Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 25, 2001

This issue opens much like the last one, with Dave's personal thoughts on the recent 9/11 tragedy. He also weaves into it discussions about the economic impact of this and how it could affect the entertainment business (wrestling included) while also acknowledging how silly it feels to even care about that sort of stuff right now. The effects of 9/11 on the economy and on society as a whole are still yet to be seen, but the world definitely changed that day and it's too soon to know how that's going to affect all of our fantasy entertainment.
The re-launch of UFC, under Zuffa, is scheduled for this week and the signs looked good at first. They sold out the 9,700-seat Mandalay Bay weeks in advance, being the first "sports entertainment" -ish event since WCW to do those kind of numbers other than WWF. But of course, the events of 9/11 have thrown everything into upheaval. UFC has internally lowered their expectations for the PPV buyrate, because most people aren't in a "buying PPVs" kinda mood right now. Everyone's still glued to their TVs watching the news. Then it was announced that the highly anticipated Felix Trinidad vs. Bernard Hopkins boxing match was postponed due to 9/11 and will now be taking place the day after UFC's PPV. Needless to say, that's gonna wreck the buyrate also (yeah this ends up being a disaster. To this day, Dana White still calls UFC 33 the worst show in the history of the company).
Jerry Lawler is making one last ditch effort to keep the tradition of Memphis wrestling alive. They are no longer running live shows on local TV there, but Lawler, along with Jimmy Hart, Dave Brown, and Cory Maclin have been hosting a "best of" show for the last several months. Basically just clips of old classic Memphis wrestling that airs in the same TV time slot. Well, the TV network informed them this week that they will no longer allow Lawler & Co. to use the WMC-TV production studios to do that show. The TV station is still willing to air any wrestling shows that Lawler will give them, but they no longer want to be involved in producing it in any way. So now Lawler is scrambling around Memphis trying to strike a deal to keep some form of local wrestling in Memphis on the air.
There are some new details on the decisions made that led to the cancellation of WCW on Turner networks back in March. Back when Eric Bischoff and Fusient were still negotiating to buy WCW, the plan written into the deal was for Nitro to move to TBS (because they were re-branding TNT and wrestling wouldn't fit the new image of the network). The deal would have given WCW 4 prime time hours on TBS for the next 10 years. Around this same time, Fusient's biggest financial backer, private equity firm Warburg Pincus, had pulled out of the deal and it's unknown how Fusient would have been able to afford to run WCW without them. That uncertainty might have played a part in Jamie Kellner deciding to simply cancel WCW programming. If Fusient couldn't afford it and WWF couldn't buy it because of Viacom blocking the TV deal, there were simply no other interested buyers. By cancelling the TV shows, that freed Turner up to sell it to WWF because Viacom would no longer stand in the way. When it became clear that Kellner was cancelling it and Vince McMahon was going to buy it, Bischoff made a last-ditch effort to try to secure a deal with USA or FX, but it didn't happen. USA was said to be dead set against airing anymore wrestling after WWF left them (they turned down ECW for the same reason). FX turned Bischoff down as well, for various reasons (concerns over Fusient's financial backing for one. Also, Bischoff basically approached them in a "we have to make a decision now before they sell to WWF!" and FX was uncomfortable making such a big decision in such an immediate time frame. FX would have had to approve the deal within 48 hours and for it to go through all the legal red tape and due diligence necessary, it just wasn't feasible. Obviously, if WCW was a hot product, FX would have moved mountains to make it happen. But WCW had the stench of death on it for a long time and nobody was jumping through hoops to save it.
