WWE News from the 6/28 Observer

[Enigma 0]

Chavo Classic tried to paint himself, after being fired, as leaving because he was mad at the storylines they were doing, and that they didn't treat him on television like a legendary wrestler. However, when the company finally got in contact with him after he no-showed St. Louis and Springfield last week, he claimed to them he was drugged, and then robbed, which was why he was out of contact. The story he was trying to give was that he got a $6,500 check, went out to celebrate in El Paso, and was drugged and rolled. Given his track record, the company wasn't buying it at all, largely because he was incommunicado for two days. The fact he never claimed it to other people in wrestling after being tired may indicate their instincts were correct. Nothing has evolved from Chavo’s original attempts to get into TNA. He made one phone call asking if there was interest, but it is believed he hasn’t followed up on it. TNA people were discussing it, but his track record wasn't helping him, and ultimately, except for the fact he’s coming right off WWE TV, I can’t see what value he could be in that company with the direction they are going.

 

The 6/27 Great American Bash is Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield in a Bullrope match for the WWE title, The Undertaker vs. The Dudleys, John Cena vs. Rene Dupree vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Booker T for the U.S. title, Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero for the Cruiserweight title, Billy Gunn vs. Kenzo Suzuki, and Hardcore Holly vs. Mordecai, plus something with the women.

 

E! is planning three different shows on The Rock over the next few months. They are “It's good to be...”, “The High Price of Fame,” and “E! True Hollywood Story.” Haven't they already done the latter?

 

The six-man tag on the 6/14 Raw kept being changed as the match was in the ring. It may have gotten repetitive because they laid out a match for a certain length of time, and then as it was going on, the guys got word they had to go longer. The match itself was booked long, but timing of certain segments kept changing as it went on. Usually in WWE, it’s the opposite, so people complain they either didn't “get their shit” in (office hates that because the belief is “get your shit in” means you think like an independent guy) or didn't have enough time to adequately tell the story (the smart way to say it).

 

While many wouldn't tie this into pro wrestling, nearly everyone who was covering the WWF sex scandals story in the early 90s would vaguely know the name Bill Doxie. Doxie was a ring boy, working under Mel Phillips, from the Poughkeepsie area, who was defensive of Phillips at the time. He was sentenced this past week to six years in state prison for sodomizing his 12-year-old daughter. The judge said, in rendering the verdict, "I guess we’ll never know why people do such things." Doxie pleaded guilty on 3/5. Doxie’s name came up at the time as an alleged victim, something he vehemently denied.

 

In John Stossel’s book, “Give Me a Break,” he mentions the WWF and the David Shults situation many times. He noted that before his lawsuit, the WWF demanded he see their doctor. Before their doctor even examined him, he told Stossel he believed it was a “jurosomatic illness,” basically meaning he was saying he was hurting for his lawsuit. Stossel said he was really mad the doctor said that before even looking at him, and then wrote, after the suit was settled out of court. Stossel got $425,000 from the WWF and its insurance company for when Shults slapped him hard across both ears in Madison Square Garden when he doing a late 1984 interview for 20/20 and said he thought wrestling was fake. It became one of the most famous and talked about moments in the history of the show. Stossel said, “But guess what? After the WWF settled the suit and paid me, the pain slowly went away. Was that Jurosomatic? My pain was both real and debilitating, but it sure dissipated quickly once I stopped obsessing about my lawsuit.”

 

The 6/10 episode of Smackdown finished No. 13 among all TV shows (both broadcast & cable) among kids 9-14 years of age. To show the difference in viewing patterns of kids, only four of the top 12 shows for the week were network shows, and three of those were NBA games on ABC.

 

The plan for Lita is to keep her out of the ring now for nine months to play the pregnancy angle out to logical time line ending.

