Hunter's Torn Quad

Because of his current schedule, it's not thought likely he'll be at Mania, at least not to wrestle.

The plane crash involving NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol on 11/28, which killed his 14-year old son Teddy, and left him in serious condition, makes one realise that few people’s influence on the modern history of this business have been as underplayed as Ebersol’s. Ebersol, and wife Susan St. James (a famous actress in her day, whose lone pro wrestling appearance was doing color commentary on Wrestlemania II), who was not on the charter jet that crashed near Montrose, CO, were social friends of Vince and Linda McMahon in the 80’s. This led to two major business deals with almost totally opposite results. The first, “Saturday Night’s Main Event”, starting in 1985, brought pro wrestling to more viewers than anything in the history of the industry. The second, the short lived XFL, saw the two reach a deal that put NBC and WWF in partnership for the formation of a football league that lasted just one season, and was a debacle of monumental proportions. The league drew some of the lowest prime time ratings in the history of major network television, and lost approximately $120 million. It also led to the beginning of a slide in the popularity of WWF as a wrestling company, which continues today. St. James and the rest of the family were in the process of flying home to Connecticut on an 18-seat private jet from Los Angeles, where they watched the USC-Notre Dame football game. Their son, Charlie, who was on the flight, attends Notre Dame. Another son, Willie, who was not on the trip, attends USC. The plane landed in Montrose, CO, to let St. James off, while Ebersol, and the other sons, a pilot, co-pilot and flight attendant, flew first to South Bend, to drop off Charlie, and then were planning on going to Connecticut. The plan crashed and burned on takeoff after a snowstorm, although it was only lightly snowing at the time of the crash. A witness said the plane exploded while taking off. After two WWF television specials on MTV, one in 1984 and another in 1985 which shot the angle that led to the first Wrestlemania both based around Cyndi Lauper as a wrestling manager, drew two of the biggest ratings in the history of that network, Ebersol, one of the original architects of Saturday Night Live in the 70’s, and Executive Producer of the show at the time, put together a deal with McMahon. At the time, Saturday Night Live would do three live shows and one taped show each month. Ebersol, feeling wrestling was a hot pop culture thing to jump onto, envisioned a wrestling special in the repeat time slot. It never really wound up a monthly thing. There were six such specials in 1986; it’s first full year, and five in 1987. In all, NBC broadcast 29 specials in that time slot between May 11, 1985, and its final airing on April 27, 1991. The show, a combination of comedic sketches with wrestlers, and wrestling matches, ended up a winning formula for both sides. The debut show came on the heels of the first Wrestlemania, which may have been the most publicised of all the Manias due to Lauper and Mr T. The show was taped on May 10, 1985, from the Nassau Coliseum, featuring an appearance by Mr T, and a main event where Hulk Hogan pinned Bob Orton. It drew an 8.8 rating, better than Saturday Night averaged in the same time slot. All of the SNME specials were taped, sometimes as much as five weeks earlier. Unlike with Raw and Smackdown today, SNME usually featured matches that were non-program matches, ie bouts that didn’t duplicate what was being presented at house shows (which were considered far more important in those days), or PPV. Hogan would usually face someone who was considered not that the level of a main event heel, like Orton, Don Muraco, Hercules Hernandez and Nikolai Volkoff on the first two shows, someone who was a headliner but not who he was working a program with (like Terry Funk), or people like Paul Orndorff or Big Bossman, who he had huge programs with, but the blow-off matches at every arena had already taken place before the TV match aired. Ebersol got credit for putting together a new concept show that drew ratings. McMahon got the credibility and exposure of his stars appearing before far more fans that watched his syndicated and cable shows at the time. It was important because he was expanding into new markets where WWF didn’t have a history in, and because the usual top rated cable wrestling show during the period, the TBS shows from Atlanta, were controlled by rival Jim Crockett. Even though Crockett’s show outrated McMahon’s on cable as often as not, a large percentage of people who knew McMahon’s stars, including most of the media at the time, didn’t even know Crockett’s top stars. Others who did considered them second rate, since they weren’t on NBC. Among all the coups McMahon made in taking over wrestling in the late 80’s. the affiliation with Ebersol was one of the biggest. The show was a bona fide sensation when Hogan v Funk on January 14th 1986, drew a 10.4 rating, at the time the second largest rating in history of television in the 11:30pm Saturday night time slot. It was the beginning of a string of shows that topped the 9.0 mark. The March 1, 1986 show, taped in Phoenix, as a lead-in to that year’s Mania saw Mr T do a mock boxing match with Orton, and drew a 10.0 rating. The peak was leading up to Wrestlemania III, when a show two weeks before the big show, on March 14, 1987 from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit (taped three weeks earlier), headlined by a Battle Royal that featured Hogan and Andre, drew an 11.6 rating, which to this day remains the highest rating any show in that time slot as ever done. A January 27, 1990 special, building up the Hogan v Ultimate Warrior match, featuring Hogan and Warrior in a tag match against Mr Perfect and The Genius (Lanny Poffo), nearly equalled that mark, with an 11.1 rating. The success of those specials led to five prime time live main event specials on Friday nights that Ebersol and McMahon co-produced. The biggest was the first, on February 5, 1988, with the first nationally pushed Hogan v Andre rematch since Wrestlemania III. McMahon had secretly hired Crockett referee Earl Hebner, whose twin brother Dave had worked for him for a few years. Earl played the heel Hebner brother who counted Hogan’s shoulder down for three, even though Hogan had clearly kicked out, resulting in Andre getting the title. It ended a four-plus year run of Hogan as champion, and was monumental since much of the audience watching, having been brought into wrestling by WWF’s expansion, had never seen Hogan lose, and many had never seen anyone but Hogan with the title. Andre then gave the title to Ted DiBiase (actually, Andre screwed up his live speech, saying he was giving the tag team title to DiBiase), which was the main angle to set up a tournament for vacant title for Mania that year. The 15.2 rating for the show and 33 million viewers are both US all-time records for pro wrestling, and it’s very doubtful either number will ever be approached again. Ratings fell off slightly in 1990 for the specials, which were down to quarterly. The death knell came when a February 1, 1991, live Friday night main event special, headlined by Hogan and Tugboat (Fred Ottman) v Earthquake (John Tenta) and Dino Bravo, largely built around Hogan going to military bases and exploiting the ongoing Gulf War leading to a match with Sgt Slaughter, drew a 6.7 rating, a number considered horrible at the time, for a prime time network show. Ebersol, by this point, had been promoted to head of NBC Sports. NBC lost interest in wrestling, which was about to nosedive in popularity, although the final show under the contract, which aired on April 27, 1991, featuring Hogan in a Battle Royal, drew a respectable 7.7. After the network dropped WWE, FOX picked it up and even drew a good 8.2 rating for an early 1992 special with Hogan and Sid Justice v Ric Flair and Undertaker, but with the company swimming upstream of controversy and with its