Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 08, 2001

The first season of Tough Enough is in the books and was won by Maven Huffman and Nidia Guenard, who both won developmental contracts. Overall, the show has to be seen as a success. It got largely good reviews from mainstream critics and did strong ratings. Behind the scenes is a different story, as most people in the business, including the wrestlers and even many office people in WWF, aren't a fan of the concept. In a business where contracts are hard to come by and people sacrifice for years in hopes of getting one, the idea of complete novices coming off the street and getting a contract after 9 weeks of reality show training has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Maven, who quit a school teaching job to be on this show, cut a great promo after winning, thanking all the wrestlers of the past who have paved the way and got over big with the live crowd at WWF New York. Maven will be sent to HWA for further training while Nidia will be sent to OVW (which is where all WWF's female developmental signees are). Maven has all the charisma in the world but he's nowhere near ready in-ring for main roster TV, which is a shame because he's pretty popular right now. But Dave figures after spending several months in developmental, people will have moved on from Tough Enough and the buzz behind him will have subsided. Maven was seen as the favorite by most people, but some within the company were pushing for Josh Lomberger (aka Josh Matthews) because he was a flashier in-ring wrestler. But he's smaller than even Spike Dudley is and even though nobody will admit it, his size almost certainly worked against him. It was also felt that Maven would have the most emotional maturity to handle the guaranteed brutal hazing he's going to receive from the WWF locker room. Chris Nowinsky was also considered but Huffman was seen as having more charisma and there were also some people who felt Nowinsky had more training than he let on before the show started. He also rubbed some the wrong way by being a bit of a loner, which got him a reputation of being arrogant and aloof. But he's a big athletic dude, so he may still get a shot.
As for Nidia, she's a former stripper from Houston who's victory was seen as an upset because most expected Taylor Matheny to win for the women's side. The final decision was made by a group of people, including the trainers from the show as well as Jim Ross, Kevin Dunn, and Vince McMahon. Nidia was ultimately chosen because they considered her sexier and "more exotic looking." Taylor was considered the better in-ring worker but this is 2001 WWF and, well, you know how important that is. They also felt Nidia was more comfortable in front of the camera, but it was basically a coin toss between the 2 women and Taylor may still get a shot (nah she doesn't but she hangs around wrestling for a few years and eventually marries THE Brian Kendrick).
Other Tough Enough notes: Dave also mentions offhandedly that in between filming of the show and the finale, WWF diva Tori (who was a trainer on the show) was released recently (no reason given) and was never acknowledged by anyone during the finale, even when all the other trainers were praised constantly. Al Snow was the true star of the show, coming across tremendously as a trainer. Snow himself said it's one of the things he's most proud of in his career and he was emotional with the students at the end. There was talk that this may lead to a renewed push for Snow, but it's not likely to happen because they're already planning to bring him back for a 2nd season of Tough Enough which will start filming next month and will take him off TV again for months. So there's no sense in even trying to do anything with him right now even if they were gonna push him. Next season of the show will feature actual trained indie wrestlers rather than total rookies off the street.
Dave says UFC is cursed. On the night of the most important show in company history, nearly everything that could have gone wrong did. UFC 33 was their first night back on major PPV, essentially a re-debut of the company. Not only was it a bad show, but pretty much every fight went to a decision which made for a loooong show that didn't end in the allotted 3-hour PPV time. InDemand cut the show off before the final round of the main event, resulting in tons of refund requests that will cost UFC untold amounts of money. It's the 3rd time in history a UFC show has gone long and been cut off by the PPV time limit. There were also problems with PPV in Toronto which is a strong market, and made the show unavailable there. And worst of all, every fight was slow, boring, and went to decisions. There is good news: the show reportedly did a gate of over $1 million which no one aside from WWF has done in the United States. Even WCW never did that during their peak and WWF has only done it a handful of times. So it made a lot of money but man it left a bad impression to a lot of fans who were likely seeing UFC for the first time. Worst of all, because the show was running long, there was almost no hype or promotion for the next UFC PPV because all the hype videos and promos were cut for time when they realized it. And of course, as mentioned last week, the scheduled main event, which had been hyped for months, was changed just last week due to Vitor Belfort suffering an injury in training. Dave recaps this slog of a show which, as I've mentioned before, Dana White himself still to this day calls the worst UFC show in history.