 

William Regal is expected to start wrestling now that he's been medically cleared. The decision as to whether he’s a long-term face or heel has not been made. The plan was for him to be a heel, but people started cheering him. There is still a feeling that his facials and mannerisms make for a better heel, and it's easy to do a feud with Eugene. However, if that feud is going to mean anything, he needs to team with him for months. Of course unless he’s made a heel, the Kane deal didn't exactly get him off to a good start.

 

Linda Miles caused a major scene at OVW at the 6/16 tapings. Miles has always been a project because of her size and her athletic ability. She co-won Tough Enough 2 and was brought up to WWE as Shaniqua before she was ready. She lost her spot there because of attitude issues, as the feeling was she didn't take the business seriously enough. She was already in the doghouse when some of the guys agreed to work with her before house shows to get her wrestling up to speed, since long-term was they wanted her in the ring. When she no-showed a session that was for her benefit, I think that was the beginning of the end. She hasn't been used much on OVW, because Jim Cornette couldn't figure out the right way to use her. The feeling was she was too big and difficult to work with for the women. She could work with the guys, but Cornette tried with referee Chris Kay, where he could put her over since he’s a young ref, smaller than her, who has trained to wrestle. That wasn’t pretty. He didn't want her beating male wrestlers because he doesn’t think that is good for wrestling, and doesn’t want a male wrestler to beat a woman either. However, Jillian Hall will be out for six weeks since she’s getting a boob job, figuring from looking at the competition, that's the only way to get into the WWE. There were people who tried to talk her out of it, but I think most of the women, if they were honest, would say it’s just part of the profession unless you’re Stacy Keibler or Jazz, and she’s neither of them. So they set up a match with the idea Miles would injure her. In what may have been a first at OVW for a TV match, the match was so bad that Cornette left the broadcast position to go backstage to tell them to go to the finish early. After the show, when everyone was backstage, Miles was waiting for Cornette and they traded promos on each other, with her claiming that Hall should have gotten some of the blame for the match falling apart. Hall was said to be nearly in tears at this point. Cornette screamed at Miles to burn her boots because after two years, she just wasn't getting it. She yelled back at Cornette, and it was a scene in front of just about everyone in the company. There was talk of moving her to amateur class just so she could re-learn fundamentals.

 

Johnny Nitro is back full-time in OVW, so he's the latest to have been demoted. Jazz has also been around, although I don't think she's demoted. She's just there because she doesn't have a role right now.

 

The report from OVW was that Bobbi Billard’s statement about what Ivory said about "girls like you who fuck their way to the top," and "I don't want you taking my spot," was not as a coach trying to demean them, but during promo practice. She was just using it trying to teach Billard, LaTasha Marzolla, and Melina Perez how to cut a personal interview, and Billard made a stink about it. Ivory actually did similar promos, about training women to take her spot and sleeping your way to the top (regarding Nikita) on OVW TV.

 

Sho Funaki interviewed Kurt Angle for Japan. The subject of shoot fighting came up. Angle said he was a big fan of UFC and Pride, and had he been approached five years ago about doing it, with the kind of money they were offering today, he'd have considered it. The one thing that would have made him question doing it is that it's impossible to win all your fights. Angle noted that he knew Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, and Kevin Randleman from his wrestling days. He said that now, he's too badly injured to consider doing it.

 

The blond plant in the front row at Bad Blood who Randy Orton stopped his promo to stare at and handed Eugene the stuffed animal was actually Nick Dinsmore’s real-life girlfriend.

 

Shelton Benjamin broke two bones in his hand and wrist on 6/14 during the Heat match against Garrison Cade. He was throwing a punch while Cade went for a knee, and somewhere he punched Cade’s knee brace. He's expected to be out of action six to eight weeks. The last knee brace injury I can remember was in 1998 when Triple H did a pedigree to Droz and Droz’s face scraped all the way down HHH’s knee brace. They had built his return home for the 6/19 house show in North Charleston, SC, near his native Orangeburg. Benjamin's athletic background, when it comes to being at a high level in three sports, blows away anyone in WWE except Angle, and Angle was a two sport guy. In high school, he won the South Carolina state championship as a heavyweight in 1993 and 1994, before going on to be finish third in the NCAA tournament in 1997. He was also national champion at Lassen Junior College in California in both wrestling and track (100 meter dash) in 1995. He had considered trying out for the 2000 Olympics but instead got a WWF developmental deal, mostly because he had a good background and they were recruiting Brock Lesnar.

