March 22, 2004
- Wrestlemania 20 is in the books! But first....Brock Lesnar. On 3/9, Lesnar informed Vince McMahon that he was quitting after Wrestlemania and at that point, utter panic set in. It got worse the day after Wrestlemania when Kurt Angle told WWE doctors he is feeling numbness in his fingers again (which Dave suspects has probably been happening for awhile and Angle waited until after Wrestlemania to tell anyone). He's scheduled to undergo an MRI this week but given his past 2 neck surgeries, there is major concern about his future as well. So he's been removed from future bookings as well (yeah Angle doesn't wrestle again for another 4 months). Ric Flair and Big Show are both dealing with injuries and Big Show in particular was scheduled for arthoscopic surgery on his elbow and both knees, but he's postponed it for now and both he and Flair are going to continue working because they recognize how tough a spot WWE is in right now after losing both Lesnar and Angle so suddenly.
- So where does that leave WWE now? Let's take a look at the top stars in some of the top matches of Wrestlemania: Rock, Goldberg, and Lesnar are gone. Foley is scheduled for a match at Backlash and then he's done too. Angle and Flair's futures are questionable and Big Show needs surgery. Pretty tough break to go from having all those guys one night to not being able to count on having any of them a week later. So what did WWE do? They abruptly made plans to do a "draft lottery" after Wrestlemania in order to shake up the rosters. Dave's iffy on this because history has shown that massive company reboots like this, especially when it's panic-related without long-term planning, don't pan out well. See: WCW. But Benoit is likely just keeping the belt warm for Triple H, they don't plan for him to be a long-term champion and aren't going to build Raw around him. They DO want Eddie Guerrero to be a long-term top guy on Smackdown but he has pretty much no obvious opponents to feud with right now. Hence, draft.
- Back to Brock Lesnar for a moment. His decision to quit was based on several issues. He loves actually performing, but hates the travel. He's also been upset about not being able to see his baby daughter because he's gone so much. He's told people that he wants to try for the NFL while he's still young enough to do it and doesn't want to look back with regret wondering if he could have. During a radio interview this week, he said, "I'm not saying I'll never go back some day" and just implied that he's stepping away from wrestling "for now." Privately, Lesnar has expressed concerns about the injuries, not wanting to wind up crippled like so many old timers he sees. Dave can understand and accept that, but he does think it was pretty unprofessional for Lesnar to only give them 5 days notice that he planned to quit, noting even regular jobs expect 2 weeks notice. Then again, wrestlers walking out on promotions is a tale as old as time. For his part, Lesnar claims he did tell Vince weeks ago that he wanted to leave but it sounds like Vince brushed it off and didn't believe he was serious. Lesnar said the whole locker room is full of unhappy people and he's tired of being one of them.
- So can Brock make it in the NFL? Well, as an athlete, he's a pure freak of nature who has all the physical tools and as a high level amateur wrestler, he probably trains harder than anyone in the league already. But he never played a second of college football, last playing high school football 8 years ago, so he has no experience at the techniques and skill set required to be a pro level football player and trying to reach that level on pure athleticism alone is gonna be a tall climb. Lesnar is said to be fully aware that it's a long shot but he still wants to try. Two former NCAA wrestling champions (Carleton Haselrig and Stephen Neal, who actually beat Lesnar in college) made the same jump without prior college experience and both became NFL starters. So it's not impossible. The Vikings and the Redskins have apparently both expressed interest in having Lesnar try out. What about money? Most NFL players make more than most WWE stars but Lesnar might be a different case. He's walking away from a 7-figure deal that very well might have ended up in the 8-figure range when you factor in merch cuts, video game cuts, etc. To walk away from that to go try out some near-impossible feat like the NFL (where even if he makes it, he's not gonna be one of the top paid players or anything) is a risk. Of course, if he fails, he could walk right back into pro wrestling anytime he wants and instantly make big money again. So there's always that. But even if he makes it to the NFL, he's gonna be taking a pay cut. Dave hopes he doesn't regret it and feels like this is one of the most gutsy moves a wrestler has ever made, walking away from a main event level contract with the top company in the world while at his peak, to go pursue a pipe dream. It makes the "you sold out" chants he received at Wrestlemania kinda funny in retrospect because this is the complete opposite of "selling out."
