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Team has been involved in a substantial number of the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries’ most significant merger and acquisition transactions, holding key positions at, and transacting with Scientific Games Corp, Inspired Gaming Group, FOX Bets, Ocean Casino Resort, Resorts International Holdings, PokerStars, DraftKings, Mohegan Sun, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Harrah’s Entertainment, Tropicana Entertainment, Inc., TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming, Facebook, Inc, Wynn Resorts, Dubai World/MGM Resorts
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Matthew Davey — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Mr. Davey has over 25 years of experience within the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming ecosystems, as well as experience in the public sector. He is an experienced public company executive officer and board member. He has served in executive management positions across the gaming technology arena. Over the course of Mr. Davey’s career, he oversaw more than ten mergers and acquisitions and over $1.2 billion in debt and equity capital raised to support the companies he has led.
Most recently, Mr. Davey was Chief Executive Officer of SG Digital, the Digital Division of Scientific Games Corp. (“Scientific Games”) (Nasdaq: SGMS). SG Digital was established following the purchase by Scientific Games of NYX Gaming Group Limited (“NYX”) (formerly TSXV: NYX), where Mr. Davey served as Chief Executive Officer and Director. The NYX acquisition provided Scientific Games with a vehicle to significantly accelerate the scale and breadth of its existing digital gaming business, including the strategic expansion into sports betting. In his capacity as Chief Executive Officer of NYX, Mr. Davey developed and implemented a corporate strategy that generated strong revenue growth. Mr. Davey shaped company strategy to focus on digital gaming supplier platforms and content that provided various gaming operators with the underlying gaming and sports betting systems for their online gaming business. In 2014, Mr. Davey oversaw the initial public offering of NYX, and his experience in the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries helped NYX recognize momentum as a public company. After the public offering, from 2014 to 2018, Mr. Davey oversaw seven acquisitions which helped establish NYX as one of the fastest growing global B2B real-money digital gaming and sports betting platforms. These acquisitions included:
• OpenBet: In 2016, NYX completed the $385 million acquisition of OpenBet. This was one of the more complex and transformative acquisitions that Mr. Davey oversaw at NYX. Through securing co-investments from William Hill (LSE: WMH), Sky Betting & Gaming and The Stars Group (formerly Nasdaq: TSG, TSX: TSGI), Mr. Davey was able to get the acquisition from Vitruvian Partners completed successfully, winning the deal against much larger and well capitalized competitors. By combining two established and proven B2B betting and gaming suppliers, NYX was well positioned to provide customers with exciting player-driven solutions across all major product verticals and distribution channels. This allowed NYX to become the leading B2B omni-channel sportsbook platform in the market and the supplier to over 300 gaming operators globally with an extensive library of desktop and mobile game titles, including more than 700 on NYX platforms and more than 2,000 on the OpenBet platform.
• Cryptologic/Chartwell: In 2015, NYX completed the $119 million acquisition of Cryptologic and Chartwell. The acquisition provided NYX with more than 400 titles of additional leading gaming content, a broader customer base, and direct exposure to PokerStars and Intercasino, part of the Gamesys Group (LSE: GYS) — two of the world’s largest online casino offerings.
• OnGame: In 2014, NYX completed the distressed acquisition of OnGame, a premier poker content, platform and service provider. This acquisition provided NYX with one of the best poker products in the industry, access to several regulated jurisdictions, and a valuable talent pool that was instrumental in the growth of NYX. The addition of OnGame further established a path for NYX to continue its growth in both European and U.S. markets.
These acquisitions, together with meaningful organic growth, increased NYX’s revenue from $24 million in 2014 to $184 million annualized in 2017. During that time, Mr. Davey helped build NYX to have over 200 customers in the global gaming industry and a team of 1,000 employees. Mr. Davey’s success at NYX ultimately led to its sale to Scientific Games for $631 million in 2018.
Mr. Davey joined Next Gen Gaming, the predecessor to NYX, in 2000 as the Vice President of Technology, was appointed as Executive Director in 2003 and named Chief Executive Officer in 2005. Prior to that, he was the Senior Consultant for Access Systems, a company that specializes in the provision of back-end software for licensed online casinos. Prior to joining Access, Mr. Davey worked for the Northern Territory Government specializing in matters pertaining to the internet and e-commerce along with roles in the Department of Racing and Gaming. Mr. Davey received a Bachelor of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Northern Territory University, Australia (also known as Charles Darwin University).
Robin Chhabra — President
Mr. Chhabra has been at the forefront of corporate acquisition activity within the digital gaming landscape for over a decade. His prior experience includes leading corporate strategy, M&A, and business development at two of the global leaders in the digital gaming industry, The Stars Group (“TSG”) and William Hill, and a leading supplier, Inspired Gaming Group (Nasdaq: INSE). Mr. Chhabra served on the Group Executive Committees of each of these companies. From 2017 to May 2020, Mr. Chhabra served as Chief Corporate Development Officer at TSG and, from 2019 to August 2020, he also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Fox Bet, a leading U.S. online gaming business which is the product of a landmark partnership between TSG and FOX Sports, a transaction which he led. During that period, Mr. Chhabra led several transactions which transformed TSG into the largest publicly listed online gambling operator in the world by both revenue and market capitalization and one of the most diversified from a product and geographic perspective with revenues of over $2.5 billion. Mr. Chhabra’s M&A experience is extensive and covers multiple global geographies across the digital gaming value chain and includes the following:
• TSG/Flutter Entertainment Merger: In 2019, Mr. Chhabra led the TSG M&A team that was responsible for TSG’s $12.2 billion merger with Flutter Entertainment (LSE: FLTR). The merger between TSG and Flutter Entertainment is the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date. The combination created the largest publicly listed online gaming company with approximately 13 million active customers and leading product offerings, which include sports betting, online casino, fantasy sports and poker. The combined entity includes some of the world’s most iconic digital gaming brands such as Fanduel, Fox Bet, Sky Bet, PaddyPower, Betfair, PokerStars and SportsBet. TSG/Flutter Entertainment is one of the most geographically diverse digital gaming and media companies with leading positions in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany and Georgia.
• TSG/Sky Betting and Gaming (“SBG”): In 2018, Mr. Chhabra led the acquisition of SBG from CVC Capital Partners and Sky plc, Europe’s largest media company, in a transaction valued at $4.7 billion. At the time of the acquisition SBG was the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom and one of the fastest growing of the major operators having doubled its online market share in three years. The acquisition of SBG provided TSG with (a) greater revenue diversification, significantly enhanced expertise and exposure to sports betting just ahead of the judicial overturn of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) by the U.S. Supreme Court, (b) a leading position within the United Kingdom, the world’s largest regulated online gaming market, (c) improved products and technology as a result of the addition of SBG’s innovative casino and sports book offerings and a portfolio of popular mobile apps, and (d) expertise in deeply integrating sports betting with leading sports media companies, positioning TSG to create more engaging content, deliver faster growth and decrease customer acquisition costs.
• William Hill (LSE: WMH): At William Hill, from 2010 to 2017, Mr. Chhabra served as Group Director of Strategy and Corporate Development where he led several transactions which contributed to William Hill’s transformation from a land-based gambling operator in the United Kingdom to a leading online-led international business. Mr. Chhabra led William Hill’s entry into the U.S. sports betting and online lottery markets with the acquisition of four businesses, including the simultaneous acquisitions of three U.S. sportsbooks, Cal Neva, American Wagering and Brandywine Bookmaking, in 2011 for an aggregate purchase price of $55 million. These businesses ultimately led William Hill to achieve a leading position in the U.S. sports betting market with a market share of 24% in 2019. Additionally, Mr. Chhabra played a key role in structuring William Hill’s successful joint venture with PlayTech Plc (LSE: PTEC) in 2008. The combined entity created one of the largest online gambling businesses in Europe at the time of its formation and led to William Hill’s buyout of Playtech’s interest for $637 million in 2013. Prior to the transaction, William Hill had struggled in its attempt to establish a strong online gaming platform and a meaningful presence outside the United Kingdom.
Mr. Chhabra has also successfully completed four transactions worth over $1.2 billion in Australia, the world’s second largest regulated online gambling market, and various partnerships in Asia. Additionally, he completed several technology and media related transactions, including William Hill’s investment in NYX, where he worked with Mr. Davey on NYX’s transformational acquisition of OpenBet.
Prior to working in the gaming sector, Mr. Chhabra was an equities analyst and a management consultant. Mr. Chhabra received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Eric Matejevich — Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Matejevich is a seasoned gaming executive with extensive experience in both the online gaming and traditional casino industries. From February to August 2019, he served as Trustee and Interim-Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Casino Resort (“Ocean”) (formerly Revel Casino, which had a construction cost of $2.4 billion) in Atlantic City, where he successfully led the management team through an ownership change and operational turnaround effort. Over the course of seven months, Mr. Matejevich managed to reduce the property’s weekly cash burn of $1.5 million to an annualized cash flow run rate in excess of $20 million.
Prior to Ocean, from 2016 to 2018, Mr. Matejevich served as the Chief Financial Officer of NYX. At NYX, he focused his efforts on integrating the company’s many acquisitions and multiple debt refinancings to simplify its capital structure and provided liquidity for growth initiatives. Additionally, Mr. Matejevich was instrumental to the executive team that sold NYX to Scientific Games for $631 million.
Prior to NYX, from 2004 to 2014, Mr. Matejevich was the Chief Financial Officer of Resorts International Holdings and later, from 2011, also the Chief Operating Officer of the Atlantic Club Casino, a property under the Resorts International Holdings umbrella — a Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY) entity. As Chief Financial Officer, he provided managerial oversight for all finance functions for a six-property casino company with annual gaming revenue exceeding $1.3 billion, 10,000 gaming positions, 7,000 hotel rooms and over 11,000 staff members during his tenure. Mr. Matejevich led the transition effort to integrate a four-casino, $1.3 billion acquisition from Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment (Nasdaq: CZR). As Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Club, he lobbied for and was successful in obtaining the first internet gaming legislation passed in the United States. The Atlantic Club was the sole New Jersey casino proponent of the legislation.
Prior to serving in various gaming positions, Mr. Matejevich was a Vice President of High Yield Research for Merrill Lynch, where he managed the corporate bond research effort for the gaming and leisure sectors and marketed high yield and other debt transactions totaling $4.8 billion. Mr. Matejevich received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Our Board of Directors
Morris Bailey — Chairman
Over the past 10 years, Mr. Bailey has been a leader in turning around Atlantic City, as well as being among the first gaming executives to embrace online gaming and sports betting in the United States. In his efforts, Mr. Bailey partnered with two of the largest digital gaming companies in the world, PokerStars, part of the Stars Group, and DraftKings (Nasdaq: DKNG). In 2010, Mr. Bailey bought Resorts Atlantic City (“Resorts”) and initiated a comprehensive renovation which allowed for the property to be rebranded and repositioned. In 2012, Mr. Bailey signed an agreement with Mohegan Sun to manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. In addition to Mohegan Sun’s operational expertise and ability to reduce costs via economies of scale, Resorts gained access to their robust customer database. Soon thereafter, Mr. Bailey and his team focused on bringing online gaming to the property. In 2015, Resorts established a platform to engage in online gaming by partnering with PokerStars, now part of the $24 billion Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR), to operate an online poker room in Atlantic City. In 2018, Resorts announced deals with DraftKings and SBTech to open a sportsbook on-property and online. For 2020 year-to-date, Resorts has performed in the top quartile in internet gross gaming revenue in New Jersey. Mr. Bailey’s efforts in New Jersey helped set the framework for expansion of online sports and gaming throughout the United States.
