September 23, 2002
- We open with the fallout from last week's HLA segment and the Billy and Chuck wedding. WWE surprisingly got some positive news coverage for being a progressive company with a breakthrough gay marriage on TV and talked about how Billy and Chuck as gay characters weren't being sent out to get heat from the crowd and get boos. Even GLAAD got involved, with their spokesman appearing in numerous media outlets to praise WWE for the characters. Dave seems pretty surprised by all this, given the fact that Billy and Chuck are absolutely designed to play for laughs and, at least a few times, to play on people's homophobia for heat. This is also the same company that gave us Goldust, who's gimmick for years was getting crowds to chant the F-word at him while everyone he wrestled acted grossed out. When they turned Goldust babyface, the first thing they did was have him cut a promo and establish that he's not gay so fans would cheer (and indeed, they did). And that's pretty much what happened here. As this angle blew up and got so much publicity, Billy and Chuck became babyfaces and the blow-off to the wedding was once again, "We're not actually gay." That, as WWE of course expected, got the biggest pop of the night and the show ended without the promised wedding.
- Turns out, GLAAD was none too happy to have been duped. "The WWE lied to us two months ago when they promised that Billy and Chuck would come out and wed on the air," the GLAAD spokesman said in an interview after the angle aired. In fact, he said he spoke with WWE the day after the wedding was taped (but before it aired) and claims that WWE again lied to him and told them the wedding had taken place. GLAAD has a ton of egg on their face, with multiple media outlets calling them fools for allowing themselves to be tricked by WWE. Bill O'Reilly talked about it on his show, trashing WWE and claiming they were mocking gay people (who is this guy and what have they done with Bill O'Reilly?) but O'Reilly also went further when he found a way to tie this into the Lionel Tate case. O'Reilly said that Tate, "flat out admitted he killed a little girl because he was watching wrestling," which Dave says is patently untrue and unfair (ah, there he is). From wrestling fans, the reaction to the angle seemed to be pretty much....meh. It was a midcard wrestling angle that had a pretty great Eric Bischoff reveal, but otherwise, Dave doesn't think wrestling fans give a shit about Billy and Chuck any more or any less than they did before (he's not wrong. Everyone remembers the Bischoff reveal but Billy and Chuck were back to doing nothing of note almost immediately after). Dave references an old Jake Roberts promo. The promo is about a boy who picks up a dying snake and nursed it back to health, only for the snake to bite him when he was healthy. When the boy asked why, after all he had done for him, the snake replied, "When you picked me up the first time, you knew I was a snake." In other words.....this is WWE. What did GLAAD and all these other media outlets expect to happen?
- Then on Raw, the other story....the lesbians. This didn't get nearly the same mainstream coverage as the Billy and Chuck angle, but it was no less controversial. TNN executive vice president Diana Robina stated publicly that they had concerns about the segment and had a talk with WWE about it after the fact. Instead of shying away from the angle, WWE is moving forward with it, even releasing 2 images on their website for HLA t-shirt designs. One of them was a silhouette of two women with HLA. The other one, a little less subtle, was a cartoon of a tongue on a red box. On WWE Confidential, Vince McMahon addressed the controversy saying that the women in their underwear was fine, but perhaps the making out and rubbing on each other was "a bit much." Speaking of Vince, Dave says he looks like the stress of business declining has gotten to him badly since he was last on TV, he looked haggard. The kissing and rubbing was edited off the show by almost all of WWE's broadcast partners outside of the U.S. But otherwise, he defended the entire thing, saying their goal is to shock people and he didn't understand why anyone would think the lesbian angle was a desperate ratings grab, claiming everyone in TV pulls stunts for ratings sometimes. Well, for what it's worth, it didn't work and, in fact, after the lesbian segment, ratings plummeted for the main event like never before. People stuck around for the lesbians, but then they turned off the TV in record numbers after.
