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Wrestling Observer 15/11
Mostly on Tough Enough and the Roster Cuts.
The ax fell this week on ten WWE under-card wrestlers, with rumors of a few more on the way.
Andrew Martin (Test), Matt Bloom (A-Train), Monty Sopp (Billy Gunn), Nidia Guenard, Carli Begnaud (Jazz), Rodney Begnaud (Rodney Mack), Gail Kim, Jon Hugger (Johnny Stamboli), Rico Costantino, Desmond Thompson (Lamont), and Chuck Palumbo were on the list that decimated the women's division and the Heat roster in particular.
We've been told the cuts are not so much financial as that none of the wrestlers on the list were over, nor were they going to get over. The roster is stale, and this is a way to open the doors for new, fresh talent. A few of the wrestlers, most likely Gunn and Test, because they have been around for so long and got contracts during the boom period, probably had significant downside guarantees in the $200,000 range. But I'd suspect, based on new contracts, most on the list were getting less than $ 100,000 downside. Since most were not going on the road full-time (which at this point mostly means $500 per night unless it's an overseas tour, doing anywhere from five-to-sixteen nights per month), they likely would be earning high five to very low six figures.
However, others have said the cuts were largely due to the under performance of the recent PPV shows, the company's leading revenue source, plus the realization that house show numbers are not going to increase. In order to maintain profitability at the house shows, it appears they are going to book fewer people on the shows, with less four-way tags and more singles matches. They had already cut way back on taking the top developmental talent on the road, which is a learning experience of working in front of crowds of at least a few thousand every night who don't know who you are as opposed to one hundred people close to the situation who practically know you in Louisville. From this week's tapings, it appears the decimated Heat show will use contracted wrestlers against local jobbers, instead of other contracted wrestlers.
The women cuts come as no surprise since Vince McMahon had already talked of hiring some of the cut divas from the Diva Search. However, the cutting of women wrestlers for non-wrestlers shows the company doesn't believe in the women's division, which is now limited to an endless cycle of Trish Stratus and Molly Holly as heels and Victoria and Lita as babyfaces, with Stacy Keibler thrown in, and most likely, frequent turns to freshen things up that will ultimately kill most of them over the long haul. It was only a few months ago when the women's match on Monday night was often stealing the show, but due to the repetitive nature and lack of depth, it was bound to get stale.
The cutting of Kim, 28, was the second-most criticized both in and out of the company (firing Test, because he still had nine months of rehab left after neck surgery was the most controversial), both because she works hard in the ring, does lots of unique submission moves, and is very pretty. Her downfall is that she is "cold" in front of the camera as a heel, and was criticized for lacking personality. Ironically, when she first came to WWE as an unknown working house shows, she got over as a babyface strong with her personality. The feeling was with her highflying moves, cuteness, submissions, and perfect gymnastics like body, she was totally miscast as a heel and as a garden variety s**t when she could have had a unique personality among the women. It was also a surprise since the San Francisco Chronicle had just one week done a major feature on her as one of the country's five most famous women athletes of Korean heritage.
The cutting of Kim also exposed just how little time was put into the decision. The idea it was a thought out process was exposed when Kim was put in an angle on the 11/2 Raw show, where she helped Stratus in a beat down of Lita. She was given a new ring outfit, with a more conservative top, but working in an ultra short skirt instead of the jeans pants, with the idea of it being more conducive to do panty shots instead of boob shots. That alone is a sad statement considering it is clear how hard she's worked learning new moves and studying Toryumon tapes, an extra mile virtually none of the locker room has gone. She was cut two days later, exposing any thought process on these cuts was less than two days as if they had considered cutting her, they would have never done an angle with her two days earlier on Raw. Worse, there is no way any rational human can explain cutting Kim and not cutting Linda Miles, who likely has a higher contract (the Tough Enough deals for winners came with staggered annual raises each year built in) and isn't even being used in developmental. (Note from S_D: This was obviously written before Miles was announced as bring fired.)
Test, 29, did have heat over personal life issues and hadn't been highly regarded internally for a long time. Because of his size and look, Japan does have interest in him, but the problem is this comes at a time when there are few spots open to foreigners that pay anything. I could see TNA going for him, but he'll come with the tag WWE reject and he doesn't work the style of most of the promotion, and even though he has size, his star power can't hang with the useless in-ring workers the company is collecting.
A-Train, 32, was a good worker for his size, but lacked charisma, and his size couldn't be his gimmick in a company that already had too many big men. Like with Test, many attempts to push him had failed. He was well liked generally, but after the switch from Smackdown to Raw that was supposed to revitalize him, he was instead buried and never used. He only appeared on RAW once since the trade, being defeated easily by Chris Jericho. His issues with Japan are the same as Test's.
Gunn, 41, has had his run. He's been repackaged a million times with the same non-result. He has name recognition, but is beyond stale, and not a good worker. I can see TNA taking him with the idea of reviving the New Age Outlaws, although reports he had signed a contract are not true. I wouldn't recommend it, though. He's also at a point, between his age, training methods, and years in the ring, where his body is going to continue to break down due to injuries on a regular basis.
Nidia, 25, was really good in her role as Jamie Noble's girlfriend, but her career fell apart as they needlessly broke the act up and had no idea where to go with either after the feud. As a wrestler, she tries. She's short, and with her overdone boob job, it makes her look fat, particularly next to mostly thin women. She also becomes the first Tough Enough winner to be fired.
Jazz, 30, was the unique woman performer in that she looked athletic, heavily muscled, and was not in any way traditionally sexy. Her character was portrayed as the bad-ass among the women, but it's been clear for months it wasn't a character they had any plans for. She never fit into their idea of a woman wrestler even though she had a good feud with Stratus at one point.
The sad part about Rodney is you have both husband and wife being fired from their jobs on the same day. At 32, he wasn't young. The only time he showed charisma was in OVW when he was doing a complete replica of his childhood idol, JYD. They weren't doing anything with him and he'd been around long enough that there was little chance he was going to ever mean much. He was brought in to basically be a cheaper version of D-Lo Brown, whom when he was fired, Rodney came in and stepped right into the angle he was in the middle of.
Stamboli, 27, quite frankly is a miracle he lasted as long as he did without facing the ax. He had nothing going for him except a physique. He survived the cuts of much of the ex-WCW talent that was trained at the Power Plant that WWE thought had been poorly trained (ironic now with the decision to go with Jody Hamilton as a new trainer for a Georgia territory), who were better workers or had more personality like Sean O'Haire and Rick Cornell (Reno). The only question is timing. The FBI gimmick got over shockingly huge on the recent European tour, even though it's never been seriously pushed. But it just goes to prove the axiom that it doesn't matter if you get over big at house shows, because in WWE in most cases they've already decided your slot and good work in the slot rarely brings you to the next slot as much as improving your body does. If you're looking for similarities in talent losing enthusiasm like WWE, this is it.
That actually relates more to Costantino. Rico, given an embarrassing gimmick from day one, made the most of every bad situation he was put in. He almost always got over beyond his level at house shows. But he became the odd man out. The gimmick of the gay guy having this hot chick that he's obviously doing nothing with, and this straight man having the hots for her on the side, was ruined when they created an angle out of the real life engagement of Charlie Haas and Jackie Gayda. Between that, and being 43, he was the highest profile wrestler cut. His age had always worked against him from his first day in WWE camp. Ironically, he was one of the fastest to improve in OVW, where he was a bigger star and more over in that promotion that virtually everyone, including Brock Lesnar, who were brought in to WWE and given all the chances.
Palumbo, 33, also shows how little long-term is thought about, since he had just debuted his new "Custom Chucky P character. Palumbo was tall and muscular, as well as good looking, basically everything they like. He was coordinated, and decent enough athletically. But he never improved and had a rep for being someone who didn't pay attention in the ring. For a guy who looks like him to not make it in WWE, particularly since he appeared to have future superstar written all over him four years ago, shows a real lack of something. He had a lot of heat in the Smackdown locker room for non-wrestling related issues (not drugs), and was buried when he was switched to RAW.
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Tough Enough, after two weeks of unscripted stuff with two wrestlers, has ended up with two furious wrestlers with the position they were put in and what will go down as one of the more famous one minute periods in modern pro wrestling history.
On 10/26 in Omaha, Big Show was really mad last week because the guys weren't selling his slams, due to the fact nobody had taught most of them the art of selling yet, nor had anyone told them ahead of time to do so, since the idea was everything on the "Tough Enough" segments is supposed to be a swerve on the guys. Show was also not particularly keen on going out for the second segment where he was to slam the guys, and several internally said he was complaining that night in the dressing room about the unpredictability of having to intimidate some big guys. One course said it was the two big unknowns, Justice Smith and Dan Rodimer, who were almost as big as he was, and in far better shape than he was, and he had no idea of their background or what they'd do when pushed, in particular because Show tried to intimidate Rodimer in the dressing room, and he laughed in his face. Show then went to the smallest guy in his sight (ironically Daniel Puder) to try to intimidate the guys. Another person there concurred Show was complaining, and didn't want to go out to the ring, but said it was due to Puder. He threw him into the lockers, but that was with a locker room full of wrestlers, no fans watching (so it could have been edited out), and with knowledge the trainees were told not to fight back. But the trainees were also told ahead of time that no matter what the wrestlers said, nobody would do anything physical to them, so their guards were down by being lied to. In the ring, there wouldn't be that luxury net and there would be seven guys and only him in there. The person there who said Show's complaining about going out was directed at Puder, saying he didn't think it was a good idea because he had just thrown the guy into the lockers and Show said, "That one boy knows what he's doing." As it turned out, he came out and put on a good enough show or bluff and seemed to have almost everyone intimidated. Nobody was uncooperative in the least with Show, although Rodimer, when Show tried to intimidate him, went nose-to-nose with him, which got a lot of heat from the audience. After Show slammed him, Show still dropped a knee hard on Rodimer's sternum when Rodimer was wide open.
