The Midnight News 5.07.01
Posted By Hyatte on 05.07.01
WCW on TNN in November?, Austin pulls a Tyson, HHH ans Stephanie get grilled, Vampiro, Hall down South, Net feuds (sort of), and a tired me
Sundays are usually horrifically slow, but I scrounged up a healthy smattering of news bits for you to enjoy.
WCW IS CURSED!
There may be further problems with getting WCW on TNN Saturday nights. As reported last week, TNN was able to move Grand Ol' Opry off to another cable network, presumably for WCW.
But, TNN has a contract with the American Speed Association and World of Outlaws Racing Organizations for a LIVE Saturday Night broadcast from 9pm to midnight. TNN Online, Hotlaps.com, and ASA Racing all show the same shedule for the future.... Racing on TNN every Saturday.
TNN will get rid of the racing after this season, but is asking the WWF to wait until November to launch WCW
Time will tell. This is my first exclusive. If it turns out to be legit, I rule. If it's false, then I'll just say I was paying homage to the great Al Isaacs. My bases are quite covered, thank you.
CELL YOU IN HELL
Expect a special stipulation to be tacked onto the Austin/Undertaker match at the next PPV. Since the WWF is fully aware that these two have gone 'round and 'round already, it might very well be a "Hell In The Cell" cager. RF Video is telling this tale.
MUMMY DEAREST
Universal Pictures is crowing that The Mummy Returns cleared around 70 MILLION dollars over the weekend. Expect the WWF to give full credit to the Rock for this. Expect Hollywood to give full credit to Brendon Fraser. Expect no one to give full credit to the fact that it opened against practically nothing and only had Driven and that fat British chick movie starring whatshername to deal with. Still, 70 million buys a lot of condoms.
Not that the Rock needs those. He and his wife are expecting their first child in August. No, they don't plan on naming the kid, "The Pebble".
Roger Ebert said that the Rock does have an acting career ahead of him, but warned his readers that the movie ads are being manipulative. Rock's appearance in the film is nothing more than a "glorified cameo".
Incidentally, that 70 million may be a bit of a fib. Movie studios regularly draw on statistics and estimates to judge the weekend success of the movie and announcing that as hard fact before the actual results can confirm the estimates. So, in reality, The Mummy Returns may have only pulled in about 65 million.... hardly worth bragging about. Some say Vince McMahon has that much in loose change deep within his sofa.
The great A1 Wrestling A1 Wrestling supplied me with the weekend box info
DAMN BRITS! THIS IS REVENGE FOR LOSING THE COLONIES
It was reported yesterday that the Undertaker received a nasty cut during his Insurrextion match on Saturday. He also appeared unable to regain his balance after the match.
Well, Steve Austin's knee brace tore up a sizable chunk of the Undertaker's ear during the match, he was quite shaken up.
After getting off the plane today, the UT headed straight to the Plastic Surgeon for a little testicle tuck. While he was there, he also had the hunk of ear sewn back on.
The Observer gets credit here.
HEAT LESS HEAT
Triple H and Stephanie helped Tazz and Michael Cole debut a new format for WWF's Sunday Night Heat on MTV. Now it appears that the WWF New York stage will host an Interview show between the stars and the Hosts. No one's going to break kayfabe and start screaming "Unionize Now!" on air, but it does feature Q & A's from the audience and it might be fun if they allow a little character breaking during these improvised moments.
If this format doesn't generate ratings, MTV might make Vince McMahon wear a meatsuit and roll around on a giant B-B-Q Grill.
If you're one of those people who need recaps to EVERY wrestling show, 411 has it's Heat, and Jakked recaps all posted and ready for you.
SWATTING THE MOSQUITO JR
Add Rey Mysterio Jr. to the list of WCW names that have been released by AOL/Time Warner. Neither he, nor Konnan, nor Disquo has been contacted by the WWF as of yet.
One prospect the WWF is interested in is Super Crazy, but he's still going "Mucho Loco" in Japan for FMW and has yet to sign with the Empire.
And that's as close as I will ever get to doing Jap news.
RF Video came up with that one. Who ARE these guys?
