August 02, 2004
- The SummerSlam lineup is taking shape, with Randy Orton expected to challenge Chris Benoit for the world title in the main event. The long-term plan is to build to Orton vs. Triple H as a big match at Wrestlemania. Triple H wanted to do that match last year, but everyone recognized it was too soon for Orton. But in the past year, and especially the last few months, Orton's really elevated himself into being a major star. At this point, the plan is for Orton to win the title from Benoit, which will then cause tension within Evolution since Triple H wants the title. It's been discussed having Edge turn heel to cost Benoit the match, thus giving them both something to do, but that's still up in the air. JBL is defending his title against Undertaker and Dave expects Heidenreich and Paul Heyman to interfere and cost Undertaker that match. Matt Hardy has to get knee surgery, so he's almost certainly going to do an injury angle with Kane to be written off the show for awhile. And that's basically the SummerSlam plan as of now.
- There's a lot of disagreement and unhappiness within WWE over the way the company has promoted Ric Flair's book. Instead of spotlighting the amazing career that is detailed in its pages, they've instead focused repeatedly on the comments Flair made about Mick Foley, Hulk Hogan, and Bret Hart as a way of pushing book sales. Flair was directly instructed from upper management during his recent promotional book tour in Canada to go as hard as possible at Hart. Flair definitely delivered, insulting Bret in every interview he did (particularly TSN's Off The Record) and claiming, among other things, that Bret milked his brother's death as part of his vendetta against WWE over the Montreal Screwjob. This is something Flair also wrote in the book and Dave says the editors at Simon & Schuster wanted it cut. But Vince, Flair, and Mark Madden (co-writer) insisted that it stay and they won out. Flair defended the comments, saying a lot of people in pro wrestling feel that way (this is true, Dave says, a lot of people have said that privately, but Dave has had conversations with Bret and he doesn't believe it's true or fair). Flair also talked about Hart not being a draw and Off The Record host Michael Landsberg pushed back, saying WWF was beating WCW when Bret was on top and noted that SummerSlam 92, which Bret headlined, is still the biggest paid attendance show in WWE history. Flair attributed all those things to Vince and the WWE machine. So when Bret fails, it's his fault, but when he succeeds, it's all Vince? "You can't have it both ways," Dave says. Flair also criticized Bret for refusing to drop the title in Montreal, and Dave points out yet again that Flair did basically the exact same thing to WCW in 1991.
- Flair also continued to trash Mick Foley, and Dave calls Flair out on his bullshit here too. He notes that Wrestlemania 20 was supposed to be a 2-vs-2 tag match: Foley/Rock vs. Orton/Batista. Flair was only going to be their manager. But it was Foley who worried that Orton and Batista may be too green to handle such a high-profile spot on their own and it was Foley who pushed for Flair to be more involved in the angle and to have him inserted into the match. So Flair is out here shit-talking the guy that helped him get a Wrestlemania match and a payday 4 months ago. Foley (who clearly talks to Dave) is quite annoyed by all this, not just at what Flair said about him, but at the comments about Hart also, and mostly at WWE for allowing it (encouraging it) to continue. Foley knows WWE wants to turn this into an angle when he comes back later this year (he's scheduled to return in October as part of promotion for his new children's book) but he has no interest in working a program with Flair. Otherwise, Foley is mostly trying to ignore the controversy because he doesn't have any interest in helping Flair promote this book at his expense.
- One final, hilarious note on this Flair book controversy, regarding Flair's comments about Hulk Hogan. Back in the later days of WCW, Hogan had to beat David Flair with a belt during an angle and apparently he went too hard with it, which upset Flair and he wrote about it in his book. Hogan's response to this: "That is so weird. I beat the shit out of his kid. The only person I beat that bad was Randy Savage. And he really beat me, I was ready to cry and run from the ring. I did beat the hell out of his kid and I talked to Flair first about it because that belt hurt like a bitch. Flair said to break him in right and light him up. I did go a little too far, but when I was done, Flair gave me a big hug at the end. Now, it’s seven years later and he’s got to sell books. But shit, he didn’t tell the truth. Shit, I didn’t tell the truth all the time in my book but I at least kept it close." That last line may be the closest Hogan has ever come to self-awareness.