The WWF was ordered to pay £150,000 ($229,772 U.S.) to the World Wildlife Fund's legal bills in the case they recently lost. WWF is still appealing that case. Per the original ruling, the World Wrestling Federation has until March 2002 to stop using the WWF initials on its products, television shows, and website. If WWF loses the appeal and the ruling stands, they will also have to pay the remainder of the Fund's legal bills of £412,000 ($630,000 U.S.) as well as any damages the court decides. World Wrestling Federation lawyers have argued that being forced to change the WWF initials will cost the company upwards of $50 million. The judge was unsympathetic to the complaint, saying, "It's going to cost a lot because you have effectively built on somebody else's land." The Wildlife Fund has said they are agreeable to the initials being changed to WWFE or simply WF. Back in 1994, the two sides had an agreement that Vince McMahon could use the WWF initials for marketing his company in the U.S. but not internationally. The court ruled that they flagrantly ignored that agreement ever since in dozens of ways, most importantly by taking the wwf.com web address, which is, of course, used worldwide.
Helen Hart is hospitalized in a coma as of press time after suffering a series of seizures recently. She suffered a seizure on 9/27 that caused her to fall and hit her head. But she told everyone she was fine afterward and didn't need to see a doctor. The next day, they noticed she was slurring her speech and called an ambulance. At the hospital, she suffered another seizure, briefly stopped breathing, and fell into a coma and has been under ever since. Doctors have found no evidence of a stroke but can't be sure she didn't suffer one (she hangs on for another few weeks but ultimately passes away in November).
Raw ratings fell again this week. Following the death of WCW, the ratings for Raw and Smackdown both began plummeting. They shot back up again briefly when Rock returned from filming his movie, but those gains quickly disappeared and they're back down again now. Part of it is everything else on TV. The NFL's Monday Night Football is back, which always hurts ratings and shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker, and Crossing Jordan are all doing huge numbers on Monday nights. But they face this kind of competition every year and the ratings aren't usually hit this hard. Also, viewing patterns show fans tuning out in droves throughout the show (in the past, the audience often grew rather than declined over the course of 2 hours) and it shows that the casual WWF fans still watching aren't going to stick around if the show sucks (which it has, a lot lately).
Business sucks in Mexico right now too. The Friday night shows at Arena Mexico are still doing pretty good, but most wrestlers in the country are working a lot less than before and aside from El Hijo del Santo, nobody else is really seen as a breakout star in the country. And Santo works so often that the specialness has worn off him as well.
The AJPW 29th Anniversary Show will be headlined by Keiji Muto defending the Triple Crown title against Masahiro Chono. Yes, that is two NJPW guys headlining the AJPW anniversary show and yes, Dave thinks it's weird too.
Advance ticket sales for NJPW's upcoming Tokyo Dome show are weak which is no surprise given the weak lineup and the backstage political fighting between the people who want NJPW to be professional wrestling and Antonio Inoki, who clearly wants it to be quasi-MMA. For now, the wrestling side has won out and the Muto/Hase vs. Nagata/Akiyama match is scheduled to main event the show, ahead of the Fujita vs. Sasaki match that Inoki pushed for. Dave thinks it will be interesting to see what this show does in the TV ratings and particularly which match draws a bigger rating. There's still a lot of frustration in the company, which has a very WCW-like feel backstage these days. Too many people with power and decisions, both big and small, keep getting changed by different people. Inoki has the most power because he owns a controlling share of stock in the company, but his vision of what he wants the company to be has hurt them tremendously. Inoki is trying to re-create his own success from the 1970s, in which he got over as a huge star in matches against athletes from different forms of combat sports (most famously peaking in a match with Muhammad Ali). It's why he keeps merging the worlds of PRIDE and NJPW, with wrestlers and fighters from both sides competing in each company. But that isn't working out so well now in the year 2001 and backstage, most everyone else is against it. But he's Antonio Inoki and when it comes to NJPW, Inoki usually gets what he wants.
Jimmy Hart's new promotion will be called XWF...maybe. As of press time, WWF is threatening legal action over it, claiming the name is a cross between WWF and XFL. It's obviously a bullshit claim but WWF has never shied away from petty moves against perceived competitors. Anyway, you may recall last week that Super Crazy may end up being a part of this but apparently he won't be now. Jimmy Hart is said to be a huge fan of both Super Crazy and Tajiri. Obviously, Tajiri has been signed by WWF but Super Crazy wasn't (and in fact, they turned him down on 2 separate occasions recently). But the problem is that Super Crazy is signed to IWA promoter Victor Quinones in Puerto Rico and when Quinones found out that Jimmy Hart planned to bring in several WWC wrestlers (particularly Carly Colon), he refused to let Super Crazy work for them. IWA and WWC are bitter rivals in Puerto Rico and Quinones was understandably concerned that Super Crazy might be booked to lose to Carly Colon and didn't want to risk that happening and being reported in Puerto Rico. For what it's worth, the Colons weren't thrilled with Super Crazy being part of it either and they were concerned for the same reasons.
