January Wrasslin |OT| Every Mark For Himself
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There's a threshold for this and they crossed it
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stoppa the talka for a sec pls
Brock Lesnar’s MMA career ended on 12/30 with almost the exact same reaction as when it began.
When Lesnar started, both in K-1, and umpteen times more before his 2008 debut in the UFC against Frank Mir, you had a number of diametrically opposed schools of thought. He was a fake pro wrestler who was going to be humiliated by the real fighters in UFC. He was a freak athlete with great wrestling ability, strength and speed, who when he learned to fight, was going to be difficult to beat in a year. He was the worst thing for UFC, made UFC into a joke, and if he would bring in more fans, those aren’t the kind of fans we want. Or, he was the best thing for UFC, would expand their audience and be one of the biggest draws the company ever had.
After his first fight, the reactions just intensified. He was humiliated and tapped out in 90 seconds. He knocked down a former world champion twice, and when Steve Mazzagatti ordered a stand-up due to punches to the back of the head, he saved Mir, who was a goner and got a submission only because Lesnar made a rookie mistake. And once again, it was either a joke he was on the card, a joke that he was pushed, and bad that he brought 300,000 homes that had never once purchased a UFC PPV show ordering, because again, we don’t want those kind of fans. Or he was an instant draw, and the way he manhandled Mir, once he learned more about fighting, he’d be almost unstoppable.
Then he fought Heath Herring, a veteran who was going to humiliate the fake pro wrestler. Once again, it was either impressive than Lesnar dominated Herring for three straight rounds, breaking his orbital bone with a punch that sent Herring head over heels. Ironically Herring’s fall was just as exaggerated as Lesnar’s against Cain Velasquez, which was used as evidence that Lesnar can’t take a punch. Or it was Lesnar having Herring down for three rounds and couldn’t even submit him, and suddenly Herring, who at one point while in Japan was pushed as the top American heavyweight, was never any good to begin with, or if he was, he was long since washed up even though he was actually a year younger than Lesnar and had just turned 30.
Next was Randy Couture, an all-time great and the reigning UFC world heavyweight champion. People were 50-50 on this one, but everyone knew for sure they were right. Couture would either humiliate Lesnar and even out wrestle him, out box him and make him look like a joke in a title shot he didn’t deserve and those big muscles would gas quickly. Or Lesnar was a younger, bigger and stronger wrestler, Couture’s main attribute, and would win the title.
Once again, people looked at it their own way. Lesnar won via second round knockout to become UFC champion in his third match with the company and fourth match overall. Without question, Lesnar got the shot because he and Couture were expected, and did do huge numbers, roughly 920,000 buys on PPV, the second biggest total up to that point in time in company history. You would think his winning the title would at least shut up the claim it was a joke he was champion.
Instead, the take was to attack Couture. Couture was old, too small, washed up, even though the same Couture had a match of the year candidate in his next outing. Lesnar won via knockout in the second after winning the first round obviously on all three scorecards, he somehow was losing the entire fight as well as getting outwrestled, and gassing out because he had no conditioning. To Couture’s credit, with his greater wrestling experience he was able to defend well against Lesnar and make him fight to get him down. And Couture did once nearly take Lesnar down. It was a competitive fight. Lesnar took punches from Couture, was bloodied up, wasn’t hurt badly by the punches, caught Couture and the telling blow was winning a standing exchange.
Against Mir, he was the worst thing that ever happened to the sport, even as he helped draw one of the five biggest PPV numbers in the history of PPV, and largest non-boxing number ever. Against Shane Carwin, he either proved he had heart in spades, coming back from a terrible first round beating, or it was a ref who should have stopped the fight, and he only won because Carwin gassed. When Cain Velasquez finally beat him, it exposed he was a joke all along to some. Others noted he lost to a guy who just was a better fighter, a guy who was strong enough as a wrestler that Lesnar couldn’t dominate him that way, and was much better standing.
Alistair Overeem came to Las Vegas for his UFC debut with his own set of question marks. While fighting in a very tough light heavyweight division, he had a 6-6 record in the Pride Fighting Championships and was finished in the first round by Chuck Liddell, Shogun Rua (twice) and Ricardo Arona, and once in the second round by Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. He moved to heavyweight and was knocked out by Sergei Khartionov.
And then the moth came out of his cocoon. In 2007, as a heavyweight, weighing 224 pounds, he beat up Paul Buentello and won the Strikeforce heavyweight title in the second round. Since then, he’s had 11 fights, ten of which haven’t gotten out of the first round, and Lesnar, in lasting 2:26, lasted longer than seven of his last 11 foes.
Overeem himself was as polarizing as Lesnar. He was the greatest heavyweight in the world, because of two things. His quick wins, largely against nobodies, and his great physique. Well, there was also a third reason. Once Fedor Emelianenko faltered, the people who had claimed that the UFC heavyweights were second rate needed a new hero.
So these two monsters of the cage were headed to Las Vegas, both facing all kinds of problems that were both foreseen, and unforseen.
Lesnar had 12 inches of his colon removed at the end of May and had suffered from diverticulitis since an attack nearly killed him at the end of 2009. It was recommended he would have surgery, but he was UFC champion and there was tremendous money to be made in 2010 if he could just get back in shape. He got through the first fight, came in for the second fight in tremendous condition, but even though he looked great, he wasn’t feeling great. While preparing for a fight with Junior Dos Santos, he was sluggish in training, hoped he had a bug that would go away, rested, it didn’t go away, and deep down already knew the diverticulitis was back. He had surgery.
From talking with several people who had the surgery, all felt that he was coming back too quickly. But he got his size and strength back and at least looked like the old Brock Lesnar. But he was 34, had little time over the previous two years to concentrate on his deficiencies as a fighter. If he wasn’t sick, and at times when he was, he had to train for conditioning with a fight impending. He had already started older than most, and from day one, his career clock was ticking. That’s why he started out fighting a former world champion in his first fight. He wanted to know right away if he could do the sport, plus he wanted to make money. That meant fighting top people.
Exactly what Lesnar himself was thinking it’s impossible to know. Those close to him say he’s not good at hiding when you see his face. They noted when he came to the cage, he had that look that things were wrong. He had it in WWE when he was asked to do a job that he thought didn’t make sense, or confronted about something. But here the stakes were a lot higher. If something was wrong, he could get beat up. Bad.
Overeem had his issues with drug testing and his mother being sick. He left his camp in Las Vegas, filled with wrestlers, to go to Holland, where there were few if any top wrestlers, and certainly none like a healthy NCAA champion. He had to miss two key days of training to go to England and take a drug test. Then, the day before the fight, he was sued by his former management team. Then, the day of the fight, his former management team got an injunction that could have resulted in them having his purse for the fight put into escrow. He knew the former but seemed calm about it. He said that, until he was asked about it at the press conference, he didn’t know the latter, but he’s also a very good poker face. Unlike Lesnar whose face tells a different story depending on his mood, no matter what Overeem says or feels, his expression rarely changes.
Although Dana White had said he didn’t even think Overeem was a top ten heavyweight, UFC clearly saw star potential in him. The lawsuit filed by Knock Out Investments, the business name for the Golden Glory gym and team, which represented Overeem for the past 11 years, gave details as to his new contract.
The lawsuit, filed on 12/29 in Clark County, Nevada stated that when Overeem signed with UFC on 9/6, his contract specified that for his fight with Lesnar he would be receiving $264,285.71 as base pay, a $121,428.57 win bonus, as well as $2 per PPV buy for all revenue to Zuffa after the Zuffa company revenue from the show tops$500,000 (basically, the first 23,000 or so buys). In addition, there was a $1 million signing bonus, which would be broken down into another $333,333.33 for the first three fights of his contract. The contract itself, with the options put in place, would cover up to eight fights. If the show did 800,000 buys, Overeem would earn in the neighborhood of $2.26 million.
Knock Out Investments claimed that due to Overeem’s existing five-year contract with them that was signed in 2007, they are entitled to 30%. 30% of is pay between all the money he got for UFC 141 is $684,000, so that are fighting for a huge chunk of change. They also alleged Overeem never paid them their 30% from the 6/18 fight with Fabricio Werdum. Overeem had already, in November, filed suit against Knock Out Investments, claiming they owed him $151,000 prior to the Werdum fight based on fights he already had, and asked for a court order stating that due to that, his contract should be null and void. Prior to the Werdum fight, almost all of Overeem’s fight money, whether it was from Japan or previously with Strikeforce, was sent to Knock Out Investments and then after they got paid and took their cut, they paid their fighters. Zuffa, after purchasing Strikeforce, refused to continue that practice, stating that they were going to pay fighters and not management teams. At one point Zuffa even fired all of the Golden Glory fighters, including Overeem, because Golden Glory made the demand that they wanted the money to be paid to them. After firing a number of fighters, Overeem included, Golden Glory relented and agreed to let Zuffa pay the fighters. By that time Overeem had been fired and removed from the Strikeforce tournament, and at the time nobody knew the future of Strikeforce and Overeem would have been far more valuable on the UFC side.
The day of the fight, Knock Out Investments got an injunction in Nevada district court to put Overeem’s pay from the fight in escrow because they claimed he would possibly spend it before a ruling in a court case that would give them their share. Knock Out Investments had requested that Overeem’s show pay of $241,285.49 be paid by Zuffa directly to tem. However, the court asked Knock Out Investments to post a $200,000 bond to get his purse held up, and they didn’t do so.
“The reality is that a fighter is paid within 24 hours of the bout,” wrote Knock Out Investments attorney Roderick Lindblom. “Given past failure to pay management and training fees, there is serious concern on my client’s part that Mr. Overeem will simply walkaway with the money.”
Nevertheless, Overeem was calm all week. Lesnar was tense. After losing, Lesnar gave a speech in the cage announcing his retirement. He said he had already promised his wife that if he lost, he would retire. If he won, he would only fight one more time, for the championship, and then, win or lose, he would retire.
As far as why he made that decision, only he knows for sure. How much did the illness take away from him? How much athleticism and speed was he losing via age? Unlike most fighters, who when they lose a step, may still gain something with experience, Lesnar was inexperienced, not well rounded, and getting older, and getting by based on size, power, wrestling and athletic ability. You don’t find a lot of world class freestyle heavyweights in their late 30s that hang with the guys in their 20s. What did he think, what did he know, how did his camp really go? The fact he was considering retiring, and the look in his face as he came to the cage gives evidence of something.
