Wrestling Observer Rewinder

March 25, 2002

SELF-INDULGENT SIDE-NOTE: For those of you who watched last night's Dark Side of the Ring episode about Dino Bravo, I posted THIS yesterday for anyone who might be interested, I'd love to hear what y'all think. My god, he's using his post to promote another one of his posts. Rewinderman has gone mad with power!
Wrestlemania 18 is in the books and the star of the show this year was the same as the first show 18 years ago. Hulk Hogan. During the days leading up to the event, it was obvious Hogan was going to be cheered, because fans were going nuts for him at Axxess events all week. But nobody expected it to be as intense as it was, or for Rock to get booed so badly. WWF spent more money promoting this match (the promotion for the show was built around it) than they have any other match or show in company history. They specifically spent a lot of money advertising to older fans, hoping to lure back those who would pay to see Hulk Hogan in a major Wrestlemania match for nostalgia's sake.
Dave didn't see the match in the moment because he was unable to watch the show live due to situations out of his control, but he heard all about it. So when he finally sat down to watch, he was disappointed because it had been built up so huge. Obviously, the crowd reaction was off the charts, but as an in-ring display of wrestling, it was pretty awful. Dave compares it to a big dumb blockbuster movie. Huge budget, breaks box office records, lots of spectacle, but when you really examine it, it's pretty terrible as an actual movie. Shit acting, corny dialogue, plot holes, etc. But as a summer blockbuster popcorn movie, it's great. That was this match. Dave also acts like Hogan subtly manipulated things to make sure he overshadowed Rock at every turn and made himself a bigger star in a match where he was supposed to be passing the torch. Man, Dave has given Hogan zero benefit of the doubt since returning. In retrospect, I think we can all agree Rock wasn't hurt by anything in this match and, in fact, Hogan's WWF run during this time ended up being perfectly fine. So Dave coming across so snarky and pessimistic about Hogan seems kinda dickish looking at it in hindsight. But it's worth remembering Dave didn't have that hindsight. As he was writing this in 2002, it was on the heels of more a decade where Hogan had earned every bit of that reputation. By this time, Dave was far from the only person who was fed up with Hogan. So don't feel too bad for him.
The day before Wrestlemania, Vince McMahon decided it was time to get the red and yellow machine rolling again. He sent Hogan home to Tampa on the WWF jet to retrieve his old school gear so they could take photos and film video packages. The night after WM, on Raw in Montreal, Vince wanted Hogan to come out wearing the red and yellow, but he was talked out of it at the last minute because they convinced him that Hogan in black was a cooler, more modern version that fans had grown used to.
Other notes from Wrestlemania: Overall, Dave thinks it was a step down from last year's show. Some were good, but none of the matches reached the level of great. Steve Austin, Triple H, and Kurt Angle all had arguably the worst PPV matches they've had in years, all on the same night. A lot of stuff felt off. It was clear that the crowd was there for one person and one person only and everything else felt almost insignificant in comparison. Undertaker/Flair was the best pure match of the show, but Dave makes sure to criticize Undertaker for barely selling (at one point, Flair hit him with 4 chairshots to the head and Taker never even left his feet). Edge/Booker T was dead because, as a sign in the crowd said, "They're feuding over shampoo." In the tag match, Dave hints at an "unspoken" issue going on that might explain why Jeff Hardy looked so emaciated and exhausted (yeah, we're about a year away from the first time Hardy got fired for his addictions). Hogan's babyface turn after the match was planned because WWF saw the writing on the wall weeks ago and realized WWF fans don't want to boo Hulk Hogan. Hindsight being 20/20, Hogan vs. Rock obviously should have been the final match but Dave admits he would have put the WWF title match on last too if he had been in their shoes. But it was a mistake. During the women's match and at the beginning of the Jericho/Triple H main event, fans began filing out of the building in droves. Dave says Jericho and Triple H made the mistake of wrestling an arena match instead of a stadium match. In a stadium, with the crowd so huge and so far away, it's more about memorable moments and mannerisms. The subtleties of working a body part and doing realistic ring psychology works great in a smaller arena, but tends to get lost in a big open atmosphere like that when so much of the crowd is far away. Both guys seemed noticeably frustrated by the dead crowd, but there was just no chance in following Hogan/Rock.
And then there's Steve Austin, the biggest money star in the history of the business, working 3rd from the top in a completely forgettable match. And he wasn't happy about it either. The finish of the match was changed on the day of the show due to Austin complaining but even after, he wasn't happy and he flew home after Mania, missing both the TV tapings in Montreal and Ottawa the following week (fortunately for the company, he wasn't booked to do anything important on those tapings, which is probably another part of why he was so pissed. This is the first time Austin walked out. The big one is still to come). The original plan for the match was for Hall to beat Austin due to interference from Nash and X-Pac (who would have debuted as the newest NWO member). The plans got changed to Austin winning earlier in the week, with plans to continue the angle after. But then....on the day of Wrestlemania....Scott Hall showed up seemingly messed up. Again. At that point, Austin blew a gasket and demanded to end the angle. So not only did Austin win, he did it definitively, no questions asked. Because that was the blow-off of the Austin/Hall feud. It's done.
Vince McMahon did an interview with the Toronto Sun and spoke about the failed negotiations to bring in Bret Hart for Wrestlemania. Vince said, "One of the public things that my character says is that I always do everything I do for the WWF fans. The reality of it is, that is the case. Despite the way I would feel personally about someone, if it's the right business thing to do, I'll do it for our audience. So, I went through the right diplomatic channels to invite Bret, and, quite frankly, I thought it was on a confidential basis and agreed that it would be. Unfortunately, I, like a few other people, read his diatribe in the Calgary Sun." Dave says that Hart did keep the negotiations quiet while they were going on. But once talks broke off, there was no reason to keep it quiet anymore, which is why Bret wrote about it. Dave talks about how Hart wanted the rights to photos and footage of his matches, but Vince doesn't want to give that to him because it would set a precedent for other wrestlers leaving the company wanting the same rights. In the interview, Vince called Hart a crybaby and said he's in need of psychological help. When the reporter pushed back, Vince got defensive and attacked the reporter, saying Hart has his own agenda and saying the reporter does too. He also said only a few insiders even remember the Montreal incident and played it down as if it wasn't a big deal. Dave says if nobody remembers it, why was the whole plan to have Bret come back at Wrestlemania to attack Vince? Fans in Montreal this week were BRUTAL with the "you screwed Bret!" chants and they could even be heard during the WM18 main event. During the interview, Vince also denied that he ever promised Hart the rights to the footage when they met each other at Owen's funeral, which Bret Hart has specifically said is a lie. "I don't know of any performer that's worked for MGM or any other major studio who thinks he has, in some way, some right to ownership of films he's done. So, I don't know why Bret would think that he should have some right to ownership or right to usage of videotape, which is no different than any actor who performs in any sitcom or television show. Unless it's written in the contract, there is no ownership," Vince said.
Note from Rewinderman: someone on the Observer website forgot to close a tag in the HTML for this issue. So the whole damn issue is in bold and it's kind of annoying.