- CMLL's 69th (nice.) Anniversary show is in the books and only notable for two things: Negro Casas losing a hair match and getting his head shaved. And after the match, a fan ran into the ring and attacked Tarzan Boy. The crowd thought it was an angle, but nope. Tarzan Boy jumped up and "made a comeback" on the guy until security dragged him out. (About the 13 minute mark)
- After some rocky financial times that reminded many of ECW's dying days, Puerto Rico's WWC held its 29th Anniversary show with hopes that the show would be a success and give the company a desperately needed financial boost. Well, WWC is in the midst of a vicious competition with IWA, which has become the #1 promotion in Puerto Rico and, in an effort to hurt WWC's show, IWA decided to run its own event in another arena 30 minutes away at the same time, headlined by WWC's former top star Ray Gonzalez (still wrestling under a mask as Fenix, even though everyone knows it's him). The decision to keep Gonzalez under the mask for now, aside from the contractual legal battle with WWC, is because IWA's business is good right now. So why mess with something that ain't broke? The idea is that, if business starts to go down anytime soon, then they can do a big unmasking angle with Gonzalez and boost business again. No sense blowing their load now. Anyway, both of these shows were outdoor events and Mother Nature decided to have a little fun by making it pour rain on both of them. WWC was counting on a crowd of 10,000 or more in the big stadium and thanks to the storms and the IWA competition, they only drew 1,300. By the time they got to the main event, only 300 or so people remained, the rest driven away by the weather. Twenty miles away, IWA fared much better, drawing 6,000 fans to their show in the rain. WWC held indoor shows later in the week, including a complete re-do of the Anniversary show, and it drew well. But all the promotion, the TV hype, the publicity and mainstream coverage was all geared toward promoting the outdoor show and it was a disaster. To say this weekend was a devastating blow to WWC would be an understatement.
- Remember how last week Dave looked at top draws based on who had headlined the most PPVs with 1.0 or higher buyrates? Doing the same thing this time, except it's looking at wrestlers who have headlined shows that drew 30,000 or more fans. Shinya Hashimoto, Keiji Muto, and Genichiro Tenryu are all tied for first with 11 each, followed by Hogan, Inoki, Nobuhiko Takada, and Atsushi Onita. Hogan is the only non-Japanese wrestler on that list.
- Lucha Libre star El Sanguinario passed away last week at age 33. He reportedly was having trouble breathing and then collapsed and was pronounced dead of a heart attack at the hospital. Sounds like he was a midcard dude in AAA for a lot of the 90s, Dave recaps his career. Dropping dead of a heart attack at only 33 is some scary shit.
- The family of a wrestler named Brian Ong, who died while training at All Pro Wrestling's training school in May 2001, has filed a lawsuit against the promotion and its owner, Roland Alexander. The lawsuit alleges that Ong was training with a 7'3 wrestler who weighed 400 pounds when he suffered a fatal injury. The only wrestler who fits that description is NJPW's Giant Singh (better known these days as Great Khali), who was indeed training at the APW school around this time in 2001. The lawsuit claims Ong suffered a concussion earlier in the practice and instead of getting medical treatment, he was told to continue practicing. The suit claims the 5'7 Ong was put in the ring against Singh and after taking a flapjack bump, hit his head on the mat again and lost consciousness and never woke up. 911 was called and Ong died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The lawsuit claims Ong wasn't provided with protective gear or proper supervision and that the mats were not adequate cushion. It also argued that Ong should never have been put in a "match" with someone so much larger than him. Dave is flabbergasted that this story somehow stayed secret for 16 months and says the few people who must have been involved clearly tried to keep it quiet. He notes other well-known instances of trainees dying in wrestling schools, most famously an incident in NJPW's dojo in the 90s.
- Raw did the 2nd lowest rating it's done in four years. Even worse was the pattern of viewership, with fans dropping off in droves. In fact, Jericho vs. Jeff Hardy for the IC title lost almost half a million viewers, which is almost 10% of the total audience that bailed on the show in the middle of the match. "If anyone thinks RVD is over because of crowd pops, boy are they mistaken," Dave says. Probably shouldn't get your hopes up for him winning the title from Triple H at the next PPV. Meanwhile, Smackdown's rating was the best it's done in awhile, likely from all the Billy & Chuck publicity.
