WWE Notes from the 10/25 Observer

[Enigma 0]

As expected, preliminary figures show No Mercy as the least successful PPV show in company history when it comes to buy rate. The preliminary estimates of the 10/3 show from the Meadowlands headlined by the JBL vs. Undertaker Last Ride Match for the WWE Title were 190,000 buys, or a 0.34 buy rate. While the number of buys would have been above many of the shows during the company’s dark ages, the lowest buy rate in company history is believed to have been a 0.35 for the December 15th, 1996 In Your House PPV headlined by Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith for the WWF Title (which was a hell of a match). The show was down about 30% from last year’s 270,000 buys for the Smackdown No Mercy show with a double main event of Vince McMahon vs. Stephanie McMahon in an I Quit/Loser Leaves Town Match and The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar in a Biker Chain Match for the WWE Title, a number that was considered terrible at the time. The show this year was expected to do the lowest number in years going in, since far more hype was directed at Taboo Tuesday just two weeks later, as well as a lackluster line-up for the show.

 

WWE did a major marketing survey this past week. The company has hired people to call 50,000 people on their merchandise list for their thoughts on everything. Among the questions being asked about where, for those who attended Wrestlemania, how much money they spent on hotels, tickets, in New York if they attended any Broadway shows, bars, bought clothes, food all weekend, food at the show, merchandise at the show, etc. I think they are trying to gather stats here on how much a Wrestlemania means to a local economy to get better deals from host cities. They also ask about age, profession, and household income. They also ask how many PPV shows you've purchased over the past year and how many live shows you've attended. They also asked for opinions on the following people, and who they asked about is very interesting: HHH, Hulk Hogan, John Cena, Randy Orton, The Rock, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, and Sting. They then asked about thoughts on current storylines as well as suggestions for improvement of the company. I'll tell you what they need to do. They need to spend every Monday and Thursday night in a home with a popular high school kid who always has lots of friends over and you'll learn real fast why people watch, why they don't watch, and who they do and don't care about, and when bullshit click (the term for this is bullshit, change the channel, and start watching something else) happens.

 

WWE filed a lawsuit on 10/19 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District in New York against Jakks Pacific, Inc., its foreign subsidiaries, THQ Inc., Stanley Shenker & Associates, Inc., and Bell Licensing, LLC. The suit also mentions, by name, Jack Friedman (CEO and Chairman of the Board), Stephen Berman (Executive VP and COO) and Joel Bennett, the three highest ranking executives of Jakks Pacific, and Shenker and James Bell. The suit alleges a violation of the RICO act, violations of anti-bribery provisions, and is looking to get its videogames license with THQ and toy license with Jakks ruled void due to the violations. This was a countersuit from Shenker's suit against the WWF, claiming his company was owed commissions while serving as the WWF's agent for licensing. The WWF discovered irregularities in his licensing program in 1998, which led to firing Bell in 2000, who served as the WWF's Senior Vice President of Licensing and Merchandising. The claim is that Bell, who negotiated the deals with Shenker's company, was also getting kickbacks of Shenker's commissions, and claimed Shenker was getting kickbacks from licensees into a foreign bank account. Bell's job with the WWF specifically noted he couldn't personally accept fees, commissions, or property for any transaction he did for the company, or use his position directly or indirectly for outside financial gain. The claim was in 1996, when Shenker, through Bell was working as a WWF agent, he also started working as an agent for Jakks, and that Jakks legal counsel told the Friedman that it was conflict of interest to do so without letting the WWF know. However, the suit claims, they never told the WWF, and in or around 1998, they claim Shenker and Bell agreed to split bribe money from Jakks to get the license, using money laundered through foreign companies and a bank account in Hong Kong, so none of the money was recorded anywhere on the Jakks financial books. The lease was signed in 1997, and was to end at the end of 1999. Shenker's agency was to get an 11% commission on deals they got for the WWF. The WWF had its videogame deal at the time with Acclaim, and thus, if that license was renewed, Shenker wouldn't get a commission. The suit claims Jakks agreed to pay money to a foreign bank account to Stanley Stanfull (an alias Shenker used) with the understanding Shenker would pay half that money to Bell in order to get the license. The suit claims an $80,000 payment was made in 1998 to the Stanfull account in Hong Kong, which was never signed by company officials. It claims an agent in Hong Kong of Jakks made a $40,000 payment to Stanfull two weeks later. It alleged Bell then received $20,000 from Shenker. Bell then formed his own company, Bell Consulting, which he served as president, while still working for the WWF and never informing the WWF he had formed his own company, and used the company to receive the $20,000. In March, Acclaim contacted the WWF and complained that Bell wouldn't even listen to a proposal to keep the license (which is why Acclaim lost the WWF license and ended up with the ECW license). At the time, Jakks didn't even have a videogame division. After the deal was made, it claims another $40,000 was transferred from a foreign company to the Stanfull bank account, both in Hong Kong. A few days later, a $20,000 payment was allegedly sent from Shenker to Bell Consulting. THQ then proposed a deal far superior to that of Jakks for the videogames license. Neither Shenker, nor Bell, it claimed, let the WWF officials know of the THQ offer because it would jeopardize their deal with Jakks, but then went back to Jakks and told them about the THQ offer and said they would need to up their offer. The suit claimed Jakks then went to THQ to be a partner in the license, and Jakks would get money from THQ for the license Jakks had obtained. The WWF claimed it should have been their money. Shenker and Bell then recommended to the WWF that the license should be signed for ten years, with a five year right of renewal for Jakks, and claimed they stood to get a percentage of those profits as well. The suit also claims a third payment of $20,000 was made to Shenker at this point, and the WWF's suit claimed Shenker and Bell split commissions on other licensing deals until the WWF fired Bell and stopped doing business with Shenker in 2000. Shenker then sued the WWF for breach of contract. The WWF claimed it learned of the payments in discovery in Shenker's lawsuit. In that litigation, Shenker and Bell both denied any payments were made to Bell relating to licenses. The WWF claims total payments were more than $1 million to Bell Licensing. When the WWF found evidence of payments by Shenker to Bell, Bell came up with invoices listing he had gotten the payments for "developmental projects" unrelated to the WWF. However, the company obtained two invoices from Bell Licensing for consulting services for the WWF licenses. This led to Shenker suit being thrown out of court in 2003, and the court opinion claimed Shenker and Bell committed fraud upon the court when it came to Shenker's claims against the WWF. When this came out, one year ago, Friedman called Linda McMahon, and claimed the payments to Stanfull were for a perfume deal and a mechanical dinosaur project, and had nothing to do with the WWF. The WWF won a default judgment in a case against Shenker and a partial summary judgment against Bell. Jakks and the WWF started working together in 1995, and the current deal Bell and Shenker were involved in putting together doesn't expire until 2009. Jakks Pacific was aware this was coming, as a few days earlier, in its quarterly report, it said, "WWE has raised questions about the validity of the licenses as a result of certain transactions between the company and (a former) licensing consultant that occurred more than six years ago." Jakks said it planned to fight any litigation WWE might launch. THQ noted the lawsuit has no effect on the Smackdown vs. Raw videogame which is set to be released on 11/2, and said they believed their license is valid because the alleged wrongdoing took place involving Jakks Pacific officials, and not their officials, and THQ claimed they were never aware of any of that, feeling there is no reason to terminate the videogames license. Jakks Pacific stock dropped 22% the day the lawsuit was announced. WWE claims the defendants tried to launder the bribe money through foreign companies and foreign bank accounts, as well as falsified corporate accounting records and also claimed serial perjury, destruction of physical evidence and false responses to subpoenas.

