Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 15, 2004

Fun fact: this issue of the Observer is not in the archives for some reason. Which is crazy because we've got some big stuff happening in this issue. Luckily though, I stumbled across PDFs of all the old Observers a long time ago and managed to find a scanned copy of the original. So let's kick it old school today! (You won't notice a difference)
Double fun fact: I just spent the last 10 minutes panicking because I thought I'd lost the 11/1 and 11/8 Rewinds that I'd already written. Still no idea how they disappeared but thankfully I typed this all up on my work computer and a previous version was saved in OneDrive so I was able to restore it. Whew. Ok, let's begin:
TNA's first full 3-hour PPV Victory Road is in the books! In the end, TNA's attempt to bring in Sting failed but they had some last-minute negotiations and struck a deal to bring in Randy Savage, who debuted at the end of the show. But then he quit the company 2 days later amid reports that TNA also tried to get Hulk Hogan on the show. Hogan actually came to the PPV and met with the Jarretts and the Carters, and also talked with many of the wrestlers backstage. Hogan is interested in coming in but wants final say-so on creative. Basically, he wants Jarrett's spot. Hogan being there created huge issues with Savage, who felt double crossed by the company that he was backstage. Hogan apparently tried to approach Savage and smooth things over but Savage rebuffed him and refused to shake his hand. According to some who saw it, Hogan then told Savage if he felt that way, they could step outside and handle it, and Savage immediately backed down. Others have disputed that, saying Hogan was trying to be nice and fix things and that Savage was a total asshole and blew him off and walked away. Savage still made his appearance at the end of the PPV, but 2 days later, he called and canceled his planned appearance at the next TNA TV tapings, saying TNA was an unsafe work environment because Hogan had threatened him. Dave thinks Savage never had any intention of wrestling for TNA and is using this Hogan thing as an excuse to get out of it. Instead, he got a (rumored) $25k payoff to show up at the PPV and strung TNA along while never intending to do anything more. Savage pulled the same trick on Andrew McManus and his WWA promotion in 2002. Dave thinks TNA should have learned their lesson with Hogan when it comes to promoting and pushing wrestlers who haven't actually signed a contract. (Speaking of not learning their lesson, DDP debuted with TNA at the latest TV tapings and is also on a verbal-agreement with no contract. Surely that won't bite them in the ass.) Savage also wore a heavy coat the entire time he was there and refused to take it off even though he was noticeably sweating. When Savage is bulked up, he's usually running around in sleeveless shirts showing off his muscles, so this led most to believe that he's probably not in great shape either.
Oh yeah, amid all this drama there was also a PPV: the opening montage video produced by David Sahadi was "a masterpiece." Hector Garza won the X-division battle royal. Marc Mero worked a match under his Johnny B. Badd gimmick and looked better than he ever did during his run in WWE even after being off for years. Scott Hall looked old and was supposed to be a heel, but the crowd responded to him like the biggest star on the show. Piper's Pit surprise guest was Jimmy Snuka, and it led to a big angle where the heels came out to beat up on Snuka and Piper saved him. Former WWE star Jacqueline debuted and lost to Trinity in less than 2 minutes. Monty Brown won the first ever "Monster's Ball" match over Raven and Abyss, which had the stupid premise of claiming all 3 men had been locked up in a dark room with no food or water for 24 hours prior to the match. AJ Styles vs. Petey Williams would have stolen the show if it had gotten more than 10 minutes. AMW vs. XXX in a last team standing match was a mess because Elix Skipper suffered a serious concussion 90 seconds into the match and forgot everything they had planned and had to be carried through the rest of it, clearly rattled, and they botched the finish. Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy ladder match main event was the best match Hardy has had in years but the ending was completely ruined by Hall and Nash treating it like a joke and then the heels (Jarrett, Hall, and Nash) basically beat up the entire rest of the babyface locker room by themselves while Nash in particular looked like he was barely even trying, and then the show ended with the Savage appearance. The working idea was for Savage to team with Hardy and AJ Styles against Hall, Nash, and Jarrett at the next big PPV, but that's obviously up in the air with Savage having already quit.
