August 27, 2001
- Other notes from Summerslam: Edge won the IC title from Lance Storm, which is the start of his singles push. They're still teasing an Edge/Christian split. X-Pac beat Tajiri to win the WWF Light Heavyweight title in a unification match with the WCW Cruiserweight title in a good match. Jericho got knocked loopy early on in his match with Rhyno and may have been concussed. He ended up slipping off the ropes a few times after and was just kinda out of it, which killed the match. RVD beat Jeff Hardy in a ladder match that was good but didn't live up to the expectations set by previous ladder matches. Undertaker/Kane won the WWF tag titles to unify them with the WCW tag titles, in a shitty near-squash match as mentioned earlier. Angle vs. Austin gets 4.5 stars, with tons of run-ins and a DQ finish. If not for the finish, it was sniffing that 5-star air. And Rock won the WCW title from Booker T. The whole show was built around WWF vs. The Alliance and they made a point to mention that WWF won the show 5-2.
- WATCH: Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle (Summerslam 2001)
- WATCH: Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Mirko Cro Cop (K-1 2001)
- Former UFC fighter and current NJPW wrestler Brian Johnston suffered a stroke while attending the aforementioned K-1 show and as of press time, he's hospitalized in Tokyo and unable to speak and with limited movement. Johnston was at the show to be in the corner of Fujita and complained of severe headaches and dizziness. Backstage at the show, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where they diagnosed him. As of now, there's no update on how/if he's recovering.
- The WWF and DirecTV have not been able to come to a new agreement which means, at least for now, that future WWF PPVs will not air on DirecTV. The two sides have been at an impasse over some sort of issue in the contract, but no one knows exactly what it is because the case is in arbitration right now, which prevents either side from discussing it publicly. But it's apparently some kind of disagreement over money. DirecTV's PPV reach is believed to be between 8-10 million homes, and for whatever reason, DirecTV customers buy PPVs at a higher rate than those with cable. So losing DirecTV is definitely going to lower the buys on upcoming WWF PPVs. Dave says that WWF has never been more dominant on PPV than they are now and with WCW and ECW dead and boxing struggling, this is the best time for WWF to make a power play for a better deal. WWF tried a similar power play back in 1988 when they threatened to withhold Wrestlemania 5 from PPV providers in order to get a bigger cut of the profits. But back then, Jim Crockett was still around and they threatened to air a PPV on the same day as Wrestlemania, which forced WWF to back down and settle for a lesser deal (and Crockett ended up airing their event--Clash of Champions--on free TV instead). The next WWF PPV is Unforgiven in about a month and there's a lot of money at stake for both sides, so it's in everyone's best interest to settle this soon. Both DirecTV and WWF will likely lose out on more than $1 million each on every PPV they don't carry. Dave seems to expect this to get settled pretty soon.
- Dave takes a moment to give a long review of a new Von Erich family documentary called Faded Glory that aired locally on PBS stations in Texas. Dave feels like it missed the point, with the director falling into the trap of glorifying the fantasy life of the family and spinning the version of the story that the remaining Von Erich's probably liked, but not really the true story. Which is that Fritz was a brutal man who pushed his sons into a business they shouldn't have been in and put too much pressure on them to carry it. And as a result, nearly all of them succumbed to their demons. Kerry Von Erich was heavily into steroids while only 15 years old, provided by his father. Dave picks apart some of the inaccuracies, but he also praises it for being a really interesting snapshot of a historical period in wrestling history. And there's a ton of cool and interesting old footage from that era included as well (here's parts 1, 3, and 4 below. It looks like Part 2 got removed by WWE for whatever reason).
