-- AJ Styles signed a three-month contract extension. The promo on
Impact was something he came up with and wrote to explain his character
change over the past year, and not something that TNA had any input
into. We got reports from the building that the crowd turning on him was
worse live than it sounded on TV.
Visualizzazioni totali
sabato 31 agosto 2013
venerdì 30 agosto 2013
AJ STYLES-TNA UPDATE!
No one would comment officially as to whether Styles had agreed to a short term or long term team deal but it's clear after the events that took place at Impact last night that he will be with the company for at least the short term.
I personally hope it's for the long-term.
Note on Impact Wrestling's finish. Botched Promo by Hogan.
Hulk Hogan botched up two things in his promo. He said Bully Ray was going to face Sting for the title this week.
Actually he was supposed to say Bully Ray was going to face Sting in a non-title match next week.
The match, which was already filmed, was a non-title bout becuase of
the Sting stipulation of never being allowed to challenge for the
title.
This actually happens more than you'd think with Hogan TNA promos,
but usually they can re-edit them or the explain them later in the
show. On this one, there was no time to do either.
giovedì 29 agosto 2013
UFC live coverage from Indianapolis - Condit vs. Kampmann, Cerrone vs. Dos Anjos
Welcome to our live coverage of the UFC show from Indianapolis.
ABEL TRUJILLO VS. ROGER BOWLING, LIGHTWEIGHTS
First round: Both swinging. Bowling picked him up on his shoulder and slammed him down. Trujillo to his feet and landed a knee. Trujillo landed a knee in an exchange. Jab by Trujillo. Trujillo with a takedown. Truijllo got behind him and took him down again. Trujillo in side control. Bowling back up but taken back down again. Trujllo with knees to the thigh. Bowling worked for a guillotine. Bowling going for a second guillotine. Trujillo out thowing punches as the round ended. Hot round, crowd liked it. Very close round. 10-9 Trujillo.
ABEL TRUJILLO VS. ROGER BOWLING, LIGHTWEIGHTS
First round: Both swinging. Bowling picked him up on his shoulder and slammed him down. Trujillo to his feet and landed a knee. Trujillo landed a knee in an exchange. Jab by Trujillo. Trujillo with a takedown. Truijllo got behind him and took him down again. Trujillo in side control. Bowling back up but taken back down again. Trujllo with knees to the thigh. Bowling worked for a guillotine. Bowling going for a second guillotine. Trujillo out thowing punches as the round ended. Hot round, crowd liked it. Very close round. 10-9 Trujillo.
Second round: Bowling took him down. Trujllo back up. Trujillo with a
left. Bowling starting to land. Trujillo in with a knee. Bowling
started to land with a nice uppercut. Nice body shot by Bowling. Both
trading but Bowling landing the better shots. Takedown by Bowling. Knee
by Bowing as Trujillo got up. Trujillo now starting to land. Bowling
with another takedown. Bowling working for a choke. Trujillo escaped and
threw two knees and I think both were illegal. Trujillo turned heel
here to the crowd not just in doing it but in acting like he did nothing
wrong. That was vicious and should be a DQ right there. The first knee
was to the chest and the second was to the nose and a follow-up punch
laid out Bowling. The ref deducted a point from Trujillo. Bowling was
down for a long time. Bowling’s round so he should be up 19-18 at this
point.
Third round: The doctor told the ref that Bowling was knocked out and
would not allow him to continue. Bowling is not happy. The ref called
it a no contest. Trujillo is mad about not getting a win and I think
it’s a joke he’s not getting a DQ because that knee was flagrant. They
shook hands after.
ZAK CUMMINGS VS. BENNY ALLOWAY, WELTERWEIGHTS
ZAK CUMMINGS VS. BENNY ALLOWAY, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: Alloway with a takedown but let him back up. Cummings
trying to get a takedown now. Knee by Alloway. Cummings with a few
punches and got the takedown. Cummings is in side control. Alloway back
up. Cummings moved in going for a takedown but Alloway defending well.
Cummings got another takdown. . He’s back in side control. Cummings got a
D’arce choke for the submission. Cool set up, nice submission. 4:19
JASON HIGH VS. JAMES HEAD, WELTERWEIGHTS
JASON HIGH VS. JAMES HEAD, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: High got the takedown. A couple of punches by High and
he went for a guillotine. He used it to get to mount. He kept the
guillotine on and Head had to tap.
HATSU HIOKI VS. DARREN ELKINS, FEATHERWEIGHTS
HATSU HIOKI VS. DARREN ELKINS, FEATHERWEIGHTS
First round: Elkins more aggressive but Hioki caught him with a
counter. Hioki bleeding. Hioki landing punches and kicks to the body.
Hioki continuing to work the body. Hioki landed to the head. Elkins came
in. Elkins is hurt and Hioki working he body. Hioki took him down and
is working the body. Elkins tried a leglock but Hioki escaped. Elkins to
his feet trying for a takedown. Elkins tried he takedown but Hioki
working for back position. They are stalemated right now. Hioki landing a
lot of lefts. Elkins bleeding. 10-9 Hioki.
Second round: Elkins aggressvie but Hioki got the takedown. Nice
escape by Elkins and to his feet. Elkins landed a nice left land. Elkins
landed a right. Elkins tried a kick but it was blocked. Hioki again
trying to work the body. Elkins with a takedown. Hioki to his feet.
Hioki got Elkins back and went for the choke but Hioki ended up on top.
Elkins back on top as Hioki went for a triangle. Close round, goes to
Elkins so 19-19.
Third round: Elkins landed a left. Elkins landed a right. Elkins
moved in and landed. Elkins got the takedown. Elkins on top throwing
punches, some of which are landing solidly. Elkins landing punches from
the top. Hioki tried an armbar but Elkins pulled out and was never in
danger. Elkins landing more punches. Elkins should win this round and
win 29-28.’
Scores: All three have it 29-28 for Elkins.
BRANDON THATCH VS. JUSTIN EDWARDS, WELTERWEIGHTS
BRANDON THATCH VS. JUSTIN EDWARDS, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: Thatch put him down but he’s back up. Hard knee by
Thatch. High kick by Thatch. Knee to the body by Thatch and then he
threw him down. Another knee by Thatch and then another. Thatch is
looking great. More knees and Edwards is down again and it was stopped.
Very impressive debut for Thatch.
PAPY ABEDI VS. DYLAN ANDREWS, MIDDLEWEIGHTS
PAPY ABEDI VS. DYLAN ANDREWS, MIDDLEWEIGHTS
First round: Abedi with a body kick. Abedi wth a kick to the body.
Abedi connected to the chin and moved in. Abedi picked him up overhead
and slammed him down. He moved into side control. Andrews up and took
Abedi down but Abedi back up. Abedi took him back down with an inside
trip. Abedi with a judo throw for another takedown. Andrews up and went
for takedown. Abedi tried a guillotinebut Andrews blocked it. Andrews
got a takedown. Abedi 10-9
Second round: Abedi throwing body kicks. Hard body kick by Abedi.
Andrews with a takedown but Abedi right back up. Abedi landed a right
hook and took Andrews down. Knee to the body by Abedi and two hard
lefts. Abedi again working for a guillotine but gave it up. Now Abedi
with punches. Andrews back up. Andrews with an accidental groin strike
as the round ended. Abedi’s round up 20-18.
Thrid round: Andrews with a punch but Abedi tied him up. Andrews hurt
him with uppercuts, put Abedi down and landed punches on the ground and
Herb Dean stopped it. Andrews with a right, a nice uppercut and Abedi
went down. Abedi couldn’t move and Andrews finished him with punches on
the ground.
Andrews said that when he took the judo throw in the first round that
his left shoulder cracked and apologized for his performance. He said
the uppercut is his money shot.
BUBBA MCDANIEL VS. BRAD TAVARES, MIDDLEWEIGHTS
First round: McDaniel landed a left. McDaniel trying to get a
takedown but Tavares blocked it and got free from the clinch. Tavares
with a nice right. Hard left by McDaniel. Tavares threw a punch and
threw down McDaniel but let himback up. Both are throwing body kicks.
Tavares with a series of punches. McDaniel working for a takedown but
not getting it. McDaniel threw a knee to the groin. Tavares nailed his
right leg which is all rasberried already. 10-9 Tavares.
Second round: Tavares landing punches. Body kick by Tavares. Tavares
landed a punch and McDaniel stumbled down but Tavares didn’t go to the
ground with him. Body kick. McDaniel got a takedown as Tavares threw a
punch. Body kick by Tavares. McDaniel got a clinch and Tavares got the
takedown but then got up. Tavares is avoiding going to the ground wth
McDaniel. Tavares 20-18.
Third round: McDaniel landed a good left. High kick by McDaniel but
blocked. Tavares with a kick to the groin and McDaniel went down hard.
McDaniel had complained seconds earlier on a knee to the groin in a
clinch. Trading body kicks. McDaniel got the takedown. McDaniel didn’t
go for anything on the ground as Tavares didn’t open up. He remained on
top of Tavares for the rest of the round but didn’t do major damage or
attempt any submissions. McDaniel won the round but should lose the
fight 29-28.
Scores: All three have it 29-28 for Tavares
ERIK PEREZ VS. TAKEYA MIZUGAKI, BANTAMWEIGHTS
ERIK PEREZ VS. TAKEYA MIZUGAKI, BANTAMWEIGHTS
First round: Both traded early. Mizugaki landed a hard left. Preez
landed a hard left as well. Both continuing to land hard shots. Perez
with a knee and Mizugaki back with a punch. Perez landed a nice right.
