Wrestling Observer Rewinder

February 02, 2004

Wrestlemania 20 is starting to take shape now that the Rumble is over (more on that in a sec). Regarding the planned Undertaker vs. Kane match, it's expected that Undertaker will be returning with his old dead man gimmick (yup) and Kane is expected to be managed by Vince McMahon (nope). Goldberg may be moving to Smackdown soon. He only has 2 months left on his contract and has already ran through everyone on Raw, so moving him to Smackdown will give him new opponents before he leaves after the Brock Lesnar match. Goldberg was recently given a new contract offer but it's said WWE purposely made him an offer they knew he would refuse and, of course, he did. Both sides seem to be done with each other and are just looking for a clean way out and this is it. WWE offers him low-ball deals they know he won't sign, Goldberg refuses to accept less than he's worth and they can both walk away saying they tried. As for The Rock, he's not a 100% guarantee for Wrestlemania yet but they're planning as if he'll be there, so they're pretty confident. If Rock falls through, the backup plan is Foley vs. Orton in a singles match. Raw main event was supposed to be Benoit vs. Triple H in a singles match, but Triple H pushed for the inclusion of Shawn Michaels to make it a triple threat. There's also been talk of making it a ladder match, but Dave is doubtful that happens.
Royal Rumble is in the books and had a really bad undercard but one of the best Rumble matches ever. Triple H and Shawn Michaels got heat backstage for "acting like their match was the only important match on the show." They apparently rubbed many people the wrong way when they told everyone in the locker room to watch their match because they're the only guys (except for Flair) who know how to work a real PPV main event. Well, Brock Lesnar's world title match only got 6 minutes while Triple H/Shawn went damn near 25 so, ya know. Triple H didn't move good and looked tentative during the match and it ended in a draw, which is how they're going to shoe-horn Michaels into the WM main event, and fans booed that out of the fucking building. But don't worry, Hunter and Shawn know best. Anyway, Brock vs. Bob Holly was a total flop and Holly will probably never sniff the main event scene again. Flair/Batista vs. Dudleys in the tag title match may have been the worst match Dave has ever seen Ric Flair have. This one gets negative 1-star which I would assume has to be the first negative star rating Dave has ever given a Flair match. Cruiserweight match with Mysterio vs. Noble only got 3 minutes and Dave isn't sure why they even bothered.
The story of the show, of course, was Chris Benoit entering the Rumble match at #1 and going all the way to win it, last eliminating Big Show in a great finish. Benoit's 61:38 run was the longest in Rumble history and 3rd longest in-ring time for any wrestler in WWE history (Morales/Sammartino in 1972 at Shea Stadium and Bret/Shawn at WM12 being the only two matches in which guys were in the ring for longer. Elsewhere in the Rumble match, they played Undertaker's old music, teasing his return as the dead man gimmick and causing Kane's elimination. Randy Orton got to shine and went over 30 minutes before Mick Foley returned and eliminated him in an awesome angle to further their feud. Brock Lesnar attacked Goldberg, leading to his elimination to set up their match at Wrestlemania. And that's basically it. Long story short, this was the Benoit show, and it's about time. One of the other keys of this PPV is that almost no one was over with the live crowd in a big way. Despite all their effort in trying to create new stars recently, most of the guys got treated like jobbers during the Rumble match. Steve Austin, Goldberg, Foley, and Angle were the only people on the entire show that the crowd reacted to like huge stars until the end, when they finally seemed to get behind Benoit.
One last random Rumble fact: this show almost happened at the Tokyo Dome. After the success of WWE's Japan tour last year, they began inquiring about booking the Dome for this year's Rumble, with the idea of having Bob Sapp in the match and, later, for him to work Wrestlemania against Lesnar. That's why they even had Lesnar challenge Sapp in promos when they were in Japan. Ultimately, they decided against it, but WWE and Tokyo Dome officials were in talks at one point.
