Wrestling Observer Rewinder

November 29, 2004

Stop me if you've heard this one before: TNA is in bad financial shape. In the 2 years they have been funding it, Panda Energy has lost approximately $15 million keeping TNA afloat. Due to TV production costs and bringing in bigger names, TNA's losses have been around $200-250k per week in recent months. Other than WCW, no other wrestling company in history has burned through money at such a rate, and worse, TNA doesn't have a lot to show for it. Their only real source of revenue is the weekly PPVs (merch, ad revenue, etc. doesn't really amount to much) and it's clearly not enough. It's believed the recent Victory Road PPV did around 30,000 buys which they considered something of a success but they would need to run monthly PPVs at around 70-80,000 buys in order to stop the bleeding, and that's just not feasible right now. It's been said that people wouldn't be surprised at all if Panda sold the company or just shut it down entirely within the next 90 days. As mentioned last week, Impact is moving to bi-weekly tapings to save money while XPlosion is being retooled as a recap show.
As for what's happening behind the scenes? DRAMA! Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter reportedly don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things and some have claimed Jerry Jarrett has tried to undermine his son because he feels Jeff is veering too close to the Vince Russo style of booking, while others have claimed Jerry is too old school and hasn't kept up with the last decade of wrestling and is out of touch. Jerry recently made Dusty Rhodes the head booker, which isn't helping him beat the allegations of being out of touch. Rhodes hasn't had a successful booking year since 1986 and everything he's booked since then, including large stretches of time as head booker of WCW, was mostly one failure after another. He's also had a habit of booking himself in top spots, which is the last thing TNA needs right now. There's people like Gabe Sapolsky out there, who is currently booking ROH and doing an incredible job of creating new stars, and he doesn't even get an offer. Just straight to what worked in 1986. Not that Dave thinks Sapolsky would leave ROH, but he's clearly the best booker in American wrestling right now and TNA never even considered him as an option. Meanwhile, Russo is totally gone from TNA and has told others that he thinks the company will die when Dixie Carter has her baby (she's pregnant) because he thinks she'll be too focused on her new baby to run the company. Dixie has also had to field complaints from other wrestlers who feel Jeff is booking everything around himself and some have threatened to quit if changes weren't made, which presumably played a role in Jerry making Dusty the new booker.
Notes from tje WWE shareholder conference call: profits were down this quarter, but the board of directors voted to double the dividend payout to shareholders, with nearly $6 million being paid out to Vince alone. WWE has managed to transfer their expensive ass Times Square restaurant lease over to Hard Rock Cafe, which gets WWE out of deal that was bleeding them of money every year. They have purchased 2 new scripts for WWE Films productions. The Triple H movie "La Jornada" is still expected to start filming in February (nope). Linda McMahon noted that the WWE 24/7 channel idea has been launched on a trial basis in certain markets in Pennsylvania but it doesn't seem to be a hit so far. They're hoping to get clearances in more locations before publicizing a huge launch for it. And a final note, a shareholder named Roger Schaffer of Molson Capital Management was banned from being on the call. The reason? In the past, Shaffer asked Linda several legitimately tough questions about WWE's creative slump around the time things were starting to plummet. They didn't like that, and as a result, he wasn't allowed to join the call this time.
"The Rise & Fall of ECW" DVD has been an insane success. Dave hasn't seen it yet because he hasn't been able to get ahold of a copy. It sold out almost immediately in basically every store and has turned ECW into the talk of the business. So he doesn't want to review it himself until he's seen it, but the DVD has gotten rave reviews from every corner and at least two unnamed wrestlers who were vital to ECW's success have told Dave that it was a very honest and accurate DVD, something nobody could say about the Monday Night Wars DVD, which was full of revisionist history. From here, Dave shares a LOOOOONG review written by a long-time subscriber, and I ain't bothering with some rando's review.