Big right by Mizugaki. Perez with a takedown. Perez bleeding from the
nose. Mizugaki back up. Perez looking for another takedown and got it.
Perez with another takedown. Knee by Perez as Mizugaki got up. Mizugaki
got the takedown and has his back. Perez back up and landed a knee to
the body. Perez trying for another takedown and got it. Mizugaki back
up. Good first round 10-9 Perez.
Second round: Both are trading punches. Mizugaki getting the better
of it. Knee by Mizugaki. Perez moved in and working for a takedown but
didn’t get it. Mizugaki landing good shots. Mizugaki went for a takedown
but didn’t get it. Perez with a right. Mizugaki landing several good
shots. Perez trying for a takedown. Mizugaki blocking the takedown this
time. Good knee by Perez. Hard right by Mizugaki. Knee by Perez. Front
kick by Perez. Perez tried for a takedown but couldn’t get it.
Mizugaki’s round so 19-19 after two.
Third round: Both trading punches Mizugaki landing the better shots.
Front kick by Perez and Mizugaki back with punches. Front kick by Perez.
Again both trading punches and Mizugaki got the takedown. Perez back
up. Perez got the takedown but Mizugaki back up. Mizugaki got the
takedown and is on top. Mizugaki got his back. Mizugaki got the choke
Perez escaped and they’re trading punches. That was something. Perez
getting out because that choke was in. Perez trying for a takedown.
Perez got him down but Mizugaki back up. Both throwing late. Mizugaki’s
round. Very good fight, 29-28 Mizugaki.
Scores: 29-28 Perez, 29-28 Mizugaki 29-28 Mizugaki
C.M. Punk noticeable in the front row right next to Dana White.
ROBERT WHITTAKER VS. COURT MCGEE, WELTERWEIGHTS
ROBERT WHITTAKER VS. COURT MCGEE, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: McGee aggressively going for a takedown but can’t get
it. McGee landed some punches. High kick by McGee. Whittaker snuck in a
left. Low kick by McGee. Right by Whittaker. Whittaker dropped him with a
left. Anther left by Whittaker connected. McGee got the takedown but
Whittaker back up. McGee keeping a fast pace. McGee bleeding from the
left side of the head. 10-9 Whittaker
Second round: Body kick by McGee. McGee hurt him with a punch.
Whittaker went down. McGee just keeping the pressure on. He landed an
elbow. Now body shots. McGee’s conditioning is making the difference.
McGee got the takedown. Body kick by McGee. Elbow snuck in by Whittaker.
Left by Whittaker. McGee shot for a takedown. Whittaker with an
uppercut and a left. McGee went for a takedown but it was blocked.
Whittaker landed left and a high kick. McGee’s round so 19-19 going into
the third. Good fight.
Third round: Whittaker landed a few. McGee with a left. Spin kick by
to the body by McGee. Hard left by Whittaker. Left by Whittaker.
Whittaker landed a left hook. Elbow by Whittaker. McGee went for a
takedown but Whittaker blocked it. Both men bleeding. McGee moving
forward and is the aggressor. McGee taking over late. Whittaker landed a
left. Very close fight, I think McGee won this late in the third.
Scores: 30-27, Whittaker 30-27 McGee 29-28 McGee. That was weird scoring. Either guy could have won here.
KELVIN GASTELUM VS. BRIAN MELANCON, WELTERWEIGHTS
KELVIN GASTELUM VS. BRIAN MELANCON, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: Gastelum took him right down. Melancon right up. Another
takedown by Gastluem and pnches. Gastelum landed hard shots and grabbed
a choke for the tap out. It was a left, a right, a left uppercut that
put Melancon down and he immediately grabbed the choke.
COWBOY CERRONE VS. RAFAEL DOS ANJOS, LIGHTWEIGHTS
COWBOY CERRONE VS. RAFAEL DOS ANJOS, LIGHTWEIGHTS
First round: Both trading body kicks right now. Knee by Cerrone to
the body. Dos Anjos still landing more. Dos Anjos with another body
kick. Body kick by Cerrone, Dos Anjos decked him with a right. Dos Anjos
took him down. Cerone working for a triangle but Dos Anjos defending
well. Dos Anjos with punches and an elbow . Dos Anjos working from the
top. Dos Anjos with more elbows and punches from the top. Big elbow by
Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos 10-9.
Second round: Body kick by Dos Anjos. Another body kick by Dos Anjos.
Dos Anjos with punches and a body kick. Dos Anjos landed a good left
and a knee and a body kick. Dos Anjos with a body shot and a left high
kick. Body kick by Cerrone but Dos Anjos back. Takedown by Cerrone.
Cerrone working for a guillotine but had to give it up. Dos Anjos back
up. Dos Anjos working for a takedown. Cerrone blocke it. Trading body
kicks. Left by Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos working for a takedown and this time
got it. Dos Anjos won this round as well so should be up 20-18.
Third round: Dos Anjos missed a high kick. Hard low kick by Cerrone.
Dos Anjos with a high kick. Body kick by Cerrone. Body kick by Cerrone.
Dos Anjos working for a takedown. Cerrone blocking. Right by Dos Anjos
an a left. Knee by Cerrone. Body kick by Dos Anjos. Body kick and a
right by Cerrone. Dos Anjos trying for a takedown but Cerrone blocked
it. Knee by Cerrone and front kick. Body shot by Cerrone. Good right by
Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos stalling, dancing backwards at the end. Cerrone’s
round but he should lose 29-28 Dos Anjos.
Scores: All three have it 29-28 for Dos Anjos
CARLOS CONDIT VS. MARTIN KAMPMANN, WELTERWEIGHTS
CARLOS CONDIT VS. MARTIN KAMPMANN, WELTERWEIGHTS
First round: Kampmann immediatley shot for a takedown. Condit
defending well. But he got Condit down. Kampmann throwing some punches
on the ground. Kampamnn now has his back and is working for a choke.
Condit is in toruble now. Condit escaped and got on top. Kampmann up.
Kampmann got another takedown. Condit up and landed elbows. Condit came
in with punches. Kampamnn took him down again. 10-9 Kampmann.
Second round: Left by Kampmann. Kampmann landed a left and going for a
takedown. Condit with puches. Kampmann trying for a takedown but didn’t
get it. Condit got his back standing. Elbow by Condit. Condit landing
punches. Trading rights. Kampmann in with punches. Condit landed two
rights. Condit with a body kick. Both landing punches but Condit was
getting the better of it. Kampmann with a solid right. Spinning backfist
by Condit. Kampmann working for a takedown. Kampmann tried a takedown
but slipped off and Condit tried to control him but Kampmann out. Left
kick landed by Condit. Kampmann going for a a takedown but Condit with a
kick and an elbow. Condit’s round 19-19
Third round: Spinning backfist by Condit. Kampmann in with punches
and Condit with an elbow. Kampmann got the takedown. Condit landing
punches. High kick by Condit. Condit with solid punches and Kampmann now
bleeding. Kampmann tried for a takedown and didn’t get it. Kampmann
with punches. Condit now landing punches. Kampmann with a left. Condit
with a right. Condit landing several punches. Condit continuing to land
and Kampmann dancing backwards. High kick and punches by Condit and
Kampmann dancing away. Knee by Condit. Condit tried a choke, got him
down and Condit working for choke. Kampmann is out. Condit got his back.
Condit again working for a choke. Condit landing more punches. 10-9
Condit, would be 10-8.5 with halfs. 29-28 Condit after three.
Fourth round: Kampamnn got the takedown. Now both going for a
takedown but Condit broke free. Trading punches and Condit has him in
trouble. Knees by Condit and Kampmann went down. Ref Herb Dean stopped
it. :54
TNA REACTION TO HULK WANTING BISCHOFF IN CHARGE OF THE COMPANY!
Hogan said that Eric Bischoff "needed to be given the keys to the car" and that, "somebody somewhere" needed to "drop all the resources we need like we had in the WWE and the WWF, whether it be cameras or money or vehicles or advertising" in order for TNA to work "in a perfect world."
In asking around about what TNA's response to the comments were, I was told that a number of people within the company were upset about the statement for several reasons and that there's absolutely heat on the duo for even insinuating that the Carter family wasn't giving TNA proper resources.
As one source noted, no matter how you feel about her, the comments can't be seen as anything but a direct slap in the face to TNA President Dixie Carter, coming from her top paid talent, no less.
"Even if you agreed with Hulk, " said one TNA wrestler that spoke under condition of anomynity, "the way it was said and the way it comes across in that video just completely disrespected Dixie, even if that's not what he meant."
Two, the reality is that to many in the company, Bischoff has been given the keys to the car. From the day he and Hogan came into the company, TNA management has acquiesced to their creative direction and ideas - whether it be talent that was brought in, the removal of the six-sided ring, the failure that came with moving Impact Wrestling to Mondays opposite Raw, leaving the Impact Zone and taking TNA on the road, etc. These were all ideas that came from the Bischoff/Hogan era that TNA agreed to under the auspice of growing the company.
The problem with all that is, as one source noted, there has been no growth in any facet of TNA's business since The Bischoff/Hogan regime began - not in live events, not in ratings, not in licensing - not in any one department or aspect of the promotion.
Instead, the company went on the road and didn't see the estimated revenue that they believed would come with it, forcing them to restructure from the ground up and putting them into a position where they have to be the "evil company" letting Jesse Soresen go and have to be in a position where money is an issue re-signing their original poster boy, AJ Styles.
At the same time, TNA has paid Hogan a good salary and put Bischoff into a position where he became the conduit and liason between Spike and TNA, even before Dixie Carter, who created and cultivated the relationship between the two sides.
