April 08, 2002
- Buckle in everybody, it's business analysis time! Fuck yeah, math and percentages! The WWF is still stronger than any other promotion in wrestling history, but they've still seen some declines. 2001 live attendance was down over 20% from the the year prior. Even with increased ticket prices, gate revenue was down 12%. Sellouts were down 53%. And even though Wrestlemania 17 and the Invasion show did huge numbers, 2001 PPV buyrates were still down 20% from the year before, though some of that decline can be attributed to the DirecTV conflict during the final months of the year. Raw's TV ratings are down about 21% from last year. Dave weirdly doesn't mention Smackdown's ratings, but I looked it up and they were also down 16% from the year prior. Needless to say, 2001 was a tough year for the WWF. But they're still riding the momentum of the Attitude Era and even though all these numbers are significantly down from only a year ago, they're still in strong shape.
- Just as things were starting to finally go right for AJPW, disaster struck as Triple Crown champion Toshiaki Kawada suffered a serious knee injury this week when Steve Williams landed on his leg in a match. Kawada is expected to need reconstructive surgery to repair several torn ligaments and will likely be out about 6 months (ends up being out for over a year). The match was stopped immediately (which is how you know it's serious in AJPW, because "working through injury" is practically the foundation of that company) and he had to be carried out of the ring and taken to the hospital. The timing is terrible, as Kawada just won the title about a month ago, after chasing it for nearly 2 years and the long-term storyline with he, Muto, and Genichiro Tenryu. As expected, it was announced that Kawada will vacate the title, which is expected to set up a Muto vs. Tenryu match to crown a new champion. Muto vs. Tenryu was the 2000 Observer Match of the Year so...should be a barn burner! To make things even worse, Kawada's injury took place during the Champion Carnival tournament and because of the way the tournament is laid out, with wins and losses and point totals being carefully booked to get the desired result in the finals, an injury to the top guy completely destroys those plans (it's the same round robin format as NJPW's G-1). So who knows how they'll work their way around this. But AJPW was just starting to gain some momentum for the first time in 2 years, so this couldn't have come at a worse time.
- Dave talks about the big story in Japan with K-1 promoter Kazuyoshi Ishii being investigated for tax evasion and writes about what it would mean for K-1 and MMA in general if Ishii were to go to prison and how the business could be affected. In the overall "sports entertainment" landscape, K-1 is the biggest thing going in Japan and the second biggest in the world, behind WWF (in 2003, Ishii does indeed get found guilty on tax evasion charges and goes to prison for almost 2 years).
- More questions and details regarding recent WWF pay cuts. First, Dave mostly talks about how the loss of WCW completely destroyed all negotiating leverage for wrestlers in the U.S. and how dire the industry is for the workers. Now you're pretty much forced to accept whatever Vince wants to pay you or hey, fuck off and go find a new career if you don't like it. Up until 1996, WWF offered very minimal guarantees. As late as into the mid-90s, many guys were only paid a guarantee of $50 for TV tapings. Of course, with gate money and all the other streams of revenue, most guys made plenty more depending on their position on the card. But $50 was the only thing you were promised. There were always exceptions of course. Don't think for a second Hulk Hogan left AWA in 1983 for a $50 guarantee, for instance. But for the most part, that's how it worked. Then in 1996, Nash, Hall, and Piper all jumped ship to WCW for big guaranteed money and Vince was forced to start offering the same in order to keep everyone from leaving. And then there's the comparison to major sports. WWF pulls in double the money that most pro sports franchises do annually and in many cases, draw better TV ratings, larger crowds, sell more merch, and do bigger PPV numbers than any of those sports franchises do. And yet Rock and Austin aren't making even a fraction of the money as guys like Michael Jordan, Mario Lemieux, Randy Johnson, Lennox Lewis, Alex Rodriguez, etc. In fact, Austin and Rock don't even make the same amount of money as guys lower than them in other sports. Many of the lowest paid pro athletes make more than all but the highest paid WWF guys, even though in many cases, WWF generates far, faaaar more money. And then, add to that the fact that WWF stars still pay their own road expenses (rental cars, hotels, meals, etc.) WWF pays for air transportation but that's usually it. That's unheard of in any real pro sport. Other pro sports also offer a pension plan and post-career medical insurance. Wrestling? Nope. (It's now 2020 and to this day, almost all of this is still true). Wrestlers get none of these benefits from the money they generate. This just goes on and on but TL;DR - unionize already.
