September 15, 2003
- Anyway, err'body have a wonderful weekend!
- We open with a look at the upcoming Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar ironman match. It was something Dave never thought WWE would do in these days of shorter attention spans and hundreds of other channels to watch. In fact, in the entire history of Raw, Smackdown, and even WCW Nitro and Thunder, there hasn't been a single match to legitimately go over 30 minutes. A 60-minute match on free TV hasn't been done in the U.S. in 17 years (Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig for the AWA title that aired on ESPN in 1986). It's expected to result in a title change, with Lesnar almost certainly winning the WWE championship. Angle and Lesnar originally wanted to do this match at the Vengeance PPV, but Vince overruled it and made that a three-way with Big Show but now the idea has come back around and here we are.
- Paul Heyman has been pitching an ironman match since last year. He originally wanted to do a 3-way tag team ironman match during the Smackdown Six era, and later pitched a Benoit/Angle one as well, but both were rejected. But Heyman's booking of longer (20ish minute) matches on Smackdown last year did strong ratings and proved fans will stick with matches that go longer than 3 minutes, despite what they were conditioned for during the crash TV Russo years. Dave recaps WWE's prior famous 60-minute matches (WM12 with Bret/Shawn and Judgement Day 2000 with Rock/Triple H). Then he recaps a bunch of other 60 minute matches from the territory days, most of which never aired on TV, and this is mostly just an excuse for Dave to ramble on about Flair matches in the 80s. Apparently, Heyman wanted to do a Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka ironman match in ECW back in 1999 but TNN wouldn't give them any extra time for the show that week and they couldn't fit ring introductions and pre/post-match stuff into the time slot and still do a legit 60 minute match, so he scrapped it. But this seriously goes on and on into the history of basically every famous 60-minute match dating back to the 60s. Long story short: Angle/Lesnar is historic and it's a risky move to put it on TV.
- News on the contracts TNA is offering its performers: everyone in the company has been under at least some sort of limited deal (sometimes for as little as one show) but most of the featured stars like AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn, and others are signed for as long as 1 year with an option to pick up a second. TNA is desperately trying not to become a feeder system for WWE after losing Zach Gowan, Alexis Laree, and Paul London to them in recent months. The contracts allow TNA to control wrestlers' independent bookings, doesn't offer a downside guarantee or promise of how many dates they'll be booked, and requires weeks of advance notice if they won't be available for Wednesday tapings, which messes up things for the guys who work Japan tours. So basically, if you don't sign, TNA isn't going to push you. If you do sign, you give up any hopes of WWE or a significant Japan run with still no guarantee of any kind of security. In that way, they're actually very similar to the contracts WWE used to offer until the mid-90s when Bischoff's guaranteed contracts came along and changed the game.
- The big thing about TNA's contracts is that this will affect the U.S. indie scene. TNA likely won't have a problem with most of its stars continuing to work most indies, but there may be exceptions with companies like MLW and ROH. Currently, there's no plans to prevent talent from working for those shows, but with MLW having regional TV and ROH gaining popularity, Dave could see TNA pulling the plug on that if it gets to be a concern. In particular, TNA doesn't want characters heel/babyface alignment switching around (take CM Punk for example: he's a heel in ROH and MLW, but currently a babyface in TNA) or other things that might contradict TNA storylines (again, Raven/Punk's ongoing feud as an example of something that kinda goes against their TNA booking together). Basically, indie promoters will be handcuffed in what TNA wrestlers on their shows will be allowed to do, and of course, their champions probably won't be doing jobs elsewhere either. TNA and ROH have had talks and apparently TNA asked ROH to start using similar storylines since they use so many of the same people. ROH officials scoffed at that, saying they book long-term and TNA changes plans weekly, and they refuse to be at TNA's mercy for their own booking plans. So this might get messy eventually (Rob Feinstein is going to make this situation a lot worse in a few months).
- We get a big story about the PRIDE Grand Prix tournament and particularly about the chances of Hidehiko Yoshida and discussion over how legit he is. Buncha MMA stuff, but I know there's some fans here who love the history of that as well. This is a good piece of work.
- Preliminary numbers for Summerslam are in and it looks to have done around 370k buys, which would make it the second lowest buyrate ever for Summerslam, trailing only the 1996 edition. It's interesting because TV ratings and attendance leading into the event were slightly higher than the same time last year, but the PPV buys are still looking to be almost a 30% drop from last year's Summerslam, which was headlined by Brock beating Rock for the title. Though to be fair, that was the best promoted PPV WWE has done in years. But it's still staggering to see such a huge drop off in buys.
