July 28, 2003
- This week was one of the biggest weeks of wrestling in Japan in recent memory. WWE ran 3 shows, two of which were in Yokohama Arena. One of the shows was an instant sellout but the other only had the building about 3/4 full. Japanese fans were most excited in seeing Kurt Angle and Sable, neither of whom have been to Japan before. Sable was huge in the Japanese magazines back in the Attitude era, while Kurt Angle, as an Olympic gold medalist, had the traditional fans salivating. There was interest in Lesnar too, but Olympic gold medal > college national championship. That being said, Lesnar got over HUGE by throwing Big Show around and by the end of the tour, he was pretty much the biggest WWE star in the country. It got a lot of people in the media pushing the idea of a Brock Lesnar vs. Bob Sapp or Mirko Cro Cop match, and Lesnar was all too happy to play up the possibility for publicity. But there's no actual talk of that. There was discussion of WWE running the Tokyo Dome in January, but after failing to sellout Yokohama Arena twice, they're second guessing running a stadium that large. WWE has kinda determined that the max audience they will draw in Tokyo is about 20k fans, which isn't enough to run the Dome. Dave thinks they could do a big gimmick show there, like the Royal Rumble maybe, and probably sell it out but he understands all the logistical reasons why they don't try. Spanky, who had a solid run in Zero-One before going to WWE, was super over during the shows as well. John Cena spit an anti-Japan rap but the crowd didn't care (or understand it). Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Tajiri, and Funaki were all super popular as well.
- News from the other Japan shows: AJPW ran Budokan Hall, which saw Shinya Hashimoto hint that he might vacate the Triple Crown due to injury, but he didn't do it yet! Show was main evented by a tag team match that saw Naoya Ogawa from Zero-One and Toshiaka Kawada face off against each other on opposing teams in something of a dream match. With WWE in town, everyone expected the show to bomb, but Budokan was shockingly near-full. Riki Choshu's WJ promotion aired a PPV with a world title tournament and a Vader vs. Don Frye match that everyone was hyped to see. WJ has that WCW-in-late-2000 stigma to it and this show was considered pretty terrible. Steve Williams debuted, returning to Japan for the first time since being let go by AJPW. And finally, NJPW held their own PPV in Sapporo, featuring Yoshihiro Takayama defending the IWGP title against Masahiro Chono. The match ended in a double knockout and there's talk of doing a gimmick rematch next month, possibly NJPW's first ever cage match (yup). Josh Barnett defeated Scott Norton to symbolically take the spot of NJPW's top foreigner.
- Triple H vs. Goldberg was officially announced for SummerSlam at a press conference this week. Mostly uneventful, with Bischoff announcing the match and Triple H cutting a promo saying WWE isn't a small pond where they line up 176 nerds to lose to him. Nothing much to it, just a face-off and some pictures and video clips WWE can use to promote the match. The first ever match between the two took place the night before at a house show in San Jose. Triple H's leg is so messed up he can barely walk and Goldberg's arm was still all bandaged up from the infection issue so they both came in limited. Triple H won due to a low blow and interference and pinned him. Match went about 16 minutes. It was fine for a house show main event. But even if/when Goldberg wins the title at this point, whatever made him special is gone. This house show, with this advertised match, didn't draw all that well and they reacted to Goldberg like any other guy.
- The big history pieces apparently aren't finished. Dave drops another 9,000 word essay here on, well....the year 1990. No context of why this is in the issue. Just "Here's the Triple H and Goldberg news and now, here's 1990. Next up, Raw ratings." I'm still convinced that Dave was working on a book around this time and decided to scrap it and throw big chunks of it into the Observer during slow weeks in 2003. Anyway, here's Dave doing a rewind of 1990 and since I never actually did the 1990 Observers, let's rewind Dave's rewind!
