October 15, 2001
- We open this week with the death of Chris Adams, and there's no way we're getting through this without at least a million "missing ring" jokes but let's give it a shot anyway! Speaking of giving it a shot, turns out that's how he died. Adams was shot to death by his best friend after a drunken fight (full disclosure: if my best friend shoots me to death, someone please let him know on my behalf that we are no longer friends). Adams' friend William Parnell has been charged with murder. The two had been best friends for years and even lived together off and on during that time. At the time of his death, Adams was facing 20 years in prison on manslaughter charges stemming from the overdose death of his girlfriend last year from GHB that Adams gave her. In fact, it was Parnell who showed up to Adams' house that day last year and found Adams and his girlfriend unconscious from the OD and called 911. Anyway, in this case, both men had been drinking heavily and got into a fight. Parnell is claiming he shot Adams in self-defense and has since been released on bail. After shooting Adams, Parnell immediately called police and turned himself in. Dave recaps Adams' career, talking about how he was a fixture in the Dallas wrestling scene but wasn't very well liked by many of the other wrestlers and had a reputation as a troublemaker (he had multiple arrests, married 4 times, beat at least one of his ex-wives, etc.). In-ring, he had famous feuds with the Von Erichs, Gino Hernandez, and others. Drugs took their toll on him and by the late 80s, he was on the decline. Jumped to UWF and was a top guy but then fell off the radar when UWF was sold to Crockett and his career petered out. He started running his own shows, but developed a reputation for screwing over people and being dishonest and that eventually petered out also. Recently, he was working indie shows for as little as $70 bucks a pop before retiring. At one point, he worked as a jobber in WCW until late 2000 before being cut when WCW was trying to stop bleeding money. And that's about it.
- Dave has read Kurt Angle's autobiography and gives it a looooong review. Dave talks about how Angle is one of only 4 people in American history to win high school national championship, college national championship, world championship, and Olympic gold medal in amateur wrestling. At times in the book, Angle comes across somewhat full of himself in regards to his amateur wrestling credentials but then again, nothing he wrote was a lie. Angle really is THAT good and has earned the right to be confident in his abilities. Angle also teased in the book that his amateur career may not be over. It covers things like the death of one of Angle's coaches, Dave Schultz, who was murdered in a case that attracted worldwide media attention prior to the 1996 Olympics. Winning a gold medal with a broken freakin' neck. Challenging Brock Lesnar backstage to an amateur match. Being accused of rape in college. Things like that. In regards to his pro wrestling career, Angle talked about turning down WWF's first offer in 1996 and how he told them he could never lose a match because he was an Olympic gold medalist, which led WWF to lose interest until 2 years later. He spoke negatively about his time working in Memphis working for promoter Randy Hales before being called up to the WWF. Admitted he had an ego coming out of the Olympics and didn't really grasp what pro wrestling was at first, which is why he insisted he had to win all his matches. Overall, Angle just doesn't have the experience in pro wrestling to write an interesting pro wrestling book. Dave loved the amateur wrestling stuff, but this book is marketed to WWF fans and most of them don't care about that stuff, so a lot of that was kinda glossed over in this book which Dave was kinda bummed about. Overall, decent book, but it's no Mick Foley book or anything. But it's far better than the books by Rock, Chyna, Goldberg, DDP, or Arn Anderson.
- Helen Hart awoke from her coma after 11 days following her recent stroke. It was said that she was "somewhat ornery" but otherwise completely alert and there didn't seem to be any signs of long-term damage (sadly there wouldn't be a long-term, as she dies a few weeks after this).
- Brian Knobs contacted Bret Hart about being part of the new XFW promotion that Jimmy Hart is doing, but Hart declined because he doesn't want to be part of a full-time promotion since he can't wrestle. Hart and Curt Hennig are at the top of XWF's "want list" so to speak. Rena Mero is also on their list and they've spoken with her and it's expected she'll be involved in some way. Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund have talked to Hart about coming in, but as mentioned before, Hogan doesn't plan to do anything until his lawsuit issues with Time Warner are resolved. They also talked to Randy Savage but he wants way too much money so that went nowhere. XWF has hired a former WCW exec who helped promote WCW shows to help them book and run house shows, with the plan to start doing that in December. They have a lot of ambitious plans in place but Dave says that unless they can quickly land a strong TV deal, the only thing they're doing is coming up with a solid plan to lose a lot of money.