Jack Tunney, former figurehead president of WWF, passed away at age 68 of a heart attack. Most fans these days remember him as the bumbling figurehead of WWF for about a decade during the golden age years but he was actually a significant player in the wrestling industry before that as well, with his family running the Toronto territory for decades. Not gonna run down his entire biography but as always, Dave has a full obituary of interesting stories about Tunney, who took over the territory from his uncle when he passed away in 1983, which is around the time Vince started going after the territories. It's also around the same time Jim Crockett began to exert almost total control over the NWA and as a result, he stopped sending Flair and other big NWA names to work Toronto, thus crippling the territory. Tunney, seeing the writing on the wall, partnered with Vince McMahon in probabaly the nicest arrangement any of the territories had with Vince. He basically told Tunney, "I'm taking over Toronto, you can either be with me or against me." Tunney told people he knew Vince would inevitably betray him but was determined to make as much money as he could off the partnership before it happened. And of course, he was right. Vince cut Tunney and the Toronto territory out of everything once he secured his own Canadian TV deal.
Tunney was then given a role as a WWF on-screen character, famously vacating the WWF title in 1988 (when Dibiase tried to sell the belt to Andre) and 1991 (when Hogan/Undertaker shenanigans led to the Rumble 92 winner-gets-the-title stipulation). There's a funny story in here about how Ed Tunney (Jack's cousin) tried to trademark "Wrestlemania" for use in Canada, which caused a whole shitload of legal headaches for Vince. Jack Tunney apparently always resented Vince because he felt like Vince stiffed him on a lot of the money he had promised when he eventually drove the territory under, but Tunney also realized that Vince was his best way to make a living in the business, so he held his tongue and worked for him until 1995, when Vince finally fired him and replaced him with Gorilla Monsoon as WWF's figurehead "president." After being fired, Tunney withdrew from the business entirely and reportedly never even spoke about his nearly 60 years in the business. At his funeral, there was no mention at all of wrestling and only one wrestler (a 70s prelim guy named Willie Farkas) even attended. Tunney was said to be extremely bitter about how everything with Vince went down and during his last decade of life, he pretty much put it in his past and cut all ties with pro wrestling.
Vince McMahon gave a big speech last week to the locker rooms of both Raw and Smackdown and the topic? Wrestling journalists. Uh-oh. Vince was furious that so many of the plans for Wrestlemania 20 leaked out (see paragraph 1 of this post lol) out and called wrestling reporters "parasites" who expose the business, spoil the product for fans, and hurt the company's bottom line. Vince then threatened to fire anyone who talked to the dirtsheets. Vince was said to be absolutely livid about the situation. Several top stars spoke and also supported Vince, with Brock Lesnar even hinting that anyone in the locker room who talked to internet journalists would have to answer to him. As you might expect, a lot of wrestlers took that as a physical threat (supported by the boss) and weren't pleased. At the next tapings, Vince had to try and smooth things over, telling everyone that it wasn't meant as a threat and Lesnar was made to apologize to everyone, saying he was just worked up about it.
You might be surprised to hear that Dave has some thoughts on this, given that, well, the meeting was basically about him. For starters, he argues that the only reason so many of the future plans are out there is due to WWE's own smart booking: they actually planned well and started setting up storylines for Wrestlemania 6 months or more in advance. Most of what's out there about Wrestlemania 20 is stuff that people who were paying attention could figure out on their own. He also disputes the notion that dirtsheets or internet news is hurting the business, arguing that both ECW and especially ROH have thrived in large part because of those hardcore fanbases. WWE (and especially WCW) did more in the 90s and 00s to "expose the business" on national TV than Dave or any other dirtsheet writer ever has. Tough Enough? WWE Confidential? Goldberg in WCW "refusing to follow the script" during a PPV match? So on and so forth. Dave says if Vince really believes the dirtsheets are exposing the business, then they need to remove all non-kayfabe stories from their shows, magazines, and website. Cancel Confidential, stop showing wrestlers out of character on DVD extras, stop publishing wrestler's books, etc. All of that stuff is viewed by far more WWE fans than Dave's little newsletter is. Or....and hear me out here...maybe Vince should shut the fuck up. The real issue, Dave says, is that WWE's business is down and it's only human nature to look for everyone else except yourself to blame. So instead of addressing the real problems in his company, Vince has decided this week that Dave Meltzer is why WWE is struggling. Dave ain't accepting that blame.
