March 10, 2003
- After losing Edge for the next year due to his pending neck surgery, WWE is now in danger of losing its most valuable full-time performer in Kurt Angle for similar reasons. Angle had an MRI this week and the results showed severe neck damage and will require surgery. Angle's neck issues date back to his amateur wrestling days, when he suffered a broken (freakin') neck while preparing for the Olympics, but he managed to still win the gold medal. While the injury has been compounding ever since, Angle pointed out a spot at the No Way Out PPV when Lesnar whipped him into the turnbuckles as the straw that broke the camel's freakin' neck. Angle continued wrestling the next week on Smackdown and on the South Africa tour, but the pain got progressively worse and he suffered numbness in his arms. Angle asked to be moved to tag matches and was in terrible pain on the flight back. As of press time, since WWE is just learning about this, nothing is set in stone, but there has been discussion that Angle may drop the title in the ring to Lesnar on Smackdown this week in a short match and it's believed that he's most likely out of Wrestlemania.
- Obviously, this is a huge blow to Wrestlemania if Angle can't work the show. Angle vs. Lesnar has been a marquee Wrestlemania main event in people's eyes from the moment Lesnar signed with the company 4 years ago and this match has pretty much been in WWE's plans ever since. Angle's importance to the company, not just drawing power, but ability to get people over is unmatched (obviously both of these guys are great, but working major programs with Angle is what resurrected Benoit's career and helped move Edge to top level guy). It was the feud with Angle and Benoit that turned Los Guerreros into big stars this past year. And on and on. Angle's been the lynchpin for Smackdown since the brand split. Anyway, more on this Angle situation as it develops but right now, it looks like very bad news.
- Speaking of injuries, Randy Orton, Batista, and Bubba Ray Dudley all suffered injuries in the same match at a house show last week. Orton, who has the worst luck, injured his foot badly, while Batista suffered a torn triceps. Both are expected to be out for at least a couple of months. Bubba Ray wasn't as badly hurt, but didn't wrestle the next few nights. Rough timing for Orton and Batista, as the new Evolution group is still just gaining traction. Due to all the recent injuries, WWE management has been asking several talent to tone down their matches and focus more on slowing down and working submissions.
- Dave recaps UFC 41, which saw Tim Sylvia score the biggest heavyweight upset in UFC history by winning the title from Ricco Rodriguez. But Rodriguez came in cocky and Sylvia reportedly trained like a maniac for the fight. No real wrestling news here, unless you count Tank Abbott making his long awaited UFC return and getting tapped by Frank Mir in 45 seconds.
- WWE's quarterly investor's call covering the company's finances for the last quarter of 2002 took place with Linda McMahon using the opportunity to spin some numbers as usual. Linda admitted that the company chose to "cut its losses" with the Times Square restaurant while explaining away the millions in losses it incurred. Linda also admitted that they were unhappy that ratings and attendance numbers are down, but blamed it on the brand split and said ratings are starting to go up. True, but that's also because football season just ended along with Steve Austin's heavily hyped return. Neither is a sign of an upward trend. And this is supposed to be the strongest time of the year. After Wrestlemania, things might start looking bad.
- Other notes from the investor's call: Linda dodged questions about Rock and Austin's schedules and how full-time they will be going forward. She also dodged questions about Paul Heyman's removal from the Smackdown booking team. This woman might have a career in politics. She heavily pushed a new project from WWE Films, a cartoon series which they hope to have on the air by 2004 (this obviously never happened, but I hope we hear more on whatever this was). Confirmed they're close to finalizing the purchase of both the AWA and ECW libraries, and Dave says WWE has also been trying to get the Mid-South tape libraries owned by Bill Watts' ex-wife as well as Florida Championship Wrestling library from Mike Graham. Regarding the upcoming WWE/Girls Gone Wild PPV, the deal is WWE will be paid a flat fee to help promote the event and will send a few of its own stars to work the show. Linda said if the show is a success, they may continue working with Joe Francis. And that's about it.