On 11/2 in St. Louis, we came a few seconds away from having the Steve Williams-Bart Gunn finish. Quite frankly, and I was actually almost ready to cry watching this, because you could see that if exactly what they didn't want to happen actually did, they'd have created a new star in one night, and had everyone who watched the show intrigued because they'd want to know if it was real or wasn't (it was totally real by the way, but when it comes to business, that's immaterial).
I've heard from a few people internally, and there are those who recognized it, but I think most, because they only think within the grain, didn't see it then and even after all the talk still didn't understand it. It was said the two strongest on the idea of addressing and pushing the situation hard during the show were Paul Heyman and Tazz. It's so frustrating watching a company going down have something controversial and that people were talking about handed to them, and then miss the boat.
It was a 42-second shoot with Angle and Tough Enough contestant Daniel Puder. They had the guys train all day to kill their legs, eat a big meal of pasta and milk to set up a few guys puking (they aired one guy puking on the air, but more than one did). Then they had them in the ring and Angle was browbeating them, saying they weren't Tough Enough and acting all military sergeant in their face. Angle looked like a midget, because he's 510 and the smallest Tough Enough guy is Mike the Miz, and he's more than 6 and most were 63 and up. It was a weird visual because one of their top stars was looking so small against the giants that were recruited, and I can't believe they even let that happen. But you can see how little these things are being thought through nowadays by what happened next, and really, by so much of what has been happening in the company of late.
Angle told Nick Mitchell, "I'll punch your face in. I'll make you dizzy. I'll knock you out," largely doing the drill sergeant role scripted for him to do, and then pie-faced Mitchell. Angle then told Justice Smith, "I didn't know they could stack crap that high." For Angle (or Brian Gewirtz, if he was the one scripting this) to be stealing a line from Mitchell that Mitchell had just done on the same show the week before wow, was that bad. When he got to Puder, Angle said in a bully tone, both again no doubt doing what he was told, "Oh yeah, you're the UFC guy. You ever fight an Olympic champion?" Puder said, "No, sir." Angle said, "You don't want to because I'll beat your ass. You'd better pray you don't make it, boy."
They had all the guys do squat thrusts and were eliminating them as they started gassing. Justice Smith, a favorite because of his size, was the first to gas, as known by those who have followed the contest, but this time the fans saw it for themselves. It came down to Puder, who didn't seem to tire a bit, and Chris Nawrocki. Nawrocki was dying, drenched in sweat. And then they eliminated Puder, which everyone saw was weird and the crowd booed heavily. The story was that John Laurinaitis on the headsets told the ref to get rid of the blond guy, but he meant Nawrocki. The ref kicked out the wrong blond guy. It would have made a funnier story if Laurinaitis was the one in the ring getting orders from Vince, but this will have to do.
One person backstage said that more important from a business standpoint than what happened with Angle and Puder in their shoot was the crowd reaction when Puder was eliminated. He said he saw immediately they had a star because of how the crowd took to Puder and how much they are booing over a meaningless squat thrust contest. Others watching pointed to the spot where Puder raised his hand to volunteer to face Angle as when he got over. The live crowd was said to have been furious by Puder's elimination because they thought he was being screwed. There was said to have been a decision by either Vince McMahon or Kevin Dunn to turn down the sound for the television airing to make it less noticeable. It was also said that in the ring when they squared off, they also toned down the audio and the UFC chants in particular were far louder live than they came across on television. Watching the tape, you can sense the spots the audio was turned down, most noticeably after the bogus pinfall, as the crowd noise was way down and even then you could hear loud booing and small "bullshit" chants. Instead of recognizing this as something hot stumbled onto, it appeared to be a fear that a "UFC guy" was getting over in a WWE ring. Puder has never fought in UFC, nor claimed to have, but did use the term "Ultimate Fighter" as the generic term for an MMA fighter. When Angle addressed while he was trying to intimidate everyone, he called him "UFC guy," which led to the loud "UFC" chants during the match.
Others were critical of Laurinaitis calling to eliminate "the blonde guy," because he should have said the name Puder or Nawrocki, and some questioned if he even knew their names even though he was the agent producing that segment. Vince was also on the headsets at the time and he was said to have been steaming mad because the scripted plan of Angle wrestling more than one guy was falling apart.
Nawrocki was totally dead, not that it would have made much of a difference since he clearly had never wrestled. It took Angle all of three seconds to get the dead Nawrocki down, who quickly grabbed the ropes. They were reset in the center, Angle got him down immediately, turned him over, including a brief crossface, and pinned him easily in 26 seconds.
Nawrocki ended up in the hospital with a broken rib, although I didn't see Angle doing anything deliberately to hurt him, he certainly wasn't going easy on him and was shooting on basically a defenseless guy who was all blown up, and had zero skill. In Angle's defense, it was what he was told to do for the segment. He then was brow beating everyone and said, "Does anyone else want to wrestle me?" Puder raised his hand while everyone else backed down. My sense was it was at that moment they had something.
The crowd was buzzing when they got in the ring. Puder blocked his takedown for a few seconds and the crowd was pretty strong with "UFC" chants. They believed it was real and unlike the Brawl For All, were intrigued by it.
Puder, who was coached in wrestling by Danny Chaid, the same Danny Chaid that Kurt Angle beat in the finals of the 1996 Olympic trials for the spot in the 220 pound weight class (and you can imagine the writers pulling their hair out over the potential of playing that into the angle), has trained for years with the AKA team in San Jose, one of the top MMA teams in the world. He was coached in submissions for years by Frank Shamrock. Puder has only had four fights, is 4-0 with three knockout wins, but all but one were on very small shows and he's faced no high-profile fighters. The book on him is great athletic ability with his fighting strength being his base in wrestling. He had an excellent record in high school as the 2000 Central California champion at 215 pounds, and was a good enough prospect in that sport that he was recruited by the University of Oklahoma, which when it comes to college wrestling, is the big tune. Puder had a good record for one year at Menlo College before giving up the sport. He's also strong on submissions, has good cardio and suspect stand-up (although three knockout wins would seem to contradict that; he has done amateur boxing and did not excel at that). Puder was Shamrock's training partner for the Tito Ortiz fight and is the guy Shamrock worked with in his line of training videos. I've heard stories where he's eaten alive, in training, a few low level Pride and UFC fighters, through his being coached by former New Japan wrestler Brian Johnston, who also trains many of the Japanese fighters. Puder's wrestling ability is good enough that in training, he was, within the last year, able to handle easily Shinsuke Nakamura in training when Nakamura trained in San Jose for one of the Alexey Ignashov fights, although training and fights are two different things and his fighting experience is limited.
Angle was struggling for the take down, got Puder in a front headlock and leaned on him, but Puder popped his head out to escape. They were struggling with Angle trying hard for a takedown, knowing he was in a real battle, and Puder trying mainly to defend, before going for a Kimura. At the 36 second mark, he had the Kimura locked in. People may say differently, but Angle was toast. He'd have had his shoulder ripped out if Puder had put full pressure on, which he didn't, because he likely figured he'd be out for hurting a star. Puder went on his back in a half guard, but kept the hold on and did make sure Angle couldn't get out of it, and Angle was done. Jimmy Korderas then counted a fast three count on Puder, even though he had one shoulder clearly up (both shoulders did touch at one point, so if you're scoring this by touch fall amateur rules, he was pinned even though he was in full control of Angle with the Kimura, but by pro three second rules, he was not). It was a panic move by Korderas, and for that matter, the company itself, to save Angle, thinking this was about to be a major embarrassment to pro wrestling. In a sense, given their mind set, they were very lucky. In that position, and with that hold, doing a sweep would be relatively easy (tempered by he fact Angle's balance on top would be nothing Puder was used to dealing with, but Puder was the one in control at that point), and Puder on top for a pin would have made the higher-ups want to shoot themselves with the mentality they had at that moment. Korderas was given the word on his earpiece by Gerald Brisco, an ex-college wrestler at Oklahoma State, who was the first guy on the headsets to recognize immediately when Angle was checkmated, to count to three immediately and get out of this, before most others had any idea something was wrong. Laurinaitis also understood, and one source said was in a visible panic in fear of what Vince's reaction would be to this.
What they didn't realize is it would have been the opposite, as they'd have created the biggest wrestling news story in a long time and a controversy that would have been huge. But, it's easy to say that with 20/20 hindsight. Even without that happening, and the tap would have been gigantic, by portraying it as exactly what it was to fans on the TV show in commentary, they still had what would have been the most talked about thing in wrestling in months, because of the same Hart-McMahon furor over who was right, what was and wasn't real, and if it was a brilliant work or something real on TV. In fact, my wife, watching the bogus three count's first reaction was, "Oh my God, this is going to be like that match in Montreal." I didn't even think it would be any big deal because without a somewhat trained eye, the footage on TV was not all that spectacular and the commentary buried what it was. As it turned out, at our local high school, according to my brother-in-law, for the first time since the Rock & Eugene angle, WWE wrestling was a significant topic of conversation at school, as the wrestling team members (one of which was him) were going crazy about what they'd seen on WWE, and all saw it as Puder schooling Angle and the big bad wolves screwing him.
Angle, like most of the top WWE talent, is cold as hell right now. Anything to get him in a program or a controversy people care about is a plus for him. A lot of people thought if Angle tapped, it would have killed his career and made WWE look bad because an unknown fighter tapped their big Olympic star. This was said to have been the strong belief of McMahon and Dunn, and they expressed that belief to where almost everyone in power agreed with them and the consensus of the agents was that they avoided something terrible. Most of those we've contacted about it in the company expressed a totally different viewpoint.