Must be a slow week. Dave now has a whole piece on the creation of the Royal Rumble concept that dives into the history of battle royals. Good lord. Rumble concept was a Pat Patterson creation and the original show was broadcast on USA specifically to try and kneecap Crockett's Bunkhouse Stampede PPV. The Bunkhouse main event was similar to a battle royal, so Vince wanted his own battle royal to trump theirs. Hence, Patterson's idea. So where did Patterson get the idea? This leads to a bunch of history on past battle royals. Los Angeles in the 60s, Roy Shire and Paul Boesch, AWA in the 80s, so on and so forth. This gets us to a brief history of all the previous Rumbles, including the early untelevised test ones, and all that fun stuff. On to the next...
Hulk Hogan was on the Jimmy Kimmel show this past week and didn't really give any hints that he'll be at Wrestlemania 20. But during an ESPN radio interview, he directly talked about it, saying he'd be interested in facing Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, or Vince McMahon again. Reports from WWE's side of things is that this likely isn't happening (and Austin, even before he retired, repeatedly turned down that match). Vince is still pissed over how things fell apart the last time, leading to Hogan quitting in the middle of the Mr. America run. It was the 3rd time Hogan has walked out on Vince in recent years and led to Vince publicly saying he wouldn't use Hogan as a wrestler anymore because he can't trust him to honor his commitments. But there's a lot of talk that it makes obvious sense to induct Hogan in the revived Hall of Fame on the 20th anniversary of the show he put on the map. On the Kimmel appearance, Hogan's knee seemed to be fine, he wasn't limping or anything after the recent surgery that kept him out of TNA and NJPW. In fact, during the ESPN interview, he was asked about the angle with Jarrett in TNA and seemingly tried to change the subject as fast as he could and barely spoke about it.
Dave gives some brief closing thoughts on the Observer Awards from a couple weeks ago. Kenta Kobashi winning Wrestler of the Year wasn't a surprise. Angle vs. Lesnar as Feud of the Year shows how bad the year was for feuds because the matches were good, but the storyline and angles around it were nothing special. CM Punk finished high in several categories and was the shock of the entire awards this year, despite never being pushed by TNA as anything serious. Lesnar is the first wrestler to ever win Most Improved 2 years in a row, which is crazy but shows how far he continues to progress. Dave also thinks the hatred of Stephanie McMahon is overboard. Yes, she has something of a nails-on-chalkboard character but she's not nearly as bad as people voted and the degree of hate is unwarranted, he thinks.
Rey Bucanero, member of Mexico's wildly popular Los Guerreros del Infierno group, blew out his knee at Arena Mexico. Apparently something went wrong on a dive outside the ring when Bucanero's leg was caught up in a chair and it went bad. They quickly went to the finish with the other guys in the bout and Bucanero was stretchered out and is expected to be out for awhile.
The career of Carlos Colon seemingly came to an end as he lost a "Retirement vs. Deportation" match against El Bronco. The apparent retirement of Puerto Rico's biggest star ever drew less than 1,500 fans and, of course, no one believes Colon is really done (yeah he's back 3 months later. Actual last match wasn't until 2014).
"Kevin Nash really is the greatest," Dave muses as he talks about how Nash has apparently secured yet another big pay day when it seemed like his big money days are over. Nash has apparently been in talks with HUSTLE in Japan for he and Hall to come in as a tag team at an upcoming show. Those HUSTLE events pay big money and Dave is amazed at Nash's ability to always find himself in the right position to land a big check while doing almost nothing.
AJPW's upcoming Feb. 22 Budokan Hall show is the end of an era for the company, as it appears to be the last time they will run the famous venue that has been its home base since the dawn of time. The last show only drew 5,300 which is not even close to filling the building and they've accepted that they don't have the power to run Budokan anymore. It's a major cost-saving move for the company but of course, it comes with the stigma of admitting failure (especially since NOAH basically takes over and makes it their new home base, further strengthening the idea that NOAH is the true spiritual successor to Giant Baba's company). The company is going all out to try and make their final Budokan show a huge event, with Bob Sapp and Genichiro Tenryu both working the card. Toshiaki Kawada is expected to defend the Triple Crown against Shinya Hashimoto, which is the only truly big match they have left.
Several top NJPW stars took pay cuts when they re-signed this month. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi being the most notable names. Masahiro Chono meanwhile still hasn't signed a new deal, though pretty much everyone else has. Meanwhile, undercard wrestlers AKIRA, Hiro Saito, Michiyoshi Ohara and Tatsutoshi Goto are among those who were let go when their contracts were up.
