December 17, 2001
- Well...here we go. The final week. The last Rewind will be posted on Friday, but I have a big final special post I want to end with. So there will be 2 separate posts on Friday. So just a heads up.
- WWF's Vengeance PPV is in the books and 9 months after the death of WCW, we finally got the big blow-off match to unify the world titles from both promotions into the "first ever" undisputed world heavyweight champion, and his name is Chris Jericho. The fact that this took place at a throwaway December PPV rather than being the biggest match in the history of wrestling taking place at Wrestlemania shows just what a flop the whole Invasion angle was, but regardless. Jericho (with outside interference in both matches of course) defeated both Rock and Steve Austin to win the titles in the WWF's latest attempt to elevate him and solidify him as a long-term main event star. Dave, of course, goes on to list various other instances of people becoming the "first ever" undisputed champion, dating back to 1905 when Frank Gotch beat George Hackenschmidt, or Jerry Lawler beating Kerry Von Erich in the 80s to unify the AWA and WCCW titles, or Lou Thesz beating everybody (particularly Buddy Rogers, in a controversial match that directly led to Vince Sr. pulling out of the NWA) when he was widely recognized as the only real world champion in wrestling, or the AJPW triple crown championship which was a unification of 3 major world titles. Or the dozens of other promotions and unified title matches over the decades, which Dave just keeps listing because he has more time on his hands than me I guess. Seriously, this goes on for paragraph after paragraph and it's super interesting from a historical standpoint, but still. Holy shit man. Point being, no, Chris Jericho is not the first person to ever be considered the "undisputed world champion," despite how much the WWF marketing machine may claim so. Still a pretty cool accomplishment regardless but with title belts meaning less now than they ever have before, Dave doesn't seem all that impressed.
- The other big story is that the advertising for the entire show was all built around Triple H. Posters and commercials with him were made and sent out months ago, back when they thought he would be back by now. But he wasn't. Triple H was never mentioned on the show although there was some debate over that. Many in the company felt he should at least make an appearance since he was all over the promotional material for it and there was concern that they would be criticized for false advertising. But ultimately, Vince decided against it and now it's expected that Triple H will return on TV sometime next month and his first match back will be at the Royal Rumble (yup). Considering TV commercials had been running for months in San Diego promoting his return, Dave thinks he should have at least made an appearance because people in the arena damn sure expected him. But oh well.
- Other notes from Vengeance: mostly disappointing matches and a flat crowd. Edge retained the IC title and that was a change of plans. He was originally going to lose it to Regal because they're wanting to give Edge a major push and thought having him chase the IC title would be better than retaining it, but then they changed their mind. Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy, with Lita as referee, was a major disappointment. The crowd just wasn't feeling it and didn't seem like they wanted to see those 2 fight each other. And the match wasn't good either. Jericho/Rock was the best match of the show (4 stars) and that's pretty much it.
- NJPW's G-1 Tag Team Tournament is in the books and was won by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima. But the real story is that the finals may not have played out as planned. Tenzan and Kojima were always booked to win but on the last night before the finals, Masahiro Chono suffered an injury that forced his match to end. It's believed Giant Silva and Chono were scheduled to face Tenzan and Kojima in the finals, but Chono suffered a stinger and was temporarily paralyzed in a scary scene and was taken out on a stretcher, thus the match was awarded to their opponents. It's been reported that Chono suffered a herniated disc, which is a recurrence of the same injury he suffered from a botched piledriver from Steve Austin back in 1992. Dave believes this was real but he doesn't discount the possibility of it being a work (no idea, but if it was real, it must not have been too bad. Chono and Silva end up facing Tenzan and Kojima at the Tokyo Dome show a month after this).
- Keiji Muto continues dominating Japan. He and Taiyo Kea captured the AJPW Real World Tag League tournament championship which adds to Muto's 6 other NJPW and AJPW belts he currently holds. The show didn't draw well but regardless, Dave says Muto is largely responsible for saving AJPW this year and 2001 has obviously been the biggest year of his career in Japan.
