September 09, 2002
- The top story is MMA-related, but it's such a big story, kinda gotta cover it. Plus there's some wrestling stuff in it too! PRIDE and K-1's joint show in Japan, dubbed Shockwave, is in the books and it broke tons of records. Dave says this was Japan's answer to Wrestlemania 3. The announced attendance was 91,007 although Dave says the real number is closer to around 71,000. That makes it the 5th largest crowd in "sports entertainment" (behind Inoki's 2 North Korea shows, Summerslam 92, and Wrestlemania 3) history and by far the biggest in MMA history. Japan attendance records, PPV buyrate records, gate records....this show shattered them all. The highlight of the show was PRIDE champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira defeating Bob Sapp in a classic heavyweight match that Sapp dominated until exhaustion caught up with him. There was controversy in some of the fights, particularly Royce Gracie losing a fight that the ref stopped, even though Gracie never tapped and the rules of the fight were that there could not be a ref stoppage. Gracie was in a chokehold, but the choke wasn't even really locked in when the ref stopped it, and Gracie vehemently protested after the fight. The victory made his opponent, Hidehiko Yoshida, a household name overnight and was the lead story in sports in Japan, but PRIDE later realized Gracie was right and overturned the decision. The fight has now been ruled a no contest, but that wasn't announced and, in the eyes of most people, Gracie lost even though PRIDE later quietly admitted that they had fucked up.
- Other notes from PRIDE/K-1 Shockwave: Antonio Inoki skydived into the goddamn stadium during intermission, because Inoki. He got the biggest reaction of anyone on the show. Prior to the show, while still on the ground, Inoki was accompanied by IWGP champion Yuji Nagata for an Olympic torch lighting ceremony because sure, why not? I mean, this ain't the Olympics, but this is Inoki's world, we're all just living in it. Don Frye got massacred by Jerome LeBanner in just 1:30 in a fight under K-1 rules that he had no business in. LeBanner was a last minute replacement for Mark Hunt, out due to injury, and Don Frye had no idea he was facing LeBanner until he got to Japan. Kazushi Sakuraba also got beaten brutally by Mirko Cro Cop. For the American broadcast, Bill Goldberg did commentary and talked about how his pro wrestling gimmick originated as an MMA fighter character. Goldberg also tried a few times to promote his upcoming AJPW matches, but this is an Inoki production and none of these people have any ties to AJPW, so they just kinda never acknowledged it and ignored Goldberg when he mentioned it. (the full show is pretty easy to find on YouTube, but here's 3 highlights):
- Following WWE champion Brock Lesnar's move to Smackdown, WWE opened up Raw with Eric Bischoff declaring Triple H as the new "World Heavyweight Champion" and gave him the old WCW big gold belt. As you might imagine, Dave has some thoughts on this. The WWE title transcending both brands is what made it, and the champion, special. Now that's cut in half and it basically reduces the prestige of the world title down to two IC titles. They did such a good job of creating a new star at Summerslam with Brock Lesnar, and this dilutes his specialness as well. Also, they had dual champions a year ago during the Invasion and it didn't work then either, with the ultimate unification (won by Jericho) doing the lowest PPV buyrate of 2001. This instantly makes your two world titles feel like midcard belts because both guys now have to be positioned as equals. Every PPV will now have to have "co-main events" and they'll probably alternate which one is the actual headliner, and that further dilutes Brock Lesnar's star power, just weeks after they hit a home run by establishing him as the new top guy.
- Then there's the other issue: even if creating a second world champion was a good idea (and it's not), they made it even worse by simply handing it to Triple H. Dave is sure their thinking is that it gives Triple H more heat since he didn't earn it, but this is about establishing a championship, not establishing Triple H. And simply handing the belt to a guy, no matter who it is, instantly makes it feel meaningless. This is Hogan/Nash, Fingerpoke of Doom levels of bad. In the pro wrestling world in 2002, there's only two world titles that still have any drawing power or prestige to them. WWE's title, sometimes (less and less every month, it seems) and AJPW's Triple Crown title. AJPW protects its championship fiercely and when an up and coming star wins that title, he becomes a made man. One only needs to look at WCW's dying days and the near-weekly title changes to see how much devaluing your championship can hurt the company, kill buyrates, and drive away fans (Triple H Era of Doom is very much underway now folks).
