PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN1083-9593 April 3, 2000
After seemingly swimming in an ocean of rapidly declining numbers across the board, World Championship Wrestling went to a strange pair of people as its life preservers--Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo.
In a decision that had been in the works for about one month according to company sources, Brad Siegel completed the circular back-stabbing game which wound up in, not almost, but actually a pro wrestling like tag team, of the two people, former enemies, with seemingly nothing in common, bound together by their hatred for common enemies. Already there are those within the company doubtful the two can remain a cohesive unit over the long haul, with the impression if things are successful, both will want full credit, and if they're not, it won't take long for fingers to be pointed. Of course, that fact will be exploited as the two will work the latter point to try and do a television angle with each other. In the game where political allies take precedence over economic realities, the group that pulled the coup to get rid of Bischoff in early September, headed by Bill Busch, Gary Juster, J.J. Dillon and Kevin Sullivan, and who, barely three months after a much ballyhooed hiring of Russo as head TV writer, eliminated him from power as well, saw the tables turn when they also, after barely two months in power, couldn't turn the declining economic fortunes around.
The problems literally started the moment Russo was relieved of his duties. The new Powers that Be, after doing more to begin restoring some credibility into the world title that had been decimated by the two previous regimes with the surprisingly good Chris Benoit vs. Sid Vicious match, and more so, announcing of the match and post-match interview by Benoit, killed it in less than 24 hours by bungling backstage politics which resulted in Benoit, along with several others, leaving the company without even being asked to drop the title in the ring. After being given unconditional releases to appear on the competition television show just weeks later, it made WCW the laughing stock of not only the wrestling industry, but looking foolish within the TV community as well. About the only right guessing they did in the political handling of that situation was the assumption that, made by people in the company who formerly worked for McMahon and knew him best, that due to his arrogance, WWF wouldn't rub the Benoit departure as champion in their face to embarrass them worse in the PPV community and would force Benoit to start out in the middle where his defection would mean less very quickly.
But after the Russo experiment went haywire when it became clear he desperately needed an editor for his material, Busch went with Sullivan, a morale mistake at a bad time, made worse because Sullivan totally failed to deliver any form of an entertaining product. While Russo and Bischoff purport to have just begun talking in recent days, other sources in WCW peg both working from the outside against the forces that banished each, just as Sullivan had done when he was passed over for the head creative position with the hiring of Russo. According to one source, at the same time Siegel demanded Busch and Sullivan come up with a plan to turn things around for the rest of the year and for Goldberg's return, Bischoff and Russo came up with their own plan, largely built around a storyline where they would be the two protagonists, with Bischoff representing the older wrestlers and Russo the newer wrestlers, feuding on television over power, presented to management as a new NWO type angle. After rumors started breaking, the working of the internet, which is the one thing both men have in common, began. Bischoff continually emphatically denied any interest in the job he'd been lobbying for, when it was clear his successors were doing nothing to reverse the decline started under his watch. Russo, even after the word had broken, was still trying to deny a connection between the two, with the idea they had just started talking, so they could break a big announcement of the connection, to start the angle, on Nitro on Monday. There were already problems among talent with the old vs. new angle, which Bischoff started once before last summer, only to have it fall apart in two weeks because with the exception of Ric Flair (who is politically back out of favor) and Roddy Piper, none of the older wrestlers were willing to be part of the angle that would label them old and force them to put over talent that had not established main event credibility.
The first order of business was to cancel TV tapings on 4/3 in Worcester, MA and 4/4 in Durham, NH, to give them until 4/10 to start fresh with new storylines. However, they didn't cancel the shows, which, given the competition of the NCAA tournament finals and the Raw the day after Wrestlemania, will almost surely lead to the lowest rating in Nitro history on 4/3. Of course, with careful manipulation, they can use that figure as a starting point and claim ratings went up a misleading percent since they started. The idea of shutting down for a few weeks and cancelling the 4/16 PPV show, is not the worst idea, to give the company a fresh coat of paint and start with all new ideas. But one week of a taped show isn't enough time to hold a grand opening, and having to rush to hype a 4/16 PPV show with every match announced and angled for up to this point now in question, only makes it worse.
Officially, Bischoff was hired on 3/22 as the head of the creative end of WCW. Because his deal making was largely responsible for the company running so deeply in red ink in 1999 before he was relieved of his duties on 9/9, he was given no control over the business end of the company. Busch apparently told Siegel that if Bischoff was brought back, he'd quit. Siegel, apparently believed it as much as Busch believed Benoit when, before being given the title, he said he refused to work if his career was in Sullivan's hands, and hired Bischoff. He planned to keep Busch in charge of the business end of the company. Busch then quit, resulting in Siegel having to work half-days at the wrestling office until a successor could be found from outside the wrestling company. Bob Mould, a somewhat legendary progressive rock artist, who was brought in by Juster because of his creative mind for wrestling, and came with strong recommendations from those who talked with him about the business but who many wrestlers didn't like getting ideas from because he himself had never wrestled, and who resigned the first time Russo was given power because Russo didn't listen to his input, resigned that day a second time. The next day, Siegel called a staff meeting at the offices in Smyrna, GA to officially announce the changes. On Friday, Sullivan was told he was basically being put on ice, pretty much put in the same position Russo had been put in. He was still under contract for another two years, but he was being sent home. Dillon remained in his same position and was at the TV tapings in Texas. At this point Juster is still with the company with the word being he is expected to keep his job, but his power will be limited to booking buildings for arena shows. Terry Taylor, who quit WCW because he was tired of being Bischoff's whipping boy, but returned with Russo, Jeff Jarrett, Ed Ferrara and Bill Banks in the WWF exodus in the fall, is expected to stay as well.
On the 3/27 Nitro, announcers Mark Madden and Tony Schiavone, at the expense of calling the matches and hyping the angles for the 4/16 PPV, spent the entire show trumpeting first the angle of whether Russo would agree to work with Bischoff, although neither appeared on camera, and then, hyping the two up as if they were two of the three geniuses, those exact words being used, that created the pro wrestling boom. The third name was never mentioned, although I suppose the name Vince McMahon may have been implied. Russo was hyped as the guy who turned the WWF around and Bischoff as the guy who turned WCW around. There is no questioning the latter statement, as Bischoff took a company that was grossing $30 million a year in 1993 and averaging about $6 million per year in red ink, to where in 1998, the company grossed approximately $200 million and garnered a $55 million profit. But even when the company was at its peak, its future, or lack thereof, was clear. He built around wrestlers past their prime. Having the mind set where Bischoff was brainwashed into believing, perhaps by the established stars looking to keep their gravy train (in the history of the industry, the big names never made so much money working so few matches), or truly believed, the younger wrestlers with the exception of Bill Goldberg (who himself was a career that at one point looked like he could be the hottest star ever curtailed) couldn't be top stars pointing to whatever weakness the veterans could exploit led to the current situation. It created a situation where it opened the door for the WWF to turn the tables around with an entire cast of characters of either new stars created in the past few years, or former WCW wrestlers thought of as not being marketable as headliners that wound up being some of the biggest money draws in the history of the industry. WCW also, by and large, produced an incredibly bad year of television, PPV and arena shows in 1999 as morale dropped and income plummeted, with the company losing in excess of $15 million by the end of the year. Bischoff's track record was hardly strong by the time of his departure, and his business judgement was very questionable after the Master P, KISS and Megadeth fiascos, paying big money to bring back Dennis Rodman after a point where he meant nothing, and losing Chris Jericho largely due to a lack of effort in maintaining him and being brainwashed with the idea that he couldn't be a top star.
Although Russo has been prone to exaggerate statistics greatly, as he garnered more creative power in WWF, the company went from a company that grossed $81.8 million, and suffering losses of $6.5 million in 1996-97, to when he left in 1998-99, the company grossed $251.4 million and had a pre-tax profit of $56.0 million with TV ratings starting out at about a 2.4 clip on Mondays to 6.1 average when he left.
Russo, when leaving, protested that he never got his full credit for his part in turning the company around. He did such a great job of media relations that when he left, the big question in and even out of the industry was which Vince deserved the credit for the amazing success of the WWF. Unfortunately for Russo, the next few months seemed to answer the question that it was the other Vince. WWF never missed a beat, and TV ratings, house show revenue and all forms of income have increased, in some categories greatly, since Russo left, and that's during a period WWF was without its biggest stars of the previous year, Steve Austin and Undertaker, and during a period where McMahon kept himself off television in order to establish Stephanie McMahon and Hunter Hearst Helmsley as superstars.
To their credit, Bischoff did take a company that was one Ted Turner vote away from being closed down, to the company that revitalized the industry and through the implementation of Nitro, made Monday pro wrestling night among a peak at one point of 12 million Americans each week. Russo did play a big part in the decision making process of the WWF dropping a failing family entertainment context, and largely copying the strip club Paul Heyman formula of sex and violence which turned the company around.
But their last period on their respective jobs did nothing to help their reputations. Even after the numbers started free-falling and well past the point anyone could see changes needed to be made, Bischoff never planned for the future, spent ridiculous amounts of money for ratings destroying skits with helicopters filming or rock bands playing, and never made the necessary changes to produce good television, arena shows and PPV shows which the competition began dominating in. Regurgitating the same people who were the big stars of the industry clearly was going to have a shelf life under the best of circumstances and all the indications it was time to cut losses were ignored. It isn't as if anyone with half a brain even during the golden era of WCW couldn't see what was going to happen two years later. By the end, Bischoff had turned the creative over to Nash, who seemed only interested in pushing himself and his own program and a few friends like Luger and Scott Steiner, along with Hogan, because he recognized Hogan turning against him would cost him his power. As much as Sullivan can't be blamed for the mess he inherited, the fact is, he did nothing to make the necessary changes to start a rebuilding process either, attempting instead because of the nature of the beast to play the political game of pushing the most powerful backstage player, Hogan, probably smartly knowing that doing the right thing for the long-term would result in a terrible short-term income drop, result in Hogan turning on him, and him losing his power. It's the same philosophy that Russo, whose contract specified being tied to ratings increases, knowing the short-term pressure he'd be under, likely will be politically forced to take. Nevertheless, the short-term income drop was terrible even with pushing the names from the past, who each week were looking more and more like the past than ever before. Sullivan can claim he was terribly handicapped, in particular with injuries to Bill Goldberg and Bret Hart, who the original plans were to build 2000 around in a world title chase scenario, leaving no alternative but to push Sid Vicious, a total failure as champion, Jeff Jarrett, a good hard worker with no main event charisma, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting and Lex Luger, all of whom the public has tired of in their dated roles, and most questionable of all, The Harris Twins. But the only new talent even tried to be pushed was the laughable Wall, the uncharismatic Artist and Vampiro, who was the only newcomer who showed even signs of being accepted by fans, and until this week with Wall in the Hogan angle, only Vampiro was allowed to mix with the top stars, and even he was never actually allowed to win and was portrayed as Sting's weaker half.
Russo appeared when he took over in October to make the cosmetic changes of working his angle with Hogan, which looks even dumber in hindsight given the resultant effect on subsequent PPV buy rates with the finishes of the Havoc and Starrcade shows, and sending Flair packing for a few months with a storyline with so little credibility that was forgotten completely upon his return. He did try to push Bagwell, Benoit and Jarrett. But it wasn't long before he panicked, was bringing back Piper, and even worse, in a desperate attempt for a rating, the likes of George Steele and Jimmy Snuka, and commissioned dangerous angles which resulted in injuries to Goldberg and Jarrett. Russo's ability to hype himself was strong enough that ratings were up his first few weeks on the job, and Havoc, largely due to that momentum, did nearly double the buy rate of Fall Brawl. But things declined from there. The Hogan-Sting screw-job at Havoc led to a worse buy rate for Mayhem. A world title tournament consisting of terrible matches, nearly everyone with interference, and the joke of bringing Madusa into the tournament twice, killed the title that Hart won, and whatever was left of that title was destroyed with a tired 1997 Survivor Series reprise at Starrcade. Because of poor shows and unsatisfying endings, subsequent buy rates this year reached unheard of lows, as WCW with its huge talent payroll and six hours of weekly cable TV fell behind ECW in that department. House show business plummeted due to the television product context that the wrestling itself wasn't important.
In October, Russo's first month in power, the attendance averaged 4,628 per show for a product already destroyed by the Nash regime, the Nitro rating averaged 3.08 and the Havoc buy rate was 0.52. By January, the last month under his watch (Russo was in power through 1/14, but live show attendance were tickets bought largely in December and the entire PPV hype was completed before he was done), attendance was averaging 3,593, the rating of 3.10 due to the switch from three hours to two was the equivalent of about a 2.9, and the buy rate was down to 0.26. His style of writing resulted in ratings declining at a slower rate than before, but they still declined, but devastated the other two business categories. Just six weeks later, the ratings have declined at an even faster rate, house shows are falling at a slower rate, and the fiasco from January, which is more Busch's fault than anyone's (although a Battle Royal with Tank Abbott ending up as world champion wouldn't have been a positive either), have resulted in the already anemic buy rates being cut in half.
