December 20, 2004
- ★ www.rewinder.pro - Mobile-friendly archive
- ★ Rewind Highlights - YouTube playlist
- For our final Observer Rewind of 2004, we open with a preview of the upcoming New Year's Eve MMA festivities in Japan. This year will not be as big as last year, with nothing expected to pull 54 million viewers the way last year's Bob Sapp vs. Akebono fight did. Also, no Inoki show this year. Just K-1 vs. PRIDE. It will feature Sapp's first fight in several months, after being away filming movies. Sapp is the biggest combat sports draw in Japanese history, but he's been exposed in recent fights and Dave expects Jerome LeBanner to beat him (ends up being a draw). Former WWE/WCW wrestler Sean O'Haire is working the K-1 show as well as sometime-NJPW wrestler Kazuyuki Fujita, but that's pretty much it as far as wrestling involvement this time around.
- Dave has finally seen the Rise & Fall of ECW DVD. A lot of the time, when people hype things up as the "greatest" thing ever, it doesn't live up to the hype. This is not one of those cases. The Rise & Fall of ECW is, without question, the greatest DVD WWE has ever produced. There may be a few minor complaints (overly spinning WCW as the heels, not really telling much of the true story or details of the WWF/ECW relationship) but those are trivial gripes. Overall, this was as honest and accurate a wrestling documentary that has ever been produced. It also showed how much ECW was Paul Heyman. They were intertwined and this story is as much of a rise & fall of Heyman (financially and emotionally) as it is ECW the company. Unlike many of his employees, however, Heyman always had a safety net with WWE if/when ECW ever failed. Some people in the documentary maybe didn't get enough credit for their roles in ECW's success. Shane Douglas and New Jack in particular probably got short-changed the most.
- This review is forever long so let's breeze through it: Dave talks about all the reasons ECW failed (Heyman sucks at business, TNN fucked them over, they didn't appeal to a wide enough audience, couldn't secure a new TV deal in time, InDemand withholding PPV payoffs, etc.). Dave says ECW pretty much always lost money and within the industry, people always suspected it was a losing business model that would fail eventually, and inevitably it did. Losing Taz and the Dudleyz to the WWF right as they got a TV deal hurt a lot. He talks about how Heyman offered Taz a ridiculously high contract ($380k per year) that ECW absolutely could not afford, in a desperate attempt to keep him. But when the math didn't math right, Taz went to WWE. But he also notes that, back in the mid-90s, when Taz broke his neck and was out for 9 months, Heyman paid him every single week even though he didn't have a written contract. Near the end, RVD was their only real true star but he missed a lot of time due to a broken ankle and his wife's health issues, before finally quitting over not being paid. It was interesting that, even now, neither McMahon or Bischoff seems willing to give Paul Heyman the credit he deserves for coming up with many of the concepts and angles that WWF and WCW later took and did huge business with. There used to be a running joke about how Kevin Sullivan would steal ideas from ECW during the time his then-wife Nancy was working in ECW. The whole "Attitude" turnaround in WWF was directly influenced by ECW. He talks about how Tod Gordon bought the promotion with Heyman as his partner and booker in the early 90s and a funny story is that Gordon was hanging out with Ric Flair one night and Flair warned him that some day, Heyman would steal the company from him. Which is kiiiinda what happened.
- Dave recaps a million different moments in ECW history that are covered in the documentary: Taz (under contract to WWE) winning the ECW title from Mike Awesome after he jumped to WCW, only to have Vince job Taz out on TV at Madison Square Garden a few days later to Triple H (who also beat up the next ECW champion Tommy Dreamer at the same time). Taz was only ECW champion for 9 days but during those 9 days, Vince McMahon had control of the ECW champion and as a result Taz did 4 jobs (twice to Eddie Guerrero, once to Triple H, and once to Crash Holly) before losing it to Dreamer at the next ECW PPV. Dave feels like this whole ordeal completely killed the ECW title and on the DVD, even McMahon sheepishly admits that it probably didn't help and said he doesn't really know why he did it. We get the story of Tod Gordon and Bill Alfonso allegedly trying to help WCW poach ECW wrestlers, which led to Gordon being forced out. Dave wishes they could have interviewed some of the non-WWE employees, like Raven and Douglas, both of whom work for TNA currently, but he understands why they couldn't. But no Sandman, no Tod Gordon, no Terry Funk, etc. They're all people who should have been interviewed. So it's not perfect, but overall, this DVD is incredible and is as close to perfect as any wrestling documentary ever released. And this is where I'm stopping: this review is like 10,000 words. I couldn't find an easy free link for this online, but if you haven't seen it, watch it. It still remains one of the best things WWE's ever produced. Especially the full DVD set with all the extras.
- David Flair will be debuting with AJPW in January, and will even be main eventing the 1/5 show teaming with Keiji Muto and Kaz Hayashi (David's AJPW run lasts a whole 6 days and he never returns).
- Shinya Hashimoto fiiiiinally had his long-needed shoulder surgery on 12/10. The operation reportedly took 9 hours and there's no word on when, or even if, he'll be able to return (sadly, he never has the chance but that's a story for 2005).