- The latest K-1 show is in the books also and aside from all that shit, which I don't care about (Mark Hunt "a mainstream unknown" won the tournament), the big story is that Eric Bischoff has apparently reached a deal with K-1 to head up their American team in an attempt to break into the U.S. market and get a TV deal, merch, licensing, PPV, etc. in the United States. That's all Dave seems to know at the moment though (not much comes of this).
- Oh god, here we go with the big Ed Whalen obituary promised last week. I recapped the important details in the last. Dave does recap the most famous Ed Whalen story though, back in 1970. Whalen had a habit of really getting worked up and excited and overly into the matches. Abdullah The Butcher had just come to the territory and was having a crazy wild match, as usual. At one point, they were outside the ring and Abdullah was choking his opponent with the microphone cord. Whalen, caught up in the moment, hit Abdullah in the head with the microphone, legitimately splitting open his head and stunning Abdullah. In self defense, Abdullah grabbed the mic and hit Whalen in return, knocking him completely loopy. The match resumed and everything afterward was fine, but after the match, Whalen wanted to fight Abdullah for real. Stu Hart had to restrain him and basically said, "If I let you go, he'll kill you." The story later grew a life of its own and became legend, and now when people re-tell the story, they claim Whalen beat Abdullah unconscious and killed all his heat and that helped kill the territory and all that. You know how stories get exaggerated. It wasn't that serious. But still pretty nuts. For several months after, Whalen and Abdullah were kept apart from each other because of the bad blood there. Later on, they ran into each other at the Calgary airport and Abdullah approached him and they talked and squashed their beef, with Abdullah joking that Whalen was the only announcer to ever stand up to him but warning him not to ever do it again. Whalen was also the first announcer to openly read from the Observer Newsletter on the air whenever Dave wrote something positive about Stampede. Dave recaps a bunch of other stories of Whalen and they're all great but this is too long already and it's worth reading in full.
- WWC in Puerto Rico has been teasing that Hulk Hogan will be coming in to work a show in January. As far as Dave knows, he doesn't think Hogan has ever worked in Puerto Rico before. If he did, it would have been pre-1984 but Dave isn't sure. Either way, he doesn't seem to know how legit this is or if it's going to happen or not (nah).
- Carly Colon (Carlito) won the WWC Universal title for the 4th time this week, leading Dave to joke, "Why do I have a feeling I'll be typing that same sentence intermittently for the next 20 years?" Turns out he was right. As of this writing, Carlito is a 17-time WWC Universal Champion, with his most recent reign in 2016. The only people with more title reigns are Ray Gonzalez (21) and Carlos Colon (26).
- Former NJPW referee Pete Takahashi published his autobiography and it's the first mainstream wrestling book in Japan to openly admit that everything in wrestling is a work. Of course, most people already know that, but this book has been hugely controversial because kayfabe is so protected in Japan. A reporter, in reviewing the book, called it the pro wrestling version of 9/11 and a terrorist attack on the pro wrestling industry. Dave jokes that if Stephanie McMahon ever breaks up with Triple H, maybe she can start dating this reporter and they can trade idiotic 9/11 comments back and forth.
- Both NJPW's office building and Antonio Inoki's office within the TV-Asahi building were burglarized this week, and whoever did it got away with more than $30,000 in cash that was apparently just sitting around the offices.
- Dave raves over a recent Jushin Liger/El Samurai vs. Watatru Inoue/Katsuyori Shibata match. Not necessarily the match itself (although he gives it 4 stars) but specifically the ending. Shibata and Inoue are still opening match guys and Liger is, of course, a legend. And yet, after having a great match and making both guys look great, the match ended with Liger tapping out to a submission from Inoue, in a huge upset. After the match, Liger cut a promo and sold it like he was absolutely furious with himself and treated it like it was a huge deal to him. Dave says it was a textbook example of how to put someone over to make new stars. Dave can't remember seeing a single top WWF or WCW star in recent memory do what Liger did for these guys here. And it didn't hurt Liger a bit.
