May 27, 2002
- We open with the death of Davey Boy Smith, who passed away while on vacation in Fairmont, BC this week. Autopsy reports are pending but the cause of death is believed to be a heart attack stemming from a drug overdose. Smith was no longer a member of the Hart family, as he had divorced Diana Hart and was now dating Bruce Hart's ex-wife Andrea (whom he was on vacation with when he died). But he was still considered by many of the Harts to be part of the family and Dave says the Hart family tragedies are similar to the seemingly-cursed Von Erichs. Details are sketchy, but word Dave has is that Smith likely suffered a heart attack in his sleep and choked to death on his own vomit, similar to the way Louie Spicolli passed away. Dave talks about Smith's past drug issues, including a crippling morphine addiction that landed him in rehab on several occasions and led to multiple overdoses and caused his in-ring career to fizzle out in recent years after WWE released him. Dave recaps Smith's career, starting with the British Bulldogs tag team with Dynamite Kid, marrying into the Hart family, working in Japan, returning to WWF, falling out with Dynamite, the Summerslam 92 match with Bret Hart at Wembley Stadium, big singles run and star in Europe, his steroid use, his WCW run, the Hart Foundation, leaving after the Screwjob, WCW again, the crippling back injury he suffered there, WWF again, drug issues, body breaking down, and his life pretty much spiraling out of control the last few years with drugs, drama, and arrests and finally, this. Despite all the huge contracts he signed during his career, Smith was nearly broke at the time of his death. His final matches were for Top Rope Championship Wrestling, teaming with his 16-year-old son Harry on some of their indie shows. Smith's death was mainstream news in both Canada and the UK, though it wasn't as big a story in the U.S. On Raw, they did open the show with a nice tribute to him. There are rumors floating around now that Smith was returning to WWE soon. Dave says it's a nice story and there's no reason for WWE to deny it now, so they won't. But given the state he was in and all his recent issues, there was zero chance he was going to be rehired anytime soon.
- Judgment Day, the first PPV of the "WWE" era is in the books, and saw Undertaker win the WWE title from Hulk Hogan, which was pretty much the plan from the moment Hogan beat Triple H for it a month ago. Despite huge pops in most arenas, Hogan's month-reign as champion saw TV ratings continue to fall and business continue to plummet, though Dave says most of the blame for that is on the company, not Hogan. Hogan hasn't been the one writing shitty TV for a year. Edge vs. Kurt Angle in the hair vs. hair match was the highlight of the show, for the second PPV in a row, and probably the best WWE match of the year so far and Dave gives Angle a ton of credit for elevating Edge and helping get him over as a top star here and says it's the best star-making job since Triple H and Mick Foley feuded several years ago, in which Foley basically busted his ass to make Triple H. And speaking of, Triple H vs. Jericho in the Hell in a Cell was very good but people are so used to crazy shit like Mick Foley falling from the roof that it's hard to live up to the expectations people have for that match now.
- Other notes from the PPV: for the second time in as one week, WWE promised a huge surprise, only to reveal a letdown when Rikishi's heavily hyped mystery tag partner against Billy and Chuck ended up being...Rico. These days, when you tease a big surprise, fans are expecting a debuting Goldberg or Steiner or a returning Shawn Michaels or something. There's too many big names and free agents floating around out there to have Rico be your big mystery reveal. RVD vs. Eddie Guerrero was fine, but disappointing and Dave thinks RVD's window to break through to the top of the card is rapidly closing after he was so hot just a few months ago. Trish vs. Stacy was just background for a D-Von vs. Bubba Ray feud and Dave thinks its way too early for inter-brand matches. At one point, Deacon Batista bodyslammed Trish for Stacy to cover, but Trish kicked out, which doesn't exactly make Batista look like the monster they're pushing him as. Then Bubba Ray fought both of them off, again making Batista look pretty weak. Loud "Goldberg" chants during the Lesnar match. During the Triple H/Jericho HIAC match, Dave talks about referee Tim White taking the best bump of the match, off the apron into the cage (he doesn't seem to be aware yet that the bump was legit and it fucked up White's shoulder so bad that he ended up having to retire as a referee, which led to the Lunchtime Suicides, but that's another story for another day). And finally, Undertaker/Hogan was as awful as you'd expect and Dave says you have to go back years to find a WWF PPV main event match this bad.