For those who save issues, re-read the lead story in the 9/27 Observer, just after Bischoff was dumped and just before the decision was made to hire Russo. We reported that if things don't change, six months from now, which would be today, "they won't be able to give those tickets away" and talked about 3,000 paid attendance per show and 2.5 ratings, which is the point we're at now. We noted that the fad fans had already checked out and WCW was left with a very loyal audience that was tired of having its intelligence insulted. It was obvious then what changes had to be made, almost none of which have been in the past six months. Russo, to his credit, understood some of them, such as the major league look and feel as it pertained to music and ring entrances and even costuming, but didn't understand the product context, thinking the wrestling industry was driven by the writing of television, as opposed to numerous factors, one of which is the workrate and cohesive context of the storyline of the product. In comparison to those who followed him, who did nothing for the look and feel of a minor league looking production attempting to save money not understanding what the consequences would be to income at the other end, and still made the context laughable, he does look better in comparison. Maybe, in the mess that WCW is in today, that's all that can be hoped for.
But if neither had learned anything about why they were gone, and instead blames their problems on people like Dillon, Juster, Busch or Sullivan, we're in for a cruiserweight feud with Madusa vs. Oklahoma, pinata matches and more food fights with the Nitro girls, and that was all worse them what followed. With the political realities of people in power looking to protect their power and wrestlers having no respect for authority with the knowledge it's going to be gone quick enough anyway, no matter how silly it looks to fans watching and attempting to enjoy a product that just hasn't been enjoyable consistently for two years, and now pay to bring signs that say, "I'd rather be at Smackdown," any hopes for improvement may be unrealistic. WCW is a divorced woman with kids (this works with guys too, it's not meant as being sexist), desperately going from one man to another every two months looking for a father for them and a husband for her. It becomes an endless cycle, and the kids quickly learn to not get emotionally involved, so its doomed almost before it starts, figuring they'll be gone in their two months anyway. Because of that, it can almost never succeed in creating a family atmosphere.
Just at press time it was reported in a trade journal that on 3/28, the WWF would announce that the XFL would air in prime time on Saturday nights on NBC through a deal put together by Dick Ebersol. Ebersol and McMahon were business partners in the 80s for the old Saturday Night's Main Events. The ramifications are huge of this both for football and wrestling. It is expected that the WWF's new television deal would be announced imminently as well.
When it comes to the traditional biggest wrestling show of the year, there are only two legitimate candidates, the WWF's Wrestlemania, which dates back to an annual springtime tradition almost as wrestling's equivalent to the Final Four, going back to 1985, and the New Japan 1/4 date at the Tokyo Dome, which dates back to 1992.
A few years back, when New Japan was on fire and WWF struggling, the edge went to New Japan since it has sold out the 60,000+ seat building on what has become known unofficially in Japan as "Wrestling Day" eight of the past nine years. But in recent years, and more now so than ever, with New Japan struggling, and WWF being the dominant wrestling organization in the world, the edge has clearly switched back.
While WCW's Starrcade actually precedes Wrestlemania, debuting in 1983, and in 1997, clearly eclipsed Mania as the big event of the year in the U.S., that was a one-year wonder. Wrestlemania, behind the promotional move of spending $3.5 million for Mike Tyson, which paid for itself both on the buy rate that night, and even more so in giving Steve Austin the mainstream rub, worked like a charm, making the 1998 version of Mania the most successful in years. It turned Austin into the biggest star in the wrestling industry. By last year, Austin had become so big, that the WWF didn't need any major celebrity involvement to break the all-time pro wrestling PPV buy record, at about 800,000, for Austin's WWF title win over The Rock. A rematch, with the roles reversed, with Austin as the heel, was the one of the original plans for this year. Probably the original plan, before Rock got so hot as a face, was for Austin to remain a face and defend against Big Show. In past years, the fact the Mania main event plan changed so often, could have been disastrous. But with WWF business so strong, it is considered almost a sure thing that the 4/2 show from the Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond, headlined now by a four-way with Rock, Mick Foley, Show and WWF champ Hunter Hearst Helmsley, each with a McMahon family member in their corner, and truly built more around the family then the title or the four wrestlers, will become the biggest money grossing event in the history of the industry. Even if the number of buys doesn't increase from last year's record, or even slightly decreases, because of the $49.95 package for a 12-hour event (an eight-hour pre-game show featuring pre-show angles, interviews and clips of the previous 15 events and a one-hour post-game show with more angles and interviews), the money figure will top the $28 million one-day mark, of which $12 million went into WWF coffers, that Austin vs. Rock drew.
There are several speculated scenarios regarding this year's show, as opposed to last year, when it was pretty clear what the end result would be ahead of time. That clear knowledge last year certainly didn't hurt business. There is little doubt the plan, even as of a few weeks ago, was for Rock to come out as champion. The company had been building for that coronation of Rock as the face of the company for months, even before Austin went down with a career threatening neck injury. If that doesn't happen, it would probably be because Rock will be doing the movie "Mummy 2" for much of May and June in England. Although WWF business is so strong right now that it could book anything and be successful, it is probably not in anyone's best interest to spend a year building up Rock for the title, and taking it away in one month. There is no business reason why Rock can't win the title, and have the title on ice for about six weeks while he's gone. In its own way, it actually gives the title credibility. But that would go against the grain of modern wrestling, where almost everything is done for the moment. Clearly, the WWF wants everyone to believe that Mick Foley is going to win the title. It makes a great story. Foley put HHH over time-after-time, losing his specialty falls count anywhere match to him, failing to leap off the cage onto him as promised, and being fired once and retiring once all within a few months in a business that promises happy endings. They even gave the story about a tournament for the title should Foley win. In addition, the way the McMahon family is portrayed, Linda is the only stable one, and while Vince is currently the new Stone Cold, in a storyline he'd still put over his wife. WWF can give a happy ending, have a nice tournament, and Rock can come back and challenge sometime in the future. About the only possible way HHH can retain is for Foley to turn heel and cost Rock the title. Almost any other gimmicked loss by Rock will be too much of a weekly TV finish. It would tie a lot of things in. Foley could come back for big paydays with Rock, to keep Rock out of the title picture for a while, and he can use the failing to live up to the retirement stip as a heat getting device. Still, I see a face going over for the title at Mania since HHH has been put over so strong. Originally scheduled as a transition champ between SummerSlam and Survivor Series, just a new guy to work a quick program with Austin before the "big" program with Rock, HHH, although the reign was interrupted by the panic decision to go with Big Show to send the audience home happy at Survivor Series when the company screwed the fans on the Austin injury, has been a huge success both in and out of the ring in his position. There is even the unlikely possibility that Linda could even go heel on Vince, as to the core WWF audience, males 15 to 30, perhaps the only thing more annoying than a tyrannical boss, and that's been done to death, is a complaining mother and/or spouse. The negative to that idea is that it's way too soon to do it given they just started Stephanie as the spoiled heel against her mom angle, and more so because Linda is a poor television personality, which can be hidden as a face who stands there powerful and limits her words, but that doesn't work as a heel.
Austin becoming the biggest star in wrestling thanks to the rub of Tyson is a classic wrestling promotional move, most famously done by Hulk Hogan, at the first Wrestlemania, with Mr. T.
It's almost natural that the McMahons consider Wrestlemania as their flagship event. It's the event that both made and saved their ownership in the company. The gamble of going national saw the family largely spend money they didn't actually have, both in a payment plan to buy the company and to expand out of its Northeast territory by purchasing television time around the country from the established promoters in 1984. A big money talent payment from New Japan, which the company had a business relationship with, seemed to save off a lot of late bills, but ultimately all the dice were being rolled by this attempt at both genius and insanity.
The first Wrestlemania, on March 31, 1985 in Madison Square Garden, at a time when very few homes had PPV capability, was built along the lines of a big boxing match, with arenas around the country rented for closed-circuit telecasts of the event. At the time, Hulk Hogan, while the biggest wrestling draw in the country for several years, had just started being a name past the pro wrestling audience. He was photographed in a sleeveless tux with Cyndi Lauper, then the hottest new female pop music star, as part of a cross-promotional gimmick that Lauper's manger and McMahon had come up with. They hooked up a deal with Mr. T, whose show "The A-Team" was one of the big television hits at the time and who, stemming from his appearance in the same Rocky III movie that Hogan had a small part in, was thought by the general public as being a real bad dude. Few remember at the time of the promotion of the event, there were fans who thought it was real, not because they believed in pro wrestling, but they believed Mr. T, actually the highest profile actor in the group, was the one who was real, based on what no doubt was a worked world's toughest bouncer contest on network television as a prelude to his role as a TV tough guy. After a successful MTV special, which saw Mr. T get involved in a Hogan vs. Roddy Piper WWF title match, the Hogan & T vs. Piper & Paul Orndorff match with Muhammad Ali billed as ref and Billy Martin, Liberace and Lauper involved, was born. Pro wrestling had never had a show of this magnitude in the U.S. The only attempt, in 1976, for the Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match in Japan, had success in some markets, but was considered overall a major box office and aesthetic failure. While Madison Square Garden sold out immediately and the media embraced the WWF with wrestling resurgence stories, the established promoters laughed at the magnitude of the event as the advances at most of the closed-circuit sites were dying and it was the belief McMahon's sleight of hand finances were about to bite him. If he fell behind on a payment, based on his contract to buy the WWF from his father's old partners, he would lose the company. One week before the show, numerous closed-circuit sites were canceled as a cost-cutting measure. But the last week of hype spurred a tremendous late buy, and the show was a financial success. It also began the Wrestlemania tradition to release ridiculously exaggerated numbers to a gullible media, claiming one million as the paid attendance, probably close to triple the real figure.
The plan was to make the show bigger on April 5, 1986, with the live event split between three buildings, the Rosemont Horizon (now All-State Arena) in Chicago, the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and the Nassau Coliseum, following the lead of Starrcade which the previous November ran its closed-circuit event from both the Omni in Atlanta and the Greensboro Coliseum, selling out the latter and nearly selling out the former. They invited literally two dozen bit celebrities, going totally out of control. The show was a major event, and not a failure, but hardly the success of the first year and they never went out of control on celebs or tried to book more than one building for the live event. In what was a major embarrassment, the Chicago event only drew a half-house, about 9,000 fans and Los Angeles also failed to sellout, and that's with Chicago headlined by the match which drew all the mainstream media ink, a Battle Royal which garnered tons of media hype because it included several active NFL football players, including William "Refrigerator" Perry, the NFL's media darling coming off the Bears Super Bowl win, which gave Andre the Giant lots of photo ops because of how much larger he was than Perry side-by-side. Probably the most notable thing about the show is that in a grudge boxing match with Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T, among the worst matches in Wrestlemania history, that the fans at the Nassau Coliseum cheered Piper, who was supposed to be the top heel in the company, largely because over the one year period, T had lived out his big year and the general public had burned out on him and was rejecting him. Because of the response, Piper was turned face and for a short time rivalled Hogan in popularity.
Wrestlemania was made for good on March 29, 1987 at the Pontiac Silverdome in a match that has been the subject of more historical folklore than probably any dating back to the Gotch-Hackenschmidt days. Andre the Giant, billed at 7-4 and 520 pounds (he was closer to 6-9 or 6-10 although his weight by that time was probably very close to what was said) faced Hulk Hogan, billed at the time as 6-9 and 320 pounds. Andre was billed as being undefeated, which also wasn't true. It's now talked about as if Andre was this monstrous beast that no mortal man could ever actually take on, but Andre, to create a superstar in Hogan, graciously did the job. Of course, the reality is that Hogan was by this point a far bigger star than Andre, whose drawing power before going heel a few months earlier was practically nil as a babyface to the point he disappeared midway into a failed gimmick under a mask as The Giant Machine and was crippled from back surgery and could barely walk. He couldn't even stand upright as tapes of this match show. But the heel turn worked. It was a dream match. And it was the biggest match, realistically, in the history of U.S. wrestling. While the 93,173 number is a work repeated so often even those who should know better believe it's the truth (according to Zane Bresloff, who promoted the event, the actual number in the building was 78,000, but the event did sellout weeks in advance and it is realistic to believe the potential if the building was larger could have been 100,000 tickets). At the time, the buy rate for the event was billed as being 10.3, which was also an exaggeration, but the real figure was probably greater than an 8.0, making it the most impressive PPV event in pro wrestling history. Another record was shattered when another 441,000 fans attended about 130 closed-circuit locations. Of course, Hogan won, an outcome that was never in question, and in a match that, if one watches it back on tape today, is clear that it put to shame some of the worst matches in modern history. The show is remembered both for Hogan vs. Andre, and for Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage where Steamboat won the IC title, easily the best match of the first nine Wrestlemanias. The show also featured the retirement match of Piper, who was supposedly going to leave pro wrestling for a career as an actor.
