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HERE AND THERE
One of the things that happened was WWE officials showed up at WrestleCon with a legal order to confiscate all bootleg material. They did so. Those who had the material confiscated had information collected on them. A hearing was set up on 4/16 in Newark to where people who had materials confiscated were able to plead their case and have them returned. Given that most of the vendors were likely from out of the area, they likely wouldn’t show up. And if they were selling bootleg merchandise, it’s not like they would be able to get it back unless they could prove it wasn’t. It should be noted that all vendors had to sign an agreement to be able to sell things that specified they would not sell any bootleg merchandise from any company, and it specifically mentioned WWE. That’s both to keep the organizers, Highspots.com, out of any potential problems but also to warn people ahead of time. The convention organizers either had an idea this would happen or at least knew the possibility existed, and it was people who were essentially given the warning head of time who got busted.
Scott Hall underwent hip replacement surgery over the past few days using the money sent in by fans via a fund raising web site. Even though the yoga that DDP is pushing is low impact, Hall was evidently in so much pain that he needed a hip replacement just to start doing it.
Serena Deeb returned at the 4/6 Shimmer show after being out more than one year due to issues with concussions. She worked a trios match. In the main event of that show, Cheerleader Melissa beat Saraya Knight (Paige’s mother) in a cage match to win the Shimmer title. Melissa did a super Frankensteiner off the cage.
Batista is back to his 280 pound or so self. He had dropped weight to try MMA. Since doing his first fight, there has been no talk of a second one. I think it was more something on his bucket list of sorts and he’s now 44. He has apparently closed his gym in Tampa. He had said he would reopen it in January, but didn’t.
Stephanie McMahon announced the new facility for developmental in Orlando will be opening up in June. It’s modeled after a college football or pro football training facility, with a ton of different rings set up plus a gym on location, with a similar type of coaching staff. It will be called the WWE Performance Center.
WWE will have a construction toy line working with The Bridge.
Stephanie McMahon also announced Rock as the cover person on WWE 2K14. Originally this was supposed to be a major reveal sometime down the line and there were people unhappy she ruined those plans. 2K Sports who were new to working with WWE were freaking out because this kind of thing wouldn’t happen with any other company but others who know about WWE just chalked it up as they are different from everyone else and get used to it. The whole social media thing has been divisive. Nobody can publicly say anything because Vince has advisers who tell them it’s the wave of the future and the stats they roll out with all the tens and hundreds of millions of this and that sound impressive and how they are beating the NFL and NBA. Stephanie this week said that in one year, social media will completely transform the company, which had people shaking their heads because the last year has been such a strong push and while right now, business is up, we are only a few months removed, with all the same social media pushes, of business being soft and ratings at generational lows, until the big stars, who are now gone again, came back for Mania. There is the feeling they push social media so much that it gets in the way of traditionally what you do put out as a television product, and that it comes off forced and not organic. My feeling is there was a time when it was totally annoying, but they’ve toned down. As a fan I don’t find it annoying anymore. The polls are cool. Sometimes they are a waste of time if they ask questions that they’ve led people on how to vote. And on Monday’s Raw, I have no idea what the idea was regarding having a poll to decide a match and then ignoring the outcome of the poll. If I was an advertiser, I wouldn’t be thrilled at them pushing during Raw to go to an app rather than pay attention to the commercial message on the screen. But that’s the charm of working with WWE in the sense the McMahons are unpredictable and when they get a whim, they do it.
The idea was to get Dwayne Johnson on Raw for the big announcement, even though it’s been announced. There is no date planned. That would indicate expectations people had for at least one more TV appearance in the next few months. With the injury and his tight schedule, there is no estimate when that would be. All of this has been very stressful on that side. Johnson’s people have told the Take Two people that the injury wasn’t that serious in the sense it will keep him from promoting the game since he’s scheduled to be the public face of the game for this year.