- Former FMW president Shoichi Arai was found dead at a park in Tokyo from an apparent suicide at age 36. He had hung himself with a necktie. Arai had gotten into deep financial trouble over the last year or so in an effort to keep FMW afloat and he owed money to countless people (Dave doesn't appear to know yet, but the primary portion of that debt was to the Yakuza and this suicide attempt was an effort to protect his family, so they could use the life insurance money to pay off his debts. It still wasn't enough, and his family ended up spending years paying off the remaining balance). When FMW started bouncing checks, Arai went into hiding and hasn't been seen much lately. Arai was working on a book about the business that he hoped to publish in order to pay off some debts (the book later came out, you can find English translations online with a quick google). Arai's wife had also recently left him and taken the children. A suicide note, postmarked the day before, was found by police. Dave recaps Arai's history in the business, leading up to him taking over FMW from Atsushi Onita in 1995 but the company floundered when Onita left in 1998 and was doomed when Hayabusa got paralyzed last year. Although he wanted to, FMW and Arai was unable to pay Hayabusa's hospital bills due to the company's mounting debt, leaving Hayabusa on the hook for all the medical costs of his career ending injury.
- Obituary for George Gordienko, a Winnipeg (you idiot!) wrestler from the 1940s-70s who died at age 74. I've literally never heard of this dude, but of course, Dave knows his whole damn life story and career history. HOW?! Anyway, this dude was regarded as one of the toughest guys in wrestling history, with even legendary tough guys like Lou Thesz, Stu Hart, and Verne Gagne respecting that you don't fuck with Gordienko. He could have been one of the top stars in the history of wrestling, but while attending college at the University of Minnesota during the height of the Cold War, he was arrested for handing out pro-communism pamphlets and was deported back to his native Canada, never allowed to return to the U.S. again. He spent the majority of his career wrestling everywhere else in the world, especially Canada and Europe, but it crippled his ability to become a true top star in the industry. He later distanced himself from Communism, saying he just made some friends who were involved so he dabbled in it a bit but never really was that political in general. Thesz wanted to drop the NWA title to Gordienko in 1956 but even Sam Muchnick's political connections couldn't get him back in the country so it never happened (and Dave doubts they would have put the title on someone with the "communist" stigma surrounding him anyway).
- Raw this week was the lowest rated non-holiday episode of the show in more than 4 years, dating back to March of 1998. The total audience from the peak of the Monday Night Wars 3 years ago has dropped a full 61% since then. That's insane when you look at it like that. WCW died, WWE's product kinda turned to shit, and almost 2/3 of the wrestling fans that watched in 1999 no longer watch. Staggering to see how far the business collapsed in such a short time from the heights it was at.
- There's rumors that Dory Funk Jr. is heading to WWC to do a program with Carlos Colon. This leads Dave to mention that, of all the wrestlers who claimed they would never go back to that promotion after Bruiser Brody was murdered, Dory lasted the longest. Well, except Stan Hansen, who stuck to his word and never went back. But otherwise, all the other people who claimed they'd never work there again ended up returning eventually and now it looks like Dory, the final holdout, is going to do the same (he does, but not here. This doesn't happen yet. But eventually, in 2005, Dory does indeed return to WWC to work some matches with Colon).
- There is still interest in Japan in getting AJPW back on television before the end of the year. And if Riki Choshu ends up going here (after his recent departure from NJPW), it would make for an even stronger package for the TV networks. The company is currently in talks with Fuji Network there about starting on their network after the baseball season ends.
- There's lots of talk that Motoko Baba will retire from AJPW and leave it in Keiji Muto's hands following the 30th anniversary show later this year. Ever since Great Baba died, there has been talks that she was hoping to keep the company alive through the 30th year anniversary and then she might step down (yup, this is pretty much what happens. We'll get there).
