Wrestling Observer Rewinder

May 07, 2001

Remember Johnny Valentine died in the last issue but Dave didn't have time to write up a proper obituary? Good lord, does he correct that this week. This sucker is LONG. Valentine died nearly broke and Dave rants about how the wrestling industry doesn't take care of its own after they're done giving their bodies to it. Valentine's long-time rival Wahoo McDaniel is in poor health but he's been fortunate to collect a pension from his years playing football for the AFL which was later absorbed into the NFL. Other wrestlers are part of the Screen Actor's Guild due to having small movie roles, which provides them insurance and things like that. Valentine was paralyzed from the waist down in the plane crash back in the 70s (Dave says these days, if that happened, he likely would have collected some big legal settlement but that didn't happen back then) and the medical bills piled up and left him broke. Dave includes a quote from Ric Flair here, talking about how messed up it is that the business doesn't have a union or health insurance or something to prevent this from happening to past stars. Dave talks about all the heartbreaking stories we never hear about from these older wrestlers who fade into obscurity after retirement and end up destitute because there's no pension, no 401K, so on and so forth and the savings they build up during their career goes away pretty quick when it's time for these old guys to get those knee replacements and neck surgeries and whatnot with no insurance. There's a lot of quotes in here from other wrestlers here talking saying that the business abandoned Valentine, who was one of the top stars of his era and it's pretty sad. And unfortunately, little has changed in the 20 years since.
Anyway, other obituary stuff. Dave recaps a story from Lou Thesz's book about Valentine who once went to a bull-riding show and decided to try it but got thrown off. According to Thesz, the bull then charged Valentine and Thesz thought he was for sure a dead man. But Valentine stood his ground and punched the bull right in the face as hard as he could, stunning the bull long enough to make it turn away for a minute so he could escape. Valentine was notorious for being an incredibly hard hitter, legendary feuds with McDaniel, and on and on. Man....this is a REALLY long and good obituary and absolutely worth reading but I can't recap all this haha. Dave goes into detail on pretty much every major angle or moment of Valentine's career and it's incredible but it's not news and this issue is long enough already.
WWF's Backlash PPV is in the books and it was...fine. Dave almost feels like it's unfair to compare it to recent PPVs because the last few WWF PPVs have been off-the-charts awesome. This one was still good but it felt like a let-down in comparison to the last few months. Dave thinks the Benoit/Angle 30-minute submission match was good but not as great as expected and without near falls, it dragged too long. Same with the main event, good but too long. They announced it as the 18th consecutive sellout in a row in Chicago, which isn't exactly true. 17 of the last 18 Chicago shows were indeed legit sellouts, but one of those shows didn't, so it's not 18 in a row. But hey, still impressive! And at least it wasn't like the XFL, where they repeatedly announced sellouts despite most of the stadiums being 3/4 empty for every game.
Other notes from the PPV: Jerry Lynn made his TV debut on the Heat pre-show, winning the light heavyweight title from Crash Holly. Lita also worked the pre-show and Dave says it's clear they're preparing to do a Lita vs. Chyna angle for the women's title (yup, but they only had 1 match before Chyna leaves the company). Raven vs. Rhino was the sleeper match of the night, way exceeding expectations. Shane McMahon took another crazy bump from the top of the TitanTron, as he tends to do. Triple H became the 2nd grand slam champion ever (behind Shawn Michaels) having now held the World, IC, European, and now tag team titles. And the cameras missed part of the finishing sequence of the main event, leading Dave to ask, "how in the WCW does this happen?"