So the Observer has been having yearly votes on Wrestler of the Year since the early 80s, but what about before that? It's hard to judge because the coverage of the business in earlier decades wasn't as thorough. But Dave and some other wrestling historians have done a bunch of research and put together a list of people that likely would have won the Wrestler of the Year award every year dating back to 1901, if the Observer and its readers had actually existed back then and voted on it. Lots of Lou Thesz, George Hackenschmidt, Frank Gotch, etc. Dave goes into a lot of detail about how these picks would be made, how times change and what fans look for has changed and how those criteria affect the list. Obviously this is all an exercise in futility since no one can really know how a vote for 1926's Wrestler of the Year would have actually gone, so this is all hypothetical. It's interesting but not newsworthy.
Kenta Kobashi had yet another surgery on his right knee recently, to remove screws that were put in during a previous surgery. Dave has lost count of how many surgeries Kobashi has had now and fears that he's going to end up wheelchair bound at a young age. But for now, the plan is still for him to return to the ring in January.
Dave talks about all the recent changes made to NJPW's upcoming Tokyo Dome show next month and basically blames it on Antonio Inoki, who has been throwing his muscle around to change matches and push all his MMA guys. Dave thinks Inoki is tired of professional wrestling but is using its popularity and visibility to promote the real shoot fights he wants with PRIDE and K-1. The booking Inoki is doing makes sense for those promotions and for his fighters, but it's terrible for NJPW and he doesn't really seem to care. Dave compares the recent booking of NJPW to Russo-era WCW, in that both are convoluted, often make no sense, and are/were terrible for their respective companies.
Speaking of Antonio Inoki, he was actually in New York City on 9/11, not far from the World Trade Center when the attack happened. Due to all the airlines being grounded, he was stuck in New York for the rest of the week. Japanese women's wrestler Itzuki Yamazaki (of the famous Jumping Bomb Angels) lives in Manhattan near ground zero and none of her friends and family in Japan has heard from her since, so there's obviously a lot of concern about that (she was fine and still lives in NYC to this day. She owns a restaurant called Go Sushi, so check it out if you're there and report back). NWA Jersey promoter Fred Rubenstein works for the Port Authority in New York and was supposed to be in the World Trade Center that day, but was running late and was still a few blocks away when he got word of the attack.
Also, a scheduled NWA 53rd Anniversary show may have to be moved now. It was scheduled to take place in the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in Tampa, FL which is a National Guard location. But there's a lock down on all military bases now. It's believed the lock down will be lifted before the show is scheduled, but if not, then they'll have to find a new building or cancel the show. They're hoping to have Steve Corino defend the NWA title against Hashimoto on this show. Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles is also scheduled for the card.
Jerry Lawler was also supposed to wrestle a show in Toronto on 9/15, only one day after commercial flights in the U.S. were allowed to fly again. He arrived at the Memphis airport and between cancellations and delays, he was there for 8 hours. Eventually, it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to make it to Toronto in time for the show, so he had to cancel (yeah, if you aren't old enough to remember, airports were a goddamn nightmare for months after 9/11).
The angle last week with Hiroshi Tanahashi pinning Scott Hall was actually Hall's idea. He wanted to re-create the famous 1-2-3 Kid angle because Hall thinks Tanahashi could be a big star some day. Nobody else in the locker room knew it was going to happen and everyone popped big for it when it did. Hall got over big with all the other Japanese wrestlers for doing it. In other news, Hall is pushing NJPW to bring in Kevin Nash for the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show.
Dave reviews the latest Zero-One show and he thinks Samoa Joe has made an incredible transition to the Japanese style and has adapted perfectly. And he's getting over pretty big there because of it.
Most wrestling shows ran as planned this week, although CZW cancelled an event, feeling that a light tube death match might be in bad taste given how everyone is still raw from what happened on 9/11. A few other indies cancelled shows and there's a AAA show scheduled for Los Angeles next week and nobody can seem to confirm whether it's still happening or not.
