April 15, 2002
- The main story this week is a look at The Rock's blooming movie career and what it means for his wrestling career. The Scorpion King is about to open in theaters soon and is expected to do big numbers. Rock has said publicly that he never wants to work the kind of schedule that he did over the last year, where he juggled wrestling a near full-time schedule while filming the movie and doing later re-shoots. Rock has also said he could see a future where he only wrestles a few big matches per year. As of now, Rock isn't expected back on TV until June due to his promotional commitments for the movie, which means he's missing the next 2 PPVs. As a result, Smackdown is gonna have to be carried by guys like Hogan, Triple H, Angle, and Jericho. Dave thinks Hogan's shelf-life as a popular nostalgia act is going to get old fast if he's on TV every week, but without Rock, they need him. Triple H is champion, which means working both brands, so he'll only be able to do half the SD house shows and Hogan obviously ain't gonna be working a full house show schedule either. So they need a star to anchor the brand. Suddenly, making Jericho look like a joke every week for the last few months doesn't seem like such a smart idea in retrospect. The schedule of an actor is a grueling one, with early wake-up calls, long days on sets, weeks away from home, etc. and with all the buzz around him in Hollywood, it's likely that's going to be Rock's primary career going forward. Wrestling a full WWF schedule in the meantime, for way less money, when he has a new baby at home he'd like to spend time with doesn't make much sense. He's got this summer off, but he starts filming his next movie Helldorado (later renamed The Rundown) in the fall. But if Scorpion King ends up being the box office success it's expected to be, he's going to be drowning in movie offers and Dave suspects Rock's career as a full-time wrestler won't last much longer (yup).
- Big MMA news section, where Dave compares UFC to ECW. Basically, UFC is the company where the unknown guys go to fight and make a name for themselves, then they leave for the big money to go work in places like PRIDE because UFC can't afford to compete. In this case, it's looking like heavyweight champ Josh Barnett and lightweight champ Jens Pulver are the latest names headed out the door. UFC isn't profitable right now and president Dana White has acknowledged that they need a TV deal. Dave explains all the contract issues with these fighters possibly leaving and all that fun stuff.
- Japanese wrestler Hiromichi "Kodo" Fuyuki shocked fans after his latest show by announcing he had been diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Fuyuki was recently working an angle with Onita over the death of FMW, but that seems to have been scrapped now. Fuyuki found out just a few days ago and said that he considered his match the following day with Misawa to be his final match (it wasn't quite, but close). He announced he's retiring and will be having surgery this week. But he intends to keep his new promotion (World Entertainment Wrestling) running (yeah, Fuyuki only has one or two matches and eventually passes away from the cancer in 2003. But according to Wikipedia, he is the only wrestler to participate in a match after death. Hashimoto apparently teamed with an urn that had Fuyuki's ashes in it for a match soon after he died. So....yeah).
- Dammit, somebody forgot to close the bold HTML tag on this issue of the Observer again. The whole thing is in bold.
- Dave writes a huge career retrospective on Akira Hokuto, one of the greatest women's wrestlers who ever lived. She wrestled what is widely believed to have been her retirement match this week, in front of a crowd of 5,000 fans. Dave gives her whole story, debut in the 80s, broken neck that nearly ended her career, her marriage to NJPW star Kensuke Sasaki, the move she invented (northern lights bomb), her biggest matches, etc. Dave even talks about the rumor about her and Sasaki's first night meeting each other at the big Inoki North Korea shows. "After the show, she met Sasaki for the first time. They went out that night in North Korea. People in the hotel remember the noise and it was the topic of conversation among everyone on the floor the next morning at breakfast. They secretly got engaged before morning, announcing it publicly six weeks later." Anyway, Dave writes all this because he's under the belief she just wrestled her last match. But nope. She'd be back in the ring just a week or two later. But it was close. She only wrestled a handful of times after this before retiring for good.
- The deaths of WCW and ECW really left a vacuum of wrestling news because a lot of these 2002 Observers are full of analysis rather than breaking stories. Dave goes into a piece about how putting a title belt on a guy doesn't make him a star. Stars make the belt, the belt doesn't make stars. WWF pushed Chris Jericho as a midcarder for most of 2001, then abruptly made him the champion at the end of the year and that obviously didn't work. NJPW put the IWGP title on Tadao Yasuda and that was an even bigger flop. NOAH, which to its credit, has been trying to make new stars, recently put the GHC title on Yoshinari Ogawa, in an attempt to make him a top guy. Time will tell how that goes, but it's a risk because fans don't see him at that level (yeah, it was a flop too).
