March 24, 2003
- Bill Goldberg signed with WWE this week and will be debuting shortly. Nobody in WWE will confirm it because they're trying to keep it quiet, but he put pen to paper over the weekend. It's believed that the deal is for 100 or so dates over the next year but Dave isn't 100% sure on that (for those who decide to look it up like I did, he only worked about 50 matches that year, but he obviously appeared on lots of TVs where he didn't work matches. So 100 dates sounds about right). As of now, Goldberg won't be wrestling at Wrestlemania, although he might make an appearance. But most likely not. Word is that Rock's decision to stay for an extra month and work the Backlash PPV was based on the belief that he'd work with Goldberg. Rock has been the major go-between in getting this whole deal done, as both Goldberg and Vince were reluctant about it. Anyway, if handled right, Goldberg in WWE could be a license to print money. But looking at the recent track record, Dave has a bad feeling about this (boy was he ever right).
- Kurt Angle's decision to wrestle (and WWE's decision to allow it) at Wrestlemania is a potentially very risky situation if something goes wrong. The full extent of the damage won't be known until the surgery but it's believed Angle has 4 herniated discs, two of which are pressing against his spinal cord and have caused nerve damage in his arm and shoulder. The plan is to fuse 2 of the discs now, with the other two being fused whenever he chooses to retire. It's no surprise Angle's choosing to wrestle. He's been looking forward to this match since Lesnar first signed and it's the highest profile match of both of their careers. Depending on how things go, Angle stands to make anywhere between 250k-500k for one night's work. There's a lot of people questioning his decision, but they also see Angle's point of view. His future is already in jeopardy. There's obvious concern that Wrestlemania could end up being his final match and this might be his only chance to snag that kind of money ever again. Gotta get the bag when you can.
- Dave draws the obvious comparison to 5 years ago, when Shawn Michaels (while champion) hurt his back at the Royal Rumble and had to sit out the build-up to Wrestlemania. He ended up gutting out the match with Steve Austin and dropping the title but was in tremendous pain and ended up retiring for 4 years afterward. Of course, Angle's different. His neck has been fucked since the 1996 leadup to the Olympics and it's only gotten worse since, until it finally reached a point it's at now. Without question, Angle is risking his career and his long-term health by doing this match and if something goes wrong, the backlash on WWE will be great. Vince has been in this situation before, not just with Michaels, but at Wrestlemania III, when Andre was so incapacitated he could barely move. Both times, the guys went out there and worked through serious injuries to deliver the advertised main event and this year appears to be yet another example of that happening.
- The big story of the week, however, was the news around the future of PRIDE's parent company Dream Stage Entertainment following the alleged (wink wink) suicide of the company's president a couple months back. This was PRIDE's first show since and they announced a deal with InDemand PPV to broadcast future shows on PPV in the United States. They also announced plans to run major shows in the U.S. soon and claimed they will rely less on Japanese pro wrestlers and focus more on actual MMA fighters going forward. Sooooooo....they hired Nobuhiko Takada, former pro wrestler and fake MMA fighter, to be the new public face of the company. Sure. But despite these plans, there's still a lot of questions about the stability of the company. No follow-up shows have been announced, just vague "later this year" kind of plans (they're alright for a little while longer).
- And now it's part 2 of the History of the WWE Championship! Like last time, I won't recap all this because part 2 alone is more than 13,000 words. But a quick synopsis, picking up where we left off in 1974: Sammartino has regained the belt and we run through the next 3+ years of his title reign, feuds with Spyros Arion, Ivan Koloff, Ken Patera, and the broken neck he suffered from Stan Hansen. Sammartino came back before he was ready to work the big Shea Stadium show on the same closed-circuit broadcast as the Muhammad Ali/Inoki fight and the match was awful because Sammartino still couldn't safely bump that well (speaking of people working through injuries for big main events). This led to Sammartino winding down his career and so they moved the title to Superstar Billy Graham, who dropped it to Bob Backlund a year later despite the fact that Graham was doing huge business. Backlund was champ for several years, spent a lot of time working in Japan, and even dropped the belt to Inoki only to regain it a week later, in a title change that the WWE never acknowledged at the time. Fans eventually turned on Backlund, Vince Jr. bought the company from his dad, and soon after, Backlund dropped the title to Iron Sheik, who dropped it a week later to Hulk Hogan and with that, Hulkamania began. And that appears to be where we're stopping for now.
- Dave finally saw the most recent Misawa vs. Kobashi match from the 3/1 NOAH show. After hearing so much about it, there was no way he expected it to live up to the hype. But it did. Dave says it was the best match he's seen in years. From a physical standpoint, it wasn't the best match the two have had, but from a drama and storytelling standpoint, he believes it was. In particular, one spot where they did a tiger suplex off the ramp that had the entire arena terrified and is a spot that will probably define this match. Needless to say, this shit gets the full 5 stars.
