August 20, 2001
- 5 new members have been inducted into the Observer Hall of Fame: Lizmark, El Satanico, Bull Nakano, Black Shadow, and Diablo Velasco. The last 2 are historical legends from decades past and they didn't get the votes to be inducted, but every now and then, they usually induct a couple of overlooked legends from years past who have been forgotten by modern audiences but still deserve to be inducted. You know, guys from the 1930s and shit. Dave breaks down all the details on this. Wahoo McDaniel and Undertaker were the top vote-getters among North American wrestlers, but both fell short of the votes needed to get in this year. Eric Bischoff and Cien Caras were both dropped from future ballots for the next 2 years because they got less than 10% of the votes. Shawn Michaels is another interesting case. In 1999, he was only 1 vote shy from being inducted. Last year, he was 7 votes shy. This year, he wasn't even really close and Dave is skeptical if Shawn will ever be considered a serious candidate in the future at this rate. Unless he comes back and has an incredible second half of a career or something, but c'mon, how likely is that? Chris Benoit jumped from 14% last year to 46% this year and Dave thinks it's only a matter of time before he hits the 60% mark needed to get in. As always, everyone's ballots (aside from Dave's, which he mostly revealed last week) are kept confidential due to the political nature of wrestling. From here, Dave writes bios for the 5 inductees.
- The WWF.com web domain as well as other potential uses of the WWF initials are in jeopardy after a London court ruled against the WWF in a lawsuit filed by the other WWF, the World Wildlife Fund. Back in 1994, the WWF and the WWF....oh fuck, this is gonna get confusing...let's try again. The WWF and the Fund made an agreement back in 1994 regarding the usage of the WWF initials outside the U.S. for marketing purposes. The Fund people trademarked the 'WWF' initials back in 1961 but the two have gotten along peacefully until now. But in April of 2000, the Fund filed a lawsuit against the WWF, claiming that the WWF had repeatedly violated pretty much all of the terms they agreed to in a 1994 agreement over how both sides would share the initials. The WWF argues that the 1994 agreement never specified use of the initials on the internet (since that wasn't really a thing in 1994). The agreement gave the WWF limited use of the initials when absolutely necessary, but otherwise, they were supposed to only say and use "World Wrestling Federation." Needless to say, the WWF has been blatantly ignoring that. The Fund argued that the WWF using those letters hurts the reputation of the animal charity. They're particularly annoyed by the internet domain (WWF.com while the Fund is WWF.org). The WWF argued that changing their domain name could cost them as much as $50 million since it's such an established website. The judge was unmoved and even mentioned how the WWF's lawyers had an "astonishingly poor" and "hopeless" argument. The Fund talked about how they didn't really care about their use of the initials back when WWF was primarily American-based. But then in the 80s and early 90s, they started expanding and running events worldwide. At that point, the Fund threatened a lawsuit, which was settled out of court in 1994 with the limited-use agreement being made. The court ruled that the WWF mostly abided by the agreement until 1997, at which point they started flagrantly ignoring it. Thus, this lawsuit. WWF plans to appeal the ruling.
- On the final night of the G-1 tournament, NJPW debuted a new tag team into the Team 2000 stable. The team consists of Giant Silva (7'3, formerly of the Oddities in WWF) and Giant Singh (7'1, later known as Great Khali). Silva was said to look okay, but Singh apparently moved very poorly (it only gets worse). Singh will be living and training full time at the NJPW dojo. There's a little bit of controversy over this backstage in NJPW because Masa Saito was largely responsible for recruiting Singh. But other people in the company, unbeknownst to Saito, were the ones who recruited Silva. And now they've been brought in together as a team and the thought is having 2 giants kind of ruins the uniqueness of both of them.
- It's pretty common news that WWF bought WCW for extremely cheap. Some outlets have reported it as $4.3 million but Dave says it was actually around $2.5 million. Anyway, prior to that sale, a recent news story about the purchase talked about Eric Bischoff and Fusient's scrapped plans to purchase WCW. Back in January, when the Fusient sale was announced, sources at the time claimed Fusient planned to buy WCW for $75 million. According to the story, that wasn't actually true. The number was much lower, but Turner execs leaked a higher number at the time to try to save face. Fusient's real offer was apparently $10 million, with a bunch of other factors and payments written in based on certain conditions and contingent on WCW rebounding and becoming a billion dollar company or something. Which, well, ya know. Anyway, of course this all fell through when Time Warner head Jamie Kellner cancelled the wrestling shows on TBS and TNT. There's been a lot of criticism of AOL/Time Warner lately over the fact that they sold WCW for $2.5 million when they allegedly had a $75 million offer only 3 months earlier. Dave says this story coming out now, with Turner execs admitting that Fusient's offer wasn't actually $75 million, is a way to defend themselves. Basically, WCW was worthless in January too, they just didn't want to admit it publicly back then.
