February 09, 2004
- You can always tell when nothing major happened this week because the top story is Dave diving into the business metrics of WWE. In this case, he talks about how wrestlers always brag about their sellouts. How many times they sold out MSG, how many times they packed this arena or that arena. But the real money is made on PPV buys and (aside from DDP, Dave notes), you almost never hear wrestlers talk about the buyrates they pulled. Dave does reveal that some wrestlers have called him up to get that info so that they can turn around and use it in negotiations with different promotions, but no one ever talks about them publicly. But in reality, these days, almost no one in WWE is a "draw" when it comes to attendance (except for Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio in certain border towns). Otherwise, all WWE attendance is usually pretty predictable. It's the WWE name that draws the live fans and whether you put Austin or Goldberg or Triple H or Brock on the card doesn't really make a difference in ticket sales anymore. In fact, just last year, WWE started heavily promoting Austin and Vince appearances at certain house shows, trying to boost sales, but they quickly gave up the idea when it didn't really make a substantial difference.
- But PPV buys are another story. Buyrates vary greatly from month-to-month and those variations account for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we're gonna try and see which main eventers in WWE actually "drew money" in 2003, in regards to PPVs. To start, Dave is throwing Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble out of the calculations. Wrestlemania already draws huge no matter what, just based on the name, while the Rumble match (rather than any one particular entrant) is what sells the Rumble, so he doesn't want those 2 to skew the results. But even then, it gets tricky. For instance, No Way Out 2003 was headlined by Rock vs. Hogan and it did a really strong buyrate, but it also featured the heavily hyped return of Steve Austin after walking out in 2002. So who's really responsible for the buyrate? For the purposes of this experiment, Dave credits Austin, Rock, and Hogan equally, even though he feels Austin's return probably had more to do with it than they did. This just goes on and on. Long story short, a lot of this is Dave using common sense, picking the top 1 or 2 matches or people who were heavily pushed for that specific show, and credits them accordingly and tallies it all up. Not an exact science by any means, and if this was 2025, people would nitpick this to fucking death and call Dave every horrible name under the sun. But with 20 years of hindsight, it all pretty much checks out.
- The results: bringing back a legend is definitely WWE's biggest draw right now. The return of Austin, the return of Foley, the return of Rock, the return of Hogan......all of those were by far the most successful acts of 2003 for WWE. The only full-timer to be a noticeable draw near that level was Goldberg. Needless to say, this is all bad news for 2004: Austin, Rock, Foley, and Hogan can't be counted on for the future and Goldberg is almost certainly leaving in 2 months. Vince sticking himself into storylines was the other big draw and you can't keep doing that forever either. Nash is gone too, and he was a decent draw for the shows he headlined. Which means you're going into 2004 with Angle, Lesnar, Undertaker, and Triple H as your top draws, none of whom were even close to the other names mentioned. And with Undertaker coming back as his old gimmick, who knows how that will draw in 2004 (and little do they know, they're about to lose Lesnar also). Long story short, WWE desperately needs someone to catch fire in 2004.
- UFC 46 is in the books. Let's breeze through this: Randy Couture showed up with a nasty cut from training and it re-opened, which led to his fight being stopped almost immediately once it started against Vitor Belfort, who fought with his kidnapped sister still missing. And Matt Hughes, a heavy favorite, came in way overconfident, thinking BJ Penn (who jumped up a weight class for this fight) didn't stand a chance. But those who trained with Penn recently realized Hughes was gonna be in more trouble than anticipated and sure enough, Penn ate him up in one of the biggest upsets in MMA history. Moving along!
- Ever since it debuted, TNA has been trying to get mainstream publicity. First it was by bringing in Toby Keith and a couple of NASCAR drivers. Then they had a bunch of media outlets interested in a heartwarming Zach Gowen story, but Gowen up and left for WWE. Then they brought in Jonny Fairplay from Survivor and no one cared about that either. But this time, they got one! Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher (a good friend of Erik Watts) appeared on TNA's latest show and got physical during an angle. And, well....TNA may have gotten more press than they bargained for. ESPN, CNN, everyone got in on this. Urlacher has a $56-million contract over 9 years and he apparently didn't let Bears management know that he was gonna go risk injury for a wrestling show in front of 800 people and whew boy, they were NOT happy. Or, as the Chicago Sun-Times described it, "in a dingy arena, packed with goofball fans, [Urlacher] threw himself into a three-minute episode of choreographed foolishness."