- Brock has apparently been pondering this move for awhile, as he reached out to Stephen Neal back at the beginning of 2004 to get advice about pursuing football and talk about how miserable he was in WWE. He had actually just signed a new deal recently too, because Vince wanted to lock him in long-term. Whoops. Dave implies that he's known Lesnar was unhappy for awhile, apparently it's been an open secret. Dave says back in January, when he first heard word that Lesnar was expected to spend the summer jobbing to Undertaker, he knew Lesnar wasn't thrilled about it and suspected it would lead to problems when he was already so unhappy. Apparently sometime last year, Lesnar's fiancée and mother of his children broke off their engagement and left him, apparently due to his wrestling career, which also was said to play a role in his unhappiness towards the business. That being said, there's a lot of old veterans in the locker room who don't have any sympathy for his situation: oh you're hurt, your relationships are crumbling, and you never see your children? That's the business kid, deal with it.
- Needless to say, every MMA company in the world is also interested in signing Lesnar. But because of his WWE deal, he'll have to negotiate a release. Dave expects WWE will be fine with releasing him to go play football, but he fully expects the conditions of the contract will stipulate that Lesnar can't wrestle or do MMA anywhere else, at least in the U.S. and possibly worldwide (and what a mess that turns into in the coming years). PRIDE, of course, would love to have him both for MMA and for their HUSTLE shows and word is UFC is interested also, but Lesnar is said to not be interested in any of that right now.
- Let's try this again......WRESTLEMANIA 20 IS IN THE BOOKS! Early indications are WM20 will be likely end up as the biggest money show in wrestling history, or at least very close. $2.4 million live gate (only behind WM17 and WM19 as far as U.S. records) and they sold out of pretty much every piece of merchandise that was brought to the arena. PPV numbers aren't in yet but Dave expects it to set records there as well. The main event, with Benoit tapping out Triple H clean to win the world title, is something people would have never dreamed he would achieve just a few years ago, and it was easily the best WWE match of the year so far, and among the best in Wrestlemania history. Benoit was reduced to tears when Guerrero, in an unplanned moment, came to the ring to embrace him. After the show went off the air, Benoit's wife Nancy and their young son Daniel joined him in the ring to celebrate (ugh that just hurts to think about now). No blood or table spots except the main event, no celebrities or other bells and whistles....just a strong wrestling show up and down the card.
- Other notes from Wrestlemania 20: Vince came out at one point to thank the fans off camera but that was it for him. Angle vs. Guerrero was excellent. John Cena won the U.S. title from Big Show to continue his push up the card. Christian vs. Jericho was another good match with Trish turning heel in a great angle. Evolution vs. Rock/Foley was basically a comedy match, with Rock having way too much fun for what was promoted as a hated grudge match for weeks. Cruiserweight 10-man gauntlet match was nothing special, only notable because Ultimo Dragon, who's lifelong dreams were to compete at Wrestlemania and wrestle at MSG, finally got to do both and ended up falling and busting his ass during his entrance and then had another botch during the match. Whoops. Molly Holly got shaved bald, and Dave gives them credit for living up to the stipulation. Paul Bearer returned for Undertaker's revival. This was like a hybrid Undertaker, who sorta dressed like a cowboy version of his old gimmick....until the bell rang, at which point Undertaker just worked the same style he's been working the last few years, aside from a few spots. But the crowd loved it. And of course, the main event, in which Benoit was cheered and even Shawn Michaels spent the match getting booed out of the building by hardcore fans who wanted to see Benoit finally have his moment. And the show ended with Benoit and Guerrero, the two "vanilla midgets" that WCW stars like Kevin Nash often claimed could never be headliners or world champions, closing out the biggest money show in wrestling history with the top belts.
- And then there was Goldberg vs. Brock. Whew lord. Brock had been told not to say anything about his leaving, but the word was out and the crowd let both he and Goldberg have it, to the point where Jim Ross had to acknowledge it on air and admit that this was also Lesnar's last match. The crowd hit both men with tons of chants for Hogan, Bret, Austin, "this match sucks", "boring", "you sold out" and more, and heavily booed the entire match. Dave thinks it was an embarrassing show from the fans who never gave the match a chance. Austin seemed bemused by the whole situation and several wrestlers backstage seemed to enjoy watching the 2 men get booed. One unnamed wrestler, commenting on the plodding match, told Dave "if I ever do a 90-second lockup, retire me immediately." After the match, Lesnar was clearly not happy and flipped off the crowd in an unplanned spot. Goldberg, who's a little more used to being hated by fans, laughed it off. As you might expect, Lesnar was originally booked to win this clean, but plans changed when he told them he was quitting, and Goldberg ended up winning clean instead, and Austin sent both men out of the company with stunners.
