Tag: classic - Page 3

May 10, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE introducing wilder characters, PRIDE controversy, more

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

he WWE has seemingly changed directions when it comes to some characters and has more plans to get wilder with new characters.

As it turns out, the Eugene character is going to be portrayed in the manner suggested here a few weeks ago. This has nothing to do with what was written here, as it was suggested by many people before hand. But the original gimmick of a modern day Rainman crossed with Mighty Igor (a 70s babyface character who played a simple immigrant who had freakish strength) looks from TV this week to be a guy whose Rainman strengths makes him pick up technical submission wrestling at incredible speed. The character looks to be that of a simple man, who actually is a great wrestler after a great television vignette where William Regal was attempting to teach him and then stretch him, and he wound up stretching his teacher.

The other major change is that the Hirohito name for Kenzo Suzuki has been dropped.

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May 3, 2004 Observer Newsletter: PRIDE: Total Elimination, WWE business

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

looked like a fluke, but it was really a carefully crafted plan from a man whose career has been dominated by a label of having great athletic talent but no strategy.

Kevin Randleman has been an athlete who has stood out in everything he’s ever tried. He was a two-time NCAA wrestling champion in college at Ohio State, and probably would have been a three-time champ and potential Olympian had he not dropped out of school and wrestling prior to his senior year. He was a college contemporary of Kurt Angle, and at the time, considered the better wrestler of the two. He got into the fighting game at the age of 25, and despite being undersized, held the UFC heavyweight title. As a pro wrestler, few men in history have shown as much athletic ability, charisma and potential so early in their careers.

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April 26, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE/Austin negotiations stall, Backlash review

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

Just ten days after Steve Austin and Vince McMahon verbally agreed that they’d be doing business together in some form for life, and agreed on doing two projects even if he didn’t come back as a full-time television character, negotiations between the two broke down, and all projects are off.

On 4/16, the wwe.com web site posted a short note that Austin was no longer with the company and that they wish him the best in all future endeavors. That signaled the end of a more than eight year contractual relationship, which included two major television breaks. One was when Austin underwent neck surgery in late 1999 and again when he walked out of the company in 2002. It also included the late 1997 through late 1999 period when, led by Austin, the company turned its economic fortunes around. It went from being well behind to having an insurmountable lead in one of the biggest wrestling wars in history, and where Austin drew more money than any wrestler in history.

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April 12, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Steve Austin talking with WWE, UFC and TNA TV deals

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

What some internally felt was the potential end of the relationship between WWE and Steve Austin appears to have been averted.

Austin, Vince McMahon and Jim Ross had a 90-minute meeting before television on 4/6 in San Antonio to talk about a new contract. The most pressing issue according to those close to the situation was not financial, either in his pay or his merchandise percentage, but his ability to negotiate outside deals for himself and intellectual property rights. Austin in particular had been wanting to capitalize on his name and break into the market to do either a hunting television show or a series of hunting videotapes, as well as pursue acting jobs that would come along without the company’s involvement, and that his full-time wrestling storyline schedule would get in the way of. He was also looking for the rights to use the “Stone Cold Steve Austin” name in outside endeavors.

The meeting ended with pretty much an agreement that the Austin/WWE relationship would go forward.

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March 29, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE brand split lottery, more

Posted on March 16, 2021 by F4W Staff

What was billed as a night that would change the face of the WWE wound up simply being a very entertaining shuffling of mid-carders, and not really addressing the major problem, leaving Smackdown at present with the weakest PPV main event in modern company history scheduled for May.

With the quitting of Brock Lesnar, who had been the focal point of the Smackdown show from when Hulk Hogan quit in August of 2002, until the spot was given to Eddy Guerrero in February, Smackdown’s heel side was weakened. Vince McMahon called for a lottery, theoretically to find a logical way to fill the gap. The decision was made before Kurt Angle called the morning after Wrestlemania with numbness in his fingers, which put his career in jeopardy.

McMahon made the decision almost immediately, under the assumption Angle wouldn’t be wrestling, that he would replace Paul Heyman as General Manager, thereby keeping him as a regular part of the show.

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March 22, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WrestleMania XX review

Posted on March 10, 2021 by F4W Staff

After a successful Wrestlemania, paced by what will probably be remembered as one of the great Mania matches ever, there is no time to savor the victory, because there are uncharted waters ahead.

Early indications are that Mania will wind up near or above records as the biggest money pro wrestling event in history. We also set an all-time record, by far, for poll responses to the show. That would seem an amazing comeback from the late 2003 low point of Armageddon. But much of the success of the show was based on other factors, the significance of a year-long promotion of the 20th annual event, and main stars who are not with the company as it goes forward.

When Brock Lesnar told management at Smackdown on 3/9 in Atlantic City that he was quitting after Wrestlemania, a panic set in, even though business has been on the upswing.

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March 15, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Rob Feinstein out of ROH after sting operation

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

One week after Ring of Honor owner Rob Feinstein was caught in a sting operation aimed at pedophiles put together by a web site and the Philadelphia NBC news affiliate, there are far more questions than answers.

