November 03, 2003
- We open with a more in-depth obituary for Road Warrior Hawk than Dave was able to do last week. As I type this, it's the morning after Bray Wyatt passed away and this is all so depressing (10-7-2024 update: yes I wrote these awhile ago) Dave hit most of Hawk's career highlights in the last issue, so I'll try to touch on the new info here. Hawk lived a notoriously wild life, but 3 years ago, he started trying to turn things around, found religion, and those who knew him said he still wasn't perfect, but that he was sincerely trying. He carried a Bible with him on the road during his last years and was trying to take care of his health, but he'd already done so much damage to his body. Toxicology results will not be back for awhile, but it's believed he suffered a heart attack (he had a previous one in 2000). The coroner has already suggested that Hawk's heavy use of steroids likely played a part in his heart, liver, and kidney problems that he suffered from. In fact, last year when Superstar Billy Graham was in need of a liver transplant, Hawk volunteered to donate part of his, but it was deemed to be not in good enough condition. And of course, Hawk's career was filled with a lot more drug abuse than just steroids. There's a quote in here from Bill Watts about Hawk shooting up "monkey hormones" and waking up wanting to kill people every day because of the roid rages. Hawk's funeral was in Seminole, FL and attended by many in the business. Animal and Paul Ellering were there, of course. Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, Ted DiBiase, Nikolai Volkoff, Steve Williams, Greg Valentine, Scott Norton, Bobby Heenan, the Nasty Boys, Chavo Guerrero, Tatanka, Steve Keirn, Mideon, and many others were also in attendance. The day prior, Hulk Hogan and Nailz attended a private wake for him as well.
- Press coverage of Hawk's death in Japan was huge, with Weekly Pro Wrestling stopping production on that week's issue just as it was going to print and re-running a new batch so they could change the cover to a picture of the Road Warriors. Every promotion in Japan held 10-bell salutes. We run through some of Hawk's more notorious incidents (fights with Randy Savage, Eddie Guerrero, Too Cold Scorpio, and others) but then at other times, he could be the nicest guy. He once dated Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale and actually socialized with the former VP fairly regularly because Mondale was US Ambassador to Japan during the 90s when Hawk was basically living there as part of the Hell Raisers tag team (lol yup, there's actually pics of Hawk and Walter Mondale together if you google it). Hawk also dated Missy Hyatt in 1993 and people used to give him shit about that because of all the wrestlers she's slept with, but Hawk always defended her and said he slept with a lot of women too and the double standard wasn't fair. They apparently had a nasty breakup though. They had trademarked the Road Warriors name themselves and when they went to WWF, Vince gave them the Legion of Doom name so he could own it. But their run was much like Goldberg's WWE run. They were used to being dominant monsters everywhere else but Vince saw them as just another tag team and Vince has never cared about tag teams anyway. They lost the WWF tag titles in a controversial match in 1992 at a house show after Hawk failed a drug test and missed Wrestlemania as a result and then after Summerslam 92, he went AWOL and didn't return home from England and was fired as a result. Animal was furious that Hawk went and formed a new tag team in NJPW while he was out injured but they reconciled. Their last shot in WWE was earlier this year during a tryout match, but Hawk went rogue and no-sold Kane's chokeslam after the match and they didn't get a job. And other than a few indie shots, that was basically the end of the road.
- Hulk Hogan has informed TNA that he will be undergoing knee surgery this week and thus will not be able to work TNA's scheduled PPV on Nov. 30th against Jeff Jarrett. He has verbally agreed to come in around February to work the match, but that's getting awful close to Wrestlemania season and everyone expects Hogan to find his way back to WWE in time for the 20th Mania (surprisingly, nope). He's also still planning to work the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show for NJPW so it's a minor arthroscopic procedure that isn't expected to keep him out long, just conveniently long enough to avoid working this TNA show that he'd verbally (but never legally) committed to. TNA, weirdly enough, still had Jimmy Hart there this week cutting a promo talking about Hogan and then Jarrett attacked him. The idea is Jimmy Hart will be bringing in guys he's managed in the past to seek revenge on Jarrett. (Honky Tonk Man was asked but turned it down). They're still operating under the hope that Hogan really will do the match in February. As a result, TNA has canceled the planned 11/30 PPV and have not yet announced a new date.