popularity down, plus Hogan taking a leave of absence, the final Saturday Night’s Main Event on Fox drew a 6.1 rating on October 27, 1992, with Warrior and Randy Savage v DiBiase and IRS in a tag title match as the main event. Not nearly as well known is that Ebersol was also responsible for my first major media break. In 1989, while Ebersol and McMahon were partners in their TV venture, Frank Deford was starting up a national daily sports newspaper, known simply as The National. It was owned by Emilio Azcarriga, one of the richest men in Mexico, a culture which, like Japan and many other countries, had several successful national all-sports papers. Trying to do something different, Deford made the decision to do a weekly pro wrestling column, which ended up being, based on what he would say in many interviews, the most popular column in the paper. Still, it was heavily criticized that in those days that a major newspaper would cover pro wrestling, an Deford was blasted by many, including, notably, Howard Cosell, for the decision. Deford was also social friends with Ebersol, who he knew was involved in wrestling, and asked him if he had any recommendations as to who should do the pro wrestling column he envisioned. For reasons nobody has ever explained, being that McMahon at the time used to call me “Public Enemy No 1,” his business partner (who secretly subscribed to The Observer for years using his secretary’s name) and friend told Deford there was only one person he should even consider, and said my name. The newspaper folded, piling up nearly XFL level losses, in the summer of 1991. The second high-profile affiliation between McMahon and Ebersol was in 2001, for the XFL. When McMahon came up with the idea a year earlier to compete with the NFL, producing a spring football league, the idea was scoffed at. Ebersol, who had made the decision to give up the rights to the NFL due to the fact that rights fees had gotten too high and it was a money loser (yet at the same time a huge prestige builder, as FOX overspent for NFL rights, and largely made its network a success because of the prestige and spin-off factor), called McMahon up and wanted to go in as partners on the venture. Although after the failure, some tried to spin this as a negative, it was anything but. If the XFL had opened with UPN and TNN, the other networks it got to sign on, nobody would have cared after the first week. With NBC, they at least got people to care, even if by the midpoint of the season, the venture had turned into a laughing stock. Before the league started, the WWF’s popularity was sky high. While they were a few months past their peak, few except the most ardent of fans recognized the slight dips as anything more than a small bump in the road. McMahon was at the time considered the great sports promoter of our time, with a Midas touch by many. Even though every attempts to start a new league over the past decades was a terrible failure, McMahon, who clearly had no long-term plan or idea what he was getting into, was lauded as having the secret to drawing teenagers, an audience most sports were losing. Ebersol gave him Saturday night prime time, which due to a number of reasons, had turned into the worst night of the week for television. The first week of the XFL was a huge ratings success, drawing a 9.49 rating. But ratings nosedived in week two, and by the fourth week, there was little question this was a failure of monumental proportions. It only lasted one season, and the company, and most say McMahon, have never fully recovered from the blow. ==== ==== ==== ==== Regarding the Bob Holly situation, the full details one the thing is when Rene Dupree was driving Holly’s rental car, and got the ticket, he never informed Holly there was a ticket, and Holly didn’t find out until he got a bench warrant where he had to fly into the city to clear things up. He was fined for punching Dupree’s eye, but not fired. As noted, there were wrestlers who went to bat for him, saying Dupree had it coming since Dupree was immature backstage. Aside from the fine, the punishment of putting Chris Masters over in a dark match at a TV taping was a total joke, when it’s considered punishment. The fine, reportedly $10,000, is pretty significant, if it is the real figure. Dupree lost face in the locker room, even it may have been a set-up situation and it was a suckerpunch deal, because of the fact he ran away. Holly in some circles is a hero in the Smackdown locker room, which speaks volumes of what people thought of Dupree, as he and Grenier are not well liked at all. The reaction we’ve heard is that after the fact, Dupree has been acting pretty much the same. There is a reality to young guys who achieve stardom quickly and make a lot of money that it, more often than not, goes to their head because they often aren’t grounded enough to handle it. Dupree should have been the exception, since he’s been around the business and working since he was around 14 or 15, but wasn’t. Still, it was time to cut the chord on Holly, although business politics are such as when Undertaker stands up for you, firing someone who did something popular with a lot of the wrestlers is a tough political move. Holly is no more valuable than the wrestlers who were let go, none of whom had his track record. In fact, in New Japan, when Akira Maeda did something similar, and he was 100 times the star Holly is, he was fired (well, he was told he had to tour Mexico to keep his job, which at the stage of his career and with his mindset, ended up meaning he was fired). When a guy’s rep for putting younger guys over gets to the point it’s almost a joke about a car wreck waiting to happen when he’s in with the new young heels who have to get over because they are being groomed for top spots, and we, before the matches, laugh about them (his house show program with Heidenreich and his PPV match with Mordecai come to mind) because we know he’s going to screw up the younger guys by not making them look strong, and it happens, and continues to happen, and nothing is done, and then this happens. I just don’t see a purpose in him being there. Mordecai lost his job over looking so bad in a PPV match with Holly, and Holly was the veteran whose job it should have been to get Mordecai over for Undertaker. Not that Mordecai deserved the push, but when you know something is going to screw up as soon as it’s booked, you know why and how, it happens like clockwork, and the young guy in over his head is let go instead of the veteran who is supposed to put him over strong and doesn’t, is something to think about. Interestingly, Holly and Dupree worked together the next night after the incident on the 11/22 house show in Elmira NY, with no problem. At this point, Armageddon on 12/12 in Atlanta has JBL v Undertaker v Booker v Guerrero for the WWE Title, Cena v Jesus for the US Title in a streetfight, Suzuki and Dupree v RVD and Mysterio for the tag titles, the two finalists from Tough Enough in a boxing match, Jackie v Dawn Marie (I’m guessing with Haas as ref), and they’d need at least a couple of more matches which at this point they aren’t even hinting at. Maybe Show v Reigns and Jindrak and a cruiserweight title bout At press time, “The Rise And Fall Of ECW” fell from No1 last week to No4 on the best selling sports DVD listings on Amazon.com (No267 overall). The next highest prow wrestling titles were Monday Night Wars at No55 and Wrestlemania XX at No64. Ric Flair’s “To Be The Man” was No19 on the best selling sports books, while Adam Copeland On Edge was No31 and Tributes II was No54 Carlito had arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder this past week in Puerto Rico and will be out two to four months. He was told he could have gone without surgery, but in doing so, would have risked needing reconstructive surgery, with another injury, which is a year and half on the shelf New Year’s Revolution isn’t the only PPV that will air on free TV in the UK. Six of the scheduled 14 events next year will air on free TV on Sky One, with the other eight airing as PPV events on Sky Box Office Sky in