- On March 1st, 3 major shows took place in Tokyo: a huge NOAH show, a K-1 card, and the debut of Riki Choshu's new WJ promotion. When it comes to ticket sales, NOAH was the big winner, selling out Budokan Hall more than a month in advance and literally turning away thousands from the door the day of the show. This show saw possibly the final great battle in the years-long rivalry between Mistuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi, in a match that many are already calling the match of the year (yup, it ends up winning). Kobashi won the title, the first time he has ever defeated Misawa in 1-on-1 match like this. After the match, many in the crowd were said to be moved to tears in a scene reminiscent of the 1990 show when Misawa defeated Jumbo Tsuruta, which catapulted him to stardom and launched AJPW's incredible 90s run. After the match, however, Kobashi was hospitalized with a fractured orbital bone. Thankfully, he won't need surgery and won't have to vacate the belt he just won (indeed, Kobashi would hold onto that title for just over two years before eventually losing it in 2005. To this day, it's still the longest world title reign in NOAH history). Afterwards, Misawa called it a "passing of the torch" match and said they would never have another 1-on-1 match (alas, they do have one more, in 2004. But it's a weird show that they do backwards. Misawa vs. Kobashi opened the show and went to a 10-minute draw like it was a prelim match, and then the jobbers main evented. So this is basically the last "real" Kobashi/Misawa match. And it's a doozy.)
- WATCH: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi - 3-1-2003
- Elsewhere on the NOAH show, 2 Cold Scorpio challenged Kobashi for the title after the show. With Vader gone, he's being elevated to top foreigner status. Several Zero-1 wrestlers showed up to challenge Kobashi as well, which was a surprise since Zero-1 is currently in an inter-promotional angle with AJPW. Given that NOAH and AJPW hate each other, we'll see how that plays out.
- Riki Choshu's debuting WJ drew 9,000 fans (some papered) and was kind of a disappointment from that standpoint. Also, not a great show. Main evented by an 8-minute Choshu vs. Genichiro Tenryu match. With the combined age of the 2 men being 104 years old, it was....fine. Kensuke Sasaki worked the show despite his wife (Akira Hokuto) giving birth to their 2nd child earlier in the day. In a battle of Japanese politicians, Atsushi Onita showed up to challenge Hiroshi Hase. Speaking of Onita, he worked (what else) an exploding barbed wire deathmatch on the show and the crowd hated it because it only lasted 8 minutes, the explosions were weak and.....it ended in a DQ. Dave is befuddled how an EXPLODING RING BARBED WIRE DEATH MATCH ends in a disqualification. Road Warriors were there, also looking old. On the younger end of things, 14-year-old Katsuhiko Nakajima debuted and Dave says Choshu has big plans for him (Nakajima goes on to become a big star in NOAH to this day). And then there was the K-1 show, which has nothing to do with wrestling so let's move along...
- In CMLL, Tarzan Boy has reportedly been fired for the dreaded "personal demons" issues. He's been a part of the greatest trios stable in pro wrestling for the past several years, Los Guerreros del Infiernos and is one of the company's hottest stars (he returns in about 2 months so it sounds like this was more of a suspension than a firing). This forced a change of plans and CMLL's top babyface, Shocker shockingly (heh.) turned heel to set up a hair vs. hair match with Shocker vs. Vampiro (was originally going to be Tarzan Boy vs. Vampiro).
- WWC did a pretty gross angle in Puerto Rico, with some heels beating down Rico Suave and then holding his wife captive. The heels pissed in a cup and spat tobacco in it and then ordered Suave to drink it or they'd shave his wife's head. Suave tried to drink it but spit it out. No word on if they shaved her head or not, but my wife would just have to be bald. Sorry babe.
- Oh hey, were you wondering how/why Tenryu worked that WJ show since he's an AJPW guy? Well, turns out he quit his front office job with AJPW. He apparently shot down the idea of doing a match with Bill Goldberg for WRESTLE-1 and decided he'd rather jump ship to Choshu's company so here we are. Needless to say, Tenryu wasn't keen on being squashed by Goldberg. Hey, speaking of Tenryu, correction from last week: Tenryu is also one of the very few people to have held both AJPW and NJPW's top titles. So there's 4 people, not 3.
- The AJPW Champion Carnival tag team tournament will be a single-elimination one-week tournament this year instead of the usual weeks-long round robin G1-style classic it usually is. The AJPW roster is so thin that Keiji Muto had originally planned to not even have the tournament, but decided to go ahead with it anyway just for the tradition. Dave says with this lineup, they may as well have not even bothered and says it's by far the weakest Carnival tournament in AJPW history. Speaking of Muto, Dave reviews a recent show and talks about Muto doing the moonsault. Dave remembers when doctors told him to stop doing that move back in 1990 or else his career would be shortened.
- Rookie star Shinsuke Nakamura is heading on excursion and will spend the next couple months training at Inoki's L.A. dojo and with Dory Funk in Florida. Speaking of Nakamura, Dave talks about the big push he has gotten recently because NJPW is in desperate need of a new star. "Unfortunately, Nakamura lacks charisma" Dave says, in what turned out to be wildly wrong in retrospect. But to be fair, 2003 Nakamura really was beige paint.
