Wrestling Observer Rewinder

July 29, 2002

Dave opens the issue with some high praise, a rare thing for the top story. But this week's episode of Raw was the first time WWE showed real effort in months, with a clear plan to build a Raw vs. Smackdown storyline and to make the brands as distinct as possible. Raw felt like a completely new show, starting multiple new storylines that hint at long-term booking (we're so used to WWE disappointing us nowadays that it's kinda cute to go back in time and see someone buy into the false hope of improvement like this). They also had a super hot crowd, which helped a lot. The ratings also saw a spike this week, due to fans wanting to see what Raw looks like with Bischoff in charge. The announcers were moved away from ringside and stationed near the stage, similar to the old Nitro set. During the matches, the arena was darkened to give it a more old-school feel. Things felt more spontaneous and less predictable than they have in ages. The European title was done away with, unified with the IC title. Dave feels the belt was useless the last few years anyway.
The show featured DX reuniting, but ended with Triple H turning heel and giving Shawn Michaels a pedigree. Dave expects it to lead to Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels at Summerslam, but we'll see. This also necessitated Triple H moving back over to Raw, and in exchange, they moved Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman over to Smackdown at the end of the show. Eddie Guerrero had a match with The Rock and also had a segment where they went back and forth on the mic. It was the most confident Eddie has ever been on the mic and he held his own with Rock and came out of the night looking to be a bigger star than ever. The show wasn't all good though. They had a segment where they put D-Lo Brown and Shawn Stasiak in the ring and Bischoff berated them for being boring and buried them for trying to wrestle, which Dave thinks sucked. The DX reunion followed by Triple H's heel turn blew through potentially weeks of storyline progression in only one hour, but that's typical these days. But Dave thinks of all the potential revenue they could have made on DX merch if they'd been given a chance to have even a short few-week run, but alas. He also thought the announcers playing dumb (like Jim Ross having to pretend not to know who the Island Boyz were during their debut, despite the fact that he's written about them a million times in his weekly WWE.com column). Also too much backstage stuff, which is fine for TV, but sucks for the live crowd when they bought tickets to watch half the show on the TitanTron. But overall, it was the best Raw in a long time and the first sign that maybe WWE's latest reboot is going to mean real change. And that's the top story. Raw was actually good for once and it's the biggest news of the week.
daprice82 Editor's Note: No one is going to care, but I have a story about this Raw. At the time, my girlfriend (now-wife) and I were in Peoria, IL for the 2nd annual Gathering of the Juggalos! We were 19 years old and drove there from Memphis in my shitty ol' Chevy Blazer and spent the weekend woop-wooping it up. Well, that Monday afternoon, we left Peoria to drive home. We got maybe 30 miles out of town when I realized that my previously full gas tank was almost empty. Pulled into a gas station, confused, but filled the tank again, and drove on. Watched the tank slowly drain as I drove along and within 30 minutes, I was on E again. I was losing gas somehow. Pulled off an exit and stopped at the single nicest truck stop I've ever seen. This place had everything. It was a gas station, connected to a Subway, with a lounge area that had recliners, full showers, washers and dryers, etc. If you're gonna be stranded somewhere, it was the best option. I ended up calling my dad and he drove 7 hours to come pick us up. So while we waited, my girlfriend and I spent the rest of the day into the night, hanging out in this lounge, sleeping in the recliners, and watching TV. And low and behold, they had the TV on Raw that night. I remember I was dozing in and out and I remember waking up when I heard the DX music hit and groggily staring at the TV like "wtf?" And then I saw Triple H turn on Shawn and was like "Whoa!" and then I fell back asleep and that's all I remember.