the UK announced its new schedule starting in 2005 headlined by, for the fist time ever, live coverage of Raw every Monday night at 2am, with a Wednesday night at 9pm replay. Smackdown will air on Fridays at 9:30pm and Saturdays at 10am and 11pm. Experience airs on Sundays at 11am, Velocity at Noon and 10pm, Heat at 1pm and 11pm, plus tons of replays of all those shows TSN’s Off The Record is interviewing HHH on 12/7. HHH was coming to Toronto on 12/1 to do it. It was scheduled as Orton, but some politics went down. OTR has had many newsworthy interviews with top wrestling personalities. Bret Hart is on 12/13, but that will be part of a panel discussion. I don’t anticipate HHH being asked about Hart, as there are current issues with the product that should fill the show Some Raw notes from 11/29: It was a very good Battle Royal, as they told a few stories. Batista clotheslined Flair over the top. Batista later insincerely said it was an accident. The company realises how wild people went the previous week with Batista, so one would assume there is a long-term (please, long-term) idea to turn him. Eugene eliminated Maven which led to a Maven turn. Fans booed a lot when Benjamin was eliminated by Edge, so Benjamin is starting to catch on. Final four were Batista, Jericho, Benoit and Edge. Batista threw out Jericho. Batista and Benoit were in the ropes and Edge tried to eliminate both, but Benoit managed to roll back in and Batista was out. Benoit and Edge then fought, ending on the apron, and both jumped off the apron, landing at about the same time (technically, Edge landed first by a millisecond). They had the refs arguing over who won the match, which went 18:31, leading to the next controversy. Orton, under pressure, went to Vince. Vince explained that Orton was GM and had full power and needed to make a decision. Of course this made no sense when Vince overruled Orton’s decision earlier then the company apparently decided what they advertised wasn’t the best idea. Edge wanted the shot and Orton said he’d get back to him later. They decided to turn Maven based on the fact at all the house shows when he worked with Edge, they couldn’t get the fans to cheer him. Well, I guess it was the only move, but what turned Maven was the booking in his match with HHH. If he’s going to feud with Eugene, it’s a prelim feud, but Maven wasn’t even on the radar a month ago so it’s an improvement for him. If they were really serious about the tease of him in Evolution, he’ll the Paul Roma of Evolution. Flair was mad at Big Dave for eliminating him from the Battle Royal, saying they were there to win together, and then go into the main event and lay down for HHH. Flair said he’d have done it and Dave had this look on his face and Flair said, you would have laid down, wouldn’t you ? Dave didn’t answer. They are doing everything right that they screwed up in the Orton deal here. Main event saw the title held up with HHH v Benoit v Edge in 14:23 in a ***3/4 match. This was an excellent match with great heat. Benoit did a tope on both of them early. Benoit used the sharpshooter on Edge but HHH saved. He got HHH in the crossface, but Flair and Batista came out and Batista pulled Benoit out of the ring and KO’d him with a clothesline. Orton came out as HHH and Flair were booted out. Batista seemed happy to be booted out. Benoit used a German suplex and sharpshooter on Edge but HHH saved. HHH attacked Orton. Benoit did three more German suplexes on Edge and went to the top for the diving headbutt, but HHH shoved him off after a ref bump. HHH got the chair, but Orton hit the ring and stopped him from using it. Orton hit HHH with the chair, sending him over the guardrail. Benoit put the crossface on Edge. Edge wouldn’t tap. Benoit rolled onto his back. I couldn’t believe they were doing the Sasaki-Fujita finish, since that was the worst finish of all time. Actually, I think they were doing the Newton-Hughes finish that inspired Angle-Undertaker (tape before pin question) combined with Angle-Puder (the guy with the submission is on his back and is pinned before the tap). So the ref counted three on Benoit and Edge tapped. Mike Chioda said Edge won the title and Earl Hebner said Benoit won. In reality, this time in slow-mo, no question Edge won since Edge’s first tap was slightly after the count went down by Chioda for the three, and technically you have to tap three times before it’s a submission. Edge’s nose looked like it had exploded with blood everywhere, perhaps from an errant elbow. All three worked really hard in this one. So the belt is held up pending next week in Charlotte. Overall very good show aside from the lingerie deal ==== ==== ==== ==== Regarding Tough Enough, the pressure is getting to people because there is $1 million at stake, and everyone figures Puder is the favorite (in our last poll, taken after the TV special, he got a whopping 83% of the vote; but a look at numerous web sites shows the final results hundreds of times for different people championed by different web sites, so in many ways the voting aspect has made this a really screwed up popularity contest). Both Mizanin and Reeves were complaining last week about he got to go last, and that him doing the best against the Bashams was because they were blown up by fighting everyone else first. Mizanin calling Puder a brown-noser had to do with the night before the sex test deal, when Puder saw Moolah and Mae Young on the plane, he was very nice to them. At the time, nobody was told they were going to have anything to do with Tough Enough, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out, either. Mizanin has also told people his strategy was to go after Puder personally, figuring him as the toughest competition, but after this week, when that looked to have backfired as the live crowds booed him. He responded by yelling “boo me” at the crowd like a spoiled child. Reeves nearly cost himself being cut on the spot (except they won’t cut, although coincidentally or not, he was said to have received the fewest votes just days late and was then cut) by posting on the rajah.com website a negative post on Puder saying he’s done well only because he’s had luck on his side. “He just doing this to market himself for ultimate fighting and he makes it, he will not last. He was never even in the UFC and has only had one real fight, his other three were nothing. I respect him as an athlete, but I love wrestling too much to let this guy win this thing. You don’t have to vote for me, but please do not vote for that prick Puder. He won the sex test because he kissed both Mae and Moolah’s asses for two days straight when we have been told not to do that type of shit”. Regarding Puder beating him in arm wrestling deal, even though he had about 50 pounds on him, “He got very lucky again.” Within a day, Reeves realised how badly he screwed up and asked them to take his post down. Apparently Reeves’ hated for Puder got real bad because Puder had said his name, when asked on the WWE website, who was the next to be cut. Reeves had bad mouthed Puder on the special, although we’re not sure what he said, but his post on the website said for people to watch the special as he was going to expose Puder for what he is. Whatever he said wound up being edited off the show. This only furthered some feelings Vince wants Puder to win when all of Reeves’ and Mizanin’s comments were edited off the show. Usually, McMahon loves to exploit controversy (see Diva Search) and in this one they seemed on the special to avoid it completely. Mizanin on his website continued to knock Puder, first claiming he was lucky and the only reason he came closest to getting the flags two weeks ago was because the Bashams were blown up. Reeves ended up getting heat with the office because he apparently caused a scene at a health food store in Stamford that many in the company frequent. Puder had put one of his posters to vote for him up at the store. Reeves and Rodimer came into the store, tore down the poster, and caused enough of a scene that the owner called the office. Rodimer ended up being cut a few days later. The