November 25, 2002
- Survivor Series is in the books and saw 5 titles change hands and the debut of the Elimination Chamber, the most expensive structure in the history of pro wrestling. The crowd at Madison Square Garden was hot and opinionated. Due to high ticket prices, the show broke the all-time gate record for New York City at over $1.25 million and was the largest non-Wrestlemania gate ever in North America. The show ended with Shawn Michaels, in only his 2nd WWE match in more than four years, winning the world heavyweight title in the Elimination Chamber, last pinning Triple H, who wrestled almost 30 minutes with a serious throat injury that led to him being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance afterward. The injury occurred when RVD came off the top of a chamber pod with a frog splash and landed with his knee on Triple H's throat. Initially, there was fear that Triple H had suffered a crushed larynx. He also suffered an arm injury during the match that hasn't yet been diagnosed. The Elimination Chamber itself cost a legit $500K to build (nearly the same amount WWE spends on its developmental program in a year) and will probably become an annual gimmick in order to justify its cost. Needless to say, in the wake of so many recent layoffs and cutbacks, spending that much money on a cage raised some eyebrows. Anyway, Shawn's victory wasn't well received by a lot of the locker room, as I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear. Triple H's friend comes back and wins the title in only his 2nd match, which will surely lead to more rematches with Triple H, wasn't the most popular decision. Once again, it feels like the Kliq has monopolized the top of the company. But Dave says this was all Vince. Triple H did suggest it (after shooting down losing it to Kane, RVD, and Booker T, all of whom he argued weren't ready) but Vince was the one who was gung-ho about it, and really wanted the big confetti falling feel-good moment to end the show so that's what we got with Shawn. Dave ain't feeling it. It was great for a momentary pop and a feel-good moment, but in the long-run, what does it accomplish? Who does it get over? (Shawn is my favorite wrestler in history, but he loses this title back to Triple H a month later and never becomes champion again so I'm kinda with Dave here: this served zero purpose in the long run).
- Changing almost every title in the company and putting the Raw title on Shawn Michaels all sorta reeks of panic booking with no long-term plan. Changing all the belts at once makes none of the title changes feel important or special. Los Guerreros won the Smackdown tag titles, which is the 3rd title change in the 28 days these titles have existed. The Cruiserweight and Women's title both changed hands and neither has been built up in any way that matters and changing them on this show felt pointless and would have been better served to add some excitement to the TV shows. The Raw title is now on a guy who doesn't work house shows or even TV matches right now. The Smackdown title is on a guy widely considered to be the laziest wrestler in the company. Those close to Vince McMahon, even those who have known him for decades, are becoming frustrated with his lack of long-term decision making in recent months. Brock Lesnar went into the match with a torn PCL muscle (luckily, it won't require surgery) and a legit broken rib, which they made a storyline out of. Anyway, Lesnar lost the title to Big Show after Heyman turned on Lesnar and cost him the match. Dave hopes it was the right decision. Goldberg was booked as an unbeatable monster in WCW and even though it wasn't a clean loss, Goldberg losing the title pretty much killed his momentum forever after and Dave hopes the same doesn't happen to Lesnar after this.
- Other notes from Survivor Series: D-Von Dudley returned to his original Dudley gimmick in the opening match, dropping the reverend gimmick and reuniting with Bubba Ray. It's for the best, they were going nowhere as singles stars. Opening multi-team tables match was a mess with several big botches. Billy Kidman won the cruiserweight title. Victoria won the women's title. Big Show beat Lesnar for the WWE title in a short match that saw Lesnar, broken rib and all, throw Big Show around the ring like crazy and he's just freakishly strong. Smackdown tag title match was good but still disappointing considering the names involved. Only 3.5 stars. Crowd was really into hating Kurt Angle and Edge. And the Elimination Chamber was 4.25 stars and a hell of a dangerous match. Blood everywhere. Triple H getting his throat crushed. Shawn taking back bumps on the steel. Shawn is still getting his timing back but he's better than he has any right to be after this much time away with that back injury.
- And then there was Scott Steiner's debut. Dave can't fathom why this wasn't advertised. They announced on TV weeks ago that he was coming to WWE but never once hyped up the fact that he would be debuting at Survivor Series, which seems like the kind of thing that, I dunno, might have added to the buyrate? If they wanted to do it as a surprise, why ever announce the signing on TV? In fact, Steiner's first WWE appearance was technically the night before on the WWE Confidential show which featured an interview with him. So they technically debuted him on the lowest rated show they have. Steiner got a huge reaction from the MSG crowd and WWE made no money from it. Just short-sighted ignorance that Dave can't understand. Steiner beat up Chris Nowinski and Matt Hardy before dropping a loud uncensored "Gimme a fuckin' mic!" before cutting his promo.
