Wrestling Observer Rewinder

March 11, 2002

Ever since the deaths of WCW and ECW, one of the big stories in the business has been watching other promotions attempt to rise up and fill the void, all with varying degrees success. The big two have been WWA and XWF. And it's always the same story. Some new company has a backer with unlimited resources and they promise, they're thiiiiiiiis close to striking a TV deal. But the money always falls through, the TV deals never materialize, and everything dries up. Then there's UFC, which is something of an alternative to pro wrestling, but it's also struggling with financial issues. However, they seem to have the best shot of it right now. The reality is, to have any chance of becoming a viable #2 behind WWF, you need television. Not just any television, you need a weekly show on a major network in a strong time slot. None of these companies have it and TV networks aren't chomping at the bit to offer it. The last network to take a chance on adding wrestling was TNN, almost 2 years ago when they signed up for ECW and later traded it in for WWF. Even in its dying days, WCW was still drawing decent ratings by TBS and TNT standards, but Time Warner dropped it anyway. Bischoff and Fusient negotiated with FOX for a year and when Turner dropped it, FOX had all the leverage and could have low-balled the hell out of them and gotten WCW if they wanted it for practically nothing. But they also passed. WWF is the #1 big dog in the industry and even their ratings are falling. In the eyes of TV execs, the wrestling boom is on the downswing and networks aren't interested in picking up a second-rate product in a declining industry. All of this makes it near impossible for anyone to become a viable competitor. Along with a TV deal, you also need tons of money to burn because networks will demand a big budget presentation (ECW went deep into debt just trying to make their shows look acceptable for TNN's standards). Because any viable startup is going to lose a lot of money at first, so you need a financial backer that is willing to absorb those losses for the faint hope that it miiiight pay off in the end. And finally, you need talent. You need a mix of hot, new stars and established names that the public already knows, And there's not a whole lot of them on the market right now. WWF has signed all the top available names and the rest are sitting out lucrative WCW contracts. And as we've seen, if you even try to build around someone (like XWF around Mr. Perfect), then there's always the final hurdle of Vince swooping in and signing them away, cutting you off at the knees before you even get off the ground.
The way Dave sees it, the only viable way a new promotion is going to get off the ground anytime soon is if a major network is interested in getting behind it. And even if they do, Dave doesn't think you can launch right away. You need a network that will promise you a TV deal 3 years from now while helping to develop the product in the meantime. Then he suggests the OVW business model. Get all the best, available talent you can and run these shows as a small, local indie. Let them establish names and try to grow from that over the next 3 years in front of small crowds, sort of like what ECW did. In a few years, when you've created some stars with some buzz and grown your fan base, then you can launch nationally. You also need to take a page from Eric Bischoff's book and competitively bid for any major WWF star who's contract comes due. Without those major players, you won't be taken seriously by the general public. So you'll probably end up overpaying for a lot of WWF names (much like Bischoff did), but it's a necessity in this game if you want wrestling fans to see you as a real competitor to WWF. That's the tactic that helped WCW become competitive in the mid-90s. Of course, back then, WWF was already struggling with poor business and times were tough. They may be on the downswing now, but WWF is infinitely stronger now than it was then, plus they offer guaranteed money now, which is another difference. But anyway, you have to do all these things, with a network willing to spend the kind of money it takes to compete with Vince McMahon, and then you have to hope you're smarter than WCW and don't self-destruct in spite of it all. And even if all those things fall into place perfectly (no chance), there's still no guarantee it would be successful. TL;DR - the mountain to climb in order to become a competitor to Vince McMahon is practically insurmountable.