- AJ Styles will be working the 2/25 Ring of Honor show. He was given permission by TNA for a one-time appearance. If you recall, neither Styles or Christopher Daniels, who were ROH mainstays, have been allowed to work there for nearly a year because TNA won't allow it. The originally excuse was due to the Rob Feinstein situation, but even after it became clear that Feinstein was no longer involved with ROH, TNA has continued to block wrestlers from working there. Which pretty much confirmed what everyone suspected, that TNA is threatened by ROH's growing popularity and critical success. Reportedly, Styles has been complaining frequently about not being allowed to work ROH dates even after Feinstein was out, so TNA letting him do this one-off is basically their way of trying to appease him.
- TNA's show on FSN is officially moving to 4pm on Fridays with a Saturday night replay. Still not a great time slot but better than what they had. Also, they signed a deal with Toy Biz to release action figures.
- The 1/16 TNA PPV will likely be headlined by Jeff Jarrett vs. Monty Brown for the NWA title, although the plan is for Brown to win a match earlier in the night to earn the title match later on. "In other words, they don't have the guts to advertise Jarrett vs. Brown." Dave says they asked Sting a couple weeks ago to do it, but he turned them down.
- Triple H did a lot of media this week and of course every word of it is being scrutinized: he said he doesn't use steroids (....) but defended their use by saying pro wrestling isn't a competitive sport so even if he did, who cares, right guys?? When asked why the business was down lately, he said because Austin, Foley, and Rock are gone. He confirmed that Rock will be back for Wrestlemania 21 (nope) and that Lesnar was looking to return, but he didn't sound positive on it. He basically said Lesnar hadn't become a big enough star in WWE for them to bring him back after the way he left, and claimed his leaving was "the dumbest move ever." He admitted that the locker room was suspicious of him when he first began dating Stephanie but these days, they know he only cares about the good of the business and the only criticism he gets are from dirtsheet writers and internet fans who don't know what they're talking about because they haven't been in the business. He also pointed out that he was a WWF world champion and was pitching ideas with the creative team before he ever started dating Stephanie, which is true. He confirmed that Bob Holly came very close to being fired for the Rene Dupree incident. He said he never wants to leave wrestling but if his acting career takes off, he could see himself doing 6 months of acting and 6 months of wrestling. While promoting the Blade movie, he kinda ripped Wesley Snipes a new one. He said Snipes took liberties with the stunt men and hurt them for real, never even saying sorry. Dave notes that basically everyone who worked on the movie has talked shit about Snipes in recent weeks, so Triple H isn't alone in that (yeah he was famously awful on that set).
- One final interview note from Triple H's media run: when asked about the Sean Waltman/Chyna sex tape being released, he said he and Waltman are friends and that Waltman was pissed when Chyna sold their sex tape to a porn company. But Waltman decided not to fight it because, and I quote, "at least my hose looks big." Triple H said Chyna had gone from the nicest person he ever knew to a totally miserable person. Yeah, your boyfriend cheating on you and dumping you and then having you fired will do that. Anyway, he kept going, saying Chyna blew hew career in WWE, blew her Hollywood career, and blew any chance of ever returning to WWE by releasing the porn movie. And yet Waltman (who, let's be clear, legally had to sign off on it to be released) gets to return all the time. Makes sense.
- Here are some things that are being discussed for Wrestlemania 21, but none of this is set in stone: Steve Austin is expected to be involved somehow but it's unlikely that he will actually wrestle on the show. Rock is having meetings with WWE sometime in the next couple of weeks to see if they can come up with something for him. He has a few ideas of his own he will pitch, and there's been talk of JBL defending the WWE title against Rock. If that happens, JBL would have to retain since Rock isn't staying. Also, doing this would delay the planned John Cena win. Oh yeah, about that: if the Rock thing doesn't happen, then expect Cena to win the title from JBL. Vince also really wants to do a Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley match based on the real-life heat they have, but Foley refuses to do it because he doesn't want to "reward" Flair for what he wrote in the book by helping him get a big Wrestlemania payday at his expense. For his part, Flair is pretty annoyed at the idea that Foley feels like he can "reward" him anything. Foley has pushed for a match with Vince, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
- Other Wrestlemania 21 discussed plans: there's talk about bringing Hogan in as both a Hall of Fame inductee and to maybe wrestle a match. They've discussed Hogan vs. Flair since they're comfortable with each other and Flair could probably drag something watchable out of him, plus they wouldn't have to sacrifice a future star at Hogan's expense. Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show has been discussed since Lesnar is interested in returning, but WWE hasn't even been returning Lesnar's phone calls because they're trying to make him squirm a little. They're trying to give the impression that they don't have interest in bringing him back, to humble him for having the audacity to leave in the first place. If they do bring him back, it will likely be after Wrestlemania because they're not itching to let him waltz back in the door and get a plum spot on the biggest show of the year. As you can tell, the company is still pretty salty at Brock for quitting. That being said, as we get closer to the date of the show, a lot of people think Vince will feel pressure to deliver something big for Wrestlemania and will probably cave in and call Lesnar. But as of now, Vince is determined to prove that they don't need him.
