May 20, 2002
- We have more details on last week's "plane ride from hell." Obviously, that whole trip ended up being Scott Hall's last chance and he was fired, as mentioned last week. Well, Curt Hennig has now joined Hall in the unemployment line, stemming from his behavior on the flight. Hennig had already been acting out during the flight when he was spraying people with shaving cream, but that would have been fine. What got him in trouble was that he goaded Brock Lesnar into a tussle. Lesnar finally agreed and repeatedly kept pinning Hennig down in the aisle of the plane. Every time he'd let him up, Hennig kept trying to start more shit, and people eventually had to calm Lesnar down and tell him it wasn't worth it. But in the midst of one of their skirmishes, they slammed up against the emergency exit door of the plane. Mid-flight. Needless to say, that scared the shit out of everybody and since Hennig started it, he was made the scapegoat and was fired.
- Arn Anderson and Michael Hayes also have a ton of heat since they were supposed to be in charge and they let things get out of control. Even Steve Austin chewed Michael Hayes out about it, feeling he acted unprofessionally. Jim Ross and Vince both gave Anderson and Hayes an earful about it at Raw the next day. According to the stories Dave heard, Hayes passed out (or was knocked out, depending on who you ask) after he and Bradshaw got into a fight during the flight. They definitely had a scuffle and everyone agrees Bradshaw got the better of it. Needless to say, for wrestlers and management to be having literal fist-fights with each other isn't a good look. Especially since everyone also agreed that Bradshaw was in the right and Hayes started it. It doesn't appear Bradshaw will be punished at all. Anyway, afterwards is when X-Pac cut Hayes' mullet off and Dave says that the fact that X-Pac isn't even getting in trouble for it shows just how much heat Hayes has, with most of the company feeling like he deserved it.
- Other Plane Ride from Hell notes: Jim Ross has talked about no longer allowing alcohol on chartered WWE flights following this incident. Goldust hasn't been fired yet but he's still in hot water for his behavior on the flight also, when he got drunk and starting singing to a very uncomfortable Terri Runnels over the plane's intercom. And then there's Ric Flair, who Dave says was basically being typical party-boy Ric Flair. "It isn't above him to get almost naked on a non-commercial flight," Dave adds. Well okay then. Dave appears to be unaware at this point of the sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations that Flair would get sued for 2 years later stemming from this. Anyway, Dave says Flair was causing a scene and getting attention, but he's been doing shit like that for years and when J.R. told him to stop, he did.
- And one final note: Scott Hall is telling people he's considering filing a wrongful termination lawsuit but Dave thinks that would get laughed out of court considering his track record and all the witnesses to his behavior. During the month of April alone, Hall showed up to at least 4 house shows drunk out of his mind and was also drinking heavily during the European tour, at one point passing out backstage during the show. Hall also admitted to drinking during the day before the recent PPV and Raw the next night, although he said he wasn't drunk during the actual shows (though he did fall asleep backstage at both). Dave can't verify this yet, but a recent news story in Cleveland that Hall was interviewed for noted that he had been arrested 16 times over about a 1-year period.
- Jeff and Jerry Jarrett's new promotion will be called NWA: Total Nonstop Action. Jeff and Jerry will be President and Chairman respectively, with Bob Ryder, Jay Hassman, and Keith Mitchell in top roles. Jeremy Borash is also involved in some capacity. The idea is to tape shows every other week on Wednesday nights, with 4-hour tapings, with the first show airing live on PPV and the other 2 hours being filmed for the next week's show. And then try to sell it weekly on PPV for $9.95. They've had talks with several potential investors and major corporations in search of funding and sponsorships. Dave doesn't see how this can work and he says everyone he's talked to, including people within this new company, also don't see how it can work. According to sources, they'll need to pull in between 40-50k buys per week just to break even. In order to do that, they would need to create a super hot new star and come out of the gate with an incredible product. Dave is skeptical. Half the people involved with this company aren't signed to contracts and the few who are only signed short-term deals (no more than 3 months). So even if they create a hot new star, WWE is just going to come along and snatch them up. And even if they do manage to get those 50k buys per week, PPV revenue is notoriously slow to come in. It could be 3-6 months before that PPV money hits their bank account, all the while they'll be burning a quarter million per week to produce TV. It's just not sustainable. He goes on to explain half a dozen other reasons why the deck is stacked against them drawing those kinds of numbers on PPV. With enough hype, they may draw a good first week audience, but it'll be all downhill after that. WWA's attempts at PPV in the U.S. have been a failure. Same for PRIDE. Even UFC, with all the promotion and money behind it, struggles to hit 50k buys for most of their shows. With national TV and some of the biggest stars in the business, even WCW was struggling to get that many buys during the dying days. Trying to do it on word-of-mouth and internet hype alone, without television, is going to be a near impossible mountain to climb.
