QuestionMan

It'll probably end up being the fan-insulting thing WCW did in July 2000: Asking fans to vote on WCW.Com on who should fight Booker T for the WCW Title, Sting wins the poll, but on his way to the ring, Goldberg destroys him and takes the shot.

I'll never forget when Mark Henry turned heel on D'Lo Brown because D'Lo was concerned about his weight. God bless you, Vince Russo. Which gimmick will last longer? Simon Dean or Caryn "Muffy" Mower as Stephanie's personal trainer?

RAW contained the single most selfish performance I can recall. I used to think the single most selfish high profile performance was a WCW Souled Out 2000 PPV match on January 16, 2000, when Kevin Nash destroyed Terry Funk, sold nothing for him, put him through a table, and beat him when they had that match for the commissioner’s job in WCW (an angle designed to bury Ric Flair again, except Flair refused to come back for it). The HHH vs. Jeff Hardy feud was one people have talked about for the past few years, but neither came close to the HHH vs. Eugene cage match. Not only did Eugene get treated as a total joke the week before when they did the fake job ("What do you mean I never lose, why I put over Rey Mysterio" says Nash), including not even giving him the easy comeback off the sleeper, but this week was even worse. Granted, it was HHH's match to win. He's in the main event on the PPV six days later. Also, if they want to do an injury angle, that's fine. But in those circumstances, a heel should make the babyface before destroying him. Fans had already given up on Eugene as a top guy from HHH outsmarting him and beating him at SummerSlam, but he was buried underground on this one. Not only did he no longer have his Danny Hodge grip strength, but he no longer had his savant like wrestling skill. In this case, Eugene went into the cage scared to death, and the only babyface in history who got over as being a chicken was Mikey Whipwreck, and that was a unique short-term deal. HHH destroyed him, made him juice, on several situations had him beat but instead of showing Eugene had guts for holding on when it would be smart for him to quit (same result of HHH being a bully, but giving Eugene something), HHH had to show he had the match won, that Eugene wasn't even in his league, and he could beat him at will. Usually when you do that story, it's to set up the slipping on a banana peel finish where the heel's cockiness cost him (which is an old main-eventer trick where the main-eventer says, "What do you mean I never lose" and then the next week when the face is over less after winning, can point out, "I put him over, but the people just won't get with him."). Instead, the heel once again becomes the face. He gets things done. The face is impotent, and who in 2004 wants to root for an uncompetitive loser? There was a time when this should have been a major issue, like when Jeff Hardy's so-called elevation ended up destroying his credibility and heat (and I guess you can argue, in the long run, Hardy was on a course of self- destruction if HHH hadn’t have gotten the job done first). Now the company has already taught its fan base not to get behind any new characters because the game isn't to watch guys start at the bottom and work their way up, but the game is, see how few weeks before their push is bungled or dropped. I just think it's funny that 14 years ago, Kevin Sullivan and Ric Flair argued over a TV match where Flair wrestled Brian Pillman the week before a Flair/Lex Luger PPV match. Flair wanted to make Pillman and lose via DQ on TV. Sullivan insisted, and got his way, saying Flair had to win because he's in the main event on the PPV. But even in the situation where he had to win and it was his time to be selfish, Flair sold like crazy for Pillman, had a **** TV match with him, making Pillman by beating him, and Flair still went over in the end. Then 14 years later, the guy who aspires to be Flair does everything Flair would never do. If Flair was put in the position where he was to injure a mid-level face, he's giving that face most of the match and tons of near falls and the injury’s due to the veteran's desperation and fear of losing. In fact, I'd bet money the face injures himself or gets hurt by interference before Flair is in the position to humiliate and injure him seriously. Anyway, I do think if you combine the good qualities of Flair and HHH, you've got almost the ultimate performer. You take Flair's night-after-night workrate. You take Flair's natural charisma. You take Flair's promo ability. You take Flair's ability to make people. You take Flair's ability to have a good match every night. You take Flair's drive to always have the best match on the show. And you take HHH's, ummm, height, and you'll have one hell of a career. The new dividend, which means $2.8 million to Vince McMahon, is being paid on 10/12. Ringside seats for WrestleMania at the Staples Center in Los Angeles will be $750. Fact of the matter is scalpers and ticket brokers will end up selling some of those seats for a lot more than that. The rest of the prices are $200, $100, $75, $50, and $40, and they go on sale on 9/25, which means there will probably be a coded internet pre-sale a day or two before where almost all the seats will be gone. In what was a big surprise to almost everyone, Tom Prichard was fired this past week. Prichard, 45, had been with the company for nearly ten years, ever since he and Jimmy Del Ray left SMW for the WWF as the Heavenly Bodies tag team. His background, besides pro wrestling from the age of 20, was working in Paul Boesch's office as a helper since he was a teenager, so he really has 30 years or so of constant experience in wrestling. After the Body Donnas gimmick with Chris Candido ended, his active career for the most part was over. He became a trainer as well as worked in the talent office under Jim Ross. The official corporate reason is that they wanted someone in the position with more experience at putting together and running within a budget. The feeling among some was John Laurinaitis getting rid of the old guard and he's going to use his own people, in this case Tommy Dreamer, in the role. Others close to the situation felt that Laurinaitis was making a lot of changes. Prichard was with the program for years, and argued against some of the changes. The company warns people in the department to dress nice, represent the company well, and say yes without questioning (and if you’ve ever seen Pritchard, you know he’s a proprietor of the t-shirt/sweatpants look). This was not a popular move, and comes at a time when the company has been pressured by both outside forces and by the realities of the future to expand developmental. Besides Dreamer, the other people on the new Laurinaitis team in being liaisons with developmental and trainers are Bill DeMott and Lance Storm. This came just days after Bruce Prichard, Tom's younger brother, missed TV. He's one of the main Smackdown writers. Talent was told he's "on retreat," whatever that means. He's on an indefinite leave of absence officially. Based on the reaction to this, my impression is Bruce Prichard probably has more heat on him than anyone in the company with the possible exception of Eric Bischoff (to clarify, Bischoff hasn’t been a problem since joining WWE, but he committed many unpardonable sins as head of WCW to people now on WWE’s roster). Paul Heyman was at the RAW tapings as a new member of the writing staff. It's funny because if you read Matt Hardy's book, you'll get a pretty good read on some of the negativity toward Heyman. But for the past several months, all I've heard is wrestlers wanting him back on. Even those who don't quite trust him at least have confidence that he knows how to get people over and into logical storylines, something badly missing of late. It's funny because most wrestlers are actually now like fans in that they get frustrated when their storylines don't make sense, and the writing team is the No. 1 heat position in the company and for good reason of late. Heyman for the past year plus has been a creative advisor, in the sense that they ask him for ideas, he gives them his opinions, usually they ignore him, and occasionally they use his ideas. The fact they brought him to RAW and will be bringing him more makes me think they are going to listen to him more, but it seems to be an expanded version of the same role. His official role is replacing Bruce Prichard on the Smackdown writing staff, although Dan Lagana remains head writer. He will have some input into RAW as well, and will be working at the RAW TVs. Heyman will no longer manage Heidenreich at the house shows, because of his expanded writing duties. Most of the Smackdown talent, some of whom had been going to him for months with their complaints and frustrations, were very happy with the move. In Tulsa, Heyman was telling everyone who came up to him that he's just one voice of many. PPV lineup for 9/12 in Portland: Randy Orton vs. HHH for world title, Shawn Michaels vs. Kane, Chris Jericho vs. Christian in a ladder match for the vacant IC title, Ric Flair & Batista vs. Chris Benoit & William Regal, La Resistance vs. Rhyno & Tajiri for tag titles and Trish Stratus vs. Victoria for women's title. This build-up for this show and storylines have been, with the exception of the main event, (which has had well thought out angles, only it was rushed and the wrong guy turned, and nobody cares about Orton as a face at this point), as bad as any this company has done for a PPV in recent memory. The entire Diva Search from San Francisco was edited off the show that was sent internationally. The company responded to complaints about the San Francisco segment by stating what happened was unscripted and they apologized for it. The plan right now for the main Smackdown programs are JBL vs. The Undertaker, Big Show (returning as a babyface, which, considering how the angle originally went down, makes no sense) vs. Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero vs. Luther Reigns, John Cena vs. Booker T and Rey Mysterio vs. Spike Dudley. Vikings coach Mike Tice said Brock Lesnar probably wouldn't be put on the team's practice squad, but he said he could see Lesnar playing on the Vikings some time this season if another team doesn't sign him. "He's a lot better than we thought. We didn't think he'd be able to pick it up so quickly. He showed us that he was going to have the right work ethic and the right attention to detail." The Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League put Lesnar on their negotiation list. The CFL season is already underway, and Lesnar has never really looked toward the CFL as a possibility. The CFL average salary is $50,000 per year Canadian. Ivory on the Diva Search contest: "The RAW Divas are in a bad spot right now. It seems like as hard as we work to bring integrity and interest into the Women's Division, the WWE creative team, or whoever the mystery people are who make rotten decisions in storylines, etc., work against us. The Diva Search is unentertaining, unimaginative, and a total waste of what each of the contestants could probably bring to our programming. Instead of a contest/reality show, WWE is giving us Jackass meets Top Model! Wouldn't these girls be better off just saving face and getting naked for Playboy? At least they could be bunnies with attitude instead of dumb divas. What, I'll probably be invited back to the ring to put over the new diva as a real ‘ring technician’!” If you recall, when Steve Austin spoke his mind like that, the next week he was scheduled to do a TV job that made zero business sense for Brock Lesnar. And this was Steve Austin they were punishing. Reminder to all WWE wrestlers who aren't HHH or The Undertaker: Complain to your friends who don't brag on the internet about being your friends. But in public, everything on the show is great, and if you can't bring yourself to say it if you don't believe it, then avoid the subject. History shows this can be a very vindictive place, and if it can be when you are Austin or Roddy Piper, it certainly can be if you're anyone else except HHH or Undertaker. Lots of WWE talent at the Republican Convention got mainstream exposure, including Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, JBL, Big Show, Mark Henry, Ivory, and Linda McMahon. JBL even gave a well-received speech at the Republican Youth convention. Flair was on Neil Cavuto with Linda and started praising George W. Bush. Linda immediately brought up their voter registration drive was non-partisan, and claimed the WWE was split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. I guess she felt saying that was the right thing, but it has always appeared there are far more Republicans, but maybe that's just because JBL talks so much politics and because of the deal on the RAW the night before the 2000 election when they tried to sway the close election to Bush with Lawler going on-and-on negatively about Al Gore. A funny story regarding Smackdown your Vote from the Raw on 8/23 at the Pond in Anaheim: the League of Women Voters sent eight members to RAW to sit at a table at the main entrance with the idea of registering people to vote. With 9,000 paid, and probably another 1-2,000 more in the building, well, "It didn't work out especially well" reports Eleanor Fumanti, the chairwoman of the Orange County League and one of the volunteers. In all, they registered five voters. She said one man sat down next to them and said he was going to vote with his Smith & Wesson. After Survivor Series in Cleveland on 11/14, other future PPV dates are Armageddon on 12/12 in Atlanta (well, it’s really in Duluth, GA, but it’s so close to Atlanta they can get away with it, and “Atlanta, GA” sounds a lot more prestigious than “Duluth, GA”), the Raw PPV on 1/9/05 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Royal Rumble on 1/30/05 in Fresno, No Way Out on 2/20/05 in Pittsburgh and Mania on 4/3/05 in Los Angeles. Eddie Guerrero has an autobiography called "Cheating Death, Stealing Life," scheduled for a May 2005 release. William Regal's book "Walking a Golden Mile," ghostwritten by Neil Chandler of The Star is now scheduled to be released in March 2005. The preview for Regal's book talks about Darren Matthews taking on all comers in the Blackpool, England fair wrestling booth at the age of 15, and talked about him wrestling against Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki (not the Japanese wrestler), and Giant Haystacks (probably the three best known British wrestlers of the 70s and 80s), and how his life fell apart when he left for the U.S. It talked about how Regal nearly killed himself with drugs, and then suffered a heart attack in 2003 (this was years after he'd kicked his drug habit) but finally returned to wrestle this year. Other WWE releases scheduled are "Are We There Yet?" which will be a small book with a collection of travel stories from WWE wrestlers, like that plane trip deal with them landing in the Russian blizzard a few months back (think the May 2002 plane ride from Hell that got Mr. Perfect & Scott Hall fired will be featured?); and "WWE Confidential," based on the show coming out in April 2005. That's funny they did a book based on a canceled show. With the airports shut in Florida, the Tampa crew all had to head to Fort Myers and was flown into Wichita Falls for Raw on Vince McMahon's private plane. At the Sacramento tapings, Shane Roberts, who teamed with Tony Jones against the Bashams, is Mako'a the Hawaiian Warrior from UPW. Mike Kirkhart, who put over Luther Reigns on Velocity, is the real name of Marshall Knox from UPW. A correction from last week: Brock Lesnar played more than one play in the 49ers-Vikings preseason game. He was in a few plays in the fourth quarter, but made a tackle in the final play of the game. Porn star Jenna Jameson recently came out with an autobiography. She never acknowledges the brief period she worked for ECW and even briefer period with the WWF. She was an interviewer for ECW and was scheduled to be Val Venis’ valet, by recommendation of Vince Russo, when he debuted (they aired one pre-debut vignette with Jameson in it, rising from behind the bush Venis, wearing a purple helmet, was talking behind, implying that she was giving him oral sex), but Vince McMahon changed his mind and thought it would make it too trashy.. But she did rip on The Undertaker, who she claimed tried to hit on her in Las Vegas years ago and was very critical of him, saying he also threatened at the time to beat up her boyfriend. Tom Childress, the soap opera writer we talked about a month or two back, who was offered $200,000 per year for a writing job to handle, among other things, storyline continuity, ended up turning down the offer. There were family considerations, and he didn't want to move to Stamford. He also recognized, even if the company didn't, that he didn't know enough about wrestling. He also recognized that you really aren't writing for the audience, but writing for Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, and HHH. Lex Luger had a press release sent out where he was looking for independent bookings. In it, he talked about how he receives tons of phone calls from WWE about coming back and hinted at a return. Somehow I find that one very difficult to believe; probably because he's full of it. There was a new producer, Domenic Cotter, hired for TV who started this past week in an entry-level position. He has a background with MTV and VH-1 and Stephanie McMahon was said to be very high on him. He was introduced to talent at the shows this week but right now he's learning the way things are done. There were problems at a Ric Flair book signing in Dallas at a Borders the afternoon before the 9/5 house show. The deal was Flair would sign his book, as well as one other item, for everyone who bought a book (or brought their book and bought a $14 ticket). However, Flair was only signing books, and they were moving the line so fast you couldn't get photos with him. Later that night at the house show, Dave Hebner, who was with Flair, was asked and said that it was the managers' decision to have the line move as fast as possible. When asked the next day, the manager claimed what happened was someone brought items for Flair to sign and a book, then returned the book and asked for a refund. According to the manager, when Flair found out, he said he was only signing books. 8/23 Raw TV taping in Los Angeles drew 9,000 and 8/24 Smackdown TV taping in Fresno drew 4,100. 9/4 Raw in Beaumont drew 2,200 paying $74,000. 9/5 Raw in Dallas drew 3,600 paying $137,000. In Beaumont, main event was Randy Orton over HHH. HHH had his ribs taped up from Raw. It was the usual deal with a ref bump, and then Ric Flair and Batista did their run-in, but to no avail. Same finish as always with HHH going for the pedigree, but Orton reversing into an RKO for the pin. Good match as well. Chris Benoit beat Batista with the crossface, also said to be good. Kane pinned Shelton Benjamin, with Lita at ringside with Kane. Post match saw Lita hover over Benjamin and Kane grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the ring. The tag title was a three-way with La Resistance over Tyson Tomko & Christian and William Regal & Eugene. Flair pinned Maven with his feet on the ropes. They opened the show with a Flair promo, where he said he wasn't scheduled on the card, but he was in the mood to kick some ass and wanted an opponent, saying there wasn't a man whose ass he couldn't kick and a woman who he couldn't kiss. They teased it would be Val Venis, but it wound up being Maven, with Flair winning. They also did a new women's angle. They started with a dancing contest with Stacy Keibler and Molly Holly. Keibler did her regular dance while Molly danced like she was at a ballet recital. Of course, Keibler won the audience vote. Molly jumped her after, and it wound up with all the women involved. It turned into a six-way with Molly, Gail Kim, & Trish Stratus vs. Victoria, Nidia, & Keibler. Victoria used the widow's peak on Molly for the win. There was also interference by Tomko, which led to Steven Richards coming out in drag and superkicking Tomko. In Dallas, the show again began with a Ric Flair interview. He talked about how it was almost 22 years ago when he kicked Kerry Von Erich's ass in Dallas. I think the only Flair win over Kerry in Dallas would have been the famous Christmas 1982 match when Terry Gordy slammed the cage door on Kerry's head. They did the same women's deal. Flair this time pinned Shelton Benjamin with his feet on the ropes, which shows how quickly his star has fallen. Advice to young WWE wrestlers: Don't punch people's kneebraces and break your own hand. Reports were Flair tore down the house. Shawn Michaels worked his first match since the angle, and pinned Kane with a superkick in a short match. Eric Bischoff was there, selling the idea he had a broken foot from when Randy Orton dropped the sledge hammer on it. Bischoff announced Orton's punishment was he would have to defend the title against, which was already the pre-advertised main event. You know the story from there.

