PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN1083-9593 March 6, 2000
Unlike most other wrestlers of similar fame, to do a career retrospective on Mick Foley is best saved for an examination probably years down the road.
He was the classic overachiever, who defied all the odds, and was possibly the single greatest influence inside the ring on styles changing in the business of the past ten years. In a career destined, because he wasn't that great athletically and didn't have what was believed to be the right look and physique, for being mid-card for life, he ended up when his career came to a close, as one of the five biggest stars in North America, and even as a best-selling author. In the end, he went out, with the glory but without the storyline ego, putting over the world champion twice on PPV in his own specialty matches, and even in a tag match on television and in every angle over the final weeks of his career. Hunter Hearst Helmsley long since earned his spot as the top heel in the industry today, but if he is remembered some day as one the top heels in history, he owes a lot of it to the credibility Foley gave him these last two months. In many ways, from hard work, to unselfishness about making others look good, to being a student of the game and probably truly loving pro wrestling more than nearly anyone else, enough to give his body, and perhaps parts of his brain, to it willingly and happily, whether big money was involved or not, and not for the selfish glory of bragging about scars in the bar to get over to nobody, but more to satisfy his own vision of what he wanted his role in something greater to him, this business, to be, he should be admired like few if any wrestlers of our generation. The fact he was able to achieve his level of success without developing the star attitude that the majority of people who have it do develop, and the quality of the book he wrote, speaks volumes for him as a person. But, as everyone knows, this story is not without a dark side. Because of his inventiveness, coming up with dangerous ways for a guy who should blend into the crowd to get noticed by the crowd, the business is far more dangerous. Injuries are more plentiful and more severe than at any time. This can't be blamed on him, as these trends were going to happen anyway. But it was his success, not someone in ECW like Sabu who never performed them on a national stage, that became the wrestler who inspired a large percentage of teenagers over the past three years that felt they were never going to have the body to be a pro wrestler or the athletic ability, felt they could emulate him, and hey, he's still alive, walking around, and he's a superstar, maybe he moves a little slow, but living proof that you can do these things, and get up from them, and the stardom people not all that unlike Mick Foley some 20 years ago, but probably with nowhere near his passion or verbal ability, may come their way. And Foley did it without ending up as a zombie on pain killers. But nobody else in this profession is like him. Few were born with the mental toughness and ability to absorb pain, but he's going to be testing that capacity for the rest of his life. Few truly loved the business, and the history of the business, to do these things for an actual reason of being one of the legends in an industry that cares nothing about yesterday's legends. And most important, maybe one or two were smart and entertaining enough to come up with characters and more so interviews, that were the difference from being Balls Mahoney to being Cactus Jack.
But if, this living proof that a human body can survive all this, winds up like a financially set version of Tom Billington, the truth is the fans will care just as much as they do today about Tom Billington. Nobody knows the end result of this story today. Billington abused his body in far more ways than just taking bumps, but he also never took the risks with his brain when it comes to severe head shots. And if the end of the story about Foley isn't as nice as everyone hopes, will the business that Billington and Foley changed will revert back to what it was before based on lessons learned? Just like it did because of lessons learned by the end result of Billington, or as quickly as the physiques changed when the truth came out about Wayne Coleman, years before Billington. With or without Foley, the people in this profession will end up just as they always have. A few success stories and far more broken down and bitter. More broken down than in the past. And for the dozens who make it, far better off financially.
Foley, after injuries turned him into largely a comedy figure, and a very successful one at that, for the last six months of 1999, decided he would go out with matches that would fit his legacy. So he put his body on the line and did things that most wrestlers in far better health wouldn't do in the wildest dreams, and pulled out two excellent matches and maybe an even better interview in his final weeks as a full-time active competitor. If he does retire, few if any ever went out in such a blaze of glory.
The Foley legacy overshadowed everything else on the WWF's No Way Out PPV show on 2/27 at the Hartford, CT Civic Center. Either he got the title from Hunter Hearst Helmsley in the Hell in the Cell cage that will always be remembered in the same vision as himself, or it would be his last match. Based on Foley's emotionally charged interview that aired two nights earlier, he would have had to have been the greatest actor this business has ever produced if he wasn't going to lose the match. And he was good enough as an actor that the finish was still far from a certainty in most people's eyes. He left doing two major stunts similar to the ones he did at what will go down as his more famous Hell in the Cell match on June 28, 1998 in Pittsburgh. He did a backwards fall through the Spanish announcers table while hanging onto the top of the cage, a legitimate 13-14 foot drop, probably about six feet less than the first fall in Pittsburgh. He did a second, heavily gimmicked reprise of the far more dangerous move from the original match, falling through the gimmicked part of cage taking a perfect flat back bump into a gimmicked section of the ring that broke. Unlike the first match, where he suffered numerous serious injuries that he will wake up to for the rest of his life, he didn't seem terribly the worse for wear, at least by his own standards, after his last match, but even so, the risks were there if he had made a bad landing from either fall .
It should be noted that almost no pro wrestler in modern history has had a much ballyhooed retirement, and hasn't come back. Antonio Inoki, of all people, is the only one in modern times of major stars that looks to have kept their word and probably will never come back simply due to his age. Riki Choshu hasn't come back yet, but it appears he is going to at some point. Some, like Foley's mentor, Terry Funk, have retired so many times it's gone from a much anticipated return, to an anticipated and even amazing comeback, to a nice storyline but certainly no longer amazing comeback, to a story that started to get sad, to one that ended up even sadder, seeing a legend, who still at points shows signs of his greatness, hang on far too long, only to be abused both legacy wise and physically at every turn by a company and in an industry and by modern fans that have no respect for earned status and only cares what you've done for me today. Unlike Funk, who has had numerous chances, from the 1983 farewell in Japan which was the most emotional scene maybe ever at a pro wrestling event, to the 1989 New York Knockout, another retirement match which may have been the best match of his career, or his 1997 Amarillo farewell against Bret Hart to even a Raw match against Foley as late as 1999 which was a **** television match, to go out with a bang, he always came back. And whether it'll be a forgotten 3:00 Nitro match or even worse, some house show in Duluth before 2,000 people, most of whom have no clue as to who Terry Funk really is, or if he stays after this run, on some indie show in Tuscaloosa, AL before 200 fans, his last match will most likely not be the spectacular sendoff he deserves. In many ways, Foley delivered the closest thing to the equivalent to Funk's 1989 New York Knockout performance, not as great technically, but due to the interviews and the stunts, probably stronger emotionally.
Foley decreed in his interview taped five nights earlier he wasn't going to be one of those people who came back and promised he would never wrestle again. At the same time, and it's far too soon to know if this will materialize as he said, this is the pro wrestling business. Foley himself has talked about possibly coming back for one match, although at no point soon, as has the promotion. By the nature of the interviews leading to his exit, the perfect fit would be to do an angle before next year's Wrestlemania, which would be more than a year later, and while it wouldn't exactly keep to the stipulation, by pro wrestling standards, it wouldn't make a mockery of them either. Based on his closing storyline about never main eventing a Wrestlemania, it seems like they are setting the stage for a big angle next year so he can make that a final match after more than one year to rest up. He'll only be 35. It's not like he'd be too old and with a year to rest up, he'd probably feel a lot better physically than he has in a long time. The plans for now seem to be to keep Foley off television for a few weeks, and have him return to TV in the closing weeks to play a part, but not as an in-ring participant, at this year's Wrestlemania. Whether he'll be commissioner, which has been talked about a lot, or play some other role, isn't fully determined.
Paced by the strong main event, this was one of the better WWF PPV shows in recent memory, drawing a sellout 12,551 paying $451,625 and another $97,126 in merchandise.
The show was filled with surprises, the biggest being Big Show pinning Rock with the help of Shane McMahon, one of two finishes that stunned the crowd which seemed sure the faces were going over in both of the final matches. It seems almost certain that Helmsley vs. Rock is still the Wrestlemania main event, but with five weeks to go, they figure they can throw some more stipulations out there to get Rock over Show for the slot, or if necessary, make it a three-way, although in this case, without Foley and with Show, a three-way clearly hurts the match.
There were a few late changes in the show due to injuries. Billy Gunn suffered a ligament tear in his rotator cuff and further rotator cuff damage five days before the show and needed surgery from his match in Nashville with Buh Buh Ray Dudley. He came back to drop the belts and do the angle to tell a story as to why he was injured and needed surgery. The plan is for him to be operated by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham within the next week or two, and preliminary estimates have him out of action about three months. That's the reason the tag title match was kept short and he was largely kept out of the ring, since he was working with one arm. Bob Holly suffered torn rib cartilage taking a Samoan drop and landing wrong on 2/23 in Little Rock, AR against Rikishi and will be out for a while. The planned three-way for the hardcore title with himself, Crash Holly and Test was pulled from the show.
1. Kurt Angle pinned Chris Jericho (Chris Irvine) in 10:14 to win the IC title. Angle took a high backdrop over the top and Jericho used his springboard dropkick knocking Angle off the apron. Jericho did a moonsault block off the ring steps and ended up connecting with a knee to Angle's chest. Angle went for a Frankensteiner but it was blocked by Jericho into a power bomb. They did a couple of submission reversals out of that, Japanese style, but the fans didn't understand what they were doing. Jericho then kicked out of Angle's reverse firemans carry slam. Angle grabbed the title belt but as he went to use it the first time, ref Tim White grabbed it from him and Jericho put him in the Walls of Jericho, but Angle made the ropes. After a ref bump, Angle grabbed the belt. Chyna was also bumped by a collision with Angle. In the ring, Jericho went for the quebrada but Angle stuck the belt up and it hit Jericho and White counted to three. After the match, ref Earl Hebner came out to tell White what had happened, but he didn't care and let the decision stand. ***
2. The Damn Dudleys (Mark Lomonica & Devon Hughes) won the WWF tag titles from the New Age Outlaws (Brian James & Monty Sopp) in 5:20. Fans in Hartford chanted "ECW" loudly at the start. Due to his injury, Billy Gunn was rarely in, but he did do a famouser on D-Von but Buh Buh broke up the pin pulling Gunn out. Buh Buh hit Gunn in the shoulder with a pipe. After a ref bump (there will be a lot of those before this one is over), they did the 3-D on Road Dogg and Buh Buh pinned him for the title switch, which got a big face pop. Dogg was mad at Gunn for not breaking up the pin and they teased a problem. Match was better than you'd think, particularly with one of the guys really working with a handicap. **1/2
3. Mark Henry pinned Viscera (Nelson Frazier Jr.) in 3:47. Jim Ross at the onset said this match wasn't going to be worth many stars. There was no heat, even with the strong angles they played. The fans chanted "boring" loudly within seconds. Both guys worked hard, and it was better than it figured to be, particularly with both guys working with a handicap (they stink). Mae Young did a run-in. She's still pregnant, by the way. Viscera shoved her down and set up to splash her, but Henry stopped him with a shoulderblock and pinned him with a bodyslam. Most of the finish didn't air due to satellite transmission trouble. You could joke getting just the radio version of what was happening from Lawler and Ross was better than actually seeing it, but the finish wasn't really that bad. 1/4*
3. Christian (Jay Reso) & Edge (Adam Copeland) became No. 1 contenders for the WWF tag titles beating Matt & Jeff Hardy in 15:18. The storyline was that Terri Runnels returned, and she's dropped more weight as well since her ribs showing is even more pronounced than Francine's. Aside from the plants, it looked like her skin was literally stretched over nothing but bones. Anyway, she asked the Acolytes for help so they were at ringside. This was a good match, but actually a little disappointing since it couldn't compare to many of their previous encounters. Part of it was the crowd was less into it than you'd expect. Christian did his dive early. Jeff did a Frankensteiner and caught his head on the mat on the bottom. Edge did one of the highest power bombs on Jeff on record. The Hardys did their combination splash and legdrop off the top double on Christian. Edge spread Jeff. Matt used a diamond cutter which neither announcer would give a name for. Runnels then turned on the Hardys, shoving Jeff off the top rope and he did an incredible bump crashing onto the barricade. She then slapped Matt, who turned around and was pinned by Christian with the Reso. Runnels then went to congratulate Edge & Christian, who acted as if they didn't have any knowledge this was coming. The Hardys confronted Runnels, but the Acolytes ran in as her protectors and pounded on them, leaving them laying. Faarooq somehow nearly lost Jeff on a dominator, having a terrible time getting him up, and then dropping him on his head. They also teased problems with Edge & Christian as Christian didn't want the win due to Runnels' turning on the Hardys, while Edge took the tact of they were getting a tag title shot and you take wins in wrestling any way you get them. ***
5. Tazz (Peter Senercia) beat Big Bossman (Ray Traylor) via DQ in :47. There was no match. Prince Albert ran in for the DQ immediately. The post-match story was that the two guys continued to pound Tazz into the ground, but he kept grabbing single legs and tried to keep fighting, including even after Bossman broke a gimmicked night stick on his head and even after Albert kicked him low. DUD
6. X-Pac (Sean Waltman) beat Kane (Glen Jacobs) in a no DQ match in 7:49. X-Pac did his best singles PPV match in a long time carrying Kane, who was working with a pulled groin. A lot of brawling. X-Pac used a garbage can. Kane threw the steps into the ring. X-Pac hit Kane with the ring bell. Paul Bearer jumped X-Pac and Tori slapped Bearer. It was really funny seeing Bearer then chase Tori around the ring. No, he never caught her. In fact, even though Bearer has lost a ton of weight, he still blew up probably after less than 30 feet of running. Kane was on the top and X-Pac hit him with a high dropkick and bronco buster. He set up the X-factor but Kane stood up. Kane hit a clothesline off the top but Tori then distracted Kane. Kane choke slammed X-Pac and Tori distracted him again. He tombstoned Tori, which didn't get nearly the pop the second time. Kane picked up the steps but X-Pac dropkicked the steps, causing Kane to lose balance with the steps falling on him and X-Pac held the steps down on his shoulders for the pin. **3/4
7. Too Cool (Brian Lawler & Scott Taylor) & Rikishi Phatu (Solofa Fatu) defeated Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn (Perry Satullo) & Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) in 12:41. Rikishi hit Eddy Guerrero in the bad elbow with the pipe brought in by Guerrero, which seemed to be something already done in the show. There was a great spot where Scotty 2 Hotty tried the worm and Malenko smacked him. Some solid wrestling. Rikishi finally made the hot tag and piledrove Saturn, to set up the worm spot. Grandmaster did the legdrop off the top on saturn but no ref. Benoit did the diving head-butt on Sexay. The finish got confusing with everyone everywhere, but it left Rikishi and Malenko in the ring and Rikishi scored the clean pin with a piledriver and banzai. ***
8. Big Show (Paul Wight) pinned Rock (Dwayne Johnson) in 7:29 to supposedly earn the title shot at Wrestlemania. Show is looking more and more like the Big Slow. It wasn't much of a match but it had a surprise finish. Another ref bump by Earl Hebner. Show hit the choke slam and Tim White ran in to count but Hebner pulled him out of the ring. As White and Hebner rolled around on the floor, "No Chance in Hell," played to a huge babyface pop. Shane McMahon came out. Rock hit the Rock Bottom and went for the people's elbow when McMahon threw a chair in his face and ref White counted the fall. *3/4
Throughout the show they had scenes of Angle celebrating the IC title win with fans. The funny part of all this was that EVERY fan in these scenes was celebrating with him. It wound up in the parking lot where Jericho and Chyna jumped him and through him in the trunk of a car.
9. Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Paul Levesque) pinned Cactus Jack (Michael Foley) in 23:59 in the Hell in the Cell match in Foley's retirement match to retain the WWF title. It should be mentioned right up front that Jim Ross did an amazing job getting over the drama of this match. It also should be mentioned that the cameras did a zoom in on 12 fans holding up lettering of "Foley will die." I'm not sure which was sadder, the 12 fans who thought it was cool to hold it up, or the director who thought it was cool to show those fans. Foley seemingly gave everything he had and more than made up for the fact physically he can't do that much. He got his knees whipped hard into the steps. Had the steps thrown at his head and then HHH pounded on the steps with a chair. Foley used a chair for a low blow and a double arm DDT on the chair and a leg sweep on the chair for near falls. HHH used a drop toe hold on the chair. He smashed Foley's head into the cage many times. However, HHH bladed first after being catapulted into the cage. Foley grinded HHH's head on the cage and hip tossed him into the cage. He came off the middle rope with a chair, taking a hard bump on his hip, to the floor. It should also be mentioned they had about a dozen padlocks on the cage to theoretically prevent them from escaping and going to the top. Finally, the gimmicked section of the side of the cage was opened and Foley shoulderblocked himself through it, and then bladed his arm big-time and threw HHH out. He piledrove HHH on a table that again didn't break. Foley tried to climb the cage but Stephanie McMahon pulled him down. Foley grabbed a barbed wire board he had stashed at ringside and HHH ran away, but Foley hit him with it. HHH climbed the cage to escape. Foley climbed the cage but HHH got the barbed wire board and hit him with it, and Foley took the bump through the Spanish announcers table and bladed. Foley kept trying to throw a chair to the top of the cage but was legitimately physically battered to the point he couldn't get it up there and whatever spots were planned with it must have been nixed. The cameras pulled away from the action, probably due to fear he really was hurt since he couldn't throw the chairs. He climbed the cage and they fought with the barbed wire board and took bumps on the reinforced parts of the cage including a suplex and a DDT. Foley set the board on fire, but the fire never was part of the match other than the visual. He then took a backdrop onto the gimmicked part of the cage (they had done a run-through of what piece was gimmicked, etc. on 2/23) and Foley went through, taking the bump perfectly. As the match went on, while everyone was looking at them on top of the cage, they had workers underneath, gimmicking the section of the ring under the cage, removing the boards so he could fall on a mattress like surface and not be injured. Nevertheless, any bad angle from that height, even on a mattress, could have been scary. Foley sold the fall huge, got hit with the pedigree and was pinned. The stretcher came out, but as per his interview, he got up and left on his own power with tears in his eyes. ****1/2
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So with all the problems in trying to choose a Most Important Wrestler of the Century, the choice is.......
Kim Shinraku
There are plenty of arguments that can be made for various candidates detailed in last week's issues for different candidates. Lou Thesz had the amazing longevity and tremendous credibility worldwide and was the main in-ring performer that carried the National Wrestling Alliance to being the most powerful entity as an umbrella group for promoters around the world in the history of the industry. Hulk Hogan was the biggest worldwide celebrity of all and a fantastic drawing card. There has never been a performer day-in and day-out inside the ring over nearly three decades better than Ric Flair. Frank Gotch was the greatest American historical figure in wrestling and Strangler Lewis was a national celebrity before there was television to make it easy. And Antonio Inoki, within his home country, was a bigger deal than Hogan, Thesz or Flair ever were.
And then there's Rikidozan. Rikidozan was Japan's first pro wrestling superstar. He was by far the biggest television star ever in pro wrestling, and maybe the biggest television star ever in Japanese culture. He took an industry that didn't exist and turned it and himself into the first big television hit. He created an industry that has had its ups and downs but has never gone away, and also never, for better or worse, strayed from the sometimes strange values he instilled in it from his own life in sumo. He was the man who personally picked the two men who carried the ball, Shohei Baba and Kanji Inoki, after his death in Japan, and the man, Kintaro Oki, who became the biggest wrestling star ever in Korea. And his end came in a spectacular mob style murder at the age of 39.
In a country that at the time hated Koreans, he was one of the country's biggest celebrities and most popular sports heroes. And thus his birthplace and background were always hidden. His life story was a myth, just like the world he learned from the Americans and exported to Japan and made it bigger than any of the Americans ever dreamed it could be.
According to Japanese history, Rikidozan was born Mitsuhiro Momota on November 14, 1924 in the city of Omura, near Nagasaki, the site of the atomic bomb dropping in 1945. The reality is that his name at birth was Kim Shinraku and he was born in North Korea. The plight of a native of the Nagasaki area being the cultural figure a decade after Japan was devastated by Americans in a war that left casualties and spread cancer for generations throughout that city, fighting back against larger American imports became a television drama that was a huge hit in prime time for more than 30 years and remains a huge spectator sport today.
Unlike the rest of the world, where as time went on, wrestling got more and more cartoonish and gimmick oriented, with fancy costumes and unbelievable storylines, the world Rikidozan created of worked serious sport with almost a sumo like hierarchy and slow promotion to the top still exists today. In the two major promotions of Japan, while the moves have gotten flashier and the matches faster-paced, the basic themes remain within the realm of athletic believability, and the real outlandish gimmickry is generally saved for the smaller independents just looking for attention and aren't considered major league. Unlike in the United States, where the general public for decades dismissed pro wrestlers as phonies, and more recently gave them credit as cartoonish entertainers, in Japan, even though the matches are worked, the wrestlers were always regarded as great athletes and tough fighters who do worked wrestling matches, that sometimes become real. While America's first television stars were gimmick oriented Gorgeous George or barefoot acrobatic Argentina Rocca, Japan's original television superstar was a powerfully built man in long black tights and black boots, forever wearing the old International heavyweight title belt.
While Japan is not immune from the cyclical ups and downs of business, this concept of wrestling has led to, more years that not, Japan being the strongest economic market for pro wrestling for most of the past half-century. At his peak, it was larger as part of the general public culture than modern recorded pro wrestling has probably been anywhere, and at any time. Even to this day, nearly 40 years after his death, his name is known by everyone in Japan. His grave site in Tokyo is practically a national monument where wrestlers go to get their photos taken. And at the turn of the century, he finished No. 14 in a Japanese newspaper poll for Man--not Athlete--but Man of the Century. On many television and media retrospectives of the century in Japan, clippings of his early television wrestling matches were featured. Gorgeous George, his American equivalent as a television wrestling pioneer, died the same year as Rikidozan, and today the name is only known outside the hardest core wrestling fans to people past the age of 55 or to current wrestling fans as a brief memory of one of the million interchangeable silicon babes that appeared on TV wrestling over the past year.
Kim Shinraku's Japanese life actually started with an older brother, who was a big sumo fan growing up as part of a poor family in Korea. His brother left Japan for Korea to become a sumo, and Kim followed at the age of 15. He was christened Rikidozan as his sumo gimmick name, and at first in sumo was even billed from Korea, a fact later hidden in the media as he became popular in pro wrestling after the Korean War. From all accounts, he was a very tough and powerful man and was one of the top sumo wrestlers in the world, which in those days, made him already something of a household name in Japan. When he wasn't promoted to the rank of Grand Champion, or Yokozuna, in sumo, which may have been the strange sumo customs in those days regarding not elevating foreigners to the almost godlike ranks reserved for those native born, he complained and was forced out in May 1950.
After incurring racism in Japan after leaving sumo, he worked in construction and changed his name to Mitsuhiro Momota.
Japanese pro wrestling can trace its roots to when Masahiko Kimura, a Japanese judo champion (the same Masahiko Kimura famous in mixed martial arts for beating Helio Gracie before 20,000 fans in Brazil in 12:00 via submission in the early 50s) and Toshio Yamaguchi went to the United States and wrestled in San Francisco against Mike & Ben Sharpe for the World tag team championship in 1951. On September 30, 1951, Bobby Bruns, a famous wrestling booker of that period, ran an American tour of Japan using Kimura & Yamaguchi as his native stars, at the old Tokyo Memorial Hall. Hawaiian Harold Sakata (who later wrestled as Oddjob Tosh Togo and was more famous in the U.S. in the 60s as an actor playing Japanese roles, in particular for a cough syrup commercial where he karate chopped through tables, and for a role in the James Bond movie "Goldfinger" for his magic hat), who had won a silver medal in weightlifting at the 1948 Olympics, was the big star. They also brought in Joe Louis to referee on some of the big shows on the tour. Sakata recruited the recently retired sumo, who had a big sports name in the country, to see his first pro wrestling show. They started training him in basics. Just weeks later, on October 28, 1951 in the same building, Rikidozan made his pro wrestling debut going to a 10:00 draw against Bruns. Bruns signed him to a full-time contract and took him overseas to teach him wrestling and get publicity out to create a hand-picked Japanese wrestling native hero.
He left Japan in early 1952 to train under Oki Shikina in Hawaii, debuting by pinning Chief Little Wolf in a preliminary match at the Honolulu Civic Auditorium. He was promoted fast. On March 14, 1952, he teamed with Killer Davies to win the Pacific Ocean tag team titles from Bruns & Lucky Suminovich. A few months later he was sent to the mainland, promoted from the start as a superstar. He debuted on June 12, 1952 in San Francisco, beating Ike Eakins. Just two weeks after his mainland arrival he was in the main event at the Cow Palace on June 23, 1952 teaming with Primo Carnera to battle The Sharpe Brothers to a 60:00 draw for the World tag team titles. Three days later in the same city, he suffered his first pro loss, to Leo Nomellini, one of the greatest linebackers in NFL history and a superstar with the San Francisco 49ers who was one of the biggest names in pro wrestling during the off-season. That loss was done as part of a long-term plan as word was sent to Japan about Rikidozan's loss to the football superstar via the old UPI wire service, with both the story of the loss and that Rikidozan had become a sensation in San Francisco and when he returned to Japan, was going to start an American style pro wrestling company. In his first year wrestling in the United States, he wrestled 260 matches, losing only five, singles bouts to Nomellini, Tom Rice and Fred Atkins, and was on the losing end of two tag bouts challenging the Sharpe Brothers.
The Japan Pro Wrestling Association was officially announced on July 6, 1953, and its first show was on July 18 in Osaka, but those shows are really not referred to much in Japanese history. On November 29 of that year in Honolulu, they held a tournament for a challenger for a match against world champion Lou Thesz the next week. Rikidozan won, and had his first singles world title match on December 6, 1953 in Honolulu, and was pinned by Thesz' back suplex, which is why, even to this day, the back suplex means so much more in Japan than the United States, and why Jumbo Tsuruta used it as his main finisher in the 80s.
What is remembered as the beginnings of Japanese pro wrestling were three nights in 1954, February 19, 20 and 21 at the old Tokyo Sumo Hall at Kuramae. What wasn't important was the venue, or that all three shows were sellouts to see this novelty sport headlined by a Japanese former sumo who had gone to the United States and beaten most of the best that country had to offer on their own turf. What was important is that television, then in its infancy in Japan (as at that point in time they were far behind the U.S. technologically), agreed to broadcast all three shows, the first night on NHK, and the next two nights on NTV. The first night, Rikidozan & Kimura went to a draw against The Sharpe Brothers for the NWA world tag team titles and the Rikidozan phenomenon was born, images burned in the mind of most of the country of Rikidozan, making the hot tag, chopping the two gigantic (The Sharpes were 6-6 and 6-7 in an era when no athletes Japanese had ever seen were that tall) Americans (who were actually Canadian) and them selling his offense big. Virtually nobody in the TV audience had ever even seen pro wrestling and they didn't understand the first thing about it, but were enthralled by seeing a famous native athlete from their traditional national sport, beating up on Americans much taller than he was. The basis of Japanese wrestling for decades was created that first night on television. The fans had a hero to stand up to the big Americans who beat them in a war and left them poor and hungry. This created the fascination in Japan with big powerful American stars. And that's why people like Scott Norton, even to this day, can be wrestling stars in Japan.