- You may recall that Luther Reigns tried to get out of the "voluntary" trip to Iraq for Tribute to the Troops, but was pressured by management to go anyway. Well, not the case for RVD. He also told them he wasn't going and he stuck to it. John Laurinaitis tried to put the pressure on him also, but RVD wouldn't budge. So then it went up the chain to Vince, who also pressured him, but RVD stood down Vince and still refused. And ultimately, he did not go. So if they make an example out of him in the next month or so, you'll know why. (Yeah, this is a pretty famous story and indeed, RVD got a TON of heat for it. But then he tore his ACL immediately after and missed all of 2005, so they didn't really get a chance to punish him on TV or job him out. But Jim Ross later said that Vince looked at RVD refusing to go as "an unpatriotic act" and says he doesn't think Vince ever forgave him and thinks the entire rest of RVD's career in WWE suffered as a result. Jonathan Coachman also refused to go on one of these trips and was punished by being booked to have Vince's personal enforcer Undertaker beat the shit out of him on TV).
- Paul Heyman is still out doing interviews to promote the ECW DVD, which means some juicy tidbits: he says he was pissed when he first learned WWE was going to do an ECW DVD because he didn't think they would do it justice and claims he refused to even watch it until after it came out when RVD, Tazz, Dudleys, and Dreamer all assured him it as good and admits he was pleasantly surprised at how accurate it was. He said he believes RVD and Rey Mysterio are 2 people who should be utilized more and better, and believes they could both be much bigger stars than they currently are. He called Eric Bischoff delusional for not admitting how much he stole from ECW. He did admit that Bischoff was a far better executive than he was. Dave disputes this and thinks if the roles were reversed, Heyman with Ted Turner's deep pockets wouldn't have booked WCW out of business. Meanwhile, Bischoff never could have grown ECW from a nothing-happening indie into a national promotion the way Heyman did. Heyman kinda says as much in the interview: "I couldn’t get inDemand to pay us money at the end that would have kept us alive. Bischoff had the opportunity to get hundreds of millions of dollars of funding from Turner Broadcasting to fund his dreams. So, he is a far better business man than I am, but when it comes to the creation of style of character, I don’t think he held a candle to what we put together in ECW."
- Finally, when asked about relaunching ECW, Heyman said it would require a huge investment of his time and at his age (the ripe old age of 39) he doesn't seem too interested. Dave notes Heyman has young kids now, which he didn't have during the ECW days, and is no longer 100% married to the wrestling business. However, he did say that if they had network backing and financing, he would do it in a heartbeat.
- Notes from 12/16 Smackdown: Kurt Angle vs. JBL was the first serious match Angle has worked in months since he's been injured. Luckily for him, the ankle lock is super over and Angle has about a million different, smooth ways to work it into the match, so he's able to transition that into a lower impact style but you can still see how banged up he is and he's definitely slowed down a lot. This was also the show were they announced Daniel Puder as the Tough Enough winner. After 2 months of Tough Enough eating up TONS of TV time, Puder's win and post-celebration was basically treated like an afterthought. Already getting the vibe that they've lost interest.
- It was noted last week that Vince McMahon wanted JBL to remain as WWE champion until Summerslam 2005. If that happens, it would make JBL the longest-reigning champion since Hogan's first title reign. But word is this won't happen because Cena is now expected to win the belt from him at Wrestlemania. Anyway, this prompts Dave to look up the other top 3 longest title reigns in the past 10 years: Triple H, Kevin Nash, and Shawn Michaels. Oh hey, damn near the whole Kliq, what a coincidence. Of those three, Nash was the lowest-drawing house show champion in WWE history up until now (Dave hasn't done the math but he's pretty certain numbers under JBL are worse). Shawn Michaels was only slightly better and came at a time when WCW was kicking the shit out of them. And Triple H's 2002 reign saw the collapse of WWE business post-Attitude era. Kinda funny that the 3 longest reigning champions of modern WWE could arguably all be considered failures and JBL isn't doing so hot either.
- A San Jose newspaper did a story about Puder winning and interviewed several people involved. Puder admitted he choked in the boxing match with Miz at the PPV, saying he was horrible in the fight but was impressed by how well Miz did. Al Snow was quoted saying he expects Puder to become a major superstar. On the show where they were to reveal the winner, WWE apparently tried to work both Puder and Miz. They had them cut pre-taped interviews (that were never planned to air) and led Puder to believe he was going to lose while leading Miz to believe he had won the competition. The idea was to make them believe that so that when the opposite was announced, Puder would appear legitimately happy while Miz would be legitimately devastated. The idea was to try and get genuine reactions and this sounds like a pretty fucked up way to do it. In reality, everyone (even Miz) was well aware that Puder had this thing won and neither of them were fooled by WWE trying to swerve them. Ever since the Puder/Angle incident, there was no question who was getting the majority of the votes. Even on Dave's own personal online polls, Puder was beating everyone by a landslide.
- Various WWE notes: Divas Search winner Christy Hemme is expected to pose for Playboy sometime in 2005. Tough Enough loser Justice Smith signed a developmental deal this week, which means of the 8 competitors, 7 of them have signed. The only one who wasn't offered a developmental deal was Chris Nawrocki. There's talk of posthumously inducting Jim Barnett and Gordon Solie into the WWE Hall of Fame. Chris Jericho's band Fozzy has a new album coming out next month.