WATCH: Shane McMahon leaps from the top of the TitanTron
Jim Ross spent the past 2 weeks in meetings with WCW talent to put together the roster for the new WCW that's now expected to launch next month. As of press time, the plan is for the first episode to air on June 16th, and TNN will be bumping their "Grand Ole Opry" show to make room. Ross met with Rob Van Dam and his agent for the first time and described the meeting as very positive. Several years ago, RVD rubbed many in WWF the wrong way when he and Sabu refused to do a job on TV during the ECW invasion angle. No word on a deal being made yet, but it's looking more likely now than it did before. Ross also met with an agent who represents several former WCW guys like Booker T, DDP, Billy Kidman, Kanyon, and others. Ross made it clear that if any of these guys want to come in, they will not be offered anywhere near what WCW was paying them as far as guarantees go, but if they're successful, they will still make really make good money based on incentives and whatnot. Most of the people who have met with Ross praised him and said he's been very honest and forthcoming in the negotiations and isn't trying to fill their heads with lies about how much money they'll make and stuff like that. Plus WWF wrestlers earn a portion of gate money and WWF runs a lot of successful live shows, although the relaunched WCW brand won't be running house shows, at least not at first, so that's obviously something they have to take into consideration.
Booker T has close to 2 years left on his WCW deal, at $750,000 per year and would be giving up a lot of money if he accepts a buy out to sign with WWF, but he's made it clear to people around him that he still wants to go. WWF has pretty much given up on pursuing Goldberg because he's got nearly 3 years left on his WCW deal and will make more than $6 million by simply sitting at home, and WWF has no intention of offering anywhere near the same amount. DDP has about 9 months left on his WCW deal which will net him more than $1 million but like Booker T, he's also made it clear that he wants to work for WWF even if it means losing out on some of that money in the short-term. Kidman has more than a year left on a $300,000-per-year deal so he's probably going to sit it out also. Same with Ric Flair, 2 years left on his big money deal and doesn't seem anxious to give it up. Several other wrestlers who were on 90-day contract cycles will officially become free agents in July and the biggest name among them is Rey Mysterio, who WWF allegedly has interest in but haven't spoken with him yet. All the rest will likely start working indies or in foreign promotions in Japan, Mexico, or Europe. We're beginning to see how the deaths of WCW and ECW left so many people scrambling to figure out how to put food on the table and pay their mortgages.
Ross also had meetings with Reno, Chavo Guerrero, Chuck Palumbo, and Sean O'Haire. Then he went to the UPW show that night in California and met with Nathan Jones, John Heidenreich, and former XFL player Josh Wilcox. Ross was high on Wilcox and there was talk of using him to cross-promote the XFL if they end up having a 2nd season (lol). Speaking of, around half of the XFL players have requested contract releases so they can negotiate with the NFL and several have already signed NFL deals. Wilcox is said to be pretty good in UPW, especially with his mic work. Anyway, the plan is to finalize a WCW roster in the next 2 weeks and then put together the non-wrestling crew (agents, referees, announcers, etc.) a few weeks later before the re-launch. The main names being considered for announcers are Scott Hudson, Mike Tenay, Joey Styles, Mark Madden and, believe it or not, Jerry Lawler, though he's a long-shot. Lawler reportedly still won't come back without his wife and Vince McMahon is pissed at him for the things Lawler has said and done since walking out, so there's some fences that need to be mended there. Vince is reportedly not willing to budge on bringing Lawler's wife back. The idea is to tape on Wednesdays, near whatever city Smackdown is taping in on Tuesdays, since they will use the same production crew and production trucks. The WCW group will have its own writing team, but they will work with the WWF writers to make sure they don't conflict with each other's angles (for instance, both shows promoting a major cage match during the same week or things like that).