There are news clippings from the time showing people, since few households at the time actually had television, when reading about this first night in the newspapers, looking in department store windows and thousands gathering in parks that had television sets watching Rikidozan fight the next two nights on NTV, which has continued to broadcast pro wrestling almost weekly for more than four decades. This led to a rush on people buying television sets, specifically to see Rikidozan beat up big foreigners, and he became the national hero who in many ways popularized television in that country. On the second tour, on August 10, 1954 in Osaka, Rikidozan & Kokichi Endo beat Leo "Shoulders" Newman & Hans Schnabel to win the Pacific Ocean tag team championship, the first title change on Japanese television.
This led to the biggest match in the short history of Japanese pro wrestling, and still a legendary battle today, on December 22, 1954 at Sumo Hall, billed as sumo vs. judo, Rikidozan vs. Kimura to create the first Japanese heavyweight wrestling champion. The agreement ahead of time was that this match would be a draw, but the end result was that Rikidozan, in the middle of a worked match, suddenly double-crossed Kimura and started shooting, and started throwing the most brutal kicks and chops to a stunned Kimura, beating him senseless, including stomping hard on the head of his stunned foe. Kimura was eventually knocked out from a brutal blow to the head and the doctor stopped the match. As often happens in this business, an unprofessional act of epic proportions creates a superstar of almost mythic proportions of the man who violated the basic tenants of the business. Pro wrestling had and still does have this weird long tradition of people benefitting from double-crossing people in a cowardly act. One could argue that Rikidozan did have guts to jump Kimura, since at the time he was believed to have been the equivalent of a UFC champion and legend at the time labeled him the toughest real fighter in the world. In those days with no true venues to prove it, any title like that is more the stuff of legend, but he was a legitimate judo world champion. But Rikidozan was a bigger man, and in any fight, when you get the jump and pound in blow after blow on someone not defending themselves and who doesn't even know he's in a fight until it's too late, it's pretty hard to come back. Rikidozan was also President of the company, called the Japanese Wrestling Alliance, starting the trend where the biggest star in the ring would also run the company outside the ring, which also lasted for decades.
Azumafuji, a sumo Grand champion, was then recruited into pro wrestling as Rikidozan's partner and they went to Honolulu on April 17, 1955 beating Bruns & Suminovich to win the Hawaiian tag team title. The two sumos became a touring act, popular throughout Asia, particularly in India, for nine weeks. The Japanese title he created 11 months earlier was dropped in lieu of creating an Asian heavyweight title, and he imported 450-pound King Kong (former Olympic games wrestling medalist Emile Czaya), who was at the time the superstar pro wrestler of Singapore and Hong Kong, to put him over on November 22, 1955 at Sumo Hall, one week after Rikidozan suffered a defeat in a tag team match teaming with Sakata against King Kong & Tiger Jokinder Singh (which is probably why a generation later Tiger Jeet Singh was able to have so much success in Japan).
At the end of January 1956, they started building for the big one. Slowly. Although he had never wrestled in Japan, Thesz was already famous there for not only being the elusive NWA world heavyweight champion, but for pinning Rikidozan, something the Japanese had never seen before, in the deciding fall of a match, in Honolulu. Rikidozan's promotion officially joined the NWA when he flew to St. Louis to make the deal with Sam Muchnick, to get dates on Thesz and build for the biggest series of two match ups to that point in the recorded history of the industry.
The year 1956 saw Rikidozan capture his first world title, as on May 4, 1956 at Osaka Furitsu Gym, Rikidozan used his trademark finisher of the hard chops, a judo whip, a body slam, a kick, drop kick and flying head scissors into a pin winning the NWA world tag team titles with Kokichi Endo as his partner beating the Sharpe Brothers. The reign was short as on May 19, 1956 in Sapporo, the Sharpe Brothers, through pinning Endo, got the titles back and returned to San Francisco with them. He also got to avenge his 1953 loss to Tom Rice, as on August 1, 1956, in Tokyo, he pinned Rice to win the Pacific Coast title, but immediately vacated the title.
By 1957, the novelty of pro wrestling was starting to fade, and business was bad when Rikidozan would leave on foreign tours. The novelty of bringing in Bobo Brazil, the first black superstar to come to Japan, picked up business big. On April 30 of that year, they announced, five months in advance, that--finally--the champ, was coming to Tokyo.
In what was undoubtedly the most watched pro wrestling match in history up to that point, on October 6, 1957 at Korakuen Baseball Stadium before 27,000 fans, Thesz and Rikidozan went to a 60:00 draw in a two out of three fall match with neither man winning a fall. The show drew an 87.0 rating, the largest TV rating pro wrestling is believed to have ever done anywhere in the world at any time. Rikidozan had several other matches including one the next week that did better than 60.0 ratings and to this day are among the top ten most watched television shows in the history of Japan. When he died in 1963, almost all of the most watched TV shows in the history of the country were his wrestling matches. What that basically means is that nearly everyone alive in the country on that day saw the first Thesz match. A rematch on October 13, 1957 at the Osaka Ogi Pool drew 30,000 fans to see them go another 60:00 with each man winning one fall. Thesz returned to the United States, seeing what Rikidozan had created, and wanted to cultivate the feud and make it stronger, and eventually drop the NWA world title to him because he felt the money making possibilities were well beyond what wrestlers could ever earn in the United States. When the alliance, and in particular Muchnick, who only understood America and didn't see what was happening and the potential of the new market, wouldn't agree to the idea of letting their champion leave the country more frequently and eventually doing a title trade, Thesz shockingly resigned as champion after eight years. The alliance asked him to drop the title to Buddy Rogers. He refused, citing his well known dislike for Rogers, and hand-picked Dick Hutton, a great real wrestler that he had great personal respect for, and the title change took place November 14, 1957 in Toronto. But replacing the well-known Thesz with the uncharismatic Hutton hurt the championship, and the NWA in general, greatly, causing major promotions to leave, form splinter groups, and create new champions.
Thesz, free from NWA commitments in the United States, used his name value from years as champion to book himself around the world, billing himself as NWA International heavyweight champion. On August 27, 1958 at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, Rikidozan beat Thesz in two out of three falls and brought the International heavyweight title to Japan, where it remained for some 14 years as the most prestigious title belt in Japanese wrestling. That belt, which he held until his death more than five years later, still exists today as part of the Triple Crown title.
Business went way up with Rikidozan returning after having finally pinned Thesz in the United States. To the Japanese, beating Thesz, the God of pro wrestling, was a bigger deal by that point than beating Hutton, who was an unknown. His first feud with Don Leo Jonathan in October was a huge success. But business fell in November when Rikidozan left for Brazil. During this down period, the idea for the World League tour (which still exists today in All Japan as the annual Champion Carnival every spring) came about.
The first World League, in 1959, was another huge success, selling out every show and drawing huge television ratings, particularly for the appearance of a huge masked man, Mr. Atomic (Clyde Steeves). The tournament ended on June 16, 1959 with Rikidozan pinning Jesse Ortega, in a match famous because it was the first major blood match in Japan. He brought Mr. Atomic back for a huge match on August 7, 1959 at the old Denen Coliseum where he pinned him to keep the International title.
While touring Brazil once again in March of 1960, Rikidozan heard about a Japanese high school boy who had migrated with his family and was living in Brazil that was a huge track star. The previous year, at the age of 16, he was the Brazilian national high school champion in the shot put and the discus. Rikidozan found Kanji Inoki and recruited both he and the tallest man ever to play major league baseball in Japan, Shohei Baba, into pro wrestling to be the two biggest stars after he stepped down. Baba was the chosen one from the start and had a path paved much easier for him by Rikidozan.
Rikidozan won the second World League tournament pinning Nomellini on May 13, 1960. Rikidozan then, starting his grooming for the future, elevated Toyonobori to the top level. He re-created the All-Asian tag team titles, and gave them to Danny Miller & Frank Valois, and on June 7, 1960 in Nagoya, he and Toyonobori captured the belts winning two straight falls and they became the main event tag team, dominating the belts until his death. He also had one of his biggest career feuds with Sonny Myers. He imported Tex McKenzie, who at 6-8, was one of the tallest headliners in pro wrestling at the time, with plans for a big feud. But McKenzie didn't like taking Rikidozan's chops, and the two never got along, and instead a former University of California football star was given the name Prince Iaukea (later known as King Curtis Iaukea) and he became his big rival as 1960 came to a close. But the biggest show, in hindsight, of the year was on September 30 of that year at the Daito Gym in Tokyo. The main event saw Rikidozan retain his All-Asian title going to a draw with Ricky Waldo, but on the undercard, Baba made his debut, pinning Yonetaro Tanaka, and Inoki (later Antonio Inoki), made his debut losing to Oki.
The third World League in 1961 was built around the creation of two new foreign monster superstars, the 6-5 450-pound Great Antonio and an ever better big masked man than Mr. Atomic, in Mr. X (Big Bill Miller).
Before the tour opened, they had a television demonstration which was covered in the news of the huge Antonio pulling four busses, totally eight tons. When the tour began, every night was a sellout to see Antonio, who was used as a non-tournament special attraction winning short squash-style matches, thus didn't have to do singles matches against the top wrestlers, from the strength demonstration. Antonio got such a big head and was bullying and harassing people everywhere he went, that he didn't even last the tour. Rikidozan ended the feud right away, beating Antonio on June 2, 1961 at Sumo Hall in two straight falls and was said to be unusually rough on him to punish him for being such an asshole on the tour. In the dressing room later, Karl Gotch and Miller took care of Antonio, and he was then fired and sent home. The tournament finals on June 29, 1961 in Osaka had a surprise finish, as in the third fall, Mr. X pinned Rikidozan doing the foreign object in the mask head-butt finish, however the Great Togo told the referee and the decision was reversed, making Rikidozan the winner. This led to a mask vs. International title match on July 21, 1961 at the Denen Coliseum in Tokyo, which Rikidozan won via count out and Miller's identity was revealed.
Rikidozan was always involved with the Yakuza, the Japanese mob, as later came out after his death. They were a strong influence in funding not only wrestling, but in numerous other businesses as Rikidozan was ahead of his time as an athlete who used his name to start other business ventures. He had his pro wrestling gym, a boxing gym, a golf course, a bowling alley, built mansions, apartment complexes and opened a night club. He even announced he would be a boxing promoter and at his death was getting back into the sumo world.
On February 3, 1962, Rikidozan & Toyonobori finally lost the All-Asian tag team title to Ricky Waldo & Luther Lindsay. It was the first major title loss for Rikidozan and the Japanese, not used to seeing him lose a title match, rioted at the building. They quickly regained the belts on February 15. He then went to the United States to prepare for the World League tournament, saying that he wanted to unify and create one real World heavyweight champion, trying to bring all the different major World champions at the time, Pat O'Connor (NWA), Edouard Carpentier (recognized in many areas), Fred Blassie (WWA) and Verne Gagne (AWA) along with top contenders like Bruno Sammartino and Buddy Rogers. But it never materialized. Before the tour started, Rikidozan cut a deal with Jules Strongbow, who was part-owner of the Los Angeles based wrestling promotion out of the Olympic Auditorium, to buy a world championship belt that the NWA would never allow him to have. That promotion had also pulled out of the NWA a little earlier, creating its own world championship, held by Blassie. On March 28, 1962, Rikidozan won his first singles world heavyweight title, pinning Blassie at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Blassie, who had never been to Japan, was promoted huge coming in for the World League tournament as "The Vampire." Blassie did a tremendous job getting over his biting as his gimmick, filing his teeth, etc. and doing the best job of interviews the country had ever seen in the newspapers and on television to where he immediately became the hottest heel ever to hit Japan. Most buildings for the tour sold out before the tour ever started after seeing Blassie filing his teeth at Haneda Airport on his arrival to regain his world title.
Legend has it that Blassie bit Rikidozan's head in their first singles match, drawing blood, which shocked the Japanese public to the point that many people, the number having grown deep into double digits as the years went by and it became a typical pro wrestling tall story, had heart attacks watching on television. Of course, like with most legends, there is a germ of truth to it. On April 23, 1962 at Tokyo Gym, Rikidozan pinned Blassie to keep the title, but not before his was bloody from the biting to the forehead, which caused heat like Japanese wrestling had never seen before, but nobody died watching the match on television. It was actually four days later on a live television show from Kobe, where Thesz & Mike Sharpe & Blassie beat Rikidozan & Toyonobori & Great Togo, where the TV cameras showed close-ups of Blassie biting Togo's head, and the heavy juice shocked the nation, which is said to have caused six elderly men watching around the country to suffer heart attacks and pass away. Blassie, years later, when talking about the incident, used to brag and exaggerate that story into that he caused 93 Japanese to die during his career and complain he never reached his goal of 100. Rikidozan, NTV and Japanese pro wrestling received their first major media criticism for the broadcasting of the close-ups of the biting and heavy blood which led to the deaths. The story about Japanese people dropping dead watching a wrestling match, credited to Blassie's biting, even got substantial media play at the time in the United States. But as it turned out, business, and Blassie, got even hotter, making him the hottest heel up to that point in Japanese wrestling. However, he was toned down from that point, and in the tournament finals on May 24, 1961 at the Tokyo Gym, Rikidozan pinned Thesz in two of three falls. As per agreement, Rikidozan on July 26, 1962 went back to Los Angeles and dropped the WWA title to Blassie in a match that was stopped by referee Johnny "Red Shoes" Dugan due to Rikidozan's excessive bleeding from the biting.