The next two Manias were largely forgettable, held at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, NJ. Donald Trump had paid a site fee, similar to what casino owners had done for years for major boxing events. But the atmosphere of audiences consisting largely of older high rollers who weren't wrestling fans led to dead crowds for both shows. If Wrestlemania IV on March 27, 1988, was considered a disaster as an event, although it did very well financially, it was topped by Wrestlemania V on April 2, 1989 featuring perhaps its worst ever moment, a three-way confrontation between Piper, Morton Downey Jr. and Brother Love (Bruce Prichard). While it was still, by far, the big money event of the year, both Wrestlemanias were only seen by a fraction of the audience as another wrestling show going head-to-head. In 1988, Jim Crockett and the NWA promoted the first ever "Clash of Champions," which is still remembered as the night Ric Flair made Sting a superstar in a 45:00 draw for the NWA title, in what was, for years, the most watched singles match match ever on cable television, drawing what was considered at the time a phenomenal 5.6 rating for the show, a 7.1 rating for the main event, which peaked at a 7.8 for the final quarter. The success of the rating for that particular match did nothing to stave off the belief that long matches were death on television, a belief that probably was true in most cases, but not all. The comparison of the two shows, a hot crowd in Greensboro vs. a dead crowd in Atlantic City, great workrate vs. a slower style was from a quality standpoint was the equivalent of the recent Raw vs. Nitro Mondays and a temporary victory for Crockett that his lack of marketing and promotional ability were unable to capitalize on. WWF presented a lackluster tournament for the title, with its two biggest stars, Hogan and Andre, being eliminated in the first round, and the high rollers had emptied the building before Savage and Ted DiBiase, two of the company's best in-ring performers, went out and couldn't get any heat for the title match that Savage won due to help from Hogan.
Crockett's strike against McMahon was retaliatory. The previous Thanksgiving, Crockett had scheduled his first ever PPV event, Starrcade '87. McMahon, coming off the success of Wrestlemania, added a second PPV event of the year, Survivor Series, not so coincidentally, on Thanksgiving night, head-to-head. Cable operators are the time were thrilled. Thanksgiving was already one of the biggest nights of the year for the movie business and had long been the biggest night of the year for the pro wrestling industry, so the feeling is they'd double their money. At first, Crockett didn't even mind the competition, feeling it would only draw more attention to his event, which they would move the starting time either before or after, to avoid direct competition. McMahon countered by decreeing that any cable company that aired Starrcade, would not be allowed by carry Survivor Series. Coming off the big Wrestlemania, McMahon was the No. 2 banana on PPV behind only Don King, and Crockett was an unknown from Charlotte. Starrcade was destroyed more than a month before it even happened, when all but five cable companies in the U.S. refused to air the show and it was a financial disaster for the company, which was one of the prime reasons Crockett would one year later be forced to sell to Ted Turner. A second attempt by Crockett to run a PPV, an ill-fated event from the Nassau Coliseum, also died because McMahon had run a free special on the USA network, the first ever nationally promoted Royal Rumble (there was actually a Royal Rumble event at a house show in St. Louis before the first big one in Hamilton, ONT) which drew an 8.2 rating, which remains to this day the company's record rating on the USA Network. There was a point in time when this event could be viewed historically as McMahon's bullying of Crockett in the long run biting him back tenfold because it got the bigger money Turner into the wrestling business as an owner, but over the last two years, that magnitude of that story has dissipated.
The next year, April 2, 1989, WWF spent a year building up a Hogan vs. Savage match with Savage turning heel before the match and it looked ahead of time to be a big hit, maybe even approaching Andre-Hogan levels because it had a stronger storyline build-up. In a power play, the WWF threatened to go back to closed-circuit because they wanted a higher percentage of the PPV revenue. The PPV industry went to Turner to teach McMahon a lesson, and requested that he put on a PPV show on April 2, 1989, head-to-head with Wrestlemania on closed-circuit at arenas. Because of PPV in so many homes by this point, closed-circuit was becoming a dead industry and the feeling was with a PPV show available, people wouldn't buy tickets to arenas to see Mania. After the Hogan-Andre peak of 441,000 fans at closed circuit, it had declined to just 175,000 the next year, partially due to the availability of the free NWA show head-to-head. McMahon bluffed the pull-out, backed down, and publicly claimed victory. The same cable owners that went to Turner, asked his new company to step aside, but since the date and angles were booked, the event was put on free TV. The single match Mania proved more successful than the tournament, but it was a weak undercard. Both company's fell, Wrestlemania from a 6.5 to 5.9 in the buy rate but with the increase in homes getting PPV, it topped the Andre-Hogan mark as the biggest revenue drawing pro wrestling event in history. Clash of Champions dropped from a 5.6 on "Wrestling Day" to a 4.3 in the ratings, on a show criticized by some because advertised matches with Sting and Lex Luger didn't air because so much time on a television show was devoted to the main event. Hogan's regaining the title from Savage, at least on that show, was considered a questionable move because of how hot Savage's heel turn was. The match itself still couldn't hold a candle in the ring to a 55:00 match with Steamboat beating Flair to keep the NWA title in an empty New Orleans Superdome which was one of the greatest matches in U.S. history up to that point in time with the one hour average for the match of 5.0 being somewhat disappointing by the standard of the time, particularly as compared to the numbers Flair and Sting had put on the board under similar circumstances a year earlier. The cable operators, caught in the middle of the WWF vs. WCW war, decreed at this point, when buy rates had fallen two straight years for the biggest show of the year, and when WWF's free TV shows did a number on opposition buy rates as well, that neither company could run free TV specials against an opposition PPV event.
Wrestlemania had the field to itself on April 1, 1990, for Wrestlemania VI, with Hogan putting over Ultimate Warrior, at the time thought to be his successor, for the WWF title before a paid attendance of 64,287 paying $3.45 million, still the largest North American gate in history. While Warrior got his hand raised, Hogan stole the show in defeat. The match, while it doesn't hold up when it's viewed on videotape because it was made by the moment on not by anything that took place in a match largely filled with long rest holds, was considered a near classic at the time. Warrior failed as a draw, and by the end of the year, WWF started building up to Hogan's rechristening.
The most controversial Mania in history was No. 7, from the Los Angeles Sports Arena on March 23, 1991. The U.S. was embroiled in a political dispute with Iraq, and McMahon brought back Sgt. Slaughter as a heel, to represent Iraq, get the title, and drop it to Hogan. At about the time the angle was getting hot, an actual war broke out. The WWF crassly exploited the war, even to the point of filming Hogan going to military bases for promotional footage to build up the show. The WWF had built a year into breaking the Pontiac Silverdome record for Hogan's re-coronation as king before 100,000 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum. However, the advance was poor, and five weeks before the show, it was moved indoors to the Sports Arena, with the public claim that terrorists had threatened the event. Whether the event did well on PPV or not is still disputed. With so much negative publicity, the WWF, on the broadcast, long before anyone could have even had a clue of what kind of numbers the show did, announced that it was the largest audience to ever witness a PPV in history, wrestling, boxing or otherwise. Other sources pointed to buy rates between 2.8 and 3.0, which by the standards of the time, would have been a huge flop. WWF has always maintained numbers almost doubling that and tried to portray it as the biggest Mania on PPV until the last two. The subsequent NBC special drew the lowest rating it had ever drawn on the network, and resulted in NBC dropping WWF programming, and the short lived Saturday Night's Main Event series moved down the food chain for two shows on Fox before it disappeared for good.
Another attempt to draw a record crowd came one year later for Wrestlemania VIII at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis on April 5, 1992. By the time, the WWF was just about to start its fall due to the steroid and sex scandals and losses of most of its steroid-logged top stars. Hogan teased his retirement match as the big draw against Sid Justice, who was also gone within weeks, winning via DQ. The show drew 62,167 fans, but the paid was about 47,000 and the buy rate fell significantly from the previous year. As would be expected for them next month if they were to meet, Hogan vs. Sid was a terrible finish, particularly with a run-in DQ by Harvey Whippleman and another attempt to bring back the Ultimate Warrior as the big surprise ending the show. Undercard highlights saw Savage win the WWF title from Ric Flair, and Bret Hart pin Piper to win the IC title.
Wrestlemania IX was another low point, a poor outdoor show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas on April 4, 1993, built around the return of Hogan coming out of retirement to team with Brutus Beefcake against tag champs DiBiase & IRS. By this point Hart was WWF champion, but at the time he was viewed as a guy to hold the fort until the scandal that threatened Hogan's career from lying on the Arsenio Hall and claiming to have never taken steroids after 1983 blew over. While Hogan's return was supposed to be for the tag title, they had Yokozuna pin Hart to win the title, and Hogan jump in the ring and pin Yokozuna in 21 seconds to win the title. When Hogan's return failed to get the WWF out of its slump, the idea was to move him into a people's champion role, a role Bruno Sammartino did successfully for the company during the Bob Backlund reign, and go with Hart as champ. Hogan refused to put Hart over, dropped the title instead to Yokozuna, and left the company. With no Hogan, the company decided to make a new one in Lex Luger, a physical wonder during a period where WWF was lacking them because it was forced into being somewhat serious about its steroid problem.
Wrestlemania X on March 20, 1994 in Madison Square Garden, the place where it all began, was supposed to be Luger's coronation. But it ended up being the coronation, but of a new style of performer. The idea was at first for the Royal Rumble to be won by Luger, to set up a title match with Yokozuna. But Luger didn't connect with the fans as much as McMahon had expected, and Hart began getting a lot of grass roots support, as fans started turning away from the promotion created musclebound blond champion to a wrestler who had gotten over big as a face inadvertently by the way the previous Wrestlemania went down and how it came across so obviously the company abandoned him at the first sign of Hogan. The idea was for Luger and Hart to tie in the Rumble, and both challenge Yokozuna, at first with the idea of Luger going over. A funny thing happened in Providence, RI when they were the last two left. The crowd, solidly, and somewhat shockingly, almost totally sided with Hart. As one WWF exec told us after the match, the company spends tons of money in market research that told them Luger should be the world champion, but the fans live in Providence were the best market research possible. Hart's supporters got their way, as he ended the night beating Yokozuna as champion in a very anti-climactic finish. The show had opened with the coronation of former prelim babyface Owen Hart as a superstar heel as he pinned Bret in what may have topped the Savage-Steamboat match as the best Mania match ever. The idea was for Bret to win the title, but Owen beat him in the Mania opener, leading to Bret vs. Owen as the top summer program. But as good as Bret vs. Owen was, the general consensus was the greatest match in WWF history up to that point in time occurred less than two hours later, Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) beating Shawn Michaels in a ladder match. Even though he lost, the match solidified Michaels' spot as the fastest rising star on the scene, and for the first time the company was built around three men, with Michaels and the Hart Brothers, who could all have wrestled junior heavyweight. While the two matches made it probably the best Mania ever, and probably the best PPV show the company had put on up until that point in time, the buy rate fell to a new low at 1.68.
But having better workers on top didn't turn WWF business around. The slump continued, and McMahon, as he does whenever business is bad, panicked and went to the big guy, in this case Diesel (Kevin Nash), as champion, leading to the worst year in company history. With business bad, the company built Wrestlemania on April 2, 1995 at the Hartford Civic Center, around an outsider, NFL legend Lawrence Taylor. In one of the company's great jobs of promotion ever, they spent months building up a Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match, which in the ring, thanks to Bigelow, was surprisingly good, and in hype, was a lot better. The WWF title match, where Diesel retained, beating Michaels, in a good match, was strictly second fiddle. It was a successful spectacle, but the drawing power of Taylor outside the Northeast was a disappointment and the show did about a 1.3 buy rate, barely better than a UFC match with Ken Shamrock vs. Royce Gracie that had no Taylor or mainstream pub did five days later.
Wrestlemania was still the big event of the year on the U.S. mat calendar on March 31, 1996, the coronation of Michaels as WWF champion over Hart, who had beaten Diesel a few months earlier. Live at the Anaheim Arrowhead Pond, it was clear that even bigger than the main event, was the latest return of Warrior, who refused to sell anything or be cooperative at all for a mid-carder, who he squashed in 1:36, by the name of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who at the time was managed by a woman named Sable. Michaels pinned Hart to win the title in 61:52 of an Iron Man match that was the recipient of the beginning of the WWF modernized hyping of main events, featuring one-on-one interviews in almost semi-shoot fashion which gave realistic as opposed to cartoonish reasons why they didn't like each other, even though neither was a heel per se. The match played well on PPV and in some circles it is considered one of the great matches in the history of Mania, but poorly live. Roughly one-third of the crowd was gone by the 45 minute mark of the match, and the building was empty when Michaels was doing his post-match celebration. Still, the buy rate stayed even from the previous year, which considering the state of the business, was considered a success.
Without question, Wrestlemania bottomed out with unlucky No. 13 back in Chicago at the Horizon. By this point, WCW was beating WWF in the ratings and on PPV. Only about 240,000 people ordered Wrestlemania on March 23, 1997, and its buy rate of 0.77 was staggering even to those following closely. The company had what appeared to be a big hit one year in the making, since Hart returned after a short teased retirement, and his rematch with Michaels was to be held off until Mania. Michaels was going to keep it interesting going back-and-forth with Sid in the interim. However, Hart's comeback, starting with a sensational win over new star Austin at Survivor Series, was slowed down greatly with a loss to Sid in his first title match due to outside interference on a low level PPV. By February, panic had set in, and the idea was to go to the big guys, Undertaker vs. Sid, as the main event, pushing Hart vs. Michaels to the semifinal. Michaels, faced with losses of the title to Sid, and then to Hart, claimed a career ending knee injury, handed the title back on live TV just hours before he was supposed to put Sid over, and said farewell to the company. Almost nobody even remembers that Undertaker beat Sid in the main event, and those who do, remember the main event was horrible, but it was still a good overall show. It seems everyone recalls the I Quit match, which Hart and Austin did their double-turn in, which Hart actually won, but started Austin on his way to saving the company, and rivals Michaels vs. Ramon as the best match in Wrestlemania history. In the height of embarrassment, WCW, one week earlier, for a show headlined by a three-team elimination Battle Royal rules match in North Charleston, SC where the local Horseman team got embarrassed and heel Hogan and the NWO won, drew an 0.89 buy rate. But even with WCW clearly ahead, all the seeds were already starting to be sown. Austin was created. WCW was killing his loyal audience.