- The latest Brian Pillman Memorial Show is in the books. This show, put on by Les Thatcher, has become the annual biggest indie wrestler showcase in the country and a lot of indie stars traveled from far and wide to be here and be seen. Last year, William Regal resurrected his career by having a classic match with Chris Benoit that led to WWF re-hiring him. They were supposed to have a rematch this year, but Benoit is of course out with the neck injury. This year, the matches weren't actually the highlight. It was a speech given by Dean Malenko, who talked about retiring soon. HWA and OVW wrestlers worked the show along with NWA champion Steve Corino, Missy Hyatt and Tammy Sytch (promoting Wrestling Vixxxens), and WWF stars like the Hardyz, Lita, Raven, Justin Credible, Hugh Morrus, Dean Malenko, Regal, Edge, Christian, DDP and Kanyon. Even Ricky Steamboat appeared as a guest ref for a Terry Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton match.
- Main Event Championship Wrestling ran their first, heavily hyped show and it was a bit of a success. It was a free show, so they packed 1,300 people into the ECW Arena and turned away several hundred more. A lot of former ECW wrestlers worked the show with Public Enemy making their return and even former ECW owner Tod Gordon, who turned heel on Sandman. But behind the scenes, it was a whole different thing. The carny underbelly of wrestling was on full display. People involved in the company talked openly about trying to con the rich owner (a guy named Jon Collins) out of as much money as possible. No one actually knows if Collins is rich, they just know he's trying to start a promotion and has been spending money on limos for wrestlers and flew everyone in for the show and everyone sees him as a money mark. He's announced a bunch of stars as being signed, but none of them are, so no one trusts him. Everyone's trying to maneuver themselves to get power in the new company (notably Curt Hennig, Barry Windham, and Sandman, who are all angling for some business involvement). Sandman booked the show, for what it's worth, while Tod Gordon helped put a lot of logistical stuff together for it (grand opening, grand closing).
- Eric Bischoff has been named COO of a company called Battle Management, a newfound MMA company, with the hopes to get a TV deal in America. Several other companies (UFC, PRIDE, K-1, and others) are attempting the same thing. This group represents a lot of MMA fighters (including UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture and Mark Coleman among others) and the hope is to develop a TV show (this never goes anywhere. Bischoff briefly touches on it in his book but yeah, this turns out to be nothing).
- A Terry Gordy Memorial show was held this week and featured Michael Hayes coming out of retirement to wrestle. They opened the show by playing "Freebird" and a 10-bell salute. Gordy was booked to work this show before he passed and Hayes filled in for him. Hayes teamed with Terry Gordy's son Ray Gordy (later known to WWE fans as Jesse from the Jesse & Festus gimmick). Triple H also made a surprise appearance on the show, since it was being held in Birmingham and he's living there temporarily while doing rehab for his torn quad. Stephanie McMahon was backstage as well (with Triple H) but didn't appear before the crowd.
- Dave mentions an indie wrestler named Bad Business Brown in Kentucky who recently passed away from a brain aneurysm and I only include it because the story is horrifying: "Brown was coming home with his wife from an indie show that night when he complained of not feeling well and his nose started bleeding. He asked his wife to get him something at a convenience store, and by the time she came back, he had passed out and blood was coming out of his eye sockets."
- Alex Wright has decided to stay in the U.S. for now. If you recall last week, it was mentioned that he was leaving. But his WCW contract doesn't expire until early next year, so he'll be staying at least until that runs out.
- Vampiro made an appearance for Incredibly Strange Wrestling during their show at the Van's Warped Tour. ISW wrestler Oi Boy interrupted Rancid's concert and got into a (scripted) altercation with band member Tim Armstrong. It led to Vampiro coming out and putting Oi Boy though a table, to a huge pop. Later that night, Vampiro wrestled a match for the promotion on the Warped Tour grounds (sadly, I can't find video of any of this).
- Honky Tonk Man is threatening to file a lawsuit against Jerry Lawler for using footage of HTM in videos he's released in the past. Dave mentions that HTM and Lawler are cousins that have had a major falling out and says HTM is obsessed with making Lawler look bad. For what it's worth, Dave says that after Lawler's recent public online search for a new girlfriend, Lawler doesn't really need any help in that department (oh yeah, I forgot about that. In an attempt to make Stacy Carter jealous after she left him, Lawler tried to host an online search for a new girlfriend. He was basically just recruiting starfuckers on the internet).
