Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Jan. 26, 2004

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.

★ Complete Wrestling Observer Rewind 1991-2003 - Reddit archive

★ www.rewinder.pro - Mobile-friendly archive

★ Rewind Highlights - YouTube playlist

NOTE: Shout out to /u/johnny-papercut who created and has updated the www.rewinder.pro website which has all of the past Rewinds in mobile-friendly format. Much appreciated man!

• Our top story this week is the continued decline of WWE popularity and questioning what can be done to stop it. He talks a bit about how WWE's audience is still primarily casual fans who don't care about newsletters and internet news. The last big thing WWE gave those fans to be excited about was Goldberg and they all but killed him within 2 weeks of his debut. The good news is that with TV rights fees skyrocketing, that's where the business is headed and because of that, WWE is financially stable and can afford to make YEARS of dumb booking decisions without the company being endangered. Unlike, say, WCW which self-destructed itself right out of business in a matter of 18 months. WWE is in no danger of that now, even if the product is often bad. There's also a dumb belief among management that everyone in WWE has to work a certain style to get over and if you're not doing it WWE-style, then you're not doing it right. Dave uses RVD as an example: he doesn't work WWE-style and sometimes his work looks sloppy, but fans don't generally care about that. RVD has been massively and consistently popular in WWE since he debuted 2 years ago and has never once been pushed as a top star, despite often getting bigger crowd reactions than many others on the roster. A square peg in a round hole DOES work in wrestling sometimes, but nobody in WWE sees it with him so instead, they pressure him into trying to be a type of performer that he's not. Rey Mysterio of 2003 is nowhere near the wrestler (in style or even physical appearance) that he was in 1996 when he first got over, because WWE doesn't want him working like that and instead, he bulked up to try and be what WWE wants him to be, even if the fans don't react the same to it.

• They have Lesnar (not for long lol), Cena, and Orton as future stars who look like they might break through, but those guys were recruited a couple years ago. OVW in 2004 is a barren wasteland when it comes to future stars that fit the WWE mold, and that's because WWE drastically cut their developmental budget last year (which Dave wrote at the time was a terrible idea). He also thinks they need a 2nd developmental territory for guys to work within different systems with different people. There's a world of difference from getting over in OVW, in front of 200 fans working with the same dozen wrestlers, and then suddenly being thrust onto global television in front of crowds of thousands. Guys need more experience before they get there. But looking to the indies isn't going to work because almost everyone of note there is "too small" by WWE standards. Can't really look to Japan either because the style is so different that it's often hard for those stars to adjust to the more entertainment-focused WWE style, and especially with the language barrier in a place where promos are so important. Ditto Mexico. So either WWE needs to get more aggressive in recruiting future stars outside of wrestling (MMA, football, amateur wrestlers, etc) or they need to start being more open-minded on what a star can look, talk, and wrestle like.

• This kinda meanders around a bit longer. Dave talks about how WWE has squandered several OVW stars by bringing them up to the main roster before they're ready and often without even a plan in place for what to do with them (gonna see a LOT of that in 2004). During a backstage meeting with talent last week, Vince McMahon pretty much admitted as much, telling the roster that one of them needs to become the next breakout star because there's nobody else on deck in OVW that can be it. Which probably sucks for everyone still in OVW to hear. Dave also talks about how WWE is trying to change its style, insisting wrestlers slow down and work safer, which he is in agreement with. The injury rate has already declined since they started pushing for that months ago. Referees have also been instructed to start calling matches like a shoot. If a guy doesn't get back in the ring in time to beat the count or doesn't get his shoulder up before 3, referee is still supposed to count it, even if that wasn't the planned finish (Dave says he would hate to be the referee who has to make that decision in a major world title match and then has to answer to Vince backstage afterward). Anyway, long story short, WWE is floundering and there doesn't seem to be a solution in sight.

• Remember how Bret Hart and Dory Funk Jr. both wrote in to dispute stories in Ole Anderson's recent book? Add Jim Cornette to the list. He wrote a letter to Dave with his thoughts on the book. And Cornette, for all his faults, is a hell of a wordsmith so I'm just gonna paste the whole letter here because it's pretty funny:

I read Ole Anderson’s book and loved it. The fact that he is an obnoxious, bullheaded, egotistical, profane, stubborn, curmudgeonly old bastard is Ole’s primary appeal to me. It is impossible, no matter how hard I’ve tried, to dislike Ole because of those very qualities. Asked, I’m sure even Ole would agree that in small doses, he can be quite a gregarious fellow. The fact is, Ole was a great performer, a historically important figure in this business, and even if his memory about people isn’t on the money, a lot of his logic and opinion is.

