Jan 3 Observer Newsletter: Jeff Hardy situation - Sports

Jan 3 Observer Newsletter: Jeff Hardy situation,
enormous King Curtis bio, Reaction canceled
TNA ended 2010 with two bits of bad news, as their world champion is expected to
plead guilty to drug charges and their secondary television show was canceled.
The Moore County District Attorney’s office on 12/27 released information that Jeff
Hardy would be pleading guilty on 1/20, the date of his next scheduled hearing.
Hardy’s case included charges of trafficking in opiates (Vicodin), two counts of
possession with intent to sell or deliver a controlled substance, maintaining a
dwelling to keep a controlled substance, possession of cocaine and possession of
drug paraphernalia. The case had gotten continuance after continuance this past
year, since his initial arrest at a raid of his home in September 2009.
Maureen Krueger of the Moore County District Attorneys office wouldn’t comment
on the nature of the deal reached between herself and Hardy’s attorney, James Van
Camp. The case itself had been interesting because the Moore County prosecutors
were said to be hard-nosed when it comes to drug issues. But Van Camp had a
strong reputation as a lawyer. From shortly after the arrest, the Hardys had told
friends that they weren’t worried and the case would be going away, but that never
ended up happening.
As far as how TNA will handle this likely depends on the deal Hardy’s lawyer made
and whether it would include having to serve any jail time. Calls to both sides were
left unreturned, and those close to Hardy were unaware any deal had been reached
earlier this week, noting that in social situations over the holidays nobody had
spoken about the case.
Hardy was not scheduled on the company’s first PPV of the year, Genesis, on 1/9
in Orlando. He was scheduled to defend his title on the February PPV against the
winner of a Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson match on 1/9. Those in the promotion
theorized that if Hardy would have to serve time, they could add something to the
show, since all television has already been taped, a match against perhaps Rob Van
Dam and do the title switch. Van Dam was scheduled against a mystery opponent.
Even if Hardy has to serve time, it wouldn’t necessarily be immediate, and there
would be time to work a storyline on the post-Genesis television shows to lead to a
necessary title change.
If the deal doesn’t include serving time, then TNA has a different question to
answer, as to whether or not they want someone convicted on drug charges as
their world champion. If Hardy was in WWE, even as big of a star as he is, he
would be fired, but then, in that situation, there is the chance he would address
the situation differently. Another situation involves if he can plead guilty to any
misdemeanor charges, because with a felony on his record, particularly a drug
felony, it could play a hindrance in his traveling to certain countries. There are
people in wrestling, most notably Jim Cornette and R-Truth, who are not allowed in
Canada due to convictions from a long time in the past, Cornette’s in the 80s and
Truth in the 90s. Booker T for a long time wasn’t allowed in Japan for a felony also
from the 80s.
It is not clear which side was asking for the continuances all year.
Hardy’s home was raided after Fayetteville police received a tip about drug use
in his home in Cameron, NC. When they searched his home, they found 262
Vicodin pills, 180 Somas, 55 milliliters of anabolic steroids, cocaine residue and
drug paraphernalia, according to police reports. The street value of the drugs was
$2,500. The trafficking charge, by far the most serious, has to do with state law
regarding the amount of drugs found.
Matt Hardy commented on his twitter account just saying, “As a quick reminder
to everyone, don’t believe everything you read. There are several inaccurate facts
floating around and the media loves them.”
Jeff Hardy’s issues became public in 2003 when he would arrive late and looked
unhealthy while working for WWE. Jim Ross, who headed talent relations, ordered
Hardy to go into drug rehabilitation, but Hardy refused, denying he had a problem,
and was released in August, 2003. Hardy worked a few indie dates but largely
disappeared from wrestling until June 2004, when he signed a two-year contract
with TNA. However, after a series of no-shows, including the December 2005
Turning Point PPV, TNA stopped using Hardy.
He signed a three-year deal with WWE in August 2006. While always having a
strong cult following, he caught fire as a personality during this run, in particular
during matches with Umaga. While never considered as a potential main eventer
or world champion by management, and HHH all but said this on a recent DVD
release about Hardy being too small for that spot, his popularity couldn’t be denied.
In 2009, most within the company acknowledged that he was the most popular
wrestler they had. He was the single most searched combat sports or entertainment
personality in the world on the web that year, even beating out John Cena and
Brock Lesnar.
Twice during that run he failed drug tests and was suspended for 30 days the first
time, and 60 the second, the latter during a period before the 2008 WrestleMania
and caused him to miss the show. His chasing of the WWE title at the 2008 Royal
Rumble was the last non-Mania show to break the 400,000 North American
buy level. While the Rumble was major reason, it beat out all but a few Rumble
numbers in history and was far above any one since, and the difference was the
Hardy chase of Randy Orton’s WWE title, and proved that in the right situation
he could be a significant draw. There was even criticism of not following up on it,
however the company’s WrestleMania main event plan was Orton defending against
HHH and Hardy’s role was to lose to Orton to help set up that match. Those who
were against changing original plans were historically vindicated when Hardy tested
positive in a drug test and had to miss Mania.
Still, even after an incident where he was not allowed on a plane home after
a taping in Nashville in November, the next month, after being switched to
Smackdown and becoming pushed as along with Undertaker, one of the top two
babyfaces on the brand, he was given the world title for a short run. It was always
meant as a short-term deal, ending several weeks later when brother Matt turned
on him in a feud that pushed the limits of tastelessness with the insinuation that
Matt had caused the real-life fire that burned down Jeff’s trailer and killed his pet
dog. Even their father was appalled by the angle, although Matt defended it at
the time, but has since changed his tune on it. Jeff had two more reigns in 2009,
although one lasted only a few minutes before Edge cashed in the money in the
bank on him. The final one was only for a few weeks.
The final reign was notable because word was already out Hardy had decided
against signing a new deal, and the company pressured him to do so. He was
expected to lose at Night of Champions, but the company got him to sign a short
extension, gave him the title to surprise people, and had him drop it for good at
SummerSlam, in his last week with the company. He was arrested a few weeks
later.
After his arrest, C.M. Punk, who he feuded with on television and apparently didn’t
like in real life as well, did a promo on television bringing up Hardy’s arrest. Hardy
was said to be furious over it being brought up on WWE television, feeling it wasn’t
business, and people close to him said that was part of the reason he decided
against returning to WWE.
Most likely WWE would not have used him this year until the criminal charges
were taken care of. TNA had no such compunction, and had him appear on a
live television show in January, even though he had not signed a contract. Hardy
finally signed in March, even with WWE doing everything it could to prevent it from
happening. He has been a regular ever since, and was given the world title at the
Bound for Glory PPV on 10/10 even with the charges still hanging over his head.
The decision to go earlier in the year with Rob Van Dam as champion ahead of
Hardy was largely because, even though Hardy was the more popular of the two,
he still had the charges pending. Hardy became TNA’s first-ever legitimate house
show drawing card in their history early on in the run, but turned heel in October,
and his subsequent house show numbers were declined significantly.
In recent weeks, a video surfaced with both Hardys, at a diner, where Jeff was
slurring his words and cutting a promo on Punk for some reason. In addition, at
the Final Resolution PPV, there were concerns about his demeanor, and talks of
stripping him of the title and pulling him from the main event on the show against
Matt Morgan.
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Several sources within TNA confirmed this past week that Spike TV informed the
promotion three weeks ago that Reaction would be canceled at the end of its
current ten-episode contract.
The contract ends with the 12/30 show and the show has been removed from the
schedule after this week.
From a technical standpoint this is not being called by either side publicly a
cancellation, only that no contract was offered by Spike for future episodes.
Spike officials told TNA that the cost of production of the show made it not
worthwhile to continue. While the show did good ratings for an 11 p.m. show on
the station, it was recognized that the show, a brainchild of Eric Bischoff and Jason
Hervey, was to an extent gimmicking its rating by having the television main event
of Impact bleed into the show, giving it an artificial first quarter boost. The ratings
pattern for the show would show a huge drop in audience as soon as the main
event match ended. It was a smart move early on to establish the show by having
the main event finish on Reaction, but after nearly 20 episodes, it was noted that
by continuing to do so, that Bischoff and Hervey weren’t showing a lot of confidence
in their unique format and different style interviews. After the ratings were strong
for the early episodes, it surprised people that the renewal for a second run was for
only ten weeks, showing that the station didn’t have nearly the commitment to the
show the promotion hoped for. Spike officials told TNA the decision was financially
motivated as opposed to ratings driven, but obviously they go hand-in-hand in the
sense if ratings were bigger, it would be financially worth the costs.
Spike officials stated that they will be doing several “expanded length” episodes of
Impact this year, similar to what the USA Network does with special Raws.
A question regards what role Hervey, who is partners with Bischoff in a television
production company, will take with the promotion. Reaction was largely Hervey’s
baby, as he was the voice on the other end of the camera not shown, and had
moved to Nashville to produce the show.
The dropping of the show was similar to the reasons Spike dropped a weekly
MMA talk show in early 2007, due to costs of weekly production on a show that
didn’t deliver good ratings and a show that wasn’t “evergreen,” the Spike TV term
for most of its programming which can be repeated forever because it isn’t time
sensitive.
My own feeling is the Reaction concept, with a new style of pro wrestling talking,
was a good idea in concept. My feeling is also that wrestling fans wouldn’t watch
60 minutes of straight interviews after a two hour show, largely borne out by the
quarter-by-quarter major declines.
Doing those type of interviews during Impact and between matches would have
been more effective than a stand-alone interview type show. An attempt to see
if adding one match (Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation Me empty arena
match) during Reaction would keep the viewing audience didn’t work. The issue
was that three straight hours of TNA was too much for the majority of viewers.
The idea of airing Reaction a second time on another night was tried, but it wasn’t
promoted at all, and evidently Spike wasn’t happy with the numbers.
A show like “Manswers,” or even a live UFC special, and shows like Ultimate Fighter,
or virtually anything else on the networks’ schedule, could air for years to come
over-and-over. The feeling was Reaction, as well as Impact, could only air for
one week before becoming obsolete with the next episode. I’m not sure why that
is, since Ultimate Fighter is episodic and sports like UFC live shows are all about
being aired live, really, more than pro wrestling where live vs. taped weeks in
advance hasn’t led to much of a variance in ratings. But Spike constantly replays
old episodes of Ultimate Fighter in marathons, as well as old Fight Night specials.
The cancellation is a financial hit for the promotion, which has already faced money
issues in 2010 because of a huge increase in talent contracts.
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We don’t have complete details at press time but John Cena appeared to suffer a
knee injury on the 12/28 house show in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
Cena was working the main event, a cage match against Wade Barrett, when
Barrett delivered the Wasteland. Barrett then climbed the cage slowly. Cena was
to recover, and then climb up the cage to pull him down, but when Cena got up,
he couldn’t put any weight on one leg. Barrett had to awkwardly and for no reason
climb back down, and Cena immediately put Barrett in a submission, Barrett tapped
and the trainers came out.
Cena talked over the mic and instead of his usual feel good go home speech that
they end all the house shows with, ending with his celebrating with the crowd, he
instead apologized to the crowd for the match, saying that it looks like he’s going to
have to miss some time. Cena limped badly to the back.
If the injury is serious, the loss of Cena could not come at a worse time for the
company, given that Undertaker is still considered 50-50 at best for WrestleMania.
There was a makeshift Mania lineup out that was the tentative direction, which
included matches with all of the active stars. Miz vs. Cena for the title was a
tentative direction with Randy Orton vs. C.M. Punk, although the nature of the
Punk vs. Cena program and with Rumble and Elimination Chamber as the next two
PPV shows, that would make it difficult to put on a singles match between the two
before Mania. Another potential short-term solution would be to have Wade Barrett
in the Cena spot, just because he was kicked out of the Nexus he started. It’s early
to turn him face but if Cena is out for a length of time, you’re looking at Orton and
John Morrison as the top two faces on Raw.
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When the Japanese version of TBS (no relation to the U.S. version, as this TBS
stands for Tokyo Broadcast Systems) airs Dynamite! on New Year’s Eve, it will be
the tenth straight year that MMA airs on New Year’s Eve in Japan.
And in Japan, there is a lot of talk that it may be the last.
TBS has cut back from the usual nearly six-hour broadcast (6 p.m. to 11:50
p.m.) down to less than three hours (9 p.m. to 11:45 p.m.), with a taped comedy
show airing from 7 to 9 p.m, in the place of what in past years would have been
Dynamite! And with a 15-match show, with most matches having at least one name
who has been a regular on big shows in the past or champions, it isn’t like they
wouldn’t have enough matches to fill the time.
This comes after last year’s show did strong ratings, finishing in second place
behind the Red & White Concert (a Super Bowl like television event in Japan each
year), on what is considered in Japan the biggest television night of the year. Last
year’s show averaged more than 16 million viewers, and peaking at 26 million for
the Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Satoshi Ishii battle of Olympic gold medalists match.
However, there is no mainstream hook this year, as there was last year for Ishii’s
debut and Masato’s retirement fight. Some say the only reason it’s even on this
year is because TBS signed a two year deal with FEG (Fighting Entertainment
Groups) prior to last year’s show. The hopes of the show doing big numbers were
dashed with so many of the big draws of the past not involved, and the failure to
land this year’s hoped for “big fish,” the retired sumo legend Asashoryu, whose
debut would have gotten tremendous mainstream talk.
Kid Yamamoto, expected all year to be the top “real fighter” draw on the show,
the ratings champion in 2004 (against Masato), 2006 (against Olympic gold medal
winning wrestler Istvan Majoros) and 2007 (against Rani Yahya), recently signed
with UFC. Another consistent big draw, Bob Sapp (champion in 2002 against
Yoshihiro Takayama in the shoot Battle for the Pro Wrestler of the Year award;
2003 for the legendary match with Akebono–the highest rated match of its kind
in more than a quarter-century as it was viewed by 54 million in a country of 127
million; and 2008 in against Kinnikumantaro, a masked cartoon figure played by
multi-time Japanese national wrestling champion Akihito Tanaka), is in a dark
match. TBS is refusing to air his opponent, Shinichi Suzukawa, due to his arrest for
marijuana possession and being kicked out of sumo. According to Adam Swift of
HDNet, the match will air as part of the U.S. broadcast.
The biggest names left are Jerome LeBanner, the K-1 legend who faced New Japan
Pro Wrestler Tadao Yasuda in the main event on the first televised New Year’s Eve
show, and Kazushi Sakuraba, the key figure in the growth of MMA in Japan in the
early part of the last decade. LeBanner faces Ishii. Sakuraba challenges Marius
Zaromskis for Dream’s welterweight title in what are likely to be the two matches
with the most general public interest on the show.
The biggest star on the show is not fighting, as 67-year-old Antonio Inoki returns
to New Year’s Eve for the first time since 2003. The New Year’s Eve tradition
actually began in 2000 with a PPV show from Osaka called Inoki Bom Ba Ye, a pro
wrestling show that drew an announced 42,753, the largest pro wrestling crowd
ever in the city, at a time when the idea of seeing MMA stars do pro wrestling
was still marketable to the public before it ran its course and burned out. Among
the names on that show included several names who would have UFC pedigrees
including Justin McCulley, Caol Uno, Bas Rutten, Ricco Rodriguez, Gary Goodridge,
Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, Sakuraba, Ken Shamrock, Renzo Gracie and Don Frye.
It featured the first time a major member of the Gracie family did a pro wrestling
match, as Gracie faced Antonio Inoki in doing a three minute draw with Inoki
having Gracie in the abdominal stretch when time ran out. The next year, the
theme was pro wrestlers doing real fights, which didn’t work out as well, but was
the show that made Mirko Cro Cop into a big star when he knocked out Yuji Nagata,
scheduled to headline New Japan’s Tokyo Dome show a few days later, in just 21
seconds.
After the ratings success of the 2002 show, put on by a joint effort of Pride and
K-1, with Inoki as the figurehead, headlined by Sapp vs. Takayama in a shoot,
after the two had finished 1-2 in virtually every Pro Wrestler of the Year poll in
Japan that year, three different networks wanted into the game. Inoki went with
one, Pride with another, and K-1 with a third, starting the three-year-long New
Year’s Eve MMA war. A few years later, when allegations surfaced regarding Yakuza
threats against the people behind the scenes of that show when Inoki’s group
signed Fedor Emelianenko from Pride for the one show, it led to Pride losing its
television and eventually going out of business.
The positive is that with the shorter time window, the ratings should artificially be
up. Last year’s show doing a 14.7 was a combination of an 11.3 from 7-9 p.m. for
prelims, a 16.7 from 9 p.m. to 11:20 p.m. for the main matches, and a 10.6 for the
post-show wrap-up. Besides Ishii’s debut and Masato’s farewell, the main selling
point on an 18-match and nearly eight-hour long live event that drew a sellout
35,000 fans to the Saitama Super Arena was a Dream vs. Sengoku best-of-nine
series of matches. That came down to the wire with Dream lightweight champion
Shinya Aoki breaking the arm of Sengoku’s lightweight champion, Mizuto Hirota.
This year has no such interpromotional lure, with Sengoku doing a live event the
night before.
The 2008 show, which was not a success, did an 11.9.
The peak was 2003 to 2005. In 2003, three different networks aired MMA
programming on New Year’s Eve, with shows produced by K-1, Pride and Antonio
Inoki, combining to do a 37.7 rating. In 2004, K-1 and Pride combined for a 36.5,
with the big fights being K-1's Masato vs. Yamamoto and Pride’s Rulon Gardner vs.
Hidehiko Yoshida Wrestling vs. Judo Battle of Gold Medalists.
This year’s 15-fight show is scheduled to begin at 4 a.m. Eastern on HDNet. The
show features 11 MMA fights, 2 kickboxing fights, one mixed MMA/kickboxing fight
and one fight billed under IGF rules which is Inoki’s pro wrestling organization. It’s
unclear whether the match will be real.
● Bibiano Fernandes vs. Hiroyuki Takaya for the Dream featherweight title
- These two fought on October 6, 2009, in the finals of the tournament to
create the title. It was a great fight, with Fernandes winning the split decision
in a fight that could have gone either way.
● Tetsuya Yamato vs. Wicky Nishiura under kickboxing rules - Yamato is
a regular 154-pound weight class kickboxer. Nishiura fights MMA, but
concentrates on stand-up, and is well known because of his gimmick that he
learned to fight while watching monkeys, so he has a stand-up style adapted
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from how monkeys fight standing up.
Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Caol Uno: Miyata, nicknamed Hercules due to his
physique, is a Dream regular, who was a member of Japan’s 2000 Olympic
wrestling team. Uno is an MMA veteran who was on the first New Year’s Eve
show as a pro wrestler in 2000.
Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Josh Thomson: The perennial No. 1 lightweight in Dream
against the perennial No. 2 lightweight in Strikeforce. Given the styles of the
two, this could be the fight of the night.
Shinya Aoki vs. Yuichiro Nagashima under mixed rules. Aoki is the current
Dream lightweight champion. Nagashima is a popular lightweight kickboxer.
They will alternate with one round MMA and one round kickboxing, with a
coin flip to determine who gets the first round. Nagashima is also well known
for dressing up like a woman for his kickboxing matches.
Marius Zaromskis vs. Kazushi Sakuraba for the Dream welterweight title.
