heWafuuT

1
2Wrestling Observer Newsletter
3
4PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 January 14, 2013
5
6NEW JAPAN WRESTLE KINGDOM IPPV POLL RESULTS
7
8Thumbs up 193 (100.0%)
9
10Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)
11
12In the middle 0 (00.0%)
13
14BEST MATCH POLL
15
16Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada 95
17
18Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazushi Sakuraba 56
19
20Prince Devitt vs. Low Ki vs. Kota Ibushi 27
21
22Yuji Nagata vs. Minoru Suzuki 9
23
24WORST MATCH POLL
25
268 man tag 73
27
28Opening 6 man tag 32
29
30Masato Tanaka vs. Shelton Benjamin 28
31
32Togi Makabe vs. Katsuyori Shibata 8
33
34Based on phone calls and e-mails to the Observer as of Tuesday, 1/8.
35
36WrestleMania season began on 1/7 in Tampa with The Rock returning in a segment with C.M. Punk that lasted close to 30 minutes, the first half with Punk doing a seemingly endless promo, and the second half with the two of them out there.
37
38They officially announced Punk vs. Rock as the main event for the Royal Rumble PPV on 1/27 in Phoenix, a show that is already sold out. The Tampa show also sold out and they expected a lot of Monday night sellouts going forward since Rock is already announced for every Raw between now and mid-February with the exception of the 2/4 show in Atlanta.
39
40The Rock has added an appearance on the 2/12 Smackdown tapings in Little Rock. They are in San Jose on 1/21 and the local advertising is completely based on the return of The Rock for the first time in San Jose in more than a decade. It’s the standard television ad they are doing in every market he’s appearing in. The ad doesn’t mention the name of any other wrestler, even Cena, nor does it even push that it’s a Raw television taping, past the point that a Raw show on a Monday kind of implies that. But that tells you how much of a difference maker they are expecting him to be when it comes to ticket sales.
41
42The final segment in Tampa can be overanalyzed to death when it’s pretty simple. There were aspects weird to be sure, but in the end, it’s going to draw, and that’s all it’s designed to do. When Punk and Rock were out together, it felt weird like they were from two different eras, with Punk doing a 2012 style promo and Rock doing a 1999 promo. But that’s what people want out of him, and it was only week one. There was a similar situation last year, not quite as pronounced, but Rock was still doing the entertaining the people with catch phrases that made him a star and Cena was doing his stuff that was more like everyone else. At the end of the day, for all the talk of who was winning the promo battles, the match drew huge. This was only week one, and 30 minutes did feel too long for a verbal battle, but the idea was to put it late, and have the two main guys take up as much time as possible with the idea the rating would build once Rock came out. The hope was the college football game would be over or a blow out (and it was the latter) and go long past 11 p.m. to build the overrun audience with more time so the most number of people see the rock bottom spot.
43
44Punk started out explaining what a pipe bomb was, which he claimed was unvarnished honesty. The concept was that Punk turned on the people, and Rock is The People’s champion. That simple. He used his face run with the idea he was playing the fans for fools, and laughing at them all the way through it. He said the face run was making a business decision and selling out, or as he put it, cashed in. He said he created this persona of an anti-hero that he knew all the fans would love. He said in pro wrestling it doesn’t matter if you’re the best wrestler, the best talker, the best performer or if as an announcer you can make the two clowns who announce look like amateur hour (in reference to his run as an announcer at the end of 2010 when he was injured). He talked about how there is a glass ceiling, but in wrestling, the more popular you are, the more money you make. The more you get cheered the more opportunities you get. His example was that Cena, in the worst year of his career, got title shot after title shot. He noted that Daniel Bryan, one of the greatest wrestlers in the world, belittles himself with catch phrases, and that a monster like Brodus Clay soils his hands and touches your children, and how an invisible child, Little Jimmy, is better positioned in the company than a true workhorse like Tyson Kidd. The people started cheering and he laughed at them, saying that once again, they are falling for everything he’s saying. He talked about how the fans can’t handle anything complicated or interesting and that’s how it’s been since the beginning of time. He said wrestling was the circus there to entertain you.
45
46He then claimed he was the most successful wrestler of all-time, not just the modern era. He talked about how the company doesn’t notice people unless they can move T-shirts. He then talked about being champion for 414 days, saying that if he was in Bruno Sammartino’s era, he’d have been champion for 20 or 30 years, and said how he had it easy, wrestling one match a month in Madison Square Garden while he’s doing physically demanding matches on free television every week, and how his one year equals 30 years of those guys. He asked if Hulk Hogan ever did a TLC match against Ryback.
47
48Then he talked about how all the wrestlers talk about doing it for the people, and let’s hear it for Tampa, which got a pop. He brought up growing up watching Roddy Piper hit Jimmy Snuka with a coconut. He said how Ric Flair will cry his 182 year old tears out. Then everyone starting “whooing” at the mention of Flair. He talked about Shawn Michaels in his Hall of Fame speech saying his whole career was about winning over people’s acceptance. He said how Edge said in his Hall of Fame speech he misses competing for all you people. He said they are all either weak, dishonest or liars. He said there are two types of people, those born to be in the spotlight, and those born to pay to see people in the spotlight, the winners and the losers. After they did a grip jump on the apron to tell him they were going to a break, he said you don’t go to a break when the champion is talking (an offshoot of what Flair used to do 30 years ago). Then in mid-sentence, they went to a break. When they came back, he was still talking, promising that on the first Raw in 2014, he’d still be champion.
49
50Rock came out at 11 p.m. and put over the 414 days as WWE champion being incredible, how he’s losing the title in 20 days, and how the people matter and it was the people who rejected him. He made some jokes about how Punk looks like Popeye on crack and called him Cookie Puss, which is this season’s “Boots to Asses” and “Fruity Pebbles.” What was notable is that like Punk, Rock did delve into channeling reality for his worked promo, saying Punk has one of the most creative and innovative minds in the WWE, but then flipped and said once he became champion, he became the biggest jerk the world has ever seen. It was Rock doing the most simple wrestling, Punk says the fans don’t matter and Rock stands up and says the fans matter, you’re the one who doesn’t matter. Punk then brought it into serious, saying it doesn’t matter if Rock comes back 16 days a year, “I’m going to kick your ass” and this isn’t Candyland. He said Rock is playing Little League with his insults and rhymes while he’s in the big leagues swinging for the fences. The last lines were that Punk told Rock that his arms are too short to box with God, and that he’s God. Rock came back and compared Punk with a series of candy bars, and got to Almond Joy, and said, “You can’t have an Almond Joy, because unlike you, Almond Joys’ got nuts” before laying him out with the rock bottom.
51
52Right now the top four matches at Mania are booked and are not likely to be changed. The rest of the show is up in the air. Whatever it is, they are having the writing team with the final destination and now to write backwards. Usually this results in better television when you are writing to get to a destination that you aren’t likely to change than writing weekly with no destination, hoping one just happens. I presume those are Rock vs. John Cena, Undertaker vs. Punk, Brock Lesnar vs. HHH and Sheamus vs. Orton are the matches. There was talk that Rock may not beat Punk at the Rumble, and instead Rock would win the title in the Elimination Chamber match, but there’s so much information that is going to be floated right now because the ultimate direction every year is usually predictable, which isn’t a bad thing, but people in wrestling often will change plans that they feel too many know, just to prove that they are the ones pulling the strings.
53
54With Alberto Del Rio winning the world title at the 1/8 show in Miami, that changes the World title situation, but they’ve got the Rumble and the Elimination Chamber and it can change again.
55
56Del Rio beat Show in a last man standing match, to set up an expected rematch at the Rumble. The title change came because they want to shoot Del Rio up as the new Latin babyface superstar, since Rey Mysterio isn’t around and Sin Cara is pretty much categorized as a disappointment. In fact, Sin Cara is ready to work and wasn’t even used on television this week.
57
58They did the last man standing stipulation so Del Rio could survive tons of punishment before coming back to win. In this case, he did one better than Sheamus, getting up twice after knockout punches. Before that, Show put Del Rio through a table and he got up. Del Rio then dropkicked Show through a table but he beat the ten count. Del Rio used the sleeper and put Show out, but he woke up and arose before ten. Show then speared Del Rio through the barricade but Del Rio still got up before ten. Then Show hit him with a knockout punch and he got up. Then came the second knockout punch. Finally, Show went for a tackle, Del Rio moved and Show ran into the ringpost. Del Rio then hit show several times with the ring steps and after Show finally went down, Del Rio threw the announcers table onto him to keep him down, and won the title. WWE immediately announced the title change on its web site, figuring that getting the word out would help the Smackdown ratings. In theory with Rock’s first appearance on the show in ten years which was advertised on Raw heavily, plus a world title change if that makes a difference, Smackdown should do its best numbers in a long time.
59
60There is talk of some surprises at the Royal Rumble. The two or three veterans being brought back is now an expected part of the match, but usually, to keep everyone guessing, they don’t even bother calling the guys until the last minute. Besides the Rumble, Punk vs. Rock, Del Rio vs. Show, there was talk of a lumberjills match with Torres vs. Kaitlyn for the Divas title (which also may appear on television before the Rumble) and Bryan & Kane vs. Rhodes & Sandow for the tag titles. If they do another title match, it would be Cesaro vs. Miz for the U.S. title unless the two were put in the Rumble.
61
62Johnson’s comment about Mania plans in an interview with Showrenirty.com was: “The storyline that will be that starting this Monday (he meant 1/7), I’m gonna go back, and it’s going to be a big return. That will lead to, hopefully, what will be the biggest WrestleMania of all-time at Giants Stadium. I will headline that show, with someone who I can’t say right now. We’ve got an amazing four months lined up and planned out that will culminate in the biggest WrestleMania of all-time. It’s going to be a hell of a thing.”
63
64
65It’s been years, really since the fall of Pro Wrestling NOAH and the WWE burying AAA and CMLL in their own countries, ending the local wrestling boom period, that a pro wrestling group other than WWE has had anything but a murky future.
66
67But at almost the same time that changed, after the finish of New Japan’s 2013 version of Wrestle Kingdom, the January 4th Tokyo Dome show that is the Japanese answer to WrestleMania, within hours everything is questionable once again.
68
69New Japan, on the backs of tremendous monthly big shows and a killer bring of main events involving charismatic IWGP champions Hiroshi Tanahashi and the person who it appeared would be his eventual successor as the group’s top star, Kazuchika Okada, seemed to be building momentum all year. From a business standpoint, the debut of Internet PPV in Japan, a country where traditional PPV has been very limited due to how few households in the country have access to it, has opened up a game changing revenue stream.
70
71But the big test would come at the Tokyo Dome, the show that really is the barometer of where the company truly stands. This year’s show drew a crowd announced as 29,000, which doesn’t sound impressive since they usually announce 40,000 or more, ridiculously exaggerated figures. But New Japan claimed 29,000 was the actual paid. If that is correct, that would be a huge success because you’d have to go back to a 2003 show at the Dome with a singles match of Kenta Kobashi vs. Masahiro Chono that they truly had that many paid at the show.
72
73It was also the best Tokyo Dome show the promotion has ever put on, a four-and-a-half hour show that somehow never felt like it was going too long. The first half of the show was just so-so, but the second half ranked it among the greatest pro wrestling shows of all-time.
74
75Sounds great.
76
77The next day, New Japan Chairman, Takaaki Kidani, the controversial architect of this revival when his Bushiroad company purchased New Japan Pro Wrestling from video game maker Yukes, announced he was resigning.
78
79It appeared this was an emotional power play. On one hand, Kidani was an enthusiastic supporter of the product, trying to come up with new ways, such as iPPV, which in October expanded its distribution live around the world, even if interest outside of Japan is very limited. On the other hand, his hero in wrestling was Eric Bischoff, and he wanted to be part of the show itself, which has been an Achilles heel of many promoters.
80
81According to one person very close to the situation, Kidani had the attitude that he has a right to have a say in every single program and angle. The company was built on the wrestlers and bookers controlling the wrestling end of the product. The hot button issue was using non-New Japan wrestlers with MMA backgrounds for an invasion angle.
82
83Kidani, like Bischoff, fashioned bringing back Antonio Inoki to do a shooters invasion of New Japan. He actually started in this direction with the signing of Kazushi Sakuraba and Katsuyori Shibata. Reportedly, even Gedo and Jado, the company bookers, weren’t aware of any talks until the announcement came out in the media that they had been signed.
84
85The problem is years back, when Inoki was in charge, he had a dated mentality that the reason wrestling had fallen from its heights during his prime was because the wrestlers didn’t have credibility with the public as being the legitimately toughest guys around. To rectify, Inoki would bring in guys from MMA who had a pro wrestling background, and have them go over the wrestlers and often use them on top. Like a lot of things in wrestling, conceptually, outsiders against New Japan stars like Inoki were among the building blocks of the company. But overdoing it killed the in-ring product when you had wrestlers who could not really bring out the emotions of the crowd in a worked environment, or understood how to build and peak a match, in your main events. Kidani’s ideas brought back the memories of what many think took New Japan down in the first place.
86
87However, in the specific instance with Sakuraba and Shibata, since there were only two of them, and both started out as pro wrestlers and understood making a match, their matches were different from everything else on the show, and got over huge. They were in the second and third from the top matches. While there is no question the 11-month long Tanahashi vs. Okada program as the top two men in the promotion battling for a top spot that they had built up meant something peaking was the main course of the show, Sakuraba and Shibata’s matches were strong appetizers.
88
89It’s hard to say what would happen if Kidani had his way. Perhaps the New Japan crew finally got pro wrestling back over, and if it was kept under control, it could be a great storyline to a certain degree. The problem is, wrestling fans at the end of the day want to see exciting wrestling. And New Japan fans have a very high standard of product expectations based on the quality of the last couple of years, particularly this last year. It’s a level very difficult to maintain unless you have a show filled with top caliber workers.
90
91Sakuraba and Shibata had won every match leading to the Dome. Without knowing anything, I had figured that Sakuraba would lose to Shinsuke Nakamura in the IC title match, because it’s the big show and really this is where Sakuraba should top out at. Shibata, younger and healthier, who is actually excellent at working his unique style, I figured was going over Togi Makabe. Makabe is the kind of wrestler who can get a title shot, and has enough credibility that beating him can elevate you to winning a title shot. Makabe and Shibata had a nice program, and I figured Shibata would win, and he’d top out with the money match with Tanahashi, New Japan’s top babyface, whether it be for the title or not. After hitting his money drawing peak, then he could move down and Makabe could get his win back.
92
93Kidani wanted Sakuraba and Shibata to win, and also wanted to be in Sakuraba’s corner when he won the Intercontinental title (which in New Japan right now with Nakamura as champion is very much like the Randy Savage/Don Muraco era IC championship). The conflict between the bookers and the wrestlers resulted in Sakuraba and Shibata losing, Kidani quitting, and thus far neither has been announced for any future shows.
94
95It was noted that Bushiroad still owns New Japan, but when the guy who owns the big company has a major personal involvement and enthusiasm, they became a priority in the big company. If he washes his hands of involvement, that can go in the other direction.
96
97The public statement is that this show proved New Japan had turned the corner, pro wrestling had been built to be more popular mainstream in Japan than it has been in years, and now he can leave the company to run on its own.
98
99There was also a lot of talk about the main event. It was highly controversial when the decision was made to give the totally unproven Okada the IWGP title last February after Tanahashi had a one year plus run of super main events and building the prestige of the title and the aura of big show main events. But Okada’s combination of ring presence and athletic ability, plus working with great people, led to a series of main events that reached and even exceeded the high standards Tanahashi set. While Tanahashi regaining it was the way to go, he is the superstar of the group, June was probably a few months early. Okada then won the G-1 tournament, without beating Tanahashi, who was eliminated in the match before the finals by Karl Anderson. Okada beat Anderson to win New Japan’s first ever G-1 briefcase.
100
101The road to the Dome had big shows with Tanahashi defending on top, and Okada defending his top contendership and Dome title shot in singles matches underneath. Throughout the big show runs since August, it was clear what the ultimate match was. Both men continued to win on big shows to where the match done twice before in the last year became not just your WrestleMania main event, but your special dream match that elevated the event.
102
103There are two schools of thought. It was Tanahashi on top who built business and was the star who people were paying to see on top. Business is still growing so why make the change? The flip side is Tanahashi is made and established, and there are no new big challengers on the horizon, particularly having knocked Shibata off earlier in the show. With Okada, you have several matches they didn’t get to on the last run, and there’s probably money in Tanahashi having the long chase before he gets the shot and wins it back.
104
105But Tanahashi won a classic main event that went 33:34, starting at the four hour mark of the show, that tore the house down. To me, since the match built on spots from the previous two matches, it very slightly exceeded them and was a genuine match of the year candidate. Yet it could be argued it wasn’t even the best match, with the sensational three-way where Prince Devitt retained the IWGP jr. title over former champions Low Ki and Kota Ibushi, and the Nakamura vs. Sakuraba IC title bout. They all tore down the house. In all, I had five four-star or better matches, and what made them is every one of those matches was completely different than the other.
106
107Yuji Nagata vs. Minoru Suzuki was a battle of veterans who have gone at it for years, a psychological masterpiece that should be viewed in every wrestling school in the U.S. to learn the value of facial expressions and timing. The three-way jr. match was your high flying high spot oriented New Japan jr. style featuring three incredible talents. Makabe vs. Shibata came off like a fight. Nakamura vs. Sakuraba had the aura of a great MMA match, even though it was worked, they took you into that realm based on what they did and how they worked. The main event was a totally awesome world title match, the long Brisco vs. Funk, Misawa vs. Kobashi, Flair vs. Steamboat aura where you’ve got the two “best guys in the world” battling for a protected world title where the result matters.
108
109The top three matches aired on TV-Asahi from 1:10 a.m. to 2:10 a.m. on a several hour tape delay, doing a strong for that time slot 3.4 rating.
110
111We don’t have the most important number, which is the Japanese iPPV numbers. The October and November shows both hit in the 50-55,000 range, and they were normal PPVs and this was the equivalent of Mania, so the number had to be way larger. Outside of Japan, the total was 1,208 at press time, almost double the first three shows. Given the poll results, a very significant percentage of those were Observer subscribers. They still have to figure out something better than what they do when there are entrance songs they don’t have the rights to and you just have the sound completely turned off, not down, but off, for a minute or two at a time. This can be at the finish so you can’t hear crowd pops past a split second after a win, or reactions to people coming out.
112
113The next iPPV will be 2/20 from the Hiroshima Sun Plaza Arena. Tanahashi vs. Karl Anderson for the IWGP title is the main event. Anderson’s team lost on this show, and he’s lost singles matches to Okada (twice) and Nakamura in recent months. Tanahashi asked for this match in his in-ring promo after beating Okada, noting he had lost to Anderson in G-1 and hadn’t had a chance to avenge it. The other matches announced are Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. defending the IWGP tag titles against Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima, Prince Devitt against usual tag team partner Ryusuke Taguchi for the IWGP jr. title and Alex Shelley & Kushida vs. Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov for the IWGP jr. tag titles. There was talk of Okada vs. Suzuki. Nakamura may defend, but he’s first got a title match on 1/19 at Korakuen Hall against La Sombra on one of the annual Fantasticmania joint shows with CMLL.
114
115There are questions regarding a lot of the foreigners. Shelley, Smith and Archer appear safe. Anderson has had talks with Tensai (his tag team partner in New Japan) about coming to WWE. Tanahashi even talked about it publicly about how good Anderson is and that they’d want to keep him. It’s known Benjamin has talked with WWE. MVP is still under contract but many believe he’ll eventually go back to WWE. Low Ki worked the show in a suit dressed up as Agent 47 from the Hitman video games. While he did a great job, it wasn’t what New Japan wanted and there is a lot of questions regarding his future, although New Japan is the best fit for him at this point if he wants to stay in pro wrestling at any level.
116
117The 2013 New Japan Cup, a single elimination singles tournament, will run from 3/11 to 3/23, with the winner getting an IWGP title shot on what is scheduled as the third iPPV of the year, on 4/7 from Sumo Hall.
118
119Their business is the Japanese market, but for the U.S. market, that’s tough with everyone in the world doing iPPVs (Dragon Gate USA, ROH and probably tons of others) and it’s the early morning before Mania. The main event will be the New Japan Cup winner against the IWGP champion (presumably Hiroshi Tanahashi).
120
121They also announced that the G-1 Climax finals on iPPV will be on 8/15, and that this year they are going back to running the last two nights at Sumo Hall, as they’ve booked 8/14 there. That’s another sign they see business as being on the upswing.
122
123Besides the wrestling, the show had the WrestleMania style celebrity tie-ins. As much if not more than any of the matches, the show stealer was Ayumi Nakamura, a 46-year-old recording star (I was told for a U.S. equivalent, she’d be like Pat Benatar), who was huge from the mid-80s through the 90s, and still a major star. She wrote and sang “Kaze Ni Nare,” which is Minoru Suzuki’s theme song, in the early 90s, which is probably the best entrance music song ever written for a wrestler. This was the first time she had ever performed the song, for Suzuki’s ring entrance against Nagata, at a show.
124
125Also appearing was a rock band called The Breakerz, who are pretty big right now. The lead singer, Daigo, is a big star and is also the grandson of former prime minister (equivalent to president) Noburu Takeshita. One of the girls from AKB48 was also there as a guest commentator. They are currently a big pop idol singing and dancing girls group.
