Wrestling Observer Rewinder

September 08, 2003

Opening story is essentially a look at Pancrase and their recent 10th anniversary show, primarily how Pancrase changed the pro wrestling industry forever. Up until then, wrestling was 99.9% works with the very rare occasional shoot match here and there. But then 3 young Japanese pro wrestling stars (Minoru Suzuki, Ken Shamrock, and Masakatsu Funaki), all of whom were frustrated and had been bouncing around the pro wrestling system and were floundering in a promotion called Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi. So they bailed and started their own company, Pancrase, billed as "hybrid wrestling" because the term "mixed martial arts" didn't even exist yet in the lexicon. It was was basically pro wrestling for real, with the rules actually enforced. No punching to the head, but body shots were legal. Getting to the ropes breaks a submission. Stuff like that.
People were skeptical of the debut show because there had been lots of shoot-"style" companies, like UWF, UWFI, RINGS, and others. But those were never really legitimate shoots across the board. But the first Pancrase show had 5 matches, all of which were real shoots. Eventually, Pancrase would dabble in worked matches, but for the most part, they stuck to keeping it all legit. From here, we run down the history of Pancrase, all the stars leaving, the rise of PRIDE, the demise of Suzuki as a legit fighter, up to now, the 10th anniversary show which was built around Pancrase fighters going against NJPW wrestlers in shoots. NJPW star Josh Barnett won the Pancrase title and is expected to defend it on the next NJPW Tokyo Dome show in October. It's interesting because NJPW was basically built on the idea of being real, but Barnett defending the Pancrase title will be the first time in the 30 years of NJPW that a shoot world champion will be defending his title on a NJPW show.
This leads to recounting an interesting story from Dave. Back in 1995, Dan Severn faced Ken Shamrock in UFC and there was a big controversy because Severn was NWA champion and Pancrase was worried their champion was going to lose to a "fake pro wrestling champion." As a result, Shamrock did a worked match with Suzuki to lose his Pancrase title before the UFC show. That way, if Shamrock lost in UFC, at least Severn wouldn't be beating their world champion. So that's the story of one of Pancrase's early worked matches. Turned out to be a moot point because Shamrock ended up beating Severn. But that's not the interesting part of the story! So you know how Severn was NWA champion? Well the reason was because Dennis Coraluzzo, who was president of the NWA back then, apparently came to Dave and asked for his advice on who to put the title on. Back then, the NWA title was pretty much meaningless after Shane Douglas disgraced it in ECW and Coraluzzo came to Dave complaining that he didn't have a worthy person to put the title on because the indie scene was pretty dried up. Dave suggested Severn, because he had so much success in early UFC and was still wrestling in both America and Japan. So Severn got the NWA title and ended up holding it for the next 4 years (third longest reign of all time) and apparently that was at Dave's suggestion.
WATCH: Ken Shamrock vs. Minoru Suzuki - PANCRASE (1994)
Obituary time, and this week it's for Kent Walton, the voice of British wrestling, who passed at age 86. He was the commentator on ITV for World of Sports for more than 30 years of wrestling. Over those three decades, Walton never missed a single broadcast, doing more than 2,000 shows (sometimes multiple shows a week during the 60s and 70s). He was like a British Gordon Solie. He was also never once involved in an angle during his 30 years, though he got bumped at ringside on occasion. He was the voice that made household names out of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, and others. He's also credited with making up the names for many moves that were invented over the years in the British scene that are still in use today.
A recent national poll in Mexico was tasked with listing the 25 most beloved Mexicans. Almost 20 years after his death, El Santo ranked #4 (only behind singers and actors Pedro Infante, Cantinflas and Tin Tan). El Santo was not just the only wrestler on the list, he was the only athlete of any sport. So just in case you were wondering how important El Santo still is to Mexican culture overall.