Sakuraba, 41, is an aging who is in his seventh New Year’s Eve show,
including the first one. Sakuraba fought most of his career as a light
heavyweight or open weight fighter, before going to middleweight in recent
years. This will be his first fight at welterweight. Zaromskis is considered
very beatable, but Sakuraba is long past his prime and he’s going to have to
get Zaromskis off his feet to have much of a chance.
Minowa-man vs. Hiroshi Izumi. Minowa-man represents pro wrestling against
other sports, and in this case he faces the 2004 Olympic silver medalist in
judo.
Hayato Sakurai vs. Jason High. Sakurai, a popular fighter past his prime is
being brought in an opponent with some name value in Japan. But clearly
this is designed for Sakurai to win.
Hideo Tokoro vs. Kazuhisa Watanabe. Tokoro is a very popular submission
specialist, who loses almost as often as he wins (26-23-1) but under MMA
rules, should win quickly over the boxer-turned kickboxer.
Kyotaro vs. Gegard Mousasi under kickboxing rules. Mousasi defeated
Musashi a few years back on a New Year’s Eve show as a kickboxer. Kyotaro,
coming off going the distance in a loss to Semmy Schilt on 12/11 in the K1 World Grand Prix, is K-1's heavyweight (under 220 pounds) champion.
Mousasi is Dream’s light heavyweight champion, as well as being a former
Dream middleweight champion and Strikeforce light heavyweight champion.
Andy Ologun vs. Katsuaki Furuki. Ologun, from Nigeria, is the younger
brother of a well-known Japanese celebrity comedian turned fighter Bobby
Ologun. Furuki was a Japanese major league baseball player with the
Yokohama Bay Stars and Orix Buffaloes, making his debut.
Bob Sapp vs. Shinichi Suzukawa under IGF rules. Sapp was a major celebrity
in Japan and at his peak, the best drawing ratings fighter or pro wrestler of
the modern era. Suzukawa was a disgraced retired sumo who Inoki is trying
to build to be the top star of the IGF. In that sense, Suzukawa, who has
never fought MMA, should somehow wind up on top.
● Sergey Kharitonov vs. Tetsuya Mizuno. Kharitonov, with a background on
boxing and sambo, was a heavyweight star in Pride who hasn’t done much in
recent years. Mizuno (8-6) is a mid-level fighter who lost in the finals of the
Dream light heavyweight tournament to Mousasi. He was originally trained
by Kiyoshi Tamura.
● Jerome LeBanner vs. Satoshi Ishii. LeBanner, 38, is an aging kickboxing star
who has a 76-19-1 (1 no contest) record in that sport to go along with 6-0 as
a pro boxier and 3-1-1 as an MMA fighter. Ishii, who won the gold medal as a
super heavyweight in judo in 2008, needs to get the fight to the ground.
● Alistair Overeem vs. Todd Duffee. Overeem, the muscular heavyweight who
is the great non-UFC hope, faces the man who holds the UFC record for the
fastest knockout in history.
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Few personalities in the history of pro wrestling were as unique and memorable as
King Curtis Iaukea, who was a mainstream celebrity in his native Hawaii, as well
as in Australia and New Zealand, and a main event wrestler everywhere he went
during the 60s and 70s.
Iaukea, who passed away on 12/4 at the age of 73, was an often brilliant man,
known in wrestling both for his fondness for living, drugs, wine, storytelling and
being one of the greatest promo men in the history of the industry.
After his wrestling career ended, he was best described by close friend Lolly Dude,
the Stage Manager for Southeast Conference football telecasts, as the Pied Piper of
Waikiki Beach in the 80s and 90s.
“People would follow him everywhere,” he said about the days when Iaukea would
set up his beach stand, and start telling stories all afternoon like he was cutting an
never-ending wrestling promo.
Unlike most of the great promo men in history who when you see them in real
life, are not out there doing wrestling promos, Iaukea was a living, breathing 24hour-a-day promo, with his booming voice, huge frame, and scarred up forehead
attracting locals and tourists. Most of the locals would know him from wrestling, as
pretty much anyone from Hawaii born before 1965 would know him vividly from
television. The tourists that didn’t know him as a wrestler could immediately look at
him and see he was someone.
“Policemen, politicians, athletes, people from all walks of life, they’d all be there
with their shirts off listening to him as he held court on the beach,” said Dude.
Over the years, a who’s who of wrestling legends from the 60s and 70s, would
show up at the beach, knowing exactly where to find him and former ring rival
Sammy Steamboat, who would rent out canoes and surfboards in front of the
Outrigger Hotel on the same beach. Also at Waikiki, his son, Rocky Iaukea, would
take tourists out on catamarans.
Iaukea was actually the pioneer of the beach stand businesses on Waikiki. He was
left crippled and sickly at the age of 41 due to bad knees, a bad back and a blood
disease that he never fully recovered from. His pro wrestling career ended when he
had to be carried out of the ring in Florida in 1979 against Dusty Rhodes because
he could no longer stand up.
“He had to decide if he was going to move to New Zealand (where he had a large
home and property from his days as the biggest heel in the history of that country)
or Hawaii,” said Rocky Iaukea, who followed his father into pro wrestling. “Then he
decided he wanted to go home. He sold his piece of the promotion in Australia and
New Zealand and sold his home in New Zealand.”
Iaukea’s health problems dated back to 1976. While wrestling somewhere, perhaps
New Zealand or Singapore, and bleeding he got an infection from a dirty mat and
suffered a blood disease that he never fully recovered from. While wrestling in
Florida and bleeding during a match, he noticed his blood was clear, and not red.
He was rushed to the hospital. Ring injuries crippled him by the end of his career,
and he struggled to continue through 1979. When he collapsed in a Florida ring,
unable to ever wrestle again, he was in such bad health that they didn’t know if
he would survive. He spent seven months largely on his back resting up at Nick
Bockwinkel’s Florida condo.
Multiple times over the years he was on his deathbed Once his heartbeat got down
to 17 beats per minute. But he always bounced back. A few months ago, he would
say that his days were numbered, and he stopped allowing people outside the
family and a few close friends to see him. But people had seen him recover so
many times that aside from those who was him, they seemed to expect he would
be back.
“After what I’ve been through, every day you wake up is a blessing,” he would tell
friends.
His beach stand business dated back to June 11, 1980. Shohei “Giant” Baba, one
of his two favorite promoters to work for (the other being Jim Barnett) bought him
supplies to get started, boogie boards, beach chairs, towels and umbrellas, and he
cruised down to Waikiki. He had no permits or anything of the sort, and just set up
shop on the prime part of the beach in front of the most popular tourist hotels.
Nobody knew what he was doing. The hotels would call the police, who would
come down, confiscate his supplies, and shut him down. Then he’d come back the
next day. A plan that only a wrestler could come up with saved the business. Well
connected since he was a celebrity on the island for two decades, he contacted one
of the local television stations to come down, knowing the police would be coming
to kick him off, as they always did. He refused at first to leave. Then, he agreed to
leave as he sat on a board while several officers carried him off the beach since he
needed a cane or crutches to get around. This was all being filmed. Even though
none of the officers touched him, he fell off the board, taking a bump on purpose,
but making it look real, and keep in mind this was all being filmed, bladed himself
on the way down.
It was easy to open up all the scar tissue he had from being one of the big bleeders
in the wrestling game. When the footage aired, even though the police were only
doing their job, he became such a sympathetic figure, being a crippled older local
native legend shown bleeding and having his business taken away from him. The
police department and the hotels in the area, to avoid embarrassment, struck a
deal with him to have lifetime rights to run his stand. Maunukea Mossman, better
known today as Taiyo Kea of All Japan Pro Wrestling, was a distant relative of
Iaukea and first got to know him when he was in third grade and would pick up a
few bucks helping out at the beach stand. Iaukea became a father figure to him.
“If I ever needed money, he’d take care of me, and he always followed how I
was doing, ” said Mossman, who became a two-time state high school wrestling
champion.
While he was in high school, Iaukea would tell him that he’d help get him started in
pro wrestling if he was interested.
“I always thought he was bullshitting me, but after graduation, he took me to Lord
Blears who introduced me to Baba,” he said.
The two remained close, as Mossman considered him like both a father figure and
a best friend. But Iaukea gave Mossman virtually no advice on wrestling during the
early part of his career.
“Looking back, I think he felt it was important that I learn it on my own,” he said.
“I’ve since moved to Maui so I haven’t seen him as much, but every time I would
go through Honolulu to make flight connections, I would make sure to go to see my
grandmother and to see Curtis.”
“He gave so much to so many children in this city,” said Rocky Iaukea. “Mossman
you know, but there were hundreds of others through the years that you wouldn’t
know. If they had a good smile and were outgoing and tourists would like them,
and in particular if they were products of broken families raised by their mothers,
he would have them help him out on the beach. They’d earn some money. On good
days, they could male a good amount of money for kids that age. He became like
the father figure to so many of them.”
He was out there almost daily for the next 20 years. The King of the ring became
the King of the beach. After about 2000, between the constant sun beating down on
him and his declining health and ability to move around, he would go to the beach
in the mornings and help set up, but then go home. He’d have people run the stand
for him, and come back and help take everything down at the end of the day. Two
years ago, a combination of his age and health, and a steep decline in tourism saw
him shut down the business.
His wife of 40 years, Janette, a British woman who grew up in Australia, who met
Iaukea while he was wrestling down under. She runs a successful carpet cleaning
business. His days were spent with his racing pigeons that he kept as pets and
would set up in pigeon races on the island. He noted racing pigeons was for people
who weren’t rich enough to buy race horses, although over the years he had also
purchased race horses.
Dude remembers when he first moved to Hawaii from Texas, where he was friendly
with some of the wrestlers. They told him to get in touch with Iaukea. He noted
that a Haole, or American, to the natives, was the lowest rung of person on the
societal totem poll on the island.
“But when you were friends with Curtis, it was instant acceptance everywhere.” he
said.
There were wild parties, but every day with him was an experience.
Iaukea loved keeping up on wrestling, and Dude noted at one point his favorite day
of the week was “Sheet Day,” as he’d describe when the printed Observer would
arrive in his mailbox.
“I’d have to come over right away, and read every word to him,” Dude noted. “It
was a four-hour process because whenever there was a name he knew, or a
wrestler where Curtis knew his father, he’d stop and tell all kinds of stories.”
“Every day around him you would learn so much, but you’d also have a lot of your
brain cells killed while learning,” he said.
He’d go out to restaurants and with his meal, sit there and light up a joint, and
because of who he was, nobody would say anything.
“That’s when you know a guy owns the place,” said Mike Tenay, who termed
Iaukea, “He was just the coolest person ever.”
“When I was a teenager living here, we used to go see Curtis all the time and he
would always let me and my buddies use his boogie boards,” said Dwayne Johnson,
who was in Hawaii shooting a movie when Iaukea passed away. “What a great heel
for his time.”
Johnson was too young to really copy from Iaukea’s promos, as he learned more
from people like Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair and Roddy Piper. But during the 60s,
Iaukea spawned the next generation of great promos.
“He was just the best of the best,” said Terry Funk. “That’s what I thought. I
learned promos from my father. My style was a combination of my father and
Curtis. I thought (Boris) Malenko was No. 2.”
“Everyone copied from him, but he was the original,” said Kevin Sullivan, who was
mesmerized by Iaukea when he came to Florida in the mid-70s.
“I was a huge mark for his promos,” said Superstar Billy Graham. “I would not miss
a pre-tape promo of his. I would pull up a chair and sit and just be mesmerized
at his promos. He told me he appreciated me marking out for his promos. I never
used his stuff but was most likely his biggest fan. I was like a kid. I could not get
enough of his high energy original stuff.”
“(Bruiser) Brody loved him,” said Terry Funk. “Brody took a great deal from him.
We all took something from him. I stole a lot from him but I consider it a form of
flattery. You don’t copy from people if they aren’t any good. You copy from a guy
because of how good he was.”
Even though it would have been as big a kayfabe violation as possible in a territory
where that was protected at all costs, when Iaukea would wrestle in West Texas, he
would stay with Dory Funk Sr. at the ranch. Terry Funk noted that when he would
go to Hawaii and visit Iaukea, that Iaukea’s generosity in making sure he always
had a great time had no limits.
Iaukea also a huge influence on a young Lonnie “Moondog” Mayne, one of the big
stars of the 70s who learned much of his crazy act when he was touring Hawaii
early in his career.
“As a young lad, I was in awe of him,” said Dusty Rhodes to Slam! Wrestling, who
first encountered Iaukea when both were wrestling in Australia in 1969, and later
Iaukea became one of his most successful drawing heel foes in Florida in 1976. “I
loved to hear him talk. And the thing that I remember most of all about him is he
lit the room up. When I walked into room, no matter how bad I felt, and he opened
his mouth he brought joy and laughter and smiles to my heart and face at a time
when the industry was a lot different.”
In 1979, when Iaukea knew his career was over and Brody was debuting in All
Japan, he took Brody under his wing. Brody was at the time a 6-5, 300 pound
powerlifter who had uncanny agility and with his long hair had a great look. He
was already a big star, but he hadn’t put the pieces completely together. But the
barking came from Curtis’ loud bellowing and he copied Curtis’s twisting facial
expressions, his wild running through the crowd ring entrance and all the things
that gave you the impression that the guy was a different level of dangerous as
everyone else.
Brody would usually stop in Hawaii on his way to Japan to see Curtis, who could get
him anything he wanted or needed.
“The saddest I can remember him was when I was a kid when Brody died,” said
Mossman. “He felt when he was leaving and Brody was getting started, he helped
him out with so many different things.”
He would love to reminisce about people like Skull Murphy, who he considered the
greatest heel of the 60s, Ray Stevens, who he considered the greatest worker and
was his favorite opponent as the two headlined in both Hawaii and California many
times, and Dory Funk Sr., who he would call, “A man’s man.”
“He would tell me, it’s not what you do that in the ring by itself that leads to
business, but what people in their minds imagine you might do,” said Rocky Iaukea.
Iaukea has fond memories of growing up in the 60s with his father as the area’s
local wrestling star.
“It was huge here,” he said about the period when 50th State Wrestling promoted
by Gentlemen Ed Francis, the father of future NFL star Russ Francis, aired on the
local CBS affiliate in prime time every Friday night. “I don’t know how to explain it.
It was like being one of Muhammad Ali’s sons. I can’t even describe it. Everywhere
we went, he would eat the best food and drink like a king, and everyone in the
place for that night would eat and drink like a king, and at the end of the night,
he’d pick up the tab for everyone.”
Because of his success in places like Japan and Australia, which were the biggest
money territories in wrestling in the 60s, Iaukea was one of wrestling’s top money
earners. He was so successful as a main event draw that he was given a cut into
the promotion in Australia and New Zealand. But he lost most of that fortune on his
generosity, as well as the ending of his first three marriages.
Curtis Iaukea came from Hawaiian royalty. While listed in many places as his
grandfather, the original Curtis Pi’ehu Iaukea was his great-grandfather. As a child
in the 1860s, he was recruited by the parents of future King David Kalakaua, to
grow up in the palace and be like his big brother. When Kalakaua became King,
Iaukea was his liaison with the public. He assisted the King as a member of his
staff, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and accompanied the King in meeting the
most powerful people in the world, including Tsar Alexander III in Russia, Queen
Victoria in England and U.S. President Grover Cleveland. After the Kingdom in
Hawaii collapsed after the U.S. purchased the Republic of Hawaii and turned it into
a territory, Iaukea served as Sheriff of Honolulu, a senator from 1913 to 1915,
Hawaiian Secretary of State from 1917 to 1921 and Governor for a brief period in
1920.
The second Curtis Iaukea, the grandson of the original, was the No. 2 man in the
Honolulu police force, and most believe he would have been the Police Chief had it
not been for his son’s rebellious behavior.
His son was a football star at Punahou High School in Honolulu, a private school
where the social elite in the territory, which was not yet a state, would send their
children. President Barack Obama attended Punahou, as did Don Muraco. Muraco,
a football star and state heavyweight wrestling champion, was a classmate of
Jimmy Blears, the oldest son of Lord James Blears, at the time both the booker and
television announcer. Jimmy Blears would later become the world surfing champion.
A year younger was Carol Blears, who was Muraco’s high school girlfriend, which
led to his entree into pro wrestling. Also attending was Laura Blears-Ching, the
youngest daughter. Blears-Ching was the best woman surfer in the world, known
for competing in the biggest competitions against the men, and the first real
celebrity in that sport during the 70s. She gained mainstream fame for her success
in ABC-TV’s “Superstars,” competition, and is remembered for posing topless with
her surfboard in a 1975 issue of Playboy.
Iaukea and Lord Blears were surfing buddies while Iaukea was making local
headlines as a star offensive and defensive lineman on the local high school scene
while Blears, a British World War II war hero, had just moved his family to Hawaii
in 1954. Joe Blanchard, Tully’s father, was also on the circuit at the time and the
two opened the door for Iaukea to get into in pro wrestling. Blears noted that in
his time on the beach and at Timmy Leon’s Gym, tons of people would approach
him to get into wrestling, and he noted that in almost every case it was a waste
of his time. He only broke in four men, Steamboat, the son of a Hawaiian beach
surfing legend, who Blears traded surfing lessons for wrestling lessons with when
he first got to Hawaii; and Iaukea, Muraco and Mossman, who were local football
and wrestling stars.
“He told me, `Curtis, you’re going to be a tremendous success in the business side
of your life, but be prepared to be a hell of a flop in your personal life, and don’t
ever blame me for it,” Iaukea said.
The 6-3, 225-pounder was such a major recruit after high school that it got Bay
Area headlines, “Giant Hawaiian Tackle Chooses Cal” in 1955. He started both
ways, as an offensive and defensive tackle in 1956 and 1957, remembered as being
a very talented player, an NFL quality athlete because of how agile he was for his
size based on the standards of that era. But he had a difficult time controlling his
emotions on the field. During the summer between his sophomore and junior years
of college, he started wrestling in the Bay Area for promoter Joe Malciewicz and in
Hawaii for promoter Al Karasick.
He was introduced on television in Hawaii as the protege of Blears, as the great
young athlete who had become the surfing buddy of the promotion’s then-top
babyface, the former British nobleman who had been in a few years because of his
love of the islands, been accepted by the public as one of them. It was well known
in Honolulu to be true because people knew both of them and so many had seen
them together at the beach. But in their first match as a team, Iaukea turned on
Blears and became an instant top heel. During the 60s, Blears handled most of
the booking for the promotion and made Iaukea his “go to” guy on top, constantly
battling over and winning championships, and competing long programs with the
top faces leading to various gimmick matches.
While studying economics, and learning about mind altering drugs, he dropped out
of school and signed with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.
But ended up traded to the British Columbia Lions, where he played in 1958 and
1959, while wrestling in the off-season in British Columbia, Hawaii and California
before getting his big break in early 1960 in Japan.
His football career ended in the summer of 1961. He was in camp trying to make
the Oakland Raiders, practicing in the brutal Sacramento area sun. As the story
has it, the temperature that day was 120 degrees, he just got fed up. Late in the
practice, on the field, in the middle of scrimmaging, he just took off his helmet, and
then took off his pads. The line coach screamed at him to get his helmet back on.