WWE announced that it's re-evaluating its quarterly and annual business efforts due to lower-than-expected revenue this year, stemming from PPV buyrates and live attendance plummeting. To keep the company in the black, WWE is making $20 million in budget cutbacks. Most of the cuts are coming from administrative expenses, but the developmental program is going to be hit hard (more on that in a bit). For next quarter, WWE is predicting an overall profit of $1.5 to $2 million. But that is a bit misleading because that figures in the $3.5 million settlement from the PTC lawsuit. If not for that settlement, this quarter would be the first money-losing quarter since 1997 (assuming you don't count the Q1 of 2001, when they had all the massive XFL start-up costs). Plus, they're running twice as many house shows now than they were the same quarter last year, and the numbers are still that bad. There's a ton of year-to-year comparisons here, which is super fun if you're a numbers person but TL;DR - business ain't great.
So what about Japan? Business there is an interesting story also. NOAH has surpassed NJPW in average attendance per show for the first half of 2002, which shows just how staggering of a collapse NJPW has had. The biggest success story of the year has been AJPW, which was on death's door a little over a year ago, with the entire roster jumping ship to form NOAH and the company lost its television deal. It's a miracle they survived at all, much less become as hot as they have this year. The reason, of course, is Keiji Muto (and to a lesser extent, Satoshi Kojima), both of whom jumped ship from NJPW at the beginning of the year and immediately gave the promotion a huge shot in the arm, spiking live attendance by nearly 70% and tripling merch sales. Meanwhile, NJPW is still stinging from those losses, plus they ran Riki Choshu out of the company, made Tadao Yasuda IWGP champion which was a huge flop, they have no good foreign talent, their junior division is stale as can be, and current champion Yuji Nagata is still trying to get his momentum back after a humiliating MMA loss to Mirko Cro Cop on New Year's Eve.
So about those developmental cutbacks. WWE cut ties with Les Thatcher's HWA promotion and also dropped the contracts of several developmental stars there. Among the names cut: Steve Bradley, EZ Money, Jon Heidenreich, Mike Sanders, BJ Payne, Horace Hogan, and several others you probably never heard of. HWA wrestlers Lance Cade and Charlie Haas are being reassigned to OVW, which will now be WWE's only developmental territory. Others, like Shannon Moore, Victoria, and Barry Buchanan are expected to debut on the main roster soon and were kept. In 2001 fiscal year, WWE spent $1.1 on developmental costs and had relationships with 4 promotions: HWA, OVW, UPW, and IWA Puerto Rico. Now we're down to one, with Jim Ross reportedly ordered to cut that developmental budget in half. Dave doesn't like this. With WWE being the only game in town and in need of new stars more than ever, he feels they should be expanding their developmental system rather than shrinking it. Creating new stars is vital to the future of WWE and limiting themselves to one promotion with a pool of only a dozen or so people seems short-sighted. He also disagrees with some of the people who got cut. Not everyone in developmental is going to be a star, but some of them at least deserved a shot (namely Steve Bradley, who had been there for 3-4 years, is still in his twenties, is a good worker and strong promo, but never got a chance on the main roster because he doesn't have the right look). Why some of those people were released while Jackie Gayda and Chris Nowinski are stinking up the ring on Raw is beyond Dave. He also thinks Les Thatcher had a pretty impossible job. He was given a roster full of wrestlers that were mostly leftovers from WCW. Young guys who came out of WCW's Power Plant and worked a fast-paced WCW style that doesn't apply to modern day WWE. Then they had Thatcher, Danny Davis, and Jim Cornette train these guys. A bunch of old school veterans training these young guys in the ways of 80s wrestling. So now they learn a whole new style....which also doesn't apply to modern day WWE. It's a broken system. Anyway, everyone who was cut has 90-day non-competes. Word is TNA is only interested in Mike Sanders, out of the names released.