- Finally, just a quick note on the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, which lasted 5 hours and almost took place without "Superstar" Billy Graham, who spent the entire day in the hospital due to hernia issue. Everyone was told to limit their speeches to 3 minutes and nobody did. Bobby Heenan was the star of the show and had people in tears laughing and later, in sad tears when he talked about Gorilla Monsoon. That's all Dave really has on it.
- Bob Sapp was expected to be a 15-minutes-of-fame passing fad, but we're coming up on 2 years now of him being a phenomenon in Japan with no signs of slowing down. Sapp's MMA fight this week against Sumiyabazar Dolgolsuren set a ratings record of more than 36 million viewers, dwarfing the worldwide number of people who watched Wrestlemania 20 on the same day. Sapp won when Dolgolsuren's corner threw in the towel following a foot injury. (Sapp's dominance over Japan continues when he wins the IWGP title in a couple weeks). That same show also featured the MMA debut of "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, who was once thought to be the toughest man in pro wrestling. His rep for that took a hit after Bart Gunn beat the brakes off him during WWF's Brawl for All in 1998, but he still has the rep in Japan. Well, he did. Williams only lasted 22 seconds against K-1's Alexey Ignashov (the same guy who broke Shinsuke Nakamura's face at the New Year's Eve show). Williams seemingly did no training for it and didn't even take time off from his pro wrestling gigs, working several wrestling shows in the days before the fight (he had a bit more going on, but we'll get there).
- Ever wonder what kind of scandal will keep fans away from a wrestling company they like? The answer is, of course, absolutely nothing! ROH held its first show since the owner of the company was revealed to be a pedophile. They drew 1,800 fans, their biggest crowd ever, to this week's show in New Jersey. Part of the reason for the record crowd is that they were just across the river from New York on the weekend of Wrestlemania, so they had fans from all over the world in town and many went to check out ROH. Over half the tickets were sold after the scandal broke, perhaps because no publicity is bad publicty. There had been talks online of people planning to protest the show and the venue threatened to cancel earlier in the week until receiving assurances from Gabe Sapolsky that Rob Feinstein is no longer involved with the company. That being said, ROH has booked many school gymnasiums in the past but it's looking like, due to the Feinstein scandal, some schools are refusing to allow them to run shows there. As for the show, Ricky Steamboat appeared, getting the biggest pop in ROH history, and refereed the CM Punk vs. AJ Styles match for the Pure title. This led to a post-match angle with Punk and Steamboat fighting. And the show ended with an insane spot with Angel Dust taking a stuff-piledriver from the top of a cage through 2 tables. So a hugely successful show for ROH at a time when the company desperately needed it.
- Riki Choshu's WJ promotion has canceled most of its remaining dates. They still have a show booked for April and one for May but that's it currently. Choshu's now trying to get a job booking for ZERO-1 (WJ ends up running a few more shows until June when it mercifully, finally dies).
- After a 4-year absence from network TV, AJPW has a new weekly show debuting on TV Tokyo. Monday nights. At 2am. Man, that's a brutal time slot. Anyway, AJPW used to have a stranglehold on NTV from 1972 up until 2000 when NTV dropped them in favor of NOAH after the exodus.
- Kensuke Sasaki won the IWGP title from Hiroyoshi Tenzan at a show that drew less than 3,000 fans. That means next week's Sumo Hall show will be headlined by Sasaki defending the title against Bob Sapp. While he is with NJPW, Sasaki is still working for AJPW as a freelancer and is about to enter their Champion Carnival tournament. Dave expects him to lose the IWPG title to Sapp because NJPW isn't going to want AJPW jobbing out their world champion. Anyway, on the same show, Bryan Danielson and Curry Man (Christopher Daniels) won the IWGP Jr. tag team titles, the biggest wins in either man's career to date.
- Bill Watts and Terry Funk are reportedly the latest names working on autobiographies. Dave thinks Funk's in particular could be incredible since he not only has 40 years of his own wrestling career, but his childhood growing up around it, plus his Hollywood career (both of these books come out within the next year or two, both ghost/co-written by Scott Williams).
- Chyna has started a band called the Chynna Dolls and they had their first performance this week at the 1,000-seat El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. Attendance: 40.
