June 09, 2003
- We open with the death of "Classy" Freddie Blassie, who passed away this week at 85-years-old, just a few weeks after his autobiography was released. Blassie had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, but just prior to that, had made an appearance on Raw to promote the book, which was his last public appearance right before he went into the hospital. And it's obituary time! Blassie was a legend who spend years as a star in California. You think Dave's got some stuff to say about this? Let's go!
- Huge star in Los Angeles territory in the 60s, not much of a worker but one of the greatest talkers of all time. Huge star in Japan, record-setting matches with Rikidozan. Forced to retire for a bit in the 60s after having a kidney removed due to a prior botched surgery. Returned, still a huge star. Famous storyline where he was blinded by the monsel powder! Drawing the biggest (at the time) gate in history for a match against John Tolos in 1971 but got stiffed on the payoff so he moved to NY and became a manager in WWWF for Vince Sr and spent the rest of his life basically working with the McMahons. When Vince Sr. sold the company to his son, one of the provisions of the sale was that Blassie would always be taken care of. And so he was, even being kept on the payroll until his death even though he hadn't really done anything in decades. He was a key part of the Inoki/Ali fight in 1976. Was friends with Regis Philbin and that's why Regis was always a wrestling fan and always had WWE people on the show, even though co-host Kathy Lee Gifford hated it (particularly after Rick Rude chased her around the set and scared the shit out of her one time). Regis talked about Blassie after his death on their show the next morning. And on and on. This obituary is incredible because of course it is. They always are. But it's almost 19,000 words long. Thankfully, I'm finally to the en—
- "Next week we’ll have more on his career..."
- >:(
- And now we have another 17,000 words on.....I guess some history of WWE piece? Again, this feels like Dave was doing some historical writing on the side and didn't have anywhere else to publish it and decided to randomly throw big chunks of it into scattered Observers during slow weeks. Really feels like the rough first draft on a "history of wrestling" book that Dave was writing or something. This part starts in 1988 when the war between WWF and Crockett is at its peak and comes to an end right around the beginnings of the steroid/Dr. Zahorian scandal and covers everything in between. I'm not going to recap this because it's well-worn history but I'll say this: if you ever needed it for research or anything, these 2003 feature pieces that Dave has done on basically the entire history of WWE is, without a doubt, the best and most complete version of it I've seen anywhere in the Observers or anywhere outside of actual published books. I didn't even scratch the surface here.
- So how about some damn news finally?
- WWE held its biggest U.S. house show in years in Portland, OR last week. It was the first time they've been to Oregon in 10 years due to all the commission rules and stringent drug testing requirements that the state enforced. The laws are still technically on the books until next year, but WWE was given a free pass, with the agreement that they will now run 4 shows per year in the state. The show drew over 15,000 people, the biggest crowd for a non-televised house show since 2001 at Madison Square Garden and the crowd was nuclear hot. Dave expects them to get a PPV or at least TV taping soon (Unforgiven 2004). WWE has long claimed that the only reason they didn't go is because the cost to get wrestlers licensed in the state was too high. Suuuuure. From here, Dave tacks on another 3,000+ words about the history of Oregon's commission issues, dammit David Allen Meltzer, do your fucking hands not hurt???
- With Vader gone, NOAH is looking to push Bison Smith as the top new foreigner. Kenta Kobashi in particular is really high on him. As for Smith, he loves the NOAH gig because he goes over, wrestles, gets paid well and treated well, and then goes home with no political bullshit whatsoever.
- At the upcoming NJPW stockholders meeting, Tatsumi Fujinami is going to have to choose between being an active wrestler and being company President. He hasn't wrestled in several months so it's probably time to hang it up (indeed, Fujinami does retire.....for one year! He returns in 2005 and at age 70, he still wrestles to this day.)
- Ken Shamrock was supposed to work the G-1 Climax tournament this year, but after tearing his ACL recently, that's not happening. He got surgery and is hoping to return to MMA before the end of the year.
- You may recall former WWF and WCW event promoter Zane Bresloff was in a bad car accident last month. He's been in a coma ever since and his condition hasn't improved and is said to be grave (he hangs on another week or two before passing).
- Ring of Honor's latest show in Philadelphia was another 500-fan sellout. They debuted a new black and red colored ring. CM Punk, Samoa Joe, and Homicide in particular came off as big stars, with Punk getting over strong with his promos.