- No Way Out is scheduled to have Big Show vs. JBL in some kind of barbed wire match. It's interesting, because the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission has long ago banned barbed wire matches and prevents indie promotions from doing them. But this is WWE, and they have a long history of waltzing into any city in America and breaking all the rules that other companies can't get away with.
- And folks......that's it. Thank you again. Much love and be cool to each other. <3
December 20, 2004
- Brock Lesnar is seemingly returning to pro wrestling. Dave figured he would all along. Nobody with any star-power leaves the business willingly unless their body breaks down on them. Lesnar became one of the biggest stars in the business before stepping away, but he's only 27 and in his prime, so Dave always figured he'd be back. In WWE, he hated the travel, hated being away from his daughter, and hated the wrestling politics. He was also, for the first time in his career, dealing with not being the top guy. After losing the title to Eddie Guerrero and after Wrestlemania 20, he was supposed to feud with Undertaker and basically get squashed in order to help get the revived "dead man" gimmick over strong, but Brock said fuck that and quit the company before it happened. When he left (for a failed attempt to make the NFL), he did a lot of interviews and said a lot of things about wrestling that didn't endear him to WWE or the rest of the locker room. He didn't care because he had no intention of ever returning. But while Lesnar made several million during his brief WWE career, he also has expensive toys: he charters his own plane, owns snowmobiles, multiple cars, and 2 homes. The money wasn't gonna last forever and when the NFL didn't work out, he found himself in a tough spot.
- According to sources, Lesnar reached back out to Vince McMahon recently and got an icy response. Dave suspects that's a negotiation tactic. WWE would love to have Brock back, but they're not going to bend over backwards for him. Lesnar contacted them, which WWE took as a sign that he's running out of money, which means they feel they have the leverage, so they're playing hard ball. Lesnar has openly admitted that he can't handle the full-time WWE schedule. Only Undertaker and Ric Flair, among the current roster, have limited house show schedules and it's felt they've earned those perks while no one else has, so Dave doesn't expect them to offer Lesnar a reduced schedule. (He notes that Kurt Angle has been offered the same reduced schedule but refused it and he chooses to work full-time).
- It's believed Lesnar signed a 1-year non-compete when he left WWE so he wouldn't be able to work anywhere else until March of 2005, which also gives WWE even more negotiating power. However, some sources have indicated that the non-compete is longer (yeah it was waaaaaaaay longer but Dave doesn't seem to know that yet). If that's true, then Lesnar may not be able to hold out, and might be forced into a situation where he has to accept whatever WWE offers him, which is obviously what they want. Lesnar has expressed interest in working for PRIDE in Japan if a WWE return doesn't work out. Dave is iffy on whether a pure amateur wrestler with no submission or striking ability would fare well in MMA. Olympic gold medal winner Karam Gaber is scheduled to fight in Japan next week and he's levels above Lesnar as an amateur wrestler but has no MMA experience, so seeing how Gaber does might be the litmus test (it goes VERY poorly for Gaber lol). It's interesting because back in 2000, when he was coming out of college, Lesnar did an interview with Observer Radio and told Dave at the time that he had no interest in MMA. But that was 5 years ago and the sport has grown a lot since then, and with Lesnar's name value, there's big money in it also. And he would probably be rushed into marquee matches to justify the pay. There's also the option that he could go wrestle in Japan. HUSTLE paid big money for Goldberg. And lord knows Lesnar is basically Antonio Inoki's wet dream so Dave could see Brock ending up in NJPW. But they can't pay anywhere close to what he can earn as a full-time star for WWE. So time will tell, but regardless, Lesnar is apparently making moves. Stay tuned!
- Other notes from the PPV: the pre-show match was Akio/Billy Kidman vs. Chavo/Paul London. It's a shame Kidman and London stole the show at No Mercy, finished with a big angle that got good heat, and the next PPV, they're back in the pre-show again in a nothing match. Dave says nothing kills morale faster than stealing the show and getting no recognition for it. And once again, those 4 guys were the best match on this show that the crowd was super into. RVD/Mysterio retained the tag titles over Dupree/Suzuki. For some reason, they had RVD and Mysterio win the tag titles on TV a week before the PPV and this was the rematch. Dave assumed something would happen here to explain why they did the title switch on TV but nope, not a thing. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Kurt Angle beat Santa Claus in this week's "White Boy Challenge" (yeah that was a thing) and Angle's promo beforehand was fantastic. John Cena beat Jesus, who was working with a groin injury and herniated disc that may require surgery. Cena basically squashed this dude. (Yeah this is his last WWE match, he goes to get surgery after this and then gets released and spends the next several years working in Japan). Cena's US title belt is a new one with a spinner on it, which Dave thinks is cool. Charlie Haas turned heel on both Jackie Gayda and Dawn Marie. Funaki won the cruiserweight title from Spike Dudley and the crowd basically shat all over this because WWE has never given anyone reason to care about the division.
