Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 20, 2004

Other notes from the PPV: Christian and Trish Stratus argued over custody of Tomko and Trish basically promised him sex to get him to come to the ring with her instead of him. All of this stuff feels so much weirder in the context of what we know now about WWE backstage during this time period. Shawn Michaels returned for his first match since June when he took off to be with his wife after she gave birth. Dave is flabbergasted at how good this storyline could have been and how much it was totally botched and cold to the fans as a result. Shawn didn't look great in this match either so that didn't help.
Dave doesn't really go into all the problems WWE is facing creatively right now because "everyone knows" already and it's impossible to deny, but he's gonna rant about it anyway. The people in charge have become more insular and are treating the paying customer like they're the enemy because they're voicing disapproval. All of these problems start at the top, of course. At Raw the night after the PPV, Vince announced that there would be major changes to next week's Raw, but nobody knows what that means. There's been talk of doing some talent trades between Raw and Smackdown to shake things up but who knows. One new attempt to shake things up is the Taboo Tuesday PPV coming up soon because in Canada, they accidentally aired a commercial a week too early for the show, which revealed Triple H will be defending the title against an opponent voted on by fans. Dave assumes WWE will just fix the poll whenever some trolls inevitably start "voting for Val Venis as the challenger as a joke." Most of the matches will be voted on by fans or have stipulations voted on, although WWE will be steering people towards the choice they want them to vote for.
TNA is looking to level up and it poses some questions about the long-term viability of the company. They've spent 2 years struggling to find an identity, trying everything from Vince Russo shenanigans to Jerry Jarrett's old school Memphis style. They've pushed small guys, large guys, and always Jeff Jarrett. They tried to be PPV only, realized that was unsustainable, and then basically bought their way onto an awful time slot on television and that doesn't seem to be doing them any good at all as far as selling tickets, building momentum, or creating stars. ECW was never a huge national deal, but it still made stars out of RVD, Sandman, Sabu, and others. But the industry, and television, has changed a lot in the few years since ECW shut down. Almost no one outside of diehard TNA fans have heard of AJ Styles, two years into him being one of the company's top stars and even a former 2-time NWA champion. So what's next? Even if the matches and storylines were better (and they're not bad now), Dave doesn't think it would matter. This is just the state of the wrestling business right now. Unless Panda decided to open the checkbooks and heavily invest millions into raiding WWE or signing stars like Austin, Hogan, or Goldberg, there's not much they can do right now to grab the public's attention. Even if they did all that, there's no guarantee it would work (see: HUSTLE). And Austin hates the Jarretts, Hogan has already honeydicked them once before, and Goldberg thinks its beneath him. So none of that's happening anytime soon. They're trying to negotiate for ("buy") a better time slot on FSN and that might help, but the problem with FSN is that they air all sorts of local sports games in prime time spots, and if TNA wants a prime time spot on FSN, they can probably get it, but they would end up getting pre-empted by other events every couple weeks.
TNA's best bet is hoping that WWE continues to sink, and it's happening. With all its millions of viewers, WWE has not created a new star even remotely close to the level of guys like Austin, Rock, Foley, Brock, and Golderg, all of whom have left in recent years and every metric of their business, from ratings to buyrates to attendance is continuing to trend downward. They're trying to make new stars with guys like Cena and Orton but they're nowhere close yet. And if WWE, with every advantage in the world, can't seem to figure out a way to stop the bleeding, it's gonna be that much harder for TNA to gain any ground. Panda has lost millions on TNA already, but they're thinking long-term and looking at the potential of licensing, merchadising, etc. so they're committed to sticking with it for now. But Panda is a business, and sooner or later, they're going to lose patience with dumping money into something that isn't earning any back. But in order to grow, they HAVE to spend money, they need bigger stars, better production, and so on if anyone is going to take them seriously as a viable national promotion. The recent hiring of David Sahadi and rumors of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash being brought in are examples of the kinda moves TNA has to make, even if it costs them money and may not work out in the end. They don't really have much other choice right now if they want to grow. As they say, you gotta spend money to make money.