Rikidozan did his first injury angle in Japan in September, as newcomer Yukon Moose Cholak injured his right shoulder and he was kept out of action for eight weeks, returning wearing pro football shoulderpads on the bad shoulder, on November 9, 1962 in Okinawa to beat Cholak in two straight falls in an International title match despite being unable to use his famous Rikidozan chops, and relied on nothing but kicking the entire match.
Rikidozan opened the final year of his life announcing his engagement and a wedding date set for June 5, 1963. His final World League tour opened on March 23, 1963, which featured the return of Giant Baba, who had wrestled the previous few years in the United States as the first real Japanese wrestler to be a top drawing main eventer almost everywhere in North America because of his size and unique physical appearance. On April 17, 1963 in Okinawa, he retained the International heavyweight title beating the allegedly 600 pound Haystacks Calhoun via count out (I actually saw this match and it was so bad), and then in a completely different match one week later, retained the title pinning O'Connor, who was a great wrestler inside the ring. Finally the tournament ended on May 17, 1963 at Tokyo Gym with Rikidozan pinning Killer Kowalski. But the big angle took place before the match even started, as The Destroyer (Dick Beyer), who came in billed as WWA champion (he had actually just lost the title prior to the tour to Blassie in Los Angeles). It was the match that made Destroyer for decades, including a stint as the first foreigner in history to become the regular tag team partner of a Japanese main eventer (the popular Baba & Destroyer tag team of the early 70s) and as one of the hosts of the most popular Japanese comedy shows of the 70s. It also made the figure four leglock, which was a hot finisher for decades, before losing its luster in the 80s, and being revived by Keiji Muto in 1995 in the Nobuhiko Takada Tokyo Dome match. And it was Rikidozan's only clean singles defeat ever in Japan, on May 19, 1963, when he lost a one fall match to the figure four leglock in what was billed as a WWA title match.
The shock of this loss led to the largest audience to ever watch a television show up to that point in time in Japan, a 67 rating (the Thesz rating was higher but by this point virtually every home in Japan had a television set), for the match five days later at the Tokyo Gym with the WWA title at stake. The best of three fall match ended in a 60:00 draw. It's still the most watched match in Japanese history today, even beating out the Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match in 1976.
Rikidozan's wedding on June 5, 1963 was Japan's equivalent to the Lady Di wedding, more than 3,500 guests, featuring movie stars, major politicians, sports stars, company presidents and pop music stars, and he left for a world tour honeymoon. He already had a prior family, which included two sons who became pro wrestlers, Yoshihiro and Mitsuhiro Jr. (Mitsuo), the latter of whom actually wrestled in the United States at one point as Rikidozan Jr. in Texas. But neither was able to capitalize on their fathers' fame. The latter of the two still works the comedy matches for All Japan and is still something of an internal power broker.
Destroyer returned to Japan in December for the final matches of Rikidozan's life. By this point he was 39 years old, and was physically starting to deteriorate because of the years of drinking, plus with him running so many other businesses, it left him little time for any training and so much of his emphasis was away from pro wrestling. It is generally conceded that Destroyer, who was a super worker by the standards of the time, a smaller heel, was the right opponent by this time because he needed a better athlete to help make the matches exciting. On December 2, 1963, Rikidozan kept the International title winning two of three falls from Destroyer. Two days later they had a 60:00 draw. Two days after that, Rikidozan & Toyonobori retained the All-Asian tag team titles beating Destroyer & Buddy Austin. The next night in Hamamatsu, on the final wrestling card of the year, he worked in a six-man tag and took the train to Tokyo for a meeting with higher ups in the Japanese Sumo Association. There was irony in the fact that they wanted Rikidozan, through his American pro wrestling contacts, to help them promote sumo wrestling in the United States. The irony was that he was basically kicked out of sumo, and not promoted due to his ethnicity, and years later, they came back to him when he was a superstar and asked for his help.
On December 8, 1963, while partying with the sumo bigwigs at the Akasaka Night Club, in a gangland style slaying, as legend has it, his assailant, Katsuji Murata, a major player in a major mob family, peed on a knife, to insure it would cause an infection. Rikidozan was on his way to the bathroom, and Murata was coming from the bathroom, and in the hallway, stabbed Rikidozan in the stomach. There was a conflict between two branches of mob gangs over who would control the promotion of pro wrestling as well as other entertainment events, and Rikidozan was aligned closely with the rival gang. As many wrestlers who have become huge babyface superstars in the Hogan, Rhodes vein, and none were ever bigger than Rikidozan, he actually believed he was all that. After being stabbed, Rikidozan beat up his assailant to an admiring mob of fans and threw him out of the club. He went to the stage, mentioned that he'd just been stabbed, and acted as if he wasn't even injured, and drank and danced the night away. Legend had him singing "Mack the Knife" on stage, which is also probably more myth than reality. But the failure to get immediate medical attention resulted in him contracting peritonitis and all his years of drinking had done a number of some of his internal organs. At first the word was that he'd be fine, but a few days later he was forced to undergo major surgery and on December 15, 1963, he died. And very nearly, so did the American entertainment form that he transported to Japan and made it bigger than the Americans, who invented it, ever could.
He did not die an incredibly wealthy man, as much of the money he earned in wrestling and other businesses he squandered in gambling and booze. After his death, some of the truth about Rikidozan became public. His drinking. His mob connections. That the Yakuza was heavily involved in the pro wrestling business, and his other businesses. That he was an iron-fisted boss. It came out that the national sports hero wasn't so heroic in how he conducted his real life business. But while it wasn't a top secret, it apparently wasn't the time to come out that Japan's sports hero was actually Korean, and that the matches he won before the large television audiences were actually fixed. Many of the major arenas refused to even allow pro wrestling shows. With its only real native drawing card gone and the business leaving the public with such a bad taste, the arenas that would book the shows didn't draw well. NTV, because pro wrestling had a track record of being so successful on television, didn't cancel, which kept pro wrestling barely alive with Rikidozan's long-time second banana, Toyonobori, as the biggest star. But it was only two years later, when the JWA brought Giant Baba back and shot him past Toyonobori as the top star, and later the rise of Inoki, that the business got back on track with another boom period in the mid-to-late 60s.
More than 20 books have been written about him since his death. There have been numerous television documentary retrospectives about him. During a later boom period 20 years after his death similar in many ways to the current WWF boom in the United States, caused by the incredible popularity of Inoki, Riki Choshu and Satoru Sayama, much like pro wrestling in the U.S. in 1998-99, pro wrestling in Japan around 1982-83 was getting all the mainstream media ink. Unlike in the United States, Japan had real documented wrestling history and it caused many articles in the media about this huge sports entertainment form and where it came from, and the answers to that question went right back to Rikidozan. It was at this point in time when the media and the country at large finally revealed the secret. That Japan's national hero when Japan as a nation started its comeback from the war and who more than anyone else popularized the new medium of television, was actually not Japanese. But even today, while he may have been the biggest wrestling star that ever lived, virtually no wrestling fans even know the name of Kim Shinraku.
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Jim Thompson, an editorial assistant at the Detroit News, who did a pro wrestling column for the newspaper as well as a pro wrestling hotline, was charged on 2/26 with second degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and fourth degree criminal sexual conduct, a misdemeanor which carries a maximum sentence of two years, in alleged incidents involving two Farmington Hills, MI boys aged 13 and 15.
He was being held on $1 million bond in the Oakland County Jail and has been indefinitely suspended from his job with the newspaper.
Thompson, 55, who wrote his columns, which were humor based because the newspaper itself discouraged him from doing any serious writing because it was pro wrestling he was writing about, and did his hotline reports under the pseudonym of M. L. Curly (after Moe, Larry and Curly of Three Stooges cartoon fame). He was arrested the previous night after officers who had him under surveillance pulled over his Dodge Viper sports car. After searching his apartment in Southfield, MI, police found hundreds of allegedly pornographic photographs and videotapes of teenage boys including some photos of Thompson being beaten and tortured by the boys according to wire service reports.
Thompson admitted to police that he had physical contact with both boys but denied that the contact was sexual.
Farmington Hills police chief William Dwyer said to the Oakland Press that Thompson had been "involved for 35 years in the solicitation of young boys. He admits to it. He admits to at least 1,200 encounters with young boys."
Two trucks were needed to remove the material confiscated from Thompson's apartment, including an electronic organizer with 1,200 names. While media reports suggested those were names of young boys he had alleged encounters with, his rolodex, which apparently was infamous among those who knew him in pro wrestling circles, also included names of numerous prominent people within the pro wrestling industry whose contacts with him would have been unrelated to any activity of this type. Thompson was well known as being reasonably well connected, and even was responsible for landing one current employee a job with World Championship Wrestling, which ended up being reported by the NBC affiliate in Detroit. Over the years, he had numerous letters published in this and at least a couple of other pro wrestling publications as well as on occasion corresponding news items.
At his apartment, police confiscated nearly 1,000 videotapes, audio tapes and photos of sexual encounters, as well as handcuffs and hockey masks, with dates, names and phone numbers on many of the photographs. Media reports suggested he used his nice car and offers of money to entice young boys to get acquainted.
WXYZ-TV in Detroit on 2/26, which ran this as its lead story, interviewed a woman who they never identified, claiming she attempted to turn Thompson in to the police more than a decade ago because of his contact with five boys she knew that Thompson would drive around, and she complained that the police didn't do anything about it. The story also alleged Thompson paid young boys to torture him.
The investigation began when the two youths went to the police with statements concerning alleged activities in June. He was accused of using his 1998 red Dodge Viper, worth $70,000, to lure young men and boys and then sexually assault them.
"He's been a suspect in the solicitation of young boys since the mid-1970s," Dwyer said. The police chief said it would take two weeks to sift through all the material seized from his apartment.
The Detroit News reported in the story on his arrest that Thompson's adopted father, David Wineman, who passed away in 1995, was a social work professor at Wayne State University, who co-wrote two books about troubled youth, "Children Who Hate," and "Controls from Within." The newspaper announced it had fired Thompson a few days after the story broke.
Apparently rumors about Thompson had been spread for years around Michigan wrestling circles. Thompson, according to reports, a car lover who always had a nice car, was known for driving around for hours in his car all over Michigan. Inside his car were at least one photo camera and a voice-activated tape recorder, which he didn't hide. He got many kids phone numbers and programmed them into his pocketbook rolodex. He traveled with stacks of tapes and photos, many of which are believed to have been pro wrestling tapes in addition to possibly porn, held together by a rubber band. There were people around the Michigan independent scene who noted Thompson used to always attend shows with young boys, usually a different one every time, but others who knew him were shocked by the charges.
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Dan Henderson, a member of the 1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic Greco-roman wrestling team at 181 pounds, was the surprise winner of the RINGS King of Kings tournament and the $223,000 first prize on 2/26 at Tokyo Budokan Hall.
Henderson was the lone survivor in the most grueling and competitive MMA tournament in history, which started with two 16-man tournaments on 10/28 and 12/22 and finished with the final eight competing before a near sellout crowd of 13,000 fans in the biggest complete shoot tournament in modern pro wrestling history.
In news that was equally big, perhaps bigger, RINGS' gamble of allowing its pro wrestling World heavyweight champion, Kiyoshi Tamura, into the tournament, paid off big, as he made it into the final four before losing a close decision. In the biggest match on the show, Tamura, coming out in this match to the traditional theme song of the old UWF promotion that he started with ten years ago, scored a judges decision over Renzo Gracie in a mild upset in the first round. Thus the storyline from the beginning was made clear as UWF pro wrestling vs. the Gracie myth. Between that win and a draw earlier in the year with Frank Shamrock, Tamura did establish himself as a legitimate top-flight fighter, at least within his own rules, which is quite a distinction considering he doubles as well as being arguably the best technical pro wrestler in modern times. Gracie, who is considered among fighting insiders as the legitimately best fighter in the family, had scored two submission wins in less than 90 seconds in his first tournament over Wataru Sakata and Maurice Smith and some were tabbing him as the tournament favorite.
Henderson, who is still an active world class wrestler and hopeful of making a third Olympic team for Sydney in 2000, used his superior conditioning combined with at least one very controversial judges decision in a tournament where literally any of the eight, had this same show been held in a few weeks, could have come out ahead since seven of the eight matches ended in judges decisions and the one that didn't was an overtime match.
Henderson, who had former UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture in his corner, weighed 198 for the tournament. He bested three men via decision, all of whom held weight advantages on him. In his first match, he scored numerous second round take downs to win the most lopsided unanimous decision on the show, by scores of 19-16, 20-17 and 20-15. The fight was said to have been closer than the scores indicate because Yvel, a strong kickboxer, lost points for early fouls. In the second round, Henderson defeated Antonio Noguiera, who had a 33-pound weight advantage on him, via a very controversial decision that the crowd booed. Noguiera was able to use his size to score several take downs on the world class wrestler. After the match was sent into overtime after being ruled a draw after two rounds, it is said Noguiera clearly should have deserved the third round. In the judges criteria for the show, it was stated that a weight difference of more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) should be taken into consideration when rendering a decision, but it wasn't made clear how much that should be emphasized when rendering the decision. The belief is the judges gave Henderson the decision based on being close enough while giving away so much weight, and that may have played a part in the Renato Babalu final, although nobody booed that decision. This led to questions why it wasn't more of a factor in Tamura vs. Babalu. In the finals, Henderson squeaked by Babalu, who held a 39 pound weight advantage on him, winning a match that would have been called a majority draw under most judging rules, since scores were 20-20, 20-20 and 20-19.