126
1271. Wataru Inoue & Captain New Japan & Tama Tonga beat Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Jado in 5:58. Decent opener. Tonga was the standout doing his imitations of Jimmy Snuka high spots. At one point Jado and Ishii were running together to give him a double clothesline and he leap frogged over their arms. Tonga used a guillotine on Jado, dropped down and pinned him. Tonga does the Flair “Whoo” which the crowd does back and also did the old Johnny B. Badd deal where he says, “I’m a bad man.” Tonga came out with his CMLL tag team title belt and after winning talked about being CMLL champion. *3/4
128
1292. Kushida & Bushi & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Hiromu Takahashi in 7:12. Good stuff with Taguchi and Tiger Mask. A few near falls and saves. With everyone else fighting outside the ring, Bushi pinned Takahashi with the 450 splash. **½
130
1313. Akebono & Strongman & MVP & Manabu Nakanishi beat Bob Sapp & Toru Yano & Takashi Iizuka & Yujiro Takahashi in 7:53. Takahashi did a promo before the match talking about how Sapp knocked out Akebono the last time they met (a famous kickboxing match on the 2003 New Year’s Eve show, maybe the biggest match of its kind in Japan as far as mainstream interest since Ali vs. Inoki). TV announcer Shinpei Nogami came out with Nakanishi’s team, since Yano and especially Iizuka always bully him and tear his shirt off. MVP came out shooting photos with his phone. He learned wrestling watching Japanese tapes so to him, this was like being on WrestleMania. Nogami was kind of the focal point of the match. They built to Sapp vs. Akebono who would do the big man running body blocks with neither going down. Nakanishi got Sapp up for the torture rack when Iizuka hit Nakanishi in the back with a chair. Iizuka and Yano choked Nakanishi with a chair. Nakanishi did a double Northern lights suplex on them. Nakanishi gave Iizuka a German suplex and Akebono splashed him for the pin. Match was pretty bad. Strongman then held Iizuka so Nogami could give him this bad looking running clothesline. Strongman then threw Iizuka out of the ring. Nobody did much of anything. *1/4
132
1334. Masato Tanaka retained the Never Open Weight championship pinning Shelton Benjamin in 6:41. Tanaka looks in good shape physically but facially is starting to show his age. Good athletic match, but silly because of the blatant interference of Yujiro Takahashi, and way too short. Benjamin did a running flip dive early. Benjamin ducked the sliding D, came back with a spin kick, and a superkick. Takahashi then held Benjamin and Tanaka ran after him for a clothesline, but Benjamin moved and Tanaka clotheslined Takahashi off the apron. But as Benjamin was taking over, Takahashi hit him with a kendo stick from outside the ring. Benjamin came back with the ankle lock. Takahashi got on the top rope. Benjamin let go of the ankle lock, jumped from the ring to the top rope and threw Takahashi with a belly-to-belly superplex. But when Benjamin turned around, Tanaka nailed him with the Sliding D for the pin. **3/4
134
1355. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr., the Killer Elite Squad, retained the IWGP tag titles beating Swords & Guns, Hirooki Goto & Karl Anderson in 10:52. Archer, who does the aggressive big foreigner patterned after Bruiser Brody, is nicknamed The American Psycho and came to the ring on a Harley. Archer & Smith Jr. both came out wearing masks and they had Taka Michinoku in their corner. Archer did the Undertaker’s old school rope walk and sledge on Goto. Anderson nailed Smith with two jumping front kicks. Smith used a Tiger suplex on Anderson for a near fall. Archer choke slammed Anderson for a near fall. Anderson used a TKO off the middle rope on Archer for a near fall. Crowd was into this the most of anything so far, particularly Goto’s clotheslines. They traded near falls for a few minutes. Smith used a hard power bomb on Goto. Then Anderson used the gun stun on Smith for a near fall. It ended with Smith & Archer doing a double-team power bomb, the killer bomb, first on Goto, then on Anderson, and then gave another to Goto and Smith pinned him. ***½
136
1376. Yuji Nagata pinned Minoru Suzuki in 17:03. Excellent match. They traded elbows like crazy then front kicks. Taichi, who was Suzuki’s second, hit Nagata with a chair to the back. Taichi, who has genuine star potential, then was hitting the young boys at ringside with chairs. The ref kicked Taichi out of ringside while Suzuki was choking Nagata with a chair. Nagata used kicks and exploder suplexes. Nagata used the crossface, but Suzuki grabbed the ankle and got an ankle lock to break it. Suzuki did running kicks to the chest. Nagata would roll his eyes back and make these great facial expressions and sit up like Undertaker used to do. Suzuki slapped the hell out of Nagata, probably 25 unanswered slaps before getting the choke. Nagata flipped him over. Suzuki kept working for it. Nagata twice blocked the Gotch piledriver. Nagata with a running knee and got the armbar. Nagata let go when Taichi showed back up. Nagata let go of the arm and kicked Taichi off the apron. They traded hard slaps. Really, even though they were slaps, they jar the head too much in Japanese wrestling. Nagata started kicking Suzuki’s left elbow over and over, hurting his left arm. Unreal psychology here. Nagata then got the Nagata armlock on while his eyes were bulging out. Super stuff. Suzuki got a rope break. Suzuki went for a choke but Nagata got out with a hard slap that stunned Suzuki. Nagata then used his bridging back suplex for the pin. ****
138
1397. Prince Devitt retained the IWGP jr. title over Low Ki and Ryusuke Taguchi in 14:45. Low Ki was amazing working in the suit. One of the better three-way matches I’ve ever seen. Ibushi did a huracanrana on Devitt and then a moonsault off the middle rope to the floor on Low Ki. Devitt did a running flip dive on both. All kinds of great moves here. Ibushi did a twisting moonsault off the top onto both guys. Ibushi with a double moonsault on Devitt and a half nelson German suplex on him for near falls. Far too many great spots to list. Finally Low Ki took off his suit jacket and did a Ki Krusher on Ibushi. Devitt then came two-thirds of the way across the ring with a double foot stomp onto Low Ki for a near fall. Devitt tried a Bloody Sunday DDT off the top rope but Low Ki knocked him off the top and he landed upside down with his feet tied in the ropes, in the tree of woe position. Ibushi then did a top rope huracanrana on Low Ki for an awesome near fall. He went for the Phoenix splash but Low Ki moved and Ibushi landed on his feet but Devitt did double foot stomp onto Ibushi. Low Ki hit Devitt with a Suwa dropkick for a near fall. Low Ki went for a top rope Ki Krusher on Devitt, but Ibushi kicked Low Ki off the top rope. Devitt then pinned Ibushi with a Bloody Sunday DDT off the top rope. ****½
140
1418. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima beat Keiji Muto & Shinjiro Otani in 15:36. They showed Shinya Hashimoto on the big screen. Hashimoto, who died in 2005, may have sold out the Tokyo Dome more than any wrestler in history. Originally his son, Daichi Hashimoto, was set to be Muto’s partner, but he suffered a broken arm a couple of weeks ago. Fans were chanting “Hashimoto.” Hachiro Tanaka, the ring announcer from the 80s and 90s, was brought back since these four were all old school New Japan guys. Otani came out with Daichi Hashimoto to Shinya’s entrance music that got a big reaction. Muto got the biggest pop coming out of anyone thus far on the show. This was four veterans with trademark spots that the crowd was popping for. All four are old and physically beaten up. All the spots were getting over until the end when Muto kept doing shining wizards and dragon screws to the point people didn’t care. He just kept doing them. But everything else was working. At one point Muto did four shining wizards on Tenzan. Otani used the spiral bomb on Tenzan but Kojima saved. Muto did yet another shining wizard on Kojima. Kojima came back with a lariat to Muto and then they did a double-team 3-D on Otani. Tenzan was bleeding from the mouth. Kojima was nailing both men with lariats and Tenzan pinned Otani after a moonsault. Otani had to be helped out. Hashimoto then got in Tenzan’s face and slapped him and Tenzan retaliated with a short head-butt on Hashimoto. It looked like they were setting up Muto & Hashimoto vs. Tenzan & Kojima. ***1/4
142
1439. Togi Makabe pinned Katsuyori Shibata in 8:37. Some great creative stuff. Shibata got a mount position and started with head-butts like old school Mark Coleman. Then Makabe got on top and started doing head-butts. They traded elbows. Shibata with knees and kicks and threw down the ref. This match had great crowd heat, best so far on the show. Shibata used a choke. He let go to deliver a penalty kick (American football isn’t big, same move would be called a field goal or a kickoff here). Makabe collapsed before the kick came. He went for another penalty kick, but Makabe was playing possum and clotheslined the hell out of Shibata. He knocked Shibata off the apron, and then gave him a rabbit lariat (to the back of the head) that knocked Shibata into the post headfirst. Makabe power bombed Shibata through a thick table and the place went crazy. Makabe used a German suplex but Shibata kicked out at one. Makabe did a lariat but Shibata didn’t sell. Finish saw Makabe go for a lariat but Shibata ducked and put on a choke. Makabe used elbows to the gut to break the choke. Makabe hit Shibata with a sick lariat that knocked him down. Makabe came off the top rope with the King Kong kneedrop to the back of Shibata’s head for the pin. ****
144
14510. Shinsuke Nakamura pinned Kazushi Sakuraba to retain the IC title in 11:12. It started slow for a few minutes until Nakamura slapped Sakuraba in the face. Sakuraba then unloaded on him with all kinds of slaps. This turned into a great slap fight and Nakamura with knees. Nakamura was down and Sakuraba did a jumping over the guard stomp and then used a choke. Nakamura got out and landed all kinds of knees in the corner. Sakuraba was outside the ring and got the choke, but had to break. Sakuraba with slaps, body punches and a German suplex. The unreal spot you almost have to see is Nakamura shooting in for a quick takedown and Sakuraba landing a knee to the head that was like the famous knee Mirko Cro Cop gave Kazuyuki Fujita. The crowd went nuts but I don’t care how much it got over, that move done that way was not a good risk. It’s amazing Nakamura wasn’t knocked out cold. It was even worse looking in slow mo. Sakuraba slapped the hell out of him and put Nakamura in a triangle. Nakamura got out with a sick knee to the head that you would have to see to believe. He went for the Bom a Ye (a running knee) but Sakuraba side stepped it. Sakuraba went for an armbar but Nakamura got out. Sakuraba got mount and threw palm blows and went for a Kimura. Nakamura spun out and went for an armbar. Nakamura picked him up on his shoulders and gave him a falcon arrow, kind of like a Michinoku driver Sakuraba maneuvered back into a Kimura. Nakamura was doing knees to the head while Sakuraba had side control (Frank Shamrock vs. Renzo Gracie on the first Showtime card is what they were copying). Sakuraba spun into an armbar. Nakamura escaped and dropped a knee, hit the Bom a Ye and Sakuraba kicked out just after the ref counted three. An amazing match. ****½
146
14711. Hiroshi Tanahashi retained the IWGP heavyweight title pinning Kazuchika Okada in 33:34. This was a classic world title match. They started slow with headlocks and hammerlocks for several minutes. Tanahashi got a near fall with a crossbody off the middle rope. Okada worked on the head and neck for several minutes. Tanahashi came back with elbows and a hard slap. After a skin-the-cat by Tanahashi, Okada came back with a flapjack for a near fall but missed a senton. Tanahashi back with a flying forearm, then a chop block on the left knee. Tanahashi used a dragon screw to work on the knee. Okada escaped outside the ring and Tanahashi with a plancha off the top to the floor. Okada back with a dragon screw and a DDT on the top of Tanahashi’s head. Okada did his karvat and pretzel hold. He broke it to deliver more elbows and went back to the kravat. The move is called the DID. Tanahashi made the ropes. Great spot as Okada came off the top with an elbow but Tanahashi got his knees up. Tanahashi took over, but Okada dropkicked Tanahashi to the floor. They ended up on the ramp. Okada went for a tombstone piledriver, but Tanahashi got out. Okada went for a running wind sprint clothesline but Tanahashi countered when he got there and nailed the sling blade on the ramp. Tanahashi then used a sling blade in the ring, a falcon arrow and went for the high fly flow, but Okada got his knees up. Okada did his reverse neckbreaker drop, which is an Emerald Frosien except dropping the neck on the knee like a backbreaker, except to the back of the neck. Okada used the Attitude Adjustment, which in Japan is called “Heavy Rain.” Okada then used the Randy Savage elbow off the top for a near fall. He posed for the rainmaker, but Tanahashi blocked the lariat, hit a German suplex and then a dragon suplex for near falls. He hit the sling blade followed by the high fly flow but Okada kicked out. Tanahashi went to work on Okada’s legs with dragon screws and the Texas cloverleaf. Tanahashi bent him back like it was a Chris Jericho old style WCW lion tamer. Okada made the ropes and then stunned Tanahashi with a high dropkick as Tanahashi came off the ropes. Tanahashi ducked the rainmaker. Okada went for a dropkick as Tanahashi was coming off the ropes but missed when Tanahashi held up. Okada hit a dropkick to the back and used a tombstone piledriver on Tanahashi. He went for the rainmaker again, but Tanahashi reversed with a sling blade. Okada tried another tombstone piledriver, but Tanahashi blocked it. Okada landed lots of elbows but Tanahashi dropkicked the left knee that Tanahashi spent much of the match targeting. Tanahashi then hit a tombstone piledriver, a crossbody off the top and the high fly flow (frog splash) for the win. ****3/4
148
149
150table.tableizer-table {
151
152border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
153
154font-size: 12px;
155
156}
157
158.tableizer-table td {
159
160padding: 4px;
161
162margin: 3px;
163
164border: 1px solid #ccc;
165
166}
167
168.tableizer-table th {
169
170background-color: #000000;
171
172color: #FFF;
173
174font-weight: bold;
175
176}
1772012 WWE WIN-LOSS RECORDS
178From records compiled by Stefan Gorges and Chris Harrington:
179Name 	W/L/D 	PCT 	TOTAL
180Aksana 	3-24 	0.111 	27
181Dean Ambrose 	22-26 	0.458 	48
182Trent Barreta 	4-3 	0.571 	7
183Wade Barrett 	53-44 	0.546 	97
184Derrick Bateman 	3-13-1 	0.188 	17
185Brie Bella 	10-12 	0.455 	22
186Nikki Bella 	12-12 	0.500 	24
187Evan Bourne 	7-3 	0.700 	10
188Daniel Bryan 	91-113-6 	0.446 	210
189Camacho 	7-33 	0.175 	40
190Sin Cara 	76-22-1 	0.776 	99
191John Cena 	163-13-5 	0.926 	181
192Antonio Cesaro 	77-28-3 	0.733 	108
193Christian 	35-21 	0.625 	56
194Brodus Clay 	154-8-1 	0.951 	163
195Johnny Curtis/Fandango 	19-32 	0.373 	51
196Alberto Del Rio 	47-94-3 	0.333 	144
197Ted DiBiase 	30-29-1 	0.508 	60
198Epico 	38-102 	0.271 	140
199Alicia Fox 	32-31 	0.508 	63
200Justin Gabriel 	55-55 	0.500 	110
201Curt Hawkins 	6-50 	0.107 	56
202Mark Henry 	14-26-3 	0.350 	43
203Hornswoggle 	8-1 	0.889 	9
204Hunico 	28-51-1 	0.354 	80
205Ezekiel Jackson 	13-30 	0.302 	43
206Chris Jericho 	31-40-3 	0.437 	74
207JTG 	2-53 	0.036 	55
208Kaitlyn 	40-30 	0.571 	70
209Kane 	82-106-6 	0.436 	194
210Kelly Kelly 	19-24 	0.442 	43
211Great Khali 	58-17-1 	0.773 	76
212Tyson Kidd 	57-71-1 	0.445 	129
213Kofi Kingston 	131-66-1 	0.665 	198
214Leo Kruger 	0-7 	0.000 	7
215Big E Langston 	9-0 	1.000 	9
216John Laurinaitis 	1-19 	0.050 	20
217Jerry Lawler 	3-3 	0.500 	6
218Layla 	84-29 	0.743 	113
219A.J. Lee 	20-20 	0.500 	40
220Jinder Mahal 	45-82-1 	0.354 	128
221Santino Marella 	131-49-1 	0.728 	181
222Maxine 	5-9 	0.357 	14
223Michael McGillicutty 	35-77 	0.313 	112
224Drew McIntyre 	16-66 	0.195 	82
225Rosa Mendes 	0-10 	0.000 	10
226The Miz 	37-112-2 	0.248 	151
227Natalya 	33-87 	0.275 	120
228Titus O’Neil 	29-78 	0.271 	107
229Randy Orton 	91-26-3 	0.778 	120
230David Otunga 	23-72 	0.242 	95
231Beth Phoenix 	46-46 	0.500 	92
232Primo 	40-101 	0.284 	141
233C.M. Punk 	123-49-6 	0.676 	178
234Tyler Reks 	9-26 	0.257 	35
235Seth Rollins 	11-5-1 	0.688 	17
236Rey Mysterio 	41-9-1 	0.820 	51
237William Regal 	5-13 	0.278 	18
238Roman Reigns 	8-4-1 	0.667 	13
239Cody Rhodes 	54-113 	0.323 	167
240Alex Riley 	36-79 	0.313 	115
241Ricardo Rodriguez 	1-14 	0.067 	15
242Seth Rollins 	20-11 	0.645 	31
243R-Truth 	113-35 	0.764 	148
244Mason Ryan 	14-24 	0.368 	38
245Ryback 	125-4-1 	0.969 	130
246Zack Ryder 	80-78-2 	0.506 	160
247Damien Sandow 	50-53 	0.485 	103
248Sheamus 	192-23-5 	0.893 	220
249Big Show 	84-123-5 	0.406 	212
250Heath Slater 	20-90 	0.182 	110
251Tamina Snuka 	20-21 	0.488 	41
252Jack Swagger 	25-111-1 	0.184 	137
253Booker T 	4-7 	0.363 	11
254Yoshi Tatsu 	13-42 	0.236 	55
255Tensai 	41-74-2 	0.357 	117
256Eve Torres 	58-41 	0.586 	99
257Jey Uso 	58-33 	0.637 	91
258Jimmy Uso 	58-33 	0.637 	91
259Percy Watson 	13-20 	0.394 	33
260Xavier Woods 	5-5 	0.500 	10
261Bray Wyatt 	2-8 	0.200 	10
262Darren Young 	28-79 	0.262 	107
263Dolph Ziggler 	37-149-3 	0.199 	189
264MOST MATCHES: Sheamus 220, Big Show 212, Daniel Bryan 210, Kofi Kingston 198, Kane 194
265MOST WINS: Sheamus 192, John Cena 163, Brodus Clay 154, Kofi Kingston 131, Santino Marella 131
266
267Last year’s No. 1: John Cena 163
268BEST WINNING PERCENTAGE (more than 30 matches): Ryback .969, Brodus Clay .951, John Cena .926, Sheamus .893, Rey Mysterio .820
269
270Last year’s No. 1: Edge 98%
271MOST LOSSES: Dolph Ziggler 149, Big Show 123, Cody Rhodes 113, The Miz 112, Jack Swagger 111
272
273Last year’s No. 1: The Miz 139
274LOWEST WINNING PERCENTAGE (more than 30 matches): JTG .036, Curt Hawkins .107, Camacho .175, Heath Slater .182, Jack Swagger .184
275
276Last year’s No. 1: Rosa Mendes 13%
277MOST FREQUENT MATCHUPS: Alberto Del Rio vs. Sheamus (Sheamus wins 59 of 61); John Cena vs. Big Show (Cena wins 55 of 55); Kofi Kingston vs. Primo (Kingston wins 45 of 53); Kofi Kingston vs. Epico (Kingston wins 45 of 53); Santino Marella vs. Jack Swagger (Marella wins 42 of 47).
278MOST TIMES IN THE MAIN EVENT: C.M. Punk 111, Big Show 105, John Cena 88, Sheamus 82, Daniel Bryan 65, Dolph Ziggler 39, Kane 38, Alberto De Rio 36, Randy Orton 21, Ryback 21, Chris Jericho 19
279
280BIGGEST SEGMENTS ON RAW FOR 2012 (based on audience gain)
281
2821,181,000 - John Cena vs. Big Show for SummerSlam title shot
283
2841,122,000 - Undertaker/HHH in-ring confrontation
285
2861,084,000 - John Cena & Ryback vs. C.M. Punk & Dolph Ziggler
287
2881,058,000 - C.M. Punk vs. Sheamus champion vs. champion lumberjack match
289
2901,036,000 - Brock Lesnar return, F-5 on John Cena
291
2921,033,000 - John Laurinaitis fires Big Show
293
294990,000 - John Cena/John Laurinaitis confrontation
295
296978,000 - Daniel Bryan, Kane, C.M. Punk & A.J.
297
298878,000 - John Cena & Sheamus vs. Tensai & Jack Swagger & Dolph Ziggler
299
300877,000 - Mick Foley return, confrontation with C.M. Punk
301
302873,000 - Brock Lesnar/John Laurinaitis/John Cena in-ring confrontation
303
304869,000 - Undertaker/HHH in-ring confrontation
305
306823,000 - John Cena & Sheamus vs. C.M. Punk & Alberto Del Rio
307
308822,000 - Shawn Michaels return
309
310817,000 - Punk & Bryan & Jericho vs. Henry & Ziggler & Otunga (Foley involved)
311
312817,000 - Brock Lesnar breaks Shawn Michaels’ arm
313
314803,000 - Chris Jericho return
315
316BIGGEST LOSSES
317
318996,000 - Brodus Clay & R-Truth & Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger & The Miz
319
320932,000 - Daniel Bryan vs. Santino Marella
321
322895,000 - Christian vs. The Miz
323
324888,000 - C.M. Punk vs. The Miz
325
326876,000 - C.M. Punk and Paul Heyman confront Jerry Lawler after heart attack
327
328824,000 - Alberto Del Rio vs. Kofi Kingston
329
330816,000 - Kelly Kelly vs. Nikki Bella
331
332753,000 - Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler
333
334733,000 - Alberto Del Rio vs. Santino Marella
335
336711,000 - Alberto Del Rio vs. Santino Marella
337
338621,000 - R-Truth vs. Dolph Ziggler
339
340613,000 - Eve Torres and Layla brawl
341
342607,000 - Sycho Sid return vs. Heath Slater
343
344603,000 - Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston
345
346591,000 - Zack Ryder vs. Heath Slater
347
348588,000 - Brodus Clay vs. JTG
349
350580,000 - Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler
351
352576,000 - Sheamus & Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler & Alberto Del Rio
353
354546,000 - Kofi Kingston vs. Antonio Cesaro
355
356544,000 - Zack Ryder changing a tire to save Eve Torres
357
358533,000 - The Miz vs. Ryback plus Daniel Bryan/Kane diner skit
359
360Thanks to Ryan Clingman
361
362A few notes on this chart. The first thing is that Sheamus worked more matches this year than any wrestler in the company since 1995 (most likely, based on available records the last person to top 220 matches was Yokozuna in 1993, but Owen Hart in 1994 worked is listed at 216 based on available records and there’s no way records back then were close to complete and Hart probably easily beat 220. Sheamus did this by doubling and sometimes tripling up on Smackdown tapings, usually wrestling a TV match and a dark match, and sometimes doing the same on Raw.
363
364For WWE on the road, the rule of thumb is faces go over unless it’s a title match with the heel champion, or a great disparity in star power, so you’re rarely going to have a face of any consequence with a bad win/loss record (only somebody who is over more than their push and they want to prove they are right would be a face that loses a lot, or women, where TV is usually about creating a title challenger so faces may have to lose either to the heel champion on TV or to create a heel challenger.
365
366With research done by Chris Harrington, and keep in mind once again that the farther back you go, numbers are farther from complete. So current guys the numbers would be close. The guys from I’d say pre-2000 are shortchanged and the further back they are shortchanged the most. But the 15 guys with the most WWWF/WWF/WWE career matches dating back to January 1, 1970, would be:
367
3681. Bret Hart 2,496; 2. Undertaker 2,289; 3. Tito Santana 2,230; 4. Kane 2,094; 5. Tony Garea 2,014, 6. S.D. Jones 1,993; 7. Greg Valentine 1,958; 8. Shawn Michaels 1,918; 9. HHH 1,854; 10. Chief Jay Strongbow 1,762; 11. Johnny Rodz 1,720; 12. Randy Savage 1,657; 13. Davey Boy Smith 1,629; 14. Edge 1,565; 15. Big Show 1,547.
369
370I’d estimate that given the percentage of results likely missing that Garea and Jones would likely be battling for No. 1 legit. From the post-1984 era, Hart, Undertaker and Santana’s numbers should be higher than listed for a comparison.
371
372Since 1980, the “Iron Man” of the year each year was: 1980 - Afa the Samoan; 1981 - Tony Garea; 1982 - Mr Fuji; 1983 - Don Muraco; 1984 - Iron Sheik; 1985 - Greg Valentine; 1986 - Randy Savage; 1987 - Randy Savage; 1988 - Ted DiBiase; 1989 - Ultimate Warrior; 1990 - Mr. Perfect; 1991 - Big Bossman; 1992 - Bret Hart; 1993 - Yokozuna; 1994 - Owen Hart; 1995 - Razor Ramon; 1996 - HHH; 1997 - Undertaker; 1998 - The Rock; 1999 - Kane; 2000 - Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy; 2001 - Chris Jericho; 2002 - Rob Van Dam; 2003 - Charlie Haas; 2004 - Chris Benoit; 2005 - John Cena; 2006 - John Cena; 2007 - Batista; 2008 - C.M. Punk; 2009 - C.M. Punk; 2010 - The Miz; 2011 - Randy Orton
373
374
375In 2000, Antonio Inoki and Pride combined for a pro wrestling event at the Osaka Dome on New Year’s Eve, which started what for years had become almost a cultural tradition of New Year’s Eve big shows.
376
377The first show was a live event, which drew an announced 42,753 fans (the building legitimately had well over 30,000 people) for a unique pro wrestling event that mixed New Japan Pro Wrestling, that Inoki was still in charge of, with some independent pro wrestling, as well as stars from Pride like Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, Gary Goodridge, Bas Rutten and Ricco Rodriguez. The advertised main event saw Keiji Muto & Nobuhiko Takada, who had one of the biggest programs in Japanese wrestling history several years earlier, team up against Ken Shamrock & Don Frye, who a few years later would have their own memorable battle in Pride. The show ended with a 3:00 pro wrestling draw with the retired Inoki in the ring trading moves with Renzo Gracie, perhaps the only time a member of the Gracie family ever did a pro wrestling match. Gracie even went up for the 57-year-old Inoki’s double-arm suplex, and it ended with Inoki having Gracie in the abdominal stretch when time expired.
378
379It got bigger a year later, when Inoki Bom Ba Ye was a network New Year’s Eve show, and drew the biggest ratings in the history of Japanese TV up to that point in time against the annual NHK concert, which is almost a Super Bowl like annual activity that is among the highest rated shows of almost any year. After even more success in 2002, with a show promoted by a combination of Pride, Inoki and K-1, the idea of New Year’s Eve fights was so strong that three different networks paid millions in fights fees. This led to Inoki, Pride and K-1 each presenting shows head-to-head on different networks.
380
381In recent years, the network TV has been done, but there has always been a show. This year, Inoki promoted a combination pro wrestling, MMA and kickboxing show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo, and inked a television deal with a network secondary station, basically like FX would be to FOX.
382
383His Inoki Bom Ba Ye show featured pro wrestling, kickboxing and MMA, with the Inoki Genome Federation world heavyweight champion Kazuyuki Fujita facing Naoya Ogawa in a non-title pro wrestling match, plus Satoshi Ishii and Mirko Cro Cop did MMA fights.
384
385The other major show was at the Saitama Super Arena, where Glory Sports ran a marathon kickboxing and MMA show. This aired on PPV in Japan, but that’s a very limited audience, and aired in the U.S. on the CBS Sports Net, a small cable sports station, broken up into two parts on tape delay. The MMA fights were billed as Dream 18, the first Dream event since the previous New Year’s Eve.
386
387Glory Sports purchased the rights to use the Dream name and promoted a series of MMA fights, and followed with a one-night 16-man kickboxing tournament somewhat patterned after the legendary K-1 World Grand Prix shows that were a late November/early December Japanese tradition.
388
389There were also a half dozen or more independent pro wrestling shows that night in Tokyo alone.
390
391The general feeling is the Inoki show was a disaster, largely due to the main event. Ogawa, 45, who retired years ago, was described as appearing almost frail and not in shape. There was talk of problems in getting a finish, which was one of the reasons the IGF world title wasn’t put at stake. At one point, when Fujita was on top throwing punches, the referee stopped the match based on ground and pound and awarded it to Fujita. Most thought it was a double-cross finish on Ogawa, and the crowd hated it, to the point when Inoki came out after the match to do his “Ishi-Ni-San-Da” chant, instead of doing it with him, the crowd booed. This would be the Japanese equivalent of Steve Austin asking the crowd for a “Hell, yeah,” and the crowd booing.
392
393The show drew about 5,000 fans (announced at 8,863), or about a half full arena. It featured an almost embarrassing MMA fight with Mirko Cro Cop vs. Shinichi Suzukawa, one of Inoki’s mainstays on his pro wrestling shows. Suzukawa was a well-known sumo, who garnered a lot of national publicity for being kicked out of the sport when he was caught with marijuana (Japan is very strict culturally on that drug). Inoki then brought him to pro wrestling and tried to build around him. Suzukawa was out of his league, a horse being led to slaughter as he was decked immediately by Cro Cop and armbarred in just 1:18. Few felt sorry for him, since a lot of people felt Suzukawa was owed a receipt when a few years back, when he was supposed to lose to Mark Coleman, he stopped cooperating, and with Coleman gassed and confused and getting beaten up on, Coleman had to tap out to end the match.
394
395The Glory show, on the other hand, was very good, with one match after another, most entertaining. They drew an estimated 10,000 fans, about half full. While some saw this as the revival of the Dream brand, we’re told right now there are no plans for future Dream events and Glory is going to concentrate on building its kickboxing brand worldwide.
396
397Glory has a lot of money behind it right now and is looking at turning into a major player. With the attempt to revive K-1 seemingly having troubles, if that group can’t get off the ground, it’s kind of expected Spike and the Glory people will cut a U.S. deal since Glory features what they wanted out of K-1. The idea is to do almost monthly major shows from around the world.
398
399They have a few different ideas regarding excitement and speeding up the game and to have more frequent finishes. On the show in Japan, they had five judges instead of three, which in theory should slightly minimize bad calls. They also have open scoring, so at the end of every round, all five judges cards are posted within seconds of the round ending so people watching on television, the fans in the arena and the fighters all know the score. This is part of their changes.
400
401For the show in Japan, because it was a 16-man tournament, they also had a two knockdown rule where the fights would be stopped. They also had two round fights, but if the rounds were split, they would do an overtime third round to decide it.
402
403While they did not use many expensive fighters for the MMA portion, the kickboxing show was a 16 man tournament featuring eight of the top ten heavyweights in the world, including legends from the K-1 days like Semmy Schilt, Remy Bonjasky and 42-year-old Peter Aerts. Not in the tournament but used in a Supefight was Jerome LeBanner, who until recently was Inoki’s pro wrestling champion, and lured away from the IGF.
404
4051. Will Brooks beat Satoru Kitaoka via ref stoppage in the second round. Brooks was likely brought in as an inexperienced fighter for the Japanese star to win, but that’s why they play the game. Brooks looked very good throughout, including hitting a back suplex, which led to Mauro Ranallo bring up Karl Gotch and Josh Barnett.
406
4072. Marloes Coenen, the former Strikeforce women’s champion, now fighting at 145, beat Fiona Muxlow from Australia with a first round armbar. Muxlow was clearly out of her league.
408
4093. Hayato Sakurai beat Phil Baroni via decision. Baroni didn’t look like a bodybuilder as much as the past, and fought at 167, his lightest to date, but still got tired and lost the decision.
410
4114. Melvin Manhoef finished Denis King quickly in the first round via knockout.
412
4135. Bibiano Fernandes finished Yoshiro Maeda with a triangle in the first round.
414
4156. Shinya Aoki, the big star of Dream, finished Antonio McKee, whose main claim to fame is he rarely loses, is virtually never finished, and rarely has an exciting fight. Well, this was a good fight, but McKee tapped after a punch to the eye and he was unable to see.
416
4177. Former WEC and Bellator fighter Georgi Karakhanyan beat Hiroyuki Takaya via split decision, even though Karakhanyan won all three rounds.
418
4198. In the main event, Tatsuya Kawajiri, at 145 pounds, won a decision over former UFC fighter Michihiro Omigawa.
420
421The 16-man kickboxing tournament saw Semmy Schilt, now 6-foot-11 and 290 pounds, at age 39, being king once again.
422
423Schilt had won the K-1 World Grand Prix in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009, and ran through the pack with wins over Brice Guidon, Rico Verhoeven, Gokhan Saki and finished with a first round knockout of Daniel Ghita.
424
425
426table.tableizer-table {
427
428border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
429
430font-size: 12px;
431
432}
433
434.tableizer-table td {
435
436padding: 4px;
437
438margin: 3px;
439
440border: 1px solid #ccc;
441
442}
443
444.tableizer-table th {
445
446background-color: #000000;
447
448color: #FFF;
449
450font-weight: bold;
451
452}
453TOP 15 PPV SHOW BREAKDOWN IN NORTH AMERICA
454
455	2012 	2011 	2010 	2009 	2008
456WWE 	1 	1 	1 	1 	2
457UFC 	10 	10 	11 	10 	9
458BOXING 	4 	4 	3 	4 	4
459
460While boxing had the top spot with Floyd Mayweather vs. Miguel Cotto at 1.5 million buys, (and again, this would include the December 3, 2011, Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito match, as well as both UFC shows in December 2011, and not the UFC show in December 2012 or Pacquiao vs, Juan Manuel Marquez), the breakdown of the top 15 was identical to last year, and pretty consistent with the past several years. WWE’s WrestleMania is the only show to crack the top 15 since 2008, although there is a good chance this year’s Royal Rumble will make it. The Rumble this past year ended up No. 16 for the year.