“Fuck you,” he said, as he continued to strip. After more screaming by the coach,
he said, “Fuck you” again until he was wearing nothing but his underwear. While
this was going on, Don Manoukian, who was a genuine star, a college standout at
Stanford who was a second-team all-AFL offensive guard the previous season as a
rookie, then took off his helmet as a symbolic gesture of support. The coach turned
his attention from Iaukea to Manoukian, and screamed at Manoukian to get that
helmet back on. Manoukian, mimicking Iaukea, said, “Fuck you.” Manoukian had
become good friends with Iaukea on the pro wrestling circuit in both Hawaii and
California, where they had been a heel college football star tag team. Manoukian
wound up taking everything off, and like Iaukea, was standing on the field in his
shorts and told the coach he was done with football, saying, “I can make more
money wearing nothing but my shorts.”
“Curtis was a good enough athlete to play in the NFL,” said Dodd. “But really, he
wasn’t the kind of personality who could have made it there.”
While a headliner in every territory in the early 60s, Iaukea’s greatest fame came in
Japan. He debuted on a nine-week tour from October 10, 1960, through December
16, 1960, booked to be the No. 2 foreigner behind Tex McKenzie. McKenzie was a
6-7, 285 pound cowboy who had a big name but wasn’t much in the ring. They had
advertised Rikidozan vs. McKenzie for the International title at the Tokyo Gym as
the big match on the final night of the tour. But by November, Rikidozan was fed up
with McKenzie, who didn’t want to take his chops and had little going for him aside
from his size and his cowboy gimmick. On November 11, 1960, in Osaka, Iaukea
& McKenzie were to challenge Rikidozan & Toyonobori for the All-Asian tag team
titles. Iaukea pinned Rikidozan clean in the first fall with a splash. Rikidozan then
went wild in his comeback, and pinned McKenzie in both the second and third falls,
establishing Iaukea as the big star the rest of the tour. This led to the International
title match change.
In that match, once again, Iaukea pinned Rikidozan to take the first fall. In the
second fall, Rikidozan rammed Iaukea’s head into the ringpost, leading to a sevencentimeter cut. Iaukea bled heavily, and was counted out in the second fall and
unable to answer the bell for the third fall. The scene of Iaukea in the ring, covered
in blood, crying because he lost the match made Iaukea in Japan, and he continued
as a regular headliner there until ending his career in 1979.
While in Southern California for the first time, he crossed paths with Vic Christy, a
legend among wrestlers for his propensity with ribs.
“He came to the territory and moved into a hotel in Hollywood,” remembered
Dick “The Destroyer” Beyer. “Someone in the office told him Vic Christy would call
him and take him to his first show, which was in Santa Monica, about 25 minutes
away. He’s never been to Southern California so he has no idea where anything is.
So Vic Christy called him up that night and said we’ve got a long drive tomorrow
so I have to pick you up at 10 a.m. Vic picked him up, put down the top of the
car and drove south to San Diego. Then he drove east to Yuma, Arizona. Then he
came back through Nevada, through a town in the desert, then to San Bernardino
and finally arrived in Santa Monica just in time for the show. Curtis got a terrible
sunburn from the long drive and that night he went against a guy who threw chops,
maybe it was Mr. Moto, and he chopped Curtis hard on that sunburned chest.
Christy then told Curtis he had a date that night so the midgets, who were on the
card, would take him back to the hotel. Curtis left with the midgets, thinking he
was going to be in the car all night. Then 25 minutes later, they dropped him off at
his hotel.”
Mossman said Iaukea loved to tell another Christy rib that actually worked out well
for him. The wrestling office found out that one of the movie studios was looking
for someone to play a sumo wrestler, and Iaukea, one of the biggest and thickest
men in the business at the time, up to around 300 pounds, and with his Hawaiian
ancestry, fit the bill. So they had Christy take Iaukea for auditions.
The place was filled with fat guys, so Christy told Iaukea that when he was
introduced to the producers, he should jump on the table and then pull down his
pants.
“But I’m not wearing any drawers,” Iaukea told Christy.
“That’s even better,” Christy said.
So, not knowing any better, he jumped on the table, pulled down his pants. As
it turned out, the people doing the casting were gay, and what he did made him
stand out among all the crowd, and he got the small part in the 1963 movie “The
Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze.” He was the punch line for a joke
when Moe Howard looked at him and said, “That’s not a man, that’s a committee.”
He actually signed a multiple-film deal, but nothing ever materialized after the first
one.
But he did make new friends, as Rocky Iaukea remembered as a child in 1964 when
the Stooges came to Hawaii, they all spent time together.
But his out of control personality caused all kinds of problems for his father. Iaukea
got into hard drugs while in college, and was best known in wrestling for his LSDlaced cookies. He’d give them to wrestlers to carry, and some, not knowing what
they were, would get hungry and eat one, and then go on scary trips.
Once, on an airplane, Harold Sakata, the 1948 Olympic silver medalist in
weightlifting who played “Oddjob” in the famous movie “Goldfinger,” was traveling
with Iaukea to the mainland and ate one of Iaukea’s infamous cookies and went
crazy on the plane.
The two were sitting together and Iaukea sat there while Sakata was going wild,
and when asked, claimed he had no idea who the guy sitting next to him was. The
irony is that Sakata going completely crazy and out of control was something he
ended up being well known for, getting a national television ad for “Hai Karate,” a
men’s cologne, that ended up as one of the most famous commercials of the late
60s.
During the early 60s, Iaukea’s wildness haunted his father’s professional career.
His father, Curtis Iaukea Jr., known as “Cap” to friends, while his son was known
as “King,” he was a police captain, striving to become the Chief of Police. King
would frequently get into fights with fans or wannabe tough guys who wanted to
challenge the area’s top bad guy wrestler that was such a big star on television.
They usually ended badly for his foe. With his father having so much power in
the police force, Iaukea had almost a “get out of jail free” card, which he took
advantage of. But the bad local publicity also kept his father from being promoted.
“It was tough news to take,” said Bob Leonard, a Stampede Wrestling promotion
photographer and historian, when learning about his death. “Curtis was an old
friend. In 1975, he set me up to spend a week with his dad, who lived in the little
town of Makawao, on Maui. Long story short, suffice to say just a grand time with
a fascinating man, and one of the most interesting and enjoyable weeks I’ve ever
spent anywhere.”
The worst incident came during the height of a particularly hot feud with King
Iaukea of Hawaii vs. Prince Neff Maiava of Samoa. The two area full-timers were
programmed against each other on-and-off for years. Tensions were often hot
because it was played up as a Hawaiian vs. Samoan, playing off real tension in
Honolulu at the time between people of those ethnic backgrounds. Even though
Iaukea was the hardcore heel, the audience was divided, which only inflamed the
Samoan natives even more. Iaukea had started mini-riots several times with his
heel antics, which caused a problem with his father along with everything else that
had happened. On this night, Iaukea hung Maiava over the top rope by his hair.
Samoans tried to hit the ring, and Hawaiians tried to stop them. In the ensuing riot,
with police attempting to break it up, a Samoan fan threw a brick, that hit an officer
who worked under Iaukea’s father, in the head and killed him.
Iaukea was the top star during the heyday of 50th State Wrestling, mostly as a
heel, but when a top heel from another territory would come in, like The Destroyer,
Gene Kiniski or The Sheik, he was a babyface. Destroyer recalled that in almost all
of their matches, he would do a monkey flip spot, and as he jumped up, he would
yell, “Banzai,” and Iaukea would flip over and take a high bump. Later, when he got
older and his back was bothering him, he’d in the ring say, “No banzai tonight.”
He headlined at least 177 shows in Honolulu against almost every top name of the
era. Hawaii was not the best paying territory, and it was a long trip from anywhere,
but it produced some of the deepest wrestling shows of the era. Often the wrestlers
in the openers on a big show were main eventers in their home territories. It was
considered one of the great jobs in the industry to have a six-month run in the
territory because of the weather and lifestyle.
The two best places to make money at the time were Japan and Australia. The top
stars from North America, both going to one place or the other, would try and leave
early, get a week’s vacation in, and come to Japan or Australia with a good tan. The
promotion had a steady pick of some of the top talent in the world both coming and
going.
“In those days, people would work all year and try and save money just to spend a
week in Hawaii,”said Nick Bockwinkel, who lived there for extended periods several
times during the heyday. “We’d go there, work maybe three nights a week, live
right on the beach, spend every day at the beach with our families, stay for six
months, and when we went home at the end, we’d broken even.”
Among the names King headlined against in Honolulu during that run included
Toyonobori, Michiaki Yoshimura, Blears, Al Lolotai, Nick Kozak, Leo Nomellini,
Enrique Torres, Ed Francis, Mike Sharpe Sr., Gorilla Monsoon, Dean Higuchi (Dean
Ho), Gene LeBell, Don Leo Jonathan, Brute Bernard, Giant Baba, Don Manoukian,
Luther Lindsay, Haystacks Calhoun, Freddie Blassie, Samson Burke, Hard Boiled
Haggerty, Antonio Inoki, Jesse Ortega, Shag Thomas, Handsome Johnny Barend,
Oddjob Tosh Togo, The Crusher, Alberto Torres, Bearcat Wright, Pepper Martin,
Jack Lanza, Buddy Colt, Pepper Gomez, Killer Kowalski, Karl Gotch, Jim Hady, Dory
Funk Jr., Hans Mortier, Paul Diamond, Dick Steinborn, Eric Froliech, The Destroyer,
Cowboy Bill Watts, Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson, The Missing Link (Pampero Firpo),
Big Bill Miller, Ricky Hunter, Sailor Art Thomas, Peter Maivia, John Tolos, Ripper
Collins, Magnificent Maurice, Klondike Bill, Pat Barrett, Bobby Shane, Wahoo
McDaniel, Tex McKenzie, Pedro Morales, Gene Kiniski, Tor Kamata, Dory Dixon, Billy
Robinson, The Von Steigers, Rene Goulet, Felipe Hahn Lee, Cowboy Frankie Laine,
Beauregarde, Verne Gagne, Don Muraco, Lonnie Mayne, The Sheik, Sweet Daddy
Siki and Jimmy Snuka. His four most frequent opponents were Bockwinkel, Prince
Neff Maiava, Billy White Wolf (Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie) and Sammy Steamboat, as
those were the programs that they seemed to regularly go back to year-after-year.
While his vicious foreign object and blood ring style was reminiscent of The Sheik
or Abdullah the Butcher, Iaukea differed philosophically from the two in the sense
he would lose all the time, while they were very protective of their gimmicks and
almost never lose. In that sense he was easier to work for, but even with his
superior promo abilities, he was not the international star that they were.
“Curtis was a kind, magnetic and charismatic personality if ever there was one,”
said Ata Johnson, whose father, Peter Maivia, worked his first headline U.S. feud
in 1968 with Iaukea in a tag team program . “Our families first met in Hawaii. Ed
Francis immediately started programs with my dad and Jim Hady against King
Curtis Iaukea & Ripper Collins. Those were the days. Hawaiian Big-Time Wrestling
was smoking hot. Johnny Barend, Prince Neff Maiava, Tallyho Lord James Blears.
We were together in the mid-70s Florida territory and later up North with the
WWF.”
Prince Iaukea, as he was known in 1966, came to the WWWF managed by Bobby
Davis, for a run with Bruno Sammartino. The match was set up when Iaukea
attacked Sammartino on a television interview while Davis screamed, “Break that
stupid nose.” But he was not a huge hit, as their lone match drew 10,859, less than
what they were normally doing at the time, with Sammartino winning cleanly.
He returned in 1972, teaming with Baron Mikel Scicluna and winning the WWWF
tag team titles from Karl Gotch & Rene Goulet at the TV tapings on February 1,
1972, in Philadelphia. He worked on top both in tags and singles, with a number of
matches against Morales, the WWWF champion. Curtis beat Monsoon on March 13,
1972, in Madison Square Garden, as his stepping stone win, via blood stoppage. He
lost in his title shot, on April 17 in just 7:06 in what was remembered as a faster
paced and more exciting match than expected and one of the better ones of the
Morales run. The show drew 15,549, again lower than usual since Morales was
almost always selling out. On the next MSG show, on May 22, Curtis & Scicluna
lost the WWWF tag title to Chief Jay Strongbow & Sonny King. He had one final
appearance at the Garden before leaving, on July 1, teaming with Eddie Graham to
go to a 30:00 draw against Terry Funk & Dory Funk Sr.
He had a third run in 1973, this time brought in as a singles wrestler, and after
appearing just in television squash matches, got a shot on February 26, 1973,
which drew a sellout and turn away crowd of 22,098 fans, with Morales winning in
5:37. That was also remembered as a hot match, but with Fred Blassie coming in a
few weeks later, he was again a “one-shot” challenger. He was out of the territory
almost immediately, since he was on top in Australia at the time.
He first came to Australia in 1965, working for promoter George Gardiner, the rival
to Jim Barnett.
His debut with World Championship Wrestling and Barnett was in September,
1967, battling with Mario Milano and Mark Lewin over the IWA world heavyweight
championship. He came back in 1969, and again won the title, this time from Billy
Robinson. In fact, he was Barnett’s last world champion when Barnett dropped the
title in 1971 when Barnett joined the NWA.
Iaukea and Lewin were Barnett’s major stars when he first expanded into New
Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries, which at first did
huge business, and in those countries, the two became synonymous for years with
pro wrestling as the first big stars created by television.
His most famous match with Lewin was in April 1970, a street fight in Sydney,
where they brawled out of the arena, onto the street, damaging cars and
stopping traffic, including taking bumps on the hood of a car driven by a startled
motorist, although that was a work since they did the same thing the next night in
Melbourne.
In August 1970, Curtis turned babyface, coming to Lewin’s rescue when he was
being beaten up by Kurt & Karl Von Steiger, the tag team champions. They feuded
over the titles. But his best known role was from early 1972 to the end of 1973,
with Lewin as “The People’s Army” feuding with Big Bad John’s “Soldiers,” an angle
similar to the NWO angle with wrestlers coming and going and turns on both sides.
Lewin & Curtis were involved in bloody brawls against heels like Tiger Jeet Singh,
Abdullah the Butcher, Bulldog Brower and Waldo Von Erich.
Perhaps his most famous promo was when feuding with Professor Toru Tanaka, and
talking about being a four-year-old child growing up in Hawaii when the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor.
The angle actually never ended, as when Barnett sold his stake in the promotion
at the end of 1973 to take over Georgia Championship Wrestling, most of the key
players, like Curtis, left with him.
During most of the 70s, Curtis and Lewin were running buddies, after working a hot
program in Australia, they followed it up in places like West Texas, Michigan & Ohio
and Stampede Wrestling.
He was living in Auckland, New Zealand in a huge house with lots of land during
most of the 70s. He was such a mainstream star in that country that he became the
biggest drawing card in the country in the second half of the century. He was once
on the cover of the biggest sports magazine in the country, unheard of for a pro
wrestler. He was so well respected that he was asked to be a guest speaker at the
Sportsman of the Year dinner, the only wrestler ever to be asked.
He came into Stampede Wrestling and won the North American title on February
7, 1975, beating Larry Lane. He was managed by Big Bad John, and there were a
lot of gang warfare main events, six, eight and ten-man tags with the face team
headed by Lewin and heel team by Curtis. During this run, The Sheik was brought
to Calgary for the first time as an ally of Curtis. The heavy blood and violence at
first picked up business, but in the long-run, most feel it was not successful. He
also worked in title match programs with Dan Kroffat and John Quinn, and in July,
was the opponent when World champion Jack Brisco came in.
In particular, Ed Whalen did not like any part of the Iaukea gimmick, the liberal
usage of foreign objects, heavy blood, or even his interviews. He at one point
threatened to resign if Curtis didn’t done down his act. To keep Whalen, Curtis did
tone down somewhat but Whalen still was disgusted and quit, and business was in
bad shape when he left at the end of the year after dropping the title back to Lane.
“Curtis was known for his intense interviews and propensity for juicing and smoking
pot outside the ring and after shows,” said Ross Hart, the family historian. “He was
considered a great bumper for his size and also considered pretty tough as few
boys took liberties with him in the ring.”
“One memorable occasion I recall was on a road trip for Stampede, with Curtis
and Cowboy Frankie Laine,” said Hart. “The usually mild-mannered Curtis being
quite riled up when sitting in the front seat of the van and overhearing Laine telling
his version of what happened a few years ago when he had been arrested and
deported in Japan for sexually molesting an elderly woman. He was denying what
he had been charged with. Curtis suddenly grabbed Frankie, who was sitting right
behind him, by the throat, and almost like he was cutting a promo, dared Frankie
to deny what he had done to `that old woman in Japan’ in front of all the other
wrestlers. Frankie was quivering in fear, admitted what he had done, and then
apologized to the King.”
After he retired as a wrestler and was living in Hawaii, he sometimes still appeared
on television and at arena shows as a manager for Polynesian Pro Wrestling, run
by Peter Maivia (and after Peter died, by wife Lia), who had purchased the territory
from Francis. He also did the managing gig in the WWF, and had the short run in
WCW as the head of the Dungeon of Doom in his last pro wrestling appearances in
1996.
“When my dad passed away in Hawaii (Peter Maivia, who passed away in 1982 from
cancer at the age of 45), just as the service was about to start, there was a slight
murmuring and shuffling of seats, and there was Curtis, walking slowly, down the
aisle, with a cane, in beach shorts, a tank top and flip flops, with sand all over his
body and feet,” remembered Ata Johnson. “As he walked all the way to the front
row, he sat down next to me and my mom. I’ll never forget how the sight of him, a
dear friend of my dad’s, coming to say farewell to him in his own local way brought
us to tears.”
Beyer, now 80, one of his biggest career rivals, would come to Hawaii every
October to visit Iaukea, Sammy Steamboat and Donn Lewin. For years, he had told
Steamboat, who died in 2006, that when he (Beyer) died, Steamboat was to take
his ashes on one of his canoes, paddle out to sea in front of the Outrigger Hotel,
and spread them in the Pacific Ocean.
“I’ve got no one left to see,” a despondent Beyer noted when hearing about how his
two best friends remaining on the island had just passed away.
Mossman was also sad, noting the deaths of Lewin, Joe Higuchi and Iaukea right
after the other, noting that Iaukea would always talk of spending New Year’s Eve
with Higuchi in Japan as he would frequently work the first All Japan tour of the
year that started on January 2nd.
“When Joe died, it wasn’t something I wanted to tell him on the phone, and he was
already going by that time. So I never told him. When Janette called, she told me
to tell Joe that Curtis had died. I told her that Joe had also just died, and she said,
`Well, I guess that means they are together again in heaven.’”
“After he passed away, Janette opened the cages and they all watched in awe and
grief as Curtis’ pigeons, as if in a symbolic gesture, flew up and away,” said Ata
Johnson.
