Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN1083-9593 March 13, 2000
The controversy over the movie "Beyond the Mat" grew this past week when pressure tactics from the WWF caused the USA Network, UPN and Cris Craft Communications to all ban any advertising on any of their programs for the film.
While some were surprised at the lengths Vince McMahon would go to attempt to bury the movie, it has been clear for some time by anyone who understands the "with us or against us" and no in between philosophy of McMahon, that he felt the movie wasn't "with us." If he felt he had the power to pressure entire networks into not carrying commercials, of course he would. The surprise was that the networks allowed him to exert that much influence as it regards advertising on non-wrestling programming, which shows the surprising power within television the WWF franchise holds, particularly with McMahon leveraging everyone against one another since his USA network commitments come due in September. Such tactics, while apparently exceedingly rare when it comes to movies, are not unusual within the realm of television. For example, just in the wrestling wars world, TNT and TBS wouldn't air the phone commercial with Steve Austin and D-Lo Brown, while USA and UPN won't air the Spree commercial with Bill Goldberg. WWF has had a longstanding policy of not allowing what they perceive to be competition wrestling products advertise within the body of their show, but this is the first time they've exerted influence to all shows on the networks they air on.
The only known example of a network refusing to air commercials for a movie was NBC refusing to air commercials for "Dirty Work." The star of the movie was Norm MacDonald, a former Saturday Night Live cast member who had been fired from the show by NBC Entertainment President Don Ohlmeyer for questionable language on a live broadcast. MacDonald had gone on several talk shows bashing Ohlmeyer. Ohlmeyer then pressured the network into not running any ads for the movie.
In the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the day of the movie opening on 3/3, Jerry Lawler was quoted categorizing Blaustein as a jerk, claiming he deceived the WWF by presenting his project as a minor documentary that might premiere on PBS rather than what it is--a potentially highly profitable feature film distributed by Lions Gate and financed by Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment company. As anyone who has followed the idea of this movie from when it was first reported on in this publication, the first time in 1995, the name Ron Howard and Universal Studios were mentioned from the beginning with the idea of a "Pumping Iron" type of movie. "Pumping Iron" was a very well received mid-1970s documentary which many credit for very briefly taking the strange world of bodybuilding out of the closets and being the springboard for the career of Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Lou Ferrigno. It was the Howard name that had the wrestling world buzzing about the project from the start and it was always talked about as having the goal be, like "Pumping Iron," to have a theatrical release.
Because of the publicity, the movie, which was awarded Best Documentary at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, opened strong in Memphis, being the second highest grossing movie in the city of the weekend. It didn't do as well in Charlotte, where there was no local publicity and they were relying more on the ads that were pulled.
The ban has not spread to the local station level. There have been ads for the movie on UPN stations, but not members of the Cris Craft chain, bought at a local level, as well as on the USA network purchased in local markets, just as the Acclaim ECW video game ads as well as house show and TNN ads for the show have appeared on Raw in specific markets through buying local ads and just as WWF and WCW when doing house shows have bought local time on their competitors' cable show. There were ads taken at a local level that aired in some markets on the USA network on 3/6 with the added tag line that this is "the film Vince McMahon doesn't want you to see." The movie also had national ads all week during WCW and ECW broadcasts even though the movie focuses more on WWF, WCW's competitor, and doesn't even mention the existence of WCW.
The New York Daily News ran a three-part series on pro wrestling written by Kevin McCoy, bringing some new facts to light regarding some deaths and arrests of wrestlers as they pertained to the industry as well as covering the growth of the industry, WWF in particular.
The series started on 3/2 with an article on the popularity of wrestling. The story talked about the growth of the industry and cross promotions, with numbers far more accurate than most media stories have been through the years. It also included a sidebar of how "Smackdown" saved the UPN network from possible extinction, and a brief history piece. The history piece, unfortunately like all history in a sport where most of the history is handed down by wrestlers and thus has questionable credibility, was probably the weakest piece. It had the stories of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as wrestlers, and then talked about the two matches in 1908 and 1911 between Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt. It brought up the question as to whether those matches were scripted with a denial coming from Mike Chapman, a well respected amateur wrestling historian with very limited knowledge of the pro game. It is generally believed by the few still alive old enough to know the players, and again, these are wrestlers telling stories from wrestlers, that the first Gotch-Hackenschmidt match was a shoot. The second was originally to be a shoot, but Hackenschmidt suffered the famous knee injury ahead of time (and the knee injury absolutely was legit, the question as to how it happened is still subject for debate, as he limped for years and was never able to lift with his lower body the kind of weights he was famous for again) and wanted to pull out, but was told so many tickets had been sold in advance that he had to do it and they agreed to a worked match where Gotch would win, but Hackenschmidt would save face by winning one fall. But Gotch double-crossed him once the match started and easily beat his injured foe in two straight falls. Chapman called the 1922 match (actually January 8, 1925 in Kansas City) where Strangler Lewis lost to Wayne Munn as the first title match "thrown." Obviously that's not the case. Anyone with any knowledge of pro wrestling can see through the Gotch 1906 loss to Fred Beell as a worked finish (Gotch was knocked out when he hit his head on the ringpost, then came back in a rematch a few weeks later and regained the title) and without question the vast majority of title switches and virtually the entire business as a whole after 1915 was a work, if not most before that date as even studying Gotch's history seems to indicate working programs to build up matches. Munn, historically, as a college football star, was the first non-wrestler ever to be given the world title, and his failure to be able to keep the title when double-crossed three months later by Stanislaus Zbyszko is why promoters as late as even the 70s tried to keep the NWA title on real legitimate wrestlers for fear of the double-cross.
The second part, on 3/3, had more meat including breaking some new ground on often reported issues regarding drug usage in pro wrestling.
It started with a story about the late Brian Pillman, with quotes from his wife, Melanie King, talking about his use of steroids, HGH and pain killers as a wrestler before his death (cocaine was not mentioned in the article as a contributory cause of his heart attack).
This led to an article on Indianapolis physician Dr. Joel Hackett, a friend of Pillman's, calling him one of the most dangerous threats to the wrestling industry, whose prescribed drugs were found next to the bodies of both Pillman and Lou Mucciolo (Louie Spicolli) at the time of their deaths.
Vince McMahon was quoted in the article claiming that Pillman was tested for drugs before his death and he came up negative. Pillman told me shortly after taking the test that what would come up were dosages, and not extreme levels, of numerous pain killers he was taking. Later it came out he did not have extreme levels of any pain killers in the test although he did have levels of many, but that he also tested positive for nandralone (anabolic steroid decadurabolin). Pillman was unhappy, to the point of nearly quitting the company, over being singled out for a test at the time claiming he had never gone on camera too loaded to perform, unlike one of the WWF's biggest stars at the time who had a reputation for doing so frequently but was never tested, and that another major star passed out on an airplane to where the situation was very scary and also was never tested. He was never punished or suspended for the positive test result, perhaps because he claimed that the steroid was something he'd taken months in the past (and on occasion, nandralone can show up in a test months after use). He died about a month later. By this point, WWF had given up drug testing as a regular thing for 11 months, but because there were so many people in the organization questioning Pillman's behavior, which by this point had gone off the deep end, Jim Ross ordered Pillman to be tested.
The story listed Tony Norris (Ahmed Johnson, Big T) as having flown to Indianapolis for pain killers and steroids prescribed illegally by Hackett. Norris acknowledged once having a drug problem, but claimed in the article that finding religion made him conquer the problem. It also listed Del Wilkes (The Patriot) as someone Hackett repeatedly prescribed large doses for with Hackett's knowledge Wilkes was distributing them illegally. Wilkes, whose pro wrestling career ended in 1997 after continual tricep tears, one while working in Japan and a second, that ended his career, while in the WWF. He was later arrested in both 1998 and 1999 for forging prescriptions for hydrocodone, a codeine like drug. Wilkes of late has been shopping around the idea of a book that would reveal from an insider perspective the real drug situation within pro wrestling.
Hackett refused to talk to the paper because he has an impending hearing regarding having his medical license pulled, but his attorney, David Hamilton, claimed a series of letters put the onus of blame on the WWF. Hackett complained to the WWF that he saw one wrestler buy 10 somas from another for $100 and charged another with selling painkillers in the dressing room. Hackett claimed the WWF barred him from contact with its performers and notified authorities about him in response. The actual banning of Hackett, along with other known drug doctors, from the dressing rooms, came almost immediately after the death of Pillman. While Hackett was considered the most dangerous within the WWF, which should have already learned its lessons about doctors dispensing drugs in dressing rooms from all the problems stemming from the Dr. George Zahorian trial in 1991, he was not singled out, so his story as to why he was banned from the dressing rooms, including claims not made in this story but made elsewhere that he was being singled out because he was black, holds no credence.
WWF performers, against the company's directive, continued to provide Hackett with comp tickets to matches and remained in contact with him long after the letter to performers telling them to avoid contact. Even as late at SuperBrawl 1998, just one week after the death of Spicolli, when Hackett's name within wrestling was "hot" because it was known he had prescribed the large amount of drugs found near Spicolli at the time of his death, Hackett was flown into San Francisco by a major WCW name. Spicolli often carried and as reported by his sister last year on the ESPN "Outside the Lines" special, went to Tijuana as well to purchase drugs for bigger stars, which, scarily, may have been, and probably was, more direct a reason that he was getting a push at the time of his death than his in-ring ability. The story also noted the deaths of Bobby Duncum Jr. and Rick Rood, along with at least hinting at the problems of Chris Candito and Tammy Sytch.
It was the first major media story to list Rood's death being triggered by an accidental overdose of painkillers and sedatives. The 10/7 report filed by the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office stated Rood died from hypoxic encephalopathy (brain injuries) due to acute intoxication by the combined effects of mixed medications and left ventricle hypertrophy (heart attack). Dr. Eric Kiesel reported in the autopsy report the acute intoxication was caused by the combined effects of oxycodone (the amount in his system of this drug alone was more than at toxic levels), diazepam, midazolam and citalopram.
The story noted Rood testified that he used steroids in the 1994 trial of McMahon. It also had a quote from Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, who headed the drug testing in the WWF from early 1992, until it was dropped in late 1996, saying testing was dropped, in part, because the wrestlers "didn't have the physiques the public wanted to see." McMahon claimed it was dropped because of high costs (at the time, the WWF was running deeply in the red and they had earmarked a great deal of money to the testing, something nobody else in the industry was doing) and because of the failure of other promoters to require testing. At the time, WWF had just fallen behind WCW about five months earlier in the ratings war and it was an uneven playing field when it came to marketing wrestlers as one company had noticeably less impressive physiques than the other due to one company seriously cracking down and the other providing lip service. Even more than marketing to the public, to many wrestlers, WCW became the place to be, even throwing aside money constraints, because drug testing has never been popular among the wrestlers because they live with the unrealistic expectations of beating up their bodies, traveling constantly, but still having to have their bodies looking out of the ordinary, something difficult (but not impossible, but only by those with very favorable genetics which most wrestlers don't have, and incredible dedication, which many wrestlers have) to achieve without help. In addition, the WWF's testing included marijuana, which most in wrestling see as a relatively harmless recreational drug to help the body wind down and sleep after being keyed up and so much traveling that is believed by many to be less dangerous than the combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. WWF lost most of its big names, Hogan (who came back for a few months the next year), Warrior, Road Warriors, Vicious, Davey Boy Smith and Jake Roberts, in the first few months of drug testing, although with the exception of Warrior and Smith, who were fired, all departed at least on the surface for other reasons. Steroids, which had become psychologically addicting to so many of the wrestlers used to walking around being larger than life, became more important to the big-name older wrestlers trying to maintain the unnatural physiques that had been their trademark. And despite his claims in 1991 of his promotional ability to make wrestling bigger than ever while promoting drug-free wrestlers (and for that matter, drug-free bodybuilders as well), McMahon was never able to over the long-term successfully promote wrestling without the unnatural physiques as the years of the drug testing coincide somewhat with the years of the company operating in the red ink, that they finally dug themselves out of in late 1997 before flourishing the past two years.
WWF even on television mocked WCW for allegedly failing to have real drug testing, even going so far as to on a television skit mocking their slogan at the time of "Where the Big Boys play," to insinuate their big boys, and strongly insinuating Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, were able to stay so big because the company didn't have real drug testing. Just a few months after the skit where WWF on television called WCW's drug testing policy into question and challenged them to adhere to the same testing procedures as WWF, WWF quietly dropped testing, and the wrestlers started getting bigger and more cut-up. If Pillman's death was somehow more related to his use of HGH, which can't be tested for in drug tests (although McMahon, numerous times during that period, claimed it could), then drug testing would not have given a signal of a problem and prevented Pillman's death. If cocaine usage, as the autopsy report claimed, was a contributory cause, frequent drug tests like the ones the company dropped, would have at least alerted the company of a problem. Whether it could have saved his life is at best speculative. Whether it's the company's job to save lives of its performers is even a point that can be debated.
McMahon in the article claimed the WWF is cleaner than "anything else in the entertainment industry," which is clearly a joke. With the possible exception of rock stars, who also have a high preponderance of drug deaths, and race car drivers, (and not mentioning pro bodybuilders whose death rate may very well be as high or higher) whose deaths are rarely drug related, I've never seen a study of them indicating the death rates in those professions is at the same level as with pro wrestlers. The WWF can say it hasn't had a drug death since Pillman more than two years ago but it has had numerous wrestlers go into rehab, a much higher percentage than most entertainment fields considering the relatively small size of its roster. Over the past few years, clearly the track record for WCW, with three drug overdose deaths, is far worse and McMahon in no way should be held responsible for problems in WCW. But the fact is Spicolli's drug problems worsened while working for the WWF and he nearly died while working there. A slew of the wrestlers who died young spent much of their careers working in the WWF. Wrestlers who have been in all three major dressing rooms indicate problems are not specific company problems, but overall industry problems. It's doubtful one would find in any entertainment form that has approximately only 200 total full-time major league performers in the country (or even taking rock stars and race car drivers and dividing the number down to the equivalent statistically of what a normal group of 200 would break down to) with even half the number of deaths per capita per year as pro wrestling. And even if you could, that would only indicate a problem in those entertainment professions, and not a justification that pro wrestling doesn't have a problem.
McMahon in the article claimed "We've got zero to hide here," but his company and WCW's avoidance of the state of Oregon, the only statement that requires an annual drug screening, is a contradiction of that statement. Oregon doesn't require steroids to be screened for, so realistically the steroid issue in any argument for staying out of Oregon (which neither company can publicly say either since use, not truly discouraged, is illegal) is a false argument to begin with.
