Enigma

2004: Mr. McMahon 2019: Mr. Helmsley

I wouldn't be shocked to see Jericho win it. Then next week, HHH uses Jericho's ego to get a rematch and win it back. 1) It would bring HHH one step closer to breaking Flair's 16-time record 2) HHH likes screwing with Jericho

Yeah, Godfather's one-month IC Title reign was Vince's way of saying, "Thanks."

Well, to ECW's credit here, RVD vs. Balls was not the scheduled match. It was supposed to be RVD vs. Johnny Smith, but Smith's flight out of Japan got delayed or something and he couldn't make it.

In 2003, Jericho got a very watchable match out of Kevin Nash on an episode of RAW when HHH couldn't do it in two PPV main-events. Jericho.

No. Nothing on that show was good. -=Mike Dreamer did a piledriver on RVD and RVD bounced back in the air about 3-feet off his head.

Credit: Mike Johnson of PWInsider World Wrestling Entertainment will be releasing a DVD dedicated to Rob Van Dam this January, titled, "One of A Kind." The promotional material for the DVD reads as follows: "There's nobody in sports entertainment like Rob Van Dam. Period. Opponents and fans alike expect the unexpected when the self-proclaimed "Whole F'n Show" strikes with his high-flying, martial arts-based style. Follow his amazing career on this 2-disc, 6-hour journey from WCW, to ECW, and finally, WWE, with 16 complete matches, hosted and introduced by RVD himself. Plus...over an hour of bonus features, interviews, promos and more. RVD truly is ONE OF A KIND." The complete match listing for the DVD set features: WCW Saturday Night - January 23rd, 1993: Rob Van Dam's WCW Debut as "Robby V" -- Robby V vs. Pat Rose WCW Worldwide Wrestling - February 8th, 1993 -- Robby V vs. Scotty Flamingo ECW Hardcore TV - January 5th, 1996: Rob Van Dam's ECW Debut -- Rob Van Dam vs. Axl Rotten ECW Hostile City Showdown 1996 - April 20th, 1996 -- Rob Van Dam vs. Sabu ECW Hardcore Heaven 1996 - June 22nd, 1996 Extreme Death Match -- Rob Van Dam vs. Sabu ECW Crossing The Line Again - February 1st, 1997 ECW World Tag Team Championship -- Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. The Eliminators ECW Barely Legal - April 13th, 1997: Rob Van Dam's Pay-Per-View Debut -- Rob Van Dam vs. Lance Storm WWF RAW is WAR - May 12th, 1997: Rob Van Dam's WWF Debut -- Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy ECW November To Remember 1997 - November 30th, 1997 Flag Match -- Rob Van Dam vs. Tommy Dreamer ECW Hardcore TV - April 4th, 1998: Rob Van Dam becomes ECW World Television Champion ECW World Television Championship -- Rob Van Dam vs. Bam Bam Bigelow ECW Living Dangerously 1999 - March 21st, 1999 ECW World Television Championship -- Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999 - September 16th, 1999 ECW World Television Championship -- Rob Van Dam vs. Balls Mahoney ECW Guilty As Charged 2001 - January 7th, 2001: ECW's Last Pay-Per-View Wrestling Match -- Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn WWF InVasion - July 22nd, 2001: Rob Van Dam's WWF Pay-Per-View Debut WWF Hardcore Championship -- Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy WWE King Of The Ring 2002 - June 23rd, 2002 RAW vs. SmackDown! King Of The Ring Semi-Final Match -- Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho WWE Monday Night RAW - September 29th, 2003 WWE Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match -- Rob Van Dam vs. Christian

Once upon a time, Vince was not a huge Eric Bischoff fan.

As much as I like Steamboat, he's fucking boring in an on-air role. Boring? Watch his current stuff in Ring Of Honor with Mick Foley in the "Hardcore vs. Pure Wrestling" angle. It's gold.