So speaking of WWA, Dave has a ton of news on the fiasco of their recent PPV in Las Vegas. You can't advertise people who aren't under contract and you can't throw a major PPV together at the last minute, and they did both. Terry Taylor and Larry Zbyszko reportedly weren't paid. Each were promised $1,000 but since they were last minute additions to the show, they were told their checks weren't ready. Promoter Andrew McManus is saying he expected the cable companies to push the show harder, since they claim they want an alternative to WWF, but they barely advertised it at all. McManus also apparently had no idea Zbyszko was going to cut the promo he did, where he spent the entire time trashing the WWF and had no point whatsoever. They had about 2,500 people in attendance, but only 653 of those were paid, the rest freebies. PPV buys are expected to be embarrassing. And then the no-shows. As mentioned last week, Randy Savage had a verbal agreement with McManus but reportedly tried to change the terms at the last minute to something completely unreasonable so that fell apart. McManus was talking about filing a lawsuit against Savage backstage at the show, but the next day, they were in contact again and he's still trying to get Savage to work their next PPV in April. Buff Bagwell was also advertised for the show and McManus said he has no idea why because Bagwell was never booked and McManus said he doesn't want him back anyway. Road Dogg was advertised but he called McManus the day before the show and claimed he had been arrested on a probation violation in Pensacola and couldn't be there due to house arrest (he had already been paid for the show in advance). But Dave has done the research and neither the city nor county police have any record of him being arrested so...who knows? The Jeff Jarrett vs. Brian Christopher main event was a last minute change. McManus was pushing for Jarrett vs. Scott Steiner, but neither man was willing to put the other one over. Jarrett also has issues with McManus, feeling like McManus pushed him aside in favor of Randy Savage and when the Savage deal fell apart, he came crawling back to Jarrett. The week before the show, it was thought Jarrett (the WWA champion) might pull out also, but he ended up deciding to do it, but they still have some issues to work out. WWF also sent a letter threatening to sue WWA if Brian Christopher used his Grandmaster Sexay gimmick, which he has been using on the indies since he left WWF. All in all, just a complete shit-show and you can see how this company is already falling apart before they can even really get out of the blocks.
So what about XWF? They've been trying to run house shows, but they've not been successful. The company taped several hours of shows to try to pitch to networks, but they have Jerry Lawler doing commentary (he's back in WWF now of course) and Curt Hennig (practically a jobber in WWF now) as the top star. So needless to say, those shows are pretty much useless for pitching to a network or building anything around. People in the company are claiming they're close to striking a TV deal with TNT, TBS, or USA but of course, as noted earlier, those things never pan out and nobody is really believing that XWF has a TV deal in the works. Jamie Kellner of Time Warner made it pretty obvious that he doesn't want wrestling anymore, so Dave can't imagine them picking up XWF and in fact, there's sources that say part of the deal with WWF buying WCW stipulated that Time Warner can't carry any wrestling program on their stations for 5 years, so not until April of 2006. Jimmy Hart did have a meeting with former Turner exec Bill Shaw who is close with Ted Turner personally. Shaw mentioned the idea to Ted, who seemed vaguely interested, but even if he was, he would have to find a different TV network to put it on. Ted Turner was also advised that it would probably cost upwards of $50 million in losses over the first 3 years to get off the ground, at which point he reportedly lost interest.
There is another promotion in the works being quietly discussed. Jerry Jarrett has had negotiations with InDemand PPV, with the idea of doing weekly PPV events on Wednesday nights, at $9.95 each. Dave doesn't know if this is viable or not in the short-term, but without TV to create new stars, he can't see it lasting long-term. They'd be using most of the same talent WWA is using now. Jeremy Borash is trying to work out an agreement between WWA and Jarrett to share talent. Jerry Jarrett actually has a long track record as a promoter and company owner and made a lot of money in the 70s and 80s and then when he sold the promotion, he got into real estate and made even more money than he ever made in wrestling. He's a guy who wants to get into the business to make money, not just a money mark trying to get into the business for the fame. He knows how to make stars and book wrestling. Jarrett had a group of investors last year and made a last-ditch effort to buy WCW before Vince swooped in and got it. Dave says Vince Russo may end up involved with this promotion also, because they're interested in bringing him in as booker. But there's an issue there because Russo is still in a lawsuit with Hogan over the Bash at the Beach incident 2 years ago. As long as Russo doesn't work for another wrestling company, Time Warner's lawyers have agreed to represent him in the case, which is why he dropped out of being the booker for WWA, although not like you can tell from how that company is booked (I'm pretty sure Russo was secretly booking these guys all along actually). But the crux of Hogan's lawsuit was that the Bash incident basically destroyed his marketability as a wrestler. Him joining WWF kinda proves that to not be the case and Dave seems to think this lawsuit will probably fade away soon. Jeff Jarrett isn't involved in his dad's plans yet and is said to be against the idea, but Dave figures he'll probably end up involved in this new venture (yup). But there's also the worry of nepotism. No matter how much WCW tried to convince people otherwise, Jeff Jarrett is not a franchise guy you can build a successful company around, and Dave wonders if Jerry will recognize that with his own son, or will he fall into the same trap every promoter seems to when it comes to their own kids? Time will tell I guess. (And with that paragraph, TNA breathes it's first breath...)