- Goldberg returned to the ring for the first time in over a year and a half, working two shows for AJPW at Tokyo's Budokan Hall. The shows failed to sell out the arena either night, but this was also 2 days after the big PRIDE/K-1 show and NJPW had a big show in the arena the night before, so there was huge competition this week. Plus it was the first time they've ever tried to run 2 straight nights in that arena. They did around 13,000 and 12,000 respectively, which isn't bad all things considered. In the first night, Goldberg got a quick 4-minute win over Satoshi Kojima, finishing him off with the Last Rites (better known these days as Cross Rhodes). The next night saw another 4-minute match with Taiyo Kea that Goldberg won with a one-armed powerbomb. The reason for the different finishers is that Goldberg's arm is still not 100% healed, so he was limited. But they also want to save the spear/jackhammer finish for the next shows he works, likely with Muto. The short matches were AJPW's decision, not Goldberg's. For American fans unfamiliar, these guys were essentially the #3 and #4 guys in the company. So it's the WWE equivalent of Goldberg coming in and squashing Triple H and Kurt Angle in 4-minute PPV matches (or, say, Brock Lesnar in less than 2 but that would never happen). The idea, of course, is to build up Goldberg as a huge monster which they can then do REAL big business with him against Muto and Tenryu. Bob Sapp accompanied Goldberg to the ring the first night and Dave thinks the potential for Goldberg/Sapp as a monster unbeatable American tag team in Japan, running roughshod over everyone, could be very lucrative. AJPW was built on that sort of thing with guys like Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody and Vader. Muto is talking about running Yokohama Arena and the Tokyo Dome. Dave hints that the idea is for Goldberg to defeat Tenryu for the Triple Crown title and then maybe lose it to Muto at the Tokyo Dome.
- Carlos Colon is threatening to sue IWA over their using Ray Gonzalez. Colon claims Gonzalez is still under contract to WWC (in fact, Gonzalez was the only wrestler that had a contract, everyone else there is working without one). Colon is claiming he will sue IWA promoter Victor Quinones, the IWA itself, the TV network that airs IWA, and Gonzalez himself. WWC claims Gonzalez was paid in full and therefore, they were not in breach of his deal and he's still under WWC contract. Since Gonzalez worked IWA's show last week, under a mask using the name Fenix, that's the basis of the lawsuit. Gonzalez argues that he wasn't paid until months later and that with his pay being late, they breached the deal. WWC also paid Gonzalez in cash and that obviously complicates things and makes stuff harder to prove. So this is a mess.
- Latest on the Messiah incident, police have determined he was indeed singled out for an attack, it wasn't a robbery or random coincidence. Messiah has said he believes it was a wrestling-related motive, but didn't know the men who attacked him. New Jack recently claimed that XPW promoter Rob Black offered him $10,000 to hurt Messiah because he was upset that Messiah had slept with his wife, XPW valet and porn star Lizzy Borden. Police are aware of New Jack's claim, but don't have any other evidence. The problem there is that New Jack recently left XPW on bad terms with Rob Black so he has motive to want to see Black in trouble, so police can't just take his word for it. Meanwhile, Messiah is back wrestling again for CZW. Minus one finger.
- Sting sorta returned to wrestling at a religious show hosted by Ted Dibiase. Afterwards, Dibiase invited anyone who wanted to be saved to come into the ring and give their lives to Jesus. A ton of people flooded the ring and it collapsed, injuring one fan. Amen.
- Notes from TNA weekly PPV: AJ Styles/Jerry Lynn/Low-Ki three-way ladder match was great, but that's pretty much it. Barely anyone is a defined heel or face, which makes it hard to care about anyone or keep up with who's even feuding and why. Dave just shits all over this show, but at least they aren't doing wild Russo crash TV stuff this week. Mostly it's just booking that doesn't make any sense and stories that don't seem to go anywhere. Plot holes and logic gaps everywhere, but Jerry Jarrett is reportedly filtering Russo's worst instincts out of the show.