So, the pair continue to reap the rewards of being part of the company while others have lost their jobs, have had their deals restructured for less money and watch as the company continues to, at best, run on a treadmill and at worse, slide backwards. To put it in layman's terms, TNA is putting out more money to be exactly where they were, or worse, in comparison to before Bischoff/Hogan's regime began.
So, for Hogan to say that TNA should just hand Bischoff a blank check and full power, well, you can imagine how much all that has endeared the duo inside the TNA offices this week, especially when everyone's work and deals have been scrutinized closely in recent months.
A number of people noted that they would be waiting to see what the interaction between the duo and Dixie Carter would be at tonight's taping in Cleveland, the first time Hogan has been at a TNA taping in a month.
"Hulk came across like he pretty much said that the company didn't have anyone strong in charge and Eric was the savior," said the TNA wrestler. "Well, they've been here years and Eric hasn't saved anyone yet."
Whole Ted DiBiase Jr.-WWE Story!
Ted DiBiase Jr., 30, announced on 8/26 that he was leaving the company.
He will be entering a religious-based private business in the Jackson,
MS, area, where he and his family live. He cut a video praising the
company for its charity work, saying that he had some amazing life
experiences there, traveling the world and even starring in a movie
(“The Marine 2"). He said he’s not saying he wouldn’t come back, but
there were other dreams and passions he would like to pursue, one of
which was being a Dad. We’d heard for quite some time he was
considering leaving, and the timing is that his contract just expired.
He hadn’t been used well and it didn’t appear there were any plans to do
anything with him, so he wanted to move on to whatever was next in his
life. DiBiase Jr. is a unique situation because the company hand-picked
him to be a top star years ago. Cena at one point had openly in the
press talked about DiBiase as a guy he would headline WrestleMania with
and as one of the next superstars of the company. But it never
happened. Some of it was timing and some of it was bad luck. He was
tall, good looking, great physique and a solid worker, all things they
like. He could have made it but he was missing something that stands
out, and he was a guy totally given up on after injuries. DiBiase Jr.
was originally trained by Chris Romero and Harley Race, and worked as a
tag team with older brother Mike DiBiase, who is now out of the
business. A third brother, Brett DiBiase, was in WWE developmental and
at one time scheduled to be brought in with a push, but the idea fell
apart and Brett DiBiase’s career ended early, in 2011, due to having
undergone four knee operations already by the age of 22.
He started
with Pro Wrestling NOAH and got raves for being smooth in the ring while
having so little experience, and then was signed by WWE in July 2007,
and was brought in with a push on May 26, 2008, immediately winning the
tag team titles with Cody Rhodes. For the next three years he was in
the position of the young guy being groomed, with Orton, Rhodes and
DiBiase as Legacy. He also, very quickly, was given the lead role in
“Marine 2,” and things were looking bright for him. The original idea
was for him to turn face at around the time the movie came out and get a
big singles push. They started teasing dissension between Orton and
DiBiase, and the crowd was behind DiBiase, but they went nowhere with it
and I don’t think he ever recovered. When they split up the group,
Orton was the one who went face and destroyed both of them in the feud,
winning a WrestleMania match and then DiBiase was moved to Smackdown.
He was given the Million Dollar Man gimmick of his father, and that
flopped for a number of reasons. His father’s role was iconic and while
DiBiase was a solid ring technician, he was not the personality of his
father. The story was that his father left him huge money in a trust
fund that he would get as soon as he appeared in a WrestleMania. They
even brought in Virgil, his father’s bodyguard, to work with him as his
servant. That didn’t work. Aside from the fact it wasn’t going to work
anyway because he lacked the personality to play the role that his
father had, and the natural comparison made him come across secondary,
they never put the gimmick over. With his father, he bought everyone
for months until he couldn’t buy the top babyfaces.
With DiBiase, the
money didn’t buy anything of note, and in his first PPV match with the
gimmick, lost to R-Truth. Eventually they linked him with Maryse as his
hot girlfriend, but the two had embarrassingly bad chemistry together.
Even before they started the tension, their on-screen demeanor made it
clear there was no romance or chemistry. Then they gave him the Million
Dollar belt that his father used as a gimmick. He went nowhere with
the gimmick, and once the gimmick was dropped, he and Maryse were broken
up, and he went face, they really had nothing for him. On his own, he
came up with the idea of the DiBiase Posse, where he’d tailgate with
fans before the Smackdown tapings. Vince McMahon loved the idea, but
they never got behind it. He did get an undercard push at the end of
2011, but was used to put newcomer Jinder Mahal over clean, and then was
in an undercard feud with Hunico. Even before this we’d heard he was
thinking about leaving wrestling if his career didn’t turn around. In
early 2012, he suffered a broken ankle, and since he had to be out of
action anyway, he opted to get long-needed shoulder surgery. He
appeared only sparingly on TV and house shows after his return last
July. He also suffered a broken wrist and a finger injury in December
and didn’t return until this past May, but had been rarely used since.
We’ve been told that for now, he’s just looking at taking time off.
Even though he was rarely used, he was at TV all the time. Long-term,
he’s been interested in pursuing acting for years and when we had first
heard he was looking at leaving, that was what he was interested in.
There is also thoughts of doing some pro wrestling, perhaps in Japan,
where he started, but the Japanese scene, and in particular Pro
Wrestling NOAH, is very different now than it was when he was there at
the start of his career.
Bill Goldberg comments on possible WrestleMania Appearence and on Ryback!
Bill Goldberg has agreed to be one of the headline autograph signing
participants and do a Q&A for WrestleCon this year in New Orleans
over WrestleMania weekend. While that doesn’t rule him out appearing
for WWE, since plenty of people, including Bruno Sammartino just this
past year, have been scheduled ahead of time for something like that and
ended up working with WWE, in some cases being pulled, it does indicate
that Goldberg probably right now doesn’t think he’s doing it. There
was talk of him, and I don’t know it’s with Ryback, although it would
seem to make the most sense business-wise (in the ring is another issue,
but any Goldberg match would have to be kept short). He denied that he
agreed to it, although the way we heard it was not he agreed to it but
that there was talk of dealing with him since it’s Mania and they’ve
been accustomed to bringing in someone special from the outside.
Goldberg got some pub over the weekend for throwing out the first pitch
at a Miami Marlins baseball game (they brought in a lot of wrestlers
including Bret Hart and had a show, a deal put together by Brian Knobs).
When asked by the Miami Herald about coming back to wrestle with WWE,
he said he had spoken with them, that there was no deal to do
WrestleMania, but there were eight months to go and not to count him out
of doing the show.
He said he’s not a fan of Ryback and not impressed
with him, but if he was to come back, he’d rather face Undertaker.
Besides WWE coming out with a Goldberg DVD, he’s also in the new WWE
video game. He said, “Have I spoken to them at times? Absolutely. Is
my DVD coming out? Yes. Am I going to be at WrestleMania. No. But
there is eight months until WrestleMania. So, at this moment I can tell
you I’m not planning to be there by any stretch of the imagination, but
you never know. Things could change. If the offer is to go to
WrestleMania and to wrestle (Ryback) and put him over, at the end of the
today, me in the ring with Ryback, wouldn’t be my ultimate opponent of
my choosing. I’d like to wrestle Undertaker with the streak vs. streak.
You know, I’ve never gotten in the ring with him. Let’s give the
people something they’ve never seen before. I think after everybody
sees what I did out there, I can still do everything I used to do, even
at 46. I’d love to wrestle him. Obviously, Austin is a dream match,
but the reality is I just want to give the people what they want to
see.” Goldberg said on Ryback, “I got more talent in one finger than
that punk has in his entire body. I have, at 46-years-old, more
presence than he could have in his entire life. The only reason I’m
adamantly antagonized is because he has opened his mouth of couple of
times of late, I guess he was over in Europe and said he took a big
Goldberg or something. Ask HHH. I don’t like people talking about me
when I’m not in the business. Ryback, if I see you around, you better
hold on tight. That’s all I got to say. This ain’t the WWE. This is
called life.”
Whole TNA BFG Series Situation!
The Bound for Glory series turned into a mess this week. Here’s the
situation. In a 12-man round robin tournament, where everyone wrestles
each other (like G-1, for example), you need to have 11 matches. Well,
since they announced the final four would be on the 9/12 show in St.
Louis, they had 37 different matches still needed to do with one
television taping on 8/29 in Cleveland, and four house shows, before
9/12. So they’re out of time. So they’ve announced that the series
will end after the first of the two shows taped on 8/29, called Must Win
Thursday, with Hernandez vs. Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels vs.
Austin Aries, A.J. Styles vs. Bobby Roode and Jeff Hardy vs. Magnus.
When those matches are over, the top four point-getters will be
announced for St. Louis. So in the end, Magnus will have done 5
matches, Roode will have done 6, Aries will have done 6, Samoa Joe will
have done 6, Hardy will have done 6, Ken Anderson will have done 6,
Daniels will have done 5, Styles will have done 6, Kazarian will have
done 5, Joseph Park will have done 5, Hernandez will have done 5 and Jay
Bradley will have done 4. It’s things like this that show just how
little time is actually spent in planning because you could have done
blocks like in Japan to and just laid it all out to get to the end
result instead of all of a sudden you can’t see it’s done on the fly
like the first year under Vince Russo and it’s a complete mess.