- Ted Turner is officially resigning from AOL Time Warner in December. Turner pretty much lost power when the AOL merger went through, with some basically saying he was essentially fired but still collecting a check. The company was restructured and a lot of things within the empire were changed (shutting down WCW being just one of many). There's been talk in the press that Turner would try to start a new television station and attempt to get the Atlanta Braves back and rebuild his empire, but that's uncertain. And even if he does, don't get your hopes up that he's going to get back in the wrestling business.
- Steve Corino posted online that he's planning to retire from wrestling soon, at least in North America. Apparently he's just over it in general. He's had some personal issues, has been doing a ton of traveling, working indie shows, and not making a lot of money. Plus he has a young son. He said it recently just kinda hit him, like, "Why am I still doing this with my life?" He said that wrestling is no longer his top priority, though he will still occasionally work tours in Japan since, ya know, there's actually some money to be made there now that the North American well has dried up. Speaking of, remember the NWA show that had to be moved to a 250-seat building? That show takes place this week, headlined by Corino vs. Hashimoto for the NWA title and as of press time, it hasn't sold out yet.
- There's a big indie tournament happening soon called King of the Indies featuring some of the biggest names on the indie scene. Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, American Dragon, Spanky, Low-Ki, AJ Styles, and more will compete in the tournament, which will take place over 2 days in APW. In fact, Dave's Wrestling Observer Live co-host Bryan Alvarez will also be working the show (this turns out to be a pretty historic show, with several 4+ star matches and kinda helped solidify some of these guys as top stars of the indie scene. Also, just by pure coincidence, I was listening to the Observer Radio show earlier today and they were talking about how great AJ Styles is and how he's been great for a long time. Dave mentioned that this tournament was the first time he saw AJ Styles wrestle in person and said Styles was already really good even way back then, and he's only gotten better since).
- Various notes: Diana Hart (former wife of Davey Boy Smith) is releasing her autobiography this week and Dave says it's sure to cause more issues in that family (yeah, her book is full of dirt, including accusing Davey Boy of raping her). The publisher of World of Wrestling magazine filed for bankruptcy and if anyone wants to buy WOW Magazine, the opening bid in bankruptcy court is $650,000 (no one buys). Referee Billy Caputo, who works for the New York state athletic commission and has refereed countless WWF matches, has been helping with clean-up and recover efforts at Ground Zero ever since 9/11. Former wrestler-turned-failed-MMA-star CM P....wait, no...Nobuhiko Takada will face Mirco Cro Cop at the next PRIDE show in the Tokyo Dome. Takada was a huge star in Japan for UWFI in the early 90s doing worked-shoot matches before deciding to try his hand at actual fighting. It hasn't gone well, as he's never won a legitimate MMA match but he keeps getting chances because he still has big drawing power and name value, although it diminishes with every lopsided loss he suffers (this fight with Cro Cop ends up being under special rules and it goes to a draw). Chyna is listed in the 2002 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid female wrestler in the world, with an income of more than $1 million last year.
- Dave says that the plan right now is to give Chris Jericho a huge push as a heel and align him with Stephanie McMahon (yup. 2 months from now, Jericho will beat Rock and Austin in the same night to become the first undisputed champion by unifying the WWF and WCW titles, and then he links up with Stephanie a month or so later).
- Notes from Raw: after last week's horrible show, WWF bounced back with....another disappointing show. In response to how bad last week was, WWF heavily hyped this week's Raw as can't miss and that the face of sports entertainment would change this week and all that. But at the end, it was an over-hyped let down. Stacy Keibler joined the Dudleys, instantly becoming the best looking Dudley family member of all time. Torrie Wilson got Dudley bombed through a table. They aired a hilarious DDP segment that somehow got hugely over and Dave thinks DDP's gonna fuck around and accidentally become a babyface from this whole thing because it was that funny. Also, the segment featured a woman bent over doing yoga poses and they just put the camera right up the woman's ass. TSN in Canada ended up editing it off the show (and if you're curious, it's also not on the WWE Network version of the show anymore either). If you're curious, the woman bending over is actually a woman who works in the WWF offices under Stephanie McMahon. This whole thing is hilarious because it's literally DDP doing his real life yoga instructor thing as a gimmick way back in 2001 (video below). The Hardyz won the WCW tag titles thanks to Undertaker interference. Jericho and Rock had a great backstage segment and brawl. And Steve Austin regained the WWF title from Kurt Angle in one of the longest Raw matches in years (17 minutes....that was considered a long match back in 2001) due to interference from William Regal. Overall a decent show, with 2 big title changes that were pretty much a panic response to bad shows and dwindling ratings. But it wasn't the groundbreaking, industry changing show WWF spent the week hyping it up to be.