 

Reader Kyle Wolf was just in France for vacation, and besides noting the Hard Rock Cafe in Paris, as two Incredibly Strange Wrestling posters, noted that Planet Hollywood has a drink called “Scorpion King” and has a video of The Rock doing his catch phrases over and over. Rock is really over in Paris apparently.

 

This is from New York wrestling historian Michael Omansky regarding how the switch from the NWA title to WWWF title took place. He said that the story about Buddy Rogers beating Argentina Rocca in Rio de Janeiro may have been used years later as the WWWF title birth, but at the time they simply implied Rogers had never lost the NWA title. When Rogers lost the NWA title to Lou Thesz on January 24, 1963, in Toronto against the wishes of Vince McMahon Sr., Sr. attempted to get the wrestling media, such as it was at the time, to never acknowledge the Thesz match as having happened and just to consider Rogers as champion. It wasn't until a few months later, when he found out the magazines were going to acknowledge Thesz as champion (and seriously, how could they not?), that Willie Gilzenberg, who was the WWWF figurehead president in that era, came on TV holding a new title belt. Gilzenberg said he was returning the title belt (even though it was a new one) to Rogers, who was still the world champion, and made references to "a match in Canada" and it being "non-title," without going into any more specifics. A few weeks later, Gilzenberg was back on TV with a trophy, which he gave to Rogers, to celebrate Rogers having made a certain number (it may have been 500, but this was 41 years ago) successful world title defenses. In between the first Gilzenberg appearance and the Thesz NWA title win, Rogers was still defending the "world heavyweight title" in the Northeast, including a February 25, 1963, world title win over Dory Dixon and a March 25, 1963, win over Johnny Barend. The Bruno Sammartino match referred to a couple of weeks back would have been Rogers' first title match in the Garden after the Gilzenberg announcement.

 

Although WWE is big many places world wide, it is apparently dead in Chile, where ratings are in the toilet for one-hour versions of Raw and Smackdown. They get the Hugo Savinovich and Carlos Cabrera Spanish feeds. Hugo actually says a lot of inside things, in commentary as compared to the U.S. broadcasts. During the show, they acknowledge being on in Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

 

The Smackdown 7/17 show at Budokan Hall in Tokyo is either sold out or close to it, which is impressive considering it's the Smackdown crew. The 7/16 show in the same building has plenty of tickets left.

 

There is a problem with Raw when it comes to Tivo. The Tivo recording follows the schedule given to them by the network, which lists Raw going off the air at five after. The fact so few have complained about it shows Tivo’ing Raw is not a big deal, but if you do it, most weeks you miss the climax of the show, and this week you'd have missed about 18 minutes.

 

The Smackdown crew was not in a good mood this week as all of its scheduled house shows were canceled due to poor advances, and then they got the word that 6/26 in Trenton next week was also canceled, making four shows in a row. That's $500 per night out the window for the bottom guys and more for the middle and top guys. Word is that the Smackdown upcoming dates, and even the TV tapings, are not showing much life. This is coming on the heels of the European high. The Milan show was said to have been one of the greatest crowds ever to perform before in modern company history, and Pisaro, Italy was excellent as well.

 

SummerSlam in Toronto sold out immediately for 8/15. However, both the 6/27 Bash in Norfolk and 7/11 Vengeance in Hartford look to be disappointing. Neither looks to have a shot at a full house, and Columbus on 6/13 was only half full.

 

The decision has already been made to make the Hall of Fame an annual deal again, as WWE has already sent out for travel packages for Mania in Los Angeles that includes a Hall of Fame ticket. For ringside tickets, Hall of Fame tickets, hotel, brunch and autograph signing, they are charging $1,832.

