Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 27, 2004

We open with the death of longtime NWA promoter Jim Barnett at age 80 and just to give you an idea of how this goes: "Due to space limitations, we will have more on the life of Jim Barnett, including his days in Australia, in next week’s issue." So yeah, this is long and as usual, I'm not even gonna really scratch the surface. Barnett was one of the most influential people in wrestling history and ran in social circles with celebrities like Rock Hudson and Liberace and was heavily involved with local and even national politicians, counting former President Jimmy Carter among his many friends. He was a famous gossip who couldn't wait to share any secret he was told, and was incredibly skilled at manipulating people to get what he wanted or get information to leverage on other people. He was a small, frail man who wasn't physically threatening but was probably the most ruthless shark in the business. He'd charm you and then cut your throat without thinking twice. It made him a lot of enemies (Ole Anderson's recent book is a good example). Spent most of his life living beyond his means, spending money and living like a king, Rolls Royces and limos and shit, but became broke later in life. He was actually still employed by WWE as of his death, which was mostly just Vince doing a solid for someone who had been loyal to his dad, since Barnett needed the money. His job had been to watch Raw and Smackdown and give his thoughts to Gerald Brisco. He took the job seriously. He was also close with Bryan Alvarez, who he often talked about as the grandson he never had (I read Bryan's own obituary and he talks about this, saying he talked on the phone with Barnett a lot and they were close, but he had no idea Barnett felt that way about him until Dave told him that he apparently said it all the time to Dave).
Barnett was openly gay in a time when that was unthinkable in the business, but he knew how to make money, so people looked the other way. He was also Jewish and kept that secret hidden more than his homosexuality, because he figured being a gay Jew was a double whammy and everyone already knew he was gay. He was frequently accused of coercing sexual favors in exchange for NWA title reigns or things like that. Dave isn't sure how true that is, and he pokes several holes in an accusation that was made by former wrestler Jim Wilson, but also says it's not impossible that he may have done something. But back then, most wrestlers would see someone else getting a push that they thought didn't deserve it and automatically jumped to the "he most be fucking the promoter" conclusion with little real evidence. Tommy Rich is one of the names often bandied about in this example, but Dave says people forget that at the time, Rich had become one of the hottest stars in the territory so it wasn't THAT unthinkable for him to win the title. Rich's brief reign was more about a power struggle over the territory at the time anyway. Barnett was also the inspiration for Jim Cornette's rich, effeminate mama's boy character (James E. Cornette instead of James E. Barnett). Dave also recounts a story of Lou Thesz telling Barnett, "People of your kind shouldn't even be in wrestling" which Barnett never forgot or forgave him for and never spoke to Thesz again afterward.
From here, we kinda get the beginning-to-end timeline of his career, starting as an assistant to a promoter in Chicago. Much like Vince McMahon would do later with cable and PPV, Barnett was one of the first in those early 1950s NWA days to recognize the power of this popular new television thing when all the other old heads were lagging behind. In fact, many of the tactics Vince would later use in the 80s were things Barnett started doing in the 50s. He's also the guy who invented the concept of studio wrestling, which was basically how most territories continued to operate until the 80s. What else we got here? Working with Sam Muchnick, basically acting as a shadow member of the NWA board because they refused to "officially" bring him into the group because of his homosexuality, his friendship with Ted Turner, promoting in Australia, orchestrating the Black Saturday situation in 1984 and then helping Vince get out of it a year later which indirectly led to the formation of WCW. Barnett was basically 2nd in command in WWF at this time but was fired from WWF in 1987 under mysterious circumstances which was followed by Barnett attempting suicide that same night (I've read stories that Barnett was secretly in communications with Crockett and Vince found out but who knows). Barnett landed with Crockett and spent the next several years there until he was fired by Bischoff in 1995. Bischoff re-hired him in 1999 as a consultant, mostly as a favor to other WCW execs when word got out that Barnett was having money problems. Ended up returning to WWF after WCW folded in the aforementioned job of watching the TV shows. Plenty more next week on Barnett. These historical pieces are where Dave excels.