- Observer Rewind Rewind 1990: Vince McMahon started the year in a fight with the cable companies over broadcasting Royal Rumble on PPV. The success of an AJPW/NJPW joint show led to AJPW and WWF working together to promote a show. NJPW, during a brief period when they were on the outs with WCW, joined in as well but NJPW wrestlers didn't do any interpromotional stuff. WWF had Mike Tyson booked to referee a Hogan/Savage match, but then Tyson got Buster Douglas'd and that went out the window. WCW began pushing for Sting's crowning as new NWA champion, only for him to blow out his knee, forcing them to turn to Lex Luger. But Flair refused to put Luger over for the title. Hogan meanwhle dropped the WWF title to Warrior, which flopped. WWF and AJPW did their big joint show in Japan soon after. WCW brought in Robocop. Sting returned from injury and finally got his big title win over Flair but his title run was also a flop. Jesse Ventura got fired over a contract dispute and ended up suing Vince (and later winning big). Rick Rude quit WWF. Jim Cornette and Stan Lane quit WCW, ending the run of the Midnight Express. The Hart Foundation/Rockers phantom title change that never aired because the rope broke, which ironically saved Jim Neidhart's job. Ole Anderson got fired as WCW booker. Dusty Rhodes quit WWF and went back to WCW to replace him. 1990 ended for WCW with the Black Scorpion debacle, while WWF was gearing up for Wrestlemania 7, which they hoped would draw 100,000 people to Los Angeles and it most certainly did not. And that was 1990 in a very small nutshell.
- Back here in 2003, former WWC wrestler El Vikingo, who wrestled for the Puerto Rican promotion in the 80s, was arrested this week. I don't know if this is the actual father of current AAA star El Hijo del Vikingo. I certainly hope not. Because, uh, this fella was charged with molesting his daughter during the time when she was between the ages of 10-16.
- Speaking of WWC, their major anniversary show only drew 3,100 people. That's less than IWA drew on the same night across town with a regular house show. IWA is absolutely KILLING them in this war, as Dave notes IWA is one of the only wrestling promotions in the world actually making a profit right now, while WWC drew less than 100 people to a recent house show and is nearing bankruptcy (somehow, both still live to this day). The main event was billed as the last match ever between Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah the Butcher. Those two were the biggest feud ever for WWC and this match was, well, pretty much as awful as you'd expect. And of course, it would not be their last match.
- Michinoku Pro has a fun angle going on. If you recall, Great Sasuke, who wrestles here, also serves in politics and won't take his mask off. Well, Taka Michinoku is doing a gimmick where he's vowing to unmask Sasuke because he doesn't think a masked politician should serve in government. Anyway, their recent show outdrew an AJPW show in the same arena 2 days prior, just to let you know where AJPW sits right now.
- Rikidozan's widow Keiko Tanaka released a book about her late husband that is making noise in Japan. Rikidozan was a huge star in Japan but was even bigger in North Korea, where he was born. For years, Rikidozan's NK heritage was kept secret, even after his death. His wife notes that even though North Korea continues to prop him up as a propaganda sports figure, Rikidozan loved the idea of a free society, rejected communism, and loved America. Dave says that in 1989, the North Korean government published a book about Rikidozan, calling him the greatest wrestler of all time, acting as if all his victories were shoots, and crediting his wins to Kim Il-Sung and the Worker's Party. Antonio Inoki, as one of Rikidozan's most famous proteges, used that to his advantage to make himself a popular figure in North Korea as well, hence the 1995 shows and Inoki's frequent return visits since.
- ROH set its all-time attendance record with a sell-out crowd of 1,200 there to see the debut of Jeff Hardy. It was an interesting situation. When Hardy was announced, tickets began flying and ROH broke its previous attendance record (700ish) by a large margin. So fans were excited for Jeff Hardy. Then they got him and Dave doesn't know what the fuck happened. The crowd turned on Jeff the second he walked through the curtain, chanting all sorts of stuff at him like "We want Matt!" and "You got fired!" and "Don't come back!" among other things. Jeff was doing his Willow the Whisp gimmick and reportedly looked pretty bad in the ring too, which didn't help. He eventually tried to play heel, but the crowd wasn't even giving him a chance and it seemed they succeeded in getting under his skin by the end of the match. Jeff apparently wanted to work the show because he and Matt saw a tape of an ROH show awhile back and they liked it, plus some of Hardy's OMEGA friends work there. ROH said they would love to have him back, because he obviously sold a ton of tickets, but pretty much everybody backstage was shellshocked by what happened and totally blindsided by the reaction. Jeff has been telling people he plans to return to WWE soon. If he's clean, WWE would welcome him, but Dave hasn't heard anything on that.