WCW claimed random testing and that anyone who tests positive is counseled and then tested again in 30 days. Among the wrestlers, the WCW drug policy has always been considered a joke and few if any in the industry take it seriously. Wrestlers are on occasion tested. While management strongly denies this, among the wrestlers, the belief is that the big stars in the right cliques seem to have a free pass. Sean Waltman, in the right clique during his WCW days (and eventually losing his job for being in the wrong clique on the wrong day), being friends with Kevin Nash & Scott Hall, for example, even with an admitted history of drug problems coming from the WWF, was never tested once in his entire 18 month stint in WCW. Wrestlers have been flagged for steroids and other drugs and reprimanded, but even with repeated failures, rarely suspended and none in recent times. During the peak of WWF drug testing, the wrestlers considered certain statements regarding the testing (such as the ability to test for HGH as claimed or claiming tests were unbeatable when the belief was low levels of testosterone could be used and still come out negative) to be dishonest and there were occasional complaints about unequal enforcement and questions about how McMahon, in the eyes of wrestlers seemingly allowed certain people to slip through (Sid Eudy in 1992 was the name often mentioned in the early days of the testing, and it later came out that he both used others urine for testing at one point and later did test positive, both of which he has admitted in interviews in the past, right before his Wrestlemania main event with Hulk Hogan), but the program was never considered by the wrestlers overall as a joke. Due to the expected publicity stemming from when this story would be released and other factors including three drug related deaths among its wrestlers over the past two years, WCW is planning on having a drug education and counseling program for its wrestlers in the spring.
A final story on 3/3 concerned the lack of regulation of the industry, using the death of Gary Albright as an example. Considering Albright's death was from a heart attack caused partially from an enlarged heart and blockages of several coronary arteries, this problem would have likely been picked up if Pennsylvania, or All Japan Pro Wrestling for that matter, required an EKG of its performers, which few states require. Pennsylvania scrapped all serious wrestling regulation in 1989. McMahon claimed in the article that if his wrestlers are regulated, so should the Harlem Globetrotters, which is actually as perfect a sporting analogy to pro wrestling as there is. Again, the argument becomes, by all fairness, the rules should be the same for both, OR, because of the high death rate of young wrestlers as compared to young members of the Globetrotters, perhaps in all fairness the analogy isn't valid at all. If wrestling companies cleaned up their act, there would be no need whatsoever for governmental regulation. Whether, even with a dirty act, governmental regulation is actually a benefit, is debatable at best.
Wade Keller of Pro Wrestling Torch said in the story that he's noted the mental deterioration in several of his wrestling friends due to repeated concussions. This is a theme often noticed among many people within the business or close to it that deal with a lot of wrestlers, particularly those who either take repeated hard unprotected shots to the head, or start developing problems with pain killers.
Tim Lueckenhoff, an administrator of the Missouri Office of Athletics, said regarding regulation in the Daily News, "If you become too restrictive on these people, they may not come back and hold matches in your state." He also claimed costs of drug testing could put smaller promoters out of business.
The only state that has any drug testing, Oregon, which requires a drug screening for an annual license, currently has no shortage of independent wrestling. That hasn't always been the case over the past decade when the laws on the books were actually enforced. But the drug screening, for cocaine, marijuana and speed as well as an HIV test, isn't even a financial issue when it comes to promoting in Oregon. The wrestlers pay for the screening themselves, usually at a cost of $60 to $80, hardly major financial hardship, once per year. Nevertheless, major promotions steer clear of the state for reasons nobody will publicly say but are generally understood throughout the industry, that no company is going to let its talent undergo testing unless they are the ones who control the results and choose who and how to punish and ignore punishing in the event of failing. But whatever claims of steering clear of Oregon being due to financial issues are a smoke screen. The only case where commission regulation has kept a promotion out appears to be the local commission in Edmonton in regard to Stampede Wrestling, where, due to the small crowds the promotion draws, it has pulled out of the city because drawing such small crowds it can't afford the $250 per show fee for the commission required physician at the show.
The third part of the series on 3/6 dealt with a few teenage fans' passion for pro wrestling, and the question is how far is too far, wasn't really examined well because it's a difficult issue to examine in a short article. It was simply criticism from Bret Hart and Bruno Sammartino with no new ground broken, notes about the character of the Godfather, Miss Kitty taking off her top at the December PPV, use of blood, the Lenny & Lodi characters on WCW and the Mae Young angle. It talked about the current case in Pembroke Park, FL with a 12-year-old who beat up a six-year old using wrestling moves (not mentioning there have been probably a half-dozen similar stories over the past year). The WWF's respondent was Lisa Moretti (Ivory), who said her initial reaction to doing storylines where she winds up in her underwear is humiliation, but when she watches it on TV, she gets a kick out of it. It mentioned the PTC controversy including a quote from Steve Schwain, the group's operating director who said, "We are definitely considering re-upping our campaign because they've degenerated to an atrocious level" in recent weeks. Moretti said she felt WWF TV was okay for kids to watch with their parents and saw no problem with teenagers watching.
The Brazilians, including two members of the Gracie family, dominated the World submission championships in Abu Dhabi from 3/1 to 3/3.
The show was marred with complaints about bad rules and inconsistent scoring, in particular, the positioning points penalized anyone who came close but didn't get leglocks, because simply good positioning like a side mount with no attempt at a submission was more valuable than coming close to many submissions, which resulted in virtually every Japanese fighter, including those who were more aggressive with submissions, losing via points in the first round. They also continued a controversial rule where in the first five minutes, no points would be counted, with the idea that it would encourage nothing but going for submissions during that time period, but the result was that it resulted in fighters, particularly the wrestlers, stalling for the first five minutes knowing none of their take downs would count. At one point, almost like watching a WWF PPV event when Vince McMahon was playing heel owner, in the Tito Ortiz vs. Ricardo Arona semifinal at 215, Ortiz was using a can opener type neck lock, which was ruled legal before the tournament and allowed up to that point, when midway through the match, the rule was changed and they were given the word it was illegal. There were also complaints about matches where friends would face each other and do almost spectacular pro wrestling in going for added cash prizes for quickest submission and best throw. In fact, Renzo Gracie's five second guillotine choke tap out which got the prize for quickest submission was questioned by nearly everyone there, as was regular training partners Matt Hughes and Jeremy Horn, who had a nearly as quick a submission win for Hughes (16 seconds) right after a spectacular suplex which got the prize for best move.
The big winner was Mark Kerr, who repeated his 1999 success by winning both the heavyweight and open division championships. Kerr remains undefeated in both MMA competition and pure submission competition. Kerr did score two submissions in the tournament and only once was in trouble, when his much smaller first round opponent in the absolute division, Leo Viera, got him with a flying armbar that only his super strength enabled him to get out of. Except for Kerr, it was a complete sweep by the Brazilians, while the Japanese ended up empty handed with virtually all not making it out of the first round, although that was blamed on rules that penalized them in going for leglocks. There were no submissions on the final day, which means the new points system, determined the champions.
At 65 kilograms (143), Royler Gracie, the 1999 champion, beat Alexandre Soca, the 1998 champion. At 76 kilos (167), Renzo Gracie, the 1998 champion, beat Jean Jacques Machado, the 1999 champion. Both Gracie winners looked impressive and were aggressively going for submissions throughout, aside from the question of Renzo's early fight. At 87 kilos (191), Saulo Ribeiro (who is expected to debut in Japan on the 5/26 Coliseum 2000 Tokyo Dome show) beat Rocardo Liborio in a battle of Brazilians. At 98 kilos (215), Ricardo Arona beat 1999 champ Jeff Monsen of the United States. We're told the most impressive in that weight class was actually Tito Ortiz, who finished third, losing in a controversial overtime match in the semis to Arona, a decision heavily booed. In the heavyweight division, Kerr beat 1998 champ Ricco Rodriguez in a battle of training partners by an 8-1 score. In the absolute division, Kerr beat Sean Alvarez by a 1-0 score in the finals. Mario Sperry won the superfight over Roberto Traven in a battle of Brazilians that was said to be one of the most boring fights anyone had ever seen, as they locked up in a pro wrestling collar-and-elbow and neither made an attempt to take the other down or go for a submission the entire match.
Results of major names from the mixed martial arts world:
143 - Royler Gracie scored wins over Barrett Yoshida, Jiro Wakabayashi, Joao Roque and Soca to win the division.
167 - Renzo Gracie scored wins over American Dennis Hallman, Israel Albuquerque, Marcio Feitosa (the controversial five second win) and Machado. Lions Den fighter Mikey Burnett (who has retired from MMA to pursue a career as a pro boxer) beat Kohei Yasumi in the first round before losing to Machado via tap out as Machado dominated him. Rumina Sato, the superstar of the Japanese shooto organization, lost in the first round to Vitor Riberio of Brazil 4-1. Another shooto fighter, Kaoru Uno, lost in the first round to Feitosa 2-1. Hayato Sakurai of shooto, who is ranked as one of the top lightweights in MMA, lost to Albuquerque in the first round by a 4-0 score.
191 - Jerry Bohlander of Lions Den lost to Ribeiro in the first round 2-0. Dave Menne won his first round match over Izuru Takeuchi but fell to Ribeiro in the second round. Egan Inoue beat Emil Khachatryan in the first round but lost in the second round by Jorge Patino of Brazil 6-0. Patino (who lost to Pat Miletich for the UFC lightweight title last year) beat Karl Webber in the first round and Inoue before losing to Liborio.
215 - Matt Hughes, a top level amateur wrestler, who actually fought at 170 in UFC and came for the 191 division but had to fight here due to an administrative error, was very impressive giving up a lot of weight and finishing fourth overall. He beat Ricardo Almeida in the first round and Jeremy Horn (a UFC veteran and well-known MMA fighter) in the second round with an immediate high suplex and guillotine choke before losing in the semifinals to Monsen. Hiromitsu Kanehara of RINGS, the only person in any of the weight classes with a pro wrestling background coming from the old UWFI, in the tournament, lost to Arona in the first round by a 16-0 score. Mike Van Arsdale, a former many-time national champion wrestler who was impressive in UFC and Brazilian fights, beat former world champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Murillo Bustamante via decision, in the highest profile first round match of the entire tournament before losing to another well-known MMA star, Tito Ortiz, in the second round via a kneebar submission in 5:48. Ortiz beat Rostyslav Borysenko with an entangled armlock and Van Arsdale before losing to eventual champion Arona in the semifinals by a decision at 15:00. Ortiz ended up beating Hughes 4-2 for third place.
HWT - Kerr scored successive wins over Josh Barnett (best known for beating Dan Severn with an armbar a few weeks ago) in the first round via submission in 9:33, Anthony Netzler in the second round via submission in 4:20, Rigan Machado in the semifinals by a 2-1 score and Rodriguez in the finals. Pete Williams of Lions Den beat former early UFC fighter Remco Pardoel in the first round 1-0 before losing to Machado 7-0 in the second round. Rodrigo Noguiera, coming off going to the final four in the RINGS tournament, beat another former RINGS fighter, Sean Alvarez in the first round 1-0 in overtime before losing to Rodriguez by submission in 3:02. Carlos Barreto, a big name in Brazilian Vale Tudo who has fought in UFC and Pride, lost to Rodriguez in the first round by a 1-0 score. Ricardo Morais, the giant Brazilian, beat Carlos Clayton in the first round 6-0 and Mark Robinson in the second round by submission in 12:58 before being injured and forfeiting both his next round to Rodriguez and a chance at third. Lee Hasdell of England, who got the RINGS spot when Yoshihisa Yamamoto withdrew due to a high fever, lost to Robinson in the first round.
ABSOLUTE - Kerr survived the early scare to beat Leo Viera 1-0, Van Arsdale via decision, Ricardo Almeida by a 3-0 score and Alvarez by a 1-0 score to win the tournament. Van Arsdale won his first round match. In a huge size discrepancy, Sato, at 150 pounds, challenged Ortiz, at 215, and was aggressive as hell going for one submission after another but the size difference was too much and Ortiz choked him out in 8:19. Alvarez beat Baretto in his first round match, then made Rodriguez submit in 9:01 in the second round and beat an already injured Ortiz 2-0 in the semifinals. Ortiz, due to a shoulder injury, didn't come out for his third place match, which went to Almeida.
The bracketing for the third Super J Cup was announced on 3/6.
The first round matches, which will take place on 4/1 in Sendai, will be Jushin Liger vs. Tiger Mask, the winner of the 3/12 Battlarts tournament (the most likely candidate for this slot would be Minoru Tanaka) vs. Mens Teioh (the Big Japan rep), Shinya Makabe vs. Gran Hamada, Ricky Fuji vs. Sasuke the Great (Masao Orihara), Great Sasuke vs. Kaz Hayashi (who formerly worked for Michinoku Pro as Shiryu so these two have a background working with each other), Naoki Sano vs. Magnum Tokyo, Onryo vs. Curry Man (Christopher Daniels) and Cima vs. Ricky Marvin.
The tournament continues with the brackets of the Liger-Tiger Mask winner vs. the Battlarts-Teioh winner, etc., with the final eight matches at Tokyo Sumo Hall on 4/9. One would think it would be for Sumo Hall, Liger vs. Tanaka if it is him in this, Hamada vs. Fuji, Sasuke vs. probably Sano ahead of Tokyo but that could go either way, and Curry Man vs. Cima. At that point you've got to figure a final four with Liger vs. Hamada as a likely choice although I could see having Tanaka upset Liger because you've got to use this thing to create a new star and the two best candidates for that star making are Cima and Tanaka, and Sasuke vs. Cima. From there I'd pick Cima with the upset if Liger is still around for that same reason, and Liger in the finals because you pretty well need either Liger or Sasuke in the finals. If Tanaka beats Liger in the upset, than Sasuke for that reason has to beat Cima.
Although the ending numbers were basically the same as last week, there was a difference in how they got there. Raw on 3/6 did a 6.44 rating (5.88 first hour; 6.95 second hour) and a 10.0 share. Nitro did a 2.72 rating (2.98 first hour; 2.49 second hour) and a 4.0 share. The combined audience during the competitive hour was 9.7 million.
The difference was last week, Raw actually drew a bigger number in the competitive hour and there was statistically speaking, nobody that switched over when Nitro ended. This week, approximately 48% of the Nitro audience switched to Raw when the show was over, about double the previous high.
The Raw main event was Rock vs. Benoit in a cage match drew a 6.80 final quarter and a 7.25 over-run. The Nitro main event of Vampiro & Sid vs. Wall & Jarrett drew a 2.79 rating. But the star of the evening was the HHH vs. Rikishi match at 7.20 for the entire match.
