WWE Observer News - 9/25

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

WWE Unforgiven Poll Results

 

Thumbs Up: 220 (89.1%)

Thumbs Down: 0 (0.00%)

Thumbs In The Middle: 27 (10.9%)

 

Best Match Poll

 

John Cena vs. Edge 183

Trish Stratus vs. Lita 32

DX vs. McMahon’s and Big Show 17

Johnny Nitro vs. Jeff Hardy 9

Randy Orton vs. Carlito 8

 

Worst Match Poll

 

Spirit Squad vs. Highlanders 130

Kane vs. Umaga 102

DX vs. McMahon’s and Big Show 14

 

Dave called Unforgiven overall “one of the best PPV shows of the year, due to the main event”

 

Said much of the show, with Trish retiring as champion and Cena regaining the belt, was predictable, and the biggest surprise of the night was that the Toronto fans were not insulted. Said WWE and Toronto fans have a love/hate relationship, and that Toronto fans are lively but also the least predictable. WWE would often be negative about the fans, insulting them harshly in private and occasionally on-air as well with the “Bizzaroland” term. Dave said that this time the reactions were predictable.

 

The crowd was 16,105 with 15,000 paid. Said the Cena vs. Edge match may have been WWE’s best match of the year.

 

While on the PPV it appeared Cena was heavily early on in the match, there were parts where he did get cheers with live reports stating that he was cheered greatly by the end of the match. However, after the match as he was leaving with the belt, he was booed heavily. Even though Cena did win, he didn’t even pretend to be happy, which was explained as Cena being unhappy over what he had to do to Edge.

 

There had been a lot of publicity in Canada in the days leading up the PPV based on the retirement of Trish Stratus.

 

Trish Stratus quote:

 

From Sports Illustrated: “It’s been almost seven years and my contract renewal came up and it kind of just hit me, where am I at in life?...Do I want to be here for another three or five years?”

 

On TSN’s Off The Record she said it felt it was time after seven years, and with her wedding and contract expiration coming up she didn’t want to sign for another three to five years at this stage of her life. She said she wasn’t burned out but that she felt there was so much going on around her, like her friends getting married and having kids and even her mother getting ill and not being able to there, that made her realize she need to stop and enjoy life. She said she never posed for Playboy because it’s not her style and she’s proud that she’ll be remembered as a multiple time Women’s Champion rather than a girl who posed for Playboy. She noted that she was asked to pose within six months of being in wrestling and then at least once a year after that. She said that Randy Orton spent more time in front of the mirror than any other male wrestler and when asked who was more masculine Chyna or her fiancé she said “Chyna, 100%. No offense to my fiancé”.

 

Said with the stipulation of Cena going to Smackdown if he lost and with Smackdown badly in need of star power you could make a hell of an argument that he should lose but that was never considered as they went with the deal of Cena losing in his hometown and coming back to beat Edge in his hometown and in his specialty match. Dave said that it worked, because there was tremendous emotion and it was clearly the match that everyone came to see.

 

With both TLC and Hell in a Cell matches, they made this a stronger gimmick match show than they have done for a ‘B’ show this year, and Dave comments that they’ve gone through risking careers in stipulations and bringing back legends to pop buy rates and they all worked in their time.

 

The crowd were not into the HIAC match as much as you would have expected, but bringing back DX made it the first time Shawn was cheered in Toronto in almost ten years, and while there was a “You Screwed Bret” chant, it did not last long and it also seemed more directed at Vince. The match built to the spot of Vince getting his head shoved into Big Show’s bare ass, and while everyone did bleed, it felt like that, for the first 20:00, there was nothing happening but people bleeding. The finish of the McMahon’s going out on stretchers may have been the blow-off to the program, but if so it leaves DX with nothing to do, as even though there was talk of putting Edge and Randy Orton together nothing was hinted to that effect the next night on Raw.

 

Dave said the main event made the show, and that while Cena isn’t the best of wrestlers he gets a lot of respect internally for how hard he works. Edge has also become the company MVP because he and Cena always have good matches tighter, even at house shows. Dave called this their best match to date. Dave said Cena is like Steve Austin in that he’s so over that he doesn’t have to work hard all the time, but he still goes out and works incredibly hard, and Dave said Cena’s effort in the match as “above and beyond”.