- Obituary for Bobby Managoff, who was one of the biggest stars of the 1940s. He was one of the first famous second generation wrestlers. His father wrestled in the early 1900s and is mostly known for being the guy to legitimately break Frank Gotch's ankle during a match and ending Gotch's career. Anyway, c'mon man, what do you want me to say about a guy from the 40s? Dave tells a lot of interesting stories about him though. He had vision problems and was almost blind during the later part of his career (but he was still the champion of the Minnesota territory that became AWA). His sister Kay Armen was a famous singer in the 40s. Your great grandmother probably remembers her.
- NJPW's big Tokyo Dome event in May will be headlined by an actual, honest-to-god genuine dream match featuring Masahiro Chono vs. Mitsuharu Misawa. Until this match was announced, the show was looking to be a flop, but this will almost certainly save the show. It's uncertain if the match will air on TV though, because Misawa and NOAH are contracted to Nippon TV, which is the competitor of NJPW's TV-Asahi (indeed, the match happens but the political issues prevent it from airing on TV in Japan).
- Yuji Nagata finally captured the IWGP title for the first time, defeating Tadao Yasuda at NJPW's latest disaster of a show. It was held at a 4,500-seat venue that has never hosted wrestling before, but is still named Budokan. But not to be confused with the famous Budokan Hall. As a result, fans had no idea where to go or where the venue was and it drew a wildly disappointing crowd and I guess they were all showing up at the other Budokan wondering where the wrestling show was. Anyway, Nagata won what was said to be a bad match. Afterwards, they set up an angle for the Dome show with NOAH star Yoshihiro Takayama coming out to challenge him. Takayama is the one top NOAH guy who doesn't have his own contract with Nippon TV so his match should air with no problems.
- Lucha Libre wrestler Enemigo Publico underwent emergency brain surgery after taking a hard clothesline while training at Arena Mexico. When he stood up, he was bleeding from the ears, nose, and mouth and was rushed to the hospital. Following surgery, it's feared he may not be able to walk or talk again and his wrestling career is thought to be most likely over (yeah, he never wrestled again. Not sure how well he recovered though).
- Is wrestling real? That's apparently the big debate in Puerto Rico right now after wrestler Chicky Starr went out and said it was fake publicly, which is apparently huge news to Puerto Rico. It's become a big topic of discussion on sports radio shows in the country, with Carlos Colon coming out and saying he doesn't know about other promotions, but WWC is the real deal.
- Motoko Baba recently publicly said she was in favor of the idea of Muto eventually taking over as AJPW president (indeed, he becomes president of the company later in 2002 and holds that position until 2011 when he resigned amidst some controversy. In 10 years or so, I'm sure I'll recap the 2011 Observers and we'll get there then).
- Lou Thesz underwent triple bypass surgery and had a valve replaced and his prognosis is said to be excellent. Thesz is 86 and still trains regularly but was having issues breathing as of late and tests revealed several blockages. (This apparently goes bad quickly because he passes away by the end of the month.)
- A Lucha Libre indie show drew the biggest non-WWF crowd of the year in the U.S., packing 5,200 fans into the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles for a show headlined by El Hijo del Santo, La Parka, Atlantis & Lizmark vs. Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000, Scorpio Jr. & Emilio Charles Jr. They also did an angle where Universo 2000 kidnapped a popular local Hispanic TV hostess during her TV show earlier in the day and he brought her to the ring with him later that night at the show.
- Bret Hart is appearing on the ABC show Contact: Talking to the Dead, hosted by psychic George Anderson, who claims to be able to get messages from the dead relatives of his guests and will be attempting to contact Owen Hart. Dave says this isn't going to go down as one of the highlight's of Bret's career.
- Dusty Rhodes is working on writing his autobiography and is said to be about 380 pages into it. Dave says Dusty has been talking about writing this book for years and always said it would be called "Corporate Cowboy." (Dusty's autobio doesn't end up coming out until 10 years later, in 2012. And it got pretty terrible reviews. I wonder if that's the same book Dusty was working on here in the early 2000s. Or maybe Cody is sitting on some unpublished "Corporate Cowboy" somewhere.)
- WWA's next PPV is taking place in Melbourne Australia this week and Dave runs down the card. Main event is WWA champion Nathan Jones defending against Scott Steiner. Oh yeah, Nathan Jones won the WWA title the other day. Dave probably should have led with that. At a show in Sydney, Jones beat Jeff Jarrett, Steiner, and Brian Christopher in a 4-way to win the belt on a card marred by no-shows (Konnan, Kronik, Road Dogg, Sid Vicious, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero....all advertised, none on the show). The long-term plan had been to build up to Jones (the Australian hometown hero rookie) eventually winning the title but they went ahead and hot-shotted his title win now. Dave doesn't care because given the state of this company, who knows what kind of future they even have, so why bother planning long-term? There's no confidence among the wrestlers and promoter Andrew McManus took a massive hit on the Vegas PPV flop.