The success of the ECW DVD has got people talking again about a possible ECW revival under the WWE umbrella. Dave talks about how they briefly brought ECW back during the botched Invasion angle, with Stephanie McMahon as the "owner" which basically killed that ECW revival from the start. They could try again and bring back ECW as a rival faction that feuds with WWE. Dave thinks that might work but you'd have to learn from 2001 and actually let ECW look strong for awhile instead of burying them immediately. They could also bring ECW back as a whole separate brand and Dave thinks that one "simply isn't feasible." WWE doesn't have enough marketable talent for the shows they have already. Adding a 3rd brand would be insanity (lol). You couldn't book house shows. WWE house shows for Raw and Smackdown are already money losers, so ECW house shows would only do worse. They could rename Heat or Velocity and use that as an ECW show, but that wouldn't be cost effective and those shows have shitty time slots anyway that wouldn't sustain a whole separate brand. Plus, a WWE-version of ECW would never live up to the original because that style of show won't fly under Vince McMahon. Everything that made ECW the alternative is what WWE already copied a few years ago and are now trying to get away from (hardcore matches and whatnot). You could still have Heyman in charge, but what roster? Almost all the original ECW stars are washed up, banged up, and past their prime years. Several others are signed to TNA because WWE already didn't want them (Raven, Shane Douglas, etc.) And all the rest are names like CW Anderson, Steve Corino, Justin Credible, Danny Doring, etc. Most of those names don't fit into WWE's mindset of pro wrestling and WWE has never shown interest in hiring them in the past, and even if they do, are you really going to build a 3rd brand around guys like Chris Chetti and E.Z. Money? Several major WWE stars are former ECW alumni, but guys like Jericho, Benoit, and Guerrero are too important to WWE to be moved off of the primetime A-shows and put into an ECW revival that's doomed to fail. All of that being said, Dave does think that a one-time ECW reunion PPV would probably draw big for nostalgia reasons, but trying to revive ECW as its own standalone brand just doesn't make any sense (this entire paragraph is hilarious given what we know happened).
Karam Gaber, the Egyptian amateur wrestler who won a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics, has turned down offers from both WWE and PRIDE, instead signing a multi-fight deal with K-1 to do MMA in Japan and will debut on the big New Year's Eve show. It's rumored that he may face Kazuyuki Fujita and if so, Dave worries for Gaber. He'll instantly be the greatest amateur wrestler to ever cross over to MMA, but he has no striking or submission training and only a month to prepare. In the Japanese media, they're playing this up as a big coup for MMA and Japan. After Rulon Gardner also turned down a WWE offer to sign with PRIDE, the story in Japan is that WWE is falling behind when it comes to signing top prospects. Dave isn't sure Gardner would have amounted to much in WWE anyway. Gaber is another story,. He has a great look and a ton of charisma, and Kurt Angle was pushing hard for WWE to sign him. Dave thinks he might have become a star in WWE if he could get the in-ring part down, but alas, K-1 it is. When asked why he made the decision, Gaber said simply, "WWE is not real fighting." So I guess we'll see how this goes for him (spoiler: Gaber gets knocked the fuck out by Fujita in 1 minute and never does MMA again. Fake fighting doesn't sound so bad now, huh?)
