Wrestling Observer Rewinder

July 14, 2003

Since WWE is now publicly releasing PPV numbers, I guess Dave has been poring over the details and this is what we're starting with this week. We see more details on how the Invasion PPV from 2001 ranks 5th all-time for most buys, trailing only Wrestlemanias 15-18. And imagine if the angles leading into the Invasion show had actually been good! Anyway, the May 2003 Judgement Day PPV numbers are coming in and it looks to have been the lowest WWE PPV since Dec. 1997 (by the way, for those who claim that the Montreal Screwjob turned business around, please note that their lowest PPV buyrate came a month after the Screwjob. It took a little while before the turnaround started). Anyway, the rest of this is Dave listing the buyrates for every PPV from 2002-2003 so far and giving a paragraph of thoughts on each. Let's cherry pick some:
Rumble 2002 - built around Triple H's return. Did a significantly lower buyrate than projected, but WWE was also in a dispute with DirecTV at the time and the show wasn't available to those subscribers, which hurt the buyrate significantly
Wrestlemania 18 - second biggest PPV in WWE history (behind WM17) and despite Triple H/Jericho closing the show, it was Hogan/Rock that drew the number. WWE spent more on mainstream advertising for this show than any other PPV in history and it was entirely based around the Hogan/Rock match.
Summerslam 2002 - regarded as a huge success, which was headlined by Brock Lesnar winning the title from the Rock in a match that had a perfect build-up (which Dave says they should 1000% be copying for Lesnar/Angle instead of having them drinking milk together but that's another story). The other big selling point was Shawn Michaels' return to the ring after 4 years.
Unforgiven 2002 - and only a month later, this buyrate was almost cut in half from Summerslam. Triple H decided he didn't want to be IC champion, so they created a new world title for him, totally devaluing Lesnar's big win and push. A bunch of late buys came in for this show which coincided with the big tease that Stephanie McMahon would be forced to perform some HLA but overall, this PPV flopped hard.
Rumble 2003 - despite the outstanding Angle/Benoit match and the Rumble, which always draws, Dave says Scott Steiner's debut against Triple H probably sold a lot of PPVs based on the build-up. But then the bell rang...
Wrestlemania 19 - a pretty big flop, as we all know. Bad build-up for Angle/Lesnar, hampered by Angle's neck injury. Vince/Hogan was the most promoted match, along with Rock/Austin in what appears to have been Austin's last match.
Backlash 2003 - An utter failure and the most baffling one because Goldberg's debut against the Rock of all people should have been an easy grand slam but for all the reasons we already know, this bombed.
There's plenty more but you get the gist. He goes through all these PPVs and more, examining in detail why they failed or succeeded. Pretty interesting stuff from a historical perspective, always fun to look at this stuff in hindsight.
The future of AJPW appears to be in more question than ever. A mainstream non-wrestling magazine in Japan ran an article this week on the company's finances, claiming it's close to bankruptcy. It was noted that for the first time in the promotion's 30-year history, they were unable to meet payroll at the end of June and are also behind in other payments. Dave says the company has actually been in bad shape for awhile and there's some front office employees who haven't been paid in 3 months. They give the employees tickets to AJPW shows to sell and let them keep the money they make as payment. That, ladies and gentlemen, is next level MLM-company carny shit. To make matters worse, Shinya Hashimoto is scheduled to defend the Triple Crown title against either Muto or Kawada in a heavily promoted match at Budokan Hall this month, but he just suffered a shoulder injury and it's doubtful he'll even be able to work the show. (Indeed, Hashimoto ends up having to vacate the title and the shoulder injury hampers him for the remainder of his career).
UFC president Dana White announced a light heavyweight title unification match between Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture and here's a whole buncha paragraphs about that. Actually, there's some interesting talk in here with Dana White discussing the possibility of selling UFC and Vince McMahon's name is mentioned. Dave notes that a few years back, there was some light discussion about WWE buying UFC, with the idea that Shane McMahon would run it as a way to sort of practice being a promoter I guess. But at the time, UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz wasn't interested in selling. When White was asked if Vince ever made a formal offer to buy the company since then, White gave some coy answer and didn't want to comment. WWE and UFC under the same ownership, could you imagine?