461
462The good news for boxing is it had two shows in the top 15 (the other being Sergio Martinez vs. Julio Caesar Chavez Jr.) that didn’t involve Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. That’s important because there is some question of Pacquiao’s future, and Mayweather is also not getting any younger. But boxing has had a good year when it comes to HBO and Showtime ratings, as well as in recent weeks getting on both CBS and NBC and doing solid non-prime time numbers.
463
464But even in a down year of sorts, running fewer shows, UFC still had the most consistent hardcore base on PPV. While boxing had the top two numbers for Mayweather vs. Cotto and Pacquiao vs. Marquez, UFC still dominates the top 15.
465
466
467This is our year-end look at the biggest, most popular or most talked about personalities in boxing, pro wrestling and MMA over the past year based on Google activity and searches.
468
469As a general rule, this is a pretty good gauge of how “over” somebody is, but like everything, it’s not foolproof, but it’s usually a lot better than “I like this guy” or “I think he should be pushed.” The key things to look for is the growth or decline over the course of a year, as well as people who aren’t pushed that do well, or those who are pushed and don’t do as well as their push. And also, look at categories more as groups. No. 4 isn’t necessary more of a star than No. 5, but they are almost surely more of a star than No. 20 or No. 30. And someone who was No. 5 and is now No. 20 means they have lost a lot in the past year since there is a pretty big gap between the two (the gap between No. 40 and No. 75 is actually quite a bit smaller), just as similar growth indicates their brand has garnered more interest.
470
471Another point is this measures total volume during 2012. Someone like Ryback, who started really clicking in late September is not going to have a big full year, although in his case where he shows up is plenty impressive. The thing is you can at least determine who the public reacts to as a star in a more meaningful way then Pavolvian crowd responses or in the case of a fighter, trying to figure what level a star they are based on who they beat, which is only a small part of the puzzle in the big picture. Additionally, with fighters, so much depends on interest peaking around the time of their fights, so GSP, for example, who only fought once, would do not nearly as good of a level as they really should.
472
473The numbers here are for the United States only.
474
475table.tableizer-table {
476
477border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
478
479font-size: 12px;
480
481}
482
483.tableizer-table td {
484
485padding: 4px;
486
487margin: 3px;
488
489border: 1px solid #ccc;
490
491}
492
493.tableizer-table th {
494
495background-color: #000000;
496
497color: #FFF;
498
499font-weight: bold;
500
501}
502
503	
504	2011 	2010 	2009
5051 	John Cena 	3 	1 	1
5062 	Manny Pacquiao 	1 	3 	5
5073 	Floyd Mayweather 	5 	5 	12
5084 	Dwayne “Rock” Johnson 	2 	23 	18
5095 	Hulk Hogan 	10 	13 	11
5106 	C.M. Punk 	11 	8 	--
5117 	Brock Lesnar 	15 	2 	3
5128 	Anderson Silva 	8 	9 	6
5139 	Jon Jones 	12 	10 	41
51410 	Gina Carano 	33 	35 	6
51511 	Ronda Rousey 	-- 	-- 	--
51612 	Georges St-Pierre 	7 	4 	6
51713 	Randy Orton 	11 	10 	13
51814 	HHH 	16 	12 	15
51915 	Chael Sonnen 	41 	31 	--
52016 	Batista 	22 	9 	20
52117 	Big Show 	36 	33 	--
52218 	Undertaker 	23 	22 	30
52319 	Steve Austin 	26 	25 	26
52420 	A.J. Lee 	-- 	-- 	--
52521 	Rey Mysterio 	25 	17 	16
52622 	Jeff Hardy 	21 	8 	2
52723 	Miguel Cotto 	52 	– 	--
52824 	Nick Diaz 	29 	– 	–
52925 	Ryback 	-- 	-- 	–
53026 	Cain Velasquez 	32 	15 	--
53127 	Rashad Evans 	50 	27 	23
53228 	Dana White 	34 	26 	24
53329 	Canelo Alvarez 	– 	– 	–
53430 	Sin Cara 	14 	– 	–
53531 	Shawn Michaels 	38 	18 	25
53632 	Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. 	– 	– 	--
53733 	Chris Jericho 	40 	40 	36
53834 	Amir Khan 	37 	49 	--
53935 	Ric Flair 	53 	44 	40
54036 	Sheamus 	71 	47 	--
54137 	Alistair Overeem 	55 	-- 	--
54238 	The Miz 	24 	38 	--
54339 	Eve Torres 	– 	– 	–
54440 	Junior Dos Santos 	51 	– 	--
54541 	Kimbo Slice 	35 	14 	4
54642 	Daniel Bryan 	– 	– 	–
54743 	B.J. Penn 	28 	13 	8
54844 	Sergio Martinez 	– 	– 	–
54945 	Frank Mir 	69 	30 	17
55046 	Tito Ortiz 	27 	24 	22
55147 	Mark Henry 	54 	-- 	--
55248 	Zack Ryder 	67 	-- 	--
55349 	Victor Ortiz 	19 	-- 	--
55450 	Nate Diaz 	– 	– 	--
55551 	John Morrison 	44 	-- 	--
55652 	Kevin Nash 	43 	-- 	--
55753 	Kurt Angle 	61 	-- 	36
55854 	Vince McMahon 	70 	-- 	38
55955 	Cody Rhodes 	-- 	-- 	--
56056 	Urijah Faber 	57 	36 	38
56157 	Rampage Jackson 	42 	21 	20
56258 	Carlos Condit 	-- 	-- 	--
56359 	Mayhem Miller 	46 	-- 	--
56460 	Dan Henderson 	60 	-- 	30
565
566For a comparison, of the top 50 stars at this time last year, 16 were from UFC, 14 from WWE, six from boxing, four from TNA and one from Strikeforce. This year the breakdown is eight from boxing, 19 from WWE (not including retired wrestlers like Batista and Shawn Michaels), two from TNA and 15 from UFC.
567
568This would tell you that WWE has done a good job in the last year of creating genuine stars. It’s one thing to push someone but it’s another for the public to see them as a star.
569
570As far as people who really weren’t stars a year ago who were stars at least at one point this year, enough to make the list, you’ve got:
571
572UFC - Ronda Rousey, Nate Diaz, Carlos Condit
573
574WWE - A.J. Lee, Ryback, Eve Torres, Daniel Bryan, Cody Rhodes
575
576TNA -
577
578Boxing - Canelo Alvarez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Sergio Martinez
579
580Carlos Condit is a fluke in the sense he fought GSP and Nick Diaz on PPV, but I don’t know that he’s really a star because if he was going to really be a star on his own, he’d have been a lot bigger with two high-profile and heavily pushed main events. I expect he’ll be off the list next year.
581
582WWE genuinely created A.J. Lee and Ryback as stars, and made Torres, Bryan, Rhodes and David Otunga (perhaps Otunga made himself in the sense he was given face time on TV but not real star credibility on TV) significantly bigger with new roles or pushes.
583
584UFC really hasn’t been as good at this. Ronda Rousey was made as much by the public, Showtime and the media and Showtime with UFC coming on board late. Rousey peaked as a star for the Sarah Kaufman fight, but she came from literally a 1 in October 2011 to a 76 by March of 2012 (the Tate fight, which does mean there was 76 times as much interest in her gained in that short of a period of time). Dana White didn’t even get on the bandwagon until after that fight. Those people who read her as someone who Dana White tried to create and force-feed actually couldn’t be more wrong. Nate Diaz as a star was made by the Donald Cerrone and Jim Miller fights, more the latter since it was on FOX, although his star power peaked when he went after Benson Henderson. Diaz was made more of a star with his wins than Henderson was with both wins over Frankie Edgar, and even in losing to Henderson, there was 18% more interest coming off the fight in Diaz.
585
586Generally these numbers are a good predictor of who will draw. They can sometimes see in advance people before they can draw in a lot of ways. Still, this doesn’t measure ability to generate heat and create grudge matches. That is still the most important component in wrestling, boxing and MMA, is selling stars with stories and rivalries. With Rousey, it’s a different deal. There is interest as the ratings for Kaufman for a 54 second fight with no undercard showed, but as a PPV draw, I think with the right grudge feel and media pub, she can with Tate and for sure with Cyborg. But just on her own, I think this one case is misleading, and more measures the interest in her and not the drawing power. Usually they are similar, but Rousey, for example, gets more readers for stories than any other fighter, and by a wide margin. One major sports web site is going major on pushing her in February because business people, knowing nothing about sports and not even liking UFC, saw the numbers stories on her across the board have done in the last six months. But with all that, it’s not like ticket sales for her match went through the roof, and nobody is expecting huge PPV numbers (part of that is a weak opponent, Carmouche was literally a 0 until the announcement of her name as Rousey’s opponent).
587
588A key to this, and it’s even more clear when you look at boxing, and this may be part of why Diaz connected more than Henderson (although the jury is out to where Henderson will be coming off a heavily watched decisive win as champion) is that people who connect as new stars are far more easy to create with Hispanic last names, since that is the largest growing demo in the country and it’s one that on a percentage basis, supports boxing, wrestling and MMA to a greater extent than any other group. But just being Hispanic isn’t enough, because Alberto Del Rio has been pushed as a top star for years and really isn’t over to nearly the level of the time invested in his push. Perhaps his face turn will make him connect because as a heel, while he has a great package on paper, it never really connected (check ratings highs and lows which show examples of this). Every genuine new boxing star this year is Hispanic.
589
590And the only stars in TNA are people like Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy, Sting, Kurt Angle and Ric Flair. TNA has never made a legitimate bonafide general interest star. Perhaps it’s impossible as a secondary brand, although Strikeforce did make Rousey and to an extent, Nick Diaz before this past year, and WEC made Urijah Faber. Bellator has made nobody, with its only star even close to resonating much of a pulse being King Mo, who would still not make top 60.
591
592table.tableizer-table {
593
594border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
595
596font-size: 12px;
597
598}
599
600.tableizer-table td {
601
602padding: 4px;
603
604margin: 3px;
605
606border: 1px solid #ccc;
607
608}
609
610.tableizer-table th {
611
612background-color: #000000;
613
614color: #FFF;
615
616font-weight: bold;
617
618}
619WORLD WIDE CHART
620
621	
622	2011 	2010
6231 	John Cena 	1 	1
6242 	Dwayne “Rock” Johnson 	3 	–
6253 	Georges St-Pierre 	2 	2
6264 	Anderson Silva 	5 	10
6275 	Manny Pacquiao 	4 	7
6286 	C.M. Punk 	10 	--
6297 	Brock Lesnar 	20 	8
6308 	Floyd Mayweather 	– 	–
6319 	Hulk Hogan 	21 	15
63210 	Randy Orton 	6 	6
63311 	Amir Khan 	12 	12
63412 	Batista 	9 	5
63513 	Jon Jones 	18_ 	–
63614 	HHH 	11 	9
63715 	Chael Sonnen 	– 	–
63816 	Rey Mysterio 	8 	3
63917 	Big Show 	– 	16
64018 	Gina Carano 	-- 	--
64119 	Sin Cara 	7 	--
64220 	Ronda Rousey 	-- 	--
64321 	David Haye 	22 	21
64422 	Dana White 	– 	–
64523 	Undertaker 	23 	14
64624 	Jeff Hardy 	19 	4
64725 	Sheamus 	– 	–
648
649As for as Canada, he’s the top 25:
650
651table.tableizer-table {
652
653border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
654
655font-size: 12px;
656
657}
658
659.tableizer-table td {
660
661padding: 4px;
662
663margin: 3px;
664
665border: 1px solid #ccc;
666
667}
668
669.tableizer-table th {
670
671background-color: #000000;
672
673color: #FFF;
674
675font-weight: bold;
676
677}
678
679	
680	2011 	2010
6811 	Georges St-Pierre 	1 	1
6822 	John Cena 	5 	3
6833 	Manny Pacquiao 	14 	4
6844 	Anderson Silva 	3 	5
6855 	Hulk Hogan 	12 	19
6866 	Brock Lesnar 	9 	2
6877 	Jon Jones 	4 	–
6888 	Floyd Mayweather 	7 	14
6899 	Chael Sonnen 	15 	8
69010 	Dwayne “Rock” Johnson 	11 	–
69111 	C.M. Punk 	6 	--
69212 	Ronda Rousey 	– 	–
69313 	Gina Carano 	22 	–
69414 	Dana White 	8 	6
69515 	Nick Diaz 	10 	–
69616 	Randy Orton 	17 	–
69718 	HHH 	13 	–
69819 	Batista 	– 	–
69920 	Alistair Overeem 	19 	–
70021 	Shawn Michaels 	– 	–
70122 	Undertaker 	– 	–
70223 	Steve Austin 	23 	–
70324 	B.J. Penn 	21 	12
70425 	Carlos Condit 	-- 	–
705
706In a comparison, UFC remains more popular than WWE by a significant margin in Canada, although not nearly as big of a gap as years in the past. In the U.S., WWE has a bigger than at any time since 2007.
707
708
709There are three wrestling nostalgia books that I’ve just gotten in recent weeks, and a fourth coming out soon, that I want to make mention of.
710
711The first is “Heroes and Icons,” by Steve Johnson and Greg Oliver, which is a book with profiles of more than 100 of the greatest babyface wrestlers of all-time. They are joined in this project by Mike Mooneyham. This is the fourth of the Johnson/Oliver books, which started with the Greatest Canadian Wrestlers, Best Heels and Best Tag Teams. These books are different than the recent Tim Hornbaker book “Legends of Pro Wrestling,” which has much shorter profiles on far more wrestlers, including almost every major name in the history of wrestling.
712
713You can’t go wrong with a Johnson/Oliver book, and this is their biggest and best to date, clocking in at 546 pages. They have sections for the biggest babyface stars before television (in this case you really don’t have guys from pre-1930, but the list includes luminaries like Bronko Nagurski, Everette Marshall and Yvon Robert), African-Americans (notably Rocky Johnson, Bearcat Wright and Thunderbolt Patterson, but no Tony Atlas), The Territorial Era (Pat O’Connor, Tim Woods, Peter Maivia, Sweet Daddy Siki, Bob Backlund among them) , Ethnic Stars (Jose Lothario, Pepper Gomez, Pedro Morales, Tito Santana), Hometown Heroes (Jerry Lawler, Eddie Graham, Ilio DiPaolo, Johnny Weaver), Cowboys & Indians (Jay Strongbow, Bill Watts, Don Eagle), Post-1984 era (Magnum T.A., Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Sting) and Anti-Heroes (Bruiser Brody, Crusher, Bruiser, Jackie Fargo, The Rock and C.M. Punk fit into this category).
714
715You can see a tremendous amount of research went into this, both background on the guys, lots of interviews either with the guys, or with other wrestlers or family members of the guys. You get why they were stars, where they went, background, life after wrestling and more. I really recommend this one if you like Observer bios, because it’s a book filled with them. Maybe not quite as detailed, but it’s the same style.
716
717I haven’t read the entire book, but one interesting chapter was the look at Bob Backlund, because of how it analyzed his title run and career. Most notably, Backlund himself when talking about his career said that he felt he never really got over as a babyface, but got over great as a heel. I found that almost fascinating, because when Backlund did his heel run in 1994, he would get incredible heat, but it was more Vickie Guerrero heat in the sense people reacted to the sight of him and booed him out of the building, but it’s not like it resulted in any business. When Backlund was a babyface, he sold out Madison Square Garden more than 40 times as a main eventer, something only Bruno Sammartino, who was on top a lot longer, was able to do.
718
719The reality is the success of Backlund was greatly due to how well the WWWF title had been protected and promoted as the be-all and end-all, with long-reigning champions. Backlund was not a major star, although he had some success, prior to his title run. For a guy with his track record, aside from the comeback and a few big matches in Japan, he did shockingly little in his career after Vince McMahon phased him out when he went national and fired him when he wouldn’t go heel the first time. There were a lot of comments, and they have been said for years and were said at the time, about how the shows he was on were more loaded and that’s why they were doing sellout business.
720
721The thing with Backlund is that, like Pedro Morales, the other major long-term champion of the era, historically they are always compared with Bruno Sammartino. Backlund never had the kind of crowd connection Sammartino had, and he did benefit by stronger depth on shows. I know that people within the company who were involved in ticket sales pushed that they felt it was Lou Albano who was the MVP carrying the territory, but to an extent, Backlund’s role as the years went on has been given less respect. I think for one, there was the same thing that hurt Morales, in that he wasn’t Sammartino. He also followed Superstar Graham, who was filled with charisma and what at his peak as draw when Vince Sr. made the switch. Sr. had long planned out a direction, showing the differences between then and now. When Graham was contacted in 1976 and offered the title which he wouldn’t get until April 30, 1977, he was told at the meeting basically when he would win it, when he would lose it, and that he would lose to Backlund.
722
723With hindsight, you can argue Graham should have held it longer. Two days before he dropped the title, he and Sammartino had a cage match in Philadelphia that not only sold out, but was probably the hottest ticket for a show in Philadelphia’s history with the exception of when they had WrestleMania there decades later. They turned thousands away and had a ridiculous traffic jam going to the building from all the people wanting tickets. In hindsight, that should have been a stadium show, except it was in February. Graham, always a manipulator, was trying to angle not just to keep the title, but for a turn, since the idea was always to go with a babyface champion. But Sr. had his direction. But Backlund was a success and he was over. He was promoted in a way that he did have the aura of a champion for most of his reign, and the belt was over. I saw how the shows were promoted, and the main event was always the focal point, and the idea that it was the underneath that was really the draw may have been the case when Sammartino appeared a few times a year (even then Sammartino’s match was not pushed as hard on TV as Backlund’s, except during the Zbyszko feud), or for Graham vs. Dusty Rhodes because that was kind of a dream match.
724
725Like everything in wrestling, Backlund’s success was about timing. Sammartino wanted out. Sr. wanted a babyface on top and he was looking for a Jack Brisco type All-American wrestler type. Brisco was older, and had already burned out on the schedule as NWA champion. Sam Muchnick and Eddie Graham both recommended Backlund as their first pick. At that moment, there may have been nobody else who could have played it, even though Backlund was not a superstar or a big draw anywhere coming in. Ricky Steamboat was the better worker, but Steamboat was a few years younger and not as big a star at the time of the decision, plus Backlund was a few inches taller.
726
727But his own hindsight on his career thinking he was more over as a heel because of the fact he could go out there and garner that reaction, was fascinating to me.
728
729The book also has a list of the top 20 babyfaces listed in order, plus a next five. Those are certainly subject to debate and they took a risk in a sense of putting Jim Londos No. 1, forsaking the kneejerk reaction of putting someone like Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin in the spot.
730
731Really, to me, a top four would be Londos, Bruno Sammartino, Hogan and Austin, and you could make a case for any of the four as No. 1. Londos was the biggest draw for the longest period of time. Hogan, with television, was the biggest star of all-time. Sammartino had an audience connection unlike anyone before or since and Austin was the biggest draw for a short period of time. It’s notable Rock was not listed in the top 20, and I would certainly debate some of the placings but nobody in the top 25 wasn’t a major star in their day. Of the top 25, the only ones not in the Hall of Fame are Steve Casey (a late 30s star), Yukon Eric (who was a major star in the 50s and early 60s), Joe Savoldi (a 30s star and former football star), Junkyard Dog and Mr. Wrestling II. The bios give a background of everyone, and with most of the ones still alive, they were interviewed as part of the book.
732
733Lists are going to be another debatable point in “The Greatest Professional Wrestlers of All-Time: The Definitive Shoot” by Larry Matysik, who attempts to do a task that is impossible, a top 50 in order. He was inspired by, or perhaps a better term, infuriated, by the WWE DVD that attempted to do the same thing. If there is anything about the WWE DVD that was good, past the humor of having current stars who obviously knew almost no history try and talk authoritatively about guys from a previous era (you haven’t lived until you’ve heard The Miz try to fake his way through explaining what made Nick Bockwinkel tick), it was that it inspired Matysik to do this 462-page book that will be available early next year. Any list of this type has no hope. I’ve been involved with them in the past myself. Everyone will think their favorites are too low, get mad at people not in and those who were in. Still, it’s more than just a list, but his arguments are there, and he gives his viewpoint as to why, not only the top 50 are placed, but key guys who aren’t in the top 50 and why they aren’t.
734
735Matysik, who was the announcer, No. 2 in command and later booker for St. Louis Wrestling under Sam Muchnick from 1970 until leaving the promotion after Muchnick retired and working opposition in 1983, leading to several years working as the St. Louis promoter for WWF, has from his position seen most of the names live and in their context. And learning under such people as Muchnick, has at least a framework on every major name in history since Muchnick’s reporting background turned him into a historian.
736
737With both of the aforementioned books, they concentrate on the U.S. and Canadian scene. For example, there is no Perro Aguayo or El Santo or Antonio Inoki covered in either book. In a sense, I’d argue strongly regarding Aguayo in the babyface book, but Aguayo was never really pushed in a traditional U.S. promotion like Mil Mascaras or Pepper Gomez were, although he did work here in the 70s and was pushed as a star (he was a heel then).
738
739He was later an even bigger star when Lucha Libre shows were held in the U.S. Santo was a big draw in Texas as a special attraction in the 60s and early 70s, similar to Andre the Giant, but really, Mascaras was around more and drew better on a national basis then any of them .
740
741I haven’t read anywhere close to all of both books, but can guarantee I’ll be referencing them a lot going forward. What I’ve seen with the Matysik book is him talking about just how much work he went through in compiling his list of 50, even though almost nobody will agree with it, and people who don’t know one percent about wrestling of what he does will tear it apart.
742
743However, no matter what you think of the list, he gives his reasons, and does profiles on everyone in, gives thoughts on a number of people not in (two which will cause controversy are Jerry Lawler and Rey Mysterio, and he also didn’t list The Sheik, who was one of the two best drawing pure heels in history, but whose limited blood circus act didn’t play well in sports oriented St. Louis wrestling ). Still, there is nobody in the top 50 that you can’t make a strong case for, just as there are a few dozen that you could. He explained that the top 20 or so were easy, although making any order of them wasn’t so easy. From that point on, there were a lot of people who could go from 20 or so to 75, and it’s more random, but he still gave his best effort to do a fair ranking. A key component in his mind were people who would have been greats no matter what era they appeared in, which was his key point with Mysterio, in the sense that in almost any other era, he would not have been a star, a point that can’t even be argued.
744
745Like with Johnson and Oliver, he risked marketability, given his No. 1 was Lou Thesz. Among his reasoning was he believed Thesz would have been a star in any era, and that Thesz, more than anyone else, transcended eras on top and was successful. He won his first world title at 21 in 1937. He was still drawing big as NWA champion as late as 1965, when he was 49 years old and he and Sammartino were considered the two biggest stars in the business. He also put Ed “Strangler” Lewis No. 3. Lewis was the biggest star of the 20s,and was a Muchnick favorite as the biggest star in wrestling when Muchnick was growing up. While he doesn’t talk about it, Matysik’s father was in St. Louis in 1928 for the famous Lewis vs. Joe Stecher match that was supposed to be the shoot that would settle the score between the two biggest stars of the decade. For years, because they were with warring factions, they never wrestled each other and the two had the reputation for being legit. The match itself was not legit, even though there were some historical references that claimed it was, with Lewis winning the world title since Stecher was thinking of curtailing his wrestling.
746
747And speaking of Texas, there is a new book, “When Wrestling was Rasslin,” the story of Houston Wrestling, by Peter Birkholz. Birkholz had a similar role in wrestling as Matysik, except he worked under Paul Boesch. Birkholz, the nephew of Boesch, and Matysik, like Greg Gagne, Mike Graham, Barry Owen, Jerry Jarrett and Joel Watts probably all thought they would end up being the major power brokers in the sport as the heirs of sorts in the big promotions, until cable television changed the business and Vince McMahon and Jim Crockett rendered the concept of regional wrestling territories as obsolete.
748
749At various times, he served as a television announcer as well as a booker for the promotion. The book isn’t as detailed as Matysik’s “Wrestling At the Chase,” a similar tome about growing up working for a wrestling legend in a city where pro wrestling was a strong part of the community. Boesch was well liked locally for his civic activities, and respected for being a World War II hero. In 1971, Boesch was named Sportsman of the Year in Houston, something that people in the wrestling business would under normal circumstances never be even considered for.
750
751Boesch also had mainstream recognition for doing local television commercials for a local jewelry star which was a leading sponsor (think about that, a jewelry store being a major sponsor of pro wrestling, but there were times in its later years that the demographics of Houston wrestling during a boom period showed that more than 50% of its audience was women).
752
753But it didn’t have the same mainstream acceptance that was unique to Muchnick’s St. Louis wrestling both because of Muchnick’s standing in the local community and his insistence on playing it straight and avoiding gimmicks.
754
755But the 223-page book has a lot of stories about the early days of Houston wrestling, notes on the stars dating back to Bronko Nagurski and going through a collection of programs for the storylines.
756
757In many way I sense the book like Jeff Walton’s book “Richmond 9-5171,” on Los Angeles wrestling. Walton’s book concentrated more on his years in the 60s, 70s and early 80s while Birkholz talks about wrestling in Houston before he got there, with some more detailed talk from the 60s on, when he and his family were all involved with Boesch’s promotion, between taking tickets, promoting spot shows and handling security.
758
759To me, if there is a fault, it is that Birkholz at times tries to be too nice. Before Boesch died, Boesch wrote a book that he had sent to only a few of his friends (I don’t know that he considered me a friend given the way I covered wrestling was an affront to everything he believed in, but there were very few copies of the original printed and I did get one, and he on many occasions invited me as his guest at Cauliflower Alley Club events at a time when it was very difficult to attend unless you were a wrestler, and introduced me around to everyone). I had talked with Birkholz and he felt it was unfortunate that Boesch was very negative about the last years in wrestling, and his dealings with Bill Watts and Vince McMahon in particular. Later, when the book was published, Birkholz was involved and took out the more vicious criticism Boesch had. Even though the failure of the UWF, followed by the business dealings in the short-lived relationship with WWF ended up spelling the end of Boesch as a promoter in 1987, and Houston Wrestling, Birkholz doesn’t go into detail on why it went down past they had made a deal with Vince McMahon that Birkholz thought wouldn’t work, Vince said business would boom and it would, That didn’t happen. Vince wouldn’t change the deal, essentially killing their ability to survive as local promoters with their offices in town. Boesch blamed the different approach, notably so many advertised no-shows and a different product that the local fan base was not accepting of at the time, for killing things. Birkholz’s book simplifies it to a deal he thought was bad to make, and ended up being right.
760
761Since Birkholz was really the guy running the business from 1982 to 1987, with Boesch largely the public figurehead, there were a lot of business stories that he could have told. My sense is this is a book written for people in Houston who grew up as wrestling fans, and now fondly remember those times. He didn’t seem to want to soil those memories with too much about what happened behind the scenes from a business standpoint, past telling about some of his ideas and his mentality when he himself booked some successful events. In particular, he was proud of the first show he was fully in charge of and booked in 1982, where he drew a sellout of 12,000 fans for a loaded show headlined by AWA champion Nick Bockwinkel vs. Junkyard Dog, Gino Hernandez vs. Tommy Rich, Mil Mascaras vs. Manny Fernandez and Wahoo McDaniel vs. Tully Blanchard.
762
763He talked about the positive shows that did well and didn’t really deal with what didn’t work, and with weekly promotion, there are a lot of lessons to be learned about both.
