Wrestling Observer Rewinder

October 07, 2002

Keiju Muto was officially named president of All Japan Pro Wrestling this week at the company's 30th Anniversary party with Motoko Baba stepping down and handing over the reins of the promotion. It marks the end of the Giant Baba era of AJPW and the beginning of the company entering the modern world of professional wrestling. This was demonstrated with AJPW's new TV show, which as expected, was announced as Muto's first new act as president. It was similar to a K-1 hype show, with highlights and interviews and a more realistic, shoot-style approach (oh god, just what Japan needs more of). Muto is working with K-1 promoter Kazuyoshi Ishii and Ishii has suggested AJPW needs to step up the entertainment aspect of its shows. The in-ring is good, but he believes they're lacking things like elaborate ring entrances and big video screens to make it more viewer-friendly. It's true that K-1 pretty much pioneered the big production presentation that both WCW Nitro and WWF's Raw later copied. Anyway, this show was all building up to a big card in November which will feature AJPW wrestlers along with K-1 and PRIDE fighters. Are we sure this new AJPW president isn't just Inoki in Muta face paint?
Anyway, Muto also announced plans to run the Tokyo Dome next year and possibly run shows in the U.S. as well. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiro Mori gave a speech at the party, which is the equivalent of Bill Clinton showing up to give a speech at a WWE event. Mori is close politically with Hiroshi Hase, who wrestles for AJPW when not serving in government, so it's believed Hase pulled the strings to get Mori to speak. Motoko Baba will still have a financial stake in AJPW but has no title and will not be working in any official capacity. Even though Muto is technically in charge, Ishii has gained significant power throughout the industry and he has his fingers not just in AJPW but in K-1 and PRIDE as well, and there's a lot of feeling that Ishii is the one who is truly steering the ship. In fact, AJPW's new TV deal was mostly done as a favor to Ishii by the network. Dave finds it interesting that AJPW is evidently planning to follow NJPW's lead in mixing wrestling with MMA. That direction was a significant part of the reason Muto left NJPW to begin with, after having disagreements with Inoki about mixing the two. But MMA is the hottest thing in the world in Japan right now and that's where the big, record-setting money is, so it appears Muto is going along with Ishii's plan.
Another interesting note is regarding the way AJPW is owned. Way back in the day, Giant Baba split the company into multiple subsidiary companies that own various parts of the overall thing. All Japan Pro Wrestling Inc. is the company that Muto is taking over. However there's also Giant Service Inc. which Motoko Baba still owns and is not giving up. That company owns all of the trademarks, copyrights, and merchandising rights for AJPW talent. Then there's Baba & Jumbo Inc., which is owned by longtime AJPW referee Kyohei Wada. That company owns the physical rings and stage equipment, the trucks that move the equipment from town to town, etc. Muto doesn't own that either.
Vince McMahon made an off-hand remark about ECW at the latest stockholder's meeting that got some people talking about the possibility of ECW being revived under the WWE umbrella. Vince was asked about the possibility of bringing it back and said he'd like to, and give it a late-night time slot to let it run as its own separate entity. He also talked about wanting to purchase the ECW video library in bankruptcy court and talked about possibly making ECW a third brand in the future. Dave says that there's no way to make ECW viable as a brand right now. Dave thinks ECW as a brand wouldn't work. For starters, it would need to have Paul Heyman in charge because he's the only one who understands how to make "ECW" work for that cult audience. And they would also need wrestlers to carry it and right now, WWE is struggling to make people care about 2 brands without the problems adding a 3rd would bring. And would it be a touring brand? A small cult brand on a late night show doing its own tours would be a money-losing disaster. They could do it as its own TV show, but that would likely mean just filming it before Raw or Smackdown, at which point it's basically the same thing as Velocity, just with a different name. And what if it's a success? If someone gets over on late-night ECW, then you can bet your ass Vince is just gonna move them to Raw or SD so he can make money with them in prime time and tour them in big arenas. They could rename OVW and give Heyman control of that and put that on TV if they wanted, but then it's just developmental under a new name. And the reality is, ECW was a cult favorite because it wasn't WWF or WCW. The second you give Vince McMahon control of it and it becomes ECW under the WWE banner, it loses that underdog, outsider feel that made it so popular to begin with. All in all, Dave just doesn't think this can feasibly work. However, he does think there might be some big money in "one or two nostalgia PPVs." (Literally 3 years before One Night Stand and 4 years before the TV revival of ECW and Dave called every bit of it).
