Wrestling Observer Rewinder

December 16, 2002

This week, we get the full super-length obituary for Mr. Wrestling, who passed away last week. Apparently last week's obit wasn't enough, so this week Dave drops another 7,000+ word history of his life and career, along with a complete list of all his titles and accomplishments. Those of you familiar with the Observer will know that the obituary pieces are always a highlight. Dave is a historian at heart and at his best when he's diving deep into into history of wrestling. He's got multiple books compiling these obituaries and they're excellent. But we also covered most of this last week and I'm struggling to get these Rewinds finished as it is. That being said, this is a magnificent read and I highly recommend it if you're interested and have an Observer subscription.
It has been widely reported in Japanese media that K-1 promoter Kazuyoshi Ishii is expected to be arrested soon on tax evasion charges, allegedly owing the government $1.7 million in back taxes. The rumors have been circulating for awhile, but K-1 had their big Grand Prix Finals show at the Tokyo Dome, which drew a massive sellout crowd and word is the government was holding off on the arrest, and the media was holding off on the story, because they didn't want to hurt the show, because it was expected to bring in a lot of tax revenue for the city of Tokyo. So it was kept quiet until after the show, but the day after it took place, the story blew up everywhere. This isn't unusual, as Japanese media is notorious for trying to protect big events such as this, whereas in the U.S., it would be a different matter and everyone would be racing to see who could break the story first. Just another difference in cultures. The claim is that Ishii brought in around $6 million in income that he never reported between 1997 and 2000 and, therefore, never paid taxes on. For his part, Ishii naturally denies the allegations and claims much of that was spent on bringing in foreign talent for shows and that the government is failing to take that into account. Ishii is basically the Vince McMahon of Japan. He not only runs K-1, but he has several huge stars (most notably right now being Bob Sapp) under exclusive contract and as a promoter, loans Sapp out to PRIDE, NJPW, AJPW, and others, turning him into Japan's biggest sports star. Basically, all these other companies can run their mid-range shows, but any show in Japan that has filled up a stadium in the last couple of years, Ishii was usually the one behind it. Ishii has also been responsible for bringing in Bill Goldberg and others for big shows (since we won't get to find out how this story plays out before the end of 2002: Ishii does indeed get charged with tax evasion. In 2004, he was convicted and sentenced to 22 months in prison. But he stayed out on bail and spent 3 years appealing his sentence to no avail. In 2007, he finally went to prison and served a little over 1 year before being released in 2008).
Speaking of the K-1 Grand Prix, Bob Sapp once again faced arguably the greatest kickboxer who ever lived, Ernesto Hoost, and for the second time, Sapp defeated him by referee stoppage in a wild, incredible brawl. Sapp absorbed an insane amount of punishment, from brutal leg kicks and multiple head punches but he kept going. Sapp, not exactly the best striker in the world, was swinging wild haymakers that mostly missed, but when they connected, boy did they. When the ref stopped it, Hoost was furious, and some felt the referee stopped it too soon to protect Sapp, who is the big star. And they may be right because Sapp was completely gassed and looked like a desperate man out there. He showed little defensive skill and doesn't have much in the way of technique. But the facts can't be denied: no matter how sloppy and unpolished he is, Sapp has now beaten the greatest heavyweight kickboxer of all time...twice. But Sapp was injured in the fight (broken hand) and had to pull out of the rest of the tournament, so even though he lost, Hoost was allowed to replace Sapp in the next round and move on. And Hoost went on to win the whole tournament, defeating Jerome LeBanner in the finals and claiming the $400,000 bonus. That sure seems kinda unfair. Anyway, the Grand Prix show ended up being the most successful wrestling/MMA show in Japan since the 1976 Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali fight. It was viewed by approximately 47 million people on TV. Everyone went in expecting Hoost to avenge his prior loss to Sapp, and that's what drew the crowd, but nope. And the result is that Sapp came out an even bigger star than he already was and Hoost still won the biggest tournament in K-1 history which seems to set up an obvious 3rd fight. The injury to Sapp wreaks havoc on Antonio Inoki's plans however. Sapp was scheduled to face NJPW wrestler Tadao Yasuda in an MMA fight at Inoki's New Year's Eve show in a couple of weeks, and because he's Bob Sapp, that was naturally the big draw for the show. But that's likely off the table now (nope, Sapp still fought him and still won). Sapp was also booked to work NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show next month, no word on how this may affect his ability to do a pro wrestling match (he doesn't end up doing that show, go figure). Anyway, here's the Sapp/Hoost fight and yeah, it's freakin' wild. The rise of Bob Sapp is probably the most interesting story of 2002 to me.