764
765The big issues are covered, such as the split with Southwest Sports (Jack Adkisson’s promotion out of Dallas), and his fight with Boesch to break the tradition of wrestling being a weekly Friday night tradition in 1982 when the promotion was losing money as a pure independent after Boesch tired of dealing with Tully Blanchard, during a few year affiliation with Southwest Championship Wrestling.
766
767Birkholz, against Boesch’s wishes, favored running fewer shows and increasing ticket prices, which Boesch feared would be the death of the promotion. But it actually led to its most successful years during the heyday of Mid South Wrestling. Interestingly, Birkholz, like Boesch, never blamed the collapse of the oil business, which destroyed the local economy to the point even the biggest touring entertainment acts weren’t drawing in Houston, for the decline of Mid South.
768
769I did talk to Boesch as a friend during his last years in the business and his frustrations with both Watts and McMahon, and this book didn’t bring up the subjects. One thing notable is that in 1982, after the first show Birkholz put together on his own, which set the city’s all-time gate record, that Bockwinkel, an old friend of Boesch, asked to buy in and purchased a percentage of the office.
770
771Boesch was 69 at the time, and was having health problems that were being kept quiet. The idea at the time was that Bockwinkel would wrestle one more year, then move to Houston, and he and Birkholz would run the company. But at the same time, after Watts’ big star, JYD, had gotten over so big, he wanted to make Houston part of the Mid South territory and he purchased 33% of the promotion. When it became part of the Mid South territory, Bockwinkel, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to own and run the city, sold his stock to Birkholz. I had always been under the impression Bockwinkel still owned a piece of the Houston office when it went down. And that brings up an interesting question regarding the tape library, because they did save a lot of the tapes, and they never sold them to WWE and they’ve never been marketed past a few videotapes of big matches from the 80s that were marketed.
772
773Birkholz noted the positives of allowing Watts to buy in and program the city was that they would have a steady stream of talent and a new television show (Mid South Wrestling) building the shows. They still would augment shows with local talent, and aired arena matches called by Boesch since they had a two hour television weekly show since ratings were so high at the time.
774
775Birkholz and Boesch had worked together in booking Houston, which was an independent group, like St. Louis. They’d make arrangement with wrestlers around the country as far as who was available on various Friday nights, and then each week the two would look at the week, and the weeks down the line, and do programs. When Watts took over, he did all the booking and they just concentrated on promoting the shows.
776
777Part of the issue is that they also realized Watts was expanding and he was at his peak when it came to programming and there was the fear he’d get his television in the market and run opposition. The key is that when it became clear JYD was the biggest star, and he was Watts’ guy, that Watts could come in and headline with the biggest star. There was a lot of brand loyalty in Houston to Boesch. I remember going there in 1983 because Joe Blanchard ran a world title tournament and Boesch ran a loaded show in opposition the night before. I talked with a lot of the fans, and they all knew about the show the next night at The Summit, and knew there were a lot of big names that were stars in the market in the past on that show, including Gino Hernandez, Terry Funk, Tully Blanchard, Abdullah the Butcher and others. The attitude was that they may want to attend, but they were loyal to Boesch. I had never seen that attitude among fans in my life where they would not attend a show they admitted they would like because of loyalty to the local promoter. And the Blanchard show bombed. Still, in time, that brand loyalty would run out.
778
779It’s also interesting to note Birkholz never mentions the local economy as the reason Houston wrestling ceased to exist, which almost everyone in Houston that followed it brings up. Business got bad in 1986 throughout Watts’ territory and he sold to Jim Crockett Jr. in early 1987. Boesch was never clued in on any of this as it was going down. Almost nobody was. Joel Watts, Bill’s own son, had no idea the company was being sold until he saw Jim Crockett Jr. at a restaurant before a TV taping and Crockett Jr. told him.
780
781That led to a lot of bitter feelings. Independently, both Joel Watts and Boesch, instead of going to work with Crockett, went to work for McMahon after Mid South folded. Neither relationship lasted long. Ironically, the other person from that office, Bruce Prichard (who is interestingly not mentioned at all in the book), also went to work for McMahon and he had two long runs with the company and is now, 25 years later, in charge of creative at TNA. Although Boesch started Prichard in wrestling when he was about ten years old, and he grew up in the office, there was a major falling out, although Prichard was still involved in a local television special on Boesch that aired years after hid death.
782
783Birkholz did tell the story about how he was able to convince Vince McMahon to do the final retirement show for Boesch, allowing him to leave wrestling on a high note, in one of the most remembered wrestling shows the promotion ever did. Boesch remains, with Muchnick, as the promoters who were so popular locally that they sold out their final show based on them retiring. And on Boesch’s last night, it was one of the worst rain storms I’ve ever been in and it was scary as hell to drive or leave the house. It was so bad I thought it was going to kill the crowd, but the building was sold out ahead of time and Boesch got a Hulk Hogan reaction.
784
785The actual death of the Houston wrestling office came when McMahon and Boesch met in a deal brokered by Jim Barnett. While no details were given in the book, unlike the deal with Watts where Watts owned 33% and Boesch and Birkholz owned the other 67%, the McMahon deal was far more one-sided. Birkholz said he told McMahon the deal wasn’t going to work because they had a wrestling office at 1919 Caroline on the corner of Pierce (a phrase embedded in the minds of anyone who grew up in Houston through 1987) and local people on payroll. McMahon said that the grosses would be so much bigger with his wrestlers that it would work out. Well, it very quickly was obvious the economics weren’t there, as McMahon’s product didn’t draw all that well, and the fan base was vocal that this wasn’t the kind of wrestling they wanted.
786
787They went to McMahon to try and work out a deal that would allow them to economically survive. McMahon, already owning the local TV in the market and having a contract that included a non-compete clause signed by Boesch (but not Birkholz), and really not needing local promoters to do the national touring shows he was doing, wouldn’t renegotiate, and that’s what led to the Boesch retirement show in 1987. Birkholz said the show, one of the biggest in Houston history until the Austin era, was his idea to allow his uncle to go out with a bang.
788
789Even on a night with one of the worst rainstorms one would ever see, the building was sold out and turned thousands away. Boesch and Sam Muchnick remain the only two promoters who drew their all-time record gates with the main drawing theme being their farewell show.
790
791I can recall Watts talking to me when this was going down, about how Boesch and Birkholz had run their business for decades and how they went into a deal with McMahon on their own, who took it from them in only a few months.
792
793Birkholz and Boesch did make a deal with Crockett Jr. shortly after. Boesch had stated he was retired as promoter to his audience and wasn’t going to go back on his word, although he did appear on local television. Due to the non-compete clause, Boesch couldn’t be the promoter, although he did appear on Crockett’s national television show as something of a goodwill ambassador for the company.
794
795Birkholz promoted regular Crockett shows through 1988, when the company was sold to Turner Broadcasting. At that point, a deal couldn’t be made, but it was just as well, because the Turner style shows would not have done profitable business in Houston, like they didn’t anywhere else. Had a deal been made, the end result would have been the same.
796
797Birkholz left wrestling for a college teaching job and made a clean break. He has watched almost no wrestling since.
798
799One of that era’s biggest stars, Jimmy Snuka, has an autobiography out called “Superfly: the Jimmy Snuka story,” ghostwritten by Jon Chattman.
800
801Although not a WWE book, it is very similar to one, hard cover, big print, 211 pages and lots of quotes from various family members and wrestling people (I have a number of quotes in the book). I wouldn’t expect a lot of business insight from a book by Jimmy Snuka, and you don’t get that.
802
803It’s a story of his life, from being a baseball player who felt he was good enough to play major league ball, but never got a break, into bodybuilding, and then pro wrestling. Snuka talks about his love for women and, not in a bragging way, about how women were always after him during his days in wrestling. It’s hardly the detail that the Bret Hart memoir had, but he does make his wife Sharon something of a villain, even while admitting constant cheating on her, and talking about having bed thousands of different women in his lifetime. His third wife (there was a first wife before wrestling that few knew about), Carole, comes off more as his life saver when he was down and out.
804
805The book does bring up the death of Nancy Argentino, his girlfriend during his 1983 heyday, who died while they were together in a case that was heavily talked about in stories in the early 90s that insinuated it was a murder cover-up.
806
807Snuka claimed they were driving from Connecticut to Allentown and she asked him to stop the car so she could pee on the side of the road. When she got back in the car, she told him she slipped on the way and hit her head. She said she was okay. He said he saw no blood and wasn’t concerned. But later she said she had a headache. She went to sleep it off and he went to the tapings. When he got back to the hotel, she was in bed and could barely breathe. He said he called the front desk, asked to call an ambulance and two hours later, he said she passed away in the hospital, he believed from a fractured skull.
808
809He said he was questioned by police and let go. Her family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him and won a judgment, which may have been a default judgment. Even though Snuka was earning big money at the time, he was broke, and they never collected.
810
811There were two other notable stories, including his hatred for Buddy Rogers, who he believed had an affair with his wife, and his claiming that Vince McMahon Sr. wanted him to win the WWF title on June 28, 1982, in the steel cage match with Bob Backlund, but he said he thought it would be better for Backlund to get the win in the cage and him win the title from him later, which never materialized. I can’t speak for the veracity of that and had never heard that before. Snuka was really popular at the time as a heel, and it was already clear when he turned face that he’d break out huge. In fact, when he did turn, he was much more popular than Backlund, but by the time he did turn, they never made that match since McMahon Sr. didn’t believe in face vs. face matches (he only did one face vs. face main event in Madison Square Garden from 1963 until 1982, the 1972 Sammartino vs. Pedro Morales Shea Stadium match, and he dead set refused Sammartino’s request to do a stadium match with Andre the Giant, even after Sammartino had lost the title and with Sammartino willing to lose). Snuka also said he was mad at the first WrestleMania that he was not in the main event and Mr. T was teaming with Hulk Hogan, and it led to him quitting the promotion.
812
813Snuka did admit to drug issues, including discovering cocaine during that WWF run. He claimed his previous issues were heavy drinking, marijuana and steroids from early on. For those who grew up with Snuka as a big star, it’s an easy read. When I first heard of the project, I figured there were real limitations in doing a book with Snuka, between how much he would remember about his career and other issues. The book is better than I’d have expected, but it’s about a guy who was born with some great physical gifts and a charisma that made him a great pro wrestler in his day, and lived in his partying and womanizing wrestling world having fun going through life, making good money most of the way, great money at times, without a care in the world.
814
815
816While the UFC has its Hall of Fame, for years there has been talk among the top MMA reporters of the idea of a legitimate Hall of Fame, actually not that different from the one we have for pro wrestling.
817
818As some will recall, years back, we tried to do MMA Hall of Fame balloting in conjunction with the wrestling, and even had a first class, the idea was too early and it really didn’t have interest. We did have many of the biggest and most influential names in the sport at the time involved in voting, but it was too early. Later, when there were meetings regarding formation of an MMA writers association, which also went nowhere, one of the things on the agenda again was the Hall of Fame. At that point, I thought such a Hall of Fame and regular voting was inevitable, but again, that never got off the ground.
819
820Right now there is another movement, which is the most serious to date, being put together by Kirik Jenneses, who runs the MixedMartialArts.tv web site and actually registered MMAHallofFame.com more than a decade ago.
821
822One thing notable is that in the first list of nominees for discussion, so many have strong pro wrestling backgrounds. Among the names listed are Ivan Gomes (Brazilian fighting legend of the 60s and early 70s during the heyday of the Salvador, Bahia, territory, who went to New Japan Pro Wrestling although never a major pro wrestling star), Karl Gotch, Masahiko Kimura, Gene LeBell, Billy Robinson, Tank Abbott, Josh Barnett, Mark Coleman, Don Frye, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Masakatsu Funaki, Antonio Inoki, Enson Inoue, Mark Kerr, Akira Maeda, Kevin Randleman, Bas Rutten, Kazushi Sakuraba, Satoru Sayama (original Tiger Mask), Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock and Minoru Suzuki,
823
824These are all just from the original extensive list of candidates. Not all these names would go in, nor should go in, but it was a huge list of people and shows, particularly in Japan, the strong connection of pro wrestling and MMA, particularly in the origin of MMA. Like with pro wrestling, there are a lot of very fascinating arguments that can be made both pro and con when it comes to all but the obvious (GSP, Anderson Silva, Fedor Emelianenko) level guys.
825
826
827Manuel Chaij Sr., who wrestled as an Argentina Rocca knock off, The Amazing Zuma and Argentina Zuma, passed away on 12/29 at the age of 85.
828
829He had been living in Southern California for decades, in the Rancho Cucamonga area. He formerly ran “Zuma’s Pizza” in Rosamond, CA.
830
831Chaij had been hospitalized since mid-October from a combination of heart problems, pneumonia and kidney failure.
832
833Chaij, like Rocca, was billed from Argentina and was part of the stable of Jack Pfefer, a promoter best known for using talent that emulated the big names, and used close knock off names. He was actually born December 15, 1927, in Cordoba, Argentina. He claimed he was on the 1948 Argentinean Olympic team in gymnastics, but nobody of that name competed in the games in London. He started out pro wrestling in Argentina, and wrestled throughout South America and Mexico before he started in Texas in 1953.
834
835While in Texas, he was billed as an amateur wrestling champion from Argentina.
836
837The closest thing I can compare it with is the promoters out here who used Miguel Lopez’s son El Hijo de Rey Misterio, who has tattoos and contacts to look like the WWE’s Rey Mysterio (who would be his cousin), and they run shows with him that at times draw very well. Pfefer would use guys with names like Bruno SanMartino, Bummy Rogers, Hobo Brazil, etc.
838
839Zuma was a journeyman wrestler, whose main credential was holding the Eastern Texas championship in 1953, the Texas Tag team title in 1956 with Ray Gunkel and in 1959 with Johnny Walker (later to become Mr. Wrestling II).
840
841When Pfefer had control of the booking wrestling in Madison Square Garden, somehow briefly maneuvering things from Vince McMahon Sr., he built up a Rocca vs. Zuma feud that did two of the three biggest gates in the history of wrestling in that arena up to that point in time.
842
843It’s one of those aberrations, as wrestling in New York wasn’t doing all that well, but those matches were the hottest things in decades in the building,
844
845New York was always considered a big man’s territory, and one where faces vs. faces was considered death on top. Chaij was very short, maybe 5-foot-5, billed at 200 pounds, although he looked like a thick lifter type but not a standout muscleman but more along the likes of what most short pro wrestlers of that era that lifted were built like. He and Rocca were both faces in all three matches, although Rocca, who had been the top star in Madison Square Garden since he and Gene Stanlee essentially built the wrestling franchise in the building in their 1949 feud, was cheered in all three matches.
846
847Not only was he for the most part a journeyman before the Rocca feud, but even with the success of the feud, by far the biggest in wrestling of its time, he really was a journeyman after, as well, with the only major title that he held after the run being the Southern (Crockett territory main belt) tag titles for two weeks in 1960 with Haystacks Calhoun in a feud with Larry Hamilton & Great Bolo (The Hamilton Brothers, who later became better known as The Missouri Mauler & Assassin Jody Hamilton).
848
849He did the high flying like Rocca but from all accounts wasn’t nearly as good or as charismatic. He debuted in Madison Square Garden on July 25, 1959, beating prelim wrestler Jack Vansky (who subbed for The Sheik) in what was booked as a high card match.
850
851He followed with wins over Karl Von Hess and Jackie Fargo, both solid stars at the time, leading to facing Rocca himself on November 13, 1959.
852
853The promotion knew it had something big, as noted by a letter Willie Gilzenberg, who was part of the promotion, wrote to Pfefer after Zuma’s win over Von Hess, as reported in a story on Zuma in Slam Wrestling.
854
855“The only move to create Zuma as a top figure has been made. Now all we have to do is have patience and wait. We simply cannot move the clock hands.”
856
857This match was the biggest thing in Madison Square Garden wrestling in years, maybe ever up to that point in time, selling out two days in advance. Reports from the local press indicated that even though the promotion announced two days before the show that all tickets are gone and asked fans without tickets to please not come, that more than 10,000 fans were turned away at the door, something that never happened before or since.
858
859The show drew 21,890 fans paying $64,125, with Rocca winning via count out. It was the biggest gate for an MSG show since the Joe Stecher vs. Earl Caddock match in 1920, and second biggest of all-time up until that point in time a record that stood only until the rematch less than two months later.
860
861On December 7, 1959, he worked second from the top underneath Rocca & Bearcat Wright vs. Johnny Valentine & Dr. Jerry Graham. Zuma pinned Wildman Stevens (Don Kalt, best known as Don Fargo), on a show that drew 12,751.
862
863In fact, most impressive about the sellouts, overflows in the building and turning away the walk-up because it sold out in advance (much more impressive in those days when ticket buying was more a last minute impulse game) is that MSG was averaging less than 13,000 per month at the time, so it’s not like he came in and drew sellouts at a time when MSG was selling out anyway.
864
865This led to a second match with Rocca on January 2, 1960, which drew another turn away crowd of 21,950 fans and $64,680, also ending with Rocca winning via count out. The New York Times ran a short story, and claimed it as the largest crowd and gate in MSG history. Whatever is a legit number can be debated, but it was at the time the second largest announced crowd for pro wrestling in the building, trailing a January 26, 1931 match with Jim Londos vs. Jim McMillen, that drew an announced 22,200.
866
867It wasn’t until 1970, and the Bruno Sammartino vs. Crusher Verdu feud that established Lou Albano as a heel manager, that they were able to top that gate.
868
869A third meeting, on January 25, 1960, where Rocca again won via count out (who books the exact same finish for three straight main events?), drew 15,675 and $47,290.
870
871Zuma faded out pretty fast from there in the Northeast. He beat unknown Danny Ferrazo on February 22, 1960, before losing in just 5:25 to Sammartino on March 7, 1960, and he was gone from that point. It’s notable the next sellout wasn’t for more than a year after the second match with Rocca, until one of the most loaded shows in MSG history on February 27, 1961, which advertised six main events, with Rocca & Johnny Valentine vs. The Fabulous Kangaroo Men (Al Costello & Roy Heffernan, later shortened to the Fabulous Kangaroos), Primo Carnera vs. Buddy Rogers, Sammartino vs. Haystacks Calhoun, World champion Pat O’Connor vs. The Crusher (who no-showed and was replaced by Karl Von Hess), Mark Lewin & Don Curtis vs. Hans Schmidt & Eddie Graham and Sailor Art Thomas vs. Danny McShane (who also no-showed).
872
873He worked all over the country at least into the late 60s but never as anywhere near that level of stardom. His best run late in his career came in 1967 and 1968 in the Carolinas, where he mostly worked in the middle and semifinals, but did have a significant amount of main events in the major cities in tag teams and trios, usually with partners like Calhoun and Sailor Art Thomas (and sometimes with the Klondike Bill, Paul Jones or Les Thatcher), against the usual heel teams like Bronko Lubich & Aldo Bogni, The Infernos, Gene & Lars Anderson, Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson, The Infernos, The Red Demons and The Von Stroheims. He also was the partner in trios matches for the area’s top face teams like Johnny Weaver & George Becker, The Scott Brothers or Nelson Royal & Tex McKenzie when they would face one of the teams that had a manager, where the manager would wrestle opposite Zuma.
874
875He ended his career in 1975, wrestling for Leroy McGuirk in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. He retired at the age of 47, and moved back to Argentina running a number of different business included gravel mines and clothing stores.
876
877He returned to the U.S. with his family in 1984, settling in Southern California.
878
879
880No Raw number at press time as everything is still delayed on the ratings from people catching up after the holidays.
881
882Smackdown on Jan. 4 did 2.72 million viewers, up from recent weeks. The only competition was NBA on ESPN that did 1.83 million viewers. Smackdown was 9th on cable for the night.
883
884Impact on 1/3 did a 1.14 rating and 1.62 million viewers. The number was the best number since 8/23. The show did a 0.71 in Males 18-34 and 0.91 in Males 35-49. This was more impressive because August wasn’t against football. While Impact didn’t buck the NFL, it did go head-to-head with the Oregon vs. Kansas State Fiesta Bowl game that did 8.56 million viewers, and Males 35-49 are still down from pre-football levels. That’s more viewers than watched most of the NFL games on Thursday, so Impact moving from its usual 1.0 level was a success.
885
886The fans were there for the start as the Wrestler of the Year segment opened at 1.11. James Storm vs. Kazarian lost 85,000 viewers. The Doc interview which teased that Sting would come out, plus Christian York vs. Kid Kash, gained 43,000. Hernandez vs. Joey Ryan and the angle lost 128,000 viewers. The Hulk Hogan, Brooke Hogan and Bully Ray segment at 9 p.m., where they always have good growth, was a monster for TNA. They gained 455,000 viewers to a 1.31. I can’t remember the last time TNA had a segment that brought so many people in and it’s pretty clear that this, along with the Sting return, is why the rating was up. The strong women’s match with Gail Kim & Tara vs. Mickie James & Miss Tessmacher lost 114,000 viewers. Samoa Joe & Kurt Angle vs. Aces and 8s in a cage match with the Sting ending of the show run-in lost 27,000 viewers and finished at 1.21.
887
888Bellator on 1/3 ran two hours after Impact. The 10 p.m. show did 461,000 viewers focusing on Michael Chandler and the lightweights, and showing the Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez fight. The 11 p.m. show did 513,000 viewers focusing on middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko. What’s notable is the second hour in the later time slot beat the first hour, even though the first hour had the big fight of the year and came right after Impact. The fact they lost 71% of the Impact audience to me wasn’t good, but Bellator 360 isn’t going to do good ratings as MMA shows that aren’t fights never do that well. Really none of this matters until 1/17 because it’s a different game at that point.
889
890Main Event on Jan. 2, which was the show with Antonio Cesaro vs; Great Khali advertised as the main event, set a new record for the show with a 1.0 rating and 1.65 million viewers.
891
892Raw on New Year’s Eve did a 2.32 rating and 3.55 million viewers. For a comparison, on New Year’s Eve there were 60.41 million homes watching television between 8-11 p.m. On Christmas Eve that number was 53.79 million. So the audience in theory should have been up 12% from Christmas Eve. It was actually up 13%, so essentially it’s a wash. For 12/17, the last “regular” week, there were 74.12 million homes watching, but that’s also inflated by Monday Night Football. But for a comparison, this would be equivalent to a 2.84 rating on a normal week with no NFL. They did have Clemson vs. LSU in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl going head-to-head which did 8.56 million viewers.
893
894The show did a 1.9 in Males 18-49, up 19% from Christmas Eve, and Women did a 0.7, up 13%.
895
896The number of viewers per home was way up from usual, which makes sense as people congregate together more than usual on New Year’s Eve.
897
898In the segment-by-segment, and these are only estimates as we don’t have the exact numbers, John Cena & The Miz vs. Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow stayed even. Antonio Cesaro vs. Sgt. Slaughter lost about 155,000 viewers. Kane & Daniel Bryan vs. Heath Slater & Drew McIntyre stayed even. The segment with C.M. Punk, Paul Heyman, Dr. Decero and Vince McMahon gained about 465,000 viewers at 9 p.m. to a 2.5. Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler lost about 155,000 viewers. Eve Torres brawl with Kaitlyn and Alberto Del Rio backstage with Ricardo Rodriguez lost 300,000 viewers. Big Show vs. Ricardo Rodriguez stayed even at 10 p.m. at 2.2. Kofi Kingston vs. Wade Barrett also stayed even. The segment where The Shield brawled with Ryback & Sheamus & Randy Orton gained 160,000 viewers. The final segment with the New Year’s Eve toast with Dolph Ziggler, A.J. Lee and Cena gained about 800,000 viewers and was the high point of the show with a 2.6 final quarter and 2.9 overrun.
899
900The FX prelims for UFC 155 on 12/29 did a 1.1 rating and 1.4 million viewers. It would have been the fourth highest of the 14 prelim shows to date on the network. It was the highest rating for any MMA broadcast on FX since the prelims for UFC 148 (Sonnen vs. Silva show) on 7/7.
901
902The rating for Smackdown on 12/28 was a 1.86 rating and 2.66 million viewers.
903
904Impact on 12/27 did a 0.95 rating and 1.33 million viewers, doing a 0.70 in Males 18-34 and 0.90 in Males 35-49.
905
906In the segment-by-segment, Samoa Joe vs. Masked Mike Knox lost 14,000 viewers. The Bro-Off with Robbie E, Robbie T and Jessie Godderz gained 85,000 viewers. Rob Van Dam vs. Christian York and Joseph Park training lost 84,000 viewers. The Christopher Daniels & Kazarian interview at 9 p.m. (where they always grow) added 170,000 viewers and did a show high 1.01 rating. Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez vs. Daniels & Kazarian lost 112,000 viewers. Gail Kim vs. Miss Tessmacher gained 100,000 viewers while the Austin Aries vs. Bobby Roode main event stayed even in viewers, and finished at 1.00.
907
908
909This is the final issue of the current set, a double issue. If you’ve got a (1) on your address label, your subscription expires with this issue.
910
911Renewal rates for the printed Observer in the United States are $11 for four issues (which includes $4 for postage and handling), $20 for eight, $28 for 12, $36 for 16, $54 for 24, $72 for 32, $90 for 40, $117 for 52 up through $144 for 64 issues.
912
913For Canada and Mexico, the rates are $12.50 for four issues (which includes $6 for postage and handling), $22 for eight, $32 for 12, $40 for 16, $60 or 24, $80 for 32, $100 for 40 issues, $130 for 52 and $160 for 64.
914
915For Europe, you can get the fastest delivery and best rates by sending to Moonsault, P.O. Box 3075, Barnet, Herts EN4 9YR, England, or by sending e-mail orders to moonsault@mediaplusint.com. Rates are £9 per set of four issues. U.K. readers ordering at least six sets can get them for £8.50 per set.
916
917For the rest of the world, the rates are $14.50 for four issues (which includes $9 for postage and handling), $28 for eight, $40 for 12, $50 for 16, $63 for 20, $76 for 24, $87.50 for 28, $125 for 40 issues and $162 for 52 issues.
918
919You can also get the Observer on the web at www.wrestlingobserver.com for $10.99 per month for a premium membership that includes daily audio updates, Figure Four Weekly, special articles and a message board. If you are a premium member and still want hard copies of the Observer, you can get them for $7 per set in the U.S., $8 per set in Canada and $10.50 per set for the rest of the world.
920
921All subscription renewals should be sent to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, P.O. Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228. You can also renew via Visa or MasterCard by sending your name, address, phone number, Visa or MasterCard number (and include the three or four digit security code on the card) and expiration date to Dave@wrestlingobserver.com or by fax to (408)244-3402. You can also renew at www.paypal.com using Dave@wrestlingobserver.com as the pay to address. For all credit card or paypal orders, please add a $1 processing fee.
922
923All letters to the editor, reports from live shows and any other correspondence pertaining to this publication should also be sent to the above address.
924
925We also have copies of our latest book, "Tributes II," a 293-page hardcover full color book which features biographies right out of the pages of the Observer. Those featured are Wahoo McDaniel, Lou Thesz, Miss Elizabeth, Freddie Blassie, Road Warrior Hawk, Andre the Giant, Curt Hennig, Johnny Valentine, Davey Boy Smith, Terry Gordy, Owen Hart, Stu Hart, Gorilla Monsoon, The Sheik and Tim Woods. The book is available for $12.95 plus $3.50 for postage and handling in the U.S., $10 for postage and handling in Canada and $12 for postage and handling for the rest of the world.
926
927This publication is copyright material and no portion of the Observer may be reprinted without the expressed consent of publisher/writer Dave Meltzer or Chief legal counsel and deputy managing editor Scott Williams. The Observer is also produced by John F. Raad.
