July 09, 2001
- You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and the first impression of the new WCW was downright awful, to the point that everything is now being reevaluated. Dave calls this WWF vs. WCW storyline "the most important angle in the history of the business" and it kicked off last week on Raw with a Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell main event under the "WCW" banner and holy shit it was bad. Bagwell was terrible and Booker T wasn't much better. The crowd loudly chanted "boring" and "this match sucks" and "Goldberg!" through the whole thing while booing both wrestlers. A large portion of the crowd was streaming towards the exits as the show went on. Fans booed Shane McMahon. They booed the new lighting and look of WCW (which, as of now, is still expected to take over the Raw time slot, but after this fiasco, who knows). Austin and Angle, the top heels in WWF, got a massive face pop for their run-in and attack on Booker T. Dave thinks WWF fans spent too many years seeing WCW as the real life enemy of their fake pro wrestling world and WWF fans simply aren't ready to embrace WCW Raw. They've had months to plan this but the whole thing felt thrown together.
- WATCH: Buff Bagwell vs. Booker T - WCW Raw, 2001
- Dave notes that former ECW announcer Joey Styles was previously in talks to be the new WCW announcer but those talks fell through over money shortly before Raw and so WWF scrambled and brought in Scott Hudson to do the commentary gig on Raw. Hudson has already started a new full-time job outside of wrestling and told WWF he couldn't accept the announcing position full-time but was willing to come in for the first few shows since they were in a jam and needed someone ASAP for Raw. Hudson's broadcast partner was supposed to be.....Jerry Lawler. Both sides had agreed for Lawler to return, but then it somehow fell through. According to Lawler, he and Hudson were supposed to be be revealed as the new WCW commentary team and Lawler's wife Stacy Carter would accompany him to ringside. But after the agreement was made, Lawler claims WWF called him the next day and said Vince McMahon wanted to make it clear that they still weren't bringing Stacy back other than this one time, agreed-upon appearance. At that point, Lawler pulled out of the deal. WWF's story is a bit different, saying they had an agreement with Lawler to come in and then he tried to change things and force them to hire Stacy back also and there's a lot of heat on Lawler for the deal falling apart. So anyway, with literally no one else available on short notice, that's how Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson ended up doing commentary for the disastrous Raw main event. Anderson, despite being a great talker, has no experience calling wrestling matches and considering how bad the match was and how much the crowd was rejecting it, the announcing came off bad. Hudson impressed a lot of people backstage with his enthusiasm and his eagerness to do a good job and he was the only bright spot of the whole mess. Beyond that, this entire thing was just a disaster.
- As for future WCW plans, there's still consideration of bringing in Mike Tenay for the announcing spot. Former WCW referees Nick Patrick, Charles Robinson, and Billy Silverman were all hired (Patrick debuted on Raw). Several former WCW stars were backstage but have yet to debut on TV (Chavo Guerrero Jr., Shane Helms, Shawn Stasiak, Mark Jindrak, Chris Kanyon and Billy Kidman among others). Unless this flop of a match changes things, the plan is still for the Monday show to become WCW Raw within the next few weeks (the flop of a match indeed changes things).
- WWF's annual business report is out and it's interesting. Despite WWF's monumental success, the latest quarter numbers for 2001 made it the first money-losing quarter for WWF since 1997 and it was also the biggest losing quarter in WWF history. All of this is due to the massive losses from the XFL. WWF lost $20.4 million for the quarter. Dave goes into more boring financial details. Live event numbers, merch numbers, home video numbers, etc. All-told, the XFL lost almost $94 million during its one season of existence. Half of that was eaten by NBC, but still. So yeah, the XFL tanked their profits for the year, but the wrestling numbers are still strong. In fact, even factoring in the XFL numbers, the WWF still had a total profit of almost $16 million on the year, which is still double the profit margin of any of the Hulk Hogan-era 1980s golden years. They also talked about plans to operate WCW as a separate full-time touring brand and how that's expected to increase income next year, along with 4-7 additional WCW branded PPVs (with the first one scheduled for October) and so on and so forth. Of course, we know how that all turns out.