Head-to-head quarters saw Raw at 5.74 (Shane, Show, HHH, Stephanie open and Crash Holly in hotel room) to 2.44 (Flair vs. Hennig), Raw at 5.75 (Kane vs. Show, D-Von vs. Henry) to 2.26 (Smiley vs. Lane and Abbott interview), Raw at 6.01 (Too Cool vs. Dogg & X-Pac) to 2.48 (Hogan interview and Kidman & Booker vs. New Heat) and Raw at 5.89 (Angle vs. Jericho) to 2.66 (Rhodes-Funk angle).
WWF weekend numbers for 3/5-6 saw Livewire at 1.3 (beating out ECW for the lowest rated spot by .04), Superstars at 2.0, Heat at 3.74. WCW Saturday Night did a 1.4 rating.
Smackdown on 3/2 drew a 4.65 rating a 7.2 share. The rating was slightly down from what the show has averaged in recent weeks, but it still beat its usual 7.0 share, indicating the decline was more due to less people watching television overall on the night. NBC was in rerun programming which theoretically should have helped the rating.
The 3/1 Thunder dropped to a new low, a 1.93 rating and a 3.0 share. This breaks the mark set just one week earlier of a 2.03 as the lowest unopposed episode of the show in its regular time slot. While last week had the very legitimate excuse of going head-to-head with both the Grammys and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," this week didn't have that double dose of ratings grabbers to contend with. The only sort of bright spot was a 2.23 for Luger vs. Vampiro. The low point was the post-match angle with Crowbar and the beginning of Flair vs. Bagwell at 1.81.
ECW on TNN on 3/3 drew its all-time record rating with a 1.28 rating and 2.3 share.
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.
What was the best TV wrestling show of the past (2/22 to 2/28) week? a) Raw 54% (a scary result for that week since Smackdown was so good and Raw so bad); b) Nitro 3%; c) ECW on TNN 19%; d) Smackdown 21%; e) Thunder 3%
Do you think the XFL will? a) Be a big success 8%; b) Make it eventually, but struggle at first 19%; c) Open strong, but then fade 28%; d) Flop from the start 18%; e) Never get off the ground 27%
Do you think Mick Foley will?: a) Never wrestle another match 11%; b) Wrestle one more match only 20%; c) Wrestle a few more matches sporadically 62%; d) Return full-time a few months down the line 7%
Should pro wrestling be subject to outside governmental regulation? a) Yes 27%; b) No 73%
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RESULTS
2/26 Winnipeg, MB (WCW - 6,683): WCW cruiserweight title: Artist b Billy Kidman, Ron Harris b Mike Rotunda, David Finlay & Brian Knobs b Norman Smiley & Wall, Buff Bagwell b Curt Hennig, U.S. title: Jeff Jarrett b Vampiro, WCW title: Sid Vicious b Lex Luger
2/26 Wilmington, DE (East Coast Wrestling Association): Super 8 tournament: Scoot Andrews b Trent Acid, Chad Collyer b Shark Boy, Jet Jaguar b Jeff Peterson, Christopher Daniels b Vic Capri, Glenn Osbourne won Royal Rumble, Ty Street b Osbourne, Daniels b Ace Darling, Andrews b Collyer, J.J. the Ring Crew Guy & Cheetah Master b J.R. Ryder & Inferno Kid-DQ, Daniels b Andrews to win tournament
2/29 Trenton, NJ (WWF Smackdown/Heat tapings - 6,345 sellout): Kevin Landry b J.R. Ryder, Big Bossman & Prince Albert b Head Bangers, Mark Henry & Mae Young b Mideon & Ivory, Sho Funaki b Mean Street Posse, Al Snow b D-Lo Brown, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn & Chris Benoit b Too Cool & Chris Jericho, Jeff Hardy b Esse Rios-DQ, Hardcore title: Crash Holly b Tazz, Road Dogg & X-Pac b Edge & Christian, Test b Viscera, Kurt Angle b Sgt. Slaughter, Dudleys b Kane-DQ, Rikishi Phatu & Rock b Big Show & Hunter Hearst Helmsley
2/29 Fargo, ND (WCW Thunder/World Wide tapings - 5,368/2,285 paid): Mona b Sherri Martel, WCW tag titles: Big Vito & Johnny the Bull b Silver King & Dandy, WCW cruiserweight title: Chavo Guerrero b Artist-DQ, Brian Knobs & David Finlay & The Dog b Three Count, La Parka b Demon, Lex Luger b Vampiro, Mickey Jay b Mark Johnson, Crowbar b Wall-DQ, Ric Flair b Buff Bagwell, Jeff Jarrett & Ron & Don Harris b Sid Vicious & Booker & Billy Kidman
2/29 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b Fugaz & Enemigo Publico, Lady Apache & Flor Metalica b La Diabolica & Amapola, Mr. Mexico & Dr. O'Borman Jr. & Halcon Negro Jr. b Brazo de Oro & Tony Rivera & Angel Azteca, Mr. Niebla & Tinieblas Jr. & Emilio Charles Jr. b Scorpio Jr. & Fuerza Guerrera & Violencia, Negro Casas b Black Warrior
2/29 Kumagaya (Big Japan): Winger b Ryuji Ito, Masayoshi Motegi b Fantastik, Mens Teioh b Guerrero del Futuro, Chihiro Nakano & Marcela & Cassandra b Kiyoki Ichiki & Misae Genki & Yuka Nakamura, Mike Samples b Daisuke Sekimoto, Abdullah Jr. Kobayashi & Kamikaze & Winger b Abdullah the Butcher & Crazy Sheik & Chopinger (Motegi)
3/1 Nagoya Nakamura Sports Center (Michinoku Pro - 674): Beef Wellington b Kazuya Yuasu, Mima & Rima b Chaparita Asari & Hiromi Yagi, Jinsei Shinzaki b Tsubo Genjin, Cima & Suwa & Sumo Dandy Fuji & Yoshikazu Taru b Tiger Mask & Magnum Tokyo & Masaaki Mochizuki & Minoru Fujita, Gran Hamada b Great Sasuke
3/1 Hakata (All Japan women): Miyuki Fujii b Kayo Noumi, Nanae Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Takao Inoue b Noumi, Yumiko Hotta b Kumiko Maekawa, Takahashi b Fujii, Zaps I & T b Manami Toyota & Wakizawa
3/2 Yokohama Bunka Gym (All Japan women - 5,000 sellout): Kayoko Haruyama b Tsubasa Kuragaki, Azumi Hyuga & Kayo Noumi & Miho Wakizawa b Ran Yuyu & Carlos Amano & Acute Sae, Lioness Asuka & Yuki Morimatsu b Miyuki Fujii & Nanae Takahashi, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Commando Boilshoi b Dynamite Kansai & Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito, Cage match escape rule: Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda b Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe
3/2 Kawasaki (Big Japan): Jun Kasai b Daisuke Sekimoto, Chihiro Nakano b Marcela, Devil Masami b Kiyoko Ichiki, Kamikaze & Shunme Matsuzaki & Fantastik b Mike Samples & Guerrero del Futuro & Ryuji Ito, Big Japan J Cup rep: Mens Teioh b Masayoshi Motegi, Abdullah the Butcher & Crazy Sheik b Abdullah Jr. Kobayashi & Daikokubo Benkei, Kintaro Kanemura & Gedo & Jado b Ryuji Yamakawa & Shinya Kojika & Winger
3/2 Nosu (Michinoku Pro - 732 sellout): Beef Wellington b Kazuya Yuasu, Mima & Rima b Chaparita Asari & Hiromi Yagi, Masaaki Mochizuki b Minoru Fujita, Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Tiger Mask & Magnum Tokyo b Cima & Suwa & Sumo Dandy Fuji & Yoshikazu Taru
3/3 Toronto Skydome (WWF - 19,502): Test b Mideon, Prince Albert b D-Lo Brown, Perry Saturn & Dean Malenko b Too Cool, Road Dogg b Head Banger Mosh, Rikishi Phatu b Chris Benoit, WWF tag titles: Dudleys b Hardys, Christian b Crash Holly, Edge b Big Bossman, IC title: Kurt Angle b Chris Jericho, Four-corners for WWF title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley won over Big Show, Rock and Kane
3/3 Niigata (New Japan - 3,800 sellout): Katsuyoshi Shibata b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Masakazu Fukuda b Wataru Inoue, Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Shinya Makabe, Osamu Kido & Mike Enos b Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata, 2 of 3 falls: Perro Aguayo & Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani & Negro Casas & Perro Aguayo Jr. b Jushin Liger & Gran Hamada & El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin & Dr. Wagner Jr., Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Kensuke Sasaki & Shiro Koshinaka & Takashi Iizuka b Masahiro Chono & Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara
3/3 Asbury Park, NJ (ECW - 2,300): C.W. Anderson b Kintaro Kanemura, Danny Doring & Roadkill b Gedo & Jado, Lance Storm & Justin Credible b Chris Chetti & Nova, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Kid Kash, Super Crazy b Little Guido, Steve Corino b New Jack, ECW title: Mike Awesome NC Masato Tanaka, Sandman b Angel, Explosive match: Balls Mahoney b Vic Grimes
3/3 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Pequeno Pierroth & Espectrito I b Cicloncito Ramirez & Tzuki, Virus & Rencor Latino & Arkangel b Solar & Starman & Astro Rey Jr., Lizmark Sr. & Antifaz & Safari b Blue Panther & Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero, Pierroth Jr. & Gran Markus Jr. & Villano III b Apolo Dantes & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000, Atlantis & Tarzan Boy & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. b Cien Caras & Bestia Salvaje & El Satanico-DQ
3/3 Tijuana, BC (Mora Promotions): Mini Rey Misterio Jr. & Tiger Mask (not Michinoku Pro wrestler) b Extasis & Ruby Gardenia, Mandingo & Mazambula & Mozanbique b El Hijo del la Muerte & Shamu & Spark, Ramses & Mr. Tempest & Enfermero Jr. b Bello Adan & Thunderbird & Conquistador, Scorpio Jr. & Fuerza Guerrera & Depredator b Super Parka & Felino & Principe Arandu, Rey Misterio Sr. & Halloween & Damian b El Hijo del Santo & Brazo de Plata & Nicho El Millonario (Psicosis)
3/3 Cayey, PR (IWA): Jesus Cristobol b Al Rodriguez, Andres Borges b Alexander Otsuka, Sean Hill b Mikami-COR, Andy Anderson b Nuevo Gran Apolo, Ricky Banderas b Ricky Santana-DQ, Miguel Perez & Huracan Castillo Jr. b Rastaman & Head Hunter #2, Savio Vega NC Fidel Sierra
3/4 Ottawa, ONT (WWF - 9,467): Too Cool b Head Bangers, D-Lo Brown b Mideon, Test b Big Bossman, Matt & Jeff Hardy b Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn, Three-way for IC title: Kurt Angle won over Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho, Hardcore title or Non-title: Prince Albert b Crash Holly, WWF tag titles: Dudleys b Edge & Christian, Big Show b Rikishi Phatu, Rock & Kane b Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Road Dogg
3/4 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW TNN tapings - 1,500 sellout): Lance Storm & Justin Credible b Gedo & Jado, Little Guido b Kid Kash, Danny Doring & Roadkill b Pitbulls, Rhino b Spike Dudley, Super Crazy b C.W. Anderson, Nova & Chris Chetti & Balls Mahoney b Vic Grimes & Angel & Tony DeVito, ECW tag titles: Mike Awesome & Raven b Tommy Dreamer & Masato Tanaka to win titles, Sandman b Yoshihiro Tajiri
3/4 Hiratsuka (New Japan - 4,200 sellout): Black Cat b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto b Shinya Makabe & Kendo Ka Shin, Tadao Yasuda & Takashi Iizuka & Osamu Kido b Masakazu Fukuda & Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka, Gran Hamada & Jushin Liger & Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Samurai b Negro Casas & Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr., Mike Enos & Yuji Nagata b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Manabu Nakanishi & Junji Hirata & Kensuke Sasaki b Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono
3/4 Memphis (Power Pro Wrestling TV): Derrick King b Seven-DQ, Chris Michaels won three-way over Blade Boudreaux and Alan Steele, Robert Gibson & Mike Youngblood b Tommy Rogers & Bulldog Raines-DQ, Ali & Wolfie D NC The Regulators
3/4 Tokushima (Michinoku Pro - 2,000 sellout): Jinsei Shinzaki b Kazuyu Yuasu, Hiromi Yagi & Chaparita Asari b Chihiro Nakano & Saya Endo, Masaaki Mochizuki & Chocoball Kobe b Tsubo Genjin & Yoshikazu Taru, Shinzaki & Great Sasuke & Magnum Tokyo b Cima & Sumo Dandy Fuji & Suwa
3/4 Comerio, PR (IWA - 650): Jesus Cristobol b Al Rodriguez, Alexander Otsuka b Andre Borges, Nuevo Gran Apolo & David Martinez b Sean Hill & Rastaman, Miguel Perez b Ricky Santana-DQ, Savio Vega b Fidel Sierra, Ricky Banderas b Andy Anderson, Huracan Castillo Jr. b Head Hunter #2
3/5 Naucalpan El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos (AAA El Rey de Reyes show - 18,000 sellout): AAA Mascarita Sagrada & AAA Octagoncito & La Parkita b Mini Psicosis & Mini Abismo Negro & Rocky Marvin, Abismo Negro, Charly Manson, Cibernetico and El Alebrije won four-man tournaments for Rey de Reyes finals, Heavy Metal & ? & Octagon & Hector Garza b Sangre Chicana & Pirata Morgan & Cobarde & El Texano, Seconds hair vs. hair: Pentagon b Oriental (Rossy Moreno got her head shaved), Abismo Negro won four-way Rey de Reyes match over Manson, Cibernetico and Alebrije, Mask vs. mask: La Parka Jr. b Drako II (unmasked as Victor Hugo)
3/5 Montreal (WWF - 11,534): Non-title: Christian b Crash Holly, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn b Too Cool, Prince Albert b D-Lo Brown, Rikishi Phatu b Chris Benoit, WWF tag titles: Dudleys b Hardys, Edge b Big Bossman, Test b Mideon, Road Dogg b Head Banger Mosh, IC title: Kurt Angle b Chris Jericho, Four-way cage match for WWF title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley won over Rock, Kane and Big Show
3/5 Charlotte (WCW - 1,169): Chuck Palumbo b Bobby Eaton, Norman Smiley b David Finlay, WCW cruiserweight title: Artist b Psicosis, Tank Abbott b Barbarian, Three-way for WCW tag titles: Big Vito & Johnny the Bull won over David Flair (with no partner) and Ron & Don Harris, Terry Funk b Dustin Rhodes, Lex Luger b Brain Knobs, WCW title: Sid Vicious b Ric Flair
3/5 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,812 sellout): Hiroshi Tanahashi b Wataru Inoue, Dr. Wagner Jr. b Katsuyoshi Shibata, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani b Shinya Makabe & Masakazu Fukuda, Perro Aguayo Jr. & Jushin Liger & Perro Aguayo b Negro Casas & Gran Hamada & El Samurai, Kendo Ka Shin & Junji Hirata b Koji Kanemoto & Shiro Koshinaka, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Mike Enos, Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Satoshi Kojima & Masahiro Chono b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi & Takashi Iizuka & Kensuke Sasaki
3/5 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Bracito de Oro & Ultimo Dragoncito b Fierito & Vengador Azul, Mogur & Americo Rocca b Olimpus & Mano Negra Jr. El Hijo del Gladiador & Violencia & Karloff Lagarde Jr. b Torero & Mascara Magica & Tiger Blanco, hair vs. hair: Vaquerito b Mascarita Magica, One-night tag tourney: El Satanico & Villano III b Tinieblas Jr. & Ringo Mendoza, Atlantis & Tarzan Boy b Cien Caras & Apolo Dantes, Villano III & Satanico b Atlantis & Tarzan Boy to win tourney, La Parka b Pierroth Jr.-DQ
3/5 Manati, PR (IWA - 480): Mikami b Andres Borges, Nuevo Gran Apolo b Al Rodriguez, Alexander Otsuka b Sean Hill, Savio Vega b Fidel Sierra, Huracan Castillo Jr. b Head Hunter #2, Miguel Perez b Ricky Santana-DQ, Ricky Banderas & Jesus Cristobol b Rastaman & Andy Anderson, Castillo won Battle Royal
3/6 Springfield, MA (WWF Raw is War/Jakked taping - 6,185 sellout): Tim Lowery b Julio Fantastico, Kevin Landry b Inferno Kid, Sho Funaki b Head Banger Thrasher, Godfather b Mideon, Tazz & Test DCOR Prince Albert & Big Bossman, WWF lt hwt title: Esse Rios b D-Lo Brown, Big Show b Kane-DQ, Mark Henry b D-Von Dudley, Too Cool NC Road Dogg & X-Pac, IC title: Chris Jericho b Kurt Angle-DQ, Rikishi Phatu b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Steve Blackman b Matt Hardy, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn b Edge & Christian, Hardcore title: Crash Holly b Viscera, Cage match: Rock b Chris Benoit
3/6 Chapel Hill, NC (WCW Nitro - 4,862/2,236 paid): Kaz Hayashi b Psicosis, Big Vito b Ron Harris-DQ, David Flair b Wall-DQ, Dog b Three Count, Curt Hennig b Ric Flair, Norman Smiley b Lenny Lane, Stevie Ray & Big T b Billy Kidman & Booker, Jeff Jarrett & Wall b Sid Vicious & Vampiro
3/6 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,545): Hiroshi Tanahashi b Katsuyori Shibata, Koji Kanemoto b Shinya Makabe, El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani, Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. b Negro Casas & Jushin Liger & Gran Hamada, Kengo Kimura & Manabu Nakanishi b Osamu Kido & Tadao Yasuda, Junji Hirata & Mike Enos & Yuji Nagata b Satoshi Kojima & Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Kensuke Sasaki & Takashi Iizuka