WWE released several wrestlers this week with rumors of more on the way. Test, A-Train, and Billy Gunn were known last week. Well, this week, you can add Nidia, Jazz, Rodney Mack, Gail Kim, Johnny Stamboli, Rico, Chuck Palumbo, and developmental wrestler Desmond Thompson to the list. None of these were really money-saving issues, as most of them (aside from Test and Gunn) were on low contracts anyway. Mostly they just don't have anything for these people and don't think they're going to get over anymore, so they just gave up on all of them to make room for new faces. With WWE planning to hire multiple Diva Search washouts, that explains why they dropped several women, but the firing of Gail Kim came as a surprise to most because she works hard in the ring and, considering this is what matters in WWE, she's very attractive. The knock on her within the company is that she lacks personality as a heel, which Dave thinks is WWE's fault for miscasting her in the first place. They also just started an angle with her 2 days ago on Raw, which shows how little thought went into some of these cuts. Same goes with Palumbo, who'd just started his "Cool Chucky P" gimmick. He also notes that Palumbo had a ton of heat in the locker room for non-wrestling related issues, but specifies that it's not drugs (anyone have any ideas?) Test, as mentioned last week, just had neck surgery and is still in rehab for it and his firing was a big shock because of that. It's said there's some personal life issues at play there and he's had a bad reputation backstage for awhile because of it (Dave doesn't say, but obviously, Test had plenty of well-documented drug issues). Dave could see TNA signing Billy Gunn just so they can reform the New Age Outlaws, but he thinks it would be a bad idea (boy was it ever). Nidia's career floundered after splitting from Jamie Noble. Jazz never fit WWE's idea of a traditional women's wrestler so that's not a surprise, but Dave thinks it sucks that she and Rodney Mack (husband and wife) both lost their jobs on the same day (shout out to Emma and Riddick Moss).
If the World Wildlife Fund has its way, it's current legal battle against WWE could be financially devastating. WWE has already lost the case and had to change its name. Now the fight is over monetary damages that WWE owes the Wildlife Fund. They have pushed for $90 million, which WWE revealed publicly and called it extortion. The new plan is to try to formulate a figure based on they they believe licensing costs would have been over the years since the 1994 agreement or something like that. The formula is 12% of all merchandising and licensing revenue from 1995-2002. A rough estimate of that comes out to maybe close to $40 million. And that's only if they're asking for 12% of WWE's take. If it's 12% of the overall total sales, we may be talking in the hundreds of millions once you factor in video game sales and things like that. The British courts are still in the process of sorting this out and it's expected to take a long time, but it's very likely WWE is going to take a tremendous financial hit on this one. And to think all of this could have been avoided if Vince McMahon had simply abided by the terms of the agreement that he himself signed back in 1994.
The Tough Enough competition has resulted in 2 weeks of unscripted situations that left 2 WWE wrestlers very angry. Big Show was upset last week because none of the contestants were selling his body slams, because no one had taught them how to do that. He also didn't like that he was chosen to go out and intimidate these guys. Two of the contestants (Dan Rodimer and Justice Smith) are almost as tall as Big Show, and both are in better shape. Big Show, as big as he is, wasn't comfortable with being told to go out and try to push around and intimidate these guys because he didn't know how they might respond. Big Show was also cautious of Daniel Puder because he had physically shoved him into a locker earlier in the day (on camera, at WWE management direction) and didn't know how Puder might respond later in the ring, and Big Show is aware that Puder knows how to handle himself. It all worked out, but Show wasn't happy about being put in the situation by WWE management.
And that brings us to this week, with an incident between Kurt Angle and Daniel Puder that damn near changed everything. They had Angle out there berating the contestants like a drill sergeant. Puder was then mistakenly eliminated from the squat competition (John Laurinaitis told the ref over the headset to get rid of the blonde guy and the ref threw out the wrong one) and the crowd booed the hell out of that and chanted bullshit. It was clear that the crowd sees Puder as the potential star and were behind him (the crowd audio of all this was mostly edited off the show at Kevin Dunn's direction before it aired). This led Angle to challenge the remaining contestant to a mat wrestling match and of course, Angle easily pinned him. After mocking Puder as the "UFC guy" Angle asked if anyone else wanted to try and wrestle him and Puder accepted the challenge. And this, as they say, is where keeping it real goes wrong.