Other notes from the stockholder's call: WWE has recently shut down its planned record label, Smackdown Records. Vince admitted it was a mistake. He talked about the new movie production studio and talked about releasing low-budget straight-to-video movies with WWE wrestlers (4 years later, we'd get the first one: See No Evil, starring Kane, which actually was in theaters). He talked about their restaurant in Times Square and said it was horribly mismanaged. Vince also talked about creating some sort of service allowing fans to view their old video library, which would be a way to make some money off the vast video library they own, which includes WCW. And, if Vince has his way, the ECW library as well (12 years later, we'd finally get the WWE Network).
The next two big stories are recapping the latest UFC show (where Ricco Rodriguez beat Randy Couture to win the vacant UFC heavyweight title) and the latest PRIDE show which featured nothing notable other than Ryan Gracie breaking Shungo Oyama's arm in the main event. So on to the next...
Sports Illustrated wrote a story on WWE's decline over the past year. Before going into it, Dave wants to make clear that WWE is fine. Even if things were dire, they have enough cash reserves to last a long time. And even if Smackdown ratings decline, they're still the #1 show on UPN by a wide margin. And their TV contract with TNN is guaranteed for at least 3 more years. So have no fear, all the outrage over the gay wedding angle and the lesbians notwithstanding, WWE isn't on death's door. Of course, in a few years, if ratings continue to decline and the TV landscape keeps changing, who knows what kind of TV deal they'll be able to strike next. Then it might be time to worry. But for now, they're fine. The SI story claimed the wrestling business has never been in worse shape, which is not true. Even though WWE's revenue has declined by more than $30 million this year, it's still one of the most profitable years ever. Prior to 1998, WWE had never had anywhere close to a year like that. The 80s, which many considered the boom period of wrestling, wasn't even making 1/5 of that much revenue. And yet, in other ways, the story is correct. The wrestling business is in bad shape right now, with one company holding a monopoly in the U.S. which hurts everybody. Wrestling as a whole is absolutely declining in popularity at a staggering rate. Vince McMahon was asked for comment for the piece and his only response was, "Why is a sports magazine interested in an entertainment story?" Dave thinks that's pretty funny because a huge Sports Illustrated cover story on Hulk Hogan in 1985 is partially what put Hogan on the map as a mainstream star. (If you've never seen it before, here's the full Sports Illustrated story on Hulk Hogan from 1985. And yes, if you're curious, it does indeed feature several quotes from a 24-year-old wrestling journalist named Dave Meltzer).
The trial of Nicole Bass vs. WWE continued this week and has become a major headache for WWE since it's getting a lot of media publicity, especially in New York. Surprisingly, the biggest national news outlet to take Bass seriously was Fox News, which ran a big segment on the case and was one of the few not to mock Bass' appearance, saying that scripting sexual things for characters is fine but said WWE has no right to allow the exploitation and harassment to continue after the show is over. Anyway, as the trial continued, Vince McMahon continued to testify. Linda McMahon and Jim Ross were also both on call to testify, forcing both to sit in New York and miss company business. The biggest testimony this week came from Sable, who claimed that Vince promised to portray her on TV as a classy intellectual woman but instead turned her into, well....Sable. She said she left the company after she was asked to expose her breasts on television and participate in a lesbian storyline, both of which she refused to do. WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt tore into Bass on the stand and reduced her to tears at one point, berating her about inconsistencies in her story and getting her to admit that her demand for $120 million in damages was excessive. Bass claimed that Shawn Michaels called her "mister" on Raw and she was horrified and embarrassed, but the other side argued that Bass' entire gimmick on Howard Stern's radio show (where she initially became famous) was based on the idea that they thought she was really a man. So that's where it stands now, the trial is still ongoing.
OVW's big Fall Brawl show took place a few weeks ago, featuring all the top WWE developmental names and OVW alums like Lesnar, Cena, Orton, Rico, and more working matches or appearing. Dave has seen the tape and decides it's a good time to give his opinion on WWE's current crop of developmental stars. Let's make these quick:
Charlie Haas - good athlete and does good moves, but not ready yet
Damaja - can talk, good size, but never seems to get WWE's interest
Lance Cade - looks like a young Barry Windham, young and can move but nothing about him that really grabs your attention otherwise
Kevin Fertig - just another big guy who's not very good right now
Travis Tomko - has an impressive look but also kinda looks like a low-rent version of Leviathan. Not good in the ring yet
Matt Morgan - from Tough Enough 2, very little experience, but great look and can move well. May have star potential but it'll be awhile
Sean O'Haire & Mark Jindrak - former WCW tag team champions, worse than ever. They've been taught a totally different style than what they were taught in WCW and neither of them is picking up on the WWE style at all.