In addition to his gaming interests, Mr. Bailey has over 50 years of experience in all facets of real estate development, asset M&A, capital markets and operations and is the founder, Chief Executive Officer and Principal of JEMB Realty, a leading real estate development, investment and management organization. Mr. Bailey has notable investment experience within the energy, finance and telecommunications sectors through investments in the Astoria Energy Plant, Basis Investment Group and Xentris Wireless.
Tony Rodio — Director Nominee
Mr. Rodio has nearly four decades of experience in the gaming industry. Most recently, Mr. Rodio served as the Chief Executive Officer and director of Caesars Entertainment Corporation (“Caesars”) (Nasdaq: CZR), one of the world’s most diversified casino-entertainment providers and the most geographically diverse U.S. casino-entertainment company, from April 2019 until its acquisition by Eldorado Resorts, Inc. in July 2020. Mr. Rodio led Caesars through its $17.3 billion merger with Eldorado Resorts, one of the largest transactions in the gaming industry to date. Additionally, Mr. Rodio was instrumental to Caesars’ expansion into the digital gaming industry and oversaw the implementation of new digital segments such as its Scientific Games powered retail sportsbook solution that now operates in various states throughout the U.S. From October 2018 to May 2019, Mr. Rodio served as Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Gaming. Prior to Affinity Gaming, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Tropicana Entertainment, Inc. (“Tropicana”) for over seven years, where he was responsible for the operation of eight casino properties in seven different jurisdictions. During his time at Tropicana, Mr. Rodio oversaw a period of unprecedented growth at the company, improving overall financial results with net revenue that increased more than 50% driven by both operational improvements and expansion across regional markets. Mr. Rodio led major capital projects, including the complete renovation of Tropicana Atlantic City and Tropicana’s move to land-based operations in Evansville, Indiana. Each of these initiatives, among others, generated substantial value for Tropicana. Ultimately, Mr. Rodio’s efforts at Tropicana led to its sale to Eldorado Resorts in 2018 for $1.85 billion. Prior to Tropicana, Mr. Rodio held a succession of executive positions in Atlantic City for casino brands, including Trump Marina Hotel Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment (predecessor to Caesars), the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Penn National Gaming. He has also served as a director of several professional and charitable organizations, including Atlantic City Alliance, United Way of Atlantic County, the Casino Associations of New Jersey and Indiana, AtlantiCare Charitable Foundation and the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming Hospitality & Tourism. Mr. Rodio brings extensive knowledge of and experience in the gaming industry, operational expertise, and a demonstrated ability to effectively design and implement company strategy. Mr. Rodio received a Bachelor of Science from Rider University and a Master of Business Administration from Monmouth University.
Marlon Goldstein — Director Nominee
Mr. Goldstein is a licensed attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in the gaming space. He joined The Stars Group (Nasdaq: TSG)(TSX: TSGI) in January 2014 as its Executive Vice-President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary until his retirement from the company in July 2020 following the merger of TSG with Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR). Mr. Goldstein also previously served as the Executive Vice-President, Corporate Development and General Counsel of TSG. Mr. Goldstein was also the senior TSG executive based in the United States and was one of the primary architects of TSG’s strategic vision for its U.S.-facing business. During his tenure, TSG grew from an approximately $500 million market-cap company to an approximately $7 billion market-cap company through a combination of organic growth and strategic mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Goldstein participated in numerous M&A transactions and capital markets offerings at TSG, including several transformational transactions in the digital gaming industry. Notable transactions in which Mr. Goldstein was involved include:
• TSG/Flutter Merger: In 2019, TSG merged with Flutter for a $12.2 billion transaction value, the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date.
• TSG/Fox Bet Partnership: In 2019, TSG entered into a partnership with FOX Sports to create FOX Bet in the U.S., a leading U.S. online gaming business. Wall Street Research estimates an approximate $1.1 billion valuation for Fox Bet post-partnership with The Stars Group.
• TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming: In 2018, TSG acquired Sky Betting & Gaming, the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom at the time, for $4.7 billion.
• TSG/CrownBet and William Hill: In 2018, TSG simultaneously acquired CrownBet and William Hill, two Australian operators, for a total of $621 million in a multi-part transaction.
• TSG/PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker: In 2014, TSG acquired The Rational Group, which operated PokerStars and Full Tilt and was the world’s largest poker business, for $4.9 billion.
Through his ability to legally structure large and complex transactions, Mr. Goldstein was integral to TSG’s vision of becoming a full-service online gaming company. Additionally, he assisted in structuring TSG’s capital markets activity, which generated liquidity for acquisitions and strengthened its balance sheet.
Prior to joining TSG, Mr. Goldstein was a principal shareholder in the corporate and securities practice at the international law firm of Greenberg Traurig P.A., where he practiced for almost 13 years. Mr. Goldstein’s practice focused on corporate and securities matters, including mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, and financing transactions. Additionally, Mr. Goldstein was the founder and co-chair of the firm’s Gaming Practice, a multi-disciplinary team of attorneys representing owners, operators and developers of gaming facilities, manufacturers and suppliers of gaming devices, investment banks and lenders in financing transactions, and Indian tribes in the development and financing of gaming facilities.
Mr. Goldstein brings experience and insight that we believe will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target business. Mr. Goldstein received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Emory University and a Juris Doctorate with highest honors from the University of Florida, College of Law.
Sean Ryan — Director Nominee
Mr. Ryan is a digital media and technology operator with extensive global experience in online payments, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile ad networks, digital games, enterprise collaboration platforms, blockchain, real money gaming and online music. Since 2014, Mr. Ryan has been serving as Vice President of Business Platform Partnerships at Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) (Nasdaq: FB), where he leads a more than 500 person global organization that manages the Payments, Commerce, Novi/Blockhain, Workplace and Audience Network businesses. Prior to his current role, Mr. Ryan was hired in 2011 as the Director of Games Partnerships to lead and grow the global Games business at Facebook. While the Director of Games Partnerships, Mr. Ryan focused on re-shaping Facebook’s games and monetization strategies to derive more value for Facebook, its users and its partners, including the addition of a Real Money Gaming offering in regulated markets. Mr. Ryan’s team helped accelerate a major trend in engagement through cross-platform games and therefore the opportunity to increase users through establishing games on multiple platforms. Prior to joining Facebook, Mr. Ryan created the new social and mobile games division at News Corp, an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch. While at News Corp, Mr. Ryan led the acquisition of Making Fun, a San Francisco social-game start-up, that created News Corp’s games publishing division.
Before joining News Corp., Mr. Ryan founded multiple digital businesses such as Twofish, Meez, Open Wager and SingShot Media. Mr. Ryan co-founded Twofish in 2009, a virtual goods and services platform that provided developers with data analytics and insights for individual application’s digital economies. Twofish was later sold to online payments provider Live Gamer, where Mr. Ryan served on the board of directors. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Ryan founded and led Meez.com, a social entertainment service combining avatars, web games and virtual worlds. The white label social casino gaming company Open Wager was spun out of Meez and was later sold to VGW Holdings, Mr. Ryan also co-founded SingShot Media, an online karaoke community, which was sold to Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: EA) and merged into its Sims division.
We believe Mr. Ryan’s experience will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target and would provide an expanded perspective on the digital gaming landscape. Mr. Ryan received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Tom Roche — Director Nominee
Mr. Roche has more than 40 years of experience in the gaming industry as a regulator, advisor and independent auditor. Mr. Roche joined Ernst & Young (“EY”) as a partner in 2003 and opened its Las Vegas office. He was subsequently appointed as the Office Managing Partner and Global Gaming Industry Market Leader. In 2016, Mr. Roche relocated to the EY Hong Kong office to supervise the expansion of the EY Global Gaming Industry practice in the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Roche has been integral to numerous transactions that have shaped the current gaming landscape, including:
• Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) initial public offering: Mr. Roche was the lead partner on Wynn Resort’s initial public offering, which raised $450 million in 2002.
• Harrah’s Entertainment/Apollo Management Group & Texas Pacific Group: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory advisory services on the buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest casino company at the time, for $17.1 billion.
• Dubai World/MGM Resorts: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory and due diligence advisory services to Dubai World in its approximately $5.1 billion investment in MGM. Dubai World bought 28.4 million MGM shares, or 9.5 percent of the casino operator, for $2.4 billion. It then invested $2.7 billion to acquire a 50% stake in MGM’s CityCenter Project, a $7.4 billion 76-acre Las Vegas development of hotels, condos and retail outlets.
• MGM Growth Properties (NYSE: MGP) initial public offering: Mr. Roche provided tax and structural transaction services to MGM Resorts in the creation of MGM Growth Properties, a publicly traded REIT engaged in the acquisition, ownership and leasing of large-scale destination entertainment and leisure resorts. MGM Growth Properties raised $1.05 billion in its 2016 initial public offering.
Mr. Roche also directed EY advisory services to boards and management teams for profit improvement and technology related initiatives. In addition, Mr. Roche provided advisory support to the American Gaming Association on several research projects, including those specifically related to sports betting, the revocation of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) and anti-money laundering best practices in the gaming industry. Equally, he has assisted government agencies in numerous international locations with enhancing their regulatory approach to governing the industry especially in the online gambling sector.
Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Roche served as Deloitte’s National Gaming Industry Leader and as the co-head of Andersen’s Gaming Industry Practice in Las Vegas. In 1989, Mr. Roche was appointed by then Governor of the State of Nevada, Robert Miller, to serve as one of three members of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board for a four-year term, where he was directly responsible for the Audit and New Games Lab Divisions. As a board member, he spent a substantial amount of time assisting global jurisdiction regulators enact gaming legislation in the design of their regulatory structure. During his career, Roche has been involved in numerous public and private offerings of equity and debt securities. His background includes providing casino regulatory consulting services to casino licensees and to federal and state agencies including the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, and industry associations such as the Nevada Resort Association and the American Gaming Association.
We believe Mr. Roche’s highly regarded reputation as a gaming auditor and advisor in the gaming industry will be valuable for us and a potential business combination target. Mr. Roche is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is licensed by the Nevada State Board of Accountancy and Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Southern California.