- There's also some question in TNA about the legitimacy of Hogan's knee issues here. Everyone knows Hogan's knees are terrible and that's not a lie, but despite claims he injured his knee during the Tokyo Dome match with Masahiro Chono, everyone that saw Hogan in the day or two after said he seemed fine. The general feeling is that Hogan could have worked this TNA show if he felt like it and is choosing not to for whatever reason. Very possibly because he sees TNA as small-time (he'd made a stink about not wanting to work at the Nashville Fairgrounds where they tape). If he was committed to doing the match with Jarrett, he could have shown up and done an angle where Jarrett injured his knee. That way they could explain the surgery and still have something to build to. The fact that Hogan didn't even do that says a lot. They tried to get Hogan to do a phone interview live during the show, but was told Hogan was going to be at the doctor's office and couldn't do it. Yes. The doctor's office. For a live phone interview on TNA's broadcast that airs at—let me check my notes—ah yes. After every doctor's office closes. Hogan is very clearly ducking this show.
- In the long run, Dave doesn't see the point in any of this. At best, Hogan is only coming in for one match. One appearance isn't going to get them a TV deal, which is what they need. Hogan has always been very careful throughout his career of avoiding pitfalls and tying himself to failing projects, often choosing to protect his long-term aura over taking short-term money. He turned down a huge money offer from Keiji Muto's Wrestle-1 in Japan because he saw it was a dying promotion. Zero-One and PRIDE recently offered him $300k to appear on a joint-show they were co-promoting but he turned it down and it fell through. It's appears likely that Hogan took one look at TNA, saw them filming in front of less than a thousand papered fans in a rinky dink Nashville fairgrounds building, without a prayer of a TV deal in their future, and decided, "Nah, I'll pass on that."
- Stu Hart's funeral took place this week and hundreds were in attendance. Plenty of eulogies from family members. Vince McMahon was there, along with Jim Ross, Chris Jericho, Edge, Lance Storm, Chris Benoit, and others. McMahon, when talking to reporters, said, "I don’t think anybody could dispute how enormous Stu Hart’s contribution (to wrestling) was. He put Calgary and Canada on the map of the world. There’s no way to calculate that contribution." Word is the famed Hart House is going to be sold and the profits divided among the children. Bret and others talked of wanting to make it a wrestling musuem but of course that isn't feasible. The land it's on is very valuable as well. There's talk of turning it into a senior citizen's home.
- WWC star El Nene has quit the promotion because they were unable to pay him money he was owed. The promotion then asked him to return the Puerto Rican championship belt he holds, but he told them he couldn't because he sold it to an indie promoter. Lol.
- Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch have been living in San Juan for the past 6 months while working for WWC but they are moving to Florida soon and plan to try and get back into the U.S. indie scene (Dutch Mantel later spoke about this and said they were both strung out on drugs and were literally living on the beach in Puerto Rico at one point because they were broke. Tammy has done her own interviews talking about this time, accusing Carlos Colon of having a gambling problem and talking about how their paychecks kept shrinking until they couldn't afford to stay anymore).
- Zero-One and PRIDE are continuing to try and book a big joint show, primarily because PRIDE has Goldberg under contract to make one more appearance (as per the deal signed before he went to WWE). But thus far, Goldberg hasn't agreed to any of the proposed dates, so they haven't booked the show. They're hoping to book it in January now, but still no word if Goldberg will be available.