 

There is no target date for Mick Foley to return, but he's not scheduled to go on TV to plug the new children's book "Tales from Wrescal Lane" that came out earlier this week. The idea he pitched to Vince McMahon to return on 10/4 in Madison Square Garden was made obsolete because it involved something to do with an HHH vs. Orton program. At this point it looks like he'll be back around February 2005. He has pitched to people like Samoa Joe to call WWE. Foley has also been pitched the idea of doing a full-time radio show where he'd talk about current events, although it has not been finalized.

 

The Taboo Tuesday concept may have come from Chuck Mullen of Munhall, PA. He had a job interview with the company in late-2002, and was offered a job in early-2003, which he turned down, because he wasn't interested in working for the company by that time. During his lengthy interview process, he brought up the idea of an interactive PPV show. He was told that it wasn't a bad idea, but not something the company needed to do at the time, saying they had a solid entertainment based presentation.

 

If you want to know about the current mindset, this tells you what you need to know: John Laurinaitis was talking with Wildside promoter Bill Behrens, trying to get him on board in the proposed training program to be run by Jody Hamilton (or Behrens was calling them trying to get on board, depending upon which version you'd want to believe), in the course of the conversation, Laurinaitis said he wanted to stock the program with guys who are at least 6’2’’ and 250 pounds, and he noted the company is looking for big guys to bring in and whether they can work or not isn't considered of prime importance. When Behrens called up trying to get them to look at his guys, Tommy Dreamer said he'd look, even though virtually none of whom fit the standard. Then, before he even left the office he was getting calls from people in Georgia about looking at them. Several wrestlers heard about this, or perhaps Laurinaitis has said the same thing elsewhere, because there are existing WWE stars who don't fit that size requirement who were most unhappy about the apparent direction, feeling part of the problem is they bring up these tall muscled up guys who aren't good workers and don't get over, and that it's another example of a company looking at all the wrong things as problems and all the wrong things as solutions. There is a feeling that one of the current problems is so many people in the business look and dress like fans, which in fact, they are, but people aren't going to pay to see people just like them. That's true in the independent world, but the truth is, independent wrestling has never drawn well and it's always been a deal where the biggest crowds are drawn by the guys who have had major TV exposure in the past. There is a very different feeling among current fans, as until the modern era, even though people knew wrestling wasn't real, they did believe wrestlers were really tough guys and there was an illusion that some of it might be. Well into the 90s, people would always debate on who was and wasn't tough, and while it really doesn't matter in a business of illusion, the fact is, nobody cares today. When the popularity is down, like it is, people look at what is different from the past, and there are a lot smaller guys around today than before, because fans are more into action than tests of strengths, and the smaller guys can do more. But now people have seen smaller guys do so much incredible stuff that they don't care about the incredible stuff, either. When you have older people running things, the natural inclination is to make it like it was, so the feeling becomes it's too many small guys as the problem. The funny thing was, opening the door to small guys opened up the business and was a key in WCW beating the WWF for a while, and in ECW getting established, and the hottest period in the history of the business was 1998-2000, but people in charge who are older trying to look at what is "right" are reverting back to ideas from the 70s. I think you need a mix of divergent types, and one of the problems is everyone is being taught to work the same way, too many people look alike and wrestle alike, and you don't have differentiation of characters. I've always thought it was hilarious about people recruiting wrestlers who, if some of the biggest stars of today came to their door, they'd turn them away on the first day. It's funny that if Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Mick Foley, Rey Mysterio, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Juventud Guerrera (forget that he's a screw up outside the ring, if his head was on straight, he'd be an unbelievable talent), and probably even Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, and Randy Savage showed up at the Power Plant, or came through one of their training school doors today as they looked when they first broke in, or sent in a Tough Enough application, most if not all when they were breaking in, wouldn't have gotten a second look. Yet a lot of those guys are all far bigger stars and had far more successful careers than 99.9% of the 6’5’’ and 280-pound jacked up types they are looking for. Not that stuff like that doesn't happen in all sports, although I don't think in any of those sports, such a percentage of the real top players would fit into the category where physically they'd have