Won Aug.9.2004 Part.4

[Guest JJW]

Rikishi isn't interested in going to TNA. He was

apparently told when he was cut, that as long as he doesn't go to TNA,

they will bring him back at some point. He had intermediaries send

feelers to TNA a month or two back when he expected to be cut after

getting the nasal surgery and taking more time off without letting the

company know ahead of time. He's planning on cutting a record with a

Christian record company. He's already talked about, besides All Japan,

going to Mexico for CMLL. His price right now for dates is pretty high.

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TNA: There is a lot more talk of switching to a monthly Sunday PPV

format, particularly if there is a TV time slot upgrade. Neither of those

things is official but both are being talked about. . .

 

There has been nonew talk of moving Wednesdays out of Nashville, probably because there is

no point until a decision is made whether to keep doing weekly Wednesday

shows. For the long haul, going to a monthly three-hour format on Sundays

seems like the best for all concerned. If the buys go up, it will greatly

cut losses, and even if the buys stay the same, it will still greatly cut

losses. It also gives them four weeks to promote a show and they can put

all the stars on the show, as opposed to the current format where you are

always "holding back" because you need a main event the next week.

 

There has been talk about a price structure. My suggestion would be $24.95. You

aren't getting any more buys at $19.95, but I think until they establish

themselves with a string of strong shows, that $29.95 is too much to

start out with. Because wrestlers are paid per appearance, even though

many concede it's probably the right thing for business, it's not

something they want because they'll be going for 8-9 dates per month down

to 5-6 if they are guys booked on every show, and cut back worse if they

are hit and miss. There has been talk of doing house shows to make up for

the missed dates. WWE does roughly 30 times more PPV buys than TNA, and

Raw and Smackdown have 15 times the viewership of Impact, and WWE

struggles to draw at the house shows.

 

It is possible in a select market

with a great local promoter, such as Shane Douglas in Pittsburgh, it's

worth a try, but I don't see how house show touring can be in TNA's best

interest in any fashion at any time in the near future, even with a time

slot upgrade. TNA has never been successful, even in Nashville for big

shows, in selling house show tickets. House show would lose far less

money than a PPV. If they can do a monthly PPV for a $100,000 budget and

charge $24.95, they can break even on the show on 10,000 buys, and that

is not at all inconceivable. As a company, they'd need considerably more

because the PPV would have to pay for the production of the TV show, the

pay for everyone who works the TV show since the TV show doesn't generate

any money, and travel expenses. I don't know what that figure is total,

but an educated guess would say they'd need 50,000 buys per show since

the PPV is really the only major source of revenue coming in, and that is

inconceivable. Ultimately, they are going to probably need revenue coming

in from television, and getting paid to produce TV is something the

sports networks for the most part aren't even doing for boxing any

longer. It's better to lose money slower and the switch in the long run

is going to have to be done.

 

As far as their current situation in making

it profitable, I don't have a clue other than if they get a prime time TV

show on FX, which is certainly a longshot, that totally changes

everything. The Sunday morning negotiations which are going on improve

from Friday afternoon, but a 0.5 rating, if they can get it, doesn't

change the big picture much from a 0.3. . .

 

The TV show has moved to an

all squash except for a main event looking format. It's an old school

mentality where you put the stars over and get their finishing moves

over, and the people pay to see star vs. star. The only competitive match

on 7/30 was Prime Time & Daniels vs. Shane & Kazarian, and that had no

winner due to run-ins. . . They are pushing a feud between Dusty Rhodes

and Vince Russo on TV as the biggest deal on the show. The storyline

hasn't really been explained, but it goes something like Rhodes promised

Jeff Hardy an NWA title shot if he signed. Hardy then beat Monty Brown on

7/28 to earn the shot, which is probably going to be on 8/11. Russo came

out and while he's never said Hardy isn't getting the shot, he and Rhodes

continually fight over mysterious reasons revealed only as Rhodes gave

his word to Hardy and Russo is making him look bad. . .

 

7/28 show was a

mixed bag with a disappointing level of responses, with 15 thumbs up

(44.1%), 11 down (32.3%) and 8 in the middle (23.5%). Best match was

Ultimate X, named such by all 34 respondents, as they had a great bout

with a overly creative finish. Worst match was Abyss & Alex Shelley vs.

D-Ray 3000 & Shark Boy with 19 and Mike Posey vs. David Young with 11. .