Rob Conway - decent worker but doesn't stand out
Nick Dinsmore - also a good worker but doesn't have a look that will fit in with the WWE system
Shelton Benjamin - great athlete and picked up the basics almost as fast as Kurt Angle and has a lot of potential. Slowed by injuries and hasn't shown much growth in recent months. Will probably be on the main roster sooner than later
Jackie Gayda - has the star look WWE wants far more than anyone else in OVW (in other words, she's hot and stands out in a crowd). Hasn't wrestled since that match but Dave expects her to be back on TV sooner than later because of how she looks
Nova - people who remember his flashy matches from ECW would think he's gotten worse, but really he's just trying to learn the WWE style and he's just kinda average when it comes to that. He's also smaller than WWE usually likes
Doug Basham - good talker, good wrestler, probably the most well-rounded guy in OVW, but fairly generic look. Dave figures if they bring him up, he'll probably get lost in the shuffle
Bob Sapp will be making his wrestling debut for NJPW at the Tokyo Dome next week in a match against Manabu Nakanishi. Dave says it better be a quick squash win for Sapp (nope but it turned out okay).
Yuji Nagata got married this week, which is not the fun part of this story. NJPW actually filmed an angle at the wedding in which Masahiro Chono goaded him on in front of the guests, resulting in Nagata agreeing to put the IWGP title up against Kazuyuki Fujita at the Tokyo Dome.
The hype for this NJPW Tokyo Dome show is still mostly built around Chyna on TV. She did multiple promos and a match on their show this week. She's still using the pedigree as her finisher and pinned El Samurai with it in a tag match. She then did a promo vowing to beat up Hiroshi Tanahashi later in the show and called him too green to be in the ring with her. Then said at the Tokyo Dome, she's going to show her shoot fighting skills and break Chono's arm and then she beat up the interviewer. In another 6-person tag match, she did indeed do some mat wrestling with Tanahashi and it was actually good. Later in the match, they did some more high-flying stuff which was mistimed, but for the most part, Tanahashi was the only person in NJPW Dave has seen that was able to get anything halfway watchable out of working with Chyna. But all in all, this is a mess and Dave can't understand what NJPW is thinking.
Word is that Inoki's recent UFO-branded MMA/wrestling show at the Tokyo Dome was possibly the single biggest money losing show in history. If you recall, the crowd for that show was only about 5,000 paid, in a stadium that holds 55,000+. Dave has heard upwards of several millions of dollars were lost on this event.
Riki Choshu did an interview shitting on his former employer, NJPW. Choshu said he'd watched their recent TV shows and didn't like it. Said he didn't like Chyna wrestling with Tanahashi. He said he might could look past it if she was a good wrestler, but she's not, so he hates it and doesn't like the idea of men and women wrestling each other anyway. He also predicted the upcoming NJPW Tokyo Dome show would flop.
Pancrase legend Minoru Suzuki was scheduled to face NJPW star Kensuke Sasaki in a shoot fight at their upcoming event. But Sasaki isn't quite going to be healed up yet from a foot injury he's had, so instead, NJPW sent Jushin Liger to issue the challenge instead. The event is in November and will be Suzuki vs. Liger in what will be Liger's first ever shoot. Dave thinks this isn't going to go well for Liger (it does not. But it does come back around 18 years later and played a big role in Liger's last major feud).
Major League Wrestling's 2nd ever show took place in New York at the Manhattan Center, the old home of Raw. It featured Chris Candido vs. Terry Funk in a match where the crowd was brutal towards Tammy Sytch at ringside and she was said to be upset at how the fans treated her. And the main event of Satoshi Kojima winning the vacant MLW title over Jerry Lynn. This is actually on YouTube, enjoy!
Regarding the big influx of money and company purchasing ownership in TNA, the deal still isn't finalized. But most in the company seem optimistic that it will be soon. If they don't close the deal soon, TNA's future doesn't look promising (yeah, this Panda Energy deal saved them. They weren't gonna survive 2002 if this hadn't worked out but it did, and now, 18 years later, they're still hanging on somehow).