never been even given a look because of size and ended up doing great like in wrestling. When Kurt Angle came out of high school, even though he was the national age group heavyweight champion, he couldn't get a wrestling or football scholarship to Penn State because they thought he was too small to compete at the major college level in football or wrestle heavyweights in college. This was even though when he was 17-years-old, he lost by only one point to 27-year-old Dan Severn, who at that point in time was probably better than virtually all college heavyweights and ranked in the top ten in the world. On the other end, Bob Sapp would have never been drafted into the NFL based on his college football ability, but he was a third round pick because his size, bench press strength, and speed were so overwhelming, but he couldn't remember plays, and not only did he not make it in the NFL, but didn't even make it in NFL Europe. And everyone knows the story about the 1994 When World's Collide PPV, where the WWF brass watched the show, which included Mysterio, Guerrero, Art Barr, Benoit, and others, and the one they called for a job out of it was Louie Spicolli, because he was juiced up to about 265 pounds.

 

Here's more on the Jamie Noble firing. The reason WWE had its hands tied and was forced to get rid of him was because Noble's doctor's report he sent the company (since he was looking for them to pay his medical bills as they do for wrestlers who are injured on the job) specifically stated that his infection (or his cyst, as apparently he's told other wrestlers) was caused by a steroid shot. While everyone knows that much of the roster uses steroids, it is against company bylaws, it is also a felony, and when Noble foolishly sent the document in, not realizing the ramifications, it established that the company knew he was doing steroids and there was a paper trail they couldn't ignore. To do nothing would have insurance ramifications. The feeling was Noble should have been smart enough to have not tried to get the company to pay for it. Noble was told, and other wrestlers are under the impression, he'll eventually be brought back.

 

In OVW, with Gene Snitsky called up, they are never going to acknowledge there was a Mean Gene Mondo.

 

How is this for an interesting trivia note? If you ask “What was Superstar Billy Graham's Madison Square Garden debut?”, the answer would seem to be his nine-second win over Domenic DeNucci, announced at the time as setting a record for the fastest pin, on December 15th, 1975, to set up the first Graham-Bruno Sammartino match on January 12th, 1976. But that actually wasn't the case. On October 21st, 1966, several years before Graham started as a pro wrestler, 23-year-old former teenage bodybuilding champ Wayne Coleman (Graham’s real name), weighting 224.25 pounds, was in a mid-card boxing match, losing in a first round TKO in a scheduled four-rounder against Willis Miles, who outweighed him by 32 pounds. Chuck Wepner, who did wrestling matches with both Antonio Inoki and Andre the Giant, and whose destruction at the hands of Muhammad Ali was the inspiration for the Rocky movies, knocked out Dave Centi in the main event.

 

As of the latest information, WWE is averaging $9.16 per person in merchandise at the live events. That figure is misleading in a sense, because it includes the overseas shows that do far better than domestic per head. Because live attendance is down, even though the average per person was $8.09 one year ago, the total arena merchandise is down 14%. It would make sense to a degree as attendance goes down, because the percentage of your real serious fans goes up (the casual stop going), that merchandise per head would increase. However, when WCW was going down, that didn't happen, as they were doing $5 per head at the end, so that's another major difference between the declines of the two companies.

 

Some other financial notes: Of the $7,468,000 net income from the last quarter, $4,112,000 went to the stockholders as dividends, the majority to Vince McMahon.

 

Profits for the quarter, based on the presentation of live events, were $3.9 million, while the profit margin on the presentation of PPV events (this doesn't include company salary costs and administration costs and such, just the costs of doing the events themselves) was $10.3 million. Profits from producing television were $8.9 million. Actual break even per house show event is $157,303 and 3,451 per show, which basically means overseas is saving that aspect of the business because the domestic shows aren't hitting it, although that's misleading, because the costs of going overseas, which is where most of the profit is made, spike up those averages. The rank and file domestic shows usually don't come close to that figure, but the Raw & Smackdown tapings almost always exceed it. The average cost of production of a television show is now up to $496,000. A break-even PPV show would be 110,000 buys, a figure they have yet to fail to double. As noted before, because talent costs are based on a percentage, they probably could break even on 100,000 buys or less if it ever got bad, and of course, once it got to that level, they'd be slashing costs anyway. The profit margin on merchandise for the quarter was $700,000, but licensing is $2.2 million, magazines are $900,000 and home videos profit margin was $3.3 million and Internet profit margin was $100,000.