- God, this section isn't even close to done. Pay cuts. Anyway, Dave talks about how, with the split rosters, more guys will be working more shows, which is good. But the real money is in TV revenue based on ratings, and the ratings are declining already. The brand split is likely to cause them to fall even further, at least in the short-term, since they're diluting the star power of both shows. PPVs are still going to be dual-branded for now, which means more guys fighting for less spots on PPVs to share in that money. Long story short, the undercard people in WWF are really going to feel these pay cuts hard. A $25k-per-year pay cut might not affect Rock or Austin at all, but 25k less per year definitely hurts, say, Hugh Morrus or Mike Sanders in developmental. Seriously, none of this is news and it just keeeeeeps going...
- And now, Dave writes—I shit you not—over 7,000 words about the crossover history between pro wrestling and shoot fighting. You know, the lifelong question in wrestling: if it was real, who would actually win? There must have been NO news this week. Jesus. In the end, this is an analysis of NJPW's failures in recent years that have come from Inoki trying to steer the company in an MMA direction, which has resulted in some of NJPW's top stars getting humiliated by PRIDE prelim guys and is a big reason why NJPW business is struggling so much right now. The whole history is here. From guys in the early days like Strangler Lewis and Frank Gotch, who had to be legitimate tough guys to keep from being double-crossed by promoters, to Bill Watts firing any wrestler that lost a real out-of-the-ring fight. Territories in the 70s and 80s bringing in real amateur wrestlers to take on all-comers in shoots. Things like that. But then MMA came along in Japan, and Brazillian jiu-jitsu, then UFC, and then everyone realized how much of an art form there is to real fighting. It became a major part of the training for pro wrestlers in Japan, since Inoki wanted guys who could do both, and of course, Inoki made a career out of having shoot matches with athletes from other combat sports, most famously with Muhammad Ali. Guys like Haku had the tough guy bar fight reputation as being the toughest guy in the business, and to this day, he has that rep. But put Haku in there with a skilled MMA fighter, and he'd get eaten alive. WWF's Brawl For All exposed just how easily untrained "tough guys" can be dismantled in a shoot. This just keeps going. UWF in 80s Japan, Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada, PRIDE, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, K-1, Cro Cop, Tank Abbott, Naoya Ogawa, Don Frye, RINGS, the Gracies, Kazushi Sakuraba, Pancrase, Kendo Kashin, Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar....you name it, Dave touches on it. It's a great history lesson on how these 2 sports are so intertwined and how they have affected each other.
- Mitsuharu Misawa reportedly tore some ligaments in his knee at the latest NOAH show, in what is probably the worst possible news for the company. Misawa worked through it and even did a short match the next night and an angle after (he ended up taking no time off at all). Naomichi Marufuji is also in need of knee surgery but is working through it (he works one match to drop his title and gets surgery and is out for a loooong time).
- NJPW's 30th anniversary Tokyo Dome show will be airing live in prime time on TV-Asahi in Japan, going head-to-head with the World Cup, which is the biggest sporting event in Japan in decades and, on a global basis, is the biggest sporting event in the world. The World Cup is being broadcast by rival network NTV, which is the television network NOAH is signed with. NJPW had planned for several NOAH wrestlers to work the show but that may not happen now because of this (it happens, Misawa works the show but there's more to the story, we'll get there).
- One of NJPW's big problems in recent years has been the failure to create new stars, which is what made them so successful in the 80s and 90s. But they're finally getting aggressive on that again and have recently brought in a new batch of trainees. Their names are Shinsuke Nakamura, Hirooki Goto, Naofumi Yamamoto, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Yasuke Moriakaku. Dave runs down their athletic backgrounds (mostly all accomplished amateur wrestlers).