- The 7/26 Raw in Pittsburgh featured the first truly live, nationally televised 60-minute match that Dave is aware of in wrestling history. Chris Benoit retained the title over Triple H in an iron man match, winning 4-to-3. Unfortunately, it was the wrong crowd for this kind of match and it didn't start to click until late in the second half. The first half was a drag and the crowd seemed tuned out. But they got 'em by the end. However, Dave says it wasn't quite as good as the recent 60-minute match that Samoa Joe and CM Punk had in ROH. The overall Raw rating was pretty low too, which indicates the hype for the match didn't really pull people in, although they did sell more tickets than usual for the Pittsburgh market. The TV ratings showed a predictable pattern: people watched the beginning of the match and then tuned out in droves (nearly 15% of the audience bailed after the first 12 minutes), only returning for the final 10-15 minutes or so. It's further proof that telling people ahead of time that the match is going an hour makes it easy for them to channel surf in the middle because they know they're not going to miss the ending. Worse, not all of them came back. The match ended with the expected Eugene interference, which did get a huge pop, to be fair. Dave gives it 3.5 stars and again talks about the differences in why the Punk/Joe 60-minute match was so much better.
- New Year's Eve in Japan is shaping up yet again to be an epic battle of MMA and pro wrestling. PRIDE and K-1 are both planning to run their biggest shows of the year, head-to-head against each other, on 12/31. Antonio Inoki, who tried to compete with the big dogs last year, will not have a television special airing, but he is trying to run a non-televised event that night....in North Korea again. Inoki is hoping to yet again book the 150,000-seat Mayday Stadium in Pyongyang, which is where the famous Collision in Korea shows were held in 1995 (this doesn't happen). And of course, 4 days after that, NJPW has the Tokyo Dome. PRIDE, meanwhile, is trying to book another show for 1/3 at the nearby Saitama Super Arena to undercut the NJPW show.
- The Minnesota Vikings have signed Brock Lesnar to an NFL contract and he will begin at their training camp this week. It's a 1-year rookie contract with a minimum salary of $230,000 if he makes the main roster, which is still a long shot. More likely, he will end up on the developmental roster, making $85,000. Lesnar is being pushed as a defensive tackle. He's been told that his athletic skill (speed, strength, etc.) are incredible for someone his size, but he needs to learn specific football skills, which he is below par at, but has shown enough improvement that they were willing to sign him and see if he develops. Lesnar hasn't played football in 9 years, since he was a junior in high school in small-town South Dakota, so the odds are against him making the main squad but if he impresses enough during pre-season games, it's certainly not impossible.
- UFC fighter BJ Penn has filed a lawsuit against UFC's parent company Zuffa regarding the enforceability of their exclusive contracts. Penn was stripped of his UFC welterweight title earlier this year after agreeing to work a K-1 show in Japan. There's some vagueness regarding details of Penn's contract (which was technically expired but, as a reigning UFC champion, he was still obligated to fight exclusively for UFC so long as he remained champion) as well as an issue with a Nevada state law that seemingly bans exclusive contracts such as Penn's. He is asking for money of course, but also for the UFC welterweight title to be returned to him. But the awarding of championships in UFC is different from boxing (which is awarded by sanctioning bodies rather than just the whims of Dana White) so it'll be interesting to see how the courts rule in all this.
- AAA wrestler Gronda, who is only 23, apparently suffered a heart attack or some sort of medical emergency backstage at a show a couple weeks ago. Gronda is a huge beefed up monster, so naturally, everyone's speculating steroids as the cause, but who really knows. He's advertised for upcoming shows still, so they expect him back (he still wrestles to this day).
- AAA crowds have been down significantly in recent weeks and most are blaming it on the loss of Hector Garza, who quit after TripleMania. The other wrestlers are saying Antonio Pena underestimated how much losing Garza would hurt business.
- Speaking of TripleMania, the reason Cibernetico lost the mask match on that show was his own request. Not only for the pay off, but Cibernetico is a good looking guy and felt that being a masked wrestler was making it difficult to use his fame to score with the ladies. Latin Lover is the major chick magnet in AAA these days and Cibernetico wanted some of that action, so he requested to lose his mask. That's pretty great.
- The Battle for Puerto Rico continues between IWA and WWC. The recent big IWA show drew 8,000 fans compared to a WWC show the same night that only drew 1,000. Meanwhile, in WWC, they're doing some Colon family drama with Eddie and Carly slow-burning towards a big match with each other at the Anniversario show in a few weeks. Dave expects IWA to counter that show with one of their own. This is basically a desperate last attempt by WWC to get any kind of momentum because the Colon family fighting against each other has never been done and they hoped it would boost business, but so far, no luck.