Puder has trained with some of the best MMA coaches for years. He trained submissions under Frank Shamrock. He also was a highly recruited amateur wrestler in college. While he's only had 4 MMA fights against nobodies, he's undefeated and is said to be able to wipe the floor with several UFC and PRIDE fighters that he trains with. He also easily handled Shinsuke Nakamura during a recent training session. Point being: Puder isn't an Olympic gold medalist, but he's no pushover either, and Angle underestimated him and found out the hard way. Angle, realizing he had stepped into it deeper than he realized, struggled to get Puder down to the mat. At one point, Puder blocked a takedown attempt and the crowd exploded and began chanting "UFC". Angle went to take him down again and this time, he got him to the ground, but before you know it Puder had Angle's arm in a kimura lock. People may claim otherwise but the fact is this: Angle was done. If Puder had decided to put full pressure on, he could have easily ripped Angle's shoulder out and tapped him. Puder didn't do that, figuring (likely correctly) that it would have gotten him thrown out of the competition. But he held the move on tight enough that Angle was absolutely trapped, could not escape, and was in serious pain. Gerald Brisco, on headset, was the first to realize that Angle was in real trouble and ordered referee Jimmy Korderas to count a quick 3 (Puder was on his back but his shoulders weren't down) and claim Angle was the winner. During that moment, there was said to be complete panic backstage when they realized what was happening. On TV, they played it off like it was nothing and most people without MMA knowledge probably didn't even recognize how much danger Angle was in. But this story has exploded in the MMA community, with the online discussion around it being one of the biggest MMA stories Dave has ever seen.
In hindsight, Dave wonders if they should have let things play out. If Puder had legitimately tapped out Kurt Angle, it would have been one of the biggest news stories in wrestling in years and would have turned Puder into an instant star that WWE could capitalize on. But that wasn't in their plans. Furthermore, if Angle had tapped, a lot of people (Vince and Kevin Dunn included) feel it would have completely killed his career. Dave isn't sure about that. But regardless, management was all relieved that they avoided catastrophe. Dave talks about how Ricky Steamboat, as a complete unknown, pinning Ric Flair in the 70s is what made both of them bigger stars, so he thinks Angle could have tapped and they could have turned it into a good storyline that made a star out of Puder and Angle would have been fine. This seems to be the opinion of most of the WWE locker room as well, many of whom were pretty amused to see Angle get handled by Puder like that. Paul Heyman in particular is a huge supporter of pushing Puder based on this incident and turning it into a story. Puder isn't ready to work a pro wrestling match yet but wrestling is all about timing, and there's a lot of people in WWE who feel right now is the time to pull the trigger on him. There's also a decent chance he's going to win this contest and win a $1 million contract so you may as well capitalize now and see if you can make a star out of the guy who may be making main event money soon anyway (many feel it will come down to Puder and Mike The Miz). But WWE had the chance to capitalize on a similar situation with Bob Holly and Matt Cappotelli and they never did that either (although Jim Cornette turned it into a hot angle in OVW for awhile).
Kurt Angle, as you might expect, was pretty pissed. After both men stood up, Angle refused to shake Puder's hand and reportedly said something to him about how this is the entertainment business and it's not about hurting people. "Don't you know any better? It's not a fucking UFC match, it's an amateur wrestling contest," Angle said to him. Dave calls bullshit on this. They never explained what the rules were. Plus, Angle called Puder into the ring asking if he'd ever "fought" an Olympic gold medalist. So who's to say this was only amateur wrestling rules? Furthermore, Angle used multiple moves on the previous contestant that would be illegal in amateur wrestling, and there was also a rope break, which isn't a thing in amateur wrestling either. Angle went on to call Puder "fucking stupid" before telling him to get out of his face. The simple reality is that Angle got caught slipping on national TV by a rookie and he knows it and his ego is bruised. Similar to Big Show, Angle was also pissed at WWE management for putting him in that situation, saying he already has an injured neck (re-injured just 2 days prior to this) and was not told these guys were gonna be shooting, and that he had no chance to prepare for it. Dave thinks there's some truth here: all things being equal, if you put both men in the same situation again, Puder probably wouldn't stand a chance against a prepared Angle who knows what he's getting into. But it doesn't change the reality of what happened here. After he calmed down, Angle was open to turning the situation into a storyline, but WWE doesn't want to go that direction. On replays of the segment and online, WWE has gone out of their way to edit and completely cover up that anything happened, but it's the only thing MMA message boards are talking about this week. The whole point of this Tough Enough contest and the $1 million dollar contract is to find new stars, and now they have a potential star-making situation here and they're doing everything they can to bury it.
Shinya Hashimoto made a surprise appearance at the recent NJPW show at Sumo Hall. Zero-ONE has been struggling since he has been off the shows due to his shoulder injury and business is way down, as they feared. He's still doing everything he can behind the scenes to help keep the company afloat, and this is part of his idea to do an inter-promotional feud with NJPW, but without him being able to wrestle, Zero-ONE is badly struggling.