- WATCH: Faded Glory: The Von Erich Story, Pt. 1
- WATCH: Faded Glory: The Von Erich Story, Pt. 3
- WATCH: Faded Glory: The Von Erich Story, Pt. 4
- Want another long review? Boy, is this the issue for you. Dave reviews Clyde Gentry III's new book "No Holds Barred: Evolution" which is an in-depth history of the birth, growth, and near-collapse of MMA from 1993 to 1997. It mostly covers UFC but also other promotions as well. Again, this is MMA related so I won't go into depth, but Dave raves about this book and talks about how Gentry had a lot of inside access with UFC and was able to cover all the details, warts and all, in a really interesting book that does a great job of covering the rise of MMA (this author has since published several new and updated re-issues of this book. The latest came out in 2011).
- Savio Vega announced his retirement this week. Vega has only wrestled a handful of times in Puerto Rico since suffering a vertebrae injury in the 1998 Brawl For All tournament and has blamed that injury on why he is now choosing to retire (he wrestles a couple of times over the next few years before pretty much resuming a full-time schedule in 2006. He still occasionally wrestles to this day in Puerto Rico).
- Scott Hall was just awarded primary custody of his children. Given Hall's arrest record and obvious issues with drugs, Dave is amazed and wonders what this says about his ex-wife Dana Hall (I did some research on this actually. Dana Hall did an interview a year later basically saying that Scott kept withholding child support and threatening to tie her up in court forever and bleed her into bankruptcy since he had more money than her. And she said she finally gave in and let him have custody of the children because she was scared and just wanted the fighting to stop. Later said she regretted it when he once again was unable to stay clean. She eventually gets the kids back and there's a period during the 2000s where Hall doesn't even have a relationship with the kids for years).
- The Hogan/Universal deal, whatever it was supposed to eventually be, is all but dead. Dave doesn't want to officially declare it dead because that's too strong a word but it may as well be.
- Sid Vicious, Buff Bagwell, and Jeff Jarrett are supposed to be involved in the upcoming World Wrestling All-Stars show that Vince Russo is putting together in Australia. Bret Hart will also be there, acting as a referee for two of the shows which Dave is surprised by since Hart has been turning down every previous offer to do anything in wrestling, so much so that he was even turning down autograph signing events. But Bret will be getting paid $40,000 to do it, so hey, that's big money to turn down when all you have to do is be a referee for 2 days. Anyway, Dave doesn't explain what Sid Vicious is supposed to be doing since, obviously, his leg isn't healed up yet (Sid's never a part of it).
- A Ft. Worth newspaper ran a big story on Chris Adams' legal issues, most notably his current pending charges for manslaughter in relation to the overdose death of his girlfriend last year. In the story, Adams claimed that he didn't know GHB was dangerous but then later admitted that he himself once overdosed on it years ago. Currently, Adams is free on bond pending trial. The story also talked about how Adams was a big star in the 80s in Texas and how he once owned a house in England, lots of land in Texas, 2 condos, a Corvette, and a Mazda RX7. But he lost it all through divorces and alcoholism and other mistakes. Adams has 2 drunk driving convictions, a conviction for assaulting his ex-wife, and another assault charge from back in 1986 when he got drunk on a flight to Puerto Rico and headbutted the co-pilot (less than 2 months after this, Adams gets into a drunken fight and gets himself shot and killed).
- There's a lot of talk about the future of the annual Brian Pillman Memorial Show. It's been 4 years since he passed and a lot of people have kinda moved on. Pillman's widow Melanie brought her new husband Mike to the most recent show, which got people talking. Melanie and Mike have been married for a couple of years now, so it wasn't a secret, but he had never been to one of the Pillman Memorial shows before. With a lot of people seeing that Melanie has moved on, it basically got everyone asking themselves, "Why are we still doing this for her every year?"
- Once the new Reliant Stadium in Houston is finished being built, it's expected that Wrestlemania will return to Houston soon after. Vince McMahon has already met with the stadium management people to discuss future plans for the coming years (still eight years away, but WM25 ends up being there).