One year later, Wrestlemania 14 on March 29, 1998, the landscape was totally different. WCW was still winning the ratings every week, but the gap was closing as the WWF benefitted by the controversy after the double-cross of Hart at Survivor Series and the ascension of Austin. Just as Hogan would have been the biggest star in wrestling without Mr. T, so would have Austin without Mike Tyson. But this build-up, besides boosting ratings to where the gap closed to the point soon after this show, the tide had turned, presented Austin to the mainstream audience. There was no question, with Tyson making the three count after a long soap opera, that Austin, who was scheduled to beat Shawn Michaels, who had won the title in the Hart fiasco at Survivor Series, in what surpassed Hogan-Andre as the most famous match of the generation, would come out with a big pop not only to wrestling fans, but because of Tyson, with his photo on the front page of newspapers around the world. Wrestlemania did a 2.3 buy rate, its best since 1991, and with the PPV universe expanding greatly, at 730,000 buys, broke all existing money records. Austin was the biggest star and the WWF was on a roll. And Michaels' career, which really ended when he destroyed his back two months earlier at the Royal Rumble in San Jose taking a bump on a casket, and he worked through the pain in hit gutsiest performance, may have ended at that same moment.
Last year, Wrestlemania No. 15 at the First Union Center in Philadelphia, was more notable for the production and booking than any of the work inside the ring. The title had bounced around all year with the new style of booking, finally held by The Rock, whose popularity and charisma was such the company was having a hard time keeping him heel. Luckily Austin was so popular they knew nobody was going to boo the second straight Mania ending with Austin as champ. The show set a record with 800,000 PPV buys, and the $1,438,050 gate would have been the largest for a pro wrestling show in North America dating back to the Hogan-Warrior match. But the show, generally considered a mild thumbs up, was marred by weak crowd reactions, and the only above average match on the undercard saw Shane McMahon, in his first high profile match, beat X-Pac. Undertaker vs. Big Bossman in the Hell in the Cell was so bad it has been removed from all WWF history of that gimmick. Austin vs. Rock was a good match, but it was hardly the greatest match of all-time as Rock portrayed it in his book. It was almost a disappointment, since the two had a much stronger match on Raw months earlier (and an even better match one months later on PPV).
It's hard to believe it's only been a year, because wrestling moves so fast it's like dog years. The WWF is one of the hottest commodities on television, its on Wall Street, it has branched into being high on the charts in both best selling books and pop music and is starting its own football league. The title has changed hands a zillion times. They walked headfirst into one scandal without seeing it coming, and reacted the same way as nine years earlier, and no doubt will walk into more as they get successful. Vince McMahon's career as a successful wrestling promoter, starting with this event 15 years ago, will climax with this event on Sunday. The plans for Mania, formerly locked in stone nearly one year ahead of time, seemingly were changing every few weeks. Austin suffered a career threatening injury. But Rock reached popularity heights that probably surpass Austin as his peak. The company has never been hotter. Helmsley, thought for years to be the most over pushed wrestler in the company, when put in the spotlight, hit a home run. Foley, whose career as a serious performer seemed to be over after two knee operations last year, came back with two of the best matches of his career, and gets to headline a Wrestlemania. And Big Show is, well, he's not much else besides the tallest man ever to headline a Wrestlemania, even if, because this is the fantasy business, he can't even take credit for that.
The Wrestlemania all-day long package will present 30 minutes of highlights from each of the previous Wrestlemania shows except III, which will have a one hour highlight package done.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press ran an amazing article by George Dohrmann (the same reporter who broke the University of Minnesota basketball team scandal at the start of last year's NCAA tournament), on the boxing career of former pro wrestler Jeff Warner.
Warner wrestled as J.W. Storm for a few months with WCW (he had little charisma and was a poor worker but had a great look and body so they were grooming him for big things before he quit) and had a few try-out matches with WWF, all in the early 90s. He actually made his biggest impact in Oregon as the ironically named "Big Juicer," as a tag team partner of the late Art Barr, who was working as Beetle Juice, as two-time Pacific Northwest tag team champions in 1990. It was an amazing tale about the boxing world being more of a con than even the wrestling world, particularly how a guy could compile a 23-1 record largely through fixed fights, often with pro wrestlers, and under circumstances that, in comparison, would make Nobuhiko Takada a great real fighter.
Warner's wins included three victories over a man pulled right out a Twin Cities homeless shelter with no fighting experience, who was paid $50 the first time and not much more subsequently, two of the times to go down on cue. The first time he actually went down before the first punch. He once got a win in a worked match over his trainer. Nineteen of his 24 wins were in states with boxing commissions, at least nine of those were against fellow pro wrestlers he recruited to do jobs. Eight of his opponents boxed using fake names.
It described a 1996 match in South Dakota against Billy Borea (who took dives for Warner on four different occasions using three different ring names and never once fought under his own name) where the two drove to the show together talking over their match before going in the ring, for which Borea was paid $60. Borea, who is white, fought under the ring name of a real boxer, who happened to be black, and identified himself using the Social Security number of a 47-year-old man from Virginia. Warner, who at 6-3 and 240 pounds, looked like a younger Billy Jack Haynes or Scott Hall. Boxing promoters and investors figured they could fake his way into a good record to build for a big money fight against a name fighter. Like Mark Gastineau and countless others, opponents were paid to take dives to build up impressive records leading to a big score, which, in both cases, actually never happened, based on the career of Gerry Cooney, an untalented but charismatic heavyweight fighter who made millions as a "great white hope" in the Larry Holmes era. Warner, in both court documents and a newspaper interview, for his part, claimed to know nothing about any of this, and said if the opponents took a dive, it wasn't arranged by him.
Warner is being sued by five men who invested in him believing he and his record to be the real deal. Warner tried to point the blame at Ray Whebbe, his first manager who has a long background in the Minnesota independent wrestling scene and used to write articles for many wrestling newsletters, and Bill Corrigan, both of whom admit to have been a part of fixing the matches, but both said Warner was in on it and often recruited his own opponents at wrestling matches. Jay Hanna, who he fought in 1997, said how he and Warner drove to the fight in Des Moines together and talked about how the fight would go (as it turned out, that fight saw Warner hit Hanna with a stiff punch to the nose, and Hanna, feeling double-crossed, refused to get up, losing in less than 20 seconds). The Iowa commission afterwards refused to allow Warner to fight in that state unless they picked his opponents to avoid fake fights with non-boxers, and he never went back to Iowa.
Corrigan said he and Warner collaborated to build up fake wins because one of their investors, Tom Schrade, a Las Vegas developer, agreed to bonus him $100,000, with Corrigan getting a piece of the score, if he won ten fights in a row. In getting money investors for his career, Warner claimed a false resume that included having a 49-0 amateur boxing record, that he was invited to training camp by the Minnesota Vikings, that Bob Arum and Don King were after him, that he was training to win the Mr. Universe bodybuilding championship and had 1,300 matches as a pro wrestler, all of which wasn't accurate. His legitimate sports background consisted of one season of high school football, and not lasting a season trying JC football.
Warner's first boxing match, in 1989, which was before he went to WCW, was against Harry Batist, who had been plucked earlier that day from a Minneapolis homeless shelter by Whebbe, who worked there, and was paid $50. The fight lasted 22 seconds with Batist quitting before taking even one punch, although the newspaper claimed that one was actually not a fight with a fixed outcome. The article claimed his first fixed matches were in 1994, after Warner had been given financial backing to continue his career. The opponents in both fights, who used the named Akbar Muhammad and Leroy Jackson, one of which took place on a pro wrestling card promoted by Eddie Sharkey and the other of which actually never took place, was the same Harry Batist from the homeless shelter. Whebbe was quoted as saying, "I drove Harry to Red Lake (an Indian reservation to get around commission sanctioning) for the Akbar Muhammed fight. I paid Harry a little money, and he and Jeff slapped each other for a few rounds, and then, in the third round we told Harry it was time to go down." As it turned down, Batist was knocked out with a punch that connected on his elbow. The second fight, with Batist as Jackson, was an even bigger fraud. Whebbe said that they set up a ring at Red Lake, put Warner and Batist in the ring, took a few photos of them sparring off, neither punched the other, and they went home. Whebbe then said he called in a fake win for Warner to Fight Fax, the boxing industry's record source.
Once, probably as a rib, in 1994, Warner beat an opponent named Terry Taylor, who was actually Marvin Smith, another homeless person Whebbe found at a Twin Cities shelter. This fight was sanctioned by the Iowa commission. Whebbe claimed he split with Warner, who had a 7-1 record with three of them fixed matches and the others against non-boxers, because Warner's financial backer pulled out and Whebbe no longer had a check coming in for handling him. Warner's lone loss was to Corrigan, before he was his trainer. Corrigan at the time was considered an easy opponent for a non-fixed match, and Corrigan, not expecting to win, caught Warner with a straight right and knocked him out in the first round. It was enough to get Warner out of the boxing ring for about three years before resurfacing with the fixed fights. In 1996, in a fight sanctioned by Minnesota, he fought a man who went under the name Rick Richardson. When the commission asked for ID from Richardson, he claimed the bag containing his ID was stolen at the barber shop. Another time, he fought Corrigan again, by this time Corrigan was his trainer, when another opponent backed out. Corrigan, knowing that if he won, it would kill both of them from getting that $100,000 bonus from Schrade, naturally lost. Two more wins were against Anthony Wright, who met Warner at a pro wrestling show, the two drove to the matches together and worked out their match, with Wright fighting once under his real name and another time as another pro wrestling spoof name, Tony Rich. Warner then demanded his $100,000 bonus.
Schrade filed a lawsuit against him claiming the bogus wins, and Warner countersued. Schrade was one of five investors who paid $220,000 to Warner to train for fights to garner a percentage of his future earnings when their white hope heavyweight with an impressive worked record would fight a big-name real boxer. Schrade also brought Warner and his family to Las Vegas, paid rent for their home and paid for eye surgery, and started setting up real fights for him, including one with Butterbean, but Warner kept coming up with excuses and never fought once. Warner returned to Minnesota but remained under contract to Schrade trying to get his ten straight wins. Corrigan, who Warner claimed is just after money bad, then turned on Warner to Schrade claiming Warner was never going to fight a money-making real opponent and used worked matches just to get the bonus. Warner even admitted at one point in order to get the money he threatened to accuse Schrade of sexually molesting one of his children, but claimed it was done due to baiting from Corrigan, said the accusation against Schrade was groundless and regrets saying it.
The letter in last week's Observer regarding the Frank Gotch-George Hackenschmidt match brought to mind the first great wrestling book, "The Falls Guys," written by Marcus Griffin in 1937. It was the first book on pro wrestling from an insider perspective and the only book of its kind on pro wrestling for more than 30 years. There are very few copies remaining of the original book, but reprints are available from Scott Teal at P.O. Box 2781, Hendersonville, TN 37077.
While the book is hardly infallible when it comes to history, as at least one famous match (Joe Stecher vs. Strangler Lewis in 1928) is presented as a shoot when, in fact, it wasn't, and in at least one case, the date of a famous match was ten years after it actually took place (the July 5, 1916 five hour draw with Stecher vs. Lewis in Omaha, which, by the way, probably was a shoot, was written as taking place in 1926), it is still the closest thing to an accurate historical source on pro wrestling from that period of time.
In a chapter on Frank Gotch, who was considered at the time as the greatest wrestler of that era, they called his 1906 loss to Fred Beell as the first of the many "business" matches that Gotch engaged in. "Business" match is actually a term used more in Japan for working finishes in what the public is to believe are shooting matches, such as in the past in sports like Pancrase or K-1, as a nice way of saying "taking a dive" (which often times the winning participant may not even be let in on) as opposed to purely working a match as would be done in pro wrestling. It wrote that Gotch used Dr. Ben Roller, an excellent real wrestler, but lacking in the charisma that would draw fans, as his policeman to fend off challenges from unknowns that didn't know the business. Roller was already in his late 40s during Gotch's heyday.
The book wrote, "Gotch, according to the old timers, was a supreme bluffer who went his merry successful bonebreaking way because he did business with the more capable bonecrushers whom he met; and dominated the lesser lights through a fiendish delight in breaking bones and maiming less fortunate and skilled adversaries." It called Gotch the best managed and best protected of any wrestler who ever lived and when he died in 1917 at the age of 39, had amassed a fortune of $500,000, which realistically would be equivalent to tens of millions of dollars today.