While there was considerable debate on who would win the fight, there was little debate on what would happen. Either Lesnar would use his wrestling to win, or he wouldn’t be able to, and he would lose, quickly. The latter is what happened. Lesnar never changed levels to shoot for a takedown. Lesnar never rushed to get a tie-up and pin him against the fence, perhaps fearing unless he was able to totally smother him up close, he’d be open to Overeem’s strong knees to the body. He never even did a feint, using the threat of strikes, and he did throw punches and low kicks, and followed with a quick takedown attempt; He tried a half-hearted single leg at one point, his only attempt of the fight, and gave it up quickly. At another point, when Overeem threw a kick, he tried to catch the foot and use it for a takedown, but was a smidgen slow in catching. Lesnar did cut Overeem above the right eye with a punch, and threw some leg kicks, while being stalked. But the the way it was going, it just felt inevitable that Lesnar was playing Overeem’s game. It was a game he most likely not only couldn’t win, but couldn’t even survive a round playing.
And he didn’t. The key blow was a kick to the body that Lesnar said he believed broke one of his ribs. Lesnar did not go to the hospital after the fight, and instead flew home to Minnesota, so at this point if the rib was broken, it would have been diagnosed at home and only he and his inner circle know about it.
Lesnar appeared beaten before the fight started. Was it something that happened in training where he saw he didn’t have what he once had? You can point to Overeem stuffing his takedown and getting into his head, but Lesnar was a different person before the fight ever started. The fact he had promised to retire, and mentally sounded like he had his retirement speech ready, tells you all you need to know, other than the why, which can be speculated to being a dozen different things, all of which may have played a part.
When fighters lose, like B.J. Penn did two months ago, and announce their retirement, most of the time people listen and think, “He’ll change his mind.” And most of the time they’re right.
But nobody was questioning Lesnar. His situation is unique. Most fighters fight because it’s just what they do, and they don’t want to walk away from it. In most cases, they are driven by wanting to be somebody. Lesnar, as much as any athlete with an ego that I’ve ever seen, just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what people say about him. He pays no attention to it. He’s probably earned in the neighborhood of $17 million in his MMA career, and that’s not including any endorsements. He doesn’t live big. He was one of those guys who made a lot and spent a lot when he was in his mid-20s as a pro wrestler, and then went back to making nothing. So the second time he made big money, he didn’t live large. He should have enough to last him the rest of his life, and there are always going to be some options to make money, although doubtful the kind of money he’s been making. For that reason alone, there may come a time in a year where I can see him considering it, because almost every wrestler and almost every fighter makes a comeback. And there will always be money in his comeback and there will always be more PPV slots than they have matches that can do Lesnar-business. So he probably has a few year window. But most figure he’s done and figure that if mentally that’s where he is, then it’s the right decision for him to make.
The obvious next question regards WWE. Lesnar has said a number of times that he would be willing to do a big pro wrestling match after he’s done as a fighter for the right money. He’s also still under contract to UFC. Dana White didn’t really give an answer when it came to whether he’d let him out of his contract to do pro wrestling, but there’s always a way to make a business deal between Vince McMahon and White, to cut his company in to make it work or pay a flat fee for one night. White noted that saying you’re retired doesn’t mean you’re out of your contract. But if he is really retired, there is a time frame of how long the contract runs for. The idea of Lesnar vs. Undertaker or Lesnar vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 29 is an obvious direction. The feeling was Lesnar could have earned $2 million or more if he could have done the match with Undertaker at last year’s Mania, particularly while being UFC champion, but the reality is there was no way UFC would have allowed that to happen as long as he was fighting for them. The crazy thing is that if he beat Overeem, which in hindsight was unlikely, and then beat Dos Santos, if he really would have retired then as champion, and then gone to WWE for a match or matches as the rightful champion when his UFC contract expired, it would have been one of Vince McMahon’s all-time greatest coups.
But how much he would have meant as UFC champion, or with the loss of the title but only one loss since the first Mir fight, as compared to no longer being in UFC and having been knocked out twice? My feeling is that the longer the time frame is between now and his debut, the less his UFC losses would mean as far as a negative to marketability. In addition, the longer he’s out of the public eye, the fresher he is, although there comes a point when it’s too many years where that isn’t the case anymore.
The next question is Lesnar’s legacy. Most have been positive about it. The reality is he was an amazing athlete who won the title despite inexperience and a long layoff from competitive sports, succeeding based on athletic ability and a lifetime of wrestling to beat some solid people at their own game.
Others, whether blinded by their hate for Lesnar, pro wrestling, or UFC, have used this loss to say he was never any good, and discredit him. Some have written he was the worst UFC heavyweight champion in history, which is beyond laughable. If you line up every UFC champion in history, when they were champion vs. what short window of prime Lesnar had, and Lesnar beats most of them almost every time. He’d pound Shamrock, Severn, Coleman, Randleman, Smith, Rodriguez, Sylvia and Mir into the mat when all of them were champions. He’d struggle with Couture before beating him the majority of the time if not almost every time. He’d beat the Josh Barnett when Barnett was champion, although I’m not sure what would happen if he fought today’s Barnett. He’d lose most of the time to Cain Velasquez, because that’s a bad style match for him. He may not beat Junior Dos Santos either, and as the sport evolves, he wouldn’t beat the majority of the champions of the future. He was a legitimate champion for his time, even though he had major holes in his game, and brought a ton of new fans to the sport, and drew more than anyone in history.
Lesnar’s legacy? There have been many NCAA champions who went on to become world champions in pro wrestling, and several who went on to be UFC champions. Lesnar is the only one who has done all three. And he likely will be the only one. He is one of only three people, along with Mike Tyson and Manny Pacquiao, who have drawn two 1 million buys shows in the same calendar year. Came in with no experience. Won the title. Drew big. Got badly ill. Made lots of money. Lost the title. Couldn’t work his way back to top contention. And got out.
Whether those fans will stay when he’s gone, my gut says some will and most won’t. But that’s the cycle of life in promoting individual sports based on super drawing cards. If it didn’t happen this year, it would have happened next year. Lesnar was not the guy who was going to stay around like Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddell to lose most of his fights unless he needed the money.
With the change in location and the frequent drug tests, it was something of a surprise that Overeem weighed in at 263 pounds, only three pounds less than Lesnar, although the difference in the cage was probably closer to 15 pounds.
With the win, Overeem vs. Dos Santos now becomes the next in the line of biggest heavyweight title fights, if not in terms of money, in terms of ability, perhaps in history. Overeem asked for some time off, and Dana White said he’s hoping for that fight in the summer.
The other story of UFC 141 was that Jon Fitch and Donald Cerrone were seemingly one win away from at least being considered for title contention. Had Fitch beaten Johny Hendricks, while it was far from a lock, he’d have been a logical choice to face the Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz winner. Had Cerrone beaten Nate Diaz, he’d have been the odds-on favorite to face the Frankie Edgar vs. Ben Henderson winner. But they both lost.
Fitch was knocked out in 12 seconds by Hendricks, who made himself a star in one night. In a sport where anyone can lose, and a 12 second loss is often a fluke in many ways, Fitch was not the type of fighter who could afford a loss. He was always difficult to book. He’s won too often and too highly paid to not put on the PPV. But he risks killing shows in their tracks. He’s hard to book because most top fighters want to avoid fighting him. He’s hard to beat, and hard to get over on, although Hendricks jumped at the opportunity when offered. Now it’s even tougher, because he’s a big enough name he should be fighting top guys, but he’s not the guy you want to put in with a rising contender.
Cerrone won the award for worst mental game in history while Nate Diaz set a record for standing punches landed in a UFC fight in history, landing 260 total strikes and 238 significant strikes in a three round fight. Diaz outboxed Cerrone, kept the fight in a boxing range and not a kickboxing range. Cerrone was able to use his feet to sweep Diaz to the ground on a number of occasions. Since he was getting hammered standing and his corner was telling him to take him down, it made no sense that every time Cerrone got Diaz off his feet, he walked away instead of going to the ground and trying to punch him there. He would trip Diaz to his back, let him back up, so Diaz could continue to beat him up standing. Rinse and repeat. The match was tremendous. Not quite match of the year level but not far behind. With the best fight bonus, that made seven in the career of Cerrone, breaking the all-time record he shared with Chris Lytle. It was five for the career of Diaz.
In a speech to fighters before the show started, White praised Cerrone, noting that if guys want title shots, they should go out and finish fights, perhaps in reference to Fitch who had won a string of decisions. So after the big speech about finishing, the first six fights on the show all went to a decision.
The rare Friday night show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas drew 12,158 fans and $3.1 million.
Brock Lesnar’s MMA career ended on 12/30 with almost the exact same reaction as when it began.
When Lesnar started, both in K-1, and umpteen times more before his 2008 debut in the UFC against Frank Mir, you had a number of diametrically opposed schools of thought. He was a fake pro wrestler who was going to be humiliated by the real fighters in UFC. He was a freak athlete with great wrestling ability, strength and speed, who when he learned to fight, was going to be difficult to beat in a year. He was the worst thing for UFC, made UFC into a joke, and if he would bring in more fans, those aren’t the kind of fans we want. Or, he was the best thing for UFC, would expand their audience and be one of the biggest draws the company ever had.
After his first fight, the reactions just intensified. He was humiliated and tapped out in 90 seconds. He knocked down a former world champion twice, and when Steve Mazzagatti ordered a stand-up due to punches to the back of the head, he saved Mir, who was a goner and got a submission only because Lesnar made a rookie mistake. And once again, it was either a joke he was on the card, a joke that he was pushed, and bad that he brought 300,000 homes that had never once purchased a UFC PPV show ordering, because again, we don’t want those kind of fans. Or he was an instant draw, and the way he manhandled Mir, once he learned more about fighting, he’d be almost unstoppable.
Then he fought Heath Herring, a veteran who was going to humiliate the fake pro wrestler. Once again, it was either impressive than Lesnar dominated Herring for three straight rounds, breaking his orbital bone with a punch that sent Herring head over heels. Ironically Herring’s fall was just as exaggerated as Lesnar’s against Cain Velasquez, which was used as evidence that Lesnar can’t take a punch. Or it was Lesnar having Herring down for three rounds and couldn’t even submit him, and suddenly Herring, who at one point while in Japan was pushed as the top American heavyweight, was never any good to begin with, or if he was, he was long since washed up even though he was actually a year younger than Lesnar and had just turned 30.
Next was Randy Couture, an all-time great and the reigning UFC world heavyweight champion. People were 50-50 on this one, but everyone knew for sure they were right. Couture would either humiliate Lesnar and even out wrestle him, out box him and make him look like a joke in a title shot he didn’t deserve and those big muscles would gas quickly. Or Lesnar was a younger, bigger and stronger wrestler, Couture’s main attribute, and would win the title.
Once again, people looked at it their own way. Lesnar won via second round knockout to become UFC champion in his third match with the company and fourth match overall. Without question, Lesnar got the shot because he and Couture were expected, and did do huge numbers, roughly 920,000 buys on PPV, the second biggest total up to that point in time in company history. You would think his winning the title would at least shut up the claim it was a joke he was champion.