When all of them went on a curse fest.

Charges have been filed in the recent incident at a Cleveland, OH bar where Raw Diva wannabe Carmella DeCesare was accused of assaulting Kristin Hine, which is a misdemeanor crime. According to court documents that were released today, Hine asserts that DeCesare kicked her in the head and has filed for a temporary restraining order against her alleged assailant. The charges did not warrant that the police actively pursue her, but if she were to have been pulled over in a traffic stop, she would be arrested had she chosen not to turn herself in. She avoided that by turning herself in tonight. WUAB-TV in Cleveland showed video tonight of Carmella turning herself in to Cleveland Police on misdemeanor assault charges. Her lawyer told her to keep quiet - but apparently she didn't. They teased that they will have that interview tonight on WOIO-TV - their sister station at 11pm. credit: PWInsider

They should get "Raven's Mom" to be "Bischoff's Sister".

I have been going to Hooters for every PPV since Vengeance '03 and it's great. No cover charge, no age restrictions. Just eat food and watch WWE PPV for free. It's great.

Heh! Jerry McDevitt on the case.

Paul Heyman is in Wichita Falls, TX tonight for the WWE Raw taping as the newest member of the writing team. No further details are available, other than David Lagana remains the head writer for the Smackdown team and Brian Gewirtz remains head writer for Raw. credit: WrestlingObserver.com