Raw after Mania did its biggest rating since last summer, and was an especially huge number in Canada. Dave says it was all Hogan-driven because, as of this week at least, Hulk Hogan is once again the biggest star in professional wrestling. Dave is more interested to see where the ratings are in a few weeks once this brand split happens. Speaking of, the brand split is finally, officially happening next week. After having an entire year to figure this out and come up with a great angle to explain it, they decided on.....no angle at all. They just kind of announced that it's a thing that will happen because Vince and Ric Flair can't agree. Okay then. Also, the Divas special on UPN did a disappointing rating so don't expect that women's show that was mentioned last week.

Dave mentions that there's an indie wrestler named Danny Anthrax who's gimmick is that he comes out with a bag of white powder and throws it in his opponents eyes (only a few months removed from the anthrax attacks back in late 2001 so the threat of anthrax was a big deal to people at the time).

Kaz Hayashi is pushing to bring in Rey Mysterio and K-Kwik to AJPW to help bolster their junior heavyweight division. (Neither of these happens, but now I'm picturing R-Truth showing up in AJPW, looking for Anthony Inoki).

Zero-1 held its latest PPV show. The opener, featuring NOAH star KENTA was a great match. He's only 20 years old but Dave thinks KENTA is really good and has potential to be a superstar in a few years. Naomichi Marufuji vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa was a potential MOTY candidate (and also a rematch of the very first Zero-1 match in the history of the promotion). That's pretty much it.

