December 30, 2002
- Observer Rewind - 1987 by u/SaintRidley
- So here we are again. The end of the Observer Rewinds. I've mentioned several times that I didn't intend to come back and do 2002, at least not any time soon. But then COVID hit and it felt like everything in the world sucked, so I figured why not bring it back for one more round?
- I made a mistake though. In the past, I always made sure I had most of the year pre-written before I started posting. This time, since it was a spur of the moment decision, I didn't do that. As a result, I couldn't keep up with the original M-W-F schedule. Had to cut back to once a week. And then this pandemic just kept draaaaaaaaagging on.
- For those who have asked....yes, some day I do intend to come back and do 2003 and maybe beyond. But it won't be any time soon. I just don't have the free time I used to anymore. But I enjoy doing these too much to quit forever. I enjoy learning too much.
- If you're needing a fix, I highly suggest everyone go follow u/SaintRidley who has been doing an excellent job with his own version of the Rewinds covering the 1980s. In fact, tomorrow's Rewind will cover the murder of Bruiser Brody so if there was ever a time to check it out...
- Anyway, pretty much everything I said last time I finished these up still holds true today. Thank you everybody for reading. This sub is the best. See you down the road.
- We open with a long review of Jerry Lawler's new autobiography, "It's Good To Be The King...Sometimes" and man, oh man, do I have my own opinions about this book. But let's see what Dave thinks. First he talks about how Lawler is one of the last of his era. Everyone else who came along around the same time, with the exception of Ric Flair, is pretty much forgotten or barely hanging on now. Meanwhile, Lawler is still on national TV every single week. The first half of the book talks a lot about his years growing up and working the Memphis territory, far more than one would expect from a WWE-produced book. Lawler also comes across as honest, admitting his faults, admitting when business was down, not exaggerating his achievements, etc. and Dave says aside from the Mick Foley books, Lawler's is the best of the WWE-produced books he's read. Lawler goes into great detail about the famous Andy Kaufman feud, with Lawler admitting publicly for the first time how much of it was planned, including the David Letterman angle. It also touches on all his other famous feuds and angles and old school fans will love the first half of this book. He even admits to his failures as an absentee father and admits that he knows his son, Brian Christopher, better as a wrestler he sees around the locker room all the time than he does as his son because he dedicated his life to being on the road rather than raising his kids. Lawler also drops this little nugget of info, about the famous Mae Young hand-birth segment. They were originally supposed to pull an actual douche bag out of her (Vince's idea), but several women within the company told Vince that doing that would be so offensive to women that they would lose viewers. Hours before showtime, Vince finally relented and the only other idea they could come up with was a hand.
- And then.....there's the other half of the book. Lawler was told by Jim Ross to throw in some stuff about his various relationships with women, figuring that would help sell the book. And maybe it will, but hoo boy, does Lawler come off looking bad. He comes across as a guy who had women throwing themselves at him for 30 years because he was a star. But now that he's in his 50s and newly single, he's still trying to pick up these 20-something girls and it comes across as weird and pathetic. His divorce from Stacy "The Kat" Carter is written about in detail and Lawler's desperate attempts to find a new, young girlfriend afterwards are sad to read. He comes across like a sex addict who can't cope with getting older. He talks about his time in WWF and how his on-screen character became real (he really did obsess over Terri Runnell's ass and Sable's "puppies" and even talked about a woman in WWF production that he tried to hook up with. He talked about how he doesn't like women's wrestling, enjoys having them on for eye candy, but doesn't like to watch them have matches and doesn't think WWE should train them to be wrestlers. Well then. Also worth noting that Lawler's 2 most famous legal cases, the 1993 rape charges and the lawsuit over the sale of USWA, aren't addressed in this book at all (Dave doesn't go into much detail here, but I've read this book and man, the last 1/4 or so is all about his breakup with Stacy and holy shit, it's hard to read. It's basically the ramblings of a heartbroken old man who's doing and saying all the wrong things to try to get this woman back. It's page after page of soul-itching cringe).