XWF is taping a two hour special and 8 one-hour shows over the course of two days in November and the plan is to use those tapes as something of a pilot for a TV deal. Jimmy Hart has opened up an office in Tampa and is bringing in the Nasty Boys, Greg Valentine, Dave Penzer and Janie Engle (formerly Bischoff's right hand woman in WCW). Jerry Lawler will appear at the tapings along with Konnan and probably a lot of other former WCW names who aren't signed to WWF or sitting out WCW contracts. Dave does the usual deal of pointing out how much of an uphill battle it is to start a successful new promotion in the United States right now, especially if you're building it around all the old WCW washouts that Vince didn't want. Long story short, unless they secure a strong cable TV deal, this thing is dead in the water.
In Canada, it's a different story. Jacques Rougeau, who regularly holds indie shows in Montreal drawing 3,000 or more per show, is attempting to book the 20,000-seat Molson Center for a show there next month. He's trying to bring in Randy Savage, but Dave says he's gonna need more than that to have a prayer of filling up that building (this gets pushed back to December as best I can tell. Looks like they drew around 12,000 people. Savage did not work the show, however, a young Kevin Steen worked a triple threat tag team match 3rd from the bottom).
Various notes: Bobby Heenan signed a book deal for a biography that will be ghostwritten by WOW magazine writer Steve Anderson. It's scheduled to be released next year. Rena Mero (Sable) has a small role in the movie Corky Romano. Davey Boy Smith had another surgery on his leg this week and many are saying his career is likely over (he ends up wrestling 2 final matches in 2002, teaming with his son at indie shows in Canada, but yeah, for all intents and purposes, he's done). Mikey Whipwreck had his farewell match at the old ECW Arena for JAPW. The crowd chanted "Thank you!" at him as he left and he was given a plaque by the owners of the arena and was carried out on the wrestlers' shoulders (he takes about 9 months off, eventually returns, and still occasionally wrestles to this day).
Dave saw a recent TLC documentary called "Body Slam: The Making of a Professional Wrestler." It's not scheduled to air until November but Dave has connections I guess and saw it early. Most of the footage was shot earlier this year and the business has changed so much in just those months that it seems like a different world. It followed a couple of people from UPW: Christopher Daniels, as the 31-year-old indie veteran with all the talent in the world but not the look needed to make it in the WWF. And Jon Heidenreich, who is blessed with the perfect look for a professional wrestler and who, after only a short period of training, was signed to a WWF developmental deal. There's a couple of other people too but nobody notable. It was really good for going in depth on Heidenreich in particular, who loses his girlfriend, wrecks his car, and breaks his hand during filming. The feel-good high point of the documentary was Daniels getting a WCW contract to end the film on a happy note. There was no mention of course that WCW went out of business soon after and that Daniels was back on the indie scene with barely a single WCW match under his belt (I can't find footage of this anywhere).
The NWA 53rd anniversary show was thrown into chaos by 9/11. It was booked for a military armory but after 9/11, a lock down was instituted on all military bases and won't be lifted in time for the show. Promoter Howard Brody was left scrambling to find a new venue and had to settle for a small 250-seat building in St. Petersburg. Here's the problem: this is a big time show, 17 matches, with wrestlers literally flying in from all over the world to work it, including an NWA title match between Steve Corino and Shinya Hashimoto. And now they're going to have to hold it in a venue that can't even fit 300 people (here's footage of that match, if you want to see the guy who holds the record for most Tokyo Dome sellouts wrestle in front of 250 people).
WATCH: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Steve Corino - 2001
WWF developmental Russ Haas suffered a mild heart attack a couple of weeks ago, but everyone believes he'll make a full recovery. Haas is the younger brother of Charlie Haas and the 2 have been working as a tag team in HWA for a long time. Haas had just worked a match against Prototype (John Cena) that night and was fine, but after the match on the way home, he felt sick and later that night, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors found a partially clogged artery. He's being treated with medication to dissolve the clot in the artery and was released from the hospital a few days later and is said to be doing well (sadly, no. Three months after this, Haas suffers another, fatal heart attack and passes away. Charlie Haas would, of course, go on to be part of Team Angle with Shelton Benjamin).