We have a section called "Treatment of Minorities Within Pro Wrestling" by Todd Martin (presumably the same Todd Martin from the PWTorch?). The piece touches on wrestling's past portrayals of race and the false impression that things have gotten better due to the success of people like The Rock, when in reality, the racism is just more subtle. Martin takes a look at WWE's hiring processes. Very few minorities have come up through the developmental program, but it's hard to say if that's WWE's fault. Maybe there's just not many minorities trying to break into the business that way, there's no statistical evidence either way. But you can look at the wrestlers they chose to hire from WCW and how they fared in the WWE system. Midcard comedy wrestlers like Shawn Stasiak got a chance but not midcard comedy wrestlers like Norman Smiley. Nepotism got Horace Hogan a contract, but it didn't do anything for Stevie Ray. Examples like that. Or the Luchadores. Martin argues that, with all the talented Hispanic wrestlers WCW turned into stars, it's inexcusable that so few of them have even gotten so much a developmental offer from WWE. And the only ones who did were the ones fluent in English, which you can argue for. Can't argue size either. Someone like La Parka dwarfs over Crash Holly or Spike Dudley, but WWE has no interest. Wrestlers like Psicosis, Juventud, La Parka, Silver King, and others helped carry WCW through some of its most successful years and none of those guys even got a glance from WWE. Martin asks if Booker T's current jive-talking gimmick is any better than his early GI Bro or Ebony Experience gimmicks? Especially when they have him on TV hotwiring cars and doing stereotypical criminal shit like that? In regards to Eddie Guerrero's current Mexican stereotype gimmick, even Jim Ross recently said that it's taking Hispanic relations back 25 years. If the Booker T or Guerrero characters were portrayed on a normal network TV show with a majority-white cast, they would be seen for the racist caricatures that they are. Martin ends the piece by saying he doesn't believe WWE's decision makers are overtly racist. It's just that the company has created a hierarchy of implicit beliefs about how different types of people are portrayed and they may not even realize that they've built such a system.
Dave adds his own "editor's note" to the end of this piece and says he chose to publish it because of the detailed research and data used and found it a fascinating article that deserves discussion. Dave disagrees with some of it though and argues that some of it is just a difference in philosophy. For example, WWE tried the Lucha Libre experiment before with the Superastros show and crowds were dead for it. WWE and WCW had very different fanbases and presented different products because of it. So it may not be so much racism in that case as it is WWE fans have never shown any interest in that style of wrestling. He also argues against some of the examples Martin used (for instance, Stevie Ray was considered by WWE but he was already in his 40s and was never the caliber of worker as his brother, which is why they passed). But that being said, Dave thinks other parts of the piece make some interesting points that are well worth a read.
TNA week 5 felt like a whole new product due to the heavy influence of Vince Russo. We'll get into that later, but for now, buckle in, we've got a few paragraphs of TNA drama to get through. The first 4 shows presented a product with an emphasis on hard work and long-term angles. This week featured the classic Russo recipe of crash TV and constant, edgy swearing, in an attempt to market "to that 15-30 age group male demo that hates women because they can't get dates and enjoys seeing them harassed and abused." The show ended with a big injury angle to Scott Hall, which is all well and good and might get people interested in next week's show, except it came on the heels of multiple other "serious injury" angles during the same show and by the time Hall did it, it was something like the 3rd stretcher job of the night and it felt meaningless. Same with every promo being filled with curse words. The whole show was yet another example of why Vince Russo needs someone to filter his worst instincts. In this case, that should be Jerry Jarrett, but he was away from creative dealing with budget and legal issues all this week (gonna hear a LOT more about that soon). On that note, just based on very rough, preliminary PPV buyrate figures, production costs, etc. Dave estimates this company is already about half a million dollars in the red, and that's not counting the significant startup costs they have yet to recoup, with estimates that the company is currently losing about $120,000 or more per week.