- After suffering massive financial losses with the previous three HUSTLE shows, HUSTLE-4 took place this week and was scaled down significantly. No more paying tens of thousands for Nash, Hall, Foley, or Goldberg, only to not even advertise them. Even names like Dusty Rhodes, Sabu, and Yoshihiro Takayama pulled out of doing the show. Shinya Hashimoto, wearing an afro wig (?) beat a big fat guy in a frog mask (??). Grumpy ass Toshiaki Kawada wasn't spared the silliness either, as he was dressed like Bruce Lee and came to the ring to the "Enter the Dragon" theme music. HUSTLE was something else, man...
- Fresh off his release from WWE, Rikishi is expected to be heading to AJPW. He met with Keiji Muto recently and they discussed ideas to bring him in. Muto said they couldn't pay him what he might be expecting but they'd like to bring him in anyway (nah. He ends up working a handful of HUSTLE shows but that's it).
- Over in NOAH, a 22-year-old rookie named Go Shiozaki debuted. He does a hell of a dropkick and the company is hopeful for him to become a big star. He's a personal project of Kenta Kobashi, who is mentoring him. Kobashi's last protégé was KENTA and he became a big deal pretty quickly, and they hope the same for Shiozaki (indeed, he rises pretty quickly and eventually becomes the top guy and a multi-time world champion in NOAH after Misawa's death).
- Steve Austin is still living with DDP in Los Angeles. DDP was apparently asked about why Austin has basically cut everyone out of his life from the wrestling world, DDP responded that Austin just needs space and time to himself. It's also said Austin injured his hamstring filming "The Longest Yard" recently.
- Speaking of DDP, he is producing a yoga video that he will market to young male viewers. He's planning to have a bunch of hot women in the videos doing the workouts to try and entice people to buy. Pffft, yeah right. As if this has any chance of succeeding...
- DDP's ex-wife Kimberly Page, meanwhile, is still chipping away at an acting career. She will be playing Catwoman in a new independent short-film called "Grayson." Of course I hunted this down. It's a fictionalized trailer for a Dick Grayson movie that doesn't exist. It got caught up in some legal controvery since it was made without DC approval and couldn't be shown at ComicCon. There's also a behind the scenes movie on the making of it called "Grayson: Pieces of the Puzzle" that's out there on YouTube also. Anyway, peak Kimberly Page is all time top 5 dead or alive, fight me.
- In TNA, Dutch Mantell was pushing to turn Vince Russo heel again. But Russo turned it down because he claims he's leaving the company soon to to go Denver and join seminary school. "Given TNA's long history of being dishonest about Russo's involvement, who knows what to believe," Dave says. Turns out this was real. Russo really does leave the company in late-2004 and doesn't return for almost two years. During that time, he did indeed attend seminary school. He also later said that this time of his career in TNA, he was miserable.
- Jeff Hardy worked the latest TNA show and they're trying to push him as a huge superstar, but the crowd didn't react to him anywhere near as big as they did for his debut. Jeff has also yet to do anything notable since arriving. He also had everyone scared when he missed 2 flights and arrived super-late to the show. Then the next day, he was half an hour late to the bus to go from the hotel to the airport, causing everyone to have to wait. Frankie Kazarian has reportedly been put on babysit-Jeff-Hardy-duty while he's there. So yeah, this is going great so far.
- Chyna appeared on the Howard Stern show and it wasn't pretty. She said a lot of wild shit. Before she even came into the room, the producers were telling Stern that she was acting odd in the green room. She repeatedly called Triple H "Triple Ass" and accused him of needing rehab for steroids. She said WWE has threatened to sue her for using the name "Chyna Doll" so she's only going by her real name now. She claimed that her and Sean Waltman had broken up because he was going back to WWE, as long as he completes rehab. Waltman did have a conversation with Triple H at the No Way Out PPV, and he's going to rehab on WWE's dime, so Dave wouldn't be shocked at all if he returns. But in situations like this, he thinks wrestlers need to go and prove themselves on the indie scene (like Eddie Guerrero did) before getting the red carpet rolled out to return to WWE. Dave also wonders if this is the best thing, as a lot of wrestlers have privately said they think Waltman is better off outside the business. She also talked about getting arrested recently when Waltman told the police that she hit him. Said she spent 4 days in jail. She praised Antonio Inoki for treating her like a queen in Japan. Finally, she claimed that she has a sex tape of her and Waltman that she's thinking about releasing, but Waltman is fighting her on it. Anyway, needless to say, both she and Waltman were quite fucked up during this time and this is all pretty sad in retrospect. Her future appearances are only going to get worse.
- Waltman put out a response on his website after this, trying to take the high road. He said he still loves her, but wishes that she hadn't revealed on national radio that he was in rehab. He said her comments hurt but he wants her to be happy. He also said he has no problem with the sex tape being released. So I guess stay tuned for that??? Dave expects them to end up back together. We've all seen these kinds of toxic couples.