Instead, the take was to attack Couture. Couture was old, too small, washed up, even though the same Couture had a match of the year candidate in his next outing. Lesnar won via knockout in the second after winning the first round obviously on all three scorecards, he somehow was losing the entire fight as well as getting outwrestled, and gassing out because he had no conditioning. To Couture’s credit, with his greater wrestling experience he was able to defend well against Lesnar and make him fight to get him down. And Couture did once nearly take Lesnar down. It was a competitive fight. Lesnar took punches from Couture, was bloodied up, wasn’t hurt badly by the punches, caught Couture and the telling blow was winning a standing exchange.
Against Mir, he was the worst thing that ever happened to the sport, even as he helped draw one of the five biggest PPV numbers in the history of PPV, and largest non-boxing number ever. Against Shane Carwin, he either proved he had heart in spades, coming back from a terrible first round beating, or it was a ref who should have stopped the fight, and he only won because Carwin gassed. When Cain Velasquez finally beat him, it exposed he was a joke all along to some. Others noted he lost to a guy who just was a better fighter, a guy who was strong enough as a wrestler that Lesnar couldn’t dominate him that way, and was much better standing.
Alistair Overeem came to Las Vegas for his UFC debut with his own set of question marks. While fighting in a very tough light heavyweight division, he had a 6-6 record in the Pride Fighting Championships and was finished in the first round by Chuck Liddell, Shogun Rua (twice) and Ricardo Arona, and once in the second round by Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. He moved to heavyweight and was knocked out by Sergei Khartionov.
And then the moth came out of his cocoon. In 2007, as a heavyweight, weighing 224 pounds, he beat up Paul Buentello and won the Strikeforce heavyweight title in the second round. Since then, he’s had 11 fights, ten of which haven’t gotten out of the first round, and Lesnar, in lasting 2:26, lasted longer than seven of his last 11 foes.
Overeem himself was as polarizing as Lesnar. He was the greatest heavyweight in the world, because of two things. His quick wins, largely against nobodies, and his great physique. Well, there was also a third reason. Once Fedor Emelianenko faltered, the people who had claimed that the UFC heavyweights were second rate needed a new hero.
So these two monsters of the cage were headed to Las Vegas, both facing all kinds of problems that were both foreseen, and unforseen.
Lesnar had 12 inches of his colon removed at the end of May and had suffered from diverticulitis since an attack nearly killed him at the end of 2009. It was recommended he would have surgery, but he was UFC champion and there was tremendous money to be made in 2010 if he could just get back in shape. He got through the first fight, came in for the second fight in tremendous condition, but even though he looked great, he wasn’t feeling great. While preparing for a fight with Junior Dos Santos, he was sluggish in training, hoped he had a bug that would go away, rested, it didn’t go away, and deep down already knew the diverticulitis was back. He had surgery.
From talking with several people who had the surgery, all felt that he was coming back too quickly. But he got his size and strength back and at least looked like the old Brock Lesnar. But he was 34, had little time over the previous two years to concentrate on his deficiencies as a fighter. If he wasn’t sick, and at times when he was, he had to train for conditioning with a fight impending. He had already started older than most, and from day one, his career clock was ticking. That’s why he started out fighting a former world champion in his first fight. He wanted to know right away if he could do the sport, plus he wanted to make money. That meant fighting top people.
Exactly what Lesnar himself was thinking it’s impossible to know. Those close to him say he’s not good at hiding when you see his face. They noted when he came to the cage, he had that look that things were wrong. He had it in WWE when he was asked to do a job that he thought didn’t make sense, or confronted about something. But here the stakes were a lot higher. If something was wrong, he could get beat up. Bad.
Overeem had his issues with drug testing and his mother being sick. He left his camp in Las Vegas, filled with wrestlers, to go to Holland, where there were few if any top wrestlers, and certainly none like a healthy NCAA champion. He had to miss two key days of training to go to England and take a drug test. Then, the day before the fight, he was sued by his former management team. Then, the day of the fight, his former management team got an injunction that could have resulted in them having his purse for the fight put into escrow. He knew the former but seemed calm about it. He said that, until he was asked about it at the press conference, he didn’t know the latter, but he’s also a very good poker face. Unlike Lesnar whose face tells a different story depending on his mood, no matter what Overeem says or feels, his expression rarely changes.
Although Dana White had said he didn’t even think Overeem was a top ten heavyweight, UFC clearly saw star potential in him. The lawsuit filed by Knock Out Investments, the business name for the Golden Glory gym and team, which represented Overeem for the past 11 years, gave details as to his new contract.
The lawsuit, filed on 12/29 in Clark County, Nevada stated that when Overeem signed with UFC on 9/6, his contract specified that for his fight with Lesnar he would be receiving $264,285.71 as base pay, a $121,428.57 win bonus, as well as $2 per PPV buy for all revenue to Zuffa after the Zuffa company revenue from the show tops$500,000 (basically, the first 23,000 or so buys). In addition, there was a $1 million signing bonus, which would be broken down into another $333,333.33 for the first three fights of his contract. The contract itself, with the options put in place, would cover up to eight fights. If the show did 800,000 buys, Overeem would earn in the neighborhood of $2.26 million.
Knock Out Investments claimed that due to Overeem’s existing five-year contract with them that was signed in 2007, they are entitled to 30%. 30% of is pay between all the money he got for UFC 141 is $684,000, so that are fighting for a huge chunk of change. They also alleged Overeem never paid them their 30% from the 6/18 fight with Fabricio Werdum. Overeem had already, in November, filed suit against Knock Out Investments, claiming they owed him $151,000 prior to the Werdum fight based on fights he already had, and asked for a court order stating that due to that, his contract should be null and void. Prior to the Werdum fight, almost all of Overeem’s fight money, whether it was from Japan or previously with Strikeforce, was sent to Knock Out Investments and then after they got paid and took their cut, they paid their fighters. Zuffa, after purchasing Strikeforce, refused to continue that practice, stating that they were going to pay fighters and not management teams. At one point Zuffa even fired all of the Golden Glory fighters, including Overeem, because Golden Glory made the demand that they wanted the money to be paid to them. After firing a number of fighters, Overeem included, Golden Glory relented and agreed to let Zuffa pay the fighters. By that time Overeem had been fired and removed from the Strikeforce tournament, and at the time nobody knew the future of Strikeforce and Overeem would have been far more valuable on the UFC side.
The day of the fight, Knock Out Investments got an injunction in Nevada district court to put Overeem’s pay from the fight in escrow because they claimed he would possibly spend it before a ruling in a court case that would give them their share. Knock Out Investments had requested that Overeem’s show pay of $241,285.49 be paid by Zuffa directly to tem. However, the court asked Knock Out Investments to post a $200,000 bond to get his purse held up, and they didn’t do so.
“The reality is that a fighter is paid within 24 hours of the bout,” wrote Knock Out Investments attorney Roderick Lindblom. “Given past failure to pay management and training fees, there is serious concern on my client’s part that Mr. Overeem will simply walkaway with the money.”
Nevertheless, Overeem was calm all week. Lesnar was tense. After losing, Lesnar gave a speech in the cage announcing his retirement. He said he had already promised his wife that if he lost, he would retire. If he won, he would only fight one more time, for the championship, and then, win or lose, he would retire.
As far as why he made that decision, only he knows for sure. How much did the illness take away from him? How much athleticism and speed was he losing via age? Unlike most fighters, who when they lose a step, may still gain something with experience, Lesnar was inexperienced, not well rounded, and getting older, and getting by based on size, power, wrestling and athletic ability. You don’t find a lot of world class freestyle heavyweights in their late 30s that hang with the guys in their 20s. What did he think, what did he know, how did his camp really go? The fact he was considering retiring, and the look in his face as he came to the cage gives evidence of something.
While there was considerable debate on who would win the fight, there was little debate on what would happen. Either Lesnar would use his wrestling to win, or he wouldn’t be able to, and he would lose, quickly. The latter is what happened. Lesnar never changed levels to shoot for a takedown. Lesnar never rushed to get a tie-up and pin him against the fence, perhaps fearing unless he was able to totally smother him up close, he’d be open to Overeem’s strong knees to the body. He never even did a feint, using the threat of strikes, and he did throw punches and low kicks, and followed with a quick takedown attempt; He tried a half-hearted single leg at one point, his only attempt of the fight, and gave it up quickly. At another point, when Overeem threw a kick, he tried to catch the foot and use it for a takedown, but was a smidgen slow in catching. Lesnar did cut Overeem above the right eye with a punch, and threw some leg kicks, while being stalked. But the the way it was going, it just felt inevitable that Lesnar was playing Overeem’s game. It was a game he most likely not only couldn’t win, but couldn’t even survive a round playing.
And he didn’t. The key blow was a kick to the body that Lesnar said he believed broke one of his ribs. Lesnar did not go to the hospital after the fight, and instead flew home to Minnesota, so at this point if the rib was broken, it would have been diagnosed at home and only he and his inner circle know about it.
Lesnar appeared beaten before the fight started. Was it something that happened in training where he saw he didn’t have what he once had? You can point to Overeem stuffing his takedown and getting into his head, but Lesnar was a different person before the fight ever started. The fact he had promised to retire, and mentally sounded like he had his retirement speech ready, tells you all you need to know, other than the why, which can be speculated to being a dozen different things, all of which may have played a part.
When fighters lose, like B.J. Penn did two months ago, and announce their retirement, most of the time people listen and think, “He’ll change his mind.” And most of the time they’re right.
But nobody was questioning Lesnar. His situation is unique. Most fighters fight because it’s just what they do, and they don’t want to walk away from it. In most cases, they are driven by wanting to be somebody. Lesnar, as much as any athlete with an ego that I’ve ever seen, just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what people say about him. He pays no attention to it. He’s probably earned in the neighborhood of $17 million in his MMA career, and that’s not including any endorsements. He doesn’t live big. He was one of those guys who made a lot and spent a lot when he was in his mid-20s as a pro wrestler, and then went back to making nothing. So the second time he made big money, he didn’t live large. He should have enough to last him the rest of his life, and there are always going to be some options to make money, although doubtful the kind of money he’s been making. For that reason alone, there may come a time in a year where I can see him considering it, because almost every wrestler and almost every fighter makes a comeback. And there will always be money in his comeback and there will always be more PPV slots than they have matches that can do Lesnar-business. So he probably has a few year window. But most figure he’s done and figure that if mentally that’s where he is, then it’s the right decision for him to make.