 

More notes on Ray Gordy: He was brought to OVW for a week or so look. Reports were they thought he was a good worker, showed up in good shape, and the only negative is he's short. No word if he's going to get a deal or not.

 

A funny deal on Sunday Night Heat on 10/10 in the show taped from MSG: Danny Doring & Arch Kincaid lost to Rhyno & Tajiri. Fans were chanting "ECW," probably not just for Doring, since everyone but Kincaid was an ECW alumnus. Doring was announced under his ECW name and his tights had "Doring" written on them. However, when the show aired, for whatever reason, they called him Dan Morrison, his real name, which I can only figure was because they didn't want people thinking ECW.

 

John Cena is on the cover of the current issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine.

 

The "You Screwed Bret" chants were a big deal in Europe, particularly at the Raw Manchester tapings. When Earl Hebner came out on Raw, there was a loud "You screwed Bret" chant, made worse as a fan dressed as Hart started screaming at Hebner. A second loud chant was easily audible on Raw for a fairly long period of time during the main event. In Frankfurt, while Shawn Michaels was over like a god, there was an irate fan with a Hart banner that got into it with him.

 

A lot of wrestlers were very upset when the news of Pat Patterson leaving broke, as much for the feeling of what caused it as for the feeling that it has led to more of a feeling of futility that the people in charge don't want to hear what is really happening. It was not necessarily widespread, as people internally were aware of how things were going down and subtle messages were being sent to talent. As soon as HHH & Stephanie McMahon found out Patterson felt HHH should be moved from the top spot (given a rest basically just because he's been there for so many years) and said so vocally, and the TV show should focus more on building more people, HHH started complaining about Patterson being the agent in charge of his matches. That's a major deal since HHH's matches were the main events. HHH complained Patterson was confusing who people were and didn't know what things the wrestlers did anymore. To ease things, Vince McMahon made sure there was always another agent, and took Patterson off the headsets in the truck. Several saw that as a major slap in the face to Patterson, and that was what led to him wanting out.

 

The current political situation right now is Raw is totally dominated by HHH. Smackdown is more of a WCW-like political situation with different factions. Undertaker is the HHH of the show, because Vince McMahon feels he's the biggest star and respects his stardom and tenure, and Kurt Angle has aligned with him. Those close to the situation say HHH is getting more involved in the Smackdown politics. Dean Malenko and John Laurinaitis understand their role is dependent upon being loyalty to Stephanie McMahon (a.k.a. HHH). The writers are in a different situation. David Lagana is anything but an office kiss-ass, and has been described to me as more of the victim of all the politics. Paul Heyman is Paul Heyman, but he's been vocal about his guys, and has fought over several issues to get things more wrestling logic oriented and does come up with a lot of ideas, and at least from people we hear from, he's the one the wrestlers wish was in charge because they have more confidence is his ability to turn it around than anyone else. Dan Madigan, the other current Smackdown writer, is said to be a horror film buff, hence his Booker T ideas, and that is the source of his ideas for the show, but he's not connected strongly politically with any faction either.

 

The attempt to get Randy Orton over on mainstream shows probably has to be questioned after his 10/14 appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. While Orton was good enough to mention Taboo Tuesday, and that it was on PPV (when Stephanie McMahon did the same show just before a PPV she didn't even get that out) and even the fan voting aspect of the show and his match. It was clear Kimmel saw him as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well. Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him. It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler and treated one like he was a joke as opposed to a big star.

 

There is concern (although, truthfully, that may not be the accurate word with a lot of people since many had already given up on him) that Test may have to retire from wrestling after his neck surgery.

 

On the fan who hit the ring in Manchester, Shawn Michaels grabbed the guy by the leg. Edge didn't sit on him, and was paying more attention to the match. HHH jumped in ready to help out, but they didn't need his help. The fan had run about 50 feet, past several security people, and it was said to say the security was lapsing would be an understatement. One report said the Raw crowd was an older crowd as Smackdown drew lots of kids, but the Manchester paper actually reported Smackdown drew an older and more respectful crowd. The reason Stacy Keibler got booed is that Manchester United is actually not all that popular in Manchester, and most of the local fans support Manchester City, who have a Yankees/Red Sox like rivalry. It was also said Edge was booed far more live than it came across on TV.

 

In Frankfurt, WWE comped a lot of injured soldiers and marines free tickets, and allowed a number of legitimate war heroes to meet the wrestlers. Some talked about the economic crunch hitting them as business has declined. One wrestler, when asked if he made good money as a wrestler, replied, "I used to."