Henderson was the only one making a big payoff for doing five matches over the lengthy tournament, as Babalu only received in the neighborhood of $20,000 for second place. Henderson has never lost in MMA competition, including winning a couple of close decisions enroute to winning the toughest middleweight tournament in UFC history and also winning a tournament in Brazil. He did lose a pure submission match via ankle lock to Frank Shamrock a few years ago.
Tamura vs. Gracie was the match that drew the house and although it was close, there have been no reports indicating Tamura didn't deserve the win. Reports are that Gracie clearly won the first round, but Tamura got stronger due to better stamina and won the second and third rounds, including a dramatic moment late in the fight where the crowd sensed Tamura was going to make Gracie tap with a Yoshiaki Fujiwara style reverse crucifix armbar, although Gracie escaped. After the match, Gracie told reporters that he didn't consider it as a loss because it wasn't under Vale Tudo rules (this tournament was under rules similar to Vale Tudo, but not allowing any striking on the ground and other minor modifications of rules), and wanted a match with Tamura under those rules. Gracie, who had a 17 pound weight disadvantage against Tamura, had never lost previously in MMA competition.
Tamura largely saved the day for the RINGS promotion, that from its start in 1991 had tried to claim it had the best real fighters in the world while presenting what was from the start mainly pro wrestling matches except for occasional shoots in prelims. The percentage of shoots grew as the fighters there from the start were replaced by more skilled younger fighters. The previous tournaments, while exposing a former RINGS world champion in Bitsdaze Tariel, who couldn't handle Yvel at all, still wound up with Kopylov looking like the real deal, Yvel also looking to be a favorite, while Mikhail and Tamura also got out of their bracketing. But the RINGS regulars ended up losing five of seven matches to the outsiders on this show, but luckily for the promotion, their fighter at least prevailed in the match that will be remembered the most on the show.
Babalu had used his 44-pound weight advantage to squeak by Tamura 20-19, 19-19 and 20-20 in the semifinal after Tamura had beaten Gracie. The general feeling was that Tamura was physically and emotionally spent, concentrating all his efforts on winning his high profile early round match. There were also reports saying that although Babalu did deserve a close decision with all things being equal, throwing the weight criteria in could have given a win to Tamura. We'll have a complete report on the show in a week or two after viewing the videotape of the four-hour live broadcast on WOWOW.
The tournament overall was considered a huge success. RINGS had fallen in popularity in recent years. Its percentage of legitimate matches had grown over the past year, which is either good or bad depending upon your perspective. The retirement of its drawing card, Akira Maeda, and the inability to turn its younger stars who were both great pro wrestlers and real fighters, Tamura and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, into drawing cards saw its fortunes drop. Its future was in question due to WOWOW cutting back its television money and, with the exception of Maeda's final match with Alexandre Karelin in February which was the biggest match in company history, attendance was down all year until this show.
Complete results:
1. Babalu (237, Brazil) defeated Ilioukhine Mikhail (204, Russia) with an armbar in 40 seconds of the first overtime (10:40). Babalu received a penalty point in the first round for throwing Mikhail out of the ring or he probably would have won the decision after regulation.
2. Henderson (198, United States) defeated Gilbert Yvel (222, Netherlands) via one-sided decision. Said to have been a great match. Henderson was able to dominate on the mat and Henderson was much improved stand-up wise.
3. Noguiera (231, Brazil) defeated Andrei Kopylov (264, Russia) via decision by scores of 20-19, 20-19 and 20-20. Reports are the first round was competitive, matching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Sambo skills and was an even round. But after five minutes, Kopylov, who scored two submission wins in his previous tournament both under 16 seconds, ran out of gas and he clearly won that round.
4. Tamura (193, Japan) defeated Gracie (176, Brazil) via a unanimous decision.
5. In a non-tournament match, Bobby Hoffman shocked Grom Zaza with a 34 second knockout from a right punch to the head. Hoffman is the Extreme Challenge heavyweight champion while Zaza is a long-time RINGS regular.
6. Henderson in his semifinal beat Noguiera via decision.
7. Babalu beat Tamura via decision. Babalu also had a lot longer between his fights to rest than Tamura, but just had too much size.
8. Chris Haseman defeated Brad Kohler via armbar in 1:11 in a non-tournament battle of a RINGS pro wrestler from Australia who is strong in shoot against an American indie pro wrestler who has a lot of charisma and was a national calibre amateur wrestler. I believe Road Warrior Animal did not come in Kohler's corner this time out as had been billed.
9. Henderson beat Babalu in what most reports had being a close fight, as the judging indicated.
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WWF stock prices were expected to make a major turnaround this week stemming from the announcement of a strong quarter and a Los Angeles Times story talking about CBS attempting to buy a $100 million equity stake in the company to garner the exclusive television rights.
The story said that CBS would buy into the company, plus use its billboards, radio and TV stations to promote both the WWF as well as the XFL. USA has the right to match any offer to keep its exclusive cable contract with WWF, which expires in September for every show but Raw, but WWF does have an out even though the Raw contract itself doesn't expire until September 2001. But it's questionable whether USA Network would be able to compete with CBS, which would be expected to keep Smackdown on UPN and also use the XFL as Sunday afternoon programming during the spring on UPN, and move shows like Raw to TNN, which may be given a name change and a face-lift. CBS could also push both products on MTV and Nickelodeon, which they would own if the Viacom and CBS mergers were approved. The story stated that all talks between News Corp. (FOX) and WWF for rights for a show on FOX and cable shows that would be moved to FX, broke off because McMahon insisted on the XFL going along for the ride and FOX has a commitment to NASCAR in the spring.
Where this all gets interesting is that if WWF were to move, would USA network attempt to fill some or all of the programming hours with another wrestling company, either one existing (ECW being the only real potential source) or by creating a new company, which would sure to be a major money loser for years. And there has been talk for years of FOX wanting its own programming, which several major WCW names just this past week were pitched with hypotheticals regarding being potential top players with.
WWF also came out with its third quarter earnings report, covering the period from November through January, with the company earning $15.7 million profit with revenues of $98.4 million, up from $65.2 million in revenue the same time in 1998-99 and $10.2 million in profit.
WWF stock on 2/29 closed at $13 per share, up more than a full point and its highest close since the announcement of the XFL, but it was expected to open at $15.25 the next day due to sizeable interest in the product in after hours trading, due to the two news stories, with CBS stock increasing $6 in after hours trading alone.
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I think one thing is abundantly clear. Vince McMahon will never allow another independent film producer into the world of the WWF.
Like "Wrestling with Shadows," the first independent movie McMahon allowed inside the walls of the WWF, which also wound up in court (a suit by Turner against McMahon that was eventually thrown out), it appears "Beyond the Mat" and Universal Studios are headed in the same direction.
On 2/28, McMahon ordered both UPN and USA network to pull all advertising for the movie, which had purchased a heavy advertising campaign starting that night for its 3/17 national opening. McMahon's philosophy was believed to have been that nothing would be done by the WWF to promote the movie, has now gone much farther than that, with rumblings of Universal threatening a restraint of trade lawsuit against WWFE for pulling the ads at the last minute. Movie ads had begun airing on ECW broadcasts three nights earlier. No ads appeared on Nitro on 2/28.
"Upon viewing it, we decided that we had no emotional attachment to the film," said Jim Byrne, a WWF Senior Vice President. "In regards to their advertising in the body of the show, it has been a longstanding policy of the WWF to now allow any advertising of a competitive wrestling product on our television because it could cause confusion in the marketplace."
Producer Barry Blaustein also said that after Mick Foley, who stars in the movie, did an appearance plugging the movie on "Good Morning America" a few weeks ago, McMahon called Blaustein and said that if he was the friend of Foley's that he claimed to be, that he should never let him, even if he wanted to, to do any publicity for the movie claiming he'd ruin the career of any wrestler who had anything positive to say about the film. Byrne said he was unaware that Foley, or any wrestler, had ever been spoken with about doing publicity work or even saying anything positive regarding the movie. However, Foley has done media appearances where the interviewers have been told they can not bring up the subject of the movie.
Both movies were produced when McMahon was behind in the ratings game to World Championship Wrestling. WCW, since the company was ahead at the time and was planning its own movie project ("Ready to Rumble"), refused to give Blaustein the rights to edit the footage of their product without their input, and thus, there is no WCW footage or even mention of the company in the movie. McMahon, before the current boom period for his company, signed deals with the respective filmmakers, Paul Jay and Blaustein, giving them almost unlimited access. There were certain things such as not filming Undertaker out of character or Kane without his mask, and for Jay, not filming Steve Austin out of character although Blaustein did have a few second clip of Austin out of character in his movie, that were agreed upon, but McMahon had no creative control of the final products. Because the Shadows movie covered Bret Hart and was there to document Montreal, at first, WWF was totally uncooperative after Hart left. While they never publicized the movie, and struck a deal for footage only if the producers agreed never to sell rights to the television version of the movie to any Turner owned companies, WWF at one point was actually in conversation as far as buying the home video rights to the movie because, as it turned out, the negative McMahon portrayal fit into the storyline the company created in the wake of the famous match (or, perhaps, because by purchasing the home video rights, they could bury the movie forever in that market if they so chose to).
Ironically, both movies ended up being critically acclaimed as "Wrestling with Shadows" won a Gemini award, Canada's version of the Emmys, and "Beyond the Mat" was nominated as best documentary of the year by the Directors Guild Association and made the final 12 in nominations for an Academy Award. The other irony is McMahon going to the lengths of banning advertising for the movie on his shows may only serve to create more publicity for the movie in the long-run which would result, very likely, in a lot of questioning of what exactly McMahon is afraid of. It is believed McMahon's unhappiness with the movie stems from the scenes of Mick Foley's children crying hysterically at the finish of the Royal Rumble match from 1999, since the company markets so heavily to children. At one point WWF officials attempted to portray to ABC's 20/20 that the footage was staged by Blaustein. The company has long stated in defense of charges that pro wrestling wasn't appropriate for children based on the content that children know the difference between the supposed fake Wile E. Coyote violence in pro wrestling and real violence and the reaction of the children of one of their biggest stars was a strong contradiction, not to mention the movie's theme is that the fake violence isn't nearly as fake as most people think.
For 2/28, Raw nearly tripled Nitro head-to-head for the first time, ending with a 6.50 rating (6.52 first hour; 6.48 second hour) and 9.9 share while Nitro ended with a new record low over the past few years mark of a 2.57 rating (3.00 first hour; 2.19 second hour) and 3.7 share. Raw started strong probably due to PPV curiosity and actually drew a higher rating opposed than unopposed. The main event of Rock vs. HHH & Show did a 7.24 rating. Nitro's main event of Vicious vs. Abbott did a 2.75. The combined viewing audience was 9.5 million.
Head-to-head figures saw Raw at 6.66 (opening monologue with HHH, Show and Rock) to 1.90 (Jarrett vs. Vampiro), Raw at 6.70 (monologue continues, Hardys vs. Acolytes) to 1.89 (Artist vs. David Flair), Raw at 6.29 (Angle vs. Rikishi) to 2.18 (Miller vs. Maestro, Ric Flair vs. Hennig) and Raw at 6.33 (Edge & Christian vs. Snow & Blackman, Rock vs. Brawler) to Nitro's 2.15 (Luger vs. Bagwell).
For 2/21, the combined audience of 9.2 million represented the lowest total in a couple of years showing that the decline of WCW is taking its toll on casual fan interest in the industry as a whole. Raw ended up doing a 5.88 rating (5.63 first hour; 6.10 second hour) with an 8.9 share. Nitro did a 2.74 rating (3.17 first hour; 2.33 second hour) and a 4.0 share.
Raw peaked at a 7.05 for the Show & HHH & X-Pac vs. Rock & Cactus Jack & Kane final six minutes. The actual final quarter which included the first four minutes of the main event plus Tazz vs. Bossman drew a 6.25 rating. The Nitro main event of Hogan vs. Luger in a cage drew a 2.64 rating, although it did peak with a 3.76 for the post-match double-team segment.
The four head-to-head segments saw Raw at 5.65 (opening interview segment with DX, Rock, Cactus, Kane and Show) to 2.27 (Harris Twins vs. Funk & Rhodes); Raw at 5.83 (Chyna & Jericho vs. Bulldog & Angle) to 1.97 (Sid and Flair interview, Bagwell vs. Maestro); Raw at 5.48 (Too Cool vs. Snow & Blackman, Malenko & Saturn vs. Godfather & Brown) to 2.06 (Bigelow vs. Wall) and Raw at 5.38 (Edge & Christian & Hardys vs. Outlaws & Dudleys) to 2.64 (Hogan vs. Luger).
Smackdown on 2/24 did a 4.93 rating and 7.0 share. Thunder on 2/23 did its lowest unopposed number ever with a 2.03 rating and 3.1 share, getting blasted by the high ratings of both the Grammys and "Millionaire". The show's low point was actually the Sid vs. Luger main event at 1.81 and the high point was Flair vs. Vampiro at 2.26.