WATCH: Bob Sapp vs. Ernesto Hoost II - 2002 K-1 Grand Prix
One of Japanese wrestling's longest traditions, the end-of-year tag team tournaments in both AJPW and NJPW, were complete bombs this year. AJPW's Real World Tag League tournament dates back to 1977 and has always been their premiere tournament. This year, it was won by Satoshi Kojima and Taiyo Kea, even though Kea went into the final match with a torn ACL and he didn't do much. He will be having surgery this week that's expected to keep him out 6 months or more, meaning they'll have to vacate the tag titles they just won. The final show, usually a guaranteed sell-out, drew a paltry 6,500 fans to Budokan Hall, the smallest crowd AJPW has drawn to that arena in the 30 year history of the company. Muto's recent changes to AJPW seem to be trying to modernize the company in American-style, with big video screens and pyro and all that gaga, and AJPW fans don't seem to be into it one bit. During the whole tour, which drew poorly for every show, people were making comparisons to the dying days of WCW. As for NJPW, they changed the tag tournament this year to a weird trios triathlon format that confused fans and didn't sell out a single show for the entire tour and the finals only drew 3,800. Needless to say, dark days for both AJPW and NJPW right now in 2002.
At a recent CMLL show at Arena Mexico, there was an incident with Negro Casas punching announcer Leobardo Magadan and breaking his nose. While this might sound like an angle, word is it was legit and that there are expected to be lawsuits filed and legal consequences. Casas was legitimately suspended by the commission and the TV network that Magadan works for has threatened to sue CMLL over the incident. Magadan and Casas have spoken on the phone since and Casas reportedly apologized. There has been bad blood between them for awhile and apparently Magadan said the wrong thing while Casas was in the wrong mood and got a punch to the face (I researched this and it apparently was real. Magadan not only had a broken nose but a detached retina. No idea how the legal stuff worked out or how much trouble Casas got into though).
WATCH: Tom Segura - Steven Seagal
All Japan Women, the 3rd oldest promotion in the world (behind CMLL and WWE) is doing a 35th anniversary show (they didn't make it much longer. AJW ends up shutting down in 2005 after 37 years. At the time, it was the oldest wrestling promotion in Japan. Of course, since then, both NJPW and AJPW have surpassed it).
XPW signed an exclusive 3-year lease on the old ECW Arena in Philadelphia that will last through the end of 2006, with an option to extend it another 2 years to 2008 at the end of that term. This effectively prevents CZW, 3PW, or any other promotions from running shows there. However, if XPW goes out of business, loses their athletic commission license, or stops regularly running shows there, the lease could be terminated early by the venue. Word is XPW is paying $8,000-per-month for the rights. They plan to renovate the arena and add an entrance ramp and make some other changes (yeah this doesn't last long. By February, XPW starts missing payments and the lease is revoked).