 

A large number of signs were confiscated

 

Johnny Nitro vs. Jeff Hardy: **1/4 Said Nitro made the match and that it fell apart for a few minutes in the middle when Hardy made his comeback and blew some spots.

Umaga vs. Kane: *1/4: Said the crowd was into AAA even though he hasn’t had time on Raw to do his deal. Called the finish crappy and that the match had been fine until then.

Spirit Squad vs. Highlanders: ¾* Said it was amazing how quickly the SS got over and then were quickly buried underground.

DX vs. The McMahon’s and Big Show: ***1/4 Said that for a strongly promoted feud, it was slow early on and lacked heat. Said the characters were over but the wrestling was clumsy early.

Trish Stratus vs. Lita: ***1/4 Called it the best women’s match on PPV in a long time.

Randy Orton vs. Carlito **1/2

John Cena vs. Edge: ****1/4

 

Other News

 

The first estimated number of buys for Summerslam is 538,000. Dave says this years show had more drawing depth than last year, with Cena vs. Edge, Orton vs. Hogan, McMahon’s vs. DX and Flair vs. Foley, but he thinks the two matches most responsible were Orton vs. Hogan and Flair vs. Foley. The show is slightly above last year’s at this stage, and could finish at around the 620,000 mark. The number for this year is likely split with around 320,000 buys being domestic, and the rest from overseas. For North America since the “glory period”, this years is likely to only beat 2004 when all is said and done. It’s not on overwhelming success and what success there is more then ever down to the company and PPV being established overseas.

 

This years Summerslam will very likely wind up being the most profitable and, because of the price tag, biggest grossing Summerslam of all time. As far as money generated, it has not yet beaten 1998, $21m for Austin vs. Undertaker, which was the biggest number of buys ever for a Summerslam, with 700,000. Apart from the Invasion PPV, it’s the biggest non-Wrestlemania PPV in company history.

 

Raw on 9/11 segment notes: The parking lot beat down of DX by Show, Shane, Cade and Murdoch lost 372,000 and was the lowest rated segment of the show (3.3), but the Vince vs. Hunter match gained 869,000 for the ratings peak of 4.0, which is somewhat of a disappointing number.

 

Raw on 9/18 segment notes: The Orton promo and the build-up to the six-way gained 508,000 but the match itself lost 508,000. The six-man main event gained 635,000 for the ratings peak of 4.3, which beat the ratings peak of last week with the Vince vs. Hunter main event.

 

The Hardy vs. Helms match on Smackdown on 9/15 got a 0.8, making it the lowest rated segment in the history of the show.

 

JBL has given his notice to leave the announcing gig on Smackdown. JBL is doing well in his job and has decided to give up traveling to TV one day a week. JBL’s announcing and its detractors and he wasn’t shy about being critical of John Laurinaitis. Even though he was there one day a week and not wrestling anymore, JBL still had a rep for being a bully and having people on edge and not everybody is unhappy to see him gone. At the moment, there is no idea on who will replace him. Internally, the belief is that JBL is not walking away from wrestling entirely, as JBL has indicated he’d like to occasionally come back for a big match or program.

 

Mysterio is still scheduled for knee surgery after No Mercy

 

Tazz’s contract expires at the end of the year and he’s apparently looking to get a raise. He did some radio tryouts in an attempt to get some negotiating leverage as the company feels Tazz has nowhere to go where he can make the kind of money he makes now. Dave points out that WWE has done a terrible job in grooming new announcing talent, as when they dumped JR it was painfully obvious the people they had picked out (Coach) couldn’t handle play-by-play.

 

The Kurt Angle Update: He apparently has no interest in TNA and he, and people in WWE, are talking about him returning for Wrestlemania, which is considered probable. He’s getting paid until 2/25, so he’ll $500,000 to come in, and that doesn’t even include royalty payments which are likely to be significant. He’s back with his wife, which has helped his mental outlook. He’s going to a doctor to work with him on pain management rather than go to rehab. WWE isn’t keen on him doing MMA because Angle losing could hurt his marketability. As well as all the other offers coming in, Angle has a legit offer to work one of the Japanese big New Year’s show which he is said to be strongly looking at.

 

Greg Gagne was fired on 9/11. He was heavily criticized for being behind the times and the people in Deep South didn’t even want him around. When he was fired, the story going around Deep South is that it would take one week to undo one day of teaching from Gagne. Most people had nothing against Greg personally, but they felt he was out of touch. He was going to be made a road agent, but John Laurinaitis made the decision to go with Mike Rotunda, who was hired on 9/11 on a trial basis.

