June 25, 2001
- Dave has a bunch of details regarding the plans WWF has for the relaunched WCW. The plan is for WCW to have its own TV show ("far sooner than most expect it") and create 2 separate but equal promotions and there will likely be a lot of WWF guys moved over to the WCW brand to help prop it up, but of course, that somewhat dilutes the whole inter-promotional aspect of it. Currently (and this could change), the plan is for Kurt Angle to become the top star and anchor of the new WCW. It was originally going to be Triple H but his injury wrecked that. A lot of these plans have been kept super secret, because TV negotiations are still ongoing, and it's led to a lot of speculation that the WCW TV show might not happen at all, and instead WCW will simply be a rival faction that appears on WWF shows. John Laurinaitis (Johnny Ace) was officially hired by WWF this week and is likely to be one of the main bookers for the new WCW if/when it happens. Arn Anderson, David Finlay, and Ricky Santana were also hired to be part of the new WCW as backstage agents. The same WWF backstage and front office employees are expected to be stretched thin to handle all the extra WCW duties, so a lot of people are about to see their workload increase. Same with the creative staff. Instead of having their own writers, the plan is to just expand the current creative team, which means WWF and WCW will be shaped pretty much by the same people, rather than ran totally separately. Dave seems to think that's a mistake.
- Dave thinks this whole WWF/WCW story might be the most important angle in the history of the business. Pro wrestling is on the decline, which isn't a surprise, but the speed of the decline is. Particularly TV ratings, which have been in a total free-fall since WCW died, but ticket sales are down significantly also. Fortunately for WWF, they're in the best financial shape they've ever been in and should have no problem riding out the decline, but it's still not good news. A strong WWF vs. WCW angle, if done correctly, should be able to bring back a lot of fans, at least for awhile. WWF doesn't want 2 huge, high-profile failures in a row. The XFL was already a bust and if WCW is a bust too, Dave thinks it'll be terrible for the industry as a whole.
- Word is WWF has signed every one of the former WCW stars they're interested in except for Goldberg, Scott Steiner, and Ric Flair. Everyone else, if they're not already signed, it's because WWF claims they don't want them (I don't buy that for a second). They have had talks with Goldberg, but he's not walking away from millions of guaranteed dollars from Time Warner and WWF ain't buying him out. The Flair situation is similar, they want him but he's got a lot of money coming to him that he's hesitant to walk away from. Steiner will likely be signed when he's physically able to perform, but he's still dealing with a serious back injury that has caused nerve damage that has left him with no physical control of one of his feet. Joey Styles had a try-out to be an announcer for WCW (Dave mentions that Paul Heyman was strongly against the idea of bringing in Styles, because apparently the two had a big falling out during the dying days of ECW) but Styles reportedly wanted too much money so he's no longer being considered. Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson are still being considered. And there's also been talk of Jerry Lawler returning, with the gimmick being Shane McMahon rehired him and using Lawler's real-life falling out with Vince and WWF as a storyline explanation. Problem there is that they're still at the same impasse in regards to bringing back Stacy Carter.
- More bad news on the business front. A new survey came out showing Smackdown had lost 34% of its teenage viewers over the past year. It declined across every age group, but teens were the biggest drop, again showing that WWF is no longer the "cool" thing it was a couple of years ago. This all leads Dave to look at other major historical business declines and what caused them and what they have in common with business today. Jim Crockett Promotions decline in late 1987 due to blowing the UFW angle, making Ronnie Garvin the NWA champion, things like that. WWF in 1992 due to the steroid scandal. And WCW in 1999 due to literally every bad decision a single company could possibly make (Dave doesn't even bother to explain it in detail, saying if you're interested, go back and read the Mar. 26, 2001 Observer because he has no interest in trying to recap the last 2 years of WCW's stupidity all over again). And for what it's worth, Dave wants to clarify that WWF business isn't bad by any means. Even though things are declining, business now is still better than damn near any time in history before. But the suddenness of the recent decline is a scary warning that needs to be heeded because even in the 3 cases listed above, none of those declines happened nearly as quickly as the current one seems to be happening.