- A big show in Japan featuring Japanese shoot fighters against Mexican luchadores in legit shoot fights went....about as you'd expect. In the undercard, Pancrase founder Minoru Suzuki ("who is now a beaten up shell of a fighter") defeated wrestler Solar in just 2 minutes by DQ when Solar twice kneed him in the groin. The main event saw Pancrase fighter KENGO defeat Dos Caras Jr. (Alberto Del Rio) by submission in the second round, avenging his loss from last year when he suffered a broken arm in a fight with Caras Jr.
- Latest on the old WCW racial discrimination lawsuit. Turner Broadcasting has been added as a defendant in the case. There are 10 wrestlers involved in filing the lawsuit and they're seeking $2 million each. There was a recent story about the case in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and Dave spends most of this paragraph talking about all the obvious things the article got blatantly wrong about WCW and the business in general. Otherwise, the article featured quotes from some of the wrestlers (Sonny Onoo, Hard Body Harrison, etc.) about how they weren't pushed, were paid less than white stars, or were told to do offensive racial stereotypes (Onoo in particular talks about how WCW had him do the broken English Japanese stereotype, leading Dave to point out that Onoo kept doing that gimmick on the indies long after he left WCW. And for what it's worth, Onoo's boss who allegedly forced him to do this was his close friend, Eric Bischoff, who he remains friends with to this day). The lawsuit also claims wrestlers shouldn't be classified as independent contractors and should be given the same retirement and health benefits that other Turner employees got.
- Notes from the latest Ring of Honor show: despite all the rave reviews of their debut show, the attendance was down for this one. The show was build around Christopher Daniels, Low-Ki, and American Dragon all working separate matches against each other. All those matches ended in submissions, with them clearly trying to get that style over. Dragon vs. Low-Ki in the main event was reported to Dave as a possible 5-star match but he hasn't seen it yet. Ken Shamrock was the referee for it. So once again, this ROH company is getting rave reviews for putting on another excellent indie show. A wrestler named Chris Marvel suffered a broken ankle that was said to be as bad as the Sid Vicious injury.
- There's talk that Jerry Jarrett's new promotion will be affiliated with the NWA, which would allow Jeff Jarrett to, inevitably, become the NWA champion. Dave says that's a big win for the NWA because Jeff would be a better champ than Dan Severn and if this promotion has any level of success, it'll be the biggest thing to happen for the NWA in years (indeed, that's what we eventually get).
- Steve Wilkos, the big bald security guard from the Jerry Springer Show, made his pro wrestling debut at a show for Maryland Championship Wrestling. Wilkos teamed with Gillberg against some local guys. He was awful and the match was clearly comical and Wilkos' only offense was clotheslines. But the crowd of 1,600+ was the biggest in the history of the promotion and were there specifically to see him. ABC World News Tonight was there filming it as well.
- Various news and notes: Nicole Bass is back to bodybuilding after a recent health scare and she still has a sexual harassment lawsuit pending against WWF. Dusty Rhodes is in a TV commercial for Northwest Title Loans. K-Kwik is not working indies right now because he's still got a non-compete in his WWF contract, so he still gets paid and can't work anywhere else until that runs out.
- XPW is claiming promoter Rob Black (who also produces porn) suffered a stroke while editing a porn movie and is in critical condition. But Dave says there's no record of him at the hospital they claim he went to and this is apparently yet another of XPW's stupid hoax publicity stunts (yup. Rob Black is garbage).
- If you recall, Eddie Guerrero won the WWA cruiserweight title on their last PPV. But just like Curt Hennig with XWF, Guerrero wasn't signed to a contract. Now he's heading back to the WWF and won't be around to drop the belt. Once again, Dave says if you're serious about starting a company right now, you have to lock your key guys into contracts or else Vince McMahon will pick you apart before you can get off the ground. Especially if you're gonna put a belt on a guy.