owner complained to the company, which told Reeves he would have to go to the store and apologise, and also bring a bunch of WWE merchandise to the store to make up for the company being apologetic about what happened. Reeves then challenged Puder to an arm wrestling match, which wasn’t taped, and they made some sort of bet on it, with Reeves saying the only reason Puder won was because he (Reeves) had the harder first round match (no question he did). Reeves beat him, too, which actually only made things worse, because in his own mind he had his evidence that Puder winning all the contests was just luck. There was a feeling that the comments of both on the special only came off like major sour grapes and would have actually hurt them. There was a little heat on both, as Mizanin was trying to play bad guy wrestler stalling in the arm wrestling and spitting on his hand to show Puder up, but Puder responded after locking up, by pretending to struggle, then laughing in Mizanin’s face and putting him down like it was nothing, and Mizanin did get on the TV special out that Reeves wanted Puder out and that he was mad at Puder for laughing at him, although he clearly stated that he was trying to unnerve (and more accurately, upstage) Puder doing the heel stalling arm wrestling gig before the lock up. Reeves, as noted last week, was telling people he was going to call Puder out on TV if he wasn’t cut, but then broke two ribs in training. In the Tough Enough contests the past two weeks, there was enough interest that there was backstage betting, even among some very important people in the company, on the outcome of the arm wrestling contest. Others complained that people in the company who won’t give anyone the time of day are being nice to Puder, and he’s the only one Vince seems to recognize is even around. The fact Rodimer was cut seems to be a sure sign the yare going by the real voting, even though by the written rules of the of the contest, they don’t have to. Based on what we’ve been told, when it comes to the wrestling itself in the gym, Mizanin is ahead of everyone, largely due to his two plus years of working indie shows in the Southwest. After that, among the rest, all of whom are novices, it was Puder, Rodimer, Reeves and Smith (who actually had the second most training going in, as he had been affiliated with UPW for months, while Puder, Rodimer and Reeves had zero pro wrestling training before being picked), in that order WWE is losing its TV in Israel, as the Hot Action channel carrying the shows has said they’re not interested in renewing the deal. WWE had failed months back to reach a deal in Israel for PPV events. They nearly reached a deal with SummerSlam, which was advertised as airing, but pulled at the last minute. WWE wanted to charge a higher price than Israeli cable companies thought was viable, as they wanted more than double the price of the most expensive PPV events on Israeli TV The Charlotte Observer had an article on Flair going to the Middle East. Flair said, “It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever been involved in. Not one negative person…I was really amazed at how overwhelmingly positive they guys and gals are over there.” Flair and the rest of the WWE crew (Stratus, Lita, Hurricane, Venis and Benoit) went to Qatar in the Persian Gulf and Djibouti in Eastern Africa. There was one scare, particularly to Flair, who has been in more than his fair share of airplane scares, including a famous 1975 small plane crash, when flying from Djibouti on a five-and-a-half hour flight, the plane lost an engine. One soldier who earned a bravery medal on the front lines gave his medal to Flair. The trip was referred to by those as a trip from hell, but I don’t think anyone wants to publicly say that. Between the plane problem, and that fact all the wresters stayed in tents together with just a sheet separating them, and problems with the office person who accompanied them that several were about ready to kill when it was over made it more negative than anyone can let on Tomko is having trouble with fluid in his elbows. He can’t buy a break Comments from guys who went through the destruction of WCW and this period have gotten more pro-WCW of late, not by everyone, but from at least a few. The reaction was at least when WCW was going down, and everyone knew it was, prelim guys were free to at least have good matches, whereas now they’re miserable and can’t have good matches either because everything is so structured. Mooneyham also interviewed Mysterio. Rey was still mad at Bischoff having him unmask in WCW. “He didn’t care. It was an ego trip, and it was all about Hogan, Hogan, Hogan.” He said he lost his mask because he was making so much money, but he’d questioned if he’d trained his whole life just to see his career go nowhere. He noted he’s pulled back on his style, both because of injuries and because the company has asked him to, but “there’s times when I just want to go out there and do what I used to do,” and mentioned wanting to have the same kind of matches he had eight years ago with Psicosis. He said he thinks the cruiserweight division has a lot more potential than what is being done with it. He said he doesn’t think wrestlers see Smackdown as the “B” brand. He said, about people being cut, that some of them were handed the ball and weren’t ready, and some don’t have the same passion for wrestling that he has. He said he doesn’t want to retire for at least five years, but if he had his way, in three to five years, he’d like to have a modified schedule so he can spend more time with his kids When Gerald Brisco was asked over the weekend at the Mid Atlantic convention (and I was told the best Q&A of the weekend was the Brisco Brothers) about the Butterbean-Bart Gunn and Puder-Angle situations, he said, “In the case of Butterbean, we were shocked, but in the case of Angle, not that many people know Kurt had no feeling in his arms that night, had already wrestled, and has the neck of a 65-year-old man, but that’s what happens when you take that chance and another star is born.” No feeling in his arms ? Like he would be put in a shoot situation like that ? Please. And another star is born ? They did everything to make sure that didn’t happen, even at the same time they are wanting it to happen. And while he did wrestle, how can one even compare his 20 second match where he destroyed a guy with all the stuff the other guys had to do to be softened up before Angle came out It appears the next major European tour will be 4/20 to 4/26, with Raw and Smackdown tapings on 4/25 and 4/26 The last listed MSG line-up for the Smackdown house show in 12/5 (which has a chance to be the lowest attended show at MSG in many years) is JBL v Booker v Guerrero for the WWE Title, Angle v Show (probably turning into Show v Jindrak and Reigns to protect Angle’s injury), Undertaker v Heidenreich and if Undertaker wins he gets five minutes with Heyman, Suzuki and Dupree v RVD and Mysterio for the tag titles, Spike defends the cruiserweight belt against Kidman, Moore and Nunzio, Chavo v Jesus, Holly and Haas v Reigns and Jindrak, and Jackie v Dawn Marie HHH appears 12/16 on Conan O’Brien The actual crowd for the 11/6 show at Arena Monterrey for the Raw crew was 7,707 paid and $272,886. There have been some good crowds as of late as the Raw house show on 11/7 in Hidalgo, TX, was a legit sellout (6,500 seats), which makes Hidalgo the company’s best US market with three sellouts in a row, doing so for both Raw and Smackdown brands From last weekend the 11/19 Raw show at Cobo Arena in Detroit drew 3,300. The 11/20 Raw show in Kingston, Ontario drew 2,500, which wasn’t an official sellout, but was less than 100 tickets shy. The 11/20 show at the DC Amory actually drew 1,400 The estimates for this weekend were 11/26 in Hershey for Raw at 2,000 and 11/27 in Philadelphia for Raw at 4,200 (actual number) and $160,000. We didn’t get an estimate for the 11/28 Raw in Bethlehem. The 11/28 Smackdown brand show in North Charleston, SC, drew about 3,000. The 11/29 Smackdown house show in Raleigh drew about 2,200