- WATCH: DDP Yoga in 2001
- Jim Ross has had discussions with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and Dave figures it's pretty much an inevitability that they'll be coming to WWF when Nash's WCW contract expires in January. Dave talks about how things change. Back when WCW first shut down, there was a vote backstage on whether to bring Nash in when he was available and literally EVERYONE in upper management voted no. But then ratings plummeted and months passed and now, it's practically a guarantee they'll be headed in. Nash has made it clear he doesn't want to work a full-time schedule and Dave thinks bringing him in and giving him an instant push to the top while only working part-time is going to do the exact same thing to WWF's backstage morale that it did in WCW. Rock already has a schedule like that (he doesn't work many house shows) and that's the same schedule Chyna asked for as well, and was turned down. And of course, Scott Hall's track record speaks for itself. Dave is torn on the whole thing. He definitely sees the problems that come with bringing those guys in, but he also recognizes that WWF needs a shot in the arm right now. A lot of the wrestlers backstage who worked with Nash and Hall in WCW are extremely negative on bringing them in, for all the obvious reasons, and feeling like they (along with Triple H) will pretty much lock up all the top spots and politic their way into keeping them. But no one will say so publicly because doing so would probably be career suicide if it gets back to the wrong people.
- WWF has a big show at Madison Square Garden this week, which is to be headlined by Austin vs. Rock in a WWF vs. WCW title "unification" match (which is almost certain to end in a double-DQ or something). On TV, Jim Ross has talked a big game about the show selling out, which would be the first time WWF has sold out MSG since 1998. But as of press time, there's still 6,000 tickets remaining and they're going to have to paper the hell out of it if they really want to fill the building up. The fact that Austin and Rock in a unification title match hasn't come close to selling out MSG is a pretty damning sign because if that can't sell out the Garden, then what can at this point? Dave mentions that WWF is reportedly planning to give away tickets to the families of police officers and firefighters who lost loved ones when the towers fell.
- Notes from Smackdown: RVD accidentally stiffed Kurt Angle with a kick on Smackdown, busting his face up. He did the same to Jericho on Raw the night before. It's probably the 5th or 6th time RVD has done that in the last month or two and needless to say, he's getting a reputation of being reckless and a lot of guys aren't thrilled to be working with him. Maven came out to a ridiculously big reaction and was majorly over. So of course, he lost to Tazz in about a minute. Dave is torn on this. On one hand, he understands. This guy won a reality show and this was his first real match. He's already got a lot of resentment against him in the locker room and the wrestlers likely would have damn near rioted if this reality show rookie nobody came in and won a match over one of their own. On the other hand, Maven came in with a ton of momentum and Dave thinks killing that momentum in his first match by having Tazz squash him is some WCW-level shit of killing a guy's heat. So the whole situation is kind of a catch-22 for WWF. For being his first match, Maven looked decent, although definitely still green. But he came in with a ton of momentum and a lot of popularity and name value from winning Tough Enough and the crowd really wanted to see him win (this was back when Tough Enough was still a new concept and fans actually cared about the people who won it).
- WATCH: Maven vs. Tazz - 2001
- Lots of changes to the WWF writing staff have taken place in the last few months. Right now, Stephanie McMahon is the head writer and boss over the team, with Vince overseeing it all and actually having more personal input than he has had in a long time. Brian Gewirtz does a lot of stuff, especially the comedy writing. Paul Heyman, Bruce Prichard, Michael Hayes, and Ed Kosky are the main writers, with Shane McMahon also having some input. The team usually meets on Thursdays to start putting together Raw (or a PPV if there's one that week). After Raw, they start the next morning on writing Smackdown for that night. Dave mentions how they use all their skit and story ideas for Raw and since Smackdown is basically written on the fly the day-of, that's why Smackdown is so much more in-ring wrestling-focused, whereas Raw is more focused on angles and skits.
- Goldberg has apologized for his comments last week, where he trashed the WWF for not doing anything to help the victims of 9/11. It's funny because as soon as Goldberg made his comments, WWF responded by scheduling Bradshaw and Kurt Angle to go to Ground Zero in New York to visit the people working down there and just mingle and whatnot. For what it's worth, Dave also points out that they were also there to do local promotion for the MSG show this week. Regardless, Goldberg responded on his website saying, "Well, I spoke to soon and I am man enough to admit when I am wrong. It's good to know that the WWF stepped up to the plate big time in New York and, for that, I applaud them."