- One last little note that seems fitting to include given all the controversy over the years. I'll just paste this verbatim: "A little known fact of the history of star ratings is that Jim Cornette came up with the system in the late 70s, which was popularized by his childhood friend, Norman Dooley, who did the first truly hilarious wrestling newsletter that the Observer evolved from. Originally they’d rate matches from DUDS to ****. Then they started watching Funk vs. Lawler matches, which blew up their scale, and where the term five-star match came from."
- Genichiro Tenryu's AJPW contract expires in 6 months and he's already making noises about leaving because he doesn't like the direction Keiji Muto is taking the company. Word is he may be joining Riki Choshu's new promotion (indeed, he does leave AJPW in June and starts working for Choshu's WJ promotion. But that company doesn't last long and when it folds, he basically goes free agent and spends the next couple of years bouncing all over Japan, working everywhere from week to week. Truly independent contractor style.
- NJPW's upcoming Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show looks to be terribly weak on paper. Dave runs down the lineup, including the addition of rookie Shinsuke Nakamura, who Dave says the company is very high on and sees as a future superstar. This will be only his second pro wrestling match (looked it up and sure enough. The first 2 official pro wrestling matches Shinsuke Nakamura ever had were in Budokan Hall and then the Tokyo Dome. How insane is that?). The original plan was for Bob Sapp to work this show against Manabu Nakanishi, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards anymore. Also no sign of the Chyna/Sean Waltman challenging for the tag titles, despite the angle they did a couple weeks ago.
- Speaking of Shinsuke Nakamura, he'll also be making his MMA debut this week, facing Daniel Gracie at Inoki's New Year's Eve show. Dave thinks this will be a good chance for Nakamura to get a big win to jumpstart his career since NJPW has such big plans for him (doesn't quite work out that way. Nakamura loses this one. Things still turned out okay for him though).
- Riki Choshu has said he's found the next wrestling superstar, a 14-year-old kid named Katsuhiko Nakajima, who is a junior high karate and wrestling national champion. Choshu said he will be training this kid and he will make his debut in March. Dave thinks there's something pretty sad about a 14-year-old dropping out of school to pursue pro wrestling but that's what they're doing. Choshu said in his entire 30 year career, he's never seen someone with as much potential as Nakajima (so he doesn't quite start as soon as March, but he does make his MMA debut in 2003, at 15 years old, and wins. Starting in 2004, while still 15 years old, he pretty much starts working full time. He ends up facing Jushin Liger in the Tokyo Dome, working the BOSJ tournament, gets a 4.75 star match, wrestles for AJPW, NJPW, Dragon Gate, Zero-1, and NOAH......all before his 18th birthday. He's spent most of his career since in NOAH where he continues to be a top star to this day. And he's still only 32 years old).
- In case you're wondering, and you're not, the reason WWA decided to have Sting win the WWA title from Lex Luger on their recent tour was because everyone was so sick of Luger complaining about everything that they decided in advance not to bring him back on the next tour. So even though the plan was to keep the title on Luger for awhile, they called an audible and had him drop it to Sting. And of course, it's Luger and he refused to do the job, even to his friend Sting, so they made it a 3-way match with Malice from TNA added, and he did the job so Sting could win the belt without Luger eating a pin.
- Over in TNA, the whole company appears to be booked around Vince Russo again. The gist is that basically all the heels will be aligned with Russo's SEX group (Sports Entertainment Xtreme) and all the babyfaces will be on the TNA side. The idea is for a new surprise star to show up each week and cut anti-Russo promos the same way Roddy Piper recently did. Among those who are expected to be brought in are Terry Funk, Jim Duggan, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko, and Dusty Rhodes. This past week, Russo was all over the show, but to his credit, his promos were very good and his delivery was strong. But, ya know....it's still the entire main event scene of the company being booked around Russo. Also, lots of stuff that made it look minor league. BG James pretending to sound like J.R. on the microphone, Jarrett name dropping Shawn Michaels and Goldberg in his promos, and the usual insider comments that only a fraction of the fanbase understands. That kinda stuff.
- Triple H's leg injury that he worked through at the PPV was diagnosed as a partial right quad tear and he'll be out of action a few more weeks. Word is it won't require surgery. The left quad is the one he tore in 2001 that took him out for the rest of the year. It's believed he tore it during the Jeff Hardy match on the 12/9 Raw but continued to work through it at house shows (this quad will finish tearing a few years later).