- The backstage turmoil in TNA right now is out of control. Nearly every week, the conflict comes down to Russo on one side and Jarrett on another. Russo usually has people like Raven and Glen Gilberti working with him and backing his ideas while Jarrett is busy trying to convince Dixie Carter that this or that idea sucks and needs to be changed. The shows get re-written by Jarrett and whoever, then tossed back to Russo the day before the show. By then, Russo is usually too fed up to fight it and has moved on to the next week's show. There's a ton of other drama that seems to boil down to a fundamental difference in what both sides thing wrestling should be.
- Another note from the 5/28 TNA PPV: Raven was booked for a match, but he had suffered a head injury at an indie show the night before. Raven claimed he had a concussion and asked for his scheduled match to be postponed a week, but Jarrett told him he had to suck it up and work the match, with some believing Raven (the hottest star in the company right now) may have been trying to get out of doing a job to Glen Gilberti. Raven, who was said to be throwing up all week due to the concussion, was furious. Jarrett told him they could do a short 5-minute match, but he had to go out there and put Gilberti over. Raven refused to phone in a stinker of a match, so of his own volition, he went out and put on the best 15-minute main event he could manage. Gilberti was trying to be careful with Raven's head during the match, which made it even worse than your usual Gilberti match (man, this isn't a good look at ALL in retrospect, knowing what we do about concussions now).
- Amazing Red got some heat in TNA because he did an interview saying he hasn't signed a long-term contract with TNA because he doesn't want to be tied to them if WWE ever shows interest. Needless to say, TNA didn't love that. But almost everyone in the company that does interviews these days has something negative to say about the booking and it's become enough of a problem that TNA management is trying to get guys to stop.
- Kurt Angle is expected to be a face when he returns. The plan is to book him and Lesnar as a team in house show matches against Big Show and John Cena. Meanwhile, the plan for the July Vengeance PPV is still Brock vs. Angle in a rematch for the title, but this time both as babyfaces. Dave thinks this really should be held off until next year's Wrestlemania.
- Mick Foley is looking to return to WWE as an on-screen character, but not wrestle. Mostly, he has his first novel coming out ("Tietam Brown") and he wants to be on TV to promote it. Dave and basically everyone else expects him to end up as the special referee for the Hell in a Cell match for Nash/Triple H at Bad Blood (yup).
- Speaking of Bad Blood, all the promotional material that's out for the show is promoting Goldberg vs. Triple H. The commercials on the PPV channels are promoting it, the ad in Raw magazine lists the match in a full back-cover ad, the promotional poster has those 2 on it, etc. There's also a ton of merch for that match that was already made. As you are well aware by now, that match is not happening on this show and that decision was made weeks ago, but the promo material never got changed. This isn't the first time this has happened. Back in Dec. 2001, all the promo material for that month's PPV was built around the return of Triple H from his quad injury, but they ended up delaying it and he didn't appear on that PPV at all.
- WATCH: Bad Blood 2003 original commercial
- Notes from 5/29 Smackdown: entertaining show! Dave expected to hate the lie detector segment based on the spoilers he'd read, but nope. He thinks it was hilarious and among the funnier segments WWE has ever done. He still doesn't think this Mr. America/Vince McMahon/Zach Gowan stuff should be the focal point of the show, but for this episode at least, Dave loved it. The video package promoting Angle's return as a babyface was incredible. Team Angle vs. Tajiri/Eddie Guerrero was one of the best TV matches in awhile (3.5 stars. Nowadays we get 4-5 star bangers on TV regularly). Lesnar got pinned by Big Show in a nothing tag-match main event and Dave thinks they really need to be protecting Lesnar. Booking him like any other 50/50 guy on the roster is the wrong move.
- WATCH: Mr. America takes a lie detector test
- Notes from 6/2 Raw: the streak.....is over. Two great Raws in a row came crashing down here. Started out as a good show though. Ric Flair cut a promo on Shawn Michaels that Dave thinks may have been the promo of the year, followed by Michaels doing possibly the best promo of his career. Pretty much downhill from here. Goldberg backstage segment saw him get booed by the live crowd. Rock returned for a Peep Show segment with Christian. Rock was a babyface again, leading Dave to suspect they've dropped the planned rematch with Goldberg for next year's Wrestlemania already. There was a big angle with Steve Austin trying to push Kane into becoming his old self again, saying he wasn't the monster he used to be. Dave says Kane has been DOA since the necrophelia angle and this is the start of something to rebuild him. And the crowd is utterly apathetic to Kevin Nash as the challenger to Triple H's title right now.