Stephanie was also trying to push the idea of WrestleMania as being on par or bigger then the Super Bowl in pre-show media. “It’s always been our intention to blow the Super Bowl away,” she said. “Of course it would be our goal to blow away the attendance record, to blow away revenue, to drive more revenue for the city than the Super Bowl.” She should talk like that because any time you are mentioned in the same breath with the Super Bowl, it makes your flagship event come across as that much bigger. I do find it funny those in the media buying the comparison or making reference to attendance figures in the same building. Aside from the fact the Mania released numbers are usually worked, in many cases heavily, if you are just looking at attendance numbers, there are a number of major colleges who every home game outdraw WrestleMania, and it doesn’t make every Saturday home game in Ann Arbor a bigger event. Whether the Super Bowl puts more people in a building or doesn’t, you can’t use live attendance as a comparison. The Super Bowl is going to have as many people as they can fit because the demand is far greater than the capacity every year. This year, that was the case for WrestleMania as they could have sold at least a few thousand more tickets than they did. But most years of late, WrestleMania hasn’t sold out. Legitimately, the Super Bowl had more people in Houston, Miami, Atlanta and Glendale than Mania because of the stage set up. However, in Detroit, the real Super Bowl number in 2006 was 68,206 and the real WrestleMania number in 2007 was 74,687.
Hornswoggle won this year’s annual video game tournament, beating Big E Langston in the finals.
Literally tons of stuff was being shot over the week with the wrestlers brought in, for both future WWE network broadcasts and for a number of upcoming DVD releases.
After making peace with Bruno Sammartino and Bret Hart in recent years, WWE even came to terms with Martha Hart, the widow of Owen Hart. At least in a legal sense. WWE settled out of court with Hart on her lawsuit against the company. Hart had wanted WWE to no longer mention Owen Hart, nor show his matches, nor sell them via videotape, and was also looking for royalties for Hart matches released on DVD that she was never informed about. There was no way she could win a case that revolved around WWE not having the rights to air footage that they owned of their own events (or for that matter, the Stampede Wrestling tapes that Ross Hart sold to WWE years ago which have Owen’s first few years in wrestling). However, the one charge that she very well could have at least had an argument on was back royalties. WWE had not paid her any royalties because she had sent a letter shortly after Owen Hart’s death, when she sued the company for negligence (which was also settled out of court) that she didn’t want any money from them for anything. After litigation was over, she never sent a letter rescinding her not wanting them to send any future money, so they never sent her the royalties. She was completely apart from wrestling. She hated it, never paid attention to it, and had no idea they were marketing anything with Owen. Then she found out and sued the company in both Canada and the U.S., more attempting to block release of the Hart Anthology DVD because that was when she found out. Then she found out there were a lot of DVDs released with Owen Hart. At the time she filed the suit, the royalties for Owen Hart over the years would have come to something in the neighborhood of $80,000 to $100,000. The nature of the settlement, announced jointly by Hart, Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon, was kept confidential.
In an AP article on Rock and WrestleMania, Cena said: “I always knew he loved the business. He loves it so much now that he really is the busiest person in the history of the WWE. He’s everywhere at once. He can do everything and still compete as WWE champion. Rock noted that he picked Cena to wrestle because he felt he was his best possible opponent, going so far as to say nobody else even came close. “He’s been the No. 1 guy in the company for many years now, and has managed to maintain a genuine, optimistic love for the business Often times, inherently, what the business creates is pessimism over time, and unhappiness. John has been able to stay above that, not get lost in the garbage, and not get lost in the noise.” Cena said, “I wish we had one guy with 10 percent of his (Rock’s) vision and his aspiration. When he gets a small opportunity, he kicks the damn door down and owns the house. Often times here, we have superstars that remind me of a hamster on the treadmill and those are the guys that usually complain. I don’t take too kindly to them. I’m fortunate Rock’s here and I’m glad he’s here. He can show up whenever he wants.” Johnson said that he hasn’t decided if he’ll wrestle next year in New Orleans, although the writer of the article was skeptical, saying WWE would be foolish to never book a Rock vs. Brock match.
HHH, in an interview with WPXI in Pittsburgh, said that when he approached Vince McMahon about wanting to get Sammartino for this year’s Hall of Fame, that Vince told him, “If you want to waste your time, go ahead.” He said after his first conversation with Sammartino, his reaction was, “Maybe Vince was right. It was clear there were a lot of issues.” What won Sammartino over is HHH didn’t argue with him about his complaints, just saying, “I’m not denying any of it. All I can do is tell you where we are today and where we are moving.” The article also made mention of Dr. Joseph Maroon, who has claimed WWE is cleaner than baseball (honestly, that is not responsible to say, because both sports have equal loopholes in testing including GH, and there is still more of a premium on having a good physique in wrestling as opposed to being a good player which is still most valuable in baseball since they don’t play in their underwear).