- Notes from Raw: the nicest thing Dave can say about this week's show is that he's glad he wasn't there live and even gladder he didn't pay for it because it suuuuucked. They had Rock make fun of a Booker T midget and Dave says it wasn't funny at all and dragged forever. Faarooq absolutely stiffed the fuck out of Chuck Palumbo with a clothesline and looked like he was intentionally trying to break his jaw. Dave thinks it's pretty messed up that, if Palumbo did that, everyone would say he's dangerous and doesn't know how to work, but when Faarooq does it, it's okay because he's just teaching the new guy a lesson. Rock vs. Lance Storm was a total squash and burial of Storm, with Rock giving him absolutely nothing and making a fool of him after. DDP got pinned by Undertaker's wife Sara after some shenanigans, leading Dave to rant again about how Undertaker seems to be going out of his way to make the WCW/ECW guys look as bad as possible and then claim it's because they don't know how to work. DDP in particular has gotten the worst of it, since he's been feuding with Undertaker since he debuted. And finally the show ended with a loooooooooooooong segment of the Alliance guys sucking up to Austin (Dave wishes they had cut all this in half) that culminated in Kurt Angle coming out in a milk truck do reprise the famous Austin beer truck angle (yeah, this is obviously an all-time classic moment). Dave thinks it was a great ending to what was otherwise one of the worst Raws in recent memory.
- WATCH: Kurt Angle drives a milk truck to the ring
- Various notes: Rock's wife gave birth to the couple's first child this week, a girl named Simone. Trish Stratus is on crutches after recently having ankle surgery. Jerry Lynn is having knee surgery and will likely miss the rest of the year. In OVW, Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin, and Randy Orton are all dealing with injuries. X-Pac will no longer be using that Uncle Kracker song as his entrance music and will be replacing it with "Your Disease" by Saliva (fun fact: Saliva is from Memphis and I'm somewhere in the crowd in the "Click Click Boom" video. There was a big video shoot here in Memphis where they had a stage set up in this big field in the middle of nowhere. I remember they gave away free pizza). Former WCW Nitro Girl Paisley (Sharmell Sullivan) has signed a WWF developmental deal.
- At a recent OVW show, wrestler Mike Hard (better known as Jack Dupp) came to the ring wearing a Miss Kitty t-shirt. Dave hints that there's more to that story but doesn't really elaborate so I will. Dupp is the guy that Stacy Carter was cheating on Jerry Lawler with when she eventually left him. A few months after this, someone (allegedly Honky Tonk Man) posted a picture on Lawler's website message board of Stacy giving a guy (allegedly Dupp) a blowjob and that turns into a whole big thing and Lawler ultimately ended up shutting down the message board. But I'm sure we'll get to that.
- So remember that Manhunt reality show that WWF was supposed to be involved in and which John Cena is part of? Well before it aired, WWF pulled out of it and are no longer involved. Looks to have been a wise decision. The show has bombed in the ratings. And now there's a big controversy after it came out that a lot of the 2nd episode was faked for the cameras (a reality show being fake?! PERISH THE THOUGHT!). UPN and Paramount are denying that they faked anything, but one of the contestants and one of the executive producers on the show both quit when they refused to go along with the scripted scenes and went public with the accusations of fakery. Funny enough, the 3rd week ratings actually went up 40% after the story broke that it had been faked. Either way, WWF no longer has any involvement and I think Cena is no longer on it either but Dave isn't clear.
- Mike Sanders and Mark Jindrak are among the WCW names being sent to the HWA developmental promotion to work on their skills. Most of these WCW guys could definitely use the extra training, but Dave doesn't understand why someone like Kaz Hayashi, who is a better worker than just about everybody on the WWF main roster, is being sent there, so guys like Big Boss Man and Al Snow can teach him how to work. But that's WWF for ya.
- Contrary to rumors that Hogan himself is trying to stir up, there have been no discussions whatsoever about bringing Hogan back to WWF and he has not spoken with McMahon. Not to say it won't eventually happen, but it's not in the cards right now. On the same token, Ken Shamrock has reached out to WWF in hopes of returning but there's concern about whether he's willing to come back and work 200 days on the road at this stage in his life.