Wrestling Observer Rewinder

June 11, 2001

The issue opens with a big examination of whether or not WWF will sign Bill Goldberg and why or why not. Right now, the "official" word is that his existing WCW contract is ridiculously high and they have no intention of making him an offer. On the other hand, pretty much everyone in the company realizes that for this WCW angle to work, they need Goldberg and other big WCW stars like him. Goldberg has more than 2 years left on his WCW deal and stands to earn around $6 million from it just by sitting at home, and Dave says he's "not a mark for being a wrestling star" the way a lot of guys are and doesn't seem to give a shit one way or another if he wrestles again or not. So it's unlikely that he'll take a buyout from Time Warner that would cost him millions of dollars just so he can go be in the limelight again. WWF obviously doesn't want to spend $6 million to get him, but aside from Hogan, Austin, and Rock, nobody has as much potential drawing power as Goldberg in the last 15 years. And wrestling is a star-driven business and sometimes, making big lopsided deals with major stars is necessary to make big money in the long run. When Hogan went to WCW in 1994, people called Bischoff crazy because Hogan's contract gave him 25% of PPV revenue. But Hogan was such a huge draw that it ended up being the smartest deal Bischoff made at the time and more than paid for itself several times over in the years after (of course, Hogan's drawing power eventually died off and his big contract eventually became an albatross, but that's another story).
So does Goldberg deserve preferential treatment? Should he have a guaranteed contract with limited dates and huge money that everyone else in WWF would be jealous of? Of course it's not fair, but this isn't about fair, it's about business. If WWF can rebuild Goldberg to even half of the star he was in 1998, then yes, they absolutely should. Properly promoted PPV matches with Goldberg/Rock and Goldberg/Austin will earn them that money back and then some. But that's dependent on whether or not WWF can truly rebuild him. Dave points out Big Show as an example of someone who was a top star in WCW, came to WWF with a huge guaranteed contract, and has been a total flop who spent much of the last year in OVW. If Goldberg comes to WWF and becomes "just another guy," then no, he wouldn't be worth the money and Dave gives a long list of guys who were big stars in NWA/WCW, only to jump to WWF and find out Vince had no clue how to get them over with his audience (Dusty Rhodes, Flair, Lex Luger, Vader, Big Show, Road Warriors, Steiners, etc). They also need someone to anchor the new WCW brand, and if they relaunch WCW and it becomes successful with Goldberg at the helm, that's another huge revenue stream that would offset the cost of bringing him in. And when business is good, everybody makes more money, not just Goldberg. Dave even breaks down the math and talks about how a Goldberg vs. Austin match might work out. A very conservative estimate Dave thinks is 600,000 buys on PPV, which would net WWF a good $2 million in one night, which would cover a full year of Goldberg's salary. A few rematches with Austin, some big matches with Rock, and even if he doesn't earn them a dime in any other way, he'd already have paid for himself. Once you add in Goldberg merch, other PPV matches, licensing deals, added gate revenue from the extra tickets he'll surely sell, ad revenue from ratings boost, etc. and it's kind of a no-brainer. Financially, it makes all the sense in the world for them to buy out Goldberg's contract and bring him in ASAP. But again, that depends on WWF's ability to get him over (which Dave thinks they'd have to be stupid to fail at) and also, you can't rule out the possibility of him getting injured which is also something to be considered. In the end, a lot of people in the locker room will be upset about it, but from a business standpoint, Dave thinks they should do it.
The buyrate numbers for WWF's recent Judgement Day PPV are coming in and the show did better than expected. Because of that, Steve Austin has now moved past Ric Flair into 2nd place on the list of PPVs he's headlined that have done a 1.0 buyrate or higher. 1st place is Hulk Hogan, who is still 3 PPVs ahead of Austin. But unless something goes tragically wrong, Dave expects Austin to break that record before the end of 2001. But then Dave starts explaining why this is kind of a useless stat. A 1.0 buyrate in 2001 is completely different from a 1.0 buyrate in 1987, due to the way the PPV industry has grown. Plus, there's monthly PPVs now, so that skews the numbers. Things like that. You can always tell when it's a slow news week because the major stories are mostly just Dave examining numbers and business trends and things like that. Even the first main story about Goldberg has no news, it's just Dave doing a deep dive into the pros and cons of bringing in Goldberg from a business standpoint. So yeah, this stuff is all interesting and in fact, it's probably the kind of stuff I've learned the most from reading, but it's not "news" so...