- The biggest names in the new TNA are expected to be Jarrett, of course, along with AJ Styles, Road Dogg, Disco Inferno, The Harris Twins, Brian Christopher, Shane Douglas, and Konnan. Dave expects Jarrett to end up with the NWA title immediately. AJ Styles is expected to get a big push, as they want to build around him as a new, unknown star. And finally, Ken Shamrock signed a 26-show (3 month, basically) contract with this promotion, and they're going to let him continue to pursue MMA outside of his wrestling commitments. Most everyone will be paid $500-$1,500 per show, although some of the bigger names will of course make more. So needless to say, this isn't going to be something that most of these guys can support their families on. Dave thinks they need to find a home-base arena and run all their shows from one location rather than trying to tour. Selling tickets is going to be difficult enough as it is without trying to promote in a new city every time. They need to get a small building they can pack with a few hundred regular, rabid fans every week to create an atmosphere, like Paul Heyman did with the ECW Arena.
- It also looks to have a southern feel, with plans to cross-promote in that direction. NASCAR driver Sterling Martin and country singer Toby Keith are appearing at the first show. Savio Vega is doing Spanish commentary. Dory Funk and Harly Race are listed on the talent roster for some reason. Last week's report that Scott Hudson will be involved was premature, he hasn't signed yet. Ed Ferrara is said to be doing color commentary as part of a 3-man booth but Dave doesn't know who else is going to be doing it. As of this point, Vince Russo is still NOT officially involved. But, ya know. Jeremy Borash was on the Observer Live show and said that it won't be like traditional pro wrestling. It needs to be fast paced (Dave reads that as "short matches") and will heavily feature outside-of-the-ring promos and vignettes. They also plan to lean heavily into shock value and "water cooler talk" moments. Dave says this is clearly the Vince Russo philosophy of booking at work and one only need look at WCW to see how easily and quickly that can go south.
- Dave reviews the latest UFC show. Great fights but nothing else notable, no one stood out as a star, and Dave thinks UFC's biggest problem right now is its failure to create and market new stars. UFC is so determined to be seen as a legitimate sport that they're shying away from any elements of marketing that might make people view them in a similar light as pro wrestling. But that's the one thing pro wrestling does better than anybody: creates stars. PRIDE is so successful in Japan because they steer into the spectacle rather than shying away from it. Great fights are fine, but there's great boxing matches with no-name boxers all the time and nobody cares because they aren't stars. UFC has to create superstars if they want people to care. Otherwise, PPV buyrates will continue to suck and no one will care if they ever get a TV show. Anyway, Dave reviews the show. There was no mention of the 2 biggest stories in UFC right now: heavyweight champion Josh Barnett failing a steroid test and light heavyweight champ Jens Pulver leaving the company. Neither situation was even hinted to during the broadcast, and as of yet, Barnett has still not been stripped of the UFC title, so who knows.
- Dave finally got a copy of the edited television version of NJPW's recent Tokyo Dome show so he can properly review it. "As usual, New Japan seems to have no idea where they are going," he starts out and boy, ain't that the truth in 2002. Inoki and Chono were doing the Vince/Flair storyline where they're fighting for control of the company and they did a show-long storyline of them backstage together watching the show on the monitors and arguing about things, total WWE-style. Hashimoto/Ogawa vs. Scott Norton/Tenzan was way better than Dave expected it to be, and the crowd was super hot for Ogawa. More importantly, Dave is shocked that Scott Norton was involved in a good match. Bas Rutten from PRIDE worked a match, beating Manabu Nakanishi. Don Frye from PRIDE also beat Tadao Yasuda. In fact, the Ogawa/Hashimoto match was a Zero-ONE vs. NJPW match. So for those keeping count, the first 3 matches were inter-promotional matches and NJPW lost all of them. On their own show. In the Tokyo Dome. And then the Steiner Brothers beat Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki, so that's 4 straight matches where NJPW wrestlers are losing to people from other companies or even fighters from other sports. (Anyone else starting to see how Inokiism almost killed this damn company?) Anyway, Chyna was the referee for the Steiners tag match and she kept getting in the way and taking bumps that she would just no-sell and wouldn't back down from any of the male wrestlers. Tanahashi (who was injured) basically had to carry the whole match for all the wrestlers and Chyna, so he was doing the work of 5 people to make this watchable and even then, the match was pretty bad. Scott Steiner in particular was awful and he nearly killed Tanahashi when he almost dropped him while hitting the Steiner driver. After the match, Chyna beat up a male NJPW referee and press slammed him. Also during the show, Chyna cut a promo and began challenging.....well, everybody....to matches. She challenged half a dozen different NJPW male wrestlers and even challenged Nagata to an IWGP title match, but in the middle of her promo, the televised show cut away to commercial. And finally, Nagata retained the title in a really good match against NOAH's Takayama, which is the only match a NJPW wrestler won on this entire show.