Special thanks to: Joe Silva, Chris Wilcox, Bryan Alvarez, Guy Joyce, Chris Morin, Pete Theophall, Neil Sabatini, Juan Martinez, Stefan Pickshaus, Jeff Beecher, Dan Parris, Bobby Baum, Bart Orkline, Eddie Goldman, Todd Tarr, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Kevin Currah, Phil Jones, Chuck Morris, Ben Gosselin, Brady Laber, Kirk Sheppard, Anthony Eastman, Larry Goodman, Jeff Buss, Blair Ralf, Dominick Valenti, Steve Berberovic, Jared DeMoss, Mark Coale, Bruce Buchanan, Blaine DeSantis, Gene Restaino, Juan Martinez, Jeanette Gogan-Oliver, Tim Larson, Tadashi Tanaka, Jerry Lane, Tom Walters, Alex Marvez, David Henderson, Fred Cook, Andrew Yaksic
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
2/12 NEW JAPAN: 1. AKIRA pinned Hiro Saito in 7:24. This entire show was the final battle with Team 2000 vs. NWO Japan, leading to NWO Japan joining Team 2000 since they lost three of the four matches. AKIRA is the most underrated wrestler in the company and both men went all out here. Saito even missed a tope and crashed into the guard rail. Finish saw AKIRA get the pin after a missile dropkick and splash off the top. Heat was disappointing but they couldn't have done more. ***1/2; 2. Scott Norton pinned Super J in 8:18 after a power bomb. As you can imagine, this was bad. DUD; 3. Don Frye beat Satoshi Kojima in 10:22 after a few punches and a sleeper. Really clumsy. Frye was effective doing the UFC fighter role and just the limited believable stuff. Now he's branching out to doing straight pro wrestling and he's becoming just a green pro wrestler. Kojima really couldn't even carry him because he's out of his element. 1/2*; 4. Masahiro Chono beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan in 18:14. Long boring match. Chono is physically shot and Tenzan had to do most everything. Both guys bled hardway. The only good thing to say about this is Chono's high kick still looks good and the finish was strong, which almost saved the match. Chono took a mountain bomb off the top rope but Tenzan missed a diving head-butt. Chono tried the double armlock. Tenzan got out but Chono blocked a spinning heel kick and went into the STF for the tap out. *1/2
2/13 ALL JAPAN: 1. Vader & Steve Williams beat Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori in 8:02 to earn a tag title shot. This was Vader & Williams' debut as a team in the old Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen role. Suffice to say they aren't Brody & Hansen. A little clumsy as you'd expect but not too bad. Williams pinned Takayama with a back suplex. *1/2; 2. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama beat Stan Hansen & Johnny Smith in 20:40. The second half only aired. Hansen was moving really slow. Kobashi & Akiyama could only do so much here and they weren't at their best either. **
2/19 NEW JAPAN: 1. Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa beat Kendo Ka Shin & Dr. Wagner Jr. in 16:23. Typical fast paced good junior heavyweight match but the crowd was quiet. The second half aired on TV ending with Otani pinning Wagner after a spider bomb. ***1/2; 2. Genichiro Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka beat Kensuke Sasaki & Kenzo Suzuki in when Tenryu pinned Suzuki after a clothesline. Tenryu and Sasaki beat the hell out of each other with chops. Match was bad when Suzuki was in. His role was basically to have Tenryu beat the hell out of him but his comebacks looked weak. **; 3. Jushin Liger retained the IWGP jr. title beating Minoru Tanaka in 5:04. It was very good while it lasted but simply too short. Fans weren't even close to ready for a finish when it happened and Tanaka wasn't given ample time to show his stuff. **1/4; 4. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi beat Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto in 15:43. New Japan has really gone downhill with this as a main event because it wouldn't even be anything special as an opening match in the old days. Nagata pinned Ohara with a bridging back suplex. **1/4
2/20 ALL JAPAN: 1. Vader pinned Toshiaki Kawada in their first ever singles match in 13:44. Because of his weight, Vader couldn't work the pace he's done in the past, and was almost physically reminiscent of former British star Big Daddy. Obviously his work was 1,000 times better. They clicked real well because Vader did a great job selling Kawada's offense. Bout ended when Vader got the pin after a clothesline. ***3/4; 2. Kobashi pinned Williams in 24:37. This match was heavily edited for TV so only 6:00 aired. It's unfair to judge it but even in edited form it was clear it was Williams' best match in years. He even did a tope and pulled out everything. Closing moments that aired were great wrestling with great heat. After Williams got several near falls, including one with a dragon suplex that folded Kobashi in half, Kobashi hit the desperation lariat to win and earn a title match with Vader.
2/26 NEW JAPAN: 1. Nagata beat Suzuki with an armbar in 8:52. Suzuki just took a beating. Nagata just beat him up and Suzuki looked terrible here. Most of the New Japan rookies you can see a lot of promise in from the start. Suzuki, because of his size, looks to be someone who will be pushed heavy in a few years but he's not even close to the level Nakanishi was when he started. Nagata ordered Suzuki to fire back with some slaps after the match and they then hugged. DUD; 2. Shinya Hashimoto & Takashi Iizuka beat Chono & AKIRA in 10:44 when Hashimoto beat AKIRA via submission with an armbar. Because Hashimoto and Iizuka are doing the legit routine, most of the match was on the mat trading holds. It was still a decent bout. **; 3. Sasaki retained the IWGP heavyweight title pinning Frye in 14:02. It started slow but the crowd picked up. Frye actually did a Curt Hennig sell job for some leg kicks. The idea was Sasaki took out Frye's legs and he couldn't move so he was a sitting target for Sasaki's lariats. Sasaki took over and delivered a lariat, a rabbit lariat and a third lariat while Frye's mobility was shot. Frye kicked out, but then Sasaki delivered a fourth lariat for the pin. It wasn't bad considering the risk of putting Frye in a match for that long and that Sasaki isn't exactly the best worker in the company at carrying someone. **1/2
2/27 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kobashi pinned Vader in 19:49 to win the Triple Crown. It started slow. Vader's weight was noticeably working against him here as he was close to sucking and had to keep the pace slow, but he still had a really good match. He looked like he was more than 400 pounds and the bloating only made him look older. Kobashi came in with his ribs taped so Vader went after them including dropping his stomach on the guard rail and ripping the tape off. Vader did three of his reverse splashes (Vader bombs) for a near fall. Kobashi did a plancha. Vader went up for another reverse splash but Kobashi got up and power bombed him. They traded german suplexes for near falls and Vader hit a second german for another near fall. After the double lariat spot, Vader hit two choke slams for near falls. Kobashi hit his trademark desperation lariat but Vader kicked out. Kobashi then delivered a moonsault and went for a lariat, but Vader bodyblocked him. Kobashi delivered another lariat and got the pin. The place went nuts for the finish. ***3/4; 2. Misawa beat Taue in 15:18. Misawa carried the match selling most of the way. Taue is washed up and Misawa physically is nowhere near what he once was but Misawa had his working shoes on. Misawa used an elbow suicida and rolling bodyblock off the apron. Taue used several high kicks including one off the apron and teased a choke slam off the apron but ended up delivering back body drop. Misawa came back with a rolling elbow and a running elbow for the pin. ***1/2
MEXICO: The 3/3 Arena Mexico show probably didn't draw well since it was sandwiched between major shows the week before and the two shows of the year on 3/10 with the return of Perro Aguayo, but this now won't be his retirement match. The long-awaited Atlantis vs. Villano III mask vs. mask match on 3/17 will be the first EMLL show to air live on PPV in Mexico through Sky TV. All the advertising states that the entire 3/17 show won't air on television and can only be seen live or on PPV. Because of it being a PPV, they are keeping Aguayo's career going as the semifinal will be Aguayo & Tarzan Boy & Negro Casas vs. Shocker & Scorpio Jr. & Mascara Ano 2000 and the newspaper ads out for the show are not advertising this as Aguayo's retirement match either
Aguayo's first match at Arena Mexico in years on 3/3 will be teaming with Mr. Niebla & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis against Villano III & Bestia Salvaje & Shocker & Scorpio Jr. so they are using the huge crowd they are sure to get for the Aguayo match and putting Atlantis and V-3 in there to shoot the big angle in the match that everyone came to see
They continued to heat the latter match in the main event where Atlantis & Tarzan Boy & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. beat Cien Caras & Bestia Salvaje & El Satanico via DQ when all the Villanos and Pierroth hit the ring to attack Atlantis. In the semi, where La Furia Boricuas (Pierroth Jr. & Gran Markus Jr. & Villano III) beat Los Capos (Apolo Dantes & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000) it was to build the Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Pierroth Jr. hair match for 3/10 as they had a wild brawl ending with both bleeding buckets
AAA ran its biggest show of the year on 3/5 at El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos, the famous arena that the UWA ran twice a week in the early 80s heyday and at one point was the hottest arena for pro wrestling in the world
ECW: It now appears Sabu is done with the company, again, and the next question is how everything will wind up. At the 3/4 ECW Arena show, Sabu was actually given a script, something Heyman never gives anyone, which called for a match at the Arena where it would start out as Super Crazy vs. C.W. Anderson. Sabu would interfere and put Anderson through a table leading to Crazy getting the win. Cyrus would then order Crazy vs. Sabu for the TV title tournament (after Crazy seemingly had already beaten Anderson in his TV title tournament first round match to make Crazy the big underdog) and Sabu would miss a table spot and Crazy would pin him after a moonsault. Sabu, who was dressed, when he got the script, left the building with John (Pee Wee) Moore after saying he wasn't going to do the job. It's pretty clear that Heyman knew ahead of time that Sabu would never put over Crazy because Sabu is stuck in that Ed Farhat mentality about doing jobs, and he feels he's done enough of them. Heyman claimed when they talked during the week Sabu told him he wasn't going to do a job, which is why Heyman laid out a script, basically to cover himself if/when this goes to court, and that Sabu told him he would be wrestling in Calgary on 3/3 and couldn't make connections back for the ECW Arena show. Heyman also had to be figuring that if the story would play out this way, and those close to the situation say he predicted it would turn out exactly as it did (there was word even in mid-week that Sabu would be asked to do a job at the Arena and would probably walk out since he apparently told Heyman on the phone no jobs). If there would have been sympathy for Sabu regarding Heyman now threatening legal action for a contract breach, a lot will likely be taken away since he wouldn't put over Crazy, who Heyman has been trying to elevate (specifically into Sabu's old spot) and who has probably been the most consistently good wrestler in the company over the past year plus, wouldn't play well to either his dressing room or the outside world, nor should it, for that matter. Heyman said he wouldn't do anything to keep Sabu from making a living, but it would have to be in Japan, as he's going to try and ice him from going to WCW or WWF. My feeling of what is going on is Heyman, because of what TNN wanted from the beginning which was every key player under contract so TNN wouldn't expose and make new stars on a national basis, only to have them jump to USA, TNT and TBS, rival networks to appear on their shows, is a period like with Taz, where they wouldn't immediately jump from one station to the other, and one of the companies buying out the remainder of Sabu's contract from ECW, which expires in 2003
The ECW Hardcore Revolution video game was the No. 2 selling game on Sony Playstation and No. 6 in Nintendo 64 for the week of 2/13-19, which means the game has sold over 600,000 units, which is an amazing total since ECW reaches just under one million homes per week for its main show on TNN
As it stands right now, the main event on the PPV on 3/12 look to be a three-way dance for the tag titles with new champs Mike Awesome & Raven (having won the belts on 3/4 at the ECW Arena), Masato Tanaka (who will be leaving back for FMW after the PPV show) & Tommy Dreamer and Lance Storm & Justin Credible. There will also be a four-man tournament for the vacant ECW TV title with Super Crazy vs. Little Guido (but expect Yoshihiro Tajiri to somehow be involved) and Rhino vs. Sandman as the semifinals. Nearly everyone considers it a given that Rhino is getting the title since they already shot an angle with Rhino and Van Dam at the ECW Arena for the title when Van Dam returns. The only other match strongly pushed is Steve Corino vs. Dusty Rhodes in a bullrope match. There's been speculation of Balls Mahoney vs. Kintaro Kanemura as well
Notes from the 3/4 ECW Arena show which drew a packed house of 1,500. The show opened with what was reported to us as the best ECW match in months with Storm & Credible beating Gedo & Jado with the place going nuts for all the near falls and false finishes. This was said to have made Storm & Credible look like a great team more than any match they've had thus far. Guido beat Kid Kash, which I believe will be repacked later as if it's part of the TV title tournament, which at this point hadn't been announced. Doring & Roadkill beat Pitbulls. The crowd popped big for the return of the Pitbulls, who were big favorites a few years back before losing their jobs in the wake of a drug trafficking arrest and subsequent plea bargain. However, a lot has happened since they left. The quality of the work overall has improved greatly and Gary Wolfe was never any good, and Anthony Durante did some good spots but was one of those early ECW guys who looked a lot better when their matches were heavily edited before airing, but since he hasn't worked in a long time, he's nowhere near that level. The match was said to have been terrible, including a totally messed up finish that had to be improvised. Apparently there are some plans since Heyman had the Pitbulls turn on each other after the match. Wolfe has worked a few shows of late for ECW but hasn't looked good. Then came the angle where Cyrus stripped Van Dam of the TV title. Scotty Riggs, brought in as Van Dam's best friend, was part of the angle. It's said Cyrus talked for nearly 20 minutes and was tremendous in his role. He's probably the best heel talker in the business right now, because he's really better than HHH, just doesn't have the spotlight and aura of the bright lights, and while Flair is better, nobody wants to boo Flair. Where he lost them is apparently nobody bought the key crux of the angle when he claimed that if Van Dam, who came out during the segment and did one of his best ever promos, didn't give him the TV title, than ECW would be canceled by TNN. While they've built up to that in TV storyline, nobody bought it. Van Dam gave him the belt to "save ECW from cancellation." Van Dam and Rhino then had a pull-apart. Cyrus then announced a tournament to end at the PPV. On TV, they're already doing an angle where somehow Crazy has defied the network, as a way to elevate Crazy in the role of the guy getting screwed at the end, so you can see how the tournament should go. Rhino beat Spike Dudley, who came back for one last match even with his knee blown out. Dudley took one sick bump off the stage, onto two tables, then rolled off the tables and crotched himself. Dudley was telling people that he'll be out six to nine months after the knee surgery. They're going to try and portray it as if Rhino was the one who put Dudley out of action. In the match originally scheduled for Sabu, Crazy beat C.W. Anderson in a real good match. Nova & Chetti & Mahoney beat The Baldies. Kintaro Kanemura did a run-in, bringing out New Jack, who did another balcony dive. Raven & Awesome beat Dreamer & Tanaka. We're told this match and the six man that preceded it couldn't get any heat because they couldn't follow Crazy. Sandman beat Tajiri in a match that was said to be too long, but good after the 5:00 mark, which must mean Tajiri is a miracle worker. Rhino and Sandman went at it after