- Dixie Carter announced a new TNA marketing campaign called "Wrestling Reinvented" which is basically just "wrestling these days is obscene and we're gonna go back to the pure clean ol' days while still keeping it modern." The reason is Fox Sports Net, with whom TNA is negotiating a TV deal, is insisting on a clean product.
- Insane Clown Posse and their entourage are gone from TNA, reportedly over booking disagreements. Dave notes that this has been a tradition everywhere ICP has gone, from WWF, WCW, ECW, ROH, etc. They seem to burn bridges and end up leaving abruptly. Dave says that they've made enough money in music that they don't have to wrestle "and they also aren't very good at it." But he does give them credit, saying that this is the first company they've appeared in where they made a significant difference, as ICP has been TNA's biggest drawing stars for the last couple months. Speaking of, their last match with the company was a "Dark Carnival match" which was basically a cage match with weapons and came off like a bunch of untrained backyard wrestlers winging it as they went along, which is pretty much what it was. Awful match and Dave hated it, but the live crowd (full of juggalos that only came to see ICP) loved it.
- During a recent investors call, Linda McMahon noted that WWE is working to "clean up" their video tape library due to music licensing issues as well as issues regarding the old WWF logo (ugh). On a recent clip that aired on Confidential, from Wrestlemania 1 showing Cyndi Lauper, they edited out "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and overdubbed it with some generic music.
- During the recent South Africa tour, which the roster flew commercial, there was complaints from the flight staff about the wrestlers (in particular, Bradshaw) drinking too much and being unruly. At the following TV taping, John Laurinaitis got the entire roster in a room to scold them. Vince McMahon and Jim Ross weren't there, just Laurinaitis. Well, it went poorly. Big Show stood up during the meeting and embarrassed Laurinaitis by basically standing up to him and saying they all just got home from a grueling tour on the other side of the world and if management is going to yell at them, they should at least thank them first.
- Torrie Wilson and Sable apparently got into a screaming argument backstage with each other, but contrary to some reports, it wasn't a physical fight and rumors that they were both removed from TV because of it aren't true. Sable is actually off TV because one of her breast implants is leaking and she has to get surgery to replace it.
- Notes from next week's Smackdown tapings: Paul Heyman acknowledged Brock Lesnar's departure, saying he quit because the locker room turned its back on him. Sure. Kurt Angle, meanwhile, wasn't acknwoledged at all on the show. Mostly though, the focus of much of the episode seemed to be the split of the APA and the apparent heel turn of Bradshaw, which is apparently leading to a singles push (boy is it ever).
- Triple H was on ESPN Radio and they asked him about steroid use. Seems like he wasn't prepared for the question and clearly got nervous and began stumbling around a bullshit answer. When asked if he used steroids, he nervously responded no (....) and painted a picture as if steroids don't exist in WWE anymore. He said he did use steroids during his quad tear recovery in 2001 and then started trying to defend them, saying they get a bad rap and aren't a real drug like heroin or something. He said if they're going to ban steroids for being "performance enhancing" then they should also ban weight training and cardio exercises too, since they also enhance performance. Well, that's certainly a take. Dave thinks WWE needs to really start coaching guys on how to answer this question because it's not going away and holy shit did Triple H fumble this one.
- The Rock was not on Raw and isn't scheduled for any appearances in the coming weeks, as he has returned to his Hollywood commitments and promoting "Walking Tall." (see you in 7 years, Dwayne!)
- Despite being a former star who worked 6 different Wrestlemanias, WWE never acknowledged the death of Hercules, either on TV or even on their website (yeah, WWE was trying very hard to distance themselves from all the wrestlers dropping dead around this time).
- John Cena is working short matches right now for a couple of reasons. The immediate issue is he has knee and wrist injuries he's working through. The other reason is they feel like Cena can be a huge star, just so long as he isn't exposed in the ring for his limited abilities in long matches. Unrelated sidenote: John Cena Sr., his father, is working as a manager on the indies now under the name Johnny Fabulous.
- Dave republishes on of his own jokes: back in the April 10, 2000 issue of the Observer, he wrote sarcastically that maybe WWE would induct Pete Rose into their Hall of Fame as a publicity stunt some day. And now, here we are.
- Paul Bearer signed his new WWE contract way back in October, in case anyone wonders how far back the planned Undertaker gimmick revival goes. Seems it has been in the work for a good 6 months.