- There's talk of doing a Chyna vs. women's wrestler Shinobu Kandori match at the October NJPW Tokyo Dome show. Dave is skeptical because a big issue Chyna had in WWF was that she didn't want to wrestle women anymore, only men. When WWA recently made her an offer, Chyna said under no circumstances would she wrestle for them for any price, presumably against women, so that deal fell apart. So it'll be interesting if Chyna will face Kandori. (Nope. She sticks to her guns. Only wants to face men, so she ends up facing Masa Chono on that show. But we'll get there).
- Toru Yano, a former amateur wrestling champion, made his NJPW debut, losing in the opening match. Yano is 24 and is a highly decorated amateur wrestler including winning the Japanese collegiate national championships, which is Japan's equivalent to the NCAA championship Brock Lesnar won in America. Dave lists several other championships he's won. Because, obviously, Yano was already the true ace long before he came to NJPW.
- Dave has seen the tape of the Chono vs. Misawa dream match from the recent Tokyo Dome show and.....eh. Misawa was clearly the crowd favorite, which was a surprise given that it's a NJPW show, but Misawa drew the crowd. Match went to a 30 minute draw and Dave thinks it was a disappointment, only giving it 2.25 stars. These two guys just aren't capable of having classic 30-minute long singles matches anymore with their shape their bodies are in and all the injuries they've had over the years.
- Former ECW wrestler Big Dick Dudley passed away this week at age 34 from apparent kidney failure. Dave acknowledges that this newsletter is becoming almost nothing but obituaries lately, which is probably a sign that something is wrong in this business. Anyway, Dave recaps his brief career and notes that XPW had a big tribute to him on their TV show.
- We get another obit for a Crockett-era jobber from the 80s named Ben Alexander, dead from a stroke at 51. The obits keep coming. Are we done yet? Nope....
- One last obituary for Eric Kulas, better known as Mass Transit, who was involved in one of the ugliest incidents in modern wrestling history at an ECW show in 1996 with the Mass Transit Incident. Kulas passed away at age 22, cause of death still TBD, but he's been in poor health for awhile. Dave recaps the Mass Transit incident, in which a 17-year-old Kulas lied about his age, got onto an ECW show, and got butchered by New Jack. After the incident, Kulas and his family filed criminal charges against New Jack, but lost. So then they filed a civil suit against New Jack, Paul Heyman, ECW, and several other defendants. Those all got dismissed except for the civil suit against New Jack, which is still pending but probably not going to go anywhere now that Kulas is dead. Following what happened, Kulas swore he was done with wrestling, but he ended up using his notoriety to work a handful of indie matches in later years.
- As reported before, NWA-TNA has had talks with former WCW announcer Scott Hudson, as well as Mike Tenay, about being lead commentators for the new promotion. They're also looking to use a guy named "Dan West" (close enough), who is a former Home Shopping Network host who has something of a cult following as a good hard-sell guy. Eric Bischoff had interest in bringing in West back when it looked like the Fusient/WCW deal was going to happen.
- Vince Russo is definitely involved with this new promotion. Dave doesn't know how official it is, or what capacity, but as of a few days ago, Russo was definitely involved in creative and pitching ideas. Jeff Jarrett was recently interviewed by Dave and Bryan on the Observer Live show and continued to claim Russo isn't involved due to his ongoing lawsuit with Time Warner over the Hogan/Bash at the Beach 2000 incident. But Dave isn't buying it and has it on good authority that Russo is absolutely involved in some way (proven true soon after).
- Speaking of, tickets for NWA-TNA's first show in Huntsville are moving extremely slowly. As of press time (about 3 weeks before the show), less than 300 tickets have been sold and there are still front row ringside seats available. Not a great sign.