K-1 founder Kazuyoshi Ishii announced plans later this year to host a major event at the 101,000-seat Yokohama International Stadium, featuring K-1, PRIDE, and professional wrestling. In the event a show like that actually sells out, it would likely be the biggest money event in the history of sports entertainment. Ishii talked about doing a double main event of Rickson Gracie vs. Naoya Ogawa (a dream match people have been trying to put together for years) and Mirko Cro Cop vs. Kazushi Sakuraba. Dave says NJPW has talked about running a show in that stadium, but the reality is, they don't have anything popular enough to come close to filling it. (This show does indeed happen, but it's in a different stadium. They still end up drawing something like 90,000 people. The Gracie/Ogawa match doesn't happen, but Cro Cop vs. Sakuraba does. But we'll get there).
The WWF is in trouble. Not the company. The initials. The World Wrestling Federation lost its appeal this week in the case with the World Wildlife Fund. A 3-judge panel upheld the original ruling, which gives the WWF (wrestling) until the end of March to stop using the "WWF" initials for any marketing outside the United States. The World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) shortened its name to WWF in 1979, when it was still a regional promotion. Throughout the 80s, as the WWF grew into a national and eventually global organization, this came to the attention of the Wildlife folks. They're based overseas and for the most part, they were fine with Vince McMahon using the initials in the United States. In 1994, the two sides signed an agreement that the wrestling company would have limited use of the initials outside of the U.S. and would always have to refer to themselves by the full "World Wrestling Federation" name rather than "WWF." Within the U.S., they were free to use "WWF" all they wanted. Well, as the wrestling company grew during the 90s, they began blatantly ignoring the agreement, arguing that it was unenforceable and amounted to restraint of trade. The court system clearly disagreed. Dave talks about the WCW/NWA split in the late-80s and how it led to the company cutting ties with the NWA and gradually and quietly renaming everything to "WCW" and how it wasn't really a big deal. But this is different times and WWF is a much bigger entity with merchandising and licensing around the world, a major online presence at wwf.com, and more. So it's gonna be more complicated this time. WWF claimed it would cost them upwards of $50 million to change its brand name, but the appeal judges were unsympathetic, saying that the WWF had made "clear and repeated" breaches of their 1994 agreement and the cost of rebranding is entirely their fault for flagrantly violating the agreement. In other words: tough shit. You knew you were breaking the rules. Deal with the consequences. WWF is expected to appeal the decision to Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, and if they lose there, game over. As of press time, it's unclear what WWF will do. At a recent investor's meeting, Linda McMahon used the "WWFE" initials, which is the official corporate entity of the company ("World Wrestling Federation Entertainment") and on all UK television this week, all references to "WWF" were changed to "WWFE" as well. Last year, when WWF lost the original case, they were also ordered to pay the Wildlife Fund's legal bills. They were on the hook for $630,000 as of October and probably significantly more by now. The court is also expected to rule on monetary damages for the past 8 years of violating the agreement, and that could total in the millions. The Wildlife Fund's biggest complaint has been the WWF's website, which is wwf.com. The Wildlife Fund uses wwf.org and argues that it creates confusion in the marketplace.
8 years ago, the WWF toured Japan and it was a major flop. Their biggest show only put 4,500 people into a 17,000-seat arena and even that was heavily papered. It was the smallest crowd ever for wrestling in the history of that arena at the time and crowds chanted "refund!" at the end of a night full of bad matches and screwy finishes. 8 years later....complete opposite. WWF went to Japan this week and it was a monster success. Their return to that same arena sold out the same day tickets went on sale, to the tune of $1.1 million, which may be the largest non-PPV gate in WWF history. No free tickets at all. Even Funaki's parents had to pay for their nosebleed seats. The crowd was popping for everything, knew all the stars, and were hotter than most American crowds. It was especially notable because the fans clearly wanted authentic WWF. They had a Japanese translator out there translating Shane McMahon's opening promo and the crowd booed it. So Shane called an audible, kicked out the translator, and began speaking in slow, easy English and the crowd popped huge (kinda the same way American fans want authentic NJPW. But every time NJPW comes here, they always try to "Americanize" the card, when really, we just want Okada and Tanahashi to do what they do best). WWF has limited visibility in Japan. The major shows air on cable in a similar time slot as NJPW and NOAH, both of which draw bigger ratings than WWF's shows. But nonetheless, this crowd was rabid for WWF and some of them even dressed up. There were a lot of signs in the crowd too, written in English, just like they've seen American crowds do.