WWA in Australia held a press conference this week for the upcoming shows they're promoting there. They heavily hyped that Vince Russo would be bringing them a wrestling product the likes of which has never been seen before in Australia. Dave thinks this whole thing would do better if they just tried to bring them a good wrestling product instead. BURN. They pushed Road Dogg, Stevie Ray, Buff Bagwell, Nathan Jones, and Bret Hart as the top stars and all 5 men were there doing PR for it. They repeatedly made clear that Bret Hart is retired and wouldn't be wrestling. They pushed it as the start of a new promotion rather than just an indie tour. They've booked big 10,000+ seat venues and are charging $40-50 for tickets. WCW charged more than that last year and ran a surprisingly successful tour in Australia. Even in the dying days of WCW, the company drew big there. But WCW had TV there and was a widely recognized name, whereas this WWA venture does not.
Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff spoke this past week, with Hogan basically checking to see if there was anything going on Bischoff's end. Bischoff apparently told Hogan to go make amends with Vince McMahon because there's nothing new on the horizon from him or anyone else. Lots of people are talking about starting up new indies but without TV backing, there's nothing sustainable on a major league level happening anytime soon. Hogan recently had another knee surgery a few weeks ago. Obviously, Hogan in WWF, with the right angle, could be huge. But the problem is that he's Hulk Hogan, he's got a lot of enemies, and bringing him in is sure to upset a lot of the WWF locker room. Plus Hogan would be coming in at significantly less money than he was used to making in WCW.
H&S Media's assets are being sold at auction this week. H&S Media is the parent company of WOW Magazine. WOW currently has a new issue ready to be released and its sitting at the printers, but it hasn't been printed yet due to the uncertainty over the company. The death of WOW Magazine would be the end of Bill Apter's 31-year run as the biggest independent wrestling magazine publisher in the U.S. (yup, this is the end of the road for WOW).
Various notes: Ric Flair stars in a local Kansas City commercial for a check cashing company. He even drops a "Whooo!" Ricki Lake did an episode of her show talking about backyard wrestling and it was pretty much exactly what you'd expect and it featured an appearance from Stevie Ray (I can only find one part of it. Can't find the Flair commercial at all).
WATCH: Backyard wrestlers on the Rikki Lake Show
WWF attempted to get back to business with Raw this week. The whole crew seemed exhausted (as mentioned, travel is a nightmare now) and the crowd seemed to lull at times. There were tons of USA chants, flags, etc. America is pretty much still in shock, but patriotism is at an all-time high. Kronik showed up and beat up Kane and Undertaker. Dave thinks it's funny that Undertaker wouldn't even sell for any of these other WCW guys and many of them have been buried because they "don't know how to work" but Kronik is walking in the door with a big push because Bryan Adams is Undertaker's friend. Hurricane was looking for a superhero sidekick and Lance Storm suggested Ivory. Hurricane said no because she's only 99.44% pure, which is a reference to an old Ivory soap slogan. This joke probably went over the heads of most of the audience because nobody reacted, but Dave thought it was hilarious.
Notes from Smackdown: this is the show that aired live two days after 9/11 and Dave says it was a very unique show. Behind the scenes, a lot of people felt they shouldn't have done the show at all, including some city officials in Houston. Edge even acknowledged on TV that they weren't sure they should be doing the show. WWF itself was obviously sensitive to receiving any criticism about running the show and were almost too defensive in putting themselves over for not cancelling it. Linda McMahon and a WWF media relations guy made the interview rounds the next day, defending the decision to go ahead with it. In the end, whether or not a wrestling show should have happened is such an unimportant issue in the wake of real life events. Dave can't say whether it was right or wrong. If it had been him, he personally would have waited until Raw the next week before running a live show again, but as a fan, he was also just glad to have some kind of escape from the real world on TV. So in hindsight, Dave thinks WWF made the right decision, though cancelling it wouldn't have been wrong either. Back in the 1960s, the NFL caught a ton of heat for not cancelling games after the assassination of JFK and for decades since, they have still been criticized for it. On television, WWF tried to make a big deal of being the first major event to run post-9/11. But this is WWF, so of course that's not actually true. It wasn't even the first wrestling event, as OVW held a show the night before (for a much smaller crowd, of course). Madonna also continued her tour prior to WWF running Smackdown. While the show aired in most of the country, it didn't air in New York, Boston, or Minneapolis. Despite these pre-emptions, and despite most of the country still glued to the news networks, Smackdown ratings held up surprisingly well.