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Coverage of the Victorian Premier Dan Andrews press conference and current measures in Victoria

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Nov. 6, 2000

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE:
1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999


1-3-2000	1-10-2000	1-17-2000	1-24-2000
1-31-2000	2-7-2000	2-14-2000	2-21-2000
2-28-2000	3-6-2000	3-13-2000	3-20-2000
3-27-2000	4-3-2000	4-10-2000	4-17-2000
4-24-2000	5-1-2000	5-8-2000	5-15-2000
5-22-2000	5-29-2000	6-5-2000	6-12-2000
6-19-2000	6-26-2000	7-3-2000	7-10-2000
7-17-2000	7-24-2000	7-31-2000	8-7-2000
8-14-2000	8-21-2000	8-28-2000	9-4-2000
9-11-2000	9-18-2000	9-25-2000	10-01-2000
10-09-2000	10-15-2000	10-23-2000	10-30-2000

Bret Hart officially announced his retirement this week due to concussions he suffered starting back at Starrcade from a Goldberg kick. Doctors actually speculated that Hart may have had a concussion going into the match, but the kick magnified the damage. Following the Goldberg match, Hart continued to wrestle for a couple of weeks and got rocked again several times, particularly in a hardcore match with Terry Funk. Doctors said he's suffered about 10% brain damage, some of which may be permanent. Despite the injury, there was always the possibility that he could have remained an on-screen character in some role. But Hart was fired by WCW last week, which basically left him with no real options, since he has no intention of ever working for WWF again and said he doesn't want to end his career by working his way down the minor league food chain like so many other wrestlers do. Dave says Hart will be remembered for many things, and while his career had no shortage of memorable moments, the name Bret Hart will always be mostly associated with what happened in Montreal 3 years ago and with the death of his brother Owen. The first was the most historically influential match in modern times and Owen's death was the biggest mainstream news story in wrestling history. The last 3 years of Bret's life have been hell, from a disappointing WCW run, injuries, and the utter destruction of the Hart family in the wake of Owen's death. Dave thinks it's sad because if this was Japan or Mexico, the wrestling culture there is different. If a star on the level of Bret Hart retired there, they would have elaborate retirement ceremonies and make a huge deal of it. But here in America, he was double-crossed out of the WWF to avoid giving him a fond farewell, and then he was unceremoniously fired from WCW rather than having a chance to officially retire in the ring or give a speech for his fans. Then again, with the state of WCW, nobody would have believed a Bret Hart retirement speech anyway, since everyone would just suspect an angle. But it sucks that he's having to hang up the boots while unemployed and with no outlet to be given the send-off he deserves.
Dave recaps Bret's career, starting as a teenager in the Amarillo territory with Dory Funk, his time in Japan, and then starting in Stampede and working his way up the ladder there (he started as an opening match jobber). Forming the Hart Foundation with Neidhart, their years together in WWF, his singles run, becoming IC and WWF champion when business was down and Vince needed someone who wasn't exploding with steroids to be the face of the company. As WWF champion, business was weak in the U.S. but Hart was a huge draw when WWF toured internationally (which they did a lot more back then because U.S. business was so bad). And then of course, Shawn Michaels, the Screwjob, and off to WCW where he was the hottest star in the business upon arrival. But from there, he was the victim of injuries and horrible booking and Hart in WCW never clicked. Dave goes on and on about the countless times WCW dropped the ball with how they booked Bret. Anyway, Hart has ruled out ever wrestling again, for fear of more brain damage and not wanting to live the rest of his life as a drooling vegetable. He also shot down the idea of ever being a manager because he's unhappy with the direction of the business and says he's leaving the industry entirely, not just the in-ring part. He plans to spend the next year working on a book about his life and doing some acting. Luckily, he should be well off financially. He earned north of 7 figures during his last four years in the business and has a Lloyds of London disability policy that will pay him the equivalent of 6 months salary, which will be another million or so.
Bret Hart announced his retirement in his Calgary Sun column and since you can't just easily find this online anymore, here's what Bret wrote:

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That'll be the beginning." -- Louis La'Amour.
I'm really sorry to have to say that my professional wrestling career is over--forever. Although I've expected it to end for some time now, I could in no way ever prepare for it.
I suppose it doesn't do much good to speak negatively about how this or that has gone for me. I feel it is more fitting right now to remember the more positive aspects of my long and great career. I have not one regret. I'm proud of all my achievements, especially my seven World Heavyweight Championships.
I will miss the cities, the countries, especially the people--all colours, all religions, all ages, all languages. I've always tried my absolute best in every match, in every city, big or small, in countries all around the world.
I cannot begin to explain how proud I am to have touched so many people with the ability to wrestle. My heart is filled with memories. Like when I was mobbed at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem by Palestinian children, tears in their eyes, kissing my hands. In Belfast, Ireland, being cheered on by both Catholic and Protestant fans, the emotions that poured out as I walked around the ring high-fiving our victory together. The time I was in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, where they waved Canadian flags and chanted O Canada! I could go on endlessly, but maybe it's easier to say I was privileged to be the only world champion who really travelled the world.
I hope that my fans who have kept the faith, believing in me, may in some small way take some lesson from me that will help them in their lifetime. I will never forget how touched I was in Rochester, N.Y. in one of my last matches, when a bunch of die-hard fans held up a sign that read: Parking $10, Program $5, Ticket $35, watching Bret Hitman Hart wrestle--priceless."
I'm forever grateful for the doors that opened bringing me to America. Thank you for having me, for giving me so much. I thank all my fans everywhere. I owe you all for everything I am.
As for the wrestlers, it would mean a lot to me to always be remembered as "one of the boys." I've made great friendships that will last my lifetime and look forward to an easier life filled with reminiscing.
To all of you who worked with me, carried me, and trusted me, those who allowed my success to continue while theirs did not, all from a deep sense of tradition and honour. I tried to always work hard to be champion in your eyes first. My greatest accomplishment is knowing that I never seriously harmed one wrestler. It may not seem important, but I want it remembered that in all the years I never, ever refused to lose to another wrestler--except once--and that was that fateful day in Montreal, where it's clear that I stood up for "the boys."
I could begin to list all the great wrestlers I either watched or worked with, but it would take forever. I will simply say that I'd give anything to climb into the ring with so many of you just one more time. To most people, wrestling is stupid, it's fake, it doesn't mean anything. When I think about it, I'm reminded of a quote by George Braque: "Art is a sound turned to light."
I drift back to a time when I was 23 years old, wrestling for my father, in Regina, making $150 a night. It looked like it was going to be a near full crowd on hand to see me take on my arch rival, The Dynamite Kid, in a ladder match. The title and a bag supposedly containing $5,000 dangled from a string above the ring. Whoever could climb the ladder and grab it first would be the winner.
We were both so young when I look back on it now, so intense, when the bell rang, we tore into each other, ferociously, eventually spilling out onto the floor. I went to slam Dynamite's head into a steel chair. He, of course, had his hands up for protection, but I had no idea he would hit it so hard. His head bounced back, I tried to turn, but our heads smashed. I split the back of his head open and shattered my face, one of those rare accidents.
I could tell it was bad. I could poke my finger through a gaping hole in the middle of my nose. The blood poured. We fought on. I remember Dynamite jumping up high, gripping that heavy steel ladder coming down straight down on my head. I didn't move. The crowd gasped. I dreamed a smile--because he never even touched me. He really was the best. Finally, I had him right where I wanted him, but the referee was down. That's when J.R. Foley crept up on the apron and whacked me across the back with his heavy walking stick. Down I went. The crowd was furious--so unfair. Dynamite began to climb to the top, his fingers reaching. Suddenly, I jumped up, throwing a perfect desperation drop kick, just like he asked me. "...just barely touch the ladder with your toes. I'll control how I go over."
Sure enough, the ladder wobbled and tipped, he grimaced, over they both went, with amazing timing. Dynamite leapt off, straddling the top rope, bouncing up and out right on top of J.R. Foley. But the ladder hit the top rope with such force, bouncing all the way back, heading right toward me. I was lucky I saw it. I rolled and rolled as fast as I could. It crashed with a thud, missing my head by only inches. I sat up, checking to see if Dynamite was hurt. He appeared to be all right, but still both of us knew we'd be going for some stitches.
He was riding with me, so he had to duck down when we drove past the fans on the way to the Pasqua Hospital. From there, we drove back home, all night, so that we could wrestle the following night, too tired to say a word to each other.
But if I can stop right there...to somehow try and explain just what it is that I will miss the most about wrestling, I loved it all so much. I stood that big steel ladder up, one step up, climbing higher and higher, the crowd soaring with me, louder and louder, the blood dripping off my nose...reaching...I pulled that belt down and there it was--it happened. The crowd exploded.
We blew the roof off...so loud I could not hear a single sound except the beating of my own heart. If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you live, you also have to find the courage to finally say goodbye.
I'll put my guns in the ground. I can't shoot them any more.