- Mick Foley ended up topping out at $125,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Celebrity Edition. The money he earned will be donated to the New York Police & Fire Dept. Widow and Children's Fund.
- Jake Roberts worked some indie shows in England and things aren't great. Roberts is only 46 but looks terrible and he was working tag matches. During the shows, he literally fell asleep in the corner, passed out and hanging over the ropes. Dave compares it to when Dennis Rodman did the same thing a couple years ago during a WCW PPV match. Speaking of that, Dave mentions that Rodman still holds the record for the largest payoff anyone has ever received for wrestling a single match for that abomination he drunkenly sleepwalked through. Rodman was paid $2.25 million for it. Mike Tyson made $3.5 million for his Wrestlemania 14 appearance but that wasn't for a match. "Think about that one. Rodman, for sleeping through one of the worst PPV main events ever, earned more money than everyone in this industry except Rock and Austin did for the full year." Anyway, point being, Jake Roberts needs help.
- Randy Savage publicly challenged Hulk Hogan to a match, with all the money going to a local children's hospital in St. Petersburg. Word is this is not an angle and Hogan was completely unaware of it. Just Savage going into business for himself. Dave thinks it's kinda tacky for Savage to make a big grandstand challenge at Hogan's expense, and use a children's charity in the process, to try and get himself over.
- Vince Russo now owns and operates a CD Warehouse music store in Marietta, GA. A newspaper ad for the place promoted it as being owned by "former WWF and WCW personality Vince Russo."
- Scott Steiner has been telling people that he doesn't think his body can hold up to the WWF schedule. He's been working the recent WWA tour in Europe, but even though he has been out of action for the last 9 months since WCW folded, he's still said to be in a lot of pain when working.
- The plan to split the WWF into 2 separate brands is pretty much finalized and will almost certainly be taking place on the first Raw of 2002 on Jan. 7th (nope). Last week, it was considered to be tentatively happening but as of this week, word is they have finalized most of the plans and the brand split is a go and Vince is adamant about doing it now. That being said, Dave has also been told that, because this is Vince, there's still a good chance he may change his mind and delay it further (yup).
- Notes from Raw: Ric Flair opened the show with new undisputed champion Chris Jericho, who cut a good promo. But he was out there next to Flair and Jericho just couldn't match Flair's stage presence when standing there side by side with him on the mic. Jericho also had a cage match with Austin later in the night where Austin just beat him like a jobber for most of the match. Jericho won after interference from Booker T and Dave isn't impressed. Having Jericho become the undisputed champion was already seen as a "fluke" that was done to swerve the fans because most people never thought he had a chance. And now he's being booked like a fluke champion. Dave talks about how Mick Foley busted his ass to help get Triple H over as a top level heel and says Jericho desperately needs someone to do the same for him. Because nobody buys him as a top star yet and having all the top guys clown him and beat him like a midcarder isn't going to help get him over, whether he has the belts or not (Jericho obviously ended up being okay in the long run, but yeah, his undisputed title reign was pretty much booked as a joke from the moment he won until the moment he lost it to Triple H at Wrestlemania in a feud that he was barely even the focus of. As soon as his feud with Triple H ended, Jericho was back in the midcard again. He didn't really become a certified made-man top guy until many years later).
- Several WWF developmental wrestlers have been released. Among them were Lash Leroux, Russ McCollough, Reno, Kid Romeo, Elix Skipper, Essa Rios, Jimmy Yang, and Evan Karagis. Dave isn't really surprised by any of them. They all had low contracts anyway, so it wasn't about money. WWF simply didn't see any of them as having main roster potential. Russ McCollough had been around forever and had a million chances because he's a big guy but he never improved. Recently, they had him working dark matches on the road with the main roster and on top of being bad in the ring, he also rubbed people the wrong way and was perceived to have a bad attitude. Jim Ross kept pushing for him, feeling like he could be groomed to work a program with Undertaker. But then Undertaker met him backstage and didn't like him either, so that pretty much ended that. Dave expects at least a few of these guys to end up in XWF.