The obvious next question regards WWE. Lesnar has said a number of times that he would be willing to do a big pro wrestling match after he’s done as a fighter for the right money. He’s also still under contract to UFC. Dana White didn’t really give an answer when it came to whether he’d let him out of his contract to do pro wrestling, but there’s always a way to make a business deal between Vince McMahon and White, to cut his company in to make it work or pay a flat fee for one night. White noted that saying you’re retired doesn’t mean you’re out of your contract. But if he is really retired, there is a time frame of how long the contract runs for. The idea of Lesnar vs. Undertaker or Lesnar vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 29 is an obvious direction. The feeling was Lesnar could have earned $2 million or more if he could have done the match with Undertaker at last year’s Mania, particularly while being UFC champion, but the reality is there was no way UFC would have allowed that to happen as long as he was fighting for them. The crazy thing is that if he beat Overeem, which in hindsight was unlikely, and then beat Dos Santos, if he really would have retired then as champion, and then gone to WWE for a match or matches as the rightful champion when his UFC contract expired, it would have been one of Vince McMahon’s all-time greatest coups.
But how much he would have meant as UFC champion, or with the loss of the title but only one loss since the first Mir fight, as compared to no longer being in UFC and having been knocked out twice? My feeling is that the longer the time frame is between now and his debut, the less his UFC losses would mean as far as a negative to marketability. In addition, the longer he’s out of the public eye, the fresher he is, although there comes a point when it’s too many years where that isn’t the case anymore.
The next question is Lesnar’s legacy. Most have been positive about it. The reality is he was an amazing athlete who won the title despite inexperience and a long layoff from competitive sports, succeeding based on athletic ability and a lifetime of wrestling to beat some solid people at their own game.
Others, whether blinded by their hate for Lesnar, pro wrestling, or UFC, have used this loss to say he was never any good, and discredit him. Some have written he was the worst UFC heavyweight champion in history, which is beyond laughable. If you line up every UFC champion in history, when they were champion vs. what short window of prime Lesnar had, and Lesnar beats most of them almost every time. He’d pound Shamrock, Severn, Coleman, Randleman, Smith, Rodriguez, Sylvia and Mir into the mat when all of them were champions. He’d struggle with Couture before beating him the majority of the time if not almost every time. He’d beat the Josh Barnett when Barnett was champion, although I’m not sure what would happen if he fought today’s Barnett. He’d lose most of the time to Cain Velasquez, because that’s a bad style match for him. He may not beat Junior Dos Santos either, and as the sport evolves, he wouldn’t beat the majority of the champions of the future. He was a legitimate champion for his time, even though he had major holes in his game, and brought a ton of new fans to the sport, and drew more than anyone in history.
Lesnar’s legacy? There have been many NCAA champions who went on to become world champions in pro wrestling, and several who went on to be UFC champions. Lesnar is the only one who has done all three. And he likely will be the only one. He is one of only three people, along with Mike Tyson and Manny Pacquiao, who have drawn two 1 million buys shows in the same calendar year. Came in with no experience. Won the title. Drew big. Got badly ill. Made lots of money. Lost the title. Couldn’t work his way back to top contention. And got out.
Whether those fans will stay when he’s gone, my gut says some will and most won’t. But that’s the cycle of life in promoting individual sports based on super drawing cards. If it didn’t happen this year, it would have happened next year. Lesnar was not the guy who was going to stay around like Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddell to lose most of his fights unless he needed the money.
With the change in location and the frequent drug tests, it was something of a surprise that Overeem weighed in at 263 pounds, only three pounds less than Lesnar, although the difference in the cage was probably closer to 15 pounds.
With the win, Overeem vs. Dos Santos now becomes the next in the line of biggest heavyweight title fights, if not in terms of money, in terms of ability, perhaps in history. Overeem asked for some time off, and Dana White said he’s hoping for that fight in the summer.
The other story of UFC 141 was that Jon Fitch and Donald Cerrone were seemingly one win away from at least being considered for title contention. Had Fitch beaten Johny Hendricks, while it was far from a lock, he’d have been a logical choice to face the Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz winner. Had Cerrone beaten Nate Diaz, he’d have been the odds-on favorite to face the Frankie Edgar vs. Ben Henderson winner. But they both lost.
Fitch was knocked out in 12 seconds by Hendricks, who made himself a star in one night. In a sport where anyone can lose, and a 12 second loss is often a fluke in many ways, Fitch was not the type of fighter who could afford a loss. He was always difficult to book. He’s won too often and too highly paid to not put on the PPV. But he risks killing shows in their tracks. He’s hard to book because most top fighters want to avoid fighting him. He’s hard to beat, and hard to get over on, although Hendricks jumped at the opportunity when offered. Now it’s even tougher, because he’s a big enough name he should be fighting top guys, but he’s not the guy you want to put in with a rising contender.
Cerrone won the award for worst mental game in history while Nate Diaz set a record for standing punches landed in a UFC fight in history, landing 260 total strikes and 238 significant strikes in a three round fight. Diaz outboxed Cerrone, kept the fight in a boxing range and not a kickboxing range. Cerrone was able to use his feet to sweep Diaz to the ground on a number of occasions. Since he was getting hammered standing and his corner was telling him to take him down, it made no sense that every time Cerrone got Diaz off his feet, he walked away instead of going to the ground and trying to punch him there. He would trip Diaz to his back, let him back up, so Diaz could continue to beat him up standing. Rinse and repeat. The match was tremendous. Not quite match of the year level but not far behind. With the best fight bonus, that made seven in the career of Cerrone, breaking the all-time record he shared with Chris Lytle. It was five for the career of Diaz.
In a speech to fighters before the show started, White praised Cerrone, noting that if guys want title shots, they should go out and finish fights, perhaps in reference to Fitch who had won a string of decisions. So after the big speech about finishing, the first six fights on the show all went to a decision.
The rare Friday night show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas drew 12,158 fans and $3.1 million.
Really? Because I thought we have this, specifically Beth:It's mighty Molly!
Shame she's a bitch in real life.
thanks to that "bitch".
Oh my.
Uno Venova
Banned
Hngg
Ninja Scooter
Member
HarryDemeanor
Member
NihonTiger90
Member
Oh god yes.
This is how Triple H makes his return for Wrestlemania: by shooting out of Stephanie's womb to mark his "rebirth."
TIME TO PLAY THE GAAAAAAAAAAAAME~
dream
Member
Well hopefully have the paid vs. freebies breakdown next week.
The prelims were the final UFC show on Spike TV and did 1.77 million viewers. We dont have a rating, but the audience would be the second largest for a prelims show in history, trailing the 2 million for the February 5, 2011 (Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort) UFC 126 show.
Because of the holiday, our early PPV numbers are somewhat sketchy but early industry estimates have ranged between 750,000 and 810,000 North American buys, which would be slightly higher than most expectations. The show probably would have hit the 1 million mark if it was on New Years Eve. The original plan was to do a New Years Eve show from Abu Dhabi, but when that fell through, they booked the MGM Grand. Because the strip in Las Vegas is shut down from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on New Years Eve, it really would be impossible to run a show like they do in Las Vegas on that night. It would be either the second or third biggest number in UFC history drawn by a non-title match. Rashad Evans vs. Quinton Jackson holds the record at around 1 million, Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz II was second at 775,000, and please dont insult anyones intelligence by claiming the Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski heavyweight title match on that show was really the main event.
The show appears to have done the most buys in the U.S. for any PPV show since Lesnars prior fight with Cain Velasquez, and it may have done the biggest number overall since that time, although the Georges St. Pierre fights with Josh Koscheck and Jake Shields may slip ahead overall because of the strong Canadian numbers. Sketchy trending information indicates it appears to have set the company record for any show in Australia.
Some of the strongest markets were Edmonton, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Honolulu, Vancouver, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Calgary, Toronto, San Antonio, Charlotte, Columbus, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas City and Phoenix.
To the expectation of almost everyone, given the signs in the audience and Y2J chants before he was unveiled, Chris Jericho returned to WWE as the mystery man from the videos on Jan. 2 in Memphis.
It was the third big debut for Jericho, 41, in WWE. Jericho was considered by many internally as the companys best all-around performer in 2008 and 2009, when he won Wrestler of the Year honors, and was voted into the Observer Hall of Fame in 2010. While he has won so many titles during an era of title dilution that its almost impossible to count, including a record nine IC title runs and three runs with versions of world titles in the WWE organization, the highlight of his career was likely his 2008 feud with Shawn Michaels which was one of the best the company has done in recent years.
He debuted on August 9, 1999, coming from WCW, where he was an entertaining mid-carder who was never given a shot past that level. In a conversation I had with Eric Bischoff before Jericho decided to leave, when bringing up guys who should get a shot at moving up and his name came up, Bischoff was decidedly negative on him, saying that in a real fight that his teenage son (who now wrestles in TNA and was a karate student of Ernest Miller) could take Jericho. As silly as that sounds in evaluating wrestling talent today, and after the Jericho-Bill Goldberg confrontation in 2003, it was a way of saying that Jericho didnt exude the toughness he felt was necessary to be in a top position.
He started with a memorable confrontation with The Rock, who is also the wrestler who put Jericho over several times in late 2001 to allow him to be taken as a serious main eventer. His career in the first run was filled with highs and lows, periods the company gave him main events runs, and even the title, although he was never, even as champion, pushed in the tippy top tier, but was often solidly right with those guys but just under. Other times he languished. He was pushed as the first undisputed world champion in pro wrestling history. While not exactly historically accurate, it was the idea that the WWF and old WCW world titles were being unified in a four-man tournament, the night Jericho beat Steve Austin and Rock in the same night, on December 9, 2001, in San Diego. In its own way, it was historically important as the first time that when it came to the major league promotion that controlled every national outlet (TNA had not yet started, WCW and ECW were dead) and the only promotion on a major league basis had a singular world champion.
But his title run at the time was clearly more as a place-setter as the guy for HHH to beat at that years WrestleMania, and the story was never really Jericho as champion as much as building HHHs story which included a Mania title win. From that point until his 2005 departure, he ranged from headlining to being a mid-carder.
He solidified his stardom more in his second run, developing a unique heel character after a turn and feud with Shawn Michaels, which was likely the companys best feud of the past several years. He returned as a babyface on September 24, 2007, after months of promo videos, a return that was delayed a month because of the feeling by Vince McMahon that people were expecting it on a certain day. He moved into a title feud with Randy Orton as a face, but didnt really fully hit his stride until the heel turn, which saw him win the title. Jericho put people over, did a losing streak, confident that he was able to lose without hurting himself he would argue when it was suggested most top guys didnt lose as often and to the people (like even Heath Slater) he was losing to. While Jericho was still able to be pushed as one of the top guys while losing, the flip side is those losses really didnt lead to making anyone a bigger star, which seemed to be the idea of them.
The losses were because Jericho was leaving the company after his three-year contract expired to both tour with his band and do Dancing with the Stars and work on getting other entertainment projects that being a WWE full-timer wouldnt allow him to have time to pursue. He was described by those working on the show as one of the best contestants ever to work with and even though he didnt come close to winning, and struggled in the fan voting each week, with the belief being his wrestler background hurt him with middle America, ABC officials talked of him as being a potential star. Clearly, nothing significant materialized.