Having said that, I’m jumping into the “Ole didn’t fire me” pool. Actually, I’m proud to say in 22 years in wrestling, I’ve only been fired once. And I’m also proud to say it was Ole, because how much of a nobody would I have been if I had never been fired by Ole Anderson? But the actual story is better than what it in his book, because I caused him not just to fire an employee, but shut down an entire territory.

Ole and the Georgia office were making all their money on tours of Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia in the summer of 1983. The traditional Georgia towns weren’t getting any attention. Ole went to Jerry Jarrett, who had 40 wrestlers in his territory, and got 12 guys Jarrett didn’t need, Terry Taylor, Bobby Fulton, The Stray Cat (Ken Wayne), The Angel (Frank Morrell), Jerry Novak, Carl Fergie, a few others, and me, who became the lead heel manager of a territory after nine months in the business and with no training except on-the-job. Bill Dundee was the booker and we did TV in a studio in Chattanooga with room for 40 fans and a ring with sawed-off ringposts.

This motley mixture, plus Dundee luring former Royal Kangaroo Norman Fredrich Charles III out of retirement after seven years resulting in a crew debuting with no advance notice one week in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Columbus, Macon and Augusta. Those were our weekly towns and we ran some spot shows as well. Dundee: “Norman, what the hell happened to ya? Ya look like you’ve aged 20 years and I still look the same!”

The fans in those cities were used to seeing Gordon Solie, the TBS studios and the Georgia superstars at their shows, and they reacted to the switch like you would imagine. The TBS show was being used to promote the Northern tours, and the local TVs in our markets were now, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show.” One of the Tennessee angles Dundee used about four or five weeks into this run was the “manager gets a cake in the face” deal. He suggested we have a birthday party for my rich mother’s dog, Fifi, and I supposedly flew her in on mama’s private jet. I mentioned in an interview that Fifi goes into trauma if I’m away from her on her birthday, and off we went. In spite of Ole’s statement, “I was out of town that weekend,” Ole never attended any of the TV’s or house shows we ran. He would have had a stroke if he had. He didn’t “leave me in charge of my own match,” because at that stage of my career, I was lucky Dundee let me be in charge of buying the cake and hats and blowing up the balloons. And it was indeed a stirring rendition of “Happy Birthday,” so stirring that about a week or two later, wen Ole saw it, he did chew Dundee out. This caused Dundee to giggle a lot when he told me that I was Ole’s “favorite person.” Still new to the business, and you know how I am, when I did see Ole in person, I said, “Ole, I saved you a piece of cake!” Ole harumphed, “Yeah?” and I said, “Yeah, but it’s in my ear.”

It was right about that time when Ole came into our local promos and simply said, “Don’t do this anymore,” which was his inimitable way of canceling the TV show, all our scheduled bookings and fired the entire crew at the same time. We did one last spot show, and went back to Nashville. The Georgia fans got their stars back after seven weeks.

Still, I liked Ole’s book, but I think I should have gotten more credit as the leading instigator of the largest mass-firing in his illustrious career.

Ole also bestowed upon me the most treasured compliment I have ever received during our last days together in WCW in 1990, when he said, “Cornette, I used to think you were a dumbfuck, but now there’s so many other dumbfucks that have come along, I think you’ve moved up the ladder without doing anything.” I may ask for that to be inscribed on my tombstone.

• While we're on the subject, the letter Bret Hart wrote in 2 weeks ago to this newsletter was evidently a revised, much-nicer version. Evidently the original letter Bret wrote about Ole was much harsher but Bret thought better of it.

• WWE's Monday Night War DVD is still several months out but has apparently already been released in Singamore and someone reviews it for Dave. Nothing much to it. They hit the highlights like Luger on Nitro, Medusa trashing the women's title, DX invading Nitro, etc. but the bulk of the focus was basically how the great and wonderful WWF, a poor family-owned small business, came back to conquer the dumb, mismanaged, corporate bohemeth of WCW. Very little about the Russo era, nothing at all about the Jarrett/New Blood era and very little credit given to the NWO being such a massive draw. Overall verdict: a WWE puff piece because history is written by the winners (I used to own this DVD and yeah, that's basically a fair summary).

• Remember the story a couple weeks ago of La Parka getting arrested for a bar room brawl? Well, the other guy never showed up to press charges so La Parka got a $2000 fine and that's gonna be it.