WWA's latest PPV in Glasgow, Scotland saw Lex Luger defeat Sting to win the WWA title in a short, terrible match that was basically botched from start to finish. Jeff Jarrett interfered, hitting Sting with a guitar but the guitar barely broke. Earlier in the match, the referee botched a pinfall also. The ref knew Luger was winning and he didn't see Sting kick out of a pin, so he thought that was the finish and counted 3 and called for the bell. It led to some confusion and they ended up restarting the match. A second guitar shot to Sting a few minutes later finally broke the guitar. Elsewhere on the show, Jeff Jarrett beat Nathan Jones, also with a guitar shot, to retain the NWA title. A Sabu/Perry Saturn/Simon Diamond match saw two cheap ass tables break before they were supposed to, visibly pissing off Sabu. This show was taped and won't air live, so they may be able to edit a lot of the fuck-ups from the show, but word is Luger looked awful and is pretty much hopeless no matter how much editing they do. And Nathan Jones is incredibly green and just as hopeless. Buff Bagwell was also on the tour and, in case you're wondering what he's up to, apparently he caused such a disturbance on the flight overseas that police were called and detained him after he landed in England but was eventually released.
WATCH: Sting vs. Lex Luger - WWA 2002
Ring of Honor ran another show in Philadelphia that drew kinda poorly compared to previous ROH shows in the area. It was also kind of a lackluster show. Colt Cabana defeated CM Punk in a match that was the ROH debut for both men. Matches with AJ Styles, Bryan Danielson, Paul London, and others were all decent, but nothing special. Main event featured the ROH debut of Abdullah The Butcher teaming with Homicide in a bloodbath against Carnage Crew.
Dave also notes that ROH parent company RF Video recently settled a lawsuit with PRIDE. Apparently RF Video had been selling bootleg tapes of PRIDE and AJPW shows. If you recall, earlier this year, tax-dodger Kazoyoshi Ishii secured the exclusive rights to sell and market PRIDE and AJPW videos in the United States and they apparently went after RF Video for doing it illegally. Settlement is confidential, but RF Video reportedly had to pay a good bit of money. A magazine in Japan reported that the settlement was for $2 million per year for the next 5 years, but needless to say, that's ridiculous to the point that it can't even possibly be believed.
The latest TNA PPV saw an allegedly "unscripted" incident between Vince Russo and Roddy Piper. Sigh. Piper showed up at the show and cut a promo and accused Russo of being responsible for killing Owen Hart, among other things. Piper's appearance was a surprise so he could get a big surprise pop. So TNA could have advertised him and probably gotten some much-needed money and PPV buys, but nope. Russo later cut another promo, trashing Piper for using Owen's death to push his book. Where the shoot/work aspect of this begins and ends is unknown. Despite claims to the contrary, a couple of people definitely knew Piper was there and that he was going to cut a promo on Russo, although most of the locker room and even the announcers didn't. As for the back and forth about Owen, no one seems to know if that was truly Piper's own feelings or if it was scripted, but considering it's Russo, people are obviously suspicious. Word is this was just a one-time appearance for Piper to promote his book, which makes it even more stupid if he's not coming back and this isn't going anywhere. A lot of viewers have been going online and making it known how tasteless they felt it was for TNA to use Owen Hart's death as part of a storyline. But it wouldn't be the first time. Back when WCW was still alive and they were doing a show at Kemper Arena, Russo pitched an idea to show Bret Hart walking around in the rafters. Needless to say, that did not happen and Hart didn't even appear on the show, but Russo wanted to do it (okay, the WCW idea is appalling, but in Russo's defense—and man, I hate defending Vince Russo—I believe it's come out over the years that the TNA/Piper segment really was Piper going into business for himself and wasn't just another dumb Russo angle. It was just Piper shooting on someone he didn't like and trying to sell books).
WATCH: Roddy Piper shoots on Vince Russo - TNA 2002
TNA is talking of taking their show on the road next year and running a few of their weekly PPVs from places outside of their Nashville arena. Dave thinks this is a pretty bad idea. It's expensive and they're already struggling just to sell a few hundred tickets in their home base and most of the shows are heavily papered (for once, TNA was smart here. They stuck with Nashville until 2004, at which point they moved to Orlando for Impact. They didn't actually start going "on the road" until 2006.
Paul Bearer, using his old pre-WWE name Percy Pringle, also debuted on the TNA show. The plan is for him to be a manager, likely for Malice (Abyss The Wall). But Dave thinks that will just make Malice look like a low-rent Undertaker (I don't think he ever really managed anybody or did much of anything aside from a few appearances).