The
claim now is that it was never a round-robin tournament, and on TV they
never used those terms, but it was used to me on more tan one occasion
and it was last year, which was the only year the tournament made any
sense. They had all those house shows all summer where they could have
done the matches, but didn’t plan it out to any level, and they had time
to do all those gimmick matches without doing the core matches. The
“It’s all fake so who cares” misses the point, because in a sports
movie, which is all fake, when they book fake tournaments, they have at
least the respect for their own product to have it make sense as if it
was real. And there’s a reason G-1 had the interest it had in its
culture and guaranteed, nobody would give a rats ass about it if it was
done in this manner.
ROH News and Notes!
The IWGP jr. tag title will be defended for the first time in the
U.S. in more than a year on the 9/20 show in Philadelphia, where The
Forever Hooligans, Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov, will face The
American Wolves, Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards. Richards &
Edwards beat the Hooligans on 8/3 in Toronto to win the ROH tag team
titles that the Hooligans had won from current ROH tag champs Bobby Fish
& Kyle O’Reilly. Richards & Romero had held the titles before
Richards had a falling out with New Japan over missing a scheduled tour
and a PPV title defense. The show, called Death Before Dishonor,
features the final four, Adam Cole, Kevin Steen, Michael Elgin and
Tommaso Ciampa, in semifinals and finals of the ROH title tournament.
It’ll be the first test of the company’s new version of iPPV, a
video-on-demand of the show that will be available the day after the
event, instead of live, thus lessening the possibility of technical
issues.
There is at least talk of going back to live iPPVs relatively
soon, which the company has had numerous problems with. Some of the
decision making may be based on how well the numbers do for the next
show, the first one the company has done that won’t be live.
Traditionally the company’s premier event of the year, Final
Battle, takes place on 12/14 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
ANother Former MMA Fighter Wants To Get Into Pro Wrestling!
Another name we’ve heard considering pro wrestling is Stephan Bonnar,
36, who just retired as an MMA fighter. Bonnar is a very good talker
and excellent in vignettes (some of the stuff he and Forrest Griffin did
together was hysterical, particularly in the Anderson Silva vs. Bonnar
buildup). He wants to get into WWE and Bonnar is close with Dave
Bautista, and in fact was Bautista’s main training partner when Bautista
did his lone MMA fight. The only negative is that starting at 36 is
pretty tough. The only guys I can recall who started that late and
really made it in pro wrestling to a big level were DDP and Badnews
Allen.
Pro Wrestling NOAH News and Notes!
Naomichi Marufuji’s 15th anniversary show was on 8/24 at Korakuen
Hall before a sellout of 2,100 fans featuring the appearances of
Shinsuke Nakamura, Jushin Liger and Tiger Mask from New Japan. Nakamura
& Marufuji in the main event lost to KENTA & Takashi Sugiura in
20:39 when Sugiura pinned Marufuji with the Yonemitsu slam. The
Yonemitsu slam was one of the big moves of Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu, who won
the gold medal at 145 pounds in the 2012 Olympics in freestyle
wrestling. Sugiura, who was a high-ranking amateur years back before
joining NOAH, has trained with him. KENTA did shove the GHC title in
Nakamura’s face and they worked spots together so going in that
direction was at least teased. TMDK of Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste
retained the GHC tag titles beating Yoshihito Sasaki & Shinya
Ishikawa in 16:39 when Nicholls pinned Sasaki. Liger & Tiger Mask
retained the GHC jr. title beating Genba Hirayanagi & Maybach Suwa
Jr. in 16:07 when Liger pinned Suwa Jr. with a brainbuster. Liger &
Tiger Mask attacked the mask of Maybach Suwa Jr., until he got tired of
it and tore his own mask off, revealing himself as Hajime Ohara, which
is pretty much what most knew. After the match, Daisuke Harada came out
with rookie Hitoshi Kumano and challenged Liger & Tiger Mask for
the belts.
Takeshi Morishima returns on 10/5 in Yokohama. He has asked for it to be in a singles match with Kensuke Sasaki.
To help build up the upcoming KENTA vs. Nicholls GHC heavyweight
title match, there was a trios match on 8/17 in Hamamatsu where
Nicholls & Shane Haste (from Australia) & Kaiser (from South
America) beat KENTA & Takashi Sugiura & Genba Hirayanagi when
Nicholls pinned KENTA with a power bomb in 23:21.
The way things stand right now, KENTA defends first against Haste
on 9/7 at Differ Ariake and then against Nicholls on 9/16 in Fukuoka.
All Japan News and Notes!
The big show of the month and really the biggest show since the split
with Keiji Muto’s crew, was on 8/25 at Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo. It drew
an announced 1,304 fans, but the real number was 1,059. Either way it
was a major negative for the first major show of the new era, held in a
3,800-seat arena. This was a major negative and fans are saying how
Nobuo Shiraishi is killing the company. It was just a negative vote of
confidence regarding Shiraishi that on 8/27 he announced that he would
soon be relinquishing his post as president. He said that the new
president would be either Suwama, Masa Fuchi or Masao Inoue. Suwama
immediately said that he knows nothing about management and shouldn’t be
president. Fuchi then said it should be Suwama as president and Jun
Akiyama as Vice President, based on the old Japanese tradition in
wrestling where the top guy in the company is made president. While
that did work historically with Rikidozan, Giant Baba and even Mitsuharu
Misawa and you can argue Antonio Inoki (even though Hisashi Shinma
really handled the booking and business in the growth of New Japan), the
idea that the guy who fits best as the top star of the promotion is the
same guy who should make the business decisions is an antiquated notion
and it’s not like this company is in such great shape popularity and
business-wise right now that they should choose their president based on
symbolism.
The crowd was considered a real bad sign when Keiji Muto’s group,
without having even announced a match, sold out its debut show the
first day tickets went on sale, so the feeling is that it’s showed that
the fans are taking Muto’s group as the real future of All Japan rather
than All Japan.
For 8/25, in the main event, Suwama retained the Triple Crown
pinning Go Shiozaki in 35:02 after a Last Ride power bomb. People were
raving about the match. Suwama announced that the new Triple Crown
belt, which will be one modern belt instead of the three old ones dating
back to the 60s and 70s, would be unveiled on the 10/27 show at Sumo
Hall. I don’t know if they’re billing it as the 41st anniversary show.
The company has traditionally promoted a big late October anniversary
show.
The first-ever All Japan Pro Wrestling show was October 21, 1972,
in Tokyo, headlined by Bruno Sammartino & Terry Funk beating Giant
Baba & Thunder Sugiyama (Japan’s Greco-Roman heavyweight in the 1964
Olympics) via count out.
The three original Triple Crown belts have been given to Motoko
Baba, Giant Baba’s widow. Yoshinobu Kanemaru retained the jr. title
pinning Hikaru Sato in 22:28 after a brainbuster. The two shook hands
and may be becoming a tag team. Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Aoki
retained the All-Asia tag titles beating Drago & Argenis from AAA,
with Aoki pinning Argenis in 11:54. On the undercard, president Nobuo
Shiraishi made his debut, in what was billed as an exhibition match.
Masahiro Chono & Joe Doering beat Kenso & Shiraishi in 8:52 when
Chono used the STF on Shiraishi. Shiraishi wrestled in a robot suit
but took his mask off. After the match, Doering laid out Shiraishi, who
then said it was both his first and his last match.
Takeshi Morishima returns from being out with injuries on 9/15 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym, facing Kensuke Sasaki.
They had a world tag title match on the 8/17 show at Hakata Star
Lanes in Fukuoka, but only drew 452 fans as Jun Akiyama & Go
Shiozaki retained the titles beating Suwama & Takao Omori in 33:26
when Shiozaki pinned Omori after a lariat.
At the 9/7 show at Differ Ariake, headlined by KENTA vs. Shane
Haste for the GHC title, there are three New Japan wrestlers scheduled.
Liger faces Daisuke Harada and Tiger Mask & Yuji Nagata face
Mohammed Yone & Hitoshi Kumano. Fenix from AAA is also on the next
tour.
Dragon Gate News and Notes!
After Cima’s 19-month reign as Open the Dream Gate champion and 15
title defenses, new champ Shingo Takagi failed on his first title
defense on 8/23 at Korakuen Hall, as Yamato pinned him in 27:27 with a
Frankensteiner before 1,850 fans. After the match, Ryo Saito issued a
challenge to new champion Yamato for a match on 9/12 at Korakuen Hall.
Eita & Tomahawk T.T., who have been based in Mexico and also
wrestling in the U.S. for Dragon Gate USA, return on that show. The
show also had an elimination match that went 29:28 with BxB Hulk &
Kzy & Mondai Ryu & Uhaa Nation beating Naruki Doi & Masato
Yoshino & Ricochet & Shachihoko Boy. It came down to Hulk vs.
Yoshino with Hulk getting the win.
I guess the iPPV outside of Japan of the Kobe big show must have
died because there is nothing on the schedule for a new iPPV and the
8/23 show would have been it.
They went to Nara in Okinawa on 8/25 for what was pushed as the
Doi Homecoming, and had Jushin Liger from New Japan on the show, which
drew 1,350 fans. Liger & Dragon Kid & K-Ness lost in the main
event to Doi & Yoshino & Ricochet when Doi pinned K-Ness.
They had two big shows over the previous weekend in Fukuoka on
8/18 and Nobeoka on 8/19. The first night at Hakata Star Lanes drew
1,700 fans, with Hulk pinning Tozawa, and the main event was The Jimmys
beating Team Veteran in an elimination match where Horiguchi &
Saito & Jimmy Susumu & Jimmy Kanda beat Masaaki Mochizuki &
K-Ness & Dragon Kid & Gamma. It came down to Saito pinning
K-Ness when they were the last two. Cima is injured but appeared and
gave speeches at both shows. In Nobeoka, the main event saw Mochizuki
& K-Ness & Dragon Kid beat Horiguchi & Saito & Kanda in
18:26 to win the Open the Triangle Gate title.