The WWF/Owen Hart lawsuit was verbally settled out of court, pending a court approval scheduled later this week. Various sources have pegged the settlement at $18 million. It's believed Stu and Helen Hart will receive somewhere between $2-3 million, with the rest going to Martha Hart and her two young children. Martha told the Calgary Sun that the whole ordeal has been a nightmare and she can't say much more for legal reasons but that she's satisfied with the settlement. It's believed that WWF may file suit against the company that manufactured the rigging equipment, but Vince McMahon would only say that they are exploring their options on that. Martha Hart had previously vowed she would never settle before the case went to court, but those close to her say she was tired of the stress and was particularly upset that the case had torn the Hart family apart. Stu and Helen in particular were eager to settle and get it over with. The first round of settlement talks went poorly, with McMahon reportedly offering $17 million and refusing to budge, while Martha's initial asking price was said to be $32 million. It ended with Martha "cutting a promo" on Vince (oh Dave...) and talks broke off. The case was made more complicated by different Hart members' inability to stop talking to the media against lawyers' advice. At one point, Ellie Neidhart (Nattie's mom), who has sided against her parents and with WWF in the case, took a document from Stu Hart regarding all of the Hart children getting money out of the case and passed it on to WWF's lawyers, which engulfed the Hart lawyers in a storm of controversy and nearly blew up their whole case. The original Feb. 2001 court date was postponed indefinitely following that and with no new court date in sight so it was likely to continue dragging on for months and maybe even years. So ultimately, Martha decided to settle (yeah I think to this day, Martha blames Ellie for almost destroying the case and that's why she was forced to settle). As of press time, Bret Hart hasn't yet commented on the settlement, but he knew it was coming. He was on the Observer Live online show the day before it was finalized and said he understood Martha's position and would support whatever decision she made.
The downward spiral of Davey Boy Smith hit a new low this week when he was arrested on 2 separate occasions for allegedly threatening the life of his estranged wife, Diana Hart-Smith. Dave talks about Smith's worsening drug problems in recent years along with all his health issues in between and how he's been in and out of the hospital constantly in the last two years. He also had a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago, multiple rehab stints, etc. Anyway, Smith was arrested on Oct. 25th and again on Oct. 26th. The first time, it was on 2 counts of threatening to kill his wife and her sister Ellie (again...Nattie's mom). After being released the next day, he allegedly threatened his wife again and was arrested again. She thought he was still in custody and went back to the house and was surprised to find him there and that led to the second arrest. Police have been to their house several times in the last few months for domestic disputes. There was also an incident a while back with Smith getting into a fight with Diana's new boyfriend, a Stampede wrestler who wrestles under the name Dick Butkus Jr. during which 85-year-old Stu Hart had to get involved and help break it up. Anyway, Smith spent this past weekend behind bars in Calgary, spending his time signing autographs for other inmates, but was released on the 30th on bail. But he faces 5 charges related to all his threats. Part of the conditions for his release were paying a $10,000 fine and he's not allowed to have any contact with Diana, Ellie, Bruce Hart, or Diana's new boyfriend. (Dave later mentions that Davey Boy is shacking up with Bruce's estranged wife Andrea now. Man, this fuckin' family, I tell ya...) He's also not allowed to drink or take any non-prescribed drugs and is ordered to stay away from where his wife is staying, along with staying away from Bruce Hart's home and Stu Hart's home. He was also ordered to enter rehab, even though he denied in court that he still has a drug problem.
Davey Boy is still under WWF contract, though he hasn't wrestled a match in months. But the WWF has suspended him pending the company's own investigation of the charges. In the past, he blamed his drug issues and back problems from taking a bump on Ultimate Warrior's trap door in the ring when he was in WCW. Dave recaps the series of events that led to him getting rehired by WWF and talks about how they hired Jim Neidhart back as well and it was no secret that Smith, Diana, and Neidhart's wife Ellie were all planning to testify against the family in the Owen Hart case if it had gone to trial. So it wasn't exactly a coincidence that both Smith and Neidhart got jobs that neither of them really had any business getting (Neidhart was hired as a trainer, which everyone knew he wasn't qualified for and Smith was brought back as a wrestler despite a crippling back injury and more crippling drug problem). Neidhart was quietly released a few weeks ago and with the Owen Hart lawsuit finally settled, it probably doesn't look good for Smith (indeed, he never stepped foot in the WWF again).
WCW Halloween Havoc is in the books and was possibly the worst wrestling PPV of the year. At this point, you'd think everyone in WCW would be putting their best foot forward to impress potential buyers, especially if that buyer ends up being the WWF and Vince becomes their new boss. But it was almost all bad matches and abysmal booking. The only bright side is that it was in Vegas and a lot of the tickets were sold to casinos for giveaways, so the show ended up being one of the biggest live gates WCW has had in awhile, even if the crowd wasn't exactly all wrestling fans. Russo is now out of the picture (claiming post-concussion syndrome and stress), but the show was booked by guys like Ed Ferrara and Bill Banks, who are basically mini-Russos and are just keeping his chair warm. So it wasn't quite the same scattershot chaos as most Russo-booked shows, but it still had the same lack of understanding about what makes a good wrestling show that Russo has perfected. Everyone involved (Ferrara, Banks, Terry Taylor, Johnny Ace, etc.) were told to continue Russo's stories rather than changing direction so everything mostly stayed the same.
Other notes from Halloween Havoc: the opening tag title three-way match was the best and really only good match on the show., due to Mysterio, Kidman, and Alex Wright's performances. In typical WCW fashion, they had a top notch snafu showing Palumbo and Stasiak in their street clothes backstage, just seconds after being in their gear and doing a run-in on the previous match. So they put up a thing on the screen that said "taped earlier in the day" to cover for it, but then during the segment, Palumbo and Stasiak were talking about what they just did in the ring minutes earlier. David Flair looked totally lost in his first blood match with Bagwell and even though he's been a midcard star in WCW for over a year now, Dave says if he went to OVW, he'd still be the worst guy on the roster. David Flair is just not ready for the big leagues and it shows. Negative star. Mike Sanders vs. The Cat in a kickboxing match was a total clusterfuck that Cat apparently refused to do the job for since it's "his" gimmick match, so he lost by count-out instead, even though the time limit for the last round had already expired and it was just a mess. Negative half star. Mike Awesome vs. Vampiro is negative 2.5 stars. That's three matches in a row in the negatives, with 2 DUD rankings book-ending them. Dave expected Awesome/Vampiro to actually be good but it had more blown spots than any match he's seen on PPV in years. They were apparently supposed to do a table spot to end the match but they couldn't find any tables under the ring and the match fell apart and Vampiro ended up taking a top rope powerbomb that gave him a concussion and shook him up badly (didn't stop WCW from having him take another powerbomb at the Thunder taping the next day, even though he told them beforehand about the concussion, but we'll get there). And babyface world champion Booker T was booed by a good chunk of the crowd during his match with Scott Steiner.
The latest PRIDE event in Japan drew a sellout crowd mostly due to so many pro wrestlers being involved. It also saw Naoya Ogawa defeat Masaaki Satake in a match most people believed was worked. Ogawa is Antonio Inoki's protege and he's keeping Ogawa protected. Dave says it definitely helps Ogawa keep his name and star power in a highly publicized match, but it doesn't say a lot for PRIDE's credibility. There's also suspicion that Nobuhiko Takada's fight against Igor Vovchanchyn was somewhat worked. Takada lost, but Igor is one of the top ranked heavyweights in the world and Takada went nearly 2 full rounds with him. Most people suspect the finish wasn't worked, but that Igor was told to take it easy on him because Takada is still a big draw and they wanted him to look strong in defeat against a guy he had no chance with. There were several other wrestlers on the card as well. Inoki came out at intermission and announced he was putting together his own show at the Osaka Dome for New Year's Eve (this ends up being the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye show, which also sees Inoki come out of retirement for his final "match" ever. More on all this in a bit).
Genichiro Tenryu, at age 51, defeated Toshiaki Kawada to win the tournament and be crowned AJPW's newest Triple Crown champion, filling the vacancy left over after previous champion Kobashi left for NOAH. This complicates the AJPW/NJPW angle. There's 2 Tokyo Dome shows coming up in January. The first is NJPW's Jan. 4th show and there's another one near the end of the month that's an AJPW show, but will have some NJPW involvement. But Motoko Baba wants to protect the champion because she's hoping AJPW will still survive after the NJPW angle is over. In the past, companies like UWFI and WAR were desperate to survive and started working with NJPW, only to be devoured by NJPW's booking and left to die after the angle ran its course. Mrs. Baba is hoping to avoid the same fate, so she's not going to let Tenryu work a NJPW show and lose (remember, at the last show, NJPW's champion Kensuke Sasaki lost to Kawada and they won't let that happen 2 times in a row). Now that he's not the champion, it frees Kawada up to have a rematch with Sasaki, where he will presumably return the favor and do the job, but it won't be to unify the titles anymore.

WATCH: Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW Triple Crown Championship match

Let's look at some various poll results. Every issue has results for the polls they run online every day or so. Usually I skip over these because they're boring but they're kinda interesting this week. "How should WCW handle the situation with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall" got 55% of voters saying Nash should be suspended for going off script on live TV. As for the future of ECW, 30% of voters think it won't last much longer, while most everyone else thinks it will struggle but continue to survive. Whoops. And finally, Bret Hart's greatest match was 35% for the match with Owen at WM10 and 33% for the match with Austin at WM13.
Stan Hansen has an autobiography that was released in Japanese that is selling like crazy in Japan. Hansen is near the end of his career, but he's probably the most popular American wrestler in Japanese history and has been a top star there since the 70s. (Hansen had an English autobiography released in 2012 called The Last Outlaw. I'm not sure if it's the same book translated to English or if there's another one out there in Japanese from 12 years earlier).
NOAH will hold tournaments early next year to crown their first heavyweight, tag team, and junior heavyweight champions.
Shinya Hashimoto was pulled out of upcoming NJPW shows because they're apparently doing an angle where he is starting his own promotion, in order to do a feud with NJPW (turns out this wasn't an angle at all. Hashimoto really did get fired from NJPW around this time and started Pro Wrestling Zero-One. The real story there is murky and no one seems to know for sure exactly what led to his firing. I think he ended up doing one or two more matches for NJPW over the next year or so, but otherwise, this is the end of Hashimoto in NJPW).
Dave recently had a chance to read the book "Bodyslams!" by former WCW ring announcer Gary Michael Cappetta and liked it. It's not better than Mick Foley's book or anything, but Dave gives it credit for accuracy. Mostly it glosses over a lot of the scandalous stuff and is more about Cappetta's personal experiences rather than giving much detail on what was happening in the business at the time. Dave thinks the book could have gone into more detail on the things going on behind the scenes in WCW during pivotal periods like when Jim Herd, Kip Frey, or Bill Watts was in charge. Overall, definitely better than The Rock's farce of a book but still lacking what made Foley's and Dynamite Kid's books so fascinating.
Steve Allen, the famous comedian and first ever host of the Tonight Show, died last week at age 78. This is only relevant here because most recently, Allen has been one of the lead spokespeople for the PTC and has been one of the most vocal opponents of WWF programming. Ironically enough, early in his career, Allen worked on TV as a wrestling announcer in the 1950s, though he never took it seriously, and in 1990, he appeared at Wrestlemania 6.
The documentary "Gaea Girls", which is about a young woman trying to get into Japanese women's wrestling, has been winning some awards and been admitted to some film festivals.

WATCH: Gaea Girls documentary

"Walker: Texas Ranger" this week did an episode loosely based on Owen Hart's death. It's about a wrestler, in costume, who fell from the ceiling during a show. Although in the case of this show, it was a murder ordered by a ruthless promoter trying to take over the territory of another promoter, who's a kind, older guy. The obvious parallels were a more evil version of Vince McMahon and a gentler version of Stu Hart. Dave thought the episode sucked and also got really sad by it. Dave says he hasn't watched Over The Edge again since Owen's death and seeing it fictionally re-enacted for a TV show was really depressing.