Sabu's mother is out of the hospital
They debuted the FMW-style explosive ring match on 3/3 in Asbury Park, NJ before 2,300 fans. They did a gimmick where Corino said the rest of the show would be old school wrestling by orders of TNN, so of course that meant the rest of the show was brawling and juice. They put Mahoney vs. Vic Grimes in the explosive match. Descriptions ranged from fair to horrible, largely due to the explosives. The first explosion was said to be weak, but since nobody had anything to compare it with, the fans chanted "ECW." The second explosion that was supposed to be the climax, was a dud and it killed the match. They'll probably go around the country with the explosive ring match and it should draw well the first time out. They did some TNN tapings at this show as well, including another Awesome vs. Tanaka title match which ended when Dreamer and Raven got involved. Raven laid out Tanaka and Awesome laid out Dreamer both through tables
Simon Diamond is out for a few weeks with a back injury
Mikey Whipwreck was back ready to work but he wasn't used
Sabu was also in Asbury Park but not used
At some point, probably about two months down the line, they should put Cyrus with Awesome while building up the Van Dam match and portray Awesome as a strong heel with Cyrus doing the talking for him because it's a major league main event combination
The idea of this weekend was to give Doring & Roadkill their big chance, with wins over Gedo & Jado and Pitbulls. However, both matches were terrible, and their stock dropped in a lot of people's eyes with people saying they were like indie guys who can have real good matches with people they always work with but look bad against anyone else. Gedo & Jado and Kanemura had just arrived in town just a few hours before Asbury Park after the big flight so were feeling the effects of jet lag and didn't look good the first night. Fans chanted "FMW" at Gedo & Jado the second night when they had the hot match
As it turns out, the Arena Football League revived its season after the labor dispute it was announced ended it a few weeks ago, so the TNN schedule which includes two ECW pre-emptions or time slot changes this summer will go as planned
TNN on 3/3, just nine days before the PPV, didn't even list one match for the PPV. Paul Heyman's belief is that he has 80,000 buys for just about every PPV show, no matter how good or bad a job the company does of hyping the show, and he feels as long as he produces good shows, it doesn't matter whether matches are hyped in advance or not. The shot opened with Awesome over Spike Dudley from Milwaukee with a power bomb through a vertical table. It was the usual match as far as Awesome killing Dudley with stiff moves and Dudley juicing big, including three hard power bombs, with Dudley kicking out a lot before getting pinned in about 8:00. Very good for what it was, although Dudley isn't going to get a long career. The Impact Players jumped Tanaka when he was doing an interview in Japanese to set up the tag title change angle later in the show. Corino did a lengthy promo to build up his bullrope match with Rhodes. He had Erik Watts, wearing an old Mid South belt, added to his Old School stable. I was hilarious when he said Crusher was a closet homosexual in Milwaukee. Ref H.C. Loc, claiming to be from Milwaukee (isn't he from New York?), did a promo defending the city so Corino hit him with a cowbell and he juiced. It was funny that when Corino said that Dusty Rhodes had finally retired, the audience clapped. Crazy won a three-way over Tajiri and Guido in 8:41. Tajiri first pinned Guido with a brainbuster and than Crazy pinned Tajiri after a low blow and a top rope quebrada. This was pretty good as well. Rhino speared Crazy backstage after the match into a locker. For some reason, Crazy was standing up to the network. The feeling seems to be that if WWF takes the CBS deal, that Raw would move to TNN and ECW would be booted off. Recognizing this as a strong possibility, ECW, on TNN of all places, has been working on turning TNN heel for if/when this takes place. And TNN is so ignorant, they probably think it's some sort of a wrestling angle because Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff got mileage out of heel management. They finished with the clips from Cincinnati over the weekend leading to the tag title change. Francine yelled at Dreamer. Finally she slapped him after he called her breasts fake. Dreamer was about to piledriver her when Raven saved and DDT'd Dreamer, and Raven and Francine left. The Impact Players came out and were doing a number on Dreamer until Tanaka made the save. They mainly brawled in the stands, did a few big spots in the ring before Tanaka pinned Credible in 5:58 with diamond dust to win the title. Dreamer & Tanaka celebrated big in the ring like they actually won something. It's that emotion that makes the titles mean something and why adding more titles, so winning them means nothing, is a negative to companies and why ECW's title changes always get over while in WCW they rarely do and in WWF, except the world title, they are hit and miss
Jim Mitchell (WCW James Vandenburg) signed a three-year contract this past weekend so expect him to play a larger role imminently.
WCW: The SuperBrawl buy rate is coming in at closer to 0.15 than 0.20, which is by far the lowest buy rate ever for one of the big two companies. In fact, it is lower than most ECW buy rates, considerably lower than AAA did and in the range of what UWFI and K-1 (the early ones promoted by Bischoff from Japan, not the Vegas show which did .10) did with no television whatsoever. The fact this was done with Hogan and Flair's first PPV match back after months speaks volumes that this company needs an entire face lift, and at this point, they're better off biting the bullet for a while with quarterly PPV shows that they spend three months building because there is no reason the next show is going to do even as well. To put things into perspective, WCW's estimated company gross on the event was $773,000, and that's barely more than WWF grossed just for their Raw house show in Atlanta and less than WCW had grossed for a few of its biggest Nitros in the past. Even within the company the feeling is that Uncensored will do even worse
Nitro on 3/6 in Chapel Hill, NC drew an embarrassing crowd of 2,236 paid with 2,626 comps and $71,320 for a building that one year ago was one of the hottest buildings Nitro every played at, selling out 16,000 seats the first day tickets were put on sale. Finlay and Vampiro brawled backstage to start the show. Kaz Hayashi beat Psicosis in the best Nitro match in months at 4:38 when Artist hit Psicosis with the belt and Hayashi pinned him with a schoolboy. Hayashi did a big dive early onto both Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera. Vampiro and Finlay ended up brawling in the ring at one point. Psicosis and Guerrera laid out Artist after the match. Big Vito beat Ron Harris via DQ in :58. Vito did his implant DDT. The ref was distracted and Don switched with Ron, and used a chain for the pin. The ref watched the replay and reversed the decision. This opens the question why they don't watch replays more often since most heel wins are illegal. The Harris Twins handcuffed Vito to the ropes and gave the H-bomb to Johnny. A bunch of the NWA Nashville guys worked as security, trying to stop the Harris Twins but they killed them. Eventually the Harris Twins were arrested and taken from the building, leaving Jarrett without a tag partner for the main event. David Flair beat Wall via DQ in 2:28. This could have been worse. Wall stacked two tables up. David hit Wall with the crowbar, then like an idiot, put the crowbar down. Wall got up and choke slammed him through two tables. Wall actually had some facials. They played this up big with Hennig, Funk and Anderson all looking concerned, and making a big deal about how Ric Flair couldn't have cared less. They did a lot better job with the post-match this time than with Crowbar, as Daffney actually looked concerned. Bigelow confronted Wall doing a storyline of Bigelow getting him started (which I believe is a shoot) and Wall punched Bigelow and laid him out. That was well done. Dog pinned Evan Karagias in 3:54 after powerslamming him off the middle ropes. This was ungodly awful. Not sure if this was a singles match since all three members of Three Count were in the match the entire time. Knobs and Finlay also interfered, but it was acted as if they weren't part of the match. It was never explained if this was a singles or a handicap or a tag, but you needed no explanation that it was a mess. After the pin, there was no word about the hardcore title. I guess it isn't defended 24/7 in these parts. Flair & Luger did an interview backstage. The place went wild for Flair as a face. Jarrett introduced Wall as his partner in the main event. Nobody cared. Hennig pinned Flair in 7:38 with a fisherman suplex. This was a good match but it was said to see how dead Flair is because nobody feels good about booing him that even when he has a good match the crowd doesn't react anymore. Flair started praising Duke which was the only way to get the fans to boo him. After the match Luger hit Hennig with the bat and Flair whipped him with Hogan's belt. They did the broken arm gimmick with the chair with Hennig. Anderson came out and stood over Hennig. Luger was about to hit Anderson with the bat from behind but Flair, who had a stare down with Anderson, waved him off. Schiavone & Madden claimed if Luger had hit Anderson with the bat, that because of his neck injury, he'd be dead. They should have said paralyzed, because acting like someone could die in a wrestling angle, aside from killing credibility, just doesn't fit in a fun soap opera. Then again, what's fun about WCW? Hennig was put in an ambulance. An ambulance for a broken wrist? Lane & Idol tried to weld the Demon's casket as a rib. Demon wasn't in it. He attacked them and got double-teamed. Smiley beat Lane in 2:59 with the chicken wing. Smiley wrestled in a Michael Jordan Tar Heels jersey. This was a clumsy match with an even more botched up spot. Miss Hancock came out, but they forgot to cue the music so she just stood there and everyone started acting distracted even though she never did dance. Demon ran out and saved Smiley from a double-team. They explained that since Smiley a few weeks back stole Demon's stuff, that somehow they were spiritual brothers. Only in WCW can you logically come up with a reason to save someone who burglarized you. Then again, only in WCW can they spent six figures on a gimmick like Kiss Demon and give it to Dale Torborg. In the stupidest part of the show, Abbott came out and the world's most dangerous 9-7 fighter did an interview, with no help from Gene Okerlund that he desperately needed, looking at the ground like a first grader who never spoke in front of the class before. He kind of intimated he tapped because they were going to take him off TV if he didn't. If we're to assume now he meant that pro wrestling is worked in their own storyline, then the whole gimmick for him to get over in the first place about him not being part of the work, would have worked. But since he's part of the work, who cares about a guy who doesn't have a good body, can't work and can't even do a promo? Abbott said he wasn't going to leave. Finally Parka came out and was KO'd. Meng then came out, but security held him back and J.J. Dillon told Meng he'd get two months suspended without pay if he went any farther. So Meng left. Then, for no reason, Abbott, who said they couldn't make him leave, then left. I guess they had to get on with the show. Why did they stop Meng if they didn't stop Parka? Why did they stop Meng when Abbott had hijacked the show and he was actually doing the company a favor? Why does nobody at the booking meetings ask the simplest of questions? Hogan did another of his 80s interviews. He didn't have a cast on. I guess he's tired of selling. He did mention the name of at least one doctor banned from WWF dressing rooms the same time as Dr. Hackett. In what started as Kidman vs. Stevie Ray, ended with Kidman & Booker vs. New Heat. Big-time horrible. Ray nearly killed his poor innocent little brother out of clumsiness and professional neglect. Finish saw Ray hit Kidman with his gimmick and Fat T pinned him in 2:39. Rhodes did an interview and basically tried to get over using inside terms to a bunch of college kids who didn't know them and was literally dying. Funk came out to save him. Funk was moving slower than ever. Funk pulled a chicken with no head, wearing diapers, that sort of looked like Dusty Rhodes out. Rhodes threw powder and gave him two piledrivers. Funk came back with barbed wire. Finally Jarrett & Wall beat Sid & Vampiro in 4:20. This was terrible. The ONLY good thing about this match was the outfit Tylene Buck was wearing. Speaking of WCW women, they need to either get the women over as distinct personalities with gimmicks and storylines so people will care about them, or dump all of them because they are clearly at this point no value to ratings and they make the show seem like amateur hour. Vampiro didn't come across like he belonged in a main event. Wall was awful. Finish saw Jarrett hit Sid with a guitar and Wall choke slammed Sid. Jarrett pinned Sid while Wall choke slammed Vampiro. Madden tried to get Vampiro over as the next Sting, but since he's always losing every match, somehow if you look back at Sting in 1988, he didn't do jobs on TV every week during that period he shot from mid-card to superstardom in like a one month period