The Smackdown taping in Phoenix this past week was....eventful. First of all, the advertising was misleading. The company heavily promoted appearances by Hulk Hogan (billed as "Hollywood Hogan" due to the ongoing legal issues with Marvel), Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Stephanie McMahon, and more. Those "appearances" turned out to be nothing more than taped videos for the 5-year anniversary of Smackdown. You can imagine how thrilled the fans were. Austin is expected to return to WWE one of these days, but he has made it clear to them that he can't return until he finishes filming "The Longest Yard" which is expected to run into November. Austin and Vince still haven't really gotten past their previous impasse regarding Austin wanting the rights to his "Stone Cold Steve Austin" name, which Vince is not budging on and neither is Austin. But aside from that issue, the two sides have squashed their other problems and Austin is expected back probably before Wrestlemania. This is also why Austin and Goldberg have kinda fallen out with each other. Goldberg really wanted to put together his own PPV with he and Austin, and at one point, Austin was onboard. But with Austin planning to return to WWE, the plan is off and Goldberg can't do it on his own. As for Hogan, there's no plans for him to return to WWE currently but his taped appearance is a major step for both sides. Hogan tried to leverage a TNA deal to get WWE to bring him back for Wrestlemania 20, but that didn't work like he hoped. Everyone in WWE except for Vince--and Dave means everyone--was very against the idea of bringing back Hogan last time but Vince did it anyway, and now he seems to be inching in that direction again. But Hogan's 51 years old with an artificial hip and knee, and aside from the last couple of nostalgia bursts, he hasn't been a significant long-term player in wrestling since 1999 and never will be again. Dave doesn't think the short-term gains of bringing him back are worth it.
Oh yeah, what else happened at the Smackdown tapings? Well, Eddie Guerrero and Kurt Angle got into a backstage fight. It started from the contract signing angle where Angle and Luther Reigns were beating up Big Show and Guerrero was supposed to make the save. Guerrero came back into the ring too soon, which didn't give Angle and Reigns time to build any heat from the beatdown before they were chased off. Backstage, Angle started yelling about it, which got Guerrero pissed and after Angle shoved him, Guerrero went to try and double-leg takedown Angle. You can imagine how trying to tackle an Olympic gold medal wrestler worked out for him. Angle basically held Guerrero in a front face lock on the ground and wouldn't let him go until other wrestlers convinced him to. No one tried to physically separate them, as it was believed that the whole locker room couldn't have forced Angle to let him go if he didn't want to. They had to talk Angle into letting go. At that point, Guerrero was so pissed he tried lunging at Angle again and was this time restrained by other wrestlers. Both men were pulled away yelling at each other, and Vince called Angle into his office to talk to him, at which point Angle complained heavily about Guerrero.
Dave says people in the locker room have been worried about Guerrero since the German tour awhile back and, although it was never acknowledged publicly, the reason Eddie lost the title was because of his behavior and worrisome signs of depression and mental health issues he was showing during that tour. The company is well aware of these issues, and Vince even told Eddie personally that they didn't blame him for the falling ratings, buyrates, attendance, etc. But Guerrero took his role as top star of the company seriously and carried the weight of all that. There's also concern about his temper, as this is not the first incident with Guerrero (he had a similar issue with Charlie Haas last year and has lost his temper at heckling fans more than once in the last few months). People have been saying Guerrero needs time off, but he'll never ask for it himself. And WWE relies heavily on Guerrero and Mysterio because their biggest drawing shows lately have been in Hispanic markets where Guerrero headlined so they're not in any hurry to offer him a vacation if he won't ask for it.
As for Angle, there's some heat on him from people that feel he and Undertaker are conspiring together for a Wrestlemania match and have been trying to keep themselves strong at everyone else's expense. Guerrero losing clean to Angle at SummerSlam is something Angle pushed for, even though Guerrero had just lost the WWE title and desperately needed to look strong coming out of that. Angle then got another win over Eddie in their 2-out-of-3 falls match on TV a few weeks later. All of these petty wins-and-losses arguments don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but morale is so low and paranoia so high that every little thing like that is being second-guessed and criticized and leading to resentment in the locker room. There's also those who feel Angle has been overstepping himself politically because, as good as he is in the ring, he's still only been in the business for 6 years in one company, and there's a lot he still doesn't know. But he frequently butts heads with management and other wrestlers over things that everyone else sees as unimportant. Dave says Angle and Eddie are both superior athletes who are under a ton of pressure, while dealing with their bodies breaking down, and that's really the core issue. Both these guys could probably use a very long vacation.