Dave has examined the ECW chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in detail and it shows a realistic picture of what kind of shape ECW has been in during the last two years. In 1999, ECW grossed $5.8 million in income (WWF grossed $259 million while WCW grossed more than $160 million during the same year). In 2000, same kind of situation. Long story short, while many people considered ECW a strong candidate for the #2 promotion in the U.S., the reality is that the wrestling industry was pulling in roughly half a billion dollars during those years and ECW amounted to less than 1% of that market share. WWF, NJPW, WCW, and even PRIDE ran numerous single shows that grossed more than ECW did in those entire years. ECW's income drastically declined in 2000 (though not as bad as WCW's) which is interesting because that's the first year they ever had a national TV deal. The problem is, that TV deal came with enormous costs that TNN wouldn't cover and ECW essentially went broke trying to fund it themselves. ECW was owned 85% by Paul Heyman, with the Acclaim video game company owning the other 15%. At the time they folded, ECW was facing numerous lawsuits from around the country for nonpayment of bills and left tons of other unpaid bills in its wake that they weren't yet sued over. The bankruptcy filing included a list of all the people or companies ECW owed money to. Wrestlers, Heyman's family, radio stations, business partners, lawyers, travel agencies, credit card companies, loan companies, even the company that makes wrestling title belts. There was also a clear lack of comprehensive bookkeeping. On the recent Observer radio show, Tommy Dreamer talked about how some last ditch efforts to raise money for ECW failed because ECW couldn't provide any verifiable financial records. Many of the debtors listed in the bankruptcy are rounded off estimates rather than exact figures. Many wrestlers were listed as being owed money, but the amount was listed as "unknown."
Among the people/companies owed money: Acclaim is owed $1 million. Heyman himself was owed $128,000 in back-pay from money he spent out of his own pocket to keep things afloat. Heyman's father, who funded the company for many years, is owed $3.5 million while his mother is owed $226,500. MSG Cable is owed $244,000. InDemand is owed $150,000. And WWF is owed $587,500. And that's just a few of the companies. As for the performers:
William Alfonso (Fonzie) - $5,000
Scott Antol (Scotty Anton) - unknown
Joseph Bonsignore (Joey Styles) - $50,480
Mike Bucci (Nova) - $4,000
Don Callis - $12,000
Lou D'Angeli (Lou E. Dangerously) - $7,000
Michael DiPaolo (Roadkill) - $21,250
Joseph Dorgan (Swinger) - unknown
John Finnegan - unknown
Francine Fournier - $47,275
James Fullington (Sandman) - unknown
Terry Gerin (Rhino) - $50,000
Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley) - unknown
Francisco Islas (Super Crazy) - $5,000
Mike Kehner - unknown
Patrick Kenney (Simon Diamond) - $9,000
Tom Laughlin (Tommy Dreamer) - $100,000
Jerry Lynn - unknown
James Maritato (Little Guido) - $25,000
Troy Martin (Shane Douglas) - $48,000
Jim Mitchell (Sinister Minister) - unknown
James Molineaux - unknown
Dan Morrison (Danny Doring) - $2,100
Peter Polaco (Justin Credible) - $7,990
Dawn Psalpis (Dawn Marie) - $9,000
Jon Rechner (Balls Mahoney) - $4,000
Ken Reininhaus (Jack Victory) - $3,000
Robert Szatkowski (Rob Van Dam) - $150,000
Yoshihiro Tajiri - $5,000
John Watson (Mikey Whipwreck) - $12,000
More bad news on the "professional wrestling is bad for kids" front, as a new study from Wake Forest found that teenagers who are wrestling fans are more likely than their peers to have violent romantic relationships. The story was picked up and carried in newspapers nationwide and basically found that a higher percentage of teens on dates are more likely to get into physical altercations on dates and be abusive in their relationships. A WWF spokesman responded saying WWF is not a children's show and that the parents should determine what's appropriate and yada yada. The usual response. Long story short, teens (particularly boys) who watch wrestling tend to be meaner and more physically abusive to girls, and it blames the way women are portrayed and demeaned every week in wrestling on TV. Interestingly enough, girls were also found more likely than boys to be violent and do drugs if they were wrestling fans. Dave breaks down all the numbers on this and discusses what it means, the flaws and cavets involved in a study like this, etc. but regardless, it's pretty clear that wrestling (and WWF in particular) seems to be having somewhat of a negative influence on teens and this isn't the first study to say so.