. The building was close to full, with an estimated 1,200, but the early

lines indicated an even higher percentage (about three-quarters) than

usual was paper. . . Ultimate X saw A.J. Styles lose the X title in 14:56

when Kid Kash and Dallas interfered, knocking him off the cables. With

him down, both Frankie Kazarian and Michael Shane climbed the cables,

grabbed the belt, and came down simultaneously. They were ruled

co-champions, which is too much of a take off on all the times they've

had tie finishes and held up the titles in just two years. This wasn't

the best Ultimate X, but still really strong, including Styles giving

Kazarian a sloppy but scary Styles clash attempt while both were hanging

on the cables. The story was that it was a handicap match, as Kazarian

and Shane never fought each other. Styles would pound one, and the other

would climb to get the belt, and just before he did, Styles would knock

them off the cable. Kazarian took his crazy over the top rope bump off an

Irish whip, and Styles gave him a running flip dive. Later, Kazarian

power bombed Styles off the cables. The Styles clash off the cables spot

came after that. Traci interfered at another point, keeping Styles from

winning. The only other good match on the show was Chris Harris & James

Storm over Team Canada (Petey Williams & Bobby Roode). The match saw

Scott D'Amore use a belt to whip Harris & Storm once during the match, as

well as after. D'Amore took some licks. The rest of Team Canada saved

D'Amore, leading to XXX (Christopher Daniels & Prime Time) making the

save. You would think this would set up an eight-man, but instead it

looks like they are going to do XXX vs. AMW once AMW gets past the

country whipping match with Team Canada. Abyss & Shelley beat Shark Boy &

D-Ray, with the stips that Goldylocks now owns the contracts of Shark &

D-Ray. Sonny Siaki & Desire appear to be the next ones about to have

Goldylocks own their contracts. These Goldylocks interviews and segments

continue to be awful. A funny deal was Raven was out there with a lighter

and the mic with the idea he was going to burn some of The Sheik's old

outfits. Anyway, at one point, he accidentally started talking into the

lighter, which caused the crowd to laugh. They did the deal where he was

going to burn not only Sheik's old outfit but also set Sonjay Dutt on

fire, when the lights went out. When they went on, Sabu was in the ring.

There was zero pop, I mean scary bad. Sabu used to be a big deal, but

he's been beaten and treated like he was nothing here for so long that

nobody sees him as a star. Naturals retained the NWA tag titles over XXX

in a very disappointing match with no crowd heat. The teams just didn't

click. Team Canada ran in again, and Harris & Storm made the save. After

the faces had cleaned house, Prime Time started shoving Harris & Storm,

so you can see they are teasing that direction. The match where Hardy

beat Monty Brown for the title shot was better than expected. I'm

starting to see a lot of charisma in Brown as he's turning his goofy

style into a unique style on promos. Hardy has nothing left in the ring,

but people still see him as a superstar, and there were no bad stories

about him being late or anything this week. Jeff Jarrett interfered,

pulling Brown out of the ring when Hardy went for the swanton. However,

back in the ring, Brown missed the pounce, and got cradled. Rhodes, who

does Hardy's promo for him, started talking about the NWA title, when

Russo came out. . .

 

Jim Mitchell was at the 7/29 show in Orlando. They

are talking about bringing him back. One idea has been to reform the New

Church using Slash & Lex Lovett (used as a job guy on TV this week but

somebody liked him) as the team. There have also been other ideas

discussed for his return. . .

 

Kash and Styles continued their feud on the

IWA Mid South show on 7/31 in Highland, IN where they interfered in each

other's matches. Williams holds that promotion's world title. . . This

week's heat on Vito comes from the office rather than the wrestlers. He

was called on 7/25 and told there was a change of plans and he wasn't

needed for the 7/28 show. So he made other plans, apparently for an indie

show. When he was about to leave the day of the show, TNA called and told

him they changed plans and needed him for the show. He said he had

another booking and wasn't going to no-show it. TNA said they weren't

happy. Most of the wrestlers were 100% behind Vito, which was saying

something considering he's not exactly the most popular wrestler there,

and they have the "Bellars watch" (how long will it take for him to be

gone) on.

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MMA: The new planned main event for the 10/22 UFC show from Atlantic City

is Tito Ortiz vs. Guy Mezger. The two have faced each other twice before.

On May 30, 1997, Mezger won very quickly with a guillotine choke in a

controversial match. Ortiz took Mezger down and was kneeing him in the

head, and opened up a cut. This got Mezger out of a bad position, and

when Ortiz charged, he didn't defend his neck and got guillotined. They

had a rematch on March 5, 1999, when both guys gassed early, but Mezger

gassed first, and Ortiz won via ref stoppage. Ortiz was easily able take

Mezger down and controlled him in that fight, but really never hurt him

because he himself got tired. Mezger was on his stomach taking weak punch

after punch, and didn't seem hurt, but was unable to get out of the

position where he was getting hit and hadn't done much in the fight.