There's a TON of heat on new head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, much of it stemming from the new dress code and fines associated with it. Everyone has to wear nice slacks with a button down shirt (tie optional) when they're seen in public. This includes airports and flights, and even long road trips when they arrive at hotels at 2am. Worse still, John Cena and Undertaker have been specifically exempted from this rule because it goes against their gimmicks, which only made everyone else even more pissed about it. Laurinaitis, who is only 39, is younger than some of the wrestlers he's in charge of, and that doesn't help either. Plus, most of the roster are better wrestlers than Laurinaitis ever was, which doesn't matter from a management standpoint, but it's definitely got a lot of wrestlers basically asking, "Who the fuck does Johnny Ace think he is?" He has none of the respect from the locker room that Jim Ross used to have in that position.
UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir broke his leg in a motorcycle accident. Dave runs through all the details, but for our purposes, he missed almost 2 years of fighting due to the injury and was eventually stripped of his title. Moving along.
Turns out the reason Dave had to trim the Jim Barnett obituary is because he has also written an 8,000-word story about....the Tokyo Dome! In America, the top venue for wrestling is MSG. In Mexico, it's Arena Mexico. But overall, in the past 15 years, if there's one venue synonymous with pro wrestling, it's the Tokyo Dome. Since it opened in 1988, the Dome has been host to the biggest and most significant shows in all of pro wrestling, while Korakuen Hall (only 50 yards away) has hosted more wrestling events than possibly any other venue in the world. From here, Dave just kinda talks about the Dome. The history of worked attendance figures (the baseball team that plays there actually were the first to lie about inflated attendance numbers of 56,000 even though the venue only has 48,316 seats for baseball. And since you can add an additional 8,000 seats on the floor for wrestling, "64,000" became the number that promotions always claim to "sell out"). He runs through major shows, such as Inoki's retirement show where he claimed the attendance was 70,000 (it was not). K-1 has since claimed 70,200 and 74,500 for different shows, which is also absurd. This wanders off into a whole thing about how the industry is so different there because PPV never caught on in Japan the way it did in America and the television product isn't seen as nearly as important. Wrestling in Japan still thrives primarily as a live-event business, while it's become a TV business here. We get a lot about why Baba never wanted to run the Dome (felt it would make the Budokan Hall shows feel secondary) but finaly conceeded to try it in 1998. We get all sorts of behind the scenes details on the big Wrestling Summit show with WWF, AJPW, and NJPW. We get some UWFI stuff, SWS, NOAH, the joint WCW shows, etc. Basically this is just a quick overview of the Japanese wrestling scene in the past 15 years or so, with the Tokyo Dome acting as the glue tying the story together. Moving along....
CMLL's 71st anniversary show took place this week and featured one of the highest profile mask matches in Lucha Libre history. It was a 4-way match featuring Canek vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Universo 2000 and when it was over, Universo 2000 was unmasked and revealed to be Andres Reyes Gonzalez from Lagos de Moreno. All of this was actually already known since his brothers are also wrestlers and have lost masked matches, which kinda revealed Universo's identity by proxy. The match sold out Arena Mexico to the tune of 17,000+ fans and thousands of fans turned away at the door after tickets sold out. The finish came when Universo hit Canek with a tombstone piledriver, which is a banned move, and was disqualified. Seems like a dogshit finish to a mask match, but the crowd was into it and Canek did a stretcher job to sell the move like death. Dr. Wagner Jr. was actually supposed to be the guy to do this angle and he was going to unmask, but then his father the original Dr. Wagner died a few days before the show and they had a big tribute honoring him. At that point, it was decided that they probably shouldn't have Wagner Jr. do a major heel move like cripple Canek and then lose his mask, so they switched it to Universo. Elsewhere on the show was Mistico, a young masked wrestler who has quickly become one of the best high flyers in Mexico and was put over strong in his match.
IWA canceled all its shows this week due to Hurricane Jeanne. This meant postponing one of their biggest angles in a long time, the wedding of Apolo and Havana (which was scheduled to be legit, they really are getting married and the wedding is going to be real, followed by a post-wedding angle involving Ray Gonzalez). As of now, it's scheduled for later this week. WWC, in an effort to compete with this huge angle, has gotten Carly Colon back from WWE for a week, so they can do the long-awaited Carly vs. Eddie Colon match.