 

The signing of Rodney Mack is right now just a tryout for a few months before making a decision on whether to make it a full-time return. He’ll be working in ECW as they have a program idea for him.

 

Vince made the call in the last week to bring back Marty Jannetty, and the betting line is he will not last. Marty was fired twice last year due to legal issues, and after the second firing Vince went on television and said you would never see Marty in a WWE ring again, which he meant at the time. In total, he has been hired and fired eight times by the company.

 

Mark Canterbury (Henry Godwin) was hired as a favor to HHH, with the explanation being that HHH wanted him in because Canterbury’s life has been hard lately, and Undertaker also likes him, but then made sure he was put on Smackdown “which keeps his show killing performances away from HHH. He was so bad (at his tryout matches) it’s indescribable.”

 

On the 9/15 Smackdown, Dave said the Rey vs. Kennedy match showed that the show has been given up on when a number of botched spots aired that could very easily have been edited out. When people aren’t burned out, they don’t miss an editing trick to take out something bad, and here it felt like they just put the show out there because they know Vince doesn’t care.

 

Dave also said it’s clear from the past weeks that Kennedy is great on the mic but has a long way to go in the ring, because it takes talent to have an average match with Mysterio.

 

The main reason RVD and Randy Orton are getting slowed pushes is because generally people who can’t be counted are kept from the top spots for a while. It was one of the reasons, though not the main one, why Kurt Angle was never considered for a title run. Dave thinks Van Dam will probably get the top spot back in the run up to the 12/3 PPV which he guesses to be Van Dam vs. Big Show.

 

Jerry Lawler’s mother suffered a stroke this past week.

 

The 12/5 will see the final part of the World Wide Fund for Nature’s lawsuit against WWE. It will decide what, if any, damages will be awarded for WWE violating their own 1994 agreement to not market the WWF initials outside of North America.

 

The numbers for MSG on 9/11 were around 12,000 paid and $575,000.

 

The Cryme Tyme vignette from 9/11 was one done in OVW originally but with a new voice over.

 

Danny Hollie (Danny Basham/The Damaja) suffered a torn biceps on 9/9 or 9/10, and will be out until April. His role as one of the masked security guards for Paul Heyman is now played by Derrick Neikirk. Neikirk was going to be part of a heel tag team in ECW with Ryan O’Reily, but O’Reily got suspended

 

There has been talk of putting Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin back together as a tag team to work a tag title program on Raw. There is on and off talk, usually off, of Benjamin being on a “death sentence”, because the feeling is his promos are average and you need to be better than that. One insider said he could be a player but “because he can’t recite several pages of a scripted promo he’s considered hands off.”

 

Daniel Rodimer is getting great reviews for already being able to cut a good promo and for having natural heel charisma.

 

Ted DiBiase’s sons are not under contract, even though Jim Ross mentioned them in his report. Ted doesn’t want them under contract yet. He wants Harley Race to train them and when they’re ready to then tour NOAH and become good workers there rather than be brought up too soon and get burned out.

 

As things stand, they have a Raw/Smackdown/ECW combined taping set for 11/6 in Columbus, OH, which would be a five hour plus show.

 

The Manila Times did an interview with Batista when he was last week, and when asked if the death of Eddie Guerrero scared him he said:

 

“It didn’t scare me. We were well aware that Eddie Guerrero abused himself for a while. But he was clean and sober for a long time, but the damage he has done to himself was obviously irreparable. It didn’t scare me because I didn’t abuse myself like that.”

 

Dave called the quote amazing because it was an inability to get enough blood to his enlarged heart, enlarged through usage of GH, that was in part if not mostly responsible for Eddie’s heart attack.

 

Credit news to Dave Meltzer

Credit paraphrasing and re-typing to TSM Forums

[Lord of The Curry 0]

"Kurt apparently has no interest in TNA"

 

OMG LOLZ

[cabbageboy 0]

What was all that stuff about Greg Gagne and Deep South? He was fired from OVW, not from Deep South. Or were they thinking of switching him to Deep South before firing him? As someone who has watching his truly horrid OVW efforts, I am extremely glad he is gone. Down here we went from Paul Heyman to Greg Gagne.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

What was all that stuff about Greg Gagne and Deep South? He was fired from OVW, not from Deep South. Or were they thinking of switching him to Deep South before firing him? As someone who has watching his truly horrid OVW efforts, I am extremely glad he is gone. Down here we went from Paul Heyman to Greg Gagne.

