Wrestling Observer Rewinder

January 07, 2002

So this is weird, yeah?
This isn't really how I planned to make my Observer Rewind comeback. I honestly didn't plan to make a comeback at all, at least not anytime soon. For those who aren't aware, u/SaintRidley picked up the reins and started doing his own version of the Rewinds to fill in 1987-1990 (as of right now, his latest is post HERE if you want to check out his work) and he's been doing awesome with it. But for me personally, I felt like I went out on a pretty strong note and I didn't want to Terry Funk it so soon. I planned to lay low for awhile, work on some other projects I've been kicking around, things like that.
But then COVID-19 came along and slammed the brakes on the whole damn world. A lot of us found ourselves confined to our houses, with more time on our hands, scared about the state of the world. Wrestling, and entertainment in general, came to a stop and a lot of us are already struggling and anxious about what happens next. I have no idea either, but I do know that once upon a time, there was something I used to post here that brought a lot of people some happiness. And it's a relaxing distraction for me to work on it, which I could certainly use right now too. So with that being said....welcome one and all to the Spur of the Moment, Coronavirus-Related Return of the Observer Rewind!
Full disclosure: I have no idea how long this will last or what the schedule will look like. These take substantial time to write up and in the past, I always had 20-30 of them pre-written before I even started posting them. That ain't the case this time, I just started writing these up again the other day so I have almost no cushion in place. And none of us knows how things are going to change from day-to-day so I have no idea how much free time I'm gonna have tomorrow or next week or next month. I'm going to try to stick with the usual M-W-F at 12 noon EST schedule but hey, shit happens and I'm trying to keep up with this one as I go along. For all I know, things may go back to normal soon and I won't have time to keep it going anymore. But for now, let's do this!
Also....this is a one-off. I have no plans to continue into 2003 or beyond, I just decided to do 2002 on a whim since the world sucks right now.
Enough of me. I missed y'all. Jump in the Observer Time Machine with me folks, strap on your puka shell necklace, crank that "Sk8er Boi", and let's travel back to 2002!
When we left off, Antonio Inoki was planning his New Year's Eve MMA show. Well, it's in the books and it was...something. It was built around the comeback of former sumo star Tadao Yasuda, who's life was in shambles after a gambling addiction caused him to lose his family and everything he held dear. An unlikely victory in PRIDE last year led to this main event match, with Yasuda vowing to win his match and go on to challenge for the IWGP title, overcome his debt issues, get his family back, etc. And fortunately, in the main event, Yasuda won his fight in an emotional match, so his comeback story continues. Not so lucky was NJPW star Yuji Nagata, who was scheduled to main event the Tokyo Dome 4 days later, and was knocked out in 21 seconds by Mirko Cro Cop. And that's why mixing your top pro wrestling stars in MMA is a bad idea. (Yasuda never won another MMA fight, continued wrestling, racked up more gambling debt, tried to commit suicide in 2007, and retired in 2011). Anyway, Dave runs down the rest of the results.
Mirko Cro Cop vs. Yuji Nagata - Inoki Bom Ba Ye 2001
One other note from the Inoki show: as promised, Atsushi Onita showed up. He's been running around, making grandstand challenges for a match against Inoki, and Inoki has been ignoring him because he's too busy trying to destroy NJPW to bother with some dumb exploding ring bullshit. Onita showed up with about 100 fans outside the arena, threatening to buy a ticket so he could get in and challenge Inoki, but the show was sold out so he couldn't get a ticket and eventually just left. Onita is an elected member of Japan's government and Dave is befuddled that this guy is involved in making national policy decisions.
Kevin Nash is said to be very close to signing a deal to join the WWF. Nash's Time Warner contract with WCW (which was paying him more than $31,000 per week) expired at midnight on New Year's Eve. Negotiations have been ongoing for awhile, but Nash was steadfast about not wanting to work a full WWF schedule and he also insisted he wouldn't come in unless they also brought in Scott Hall. But that recently changed, with friends saying Nash has realized he can't continue to fight for Hall if Hall refuses to clean himself up and Nash finally agreed to come to WWF without him. No word on what his schedule may be yet.
Of course, this brings up all the questions about Nash and his reputation in the locker room, his rep for politicking, and how he'll be accepted, especially when WWF inevitably pushes him as a top star ahead of almost everyone else. The reaction to Nash's return throughout the company has been almost universally negative, and a lot of wrestlers (Dave names Jericho and Benoit in particular) don't like Nash one bit and don't want him there. Dave thinks it also speaks volumes for how desperate WWF is, since 2001 saw business plummet off a cliff in the wake of WCW's death.
Akira Maeda's RINGS promotion has officially folded. It was the first pro wrestling company to start out as a work and eventually became a 100% shoot. Dave talks about how important Maeda is to the history of shoot fighting and worked shoot wrestling in Japan but in both MMA and wrestling, Maeda is pretty widely hated (he's kind of a piece of shit, if you recall) and this might spell the end of his career in both sports. Dave breaks down the history of RINGS, its financial demise, and the entire history of Maeda's life and career, almost like an obituary (yeah, he dabbled around a little bit, but the death of RINGS pretty much ended his relevance to the business).