Other notes from the Japanese show: Chris Benoit was scheduled to go on the tour (not to wrestle, just to appear) but WWF canceled him at the last minute. Dave says Benoit was looking forward to going so he was pretty bummed. Prior to the show, Naoya Ogawa came out to greet the crowd. The crowd popped huge for Lita doing a moonsault, even though other women's wrestlers in Japan do it all the time. But this crowd was just nuts for anything WWF. Funaki pinned Hurricane in one of those things where they were pandering to Japanese fans. But as mentioned, they didn't want to be pandered to, they wanted authentic WWF and they cheered Hurricane over Funaki. Ric Flair cut a promo talking about his career in Japan and got a huge reaction, and he got a big pop when he mentioned various Japanese stars he's faced, especially Keiji Muto (also worth noting Muto was there doing commentary for the show for airing on TV next week). Torrie Wilson got a huge reaction, because Japan is just as thirsty as the rest of us. Rock vs. Jericho main evented and Rock was over like crazy. The show ended with Flair, Rock, and Muto all shaking hands to send the fans home happy (far as I can tell, the only footage of this show that exists online anywhere are these highlights from Rock/Jericho).
On this same tour, they also went to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Only interesting note is that, during the Malaysia show, Billy and Chuck completely dropped the gay gimmick. It's a primarily Islamic country and, maybe you've heard, they kinda frown upon that sort of thing.
Sometime over the past couple of weeks, the WWF made an offer to Bret Hart to appear at Wrestlemania, but he turned it down. The show is in Toronto and WWF Canada President Carl DeMarco made it his goal to get Hart to appear on the show. DeMarco and Hart have a business relationship that goes back years and Hart is the one who eventually helped DeMarco get his position in the WWF. Many times in the last few years, DeMarco has been the man in the uncomfortable position of playing intermediary between Hart and the WWF. DeMarco first reached out to Hart with the idea that he would be the special referee in the Triple H vs. Jericho title match, with the idea to keep it completely secret from everyone, even the other wrestlers, and sneak him into the building right before the match. This way, if no one knew he would be there, Hart's name wouldn't be used to help boost the show. It would just give Hart a huge pop and create a cool moment without Hart feeling like he was helping to pad Vince's pockets. In exchange, on top of being paid, Hart would also be given rights to his photos and videos from his career that WWF owns. That's something Bret has been pushing for for years, even before he left the company, because he wants to put out his own "Best of" video on his career as well as use the photos for his autobiography. Hart and Vince had reached an agreement for that back in 1997, but then the screwjob happened and that went out the window. Later, the day before Owen Hart's funeral, Bret and Vince met in person and talked about it and Vince agreed to give Bret the rights for that stuff. So a few days later, when Bret contacted the office to get the ball rolling, WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt responded that Vince had no recollection of making that agreement. Anyway, Hart still wants that stuff and he agreed to meet with Vince to discuss it, but he said he didn't think he would agree to do Wrestlemania. At that point, Vince refused to meet with Bret unless he would agree to work Wrestlemania. So that never happened. DeMarco kept pushing the idea, saying that ending his career as a commissioner in WWA is no way to be remembered. Then he pitched an idea that Hart could even appear on Raw the night after Wrestlemania in Montreal and do an angle where he punches Vince. When Hart again turned him down, DeMarco laid on the guilt trip and basically implied that if he couldn't get Hart to do Wrestlemania, his own job might be in jeopardy.
