August 23, 2004
- The latest Observer Hall of Fame inductees have been revealed, with 6 wrestlers making it in. But first some interesting notes from the balloting. Triple H, in his first year of eligibility, missed the cut by 2 votes, and it was expressed to Dave by several voters that Triple H's last few years worked against him. He's been hampered by injuries and pretty terrible in the ring for the last 2 years, then he married his way into securing his top spot only to see business tank with him on top (have no fear, he makes it in next year). Jesse Ventura also missed the cut by 2 votes (never makes it in). Kurt Angle just baaaaarely made the cut. That being said, both Angle and Triple H had HUGE support among active and retired wrestlers who voted, but not so much from promoters, historians and journalists. But among fellow wrestlers, Angle and Triple H are highly respected by their peers. Masahiro Chono became the first wrestler ever to get removed from the ballot (having less than 10% of the votes in 2000) only to get added back and then elected into the HOF only 4 years later. He's had a pretty strong late-career resurgence.
- The 6 wrestlers who were inducted into the Observer HOF this year: Kurt Angle, Bob Backlund, Masahiro Chono, Ultimo Dragon, Kazushi Sakuraba, and The Undertaker. Also, Mexican legend Tarzan Lopez was inducted as an overlooked historical figure from the early years of Lucha Libre and was the top star in the 1940s. Dave writes LONG biography pieces on each one of these guys detailing their entire careers.
- Just some fun stats: those last 2 bullet points, my brief Rewind summary of this Hall of Fame coverage, totals about 250 words. The actual coverage in the Observer? 33,000 words. That's not a typo. And as a result, the rest of this issue is pretty short. So this is probably gonna be a fairly short Rewind.
- Marvel Comics' legal battle with WWE and Hulk Hogan over the usage of "Hulk" is becoming a headache for WWE. As noted previously, sometime back in 1984 or 1985, WWF and Marvel signed a 20-year agreement allowing WWE to use the "Hulk" name under certain restrictions for Hogan, which included royalty payments to Marvel. The agreement also prevented WWE from marketing him as "The Incredible Hulk Hogan" which he used for years prior to the agreement. Also, the word "Hulk" is not allowed to appear larger than "Hogan" in any promotional material, and any Hulk Hogan logo had to be substantially different looking from Marvel's Incredible Hulk logos. Lots of other stipulations to this deal, like how the agreement meant WWE could never produce a Hulk Hogan comic, book for example. Marvel would receive 1% of total gross on all Hogan projects, 10% of the money Hogan received from residuals and royalties, and $100 for every match he wrestled. This totals up to several million dollars over the past 20 years. Well, if you recall last week, there's a disagreement over WHEN this agreement was signed. Marvel says 1984 and thus, they believe the agreement has expired. WWE says 1985 and thus, they believe it hasn't. To make it more complicated, Hogan and WCW signed their own separate agreement with Marvel back in 1994 that renews yearly and WWE claims that they purchased that agreement as part of the WCW sale and that it has been renewed annually as per that agreement. Long story short, Marvel is attempting to prevent WWE from marketing any more DVDs or producing anymore television using the name Hulk Hogan. Considering WWE is in the midst of trying to set up a 24/7 cable channel and considering HULK FREAKING HOGAN is basically the backbone of WWE's entire history, that poses a bit of a problem. WWE is asking the court to declare them the sole owner of the Hulk Hogan name and court is scheduled for next month, while Marvel's separate lawsuit against Hogan individually (he's been using the name outside of WWE as well) is scheduled to hit court in November.
- Remember how Dave wrote some 21,000-word monstrosity last week about Olympians in pro wrestling? Well, he forgot somebody. Apparently there was a gentleman named Ben Sharpe who was an oarsman on the 1936 Canadian Olympic rowing team who dabbled in pro wrestling along with his brother Mike (father of future WWF jobber "Iron" Mike Sharpe). And so Dave decides to give us another 800 words about Ben.
- Still no official word from TNA about leaving the Nashville Fairgrounds and ending weekly PPVs. It hasn't been announced, but everyone backstage is aware of it and knows it's happening. Dave assumes they don't want to upset the Nashville fans by telling them they're leaving. Production people in Nashville have been told that 9/8 is the last date there and as best as Dave can tell, those are the only people who have been "officially" told anything.
- Word is that Jeff Hardy and Sabu have quickly become good friends backstage in TNA, which "isn't necessarily good." RIP to Sabu but yeah, that sounds like a dangerous combination. Both men showed up late for the recent TV tapings.
- Vince Russo was complaining more than usual this week about how much he hates working in TNA and the wrestling business in general and was again lashing out because Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel constantly overrule his ideas.
- David Sahadi, a former WWE producer who was responsible for some of their best stuff in recent years, has been backstage at recent TNA shows, meeting with Jarrett. When he left WWE last summer, it was thought to just be a long break since he was burned out, and he was beloved by people within WWE. But looks like he may be jumping to the other side (indeed).
- Apparently some of Bruno Sammartino's quotes from an interview that was discussed last week were either inaccurate or supposed to be off the record and were published anyway. Sounds like WWE wasn't thrilled that so many details of the Vince/Bruno meeting got out and even Bruno is apparently upset that the reporter wrote all the things he did because some of it wasn't meant to be published. That being said, it's looking unlikely that there will be any Bruno/WWE deal. Word is Bruno wants things that WWE considers outrageous. Dave doesn't clarify but it's worth mentioning that Sammartino told WWE that even if he was working with them, he still wanted the freedom to continue talking about the plague of steroids and drugs in wrestling, and WWE wasn't exactly onboard with that. If they're paying Bruno, they want him to be quiet on all that stuff and toe the company line, but he refuses. As for the rest of it, he's open to working on the 24/7 channel with them and he's not against a Hall of Fame induction, although he's not going to lose any sleep over it. Mostly, he doesn't want to be used on TV as a character or to be involved in any angles, but Vince keeps trying to push that idea.