"It's easy to go lowbrow. That's not where we're going with our product in general or this search. We'll be fighting our image for 50 years, because there's 50 years (of tradition) before us, and we understand that." - Kevin Dunn 7/8/04, in what was called, at the time, the most unintentionally hilarious line of the year. "Whore, you don't have any respect for the WWE. You don't know shit about wrestling. Having a cock in your mouth has nothing to do with wrestling, bitch" - Amy Weber, former bit actress on the aptly named TV show, "Son of the Beach." "We want someone we can put on a pedestal here, and who can represent the WWE in a classy, I wouldn't say sophisticated, but a classy, nice manner." - Kevin Dunn, 7/8/04, in what will probably win the most unintentionally hilarious line of the year. "Carmella, you talk a lot of shit but you've got a gap so wide you could drive a truck right through there, baby." - Joy Giovanni, setting a great example for mothers in the U.S., 8/30, in front of a Monday Night Raw crowd at the Cow Palace, which, if it had taken place between 1961 and 1975, would have been among the smallest wrestling crowd in the building over a 15 year period. "You know there's only two good things that ever came out of England, and Elizabeth Taylor's got both of them" - Ray Stevens, the second biggest draw in the history of wrestling at the Cow Palace, to British native Lord James Blears, prior to a 1972 tag team match against with British native Billy Robinson in Hawaii. "Carmella, you're a cum-guzzling gutter slut" - Christy Hemme, whose most notable credential is she played in the Lingerie Football League. Fortunately, cum guzzling didn’t make the team. I'm just waiting for this to get as stupid as the end of the XFL, when they took out TV commercials bragging about how bad their ratings were and making fun of their terrible attempts at angles. That was some of the most creatively stupid commercials ever, as ratings then plummeted to all-time network level lows after that promotion. The WWE Diva Search, an attempt to build up the Raw ratings through jumping onto the tail end of the reality TV craze, actually got heated up on 8/30 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Putting the hottest women they could find in bikinis for minutes on end during the wrestling show exploded in the company's face, as the segments were roundly booed by fans that paid good money, presumably to see wrestling. Even worse, to show how much people cared, and how well planned out this was, when it was first announced, the finals were supposed to be on 9/13 in Seattle. As it turned out, they will be on 9/20 in Tucson. The reason? Nobody did the math and realized when you eliminate one woman per week, how many weeks it takes. Worse, it wasn't until this past week when anyone noticed, and with the millions of fans the company has, it is mind-boggling that nobody cared enough. By the third week, a Diva Search segment lost 814,000 viewers, making it the single worst reacted to segment on WWE television all year. While The Rock saved the 8/23 version from being a ratings disaster, he couldn’t save the segment from being among the worst he'd ever participated in. It was already clear from 8/16 that Carmella DeCesare was the big heel of the group. WWE took advantage of this, knowing the hatred backstage for her, and knowing it would play out on the air by asking the contestants who they would want to eliminate, and all said her. Most had tabbed her as the winner before the contest even started, when she was presented the week before in a manner to where you could tell they considered her the star, since she was this year's Playboy Playmate of the Year. Clearly, the other women must have thought she was performing favors to get her preferential treatment, and worse, when she was clearly made the heel, she still wasn’t voted off. So it came down to having the women cut promos on each other on live television. The women were told the show was on a seven second delay in case they accidentally said bad words, which was basically telling them it was okay to swear. While many fans watching and many even in the company were unhappy with how low-rent the contest and the company came off, Vince McMahon was said to have loved it. Eric Bischoff would have as well. "Controversy equals Cash" has been disproved so many times in the past five years that it's not even funny, but I'm sure he still believes it. But with no new characters, and few good storylines, the business has to rely on something to get people talking. Whether the company has managed to manipulate the women into having the most realistic feud since Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were played off of each other in 1996 and 1997, resulting in a legendary feud and few matches, or lucked into it, it's now there. Weber, DeCesare, Hemme, and Giovanni are the final four. People know who they are now. Unfortunately, they have no respect for any of them. They are women with hot bodies, all of whom have shown to be totally devoid of personality. Three of the four have shown little to offer except doing stripper gyrations, and the fourth comes off as being embarrassed to have lowered herself to being there. But to show how bad the written part of the show was, the unscripted part turned into the most heated segment of the show. For the live crowd, none of the words were bleeped. On television, some of the crassness was censored. At least enough that there was no noticeable heat on WWE the next day. And the irony of this segment coming minutes after showing Linda McMahon and company via satellite at the Republican Convention in Madison Square Garden makes one realize, for the second time, just how fortunate wrestling is that nobody cares about it. Imagine if someone saw reps of a company at the convention, or Republicans at the convention saw this, and stayed tuned, and saw Giovanni grab and squeeze Weber's new breasts, and said, "Hmm, a little too firm for my tastes (and yes, that really happened exactly as described)." Maybe the final will pop a rating, like the finals of “Tough Enough" did every year. Or maybe the final will be like the XFL championship game, an idea that went out with a whimper after its blustery beginnings, and set the wrestling company on a downward spiral it has yet to fully recover from. In a few weeks, one of these women will be in the company, and likely appearing as a deer in the headlights when asked to do angles, and have to live through ribs from jealous men and women who have spent years trying to learn how to wrestle, and will never make $250,000 per year at this job. Perhaps she'll survive. More likely, she’ll become the answer to the trivia question, like what team won the Big Game at the End (yes, that was really what the XFL called their championship game), or who placed in the World Bodybuilding Federation PPV that nobody bought. But one thing is for sure. WWE will be fighting its image for the next 50 years. And probably still blame the promoters of the 1970s for it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The preliminary indications for SummerSlam on 8/15 are 375,000 buys (0.69 buy rate). The general rule of thumb of late is that the first announced figure usually grows by about 10%, so it'll probably wind up in the 415,000 buy range. The show was headlined by Randy Orton's title win over Chris Benoit and a JBL vs. Undertaker match. Given the current climate, I can't say that's good or bad, because it's exactly where I figured it would be. For comparison, last year's show did 458,000 buys (0.88 buy rate) headlined by the elimination chamber match with HHH, Bill Goldberg, Orton, Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels, and Chris Jericho, as well as a Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar Smackdown title match. The difference in the two buy rates looks to be more the stronger main events on the 2003 version than a sign interest in buying PPVs is down by a substantial degree, although it is down slightly from last year since Mania. It will likely be the third biggest show of the year, as has been the recent tradition, trailing Royal Rumble (570,000 buys) and WrestleMania (885,000). From a buy rate standpoint, it would be the second lowest SummerSlam in history, beating only the 1996 version, headlined by Shawn Michaels vs. Vader, at 0.58. Depending on late recorded buys, it may also beat out the 1997 version, which was a famous show where Bret Hart beat Undertaker when Shawn Michaels accidentally hit Undertaker in the head with a chair, and the Steve Austin vs. Owen Hart match where Austin got his neck destroyed by the botched tombstone, which did a 0.80. It should be noted that all PPV evens have seen buy rates fall as the number of homes increased, and with the exception of the first year or two, and the post-boom period, total buys of 375,000 for SummerSlam, particularly factoring in $34.95 as the price, would be well ahead of most of the shows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the big success of the tour over the weekend in Australia, there are plans to do both Raw and Smackdown in Australia in April 2005. With Brock Lesnar having been cut and now no longer expected to make the practice squad, there has been talk of him returning. The big question is probably Lesnar's financial situation. Lesnar made a lot of money in pro wrestling, but also spent a lot. With Rena Mero no longer having a guaranteed income since WWE dropped her, there is some question whether he’ll financially be able to wait for the NFL Europe season to start and try and make the grade there. If Lesnar waits for NFL Europe, which is what his agent was telling people he would do after he was cut, the odds are he would once again attempt to make a team next season, and be a far more experienced player. If not, he would really have no option to make money athletically, other than WWE. It is believed the terms of his release are that he couldn’t sign with another pro wrestling or MMA organization until late March of 2005. Lesnar himself has talked about either going back to WWE, or signing an MMA contract, if football doesn't work out, but he knew going in this wasn’t going to be a few month process, having talked with Steven Neal, and at best it would be two or three years before he could play at NFL level, which is why his age was such a significant factor, as Neal was several years younger when he started down the same path. Lesnar had talked about K-l or Pride, but it's in his best interest not to go in that direction. There have been no talks with Lesnar and UFC, but UFC would be very interested if Lesnar was available next year, unlike with Sean O’Haire, who UFC turned down. Lesnar was thought of as a publicity stunt by the Vikings players when he was signed, but earned everyone's respect with how hard he trained, but he simply couldn’t overcome the learning curve. Lesnar was friends with many of the players beforehand, and didn't come in with a star attitude. In a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article by Mark Craig, it said after learning quickly at first, his progress leveled off, and he'd continue to make mistakes. He needs