Jericho had flown to Connecticut to meet with Vince McMahon and map out his return some time back, while claiming at the same time he was never coming back. There was a legitimate issue of his character falling through the cracks that kept him out of the new WWE 12 video game, which led to hard feelings and him claiming he felt disrespected. Those internally denied it was going to be an issue that kept him from returning and while a legitimate issue, it was not lingering and was smoothed out at the meeting. Those internally were saying all along he was coming back in January, and that both the WWE and THQ wanted him in the game. He denied he was coming back, although it was pretty clear at the end the denials were tongue-in-cheek. It became obvious in recent weeks it was him, largely because there were only three characters seemingly possible, which says a lot about the current sceneUndertaker, who is coming back but they did the same thing for him last year, and Batista, who has movie roles lined up and isnt interested in coming back right now, although he may at some point come back for one last run, but has been openly negative about the direction of the product.
The Jericho promos being on Youtube and being directed from TV without the commentators calling attention to them was the Social Networking Departments idea for a campaign that in hindsight several in the company agreed was too smart for its own good.
More than one this week acknowledged the original concept, which was a fuzzy thing on the screen each week directing viewers to youtube videos, was a failure, blamed on the original concept, the fact the announcers never put it over and such a small percentage of the fan base even viewed them. There was talk about who it was, but with people realizing it was either Jericho or Undertaker, both of which most expected to return for Mania season anyway, it wasnt like it was for similar things in years past. Still, WWE officials were talking about the Raw rating this week topping a 3.0, pointing to the curiosity factor from them pushing the mystery man. Plus it was the first week after the NFL Monday Night season ended, although there was still competition from the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl head-to-head.
Thats when they started being featured on television. It certainly felt in the week leading to his debut that the momentum was nowhere close to his 2007 return in similar fashion, which was the talk of the wrestling world for months. For one, he wasnt gone long enough, and for another, WWE had done something similar last year for Undertaker. At the same time the Jericho videos started, WWE was doing something similar for Kanes return. Even though they made no secret of who that person was, it felt like the same type of thing at the same time.
I was surprised by a few things related to it. The first were photos that surfaced of him arriving the night before at the airport, which he then claimed were photo shopped when they obviously werent. Usually when it comes to WWE, and particularly something at this level, Id have thought theyd have had him hidden all the way through. Second, they didnt confiscate any Y2J signs, of which several were notable on camera, before he came out. It seemed like there was an acknowledgment at the end that everyone knew and they were no longer trying to hide anything.
The company did try and hide him to the point they didnt have the company plane pick him up, but they flew him to Nashville, about 220 miles from Memphis, on Sunday, figuring people would see him if they flew him to Memphis either Sunday or earlier in the day on Monday, and word would get out. Once he got picked up in Nashville, he was hidden away so nobody would see him that wasnt supposed to. There were two photos that surfaced. One was from the Nashville airport on Sunday night, and the second was said to actually be something of a fraud, in the sense it was a photo of him taken months ago.
It was also interesting that the reveal was put at 10:30 p.m. instead of at 10 p.m. or during the post-11 p.m. overrun, meaning company officials themselves also thought it was not the most looked forward to segment on the show. There seems to be the feeling, from ratings results, that they cant trust anything other than involving John Cena or The Rock (or some gimmick feud such as with Michael Cole with Jerry Lawler or Jim Ross on select occasions) to be the focal point of the overrun.
Jericho came out with a flashing lights jacket, playing a combination of his WCW babyface character when he broke in, the enthusiastic young babyface cheerleading the crowd that was part of the 80s. He ran around, and when the crowd would calm down, would start riling it back up and getting them to cheer some more. He did this for several minutes while people expected an interview. He was so over the top with it that you could see the mentality was that he knew hed get a face reaction as the returning star, and that hes coming back as a heel who doesnt want to be cheered. Most in the crowd didnt see what was going on and just responded do his over-the-top cheerleading, not at the same level, but the same way Hulk Hogan was the master of milking long crowd reactions for returns.
So hed overplay the hand to the point of getting the crowd to turn on him for the obvious phoniness, plus, because interviews are his forte, not deliver an interview at all, leaving the crowd disappointed. It actually took longer than I expected for the crowd to react the way you could see he was leaning them subtly to do. There were only a small smattering of boos even several minutes into this. But he did pause and give people a subtle look at the end and you could hear a decent amount of booing. He never overplayed it and the announcers sold it as a babyface return, so the idea seemed to be to end the segment with the question as to where he was going next with his character.
It looked like any 80s white meat babyface character. Backstage people were noting the similarities to the character Johnny Ace played in the Dynamic Dudes, which is no different from 100 others from years earlier. But that over-exuberant babyface that was shown in the Raw video of Laurinaitis from his U.S. wrestling days as a face looks completely phony and out-of-date today.
Most expect Jericho to come in and work with C.M. Punk for a WrestleMania program. Its unclear how long hes back for. He had at one point claimed he was working on putting together a summer tour with his band, which would indicate a short run, but that was public and almost anything he has said public you have to discount. The word we first got months ago is that he had told his band he was going back for a short run, giving the impression they would be back doing their Fozzy touring over the summer, but that was months ago and a lot could change. There were stories about him being involved in a major post-Mania program and a big match at SummerSlam, but thats involving so many different moving parts and people that anything past that point has to be speculative at best.
Dwayne Johnson writing to Jericho on twitter, Helluva kick ass return. Welcome back my friend. Looking forward to having some fun w/you, may be a note to file away right now regarding ideas post-WrestleMania.
Jericho is scheduled to go full-time on the road at house shows starting this weekend, as hes booked starting 1/7 in Tyler, TX as making a guest appearance and is booked at virtually all shows from that point forward as part of the Raw tour. He is not advertised for any matches yet, because doing so this early would publicly tip their hand on what they are doing with him. It will be interesting exactly what he does at the house shows this weekend, because his full character is at the earliest not going to be established on TV until this coming week, if not even after that. The only thing we know is that it will take another twist over the next week.
The idea of going out there and having the fans waiting for your performance, building them up for it, and then not saying anything at all and leaving was out of the play book of the late Andy Kaufman, who was a very controversial figure in the early 80s before his foray into pro wrestling as he did a show where he did just that, leaving ticket buyers furious.
Because its not something expected from wrestling, reaction was mixed. There was some thinking with more depth in the sense that it was a concept based on knowing there was nothing that could be done that would stop him getting the huge cheers at first, but his goal was not to be a babyface and also not to be like last time where he goes a few months and turns. It was different and people were left talking about it. It wasnt giving people what they wanted to see, in fact the opposite, but there is the argument it built anticipation for next week, or weeks later if thats the game plan, when he finally does his return interview. Others, since wrestling is more than ever about the here and now, and not building, felt that as a here and now segment, they expected a great return interview, didnt get it, and the crowd booed at the end, although the booing at the end was so clearly by design.
Raw on 12/26 did a 2.93 rating and 4.47 million viewers. The rating was almost identical with the prior week but there were 180,000 more viewers on a night when overall television viewership was down 7.7%, although thats misleading because all the networks were in reruns. The show was 6th for the night on cable. The Atlanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints game where Drew Brees set the all-time single season passing yardage record did a 10.60 rating and 15.64 million viewers.
The big news is the curse of the second hour losing audience from the first hour ended. The reason is more that the first hour didnt do well, then the second hour did well. In particular, Raw of late has been starting with a strong first quarter, but the C.M. Punk/John Laurinaitis first quarter did a only a 2.94, and the usual big drop didnt happen. There were a significant amount of usual Raw viewers who either didnt bother to watch the first quarter and turn it off like usual, or did watch it but turned it off in a minute.
The show did a 2.3 in Males 12-17 (down 18% from last week), 2.6 in Males 18-49 (up 4%), 1.1 in Females 12-17 (up 38%) and 1.2 in Females 18-49 (down 8%). Male viewership was 67.1% of total viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes lost 149,000 viewers. Backstage stuff with John Cena and Zack Ryder, Big Show and Kelly Kelly, Laurinaitis, Show and David Otunga and Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and Mark Henry gained 78,000 viewers. Ryder & Eve Torres vs. Tyson Kidd & Natalya and a Cena interview lost 67,000 viewers. Cena vs. The Miz and post-match R-Truth attack gained 325,000 viewers, which is below usual but better than in some recent weeks. Big Show vs. David Otunga with one hand tied behind his back and an Alberto Del Rio interview with the Bellas gained 34,000 viewers. Punk vs. Swagger lost 367,000 viewers. Punk vs. Ziggler gained 172,000 viewers to a 2.91 main event average. The Cena/Kane overrun gained 543,000 viewers to a do a 3.26. As far as the demo changes with Cena and Kane out last, Male teens went from 2.8 to 3.1, Men 18-49 went from 2.8 to 3.2, Women teens went from 1.0 to 1.3 and Women 18-49 stayed at 1.0.
The prelims were the final UFC show on Spike TV and did 1.77 million viewers. We dont have a rating, but the audience would be the second largest for a prelims show in history, trailing the 2 million for the February 5, 2011 (Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort) UFC 126 show.
Because of the holiday, our early PPV numbers are somewhat sketchy but early industry estimates have ranged between 750,000 and 810,000 North American buys, which would be slightly higher than most expectations. The show probably would have hit the 1 million mark if it was on New Years Eve. The original plan was to do a New Years Eve show from Abu Dhabi, but when that fell through, they booked the MGM Grand. Because the strip in Las Vegas is shut down from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on New Years Eve, it really would be impossible to run a show like they do in Las Vegas on that night. It would be either the second or third biggest number in UFC history drawn by a non-title match. Rashad Evans vs. Quinton Jackson holds the record at around 1 million, Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz II was second at 775,000, and please dont insult anyones intelligence by claiming the Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski heavyweight title match on that show was really the main event.
The show appears to have done the most buys in the U.S. for any PPV show since Lesnars prior fight with Cain Velasquez, and it may have done the biggest number overall since that time, although the Georges St. Pierre fights with Josh Koscheck and Jake Shields may slip ahead overall because of the strong Canadian numbers. Sketchy trending information indicates it appears to have set the company record for any show in Australia.
Some of the strongest markets were Edmonton, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Honolulu, Vancouver, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Calgary, Toronto, San Antonio, Charlotte, Columbus, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas City and Phoenix.
To the expectation of almost everyone, given the signs in the audience and Y2J chants before he was unveiled, Chris Jericho returned to WWE as the mystery man from the videos on Jan. 2 in Memphis.
