Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 29, 2001

Dave follows this with more in-depth analysis on why everything with the Invasion angle got fucked up, how it should have gone, what could have saved it, and what WWF has to do to recover now. It's all really interesting, but it's beating a dead horse. 18 years later, we all know exactly how badly WWF fucked up the Invasion and why, and Dave's pretty much dead-on accurate about all of it way back then. So anyway, the Invasion is coming to an end and the next big thing on the horizon is that everything seems to be in a holding pattern until Kevin Nash becomes contractually available in January so the Outsiders can come in. Dave isn't sure pinning all your hopes on Nash and Hall to come save the company is the wisest idea.
But hey, on the plus side, No Mercy was one of the best PPVs of the year! Awesome matches and more importantly, an awesome crowd made for a great show highlighted by a MOTY contender between Jericho and Rock which ended with Jericho winning the WCW title. Whether this is actually a real push into making Jericho a top guy or just another false start, Dave doesn't know, but it was great. The other big news is that neither WWF nor DirecTV backed down in their ongoing issue and as a result, DirecTV subscribers had no access to this PPV. WWF tried to do a live webcast of the show for $15 on their website but it was a disaster. The stream crashed after the first 2 matches and the quality was, as you might expect for 2001 internet streaming, horrible. There were less than 1,000 internet streaming buys. UFC tried something similar last year and also did around 1,000 buys and it sucked then too. This internet streaming thing just ain't ready for the big leagues yet. RVD did the job in the main event, which Dave isn't surprised by since there's a lot of resentment against RVD for how much he's been pushed and how popular he's gotten while still being the new guy in the company, plus he hasn't won over anybody by busting people's faces open in every other match. Edge vs. Christian in a ladder match was good but ladder matches have been overdone and the crowd didn't really seem too into this one. Plus, Dave thinks it was too soon for Edge to win the title. Speaking of wrong finishes, Undertaker beat Booker T. That aside though, the match was a great brawl and Dave gives Undertaker credit because he doesn't exactly make a habit of having good matches these days, but he worked his ass off in this one. And finally, the back of Austin's head got busted open hardway in the main event by a hard chairshot from Vince McMahon and required 12 staples to close.
Hayabusa is paralyzed as of press time after landing on his head while attempting to perform a lionsault in a match at Korakuen Hall in the main event of FMW's recent PPV show. It's a move Hayabusa performs in every match, one of his trademarks, but on this occasion, his foot slipped and he landed head first on the mat at a horrific angle. His opponent, Mammoth Sasaki, realized immediately something was wrong and began screaming for an ambulance. Hayabusa suffered severe cervical vertebrae damage and was taken out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask and rushed to Nihon University Hospital in Tokyo. As of last word, he still has no feeling or movement from the neck down. There's some hope he'll recover movement in his upper body but his wrestling career certainly looks to be over. Right now, FMW is being extremely secretive of his condition and have issued no official statement. Hayabusa's mother, wife, and son are the only ones allowed to see him in ICU. His family has said that he is conscious and his brain function is fine. He will be undergoing surgery by the time you read this.
Needless to say, this has led to a lot of questions over the risks of professional wrestling in Japan. Presuming he doesn't recover, Hayabusa will be the 5th Japanese wrestler in that country's history to end up confined to a wheelchair as a result of ring injuries. There have also been 3 deaths in the past 4 years from in-ring injuries. Hayabusa has been FMW's biggest star since Atsushi Onita stopped working full-time for the promotion 6 years ago. In Onita's first (of many) retirement matches back in 1995, Hayabusa was his opponent and they drew 50,000 fans for the match. Hayabusa has long been one of wrestling's top high flyers and has a laundry list of injuries suffered in his career that ultimately caused him to slow down his style. He's worked around the world and in America he's most notable for working ECW's 1998 Heatwave PPV in a show-stealing match. (Yeah, this was obviously the end of Hayabusa's career and it was also pretty much the death blow for FMW as well, since he was their biggest star. They folded soon after this. Hayabusa eventually regained some use of his body and could walk with the help of a cane. It led to a famous moment in 2015 where he returned to Korakuen Hall and got out of his wheelchair and walked to the ring. He ultimately passed away in 2016. Here's video of the injury and the moment years later where he walked to the ring. Warning: the injury video is really hard to watch if you're squeamish about that sort of thing like I am).