Feinstein, 32, who built RFVideo into the leading independent pro wrestling tape company in the U.S. and Ring of Honor into the hardcore darling, is now said to be gone from the company, by total necessity. He was identified on 3/3 by WCAU-TV in Philadelphia when he showed up at the door, and promptly ran off, jumping in his $70,000 Lexus, when, according to the newscast, he was showing up to meet a manufactured 14-year-old boy he had supposedly been corresponding with on instant messaging.

According to Gabe Sapolsky, the booker of ROH, Feinstein is gone from the company and will never be back. Later in the week, the company sent out a press release claiming that Doug Gentry, who uses the name Ray Morrow as a commentator on the ROH tapes, had been named by the Board of Directors as the CEO and president of both companies.

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March 8, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WrestleMania retrospective

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

With the 20th installment of the most famous wrestling spectacular of all time on the horizon, Wrestlemania has become a household term as pro wrestling’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. This year, Wrestlemania is booked for more than five hours of live events. The plan is to start with Heat at 6 p.m. Eastern time on Spike TV, with Mania starting at 7 p.m. The original five hour plan for the PPV itself has been modified. Wrestlemania is now booked from 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., which really means the show is targeted to end at 11:15 p.m. (Although Vince McMahon in an interview with the Baltimore Sun said the show would end at 10:45 p.m.).

This is the first Mania without a strongly defined main event, and rather there are five matches that could all be labeled as the main event. It is believed they will end the show with the title matches to get over the belts as the main thing.

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March 1, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Optimism for WWE business, early ’90s scandals

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

After the first weekend where there were signs that business is coming up, there is a lot of optimism leading into Wrestlemania.

The packed house of 14,572 and somewhere in the$400,000 range for Raw on 2/23 in Omaha, the biggest Raw crowd in months, topped off a weekend with two Smackdown house shows that sold out in advance. This made, including Stockton on 2/16, every house show a sellout since the title change to Eddy Guerrero. Of course, they were all small buildings with less than 2,500 in paid attendance, but WWE only sold out a few house shows in all of 2003.

While it’s too early to say house show business has turned a corner, by standards of the last few months, this was a very successful weekend. Raw drew the second biggest live crowd of the year (behind Rumble) in Omaha. Some of that was due to it being one of the first events in the new Quest Arena, but if you’ve got a dead product, just being an early event won’t save you.

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February 23, 2004 Observer Newsletter: No Way Out with Brock Lesnar vs. Eddie Guerrero

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

A lot of history came together, as a member of one of pro wrestling’s most famous families broke a life long size barrier to international superstardom in what is country’s oldest major wrestling arena, and among the business’ all-time most historical buildings.

A few years ago, even though he was as talented as any wrestler in the business, Eddy Guerrero would have been just about the last person anyone would think would ever win a WWF heavyweight championship. Quite frankly, he wouldn’t have even been considered as a possible main eventer due to his size, the same tag line about him that has been said literally since he was a skinny 19-year-old wrestling in Juarez. And even with his newfound popularity, Guerrero had never even headlined a PPV show until 2/14, the night he captured the WWE championship from Brock Lesnar at the Cow Palace.

The win capped 50 years since the first time a Guerrero had challenged for a world heavyweight title, when Eddie’s father, Salvador “Gori” Guerrero, challenged Lou Thesz at Arena Mexico in 1954.

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February 16, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Royal Rumble and WWE Japan tour a success

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

WWE got good news this week when the first company reports for Royal Rumble came in at about 485,000 buys and a 0.90 buy rate, more than double what Armageddon got in December. Even though it would be the second lowest buy rate for a Rumble in the 16 year history of the event on PPV, trailing only 1997, it was slightly ahead of the reported budget of 475,000 buys for the event. It would be down 5.8% from the 515,000 buys in 2003 (since buys often trickle in late, it is very conceivable it could end up near or even ahead of last year’s number), but way down from the record setting 670,000 buys in 2002.

Over the past two years, the Rumble buys have not been that much lower than those from Wrestlemania. In 2002, Rumble’s numbers were even more impressive because DirecTV didn’t run the show, yet it still set the record, and the buy rate itself was almost identical to that of Wrestlemania (which did 840,000 buys but was available in the nearly 10 million at the time DirecTV homes). Last year, Wrestlemania did 560,000 buys, so the buy rate was also very close.

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February 9, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE business review, UFC 46

Posted on January 27, 2021 by Dave Meltzer

In doing a business review of the effectiveness of the WWE main eventers is a tough and contradictory exercise. Traditionally in pro wrestling, the idea was to look at houses. Even most of the wrestlers from the 80s and early 90s when talking about business, will talk about their sellouts, even though PPV is really where the money has been.

I’ve heard wrestlers brag about selling out Madison Square Garden, but with the exception of maybe DDP (who was the fourth wheel in a tag match with Karl Malone, Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman that did 600,000 buys, which at the time was one of the highest in history), you almost never hear of anyone bragging about their buy rates. On occasion, wrestlers have called me up to try and use that info for negotiating deals, although in recent years, there really is little negotiating leverage with one company. Among younger wrestlers, you really don’t even see that acknowledged.

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