September 16, 2002
- Our top story this week is none other than Hot Lesbian Action! Dave says it was one of those moments where you'd want to bury your head in a hole if anyone was in the room watching the show with you. Coming off several bad weeks in a row and ratings bottoming out, plus the beginning of Monday Night Football, WWE decided to bring out the big guns and go back to what made them money in the past: controversy and sleaze. The entire show was built around the promise that viewers would see lesbians getting it on in the ring and everything else, the wrestling, the storylines...it was all secondary. Jerry Lawler "was the most annoying he's ever been" on this episode. It came off as a crass and desperate ratings grab and make no mistake: the TV stations that carry Raw were embarrassed by it too. TNN put out a statement saying, "TNN takes serious issue with the content of Monday night's WWE Raw episode, and has expressed its deep concern to the WWE. We don't condone the content of this episode, and will work diligently to ensure that similar occurrences do not appear again on our network." In Canada, TSN edited some of the segment out of the show and many stations in Europe did as well. 2 days prior to the show, someone from WWE (Dave thinks it was Bruce Prichard) reached out to UPW and brought in 2 of their valets, Looney Lane and Savvy, to portray the lesbians. Bischoff directed traffic as the two women got down to their underwear and began kissing but then the Island Boyz came out and destroyed them. Jamal in particular nailed Lane with a stiff superkick that legitimately bruised her ribs. Dave thinks this whole angle was pointless. Even if it leads to a one-week ratings boost, the TV networks have made it clear they weren't happy, so it's not like WWE can do it again or go further with it. So...what did it accomplish? (Sorry folks, you'll need to check the Network for video of this. I can only find the Stephanie McMahon HLA segment from Unforgiven, which we'll get to in 2 weeks. This segment seems to have been scrubbed from the internet).
- This was followed up at the Smackdown tapings with the gay wedding build-up with Billy and Chuck, which got a little mainstream publicity in the days leading up to it. They were everywhere promoting it, but WWE also made it clear ahead of time that neither Billy Gunn or Chuck Palumbo are gay and that the whole thing was a publicity stunt. Howard Stern said WWE fans wouldn't want to see it and ESPN hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon were calling it a desperate ratings grab and saying WWE would be finished after this angle. This angle hasn't aired on TV yet but Dave heard it ran really long and the Undertaker vs. Matt Hardy match afterwards got cut way short as a result. Dave knows Bischoff ended up being revealed as the minister and the Island Boyz came out again and beat everyone up, including Stephanie McMahon but that's all he knows. WWE was extremely concerned about this whole angle coming off as homophobic and confiscated a ton of signs at the doors of the arena, mostly the kind of homophobic stuff you're probably thinking (more on this next week obviously).
- It's all but official that the recent PRIDE/K-1 event in Tokyo is going to go down as the highest grossing live sports entertainment event (wrestling or MMA) in history. The final number isn't confirmed, but the live gate surpassed the $7 million record that was set back in 1998 for Inoki's retirement match with Don Frye at the Tokyo Dome. The American record, held by Wrestlemania 18, is barely half that ($3.9 million). So yeah, pretty big hit.
- Four days after being handed a world title, Triple H took on Brock Lesnar at Raw house shows this week in champion vs. champion matches. So much for making something like that feel special. Lesnar worked many Raw house shows this week because he was advertised for them weeks ago, back before WWE made the spur of the moment decision to move him to Smackdown exclusively. Regarding Triple H holding that title, as you can imagine, there's a good deal of talk about that backstage. Even people who aren't usually anti-Triple H are side-eyeing his relationship with Stephanie now and asking questions about just how powerful Triple H is becoming. With Rock and Austin gone for now, it's said that Triple H sees this as his time to be the top star of WWE, but Lesnar's rapid rise has clearly dwarfed Triple H in the last few months. So suddenly, Lesnar gets shipped off to Smackdown and Triple H is handed a world title with his own show to headline. Needless to say, it raised some eyebrows. Anyway, Lesnar is also working Smackdown house shows when it doesn't conflict with a Raw show and in Minnesota, they did the first ever Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle match, which is something that's been discussed as a potential Wrestlemania match down the road. Since it was Minnesota, Lesnar was a huge babyface and the match was said to be really good.