WATCH: Percy Pringle debuts in TNA - 2002
BG James (Road Dogg) apologized to the TNA staff at a production meeting this week over his use of the word "f*ggot" on TV last week. But he never apologized publicly and TNA never made any kind of statement on it. It was just James apologizing to management backstage and nothing more.
WWE is pushing hard to bring in Goldberg for Wrestlemania, and they've made a strong enough pitch that Goldberg is said to be seriously considering it. Dave thinks it's kinda dumb that WWE waited until 2 years after WCW folded, after all the "Goldberg" chants have stopped, and most American fans have kinda forgotten about him. And suddenly, now they get serious about bringing him in, because they clearly need him more than he needs them. Dave says if they had just bitten the bullet and spent the money to bring in Goldberg from day 1 of the Invasion, he would have paid for himself and then some with PPV matches against Austin and Rock and the Invasion might not have been a flop and maybe business wouldn't be collapsing. Probably still would have been though because it was more than one dumb decision that has gotten them to this point. Anyway, Goldberg still doesn't want to work a full schedule, so the discussions right now seem to hinge on bringing him in for a one-off match at Wrestlemania (and one would presume that would be against Austin, unless WWE just hates money or something). But of course, if that match happens, you have to talk one of them (almost certainly Goldberg) into doing the job and then that'll be a whole other argument.
Shawn Michaels is planning to work some Raw house shows soon, since he's the champion now. Whether or not his back can hold up to it is the big question, but word is he wants to work more matches and give it a shot. He's defending the title against Triple H in a 3 Stages of Hell match at the PPV.
Notes from Raw: Batista beat RVD in a 2 minute match by DQ that the crowd was dead for and Dave is amazed that they managed to kill RVD off this fast. That Triple H feud did him no favors at all. Ric Flair, who has been pitching to cut a promo on Shawn Michaels for weeks, finally got the chance and delivered a classic Flair promo that did more in 10 minutes to get Michaels over with fans who may not remember him than WWE has done in months. It was the best promo on Raw in ages and by far the highlight of the show. Randy Orton's RNN segments continue to be great. And everything else was varying degrees of average, boring, forgettable, or bad. Nothing much to note here.
Notes from Smackdown: main event of the show was 4.5 star match with Angle/Benoit/Edge/Eddie Guerrero in a 4-way that went for the last half hour of the show. Can't hate on that. Edge was tremendous in his selling and his comebacks and Kurt Angle proved why he's probably the best wrestler in the world today. Just excellent. Lesnar got exposed in a promo, showing he's still not ready to hold up his end of mic work (yeah, he's never been great at that). And of course, the show ended with Torrie Wilson going to Dawn Marie's hotel room and seemingly gave in to Dawn's lesbian advances in order to prevent her from marrying her dad. But of course, the show went off the air with that being left vague so you don't know what actually happened. This wasn't WWE's idea. They filmed 2 different versions of this, both of which went further than UPN was comfortable with and they ended up editing the hell out of it so what you saw on TV was a very tamed down, edited version of what was filmed. The "uncensored" version is expected to air on the PPV.
Godfather was released by WWE this week. His contract was set to expire in a few weeks anyway and wasn't being renewed, so WWE decided to cut him early, but still paid him his last few weeks. After he was released, they tried to talk him into coming back for one final appearance, in which he would participate in an angle where Scott Steiner beat him up. Realizing that it was their way of burying his character on the way out the door, Godfather tried to hold them up for extra perks, requesting first class airfare and a limo. WWE balked at that so it didn't end up happening. Dave figures TNA will grab him ASAP (surprisingly, no. I can't believe Russo didn't jump at the chance to do his version of the pimp gimmick without Vince McMahon limitations). Ron Simmons' contract is also expiring soon and isn't being renewed, though there's talk of hiring him as an agent.