- A lawsuit has been filed against the WWF alleging that the company violated federal securities law by issuing and selling WWF stock before the IPO without disclosing certain information to investors. I'm already getting bored typing this up. Something something allocated shares to something something artificially inflated stock prices, yada yada secret commissions, etc. etc. WWF categorically denies any wrongdoing and blah blah. This goes nowhere.
- Russ Haas has been given the all-clear by his cardiologist to resume wrestling again, but WWF is wanting to get a second opinion before they risk putting him back in the ring because they don't want to take any chances (we'll be covering his obituary in the next issue).
- Shawn Michaels is scheduled to make an appearance on the WWF Excess show, which airs late at night on Saturday nights and is basically a recap show with fans sending in questions. Dave thinks it'll be interesting to see if Michaels can move the ratings on this throwaway show that nobody watches. There's no plans to use Michaels beyond this appearance, but of course, if he ever cleans up his act and mends fences with, well, basically the entire locker room, then who knows (still a long way from that. Anyway, I can't find video of this but it did happen. And in fact, this was at the point in his life where Shawn was just finally starting to finally get clean for real and this is the first real testing-the-waters moment that led to his eventual return).
- Ric Flair and Triple H have been training together, since Triple H is getting ready to return and Flair is training to get back in shape for a return to active wrestling. Speaking of, Triple H appeared on MadTV this week. Dave hasn't seen it but from what he heard, about 15% of the live audience were super into it and reacted big to everything he did while the other 85% had no clue who the hell he was.
- Former WCW and brief-WWF referee Billy Silverman did an interview talking about what led to him quitting WWF. It's basically what Dave reported months ago. Silverman, using his own money, decided to upgrade his flight to a first class seat. In WCW, that was no big deal. But in WWF, it's one of those unspoken rules that only the top stars fly first class and because of it, Silverman was "punished" and bullied by certain people in the locker room and ordered to buy a bunch of beer and liquor for the rest of the roster and bring it through customs to the show they were doing in Canada. Trying to be a good sport, Silverman did it, but then got held up at customs all day because of the liquor. Silverman put most of the blame on Bradshaw, whom he said instigated the whole thing and bullied him relentlessly over it, as well as Earl Hebner, whom he called one of the biggest backstabbers he's ever met (Bret Hart would agree at this time). Silverman finally reached a breaking point. He said he went to Jim Ross' assistant in talent relations to report the issue, but was told to just go along with it and tough it out. At that point, Silverman said "fuck this" and quit the company. Silverman also told a story of fellow referee Charles Robinson who was "ribbed" by being stripped half naked, taped and bound to a production cart, and rolled out backstage in the arena for everyone to see and laugh at (we all agree JBL's a piece of shit, yes? Okay good).
- Larry Zbyszko was on ESPN radio in Virginia recently and went on a tirade against Chris Jericho. He criticized Jericho for calling himself a "living legend" which is Zbyszko's nickname. Zbyszko also said Jericho was too short to ever get over as a top star. Dave thinks this is all pretty cute since Zbyszko shamelessly stole the nickname from Bruno Sammartino in the first place and also, who is Zbyszko to be calling someone small? Those 2 guys are almost literally the exact same size. Dave doesn't understand why old-timers feel the need to criticize newer stars who are bigger names than they ever were. Zbyszko also went off on Vince McMahon, saying he'd love to challenge Vince to a shoot fight and said Vince's ego is big enough that he might even accept the challenge (absurdly enough, Zbyszko ends up suing both WWF and Jericho personally over this "living legend" nonsense and the lawsuit drags on for years. No idea how it ultimately ended up but I found articles from 2003 where it was still pending and ongoing. Jericho also writes about it in one of his books).