- Oh yeah, the Tough Enough final. Daniel Puder defeated Mike The Miz by decision in a 3-round boxing match (1:00 rounds) and as planned, this was a shoot. Dave hopes it's the last shoot they ever do. By going to a decision, it was a solid moral victory for Mike The Miz because everyone expected him to die. But he hung in for all 3 rounds. Puder was told beforehand that anything other than knocking Miz the fuck out would be considered a failure because he's a "real fighter" and Miz isn't. So he went in hoping to decapitate Miz. But due to the short rounds, the headgear, and the fact that stand-up is the weakest part of Puder's game, he wasn't able to do it. Miz, meanwhile, has spent the last week or two doing nonstop boxing training with MMA fighter Eddie Millis at the Shark Tank gym in California to prepare, sparring with Sean O'Haire and Sylvester Terkay. Even Miz and his crew knew he was expected to lose, so the training focused mostly on surviving, learning how to absorb punches, and avoiding a knockout in order to try and gain at least a moral victory. Seems it worked! In the first round, they both threw ugly punches and while Puder landed more, Miz actually looked like the (slightly) more skilled of the two, and just by having an even first round, it was a good look for him. Second and third rounds were uglier and Miz got tired and nearly dropped, but he hung in despite taking some hard shots. At this point, Puder was clearly winning but still didn't look good at all, especially for someone who's supposed to be a professional fighter. It went to a fan vote, which was won by Puder, but it was reasonably close and Miz gained a lot of respect in people's eyes in defeat, while Puder seems to have lost some of his aura in victory (MMA forums have been bashing him hard for being unable to knock out a reality TV star). But he won $1 million contract so he's probably not too sad.
- The Tough Enough contract is a 4-year deal valued at $1 million, or $250k each year with the first year guaranteed (yeah WWE ends up firing Puder very soon after that first year is up. They also tried to renegotiate that contract 9 months into it). Dave thinks Puder won the contest weeks ago, when he made headlines for nearly tapping out Kurt Angle, only to have WWE try and bury it. But he became an instant star in that moment and WWE basically arranged it for him to cake-walk through the rest of the competition. Dave thinks it might have been better for Puder's career long-term if he had come in second place, signed a developmental deal, and got to spend some time in OVW to learn. Because he's nowhere near ready to be a pro wrestler. But since he won the contest, he's gonna be an immediate main roster guy, thrust into the deep end, and put in high profile positions. Of course, $250k a year is a lot better than the $39k that the Tough Enough losers in developmental are getting. Anyway, he's gonna be pushed on TV before he's ready, the fans will likely resent it and turn on him, and the odds of him making it long-term are very much against him. Dave really thinks Miz should have won: he's way more advanced in the ring, has light-years more charisma, 100x better on the mic, didn't back down an inch in the shoot fight, and has all the tools to be a professional wrestler. But of course, nothing about the Tough Enough contest had anything to do with professional wrestling in the first place (worked out okay for the Miz in the end).
- In the famed Tokyo Sports awards, Kensuke Sasaki won the MVP award, just barely beating out Kenta Kobashi in one of the closest ballots ever. Sasaki has held the IWGP title twice last year, headlined major shows for both NJPW and AJPW, was runner up in AJPW's Champion Carnival tournament, and worked several other high profile shows for other promotions as a freelancer. Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama at the Tokyo Dome won Match of the Year. Yoshihiro Takayama & Minoru Suzuki won Tag Team of the Year while the award for Most Outstanding went to Toshiaki Kawada. Rookie of the Year is Nakajima, while Tenzan wins whatever the "Fighting Spirit" award is. Minoru Suzuki won Best Technical Wrestler. And on and on and on. Really the most interesting thing here was the almost total lack of MMA. In recent years, considering how intertwined the two businesses have been, a lot of MMA fighters and matches have been winning these awards. This year, there seemed to be a clear effort to stick strictly to pro wrestling.
- A Lucha show in Tijuana this week drew a sellout crowd of more than 6,000 with many more turned away at the door, for the return of Konnan and Rey Mysterio. Originally, WWE was very against letting Mysterio work this show but he somehow talked them into it and assured them he wouldn't do anything to get hurt. As a result, his opponents (it was an 8-man tag) went to absurd lengths to protect him from any serious bumps, to the point that it looked significantly more fake than usual. But Mysterio was so over with the Tijuana crowd that it didn't matter. Dave thinks WWE should have sent a camera crew because Mysterio was treated like a hero and this is the kind of thing that might be helpful to show on TV. Konnan, who was also making his return here after many years, was also insanely popular (I searched but can't find this match anywhere).
- Speaking of Konnan, he did an interview afterward, saying he'll never leave Mexico again. He talked about racism in American wrestling and said there are no Hispanics with any power in the entire U.S. scene. He said he hopes to live to see the day when a major U.S. promotion legitimately gets behind a Hispanic superstar and also wants to see the day they allow a smaller wrestler like Mysterio to be the face of the company.