WATCH: Walker: Texas Ranger re-enacts Owen Hart's death

Scott Hall was arrested this week for probation violation while he was already in court for a child custody hearing. This charge stems from some 1998 case where he keyed up a limo outside a strip club in Orlando. At the time, Hall had been given probation and ordered to complete a bunch of community service by April of 2000. He never completed the community service, so....probation violation. Hall was in court with his estranged wife Dana and he filed for sole custody of their 2 children, claiming Dana is "emotionally and mentally unstable and an unfit parent" but then Hall got arrested at the courthouse and the hearing was postponed. Speaking of, Dana herself has had 2 contempt-of-court charges against her recently for refusing to let Hall have visitation with their kids when she was supposed to.
PPV news: CMLL in Mexico is holding a big year end show in December and are negotiating for it to air on PPV in the U.S., which would be the first Lucha Libre PPV to air here since When Worlds Collide in 1994. And remember a few months back when a promoter in Australia brought in Dennis Rodman and a bunch of other kinda big name stars and ran a show? Well it will also air on PPV in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico next month. That show was headlined by Rodman vs. Curt Hennig which ended in a double-count out because apparently Rodman refused to do the job. Word is that show was terrible, like this year's version of Heroes of Wrestling, but Australia is so starved for live wrestling that the crowd heat was still off-the-charts.
Juventud Guerrera worked an indie show in Puerto Rico and right now, he's trying to get hired in WWF, or at least stay out of trouble long enough to get rehired by WCW. Guerrera has reached out to WWF through friends he has there, but after what happened with him last month in Australia, WWF apparently isn't interested.
The latest OVW show saw Nick Dinsmore win the OVW title from Rob Conway. On the same show, Brock Lesnar wrestled a dark match against former UFC fighter Ron Waterman. Lesnar won and hey, who knows, maybe he's got a future in beating up UFC fighters.
Ted Dibiase and Nikita Koloff are on a church tour together where they wrestle matches against each other and then preach sermons or something.
The lines between wrestling and MMA got blurrier this week when Atsushi Onita went to the PRIDE offices and met with their promoter. Onita then issued a challenge to Antonio Inoki for a match, saying he wants to retire (of course) and his last match has to be with Inoki. PRIDE officials put out a statement saying they wouldn't promote one of Onita's exploding barbed wire matches, but that they would gladly promote Inoki vs. Onita under PRIDE rules in their ring. Inoki responded, telling reporters that he's retired. There's rumor that Onita will be appearing at Inoki's New Year's Eve show to set up some kind of angle.
Paul Heyman and Sabu have a court date scheduled for later this month over their issues. If you remember, Sabu left ECW to go try to go to WCW but his contract prevented it. Heyman then sued Sabu for breach of contract when he started working other shows (particularly for XPW). Meanwhile, Sabu has also filed some legal paperwork to try to get out of his contract, so hopefully that will all be settled soon.
Speaking of ECW, there doesn't seem to be anything new happening on the TV front. Negotiations with USA have apparently stalled. So....not great news. The latest episode of ECW Hardcore TV shows the signs of how things are going. The in-ring action was good but the show is beginning to look more and more low-budget by the week, as the company continues struggling to stay afloat. The announcers weren't flown in (it was dubbed in later in post-production) and the lighting was terrible.
Still nothing new on the sale of WCW but rumors are flying like crazy because everyone is paranoid. For the first time, in an interview, Linda McMahon acknowledged that it's true that WWF is in discussions to purchase WCW but word is no substantial progress has been made yet.
Notes from Nitro: it was a sad episode because the crowd was tiny and it almost felt like a bad indie show, especially because the small crowd was pretty dead. It was a disaster, with a total of 1,454 fans in the building and only 768 of them paid. Even worse, they tried to paper it but only 33% of the free tickets that were given out were used. WCW literally can't even give this shit away. Ric Flair returned as the new CEO of WCW and got almost no pop at all from the crowd, then cut a boring promo. Dave thinks it's sad that this is where things have gotten for him. The greatest of all time, cutting middling promos in front of a small crowd for a dying company. Then Jarrett came out to talk and the mic went dead. The fans chanted for Scott Hall all through the Kronik/Palumbo & Stasiak match. Kevin Nash was on commentary but after last week, he was finally ordered to stop talking about Hall. So instead of mentioning Hall himself, when the crowd started chanting, Nash kept asking, "What are they chanting?" but the other announcers wouldn't acknowledge him.
Thunder was taped immediately after Nitro and the only notable thing there was a Lance Storm vs. Norman Smiley match that was apparently so bad that Storm went on his website afterward and pre-emptively apologized to the fans for the match. As of press time, it hasn't aired yet so I guess we'll see (the 2000 Thunders aren't on the Network and I can't find this online, so no idea how bad it was or wasn't).
Backstage morale in WCW isn't great, which probably goes without saying. Word is much of the crew, wrestlers and backstage employees alike, are so drained by all the negativity and sale rumors that everyone has pretty much mentally quit. They're all just going through the motions every week now while waiting to see what's going to happen with their jobs.
Buff Bagwell did an interview with the Observer website a few days before the Halloween Havoc PPV and had plenty of interesting things to say. He ripped on Vince Russo for the way he booked himself along with guys like Luger and DDP and basically just how awful Russo's booking is. He also complained about WCW fining people for showing up late. He complained about not getting a big raise like everyone else got back in 1998 because he was out with a neck injury when Bischoff was giving raises and complained about being underpaid compared to all the other "A-talent" like himself. Talked about how screwed up WCW is, saying Lex Luger is being paid $1.3 million a year to do jobs for Hugh Morrus. "Are you kidding me? Hugh is a great guy and all that, but he's not A-talent. I love him to death, but he's never going to draw a dime. We're talking about drawing money and he's never going to draw a fuckin' dime. And Luger is putting him over at house shows? Nothing is adding up. I know for a fact that if they try to get me to job for (David) Flair at Havoc, I'm going to walk out the door. I'm not doing it." In response to all this, WCW put Hugh Morrus over big on Nitro while they had Bagwell job to Luger in 2 minutes on the same show. Well, at least someone in WCW gets punished for the shit they say.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For only the second time ever in writing these Rewinds, I have hit the 40,000 character limit. So once again, the rest of this Rewind will be posted in a comment below, so keep scrolling. Upvote it for visibility I guess?

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Sept. 25, 2000


1-3-2000	1-10-2000	1-17-2000	1-24-2000
1-31-2000	2-7-2000	2-14-2000	2-21-2000
2-28-2000	3-6-2000	3-13-2000	3-20-2000
3-27-2000	4-3-2000	4-10-2000	4-17-2000
4-24-2000	5-1-2000	5-8-2000	5-15-2000
5-22-2000	5-29-2000	6-5-2000	6-12-2000
6-19-2000	6-26-2000	7-3-2000	7-10-2000
7-17-2000	7-24-2000	7-31-2000	8-7-2000
8-14-2000	8-21-2000	8-28-2000	9-4-2000
9-11-2000	9-18-2000

The Delaware Supreme Court ruled against the USA Network in their appeal to prevent WWF from accepting the Viacom deal. The decision makes it official that WWF is moving to TNN next week and ends the 17-year WWF/USA relationship. The appeal process has been lingering for over a month and because of it, USA, Viacom, WWF and ECW were all pretty much paralyzed and waiting to see how things turn out. But now that it's all finalized, ECW's final TNN show will air on 9/22 and the first Raw on TNN will air on 9/25. It doesn't give Viacom much of an opportunity to promote the move. They had set aside $7 million to promote Raw's TNN debut but because of the lingering court proceedings, they kept having to delay it and now there's almost no time. On Raw's final show on USA, Jim Ross mentioned repeatedly that this was the last episode on the network and plugged the move to TNN (and hyping that Austin will be there live). But that's pretty much it so far. During the next few days, you can expect Viacom to bombard all media outlets with as much promotion as they can cram into the short amount of time, but it's going to be impossible to promote it as much as they'd hoped to. And considering they're moving from the #1 rated network to the #15 rated network, they need all the promotion they can get.
Needless to say, this all gives WCW a golden opportunity to put their best foot forward for Nitro on 9/25 and hopefully gain some much-needed ground (in case you're want spoilers for next week, Russo uses this opportunity to make himself the WCW champion). In the short run, Raw's ratings will almost certainly fall, but in the long-run, being with Viacom is going to be hugely beneficial to WWF. As for ECW, this opens the door for them to continue negotiations with USA. They desperately need a TV deal, on a strong network, and most importantly, they need outside financial support if they are going to survive. Having a TV deal is useless if you can't afford the production costs. As mentioned last week, ECW missed payroll and has had to cancel several house shows due to the financial crunch they're under.
Also this week, TNN announced that it's renaming itself The National Network (instead of The Nashville Network) and will be moving its base of operations from Nashville to New York. They're planning to debut a new logo and target their programming to a more diverse audience. Dave recaps the history of WWF on the USA Network, dating back to 1982 when they aired monthly WWF MSG shows. Then WWF got a weekly show called All-American Wrestling on the network in 1983, which then became Prime Time Wrestling and Tuesday Night Titans, the creation of Raw in 1993, the Monday night wars, and now to this.
There was a frightening moment at WCW's Fall Brawl PPV with Paul Orndorff suffering a stinger that left him motionless in the ring. The good news is that it was only temporary paralysis. He was treated and released from the hospital that same night. It was reminiscent of the injuries suffered by Droz and Buff Bagwell in recent years, but fortunately for Orndorff, it didn't end up being as bad. There was immediate suspicion that the whole thing was a work, which Dave thinks is a pretty sad reflection of WCW these days. When Orndorff went down, everyone else in the match basically panicked and continued working the match on the other side of the ring, taking bumps that kept jarring the ring, all while the EMTs and trainer were trying to tend to Orndorff. Finally, almost 2 minutes after he collapsed, referee Charles Robinson finally took charge and ordered the match stopped. The match was scheduled to go several more minutes and run-ins were scheduled, but it all got scrapped when Robinson ended it. The injury happened when Orndorff tried to piledrive Mark Jindrak but Jindrak didn't go up correctly for the move. Orndorff had to deadweight lift him and when he did so, his hamstring went out. He completed the piledriver but landed awkwardly, causing something with his neck and spine to jam up and that was it. Dave talks about Orndorff's health problems over the year, specifically his arm injury that caused his right arm to atrophy severely and never recover. He retired twice before due to health issues (87 and 94) only to return both times when he probably shouldn't have. (This was his final match for 17 years. But it looks like he came out of retirement last year and worked a 6-man tag match at an indie show in Canada. But otherwise, this Fall Brawl match was the end of the road for Orndorff).