Weekend ratings for 2/26-27 saw Livewire at 1.7, Superstars at 1.7 and Sunday Night Heat at 3.23. WCW Saturday Night actually did its all-time record low of its 20+ year history since WTCG became a Superstation (and as a local franchise dating back nearly 30 years) with a 1.26 rating and being seen for the first time since the infancy of cable in less than one million homes (993,000).
Weekend ratings for 2/19-20 saw Livewire at 1.4 (unusually low), Superstars at 1.6 and Sunday Night Heat at 3.50.
We don't have full details on the 2/25 ECW show other than it did a 1.05 rating but peaked at 1.4 for the Impact Players vs. Raven & Dreamer match. ECW on 2/18 did a 1.21 rating and 2.0 share with the audience building the entire show. The Awesome vs. Tanaka main event did a 1.42 rating making it the second most watched ECW match in history (behind only the Tajiri vs. Crazy match and Awesome/Van Dam/Sabu angle a few weeks ago at 1.47). A more pleasant surprise is Crazy vs. C.W. Anderson doing a 1.29. RollerJam was also up to an 0.75.
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OBSERVER POLL RESULTS
WWF NO WAY OUT (based on faxes, phone calls, letters and e-mails as of Tuesday, 2/29): Thumbs up 103 (86.6%); Thumbs down 6 (5.0%); In the middle 10 (9.2%). Best match poll: Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Cactus Jack 115; Worst match poll: Mark Henry vs. Viscera 58; Tazz vs. Big Bossman 33
WCW SUPERBRAWL 2000: Thumbs up 12 (8.5%); Thumbs down 126 (88.7%); In the middle 4 (2.8%). Best match poll: Vampiro vs. Billy Kidman 51, Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk 40, David Flair & Crowbar vs. Big Vito & Johnny the Bull 10; Worst match poll: Wall vs. Demon 53; Big T vs. Booker 17; Tank Abbott vs Big Al 15
ECW: Sabu worked the house shows over the weekend, having a bad match with Whipwreck the first night and working with Scott D'Amore at the TV taping. He was said to have gotten a disappointing reaction both nights. He had a long talk with Paul Heyman in Cincinnati and right now it doesn't seem anyone is clear how this is going to transpire. Sabu is telling friends that he won't work the PPV unless he gets his back pay for previous PPV shows. Heyman has claimed Sabu isn't owed any money to begin with, that Sabu was sent a letter saying if he didn't work in Ohio he'd be in breach of contract and Sabu was threatened with a lawsuit. Heyman said Sabu did play a game and had some legal threats but said he hasn't filed anything and he considers it a bluff. At this point Sabu doesn't appear to be part of the major plans for the PPV show. Sabu's mother was hospitalized again right at press time from chest pains
Even though the PPV is less than two weeks away (3/12 in Danbury, CT) at press time, no official line-up has been released. At press time they had sold 1,996 tickets for $70,445 in a building set up for 4,000
The major angles to build the top matches will be shot on 3/4 at the ECW Arena, which looks to be headlined by new tag champs Dreamer & Tanaka defending against Raven & Awesome and Credible & Storm vs. Gedo & Jado from FMW
Jerry Lynn's ankle hasn't healed as quickly as they would have liked. He will be at the PPV but it's expected it'll be six to nine weeks before he's back in the ring. Rob Van Dam got his cast off and will be at the 3/4 TV tapings and the PPV show. They have no set date for a return. He's talking about nine weeks but it may be as long as 12 weeks. Spike Dudley suffered a torn posterior collateral ligament and was hoping to get the surgery after the PPV, but he's getting the surgery imminently and is off the PPV, and will be out around six weeks after surgery
Tanaka doesn't appear to have a long tag title reign because he'll be leaving for several weeks after the PPV
TNN taping for next week on 2/26 in Cincinnati before 2,650, which was a full house in that every seat was taken, but they could have set up a lot more seats and not blocked off so much of the building. Reports are it was a really good show. Jim Molineaux came out and claimed the ECW Hardcore Revolution game was the best selling video game in the country. Cyrus came out and said that Molineaux's face was a ratings killer. Cyrus bragged about the ratings of Rockin' Bowl and had a guy with him doing that ridiculous dance on the Rockin' Bowl TV commercial. Molineaux said he was going to do the extreme dance, and attacked the guy. Cyrus jumped Molineaux and left him laying, got the other guy up and had him do the dance again. Doring & Roadkill, who had Electra this week, beating Guido & Sal E. Graziano. Tajiri beat Whipwreck, who appeared to have injured his shoulder landing poorly on a Frankensteiner and he was in a sling later that night and will be out of action for a few weeks. Diamond offered an open challenge. Jazz came out. Cyrus came out and claimed the network was sick of intergender matches and they, like Molineaux's face, were a ratings disaster and said he was bringing out a more credible opponent, and Rhino came out. Jazz started to leave, but Cyrus told her she was the one facing Rhino, which went all of 15 seconds. Crazy beat C.W. Anderson. Nova & Chetti & Kash beat The Baldies when Nova pinned Tony DeVito. The Baldies jumped them after leading to a New Jack run-in. Grimes at one point used a pizza cutter on Jack. Sabu sold a lot for Scott D'Amore, largely because I guess he wanted D'Amore to make a good impression, before beating him. Dupps announced that even though they lost a loser leaves town match on TV, they weren't going anywhere. Sandman came out and caned them both. It was their last appearance as they said their goodbyes backstage. Awesome pinned Rhino after the power bomb through a table. Main event started as the Impact Players against Raven & Dreamer but ended with Dreamer & Tanaka as the new tag champs. It started with Dreamer apologizing to Francine about the DDT on TV. And he also apologized to Raven since he was after Raven for doing the same thing. Dreamer said he and Raven should patch things up and win the tag titles. Francine came out and turned on Dreamer, saying he DDT'd her on purpose and ripped him Dreamer saying he was nothing until she started managing him. She slapped him. He did the piledriver with the panties showing spot until Raven made the save and hit Dreamer with a DDT. Raven and Francine left and once again they started double-teaming Dreamer. Tanaka came out and they brawled into the stands. Dreamer put Storm through a table with a Spicolli driver again and Tanaka pinned Credible to win the titles
There was a backstage incident on 2/25 in Toledo, OH before about 1,700. Sandman was apparently belligerent backstage. With Heyman not there, Dreamer was running the show. Somehow Sandman bet Chetti, who was a very good amateur wrestler in high school, that if he could pin him in 30 (or 60, as different people have different versions) seconds, he'd give him $600. Chetti did pin him right at 30 seconds and then stretched him another 30 seconds after beating him. They never came to blows and Chetti gave Sandman back his money after and there didn't appear to be any hard feelings when it was over. Onlookers said it was obvious Chetti could have done whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Actually that was the most excitement on the show. The undercard was said to have been good but Raven and Corino reportedly had an awful match in the semi after a good undercard. Raven, by his own admission, sticks more to comedy on the non-TV tapings to avoid more physical damage. Sandman & Crazy beat Tajiri & Rhino on top coming off the TV angle attempting to elevate Crazy and Tajiri to a more prominent spot, but that was said to have been a weak main event
TNN show on 2/25 opened with the Cyrus rant about ordering them to put the TV title on Rhino. The Cyrus gimmick as the liaison with the heel TV network against the rebel promotion works great, but it would be better if the name of the character wasn't Cyrus, because that's makes it a fake pro wrestling angle as opposed to a reality based pro wrestling storyline. Within worked pro wrestling, everyone has gimmick names, but in a "reality-based" angle, everyone knows no TNN Executive walks around calling himself Cyrus. Paul Heyman came out and smashed Cyrus with the title belt. Rhino speared Heyman and they put the boots to him. Sandman's music played. Heyman mysteriously disappeared while Sandman stood in the crowd doing his entrance. Sandman beat Rhino in 5:17 via DQ when Tajiri blew mist. Sandman looked terrible. He used a ladder and the cane and did a Frankensteiner off the top called a Heinekinrana, which was pretty clever. Rhino speared Sandman through a table after the match until Crazy made the save. Doring & Roadkill challenged the Dupps to a loser leaves town match, which they won in 1:16 when Doring pinned Jack. Crowd was real hot for it. Dreamer challenged Raven. Francine came out and yelled at Dreamer saying it was an accident what Raven did, told him he had a bad attitude and basically nagged the hell out of him. It should be noted that they showed the clip of her getting DDT'd by Raven a few weeks ago and she looks to have dropped noticeable weight even since then. They say the camera adds ten pounds, so this is really disturbing. The Impact Players came out. Francine then challenged them to wrestle Raven & Dreamer, which Dreamer wasn't thrilled with. Raven came out in street clothes. Unless Raven drops considerable weight, he should never come on television wearing a tight shirt. He says he's 265 right now (some in the company have estimated him as high as 280) and looks every bit of it, and by his own claim, is bulking up before cutting down and his cycle (and I don't mean his cutting down cycle) hasn't kicked in yet. That's way too heavy for his frame to go on TV in tight fitting clothes because it gives the appearance of being totally out of shape. Why in a promotion where the heels he faces are the size of Storm and Credible that he'd need to be that weight is probably more that he's getting in the size mode because he thinks he needs it for WWF in August. The Players took good bumps. Raven's wrestling now consists of doing a few trademark spots. Dreamer gave Storm a Spicolli driver off the middle rope through a table. James Vandenburg, who doesn't have a name here, gave Raven powder. He went to throw it at Storm, who ducked, and it instead hit Dreamer, who was about to piledrive Dawn Marie. Dreamer, blinded, then DDT's Francine. That was really scary because every time Francine gets DDT'd, she drops another ten pounds and she's about to go into the minus poundages. Raven carried Francine to the back leaving Dreamer on his own, and he got spike spinning piledriven and was pinned by Credible in 8:56. The show ended with Vandenberg basically giving away that he's pulling the strings maneuvering Raven and Dreamer against each other
People are praising Anderson and Grimes for their work and Grimes in particular is getting noticed as someone who has good ECW-level charisma
They did backstage angles in Cincinnati for TNN including Rhino spearing Crazy through a table and the Impact Players jumping Tanaka
Chilly Willie, a Carolinas indie who has worked here the past two weeks, has impressed people with his charisma
With the Arena Football League season canceled due to a labor dispute, the scheduled TNN TV dates that would pre-empt ECW in its regular time slot over the summer (there were only two dates) are also out the window. There is talk that TNN would instead broadcast games from AF2, which is a minor league of the Arena Football League, which usually plays on Thursdays, but they may use those games to fill the slots reserved for Arena Football which includes the two dates
ECW debuts in mid-April in both Kansas City at Memorial Hall and in St. Louis at an as of yet unnamed site and is planning an early May debut in Minneapolis although the latter date announcement may have been premature
Christian York & Joey Matthews are headed in, and there has been considerable talk of bringing in Josh Wilcox, the former Saints footballer who did the angle with Dreamer and Rhodes in New Orleans.
