November 01, 2004
- In all the years Dave has followed pro wrestling, he's never been more concerned about its future. WWE has enough money that it'll probably be around forever, but the overall worldwide popularity of pro wrestling has never been worse in the modern age. You can point at the early 90s as a bad time in America, but there were things happening in Japan and Mexico during that time that were revolutionizing the business. While WWF and WCW were in the toilet, NJPW vs. UWFI was setting records at the Tokyo Dome and would eventually inspire the NWO storyline. These days, not the case. Mexico is stable, but not great, Japan is a mess, and America is a monopoly that is steadily losing popularity by the day. No one is innovating anything anywhere. All the high flying Lucha stuff that came out of Mexico in the 90s has been done to death now. Every hardcore spot you can imagine has been repeated a million times and doesn't shock people anymore. NJPW is basically a Japanese version of WCW at this point, the way they're flailing with no direction and losing massive amounts of money. AJPW is basically an indie company these days and most of their wrestlers are behind on pay. Even PRIDE and K-1 are on the decline. NOAH is stable and does strong business on big shows due to Kobashi's title run, but their day-to-day shows don't do well and Kobashi is being held together with duct tape and wishes so that's probably not sustainable long-term.
- WWE's failure to create new stars in the last 3 years (or killing off established stars cough Goldberg cough) has come back to bite them. Randy Orton and John Cena are being groomed as future top stars but that takes time and Orton in particular has kinda plateaued ever since his face turn flopped and his world title run got chopped off at the knees. Nearly every title in the business, except for maybe the ROH and NOAH titles, are basically meaningless props nowadays. WWE is still doing strong business overseas, but WCW sold out massive shows in Australia and England during the last year of their existence too. Again, Dave wants to emphasize that WWE isn't going anywhere like WCW, and they honestly have more money than ever, but they're getting it by raising prices and getting their shrinking fanbase to pay more for less. But it's interesting because in the past, most other companies declined when a better competitor (Vince) came along and stole their audience. These days, nobody is competing with WWE. Their fanbase isn't drifting off to find new wrestling. They're just losing interest in wrestling as a whole, which is far more unsettling. This is all a bunch of doom and gloom about the state of the business, which Dave has been talking about for awhile at this point.
- This does lead to one interesting tidbit I didn't know. When talking about WWE's failure to create new stars, he talks about how in the 90s, Vince was secretly funding ECW to keep it afloat, which gave him a pool of up-and-coming stars to snatch if he ever wanted them and a place for him to send stale WWF stars. He basically treated ECW like a developmental promotion at times. Dave suggests that WWE should consider doing something similar with TNA. Here's the part that was new to me: Dave says that TNA actually approached WWE with an idea like this a few years ago, but WWE never returned their calls. I suspect this might have been in the pre-Panda days when TNA was almost dead. Anyway, good news, TNA eventually became a WWE developmental promotion anyway!
- We get a big recap of UFC 50 but nah.
- Miguel Perez missed the latest IWA Puerto Rico show. The "official" reason is they claimed he had high blood pressure. The real reason is that he and wrestler Ricky Banderas have some kind of real life heat over a woman and IWA was afraid Banderas would do something to Perez if he showed up, so they told Perez to stay home. (So naturally, I tried to dig into this and I can't find any information on this story. However, I did go back and look at match records and noticed something interesting. Perez and Banderas used to work together all the time prior to this. Teaming together, facing against each other.....they were very frequently together in the ring. After Oct. 2004 though, they never worked together again. So something definitely happened between them around this time. Somebody got the tea?)
- Not much of an update on Naohiro Hoshikawa, who suffered a brain injury last week. He remains in a coma at press time. They've determined he does still have feeling and is physically responsive and doctors expect him to survive and not be paralyzed, which was a major fear. But what kind of condition he will be in if/when he wakes up remains to be seen. For the first 72 hours, it was very uncertain whether he would survive at all.
- Zero-ONE is no longer a member of the NWA. Simon Inoki (son-in-law of Antonio) has reached a deal for NJPW to be the Japanese member of the NWA. Dave thinks it's hilarious that all these Japanese companies are in a power struggle over who gets to be in the NWA, as if that means anything at all in 2004. Anyway, most of Zero-ONE's championships are billed as NWA titles, so they'll have to vacate or rename the belts.
- Dave finally saw the tape of the IWGP title change where Kensuke Sasaki beat Kazuyuki Fujita for the belt with a fluke pin in 2 minutes. "Seeing this was even worse than reading about it," Dave says, adding that the only dumber world title change he's ever seen was the Nash/Hogan fingerpoke of doom.