There will be a kids show debuting on the WB called Mucha Lucha. It will air on Saturday morning and is basically a comedy cartoon about masked Lucha Libre wrestlers. Dave wonders if there will be an Eric Bischoff-type character that always tries to get them to take their masks off and jobs them out.

InDemand is now asking for a $250,000 guarantee before airing any PPV events. When you couple that in with the usual 50/50 split InDemand takes from the PPV buys, that means the event would have to gross over $500,000 before the promoter would make any money. Any decent-sized PPV should do that because, at $20 a pop, that only means 25,000 buys which should be do-able. (If you can't do 25k PPV buys, you aren't viable competition anyway). But it's still an extra hurdle for any new promoters trying to break into the game.

Vampiro cut all his hair off and now has short hair. Considering how big a star he has been in Mexico throughout his career, Dave seems kinda baffled why he did it on his own and didn't try to get an extra payday out of it by losing a hair match.

The next Ring of Honor show will be headlined by Christopher Daniels, Low-Ki, and American Dragon all taking turns having singles matches against each other. Ken Shamrock will be appearing as well.

WWA tickets went on sale for their UK tour in May and it was a flop. Front row tickets didn't even sell out on the first day. They're still advertising a whole list of people who aren't under contract, including Eddie Guerrero who is billed as a "former WWF middleweight champion" which isn't even a thing.

On his radio show in Philadelphia, former WCW announcer Mark Madden talked about WWA. Madden did commentary for them a few weeks back at the Vegas show and his comment on the promotion was, "I was there. Trust me, it'll never work."

Dave runs down the card for PRIDE's next show in Japan and one of the matches is Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Bob Sapp, a former WCW developmental wrestler. I only mention this because Bob Sapp is about to become a pretty huge star in Japanese wrestling in the next couple of years, including winning the IWGP title.

Kazuyoshi Ishii, the founder of K-1 kickboxing, appeared on a magazine cover wearing a WWF shirt, with the caption reading, "Our only competition is WWF." *laughs in PRIDE*

Notes from Raw: one of the hottest crowds ever. Hulk Hogan came out to a reaction that can't be described. Dave says it was like Inoki in Japan and then some and even that doesn't do it justice. He's never seen anything like it. They announced the brand split, with Vince getting Smackdown and Flair getting Raw. The men's and women's champions (Triple H and Jazz) will appear on both shows. No word on other champions. Crowd was chanting for Bret Hart all night and at one point during a commercial break, Vince egged them on, saying he'd screw Bret again if he had the chance, drawing huge boos. The Dudleyz turned on Stacy Keibler, which means no more Stacy in her Dudley attire, which was very upsetting to me as a fan at the time.

The plan for the cruiserweight division is to make it part of Smackdown and give it a strong push. There's interest in bringing in Super Crazy for it. There's also talk about bringing Jerry Lynn back but apparently he has a lot of heat. He was out injured when he got fired from WWF and then immediately started wrestling in WWA, which made people in WWF think he must have been milking the injury when he was there.

The Rock did an interview with the Observer site this week and talked about how difficult it was juggling his movie and wrestling schedules and admitted he didn't know how long he could balance both. He said he wants to always be a part of the WWF but said he could envision a situation where he only wrestles a couple of big matches per year. Dave says this has been known internally for awhile. Rock's movie career seems to be taking off which means his wrestling days are likely coming to an end sooner than later. Rock is being counted on to anchor the Smackdown brand after the split, so if he isn't around much, it'll be a big blow to the company. He said his favorite matches ever were the match with Austin at WM17 and the one he had with Jericho at the house show in Japan just a few weeks ago. Rock really put over Jericho strong in the interview, leading Dave to hint that it'd be nice if everyone else in the company was as generous.

Ken Shamrock did a radio interview where he challenged Kurt Angle to a match. Shamrock said he'd like to wrestle part-time for WWF while still doing a few MMA fights per year as well (and basically using his WWF fame to help those fights do big numbers). Dave doubts WWF is ever gonna go for that kind of deal. Shamrock was backstage at Wrestlemania and pitched it to some people, saying he wants to work 4-6 WWF shows per month. The idea didn't seem to be well-received.