Although most histories list Gotch as having won the world heavyweight title from Hackenschmidt on April 3, 1908 in Chicago, and his earlier title called the American heavyweight title in history books that he first won in 1904 from Tom Jenkins, he was generally accepted from 1904 by the American public as the world heavyweight champion. The first Hackenschmidt match was at the time considered a match to determine the undisputed world heavyweight wrestling champion between the two claimants to the title. The Beell match was described like this:
"Gotch was running out of opponents when he met Beall in New Orleans on December 1, 1906. The bout ended with a victory for the lighter Marshfield, WI opponent when Gotch was pitched against a ring post and unable to continue. The newspapers went to town on the popular grappler's victory, and just 16 days later, both met again, this time in Kansas City on December 17, 1906 before a capacity house, and Gotch won back his laurels after a `Titan' struggle." It also claimed Gotch pulled a stunt to build up business in a handicap match when he failed to beat Stanislaus Zbyszko in Buffalo in November 1909 to build up a big gate in Chicago the next year for a title match.
An entire chapter was devoted to the second Gotch-Hackenschmidt match at Comiskey Park on September 4, 1911, which at the time was one of the biggest money sporting events in the history of the country except for horse racing. According to the book, they had a nearly $80,000 advance three weeks ahead of time when Hackenschmidt "broke his knee" as it was reported. Much of the advance had already been spent and would have to be returned unless the match took place as scheduled. The promoters went to Hackenschmidt to talk him into staying in Chicago and doing the match. The story they gave the press and the public was that Hackenschmidt was perfecting a new secret hold, and thus all his training from that point forward would be done privately. In those days, as a way to build up gates for big matches, the wrestlers' training sessions would be open to the public. They also said he would do his road work late at night in order to avoid the summer heat. Hackenschmidt agreed to these stipulations provided Gotch would allow him to win one fall, that Gotch would carry him and allow him to look good during the match. The book reports that Gotch gave his word to these stipulations, and late every evening, the promoters sent a big man who approximated Hackenschmidt's look to run along Lake Michigan's beaches while keeping fans from getting close enough to the man for the word to get out it wasn't Hackenschmidt. The book reported, "the contest developed into the greatest fiasco ever perpetrated upon the American public. Hackenschmidt limped into the ring with his knee encased in splits. Gotch threw him two straight falls, and the enraged fans almost killed both participants and wrecked the ball park." The book "credited" the injury to training with Roller, pointing out Roller was Gotch's policeman and without directly saying so (the wording in the book is "read carefully and see what you make of the turn of events"), intimated it was not an accident. Ad Santel, who taught Lou Thesz submissions, claimed to Thesz it was actually he, who, on purpose, in training, tore up Hackenschmidt's knee for a $5,000 payoff from the Gotch camp. Most historians have always considered the Roller story as accurate, but as mentioned last week, it made a better story from Hackenschmidt's standpoint to mention Roller, who definitely was in Hackenschmidt's camp at the time, a legendary wrestler with a known connection to Gotch, than Santel, an unknown except within wrestling's inner circle, but one insiders knew had a great mastery of submissions. For years, the Santel story was discounted because there was no record of Santel even being part of the pro wrestling scene in 1911, but recent research uncovered that at least Santel was around when this was happening. As far as which story is correct, the few that truly know have all passed away decades ago, and, quite frankly, even if they haven't, were part of a world of secrecy to where their veracity would only have the slightest bit of credibility.
Ed Smith, who officiated the famous second match, where Gotch received $21,000 and Hackenschmidt $13,500, wrote in Ring Magazine that "shell of a man who appeared in the afternoon for the bout wasn't even a tough man. The first fall was 14:00, the second 5:00, the bout ending in boos and catcalls
When he entered the ring on the day of the bout he limped
There was a gasp of astonishment from the crowd, which, before the men started to wrestle, knew it was a fiasco
It was just a basket picnic for Gotch
Immediately, Gotch went to work on the injured leg. It's too farcical to recount in detail."
Regarding Joe Stecher and Earl Caddock, it claimed their April 9, 1917 match in Omaha where Caddock beat Stecher to win the title when Stecher refused to come out for the third fall put wrestling back into disrepute. After World War I, wrestling was controlled by Jack Curley, Tony Stecher (Joe's brother, who was a long-time promoter in Minneapolis), Zbyszko and Caddock, and did big business doing programs with Stecher vs. Caddock which were called "virtual theatrical road companies," where they would either wrestle each other, or wrestle singles matches on the same show against Stanislaus and younger brother Wladek Zbyszko.
Paced by a strong main event involving Vince McMahon in the ring, Raw drew a 6.64 rating (6.51 first hour; 6.76 second hour) and a 10.3 share in the Wrestlemania go-home week. Nitro drew a 2.60 rating (3.11 first hour; 2.15 second hour) and a 3.8 share for its annual spring breakout show from South Padre Island.
Raw's main event of Vince & Rock vs. Shane & Show beat out the numbers for Rock putting his career on the line, and for the originally advertised Wrestlemania main event two weeks early, doing a 6.90 final quarter and 7.56 over-run. Nitro's main event of Hogan vs. Wall did a 2.27 rating. The combined wrestling audience hit 10 million viewers for the first time in months.
Head-to-head quarters saw Raw at 6.10 (opening monologue with McMahons & HHH) to 2.38 (Sting & Vampiro vs. Luger & Flair), Raw at 6.89 (continuation of open with brawl) to 1.88 (Meng vs. Parka, Bif Naked video), Raw at 6.35 (Chyna & Jericho vs. Benoit & Guerrero, Crash vs. Bob Holly) to 2.20 (Funk vs. Morrus) and Raw at 6.42 (Rikishi vs. Dogg) to 2.08 (Jarrett & Steiner vs. Hennig & Bagwell).
Smackdown on 3/23 drew a 4.76 rating and a 7.0 share. Thunder on 3/22 drew a 2.09 rating and 3.3 share. As usual, the open of the show because of the strong lead-in, did a 2.63 and the rating declined almost continually as the show went on, which is a horrible sign for an unopposed wrestling show, ending at 1.91 for Hogan vs. Rhodes, which was the lowest point of the show.
All the weekend numbers were down as Livewire did a 1.3 (its first time under 1 million homes in years, Superstars did a 1.6 and Sunday Night Heat fell to 2.76. Heat also had a big chunk bitten out of its usual rating on Oscars night last year. WCW Saturday Night did another 1.3, tying its all-time low mark that the show has hit numerous times over the past few years.
ECW on 3/24 drew an 0.76 rating and 1.3 share, its second straight disappointing week and not all that far off its record low. RollerJam dropped as well to an 0.52 paced by that stupid angle where the same actor was clearly playing himself and his twin brother.
EYADA POLL RESULTS
Results of the poll question on the eyada.com web site. New questions will be up every day at approximately 3 p.m. Eastern time with the results being announced at the start of the Wrestling Observer Live internet audio show the following day along with each week here. If you have any ideas for poll questions, send them to us because we'll be doing five new questions each week.
Which documentary was better, "Wrestling with Shadows" or "Beyond the Mat?" a) Wrestling with Shadows 37%; b) Beyond the Mat 21%; c) Didn't see Wrestling with Shadows 2%; d) Didn't see Beyond the Mat 33%; e) Didn't see either 7%
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Upcoming shows covered will be 4/2 WWF Wrestlemania, 4/7 New Japan Tokyo Dome (option seven only), 4/14 UFC Japan (option seven only), 4/16 WCW Spring Stampede, 4/30 WWF Backlash, 5/1 DSE Tokyo Dome tournament (option seven only), 5/5 New Japan Fukuoka Dome (option seven only), 5/6 WWF U.K. only PPV (option seven only), 5/7 WCW Slamboree, 5/14 ECW Living Dangerously and 5/21 WWF Judgment Day.
RESULTS
3/17 Veracruz (AAA): Rocky Marvin & Mini Abismo Negro b Octagoncito & Mascarita Sagrada, Xochitl Hamada & Estrellita & Zahori d Rossy Moreno & Miss Janeth & Tiffany, Charly Manson & Angel Mortal & Gran Apache I b Billy Boy & Extasis & Oscar Sevilla, Cibernetico & Abismo Negro & Electro Shock b Killer & Devastator & Tiger Steele, Heavy Metal & Perro Aguayo Jr. & La Parka Jr. & Hector Garza b Sangre Chicana & Espectro Jr. & El Texano & Pirata Morgan
3/18 Carolina, Puerto Rico (WWC): El Rockero DCOR El Exotico, Maelo Huertas & Enjabonao b Richie Santiago & Bouncer Bob, WWC tag titles: Black Boy & Jose Rivera Jr. b Bouncer Bruno & Rico Suave, Carlos Colon DCOR El Bronco, Universal title: Carly Colon b Ray Gonzalez-DQ
3/18 Manteo, NC (Fight for Sight benefit show - 700): Johnny Attitude & Johnny Swinger b Q-Sic & Cross, Rick Link b Ricky Morton, Tadpole Buck b Short Dawg-DQ, Joey Abs b Toad, Seaman won three-way over Eddie Brown and Juice, Van Hammer DCOR Maestro, Lane & Rave b Dupp Brothers
3/21 Milwaukee (WWF Smackdown/Heat tapings - 13,432 sellout): Scott Vick b Mideon, Head Bangers b Dupps, Val Venis b Gangrel, Taka Michinoku & Sho Funaki b Hardys, Tazz & Chris Jericho b Christian & Edge, Esse Rios NC Stevie Richards, IC title: Kurt Angle NC Chris Benoit, Godfather b Bull Buchanan-DQ, Al Snow & Steve Blackman b Hollys-COR, Rock b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Womens title: Jacqueline b Lita, Too Cool & Rikishi Phatu b Dean Malenko & Eddy Guerrero & Perry Saturn
3/21 Orlando, FL (WCW Thunder tapings - 6,741/2,443 paid): Ron & Don Harris b Rick Thames & K.C. Thompson, Michael Modest b Elix Skipper, Jim Duggan b Fidel Sierra, Tank Abbott NC David Finlay, Three Count b Jung Dragons, Chavo Guerrero Jr. b Chris Candido, Silver King & Dandy b Lane & Rave, Scott Steiner b Chuck Palumbo, Vampiro b Disco Inferno, Ernest Miller b Dog, Hugh Morrus b KISS Demon, U.S. title: Buff Bagwell b Jeff Jarrett-DQ, Hulk Hogan b Dustin Rhodes, Russ Rollins b Chris Nelson
3/21 Ichinoseki (Toryumon - 1,221): Kennichiro Arai b Yoshiyuki Saito, Yoshikazu Taru b Stalker Ichikawa, Yasushi Kanda & Susumu Mochizuki b Masaaki Mochizuki & Chocoball Kobe, Sumo Dandy Fuji b Daiyu Kawauchi, Cima & Suwa & Makoto b Magnum Tokyo & Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito
3/21 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Alan Stone & Motocross b La Flecha & Alacran, Virus & Americo Rocca & Dr. O'Borman Jr. b Olimpus & Starman & Solar II, Pantera & Astro Rey Jr. & Brazo de Oro b Arkangel & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Halcon Negro Jr., Mr. Niebla & Lizmark Sr. & Tinieblas Jr. b Apolo Dantes & Pierroth Jr. & Fuerza Guerrera, Hair vs. hair: Tony Rivera b Mr. Mexico
3/21 San Antonio, TX (Texas Wrestling Association - 700): Rudy Gonzalez & Bone Crusher DCOR Chris Krueger & Michael Shane, Chaz Taylor b Wayne Knight, Shooter Schultz DDQ Lance Cade, Spanky & American Dragon b Jeremy Cage & Ruben Cruz to win TWA tag titles, Justin Credible b Venom to win TWA title
3/22 Champaign, IL (WWF - 9,752): Godfather b Mideon, Tazz b Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn b Too Cool, Hardcore title: Crash Holly b Gangrel, Rikishi Phatu b Viscera, Kurt Angle won three-way for IC title over Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit, Womens title: Jacqueline b Lita, Acolytes b Test & Prince Albert, Dudleys won three-way for tag titles over Edge & Christian and Hardys, WWF title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Kane
ECW: There is no site for the 5/16 PPV yet. Paul Heyman said he'd like to run it in a new market because the first-time crowds are usually the hottest. There were attempts to run it in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay, but they fell through
Both Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn are expected to work the PPV as wrestlers. Lynn is expected back on 4/22 in Philadelphia while Van Dam will be at all the TV's starting soon but his first match back at this point is scheduled for the PPV. Scott Antol (Scotty Riggs) should be in when Van Dam starts