- During a conference call with investors during the business report, Linda McMahon said some interesting things. She talked about Smackdown planning to run live shows on Thursday later this year (rather than taping it on Tuesdays). She also said that by going live, it will prevent internet sites from posting the results ahead of time and claimed that was the reason for the decline of Smackdown's ratings. Dave argues that websites have been posting Smackdown spoilers since day 1, it's not a new phenomenon and it doesn't explain the very sudden drop in ratings that just started recently.
- A really interesting note from the report is just how much WWF paid for WCW. There's no exact numbers, but it appears WWF bought the company for a shockingly low price. During the dying days of WCW, Bischoff and Fusient had offered $48.3 million, while Jerry Jarrett and some investors he was working with offered $25 million. Both Bischoff and Jarrett pulled their offers when AOL/Time Warner made the decision to cancel WCW television. At that point, WCW wasn't worth anything to anybody except Vince McMahon. In the end, McMahon appears to have bought WCW for somewhere around $4.5 million, which is incomprehensible for a company that was once worth hundreds of millions. Dave thinks that just the tape library alone would be a steal at $4.5 million, not even counting the name and trademarks, the wrestler contracts, etc. that came with it. The actual price WWF paid for WCW is less than the 2 years Goldberg has left on his contract. Dave is flabbergasted that they got it this cheap and says it looks like AOL/Time Warner practically gave the company away just to hurry up and get it off their hands. (If I remember correctly, the actual deal was WWF paid $2.5 million in cash and also agreed to spend another $2 million to buy advertising on Turner networks, which is where the $4.5 total comes from).
- InDemand PPV announced that it has signed an agreement with UFC which will see UFC return to PPV for the first time (from a cable provider) since 1997 (the shows have still been available for those with DirecTV satellites but that's only a fraction of the PPV audience compared to cable). This news is the biggest thing for UFC since Zuffa bought them and greatly increases the number of homes that can now order UFC PPVs. Dave talks about how successful UFC was on PPV before they were banned, so this is huge for them. The first new PPV is scheduled to be the Sept. show, which they're already planning to promote as the "rebirth" of UFC. Speaking of, Dave also reviews the latest UFC 32 show.
- OVW held its latest big show called "Last Dance." It was the final event ever at the Louisville Gardens, which is closing or something I guess. Several WWF stars were scheduled to be part of it but a couple of them had to pull out. Mick Foley had to back out to go to England to do commentary for a new TNN show called Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors, while Kurt Angle had to pull out due to injury. Kane, and DDP went in their places. The original main event of Undertaker vs. Leviathan was changed to Undertaker/Kane vs. Leviathan/DDP. OVW champion Flash Flannigan beat Chris Jericho to retain the title and "prove to Jim Ross that he deserves a WWF contract" in storyline. Big Show and Mark Henry teamed up to beat Prototype and Mr. Black. Randy Orton beat Rico Constantino. Orton had his father Bob Orton in his corner. Brock Lesnar teamed with Brian Keck (since Shelton Benjamin is injured) and they defeated Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko. Dave thinks this is a sign of how much things have changed. Even though it's their developmental territory, there's no chance in hell just a few years ago that WWF would have let a genuine star like Chris Jericho lose to the local talent at an indie show.
- WATCH: Flash Flannigan vs. Chris Jericho - OVW 2001
- WATCH: Undertaker/Kane vs. Leviathan/DDP - OVW 2001
- Various Mexico notes: Konnan returned to Mexico to work a show for the first time since his WCW contract expired and drew a pretty big crowd to a show in Tijuana. AAA head Antonio Pena complained to athletic commission members and even the state Secretary of the Interior to try to keep Konnan from being allowed to wrestle. Dave talks about how those 2 have a longstanding hatred of each other, a total Vince McMahon/Bret Hart-type of relationship (but more petty) where neither of them can seem to let go of their dumb past beef with each other. Anyway, Norman Smiley also returned to Mexico because his WCW deal just expired as well. He went under his old Black Magic gimmick. And Dave mentions offhandedly that the 2 biggest draws in Mexico right now are El Hijo del Santo and La Parka.