But, the only difference being this was a shoot, and in reality, it doesn't matter as an angle, no matter whether real or not, when airing on a pro wrestling TV show, becomes storyline. This is almost the exact angle that Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat did in the late-70s on Mid Atlantic TV, except Flair lost cleanly to the unknown. Steamboat, at the time a nice-looking guy, great natural athlete, good body, who at the time couldn't act or do a promo to save his life, had little pro wrestling experience and no name in the business. That angle alone turned him into an instant territorial superstar. And in losing to the unknown, it made Flair a bigger star because the Flair losing to an unknown was so shocking and the program caught on. Now, this isn't to say this would turn into one of wrestling's all-time legendary feuds, although its origins would make it a legendary story, because what George Scott and Mid Atlantic hoped for came true, that this green unknown guy turned into one of the greatest workers who ever lived, and odds of that here are about the same as shooting a hole in one. In that instance, Scott and Flair were either lucky as hell, or had a great eye for undeveloped talent. It was probably a little bit of both. Puder is a long way from being ready to do a pro wrestling match, but he's already a far better promo than Steamboat was at that point in time (although it's doubtful he has the potential on promos to equal the promo potential Maven showed that got him over on the first "Tough Enough.") Timing is everything in this business, and anyone with experience in wrestling seeing Maven come out of "Tough Enough" and seeing Maven today can tell you about lucking into something hot, squashing it, then figuring it out after it was squashed, and then going with it. The moment was gone forever. Every attempt to resurrect it is doomed to failure, like this current one is. Of course, today is much harder than even three years ago to do this because popularity is lower so creating new stars is harder. Maven had something like 13 weeks of training when he had his first match on Smackdown against Tazz, and people were behind him huge right out of the chute. A few years later, even though he's being pushed this week in one of those pushes that will likely be dropped in a few weeks when it doesn't take, internally, many consider Maven a flop.
It has to be a cleverly written TV program, and they'd have to do it with smoke and mirrors, with one of the guys being so green. They couldn't have them do a standard pro wrestling match next week, or for a few months, if ever. But that's just as well, because the longer you build something up without having a match, the better off it is. Before writing off the idea because of his inexperience, Heyman, said to be a huge backer right now of pushing Puder and the controversy of the match, is on their writing staff, and he made Johnny Grunge a short term major star to where people thought he was half of the best tag team in the United States, and made 911 a cult hero, and I'd be shocked if two months from now, Puder isn't a lot better in the ring than Johnny Grunge or 911 ever were combined. The entire JYD phenomenon was built on charisma and very careful booking to cover up that the guy selling all the tickets actually had almost no ability. Phrases like "JYD doesn't get paid by the hour," by Bill Watts made his 90 second squash wins where he did little more than dance to the ring, howl, and hit a powerslam, into one of the great regional draws of the past 25 years. Although Eric Bischoff had no clue how JYD got over, the same strategy worked in covering up Bill Goldberg for more than one year. Booking wrestling has always been about having an eye for stars and then figuring out their strengths, accentuating them, knowing their weaknesses, and making sure the people don't see them. Modern WWE has been, for reasons I've never been able to figure, about accentuating everyone's weaknesses and making sure the public sees them, and then using those weaknesses to explain why they can't get over. There are those who point the finger for this problem at HHH, because he's the one who keeps pushing on Vince that the guys on top have to be guys "who can do it all." But the bottom line is, for every Ric Flair who could "do it all" and was a marketable headliner (and Flair on top got stale as a draw numerous times during his career even when he was at his peak as a worker), there are Hulk Hogans and JYDs and Crushers who got over every bit as big, and stayed strong as draws for years because they who were protected by promoters from exposing what they couldn't do. This has also been blamed on agents not fighting hard enough to not let the fans see people's weaknesses.
Great working has always been about that as well. Plenty of people had less training than Puder would have two to four months from now, and were far worse athletes, who did just fine when carried by good workers. Wrestling has a long history of using virtually untrained NFL players as local drawing cards. The general consensus of opinion is that once Puder is established as a pro wrestler, the interest in this specific angle will be minimal, and it has to be done right now, and in a different style, with no pro wrestling moves, similar to the Naoya Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto second program in Japan or the original Don Frye pro wrestling style. Of course this may flop, as every experiment runs that chance, but it sure didn't flop to the live crowd in St. Louis. But the most important lesson in wrestling booking is, "What works works." You can make an argument for anyone or anything not being able to work, but if there can be interest created in something, or there inherently already is, or is working despite your arguments, you make sure and figure out why it's working and learn from it as well as try and keep it going. If something is working and you spend time convincing yourself why it won't work, then you miss the entire point. Very little the company has done in the past few years has touched any kind of a nerve or had any legitimate intrigue. If you sense it does and the time is right, and sometimes things are handed to you, you go with it and hide the flaws. Not only that, but there is a solid chance this guy is getting, rightly or wrongly, a $1 million contract (he seems to be the clear internal favorite, but there is still the situation that Mike the Miz is going to get a ton of votes because he's a known TV star). If that's the case, you'd at least want to do something that at least attempts to make it less of a waste than what will be the less than trivial one-year career of one of the higher paid women performers in history, Christy Hemme.
Then again, considering the potentially heated Bob Holly vs. Matt Cappotelli feud, which could have made Holly into a high middle heel instead of a floundering face, and made Cappotelli into a young star, they also didn't do, so nobody should be surprised. That came from a total chickenshit move by the wrestler which was also "real." Jim Cornette booked a short program out of it, and had it turn into a match with among the most interest as he's booked in the past few years and Holly was good enough and more, the issue was so strong, that they had a hell of a heated few matches, including a great TV match. In that case, there was a major downside. Holly was out for months recovering from neck surgery when the real momentum would have been there, but I'm guessing even if he wasn't, they'd have dropped the ball on an easy one. But they still could have done it later, as Cornette did. Holly came back as a babyface because they had no opponent for Lesnar for the Rumble (well, there were other ideas pitched, but Holly was the one decided on). I can understand because at the time that was far more important, and he did have a natural storyline mere, even though it didn't quite take as people dont buy Holly as a WWE Title contender (it probably would have taken more to the fans if the WWE Title wasnt involved). But he hasn't meant crap as far as being in any program since. They never turned him, and now it's way too late because everyone has forgotten it. The other point is Holly came out of that with the whole world believing he was "really" a heel, and he was one of the few of whom they would believe it, because of what they'd seen, and that's hard to pull off these days.
Angle, with his ego bruised, was pissed, and refused to shake Puder's hand (although he was playing bad guy and may have done that anyway), and whispered to him this was the entertainment business and it's not about hurting people (ironic since he had just hurt someone who had to be hospitalized and it was questionable at the time if Nawrocki would be able to continue in the competition from his broken rib), and that they were doing a wrestling match. "Don't you know any better? It's not a f**king UFC match. It's an amateur wrestling contest." A lot have used this logic to defend Angle, whose real defense is he should have never been put in that position untrained and injured in the first place. But it doesn't hold up. It was, quite frankly, never specified what exactly they were doing. Nawrocki got a rope break, which doesn't exist in amateur wrestling. Angle was brutalizing Nawrocki with a quick crossface, threatening to punch out Mitchell, even if in character, and his comment to Puder was "have you ever fought (not wrestled) an Olympic champion." Angle continued, "Stay off your back. Are you stupid? Are you f**king stupid? Alright, well, better luck next time and get out of my face." When Korderas was counting three, in the background you can see Charles Robinson indicating to Korderas that Puder had his shoulder up. Apparently, Puder had already asked one of the two ref if he could do submissions and been told they were okay. Trainers had been bullying and hurting students on "Tough Enough" and at wrestling schools in these situations forever. This will probably end up going down in wrestling lore like the stories of when Stu Hart would torture people in the dungeon, and then, a great athlete named Luther Lindsay reversed the tables on Stu (and who knows how true this is after 50 years), or when Dick Hutton, an amateur wrestler of similar credentials to Angle, was sleeping in a dressing room and a tough ref shooter type gave him a hot foot (lighting his foot on fire) as a prank. When Hutton woke up, he charged at the guy who did it, without thinking, and left himself open for a guillotine and was choked out. At the time, everyone in wrestling was scared to death of Hutton and nobody ever challenged him. And while he was always respected, he was never looked at by the wrestlers with quite the same awe again. Another famous story like this, but with the roles reversed, involved Lou Thesz when he was NWA champion in the early 50s when he was a fairly major television star and something of a mainstream sports figure in our culture.
Prior to a big show in Buffalo, for publicity, he was training with the University of Buffalo wrestling team with television news cameras covering it. He was goaded into a one-on-one session with their heavyweight, Don Beitleman (who later would become a major pro wrestling star as Don Curtis, and in later life, became one of Thesz' closest friends). Beitleman took Thesz down and put him on his back. Strangler Lewis, who was Thesz' manager, and was virtually blind by that time, couldn't see what happened, but sensed something was very wrong, and the 260-pound man staggered like he mistakenly got in the way of the TV camera. Thesz ended up catching Beitleman in a top wristlock, and Beitleman screamed in pain, ending the match. A shouting match ensued because the college wrestling people, looking at embarrassing the pro champion, screamed the move was illegal. Thesz responded, "Maybe in your rules, but not in mine." While I doubt Thesz did many workouts with college wrestling teams after that, the end result solidified Thesz' standing as the right guy to have the belt, because of how he got out of the jam.
What was interesting is that I don't think anyone live, and 98% of wrestling fans watching, really saw fully what happened, but it all took place in a 42 second period. The crowd live came alive big-time when the two locked up, more because they could see Puder genuinely blocking Angle for a few seconds before going down, but the rest happened so quickly that without either MMA knowledge or announcers commentary explaining it, it was too deep for them, other than the recognition of the fast count and Puder's shoulder getting up before the three.
While Tazz did call the Kimura a keylock, he never acted like Angle was in trouble and when it was over, totally blew Puder off, saying, "Well, so much for UFC," just implying Angle pinned him quick and Puder was no competition. "Well, so much for UFC," was said to have been a line fed to Tazz to say on his headsets, I believe from Vince himself.