WATCH: Hayabusa suffers career-ending neck injury in 2001 (NSFL)
WATCH: Hayabusa walks to the ring in 2015
Raw this week was the lowest rated normal, non-holiday episode of the show since Mar. 30, 1998 and that's coming off the heels of a strong PPV, which makes it even worse. Plus, back in 1998, they were going head-to-head with Nitro at the height of its success. Since Rock's big return 12 weeks ago, the ratings have plummeted a staggering 30%. The good news is the ratings didn't drop throughout the show or anything, so the remaining viewers who are still watching are seemingly the loyal, hardcore viewers that will watch no matter what (they'll spend the next 20 years slowly eroding those people away too).
AAA head Antonio Pena and several other AAA officials were arrested after a show in Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico last month for reportedly causing a disturbance at a restaurant. Three of the restaurant employees were allegedly attacked by Pena and his group, with one injured badly enough that he was hospitalized. Apparently an all-out brawl broke out, with chairs and tables and bottles flying everywhere. Pena later offered to pay for the damages to the restaurant and for the hospital bill. That's all Dave knows as of now, and since he just found out about the incident after it occurred a month ago, who knows.
Keiji Muto and Taiyo Kea won the AJPW tag team titles, adding to the collection of AJPW belts that Muto currently holds. This sets up a unification match this week against NJPW tag champions Tatsumi Fujinami and Osamu Nisimura. This will be the first ever AJPW/NJPW title unification match in Japanese wrestling history. There was a time where such a unique event would have packed the Tokyo Dome but much like America, championships have been devalued quite a bit in Japan too and don't mean as much as they once did. Anyway, Dave mentions that Muto's knees are in terrible shape, which is nothing new, but despite being in obvious pain, he hasn't missed any shows and is having an incredible resurgence year.
Over on the NOAH side, Vader and Too Cold Scorpio became NOAH's first ever GHC Tag Team Champions after winning a tournament to crown them. In an effort to really get them over, it wasn't much of a finals, with Vader dominating in what was basically a squash match.
Prior to his injury, Hayabusa was scheduled to come work a major AJPW show at Budokan Hall and start a feud with Tenryu but that's obviously been scrapped now. They're currently trying to get Jinsei Shinzaki (better remembered to WWF fans as Hakushi) to take Hayabusa's spot in the match and feud.
Kappa Publishing, the group that owns Pro Wrestling Illustrated, has purchased the rights to WOW Magazine from bankruptcy auction, but that notwithstanding, WOW is still pretty much dead. Kappa purchased the rights to several magazines from H&S Media, the company that went bankrupt, but they pretty much just bought it to protect themselves so no one else would buy it and run it in competition with them, not because they have any intention of doing anything with it. For what it's worth, Vince bought WCW for pretty much the same reason. This move leaves Kappa as the only real independent wrestling magazine publisher left standing. The magazine industry in general is struggling recently, partly due to a sagging economy and also due to growing competition from the internet.
The WWA tour began in Perth, Australia this week. Bret Hart missed the first show due to his mother's health situation (more on that in a moment), but was there for the following shows playing a commissioner role. Lots of former WCW and WWF stars and Dave recaps a lot of the shows. Road Dogg did all his WWF catchphrases. Jerry Lawler and Jeremy Borash did ringside commentary, but it was over the PA so the live crowd could hear it as well, which was said to be weird but actually worked okay once everyone got used to it. The tour is still going as we speak and they have a show this week in Sydney which is being taped to air on PPV in December in the U.S., though Dave hasn't heard of them having a PPV deal lined up. But the PPV companies are itching to get more wrestling money and with WCW and ECW dead, they'll probably jump at the chance to air anything. The shows seem to be drawing in the 3,000-to-5,000 range which is less than WCW drew in Australia last year, and at lower ticket prices to boot. But things appear to be running smoothly and everyone says the tour is well-organized and the checks are clearing with no problem, so hey....good for them. Nathan Jones is getting over huge as the Australian native babyface, but he's still really green in the ring and guys are basically working around him so as to not expose him. Jones is hopeful he can return to the U.S. in 9 months, as there's some legal issues preventing him from doing so before then. There was an incident with Buff Bagwell at one point and he wasn't going to be allowed on the flight to go to Australia, but then the flight got delayed, Bagwell calmed down or whatever, and they ultimately decided to allow him to go.
Helen Hart is still hospitalized and can't talk because she has a respirator tube in, but she is aware of her surroundings. She is said to be aware she suffered several strokes but has no memory of it. Doctors say her prognosis is not good because her liver has given out and it's believed total organ failure is imminent. She was even given last rites at one point, but is still hanging on. When Bret left for the WWA tour, he made it clear that if her condition worsens, he will leave the tour and rush back to Canada. For now though, she's hanging in there, but it's thought to be just a matter of time.