IWA in Puerto Rico's television show Total Impact is no longer Puerto Rico only, as the show debuted on numerous stations on the Sunshine Network in Florida and Empire Sports Network in New York. The show was hosted by Dutch Mantel (who books the promotion) and had 30 minutes of recent stuff (including a Jeff Jarrett match) as well as lots of old stuff, including when young rookie stars Booker T and Steve Austin passed through Puerto Rico. IWA is hoping to catapult this into running mainland U.S. shows in key markets with large Hispanic populations (never really panned out).
Speaking of IWA, even though they had a good relationship in the past, WWE is no longer sending guys to work there. The reason is due to an ongoing lawsuit with Tinger Ali Singh, who suffered a career-ending concussion while working an IWA show on loan from WWE and they're kinda trying to distance themselves from the promotion (indeed, in the lawsuit, Jerry McDevitt would try to argue that WWE wasn't responsible for what happened if he got hurt in someone else's ring, even though they sent him to work there. The lawsuit eventually gets settled, but Singh's story is pretty dark if you ever read up on it).
Not much from Mexico this week, but Dave notes that El Hijo del Santo's booking cost is $1,500 per match right now and says that he and Vampiro are basically the only stars in Mexico making any serious money right now. Everyone else, even the major stars that work Arena Mexico every week, are struggling to make ends meet.
The reason Ken Shamrock hasn't gotten his torn ACL fixed is apparently due to financial reasons. He still has 2 fights left on his UFC contract for $150k each but he can't fight with his knee messed up. As of now, he's still scheduled for the G-1 in NJPW (nah he pulls out).
In reviewing the latest NJPW shows, Dave talks about how good this Shinsuke Nakamura kid is, saying he shows a ton for a guy who's been wrestling less than 6 months. In a 6-man tag, he put Yuji Nagata out with a guillotine choke and his main event match against Takayama was basically Nakamura getting the shit beat out of him with some unbelievably stiff shots. Dave thinks this match will be a memorable turning point in Nakamura's career and even though he lost, he definitely came off like a star. The super push of Nakamura continues.
Well here's a dark story. A lady named Darlene Brown promoted an indie show in Michigan last week and had promised vendors, many who paid big money to work the show, that they were going to draw thousands of fans. Well, they drew 120. When word got out that the checks Brown wrote had bounced, police went to arrest her and found that she had killed herself. Yikes. Among those who worked the show and, of course, didn't get paid were Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Warlord, Barbarian, Bobby Eaton, Kamala, Larry Zbyszko, and Jim Duggan.
Another indie wrestler named CJ Sensation suffered a broken neck on a show when a top rope huracanrana-into-a-Styles-clash went horrifically wrong. Luckily, despite some fractures in his neck, he is going to make a recovery but doctors say he was millimeters from being paralyzed. Coincidentally, just days earlier, a similar spot between AJ Styles and Frankie Kazarian almost went wrong on the TNA PPV in the exact same way.
Jeff Hardy is working his first real show since being fired by WWE at the upcoming Ring of Honor show. It'll be a three-way with Krazy K and Joey Matthews, friends of his. Jeff basically only agreed to do the show if he could work with his friends.
Former WWE wrestler Steve Blackman is now running "Blackman’s Self Defense and Street Fighting School." Hell yeah.
Tony Halme, better remembered as Ludvig Borga in the 90s, is in the hospital after maybe or maybe not shooting himself. He was charged with possession of an illegal firearm and for "other substances" which were confiscated from his Parliament office. Did I mention he's in Parliament in Finland? Yeah, he's a politician and was popping off shots indoors. His wife was also taken to the hospital and it's believed he may have been intoxicated and the gun was fired during a domestic dispute. Borga's injuries are not life threatening (this turns into quite a bit of a story eventually).
TNA's latest show was down to about 700 fans, mostly because they cut back on freebies. Empty seats everywhere and dead crowd came across bad. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was there, not yet knowing that he's going to help keep this sinking ship afloat in another decade. New Jack was legit knocked out for several seconds after the balcony bump he took. AJ Styles vs. Frankie Kazarain was the main event and best match on the show despite the terrifying ending with the botched Styles Clash. And they aired an interview with Sting, who has signed on for 4 appearances (which will be followed by an additional 11 years).
Random thought from me: has there ever been a more legitimately dangerous move than the Styles Clash? The number of people that have nearly gotten crippled on it from AJ alone is nuts. Kazarian, Yoshi Tatsu, James Elsworth, Satoshi Kojima, a few others I know I'm forgetting. To be clear, I'm not saying any of those were AJ's fault, and in fact, AJ specifically saved Elsworth from certain paralysis. AJ is one of the best ever, and if there's anyone I'd trust to do the move, it's him. But it's an inherently dangerous move that requires wrestlers to go against their most ingrained instinct ("tuck your chin") and even one of the greatest wrestlers ever hasn't been able to prevent multiple people from getting seriously injured when he performs it.