Throughout his tenure in WCW, Rey Mysterio occasionally headed down to Tijuana to work indie shows with other big name Mexican stars, but as of this week, Time Warner informed Mysterio he can no longer do that or he'll be in breach of his contract. And like everybody else who is still collecting big money WCW deals, he doesn't want to lose that so no more Mysterio in Tijuana for now. Dave talks about how Tijuana is a pretty hot city for wrestling right now, with several companies all running weekly shows there and drawing big crowds.
Hey there. Guess what? I have the flu! Yup, as I write this, it's Dec. 6, 2018 and I'm siiiiiiick as shit. I've been cooped up in my house, sweating through the mattress for four days now, shivering like a newborn baby lamb. But my entire body aches from laying around for 90-something hours and I just can NOT lay around and sleep anymore. Also, did I mention my wife is also sick? She caught it from me the next day so we've both been lumbering around the house like feverish zombies. And oh man, I just can't begin to tell you how delightful she is to be around right now. A sheer joy, I must say. So much so that I decided I needed a break from it, lest I be overwhelmed with gratitude. So I have come upstairs to my quiet office to reflect on how lucky I am. I'm so lucky. Right? RIGHT?!
5/29/19 Update: I'm okay now.
The AJPW vs. NOAH war has reached a new level of petty. Last week, NOAH announced that they would be holding a Jumbo Tsuruta tribute show in his hometown in June. Not to be outdone, a few days later, AJPW announced they were going to do their own Tsuruta tribute show, and they're doing it in May so they can beat NOAH to the punch. Jumbo Tsuruta was one of the biggest stars in AJPW history but he retired and left the company almost immediately after Giant Baba passed away in 1999. Tsuruta died last year right around the time AJPW was splitting up and had made it clear to everyone that he was on Misawa's side (I think it's come out in the years since that Motoko Baba pretty much fired Tsuruta right after Giant Baba died. Seems like the 2 didn't exactly get along).
When Vampiro's WCW contract expires in a few months, he's expected to start working in AJPW (yeah, he's worked a few tours there off and on over the years).
Antonio Inoki was in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago and when he came back to Japan, he showed the media 2 photos of himself with Mike Tyson, in order to "prove" that his negotiations with Tyson for a match against Naoya Ogawa weren't just a bullshit claim. Apparently Tyson and Inoki met in Las Vegas at the end of April, but Dave doesn't say if there's anything to the negotiations. One of the photos was of them shaking hands and the other was of Inoki pretending to choke Tyson (I can't find either of these pics anywhere and googling "mike tyson antonio inoki" just pulls up a billion pictures of the Muhammad Ali vs. Inoki match).
Dave talks about 21-year-old Japanese female wrestler Meiko Satomura and says she's the most promising young female wrestler in Japan right now. In case you're wondering, she's 39 now and she absolutely stole the show in this year's Mae Young Classic. So yeah, she's dope.
Stu Hart is going to have surgery to have a pacemaker put in due to his recent health issues. Former manager Sir Oliver Humperdink also had a heart bypass surgery recently.
Don Callis was on the Observer Live show and said he's going back to school to get his MBA. He said he never wants to end up in the same position he's in now, where circumstances beyond his control left him with no job. Soon after ECW folded, he was supposed to go to the Eric Bischoff-owned WCW, but then that fell through too and suddenly he had no other wrestling options (yup, he got his MBA in 2003 and now he runs Impact Wrestling).
UPW wrestlers Prototype vs. Frankie Kazarian headlined a recent indie show in Massachusetts (I'm only mentioning it because I found the match. Spoiler: LOLPROTOTYPEWINS).
WATCH: Prototype vs. Franke Kazarian
Former ECW valet Elektra recently did a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of Playboy (it was actually part of a larger thing. Throughout her time in ECW, she also appeared as an extra on Sopranos in several episodes, as a stripper at the Bada Bing strip club on the show. The Playboy shoot was a "Girls of the Bada Bing" type thing, with her and a bunch of the other strippers from the show).