The original Dr. Wagner, a Lucha legend in Mexico and father of two of Lucha's current biggest stars, passed away at age 68 this week from a heart attack. We get a recap of his career, starting as half of the tag team La Ola Blanca, which became one of the biggest teams in Lucha history. He held the NWA light heavyweight title for over a year, considered the top belt in all of Mexico at the time. His most famous match, and one of the most famous in Mexican history, was the mask vs. mask match against Solitario in Dec. 1985, just before his career came to an end after he suffered injuries in a car accident. It's said he became very bitter after his retirement and would constantly bash the new generation of Lucha stars (nice to see that's not just an American thing). His sons Dr. Wagner Jr and Black Tiger (formerly Silver King) have been major stars in Mexico since the mid-80s. In fact, Wagner Jr. has one of the biggest matches of his career coming up at the CMLL 71st anniversary show in a few days, as he's in a 4-way mask match and there were rumors that he was the one expected to lose. But CMLL has announced that this show will now be dedicated to Dr. Wagner, so surely they won't have his son lose his mask on this show, so it's possible original plans might be changing.
NJPW's G-1 Climax is in the books! In the wake of NJPW's collapse over the last few years, the G-1 is something they still seem to get right. Last year's tournament was excellent and led to the creation of a new star in Hiroyoshi Tenzan, who went on to capture the IWGP title soon after. But then only 5 weeks later, Inoki Inoki'd and decided to hotshot the belt to rookie Shinsuke Nakamura. NJPW was in awe of how WWE turned Brock Lesnar into a top star in such a short time based on his legit bad ass credentials, so Inoki tried to do the same with Shinsuke, but he doesn't have the aura that Lesnar has, and then he got injured and humanized during an MMA fight and totally humbled, and they've been floundering ever since. So they went back to Tenzan, who defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the tournament for the second year in a row. Despite pushing the new 3 Muskateers (Tanahashi, Nakamura, and Shibata) as the favorites, the crowds were heavily behind Tenzan and Chono ahead of anyone else. It was a great tournament, and the crowds were sold out and rabid for the matches. So of course, Inoki is already talking about bringing in more MMA fighters for an upcoming Osaka Dome show. Find you a wrestling promoter who hates wrestling more than Inoki.
Anyway, Dave breaks down the last night of the tournament and this was a weird layout where everyone wrestled multiple times in the same night. Nakamura is really impressing him lately. He doesn't think Nakamura has the presence to be a superstar yet but for only 2 years into his career, he's an incredible worker. 54-year-old Tenryu took a BEATING from Kensuke Sasaki and then later lost to Tanhashi, in what was presented as the biggest win of Tanahashi's career, but didn't really get over like they hoped since it felt rushed. And as noted, Tenzan beat Tanahashi to win the tournament and it was clearly Tenzan's night. The crowd didn't give a shit about Tanahashi, they were 100% into Tenzan. He submitted Tanahashi with the anaconda vice to win and the crowd went insane. But all this being said, Dave doesn't think Tenzan is the long-term answer to NJPW's problems.
NOAH's latest Budokan Hall show is in the books and failed to sell out with Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue in the main event. This is the first big show since NOAH's Tokyo Dome event and shows that they desperately need fresh stars on top since Kobashi has now been champ for 18 months and counting, and Taue just isn't all that good anymore. That being said, he turned it on for this one and the match was said to have been fantastic (it eventually gets 3.5 stars when Dave sees it). Yoshihiro Takayama made his first appearance at a wrestling show since suffering a stroke in August and did announcing (he's still a long way from getting back in the ring). Kobashi won and he's basically wiped out the entire top of the card in NOAH. There's no one else to realistically challenge him that fans will believe. The major angle on the show was the debut of former Dragon Gate wrestler Suwa who appeared and challenged KENTA. The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) is debuting for NOAH on their next tour, and the plan is to build him up as a new challenger for Kobashi's title. Dave thinks it's gonna be quite the challenge for Kobashi to get a main event quality match out of Awesome.