TNA was trying to open up a relationship with CMLL but it all fell apart because of Konnan. I mean, it's not directly his fault. Shocker, Negro Casas, Ultimo Guerrero, and Rey Bucanero were all in talks for the upcoming weeks but apparently none of these guys thought to clear it with their boss, CMLL head Paco Alonso. When Alonso found out, he wouldn't let any of his guys go because TNA is using Konnan. Alonso still hates Konnan because in 1992, when AAA was formed, Konnan was the key guy who helped lead the exodus of wrestlers from CMLL to AAA and Alonso has never forgiven him.
Hulk Hogan appeared on Bubba The Love Sponge's show again, claiming he's never going back to WWE. Sure, Jan. Within the company, most believe he quit over his Wrestlemania 19 payoff, although he also complained about putting over Big Show during his final 6-man match at MSG a couple weeks ago. He agreed to do it but wasn't happy. Almost unanimously, everyone Dave has spoken to in the company is happy that both he and Piper are gone. Nothing personal, but both of those guys were eating up huge chunks of TV time on Smackdown that a lot of the locker room would love to have. Meanwhile, Hogan is still talking about going to work in Japan and Dave thinks he may be able to get one good payday there, but no company in Japan is going to pay him what he wants for more than a one-off deal. The money for pro wrestling just isn't there like that in Japan anymore. But hey, if he wants to do a shoot fight (Hogan vs. Fedor, book it!)
Speaking of Hogan's WM19 payoff, Dave doesn't know the exact figure, but he does know that Hogan's payoff was the highest of anyone in the company for that PPV. Given that the buyrate for the show came in shockingly below projections, almost everyone on the card got a substantially lower payoff than they were probably expecting. Hogan has actually been getting main event payoffs for PPVs even when he wasn't the main event pretty much since he returned in 2002. But despite that, the WWE payoffs are significantly less than what Hogan was used to making in WCW. For instance, on average, WWE main event payoffs are in the range of $50-150k. In WCW, Hogan was getting $600k or more per PPV. So it's a pretty drastic difference.
WWE filmed something called Wrestlemania: The Movie with hopes of airing it on TV but UPN turned it down. It's kind of surprising because Smackdown is still the highest rated show on UPN but wrestling has gotten so cold that they passed on airing it (this eventually gets released as a documentary called "The Mania of WrestleMania" and it's fantastic. It's technically the first release from WWE Films and it's kinda the first time WWE ever did something like this, showing the behind-the-scenes aspect of a major show).
WATCH: The Mania of Wrestlemania - FULL DOCUMENTARY
Notes from 7/3 Smackdown: Dave still doesn't think the Angle/Lesnar comedy stuff is good for a main event build between 2 stars like them, but admits it was pretty funny at least and would have been totally cool with it if it were basically anyone else on the card. Zach Gowan is crazy over, but Dave worries that the novelty of the 1-legged wrestler will wear thin soon and notes Gowan apparently got booed already at the tapings for next week's show, so they have to be careful not to overexpose him. Undertaker was shown giving Orlando Jordan boxing advice. "Thanks Emanuel Steward," Dave quips.
Notes from 7/7 Raw: they were in Montreal. It's been 6 years. Think they're over it yet? Biggest pop of the entire night happened for Pierre-Carl Ouellet, who worked a dark match (PCO!). Scott Steiner was booed mercilessly during his match on the Heat taping. Booker T beat Christian to win the IC title. Gail Kim is already fawning over Val Venis and Dave thinks they've got something with Kim more than just your average diva and he hopes they aren't going to turn her into another bimbo who's only purpose is to be eye candy and pawns for the men's storylines (sorry Dave, we got a loooong way to go before WWE gets there). The Highlight Reel saw Jericho get cheered like crazy and his guest, Shawn Michaels, booed out of the building. But here's where it went off the rails. Michaels claimed he apologized to Hart already (never in person, only half-way in a TSN interview) and that Montreal is the only place that still cares about it. If that's true, Dave wonders why they dedicated 20 minutes of their globally broadcast TV show to it. Dave is so over the 1997 Montreal drama. Kevin Nash is feuding with Test now and lost to him in 2 minutes (yeah, Nash ain't sticking around for that shit much longer). Mark Jindrak worked against Jericho and was completely exposed. Dave says he's not shown any improvement in OVW and he's baffled that they brought him up (he adds that the idea to put him in Evolution was scrapped, more on that in a bit). And the show ended with Kane seemingly turning heel by attacking Steve Austin after he seemingly turned babyface last week by attacking Eric Bischoof after seemingly turning heel the week before that when he attacked RVD. Got it?