The upcoming NJPW Tokyo Dome on Jan. 4th is expected to be headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi defending his U-30 title against Shinsuke Nakamura. It's NJPW's effort to push the new stars by putting this match in the main event spot. Considering there's the IWGP title match plus the planned Kawada vs. Tenzan match (AJPW vs. NJPW, Triple Crown champion vs. G-1 winner), it's pretty wild that they're putting the U-30 title match in the main event (that's because the other 2 matches end up not happening lol. But we'll get there).
Former WWF wrestler Brian Blair, of the Killer Bees, won the District 6 Hillsborough County Commission seat in a local election. It was one of the closest elections in the history of the county and Blair won by only 2000 or so votes. Blair ran several commercials with baseball star Wade Boggs (may he rest in peace) endorsing him.
The latest weekend of ROH shows featured Jushin Liger and a surprise appearance by Mick Foley and was a huge success, with one show drawing 1,200 (one of the biggest crowds in ROH history). During the show, CM Punk challenged Samoa Joe to a no-time-limit match (playing off their recent 2 time limit draws). The Foley appearance was a surprise to ROH as well. Foley simply showed up unplanned because it was close to home and appeared on the show for free. Foley cut a promo with Punk where he said people like Punk and Samoa Joe should be in WWE instead of guys like Snitsky and Heidenreich (Dave notes that Foley has suggested both Punk and Joe directly to Vince in the past, and Vince wasn't interested). Liger, meanwhile, was SUPER over with this crowd. ROH is mostly a tape trader audience so they were familiar with all his spots and he got one of the largest reactions in ROH history.
TNA was rumored to have a TV deal with TSN in the works for Canada. TV Guide even listed it, but apparently it's not happening. People within TNA are under the belief that WWE (who have had a years-long relationship with TSN) put pressure on the network to get them to back out of the deal. WWE sources have strongly denied it. Jarrett was apparently supposed to appear on TSN's "Off the Record" show recently and that seemingly got canceled as well.
Lex Luger has been telling anyone who will listen that Jerry Jarrett and Vince McMahon ruined his career. He believes Vince made people think he killed Elizabeth, despite knowing full well that isn't what happened (Luger has a point here) and he blames Jarrett for sending him home from the recent TNA tapings, saying that the rumors about why he was sent home are killing his reputation.
Latest TNA tapings saw Kevin Nash cut a promo that got him plenty of heat in the locker room. It was basically him talking down to all of them and making fun of them for "living in one bedroom apartments with their two kids" while guys like he and Hall are making all the money. Given how true that actually is, nobody was amused. The promo also went way long and forced them to cut time from everything afterward. As expected, Hall and Nash are not endearing themselves to the company.
B.G. James (Road Dogg) apparently had some sort of melt-down during or after his match at the same tapings. Dave hasn't seen it, but it was described as him going nuts and flipping off Jeremy Borash at one point. Then he went backstage and went off on Bob Ryder, yelling at him and calling him a "fucking f*ggot" among other things. Later that night, when he settled down and realized what he'd done, James was apparently in tears and apologized to Ryder (if I had a nickel for every time Road Dogg using that word has been documented in the Observers over the years, it would actually be quite a few nickels at this point).
Not sure if it's related but apparently a lot of TNA talent were pissed off over the fan fest event that took place the day before the Victory Road PPV. They had all the wrestlers working all day long, spending hours signing autographs and taking pics with fans. It was considered a big success and helped drive up ticket sales for the show. But when it was over, TNA paid all the wrestlers who participated in cash. And they all got around $20 each. Needless to say, after spending all day shaking hands and signing autographs, that pay off made everyone furious. Dave understands. Not paying them anything at all would have been less insulting than handing them a $20 after doing that all day.
While we're spilling backstage drama, Raven and Konnan almost got into a fight about something. Konnan was ready to throw hands but Raven said it wasn't worth getting fired over and tried to walk away. Christopher Daniels and Chris Harris had to get involved to keep it from turning physical. Dave doesn't have any more details currently.
Ric Flair suffered a ruptured blood vessel near his groin (ouch) during the match with Orton on the 11/1 Raw. It had been hurting him for weeks before and he thought it was a minor groin pull and worked through it and then the vessel burst during the match. He may also have a hernia.