It was presented similar to the Owen Hart episode, with no storylines, just matches and out-of-character interviews. Most were very good but the one in particular that made some headlines was Stephanie McMahon, who compared the attacks to her father's steroid trial. Dave can't believe the company allowed this to air. Now, to be fair, Dave tries really hard to see this from Stephanie's point of view. He believes she was trying to relate the attacks to something from her personal life and her father being on trial and facing prison when she was a teenager was surely one of the worst things she's ever personally experienced in her life. Dave was at that trial and he remembers seeing Vince's family in the courtroom during the closing arguments and recalls how traumatized the 17-year-old Stephanie appeared to be that day. So he understands what she was trying to go for here. But comparing that trial to the death of thousands of people, and to compare the government prosecutors who went after her dad to the terrorists who attacked America came off incredibly poorly and offensive. To their credit, WWF edited the promo out of the Excess show 2 nights later, which was mostly just a re-run of Smackdown with the same out-of-character promos. Stephanie aside, the rest of the show proved how much things have changed. 10 years ago, at the peak of the Gulf War, WWF tried to capitalize on it by booking Hulk Hogan as an American hero and sending him to military bases so they could film him meeting the troops in order to build the Sgt. Slaughter match. So they haven't decided to exploit this tragedy for their own gain, at least not yet. Anyway, they also didn't try to use this show to sell anything. There was no hype for the PPV, not even any promos or commercials for it. They offered refunds beforehand for anyone who didn't feel like attending a big public gathering two days after the scariest day in most American's lives, and more than 200 people took them up on the offer. And for the live fans, they gave them a Rock vs. Austin dark match. Overall (Stephanie nonsense notwithstanding), Dave thinks WWF did a fantastic and honorable job given the circumstances of the situation and they deserve credit for it.
WATCH: Stephanie McMahon's post-9/11 comments
Oh yeah, other notes from the actual show: Lilian Garcia opened the show with a hell of a rendition of the national anthem and a Vince McMahon promo that was basically an American pep rally. Kurt Angle was on the show, not selling his injuries from Raw at all. Given the newfound patriotic fervor in America, the reality (although no one will openly admit it) is that WWF sees Kurt Angle as a "USA"-chant magnet and they didn't want him here selling injuries and looking weak when America is all about being strong right now. Again, no one openly will admit it because it might seem exploitative, but everyone realizes that Kurt Angle could be money if they steer into the American Olympic hero aspect of his character.
Weirdly enough, when Smackdown aired on Sky in the UK, they edited out everything to do with 9/11. So all the promo videos, the opening, even the RVD vs. Spike Dudley match was cut because commentary talked about 9/11 throughout most of it. As a result, in the UK, Smackdown only lasted 51 minutes this week.
Long-term, WWF is still planning to split the rosters sometime in early 2002 with WCW going on its own as a separate entity with its own show. There's no set date and WWF is pretty much being booked week-to-week on the fly right now, with little in the way of long-term planning. If they're serious about this, Dave says they have to start rebuilding WCW now so that fans will take it serious and not reject it next year when it has to sustain itself. Right now, the WCW name is worth less than it was when the real WCW folded and trying to launch a new WCW show now would likely fail worse than it would have if they had gone along with their original plan.