There was a backstage incident between Bob Holly and Rene Dupree this week at a Smackdown house show. But not all backstage backstage. There was a hardcore match with Dupree/Kenzo Suzuki vs. Holly/Charlie Haas. According to the reports Dave has heard, during the match, seemingly for no reason, Holly absolutely blasted Dupree with a hard chair shot that left the chair dented that left Dupree laying in a fetal position outside the ring. Holly then got down on top of him and began wailing away on him with legit punches that left Dupree's eye immediately swollen shut. Dupree, realizing he was being attacked for real, said "fuck this" and got away from Holly and walked out of the match. As he headed backstage while Suzuki and Haas went to the finish, Holly then chased after Dupree towards the back (while Suzuki and Haas were still in the ring) and there's reports that Holly tried to go after Dupree a second time backstage. The only thing Dave has heard from other wrestlers is that they're not surprised this happened and claimed that Dupree has a ton of heat in the locker room. A lot of the vets have tried to pull him aside and talk to him about whatever the issue is, but to no avail. Dupree is only 20-years-old and therefore unable to even rent a car in a lot of cities, and that's kind of an important part of the job. Evidently Holly let Dupree use his rental car and Dupree got some sort of ticket. He never showed up to court and a bench warrant was issued for Holly, who had to fly back to the city in question and appear in court to take care of the issue. It's believed Dupree never told Holly about the ticket and wasn't as apologetic about it as Holly felt he should have been. And, well, Holly decided to handle it in front of everybody. (Below is an excerpt from Dupree telling his side of the story).
As of press time, no word on any punishment. Holly has plausible deniability in that he can claim he was just working stiff and didn't mean to hurt him, but it was clear to everyone watching that this was a premeditated attack. In fact, it's being talked about as one of those things that everyone in the locker room knew was coming except for Dupree. Holly is often used as the unofficial "locker room enforcer" by the company and this seems to be one of those situations. Undertaker, the Smackdown locker room's unofficial leader, defended Holly by saying he was "just taking care of company business." Dupree is widely disliked and many felt this was his due punishment. Within the world of wrestling, this kind of thing isn't unusual but it's a perfect example of why wrestling is so different from the real world. Dave recaps the Tough Enough incident between Holly and Matt Cappotelli and notes that while some spoke out against Holly, there were a lot of wrestlers in the locker room who supported him there too, feeling that newcomers have to pay their dues and that's all it was. That's just the locker room culture baby. At least they weren't playing video games like a bunch of nerds, am I right?!
Three Memphis police officers and a stripper are under arrest and facing a whole list of federal charges, one of which is an alleged attempt to rob Jerry Lawler's home. The cops are accused of getting kickbacks from local clubs in exchange for warning them in advance of vice raids, transporting women across state lines for prostitution, meth and ecstasy distribution charges, and more. But the big story was that they were conspiring to rob Lawler's home along with a 21-year-old local stripper. The mastermind of the plot was police veteran David Tate, who is the son of local WREG news anchorman Jerry Tate. The stripper, a lady named April Veach, previously dated Lawler but is now dating Officer Tate. Veach informed Tate that Lawler kept $200,000 in cash stashed away inside two jukeboxes in his home, and that he's never there on Monday nights (due to being at Raw) so it would be an easy target. The plan was to station a police lookout car up the road who would then be able to warn the others of any 911 calls that were placed while the robbery was in progress.
Somehow or another, federal investigators got wind of this plan and began monitoring Tate's phone calls. He was heard discussing the plan with the other police officers who would be in on the robbery. Veach is a 21-year-old stripper and Hooters waitress that Lawler later admitted to having known for two years (....) and confirmed that she had been inside his home on multiple occasions. During the recorded phone calls, Tate allegedly said that he was willing to shoot Lawler or anyone else in the home if he had to, and also promised Veach a larger share of the loot since she knew where the money was stashed. They apparently discussed their plans with an undercover FBI agent as well. Tate claimed to own a Pizza Hut delivery uniform and planned to go to the front door disguised as a pizza man to confirm the house was empty. Needless to say, police intervened and arrested everyone before anything could happen. After the story broke, Lawler invited news reporters to his home and opened up his jukeboxes to show that there's no money hidden there (well yeah, not anymore). Lawler also confirmed he doesn't own a gun and said he was extremely alarmed at the news that they were willing to kill him if necessary (I remember this story when it happened, it was big news here locally).
After 9 years of intense hatred and beef with Antonio Pena, hell has frozen over: Konnan will make his return to AAA next month, teaming with Rikishi to face Cibernetico and La Parka. Konnan, the biggest drawing star in the history of AAA, left in 1996 to form his own promotion (Promo Azteca) and in the process, made a mortal enemy out of Pena. Seems they've finally squashed it though.
