December 22, 2003
- Raw this week ended with a weird cliffhanger where Mick Foley was scheduled to come out of retirement but instead walked away and left the building. It was one of the weirdest endings in Raw history and was apparently Foley's idea. Anyway, the plan is to build to his real return at Wrestlemania. The idea is Foley/Rock vs. Orton/Batista. Moving along.
- WATCH: Mick Foley walks out of Raw - 2003
- WWE's final PPV of the year, Armageddon is in the books and it felt like a house show. It also ended with Evolution winning all the belts. After losing twice to Goldberg previously, Triple H winning the title back here was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Randy Orton captured the IC title from RVD while Ric Flair & Batista captured the tag titles. But even with all that, it was a flat show. But to their credit, WWE realizes they need to create new stars. It's too early to know if Orton and Batista will get there. Batista has a great look but he's still green and hasn't shown much charisma. Orton is being pushed similar to how Rock and Triple H were early in their careers and he's already better in the ring than either of them were at the same point. Jericho/Christian vs. Trish/Lita was the surprising show-stealer, which had more heat than anything on the show. And that's about all there is of note to this one.
- Latest news on Japan's New Year's Eve war is that Antonio Inoki's show is completely falling apart. Mirko Cro Cop has pulled out, claiming a back injury, while his scheduled opponent Yoshihiro Takayama also withdrew. And there's question over whether Fedor Emelianenko, Semmy Schilt, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira are all going to be able to legally appear, because PRIDE still claims to have all 3 under exclusive contract. All of those names being off the show decimates the card and some are arguing that the show should just be canceled. But the publicity and hype for the 3-way MMA battle is already through the roof and NTV doesn't want to pull out now, especially since this is meant to be the launch a whole new MMA promotion headed by Inoki and partnering with NTV, so they need it to be a success. Inoki is practically begging Cro Cop to reconsider, but as of now, he hasn't and Inoki's show has basically nothing that can even hope to compete with the PRIDE and K-1 shows that night.
- Meanwhile, NJPW is taking a huge risk by booking Shinsuke Nakamura to fight on the K-1 show on that same night. How there's so many people who seem like they should be working together fighting on all these competing shows is so weird to me. Like, wouldn't Inoki want Nakamura on his own show rather than his prized pupil risking it all for the competitor? Anyway, Nakamura, who if you remember JUST WON THE IWGP CHAMPIONSHIP, is going to be facing K-1 star Alexey Ignashov, who is not a pushover. Needless to say, NJPW's world champion getting his ass handed to him in a shoot fight 4 days before the Tokyo Dome where he's scheduled to headline would not be beneficial to him or the company. I'm sure it will be fine.......
- Tokyo Sports yearly awards were revealed this week and Yoshihiro Takayama claimed the coveted Men's MVP award. The annual awards are a huge deal in wrestling and cover all the promotions. Pro Wrestling NOAH stars won 5 of the 7 awards. Takayama narrowly defeated Kenta Kobashi for that one. In the history of the awards, dating back to 1974, the top prize has always gone to native Japanese wrestlers, except last year, when Bob Sapp won (to this day, I believe Sapp is still the only foreigner to ever win it, although a lot of people argued that Omega got robbed a few years back when he was at his NJPW peak and should have won). Anyway, Kobashi vs. Misawa from 3/1/2003 won Match of the Year. Kenta/Marufuji won Tag Team of the Year, one of the few times a junior heavyweight team has won. Kobashi won Most Outstanding Wrestler, Hiroshi Tanahashi won the "Fighting Spirit" award, Jun Akiyama won Best Technical Wrestler, and Shinsuke Nakamura got Rookie of the Year, while Ayako Hamada won Women's MVP.
- Zero-One's latest big show featured a (videotaped) appearance by Goldberg to set up his actual live appearance at the Jan. 4th HUSTLE show. The whole thing eventually set up Goldberg vs. Naoya Ogawa, which Dave expects to be a major styles clash. Goldberg appeared in a video, alongside Nobuhiko Takada, and they were booed mercilessly, so evidently Goldberg's the heel here. The reason is Takada recently wrote a tell-all book in which he talked about pro wrestling being fake. This shouldn't be a big deal in 2003 but somehow it still is and Takada has a ton of heat for it. So when he appeared and announced Goldberg as "a real pro wrestling superstar," the crowd went nuclear.