- Urlacher claims there was no risk of him getting hurt but Dave points out that he clearly didn't know how to run the ropes and nearly fell through them just doing that. So, ya know. Others in Chicago media bemoaned the whole thing and said if Urlacher insisted on doing risky stuff like this, they wish he would do it with a major promotion like WWE and not for some "low-rent" promotion in front of a tiny crowd. Bears GM Jerry Angelo came out the next day and said Urlacher isn't in trouble or anything, but he will not be allowed to participate in pro wrestling anymore going forward. His contract specifically prohibits him from doing things like that anyway. Anyway, the bad news for TNA is that despite all the media coverage of this, most outlets never mentioned TNA by name or noted when/where you can find the shows. And the ones who did basically bashed them as small-time WWE wannabes. So Dave doesn't expect this to make much of a dent for TNA.
- We have an obituary for Don "Hard Boiled" Haggerty who passed away at age 78. Haggerty is one of the rare cases of a wrestler successfully transitioning to being an actor. After a brief NFL career in the early 50s, he became a wrestler and became a big star on the NWA territory scene, in the AWA, and other promotions. During JFK's presidential campaign, Haggerty got his picture taken with JFK and used that for years afterwards as part of his gimmick, flashing the pic and claiming he was close personal friends with the President. He then jumped to Hollywood, first as a stuntman and later a highly recognizable character actor, appearing in dozens of movies in the 60s, 70s, and 80s alongside names like Clint Eastwood, Pam Grier, Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Jackie Chan, and many more.
- Just a thought: somebody needs to bring back "Hard Boiled" as a nickname in 2025.
- Court Bauer's promotion Major League Wrestling is the most ambitious start-up going in the U.S. right now (aside from TNA) so let's talk about em! Unlike ROH, which knows it has a specific fanbase and caters to them exclusively, MLW is trying to be a lot of different things, a lot of them obvious rip-offs of established things (for instance, they have factions such as the New Hart Foundation, the Stampede Bulldogs, and the Extreme Horsemen). They do War Games matches, they're using a 6-sided ring, popularized in AAA, and they do a lot of ECW-type stuff with guys like Terry Funk, etc. They started in the NY area, bringing in indie names and AJPW stars like Satoshi Kojima, and now they're trying to change their base of operations to Florida and have secured syndicated TV deals on the Sunshine Network, just like ECW had. But in the past year or so, things have been rough and they're having more and more trouble drawing fans. Many of the production crew, which were former ECW production people, have all gone. Bauer says he wants to produce tapes for overseas markets because the American market is dead. Lots of promotions have talked about doing that over the years and they've all failed, Dave says. MLW has lots of great talent that have come through the doors, such as Bryan Danielson and Teddy Hart, who is incredible, but his immaturity has burned every bridge except this one. The short version of this story is that MLW is trying to be a lot of things, but the market isn't really there to support it and Dave doesn't have much hope for the promotion being successful (little does anyone know it, but at the time of this writing, MLW was already done for this era. It shut down in Jan. 2004 and didn't relaunch again until thirteen years later, in 2017).
- IWA has signed a deal with a New York firm that is going to help market the Puerto Rican promotion to mainland American audiences. Their show this week from Puerto Rico is expected to air globally on Dish Network as a PPV starting in March but, ya know, same problem as everyone else: good luck getting people to care in 2004. The show had several TNA stars on the card and the NY firm put up $40,000 for a big fancy stage setup with pyro and video walls, just like WWE, which is the first time IWA has ever done something like that.
- Speaking of Puerto Rico, a famous comedian there passed away this week (that would be José Miguel Agrelot) and because of it, every TV station on the island was doing nonstop news coverage and as a result, both IWA and WWC had its television shows canceled for the week. WWC, which heavily depends on walk-up crowds from the TV publicity, had to cancel a live show because, without TV to plug the card, nobody showed up.
- Motoko Baba held a big event at her mansion in Tokyo that had basically all of the AJPW wrestlers and staff as well as a lot of old AJPW legends. It was for the 5-year anniversary of Giant Baba's death and there were plans put in place of doing an annual tribute show for Baba starting next year. The idea was to basically try and get all of Baba's proteges and favorite stars together for the event. However, when asked, Mitsaru Misawa (who was Baba's most famous protege and also who left AJPW on horrible terms with Motoko) said that neither he, nor any other NOAH wrestlers, would appear on any show in which she is promoting. Still some bad blood there.