 

WWE has become a source of governmental controversy, as funny as this sounds, in the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayan Mountains. This sounds so much like it's an April Fools story, but it's true. Until 1998, television broadcasting was banned in the county. It was introduced for the World Cup finals in 1998, and it was such a big deal that King Jigme Singye Wangchuk started the first TV station. Six months later, other TV stations were allowed in. This changed society. Bhutan's ruling party had wanted to keep the country free from foreign influence to preserve its culture. Now, after a few years of TV, they want to put the genie back in the bottle because they don't like what has happened to society. The two types of shows the government is rumored to be banning are pornography and WWE. They claim WWE has inspired kids to copy wrestling moves and students at schools have become more violent. The crime rate has increased (which has not been blamed on wrestling, but on other TV shows). It should be noted that 70% of the country doesn't even have electricity, let alone access to TV.

 

Matt Hardy's left knee is in bad shape.

 

They have talked about bringing Kurt Angle back to the ring in about two months and easing him back into a full schedule. He'd first do tag matches with Luther Reigns, where Reigns would handle most of the work. Somehow I don't see that lasting a long time before Angle, because he's out there, will want to be doing more of the load.

 

Just for the record, the Dudley's name for sure did not come from the name of James Dudley. Paul Heyman came up with the Dudleys name before he had heard of James Dudley.

 

Rodney Mack, who has been training at OVW since the writers haven't come up with any ideas for him, worked a dark match, putting over Rhyno on the 6/14 Raw show.

 

Two weeks back when we wrote about Rob Van Dam being pulled from the 6/3 Smackdown show (because the PPV idea was changed from RVD vs. Rene Dupree in a flag match to the four-way), and there was talk of him getting a singles win, but it was replaced by Hardcore Holly & Billy Gunn getting a win (which ended up not airing due to time constraints anyway), we reported it as a meeting run by Arn Anderson. Anderson was at the meeting and made the suggestion, but Stephanie LeVesque was the person running the meeting.

 

In what could prove to be interesting, there is a 7/21 show in Honolulu, being promoted by Brian Adams, which is advertising Rikishi & Rosey as a tag team against Jamal & Taiyo Kea in the WWE vs. All Japan match. Rikishi is on thin ice already. WWE has not allowed its talent to work independent dates up to this point. The show features some big names like D-Lo Brown, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Keiji Muto, and Kensuke Sasaki.

 

Don't know why, but there is a lot of heat on Val Venis as far as his working goes.

 

The official decision was made this week that Scott Steiner would not be brought back. After his hip flexor injury, the decision was made not to offer him a new contract when his deal expired in October or November, so there was no point in pushing him. The question was whether they'd bring him back to do a few jobs, or just not use him again, and the decision was the latter. They have removed his bio from the Raw website.

 

Jacqueline Moore, who had been training wrestlers at OVW of late, was fired this past week.

 

Test is still on the roster, and he's cleared to wrestle after coming off a neck injury, worked a few house show matches, but has never appeared on TV, and his name is never mentioned.

 

The basic arguments in the fight over the AWA name, is that the Dale Gagner group out of Minnesota registered the name and incorporated it as a business in 1996 in the state of Minnesota. The only national rights to the name were owned by Verne Gagne. There was a legal fight circa 1996, but I don't know how far it went, at that time involving Verne Gagne, who had folded his promotion five years earlier. The Gagner group was able to register the name in the state and used it because Gagne was no longer in business. It wasn't until years later, when the late 90s boom hit, when Gagne worked with Todd Okerlund (Gene’s son) in doing the nostalgia PPVs on DirecTV that did surprisingly well, that Gagne did business again using the AWA name, and there was no attempt to stop him. WWE is claiming the legal rights to the time because they purchased the Verne Gagne AWA company assets.