Don “The Lawman” Slatton Biography!
Don “The Lawman” Slatton, a colorful local promoter and home town
wrestling star during the 60s and 70s for matches every week at the
Taylor County Coliseum in Abilene, TX, passed away on 8/23, at the age
of 77.
He had been in bad shape from a recent stroke and had also been
suffering from Alzheimer’s, which one close friend said was likely due
to all the hard way shots with chairs, as his reputation was to take
brutal shots to the head with weapons in his role as the tough street
fighter who was regularly featured in some of the bloodiest gimmick
matches in West Texas history. At least six times between 1967 and 1978
he held the area’s Brass Knux title, which would be taped fist matches,
and later in his career he was known as the King of the Russian chain
matches as well as a specialist in Texas death matches.
In wrestling folklore, Slatton is best known for a May 10, 1978,
match, on a show he promoted in Abilene, where he faced Harley Race for
the NWA title in a chain match.
Slatton, better known as The Lawman, was billed locally as never
having lost a chain match, and because he was facing Race under his
rules, there was a big push that the hometown star was going to win the
world title, and the crowd was way up from usual.
Race’s version of the story is that he got a phone call earlier
in the day from Bob Geigel, the promoter in Kansas City, Race’s home
territory and Race’s business partner at the time, asking if he was
working with Slatton that night. When Race told him he was, Geigel told
Race not to show up, saying he had been tipped off that Slatton was
going to use the chain match rules of touching all four corners to try
and steal the title. Race told Geigel not to worry because he was
Harley Race. Some wrestlers might get double-crossed, but Race was one
of the most feared real street fighters in the game, as opposed to
Slatton, who was a tough guy in his youth, but was in his mid-40s by
that time and nobody messed in those days with Race.
Race joked to Geigel that surely Slatton wouldn’t be that stupid to try something like that on him.
Race’s version of the story is that the finish he got in the
dressing room from the runners (usually the officials, who would go
between the face and heel dressing room as in those days everyone was
kept separate) was that Slatton would drag him to three corners, and be
on the verge of winning, struggling to hit the fourth corner, when a
heel would come out and distract Slatton, who would cost Slatton the
match and the title, and lead to his next program. Terry Funk would
then come out for the save, but in the commotion Race would knock
Slatton out with the chain and touch all four corners to win.
Everything was going as planned. The heel came out. Nobody
involved seem to be able to remember who it was. Given who was on the
card, it would have been Roger Kirby, Mr. Pogo, Lord Jonathan Boyd, who
for some reason that name rings a bell with this story, or Rip Hawk, who
had been one of Slatton’s biggest career rivals a few years earlier.
Anyway, whoever it was came out, and Funk came out as well, but Slatton
made sure there was slack in the chain and Race was unaware, and
Slatton, instead of being distracted, touched the fourth corner. The
place exploded. Slatton had just won the world heavyweight
championship.
He quickly took the chain off and rushed off to the dressing
room, not even taking the belt with him, figuring being in the ring with
Race in that situation in his home town, where he was the local hero
and had a reputation to uphold as a tough guy, was not the best idea.
The fans were still celebrating and shocked, because Slatton was hardly a
guy anyone expected to win the world heavyweight championship, even if
this was his specialty match and it was noted he had beaten Race under
chain match rules several times when both were younger in the late 60s.
The referee, a young Tongan former sumo wrestler just getting
started and being trained for All Japan, using the name Tonga Fifita
(who later became a star as Haku and Meng) was smart enough to know that
the title wasn’t changing hands that night and even though Slatton was
the guy paying him that night, never signaled for the bell. Slatton was
gone and Race, first making sure the inexperienced ref wasn’t going to
call the match, took off after him.
Race’s version of the story as told to people over the years is
that he ran through the crowd, not even stopping to take the chain off,
went to the babyface dressing room and found Slatton hiding in the
shower. Race said he slapped him twice, dragged him to the ring and
punched him a few times, and then dragged him around the ring, even
though he no longer had the chain on, touching all four corners. Fifita
then ordered for the bell, and told the ring announcer to announce that
Race, and not Slatton was the winner, and still world champion. Some
of the fans had left. The ones who hadn’t couldn’t figure out what they
were just seeing. There had been no actual announcement made about
Slatton winning since he and Race were both in the dressing room before
the announcement could be made and Fifita never made the call.
In Race’s book, “King of the Ring,” the story differed slightly,
with Race saying that he got to Slatton before Slatton left the ring,
that he started throwing real slaps and punches, and then dragged him
around the ring and Fifita called for the bell.
Race in his book claimed he then went to the babyface dressing
room, where he heard Slatton and Funk laughing, opened the door and
started swinging the chain, smashed lockers and chairs while Slatton
curled into a ball saying, “Please, Harley, don’t hit me! Don’t hit me!
I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
He claimed Funk then yelled at Slatton for trying to double-cross
Race, but Race suggested that Funk may have been behind it from the
beginning.
In other versions, Race said that he went back to his own
dressing room, but ended up so mad, that he went back to the other side
of the building. This time Slatton had locked the door, so Race kicked
in the door. But Slatton was already gone, and he threw a few chairs
against the wall, went back to his side of the building, then took his
shower and went to the next town.
Funk said he remembered the story, but what he remembered is that
after Slatton double-crossed Race, that Race went to the dressing room,
knocked down the door, and Slatton was pleading with Race not to punch
him, saying he lost count and thought he was touching the third
turnbuckle and it was all a mistake. Race’s version was also similar,
saying, “Slatton lied through his teeth, claiming it was an accident.
After screaming a steam of profanities at Slatton and kicking him a
couple of times, I let the poor bastard go.”
Funk said that Slatton always stuck to the story to him it was an
accident, although what happened next would suggest otherwise.
Slatton had to know that he wasn’t going to be declared world champion, no matter how well the double-cross went.
The next day, the local Abilene Reporter story, likely coming
from Slatton, reported that The Lawman had beaten the world champion,
Race, but it had been changed to a non-title chain match.
Slatton then purchased himself a belt and billed himself locally
as the world chain match champion, and started defending it on his
cards. On his biggest show of the year a few months later, with a
triple main event of Andre the Giant vs. The Sheik, Dory Funk Jr. &
Terry Funk vs. David & Kevin Von Erich for the Texas tag team
titles, Lawman defended his chain match championship against Abdullah
the Butcher.
In 1979, Race was back in the territory on a card with Slatton
and saw a belt on the bench in the dressing room which read, “World
champion chain wrestler.” He said Slatton walked in and Race took the
belt and told Slatton, “You won’t be needing this,” and left with it.
He said Slatton begged him not to take it because he spent a lot
of money on it. By NWA bylaws, which could be ignored when convenient,
no NWA promoter could bill someone as world champion who wasn’t the
recognized NWA champion.
“There’s no earthly reason for you to have this, and I’m not
leaving here without it,” Race claimed that he said to Slatton while
taking the belt.
“To this day, I don’t remember what I did with the stupid belt. I just know Slatton never got it back.”
At about the same time, Abilene dried up as a wrestling city and
stopped being run weekly, and instead became an every-so-often stop on
the Dallas territory, with the Von Erichs replacing The Lawman and The
Funks as the big stars.
By that point, The Funk Brothers, ahead of the curve of what
wrestling was turning into, had sold the territory to Bob Windham
(Blackjack Mulligan), Dick Murdoch and Mario Savoldi, and it died in
1981, after the new owners had suffered heavy financial losses.
Known as The Lawman, because he was a local law enforcement
officer during the early part of his wrestling career, Slatton was a
longtime regular in the Funk family’s Amarillo territory.
During the heyday of the promotion, they would run Abilene and El
Paso, which was run by Gori Guerrero (the father of Chavo Sr., Mando,
Hector and Eddy Guerrero) on Mondays. El Paso was one of the best
drawing cities on the circuit, but it was a 440-mile drive each away.
But it had the advantage of being a border town so the wrestlers could
raise hell in Mexico after the matches. Abilene was a 287-mile drive
each way, but didn’t pay nearly as well. So Slatton was usually left
with a secondary crew, although talent traded where they worked to keep
things fresh and every major territorial star appeared frequently in
Abilene.
Slatton wasn’t always the headliner or the top babyface, but he
headlined frequently and at one time or another worked on top with every
top heel in the territory. At times he worked the entire circuit,
doing angles on Amarillo television, and at other times he just worked
Abilene and cities in the area. While he was protected on TV, in
Amarillo and many of the other cities, he often worked in prelims,
although he had his secondary title matches at times. For all the time
he was there, and all the headline matches he had, what is notable is
that the famous Race match is the only one I could find a record of, in
the West Texas territory, he ever had for the NWA title.
Terry Funk once categorized The Lawman as one of the original of
what would later be called hardcore wrestlers. He was 6-foot-5, and
both tall and lean for a wrestler of that era.
His reputation was that he could have heated brawls, had great
hands from having a Golden Gloves boxing background (whether that was
legitimate or not, who knows) but wasn’t particularly skilled as a
wrestler. He was considered an excellent promo. Outside of Abilene, he
wasn’t pushed as much of a star in the territory after the mid-70s,
because he was older, and his role as the local cowboy street fighter
was being used by Dick Murdoch, who was younger and a far superior
performer.
He had a reputation from his youth in town of being a tough
street fighter. He started wrestling in 1961 as a part-timer while
working in law enforcement.
He got his photo in newspapers around the country shortly after
his pro wrestling debut, as the tall, thin Slatton, arresting Billie Sol
Estes, who became a national figure in a series of embezzling scandals
who also had close business ties to future president Lyndon Johnson.