- UK boxing promoter Frank Warren made some comments about how UFC fighters wouldn't last 5 minutes with any trained boxer. Dana White responded, telling Warren to put anyone in his stable, including WBO champion Joe Calzaghe or Ricky Hatton to accept the challenge and Dana will take a UFC fighter of the same weight and put them against each other. I mean, yeah, Dana's clearly right here. Boxing and MMA are two wildly different skill-sets and in a boxing match or an MMA fight, the advantage is going to go to the person more comfortable fighting under those rules. But if you take a boxer and a UFC fighter and just put them in a pit with no rules and say fight to the death, that boxer is getting murdered.
- WWE is trying to set up a meeting with Vince McMahon and Goldberg in an attempt to hammer out a deal. WWE asked for the meeting but as of yet, Goldberg hasn't accepted. He realizes he's kinda in the driver's seat here, because they need him way more than he needs them. WWE officials have been calling Goldberg on a pretty much daily basis and he's playing hard to get. He was invited to attend a TV taping nearby but he declined. He asked that Vince comes to him in Atlanta to negotiate a deal rather than he go to Vince in Connecticut. So that's the kind of mind games they're all playing here. Those close to Goldberg say he's still more interested in working with PRIDE and NJPW than he is WWE. That being said, Dave talks to a lot of people in the MMA world and nobody is taking the Goldberg/PRIDE rumors seriously because everyone recognizes how badly that would go for him and no one believes he's dumb enough to actually do it.
- Kevin Nash and X-Pac threw a fit at Raw last week about what the NWO was scripted to do. Vince wasn't there for the show (he was directing the pre-taped Austin/Guerrero angle on-location away from the arena) and they didn't like what was booked for them. Nash reportedly threw a tantrum about it and managed to get the script changed. The original script called for X-Pac to lose twice in different tag matches on the show featuring the NWO but that ended up being scrapped at Nash's demand. Nash hasn't been happy for several weeks. Remember a few weeks ago when Nash returned to TV after being out injured and they showed him getting out of a limo backstage and then.....nothing else? He was supposed to come out later in that show and cut a promo and they ended up scrapping it due to time constraints, meaning Nash flew to whatever city they were in and showed up to Raw for pretty much no reason, only to be shown for 10 seconds getting out of a car. So he was pissed about that. And last week, he was already at the airport checking his bags when he got a call saying he wouldn't be used and was sent back home. (I mean, to be fair to Nash, in a world where the travel is so grueling and takes up so much of your time, that kinda shit is pretty inexcusable. I'd be pissed too). And even though everyone, even Nash, recognizes that firing Scott Hall was the right move, Nash wasn't happy about how they explained it on TV. The NWO is supposed to be portrayed as some kind of outsider group that doesn't obey the rules, so for Flair to have the authority to just fire him in kayfabe doesn't make any sense. Again, kinda hard to fault Nash here. He's right.
- Notes from Raw: Dave calls it another show in WWE's attempt to become WCW as fast as they possibly can. He says they're making all the same mistakes. The show opened with a great Undertaker/RVD angle, but Dave says that was pretty much the peak. It was all downhill from there. After just starting the angle last week, Molly Holly and Regal are already an on-screen couple and Dave complains that they skipped about a million storytelling steps in the middle in getting to that point. Just lazy writing. Tommy Dreamer was at a barber shop eating hair. X-Pac, Booker T, and Big Show argued over who the leader of the NWO is. They did an angle where Flair ordered Austin home for the night and with the assurance that Austin was done for the night, ratings immediately plummeted for the rest of the show. But even though he was done for the live crowd, they filmed several segments of Austin and Eddie Guerrero in a bar that ultimately led to a brawl. Dave doesn't know why they insist on taking guys with known alcohol issues (Hall and now Guerrero) and putting them in angles involving alcohol. Is it some kind of shitty test or something? Anyway, Guerrero smashed a beer bottle on Austin's head and it led to a whole big thing. And finally, Undertaker beat RVD in a bad match to close the show and Dave says RVD's in-ring work is looking worse and worse lately.