Bret was never going to be able to go to WCW with the IC Title. By the time he wanted out, Bret's contract had automatically rolled over for a year, and he wasn't able to leave.

Someone asked if Borga was in line for the WWF Title. I thought it was someone from here, seeing as it was recently talked about in one of the threads.

I see Savage leaving without returning the favor to Jarrett.

WON switches to the more familiar format around April or May of 1991.

The best Foley promo on Orton was the one where Foley was backstage sitting down, and had the barbed wire baseball bat, and it ended with Foley smashing up the set with the bat.

Hogan's black eye at WM XI was due to an accident, and not Savage punching him.

This was yet another wonderful pointless swerve from Superbooker Vince Russo, in conjunction with Hogan. The idea was that to push Hogan as being a rebel due to not being cooperative with the new hot writers in WCW, one of which just happened to be Russo. In the angle, Hogan, because he didn’t want to put Sting over, would just lie down for him, and thus not have to really put him over. Hogan would then be suspended, and later come back to feud with whomever. When the angle played out, as soon as Sting ‘pinned’ Hogan, they immediately went to a video package, to try and further the illusion that it was a shoot. In addition to that, also in order to try and make it seem legit, they never talked about it again, and when Sting came out on Nitro, explaining his match with Goldberg was non-title because he only offered to face someone to help WCW out of a jam because of having no main event, he did so without make-up, once again to try and make it seem legit. It never dawned on Russo that if nobody talks about an angle, it doesn’t register with anyone and it doesn’t get over. But, of course, Superbooker was too smart for such outdated concepts like making money Coincidentally, ratings at the time were beginning to slide, and Hogan usually pulled some kind of vanishing act at times like this, so as to avoid being associated with bad ratings. Then, after a while, Hogan would come back, cause an artificial jump in ratings, and use this to fool executives who didn’t know any better, and even some that did, that this was proof that without him people stopped caring about WCW, and thus he deserved his big salary and the top spot.