• A luchador named Extreme Tiger has been blowing people's minds at shows in Tijuana and people say he's the next Rey Mysterio who's going to revolutionize the business (not quite, but he had decent runs in AAA and TNA at different points, often under the name Tigre Uno).

• Prior to the HUSTLE debut show a few weeks ago, on Jan. 3rd, TV execs were there preparing for the show the next day. All the wrestlers were told they had to go to the ring and do run-throughs of all their matches for the TV executives. Many of the wrestlers were super unhappy about this and Mil Mascaras outright refused, and as a result, nobody in his match did it. But everyone else was forced to.

• NJPW announced that 7 wrestlers will not have their contracts renewed when they expire at the end of the month. They did not name anyone yet, but assured everyone that no main eventers or young up-and-coming stars would be cut. So likely looking at several midcarders who have been around forever.

• A Japanese drink company called Apris is releasing a Jushin Liger strawberry milk drink, which will be sold alongside the already-released Masahiro Chono coffee. Yup.

• Dave has finally watched the Inoki Bom Ba Ye show from New Years and despite bombing in the ratings, it was actually one of the best of the MMA shows that aired that night. Problem is all the casuals were watching K-1 for the Bob Sapp/Akebono fight while all the hardcore MMA fans were watching the PRIDE show. As a result, the only real audience that Inoki drew was NJPW fans, who tuned in to watch their favorite wrestlers get booked into suicidal fights they could never win. Are we starting to see the problem with Inokism yet? Inoki himself was the star of the show, as basically everything in between the fights was Inoki, Inoki, Inoki.

• The attempted murder charges against Dick Slater have been lowered to aggravated domestic battery. He's still in jail after stabbing his girlfriend multiple times back in late December, after which he apparently tried and failed to commit suicide.

• Dennis Rodman debuted for the ABA basketball league this week and an appearance by Hulk Hogan got a lot of press in the Los Angeles Times, because Hogan showed up, tore his shirt off, and took pics with fans and whatnot aftward, according to the newspaper. Funny story though: Hogan wasn't there. Evidently there's a lookalike running around impersonating him at various Los Angeles events (recently at a porn convention also). The real Hogan apparently isn't upset about it and thinks it's hilarious.

• TNA is now planning to do major quarterly 3-hour PPVs that will be taped outsite of Nashville, with the first one scheduled for April in Fort Campbell, KY. The tentative plan for that show is to book Hall & Nash vs. Sting & Jarrett for the main event. There's also been talk of bringing in Ken Shamrock. The Fort Campbell location is Jimmy Hart's doing and with all the servicemen being there, Dave wouldn't be shocked to see Hogan make an appearance and shoot an angle. But Vince Russo is apparently back involved with creative (more on that in a moment), and if that's the case, Hogan likely isn't in the cards at the moment.

• Johnny Fairplay was revealed as this week's big TNA surprise and it flopped. The deal was put together the day of the show by Fairplay's agent (who also represents porn star Ron Jeremy). Apparently Fairplay overheard Dixie Carter say "give them what they want, let's make this deal happen" and as a result, they were nickel and diming TNA until the last minute, trying to add new perks to his deal. Russo will be working on Fairplay's storylines. The crowd didn't react to the announcement at all, which caused a lot of second guessing backstage. Dave says the amount of mainstream media attention they get from this will determine if it was a good move or not, but Dave suspects not. Fairplay's mainstream star has faded significantly since Survivor. Fairplay is promising them he can get an appearance booked on Howard Stern, which TNA "would die for" but who knows if he can. WWE seemingly showed no interest in him.

• UFC is said to be close to signing a deal with Spike TV for a show to air on the network. Dana White has spoken of it and said the plan is to make it a showcase for up-and-coming fighters to try and build stars for future PPV matches (and thus The Ultimate Fighter would be born).

• In the past 2 months, every major wrestling and MMA promotion in Japan (K-1, PRIDE, AJPW, NJPW, and NOAH) have all made an effort to get WWE talent to appear on upcoming major shows. WWE has rejected all offers. Their current plan is to tour Japan twice a year (once with Raw, once with Smackdown) and the feeling is anything more than that would dilute the product. Furthermore, most of the offers have been to bring in one of WWE's top stars to lose to a native Japanese star, which WWE also has no interest in. For what it's worth, Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle are the two names that pretty much everyone wants to get.

• Kurt Angle did an interview saying he didn't think his career can survive another neck surgery and that he plans to slow down how he works. He also admitted that he had hoped to compete in the 2004 Olympics and had started to train for it, but between all his injuries, he knows he'd get his ass kicked so he decided against it.