Lots of people have been asking Dave if Mistico is eligible for the Rookie of the Year award in the Observer awards this year. The answer is no. Although he began with the Mistico gimmick this year, he debuted in 1998 and was wrestling as Astro Boy as far back as 2001 on the main CMLL shows. So no, he's not a rookie. But he's damn incredible.
Ron "The Truth" Killings debuted for IWA in Puerto Rico this week, teaming with Konnan, and he did such a great job that they want him back ASAP. Usually, because he's so popular there, Konnan always gets the hot tags in his matches for the big pop, but by the end of the tour, they switched it around so Killings would get the hot tag because he had gotten so over with the fans. Time is a flat circle.
Apolo and wife/valet Havana no-showed several recent IWA shows and are believed to be trying to jump to WWC. However, IWA is insisting that they have Apolo under contract and he can't work anywhere else. There's a belief that he may be trying to get fired, but IWA won't fire him and instead have suspended him without pay (yeah, looks like that contract had him locked in. He eventually returns to IWA).
Antonio Inoki has already given up on his hand-picked president for NJPW, Masakazu Kusama. Inoki went to the press this week saying Kusama should resign and said his plans for running live shows in China will be a money-loser. Inoki also bashed HUSTLE for ruining pro wrestling and wasn't happy that NJPW recently worked with them, which was allegedly Inoki's idea in the first place but I guess he's casting blame on Kusama since it flopped. Speaking of, he defended his decision to change the recent Osaka Dome card around, saying the original lineup wouldn't have drawn at all. Most within NJPW disagree with that, feeling Inoki's last-minute changes resulted in canceling the 2 big matches people were looking forward to and replaced them with matches nobody wanted to see. The show didn't draw at all as a result, but of course, Inoki is taking no blame for that.
Sabu was recently released from the hospital after spending 7 weeks there dealing with some sort of virus that left him partially paralyzed and unable to walk for months. No one can really figure out what it was but Sabu is under the impression he picked up the virus in Puerto Rico while working down there. He's out of the hospital but not really doing much better physically. He's also in a bad financial situation because spending nearly 2 months in the hospital when you have no medical insurance is expensive. TNA's Scott D'Amore is working to put together a benefit show for him and a lot of TNA wrestlers are working it.
Ernie Ladd's stomach cancer has gone into remission. Last year, he was given 3-6 months to live but he beat those odds. A few weeks ago, before the election, Ladd got a phone call from President George W. Bush, who called to wish him well. Ladd has been a major activist and donor to the Republican party for years in Texas and knew Bush well from when Bush was governor and Ladd was doing ministry work in prisons.
There's a new promotion called Fusion running a debut show in NJ in a couple weeks and everyone believes Rob Feinstein is secretly behind it. Apparently one of the big tip-offs is that Tommy Dreamer will be appearing on the show, because he and Feinstein remain friends (2025 update: yup, they're still friends)
Hey, speaking of...CM Punk worked an IWA Mid-South show and cut a scathing promo on Rob Feinstein. Punk, who was wearing a Perverted Justice t-shirt (the organization that busted Feinstein), cut a promo saying he almost didn't work this show because Ian Rotten was selling IWA tapes to "the boy toucher" for him to sell, and he refuses to put money in Feinstein's pocket. But Punk said he's sympathetic to Rotten's situation (IWA is basically broke and got a life-saving influx of money by making a deal with Feinstein's RF Video) but Punk said there are other places to get IWA tapes. You can get them directly from IWA, from SmartMarkVideo, or if you really want, you can get them from "the guy who tried to solicit a 14-year-old boy for sex."
AP News ran a story on Joe Anoa'i, the younger brother of Rosey. It noted that Joe is a 255-pound defensive lineman at Georgia Tech and has made 11 tackles for losses this season. In the story, he is quoted as saying he has no interest in going into pro wrestling (and thus, we never heard from Joe Anoa'i again).