more training time, but with the season approaching, the team had to concentrate on getting the players who will be on the team this year ready. Lesnar knew several days ahead of time that he would be cut, and it's now considered doubtful he’ll make the practice squad. Vikings coach Mike Tice hasn’t closed the door on it, saying Lesnar has a chance to make the practice squad depending on how injuries play out the next few weeks. "We really like Brock Lesnar," he said. "He's done everything we've asked him to do. He's a great young man. Nobody on our staff thought he would come this far so quickly. It would be great to work with a young man like that for a year, and possibly send him to NFL Europe to see if he can play at this level with any consistency." Lesnar's agent, Ed Hitchcock, said Lesnar would continue to pursue football until all his opportunities were exhausted. That would probably mean an attempt to play NFL Europe. The wear and tear on his body from pro wrestling, as well as him never fully recovering from his April motorcycle accident worked against him. "My body's not real good right now," Lesnar said in the Star-Tribune. "But what the heck? For now, I'm living the NFL experience. Who else like me did what I did this summer?" Lesnar got in for one play, the final play of the game, in the 8/27 Vikings win over the San Francisco 49ers at the Metrodome, before 63,960 fans, and made the tackle on running back Jason Wright, which got a big reaction from the crowd. On the TV broadcast of the game, they talked about Lesnar and even aired clips of him wrestling from Smackdown. Edge suffered a legit ruptured groin on the 8/28 show in Salt Lake City. He was wrestling Chris Jericho, and two minutes into the match, took a bump out of the ring, and he knew he had screwed up, but thought it was his hip. They gave the "X" sign (which 80% of the time is a work nowadays) and the refs and trainer came out. After several minutes, they ruled the match a count out win for Jericho. They called for a stretcher, but he refused it and limped out with help to the back. He was in tremendous pain that night. He did appear on television, on crutches, doing an angle that largely changed Jericho's program from him to Christian, and kind of explaining his absence. He's expected out four to six weeks. He'd had one hell of a lot of bad luck, as after missing more than a year with a broken neck, right after he'd had the best matches of his career (he himself would admit the two were related and has talked publicly about how the style needs to be toned town), he came back and suffered both a foot injury and a broken hand, before coming back, having great matches with Randy Orton and Jericho, and this injury popped up. Unforgiven on 9/12 in Portland has announced Randy Orton vs. HHH for the world title, Kane vs. Shawn Michaels, and William Regal & Chris Benoit vs. Ric Flair & Batista as the top matches. Almost surely Jericho vs. Christian will be added. La Resistance vs. Rhyno & Tajiri was announced last week, but not this week. The last word I got is that even though Tajiri suffered a knee injury and wasn’t able to work all weekend (he was at all the shows, including TV, but they did a deal where he was jumped before the match so he didn't have to work), they were still going to do that match, but it could change. The Undertaker was limping badly by the end of the Australian tour, and appeared he had a bad left ankle. Eddie Guerrero was also noticeably banged up, although really both have been working for a while with lots of nagging injuries. Some updated notes on The Rock: He's leaving for Prague in about a month for filming of his next movie, "Doom," which is in pre-production. "Spy Hunter" is scheduled for March filming, which may provide a conflict with Mania. His recent trip to Samoa, which had been a dream of his mother's for him to return to the birthplace of his grandparents, saw him and his mother (Ata Johnson, the daughter of Peter Maivia) cry every day (with joy) they were there because of how he was treated. He was made an official High Chief by Samoa's Head of State, Malietoa Tanumaflli II. His Chief title is Seiuli, which means "Son of Malietoa," and his Samoan name is Seiuli Kuegi. It was a huge ceremony with everyone really emotional. It had been talked about for several years of making him a chief, both because of the bloodlines on his grandmother’s side and because of his grandfather. On his grandmother's side, Rock is a descendent of The Malietoa, an ancient King of Samoa. His grandfather's Chief title was given to him by other family chiefs, because of his wrestling stardom, as in the early 70s, when Roy Shire's Big-Time Wrestling aired on television in Samoa, where Peter Maivia was one of the biggest stars. This was at a time when there were no major Samoan celebrities outside the island, and before so many Samoan athletes came to the U.S. and excelled in football, as everyone in those days watched wrestling. Dwayne, on the other hand, has the lineage from his grandmother's side of the family. It was said that on his last full day in Samoa, Johnson's public appearance in front of he government building in Apia was the largest crowd ever to be assembled in Apia (estimated at 50,000 people) chanting his name as he attempted to do his wrestling catch phrases in Samoan. The newspaper in Apia called him "the most popular person ever to set foot in Samoa" and "undoubtedly the most famous Samoan of all-time." The Ric Flair book will be No. 18 on the New York Times bestseller list for 9/5. WEEI Sports Radio in Boston reported that Steven Neal, the 1999 NCAA heavyweight champion, was considering WWE. Neal, who beat Brock Lesnar in the finals that year, and was Lesnar's role model and friend, since he also didn't play college football, but after working for several years, ended up as a starter (for only a few games) with the Patriots before a shoulder injury kept him out of action last season. The major difference is Neal, 28, was a few years younger than Lesnar when he went out for the NFL. WWE has had no talks with Neal, at least of when the story broke, but would be interested in him if he showed interest. Matt Hardy's knee surgery on 8/26 was said to have gone great, and he was out of the hospital the next day. They had to repair both his ACL and MCL. He started physical therapy in Pinehurst, NC, on 8/30. Preliminary guesses are about four to six months out of action. The Kane horror movie they are producing is currently titled, "Eye Scream Man." The dress code fine system, which is a big item among a lot of wrestlers, is a $500 fine for the first offense, a $1,000 fine for a second offense and a suspension for a third offense. There have been several first-timers already, including some top stars. The reason the Mid-South Wrestling collection hasn’t been purchased by WWE is because Ene Watts asked $1 million, and WWE wasn't going to go anywhere close to that league for the rights. I think the feeling now is with the AWA, SMW, WCW, and ECW libraries, plus a relationship to get New Japan footage if needed, they have more footage than they'll ever need and aren't going to spend a ton for anything else. In the U.K. on 10/19 they are going to air a special Sky Sports 1 Raw special on Tuesday that week instead of the usual Thursday, and then air the PPV live, immediately following Raw, so everything is in storyline order. This week's Carmella DeCesare story is she got into an altercation on 8/20 at Tramp's Night Club in Cleveland. According to a police report filed by 32-year-old Christin Hine, late that night, the two started arguing about Jeff Garcia (the Cleveland Brown's QB that DeCesare is dating). Hine told police DeCesare slapped her, verbally abused her, screamed, "I'm going to kill you," and kicked her in the head, before bouncers and others pulled them apart. Hine wasn’t injured and no charges were filed. However, this made news because Jennifer Dobson, a local TV news producer, was in the club when this went on. She said DeCesare was the aggressor, started running up to Hine and shoved her, before they were pulled apart. The police report said DeCesare had found out about the woman, allegedly started calling her and leaving threatening messages on her answering machine. DeCesare's attorney told the local Ch. 19 that the story was a non-event, totally bogus, and denied the threats. Hine had not pressed charges. The 320-page book "Adam Copeland on Edge" is scheduled for an 11/2 release. Edge, like Mick Foley, wrote the book completely by himself without a ghostwriter. Some notes regarding the 1/9 Raw PPV show at the new 18,500-seat stadium in San Juan: It would be the first WWE show in Puerto Rico in about 20 years. WWE big talent has worked IWA shows and helped draw some big houses in the past when The Rock and Undertaker came, but WWE hasn’t sent talent to Puerto Rico ever since Tiger Ali Singh filed a lawsuit. They are going with tickets ranging from $200 down to $40 in a market where usual prices are $6 and $12 and big show prices are $15 ringside. However, as we've seen from the show in Monterrey, Mexico, WWE can charge high ticket prices and still draw in markets where the traditional wrestling price is low. It's a Raw show, so Carly Colon won't be on it, not that he'd really make any difference. Only about 20% of the island gets cable and Raw, since WWE has no broadcast TV. A far smaller percentage (only people with satellite dishes) gets Smackdown. IWA will be running a big show three days earlier in San Juan at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum. Puerto Rico is also similar to Mexico because it's all traditionally walk-up business, although a first-ever WWE PPV show may change that. If it doesn’t, they could be nervous going in with not so many tickets sold the day before, but still come out okay in the end. The plan from a few months ago of Mark Magnus & Jimmy Snuka Jr. as a heel Arab tag team is out the window. The debut was delayed because Snuka had a bad knee. Then, when Vince McMahon came to Louisville a few weeks ago, he decided he wanted Snuka as a single, so the idea looks to be Magnum & Shawn Daivari (which explains Daivari's signing and he's already in OVW) in the spot. Big Show appears on the fourth episode of the season on UPN's "Star Trek: Enterprise." I’ll bet he plays the role of a really huge dude that intimidates people before getting beaten up at the end. "Walking Tall" fell to No. 6 in Australia over the weekend with a total gross of $2,020,806. Raw TV tapings on 8/16 in London, ONT drew 6,800 and Smackdown tapings on 8/17 in Hamilton, ONT drew 3,500. We didn’t get business notes on the Smackdown Australia tour, other than all three shows were sold out at huge ticket prices and merchandise business was tremendous. The crowds were about 10,500 on 8/27 in Sydney, 7,000 on 8/28 in Brisbane and 6,500 on 8/29 in Melbourne. The tour was called "Return of the Deadman," but nobody seems to remember Undertaker ever working in Australia previously. We didn’t get numbers for the weekend on the domestic Raw shows but estimates we got were 3,500 on 8/27 in Colorado Springs, 2,500 on 8/28 in Salt Lake City, and 2,500 for 8/29 in Stockton.