It was the third big debut for Jericho, 41, in WWE. Jericho was considered by many internally as the companys best all-around performer in 2008 and 2009, when he won Wrestler of the Year honors, and was voted into the Observer Hall of Fame in 2010. While he has won so many titles during an era of title dilution that its almost impossible to count, including a record nine IC title runs and three runs with versions of world titles in the WWE organization, the highlight of his career was likely his 2008 feud with Shawn Michaels which was one of the best the company has done in recent years.
He debuted on August 9, 1999, coming from WCW, where he was an entertaining mid-carder who was never given a shot past that level. In a conversation I had with Eric Bischoff before Jericho decided to leave, when bringing up guys who should get a shot at moving up and his name came up, Bischoff was decidedly negative on him, saying that in a real fight that his teenage son (who now wrestles in TNA and was a karate student of Ernest Miller) could take Jericho. As silly as that sounds in evaluating wrestling talent today, and after the Jericho-Bill Goldberg confrontation in 2003, it was a way of saying that Jericho didnt exude the toughness he felt was necessary to be in a top position.
He started with a memorable confrontation with The Rock, who is also the wrestler who put Jericho over several times in late 2001 to allow him to be taken as a serious main eventer. His career in the first run was filled with highs and lows, periods the company gave him main events runs, and even the title, although he was never, even as champion, pushed in the tippy top tier, but was often solidly right with those guys but just under. Other times he languished. He was pushed as the first undisputed world champion in pro wrestling history. While not exactly historically accurate, it was the idea that the WWF and old WCW world titles were being unified in a four-man tournament, the night Jericho beat Steve Austin and Rock in the same night, on December 9, 2001, in San Diego. In its own way, it was historically important as the first time that when it came to the major league promotion that controlled every national outlet (TNA had not yet started, WCW and ECW were dead) and the only promotion on a major league basis had a singular world champion.
But his title run at the time was clearly more as a place-setter as the guy for HHH to beat at that years WrestleMania, and the story was never really Jericho as champion as much as building HHHs story which included a Mania title win. From that point until his 2005 departure, he ranged from headlining to being a mid-carder.
He solidified his stardom more in his second run, developing a unique heel character after a turn and feud with Shawn Michaels, which was likely the companys best feud of the past several years. He returned as a babyface on September 24, 2007, after months of promo videos, a return that was delayed a month because of the feeling by Vince McMahon that people were expecting it on a certain day. He moved into a title feud with Randy Orton as a face, but didnt really fully hit his stride until the heel turn, which saw him win the title. Jericho put people over, did a losing streak, confident that he was able to lose without hurting himself he would argue when it was suggested most top guys didnt lose as often and to the people (like even Heath Slater) he was losing to. While Jericho was still able to be pushed as one of the top guys while losing, the flip side is those losses really didnt lead to making anyone a bigger star, which seemed to be the idea of them.
The losses were because Jericho was leaving the company after his three-year contract expired to both tour with his band and do Dancing with the Stars and work on getting other entertainment projects that being a WWE full-timer wouldnt allow him to have time to pursue. He was described by those working on the show as one of the best contestants ever to work with and even though he didnt come close to winning, and struggled in the fan voting each week, with the belief being his wrestler background hurt him with middle America, ABC officials talked of him as being a potential star. Clearly, nothing significant materialized.
Jericho had flown to Connecticut to meet with Vince McMahon and map out his return some time back, while claiming at the same time he was never coming back. There was a legitimate issue of his character falling through the cracks that kept him out of the new WWE 12 video game, which led to hard feelings and him claiming he felt disrespected. Those internally denied it was going to be an issue that kept him from returning and while a legitimate issue, it was not lingering and was smoothed out at the meeting. Those internally were saying all along he was coming back in January, and that both the WWE and THQ wanted him in the game. He denied he was coming back, although it was pretty clear at the end the denials were tongue-in-cheek. It became obvious in recent weeks it was him, largely because there were only three characters seemingly possible, which says a lot about the current sceneUndertaker, who is coming back but they did the same thing for him last year, and Batista, who has movie roles lined up and isnt interested in coming back right now, although he may at some point come back for one last run, but has been openly negative about the direction of the product.
The Jericho promos being on Youtube and being directed from TV without the commentators calling attention to them was the Social Networking Departments idea for a campaign that in hindsight several in the company agreed was too smart for its own good.
More than one this week acknowledged the original concept, which was a fuzzy thing on the screen each week directing viewers to youtube videos, was a failure, blamed on the original concept, the fact the announcers never put it over and such a small percentage of the fan base even viewed them. There was talk about who it was, but with people realizing it was either Jericho or Undertaker, both of which most expected to return for Mania season anyway, it wasnt like it was for similar things in years past. Still, WWE officials were talking about the Raw rating this week topping a 3.0, pointing to the curiosity factor from them pushing the mystery man. Plus it was the first week after the NFL Monday Night season ended, although there was still competition from the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl head-to-head.
Thats when they started being featured on television. It certainly felt in the week leading to his debut that the momentum was nowhere close to his 2007 return in similar fashion, which was the talk of the wrestling world for months. For one, he wasnt gone long enough, and for another, WWE had done something similar last year for Undertaker. At the same time the Jericho videos started, WWE was doing something similar for Kanes return. Even though they made no secret of who that person was, it felt like the same type of thing at the same time.
I was surprised by a few things related to it. The first were photos that surfaced of him arriving the night before at the airport, which he then claimed were photo shopped when they obviously werent. Usually when it comes to WWE, and particularly something at this level, Id have thought theyd have had him hidden all the way through. Second, they didnt confiscate any Y2J signs, of which several were notable on camera, before he came out. It seemed like there was an acknowledgment at the end that everyone knew and they were no longer trying to hide anything.
The company did try and hide him to the point they didnt have the company plane pick him up, but they flew him to Nashville, about 220 miles from Memphis, on Sunday, figuring people would see him if they flew him to Memphis either Sunday or earlier in the day on Monday, and word would get out. Once he got picked up in Nashville, he was hidden away so nobody would see him that wasnt supposed to. There were two photos that surfaced. One was from the Nashville airport on Sunday night, and the second was said to actually be something of a fraud, in the sense it was a photo of him taken months ago.
It was also interesting that the reveal was put at 10:30 p.m. instead of at 10 p.m. or during the post-11 p.m. overrun, meaning company officials themselves also thought it was not the most looked forward to segment on the show. There seems to be the feeling, from ratings results, that they cant trust anything other than involving John Cena or The Rock (or some gimmick feud such as with Michael Cole with Jerry Lawler or Jim Ross on select occasions) to be the focal point of the overrun.
Jericho came out with a flashing lights jacket, playing a combination of his WCW babyface character when he broke in, the enthusiastic young babyface cheerleading the crowd that was part of the 80s. He ran around, and when the crowd would calm down, would start riling it back up and getting them to cheer some more. He did this for several minutes while people expected an interview. He was so over the top with it that you could see the mentality was that he knew hed get a face reaction as the returning star, and that hes coming back as a heel who doesnt want to be cheered. Most in the crowd didnt see what was going on and just responded do his over-the-top cheerleading, not at the same level, but the same way Hulk Hogan was the master of milking long crowd reactions for returns.
So hed overplay the hand to the point of getting the crowd to turn on him for the obvious phoniness, plus, because interviews are his forte, not deliver an interview at all, leaving the crowd disappointed. It actually took longer than I expected for the crowd to react the way you could see he was leaning them subtly to do. There were only a small smattering of boos even several minutes into this. But he did pause and give people a subtle look at the end and you could hear a decent amount of booing. He never overplayed it and the announcers sold it as a babyface return, so the idea seemed to be to end the segment with the question as to where he was going next with his character.
It looked like any 80s white meat babyface character. Backstage people were noting the similarities to the character Johnny Ace played in the Dynamic Dudes, which is no different from 100 others from years earlier. But that over-exuberant babyface that was shown in the Raw video of Laurinaitis from his U.S. wrestling days as a face looks completely phony and out-of-date today.
Most expect Jericho to come in and work with C.M. Punk for a WrestleMania program. Its unclear how long hes back for. He had at one point claimed he was working on putting together a summer tour with his band, which would indicate a short run, but that was public and almost anything he has said public you have to discount. The word we first got months ago is that he had told his band he was going back for a short run, giving the impression they would be back doing their Fozzy touring over the summer, but that was months ago and a lot could change. There were stories about him being involved in a major post-Mania program and a big match at SummerSlam, but thats involving so many different moving parts and people that anything past that point has to be speculative at best.
Dwayne Johnson writing to Jericho on twitter, Helluva kick ass return. Welcome back my friend. Looking forward to having some fun w/you, may be a note to file away right now regarding ideas post-WrestleMania.
Jericho is scheduled to go full-time on the road at house shows starting this weekend, as hes booked starting 1/7 in Tyler, TX as making a guest appearance and is booked at virtually all shows from that point forward as part of the Raw tour. He is not advertised for any matches yet, because doing so this early would publicly tip their hand on what they are doing with him. It will be interesting exactly what he does at the house shows this weekend, because his full character is at the earliest not going to be established on TV until this coming week, if not even after that. The only thing we know is that it will take another twist over the next week.
The idea of going out there and having the fans waiting for your performance, building them up for it, and then not saying anything at all and leaving was out of the play book of the late Andy Kaufman, who was a very controversial figure in the early 80s before his foray into pro wrestling as he did a show where he did just that, leaving ticket buyers furious.
Because its not something expected from wrestling, reaction was mixed. There was some thinking with more depth in the sense that it was a concept based on knowing there was nothing that could be done that would stop him getting the huge cheers at first, but his goal was not to be a babyface and also not to be like last time where he goes a few months and turns. It was different and people were left talking about it. It wasnt giving people what they wanted to see, in fact the opposite, but there is the argument it built anticipation for next week, or weeks later if thats the game plan, when he finally does his return interview. Others, since wrestling is more than ever about the here and now, and not building, felt that as a here and now segment, they expected a great return interview, didnt get it, and the crowd booed at the end, although the booing at the end was so clearly by design.
Raw on 12/26 did a 2.93 rating and 4.47 million viewers. The rating was almost identical with the prior week but there were 180,000 more viewers on a night when overall television viewership was down 7.7%, although thats misleading because all the networks were in reruns. The show was 6th for the night on cable. The Atlanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints game where Drew Brees set the all-time single season passing yardage record did a 10.60 rating and 15.64 million viewers.
The big news is the curse of the second hour losing audience from the first hour ended. The reason is more that the first hour didnt do well, then the second hour did well. In particular, Raw of late has been starting with a strong first quarter, but the C.M. Punk/John Laurinaitis first quarter did a only a 2.94, and the usual big drop didnt happen. There were a significant amount of usual Raw viewers who either didnt bother to watch the first quarter and turn it off like usual, or did watch it but turned it off in a minute.