- Dave has finally seen a tape of the recent NJPW Tokyo Dome show last month and has some thoughts: Hogan vs. Chono was sorta similar to Hogan vs. Rock at WM18, a pretty bad match that ended up memorable because the crowd was super into it. Chono was clearly doing whatever Hogan wanted and it was a slow mess, but the crowd was into Hogan's big spots. Big success from a business standpoint, but Dave only gives the actual match 1.5 stars. And the 5 vs. 5 Team Inoki vs. Team NJPW main event was good but too long and the crowd wasn't as into it as you would think because NJPW is ice cold. One of those situations where no matter how great the match was, Inoki has ruined NJPW to the point that fans don't care about most of the homegrown stars. The match got off to a bad start because Inoki's team came out to Inoki's music. When the music hit, it got the biggest pop of the entire show (more than Hogan or Bob Sapp) but then.....Inoki never came out with his team, which killed the crowd early, but they got them back eventually. Minoru Suzuki ("who has become one of the best technical wrestlers around"), Shinsuke Nakamura, and Hiroshi Tanahashi were impressive and did some great stuff. Crowd was really into Sapp, who was protected since he's green as hell at this pro wrestling stuff.
- Speaking of Bob Sapp, he has agreed to work an upcoming show for Michinoku Pro next week, the day after working a NJPW show. Both events are scheduled for PPV and Dave feels like this is overkill and going to burn out Sapp quick. He's working a midcard nothing match on the Michinoku Pro show, which is even more baffling. Apparently, he's been told he needs to work more in smaller promotions to gain experience, but Dave thinks overexposing him to the point that his appearances aren't a big deal is the worst thing for him.
- Bret Hart was a guest on the Observer Live show this week and said Vince McMahon has left the door open for him to make an appearance at Wrestlemania, but he says it's unlikely to happen. The stroke Hart suffered made it impossible at times to control his emotions. He feels like doing a speech at Madison Square Garden would be too difficult emotionally, noting that the eulogy he gave at his father's funeral was incredibly stressful. He's basically just not ready to appear publicly yet.
- CZW (yes that CZW) ran a show this week in Italy (yes, that Italy). It's believed to be the first wrestling show of any type in that country since WWE was there back in 1993. Why CZW, of all companies, ran a show in Italy is not explained but it drew 800 fans apparently, and featured names like Sonjay Dutt, Nick Gage, Trent Acid, etc. The show was sponsored by Harley Davidson (this just keeps getting weirder) and a popular Italian rock band performed as well. They did all the usual deathmatch shit (ladders, chairs, tacks, even a weedwhacker) and the crowd apparently loved it.
- ROH did a show in upstate NY that drew about 300 people. Samoa Joe lost a non-title match to Homicide to set up a future title match. CM Punk and Steve Corino went to a time limit draw in a match described as good by some and "excruciatingly boring" by others.
- Low-Ki may be done with ROH. He recently contacted booker Gabe Sapolsky and said he wanted to finish up with the promotion and that he'd be willing to put anyone over on the way out. So Sapolsky booked him for a match against Homicide and started promoting it. But then Low-Ki contacted Gabe again and said, "Never mind, I want to do a time limit draw with Homicide, I don't want to put him over." This didn't work for Sapolsky, who vetoed that idea. At that point, Low-Ki went on his website and announced to the world that he was off the show, which is how ROH also found out that he wouldn't be there. So they cut ties with him completely (he'll be back).
- An indie wrestler, Winnipeg-based Johnny Wiseguy, was sent to prison this week for cocaine trafficking charges. He was arrested last year for the coke possession and just sentenced this week (I always like to research this stuff and this one didn't disappoint. In 2006, he helped cover up a murder committed by some of his friends, helping to dispose of a bloody vehicle and helping to hide the suspects when police were searching for them. That murder was actually witnessed by actress Anna Paquin's brother, as they were both there working on the film Blue State, which she stars in. In 2009, he ends up getting 7 years in prison for that).
- Tony Halme, formerly known as Ludvig Borga in WWF and current member of the Finnish parliament, was charged with several crimes in relation to an accidental shooting at his home earlier this year that left him hospitalized. He got charged with some sort of firearms violation, DUI (was he driving inside his house?), and various drug charges, including steroids. He's still a member of parliament and the circumstances around this situation are still murky.