- AJPW's latest big show Wrestle-1, co-promoted by PRIDE and K-1, is in the books and It. Was. Weird. The show was a hodgepodge of AJPW talent and wrestlers/fighters from other places and because of all the negotiations, most of the lineup was unknown until 2 days before the show. One of these instances was a Goldberg vs. Rick Steiner match. AJPW announced it was happening, only for Goldberg to go on his website and say despite what AJPW was claiming, he wasn't going to be there. But then the negotiations continued and he ended up going after all. But at press time, even though the show is over, Goldberg's website never updated the post so most people understandably assumed Goldberg wouldn't be there. Goldberg ended up skipping out on a movie he's filming, and he and Steiner arrived together in Tokyo at 4pm the day of the show. To get through customs and then the 2 hour car ride to Yokohama, there was no way he would have made it on time. As a result, AJPW ended up flying Goldberg and Steiner from Tokyo to Yokohama in a helicopter to get them to the arena. To stall for time, the show started 20 minutes late as fans were still being let in. Goldberg was planned to face a Japanese wrestler on the show (rumored to be Takayama or Hashimoto) but Goldberg didn't want to work their kind of match, so he suggested Rick Steiner, who is his closest friend in the business. So that's what we got.
- Other notes from Wrestle-1: it was the most elaborately produced show ever in Japanese pro wrestling history, lots of special effects and pyro and all that fun shit that is the total opposite of what Giant Baba promoted for so many years. PRIDE fighters like Bob Sapp, Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman worked matches, along with UFC star Caol Uno, K-1 star Sam Greco, Lucha Libre stars like La Parka and Dos Caras Jr. (Alberto Del Rio in his original gimmick. Not to be confused with his current gimmick of rapist piece of shit), and the usual AJPW wrestlers. Just a total mishmash of everything. Baba gotta be rolling over in his grave man. They announced plans for a Tokyo Dome show in January and they're trying to get Hulk Hogan to work it, perhaps to team with Goldberg. Speaking of, Goldberg beat Steiner with the spear/jackhammer. So much for saving that for a big Muto match. And Bob Sapp pinned Muto in a non-title match that made headlines in all the papers around Japan.
- The Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission has decided to adopt and begin enforcing new regulations on pro wrestling. The Commission decreed that the use of barbed wire and light tubes in matches are now banned within the state. Wrestlers are also no longer allowed to fight outside the barricades where the crowd is, especially while bleeding. Speaking of, the Commission also asked all promotions operating within the state to limit excessive blood, so basically, no more blading in half the matches. In case you're wondering where all this comes from, it stems from a recent XPW show where wrestler Angel was bleeding and ended up in the women's bathroom where he bled on the daughter of a local judge, who was at the show. There was also complaints about excessive nudity by promoter Rob Black's wife Lizzie Borden, as well as the use of a weedeater in one of the matches. Needless to say, Philadelphia in particular is known as the city where this kind of wrestling is most popular and this will probably hurt a lot of indie companies in the area, who's entire identities are basically death match shit.
- Speaking of Philadelphia indies, there's a lot of maneuvering and jockeying for position between ROH, CZW, and XPW and the other smaller ones. Recently, XPW tried to get an exclusive lease on Viking Hall. When ROH heard about this, they signed an exclusive lease with the nearby Murphy Rec Center, figuring that if XPW gets Viking Hall, all the other companies would want to use the Rec Center, so they decided to hurry up and lock it down. CZW is looking at renovating its old building in nearby Sewell, NJ and running exclusively there. CZW had previously left NJ due to that state's Athletic Commission banning garbage matches, and now that Pennsylvania has basically done the same, NJ is back in play as an option.
- Chyna appeared on The Best Damn Sports Show Period and, among other things, announced that she and Sean Waltman (X-Pac, currently Syxx-Pac in TNA) are engaged. The two have been friends for years, dating back to when Chyna was dating Triple H and Syxx was his close friend. Chyna and Triple H haven't spoken since they broke up when he got caught cheating on her with Stephanie McMahon. Syxx and Triple H reportedly haven't spoken lately either. Not that there was any kind of falling out, just that things are obviously kinda weird and so they've sorta grown apart. Syxx is still technically married to his previous wife, but is in the midst of getting divorced. In between, Syxx also briefly dated Alicia Webb (better known as Ryan Shamrock) and that relationship was said to be pretty tumultuous. Following that break-up, Syxx moved to L.A., where Chyna was already living, and they reconnected while training at Inoki's L.A. dojo. There's been talks of bringing the two of them into NJPW together as a tag team. Elsewhere on the show, they showed a lot of Chyna's recent work in Japan, including highlights of her match with Masahiro Chono. She was there with Antonio Inoki, and they basically tried to spin it as if Chyna was a huge deal in Japan who drew monster crowds and worked with "the biggest star" in Japan, Chono. Needless to say, none of that is true but all of this, coupled with the footage of Chyna and Chono fighting in front of a large Tokyo Dome crowd, sure made it look and sound true to the uninformed (this is a really cool video, like a mini-documentary of Chyna's NJPW run. Highly recommend watching this one).