Shinsuke Nakamura is recovering from his injuries and wants to get back in the ring to challenge for the IWGP title that he had to vacate. Whoever wins the tournament next month is expected to defend against Nakamura at the next Tokyo Dome show in May (poor Shinsuke ain't getting that belt back again until 2008).
President George W. Bush, in his latest State of the Union address, talked about the need to get rid of steroids in sports, citing the health concerns and wrong messages it sends to children. He specifically mentioned baseball and football, but needless to say, this is applicable to wrestling as well (this was, of course, right in the middle of all the Barry Bonds steroid mess that was rocking MLB at the time).
ROH keeps trying to book local school gyms to run shows at in Boston, but it's believed an unnamed rival local promoter there keeps calling and harassing the schools to get them to cancel the shows, which has forced ROH to twice move the location of their upcoming shows there.
WWE's Stevie Richards was allowed to appear for Blue Meanie's 3PW indie show in Philadelphia and it was the biggest show 3PW has ever done (600 fans). They did a bunch of ECW type stuff, Blue World Order reunion, etc. Apparently Richards got a huge reaction and was moved to tears, telling fans it was the best night of his career. Even backstage afterwards, he was said to still be emotional. WWE wouldn't allow any of this to be filmed, so it's one of those rare great things in wrestling that will only ever be witnessed by the people who were there live.
TNA's show this week had a very unique feel, almost like a wild, out-of-control old school ECW crowd. Why? Three little words baby: Insane Clown Posse. The juggalos were out in full force and the building was nearly sold out, with nowhere near as many freebies as usual. Them juggalos bought tickets. Problem is: the crowd chanted ICP throughout not just their appearance, but other matches as well. ICP came out later in the show and hung out in the crowd before throwing soda (Faygo) all over Jeff Jarrett. Apparently though, a lot of the regular fans who were just there for wrestling didn't love the juggalo presence.
Vince Russo is back with TNA (again), and was helping to write the show, particularly the Jonny Fairplay stuff, which Russo is apparently super high on. Because of course he is. For what it's worth, Russo was said to be a lot more relaxed backstage and was telling people he's become a born-again Christian and has even given up cursing (say what you will about Russo but he really has embraced this born-again stuff ever since, it wasn't just the same shit most other wrestling people do). They filmed an angle with Fairplay and AJ Styles, and a lot of people backstage credited the company for putting AJ in the spot to get the celebrity rub instead of Jarrett. But it didn't get mentioned anywhere by mainstream press so moot point.
Steve Austin did an interview in the UK and hinted that maybe he's not done after all. When asked about wrestling again, he said, "We’re gonna see. Never say never. I think I’ve got a match or two left in me. Maybe after Wrestlemania. Let’s play it by ear and see what happens." For what it's worth, Austin can physically do pretty much anything he wants to right now. He's not walking around half crippled or anything. The issue is that he has neurological damage that is irreparable and since he's got enough money for several lifetimes, he doesn't want to risk winding up crippled the rest of his life by making things worse. But he could work if he wanted to. He also talked about wanting to film a movie soon, admitted that the WWF vs. WCW storyline "went to hell" and knocked some of the current booking. He also encouraged the high-flying wrestlers to tone it down and pointed out that none of the guys who sold the most tickets in wrestling were high-flyers.
Notes from 1/26 Raw: mediocre show. Chris Jericho mocked presidential candidate Howard Dean's funny "Yeeeah!" thing that everyone is talking about (remember when something that silly was enough to sink a presidential candidate? The good ol' days...). In a tag match later, Randy Orton horribly botched an RKO (I actually remember watching this 20 years later, that's how ugly it was). Benoit, despite winning the Royal Rumble and challenging Triple H for the title at Wrestlemania, didn't seem to be any more over than he's ever been, so they've got some work to do there. The highlight of the show was Mick Foley's return promo, to further the angle with Orton. This was masterful. Per Dave: "Not only every wrestler, but every boxer and MMA fighter in the U.S. should get a tape of that. You can't duplicate it, but the passion and where he got the audience at the end is where you want the audience to be when you're trying to cut a money promo."