WATCH: Paul Orndorff injury at Fall Brawl 2000

This whole thing brings up questions about Nitro this week, which has a match scheduled between Booker T and Vince Russo. Just a few weeks ago, Russo suffered a concussion during an angle and has been dealing with headaches and such ever since, and it's probably not a good idea for him to be in the ring. They could probably work around it, but Dave thinks it's bad enough to have untrained people in there doing moves anyway, much less ones who are already injured. Dave notes the recent example of Kurt Angle wrestling on Smackdown 2 days after getting severely concussed at Summerslam, which he never should have done and led to him getting another concussion because you're always more susceptible to further concussions during the period after suffering one. Russo has openly claimed to have had 3 concussions in the last year and has only worked about 6 matches. If that's true, he probably shouldn't be in there taking bumps again. But maybe they'll book something safe that doesn't require it. Either way, Dave is just concerned about the overall safety of all these guys.
Oh yeah, other notes from Fall Brawl: crowd was 8,600 although only about half of that (4,311) was paid, the rest were freebies. Dave notes all the excitement people in WCW had last week when the Nitro rating was higher than usual, and points out how it obviously didn't mean dick when it comes to ticket sales. TV ratings are nice but it's a vanity metric. The real numbers that matter are the ones that make money. Ticket sales and PPV buys. And, well, those are still horrible. There was a guy in the crowd facing the hard cam who was seen constantly throughout the show wearing a Destroyer mask. Destroyer was a famous wrestler back in 60s and 70s who wore a red and white mask. Anyway....turns out that was the real Destroyer (real name Dick Beyer), just sitting in the crowd at a WCW PPV at 70 years old, still doing his old gimmick. Kevin Nash cut a promo earlier on the pre-show claiming he was hungover from hanging out at the bar last night and essentially telegraphing that he was going to lose his match (he did). Right after the Orndorff match, Shane Douglas cut a pre-match promo saying Kidman would be joining Paul Orndorff at the hospital. Even his partner Torrie Wilson seemed to drop her TV smile and give him a "what an asshole" look for that one. The scaffold for the scaffold match was way wider than any other ones before and the area underneath was padded and safe, but Torrie still seemed legitimately terrified up there. After Madusa took a bump off the scaffold (which the crowd booed because it was clearly gimmicked for safety), the announcers also tried to compare her injuries to Orndorff's injury earlier in the night. Dave is just disgusted. Torrie never took a bump off the scaffold, which was the original plan but she refused, and good for her Dave says. It would have meant nothing for the match anyway. Negative 1 star. They did a segment with David Flair beating up a mailman in his yard and Dave says the whole segment was actually hilarious and more interestingly, it was all David Flair's idea. ICP did commentary on Vampiro's match again, which once again was funny. Mike Awesome came out with former child actor Gary Coleman. There's been a lot of news stories lately about Coleman working as a security guard for $6 an hour these days, so at least WCW probably didn't have to spend a lot to get him. Naturally, he got involved in the match and it was hilarious because he knew he was going to take a guitar shot from Jarrett. So he had a hat on with a towel folded up in it to cushion the blow. But during the chaos, his hat got knocked off. So just before the guitar shot, he picked up his hat, calmly put the towel back in, put it back on, and took the hit. Goldberg vs. Scott Steiner was a shockingly good match and Dave gives it 4.25 stars. And of course, Booker T won the title from Nash in the main event.