- Last week, in the War & Peace-length obituary Dave wrote for Lou Thesz, he shared a story from 1957 about Thesz and the NWA title. Well this week, he has more details and some corrections on that story from way back in 1957. Because Dave Meltzer will leave no stone un-turned when it comes to making sure a story is historically accurate. Anyway, the gist of the story is Thesz wanted to go defend the title overseas in Australia, Singapore, and Japan. But the NWA didn't want the champion out of the country for that long because they had promoters in the U.S. who were wanting to book title matches in their territories. So the idea was Thesz would "lose" the title in the U.S. in controversial fashion, which would allow him to go overseas and claim he's still the rightful champion, while the other champion could still defend it in the U.S. It was agreed Thesz would drop the belt to Édouard Carpentier. Anyway, long story short, all the different promoters couldn't agree on a bunch of political stuff, as promoters tend to do, arguments over who should have the belt, people losing money because you had to put up a bond for the belt, and blah blah blah. A bunch of drama. TL;DR: Thesz went overseas as champion and the U.S. ended up not having anyone as NWA champ while he was gone, which is exactly what they were trying to avoid, but, ya know, rasslin' politics. It led to promoters quitting the NWA, starting their own organizations, and a bunch of fun shit like that. There's a lot more details here, but c'mon man...
- Antonio Inoki was interviewed in the Japanese version of Playboy magazine and was pushed to give his thoughts on the recent NJPW Tokyo Dome show. Inoki said he thought the Steiners vs. Tanahashi/Sasaki match wasn't good and made sure to note that he wasn't blaming the Steiners. Yeah, that damn Tanahashi, he sucks, he'll never amount to shit! Anyway, Inoki felt Yuji Nagata's IWGP title defense was a perfect match and should have headlined the show. When he was asked about the Chono vs. Misawa match that did headline, Inoki refused to comment on it, saying he disagreed with the match happening and that he had refused to watch it (Inoki will take his AJPW—and by proxy, NOAH—grudge to the grave). When the interviewer pointed out that the Chono/Misawa match is what drew the crowd, Inoki refused to acknowledge it and said he would have rather seen Chono vs. Chyna instead. This prompts Dave to say that Inoki has completely lost his mind (I can't wait for a few more months to see Dave's reaction when we actually do get that match).
- Now that Goldberg is a free agent, needless to say, he's fielding offers. Dave doesn't have much new to report other than about a week ago, Goldberg was steadfastly against going to WWE. But as of this week, he's now said to be "considering" it. So there ya go. Breaking news: a person is thinking about a thing.
- So remember how Jacques Rougeau was going to run an indie show at the Molson Center arena in Montreal, featuring an appearance by Bret Hart? And when WWE found out, they threw a bunch of money at the arena and bought themselves an exclusivity deal in order to block the show? Anyway, everyone figured Jacques was now going to have to go find himself a smaller arena. But no. He's decided to find himself a bigger one! Rougeau has booked the 26,000-seat du Maurier Stadium, formerly the home of the Montreal Expos. Bret Hart is still scheduled to appear, his first time in Montreal since the screwjob. Gonna be interesting to see how Rougeau pulls this one off.
- Antonio Inoki and Chyna appeared together on the "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" this week. The hosts treated Inoki like a big deal and showed highlights of him wrestling guys like Hogan, Flair, Sting, and his bout with Muhammad Ali. They also showed a clip of Chyna from the recent Tokyo Dome show and talked about how Chyna was the first woman to appear in a NJPW ring in 30 years. Dave points out how not-true that is, to the point that there was actually a women's tag team match on this same card that arguably stole the show. (if you google this, you can find a video of Chyna on that show, but it's not the same one. This one happened in May and I can't find it. The one on Youtube is a follow up episode they did in November. We'll get to that one eventually.)
- Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch no-showed their second event in a row for Top Rope Championship Wrestling in Winnipeg (fun fact about that promotion, at this time in 2002, a young 19-year-old rookie named Kenny Omega was just starting his career there). Anyway, last week Candido and Sytch missed the show after claiming their driver picked them up late and then got into an accident on the way to the show. This week, Sytch left "a rambling, incoherent message" on the promoter's voicemail, claiming they just moved into a new house and somehow that caused them to miss their flight. And they never returned phone calls to the promoter and he couldn't get ahold of them or made up excuses why they couldn't talk at the moment. The promoter has since removed them from their website and vowed to never use them again after their multiple no-shows cost him hundreds of dollars in non-refundable plane tickets, among all the other reasons you wouldn't want to keep promoting no-showing talent.
- WWA canceled its upcoming tour of Europe that was scheduled to begin next week. After WWE's recent tour there, WWA ticket sales didn't have a chance. Now that the European fans got their fix of major league wrestling, they ain't interested in this WWA nonsense. WWA is saying the tour has been rescheduled for December but that's not good because WWE is returning just before then also (WWA won't be alive by December so it doesn't matter). The WWA show in Manchester had only sold 600 tickets to a 12,000-seat arena at the time it was canceled. Sid Vicious (the WWA on-screen commissioner) had already pulled out of the tour due to a disagreement with promoter Andrew McManus. Sabu had pulled out in favor of a tour in Japan and several other wrestlers like AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels weren't going to be available either. Jeff Jarrett had also decided not to go, since he's focused on starting up this new NWA-TNA company. Scott Steiner pulled out, saying he's going to WWE (not yet buddy) and there ya go. WWA had talks with Goldberg and Chyna about coming in for the tour, but both conversations went nowhere (put this company out of its misery already).
- There's a new documentary called "The Specimen" on the life and career of MMA fighter Mark Kerr that is playing on the film festival circuit. Dave hasn't seen it, but he hears it's good and it talks about Kerr's drug issues candidly (I only mention this because it was later renamed "The Smashing Machine" and on one of the recent WOR podcasts, Dave talked at length about this documentary just a few weeks ago).
- Regarding plans for Goldberg to jump into shoot-fighting, publicly he's saying he's interested, but those close to him say he's not really. Mostly just a way to drum up his asking price for everyone pursuing him, it seems. Goldberg is interested in it, but he also seems to be realistic about it and realizes his chances in MMA wouldn't be good. He has been training in it casually for years, but to start seriously pursuing it so late in the game wouldn't go well for him (side-eyes Punk). In a recent interview, former UFC fighter Tank Abbott talked about Goldberg's chances and said Goldberg is a great guy, but he should steer clear of MMA because every fighter in PRIDE would mop the floor with him.
- Kurt Angle told a Pittsburgh TV station during an interview that he is indeed planning to go back into amateur wrestling and train for the 2004 Olympics. His plan is to continue his WWE schedule until the end of this year and then, starting in December, he will take the next year and a half or so to dedicate himself full time to training, and then return after the Olympics, hopefully with another gold medal in tow. While he is out, WWE is expected to pay him his downside guarantee. Angle's also expecting his first child in December and Dave suspects the timing of Angle wanting to come off the road isn't a coincidence. If this really happens, it will be a big blow to WWE because they're about to lose Rock to Hollywood, Triple H clearly isn't the same wrestler he was before his injury, and Austin and Undertaker are banged up and not getting younger. Losing Angle going into 2003 would hurt.
- Some WWE shows are getting name changes. The WWE Attitude show that airs on WB which nobody watches is going to be renamed Bottom Line. Meanwhile, the 2-hour late night Excess show is being changed to two different shows. The first hour will be called Velocity while the second hour will be called Confidential and be sort of a magazine-style show. And finally, Metal/Jakked is being renamed Afterburn. (Fun fact: 18 years later, both Bottom Line and Afterburn still exist! WWE still airs those shows, under those names, in multiple other countries outside the US).
- In a correction from last week, WWE still has several months to sell off any "WWF"-branded merchandise that had already been produced. But when the current batch of magazines, t-shirts, tapes, etc. featuring the WWF logo is gone, that's it. The company is no longer allowed to market or produce any new material using the WWF initials from this point forward. On house shows this week, ring aprons and turnbuckles still had the WWF logo but Dave suspects that's due to the name change happening so suddenly that a lot of this stuff still has to be manufactured.
- Jazz suffered a torn ACL this week and will need surgery, which is why they had her drop the women's title back to Trish Stratus on Raw this week. She's had a bad knee for years but finally suffered a full tear of the ACL during the UK PPV last week. (She ends up returning in January 2003).