I'm not sure Abby seemed like the kind of guy who bled a lot...

I think they should have gone around 60 minutes, and teased that if Punk can get Joe to go more than an hour, he's got the title won because that's when Joe is easy pickings, but have Joe fight like crazy to get the win before the 60 minute mark, and then finally get the win just at the 60 minute mark.

Austin v Show was meant for WM XVI, but sometime around the middle of the year they lost confidence in Show for that spot, and the plan was changed to Austin v Rock. Actually, I'm not sure they didn't lost confidence in Show, not necessarily as a WM main eventer but in general, not long after he showed up, because he did a clean job five weeks into his run, which is a strange thing to do with your 'hot new monster'.

The plan was for a heel Austin to face a face Rock at WM XVI. As part of that, the finish for Austin v Rock v Hunter at Survivor Series was Austin accidentally hitting Rock with the sledgehammer, and Hunter to pin Rock. As for Austin not wanting to put Hunter over at Summerslam, that isn't true. Austin had always agreed to put Hunter over at Summerslam. The only reason Mankind got put in the mix was because with Austin banged up, it was felt that an excellent match was unlikely, which they wanted Austin v Hunter to be, so Mankind was put in to, if you can believe it, carry the load.

Maybe SAT went into business with Feinstein so they could tag team with him.

Jeff Jarrett leaving the WWF Because Jarrett’s contract expired the day before No Mercy, he was legally under no obligation to wrestle at No Mercy, and could have simply not shown up. However, Jeff agreed to wrestle and drop the IC Title to Chyna, but only if he were paid all the monies he was owed from merchandising, etc, as well as any money he would be due from PPV payoffs, upfront. This amounted to around $250,000. Needless to say, Vince wasn’t that happy about having to do this, even though Jeff was perfectly entitled to do so. This resulted in a lot of bad blood, and saw Jeff, for all intents and purposes, fired live on air on the last Nitro. Hogan laying down for Sting: This was yet another wonderful pointless swerve from Superbooker Vince Russo, in conjunction with Hogan. The idea was that to push Hogan as being a rebel due to not being cooperative with the new hot writers in WCW, one of which just happened to be Russo. In the angle, Hogan, because he didn’t want to put Sting over, would just lie down for him, and thus not have to really put him over. Hogan would then be suspended, and later come back to feud with whomever. When the angle played out, as soon as Sting ‘pinned’ Hogan, they immediately went to a video package, to try and further the illusion that it was a shoot. In addition to that, also in order to try and make it seem legit, they never talked about it again, and when Sting came out on Nitro, explaining his match with Goldberg was non-title because he only offered to face someone to help WCW out of a jam because of having no main event, he did so without make-up, once again to try and make it seem legit. It never dawned on Russo that if nobody talks about an angle, it doesn’t register with anyone and it doesn’t get over. But, of course, Superbooker was too smart for such outdated concepts like making money Coincidentally, ratings at the time were beginning to slide, and Hogan usually pulled some kind of vanishing act at times like this, so as to avoid being associated with bad ratings. Then, after a while, Hogan would come back, cause an artificial jump in ratings, and use this to fool executives who didn’t know any better, and even some that did, that this was proof that without him people stopped caring about WCW, and thus he deserved his big salary and the top spot.