There was belief that President John F. Kennedy was considering dropping
Johnson from the Democratic ticket in 1964 because of his ties with
Estes, before Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963. Years later,
after Johnson died, Estes claimed that he had inside knowledge that
Johnson had ties to the assassination of Kennedy, as well as seven other
murders, but would not reveal the information unless he was given
immunity from prosecution. The government refused, and few took
seriously his allegation.
How much, if anything, Slatton may have had to do with the
investigation that brought Estes down is unknown. A lot of the
investigative work came from Oscar Griffin Jr., a reporter in Pecos, TX,
who won the Pulitzer Prize. Slatton brought him in and Estes was
convicted on charges related to fraudulent ammonia tank mortgages and
sentenced to 24 years in prison. Some of his charges were overturned by
the Supreme Court in 1965, on a 5-4 vote, by which time Johnson was
president. As far as the other charges went, he was released from
prison in 1971 on parole.
As Slatton became a full-time wrestler, he was known mostly as The Lawman.
He was a notorious ribber.
One of the most famous involved talking local star Jerry Kozak
into driving from Amarillo into Abilene all night (a four-and-a-half
hour trip although in those days wrestlers, who drove about 100 MPH
could make it in three hours) for a 6 a.m. (some versions have it 5:30
a.m.) deer hunt. Kozak had all kinds of state of the art hunting
equipment, but was never much of a hunter, almost never being able to
shoot anything. He was also nicknamed Mr. Neat by the wrestlers,
because he was always nice and clean in public to the point of almost
ridicule.
Slatton had called him in the middle of the night, telling him to
hurry to Abilene as he found a place crawling with deer. Slatton as
part of the rib, had taken a stuffed dead deer and placed it on the top
of a hill and tied it upright to a tree. Kozak was crawling on his
belly in the mud and brush around the deer. Slatton figured Kozak would
find the deer on his own, but he never did, even though he walked Kozak
into the area time after time. Finally Slatton had to discover it for
him but let Kozak take the shot.
“He (Kozak) had never killed a deer before in his life,” said
Dory Funk Jr. “Kozak brought his gun up to eye level and fired the
first shot.”
The deer never went down, nor moved, nor appeared was hurt. He
shot the deer again, and again, the deer didn’t even move. Kozak
freaked out.
Slatton told him that he must have missed him, and needed to get
closer. Kozak, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to
scare the deer, crawled on his belly in the bed and brush, ruining his
Mr. Neat look. He ended firing two more shots. With each shot, Kozak
was getting more freaked out that the deer never went moved or went
down. After three more shots, Kozak was out of ammunition. Kozak asked
Slatton to go back to the truck and get more ammunition. Slatton
returned with a new box of shells and Kozak put them in his rifle.
He was back crawling, now within 50 feet, thinking he was close
enough that it was a can’t miss shot. He fired three more shots. Again
nothing happened. He freaked out, lost his cool, ran at the deer and
fired a perfect shot. Nothing happened.
Slatton was rolling on the ground laughing by this point and
Kozak realized he was set up. He then looked at Slatton and said, “Don,
please don’t tell the wrestlers about this.”
Slatton wasn’t about to let one of his finest moments be kept a
secret. Within hours, wrestlers as far away as Tokyo were laughing
about the story.
But his all-time classic was in 1973, involving then world
champion Jack Brisco. At that point, Abilene had moved from Mondays to
Fridays so it would have its own night and not have to share talent with
El Paso. Dory Funk Jr. had been NWA world champion from 1969 to 1973.
From 1971 on, Jack Brisco was the perennial top contender and was
supposed to win the title on March 2, 1973, in Houston. However, Dory
Funk Jr. suffered a separated shoulder in a ranch accident when a jeep
overturned a few days before the title was to change hands. To this
day. people debate whether or not Funk Jr.’s injury was legit. The
Funks have always maintained it was legit, and Sam Muchnick, the NWA
President, did get full documentation of the accident and the injury.
Still, Muchnick was skeptical. Houston promoter Paul Boesch was
livid and never believed the story, nor did Eddie Graham, the Florida
promoter and Brisco’s sponsor, or Brisco himself.
Funk Jr. returned from his injury and in his second week back, on
May 24, 1973, he was ordered to drop the title to Race, in Kansas City,
with Race picked partially due to his reputation as a street fighter.
Race was to be a short-term champion, and Boesch got his promised title
change when Brisco beat Race on July 20, 1973, at the Sam Houston
Coliseum.
Whether this was planned by the Funks or just a silver lining
from the dark cloud of the serious injury, Jack Brisco never beat Dory
Funk Jr. in a world championship match. This made them natural
opponents all over the country, but in West Texas, where the Funk family
owned the promotion and were the top babyfaces, it was the strongest
match possible. Dory Funk Jr. had been groomed from the start of his
career to be a headliner, working on top against the biggest names in
the business from early in his career.
A former college football star at West Texas State in Amarillo,
who starred in the Sun Bowl, he was positioned in the area as the most
skilled pro wrestler in the world. From the start of Funk Jr.’s career,
his father would bring in wrestlers with legitimate backgrounds and
Dory Jr. would hang with them in long technical matches. As the years
went by, fans in Amarillo saw Funk Jr. outwrestle the biggest stars in
the game. Dory Funk Sr. was positioned as the toughest old guy alive,
the King of the Texas death matches.
With more than four straight years as world champion, Dory Jr.
was the Texas native who made it good, only losing based on a disputed
referee decision in Race’s home town. Everyone knew Brisco had faced
Funk Jr. countless times, both in that territory and all over the
country, since it was the most famous wrestling program of its era. And
Brisco had never beaten Funk Jr. in a title match, meaning that for
Texas fans, they believed, as good as Brisco was, Funk Jr. had proved
for years he was superior.
Brisco wasn’t scheduled to come to West Texas until late
September for a week stay. But Terry Funk and Slatton had an idea to
convince Brisco and Sam Muchnick to get him in early, because of the
feeling Brisco vs. Dory in their territory would do the biggest business
possible with the dynamic at the time.
Brisco had moved from Tampa to Atlanta when he won the title. It
was a more convenient airport to fly out of and he would be constantly
traveling. Plus, Atlanta was in the middle of a nasty wrestling war.
Brisco was given a percentage of ownership (which later played a part in
1984 when the Briscos got other owners to sell their stock to Vince
McMahon) of Georgia Championship Wrestling to ensure he’d want to work
the territory as much as possible, because he’d get a cut of the profits
as well as a world champion payoff.
That week, Brisco was scheduled to work Georgia all week, with
Atlanta, the state’s major city, on Friday, as well as a show with
jacked up prices that Saturday night at the Bayfront Center in St.
Petersburg against Funk Jr.
The idea Slatton had concocted was that the Texas Governor at the
time, Dolph Briscoe Jr., wanted to meet Jack Brisco, his namesake, and
there was some conjecture that the two were actually related. The idea
is Slatton, with all his connections, would be able to set up a public
meeting that would garner Brisco and the NWA all kinds of mainstream
publicity.
So Muchnick, who booked Brisco, agreed for publicity that Brisco
would be pulled from his home town and go from Georgia to Abilene, TX,
early Friday morning, on August 31, 1973, for his afternoon meeting with
the Governor, wrestle Funk Jr. in Abilene, and then the next morning,
the two would fly to St. Petersburg.
The deal was made six weeks in advance, and with Slatton having
that much time to promote the Brisco vs. Funk Jr. title match, billed as
Funk Jr.’s first shot at Brisco (it actually was Funk Jr.’s first shot
we can find a record of since Brisco had won the belt six weeks
earlier), they sold out the 5,000 seat arena, impressive considering the
population in the area was only 127,000 at the time and Abilene really
wasn’t that strong of a city for wrestling for the most part. The big
blow-off stip matches or world title matches only on rare occasions
would hit 2,000 to 3,000 fans. Often, the Coliseum, was fairly empty.
The idea was they would do a 60-minute draw, which would build up
a return match three weeks later, when Brisco was scheduled for his
first full week in the territory, where they would do a 90-minute draw
in the rematch, and keep the program going as long as they could in the
city.
As the story goes, as told by Dory Funk Jr., Slatton thought
Terry would contact the Governor’s office. Terry figured Slatton would.
A few days before the show, Muchnick’s office called and they wanted
publicity photos of Brisco with the governor. Muchnick also confirmed
to the Amarillo office that Brisco asked if he could make a speech, and
present the Governor with an honorary Brisco Brothers Body Shop T-shirt.
Slatton contacted Martin Pryor, a Ford car salesman in Abilene,
for a favor. Pryor would masquerade as Governor Briscoe, provide a Red
Lincoln Continental limousine as the Governor’s car, and one of
Slatton’s ring attendants would dress up as the Governor’s Chauffeur.
All the wrestlers in the territory were told to keep quiet. They
were also told to make sure Brisco was kept away from any fans or
people in the city, for fear he’d find out the Governor wasn’t in
Abilene for a big ceremony with Brisco. The fly in the ointment was
that Ivan Putski was flying in for the show from Dallas, on the same
connecting flight Brisco was on, and it was possible the two may talk on
the flight and if Brisco brought up Gov. Briscoe, Putski may describe
what he looked like, which was nothing close to what Pryor looked like.
Luckily, that didn’t happen, and when Putski got off the plane,
Slatton grabbed him and told him the rib they were playing on Brisco to
draw the full house.
Brisco came off the plane in a suit and tie. While Funk Jr.
always dressed like that as champion on the road, learning from mentor
Gene Kiniski, who learned how a champion should look from Lou Thesz,
that wasn’t Brisco’s style.