 

Carlito Caribbean Cool's title win on his TV debut was probably the second highest profile of something like that. Spyros Arion, who was brought to the WWWF after Bruno Sammartino saw him as the top star when he toured Australia, debuted on December 8, 1966 at Vince Sr.'s old Washington, DC tapings. He beat Angelo Savoldi (who worked in the office at the time). Later in the show, Baron Mikel Scicluna & Smasher Don Sloan were defending the U.S. tag titles (forerunner of the current WWE tag titles) against Antonio Pugliese (Tony Parisi, doing a gimmick where he was Bruno's cousin) & Miguel Perez (the father of the current IWA star). Parisi & Perez won the first fall. In the second fall, Perez was injured, counted out, and couldn't continue. Now I recognize this makes no sense, but Arion came out and replaced Perez in the third fall. Arion destroyed both champs and won, and like Carlito, the idea was to make him a superstar in one night. Christian won the old WWF light heavyweight title from Taka Michinoku on October 18, 1998, in Chicago, in his TV debut. Gail Kim won a Battle Royal to win the women's title on June 30, 2003, in her TV debut. Jerry Lynn beat Crash Holly to win the light heavyweight Title on April 29, 2001, in the Heat match before the Backlash PPV that year in Chicago in his WWF TV debut. Technically, Billy Kidman won the WCW (now WWE) cruiserweight title from Gregory Helms on July 3, 2001, in Tacoma, in his WWE debut. Although Christian did eventually become a star, really, Arion is the only one where the idea of making him an instant star by giving him a belt the first night in really accomplished much. Then again, all the belts with the exception of the one Arion won weren't star maker belts to begin with. Jim Crockett Promotions in July of 1985 brought in the Rock & Roll Express, and I think they were only in the territory a week or two when they beat The Russians for the NWA lag titles, and were an instant sensation.

 

The San Juan Star ran an article on 10/8 about Carly Colon getting the U.S. title. They actually compared it with Puerto Rico beating the U.S. in basketball at the Olympics. Colon compared his gimmick to Razor Ramon, but said because he's much smaller, he has to wrestle faster and do more high flying.

 

More bad news when it comes to U.K. ratings: The 9/23 episode of Raw drew less than 140,000 viewers (which is what the No. 10 show on the station did and they only list the top 10). Smackdown the next night drew 80,000 viewers, while Velocity drew 40,000 and Afterburn drew 30,000. Raw also failed to make the top ten on 9/30, while Smackdown fell to 60,000 viewers and the No Mercy PPV was viewed by 130,000 viewers (they air free, but live they start at 1am UK time), well down from the routine 250,000 that the PPVs have done in the past.

 

Sean Herbert, the program director at UK’s The Wrestling Channel, noted that staffers were threatened outside of WWE events in both Sheffield and London. He wrote on the company's web site, "Tonight at the WWE event at Wembley, TWC staff was physically threatened by WWE security for giving away free TWC & wrestling merchandise to fans. The same thing happened last night at Sheffield. TWC teams were outside these events giving away free T-shirts, bags, mouse mats, TWC stress balls, pens, caps, etc. to wrestling fans, and were told to leave immediately or it would 'get nasty.' A huge group of wrestling fans accumulated and this only aggravated them more. Needless to say, we didn't want to lower ourselves to that level, and we left quietly."

 

There continues to be heat on Brian Gewirtz among wrestlers, because he jokes about how he got the angle through to put the Goldust wig on Goldberg and the reason nobody nixed it was because deep down, HHH hated Goldberg.

 

Brock Lesnar is still training, hoping that an NFL team calls him for later this season.

 

Vince McMahon did an interview in the Rockford Register Star promoting the Smackdown taping there. Vince hates the media, but, recognizing he was talking to a member of the media, explained he meant the media in the big cities only. "Most everyone approaches the story they want to tell so that Mr. McMahon can prove their point," he said. Luckily, as his behavior on the HBO special showed, when the pressure is on, Vince is his own worst enemy these days. When asked about the brand extension diluting the product and causing interest and crowds to drop, he said, "To a certain extent, Mr. Feltz (letter writer), is right. It was designed that way. (???-McMahon and I discussed the extension before it happened and I don't recall him saying the design was to dilute the product and cause interest to drop, the idea was to slow down storylines by only having to advance them once a week instead of twice). When we separated into two, fans would not be able to see all their favorites at once. That is a negative. The positive of the brand separation it that is allows new stars such as Randy Orton and John Cena...to emerge. The brand extension is working well for us. As far as interest waning, some of our live events have not been populated as well as we want. But in the long run, the talent will be stronger and both brands will be stronger as a result." McMahon also said they are going to bring more women into the promotion (women that can't wrestle it should be noted, as they are talking about others from the Diva Search getting contracts). He indicated a few people from the Diva Search who didn’t win will be put on Smackdown. That’s fresh meat for new bikini contests.

 

Which is irony considering an ad/story the company took out in this week's Ad Week. It talked about the company's attempts to broaden its fan base an interviewed Kurt Schneider, the company's EVP of marketing. They talked about the JBL/Mick Foley debate and Taboo Tuesday, as well as the company's online fantasy game and that next week they will be starting an interactive trivia game on Raw. "We are a lifestyle brand," said Schneider. They talked about adding the show Experience to regain 6-12 year old viewers (this past Sunday morning, Experience was the oldest viewership of WWE program, with the average viewer being a 44 year old man), the new 24/7 concept which noted they are hoping for DirecTV and EchoStar satellite companies to carry it, and said WWE sees its core viewers as those between 12 and 34 (even though the average TV viewer of Raw is 37 and of the "B" shows, even older). It talked about the success of Wrestlemania this past year, and wrote, "Despite its proven ratings power, World Wrestling Entertainment's unique brand of surrealism has been supplanted on some of its fans’ TV screens by an increasingly bizarre array of reality shows. The extreme stunts of those programs have distracted some WWE viewers." Schneider said, "We lost some fickle fans to reality shows, but there's only so much you can take of girls in bikinis eating rats." For some reason, I found that quote hilarious.