- Rumor is AJPW and Fuji TV have reached an agreement that would see AJPW finally back on TV. They've been without since losing their TV deal after the NOAH exodus. AJPW is holding a retirement party on 9/30 for Motoko Baba, where she is planning to turn the promotion over to Keiji Muto. The idea is that Muto will then announce the new TV deal as his first act as new AJPW President.
- Bob Sapp is under contract to K-1 and they loan him out to PRIDE. But as you can imagine, NJPW and AJPW are both trying to sign him as a pro wrestler (they both end up using him).
- Speaking of the dismal shape of this company, NJPW debuted a new, fake Great Muta, since they own rights to the name apparently. This "Muta" is a blond American wearing a mask and is part of Inoki's group of guys. Fans did not give a remote shit about this Muta and Dave thinks those who don't learn from history (fake Diesel and Razor) are doomed to repeat it. Man, Inoki never heard a bad idea he didn't like, huh? Anyway, this show was in Nagoya which is usually an easy sellout for NJPW but for only the 2nd time Dave can recall in the last 20 years, it was not a sellout.
- Hiroyoshi Tenzan slipped off the top rope doing a moonsault and landed on his head in a scary botch last week. Tenzan said later that he thought he was going to die in that moment. Dave has seen the photos and said it looks scary, with Tenzan landing right on his head similar to how Hayabusa was paralyzed. But Tenzan only missed a week or so of action and is back working, although he's not 100% (I've heard people talk about this botch before but I can't find video or even a picture of it).
- Messiah returned at a CZW show in the old ECW Arena and cut a promo about his thumb getting cut off. Firstly, he talked about it now being the CZW Arena and not another promotion (in reference to XPW claiming it was theirs). He also showed off his missing thumb and cut a promo about it not being a work. He said he wouldn't name who he thinks did it, but says they didn't get the job done. The crowd started chanting "Fuck Rob Black!" to which Messiah told them not to even say that piece of shit's name and got them to chant CZW instead. Sounds like Messiah wasn't naming names, maybe for legal reasons, but it's clear that he (and everyone else) believes Rob Black was behind the attack. The America's Most Wanted episode featuring this story is scheduled to air this week.
- Dave says there's a lot of ex-WCW wrestlers out there struggling right now. When WCW first went under, a lot of them (who weren't signed by WWE) were still able to use their name value to get decent work on the indies. But with the business drying up, a lot of those indies going under, less places to work, and the economy struggling, and time passing by, a lot of guys who were making 6-figure incomes a couple years ago in WCW are suddenly finding it hard to pay their bills.
- TNA appears to be getting an influx of new money, because they increased their budget significantly for the 9/18 show and are planning to bring in bigger name stars. Scott Hall, X-Pac, Marcus Bagwell, and Road Dogg are all supposed to be there, along with NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler and Saved by the Bell star Dustin Diamond (and this is the first whiff of that new Panda Energy money we're gonna be hearing a lot about soon).