- The official cause of death for Road Warrior Hawk has been determined to be cardiovascular disease caused by a combination of high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. He had no drugs in his system at the time of death aside from marijuana. However, enlarged hearts are a known side effect of long-term steroid use and Hawk's heart was the biggest of any pro wrestler death that Dave has heard of (640 grams). Dave notes that the only other wrestler death close is Renegade, who's heart was 620g and says that coroners have been constantly amazed at the size of the hearts of young, dead wrestlers and bodybuilders with extensive steroid use in their past. Which is what makes this extra sad. Hawk had turned his life around, found religion, and was clean from drugs and alcohol when he died, but his past use damaged his heart so much that it was too late anyway.
- Mid-Atlantic Wrestling had a big reunion event over the weekend and basically all the still-living Mid-Atlantic stars showed up for autograph signings, Q&As, etc. and there were a few notable incidents. For starters, members of Insane Clown Posse's, umm.....posse....showed up to the Jim Cornette Q&A and confronted him. Someone from the group asked Cornette what his problem is with ICP being involved in wrestling (something Cornette has publicly talked shit about), leading to Cornette to rant about how they are what's wrong with the business, table breaking and thumbtacks and blah blah. Apparently it got pretty heated, with Cornette being pretty much an asshole towards them and refusing to let them have the microphone to respond back and it got tense. Eventually one of the ICP members stood up and walked towards Cornette, leading to Bobby Eaton and some others jumping up to get in between them and stop anything from happening. ICP and their entourage were kicked out of the event and were reportedly waiting for him outside, but Cornette left the back way to avoid them.
- Personal note from Rewinderman: this is kind of a perfect encapsulation of Cornette in a nutshell to me: everyone involved in wrestling who has ever dealt with ICP has nothing but incredible things to say about them and the respect they show towards wrestlers and the business. And then you have this video of Cornette here. Was asked a question respectfully and he immediately chose to be an insulting asshole, talking all the shit in the world because he knew he was safe in a crowded room full of wrestling fans. But then he sneaks out the back way to avoid the confrontation that only got heated in the first place because he was an asshole to them first. This is the same hypocrite that sold printed duplicates of the restraining order Russo filed against him, but then turned around and sued G-Raver for selling a "Fuck Jim Cornette" shirt. This is also the same guy who said Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose should have been fired for breaking kayfabe when the stalker broke into Sonya's house. To paraphrase Cornette's own words in that video: fuck Jim Cornette and anybody that looks like him. Okay, off my soapbox...
- In other news from the same event, Buddy Landel spent the whole time drunk at the bar, shouting inappropriate things at every woman that walked by, and eventually tried to kiss some biker dude's wife. The biker pulled out a knife and a fight broke out and while Landel wasn't stabbed or cut, he apparently took a beating. He was then hauled off to jail (Landel, not the biker) and later released on bond. All the other wrestlers there, particularly the ones trying to settle him down (Arn Anderson, Magnum TA, etc.) were all embarassed by his behavior, and by the behavior of a lot of people there. It's said a lot of the wrestlers were still hung up on the 80s, still trying to work people, and completely dismissive of what people like Steve Austin and the Rock have done in recent years to make the business bigger than ever and pretty much shit on anything that wasn't the 80s. Basically a whole convention center full of Jim Cornettes. Also, Ole Anderson was there also and had some people who took him to task about things he wrote about them in his book (namely Dory Funk and other former Horsemen members like Arn Anderson).
- While filming the new Punisher movie, Kevin Nash got stabbed. Happened during a fight scene with star Thomas Jane and Nash was apparently so amped up filming the scene that he didn't realize he'd been stabbed until later.
- Bret Hart is about halfway finished with the 3rd book in a 3-book series he's writing on his life and career in wrestling. From what Dave knows, it's going to be brutally honest about the business in a way other books haven't been and touches on a lot of topics that other books avoided. He's hoping to have it finished by the end of this year. (Those 3 books end up being condensed into a single large volume and if you haven't read it, I think it's the best wrestling book ever written, alongside Foley's first one).
- Tammy Sytch claims she is retiring from wrestling and plans to become an airline stewardess. Shame this didn't happen, having her 30,000 feet above the roads would have been safer for everyone.
- Terry Funk has another retirement show called "A Funkin' Farewell" coming up this month, leading Dave to joke that Funk is trying to keep ahead of Onita for the record of most retirements.
- There's a new promotion allegedly starting up in Jamaica called Caribbean Championship Wrestling. They don't have any wrestlers yet though. The plan is to bring in Tracy Smothers to train 15 wrestlers who will pay $30,000 each for the training and to be part of the promotion. Dave suspects this might not be on the up-and-up.