As he got off the plane, Slatton grabbed him and told him, “Jack,
I’m sorry to have to tell you that Gov. Briscoe isn’t going to be able
to meet you today. He had to go to Mexico, you know, where they had
that earthquake.”
But as they were leaving, there was a twin engine plane with
propellers turning, and Slatton told Brisco, “Jack, I believe that’s the
governer’s plane over there warming up.”
Brisco was in a bad mood. He hardly wanted to fly from Georgia
to Abilene for one shot, since he’d make more money staying home, and
then do a grueling 60-minute match and have to fly back to Florida the
next morning. Brisco, Putski, Slatton and Slatton’s son, who drove the
car, took them in Slatton’s Ford station wagon from the airport into
town.
As they got into town, Pryor and the ring attendant as his
chauffeur were in the Red Lincoln, and Slatton said, “That’s the
governor’s car.” He waved down the limo, which slammed on the breaks.
Slatton got out of the car and said, “My gosh, Governor,” acting
like he knew him personally, “We thought for sure we were going to miss
you.” Slatton told Brisco to get out of the car and introduced him to
Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr.
Pryor got out of the car. Brisco, all nervous, tried to give his
memorized speech and gave him a Brisco Brothers T-Shirt while on the
side of a dusty road, just outside Abilene. In his excitement, Brisco
at first left the shirt in Slatton’s car, and then was so nervous, he
was fumbling with the car door that jammed trying to open it and get the
shirt.
Brisco talked about how their respective families were from
Oklahoma, had split, and one side spelled it Brisco and the other
spelled it Briscoe, believing they were related. Then he got so nervous
he forgot what he was going to say. While Jack lost his train of
thought, Pryor, impromptu, said he knew who Jack was and was proud of
him for just winning the world championship, and that in fact, they were
family. Then he warned Jack that being from Texas, those Funk Brothers
were two of the baddest hombres around and wished him luck with those
two chasing his title.
While some of this sounds like a tall tale, apparently Slatton’s
son recorded everything on 8 mm movie film, and for years, wrestlers in
West Texas watched Brisco and Pryor speaking, Brisco giving him the
T-shirt, while in the background, Putski was shooting photos with a
Polaroid camera.
Pryor apologized for having to rush out of there, noting that his plane was warming up at the airport.
“You know, Jack, I have just got to get down to Mexico to help
those people,” and he got in the limo and drove in the direction of the
airport.
Brisco, Putski, Slatton and his son got into the car. As they
were driving, Brisco was so happy that the Governor told him that they
were family and that the Governor of Texas was so proud of him winning
the world title.
Then he said, “Lawman, I just gotta tell you, that rib that you
pulled on Jerry Kozak, where he shot that old dead deer over and over,
was one of the funniest ribs I’ve heard. I’ve really got to hand it to
you.”
At that point Brisco, Putski and the Slattons were laughing hysterically in the car, but for different reasons.
For the next few months, Muchnick’s office kept calling for the
photos of Brisco meeting Gov. Briscoe, and had to be staved off. Brisco
had talked about how he was tight, and family, with the Governor of
Texas, for months. The story had gone around wrestling to a degree,
particularly to just about anyone who had worked West Texas or worked
with someone who had left West Texas about it being a rib, but nobody
wanted to be the person to tell either Muchnick or Brisco.
Eventually, in early 1974, Race told Muchnick and Brisco the truth.
“Jack, I don’t want to have to tell you this (I did, of course, I
couldn’t wait to see the reaction on his face),” Race wrote in his
autobiography, “But Funk and Slatton were jerking you around. That
wasn’t the Governor.”
Brisco was furious, and after that, it became known as the subject that you never bring up to him.
A few years later, when The Lawman was in the middle of his feud
with Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson, he was supposed to have surgery on his
nose and elbow at Hendrick Memorial Hospital. He snuck out of the
hospital, headed to the Coliseum for his show, had a bloodbath brawl
with Hanson, and snuck back into his room. After nurses noticed he was
gone from the room, and then a few hours later, saw his face covered
with blood, the nurses asked what happened, and he said that the
medication made him disoriented and he got lost roaming the halls and
fell down the stairs. He did eventually tell them the truth.
In 1965, Slatton, having a hard time making it as a wrestler,
took out a loan for $1,500 from the Amarillo National Bank, co-signed by
Dory Funk Sr., to buy rights to promote in the city from Benny Wilson.
He was able to get a local clearance for the Amarillo television show,
on a strong station that broadcast into San Angelo, Sweetwater,
Brownswood and Fort Stockton.
In the 60s, his specialties were the boxing match, taped fist
match and Texas death match, with his biggest local rival being Mike
DiBiase, who he also debuted the chain match with in 1966. His shows
were heavy on blood and stipulation matches.
Slatton himself was an expert deer hunter, Dory Funk Jr.
remembered often going to the Coliseum in Abilene where Slatton brought
fresh deer meat for the wrestlers for dinner.
Once, when he went in for knee surgery years after their feud was
over, while being sedated, he started hallucinating he was in a brawl
with DiBiase and it took several nurses and orderlies to calm him down.
In 1967, he had two quick runs as North American heavyweight
champion. He beat Dick Steinborn for the title on February 20 of that
year in Abilene, and lost it back two weeks later on March 6. The next
week, he won it back in a title vs. title match where he put up his
Brass Knux title, before Steinborn took it back a second time.
Over the years he headlined his home city against every major
heel that came through the territory, with the programs usually
culminating in Texas death, taped fist or Russian chain matches. His
most frequent tag team partner in the gimmick matches was Terry Funk.
He headlined against Wahoo McDaniel, Don Jardine (and years later The
Masked Spoiler), Dory Funk Sr., Magnificent Maurice, Killer Karl Kox
(who feuded with him year after year, particularly hot in 1971), Brute
Bernard, Thunderbolt Patterson (which is the feud that put the Brass
Knux title on the map), Kinji Shibuya, The Von Brauners, Gorgeous
George Jr., The Infernos and J.C. Dykes, Gypsy Joe Rosario, Buddy Colt,
Race (a frequent rival before he was world champion), Rufus Jones (who
was a heel at the time battling in a series of African death matches),
The LeDuc Brothers, Dick Murdoch, Dusty Rhodes, Apache Bull Ramos, The
Beast, Pak Song, Kintaro Oki, Bobby Duncum, Lorenzo Parente & Bobby
Hart, Buck Robley (whose first successful run as a booker was picking
the city up for his feud with Lawman), Masio Koma & Motoshi Okuma,
Ciclon Negro, Hank James, Karl Von Steiger, The Fabulous Fargos (Don
& John, John later became Greg Valentine), The Patriots, J.J.
Dillon, Mike DuBois (Alexis Smirnoff), Black Gordman & Great
Goliath, The Masked Interns, Ray Stevens and Frank Goodish (Bruiser
Brody).
Dillon recalled a program he worked with Lawman in Abilene. At
the time, the city wasn’t doing well and then-booker Art Nelson was
furious with Slatton. The Amarillo office would send promotional
posters to hang up in shops around town, and they found all the posters
laying in the back of Slatton’s pick-up truck, with Nelson blaming
Slatton’s “laxy” promoting for why the city wasn’t drawing well.
For his and Nelson’s entertainment, Dillon cut a promo for
Abilene talking about the Lawman’s wife, an avid doll collector, who
liked to dress them up. He recounted it in his book, “Wrestlers Are
Like Seagulls,” saying, “Do you people think the Lawman’s tough? I went
by his house the other night to call him out. I yelled and yelled, but
nobody would come out, so I went up to the house to see if anybody was
home. When I looked in the window, there was a room full of dolls.
There were dolls everywhere. Every size. Every shape. And there’s The
Lawman, Don Slatton wearing a frilly apron. His wife was standing
there saying, `Now, Donald, I want you to take the dress off this one
and put it on this one,’” and it went on from there. Dillon admitted he
was doing the promo more to entertain himself than to draw at that
week’s show.
Slatton was furious when the promo aired on television. His wife
was even madder, afraid that if people found out about their valuable
doll collection that someone would try to break into their home.
During the match, a woman in the front row dumped a big bucket of
water all over Dillon, getting him so mad he nearly punched her. He
didn’t, and later found out it was Slatton’s wife.
Slatton wrestled less frequently after the Funks sold the
territory, and Abilene dried up. Years later, when the Von Erichs were
on fire, even then Abilene was one of the weakest cities on the circuit.
Slatton worked part-time on shows in his area until the territory
folded in 1981, as well as for Southwest Championship Wrestling, which
was at the time the most successful regular promotion running in the
state before Dallas took off with the rise of the Von Erich Brothers.
He worked very little outside Texas. Before he became the
promoter in Abilene in 1965, he spent much of 1964 working elsewhere.
He worked in Detroit for The Sheik and Indianapolis for Dick the Bruiser
and Wilbur Snyder in the early part of the year, as well as did a few
dates in St. Louis, all in prelims.
He worked a lot of main events later in the year for Gust Karras’
Central States promotion, including getting a shot at Lou Thesz for the
NWA world title on October 1, 1964 at Memorial Hall, which he lost. He
beat Bob Orton Sr. on October 31, 1964, in Waterloo, IA to become the
area’s United States heavyweight champion, but he lost it November 21,
1964, in Waterloo, to Rocky Hamilton, who later became the Missouri
Mauler. He also held the North American tag team title that year,
teaming with Moose Evans.
Slatton worked some for Florida Championship Wrestling in 1981,
and for Southwest Championship Wrestling, all underneath without any
kind of a push, with his final matches coming in 1982 or 1983.