Sammartino on 4/5 got the key to the city of Jersey City, NJ. During the 60s, Sammartino regularly wrestled at the Jersey Armory in the city and he did two stadium shows at Roosevelt Stadium. That was when they figured doing Shea or Yankee Stadium to be too expensive (or maybe they couldn’t even get in), but they had matches they thought were too big for Madison Square Garden. On October 4, 1963, they were going to do the Sammartino vs. Buddy Rogers rematch, as they never did a rematch after Sammartino won the title. So they booked the stadium and something happened and Rogers ended up canceling. So it ended up with Sammartino against Gorilla Monsoon, who had just been introduced with that name (he’d been wrestling as Gino Marella until that point in time), and they did 18,000 fans at the stadium, which as it turned out, MSG could have held, and MSG was the better location because a rematch just 17 days later drew 19,000 at the Garden. But they’d have drawn tons more for Rogers most likely. They did a second show on June 26, 1964, with Sammartino vs. Fred Blassie, figuring Blassie was such a big draw since all the magazines had him as WWA world champion (he had lost the title by that time to Dick the Bruiser but the magazines were a few months out of date). Blassie wasn’t called world champion per se, but they did call him Pacific Coast champion and it was made out to the fans like it was the big title unification, but Jersey City wasn’t as good a place to draw as they did 17,000. It’s funny you give a figure like that in a city the size of Jersey City in the early 60s, when the population was so much lower, and act like it’s anything but great, but they eventually learned putting the rare “giant match” at Roosevelt Stadium instead of Madison Square Garden didn’t work, because the same match in MSG would draw more. Once again, two weeks later they did the rematch in Madison Square Garden and sold out, and three weeks after that, a third meeting also sold out. At that point they realized that if they had a big match, it was just better to run MSG than a stadium and didn’t do another area stadium show until 1972 with the Sammartino vs. Pedro Morales match at Shea Stadium, which drew 22,508, a few thousand more than they’d fit in MSG, but that crowd was blamed on miserable weather which hurt the walk up, and they did almost set the all-time North American gate record with that match. They later booked Shea Stadium shows in 1976 and 1980 that were more successful, each doing more than 30,000 fans.
People were remarking how great Jake Roberts looked when he came to town with DDP. He was described as completely lucid, looked in good shape for his age and was only limping slightly. Even those who had kept up on the news with him and had seen him in other places said that he looked so much better than even a month ago. DDP was getting a lot of credit. If he saves Jake’s life, he should.
Bryan did an interview with the Washington Post where he said that he doesn’t consider himself a great wrestler anymore. When asked about his current role, he said, “I don’t consider it wrestling. I’ve done wrestling everywhere. And just by being a good wrestler you can become popular, but not here. It’s more important to be entertaining than it is to be a great wrestler. It’s fascinating to me. Some things just stick. Why it happens, I have no idea.”
Regarding wrestling itself, he said, “One of the things that people don’t understand, even people here, people within the company, to me, wrestling is art. It’s a form of performance art. And there’s so much that goes into it that other people aren’t seeing.”
The amount of money WWE donated to Brian Stann’s “Hire Heroes USA” charity that he is CEO of was $100,000. There hasn’t been much talked about since the original donation and a video narrated by Stann that aired on TV. The idea told to me was that on strategic dates throughout the year, perhaps like at Memorial Day, WWE will push it on television again.
Punk on losing to Rock in an interview with the Busted Open radio show : “I wasn’t really champion for 434 days. It’s not like I really won it. We’re all adults here. We all know that pro wrestling is predetermined. My only gripe, and it’s always interesting because I do so many of these interviews and my answers always change and of course, people will just print like, `Punk’s mad that Rock s part time.’ Whatever. This is a business. The bottom line is dollars, But I can’t help it that I have so much old school ingrained in me that the champ works every show. So it’s 2013 and the business has completely changed and I was just vocal about there not being a champ on 2-3 months worth of house shows. I think the title is an attraction. Title fights should end the card. I just have a different philosophy on things. It’s great that Rock is back. Anybody in the locker room that says it doesn’t piss them off that he works however many days a year he works when we’re working 300 days a year, is saying something ridiculous, they’re kidding themselves. They’re scared to say it. I appreciate Rock and everything he does. He puts more eyes on the product, that’s awesome. Maybe at the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber, more people saw C.M. Punk for the first time. That’s cool But to me, the champ has a responsibility to the locker room. You’ve got to toe the line when you’re the champ. He’s not on every show. I’m not piss and vinegar, crying about it. It’s just a complete different opinion.”