After Raw went off the air, they had the usual big beer bash with Austin, except this time Foley and Goldberg were out there as well. There were a couple of sick Make-A-Wish kids there and they got the crowd to chant their names and stuff like that. Then they poured beer all over Lilian Garcia, at which point Goldberg asked her if this was the first time she's ever been triple-teamed. Oh, ok.
It's official, WWE is reviving the Hall of Fame and inducting new members the night before Wrestlemania 20. As of who is being inducted, no one has been contacted yet but Bobby Heenan was given unofficial word (via Gene Okerlund) to expect a call. WWE has also made it clear they want to induct Bruno Sammartino, but Bruno has told them repeatedly that he won't come if they try, so don't bother.
Vince McMahon did an interview with Business Week and continued to defend the XFL flop, saying he thinks it would have been successful if they had more time and said, "I think our pals at the NFL went out of their way to make sure this was not a successful venture." Dave points out that the NFL basically ignored them the entire time and the XFL flopped all on its own and wonders if Vince really believes it when he blames everyone but himself for his failures. Also, the irony of VINCE MCMAHON complaining that the existing monopoly of football strong-armed his little startup out of business is just delicious. How is this man so oblivious to himself?
Elsewhere in that same interview, Vince talked about the potential of doing a 3rd brand that would air later at night and be a little racier and more adult-themed. The idea is basically to create their own ECW and Dave says, hey, they own the ECW name. Maybe they'll just relaunch that as a 3rd brand? Naaaaah, perish the thought....
WWE has a big show scheduled in Mexico in April. This is a market WWE has never really gone after before, not because they can't draw (the TV shows are super popular there actually) but because the Mexican economy is in such rough shape and the exchange rate is so poor, that even a sold out arena won't generate nearly as much money as they can running shows anywhere else. So it's never really made financial sense (pretty sure this is the reason they still haven't done much in Mexico two decades later).
Wesley Snipes apparently spoke to some people about Triple H's role in the upcoming Blade movie. Snipes said if it was up to him, he would have cast someone else in the role, but it's not a major part, so it wasn't a big deal. He said the financiers of the film are the ones who pushed for Triple H, so he got the role. That said, Snipes said he was professional and worked hard and had nothing bad to say about him.
Notes from OVW: Nick Dinsmore talked about being "ready to do anything WWE wanted" to move up to the main roster. Careful what you wish for buddy. They debuted a new woman named Venus, real name LaTasha Marzolla, and Dave thinks she's going to be a huge star unless she quits because she has the look and the crowd was quite enamored with her. She's actually done some MMA and nude modeling for Playboy, but has no wrestling experience whatsoever, which is exactly how John Laurinaitis likes it (she never becomes anything in wrestling).
Wrestler kid updates! Ric Flair's son Reid won his 15-and-under age group amateur wrestling nationals or some such thing. Meanwhile, Dusty Rhodes' son Cody is a high school senior who is the favorite to win his 2nd state title in Georgia.
D12 rapper Proof was in discussions about doing something with WWE, but sounds like it's not going anywhere. Proof's people reached out because he has friends in Detroit who wrestle on the indies named the Colding Brothers and they were trying to get some sort of package deal. WWE made it clear they have no interest in the wrestlers (who have flopped at previous WWE tryouts) but are still interested in working with Proof, probably to do something with John Cena since they tried to pair those 2 together last year also.
Trish Stratus ruffled some feathers a couple weeks back during one of the backstage talent meetings. She apparently had the audacity to suggest that house show matches could maybe start being built up with TV angles to help boost house shows more. Doesn't seem like a crazy idea but Vince apparently shot her down in front of everyone and others were said to be rolling their eyes, with one person commenting that Trish "now knows enough about the business to be dangerous." Dave doesn't get it. Trish's suggestion isn't unreasonable at all and it seems weird that she's being mocked for it. Dave talks about how the house shows are still a big portion of the wrestlers' regular paychecks and understands the frustration when the office doesn't make them a priority. It means less money for the talent.
In order to avoid paying royalties, Jesse Ventura's commentary on several matches from Mick Foley's recent DVD was edited out. Ventura did commentary on one of the Vader/Cactus Jack matches in WCW as well as Foley's early career WWF debut. In case you're not aware of the history, Ventura took WWF to court years ago in regards to royalties like this and he wiped the floor with them. So now WWE just edits out Ventura rather than pay him.