About all we got from 3/7 Thunder tapings in Winston-Salem is the crowd was tiny, which we knew from the advance, and that Sid no-showed. Misterio Jr. was there and apparently they actually thought he was able to work a little which is why they wanted him at TV, not realizing he had reconstructive surgery and he's three months away from coming back. So instead, for apparently no reason, he came out while Juventud was out, and cut a promo saying he'd be back in a few months. Jarrett beat Vampiro in a U.S. title match. You'd think it was time Vampiro actually won a match while the announcers talk about how he's the next Sting. Apparently it was considered, but beating Jarrett before the PPV where he's a world title challenger, and where most fans still don't believe he has a chance to win, isn't the right person this week to do it with. Vampiro should have gotten a win over someone like Luger or one of the twins to be elevated and he needs at least one win soon, or even Jarrett after the PPV if he's not in the main event in April. Even though this is old school booking, you still shouldn't make the PPV title challenger look weak on TV leading to the show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 3/3 ran a series of articles on WCW, on the lawsuits filed by Sonny Onoo, Harrison Norris (Hard Body Harrison) and Bobby Walker, on the declining ratings and on the lawsuit Shane Douglas is threatening to file. There was nothing ground breaking in the stories. Besides claiming discrimination, they were suing claiming their independent contractor status was illegal and they were thus denied employee benefits such as vacation and sick time. Walker is still under contract to WCW, but complained that if it wasn't for racism, he could be a babyface with a big push. Walker said he was told by management that "there weren't enough black people watching wrestling to push me." He said, "If that's true, it's only because there aren't enough black wrestlers for fans to follow." Alan Sharp claimed WCW demographics show that 87 percent of the audience is white, which is a higher percentage than the national average of 83 percent. Onoo, who earned $160,000 for his role as a manager (he earned far more in side deals both as a liaison with Japan and in negotiating contracts for foreign talent and getting a cut). Onoo said he was upset about the pay disparity (the average WCW salary for a wrestler is $300,000), he was more offended that Asians and Mexicans were predominately given heel roles. Onoo complained that WCW never had any minority writers
Thunder taped 2/29 in Fargo, ND was another dead show. Artist was DQ'd against Chavo Guerrero Jr. (called Eddy Guerrero by Bobby Heenan) in 2:12 after he got caught by Charles Robinson hitting him with the title belt. Guerrero did an interview afterwards with Gene Okerlund, explaining he went broke on his old gimmick (multi-level marketing), but ending up by pick pocketing Okerlund. Luckily WCW doesn't present minorities in demeaning roles. Dustin Rhodes did an interview. They showed a clip of him attacking Funk at an autograph session. It was so sad to see just a few fans there, even in their own worked angles they don't get enough people to make it look like their wrestlers are important. Rhodes broke a pitcher on him and poured coffee on him. In the ring, as Rhodes was doing his interview, Funk came back with a few chair shots until Rhodes made his own comeback with chair shots. The show was built around these sleazy and cheesy contests with the NWO girls to dump one of them from the group. They had a spelling bee, where they got their little inside joke when they asked one of the women how to spell "rat." They had a bikini contest. WWF does the same thing and draws ratings with them because they present them as something. WCW takes a decent idea and then executes it so poorly it becomes a bad one. Knobs & Finlay & The Dog (Al Greene) beat Three Count in 2:52 when Dog power bombed Shane Helms off the middle rope through a table. You know things are bad when your youth movement is a late 30s Al Greene push. I was wondering if Knobs & Finlay & Dog had won the hardcore title since the announcers never explained whether it was a title match or a non-title match. Then I realized what an idiot I was. How could a three man team hold a singles title? La Parka did his gimmicked interview. Parka pinned Demon in 1:58 with a low blow and rolling shoulderblock. At first they looked to be setting Bagwell up with Miss Hancock. Heenan came back after the segment saying, "I've never seen him (Bagwell) having bad luck with the ladies." We know he doesn't watch anything, but shouldn't they have someone in the company type things up and at least fax them the current angles. Luger beat Vampiro in 5:32 when Liz hit Vampiro with the bat and Luger racked him. Flair was out there as well. This was the match Vampiro needed to win, so the result was no surprise. They did the broken arm gimmick with Vampiro. They went backstage Vampiro was mad getting off the stretcher. A stretcher for a "broken arm?" Finlay jumped him again after the match. Mickey Jay pinned Mark Johnson in 1:38 when Nick Patrick gave Jay a roll of quarters. Crowbar beat Wall in 2:35 when Wall choke slammed him off the apron through the announcers table. It was a great bump. Mike Tenay did an excellent job selling it. The crowd didn't take it seriously in the least as the stretcher and the ambulance have become cliches on all wrestling shows due to overuse. You saw no concern from anyone from this angle. A lot of the problem was with David Flair and Daffney, who stayed in character, thus alerting the audience to the fact that nothing serious had happened. Either these guys have no idea how to book an angle in the year 2000, or they are just trying to pretend to give guys angles and when they don't succeed, use it as an excuse not to give anyone a push. Sid did an interview with Booker & Kidman. Sid started speaking a new dialect. That was kind of funny. Tenay still tried to play up the Crowbar injury huge. Flair beat Bagwell in 5:13 when Luger hit him with the bat and Flair got the pin. There was a sign in full view saying "Flair needs a wonder bra." I wonder if fans held up signs like that during Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Wayne Gretzsky's last season? Signs like that are also an indication as to why Flair has to be a babyface and do interviews every week in the suit and tie at this stage and wrestle maybe once every 12 weeks on TV so fans are begging to see it rather than not caring when they watch, and a few times per year on PPV. Anything else serves no purpose because he means nothing for ratings in this role either as a pushed heel or wrestling every TV show. With both, he becomes part of the problem, not the solution. Bagwell, showing zero signs of damage after being hit with a baseball bat, started consoling the NWO girl with no name who had been dumped when the other girls threw powder or something on her. Harris Twins & Jarrett beat Kidman & Booker & Sid in 3:15 when Kidman hit Booker with a missile dropkick when Jarrett moved, and Jarrett pinned Booker. The Harris Twins did the H-bomb on Kidman and Booker and Jarrett hit Vicious with a guitar shot again. If he really got a concussion from it two weeks ago, there's no way in hell he's letting the guy do it, and if he didn't get a concussion from it, then he no-showed a Thunder taping. Under those circumstances, there's no he should be in the top position in the company unless he had Hogan-like drawing power, so for money reasons his foibles can be overlooked for business. But Sid on top is bad business, and generally speaking his track record from every shot he's had indicated that would be the case
WCW and the big company are planning a big publicity campaign to build for Goldberg's return in April. The plan originally had been for Vicious to be portrayed as a dominating champion, go heel and lose it to Goldberg. The plan was then given to turn as many hot faces as possible heel and feed them to Goldberg. The big question right now regards Hogan. Hogan going heel at this point could be a career killer (and Sting going heel against Goldberg is even more likely to be a career killer since he's close to dead anyway) and the feeling is he won't go for the scenario, since the end result is also him having to put Goldberg over clean if it's done right. The debate seems to be whether to debut Goldberg on PPV on 4/16, or on Nitro on 4/17, with the feeling maybe leaning toward Nitro because nobody is watching their PPVs right now
Bill Busch got the word this past week that Bret Hart would be back in July at the earliest. Hart received notice that as of 2/16, his pay was cut in half and that as of 4/15, he can be fired. Busch told Hart that he had no idea his pay was cut and that it was something done by the legal department, and they'd work it out when Hart comes back. The Winnipeg Sun had a lengthy article on Hart's condition, saying that he doesn't remember what he did on Christmas or New Years. He said it's been harder on him that some people close to him don't believe he's really injured than actually missing the wrestling. Hart was also asked about Marty McSorley's incident where he hit Donald Brashear in the head with a hockey stick and said that he thought "it was negligent, and it's pretty damn close whether or not the cops should get involved.
Since a lot have asked, Cassius of Harlem Heat is the former 4x4 from the No Limit Soldiers gimmick, whose name I believe is Teddy Reade (at least that's what his name wrestling indies was)
There is consideration given to linking Sting & Vampiro as a team, with the idea it would elevate Vampiro and perhaps freshen up Sting. The question again involves whether Sting would see teaming with a guy that at this point has no credibility but is starting to get over, as a demotion and nix it
Kevin Sullivan has an idea of turning Crowbar into a young Cactus Jack by having him get sympathy while taking crazy bumps. The problem with the angle with Wall is, they also think they can make a monster out of Wall, and they don't realize that in the year 2000, a 6-7 guy with no charisma is Mideon, not John Studd
Terry Taylor is off the booking committee. According to those close to the situation, Taylor had the best ideas. This wasn't a demotion, and it had nothing to do with the situation WCW is in but related to non-wrestling aspects of life, but a decision Taylor made voluntarily, and perhaps only temporarily. He'll continue to work as a road agent. Nash was also dropped from the committee. Nash is also off the booking committee, but already working on going over people's heads to get back on. The feeling was that Nash was a detriment to anything getting accomplished positively at the meetings. Nash is trying to tell the wrestlers, and there's probably some truth to this statement as well, that the people at the meetings are clueless how to reach the demographic that watches wrestling and that's why they need him there. Others have joked that Nash, pushing 41, was the one who supposedly understood the demographic the most, but was the one who actually did the most damage to the company when he was in power of anyone. At this point, virtually everything of significance is being done by Sullivan and Ferrara. There are infrequent meetings with others but they are doing the bulk of the work. Ross Forman is back on the committee to an extent as far as being part of the meetings. The feeling is that Sullivan is being given a chance right now to sink or swim, and when he sinks, either Taylor will be brought back, or possibly even Russo. It's all mind boggling at this point
Regarding Saturn's story about Jericho's fiance buying the dolls of he and Malenko and them being rung up as Hogan and Sting, we received a correspondence from someone who went to the store, found the Jericho and Malenko WCW dolls, bought them, and they were rung up as Hogan and Sting. He also bought some Steiner Brothers dolls that were both rung up as Hogan
The Misfits are threatening a lawsuit against WCW claiming that Vampiro is using their look with the spiked leather jacket, etc (as if nobody in wrestling ever wore anything like that before). The lawyers for Jerry Caiafa (Jerry Only) and Paul Caiafa (Doyle Von Frankenstein) are claiming WCW has exploited the name Misfits and logos, art work and clothing designs and claimed that Ian Hodgkinson has tried to pass himself off to the general public as a member of the band, by wearing their style make-up and a spiked jacket and worn clothes with their logo. They also claim WCW has marketed a Vampiro action figure which has logos and art work associated with the Misfits
Both Juventud Guerrera and Chris Kanyon were at Thunder on 2/29. Guerrera didn't work because he was scheduled to second Psicosis, who once again no-showed. Kanyon was supposed to put over Bagwell, with the gimmick that Bagwell would hit on Kanyon's girls and get shot down to set up the match. It fell apart because Kanyon's girls weren't there, but we heard also that they had other girls they could have used in the spot, and at that point Kanyon and Sullivan wound up in a disagreement and he was pulled from the show and Flair was put in the spot. Speaking of Bagwell, he signed a new contract this past week, then missed the 3/6 Nitro with a knee injury, which for better or worse and each situation is different, because of the nature of the company and morale, everyone is skeptical of. Granted, everyone at this point is skeptical of both the real injuries and the worked ones
Hall is expected back in a few weeks
The Maestro vs. Cat program looks at this point like it's being dropped
They proposed a program to Goldberg for his return against Jarrett and he didn't like the way it was laid out
Misterio Jr. was scheduled for 3/6 Nitro to do an angle but wasn't there
Larry Hennig was also there to do an angle on 2/28 in Minneapolis, but it didn't happen, as Hennig is believed to have not wanted to do an angle since his son was jobbing in his big return in his home city
Keiji Muto was scouting WCW developmental talent for possible trips to Japan this week so all the younger wrestlers were pulled from working Nashville
If there is some good news, it is that the upcoming England tour is a huge success, at least before they get there. 3/10 in Birmingham, England is sold out at $380,000+. 3/11 in London should be sold out at the 12,229 seat Arena before you read this and the advance is more than $360,000. And 3/12 in Manchester, England topped 13,000 tickets sold in the 19,609 seat Arena for more than $370,000
Also, the Goldberg Monster Truck is kicking ass in whatever division it's in as it is currently ranked No. 1 in the nation
Diamond Dallas Page is writing his second book called "Positive Affirmation for Kids from A to Z with DDP." I know this proposed book sounds to the public like another cat bo commercial. I'm about halfway through his current book. Will probably have review in about a week or two. I wouldn't rate it as a must-read like the Dynamite Kid or Mick Foley books. DDP was plugging his book on Craig Kilbourne on 3/6 and said that he's out with an injury but isn't sure he wants to come back
Thunder on 2/29 at the Fargo, ND Dome drew 2,285 paid and 3,083 comps for a $56,704 house. 3/1 Saturday Night tapings in Bismark, ND drew 1,360 paid and 1,163 comps for a $29,266 house. The house show on 3/4 in Fayetteville, NC drew 2,816 paying $63,410. 3/5 in Charlotte for a house show drew 1,169 (plus 2,697 comps) for an atrocious $26,860 gate which has to be the smallest Charlotte crowd for wrestling in a good six plus years going back to the darkest days of the company. We don't have complete records but merchandise reports are in the $3.78 per head range which is the lowest in many years. The main event was Vicious over Flair. As you can imagine, nobody in Charlotte wants to boo Flair, so at this point clearly they just won't pay to see him as a heel and I don't think that's the psychological "reaction" a company should be looking for. The ones that came politely cheered him and sort of cheered Sid as Flair played more and more heel. The finish saw Luger and Elizabeth interfere, and Liz was about to use the bat when Arn Anderson stopped Liz from using the bat. Flair got mad at Anderson, turned around, and got choke slammed for the pin. They did a three-way dance for the tag titles, but with David Flair on his own against the Mamalukes and Harris Twins, selling the Crowbar injury. Flair was a non-entity early, but came back and hit one of the twins with the tire iron for the first pin. The rest of the match was 2-on-1 Mamalukes on Flair, with no psychology or comeback the whole period, and he just got pinned. Said to have been really weird to watch.