- Random story about an Oklahoma football player named Dusty Dvoracek who apparently has interest in getting into wrestling and has talked with his team mate Dan Cody about forming a tag team when they finish with football. Let's see here: Oklahoma. Big football players. And did I mention that Jim Ross knows them? Yeah, they've both got guaranteed WWE jobs if they want em (turns out they decided to pursue NFL careers instead, however, their teammate Jake Hager made a bit of a career out of this wrestling thing).
- Ole Anderson has an autobiography in the works and from what Dave is told, he doesn't hold back. In particular, he's said to be extremely harsh towards people that were in WCW management. Can't wait.
- Lance Russell appeared on the Memphis wrestling show this week and they announced an upcoming show at the Mid-South Coliseum which will be a Jerry Lawler birthday celebration show (I was at this show....it does not end well. But we'll get there soon).
- Crash Holly is moving back to San Francisco to work as a trainer at Pro Wrestling Iron (this also does not end well).
- Don Callis recently graduated with his MBA from Asper Business College in Manitoba. Back when ECW folded, Callis found himself without a job. When Eric Bischoff was trying to buy WCW and re-launch it, he'd made plans to hire Callis as an announcer, but then that deal fell through also. Callis vowed to never find himself in that kind of employment situation again, hence, he went and got himself a business degree. So now he has a backup plan if wrestling doesn't work out.
- Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were wed last week at a ceremony in Sleepy Hollow, NY. The attendees were 90% people from the wrestling business, along with the few outside-of-wrestling friends and family they have. A group of uninvited wrestling fans were kept a half block away from the church by a small army of police and there were all sorts of other procedures put in place to keep wrestling fans away (only invited guests could get rooms at the hotel they were all staying at, for example). And now Dave "Joan Rivers" Meltzer informs us that Stephanie wore an ivory gown with a fitted bodice and moderate train, while Triple H wore a simple black tuxedo. Classy! WWE camera crews filmed the wedding and reception, which Dave jokes will probably end up in a Stephanie McMahon DVD some day (they briefly showed a little footage in the Netflix Vince documentary actually). Vince gave a "classic Vince speech" while Triple H's father gave a more low-key heartfelt toast. Triple H's wedding party consisted of his father, Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Shane McMahon, William Regal and Undertaker. As for Stephanie, she had Shane's wife Marissa, Undertaker's wife Sara, and several non-wrestling friends as her bridesmaids.
- And then, of course, one final note from the wedding: Michael Hayes made a total fool of himself. He got shitfaced drunk and started singing on the mic and making people uncomfortable and upsetting the band, who refused to play along to his insistence that they back him while he sang. Linda McMahon finally had to walk up and take the mic from him while Hayes kept yelling, "A Freebird is a Freebird!" until his wife led him out of the reception. People there described it as a really uncomfortable scene that brought the whole mood down (Bruce Prichard has told this story on his podcast and yeah, Hayes was apparently an utter embarrassment that night).
- The word on Triple H's future in Hollywood is that he has a small buzz, because of the good reviews he got for his work on the new "Blade" movie and because Hollywood has an eye on WWE now because of the Rock. But Triple H's future opportunities in the movie business largely depend on Rock's success. And right now, Hollywood has cooled off on Rock because "The Rundown" hasn't come close to doing the same kind of business "Scorpion King" did and, in fact, "The Rundown" has yet to recoup its budget (yeah, pretty sure this Rock kid ain't gonna cut it in Hollywood).
- Triple H vs. Goldberg has been announced as the main event of Survivor Series, but of course, Triple H is still dealing with groin and hamstring injuries. But say what you will about Triple H, when it comes time to show up for a big match, he will gut it out and work through it as he has proven time and time again (has any wrestler finished as many high profile matches with serious injuries that he has? Both quads, the torn pec in Saudi, etc).
- Notes from 10/23 Smackdown: Paul Heyman returned and looks to have lost about 30 pounds. Rikishi returned and looks to have gained about 60. Tajiri's new partners Sakoda and Yang botched their tag team finisher and gave Zach Gowan a legit concussion. Lesnar also got legit punched by Undertaker with a chain and knocked loopy as well (2003 has made me realize I understand why Lesnar wanted out. He was getting injured left and right around this time).