- Masahiro Chono has replaced Riki Choshu as the head booker of NJPW. Choshu had been the booker and main person in charge since 1989 but he resigned this week, under duress, in the wake of a power struggle over the direction of the company. Choshu's 12-year reign saw him become one of the most successful bookers in the history of professional wrestling, alongside Vince McMahon. During those 12 years, NJPW drew more than half (24 of the top 40) of the largest crowds in the history of wrestling, 50,000+ to various domes in Japan. In 1993, they legit sold out a staggering 70% of their shows. NJPW's last 2 Dome shows drew poorly and they haven't really created any new stars or hot angles lately. In fact, a lot of the biggest moves in NJPW lately have been put into motion by Antonio Inoki, who has his hands in PRIDE and Zero-1 with Shinya Hashimoto and has been working angles with them and Naoya Ogawa. When they had a tag match a few weeks ago at the Fukuoka Dome, Ogawa intentionally disrespected Choshu and ruined their match, which made Choshu look bad and ruined future plans for an Ogawa/Choshu feud, which is one thing Choshu was upset about. Choshu was also vehemently against the idea of trying to turn Kazuyuki Fujita into a Japanese version of Goldberg. Right now, Fujita is currently being groomed (by Inoki) as the ultimate shooter, having won fights in PRIDE as well as winning the IWGP title. Choshu is responsible for a lot of the stuff in NJPW that still exists to this day (even now in 2019) such as the emphasis on clean finishes, dividing everyone up into factions, created the G-1 Climax tournament, etc. But at this point, it seems as though Inoki has gained more power in NJPW than Choshu and he had enough. And with business declining and Choshu seemingly losing his midas touch over the last year or so, he was basically forced out (I'm sure we'll get more details on this in the coming weeks).
- A Legends of Memphis Wrestling show was held in Memphis and drew around 4,700 paid fans. It's likely to be the largest indie gate of the year. OVW actually drew a larger crowd for a show back in January, but that was entirely due to an appearance by Steve Austin and he can hardly be called an indie star, so Dave doesn't count that one. The show featured many of the biggest names in Memphis wrestling history. Jerry Lawler, Jimmy Hart, Jackie Fargo, Sputnik Monroe, the Road Warriors, Rocky Johnson, Jimmy Valiant, Curt Hennig, and more. As you'd expect, the in-ring work was pretty terrible because everybody's old now, but it was said to be a fun nostalgia show. Lawler and Co. were hoping that they could springboard this show into relaunching the territory and running new shows in the Memphis area, but this nostalgia-type show is the kind of thing that will only draw a crowd one time. Dave doesn't see any way to build a future on this legends idea.
- Kenta Kobayashi (Hideo Itami) suffered a broken foot during the latest NOAH show and will miss the rest of the tour (18 years later, I'm looking forward to him breaking his foot off in people's ass during this year's G-1).
- Mikey Whipwreck has pretty much said that he plans to retire this year due to the physical toll wrestling has taken on his body, going so far to say he would even turn down WWF if they called him right now. He has a few indie bookings left this summer and then he's allegedly done. After retiring, he plans to get long-needed surgery on his shoulder and both knees and said he thinks the surgeries will be too much to come back from (we've all been reading long enough to know how this story goes, right? Of course he didn't retire. He did take some time off though, pretty much all of 2002. But he was back to regularly working indies by 2003 and has continued working a handful of matches per year all the way up to now).
- Jake Roberts was arrested for DUI and leaving the scene of an accident after an incident in Niles, OH. Roberts was in town to be a celebrity guest judge for a local rib tasting contest and then got into a hit-and-run accident the next day. He pled not guilty to all charges and will have to return for trial at a later date.
- New York state senator Tom Libous introduced a new bill called the "Professional Wrestling Health & Safety Act." If it passes, the bill would require a doctor to examine a wrestler before every match. They also tried to sneak a line into the law that no one under the age of 16 can attend a wrestling show without a parent or guardian and no children under the age of 8 can attend at all. The bill also stipulates that anyone who runs more than 6 shows per year in the state must have a drug testing program in place that can be examined by the state athletic commission. Needless to say, WWF ain't one bit interested in having this bill pass, so expect a fight on that.
- The father of a 16-year-old kid was sentenced to 250 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine from an incident earlier this year where the 16-year-old jumped off the roof of his house through a flaming table during a backyard wrestling event. The kid's clothes caught fire and he suffered serious burns on 20% of his body. The courts found the father liable since he was aware of the event (his son had been promoting it all over town beforehand) and because he was even hanging out watching at the time. He was found guilty of child endangerment.
- Western Canada Extreme Wrestling held a show last week. What, y'all ain't up on your WCEW knowledge? And you call yourselves wrestling fans.... Anyway, WCEW is actually the competition for Stampede Wrestling up there in Canada. So in typical Hart-family drama style, Diana Hart worked for this weeks WCEW show. Apparently her current boyfriend works for them (remember, she's going through a divorce with Davey Boy) and she was his manager on the show, apparently just to stick it to the rest of her family over in Stampede. Anyway, it didn't go well. Her boyfriend injured his knee and had to get surgery after the match. Show drew a crowd of less than 100.