In a move that will probably surprise a few people when they read this, former NWA World champion Ricky Steamboat is backstage at tonight's Raw taping in Buffalo, New York. The word going around the back is that Steamboat is being considered for (or may have already signed for) an agent's position with the company. I don't think I need to tell anyone reading this that Steamboat is more than qualified for that position, as he's one of the all time greatest babyfaces. In recent months, Steamboat has been working as a regular performer for Ring of Honor, also teaching and advising many of the ROH wrestlers on ways to improve on their work inside the ring and connecting with the audience. Steamboat is currently involved in a ROH feud against Mick Foley, leading representatives of "Pure Wrestling" against Foley's "Hardcore" wrestlers. Steamboat is booked for ROH's 12/26 event in Philadelphia, PA. Steamboat retired from the ring in August 1994 after suffering back injuries during a WCW United States championship win against Steve Austin during Clash of the Champions 28. Steamboat had been outspoken about WWE during several appearances at wrestling conventions in recent years and had turned down interest in signing up with the company several months back as part of their overtures towards older stars during the startup process of the WWE 24/7 Video on Demand project. credit: PWInsider/Mike Johnson

Well, we know who'll be main eventing against Jeff Jarrett in the next TNA PPV after Turning Point.

The future of WWE is obviously Triple H.

Russo was good in WWE because he had an editor to weed out his ridiculous crap (Vince McMahon). Russo blew it in WCW because he had total control over every aspect of the booking, and his ridiculous crap made it to TV. The first thing I'd do is send HHH to Smackdown and job him out to Rob Van Dam and Booker T.

For the record, RAW's rating slipped back into the 5 range in it's 2nd-to-last week on USA Network.

Yup. And the formation of The Unholy Alliance (Austin and Triple H) and having them hold ALL of the gold (WWF Champion, IC Title, and Tag Ttitles). That's when WWF/E started to go down the drain. Yeah, when I wrote that, I thought, "And HHH cementing his heel status, aligning with Austin when it was obvious the fans wanted HHH to take out Austin, was almost a double slap in the face to the fans." Although, I will be the first to admit I initially liked the idea and found the concept of Austin & McMahon on the same side after all the years of their larger than life war with each other to be intriguing. The problem was they had no big time babyface to counter him. They aligned HHH with Austin, so that scenario was down the toilet (which was a double whammy because the fans obviously wanted HHH to take out Austin). The Rock was leaving to go make The Scorpion King, so that was no good. Their first big feud was against...The Hardy Boys, which did nothing to elevate Matt or Jeff (and in fact, the argument could be made that it further buried Jeff). The only things memorable that came out of that was Steve Austin begging off for the first time in his WWF career, the unforgettable/unfathomable Austin quote of, "Matt Hardy just beat my ass!", and Austin annihilating Lita with a steel chair. In other words, nothing that would have made money. But the McMahon/Austin idea was a good one as long as Austin had a viable opponent. It's not really a memorable match to the general community, but I saw the Tag Title match on Smackdown with Chris Jericho & Chris Benoit vs. Steve Austin & Vince McMahon as unbelievable just because Austin & McMahon were on the same side in a tag team. But HHH should have been Austin's opponent, which made sense because they just came out of the feud that was born from HHH having Austin run over with a car.

Austin turning heel is when everything started to tank, viewership-wise. Nobody wanted to boo Austin.

TOUGH ENOUGH = RATINGS!

Awesome! Thanks for taking over. I feel as if I have passed the torch... ...but thankfully not the Torch ; )

Evolution came at a down-time in the industry. To be honest, they're WWF's Camp Cornette (Vader, Owen Hart, and British Bulldog) or WCW's 3 Faces of Fear (Kevin Sullivan, Avalanche, & The Butcher) of this era.

Bischoff basically vehemently denies ever purposely raiding ECW's talent roster. Then, they cut to Heyman saying that Bischoff is full of shit.

Heyman still doesn't have a place to talk. Wasn't his official debt when ECW closed around $7.5 million?

Snitsky/Heidenreich vs. Kane/UT? Heh.

Lords of Pain is just guessing. Meltzer said Viscera will only be brough in when they need him to do something, and given how many people just got fired that wrestled on Heat, their Heat roster is thin.

The Rock wasn't exactly Ric Flair in the ring either.