 

Japanese star Predator (Sylvester Terkay) spent the past week in OVW, apparently just to visit and worked the 10/13 TV taping in a dark match. Terkay worked OVW as The Collector and Sly Scraper a few years back, but was cut because he couldn't get the hang of it. He ended up becoming a big star with Zero-One, largely due to looking like Bruiser Brody, playing upon the sympathy and nostalgia of that character. He left Zero-One for K-1, where he's 1-1 in MMA. He's not at this point looking to get back in, as he's get 17 months left on his K-l contract.

 

Largely due to the presidential and vice presidential debates on Fox News, football as well Major League baseball playoffs on ESPN, for the first time in recent memory, the 10/4 Raw show had neither hour place in the top 15 rankings in cable for the week, and 10/11 had the two hours place No. 15 and No. 21.

 

The plan right now is for both the Raw and Smackdown brand to do Far East tours in February, including the company's first ever Raw & Smackdown tapings in Japan.

 

The new WWE CD called "Theme Addict Volume 6" of entrance music will be released on 11/16. It will have themes for Evolution, Carlito Caribbean Cool, Theodore R. Long, Christian, Heidenreich, Chavo Guerrero, Undertaker, Eugene, Victoria, Shelton Benjamin, Billy Kidman, the new Smackdown theme, Gail Kim, JBL, and John Cena. Apparently WWE was unable to get the licensing rights from "Mercy Drive" to publish the Randy Orton theme.

 

The original plan for the women's Battle Royal on Taboo Tuesday was to choose between French Maid, Bra & Panties, or Bikini stipulations. Evidently that was before they decided to do two women's matches.

 

The paid attendance for the 10/4 live Raw in Madison Square Garden was about 7,000 and the Smackdown TV the next night in Boston was 4,500. Needless to say, those are horrible figures.

[Guest DeathBecomesYou]

Laurinaitis said he wanted to stock the program with guys who are at least 6’2’’ and 250 pounds, and he noted the company is looking for big guys to bring in and whether they can work or not isn't considered of prime importance.

 

More notes on Ray Gordy: He was brought to OVW for a week or so look. Reports were they thought he was a good worker, showed up in good shape, and the only negative is he's short. No word if he's going to get a deal or not.

For fucks sake, can someone please just get rid of this guy? People on the internet say that it'll be HHH or Steph that will kill WWE, i'm more worried about what Mr Laurinaitis is doing, he doesn't seem to have a fucking clue. I guess we'll be seeing more of the Heidereich style of guys turning up on TV soon.

As for the thing with Gordy, it's cool to see they saw his positive attributes but I don't get how they figure he's short, he's still what, 5'10-5'11 isn't he?

[SuperJerk 0]

There continues to be heat on Brian Gewirtz among wrestlers, because he jokes about how he got the angle through to put the Goldust wig on Goldberg and the reason nobody nixed it was because deep down, HHH hated Goldberg.

God damn it...this again.

 

Aw, come on, people, get over it! It was a two minute segment that ended in Goldberg making threatening faces at Goldust. Big whoop. It didn't kill his heat, nor did changing his music, nor did about a billion other trivial things people whined about. If anything, letting him off of TV for 2 almost months leading up to Wrestlemania (except for one night at No Way Out) killed his heat more than anything else, and my understanding was that it was Goldberg's fault for that because he had Japan dates to fulfill.

 

 

Once, again, thanks to S_D for posting this.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Ace is doing what he thinks what Vince wants him to do. The guy has advanced this far in the company for a reason. The big man mentality was there long before Ace was.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

The Wig on Goldberg is the perfect example of how the WWE fucked up with Bill. They wanted to make him their own, rather than using what they bought. The fucked two-folder here. 1)They thought Goldberg would make a difference, bring in interest, etc. and 2)They then went against the very thing they wanted (Goldberg) and made him into something else. What a stupid company.

[Guest Coffey]

OK, here's how to get Test over...instead of him retiring. He has to be healthy again eventually, right?

 

OK, Test comes back in a cocky, almost Acolyte type role. People "hire" him to "help them out." So, what happens? He just randomly boots people at opportune times.

 

The lights go out, and on the titantron, almost Matt Hardy style, a computer program called "dos.boot.exe" starts. Then, the lights come back on. The wrestlers in the ring, obviously distracted by this are confused. Then, when they turn around, they're met with a Test boot to the face. The ref won't see it because he'll still be looking at the Titantron too wondering what the hell is going on.