Hart later wrote in his Calgary Sun column about the offer and said he had considered it in order to get the rights to that stuff, but said he didn't consider it for long, saying he couldn't sell himself out so easily and was offended that WWF thought he would so easily brush aside everything they've done to him. Hart listed all the problems he's had with McMahon, starting with the screwjob, the aftermath of Owen's death and how the WWF's legal strategy turned the entire Hart family against each other, and how Vince lied to him in that in-person meeting before Owen's funeral about giving him the rights to the footage and photos. He also revealed that DeMarco attempted to put together another meeting between Bret and Vince last year when Raw was in Calgary, but Vince backed out of the meeting, then went on TV (with Stu Hart and several other Hart family members in the front row) and did a re-creation of the Screwjob with Benoit and Austin, strictly as a middle finger to Bret. Or how Vince went on Off The Record after the death of Owen and accused Bret of only caring about what happened in Montreal and implied that Bret didn't even really care that Owen had died. Things like that. Basically, Bret says why would he go back to the company after all that? In regards to working an angle with Vince after Wrestlemania, Hart said, "In that one phony punch, everything that's happened would be minimized into an angle. Maybe wrestling fans would love it. My fans would hate it. And so would I." Hart ended the column by extending an olive branch to McMahon, saying he would like to have a private conversation with him and talk about their issues and see if they could come to an agreement on everything else, but he refuses to participate in a public spectacle at the expense of his dignity (yeah, needless to say, this didn't happen. Still 8 years away from those fences being mended).
NJPW's latest show at Sumo Hall was a big moment for the company. Dave talked about this show last week and now he's finally seen it. It was the first major Tokyo show since Keiji Muto, Kendo Kashin, and Satoshi Kojima left and also featured the crowning of new IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Jr. champions. It also came during the same week that AJPW held its major show, NOAH held the biggest show in its history, All Japan Women held its first PPV, PRIDE held a big show, and WWF were in town. So lots of competition that week in Japan. NJPW desperately needed a home run here and....they didn't get it. The show was sold out and the matches were fine, but the crowd was lukewarm for most of it and it didn't feel like anything special. Tadao Yasuda winning the IWGP title sucked the air out of the building because no matter what fame he has coming out of his recent MMA upset victory, NJPW fans see through it and recognize that Yasuda really isn't a very good wrestler and in fact, is far worse now than he was even a few years ago (and he wasn't great then either). Dave seems pretty confused as to why NJPW is insisting on booking themselves into the grave but they sure seem to be trying.
Speaking of shows from Japan Dave has finally seen, the recent AJPW show at Budokan Hall gets a similar review. After a tough couple of years, this felt like the AJPW of old, with a packed house at Budokan. The undercard wasn't much but the top matches were incredible and despite how much the company has struggled lately, because of how its been protected, the Triple Crown title is just about the last world title in pro wrestling that still has an aura and feels like it means something when it changes hands. At age 52, Genichiro Tenryu had an excellent match with Kojima. Aside from Nick Bockwinkel, Dave can't think of anyone who's ever been as good in their 50s as Tenryu is right now. And of course, Kawada won the title from Muto in the main event in a 4.5-star match.
Kenta Kobashi announced he will still appear at every show on NOAH's upcoming tour, but he won't be wrestling. He'll do autograph signings and cut promos. People bought tickets for this tour weeks ago, expecting to see Kobashi but of course, he re-injured his knee in his first match back. He still wants to appear though, since fans bought tickets expecting to see him. Dave says that if everyone in WCW had that same attitude, they might still be beating WWF today instead of, ya know, dead. Before he got hurt again, the plan was to have Kobashi challenge Jun Akiyama for the GHC title at their big show next month but that's obviously out the window now.
Katsuji Nagashima, a member of NJPW's board of directors, resigned this week from the company. Nagashima has been a major player behind the scenes since 1989 and was arguably one of the key decision makers alongside Riki Choshu. In reality, Nagashima was voted out by the board of directors and was given the chance to submit a resignation rather than be outright fired. Dave says this is all part of the fallout from the AJPW/Muto situation. You see, when NJPW and AJPW were working together, the long-term plan from NJPW's side was to send Nagashima and a few other people over to help AJPW run the company, since they were on the brink of death. The idea would be for NJPW people to entrench themselves in AJPW's office and help run things and when Motoko Baba retired (rumored to be this year), they would essentially control the company. But Mrs. Baba ended up being so impressed with the way Muto handled himself that she instead gave Muto all the power NJPW was hoping their office people would get. Basically, they had a long-term plan to quietly and slowly take over AJPW, but Muto fucked it up. Others feel it was a foolhardy plan to begin with, and that Ms. Baba would never have willingly given up control of the company to NJPW directly because it would be a slap in the face to her husband, who went to his grave still hating Inoki. Regardless, Muto jumping ship and entrenching himself in power pretty much undercut NJPW's plan. But then, the double-turn! Turns out Nagashima had actually secretly planned to jump ship along with Muto. But for whatever reason, when Muto went, he didn't include Nagashima. So then NJPW found out Nagashima's plan and thus, he's been essentially fired. Dave says Nagashima is essentially the Jim Ross of NJPW, with the same level of backstage power (JR was pretty high up in WWF at this point). There's lots of rumors that Riki Choshu may be the next to go and he's already been pretty much stripped of all his power. He's still a member of the board of directors, but he has zero power in the dressing room and is really just another wrestler on the roster at this point. In fact, Dave talks about how lots of different wrestlers over the years have had decision making power in NJPW (Choshu, Fujinami, Chono, Liger, Sasaki, etc.) and it's a problem because you have all these huge stars that are also angling for backstage power. The situation is described as having Hogan, Flair, Bret, Shawn, Austin, and Rock all fighting for power in the same locker room, undercutting and backstabbing each other. This atmosphere is said to be why Keiji Muto grew to hate being in NJPW and why he decided to leave.