Hulk Hogan met with Naoya Ogawa this week at Hogan's home in Florida to discuss doing a tag match together in HUSTLE. But it sounds like the talks have gone nowhere. The company has thrown big money at names like Hall, Nash, and Foley in recent months and Hogan could probably get a decent pay day but he's fiercely protective of his legacy (lol) and isn't going to risk it to draw 5,000 people to a flop of a show. Hogan did film footage doing the "Hustle! Hustle!" pose (I have no idea what that is?) and allowed HUSTLE to air the footage at their show. NJPW has also been pitching to bring Hogan back and he's responded with the idea of working a match if they let his daughter perform at the show. Dave thinks a Brooke Hogan concert would fit in a lot better with HUSTLE.
Muhammad Ali will not be appearing at November's Osaka Dome show, despite Inoki's plans. He did say he might be able to appear at the Jan. 4th show but who knows. Ali has appeared twice for NJPW in the past, once at the famous North Korea show and again in 1998 for Inoki's retirement. He also appeared at a K-1 show a little while back as Inoki's guest.
Speaking of North Korea, Inoki quietly held another show there this week, although it was billed as a Taekwondo exhibition rather than pro wrestling. Inoki took several of NJPW's "shooters" with him, namely Shinsuke Nakamura who main evented the exhibition against Ryushi Yanagisawa, in what was a worked striker vs. grappler-style match. Nakamura won, which is a weird fact we all just learned: Shinsuke Nakamura has main evented a show in North Korea. I can't find anything about this, so I'm guessing it didn't break any attendance records, but would love to see it.
Dave saw the recent Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries match from ROH that went 75 minutes. He admires the effort and the live crowd was into it, but matches this long are only for a small segment of fans that are into that kinda stuff. Otherwise, this would be way too long for the average viewer and the people Dave was watching it with were bored at times. He gives it 3.5 stars.
Ian Rotten ran a show for his IWA Mid-South promotion, which featured a loaded card with CM Punk, AJ Styles, Danielson, Petey Williams, and more. They drew 68 paid. Or closer to 80 with freebies. Styles worked the show as if it was the biggest show of his career, holding back nothing, and he and Matt Sydal got a standing ovation for their match. Elsewhere on the show, B.J. Whitmer lost his temper when a fan called him a "f*ggot." Whitmer, who had been busted open hardway after a long match, spat blood in the fan's face and shoved him. Ian Rotten then got on the mic and said if the fan wants to get up in the wrestler's face and talk trash, then it's open season on the fans. Dave isn't sure a court of law will see it that way and thinks Rotten, as promoter of said show, probably oughta think before throwing that statement out there. Another fan responded, saying that they have the right to yell and scream at matches. Rotten jumped out of the ring and got in the fan's face. The locker room emptied to separate them and Styles played peacemaker and talked everyone down. Rotten later apologized to both fans, by defended the situation saying that the wrestlers stick together and fans being disrespectful and trying to take away from the show might want to check themselves in the future.
TNA notes: more of the same. Hall, Nash, and Waltman may or may not be coming in soon. James Storm was "showing the boo-boo face" backstage when he learned that his and Chris Harris' team was being split up, albeit it for a temporary angle, and complained that it was too soon for them to feud. Television negotiations with FSN for a better time slot are ongoing.
Marc Mero is reportedly returning to wrestling and will be debuting with TNA using his old Johnny B. Badd gimmick. In the past, Mero has said he didn't want to get involved with wrestling again, but alas, he's coming back (yeah he works a handful of matches in TNA and then one more indie in 2006 before retiring for good).
WWE released Jamie Noble this week. No reason was given publicly, but there have reportedly been discipline and attitude problems with him recently that built up for weeks (the story here is a little murky and I can't find any interviews where Noble talks about it. But reportedly he got a staph infection, at which point WWE discovered he was using steroids. Somewhere in this situation, Noble apparently asked for his released rather than be fired. But that's all I can tell.)
Steve Austin has filed a multimillion dollar countersuit against ex-girlfriend Tess Broussard. If you recall, she's suing Austin for $10 million, alleging that the incident a couple months back where she stabbed Austin's business manager during a meeting was a set up on her. She claims that the guy stabbed himself to frame her. She claims she was brought to the dinner thinking she and Austin were going to reconcile, but instead she was handcuffed, and that Austin's manager knocked everything off the table, stabbed himself, and then started yelling, "She stabbed me!" She's also suing Austin over injuries in a car accident from last year, claiming Austin was driving drunk when it happened. Austin's counter-suit is alleging slander, extortion, and embezzlement.