However, on the MMA boards, this was huge. In fact, it was probably the biggest topic of discussion of 2004, with more different threads, different takes, and more responses to the threads then any topic I've ever seen. Just one of the literally dozens of threads on the sherdog.com site, probably the most popular MMA gossip site, had more than 800 responses and 27,500 views within days, when the biggest MMA stories of the year usually top out at 2-3 threads with 200 responses max on the big one. Everyone, particularly those who had trained in submissions or had watched a lot of fights, realized that an unknown fighter had embarrassed Angle on Smackdown and had he wanted to, he could have torn his shoulder out, although nobody could figure out why it aired, since it was a taped show. Without seeing it in context, many thought they were doing a pro wrestling match and suddenly Puder had double-crossed Angle, like the Rikidozan and Masahiko Kimura (whom the Kimura moved was named after since he popularized it in his days as a judo world champion) match. Others didn't care how Puder did it, thinking it was this wet dream of a fake wrestling superstar getting the revenge from the insecure world of real hating popular fakers. Others thought it had to be a brilliant work by McMahon to create a new superstar. Many of them who idolized Angle believed it had to have been a work, because there is no way some "no-name MMA fighter" could stop his takedown. Most who saw it recognized what it was as far as being a shoot, but it got so crazy we had arguments as to whether a shoot under pro wrestling rules would have submissions legal.
After it was over, Angle was furious in the locker room, trying to say it wasn't supposed to be a submission deal. He was also mad at management because he was given no advance notice over what he was supposed to do, so it wasn't as if he'd been training, even for a week, to get ready to do shooting. In addition, the writers (well, writer, as the idea for the segment was said to be largely Brian Gewirtz) who put him in that situation may not have realized Angle's neck was thrashed from an injury two days earlier. Gewirtz, who has no athletic background, would have had no concept about the difference between great pro wrestling shape by a shooter, and being in shape to do a shoot against a real competitor. The way the segment was scripted, Angle was supposed to both stretch (and yes, that means using torture holds) and pin several guys. It was stopped at two, both because everyone else had backed down, and because Angle himself called an audible because he was hurt. After calming down, Angle expressed interest in also turning it into a major angle, but the company wasn't interested.
Everyone at this point was aware of Puder's background, and when this segment was put together, I was told there was a backstage expectation Puder was probably going to win the squat thrust drill to begin with because those who were close to the competition had it well established he was in the best condition of the group. Angle went out there expecting to thrash several people, but that Puder would likely be the one non-pushover, but all he knew was UFC fighter, and was totally unaware of the extent of Puder's wrestling background. Still, even with his injuries, with lead time to get back in shape, a 35-year-old Olympic gold medalist is going to beat a 23-year-old who never even had Division I experience in straight wrestling. There was some curiosity about him and Angle before it ever started. It was believed they'd have a confrontation and everyone would get a laugh out of Angle destroying him. It was also clear because Angle was not in training that he was blowing up fast in there (and he was legendary for stamina, and has the most stamina of anyone on the roster under the parameters of pro wrestling, but stamina for high level competitive shooting or wrestling is a whole different ball game). Puder was a younger guy, with no serious injuries, who was training daily for fighting before leaving for Tough Enough.
Even if Angle destroyed Puder, as expected, his condition is such that it wasn't worth the injury risk, although Angle, perhaps wanting to prove something, also expressed interest in doing a shoot match of a worked feud. Well, if Puder wins the thing, this will have been the night he won it because he broke out of the pack, as our third week poll had Puder with 57% of the vote to 20% for Mike Mizanin and 9% for Dan Rodimer, a complete turnaround. Rodimer's stock has fallen greatly as nobody internally even mentions his name anymore, but it is said to be a given if Rodimer doesn't win or quit, that he'll get a developmental contract. The feeling is it's also close to, if not a lock, Puder will as well.
There were guys backstage who thought it was hilarious, including one major star wrestler who said he thought it was one of the greatest moments ever on Smackdown, which says something, because the natural inclination among wrestlers is to be pissed if an outsider upstages one of them. Others thought it was stupid and irresponsible to put Angle in that position, which I'm guessing is the majority viewpoint with 20/20 hindsight. But the former tells you just how much the feeling has changed with some people on Angle. Many MMA fighters would have tapped before the ref saved Angle just because they knew it was locked, even though 100% full pressure wasn't being applied, although Puder could have done it at will. Angle, in that split second, since it was competitive and his mind in competition is like no other; would have very likely taken the injury rather than tapped, as he wrestled on a broken neck at Mania and in the Olympics. At his age and with his injuries and wanting career longevity, I'd temper saying I'm sure of that, although one person close to the situation said at that moment, "He (Angle) was in the zone, and he wasn't tapping."
Angle ended up with a minor shoulder injury and a jammed neck. His neck was bothering him going into this as he was whiplashed pretty bad on the 10/31 house show in Louisville. Because of being hurt, he took no bumps in Cape Girardeau the night before this. His not wrestling in a match on Smackdown was how it was scripted, and that was said to have been laid out before Angle was hurt in Louisville. He didn't miss any house shows, but at the Smackdown shows on 11/6 in Miami and 11/7 in Fort Myers, he was clearly hurt as he worked in three-on-two handicap matches, worked only about 30 seconds both nights, and again took no bumps.
There was a feeling is Puder internally "made himself with the company. However, one person internally tempered Puder being labeled the big favorite coming out of this by noting because of commentary, it was portrayed that he was punked out for the second week in a row, which could hurt him in the voting, and Mike the Miz has a huge advantage in this as a popularity contest. The feeling the opportunity to do something with this and make him a star will be blown this week if this doesn't become a TV controversy, and despite differences of opinion, those in charge are strongly against doing so. The question was if, in Corpus Christi, Puder has any momentum to the casual fan, it would only be because the audience saw through the "force feed burial" by Tazz. As it turned out, there was some support for him, but the segment involving Moolah and Mae Young was reported to be nothing short of a disaster, with the audience booing it heavily, and everyone and the entire contest coming off badly tainted. Even though Puder was, ruled the winner of the sex test, earning a lap dance from Mae Young, it was Mike the Miz who got the best reaction.
After the St. Louis episode aired, when MMA boards started going crazy with the idea a shootfighter really beat Angle on a WWE TV show, the WWE web site pulled the footage, cutting the "Tough Enough" video after Angle destroyed Nawrocki. They did that very late Thursday, and it was only after the internet furor and what they would have considered bad pub, which seems to indicate the company itself didn't understand what it was. To prove the company's reaction to all this, the footage of the Angle vs. Puder match was replaced by these words on their web site, "Angle mauled Nawrocki before taking volunteers, next pinning Daniel Puder in a slightly tougher, but still relatively easy match." Apparently, the reason it aired as is, was few in the company thought anyone would notice anything other than Angle pinning Puder because the ref counted three and Tazz called it like it was a burial, and the crowd sound was turned down enough that the boos weren't so overwhelming. And they were 98% correct. It wasn't until it became so huge on MMA boards that they saw how people were seeing this, and instead of exploiting it, got scared. It did air on the weekend" Afterburn" show, but that was because that show was put together on Thursday. That show was sent out to stations before the MMA community went so nuts on it and created the controversy, and they wouldn't have been able to pull that footage like they did on the web site. On the WWE's own web site, it also changed the Puder bio in the "Tough Enough" section to eliminate his wrestling and MMA background, and he's simply listed as a college student who owns a print company. Except for the Miz, who has no athletic background, he's the only contestant not listed with having a major sports background. On the "Tough Enough" replay segment on Raw, they went from showing the training session before the show, the pasta eating contest, the barfing, and cut then right to Torrie Wilson teasing the guys about next week, with no hint Angle had ever even been involved in the segment.
There were people pushing to do commentary that would have gotten it over as to a worked version of what the shoot was to fans and push it hard as a major angle. The argument was that no angles the company is doing are over, and there was nothing they could do that had the potential to get people talking about Smackdown as this. Without the announcers pushing it, there is no angle. One source claimed Tazz pitched as hard as he could from a position of having no booking power to have the company jump on it and play it up huge in the commentary. Vince and Dunn were adamant about not doing it and not acknowledging anything happened in commentary. No reason was given. One major star close to the situation was confused about the reaction, as Vince, when pressed by those who thought this whole $1 million "Tough Enough" thing was a dumb idea, had responded that nobody is coming into the business who is that special star who can carry the company, so he thought if he offered a million dollars, he'd find one or two. Then when it worked out better than he could have ever dreamed, because it wasn't his idea, he not only didn't want to pull the trigger, but wanted it covered up. But when it's over, he's still paying out $1 million, which is about two years worth of the entire developmental budget for OVW and all its contracted talent.
One person with experience at tons of booking meetings for a few big companies was more adamant about the potential of this one, believing with proper follow-up, it could turn into a mainstream news story, said after being in meetings for years, the mentality in almost every bookers meeting is that if it wasn't our idea to begin with, we're not going to let it work. Others closer to the situation claim that wasn't the case.
"It wasn't a pride of authorship issue," insisted someone in WWE responding to this point of view. "Vince and Kevin didn't see how potentially huge this was. All they could see was an established star was being hurt by an unknown."
Certainly, WWE, McMahon and Dunn, have become legendary for leaving millions on the table over the past three years with their handling of the Invasion, the introduction of Bill Goldberg, and the potential of an Eric Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon feud, Rob Van Dam as a top babyface, and even the potential of ECW as a cult thing to bring emotion on TV.
Another person suggested doing something would compromise the credibility of "Tough Enough," which is Dunn's baby, because doing anything out of this would kill the drama as to who would win, and the million dollar last week payoff would at that point be a formality. It is said that is also a big issue here, and Vince truly believes Tough Enough needs to be fair and balanced, and any acknowledgment of what happened would be so strong as to clinch the result of the competition six weeks early.
I think at this point, they wished, by their taking it off the web site, that they never showed it in the first place, but apparently they didn't truly realize what it was they were showing. The usual wrestling line of thinking was an outsider embarrassed our top shooter so we have to portray it as something different. They didn't realize is the "outsider" was someone they have under contract (all Tough Enough competitors are under contract to the company), so he's not really an outsider (again this where the mentality that screwed the Invasion angle, Goldberg, etc. all comes into play again). They are desperate to create new stars, the audience live got behind the new guy more than any new guy they've pushed in a long time. He can't work yet, but this business has been built forever on guys who can work making those who can't, look like they are world beaters. If Angle truly is the closest modern wrestler to Ric Flair in his prime, and he's never truly been put in a position to be, this would be his chance to prove it, because Flair has done it many times over.