The marketing firm TNA sued a few weeks back has filed a countersuit against TNA, claiming slander, libel, breach of contract, and more. Another graphic design company also sued TNA for $56,000 claiming they haven't been paid for designing company logos and other artwork. TNA and getting sued by people they owe money to, name a more iconic duo.
Notes from Raw: they spent half the episode taking shots at Monday Night Football, which came off pathetic. Trish vs. Victoria was not only the best WWE women's match in a long time, but really one of the best matches on Raw overall in quite some time. Kane beat Jericho for the IC title in a match that was pretty much a one-man show with Jericho single-handedly making this watchable. Pretty much that's it for notable stuff from this show.
Notes from Smackdown: probably the best WWE TV show of the year. Edge vs. Eddie Guerrero ladder match was incredible and one of the best matches of the year, with Eddie (the heel) even getting a standing ovation when it was over. Dave gives it 4.5 stars. And then there was Benoit vs. Mysterio vs. Angle in a triple threat that gets 4 stars. Dave really hopes one of these guys will break through the glass ceiling one of these days and start being treated on par with main eventers like Undertaker and Triple H.
Despite Hulk Hogan's recent claims on Bubba the Love Sponge's radio show that he has a handshake agreement only with WWE, that is, of course, not true. He does have a contract and it expires in February of 2003. Hogan only signed for one year, while Nash and Hall (who came in with him as the NWO) each signed 2-year deals. Most people expect Hogan back on TV around November since that's when his book comes out (that was the plan, but it doesn't happen that way. We'll get there). Anyway, Hogan could always go elsewhere and do other things when his deal expires, but realistically, there's nowhere else in wrestling where he can make the kind of money he demands other than WWE. The obvious way to bring him back is a feud with Lesnar, since that's who put him out. But they can't have Lesnar losing to Hogan and Hogan probably isn't gonna wanna come back just to get destroyed by Lesnar again, so they may just move on from that entirely (yup).
The movie "Helldorado" that Rock is filming in Hawaii is going to have a name change. No word on the new name yet, but the script isn't changing. Just the name. Rock plays a bounty hunter who is doing one last job. One might say he's running down someone...
Mike Awesome, Shawn Stasiak, and Horace Hogan were all released. They were unhappy with Awesome, feeling like he returned out of shape after being out with a knee injury. And Stasiak had been given a million chances but they finally decided he just doesn't have it. Horace Hogan never impressed in developmental. Dave thinks the writing is on the wall for David Flair soon too (yup).
WWE has had talks with Ultimo Dragon about him coming to WWE. Dragon is 36 and fresh off coming out of retirement. Dave saw his recent comeback match and he was better than most, but was still clearly limited. There's also the issue of his Toryumon promotion in Japan because if he signs with WWE, he'd be in America full time and it's kinda hard to run a Japanese promotion that way (yeah, he ends up turning control of the company over to someone else while he's gone and it eventually morphs into Dragon Gate).
Spanky (Brian Kendrick) will be getting a tryout at some upcoming WWE shows. Spanky has already verbally accepted a 3-year deal with Zero-One in Japan, but hadn't officially signed anything yet when WWE came calling. He was in their developmental system for years and WWE management never seemed to know he existed, but then he started making a name for himself on the indies and in Japan and now they're interested again. Dave assumes it would have to be a main roster offer because he's not going to turn down a 3-year deal in Japan to accept a $25k-per-year gig in OVW.
Dave off-handedly mentions that Bob Holly is out of action for now after getting dropped on his head by Lesnar on Smackdown. Yeah, turns out this was an extremely serious injury and broke Holly's neck. He was out for over a year. I'm sure Dave will have more details on it in coming issues, but yeah, it was nasty.
Terry Taylor has been trying to get back in WWE since WCW folded, but couldn't get a call back. He still has a lot of heat from his previous tenure in WWE. Refresher: after Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara left without notice and jumped ship to WCW, McMahon tried to get all the key backstage people to sign contracts that had non-competes that would prevent them from working for WCW if they were let go. Taylor refused to sign it and eventually left the company over it and went to WCW. Anyway, this week, John Laurinaitis went to bat for Taylor and finally he got a tryout to come in as an agent. He laid out the Rikishi vs. Chavo match on Smackdown but it went poorly and Vince ended up yelling at Taylor over a spot in the match he didn't like. So no word where things stand, but Taylor is not re-hired as of yet.