- WATCH: Jeff Hardy debuts in ROH - 2003
- Elsewhere on the same ROH show, CM Punk defeated Raven in a dog collar match while Tommy Dreamer debuted to save Raven from a post-match attack. Afterwards, they tied Punk to the ropes and poured beer down his throat (his gimmick is that he doesn't drink or do drugs, you see). Dreamer was in the area and not booked on any current WWE shows, so he made the ROH appearance free of charge and Dave kinda sorta maybe implies that it wasn't approved? The Briscoe Brothers lost a tag title match that was billed as their last shot at the titles (lol). The reason is that both are planning to wind down their wrestling careers for now, as both are headed off to play college football soon (indeed, they took a bit of a sabbatical from wrestling around this time for that but didn't work out). And the main event was Paul London's final match before heading off to WWE developmental, losing to Samoa Joe.
- WATCH: CM Punk vs. Raven (Dog Collar Match) - 2003
- Bob Backlund has written an autobiography and reached out to WWE about publishing it through them, but they passed. Same with Bobby Heenan, who is working on a second book, but WWE ain't interested.
- Ultimate Warrior appeared on C-SPAN this week, speaking at the National Conservative Student's Conference. At one point, he says he chose to leave the wrestling business due to the moral decline. "He got out in the 1880s," Dave quips.
- Jesse Ventura needed to get his official portrait painted for the governor's mansion, so who did he turn to? Why, former tag team partner Steve Strong, who wrestled with him back in the 70s in Hawaii. Anyway, Strong is also a painter. The portrait has been completed but hasn't been revealed yet, and will be unveiled at a ceremony later this year. Folks....y'all gotta see this portrait.
- An unnamed Observer reader was recently cast to be on a TV show called "Style Court." The premise was that he dresses so bad that he can't get into various nightclubs. The show is "obviously a work" Dave notes, and the guy decided to have fun with it. At times in the episode, he wore an NWO shirt, an XFL jersey, and even a TNA "S.E.X." shirt (Sports Entertainment Xtreme) and tried to squeeze as many wrestler's names and catchphrases as he could into every second he was on TV. Sounds amusing. I've never heard of this show and can't find this clip anywhere.
- TNA's lawsuit against a former PPV executive Jay Hassman (and his counter-suit against them) was settled this week. TNA accused Hassman of providing the company with falsified PPV numbers during the early days of the company, which caused them to have a false sense of how successful they were and almost caused the company to collapse when they realized the truth. Hassman counter-sued, claiming he was owed money. Both sides apparently dropped their claims, neither paid damages, and both signed a confidentiality agreement on it. Dave gets the sense that TNA's case must not have been as strong as they were claiming if that's how it shook out (this was kind of a famous story, because Hassman worked directly with WWE on the PPV side of things as well, and this led to allegations that he was feeding TNA false info in an attempt to sabotage them on behalf of WWE. He later ended up doing prison time for a bunch of unrelated grand larceny charges and some other stuff.)
- Crash Holly (who won't be able to use that name) is scheduled to start with TNA soon. He's also had talks with NOAH about heading over to Japan to work (NOAH doesn't happen. He ends up working a handful of shows for TNA before sadly passing away in November but we'll get there).
- Panda Energy made the decision to start limiting free tickets for the weekly TNA tapings. As a result, the total attendance is down to about 800, with roughly half still freebies. It's led to a bad atmosphere for the shows on TV.