- Apolo is currently suspended by IWA. He claims that he called booker Luke Williams (yes, the Bushwhacker) and told him he would be late for a show due to a personal issue and was assured it would be ok. But 15 minutes later, Williams called him back and told him Savio Vega was furious and told him not to come at all and in fact, stay home for next week's big show too. But Apolo ended up no-showing almost all the shows that week. He claims that someone tipped him off that IWA management was planning to publicly suspend him in front of the whole locker room to make an example out of him and he said, fuck that, and just didn't show up. Instead, he went to the IWA offices to speak with Vega and Victor Quinones directly rather than letting them try to embarrass him in front of the whole locker room, but they weren't there. Apolo is now saying he wants to be released from his IWA contract and that the company owes him money. He says he hasn't been paid a penny of his merchandise royalties in almost a year even though he's one of their top stars. He also said that even though they're drawing big crowds, they aren't paid much at all and that he's broke because IWA won't let him work anywhere else. He says if they won't release him, he will retire and get a different job because he can't go much longer without money and his contract doesn't expire for another 2 years. However, he made it clear (without directly saying so) that he wants to jump to WWC, so Dave doubts they're gonna release him. This isn't the first time Apolo and IWA have had issues, but they've invested a lot of money into making him the top guy. Quinones also claims to have given Apolo a $3,000 loan awhile back that was never repaid. He also says IWA has always paid out merchandise money in a lump sum at the end of the year, which is why Apolo hasn't gotten his yet. Quinones also went out of his way to try and hurt Apolo's negotiating power by saying WWE and TNA know he has a bad neck and that's why they would never sign him. Dave isn't sure if they knew that before, but they do now.
- The NJPW Jan. 4 2005 Tokyo Dome show will be called "Toukon Festival." Both NJPW and TV-Asahi wanted to use the name "Inoki Bom Ba Ye" since that has become a New Year's tradition but there were some issues with using the name, so they couldn't (I assume Inoki just didn't want to allow it?). Anyway, this show will have something called an Ultimate Royal match which sounds like it's gonna be something of a shoot gauntlet match, with various shooter wrestlers coming in one after the other and the last man left standing is the winner. There's talk of having Shinsuke Nakamura in this match, which Dave thinks is a terrible idea. Nakamura is someone they should be building the promotion around, not put in position to get fucked up in undercard shoots on their biggest shows. The plan is to get various NJPW shooters and possibly bring in outsiders like Bob Sapp or Akebono. Chono vs. Choshu has now had Tenzan added to make it a 3-way but not a traditional American 3-way. This will be a series of round-robin singles matches or some such weirdness. No word if the IWGP title will be on the line, but given that it's the Tokyo Dome, you'd have to assume it will be (nope!) and the main event, as chosen by fan balloting, is expected to be Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the U-30 title. But that was supposed to headline the recent Osaka Dome show too until Inoki came in and changed everything, so we'll see. Dave doesn't think this show is going to draw at all (yeah this one flops hard).
- Speaking of the IWGP title, Tenzan captured the IWGP belt from Kensuke Sasaki this week in Nagoya, just 3 weeks before the Tokyo Dome show. Afterwards, Chono and Choshu both came out wanting title shots, which is what sets up the 3-way at the Dome.
- Remember last week when Dave said All Japan Women was approx. $3 million in debt? That was a mistake. It's actually closer to $30 million. A lot of it stems from bad real estate investments that were made with the company's money during the boom years. Anyway, remember how last week they were being sued by the city of Onoda for not paying a $3,000 rental fee for a venue? They reached a settlement in which they will pay back the money in a payment plan of $100 per month for 32 months. That's how bad the situation is. They also lost their Samurai TV deal awhile back and any pay that the wrestlers receive is a small cut of the merch and gate money. The top star (Dump Matsumoto) is making about $250 per show, and she's said to only be doing it because the company made her a star and she feels obligated to go down with the ship.
- A benefit show for Sabu was held this week in Michigan, drawing more than 700 fans and more than 200 being turned away in bad weather. The show raised more than $15,000 to pay for Sabu's medical bills, and the show will be released on DVD with Joey Styles doing commentary to raise more money. The main event was Shane Douglas vs. Raven (with Mick Foley as referee). Earlier in the show, Raven cut a promo saying that if Foley pulled out Mr. Socko, he wouldn't sell it because it's so stupid. Well, during the match, Sabu was able to get in the ring and he pulled out Mr. Socko and used it on Raven, who sold it like crazy. That was all Sabu could physically do though. Everyone worked the show for no pay and that included a roster of Raven, Foley, Douglas, ICP, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Jeff Hardy, Zach Gowan, Monty Brown, Jimmy Hart, and more. He notes that the crowd was apparently booing and chanting shitty things at Jeff Hardy, which is usually whatever. But in this case, it's a charity show that Hardy was working for free out of the kindness of his heart and Dave feels like it was the wrong time.
- CZW's biggest show of the year, the 6th annual Cage of Death, is in the books and drew about 1,000 people to the old ECW Arena. One of the highlights was Super Dragon & Excalibur vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico which tore the house down. The match ended with Steen turning on Generico and giving him a piledriver, because time is a flat circle. Elsewhere on the show, Eddie Kingston took a big bump off the cage through a table and Jack Evans did all sorts of insane shit and somehow survived.
- Jim Cornette and Bobby Heenan apparently loved working together at ROH recently and plan to do more in the future. They also filmed a shoot interview together that is said to be incredible.
- Dixie Carter gave a speech to the TNA locker room to address all the rumors that the company was close to folding. She denied that things were bad, but didn't address any of the specific issues that are known to be out there. She assured talent that Panda Energy is in it for the long haul and added that a toy deal is in the works and that the TV time slot is expected to be upgraded soon. It was said she did a good job saying what needed to be said but people are still doubtful.
