January 14, 2002
- It's time for the Observer Awards for 2001. The best and worst of one of wrestling's most turbulent years, voted on by the Observer readers. Here we go!
- Triple H made his long-awaited return to the WWF this week. He actually worked 3 house shows first, before making his TV return on Raw at Madison Square Garden to an enormous pop. Triple H tore his quad back in May and has been out ever since and the ovation for his return blew the roof off MSG. And of course, he beat up Kurt Angle and that was that. Triple H was MUCH bigger than when he left and Dave says, given the seriousness of his quad injury, bulking up that huge may make him more injury prone, not less, and may hamper his in-ring ability (yeah, for about 2-3 years after he returned, Triple H was a mess of injuries, steroid bloat, and bad matches. He didn't really get good again until 2005 or so).
- NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show is in the books and there's a lot of questions about the company right now. It was a good show overall, but the TV ratings were a disaster. The crowd of over 50,000 was strong, but it wasn't a sell-out. And in fact, it's the first non-Jan. 4th sellout NJPW has had since 1994 (gonna be a LOT more of those in the coming years). Yuji Nagata, just days after getting humiliated in 21 seconds by Cro Cop at Inoki's MMA show, headlined the card against NOAH's Jun Akiyama for the NOAH GHC title. Nagata was still popular, despite the recent loss, and the match was good but it clearly wasn't a TV draw. Akiyama retained the title, so....tough week for Yuji.
- The highest rated match of the show was the Naoya Ogawa vs. Kensuke Sasaki shoot-style match, which is only going to encourage Inoki's MMA fetish even more. It was also a total shit-show. Ogawa refused to do the job, so NJPW booked a screwy no-contest interference finish that the crowd hated so much that they started pelting the ring with garbage. Ogawa is deeply unpopular in NJPW because he flat out refuses to ever do jobs, but the TV network loves him because he's a big ratings draw and he has Inoki's backing, so they keep booking him.
- Other notes from the NJPW show: Hiroshi Tanahashi did the job in a tag team undercard match (oh how his fortunes would eventually change). Kazuyuji Fujita came out with Antonio Inoki and spoke about his torn Achilles injury and vacated the IWGP title. Keiji Muto got the biggest crowd pop of the entire show. And they set up an angle for a future program between Giant Silva and Giant Singh (Great KhalI). And that's pretty much it.
- Long obituary for 60s and 70s wrestler Mighty Igor Vodik who died from some heart issues. Big Polish strongman, basically the predecessor to Ivan Pustki. Never really a top guy, just a gimmick attraction more than anything due to feats of strength. Worked all the territories, yada yada.
- At the latest WWC show in Puerto Rico, Rey Mysterio won the junior heavyweight title beating Eddie Colon (better known as Primo) in a great match. Eddie is said to be the best worker in the company and has more charisma, even though his older brother Carly (Carlito) gets the bigger push.
- Pro Wrestling NOAH notes: there's been talk of bringing in Naoya Ogawa but the politics of that are difficult plus, as mentioned, he doesn't do jobs. KENTA is out with torn ligaments in his right knee. Knee issues are apparently a problem for guys named Kenta in this company.
- The vacant IWGP title will be decided in a 7-man tournament in February, with Masahiro Chono somehow getting a first round bye for whatever reason.
- Ultimo Dragon officially announced his plans to return to the ring later this year, after missing more than 3 years due to a botched elbow surgery in WCW. The surgery he had last month to repair it was apparently successful, though it's too soon to know how much use of his arm he'll actually have.
- Bobby Heenan is suffering from throat cancer. Many people within the business have known about it for weeks but it's kind've been a secret nobody wanted to officially confirm, but Heenan's friend and former wrestler Angelo Mosca revealed it on a Canadian radio show this week. Heenan has been undergoing chemo and radiation therapy for the last several weeks.
- Superstar Billy Graham was released from the hospital this week but ended up right back in after severe coughing led to bleeding in his lungs and pneumonia. He still needs a liver transplant, but because of his size, he needs one suited for his body and doctors won't accept a donor less than 225 pounds.
- Sting did an interview on Ted DiBiase's religious website. When asked about returning to wrestling, he said he's had talks with XWF but they didn't go anywhere and said he's retired and it would take an awful lot to get him out of retirement, but did leave the door open with the usual "never say never." Said he and his wife are opening up a real estate office and he would like to do more acting. Said that the final match on Nitro with Flair was both an honor and a slap in the face because Vince McMahon only gave them 7-and-a-half minutes for the whole thing. Introductions, entrances, and match, etc. (this isn't true by the way. The match itself is just over 7 minutes, not counting entrances). He did say that even if he comes back to wrestling, the WWF product is too raunchy for his tastes and he doesn't see how he could ever be involved with them unless their product changes.