- Various WWF notes: they have been sending some of the women wrestlers to Undertaker's house to help train his wife Sara. TSN also edited the Torrie Wilson table powerbomb off the show. The Tazz/Maven match was edited off Smackdown in the UK because Tough Enough is still airing there and they've only aired the first 3 episodes so far. So in an attempt to avoid spoiling the ending, they edited Maven off SD for UK fans. Molly Holly is currently using the name Mighty Molly in her gimmick with Hurricane, but before that, they almost went with Mollycane. In regards to the Armageddon PPV in December changing names (due to 9/11), a few options were pitched, including Starrcade. But Vince didn't like that and they ended up going with Vengeance instead. Russ Haas will be seeing a cardiologist this week to see how much damage was done to his heart from his recent heart attack to determine if he'll be able to continue wrestling. Brian Adams, formerly of Kronik, debuted in HWA teaming with Haku. Meanwhile, Bryan Clark is still gone from the company after quitting. Maven is reportedly already being ribbed and hazed pretty hard backstage by some of the wrestlers. Brock Lesnar worked a main roster house show this week and pinned Kanyon with a fisherman's suplex. He's been told to save his shooting star press finisher for big matches.
- Some controversy in OVW this week. They taped a segment with all the wrestlers in the ring together, out of character, while Jim Cornette addressed the events of 9/11. First of all, if you know Cornette, to have heels and faces together in the same ring out of character is a MAJOR deal and only a catastrophe on the level of 9/11 could make him even consider that. Anyway, Cornette then cut a hell of a wrestling promo on the terrorists, saying our enemies don't care about killing innocent civilians and we can't be squeamish about doing the same. Talked about how in war, civilian casualties are part of it and better they die than us. Stuff like that. The segment ended up not airing on TV because it was decided that this angry "bomb them into a parking lot" rhetoric might not be appropriate for a wrestling show. Cornette was infuriated about it being edited out of the show (I'd love to see this. Has Cornette ever spoken about it?).
- Cornette is also heavily pushing for Rico Constantino to get to the main roster, feeling like out of everyone in OVW, Rico is the most well-rounded and ready for the big stage. In OVW, Rico and Prototype are a tag team and Dave really likes them together as a team and would like to see them come in together as a team. But Prototype isn't nearly ready yet as far as in-ring goes.
- Discussions between WWF and Ric Flair have stalled. Flair is still collecting on an $800,000 per year WCW contract and doesn't want to take a paycut to go to WWF. And they aren't willing to buy him out of his contract at that amount so until his Time Warner contract is over, it looks like Flair won't be coming to WWF anytime soon (he debuts in a month).
- Mick Foley did an interview with the Wrestling Observer website to promote his new Halloween children's book and talked about some other stuff. Mentioned that he was originally supposed to come back to WWF as the new WCW commissioner, but when the idea of relaunching WCW fell apart, that got scrapped. He said he was glad because he's already done a commissioner gimmick before and didn't want to rehash it. Then they wanted him to come back to feud with William Regal, then wrestle Vince, and then be part of the big 10-man match at Invasion. But Foley didn't want to do any of that because he feels he's not in shape to wrestle anymore. To their credit, he says WWF hasn't really pressured him to get back in the ring, so he feels comfortable saying no when they ask. There have been other ideas pitched to bring him back but they keep getting pushed back and delayed and Foley doesn't really know what's going on anymore. He said he has a lot of stuff outside of wrestling he wants to do, but contractually, he's not allowed to, so he's just sorta waiting to do whatever WWF tells him to come do. He did say he wanted to do a comeback match earlier this year to promote his Foley Is Good book but it never panned out.
- Many of the WWF trainers are in disbelief at how bad some of the former WCW wrestlers are who spent years training at the Power Plant. It's believed that the Power Plant basically trained these guys to get in great shape and look good, but even guys who spent years training there still really suck at the basics of pro wrestling.
- WWF had weigh-ins last week to try to get some of their guys to lose weight. Big Show weighed in at 483 pounds. Dave remembers last year when they ordered him to get down to 375 or he wouldn't be brought back. He never even got close to dropping down to that weight, then they brought him back anyway, and now he's regained everything he originally lost.