- Bob Sapp is now starring in more than half a dozen commercials running nationally throughout Japan. I mention that because it gives me the opportunity to post some. Speaking of Bob Sapp, ESPN is sending a camera crew to Japan for his next big K-1 fight against Mirko Cro Cop. Dave thinks they might have picked the wrong fight (foreshadowing...)
- WATCH: Bob Sapp commercial #1
- WATCH: Bob Sapp commercial #2
- WATCH: Bob Sapp commercial #3
- Roddy Piper is doing a movie called Knight Fever which also stars Janet Jackson, Christopher Walken, and Angela Bassett (so I looked into this and I found another interview from around this time where Piper says this and he also claims Emilio Estevez is a cast member. And I cannot find any trace whatsoever of this movie or any of these actors being tied to any project together. What the fuck was Piper talking about?)
- Bubba The Love Sponge reported on his radio show that there were plans for Hulk Hogan to face Mike Tyson back in 1990, with Hogan expecting to make $25 million on it. But it fell through when Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. This one actually isn't complete bullshit. Vince McMahon and Don King had talked about it but obviously it fell through. Dave isn't sure why, but because it would have to be a worked match, Tyson would have to publicly establish that it's a work because of boxing regulations and WWF wouldn't have wanted that. And of course, a straight shoot fight would have resulted in Hogan being murdered on PPV. Dave thinks it would have been difficult to get either side to agree to lose which is probably why it fell apart, but there really were talks.
- XPW's 3-year exclusive lease on Viking Hall in Philadelphia ended this week.....after less than 2 months. XPW was paying $8,000 a month for the lease but they're having financial issues and seem to be on the verge of folding (yeah they dead).
- Jimmy Yang is gone from TNA after refusing to sign a contract. His previous deal with the company had expired and he was working per date. He was scheduled to work with Raven on the latest show, but refused to sign a contract they put in front of him beforehand because of a non-compete clause he didn't like. So TNA told him to go home and Julio Dinero was put into the match instead.
- TNA is getting pretty annoyed at all the undercard guys who are working Japan. Low-Ki and Paul London are the two latest examples. With TNA (and frankly, every American company) booking things on the fly week-to-week, it's difficult for the company to build around guys when they turn around a week later and leave for a Japan tour for the next month. But they can't exactly play hardball either because they're too small and don't have the money. The last time TNA tried to make Low-Ki choose between a Japan booking or a TNA booking, he chose Japan.
- Various TNA News & Notes: BG James (Road Dogg), JJ Dillon, Larry Zbyszko, and Percy Pringle (Paul Bearer) all appear to be done with the company for various reasons, all of which are money. They're trying to get Scott Hall to come back. They wanted to book Amazing Red vs. Kid Kash this past week, but Red wasn't returning their calls so it never happened.
- Curt Hennig's last major rib in wrestling was apparently the night he worked the TNA show against David Flair. Backstage, he padlocked all of Goldylocks' bags together so she couldn't open them. Apparently she and Hennig are friends and it was made funnier to everyone backstage because when she discovered what had been done to her bags, the first person she ran to for help was Hennig.
- Goldberg still hasn't signed with WWE and the odds of him appearing at Wrestlemania are pretty slim right now. But of course, the Kurt Angle injury could change things and everything with Goldberg always comes down to the wire anyway.
- Ultimo Dragon is being talked about to joining the company on the Smackdown roster, possibly as Rey Mysterio's partner now that Edge is out. Dragon is said to be mostly back to normal after recovering from all the botched elbow surgery issues that looked as if they were going to end his career. Dave says he's looked great in recent matches that he's seen, but he's also got a lot of other miles on him and holding up to the WWE schedule is questionable.
- Dave bitches about Rock jumping from Smackdown to Raw with barely an explanation. Obviously it was done to get Rock and Austin on the same show for the Wrestlemania build-up, but Stephanie losing her biggest star to Raw and not even seeming to care, Vince and Rock barely explaining it in their promos, etc. just makes the whole brand split feel pointless (I know we all roll our eyes at this now, but keep in mind, this brand split idea in 2003 was still new and people had reasonable expectations for it that WWE never even attempted to seriously adhere to).
- Notes from 2/27 Smackdown: Vince McMahon cut a great heel promo. Rhyno got a big reaction for someone who hasn't been around in ages. Nathan Jones debut was utterly stupid. The only thing the guy has going for him is his size and they debuted him standing next to Big Show, Undertaker, and A-Train, so he actually looked smaller by comparison, which killed his aura immediately. John Cena continues to be the best on the mic. There was a segment with the Guerreros stealing some girls away from some nerdy guys and another segment where the FBI injured Rikishi to write him off TV, but both of those ended up not airing due to the taping running long (not sure if those ever aired somewhere or if this is some new "lost" wrestling media).