WWF: Preliminary estimates are that the No Way Out PPV did a 1.20 buy rate, which is an excellent number for the show between Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania, which often does poorly. It's almost the exact number as last year's show did (1.21) with the first ever singles match of McMahon vs. Austin in a cage. The overall company gross for the event would be approximately $5.80 million
More details on the WWF quarterly report. At the end of the quarter (1/28), the WWF had $243 million in cash assets, made up of $172 million coming from the IPO and the other $71 million in accrued profits over the 18 years the company has been in operation. The biggest reason why the gross revenue was up from $65.2 million to $98.4 million in comparing the third quarters was a $12.1 million increase in television advertising revenue, almost all due to the implementation of Smackdown. They also increased $5.8 million in live event grosses by increasing ticket prices 20% across the board to a $28 average. Attendance was steady, but because ticket prices were jacked up as compared with one year ago, there was an increase. There was a slight increase in PPV revenue. There was a huge increase in licensed merchandise revenue from $18.9 million last year at this time to $32.5 million. They tripled online revenue both based on more advertising money coming in, and more e-commerce, and with the implementation of now 12 internet sites, they doubled total hits and more than tripled page views. The company's overall pre-tax profit for the quarter was $25,857,000 and net profit after estimated taxes was $15,721,000, basically meaning it earned 23 cents per share profit, well above estimates of 18 cents. The performance of the wrestling business at this point, if things don't change, is that at this pace, the company could actually lose $92 million per year on the XFL, which isn't going to come close to happening, and not only still not have any financial problems, but still run at a small profit. In other words, the wrestling business is so strong that while they could lose a lot of money starting up the XFL, it shouldn't threaten to even make the company not profitable overall, at least if things stay at this level. Given the cyclical nature of wrestling and how quickly fads change, predicting anything even one year in the future is always going to be speculative. At this point there are no real signs of any decline whatsoever in WWF, although the industry as a whole is clearly well past its peak. With all this great financial news, after a bump caused by the CBS rumors, the stock wound up the week at $12.63 per share
There as talk about doing an explosive ring match with Kane vs. X-Pac at Wrestlemania
Raw on 3/6 in Springfield, MA before a sellout 6,185 paying $205,170 seemed like the kind of show they did during that period when nobody in the audience wanted to see matches. The crowd was up for everything but died every time a match started. Show opened with Shane & Show coming out. Shane mentioned how Stephanie, the cheap slut that she is, drove Vince away from the business he created. So now he created pro wrestling. Next thing you know they'll have it that his great-grandfather invented television. Stephanie & HHH came out. There was a Terra Rizing sign, which was HHH's first ring name in the Boston area before he was Jean Paul Levesque in WCW. Stephanie slapped Shane for calling her a slut. Basically they set up HHH vs. Rikishi and Kane vs. Show. They went back to a hotel room where poor Crash Holly was wearing pj's while the Posse woke Tim White up and had him put a ref shirt on so they could win the hardcore title. They delivered room service as a guise to knock on the door. They make the Posse out to be complete idiots since they kept trying to pin the sleeping Leprechaun on his bed but another member would pull them off. Again, as they started fighting each other, Crash ran out of the room, but not before they broke a lamp on him. Pete Gas was more interested in eating the food they brought, which was lunch, thereby exposing that Crash probably wasn't really sleeping and it wasn't the morning,then chasing him down. It was really funny. Unfortunately, Kane vs. Show had no humor value at all. It was slow motion wrestling with no heat. Kane did a DDT and Show's head slipped out so it missed the mat by a foot. Rock ran in and gave Show the rock bottom, so Kane was DQ'd in 3:32. Kane then gave Show the lowest choke slam ever in North America. It looked more like a sumo thrust than a choke slam. Mae Young is looking real old. They did an APA vignette. Henry powerslammed D-Von Dudley in 1:15. Mae did the worst bronco buster in history on Buh Buh. After the match they laid Henry out with a 3-D and Buh Buh power bombed Mae through the table. He didn't protect her anywhere close to how well he protected the two women who are both probably 45 years younger. I know she's a very tough ornery woman and some of the stuff with her is funny and a lot isn't, but when she gets hurt for real because they think seeing a 77-year-old taking big bumps is a hoot, it's not going to end up as a bunch of laughs. Too Cool NC Road Dogg & X-Pac in 4:30. Even this wasn't good. Everyone was off and there was no heat until the worm, which the crowd went crazy for. Tori, who for some reason is the best looking woman I've ever seen in a neckbrace, tripped Grandmaster who crotched himself. Kane & Paul Bearer came out and Kane choke slammed Road Dogg while X-Pac ran away. Jericho beat Angle via DQ in an IC title match in 4:10 when Bob Backlund ran in and put Jericho in the chicken wing. They messed up the first high spot but it got better from there. There was a ref bump and Jericho hit the quebrada but no ref. He put on the walls, but Angle made the ropes and Backlund ran in. Backlund is a complete idiot doing that goofball out of touch routine while at the same time running for the U.S. House of Representatives. Rikishi beat HHH via DQ in 5:00. Even this didn't have that much heat even with two over top guys in there. Bout was so-so. The place popped big when Rock came out and hit HHH with the rock bottom and Rikishi banzai'd HHH. Blackman pinned Matt Hardy in 4:44 with a front kick off the top rope. Deathly quiet and not good. Malenko & Saturn beat Edge & Christian in 5:13. This was technically good, but still had no heat. Terri was at ringside and sold an ankle injury which distracted Edge. They did basically the old Eliminators total elimination move on Christian for the pin. Crash Holly kept the hardcore title beating Viscera in 2:50. Viscera destroyed the guy. It was better than it sounds. They went backstage. At one point Viscera threw Crash sliding across a table and he went into a garbage can. They ended up brawling into the Acolytes card game and Viscera crashed on the table, so Faarooq hit him with a bottle and Crash pinned him. Bradshaw lariated Crash after. Faarooq & Bradshaw then tried to cheat each other on their poker hand. I guess this was as entertaining as anything involving Viscera is going to get. Henry came back from the hospital and attacked the Dudleys in their dressing room, but they both beat him up. Finally, they brought this cage out from some tiny regional office in the 1960s. It was flimsy and looked ready to collapse at any second. Rock and Benoit still had an excellent match. Shane & Show and Stephanie & HHH were at ringside. Benoit used two german suplexes, Rock blocked the third and hit the rock bottom. Rock later power bombed Benoit off the top rope. Rock went to climb, HHH climbed from the outside and Rock knocked him off the cage into show and hit the floor at 10:52 for the win. HHH & Show tried to attack Rock after but HHH ended up hitting Show with a chair when Rock moved as the program ended
The Smackdown taped 3/7 at the Fleet Center in Boston before a packed house. In dark matches, Funaki beat an unknown assailant. Inferno Kid beat Tim Lowery. Inferno looked impressive. For 3/12 Heat, Jericho beat Malenko in a great match and dropkicked Guerrero off the top turnbuckle as he tried to interfere. Edge pinned Bossman. Terri was out there. Too Cool beat Head Bangers. Grandmaster's pants fell down when he was dancing. Mosh and Grandmaster were playing catch with their cones. Matt Hardy beat Viscera after a lot of interference by Jeff. For Smackdown, HHH opened talking about three handicap matches on the show for Rock, Rikishi and Kane. The Posse again tried to get the hardcore title from Crash, but Crash got away again and it ended with Pete Gas pouring liquid detergent all over one of the other guys. Rock won a handicap match over Benoit & Saturn. Malenko & Guerrero ran in after. Stephanie ordered Rock to wrestle another handicap match against Dudleys in a table match. Rios kept the light heavyweight title beating Christian. Edge speared Lita near the finish. Said to be a great match. Tazz beat Angle via DQ for the IC title when Tazz had the choke on, but Backlund ran in and put Tazz in the chicken wing. Jericho made the save and put the boston crab on Backlund. Dogg & X-Pac beat Kane in a handicap match after Tori interfered. Caryn Mawr was doing a gimmick, which may not air on TV, insulting the audience for being fat while teaching them to exercise. Blackman pinned Jeff Hardy clean. Dudleys beat Rock when they gave him a 3-D through the table. Jacqueline keeps womens title pinning Ivory fast with a DDT. Crash Holly and Prince Albert went to a no decision for the hardcore title. Show & HHH beat Rikishi in a handicap match on top but Rock came out and helped Rikishi rub his ass in HHH and Show's face after the match. Too Cool & Rikishi danced. Overall impression is that the crowd wasn't that into the show
Smackdown taped 2/29 in Trenton, NJ was a pretty good show. Best match was the opener with Radicals over Too Cool & Jericho in 5:23. Grandmaster did the legdrop off the top on Saturn, but Benoit came off the top with a head-butt while the ref was distracted and Saturn got the pin. Real good match. Jeff Hardy beat Esse Rios via DQ in a lightheavyweight title match. Rios has a lot of potential but is still doing things in the ring that he can't hit. Hardy was tremendous. Lita did that great headscissors off the stairs onto the floor. Jeff did the swanton (actually called that, credit E.D. Simpson for that term) but Lita interfered for the DQ. Shane McMahon and Big Show did an interview with Shane saying he had to stop Rock before he got to the same position Austin reached because then it would be too late. Rock came out and challenged both to a handicap match. Rikishi came out and said he wanted to be Rock's partner. They never gave a very good explanation as to why Shane didn't wrestle when the match finally came down. Angle and Sgt. Slaughter had a really contrived confrontation. Crash Holly beat Tazz in 1:52 in a hardcore title match that was mainly backstage. Bossman and Albert both tried to interfere but Tazz laid both out with a giant wrench. Some people who follow indies wrestling would know there was major heat with Tazz and Crash a few years ago stemming from the brief period Erin O'Grady worked ECW. After Tazz laid the two big guys out, the little guy hit him with a fire extinguisher and board for the pin. They did a series of vignettes throughout the show where Blackman was out with a blind date from hell set up by Snow. This was pretty funny. The girl was a weirdo who couldn't shut up, so she and Snow ended up hooking up at the end. Crash Holly told Lillian Garcia that the hardcore title is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and if a ref counts his shoulders down, then he loses the title. Road Dogg & X-Pac as a New New Age Outlaws beat Christian & Edge in 4:47 when Christian was distracted as Terri (at ringside) slapped Edge, got a low blow and X-factor and was pinned. Christian shoved Edge down after the match. Test pinned Viscera after a body slam and elbow off the top in 3:47. This wasn't anywhere near as bad as it sounds. Angle pinned Slaughter in 3:01 with his slam. Slaughter, 51, looked really heavy but he did a real good job including taking one of his trademark early 80s bumps over the top rope. Dudleys beat Kane via DQ in a handicap match when Kane choke-slammed D-Von through a table in 4:56. This wasn't anywhere near as good a bump as Crowbar took on the same spot. Match was good action. The Posse attacked Crash Holly as he was going to his car. They started beating on him and magically a ref showed up and went for pins, but each member of the Posse pulled the other off because they wanted to be the one to get the hardcore title. If they only paid attention to WCW the night before, they should have all pinned him and then all three could have been the hardcore champ. As they were fighting each other, Crash jumped in the car and sped off. Finally Rock & Rikishi beat HHH & Big Show. HHH replaced Shane in the match. They had an explanation but it wasn't very good. Really good heat. Finish saw Rock use the Rock bottom on HHH after Show accidentally hit HHH with a chair after Rock moved in 7:22. HHH shoved down Show after the match. It sure looked like they are setting up a three-way
A&E came out with a listing of its ten biggest ratings for its nightly biography show. Oprah Winfrey was No. 1, Ron Howard was No. 2 and Andre the Giant was No. 3. It should be noted that even the repeat showing of the Andre bio when they did their WWF week drew a bigger rating than first run showings of Mick Foley, Owen Hart or Steve Austi
. Davey Boy Smith is back in rehab for excessive use of pain killers, sleeping pills, morphine and muscle relaxers. He'll be using the same clinic Steve Regal used in Atlanta and be at the clinic for at least three to four months. He was promised to have a job waiting for him when he returns, but if he doesn't complete the treatment, he'll be fired. While the WWF tries to keep things like this somewhat confidential, this was trumpeted in the Calgary Sun and later in the other Sun chain papers complete with the news that McMahon is paying $75,000 for the rehab. I think it's great Smith is getting help because he was on the verge of something serious from all accounts, and great that McMahon is taking care of it, and for the sake of Davey Boy, I'm glad to see it no matter what the motivation behind this is. But if anyone can't see that the way this has been presented to the media makes it a public relations investment not to mention the role Smith plays in a high stakes lawsuit for McMahon's benefit as well, they are missing a piece, and it may be a big piece, of this puzzle. If this becomes a regular deal where the company trumpets up these incidents so publicized with everyone and McMahon offers to pay everyone's costs, and not only that, somehow without in the future trumpeting up the costs of the rehab themselves getting publicized so loudly which is where the thing came off as self-serving p.r., then at that point he should be commended. Commending the company for doing something with company p.r. being a major part of it is far too reminiscent of past history. An industry that has a track record of following up negative stories with heavily publicized charitable donations. And this fits that pattern. But whatever the motivation, if they are doing something to save someone's life, that's a greater good than anything considering the industry's track record. Bret Hart wrote a column in the same newspaper a few days later, saying he hopes Smith's attempt at rehab is successful. He said McMahon's actions appear to be commendable on the surface and said in his opinion, "that in itself is the sole motivation behind McMahon's apparent sudden bout of charitable conscience
My entire point is to ask you to think about why Davey, and why now (noting Smith has had these problems for years)." He finished by writing "McMahon is free to prove me wrong by instituting a new WWF policy to rehab any wrestler with a drug problem, even when it doesn't serve his political agenda anymore. I'd be the first one to applaud it." Bruce Hart also wrote a story about what a loyal friend Smith could be, saying how he sacrificed his spot in the WWF in 1997 out of loyalty to Bret (it should also be noted a prime reason he was unhappy going into Montreal was because he was promised a win over Shawn Michaels in England, and went so far as to dedicate the match to his sister who was in bad shape with cancer, and when Michaels refused to do the job, the finish was changed and he ended up on the losing end). Bruce noted that he left the WWF in 1988 out of loyalty to Tom Billington in a situation with the Rougeaus that he wasn't directly part of. He described Smith's return to the WWF this year as Mick Foley and Owen Hart seeing him when he was down, and when his condition improved, opened doors for a deal with the WWF and the WWF took him back, before Owen's death, and even gave him a raise from his old deal. Bruce was critical of Bret for condemning Smith for going back to the WWF and claimed Bret knew Smith was going back before Owen had died and that Owen actually played a part in getting him back in. In a conversation with Bret during the time, he wasn't critical of Smith going to work for the WWF since he was a wrestler and there were only two places to work and WCW had fired him, but he wasn't happy with him defending McMahon in the media in the wake of the accident. Bruce talked of the pressures Smith had faced, from his own health problems, to the death of his sister and mother, to explain his current problems and did tie in the situation of him going back, saying going back "caused Davey to be unjustly vilified and has also made his life a lot more stressful--a factor I suspect in his recent difficult battle with drug addiction.