Notes from Raw: bad show with a totally dead crowd. Dave jokes that the crowd for the Rock/Mankind empty arena match was louder. Yet again, no Steve Austin. Last week, they constantly hyped Austin showing up but he never did. This week, they had Paul Heyman saying repeatedly throughout the show that Austin wouldn't be there, but since this is wrestling and he's a lying heel, everyone expected him to show up. But nope. Lots of people unhappy about that one. Dave thinks Undertaker needs to step away for awhile. He's obviously in pain (shoulder injury) and Dave says it's clearly worse than he's letting on because he can barely throw a punch and he almost dropped Test doing the Last Ride. He's pretty much horrible in the ring right now and is embarrassing himself by continuing to have horrible matches week in and week out. Dave suggests he stick to special occasion/PPV matches and not being out there on TV every week embarrassing himself. Dave also points out that Taker himself would be the first guy to bury some newcomer for having matches this bad and would be the first to say he doesn't know how to work, while he's out there having worse matches than anyone else in the company (yeah, Taker was pretty awful during the early-00s. Somewhere around 2007, he suddenly became awesome again for a few years). Tazz choked out Tough Enough winner Maven to set up a match with them on Smackdown. And that's about it.
Notes from Smackdown tapings the next night: no Austin on this show either, despite local promotion and even a newspaper article that day advertising him to appear. Live crowd was just thrilled, as you can imagine. Molly Holly broke up with Spike Dudley and joined Hurricane and she's now going by Mighty Molly. Tazz beat Maven quickly, but Maven was still pretty over. Torrie vs. Stacy bikini contest. That's basically it.
Update on the Kronik situation: as mentioned before, they were brought in on recommendation from Undertaker in spite of the fact that everyone who watched WCW during their last year knew it was a bad idea. And needless to say, a lot of people in WWF weren't thrilled about them being brought in and being given a big push on day 1 ahead of people who have been there longer. Dave says sometimes that's necessary if you need to get new stars over quickly, but these weren't the guys to do it with. Anyway, they had a HORRIBLE match with Undertaker and Kane and while it's true they sucked, Dave says to be fair, there were 4 people in that match and they all sucked, not just Kronik. The next day, Jim Ross approached them about going to OVW to work off their ring rust (since they hadn't wrestled since WCW folded) but Kronik took it as an insult. Bryan Clark simply quit, while Brian Adams is still there and has decided to go along with the plan. He'll be sent down to developmental but there's a lot of people who feel like this is WWF's way of getting rid of them and they don't expect him to be back. Dave says this is all pretty interesting because in January, Hall and Nash will be contractually available and of course, they'll almost certainly end up here. Dave expects that to cause a lot of discontent in the locker room, especially because they'll almost definitely be pushed to the top immediately, ahead of a lot of other guys who probably feel they deserve it more.
More news from the New York Times story regarding the WWF's handling of the 9/11 situation. In the interview with Linda McMahon, as mentioned last week, she acknowledged Kurt Angle winning the title was partly due to the tragedy and that they would be changing the Armageddon PPV name (to Payback). She also mentioned that the song "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor" by Drowning Pool will no longer be played on WWF shows. Linda also mentioned that the Smackdown 2 days after the attacks was a legit sell-out. Which is true, but almost all of those tickets were sold prior to the attacks.
Speaking of 9/11, it turns out Goldberg and Rick Steiner were in NYC offering support for rescue workers. Goldberg went on his website this week and trashed the WWF for their lack of support. He wrote, "After inquiring about whether or not any WWF wrestlers had been to New York to offer support for the policeman and firefighters, it's amazing that, even though the WWF is basically based in New York City, none had been by there...that's disgusting. People ask me why I'm not working for the WWF. Well, I think that explains it." Dave says that this might not be the wisest idea for Goldberg. Right now, he's still collecting a WCW contract but in 2 years, he won't have that anymore and he might be looking for work and WWF is likely going to still be the only strong company in North America. Burning that bridge isn't in his best interest, especially because there is HUGE money to be made with Goldberg in WWF against guys like Austin, Rock, Undertaker, and Triple H. But maybe he just isn't interested in that, in which case, hey, by all means, speak your mind.
Booker T did an interview talking about random things. He credited his best-of-7 series with Chris Benoit in WCW for putting him on the map as a singles star. Said he still had one year left on his WCW contract making $750K but he took a buyout at $375K because wanted to go to WWF and prove himself, even if it meant losing money. He said his goal is to win the WWF title at Wrestlemania in Toronto next year.
Various WWF notes: Kurt Angle's book will debut at #13 on the New York Times list. It probably would have been higher, but due to 9/11, most of the promotional appearances scheduled for the release of the book were scrapped. Ron Killings has been released. Tori was also released and apparently it's because they wanted her to go to OVW and she refused, but Dave thinks there's more to it than that because everyone is being really secretive when he asks about it. Chris Benoit feels great and wants to get back in the ring already but he won't be cleared by doctors until February at the earliest. DDP's new motivational speaker gimmick was apparently his idea, because doing motivational speaking is something he's been wanting to do when his wrestling career ends anyway.
In this month's TV listings for SkyTV in the UK, all references to "WWF" were changed to "WWFE" or "World Wrestling Federation" due to the Wildlife Fund lawsuit.