- Notes from Raw: Dave doesn't outright say that this felt like bad episode of Nitro, he just points out a bunch of things that make the point for him: Hogan and Flair being the focal points. Bad booking. Promised surprises that didn't deliver. Stupid angles with the wrong kind of crowd heat. And "the sign police out in full force" confiscating signs left and right, something they used to mock WCW for, which shows that WWE is scared of the beginnings of the backlash that is forming around some of their top babyfaces. Anyway, what else? Hardyz beat Lesnar in a handicap match by DQ. Lesnar sold too much and looked green as hell. Heyman pulled out the referee before the pinfall, which resulted in a DQ. And in normal cases, that should be a DQ. But Dave says there's been a dozen times in the last few months where people have pulled the ref out of the ring and it wasn't a DQ, so this felt dumb. Lesnar ended up getting beat down after the match by the Hardyz and the rumor is that was Lesnar's punishment for his role in the Curt Hennig airplane scuffle. They explained Scott Hall's disappearance by saying Flair fired him for not beating Austin. Flair also said Nash wasn't really suspended (as was storyline) but he's actually home with a torn bicep (which is true). So just a total pivot on the storyline and now we're going with real life explanations. Dave says this is about the time during past episodes of Nitro where he started getting headaches. Then they teased more members of the NWO. Yup, it's Nitro alright. After Eddie Guerrero (the heel) got a clean win, RVD (the babyface) ran out and attacked him. Then Guerrero (again, the heel) challenged RVD to fight him right then and there and RVD (again, the babyface) walked away instead. I just heard Bryan Alvarez's head explode from here. They introduced Tommy Dreamer again, doing gross stuff like drinking urinal water and sharing toothbrushes with his dog because sure, why not, that's a gimmick I guess. Hogan beat Flair to retain the title. Great heat and probably Hogan's best in-ring match since his return but it still wasn't great. As mentioned, Jazz (in a knee brace to the point she could barely move) dropped the women's title to Trish in a mixed tag match. And then Undertaker tied Hogan to his motorcycle and dragged him all over the arena backstage, which was way funnier than it was intended and probably not what they were going for when they're trying to push this as a serious world title feud. And finally, Booker T was revealed as the new NWO member and boy, did the crowd go mild for that one. What a fart in church this episode was.
- Random notes: Horace Hogan has been signed to a WWE developmental deal and sent down to OVW. WWA star Nathan Jones is trying to get his legal issues cleared up so he can get a work visa to work in the U.S., at which point Dave expects WWE to jump on him as quick as they can (which would be another huge blow to WWA). In a recent interview, Jim Ross was asked about the biggest disappointment in WWE and said Big Show because of his failure to get his weight under control.
- Leviathan from OVW debuted on Smackdown as Deacon Batista, sidekick to Brother D-Von's new preacher gimmick. Dave thinks this gimmick is death for both of them. He also thinks adding Leviathan must have been a last-minute decision because as of this week, he's still a major part of OVW booking and is scheduled to headline their next big show against Prototype for the OVW title. (Wouldn't be the last time Vince fucked up Cornette's booking by calling up developmental stars on a whim at the spur of the moment).
- There's a terrible criminal case in Florida where a 17-year-old allegedly shoved a 5-year-old into a canal and laughed at him while the kid drowned. One of the lawyers in the case is wanting to subpoena The Rock because they say the two kids (and a couple of other kids) were talking about wrestling before the incident occurred and doing wrestling moves on each other, so somehow they're arguing that that's relevant. Dave thinks this is a pretty big stretch.
- Jim Ross was on the Opie & Anthony radio show and talked about Scott Steiner, saying they haven't gotten enough medical information to determine whether they want to sign him. As noted in the past, Steiner has a laundry list of injuries and lingering issues that make it hard for WWE to clear him. Steiner only wrestled 3 shows on the previous WWA tour and was said to be in terrible shape after the tour. By the 3rd show, he could barely go out to the ring for his match due to back pain, and people in WWA think there's no way Steiner can hold up to the WWE schedule.
- Rey Mysterio has officially signed with WWE. No start date yet, he's going to HWA first to spend a few weeks getting used to the WWE style and working out. Word is Mysterio will likely return with his mask (he lost it in WCW a few years ago and has been wrestling without it ever since) because they see merchandising opportunities with it.
- WWE has been confiscating tons of signs at TV tapings lately, mostly regarding Hulk Hogan. Many of them referred to his age. Dave has gotten dozens of emails about this from fans who had signs confiscated. WWE recognizes that the Hogan backlash has begun and they're trying to keep it from gaining any momentum.