it was a blood bath. The death of WCW was made official when approximately 140 employees were informed that they were being let go and told to clear out their offices by the end of the day, turn in their cell phones, pagers, company credit cards, and any other Time Warner property. When they returned to their offices, their computers had already been shut down and office locks had been changed. Security guards watched over them as everyone boxed up their belongings and everyone was checked on the way out to make sure nothing was being stolen. The employees were given 9 weeks severance pay as well as an additional 4 weeks of pay for every year each person had worked there, which Dave thinks is actually a pretty generous severance package, to be fair. Some of the higher up WCW staff members, including Johnny Ace, were told they're being kept on for an additional 30 days to help work on the transition of WCW ownership to the WWF. Agents and bookers like Vince Russo, Terry Taylor, Ed Ferrara, Bill Banks, and others were all released as well. Kevin Sullivan was still under a contract that just recently rolled over, so he's gonna be collecting another year's salary. Dave thinks Terry Taylor is the only one of those names who might have a decent shot of getting hired by WWF. Of the office employees who were let go, they were given forms and told they could apply for jobs with WWF and would be contacted within 30-60 days, as long as they were willing to relocate to Stamford, CT. A lot of people said they were shocked by just how "cold" the sendoff was and noted that Brad Siegel never came to the meeting to face the employees. Siegel has been getting a lot of blame for the death of the company from people within the offices and he's been accused of leaving most of them in the dark on everything that was happening. Much like the rest of us, the office employees didn't know until the week before it happened that WCW would be folding and they were going to be losing their jobs. As for the remaining WCW wrestlers whose contracts weren't purchased by WWF, none of them have been told anything and for now, they're all still getting paid and just....waiting to see what's next for them, I guess.
- The tentative date for the first "WCW"-branded show under the WWF umbrella is for it to air on 5/12 on TNN, in the 11pm-to-1am time slot, with weekly Wednesday night tapings scheduled to start around the same time. There will likely be WWF talent working the shows in some capacity in order to draw crowds, but nothing about any of that has been finalized yet. Over the next 2 weeks, the plan is to try and finalize the WCW roster (probably with some WWF guys jumping ship), as well as putting together a front office staff, road agents, referees, writers, etc. It will be a separate group of writers from the WWF team and the idea is, of course, to keep WCW as a separate entity, at least for a few months and try to rebuild them before coming together for the big inter-promotional angle (get ready for more of this. We spend the next several months reading about WWF's constantly changing plans to relaunch WCW, only for them to be scrapped at the last minute every time).
- Notes from Raw: it was the night after Wrestlemania and Dave thinks it was a weak and lazy show. He ponders if this is what it's going to be like from now on since there's no more competition (spoiler: yup). They did an angle where they said Billy Gunn was negotiating with Shane McMahon to join WCW. "God help WCW if their big acquisition is Gunn," Dave says. Shane cut a promo while the fans chanted "WCW." And they teased Triple H turning babyface but of course it was a swerve and he's now aligned with Austin (the Two Man Power Trip begins). And that's about it.
- Former ECW women's wrestler Jazz got a tryout match before the Smackdown tapings (she gets the job).
- The WCW wrestlers whose contracts were not picked up by WWF have been told that appearing on any other wrestling shows will be considered a breach of contract. Time Warner is looking for any excuse to declare a breach in order to get out of paying these big contracts for a company that doesn't exist anymore.
- Jerry Lawler appeared on the Observer Live show to talk about the situation with him and WWF. Lawler talked about a letter he had faxed to Vince McMahon and read it on the air. The letter said that he and his wife would both like to return and that Stacy would like to apologize to whoever she upset for whatever she did wrong. Lawler also said he'd like to work an angle based on his leaving. Lawler said after he sent the letter, he never heard back from McMahon. The letter also hinted at a problem with Stacy and Chyna and talked about them having problems but didn't go into many specifics, but also said Stacy wants to clear the air with her as well. Lawler said that Jim Ross called him shortly after he left and said they wanted him back, but that Stacy wouldn't be re-hired. Lawler tried to fight that but they weren't budging, so Lawler continued to stick by his wife and refused. In regards to WWF pulling their developmental deal from Power Pro Wrestling, apparently that was retaliation for Lawler posting the WWF writers and executives email addresses online awhile back.
- Brock Lesnar also appeared on the Observer Live show, talking about his background and getting into WWF. He said he was first approached by Gerald Brisco and Jim Ross during his junior year of college. He also had offers from WCW and NJPW. Lesnar said he didn't want to work in Japan but did tell a fun story about having a 60-minute sparring session with Antonio Inoki and being amazed at Inoki's conditioning for his age. Lesnar said a few years ago after meeting Ken and Frank Shamrock, he was interested in going to UFC, but decided the money isn't good enough. He said that if he hadn't won the NCAA national title in 2000, he would have continued amateur wrestling and tried to go into the Olympics. But winning the NCAA title was a big enough goal accomplishment that he didn't feel the need to prove anything else and said he was done with amateur wrestling. Now he's in WWF, ready to make money. He also praised the training system in OVW.
- Tryout news: former WCW wrestler David Taylor, former ECW wrestler Redd Dogg, and Shawn Michaels trainee Michael Shane all got tryouts at the latest TV tapings.
- Jim Ross posted his Ross Report column on WWF.com and talked about plans for WCW. He said they will be putting together a team of agents, referees, ring crew, announcers, etc. in the next few weeks. He also said WWF and WCW will be kept separate with very little crossover. He said inter-promotional angles will happen, but probably not until 2002 because they have to rebuild WCW first.