WATCH: Fall Brawl 2000 highlights

We get the usual long obituary for Professor Toru Tanaka, one of the biggest heels of the 60s and 70s, who died at age 70 in California. Dave recaps his career and of course, he was a Hawaiian who got booked as a typical salt throwing Japanese heel. Worked for WWWF feuding with Sammartino, won titles in all the territories, etc. He also tells an interesting story from 1977 when Pat Patterson returned to the San Francisco territory after being gone for 8 months and was supposed to face Mr. Fuji in a show that ended up drawing 12,000 people. But Fuji had a falling out with promoter Roy Shire and left the territory 2 weeks before the match. So Shire brought in Tanaka and put him under a mask and tried to pass him off as the real Fuji. The crowd didn't buy it and the media got ahold of the story and started claiming fraud and the athletic commission got involved. Shire nearly lost his promoter's license but he claimed he didn't know and thought it was the real Fuji under the mask. Tanaka and Shire were both fined but the commission seemed to buy the story (others backed it up to protect Shire) and let them off with just the fine. The real Fuji caught all the heat and was legitimately banned by the commission for life from wrestling in California, but that was overturned in 1984.
The current plan for AJPW's Triple Crown title is to hold a tournament soon, which is expected to be won by Toshiaki Kawada, who will then defend the title against NJPW champion Sasaki in a title vs. title match at the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show. And the plan from there is for Kawada to get the surprising win, since most people don't expect NJPW to book their champion to lose to AJPW's champion. But the way Riki Choshu (NJPW booker) sees it, AJPW is pretty much doomed and he's not too concerned about them as competition anymore, and he's well aware that this inter-promotional feud is the only thing keeping AJPW alive right now. But there's still money in an AJPW/NJPW feud and they want to prolong it, so Kawada will have to win. The idea is to keep Kawada strong because NJPW loves the gimmick of a strongly booked outsider coming in and shaking things up. In the past, that person has been Naoya Ogawa but Choshu is tired of the headache that comes with dealing with Antonio Inoki and Ogawa because Inoki is intent on making Ogawa an unbeatable superman and NJPW can never get him to put anyone over. Choshu is pretty much trying to do anything he can to get Inoki's influence as far away from the company as possible. So the idea is to keep Kawada strong and milk this angle for all it's worth.
New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman officially signed into law the bill to regulate so-called "extreme wrestling." The bill bans children under 18 from attending extreme wrestling shows. It also adds an athletic commission tax to promotions running extreme shows, mandates an ambulance and 2 doctors must be on hand at every event, and even though it's a state law, the city officials where the show is to be held must specifically give permission for the event. This bill doesn't affect ECW, which was categorized as one of the 3 major companies which are exempt from the law. The bill is a not-so-subtle effort to drive Jersey All Pro Wrestling and Combat Zone Wrestling specifically out of the state, JAPW in particular. They're planning to still run shows but will be forced to get rid of bladejobs, no more light tubes or thumb tacks or barbed wire, etc. JAPW owner Frank Iadeavia has said they are considering legal action. But at this point, if they want to continue to run shows as they have, they're going to be forced to leave the state of New Jersey to do so.
Raw did well in the ratings again, facing stiff competition from the Olympics and Monday Night Football. But they had one segment that was a major bomb. Mick Foley came out, cutting a promo once again trying to get George W. Bush and Al Gore to appear on Smackdown for a debate. The segment was right before the main event and caused a full 700,000 homes to change the channel, which is an unheard of drop for a Raw episode. That led to the Rock/Undertaker main event that followed to be the lowest rated Raw main event of the year.
The Wrestling Observer Hotline has been officially killed off. 1-900 hotline numbers have been dying anyway and the numbers were down and Dave says more importantly, he needed to stop because he's so busy with the newsletter and the Eyada online radio show and wants to concentrate fully on those and the daily hotline stuff took up too much time.
Motoko Baba threatened a lawsuit against Nippon TV over their decision to drop AJPW and start airing NOAH instead, and due to the lawsuit, NOAH currently isn't airing on NTV, which is a major blow for the fledgling new company. In the meantime, Misawa has started negotiations with TV Tokyo, which is another one of the major networks in Japan.
Former WWF and ECW wrestler Nicole Bass made headlines after being arrested in New York after getting into an argument with someone on a street corner. It turned into a fight and when the police tried to break it up, she allegedly bit one of the cops. Bass was one of several people arrested.
Notes from OVW: Jim Ross did announcing on some of the shows there this week, because he was down there scouting talent. Shelton Benjamin is showing a lot of promise and Jim Cornette says Benjamin is progressing even faster than Kurt Angle and believes he's guaranteed to be a big star. Brock Lesnar still hasn't debuted on TV there yet but Bob Orton's son Randy Orton recently did. They're also strongly pushing Leviathan (real name Dave Bautista) and Jim Cornette predicts he will headline Wrestlemania within the next 5 years. (yup, exactly 5 years later in fact)
Ed Farhat, better known as The Sheik, is said to be in very grave condition. He's down to 150 pounds and can only communicate through blinking his eyes or lightly squeezing if you hold his hand (he ended up living another 2+ years after this. His Wikipedia page says he was working with a biographer and did extensive interviews before he died, with plans to have a book on his life released. But it says the interviews "provided a highly explosive look" into the business and as a result, the interviews and draft of the book were sealed at the time of his death and to this day it's never been released. Interesting. When I originally wrote this up a few months ago, I tweeted Dave about this and he responded saying he didn't know anything about it either. I'd love to find out more.)
The latest revival of Stampede Wrestling is in bad shape. They have no more shows scheduled and have only done 10 shows in the last few months. Their TV show has been airing old tapes rather than new episodes lately.
Ken Shamrock broke his silence on his recent PRIDE loss to Kazuyuki Fujita. Shamrock pretty much blamed himself and admitted he wasn't in proper shape to fight and said things happened which contributed to him not having time to train properly (he doesn't go into detail but I think Dave mentioned something in an earlier Observer but I can't find it right now. But I think Shamrock was going through some personal shit around this time. Something like a divorce or a custody battle or something. That doesn't get mentioned here, it's just something I vaguely remember reading awhile back, I might be wrong).
Nobuhiko Takada has announced he's going to face Igor Vovchanchyn at next month's PRIDE show and that if he doesn't win, he'll retire. Takada had a reputation as a shoot fighter from his years as the founder and star of UWFi, which was a worked shoot promotion. But then he started doing real shoots and it's been bad news ever since, including 2 high profile losses to Rickson Gracie. He's had a couple of wins, but they were worked matches. His real MMA fights have all been losses and Dave says the real fighters in PRIDE have pretty much no respect for Takada as an actual fighter. He doesn't like Takada's chances next month (indeed, Takada gets punched into submission in the 2nd round. But he still didn't retire).
Notes from Nitro: the building was mostly full, with not that many freebies. But only because it was a small arena that only holds about 5,000 people. It was also in Canada and the crowd was pretty much only there to see Lance Storm (who ended up jobbing to Jim Duggan in an undercard match) and Bret Hart (who wasn't there at all). They hated Goldberg with a passion, probably due to the Hart stuff, and booed him mercilessly.
On his personal website, Mark Madden apologized to Lou Thesz for his comment on Nitro last week where he joked that Lou Thesz beats up women. Madden said he was only joking and that he has a ton of respect for Thesz.
Pamela Paulshock apparently injured her ankle doing an angle on Thunder last week. Dave thinks it's bad enough when they have untrained wrestlers in there getting hurt, but now untrained ring announcers are getting hurt too.
WCW is pitching an angle for Vampiro to team with singer Billy Idol in a feud against Mike Awesome and David Cassidy, of Partridge Family fame (Never happened but.....yeah. That was a thing evidently).
Dave only has a couple of thoughts on this week's Thunder: he begs someone in WCW to PLEASE send Major Gunns to get acting lessons. He also wants someone to save Mike Awesome from a gimmick worse than the Red Rooster. And finally, I guess there's been a lot of commercials for the new Meet The Parents movie and Dave thinks it looks funny.
Various WCW notes: DDP is likely being brought back soon, though Kimberly won't be. Nitro Girl Spice was released. She was being groomed to co-host WCW's Saturday morning show, but then the show got canned and they didn't have anything else for her. And after being world champion for a couple of months, WCW has finally decided to start making some Booker T merch. Seems like a good idea to finally get around to. The Harris Twins taped segments for both the Maury Povich and Jenny Jones shows, no word on what they are or when they'll air. Goldberg will be on an episode of The Daily Show this week. Gene Okerlund is expected to be given a grumpy old man gimmick where he swears a lot.
Next month might be a surprisingly good month for WCW ticket wise. They have shows in Australia that are expected to do big numbers because Australia is so starved for wrestling that even WCW can do big business there. And they have a PPV in Las Vegas which will do good because the casinos are buying up a lot of tickets to give away.
Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner are reportedly being total team players right now, because there's concern that a regime change could come at any time (a lot of people are pushing for Johnny Ace to replace Vince Russo) and they're basically being on their best behavior until they see who their next new boss might be. The only person right now who's really stirring up shit is Goldberg, who is said to be openly pissed about pretty much everything and isn't shy about expressing it (yeah, even Goldberg has since admitted that he was frustrated and probably wasn't very pleasant to be around back then).
Scott Hall is expected to return to Nitro next week. Brad Siegel reportedly gave up on fighting with Nash about it and is willing to bring Hall back. Siegel and Hall spoke last week and Hall was basically told this is his last chance and if he fucks up one time, he's gone for good. Of course, Scott Steiner has been told that a dozen times in the past, so you know how that goes (Hall doesn't end up coming back. Not sure if it fell through or Dave got bad info or what, but it never happens).
They held a Miss WCW Pageant in Las Vegas last week with Carrot Top as one of the judges and of course there was a bikini contest. Nitro Girl Chae ended up winning over Torrie Wilson, Major Gunns, Baby, Chiquita, Midajah and Stacy Keibler. Pamela Paulshock was supposed to be in it but no-showed due to her ankle injury (there's some good catty drama coming out of this in the next week or two).
So the deal with Konnan is....pretty messed up, actually. He had tricep surgery a few months ago and has no business back in the ring yet. But WCW cut his paycheck in half so....he came back and he's wrestling. But here's the problem. The doctors still haven't given him a medical release yet because, well, they're doctors and he's still fucked up. They're like, "Dude...no." Anyway, because he doesn't have his medical release, WCW is still only giving him half his pay. But they're still allowing him to wrestle. He's hoping to get a medical release this week so he can start getting full checks again. Dave just thinks this whole policy is so screwed up on so many ways.
Disqo Inferno has been bringing out some plastic duck to the ring called the Disqo Duck. (I should stop for a second and explain something for the younger readers. R&B singer Sisqo had a HUGE hit called "Thong Song" around this time and WCW, in their infinite wisdom, capitalized by changing the spelling of Disco to Disqo.) Anyway, the duck is fucking stupid and apparently at Nitro this week, Konnan literally handcuffed himself to the duck backstage to try and keep Disqo Inferno from taking it out to the ring. Someone had to try to save him from himself.
Jeremy Borash will be doing announcing at this week's Thunder tapings. Dave says there's a lot of heat here because Borash is close to Vince Russo, so he's getting a lot of chances to do things like commentary even though he hasn't really earned it yet and hasn't shown any real aptitude for it. Dave says if Borash ends up replacing one of the main announcers on Nitro, there'll probably be a meltdown.
Steve Austin and Debra got married last week in Las Vegas (fun fact: same wedding chapel Triple H and a drugged out Stephanie McMahon got married in. Funner fact: also the same wedding chapel I got married in).
The plan for Sunday Night Heat, now that it's moving to MTV, is for it to be more of a humor and skit type show, with a lot of Tom Green-style humor (oh man, 2000 was such a weird time). They want to bring in musical guests and celebrities for it and will do a lot of the stuff from the WWF New York restaurant as well as at MTV's Times Square headquarters.
Notes from Raw: a lot of the show was built around trying to seemingly bury Kurt Angle, by turning him into a goofy heel character and implying that he's gay. They showed a lot of footage of him crying at the Olympics and had Triple H make fun of him and all that stuff. Dave thinks it's a pretty weird thing to do one week before the biggest match of Angle's career (he's got a No DQ match with Triple H at next week's PPV) and sure didn't do him any favors for people taking him seriously. Hugh Hefner was on to plug Chyna's upcoming Playboy appearance and Dave thinks it's nice that Playboy and WWF could come together again in the interest of making money after all the nasty legal issues they had with the Sable fallout. And finally, Steve Regal debuted.
Since we were talking about WCW's injury policy, Dave decides to let us know what WWF's policy is. A WWF wrestler that is out with an injury receives their downside guarantee. WWF contracts give you a guarantee (say, $300,000 per year for example) but you can make a lot more money on the road because everyone gets a cut of house show gates and PPV revenue and whatnot. So if you're injured and not on the road, you won't get all that extra money, but you still make the $300,000 guarantee. Of course, that leads to the same incentive for guys to sometimes come back before they're ready, because they're losing money by being at home, but from everyone who talks to Dave, there's not nearly as much pressure from the WWF to hurry up and come back as there is in WCW.
Various WWF notes: Big Boss Man will be out for a few weeks after having his knee scoped. Grand Master Sexay needed 14 stitches in his ear after getting legit cut from the belt shot on Raw. Tori should be back in Oct. or early November after shoulder surgery. Billy Gunn should be back in a few weeks. Road Dogg's wife had surgery for a collapsed lung so he's out tending to her. Davey Boy Smith was in a motorcycle accident last week and Dave says if you know how many times Smith has been in and out of the hospital this year, it would scare you to death.
Four different wrestling promotions have videos in the Billboard Top 20 charts....and none of them are WCW. Of course, WWF is all over the charts with their various releases taking up 12 of the 20 spots. ECW has videos at #5 and #7. XPW, which currently isn't running new shows and doesn't even have a building to run shows in right now, has videos at #12 and #19. And Insane Clown Posse's JCW promotion has a video at #13. All that, but no WCW.
Kurt Angle and Taka Michinoku worked a UPW show in California along with a few other WWF developmental signees who started out at the UPW school (I decided to look it up and see who else of note worked that show: Franie Kazarian, Simon Dean, Rocky Romero, Mike Knox, Vic Grimes, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, and John Cena were all on the card. 2000/2001-era UPW had a ton of future stars come through the doors).
One of the XFL teams is already moving before it even starts. The San Jose Demons have now been renamed the San Francisco Demons and will be playing in San Fran after negotiations with Spartan Stadium in San Jose fell apart. Dave thinks it might be a bad move. San Jose is a wealthier community with a large population and their hockey and soccer franchises do huge business. San Francisco already has a major team in every sport and he doesn't know if a B-level football team is going to draw as well there as it would have in San Jose. He also notes that in the spring, the weather is a lot warmer in San Jose at night than it is in San Francisco, and California isn't exactly the type of place where people want to sit out in the cold weather at night and watch football games. This isn't Green Bay or Chicago where freezing to death for football is almost a tradition (the cities are, like, an hour apart so I can't imagine the weather is that much different? Although I guess San Francisco is right there on the bay so maybe wind? I dunno. Anyone from the area care to chime in?)
A New York newspaper reported that Vince McMahon tried to stop VH1 from airing an episode of "The List" because the show featured appearances by Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting, and other WCW stars. VH1 is owned by Viacom, which now owns 3% of WWF's stock and McMahon decided to try to throw his weight around and get the episode canned. Didn't work and it actually was one of the highest rated episodes of the show ever. But he did succeed in getting VH1 to agree to not air reruns of that episode. A WWF spokesman responded to the story, saying, "It is highly unlikely that took place. It's not something we would do." But of course, you'll note that they didn't outright deny it and the idea that Vince McMahon wouldn't do something like that is laughable since he has a long history of doing exactly that sort of thing.
The Slam! Wrestling website wrote an article criticizing the WWF policy of not allowing wrestlers to do interviews with other websites without company approval because they see all other websites as competition to their own WWF.com site. The article noted they had an interview with Gerald Brisco awhile back and Brisco told them he could talk freely about his pre-WWF years but if it has to do with WWF, he'd have to clear it with the office. Jim Ross responded on his WWF website column, saying not a single interview request has come across their desk from any other wrestling websites. Dave talks about when the policy was put in place and says WWF told him he could still get anyone he wanted to interview on the Observer website, but he would need to go through the office first. Since that time, Dave says he's talked to wrestlers who agreed to appear, but when he tried to get it cleared by the office, it stalled and has been pending approval ever since with no answer sooooooo......
WWF is wanting Big Show to drop down to 400 pounds. At his heaviest in WCW he was 505 and currently weighs a legit 480.
Someone writes in with a conspiracy theory. He thinks Shane McMahon's death-defying fall from the TitanTron at Summerslam was done to prove a point given the upcoming Owen Hart wrongful death lawsuit, with the idea being that the WWF side can point to it as an example that, "See! Even Vince McMahon's son is sometimes asked to perform stunts like this and they're usually done safely." Dave responds, saying that normally he'd think that's reading too much into things. But the day after Summerslam, several people in WWF as well as a couple of legal experts he talked to all had basically the same theory and said they wouldn't be surprised if it gets brought up in the trial. But time will tell, Dave says.
Dave Lagana writes in, talking his experience working on "Friends" and talking about how most TV shows are written by writing teams and how stories are crafted in TV writing rooms and so on and so forth. Basically, it leads to the one big question every writer, booker, and performer should ask themselves: how will the audience react to the long-term story? Not how loud the momentary pop is or how much you were able to swerve the audience with a surprise that doesn't make any sense, etc. The point he's trying to make is that Vince Russo is doing literally everything wrong and he has no idea how to write television. He's also pretty fed up with Russo's constant everything-is-a-shoot booking, where they openly acknowledge scripts and bookers and shit in every segment. He's not the only one.
Lots of letters talking about what a total trainwreck WCW is. Russo isn't the only problem. From management to marketing, the ball is being dropped everywhere. None of the stories are coherent. Characters change gimmicks or go from face to heel from week-to-week with no explanation, fans have no idea what's happening. Wrestlers themselves are out of control backstage. Merchandising is dead. Basically, the ship is sinking and the worst part is that nobody seems to care. Everyone is just drilling more holes in the ship. Even when they luck into something that works, they always manage to fuck it up immediately. So there's all that. But also, a lot of piling on Russo from a lot of people who think he's killing the company.

MONDAY: Raw debuts on TNN, Steve Austin returns, ECW not yet cancelled on TNN after all, WWF Unforgiven fallout, and more...