- We have an obituary for The Great Antonio, a Canadian wrestler who is mostly remembered for his time in Japan. He died of a heart attack at age 77. Most of us, however, probably remember him for the time Antonio Inoki beat the brakes off him, but we'll get to that in a moment. Turns out there's more to the guy. He was a famous strongman, renowned for pulling buses down the street and other feats of strength. Rikidozan brought him to Japan to feud with and they gave him the gimmick of an out of control wild man and did all sorts of advanced publicity. When he arrived in Japan, he literally got off the plane and started chasing people around the airport like a lunatic, which got tons of press coverage. He did big business with Rikidozan, but got a big ego about it and pissed off a lot of people off, to the point that Rikidozan ended up beating his ass during a match to teach him a lesson. Karl Gotch and Mr. X also apparently roughed the guy up for refusing to follow orders and he was eventually fired. Seems to be a theme for this guy. He would return off and on through the years, and Dave briefly mentions a match in passing in which Inoki beat the guy in a quick match. But I guess Dave had never seen the video in 2003 because he doesn't mention the story behind said match. Anyway, this dude is dead now. Let's watch Inoki beat him up while Bill Burr narrates:
- WATCH: Great Antonio fucks around and finds out
- Lucha Libre legend Canek did an interview explaining his recent departure from AAA. He said the company was upset with him because he no-showed TripleMania ("Well, that would do it," Dave notes). Canek said he no-showed the event because he was booked in a prelim match, which he felt was insulting. Furthermore, the show was held at El Toreo arena in Naucalpan, which is basically the house Canek built during his heyday, which made being in a prelim match even more insulting to him. He said that Antonio Pena booking him so low on the card was a "gutless" way of telling Canek that he didn't want him anymore. So Canek said fuck it and just didn't show up. So he's gone from AAA now but says he doesn't have any hard feelings. But if anyone in the company is offended by what he said, it's their problem and not his. Spicy! It would be 10 years before Canek would return to AAA.
- Shinya Hashimoto is finally planning on having shoulder surgery in late October. Doctors have told him he'll need 6 months off afterwards. Considering how much Zero-One is struggling anyway, Hashimoto is telling people he'll be back in one month. Right now, he's working tags and trios matches and doing basically nothing other than standing on the apron and throwing occasional kicks (October surgery doesn't happen. This dude keeps working pretty much nonstop until mid-2004 before he finally takes time off, but then dies in 2005 before he can ever return).
- Riki Choshu's dying WJ promotion held a shoot-match show that flopped. I only mention it because one of the fighters was a kid named Daniel Puder, who was a finalist for Tough Enough 3 but didn't make the cut because he had a marijuana charge on his record. Anyway, he won his fight. Also, WJ's only halfway marketable name, Kensuke Sasaki, broke his hand during his fight on this show and will be out of action for awhile which is another devastating blow to WJ and further proof that mixing shoots with pro wrestling is a bad idea.
- Kenzo Suzuki has reportedly retired from wrestling because he was so bothered over the death of Giant Ochiai, with whom he was training at the time in WJ. He's now working in construction (he'll be unexpectedly signing with WWE in 2004).
- Toshiaki Kawada has won the AJPW Triple Crown title for the 5th time, tying Misawa's record (Kento Miyahara and Suwama would surpass that record in later years). Kawada was scheduled to win the title from Hashimoto before he vacated, so instead they had a single-night tournament that Kawada won instead.
- Dover, DE city council is trying to pass laws to ban "ultra violent pro wrestling" as well as "Ultimate Fighting matches." This is all in response to CZW running shows there, UFC just got tacked on because out-of-touch politicians don't know the difference. Anyway, they're having issues trying to figure out how to word the ordinance in such a way that bans "extreme" wrestling while not banning all wrestling. And in a way that would allow, say, WWE to come in and use tables and fire and barbed wire if they wanted to, but would prevent little ol' CZW from doing it. It's turned into a bunch of semantics and bickering in the city council.
- Notes from ROH's latest show: it was one of their all-time biggest crowds (650). Low-Ki wasn't there because he got his jaw broken a couple weeks ago and his jaw is wired shut. There was a 4-way title match with Samoa Joe (ROH champ), AJ Styles (NWA-TNA champ), Chris Sabin (TNA X-Division champ), and the returning....Jay Briscoe! And Briscoe ended up winning, pinning Sabin. apparently Teddy Hart and TJ Wilson will be debuting here on the next show. Main event of the show was CM Punk vs. Raven in a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match. After the match, Punk crucified Raven or something ("it's not a cross, it's a symbol" Dave reminds us). Crowd apparently didn't like the match or the angle afterward.