Jeff Hardy and Justin Credible have both been suspended for repeatedly showing up late to events. Of course, Hardy in particular is still a star, so he's only been suspended from house shows, they're still using him on TV. Which is probably perfectly fine with Jeff anyway since his heart clearly hasn't been in it for a long time. Jamal of 3 Minute Warning has also been taken off TV for now, reportedly due to some legal issues but Dave doesn't know the details.
Rey Mysterio is out getting arthroscopic knee surgery. There was some drama backstage over who should be the one to "injure" him on TV to write him off. The original plan was for Benoit to be the one, leading to Mysterio returning at the Rumble to get revenge. Then it was changed to be Matt Hardy and that was the plan, which would have roped him into the top of the Smackdown card along with guys like Benoit, Angle, Eddie, etc. (basically, this would have created the Smackdown Seven). But then Vince swooped in and decided.....Albert! This was pretty controversial, since most people see Albert as a big, boring guy with no charisma who has been rotting away on Velocity for months who was only given the nod because business is down and when business is down, Vince goes with big guys. When Matt Hardy found out that his big break got taken away from him in favor of Albert, he was so pissed that some people thought he was going to walk out of the TV tapings. Hardy even went on his website and wrote a blog post vaguely addressing it and his unhappiness over it. Michael Hayes was able to talk Hardy off the ledge and keep him from walking out. Several other wrestlers went to Vince and tried to go to bat for Hardy, most vocally Edge and Rikishi, who argued that Hardy had earned the spot. But Vince stuck to his guns, and Albert ended up "injuring" Rey to write him off TV.
Remember a couple of weeks ago when WWE put out a press release personally attacking the World Wildlife Fund's lawyer? Well, the lawyer is said to be looking into filing a defamation lawsuit against WWE over what they said about him (much of which, indeed, was outright false or, at the very least, purposefully misleading). Considering WWE has already gotten their asses handed to them at every turn in this legal battle, to the point where even the judges in the case seemed irritated at them, to put out that release seems like the height of arrogance. There's now concern within the company that a defamation lawsuit, if filed, could end up being costly because, much like the original lawsuit, this is pretty cut and dry and WWE is obviously in the wrong here (I'm not sure how this ever turned out).
On Tough Enough, one of the contestants (Jonah) faked a neck injury as a "rib" and the coaches (Bill Demott, Al Snow, and Ivory) all laughed it up like it was hilarious. Lance Storm went on his website and posted about it, saying if there's one thing you don't joke about in this business, it's injuries. He said he can't imagine how the other wrestler who thought he had seriously hurt Jonah must have felt and said he didn't understand why the coaches acted like it was so funny. Storm said not only himself, but most of the WWE locker room were offended and didn't find it funny. "How do you think a guy like Darren Drozdov would feel watching this show, making a joke out of a supposed neck injury?" he wrote.
Paul Bearer did an interview recently talking about his leaving WWE and his wife's battle with cancer. He didn't have a lot of nice things to say. "They were not as understanding as you might have been led to believe. I only received two calls from anyone in the WWE management the entire time my wife was fighting cancer. Both calls were made by Stephanie McMahon. I only received a handful of calls from my so-called 'friends.' Undertaker may have called twice, and that was after I told the world he never called. It’s out of sight, out of mind in 'rasslin. As far as payroll is concerned, you must understand I was under a guaranteed money contract. They had to pay me. It certainly wasn’t a favor by any means. I didn’t have insurance. Dianna’s treatments cost close to $100,000. That cleaned me out. Did anybody offer any assistance? Please. All that glitters is not gold, friends." Dave notes that Paul Bearer and Undertaker had a recent falling out also. Elsewhere in the interview, Bearer said Vince McMahon "and his stooges" made his life a living hell over his weight gain and bullied him about it constantly. Sounds about right.
Gail Kim made her WWE debut at a house show, beating Dawn Marie in a bra and panties match. Dave says Paul Heyman was the one responsible for getting her signed (no word here about how Vince thought she was ugly and Jim Ross had to tell him about how popular Asian porn sites were to convince him to sign her).