Ben Simmons: Australian casino denies racial discrimination of NBA star

How I’ve lost everything

Rise and Fall Part 5

Part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
2009 was a grand year. I am 23 years old, will turn 24 late in the year. I am starting to settle down on the drugs and alcohol (not completely but a bit). I log a lot of hours and am playing at my peak level.
There wasnt much in early 09 I can remember. So I will jump to the late spring/early summer. This would be known as “The Summer of the Israelis!”
As best as we were told this is what happened. A very wealthy Israeli man gets ahold of Carbon and wants to play online. Which is illegal in Israel. So Carbon obliges. This wealthy man wants to basically run his own Israeli group. So Carbon accepts massive deposits from this guy and this guy dishes money out to generic accounts that his friends used. All of the usernames were like Momo324 or Momo474. It was blatantly obvious who was Israeli and who was not. There is now dozens if not hundreds of Israelis playing decently big stakes and some were playing nosebleeds and they were all awful. Just fucking awful.
This would be the only time I break strict BRM (after the JERRY2009 incident, fwiw I play Jerry a lot more after that he holds his own but I am winner on him). The Israelis were dragging us up to 10knl. There would be 9handed 10knl games with up to three Israelis on them. I sat those games occasionally. I should have sat them more looking back on it. My roll at this point is 200k~ and I keep 100k on Carbon and cash out excess whenever there is some (basically I had strings of checks pending at all times) so 10k wasnt exactly a comfortable loss. I only log 1k~ hands at that stake and I win a couple buy ins at most. I look back at is as a shot I should have taken more, never has there been softer 10knl online. Scout326 (google if unaware of this guy) was better than a lot of these Israelis.
My friends made great money that summer. I did too. When it was dying down a bit I had a 300k roll. Made 100k in a matter of 3-4 months. This would draw some legitimate players into Carbon though. There was always more competition after this event but it was still the best site I was playing.
I email Poker Stars at some point in 2009 asking to be unbanned and provide details of what I am doing on other sites. They oblige and give me my account back.
I grind a bit on there but the games are just not as soft. I book small win rates in FTP and PS cash games. Under 3bb100 when I was doing 2-4x that on Carbon. Was much less stressful on Carbon also. Stars and FTP were mentally draining. Was a lot of really good players at 1knl. So I basically just play Sundays on the big sites and mix games or stuff just for change of pace.
At some point in 2009 I am on a big skid on FTP and have literally 1,061$ in account. I am not going to reload it as I honestly hated FTP. FTP had the smallest average win rates of all sites that were tracked (PTR or Sharkscope/OPR the studs of online and win rates were about 70% of Stars win rates). Now logically this is not crazy as FTP was a tougher field than Stars. Stars had more players and the bulk of people who play multiple sites are competent. I have some data that I think proved FTP is goofy. I want to conceal my usernames in this story but here is what I can show you easily. If you look at high volume MTT players, go back to OPR and dig through results. Wins come in bunches. In an earlier part of this story I mentioned I went 1-1-X-2 in the Sunday 200$ Horse MTT on FTP, then dont cash it for a year? I have looked through my MTT history on FTP and when I win one tourney I almost always have two more top 2 finishes on the same day or next day. DuckU wins back to back Sundays majors on FTP which is insane (he was a stud though).
Now for the final thing that made me hate FTP. This is gonna branch off into a lovely story about my mom. She wants to learn how to play poker so I give her a secondary FTP account I made which dons the same username as my Carbon name, so I keep it concealed. I dont have sharkscope so I cant go reverify the info but she plays almost exclusively 3$ 90 man KOs. She is a terrrrrible poker player. She color tags every single player she plays with with a base color and changes the color if necessary if she likes or dislikes you. The color tags are nothing poker related, and everything like or dislike related. Aggressive players were disliked because they raised her (or people who beat her in a pot). Passive fish were liked (they never raise her) and everyone else was just the neutral color she chose. My mother plays several thousand of these (I had to xfer her money soooo many times) and loses at an impressive rate. However, if you do detailed searches on those 90 mans an odd statistic is seen. She had considerably more first place finishes than ANY other position at the final table. Which is odd, shes brutally bad (sorry mom). I will say that I in no ways ever thought or think any poker site is rigged for anyone. All sites were beatable. The best players win the money, I just think FTP had a boom switch and doom switch I suppose but nothing was aimed at anyone specifically (I guess the claim would be fish gotta eat too to want to keep playing, fate was given artificially on FTP sometimes, I say this as someone who won a good chunk of money on there over my life)
Ok back to having 1,061$ in my account after a big downer on there. Havent cashed any MTT of substance in a while. I dont play much cash on there. Its Monday and I register the 1k Monday. Usually a 300-400 player field.
I remember nothing of the early tourney or even mid tourney but I remember a couple hands from the final table. (Yea I register for total account balance and FT)
6 or 7 handed and I had been card dead, blinding away. I open rip KQhh in early for like 10bb and guy behind rips his 20bb and a big stack jams over that. So we are all in 3 ways.
All three hands shown are my KQhh, the guy behind me has 99ds and the guy behind him has JJhd
Flop animations spread out 2s 3s 9x
Gooooood game me.
Turn 10s
Oh hey I have one out now!
River Jc
Oh hey I hit a one outer!
And just like that I am 30~ bb deep and back in the mix. The 99 busted so I jump a level too.
I have a friend who plays for a living who railed that FT who still brings that hand up. Wont ever forget that hand I dont think, just absurdly dead on flop.
We get down to 3 handed and I open button with J8cc bb defends get a J high flop and I end up stacking my 20bb~ to J9 for 3rd place. Was 39k. Not bad result for case money. I remember sending pic of my account balance to a friend after registering and it was like 89 cents or something.
Some time after that my FTP account crossed over 100k but I dont recall how. I think I had a bit of a cash heater and some marginal scores in MTTs along with trading money from other sites. Just remember having 100k on two different sites which I thought was cool as every dime I ever made from poker stemmed from selling playchips on Stars years earlier.
Pretty late in 09 I move into a nice apartment and for the first time in my life buy a nice vehicle. I was driving the same truck I had in highschool (a 98 ford f150 extended cab with 300,000 miles on it with original motor) and needed a new one badly. So i buy a 2007 F150 loaded up with every feature available (was still a used truck) for 25,000$. This was the moment I felt I had made it to be honest. It felt really good making that purchase. I squander money at the bars (a trip to the bar never cost less than 500$ buying shots and shit. My friends were all day laborers basically so I gladly bought round after round of shots, wasnt really showing off I just wanted to have a good time) and on stupid stuff like RC airplanes that I wreck first flight, telescopes, hockey gear etc but I never bought anything that made me flashier, this truck was the first purchase that did that.
Late in 09 I am at a local casino on the weekend of a 1600$ mtt. Get hammered drunk (live poker was still just a vacation for me) and lose like 10k. The next day I play that MTT. Bag. The next day we come back and I go on a tear and make FT as chip leader. Continue that tear literally making zero mistakes, everything I did was right. Obviously ran well as thats how you do everything right, but I made a few good folds a few 3b/4b/5b with air that were successful, just everything lined up. I win 80k which made me feel better about the 10k I fucked off on that Friday. It remains the only MTT score live of over 25k. I dont play a ton of them, just when they are local and I skip plenty. Id prefer to just play cash forever where I get no tax forms. After this tournament I am at my peak roll basically. I am just shy of a 400k roll when I peak. Had I been disciplined with my money and put more hours in earlier who knows where I would have been. I would guess at this point in my life I had made 700k playing poker, I spent stupid amounts of money had a few pit spews just was reckless in general.
2010 starts off with a trip down under. Aussie Millions is where I was headed. I had won a seat on Carbon. I pack a bag, grab 25,000 in cash, head to the airport and am on my way.
Flying to Australia is a bit of a trip. My flight route went Tulsa to Denver to LAX then to Melbourne. I departed LAX at 10PM on Thursday to show up in Melbourne early Saturday around 9AM. 17~ hour flight and from Oklahoma a 17 hour time difference, forward. Lose a day and a half on that flight. I had taken a few xanax with me for the long flight and had a drink or two right as the flight took off and passed out. I was sitting in a row of 3 seats on the right side of the plane next to a good looking young Australian couple who were headed back from an American vacation. I had the aisle seat (there was a ton of leg room though) and I literally fall asleep an hour ish into flight and wake up at a later time. My contacts were stuck to my eyes from the sleep, could barely open my eyes and I look over and ask them how far out we were. They said “the captain just came on and said were about half an hour out”. Sweet... I slept for like 15 fucking hours, yay xanax, the first time ever drinking and xanax ever did me any good.
I get to my hotel which is a block or two from the Crown Casino and I walk down to take a look. A couple 5-10 seats were open and I hand them some cash and they say I have to exchange for Aussie Dollars. This was right after the recession and the exchange rate at that time was strong for Australia. I think they were 93 cents on the dollar.
I play some cash for a few days. I drink excessively every day. One day at a 10-20 game I am at the table with LuckyChewy BalugaWhale and several other studs (they have zero clue who I am nor need they know) but my drunken self tries to set up a prop bet. I wanna bet 5000$ that I can have a cocktail every half hour for 12 hours and book a win in the game we were at. No one wanted it (I was drunk and they likely wanted me to leave them alone, they were all buddies it seemed).
So my bad ass self decides to just do it anyways. About 6-7 hours in I am pretty fucking drunk and up like 12-13k and my 14-15k stack was made involving 9 1,000$ chips. I remember getting bored of the game that had turned nitty and started putting those 9k chips in without looking. Did it back to back hands and no one called. The third hand I look at AJo and rip the 9 1k chips in the pot again (I kinda remember thinking that this was a value rip after the previous two hands. As if someone would just pile in A8 lol) and a guy with 6-7k calls off. He has QQ and holds.
This session that I was up 12,000~ ends up felting my cash for the trip. Literally go from 12k winner to 20k loser (I was down 5k on trip from playing the 5k HU tourney).
Fortunately for me my aunt was flying down with her girlfriend (yea shes a lesbian) in two days so I called my sister had her get 25k out of my safe give it to my aunt and she would bring me some cash. The next two days I play online in my hotel room. My aunt shows up a couple days later and were back in action!
I end up drinking relentlessly and losing most of that 25k. I busted the 10k main level one barreling three streets with air. I played excellent in Australia to say the least. Probably some of the least disciplined behavior I have ever exhibited. I was in one of the most unique countries on earth for 15 days and never made it more than a mile from the casino and the only reason I made it a mile was I met up with some chick who was an exchange student at my highschool and was from Melbourne (dont worry she wasnt cute). (As a matter of fact I was highly disappointed with the quality of the women in Melbourne).
The only other things worth telling from that trip was escorts were legal, I am pretty sure the strip clubs didnt allow you to tip money to girl on stage (only buy dances) and you couldnt tip the poker dealers. A funny story about the escorts. I hire one one night. I had done this in Vegas a time or two but was always shitfaced when I had done it. I do it sober in Australia. She meets me and I am thinking what the fuck am I doing. Was weird for me. Barely mess around (brief bj was peak) and I am like I cant do this. I felt bad about paying for sex. So I give her 800$ for nothing basically. Just weirded me out knowing how bad that life is. Drunk me would never had a second thought, but sober me did.
I head home stuck 45k or something. Was a bad trip to say the least. This is about the point where things start trending down for me. Im not long after having a 400k roll (I am still near that at this point) and having a massive year (2009 I won over 250k) but some future events will set in motion my downfall, and not hard to predict Black Friday will be part of it. Will post next one soon.

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