- "Dr. Death" Steve Williams underwent another 10-hour operation on his throat this week, as a follow-up to the surgery he had to remove his voice box recently. This was a tracheoesophageal fistula and it sounds unpleasant. The surgery was complicated and there was a need to rush and get it done before the other tissue in his throat died or something. The cancer in his throat was removed during the surgery, but it has spread to his lymph nodes. Williams wrote online and admitted that he's pretty scared about all this, despite trying to portray an image of someone who shows no fear. Williams has also acknowledged to friends that he believes his wrestling career is over, but he has resisted attempts by Japanese promotions to hold retirement ceremonies for him (not quite done yet...).
- New Jack has been calling everyone he knows to try and get them to post the $5,000 bond so he can get out of jail. Due to prior legal issues, he's basically expected to sit in jail for the next year if he doesn't come up with the money. Dave reached out and was told that New Jack is facing 14 counts (!!!) of aggravated assault due to the stabbing incident. Did they charge him once for every stab? People who have seen video of the match said there was blood everywhere and it's not something you expect to see even in a hardcore match.
- There was one of those old timer wrestling conventions last week in Indianapolis and wouldn't you know it, Jim Cornette created a scene. The promoter of the event apparently lied about tickets sold, brought in a bunch of old 80s stars, paid some of them half their money up front, and hoped he would make enough money to cover the rest after the show. Shocker: he did not sell nearly as many tickets as he hoped and lost his ass. The show went forward anyway and during the show, the promoter promised he was still coming up with the money (he was trying to get his parents to write checks to bail him out) but everyone's bullshit detectors were going off and most everyone realized they were about to get stiffed on pay. Mick Foley, who apparently did get paid in full, offered to split his merch money with all the guys who didn't get paid so that they would stay and the fans who came to see these stars would still get a show. But no one took him up on it. At intermission, Cornette came out and informed the crowd in colorful terms, as only Cornette can, that the promoter was ripping them off: "The promoter has no dick! He's a pussy hiding behind his parents and he screwed me and some of the other wrestlers out of money!" Cornette told fans to ask for a refund because the advertised main event (Midnight Express vs. Rock & Roll Express) wasn't going to happen. Security then escorted Cornette and the Midnight Express out of the building. Foley then came out, apologized to fans for Cornette's outburst, assured everyone the show was continuing and offered to sign autographs for free for fans to make up for the Midnight Express and Cornette leaving. Here's a clip of Cornette talking about it on his podcast years later.
- TNA has sold about 250 tickets so far for the upcoming Victory Road PPV, and they're happy with that, which shows just how low expectations are. They have a big PPV scheduled for December as well but no one seems to know where it will take place or anything else about it. "The lack of organization here is going to be a major part of the story when the obit is written," Dave says. Still waiting!
- Scott Hall and Kevin Nash have both signed deals and are confirmed for the Victory Road PPV next week. Hall appeared on this week's show and looked old, but appeared clean and sober, which was everyone's main concern. Both men have signed for multiple appearances (believed to be 8-10) and it's expected they will help Jeff Jarrett beat Jeff Hardy and then form a 3-man heel group (yup, pretty much exactly what happens).
- Chris Harris and James Storm asked basically everyone in TNA whether they should try to go to WWE or stay in TNA, since their contracts are up soon. Virtually everyone told them to try for WWE, but for whatever reason, they've since signed new contracts to remain in TNA, seemingly without even testing the WWE waters (I assume they probably put out feelers and realized WWE wasn't interested at the time because that's kind of a crazy decision otherwise).
- Taboo Tuesday was mostly produced on the fly due to the voting gimmick, with several people not knowing what was happening until it happened. Most notably, Chris Jericho was in the ring with no idea who his opponent would be until Shelton Benjamin's name was announced. And neither Jericho or Benjamin knew that the IC title was going to change hands until Vince relayed the info to the referee to both of them as they were already in the ring (Jericho writes about this in one of his books, and I presume was Dave's source for the info here also). Overall, the PPV was a decent idea, but Dave thinks the Tuesday date was a bad idea and preliminary numbers look to be disappointing.
- Vince McMahon missed both TV tapings this week as he was home recovering from an undisclosed surgery. The fact that it was undisclosed has people talking and guessing (I actually can't find any info about this, anyone know)?