In similar news, Wahoo McDaniel was hospitalized this week for a stroke. He's been in poor health for a long time and receives regular kidney dialysis (he passes away about 6 months after this).
In even more similar news, Hulk Hogan's father Peter Bollea is still hospitalized after the stroke he suffered last week but has reportedly improved somewhat. He has also been in bad health and even if he pulls through this, it's believed he'll need constant medical supervision for the rest of his life (he only has about 2 months left).
Jimmy Hart's XWF has been talking to both Hogan and Hart about coming in. Obviously, Hart wouldn't be wrestling but both men have name value that will help a lot in securing sponsors and network deals. XWF has also spoken to Ric Flair about buying out the remainder of his WCW contract, with the idea of running another Flair/Hogan feud. Obviously, the star power could be good for getting a TV deal and things like that, but needless to say, there's not a lot of people clamoring to see Hulk Hogan on top of another promotion feuding with Flair again in this, the year of our lord, 2001.
Vince Russo is telling everyone he is done with the wrestling business. He's planning to open a record store in Atlanta (sadly, no he wasn't done with wrestling).
California wrestler Michael Modest has pulled out of the upcoming King of the Indies tournament that he was originally booked for. Modest is working a lot in Japan for NOAH and making good money and reportedly didn't want to fly back to the U.S. and risk injury for a small payoff compared to what he makes in Japan. He's reportedly already pretty banged up by working the hard hitting NOAH style and needed a rest. They had him booked to work 4 matches in two days and this tournament is expected to be full of high quality matches and he just felt his body wouldn't be up to it, especially for the relatively low payoff and travel across the globe he'd have to do to get there.
Bruno Sammartino has a role in an upcoming HBO movie called Saloonatics, in which he plays a Mafia crime boss (can't find the full movie but here's a weird trailer for it, if hearing Sammartino talking about murdering people is your kinda thing. It looks delightfully low budget).
WATCH: Saloonatics trailer with Bruno Sammartino
Tough Enough runner up Josh Lomberger worked his first official professional wrestling match at an indie show in Hammond, IN, under the name Josh Mathews. If you're wondering how it went, he slipped off the top rope and fell head first onto the floor during his very first spot of the match. But he shook it off and recovered and had a decent match. Everyone said he wrestled a Jeff Hardy-style match.
The latest on the Goldberg/PRIDE rumors is that there have been talks but no real serious negotiations. Goldberg's existing Time Warner contract is exclusive for "sports entertainment" in general which would likely prevent him from working for PRIDE without breaching his deal, and he's not willing to risk anything that might be considered a breach. Goldberg is said to be more interested in looking for acting roles than fighting. PRIDE is also interested in bringing in the Rock as an announcer for its shows and invited him to their upcoming Tokyo Dome event, but Dave is highly doubtful that WWF would go for it. Goldberg might be better suited for that, not necessarily because he's a good announcer (he's never done it, so who knows) but he has a strong knowledge of the sport.
Notes from Raw: the show had to be completely re-written only 3 hours before showtime because the entire show was built around Steve Austin and then they got word that afternoon that he wouldn't be able to appear that night (and....Dave doesn't elaborate. That's it? The biggest star missing Raw and Vince not finding out until 3 hours before showtime seems like it should be a bigger deal to me, but what do I know). So anyway, they re-wrote much of the show. Vince and Linda McMahon are back together on TV. If you'll recall, earlier this year, Vince had Linda drugged up and committed to a mental hospital while he carried on an affair with Trish Stratus and later was caught literally with his pants down trying to hook up with Torrie Wilson, and that was the last time we saw Linda on-screen. But now they're back together with about 15 seconds of explanation. Cool. Anyway, DDP continued his cheesy motivational speaker gimmick and Dave notes that DDP really does want to pursue that career when his wrestling career ends. Dave thinks DDP's wrestling career should have probably ended when WCW died because lord knows he's wasted in WWF and this gimmick is death. Kurt Angle won the U.S. title and Dave points out that in the span of 3 weeks, Angle went from WWF champion to winning Kanyon's midcard title. Also, in a dark match before the show, Billy Gunn pinned Brock Lesnar, which Dave finds hilarious. I mean, obviously Lesnar is still green and in developmental and Gunn is a better performer, but still. Just the thought of Billy Gunn beating Brock Lesnar sounds as ridiculous to Dave in 2001 as it does to us in 2019.