Jushin Liger won this year's Best of the Super Junior's tournament, the first time he's won it in 7 years. At age 36, Liger is in the midst of something of a comeback angle, going undefeated in the tournament and pinning IWGP Jr. heavyweight champion Minoru Tanaka in the finals. Tanaka is seen as the man to take the aging Liger's place in the Jr. division so the rivalry has that aspect going for it also, with Tanaka representing the future while Liger represents the old guard (in other words, this was basically the Omega/Tanahashi feud from late-2018).
We get an obituary for Tex McKenzie, who was a big star in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. McKenzie was a legendarily bad wrestler, but he was damn near 7 feet tall, so he had no problem finding work. He was always booked as a happy-go-lucky babyface and was never really a main eventer because he sucked so much, but was always well-liked and had a star presence due to his size.
Observer note: the mail service sucks and Dave apologizes. He's been getting lots of reports about people getting the Observer later than usual and he doesn't know what to say. Blame the post office. They go into the mail every Wednesday and how long it takes from there is out of his hands, but if you don't get your issue, contact him and he'll get another one mailed out to you. Or, you know, try out this fancy internet thing. I know it's still kind of new and there's a lot of warning signs about the dotcom bubble, but I have a feeling it might stick around.
Raw's scary 8-week declining ratings trend finally came to an end this week, with the rating increasing slightly. Dave credits the fact that the last two weeks of Raw have been some of the best weeks of the show ever, with some MOTY caliber matches. The ratings are still down significantly from just two months ago but at least the dangerous downward pattern has been broken (the downward trend resumes soon, don't worry).
God this is seriously a slow week. Now Dave is going back and looking at random shit from 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago....I guess just to show how much things change? I don't know, there's no explanation here. 1 year ago, Paul Heyman held a backstage meeting and predicted the future of the industry. He predicted WWF would end up on TNN (it did) and that ECW would end up on USA or FOX (it didn't). He predicted WCW would soon be out of business (he was right). Things like that. 5 years ago, Nitro began its 83-week ratings winning streak. 10 years ago, Sid Vicious debuted in WWF as Sid Justice. Just shit like that, with no rhyme or reason to it. This is a filler issue if I've ever seen it, Dave is pretty desperately stretching to fill space here. If this Observer was a 3-hour Raw, this section is a 30 minute Baron Corbin match.
Kenta Kobashi was cleared to resume training this week. He's had 6 surgeries in the past 18 months on his knees and Dave thinks it's going to be scary as hell to see him get back in the ring, but he's Kobashi so of course, he's going to. With Vader and Misawa getting older and no other big stars to work with Jun Akiyama, Dave says Kobashi feels the pressure to return because NOAH needs him (we're still 8 months from him returning to the ring....and immediately blowing his knee out again).
Because NJPW and NOAH have a cordial relationship, Tatsumi Fujinami has talked about working a match with Mitsuharu Misawa at some point (they teamed up once in NJPW in 2005 and worked opposite sides of a tag match in NOAH in 2007 but that's the closest it ever got to happening).
UPW wrestlers Nathan Jones and Jon Heidenreich, who are signed to WWF developmental deals, were pulled from an upcoming Zero-1 show in Japan. They will be replaced by Samoa Joe and some other guy. Apparently Jim Ross didn't feel like Jones and Heidenreich are experienced enough to go to Japan and work a show for another promotion they don't have a relationship with and against wrestlers they don't know.
Eric Bischoff has been implicated in the Atlanta trial surrounding the infamous Atlanta Gold Club, a strip club that was a famous hangout for many big name athletes, including WCW stars. The government has a major racketeering case going on against the club and it's owners, involving credit card fraud, prostitution, loan sharking, and funneling money to the Gambino crime family. The former club manager this week testified that he arranged sexual favors for high profile athletes like Dennis Rodman, Terrell Davis, Jerry Stackhouse, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller, and others. Eric Bischoff was among those named as having received sexual favors from strippers as arranged by the club management (Bischoff ends up being forced to testify in this case later on and we learn that his wife is pretty fun).
Ric Flair is still working on an autobiography, which will be partially ghostwritten by Mark Madden. The project has been on-and-off-again for awhile but the success of Mick Foley's 2 books has given them the green light again. Flair is not planning to accept a buyout from his WCW contract, which still has 2 years remaining, so unless something changes (and Dave says it probably will because Flair can't stay away from wrestling), then Flair is going to be MIA from the wrestling scene until 2003 (sure enough, Flair couldn't stand being on the sidelines. He takes a buyout and will be in WWF before the end of this year).