Speaking of Steve Regal, the WWF has given him another chance, although he's been assigned to the Memphis promotion to get back in good enough shape before starting out. Regal needs a job or else he'll be sent back to England and because of that both WWF and WCW have been hiring him when the other lets him go because of his situation. WCW just let him go in an attempt to cut the budget, so it was WWF's turn to keep him from sinking
Bruce Prichard is now the office representative and scout at the Memphis TV tapings and he'll also be going to some Ohio Valley TV tapings. He and Kevin Kelly are in charge of monitoring how the wrestlers under developmental deals are doing
A decision of whether to keep or cut Mic Tierney, who worked in Memphis for a long time, but hasn't worked anywhere since (they did a loser leaves town program with him in Power Pro with the idea he'd start with ECW, but that never materialized) will probably be made in a few weeks. WWF wanted Paul Heyman to take he along with Vic Grimes and Glen Kulka but the only ones ECW has used thus far is Grimes and Kulka has since been fired
Steve Austin is wearing a soft neck collar most of the time. His movement is limited to doing a lot of walking and he's as of yet not allowed to lift weights. The plan is for him to debut at Wrestlemania, but in a very limited role. Vince McMahon is supposed to start on television a few weeks before Mania which may be part of an angle to reintroduce Austin. Mick Foley will be at Mania of course. A lot of ideas have been thrown out, including one where he doesn't appear on television at all, but it will be hyped that he'll return to give a farewell address at the show
The idea of doing next year's Wrestlemania at a domed stadium is under consideration. While WWF has done TV tapings from the Skydome and the Georgia Dome, and they seem special because of the large crowds, the feeling is there are a lot of headaches, in particular the audio never comes across well in such a big building (the same reason the television tapings in Japan from the Tokyo Dome always have that cavernous dead atmosphere)
Vince McMahon has been away from work for much of the past week due to being in Phoenix for the jury trial in Jim Hellwig's lawsuit against him and the company. I believe the case was settled out of court on 3/3 before both sides risked the jury decision and if that's the case involving WWF, there may have been a secrecy agreement since there has been no publicity out on it
The next Judith Reagan book is scheduled to be an autobiography of Chyna. Its release may be delayed until the summer because they are changing ghost writers. There is also a Fabulous Moolah autobiography as part of their eight book deal (this is the one that isn't going to sell) in January 2001. There was supposed to be an autobiography of Steve Austin for this year, but that has been put on hold
Rock will appear on the Tonight show just before Wrestlemania
Dwayne Johnson has also been subpoenaed to testify on 3/9 in a case of a 12-year-old boy charged with first degree murder of a six-year old girl in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Lionel Tate is being tried as an adult for the 7/28 death of Tiffany Eunick, who died after a severe beating. The defense is that Tate was mimicking what he saw on Continued on page 17.
THE READERS PAGES
BEYOND THE MAT
I just want to make sure you are aware of the depths to which the WWF is going to suppress the movie. They have sent us cease and desist letters for things we have every right to do, like use The Rock's likeness in our ads. As for our TV spots, after generating and signing contracts on THEIR letterhead more than three weeks in advance, we find out the day of airing that the spots aren't going to run. The WWF wasn't even going to tell us. We were just calling to confirm.
They have since persuaded UPN not to allow any advertising whatsoever for our film on their entire network, and are pressuring the USA network to do the same.
This type of censorship and bullying tactics have no place in our society. What is Vince McMahon afraid of? That we show wrestlers as human beings? Or is it that he was not allowed to buy into the movie and so has set out to destroy it?
Tom Ortenberg
Co-President
Lions Gate Films
The overriding message of "Beyond the Mat" is that pro wrestling is just a freak show. That is why, as Mick Foley noted from his viewing of it in a theater, "the audience seemed to laugh at inappropriate times."
Mainstream audiences won't be as impressed by real injuries as some fans have been. They'll respond "these guys are even crazier and dumber than we thought."
As a film, "Beyond the Mat" seems like a documentary by numbers effort. Blaustein shows us footage of highways, road signs, buildings, doorways and secretaries as if those cliches are the thing that makes a documentary great. What really makes a documentary great is authenticity and insight. "Beyond the Mat" lacks both.
Blaustein admits in the movie that he arranged a WWF tryout match for two guys from APW. He also admits that he arranged a screen test for New Jack, and that he suggested a meeting between Jake Roberts and his daughter. These contrived situations undermine the authenticity of Blaustein's documentary.
One begins to winder if Blaustein played a role in Mick Foley's decision to have his wife and two young children at ringside during an horrific beating, or if Blaustein played a role in what is passed of as a chance encounter between Terry Funk and Dennis Stamp where Funk learned that Stamp wasn't planning to attend Funk's "retirement" show.
Setting aside these questions of authenticity, Blaustein has captured some remarkably candid footage which could lead to new insight into the wrestling business and lifestyle. Unfortunately for the viewer, Blaustein seems too preoccupied with sensationalizing his subject matter to notice.
Two of the most critical scenes in the film are short interviews with Spike Dudley and Jake Roberts. In the space of a couple of minutes, Spike explained that he's willing to suffer abuse to hear the roar of the crowd. In doing so, Spike cuts through all the seeming contradictions in Foley's core motivation, but Blaustein misses the connection completely, instead going for laughs by pointing out that Spike studied English literature in college.
Roberts has several telling scenes, but the most critical is the scene where he explains how the physical demands of pro wrestling encourage drug use, from taking sleeping pills and pain killers to gets rest, to taking cocaine to get up for the crowd. But Jake's credibility is sabotaged by the fact he's in a crack-induced stupor, so this important insight seems more like an addict refusing to take responsibilities for his own actions.
One wonders that Blaustein didn't show Spike's interview to Foley and ask for a response, or interview someone like Ted DiBiase or the Dynamite Kid to validate Roberts' comments about how the demands of pro wrestling promote drug use.
Perhaps Blaustein was too busy or perhaps he was simply looking to sensationalize pro wrestling rather than document it. In an interview with you, Blaustein revealed that he had originally planned to include Brian Pillman and Louie Spicolli, but they died before he got a chance to film them.
The overall feeling of the movie is voyeuristic, like the Jerry Springer show without confrontations between the accused and the accuser. Blaustein shows us footage of Jake Roberts explaining how Grizzly Smith raped his mother, then counters with footage of Grizzly saying Jake was "born out of love."
Scenes like that made me feel a little dirty, as if by attending the film I was endorsing and promoting Blaustein's dishonest attempts to humiliate the people who appeared in his movie. Some of them may be freaks or bad people, but there is something very wrong about the dishonest way in which Blaustein captured and showcased them without their knowledge.
"Beyond the Mat" humiliated or embarrassed almost everyone who appeared in it, but the feedback from the fans who admire these people on a personal level has blinded many of them to the effect of the film.
I'm fairly confident that if I allowed a filmmaker complete access to my professional and private life, he could find enough unflattering moments to totally humiliate me. The mystery of "Beyond the Mat" is why so many wrestlers decided to chance that outcome by sharing their professional and private moments with Barry Blaustein and his camera crew.
Frank Jewett
DM: Mick Foley's children being at ringside was because Vince McMahon had initially wanted them involved in the finish of the I Quit match. Due to negative media criticism that had just started regarding marketing to kids, McMahon changed to the more physically violent finish, I believe the night before the match and the kids were put at ringside by the WWF. The Funk-Stamp thing was authentic.
I wanted to thank Barry Blaustein for making this movie and showing non-fans just how real the business can be. I hope a lot of sports purists see this film and get a little attitude adjustment. Perhaps they'll come away with a little appreciation for wrestlers as legitimate athletes and human beings.
Greg Anderson
Kelso, Washington
WWF's excuse for banning the advertising of "Beyond the Mat" on their networks is obviously lame and dishonest. On Smackdown last night, as well as on previous Raws and Smackdowns, the ECW Hardcore Revolution video game commercials have been running consistently. Why isn't this considered a competing wrestling product? The game features no WWF wrestlers, and is direct competition for the WWF's video game.
Is it possible for Lions Gate to buy local spots on individual UPN stations that would air during Smackdown? I've seen ads for WCW house shows in my market during Smackdown. It might be possible to individually buy in the markets the movie is playing and bypass the network execs. I suppose this depends on whether the ban will trickle down to the local station level. Since local stations get to keep most or all of the money from the local spots, they probably wouldn't appreciate being told by a network they have to reject an advertiser because the WWF has a grudge. Even if this fails, it could raise the issue, which may not help the movie's theatrical release, but might prevent this from happening in time to promote the video or DVD.
I hope they take the WWF to court. The WWF is setting a dangerous precedent that should be legally disputed. It's more than a question of money. It's a question of right and wrong and power being abused. We don't need the Vince McMahon's and John McCain's of the world determining what entertainment products succeed and fail. If products like the UFC and "Beyond the Mat" fail at the consumer level, it should be because the products failed to attract paying customers, not because powerful people with personal vendettas struck them down ahead of time.
Steve Queen
Ypsilante, Michigan
DM: The ECW game ads were bought at the local level.
Continued from page 16. pro wrestling. Johnson wasn't subpoenaed so much because he's one of the biggest stars in wrestling, but because he lived in Miami. Because of cases like this one, both WWF and WCW have been running PSA's on many of their programs. Johnson will also play a bad-guy scorpion role in the movie "Mummy 2" which will be released in 2001
There will be a lot of WWF tie-ins for the MTV spring break week
Caryn Mawr did several "dark" segments at the 2/29 taping in Trenton, NJ doing a cross between a cheerleader and Sunny of the Bodydonnas gimmick. The segment got mixed reviews. The company is said to like her a lot, but not necessarily in the role she was playing
The WWF was knocked out of the No. 1 spot in the Rec Sports home video charts for the first time in more than a year, as the home video of Super Bowl 2000 came in at No. 1 this past week. WWF held down spots 2 through 11 with Rock, Austin vs. McMahon, Best of Raw, Austin, HHH & Chyna, 1998 King of the Ring (Undertaker vs. Mankind Hell in a Cell), DX, Wrestlemania 15, Women of the WWF and Best of Wrestlemania 1-14. Overall they had 15 of the top 20 spots while WCW, with Sting at No. 18, had one
The situation with Kathy Dingman (B.B.) is that she hasn't been fired, although the odds are that she may be and she was given the word of that. The storyline situation is that she is out selling the power bomb through the table by the Dudleys. At this point there are no plans to bring her back and at this point she is still getting paid under the guise she's out selling an angle, but obviously if she isn't brought back, she'll be cut. She was a hiree of Terry Taylor, who is no longer with the company, so politically that worked against her. The feeling is that her portfolio (modeling shots) looked great but she had no charisma in front of the crowd. It is true that she's now an item with Bob Holly, but we're told that had nothing to do with her employment status, as if everyone in wrestling who was involved in affairs were let go because of them, the ranks of wrestlers would thin considerably
WWF the Music Volume 4 increased sales to 14,053, which moved it up to No. 124 on the chart. The new CD will be released on 3/21 with themes, some of which will be new, for Austin, Undertaker, Rock, HHH, Vince (No Chance), Godfather, Big Show, Kane, Outlaws, Gangrel, DX and Mankind
In ratings for the week of 2/10 to 2/12 in the United Kingdom, Nitro on 2/10 which went unopposed by any wrestling shows drew 100,000 viewers. On 2/11, Raw and Thunder went head-to-head with Raw drawing 400,000 viewers and Thunder drawing 110,000. Smackdown on 2/12 drew 220,000 viewers. The Royal Rumble live on Ch. 4 between 1-4 a.m. drew 1.1 million viewers, which is considered an unbelievable figure for that time slot
There was a lot of press in Canada over a screw-up regarding the No Way Out PPV show. Famous Players is airing WWF PPV events at their major city complexes since so much of Canada isn't wired for PPV. At the first show, due to a screw
up on the part of Bell Vu satellite TV service, when the PPV ended they flipped the wrong switch and the adult movie channel Venus aired for 30 seconds, enough time for the audiences around Canada, comprised largely of children and families, to see a naked woman on her knees performing oral sex
They did a three-way for the IC title on 3/4 in Ottawa with Benoit, Jericho and Angle as a try-out for Wrestlemania. The match went really well so it's considered close to a sure thing for the big show. There's talk they'll go with a singles Jericho vs. Benoit program afterwards
Smackdown tapings on 2/29 in Trenton, NJ drew a sellout 6,345 paying $226,327. 3/3 in Toronto at Skydome drew 19,502 paying $596,654, 3/4 in Ottawa drew 9,467 paying $293,282 and 3/5 in Montreal drew 11,534 paying $370,178. Merchandise for the past week was $290,967 U.S. which breaks down to $5.49 per head, far lower than usual because of losing so much on the exchange rate in Canada. In Toronto, Rikishi scored the clean pin on Benoit with the banzai and he and Too Cool did the dance routine. Dudleys beat Hardys with the 3-D on Jeff. They went to put Matt through a table but the table broke early killing the shot. Jeff dropkicked the table to pieces after cleaning house. Although Crash Holly is supposed to be defending the title 24/7 anywhere there is a ref, his match with Christian was non-title and you can guess who won that. Angle pinned Jericho after a ref bump hitting him with the title belt. Main event was a four-way for the title where HHH won over Kane, Rock and Big Show when Road Dogg hit Kane with a chair and HHH pinned him with a pedigree. Rock used a rock bottom and people's elbow on Show after the match and they had Rock do 15 minutes of catch phrases. In Ottawa, Hardys beat Saturn & Malenko when Matt pinned Malenko, Angle won a three-way over Benoit and Jericho by pinning Jericho after hitting him with the belt, Albert pinned Crash in what was announced as a title match and grabbed the belt as if he won, but for whatever reason Crash left with the belt, Dudleys beat Christian & Edge with the 3-D, Show beat Rikishi clean in a bad match and Rock & Kane beat HHH & Road Dogg when Rock pinned HHH. After the match Kane tombstoned Tori and Rock gave her a people's elbow and did his routine in the ring
X-Pac missed the weekend shows due to bronchitis
Val Venis is expected back in about two weeks from a sprained neck.
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