WWF wants Scott Steiner to see a neurologist about his drop foot issue because it's caused by nerve damage. Currently, he's been trying to rehab the issue with physical therapy and it's not working.

Naoya Ogawa was also backstage at Wrestlemania, hanging out with Kurt Angle (both men competed at the 1996 Olympics and know each other from that). Ogawa was taking photos alongside Angle, Hogan, Jim Ross, and Shane McMahon, which will play well in the Japanese magazines. Ogawa spoke to JR about coming in and JR told him to send them a tape and to start working on his English.

When Eddie Guerrero finishes his current NJPW tour, he's expected to meet with WWF about returning (and indeed, he does).

Several WWF wrestlers appeared on TSN's Off The Record show and did interviews. So let's recap them a little (also, most of these are on Youtube if you just search for it, but they're all divided up into multiple parts and I don't want to post 12 different video links for this):

Triple H talked about tearing his quad and said it never occurred to him to stop the match and said most wrestlers would have done the same. He was asked about the planned angle last year where Shawn Michaels would return during the WM17 match with Triple H and Undertaker, but then Shawn showed up backstage pilled out of his mind and the angle got dropped. He was asked why he sided with WWF instead of his friend and Triple H said he didn't want to go into details, but WWF was obviously in the right (in other words, Shawn was clearly fucked up and needed help and they made the right decision). When asked about Chris Jericho, he said, "I think Chris is just a step underneath. Why, I am not sure. There is just a small piece of the puzzle missing. And Chris will get it. It is there. Sometimes, it takes a couple of shots at it to get it right. It is not an overnight thing. Some guys, they hit it, and it just explodes. Well, for others, like me, it is more of a slow simmer, which is the same way he is headed."

Jim Ross was guarded and wouldn't admit to anything controversial. Said the NWO was behaving so far and claimed Austin was excited to work with Scott Hall at Wrestlemania. Ross was asked if someone with the talent of Stephanie McMahon came in, but didn't have the last name McMahon, would she even make it onto TV? Ross lied his ass off and said of course, because Stephanie is great (at this point in 2002, I can't express to you how sick of Stephanie most people were). JR said Shane McMahon is being groomed to take over the company some day. Whoops.

Undertaker told the story from Wrestlemania 14 where he admitted that if Shawn Michaels refused to put over Austin in the main event, Taker was prepared to beat the shit out of him as soon as he came through the curtain. Dave tells the story here about how Undertaker stood at gorilla position before the match, taping up his fists and making sure Shawn knew exactly why he was doing it before he walked out there. Taker also talked about Big Show and said he has talent but doesn't take enough pride in his work.

Chris Jericho's interview was the total opposite of Jim Ross. He said there are people in WWF still actively trying to hold him down (ahem) and said he also doesn't get the same kind of respect from the higher ups in the company that other top stars and champions have gotten in the past. He said neither did Kurt Angle when he was champion. He talked about how Kevin Nash used to bury him, Benoit, and Dean Malenko when they were in WCW by saying they were too small to be stars. They talked about Hayabusa getting paralyzed doing the same move Jericho does in every match (the lionsault) and the host brought up how Vince McMahon said recently said, in regards to injuries like that, that wrestling is all fake. Jericho's response: "Well that's a bullshit thing to say and as the owner of this company, it's the wrong thing to say." Jericho also said Eric Bischoff is a guy who got lucky off one idea he stole from Japan and pointed out how he had guys like Austin, Benoit, Guerrero, Triple H, Mick Foley, Big Show, and himself all under contract at different times and failed with all of them while WWF made them all stars. Dave disagrees there, saying Big Show got over much bigger in WCW (as The Giant) than he ever has in WWF so far. And Triple H was a rookie when he was in WCW, so that's not really fair. Agreed on the others though, Bischoff missed the boat on all of them.