- Martha Hart announced she will be releasing a book about her life with Owen Hart. She has said it will be an uplifting book, not a negative hit-piece. Dave says there's not a whole lot she'll be able to say about the WWF lawsuit anyway, since virtually all the documents were sealed once the case was settled. (The book came out in 2004 and I believe all the profits went to the Owen Hart Foundation charity).
- Chyna replaced Mick Foley as the host of TNN Robot Wars, temporarily. Foley missed a recent taping and they tape multiple episodes at the same time, so they had Chyna fill in and she'll be the host for those episodes. For what it's worth, he calls her Joanie Laurer since she's not in WWF anymore, but I'm gonna keep calling her Chyna, just for future reference.
- Last year, WWA held its big debut PPV in Australia. Well, several months later, it has aired on PPV in the U.S. and Dave is here to review it. And whew lawd. He heard it was bad, but he wasn't prepared for this. He says it wasn't the worst PPV in history (Heroes of Wrestling holds that crown) but it was up there. Bad production value, bad camerawork and audio, nobody fans care about in 2002, and booking that channeled the worst of Vince Russo. Dave reviews the whole show and has pretty much written off this company as doomed based on this first impression (yup).
- Tentative plan for the WWF brand split is now the Jan 21st Raw, but Dave has already heard rumors that the date may be changed again, which will be the 1000th time they've delayed this idea (yup, doesn't happen until March).
- WWA reportedly offered Kevin Nash a 2-year deal for enough money that he was willing to take the deal rather than go to WWF. But then he asked that the money be put in escrow to prove that they have that much money. That wasn't done. At that point, Nash decided it was too risky (not a lot of people have faith in WWA) so he re-opened talks with WWF. The WWF deal is rumored to be in the $600,000-$700,000-per-year range, which is significantly higher than the first offer they made to him a few months back (although still about a million less-per-year than he was making in WCW).
- Notes from Raw: Vince came out with his eye black and stitches in his face from the stiff Ric Flair punch last week, and Dave says it's not the first time Vince has pushed angles in the past where he takes a hardway punch, and Flair definitely gave it to him. Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo no longer have last names, they're just Billy and Chuck and are doing a gay gimmick. Trish vs. Terri in a wet t-shirt contest ended with Jazz attacking Trish before she could get sprayed, but the crowd sure liked Terri in her wet t-shirt and thong. And of course, the big Triple H return to end it.
- Triple H was on Howard Stern this past week and wanted to avoid talking about his personal life, but that's not an option on Stern. They made a million jokes about him dating Chyna, all the usual "she's a man" jokes. Triple H admitted to having done anal with Chyna, which they joked about and called him gay because lololol get it she's a man ha-ha isn't that so goddamn funny? Ugh. Triple H admitted to dating Stephanie before breaking up with Chyna but justified it by saying their relationship was falling apart at the time and he didn't feel he did anything wrong. Triple H said both women were good in bed and he wouldn't have been with Chyna for 4 years and Stephanie for 1 year so far if they weren't. Said he had nothing to do with Chyna being released, it was a contract issue. Admitted he upgraded to the boss's daughter who has a lot of money but said he's got plenty of his own money, but he would be willing to sign a pre-nup if she asked. He also said he won't benefit from it because Vince McMahon would never compromise the integrity of the WWF by pushing someone who didn't deserve the spot (oh man, that's rich). Stern asked if he and Chyna were ever engaged, which Triple H said no. Chyna has said otherwise.
- Also on Stern, they played a clip of Stuttering John interviewing Booker T and asking him a bunch of elementary questions and making fun of Booker for getting them wrong, at which point Booker got annoyed and said he didn't come to answer stupid questions. When asked if he was a fan of Howard Stern, Booker said no because he doesn't like how women are degraded on that show, which they later had a field day with by pointing out all the ways WWF does the same.
- Hulk Hogan is interested in returning to WWF, of course. He and Vince had talks last year but they were far apart on money. Who knows how that may have changed since.
- Indie wrestler Low-Ki, one of the hottest indie stars in the business, worked the Metal and Jakked TV tapings at MSG this week, putting over Christian. Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton both worked dark matches as well, with Lesnar getting over big. But the crowd turned on Orton's match pretty hard.
- Various Notes: William Regal had 3 nose surgeries in the past few weeks to fix the constant nosebleeds he's been having. John Cena, Dave Batista, and Shelton Benjamin will be working house shows and dark matches on the road soon. Dave says Batista in particular isn't ready for that yet and feels they're rushing him. Kurt Angle is doing an AT&T commercial. The Rock is doing re-shoots on Scorpion King so he'll be off the road for most of the next 6 weeks. Dean Malenko is now officially retired and started working backstage as an agent this week.