At first when Paul Heyman saw the size of the building and look of it in Kansas City on 3/24, he canceled the taping and was going to move the taping to the next night in Wichita (which drew a hot crowd of 2,300 for a house show). But after seeing how hot the crowd reactions were from the packed house of 1,500, described as being the best crowd since they left the Elks Lodge in Queens, they did a taping anyway. Chilly Willy, who is now a full-time ring crew member which means he's be a regular prelim guy, pinned Johnny Swinger. Nobody was raving about Swinger, basically saying he's got a good look but nobody cares about him once his match starts. H.C. Loc beat Steve Corino thanks to outside interference from Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes came out with two local strippers who bared their breasts to the crowd. This obviously won't be on television. C.W. Anderson & Bill Whiles beat Mikey Whipwreck & Prodigy. Tajiri beat Guido in their typical good match. Awesome beat Kid Kash in a match described as being better than their PPV match. Dreamer & Doring & Roadkill beat The Baldies in a brawl. Credible & Storm beat Chris Chetti & Nova in a tag title defense. The teams had two matches over the weekend that were both said to be real good. The TV open was taped with Joey Styles and Joel Gertner both saying they were going to kick Cyrus' ass. Before they could, Tajiri came out to protect him so they backed off. Cyrus started insulting Tajiri for losing to Crazy, saying that if he continues to lose, he'll be back in Big Japan putting over Abdullah the Butcher. Crazy came out. Cyrus made fun of Foley's fake retirement. In the middle of all this, Rhino replaced Tajiri in the match with Crazy, but Crazy pinned him with a sunset flip off the top rope through a table. After the match, all the network guys jumped crazy until Sandman made the initial save. Sandman was also overpowered and left laying. The show ended really strangely. Basically Sandman and Crazy left the building and the show ended. The crowd, expecting a happy ending, stayed and started chanting for both Sandman, who left selling an injury, and Raven, who was advertised and was there but didn't work because he had a fever. Heyman called an audible, telling Whipwreck to go out and tell the fans Raven wouldn't be there and the show was over, to set up Raven DDTing him, which he did. Raven was in the ring and the fans were chanting for Sandman, who left selling the injury and was actually in the shower by this point. Raven asked for Sandman to come out. Legitimately he didn't want to, and Raven was working impromptu at this point, but Sandman did and seemed visibly mad at Raven in the ring as a shoot, and caned Raven (obviously as a work) for the show happy ending. Heyman, Raven and Sandman had some words immediately after but everything was smoothed over and it wasn't an issue by the next day
TNN show from 3/24 taped in Salem, NH. First match was another Crazy vs. Tajiri match, which Cyrus said would be a Japanese death match for the TV title acting like Tajiri had never lost one. Before the match started, Cyrus dared Joel Gertner to punch him but Gertner backed down when he said he's call the police. Then he dared Joey Styles who didn't back down when he said he'll call the police, but did when Cyrus said he's cancel ECW on TNN. Cyrus was an awesome heel, doing what was essentially an old Roller Games spot sticking his chin out and daring the face to hit him knowing the face gets suspended for the first punch type of thing. The promo was filled with one McMahon/Hart reference after another. Crazy vs. Tajiri was a good match, but they replaced a lot of the usual wrestling with table breaking, four tables in all, including a power bomb through the table by Crazy to keep the title in 6:54. Corino attacked Crazy after the match and was joined by Victory and Rhino, as the heel network group. Rhino speared Crazy which brought out Sandman, who did world's slowest musical run-in. Tajiri sprayed Sandman in the eyes and Rhino speared and piledrove Sandman, then piledrove Crazy and the heels challenged anyone to come from the back. Mahoney came out and was about to hit Cyrus with a chair until Corino, Rhino and Victory attacked him and left him laying. Then, in an angle that made zero sense, the Baldies attacked Dreamer because Raven had put a bounty on him. They were nice to Dreamer, then told him about the bounty and smashed his head on a coke machine and walked away, to set up Dreamer vs. Grimes. Okay, if they injured him and put him out of action, they'd collect the bounty, right? Okay, why did they already have the money during the angle, and why, with Dreamer out and three of them, did they walk away rather than injure him to build up a bounty singles match with Grimes? Dreamer vs. Grimes was a total outside the ring brawl. Grimes juiced immediately. Grimes did an elbow off about an eight-foot scaffold onto Dreamer on the floor, which, at his weight, is going to make him move real well when he hits 35. Grimes also missed a dive outside the ring. Dreamer went for a ladder, but didn't bring him compass as he couldn't find it which looked really silly in the course of a match. The other Baldies ran in, since they were scheduled to do a teeter totter spot with the ladder, which came off really sloppy. They went back outside the ring to set up Dreamer coming off the scaffold with an elbow drop onto Grimes through a table. That spot at least was done a lot safer than the previous one. Finally Grimes missed a senton in the ring and landed on the ladder and Dreamer pinned him in 12:17. The show ended with them showing an introduction to an Impact Players vs. Raven & Awesome match. Vandenburg claimed he was the one who put Raven & Awesome together, doing a devil gimmick. The only funny thing was Vandenburg yawning since Francine was cutting a too long boring promo, which ended with her taking credit for putting Raven & Awesome together
Tommy Dreamer and New Jack filmed an episode of the CBS TV show "Early Edition" which airs in May
They will be debuting in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, MO on 4/16, and in Minneapolis on 5/5.
WCW: At this point, every angle that was done on TV this week was meaningless because everything starts anew in two weeks. There isn't one match certain for Spring Stampede nor will there be until 4/10. The only major angle they are pushing is to build toward Bischoff vs. Russo but nobody knows where the chips fall from there. Russo will be doing most of the writing and one thing he did say in an interview at 1wrestling.com that was a shoot is that he hadn't even watched one WCW TV show from the time he was axed until this past week, which you can take however you'd like
Nitro on 3/27 from South Padre Island, TX was the annual spring breakout show. The positive is with all the cut-ins from beach parties, it seemed like everyone was having fun, which is usually not the case when one watches WCW. The audience consisting of spring breakers didn't seem as burned out by the bad wrestling as a crowd that had paid money to see it. Still, whatever atmosphere improvements there were, was already killed early in the show with the "I wish I was at Raw" sign, right in front of the camera, flashed throughout the show, which firmly established the product as bush league. Show opened with a woman flashing Gene Okerlund. Kimberly then came out, looking absolutely nothing like the woman in the "first date" photo in DDP's book. To say she looked incredible would be a major understatement. She introduced Page, who pushed the movie like crazy. The rest of the show consisted of Mark Madden and Tony Schiavone constantly pushing that Russo & Bischoff were coming. They showed the angle to set up the Mancow vs. Jimmy Hart match at Spring Stampede where Hart attacked Mancow, seemingly for no reason. As the angle was explained to me ahead of time, Mancow was going to bury WCW for being so bad, but they didn't make it clear what it was, and people in the company were very disappointed with the lack of pub in Chicago doing the angle got. Artist did a skit with three unknowns where Paisley picked his opponent, picking Michael Modest. Don Harris was shown at the pool with his arm in a sling. They announced that Sid, who wasn't there because he suffered a shoulder injury (okay, I can see not wrestling with a shoulder injury, but if you're the world champion, I can't see not showing up to television to at least cut promos) so to cover for it they announced he had put up a $500,000 bounty on Hogan's head, as if anyone could possibly believe that. Sid is off the house shows this weekend in Baltimore and Pittsburgh where he was scheduled to main event. No idea who will replace him. Modest beat Artist with the emerald erosion in 3:40. Candido was there, ending rumors of his departure. The announcers totally ignored the match. Madden was instructed to play dumb and not even know who Modest was for storyline purposes which was hilarious because he had talked about "Beyond the Mat" just the previous week on Nitro, which I don't believe he actually has seen, but it's hard to see that movie and not know Modest. Of course, with that storyline being handed to them, they ignored it. This wasn't 1% as dumb as taking Hart off television for several weeks after Shadows aired on A&E, but conceptually it's the same thing. The announcers, by instructions, totally ignored the storyline the two wrestlers were supposed to be telling of the unknown beating the champ in a non-title because all they were allowed to do was push Russo and Bischoff. Guerrero Jr. also came out with Candido. Artist collided with Paisley leading to the finish. They barely even acknowledged the finish. Modest looked good on his debut. Even though it was a non-title match, Artist was booked to go over clean until Mike Graham, for whatever reason, spoke up for how stupid him losing his debut in a non-title would be if they would ever have plans for him. That may not be good for Modest, because Russo and Graham don't get along and someone thought to be favored by Graham isn't necessarily good this week. Ron Harris beat Booker in 1:39 when Don took off his sling, interfered, and they did the H-bomb. The only notable thing is that Booker hit a uranage on Ron that didn't look half bad. After the match, the new Heat came down and Booker was holding his own until Cash squashed him. Kidman came out for the save, but of course, he got creamed as well. Vampiro did an interview telling Hogan someone had placed a bounty on him for a half mil. He said he didn't know who did it. That was funny since the announcers already told us that Sid did it. Hogan didn't know about the bounty until Vamp told him, but as he continued his interview, he acted as if he knew it was Sid as well. Hogan did an interview. Hogan got a very disappointing pop. He put over Vampiro as the wrestler of the future, since he's at least told people he wants to work with him in the tag team break-up angle at some point. He went so far as to put Vampiro over as being possibly the next Hogan. Wall was on the roof of the hotel. Hogan had to go impromptu for a long time because the person who was supposed to tell Wall to go to the roof forgot, and by the time this mistake was figured, Hogan had to stretch a long time. Jung Dragons beat Disco & Vito & Johnny. Dragons did a funny Three Count imitation singing the song in Japanese. They stopped just before it could actually get a crowd reaction. Fast paced with some good moves but rough around the edges. Jamie-san pinned Disco in 4:27 after a tidal wave type double splash. The Harris Twins then came out and beat up both teams, including no selling the Dragons to make them look totally foolish. And they wonder why their young babyfaces never get over. People won't cheer for fools. Sting & Vampiro beat Flair & Luger in 5:29 when Sting pinned Luger in the Gulf of Mexico. Luger ended up taking a bump in the pool, he threw a waiter in the pool, Sting threw sauce all over him. They wound up brawling on the beach and Luger took a backdrop and a piledriver in the gulf. Liz went to throw something at Sting, totally missed, and turned to the camera and starting laughing. She's got 18 years in the business and still has no poise under pressure. Supposedly Flair and Vampiro worked really well together in the ring, but nobody saw it. The original finish was Vampiro pinning Flair, but while Flair didn't refuse it, he wasn't happy either, and they adjusted. Meng pinned Parka in :51 with the death grip. Fans didn't care about Parka. Madden said Meng had an Angela Davis haircut. I seem to remember Angela Davis as a school teacher at the University of California about 30 years ago. Abbott and Finlay wound up brawling at ringside. A commercial ran for upcoming dates, which still plugged getting tickets for Worcester and Durham, both of which are canceled. They aired a Bif Naked music video to push "Ready to Rumble," which was a ratings killer. Funk NC Morrus in 5:07. Morrus power bombed Funk on the floor and he was hurting really badly legit from that as there was little give. Funk took a terrible amount of punishment in this match. At least it told a story, but that's a lot of pain to go through for a match not designed to get over or mean anything. Rhodes did a run-in, hitting Funk, Morrus and ref Mickey Jay with a chair shot. Morrus moonsaulted Jay after the match. Morrus moonsaulted Funk just before Rhodes' run-in. Hogan did another interview. Steiner & Jarrett beat Bagwell & Hennig in 4:26 when Jarrett hit Hennig with the guitar and Steiner put him in the recliner. Bagwell didn't make the save because he was trying to pick up on the women. Midajah picked up some brownie points over the weekend since she accompanied Jarrett at the house shows, while the other two didn't seem all that interested in working on the road. Finally Wall beat Hogan via DQ in 4:40. To Hogan's credit, at least his chair shots are to the back where you can hit hard without rattling the brain. Hogan got up from the choke slam, but allowed Wall to get up from the legdrop. Did I mention that Hogan put up $500,000 so this match was supposedly for $1 million. The original finish was Hogan winning clean, but he vetoed in and instead booked where Wall popped up from his finisher, Vampiro came in to help him for the DQ, they both put Wall through a table, but he got up from that as well