NOTE: My WON subscription has expired and I don't have the $90 to put down for more issues right now, so this will be the one of the last posts I will make about WON-related stories until I get a new subscription. If you enjoyed them and have the money, support Meltzer and get a subscription. The stuff I post is probably 20% of the actual newsletter, so there's lots of great stuff that doesn't make it here. Ric Flair will be out of action for the next several weeks after suffering a ruptured blood vessel near his groin while taking a suplex from Randy Orton on the 11/1 Raw show in Des Moines. He could barely get up to walk to the back and was in great pain, but it wasn't until a few days later when it swelled up badly that it was diagnosed. He'd been working on it as a nagging injury for weeks, believing he was working through a groin pull that he was no selling to almost everyone, but the thing burst during the match. Between his age, the way he works, and his near total denial of injuries based on what he'd been bred in the old business, something like this, and maybe worse, was bound to happen. Flair may also have a hernia, which would be more serious. As noted, he was hurt in the match after the announcement, his being replaced by Gene Snitsky at Survivor Series was not done to the injury, but because Vince McMahon wanted it that way, with Flair as a manager. As it turns out, either way, it was going to end up like that now. Not sure if Flair would be working or able to do much as a manager at Survivor Series, since he's supposed to stay off his feet for two weeks, although he was at Raw in Austin and not used on TV. They were hoping Flair could start back on Raw doing promos (and boy did the show need him) in the next week or two. Dan Madigan from the Smackdown writing team was fired on 11/5 by Stephanie McMahon. Madigan, who penned the movie "Eye Scream Man" that WWE Films is doing (the Kane vehicle), was not a big favorite of a lot of people on the writing team, as his most talked about ideas were the Booker T voodoo gimmick, which was going to climax in some sort of an Exorcist like deal, and was thankfully dropped after a few weeks, the Kenzo Suzuki "Hirohito" gimmick, which Vince McMahon & Stephanie Lévesque liked so much they were going to have him headline two PPV shows this past summer against Chris Benoit for the Raw title until they found out just how badly it would have played in Japan and nixed the idea; and "The Frozen Nazi," an idea where Heidenreich would be a guy who gets thawed out after being frozen in 1939. He also created the idea for the Mordecai character for Undertaker, and that was dropped pretty quickly. The story going around was Madigan took a few days off to attend his father-in-law's funeral, and was never in touch with Stephanie via e-mail or phone during that period, and when he came back, he was let go. Stephanie was also mad at him for sending mid-card wrestlers to see Vince about their creative ideas, instead of having them talk with the creative team about them. The current protocol when it comes to creative is that only main-eventers are allowed to see Vince when it comes to issues with creative, and the rest are supposed to resolve it directly with the writing team. Just as he was getting momentum, Carlito Cool was injured on 11/7 in Fort Myers. He suffered what is believed to have been a shoulder separation, but the severity of it is unknown right now pending results of an MRI. He will at some point need surgery. The belief at press time, and this could change depending on MRI results, was he'd' work Survivor Series on the injury, and maybe even drop the title at Armageddon before getting surgery and taking a few months off. But everything is really up in the air. John Cena is coming in from Australia just for Survivor Series. Carlito was injured in a match with Bob Holly. They had just started the match, with Holly doing two stiff chops and grabbing Carlito's hair for the old woman's match hair-throw spot. Carlito landed wrong on his shoulder. He rolled out of the ring. Holly jumped out to go after him when one of the security guys told him Carlito was really hurt. In what came off as awkward to the fans, Holly stopped and left him alone. The agents came out and told the ref to count Carlito out and give the match to Holly. Carlito was helped out. The clueless-ness continues. Stephanie McMahon hired Tom Chehak for the new job of Managing Editor of the writing team, and was calling him her new "right hand man." Chehak has no pro wrestling background, but has a long list of TV writing credits on such shows at VIP with Pam Anderson (a wonderfully written show), Hunter (where he also served as producer in the 1998-99 season), Alien