Jericho also did another interview with a heavy metal site and said his Fozzy album sold over 35,000 copies and credited that success to the WWF, because the record label sure didn't do shit to promote it. When asked about Larry Zbyszko's comments about him, Jericho said, "I don't know how he can say that. I tower over his fat, balding ass. Then again, he never was a champion...never mind a living legend like myself. Plus, he was a rotten wrestler." They also asked him to rank wrestlers' promo abilities on a scale of 1-to-10, with Rock being a 10. Notable ones: he gave Austin an 11, Hall and Nash got 6's, Triple H got 7.5, RVD got a 4, Jeff Hardy got a 3, and Ric Flair got a 37. There were a few other funny quotes in here as well.

One last note to show how much Jericho was getting fucked on during this time. Obviously, there's been a ton of criticism about how the entire WM main event storyline was built around Triple H vs. Stephanie with Jericho playing her lackey. Well, internally, people in the company are justifying it by saying Jericho didn't get over and couldn't get heel heat, so they changed everything and built the story around Stephanie because Jericho wasn't good enough to do it himself. So internally, they're looking at it as Stephanie saved the match because Jericho couldn't pull it off. Okay then, sure.

At the tapings a couple weeks ago, when Triple H was going to pedigree Stephanie McMahon on the announce table, her breasts fell out of her top. It got edited out before it made TV but some people were able to catch it on the live feed from their satellite dishes so the pictures and clips are being passed all over the internet (yeah, this is the one we've all seen. Google is your friend).

Bret Hart was interviewed by MuchMusic and was asked who is the "biggest punk" in wrestling. Hart asked "good punk or bad punk?" They said bad. Hart's answer: "Triple H."

Then Goldberg was interviewed on The Best Damn Sports Show Period and was asked if he could beat up one wrestler in real life, who would it be? Goldberg's answer: "Triple H." Popular guy, that Hunter. Goldberg also said he thinks his Time Warner contract is up in about a year and said he misses performing but didn't seem enthused about the idea of ever going to WWF.

Speaking of Triple H, word is getting around about his participation in production meetings where he apparently buries a lot of people. It's gotten back to those people and Triple H isn't very well liked in the locker room right now.

Bob Holly did an interview and got a little too real. He talked about all the problems Hall and Nash caused in the WWF locker room when they were there in the mid-90s and talked about how he wasn't happy to have them back. The interviewer, perhaps trying to save Holly's job, tried to reel him back in and say things like, "It couldn't have been as bad as people say" to which Holly responded....yes it was that bad and he doesn't want them in the locker room now. Good ol' Bob Holly. Dude's never been a bullshitter.

Referee Charles Robinson's wife Amy found out recently that the cancer she's been battling for years has returned. She was told last week that she only has weeks or months to live because her cancer is inoperable. Robinson took a few weeks off but is currently back at work (she sadly passes away a couple weeks after this).

WWF has straightened out their issues with their TV network in Japan and they have been un-canceled. In return, WWF allowed them to broadcast the house show they filmed a few weeks ago, with Keiji Muto doing commentary.

The cost of WWF PPVs have been increased by $5. It might not seem like much on the surface, but it amounts to almost $800,000 more per month in revenue (nearly an additional $10 million per year), most of it pure profit. WWF did this same thing in 1997, when they were in a financial crisis. They increased the PPVs from $19.95 to $29.95 and that $10 increase pulled them out of debt and into profitability all by itself.

An author named Shaun Assael is doing a book about the life of Vince McMahon coming out later this year (that book ends up being Sex, Lies, and Headlocks). Anyway, Assael had a story in the New York Times this week, just a brief cliff-notes version of Vince's life story. And Dave immediately points out about half a dozen inaccuracies. Dave hopes the book isn't as inaccurate as this article. Most of the stuff he points out are minor things, but I'll be goddamned if you're going to slip an incorrect historical fact past Dave Meltzer. And to be fair, as arguably the most well-known wrestling historian, I guess that is kinda his job.

The original plan for Steve Austin was for him to face a returning Chris Benoit at Wrestlemania. But then word came out that Benoit wasn't going to be cleared to wrestle by then, and a week later, the NWO signing happened, and the rest is history. Dave says even if Benoit had been healthy, Vince probably would have changed plans when he signed the NWO anyway, so he doubts Benoit was gonna end up having that match regardless.

Rey Mysterio is leaning strongly towards coming to WWF, but many of his friends are trying to talk him out of it, pointing out the company's track record when it comes to pushing small guys. And Rey's the smallest of them all.