UPW ran a show this week that saw Shinya Hashimoto make an appearance, along with several other Zero-1 wrestlers. Hashimoto didn't wrestle but got involved in an angle with several UPW guys, most notably Samoa Joe. Former WCW wrestlers (and now WWF wrestlers) Sean O'Haire, Chuck Palumbo, and Chavo Guerrero Jr. also worked the show.
Hulk Hogan has still been in negotiations with Universal about doing some sort of wrestling show and it looks like the tentative plan is to film a pilot episode in August at Universal Studios in Orlando. Jimmy Hart is reaching out to other wrestlers to get involved and they're hopeful to bring in guys like Roddy Piper and Bret Hart to make appearances, along with Hogan's usual buddies (Beefcake, Nasty Boys, etc.) and celebrity friends like Jay Leno, Shaq, and George Foreman. There's still a long-term plan in discussions for a Hogan-themed restaurant and for the wrestling to possibly be a theme park attraction. There is no TV deal in place for any of this, so the plan is to film the pilot to try and shop around for a TV deal. The whole thing has been described to Dave as basically a Hogan tribute show more than a new pro wrestling company (this eventually morphs into some shit called the Xcitement Wrestling Federation. Hogan only wrestles one match for it and they only do a handful of shows before disappearing).
Ric Flair was contacted about facing Steve Corino at this year's Brian Pillman Memorial Show. The idea is to put over Corino, who is the current NWA champion, in order to help give that title a boost. Flair didn't shoot down the idea, but of course, he can't wrestle anywhere due to his existing WCW contract without breaching it, although it's possible Time Warner may allow it, since it's a charity show (this never happens).
Bruno Sammartino was recently in a serious car accident and spent 3 days in the hospital but is expected to be okay.
Missy Hyatt is releasing a book about her life in wrestling soon and Dave promises to review it when she does. Although she said she had some help with the structuring of the book, every word was written by her.
Hey, so apparently Kevin Nash and Honky Tonk Man got into a shit-flinging contest on the internet, talking trash to each other about who is a bigger star and who drew more money and yada yada. Dave says it must be a slow news week (clearly) and tells people to always remember that when you see this stuff, keep in mind that these guys are workers and try not to take it seriously. Anyway, for what it's worth: HTM drew far more money in WWF than Nash ever did, while Nash drew far more in WCW than HTM ever did. Nash made more money overall due to his huge guaranteed contract, though that's irrelevant to the argument. HTM called out Nash for not donating the $20,000 to Brian Pillman's family charity that he promised he would at last year's memorial show. Nash said he hasn't paid because no one has proven to him that it's a non-profit organization because he wanted to be able to write it off on his taxes and said he'd still be glad to donate the money if he could get proof of that. To his credit, Dave says Nash really has been trying in the last week or so to get the word out that he wants to donate the money as long as he can verify that it's a non-profit charity and has been trying to get clarification on it. Nash then said he worked a different show for Les Thatcher (who promotes the Pillman shows) and was never paid a $10,000 fee he was promised. Thatcher then chimed in, saying this is the first he's heard about Nash not being paid for a show and yada yada yada. Just internet drama between a bunch of carnies. Anyway, Dave says let this be a lesson about carelessly promising things. If you recall, what happened is Nash was trying to get Missy Hyatt to take her top off and promised to donate $20,000 if she would. Hyatt, who was put on the spot (this wasn't planned), refused to do it because there were kids in the crowd and it was a family show. So Nash, caught up in the moment, said he would donate the $20,000 anyway. But he never did, HTM called him out on it, and here we are.
Jacques Rougeau ran a show in Montreal that drew an estimated 3,000 fans, featuring himself in the main event against King Kong Bundy. Pretty much the entire rest of the card was filled with Rougeau's students at his wrestling school, including Rougeau's 12-year-old son who worked the opening match (I only mention this show because a young Kevin Steen was one of those students, defeating somebody named Pascal Brisson in the 3rd match on the card).
There's rumors going around that Bill Goldberg is being considered for the role of Crusher Creel in the next Incredible Hulk movie which is being released in 2003. So far, none of the movie has been cast (nah, he doesn't end up in it). Also in movie news, former MMA fighter and WCW developmental wrestler Sam Greco will be playing a masked wrestler in the upcoming Scooby Doo movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah-Michelle Gellar.