- Notes from Raw: opened with Triple H being given the old WCW belt. Crowd was dead for this. Had a deal where Chris Nowinski vowed to break Molly Holly's hymen, so the "Molly is a virgin" story is still going and JR and Lawler spent the rest of the match trying to say "hymen" as many times as they could. Triple H vs. Flair was a decent match but it was hard to take seriously because Triple H was like a little kid in the ring, you could see on his face how much he was geeking out to have a one-on-one match with Ric Flair, the guy he idolized in the business. Dave said you could see the same thing during the Rock/Flair match a few weeks ago. And that's basically the only stuff of note.
- Dave doesn't have all the details because it hasn't aired on TV yet but at the Smackdown tapings, they had Chuck propose to Billy and announced they will get married on the 9/12 episode. Vince Russo tried to get a gay wedding angle on the air back in 1999 and it didn't happen, but we're finally getting it now.
- The UnAmericans and Vince McMahon had some issues over the flag burning angle at Raw last week. Obviously, they were never going to actually burn the flag, but Christian, Lance Storm, and Test weren't comfortable with the amount of heat they knew it would get and wanted more security. Others backstage thought they should be happy to be in this angle and there's no such thing as "too much heat." But of course, we're less than a year removed from 9/11 and being anti-American is still a real touchy subject with a lot of people. Especially so close to the first anniversary and you're threatening to burn the flag 3 miles away from the rubble of the World Trade Center.
- Vince and Linda McMahon won't be paying themselves a performance bonus this year. Vince earns a straight salary of $1 million per year for his role in the company, while Linda makes $750,000. They also get paid as performers by the company when they appear on TV, but they're foregoing their bonuses this year, given the plummeting state of the company, so isn't that sweet?
- Dave has heard from several sources backstage that Rock was very upset about being booed at Summerslam, even though he was expecting it. I guess he didn't expect it to be as vociferous as it was or to hurt his feelings that much or something (yeah, a lot of wrestling fans were starting to call him a sell out at this point. I could see how he'd feel a little offended by that).
- In a pretty funny bit in retrospect, Dave goes on a tangent about how WWE is burying John Cena. The same day Linda McMahon was on TV doing interviews calling Lesnar and Cena the future stars of the company, Cena was doing a clean job to Reverend D-Von on Smackdown. They did a great example of getting Brock Lesnar over by protecting him. They're doing the total opposite with Cena, jobbing him out to lower-card comedy acts and calling him "rookie" every 6 seconds which makes him come off like a total dweeb. Dave figures they may as well take Cena off TV for awhile and try again later if this is the best they can do for someone with his potential (yeah, sucks that he never became anything. To be fair though, Dave wasn't wrong here. Cena was going absolutely nowhere and was on the verge of being released until he stumbled onto the white rapper gimmick).
- On the Larry King show, Jesse Ventura was interviewed and King asked him if he had any plans to return to wrestling. Ventura said he's too old to wrestle but if an offer came along to be involved, he'd listen. With Steve Austin on the outs with WWE right now, Dave thinks a promotion built around Austin, Goldberg, and Ventura's involvement would probably get a ton of mainstream attention. Of course, like any other startup promotion, they'd have to be well managed and get a TV deal ASAP. But with those names involved, it'd be the best option if someone has some money to burn and wants to get in the game.
- Various WWE notes: Hugh Morrus is changing his ring name to his real name, Bill DeMott. Tommy Dreamer is getting married next month (Dave doesn't mention to who, but it's Beulah McGuillicutty). At a recent house show, the crowd was chanting to Albert about needing to shave his back, so he ended up mooning the fans, which was as horrifying as you're imagining. There's been no talks with Scott Steiner because WWE knows he's not physically in condition necessary to work a WWE schedule so they aren't pursuing him (that'll change soon).
- Brock Lesnar did an interview with the Minneapolis newspaper and they talked as if Lesnar turned down the chance to play in the NFL to go to WWE. Dave says that makes for a good story and all, and Lesnar is a great athlete, but he never even played college football and had no real chance of playing NFL football (man, Dave's gonna end up eating those words in 2 years when Lesnar walks on and damn near makes it onto the Vikings).