928
929Fax messages can be sent to the Observer 24 hours a day at (408) 244-3402. Phone messages can be left 24 hours a day at (408) 244-2455. E-mails can be sent to Dave@wrestlingobserver.com
930
931
932For back issues of the Observer, the "Wrestling Observer Index" lists almost every issue in our history going back to 1983 with the major headlines by the week. Besides as a guide for ordering back issues, the 170-page Index is also a great way to keep a catalog of past issues and use for historical purposes. It is available for $20 ($21 via paypal) from Grant Zwarych, 151 Hart Ave., Peterborough, ON K9J 5C5 Canada. Virtually every back issue from 1982-91 is available from him at prices listed, plus $5 for postage for overseas orders. Issues from 1991 to present are available from us at $4 per issue. If you are ordering back issues from us, please denote back issues on the envelope to insure the quickest response. All payments to Grant or to us must be made in U.S. funds.
933
934If you have the original index but want the 2011 update, it is for $5, or you can get it free with a $30 back issue order to Zwarych.
935
936He also has Observer Hall of Fame, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam history packages, covering the issues covering those events. You can e-mail him for details on the specials. There is a SummerSlam special covering the 1988-2002 shows, for $75 in the U.S. and Canada or $120 overseas.
937
938There is also a Hall of Fame special where you can get the first ten Hall of Fame issues for $44.95 in the U.S. and Canada and $69.95 overseas. In addition, he has copies of my newsletters dating back to 1971.
939
940He also has re-issues of some of the most popular Wrestling Observer publications of the past. He has the 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 Observer yearbooks and the 1986 Wrestling Observer's Who's Who in Wrestling book. For more info you can e-mail grantsindex@nexicom.net
941
942
943RESULTS
944
9451/02 Tokyo (New Japan): Sho Tanaka d Yohei Komatsu, Gedo & Jado b Taka Michinoku & Taichi, Kushida & Bushi b Hiromu Takahashi & Takaaki Watanabe, Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Captain New Japan b Taishi Takizawa & Shiori Asahi & Ryuichi Sekine
946
9471/3 Orlando (TNA Impact TV tapings): James Storm b Kazarian, Christian York b Kid Kash, Hernandez b Joey Ryan-DQ, Mickie James & Miss Tessmacher b Gail Kim & Tara, Cage match: Kurt Angle & Samoa Joe b Prodigy (Mike Knox) & Devon
948
9491/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan): Osamu Nishimura b Yasufumi Nakanoe, Kenso & Mazada b Sushi & Andy Woo, Masayuki Kono b Kazushi Miyamoto, Taiyo Kea & Keiji Muto & Masakatsu Funaki & Masa Fuchi & Taka Michinoku b Suwama & Takao Omori & Manabu Soya & Ryota Hama & Hiroshi Yamato, Akebono b Joe Doering, All-Asia tag titles: Minoru Tanaka & Koji Kanemoto b Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo, TV title: Seiya Sanada b Tomoaki Honma, Hiroshi Yamato won Junior heavyweight Battle Royal
950
9511/3 Tokyo (New Japan): Takaaki Watanabe b Yohei Komatsu, Ryusuke Taguchi & Kushida & Bushi b Taishi Takizawa & Shiori Asahi & Ryuichi Sekine, Hiromu Takahashi b Sho Tanaka, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Jado b Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Captain New Japan
952
9531/4 Pensacola (WWE Raw - 5,000): Brodus Clay & Zack Ryder b Jack Swagger & Leo Kruger, Alex Riley b JTG, Divas title: Eve Torres b Kaitlyn, Ryback & Daniel Bryan & Kane b Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose-DQ, Santino Marella b Tensai, U.S. title: Antonio Cesaro b The Miz, Street fight: John Cena b Dolph Ziggler
954
9551/4 Mayaguez, PR (WWE Smackdown - 4,000): Usos b Titus O’Neil & Darren Young, Yoshi Tatsu b Heath Slater, Layla b Aksana, IC title: Wade Barrett b Kofi Kingston, Great Khali b David Otunga, Primo & Epico b Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow, Three-way for World title: Big Show won over Sheamus and Randy Orton
956
9571/4 Salisbury, MD (TNA): Tag titles: Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez b Robbie E & Robbie T, Knockouts title: Tara b Mickie James, TV title: Rob Van Dam b Kazarian, Bully Ray b Jessie Godderz, Devon & Doc b Samoa Joe & Kurt Angle, Three-way cage match for TNA title/James Storm ref: Jeff Hardy won over Austin Aries and Bobby Roode
958
9591/4 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL TV tapings): Herodes Jr. & Inquisidor b Camaleon & Oro Jr., Dalis la Caribena & Estrellita & Goya Kong b Amapola & Comandante & Seductora-DQ, Angel de Oro & Diamante & Stuka Jr. b Okumura & Vangelis & Virus, Rey Cometa b Namajague-DQ, Diamante Azul & La Sombra & Titan b Euforia & Niebla Roja & Ultimo Guerrero, Psicosis & Mr. Aguila & Volador Jr. b Marco Corleone & Rush & Maximo
960
9611/5 Columbus, GA (WWE Raw - 6,500): Brodus Clay & Zack Ryder b Leo Kruger & Jack Swagger, Alex Riley b JTG, Divas title: Eve Torres b Kaitlyn, Daniel Bryan & Kane & Ryback b Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns-DQ, Santino Marella b Tensai, U.S. title no DQ match: Antonio Cesar b The Miz, John Cena b Dolph Ziggler
962
9631/5 San Juan, PR (WWE Smackdown - 7,000): Usos b Darren Young & Titus O’Neil, Yoshi Tatsu b Heath Slater, Layla b Aksana, Yoshi Tatsu b Heath Slater, Primo & Epico b Damien Sandow & Cody Rhodes, Great Khali b David Otunga, IC title no DQ: Wade Barrett b Kofi Kingston, Three-way for world title: Big Show won over Sheamus and Randy Orton
964
9651/5 Upper Darby, PA (TNA - 600): Tag titles: Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez b Robbie E & Robbie T, Knockouts title: Tara b Mickie James, Bully Ray b Jessie Godderz-DQ, Rob Van Dam b Kazarian, Devon & Doc b Samoa Joe & Kurt Angle, Three-way cage match for TNA title/James Storm ref: Jeff Hardy won over Austin Aires and Bobby Roode
966
9671/5 Baltimore (ROH TV tapings - 675): Papadon b Ashley Sixx, Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish b Corey Hollis & Mike Posey, QT Marshall b Mike Sydal, Tag titles: Mark & Jay Briscoe b Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander, Silas Young b Adam Page, Matt Hardy b Rhett Titus, TV title: Adam Cole b B.J. Whitmer, Tadarius Thomas b Antonio Thomas, Roderick Strong b Grizzly Redwood, Michael Elgin b Mike Bennett, Gauntlet: Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards b Harlem & Lance Bravado, Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards b Jimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino, Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish b Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards, Matt Taven b ACH, MsChif b Athena, Kevin Steen & Jimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino & Rhino b Mark & Jay Briscoe & Cedric Alexander & Caprice Coleman
968
9691/5 Nashville (Crossfire Wrestling TV tapings - 1,000): Nick Iggy b Seven, Samuray del Sol b Matt Cross, Jillian Hall NC Cheerleader Melissa, Shane Helms b Patrick Bentley, Caleb Konley b Johnny Moore, David Young & Paul Burchill b Blink 2-4-7, Hammerjack NC Kevin Sullivan, Chris Adonis (Chris Masters) DCOR Jimmy Vegas, Chase Stevens & Cassidy Riley b David Young & Paul Burchill, Crossfire title: Shane Williams b Carlito Colon-DQ, Jessica Havok b Angel Dust, Colt Cabana b Sami Callihan, Jerry Lynn & Ricky Morton b Kid Kash & Josh Shockman
970
9711/6 Tallahassee (WWE Raw - 3,500): Zack Ryder & Brodus Clay b Leo Kruger & Jack Swagger, Alex Riley b JTG, Divas title: Eve Torres b Kaitlyn, Kane & Daniel Bryan & Ryback b Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose-DQ, Santino Marella b Tensai, U.S. title no DQ: Antonio Cesaro b The Miz, John Cena b Dolph Ziggler
972
9731/6 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pro Wrestling NOAH): Kento Miyahara b Masao Inoue, Ricky Marvin & Yoshinari Ogawa b Katsuhiko Nakajima & Mitsuhiro Kitamiya, Taiji Ishimori & Atsushi Kotoge b Shuji Kondo & Hiroshi Yamato, Masao Inoue won Battle Royal, Mohammed Yone b Genba Hirayanagi-DQ, Yoshihiro Takayama b Naomichi Marufuji, Maybach Taniguchi b Takashi Sugiura, KENTA b Takeshi Morishima
974
9751/6 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Molotov & Sensei b Camorra & Zayco, Princesa Blanca & Princesa Sugei & Tiffany b Luna Magica & Marcela & Silueta, Aereo won minis Cibernetico over Pequeno Olimpico, Pequeno Halcon, Universito 2000, Acero, Shockercito, Nitrito, Pequeno Warrior, Mini Fantasy, Mercurio, Pequeno Violencia and Bam Bam, El Terrible & Tiger & Ultimo Guerrero b Blue Panther & La Mascara & Valiente, Brazo de Plata & Marco Corleone & Maximo b Felino & Negro Casas & Mr. Niebla
976
9771/6 Bayamon, PR (WWC Three Kings Day show): Huracan Castillo Jr. b Barrabas Jr., Sebastian Guerra b Diabolico, A.J. Castillo & Xix Xavant b Comandante & Mr. X, Chris Angel b Samson Walker, Puerto Rican title: Gilbert b Andy Leavine, Thunder & Lightning b Sons of Samoa, Invader I b Carlito-DQ, Rey Fenix b Savio Vega, Ricky Banderas b Apolo-DQ
978
9791/7 Tampa (WWE Raw/Superstars TV tapings - 13,000 sellout): The Miz b Tensai, Brodus Clay & Zack Ryder b Titus O’Neil & Darren Young, John Cena b Dolph Ziggler, Divas title: Kaitlyn b Eve Torres-COR, Non-title: Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow b Kane & Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton b Heath Slater, Non-title: Wade Barrett b Santino Marella, Non-title: Antonio Cesaro b Great Khali, Sheamus b Jinder Mahal, TLC match for WWE title: C.M. Punk b Ryback, Non-title: Big Show b Kofi Kingston
980
9811/8 Miami (WWE Smackdown/Main Event/Saturday Morning Slam TV tapings): Sheamus b Dolph Ziggler-COR, Wade Barrett b Zack Ryder, Kofi Kingston b Epico, The Miz b Darren Young, Non-title: Randy Orton b Antonio Cesaro-DQ, Dolph Ziggler & A.J. Lee b Great Khali & Natalya, Handicap match: Sheamus b Heath Slater & Drew McIntyre & Jinder Mahal, Non-title: Kane & Daniel Bryan b Titus O’Neill & Darren Young, Last man standing for World title: Alberto Del Rio b Big Show to win title
982
9831/8 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Ramstein & Apocalipsis b Oro Jr. & Fresbee, Nino de Acero & Astral & Ultimo Dragoncito b Demus 3:16 & Mercurio & Pequeno Olimpico-DQ, Fuego & Diamante & Sagrado b Escandalo & Arakangel de la Muerte & Hooligan, Olimpico b Rey Cometa, La Mascara & Angel de Oro & Blue Panther b Vangelis & Okumura & Namajague, La Mascara & Titan & Mascara Dorada b Averno & Mephisto & Ephesto
984
985Special thanks to: Dusty Adams, Bryan Alvarez, Steven Ashe, CS Beattie, Jeff Beecher, Ray Begley, Greg Beitel, Michael Bernstein, Chris Charboneau, Andy Clark, Rob Centonzo, Jimmie Daniel, Jeremy Diemer, Dan Farren, Aaron Ferrante, Evan Ginzberg, Jose Gonzalez, Chris GST, Brian Hoops, Mike Kuzmuk, Pat Laprade, John LaRocca, Adam Lebow, Stephen Lyon, Alex Marvez, Andy McConney, Leonardo Mendez, Rob Moore, Frank Mott, Irv Muchnick, Dave Musgrave, Michael O’Brien, Charles Parker, Sam Parker, John Patton, Leon Peters, Victor Reveles, Steve “Dr. Lucha” Sims, Jon Southerland, David Spalding, James Stanios, Scott Walton, Charles Warburton, Sean Ward, Jerry Wilson, Donald Wood Jr., Kris Zellner
986
987CMLL
988
989The 1/4 show at Arena Mexico was headlined by Psicosis & Mr. Aguila & Volador Jr. beating CMLL trios champs Marco Corleone & Rush & Maximo in a non-title match when Maximo kissed heel ref Tirantes, who was disgusted and turned his back, missing Volador Jr. doing a low blow on Corleone but turned around for the pin. This led to challenges for a title match on the 1/11 show. The semi saw La Sombra & Diamante Azul & Titan over Ultimo Guerrero & Euforia & Niebla Roja when Azul pinned Euforia with a German suplex.
990
991The 1/6 show featured a Torneo Cibernetico (elimination match) with high flying Minis for the Flyers King, with Aereo making Pequeno Olimpico submit to win it.
992
993El Terrible retained the CMLL heavyweight title beating Diamante Azul in 2/3 falls after blocking a German suplex and using an inside cradle.
994
995ALL JAPAN
996
997Ric Flair’s match on 1/26 in Tokyo at the Ota Ward Gym (3,800 seats) will be Flair & Keiji Muto vs. Seiya Sanada & Tatsumi Fujinami. I guess Sanada’s role is to get the rub from being in with three legends and probably do the job. There is a back story here as in 1991, Flair and Fujinami had a program over the NWA world title. At the Tokyo Dome, before a virtually sold out crowd (I was there, about 100 empty seats and probably 54,500 or so in the building, at the time it was one of the all-time largest pro wrestling gates) Fujinami pinned Flair but there was a Dusty finish and it was reversed. The ruling, as if this makes sense, was that Fujinami won the NWA title but Flair retained the WCW title. Fujinami ended up coming to St. Petersburg, FL, for a PPV headliner rematch where Flair regained the NWA title. It’s funny as in the poster for the match, they have up-to-date photos of Muto, Fujinami and Sanada, while the photo of Flair looks to be about 25 years old, maybe taken the last time he worked All Japan in 1987.
998
999Manabu Soya worked the Jan. 2 Big Japan show at Korakuen Hall and captured the Big Japan Strong heavyweight championship from Yoshito Sasaki. This leads to the 1/26 show where Sasaki comes here to try and get the company’s belt back. Other matches on the show besides the Flair match, have Masakatsu Funaki vs. Akebono for the Triple Crown, Masahiro Chono (who is now with the promotion working big shows and working behind the scenes) & Suwama & Joe Doering vs. Takao Omori & Ryota Hama & Yasufumi Nakanoe and Minoru Tanaka & Koji Kanemoto defending the All-Asia tag titles against Hiroshi Yamato & Hikaru Sato from Pancrase. Yamato & Sato were former rivals who came out to challenge the champs on 1/3.
1000
1001Jimmy Yang returns on this tour. Yang was the conduit for the promotion in getting Flair.
1002
1003Lots of stuff happened at the 1/3 show at Korakuen Hall. First, they had Taiyo Kea’s last match with the promotion. It’s really something the respect they have for him, because in his last two nights, he won their annual heavyweight Battle Royal, and then scored the winning pin in a match with most of their big names. Kea & Muto & Funaki & Masa Fuchi & Taka Michinoku beat Suwama & Takao Omori & Soya & Ryota Hama & Yamato when Kea pinned Yamato with the TKO in 17:19. Kea then did an interview, talking about going to Hawaii to finish college, and said he would return at some point. During the show, Masayuki Uchida, who is the President of All Japan, came out holding both the GHC jr. title from NOAH and the Big Japan belt that the company has taken. He also announced that Masahiro Chono would be starting in a few weeks in a promotional role. Akebono then squashed Joe Doering in 5:02 with a splash in a match to determine who gets a Triple Crown shot at Funaki on 1/26. Kanemoto & Tanaka retained the All-Asia tag titles beating Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo in 19:30 when Tanaka made Hayashi submit to the Minoru special. The All-Asia belts, the oldest titles in Japanese pro wrestling (dating back to 1955), have now become almost a workrate title belt where you have guys who can go try and steal the show with them, which stems from Soya & Sanada’s feuding with Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi over the titles the last two years. Sanada retained the TV title pinning Tomoaki Honma and Yamato then won the annual Junior Heavyweight Battle Royal.
1004
1005PRO WRESTLING NOAH
1006
1007The first big show of the year will be 1/27 in Osaka with Takeshi Morishima vs. KENTA for the GHC heavyweight title, Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Maybach Taniguchi for the GHC tag titles, Shuji Kondo vs. Taiji Ishimori for the GHC jr. title and a New Japan vs. NOAH match with Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask vs. Yoshinari Ogawa & Atsushi Kotoge.
1008
1009KENTA pinned Morishima in a non-title singles match to headline the promotion’s first show of the year on 1/6, winning in 11:18 with the GTS to set up the title match. This was the first show since Jun Akiyama, Go Shiozaki and others left the promotion. This sets up a title match on 1/27 in Osaka. The show was built around Brave vs. No Mercy singles matches. The first was Mohammed Yone over Genba Hirayanagi via DQ in 8:42 when Maybach Taniguchi interfered and attacked Yone. Then Yoshihiro Takayama pinned Naomichi Marufuji in 11:56 with a knee. Taniguchi pinned Takashi Sugiura in 13:18 with a power bomb and finally KENTA pinned Morishima. That meant No Mercy, the heel group, won three matches and Brave only won once, and that was via DQ. The other big match was a jr. match with NOAH vs. All Japan, with NOAH’s team of Taiji Ishimori & Atsushi Kotoge beating All Japan’s Shuji Kondo & Hiroshi Yamato when Ishimori pinned Kondo (who holds both the NOAH and All Japan jr. titles) with a backslide, building Kondo vs. Ishimori for the title.
1010
1011NEW JAPAN
1012
1013The annual Fantasticmania combined shows with CMLL are 1/18 to 1/20 at Korakuen Hall. The first night is headlined by Tanahashi & La Sombra vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Misterioso Jr., Prince Devitt vs. Dragon Rojo Jr., Tiger Mask & Jushin Liger & the new Mistico vs. Gedo & Jado & Mephisto, Maximo & Mascara Dorada & La Mascara vs. Taichi & Taka Michinoku & Volador Jr., Rush vs. Yoshi-Hashi, Diamante & Bushi & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Rey Escorpion & Tomohiro Ishii & Yujiro Takahashi and opening with Titan & Tama Tonga vs. Okumura & Euforia.
1014
10151/19 has Nakamura vs. Sombra for the IC title, Rush & La Mascara & Tanahashi vs. Escorpion & Volador Jr. & Kazuchika Okada, Mistico vs. Euforia, Bushi & Taguchi & Devitt vs. Yoshi-Hashi & Ishii & Dragon Rojo Jr., Diamante & Mascara Dorada vs. Okumura & Mephisto, Titan & Tiger Mask & Liger vs. Misterioso Jr. & Gedo & Jado and Maximo & Tonga vs. Taichi & Michinoku. The final night has Mistico & Devitt & Tanahashi vs. Euforia & Mephisto & Okada, La Mascara vs. Volador Jr. for the Mexican national light heavyweight title, Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. La Sombra for the NWA Historic light heavyweight title, Rush vs. Rey Escorpion, Diamante & Titan & Mascara Dorada & Bushi & Tiger Mask & Liger vs. Misterioso Jr. & Okumura & Gedo & Jado & Yoshi-Hashi & Ishii, and opening with Maximo vs. Taichi.
1016
1017OTHER JAPAN NOTES
1018
1019Even though this is really an MMA show, Hiromitsu Kanehara, who wrestled for UWFI and RINGS in the 90s before having a long career in MMA, is promoting a retirement show using several pro wrestlers from his 90s era that ended up in MMA. The show will be 3/9 at Korakuen Hall with Kanehara vs. Yuki Kondo, Yoshiki Takahashi vs. Kenichi Yamamoto and Kei Yamamiya vs. Daijiro Matsui. Kanehara, who is 42, is 19-25-1 in MMA but he only won four of his 25 fights over the past ten years, but kept getting work because he was a throwback to a big period in pro wrestling.
1020
1021HERE AND THERE
1022
1023Superstar Billy Graham, 69, had yet another health scare on Jan. 2 at 3 a.m. when he drove himself to the Mayo Clinic after being concerned about his heart, as he could feel his heart rate speed up and was short of breath. He underwent three days of heart, lung and liver testing before being released. What he found out is that his donor liver is doing fine, which is very lucky, since he’s been concerned about that for years. Generally speaking, a donor liver has a shelf life, which often is less than the ten years he’s had it, and it’s rare you get a second one unless you have the kind of money Larry Hagman has. The doctors diagnosed him with arterial fibrillation, but also found a nodule on his lung. The heartbeat problem in most people could have been easily treated, but the medications he would need wouldn’t be healthy for someone with a donated liver so he’s going to be seeing a specialist this week. Graham was and is still planning on attending WrestleMania week for the convention and a date with Pro Wrestling Syndicate. Graham was furious about the Punk interview on Raw because of the line about how Bruno Sammartino only defended the title once a month in Madison Square Garden. Punk was just a heel trying to get heat. There are things that may be going over the line, but that wasn’t one of them.
1024
1025Tammy Sytch returned from rehab and claimed on her Facebook page that she got engaged. There are reports that Damian Darling, the wrestler who took out the protection order against her which led to almost daily arrests, made up with her. She’s also claiming she was going to have a Farewell indie tour before going to Chiropractic College in the fall. She also talked about selling her WWE Hall of Fame ring. Whatever happens, I hope things work out for her. But it’s almost exactly one year ago, Jan. 5 of last year, when she wrote on Twitter how she was engaged to a hot 26 year old and was moving to Indiana to get away from pro wrestling and start a family. Darling put on his facebook page that they were engaged.
1026
1027The WWC’s Euphoria show on Three Kings Day in Bayamon, PR drew a big crowd, although we didn’t get the number, and kids were free. Carlito came out and said that he was going to destroy all the old guys, to build up his match with Invader #1, who is still wrestling at 66 after numerous retirements. Apparently Invader did a phenomenal interview putting over that once he hits the heart punch, no matter how old he is, the opponent isn’t going to get up. He was wearing his Invader mask even though everyone knows who he is, had his hand wrapped up and said the punch would end Carlito’s career. Savio Vega attacked Invader for the DQ and Carlito and Vega announced they were joining up as heels to destroy WWC. Rey Fenix (Ray Gonzalez) under a mask after losing a hair match to Carlito due to being screwed by Vega, then beat Vega with Victor Jovica as special referee. Jovica was bumped but Fenix laid out Vega and Invader made the three count. Fenix then took off his mask and said Rey Fenix was from the past. Final bout saw Ricky Banderas (Mesias in AAA) return for one show to beat Apolo via DQ when Apolo destroyed him with chair shots to end the show. Former Tough Enough winner Andy Leavine lost when challenging Gilbert for his Puerto Rican heavyweight title.
1028
1029Luigi Macera, a Montreal based wrestler who worked all over the world from 1948 to 1978, passed away in his sleep in Bradenton, FL, on 12/29. He was 88. Born November 11, 1924, in Montreal, Macera wrestled as Marshall Lewis in Montreal in the late 40s, after his two childhood wrestling heroes, Everette Marshall and Ed “Strangler” Lewis. By the early 50s, he was Canadian light heavyweight champion. He was best known wrestling for Don Owen in the Pacific Northwest. Among his career highlights were runs as Pacific Northwest junior heavyweight champion (when it was a jr. heavyweight territory), in 1954 and 1957, feuding with area legend Kurt Von Poppenheim. Macera in his prime was only 190 pounds. He also held the Pacific Northwest tag team titles with partners Gori Guerrero, Dick Trio, Herb Freeman and Stu Hart. He held the Texas tag team title with Pepper Gomez in 1956, feuding with Duke Keomuka & Kinji Shibuya. He also had multiple runs as Texas junior heavyweight champion. He worked a lot with Ed Francis in Quebec, and Francis brought him to Hawaii when he opened 50th State Big Time Wrestling, and Macera was one of the early stars of the promotion. Macera beat Sammy Steamboat to win the Hawaiian heavyweight title on April 15, 1961, at the Honolulu Civic Auditorium, before dropping it to Neff Maiava on June 14, 1961, in the same building. He returned to Montreal in the 70s, and was a television announcer for Grand Prix Wrestling, and trained a number of wrestlers including Sailor Ed White, Richard Charland, Serge Demont, Joe Ventura and Bob “UFO” Dellasserra.
1030
1031Chris Jericho will be in Toronto starting on 1/20 to film a web comedy series that he created and co-wrote called “But I’m Chris Jericho,” that will be produced by Insight, a major Canadian production company, and air on their You Tube Channel. He’s also working with Justin Lim (“Fast and Furious”) on a web comedy show called “John Davis Gets a Sex Robot,” that will air on Lim’s personal You Tube Channel. In February, Jericho and Fozzy tour Australia on a series of shows headlined by Metallica. He will also be doing press this week to promote the February debut of Robot Combat League, the TV show he hosts that debuts on 2/26 at 10 p.m. every Tuesday on Syfy.
1032
1033OMEGA, the promotion where the Hardys, Shane Helms, Shannon Moore and others started in the 90s, has a show scheduled as a benefit for one of its former regulars, Chuck Coates. Coates is battling Hodgkin’s Disease. The show is called “Chinlock for Chuck,” and takes place on 1/15 in Durham at the North Durham High School with the Hardys back together on the show.
1034
1035Crossfire Wrestling ran a TV taping for a station that has still yet to be revealed on 1/5 in Nashville before 1,000 fans. The main attraction on the show was Roddy Piper, since Matt Hardy and Maria Kanellis, both regulars, missed the show due to working ROH tapings the same night. Jon Morton, the son of Ricky Morton who is an area County-Western singer, sang the national anthem. His voice was good but he botched the lyrics. How do you botch the lyrics of the national anthem? They announced at the show that the TV would debut in the spring, but again didn’t say where it would air. Among those working were Samuray del Sol, Matt Cross, Jillian Hall, Cheerleader Melissa, Shane Helms, Paul Burchill, David Young, Reby Sky, Chris Adonis (Masters), Chase Stevens, Cassidy Riley and Kevin Sullivan. Hall manages Young & Burchill who are called Rough Cut, likely to feud with Stevens & Riley. Their champion, Shane Williams, beat Carlito Colon via DQ in a title match with a Dusty finish. One ref was knocked down. Colon hit Williams with a belt shot and covered him for the pin and a second ref counted to three. The first ref (former TNA official Rudy Charles) said he saw the belt shot and reversed the decision. They are putting together a muscle man threesome with Chris Adonis, Jimmy Vegas and The Warlord (who didn’t wrestle but was there). Piper did a Piper’s Pit with Helms building up a Matt Hardy vs. Helms program. With Hardy not being there, he sent in a tape where he said there had been an altercation between he and Helms and that Helms went to the police and got a restraining order against him, which is why he couldn’t be at the show. Apparently the restraining order expires before the next show. It was Helms running down Hardy and Piper sticking up for Hardy. Colt Cabana came out and Helms attacking Cabana. Piper then put Helms out in the sleeper. Cabana pinned Sami Callihan in what was reported as the best match of the taping. The final match was Ricky Morton & Jerry Lynn over Kid Kash & War Hammer (Josh Schockman, who is a Nashville based MMA fighter just starting out, who fought once in UFC many years ago). Morton looked like he’s really aged in the last few months but still moved well in the ring. Lynn still had a black eye from his match with Homicide at Extreme Rising a week earlier. War Hammer was green and Kash carried the match. After the match, all the wrestlers on the show came to ringside while Lynn did his last match in Nashville speech. Kash hugged Lynn to end the show. They announced a March taping with DDP, Jake Roberts, Cliff Compton, Matt Hardy (probably working with Helms) and Kevin Sullivan (with a cage match with local wrestler Hammerjack). , , The web site Highspots.com that has been putting together a documentary on the life of Dynamite Kid, and flew to England to interview him, has scheduled a premiere on 2/24 in Manchester, England at the Hilton Manchester Deansgate. There is talk that this will be the last public appearance of Dynamite Kid.