Thunder on 3/28 in Houston which drew about 1,700 paid coming one day after WWF sold out the same city for Raw. Bobby Heenan still announced, which came after nearly tons of web sites had reported his being fired from the company. They also reported Tony Schiavone being off Nitro, which also isn't the case, at least at press time. No interviews were cut except more of those "What do you think of Bischoff and Russo working together?" things, since nobody had any idea where their storylines were going. Said to be a bad show. For World Wide, Lane & Rave beat Villanos, Finlay beat Chuck Palumbo and Morrus pinned Smiley. For Thunder, Candido beat Guerrero in a match which included interference from Modest and Artist. The interference messed up what was a decent match. Duggan pinned Barbarian. Rhodes pinned Mr. Jones. Funk interfered but Rhodes still won. Silver King & Dandy beat Helms & Moore. The story was that Evan Karagias was hitting on Miss Hancock and Helms & Moore were distracted trying to get him to pay attention to the match, causing their demise. Said to be the second best match on the show. Abbott destroyed Disco. Story here is Vito & Johnny booked Disco into a match with Abbott because they were mad Disco hadn't been able to get them a tag title rematch. Booker beat Jarrett via DQ in the best match on the show when Harris Twins interfered often. Vito & Johnny beat New Heat via DQ in the worst match on the show. Told you'd have to see it to believe how bad it was. Ron Harris pinned Kidman when Don, still doing the arm in a sling gimmick, interfered. Knobs beat Dog. Now that Knobs and Dog have turned on each other to start a heated feud, Dog is being walked to the ring by the referee. Bagwell pinned Parka. TV main was Vampiro NC Wall in a match described as very sloppy
Thunder on 3/21 from Orlando had its ups and downs. Abbott NC Finlay in 1:41 in what was probably the most entertaining Abbott match up to this point. Finlay was taking him down and seemed like he was blowing him up on the mat. Abbott threw the KO punch when Meng came out. Hogan and Sid were fighting backstage. Finlay did an interview saying Abbott is green and didn't have it when Hogan and Sid brawled into the ring and Finlay, after being the first person who could carry Abbott, got as his reward, the ability to do an interview and get choke slammed by Sid like a jibroni. At this point there was a sign in the crowd saying "I'd rather be at Smackdown." Even the people given free tickets have turned on these guys. Sid did an interview and said when Hogan left, he was the one who carried the company. That's nothing one would want to put on their resume. Can you imagine in a real entertainment job, I was the top attraction for a record company when people stopped buying all our records. Three Count beat Jung Dragons in 3:28 when Shane Helms pinned Yong Yang with a frog splash. Hayashi looked fantastic. Where did Yang come from? He's really talented. This was really entertaining. These teams, with the right push, can both get over strong simply because they are entertaining, particularly in a pushed feud against each other building to the right kind of gimmick matches and stips with background talk and storyline. Of course, they won't be given any of this, be given any credibility and won't be booked in a manner to get any, so fans know enough not to care. Chavo Guerrero Jr. pinned Candido in 4:04 when Artist hit Candido with the WORST DDT ever in wrestling. Even though Guerrero is one of the most underrated and underpushed performers in the U.S., it shows that WCW wanted to make sure Candido was never taken seriously by having him job on his second TV. It doesn't matter how funny his interviews are or aren't when you're booked in that way, although it appears all that is a moot point now. Los Fabulous beat XS in 2:37 when Dandy pinned Lane with La Magistral, which ten years ago in Mexico when it was invented was actually called the Dandina. Rave is an example of the Peter Principle in WCW. He had great charisma at ringside carrying the signs and had potential to be a great manager. He's totally awful at working a match. So what role do they have him in? Scott Steiner beat Chuck Palumbo in 4:00 with the recliner. Palumbo showed potential, so of course, they introduce him as a jobber. He should be kept off TV until he's ready and be given a minor push up to a level he can hang and make an impression rather than give people the jobber first impression. Vampiro pinned Disco in 4:23. Luger and Flair attacked him afterwards until Sting made the save. Cat (Miller) beat Dog in 3:07. Mike Jones, a few weeks after doing an interview saying he wasn't going to be playing any more demeaning characters, is now Mr. Jones, basically acting as Cat's valet. Totally horrible. After the match, Knobs found Dog eating his socks. He drove him away with Dog's head out the window before abandoning him. Hopefully that means the gimmick is dead. I mean, it's dead either way, just hopefully we don't have to watch that specific dead gimmick. Morrus pinned Demon in 2:46 with a moonsault. Buff tried to pick up on a women in the technical crew and she blew him off bad. I think it's going to come out that somebody has told all the women nasty rumors about him so nobody wants to have anything to do with him. Actually, I think now it's just going to be dropped and forgotten. But he does have the worst pick-up lines of anyone on weekly television, which is not exactly a babyface characteristic for a pretty boy. Bagwell beat Jarrett via DQ in 2:48 when Steiner interfered. Bagwell was holding his own against Jarrett and the Twins. Hennig made the save, but Jarrett clocked him with a guitar Steiner put Bagwell in the recliner. Finally Hogan pinned Rhodes in 6:20. Terrible. Rhodes first got DQ'd for hitting Hogan and ref Nick Patrick with the ring bell. Patrick ordered the match to be re-started, and Hogan immediately legdropped him for the pin. Backstage Sid choke slammed Jimmy Hart through a table with all kinds of mats underneath. The least they could have done is put a cloth on the table so every fan couldn't see just how gimmicked the stunt was. Sid then hit Hogan with a weak chair shot and that was it
Michael Modest had his try-out match against Elix Skipper which was said to have been a great match. His timing couldn't have been better, since he came in looking like the son of Kevin Sullivan and got the try-out from people whose power looks to be nil. After the live show was over, local indie wrestler Classy Chris Nelson faced local DJ Russ Rollins with the DJ going over
Hogan was on WJRR in Orlando on 3/21 promoting Thunder later that night. Besides hyping his angle with Sid, he ran down a lot of WCW, saying Bret Hart was up in Canada and couldn't remember what WCW was, that DDP was out with a broken fingernail and that WCW needs guys that will crawl through broken glass with one arm in a sling to sacrifice and get in the ring. Hogan praised Vampiro and said Kidman should train like Torrie. When someone asked him about Perry Saturn's comments, he said those guys were just making excuses for their failures and they should have moved him out of the way. Bill Banks on WCW live said that not only does Hogan have creative control, but he still has guaranteed six PPV main events for each of the next two years. We asked about Hogan's deal and were told it was six PPV main events in total remaining but that's not to say which story is the true one. Hogan had been telling people he had four PPV matches left on his contract. Hogan did p.r. work for the 4/16 PPV in Chicago which resulted in 4,000 tickets sold for $160,000 the first day they were put on sale on 3/24. While that figure would have been a major disappointment as recently as a few months back, after the recent gates, it was considered a positive
The booking plan was for Tammy Sytch to debut on the 4/16 PPV attacking Paisley when she tried to interfere in a Chris Candido vs. Artist cruiserweight title match
Variety ran a story on WCW revamping its PPV department, talking about the elimination of Jay Haseman as head of PPV and that next month Aaron Blitzstein, an executive at artist-management company G.A.S. entertainment will take over the department as WCW Vice President of Marketing. Also in the department will be Tom Hunt, who ran the hotline business, left for the Cartoon Network, and returned as Director of PPV marketing and promotions. Hunt said the key is that WCW will decrease the amount of money it spends on advertising while increasing money on direct marketing. This new strategy will start with the promotion of the 7/9 Bash at the Beach show. WCW will promote contests tied to the event with the winner escorting Bill Goldberg to the ring. They will also follow in WWF's lead, as everyone who sends a copy of their cable bill will get a Goldberg doll. The announcers will also be instructed to plug the PPV more often during the television shows. Nowhere in this strategy did they mention presenting shows the audience enjoys and booking finishes that don't leave fans feeling like they've wasted $29.95. They don't need marketing executives to come up with ways to turn it around. Book matches that going in, look good on paper rather than simply throwing matches out there to fill up a show even though on paper they don't look to have a prayer of being entertaining. Book finishes not to leave fans frustrated, but to leave them feel like what they saw was important and not something the results of which won't matter by the end of Nitro the next night (granted, WWF does the same thing, but since their PPVs aren't a sinking ship, they can screw their audience right now with impunity, not that they do regularly, but they can, just as WCW could two years ago). When the shows are good, and the finishes are satisfying, and they string together three or four in a row, word will get around and it'll turn around. Repeating all the same mistakes and trying to come up with new marketing plans after the fact will yield negative results
Brad Armstrong will be out of action for several months with a knee injury. Armstrong was in the parking lot when Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis' were driving in their rental car goofing off and accidentally injured him while reprising a wrestling angle of running him over. Armstrong had some sort of a blow-up with management at a recent TV taping about how he was being used, which isn't relevant to this story
Les Thatcher and his Heartland Wrestling Association have signed a two-year minor league deal with WCW. Thatcher had been negotiating with both WWF and WCW and WCW made the better offer. Thatcher will do basically graduate course training for some of the Power Plant wrestlers and he'll also start running six shows per month with WCW sending younger wrestlers to work on his shows to gain experience performing in front of a crowd
Bret Hart was on the Vicki Gabreau show in Canada which aired on 3/28 with Roddy Piper. Piper started talking, in detail, about this classic match the two had at the Toronto Skydome, which, of course, never took place. Apparently in the original copy of the current book on Hart that's out, Piper, who wrote an introduction chapter, talked about the same Skydome match, but the editors changed it to taking place at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, which is at least closer in that Hart and Piper did wrestle at the 1992 Wrestlemania at the Hoosier Dome
On UPN 9 in New York, doing their hook to keep wrestling fans after Smackdown ends, on 3/23 talked about the new wrestling movie ("Ready to Rumble") and said, "Hey WWF fans, there's a new movie out with some of the WWF's biggest stars" and never mentioned WCW
The local Tijuana newspaper La Frontera ran a story about Halloween and Damian joining Sonny Onoo's lawsuit against WCW. Damian and Halloween were both fired with one year remaining on their contracts while being out with injuries. Lizmark Jr. and Hector Garza are also involved. Of course with Bischoff in charge, it's expected this will quickly disappear
Christopher Daniels is expected to start on 4/10. I just saw him on a tape from Jim Kettner's Super 8 tournament a few weeks back in Wilmington, DE and he's got a new look which makes him look more like a star, and in the ring, the guy has improved a lot over the past year doing the Michinoku tours
A correction on the thing about Chris Kanyon getting his gimmick from Marty "Cham Pain" Garner. According to Raven, he came up with the gimmick and name Chris "Champagne" Kanyon and the look. Garner used the name but it was a different gimmick. I believe Kanyon called Garner about usage of the name, not the gimmick
There are forces trying to now open the door for a return of Shane Douglas
Konnan's suspension ends on 4/1 so he should also be back imminently
Thunder tapings on 3/21 in Orlando, FL at Waterhouse Centre drew 2,443 paid and 4,298 comps for a $51,785 house. 3/25 in Abilene, TX for a house show drew 2,945 paying $53,256.