The lines between MMA and wrestling are even blurrier than normal in PRIDE, because this week they announced the upcoming PRIDE event later this month will feature NJPW wrestler and current IWGP champion Kazuyuki Fujita vs. NOAH wrestler Yoshihiro Takayama. To make it even more interesting, Takayama challenged Fujita to put the IWGP title on the line in the fight, but NJPW has made it clear that ain't happening on a PRIDE show in a shoot match.
UPN is reportedly looking to follow NBC's lead and no longer air XFL games, which puts the chances of a 2nd season into even further doubt. UPN only had a 1-year deal to carry XFL and it was by far the network's lowest rated show. That would leave TNN as the only network still on-board to carry XFL games and XFL president Basil DeVito has already said that the league wouldn't be able to continue if TNN is their only TV deal. Long story short: XFL is almost certainly dead.
OVW wrestler Randy Orton worked a dark match against Billy Gunn, and cut a promo before the match (here's video, but the audio is super low for some reason).
WATCH: Randy Orton vs. Billy Gunn (2001 dark match)
When reviewing Smackdown, Dave gets a pretty good dig in at Russo. There was a segment during the show where Grandmaster Sexay was talking about fat women. Dave jokes, "See, this proves Russo's point. WWF was allowed to call women fat and that's why they still draw sellout houses." If you recall, last year in WCW, the standards and practices people nixed a segment where Russo wanted to have Roddy Piper call a woman fat and Russo threw a fit about how the Turner S&P people were the reason why he wasn't able to turn WCW around. It's obviously a ridiculous argument because it's not like calling a woman fat was going to boost Nitro's ratings an extra 3 points or anything, but that didn't stop Russo from throwing a temper tantrum about it every time and using it as an excuse for why he totally could have saved WCW if only his oh-so-brilliant and creative mind hadn't been handcuffed by the censors.
Talent agent Barry Bloom's agency has filed a lawsuit against Chyna for failing to pay commissions they say she owes them. Bloom's agency represented Chyna for most of the last 3 years and negotiated her WWF contract as well as consulted and advised her on many outside business dealings including her autobiography, her Playboy shoot, acting gigs, etc. Chyna apparently owes them somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000. The lawsuit says she hasn't responded to numerous attempts they've made to contact her and she has refused to pay.
Jerry Lawler was recently on Mancow's radio show and made some waves by implying that Bruce Prichard and Stephanie McMahon were sleeping together and that he wouldn't care if Vince McMahon died in a car wreck. Lawler later went on his website and tried to clarify that he was just joking, but the internet picked it up as serious news and it spread like wildfire. In the website post, Lawler said everything on the Mancow interview was said in jest and that he doesn't hate Vince McMahon and was sorry if anyone took his comments about Stephanie and Prichard seriously (On his podcast, Prichard has talked about this and said it actually caused some problems at home with him and his wife because I guess he had been unfaithful in the past and his wife already didn't fully trust him. So Lawler saying this really ruffled some feathers for Prichard's home life). Lawler also said he has over a million dollars in cash and has no interest in begging for his WWF job back and said he doesn't even know if he'd go back even if Vince begged him to now. He said WWF's lawyers had told him that he's burning his bridges by talking about this so much in the media but Lawler said he's not saying anything that isn't the truth and if the truth hurts, it's their problem not his. He also said WWF wrestlers and developmental guys have been told they'll be fired if they talk to Lawler and and that some indie wrestlers had been told they'll never have a chance to work in WWF if they work any shows Lawler is booking. Lawler also thought it was bullshit that WWF pulled their developmental deal away from Power Pro Wrestling just because Lawler was part of that show, saying it was unfair to PPW and the other wrestlers there. Lawler also claimed that when he was still with WWF, he had talked to Hugh Hefner about his wife Stacy posing in Playboy, but WWF threw a fit because they felt it was their decision to decide which of their women should be in Playboy and that Lawler shouldn't be trying to pursue those kinds of deals for his wife on his own. Stacy has since tried to get a Playboy photoshoot but was rejected by the magazine. However, Playboy did send a letter basically saying that they would reconsider if their relationship with WWF were to ever come to an end, so basically, she's even blacklisted from Playboy because of WWF. He also claimed that he hasn't gotten paid for the artwork he did on Mick Foley's Christmas Chaos children's book (published by WWF) and that he's planning to write an autobiography. And finally, Lawler said he's had talks with Hulk Hogan about coming in to Memphis and working some matches together, which would likely do pretty big business.