- Looks like there was a backstage incident between Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff at Raw this past week. According to sources, Flair started yelling at Bischoff about how he screwed over so many people in WCW and how Bischoff cost him $200k in legal fees during the lawsuit they had in 1998. Bischoff, of course, still has heat with a lot of former WCW wrestlers who felt he did them dirty when they were in WCW, but so far, everyone has put aside their issues and there's been no trouble since he arrived in WWE. Until now, I guess. Bischoff was notoriously disrespectful of Flair when they were in WCW and there's no love loss there, but Flair is usually non-confrontational, so this surprised people. All reports are Flair absolutely started the argument and some punches were thrown before they were pulled apart. Both appeared on TV later that night and appeared fine, so it wasn't much of a scuffle. Triple H was reportedly key in calming everything down and after Vince talked to both of them, that appeared to be the end of it. No punishments seem to be forthcoming.
- So here's the deal on Vader in NOAH. His contract is for 20 weeks a year at $18,000 per week and there seems to have been some disagreement over a contract extension. There's talk of Riki Choshu wanting to use him, but NOAH isn't letting Vader out of his contract so he can't work anywhere else in Japan until it expires.
- And, oh yeah, Dave adds this little nugget of info: "In what was said to be unrelated, in January, Vader was apparently stabbed on his legs, arms and stomach many times, said to be by the Yakuza, although nobody has given any kind of a good explanation as to what caused this. That’s why he disappeared in the middle of the tour in January with no publicity at first, and was later said to have suffered a knee injury, which came out was a work when he worked the TNA shots. That was the reason he was wrestling in a t-shirt on the TNA shows, to cover the relatively fresh wounds, most of which were covered by his wrestling costume." Uh, pardon me, but WHAT THE FUCK? Anyone got ANYTHING on this???
- Brad Siegel, the head of Turner's entertainment division and the man best known for putting the final bullet in WCW 2 years ago, has resigned from that role. Siegel, in his role as President of WCW, made the decision to get rid of Eric Bischoff in 1999, brought in Russo, then brought back Russo and Bischoff together in 2000. And finally, it was Siegel who made the call to pull the plug on WCW's television programming on the network and sell the property off to WWE. In fact, Dave says there were at least 3 other investors who were prepared to make offers for the company and Siegel wouldn't even negotiate with them.
- Former WWF wrestler Ludvig Borga, real name Tony Halme, was elected to Finland's parliament this past week. Halme is more famous in Finland as a boxer and this was a big story in boxing circles there. Halme is probably the only person to headline shows in WWF, NJPW, as well as fight in UFC and box professionally (his one UFC fight was getting waxed by Randy Couture in 1997, for those curious).
- Ring of Honor's latest show was another great card, with AJ Styles and Amazing Red winning the tag titles, while Raven debuted and put over CM Punk in a match where Raven bled heavily. Dave says ROH is planning to make Punk a big time player (strap in folks. The Raven/CM Punk feud is pretty much what puts Punk on the map).
- Diana Hart is trying to put together a Stampede anniversary/Stu Hart birthday show for May. Only 200 tickets sold so far. Diana asked Bret to come give a speech at the show and he pretty much told Diana to stick it since they don't get along now. So then she asked if it was okay if she advertises him anyway, even if he won't come, since it will help sell tickets. Needless to say, Bret is refusing to have any involvement in this (or anything being done by Diana or Ellie Neidhart) and if you see Bret advertised for this show, buy tickets at your own risk because he won't be there. WWE has also refused to send any talent to the show.
- Things seem to be trending upwards for TNA. The most recent show did 700 paid, more than double the usual paid attendance and one of the largest paid crowds the company has ever had. DirecTV numbers appear to be going up since bottoming out a few months ago also. With their recent international deals, they're also not losing nearly as much money.
- The latest TNA weekly PPV made headlines because Lollipop, one of the cage dancer girls, had her top pulled off in an angle, exposing her breasts for the crowd and the PPV audience since, well, it's PPV and they can do that. Dave notes the company has been talking about doing an angle like this from day one. Dave has some issues with this. For starters, there were clearly kids in the front rows and Dave thinks that's shitty. Secondly, back when TNA co-founder Bob Ryder was just a wrestling journalist, he tore WWF a new one a few years ago when they did a similar stunt with The Kat on PPV. But this was way more blatant on TNA's part, so Dave isn't sure how Ryder can defend it. Elsewhere on the show, D-Lo Brown debuted to a huge pop and cut a promo....trashing WWE. Dave thinks it's one thing when the competition is somewhat on par, like when WCW and WWF used to take shots at each other. But when TNA is desperately picking up WWE low-level cast-offs like D-Lo and having him cut promos about how WWE didn't want him, it makes TNA look minor league in comparison. I know in the comments, this is going to turn into a bunch of people quoting this shit and making a bunch of bad faith AEW jokes, but it's not the same thing, you know it, don't be weird, go look up the titty video instead, and let's move on like adults.
- Juventud Guerrera has been working TNA despite Jerry Lynn's best efforts. They've been bringing some luchadors in and Guerrera is among them who is likely going to get a regular spot. However, some (especially Lynn) have been arguing against it. Guerrera has been complaining about getting his spots in and not wanting to do jobs. Then, at the recent XPW PPV taping, he was supposed to do a job but he seemingly faked a knee injury mid-match and left the match, leaving the other 3 men (it was a 4-way) to sort it out themselves. Doctors couldn't find anything wrong with his knee and he ended up making all his shows in Mexico later in the week, so most people felt like he just didn't want to do the job and given his rep in the past, it's led to a lot of people in TNA being put off on him.