Toward the end of his career, and long after his career was over,
he remained well known in Abilene for running a bail bonds business
that advertised heavily on television with him in the ads. The business
was apparently very successful for him and he had continued it until
Alzheimer’s got the better of him in recent years. Still, in a 2002
news story in the Abilene Reporter-News that called him a genuine West
Texas celebrity due to his fame from wrestling, he said there was
nothing he enjoyed more than talking with fans about the old days of
wrestling.
***************************************************************
THE LAWMAN CAREER TITLE HISTORY
THE LAWMAN CAREER TITLE HISTORY
NWA NORTH AMERICAN HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Dick Steinborn February 20, 1967
Abilene; lost to Dick Steinborn March 6, 1967 Abilene; def. Dick
Steinborn March 13, 1967 Abilene; lost to Dick Steinborn April 1967
NWA UNITED STATES HEAVYWEIGHT (Central States version) def. Bob
Orton Sr. October 31, 1964 Waterloo; lost to Rocky Hamilton (Missouri
Mauler) November 21, 1964 Waterloo
NWA NORTH AMERICAN TAG TEAM: w/Moose Evans def. Pat O’Connor
& Sonny Myers June 1964; Title vacated when Lawman left the
territory
NWA TEXAS BRASS KNUX: First billed as champion March 13, 1967;
Title held up September 14, 1967 Amarillo; def. Thunderbolt Patterson
September 28, 1967 Amarillo; lost to Thunderbolt Patterson October 5,
1967 Amarillo; Announced as champion late 1969; lost to Dick Murdoch
January 1, 1970 Amarillo; def. Dick Murdoch January 30, 1970 Abilene;
lost to Apache Bull Ramos June 1970; def. Ray Stevens August 28, 1975
Amarillo; lost to Ray Stevens September 18, 1975 Amarillo; Held title
August 1978; lost to Killer Karl Krupp August 23, 1978 Abilene
****************************************************************
The Whole DDP-Wade Keller Story!
He claimed that he used to go to the Power Plant and train with Terry
Taylor, and DDP was there and he’d be so upset because “the dirt
sheets” were ripping him apart at the time.
First, anyone who uses that as a collective term to start out
with is going to end up saying something silly. I read stuff all the
time that I think shows the people writing have no clue. Other times
read stuff that shows great insight, whether it’s wrestling or MMA. A
collectively blanketed statement is inherently going to be misguided
almost all the time, whether it’s called the “MMA Media” (a term used
frequently in some hilariously bad analysis pieces this year) does
so-and-so or wrestling media does so-and-so. In both, you have guys who
want to go along and get along, people who get the business, don’t get
the business, people who are always saying things are bad when business
shows they are good, or saying everything is good when the needles are
pointing in the other direction.
He claimed Wade Keller was brutal on Page, saying “Page is a
waste of skin. I don’t even know why he has a job there.” He said it
bothered Page and he said to him that Bischoff puts a lot of stock into
this. So one day he came with a story where Keller ripped him, called
up Keller and left a scathing message. He said Keller called back, they
hit it off and from that point on Keller flipped his opinion on Page.
“Completely,” HHH said when asked if he flipped. “I was like,
`You just worked the dirt sheet guy.’ It blew my mind that these guys
don’t even really have an honest opinion. There’s a lot of guys over
the years I’ve seen put over and I just didn’t get it. But then I
realized, those guys give them insider dirt. In the Attitude Era, we’d
be on a plane and there’d be four of us traveling in first class or
something, and a week later, I’d read the conversation verbatim in the
dirt sheets. I’d be like, `F***, how does this happen?’ Because it had
to be one of the four of us. I always thought, just do your job. If
the crowd reacts to you, positively, negatively if you’re getting a
reaction, they’re going to push you. That’s what nobody gets. We don’t
tell the fans who’s going to be over. We put somebody on the table,
fans react, and then we decide where to go with them. What people
forget is we have a focus group every single night, 10,000 people
somewhere. We didn’t get Austin over. Austin got over with the fans.”
While fans do have a say-so in the sense if you die with the
audience today, it’s going to be tough, the idea that if fans react, the
company follows that lead is such complete shit and everyone in the
business knows it. There are guys who sell merchandise and get over who
are buried for both good and bad reasons. There are guys the fans love
that the office thinks are Internet darlings and get buried because
fans love them and the company doesn’t think they should be over.
Sometimes guys with limited talent get big reactions and the job of the
people in charge is to determine if they’re really worth pushing or not.
Sometimes they have issues and it’s not worth the headache when maybe a
less-over guy is lower maintenance or lower risk. I’ve seen 15 years
of promoters burying guys specifically because they got over with the
crowd. I’ve talked to people in the creative room who said those exact
words are the ones being used when the decisions are made to do so. And
at times, the decision may be the right one. When it comes to who to
push, at the end of the day, it’s all about the instinct of the guy in
charge. He’s already going to be right sometimes and miss the boat
other times. But the idea that a promoter doesn’t dictate who is pushed
is almost laughable. Ultimately, you should listen, but if you book
based on decibel levels with no instinct for what it means and where
you’re going, you’re not going to be the slightest bit successful.
There’s a huge problem with the Keller story. It’s that it’s
completely false, past the point that Page did call Wade Keller probably
that day from the Power Plant, and I’d guess, plenty of other days from
other locations as well. Page has called everyone of any note probably
at some time in his life. That’s hardly a story or a revelation. He’s a
self-marketer, and that’s what self-marketers do.
First, I’ve been reading the Torch likely from its inception and
during the 90s read every single word because there was very little
quality stuff out there on wrestling in those days and that was my
profession. Even now I read a lot of it. If Keller would have flipped
in 1995 on Page, it would have been painfully obvious to me. Painful
would have been the word. But it never happened. The guy who was the
most negative on Page push was Bruce Mitchell, and he called him “DDMe,”
as a nickname until the closing of WCW. If anything, Page took more
criticism afterwards in that publication if that phone call took place
when Levesque was still in WCW.
There are probably viable things HHH could say, but he either
couldn’t come up with one, or felt he could make one up out of thin air,
or his memory is really bad. Granted, nobody remembers all the details
of 18 years ago, but the idea that a guy who never said anything close
to what he claimed he said, and claimed he flipped instantly over being
worked in a phone call would be a story if there was even a smidgen of
truth to it. Every detail of this story was wrong.
Grantland.com then wrote, “Wade Keller contacted Grantland after
the publication of this interview and insisted, plausibly, that the
writer HHH was referring to is not Keller, but rather Bruce Mitchell,
then a writer for Keller’s newsletter,” and noted Keller wrote a
response.
That’s even worse than HHH. First, that would indicate that Page
called Mitchell, which he never did, and then Mitchell flipped, which
never happened, and that Mitchell is a former writer for the newsletter
when he’s a current writer. Aside from that, I guess it was accurate.
Again, I’m not defending any group of people in general here. If
he had made a valid criticism of Wade Keller, I’d have probably ignored
it, unless it turned into a story and then I’d give my perspective of
it based on whose story was accurate, or if both stories are accurate.
Politically, kissing up to HHH is probably better, which is why you
didn’t exactly see writers jumping to Keller’s defense, even though most
probably knew full well by the second day after publication that the
story couldn’t have been true. Anyone who read that publication in the
90s would know how ridiculous that claim was.
TNA's July Ratings Comparisons!
Impact has a lot of comparison issues, but last year the show
averaged a 1.06 rating and 1.36 million viewers. However, two of the
four shows were during the period Spike was off DirecTV. If you adjust
the viewership numbers to increase based on if the DirecTV viewership
was identical in average to the non DirecTV viewership, the adjusted
viewership would have been about 1.51 million viewers.
This year’s July shows averaged a 1.00 rating and 1.26 million
viewers. However, there was an episode of Impact on July 4th, which
didn’t do nearly as badly as it probably should have been expected to
do, but still pulled down the average. Throwing that show out and you
have a 1.07 ratings average and 1.33 million viewers. So the ratings
were actually up 1.0% in a fair month-to-month comparisons, but
viewership would be down 11.9%, but the show in 2013 was also in a
better time slot than 2012.
WWE's July Ratings Comparisons!
When it comes to the monthly ratings comparisons, July this year showed declines across the board.
Raw in July of last year averaged a 3.35 rating and 4.91 million
viewers. It should be noted that includes the Raw 1,000th show and the
entire month of the show had tremendous momentum because of it. If you
take that show out of the mix, you still get a 3.22 average and 4.63
million viewers.
For 2013 in July, Raw averaged a 2.97 rating and 4.00 million
viewers. So the overall rating was down 11.6% and overall viewership
declined 18.5%. Throwing out the Raw 1000th show and you get a 7.8%
decline in ratings and a 13.6% decline in viewership. The viewership
declines at a greater level than the ratings declines comes from two
factors. The first is fewer homes get cable as compared to a year ago,
and since ratings are a percentage of the homes that get the channel,
that decline better measures the loss of popularity as compared to the
viewership number. The other, which is actually more significant since
homes lost is only about 2% and the audience numbers for every show were
down far more than that, is the viewers per home watching wrestling has
declined greatly over the past year. This has been a consistent trend
all year.
Smackdown last July averaged a 1.87 rating and 2.72 million
viewers. But that’s misleading because one of the episodes aired on a
Tuesday. If you throw that week out, the Friday night in the same time
slot average was a 1.92 rating and 2.78 million viewers. This year the
number was a 1.79 rating and 2.41 million viewers, or a normalized 6.8%
decline in ratings and a 13.3% decline in viewership.
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