It's just one of the oldest wrestling angles in the world to instantly make a new star by having an unknown portrayed as a jobber beat a top star. Jim Cornette does all the time to introduce new guys in OVW. Of course the "dummies" in charge when Nikita, JYD, Luger, Goldberg, Kerry Von Erich and God knows how many others who started out pushed huge and were horrible when they started that if they worried that the guys weren't ready when they were already getting over, well, they'd have missed what turned out to be the best money drawing period in every one of their careers except Kerry (whose best drawing period came three years later, but it was that early push when he was clueless in the ring but portrayed as a world beater that made him a star and set up his big drawing years).
Mostly on Tough Enough and the Roster Cuts.
The ax fell this week on ten WWE under-card wrestlers, with rumors of a few more on the way.
Andrew Martin (Test), Matt Bloom (A-Train), Monty Sopp (Billy Gunn), Nidia Guenard, Carli Begnaud (Jazz), Rodney Begnaud (Rodney Mack), Gail Kim, Jon Hugger (Johnny Stamboli), Rico Costantino, Desmond Thompson (Lamont), and Chuck Palumbo were on the list that decimated the women's division and the Heat roster in particular.
We've been told the cuts are not so much financial as that none of the wrestlers on the list were over, nor were they going to get over. The roster is stale, and this is a way to open the doors for new, fresh talent. A few of the wrestlers, most likely Gunn and Test, because they have been around for so long and got contracts during the boom period, probably had significant downside guarantees in the $200,000 range. But I'd suspect, based on new contracts, most on the list were getting less than $ 100,000 downside. Since most were not going on the road full-time (which at this point mostly means $500 per night unless it's an overseas tour, doing anywhere from five-to-sixteen nights per month), they likely would be earning high five to very low six figures.
However, others have said the cuts were largely due to the under performance of the recent PPV shows, the company's leading revenue source, plus the realization that house show numbers are not going to increase. In order to maintain profitability at the house shows, it appears they are going to book fewer people on the shows, with less four-way tags and more singles matches. They had already cut way back on taking the top developmental talent on the road, which is a learning experience of working in front of crowds of at least a few thousand every night who don't know who you are as opposed to one hundred people close to the situation who practically know you in Louisville. From this week's tapings, it appears the decimated Heat show will use contracted wrestlers against local jobbers, instead of other contracted wrestlers.
The women cuts come as no surprise since Vince McMahon had already talked of hiring some of the cut divas from the Diva Search. However, the cutting of women wrestlers for non-wrestlers shows the company doesn't believe in the women's division, which is now limited to an endless cycle of Trish Stratus and Molly Holly as heels and Victoria and Lita as babyfaces, with Stacy Keibler thrown in, and most likely, frequent turns to freshen things up that will ultimately kill most of them over the long haul. It was only a few months ago when the women's match on Monday night was often stealing the show, but due to the repetitive nature and lack of depth, it was bound to get stale.
The cutting of Kim, 28, was the second-most criticized both in and out of the company (firing Test, because he still had nine months of rehab left after neck surgery was the most controversial), both because she works hard in the ring, does lots of unique submission moves, and is very pretty. Her downfall is that she is "cold" in front of the camera as a heel, and was criticized for lacking personality. Ironically, when she first came to WWE as an unknown working house shows, she got over as a babyface strong with her personality. The feeling was with her highflying moves, cuteness, submissions, and perfect gymnastics like body, she was totally miscast as a heel and as a garden variety s**t when she could have had a unique personality among the women. It was also a surprise since the San Francisco Chronicle had just one week done a major feature on her as one of the country's five most famous women athletes of Korean heritage.
The cutting of Kim also exposed just how little time was put into the decision. The idea it was a thought out process was exposed when Kim was put in an angle on the 11/2 Raw show, where she helped Stratus in a beat down of Lita. She was given a new ring outfit, with a more conservative top, but working in an ultra short skirt instead of the jeans pants, with the idea of it being more conducive to do panty shots instead of boob shots. That alone is a sad statement considering it is clear how hard she's worked learning new moves and studying Toryumon tapes, an extra mile virtually none of the locker room has gone. She was cut two days later, exposing any thought process on these cuts was less than two days as if they had considered cutting her, they would have never done an angle with her two days earlier on Raw. Worse, there is no way any rational human can explain cutting Kim and not cutting Linda Miles, who likely has a higher contract (the Tough Enough deals for winners came with staggered annual raises each year built in) and isn't even being used in developmental. (Note from S_D: This was obviously written before Miles was announced as bring fired.)
Test, 29, did have heat over personal life issues and hadn't been highly regarded internally for a long time. Because of his size and look, Japan does have interest in him, but the problem is this comes at a time when there are few spots open to foreigners that pay anything. I could see TNA going for him, but he'll come with the tag WWE reject and he doesn't work the style of most of the promotion, and even though he has size, his star power can't hang with the useless in-ring workers the company is collecting.
A-Train, 32, was a good worker for his size, but lacked charisma, and his size couldn't be his gimmick in a company that already had too many big men. Like with Test, many attempts to push him had failed. He was well liked generally, but after the switch from Smackdown to Raw that was supposed to revitalize him, he was instead buried and never used. He only appeared on RAW once since the trade, being defeated easily by Chris Jericho. His issues with Japan are the same as Test's.
Gunn, 41, has had his run. He's been repackaged a million times with the same non-result. He has name recognition, but is beyond stale, and not a good worker. I can see TNA taking him with the idea of reviving the New Age Outlaws, although reports he had signed a contract are not true. I wouldn't recommend it, though. He's also at a point, between his age, training methods, and years in the ring, where his body is going to continue to break down due to injuries on a regular basis.
Nidia, 25, was really good in her role as Jamie Noble's girlfriend, but her career fell apart as they needlessly broke the act up and had no idea where to go with either after the feud. As a wrestler, she tries. She's short, and with her overdone boob job, it makes her look fat, particularly next to mostly thin women. She also becomes the first Tough Enough winner to be fired.
Jazz, 30, was the unique woman performer in that she looked athletic, heavily muscled, and was not in any way traditionally sexy. Her character was portrayed as the bad-ass among the women, but it's been clear for months it wasn't a character they had any plans for. She never fit into their idea of a woman wrestler even though she had a good feud with Stratus at one point.
The sad part about Rodney is you have both husband and wife being fired from their jobs on the same day. At 32, he wasn't young. The only time he showed charisma was in OVW when he was doing a complete replica of his childhood idol, JYD. They weren't doing anything with him and he'd been around long enough that there was little chance he was going to ever mean much. He was brought in to basically be a cheaper version of D-Lo Brown, whom when he was fired, Rodney came in and stepped right into the angle he was in the middle of.
Stamboli, 27, quite frankly is a miracle he lasted as long as he did without facing the ax. He had nothing going for him except a physique. He survived the cuts of much of the ex-WCW talent that was trained at the Power Plant that WWE thought had been poorly trained (ironic now with the decision to go with Jody Hamilton as a new trainer for a Georgia territory), who were better workers or had more personality like Sean O'Haire and Rick Cornell (Reno). The only question is timing. The FBI gimmick got over shockingly huge on the recent European tour, even though it's never been seriously pushed. But it just goes to prove the axiom that it doesn't matter if you get over big at house shows, because in WWE in most cases they've already decided your slot and good work in the slot rarely brings you to the next slot as much as improving your body does. If you're looking for similarities in talent losing enthusiasm like WWE, this is it.
That actually relates more to Costantino. Rico, given an embarrassing gimmick from day one, made the most of every bad situation he was put in. He almost always got over beyond his level at house shows. But he became the odd man out. The gimmick of the gay guy having this hot chick that he's obviously doing nothing with, and this straight man having the hots for her on the side, was ruined when they created an angle out of the real life engagement of Charlie Haas and Jackie Gayda. Between that, and being 43, he was the highest profile wrestler cut. His age had always worked against him from his first day in WWE camp. Ironically, he was one of the fastest to improve in OVW, where he was a bigger star and more over in that promotion that virtually everyone, including Brock Lesnar, who were brought in to WWE and given all the chances.
Palumbo, 33, also shows how little long-term is thought about, since he had just debuted his new "Custom Chucky P character. Palumbo was tall and muscular, as well as good looking, basically everything they like. He was coordinated, and decent enough athletically. But he never improved and had a rep for being someone who didn't pay attention in the ring. For a guy who looks like him to not make it in WWE, particularly since he appeared to have future superstar written all over him four years ago, shows a real lack of something. He had a lot of heat in the Smackdown locker room for non-wrestling related issues (not drugs), and was buried when he was switched to RAW.
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Tough Enough, after two weeks of unscripted stuff with two wrestlers, has ended up with two furious wrestlers with the position they were put in and what will go down as one of the more famous one minute periods in modern pro wrestling history.