A brief history of the NJPW G-1 Climax tournament before we talk about this year's results. The G-1 was started by Riki Choshu, as a way to pass the torch to the future generation. Choshu, at the time, was NJPW's biggest star as well as booker and he put himself in the tournament and did 3 clean jobs to Chono, Hashimoto, and (randomly) Bam Bam Bigelow. It helped elevate Chono and Hashimoto to superstar status. In the same tournament, Keiji Muto got the biggest win of his career over Vader in a legendary match and overall, the G-1 was a booming success that created several big stars and was something of a launching pad for NJPW's success in the 90s. The formula would be used again and again to elevate stars up the card. Dave runs through some other years. The Chono/Rick Rude final in 1992. Muto's win in 1995. Choshu's cinderella tournament run in 1996. The business collapse and bad tournaments of the early 2000s to now. As Dave says, the 2002 tournament felt like a dying company clinging to one of its most popular traditions.
Which brings us to the 2003 G-1 Climax, which was built around a handful of guys: Jun Akiyama from NOAH, Hiroyoshi Tenzan who was getting the strong elevation push, rookie Shinsuke Nakamura looking competitive against the top stars as the only rookie to ever be in the tournament. And that's pretty much how it went. Akiyama had dream matches against all the NJPW stars and lost in the finals. Tenzan debuted his new finisher, the Anaconda Vice, and he beat everyone with it en route to winning the tournament. And Nakamura came into his own with an incredible match against Katsuyori Shibata and the crowd was crazy for him. Dave also thinks Akiyama/Tenzan could have been one of the best matches of the year if it was 10 minutes shorter, but NJPW wanted them to set a record for longest G-1 match, so it ended up going over 31 minutes and missed the peak but it was still great. Dave gives it 4.5 stars and says the place went insane when Tenzan won. They kept showing his parents in the crowd and it was a huge emotional moment that got over big time. Tenzan has arrived (he'll be winning his first IWGP title very soon) and this was easily one of the best tournaments in company history.
The plans for a Bob Sapp/Mike Tyson fight on New Year's Eve in Japan seem to be fading. The big issue is Tyson's felony rape conviction, which makes getting him a working visa in Japan difficult. He's free to visit the country as a tourist, but in order to fight, he has to get a visa and that conviction is an issue. K-1 had already put a hold on the Osaka Dome for 12/31 (since the Tokyo Dome was booked) but now it's seeming unlikely. So they're hoping to do the fight in the U.S., preferably still in December, but it's a scramble now.
NJPW's latest major PPV show is in the books, called Osaka Dream Nights. It was built around the first ever cage match in the 31-year history of New Japan, with Chono battling Takayama for the "vacant" IWGP title. I put it in quotes because the title wasn't really vacant and there was never an IWGP title vacancy recognized by NJPW at this time. But there was some storyline where Takayama felt like he needed to re-earn it or something so he voluntarily declared himself no longer champion until he won this match. I don't remember. He's already NWF champion. Anyway, the story of the cage match was that Takayama would beat Chono so badly that NJPW would stop the match. Problem is, Chono wasn't bleeding nearly that bad and it didn't really work when NJPW CEO Seiji Sakaguchi ran in and stopped it. But what did work was Takayama shoving the 61-year-old Sakaguchi away so he could keep assaulting Chono. Turns out ol' Sakaguchi is a former national champion judo practicioner and, in response, he flipped Takayama onto his ass, which got a huge pop. But then Takayama jumped up and beat his ass too and a whole bunch of wrestlers broke it up. Anyway, Takayama is now "officially" the IWGP champ again, even though he never really stopped being so. Anyway, you're correct in assuming that this is leading to Sakaguchi wrestling a tag match soon, the first time he's wrestled since 1992. This story has also gotten a lot of mainstream press because Sakaguchi's son Kenji Sakaguchi is a major celebrity in Japan as an actor and women love him. He'll be in his dad's corner for the match. Finding video of this is next to impossible for some reason.
Other notes from the NJPW show: the cage wasn't a traditional cage, more of a Hell In A Cell thing that surrounded the entire ringside area and floor. But no roof. And the only way to win was stoppage or knockout. Overall a disappointment, and it seemed like NJPW had no real idea of what to do with a cage match, as the cage itself barely came into play at all. Elsewhere, rookie Ryusuke Taguchi beat another rookie named Hirooki Goto. Taguchi has a lot of potential and Goto didn't do anything wrong so it was fine. Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Makai Club II in a hair vs. mask match (imagine a bald Tanahashi if this had gone the other way).