Heh, I remember wanting to order the WBF pay-per-view under the sole idea that, since they said he'd be there, the Ultimate Warrior would get harassed again by Papa Shango.

The Al Wilson shit was specifically written and produced by Vince McMahon because it personally entertained him. Meltzer said Heyman and McMahon clashed creatively a lot over the Al Wilsom stuff, which probably was a factor in his being removed as Smackdown head writer in January 2003.

They got into a fight backstage at the 2003 Royal Rumble and both of them were suspended for a week. Heyman was double punished by being removed as Smackdown head writer.

I personally don't give a shit who is what. Politics suck. And JBL sucks.

The story I heard was that the Titans jumping the rail was not planned.

I think it's funny he went from feuding with Robert Conway to Triple H in a matter of three weeks.

Hey, another Benoit-worshipper on the internet who thinks pro wrestling has a conspiracy against him. Just like when he was champ.

Ditto Lance Storm.

christ, was that match really THAT bad?! For a world title match, yes. huh, i'll have to track this match down...i never seen a match so bad that the audience vomited in unison. yeah, but this is just scary. what happens when his opponent fucks up a spot and he loses it and takes the guy's fuckin' head off? this guy seems like a time bomb, and not the cool "ohh, what's this guy gonna do next" Brian Pillman kinda time bomb either. I'm sure some wacky Japanese wrestling fed has done it before.