- Remember that Urban Wrestling Alliance promotion? Probably not. Anyway, Rocky Johnson (father of The Rock) works for them as a trainer and said that they will be starting on BET soon. Dave points out the fact that BET is owned by Viacom, which airs WWF and there's an exclusivity agreement between them (which is why WWF's first attempt to buy WCW in late-2000 fell through) but given that it's Rock's father and that this promotion is no threat, Dave suspects WWF might not care enough to fight it (indeed, I think this airs on BET for, like, a minute).
- Mikey Whipwreck is saying he's retiring and his retirement match is scheduled for next week in Ontario (of course not. Although to be fair, he did only wrestle once or twice after for the next year. But by 2003, he was basically back working indies on a regular basis and hasn't stopped to this day).
- The long term plan of splitting the WWF into 2 brands doesn't have a timetable yet but almost certainly won't take place before the end of this year. Dave talks about the ways a brand split would affect the travel and taping schedules for everyone.
- It's pretty much a done deal that Wrestlemania 18 will take place at the Skydome in Toronto. The official announcement is expected in 2 weeks when Raw is in Toronto.
- Notes from Raw: Jericho made fun of Stephanie McMahon's new breast implants, complete with before and after pics. Dave notes that Stephanie was on the Opie & Anthony show and talked about seeing a sign in the crowd that said "saggy puppies" which was one of the keys to her making the decision to get them done. Undertaker and Kane squashed Palumbo and O'Haire, selling nothing for them. Rock came out and cut a promo and dropped a "motherfucker" which was bleeped and also called Shane McMahon a "pussy" (some execs at TNN weren't happy about it but there doesn't appear to be any repercussions from it). (The Rock video is on the Network, can't find it on YouTube. Stephanie was supposed to interrupt him mid-word before he said the full "motherfucker" and, well, she was late and Rock....kinda had to say it). And finally, everyone made fun of Hurricane Helms' Green Lantern tattoo throughout the show.
- WATCH: Chris Jericho pokes fun at Stephanie before and after
- Rey Mysterio met with Jim Ross and John Laurinaitis (Johnny Ace) last week at the Smackdown show in L.A. Juventud Guerrera was with Mysterio, but he didn't have a meeting scheduled. Mysterio still has a WCW contract that runs through the end of the year. Ross told Mysterio to keep his WCW deal for now and to stay in shape and when it expires, they'll talk to him again in January, especially since they might be splitting the roster at that point. After the meeting, Guerrera basically cornered Jim Ross at catering and asked for a job, which isn't exactly proper protocol. Ross basically told him the same thing as Mysterio, try back in January. He also said that while they love Guerrera's talent, they won't put up with any drug issues. Guerrera swore he doesn't have a problem, but of course, everyone that has a problem says that so he's got to stay clean for awhile to prove it. Paul Heyman said he would go to bat for him as well.
- The latest on Jerry Lawler is that his latest online antics aren't helping him return to WWF any time soon. Particularly, his going online and basically trying to audition new girlfriends has caused some side-eyes with regards to how he's looked at in the locker room. There's also a lot of heat on him for when he posted the creative team's email addresses and phone numbers online awhile back. Lawler recently claimed Vince Russo offered him $35,000 to do commentary for a 10-day tour of the Australia promotion that Russo is involved with, but Lawler turned him down. In regards to all the things Honky Tonk Man is saying about Lawler online, Lawler says that HTM called him recently and suggested that could "work the marks" by trashing each other online and getting hits for their websites but Lawler doesn't want any part of it.
- Chris Benoit is back to light training but still wearing a soft cast on his neck for a couple more weeks. But his bad arm is already back to normal size. He was backstage at Raw this week.
- Eddie Guerrero is still in rehab for drug and alcohol issues. There's no timetable for his return, WWF is giving him all the time he needs.
- WWF has added C. Delores Tucker as a defendant to its lawsuit against the PTC. They've also made some new allegations, such as the PTC falsely inflating the numbers of its membership base. Dave thinks WWF is perfectly right in making these accusations, but he does find some humor in WWF accusing someone else of publicly inflating numbers.
- Shawn Michaels did an interview with the Winnipeg Sun (he was in town making an appearance at a CFL game) and said he has no desire to ever wrestle again and called himself a dinosaur in the business. "My personal feeling is I don't want to wrestle again because I don't want to get hurt," Shawn said.