One of the biggest matches of the year in Mexico takes place next month. El Hijo del Santo vs. Super Parka in a mask vs. mask match, and of course, Santo is not losing his mask. Super Parka is reportedly getting somewhere between 40-50k to lose his mask in the match (he still wrestles masked as Super Parka in the U.S. but indeed, he lost this one and apparently wrestles without the mask in Mexico to this day. And yes, he still wrestles to this day. 68-years-old).
WWC latest news: they ran a show at the 12,000-seat baseball stadium and drew 1,500 fans (probably less). On that show, Chris Candido is teaming with Tammy, using her WWE name Sunny, almost certainly without WWE's permission.
Zero-One is wanting to bring in Hulk Hogan for a show in October to put over Naoya Ogawa. In the past, Hogan has had talks and has even been willing to put Ogawa over but of course, the money isn't there and Dave doesn't think they'll get it.
Remember Steve Corino busting his ear drum? Well, he still flew to Japan (bad idea) but while he was there, he saw 2 more doctors who told him the same thing: he needs surgery to regain the hearing in his ear. Doing so will keep him out for months and prevent him from flying to Japan anymore. This is bad because Corino is actually not just a foreign wrestler for Zero-One, he also is their foreign booker. Basically their Rocky Romero, he's the guy who gets other foreigners there and does all that shit. So they need him, but he needs surgery. Speaking of Corino, he has pleaded not guilty to charges from a few months ago that he stole his ex-girlfriend's checkbook and credit cards and used them without her consent while forging her name.
Inoki is still planning to hold a MMA event in Brazil this week called Jungle Fight. Among the matches is one featuring Shinsuke Nakamura. There's been almost zero publicity for this in Japan or Brazil, nor does it appear to be airing on television anywhere. "What kind of economic suicide is this?" Dave asks (turns out this Jungle Fight promotion was actually founded by Wallid Ismail and still exists to this day, and this event here was their very first show. Not sure what Inoki's involvement was other than Ismail was dabbling in NJPW stuff around this time, but this was not entirely an Inoki production as Dave seemed to believe at the time).
Jesse Ventura succeeded in getting a restraining order against a couple of environmental activists that have been harassing him. You might remember some previous tidbits about this. Anyway, during the court hearing for the restraining order, the activists made fools of themselves, screaming that Ventura was a liar, cheat, and Communist. They got thrown out of the courtroom and the judge ruled that both men have repeatedly violated Ventura's privacy and threatened his safety. For the next 2 years, the men are forbidden to go anywhere near Ventura or the Twin Cities PBS studio where he is filming his new MSNBC show. Ventura testified that both men had threatened him and threatened to damage his car. He did say that neither man had ever threatened his family, and added, "Rest assured, if they had, they wouldn't be standing here."
The new season of the show Survivor features a former indie wrestler and promoter named John Dalton, better known in indie wrestling circles as Jonny Fairplay. Most of the show is already filmed and apparently he used his time on the show to try and get himself over for future wrestling gigs. He used to be a long-term personal assistant to Roddy Piper and was the one driving the car when he and Piper were in a bad car accident a little over a year ago. That led to Piper claiming Fairplay was trying to kill him. The Smoking Gun website put up a story tying that accident to a DUI arrest Fairplay had so apparently that's the story of that accident.
TNA's shows have been a lot better as of late and they've largely eliminated most of Russo's dumb shit. Jerry Jarrett has been "walking around really proud of himself" lately due to all the good reviews the recent shows have gotten. As covered, it's been a constant battle of Jarrett vs. Russo and Panda Energy execs can't seem to decide who to get behind and trust, but word is lately, they're strongly behind Jarrett's booking. Speaking of, Jarrett has also told people he expected TNA to be profitable by now and says he thinks they would have been if they hadn't spent the last year trying to dig out of the hole Russo keeps booking them into. The high school drama continues.
WWE now seems to be taking TNA a little more seriously. They just signed away Alexis Laree and several other wrestlers in the company have received calls from WWE. As a result, TNA is running around trying to lock everyone into contracts again. They're also looking to get a TNA video game made and are negotiating with EA Sports. There's also music CD and action figure deals in the works. Dave thinks the video game might be a good idea, since ECW apparently made good money on their game (they also mortgaged 15% of the company to Acclaim but that's a different story).