The XWF went on the road for the first time, with 2 house shows in Hammond, IN and Milwaukee, WI. When the 2 days was over, XWF announced the cancellation of all future house shows already scheduled, so evidently, things didn't go well. Turns out trying to run shows with little promotion in major arenas, featuring washed up 80s stars in the main events and undercards full of lowly indie nobodies and WCW midcarders that Vince didn't want isn't quite the draw XWF thought it would be. Who'da thunk?
Superstar Billy Graham is hospitalized as of press time due to a nearly-fatal incident of four veins bursting due to internal swelling from advanced liver disease. Graham spent New Year's in ICU and has had several complications. He's in desperate need of a liver transplant to have any chance of long-term survival (he ultimately got the transplant in Oct. 2002 and is still alive to this day, continuing to prove every time he opens his mouth that he should have gotten a brain transplant instead).
This week's issue of Weekly Gong magazine in Japan had a big story on Dos Caras Jr. (better known these days as Alberto Del Rio) and his amateur wrestling background, winning gold medals in the Pan-Am Games, and all that fun stuff.
After Hayabusa broke his neck in October, he has been paralyzed ever since and suffering from a dangerously high fever. This week, doctors did a heart-valve surgery on him to remove some infection that was causing the fever and he's now stabilized. He's been in the hospital for more than 2 months now and has finally been able to eat solid food again.
Nikkan Sports newspaper in Japan listed the top 50 biggest news stories of 2001. Of course, the Sept. 11th terrorist attack was #1. Keiji Muto holding both the NJPW and AJPW titles at the same time was ranked #21.
Ultimo Dragon had another surgery on his arm to try to restore feeling and strength to his hand. He pretty much lost the use of his arm ever since a botched elbow operation in WCW ended his career (he later sued WCW over it). If this surgery is a success, Ultimo hopes to return to wrestling (it is and he does).
Couple of notable deaths: Mike Davis, mostly remembered as a lovable jobber for Georgia Championship Wrestling in the 80s, died of a heart attack. And Harvey Martin, former NFL player that dabbled in World Class in the 80s and even wrestled in the Wrestlemania 2 battle royal.
Probably the biggest North American indie crowd of the year packed the Molson Center in Montreal for a show put on by Jacques Rougeau. Somewhere between 10,000-12,000 people were there to see the main event of Pierre-Carl Ouellet (known these days as PCO in Ring of Honor) vs. Kurrgan. Sid Vicious was the special referee, making his first wrestling appearance since breaking his leg a year ago. Sid was still noticeably limping and at his size and age, Dave thinks the injury is gonna be a hard one to come back from (he does eventually do some indie stuff, but for all intents and purposes, yeah that was pretty much a wrap on Sid's career). Also of note, even though Dave doesn't mention it, a 17-year-old kid named Kevin Steen also worked in a triple threat tag team match on this show.
Jerry Lawler and Doug Gilbert worked an angle together at an indie show in Nashville where Gilbert ran in and attacked him. If you recall, back in 1999, Gilbert went on live TV on Memphis' Power Pro Wrestling and accused Lawler of raping a 13 year old girl. The incident got Gilbert fired from PPW and there were legal threats and all that fun stuff. But now they're doing angles together so whatever I guess.
Saved By The Bell star Dustin Diamond (Screech) made his in-ring wrestling debut at an indie show, teaming with Blue Meanie against Gangrel and Luna Vachon. Screech had previously done an angle with Power Pro in Memphis but this was his first actual match. And I can't find video of it anywhere.
Eddie Guerrero has had talks with WWA about signing with them. He had previously talked with XWF but Kevin Sullivan is one of the main bookers for them, and he and Eddie still have heat because Eddie was one of the people that left WCW in protest when Sullivan was made booker two years ago.
Fun Juventud Guerrera story. Apparently, he has a bit of a reputation for "borrowing" title belts that aren't his and not returning them. You know....stealing. Anyway, at the latest XWF taping, the cruiserweight belt came up missing, they asked Juvie if he had it, he said no, then they found it in his bag. Whoops? Somehow he isn't being fired but word is he isn't going to be pushed anytime soon. Ah, the wrestling business.
TNN has been in negotiations for a weekly MMA show. The network wants to be seen as more of an "extreme" channel (whatever that means) and MMA fits into that category, since they already have WWF. It took another 3 years, but this was the genesis of what eventually became The Ultimate Fighter.
Notes from Raw: the Flair promo with him punching Vince was fantastic. Jericho came across like an actual world champion for the first time since winning the belts. Most of the matches were fine and most everything seemed to have a purpose and built to the future. Good show this week.
Rey Mysterio is very close to signing with WWF. Apparently Nash is one of the people pushing him to do it also. Dave is pretty sure it'll happen because Rey has wanted to go to WWF for years anyway.
The New York Times had a story about WWF's ratings declines. WWF's chief of marketing said they'd done a study and they blamed it on 9/11. Dave, of course, points out how that's bullshit and how much ratings were already plummeting before 9/11 among other things. "To blame it on anything other than the storylines is an excuse." Basically, the product just sucks lately.
Every media outlet published all their best and worsts of 2001 lists in the last week or so. Needless to say, the XFL ended up on too many worst-lists to even count. In the pantheon of television history, there haven't been many disasters as big as the original XFL was.
Missy Hyatt's new book tells a very negative description of having sex with Val Venis. Well, Venis is denying that he ever had sex with her, saying they only had dinner and that she constantly harassed him to get her a job in WWF. He said she harassed him so much he changed his cell phone number. So two sides to every story I guess.