WCW: Top three matches for Uncensored on 3/19 in Miami are Vicious vs. Jarrett for the WCW title, Hogan vs. Flair in a strap match, Sting vs. Luger, Mamalukes vs. Harris Twins for the tag titles, Vampiro vs. Finlay and Rhodes vs. Funk
Nitro in Minneapolis at the Target Center drew 4,638 paying $126,355. Vito & Johnny kept the tag titles beating Lane & Idol in 3:32 when Vito pinned Idol after the DDT. It was dead until Miss Hancock came out to dance on the table. Everybody but Vito stopped wrestling to stare at her which allowed Vito to hit his move. The Harris Twins did the H-bomb on Johnny & Disco. They started talking. God is pushing them a bad idea. The music played in the middle of their interview so they just stopped talking. Bagwell tried to hit on Liz. She shot him down. Ricky Rachmann was back doing on campus video packages every Monday until Spring break. Boy are those ratings killers. Hogan did an interview on video and was he booed out of the building or what? He's so 80s. Hogan came out with his belt. Then Flair came out with an identical belt. I know he could have two of them, but this is wrestling and if Hogan isn't selling that Flair stole his prized belt, then who the hell cares? Mr. Duck Lips came out and challenged Sting and Bagwell. Hennig came out and claimed he was Minnesota's greatest athlete. That stuff only works when you're a main eventer. Hennig said if he didn't win the match, he'd streak naked down Hennepin Avenue. Thankfully this is WCW where no stipulations are never adhered to. Booker no contest Kidman in 1:30 when the Harris twins ran in and gave H-bombs to both guys. This was about the time I was thinking of asking for my release. They showed a video of Arnold Schwarzeneggar from the Arnold Classic and they had this guy with the hugest arms I've ever seen. They said 28 inches. Usually when claims are made like that they are totally full of it, but after seeing him, that number may be accurate. He makes 4x4 or Cassius (who are the same person although nobody cares about that) and Scott Rechsteiner look small. Anyway, WCW has already signed this guy and are planning a major push for him. And he must be steroid free because you have to pass a drug test before you sign your WCW contract. Three Count won the hardcore title beating Knobs in 3:02 when all three pinned him after garbage can lid shots. This was terrible because Knobs wasn't selling anything three-on-one. Great, we've got three guys who hold a singles title. And they wonder why people say their product sucks? Rhodes beat Smiley with a clothesline off the top in 2:49. Bad match. All through the show they asked people who they thought would win between Abbott and Sid. Almost everyone said Sid. Those deals where they ask everyone, if done right, can really build anticipation, but this is WCW. Nobody knew what to say and most of them asked didn't seem like they cared. And nobody at home thought this was any kind of a big match because Abbott never beat anyone. Jarrett beat Vampiro in a U.S. title match in 5:02. Harris Twins came out but Sid chased them. The bell rang once by accident in this match when Jarrett had a pin. Finally he used the stroke. This was as good as anything got on this show, which is faint praise because it wasn't good either. The best thing on the show is the announcers put Vampiro over huge. Finlay attacked Vampiro after the match again. They showed a video package asking fans about Sid vs. Tank. Everyone cheered for Sid and nobody for Tank. Tony Schiavone came out of the feature saying that fans were split down the middle. David Flair danced with the Nitro Girls. Daffney got jealous but they made up before the match. Artist kept the cruiserweight title pinning David in 2:11 with the closest he's come to actually hitting that leaping DDT. David is so awful. Crowbar interfered and did commentary. They showed Sid KO'd and a guitar by him. So they didn't even have Sid take the shot. Well, he did have a concussion the last time. Isn't it amazing that people like Mike Tenay and Moolah take guitar shots and aren't hurt but these 300 pound guys are all on the DL from the same shots. Miller did an interview and Maestro came out. Maestro pinned Miller in a match with no heat in 1:06. They played Three Count's song and Maestro hit Miller with the boom box. Flair pinned Hennig with a low blow after a ref bump and Luger's interference in 3:39. It was okay. It got the most heat. Bagwell beat Luger via DQ in 4:40 when Flair interfered clipping Bagwell. Match was bad but the crowd got into it. They doubled on Luger until Sting made the save. Sting's run-in didn't get much of a reaction. Finally, Vicious beat Tank with one of the worst crossfaces in history in 3:56. It seemed like 15:00. Actually they lucked out because this was better than you'd have any right to expect from such a match-up. Abbott spent the whole match punching Sid's ribs which he had taped, never going after his head, where he was supposedly knocked silly earlier in the show. Sid made the superman comeback, missed his submission, but Abbott tapped anyway. I hope they realize that Abbott is now dead for life. There was talk that even after this they could rebuild Abbott for a Goldberg feud and even Starrcade, but they might as well bring in Dan Severn for all the money that's going to draw now
For those interested in useless knowledge, even though Hogan said the strap match would be a Yapapa Indian Strap match 19 times during his promo, the correct name of the tribe is Yavapai
After Nitro went off the air on 2/21, Hogan was still selling the bat shot from Luger. They took Dillenger out on a stretcher and then Hogan got up and started doing his posing routine. When they showed the ad for DDP's book and on the screen it read "Role Model," people in the building started laughing like it was a comedy spot like the Cat Bo commercial
The original plan for that show was for Sid vs. Jarrett to be in a cage and Hogan vs. Flair to be the semifinal. Hogan was upset when they canceled the Vicious match and put him in the cage match single main event, because he knew the eyes would be on him when they didn't draw a rating. Not sure whose decision it was to change his opponent from Flair to Luger
Regarding Hogan, apparently the company has resigned itself that for the next two years, due to him being under contract with creative control of his programs, they basically have to cater to his whims. You can just imagine how much more damage will be done with two more years of what has been failing for the past year of nosediving
Hogan may have already topped HHH's McMahon may not hire Goldberg if he was available and McMahon's own comparing Collette Foley to Robin Givens (and then doing a 180 the next week) in the most inane quote of the early year when he claimed that all the top guys in the WWF that can draw money are between the ages of 35 and 40. Aside from Undertaker, who is 37, and also hasn't been around in months, and Austin (who also hasn't been around in months) and Foley at 34, none of the WWF's current headliners are even approaching 35
Thunder taped 2/22 in Reno, NV was a slight improvement over most recent WCW fare. Finlay pinned Karagias with a tombstone after laying out the other members of Three Count as well with garbage can lid shots. Bagwell tried to hit on Daffney. Man, you know you're pathetic when you're shot down by Daffney, even in storyline form. Flair did an interview and challenged anyone. Vampiro came out and Flair did a good job building heat for a match that there was no storyline for up to that point. La Parka did an interview where they had the guy jive talking English while Parka just stood there. Actually I thought Parka and Gene Okerlund were hilarious in this skit. Nash spent the whole show with amnesia thinking he was Commissioner Gordon. It was the worst acted stuff imaginable, particularly the Nurses even more than Nash. There were two funny things. When he called for Bruce Wayne, he got Ralphus, who came in and Nash thought he was Bruce. The other was when Batman hadn't shown up, but Nash saw Sid on TV and thought the joker had escaped, one of the Nurses suggested calling Superman (and that nurse must have had Rena Mero's dialogue coach) and Nash responded that Superman was a fake comic book character. Aside from that the skits were terrible, in particular with Nash trying to sing B-I-N-G-O. Parka pinned Berlyn in 1:02. Whatever happened to Uda Luddendorf? Abbott did an interview and the former Virgil Vincent Shane, etc. came out and said his real name was Mike Jones. Bagwell beat David Flair in 2:26 with a reverse DDT. Maestro and Symphony came out and Maestro attacked Bagwell after the match. Bagwell treated Flair as if he was a joke. Then again, in the ring, he is. Abbott knocked out Jones in :57. Flair pinned Vampiro in 5:41. Good match. Flair did a great job of putting Vampiro over and the announcers were selling that this was Vampiro's greatest moment for all it was worth. The problem is to do a scenario like that, you either need a lot more time to build the drama, or a better finish. It was the best thing they've done with Vampiro so far, but it was still overplayed like they were shoving this idea that they didn't give enough time to execute properly down your throat with the commentary. Luger hit Vampiro in the legs with the bat and Flair beat him with the figure four. After the match Flair & Luger beat on him and Flair whipped him with the Hogan belt. Later in the show they announced a reversed decision. If this builds to something where Flair now challenges him for him claiming a win over him and then Flair can't beat him again (they do a time limit draw for instance), Vampiro will be elevated by this program and he at least shows potential for being able to get over. If it's dropped and Vampiro is booked in the same positions as before, the next time the announcers try to elevate someone in commentary, as they tried with Kidman a few weeks back after Souled Out, the fans will react as if someone has cried wolf one too many times. In the dressing room after, Finlay jumped Vampiro as well, which is not exactly the way to elevate Vampiro to lock him in with a guy who will never be considered a top guy no matter how great a worker he was in his day. Dustin Rhodes did a really strong heel interview. Funk was on the video screen and also did a good promo. For this 5:00 it was almost like watching a real wrestling company. Artist kept the cruiserweight title beating Crowbar in 3:46 when he again missed his finisher. Daffney in a purple wig was hitting on Artist which led to a catfight spot with Paisley. There's an angle waiting to be done with these two but they've already got the physical before the verbal so it's ass backwards booking. Wall pinned Disco in 1:41 with a choke slam. Before it started, Lane & Idol attacked the Marmadukes. Harris Twins beat Booker & Kidman in 3:26 when they did the H-bomb on Booker. What a waste pushing the Harris Twins. Vicious beat Luger via DQ in a title match in 3:44. It wasn't as terrible as it sounds on paper. Flair interfered and Vicious was holding his own with both of them. It was funny because Charles Robinson freaked when Sid went to choke slam his idol. Later in the segment, after Flair & Luger took over when Luger hit Vicious in the knees with the bat, Flair decked Robinson anyway. Jarrett & The Harris Twins wanted to join in the run-in but WCW security stopped them. The show ended with Jarrett hitting Mickey Jay with a guitar
The situation with Abbott and the knife is that before the match, Abbott asked Sullivan if it would be okay to use a weapon in the match. Sullivan, thinking like a pro wrestler, said it was okay. Abbott, thinking like someone who fights in bars, took another meaning to the word weapon and pulled out the knife. Schiavone actually tried to get around it by saying it was scissors and he was going to cut Big Al's beard, although Big Al didn't have a beard, but he's still being praised internally for fast thinking on his feet. Abbott's stock within the company really dropped from the incident which probably led to the decision to do the Sid deal, and soured a lot of people on the original idea for Goldberg vs. Abbott as the Starrcade main event
There were booking meetings late in the week because Brad Siegel wanted WCW to have a battle plan to turn the company around and something substantial for when Goldberg returns. The basic gist of how they wanted to heat up Goldberg was for him to plow through everyone, including some major faces turning heel on him
Among those Sonny Onoo is trying to recruit as part of the racial discrimination lawsuit against WCW are Super Calo, Lizmark Jr., Damian, Ciclope and Hector Garza. Damian and Ciclope have already spoken with Onoo's lawyers while they are trying to get in touch with the other three. The realization is that Bobby Walker and Harrison Norris have no track record of being stars anywhere, while the Mexicans were stars in their native country who were jobbers in the U.S. because they were buried from day one. In the case of Garza, more than the other four who were never huge national stars in Mexico (although Lizmark Jr. was close and did main event while Calo was a very popular mid-carder during the AAA heyday), there is a strong case because he was a superstar in his native country and was marketable. There were people in the company when he first arrived who thought he was going to be a major superstar because of how much charisma and crowd reaction he got at some house shows before he was ever pushed on television and people really weren't that aware of his Mexican stardom. Then, within two weeks, the booking committee buried him in a jobber role. I'm not convinced Garza would have made it because he had a style clash in the ring with American workers that unlike some of the others, he didn't ever fully work his way through, but the fact is he was buried long before any of that came to the fore, and maybe that was part of the reason he didn't work harder to assimilate like Misterio Jr. and Guerrera did. Onoo has already told people he has done an interview for the TV show 20/20 regarding this lawsuit. Thunderbolt Patterson, who filed a famous racial discrimination lawsuit against Jim Barnett and Jim Crockett Jr. and considers Bobby Walker like an adopted son, commented regarding these suits in a Mike Mooneyham story in the Charleston Post-Courier on 2/20. Patterson said, "They may have some things, but there are really no merits of where they're coming from. It's amazing how they don't contact me. They need a little more meat than that. I took him (Walker) there to it. They won't come and stand up about the real problem. They're just experiencing a little piece of it. They may get a few dollars, but what will that do? Nothing's ever going to change."
Funk was actually not at Thunder in Reno and his interview with Rhodes was pre-taped the previous night. He went to Philadelphia for a court case involving a lawsuit from the famous fire incident of many years back where a fan got burned, but the case was postponed until late March
Torrie Wilson is on the cover of the April issue of the bodybuilding magazine Iron Man including a story
Sting was supposed to come to Nitro on 2/21 after the PPV, but simply refused to come, which is why he has so much heat internally. He's supposed to be back full-time wrestling starting with the PPV
Scott Steiner will now be brought back in late March
Curt Hennig hadn't been around because his daughter was in rough shape, including at one point being in a coma, from a skiing accident about a month back
Bagwell is claiming on his web site that he's demanding to be paid what he's worth by WCW or that on 3/1 he's going to ask for his release. I'm not sure what the going rate these days is for a 1.97 quarter but it sounds to me like he's asking for a pay cut
Hall was going to be fired after SuperBrawl but wasn't due to the timing of his injury. It is said to be a bruised spine and you can imagine the skepticism with the big question being can you work two days in ICU, which is really the crux of the debates between people who believe it was a work and people who believe it wasn't. And there are those who believe he went into the match with the injury, kept it quiet, and waited for the moment to sell it. It is expected there will be some form of discipline sent his way once he's deemed no longer injured
Steve Borden (Sting) was ripped in the 2/25 USA Today for his performance in "Shutterspeed." The story said, "there was some camp pleasure in watching Borden and (Daisy) Fuentes struggle with the none-too-taxing demands of the script, but not enough to keep you around for two hours.". . Goldberg was brought to Reno because there are licensees that are unhappy with the ratings drop and there is fear of them dropping the product. The company has claimed the low ratings are because so many of the top guys are out with injuries, and while there is truth to there being a ton of injuries, there always will be with morale the way it is, and if Hogan and Flair's return didn't mean squat, it isn't like ANYONE will care when DDP or Sting gets healthy. Goldberg meant more to ratings than anyone last year but on a two hour show, nobody by themselves means even a .1 in the overall number. Goldberg was telling friends that in two months, things were going to be different
Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch officially got their release from ECW and are expected to start here imminently
The reason the 3 Count vs. Smiley & Lane & Idol match ended up as a 3-on-2 on 2/14 Nitro from Nassau Coliseum is because Idol's blood pressure was too high in his check-up and the New York State Athletic Commission wouldn't allow him to wrestle
Thunder on 2/22 in Reno, NV drew 3,777 paying $66,866. The 2/26 debut in Winnipeg drew 6,683 paying $196,026. House show 2/27 in Duluth, MN drew 2,079 paying $43,657. Bret Hart was brought to Winnipeg and gave a speech in the ring. Hart played total face, and was knocked by Jarrett in a later interview when Jarrett ripped on the fans mentioning Hart's comments. I guess we could say if anyone took storylines seriously that means Hart and Jarrett aren't together in the NWO, but this being wrestling, I don't think anyone was looking past the momentary pop. Winnipeg had the main event changed several times, from Hart vs. Benoit (which virtually all the tickets were purchased for), to Sid vs. Benoit, to Sid vs. Hall, before finally ending up as Sid vs. Luger. Duluth had Sid pinning Luger in a short match with a power bomb and Jarrett beating Vampiro when the Harris twins interfered. Hennig was back since they were in his neck of the woods and pinned Bagwell. In the opener, Artist actually pinned Kidman in a cruiserweight title match which contradicts a TV storyline of them pushing so hard that Kidman is no longer in that division, not to mention Kidman's "big push" actually wound up with him jobbing for Artist in house show openers. Of course doing jobs is no big deal, and of course Kidman should be wrestling as a cruiserweight if the division hadn't been demeaned and destroyed and of course a champion should win to make titles mean something, but of course your TV storylines should also apply to the product as a whole. Another strange result, considering who gets pushed on TV and who doesn't, is that Rick Steiner & Mike Rotunda with Leia Meow beat the Harris Twins.