******************************************************************
KING CURTIS IAUKEA
CAREER TITLE HISTORY
INTERNATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Mario
Milano September 30, 1967 Sydney; lost to Mark Lewin October 13, 1967 Sydney;
def. Billy Robinson December 17, 1969 Brisbane; lost to Domenic DeNucci January
16, 1970 Sydney; def. Domenic DeNucci March 21, 1970 Melbourne; lost Domenic
DeNucci March 23, 1970 Perth; def. Domenic DeNucci March 25, 1970 Brisbane;
lost to Stan Stasiak October 18, 1970 Melbourne; def. Stan Stasiak November 7,
1970 Melbourne; Last champion when title was vacated due to World Championship
Wrestling joining the National Wrestling Alliance and then having to give up
recognition of a separate world heavyweight title
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION TAG TEAM: w/Baron Mikel Scicluna def. Karl
Gotch & Rene Goulet February 1, 1972 Philadelphia; lost to Chief Jay Strongbow &
Sonny King May 22, 1972 New York
INTERNATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE WORLD TAG TEAM: w/Buddy Austin
def. Spyros Arion & Mario Milano December 26, 1969 Sydney; lost to Kinji Shibuya
& Mitsu Arakawa January 23, 1970 Sydney; w/Buddy Austin def. Bobo Brazil &
Domenic DeNucci March 27, 1970 Sydney; lost fictitious match to Rip Hawk &
Swede Hanson April 1970; w/Mark Lewin def. Kurt & Karl Von Steiger November
4, 1970 Brisbane; lost to Kurt & Karl Von Steiger December 1970; w/Mark Lewin
def. Killer Kowalski & Bulldog Bob Brown for vacant titles April 10, 1971 Melbourne
after the Lewin & Kowalski team broke up; lost to Tiger Jeet Singh & Mr. Fuji May
30, 1971 Sydney; w/Mark Lewin def. Tiger Jeet Singh & Mr. Fuji June 5, 1971
Melbourne; lost to Kurt & Karl Von Steiger August 14, 1971 Sydney
AWA/NWA UNITED STATES HEAVYWEIGHT (California): def. Bearcat
Wright July 4, 1968 San Francisco; lost to Ray Stevens September 14, 1968 San
Francisco; def. Ray Stevens May 10, 1969 San Francisco; lost to Ray Stevens June
7, 1969 San Francisco
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING WORLD BRASS KNUX CHAMPION:
def. Brute Bernard August 18, 1978 Sydney; lost to Bulldog Brower September 29,
1978 Sydney; def. Bulldog Brower December 1, 1978 Sydney; Promotion folded at
the end of 1978
NWA BRITISH EMPIRE HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Don Muraco 1977; lost to Rick
Martel May 26, 1977 Auckland
NWA FLORIDA HEAVYWEIGHT: Won title in tournament 1975; lost to Rocky
Johnson December 23, 1975 Tampa; def. Jimmy Garvin May 1979; lost to Dusty
Rhodes 1979
NWA HAWAIIAN HEAVYWEIGHT/RING MAGAZINE GOLD BELT: def. Neff
Maiava August 15, 1961 Honolulu; lost to Lord James Blears October 25, 1961
Honolulu; def. Nick Bockwinkel December 18, 1964 Honolulu; lost to Luther Lindsay
September 29, 1965 Honolulu; def. Jim Hady February 28, 1968 Honolulu; lost
to Klondike Bill August 28, 1968 Honolulu; def. Luke Graham December 29, 1968
Honolulu; lost to The Missing Link (Juan “Pampero Firpo” Kachmanian) July 1969
NWA HAWAIIAN TAG TEAM: w/Oddjob Tosh Togo def. Lord James Blears & Neff
Maiava September 12, 1962 Honolulu; lost to Lord James Blears & Neff Maiava
February 15, 1963 Honolulu; w/Cowboy Cassidy def. Lord James Blears & Neff
Maiava August 1, 1963 Honolulu; lost to Shag Thomas & Robert Duranton May 13,
1964 Honolulu; w/Masa Fujiwara (Mr. Fuji) def. Lord James Blears & Neff Maiava
January 7, 1965 Honolulu; lost to Alberto & Enrique Torres May 28, 1965 Honolulu;
w/Ripper Collins def. Johnny Barend & Hans Mortier May 3, 1967 Honolulu; lost to
Johnny Barend & Jim Hady July 25, 1967 Honolulu; w/Ripper Collins def. Jim Hady
& Missing Link (Juan “Pampero Firpo” Kachmanian) March 15, 1968 Honolulu; lost
to Jim Hady & Peter Maivia May 22, 1968 Honolulu; w/Ripper Collins def. Jim Hady
& Peter Maivia June 4, 1968 Honolulu; lost to Peter Maivia & Billy White Wolf (Sheik
Adnan Al-Kaissie) June 26, 1968 Honolulu; w/Ripper Collins def. Kurt & Karl Von
Steiger October 22, 1969 Honolulu; lost to Ripper Collins & Johnny Barend
NWA NORTH AMERICAN HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Pedro Morales September 24,
1969 Honolulu; lost to Pedro Morales November 5, 1969 Honolulu; def. Billy
Robinson January 9, 1971 Honolulu; lost to Sammy Steamboat February 24, 1971
Honolulu
NWA UNITED STATES HEAVYWEIGHT (Hawaii version): def. Nick Bockwinkel
June 6, 1962 Honolulu; lost to Billy White Wolf November 21, 1962 Honolulu; def.
Billy White Wolf December 12, 1962 Honolulu; lost to Nick Bockwinkel July 17,
1963 Honolulu; def. Don the Bruiser (Don Manoukian) November 6, 1963 Honolulu;
lost to Luther Lindsay June 1964; def. Luther Lindsay July 1964; lost to Enrique
Torres December 11, 1964 Honolulu; def. Hard Boiled Haggerty September 15,
1965 Honolulu; lost to Killer Kowalski November 3, 1965 Honolulu; def. Johnny
Barend March 1, 1967 Honolulu; lost to Johnny Barend November 7, 1967 Honolulu
NWA/PWF PACIFIC OCEAN HEAVYWEIGHT: Held championship in Japan 1973
NWA WESTERN STATES HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Ricky Romero 1973; lost to
Cyclone Negro 1973
NWA NORTH AMERICAN HEAVYWEIGHT (Stampede): def. Larry Lane
February 7, 1975 Calgary; lost to Larry Lane August 1975
NWA PACIFIC NORTHWEST HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Tony Borne September 5,
1963 Portland; lost to Tony Borne September 19, 1963 Portland
NWA PACIFIC NORTHWEST TAG TEAM: w/Haru Sasaki def. Herb & Seymour
Freeman January 19, 1962; lost to Fritz Von Goering & Kurt Von Poppenheim March
22, 1962
MOST FAMOUS MATCHES IN JAPAN
11/8/60 Nagoya: w/Ricky Waldo lost to Rikidozan & Toyonobori for the All-Asian tag
team championship
11/11/60 Osaka: w/Tex McKenzie lost to Rikidozan & Toyonobori for the All-Asian
tag team championship
12/16/60 Tokyo: lost to Rikidozan for International championship
2/20/64 Nagoya: w/Don Manoukian lost to Toyonobori & Michiaki Yoshimura for AllAsian tag team championship
1/68: w/Ken Harris lost to Kintaro Oki & Michiaki Yoshimura for All-Asian tag team
championship
1/7/68 Nagoya: lost via count out to Giant Baba for International heavyweight title
2/26/70 Osaka: w/Pepper Martin lost to Antonio Inoki & Michiaki Yoshimura for AllAsian tag team championship
3/5/70: Seoul: lost to Kintaro Oki for Asian heavyweight championship
3/7/70: Tokyo: w/Fritz Von Erich lost to Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki for
International tag team championship
1/17/72 Tokyo: double count out against Strong Kobayashi for IWA championship
1/27/72 Yokohama: lost cage match to Strong Kobayashi for IWA championship
1/28/72 Tokyo: w/Dan Miller lost via count out to Rusher Kimura & Thunder
Sugiyama for IWA tag team championship
4/23/73 Nagoya: double count out with The Destroyer in Pacific Ocean heavyweight
vs. U.S. heavyweight double title match
1/11/78 Kagoshima: w/Bull Ramos double count out against Kim Duk & Kintaro Oki
for International tag team championship
1/22/78 Hakodate: w/Bull Ramos lost to Kim Duk & Kintaro Oki for International
tag team championship
1/3/79 Tokyo: w/Baron Von Raschke lost to Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta for
International tag team championship
******************************************************************
The weekend New York blizzard led to several no-shows and what was almost
universally described as a flat Madison Square Garden show on 12/26.
The show had 14,500 tickets distributed, about 11,000 paid, for a gate of
$670,000. Only about 900 people with tickets decided against coming, not wanting
to risk hazardous transportation. But it appeared that everyone, from the fans, to
the wrestlers, had their heads elsewhere, worried more about getting home and not
being as into the matches.
Many who did arrive had troubles making it back. There were news stories talking
about people who ended up stuck in the snow trying to drive home. Others
were stuck for nearly a full day because they were going to take the Long Island
Railroad, which stopped running. Several performers including Sgt. Slaughter,
Heath Slater, Gail Kim and Alicia Fox weren’t able to make it in for the show. Ring
announcer Justin Roberts arrived late, leaving a local with no experience and who
wasn’t very good to handle the early matches. Only one referee, Charles Robinson,
made it in. James “Nunzio” Maritato, who was at the show visiting, was asked
to alternate with Robinson to officiate. The gate was up from the $615,000 for
the 9/25 show which was built around honoring Bret Hart. But this show had the
advantage, both coming in what is usually the easiest weekend of the year to draw,
and also being a Raw show, while the Hart show was a Smackdown show.
It is rare events get canceled, as with one exception virtually every major event
booked in Manhattan went on as scheduled. NHL games went on that night in the
market, and almost Broadway play also went on.
There have bene plenty of snowstorms over the years coming on nights of Madison
Square Garden shows, with similar blizzards. You’d have to go back 50 years,
since a December 12, 1960, event at the old Madison Square Garden, headlined by
Argentina Rocca & Johnny Valentine vs. The Fabulous Kangaroos and Buddy Rogers
vs. Bearcat Wright, was canceled due to bad weather.
An interesting note is that the next show, a Raw house show, is scheduled for 3/
19, which goes head-to-head with a UFC PPV show in Newark, with Shogun Rua vs.
Rashad Evans. It’s also head-to-head with an ROH show right down the street at
the Manhattan Center.
1. Zack Ryder won a 12 man Battle Royal, billed as the Big Apple Battle Royal with
the winner getting a shot at Daniel Bryan for the U.S. title. The order of elimination
was Darren Young, Primo, Vladimir Kozlov, Yoshi Tatsu, Alex Riley (wearing a Miami
Heat jersey), David Hart Smith, William Regal and Santino Marella. Ryder spent
most of the match hiding outside the ring. Mark Henry was left with David Otunga
and Michael McGillicutty. Henry threw out McGillicutty, and then Ryder came back
in and threw Henry and Otunga out together.
2. Tyson Kidd pinned Smith with a roll-up holding tights in a good match.
3. Nikki & Brie Bella beat Melina & Maryse in a Santa’s Helpers match, so they wore
Santa’s helpers costumes. Bad match, and given the current TV direction, it was a
surprise when Melina was the one pinned.
4. Marella & Kozlov retained the WWE tag titles over Justin Gabriel & Husky Harris.
Michael Cole, who was a guest at the show reading the mystery G.M. messages,
ordered both teams to do a pre-match dance contest. Cole got as much heat as
anyone on the show. Marella & Kozlov did it, but then Gabriel & Harris attacked
them. Marella pinned Gabriel after a stunner and the cobra. This was played up as a
serious match, unlike most Marella matches.
Roddy Piper’s Pit was scheduled with Slaughter. But with him not being able to get
to the city, the office contacted Tito Santana about driving in. Piper talked about
how tough he was in his old days in MSG, noting he fought Andre the Giant, but
what really proved his was tough was that he dated Moolah. Piper said he’s proud
that John Cena did the right thing, and then plugged the 50 Greatest Wrestlers of
All-time DVD, noting that he was No. 10, talked about those who placed above him
and made fun that Hulk Hogan finished below him. Piper brought up that in their
heyday, the two of them never wrestled at the Garden. Piper said if they had, he
would have won. Michael Cole in the G.M. voice said that this was the most boring
pit of all-time. It was going nowhere at the time. The G.M. told both wrestlers to
get out of the ring. Piper said the G.M. was going to have to make him leave. He
then sent out the Usos, and the segment ended with Piper and Santana joining
together to beat up the Usos.
5. The Miz pinned Randy Orton to keep the WWE title. The main event was
advertised as Miz vs. Orton vs. John Cena vs. Wade Barrett in a cage. Miz had great
heat for a promo before the match. Orton used a dropkick and draping DDT. He
went for the RKO, but Alex Riley jumped on the apron. Orton then knocked Riley off
the apron. The ref was knocked out at this point. Miz came from behind with a low
blow on Randy Orton while the ref was out of commission, and then used the skull
crushing finale for the pin.
6. The G.M. said he was changing the card and putting Orton vs. Riley on in a
singles match with Miz banned from ringside. Orton scored a clean pin after an
RKO.
7. Bryan beat Ryder to keep the U.S. title with the LeBell lock in a very short
match.
8. John Morrison pinned King Sheamus in a street fight. Morrison won with a leg
lariat while Sheamus was in the ring sitting on a chair for the pin.
9. John Cena beat Wade Barrett in a cage match. The General Manager announced
that if anyone interfered during this match, Barrett would be put on suspension.
Well, if he would have gotten suspended, he could have pleaded that he had
hypointerference, and needed interference for health reasons, and at least got
the suspension cut back in half. Barrett was climbing the cage when Cena went
to the cage, climbed up, and put him in the Attitude Adjustment for the pin. Cena
then thanked the crowd for coming and said that he was going to talk with Vince
McMahon (who did attend the event, a rarity these days when McMahon attends a
house show) about bringing WrestleMania back to MSG.
*****************************************************************
SEPTEMBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT
Estimated average attendance 9/09 5,339*
Estimated average attendance 9/10 4,692* (-12.1%)
August 2010 4,206*
Estimated average gate 9/09 $169,615*
Estimated average gate 9/10 $165,750* (-2.3%)
August 2010 $145,555*
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/09 11.1*
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/10 0.0*
August 2010 10.0*
Average Raw rating 9/09 3.45
Average Raw rating 9/10 2.89 (-16.2%)
August 2010 3.33
Average Smackdown rating 9/09 1.93
Average Smackdown rating 9/10 1.70 (-11.9%)
August 2010 1.70
Average ECW rating 9/09 1.13
Average NXT rating 9/10 0.88 (-22.1%)
August 2010 0.93
*Overseas events not included in average
Breaking Point (12,000 paid/$730,000 live gate/169,000 buys/est. $2.93 million
PPV revenue)
Night of Champions (13,851 sellout/12,500 paid/$782,205/160,000 buys/est.
$2.84 million)
Buys -5.3%; Est. overall event revenue -1.1%
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION
Estimated average attendance 9/09 1,000*
Estimated average attendance 9/10 985 (-1.5%)
August 2010 1,100
Impact rating 9/09 1.03
Impact rating 9/10 1.09 (+5.8%)
August 2010 1.10
*Overseas events not included in average
No Surrender estimated buys 9,500
OCTOBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT
Estimated average attendance 10/09 5,332*
Estimated average attendance 10/10 5,208* (-2.3%)
Estimated average gate 10/09 $169,504*
Estimated average gate 10/10 $195,074* (+15.1%)
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/09 5.9*
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/10 8.3*
Average Raw rating 10/09 3.42
Average Raw rating 10/10 3.12 (-8.8%)
Average Smackdown rating 10/09 2.02
Average Smackdown rating 10/10 1.77 (-12.4%)
Average ECW rating 10/09 1.01
Average NXT rating 10/10 ---*Overseas events not included in averages
October 2009 Cyber Sunday (7,981/$449,465/181,000 buys/est. $3.14 million PPV
revenue)
October 2009 Bragging Rights (9,000/7,000 paid/$450,000/138,000 buys/est.
$2.45 million)
Est. buys -23.8%; Est. overall event revenue -19.2%
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION
Estimated average attendance 10/09 556
Estimated average attendance 10/10 704 (+26.6%)
Average Impact rating 10/09 1.09
Average Impact rating 10/10 1.26 (+15.6%)
Bound for Glory estimated buys: 39,000
NOVEMBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT
Estimated average attendance 11/09 6,536*
Estimated average attendance 11/10 5,000* (-23.5%)
Estimated average gate 11/09 $213,137*
Estimated average gate 11/10 $185,190* (-13.1%)
Percentage of house shows sold out 11/09 9.1*
Percentage of house shows sold out 11/10 0.0*
Average Raw rating 11/09 3.28
Average Raw rating 11/10 3.17 (-3.4%)
Average Smackdown rating 11/09 2.05
Average Smackdown rating 11/10 1.73 (-15.6%)
Average ECW rating 11/09 1.01
November 2009 Survivor Series (12,500/$650,000/est. 225,000 buys/est. $3.61
million PPV revenue)
November 2010 Survivor Series (8,000/$510,000/est. 239,000 buys/est. $4.22
million PPV revenue)
PPV buys +6.2%; Overall event revenue +11.1%
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION
Estimated average attendance 11/09 429
Estimated average attendance 11/10 917 (+113.8%)
Average Impact rating 11/09 1.06
Average Impact rating 11/10 1.06 (+0.0%)
Turning Point est. 13,000 buys
Notes: The thing notable is that WWE ratings are down across the board, with
Smackdown on Syfy down double digits from the MyNetwork days, a far cry from
Vince McMahon’s prediction that Smackdown with no local pre-emptions would end
up with the same audience numbers as Raw. In fact, they are barely half (4.75
million to 2.59 million viewers in November), and there is no evidence of that
changing much.
WWE house show attendance was down all three months, although with higher
ticket prices, grosses are going to wind up about the same, perhaps a tad higher.
PPV, even with the declines, with the price increase, Breaking Point vs. Night of
Champions was a slight decline, Bragging Rights was way down, coming the day
after a Brock Lesnar fight, but Survivor Series was up in buys (down in domestic)
but with the price increase, the revenue was up.
One thing October and November numbers also show is that with the loss of NXT,
the Raw and Smackdown numbers have shown slight increases, but you won’t see
WWE talking about compiled numbers because the total ratings points in November
went from 6.34 to 4.90, or a theoretical 23% drop in cumulative audience. And
ultimately I don’t think that means much in the big picture.
TNA is ahead of the same time last year for the most part. The house show
numbers at this point last year were terrible. They were still below a 1,000 average
each month, but they are at least up from last year. One should that should be
noted is TNA runs far more house shows and with Don West selling merchandise,
even though attendance at the shows is weak, they do make a profit on the shows
by running in generally small markets where costs are down, or in big markets,
doing very little advertising, running with less talent then WWE (which would lose
their ass on TNA house show numbers). And with doing more events, the division is
more successful from a total gross standpoint. But costs are higher as well, as guys
like Jeff Hardy, RVD and Mr. Anderson are all making big money per appearance.
November’s house show numbers more than doubled that of last year, but that’s
more a function of how bad last November was than how good this November is.
Ratings in September and November were largely the same as last year. October
was up due to the show with Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley and the big rating of the postBound for Glory show, although as you can see by November numbers, that the
new angles at Bound for Glory that was supposed to turn things around had zero
legs because they are basically back where they started.