UPW had a big show last week and Dave was there. In fact, they hosted the Observer Live show from right there in the building before the wrestling show began. Edge & Christian worked the main event, beating Frankie Kazarian and Nova. Molly Holly also came in and put over WWF developmental wrestler Victoria. The match was bad but Dave thinks Victoria has some real star potential. UPW champion Samoa Joe beat Tommy Dreamer. Later, in the big angle of the show, they had a thing where Samoa Joe and a bunch of other heels attacked Prototype and broke his arm with a chair to write him out of the promotion because he's leaving for OVW in a couple of weeks. Eventually Tommy Dreamer ran in and saved him. Fun fact: the Rock was supposed to show up as a surprise to save Prototype from the beat down because he's currently staying in Los Angeles right now taking acting classes. But some scheduling issues at the last minute kept it from happening. Another match featured the tag team of Nathan Jones and John Heidenreich. Dave thinks Nathan Jones is almost a sure thing to become a big star unless injury or his age gets in the way (he's starting pretty late, at age 30). Ring wise, he's obviously still green, but he's got the look, charisma, and all the athletic credentials and WWF had signed him to a developmental deal before he even wrestled his first match (turns out he could never quite get the whole in-ring part down and he ended up quitting WWF because he didn't like the travel). As for Heidenreich, he's got the look but not as much charisma. Other notable names on the show: Luther Reigns, Rocky Romero, and Mike Knox. Interestingly enough, Christopher Daniels was the one running the show backstage. Jim Ross and Paul Bearer were also there, scouting talents. (This paragraph has just about the most eclectic list of names ever, from all different eras and promotions that would eventually go in all sorts of weird directions, all under the same roof for one show. 2001 was wild y'all).
WATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Tommy Dreamer - UPW 2001
Big Show did an interview recently talking about a few things. Regarding his recent stint in OVW, he said Jim Cornette would fine guys if faces and heels were having dinner together and would blow a gasket if they were even in the same place, like a bar or night club, even if they weren't socializing together. After the big Louisville Gardens 30th anniversary show awhile back, there was a big party in a private room at a night club that was closed off to the public and for that one night, Cornette reluctantly allowed the wrestlers to socialize and party together but he was still pissy about it because there was a door to the room where people in the public part of the club were hanging out and for those brief few seconds every now and then when the door was open, people outside could see inside and that drove Cornette bonkers. Classic. Also, in regards to the segment that was bleeped on TV a few weeks ago, Big Show said he called Kaientai a couple of "goofs" but the people in the truck misheard it and freaked out and bleeped it, which made everyone think he had used the other racial slur, but he swears he didn't.
Boxer Butterbean did an interview talking about his WM14 match with Bart Gunn. Butterbean said that Rock and Austin had a backstage bet on who was going to win. Austin was apparently foolish enough to pick Bart and needless to say, Rock won that bet. He also said back in 1998 that Vince McMahon had made him a huge offer (near 7 figures, although Dave says he finds that hard to believe, but then again, Butterbean was a huge cult star at the time) to come in as a full-time WWF wrestler. But Butterbean turned it down because he wanted to continue boxing (since he was already making big money doing that) and Vince's offer wouldn't allow that.