OVW had its biggest show in a long time and it's a good look at WWE's future. Eugene, Shelton Benjamin, Victoria, and the Bashams from main roster WWE all worked the show, and it appears Nova (Simon Dean) and Carly Colon (Carlito Carribean Cool) are headed to the main roster and seemingly did jobs on their way out of here. Tank (Mike Tolland) is probably the most improved guy in OVW, but he's only 5'5 so Vince will never see him as a potential star. The fans chant "Chia Pet!" at Colon because of his hair and Cornette calls him Juan Epstein from "Welcome Back Kotter." Nidia's sister Lulu was his manager. Elijah Burke is green and wasn't impressive at all. Mark Magnus returned with Shawn Daivari and this is the debut of a new heel Arabian tag team for WWE. OVW fans know Magnus is Italian, so they're playing him as an Arab sympathizer, but when they get to the main roster, they're expected to be presented as full Arab and Magnus will be getting a name change (and thus Muhammad Hassan was born). Ken Doane is green and seems shy but Cornette repeatedly compared him to Randy Orton, which is a lot of pressure to put on an 18-year-old kid only two months out of high school. (Full disclosure, when Spirit Squad came along, I was fully convinced that Ken Doane was going to be a break out star if he could just escape that gimmick. Alas). Shelton Benjamin, in a 6-man match, was light years ahead of all the OVW guys in the match and you could see just from watching him move how much more crisp and polished he is than everyone else. Jillian Hall has made a lot of cosmetic changes in recent months (hair, teeth, implants, and losing a scary amount of weight, among other things) and she clearly sees the writing on the wall and knows what WWE is looking for in women. They've made a whole storyline thing out of the fact that she has fake boobs now and had a fake wardrobe malfunction spot in the match and Cornette made a lot of plastic surgery comments. Nick Dinsmore, OVW legend, had to commit 100% to the Eugene character for this show and it just doesn't fit in OVW where the crowd knows he's not that guy.
Several Lucha wrestlers appeared on the Mexican version of the TV show "The Weakest Link." This is funny mostly because Dave says "the winner of the Booker T award" was La Diabolica, who failed to correctly answer the question, "Who was the father of Los Villanos?" (Ray Mendoza). La Diabolica has been around for almost 20 years and her not knowing was deemed so unforgivable that she was booted off the team by the rest of the wrestlers. For those of you who missed it when WWE wrestlers appeared on The Weakest Link a couple years back, Booker T didn't exactly wow people with his intelligence. I know that may come as a shock to those of us familiar with his sizzling hot podcast takes.
IWA is running a show soon headlined by Ray Gonzalez vs. Apolo in October but that's not the fun part. You see, Apolo and his long-time valet Havana are legitimately getting married in the ring during another upcoming show next week, and the plan is after the (again, real wedding), Gonzalez is going to attack Havana, which will set up the match for October. Shoot wedding followed by an angle. (I can't find any video of this, but here is a video of them talking about it years later and they show some pics from the angle. Apolo is a bloody mess and Havana looks like they burned her dress or something. Just looking at these pics, I bet this angle got some HEAT).
WWE has a PPV scheduled for Puerto Rico in January and IWA is combating them by putting on their own show the same weekend. They're trying to bring in a big name to act as a special referee for the main event, namely Steve Austin. Needless to say, Austin probably isn't gonna do it because money and also because he doesn't want to be seen as trying to compete against WWE. IWA has also reached out to Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Mick Foley. Dave says there's no chance of the last one happening because Foley has said before that he will never work for a company that employs Jose Gonzalez, the man who killed Bruiser Brody, and that would currently be IWA.
Zero-One held its first show without Shinya Hashimoto, who finally underwent shoulder surgery last week after he originally injured it over a year ago. They drew 1,600 which is good because the company has been extremely worried that they wouldn't be able to draw without Hashimoto (that, in fact, is the reason he put off the surgery for a year, which only made the injury worse).
Genichiro Tenryu has been invited to attend a sumo match as a special guest by the Japanese Sumo Association. This is a big deal because the Association has a long-unbreakable rule that anyone who quits sumo is never invited back. Tenryu was a star in sumo and famously quit in 1976 to join AJPW, which was a huge sports story at the time in Japan. But sumo has fallen in popularity in recent years and they are bringing back old celebrities who left sumo as invited guests, and have symbolically lifted Tenryu's lifetime ban.
Gene Okerlund is in need of a kidney donation. He underwent a transplant 3 weeks ago, donated by his wife, but it failed due to a blood clot and he's back in need of a new kidney (this was actually his second transplant, as he had one in the 90s as well. He ends up getting a third soon and lives another 15 years).
While we're in health news: Steve Williams' 7-hour surgery to remove his voicebox was successful and they're hopeful they got all the cancer, but it was a life-changing operation that will prevent him from ever being able to properly speak again. Meanwhile, Ernie Ladd's colon cancer is in remission (they live until 2009 and 2007 respectively).