On 10/26 in Omaha, Big Show was really mad last week because the guys weren't selling his slams, due to the fact nobody had taught most of them the art of selling yet, nor had anyone told them ahead of time to do so, since the idea was everything on the "Tough Enough" segments is supposed to be a swerve on the guys. Show was also not particularly keen on going out for the second segment where he was to slam the guys, and several internally said he was complaining that night in the dressing room about the unpredictability of having to intimidate some big guys. One course said it was the two big unknowns, Justice Smith and Dan Rodimer, who were almost as big as he was, and in far better shape than he was, and he had no idea of their background or what they'd do when pushed, in particular because Show tried to intimidate Rodimer in the dressing room, and he laughed in his face. Show then went to the smallest guy in his sight (ironically Daniel Puder) to try to intimidate the guys. Another person there concurred Show was complaining, and didn't want to go out to the ring, but said it was due to Puder. He threw him into the lockers, but that was with a locker room full of wrestlers, no fans watching (so it could have been edited out), and with knowledge the trainees were told not to fight back. But the trainees were also told ahead of time that no matter what the wrestlers said, nobody would do anything physical to them, so their guards were down by being lied to. In the ring, there wouldn't be that luxury net and there would be seven guys and only him in there. The person there who said Show's complaining about going out was directed at Puder, saying he didn't think it was a good idea because he had just thrown the guy into the lockers and Show said, "That one boy knows what he's doing." As it turned out, he came out and put on a good enough show or bluff and seemed to have almost everyone intimidated. Nobody was uncooperative in the least with Show, although Rodimer, when Show tried to intimidate him, went nose-to-nose with him, which got a lot of heat from the audience. After Show slammed him, Show still dropped a knee hard on Rodimer's sternum when Rodimer was wide open.
On 11/2 in St. Louis, we came a few seconds away from having the Steve Williams-Bart Gunn finish. Quite frankly, and I was actually almost ready to cry watching this, because you could see that if exactly what they didn't want to happen actually did, they'd have created a new star in one night, and had everyone who watched the show intrigued because they'd want to know if it was real or wasn't (it was totally real by the way, but when it comes to business, that's immaterial).
I've heard from a few people internally, and there are those who recognized it, but I think most, because they only think within the grain, didn't see it then and even after all the talk still didn't understand it. It was said the two strongest on the idea of addressing and pushing the situation hard during the show were Paul Heyman and Tazz. It's so frustrating watching a company going down have something controversial and that people were talking about handed to them, and then miss the boat.
It was a 42-second shoot with Angle and Tough Enough contestant Daniel Puder. They had the guys train all day to kill their legs, eat a big meal of pasta and milk to set up a few guys puking (they aired one guy puking on the air, but more than one did). Then they had them in the ring and Angle was browbeating them, saying they weren't Tough Enough and acting all military sergeant in their face. Angle looked like a midget, because he's 510 and the smallest Tough Enough guy is Mike the Miz, and he's more than 6 and most were 63 and up. It was a weird visual because one of their top stars was looking so small against the giants that were recruited, and I can't believe they even let that happen. But you can see how little these things are being thought through nowadays by what happened next, and really, by so much of what has been happening in the company of late.
Angle told Nick Mitchell, "I'll punch your face in. I'll make you dizzy. I'll knock you out," largely doing the drill sergeant role scripted for him to do, and then pie-faced Mitchell. Angle then told Justice Smith, "I didn't know they could stack crap that high." For Angle (or Brian Gewirtz, if he was the one scripting this) to be stealing a line from Mitchell that Mitchell had just done on the same show the week before wow, was that bad. When he got to Puder, Angle said in a bully tone, both again no doubt doing what he was told, "Oh yeah, you're the UFC guy. You ever fight an Olympic champion?" Puder said, "No, sir." Angle said, "You don't want to because I'll beat your ass. You'd better pray you don't make it, boy."
They had all the guys do squat thrusts and were eliminating them as they started gassing. Justice Smith, a favorite because of his size, was the first to gas, as known by those who have followed the contest, but this time the fans saw it for themselves. It came down to Puder, who didn't seem to tire a bit, and Chris Nawrocki. Nawrocki was dying, drenched in sweat. And then they eliminated Puder, which everyone saw was weird and the crowd booed heavily. The story was that John Laurinaitis on the headsets told the ref to get rid of the blond guy, but he meant Nawrocki. The ref kicked out the wrong blond guy. It would have made a funnier story if Laurinaitis was the one in the ring getting orders from Vince, but this will have to do.
One person backstage said that more important from a business standpoint than what happened with Angle and Puder in their shoot was the crowd reaction when Puder was eliminated. He said he saw immediately they had a star because of how the crowd took to Puder and how much they are booing over a meaningless squat thrust contest. Others watching pointed to the spot where Puder raised his hand to volunteer to face Angle as when he got over. The live crowd was said to have been furious by Puder's elimination because they thought he was being screwed. There was said to have been a decision by either Vince McMahon or Kevin Dunn to turn down the sound for the television airing to make it less noticeable. It was also said that in the ring when they squared off, they also toned down the audio and the UFC chants in particular were far louder live than they came across on television. Watching the tape, you can sense the spots the audio was turned down, most noticeably after the bogus pinfall, as the crowd noise was way down and even then you could hear loud booing and small "bullshit" chants. Instead of recognizing this as something hot stumbled onto, it appeared to be a fear that a "UFC guy" was getting over in a WWE ring. Puder has never fought in UFC, nor claimed to have, but did use the term "Ultimate Fighter" as the generic term for an MMA fighter. When Angle addressed while he was trying to intimidate everyone, he called him "UFC guy," which led to the loud "UFC" chants during the match.
Others were critical of Laurinaitis calling to eliminate "the blonde guy," because he should have said the name Puder or Nawrocki, and some questioned if he even knew their names even though he was the agent producing that segment. Vince was also on the headsets at the time and he was said to have been steaming mad because the scripted plan of Angle wrestling more than one guy was falling apart.
Nawrocki was totally dead, not that it would have made much of a difference since he clearly had never wrestled. It took Angle all of three seconds to get the dead Nawrocki down, who quickly grabbed the ropes. They were reset in the center, Angle got him down immediately, turned him over, including a brief crossface, and pinned him easily in 26 seconds.
Nawrocki ended up in the hospital with a broken rib, although I didn't see Angle doing anything deliberately to hurt him, he certainly wasn't going easy on him and was shooting on basically a defenseless guy who was all blown up, and had zero skill. In Angle's defense, it was what he was told to do for the segment. He then was brow beating everyone and said, "Does anyone else want to wrestle me?" Puder raised his hand while everyone else backed down. My sense was it was at that moment they had something.
The crowd was buzzing when they got in the ring. Puder blocked his takedown for a few seconds and the crowd was pretty strong with "UFC" chants. They believed it was real and unlike the Brawl For All, were intrigued by it.
Puder, who was coached in wrestling by Danny Chaid, the same Danny Chaid that Kurt Angle beat in the finals of the 1996 Olympic trials for the spot in the 220 pound weight class (and you can imagine the writers pulling their hair out over the potential of playing that into the angle), has trained for years with the AKA team in San Jose, one of the top MMA teams in the world. He was coached in submissions for years by Frank Shamrock. Puder has only had four fights, is 4-0 with three knockout wins, but all but one were on very small shows and he's faced no high-profile fighters. The book on him is great athletic ability with his fighting strength being his base in wrestling. He had an excellent record in high school as the 2000 Central California champion at 215 pounds, and was a good enough prospect in that sport that he was recruited by the University of Oklahoma, which when it comes to college wrestling, is the big tune. Puder had a good record for one year at Menlo College before giving up the sport. He's also strong on submissions, has good cardio and suspect stand-up (although three knockout wins would seem to contradict that; he has done amateur boxing and did not excel at that). Puder was Shamrock's training partner for the Tito Ortiz fight and is the guy Shamrock worked with in his line of training videos. I've heard stories where he's eaten alive, in training, a few low level Pride and UFC fighters, through his being coached by former New Japan wrestler Brian Johnston, who also trains many of the Japanese fighters. Puder's wrestling ability is good enough that in training, he was, within the last year, able to handle easily Shinsuke Nakamura in training when Nakamura trained in San Jose for one of the Alexey Ignashov fights, although training and fights are two different things and his fighting experience is limited.
Angle was struggling for the take down, got Puder in a front headlock and leaned on him, but Puder popped his head out to escape. They were struggling with Angle trying hard for a takedown, knowing he was in a real battle, and Puder trying mainly to defend, before going for a Kimura. At the 36 second mark, he had the Kimura locked in. People may say differently, but Angle was toast. He'd have had his shoulder ripped out if Puder had put full pressure on, which he didn't, because he likely figured he'd be out for hurting a star. Puder went on his back in a half guard, but kept the hold on and did make sure Angle couldn't get out of it, and Angle was done. Jimmy Korderas then counted a fast three count on Puder, even though he had one shoulder clearly up (both shoulders did touch at one point, so if you're scoring this by touch fall amateur rules, he was pinned even though he was in full control of Angle with the Kimura, but by pro three second rules, he was not). It was a panic move by Korderas, and for that matter, the company itself, to save Angle, thinking this was about to be a major embarrassment to pro wrestling. In a sense, given their mind set, they were very lucky. In that position, and with that hold, doing a sweep would be relatively easy (tempered by he fact Angle's balance on top would be nothing Puder was used to dealing with, but Puder was the one in control at that point), and Puder on top for a pin would have made the higher-ups want to shoot themselves with the mentality they had at that moment. Korderas was given the word on his earpiece by Gerald Brisco, an ex-college wrestler at Oklahoma State, who was the first guy on the headsets to recognize immediately when Angle was checkmated, to count to three immediately and get out of this, before most others had any idea something was wrong. Laurinaitis also understood, and one source said was in a visible panic in fear of what Vince's reaction would be to this.
What they didn't realize is it would have been the opposite, as they'd have created the biggest wrestling news story in a long time and a controversy that would have been huge. But, it's easy to say that with 20/20 hindsight. Even without that happening, and the tap would have been gigantic, by portraying it as exactly what it was to fans on the TV show in commentary, they still had what would have been the most talked about thing in wrestling in months, because of the same Hart-McMahon furor over who was right, what was and wasn't real, and if it was a brilliant work or something real on TV. In fact, my wife, watching the bogus three count's first reaction was, "Oh my God, this is going to be like that match in Montreal." I didn't even think it would be any big deal because without a somewhat trained eye, the footage on TV was not all that spectacular and the commentary buried what it was. As it turned out, at our local high school, according to my brother-in-law, for the first time since the Rock & Eugene angle, WWE wrestling was a significant topic of conversation at school, as the wrestling team members (one of which was him) were going crazy about what they'd seen on WWE, and all saw it as Puder schooling Angle and the big bad wolves screwing him.
