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Dave Meltzer and I are back on Wrestling Observer Radio going over the news in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
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Shinya Hashimoto’s Zero-One promotion, which just a few years ago seemed to have the best booking of any major company in the world, fizzled out of business just as Hashimoto had feared it would once he was no longer appearing on the shows.
However, Hashimoto has hardly come off as a sympathetic character after the company announced it was closing its doors on an 11/25 press conference, being approximately $1.2 million in debt. Many have blamed Hashimoto for using company money for personal use, and almost everyone in the company had turned on Hashimoto.
At the house show later that evening at Korakuen Hall, the final show of the promotion, it was expected Hashimoto would address the fans, but instead, he never came.
With Hashimoto out, a new company will start in its wake called Fast On Stage Corporation, with Shinjiro Otani as company president and Yoshiyuki Nakamura heading up the business end.
Before Vince McMahon’s XFL officially kicks off in 2020, they already have a rival that isn’t the NFL. And, in a twist, a driving force behind it is someone McMahon knows fairly well.
On Tuesday, news broke that Charlie Ebersol — producer of the XFL ESPN 30-for-30 and son of longtime NBC Sports executive Dick — will be heading up another new pro football league, already armed with a TV deal and set to kickoff in 2019.
The Alliance of American Football has several major backers including the majority owners of Barstool Sports and the Founders Fund which includes Peter Theil, the man who secretly funded Hulk Hogan’s succesful lawsuit against Gawker Media. The season will begin in February 2019 and will conclude in April with games on both CBS and CBS Sports Network.
Dick will be be on the league’s board. He was a major part of the XFL’s lone season and historically was a champion for then-WWF programming on the Peacock Network. There was no indication he would be involved with the new XFL, but given McMahon’s history with him, that was a likely association in some aspect.
Because of the nature of the league, it will be a direct competitor to McMahon’s XFL which was officially announced in January for a 2020 return. How this will affect the player pool, potential sponsors, and more will be an interesting story to see play out over the next two years.
Image: ESPN
The story of the XFL will soon be coming to your television screens.
ESPN announced in a press release on Thursday morning that an edition of their 30 for 30 documentary series focusing on the XFL would premiere on February 2nd at 9 p.m. ET. The project — titled “This was the XFL” — was previously announced by Jonathan Coachman on an edition of The Ross Report with Jim Ross last May.
It seems that Vince McMahon will be heavily present in the documentary, with ESPN’s press release touting that it will feature both McMahon and NBC executive Dick Ebersol. Director by Ebersol’s son Charlie, the documentary will focus on McMahon and Ebersol’s friendship as they attempted to build the failed football league.
Calling the league a “bold challenge, a fearless experiment and ultimately, a spectacular failure,” the press release noted that the documentary will focus not only on the failure of the XFL, but the influence it had on the way that sporting events are broadcast today.
The XFL operated as a collaboration between WWE and NBC for one season in 2001 while losing tens of millions of dollars for both companies.