The show did a 2.3 in Males 12-17 (down 18% from last week), 2.6 in Males 18-49 (up 4%), 1.1 in Females 12-17 (up 38%) and 1.2 in Females 18-49 (down 8%). Male viewership was 67.1% of total viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes lost 149,000 viewers. Backstage stuff with John Cena and Zack Ryder, Big Show and Kelly Kelly, Laurinaitis, Show and David Otunga and Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and Mark Henry gained 78,000 viewers. Ryder & Eve Torres vs. Tyson Kidd & Natalya and a Cena interview lost 67,000 viewers. Cena vs. The Miz and post-match R-Truth attack gained 325,000 viewers, which is below usual but better than in some recent weeks. Big Show vs. David Otunga with one hand tied behind his back and an Alberto Del Rio interview with the Bellas gained 34,000 viewers. Punk vs. Swagger lost 367,000 viewers. Punk vs. Ziggler gained 172,000 viewers to a 2.91 main event average. The Cena/Kane overrun gained 543,000 viewers to a do a 3.26. As far as the demo changes with Cena and Kane out last, Male teens went from 2.8 to 3.1, Men 18-49 went from 2.8 to 3.2, Women teens went from 1.0 to 1.3 and Women 18-49 stayed at 1.0.
I say she got better with age.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
dream with the hookups.
Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
Uno Venova
Banned
I can never see gifbin gifs
Liquidsnake
Banned
Will always be the sexiest.
dream
Member
The announcement of the retirement of Abdullah the Butcher was the biggest news as the New Year Series began. Even though Abdullah, whose age is somewhere between 70 and 75, cant walk, he was booked for this entire tour including in a singles match with Suwama. On the first night on Jan. 2, he was booked in a trios match teaming with Keiji Muto & Kikutaro against Masa Fuchi & Osamu Nishimura & Black Bushi. Abdullah came to the ring with a cane and said that he could not wrestle anymore and he had to retire. So he stayed outside the ring on the floor. He said he would be appearing at all the shows on the tour signing autographs and meeting fans but couldnt wrestle. The plan right now is for the 3/20 show at Sumo Hall, the companys first big show of the year, to be the Abdullah the Butcher retirement show. I wonder how that will do, as years ago that would be a huge deal. They did the Dory Funk Jr. retirement show a few years back and drew really well with it, so this may bring the old fans back for one night.
Hall of Famer Jackie Fargo, 83, was hospitalized over the weekend and in intensive care with pneumonia in both lungs. There were reports on the Internet and in Wikipedia listing that he died on 12/30. He was in rough shape at the time, but he was amused when he heard about it on 1/1. I believe he was still hospitalized as of early in the week but has been moved out of intensive care. This was reminiscent of reports that both Killer Kowalski and Eddie Fatu (Umaga) having passed away on the Internet when both were in grave shape. Kowalski hung on several more days while Fatu wasnt dead when the original reports came out, although he did pass away shortly after.
Some notes on Kim Desire Neilsen, who is one of the contestants on the new season of The Biggest Loser on NBC, which debuted on 1/3. Neilsen has gained more than 100 pounds since her pro wrestling career ended after breaking her back in 2004. She started on the show at about 250 pounds. She did go back briefly in 2005 but said she was afraid of being in the ring and then got pregnant with her third child and retired. She said after training so hard and eating the way you have to eat to be a female on a wrestling show, when she got pregnant, she figured she could just eat whatever she wanted and be happy. She gained 80 pounds with her pregnancy, probably a combination of the pregnancy, a body used to training not training and a body not used to food getting lots of it. Without wrestling, she said she wasnt motivated to get back into the gym and get her body back. In an interview with DivaDirt.com, she credited former wrestler Sonny Siaki (who gave up his career several years back when he donated one of his kidneys to save his brother) for pushing her to do the show. She said she didnt want to do it as shed been out of the spotlight for seven years and noted that her facebook page only had photos of her from her wrestling days and said she wasnt happy being seen the way she looked. The tryouts were in Atlanta, where she lived and he told her to try out but admits she is tired of being overweight and not being a good role model for her kids. She said that once she left wrestling, she paid no attention to it but wished TNA had the same focus on women wrestlers when she worked for the company as it does now.
Barry Windham, 51, is recovering well from what is now believed to have been both a heart attack and a stroke, which caused a fall that caused a series of injuries, including knee surgery. He is now able to talk but he has been hospitalized since October. I believe WWE is handling is medical bills, which they dont have to do since Windham hasnt worked there in a long time.
The first TV taping, which I believe will be for shows from 1/21 to 2/11, will be on 1/7 at the DuBurns Arena in Baltimore, which may end up being the regular taping site. So they should nail down at least the beginnings of the angles for both the anniversary show in New York on 3/4 and the WrestleMania weekend shows on 3/30 and 3/31 which are both iPPVs from Fort Lauderdale. Matches announced thus far are Mark & Jay Briscoe defending the tag titles against Michael Elgin & Roderick Strong, Davey Richards & Kyle OReilly vs. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander, Eddie Edwards vs. Mike Mondo and T.J Perkins vs. Tomasso Ciampa.
Updated lineup for Genesis on 1/8 in Orlando has Bobby Roode vs. Jeff Hardy for the TNA title, James Storm vs. Kurt Angle, Abyss vs. Bully Ray where if Abyss loses he has to join Immortal, in a Monsters Ball match, Matt Morgan & Crimson defend the tag titles against Samoa Joe & Magnus, Pope vs. Devon, Austin Aries vs. Jesse Sorsensen vs. Zema Ion vs. Kid Kash for the X title and Gail Kim vs. Mickie James once again for the Knockouts title. I dont think Gunner and Garett Bischoff are wrestling, but Bischoff is going to be appearing on this coming weeks TV, so a confrontation between the two would make sense (although that also could be saved for the first TV taping on 1/9). They also are shooting an angle on TV this week where Kazarian turns on A.J. Styles as they are tag partners in the finals of the tourney losing to Joe & Magnus. So that could be added as a singles match, or they could do a tag match with Styles & RVD vs. Kazarian & Christopher Daniels since Kazarian and Daniels are to be aligned as heels.
There are more and more people wanting the 4/1 debut of the network to be delayed based on a lack of clearances at this point, and they dont want to debut it with so few that it comes across like a flop right out of the gate. The only programming locked in is still the Legends House show. Vince and others have mapped out a tentative schedule for the first day, built around WrestleMania, but thats as far as the planning is. Cable advertising for TNA is bad, so you can imagine what its going to be like for a non-existent network with no programming and no ratings history.
Ortons injury was a herniated disc between his L-4 and L-5 vertebrae on the left side of the back. Hed been bothered by the injury for at least a week or two before the angle was shot to take him off television. One source listed the injury as taking place on 12/19 in the Raw match which ended when Barrett put Orton through the table. That would make sense because, aside from the RKO on the roof of the car, Orton didnt take any bumps doing the brawl with Barrett the next day, and was kept off Raw on 12/26. While WWE officials announced at all the house shows that Orton would be out for six months, he is booked on the 1/16 Raw show in Anaheim (that was his target date at press time, nothing locked in stone, the injury has caused a weakness in his legs which was noticeable in a run-in when he was doing where he couldnt run well and hes trying to get his strength back in the leg and low back before getting back in the ring ) and is scheduled to appear regularly from that point, including at house shows. He is scheduled to wrestle at the Rumble. There was talk that if necessary, they could do an injury angle with him at the Rumble and leave him off as long as necessary, even if they needed to delay his return until as long as Mania as long as they shot the second injury angle. Orton wrote that hes been doing therapy on the back and actually isnt in a lot of pain. Others noted to us that Ortons rehab is going well. Orton may be the longest wrestler contractually locked up by WWE, as his current contract doesnt expire until 2019.
The Rock is still stationed in New Orleans, now doing the movie Snitch with Susan Sarandon. Hes expected to do another Raw appearance fairly soon to start the ball rolling for the Cena match and Id guess by late February should appear either live or on tape on almost every show.
They are building toward Punk hitting Laurinaitis, and talking like itll be like when Austin finally gave Vince the stunner in 1998.
Bourne was confronted by HHH a few weeks back and blamed him for the story about R-Truths suspension being for spice getting out, as well as how they were doing it together and the delay in R-Truths suspension. R-Truth was announced as suspended after the post-Survivor Series Raw, where they did an injury angle to explain his absence. There is heat for the perception that somehow this was Bournes fault that the story got out. It wasnt, although the perception would be such since Bourne complained about how it was possible for him to be suspended when the guy doing the exact same thing wasnt. This led to a lot of weird double-talk, including one person involved in testing explaining that if you did spice and also marijuana, that the marijuana would somehow cause the spice to be blocked on the test and youd only come up positive for pot. And pot is a fine, but not a suspension, while spice is a 30 day suspension. Of course, that makes no sense given R-Truth actually did fail and was suspended, only three weeks later. Thats weird how he was pinpointed given the entire locker room knew the story. I suppose had Bourne never questioned Dr. Black about how two people could be doing the same thing and one is suspended and the other isnt, with nobody knowing the other was going to be suspended a few weeks later, probably nobody would have heard the story to begin with. As noted, the belief was R-Truth, since he had been in main events, was just having his deal covered up, but that also ended up not happening. HHH is not a fan of Bourne but Stephanie thinks he brings something unique to the table. But even with her support, there is fear or at least whispers in the company that hes about to become the next Paul London, a super talented guy who is going to be completely broken mentally by the system. Others have noted to us that all of this has hurt Kingston. Right now theyve both been pulled off Raw and put on Superstars, and sometimes Smackdown, even though they havent bothered to take the tag titles off them. It was noted that if they were really that hot at Bourne, theyd have had them drop the titles a month ago before his suspension, or if they were that mad now, could have done it since he got back, and split them up and give Kingston a singles program and then just bury Bourne from there. And that hasnt happened. But there is at least some heat on Bourne with the idea you arent supposed to publicly show frustration with the company, and the feeling that at times hes done that on twitter.
Brodus Clay, if he actually does start on TV in this century, is being talked about as far as being the Kane/Nash monster who cleans the ring in this years Rumble.
The PPV schedule for this year is Rumble on 1/29 in St. Louis (day after UFC on FOX), Elimination Chamber on 2/19 in Milwaukee; WrestleMania on 4/1 in Miami; Extreme Rules on 4/29 in Chicago; Over the Limit on 5/20 in Tulsa; Bragging Rights on 6/17 (yes, they are bringing that one back) in San Antonio; Money in the Bank on 7/15 in St. Louis; SummerSlam on 8/19 in Los Angeles; Night of Champions on 9/16 in Orlando; Hell in a Cell on 10/7 in a location to be announced; Vengeance on 10/28; Survivor Series on 11/18 and TLC on 12/16.
I dont know where this stands, but there was an idea in creative to do something with Mike the Situation from Jersey Shore and Ryder for Mania this year.