Mick Foley debuted for Ring of Honor this week. They teased his appearance throughout the show, first with Prince Nana calling him out and claiming he was the newest member of The Embassy, but Foley didn't come out. Then Austin Aries challenged him, and yet again, no Foley. Then Allison Danger called him out and he finally appeared. Allison said, "you came!" and Foley responded, "That's what my wife said last night, but it was followed by the words 'too quickly'." Oh Mick. He put over ROH saying that "if I had any athletic ability" (a reference to Ric Flair claiming that Foley had none) he would have stolen all their moves. Then the Embessy attacked him, and Generation Next made the save. There's talks of doing a Hardcore vs. Classic Wrestling sort of angle if Foley sticks around. Elsewhere on the show, Homicide cut a promo and made possibly the most tasteless comment of the year in wrestling, saying that he wished all the ROH fans were in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Gabe Sapolsky immediately went online and apologized for that happening, but no word if Homicide will face any repurcussions. Jushin Liger is scheduled to come in for some shows next month and is expected to work with Bryan Danielson.
CZW taped a show at the old ECW Arena which is expected to air on PPV soon. Best match was Super Dragon (who was super over with this crowd) beating Excalibur, Bobby Quance, and B-Boy in a match. Elsewhere on the card were several wrestlers from Montreal's IWS promotion, most notably a couple of guys named Kevin Steen and El Generico.
Bryan Alvarez, who publishes the Figure Four Weekly newsletter, has retired from wrestling. He actually stopped working a few months ago and made the decision then but only recently announced it. His book "The Death of WCW" is scheduled to be released in a few weeks (he eventually returns to the ring, of course, but it was never full time. According to Cagematch, he's worked about 40 matches since this time).
Author Mark Kriegel has a new book out about football legend Joe Namath and, in it, he writes a bit about the late Wahoo McDaniel, and it's not particularly flattering. Wahoo and Namath were teammates on the New York Jets back in the 60s and talks about that time. The book has a lot of incorrect info though. It said Wahoo was a full-blooded Chocktaw, when in reality he was only 1/18th Choctaw. The book also played it up as if the Jets brought in this Indian wrestler as a gimmick to draw fans to football games and that he wasn't really a football player. It was actually the opposite: he was a football player who wrestled in the off-season (and for awhile even used being a football player as his gimmick) and he only embraced the whole Choctaw gimmick after his football career was over. Among other things, the book portrayed Wahoo as a racist, saying he made racist comments about black players and claims he backed down from a fight with Namath one time. "Believe me, Wahoo McDaniel did not back down from a fight with Joe Namath," Dave says. Then he clarifies that he might have, but if so, it was only because he knew beating the brakes off Namath would have been career-suicide. But Wahoo was legendary for not backing down from fights and, in fact, frequently got in trouble while playing football for constantly fighting people. Several members of the Jets from that era are on record saying Wahoo was easily the toughest guy on the team. So if Wahoo backed down from Namath, it certainly wasn't because he was afraid of him. The final mention of Wahoo is during the peak of Namath's career when he went to Miami to play against the Dolphins and allegedly saw an ad in a newspaper that Wahoo was having a retirement match. It basically painted the story that Namath went on to an amazing superstar career while Wahoo washed out as an old bum wrestler. Dave sure would like some more information on this Wahoo McDaniel retirement match in Miami during the 1970s because that would certainly be news to him. "I think a lot of this stuff was made up," Dave flat out says.
A newspaper ran a recent story about Alex Shelley. Only notable thing: his ring name came from combining Alex (the main character in "A Clockwork Orange") and Shelley (from Pete Shelley, lead singer of British punk band The Buzzcocks).
Former promoter Jim Barnett, aged 80, fell at home and suffered a badly broken arm that required surgery. He's since contracted pneumonia and is currently hospitalized in Atlanta (spoiler: obituary coming next week...and the week after).
Afa Anoai Jr., who plays football at UConn, is apparently constantly being asked when The Rock is going to come to one of his games. His answer is that Rock will come if they make it to a Bowl game. Afa Jr. actually isn't technically related to the Rock by blood or anything, "but all the Samoans in pro wrestling consider themselves cousins." Afa Jr. started wrestling as a teenager but has since been pulled towards football and was considered one of the best high school players in the country before going to UConn for college (this would be Manu).
Former WWE producer David Sahadi's presence in TNA is being felt in the best way. Their latest promo videos, especially the commercial that aired for the 11/7 PPV show, are masterpieces of wrestling promotional videos and are exactly what TNA needs to stand out as an alternative. When Sahadi was hired by TNA, apparently all the production people in WWE were told that they could no longer have any social contact with him. It's put a lot of people into awkward positions, since they're all still friends with Sahadi and a lot of people were understandably not thrilled at being told who they can and can't be friends with outside of work (yeah, 100% fuck any company that tries to pull that bullshit. I had a job a few years ago that tried to do the same thing, even going so far as to tell us that if we were friends with him on any social media sites, we needed to unfriend him. Suck my dick. Anyway, off my soap box...)