 

At the Miami tapings, they had a dark match where The Hurricane & Rosey beat Wolf Hawkfield & David Heath, plus a dark match with Norman Smiley putting over Chuck Palumbo. Hawkfield is Jim Steele from New Japan. Heath is the former Gangrel, of course, but used his real name. Heath & Dennis Knight (Mideon), also using his real name, worked a dark match in Orlando, putting over The Basham Brothers.

 

Mitsuharu Misawa was asked who the best wrestler he ever faced was, he said Chavo Guerrero Sr. (Chavo Classic). Considering the people he's been in the ring with, that is quite a statement.

 

Arn Anderson was off the weekend Raw brand shows because of the death of his mother-in-law.

 

Actual paid for the Raw TV shoot on 6/7 in Albany was 7,200 and for the Smackdown TV shoot on 6/8 at the Nassau Coliseum was 6,200.

 

6/18 Raw in Spartanburg drew 1,600 and $57,000, or about 150 shy of a sellout. 6/19 Raw in North Charleston drew 3,000 and $100,000.

 

The estimate we got for the 6/20 Raw in Fort Myers, FL was 2,000. 6/21 Raw TV shoot in Miami had 9,000 in the building, but no word on paid.

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

I'm glad Jim Cornette still has his brain. Vince should just fire the stupid bitch (Linda Miles) before she sucks more.

 

Linda Miles = The Female El Gigante. Can't cut a promo to save her life, sloppy ring work, and talks like she has her mouth stuffed with mashed potatoes.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Well, at least Jacqueline is gone.

[2GOLD 0]

Here is an idea for Miles.

FIRE HER!

 

She isn't learning it appears, she doesn't want to take responsiblity and now she yells at Cornette. Why is she still employed? Fire her and let her go get a job somewhere else.

 

What is with the WWE refusing to cut loose these Tough Enough people if they don't have the skill or attitude to be in the business?

[jester 0]

Here is an idea for Miles.

FIRE HER!

 

She isn't learning it appears, she doesn't want to take responsiblity and now she yells at Cornette. Why is she still employed? Fire her and let her go get a job somewhere else.

 

What is with the WWE refusing to cut loose these Tough Enough people if they don't have the skill or attitude to be in the business?

Watch, they'll put the cruiserweight belt on her next Smackdown instead. It's that type of company.

[Guest Samurai Johnny Frankenstein]

Well, at least Jacqueline is gone

 

I don't think it's that one

[teke184 0]

Well, at least Jacqueline is gone

 

I don't think it's that one

Jacqueline = black Jackie, NOT Jackie Gayda (AKA "Hot Tub Ho" from Tough Enough 2)

 

 

As for Linda Miles, I say we let her have a grudge match with Cornette. She's going to look funny walking around with a tennis racket shoved up her ass sideways.

[Enigma 0]

Well, at least Jacqueline is gone

 

I don't think it's that one

It is.

 

The Jacqueline who just set the world on fire with her CW title reign? It was her. Moore is her real last name.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Now, its Jacqueline No More.

[Guest Fook]

The plan for Lita is to keep her out of the ring now for nine months to play the pregnancy angle out to logical time line ending.

 

Well at least some good will come from this retarded pregnancy angle.

[Papacita 0]

Chavo Classic tried to paint himself, after being fired, as leaving because he was mad at the storylines they were doing, and that they didn't treat him on television like a legendary wrestler. However, when the company finally got in contact with him after he no-showed St. Louis and Springfield last week, he claimed to them he was drugged, and then robbed, which was why he was out of contact. The story he was trying to give was that he got a $6,500 check, went out to celebrate in El Paso, and was drugged and rolled.

If that's true, Chavo is officially my favorite non-Chyna wrestling personality. He should've gone all the way and told them he'd been kidnapped. Send a ransom note up to Titan and everything. That'd have been funny.

[CanadianChick 0]

The plan for Lita is to keep her out of the ring now for nine months to play the pregnancy angle out to logical time line ending.