- Notes from Raw: Dave says the only way to enjoy Raw these days is to find things he can laugh at, which is how he used to get through Nitro. This doesn't sound like it's gonna be a glowing recap. Bischoff opened the show saying Raw won't be a boring, formulaic show like Smackdown, which was immediately followed by Triple H coming out and cutting the standard opening segment 20 minute promo. Dave jokes that he ate dinner and still had time to watch a short movie because this promo went so long and even gets in a jab about Triple H manipulating the show because he's "banging the head writer." Dave came packing heat this week. Rico (fresh off switching to Raw) beat Flair in a 4 minute match and instead of putting Rico over like he accomplished something, they had Triple H berate Flair (who is facing Jericho for the IC title at the next PPV) about how he's washed up and even a lowly nobody like Rico can beat him, which is a pretty great way of burying both Flair and Rico at the same time. Booker T vs. Test was so bad that Dave jokes that he thought Jackie Gayda had possessed Test's body. This really is reading like one of Dave's snarky 2000-era Nitro reviews, where he wasn't even pretending to be nice or objective. This show sucks and he's determined to let us know. RVD tapped out to Jericho. Dave thinks it's good that babyfaces sometimes tap out to heel submissions, but RVD is challenging Triple H for the world title on PPV in 3 days. Having him tap out to someone he's not even feuding with 3 days before that match is basically the dumbest possible finish. Triple H gave RVD a pedigree after the match for good measure (and then, he will of course be beating RVD at the PPV and moving on. Triple H Reign of Terror era is in full effect at this point). To be fair, later on in the show, RVD did come back out and attack Triple H and leave him bloody in the ring. But don't worry. Valiant babyface Triple H overcame the odds and still managed to get back up and beat Jeff Hardy in 5 minutes to end the show. Dave also notes that Jeff Hardy, once again, looks terrible these days (drugs are bad, mmm'kay).
- Notes from Smackdown: it was in Minnesota and the crowd was super into Lesnar. Eddie & Chavo Guerrero make a great tag team and had an awesome match with Edge & Cena. Dave thinks Cena needs a new look, the little shorts aren't good. They also called Cena "the rookie" half a dozen times in this match and Dave thinks that's the kiss of death for a new guy. Anyway, the big angle of the show was of course the wedding of Billy and Chuck, which ended with a hell of an angle with Bischoff as the minister in disguise. Dave says Rico and Bischoff in particular were amazing during this whole segment. And of course, the show ended with Brock Lesnar threatening Undertaker's pregnant wife backstage (needless to say, if you've never seen the Billy & Chuck wedding angle, it's a must-see classic).
- Bradshaw will be out of action for about 6 months after tearing his bicep on Raw. He continued to work his match and even did a run-in later in the show, but flew to Birmingham the next day where he was diagnosed and underwent surgery that same day. Meanwhile, Faarooq is not injured, he's just sitting at home because creative has no ideas for him right now.
- WWE does seem to have interest in Nathan Jones now that it looks like his legal issues in Australia are going to be cleared up. He'll likely be sent to OVW first because he's nowhere near ready for prime time yet (lol, nope. He never worked a match in OVW. Vince took one look at him and said, "Gimme that big motherfucker!" He works a few months of main roster house shows then straight to TV).
- This week on WWE Confidential, they basically told the history of the Big Gold Belt (now known in WWE as Triple H's World Heavyweight Title). They talked about how the NWA title kinda morphed into the WCW title and Dave, of course, can't let that one slide without briefly touching on the real story of that split. Lots of interviews with past champions like Flair and Booker T and Big Show. They also had Bischoff on and everybody talked about certain guys who weren't worthy of being champion (everyone buried Goldberg, for instance) and Bischoff claimed Sting was never 100% committed to wrestling. Booker T claimed DDP's success was all manufactured and they pretty much said DDP was only ever the champion because he was friends with Bischoff.
- There's some backstage friction between management and the UnAmericans group. It's a bunch of little small issues. Vince wanted them all to dress the same and have a matching look. And since Lance Storm doesn't have long hair and can't grow it anytime soon, Vince wanted Test and Christian to cut their hair short like his. As you can see, neither of them has done so yet and that didn't go over well. There was also an issue because they wanted more security when they were leaving the building after the flag burning angle at MSG. That led to them being told that they are being given a golden opportunity and if they're scared of getting "too much heat" then maybe they don't deserve to be in that spot.
- David Flair is being sent to work some indies over in the UK. He's still signed to developmental in OVW, but he's been on the bubble for awhile and may not make it past the next round of cuts. Same kinda goes for Eric Angle and Horace Hogan and Dave says all 3 guys have been spared thus far more due to their last names than any other reason. But Dave doesn't have high hopes that David Flair is gonna last much longer.