- WWE's new TV deal with UPN for Smackdown will keep the show on the network through Sept. 2005. The new deal is roughly the same as the current deal, but in the long-run it will be more beneficial to WWE if ratings continue to decline (and they did). Basically, before WWE was paying for the TV time and keeping the rights to sell most of the commercial time. The new deal kinda reverses it, with UPN paying WWE $500k per week for the TV rights deal (the first time a network paid WWE to be on TV! Dave notes that TNN pays roughly the same per episode of Raw. So essentially $1 million a week between the 2 shows. Now, as of my writing this, WWE gets roughly $7 million per week between the two) and they keep the commercial blocks themselves to sell. Dave expects this to lead to lots of layoffs in WWE's advertising department, since UPN will now be handling the bulk of this.
- Kevin Nash is headed to OVW to work off some ring rust. He may make an appearance at Wrestlemania but it's unlikely. The two ideas for his return right now are to form a team with Shawn Michaels or to join Triple H's new group since both Randy Orton and Batista are out injured.
- When recapping Smackdown spoilers for next week, he talks about John Cena cutting a rap promo on Lesnar that was so good he got a standing ovation. Dave says there are people within WWE who see Cena as the next top guy and someone who can be pushed as a future main event star. (Hey, it might work, may as well try.)
- As for this week's Smackdown, Dave liked the show a lot other than the constant hype for the Girls Gone Wild PPV, which comes off like cheap porn peddling. Dawn Marie came out to flash the crowd (pasties over nipples) and Dave says fans are gonna pay $19.95 to get disappointed when none of the WWE divas show anything on the PPV despite all the hype.
- Dave squashes the rumor that Rock ever refused to do a job for Booker T. Apparently there was rumors that the Rock/Hurricane match on Raw a few weeks back came about because he didn't want to put over Booker. Dave says the twist with Rock/Hurricane was always the plan. Speaking of Rock, Dave says there's a lot of pressure on him internally to get a good match out of Austin at Wrestlemania because there seems to be concern over how much Austin has left (turns out the Rock match is all he has left).
- William Regal is off Wrestlemania due to a parasitic infection he is believed to have picked up on the India tour months ago. With the lengthy gestation period this infection seems to have, WWE is obviously concerned that other stars may also become ill if it's lingering in anyone else. About a dozen other wrestlers initially came back sick from that trip. Anyway, the plan was for Regal and Lance Storm to drop the tag titles to the Dudleyz at Wrestlemania, but with Regal out, no word what the plan is now (some ol' bullshit but we'll get there next week).
- WWE filed a lawsuit a couple years ago against clothing company Big Dog over caracatures of WWE wrestlers on their shirts. The lawsuit was thrown out this week, with the judge ruling that they were clearly meant as parody and thus protected. Big Dog has done parody shirts of countless pop culture themes, turning them dog related. Some wrestlers were deposed in the suit and The Rock may have hurt WWE's case when he admitted under oath that he never even knew the merch existed until now and admitting he thought they were simply parodying his character, which is exactly what Big Dog was arguing. Jerry McDevitt was there, of course, making his ridiculous claims, leading Dave to point out countless times that WWE has been guilty of doing exactly this sort of thing. Anyway, judge tossed the lawsuit. Go buy your Big Dog shirts.
- Rock worked his first house show in nearly a year in his hometown of Miami, pinning Brock Lesnar in the main event. Rock tried to work heel, but the hometown crowd wasn't having it, so he just went with it and Lesnar went heel since he was getting booed anyway. After the match, Rock embraced him and acknowledged that it's probably the last time the 2 would ever face each other. Rock definitely working a quiet retirement tour at this point.
- Edge appeared at a house show in Tampa in Rhyno's corner. It was the first time anyone has seen him since the surgery. Turns out the damage to his neck was different than what they expected when they got in there. He's still gonna be out for a year though. Hey, speaking of neck injuries, Billy Kidman has been taken off shows as a precaution pending an MRI on his neck (ends up missing a couple months).
- Jeff Hardy is being given a part-time schedule for now. He has outside interests and has lost his passion and the hope is this will let him recharge (not quite how it works out). Speaking of part timers, Goldberg, Undertaker, Nash, Steiner, and Triple H are all going to be working less dates than the rest of the roster going forward.
- Several letters this week, with people upset about the racism in the Triple H/Booker T angle, peddling Girls Gone Wild on a show watched by millions of kids while Linda McMahon is pushing a children's cartoon on the conference call, someone calls him "Triple K" instead of Triple H, all that fun stuff.
- Oh hey, while we're on the race subject, they did an angle a couple of nights at a row at house shows this week with Teddy Long (managing Rodney Mack) calling Hurricane "white boy." After Hurricane won the match, Teddy Long throws a fit to referee Earl Hebner, who responded with "if you ain't white, you ain't right" to get a pop from the racist sections of the crowd and some confused "What the fucks???" from the rest.