As of this week, TNA's budgets have been slashed. They've also moved tapings to the smaller and cheaper Nashville Fairgrounds location and signed a 3-month lease. It's reported that switching buildings will save $27,000 per week. They're also eliminating pyro, cut new deals with the production crew, and will be flying in fewer stars, relying mostly on people that can drive. They also don't plan to use managers, will cut back on the TNA girls, and will be using Ken Shamrock and Scott Hall on alternate weeks, since they're the two highest paid guys and it's expensive to have them both on the same show. The Fairgrounds building has been used for wrestling tapings before and never looks good on TV, but TNA is insisting they can dress it up to look good. The budget cuts are expected to be so heavy that TNA's new break-even point for PPV buys will be 20,000 per week instead of 50,000. Dave thinks 20,000 is a much more attainable goal, but if it comes at the expense of the product looking minor league and low budget, it's gonna fail. The building also has no air conditioning and with TV lights, it's going to be brutally hot during summer months. Jerry Jarrett has been posting frequently on the wrestlingclassics.com message board and admitted that they weren't anywhere close to the 50,000-buys-per-week they needed. Here's a post Jerry wrote explaining their plans for the company and the new, Russo-iffic direction:
Jeff (Jarrett) and I are wrestling purists just as many fans here. The difference is that we have put up everything we have in our effort to present an alternative to sports entertainment. Our plan was simple. We believed that there were 50,000 wrestling fans who would pay $10 per week, or $40 per month to have an alternative to sports entertainment. This was based on the fact WWE has from 300,000 to one million fans of sports entertainment who will pay $35 per month to see their product. We were well aware that production values, talent, storylines, content, etc. were all factors that could negatively effect the buy rate. We still thought the market would support us enough to make the plan successful. We are finding that many of the wrestling purists did exactly as I did ten years ago, and that is, go on to something else. We are finding that there are many fewer fans who really want an alternative to sports entertainment than we anticipated. Therefore, we can either attempt to attract a few of the WWE fans, or pack up and go home. We have risked everything in our venture. Therefore, not because of our personal taste, but out of necessity, we are compromising our wrestling purist instincts and attempting to create a broader fan base. ECW did a great job of creating a product for the hardcore wrestling fan. The simple fact was that the base of their fans was not sufficient to keep them in business."
Ray Gonzalez, one of the top stars in Puerto Rico, shockingly announced he's leaving WWC and most expect him to jump to IWA. Gonzalez claimed WWC was late in paying him, which he says breached his contract (reportedly paying him $800-$1000 per week). As a result, his lawyers sent WWC a letter saying because of this, he was quitting the company. Gonzalez no-showed WWC events this weekend. This is going to badly hurt WWC's upcoming Anniversary show because Gonzalez was a major part of multiple top angles that the card was built around. Gonzalez has been the top heel in WWC and arguably has kept the company alive the past 5 years, and is most responsible for getting Carly Colon (Carlito) over as a big star. IWA has already started advertising a mystery wrestler to be the top heel in upcoming shows this weekend, and it's no secret that Gonzalez is expected to debut for the company and be that guy. Dave also mentions several other WWC wrestlers who no-showed events last week because they were late in being paid. Many of them are as much as 10 weeks behind on pay, but this week, they were summoned to the office where Carlos Colon paid them about 5 weeks worth of what they're owed. Lots of death-of-ECW vibes going on here lately.
Lots of rumors that AJPW star Genichiro Tenryu will be showing up at the NOAH show this week to challenge GHC champion Yoshinari Ogawa. Needless to say, this would be a big deal if it happens because AJPW and NOAH basically hate each other. No word on whether this is an angle or not, but given how much Motoko Baba hates NOAH, it seems unlikely. Of course, it also remains to be seen if Tenryu will even show up or if it's all just rumors. Tenryu is currently feuding with Muto over who should have become president of the company, so this could be just a kayfabed angle to make it look like Tenryu is really anti-AJPW (looks like it was just a work, he doesn't end up going to NOAH until 2005).