Jerry Lawler was backstage at this week's Smackdown tapings in Memphis but was just visiting friends. As of now, there's no immediate plans to bring him back, although one presumes Lawler was certainly fishing for a job (he hasn't been shy on his website about wanting to return). Lawler was basically trying to make amends with people, since he burned a lot of bridges after he quit. Jim Ross told Lawler to get his divorce to Stacy Carter finalized first and straighten out all his personal life issues, then they'll look into bringing him back. But it looks like it may be a messy divorce and they want him at work with a clear head, not having to miss dates to attend court hearings and whatnot. There's also the issue of where he'd fit in. Jim Ross and Paul Heyman work really well together on commentary, but there's also longstanding issues between those 2 that date back years and Ross doesn't particularly seem to enjoy working with Heyman. So who knows. As for Stacy Carter, she's currently living with former WWF developmental wrestler Mike Howell (who wrestled as one of the Dupp Brothers) and they're living in a condo that Lawler owns in Florida but until the divorce is finalized, he apparently can't legally kick her out of it. In his final OVW appearance, Howell was on TV flaunting it by wearing a Miss Kitty shirt.
It was extremely difficult for the WWF wrestlers to get flights out of Houston after Smackdown. A lot of the wrestlers simply ended up driving, some as far as Minnesota and Florida, to get home. Others who live further away (west coast or Canada for example) simply drove from Houston to Nashville and stayed there for a few days until the Raw taping the following Monday since they couldn't get home. So for many of the roster, it was 11 straight days on the road at a time when everyone in America just wants to be home with their families.
The Much Music Awards in Canada (their version of MTV) were scheduled to air this week but were cancelled due to 9/11 and won't be rescheduled. Chris Benoit was booked to appear and introduce the band Our Lady Peace, who were going to debut their new song "Whatever" which Benoit will be using as his new theme song when he returns. Much Music execs thought it would be in poor taste to be handing out music awards while in America, funerals were still taking place.
Triple H did an interview with FHM magazine and talked about the criticism WWF received for continuing the show on the night Owen Hart died. Triple H said that criticism pissed him off because Owen was his friend and that Owen would have wanted the show to go on. "Yeah, how dare those people like Owen's wife and family members question that decision," Dave quips.
Caryn Mawr, who very briefly worked for WWF as a character named Muffy, was the winner of Battledome's women's championship. Mawr only made one WWF appearance as Stephanie McMahon's trainer but made a bunch of dark match appearances during her time in WWF but they just never got behind her to put her on TV and do something with her. She also apparently didn't earn herself any brownie points by complaining about the name "Muffy."
Tons of letters this week, mostly about how this whole Invasion angle has just gone off the rails. Some guy predicting WWF is going to grow stale without competition (yup). Someone else writes in about the new Saturday night Excess show and how they do sort of a similar call-in thing as the old Livewire show, but the calls are all carefully screened and the questions suck and the hosts suck. The guy suggests Jim Cornette should host the show. Dave responds and says Cornette is busy running OVW and hates flying and he would hate flying to New York every week. Paul Heyman lives in New York and he'd probably be a good host for it, but he's so busy with everything else that he's involved in on-screen right now with the Invasion angle that he probably wouldn't be able to do it either. Dave has a suggestion and he admits he's biased....but he thinks Bryan Alvarez would be a great host for something like that. He's funny, quick on his feet, and has a depth of wrestling knowledge that most people don't. He's also someone who will tell it like it is and not kiss up to the product, but he admits WWF probably isn't interested in that kind of host. Other people write in about the Observer Hall of Fame. One guy seems offended that Undertaker is even considered for it. He says sure the Undertaker is a great gimmick but for years, he has been part of some of the worst matches and angles the WWF had. "If great matches can make a candidate, shouldn't awful matches for 4+ years break him?" Someone else writes in saying he's tired of people complaining about Shawn Michaels not being in and says Shawn doesn't deserve it. Yes he was a great worker but was never a great draw, didn't have any real longevity on top, and his outside the ring antics are legendarily negative. Says Shawn was the grand slam champion of unprofessionalism. At different points, he vacated the World, IC, European, and Tag Team titles all without ever jobbing so why does he deserve to be in the HOF?