We’ll go through the annual ratings averages for all the shows in a couple of weeks,
when the year is over. The year-over-year averages for every television show this
year ended up being down, although no national pro wrestling shows dropped as
much as the UFC average live event ratings drop (or TUF ratings drop, but that one
is unfair because the 2009 Kimbo season skewed a year-to-year TUF comparison,
and the GSP-Koscheck season was a big ratings success).
Raw’s total audience was 4.07 million in September, 4.54 million in October and
4.75 million in November, which looks like a positive pattern since all three months
were against football, and they did well against big football games in recent weeks,
which didn’t happen in September.
Smackdown’s total audience was 2.81 million in September on MyNetwork TV and
2.62 million in October and 2.59 million in November. So the move from MyNetwork
to Syfy has cost them about 200,000 viewers per week or a 7% drop based strictly
on changing networks. That’s about what should have been expected since that’s
roughly the drop in number of homes that got MyNetwork as compared to homes
that get Syfy.
For Impact, they averaged 1.43 million viewers in September, 1.66 million in
October (inflated by the two big shows that month) and 1.42 million in November
(hurt a little by the Thanksgiving show but would be only 1.47 million even
factoring that show out).
****************************************************************
2010 WRESTLING OBSERVER AWARDS
The voting period for the 2007 awards will remain open until January 13, 2010, and
the 2009 awards issue will come out most likely on January 24, 2010. If you are
going to mail in a ballot, I'd suggest doing so immediately. You can also e-mail or
fax in a ballot until midnight Pacific time 1/13. Every year we get dozens of ballots
that come in after deadline that end up not being counted, and in some cases, it
has made a difference in a close final result. Most people who do these awards work
extremely hard on them, and it's a shame if the votes aren't counted.
Remember, the time frame for the awards is December 1, 2008 through November
30, 2010 for matches or wrestling. For books and DVDs, they are based on a
release date of November 1, 2009 to October 30, 2010. Anything before or after
those dates should not be considered. A more detailed look at the categories is in
the 12/7 issue.
"CATEGORY A" AWARDS - PICK A FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD PLACE FINISHER IN
EACH CATEGORY. POINTS WILL BE AWARDED ON A 5-3-2 BASIS. THE WINNER OF
THE AWARD IS DETERMINED BY TOTAL POINTS.
1. LOU THESZ/RIC FLAIR AWARD FOR WRESTLER OF THE YEAR
2. MMA MOST VALUABLE FIGHTER
3. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER
4. MOST OUTSTANDING FIGHTER
5. BEST BOX OFFICE DRAW
6. FEUD OF THE YEAR
7. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR
8. MOST IMPROVED
9. BEST ON INTERVIEWS
10. MOST CHARISMATIC
11. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER
12. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST BRAWLER
13. BEST FLYING WRESTLER
14. MOST OVERRATED
15. MOST UNDERRATED
16. PROMOTION OF THE YEAR
17. BEST WEEKLY TV SHOW
18. PRO WRESTLING MATCH OF THE YEAR
19. MMA MATCH OF THE YEAR
20. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
21. BEST NON-WRESTLER PERFORMER
22. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
23. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
24. BEST MAJOR SHOW OF THE YEAR
"CATEGORY B" AWARDS - PICK ONE IN EACH CATEGORY. WINNER CHOSEN ON
THE BASIS OF FIRST PLACE VOTES.
1. WORST MAJOR SHOW OF THE YEAR
2. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER
3. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC
4. WORST TELEVISION SHOW
5. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR
6. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR
7. WORST PROMOTION OF THE YEAR
8. BEST BOOKER
9. PROMOTER OF THE YEAR
10. BEST GIMMICK
11. WORST GIMMICK
12. BEST WRESTLING BOOK
13. BEST WRESTLING DVD
*****************************************************************
Raw on 12/27 did a 3.10 rating and 4.57 million viewers, which was a strong
showing going against the New Orleans Saints vs. Atlanta Falcons NFL game which
was the third most watched television show in the history of cable, doing a 12.96
rating and 19.14 million viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, the opening segment with John Cena and C.M. Punk
talking did a 3.1. Ted DiBiase vs. Santino Marella did a 2.9. John Morrison vs. Alex
Riley did a 3.0. Mark Henry vs. Tyson Kidd did a 2.9. Jerry Lawler vs. The Miz did a
3.3, or a gain of 589,000 viewers which is good for that slot. Gail Kim & Eve Torres
vs. Alicia Fox & Melina and Daniel Bryan vs. Zack Ryder fell to a 3.0. Randy Orton
vs. Sheamus stayed at a 3.0. The overrun with Nexus beating up John Cena did a
3.6, or a gain of 885,000 viewers, although that was a 12 minute overrun so a lot
of those viewers were tuning in to see the next show.
The Christmas Eve Smackdown, a replay of a show that had already aired on USA
live, did a 1.15 rating and 1.52 million viewers.
TNA Impact on 12/23 did a 1.07 rating and 1.40 million viewers. Due to the
Christmas holidays, we didn’t get a quarter hour breakdown at press time.
The next to last episode of Reaction did a 0.59 rating and 757 viewers.
Superstars on 12/23 did a 0.55 rating and 559,000 viewers for the first run and
0.23 and 221,000 for the West Coast replay.
WWE Tribute to the Troops on USA on 12/22 did a 2.0 rating and 3.01 million
viewers. That’s slightly below USA’s usual prime time rating but they did a higher
rating for the second run of the show on USA than they did for the first run on NBC,
which tells you how much the value of being on network vs. cable has declined in
recent years, as well as that pro wrestling for whatever reason doesn’t do well on
Saturday nights. The show did roughly the same number as a replay of Psych that
followed on USA (2.90 million viewers), and would have been the second highest
rated show on cable for the night behind only College Football on ESPN, Utah vs.
Boise State in the Las Vegas Bowl that did 5.38 million viewers.
******************************************************************
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RESULTS
12/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 2,005 sellout): Manabu Nakanishi
& Tomoaki Honma b Gedo & Toru Yano, Yujiro Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito b Tama
Tonga & Hirooki Goto, Taichi & Nosawa & Taka Michinoku b Ryusuke Taguchi &
Koji Kanemoto & Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Togi Makabe b
Tomohiro Ishii & Takashi Iizuka & Masato Tanaka-DQ, Go Shiozaki & Atsushi Aoki b
Gedo & Shinsuke Nakamura, Yoshihiro Takayama & Minoru Suzuki b Yuji Nagata &
Wataru Inoue, Satoshi Kojima & Kota Ibushi b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Prince Devitt
12/23 Tokyo Differ Ariake (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 900): Takeshi Morishima
b Akira Taue, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Atsushi Aoki b Naomichi Marufuji & Ricky
Marvin, Handicap match: Kensuke Sasaki & Masao Inoue b Taiji Ishimori, KENTA
& Kento Miyahara & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga & Genba Hirayanagi &
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Go Shiozaki b Kotaro Suzuki, Yoshihiro Takayama & Takuma
Sano b Akitoshi Saito & Shuhei Taniguchi
12/24 Tokyo Differ Ariake (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 900): Akira Taue b Takashi
Okita, Sugi & Satoshi Kajiwara & Kento Miyahara b Ronin & Ricky Marvin & Taiji
Ishimori, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Mohammed Yone b Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari
Ogawa, Kotaro Suzuki b Genba Hirayanagi-DQ, KENTA & Akitoshi Saito & Go
Shiozaki b Masao Inoue & Katsuhiko Nakajima & Yoshihiro Takayama, Takashi
Sugiura & Takuma Sano b Takeshi Morishima & Shuhei Taniguchi, GHC jr. tag
titles: Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Aoki b Tiger Mask & Koji Kanemoto to win titles
12/25 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL TV tapings - 7,500): Bronco &
Inquisidor b Horus & Robin, Pequeno Black Warrior & Pequeno Olimpico & Nitrito
b Electrico & Shockercito & Fantasy, El Hijo del Fantasma & Valiente & Sagrado
b Mephisto & Ephesto & Sangre Azteca-DQ, Copa Juniors final: Dragon Rojo Jr.
b Averno-DQ, Mistico & La Mascara & Blue Panther b Atlantis & El Terrible & El
Texano Jr.
12/26 Fukuoka (Dragon Gate - 7,300): Kennichiro Arai & Nosawa b Super Shisa
& Kotaka, Susumu Yokosuka b Kagetora, Gamma b Darkness Dragon, Masaaki
Mochizuki & Don Fujii won three-way over Shingo Takagi & Cyber Kong and Genki
Horiguchi & Ryo Saito, Open the Triangle Gate title: Cima & Dragon Kid & Ricochet
b Naoki Tanisaki & Takuya Sugawara & Yasushi Kanda to win titles, BxB Hulk b
Yamato, Open the Dream Gate title: Masato Yoshino b Naruki Doi
12/26 Akita (New Japan - 1,800 sellout): Jushin Liger b Hiromu Takahashi,
Koji Kanemoto & Hirooki Goto b King Fale & Manabu Nakanishi, Takashi Iizuka
& Toru Yano b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Wataru Inoue, Yuji Nagata & Tiger Mask b
Shinsuke Nakamura & Tomohiro Ishii-DQ, Yujiro Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito b Togi
Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi b Satoshi Kojima
& Taichi
12/26 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL TV tapings - 1,500): Tigre
Blanco & Frisbee b Super Comando & Artillero, Aereo & Mascarita Dorada &
Ultimo Dragoncito b Universito 2000 & Mercurio & Pequeno Black Warrior, Trios
tournament: Virus & Raciel & Cancerbero b Angel Azteca Jr. & Angel de Plata &
Guerrero Maya Jr., Rush & Diamante & Angel de Oro b Durango Kid & Puma King &
Tiger Kid, Finals: Rush & Diamante & Angel de Oro b Virus & Raciel & Cancerbero,
Mephisto & Ephesto & Sangre Azteca b Arkangel de la Muerte & Maximo & Metro,
Porky Claus (Brazo de Plata) & Mistico & Toscano b Ultimo Guerrero & Negro Casas
& Averno
12/26 Chicago (WWE Smackdown - 8,500): Kofi Kingston won Battle Royal,
Drew McIntyre b JTG, Chris Masters b Jack Swagger, IC title: Dolph Ziggler b Kofi
Kingston, Chavo Guerrero b Cody Rhodes, Beth Phoenix & Natalya b Layla & Naomi,
Rey Mysterio NC Alberto Del Rio, Rey Mysterio & Big Show b Alberto Del Rio & C.M.
Punk, World title cage match: Edge b Kane
12/27 Albany, NY (WWE Raw/Superstars TV tapings - 6,000): Primo b
Abraham Washington, Usos b Yoshi Tatsu & Darren Young, William Regal b David
Hart Smith, Santino Marella b Ted DiBiase, John Morrison b Alex Riley, Mark Henry
b Tyson Kidd, Non-title: Jerry Lawler b The Miz-COR, Melina & Alicia Fox b Gail Kim
& Eve Torres, Daniel Bryan b Zack Ryder, Randy Orton b King Sheamus, Michael
Cole referee: John Cena & Randy Orton b Sheamus & The Miz
12/27 Pittsburgh (WWE Smackdown - 9,000): Kofi Kingston won Battle
Royal, Mason Ryan b Chavo Guerrero, Beth Phoenix & Kelly Kelly b Layla & Naomi,
Drew McIntyre b Trent Baretta, Rey Mysterio & Big Show b Alberto Del Rio & Cody
Rhodes, Chris Masters b Jack Swagger, IC title: Dolph Ziggler b Kofi Kingston,
World title cage match: Edge b Kane
12/28 Rochester (WWE Smackdown/NXT/Superstars TV tapings): Percy
Watson b Curt Hawkins, Tyler Reks b Chris Masters, Dolph Ziggler b Johnny Curtis,
Conor O’Brien b Derrick Bateman, Byron Saxton b Ted DiBiase-DQ, Big Show b
Cody Rhodes-COR, Drew McIntyre b Trent Baretta, Edge & Rey Mysterio b Alberto
Del Rio & Kane, Beth Phoenix & Natalya b Layla & Michelle McCool, Three-way for
IC title: Dolph Ziggler over Kofi Kingston and Jack Swagger
12/28 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL TV tapings): Mortiz & Disturbio b
Robin & Frisbee, Enrique Vera Jr. & Palacio Negro & Metal Blanco b Puma King
& Tiger Kid & El Hijo del Signo, Metro & Sagrado & Diamante b Demus 3:16 &
Cancerbero & Arkangel de la Muerte, Rush & Maximo & Valiente b Polvora & Sangre
Azteca Jr. & Okumura, El Texano Jr. & El Terrible & hector Garza b Brazo de Plata &
La mascara & Toscano
Special thanks to: Bryan Alvarez, Matt Betush, Graeme Cameron, Jeff Cohen,
Stacey Davidson, Gary Graham, Ross Hart, Mike Kuzmuk, Bob Leonard, Alex
Marvez, Leon Peters, Steve “Dr. Lucha” Sims, James Stanios, Dan Wahlers, Kris
Zellner
CMLL
The big show of the week was moved to Christmas night because Friday night was
Christmas Eve, at Arena Mexico. They did 7,500, which would be considered terrible
for the Christmas show, but after drawing 4,000 for the 12/17 show, nobody was
calling it that bad. They had a screw job in the battle of rudos for the Copa Junior
title with A block winner Dragon Rojo Jr. against B block winner Averno. After a ref
bump, Dragon Rojo Jr. gave Averno a low blow. Averno recovered before second
ref, Rafa El Maya showed up. As Rojo Jr. saw him coming, he did the Eddy Guerrero
spot (which was a standard Mexico spot long before Guerrero used it in the U.S.)
where he jumped on the ground and started writhing in pain. As Maya got to the
ring, Averno was up and Rojo Jr. was down holding his groin. Maya then DQ’d
Averno for the low blow that didn’t happen, giving Rojo Jr. the tournament win.
Main event saw Mistico & La Mascara & Blue Panther over Atlantis & El Terrible & El
Texano Jr. with Mistico using La Mistica on Atlantis.
They are starting yet another tournament of sorts on the 1/1 show at Arena Mexico,
El Torneo Rey del Aire, or the King of High Flyers, which is a one-night 16-man
elimination match with Delta, Angel de Oro, Diamante, Angel de Plata, Fuego, Rey
Cometa, Pegasso Extrema, Molotov, Polvora, Virus, Raciel, Cancerbero, Escorpion,
Puma King, Arkangel de la Muerte and Tiger Kid. Main is Mistico & La Sombra &
Mascara Dorada vs. Negro Casas & Felino & Rey Bucanero. Once again the big show
of the week is being from Friday to Saturday to avoid running New Year’s Eve.
The 12/27 show in Puebla did draw a sellout 5,500 with Mistico & Porky & La
Sombra losing to Negro Casas & Rey Bucanero & Atlantis when Casas pinned
Mistico after a low blow.
Enrique Vera, 62, a name out of the 70s when he was a UWA headliner who also
had a main event run for Roy Shire in 1978 in California, was involved in a 12/18
nostalgia show at Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City. In a cage match where
the loser got their head shaved or unmasked, it came down to Vera and Verdugo
(the brother of Pirata Morgan who was an 80s star) and Vera won. The show also
included the original Mascara Sagrada, Negro Navarro, Solar, Porky, Black Terry,
Morgan, Mascara Ano 2000 and other names out of the 80s and 90s. They did a
match as a tribute to El Hijo de Cien Caras, where Cien Caras Jr. & Mascara Ano
2000 Jr. & Morgan & Mascara Ano 2000 faced Sagrada & Porky & Villanos III &
IV. The Dinamita team turned on Morgan and left him to get destroyed. Earlier in
the show, when fans threw a ton of money in the ring in appreciation after a great
technical battle with Black Shadow Jr. & Solar vs. Navarro & Black Terry, Solar
picked up his chunk of the money thrown and gave it to Navarro and wished him a
Merry Christmas.
Enrique Vera Jr. debuted at Arena Mexico on 12/28 in a prelim match.
The trios tournament saw Rush & Angel de Oro & Diamante beat Virus & Raciel
& Cancerbero on 12/26 in Arena Mexico. This leads to Jan. 2 where last week’s
tournament winners, Sagrado & Metal Blanco & Palacio Negro, face Rush & Angel de
Oro & Diamante. The winners will then got a shot at Mexican national trios champs
Stuka Jr. & Metro & Delta on 1/9.
For the Christmas season, Brazo de Plata has been wrestling wearing a Santa outfit,
as Porky Claus.
They held a Christmas show in Tijuana on 12/25 billed as El Hijo del Santo vs. Latin
Lover vs. Blue Demon Jr. in a three-way, but instead, Damian 666 & son Bestia 666
& Halloween attacked all three, and it turned into a trios match with Santo’s team
winning, but the crowd was only 900. Rey Misterio, the uncle of the WWE star, has
gotten a job with the Tijuana commission. Those running there think it’ll be for the
better, thinking he’ll be more lenient with promoters and talent, as the commission
has a rep for fining wrestlers for a number of things including blading. Misterio has
major back problems and is trying to raise money, including having a benefit show
for him in January in California, to allow him to fly to Cuba to get a new surgery
invented by a Cuban doctor. His last surgery, done in Mexico, ended up with his
back in even more pain than before the surgery.
AAA
For the weekend of 12/18 and 12/19, the CMLL show did a 2.6, which is very low,
and AAA got a 3.3, also very low.
Vampiro on leaving the promotion: “I am sure I will still have things to do in
wrestling, but I am done there. It’s just not what I want to do. They can’t get it
together and at this stage in the game, I have more behind me than in front of me,
so I decided to leave. I can’t be there around those type of people anymore. I have
a different life now, very involved in the police and the government, the Guardian
Angels, my school, radio, television. I am thankful I was lucky and smart enough
to get out. I was never a good wrestler, just in the right place at the right time, but
I grew to hate the business thanks to WCW and AAA.” This would be the case of
both sides pretty much mutually coming to the conclusion things weren’t working
out and it would not surprise me if they do business again. Vampiro had ideas for
angles and AAA had other ideas of what to do with him.
They haven’t announced any TV tapings yet for 2011, but the first major show
looks to be 1/16 in Zapopan, the same city where they held Guerrera de Titanes
and didn’t draw well, headlined by La Parka & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Cibernetico vs. L.A.
Park & Zorro & Chessman.
House show business over the past two weeks has been surprisingly up, and aside
from the holidays, nobody can come up with a reason.
Konnan did a radio interview in Monterrey and said he was interested in getting
Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Carlito, Booker T and Big Daddy V to AAA for big shows in
2011 if possible.
DRAGON GATE
A correction from the last issue. Ricochet didn’t debut on the 12/21 Korakuen Hall
show, it was his Korakuen Hall debut but he’s been on tour since 12/8. Brodie Lee
did debut on that show.
Shingo Takagi suffered a shoulder injury on the 12/26 show in Fukuoka and is now
out of action.
On that show, the company’s last big event of the year, drawing 7,300 fans,
Masaaki Mochizuki & Don Fujii won a three-way elimination match over Takagi &
Cyber Kong and Kaz Hayashi & Ryo Saito to earn a tag title match. Cima & Dragon
Kid & Ryo Saito won the Open the Triangle Gate titles over Takuya Sugawara &
Naoki Tanisaki & Yasushi Kanda. There was also a grudge match where BxB Hulk
pinned Yamato in 19:46 and the main event saw Masato Yoshino retain the Open
the Dream Gate title pinning Naruki Doi in 28:53.