 

That

fight was most notable for Ortiz putting on a t-shirt that read "Gay

Mezger is my bitch," which caused Ken Shamrock to nearly hop the fence

and go after him, which led to the biggest buy rate years later in modern

UFC history. Mezger is now 36, and hasn't faced top competition in a few

years. The booking idea behind this seems to be that Ortiz will probably

win, and thus be able to build up the grudge for Ortiz vs. Shamrock when

Shamrock's shoulder has recovered. . .

 

After Mike Tyson's loss on 7/30,

which puts future big money boxing matches back in jeopardy, K-1 is back

trying to get him. Sadaharu Tanigawa said after Tyson's loss that he

feels Tyson is still a top fighter and they want him. . .

 

If you are a

K-1 fan, go out of your way to get a tape of the 7/7 K-1 Max show. The

action of the middleweight show blows away the heavyweight show, and the

crowd heat for Masato, particularly among women, is tremendous for all of

his matches. Even though Masato clearly lost to Buakaw Por Pramuk of

Thailand after three rounds, in the championship match, and it was called

a draw (they went into overtime and Buakaw dominated that and won

anyway), if you watch him, he gets over more by losing. He knew he was

beaten and you could see he didn't want to go out for the fourth round

(and really shouldn't have gone out for the fight, since earlier in the

tournament, he'd taken shots that had both of his eyes closing, and no

respectable athletic commission in the U.S. would have allowed him out

for that last match), but he's a total warrior and gave it all he had.

 

Fans are recognizing that the middleweight shows are actually the best

shows the promotion does, and the ratings are now ahead of the

heavyweight shows with the bigger names. You can also see in Japan it's

personalities, because all of Masato's matches aired in their entirety,

and other matches with bigger names did as well, but lots of the

tournament matches with more unknowns were heavily edited. Kid Yamamoto

vs. Yasuhiro Kazuya (they only showed the second round which was MMA

rules after the first round was K-1 rules) looked awesome as well. . .

 

Added to the 10/22 UFC show, most likely in Atlantic City, is Marvin

Eastman vs. Patrick Coti. Coti has fought for the TKO promotion in

Montreal, and has a 5-0 record. . . The 8/7 K-1 show in Las Vegas is

headlined by Rick Roufas vs. Akebono. The Japanese are praying that

somehow Roufas, who is close to 40, is washed up enough that Akebono

beats him, but I don't see how that is possible. The show also has Dewey

Cooper vs. Gary Goodridge and Ray Sefo vs. a fighter called Leo the

Assassin. The eight-man tournament features a first round of Carter

Williams (the favorite) vs. Bret Walis, Jurgen Cruth vs. Eastman, Jan

Nortje vs. Alexander Ustinov and Mighty Mo vs. Sergei Gul. . .

 

K-1 is

also doing tryouts the week of the show, as they've had officials along

with Rick Bassman of wrestling fame scouting for new American talent.

They are looking for huge guys who can do interviews, with the idea of

finding a new Bob Sapp. Unfortunately, they are stuck in the mentality of

trying to copy the last big gimmick, thus making it almost impossible to

be successful. The next Hulk Hogan was Steve Austin, not a big blond

bodybuilder, and the next Bruno Sammartino was Hogan, not an Italian

immigrant who came off as proud, realistic and humble on interviews. The

next Bob Sapp isn't going to be a jacked up 370 pound African-American,

but that's the prototype they are looking for, just like the next Andy

Hug turned out to be Sapp, and not Remi Bonjasky. . .

 

Ricardo Almeida,

who announced his retirement at the age of 28, to go into teaching,

vacated his King of Pancrase middleweight title with his retirement.

Almeida was 5-0 in Pancrase, climaxing with beating Nathan Marquardt for

the middleweight title on 11/30 at Sumo Hall. Promoter Masami Ozaki

announced they would fill the vacancy with a tournament. . . I saw a 1997

article in Quinton Jackson as a high school junior from the newspaper in

Chattanooga, which is where he grew up. He was a high school wrestler in

the 189-pound weight class, and was already coming out with the chain

around his neck, taken from JYD, and the story called him Quinton

"Rampage" Jackson, so Pride didn't come up with the name or the chain

gimmick. In the article, he said his goal was, after high school, to

become a pro wrestler.

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