Lots of people unhappy with their spots in TNA recently, in particular Raven and Konnan. Raven had been positioned as a top guy until recently, but apparently he went to Dixie Carter and complained about Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel's booking. Needless to say, Jarrett and Dutch didn't love having Raven go over their heads to complain about them. That seems to be all Dave knows on that situation...
As for Konnan, whew boy. He went on the Observer Live show last week and complained openly that he and partner B.G. James have more name recognition than anyone else on the TNA roster but don't get pushed as top guys. That led to Konnan and the Jarretts having a big argument at the tapings this week. Dave agrees that Konnan and James both get some of the biggest pops from the crowds, and TNA is aware of it too, but they're hesitant to push either of them as top stars because at some point, the bell is going to ring and then they have to deliver the goods in matches. And, well....it's Konnan and Road Dogg. To their credit, both men are aware of their in-ring limitations and both have gotten into better shape and have looked decent during matches, but the reality is that neither of them is even close to the in-ring level of most of TNA's roster and that's why TNA isn't going to ever get behind them as top stars that they build the promotion around. Konnan was particularly insulted that he was asked (along with B.G. James) to go round up fans from the park for the tapings at Universal Studios. This is something all the wrestlers do from time to time, but Konnan didn't want to do it and complained about his bad hip bothering him while he was walking the park. Which is yet another reason why you can't build around Konnan - if his hip is so bad he can't walk around the theme park, can you have him working PPV main event wrestling matches? Konnan also complained about hearing a radio commercial for a TNA show that named a bunch of wrestlers and asked why his name wasn't mentioned, but Jonny Fairplay was. He was told that was a Dixie Carter decision. He also complained about Goldylocks getting more TV time than him and Dave says he might have a point there. He also complained about The Naturals getting pyro for their entrance and he doesn't. Both Jarretts responded to that by telling him "not to be a mark" and pointed out that Konnan is on every single TV and PPV and basically stop bitching or he's welcome to go home if he doesn't like it. Konnan told them he doesn't want to quit, he just wants to be booked better. Basically, the Jarretts called his bluff and Konnan, knowing WWE probably isn't gonna hire him, backed down after complaining about basically everything. Jeff has seemingly moved on but Jerry Jarrett was apparently super pissed and sounds like he was ready to fire Konnan and may have been talked off the ledge by Jeff.
Savio Vega and Luke Williams (Bushwhacker Luke) were at the TNA tapings to meet with the Jarretts on setting up a TNA/IWA relationship. It's tricky because Dutch Mantel (who quit IWA to work for TNA) has been booking TNA wrestlers to work shows for WWC recently, so the politics of this are weird. But things were verbally agreed to and it looks like TNA will be sending wrestlers to IWA starting next month. There was talk of using Konnan, since he was a big star in Puerto Rico years ago, and it seems like Savio will be sticking around full-time to do Spanish commentary for TNA.
TNA is gonna have a much harder time getting fans for the Orlando tapings for the next several months. Now that kids are back in school and winter is approaching, Universal Studios theme park attendance has dropped by about 70% and will only get worse as it starts to get cooler outside.
Many of the ex-ECW wrestlers in TNA have seen Paul Heyman back in creative and Tommy Dreamer being added to the talent relations team. Many of them are regretting signing TNA contracts because they believe (probably incorrectly) that they could easily get jobs in WWE with those 2 guys having power now. Dave says that's wishful thinking for a lot of those ex-ECW stars. One unnamed wrestler was making noise about asking for his release and was told not to even think about it because Jeff Jarrett isn't releasing anyone right now that he thinks might end up in WWE.
Dave gives some insight on the writing process in WWE. Basically the writers pitch ideas to Vince, who approves, disapproves, and gives direction. Then once they've agreed upon a course, the writers are instructed to write the show based on the guidelines Vince has given. Then the agents go over it and the agents have meetings with Vince. At this point, things often change again, with things dropped or added or entire new directions taken if Vince doesn't like what's presented. Then the show airs, and the process repeats again next week.