1036
1037Dave Bautista is up for the role of Drax The Destroyer in the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy,” based on the Marvel Comic, which is coming out next summer.
1038
1039The 2013 NCAA wrestling tournament, which will be held in Des Moines (3/21 to 3/23), is sold out for all six sessions which would be about 16,500 tickets each session. The demand for tickets was higher than last year in St. Louis. Colleges get first dibs on purchasing tickets, and there were orders for 15,000 per session, although the total allotment to colleges was only 9,000, essentially meaning 6,000 orders were turned away. The rest of the orders, on sale to the public, sold out in minutes. The lowest ticket price was $210 (that is for six sessions). There are only 99 tickets available on the secondary market, which is ridiculous, so they range from $533 (although you’d need $645 if you wanted four seats together) to $1,539. For WrestleMania, there were 5,695 tickets available on the secondary market starting at $53 but ranging up to $29,000 for front row seats.
1040
1041Terry Funk, 68, talked retirement this past week, saying, “I had a match against Tommy Dreamer for a company just over a year ago, and that truly and honestly is my last match. That said, there’s no point in being an idiot. If somebody approached me offering an extreme amount of money to wrestle, I’d be a fool not to. Take into consideration, too, that the quicker I’d lose, the more money I’d walk away with. Think about that. I am retired, but if some idiot wants to go ahead and give me much more than I’m worth, well then, I’d take it from them. What I’ve often thought about is having one more show, where I’d sell the tickets for $1 million apiece. If I sell one ticket, then I go ahead and I wrestle. If I don’t sell any, I don’t wrestle. But seriously, I am retired for good, but that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.”
1042
1043Funk will be working shows for Pro Wrestling Syndicate over Mania weekend on 4/4 and 4/5 in Metuchen, NJ, doing a commissioner gimmick.
1044
1045Following in the footsteps of Jake Roberts, Scott Hall is looking to go to DDP to get cleaned up as likely part of a documentary or reality show. The one difference between the two is Roberts has gone back-and-forth for more than 15 years. I think he’s often wanted to be clean and really tried, but just falls off the wagon. My impression is Hall really doesn’t want it. Hall would be drinking on his way to rehab and joking about how, maybe if I don’t win, I can win most improved.
1046
1047Extreme Rising is doing a gimmick for its 4/5 show in Staten Island, NY at the 250-seat Warriors of Wrestling Warehouse. All fans over the age of 21 can get free beer from 7-9 p.m. They are also going to have all fans who purchase tickets in advance get a ballot where they can put together the card from the booked wrestlers, as well as choose match stipulations (world title, cage match, TLC match, weapons match, street fight, 2/3 falls, submission rules, falls count anywhere, tag team, three-way dance, no DQ and Singapore cane match). They tally the votes and apparently whatever gets the most votes will end up being the card.
1048
1049The NWA is looking at producing a television show. It may be distributed on the Internet instead of TV.
1050
1051Dick Amnotte, who wrestled from 1960 to 1975 in prelims in Texas and the Southeast, mostly in Florida, where he lived, passed away on 12/24 at the age of 74.
1052
1053David Hastings, an Ohio based indie wrestler passed away on 12/22 at the age of 50.
1054
1055Charles Kidd, who wrestled as Country Cuz on independents in Georgia and Alabama, passed away on 12/31 at the age of 53.
1056
1057Paul Dimech, who wrestled as Chef Hollywood, passed away a few weeks ago in Sydney, Australia at the age of 42.
1058
1059ROH
1060
1061Final Battle numbers on iPPV, while I don’t have a number, it was in the 2,000 range since it was the first show where they were back to the number before all the misfires so whatever damage was done, not saying it’s gone now because perhaps had those issues not happened they would be considerably higher now, but the slate is clean and they are in a position where they can build if the product is there.
1062
1063The upcoming schedule has shows 1/18 in Dearborn, MI (Kevin Steen makes an unlikely title defense against Tadarius Thomas on that show), 1/19 in Milwaukee, 2/16 in Cincinnati, 3/2 in Chicago Ridge which is the next iPPV, the 11th anniversary show, and 3/3 for a TV taping in Chicago Ridge with all G.A. seats $10 if ordered by the end of January.
1064
1065The idea is to do more iPPVs on Saturday nights that would follow with a TV taping the next day in the same building, since it saves transportation and the idea is if your hardcore fans travel, so they are more likely to make the trip knowing they don’t just get the PPV but the tapings showing the next direction. Obviously, this won’t always be possible.
1066
1067The 1/6 tapings in Baltimore drew a healthy crowd estimated at 675, up from recent shows. Perhaps Matt Hardy has a mainstream name meant something. In New York, the audience was mostly guys who booed him out of the building and he didn’t seem to make much difference. This show it was harder to tell, but he was not booed much, even when playing a heel. He is also booked at the next tapings, which are 2/2 in the same building. Mike Quackenbush is doing a National Pro Wrestling Day show in Philadelphia the same day featuring wrestlers from independent companies from around the country with free admission (and most of the guys working for free for promise of exposure on an iPPV and probably a DVD). The Briscoes vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino was being sent by ROH, although if it’s an iPPV, they probably wouldn’t be allowed to be broadcast. They will work in the afternoon in Philadelphia and then come to Baltimore for the tapings.
1068
1069. There wasn’t a lot of major news coming out of the tapings. The difference between Hunter Johnston booking and Jim Cornette is less outside interference, more wrestling time per hour and less promos, but it was described to me as uneventful overall. They set up the Kevin Steen vs. Jay Lethal match that they’ve been building for months. On the second hour of TV, Steen agreed to the match. They didn’t announce a date. One would think it’ll be on the 3/1 iPPV, which is the anniversary show, but that wasn’t made clear. Adam Cole vs. Hardy seemed like the TV title program and the Briscoes vs. Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish seemed like the tag title direction since O’Reilly & Fish won a gauntlet match to determine contenders. Show No. 1 saw Fish & O’Reilly beat Alabama Attitude, which is Corey Hollis & Mike Posey. Lethal wanted a title match and Nigel McGuinness told him the only way he could get one is if he can get Steen to change his mind since ROH had a deal with Steen that Lethal couldn’t get a shot. They did the Top Prospect tournament, although nobody was said to have stood out. QT Marshall, managed by R.D. Evans, pinned Mike Sydal, who is the younger brother of Evan Bourne. In a tag title match, Mark & Jay Briscoe beat Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander. The second hour featured Lethal and Steen. Not sure the exact verbiage that caused Lethal to convince Steen to change his mind and give him the title shot, but was told it wasn’t that convincing. That’s the problem with doing those stips where the guy has to change his mind is that usually, especially when it’s a heel, unless you humiliate him where he now wants revenge, it comes off weak which it did here. In the Top Prospect tournament, Silas Young beat Adam Page. Hardy pinned Rhett Titus. The match wasn’t that good. In the TV title match, Cole beat B.J. Whitmer with the Florida Key. The third taping opened with Tadarius Thomas beating Antonio Thomas in the Top Prospect tournament. Truth Martini was scouting both guys. Roderick Strong pinned Grizzly Redwood. Michael Elgin pinned Mike Bennett. Next was the gauntlet match with the winners getting a tag title shot. Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards first beat the Bravado Brothers. Then they beat Jacobs & Corino. They were beat down after by Jacobs, Corino & Rhino. O’Reilly & Fish came in next and they went a few minutes before they beat Richards & Edwards to get the shot. The big feud is still Richards & Edwards vs. Briscoes but it looks like they are delaying it as far as iPPV goes. Charlie Haas complained that they put this on when they knew his partner, Shelton Benjamin, couldn’t be there. Haas still taking about Benjamin indicates they do expect him back. The fourth taping had Matt Taven pinning the debuting ACH in the Top Prospect tournament. Next McGuinness came out and talked about an upcoming Cole vs. Hardy match, and said it would be a non-title match because Hardy won at Final Battle using a low blow and he wasn’t going to give someone a title shot for that. But Cole pleaded with McGuinness, saying he wanted to be a fighting champion. MsChif pinned Athena with a piledriver off the middle rope. The fourth hour main event saw Kevin Steen & Jacobs & Corino & Rhino beat Briscoes & Alexander & Coleman when Steen pinned Alexander. Steen injured his back in this match.
1070
1071In a unique matchup on 1/6 in Toronto, a SMASH Wrestling card announced Steen (ROH champion) vs. Johnny Gargano (Dragon Gate USA champion). Steen’s back injury was serious enough that it was switched it to a tag where Gargano & Scotty O’Shea beat Steen & Tyson Dux when Gargano pinned Steen before about 300 fans. Promoter Sebastian Destranj told the Baltimore Sun that he spoke to Steen, Gargano and DGUSA Vice President Gabe Sapolsky and nobody had a problem with the match happening. There must have been a deal since on the posters, neither man was wearing a belt nor where their championships listed. Both were allowed to take the booking as long as it wasn’t an iPPV (it was allowed to be taped for future DVD distribution). The switch to the tag match was because Steen was injured and was limited in what he could do, not because of politics. Steen was hurt so badly he had a hard time just getting up out of a chair or walking backstage. Destranj said most would have canceled wrestling but Steen didn’t want to shortchange those who paid to see something unique. The finish was done the way it was since it was a tag match and it didn’t matter, but Steen said he had no qualms about any finish, and being the main event, Destranj thought the babyface should go over.
1072
1073TNA
1074
1075I’ve heard some obvious concern if you think about it, regarding the Genesis PPV on 1/13. They are taping a regular Impact on 1/10, coming back with a three-hour show on 1/12 at 1 p.m., another three-hour show on 1/12 at 7 p.m., before coming back for the PPV on 1/13 at 8 p.m., all at the Impact Zone. The fear is they’ll burn out the crowd the day before. The two shows as we’ve been told are to fill international commitments for television in places where they have contracts for 12 specials per year, which were the PPV shows. One of the shows will be airing in foreign markets in February, since TNA doesn’t have a February PPV show. The other is scheduled for September, the month before Bound for Glory when TNA also won’t have a PPV show. Right now, they are “evergreen” shows in the sense they are meant as action shows based on hot matches, without storylines since who knows what the storylines will be by the time they air. They also at this point are not planned to air for the U.S. or Canadian markets, although with the footage in hand, if Spike wants to try a TNA special like they did in years past for the Tokyo Dome shows, they would have the footage already done and edited so could get it on short notice with little additional cost to TNA. TNA PPV shows are hit and miss as it is when it comes to crowd reactions to begin with without that kind of overload.
1076
1077The shows on 1/12 will feature the returns of Petey Williams, Amazing Red, Matt Bentley and Jimmy Rave as part of X Division matches, which include an X Division Escape the Cage match and an Ultimate X match. There will also be apparently the final Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn match since Lynn works his last TNA show on that date. They also have a Jokers Wild tag team tournament. The idea is that partners are chosen “at random,” with six different tag team matches being taped. Then the 12 wrestlers from those winning six teams will go into a Royal Rumble style match, with the winner getting $100,000 in Monopoly money. Those announced for the tag team tournament include Bobby Roode, Christopher Daniels, RVD, James Storm, Samoa Joe, Joey Ryan, Jessie Godderz, Matt Morgan, Robbie E, Mr. Anderson, Robbie T, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Hernandez, Zema Ion and Doug Williams.
1078
1079Hulk Hogan has re-filed a $100 million lawsuit against Gawker.com in Florida state court, and also filed a new lawsuit against Heather Cole (formerly Heather Clem, the ex-wife of Bubba the Love Sponge). However, just as that story broke, Gawker.com’s lawyers were able to get the suit moved to federal court. Hogan dropped the federal court suit for a state court suit when Judge James Whittemore had ruled against him in denying a temporary restraining order and in his ruling indicated he didn’t think Hogan had much of a case. So they wanted to get away from him. Gawker.com had written a news story in conjunction with the tape, from one of their writers about why Americans love to watch famous people have sex. In doing so, they argued, airing the tape was part of a valid news story and thus they were protected due to freedom of the press. Whittemore in a ruling said that airing the video as part of the story was in his mind within the grounds of news reporting and believes using the short clip as part of news coverage constitutes fair use. You can see why Hogan wanted to get his suit away from Whittemore. Interestingly, Gawker.com has taken the Hogan sex clip down from its web site. The original lawsuit was filed in federal court and dropped.
1080
1081I’m kind of surprised that TNA never promoted Hogan’s restaurant on television, nor had cameras filming the New Year’s Eve party since it was a success. There was no mention at all, and our local news here in San Francisco even ran a piece on it during the New Year’s Eve news. Not only that, but they are having TNA wrestling night at the restaurant every Thursday (and Raw night every Monday) with Jimmy Hart hosting and bringing in wrestlers.
1082
1083TNA is still looking at doing a New York area house show for Mania week. They had a date at the Rec Center in Rahway, NJ, but that building was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy and they are looking for a new location.
1084
1085Silvervision, the DVD company that was affiliated with WWE for years until WWE dropped them a few months back, has reached an agreement to be the U.K. distributor of TNA DVDs. Due to a non-compete, which allows Silvervision to continue selling its WWE stock on hand, they won’t be able to start distributing TNA products until the summer.
1086
1087The 1/10 Impact has Jeff Hardy and a partner of his choice, presumably James Storm, against Bobby Roode & Austin Aries as the main event, plus Kenny King vs. Zema Ion as part of the X Division tournament, where the winner faces Christian York at the 1/13 Genesis PPV, for a shot at RVD.
1088
1089With only a few days before the Genesis show, this much is confirmed. The main event is Hardy vs. Aries vs. Roode for the title. Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez defend the tag titles against Matt Morgan & Joey Ryan. There will be the X tourney final (Christian York probably against Kenny King based on TV) and the winner of that match faces RVD for the title later in the show. While not announced on TV, Sting vs. Doc and James Storm vs. Christopher Daniels were announced on the web site. There should be something with Kurt Angle & Samoa Joe vs. Aces and 8s and Tara vs. Mickie James for the Knockouts title. It’s nuts to not announce anything on television until two days before. You would think now that they are trying to have more time between shows that they would start promotion of the shows earlier. Boxing and UFC, which are the most successful PPV producers, have the key matches announced a few months ahead, while TNA thinks it can do everything in ten days and sometimes even three days.
1090
1091What’s even crazier is when the commercial for Genesis was made, and it’s playing all over the place now, the only person featured is Bully Ray, who is not scheduled for a match on the show, but, unless this changes next week, will be suspended at show time.
1092
1093I believe Brian Cage from Chico, CA, will be the next Gut Check competitor, or at least he’s been contacted to be one shortly.
1094
1095Hulk Hogan is official for the 1/25 show in Manchester, England and 1/26 show in London. That was largely expected, given they are taping four weeks worth of television at the two shows and that would be a long time to be without him when he’s the focal point of every angle. They are again limiting how many people they fly out. All the TV from 1/31 to 2/21 will be taped in England and they’ll go back to live on 2/28.
1096
1097The 12/23 TV show (the show that aired on 12/20 in the U.S.) was the company’s highest rated show ever in the U.K. with 277,000 viewers.
1098
1099Elijah Burke, 34, who worked as Pope D’Angelo Dinero, is officially done with the company. He wrote on twitter that his three-year contract expired on 1/1. He suffered a shoulder injury in August, which in storyline fashion, they taped an Aces and 8s beatdown on him to cover it. He hadn’t been used or even mentioned since and it was generally believed that he wouldn’t be returning.
1100
1101Sarita (Sarah Stock, 33), has quietly disappeared off the company web page which would indicate that her contract has expired. The company stopped using Rosita & Sarita some time back, once they broke up Mexican America. She’s been working for CMLL in Mexico as Dark Angel, which she never stopped doing even in TNA.
1102
1103Gail Kim’s husband, Chef Robert Irvine of Dinner: Impossible fame on The Food Network, is now doing a touring cooking show. Kim is part of the show on her nights off here. Also sometimes appearing on the tour is Jeremy Borash, as the host.
1104
1105The 1/4 house show in Salisbury, MD, opened with Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez keeping the tag titles beating Robbie E & Robbie T when Guerrero Jr. pinned E after a frog splash. Tara pinned Mickie James to keep the Knockouts title after interference from Jessie Godderz, who shoved James off the top rope. Godderz then cut a promo about how nobody in the back could beat him, which brought out Bully Ray. Yes, I know if you watch TV that Bully Ray was suspended indefinitely the night before, but you can’t expect companies to adhere to storylines for 24 hours. The idea of that is unreasonable. Actually, there is an explanation. Even though it was not said on television like this, the idea is that Hogan only suspended Bully Ray from appearing on television, although suspended without pay if it’s only television doesn’t really mean that much. Bully Ray claimed he would rather masturbate with broken glass than do Tara. I find that difficult to believe. Ray then quickly pinned Godderz with the diamond cutter. Rob Van Dam pinned Kazarian after a frog splash to keep the TV title. Devon & Doc beat Samoa Joe & Kurt Angle when Devon pinned Angle after hitting him with his hammer. Why they would do that finish on a spot show is beyond me, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not like it matters. Jeff Hardy won a three-way over Bobby Roode and Austin Aries with James Storm as referee. Storm gave Roode a superkick, and then Hardy pinned Aries after a twist of fate.
1106
1107The show the next night in Upper Darby, PA (outside of Philadelphia) drew 600 fans. That’s only a little more than half of what Shane Douglas’ show in the same market did last week. It was the same show as the night before except they got into Ray vs. Godderz differently. I guess since it was Philadelphia, Ray just came out for an interview and talked about being back in Philadelphia. He got a loud “Welcome back” chant. He called the city Killadelphia and then challenged Godderz. Instead of Ray winning clean, they had Godderz get DQ’d for a low blow. I think the idea is, since I’m virtually sure Ray is in charge of his own match and being in Philadelphia, he wanted to build for one big pop which would be the table break that would mean more than the pin. So to make that the big pop, he didn’t do the pin, and had a flat match finish. This led to a post-match where James came back and DDT’d Tara, who interfered constantly through the match. Ray put Godderz through a table and then Ray gave a piece of the broken table to a kid at ringside.
1108
1109Notes on the 1/3 TV show. As far as a television show, it was good. As far as building a PPV, it was useless in the sense when it was over I had no interest in the PPV at all. I couldn’t get interested in Guerrero & Hernandez vs. Morgan & Ryan because I saw the first match and it did nothing for any interest in a rematch. Hardy vs. Aries vs. Roode will probably be very good, but it’s the same guys who have been on top of every show for months. The build is funny and silly, but not at all in a way that gets me interested in seeing a match.
1110
1111The show opened with the Wrestler of the Year announcement. They had Bully Ray, Storm, Aries, Roode and Hardy as the candidates. They said it was fan voting, but unless they give percentages, it’s pretty hard to trust. Before Jeremy Borash announced the winner, both Aries and Roode walked up like they expected to win, which guaranteed Hardy to win. Yeah, plus it worked out perfectly and 90% of the time TNA has no ability to control a legit vote. Hardy said winning Wrestler of the Year means as much as winning the world title. Roode said that’s a bunch of crap because when he was world champion, there was nothing more important on God’s Green Earth than the world title. And stealing Harley Race’s catch phrases. Roode said he should have won because he set records and made history and his not winning was bullshit. Aries said the voting had to be rigged because everyone knows he was the longest reigning X division champion, beat Roode to win the TNA title and over the course of the year averaged four stars per PPV match. Well, that’s a first. He said the company’s name is Total Nonstop Aries. Hardy then challenged both to a three-way on the PPV and said 2013 is the year of the enigma. Only if he’s signing with WWE. Both attacked Hardy and put the boots to him. Aries went to hit Hardy with his trophy, but Hardy moved and Aries hit Roode. The trophy broke with no impact. God did that look cheap. Hardy used the twist of fate on Aries and then took his broken trophy.
1112
1113Storm came out. Daniels & Kazarian made fun of him. Daniels did an awesome spoof of a Storm promo. Storm said he was going to be champion in 2013 and the only thing that will change this year is the faces and asses he’s going to whip. He told Daniels that he was going to kick him in the twitter, punch him in the facebook and then he spit in Daniels’ drink. Daniels noted he forgot Myspace. Storm challenged either of them to get their ass whipped. They teased it would be Daniels as he went to the ring, but it was subterfuge, as Kazarian jumped Storm from behind and the match was on.
1114
1115Storm pinned Kazarian in 4:05 in a rematch of Final Resolution. Good match for the time they were allotted. Highlights included Storm doing a plancha on Kazarian, a codebreaker, an elbow off the top. Daniels interfered during the match. Crowd real hot. Finish was an enzuigiri on Daniels. Kazarian took the distraction to come off the top, but was met with a superkick and pinned.
1116
1117Aces and 8s wanted an answer from Ken Anderson if he’s in the group or not. Anderson was stalling for more time to fool around with strippers. Doc wasn’t going for this and said that we need to know right now. Anderson then handed Doc a hammer. I guess that’s symbolic to tease he’s in, but it could be a swerve. It was noted that somebody had stolen Devon’s baseball bat. Obviously that was to be Sting.
1118
1119Doc came out with a hammer and called out Sting. He kept asking him to come out. Fans were chanting for Sting. Doc told Sting to face the man who is going to cripple you once and for all. A bat suddenly appeared in the ring. Doc said he wasn’t afraid of Sting and to get hit ass out there. They went to a commercial in the middle of all this. When they came back, Doc was no longer in the ring. That was weird.
1120
1121Brooke Hogan was being interviewed backstage and said she hasn’t spoken to her dad. The good thing is unlike last week, Brooke wasn’t acting like she couldn’t figure out how he knew given it had been shown on TV.
1122
1123Christian York pinned Kid Kash in 3:44 with the mood swing neckbreaker to advance in the X Division title shot tournament. Match was fine. Kash is one of those guys who is a career underrated wrestler. York would be better off dropping weight, particularly if they’re slotting him as an X guy. He did a handspring off the ropes move that they may as well call the Molasses springboard because it was in such slow motion.
1124
1125Next was scheduled to be Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan. Morgan came up with his arm in a sling. The broken arm trick only works as an angle if you can get the audience to buy there’s an injury. If the audience thinks it’s bullshit and then the babyface leaves himself open to the attack, there’s no sympathy because there isn’t much sympathy people today have for naive idiots. Morgan told Ryan that since he’s hurt, Ryan would have to wrestle. Ryan acted like he was scared of Hernandez. The match only went 58 seconds. Morgan interfered, then started flexing to show he wasn’t really hurt. Hernandez then turned his back on Morgan after seeing that he wasn’t hurt, which made him such a dumb shit. Morgan then clotheslined Hernandez from behind for the DQ. Guerrero Jr. tried to save but Morgan laid him out with the carbon footprint.
1126
1127Kurt Angle & Samoa Joe were backstage. Angle thanked Wes Brisco and Garett Bischoff for watching his back but told them that since it’s a cage match tonight, they should stay in the back. Both wanted to get involved. Joe started yelling at them about Angle making it clear. Angle said his New Year’s Resolution was to unmask all the sons of bitches in Aces and 8s.
1128
1129Hulk Hogan came out and called out Brooke and Bully Ray. Hulk explained there’s a code of ethics in this business. Really, this business? He told Bully that he owed it to him to tell him what was going on first. Bully said Hulk was right, that he should have come clean and should have told Hulk everything. Hogan wasn’t satisfied with that, saying that from the start he’s told everyone that Bully Ray is no good and doesn’t even belong in this business. He told Ray that he was suspended without pay indefinitely. This suspension lasted less than 24 hours, given that Ray was booked on the weekend house show tour that started the next night. Ray and Brooke were shocked. This was a great segment. These kind of storylines usually draw ratings (as bad as Claire Lynch was, the segment most weeks was usually the high point ratings-wise of the show). It was the best work Brooke has done, and Ray is always great, and Hogan is good because he’s believable in his role.
1130
1131They did another clip of Joseph Park in OVW. It was mostly Danny Davis saying he’s turned the corner on the guy. Davis said at first, he didn’t think much of him, but that Park studies wrestling all day and night, and he could be a game changer. Davis has always been good at playing head trainer Danny Davis.
1132
1133Mickie James & Miss Tessmacher beat Gail Kim & Tara in 13:08. You would think going that long for a live women’s match was a risk, but these four had easily the best women’s match on U.S. national TV in a long time. Not only was the work solid, with James and Kim in particular shining, but the crowd was going crazy for it. The focal point of the match seemed to be Tara vs. James.
1134
1135Aces and 8s were in their room. Doc said that nobody else can lose their masks. D-Lo Brown under the mask said that they needed to protect the masks with their lives. Mike Knox then pulled out a switchblade. Nothing is dumber in wrestling then to pull out a switchblade, except maybe a gun.
1136
1137ODB did an interview and promised Eric Young would be back.
1138
1139Aries and Roode both went to Hogan’s office to complain. They both thought they should have the title shot at Genesis, but it shouldn’t be a three-way. Hogan said it’s not only a three-way, but an elimination match, which means first pinfall doesn’t win.
1140
1141Next was Angle & Joe vs. Devon & Knox in a cage match. Doc slammed the cage door on Angle’s head and locked the door, locking Angle out. Joe held his own for a while against both men. Finally they were beating Joe down. Angle tried to climb the cage to get in after he recovered. Doc tried to stop him. Angle kicked Doc in the groin and then grabbed the key to the cage that Doc had stolen, and got in. Doc then slammed the cage door on Angle a second time. He juiced. However, Devon missed the diving head-butt on Angle, and Angle came back with three German suplexes on Devon and one on Knox. He threw Devon into the cage and hit the Olympic slam on Knox for the pin at 11:45. Also good for what it was. After the match, Angle went after Knox’s mask. Doc got in the cage, opened the door and soon all of Aces and 8s, including Brisco and Bischoff under masks, were in the cage beating down Joe & Angle. Anderson was outside watching. He never got in the cage to help, nor did he join in. Fans were chanting for Sting, who finally arrived with a baseball bat. He gave bat shots to everyone. They cleaned house on everyone except Knox, who was left behind. Sting hit Knox twice with the bat. Angle pulled Knox’s mask off, and Mike Tenay immediately reacted by saying it’s the guy who was known as Mike Knox in the WWE. He didn’t look the same as during most of his WWE run since he had a crewcut and in WWE he had the Bruiser Brody wild hair look. My feeling is if Tenay hadn’t have identified him, almost nobody watching would have recognized him, plus Knox really wasn’t that memorable of a character as he’s been off WWE TV for years. Knox tried to cover his face and Aces and 8s got out of there as the show ended.
1142
1143UFC
1144
1145UFC made a huge business move this past week purchasing 80 locations of the LA Boxing chain. No purchase price has been released but that’s a huge undertaking. The gyms are all going to be changed to UFC Gyms, which would give the UFC Gym brand name locations in 23 states. There had been rumors dating back a few weeks that UFC was in talks to buy the chain, and the finalizing of the deal took place on 12/31. UFC had opened seven gyms on its own over the past three years since the original gym opened in Concord, CA. This immediately expands the brand name and expect a big marketing push of the name and greater visibility. The gym business can be a tough one but it’s part of UFC attempting to expand the term from being a fight promotion to being a fight promotion and lifestyle brand name.