Sitting home and collecting on these WCW contracts might be the best thing for the health of some of the former WCW wrestlers. Scott Steiner is said to have no control over one of his feet, which has gone completely numb, stemming from back problems he's had in the last year. And Rey Mysterio, who is planning to sit out the next year, is getting some much needed time off to recuperate his body, especially his knees, and Dave thinks having a year off to recover will probably add years to Mysterio's future career.
Random WWF notes: Judgment Day did a 1.13 buyrate, which is phenomenal and up big time from last month's PPV. It's weird because every other aspect of WWF business (TV ratings, live attendance, etc.) is down right now, but this PPV was a mega hit. Kurt Angle was inducted into the Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame, joining only 3 other pro wrestlers (Dick Hutton, Earl McCready, and Danny Hodge). David Flair has an OVW developmental deal. Al Snow is said to be the show-stealer on the new Tough Enough show they're doing. Kurt Angle's autobiography will be out in September. Ken Shamrock still under contract with PRIDE but it's expected he'll return to WWF at some point sooner or later (nope).
Jerry Lawler had a meeting with Kevin Dunn and Jim Ross at WWF headquarters this week. They want Lawler to come back to announce Raws and PPVs and perhaps even be the commentator for the new WCW, but they couldn't reach an agreement, because both sides are refusing to budge on the issue of Lawler's wife Stacy. Lawler refuses to return unless Stacy is given her job back because they feel she was unfairly fired. And WWF refuses to hire her back. All parties involved had agreed to keep this meeting a secret and it was said to be an embarrassment when word got out about it. As for Paul Heyman, who currently does commentary on Raw, the belief is that he's better suited for the backstage TV writing role (especially since he's been the one behind the last few weeks of TV that have been so well received).
More details on the situation with Grandmaster Sexay being fired. He was arrested at customs at the Calgary airport for possession of cocaine and methamphetamines. Police reportedly found a tenth of a gram of meth and half a gram of coke on him. He later pled guilty to the coke possession and the meth charge was dropped. He paid a fine and a donation to a drug charity and the arrest won't go on his record, but he was still fired by WWF. A lot of people in the locker room were upset about it because they're afraid that the publicity from this could cause a crackdown. Right now, WWF doesn't drug test and as long as it doesn't affect your work, they pretty much take a hands-off approach to drug use. Needless to say, a lot of people in the locker room would prefer it stayed that way and they were mad at Sexay for being stupid enough to try to bring stuff like that across the Canadian border, which everyone knows is risky.
Speaking of drugs, Eddie Guerrero was sent home after he arrived at Raw in the dreaded "no condition to perform." He was scheduled to face Matt Hardy in a King of the Ring qualifying match. Eddie has pretty much been given the same ultimatum as Shawn Michaels: go home and don't come back until you're clean. As a result, the Eddie/Matt/Lita angle has since been dropped. Dave says that Eddie has had a lot of pain and injury issues because he returned to the ring way too soon following a New Year's Eve car accident in 1998 and never really recovered fully (this is it for Eddie for awhile. He stays under contract for a few more months but he eventually gets a DUI later in the year and gets fired. But then he gets clean, works the indies for a bit, returns in 2002, and goes on to have the best years of his career).
Notes from Raw: Jesse Ventura made an appearance, since they were in Minnesota, and Dave is flabbergasted that they didn't promote it ahead of time for maximum mainstream coverage, since they knew a week ago that Ventura would appear. They also had Hugh Morrus run in and attack Edge, to continue the WCW invasion angle and it also gave us our first brief glimpse of the new WCW logo on the TitanTron.
There's a good article about Mick Foley in this week's People Magazine, where he talks about both his wrestling and writing careers. Hey, I found the article!
Booker T has completed the buyout on his WCW contract with Time Warner so he should be ready to head to WWF any day now as soon as he finalizes a contract with them. Dave says that Kevin Nash tried to talk Booker T out of it, saying that WWF is on a down-turn right now and if Booker would wait until all their deals expired next year, they could all go in together as a package deal and get more money from Vince, who would be more desperate at that point. It's the same reason Scott Hall has said he's not interested in WWF until Nash is free. (Nash ended up being right. By early 2002, Vince was indeed desperate enough to throw big money at the NWO guys while Booker T ended up coming in earlier, for far less than he was making in WCW).