The Minnesota Vikings roster, including practice squad, has been locked in and Brock Lesnar did not make the cut. He's currently a free agent, and his most likely next move will be to try for NFL Europe in the spring, assuming he still wants to pursue football. The Canadian Football League has shown interest but the money isn't good there. Lesnar has been telling people he plans to relax for awhile and spend time with his daughter and go hunting. He also says he believes he left WWE on good terms and thinks he could go back to wrestling if he wants to, which leads Dave to say that apparently no one told him about Shane McMahon chanting "you sold out!" at him at Wrestlemania from his ringside seat along with all the other fans (Dave has told this story on the Lapsed Fan podcast as well). Dave isn't so sure about those "good terms." Brock quit on his contract and Vince was pretty pissed about it. Of course, he'd happily take Brock back, but he didn't leave on the best of terms and he's said a lot of things about the industry in interviews since leaving that have also rubbed other wrestlers the wrong way.
John Cena left for Australia this week, where he will be filming "The Marine" for WWE Films.
Remember the story about Divas Search contestant Carmella DeCesare getting into a fight at a club over her boyfriend? Well, she turned herself in to police on misdemeanor assault charges this week. The other woman claims DeCesare kicked her in the head and threatened to kill her during a fight at a club in Cleveland, claiming the attack was unprovoked. Others have said the other woman was talking shit and that someone in her group threw a drink on DeCesare, but a local Cleveland news reporter happened to be at the club that night and later reported DeCesare as the aggressor. So who knows? This got some national news coverage because the boyfriend in question is NFL quarterback Jeff Garcia and her status as former Playboy playmate of the year. Weirdly enough, none of the news stories mentioned her recent appearances on WWE Raw.
WWE is preparing a huge marketing campaign for Canada in the wake of a likely NHL strike. WWE is planning to go after all of the NHL's advertisers and run a huge media blitz about how WWE puts fans first and will always be there, unlike those greedy hockey players. Interestingly enough, the ads are expected to reference past MLB, NFL, and NHL strikes "while promoting that WWE isn't unionized" and has no off-season and is never on strike.
There's been a lot of griping backstage about Undertaker not doing a job for JBL at SummerSlam. The match ended in a DQ, which sets up the rematch for No Mercy in what is expected to be a Hearse match (same rules as Ambulance match) and of course, that means Undertaker can lose again while still not getting pinned. Dave really thinks they dropped the ball by not turning Undertaker heel when he...hold on, let me checks my notes here......literally MURDERED Paul Bearer. He should have joined with Heyman at that point and we could have had heel Undertaker managed by Heyman trying to take the title from Eddie Guerrero. Instead we got lukewarm babyface Undertaker vs. champion-no-one-takes-seriously JBL having a world title match end in a DQ on one of the biggest shows of the year. That being said, apparently the reason for that not happening is that there's some underlying tension between Heyman and Undertaker, stemming from when Heyman was the head writer of Smackdown. Dave doesn't give any details, but it sounds like Undertaker didn't want to work with Heyman, so it didn't happen.
Notes from 9/9 Smackdown: Charlie Haas got a big pop as he's the hometown boy (from Tulsa) so of course, they had him lose clean to JBL. Kidman and Paul London lost the tag titles and Dave is baffled. They rushed them into getting the belts before they were ready with no plan on what to do with them, and now they drop them 3 weeks later and now they're doing a breakup angle because Kidman walked out on the match. Dave wonders if the Rock & Roll Express would have ever gotten over if they were teasing a breakup angle after their 2nd month together. There was some concern about Eddie Guerrero who was shaken up after his match and, at some point during the match, he apparently "blanked out," whatever that means.
While we're on the subject, Dave says a lot of people are worried about Eddie Guerrero. He has spent his entire career trying to get to this top star level, and now that he's here, he's said to be having trouble dealing with the pressure of it all. Steve Austin has gone on record before saying that the pressure of being a top star and carrying the company is something that no one can understand unless they've been in that spot. The fact that Eddie was replaced as champion by JBL, who is widely seen as one of the worst world champions in company history, hasn't helped. Eddie's friends have been trying to let him vent his frustrations because they don't want him to bottle things up. Others have suggested that he should take time off to heal up from various nagging injuries, but it's very difficult for talent to ask Vince McMahon for time off, and with the company struggling to create new stars right now, Eddie doesn't feel like he can. (Austin. Punk. Angle. So many wrestlers have talked about how they truly felt like they were going to literally die from the grind if they didn't walk away, and they all reached breaking points and left. I wonder if things might have been different if Eddie had done the same. Sounds like he was barely hanging on at this point, and a year later, he was dead.)