 

Well at least some good will come from this retarded pregnancy angle.

But that means more Lita acting. I'm not sure which is worse really.

 

I'm hoping that three monthes in (or whenever it is when pregnant ladies just begin to show) she'll have to disappear for six monthes. It's more realistic that way, right?

[haVoc 0]

The last knee brace injury I can remember was in 1998 when Triple H did a pedigree to Droz and Droz’s face scraped all the way down HHH’s knee brace.

 

Didn't Taker rip half his ear off on Austin's knee brace in 2001?

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

Yeah, Taker's ear got torn up on one of Austin's fancy braces that always came apart during matches.

[Dark Age 0]

Don't know why, but there is a lot of heat on Val Venis as far as his working goes.

 

What? Val's been great on Heat lately.

[Guest BDC]

I might guess sloppy working punches or something?

[Guest webmasterofwrestlegame]

Yeah, Taker's ear got torn up on one of Austin's fancy braces that always came apart during matches.

 

Yep - I was there. Insurextion 2001 at Earls Court, London.

[Dark Age 0]

I might guess sloppy working punches or something?

Not at all. Val has some of the best punches in WWE. Note the little shake of the wrist he does afterwards.

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

I might guess sloppy working punches or something?

Not at all. Val has some of the best punches in WWE. Note the little shake of the wrist he does afterwards.

Logical guessing say's he has an attitude problem where he thinks he's better than everyone.

[Dark Age 0]

That's because he is.

 

Plus, I don't see Val Venis being the type of guy with an attitude problem. I know this is just a presumption on my part but he just doesn't strike me that way.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I feel so bad for Val. When was the last time he was involved in anything significant?

[The Buzz 0]

Maybe he works to good for a bonafied heat jobber. The last significant Val moment was when he feuded with the Dudleys as Chief Morley, which was pretty much the last time he was aloud more than a week to get over.

[Dark Age 0]

Val has had some kick ass matches on Heat this year with Orton, Dudleys, Stevie and Rhyno. Heck, he even got something watchable out of Garrison Cade. They should send him to SD and have him feud with Cena or something. He'd be able to carry John to some good matches.

[Guest Deebo]

Is Val still doing the porn star gimmick? I Havent seen Heat in years

[Enigma 0]

Is Val still doing the porn star gimmick? I Havent seen Heat in years

Last I saw of him, he was. He was wearing trunks now that said "LIVIN' LARGE" on the back of them.

[cawthon777 0]

double post

[cawthon777 0]

Deebo,

 

That's gotta be the worst picture of Linda Vester I've ever seen lol

[Internet Warfare 0]

SummerSlam in Toronto sold out immediately for 8/15. However, both the 6/27 Bash in Norfolk and 7/11 Vengeance in Hartford look to be disappointing. Neither looks to have a shot at a full house, and Columbus on 6/13 was only half full.

Wasnt Summer Slam gonna be at the Skydome? I wonder what made them change thier minds.

[Guest MikeSC]

The plan for Lita is to keep her out of the ring now for nine months to play the pregnancy angle out to logical time line ending.

 

Well at least some good will come from this retarded pregnancy angle.

But that means more Lita acting. I'm not sure which is worse really.

 

I'm hoping that three monthes in (or whenever it is when pregnant ladies just begin to show) she'll have to disappear for six monthes. It's more realistic that way, right?

I dunno --- I'd almost kill to see the WWE try to get a good "pregnancy tummy" for her to wear.

-=Mike

...Who's for bets on HER birth looking more fake than Mae Young's? And if she ends up shooting out fire when she gives birth, I will TOTALLY mark the hell out...

[Anakin Flair 0]

I feel so bad for Val. When was the last time he was involved in anything significant?

'99 against Mankind.

 

The Smackdown 7/17 show at Budokan Hall in Tokyo is either sold out or close to it, which is impressive considering it's the Smackdown crew.

 

Oh, TAG~.