Kurt Angle is heavily pushing for WWE to bring in Egyptian Olympic gold medal wrestler Karam Gaber. He did an interview saying the sooner WWE brings him in the better, and he vs. Gaber should be a big money match. In the same interview, Angle admitted he hated the GM character he did over the summer, saying he was itching to get back in the ring the whole time.
Romance alert! In the latest wrestling example of 2 people being booked together and turning into a couple, Jackie Gayda recently got engaged to Charlie Haas. Dominik Mysterio's wife is god's strongest soldier.
Notes from 9/20 Raw: Gene Snitsky did a ridiculous interview claiming that what happened to Lita wasn't his fault, which was funny at least. Kane, in a total babyface promo while wearing a collared shirt, said he wasn't sure Lita's baby could be saved. "Let's build those ratings," Dave says sarcastically. Later in the show, they revealed Lita was in stable condition but the baby had died. Dave was sad about all of this. Sad for the wrestling industry that it's gotten to storylines like this, and sad for anyone who's watching who has dealt with the pain couples go through with actual miscarriages. This wasn't even like the goofy Vince Russo version of this angle from WCW, this one was played somewhat seriously. Dave says it would have done monster business 20 years ago, but it also would have gotten any company that did it kicked off TV. Now in 2004, it doesn't get you kicked off TV, but it isn't going to draw a dime either. The remaining 2 women in the Divas Search (Carmella DeCesare and Christy Hemme) were up next and Jonathan Coachman trashed Carmella and "her loser boyfriend Jeff Garcia." Dave says it's clear that no one in WWE cared for Carmella, with reports that she didn't treat any of this contest seriously or with any respect, and felt she was stuck up the whole time. And after spending weeks trying to push her as the favorite, this week WWE basically buried her. Trish Stratus came out and said if she wins the $250,000, she should use it to buy a personality. And it ended with Christy Hemme being announced as the winner. And that's about all there is of note from this show.
Notes from 9/16 Smackdown: Cena beat Booker T in the latest match of their Best of 5 series and this whole thing is exposing Cena's lack of in-ring ability because he looked bad out there. During a backstage segment, they had Heidenreich pin Michael Cole up against a locked door and very much gave the impression that Cole was getting sodomized in that moment. Cole never returned to the show, so.....did WWE violate it's "we don't do rape" doctrine? Guess we'll find out next week! Vince is said to be super high on Heidenreich (for obvious reasons), but then the bell rings. So they're trying to keep him out of the ring as much as possible right now and have him do stuff like this instead.
To demonstrate how little planning goes into writing the shows these days, Gene Snitsky was in Louisville at around noon on Monday, training with the other OVW guys alongside Tommy Dreamer and Dean Malenko. Dreamer received a call that Snitsky was being written into the Raw show that night and was needed in Tucson, AZ by showtime. So they rushed him onto a flight but then the connecting flight got delayed, so he wasn't going to make it. WWE then sent Vince McMahon's private jet to pick him up and fly him the rest of the way to Tucson. He then recorded the 60-second "not my fault" promo backstage and....that was it. All of that for a 60-second backstage promo that could have been filmed anywhere. But nope, they chartered the private jet to fly him all the way across the country for it.
WWE recently brought Gangrel and Viscera back as part of JBL's entourage during the feud with Undertaker. Both men are on short-term deals, only for a couple of weeks to do the angle with Undertaker and then get beaten and written off TV. If you're willing to bring in guys for pointless short-term deals, Dave thinks they should find a way to bring Sting in for a few months.
Molly Holly worked an indie show this week and was selling autographed photos of herself and others in an effort to raise money for a gravestone for Crash Holly. This is your regular reminder that Molly Holly is basically the sweetest person ever in wrestling.
OVW notes: Ken Doane and Chris Masters have both shown a lot of improvement, which is good because they're both young and have great physiques, so Vince will likely snatch them both up before they're ready. Doane in particular is already being compared to Randy Orton and for what it's worth, he's already better than Orton was at the same point in his career. But Orton has gotten really good, so he's still got a long way to go. Johnny Nitro has also improved a lot and his heel work has been good enough that Dave thinks he's just about ready for main roster WWE. Alexis Laree is a million times better than Jillian Hall on the mic and is a better wrestler, but Hall recently got breast implants (which has become the entire focus of her storylines in OVW) and she's blonde, so Dave expects her to get called up first (yup).