Dave recaps AJPW's latest Buddokan Hall show, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the company, which featured Keiji Muto wrestling 3 different matches under 3 different gimmicks. All told, Muto worked a total of about 36 minutes between the 3 matches and was banged up like hell the next day. There were also a lot of old legends on the card, like Abdullah The Butcher, Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras, and more. Stan Hansen and Motoko Baba came out to give speeches about the company, with Ms. Baba breaking down crying when talking about her husband, and more. I managed to find most of this show on Dailymotion, enjoy:
While we're on the topic, Dave saw a recent AJPW match with Tenryu defending the Triple Crown title against Satoshi Kojima in a match that many are calling the match of the year. Dave saw it and gives it 4.75 stars and calls Kojima possibly the best wrestler in the business when it comes to carrying the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride. He doesn't agree or disagree that it's the best match of the year, but he sure loved it.
Mitsuharu Misawa suffered a dislocated shoulder in a recent match. Popped it back in, worked the next day, still in pain, went to the hospital because that's what happens when you wrestle again right after dislocating your shoulder. Anyway, the doctors were like, "Hey, maybe don't do that for a minute" but he's Misawa so he vows he won't be missing any dates and then he hit the doctor with an emerald flowsion. Dave doesn't say this, I'm just assuming.
There's talk of bringing back Chyna to work the August Tokyo Dome show for Antonio Inoki's UFO MMA promotion, presumably just to make an appearance (oh, if only). There's also talk of bringing her in for NJPW's September tour and having her beat male prelim wrestlers every night. Needless to say, there's a whole lot of people in the company against that idea. Especially because her loss to Joey Buttafuoco in a celebrity boxing match a few months ago actually got a lot of coverage in Japan, so coming off that and showing up to beat male NJPW wrestlers isn't a popular idea. But Inoki gonna Inoki, so we'll see.
Latest on the ECW bankruptcy proceedings. The trustee has filed a motion demanding that the InDemand PPV company pays them $724,456.40. That total is the money they owed ECW, minus $25,000 because ECW failed to produce the March 2001 PPV they were contractually obligated to produce. This case is a textbook example of why trying to run a PPV-only company like TNA is going to be so difficult. InDemand is still holding onto ECW PPV money from over a year ago. Anyway, of the $724k, a big chunk of it will go to attorneys, back taxes, commission fees, etc. Video game maker Acclaim, who owned a percentage of ECW, is expected to get a big chunk as well. Whatever is left over will be used to pay off existing creditors but there's not gonna be much. A lot of those creditors are just never going to get paid. It's also expected that Acclaim will end up owning the video tape library rights, since WWE hasn't yet made a bid to acquire it.
Former Crockett/WCW wrestler Chris Champion suffered a major stroke and is in critical condition. Champion also wrestled as Yoshi Kwan for a bit in WCW. A lot of people expected him to be a major star in the 90s, but it just never panned out, usually due to his own personal issues (I looked it up, he ended up surviving this go round, but he died in 2018 after suffering more strokes).
If you're wondering what Jim Crockett Jr. is up to these days, he works in real estate in Dallas. When Shaun Assael interviewed Crockett for his book on Vince McMahon, everyone in Crockett's office was shocked because they had no idea that their coworker was once the 2nd biggest wrestling promoter in the U.S. throughout most of the 80s. That's how much he's left the wrestling business behind.
Just gonna paste this quote here: "For whatever this is worth in case this becomes a major historical question down the line, the actual idea to make David Arquette WCW champion came from Tony Schiavone." Dave notes that Schiavone didn't have any decision-making power to make it happen, but he was the one who made the suggestion at a production meeting. According to those there, when Schiavone made the suggestion, Vince Russo's eyes lit up like it was the best idea he'd ever heard and the rest is history. (Vince Russo has confirmed this story himself. Last I heard, Tony admits he was involved in coming up with the idea but he refuses to take sole credit for it).
The Chicago-Sun Times interviewed Greg Gagne's son JP who is a pitcher for Notre Dame. In the interview, he talked about how famous wrestlers used to stay at his house all the time growing up and said that his friends love the story of how he once rode Space Mountain at Disney World with Ric Flair. Hehe.