- Notes from 10/25 Raw: when the Taboo Tuesday PPV was over, the Ric Flair vs. Randy Orton match ended with a mutual show of respect and both men hugging and shaking hands. Well, on Raw this week, none of that was acknowledged. Flair was still a full-blown heel, still cutting heel promos on Orton, no dissension with other Evolution members....nada. Dave can't stress enough how much this lack of attention to detail makes it hard for fans to care about anything. Anyway, they set up another Flair/Orton match, and if Orton wins, he gets a shot at Triple H's title at Survivor Series and boy, did that announcement get greeted with crickets or what? Maven pinned Batista, so that seems to be the start of a new push for Maven. Dave suspects they're trying to get the previous Tough Enough winner over since they're pushing the new Tough Enough so hard on Smackdown (more on that in a sec). Trish and Lita got into a fight because Trish said Lita looks "chubby" and thems is fightin' words. And Flair faced Orton (with Evolution help) and there was again no sign of the mutual respect and friendship Orton and Flair showed each other a week ago on PPV. I wonder if that moment after the PPV match was Flair and Orton going off-script or something?
- Notes from 10/26 Smackdown tapings for next week: bunch of Tough Enough stuff, with all the guys cutting bad promos on Big Show in a segment and then he gave them all bodyslams. This, was of course, to test how these guys would react to doing this stuff on the fly. All the promos sucked and almost everyone no-sold the bodyslam, which isn't a good look, and many of them didn't even know how to take the move properly. Booker T had to beat Orlando Jordan to get a title shot against JBL at Survivor Series, which is the exact same angle they did with Orton/Flair/Triple H on Raw. Carlito debuted his new bodyguard Jesús (more on that in a bit) who is apparently going to be the guy who stabbed John Cena.
- Merchandise News: WWE is planning a Randy Orton-based clothing line called "Randy Wear."
- Shawn Michaels had surgery to repair his torn meniscus in his left knee. He will be out for a few months (that's it for HBK this year. He returns in January, wraps up the feud with Edge right quick, and moves on to the Kurt Angle feud that will culminate in the Wrestlemania 21 classic).
- Edge is off the road this week due to his wedding and honeymoon. I'm sure he won't very publicly fuck that marriage up within the next 4 months or anything....
- The next big WWE DVD release comes out later this month called "The Rise & Fall of ECW." The set features interviews with Paul Heyman and many other WCW stars, as well as many of ECW's most well-known matches (and to this day, I would argue that this remains the best documentary release in WWE history).
- TNA wrestler Johnny Devine is upset at WWE over the John Cena-stabbing angle on Smackdown. Devine, who was one of the wrestlers stabbed in a real-life incident outside of a nightclub a few weeks ago, believes (most likely correctly) that the WWE angle was inspired by his situation. Dave notes he's not the first person to make that connection.
- ......."Randy Wear"
- Eddie Guerrero has been working US title matches with Carlito on house shows and they've been doing DQ finishes. That's not Eddie's idea, because he's been pushing to do the job for Carlito in these matches since Carlito is the champion and he feels like the fans should get real finishes. WWE wants to protect Eddie, but Eddie basically feels it doesn't matter on house shows so let him lose, who cares? But nope.
- Previous Tough Enough competitions were designed to weed out the weak and make people quit. WWE doesn't want that this time. The idea is to start with 8 contestants and have them voted off by fans, so having people quit will mess up that plan. And it already happened, when John Meyer quit before the first week's voting. Al Snow and WWE producer John Gaburick begged him to stay but he bounced. So now they just aren't going to do any voting the first week. Contestant Mike The Miz is pushing on his website (which gets 25,000 visitors per month!) for fans to vote for him and with his MTV celebrity, everyone recognizes that he has a huge advantage. His Real World and Road Rules episodes still air on MTV regularly so he's got some fame. An Observer website poll regarding favorites has Miz leading the pack by a long shot, with Daniel Rodimer and Daniel Puder a distant 2nd and 3rd. It also helps that Miz has a couple of years of actual indie experience already so even if he didn't have the MTV fame, he's still way ahead of everyone else on having the basics of pro wrestling down.
- Carlito's new bodyguard Jesús is real named Aaron Aguilera. He's from California and had JUST started with OVW, although he's worked some dark matches for WWE before and worked indies over the years. Anyway, he was brought up to WWE tapings a few weeks back right after joining OVW. Well, he's like 6'5 and Vince saw him so you can figure out the rest.
- You guys. "Randy Wear."