- TNA is hoping to book Jeff Jarrett vs. Randy Savage for their big PPV in April. They've also been using one of Savage's rap songs as part of video packages on TNA programming (Savage doesn't show up in TNA until the end of the year for his last "match" ever, if you can even call it that. We'll get there...) Between the Savage negotiations and Russo being back behind the scenes lately, it's becoming clear that TNA has all but given up on Hulk Hogan coming in.
- Terry Funk will be debuting in TNA this week and Dave's kinda befuddled. TNA has been trying to get Funk since the beginning but they could never agree on money terms. Now TNA finally managed to get him and their plan is.....to stick him in a nothing happening midcard feud where he'll team with Sandman against CM Punk & Julio Dinero.
- Anyone remember the New Year's Eve MMA shows in Japan and how Inoki's original plan for his show was to book Mirko Cro Cop vs. Yoshihiro Takayama? That would have been a huge drawing matchup, but then PRIDE stepped in, flexed some legal muscle, and forced Cro Cop to pull out of Inoki's show, throwing it into chaos. Well don't worry.....PRIDE is planning to book that fight themselves now. Poor Inoki can't catch a break. (This doesn't end up happening and the 2 never fought).
- The Rock did some press for his new movie "Walking Tall" and confirmed he will be working Wrestlemania but said it will be the only match he plans to work this year (it actually ends up being his last match for 7+ years).
- Steve Austin also did an interview. He confirmed he won't be wrestling at Wrestlemania but said he'll be involved in something. He said he would like to do a no DQ match with Vince once of these days but thinks it'd be rushing it to try and get it at WM this year. He also seemed to be open to the idea of working a match with Goldberg, although he admitted that it may be too late. Dave says that Austin vs. Goldberg in, say, 1998 would have broken every existing record in the businss. Even in 2001, with the Invasion, it would have been huge. Now in 2004, Dave isn't sure it would do too great at all, and there's a solid chance WWE would completely fuck up the build for it anyway.
- Confirmed for the newly revived Hall of Fame this year are Jesse Ventura and "Superstar" Billy Graham. They've also reached out to Dusty Rhodes, but nothing confirmed with him yet (not for another 3 years).
- Vince McMahon reached out to Bret Hart about the HOF and to do something at Wrestlemania this year. Bret is apparently leaning against accepting right now because, as a stroke victim, he has trouble controlling his emotions and feels like he might not be ready to go up there in front of a crowd in WWE, after being gone for 7 years, and giving a speech. So chances are it won't happen, but he and Vince are on good terms and have had conversations about it.
- Notes from 2/2 Raw: well, the Super Bowl just happened the night prior, which featured the infamous Janet Jackson moment. Needless to say, it took WWE about 5 seconds into the show to reference it. Even though Benoit is on the road to a Wrestlemania main event, it's clear they have no faith in his promo skills, as he didn't get a word in before he was interrupted during the Jericho Highlight Reel. Kane had a match that stopped when lightning struck the ring. Yes, in an indoor arena. Dave is fine with trying to get people excited about the return of Undertaker's old gimmick but the hocus pocus magic stuff like this is a killer.
- Chris Nowinski is still suffering effects from the concussion he suffered last year that has kept him out of action. He noted that he still has sleep issues and dangerous bouts of sleepwalking, but the headaches are less frequent. He still hasn't done any contact training in months because the last time he did, it triggered more horrible headaches. Still no timetable on when/if he will return to the ring.
- "Superstar" Billy Graham writes a letter defending Zach Gowen. Ummm, sure? I guess Gowen finished pretty high in the voting for "most embarassing wrestler" in the Observer awards voting (that category ended up going away soon after). Graham wonders how an inspirational young man like Gowen could possibly be considered embarassing and says he's actually a role model who should be praised. He notes that Gowen "took more and better bumps than I ever did as WWWF champion" and says it takes a ton of guts and "balls the size of a silver back gorilla" to work the matches and take the bumps he did with Brock Lesnar. He says while he was at the Mayo Clinic getting his liver transplant, he showed his doctors footage of Gowen and everyone in the hospital was amazed and thought Gowen was the coolest thing ever for being able to do what he was doing. Yeah! Way to go Billy, way to not be a total luddite stuck in the pas......oh wait, he's not done. Graham says Rico should have won the most embarassing award. "Here is a man acting like a hyper homosexual" and calls it the "zenith of stupidity and embarassment." Sigh. Dammit Billy, all you had to do was stop while you were ahead.