- Notes from Raw: Raven returned to the show. If you recall, several months ago, he lost a loser-leaves-Raw match. To give WWE credit, almost no one remembers that but they still did a match on Heat in which Raven won the right to return, so Dave gives WWE credit for actually remembering an obscure stipulation from months ago that no one else remembered and actually keeping continuity alive. They announced that the Rumble will feature 15 Raw and 15 Smackdown names and the winner ("Brock Lesnar," Dave says knowingly because, yeah, you didn't need inside sources to know which way that one was going) will get to challenge for their brand's title at WM. Speaking of stipulations no one remembers, at an OVW show a few months back, Damaja won a tournament or something which was to guarantee him a Rumble spot. Dave wonders what brand Damaja will be on. Worth noting, he's saying this sarcastically because there's no chance WWE remembers that and no chance Damaja is going to actually be in the match (indeed, he was not). Main event was Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross beating William Regal and Lance Storm. Yup. Just go with it.
- Notes from Smackdown: the long build for Angle vs. Lesnar at Wrestlemania truly began, with Angle turning heel and aligning with Paul Heyman. He and Big Show then beat down Lesnar and they're doing a great job of making Lesnar an ultimate babyface right now. Dave haaaaaates this Dawn Marie/Al Wilson angle and can't wait for them to get to the end. Nothing else much to note.
- Hogan was in Toronto last week doing media all over the place for his book. Regarding his WWE status, he basically said he's not sure. Said he'd like to return but it's up to Vince and noted his current contract expires in a few weeks. He also talked a lot about Austin and made it clear that he's angling for a match. It makes sense of course. Austin vs. Hogan is still a huge money match. But they had the chance last year and Austin didn't want to work with him, so that's why we got Hogan/Rock instead. As for Hogan returning, the situation remains the same: Vince wants Hogan to come back and put people over. Hogan doesn't want to do jobs. So there we go.
- Speaking of Hogan, Dave has a follow-up from last week's book review. Turns out he missed a few lies and wants to correct the record on a few more things. Hogan tells some story about Bill Watts and Wahoo McDaniel and Andre The Giant and a Superdome show. Dave digs into this and can't find any record of this alleged Hogan/Wahoo Superdome match and some other timeline stuff that doesn't make sense and disproves this story.
- Follow-up on the suspension of Jamal from 3 Minute Warning. He was arrested back in November in Pensacola on assault and battery charges. The story is Jamal and his wife were at a bar when Jamal's wife broke a tip jar and was causing a disturbance. An off-duty cop who was working security went to remove her from the bar. She refused to leave so the cop grabbed her arm, at which point Jamal told him, "Take your fucking hands off my wife" and slapped the cops arm off her. Then he said, "I'll kick your fucking ass you redneck motherfucker". The cop swung a flashlight at Jamal as he approached and started throwing punches. Another person at the bar jumped on him and the 2 of them managed to get Jamal down. He was arrested and taken to a local hospital first, since everyone had some cuts and bruises. On the way to the hospital, Jamal reportedly told several officers to kiss their families goodbye and made threats like he was going to kill them. WWE responded by suspending Jamal, but per their policy, they're still using him on TV. Just not on house shows.
- A Hartford, CT newspaper did a story on Linda McMahon, noting all the recent issues WWE has been facing. Linda commented, saying they're in a "rebuilding process" right now and saying they have a plan to boost ratings. Dave sure would like to see it (it's been 18 years and I gotta be real you guys, I'm starting to think they don't actually have a plan). When asked about the Katie Vick angle, she defended it, saying, "The worst thing would be if there was no reaction. If we create controversy with a story line, that’s fair game. We want people talking about us.” Dave thinks the "controversy equals cash" motto that so many people in wrestling talk about is the stupidest thing to happen to the business in years and he doesn't understand why people keep saying it when it's been disproven time and time again (Bischoff would use a version of that for his book title not long after this).
- Hey, so uh....that's it. Thanks again everybody!