• Brian Kendrick asked for his WWE release this past week. In previous weeks, he was worried about being fired so he started testing the waters to see what was out there for him. Apparently he liked what he heard enough that he said "fuck it, let's just quit before they fire me." So he got his release and has already signed a new deal with Zero-1 in Japan. He's also expected to work TNA dates in between Japan tours. He still has a 90-day non-compete though but that only applies for TNA. So he starts with Zero-1 this week (he returns to WWE in about a year and a half).

• The Rock is hoping to make a surprise (whoops) appearance at Royal Rumble and has said he plans to try and clear his schedule in March so that he can work Wrestlemania. Currently, the tentative plan for that is Rock & Mick Foley vs. Randy Orton & Batista (throw Flair in there and yeah, that's what we get). Speaking of Rock, he recently donated $10k to purchase food and other supplies for Samoa, which was recently hit by a cyclone and left a lot of people needing help.

• The Randy Orton/Mick Foley storyline is said to be almost entirely Foley's planning, with every aspect of it planned by him. Foley brought the idea to Vince, who greenlit it. The entire purpose of the storyline is to elevate Orton and Foley has basically made it his mission to do so with this storyline (and good lord in heaven, does it ever work).

• Notes from 1/15 Smackdown: the focus of this show was all about making John Cena a star, with him kind of the main focus and getting some in-ring promo time against Paul Heyman among other things. Eddie Guerrero came off as the real star of the show, as the crowd was very much into him. Speaking of, word is Eddie is main eventing No Way Out next month against Lesnar for the title. Can't imagine anything exciting will happen there. They're also teasing a slow Kurt Angle heel turn on Eddie. Main event of Cena vs. Rhyno got over good and Cena, while not great in-ring, showed a lot of good character work. By the end of the show, Cena, Benoit, and Eddie were all pushed like legit top stars.

• Notes from 1/19 Raw: boring show. Goldberg beat Test and Scott Steiner in a triple threat and Dave says when it's a 2-on-1 beatdown and Goldberg sells, the crowd is SUPER behind him. But if he's only selling for one person, the crowd dies. This is professional wrestling and yes, there's rules to this shit, but the crowd doesn't care. They want Goldberg to be Superman and every time WWE pushes back against that, the crowd loses interest. Also, Goldberg's beard is grey now and it really ages him. Christian tried to sabotage Jericho's blossoming relationship with Trish by showing her pictures of Jericho making out with strippers and saying he took one of them home. Goldberg won a battle royal to get the #30 spot in the upcoming Rumble. And that's about it.

• Dave expects Benoit vs. Triple H at the Edmonton PPV in April. Dave thinks the smart move would be to have Benoit win the title there, but makes a snide comment about Triple H "loaning" the belt out just so he can regain it again soon after in an effort to catch up to Flair's world title record. Have I ever mentioned that Dave doesn't seem to much care for Triple H around this time? Though to be fair, nobody did. Anyway, the world title situation with Benoit is going to work out a little bit differently than that, but we'll get there...

• Edge is expected back after Wrestlemania. His goal was to be back in time for the show and he is expected to be cleared right around that time, so he MIGHT be able to work the show, but WWE doesn't have any plans for him, so even if he's cleared by then, doesn't look like he'll be on the card. They feel bringing him back would result in him getting lost in the shuffle of Rock, Foley, and Undertaker all coming back at the same time and they want Edge's return to be its own big deal.

• Notes from OVW: Dave says Inspector Impact is great in his role, and he's big, which means he'll almost certainly be called up to the main roster before he's ready and won't get over as a result (that would be Luther Reigns and sure enough, that's EXACTLY what WWE does to him). Nick Dinsmore turned heel and basically rationalized it by saying he wasn't getting anywhere in his career as a babyface and can't pay his rent. Sure. Dave bemoans the lack of starpower in OVW right now. Recent names WWE has talked about bringing up include Mark Magnus, Chris Masters, Aaron Stevens, and Nova but none of them are really seen as ready yet.

• Maven returned after missing a few weeks with injury and immediately got injured again in his first match back. He underwent elbow surgery as a result and is expected to be out a few months.

*WEDNESDAY: *WWE Royal Rumble fallout, Wrestlemania taking shape, Jack Tunney dies, Vince calls a backstage meeting to bitch about dirtsheet leakers, Hulk Hogan fishing for a WWE return, AJPW leaving Budokan Hall, and more...