- Matt Hardy is undergoing left knee surgery and turns out his knee was way worse than thought. He has an MCL tear, a torn meniscus, and his ACL is basically destroyed. Dr. Andrews in Birmingham inspected it and said the ACL has been fucked for a long time and he's amazed Matt had been able to work as long as he did. Recovery from the knee surgery is expected to take 6-8 months, and he also has bone spurs in his hip that will require a separate surgery at some point.
- Triple H vs. Randy Orton is the plan for Wrestlemania 21 but it's unknown who is going to turn babyface. Triple H makes the most sense, with an idea that Orton has taken over Evolution and they kick him out. But Triple H is a better heel and he knows it and he has the power to basically book this storyline himself. Turning Orton babyface is going to risk a backlash against him right when he's reaching the main event scene and getting over as a heel. So right now, it's undecided and people backstage are arguing for both.
- Sable has been released. Dave isn't really surprised after the interview she gave last week. It wasn't exactly a surprise even before the interview though. Sable missed some time a little while back due to one of her implants rupturing and there was talk at the time of just releasing her then, but they kept her. She had asked for a lighter schedule recently and as a result was already barely being used and they didn't have any future plans for her. She was on the bubble anyway, but seems like that interview last week did the trick.
- Notes from 8/9 Raw: Divas Search continues to be awful. Lita told Matt Hardy that a DNA test showed that Kane was indeed the father of her unborn baby, and nobody seems to question how one does a DNA test on an unborn baby when the mother is still in the early stages of pregnancy but whatever. There was a backstage segment with OVW wrestlers Chris Cage and Brent Albright hanging out as a tag team and Dave is convinced someone is fucking with Jim Cornette. These guys are currently feuding with each other as part of a big tag team feud in OVW and there was no reason whatsoever to show them together on TV in a meaningless throwaway backstage skit like this. And even though Benoit vs. Orton is the main event of SummerSlam, their entire feud has been playing second fiddle to the Triple H/Eugene feud.
- The Rock visited Samoa last week for the 2nd time ever, and it was huge news. Rock has only ever visited the island once before, as a teenager when on a trip with his grandfather Peter Miavia. The leading Samoan newspaper ran front page stories about his arrival every day for the entire week. Rock was given a new Samoan name ("Seiuli") and was given the title of Chief, same as his grandfather. One of the newspaper headlines read, "Ordinary Samoans humbled by Dwayne Johnson visit." I found one of the stories from that newspaper here, which includes the front page photo and everything. The true Tribal Chief sends his regards.
- Ric Flair has talked about getting involved in Republican party politics when he retires. He was approached about running for Governor of North Carolina awhile back (by WHO?! WHY!?) and after talking with Jesse Ventura, he decided against running because he had too many skeletons in the closet and Ventura had warned him that politics is dirty about digging into your personal life. But now that he's published his book, Flair says he has no more skeletons to hide (oh I somehow doubt that) and now he's willing to run.
- Mick Foley has written a letter to Dave to address a couple of things written about him recently. In regards to the story that Foley was responsible for Ric Flair getting added to the Wrestlemania 20 match, Foley says it's not true. But he does admit that the way he phrased his comments in the past definitely seemed to imply otherwise, so he wants to clear it up. Brian Gewirtz had asked if he was okay with Flair being in the match and Foley was excited to work with him and said absolutely, but it wasn't his decision to add him. He just sort of tacitly approved it when asked. But he says he frequently spoke to Vince about getting Flair further involved in storylines over the past few months, particularly the Orton/Foley feud, but that Vince shot much of it down. He encourages Flair to go ask Vince himself how many times Foley went to bat for him. In regards to that Orton feud, Foley also wants to clear up his involvement in writing it. There's a widespread belief that the entire months-long feud was entirely Foley's own booking, but he says no. The basic ideas of the entire program were Foley's, but he says Michael Hayes, Gewirtz, and Vince were all heavily involved in the details. And just in case Ric Flair wants to call Mick Foley an "ass-kisser" again for praising Hayes, Gewirtz, and Vince, Foley would like to add that 1) Michael Hayes' rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sucks, 2) The Jenny McCarthy Show (which Gewirtz used to write for) relied on too many fart jokes, and 3) Vince screwed Bret.
- Somebody else writes in with a 2,000+ word letter about everything he feels is wrong with TNA and what needs to be done to fix it. This is actually pretty well-written and, in retrospect, all pretty accurate. But it's also no different than any other Reddit concern-trolling post from some random nobody who has the solution to everything that is wrong with WWE or AEW and it's so easily fixable if only the person in charge was as smart as them.
- Divas Search contestant Chandra Costello, who was just voted off, did an interview with her hometown newspaper and revealed that WWE officials told she and her twin sister (both are models) that they would have jobs for them in WWE no matter how the voting went (spoiler: they did not). The twin sisters are most well-known for being "The Juggy Twins" on The Man Show.
- Honky Tonk Man says he's been asked twice recently to come into WWE and do an angle with Randy Orton but he turned it down because they want him to come in and get squashed by the legend killer, and that doesn't work for Honky Tonk, brother!
- They did a fun post-show angle at a house show where John Cena defeated Kurt Angle after some referee confusion. Angle then demanded ring announcer Tony Chimmel announce him as the winner anyway. Instead, Chimmel announced Cena as the winner. When Angle went to confront him, Chimmel gave Angle a stunner and then paraded around the ring like he was Stone Cold. "Bill Watts would shut down the territory after that one," Dave says.