Angle, like most of the top WWE talent, is cold as hell right now. Anything to get him in a program or a controversy people care about is a plus for him. A lot of people thought if Angle tapped, it would have killed his career and made WWE look bad because an unknown fighter tapped their big Olympic star. This was said to have been the strong belief of McMahon and Dunn, and they expressed that belief to where almost everyone in power agreed with them and the consensus of the agents was that they avoided something terrible. Most of those we've contacted about it in the company expressed a totally different viewpoint.
But, the only difference being this was a shoot, and in reality, it doesn't matter as an angle, no matter whether real or not, when airing on a pro wrestling TV show, becomes storyline. This is almost the exact angle that Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat did in the late-70s on Mid Atlantic TV, except Flair lost cleanly to the unknown. Steamboat, at the time a nice-looking guy, great natural athlete, good body, who at the time couldn't act or do a promo to save his life, had little pro wrestling experience and no name in the business. That angle alone turned him into an instant territorial superstar. And in losing to the unknown, it made Flair a bigger star because the Flair losing to an unknown was so shocking and the program caught on. Now, this isn't to say this would turn into one of wrestling's all-time legendary feuds, although its origins would make it a legendary story, because what George Scott and Mid Atlantic hoped for came true, that this green unknown guy turned into one of the greatest workers who ever lived, and odds of that here are about the same as shooting a hole in one. In that instance, Scott and Flair were either lucky as hell, or had a great eye for undeveloped talent. It was probably a little bit of both. Puder is a long way from being ready to do a pro wrestling match, but he's already a far better promo than Steamboat was at that point in time (although it's doubtful he has the potential on promos to equal the promo potential Maven showed that got him over on the first "Tough Enough.") Timing is everything in this business, and anyone with experience in wrestling seeing Maven come out of "Tough Enough" and seeing Maven today can tell you about lucking into something hot, squashing it, then figuring it out after it was squashed, and then going with it. The moment was gone forever. Every attempt to resurrect it is doomed to failure, like this current one is. Of course, today is much harder than even three years ago to do this because popularity is lower so creating new stars is harder. Maven had something like 13 weeks of training when he had his first match on Smackdown against Tazz, and people were behind him huge right out of the chute. A few years later, even though he's being pushed this week in one of those pushes that will likely be dropped in a few weeks when it doesn't take, internally, many consider Maven a flop.
It has to be a cleverly written TV program, and they'd have to do it with smoke and mirrors, with one of the guys being so green. They couldn't have them do a standard pro wrestling match next week, or for a few months, if ever. But that's just as well, because the longer you build something up without having a match, the better off it is. Before writing off the idea because of his inexperience, Heyman, said to be a huge backer right now of pushing Puder and the controversy of the match, is on their writing staff, and he made Johnny Grunge a short term major star to where people thought he was half of the best tag team in the United States, and made 911 a cult hero, and I'd be shocked if two months from now, Puder isn't a lot better in the ring than Johnny Grunge or 911 ever were combined. The entire JYD phenomenon was built on charisma and very careful booking to cover up that the guy selling all the tickets actually had almost no ability. Phrases like "JYD doesn't get paid by the hour," by Bill Watts made his 90 second squash wins where he did little more than dance to the ring, howl, and hit a powerslam, into one of the great regional draws of the past 25 years. Although Eric Bischoff had no clue how JYD got over, the same strategy worked in covering up Bill Goldberg for more than one year. Booking wrestling has always been about having an eye for stars and then figuring out their strengths, accentuating them, knowing their weaknesses, and making sure the people don't see them. Modern WWE has been, for reasons I've never been able to figure, about accentuating everyone's weaknesses and making sure the public sees them, and then using those weaknesses to explain why they can't get over. There are those who point the finger for this problem at HHH, because he's the one who keeps pushing on Vince that the guys on top have to be guys "who can do it all." But the bottom line is, for every Ric Flair who could "do it all" and was a marketable headliner (and Flair on top got stale as a draw numerous times during his career even when he was at his peak as a worker), there are Hulk Hogans and JYDs and Crushers who got over every bit as big, and stayed strong as draws for years because they who were protected by promoters from exposing what they couldn't do. This has also been blamed on agents not fighting hard enough to not let the fans see people's weaknesses.
Great working has always been about that as well. Plenty of people had less training than Puder would have two to four months from now, and were far worse athletes, who did just fine when carried by good workers. Wrestling has a long history of using virtually untrained NFL players as local drawing cards. The general consensus of opinion is that once Puder is established as a pro wrestler, the interest in this specific angle will be minimal, and it has to be done right now, and in a different style, with no pro wrestling moves, similar to the Naoya Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto second program in Japan or the original Don Frye pro wrestling style. Of course this may flop, as every experiment runs that chance, but it sure didn't flop to the live crowd in St. Louis. But the most important lesson in wrestling booking is, "What works works." You can make an argument for anyone or anything not being able to work, but if there can be interest created in something, or there inherently already is, or is working despite your arguments, you make sure and figure out why it's working and learn from it as well as try and keep it going. If something is working and you spend time convincing yourself why it won't work, then you miss the entire point. Very little the company has done in the past few years has touched any kind of a nerve or had any legitimate intrigue. If you sense it does and the time is right, and sometimes things are handed to you, you go with it and hide the flaws. Not only that, but there is a solid chance this guy is getting, rightly or wrongly, a $1 million contract (he seems to be the clear internal favorite, but there is still the situation that Mike the Miz is going to get a ton of votes because he's a known TV star). If that's the case, you'd at least want to do something that at least attempts to make it less of a waste than what will be the less than trivial one-year career of one of the higher paid women performers in history, Christy Hemme.
Then again, considering the potentially heated Bob Holly vs. Matt Cappotelli feud, which could have made Holly into a high middle heel instead of a floundering face, and made Cappotelli into a young star, they also didn't do, so nobody should be surprised. That came from a total chickenshit move by the wrestler which was also "real." Jim Cornette booked a short program out of it, and had it turn into a match with among the most interest as he's booked in the past few years and Holly was good enough and more, the issue was so strong, that they had a hell of a heated few matches, including a great TV match. In that case, there was a major downside. Holly was out for months recovering from neck surgery when the real momentum would have been there, but I'm guessing even if he wasn't, they'd have dropped the ball on an easy one. But they still could have done it later, as Cornette did. Holly came back as a babyface because they had no opponent for Lesnar for the Rumble (well, there were other ideas pitched, but Holly was the one decided on). I can understand because at the time that was far more important, and he did have a natural storyline mere, even though it didn't quite take as people dont buy Holly as a WWE Title contender (it probably would have taken more to the fans if the WWE Title wasnt involved). But he hasn't meant crap as far as being in any program since. They never turned him, and now it's way too late because everyone has forgotten it. The other point is Holly came out of that with the whole world believing he was "really" a heel, and he was one of the few of whom they would believe it, because of what they'd seen, and that's hard to pull off these days.
Angle, with his ego bruised, was pissed, and refused to shake Puder's hand (although he was playing bad guy and may have done that anyway), and whispered to him this was the entertainment business and it's not about hurting people (ironic since he had just hurt someone who had to be hospitalized and it was questionable at the time if Nawrocki would be able to continue in the competition from his broken rib), and that they were doing a wrestling match. "Don't you know any better? It's not a f**king UFC match. It's an amateur wrestling contest." A lot have used this logic to defend Angle, whose real defense is he should have never been put in that position untrained and injured in the first place. But it doesn't hold up. It was, quite frankly, never specified what exactly they were doing. Nawrocki got a rope break, which doesn't exist in amateur wrestling. Angle was brutalizing Nawrocki with a quick crossface, threatening to punch out Mitchell, even if in character, and his comment to Puder was "have you ever fought (not wrestled) an Olympic champion." Angle continued, "Stay off your back. Are you stupid? Are you f**king stupid? Alright, well, better luck next time and get out of my face." When Korderas was counting three, in the background you can see Charles Robinson indicating to Korderas that Puder had his shoulder up. Apparently, Puder had already asked one of the two ref if he could do submissions and been told they were okay. Trainers had been bullying and hurting students on "Tough Enough" and at wrestling schools in these situations forever. This will probably end up going down in wrestling lore like the stories of when Stu Hart would torture people in the dungeon, and then, a great athlete named Luther Lindsay reversed the tables on Stu (and who knows how true this is after 50 years), or when Dick Hutton, an amateur wrestler of similar credentials to Angle, was sleeping in a dressing room and a tough ref shooter type gave him a hot foot (lighting his foot on fire) as a prank. When Hutton woke up, he charged at the guy who did it, without thinking, and left himself open for a guillotine and was choked out. At the time, everyone in wrestling was scared to death of Hutton and nobody ever challenged him. And while he was always respected, he was never looked at by the wrestlers with quite the same awe again. Another famous story like this, but with the roles reversed, involved Lou Thesz when he was NWA champion in the early 50s when he was a fairly major television star and something of a mainstream sports figure in our culture.
Prior to a big show in Buffalo, for publicity, he was training with the University of Buffalo wrestling team with television news cameras covering it. He was goaded into a one-on-one session with their heavyweight, Don Beitleman (who later would become a major pro wrestling star as Don Curtis, and in later life, became one of Thesz' closest friends). Beitleman took Thesz down and put him on his back. Strangler Lewis, who was Thesz' manager, and was virtually blind by that time, couldn't see what happened, but sensed something was very wrong, and the 260-pound man staggered like he mistakenly got in the way of the TV camera. Thesz ended up catching Beitleman in a top wristlock, and Beitleman screamed in pain, ending the match. A shouting match ensued because the college wrestling people, looking at embarrassing the pro champion, screamed the move was illegal. Thesz responded, "Maybe in your rules, but not in mine." While I doubt Thesz did many workouts with college wrestling teams after that, the end result solidified Thesz' standing as the right guy to have the belt, because of how he got out of the jam.