- Chris Benoit is considering surgery for a pinched nerve in his neck. If he gets the surgery, he will be out the rest of this summer. It couldn't come at a worse time. WWF is severely lacking depth right now and Benoit is in the midst of the biggest push of his career. If he doesn't get the surgery, he'll take some time off and try to rehab it but hopefully won't be gone long. He'll have some tests done this week and then decide (turns out the injury is way worse than a pinched nerve. Benoit's about to miss the next 13 months or so).
- Filming for Scorpion King should wrap up in the next few weeks. The original idea was to keep Rock off TV until the end of July, so as not to interfere with the ongoing Invasion PPV buildup that has already started without him. But given the lack of depth, that could change and Dave wouldn't be surprised to see Rock brought back as soon as they possibly can.
- Notes from Raw: Dave says WCW has indeed invaded WWF, except it seems like they invaded the writing and production crew more than anything because this show sucked. Dave is baffled at how much time has been spent on the Spike Dudley/Molly Holly romance angle instead of on the actual King of the Ring tournament or even on the Austin vs. Jericho/Benoit main event. It wasn't all bad. Even though turning Steve Austin heel has proven to be a terrible business decision, he's absolutely crushing it in the role. During this and the Smackdown recap, Dave talks about how hilarious Austin has been as this weirdo who keeps hugging Vince and berating Debra about her cookies and whatnot. The rest of Raw was pretty blah, with a lot of dumb stuff and glaring production mistakes, but from a performance standpoint, Austin is singlehandedly carrying the show on his back these days.
- DDP was revealed as the stalker who has been filming Undertaker's wife Sara. The reveal got a huge pop. But then DDP cut a long promo that kinda petered out and didn't get a great response the longer it went on. He never mentioned WCW but afterwards, JR and Heyman talked it up big, like this was a huge shot from WCW in the war. Dave notes that Kidman, Torrie Wilson, Mike Awesome, and Kanyon were all backstage also, but they made the decision to only debut DDP on this night.
- WATCH: DDP debuts in WWF - 2001
- Chyna hasn't been around because she had surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. She has gotten a lot of media coverage lately because she has a role in a new Scott Baio/Dolly Parton movie called Frank McKlusky C.I. that's coming out next year (Scott Baio ends up getting replaced). Chyna recently did an interview and hinted at a future after wrestling, saying she's at a crossroads in WWF and is happy with what she's done but feels like she's run out of things to do. "I don't mean this in a bad way, but so many women are not in the same league as me. I have been training and wrestling men for five years. Now it is very difficult. I can't go through the top guys--Rocky would never let me beat him. It is very difficult for me to develop a program with the women right now, too, so the best part about the Chyna character now is she is more of an attraction than anything." Dave says she's been pushing to work with the top male stars for awhile now, but WWF decided against it. And in fact, the neck injury angle last year was a way to give her a "weakness" so she could more realistically sell for the other women when she wrestles them and make her opponents seem more evenly matched. But Chyna was against that and pretty much never sold the injury when she came back. Dave expects her to drop the women's title to Lita whenever she returns and mentions that her contract expires soon and she may be phased out (she's already gone).
- On Raw, they showed Eddie Guerrero taking a bump and said he had injured his knee, which is why he isn't on TV. In reality, it's because he's been taken off TV and ordered to go to rehab. His knee is fine. The only purpose of this was to give closure to the storyline with Matt Hardy that had started before he was sent home.
- Regarding Scott Hudson being part of the WCW relaunch, Jim Ross contacted him this week and wished him good luck but said WWF is not interested in him right now. Ross also went online and said a lot of progress has been made in the last week in regards to the WCW re-launch.
- Various misc. WWF notes: Forbes Magazine ran a list of 10 major monopolies in the U.S. and the WWF was #10 on the list. Dean Malenko is expected to remain a wrestler a little while longer but will ultimately retire soon and settle into a backstage agent role. Mick Foley did an interview on Off The Record that's scheduled to air in a week or so and Dave heard it's fantastic. WWF writer Brian Gewirtz played the role of the waiter in the Malenko/Saturn/Terri vignettes on Smackdown this week.
- There are plans in place to split up Edge and Christian. This idea has been batted around many times in the past but always shot down because there's a lot of people who think they're stronger as a team than they would be individually and hey, why mess with something that's not broken? A lot of people remember how hot the New Age Outlaws were as a team and how trying to split them and push them both as singles stars ended up being a huge bust. But as for now, the plan is still to move forward with it and split them (yup, happens soon after this). Dave also says they've talked about splitting the Hardyz and that's another one that has been discussed before and always shot down.