- Speaking of McManus and the no-shows, he actually commented on why Eddie Guerrero wasn't there and it's a pretty shitty comment: "Eddie signed, but we decided that the amount WWF came along with would have only caused us problems with him not being happy, as he has a reputation, and the only way WWF took him back after they fired him for his drunken binges was because of us." Dave says his sources dispute this and that Eddie not only never signed to work the show, but they weren't even close to agreeing on terms. Eddie and McManus were still far apart on money and hadn't even verbally agreed to anything yet, much less had anything in writing. Furthermore, WWF's offer to Eddie was by no means a huge offer. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Because of his history, they low-balled him on money and he signed for a pretty meager contract, and he's going to have to prove himself before they invest more in him.
- XWF reportedly has a major meeting scheduled next week and are claiming they will likely be announcing a TV deal in the coming weeks. But they've said this before and it's never happened (and it still doesn't. Once again, this company is already dead but nobody knows it yet).
- There's serious talk in UFC of finally doing the long-awaited Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz fight later this year. This fight has been talked about for so long that Dave doesn't expect it to actually happen but if it does, it would be among the biggest fights in UFC history and their best chance at turning business around right now (I generally shy away from including most MMA news in here, but I only mention this one because this fight does indeed happen later in the year and it's possibly the most pivotal moment in UFC history. The success of that show arguably saved the company at a time when Zuffa was considering throwing in the towel because they had lost so much money. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Ortiz vs. Shamrock at UFC 40 may have literally saved the sport of MMA in the United States).
- Notes from Raw: Dave says it was a very good show. Undertaker cut a promo demanding to know why he wasn't getting a title match. "Maybe because it would have done half the buyrate," Dave jokes. Boom goes the dynamite. Kevin Nash did a promo where he mentioned Danny "The Giant Killer" Padilla, who was a bodybuilder from the 1970s. Dave halfheartedly starts to make fun of Nash for being one of the only people alive who probably remembers who the hell Danny Padilla is before realizing that, oh shit, he's one of those people too. Now Dave is scared for himself. They also did an angle where Flair suspended Nash, which gives Nash time off TV to recover from bicep surgery. This NWO angle is working out like gangbusters. They had an Undertaker/RVD match which Undertaker won (he had to for storyline reasons) but Dave gives Undertaker credit here, because even though he won, Taker busted his ass to get RVD over in defeat. That's not exactly something Undertaker is known for around this time, and Dave isn't letting it go unrecognized. RVD lost but came out of it looking like a star and Dave credits Undertaker for that. Molly Holly vs. Trish Stratus was the best and most intense WWF women's match in months and Dave also gives Trish a ton of credit for how much she's improved in the last 6 months. Heyman and Lesnar finally cut their first introductory promo. Or rather, Heyman did, while Lesnar just stood beside him looking menacing (not much has changed). Speaking of menacing, Brock's body looks like a freakish killer, but he looks so young that Dave doesn't think his face is threatening (yeah Brock was just a baby back then). Then Brock got attacked by the Hardy's (Dave doesn't mention it, but Brock eats one of the most vicious chairshots of all time here). Austin stunned Flair at the end of the show and Dave says Flair has been pushing to turn heel so he (as the authority figure on Raw) can feud with Austin. Basically, just the Austin/McMahon feud, but with Flair in that spot instead of Vince. Dave doesn't like the idea.
- [**WATCH: Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar's first promo together
- 2002**](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ssr80)
- At the WWF New York restaurant in Times Square, they were giving away a ton of "WWF"-labeled stuff, like cups and whatnot, to get rid of them. The restaurant is going to be renamed to simply The World and it's believed this also has to do with the high likelihood that the company is going to have to change it's name because of the Wildlife Fund lawsuit. It's widely expected that we'll soon be calling it WWFE, which is the same name as the company's corporate identity. Anyway, the restaurant has been struggling. Even when they show clips on TV, they have to pull everybody in the building into one spot so that it looks full for television (yeah, this restaurant is about a year from closing).