It was the biggest week in TNA history, and now, from all signs, when it didn’t pan out, the company is in critical condition. Here is the basic financial score. Panda Energy, in the two plus years it has been funding TNA, has lost approximately $15million on the venture. This came on the heels of the $1.6 million Health South lost in getting the company off the ground. There may also have been losses that Jerry Jarrett incurred during the interim period between Health South money and Panda Energy money. Because of the cost of buying television time, producing television, and signing higher priced talent, the losses in recent months have hit $200,000 to $250,000 per week. With the exception of WCW from 1999 on, no wrestling company in history is believed to have ever burned money at anywhere near close to this rate. Worse, they’ve done so without really making any mark on the industry or having any significant public visibility. There is simply no possible way the company could make money as things stand, but that has been clear for some time. The weekly PPV system was a big loser. Overseas revenue, television ad revenue and merchandising income, something counted on for profitability because of the WWE model, has been largely non-existent. All the talk of doing house shows is a pipe dream, because WWE is having difficulty drawing for house shows, and TNA simply can’t make money running house shows. IT would only cause more losses. The only revenue source is PPV. While the company did what is being estimated by cable sources as 30,000 to 35,000 buys for Victory Road, which should bring the company from $385,000 to $450,000 in revenue, that only cuts monthly losses down to about $550,000 to $615,000 for November. Most likely, the number of buys drop for the Turning Point show in 12/5, although I don’t expect them to drop drastically, and do consider the numbers, four times what they were averaging on Wednesdays, as a success. However, there were those internally pegging 50,000 buys as the prediction. The one good thing is it seems to be proven the monthly idea at $”4.95 is far superior to the weekly at $9.95. The company, to break even, with all the costs, needs the PPV’s, that are virtually all the revenue they have, to do nearly 80,000 buys per show to become financially solvent. With the cutting back of expenses by taping two shows of Impact every other week, a saving of between $100,000 and $200,000 a week, that cuts the needed buys to somewhere near 62,000 and 70,000 for the company to break-even, again figures which are unattainable. That number is simply impossible no matter what stars they get when the TV is on such a poor time slot. Smackdown, for instance, does close to five million viewers a week, and the last Smackdown PPV did less than 200,00 buys. TNA Impact does maybe 140,000 total viewers per week. The UFC, which is significantly hotter (although has virtually no television), doesn’t come near the average TNA needs to break even on PPV shows, and only tops it when it has a really special main event. The numbers don’t add up. As we’ve written so many times, the company’s only answers if they were even in this game, was to know they needed patience, and until they got a good time slot for TV to have real visibility, and started bidding for top talent, they aren’t even in the game. If they weren’t willing to understand those rules, they had no business being in. Getting cold feet about losses now shows they never should have gotten in, because the venture had no potential for short-term profits until it established itself on TV in a good time slot and built an audience. Far more important than the PPV numbers were the numbers for the two Best Damn Sports Show Period specials. The company was of the belief if they could average a 0.35 rating on the two 8pm showings on 11/10 and 11/11, that Fox Sports Net would turn Monday night into a wrestling night. They would have the BDSSP personalities do a weekly wrestling taping, for an 8-9.30 pm show in their regular time slot, which couldn’t be better, getting the lead-in on Raw, and building to main events against the usual lengthy interview open. This wouldn’t the old Monday Night Wars, because Fox Sports Net isn’t even a blip on the radar screen compared to TNT, or even Spike. The credibility of the celebrities and the time slot would drive the wrestling product. The wrestling would drive the ratings of what is a poorly rated by heavily promoted network flagship show, and hopefully also serve to increase the rating a little for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, the first set of ratings we got last week, which were based on the overnights, which still fell al little short, didn’t hold up. The final numbers were: The original 8pm airing on 11/10 did a 0.26 rating (the show averages a 0.13 on Wednesday nights in the first run) and the 11pm airing did a 0.18 (averages 0.12). For 11/11, the first showing did a 0.18 (0.13 average in the slot), and 11pm showing did a 0.14 (0.12 average in that slot). At those numbers, the idea of getting a Monday prime time show is said to be highly unlikely by FSN sources. They were floating numbers claming they did triple what the show usually does, but they were really, for the two nights, 52% above, which is good, but not what they needed. UFC did an 0.43 a few years back, with a similar level of promotion, and worse, did a 0.47 with virtually no promotion on a Sunday afternoon. A James Toney boxing match on BDSSP did a 0.76 on the 8pm shows as the highest rated episode in the history of the show. The success of the Toney show is what got the BDSSP people interested in doing the pro wrestling week, as well as doing two boxing specials in December, including a Michael Moorer fight and the “Next Great Champ” championship match. The one thing that has to be noted when it comes to FSN ratings, is because we are talking about such low numbers, the margin of error is pretty high. The difference between a 0.1 and a 0.3 in some markets is just a viewer or two in the sample group. But it doesn’t matter, because accurate or not, and the odds are those numbers could be just as inaccurate on the high side as the low side, they are the gospel of the industry. Several in the industry noted to us when they read the real numbers, it was an eerie feeling, knowing so much was riding on it, how much the margin of error really is, and knowing they came up well short of what they needed at such a critical time. Worse from a morale standpoint has to be the fact that the second night drew less than the first night, even though so much of the first night were angles to build to the matches on the second night. It’s the same reality as the Friday ratings starting out so positively, and going down over time. There are so many different things going on right now. The Jarrett’s and the Carters don’t see eye-to-eye, in particular Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter. It’s been noted that Jerry Jarrett has clearly undermined Jeff, although it’s a debatable point whether it’s for the good of the company or not. Jerry has apparently felt Jeff’s ideas about wrestling are too heavily influence by Vince Russo to the point Jerry can’t steer him back to a logical wrestling direction. Russo is totally gone from the company, and had confided to friends he thought TNA was done as soon as Dixie Carter got pregnant, feeling once she had her baby, her focus would be less on her wrestling company that was such a money drain. Considering the booking position in a company like this is always in play, and as long as he’s on the payroll he’s always in a position to be called after a failure, his leaving a $100,000 per year job that he only worked one day per week speaks volumes of how he reads the future. Others say Jerry is totally living on past laurels, has really not kept up on the business closely in ten years and is totally out of step when it comes to modern wrestling and modern fans. From reading his book, you get the impression his lengthy experiences in wrestling have taught him a lot of valuable lessons regarding talent and booking, but he had also not kept up with the modern business, which is an historic kiss of death for even the giants of the industry when making a comeback after being away. A sale of the company by Panda, or even Panda folding the company, wouldn’t surprise people close to the scene. Many expect one or the other to happen over the next 90 days. Jerry is now in more of a power position, while Dixie Carter had tried to appease wrestlers complaining that Jeff had booked the entire show around himself and were on the verge of leaving to giver her time and a change would be made. Jerry is thought to have the only chance