ALL JAPAN
They are having a memorial party for Giant Baba on 1/31 at a major Tokyo hotel to
commemorate the 12th anniversary of his passing away.
Antonio Thomas, who has been working here, has been out of action for months
since suffering a broken clavicle and torn labrum in his right shoulder in June. He
continued to work on it without getting diagnosed through the September tour,
after which, he got his needed surgery. He’s just started physical therapy and looks
to be out another two to four months.
PRO WRESTLING NOAH
A NOAH return to Europe in 2011 was announced for 5/13 and 5/14 at locations to
be announced in the U.K. and a 5/15 show in Oberhausen, Germany. NOAH hasn’t
run shows in Europe since 2008.
Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Aoki won the GHC tag team titles from Tiger Mask
& Koji Kanemoto on the Christmas Eve show at Differ Ariake, which was part of
two straight nights in the building, neither of which drew well. They did about 900
fans each night legit. The storyline here is that Aoki’s pro debut was December
24, 2005, and he had never won a championship, and was trying to bring NOAH’s
belts back to the promotion after the New Japan team had won them. Kanemoto
damaged Aoki with an ankle lock for several minutes but Aoki came back with
head-butts and got the pin after the Astral (Assault) point, a form of a back suplex,
in 23:18. Their first title defense is 1/15 in Osaka against Atsushi Kotouge &
Daisuke Harada from the local Osaka Pro Wrestling group.
The only thing of night the first night was Go Shiozaki (who worked New Japan
in Tokyo that same night) beat jr. champ Kotaro Suzuki in a singles match, using
Mitsuharu Misawa’s emerald frosien finisher.
The season opener is 1/8 at Differ Ariake built up as Team KENTA vs. Team
Marufuji in a series of matches. Team KENTA has Masao Inoue, Takeshi Morishima,
Go Shiozaki, Shuhei Taniguchi, Takuma Sano, Kotaro Suzuki, Genba Hirayanagi and
Ricky Marvin. Team Marufuji has Akira Taue, Takashi Sugiura, Atsushi Aoki, Taiji
Ishimori, Yoshinari Ogawa, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Akitoshi Saito.
NEW JAPAN
They had a loaded up show to build for the Tokyo Dome on 12/23 at Korakuen
Hall, drawing a sellout 2,005 fans, which included a Tokyo ceremony for the late
Kantaro Hoshino. The main event saw heavyweight champion Satoshi Kojima
and jr. heavyweight challenger Kota Ibushi beat heavyweight challenger Hiroshi
Tanaha¬shi and jr. champion Prince Devitt in 18:21 when Kojima pinned Devitt
after a lariat. They also brought in Yoshihiro Takaya-ma & Minoru Suzuki, who are
on the Dome show, who beat Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue when Takayama pinned
Inoue after a knee lift. Suzuki faces Nagata at the Dome show, and then after the
match, Kazuchika Okada, who they are billing as coming in from TNA (he is with
TNA but they never use him on Impact, even though he’s a good worker) and was
not advertised on this show, did a run in and nailed Takayama with a German
suplex. Takayama & GHC champion Takashi Sugiura face Okada & Hirooki Goto
at the Dome show. In addition, Go Shiozaki & Atsushi Aoki came in from NOAH to
beat Gedo & Shinsuke Nakamura in 12:25 when Shiozaki pinned Gedo with the Go
Flasher.
On the 12/26 DDT show, which sold out, The IWGP jr. tag champion Golden Lovers
(Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi) retained the titles beating New Japan bookers Gedo
& Jado in. The story behind this is Jado was injured by both of them in January.
Gedo & Jado lost, but injured Ibushi’s left knee going into his singles match at the
Tokyo Dome against Prince Devitt.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Saori Yoshida and Kyoko Hamaguchi continued their domination of the Japanese
women’s national wrestling championships in the tournament held on 12/23 in
Tokyo. Yoshida won her ninth national title (to go along with eight world titles and
two gold medals in the Olympics) at 121 pounds. She’s considered the best wrestler
in the world, having won 146 of her last 147 matches including a 119 match
winning streak that ended in 2008. Hamaguchi, 32, won her 15th national title.
Because of the two having celebrity status and also because women’s wrestling is a
sport where Japan is the dominant country (ironically, most attribute this due to the
popularity of women’s professional wrestling at a time these current women were
growing up), the women’s nationals get far more coverage than the men’s. Animal
Hamaguchi, Kyoko’s father, who was a major pro wrestling star in Japan during
the 80s, was shown in all sorts of news clips leading a throng of cheerleaders
chanting for his daughter and all around going crazy in the stands, which is his
trademark and part of the reason she’s so well known. At 139 pounds, Kaori Icho
beat Seiko Yamamoto by a 2-0 score to win the title. Yamamoto (also sometimes
called Seiko Nagashima because she’s married to a Hideaki Nagashima, a member
of the Japanese national team in handball), making a comeback, is the sister of
Kid Yamamoto. She was a four-time world champion (1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003)
who retired in 2006, and then had a child. While doing the TV announcing for Japan
covering wrestling in the 2008 Olympics, she decided to make a comeback and go
for the 2012 games, but has been unable to unseat Icho on the national team.
Satoru Sayama announced a 2/18 nostalgia show in Tokyo at the 4,000-seat Yoyogi
Gym, with all tickets being given away. Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu, Minoru
Suzuki and Great Sasuke are on the show.
HERE AND THERE
Sports Illustrated didn’t list any pro wrestlers in its notable deaths of the past year
in its year-end issue. Usually one or two will get mentioned. There were actually
more notable deaths this past year than in the two previous years combined, some
of whom, given their backgrounds in legitimate sports and pro wrestling success,
like Jack Brisco, Gene Kiniski, Steve Williams (who technically died in the final days
of 2009), Anton Geesink (whose death got more worldwide attention than most
on the SI list), Jorge “El Gigante” Gonzalez or celebrity status in parts of North
America like Curtis Iaukea, Kinji Shibuya and Edouard Carpentier could have made
the list. The only wrestler listed was Henry Wittenberg, the 1948 Olympic gold
medalist who ranked very close to the top of the greatest wrestler this country ever
produced. Jim Barnett thought he could make into a big wrestling attraction geared
toward building a Jewish fan base, but Wittenberg had no interest in being a pro
wrestler even though he was offered a figure that would have made him among the
ten highest paid athletes in the country at the time. The only wrestlers I can recall
being mentioned in the magazine when they died this past year were Gigante and
Chris Kanyon (listed for being openly gay with the idea his admission was some
kind of a breakthrough when it was more an idea, that didn’t pan out, to use as a
gimmick to get back into the mainstream).
Keith Harris in Cageside Seats wrote that besides Chris Benoit having an enlarged
heart, he also had an enlarged liver and spleen. Benoit’s spleen weighed 300
grams (normal is 150-200) and his liver weighed 2620 grams (normal is 1400 to
1600, although an athlete of his size would be expected to be closer to 2000).
That shouldn’t be a surprise since Benoit likely used Growth Hormone, which would
enlarge internal organs.
The city of Humboldt, IA, has contracted a sculptor to build an eight-foot bronzed
statue of Frank Gotch, the native of the city and are involved in a fund raising
campaign. Gotch, the first true American pro wrestling superstar, is often credited
with both the popularity of the sport in Iowa as well as wrestling becoming a
collegiate sport. The statue will be placed in the park where Gotch did his outdoor
training for his match with George Hackenschmidt. I only know of two other pro
wrestlers who have had statues built, El Santo in Tulancingo, Mexico and Bruno
Sammartino in Pizzaferrato, Italy.
Ifeanyi Christopher Nnatuanya, who wrestled under the name Lion Man, died
after a match on 12/19 in Lagos, Nigeria, in an incident that got a lot of publicity
in countries like Nigeria and Ghana. Nnatuanya was in a match against Power
Lee. According to promoter Emeka Offor, the match was stopped because they
could tell Nnatuanya was not in good shape. Nnatuanya left the ring and collapsed
outside the arena. He was rushed to a local hospital and pronounced dead on
arrival. Nnatuanya was described as a bodybuilder with very little experience in
pro wrestling, which would describe most of the pro wrestlers in Nigeria. Several
American wrestlers worked on the stadium show, including Shelton Benjamin,
Terry “Warlord” Szopinski, The Barbarian, Tatanka, Mike Mondo, Trenesha Biggers
(Rhaka Khan) and Lindsay Hayward (the 6-9 woman that was in WWE for two
weeks and got all kinds of publicity after they dropped her from NXT right away).
The stories noted Nnatuanya’s wife was nine months pregnant and the couple had
three children. Offor, who won a three-way over Benjamin and Warlord to win that
company’s version of the world heavyweight title, told Nnatuanya’s wife that the
wrestlers would make sure that all of his children had their education paid for.
One of the best articles of the year regarding wrestling was in the 12/24 Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review on Bruno Sammartino, talking about the period in World War II
when he was on top of the mountain outside of Pizzaferrato, Italy trying to hide
from the Nazis, and his mother, who was already in her late 40s, sneaking down
the mountain to get food she had hidden to keep him alive when he got sick, and
was once shot in the shoulder by the Nazis. There have been a few offers over the
years to do a movie on Sammartino’s life, but in all cases talks fell apart because
he would blow up at attempts to Hollywood-ize the story, and in particular that of
his mother. One movie wanted her to have a romantic interest in Italy during the
war. Another wanted her to be played by a beauty queen type. Sammartino’s father
had already come to the U.S. before the war broke out and was trying to save
money for the rest of the family to come, and because Bruno was so sickly after the
war, he wasn’t allowed to leave Italy for the U.S. until 1950, which was the year
he started weight training. Sammartino would only agree to be part of a movie on
his life if he was given creative control of the final product, which meant no studio
would touch it and they have to raise the money independently, which means
it may or may not happen. Sammartino, who visited the mountain for the first
time since the war, due to the potential of a movie on his life and wanting it to be
accurate, something he vowed he would never do, noted he had nightmares before
and after climbing the mountain. The story noted that often when Sammartino
thinks about his mother, Emilio, who died in 1995 at the age of 97, he tears up,
and that he visits her in the cemetery once a week and talks to her in Italian.
In honor of the one year anniversary of the death of Eddie Fatu (Umaga), several
former WWE wrestlers based in Texas, MVP, Shad Gaspard, Carlito, Shelton
Benjamin and Charlie and Jackie Haas got together for a party.
Gaspard, 29, who quit WWE recently to try his hand at acting, has signed on
for a role in the movie “Untouchable,” where Gaspard plays the role of a former
soldier who is now regarded as a top-of-the-line bodyguard. Gaspard worked as a
bodyguard for several celebrities in his pre-WWE days. The movie will be shot this
summer.
Kia Stevens, 33, better known as Awesome Kong, as well as Amazing Kong, was
arrested on 12/22 in Hillsborough County, FL (Tampa area) and charged with
driving with a license canceled, suspended or revoked. Stevens was booked and
released on $1,000 bond. She was listed in police reports as being 5-10 and 275
pounds.
Ted Arcidi, 52, the former bench press world record holder who wrestled for WWF,
World Class and Stampede Wrestling in the 80s, has a tiny scene in the movie “The
Fighter,” where he plays a boxing promoter.
ROH
Another non-title match with the Kings of Wrestling vs. Charlie Haas & Shelton
Benjamin has been added to the 1/28 show in Los Angeles in conjunction with
Wrestle Reunion at the Airport Hilton.
TNA
It’s kind of amazing that the career of Hulk Hogan is almost surely over with almost
no fanfare. Hogan’s ten hour lumbar fusion surgery is almost a sure thing to end
his in-ring career as there is no way he should ever take bumps on that back. The
surgery, is generally considered the last resort when it comes to trying to alleviate
lifelong intense pain. Any kind of falling after that surgery is likely to break a hip
due to all the hardware in your body.
Brooke Adams (Miss Tessmacher) wrote that her “friend” broke her jaw in two
places on 12/25. We were told, however, at the hospital closest to where she lives,
nobody came in that day or the next day who matches her description, and it’s not
like someone who looks like her is going unnoticed, with that injury.
On Impact this week, Foley said he got a concussion in his match with Flair on the
live show in October which he said was a great moment, but probably his last great
moment as a wrestler. Although nothing was said at the time, and Foley never
mentioned it, he does believe he suffered a concussion in the Flair match, but isn’t
certain. He said he had certain symptoms, being unusually tired and everything
being a little off for four or five days after the match, and even had to cancel an
autograph signing during that period because it would have required him to fly. The
scary part is that he didn’t even take a hard shot to the head in the match with the
exception of Flair hitting him with his book. He surmises it may have been taking
the bump off the ramp, even though he didn’t hit is head, and that he believes he is
so susceptible to concussions is the main reason he’s trying to avoid wrestling right
now. As part of the show in interplay with Flair and Eric Bischoff, Foley gave a talk
about concussions, noting that it’s not just the number of concussions but the
amount of healing time between concussions that is important. One of the main
writers for Sports Illustrated said he was flipping channels while this segment was
going on and said Foley made more sense talking concussions in this segment than
any athlete he’s seen on television. Foley believed he suffered a concussion on 9/23
when he took a few punches as a special referee on the house show at the
Hammerstein Ballroom. He felt bad enough that he asked not to do anything
physical as planned on the show in Philadelphia the next night. Both Vince Russo
and Dixie Carter spoke with him and told him that they could pull the match with
Flair or do it some other time. They also said they could just do a quick match
instead of the originally planned all out match. Foley said if the match hadn’t
already been built up and it was anyone but Flair, he probably would have pulled
out. He said it’s not because it was Flair, the legend, although that was part of it,
but because Flair’s ring style is such that he felt he was safe in doing the match. He
said that even with a safe opponent and avoiding pretty much anything to the head,
combined with his getting hurt several times in the King of the Mountain match on
moves that were not that severe that made him realize that doing matches going
forward may not be in his best interest.
Hernandez is likely returning soon. While he was in Mexico, TNA was paying him a
weekly guarantee and he was earning more on top of that from his AAA payoffs.
Whether he’ll be able to become their Mexican superstar depends on a lot of things.
TNA and AAA are back in talks regarding bringing in Zorro.
Notes on the 12/23 Christmas show. No real Christmas theme here, not that I’m
complaining as one was more than enough barbed wire Christmas tree matches to
see in a lifetime. Solid show. Great first segment and some good wrestling matches.
A few logic gaffes to be sure and they didn’t do much to push the PPV, but they
rarely do until the last week. The show opened with Fortune and Immortals coming
out, with Ric Flair introducing Rob Terry in a tight T-shirt as his new bodyguard and
told Terry this was his big opportunity and he had to prove himself. There were two
scales in the ring. In hindsight, I have no idea why. They announced they were
doing a weigh-in for the main event at the PPV, which was Matt Morgan vs. Mr.
Anderson. They ended up not doing the weigh-in, but later in the show tried to
establish that Anderson was in Green Bay when he did a “satellite” interview. From
what I understand, the “weigh-in” promo was taped on a different day than
the “satellite” promo. That’s the problem with doing so much TV at once because
people when you are doing five television shows in the space of a few days, and
taping things for different days, it becomes very difficult to keep straight what is on
what show, and people in the company who would notice this if just two shows
were taped probably wouldn’t, particularly by late in the week when everyone was
running on fumes. Now, at the end, the production people who actually put the
show together, as well as the people who actually write the original scripts, well,
you would hope someone would have noticed before it went over the air like this.
Eric Bischoff said they had doctors there to examine both guys to see if they are
healthy for the match. Of course the doctors never examined anyone either. When
they talked about a doctor taking Morgan’s blood pressure, he said he was going to
stick his size 18 up the doctor’s ass. Morgan ended up coming out in the middle of
Bischoff’s interview and said that of all the low things Bischoff has done, putting an
athlete with brain trauma in a match was low even by Bischoff standards. Mick
Foley then showed up. Foley said that he could relate to Anderson because he was
the same way, and that Anderson is now his own worst enemy. He said he saw him
wrestle last week that he can tell he’s in no condition to wrestle. I wonder what
Foley thought all the times in the last year he’s seen Nash wrestle. Then he
said, “As long as I’m here, that match is not taking place.” Not sure why he said
that, well, other than if he was told to say it, since the match is taking place and it
only makes him look weak for coming out so strong on something and not getting it
done. Then Flair started on Foley, essentially blaming him for the injuries of a
generation of backyard wrestlers that were shown on television news shows as well
as guys breaking in and certain style promotions that formed based on crazy bumps
and weapons matches with little resemblance to what he did. He said that also
raised the bar for everyone, and also got heat from the media on everyone in
wrestling for all of the backyard copycats. Yes, it was the moral dilemma time,
regarding Foley’s contributions to wrestling since while he was a big success, most
of the people who emulated him in the ring wound up with a lot of injuries and not
the same success because they didn’t get the breaks, they weren’t first, and most
importantly, they couldn’t make that style work within a framework of having great
matches and telling stories with their matches and interviews. That was always the
lesson the Foley imitators never could grasp, as so many just felt it was about how
much pain they could tolerate and how crazy bumps were they willing to take to get
that momentary pop from the audience. And don’t kid yourself, enough of them
were told, particularly if they made it past the backyard level, but the mentality was
there and many couldn’t break the idea that if they were willing to deliver or take a
harder chair shot it meant they were a better wrestler, or more hardcore. Flair
talked about wrestling 365 days a year, being punched in the head every day and
nobody made him cry about what he did. Flair said that Foley was the reason so
many kids ended up in the hospital. Foley then said, “I know I’ve been part of the
problem and I want to be part of the solution.” In this business, that was one of the
most amazing lines ever on television. Foley said that he and Morgan may not
agree on a lot of things but they have something in common, and that is when they
die, both of them have donated their brains to science (true, by the way). Flair then
said that he will either die here (doing something involving wrestling) or on top of a
wild woman. Flair openly talking about dying on a wrestling TV show was quite the
sound byte. Foley said that he’s made his mistakes in life and he won’t let Anderson
make the mistakes he’s made. Foley should probably teach him about what to say
and what not so say in media interviews then. Bischoff said that Foley was just
trying to redeem himself now that his books aren’t selling and nobody is going to
his stand-up comedy performances. That hurt, but shouldn’t the company when it
comes to one of its most recognizable stars and best promo guys in the middle of a
great segment, even though the line was biting, not try and at the end of the
segment make people think the guy with the most relevant points of all was no
longer a star to the public, particularly since he’s still gotten more mainstream
media in the last six months than anyone but Hogan. Bischoff said that now Foley
wants to stand up for the wrestlers while he’s living off the corpses of the people
who tried to keep up with him. So it was Foley’s fault all these wrestlers have died.
There was so much in this segment, not one point of which was talked about by the
announcers the rest of the show, and honestly, I’m not sure whether it should have
been. Every indication I’ve gotten from crowd reactions to this angle is that it’s not
getting over in the arena. After spending decades teaching wrestling fans how
tough wrestlers are and having them fight against doctor’s orders and such, and
having it be heels who try and get out of matches due to injuries, this becomes a
very difficult concept to embrace as a wrestling storyline even though topical. And
nobody got weighed in. Morgan was backstage when Jeff Hardy came up to him.