- And speaking of Chyna, Dave reviews tapes of the latest NJPW TV show and he actually gives Chyna some credit here. She's improved a lot with her dojo training and working with these NJPW guys every night. This was right at the end of her tour and he's reviewing a tag match with Chyna and Great Kabuki vs. Masahiro Chono & Tenzan for the IWGP tag titles. The men in NJPW have been working with her just like she was any other man, with stiff offense, and Chyna has learned to take it and give it right back just as hard. Her offense looks good and she definitely carried the workload for her team in the match (kinda sucks that this was essentially the end of her career and drugs took over just as she was getting good. Imagine an alternate reality with a sober, grizzled, world-traveled, strong-style veteran Joanie Laurer as the Minoru Suzuki of women's wrestling in 2020).
- X-Pac/Syxx-Pac/Waltman, whatever his name is right now....he no-showed this week's TNA PPV. The company started getting worried when no one could get in touch with him and then they learned he never boarded his flight from L.A. Just minutes before the show went on the air, Syxx called Jeff Jarrett and apologized, saying he was laid up from an injury a few nights earlier at an indie show and overslept and didn't wake up until 4:30pm. It's true that he was already working with a messed up hip and foolishly decided to work an indie show figuring he could take it easy, and ended up messing up his back too. He admitted he was totally at fault and he let the company down. He's one of the top 2 or 3 highest paid guys in the company right now and a lot of the other guys obviously feel a bit annoyed by this.
- News just came out that Scott Hall was again arrested for DUI back in September, pulled over driving on a rim. He refused to submit to a Breathalyzer or any other drug testing and was arrested. This all got plea bargained down to some slightly lesser charge and Hall's license has since been suspended. It should also be noted that when Hall was arrested, his 11 and 7-year old children were at home alone. When police spoke to the kids, 11-year-old Cody said he felt threatened by his father and had a panic attack and began talking about wanting to commit suicide, at which point the child was taken to an involuntary psychiatric unit at the hospital for 5 days. Fuck man.
- WWE filed a lawsuit against video game maker Acclaim to block the company from distributing any more old video games that Acclaim produced for WWE back in the 90s. WWE claims Acclaim is still selling the old games, despite an agreement to stop whenever they stopped working together back in 1999. This is actually unrelated to the ongoing bickering in bankruptcy court over the rights to the ECW library. Latest on that is that the court ruled in favor of Acclaim but WWE is appealing.
- Notes from Raw: a weird show with almost no wrestling. Promo after promo after promo, including an awful and forever long Shawn Michaels/Bischoff segment where they joked about the necrophilia angle being bad. They thought it would get a pop. It did not. The Bischoff/Stephanie kiss angle has been completely forgotten and dropped with no explanation. Stacy Keibler came out shilling "I love my testicles" shirts. Scott Steiner cut a promo and if you ever heard any promo he ever cut in WCW, it was the same thing. Just a bunch of nothing and short matches and proooooooooooomos.
- Notes from Smackdown: Eddie Guerrero vs. Mysterio was a 4.25. star match as Smackdown continues to deliver bangers week after week. Dave thinks Guerrero might be the best current performer in the entire business right now, but because of his size and his years of midcard booking, he fears that Eddie will go down in history as the greatest midcard wrestler ever (thankfully, he was wrong about that). The Al Wilson/Dawn Marie storyline is terrible but word is they still have what they believe are a few great twists and turns left in this story, so they're committed to seeing it through to the end, whatever that may be (yeah, this is gonna go in some interesting directions soon). Dave even thinks the current Big Show push is enjoyable, which he never would have thought possible. The show ended with Brock Lesnar beast-maul murderfuckkilling Big Show around the ring, blasting him with brutal chair shots and throwing him into the stairs, which messed up Show's arm pretty bad. Strong angle to give Lesnar his heat back after losing the title at the PPV. Smackdown was firing on all cylinders during this era, man...
- Undertaker is gonna be off TV for awhile since his wife is about to give birth and then after she's recovered enough, he's getting elbow surgery.
- Ultimate Warrior made a post online and talked about Vince McMahon asking him to turn heel in 1992. Warrior didn't go into much detail, but fear not, Dave has the story. The gist of it is that Vince needed to quell the steroid stories that were going around the media. So the idea was to go with the more normal looking Bret Hart as the champion. And since Warrior was a neon billboard for steroids, but Vince didn't want to get rid of him, he proposed turning Warrior heel. That way, he wouldn't be idolized by a bunch of little kids, they could change his look and if he wasn't the champion, maybe the press would focus more on the normal looking guy in the pink as the face of the company and it wouldn't be such a big story. I guess that's the idea? Anyway, the problem was Warrior would feud with Hart for the title and he would have to put Hart over at all the house shows and eventually on PPV. Warrior wasn't going for that shit so it never happened. Warrior ended up getting fired a few weeks later for unrelated reasons.