- Latest on Steve Austin is that he's focused on fixing his marriage and has no interest in coming back to wrestling right now. He recently called off his divorce filing. As for WWE, they've been marking down Austin 3:16 shirts to as low as $3 bucks at live shows and word is they've been selling like crazy. Seems like WWE is trying to get rid of its stock of Austin merch.
- Dave found a newspaper interview from 2000 back when Brock Lesnar first got signed to WWE. He admitted in the interview that he doesn't really care for the fake punches and soap opera aspect of wrestling, but WWE is the only game in town, so that's what he decided to do. When talking about the business, he said, "It's in my mind, but not in my heart." In other words, what we've always known: Lesnar's here to get PAID. Period.
- Various WWE notes: the Island Boyz got a lot of heat for how rough they were when beating up the lesbians on Raw, particularly the poor girl that got a brutal thrust kick right to the ribs. New England Patriots new offensive lineman Stephen Neal once beat Brock Lesnar in the NCAA tournament finals in 1999. Chris Jericho's band Fozzy's new album has only sold 11,000 copies which has to be a disappointment given how much it's been mentioned on WWE TV. Vince McMahon was listed as the #386th richest American in Forbes, with a net worth of $570 million (down from $700 million last year). Howard Stern claimed Vince McMahon offered him a deal to do a WWE appearance but said the money wasn't good and said after the Billy & Chuck wedding debacle, he wouldn't appear for WWE for less than $2 million. Josh Matthews from Tough Enough debuted doing backstage shilling segments on TV.
- And finally, a metric ton of letters in this issue. Over the years, the letters section has dwindled down to almost none, but there's a bunch in this issue. Let's see if there's anything noteworthy. Former St. Louis wrestling announcer Larry Matysik writes a long letter to talk about the style of wrestling that Sam Muchnick promoted in that territory and whether it would work today. Then there's several letters about the Todd Martin essay a few issues back regarding racism in wrestling. Lots of interesting notes in here. One guy says it's a good thing Jesse Ventura's political enemies never dug into old wrestling footage and found some of his comments during the 80s. Also says he has a tape from pre-WM1 of Paul Orndorff calling Mr. T and other black people "porch monkeys." And finally, lots of thoughts on the Observer Hall of Fame. Several people upset that Shawn Michaels didn't get the votes because he obviously deserves it. Someone else writes in about Ring of Honor and says their shows he's attended have been some of the most unexpected, surprisingly awesome shows he's ever been to, with multiple MOTY candidates on every show. It's kinda cool getting to re-live the days when ROH was getting buzz simply for putting on quality shows month after month.
- And finally, someone else writes in to argue that Undertaker isn't nearly as special as WWE portrays him. Says Undertaker had a brief main event run in 1991, and then spent the next 5 years in midcard feuds. Wasn't until 1997 that he got back to the top again, and even throughout the Attitude Era, he's always been 2nd or 3rd fiddle behind Austin, Rock, and at times, even Triple H. And during those years, he's been involved in some of the worst drawing feuds and most embarrassing, poorly written, dumbest angles in WWE history. The only time he was a top draw was when he was feuding with Austin in 1998-99 and, let's be honest, Austin could have sold out a stadium against Brooklyn Brawler at that point. The Wrestlemania he headlined was the lowest WM buyrate in company history, he's never been a proven draw on his own. He's also pretty much never been that special as an in-ring wrestler either. He's been a popular character because he's been extremely protected, rarely selling for anyone, and always booked to come out on top in his feuds, but that's all WWE booking, not anything to do with Mark Callaway being great. So all in all, WWE's claim that Undertaker has been a top star for a decade doesn't really jibe with the facts and the author of this letter doesn't really understand why anyone thinks Undertaker has had a HOF-level career (you know, my gut feeling is to argue against this because it's Undertaker and he's a legend, but when you step back and try to look at it objectively....the guy kinda brings up some good points. Obviously, some of Taker's best years were still ahead of him. But in 2002, it's kinda hard to argue this. We all loved the gimmick as kids, but what had he ever really done at this point that made him stand ahead of anyone else?)