DUSTY'S DANCE
Dusty Rhodes Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling held a card last night in front of 568 fans (the only people who didn't go to see The Mummy Returns, apparently) in Dolan, Alabama. The show featured mostly non-names, but the fans did get to see Scotty Anton (the "American Male" not named "Buff") defeat Lodi, Glacier beat Ron Studd, and Dusty Rhodes and Scott Hall beat Larry Zbyszko and Steve Lawler. Barry Windham also defeated Tommy Dreamer to keep his TCW title.
Kevin Nash was also at the show, but not as a performer.
That's another Observer story
HE ONLY COMES OUT AT NIGHT
Bob Ryder says that Vampiro is finally recovered from his severe concussion and is going to host a "Grappling and Ground Fighting" Seminar on the 13th at "Senshido, a personal hand to hand fighting system based on Montreal, Canada". The session will be filmed and whored out on video. As if Canadians even know how to fight. They seem to back right down to any challenge.
Vampiro will also be at an XPW show at the end of the month in Los Angeles with the Insane Clown Posse. In July, Vampiro will participate in another seminar, this time about Wrestling and will take on Sabu. All this takes place at the "Gathering of the Juggalos", an ICP fan Convention in Toledo, Ohio. One wonders if Sean Shannon will show up.
Vampiro is also talking to All Japan Pro Wrestling for a few matches in June.
During his days off, Vampiro plans on dining on the blood of vagrants and avoiding that pesky Sarah Michelle Gellar.
INTERNET FEUDS THAT I'M NOT A PART OF
I saved this for last, either as a final treat for you, or so you can go home early. Rob Van Dam showed up on his website and gave an Internet Writer some recognition. See if you can guess who he is talking about. Actually, he mentions his name halfway through, so never mind.
In a seemingly arrogant attempt to build his name by trying to pit himself in an argument with yours truly, an internet journalist has spent much time writing my name in recent months.
After reporting ridiculous misinformation, he insists that he has it right because he has "sources." He can fool himself but RVD fans need to know better; and there's no source closer to me than myself.
Most recently reported is the falsehood that I dropped my price to be a "reasonably priced wrestler". The Sensational One says that my incredibly high starting price dropped conversations with WCW. The fact for the RVD fans that know where to find the truth is that before official negotiations took place, we were asked what we were looking for and gave the famous number. Several days later, they came back at us with another number.
Ouch! Facts! We went one more step, their office got crazy, and while they asked us to be patient, the deal fell through. No problem, I roll with the punches.
This reporter doesn't know me. You say you like me - I don't recall ever meeting you. You call me aloof - I call you a c*ck!
The Sensational One goes on to tell of my reality "sinking in" of one company owning the business, and says that after working several months on the indies I've adjusted my thinking concerning my worth! Obviously, this lie was meant to get a rise out of me. It has no bearing on any truth in the universe that I live in.
Let's shed some official light on the knee report the Sensational Scherer would like everyone to always remember. A couple days before I returned from Thailand, I banged my knee on the ground doing a backflip on the set. I continued to work, doing several backflips and whatever action was called for in the remaining days.
After returning home, I got the unfortunate news that my good friend Joe C. had passed away. At his funeral, my knee was swollen a bit and a few wrestlers were there. A couple days later, the internet reported that I would miss the ECW pay-per-view that weekend because my knee was hurt.
Not only did my knee have nothing whatsoever to do with the PPV - my knee was fully healed! The Sensational One said I wasn't telling the truth and even implied that I received bad advice on my public positioning based on him! Believe me, Dave, my advisors have no idea who the hell you are!
Something else ridiculous is his accusations of me walking around backstage like I am the Whole F***ing Show. Until the final couple weeks, I had a great time sharing the family pride in that very same dressing room you used to peek through the curtains into.
You say your job is to report the news but you spend months trying to get me to admit I'm hurt when I feel fine. I'm not about to comment on whether or not I stubbed my toe last week. I pride myself in my physical conditioning. I'm guessing your pride is your sources.