Even with the core business hitting recent record lows in July, due to the popularity of DVDs, an added PPV show, and strong international business, World Wrestling Entertainment as a business posted a $7,646,000 profit on total revenue of $81,551,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2004-05 (May through July). The numbers were well ahead of the same period last year, which was $74,675,000 in revenue and $2,585,000 in profits. It should be noted that of that profit for the quarter, approximately $4.2 million will be paid out in upcoming weeks in stockholders dividends, totally $2,862,820 to Vince McMahon in particular. As noted many times, due to cost-cutting and increases in non-core business, they are very profitable, but the major revenue sources all dropped significantly over the past three months, as has overall popularity. At the 8/23 company quarterly conference call, Linda McMahon talked more about non-core business, in particular rolling out of the 24/7 and taking advantage of the tape library, as well as merchandise. She noted that the company had signed a five-year extension of its current contact with B Sky B in the United Kingdom. She pushed the upcoming DVD releases for Eddie Guerrero (the UPN TV special from a few months back, which was excellent, along with a collection of his matches from AAA, ECW, WCW, WWE, and even an AWA match teaming with his brothers Chavo & Mondo from very early in his career) and the Rise and Fall of ECW. The latter video has been very controversial, because reports were they were very much encouraging people to bury Paul Heyman (not that some people wouldn't need encouragement to do so), which is their own employee. She pushed the idea of merchandising opportunities for older wrestlers when the new station is rolled out, saying the Jakks Pacific release recently of nostalgic wrestling action figures turned out to be a big hit. She also pushed two movies, which she didn't specify, that would be filmed over the next few months. The total budget for the two movies is $20 million. The first movie, currently in pre-production in Australia, will be the vehicle for John Cena, and will be the shot starting in probably a month or so. The second will either be a vehicle for HHH or Kane. 2001 Century Fox will distribute one and Lions Gate will distribute the other. That will start filming not all that much later. This seems to indicate Cena would end up losing the best-of-five series, since afterwards, he's going to be unavailable for TV and house shows for a month or more. She also said the 10/19 "Taboo Tuesday" Raw PPV will have fans vote on the web site for matches that they want to see, and it will be promoted heavily the night before on Raw. She talked about expansion of the developmental system, something that has been talked about for a long time. She also noted that even with the ratings being flat, they've been able to increase the ad rates for the fall season, and the company's major sponsors, like Nike, Burger King, and Sony, have signed on for the next year. The big successes out of the ring have been the WrestleMania 20 DVD, which sold 180,000 copies, the Ric Flair DVD, which sold more than 120,000 copies, the Chris Benoit DVD, which has already sold more than 65,000 copies, and the Flair autobiography. She noted the "Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain" video game has sold more than two million copies. The negative, more than anything else, is North American house show attendance. The company was down to a 3,800 per event average in North America and a $140,600 average gate (this includes the higher gates of the PPV events factored in). This is a drop from a $154,000 average gate in the prior quarter. However, the ten overseas shows for the quarter averaged 9,300 and $670,000, and even with the increase in expense of touring, are far more profitable than domestic shows. The diva search, pushed three months ago as an idea to drive Raw ratings, was not even brought up. While the conference usually compares revenues in various categories with the same-period last year, we like to compare to the prior quarter, to see if the current direction is positive or not, as in this business, one year is an eternity. Of course, that is unfair this time out because the WrestleMania and Royal Rumble quarter is always the biggest because of the revenue from those shows. A big part of the increase this quarter over last had to do with WrestleMania, because the video of this year's event was far bigger than the previous year. In that regard, live event revenue dropped from $22.2 the prior quarter with 87 shows to $17.9 million this quarter with 89 shows (the same quarter last year was $18.1 million on 84 shows). This quarter had the four PPV events, which are bigger live gates, totaling $2 million. Last quarter, had three shows, but with WrestleMania and Royal Rumble, they totaled $3.93 million, so factoring those out and you have house show numbers at of $18.3 million falling to $15.9 million, a significant 13.1% drop, even while running two more shows. In the last quarter, the company averaged a $72 ticket price for overseas events as compared to a $37 average ticket price in North America. Of course PPV is down from that quarter as well, but that is to be expected. The four shows at this point have Judgment Day at 220,000 buys (0.41), Bad Blood at 264,000 (0.49), Great American Bash at 233,000 (0.43), and Vengeance at 232,000 (0.43). Television ad revenues showed a significant drop from $13.6 million to $10.6 million. Television rights fees also dropped form $20.9 million to $19.8 million, so total TV revenue was down 11.9% from the prior quarter. The average Raw rating dropped from 3.9 to 3.7. The average Smackdown rating dropped from 3.3 to 3.1. Home video revenue dropped from $11.1 million to $5.7 million, but the prior quarter had most of the sales of the Monday Night War and WrestleMania videos, as well as the later sales of the Flair video sales. The $5.7 million, with the major titles being later sales of WrestleMania and the Benoit video, was an 128% increase over the $2.5 million from the same quarter last year, but all video business is way up due to increases in DVD sales. Licensing revenues dropped from $3.7 million last quarter to $3.3 million this quarter. The company currently has $343,061,000 in assets and $68,123,000 in liabilities for about $275 million in cash on hand. That is up from $265.6 million three months ago. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The executive officers of the company, besides Vince McMahon (Chairman of the Board) and Linda McMahon (Chief Executive Officer), are Phil Livingston (Chief Financial Officer), Ed Cohen (Executive Vice President Booking & Live Events), Kevin Dunn (Executive Vice President TV production), Donna Goldsmith (Senior Vice President, Consumer Products), Ed Kaufman (Executive Vice President General Counsel), Shane McMahon (Executive Vice President Global Media), Jim Ross (Executive Vice President Business Strategies), James Rothschild (Senior Vice President North American sales), Kurt Schneider (Executive Vice President Marketing), and Frank Serpe (Senior Vice President Finance). As noted last week Vince earned $1,085,000 in straight salary and another $1,085,000 in bonus. He also earned $882,279 in other annual compensation, mostly from his $850,000 downside guarantee in his talent contract. His total income of $3,052,279 was up from $1,940,500 last year and $1,929,965 in 2002. That doesn't include his family's $11,451,279 that they are on target to earn in dividends this coming year (he did not earn that much last year; I believe last year's total would have been $8.5 million). Linda McMahon earned $750,000 in salary, another $750,000 in bonuses and $29,933 in talent fees. That $1,529,933 is up from $755,500 last year and $763,350 the year before. Kevin Dunn earned $517,692 in salary and another $300,000 in bonuses, plus with stock options and other compensation, his total earnings for the year were $1,286,337, up from $543,417 last year. Phil Livingston earned $385,000 in straight salary and $260,000 in bonuses. His total income was $740,503. James Rothschild earned $365,500 in salary and $675,866 in bonuses this past year. All totaled, he earned $1,379,181, up from $781,100 last year. Vince's $1,085,000 per year contract expires on October 14, 2006. Linda's $750,000 per year contract expires on October 14, 2003, but there is an option through 2005. Vince's $850,000 wrestler contract also expires in late 2006. Both get bonuses amounting to their annual salary based on performance goals, which a certain profit level (that they topped last year). For next year, they get the bonuses if EBITDA tops $69 million for the year. Have I noted of late that the entire budget for the developmental system has remained at $500,000? Raw in the U.K. is moving from Friday night at 10pm to Thursday night at 9pm starting on 9/2. This new time slot puts it head-to-head with the FWA show on The Wrestling Channel. There will also be a repeat on Friday night at midnight. They had three different ads, one with Edge, Chris Benoit, and Randy Orton each, telling viewers about the change. Raw has been on Friday nights in the U.K. for nearly nine years. It actually started in the U.K. in September 1995, at 5pm on Thursday. In November 1995, it was moved to Friday at 5pm. In August 1996, due to some viewer complaints about the product, mainly about the Goldust character's actions, it was moved to 10pm. Wrestling has been a Friday night tradition on Sky since 1989, which was the inception of the channel. It was first WWF Superstars of Wrestling, then WWF Mania, before Raw. For the New York Times bestseller list for 8/29, Ric Flair's book is expected to be either No. 17 or No. 18, so its time at the top is over. This past week, it was No. 10 on the Canadian Globe & Mail list. The first Randy Orton vs. HHH match won't be at WrestleMania 21, but instead takes place in two weeks, on the 9/12 Unforgiven main event in Portland. The Rock's appearance on Raw was known in advance. Why the company never promotes Rock's appearances is just mind-boggling. It is said about half the crowd knew Rock was appearing because a lot of people saw him arrive at the building, and the word got around the building fast. Steve Austin was in Anaheim, since he lives in Los Angles now, for the Raw show and met with Vince McMahon. Nobody in the audience knew it, but he must have gotten a kick out of all the "What" chants in a show that had far too much boring talk. Sean Waltman also met with Vince at the show. Some notes on Amy Weber. She's from Lake Weir, FL, originally, near Ocala. She was voted one of the 100 sexiest women alive by the readers of Maxim magazine, where she's done a lot of bikini modeling and some covers. She was a star in track and cross country in high school, as well as on the debate team. She's done 19 feature films. She said the reason she entered was because a friend of hers brought up WWE was offering $250,000 in a Diva Search and was she interested. Her friend then told her she was so above doing something like that. She said it got her mad, so she entered. That story does sound like a Zach Gowen story, doesn't it? She's done a lot of TV, most notably on the Howard Stern show, "Son of the Beach." She's also working on two books and wants to cut an R&B album. Weber has said she's not opposed to training to become a wrestler, but would rather have a role like Stacy Keibler. The winner of the Diva Search is bound to WWE for a one-year contract. Supposedly, after what happened on Monday, Carmella DeCesare threatened to kick her ass backstage. Also, according to Weber, their team did one rehearsal of Diva Dodge Ball before the thing aired. She claimed they worked the existing women, pretending to be klutzes so they could surprise them in tapings. Actually, Michelle, who got dumped the next day, was a total ringer. Real name Michelle McCool Alexander, the tall blond girl from Palatka, FL was a former county athlete of the year in volleyball. She was the only contestant of the ten who was not a professional model, as she's a 24-year-old local school teacher. Her biggest thrill was meeting Ric Flair, as she was a fan as a kid. She also put over Trish Stratus, Nidia, Chris Jericho, and Rhyno as being very nice to her. She was also told that even though she was dumped, she "might" be called back. The scheduled 8/23 Smackdown brand house show in Richmond, CA was canceled due to low ticket sales. Brock Lesnar got hazed on 8/18, at the final day of the Vikings camp in Mankato, MN. After the last practice, when everyone leaves the field, nobody left. Lesnar figured out in a hurry that he was not the predator, but the prey, and took off as fast as he could, and apparently it was really fast. He was still run down by running back Larry Ned. The rest of the team held