Notes from Smackdown: the opening promo with Rock, Jericho, and Stephanie dragged forever and yet again, they spent what seemed like forever talking about Stephanie's new breasts. Dave thinks it's kind of absurd that they spend so much time talking about Stephanie's tits every week and she's becoming a Missy Hyatt-like caricature of herself at this point. They showed a clip of Linda McMahon giving New York mayor Rudy Giuliani a check for $1 million for the 9/11 relief fund. The show was in Montreal and Raymond Rougeau appeared before the live crowd and got a big pop welcoming fans to the show in French. Earl Hebner was kept off the show, but crowds still chanted for Bret and dozens of anti-Hebner signs were confiscated at the doors.
Kevin Nash is telling people it's pretty much a sure thing he's heading to WWF when his WCW deal expires at the end of the year. He has pretty much given up on the idea of working the NJPW Tokyo Dome show in January because they don't seem interested in paying Nash and Hall big money for an Outsiders reunion. Nash's biggest sticking point with WWF is still the schedule. He doesn't want to work more than 12 days per month. Some guys like Rock and Undertaker work around 13-15 dates a month on average so needless to say, Nash asking for a schedule like that is ruffling some feathers. Nash is also making it clear that he won't return to WWF without Scott Hall and needless to say, there's mixed feelings about Hall given his track record and constant legal issues.
Privately, some of the former WCW wrestlers now in WWF are saying that things in WWF are becoming more like WCW was back in late-99 and early-00. Back when business was good, everybody was a team player and worked great together, but when business started to falter, it became more cut-throat and everyone was looking out for their own interests. With business plummeting in WWF, people are starting to notice a lot of the same stuff, backbiting, politics, shit like that.
It's being reported that Rock's upcoming movie Scorpion King, his first starring role, will need 4 additional weeks of shooting. WWF hasn't confirmed if/when that will happen but if more shooting does need to be done, it will obviously impact Rock's WWF schedule.
Stacy Keibler was on the Howard Stern Show and reportedly did well. She said that she and David Flair broke up because he fell too hard in love with her and wanted to get too serious (I empathize with him. To this day, I'd throw my wife into a volcano for Stacy Keibler). She said she's only had sex with 3 guys in her entire life, one of whom was a 7-year relationship with her high school boyfriend that ended when she went to WCW. Stern said he wanted to watch the PPV to see her in the lingerie match but a few days later, someone on the show reminded him and he realized he had missed the match and was pissed and he talked about how hot Keibler is. Then the next day, Joey Fatone from N'Sync was on the show. Stern grilled Fatone on his friendship with Chyna and all the rumors that they're dating. Fatone denied it and said they are friends and when they hang out together, they play it up in public because they think it's funny that everyone thinks they're dating, but they're not. Stern then made all the usual jokes about Chyna looking like a man.
WATCH: Stacy Keibler on Howard Stern - 2001
Chris Jericho tore into Eric Bischoff on his site after winning the WCW title from the Rock at the PPV. Jericho said he wanted to dedicate his victory to Bischoff and to shove it up his ass because Bischoff said he could never do it. Surprisingly, Bischoff went on 1wrestling.com and responded to Jericho and explaining why he nixed the Goldberg/Jericho feud back in WCW, after it had already started on TV. Bischoff basically said he didn't feel like Jericho or Goldberg were ready for it. Dave's response: "What?" He points out that Jericho was light years better than pretty much everyone else Goldberg had feuded with at that point and Goldberg was already a huge star. A Jericho/Goldberg feud could have solidified Jericho as a top guy in WCW if done right. Dave calls bullshit on this excuse. The real story, or at least the one Dave has heard from several sources, is that Kevin Nash got in Goldberg's ear and convinced him that Jericho was too small and he shouldn't be doing programs with him unless it was going to be just another squash. And since it wasn't, Nash convinced Goldberg not to go along with it (I think Jericho has pretty much confirmed this in years since). Dave points out that this was also leading up to Nash ending Goldberg's streak a month or two later, so ya know...
Before the PPV last week, Triple H worked out in the ring for the first time since his injury. He's currently looking at December for his return. Commercials for the December Vengance PPV have already been made and are built around Triple H (yeah that bites them in the ass when it turns out Triple H isn't quite ready in time for that PPV after they built the entire marketing campaign around him).
More news on Brock Lesnar losing matches. At a house show in Missouri, Lesnar did the job to Kanyon. It was Lesnar's first loss in an actual WWF ring. It's an out of the way market at a house show, so it doesn't really matter if he loses but Dave finds it a little weird that he's doing all these jobs since pretty much everybody in the company sees giant bags of money when they look at Lesnar. Dave figures it was probably just a test to see how he'd react to being told to do a job to a lower card guy. Apparently he had no issue with it.