- A media group in California is filing a lawsuit against WWE, claiming they came up with the Diva Search idea. The group claims they, along with help from Trish Stratus, presented the idea to Kevin Dunn back in January. Dunn reportedly took the idea to Vince and Jim Ross who loved it but wanted to wait until after Wrestlemania. That was the last the group heard about it until finding out on TV that WWE had already started doing it without them. Here's the press release from the time. I can't find any info on how this lawsuit panned out and far as I can find, Dave never mentions it again.
- Hulk Hogan did an interview with the Observer website, mostly plugging his daughter's music career. He said if she doesn't make it in music, she wants to be a wrestler. Weird, Dave thinks. In the VH-1 show, she has adamantly and specifically said she never wants to wrestle. Hogan said he had an invite to Wrestlemania 20 and Gerald Brisco kept trying to contact him about it, but he's still upset about his payoff for Wrestlemania 19, saying he made more for WM1. Dave doesn't know what Hogan got for WM1, but he got $250,000 for WM19, which is the most anyone on the card got, because the buyrate was disappointing. Dave says there's some truth to Hogan being asked to be at WM20 and it was implied by Flair in a recent interview that Hogan wanted too much money and that's why it didn't happen. He also seemed upset about his WM18 payoff, saying it was good, but considering what the Hogan/Rock match generated, he feels they both should have gotten double what they made. Hogan may have a point there, Dave concedes. As for TNA, Hogan confirmed that he never went because he felt they were being dishonest with him about Russo's involvement. He recently got an artificial hip to go along with his knee and plans to return to the ring eventually. Dave says maybe Hogan's body is telling him not to and he should listen.
- Notes from 7/22 Smackdown: Kurt Angle was on the power mad GM trip, firing everyone throughout the show, only for Vince to come out and fire him as GM. After the show, Angle attacked Vince but that was only for the live crowd, it didn't air on the show. That's about it.
- Notes from 7/26 Raw: aside from the one hour match, this show featured one of the worst segments of all time. It was the Divas Search segment, in which all the women were supposed to seduce Kamala. It was funny for about 5 seconds, and then it never ended. This was bottom of the barrel trash (oh poor Dave, it's going to get SO much worse). This was followed by them immediately cutting to Linda McMahon and Stacy Keibler at the Democratic National Convention trying to encourage voting, which was then followed by the Divas Search women again. Dave thinks it's damn near criminal that the winner of this thing is going to get a contract worth half of the company's entire yearly developmental budget.
- Notes from 7/27 Smackdown tapings: Teddy Long gets named the new GM and will be a babyface. Spike Dudley wins the cruiserweight title. Eddie Guerrero tried to sell Kurt Angle's gold medals and then Angle tried to steal Eddie's low-rider but the "anti-theft" device shot powder in his face when he started the car. Sure. Booker T won the vacant US title.
- John Cena was in Cleveland for a National Sports Collectors convention and we're about to see how awesome this dude has always been. Firstly, Cena was roaming the floor and saw a collection of game-used NFL helmets and went nuts. He hung out there for awhile, looking at all of them, asking other fans what he should get. He ended up buying 32 (!!!) different helmets for a total of more than $7,000. Then, as he was leaving, a young fan in a wheelchair was nearby. Cena went and talked to the fan for several minutes and the kid talked about how he wished he had a Ken Griffey Jr.-signed baseball bat he had seen. Cena peeled off a few $100 bills, handed them to the fan, told him to get the bat and keep the change. This was no publicity stunt, there were no cameras, and you won't be hearing about it anywhere else. The only reason Dave knows is because a couple of his close friends were at this convention and were standing right there when it happened and witnessed the whole thing.
- OVW notes: Elijah Burke debuted doing the unknown-jobber-who-gets-the-upset-win gimmick. Matt Morgan still isn't great in the ring, but he's turned into a great heel and has main event presence. Hopefully the next time they bring him up, they won't try to make him unlearn everything again.
- They tried out a new gimmick on the house shows with former ECW wrestler Nova. It was a fitness gimmick sorta like the old Bodydonnas stuff with Skip and Sunny in the 90s. Said to be pretty funny (this soon becomes the Simon Dean gimmick).
- Bruno Sammartino visited backstage at Raw last week in Pittsburgh. Dave doesn't have many details other than he spoke with a lot of the wrestlers. He apparently wanted to confront Ric Flair about some of the things he wrote in his book, but "Flair skedaddled." Ahahahahahahahahah amazing. Lots more on this next week.