- Regarding Randy Savage, most everyone in the company is blaming management for that falling apart. With a guy like Savage, you need to have everything agreed to beforehand, and then get his name signed to a contract, before you ever start the angle on TV. Instead they let Savage, without a contract, pin Jeff Jarrett on PPV with the hope that he would stick around to return the favor, but nope. Both Dusty Rhodes and Jarrett have tried to talk Savage into coming back and working the program but he turned them down flat and left about 15-20 minutes before last week's TV taping, which threw everything into chaos because half the show was written around Savage. And since they didn't have Savage signed to any kind of deal, there wasn't a thing they could do about it. Dave says the Jarrett and Poffo families have a long-standing distrust stemming back to the 70s when they engaged in one of the most bitter promotional wars in wrestling history against each other.
- So with Savage out, TNA's trying to figure out a main event for their next big monthly PPV to challenge Jarrett for the title. The current idea is to call up Sting again, but those returns are diminishing quickly. They may also go with DDP or Monty Brown. If they can get him to commit to regular appearances, Dave would have Sting win the title because DDP still kinda has the stink of that WWE run on him and Monty Brown, while entertaining, is far from ready.
- Dusty Rhodes has decided to push Hector Garza as a top Hispanic star. That's why Garza defeated AJ Styles on TV but it didn't really work because the fans like Styles and didn't wanna see him lose to Garza. For next week's show, they taped a Garza vs. Jarrett match in which Garza won by DQ and then lost due to guitar shenanigans after it was restarted, which Dave thinks totally neutered Garza and made him look like a loser.
- We get a bit of a rant here about JBL's title reign and megapush. Basically, a lot of people in the locker room don't like it and don't like him and the numbers back it up: business with JBL on top has been pretty bad, especially when compared to previous champs like Brock Lesnar a year ago or even during large portions of Eddie Guerrero's reign, when he was drawing big crowds in major Hispanic markets. This gimmick is kinda death and while JBL is a great performer and is doing his best work ever, it's still not a great character. But Vince reportedly loves the gimmick, loves George W. Bush, and sees the JBL character as a way of pushing back against liberals (in particular, Vince was livid that the goosestepping controversy in Germany cost JBL his CNBC job and blames the liberal media for blowing it out of proportion). This is also the idea behind the Muhammad Hassan character, it's seen as Vince's way of pushing back against all the anti-war liberals that have popped up in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq war. At creative meetings, Vince floated an idea of himself dressing as General Patton and doing his own version of the famous Patton speech at Wrestlemania this year. Just Vince things. Anyway, Vince wants to keep the title on JBL all the way through Summerslam 2005. Others on the creative team (Paul Heyman in particular, gee, wonder who the source for this story is) have pushed back on that, urging Vince to have JBL lose the title to John Cena at Wrestlemania, with the idea of crowning Cena and Orton as new world champions on the same night. It's expected afterwards, they'll do a new draft which will swap the champions, giving Orton something fresh to do on Smackdown while Triple H gets a new world champion to feud with in Cena. It's said that Stephanie McMahon isn't as high on Cena as everyone else though, so who knows if any of this will happen (close, but not exactly). Anyway, the whole point of this is that JBL is basically super-protected by Vince even though everyone else in the company doesn't see him as a main event level star and wants to move past JBL and start focusing on Cena, Orton, Batista, Angle, Triple H, Undertaker, etc. as the real top guys.
- The current plans for the ECW reunion PPV show are for it to take place in June at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan. It's a venue ECW ran several shows at during their original run and this PPV would replace Raw-branded Bad Blood as the June PPV. Hammerstein was Heyman's choice, surprising a lot of people who expected him to try and book the original ECW Arena. But at this point, Heyman is off the writing team and will not be involved i the ECW show. In fact, Vince gave strict orders to the writing team not to talk to Heyman about anything regarding the show. So it looks like they're gonna try to do an ECW show without the founder. Stephanie wants to only use WWE-contracted talent, but Vince thinks they have to bring in some outside ECW originals or the show will flop. Raven, Shane Douglas, and Jerry Lynn are out of the question because they're with TNA. They'll probably avoid New Jack altogether. Dave could see them bringing in Terry Funk and Sandman, and if he's healed up by then, maybe Sabu. Mick Foley, Super Crazy, Psicosis, and Juventud Guerrera could all be brought in, but who knows.
- The current plan for Wrestlemania is still Triple H vs. Randy Orton, but there's a lot of people within the company who think there's more money in Triple H vs. Batista if the current angle is handled properly. It'll also be interesting to see where Austin, Rock, and Foley fit in because all 3 have interest in wrestling on the show but aren't in the plans as of yet (Rock and Foley don't appear at all and Austin only does a Piper's Pit segment, but we'll get there some day).