Randy Savage's deal with TNA is for 8 dates. After he walked out following the PPV, he made several demands to return, which TNA gave in to (despite several in management thinking they were ridiculous). Savage gets limo service to and from his home in Tampa to Orlando for each show. His two "security guards" (Ron Harris and Brian Adams) get $1000 per night (more than many of the wrestlers are earning), and that Jimmy Hart can't be anywhere on the premises when he is there, nor in the production truck or on headsets when he is on TV. When Savage was out there this past week, he specifically had Harris watching the gorilla position to make sure Hart wasn't around. The whole time he was backstage, Savage only took his heavy coat off once and it was said his arms looked pretty shriveled up and that he's going to have to wear long sleeves if he actually wrestles because he's not anywhere close to ring shape. Savage also demanded his own private dressing room. All of these demands, TNA agreed to.
On their tapings this week (the first ones booked by Dusty Rhodes), they directed fans to go online to vote if they should air the WWE footage they filmed at the commercial shoot. Dave isn't sure about this move. The footage reportedly isn't anything special, and airing this on TV opens TNA up to a lawsuit that they would likely lose if they show any WWE-owned likenesses, and lord knows TNA doesn't need any other issues that require them to spend money. Dave just doesn't see the point (kinda the same vibes as AEW promising to show the Punk footage).
WWE's upcoming New Year's Revolution show in Puerto Rico is already a success. Fans began forming a line at 4:30am for tickets and when they went on sale, they sold over 10,000 within the first day (arena holds 18,000). It's also significantly more expensive than any IWA or WWC show (their tickets usually top out at $15, while the lowest for the WWE PPV is $40). Given the high ticket prices and the fact that WWE doesn't have much in the way of TV in Puerto Rico, this was thought to be a roll of the dice, but it clearly worked out. It'll be WWE's first show on the island since 1985 and they're expecting a molten hot crowd. Meanwhile, the Armaggeddon PPV for next week only has around 2,000 tickets sold as of press time.
Bret Hart was interviewed on a radio show in Toronto. He noted that the Hart family house has been sold and that it forced a lot of family members to let go of the past they had been clinging to. He also said he had no interest in ever working with WWE unless he receives a sincere apology. He's received private apologies from Vince but has always been skeptical of it, especially since Vince then goes out in public and continues to defend what he did and has never apologized publicly. When asked about Ric Flair, Hart said that he was never considered a good wrestler by other wrestlers. "Must be a different group of wrestlers," Dave says. Bret then called Flair the "ass wipe of WWE" (thanks Beavis) and said he only rose to the top because of political connections.
Notes from 11/18 Smackdown: the Cena/Carlito match only lasted 24 seconds, since they had to get the US title off Carlito without him really wrestling. He took an FU and that was basically it. They referred to Kenzo Suzuki as a martial arts expert, which Dave points out is false, since Suzuki has literally never done any martial arts training whatsoever. But in WWE, every Japanese wrestler is a ninja. They had a capture the flag thing with the Tough Enough guys trying to get past the Bashams. All failed, but Daniel Puder came closest.