Side note: this has been just the most tedious Rewind I've ever written. Shit's taking forever today. Feels like every story is detailed as hell and as I'm writing this, it looks like block after block of huge paragraphs. Sorry this ain't more bite-sized.
Masahiro Chono is expected to face Naoya Ogawa at NJPW's big 30th anniversary Tokyo Dome show in May. Chono actually wants to face Shinya Hashimoto, but there's a lot of bitter feelings in NJPW about Hashimoto still after he left the company awhile back and people are torn on whether he should be allowed back (Hashimoto does indeed come back for this show. And it ends up being his final NJPW match ever. But it's not against Chono. He ends up working a tag match, teaming with Ogawa. Which, speaking of, Ogawa doesn't face Chono either. Ends up being Chono vs. Mitsuharu Misawa in one of those dream matches people never thought they'd see. But we'll get there).
Dave saw a tape of the recent debut show from Ring of Honor and says it was a great show that lived up to the hype. The 3-way main event of American Dragon vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Low-Ki was as good as any indie match Dave has ever seen and he wanted to give his TV a standing ovation when it was done. Dave doesn't see any of these guys in WWF because they're all way too small for Vince to take them seriously, and you can't have these kind of 25-minute classics in today's WWF either. Plus, there's no way they can work matches like this, as stiff as it was, for 200 days a year either. But for this show, for this crowd, it was damn near a perfect match. Dave says it's unfortunate that these guys are around right now, when the wrestling business is crumbling and there's only one or two places you can make a decent living by doing it. 10 years ago, these guys would have been can't-miss stars in Japan. 5 years ago, they would have been can't-miss stars in WCW's undercards. But now....tough to make a name for yourself when WWF is the only game in town and you're under 6 feet. Anyway, Dave says this show was excellent. The semi-main event of Eddie Guerrero vs. Super Crazy was great too, but the 3-way was clearly the main event and focus of the show and Dave thinks that's good. Guys like Guerrero can draw a crowd but ROH was smart to put the stars they plan to build around in the main event and establish them. That way, in the future, those guys can draw on their own without relying on ex-WWF names like Guerrero.
A bunch of indie promoters, including Dusty Rhodes (Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling) met in Atlanta last week, to talk about forming a partnership called Ring Warriors. Dave doesn't really elaborate, but it sounds almost like a modern day twist on the NWA, with all the promoters agreeing to work together with their promotions and trade talent and all that stuff. Obviously never goes anywhere.
Gene Simmons from the band KISS is reportedly working with promoter David McLane to revive Women of Wrestling under the name "Gene Simmons' WOW." McLane is the guy who also created GLOW in the 80s. Simmons is saying they will also put out a magazine and clothing line (another thing that went nowhere).
At the WWA PPV in Las Vegas, there was an altercation between Eric Bischoff (who was backstage visiting) and Juventud Guerrera. At some point, Guerrera walked up to Bischoff and sarcastically said something along the lines of, "How's it going, boss?" Bischoff responded with, "Weren't you one of the guys who signed that petition to get me fired?" (Dave says that after Bash at the Beach 2000, after the Hogan incident, Bischoff and Russo had a big blow-up argument. At that point, Konnan started a petition to get Bischoff fired and keep Russo in charge and he tried to get people in the locker room to sign it. Juvie is one of the people who signed). Bischoff told Guerrera he would never forget it and walked away. (Dave has the details on the petition a bit wrong but he corrects it in the next issue I think, we'll get there).