WWF: Raw on 2/28 in Madison Square Garden drew a sellout 12,256 paying $379,462. It was the worst Raw in a long time. HHH did an interview and showed a video tribute to Foley, which mainly consisted of him in embarrassing situations. Shane came out with Show. Rock came out and guaranteed he'd win the title at Mania. HHH told Rock he had to start from the bottom with a match with Brooklyn Brawler. Hardys beat Acolytes in 3:59 when Matt pinned Bradshaw after a neckbreaker. This was the best match on the show. Rikishi beat Angle via count out in 1:41 in a European title match when Angle just walked out after Rikishi rubbed his butt in Angle's face. Jericho & Chyna came out as Angle was leaving and threw him back in for the Rikishi piledriver and banzai. Jericho & Chyna then danced with Rikishi & Too Cool. Chyna looked like she was having fun for once in the ring, but she can't dance at all. Christian & Edge beat Snow & Blackman in 3:23 when Christian hit a missile dropkick on Blackman, who fell into Edge's spear for the pin. Terri Boatright distracted Bradshaw at the finish. Rock beat Brawler in :30 with the Rock bottom. Rock challenged HHH. Shane McMahon came out and said if Rock could win a handicap match over Show & HHH, he'd get the title shoat at Mania. Jericho beat Saturn in 3:03 when Chyna hit him with a low blow and Jericho used a quebrada. Malenko had attacked Chyna first. Match was a disappointment as Saturn is trying to fit into the WWF style of using a lot of punches, and as the broken record says, it's the worst part of his game. The rest of DX beat up Gunn backstage since he's out for a few months. The last time they tried to go with Gunn as a single it was a miserable failure to the point they put the Outlaws back together in such a rush they didn't even bother coming out with a storyline. One day they were feuding, then they were a team. Crash Holly NC Henry in a hardcore match in 2:00. Mae Young gave Crash the worst big splash ever, and then went into labor. They had her backstage with an EMT, Patterson, Brisco, Henry and Moolah for this godawful segment that ended when they pulled a hand out of her. I had no idea what this was. Luckily I do a radio show and someone explained that hands were popular sex toys in the 70s and 80s for women and I guess the idea was she was getting herself off in another decade and it had been there for a while. Tazz beat Benoit in 2:02 when Albert and Bossman interfered for the DQ. Very disappointing because of the run-in immediately when Tazz got the choke. There was a loud ECW chant. Guerrero kept distracting the ref. Boy was Benoit portrayed as nothing special here. Tim White threw Guerrero out. They kept the gimmick where Tazz gets killed but he keeps coming back. Dudleys kept tag titles against Road Dogg & X-Pac when Kane came out in 4:39 and choke slammed everyone but X-Pac, who ran away. They showed a great Foley tribute video. Rock beat Show & HHH via DQ in 6:54. There was little heat in this match. Rock hit the Rock bottom on HHH and people's elbow when Shane interfered for the DQ. Shane gave Rock a low blow and fans chanted for Foley to save, but instead Show choke slammed Rock and the show ended
A storyline that a lot of people are expecting is that Vince returns and helps Rock win a match and get into WM as a three-way, with Vince with Rock, Shane with Show and Stephanie with HHH and the winner gets control of the company and the WWF title, which sounds like a good scenario. I think it's pretty clear that either Vince or Foley will somehow be involved in getting Rock into the Mania main event, and Foley will almost surely play a hand in screwing over HHH at some point upon his return
Thunder taped 2/22 in Nashville was another excellent show, paced by the Foley interview. The show opened with Crash Holly winning the Hardcore title from Test. Show came out and did an interview and logically asked why the fans didn't like him, actually making valid points. They kept showing clips of Rock's feet hitting the ground first. Angle came out and agreed with him. Jericho & Chyna (who looked really weird up close I guess from the make-up job) before Rock came out and mocked him to set up the tag main event. They did an awesome video package intertwining the Michaels vs. Undertaker and Mankind vs. Undertaker Hell in a Cell matches. Somehow they forgot to put in clips from the Undertaker vs. Bossman match. Kane double count out Benoit in 2:15. Kane no-sold the diving head-butt and then they messed up a spinning backbreaker spot. Tori came out and slapped Paul Bearer. Bearer went after her. I'm still waiting for the explanation why Bearer and Kane are together, but I guess sometimes you have to pretend you're watching WCW. Benoit went after him to allow Tori to lure X-Pac to the back where X-Pac shot him in the face with Chyna's bazooka gun. This was pretty funny because live they had one of those deals that only happens to WCW on live shows, but lucky for them it was on tape, as the gun didn't go off. Later in the show, they redid the same angle and the gun went off and Kane ended up with fire in the face. Saturn & Malenko & Blackman & Snow beat Edge & Christian & Hardys when Saturn pinned Jeff after a Tiger suplex in 3:09. After the match, the Hardys and Edge & Christian did the slow burn and ended up wailing on each other. X-Pac & HHH & Road Dogg beat Rikishi & Too Cool in 6:00 when X-Pac pinned Sexay with the X-factor in a hot match. Godfather & Brown beat Albert & Bossman in 2:34 when Godfather pinned Albert with what they once again called the pimp drop (they hadn't referred to Godfather as a pimp on Smackdown in some time). My feeling is Brown in his Godfather Jr. role isn't a good fit and he's floundering, although they weren't doing much with him before hand either. Tazz did a run-in on Albert leading to the finish. Foley then did one of the greatest interviews in the history of wrestling. He talked about his career, talked about the Ali-Frazier Thrilla in Manilla, talked about his accomplishments in his life, his legitimate injuries from the Hell in a Cell match, and hinted without saying goodbye, all with amazing conviction. I'm not saying it was ruined, because he could have gotten amnesia and started chanting B-I-N-G-O after finishing and it still wouldn't have been ruined, but it wasn't helped doing that serious interview you can believe and then doing that phony arrest thing after. It took all the serious intensity out of the build-up that he instilled by basically swearing he wasn't going to retire and come back and prostitute himself and that all he had was his word and talking about his legitimate injuries and the last time he was in the Hell in a Cell, and turned it into typical pro wrestling with the arrest and shark cage. And does anyone think the silliness got one more person to order the PPV or caused one person not to switch the channel. Sometimes in wrestling they luck into something or just come up because of a performance on something that isn't just good, but great, and they take down its potential effects by coating it in typical wrestling when sometimes atypical is better. It didn't help that Stephanie McMahon's delivery was just awful as compared with the speech Foley gave moments earlier, and they were now part of the same angle. Gunn beat Buh Buh Ray Dudley in 2:06 when D-Von interfered for the DQ. It was one of those nights where Billy was slightly off on everything. After the match, Road Dogg made the save and it ended with Billy giving Buh Buh a famouser through a table. Angle & Show beat Jericho & Rock via DQ in 4:02 when Chyna interfered. They continued to brawl after the match. Jericho vs. Angle was a disappointment as they just didn't click. Show after the match threw Rock through a window. The show ended with the DX bus dragging the cage Foley was in (they had fake police, who on the show were guys masquerading as police as opposed to the usual pro wrestling guys masquerading as police arrest him and put him in a small fake cell) behind the DX bus, claiming they were dragging him to Hartford
Wrestlemania will be an expanded 12-hour PPV package for $49.95 along with the three-hour actual show for $34.95. The 12-hour show will consist of an eight-hour pre-game show and a one-hour post-game show. Anyone who buys the 12-hour package will also get a "Best of Wrestlemania" home video
Both Rock and Foley's book were still high on the charts (with Rock's book as high as No. 1 on some charts as late as the weekend of 2/20) of non-fiction best sellers over the past two weeks
The Village Voice on 2/29 made fun of the Newsweek article on pro wrestling for saying how the article waited 2,000 words before even mentioning almost in passing that "its stock price has lagged lately." They mockingly gave writer John Leland and the magazine's editorial staff their award for bad journalism for the headline that states, "It may look like a cartoon spectacle, but WWF is serious business. And business is good." They ripped on the last line saying that when the stock drops from $34 per share as its open to the public to just over $11 in just a few months that business isn't so good. Actually the knock is a cheap shot, because profitability, house shows, ratings, advertising, merchandising are all really good. Where they have a point is that in any story right now proclaiming McMahon's strengths as an entertainment producer or wrestling promoter, there is a very important point of his major weaknesses in his new role as the head of a publicly traded company. His inability to avoid bad publicity and his confrontational methods of handling it, which only serves to make it worse, starting with putting out that press release about Coke, later his attacks on the PTC, on the investment analysts and his own caricature like performance at the XFL press conference have been the reasons people in the investment world have reacted to him this way even with record profits
Benoit on his web site wrote, "In the last four years of my career, I have seen the fans get shafted innumerable times on potentially great matches due to an ugly word called ego. I can go on and on talking about different events and times, but what I really want to address here regards someone who should stand out as an inspiration, a role model and a leader in the dressing room--Hulk Hogan. Here is a guy that would show up and disappear into his locker room, which had a DO NOT ENTER sign posted outside of it, concerning himself with only how many segments he had, what hours they were on, and which segments were before and after his. He would walk around, when he did step out of his confines, with this cocky arrogance as if he were the king and we, the paupers. From what I hear, not much has changed. My question is, `What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?' Don't you think it's time you start to make a positive difference behind the scenes? Lead, follow or get out of the way. Leave the ego at home and start making some real contributions to the business and to the fans that made you." Hogan was on Bubba the Love Sponge on 2/24 and claimed that he thought Benoit was a top talent and of the four guys who left, he was a real loss and claimed, and anyone who followed WCW will get a great laugh out of this, that he always spoke up for Benoit, always wanted him to get a bigger push and more TV time but the people in power had always wanted to bury him. Since Saturn ripped on Hogan for similar things, Hogan's comeback was that he'll make more money this year than Saturn will make in the next ten years
Rock will tape an episode of TSN's Off the Record on 3/2 while Val Venis and Trish Stratus tape on 3/3. No word on air dates for either show
The 2/13 Boston Globe ran a lengthy sociological story regarding the WWF and pro wrestling, headlining by saying "The problem is not that pro wrestling makes boys violent. The real lesson of the wildly popular pseudo-sport is more insidious." It suggests pro wrestling as something aimed to white men and boys and talks about the value structures is espouses in its plotlines while aiming as the base instinct of that audience in particular might makes right and extreme violence defining how power is exercised. It says previous discussions about wrestling's effect on viewers center around if it leads to violence or causes imitative violence, but the story said that misses the point. The point isn't if kids imitate the violence, but do they learn that taunting, ridiculing and bullying, as well as verbal aggression toward women are portrayed as cool masculine traits. It brought up a study of kids in grades four through six in the Boston Area finding 10% saying they were bullied at least once per week and 20% claiming they were bullies. They also called Godfather "one of the most overtly racist and sexist characterization on contemporary television" and mentioning him as one of the few black figures in wrestling. The article also exposed wrestling's latest promotional con, noting that McMahon likes to egg on the criticism to instill the idea that his company is rebellious, and then noted the values, such as the treatment of women and the homophobia, are actually more conservative values in that it allows men to appear powerful by valuing a repressive gender order
Chris Benoit and Nancy had their first child at 3 a.m. on 2/25, a nine pound, nine ounce baby boy named Daniel Christopher Benoit. They had
been in the hospital for two days to induce labor since she was already overdue
We're told there were never any talks of Shawn Michaels being paired with Trish Stratus or of Michaels appearing at the TV tapings this past week. Speaking of Stratus, she was the pinup "Sunshine Girl" in the 2/28 Toronto Sun and is on the cover of the May issue of Muscle Mag International
Rock maybe up for a part in the movie "Mummy 2.
USA Today reported that a new league which would be a direct challenge in the spring to the XFL was having a meeting next month called the Fan Football League (FFL)
As it regards Wrestlemania, they are hopeful of Austin being involved in the show. It depends if he's healthy enough to at least deliver a stunner. There's little chance of him doing a match, and they don't want him to do a run-in unless he can at least do his move. Undertaker will probably be back on the show, although also probably not in a wrestling capacity
Foley watched the 20/20 piece a second time and according to those with him, said upon a second viewing he didn't think it was a negative piece toward him and wasn't unhappy with it
Chyna will be shooting a few more episodes of "Third Rock from the Sun" in upcoming weeks, so she'll be missing several shows. The episodes are scheduled for airing in April and May, including a probable appearance on the season finale with William Shatner
WWF the Music Vol. 4 with a renewed TV push fell to No. 133 on the charts with 13,681 units sold
On the Rec sports video charts, WWF occupies the top six slots with Rock at No. 1, followed by Austin vs. McMahon, Best of Raw, Austin Hell Yeah, Armageddon and HHH & Chyna. WWF has 14 of the top 20 videos while WCW has Sting at No. 19 as its only entrant
The WWF pulled Rock from the Off the Record show this week and they are taping two shows this week with WWF talent, one with Val Venis & Trish Stratus, and the other with Christian
Smackdown on 2/22 in Nashville drew a sellout 12,950 paying $366,858. House show on 2/23 in Little Rock, AR drew 15,892 paying $462,654. Little Rock was headlined by Rock over Bossman and from several different reports the atmosphere was electric all night long. Merchandise not including the PPV show was $295,742 or $7.20 per head.
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