- Dave reviews the Keiji Muto vs. Genichiro Tenryu match from a couple weeks ago. It's the match where Muto, an NJPW star, won the AJPW Triple Crown title. People called it the best match of the year. Dave doesn't quite go that far but it was close. Tenryu is 51 and held his own but Muto (in his 40s) was the star of the show. It's not so much his moves or athleticism but more about knowing how to work the crowd, how to switch gears when it's time, his selling, his body language, etc. Dave thinks every young wrestler needs to watch this match to see how Muto is able to get so much more out of doing so much less. Dave thinks it will still win MOTY in Japan because of the historic nature of it. Muto being handed the 3 belts of the AJPW Triple Crown was one of those historic scenes that will probably be replayed for years to come and the reaction from the fans was incredible. Dave gives it 4.5 stars. The plan was for Muto to drop the title back to Kawada later this month, but AJPW seems to be second-guessing that now because Muto's win got over so strong. So he may hold the title for awhile (yeah he holds it for the rest of 2001 before losing it to Kawada in 2002, only for Kawada to have to vacate it due to a knee injury a month later).
- WATCH: Keiji Muto vs. Genichiro Tenryu - AJPW 2001
- All of the women's promotions in Japan are interested in bringing in Chyna. She's actually kind of a big star there because the woman vs. man gimmick is a real big novelty in Japan. So her winning the IC title or being in the Royal Rumble...that stuff always got big coverage in Japan, for more than most WWF stuff does. Either way, Chyna is having to sit out the rest of her WWF contract so she won't be available until December and it's thought that she'll probably want more money than most of those companies can afford (she ends up working a dozen matches or so for NJPW in 2002 but that's it).
- Ric Flair still has 20 months left on his Time Warner contract. His attitude right now is essentially, if things work out and he's able to get back into wrestling, cool. And if not, he's satisfied and he's had a great career (lol no. Flair will be in WWF before the end of this year).
- Sports Illustrated had an article about Wahoo McDaniel, covering his wrestling and football careers and talking about how he's in need of a kidney transplant and things like that. He talked about the money he made in wrestling and football and how wrestling was tougher than anything he did on the football field.
- Various other notes: Superstar Billy Graham is suffering from Hepatitis C which has slowed him down on writing his autobiography that he's been talking about for years. Bobby Heenan is also working on an autobiography and Dave thinks that if Bobby can write stories as hilariously as he can tell them, it should be a classic (it came out in 2002 but I never read it so I don't how good it is). And finally, remember that story last week about wrestler Jack Evans in Canada getting injured on a hurricanrana gone wrong by Nattie Neidhart? Turns out that was a work, he was fine.
- Remember Dusty Rhodes is running his own promotion in GA called Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling? Well he is. Anyway, this week's show was headlined by Dusty (age 55) vs. Larry Zybyszko (age 47). Dusty's youngest son Cody made his debut as a referee on this show (Cody was still a teenager in high school at this time and sadly, I can't find video of this).
- Hollie Adkisson, the 16-year-old daughter of Kerry Von Erich, will be a contestant in the Miss Teen Texas beauty pageant. She regularly speaks at schools and other events about drug use, openly talking about how it led to the death of her father and uncles. She's also the first member of the Von Erich family to admit publicly that David Von Erich died of a drug overdose, which they've always tried to hide and attribute to other causes even though nobody really ever bought it (Hollie never got involved in wrestling but Kerry's other daughter Lacey spent some time in TNA a few years later).