- Random Goldberg analysis. The plan is still for Goldberg to win the title from Triple H at Summerslam, but Dave isn't sure that's the right move anymore. Let's forget the fact that he's been booked so badly. But if he wins the title, that takes your world champion off house shows completely (he hasn't worked a single one since returning and isn't even working the big upcoming Australian tour, which even Austin is going over for). And aside from Triple H and Chris Jericho again, there's not a whole lot of top level heels for him to face on Raw. Add all those to the fact that, by August, who knows what shape Goldberg's career will be in with the way he's been booked.
- There's a lot of depression in the WWE locker room these days over the general overall state of the business. No one's really happy with the direction of the company, business is down, payoffs are down, cost of living on the road is higher than ever, etc. And while no one will say so publicly, a lot of people privately are casting the blame on Stephanie McMahon and Triple H (ah yes, the era where these two are the mortal enemies of the IWC and everything wrong with WWE was their fault).
- In local advertisements for the upcoming Smackdown at Madison Square Garden, they're advertising stars such as Mr. America, Roddy Piper, Sable, and "the MSG debut" of Ultimo Dragon. Dave thinks it's kinda weird that Dragon is featured so heavily in the promotion because he has absolutely zero name value to a WWE Madison Square Garden crowd. But it's also cool for Dragon because one of his biggest reasons for coming to WWE was to fulfill a dream of wrestling in MSG.
- John Cena made a promotional appearance at a WNBA game and when they showed him on the big screen, absolutely nobody in the arena knew who he was (imagine showing John Cena on a big screen anywhere in the world today and people not knowing who he is). Dave's not sure why they even bothered, as it's pretty clear WWE and WNBA don't have much crossover audience.
- Former WCW developmental wrestler Horshu is expected to sign with WWE soon. He had a few appearances in WCW back in the day but ended up kinda flaking out because he had a bad drug problem. But he's since gotten clean and WWE is interested because he's huge (he would eventually become Luther Reigns).
- WWE is doing a "Diva Search" on its website. That's all Dave says. Indeed, this was the first ever Diva Search and it ended up being an online thing where the winner just got a photoshoot in WWE Magazine. Some chick named Jaime Koeppe ended up winning.
- Regarding the debut on Smackdown this week of the Basham Brothers, the decision to debut them was made literally the day of the show. Something in the original script was scrapped (Dave thinks it was a Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy match because Mysterio wasn't cleared). The Bashams were on the road working dark matches and got thrust into the spot. Nobody from OVW was even told until after it had already happened, so it didn't leave Jim Cornette any time to book an angle to make it make sense for their TV audience. Dave notes that this is not the first time WWE has made a spur of the moment decision to do something with an OVW wrestler that destroys ongoing OVW storylines. In case you're wondering, those 2 guys are basically in a blood feud against each other in OVW but now they're teaming together as brothers on Smackdown. The story between them was set to be OVW's main program throughout the entire summer so you know Cornette is probably breaking everything in his office right now. The plan is to go ahead and continue with the storyline, despite what's happening on Smackdown, which you know has to be breaking Cornette's kayfabe heart. Dave's curious to see how Cornette explains it on OVW television.
- Longtime WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt was profiled as one of the top trial lawyers in the country by National Law Journal. McDevitt first rose to prominence as the lawyer hired for Hulk Hogan to get him out of having to testify in the Dr. Zahorian trial. McMahon was impressed enough that he hired McDevitt in 1992 in lawsuits with Geraldo Rivera's TV show and against journalist Phil Mushnick and later the 1994 steroid trial. McDevitt has basically been Vince's go-to attorney for pretty much every legal issue ever since.
- Orlando Jordan made his debut on Velocity, using the name Orlando Johnson (that would get changed back). Jordan was briefly signed to the ill-fated Urban Wrestling Federation and trained under Rocky Johnson before getting a WWE developmental deal and heading to OVW. On Velocity, they said he had been signed to Smackdown. Dave is flabbergasted. Out of everyone on the roster, with the exception of Jackie Gayda, poor Orlando Jordan is extremely green and the least ready of anyone in OVW for primetime WWE. It's another case of WWE rushing someone who has a good look and hoping they're develop into a good worker after the fact.