Goldberg missed Raw. He showed up to the arena but had some kind of bad infection in his arm, so they rushed him to the hospital to get it treated and took him off the show. That's all Dave knows currently.
Chris Nowinski is said to be suffering from "post-concussion syndrome, which is pretty bad." Ah, the days when we were innocent and had no idea how horrifying CTE is. Dave notes this is the same thing that ended Bret Hart's career.
Rey Mysterio missed the weekend house shows because it was his baby daughter’s birthday. At least he showed up for one of his kids.
Rikishi is going to be out for the next month because he's getting LASIK eye surgery. There's heat on him because he was scheduled for shows all month and I guess got this surgery scheduled without bothering to mention it to anyone ahead of time.
There's a strong push in WWE to get all the big stars doing house shows again. Vince going on the road to do a couple house shows recently was meant to set an example. Austin, Bischoff, and Stephanie McMahon are going to start working more house shows as well. Goldberg's contract only calls for 6 dates per month and he hasn't budged on doing more than he's contractually obligated to, even though WWE has been pushing him to do more ever since he signed. This makes Summerslam interesting, because if they put the title on Goldberg, then they've got a world champion who doesn't work any house shows. If he loses, well, he'll be deader than he already is. It's far past time for Triple H to lose the title, but there's really no good candidate that's ready right now.
The decision was made against putting Mark Jindrak in Evolution, feeling like he's just not ready for a main event stable spot like that. He debuted on Smackdown as a babyface in a lower card position. Orton worked tag matches with Jindrak at house shows to test it out and officials weren't impressed. They're going to hold off and wait until Batista is healthy and returns instead.
Booker T has stated multiple times that he plans to retire in 2005 when he turns 40 and he did yet another interview this week emphasizing it. He has 1 year left on his current deal and then wants to sign a 1-year extension after that and finish up in 2005. Said it's not about the money, because he has his record store in Houston (ah yes, famously stable investment in a market that definitely won't be disappearing anytime soon) and notes he also made other good money moves. He also talked about the Best of 7 series with Chris Benoit in 1998 being the highlight of his career because it put him on the map as someone who could be a top singles star. Anyway, you guys might be surprised to hear this, but he did not retire in 2005.
WWE has been on the hunt for another strong Latino babyface. Needless to say, they're pinning those hopes on Carly Colon right now. As mentioned previously, the current plan is for Carly to spend a minute in OVW to get the hang of WWE things and then send him straight to the main roster ASAP (this is wild. Carly spends more than a YEAR in OVW after this and then eventually debuts in late 2004 as a heel. I'm sure Dave will talk about it in the coming months but the reason of course is that WWE thought he was lazy and acted like OVW was beneath him. That attitude, or their perception of that, is what kept him in OVW so long).
"Superstar" Billy Graham will be attending Summerslam and filming some stuff for WWE while he's there. It'll be the first time Graham has been to a WWE show since 1989 and the first time he's seen Vince since the famous Phil Donahue show which was also attended by Dave's mullet.
Bret Hart was apparently very close to having fully mended fences with Vince McMahon until they ripped the band-aid off the Montreal wound again for no reason this week on Raw. Bret was planning to attend the Calgary house show to meet with Vince and discuss putting all this behind them, but now he's apparently unsure if he wants to go or not, as he felt kinda insulted by what aired on Raw (the will-they-won't-they dance continues...)
Random note: Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick, MD is hosting an upcoming outdoor house show and I only mention this because apparently Harry Grove, whom the stadium is named after, is Spike Dudley's great grandfather.
In the DVD extras of the Tough Enough season 1 set, there's a scene where Triple H goes off about a poster of Goldberg on the wall. Remember, this was long before Goldberg was in the company. Anyway, Triple H apparently says, "He can’t work a four minute match. He got everything handed to him. He goes home for three months over a hangnail or because he doesn’t like where the storylines are headed." Fun stuff.