- Wrestling book review time. First up, Bobby Heenan's autobiography "Bobby The Brain: Wrestling's Bad Boy Tells All" was written with the help of wrestling magazine writer Steve Anderson. There's not a lot of depth to the book, it's mostly a collection of amusing stories from his career. Heenan doesn't leave any shades of gray though, he makes it clear who he liked and disliked. He said his time in WCW was the 6 worst years of his life and only had good things to say about Hogan, Mike Tenay, and Ric Flair. Didn't seem like he cared for many other people in that company. He talked about how poorly run the promotion was and pointed to Goldberg's streak ending and the Fingerpoke of Doom moments as the beginning of the end of WCW. He said on the night of the fingerpoke, he and Tenay both realized the ship was sinking and said Tony Schiavone gave both of them shit for being negative and paranoid. Heenan had good things to say about Verne Gagne, making him one of the few people that does. And of course, he loved Gorilla Monsoon. He tore into Schiavone, WCW producer Craig Leathers, and Leathers' production assistant Annette Yother, who Heenan hated so much, he wouldn't even call her by her name in the book and insulted her throughout. Overall, it's entertaining, and not an embarrassment, but not a must-read or anything either.
- There's another book on the history of St. Louis wrestling that he reviews, but it's more for historians and full of records and attendance figures and match cards from old St. Louis wrestling shows over the decades dating back to the 1800s. Dave figures this won't appeal to casual fans at all, but for historians or people (like him) who can use this sort of thing as a reference guide, it's invaluable.
- Just for shits and giggles, when discussing top draws and drawing money, Dave does the all-time list of wrestlers who have headlined the most PPVs that did 1.0 buyrates or higher. Top 5 in case you're curious: Hulk Hogan (22), Steve Austin (20), Ric Flair (17), The Rock (17), and Triple H (9). This doesn't include Summerslam 2002, so if the final buyrate for that ends up breaking the 1.0 mark, then Rock will pass Flair on the list.
- Zero-1 in Japan is trying to get Akira Maeda to come out of retirement to work matches with Shinya Hashimoto and Naoya Ogawa. They're also trying to get Riki Choshu involved as well. If you don't know the history, Maeda vs. Choshu would be a dream match based on their history. Back in 1987, during a match in NJPW, Maeda double-crossed Choshu for real and kicked him in the face as hard as he could, breaking Choshu's orbital bone. The incident got Maeda fired from NJPW but he used the publicity from it and revived the UWF promotion where he became their top star. Choshu and Maeda never had a match together again, although if they had, it would have done monster business. But it's been 15 years, so Dave isn't sure how big it would be today (this never happens. Maeda retired in 1995 and stayed retired).
- Dave saw the 2 recent AJPW shows featuring Goldberg. It was fine. Goldberg had the biggest presence and star power on the show and got a great reaction. He looked great physically but didn't do much in the ring worth noting. Quick matches that got over well, but didn't set the world afire or anything.
- Dream Stage, the parent company of PRIDE, is apparently getting involved in promoting pro wrestling as well, working with AJPW and with hopes to have more Goldberg involvement. The company purchased the rights to merchandise AJPW in the United States, which would one to think the idea is to put together an AJPW show in the U.S. with Goldberg on the card, or at the very least, sell DVDs of AJPW in the U.S. Dave thinks PRIDE has far more potential to catch on in the U.S. than AJPW does, even with Goldberg's involvement. MMA fans respect and accept PRIDE as a legitimate promotion here, but most wrestling fans don't care about anything other than WWE.
- No real notes from NOAH's latest shows, but just wanted to mention that every time Dave recaps these shows, he comments on how good and how popular KENTA is becoming.
- NJPW's latest tour kicked off and featured Chyna in tag matches working against men. Not just job guys either. She was in there against names like Jushin Liger and IWGP champion Yuji Nagata. After the first night, Chyna cut a promo challenging Nagata for the title. NJPW is in a tough spot here. The freak-show aspect of having Chyna wrestling men in NJPW is getting a lot of publicity and she's getting paid a lot, so they can't just job her out. But there's also a credibility issue. This isn't the big, muscular Chyna of 1997. It's the IWGP champion selling for a Playboy model. As you can imagine, all of the NJPW wrestlers hate working with her but, as Yuji Nagata once said, "Inoki bullshit, but you gotta go with it."
- Speaking of Inoki bullshit, there's more. First of all, he talked about starting a promotion in the U.S. with Chyna as the top star and also said he's working to bring X-Pac and DDP to Japan. Dave thinks X-Pac in NJPW might not be a bad idea. But DDP is 1. retired due to injury and 2. still under WWE contract. Inoki also publicly invited several non-NJPW wrestlers to come participate in their upcoming Tokyo Dome show. In particular, he named Keiji Muto and Shinya Hashimoto. But both of them publicly turned him down, both saying they have no interest in doing anything with NJPW. Dave thinks it's a bad look when you try to do business in front of the public only to get embarrassingly turned down in public.