- Notes from 10/27 Raw: Batista is now a member of Evolution. They had Trish and Lita backstage (half naked) talking about guys and Trish was all giggly schoolgirl because Chris Jericho was interested in her, while Christian was later hitting on Lita. Lita doesn't trust either Jericho or Christian (this is the beginning of a storyline that pays off wonderfully at Wrestlemania). Raw was in Fayetteville, which is near several military bases and WWE gave away free tickets to people in uniform. And then immediately used those soldiers to get cheap heat for Conway and Dupree's heel French act. And the IC title changed hands twice in about 10 minutes, with RVD losing it to Jericho, who then lost it right back to RVD in an immediate rematch. Jericho's 6-minute title reign now ties him with Jeff Jarrett for the most IC title reigns at 6, while RVD now sits at 5. And because of title changes like this, those numbers mean nothing now.
- Notes from next week's Smackdown tapings: Elix Skipper got a tryout and tried to do his ropewalk huracanrana but his opponent (Horshu, aka Luther Reigns) is pretty green and wasn't really able to go along with it (Skipper would later make that move famous in TNA on top of a cage). John Cena got rid of A-Train in what appears to be the start of a babyface turn, which Dave feels was inevitable (yeah, just a lil' bit). Matt Morgan was brought up from OVW, alongside Nathan Jones, as a new monster tag team. Morgan is yet another one who is nowhere near ready for the main roster but he's big, so they fast-tracked him and now he's gotta figure out how to sink or swim (he sinks). And to make it worse, both guys were added to the Survivor Series team featuring Lesnar and Big Show. So they took 2 big guys who weren't ready, who's only marketable attributes are being big....and you're going to debut them in a tag team match where they're smaller than their partners on the team. Dave does not understand this company. Tajiri and sidekicks Sakoda and Yang are being dubbed The Yakuza. In case you're wondering, Tajiri wasn't thrilled with that being the name of their faction but management insisted (Tajiri eventually gets his way and has that nixed).
- Undertaker vs. Vince McMahon in a buried alive match is on deck for Survivor Series. The most recent plan Dave has heard is for Vince to win via shenanigans, resulting in Undertaker taking several months off and returning in his old dead man gimmick for a match with Kane at Wrestlemania (that is, indeed, precisely what happens).
- Jeff Hardy was backstage visiting friends at Raw in Fayetteville. But there's currently no talks with him about returning and he's said to be working hard on his music and has a concert later this month in Cincinnati.
- Kenzo Suzuki recently quit Riki Choshu's WJ promotion and tried to return to NJPW and Zero-One, both of which turned him down. And so now, he's signed a developmental deal with WWE, which is pretty random. Suzuki was unhappy with WJ after the way they handled the death of Giant Ochiai during training earlier this year. Suzuki had been working in construction recently and was all but finished with wrestling before this WWE developmental deal came along. Suzuki's story is interesting. He's a big guy and was regarded by many in the Japanese wrestling scene as something like Lex Luger: big guy with a great look who wasn't any good. Suzuki was never a fan of pro wrestling as a kid (extremely rare for Japanese wrestlers) and only stumbled into the sport due to a chance meeting with NJPW's Seiji Sakaguchi who was impressed with his sports background. Suzuki wasn't interested at first, calling wrestling fake, but changed his mind when convinced he could become rich and famous. Suzuki was scheduled to make his debut at the Tokyo Dome against Goldberg back at the Jan 4, 2000 show but Goldberg ended up slicing his arm in half during a dumb WCW angle and the match never happened, Goldberg never wrestled for NJPW, and Suzuki never got over and he floundered for awhile before quitting NJPW to join Choshu's doomed WJ promotion. And now here he is.
- Buff Bagwell did an interview claiming he turned down a WWE offer recently from Vince personally, because, after travel expenses, it wouldn't be enough money. From WWE's side, it's a much different story. They claim Bagwell once again called looking for work (which he has done frequently over the past year) and was again told that there was no interest. He also hasn't spoken to Vince, and only spoke with the talent relations department.