- WATCH: Raven vs. CM Punk - Clockwork Orange House of Fun match
- While they were putting up the cage at the ROH show, Justin Credible killed time by doing a Q&A with the crowd. When asked if Triple H was a jerk, he responded by saying Triple H looks out for himself. Said his favorite match he's had was 1998 ECW Heatwave against Jerry Lynn. Asked how much money Paul Heyman owes him, Credible took the high road and said Heyman made him a star so he isn't looking for any money. Said that before ECW went out of business, the plan was for he and Steve Corino to form a team. Someone asks if Bret Hart had sex with Sunny and Credible says yes. Then he said he doesn't actually know, but knows what everyone thinks (Dave just says "the truth will be in Bret's book." For the record, both Bret and Sunny continue to deny it to this day and I actually believe them. Sunny has been very open about all the wrestlers she slept with but steadfastly swears never Bret. And in Bret's book, he admits to about 1,000 other extramarital affairs that destroyed his marriage, but repeatedly denies ever sleeping with her. After all these years, when both have been so open about everyone else, I don't see what reason either of them has to lie about it if it had happened).
- Andrew McManus is still telling people that his WWA promotion is coming back at some point but there are no further shows scheduled and most believe it's done. Shame because their last PPV show was their first really good show.
- Chyna's restraining order against Sean Waltman was dropped when she no-showed the court hearing. Meanwhile, she's going to be in the new Sevendust video for the song "Enemy."
- WATCH: Sevendust - "Enemy" (Official Video)
- Next week's TNA show will be headlined by Raven vs. Shane Douglas in a hair vs. hair match. As you may recall, this was originally going to be Raven vs. Punk in a hair match in ROH but TNA heard about that and nixed it. So if Raven wants to lose a hair match that bad, he's gonna do it in TNA. Jeff Jarrett apparently went so far as to tell Raven that if he lost his hair in ROH, they wouldn't use him again in TNA until his hair grew back.
- The 9/3 TNA show, which was pre-taped, was probably the best show TNA has ever done, and Dave runs down the Super X Cup tournament matches. As mentioned last week, the whole Teddy Hart post-match bullshit where he no-sold the match finish was edited out, but the company was furious at him over it and has no plans to bring him back despite how great he was during the match. The tournament final of Chris Sabin vs. Juventud Guerrera was a MOTY candidate.
- Latest on Mike Tyson vs. Bob Sapp is they're now pushing to do it in Honolulu in late-December. Dave doesn't think this is happening. Dave is correct.
- The movie studios are spending big money on advertising for Rock's new movie "The Rundown." The success or failure of this flick is going to play a big part in determining the Rock's future in Hollywood. It's expected to gross more money than Scorpion King, but Hollywood is watching this one closely and his future as a marketable headlining movie star hangs in the balance.
- Triple H is still planning to work the match at Unforgiven with Goldberg but he's still nowhere near close to 100%. He worked one house show this weekend and only went 1-minute with Goldberg before they turned it into an "impromptu" tag match. During that match, he still somehow aggravated his groin injury and was in a lot of pain afterward.
- Owen Hart's death continues to drag out in the courts, with WWE's lawsuit against Lewmar Inc, the company that made the shackle that opened prematurely and caused Owen to drop. WWE is attempting to recoup some of that $18 million settlement they paid to Martha Hart. WWE's arguing that Hart would still be alive if they had known the equipment was manufactured by Lewmar, which apparently has a history of faulty equipment. Lawmar apparently told its UK sales staff in 1996 to stop selling that shackle for anything other than sailboats, but the message never got to the U.S. distributors and blah blah. Lawmar's argument is basically, "Hey, we never told anyone that these shackles would hold a 230-pound human, that's on you."
- Randy Savage seems to be working his own angle for a match with Hulk Hogan. You see, it appears Savage has a rap album coming out which includes two wrestling related songs. One is "My Perfect Friend" dedicated to Curt Hennig and the other one is "a rip job" (that's what they call diss tracks on the mean streets of San Jose) aimed at Hogan called "Be A Man." On MTV, Savage did an interview pitching the idea of doing a match with Hogan at Wrestlemania 20. Stranger things have happened and Hogan's nostalgia run awhile back showed they might be able to make something out of that. More on this rap album in the coming weeks...
- Chris Nowinski is still suffering post concussion syndrome symptoms, the same thing that ended Bret Hart's career. He's undergoing more extensive testing before he's allowed back in the ring. WWE is hopeful to have him back in a month or so but are being cautious. Speaking of, Randy Orton has been knocked out "several times" on recent house shows and was diagnosed with a concussion and has been off the weekend house shows.
- At the Ft. Lauderdale house show, something weird happened. After a Benjamin/Haas vs. APA match, Bradshaw did the job. As he was laying down after being pinned, Shelton Benjamin grabbed the mic and said, "Am I your n----r now, bitch?" and then hit him with the mic. Uh, I'm going to need to know the story behind this one because Dave never addresses it again but, umm, holy shit, WHAT??