When it was over, I had no idea what the purpose of the segment was, but at least
it was short. Jeff Jarrett came out for his MMA challenge against Red “Lil Evil”
Pulver. The guy who was one of the doctors who I guess was going to do a medical
exam of Anderson in the middle of the ring, was now the commission rep putting
Vaseline on Red’s face and put it in his eyes. So Red went into the match, couldn’t
see, and Jarrett attacked him, went to town on him with punches to the back of the
head and put Red in the ankle lock in :49. Unfortunately, not only does Red look
like Pulver, but his results are about the same. At the end Red mentioned his baby
brother and Jarrett told him to bring his baby brother to the ring (to set up Tommy
Mercer as Red’s little brother due to their facial resemblance on next week’s show).
Jarrett continued to get great heat with these segments. Madison Rayne & Tara
were in their trailer talking. They acknowledged Tara’s injury and said, “We may
have one body (because Tara is hurt) but they only have one brain,” in reference to
the Beautiful People. Tara asked if her elbow brace made her look fat, and then
mentioned she was going out to party with Generation Me. I wonder if that makes
them the No. 1 suspects in an arson case. RVD said that finally, tonight, he gets in
the ring with Jeff Hardy for revenge. Yes, with 90 minutes of build on television in
an eight-man tag team match. Kazarian won the X division title shot in a four-way
over Max Buck, Jeremy Buck and Robbie E in 3:31. At one point both Bucks started
doing double biceps poses and Taz compared them to Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Lou Ferrigno (1975 Mr. Olympia reference although it’s not like anyone listening
would even have a clue if he said Jay Cutler and Phil Heath; although if we still had
Zbyszko out there he’d be talking about Steve Reeves). Most of the match was the
Bucks doing double-team moves on Robbie, while Jay Lethal, on commentary, said
he was glad he wouldn’t have to face both of them in the match. At that point I was
almost expecting both Bucks to lie down with their arms over each other, have it be
a draw, and then doing a three-way. Well, except for the overriding storyline that
Bischoff’s heel group has to win all the titles due to needing leverage in case an
upcoming court case doesn’t go their way. Kazarian and Lethal were yelling at each
other and Lethal told him, “I want you to try and do what Ric Flair couldn’t.” Didn’t
Flair beat Lethal the last time they wrestled? There was a trailer brawl with Sarita
and Velvet Sky. Sarita came in with a big belt behind her back and attacked. Velvet
made a comeback including throwing Sarita into a desk. Sarita then came back and
threw Sky into the wall three times and went back choking her with the belt a
second time. This time it worked and Sky was “injured,” to set up a strap match on
the next show. Love ended up making the save but Sky said she couldn’t breathe
and later didn’t come out for her match. Bischoff and Flair were backstage with all
the heels saying that if the court case doesn’t go their way, they need every belt
because belts mean power and leverage. This is the situation where Bischoff always
shines as a performer in. Why are Gunner & Murphy now members of Immortal? I
mean, how come the rest of those guys who second Jarrett, the tattooed up guys
who are supposed to be MMA fighters, are also not in the room? Brian Kendrick was
in a pastries shop acting weird. One of the women working behind the counter gave
him a cookie to make him go away. That would be so cool if every weirdo I come
across I could make go away with one cookie. Love & Winter beat Rayne & Tara to
win the finals of the Knockouts tag team title tournament in 4:49. Most of the
match was Rayne vs. Love, although Tara was there to tag in for a few seconds
since she’s hurt. Sky was said to be injured. The wrestling here was awful. At one
point Love even grabbed a headlock on the right side (like something you’re told
not to do first day of wrestling practice) and both women’s footwork were a mess as
they tried to figure out what to do from there. At another point Tara was yelling at
Rayne because she had a date later that night. Maybe they needed to establish an
alibi or something. At the 4:00 mark, Winter came out. I don’t know if Winter is her
first name, her last name, or just the season we’re in and nobody could come up
with a name. She came in, kicked Tara hard in the groin. She sold it like she had a
groin. Is Tara supposed to be a tranny and is the brain trust thinking the way to
turn around the ratings is to recreate that Mark Henry segment? Winter then used a
messed up black hole slam on Rayne for the pin. You would think they wouldn’t
have the women use one of the headliner guys’ finishers. Pope was talking to
someone on a cell phone plotting something, although they didn’t hint at what.
Orlando Jordan and Eric Young came out. Young was wearing a reindeer outfit and
had the old TNA world title belt on. This was supposed to be comedy but it sure
wasn’t funny past the visual of the reindeer walking around with a title belt on.
Apparently they taped several segments of Young in the reindeer costume for
comedy on the show, but in the editing process, this was the only one that
survived. Douglas Williams drew A.J. Styles to keep the TV title. Good match,
although not quite the level of their PPV match. They went to a commercial break,
and there was a pin during the break with Styles using the Styles clash. Yes, the
key spot of the match was done during the commercial break. When they came
back, Styles was ahead 1-0 and trying to stall time out while Mike Tenay and Taz
did all kinds of football references to prevent defenses. The strategy was sound
here as Styles tried to stall out the clock, but Williams used a Chaos Theory suplex
to get the in pin 14:44. When it was over, both men wanted five more minutes, and
Williams said he’d only need one minute. Good action in the overtime, but they
shaved time, going only 4:03. Why would you do a legit 15:00 and then shave time
in the overtime period? I don’t know if they actually did 5:00 legit but edited one
minute out because the show went long, or if they only taped the overtime going
4:03. Styles then said he wanted a rematch at Genesis. It was weird because you’d
think they’d ask for it right there, although both were selling exhaustion at the
time. Williams then said that Styles just got his rematch, so the answer is “No.”
Now I’m confused over who the heel and who the face is. I remember that Russo
interview where he bragged that he liked to book by doing the opposite of what
would be done traditionally. And he only proved to get the opposite results business
wise of what good bookers used to get traditionally. But he somehow never learned.
Styles then insulted Williams, saying that he must not be a fighting champion.
Yeah, the heel is saying what the fans are thinking. Williams then said that he’d
give him a shot, but if he wins, Styles has to leave Fortune forever. Styles said no
way he’s doing that. He told Williams to come up with another stipulation. But the
Bischoff came out and accepted for him, saying if Styles couldn’t win the title,
there’s no place for him in Fortune or Immortal, or in his mind, even in TNA. Next,
Anderson did an interview with Tenay and Taz which they said was live via satellite
from Green Bay, even though actually he was backstage. They didn’t bring up that
by being in Green Bay it meant he no-showed the weigh-in, which as best I can tell,
usually means the commission bans you from doing the match. They were asking
him questions about whether he was cleared or not. Anderson kept saying he was
medically cleared and sounded about as honest as in all those interviews where he
said he never used steroids, or later, that he stopped using due to the WWE policy.
Anderson said he was cleared to return to the ring at Genesis. Didn’t he wrestle in
the main event on Impact last week already? When Tenay and Taz wanted proof he
was cleared (even though he wrestled in last week’s main event, which I guess
we’re all supposed to have forgotten happened at this point), he stormed off like he
was Brock Lesnar being asked a question of how he got so big. Morgan watched this
from backstage and was furious. I guess he realized Anderson might be lying given
his track record on interviews and inability to produce the note clearing him. He
started talking about it while RVD and the Machine Guns completely blew the
subject off. Then, the main event was Machine Guns & Morgan & RVD over Beer
Money & Hardy & Abyss in a TNA tag team title match. Yes, not only was the tag
team title up in an eight-man tag even though they in theory could have done a
regular tag match for the title, and this thus made no sense, but there wasn’t even
an attempt at an explanation for any of this. And it wasn’t as if Morgan & RVD or
Hardy & Abyss could be tag champs if they were the ones winning the match. If
Hardy pinned RVD, for example, Beer Money would get the belts. Good match if you
get past the inherent stupidity of it all. The story of the match is that every time
RVD tagged in, Hardy would tag out. At the end, Morgan gave Abyss the carbon
footprint. Hardy gave Morgan the twist of hate. Hardy bailed out and then Roode
gave RVD a spinebuster, and threw him to Hardy on the floor. Shelley did a tope to
Hardy. Roode did a fireman’s carry into a slam on Shelley. Sabin then used a
springboard into a tornado DDT on Roode for the pin in 9:46.
UFC
UFC 124's latest estimates are 785,000 buys, again as noted last week, carried by
Canadian numbers which were believed to be the second biggest for any PPV in
history besides UFC 100. All of the strongest markets appear to be Canadian, with
Halifax, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa
as the strongest. All are expected except Montreal, although as the live site that
shouldn’t be a surprise, but Montreal is not a traditionally strong UFC PPV market,
even with GSP being from Montreal. The only reason it’s a strong live market is
because so many fans drive over from Ontario. St. Pierre will tell you that he’s a
lot more popular in places like Toronto and Vancouver than in Montreal, which he
noted is the difference between the English language Canadian culture and the
French language Quebec culture, and UFC, even though broadcast in French, is still
really an English language product. It’s the same thing in the U.S. where the shows
don’t do well in Spanish households on PPV. Even UFC 121 with Cain Velasquez
didn’t appear to do that well in Spanish language homes based on information
regarding that show. My strong impression is Velasquez did make a difference in
Hispanic homes that speak English, but not as much in those that speak Spanish. In
the U.S., where UFC 124 did well, but nowhere close to record levels, the strongest
markets look to have been Honolulu, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Seattle, Phoenix and
San Diego.
Josh Koscheck had surgery in Boston and had a plate put in to repair his broken
right orbital bone. GSP broke it on the first jab that landed hard, right to the eye, in
the first round. It’ll be three to four months before he can start training again. He
also had all the skin ripped off one of his toes in the second round. After the third
round, he was having trouble seeing out of the right eye and denied that to the
doctor to keep the fight from being stopped.
In an interesting move, there had been negotiations for Frank Mir vs. Brendan
Schaub, but this past week Schaub was talked with about facing Stefan Struve
instead, and then at press time there was talk of Schaub vs. Mirko Cro Cop on the
3/19 show in Newark. This opens up speculation on why Mir was pulled from the
match. Dana White did tease Lesnar vs. Mir as possible TUF coaches that would
lead to a match. I haven’t heard hints of who the coaches will be, but Wanderlei
Silva vs. Chael Sonnen was said by White to be out due to the licensing issues in
Nevada with Sonnen. Regarding Lesnar, there is still no movement as best we can
tell for when he will fight again or necessarily against who.
The first star lightweight casualty of the bloated roster by combining the UFC and
WEC divisions was former WEC champion Jamie Varner, who was cut this past
week. After being out most of 2009 with an assortment of injuries, Varner came
back and dropped the WEC lightweight title to Ben Henderson in January. He then
had a draw with a tough Kamal Shalorus (a fight that he probably should have
won), lost a grudge match via decision to Donald Cerrone, and on 12/16, was
submitted by Shane Roller in what was likely a loser leaves town match. Also cut
was Chris Horodecki, after losing to Cerrone via triangle on the same show. The
former IFL teenage sensation, now 23, who has a 16-3 career record, had won his
previous two fights before the Cerrone fight. It was a numbers game and it was
inevitable a lot of lightweights are going to be cut, even those with some name
identity. I do expect both to be high on the lists of those called if a lightweight gets
injured on upcoming shows, which would be their ticket back.
A major story to watch in 2011 is the UFC/Spike negotiations as the contract
expires at the end of the year. Spike’s identity is based on UFC and losing that
would be a big blow, even though ratings for UFC dropped a lot in the past year.
Some say UFC won’t be able to grow past the level they are at as long as they are
a Spike property, but I’m not sure of that one. They need television on a station
with good penetration, and Spike fits that bill. Network vs. cable means less now
than ever before, and the gap is going to continue to narrow. The idea of moving
to an ESPN has advantages and major disadvantages. UFC on Spike is a great
deal because UFC can get shows on for the most part when they want and Spike
promotes it as its top priority. On an ESPN, yet you’d probably get more Sports
Center coverage which will lead to more acceptance of it in the mainstream media,
but it’ll never be promoted anywhere near as hard on a station that has major
league sports on it that will always take priority. And UFC doesn’t have to sign an
exclusive with Spike as they already are on Spike & Versus, and the idea of some
ESPN and some Spike would be even better. ESPN has been hot and cold on the
product over the past two years, but were very close to a deal in 2009 at one point,
even to the point ESPN had a name for the show.
On 1/1, UFC will be airing three prelim fights live on the Ion network starting at
8:55 p.m. Eastern in a deal put together just days before the event. The fights
airing will be Phil Baroni vs. Brad Tavares (a fight put on TV because White’s twitter
fans brought up wanting to see Baroni), Dustin Poirier vs. Josh Grispi and Marcus
Davis vs. Jeremy Stephens. Spike had other programming commitments and Ion
is in close to 100 million homes, while Versus is in closer to 75 million, although
Versus as a channel reaches a far more compatible demo than Ion, which is
strongest with 55-year-old women. Apparently Ion and UFC have been in talks for
a while. The CEO of Ion was not hot on the idea of UFC at first, but evidently was
persuaded to change his mind. Versus is also airing MMA programming pretty much
all night that night. It will be an interesting test to see if basically just through
Internet pub how many of the usual 1.2 million to 1.5 million UFC prelims viewers
will know about the show and find Ion, a station that probably the majority of those
viewers never watch.
Mike Pyle vs. Ricardo Almeida and Anthony Njokuani vs. Edson Barboza have been
added to the 3/19 show in Newark. Barboza, 7-0, is coming off an impressive
showing in his UFC debut on the 11/20 show in Detroit with tremendous low kicks
and grappling strength. Njokuani is a WEC veteran who is primarily a striker and on
paper this looks like an exciting match-up.
Dan Hardy vs. Anthony Johnson is being talked about for 3/26 in Seattle, which
would be a semifinal for a show that also has Tito Ortiz vs. Antonio Rogerio
Nogueira. You can see them really stepping up the star power with Ortiz, Nogueira
and Hardy all on a Spike show. Ratings matter a lot more in the final year of the
contract. Sean McCorkle vs. Christian Morecraft in a battle of huge heavyweights is
also in the process of being signed for that show.
Shane Roller vs. Thiago Tavares has been agreed to for the 3/3 Versus show in
Louisville. As a lightweight fight, any fight with non-contenders could be a must-win
situation.
Sean Pierson told Paul Lazenby that he wanted to drop the “Pimp Daddy” name as
his nickname due to concerns it would hurt his chance to be on the police force.
Pierson was recently rejected by the Toronto police force over his UFC job, and the
nickname didn’t help matters.
STRIKEFORCE
Welterweight champion Nick Diaz signed a multi-year contract extension, which
should end any current speculation of him wanting to go to UFC.
Sara McMann, 30, who won a silver medal in wrestling at 139 pounds in 2004, has
signed and will be debuting here shortly, perhaps as early as February. McMann is
3-0 as an amateur. She lost to Kaori Icho in the finals in Athens, by a 3-2 score.
Jorge Gurgel, the former UFC fighter who got his first national recognition on TUF,
who now fights here, got engaged this past week to Zoila Frausto, who this past
year won the women’s 115 pound Bellator championship tournament with an upset
over Megumi Fujii. Frausto got her first mainstream recognition as a local woman
fighter on the Challengers shows that were done in Fresno, where she grew up.
OTHER MMA
The 12/30 Sengoku show will air in the U.S. on HDNet on 1/14 and 1/21 at 10 p.m.
To show it’s not just wrestling, kickboxing and MMA that are down in Japan, on 12/
26, TBS aired a Kameda Brothers boxing show. Daiki Kameda retained his WBA
flyweight title beating Silvio Otteanu via split decision while older brother Koki
Kameda won the vacant WBA bantamweight title beating Alexander Munoz via
decision. Daiki’s fight only did a 9.6 rating, considered poor, as several TV shows
beat it head-to-head. Koki’s fight did a 13.8 rating, peaking at 19.3 in the final
round. For a comparison, on November 29, 2009, a Koki Kameda vs. Daisuke Naito
did a 43.1 rating in a match where Koki was going for revenge against the fighter
who beat his brother (in Naito’s home island of Hokkaido the show did a 50.6
rating, the highest rated television show in the history of the network affiliate on
the island). At the peak of Koki’s popularity, on August 2, 2006, Kameda vs. Juan
Landaeta, where Kameda won his first world title, the WBA light flyweight title, the
fight did a 42.4 rating. Most in Japan felt Landaeta should have won the decision,
and considering how nationalistic Japanese sports fans usually are, for that feeling
it must have been beyond obvious. The win badly hurt Koki’s popularity, but the
Naito fight brought some of that back.
WWE
Kaval (Brandon Silvestry, 31) was released from his contract on 12/23. He was
never really a good fit here because he had too much of a Japanese style, and while
he was able to get over with the public, he couldn’t get over with the people in
charge. Guys who have had success elsewhere always have a difficult time here
because of the perception than any success elsewhere doesn’t count, and at times,
is actually held against you. In his case, you combine that with his size, and it’s a
double whammy. He was originally signed at the end of 2008 while he was IWGP jr.
champion in Japan. The idea was to use him as a masked wrestler to feud with
Mysterio. While getting ready for a call-up, he blew out his knee and was out for
nine months after surgery. By that time, people forgot about that program and he
was left in developmental. He was then brought up for NXT season two to be in the
Bryan Danielson role, the guy for Michael Cole (basically the office voice due to
frustration with what they perceive as Internet fans) rips on for being too small and
having no charisma (even though he had more charisma than anyone else that
season). They kept beating him on the show and he kept being voted on as the top
guy by the fans, won the show, and was immediately jobbed out. I really have no
idea why the company does fan voting on those shows because it leads to things
making no sense. They job a guy out for three straight months but they’ve taught
fans winning and losing doesn’t count, so they still vote the guy in. Then they
jobbed him some more, and in a sense, wasted a tag of winning the season that
could have helped someone they had plans for, and instead just made them look
vindictive for having a guy the fans chose and then having the doctrine he’s being
jobbed out because he wasn’t who they wanted. Creative was told to job him, which
they did, until the decision was made, because of the NXT deal where he was
supposed to get a shot, to build him up for one shot on PPV with Ziggler. Since
then, creative was told to continue to job him and he got frustrated and wanted
out. After he lost to McIntyre on the 12/21 live Smackdown, the story we got is that
he asked if he had any heat and was told he didn’t. Then he asked if there were any
future plans for him, and he was told that they had no ideas or plans with him, so
he asked for his release and they agreed to it. It’s going to be difficult for him
because of how the landscape of wrestling has changed in the past two years. There
isn’t the money in working indies as there was, nor is there the money working
Japan that there was, even a couple of years ago. He should get a decent amount
of bookings coming off WWE television. Things weren’t smooth sailing in TNA, but
the guy is very talented. New Japan liked him but they have Davey Richards in his
position as the great working foreign junior heavyweight. NOAH has financial issues
right now. As Low Ki, he has signed for a match on 3/5 in Ronkonkoma, NY, against
Davey Richards.