- IWA and WWC briefly had talks about a sale of WWC this week, but they fell apart. IWA has been handily winning the Puerto Rico wrestling war and WWC has been struggling to pay its bills and recently canceled a house show because it only sold 37 advance tickets. So Dutch Mantell (on behalf of IWA) met with Victor Jovica (co-owner of WWC) to see if they could work out a deal. IWA offered $200,000 as well as a guarantee to employee Carly and Eddie Colon for the company, but WWC countered with a request for $1.5 million and talks pretty much ended there. The war continues. Also, it's during this story that I learn that the current booker for IWA now that Dutch is no longer doing it......is Bushwacker Luke. Yes. One of the Bushwackers is booking one of the few successful and thriving wrestling promotions in the world in 2003.
- Riki Choshu's struggling WJ promotion just took another hit when world champion Kensuke Sasaki vacated the title and announced he was leaving the company (yeah they're basically done. They limp along for another 6 months in 2004 doing a handful of shows with nobody of note and WWC-level crowds before finally throwing in the towel).
- Regarding NJPW's claim that they may be releasing as much as half the native wrestlers under contract next month, there's some truth to it. The company is losing money and need to cut costs, but the decision to possibly cut so many people is, of course, Inoki's call. And the primary locker room leaders (Chono, Nagata, and Tanahashi) have all been outspoken about saying Inoki needs to come and tell them to their faces why this decision needs to be made. Chono has even threatened that if NJPW cuts half its roster, he will quit and go start a new promotion with them. Dave says never discount the possibility that this all turns into some kind of an angle, but it's rooted in a lot of truth.
- Jerry Lawler did an interview on the WWE website about the death of Moondog Spot. He said he was in the locker room when Ricky Morton ran back and told him that Spot had seemingly had a heart attack in the ring. EMTs worked on him in the arena for 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived and he was rushed to the hospital. At one point, they got word that Spot was breathing, which is why they decided to continue with the show. Lawler says he found out just before going to the ring for the main event that Spot had passed at the hospital. There have, of course, been questions about whether the show should have continued, but this was a nothing indie show and not a major WWE PPV, so even though the circumstances are basically the same, there hasn't been any public or media outcry about it.
- Steve Corino pled guilty this week to forgery charges over a case in which he apparently stole more than $12,000 from an ex-girlfriend by using her credit cards and forging her name on checks in 2001 (after ECW folded). Corino arrived in court with a check for everything he owed her, plus an additional $1000 since she flew to California for the court appearance. That gesture went over well with the judge and as a result, Corino was sentenced to only 1 year of probation. Publicly, Corino has always claimed he was innocent and after this, he put out a statement on his website saying he couldn't say anymore about the case, but that news reports were incorrect and it was a misunderstanding. But that seems to be all he can legally say.
- Reality show dipshit Jonny Fairplay from Survivor is said to be disappointed that WWE still hasn't reached out (take a hint, bro). Dave thinks TNA should bring him in for a short-term program, since they need any mainstream publicity they can get, especially if this WGN deal goes through.
- Chyna was recently backstage at some show alongside porn star Tabitha Stevens and some Howard Stern people. Apparently they were going around teasing plans to do a porn movie together (still a few years early but Chyna does indeed make that leap).
- Bobby Heenan and Tony Schiavone reunited to do announcing work for the Acclaim video game "Legends of Wrestling." There was some concern because Heenan made it very clear in his book that he didn't like Schiavone. Well, they offered Heenan $5000 for it and he showed up and spent an entire day with Tony doing commentary for the game. Apparently, they had a good long talk and Heenan got a lot of stuff off his chest about how he felt Schiavone had treated him during the last days of WCW and how he never reached out to Heenan after he was fired. For his part, Schiavone apparently apologized and said the reason he never reached out is because WCW management ordered them not to have contact with him because they believed Heenan was preparing to sue the company. Either way, they've seemingly squashed things.