- Notes from 3/3 Raw: Triple H, in building up to his Wrestlemania match with Booker T, cut a promo about how "Booker's kind" are meant to entertain people like him and don't deserve to be champions, among other things. Dave thinks this racist bullshit was dated in wrestling 15 years ago and it sucks even more now. And then just to bury Booker even further, Triple H argued that Booker's 5 WCW title reigns were meaningless because they came during the time David Arquette and Vince Russo were champions. He's right about that, but still a pretty stupid time to bring it up, Dave says. You're trying to build to a Wrestlemania title match with this guy, not bury him beneath the earth with one promo. But that's exactly what he did. Jerry Lawler repeatedly (and un-funnily) kept saying that Jazz looked like James Earl Jones. The storyline with Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels building to Wrestlemania has been tremendous. Show ended with "the annual" Rock and Austin stare-down to build to that match. Dave feels like the magic is missing from the past 2 times these guys have worked together at Mania.
- Hulk Hogan wasn't at Smackdown because he was with his 14-year-old daughter Brooke, who reportedly is a talented singer. She was participating in some sort of talent competition at Universal Studios. Apparently Hogan told the office he wasn't going to be there but WWE continued to advertise him, which upset a lot of people at the taping.
- Various WWE News & Notes: Wrestlemania 20 is tentatively scheduled for Madison Square Garden next year. Gail Kim is starting on TV soon, though not sure which brand. She's been working house shows filling in for Torrie Wilson while she was getting ready for her Playboy shoot. After Rock leaves again this spring, he's not expected back until early 2004.
- Sometimes I like to let quotes stand for themselves: "There was some casual talk a while back about creating a third brand using the ECW name if and when the company officially gets the rights to it, and putting a Saturday night two-hour show in the Velocity/Confidential time slot. At this point we’re told that it’s no longer under consideration."
- Backstage reports from the 2/25 Smackdown taping were that Vince McMahon was going insane, screaming at Michael Cole during commentary about things he was saying that Vince didn't like, forcing some of it to be re-done in post-production. Those who saw it live said Cole wasn't really any better or worse than usual, so no one really seems to know why Vince chose to take out his bad day on Cole.
- Michael Hayes, who was the agent for the Kurt Angle vs. Brian Kendrick match on Smackdown this week, laid out a spot where Kendrick would kick out of the Angle slam. Terry Taylor got in Angle's ear and said "hey, that's probably a pretty dumb idea to let this rookie nobody kick out of your finisher in a 5 minute nothing match on Smackdown 2 weeks before you headline Wrestlemania" and Angle was all, "Ya know, good point." Angle went to Vince, who agreed and scratched that bullshit from the match. Hayes was annoyed at Taylor for having it changed but I mean.....what the fuck Hayes? That is a pretty stupid idea.
- WWE appears to have given up on the Confidential show and these days, it seems only to exist in order to see how many WWE Divas in bikinis they can show in 1 hour. Dave's tape recorder ate his Confidential tape this week, but he saw the last bit of the show and it was just WWE asking the women on the roster if they would pose nude for Playboy if they had been approached instead of Torrie Wilson. For those curious: Jacqueline yes, Victoria if the money's right, Trish no way, Terri Runnels no because of her kid, Keibler "never say never", Lita not interested, and there ya go. To be a woman in this company back then, sheesh...
- The last time WWE held a PPV without Austin, Rock, Triple H, or Undertaker in the main event was way back in Dec. 1997 for the In Your House PPV. Just in case you're wondering why the main event scene is so stale. Dave assumes one of those 4 will be main eventing WM19 too, which will bring the streak to 64 PPVs in a row (alas, no. Angle vs Lesnar finally breaks the streak).
- Howard Stern loves the new Goldust character (or, as he called him, "Goldsmith"), raving on his show that it was the funniest thing he'd seen on TV in awhile and described Goldust as being painted up like Violent J of ICP. Ummm, sure? Of course, then he called Jim Ross "some retard big fat guy in a cowboy hat," so....ya know.
- Edge went on the South Africa trip this week, despite not being able to wrestle. He appeared in a neck brace, cutting promos in the ring about how much he wished he could perform. Edge was in terrible pain just driving from town-to-town in the U.S. and some were pissed (on his behalf) that they made him still fly to South Africa. He was one of the most heavily advertised stars, which was WWE's justification, but they sent the guy around the world in a neck brace just to cut promos when he was in pain.