One thing notable is that WWE is now charging higher prices for Raw house shows than Smackdown house shows. The result seems to be Smackdown doing better in relation to Raw although Raw is doing bigger gates. But week after Christmas numbers you almost have to throw out as a gauge. They always give you the impression business is turning around.
Hall of Famer Jackie Fargo, 83, was hospitalized over the weekend and in intensive care with pneumonia in both lungs. There were reports on the Internet and in Wikipedia listing that he died on 12/30. He was in rough shape at the time, but he was amused when he heard about it on 1/1. I believe he was still hospitalized as of early in the week but has been moved out of intensive care. This was reminiscent of reports that both Killer Kowalski and Eddie Fatu (Umaga) having passed away on the Internet when both were in grave shape. Kowalski hung on several more days while Fatu wasnt dead when the original reports came out, although he did pass away shortly after.
Some notes on Kim Desire Neilsen, who is one of the contestants on the new season of The Biggest Loser on NBC, which debuted on 1/3. Neilsen has gained more than 100 pounds since her pro wrestling career ended after breaking her back in 2004. She started on the show at about 250 pounds. She did go back briefly in 2005 but said she was afraid of being in the ring and then got pregnant with her third child and retired. She said after training so hard and eating the way you have to eat to be a female on a wrestling show, when she got pregnant, she figured she could just eat whatever she wanted and be happy. She gained 80 pounds with her pregnancy, probably a combination of the pregnancy, a body used to training not training and a body not used to food getting lots of it. Without wrestling, she said she wasnt motivated to get back into the gym and get her body back. In an interview with DivaDirt.com, she credited former wrestler Sonny Siaki (who gave up his career several years back when he donated one of his kidneys to save his brother) for pushing her to do the show. She said she didnt want to do it as shed been out of the spotlight for seven years and noted that her facebook page only had photos of her from her wrestling days and said she wasnt happy being seen the way she looked. The tryouts were in Atlanta, where she lived and he told her to try out but admits she is tired of being overweight and not being a good role model for her kids. She said that once she left wrestling, she paid no attention to it but wished TNA had the same focus on women wrestlers when she worked for the company as it does now.
Barry Windham, 51, is recovering well from what is now believed to have been both a heart attack and a stroke, which caused a fall that caused a series of injuries, including knee surgery. He is now able to talk but he has been hospitalized since October. I believe WWE is handling is medical bills, which they dont have to do since Windham hasnt worked there in a long time.
The first TV taping, which I believe will be for shows from 1/21 to 2/11, will be on 1/7 at the DuBurns Arena in Baltimore, which may end up being the regular taping site. So they should nail down at least the beginnings of the angles for both the anniversary show in New York on 3/4 and the WrestleMania weekend shows on 3/30 and 3/31 which are both iPPVs from Fort Lauderdale. Matches announced thus far are Mark & Jay Briscoe defending the tag titles against Michael Elgin & Roderick Strong, Davey Richards & Kyle OReilly vs. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander, Eddie Edwards vs. Mike Mondo and T.J Perkins vs. Tomasso Ciampa.
Updated lineup for Genesis on 1/8 in Orlando has Bobby Roode vs. Jeff Hardy for the TNA title, James Storm vs. Kurt Angle, Abyss vs. Bully Ray where if Abyss loses he has to join Immortal, in a Monsters Ball match, Matt Morgan & Crimson defend the tag titles against Samoa Joe & Magnus, Pope vs. Devon, Austin Aries vs. Jesse Sorsensen vs. Zema Ion vs. Kid Kash for the X title and Gail Kim vs. Mickie James once again for the Knockouts title. I dont think Gunner and Garett Bischoff are wrestling, but Bischoff is going to be appearing on this coming weeks TV, so a confrontation between the two would make sense (although that also could be saved for the first TV taping on 1/9). They also are shooting an angle on TV this week where Kazarian turns on A.J. Styles as they are tag partners in the finals of the tourney losing to Joe & Magnus. So that could be added as a singles match, or they could do a tag match with Styles & RVD vs. Kazarian & Christopher Daniels since Kazarian and Daniels are to be aligned as heels.
There are more and more people wanting the 4/1 debut of the network to be delayed based on a lack of clearances at this point, and they dont want to debut it with so few that it comes across like a flop right out of the gate. The only programming locked in is still the Legends House show. Vince and others have mapped out a tentative schedule for the first day, built around WrestleMania, but thats as far as the planning is. Cable advertising for TNA is bad, so you can imagine what its going to be like for a non-existent network with no programming and no ratings history.
Ortons injury was a herniated disc between his L-4 and L-5 vertebrae on the left side of the back. Hed been bothered by the injury for at least a week or two before the angle was shot to take him off television. One source listed the injury as taking place on 12/19 in the Raw match which ended when Barrett put Orton through the table. That would make sense because, aside from the RKO on the roof of the car, Orton didnt take any bumps doing the brawl with Barrett the next day, and was kept off Raw on 12/26. While WWE officials announced at all the house shows that Orton would be out for six months, he is booked on the 1/16 Raw show in Anaheim (that was his target date at press time, nothing locked in stone, the injury has caused a weakness in his legs which was noticeable in a run-in when he was doing where he couldnt run well and hes trying to get his strength back in the leg and low back before getting back in the ring ) and is scheduled to appear regularly from that point, including at house shows. He is scheduled to wrestle at the Rumble. There was talk that if necessary, they could do an injury angle with him at the Rumble and leave him off as long as necessary, even if they needed to delay his return until as long as Mania as long as they shot the second injury angle. Orton wrote that hes been doing therapy on the back and actually isnt in a lot of pain. Others noted to us that Ortons rehab is going well. Orton may be the longest wrestler contractually locked up by WWE, as his current contract doesnt expire until 2019.
The Rock is still stationed in New Orleans, now doing the movie Snitch with Susan Sarandon. Hes expected to do another Raw appearance fairly soon to start the ball rolling for the Cena match and Id guess by late February should appear either live or on tape on almost every show.
They are building toward Punk hitting Laurinaitis, and talking like itll be like when Austin finally gave Vince the stunner in 1998.
Bourne was confronted by HHH a few weeks back and blamed him for the story about R-Truths suspension being for spice getting out, as well as how they were doing it together and the delay in R-Truths suspension. R-Truth was announced as suspended after the post-Survivor Series Raw, where they did an injury angle to explain his absence. There is heat for the perception that somehow this was Bournes fault that the story got out. It wasnt, although the perception would be such since Bourne complained about how it was possible for him to be suspended when the guy doing the exact same thing wasnt. This led to a lot of weird double-talk, including one person involved in testing explaining that if you did spice and also marijuana, that the marijuana would somehow cause the spice to be blocked on the test and youd only come up positive for pot. And pot is a fine, but not a suspension, while spice is a 30 day suspension. Of course, that makes no sense given R-Truth actually did fail and was suspended, only three weeks later. Thats weird how he was pinpointed given the entire locker room knew the story. I suppose had Bourne never questioned Dr. Black about how two people could be doing the same thing and one is suspended and the other isnt, with nobody knowing the other was going to be suspended a few weeks later, probably nobody would have heard the story to begin with. As noted, the belief was R-Truth, since he had been in main events, was just having his deal covered up, but that also ended up not happening. HHH is not a fan of Bourne but Stephanie thinks he brings something unique to the table. But even with her support, there is fear or at least whispers in the company that hes about to become the next Paul London, a super talented guy who is going to be completely broken mentally by the system. Others have noted to us that all of this has hurt Kingston. Right now theyve both been pulled off Raw and put on Superstars, and sometimes Smackdown, even though they havent bothered to take the tag titles off them. It was noted that if they were really that hot at Bourne, theyd have had them drop the titles a month ago before his suspension, or if they were that mad now, could have done it since he got back, and split them up and give Kingston a singles program and then just bury Bourne from there. And that hasnt happened. But there is at least some heat on Bourne with the idea you arent supposed to publicly show frustration with the company, and the feeling that at times hes done that on twitter.
Brodus Clay, if he actually does start on TV in this century, is being talked about as far as being the Kane/Nash monster who cleans the ring in this years Rumble.
The PPV schedule for this year is Rumble on 1/29 in St. Louis (day after UFC on FOX), Elimination Chamber on 2/19 in Milwaukee; WrestleMania on 4/1 in Miami; Extreme Rules on 4/29 in Chicago; Over the Limit on 5/20 in Tulsa; Bragging Rights on 6/17 (yes, they are bringing that one back) in San Antonio; Money in the Bank on 7/15 in St. Louis; SummerSlam on 8/19 in Los Angeles; Night of Champions on 9/16 in Orlando; Hell in a Cell on 10/7 in a location to be announced; Vengeance on 10/28; Survivor Series on 11/18 and TLC on 12/16.
I dont know where this stands, but there was an idea in creative to do something with Mike the Situation from Jersey Shore and Ryder for Mania this year.
One thing notable is that WWE is now charging higher prices for Raw house shows than Smackdown house shows. The result seems to be Smackdown doing better in relation to Raw although Raw is doing bigger gates. But week after Christmas numbers you almost have to throw out as a gauge. They always give you the impression business is turning around.
Speaking of Trish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjyVTPKvZqY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjyVTPKvZqY
spindashing
Banned
I think you might want to get rid of that ASS laced photo, bro.
Shadowlink
Member
Guys! Let the man finish his Observer posts. What the hell is wrong with you people? Damn Marks! #heel
I've been saying Punk/Laurinatis are the new Austin/Vince for weeks. Hope they don't end up ruining it though.
Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
...Were Kane's parents midgets? I bet they didn't like it when he blew up Hornswoggle this week.
Will always be the sexiest.
Her and Lita...I can't decide between them two.
Uno Venova
Banned
Austin was exciting every week and Punk isn't close, and Johnny is more of a joke character than some man in power that people legitimately hate. That's the way I see it, John doesn't have something like the screwjob under his belt, bad comparison.
Liquidsnake
Banned
NoRéN;34003100 said:
You and I have the same taste, because they will always be my two favs.
bro_fist.gif
It's mighty Molly!
Shame she's a bitch in real life.
Explain. :\
Those guys just hit the gym hard and are genetic freaks, next you're going to say Batista and Steiner are substance abusers.
Can't recall if it was a dirtsheet but I do recall one of our illustrious posters mentioning that.
It's the casting couch Tiffany was referring to.
Net_Wrecker
Member
And I'm not on the card?!
This...this is what it's like to be JoMo'd.
Will always be the sexiest.
I like the way you think
Correct.
Austin's 1st Stunner on McMahon was before the screwjob.
Spider from Mars
tap that thorax
Somebody said something about best diva?
There's only one genetic freak and that's Scott Steiner.
oh myNoRéN;34003277 said:
It won't.
bean breath
Member
Jeez, how long has that "we hate cena" t-shirt plant guy been on WWE shows? I thought it just started a few months ago.
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