him down, while Kelly Campbell was doing pro wrestling moves on him. He had his ankles taped together and was doused with water. That's actually a good sign, because it means the team considers him a real player as opposed to a publicity stunt. The Vikings are already merchandising a Lesnar #69 jersey. It's true: Edge, Eddie Guerrero, and Undertaker were unhappy with the crowd reactions to them in Toronto. You could see it in Undertaker's face. Edge had called friends after the show and was really hurt he was booed by Toronto fans. An interesting irony in Undertaker vs. JBL in Toronto and Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg in MSG: in both cases, they were pretty much the same thing. Well, a little different, as in MSG, the chants started immediately and the people didn't give them a chance. In Toronto, it took a few minutes before they turned on the match. In Boston, with the HHH vs. Scott Steiner match, the crowd turned on the match in the first minute when they puked at Steiner's offense. In Toronto and MSG, I got a lot of response from people who thought the crowd was disrespectful. I thought they were in MSG because they turned on them before they started. In Boston, almost nobody said the crowd was disrespectful. Internally, I never heard anyone say the MSG crowd was disrespectful, because a lot of the people were mad at Goldberg and Lesnar and thought they deserved it. Internally, a lot of people were mad at the Toronto crowd, since Undertaker and JBL are office favorites. When Goldberg and Lesnar were mad about the crowd reactions, they were crybabies. When Undertaker was mad, it was the crowd's fault. In MSG, Shane McMahon, an Executive Vice President, was chanting "You Sold Out" from his ringside seat. In Toronto, I wonder what Shane McMahon's reaction was when the crowd regurgitated on his Smackdown brand champion? Some more on JBL in Germany from someone at the show: there is no question what he did was against German law and there were many people offended at the show. But outside the people in the arena, nobody in Germany cared. The incident wasn't covered in any major media in the country. JBL's claim that the media in Germany backed him is incorrect, nor would it be correct to say the media opposed him. It was a non-story by the major media. The only thing he can point to is an article in a small right-wing activist newspaper which mentioned his case, never defended what he did, but did question whether the law should still be on the books. The 8/12 episode of Smackdown was the third most-watched English language show among U.S. Hispanic viewers, getting a 5.9 Hispanic rating, more than double the national average on the lowest rated non-Holiday Smackdown in history. It trailed the opening ceremonies (7.5) and 8/15 prime time airing of the Olympics (7.5 and 7.2), but it beat out the 8/14 Olympics on NBC, which did a 5.1. Currently, 9.8% of the U.S. homes fall under the category of Hispanic homes. Another way of looking at it is this: Smackdown among homes where English is the primary language did a 2.26 rating that night. Nunzio was off this weekend as well because his wife gave birth last week. Another reason suggested for the booing of Edge in Toronto was this. The day before SummerSlam, the wrestlers were at Ontario Place in Toronto and Edge was supposed to be at a press conference. Fans were led to believe he had no-showed, plus there was an autograph session he showed up 30 minutes late for with a lot of people in line waiting. On the other hand, Chris Jericho did a concert that same night in the same place and went out of his way to entertain the crowd. Kurt Angle is being told, besides to take fewer bumps, to use the Angle slam and ankle lock less frequently during matches. There is a feeling he is using those moves too often at house shows when they aren't the finish. Again, having not seen the finished product and the preceding product, I don't know, but when changes are made for "safe" moves like the ankle lock that are used less that make a match less exciting (being that Angle isn't going to win at house shows anyway), I think you fall into the category of overanalyzing matches that are getting over to begin with. Both Heidenreich and Rene Dupree had problems at weekend house shows. Heidenreich was frustrated with a match with Scotty 2 Hotty in Bakersfield (imagine if he'd been working with Bob Holly as was at one point scheduled for the weekend). He was mad about Scotty missing a spot during his comeback, but Heidenreich took the bump anyway and it looked like hell. Heidenreich got back up, and was hit with a dropkick, took a second bump, and got up fuming, not so much at Scotty but just that the spot was blown. He went crazy in the ring at first. Paul Heyman and ref Jimmy Korderas tried to calm him down, but he was screaming in front of people. Heyman pulled him backstage and again went to clam him down, but even after Heyman talked with him, he started tearing up backstage and punching himself in the head. Bubba Ray Dudley then went to him to calm him down, but he didn't listen, and started banging his head into lockers and ran screaming out the door into the parking lot, where he did calm down. He did come back, and talked with Heyman and Arn Anderson and he was okay by that point. There was heat on Rene Dupree for stinking up a match with Charlie Haas with too much stalling and comedy, and he did call the match. He was mad at being fined recently, plus, you don't have to be a genius to see his star falling fast, for reasons nobody really could answer. There was a spot Dupree was told not to do (I believe it was his French dance, which is his trademark spot, but they feel people now cheer when he does it so he shouldn't be doing it). Anyway, he did it anyway on a recent house show, and ended up being fined. When Vince McMahon asked at a meeting if Dupree had an attitude, and if you understand the way people react from a proclamation from God in that company, people are looking for examples to prove Vince was right. John Laurinatis is starting to get the heat that Jim Ross used to get that is natural for his position. He told everyone that, no exceptions, there is a $250 fine for being late and even more for dress code violations. You are supposed to wear nice slacks, nice shirt at all times while traveling, and believe me, there is a lot of heat on that one since many see this, and I can see the point of view, that they feel management is not addressing the real problems that has gotten the lack of popularity where it is, while they are worrying about unimportant things like what wrestlers are wearing on airplanes in the summer. It's the mentality from the past that if people see you dressed like a bum, they won't pay to see you. Mick Foley was on Air America Radio's morning show on 8/23 promoting the "Smackdown Your Vote" drive. He said The Rock was a Democrat with some conservative values, and he said he was as well. He made fun of George W. Bush. When the hosts brought up that the drive was supposed to have been non-partisan in 2000, but on the last night, Jerry Lawler went off big-time on Al Gore (there are people significantly high in the Democratic Party who felt that could have swayed the election, although with race that close, everything on both sides could have swayed it). Foley thought Lawler was really going off on Joe Lieberman because Lieberman was aligned at the time with the PTC, which was trying to get Smackdown taken off the air. Foley said Lieberman was guilty of not checking out people he was associated with like L. Brent Bozell, whom Foley called a pioneer of smear tactics. He said he was voting for John Kerry, and that other wrestlers have gone on record promoting Bush (Flair and JBL have, very strongly and publicly). Foley said he thinks George Bush was watching wrestling in 1998 and copied a lot from watching Austin, saying that's when his swagger came around. He also said wrestling was guilty of using xenophobia to sell tickets and he said he's been guilty in the past of using homophobia to get crowds to turn on certain wrestlers, and gave an example involving Kurt Angle. Foley claimed Billy & Chuck were positive gay role models (I'd argue that, because they were heels who turned babyface by saying they weren't gay). He said his next book, "Tales from Wrescal Lane," about WWE characters as children growing up living in the same block (a children's book that comes out in October, which will probably coincide with his return to television) will go to an education center in the Philippines. He concluded with this line: "I have a conversation in my mind, where a father is putting his son to bed, and we have 40 million people living below the poverty line, 30 million other people that low-wage labor is failing them, and his kid being put to bed says, 'Daddy, I'm hungry.' And there's no excuse for going to bed hungry in the land of plenty. And the father says,' Hey, that may be. But at least those two gay people you'll never meet in a city you'll never be in can't get married.' It just seems like our priorities are out of order." D-Von Dudley worked all weekend, but he's having problems with high blood pressure. Kendall Cross, who was a gold medalist on the 1996 U.S. Olympic wrestling team with Kurt Angle, was asked about Angle and amateur wrestling. Cross is the current Executive Director of the Dave Schultz Wrestling Foundation, which raises money for amateur wrestlers to train. He said, "Angle was one of us, and I think he still is. He contributes to the Schultz Foundation and was one of Dave's training partners. I can get him on the phone and pick up where we left off." As noted many times, there are still people in amateur wrestling, although the number is smaller than it was four years ago, who are still mad that Angle took the career path he did. Despite what is said publicly, it appears a significant percentage (I was told vast majority) of the Smackdown roster is dumfounded by the JBL push. There is a lot of feeling it's undeserved, and for whatever reason, Bruce Prichard gets the heat for it, even though it's obviously Vince McMahon's final call. Rey Mysterio, Mark Jindrak, and Johnny Stamboli were all fined for arriving late in Bakersfield. They were traveling together after spending the afternoon at Mysterio's home in Chula Vista, which is a good four hours away. "Walking Tall" opened at No. 2 last week in Australia with $1,356,443 in Australian money. It was considered a disappointment considering the amount of publicity the film has gotten, including The Rock coming to Australia to promote the movie. The Hurricane was back training in the gym this week, but his nose hasn't recovered from last week's surgery enough to return to the ring. Matt Cappotelli, Johnny Jeter, and Mark Magnus from OVW are booked on Raw brand house shows starting in a few weeks. The card given to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, ME for 10/1 listed Jeter vs. Christian (who is ready to come back and I guess they just haven't had the time to bring him back with all the time that the main acts and diva search takes up), Cappotelli vs. Tyson Tomko, and Magnus vs. The Hurricane. Magnus is interesting, because he hasn't even been on OVW in months. The idea was for Magnus & Jimmy Snuka, Jr. to debut with a big push as an Iraqi heel tag team, and given this, that may have been dropped. Jeter is very Ricky Morton-esque as a worker, in that he has a charisma that can get over, but only if he's pushed big from the start. The negative on him is he can't talk, and it is negative enough he needs someone to talk for him, as an act like that needs microphone time. Cappotelli has a great look. I don't see him tearing the house down with Tomko, and he's also not read on the microphone. Magnus is more than ready on the microphone, but not in the ring. They also look to be doing Randy Orton, Eugene, & Chris Benoit vs. Evolution main events at house shows. 8/9 Raw tapings in Cleveland drew 6,000. 8/10 Smackdown tapings in Detroit drew 6,600. 8/20 Raw house show in Bismark drew 1,900 and $65,000. 8/21 Raw in Fargo drew 1,500 and $53,000, and that was in the huge Fargo Dome, which holds like 30,000. 8/21 Smackdown in San Diego was the big success of the week (Smackdown in a Hispanic market), with 5,900 paying $195,000. It was said to have been the best walk-up crowd for any event in months, which again translates into the traditionally late-buying Hispanic audience, plus an incredible amount of last week promotion in the Latino community with Rey Mysterio. 8/22 Raw in Palm Springs drew 1,900 and $77,000. 8/22 Smackdown in Bakersfield drew 3,100 and $100,000, which was once again a big Hispanic walk-up and the second straight good Smackdown showing. In Bismark, they tried an experiment on the show as Dean Malenko ordered in the first half of the show he wanted no punches thrown and nobody leaving the ring.