- UFC put out a statement talking about how they plan to tone down the pyro and elaborate entrances and spectacle of the show. In the statement, Dana White talked about how sports media and analysts were confused by the theatrics. "They said it reminded them of pro wrestling, which is not at all what we're about," White said. Dave pushes back on this and points to Japan. Kickboxing was around for decades, but it wasn't until K-1 came along and sprinkled some pro wrestling promotional techniques on top of it and suddenly it was the biggest thing in Japan. Ditto for Pancrase, Shooto, and PRIDE. Dave says this is really just UFC's way to cut back on costs related to the theatrics (pyro in particular) and to save face while doing so instead of admitting that they're trying to save money. In the U.S., pro wrestling is bigger than basically all other forms of martial arts (karate, judo, kickboxing, jui jitsu, amateur wrestling, etc) because of the theatrics and spectacle of the characters. That's what draws. Boxing is the only other thing at that level, and that's only because it's been established in America for decades. UFC needs the spectacle and it needs to establish stars and for these fighters to have a way to get their personalities out there. Just having a bunch of skilled fighters fighting isn't gonna cut it.
- Notes from 7/17 Smackdown: Matt Hardy vs. Chris Benoit was a great match, even though Matt suffered a broken nose and was bleeding everywhere during it. Michael Cole, on commentary, made reference to the recent Lennox Lewis vs. Vitali Klitschko boxing match, which was stopped due to blood from Klitschko. Cole said WWE isn't like boxing, they don't stop matches just because people are bleeding. Ummm....anyway, Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble went 2 minutes and Dave says Dragon is never going to get over like this and he's not really surprised. The odds were always against him in WWE. John Cena cut a hilarious promo from a graveyard and Dave says Cena is pretty much the only guy on the roster that clicks with the younger demographic they're trying to reach. The Conquistadores were played this time by Rob Conway and Nick Dinsmore. Those 2 guys are feuding in OVW and it's starting to feel like someone in WWE is fucking with Jim Cornette at this point. At least they put them under masks. Eddie Guerrero is damn near the most charismatic babyface in the company. "Too bad he's not a babyface," Dave says. Don't worry, that will be changing very soon. His popularity eventually becomes too big for WWE to ignore. And Dave once again bitches about how a Zach Gowan/Vince McMahon match is the primary focus of most of the TV time leading to the next PPV, ahead of Kurt Angle challenging for the title after returning from injury.
- Notes from 7/21 Raw: the new storyline now is that GM Steve Austin can't touch anyone now unless he's provoked. Meanwhile, after literally attempting to murder Jim Ross last week by pouring gasoline on him and setting him on fire, Kane is.......under house arrest. But not fired. Dave is pretty over this whole storyline. Goldberg and Triple H faced off in the ring to officially kick off the build for their Summerslam match. And it was never mentioned again the rest of the show. Fans booed both of them when they were showing clips from the press conference, so that's not a great start to the angle. Jericho and Michaels had a 20+ minute long match that wasn't as good as their Wrestlemania match, but was pretty great for a Raw even if the crowd was dead. Rosey is now Hurricane's sidekick, or Super Hero In Training. And in case you missed the SHIT pun there, don't worry. They hammered you over the head with it to make sure you got the joke. Kane showed up with police escort in chains for him to beat up RVD. This isn't how house arrest works. And as he was massacring him and WWE officials were trying to break it up, those cops who escorted the attempted murderer to the scene a few minutes earlier? Nowhere to be found. Arn Anderson was one of the ones breaking it up and Dave notes that it was nice to see him back at work after a stint in rehab. Show ended with Kane giving Linda McMahon the safest tombstone in the history of tombstones.
- The problem now is they need someone to get revenge on Kane for Linda and the obvious choices don't work. Vince is already a heel in an affair storyline with Sable. Triple H is a heel and they'd have to retcon a lot of stuff with he and Stephanie to explain why he'd want revenge for Linda. Undertaker is on the other show. Which leaves.....yeah. Dave expects Shane McMahon to be returning any day now (indeed).