It's expected that DDP and Billy Kidman are also likely taking buyouts soon and would be WWF-bound. DDP in particular will be giving up significant money by taking a 50-cents-on-the-dollar buyout from Time Warner, but he's apparently decided to do it anyway. And once Scott Steiner is medically cleared from all his injuries, he is said to be considering it also. Buff Bagwell is expected to sign with WWF soon as well. Dave notes that there are definitely people in WWF who weren't exactly in love with the idea of hiring Bagwell, but Johnny Ace went to bat for him. Bagwell had a bad reputation in WCW for throwing a fit every time he was asked to do a job or no-showing house shows and things like that. But Johnny Ace blamed that on Bagwell being friends with and under the influence of Lex Luger and argued that without Luger around, Bagwell would behave. So we'll see (lol).
When reviewing Smackdown, Dave talks about how Benoit was practically wrestling Austin with 1 arm because his right side has been really week ever since last month's TLC match. It's believed to be a pinched nerve in his neck that has gotten progressively worse. He's working through it and had an MRI that didn't show any ligament issues or anything, but he basically can't do anything with his right arm at the moment (turns out this is way worse than a pinched nerve but we'll get there).
Rob Van Dam has verbally agreed to terms with WWF and has his contract in hand, but hasn't signed it yet. Same with Tommy Dreamer. Both will have probably signed by the time you read this. Dave expects them to end up on the WCW side of the invasion angle.
Speaking of the WCW angle, the hold-up is securing a TV deal for it. WWF is contractually locked in to Viacom, so TNN is really the only realistic option to carry a WCW show, but TNN and WWF can't agree on details. TNN is willing to give WWF a Saturday night time slot for WCW, but only if they have more big names like Goldberg, Sting, and Flair. WWF, as we've discussed, doesn't want to spend millions of dollars to buy those guys out of their WCW contracts and upset their salary structure. Dave thinks the clock is ticking on this and the longer it takes to get the new WCW off the ground, the less likely fans are to still care about it whenever it eventually does happen.
Regarding video tape libraries: WWF owns all of the WCW footage ever taped from 1988 onward. Regarding the Crockett or GCW tape libraries from before that, Dave isn't entirely sure yet (yes they owned that also). They do not own the old Bill Watts Mid-South library (they ended up getting that one in 2012). They also do not yet own the ECW footage, although it's expected that they will purchase the rights to those in the bankruptcy proceedings for ECW (yup).
Triple H is spending the next 4 weeks in Birmingham to rehab his torn quad. Dave says to say whatever you want about Triple H, but the guy is dedicated to the business 24/7 and his success is earned. Wrestling is a business where the smart prosper and Triple H is as smart as they come and works just as hard (he spent way more than 4 weeks there. He pretty much moved to Birmingham and lived there for the rest of 2001 to do his rehab).
So far, almost no one aside from the wrestlers and Johnny Ace have been hired for the new WCW. No writers, production people, agents, referees, etc. Basically, all of that is on hold until they can figure out the TV situation. A lot of former backstage WCW employees were expecting to have jobs soon, but now they're all just kinda sitting around waiting and hoping and there's a lot of people getting nervous that this thing might not get off the ground at all, and their severance package money is slowly running out.
Regarding the videos of the stalker who is stalking Undertaker's wife....the voice is being done by Vince McMahon, with a voice distorting effect. Some website reversed the distortion to reveal that it's Vince. Dave says if you've heard Vince talk enough, you could already tell anyway. Dave says that doesn't mean that Vince is going to be revealed as the stalker, just that he's doing the voice. Same way Ole Anderson used to do the voice for the Black Scorpion angle.
In case you missed it, at the recent Raw in Calgary where they re-enacted the Montreal Screwjob with half of the Hart family in the front row, Dave points out that Vince was dressed pretty much identically to the way he was dressed at the actual Montreal Screwjob (yeah, I looked back to compare this and see if it's true and yup. He's pretty much wearing the exact same suit jacket and shirt).
Notes from OVW: Dave says Randy Orton has shot past everyone on the roster and is improving by leaps and bounds every week. Dave thinks Orton is the closest one to being ready the move to the main roster and he has real star potential. On OVW TV, they had Jim Ross on and Ross said he was so impressed by Orton that he predicted that he would some day main event Wrestlemania (indeed). Rico Constantino is another one who is ready for the big time but Dave thinks he might get lost in the shuffle on the WWF roster. Dave thinks he'd be a great fit in the new WCW. Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin are also connecting with the crowd and getting over. They worked a dark match at the Minnesota Raw tapings (since they were both college wrestling stars there) and even had Jesse Ventura come out as their manager (how is there no video of this?!). Lesnar also gets a big pop for his shooting star press that he does.