Latest on Sting is he's fine with his career as it is. He's made enough money to live comfortably and apparently has no real issue with not being on TV anymore. If something comes along that he likes, he's open to doing it, but apparently it doesn't really matter much to him either way. As for a WWE deal, unless they come along with a Goldberg-type deal where he'd work minimal dates, it's doubtful he'll be headed there. And after the way the Goldberg experiment has flopped, that ain't happening. Sting seems content to fade into retireme.......what's that? Really? Not until 2024???
Jeff Jarrett is continuing to get boos even though he's supposed to be a babyface. He's apparently not happy about it and they're trying to spin it as a small, vocal group of Nashville fans that always comes to the tapings that are trying to fuck up the show. TNA also confiscated several racist and sexist signs prior to this week's tapings. The racist signs were all directed to D-Lo Brown and the sexist ones were various signs calling the female characters whores and sluts. Apparently these were many of the same fans that were booing Jeff and he gave the order that those particular fans are no longer welcome to the shows.
Random thought on TNA wrestler Michael Shane. Dave thinks he's got a ton of talent, but unfortunately, his entire persona is "Shawn Michaels' cousin" and he does all the Shawn stuff and as a result, comes across as a low-budget indie copy. Dave thinks he could be a star if he'd find his own identity because Temu Shawn sucks as a gimmick.
Your latest Teddy Hart Loves Burning Bridges story: he worked the TNA X-Cup tournament, losing to Juventud Guerrera. The match ended with Guerrera killing him with a Juvi driver off the middle rope, which is a pretty devastating finish. So as soon as the ref counted 3, Hart did a kip up and then started playing to the crowd for cheers instead of selling the move. None of this will air on TV and everyone backstage was befuddled that Teddy Hart can continue to be so talented in the ring, and yet such an asshole outside of it, and it's unlikely he'll be brought back (he does end up coming back in 2004, only to get fired again after getting into a fight with CM Punk at a restaurant but we'll get there).
Brock Lesnar is scheduled to regain the WWE title very soon. That's actually why he's been doing so many jobs lately, in order to set up credible challengers for him after he wins the belt back (indeed, Lesnar wins the title back about a week after this).
Mick Foley was on TSN's Off The Record this week and boy did he let Hulk Hogan have it. Some back story: Hogan was on the show awhile back and basically trashed Foley for being out of shape, saying, "I've trained more in the last week than Mick Foley has trained in 30 years. When Mick Foley was eating cheeseburgers and M&Ms, I was in the gym." Foley was played those comments and admitted it hurt because Hogan is the biggest star ever in wrestling. He also said it's not true. "Ask Rock, Austin, and Shawn Michaels if I was in shape when we wrestled all of those long matches." Foley also said that if he and Hogan ever had a match, Hogan would have been crying "like a whiny girl in a porn film, saying not so fast and not so hard because he wouldn't like the contact." Foley also pointed out, since we're talking shit, that his 2 autobiographies both outsold Hogan's.
Foley went on to say he retired young and Hogan is still going, but says that's because he put his all into his matches and Hogan didn't. "You didn't have to apologize to your friends when you were watching a Mick Foley match," he said and called Hogan's weak move set embarrassing. He finally blew the whole thing off saying he'd still like to work with Hogan and they could probably make some money based off this, but he wishes Hogan hadn't said what he said because it hurt and he doesn't think it's fair. Anyway, the day after this, Hogan went on Bubba The Love Sponge's show and Bubba asked him about it, but Hogan hemmed and hawed and refused to say anything else bad about Foley (for what it's worth, they later squashed the beef and Hogan publicly apologized).
When asked about painkillers, Foley said he never really used them for most of his career until the final year when his body was falling apart and he started getting into them more regularly. He wishes wrestlers would be medically covered under SAG or AFTRA and thinks it'll eventually happen (still waiting).
There's plans in the work for a 3rd Predator movie, entitled Predator 3: The Deadlier of the Species. It was supposed to star Arnold Schwarzenegger but since he has recently announced he's running for governor of California (yeah right, could you imagine?) there's talk of recasting his role. And big surprise: The Rock is the current frontrunner, because everyone is fantasy booking Rock as the new Arnold these days.