 

Then, you can have Albert with Test so that Albert can scream when Test is running towards someone before the boot. "DAAAAAAAAAT" *boot*

 

Vignettes can be shown to help get test over. Everyday common people in everyday walks of life just wondering "Where's Test when you need him?" Whenever they run into ignorance. For example, a bagger at a grocery store might forget to double bag a heavy bag of groceries. Then, when the customer is walking the bag to the car, it rips open and all the groceries fall to the ground. The customer would then wonder aloud "Where's Test when you need him."

 

Cut back to the grocery store, and we see Albert standing in line about three people back. Then, the automated doors at the exit slide open and Test comes running in. Albert starts to scream "DAAAAAAAAAAT" then the bagger turns around to see what all the commotion is about, only to catch a Test boot the face.

 

Then Test & Albert leave and the customer, as they're pulling out of the parking lot says "Thanks Test."

 

It's gold, Jerry. GOLD!

 

You could even have Test bringing up his AMMUNITY (which ran out MONTHS ago) as another little comedy perk.

 

Eric Bischoff: "If you interfere in another match, I'll fire you!"

Test: "You can't fire me. I have alliance immunity!"

Eric Bischoff: "Wait, what? No...nevermind."

 

BWAHA~!

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

The attempt to get Randy Orton over on mainstream shows probably has to be questioned after his 10/14 appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. While Orton was good enough to mention Taboo Tuesday, and that it was on PPV (when Stephanie McMahon did the same show just before a PPV she didn't even get that out) and even the fan voting aspect of the show and his match. It was clear Kimmel saw him as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well. Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him. It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler and treated one like he was a joke as opposed to a big star.

 

I love how Meltzer sees the issue as such:

 

1. Orton is not a huge star. He was slow to the draw, and though he mentioned the PPV and stips, he still wasn't able to "handle himself".

2. Because of this, Kimmel made fun of him

3. Stephanie couldn't even mention the PPV when she was on.

 

Because it can't possibily be because the thought of a 50+ year old man in the ring is fucking ridiculous, no no no no no. Not in Meltzers world. Wait, no. Not in Meltzers world *regarding Flair*. Kimmell was making fun of Orton here.

[Guest DeathBecomesYou]

Ace is doing what he thinks what Vince wants him to do. The guy has advanced this far in the company for a reason. The big man mentality was there long before Ace was.

True, but before didn't they at least try and look for hosses with some actual talent?

[strummer 0]

December 15th, 1996 In Your House PPV headlined by Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith for the WWF Title

 

Wrong year Meltz, 96 was headlined by Bret/Sid, 95 was Davey Boy/Bret

[Guest bort]

The Knoble firing wasnt for what i thought it was gonna be, the way the sites were pretty hush hush about it I was thinking it had to do with Aids or his sexuality...but its only steroids so who cares it not like 90% of the roster isnt juiced up anyways, Knoble was stupid enough to report his own Roid usage

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

True, but before didn't they at least try and look for hosses with some actual talent?

 

Not really. That was an added bonus, and during the early to mid 90's they were afforded the luxury of hosses who knew the basics and had experience because of the wrestling environment of the time, but in this new age of wrestling where the WWE is the only place to go, the environment has changed but the mentality has remained the same.

[Brett Favre 0]

The attempt to get Randy Orton over on mainstream shows probably has to be questioned after his 10/14 appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. While Orton was good enough to mention Taboo Tuesday, and that it was on PPV (when Stephanie McMahon did the same show just before a PPV she didn't even get that out) and even the fan voting aspect of the show and his match. It was clear Kimmel saw him as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well. Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him. It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler and treated one like he was a joke as opposed to a big star.

What? Kimmel makes fun of Flair, and Orton looks bad? May we go over this again?

[Guest GreatOne]

RE: Goldberg

 

Christ, so WWE didn't book him EXACTLY like WCW did. Well, you might have noticed a lack of WCW for the last three-and-a half-plus years. God forbid they use him to put people (Mark Henry, Batista) over. His theme music was the same as 'Invasion' except for a few minor arrangement changes.

 

Can we not mention FGB again?

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

RE: Goldberg

 

Christ, so WWE didn't book him EXACTLY like WCW did. Well, you might have noticed a lack of WCW for the last three-and-a half-plus years. God forbid they use him to put people (Mark Henry, Batista HHH) over. His theme music was the same as 'Invasion' except for a few minor arrangement changes.

 

Can we not mention FGB again?

There ya go.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

The attempt to get Randy Orton over on mainstream shows probably has to be questioned after his 10/14 appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. While Orton was good enough to mention Taboo Tuesday, and that it was on PPV (when Stephanie McMahon did the same show just before a PPV she didn't even get that out) and even the fan voting aspect of the show and his match. It was clear Kimmel saw him as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well. Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him. It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler and treated one like he was a joke as opposed to a big star.

What? Kimmel makes fun of Flair, and Orton looks bad? May we go over this again?

Well, you see, Ric Flair is good for wrestling. The fact that he is over 50 years old and still continuing to wrestle on a regular basis despite being terribly repetitive and almost utterly useless in the ring (besides his wonderful facials and knack for drawing blood, which apparently still makes him a great worker) is something that we as wrestling fans should not be ashamed of, even if people like Jimmy Kimmel look at Flair and laugh. However, Orton not being able to defend his ridiculous opponent is of some concern. It is a law of the universe that Ric Flair is good for wrestling, nothing can ever possibily go against that. And it should be noted that any minute mention of Flair anywhere - be it his WHOOO at hockey games or the phrase "to be the man.." being used in a football locker room - must be mentioned and played up on every single occasion.