The Austin vs. Benoit and Jericho feud isn't just for TV. They've been wrestling long 25+ minute main event matches against each other at house shows also, with reports that they're just as good or better than the TV matches. Dave gives Austin a ton of credit for going out there and having these grueling, fast-paced and long main event matches considering his neck history (yeah, anyone who says Austin was a shitty wrestler who only knew how to punch and kick, I defy you to watch his matches in 2001 and still have that opinion. Austin was having near-classics almost weekly at this point).
Ellie Hart (mother of Natalya, sister of Bret and Owen) writes in to talk about the "divide" in the Hart family. Let's just read her letter and Dave's response in full:
The family isn't as divided as you think. It's really just my brother Bret, who bears this grudge and is trying to compromise the rest of our family because of Montreal. Bret always said it was about Owen, but it was more about his ego and Montreal. Vince McMahon made Bret a superstar and this was truly a case of the tail wagging the dog.
We all felt Owen's loss deeply. I feel sad that Bret and Martha feel that they were the only ones who lost a loved one. My parents have been through more hell than anyone. They've unselfishly tried to accommodate all of us. Bret has made this very difficult for them. I thought Stu appearing on Raw was long overdue. A meeting with Vince McMahon was long overdue. Stu is the patriarch of our family, not Bret. If he had been able to speak his mind as he should have been able to after Owen died, maybe this family would still be whole.
Bret, Vince was just giving you a receipt (Calgary finish) for the black eye in Montreal. I think it's more fitting that Vince chose this route rather than suing the hell out of Bret, which he positively could have. Just as Bret is allowed to voice an opinion, so should Bruce and I be allowed to stand up and be counted for in the wrestling business. I hope that we have a long and prosperous friendship with the McMahons and I'm sorry if anybody is opposed to this.
Contrary to what you said about our family being sad and having issues, most of the sadness we've been dealing with has been brought on by Bret's obsession with Vince. Bret was more than unhappy that my dad was at the matches. He was livid. He showed a total lack of respect toward my father, who was the man responsible for making wrestling what it is in Western Canada. If anyone is entitled to the respect that the people in Calgary demonstrated, my father is. My father is an 86-year-old man who has very few positives to look forward to these days. Having the wrestling world behind him was like a shot of adrenaline to him and meant a great deal to him and my mother both.
Shame on Bret and Martha for trying to make my parents feel like they were compromising Owen's death. This has nothing to do with Owen at all. My dad earned that right running a wrestling business for 50 years and supporting the kids who aren't supporting him.
My poor father paved the way with Stampede Wrestling for Bret and others. Bret wasn't working on his book on Monday. Rather, he was at the big house, screaming obscenities at my poor beleaguered mother, who was caught in a very difficult position with Martha and Bret against the rest of us. Bret portrays himself as a martyr and a hero. He's a self-serving bully who doesn't know when to quit. It's time for this family to move on to better things and maybe even enjoy life again. Bret, get over Montreal.
Ellie Hart
Dave Meltzer's response: I think everyone should get over Montreal, particularly in any discussion that involves Owen Hart. Once Owen Hart died, any issues regarding Montreal were so trivial that to even be bringing them up nearly four-years later after everything that has happened since is pitiful. The fact they are constantly brought up and used to cloud any real issues, from anyone who uses them to do so, does more to trivialize the life of Owen than almost anything else.
Someone else writes in and talks about whether WWF should sign Goldberg and says the obvious answer (as mentioned earlier) is yes. Business-wise, it clearly makes sense. So 20 years from now, does Vince McMahon want to be seen as someone who took a risk on some big money investments and managed to resurrect WCW and was running two successful promotions at the same time? Or does he want to be known as the guy who had the biggest storyline in the history of wrestling handed to him on a silver platter and he bungled it because he was too cautious and wouldn't spend the money to bring in the big names to make it work? (Vince bungle the biggest storyline in the history of wrestling? Impossible. Perish the thought!) Someone else writes in with basically the same thought and talks about how Vince's ego never allows him to get behind a wrestler or a concept that he didn't create. He's afraid Vince is going to wait too long and will refuse to admit that he needs Goldberg in order for this WCW angle to succeed.