- ROH is adding a new championship called the Pure Rules Championship. The idea is that it is sort of a throwback to classic old school wrestling. There will be some rules and a point system with limited rope breaks and stuff like that. There will be an 8 man tournament soon to crown the first champion (that ends up being AJ Styles).
- Jim Duggan's eBay listing for the WCW Television title belt ended with the belt being sold for $7,080 (and then lost forever apparently).
- TNA had all the major stars photographed this week for an upcoming action figure line. Who is going to manufacture and distribute those is still unknown, but the people doing the photos were the same ones who did the photos for WWE's Jakks Pacific line. They're also taking images for a future video game, although again, no idea which company.
- Goldberg and Vince McMahon apparently had an argument the day after the Armageddon PPV. Goldberg was pissed coming back to the locker room after the PPV and sounds like he was throwing stuff and tearing up shit and so Vince had a talk with him the next day. Goldberg apparently felt he was being booked to sell too much in the match. There's a belief in the company that Goldberg gets too hung up on little things and not focusing on the big picture. WWE's stance is that you need the babyface to sell a lot and then make the big comeback. Dave is torn. In most cases, that's true. That's textbook wrestling 101. But Goldberg is a unique case. When he starts selling, crowds die and it does seem to hurt his aura more than it would for other wrestlers. Crowds want Goldberg to be different. The only other act Dave can think of like that was the Road Warriors, who spent the 80s being the most popular thing in the world and did it by being no-selling bad ass monsters. But there's a ceiling on that, and this isn't the old days where Goldberg can leave the territory and come back later if the act gets stale. His contract is up at Wrestlemania and it's unsure what happens next. WWE has a depth problem and they would surely like to keep Goldberg, but they are unlikely to want to continue paying the same salary for him. And Goldberg is already unhappy. Will he be willing to take a paycut to keep being unhappy? Needless to say, his WWE future is very much in question after Wrestlemania.
- There was a backstage skirmish between Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, and Charlie Haas after Smackdown last week. Eddie hurt his shoulder during their match and he tried to tell Haas. Evidently Haas misunderstood him or something and began working over his shoulder way too hard considering Eddie was legit hurt. Backstage, Eddie and Haas got into a shouting match and Chavo got involved and it became a big thing for a few seconds until Bill DeMott and some others broke it up. One version is there was some pushing and shoving. Another version is that Eddie took a shot at Haas, who in turn took wrestled him down to the ground, injuring Eddie's arm worse in the process. Some feel that Eddie is at fault for screaming and yelling, while others say Haas should have just kept quiet and taken the criticism from the older veteran instead of mouthing off back at him. Jim Ross and John Laurainitis got them all in a room where Haas said he had no idea Eddie was hurt and they were just working like they always do. Everyone cooled off and shook hands after. Eddie is apparently going to be ok, but Chavo is carrying most of the workload on house shows right now.
- Turns out Rey Mysterio didn't love being booked to tap out to Lesnar in his hometown last week. He pushed against it, but was vetoed. He then went to Pat Patterson and asked if he could at least pass out from the pain rather than tap out. But since they had just done that finish with Benoit recently, nope. Mysterio had to tap. He was said to be pretty upset about it but went out there and did his job like a professional regardless. Many backstage felt it would kill the city for them, since the crowd was VERY much there to see Mysterio (his merch outsold everyone else's by a huge margin and he was far and away the most popular guy in the building) but Vince feels like it gets heat. For his part, Lesnar felt bad and went out of his way to try and give Mysterio as much as he could and make him look great in the match prior to the finish.
- Random note: WWE is pushing Ultimo Dragon to drop his mask. "This is a dumb idea."
- In OVW this week, there was a big where Ivory was there putting over the women of OVW and then accused one of them of sleeping with John Laurinaitis to get a job on the main roster. JOHNNY ACE WOULD NEVER!!!