He was fired from OVW, but he always did work in Deep South as well.

[Guest Fook]

As always, thanks for posting this.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The Manila Times did an interview with Batista when he was last week, and when asked if the death of Eddie Guerrero scared him he said:

 

“It didn’t scare me. We were well aware that Eddie Guerrero abused himself for a while. But he was clean and sober for a long time, but the damage he has done to himself was obviously irreparable. It didn’t scare me because I didn’t abuse myself like that.”

 

Yeah, because you haven't been jacking yourself up to the point that you've torn your triceps three times, have you Dave? No, you wouldn't do something that is likely to damage your heart, would you?

[Guest bobrock29]

Thanks for posting this as always..

[Aero 0]

There has been talk of putting Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin back together as a tag team to work a tag title program on Raw. There is on and off talk, usually off, of Benjamin being on a “death sentence”, because the feeling is his promos are average and you need to be better than that. One insider said he could be a player but “because he can’t recite several pages of a scripted promo he’s considered hands off.”

 

I wouldn't mind this, but what good teams are there to feud with on Raw? Pretty much just DX. If they reform, send them to Smackdown. Staying singles wrestlers, though, Shelton needs to turn face.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

On the 9/15 Smackdown, Dave said the Rey vs. Kennedy match showed that the show has been given up on when a number of botched spots aired that could very easily have been edited out. When people aren’t burned out, they don’t miss an editing trick to take out something bad, and here it felt like they just put the show out there because they know Vince doesn’t care.

 

It is a good thing that Vince doesn't care. Whenever he does and attempts to 'fix' the brand, the quality of the show goes down the toilet.

[slimm44 0]

"Kurt apparently has no interest in TNA"

 

OMG LOLZ

 

Just goes to show, even 'people in the know', don't!

[Timmy8271 0]

JBL has given his notice to leave the announcing gig on Smackdown. JBL is doing well in his job and has decided to give up traveling to TV one day a week. JBL’s announcing and its detractors and he wasn’t shy about being critical of John Laurinaitis. Even though he was there one day a week and not wrestling anymore, JBL still had a rep for being a bully and having people on edge and not everybody is unhappy to see him gone. At the moment, there is no idea on who will replace him. Internally, the belief is that JBL is not walking away from wrestling entirely, as JBL has indicated he’d like to occasionally come back for a big match or program.

 

I thought he got a new deal? This was probably put out before this was announced i guess.

 

Good work HTQ.

[mfn 0]

so.. dave says kurt has no interest... yet the tna website says he is in????

 

 

confusion anyone?

[Hektik 0]

Dave wrote this up last Tuesday.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I thought JBL had worked out a deal, and was staying on Smackdown?

[Guest Hotbutter Spoontoaster]

Dave wrote that stuff about J.B.L before the new deal was worked out. J.B.L. is staying.

[Black Lushus 0]

I think it's time to dust off an old IWC phrase: poor Shelton

[Hasbeen1 0]

There has been talk of putting Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin back together as a tag team to work a tag title program on Raw. There is on and off talk, usually off, of Benjamin being on a “death sentence”, because the feeling is his promos are average and you need to be better than that. One insider said he could be a player but “because he can’t recite several pages of a scripted promo he’s considered hands off.”

 

I wouldn't mind this, but what good teams are there to feud with on Raw? Pretty much just DX. If they reform, send them to Smackdown. Staying singles wrestlers, though, Shelton needs to turn face.

 

 

I think the Highlanders have potential as a heel team, members of Spirit Squad-eventually, as a face team.

[naiwf 0]

I think it's time to dust off an old IWC phrase: poor Shelton

 

If the E cuts him loose he can just go reform Team Angle, or enter a tag team with Ron 'The Truth' Killings in TNA. In the long run it would be in his best interest for Vince to make room for another meathead by cutting Shelton.

[Hasbeen1 0]

TNA might be a better fit, some of their guys don't talk too much and stll get a lot of ring time. Maybe I'm confusing him with someone else but I'm pretty positive I saw an OVW tape and he had a couple of good interviews or promos.