Notes from 11/22 Raw: this show opened with a WWE parody of the controversial Monday Night Football/Desperate Housewives opening with Trish Stratus, Shelton Benjamin, and Vince McMahon. (2025 update: if you don't remember this controversy, in 2004, the opening to MNF featured a tie-in with the show Desperate Housewives in which Desperate Housewives actress Nicollette Sheridan tries to seduce Philadelphia Eagles player Terrell Owens in the locker room. Because the world is stupid, this turned into a controversy not just because of the sexuality, but because of race. Owens is black, Sheridan white. Somehow, that became a problem for people and WWE decided to parody it). Anyway, WWE spent the whole week beforehand trying to alert every media outlet on earth that they were going to be doing this parody, but no one seemed to care and it got no mainstream publicity for WWE. But Dave thought it was at least pretty funny. Chris Benoit is the GM this week and booked himself a cage match with Triple H for the title. Triple H and Batista continued teasing issues with each other and 2 unidentified women were shown gossiping about it backstage. That would be diva search washout Candice Michelle and OVW's Melina Perez and Dave really hopes they're not splitting Melina apart from Mercury and Nitro because their act is perfect and they need to all be brought up together. Ontario indie wrestler Robbie McAllister also made a cameo (one of the future Highlanders). This all led to an angle where Batista pretended to attack Triple H backstage and turned babyface, which got Triple H out of the match. But then they revealed they were in on it together afterwards. Dave notes that this whole thing actually got Batista WAY over and the crowd was chanting for him like crazy. Way more effective than the Orton turn, and the Batista turn was a swerve.
Notes from 11/23 Smackdown tapings: Daniel Rodimer was eliminated from Tough Enough, in a big surprise. Daniel Puder, meanwhile, got a bigger babyface reaction than everyone on the show except for Undertaker, and received loud "UFC" chants. They had arm wrestling contests with the remaining contestants and apparently Vince McMahon was running around backstage placing bets with anyone who would take him up on it that Puder would beat everybody (sounds like he did). Mike The Miz then cut a promo trashing Puder, which got him booed by the crowd. With his celebrity status, this was Miz's contest to lose and he may have cost himself by turning himself heel with the voting public. That's the only things of note from this whole show.
Edge was on TSN's Off The Record debating the NHL lockout. Edge said he respects hockey players more than other athletes but said all pro athletes are overpaid. He said he has to pay for his own rental and make his own hotel reservations, but he would never complain about that. NHL player Sean Avery, who was on the panel also, responded to Edge saying that wrestlers need to get a better union. When Edge responded that they don't have a union at all, Avery seemed stunned (yeah, Edge talking with pride about how he has to pay for his own stuff is peak WWE Stockholm Syndrome).
Shelton Benjamin did an interview this week, confirming that he had no idea he was going to be Jericho's opponent at Taboo Tuesday until the results were revealed. He also confirmed that he had no idea about the title change until about a minute into the match when the referee conveyed the news to both he and Jericho, and they called the rest on the fly (Jericho has confirmed all of this as well). He talks about Charlie Haas still being his best friend in the business and said he's going to be the best man at Haas and Jackie Gayda's wedding. He also says that back when they were a tag team in the OVW days, Haas had the hots for Gayda and made it known so it's cool that they ended up together.
As noted from next week's Smackdown spoilers, Daniel Rodimer was cut from Tough Enough. It was made clear to Dave weeks ago that even if Rodimer lost, he would still be getting a developmental deal. In a newspaper story, Rodimer talked about how he was uncomfortable with the Mae Young segment he was involved in and said he doesn't want to be involved in anything immoral on TV. "Good luck, guy," Dave says. With a $1 million contract at stake, the contestants are starting to get a little aggressive and snippy with each other. Mike The Miz was complaining about the Bashams/capture-the-flag segment, saying he had to go up against both Bashams while they were fresh, whereas Daniel Puder got to go last, after the Bashams were already blown up from wrestling down the previous 4 contestants. Dave says there is some merit to that, but also Miz never stood a chance no matter what order it was. The Bashams absolutely turfed him, and even Puder didn't make it all the way.
Someone who is half-Arabic writes in about the Muhammad Hassan character and complains about how WWE can't even be bothered to get the facts right. Muhammad Hassan is an Arabic name but his manager Daivari is an Iranian name and Iranians aren't Arabs. Daivari speaks Farsi, which isn't even the same language and to pair them up as Arabic shows gross ignorance on WWE's part. Dave responds to the letter noting that this is the same company that makes Chinese food jokes about Japanese wrestlers, so expecting them to know or care about the differences between Arabic and Farsi or Iranians and Arabs is probably expecting too much.