- Chris Benoit underwent neck surgery last week in San Antonio by the same surgeon who operated on Steve Austin. The surgery was more extensive than first thought. Benoit will be out of action until at least January or February. Benoit felt great coming out of the surgery, saying he felt no pain and had full flexibility of his arm again. They removed two damaged discs from Benoit's neck and replaced them with a piece of bone taken from his pelvic area. And in the most depressing sentence I've ever read, Dave writes that, at least Benoit "will get to spend time at home watching his son grow up" while he recovers. Ugh. Anyway, they had a segment on Sunday Night Heat talking about the surgery and his wife Nancy was shown with Benoit as he talked about the injury. They blamed it on Steve Austin at King of the Ring for storyline purposes but in reality, the injury was an accumulation of years of doing diving headbutts and shit like that. Harley Race, who popularized that move, has been telling Benoit for years to stop doing it because of the damage he did to his own neck. On TV, they said Benoit won't be able to return for a year, but word is that's just the kayfabe timeline so that his sooner return will be more of a surprise (nope. He really did miss an entire year).
- WATCH: Surgery update on Chris Benoit - 2001
- Kurt Angle is banged up but his test results for everything came back negative so he's just resting up for a bit but should be back in the ring soon. He does have a meniscus tear in his knee and will eventually need arthroscopic surgery but he's just working through it for now. Steve Austin, on the other hand, may be out a little longer. His back is in rough shape and he's been in a lot of pain.
- Rob Van Dam has officially signed with WWF. He hasn't completed his physical yet so he isn't licensed to wrestle yet but that should be taken care of soon and he should debut in the next couple of weeks. Tommy Dreamer hasn't signed yet but is expected to by the time you read this (well shit, it's 2019, I should hope so...).
- Notes from Raw: Kane, Undertaker, and even Taker's wife Sara all beat up on DDP, continuing the utter burial of him since the day he showed up. Torrie Wilson and Vince kept trying to find places to make out during the show but kept getting interrupted and Dave thinks it got creepier by the segment. The backstage interaction with Kurt Angle and Steve Austin was, once again, hilarious. And then, of course, the huge flop of the WCW main event.
- A lot of WCW wrestlers were brought in every day last week to Stamford to train in WWF rings, which are larger and have different ropes than the WCW rings they're all used to (we'll hear more on these training sessions in just a moment...).
- Dave musings on the most recent episodes of OVW TV he's seen: Rico Constantino is main roster ready and most in WWF agree. But he's pushing 40 so his age works against him and he's also small by WWF standards. Being small isn't an automatic killer in WWF like it used to but you usually have to be a hell of a talent to overcome it (Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, etc.) and while Rico's ready for the big stage, he's not that good. Leviathan is growing his hair out which makes him look more like a generic bodybuilder rather than the demon gimmick he's supposed to be.
- Lots of interesting dynamics going on in the WWF locker room lately. As you might expect, a lot of the WCW guys are still seen as outsiders and there's some hard feelings going on. It's said that a lot of the younger WCW guys in particular have no grasp of locker room etiquette or how to conduct themselves and walk round acting cocky. Buff Bagwell in particular already had lots of enemies and a bad reputation before he even arrived. Bagwell was one of the ones brought to Stamford to train in the new rings and he was late to every single session and also arrived late for a house show in Spokane, which was his first match in the company (the disastrous Raw match the next night was his 2nd, and turns out to be his last). Bagwell also got into an altercation with Shane Helms during one of the training sessions. The 2 got into an argument and Bagwell slapped Helms, who responded by throwing a water bottle at Bagwell and blasting him in the face with it, which left Bagwell bleeding and requiring stitches. Dave says WCW had a reputation for having no discipline or consequences for misbehavior, but that shit don't fly in WWF (yeah, Bagwell finds that out pretty quick). There was also heat on Booker T because they felt he didn't protect Austin during his run-in at the PPV where he threw Austin over the table, which caused Austin to injure his hand. And also because Booker didn't wait at gorilla to check on Austin after the match, instead leaving the arena without talking to him (Booker has spoken about this since and it was pretty much just a misunderstanding).
- On the show Extra this week, they had the woman who does make-up for Playboy and she claimed her best work ever was with Chyna. Then, as an example of how good this make-up artist allegedly is, they showed a pic of Chyna in Playboy next to a "before" picture of her from 1998, before she had all the facial surgery and lost the muscle mass. Dave thinks that's a pretty unfair, shitty, and mean-spirited comparison.
- David Flair signed a developmental deal and will start in OVW making $500 per week which is a whole lot less than he was making in WCW.