Regarding his two matches with Rock: “I wasn’t happy with those matches. Were they the best they possibly could have been? Yeah, I think so. But I never like anything I do. I also don’t watch anything I do. I know when I do stuff that’s good and I know when I do stuff that’s bad and I just kind of leave it at that. I don’t know if it was built up to be this huge showdown, and I don’t know if it just fell short. I personally, I don’t think they were bad, but maybe something a little bit missing. Maybe I’d change my mind if I actually bothered to go back and watch but I just can’t bring myself to do it.” He was asked the question about what the angle would have been for Undertaker vs. Punk had Paul Bearer not died. That’s a frequent question we get, and the answer is, nobody really knows since they didn’t have one in place and were kind of just going week-to-week. He said, “I don’t know. I think a lot of people think it wouldn’t have been anything, but it’s the Undertaker at WrestleMania. It’s the streak. It’s the biggest thing in the WWE. It’s bigger than a title match. I’m confident we would have been okay.” Regarding the storyline that the winner of the four-way match would get Undertaker, he said, “I told them that was a stupid idea. I could have called him out. There’s different ways. It felt really weird to me and I didn’t like it.” He noted that Undertaker was never a dream match for him, unlike so many who have said wrestling Undertaker at WrestleMania would be their dream match. He said his dream match is Austin. He also mentioned he’d love to wrestle Harley Race or Pat Patterson in their prime. Regarding a match with Austin, he said, “I’m not saying anything is ever going to happen. Steve’s in a great place and he’s happy and for all intents and purposes, he shouldn’t wrestle again.” Austin never says no, and for this year, it was not considered because if Austin was to wrestle, it wouldn’t be on a show that already had Rock in the main event plus Lesnar. I’ve talked this subject with a number of people who know Austin closely and they really believe that with all his injuries (many of which haven’t come out), his pride, and the fact it’s now been ten years, that they really don’t think he’ll ever wrestle again, but they also recognize the idea of building a WrestleMania around his return, and he does praise Punk as the guy he could do something with, that if/when Rock doesn’t do a show, perhaps then he’d consider it.
This is how Dwayne Johnson explained his return in a New York Daily News article. “For years I was trying to think of when would be the best possible time to go back. And then about three years ago, I felt in my heart and in my gut it was the right opportunity to go back. I felt like I had reached a point in my career when I could go back to the WWE and help elevate it in any way that I could, and bring value to the bottom line. I had a great conversation with Vince. We met,. It took hours to figure out a good strategy to span the course of three years, spanning three WrestleManias, culminating with this one.” The idea from the start was that Rock would get the title one last time and pass it to Cena, pretty much as it ended up going, with the endorsement at the end. I think the one thing nobody counted on was that the fan base didn’t want to see the happy ending and endorsement between the two, because the fan base Rock had really didn’t like Cena and nothing Rock said and nothing the company does can seem to change that.
Updated box office numbers saw G.I. Joe at No. 2 this past weekend with $20,875,389 which was right at second week expectations. As of two weeks, it was at $86,438,449 domestic and was at $231.6 million worldwide. The Call was No. 9 in its fourth week at $3,500,248 (really strong showing) and is now at $45,481,341. They are already talking about doing The Call 2 sequel. Spring Breakers is No. 11 at $1,172,022 and is at $12,616,704 after for weeks. Snitch was No. 23 at $226,209 and is at $41,784,331 after seven weeks. Dead Man Down was No. 48 at $50,549 and its five week total is $10,828,678.
Shane McMahon, his wife and kids were all at Mania. Someone sitting by them said they seemed like they had a good time, and nobody was bothering them. Donald Trump and his family were a row up from Shane, arrived an hour into the show, then had to leave for his ceremony spot, but he was shaking hands and taking photos with people while nobody approached Shane.