Shane Douglas is now the booker for XPW and is involved in an angle where owner Rob Black's wife Lizzie Borden is leaving him for Douglas (don't get too close to her Shane, you might lose a thumb! More on that in a couple weeks...). Also, at the first show with Douglas as booker, there was a scaffold match where Douglas came out and shot the guy on the scaffold with a tranquilizer, causing him to plummet to the ring below, which then exploded. Don't worry, I wouldn't write all that without having a video for ya:
Notes from TNA PPV Week 5: Sabu debuted to face Malice in a surprise ladder match. It was fine. Sabu won, which earned him a contract to face Ken Shamrock for the NWA title next week in another ladder match. Don't worry, we have more ladders to come. Jeff Jarrett is being booked like the Stone Cold of TNA and Dave ain't here for it. Francine and Jasmine St. Claire had a shower scene together backstage, later leading to Jasmine in a wet t-shirt. K-Krush cut a promo complaining about being fired by WWE, just in case you weren't aware that most of this roster is full of WWE rejects, they make sure you know it. A 4-way match with a bunch of the young guys completely fell apart with everyone except Christopher Daniels looking totally lost and confused. Dave says rarely do matches even in OVW fall apart as badly as this one did. Another little person match that Dave says was one of the worst matches of the year and was highlighted by one of them breaking a watermelon over the other's head. Negative 3 stars. Even worse, the match went waaaay longer than it was supposed to, which cut into the time for AJ Styles vs. Low-Ki and a match that should have been great ended up being a huge disappointment. Plus a drunk guy in the crowd took away everyone's attention and they couldn't get the audience back. Jerry Lynn attacked AJ with a ladder afterwards because whooohoo ladders! Francine and Jasmine ripped each other's clothes off like every other time you've seen it in WWE. Then Blue Meanie DDT'd her and she did a stretcher job. Brian Christopher/Lawler/whatever he is this week cut a long promo trashing his father to continue getting fans interested in a match they can't possibly deliver. Why not just challenge Austin or Rock while you're at it, Dave wonders. Fuck it, if you're gonna do dumb shit, at least go big. Scott Hall vs. Christopher in the main event was bad because Hall just returned from working IWA in Puerto Rico for several days and was pretty much on a drunken bender the whole time. And then Hall did a stretcher job to end the show, which was kinda lessened by Francine having done the same thing 30 minutes earlier. And there we go. After only 5 shows, this shit is already WCW 2000 all over again.
Despite all the publicity they got, TNA also barely made any mention of the angle last week with the Tennessee Titans football players. Apparently the players caught some shit from the Titans GM for it and since they aren't coming back and they can't do a match or anything with them, TNA decided to just forget it happened.
In case you're wondering why TNA hasn't made a play for Scott Steiner yet, apparently he and Jeff Jarrett had been friends for years, especially during the WCW days, but they recently had a falling out of some kind. Hence, TNA has no interest in using him.
The reason WWE is running back-to-back tapings for Raw and Smackdown next month in Seattle is to test the market. WWE did a site check last month at Safeco Field for next year's Wrestlemania, but there's question as to whether the Seattle market will be able to sell out a big stadium like that, so the decision was made to do this. If they have a double-sellout both nights, that'll pretty much guarantee that Seattle gets Wrestlemania. If the shows do poorly, they may reconsider and select a new city (I guess these shows end up doing okay).
The Rock is set to star in another major movie, this time a $100 million budget production based on the video game SpyHunter. The hope is to have the movie out around Christmas 2003, in order to cross-promote it with the new video game coming out around that time. This adds more to Rock's Hollywood plate and it's looking like he's going to be around wrestling even less next year (this movie ends up stuck in developmental hell for years and never gets made, but Rock ends up doing the voice for the video game in 2009 instead).