Nice reference on the Malenko-leaving-the-ring thing. Souled Out 2000 weekend and the event itself will remain in all of our hearts as the beginning of the trainwreck that was WCW 2000.

The wrestlers were officially told about the change to monthly PPVs on 8/18, and the company sent out a press release the next day. The first of the monthly shows will be on 11/7. No location is finalized, but both Nashville and Fort Campbell, KY (a military base near Nashville) have been talked about, although the latter may not be available due to the war. Those inside are talking about perhaps doing as many as the first few Sunday PPVs from Nashville, before taking it on the road, but always using Nashville at least every third or fourth show after that. Wrestlers were told about it in different groups, I guess in case someone complained about the loss of income, it wouldn't spread as fast. The general consensus was the company was doing the right thing. The wrestlers were told that the TV's would be moved to Tuesdays, starting on 9/15, and they would try to start running Wednesday night house shows in Florida to help the wrestlers make up the lost income. It would be more financially prudent, as they'll learn, to simply pay the guys a weekly salary and try and work on sold shows, because doing house shows in this day and age, unless you don't pay the talent, is a money loser. Sources at Fox Sports Net have confirmed there is serious talk about moving the TV show to Sunday mornings once football season starts. The idea at this point seems to be to tape Xplosion as an upgraded one hour show along with Impact every Tuesday starting on 9/14. The battle plan now is to upgrade Xplosion with better matches and interviews, and attempt to get it syndicated into more markets. Because that means two hours of taping every Tuesday, the idea of cutting the tapings back to every other week as a cost-cutting measure isn't likely, at least at first. That would require four hours of taping at one sitting and that isn't going to work with a modern audience. Remember when WCW taped Thunder immediately after Nitro, and how desolate Thunder used to come across as? Vince Russo sent us a letter saying he's been off the creative team only for the past 3-4 weeks (the company had portrayed him as being off the creative team for much longer). He said until that time he used to go back to Tennessee after the Florida tapings and stay with Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel on Fridays, but hasn't done it in a while. He said he asked Jarrett to take him off creative. He said it's true he did do the D-Lo Brown bit a few weeks ago (when Brown did the interview that at this point seemed to have gone nowhere saying he didn't care about wrestling and only cared about his baby daughter). He said he's still producing segments on the show but not doing any writing, and he doesn't know the nature of the segments he's producing until he shows up at the building and gets his orders from Jarrett. He said his reasons for asking out are time constraints, as he still has a CD business in Atlanta, and has been working on seminary school by internet since May. He said there has never been any heat between himself and Jarrett, but that he comes from a different school than Jarrett and Mantel and he couldn't adjust to their writing style. He said there was no yelling, screaming, or arguing, and he's never complained to anyone about anything TNA has done or is doing to anyone (several who have heard this have strongly denied this being the case, although they say he doesn't make an issue of it in public). He said he has no desire anymore to write TV or book wrestling anymore, that his heart is a million miles from wrestling and he wants to start his own ministry so he can share his miraculous story with others. The talk among everyone is that Jeff Jarrett & Dutch Mantel as bookers don't want any of their ideas challenged, and aren't the best at listening to ideas from others, so most have shied away from even offering. There are complaints with the booking of Monty Brown. At first, a lot of guys were unhappy when top guys were jobbing for him, feeling he was being pushed when all he had going for him was his physique. Now, because he's getting over and showing charisma, the problem is he's being booked as a heel, but he's gotten so popular that it's hard for the babyfaces to work against him without coming off badly, so the feeling is he needs to turn. Brown's interviews come from his watching Discovery Channel and learning terminology. The situation with ROH getting use of A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels came down to another impasse. TNA demanded that Gabe Sapolsky apologize to them over how everything transpired, because TNA felt vindicated by the Rob Feinstein mess getting out. Sapolsky agreed to do that. They then demanded he also admit that he knew all along that Feinstein was still involved with ROH and profiting from the company. Being that, with the exception of the one meeting that took place after the ROH/TNA incident took place, there is no indication Feinstein was involved with ROH, and he certainly wasn't profiting from it since he wasn't on salary from it and the company was losing money, Sapolsky said that at the time he didn't know and wouldn't publicly say that. Glenn Gilberti, after losing the deal where he was fired, apparently called in to find out if and when he's going to be used, and got a "We'll call you when we need you" in return. David Sahadi has agreed to start working in production, which is a big coup, since his departure from WWE was considered a significant loss. He's won awards for some of the PPV commercials he's produced. Sahadi will be working on doing features and ideas to get guys over, similar to the stuff he did in WWE years back when the guys like the Hardys, Edge & Christian, and Val Venis were introduced. A funny story is that Universal released a promotional video, and one of the things it showed was Jimmy Hart recruiting fans from the park to come to the Impact tapings. They show a woman coming up to him to ask for information, and he tells her that Sting and Dusty Rhodes were going to be there, and he walked away. Add Johnny Swinger & Glenn Gilberti to Pat Kenney on the list of people who won't be around for a while because the company wants to repackage them. The ETA on all of their returns is next month, and different ideas have been talked about for Swinger & Gilberti. They were told this week to come in this coming week to be fitted for costumes for their new version of the NYC gimmick. Kid Kash may be back in hot water for comments he made in May on a video called "Holy Shoot" produced by BBrownVideo.com. He hinted about wrestlers trading sexual favors for pushes, saying, "All of a sudden there are a couple of guys that let guys blow them, and then they get title shots and they're making more money than you." He said he's working on getting a chiropractic degree and said TNA has a lot of young punks making lots of money who don't know how to get over, and said as far as he was concerned, he was working their just for the paycheck. He ripped on Bob Ryder having decision-making power. He hinted Ryder had put money into the company (I've never heard that other than unsubstantiated rumors) but that shouldn't give him the right to making booking decisions. He said he doesn't enjoy working for TNA, and specifically ripped on A.J. Styles, Chris Harris, and James Storm. He said the first time he talked to Styles, Styles gave him a list of moves not to do because they were Styles' moves, and Kash said Styles copied them all from Nova in the first place. He said Harris, if his match is cut, will screw up the time, just to get his spots in, and claimed there was spot with Quiet Storm and Harris where Storm wanted to do an elbow move and Harris didn't want it in the match because of the size difference, that Storm did it anyway and knocked him out with it, and started calling Harris a "tomcat." He put over Amazing Red and Trinity, said Jonny Fairplay was the biggest waste of TNA money since Lex Luger, and laughed about Luger and Buff Bagwell saying all the time they spent laughing at the younger wrestlers came back on them because now nobody wants to use them. Kash also said he didn't think TNA could succeed, even with television, and said everyone in WWE laughs at TNA.

I wonder if HHH will have any words for Batista or Flair next week for letting Orton cause Eugene to beat him.

Nowhere in that report did it say that they were going to make Xplosion a better show than Impact. Quit jumping to stupid conclusions.

FCC doesn't regulate basic cable.