- Notes from Raw: the show was built around Austin deciding which show he's going to sign with since he's a free agent. But Raw had a new opening video, featuring only the Raw stars that were drafted last week and Austin was heavily featured in that video, so they pretty much gave away the answer to the storyline from the second the show went on the air. They also had a new Raw stage setup for the arena. Eddie Guerrero made his return to the company, attacking RVD and getting a huge pop. So naturally, WWF capitalized by never once acknowledging his return for the rest of the show. Dave talks about how Jeff Hardy's physical decline over the last year is scary for only being 23 years old (drugs are bad mmm'kay). Trish took on Terri Runnels, while wearing bikinis, in a paddle-on-a-pole match, which is just about the most Russo sentence ever. Bubba Ray Dudley, Spike Dudley, and Bradshaw seemed to be the new guys getting a little bit of a push in this new split roster era. They presented Triple H with a new undisputed title belt to replace the 2 (WWF and WCW) that he was carrying around. And of course, it ended with Austin signing to Raw and giving everyone stunners.
- Speaking of Austin, he and Vince apparently worked out all their issues which is why he was back on Raw. It was his first show back though, as he continued to no-show all his scheduled house show appearances last week. WWF knew in advance he wouldn't be there but never tried to make that clear to the public for any of those shows. Dave says it's one thing if a guy misses the show because of unforeseen circumstances, but if you know in advance he's not going to be there, to continue advertising them up until the doors open is bullshit. Especially a star like Austin who, let's be honest, is the guy most of the fans are there to see. And when they did announce it, even that was shady. At one house show, they announced Austin wouldn't be there and offered refunds. But then Undertaker cut a promo and commented that Austin was probably in the back hiding because he's scared of him. Naturally, fans then assumed he was there and would probably come out later in the show since a comment like that from a heel is an obvious tease. But....nope.
- Random WWF notes: former WCW wrestler The Wall worked a dark match at the Smackdown tapings. Rock is hosting Saturday Night Live next week. The plans to have completely separate writing teams for both Raw and Smackdown seems to have already been dropped and looks like it'll mostly be the same people writing both shows. Former ECW performers Nova and Dawn Marie were both signed to WWF deals this week.
- Bill O'Reilly on Fox News had a show that featured Linda McMahon among several other guests. The hook of the show was O'Reilly confronting all of these random people from different forms of entertainment (wrestling, music, movies, etc.) and accusing them of marketing to children and corrupting the youth. Along with Linda McMahon was Insane Clown Posse, Opie & Anthony, Russell Simmons, and others (in different segments, not all sitting together because holy shit, what a group that would be). Naturally, they all defended themselves and said it's up to the parents and yada yada. Linda came off better than everyone else on the show, but it was a low bar.
- WWF has sent Rey Mysterio his contract. Dave doesn't give exact numbers but says it's in line with the baseline that they're trying to get everyone to sign for after the pay cuts (so figure in the $100-125K range per year). Dave also says Eddie Guerrero is rumored to have signed a similar contract, but he's also heard rumors that Guerrero's deal is possibly as low as $75,000 per year. Dave is skeptical, but then again, given how he left last time (rehab, DUI as soon as he got out, fired), it's possible WWF is hesitant to make a big commitment to him until he proves himself again.
- Here's a quote from Big Show in a recent issue of the UK tabloid The Sun, presented without context: "Married life is good. Bess (his wife) is a good friend and my teammate. She is good looking and has one hell of a figure. Before this interview, I was looking at your Page 3 girls, and one of the guys said that one of the girls (Jordan) had Double F breasts, but they were just Double D. I told him: 'Trust me, mamma at home has got bigger.'"
- Several of the wrestlers who had tryouts recently have been offered contracts. Dave isn't 100% sure on the names but he thinks it was Matt Stryker, Race Steele, Chad Collyer, Rene Dupree, Kevin Fertig, Doug Basham, and AJ Styles. The contracts are said to only be for $500 per week. Dave expects most of them to take it because, well, it's WWF and it's a steady paycheck. But AJ Styles is said to be leaning against it actually, because he knows he can make more money as a major star for one of these new start-up companies (WWA, XWF, or hey....maybe he could make a name for himself in this Jarrett promotion that's starting soon). Plus, he would have to move to Cincinnati and that's not much money to uproot your entire life (I think Styles has said in years since that his wife would have had to give up her job to move there and the WWF offer just wasn't enough money to make it worth it, so he turned it down).