to sign Hulk Hogan, since he gave Hogan one of his early breaks in the late 70’s and Hogan at least respects him as a promoter and booker who does have a legitimate impressive track record, even though it was a different business and a full generation ago. One has to think Hogan is never coming, particularly now that the primetime slot is so unlikely, because since WCW, he’s been very careful to avoid being tainted with failure. Jerry is also said to have the lead on two potential buyers, but Bob Carter has yet to give him a money figure that he wants for his stock. Unless the new ownership has a way to get them on a good time slot and expects losses while building the brand (and at that point you’d need a great booker with new ideas and the ability to get new talent over and have a unique concept of wrestling or else it’ll fail even with a good slot), they would only be fooling themselves. The only fit I can see working is a deal with Turner Broadcasting, but even then, they won’t be able to be put on the air likely until the spring of 2006. Jerry’s move was to replace Jeff as booker with Dusty Rhodes. To the surprise of many, Dutch Mantel still has a job and will be Rhodes’ assistant, although nobody was taking bets on how long that would last. Jeremy Borash and Bill Banks are still giving input, but when the change was made on 11/19, it was clearly Dusty’s direction from this point forward. Many noted that Jerry going with Dusty showed once again how out of touch Jerry is with modern wrestling. Rhodes, 59, is just a few years younger than Jarrett, and was a successful booker from 84-86 with Jim Crockett Promotions during its national expansion, which first made the company bigger than it had ever been. The downside was by the end of 1987, when the company’s business started falling due to going with a pat hand on top for too long (wrestling’s repeated mistake of trying to relive glory periods after they are over), the company was deep in debt and would have declared bankruptcy by the end of 1988 had Turner Broadcasting not purchased the company because they wanted to keep the highly rated traditional wrestling programming. Rhodes was a huge name in the industry during Jarrett’s day as a major power broker as one of the top drawing wrestlers in the world for more than a decade. Rhodes also hasn’t had a successful year booking since 1986, and has booked numerous companies, including WCW, and his own companies, with little to no success. When Rhodes has been asked about what he’d do to turn things around, he was of the opinion that the only thing that draws is bringing back old legends, and was down on a lot of the wrestlers being on top who weren’t strong on interviews or had that special charisma. In the 80’s, Rhodes’ strength was an ability to make strong babyfaces, although none were ever over stronger than himself, which is certainly something the company needs. He’s a big believer in talking over action in the ring, because he was a great talking in his day, and remained a headliner long after he could do little in the ring but have talented heels work off him. He has in the past had an ability to create stars, which this company needs, but few have shown a past history at that better than Jerry Jarrett. Doing so is virtually impossible when you have television that so few are watching. The Rhodes system in the past has been based on having a company filled with great talkers, which, with a few notable exceptions, is exactly the weakness of the current crew. He inherits a lot of wrestlers who can deliver in the ring, most of whom come across as interchangeable and most of whom haven’t gotten over to the weekly regulars. Rhodes built things around strong faces, who were never put in a position where they let the crowd down, chasing heel champions, who would escape with frequent screwjob endings. While his babyface philosophy is probably what is needed today, if he wasn’t evolved from that thought process regarding big match finishes, this won’t make it because that won’t fly on PPV today. The other question that has to do with every booker who is a performer is, how much will he be allowed to feature himself, because he is just about the best talker in the company, but is almost three decades past his prime as a performer. And there is also the question if he’d be allowed to bring in his son, and if he’d avoid the natural over pushing of him and creating a new nepotism deal in a business choking with that problem. Rhodes was introduced as the new booker to the wrestlers at the taping on 11/23, although is direction won’t start until the next taping, since the PPV was already booked. He talked to the X Division guys about slowing down their work, working on their promos and differentiating them. It just shows how out of touch people are when a Gabe Sapolsky, who has a proven track record in 2004 in the US, doesn’t get asked (not that he’d do it, but if you paid attention to the current wrestling scene he’s clearly the best candidate out there). It’s as if much of the industry has stalled around 1988, and nothing in the last 16 years has registered, because so many in power grew up and learned wrestling in the 70’s and 80’s. At least Mantel had a successful track record coming in. The negative was Puerto Rico is a completely different culture with fan base described as closer to 70’s level US than modern level, and a culture filled with established starts with mainstream name recognition. Most importantly, in Puerto Rico, both groups had TV that everybody watches. Mantel’s jump from WWC to IWA as booker coincided with the turning around of that wrestling war, and he was a significant part of it, even though he’s not well liked there these days. But he wasn’t able to do much of anything for this product. Some of his stuff has been logical by the book. Nothing has been particularly grabbing. But, ultimately, it was doomed without TV, and still doomed with TV on such a weak network in such a poor timeslot. As noted last week, the official decision was made this week of going to bi-weekly tapings of Impact to cut costs, and numerous other cost cutting measures are expected. The company taped two shows on 11/23, and will tape again on 12/7 and 12/21. Xplosion will turn into a magazine format show. It is expected that wrestlers will be paid per show they appear on, so the guys who work every TV show won’t be cut in pay, and will actually have an easier schedule only having to travel every other week. The positives of this are cutting in half of television production costs. There is a negative in the lack of immediacy, particularly for the second week show, which would be on a 12-day tape delay. In the slow moving wrestling business of a decade ago, that would be no problem, but in today’s business, where things break on almost a daily basis, and with such a specialized small audience, that could be significant. Still, given the finances, it’s the right option for now, and it can be changed if needed. If the company will pay wrestlers per show they appear on and their incomes aren’t sliced in half, it’s largely a benefit. If wrestlers suddenly get their income slashed at this point, after being cut once when Wednesday PPV’s were dropped, it would kill morale. At the same time, it isn’t like there are a lot of options available these days.

I laughed at the 'Train Lady' getting bounced all over the place. I was always disappointed whenever the video was shown on TV, because it would get frozen right at the good part.

Another reason I do not subscribe to the Observer, I do not give a fuck about international wrestling. Then subscribe to the Torch. You'd love them, as they totally ignore anything that didn't happen in America.

I wonder what picture you get if you play connect-the-dots on Joanie's ass.

Just for the record, the top story in this weeks Observer was Zero One shutting down.

God forbid he tries to educate wrestling fans on the modern history of wrestling and the people who influenced it.

Oh...god...the imagery. It's...too much.

During the Sandman v Justin Credible match on the last ECW card, Credible has Sandman in a side headlock and Sandman goes, "drop toehold, drop toehold", before shooting Credible into the ropes and taking him down with a drop toehold.

WWE can't mislabel the number of buys and never did so for Backlash No, but that didn't stop some internal gloating over the number before it was revealed as untrue.

...and the guy who proposed the second idea WAS fired. Yes, but he was fired because he want straight to Vince with ideas for midcarders, rather than going through Stephanie. True, but I didn't say he was fired for proposing the idea. I just wanted to make it clear he wasn't fired for being asshole.