Nation, Diagnosis Murder, Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (somehow I think they'd be better off with someone who could explain the concepts of how Eddie Graham got Jack Brisco over than someone who wrote Adventures of Brisco County Jr.), Oldest Rookie, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, and the 70s cult classic WKRP in Cincinnati. Nelson Frazier (Viscera) hasn't signed a contract, but was told he'd be used whenever they came up with an idea for him. It is not definite whether Josh Mathews will be used more as a wrestler or not. Jakks Pacific has even more problems stemming from the recent WWE lawsuit. The law firm of Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman, & Robbins filed a class action suit against Jakks Pacific on 11/5 on behalf of everyone who purchased stock in the company from 2/17 to 10/19. The complaint charges that Jakks Pacific listed positive investment earnings reports over the period, and mentioned the increases in sales of WWE merchandise. The suit claims those statements were both false and misleading, but said the company also failed to disclose WWE was attempting to get out of the deal, that WWE was considering suing based on how the original deal was made through a pattern of commercial bribery, and the company knew they were at a heightened risk of both losing the deal and of a lawsuit which they didn't divulge. It wasn't until 10/19, just before the WWE's lawsuit was filed, that Jakks issued a press release saying it was "engaged in discussions with WWE concerning the restructuring of its toy license with WWE and THQ with respect to the restructuring of the Jakks THQ Joint Venture video game license agreement with WWE." Since the lawsuit, Jakks stock fell from $24.15 to $12.96. Even though Charlie Haas came out on crutches on Smackdown last week for the Heidenreich attack, he's fine. He was also, in a continuity faux pas, working house shows and not selling the knee at all the weekend before Smackdown. A funny coincidence is that on 11/10, the day after the TNA taping, WWE was filming its Royal Rumble TV commercial at Universal studios in Orlando. Ashley Fliehr, Ric's daughter, who is a star volleyball player at Providence High in Charlotte, led her team to its second straight state championship over the weekend beating J. H. Rose High of Greenville in die finals on 11/6 in Raleigh. Besides Ric, The Hurricane came to see what turned out to be the real state championship match in the semifinals a few days earlier when they knocked off an unbeaten school that was No. 1. Paul Birchall, a bodybuilder looking guy from the U.K. (I guess they haven't gotten a look at James Thompson yet) and Antonio Thomas from the Northeast have been signed to developmental deals, as has William Jones, who wrestled years ago in ECW as Chilly Willy before enlisting in the army when ECW folded and fighting in Iraq, getting wounded, and getting several medals. Jones is already in OVW but hasn't debuted on TV. Jones is a little old to get started in WWE, as he's about 36 years old. Nick Mitchell, who was cut from Tough Enough as low man in voting on 11/9, was offered a developmental contract and a start date in Louisville. Among those backstage at Raw in Austin were Debra Marshall (ex-wife of Steve Austin and Steve McMichael). Marshall is now 44, but was described as still looking good, but looking as if she'd had some facial work done. If you want to know the way Marshall was viewed when she was there, while nobody was sympathetic to Steve Austin when he was arrested and was punished for beating her, nobody was also surprised she would drive a man at least to the brink of wanting to do so. She was said to be trying to get back in. Also backstage at Raw was Ultimo Dragon. 10/25 Raw TV tapings drew 4,550 in Des Moines. 10/26 Smackdown tapings in Omaha drew 3,700. Actual gates from last weekend were 10/30 in Evansville for Raw did 1,900 in the new 14,000 seat building. 10/31 Smackdown in Louisville drew 2,100, which is bad because this summer, the OVW big Friday night shows at the amusement park were doing 1,200 to 1,800, usually with just one or two big WWE names. 10/31 Raw in Champaign, IL drew 1,800. 11/1 Smackdown in Cape Girardeau drew 1,400. 11/5 Raw house show in Laredo drew 3,500. We didn't get an estimate for the 11/6 Smackdown in Miami. The estimate for the Raw show on 11/6 in Monterrey, Mexico was 8,000. Hopefully we'll have the real number next week. 11/7 Smackdown in Fort Myers did an estimated 2,800. 11/7 Raw in Hidalgo, TX, drew a nearly full house of 6,000, which is the best medium-market house show crowd since, well, probably the last time they were in Hidalgo and sold out. 11/8 Raw TV tapings in Austin drew 4,300.