[Brett Favre 0]

The attempt to get Randy Orton over on mainstream shows probably has to be questioned after his 10/14 appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. While Orton was good enough to mention Taboo Tuesday, and that it was on PPV (when Stephanie McMahon did the same show just before a PPV she didn't even get that out) and even the fan voting aspect of the show and his match. It was clear Kimmel saw him as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well. Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him. It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler and treated one like he was a joke as opposed to a big star.

What? Kimmel makes fun of Flair, and Orton looks bad? May we go over this again?

Well, you see, Ric Flair is good for wrestling. The fact that he is over 50 years old and still continuing to wrestle on a regular basis despite being terribly repetitive and almost utterly useless in the ring (besides his wonderful facials and knack for drawing blood, which apparently still makes him a great worker) is something that we as wrestling fans should not be ashamed of, even if people like Jimmy Kimmel look at Flair and laugh. However, Orton not being able to defend his ridiculous opponent is of some concern. It is a law of the universe that Ric Flair is good for wrestling, nothing can ever possibily go against that.

Ah. I see. You'd think Orton would know better.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Orton *is* completely uninteresting as a person and character though. That is of some actual concern, but Meltzer doesn't bring that up, only Ortons inability to defend -really- the undefendable.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Orton *is* completely uninteresting as a person and character though. That is of some actual concern, but Meltzer doesn't bring that up, only Ortons inability to defend -really- the undefendable.

I thought it was Meltzer saying Kimmel was making fun of Orton by making fun of Flair because Orton had to wrestle Flair and Orton was making a big deal out of it.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Nah.

 

"It was clear Kimmel saw him (Orton - Flair hadn't been mentioned in the article yet) as someone to make fun of and Orton wasn't quick enough to handle it well (Orton's fault). Kimmel started making fun of Ric Flair when Orton talked about his opponent, saying he was 85 years old, and when Orton couldn't come back, Kimmel was really on him (Orton's fault for not coming back, the mention of Flair is buried in the middle of the paragraph, Kimmel gets some blame here too). It was the first time Kimmel had made fun of a wrestler (Orton) and treated one like he was a joke (Orton) as opposed to a big star."

[AndrewTS 0]

Orton *is* completely uninteresting as a person and character though. That is of some actual concern, but Meltzer doesn't bring that up, only Ortons inability to defend -really- the undefendable.

Plus, as stated, Orton doesn't even *look* like a wrestler in casual clothes. He looks like he could be some boy band member or an actor, but not a wrestler.

 

I don't see Kimmel saying anything of the sort of Batista was sitting next to him, even if he was facing Flair.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I was watching it and thinking "Why are they talking about his dads' cast? Is that the most compelling stuff they can think of??"

[Guest combat_rock]

Did anyone notice during the interview when Orton mentioned Flair, people in Kimmel's audience started "woooing"? Maybe he should have given Flair more respect.

 

Anyway, the Steph interview was far worse, just because they played that ridiculous clip of Vince cholthesling her. I mean, how is that not going to look stupid to non-fans, and be mocked by Kimmel?

[Brett Favre 0]

Jimmy Kimmel doesn't matter anyway. Conan is where it's at.

[Guest Loss]

Damn. Things seem to get worse every week and WWE now officially has that Black Hole Of Death feeling. Wrestling hasn't been this depressing since the dying days of WCW.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I'd be depressed if I wasn't so damned apathetic to the product.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

The show this year was expected to do the lowest number in years going in, since far more hype was directed at Taboo Tuesday just two weeks later, as well as a lackluster line-up for the show.

 

Comparing the two PPV cards and he says No Mercy was the one with the lackluster line-up? Give me a fucking break. No wonder some people don't like Meltz.

 

Apparently WWE was unable to get the licensing rights from "Mercy Drive" to publish the Randy Orton theme.

 

Damn it!

[KingPK 0]

The paid attendance for the 10/4 live Raw in Madison Square Garden was about 7,000 and the Smackdown TV the next night in Boston was 4,500. Needless to say, those are horrible figures.

 

.....Ay yi yi. You know there's problems when they're drawing shit in BOSTON, which is smack in the middle of WWE Country.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Here's more on the Jamie Noble firing. The reason WWE had its hands tied and was forced to get rid of him was because Noble's doctor's report he sent the company (since he was looking for them to pay his medical bills as they do for wrestlers who are injured on the job) specifically stated that his infection (or his cyst, as apparently he's told other wrestlers) was caused by a steroid shot. While everyone knows that much of the roster uses steroids, it is against company bylaws, it is also a felony, and when Noble foolishly sent the document in, not realizing the ramifications, it established that the company knew he was doing steroids and there was a paper trail they couldn't ignore. To do nothing would have insurance ramifications. The feeling was Noble should have been smart enough to have not tried to get the company to pay for it. Noble was told, and other wrestlers are under the impression, he'll eventually be brought back.

OK, that's pretty understandable. That was a pretty dumb move by Knoble. I'm pretty stoked that they'll (supposedly) be bringing him back, hopefully sooner rather than later.