Dave isn't sure why yet, but the long-planned Hogan vs. Vince match at Summerslam is now off. Dave suspects they may be holding off until Wrestlemania, which is great if they have a long-term plan and now that they're doing the Bischoff vs. Stephanie storyline, Vince is planning to take himself off TV for a little while anyway. So we'll see. In the meantime, the whole mess last week with Triple H talking Vince out of getting slapped by John Cena because "nobody should be laying hands on Vince until the Hogan match" ended up being for nothing.
Notes from Smackdown: in talking about Stephanie McMahon trying to be a babyface, Dave says she's basically the wrong person for this gimmick but she's a McMahon, so what are ya gonna do? He also jokes that "when this thing goes down and I write the book, I think my title will be "Wrestling Promoters Should Be Banned From Having Children: Unless They Don't Allow Them To Work In Their Promotion." I dunno, seems wordy to me. They also did the bit with Stephanie as GM and all the wrestlers backstage watching on the monitors, leading Dave on a Cornette-style rant about how WWE can't even be bothered to separate heels and faces in different locker rooms and it takes you out of the show when they're all sitting around backstage together watching the TV and carrying on conversations. Sure, kayfabe is already dead, but can we at least try to create an illusion of it within the show itself? This was also the last Smackdown before the PPV and there was some discussion over the finish of the Rock vs. Angle match. Paul Heyman and Michael Hayes wanted Rock to lose clean to the ankle lock, since he was winning the title on Sunday anyway and Angle was doing the job. Pat Patterson and Triple H argued against it, saying Rock shouldn't be tapping to anyone, even though Angle's gimmick right now is that he can make everyone tap (even Hogan last month). So instead, we got the Undertaker run-in DQ finish and Dave says this kinda shit is why WWE is unable to create long-term storylines. There was also a bunch of bickering with Heyman, Triple H and Hayes over the finish of the Jericho/Cena match as well, which Jericho was apparently upset about.
In an online chat this week, Goldberg didn't rule out going to WWE but said he hasn't met with anyone in the company. He also said that if WWE had kept Vince Russo, then there's zero chance he would have gone. When asked about Japan, he only said he's considering all offers. Goldberg is said to have no interest in the WWE schedule and is content with the idea of working a few big shows a year in Japan. That's all well and good but Dave says the reality is that the biggest money opportunity for Goldberg is in WWE, where there's several dream matches that would do huge PPV business and earn him far more money than he can ever make in Japan. WWE also gives you the kind of celebrity exposure in America that can open up acting roles. But the problem is, giving Goldberg a reduced schedule could cause some issues in the locker room. Then again, Rock and Hogan are already working reduced schedules.
This week's episode of WWE Confidential was the best of the series yet, focusing on the Bischoff and McMahon relationship. It was weird to see these two, out of character, reminiscing about a time when they legitimately would have gladly killed each other. They even showed Bischoff's 1990 WWF audition tape.
Various WWF notes: Kevin Nash did an interview and said he has spoken to Steve Austin since the walkout and gave his opinion on why Austin left. "I think Steve was burned out. He's got a broken neck, bad knees and a bad back. I know what it feels like when I wake up every morning. And he's had a couple multi-million years. Maybe it just isn't worth it to him anymore." Bischoff did a radio interview and noted he's been in L.A. constantly pitching TV ideas and said there's no interest in wrestling anywhere in Hollywood right now. Vince and Linda McMahon have purchased a new vacation condo in Boca Raton, FL. It's an 8-bedroom 10,000 sqft. condo on the 7th and 8th floors of the Excelsior hotel. The double-unit condo recently appraised for 14 million.
DDP did an interview and admitted that the stalker angle was the most disappointing thing he's ever done in wrestling because he wanted so badly for it to work and it flopped. DDP also said that Steve Austin hasn't called him since he was forced to retire and admitted he was kind of hurt by it. He said he knows Austin is going through a lot right now, but they're friends and if Austin can't take the time to care about what's going on in his life, then he can't be bothered to waste time worrying about whatever Austin is going through either.