- Other NJPW notes: American Dragon is debuting for the company in October. Hart family friend T.J. Wilson will be coming to NJPW later in the year, under the name Stampede Kid, doing a cowboy gimmick. Dave explains how Wilson is basically an honorary member of the Hart family and is incredibly talented.
- With little advance notice, Ultimo Dragon made his in-ring return in his own Toryumon promotion, his first match since a botched surgery in WCW ended his career in 1998. They teased his arm being in bad shape and he sold it big when his opponent attacked it.
- Dave had a long talk with Bret Hart this week, which is one of the few times in this newsletter I've ever seen Dave just outright say, "I talked to this person, here's what he told me." He says Hart is very positive on his outlook for recovery and is seeing major improvements over the last few weeks. He thinks within a month, you won't be able to tell by looking at him that he had a stroke. He's able to control his facial muscles better now and aside from weakness on his left side, he's starting to feel halfway normal again. He talked about the show in Montreal for Rougeau and said he did it as a favor because he had promised beforehand, but felt he wasn't ready and broke down crying in front of the crowd. He also said he doesn't think there's any connection between his stroke and the career-ending concussion he suffered from Goldberg in 1999. The issues were in different parts of the brain and doctors think they're unrelated.
- Oprah Winfrey's show this week talked about the effect of professional wrestling on children and she and her guest (some guy who wrote a book about parents using TV as a babysitter) both agreed that wrestling teaches kids that violence is acceptable to resolve conflicts and that it degrades women.
- Notes from Raw: William Regal joined the UnAmericans. Terri Runnels & Trish Stratus vs. Victoria & Stacy Keibler was so bad that Dave was praying for a Jackie Gayda run-in by the end. Dave thinks Victoria can be a big star, but they've done nothing to make her feel like anything special. Triple H has lost some weight and muscle mass and was moving better, but he also beat Spike Dudley with a sleeper hold, a move that hasn't been over in decades, and put the crowd to sleep faster than Spike.That being said, Dave thinks guys should have more than one finisher and it takes time to establish a move and get it over, so if this is the start of that, he's fine with it. And pretty much everything else was lesbians, lesbians, lesbians!
- Steve Austin dropped divorce proceedings against Debra last week. Apparently they've decided to try to work it out (this clearly changes again soon. Their divorce ends up being finalized in February).
- Random WWE notes: OVW held a big show with a bunch of now-WWE stars such as Lesnar, Orton, Cena, Rico, Victoria, and others all appearing, as well as Benoit. The OVW stars beat the WWE stars in most of the matches. Lesnar suffered a minor injury at the house show the night before, so WWE wouldn't let him wrestle, which is why they sent Benoit as a make-good. Tommy Dreamer's wedding next month is to former ECW valet Beulah McGuillicutty. Test got surgery to remove the gynaecomastia from his chest, same surgery the Rock and others have had. Speaking of surgery, Jerry Lawler had cosmetic surgery on his face as well, with work on his jawline and around his eyes. That's why he was wearing sunglasses on Raw or using binoculars when they cut to him during the HLA segment and why his face looked swollen. Dave says this isn't the first time, and as far back as 15 years ago, Lawler got surgery to get rid of the beginnings of a double-chin. Lilian Garcia signed a recording contract with Universal Records, with a single releasing next month.
- Chris Jericho was on Bubba The Love Sponge's radio show, out of character. He said he's not interested in winning the WWE title anymore because he already accomplished all his wrestling goals, now he just wants to entertain fans and help get new stars over. He talked about how losing to Cena recently was his idea and he had to talk them into it. Hulk Hogan called in and put over how great Jericho is.
- Nathan Jones won an appeal in the courts last week to get a work visa so he can come work in the U.S. He's been able to travel everywhere except the U.S., but an arrest from several years ago prevented him from getting a visa to work here, which is why WWE dropped his developmental contract. With that taken care of, Dave figures we'll probably see him in WWE soon.
- Filming for Rock's next movie "Helldorado" was delayed due to the presence of an endangered species of bird called a Bell's Vireo bird. Until the bird leaves the area, they weren't allowed to film. That's hilarious.