RVD fans, consider me your source, just like always, when you want to know the deal. You never know who's really reporting news...and who's following Dave Rosanbitch's rule of thumb ("It doesn't matter what they say about you as long as they get your name right"). Still can't see the logic in that.
Speaking the truth,
RVD
Yes, of course, it's Dave Scherer, famed writer on the Internet. He wasn't around to respond, but Bob Ryder jumped in to make the save:
If you're looking for a reason that Rob Van Dam is working indy dates and not for the WWF, a good example of his poor attitude is on display on his website.
Van Dam has written a scathing attack on Dave Scherer that is currently on the main page of his website. Van Dam, through his friend Greg Price, has been engaged in a behind the scenes war of email with Scherer for the past few months. Price, who claims to be nothing more than Van Dam's "friend" but who also runs the Van Dam website, has sent Scherer several threatening emails over stories that have appeared on 1Wrestling.com regarding Van Dam. In at least one of those email messages, Price threatened Scherer with bodily harm..
What prompted the outrage?
It appears to have started when Buck Woodward reported that Van Dam had suffered a leg injury while filming a movie in Indonesia. The report said we did not know the extent of the injury but that it was not considered serious or career threatening. Through Price, Van Dam issued a strong denial and said he had never injured his leg. That prompted the exchange of emails containing a variety of threats from Price. We did not issue a retraction because we had solid confirmation that the injury did take place, and a couple of weeks later Van Dam admitted that he had hurt his knee while filming the movie calling it a minor injury.
In his attack on Scherer, Van Dam says the following: "This reporter doesn't know me. You say you like me -- I don't recall ever meeting you." I suppose it's possible that Van Dam has suffered some kind of brain damage from years of marijuana use, but he clearly knows Dave Scherer and saw him at virtually every ECW Arena event the past several years while Scherer was covering ECW. In addition, Scherer wrote a very positive article about Van Dam for WOW Magazine and conducted a lengthy interview with Van Dam to prepare for the story. Van Dam must have been happy with that story, because until late last year it was available to read on Van Dam's website. In fact, Van Dam thanked Scherer for the article and told him how much he liked it. That conversation was confirmed by Jim Quigley who was standing next to Scherer during the discussion.
Van Dam also takes exception to Scherer's reporting that WCW backed away from him when he asked for an outrageous amount of money. Van Dam says it was just negotiating, and that WCW fell apart before a deal could be done. I don't know that the actual number has been discussed online, but Van Dam asked for $1Million a year. That prompted a "who does he think he is" reaction from WCW, and to say that they were miles apart on a figure is not an exaggeration. Perhaps a bigger concern for WCW, though, was Van Dam's high profile endorsement of marijuana use through an interview with High Times Magazine, and through his use of the "4:20" slogan for his merchandise in ECW. He was a virtual poster-boy for legalization of marijuana, and WCW was concerned about bringing in someone with that kind of baggage in the already difficult environment caused by complaints from people like the PTC.
Van Dam can vent all he wants on his website about the way he is being covered on the internet. The fact of the matter is, he has been treated with kid gloves. People have looked the other way, and have avoided saying things that probably should have been said about him. He has been given much more than the benefit of the doubt, particularly from someone like Scherer who spent a considerable amount of time observing Van Dam's habits in the ECW dressing room.
In fact, it's not just website reporters that Van Dam has lashed out at in this manner. Dave Rosenbaum, from PWI, received similar treatment from Van Dam when PWI listed a weight for Van Dam that was lower than his liking.
Van Dam recently had a meeting with Jim Ross. I don't know if he is going to get a job in the WWF. Maybe he will. I can almost guarantee you, though, that it won't be for $1Million a year, and he won't be using "4:20" as a catch phrase.
Dave Scherer is out of town today, and has probably not read the attack on him made by Van Dam on his website. He may respond to it...he may not. It's up to him. I jumped into the situation because I did not want to see Scherer smeared unfairly without the other side of the story being put out there.
And so it goes....
Fighting on the Internet? How childish.
At least names were named, so Scott Keith can't announce that Van Dam was talking about HIM
New And Another Thing will be up sometime tomorrow.... other than that, I'm all done.
This is Hyatte