- Notes from next week's Smackdown tapings: they had an in-ring segment with John Cena rapping to Stephanie McMahon and slapping her ass, then had a TitanTron segment with Sable that got all screwed up and will have to be heavily edited before it airs. During a backstage segment, Stephanie ripped Sable's top off, exposing her breasts on the big screen to those in the arena live and those who had the satellite feed. It will obviously have to be censored for the TV broadcast. They tried to do a segment for an Eddie Guerrero/Chris Benoit feud, but Eddie was so good that the crowd cheered him and turned on Benoit instead. Of course, they were in Fresno and there's a big Latino population there and Eddie was basically cheered like a god as soon as he came out, so they had no chance. Later, when Eddie faced Rhyno, the crowd booed Rhyno so badly that he basically heeled on them and flipped them off when the camera wasn't on him. And there we go.
- All the writers were supposed to go to OVW this week to meet the talent and start getting acquainted with the people who they will be working with in the future. Well....several of them managed to get out of it. Stephanie McMahon, who heads the wrigint team, just didn't go because who's gonna make her? Bruce Prichard needed to be at home (Dave doesn't say, but I believe his wife was going through cancer treatments at this time). Brian Gewirtz simply refused to go because it was his day off and dammit, good on him for drawing a line. Dave Lagana went, and was critical of Gewirtz for bailing. Anyway, Matt Morgan apparently impressed a lot of people but Cornette begged them not to rush Morgan to the main roster yet because he's not ready. But of course, the fear is that as soon as Vince gets a look at that big sumbitch, he's gone (yup, he'll be on Smackdown in 3 months and was clearly in over his head).
- Pretty much everyone in WWE universally recognizes that the Goldberg experiment has been a failure. Of course, who is to blame for that depends on who you ask. The decision-makers in WWE blame Goldberg. Everyone else with a working set of eyes who has watched WWE for the last several months knows it's creative. But regardless, he has a huge contract, limited dates, and isn't drawing. When his contract is up for renewal next year, there's no chance in hell that he's going to be offered the same money he's making now and they'll probably insist on more dates too. Whether Goldberg would be willing to take a paycut and work more dates in order to let WWE continue destroying his legacy is unclear but probably doesn't take a genius to guess how he feels about it. Right now, Triple H pretty much has to drop the title to Goldberg at Summerslam, unless they're going to turn him babyface (which has been discussed). Otherwise, heel Triple H has beaten everyone else. But there doesn't really seem to be any good options here either way.
- Vince McMahon did an interview recently with a newspaper and had some interesting quotes. Regarding Goldberg, he claimed that they were satisfied and said that Linda McMahon's recent comments on the invester call about Goldberg being a disappointment was her being "misquoted." Sure. Dave recites word-for-word what Linda said on the call. She was not misquoted. Regarding Hogan, Vince said they're still friends but admitted it's hard doing business with him because Hogan is often looking out for himself instead of being a team player. He said he hoped they can work together again in the future, maybe outside of wrestling, but said he can no longer do business with Hogan and then have him walk away like he's done multiple times now. Says it's not fair to the company and the fans. "I'm not saying I won't do business with him again. It's just not going to be in-ring."
- Lita hasn't recovered from her neck surgery as quickly as they'd hoped. Originally, she was expected to be ready to return around August, but now it's looking to be more like September.
- The Rock's new movie "The Rundown" has a trailer showing in theaters this week. The movie isn't expected to be released until September, but an Observer reader saw a test screening and said it was funny and had some great action scenes. Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a brief cameo in which he gives Rock the rub. Ah, wrestling lingo in real life. Never gets old.
- John Cena will be recording a rap album called "Basic Thuganomics" with plans to release it in 2004. That's all Dave knows for now.
- Terry Taylor and Crash Holly's recent releases were both "discipline" related. Taylor's issue seems to just be maybe offering too many differing opinions. Dave doesn't clarify Crash's issue, but we know.
- A weekly Louisville newspaper wrote a review of a recent IWA show (promoted by Ian Rotten). Well, Jim Cornette wasn't gonna have that shit. He wrote a letter to the newspaper, trashing IWA as a "vulgar display of violence" and hoping readers won't think of all wrestling like that. He said IWA isn't pro wrestling, called Rotten a "fringe performer at best", trashed their "garbage stunts" and a bunch of other stuff. You've heard a Cornette rant before, you know what it is.