Upcoming WWE releases are “No One Lives,” a horror film with Clay, out 5/10 at the theaters; 12 Rounds Two starring Orton is a DVD release in June. Those are the only movies they are releasing on DVD or theaters until 2014. They have “Leprechaun: Origins” (Hornswoggle) and the Scooby Doo Goes to WrestleMania, both scheduled for release in conjunction with next year’s Mania.
Maria Kanellis did a radio interview and was telling other wrestlers over the weekend that she was going back to WWE. Mike Bennett, her fiancé, had been off ROH and was brought back only because the spot opened when Charlie Haas left the company. He came back and his body was noticeably different, which could have been an injury preventing him from training or it could be getting ready for WWE. Bennett did not tell anyone in ROH that he was leaving and is booked going forward. Kanellis did not work the ROH tapings, while Bennett did, but ROH officials said Kanellis is booked on the next iPPV in Toronto. She was given the offer to come back, since WWE wanted to bring back several of the women since the roster is down.
Maryse at the WrestleCon didn’t say anything definitive but wasn’t ruling anything out. Kelly Kelly, who now has dark hair, was giving the impression she was enjoying being off the road and is still with Sheldon Souray of the Anaheim Ducks of the NHL, who is a year into a three-year contract at $3.7 million per year so money apparently isn’t as strong a motivating factor to her as it may be to others. She had opened up talks and she, Maryse and Kanellis were all offered a multiple person Divas match at Mania. Kelly asked for a higher guarantee to come back than offered and also wanted the rights to use the Kelly Kelly name on outside projects and that’s where things ended, as the company decided to go in another direction for Mania. The heat with some of the women and Kanellis is because Kanellis did a radio show and made references to Kelly being with different guys on the roster. Kelly had called Maria Menounos and asked if she could put a lid on Kanellis because Kanellis had talked about saying more personal things about her on the air. Menounos and Kanellis had worked together on a podcast that would air Monday nights after Raw. Menounos was the one who put the show together. The Bellas also had heat with her over the belief she was insinuating similar things with key people.
Mysterio was at Fan Axxess. He is supposed to be back around June after rehabbing his knee, but the feeling is that he’s winding down his run with the company.
Jericho, originally booked through Mania, looks like he’s staying longer. He is booked on the Raw taping on 4/22 in London but that’s the only European date he’s working since he’s on tour with Fozzy for a few weeks in Europe. Mick Foley is also on a long European tour, but will do the Saturday Morning Slam tapings but miss a few Smackdown tapings.
They have gotten away from advertising house shows as “Raw” or “Smackdown” brand, as there really isn’t a major distinction when it comes to who airs on television. The last few weeks even though the shows have been just as before, with one tour that used to be called Raw with Cena and the other with the world champion, Show, Orton and the guys considered Smackdown, the web site didn’t distinguish them. The idea going forward, once the ads already cut run their course, is that they will just advertise WWE Live for all the shows. It’s probably a good idea because, up until the last two months, they had issues with how the Smackdown branded shows were drawing.
Kingston was on the 4th and Pain radio show (hosted by Washington Redskins defensive end Adam Carriker) in Washington, DC, and said he’s always being mistaken for Robert Griffin III. He joked that he’s not quite as fast as RG3, but that he is the fastest wrestler in WWE.
Honky Tonk Man posted that he had signed a new contract which includes a legends deal.
There was a new belt on display at Axxess that was said to be an NXT Divas title belt, so they may be introducing that one soon.
Undertaker’s 4/23 match in London at the Smackdown tapings is being advertised as a trios match with Orton & Sheamus against The Shield.
Raw lineups on the European tour are now built around Cena vs. Punk vs. Ryback for the title and Kane vs. Langston.
After Mania, Jim Ross spent a few days in Stamford working on the upcoming Mid South DVD project. As far of the collection WWE purchased, there was a ton of arena footage that Joel Watts had shot. Some of the footage aired on Power Pro Wrestling, which was the “B” show in the 80s, and some was just shot and never made television. There was no announcing on those matches so nearly 30 years later, Ross was doing the voiceovers of the matches they were going to use. Ross would likely have been, along with Bill Watts, key people in the documentary DVD since Ross was Watts’ right hand man for years there.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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