One person around the company noted the mentality of wrestlers regarding their
positions in the company has changed, and credited it to The Rock. A lot of talent
saw that if a guy who was that big a star making that kind of money could walk
away from wrestling and resist every lure to return, then maybe there was as good
or a better life outside the WWE walls. But for mid-level talent, because of the video
game royalty checks, they are making more money than even during the glory
period (although nobody at the top is making Austin/Rock money, although Cena
is making millions). In the last 15 months or so, both Hardys, MVP, Shad Gaspard,
Jillian Hall and Kaval all left on their own. As noted before, three or four others are
claiming they will be leaving when their contracts are up, and at least one main
eventer is saying it adamantly, although nobody knows what a person will do,
including the person themselves, at times until faced with actually having to make
the call. There’s the idea there’ a better life making your own schedule and getting
European and/or Japanese dates (ironically most of the people who do that kind
of schedule end up wanting to come back because of the lack of stability, because
neither Europe nor Japan are what they were for ex-WWE talent as compared to
even a couple of years ago). When Jeff Hardy and RVD couldn’t move ratings and
TNA flopped so badly in the Monday Night War to where it’s unlikely they’ll ever
get that chance again, they are viewed less as competition. 18 months ago, they’d
have done everything to keep Matt Hardy away from TNA and would try and keep
Kaval away and now they don’t really seem to care whether they go or not.
Mistico has made inquiries about coming in. When Mistico was super hot in Mexico,
they were in talks with him and he did a tryout match behind the scenes one day in
San Jose and everyone was impressed with his chain wrestling. But he was making
so much money in Mexico that it made no sense to leave. Because of how people
like Psicosis and Super Crazy were treated, there has been a stigma among the
wrestlers in Mexico that if you go to WWE, you’ll just be topped out unless you’re
Mysterio so people who were stars in Mexico didn’t want to risk it. Even in recent
years, when WWE has made inquiries with El Hijo del Santo, he was leery because
when he was here in the 90s WWE wanted him to take off his mask, and that’s his
very being and would see it as disrespecting his late father. But now that Del Rio is
being groomed for a headline position, it’s made people think less negatively about
their chances. But how many top stars in Mexico have Del Rio’s size, and he really
is a special case.
Jericho’s book will be released on 2/16 and he’ll be doing lots of media probably
starting in a few weeks.
The plan right now is to do some sort of a WCW tie-in with WrestleMania in Atlanta,
given it will be, to the month, the tenth anniversary of WCW shutting down. Lex
Luger, Ron Simmons and Arn Anderson are being talked up for the Hall of Fame,
and there is talk this week about opening talks with Bill Goldberg, although with
HHH in the position he’s in, it’ll kind of make him look silly if they reach out to
Goldberg after HHH said that they had no interest in him and that he didn’t belong
in the Hall of Fame.
Smackdown will be doing a special show on 2/18 (taped 2/15 in San Diego) for its
600th episode.
Mysterio has been given more of a break when it comes to his road schedule. They
don’t want him taking time off because the depth on Smackdown is so weak, but he
is banged up but will be working less house shows going forward.
Word from the top is that they want to give Mason Ryan a big push to try and fill
the Batista slot. Historically trying to get a look alike to fill a slot in wrestling most
often doesn’t work as people see them as copycats.
The new Dustin Runnels autobiography that WWE isn’t promoting a lick was said
to be to one of the most nothing wrestling books out there. Runnels does admit to
being coked up before his TNA matches, which explains the difference between his
work in TNA and his work in WWE. Well, that and 60 more pounds.
Notes from the 12/27 Raw in Albany, NY. Primo pinned Abraham Washington in a
dark match. Washington played the old Marella role as a comedy geek, as first he
said he was the Viper, then the Marine and finally said, “I’m awesome,” to get the
dreaded get off the stage heat. Primo then beat him in a squash in 3:00. Usos beat
Tatsu & Young. Regal pinned Smith in a good European style match. Things are not
good for Smith when Regal, who appears to be near retirement, beats him. Raw
opened with a Cena promo. Cena did comedy, talking about how Punk attacked him
because he spilled Punk’s diet Pepsi last week. He treated it as comedy and called
out Punk. Punk said the reason he attacked Cena was because he can see through
Cena and that Cena is dishonest, and that he lied to the people about saying he
would quit, and he not only never quit, but gave a big retirement speech and was
back on the show an hour later and on TV every week since. So Punk is now doing
the heel who believes he’s right, actually is right, making all the fans wrong
garnering even more heat with fans (and turning himself babyface to a percentage
in the process). He said Cena ended the career of his good friend Batista by giving
him the Attitude Adjustment off the roof of the car and through the stage. He was
also mad Cena keeps insulting a beautiful wonderful woman like Vickie Guerrero, as
well as dropped 15 chairs on Barrett. Cena said that Punk was the one not telling
the truth, because it was 23 chairs, and because Batista came back the next day on
Raw after the I Quit match and quit the promotion on his own. And he said he did
that to Barrett because Nexus beat him up time after time. Cena then challenged
Punk to get in the ring. Punk said Cena doesn’t make the rules anymore, and before
the end of the show, he’ll give Cena a big surprise. Marella pinned DiBiase in 1:03.
Crowd died. After the match, Marella gave Tamina (all dressed up in a nice looking
dress, I guess they got the message after the way they had her dress last week) a
Christmas present, which had hole in the bottom and he put his hand in it, like the
present was his hand doing the cobra. She thought it was funny. DiBiase and
Maryse then attacked them both, but then both used the cobra to knock out DiBiase
and Maryse, and they had their cobra hands meet like they were kissing. At least
they seem to have established after all these months that Marella and Tamina have
gone somewhere. Miz told Riley that tonight was serious business. Morrison came
out and issued a stip. He said that if he could beat Riley, then he gets to name the
place and the stipulation for his title match. But if Riley wins, then he’ll give up his
title match. Miz agreed to the deal. Morrison pinned Riley in 4:41 with an enzuigiri
and shining wizard. Miz then said he wants his shot next week in Phoenix on Raw in
a falls count anywhere match. Speaking of that, is anyone going to a bring an “I’d
rather be in Phoenix” sign. Miz was mad at Riley for blowing it and told him he’d
better make sure to help him out against Lawler. Bryan was backstage with the
Bella Twins, who both still want him and he’s apparently still not made a move on
them. Kidd and Jackson Andrews walked up. This had to be, in hindsight, the
strangest segment of the year. I mean, this was right out of TNA, given that Kidd
issued a challenge for a title match and then in the next match, got squashed. Kidd
said Bryan must be secretly rich because there’s no other explanation for why the
Bellas would like him. Ever think that maybe they like good wrestling matches? Kidd
challenged him, and said he would be U.S. champion soon. Andrews got in Bryan’s
face. Well, Bryan’s face got in his belly button. Andrews looks like he’s lost 30
pounds in the last two weeks. Orton did an interview saying that he wants Miz to
beat Morrison because he wants to be the one to win the title from Miz. The
impression I got is Orton is getting the Rumble title shot, and really, that’s a bad
idea because Rumble is the show where you can give somebody new the rub of
a “PPV main event” because the show will draw because of the Rumble match itself.
Well, if they promote the Rumble match well. Henry pinned Kidd in 2:05 with the
world’s strongest slam. Then Andrews confronted Henry. Henry picked him up and
gave him the World’s Strongest Slam. That came across as an Andrews blow-off. I
mean, they blew him off as a bodyguard out of nowhere with no build. Something
has to be up with Andrews in some fashion. Lawler beat Miz via count out in 9:35 in
a non-title match. Lawler made the big mistake of checking his gear, and then the
airlines lost his luggage. So he had to do the match in slacks and a T-shirt. That
meant for the finish, he couldn’t pull down his strap. Crowd was really into Lawler.
It wasn’t as good as the TLC match, partially because no title was at stake. Miz
dominated almost the entire match so it appeared Lawler would probably win. As
Miz was dominating, Morrison’s music played and he came out. Miz was distracted.
Lawler knocked Miz to the floor. Riley tried to help but the ref stopped him.
Morrison then gave Miz the shining wizard, and Lawler won via count out when
Morrison couldn’t get up. Just before the finish, Lawler delivered three straight
dropkicks. Punk acted like he was recruiting Sheamus, bringing up how Cena has
insulted him all year. Lawler coming back from a break brought up that he was 2-0
in matches against Miz. Evidently he’s already forgot about the biggest match of
probably the last five years of his career, the TLC match he lost due to Cole’s
interference. Melina & Fox beat Torres & Kim in 2:29 when Melina pinned Kim after
the sunset split. A little better than usual, probably because of Kim’s athletic ability.
Natalya, who was on commentary, jumped into the ring to confront Melina. Melina
went to slap her but Natalya blocked it and slapped Melina in the face. Bryan beat
Ryder with the LeBell lock in 1:03. They came back from a commercial with the two
in the ring and it ended right away. It appeared stuff earlier in the show went long.
The G.M. said next year would be the greatest year in Raw history. While this was
going on, Miz attacked Lawler at the desk and gave him a beating, including
throwing him into the barricades and the steps, and leaving Lawler laying with a
skull crushing finale. Orton pinned Sheamus in 14:14 in a good match, winning
clean when Sheamus tried a shoulder block from the apron into the ring, but Orton
side stepped and caught him in the RKO. Cool looking finish. Final segment was
Cena coming out. He over-and-over called Punk “C.M. Sucks.” He told Punk to come
out as he’s waited the whole show for him. Punk’s music played but no Punk. The
Nexus, minus Barrett, came out. Otunga did the talking and said to Cena how
Nexus was under new management, that they noted how Cena did everything he
promised to do, and they don’t want to fight him anymore and want a truce. Cena
said he’d shake his hand if he believed it but he doesn’t, and told Otunga to either
leave the ring or they would throw hands and see who is left standing. Otunga left,
but as Nexus was walking about, they stopped, came in and gave Cena a beatdown.
Slater did his Zig Zag looking thing. McGillicutty did the McGillicutter. Harris then
did the senton followed by Gabriel with the 450. Otunga dropped a Nexus armband
on Cena. Punk then came out, walked past Nexus, got in the ring and gave Cena
the GTS. He then grabbed the Nexus armband and put it on, and everyone from
Nexus saluted him, so Punk is the new leader of the group. Good finishing segment.
Notes from the 12/28 Smackdown tapings in Rochester, NY. They opened with a
dark match with Percy Watson pinning Hawkins. In a mild upset on Superstars,
Reks pinned Masters clean with the Burning Hammer. A surprise since Masters on
the road shows was beating Swagger every night. Next opened with the return of RTruth after his bout with walking pneumonia. Truth was back as the pro for Johnny
Curtis. Ziggler pinned Curtis in 4:39 after the Zig Zag. They announced the match
of the year for 2010, saying it was a tie between Bryan vs. Ziggler at Bragging
Rights and Michaels vs. Undertaker at Mania. Bryan vs. Ziggler was very good, but
it wasn’t even in the league of Michaels vs. Undertaker. Conor O’Brien pinned
Derrick Bateman in 3:09 with a full nelson slam. Kingston was the pro for the night
for Bateman since his normal pro, Bryan, was booked on a house show in WilkesBarre, which also tells you how much they care about NXT. Backstage they did a
deal where DiBiase and Maryse were arguing because DiBiase got a $20,000
monthly credit card bill after the holidays. Given that DiBiase is supposed to be so
wealthy, the least they could have done was say $200,000 to get him mad. They
announced voting this week and the first elimination will be announced on next
week’s show. We got the power of the punch challenge. Hopefully they don’t have
Michael Cole do it again this year and beat half the guys. The machine broke in the
middle of this. Even though it’s a taped show, they didn’t bother to cut the tape
while they fixed it. Curtis scored 815 to win. Brodus Clay, who is about 330 and a
monster went last and everyone expected him to kill it, but he ended up with 636,
or fourth place. I think Cole when he did it would have beaten him. Saxton beat
DiBiase via DQ in 5:59 as DiBiase I guess has to continue his losing streak gimmick.
Brodus Clay clotheslined Saxton for the DQ and the ref turned around and saw it.
DiBiase and Maryse yelled at Clay for screwing up the match. DiBiase started yelling
at Clay and daring him to punch him but Clay just smiled. Curtis blamed his recent
losses on Truth being gone the past few weeks. Next was a talent competition that
was said to be among the worst TV wrestling segments of the year. During this,
Michael Cole returned and cut a promo that the crowd went crazy for. He put over
Clay as being his good friend. He then asked the fans about their judgment since he
said they voted Kaval as the season two winner and asked, “How did that work out
for you?” Curtis did a ribbon dancing bit and the crowd voted him as the winner.
Then Clay beat up all five of the other guys too end the show. Smackdown opened
with Ziggler & Vickie Guerrero doing a promo. As usual, the crowd was just going
crazy on Guerrero. They complained about last week’s match with Cena, with Vickie
saying that because Cena put his hands on her, now she’s suffering from vertigo.
Kingston came out and talked about the three-way ladder match for the IC title at
the TLC PPV. He wanted a rematch. Swagger came out and he felt he was the
rightful next contender. Ziggler wasn’t happy with that and he and Swagger started
fighting, and Kingston joined in. Long then announced a return title match would be
on tonight’s show. Show beat Rhodes with a walk out count out. McIntyre beat
Baretta. They did a unique finish where Baretta went for a tope, but missed, and
crashed on the floor. He was selling he was injured and couldn’t continue and the
match was stopped. McIntyre then gave him a Future shock DDT on the floor. Edge
& Mysterio beat Del Rio & Kane when Mysterio used the 619 on Del Rio and Edge
then speared Del Rio for the pin. Phoenix & Natalya beat LayCool when Phoenix
pinned McCool after the Glam Slam. Ziggler kept the title. Kingston used the
Trouble in Paradise on Swagger, but then Ziggler rolled up Kingston to win it. It’s
the same usual sequence of getting to the finish, but at least it wasn’t Ziggler
stealing the pin. Since the show airs on New Year’s Eve, there were a lot of New
Year’s Eve themed vignettes that were not shown to the live crowd. They
announced that next week would be Edge vs. Kane in a non-title last man standing
match, and Mysterio vs. Del Rio in a 2/3 fall match. They had no dark match, but
Ziggler & Vickie game out to sing Christmas Carols. Mysterio then came out and
gave Ziggler a 619 and Show followed with a choke slam on Ziggler. Then Edge
came out and speared Ziggler.
Freddy Prinze Jr. of the creative team was sued based on a 2009 auto accident.
Prinze Jr. was allegedly driving a car registered to his wife (actress Sarah Michelle
Gellar) when he was accused of rear-ending someone at a red light. The driver
claimed serious neck injuries and hasn’t been able to work since. The driver is
asking for a six-figure amount, claiming he needs major neck surgery and his
insurance company low-balled him on a settlement and the only way to pay for it is
to sue Prinze Jr.
As we had mentioned months ago, at the live events when the Divas are hosts and
ask young children questions, they do give the kids the answers to the questions
(usually what’s the name of the next PPV or where Mania will be held) so they
always win the prize.
A few months back, Jeff the Drunk on the Howard Stern show claimed he would
be guest host on the 12/27 Raw in Albany and doing a segment with Steve Austin.
They had reported it on Howard’s news as well, but WWE people from the start
said there was nothing to it. Apparently he was running his own angle. So the next
day, Jeff was on the show and claimed he went to Albany and wasn’t allowed in.
He said it was all set up by Ron Simmons, which of course makes no sense since
Simmons isn’t in talent relations or creative. He said he got there, called Simmons
(was Simmons even at the show?), and said Simmons said he’d get back to him,
but never did. He said he called Simmons again because he promised his nephews
tickets and Simmons told him he’d work on it. Jeff then said he waited for three
hours at the box office before he left. He also claimed he shaved his head before
coming because Josh Matthews told him WWE wanted him bald. Sounds like just a
delusional rant. He then started cutting an obscenity laced promo on Matthews and
Simmons.
The two Smackdown house shows this past week saw Chicago do 8,500 fans and
$320,000, while Pittsburgh did 9,000 fans and $355,000. The Raw TV tapings in
Albany did 6,000, which is down from the traditional sellout or near sellout that
they do for the Christmas week show. You can look at these numbers any way
you want to. They are far better than usual Smackdown house shows, but for
Chicago, that’s much lower than a usual crowd for a house show in the market,
plus Christmas week with a kids product should be doing big houses. But it’s also
Smackdown which doesn’t draw well on the road. Pittsburgh was WWE’s debut
show in the new arena, and traditionally that’s a big-time boost of attendance.
In Chicago, Howard Finkel was brought in as ring announcer which got a big
reaction. The entire advertised card was changed per an announcement at the start
by Long. They had been pushing Edge vs. Kane vs. Punk vs. Show for the title in a
cage, including Punk doing local media pushing that match. Then it was changed to
Edge vs. Kane and Punk & Del Rio vs. Show & Mysterio. Kingston opened winning a
Battle Royal for an IC title shot. With the exception of Rhodes, McIntyre, Swagger
and Kingston, they were all prelim guys like JTG, Reks, Baretta, Masters, Chavo
Guerrero, Jackson as well as Percy Watson from NXT. Rhodes eliminated himself as
he was afraid to get hit by Jackson. Kingston eliminated Swagger and McIntyre to
win. McIntyre pinned JTG. McIntyre was blowing kisses at Kelly, who was the guest
timekeeper. Masters pinned Swagger in a surprise, rolling him up after reversing
the ankle lock. Ziggler pinned Kingston with the Zig Zag in the title match. Really
good action. Guerrero pinned Rhodes. Guerrero worked as the face after Rhodes
insulted Mexicans. Rhodes also insulted Howard Finkel, saying the reason he’s not
announcing on Raw or Smackdown is because he’s ugly. Guerrero won clean with
a frog splash in a surprise. Phoenix & Natalya beat Layla & Naomi. I guess Naomi
works in the LayCool spot since McCool is getting a lot of the house shows off to
help Undertaker with his recuperation from surgery. They all wore Santa’s helpers
costumes. Nobody knew who Naomi was and she got no reaction. Hornswoggle
bit Layla in the ass to lead to Phoenix hitting her with the Glam slam, which led to
the pin. Mysterio vs. Del Rio was no contest when Punk interfered and Show made
the save. This turned into a tag match. Punk got a heel reaction even in Chicago
because of the attack on Mysterio, who was the most over guy on the card. Show
choke slammed both and Mysterio splashed off the top onto both for a double pin.
Edge beat Kane in a cage match by escaping over the top to keep the title. Kane
attacked Edge outside the ring, threw him back in the cage, but Edge speared Kane
to end the show.
They did a similar show in Pittsburgh. Finkel was again the ring announcer.
Kingston again opened winning the Battle Royal for an IC title shot. Mason
Ryan pinned Guerrero. Ryan, who is from Wales, was announced as being from
Pittsburgh so the people got behind him. Same women’s match. McIntyre pinned
Baretta. Mysterio & Show beat Rhodes & Del Rio. Masters again pinned Swagger
reversing out of the ankle lock. Ziggler again pinned Kingston. Main event was
Edge over Kane by again climbing over. Kane went for a belt shot after the match
but Edge ducked and speared him to end the sow. He pointed out Matt Cooke of
the Pittsburgh Penguins and told him to beat Ovechkin, referring to the 1/1 Winter
Classic game outdoors against the Washington Capitals.