- Ric Flair and Mick Foley got into a backstage altercation at Raw this week. This has been building for awhile. Flair was talking with Arn Anderson when Foley approached and asked if he'd autograph a copy of his book that he was auctioning off for charity. Flair apparently went to shake Foley's hand, but Foley refused and Flair responded by throwing a punch at Foley that connected. Well damn, that escalated quickly. It was immediately broken up before Foley could retaliate and they were pulled into the office to have a sit down with John Laurinaitis. What happened next was said to be "a battle of world class promos that if a camera was there, would have been one of the most entertaining things on the show." If you recall, this all stems from insults that Flair lobbed at Foley in his book. Flair reportedly challenged Foley to step outside the office to finish fighting, to which Foley responded that he wasn't going to fight a 55-year-old man. Flair talked about Foley not being a great wrestler, to which Foley responded (correctly) that he's drawn more money in the past 10 years than Flair. This led to a bunch of childish arguing with Flair refusing to concede that Foley was a good worker. A lot of people feel like this may have been a WCW-like angle to try and work the dirtsheets (and the locker room) to build for a Foley vs. Flair match at Wrestlemania. Considering how dumb this fight was, Dave is tempted to believe the same thing, and if it was any other wrestlers, he would. But Flair and Foley are probably the 2 guys in wrestling who don't even know how to turn on a computer and working an internet angle like this isn't something he sees either of them doing.
- Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, and Abdullah the Butcher were all backstage at the Armageddon PPV since it was in Atlanta. A lot of people were shocked that Luger would show up, since less than a year ago, WWE kinda sorta definitely heavily implied that he murdered Elizabeth. Word is Luger never crossed paths with Vince while he was there. Bagwell did though! Word is he went into Vince's office without knocking and that didn't exactly win him brownie points. Bagwell spoke with Vince and Laurinaitis briefly but it doesn't sound like it went well.
- To promote the ECW DVD, Paul Heyman has been out doing interviews. He said that if ECW's first PPV Barely Legal in 1997 had flopped, it would have been the end of ECW. Dave calls bullshit on this because he remembers talking to Heyman at the time and says that Heyman expected it to fail. Barely Legal was seen as an experiment to see if they could be successful on PPV, but at the time, Heyman was already planning for what came afterwards in the event the PPV didn't work out, but wasn't remotely talking about shutting down ECW at the time. Heyman blamed TNN for the death of the company and claims they were the highest rated show on the channel (not true) and that TNN never sent out press releases for ECW (Dave notes that TNN used to regularly send them to him, actually). Heyman also noted that ECW was drawing bigger crowds and making more money before they got the TNN deal, which is true.
- When asked about WWE relaunching ECW as a third brand, Heyman said he hopes they don't because he doesn't think it would succeed. He likes the idea of annual ECW reunion shows though. When asked about the ECW DVD and if there's anything he thinks could have been covered better, Heyman says it didn't give enough emphasis to how big ECW had gotten. He notes Anarchy Rulz PPV in 1999 sold 6,000 tickets and was a first day sellout, and that they sold out Los Angeles in 2 days with 5,700 around the same time. Dave actually fact checks these claims and they're not quite accurate, but close enough. Plus 4 first-day sellouts of Hammerstein Ballroom in 2000, etc. Basically, they were drawing big crowds, bigger than WCW was doing in many cases and, in fact, they were drawing bigger crowds than a lot of WWE shows, including PPVs, are doing now. Heyman doesn't feel ECW gets the credit it deserves for that, everyone still sees them as the little indie that could.
- Notes from 12/13 Raw: Orton vs. Edge was excellent, they have great chemistry together. Same with Triple H & Batista vs Jericho & Benoit. That match led to more teasing of issues between Triple H and Batista and Dave is fully onboard with this. The subtle, slow-burn storytelling of that feud is money. Mick Foley came out for a promo about visiting the troops at the upcoming Tribute to the Troops show and this got weird. First, Foley got a little political, talking about how he supported John Kerry in the election (which drew a lot of boos) and implied he's against the Iraq war while still putting over the soldiers. But overall, this was meant to be a feelgood thing. Then Muhammad Hassan and Daivari came out to turn it into a tasteless angle, trashing America, referencing 9/11, all the usual stuff. Dave thought Foley's promo was great, but hates that it was used to build up all this good emotion only to have Hassan and Daivari come out to get heat from it and turn it into another typical exploitive wrestling angle. Eric Bischoff was backstage with another Playboy model (Rochelle Loewen) and Dave doesn't even think she was a Diva's Search contestant. Now they're just culling new wrestlers from the pages of modeling magazines (this is known as the John Laurinaitis Special). During a Maven/Christian/Tomko vs. Regal/Shelton/Eugene match, someone in the crowd held a large sign asking his girlfriend to marry him. "For those of you planning on proposing any time soon, this is not recommended," Dave deadpans. And an Elimination Chamber match was announced for New Year's Revolution. Overall, Dave thinks this was a pretty great show top to bottom, aside from the fact that he felt like he wanted to take a couple of showers to wash off the stink of the Hassan/Foley angle.
- Notes from this week's OVW: Jimmy Snuka Jr., wrestling as Deuce Shade, wrestled a match and it sucked so much the crowd chanted "boring" which never happens in OVW. As a result, Dave figures he'll be called up to the main roster sooner than later. Also, if your father is a legend like Snuka, why wouldn't you use the name? (I can think of a reason). Elijah Burke cut an incredible promo about his dream to be a wrestler and his father passing away and all that stuff and it worked huge, with Burke almost instantly becoming the most popular guy in OVW. Dave thinks they should have something with Burke, but actually....they don't. He's not under WWE developmental contract. He's just a guy in OVW. He drove from Jacksonville to Louisville for the show and is basically just putting himself through OVW on his own dime. But this kind of work might change that.