- There was a recent story comparing how both TNN and USA Network have fared since WWF jumped ship from USA to TNN and the results were surprising. The loss of WWF hurt USA a lot at first, but in the 18 months since that time, USA has increased its overall audience in all the key demographics. So they're still doing just fine. Meanwhile, TNN is learning the same lesson USA learned: wrestling fans only want wrestling. They tune in to watch Raw and then they don't think about TNN again until next Monday. None of those viewers are sticking around or watching any of TNN's other shows so they haven't seen any noticeable increase in ratings for their network outside of gaining Raw. In fact, if you took Raw away, TNN's average ratings are down slightly from what they were pre-WWF.
- Brock Lesnar dropped his agent, Barry Bloom. You may know Bloom's name as the agent who represents a lot of pro wrestlers. In particular, he used to rep a ton of the old WCW guys until that company folded. Anyway, Lesnar has evidently decided he didn't need him anymore (already has an advocate I guess). Needless to say, WWF has been trying to discourage wrestlers from having agents for years, for all the obvious reasons (makes it harder for the company to take advantage of you when you have someone who knows the game watching your back).
- Ever since Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar had their little backstage amateur wrestling match a few weeks back, Angle hasn't said anything else about trying to prepare for the 2004 Olympics. Angle won the Lesnar match but admitted later that it also made him realize he's nowhere near as good now as he was back in 1996. Which is understandable since he hasn't trained at that level in 6 years. But it seems to have him questioning whether he can get back into the condition he would need in order to compete at an Olympic level in 2004.
- Random news and notes: Randy Orton is on the road with Smackdown this week and Dave expects him to debut on TV any day now (yup). Referee Charles Robinson's wife Amy passed away this week after a lengthy cancer battle. Chris Benoit is taking light bumps in the ring again but is still a couple months from returning but he did work as a special referee for a recent OVW match. D-Von Dudley's parents are both church reverends and that's where the "Testify!" catchphrase he uses comes from, and Dave says they're also going to work the reverend thing into his new gimmick.
- X-Pac lashed out against those who say he's only in his main event spot right now because his friends pushed for him to be in the NWO. In a WWF.com interview, he said, "It's a bunch of bullshit. It's a bunch of insecure guys saying a bunch of stuff and they don't know what they're talking about. We're just doing our thing. We always do what's right for business. People can say anything they want, but the past is the past, and what's going on now is what's going on now. And we're all business. You've seen the matches; you've seen the stuff with the Rock and Hogan. I've read where some people say I jumped over the entire talent roster into a top spot. That's a crock too. I've been in this business for 15 years. I've been a main event guy and I was kind of damaged goods for a while, but I took six months off and I'm back, and that's all there is to it. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. A lot of guys think they know what they're doing, and the fact of the matter is, they don't really. They don't know how to draw money. And until they get there, they need to shut up." So anyway, you might not be surprised to hear that Dave has thoughts on this. For starters, he agrees that the matches have obviously been much better since X-Pac started handling the NWO's in-ring workload. That being said, it's impossible to deny that he's in that spot because of his friends. Let's be honest, despite what he says, X-Pac wouldn't be main eventing TVs and house shows every night on his own merits if those guys weren't around. But that's also the reality of the business and sometimes, who you are and what your connections are matter more than whether you "deserve" it or not. In a totally objective world, of course they would put somebody like Edge in that spot, a young up and comer who could use the rub. But it's not a perfect world and X-Pac in the NWO obviously makes more sense than Edge. That's just how it be's sometimes. But the comment about others not knowing how to draw money is the same tired argument every veteran wrestler drags out anytime somebody criticizes them (and that the damn truth), and Dave doesn't waste time dignifying it with a rebuttal.
- Eddie Guerrero also did a WWF.com interview and talked candidly about his issues. He admitted that his car accident on New Year's Eve 1998 was the result of driving under the influence of GHB. He fell asleep at the wheel and I guess put weight on the gas pedal. The car got up to 130 MPH before flipping and throwing him from the car. Eddie suffered a bunch of life-threatening injuries that kept him out of action for months. That led to an addiction to painkillers (after swearing he would never use them after Art Barr's death). He says his DUI arrest and firing back in November of last year was his rock bottom. After his firing, he was nearly broke and his wife Vickie filed for divorce. He realized he had to get clean and he did and said he's been clean since that night. Every wrestler with past drug issues always claims they're clean now and they're usually lying, but for what it's worth, Dave says for the last 6 months, Eddie has gained an incredible reputation for busting his ass on these indie shows he's been working, showing up on time, in shape, and clear-headed and doing everything he's been asked and working harder than everyone else on the card. It's that reputation that led to WWF taking a chance on bringing him back only 6 months after firing him.
- WWF has signed several new names to developmental contracts: Kevin Fertig, Matt Morgan, and Travis Tomko. Expect them all in OVW in the coming months.