WWE writer Dan Madigan was fired by Stephanie McMahon this week. Madigan wrote the screenplay for the Kane movie that WWE Films is currently producing. Dave notes several of Madigan's ideas weren't popular (he was the brain behind the short-lived Booker T voodoo gimmick a few months ago as well as the "Hirohito" gimmick that Kenzo Suzuki refused to do. He also came up with an idea for "the frozen Nazi" which was an idea that Heidenreich was a Nazi who had been frozen since 1939 and was recently thawed out. He's also the one that came up with the Mordecai gimmick that went nowhere). Madigan reportedly took a few days off for his father-in-law's funeral and was out of touch (not answering phone calls or emails) during that time, and when he came back, he was fired. Madigan also had heat for telling mid-card wrestlers to talk to Vince about their ideas. They're supposed to talk to the creative team rather than bug Vince, who is only hands-on involved when it comes to main eventers. Perhaps as his replacement, Stephanie has hired a guy named Tom Chehak as "managing editor" of the writing team and referred to him as her right-hand man. Chehak has no experience with pro wrestling at all, but has written for shows such as VIP with Pamela Anderson ("a wonderfully written show" Dave deadpans), as well as Alien Nation, Diagnosis Murder, and a bunch of other similar nonsense (yeah this dude ends up lasting all of 5 months).
Side note: I decided to try to do some quick research on this and wondered if Madigan had done any interviews talking about this. I couldn't really find anything. But I did find an interview where he talks about working with Carlito one time and Vince being racist. Madigan was having a conversation with Carlito about his character and noted that Carlito is a very well-spoken, smart guy. Apparently Vince heard him talking, walked over to them, and told Carlito to his face that he should "spic it up" when he talks. Just in case you needed another reminder of why Vince sucked so goddamn much.
Speaking of Carlito, he's injured. Looks like he suffered a separated shoulder during a house show match with Bob Holly and will need surgery. As of now, he's still expected to work Survivor Series as part of the elimination match he's in. John Cena is coming back from Australia (filming The Marine) specifically to work the PPV. Dave expects Carlito to drop the U.S. title pretty soon as well since he needs surgery.
Notes from 11/9 Raw: Eric Bischoff is apparently a babyface now, with no explanation whatsoever. He came out threatening Triple H, who tried to attack Bischoff and only stopped when threatened to be stripped of his title. Orton beat Batista in a boring match, as these 2 are not experienced enough yet to be going solo with each other for 20 minutes. This is also the episode with Gene Snitsky punting a baby into the crowd, which Dave thought was lame. But Dave has hated this entire baby gimmick from day one. There was a looooooong Simon Dean segment that deaded the whole momentum of the show, with fat jokes and potty humor. Everyone, live crowd especially, hated it but Vince apparently loved it because of course he did. In fact, there was a full 50-minute stretch (of a 2 hour show) that didn't have any wrestling at all, and it killed the crowd.
Jakks Pacific is facing a class action lawsuit. If you recall, WWE is suing them to get out of their deal with Jakks due to a bunch of falsified records and other shenanigans. Well, this was news to Jakks shareholders as well. They are suing, claiming that Jakks basically lied about its deal with WWE and didn't disclose that WWE was trying to get out of their deal. Since WWE filed their lawsuit, Jakks' stock has fallen by nearly 50% and shareholders are piiiiissed.
WWE is really high on OVW rookie Chris Masters. Dave says he's 6'4 and built like a Greek god, so he's not surprised that Vince loves him and figures he'll be the next guy brought to the main roster before he's ready (indeed, they start airing vignettes for his "Masterpiece" gimmick within the next few weeks. Vince was nothing if not predictable.)
In a funny note, WWE was recently at Universal Studios the day after TNA's tapings to film a Royal Rumble commercial (this is all Dave says for now but we'll have quite a bit more on what happened there in the coming weeks....)
Debra Marshall, the ex-wife of Steve Austin, was backstage visiting Raw this week. Dave notes that her reputation within WWE isn't great. In regards to the Austin/Debra domestic violence incident last year, while nobody approved of Austin's actions, many wrestlers said they weren't surprised and noted that Debra is the kind of woman who could drive a man to the brink of wanting to do it. I really want to clarify that this is not Dave saying this. He specifies that this is what multiple people within WWE have said about her, and 2004 WWE is a pretty toxic, shitty place.
Ric Flair's daughter Ashley Fliehr led her high school volleyball team to its 2nd straight state championship this weekend. Ric Flair and, for whatever reason, Hurricane were in attendance to watch.
Latest WWE developmental signings are UK wrestler Paul Burchill and Antonio Thomas, as well as former ECW wrestler Chilly Willy. Nick Mitchell, who was cut from Tough Enough, has also been offered a developmental deal. (Nick becomes Nicky in Spirit Squad. Antonio is a member of the short-lived Heart Throbs tag team, and Burchill eventually does the pirate gimmick. Chilly Willy never got out of OVW).