Notes from 8/28 Smackdown: they were in El Paso and the crowd was MOLTEN for Eddie Guerrero. He was also a legit draw, as the show sold out (Smackdown doesn't do that often these days) and the signs in the crowd and shirts on fans made it clear Guerrero was who everyone paid to see. His segment with John Cena was great and both guys came off like main event stars and it elevated the U.S. title a lot. And later on they had a match that was pretty great (well, Eddie was great and Cena hung with him as best he could) and they ended by pretty much solidifying Guerrero's babyface turn. Dave hopes they don't drop the ball here because they got a shot to make a real star out of Guerrero if they treat him like a legit main eventer and don't job him out like a dork to Undertaker next month or something. Eddie is a great promo, incredible wrestler, and Smackdown is the #1 rated show in America among Latino viewers per capita, so this is the perfect time to get serious about making him a true star (here's Eddie in El Paso, getting the Jey Uso entrance).
WATCH: Eddie Guerrero is OVER LIKE ROVER in El Paso - 2003
Notes from 9/1 Raw: this show featured some of the best and worst WWE has done in a long time, all on the same show. Show started with J.R. having to assure us that Kane isn't dead and followed with a Jerry Lawler vs. Coachman match, so....not a great start. Christian vs. Jericho for the IC title was a good match that the crowd chanted "boring!" at them regardless, because the Lance Storm thing has trained them that it's ok and the IC title is meaningless. Speaking of, Lance Storm was supposed to be on this show and was supposed to turn babyface to pay off that whole boring angle, but it got scrapped and he wasn't on the show at all. Don't you hate when they spend months burying you with a promise that it will pay off in the end, but then they forget to do the big payoff? Triple H cut a promo and referred to himself for the first time as the "King of Kings", which prompts Dave to ask, "Isn't that Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira?" (He won the 2000 King of Kings tournament in RINGS for those not up on your MMA history). And then we had Kane, who came out and handcuffed Shane McMahon to the ring post and put jumper cables to his testicles. Dave didn't love this. Main event 6-man tag was great and Goldberg was over huge. Dave says the last 20 minutes of the show was basically perfect. From the ring work, the selling, the body language, the story being told, the build for the PPV...textbook perfect booking that made everyone look good and did everything right. If they had been booking this well from the start, Goldberg wouldn't have spent the past 6 months as a total flop. Dave isn't sure if they've rehabbed him enough for this upcoming PPV to do a good buyrate or not, but time will tell.
WATCH: Kane zaps Shane McMahon's grapefruits
Notes from next week's Smackdown tapings: Ultimo Dragon is now working tag matches with Funaki on Velocity tapings, in case you were under the mistaken delusion that WWE was ever going to treat him like a big star. And they announced that the 9/18 Smackdown will feature a one-hour Lesnar/Angle ironman match. Dave is a bit baffled by that booking but at least we're guaranteed a great match. And they apparently filmed a segment where Lesnar throws Zach Gowan down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair (also, I've had a few people ask if I missed the coverage of Brock turning heel a couple weeks ago and.....I dunno. I don't remember seeing it).
WWE recently reached an out of court settlement with Darren Drozdov regarding the injuries that left him paralyzed in 1999. For what it's worth, a lawsuit was never actually filed, so I'm not sure what the courts were involved for, but either way, Droz just got paid. He still technically works for WWE with the website division, while his wife Julie is a costume designer for the company (that would be Julie Youngberg for anyone curious. She and Droz later got divorced and she ended up marrying Shannon Moore for several years after).
Shane McMahon is working house shows against Kane and there's a lot of resentment in the locker room over it. Some people aren't thrilled that they've been spending months feeding guys to Kane to get him over as this big evil monster, and the pay off is Shane fucking McMahon gets to come in and be the monster slayer.
Lots of letters this week. Hall of Fame stuff (including a letter from Brandon Thurston who bemoans the lack of HOF votes for Masahiro Chono), letters about the Piper/Vince HBO Real Sports thing, a soldier in Iraq who says all his fellow soldiers enjoyed having the Observer to read ("We even debated the Hall of Fame on patrol. If I’d have gotten shot, it was because I was too busy arguing with people for Volk Han and I would have had you to blame.") and more.