1146
1147Alistair Overeem was officially licensed in what was almost a rubber stamp proceeding on 1/8 before the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer noted that Overeem had sent the commission five test results from between June and December, and all came out clean. Of course Overeem was able to pick his time and date of testing. The commission also tested Overeem on 11/16 and 12/21 and he was clean both times. After a short discussion, they quickly voted unanimously to approve him for a license, and for his 2/2 fight against Antonio Silva. If Overeem wins that fight, he would face Cain Velasquez for the title on a big show a few months later. On 3/27, the same commission would not license Overeem after he failed a steroid test with a 14-1 testosterone/epitestosterone ratio (4-1 is the cutoff in most sports although Nevada is more lenient at 6-1) when they surprised tested him at a press conference. There had been issues and Overeem was only given a provisional license to fight Brock Lesnar in his last fight because of a number of issues regarding delays in getting tests done and a result that disappeared. As part of getting the provisional license, he was told he would be randomly tested at least twice, and he failed the first time. At his prior hearing, he introduced a controversial doctor from Texas (Overeem trains and lives in South Florida), Dr. Hector Molina, who admitted giving Overeem a mixture of drugs in an injectable shot for a rib injury that contained testosterone. Molina said that he did so without telling Overeem, who never took any legal action against the doctor. As noted last week, Overeem was in Japan for New Year’s weekend taping a television show where Japanese celebrity athletes competed in both an arm wrestling and tug-of-war tournament. Overeem weighed in at 262 pounds, within a few pounds of what he weighed against Lesnar. He was big and not fat at all, but he did not have the bodybuilder physique he used to have, and looked more like a big football player who lifted heavy.
1148
1149This week’s show, the first on an eight-week period where there will be seven Saturday night shows, is on 1/12 from Oklahoma City is the final Strikeforce event on Showtime. It will be a free weekend for most people who have cable so even if you aren’t a Strikeforce subscriber, you can see the lame-duck show. However, the show will not be airing in Canada since Super Channel, its usual outlet, decided against airing the show. There are two dark matches, with Michael Bravo vs. Estevan Payan and Jorge Gurgel vs. Adriano Martins. On Showtime Extreme at 8 p.m. will be Ryan Couture vs. K.J. Noons (both guys have their backs against the wall because the winner will likely get into UFC and the loser may not), Tim Kennedy vs. Trevor Smith, Roger Gracie vs. Anthony Smith and Pat Healy vs. Kurt Holobaugh (late replacement, a 7-0 fighter). I’d guess most if not everyone on the undercard would have their backs against the wall, needing a win. The main card has Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza facing UFC’s Ed Herman, who will be the first UFC fighter on Showtime, although at this point designations of UFC fighter and Strikeforce fighter are almost meaningless), Mike Kyle vs. Gegard Mousasi (Kyle may need a win but I think Mousasi is getting into UFC either way, Josh Barnett vs. Nandor Guelmino (Barnett’s situation getting into UFC depends more on his demands and other things as opposed to winning this fight), Daniel Cormier vs. Dion Staring and Nate Marquardt defends the middleweight title (which then disappears) against Tarec Saffiedine.
1150
1151Stephen Espinoza of Showtime said that they want to stay in the MMA business and work with another promotion. Espinoza said that Showtime had an option for another year through the spring of 2014 that it declined to pick up, citing what he called the downward trajectory of talent and that he felt the cards weren’t of the caliber that should be on premium cable. While there is no doubt they lost key big stars like Dan Henderson and Nick Diaz, and what happened with Alistair Overeem, as well as Zuffa’s feeling of not doing fights with Herschel Walker (who may not have wanted to fight again anyway) because that’s not the type of business direction they favor. Later, both sides came to an agreement over moving the heavyweights to UFC but giving exclusivity to everyone else on a contract that they could only appear on Showtime unless Showtime allowed them to appear elsewhere as long as the relationship between Zuffa and Showtime existed. The depth of the cards wasn’t nearly as strong this year, as the August show had nothing going for it but Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate as far as stars, and then someone made the call to put Tate in the prelims rather than have two women’s fights on the main card. The next two shows saw top matches fall apart and Showtime pulled out of broadcasting them, and the shows were canceled with no TV outlet or TV money, with them feeling the shows weren’t strong enough for Premium TV. UFC was not adding new top fighters to the brand, and Espinoza said the decision was made not to renew when they canceled the two shows. The problem is that there isn’t the talent there, as Bellator, the No. 2 brand, from a talent standpoint is a big drop from what was in Strikeforce and groups like Shark Fights, Legacy Fighting Championships and Xtreme Fighting Championships that air on AXS would be a huge step down from Bellator. Espinoza has had conversations with several other promotions but no decision is expected at any time in the near future, other than he did say they would want to run MMA on a similar schedule as they have been. If they felt the shows they had gotten and would be getting weren’t premium cable worthy, it’s hard to figure out who they could go with who could deliver that with virtually any fighter of any value under contract to UFC or Bellator. There is the World Series of Fighting group that debuted in Las Vegas, but they are in talks of their own TV deal elsewhere. Espinoza, in an interview with Ariel Helwani, praised Invicta, the all-women’s group. Invicta has put on good shows, but it’s one thing to have one or two women’s fights on a men’s show and something very different to have all women’s shows and whether that’s something Showtime would want as a premium service is a question. Plus, Invicta has a working relationship with UFC, and essentially, unless things change, Showtime wouldn’t want to use its television to expose and create stars, only to have them then go to UFC and fight big fights for the title not on the network. But if Invicta was to no longer work with UFC, that would force UFC to sign exclusive deals and they wouldn’t have the services of the big names who would want to be on PPV and UFC television. Espinoza said elsewhere that they will continue to replay Strikeforce shows that they own, but the plan would be to get a new promotion on board and run a similar number of shows per year as they did with Strikeforce, but nothing is definite.
1152
1153Dana White said that the Benson Henderson vs. Gilbert Melendez fight isn’t happening on the April FOX show and that the fight isn’t even close. The show will be on 4/20 in San Jose at the HP Pavilion, and used to promote the Jones vs. Sonnen match the next week. There is some talk of a main event of Daniel Cormier vs. Frank Mir but nothing is official.
1154
1155Melendez isn’t 100%, but he is back training and strengthening his bad shoulder and said he would be ready for fight in April.
1156
1157Updated advances. We don’t have a number for 1/19 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but it’s not close to sold out nor very big. That surprises me since it’s the first time UFC has been in that city, and even though it’s a weak card (Michael Bisping vs. Vitor Belfort on top with nothing else star power wise on the show other than Daniel Sarafian who came off TUF Brazil), I’d have thought first time in Sao Paulo would be an immediate sellout. The 11,000-seat arena is less than half sold with less than two weeks to go. 1/26 in Chicago at this point has 12,000 tickets sold for $1,175,000 at the United Center. They still have 4,000 tickets left but everyone should be thrilled with that kind of advance with Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson as the main event. 2/2 in Las Vegas for Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Frankie Edgar with a killer undercard that includes Rashad Evans vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Overeem vs. Silva, Demian Maia vs. Jon Fitch and Ian McCall vs. Joseph Benavidez among others has sold 4,000 tickets to the public through Ticketmaster for $1 million. I wouldn’t be concerned over that number because that doesn’t include thousands of casino buys. 2/16 at Wembley Arena in London has sold 7,500 for $1,075,000 for Renan Barao vs. Michael McDonald and Dennis Silver vs. Cub Swanson. It’s not sold out yet but with that kind of advance a month out, a sellout is pretty much a lock. 2/23 in Anaheim, which is Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche has now topped 6,000 sold for $750,000. Having sold 2,000 tickets in the last two weeks is a very good sign as they are now ahead of the pace of the last show in the market (8/4 Staples Center FOX show), which was only four months ago. At this point it’s really where it should be and a little ahead of where it would be for an average show with that quick a turnaround in the Los Angeles/Anaheim market without a Hispanic headliner.
1158
1159FOX was promoting the 1/26 show during the NFL playoffs over the weekend. In the short commercial read, they only mentioned Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson for “the world championship,” specifically leaving out the word flyweight. In the longer commercial, they mentioned the return of Rampage Jackson. As noted, the rating here will be interesting. If it’s good, it shows the power of the NFL. If it’s not good, it shows the power of B.J. Penn and to an extent Nate Diaz, Rory MacDonald and Benson Henderson on that last show.
1160
1161The FOX preview special Road to the Octagon is scheduled to debut in most markets on 1/19, a Saturday afternoon a week before the show, at 5 p.m.
1162
1163The same television show in Japan that did the arm wrestling competition, followed it up using eight of the guys from that show probably taped the same day (the audience looked like the same people in the same studio) in a tug-of-war competition. Mark Hunt came out on top in that one. In the first round, Bob Sapp easily beat Kazushi Sakuraba. Then Alistair Overeem beat sumo Goeido. Hunt beat footballer Kenzo Waku and sumo Shohozan easily beat actor Bobby Ologun. In the semis, Sapp beat Overeem handily once again and Hunt beat Shohozan. Sapp and Hunt ended up as a real battle, to the point one or both of those guys could have gotten hurt. Really, UFC has stuff in its contracts and maybe Hunt has an old deal, but if I’m UFC and Hunt is signed to fight in February, the arm wrestling was a risk but this tug of war with Sapp could have been bad. They were struggling and Sapp’s biceps looked like they were at their breaking point but Hunt ended up pulling Sapp into the foam rubber pit. It ended up with a world’s strongest man guy, I’m not sure if he’s a tug of war champion but they showed clips of him pulling an airplane. Everyone figured, given Hunt had just gone through three guys and the last one was a real fight that had to tire him out, going against a guy in his speciality, that he had no chance. Instead, Hunt actually got the jump, got the guy off balance and won in seconds.
1164
1165Announcer Mike Goldberg is out of action but he’s not in rehab over a pill problem. He didn’t come to Las Vegas for UFC 155, although it didn’t appear there was any heat over it. Goldberg, 48, told friends it was due to having the flu, and later in an interview with Ariel Helwani, said it was due to an upper respiratory infection and the medication he was using to combat it, due to the asthma medication he was also taking, led to side effects. He’s expected back for the 1/26 show in Chicago, which would be his next normal assignment, since Kenny Florian and Jon Anik were already scheduled for the 1/19 show in Sao Paulo.
1166
1167The Eddie Alvarez situation worsened this past week. Essentially, Bellator has claimed it has matched the UFC’s contract offer, saying they gave him the exact deal, to the point they didn’t even change the wording of the UFC contract but just put their own letterhead on it. Alvarez claimed that they didn’t, whether that means because in Bellator he can’t get the same bonuses, and certainly even with the same base pay, the amount one can get from sponsorships by fighting in UFC would be significantly higher, but from a legal standpoint, his Bellator contract gave them the right to match an offer and they did. In question is an eight fight contract covering three years and four months, starting with a $250,000 signing bonus. Alvarez also would start in UFC, or now Bellator, with a $70,000 base pay and $70,000 win bonus, numbers that escalate as the contract goes forward. Alvarez’s contract also called for PPV bonuses should he headline. Rebney matched that, but the key is, there is no guarantee, either that Alvarez would ever get to UFC headline status, or even more, that Bellator will run a PPV show. That’s probably one of the reasons for the discrepancy between the two, in the sense he believes he’ll get a PPV main in UFC but does anyone believe Bellator can run a PPV that does any business or that they’ll even go into PPV any time soon? Bjorn Rebney also told him he could make more money as Spike would do a TV special on him that he’d get paid extra for. Rebney told MMAfighting.com that they have a $250,000 bonus check and are ready to start scheduling fights for him. They had a settlement hearing where they were supposed to work things out, but ended up not working out their differences and Bellator then filed suit against Alvarez for a contract breach for participating in a documentary on himself that they believed he couldn’t do without their approval since he was under contract, so they just made relations between Alvarez and Bellator worse. Alvarez also filed suit trying to claim that he should be allowed to sign his UFC contract because Bellator didn’t in his mind match the offer. Last week Dana White said that what was happening with Alvarez was really bad but he couldn’t talk about it due to the legal ramifications. “If it was a match, I would be more than happy to honor the contract,” Alvarez told Ariel Helwani. “I signed that contract. I have to fulfill my obligations. It’s what I signed. I’m a man. I have no problems. If it was a match, if this was a 100% match, I’d have no problem going and fighting for Bellator. That is not my issue.
1168
1169In our eyes, this is not a match. This is a difference of a lot of money, a lot of money, and its hard to sign on the dotted line. It’s a lot of money.” That confirms what we heard and that was that Alvarez wasn’t getting anywhere near the offer Hector Lombard got to jump, which Alvarez said, “It wasn’t a Hector Lombard deal, but it was a good deal.” Alvarez said he considered the UFC deal much better. He said it’s going to court and a judge will decide if Bellator did or didn’t match the offer and until then, it’s in a holding pattern. In 44 months with Bellator, Alvarez has fought nine times, winning eight, and been paid approximately $900,000 in total or about $245,000 per year, or about $100,000 per fight. In 2009, when he talked with UFC, they weren’t offering close to that much for a lightweight who was a star in Japan but not really well known in the U.S., and had no problem with him when he took the more lucrative offer elsewhere. UFC could have gotten him with a big money offer that Bellator couldn’t match, like they did with Lombard. But clearly they decided against making that offer. While Alvarez was a much bigger star to Bellator than Lombard, I think UFC felt Lombard could come in and get a PPV title shot at Anderson Silva, while the belief was with all the good lightweights, that Alvarez would have a lower percentage chance of being able to work his way into a similar position in his division.
1170
1171Dana White was a speaker at the New Media Expo at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, talking social media. When someone asked him about Jon Jones saying that he felt like he was treated like a piece of meat (when he turned down the Chael Sonnen fight which resulted in UFC 151 being canceled and White buried him), White responded, “That’s a little diva there. You know what I mean? Being treated like a piece of meat, that’s a diva.”
1172
1173Hector Lombard vs. Yushin Okami has been added to the 3/3 show in Saitama. The winner should probably be on the verge of a fight for a title shot. Also added to the 3/3 show in Saitama, Japan is the UFC debut of Mizuto Hirota, who had been in Strikeforce, faces Rani Yahya in a featherweight bout, and Marcelo Guimares vs. Hyun Gyu Lim of South Korea.
1174
1175For the year, the UFC had to change 52 PPV matches in 14 shows (An average of 3.7 per show) due to either injury or drug test failure or other reason for cancellation. Combining all shows, changes were more than double that number.
1176
1177They are doing a three-week Prime Time to build Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche. It will be three 30 minute shows, but I’m not sure how effective it’s going to be. The shows will debut on Fuel on Friday at midnight, although that’s not as bad as it seems because so much of the UFC fan base is Pacific time and that’s 9 p.m. Friday night, airing on 2/8, 2/15 and 2/22. Well, except if you’re on Fuel, you’re only reaching the hardcores. They will air on Saturday morning sat 11 a.m. on FX, which is likely not going to be as valuable as running 11 p.m. Friday nights on FX.
1178
1179Tyson Fury, a boxer from Manchester, England, got some pub this past week by going on twitter and calling names to Cain Velasquez and challenging him to an MMA match, calling Velasquez a midget and a small, stiff idiot among other names. Fury, who is 6-foot-9 and fights between 245 and 270 pounds, is 20-0 in boxing with 14 knockouts, and holds the WBO Intercontinental title.
1180
1181Velasquez was in Mexico City on a media tour on 1/7, including appearing on Mexico’s ESPN Sports Center with a three minute interview, and also appeared on Los Capitanes with Jose Ramon Fernandez, with a five minute interview. Fernandez is said to be the equivalent of Bob Costas. He doesn’t know much and doesn’t really like MMA, but he said he liked Velasquez and put him over big, and pushed the idea of Velasquez fighting in Mexico City. He also was at one of the major malls in the city and had great response. UFC still lacks the major television deal in Mexico, on Fox Sports only (equivalent to Fox Sports Net in the U.S.), which did an all day marathon on 12/29, pushing Velasquez and Erik Perez before airing the prelims and the PPV (which airs on free TV in Mexico).
1182
1183The Culinary Workers Union this week sent a petition to Toys R Us to try and get them to remove all UFC action figures. They claim that “We do not need toys that glorify famous athletes or entertainers who choose to promote hatred, intolerance and violence with their words.
1184
1185Sarah Kaufman, who one would think would be one of the ten women under contract to UFC, was announced as headlining the April Invicta show. Right now, Kaufman is probably legitimately the No. 2 fighter in the weight class, but since she lost to Ronda Rousey in 54 seconds, it’s a tough deal. You can’t really put her with any potential opponent like Sara McMann, Cris Cyborg or Miesha Tate. UFC has a relationship with Invicta so I can see them having Kaufman go there and if she can pick up several wins in a row, they can bring her back when it’s been long enough since her loss. Cris Cyborg has never fought at 135, so really Kaufman would have to be considered No. 2. She would and has beaten Tate and Liz Carmouche.
1186
1187An injury to Justin Salas has brought Lucas Martins, an 11-0 Brazilian fighter from the Chute Boxe team into UFC. Martins debuts against Salas’ planned opponent, Edson Barboza, on the 1/19 show in Sao Paulo.
1188
1189Erick Silva was also injured, and will be replaced by Strikeforce fighter Tyron Woodley. Woodley makes his UFC debut against Jay Hieron, the former Strikeforce and Bellator fighter, on the 2/2 show in Las Vegas. Yves Edwards vs. Isaac Vallie-Flagg, a former Strikeforce fighter, was added to that show. Vallie-Flagg has kind of gone under the radar, working Strikeforce undercards but has ten wins and one draw in his last 11 fights and beat former Dream star J.Z. Cavalcante last time out. Also added is Chico Camus vs. Dustin Kimura, a Hawaiian with a 9-0 record, with eight finishes and six submissions. Too bad none of the submissions are from a Kimura.
1190
1191Roger Hollett suffered a torn biceps and pulled out of the 1/19 show in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he was to face Wagner Prado. Prado’s new opponent is reported to be Ildemar Alcantara, the younger brother of UFC fighter Yuri Alcantara, who also got a new opponent this week. George Roop was injured and pulled out of his fight with Yuri Alcantara on the same show. He’s being replaced by the debuting Pedro Nobre (14-1-2). Roop was originally an injury replacement for Johnny Eduardo.
1192
1193Eduardo was moved to the 3/16 show in Montreal, where he’ll face local fighter Yves Jabouin. Jordan Mein from Strikeforce will debut on the 3/16 show in Montreal against Dan Miller. Mein is from Lethbridge, Alberta and has looked good in recent fights, winning eight of his last nine with the only loss being a decision to Tyron Woodley. Also added to the show is Montreal’s John Makdessi, against Daron Cruickshank, who nearly stole the show in Seattle with his great fight and high kick knockout of Henry Martinez. Nick Ring of Calgary faces Chris Camozzi and Sean Pierson of Toronto faces Rick Story. Of the nine announced fights in Montreal, eight feature Canadians against foreigners, mostly Americans.
1194
1195Buddy Roberts pulled out of the 1/28 show in Chicago due to an illness. There’s a bad taste joke that Buddy Roberts being ill that I’d better avoid. They are looking for a new opponent for Michael Kuiper on a show scheduled for FX.
1196
1197BELLATOR
1198
1199The reality show they are going to do on Spike will start filming in early February for a six week shoot, and then air shortly after that.
1200
1201Rad Martinez vs. Shahbulat Shamhalaev, which was the featherweight tournament final that was supposed to air on 12/7 but Shamhalaev got food poisoning, will take place on a 2/21 show in Salt Lake City. The winner will face the winner of the 1/17 Pat Curran vs. Patricio Pitbull Freire title match.
1202
1203Christian M’Pumpu defends the light heavyweight title against Attila Vegh on 2/28 in Rio Rancho, NM.
1204
1205OTHER MMA
1206
1207Inside MMA on AXS TV is moving from Monday to Friday, starting on 1/11 at 9 p.m. Eastern time. They are back to using the show to lead into live fights that will air many weeks at 10 p.m. The show had been on Friday, but moved to Monday to avoid going head-to-head with Bellator and Ultimate Fighter. Friday is also a better news day because they can review Bellator the night before, and preview UFC events most Saturdays.
1208
1209A chart on ratings for NBC Sports Network (the former Versus) shows that the World Series of Fighting show doing 198,000 viewers, while far lower than anything WEC ever did on the channel, with the NHL on strike, it’s a lot better than almost anything the station is doing these days. During the period from 11/26 to 12/23, the only shows that beat the 0.2 rating WSOF did was a Saturday night boxing show on 12/8 (same time slot) that did 216,000 viewers, and a simulcast of the 49ers vs. Patriots NFL game (1.2 million for a game that most would have watched on regular NBC). The station, despite its name, has very little in the way of live sports
1210
1211WWE
1212
1213Regarding the Hall of Fame and Bruno Sammartino, nothing has changed in the sense that there is still interest from WWE and there is no deal at press time.
1214
1215They announced on TV they are debuting a two-day Fan Fest in Phoenix in conjunction with the Rumble, like they’ve done in the past with SummerSlam. They will have three group discussions which should be very interesting. The one promoted on TV is a 1/26 at 3 p.m. discussion of the Montreal screw job with Hart, Lawler and Michaels. An interesting note is that during a Raw broadcast in Canada, Jimmy Korderas, who covers Raw for The Score answered a question regarding how the other referees viewed what Earl Hebner did. He said all the referees supported Hebner, figuring he had no choice. He said it’s hard for him to say what he would have done if he was the one in that position, saying he most likely would have done what he was told, but said it would be difficult to do that to a friend. He said he might have asked if there was another way to do it, but as a referee, when they tell you to do something, you do it. While Hebner was a villain to a lot of fans from it, even to this day TNA markets him as a heel ref who screwed Bret which is now more than 15 years ago, and pushes his T-shirts at every house shows, most in wrestling, including those who supported Hart generally felt Hebner in his position had little choice. They also have a 6:30 p.m. discussion of DX with HHH, Sean Waltman, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn, and a 9 a.m. on 1/27 discussion about WCW with Kevin Nash, Booker T and Show.
1216
1217WWE secured one of its biggest mainstream marketing deals as Cena will be on the front of about 4 million boxes of Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles. Post made the decision to feature Cena instead of Fred Flintstone (who will be featured on some boxes as well, but is getting downplayed), as Sharon Pupel, the marketing director at Post Cereal, told Ad Age, “We’ve been talking with kids. Fred isn’t necessarily the ...coolest or (most) relevant guy for kids who we are going after.” It’s a limited time deal as far as Cena on the boxes (who will be there with Bam Bam), not a permanent one, probably through Mania season and again in the late summer as a back to school deal. But Post and WWE have signed a multi-year contract so they’ll be working together going forward as well, which includes Post being promoted at WWE house shows. The original deal between WWE and Post was put together last year, after Dwayne Johnson did a series of interviews talking about the colors of Cena’s merchandise and saying that it looked like a “Big, fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles.” Ironically most took the Fruity Pebbles line to be a gay double entendre and not a cereal plug, but after chants of “Fruity Pebbles” started in arenas, Post decided to make a deal. But last year, they put Cena on the top of the box, while Flintstone remained the prominent face on the front. Now Cena will be prominently placed on the front. Besides this campaign for WrestleMania season, they expect another campaign in the late summer during the back-to-school period. WWE is crediting its move to PG-13 to enable them to secure this deal, as well as recent deals with Colgate-Palmolive for Irish Spring soap.
1218
1219In the note last week about what Dwayne Johnson earned, that was just based on the gross of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. A Forbes article estimated his earnings from movies alone (which would include for the movies that he worked on during the year that all come out over the next few months) for 2012 was $36 million.
1220
1221The new training facility in the Orlando area is said to be not that far from being completed. Said to be a facility that will fit five different rings. There are differing opinions on that. Obviously, five rings means five times the ring time. But I’ve had people who have taught in the WWE system who say the more rings is worse, because of the constant noise and it’s hard to get a group to learn lessons from good and bad things.
1222
1223Regarding the THQ bankruptcy, which is a major deal because if you take away the video game money, not only do the wrestlers make a lot less, but the company profits per year are cut way back. WWE has listed in THQ bankruptcy proceedings that they are owed $45 million, but that number includes all contractual guarantees on contracts that don’t expire until 2018. THQ management had reached a deal with Clearlake Capital Group for $60 million, where Clearlake would put that money into the company after bankruptcy, and get control, while leaving those, such as WWE and Yukes (the Japanese company that used to own New Japan Pro Wrestling, which built the WWE game) out millions each. The creditors protested the deal, because such a deal would keep THQ in business and creditors would be out money since Clearlake wasn’t going to buy the debt and the old THQ filed bankruptcy. Bankruptcy Judge Marty Walrath ruled instead that THQ’s assets, which are essentially its various licenses, would be put up for bidding and the money generated from purchasing of the licenses would go to the creditors. Unlike the deal THQ had made, which would allow the company to continue, this may spell the end of it because all the licenses, including Saints Row, will be up to the highest bidder, as would WWE. The new owners may have sold the WWE license anyway for capital to help produce Saints Row, which is the company’s big money maker. WWE is owed millions in royalties on this year’s game and back royalties that they were expecting. Yukes is said to be owed in the range of $18 million for work already done on games. THQ was pushing to get the deal to go through this coming week, as they set a deadline for 1/8 for any other bids and 1/10 for the approval process. This would allow THQ to be back in business next week, but it would screw the creditors who would get very little of the money owed. There are companies who have expressed interest in the WWE game. EA, Ubisoft, Warner Brothers and Take Two Interactive have all been interested in certain THQ licenses.
1224
1225We’re told no plans to cut back to two hours at least through April.
1226
1227There were reports at press time that El Generico had signed with WWE, but since they came right on deadline, we weren’t able to confirm it other than it is something being said around wrestling.
1228
1229There is talk the the 1/28 Raw from Las Vegas is going to be the Raw roulette deal that they’ve done many times in the past from that city. You know, the WWE adaptation of spin the wheel.
1230
1231Nobody was advertised on 1/14 for the 20th anniversary Raw in Houston other than Rock being back. Well, that and the return of Dr. Shelby. There have been rumors of a number of names being on the show, but nothing has been announced. Flair and Michaels makes sense (there have been reports of Michaels being there, since both Flair and Michaels were main eventers on some of the early episodes of Raw). You’d think they would want to push them to create a buzz, especially as the first Monday after football ends when you’re looking at bringing people back. They’ve already done the surprise Flair return so there’s no point in doing it again, and Punk name dropped Flair on his promo this past week. The original word we heard after Flair’s first appearance was he’d be back in January. They didn’t even advertise the idea that all kinds of names from the past would be brought back on Raw. Bret Hart was contacted and was willing to come if there was a reason to come. Basically he didn’t want his being on the show to be trivialized and him being one of two dozen guys and just doing a cameo role. His feeling is if he’s going to be on TV, there should be a good storyline reason and a good role and why bother coming in for a quick cameo. Undertaker’s name has made the rounds since it’s in Houston where he’s from. To me, Undertaker should only do a few TV’s before Mania and from a date standpoint, this would be a good kick off date, but I’d hold it off until after the Rumble. Undertaker needs to show up and immediately do the confrontation with his Mania opponent. Unless they change it from Punk, there’s no point in dividing interest in who people are interested today in seeing Punk face because all interest right now should be on Rock vs. Punk, and when that’s over, then there’s plenty of time to do the confrontation. But there was talk backstage Undertaker may be there next week. But it blows my mind if any really big names are there and Shelby’s return is the only one they promote.
1232
1233One person who won’t be there is Lesnar, who has nothing scheduled with WWE in January. All of Lesnar’s dates for this year are planned out well in advance.