Slick Robbie D (real name Robbie Dicks Jr.) became the 3rd recent WWF developmental wrestler in the past 3 months to pass away. The death was apparently a suicide. Dicks had recently been arrested on statutory rape charges and hung himself in his jail cell, but friends of his don't believe the story and say he never would have killed himself. He had worked in Calgary with Stu Hart and at one point, Bret Hart passed on a tape of him, which led to him being signed and sent to Memphis. When Jim Cornette took over OVW, they moved him there and he'd been there ever since. But during his time there, he rubbed people the wrong way. Apparently he was always known for having an attitude problem and wasn't well liked in Calgary either by anybody other than Stu Hart. Dave talks about another incident a couple years ago when he was arrested in Canada after getting into a fight with a woman and was charged with unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping. Nobody would bail him out of jail because nobody liked him, until finally, Mark Henry (who was also in OVW at the time on one of his weight loss punishment excursions) bailed him out. Just days before his death, he had been arrested after the father of a 17-year-old girl he was seeing reported him. At the time of his death, Dicks was no longer in OVW. He was fired after a backstage argument with Leviathan (Batista) turned into a legit fist fight. The two were alone in the room and there were no witnesses and each man claimed the other started it. Because of his bad attitude and because people like ol' Dave, Dicks got the blame and was fired because most people felt he started the original argument. He was scheduled to start with UPW in California just prior to his death.
Notes from Raw: they didn't acknowledge that half the crew was overseas and instead claimed Jericho wasn't there because he was out shopping for Stephanie, leading Dave to ask, "have they ever castrated a world champion before Wrestlemania?" They did an angle where Undertaker went to developmental and attacked David Flair to try to get Ric to face him at Wrestlemania. He also threatened to hurt Flair's daughters next (run Charlotte!). Also, for a company that used to loudly criticize WCW for occasionally having blade jobs, Dave points out that Austin, David Flair, and Triple H all 3 bladed on this one single episode of Raw.
Regarding the training camp WWF held last week (that was discussed in the last issue): as mentioned then, nobody really impressed all that much. And in fact, AJ Styles was said to be the biggest disappointment of the group, because everyone had heard so many rave reviews about him and maybe they were expecting too much. In the ring, he was technically good but the company felt he has no promo skills and doesn't have the look they want and the consensus is that he's not ready for the big leagues yet (he still gets an offer).
Hulk Hogan's radio buddy Bubba The Love Sponge was acquitted on charges of animal cruelty in Tampa. Bubba and his producer and a hunter were on trial for a stunt they pulled 2 years ago where they castrated and killed a boar during a live radio broadcast. Bubba testified that the slaughter was done to educate listeners about where their food comes from and that the pig squeals people heard on the air were a recording, not the actual animal being killed. The prosecutors argued that they inflicted unnecessary pain to the boar and jurors were shown a video of it, but that somehow didn't convince them and he was acquitted. Bubba is claiming he's going to file a lawsuit against the prosecutors now in retaliation. In related news, Bubba The Love Sponge is a piece of shit.
Hulk Hogan and Jerry Lawler are both working on WWF-produced autobiographies. Dave thinks Hogan's will certainly be an entertaining piece of fiction. He also thinks Lawler could end up having a hell of a book if it's done well because he's got a lot of history to cover.
Apparently some of the guys in WWF's developmental territories have some attitude problems that are rubbing some the wrong way. During his latest column on WWF.com, Jim Ross wrote about how some of these guys "don't know how good they have it." Dave says that in particular, former WCW wrestlers Mike Sanders and Johnny The Bull have heat for complaining about how bad everything is working in developmental. Because it ain't glamorous. But they're complaining to veterans who spent years driving hundreds of miles, working 6-7 nights a week, for little to no money at all. Meanwhile, even though being in developmental is hard work, they aren't traveling much and they're still getting guaranteed weekly paychecks. So needless to say, it's rubbing the older guys the wrong way.
Chris Jericho, Triple H, and referee Brian Hebner got into some kind of big shouting match backstage after Raw. Apparently Jericho was mad at something Hebner allegedly screwed up during his match with Angle on the show, and for whatever reason, Triple H got involved, defended the referee, and said Jericho is the one who screwed it up. I skimmed through the match on the network and can't really tell where anything was screwed up but who knows.
WWF had talks with Ken Shamrock about returning, with the idea to put him against Kurt Angle. But Shamrock wants the kind of reduced schedule the NWO guys got and they weren't gonna go for that so it fell apart.