- Notes from Smackdown: they opened with Edge confronting Triple H, which later led to a tag team match. Dave doesn't know yet if Edge is the right guy to be pushing as a top star, but they gotta start pushing somebody new and at least they're trying. So it's something. Anyway, in other news, it only took 2 weeks for OVW's Leviathan to become a laughable cartoon as Deacon Batista here on the main roster. Obvious fake crowd noise during the D-Von match with Batista at ringside. Despite the falling ratings, Hogan is still massively popular with live crowds and the pop he got coming out here was unreal, with Dave calling it one of the top 5 biggest reactions he's ever seen (though not quite as big as the night after Wrestlemania pop in Montreal). And the tag team main event was good, with Edge showing that he's much better in the ring than Triple H, who hasn't been very good at all since returning from his injury.
- More details on the Plane Ride From Hell. There's strong suspicion that many of the wrestlers were "H-bombed" as they call it. (In other words, someone put halcion pills in people's drinks without their knowledge). That was a common "prank" back in the day but not so much these days. Anyway, Goldust hasn't been fired but he was reprimanded for his actions (getting drunk and singing love songs to ex-wife Terri over the intercom, to her extreme discomfort). He was also punished for allegedly spitting tobacco juice all over one of the plane's seats. Brock Lesnar was not punished, because they felt like he was put in a tough position and was only defending himself against Curt Hennig's provocations. So the rumor that Lesnar losing to the Hardyz last week was punishment isn't true. It was just dumb booking. The flight had an open bar and also was delayed leaving, so most of the wrestlers were already shitfaced before they even left the ground. In the future, drinks are expected to be limited on international flights. Most of the problems here took place during the first half of the flight. By the end, everyone was pretty much calm and passed out.
- Former ECW wrestler Nova, in his OVW debut, captured the OVW title from Prototype. This was done as a change of plans because Leviathan getting called up to the main roster with no notice screwed up all of Jim Cornette's original booking. Anyway, OVW is moving its tapings to a new building soon which will seat 600 people (as opposed to the 140 they fit into their current building for TV tapings).
- Despite what he's been saying, WWE is going with the assumption that Kurt Angle is not going to wrestle in the 2004 Olympics. Dave says they're going to try to convince him to stay with WWE, but they've given him their blessing to pursue it if he wants. But they're still hopeful to change his mind. With Rock leaving, and Undertaker, Triple H, and Austin all banged up, they really don't want to lose Angle right now.
- DDP underwent more exams this week and he has several severely messed up vertebrae. His neck is actually worse than both Austin's and Benoit's were when they had surgery. And it's worse because DDP is also 46 years old. He needs surgery and has been told by multiple doctors that he needs to retire.
- Random notes: Scott Hall's ex-wife Dana is attempting to get custody of their children following Hall's latest antics and firing from WWE. After he was booed on Canadian house shows last week, there's already talk of turning Randy Orton heel. In his first match under the new gimmick, Deacon Batista ripped his pants during a match with Hugh Morrus at a house show, which resulted in the crowd laughing through the end of the match. But it happened again the next night at another house show, leading Dave to think it may have been a planned spot. In which case....what are they doing to this poor guy? (eh, it works out for him okay in the end).
- There was a story about a stuntman who got a tooth knocked out by accident while working with Rock on Scorpion King. In return, Rock bought the stuntman a gold and diamond studded Rolex as an apology. After that happened, all the other stuntmen began claiming injuries and Rock bought several of them gifts before he eventually realized he was being worked. But he reportedly took it in stride and wasn't upset.
- Still no negotiations with Scott Steiner. WWE wants to sign people to a minimum of 2-year deals and Vince McMahon doesn't believe Steiner's body will hold up to a WWE schedule for that long and doesn't want to waste money on someone that won't be able to perform at the level they want.
- Gene Okerlund will be hosting the new WWE Confidential show. It said to be more of a behind-the-scenes show, but with Okerlund hosting, Dave expects it to be campy and goofy. The first episode will feature Shawn Michaels talking about the Montreal Screwjob. Dave finds that funny, since just a few months ago, Vince McMahon was doing interviews saying only hardcore internet fans even remember or care about what happened that night.