1234
1235A major company anniversary, in many ways far more significant than the 20th anniversary of Raw, came and went. January 7, 1953–60 years ago on the Monday of Raw, was the first pro wrestling card promoted by Vincent James McMahon with the formation of the Capitol Wrestling Corporation. Another anniversary is also upcoming. January 24, 1963, or 50 years ago, is the Lou Thesz vs. Buddy Rogers NWA title change in Toronto. Essentially, when Sam Muchnick was able to get the title to Thesz, this led to Vincent James McMahon pulling out of the NWA because he didn’t want Thesz as champion. The term WWWF came shortly after. At first, McMahon simply called Rogers world champion and while he didn’t use the NWA name (which they rarely mentioned to begin with), they didn’t use the WWWF name. McMahon’s idea was to just pretend the Thesz match never happened. He tried to keep the wrestling reporters of the time quiet, asking them to pretend the match never happened. Stanley Weston, who was the publisher of what evolved into Pro Wrestling Illustrated, refused to do so, which actually started decades of underlying bitterness. McMahon then a few weeks later announced that there was a tournament with all the big stars and champions held in Rio de Janeiro, and that Rogers beat Argentina Rocca (who by this point had left Capitol and never returned until his days as an announcer in the 70s) to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation champion. And May 17th would be the 50 year anniversary of Bruno Sammartino’s first title win, in Madison Square Garden, which creates a unique historical thing if anything happens this year. While 1963 was very big historically with the creation of the title that is now the major title in wrestling, the company was exactly the same in 1962, just changed the name of the championship recognized and creating the WWWF initials.
1236
1237Del Rio missed the 12/30 Smackdown tapings in Richmond as well as Raw on 1/7 and the house shows this past weekend, for personal reasons.
1238
1239The first NXT tapings of the New Year are 1/10. The main thing they have to do is get the title off Big E Langston. Seth Rollins, a babyface in NXT, had to turn heel and then drop it since he was brought in as part of The Shield. Langston was considered their top babyface, so he got it. Then, they decided to bring Langston in as a heel. So now Langston probably has to turn heel and drop it, or acknowledge it all in some form. The top babyfaces that they’ve been pushing are Richie Steamboat and Bo Dallas. Judging from history, whoever wins it will likely be brought to the main roster as a heel two weeks later and they’ll have to do it all over again. We’ve also heard talk of Steamboat being given a new name and him being maybe the next one called up.
1240
1241The status of both Henry and Christian has been reevaluated. The company hopes Henry can return very soon. It hasn’t been certain whether or not he would return and nothing is still 100%. Christian is scheduled to be back at this point by the end of January.
1242
1243Adam Cole and Sami Callihan both have WWE tryouts scheduled between now and the end of the month. I believe this is Callihan’s second tryout. The success of Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and in particular Punk and Bryan has caused a totally different feeling when it comes to talent coming through the indies and also talent that doesn’t have the look, the size and the physique that used to be the first thing they look for. The mentality was that you sign people who can be TV stars and teach them to wrestle WWE style, as opposed to sign great wrestling talent and giving them the ball and seeing how far they can run with it.
1244
1245In something that surprises me, only because Flair publicly always puts over the brand he works for and always puts over WWE publicly even if he’s not working for them, he did an interview with Wrestling 101 and was asked about current WWE and said, “I think the current product is average, but that’s because you can’t replace guys like the Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. It’s very hard to replace all of those great guys, but the WWE is still the best wrestling product there is. The WWE really misses that whole attitude era, but you’ll never get that back because it is just so hard to establish new names overnight. You can’t just take a generation of people and try to replace them to make it better because it’s a very tough and difficult business.” He said the three guys who stand out on the current roster are Cena, Orton and Show (who are all good friends of his), and then mentioned Mysterio and said he thinks Ziggler can be great. “There are a lot of good guys there right now, but it’s just not what it was when you had the likes of Steve Austin, HHH, Kurt Angle. I think Kurt is awesome, right now he is the best wrestler in the business.”
1246
1247Notes from the 1/7 Raw tapings in Tampa. The show drew a sellout of 13,000 fans, and this may be the first in a string of sellouts with Rock being at the Raw tapings most weeks. It opened with Superstars, with Miz pinning Tensai with the Skull crushing finale and Clay & Ryder over O’Neil & Young when Clay pinned Young after a splash.
1248
1249The show opened with a Cena promo. He showed the footage of the end of last week’s show where the supposed shit fell on A.J. and Ziggler, and said it was a craptastic way to end 2012. He then promoted The Rock was coming out and the TLC match. He pushed Rock coming back like he was the promoter or the TV announcer hyping what’s coming up later in the show. To me, given he feuded with Rock, he should have brought up, just one line in passing, about Mania last year and he hasn’t forgotten, because it doesn’t come off well for Cena to be cheerleader to The Rock. It’s one of those things that people really don’t want Cena and Rock to be friends because Rock fans hate Cena and Cena fans, or people who understand the Cena character, at best should have a grudging respect for him. He brought up entering the Rumble. Ziggler, A.J. and Langston came out. Ziggler had a black eye, so Cena must have potatoed him over the weekend. A.J. called Ziggler “Ziggy,” and she talked about how mad she was that she lost her job over Cena and called him a pathetic small man. Cena said that 2013 started with the first sixth grade Weiner joke on Raw. Did you know 50% of Raw’s television audience is over the age of 39, and they are using terms like “Weiner.” Cena then told people to do the wave. Well, that was huge in 1991 and most people did it. Cena then said, “There once was a man from Nantucket,” I guess trying to bring back sixth grade. Ziggler interrupted him and said that every time someone beats Cena, he tries to laugh about it, thinking it’ll just go away, but Ziggler said he’s not going away. He said he was entering the rumble and his primary goal is to keep Cena from winning. I guess given he has the briefcase he doesn’t need the title shot. Cena made a joke about how A.J. is rubbing off on Ziggler and Langston, you know, rubbing off. Cena wanted a match with Ziggler right now and Ziggler turned him down. Langston grabbed the mic and said, “It’s on.” I presumed that meant Langston was going to wrestle Cena, but it was Ziggler. So either Langston has booking power we don’t know about or he’s got power of attorney. Ziggler and A.J. were mad at him for accepting the match. Well, they’ve only been together for three weeks so you can’t very well have a group go a full month without starting to tease a turn, can you? I felt they need to establish the group and have Langston start programs with guys like Sheamus or Cena before the dissension thing starts.
1250
1251Cena pinned Ziggler in 17:04 in a very good TV match. A.J. and Langston were at ringside. This was mostly the house show main event match they were doing over the weekend. Lawler called A.J. a carousel because she’s been around quite a bit. They were also pushing the idea of Ziggler as “Spaghetti hair,” trying to elicit a chant down the line (couldn’t have been on this show since the crowd didn’t hear Lawler) like “Goat face.” Langston got a cheap shot in. At one point, A.J. looked like she was hitting on Scott Armstrong and Ziggler gave Cena a high dropkick. Later, A.J. slapped Cena and Scott Armstrong kicked A.J. and Langston out. They traded near falls and the match got really good late. Cena lost his shoe by accident and it wasn’t a planned thing and didn’t figure into the finish. When they were trading punches with the “yay” “boo” stuff, the crowd was cheering Ziggler. Ziggler fell into Armstrong, knocking him out of the ring. Cena put Ziggler in the STF, but no ref. Langston came out and did his move on Cena and put Ziggler on top, but Armstrong was still down. It took forever for a second ref to come out, and by that point Cena was able to kick out. Cena then hit the Attitude Adjustment for the pin. It makes sense for Cena to start getting wins since he’s headlining Mania, but this somewhat erases the value of Ziggler getting that recent win over Cena. If anything, this match should have been down the line. Then again, they may do it many more times down the line.
1252
1253Kaitlyn beat Torres via count out in 4:42 in a Divas title match. Torres just left the ring, grabbed her belt and ran away into the crowd to save the title. That title being saved when you just quit a match is so preposterous, but it’s an accepted part of wrestling and nobody is going to change something that gives bookers another “out” finish.
1254
1255Marella was backstage talking to Ricky Steamboat, saying Steamboat vs. Randy Savage was his favorite match of all-time. Steamboat said that match was the highlight of his career. Marella said it’s too bad the dragon and cobra never got a chance to work together. Barrett showed up playing the cocky heel role, saying that it’s a has-been and a never-was. Barrett said that finally the IC title means something and basically told Steamboat he wasn’t a fire breathing dragon anymore, “You’re an old man blowing smoke.” This led to Steamboat being in Marella’s corner when he faced Barrett.
1256
1257Orton did an interview. 3MB came out. Orton challenged any of them and told Slater, when he accepted, that when it’s over, he won’t be playing the air guitar, he’ll be playing the harp. 3MB noted that they will be in the Rumble.
1258
1259Rhodes & Sandow beat Kane & Bryan in a non-title match in 7:11. During this match they plugged Hall of Fame tickets and didn’t announce a name, which they usually do when they start pushing tickets. Kane lost his balance on the top rope, nearly fell off, but regained his balance quick enough. Most of the match was working on Bryan’s left knee which started when Bryan did a backflip off the top rope and started selling it. After continually working on Bryan’s knee, Rhodes pinned him clean with crossroads to set up a title match.
1260
1261Orton pinned Slater with the RKO in 4:27. Slater does a good job in his role of being animated while being a goof and putting guys over. After the match, Orton gave RKO’s to both Mahal and McIntyre.
1262
1263Barrett pinned Marella with the elbow in 2:20. Steamboat was in the corner but did nothing. After the match, Barrett confronted Steamboat, who took off his jacket, but Barrett bailed. Will be interesting to see what this is leading to because I don’t think Steamboat will wrestle because in FCW, they don’t even allow him inside the ring because he had problems with balance for more than a year after his bleeding on the brain issue.
1264
1265Sheamus did an interview. Striker brought up if he could duplicate last year where he won the Rumble and then won the title in 18 seconds. Sheamus said he didn’t think he could duplicate it, but he could win the Rumble and win the title, but didn’t think he could do it in 18 seconds. 3MB came out. Sheamus called them 3M Bieber. Sheamus made fun of them. Slater talked about how Orton got lucky earlier in the show. Sheamus then wanted them to all sing together, and he started singing “Danny Boy.”
1266
1267Cesaro pinned Khali in a non-title match with the Neutralizer in 3:23. Bad match, but the crowd was very impressed with the Neutralizer finish on such a big guy, which is why they had it in the first place. Miz was on commentary as they are building Miz as Cesaro’s new opponent. Miz said that Cesaro was impressive and strong, but he was only a rookie who hasn’t been through the battle or wars. Yes, he really said that. There was this light “Miz is awesome” chant while he was on commentary, and really sounded like only a few were doing it, and Miz called attention to it, which made him come off worse, and he noted that fans were chanting for him and not the guys in the match. Miz also talked about how guys like Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Steve Austin and him all brought prestige to the U.S. title.
1268
1269Heyman was backstage when Maddox showed up. Heyman told him to get lost, that he doesn’t want him in his life, and told him he doesn’t want him talking to Punk, Vickie Guerrero or him and told him to crawl back under the rock you slithered out of. Heyman said he doesn’t even know if Maddox exists, but “if you ever piss me off again, you won’t.” He didn’t use the word piss.
1270
1271Sheamus pinned Mahal with a Brogue kick in 5:42. Slater and McIntyre both interfered. Finish saw Sheamus clothesline both over the top rope. He then gave both McIntyre and Slater the Brogue kick outside the ring, before then doing it to Mahal. Seemed like the storyline is that Orton laid out all three guys with his move, and Sheamus laid out all three guys with his move. However, the announcers never made the connection so if that was the idea, like nobody knows it.
1272
1273Punk beat Ryback in 18:52 in a TLC match to retain the WWE title. Best Ryback match to date. Lots of chair usage on both sides. Super loud “Goldberg” chants at the beginning of the match. Ryback didn’t seem that over most of the way, but when he starts doing the shoulder motion, the whole crowd does the “Feed me more” chant. Ryback went for a spear outside the ring, but Punk moved and Ryback ran through a table. Then they did spots where each climbed but the other got them down. Punk pushed over the ladder and Ryback took a safe bump on his feet as opposed to the crazy bumps a lot of the guys do in that situation. Ryback pressed Punk overhead and dropped him on the ladder, rendering the ladder useless. Earlier in the match, Ryback had Punk up for a delayed vertical suplex with a chair and the ladder both on the ground and asked the fans which one to drop Punk on, and he dropped Punk on the ladder there as well. Ryback threw Punk over the top rope through a table. Ryback brought in a new ladder and climbed to the top. It appeared he was going to win the title when the lights went out. When the lights were back in, Rollins and Ambrose had climbed the other side of the ladder. Reigns then pulled Ryback down off the ladder. Ryback threw all three of them over the top, and started climbing again. They all got back in and were beating on Ryback with chair shots. The crowd was chanting for a Rock run-in. They gave Ryback a triple power bomb through the table with the steps underneath the table, laying him out. Punk was selling his left arm big as he struggled to climb, using one arm to climb, and pulled down the belt to win. Kind of predictable on the finish but it was about the only way to go.
1274
1275Punk after the match told Striker that he had nothing to do with Maddox and he doesn’t even know The Shield. He said he was coming out first before Rock comes out and before Rock comes out to entertain the millions, he was going to drop another pipe bomb.
1276
1277Kane & Bryan were backstage. Bryan had an ice pack on his knee and blamed Kane for not saving him and costing them the match. Kane said it was Bryan’s fault they lost. They started going back-and-forth with their usual blaming each other which morphed into a “Yes,” “No,” back-and-forth deal. Vickie Guerrero showed up in her only appearance on the show, noting that since she’s in charge, she knows everyone’s medical history and Kane has mental issues and Bryan has anger management issues. She said she’s ordered a follow-up visit next week with Dr. Shelby, who they both hate, returning. Kane said Shelby is a monster. Bryan said Shelby was a nerd. They went back-and-forth with “Monster,” “Nerd,” until Kane crossed Bryan up and said “Nerd,” and Bryan said “Monster” and they traded that until it was over.
1278
1279Show pinned Kingston in :22 with a punch KO as the ref was holding Kingston back and Show threw the punch over the ref’s shoulder. Weird to beat Kingston so quickly because it made him look like a prelim-level babyface. Maybe they were late on time and priorities were Punk and Rock.
1280
1281Punk and Rock did their thing to end the show. After Raw went off the air, Punk said that he had more to say and started talking. Rock cut him off and gave him a second rock bottom. Punk flew out of the ring and was selling big, but he crawled back in. Rock called Punk a tough cookie-puss for doing a TLC match and then taking two rock bottoms. Punk tried to mend fences with Rock and they got off on the wrong foot. Rock then gave him a spinebuster and people’s elbow to leave him laying. Rock ended the show thanking the fans, saying he was glad to come back to Tampa, since he trained to be a wrestler in Tampa (he trained with his father and the late Ron Slinker in Tampa and was giving in Town and Country, FL, a Tampa suburb, while training. He then went out and hugged his mom, who was sitting in the front row.
1282
1283Notes on the 1/8 Smackdown tapings in Miami. Newsworthy show with the world title change and Rock’s first appearance on Smackdown, the show named after his catch phrase, in more than ten years. They opened with Main Event tapings. Sheamus beat Ziggler via count out in a hot match. They once again teased Sheamus vs. Langston. The two did a much longer staredown this time, ending when Langston walked away for easy heat. Barrett pinned Ryder with the elbow in the other match. For Saturday Morning Slam, Kingston pinned Epico and Miz pinned Young with the Skull crushing finale.
1284
1285Smackdown opened with a video of Punk and Heyman. They were at Sun Life Stadium in Miami. They mostly talked about the University of Miami football team, since Rock played there in the early 90s. Punk was holding a Dwayne Johnson jersey and ended up putting it on. This set up Rock coming out. The place went crazy for him, since they know he lives there. Lots of “Cookie Puss,” chants so that thing got over. Rock did the “Finally, the Rock has come back...home” deal and talked about Flo Rida being in the house. Rock noted that Punk didn’t show up for Smackdown. He also talked about the University of Miami, and mentioned Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis. Rock was actually second-string behind Sapp when he was on the Hurricanes. It’s generally believed if Rock hadn’t have blown out his back, and Sapp wasn’t there, he’d have started, probably would have ended up in the NFL with that much playing time on a national power team. If he lasted in the NFL, he may not have gone into pro wrestling and it’s kind of like Sapp being there and taking the starting spot from him was the greatest thing that ever happened to his life. While he was doing his interview, Rhodes & Sandow came to the ring. They went back-and-forth verbally until Rhodes told Rock that he had better leave the ring or they would make him leave the ring. Rock called Rhodes caterpillar lip. Sandow then said that they would make a deal, and that if Rock could answer the three questions, he could stay in the ring, but if he couldn’t answer them, he’d have to leave the ring. They did the two easy ones first. When Sandow asked the hard question, Rock didn’t answer, and instead just gave him the rock bottom. Rhodes then attacked Rock, but Rock laid Rhodes out with a spinebuster and the people’s elbow. Apparently there has to be one edit because Rock mentioned 19 days until the Royal Rumble. It was 19 days that night, but when the show airs, it’s 16 days. This may have been taped early so he could get out of there, since Booker came out next with a promo talking about how Rock would be coming out later and he never did. So the Booker thing is likely to air before this.
1286
1287Booker came out and announced Cesaro vs. Orton and Show vs. Del Rio for the title in last man standing match were the two big matches on the show and Rock would be there later. He screwed up a few times and will have to redo a few things audio wise backstage. He opened saying “Welcome to the first Smackdown of 2013.” Last week’s show was taped on 12/30, but aired on Jan. 4. He also forgot a few of his lines. Show came out and wasn’t happy about having to defend the title against Del Rio. Show said that Del Rio was getting the title shot because of the high Latino population in the audience. There’s a difference between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and generally they don’t like each other. But wrestling fans like babyfaces usually no matter what ethnicity, unless they are obnoxious babyfaces or there’s a reason to resent them. Show talked about how there are no Latino heroes, which is funny because of why Del Rio is being turned now. Show started to bully Booker when Del Rio made the save and beat down Show before Show left.
1288
1289Cesaro announced he was entering the Rumble.
1290
1291Orton beat Cesaro via DQ when The Shield attacked Orton. Orton was beaten down and left laying.
1292
1293Ziggler & A.J. beat Khali & Natalya when A.J. pinned Natalya. Langston & Ziggler beat down Khali & Hornswoggle after the match. Langston used his move on Hornswoggle.
1294
1295Sheamus won a handicap match over McIntyre & Slater & Mahal by laying them all out with Brogue kicks.
1296
1297Kane & Bryan beat The Prime Time Players in a non-title match.
1298
1299Del Rio then won the title from Show in the last man standing match in the main event after hitting him three times with the stairs and burying him under the announcing table and Show couldn’t beat the count.
1300
1301Notes from the Jan. 4 Smackdown TV show. Basic show with the only major thing being teasing Sheamus vs. Orton as a slow build angle. Orton opened the show and said he wanted to win the world title this year. He said how for a long time, Smackdown was his show, but lately that hasn’t been the case. He announced he was entering the Rumble. Sheamus came out and said that he also wanted to win the world title this year and he’s also entering the Rumble. Sheamus then thanked Orton for helping him out when The Shield attacked him. Orton said that he wasn’t helping Sheamus out, that the Shield had injured him and he was just attacking them for himself. He also told Sheamus it’s every man for himself in the Rumble. Sheamus said he was aware of that, given that he won the Rumble last year. Orton said it would be sweet when he eliminates Sheamus in the Rumble. Sheamus then said he was going to Brogue kick Orton over the top. Show came out and said that if either of you win the Rumble, it doesn’t matter, and made a motion about knocking either of them out. Show said he’s got a size 18 boot waiting for either of them. Haven’t they said for years he has a size 22EEE shoe? Cesaro then came out, which led to Sheamus calling him “Heidi.” You know, Heidi was set in Switzerland. Orton decided at this point he wanted to start RKOing people. Booker came out and announced the four would be in a tag match as the main event.
1302
1303Miz pinned Slater in 13:00 with the Skull crushing finale. Good match, better than it sounds on paper. Slater in a very talented enhancement guy, which may not be the greatest position to be in, but it’s better than being a lousy one. JBL talked about how 3MB was on a winning streak. Huh? McIntyre interfered at one point and the ref threw he and Mahal out. JBL called 3MB the Air Guitar Spirit Squad. Slater worked over Miz’s left arm like they do in just about every American pro wrestling match. JBL explained how smart that was since Miz is a lefty so they were weakening his dominant arm. The only problem with saying that is it makes every pro wrestler look stupid when they all work the left arm. The reason you work the left arm is because most guys in the old days would make a comeback with punches, and most guys left handed punches looked a lot worse than their right handed punches. The announcers would say you work on the weaker arm because, well, it’s weaker. Of course none of that has any relevance today.
1304
1305Barrett did an interview saying he’ll remain IC champion. Khali & Hornswoggle & Natalya beat Primo & Epico & Mendes. Primo & Epico both totally oversold Hornswoggle using a stunner on them. JBL said that as they were doing so that Carlos Colon would be upset watching this. They got heat beating down Hornswoggle doing a low dropkick. The guys working high spots with Hornswoggle just looks bad, but the people did react to Hornswoggle’s comeback. The match sucked, and JBL actually talked about how bad it was, using the word horrible, and not even in bowling shoe ugly code words like Jim Ross would do. Khali pinned Primo afer a chop. They only let Mendes work a few seconds total.
1306
1307Barrett pinned Kingston in 14:30 to retain the IC title. This was a good match. At one point Barrett was outside the ring and just stood there, willing to take the count out loss to keep the title. Kingston jumped outside and threw him back in. Lots of near falls and both guys turned it on late. Best match on the show. Kingston hit the Trouble in Paradise but Barrett rolled out of the ring to save the title. The finish saw Kingston come off the ropes into the bull hammer elbow and he got pinned clean.
1308
1309Tamina Snuka pinned Layla with a splash off the top rope.
1310
1311Orton & Sheamus beat Show & Cesaro in 11:00. Sheamus was worked on for several minutes until he hit Show with the Brogue kick. But he was beaten down so he tagged out to Orton. Later in the match, when Sheamus tagged back in, he was setting up a Brogue kick on Cesaro when Orton jumped in the ring, hit the RKO on Cesaro and basically told Sheamus to pin him. Sheamus wasn’t happy about this. I guess he didn’t see those teamwork ads that play on the show. He didn’t go for the pin at first but eventually he did and Orton and Sheamus were glaring at each other. Orton then walked out on him.
1312
1313Ryder was upset again because on Raw, WWE has a graphic listing the top five wrestlers with the most followers on twitter and had Rock, Cena, Orton, Punk and Miz as the top five. However, at the time the graphic went up, Miz had 878,011 followers and Ryder had 990,324. He wrote a number of tweets noting this, saying WWE doesn’t want people to know he has 100,000 more followers than Miz and asked whose decision it was to leave him off. This led to getting “Ryder has more followers than Miz” trending.
1314
1315In the listing on most frequent opponents of 2012, the one I’d have thought of was Sheamus vs. Ziggler, because it felt like I saw Sheamus beat Ziggler a million times. Actually, between singles and tags, they “only” wrestled each other 23 times over the year, and out of that, Ziggler only got one win, in a tag match.
1316
1317Raw on Jan. 4 in Pensacola drew 5,000 and $160,000. 1/5 in Columbus, GA drew 6,500 and $185,000 which is a very good crowd for a market of that size for a house show, although Columbus is traditionally a great wrestling city and it was the Raw crew. 1/6 in Tallahassee drew 3,500 and $120,000, which isn’t good for Raw, but Tallahassee has traditionally been a tough market.
1318
1319Smackdown opened on Jan. 4 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, with 4,000 and $140,000. 1/5 in San Juan drew 7,000 and $300,000. Actually that number is considered really bad for the Three Kings Day holiday weekend show in San Juan, which not all that long ago was good for 15,000 fans for a WWE house show. But it’s the Smackdown crew. Originally they were going to do a three day tour with a 1/6 show in Ponce, but canceled it. They offered fans either refunds or an exchange for Mayaguez tickets two days earlier since they aren’t too far apart. Plus Ponce was going against a WWC show in Bayamon that day where they were letting kids in free and with lower priced tickets for adults.
1320
1321Raw opened in Pensacola with Clay & Ryder over Swagger & Leo Kruger when Clay pinned Kruger after a splash. Riley pinned JTG. Torres pinned Kaitlyn in their usual match. Ryback & Kane & Bryan beat The Shield via DQ when Reigns hit Ryback with a chair to the back and Ryback had Ambrose up for Shell shock. Marella pinned Tensai after the cobra. The difference from last week is this week nobody asked him to sing , “Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindder.” Tensai was yelling at fans not to call him Albert, so he got easy heat that way. Cesaro pinned Miz clean with the Neutralizer in a U.S. title match. Cena pinned Ziggler in a street fight. Fans were given the choice to pick from street fight or 2/3 falls. Ziggler went to hit Cena with the briefcase when Cena, being held by Langston, moved. Langston and A.J. were banned from ringside, but Langston came out anyway when ref Scott Armstrong got bumped. Ziggler nailed Langston and Cena pinned Ziggler after the Attitude Adjustment.
1322
1323It was generally the same show in Columbus, GA, with one change. Instead of fans voting for the stipulation in the main event, they gave it for the semi, which was Cesaro vs. Miz. Crowd was super hot for The Shield’s match once again, which they put on right before intermission. Cesaro and Miz used all the weapons, building to a table break, and went more than 21:00 with Cesaro winning clean with the Neutralizer. Cena and Ziggler did their same house show match minus the weapons, although they did the same briefcase finish as the night before. They also went 21:00.
1324
1325Tallahassee was the same show. Again they had Cesaro vs. Miz in a no DQ. After Cesaro won, Miz speared Cesaro through a table.
1326
1327Smackdown opened in Mayaguez. There were all kinds of late changes to the show. As noted last week, Mysterio & Sin Cara were to face Primo & Epico, which made no sense since Primo & Epico are babyfaces in Puerto Rico. Then Orton was put in the Mysterio spot. Another change is that Del Rio had the weekend off attending to the personal issues that were also why he wasn’t at Smackdown. Anyway, during the week, Michael Hayes, who does the booking for house shows, or someone, must have pointed out about Primo & Epico. So they were booked with Rhodes & Sandow. Orton was moved into a three-way main event, which may have been because even though he hasn’t been pushed on top, he’s still the most popular wrestler on the Smackdown brand, or perhaps Del Rio was to be in the spot. Sin Cara was then pulled from the tour. Usos beat Prime Time Players to open. Tatsu pinned Slater, so I guess they feel Slater is more effective always losing with his clueless gimmick. Layla pinned Aksana. Barrett pinned Kingston to keep the IC title. Khali pinned Otunga. Hornswoggle and Natalya were managing Khali. In other words, Natalya didn’t wrestle on the tour and Aksana did. Primo & Epico beat Rhodes & Sandow since it’s their territory and were put second from the top. Show retained the World title on top winning a three-way over Sheamus and Orton, who didn’t get along. For the finish, Sheamus gave Orton a Brogue kick when Show moved, and then Show threw Sheamus out of the ring and pinned Orton. After the match, Sheamus hit the Brogue kick on Show into an RKO delivered by Orton.
1328
1329Pretty much the same show in San Juan. They had the fans vote for no DQ or 2/3 falls in the IC title match, and they picked no DQ. After Tatsu pinned Slater, they did the women’s match and then Slater came back and said he didn’t go all the way to Puerto Rico to be embarrassed by losing to Tatsu, and called him back out. Tatsu came out and pinned Slater quickly.