WWF: A correction on the TV situation provided the CBS deal is signed and Raw moves to TNN. Vince McMahon gave the word that they wouldn't allow duplicate programming in Canada so if the deal goes down as expected, Raw would be off TSN. TNN has far less coverage in Canada than TSN, but with the popular WWF programming, it would encourage more cable systems to pick up TNN. It would also lead to less editing because TSN was under fire from the CRTC due to all the complaints about Raw's content, which has led to a backlash now of complaints from wrestling fans because so much of Raw each week is edited out. The CRTC in Canada this past week approved of CTV's purchasing of TSN, which may undergo a name change to be called ESPN Canada. It does appear that Smackdown will start running in Canada in September on Headline Sports, which was just given CRTC approval to add live sporting events to its current format. In even bigger news, the FCC staff recommended that the commission change its rules to allow a big four network (ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS) to own a secondary network (UPN or WB), which would eliminate the final legal hurdle in a CBS/WWF deal. The actual approval or rejection of Viacom's dual ownership is expected next month. The deal appearing to be coming to fruition, and there are sources within the TV industry that consider it a done deal except the signing, has boosted WWFE stock to $17.31 per share, which means the people who got it before its public open at $34, are back to being even, and it also means the McMahons are right at the line of being billionaires again
Raw on 3/27 from the Compaq Center in Houston drew a sellout 12,509 paying $382,612 for a show that started SLOOOW and ended hot. Linda McMahon came out first. She went on a long monologue which got no reaction and the crowd was jumping up and down trying to mug for the cameras while paying little attention. She called out Stephanie to apologize. Vince came out, which saved the segment and ordered Stephanie to apologize. Stephanie came out and apologized, but guess what, she didn't mean it. She said she shouldn't have slapped her mom, she should have slapped her dad. I guess she just watched a video of "Wrestling with Shadows." Vince said he was going to beat her ass. She stuck her big ass out there which brought out HHH, who couldn't believe he'd married into such a dysfunctional family (he actually said that line, which was hilarious) and said that Vince needed counseling. Shane came out and ripped on Stephanie and hugged his mom. He then jumped Vince, giving him a fat lip and he and HHH stomped on him while Linda just stood there. Linda finally went to stop Shane but Stephanie got her from behind in a full nelson. So she did watch Billy Jack Haynes as a kid. Stephanie and Linda's struggling was like, real bad. Foley and Show came out. Show clotheslined Foley over the top and they continued to pound on Vince. Finally the Rock came for the save, but Show choke slammed him, HHH gave Foley the Pedigree and KO'd Vince with the title belt. This whole thing went 23 minutes and at least ended strong. Benoit & Guerrero beat Chyna & Jericho in 1:53. Chyna looked totally unhappy out there. Benoit pinned Jericho when Guerrero shook the ropes to mess up his quebrada. They beat up Chyna after until Jericho saved her. Chyna made a comeback until Saturn & Malenko held her for Guerrero to pound her until Too Cool made the save. Vince called out Shane. Linda told him not to. Vince of course didn't listen to logic and was only after a big rating. Crash Holly vs. Bob for the hardcore title ended up with Tazz, Head Bangers, Viscera, Posse and Kaientai all attacking to set up the Battle Royal at Mania. This was hilarious. At one point Crash asked Kaientai for the way out, and Taka jumped him while Funaki put on a ref shirt. He ended up running outside, with about a dozen guys after him, but hid behind a garbage can. Those guys should have seen the camera man shooting him directly, but the cameras missed his escape and run back into the building while locking the doors. Shane did an interview turning down the challenge. They showed Rock on Jay Leno. They didn't show the highlight when Roger Ebert put Rock over saying he saw him on Saturday Night Live (and also had just seen "Beyond the Mat") and basically told him he had talent and to get into acting and as far away from wrestling as possible for his own good. Rock seemed happy with the advice, saying he was working on it. Rikishi beat Road Dogg via count out in 1:08. Rikishi appeared to be hurt as he was dragging his leg. He basically shoved his butt in Dogg's face, who acted as if he was going to vomit and the match just ended. Rock did an interview. Great delivery. What did he say? It doesn't matter... oh sorry. He challenged anyone in the world to face him all at once. Saturn & Malenko beat Hardys in 5:45 of a good match with good heat. Christian & Edge were at ringside trying to be heels, but they seem too nice for it. Christian pulled Saturn out of the way of the swanton, causing Jeff to splat. Edge gave Jeff the spear and Saturn pinned him after a Tiger suplex. Kane beat Angle via DQ in 3:38. They mainly had Kane no-sell for him. Angle had a funny line when he called Kane the big red retard saying that he himself had a lot of retarded fans. Thankfully they kept Backlund away from the ring. Angle was DQ'd for hitting him with a belt, but Kane popped up after the DQ and choke slammed and tombstoned him. Vince said he's team with Rock, who didn't seem thrilled about it. Test beat Snow in :36 when Blackman threw in head, totally overshooting Snow and Test got it for the pin. Trish Stratus talking ability still needs lots of work. Bossman & Buchanan no contest Acolytes when Godfather & D-Lo came out with ho's, including this totally ridiculous looking one with implants the size of New Hampshire. They paid off Acolytes to leave and started pounding on Bossman & Buchanan. Linda announced Foley as a ref for the main event. Moolah stripped Kat down to her bra and panties. She tried to strip Mae as well. X-Pac beat D-Von Dudley in 2:23 with the X-factor when Dogg distracted him. Kane came in and got laid out with 3-D after the match. Tori started bad mouthing Kane, who arose from the dead and went to choke slam her, but X-Pac saved her with a low blow and he and Road Dogg threw Kane over the top rope through a table. Stephanie announced HHH would also ref. Finally, Vince & Rock beat Shane & Show in 11:08. The new music was a heat killer. Show got no pop coming out to his new song. Rock still god a good pop. They pounded on Vince till Rock showed up. Shane's offense was passable but his selling was tremendous. If any promotion had main event heels who sold like Shane & HHH did for Vince, every babyface in the company would be over. All kinds of twists and turns. Vince & Shane brawled outside the ring and both got really gassed but id didn't even matter the heat was so good. The refs kept interfering and fighting each other. Finally Vince KO'd HHH and Foley put the claw on Show and Rock pinned Shane after a rock bottom
For Smackdown tapings on 3/28 in San Antonio at Freeman Coliseum for a sellout crowd which also included Austin (not wearing a neckbrace) at the show. American Force 2000 (Spanky & American Dragon) beat Board of Education in a battle of Shawn Michaels' trainees. For trivia, the first pushed gimmick Michaels ever had was in San Antonio as part of a tag team called American Force with Paul Diamond and Nick Kiniski. Lots of innovative high spots but they screwed some stuff up and it didn't look fluid, but the crowd gave them a hand because they were local. Tony Chimel then hyped Michaels' retirement match for 4/4 against Venum to the live crowd. Dupps beat Scott Vick & ?. Lots of boring chants. They worked hard but again not fluid and even awkward at times. For Heat which airs before Mania, Godfather & Brown beat bs & Rodney. The ho's distracted Pete Gas. If you remember the skits with Terri, Pete is still a virgin. Snow beat Viscera after two head shots with Blackman distracting the ref. Bradshaw NC Buchanan when the partners all ran in. Venis beat Bob Holly in a boring match. Caryn Mawr did her segments dark. Rikishi & Kane beat Dudleys in a non-title match when Rikishi used the banzai on D-Von. HHH did an interview. Vince announced the four-way would be no DQ. Actually, he said that once two guys were eliminated, the last two would have no DQ stips. Foley said since it was no DQ he pulled out a barbed wire 2x4. Venis will ref the Kat vs. Terri match. Both women tried to bribe him during the show with sexual favors. Foley did yet another farewell interview. Crash NC Tazz for the hardcore title. They went backstage with Viscera and Head Bangers involved. Crash ran way. They showed clips later on in the show of Crash still running. Crash was at a wherehouse but the Posse found him but Crash ran away again. Road Dogg & X-Pac beat Edge & Christian. Hardys were on commentary and after a ref bump, Matt used the twist of fate on Christian and Jeff used the swanton on Edge and X-Pac put Dogg on top of Edge for the pin. Foley offered Rock his help at Mania and Rock told him he didn't need his help. Rock beat Angle. HHH and Show came out to interfere with Rock pinning Angle with the rock bottom. HHH, Show and Shane jumped Rock. Vince came out with some chair shots but Shane ended up leaving Vince laying after a belt shot. Shane & Show also left HHH laying. Jericho beat Guerrero via DQ. Match was too short. Jericho used the walls but Benoit interfered for the DQ. Chyna chased Guerrero away (they are doing the gimmick where he's afraid of her) and while Benoit and Jericho fought, Angle came in and laid both out with his finish. Stephanie came out and read a letter forever from a fan. Vince came out and said the interview was giving him a headache and said he thought she wrote the letter herself. Linda came out and berated Vince for what he said to Stephanie. Vince then announced Stephanie vs. Jacqueline as the TV main event. Crash came back all bruised with more guys after him. He said the 24-7 thing had gotten out of hand and that Wrestlemania would be a 15:00 Battle Royal where the first person to pin him gets the title. Malenko beat Scottie Too Hottie to keep the light heavyweight title in a good match. Saturn and Sexay were outside and Scottie had Malenko pinned when Guerrero interfered to help Malenko. Chyna chased the Radicals out. Mae Young came in to give Venis sexual favors but he was quick to kick her out. Hardys beat Test & Albert when Matt pinned Test with the twist of fate. Test & Albert and Edge & Christian all attacked the Hardys. Edge brought a ladder in and he and Christian climbed in but the Dudleys knocked them off. Stephanie won the title in the main event. She stalled and ran until X-Pac and Tori interfered with Tori hitting a DDT and Stephanie scoring the pin in 20 seconds. DX all celebrated. Everyone on the card basically ran in to end the show brawling until Rock and Foley cleaned house. Foley put the socko claw on Shane and Rock gave him rock bottom and a people's elbow with a barbed wire 2x4
Some notes from the 3/23 Smackdown show. Benoit vs. Angle was a real good match until the finish. Some unintentional humor was when Jericho did the run-in and had the walls on Angle, not only was Angle tapping, which makes no sense in a non-match environment, but also Lawler was screaming how Jericho was trying to break Angle's leg, when if that hold were legitimately applied the pressure is clearly on the low back. Lawler almost made up for exposing that after 30 years of wrestling, he doesn't know what a boston crab is, with his line about it should be against the low to injure an Olympic gold medalist. Godfather, who had been unofficially banned from Smackdown after the advertiser controversy, is now in full force and the only differentiation between his appearance, including they are less worried about the costuming of the women than even a month ago, on this show as before is that in his catch phrase he doesn't do the pot smoking references. Bull Buchanan, in his first TV singles match, while not having a good match, looked probably as good as possible against probably one of the few remaining wrestlers in the company that you can't get a good match out of. Mick Foley looked uncharacteristically nervous doing the interview, almost as if he knew he'd talked himself into a corner that he couldn't get out of. Foley comes from the old school of wrestling where he wants his storylines to make sense, which is an impossibility with television shows written week-to-week where instant entertainment is the goal and building long-term storylines is no longer thought about. While he knew he'd get the great crowd pop for the return because he's in a business where everyone is a liar and expected to be by the audience, he also knew he had no explanation for his storyline that made sense and there was no way out of this one except that he did what everyone else did, and did what just about everyone else expected him to do, but in doing so left himself with the same credibility of everyone else. There was nowhere near the pop for Rock for his new entrance music as for the previous one, but this also was the first time. While Linda McMahon isn't a good television personality, particularly her "shocked" look being so contrived, she did take a great bump for a non-worker to sell the finish of the show
Caryn Mawr's stage name at this point is going to be Muffy Mawr
WWF the Music Volume Four was No. 152 on the charts this past week selling 10,176 units. The Armageddon CD was released this past week and is expected to start up very high on the charts. In initial shipment was 400,000 units and there are already places asking for re-orders
The 3/15 Baltimore Sun ran a major feature on Rock. Among his quotes were, "I believe the term pro wrestler has become passe. When people view the character of The Rock, professional wrestler isn't the first thing they think of. They think of larger-than-life television entertainer or artist." Seriously, go down to any playground and ask the kids, or for that matter any place of work with fans and ask the adults what The Rock does for a living. Not one will respond "larger than life television entertainer." Every single one will respond "pro wrestler." Regarding his ethnicity, he said, "So often, men of color in our industry are typecast and stereotyped, and then it becomes very limiting. The Rock has no color. No one looks at the Rock and says, `Oh, yeah, that's the guy that's half this and half that.'" As far as the potential of fans rebelling against things and people who get too popular, he said, "As long as the character is innovative and creative and believes what he's doing, I don't ever think that will happen. The backlash that happened with Hulk Hogan, it was because he did the same thing every single night. People get tired of that. When it's time for change, and when it happens, The Rock again is going to be the guy you love to hate.
For whatever this is worth, and often this doesn't mean a lot, the ads for Backlash on 4/30 are built around Rock, Jericho, HHH and Big Show
The Los Angeles Business Journal had a story about the XFL having a team play out of the Los Angeles Coliseum, saying that while stadium officials and some network honchos are taking the XFL seriously, there is widespread skepticism about it making it. The WWF claims it has enough money earmarked to sustain the league for three seasons. The league is talking about expanding to 16 teams by 2005. The WWF in the article still insists it will own all the teams and isn't interested in outside investors. The WWF said they will be going after a younger audience that the NFL doesn't get, but won't be staged entertainment, with spokes Jayson Berstein saying "We are not looking at turning this into a mockery of the sport." They quoted a top media buyer saying the advertising community has doubts about the league's viability and is going to be a tough sell, because the feeling among advertisers is that it won't be a legitimate football league and will be entertainment rather than sport
Refunds were offered at the house show last weekend because there were so many no-shows with Rock, Show and HHH off for Saturday Night Live plus Chyna, Godfather, Road Dogg also no-showing. Advertising in some markets was never changed to reflect the guys missing because of the NBC show but Rock was pulled from ads for the Cedar Falls, IA show in advertising in the Davenport/Moline market
Shawn Michaels is booked on the Wrestlemania Axcess fan festival but not on the show itself. He's said to be chomping at the bit to get back on television, but the ball isn't in his court and the WWF is rolling without him and to the new fans he isn't even one of the top stars anymore
The WWF Aggression CD is expected to have a huge first week on the charts. On the Handleman's distribution list, which handles both K-Mart and Walmart, it's No. 2 for its first week behind only In Synch. It's No. 7 at the Wherehouse but not in the top ten at Musicland
Big Show was on Conan O'Brien on 3/23. He told the story he told on Jay Leno about getting arrested kissing the first girl he ever kissed when he was 12 because he was already 6-2, 200 and they thought he was a child molester. On Jay Leno, he told the story that he was on a ferris wheel. On Conan he said he was at a roller rink. I guess we can chalk that up to a tall story
The 3/29 USA Today has a major story on Foley leading up to Mania, claiming it will be his final match. He said, "I was much more successful and, going over my taxes now, obviously a lot more profitable being more of a comedy character in 1999 than I ever was being the King of Hardcore. If I'd known I could make more money
making people laugh than making people wince, I'd have done it a long time ago." As for the finish of the 1999 Royal Rumble, Foley said, "Unfortunately, one of our worst moments has been documented on film." Foley said that if it hadn't been for Austin, he'd have retired before this final run. Foley said, knowing that he'd be going back on his word, he spent 20 minutes trying to talk McMahon out of doing the match (the conversation he talked about on TV with Linda apparently was a real conversation with Vince). His wife said his biggest concern in making the decision to do the match was about lying. "It may take some people a while to forgive me, but not as long as it would take me to forgive myself if I didn't do this. Realistically, it's probably going to be the most money that I've ever made. So 15 years from now, when everyone has forgiven me, my kids' college will be taken care of." The story said that most fans expect him to win at Mania. He said, "some people think they need to go out a winner. I happen to think it's more romantic to go out the way I did (putting over the champion clean in a title match). And it's better for business. I firmly believe in doing what's best for the guys who have to stay there, whatever that may be." It said Foley swears (I wish he wouldn't swear about it because he'll wind up being thought of just like every other wrestler) Sunday is his last match in the story, saying he'll come back as commissioner and occasionally as a special referee. "By leaving now, I'm probably giving up on the most profitable year in my career. But I was named after Mickey Mantle. I grew up hearing about how Mickey Mantle suck around one season too long. I didn't want people to make the same comments about Mickey Foley.
Smackdown tapings on 3/21 in Milwaukee drew a sellout 13,432 paying $357,580. 3/22 house show in Champaign, IL drew 9,752 paying $263,783. Show was headlined by HHH over Kane and they did three-ways preparing for WM for both the tag title and IC titles. They did an angle for MTV, basically reprising the ECW angle with Limp Bizkit. Joe C from Kid Rock got attacked by the Dudleys but Rikishi & Too Cool made the save and they all danced together in the ring. Merchandise for the week was $305,669 or $8.56 per head.
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