What was interesting is that I don't think anyone live, and 98% of wrestling fans watching, really saw fully what happened, but it all took place in a 42 second period. The crowd live came alive big-time when the two locked up, more because they could see Puder genuinely blocking Angle for a few seconds before going down, but the rest happened so quickly that without either MMA knowledge or announcers commentary explaining it, it was too deep for them, other than the recognition of the fast count and Puder's shoulder getting up before the three.
While Tazz did call the Kimura a keylock, he never acted like Angle was in trouble and when it was over, totally blew Puder off, saying, "Well, so much for UFC," just implying Angle pinned him quick and Puder was no competition. "Well, so much for UFC," was said to have been a line fed to Tazz to say on his headsets, I believe from Vince himself.
However, on the MMA boards, this was huge. In fact, it was probably the biggest topic of discussion of 2004, with more different threads, different takes, and more responses to the threads then any topic I've ever seen. Just one of the literally dozens of threads on the sherdog.com site, probably the most popular MMA gossip site, had more than 800 responses and 27,500 views within days, when the biggest MMA stories of the year usually top out at 2-3 threads with 200 responses max on the big one. Everyone, particularly those who had trained in submissions or had watched a lot of fights, realized that an unknown fighter had embarrassed Angle on Smackdown and had he wanted to, he could have torn his shoulder out, although nobody could figure out why it aired, since it was a taped show. Without seeing it in context, many thought they were doing a pro wrestling match and suddenly Puder had double-crossed Angle, like the Rikidozan and Masahiko Kimura (whom the Kimura moved was named after since he popularized it in his days as a judo world champion) match. Others didn't care how Puder did it, thinking it was this wet dream of a fake wrestling superstar getting the revenge from the insecure world of real hating popular fakers. Others thought it had to be a brilliant work by McMahon to create a new superstar. Many of them who idolized Angle believed it had to have been a work, because there is no way some "no-name MMA fighter" could stop his takedown. Most who saw it recognized what it was as far as being a shoot, but it got so crazy we had arguments as to whether a shoot under pro wrestling rules would have submissions legal.
After it was over, Angle was furious in the locker room, trying to say it wasn't supposed to be a submission deal. He was also mad at management because he was given no advance notice over what he was supposed to do, so it wasn't as if he'd been training, even for a week, to get ready to do shooting. In addition, the writers (well, writer, as the idea for the segment was said to be largely Brian Gewirtz) who put him in that situation may not have realized Angle's neck was thrashed from an injury two days earlier. Gewirtz, who has no athletic background, would have had no concept about the difference between great pro wrestling shape by a shooter, and being in shape to do a shoot against a real competitor. The way the segment was scripted, Angle was supposed to both stretch (and yes, that means using torture holds) and pin several guys. It was stopped at two, both because everyone else had backed down, and because Angle himself called an audible because he was hurt. After calming down, Angle expressed interest in also turning it into a major angle, but the company wasn't interested.
Everyone at this point was aware of Puder's background, and when this segment was put together, I was told there was a backstage expectation Puder was probably going to win the squat thrust drill to begin with because those who were close to the competition had it well established he was in the best condition of the group. Angle went out there expecting to thrash several people, but that Puder would likely be the one non-pushover, but all he knew was UFC fighter, and was totally unaware of the extent of Puder's wrestling background. Still, even with his injuries, with lead time to get back in shape, a 35-year-old Olympic gold medalist is going to beat a 23-year-old who never even had Division I experience in straight wrestling. There was some curiosity about him and Angle before it ever started. It was believed they'd have a confrontation and everyone would get a laugh out of Angle destroying him. It was also clear because Angle was not in training that he was blowing up fast in there (and he was legendary for stamina, and has the most stamina of anyone on the roster under the parameters of pro wrestling, but stamina for high level competitive shooting or wrestling is a whole different ball game). Puder was a younger guy, with no serious injuries, who was training daily for fighting before leaving for Tough Enough.
Even if Angle destroyed Puder, as expected, his condition is such that it wasn't worth the injury risk, although Angle, perhaps wanting to prove something, also expressed interest in doing a shoot match of a worked feud. Well, if Puder wins the thing, this will have been the night he won it because he broke out of the pack, as our third week poll had Puder with 57% of the vote to 20% for Mike Mizanin and 9% for Dan Rodimer, a complete turnaround. Rodimer's stock has fallen greatly as nobody internally even mentions his name anymore, but it is said to be a given if Rodimer doesn't win or quit, that he'll get a developmental contract. The feeling is it's also close to, if not a lock, Puder will as well.
There were guys backstage who thought it was hilarious, including one major star wrestler who said he thought it was one of the greatest moments ever on Smackdown, which says something, because the natural inclination among wrestlers is to be pissed if an outsider upstages one of them. Others thought it was stupid and irresponsible to put Angle in that position, which I'm guessing is the majority viewpoint with 20/20 hindsight. But the former tells you just how much the feeling has changed with some people on Angle. Many MMA fighters would have tapped before the ref saved Angle just because they knew it was locked, even though 100% full pressure wasn't being applied, although Puder could have done it at will. Angle, in that split second, since it was competitive and his mind in competition is like no other; would have very likely taken the injury rather than tapped, as he wrestled on a broken neck at Mania and in the Olympics. At his age and with his injuries and wanting career longevity, I'd temper saying I'm sure of that, although one person close to the situation said at that moment, "He (Angle) was in the zone, and he wasn't tapping."
Angle ended up with a minor shoulder injury and a jammed neck. His neck was bothering him going into this as he was whiplashed pretty bad on the 10/31 house show in Louisville. Because of being hurt, he took no bumps in Cape Girardeau the night before this. His not wrestling in a match on Smackdown was how it was scripted, and that was said to have been laid out before Angle was hurt in Louisville. He didn't miss any house shows, but at the Smackdown shows on 11/6 in Miami and 11/7 in Fort Myers, he was clearly hurt as he worked in three-on-two handicap matches, worked only about 30 seconds both nights, and again took no bumps.
There was a feeling is Puder internally "made himself with the company. However, one person internally tempered Puder being labeled the big favorite coming out of this by noting because of commentary, it was portrayed that he was punked out for the second week in a row, which could hurt him in the voting, and Mike the Miz has a huge advantage in this as a popularity contest. The feeling the opportunity to do something with this and make him a star will be blown this week if this doesn't become a TV controversy, and despite differences of opinion, those in charge are strongly against doing so. The question was if, in Corpus Christi, Puder has any momentum to the casual fan, it would only be because the audience saw through the "force feed burial" by Tazz. As it turned out, there was some support for him, but the segment involving Moolah and Mae Young was reported to be nothing short of a disaster, with the audience booing it heavily, and everyone and the entire contest coming off badly tainted. Even though Puder was, ruled the winner of the sex test, earning a lap dance from Mae Young, it was Mike the Miz who got the best reaction.
After the St. Louis episode aired, when MMA boards started going crazy with the idea a shootfighter really beat Angle on a WWE TV show, the WWE web site pulled the footage, cutting the "Tough Enough" video after Angle destroyed Nawrocki. They did that very late Thursday, and it was only after the internet furor and what they would have considered bad pub, which seems to indicate the company itself didn't understand what it was. To prove the company's reaction to all this, the footage of the Angle vs. Puder match was replaced by these words on their web site, "Angle mauled Nawrocki before taking volunteers, next pinning Daniel Puder in a slightly tougher, but still relatively easy match." Apparently, the reason it aired as is, was few in the company thought anyone would notice anything other than Angle pinning Puder because the ref counted three and Tazz called it like it was a burial, and the crowd sound was turned down enough that the boos weren't so overwhelming. And they were 98% correct. It wasn't until it became so huge on MMA boards that they saw how people were seeing this, and instead of exploiting it, got scared. It did air on the weekend" Afterburn" show, but that was because that show was put together on Thursday. That show was sent out to stations before the MMA community went so nuts on it and created the controversy, and they wouldn't have been able to pull that footage like they did on the web site. On the WWE's own web site, it also changed the Puder bio in the "Tough Enough" section to eliminate his wrestling and MMA background, and he's simply listed as a college student who owns a print company. Except for the Miz, who has no athletic background, he's the only contestant not listed with having a major sports background. On the "Tough Enough" replay segment on Raw, they went from showing the training session before the show, the pasta eating contest, the barfing, and cut then right to Torrie Wilson teasing the guys about next week, with no hint Angle had ever even been involved in the segment.
There were people pushing to do commentary that would have gotten it over as to a worked version of what the shoot was to fans and push it hard as a major angle. The argument was that no angles the company is doing are over, and there was nothing they could do that had the potential to get people talking about Smackdown as this. Without the announcers pushing it, there is no angle. One source claimed Tazz pitched as hard as he could from a position of having no booking power to have the company jump on it and play it up huge in the commentary. Vince and Dunn were adamant about not doing it and not acknowledging anything happened in commentary. No reason was given. One major star close to the situation was confused about the reaction, as Vince, when pressed by those who thought this whole $1 million "Tough Enough" thing was a dumb idea, had responded that nobody is coming into the business who is that special star who can carry the company, so he thought if he offered a million dollars, he'd find one or two. Then when it worked out better than he could have ever dreamed, because it wasn't his idea, he not only didn't want to pull the trigger, but wanted it covered up. But when it's over, he's still paying out $1 million, which is about two years worth of the entire developmental budget for OVW and all its contracted talent.
One person with experience at tons of booking meetings for a few big companies was more adamant about the potential of this one, believing with proper follow-up, it could turn into a mainstream news story, said after being in meetings for years, the mentality in almost every bookers meeting is that if it wasn't our idea to begin with, we're not going to let it work. Others closer to the situation claim that wasn't the case.
"It wasn't a pride of authorship issue," insisted someone in WWE responding to this point of view. "Vince and Kevin didn't see how potentially huge this was. All they could see was an established star was being hurt by an unknown."
Certainly, WWE, McMahon and Dunn, have become legendary for leaving millions on the table over the past three years with their handling of the Invasion, the introduction of Bill Goldberg, and the potential of an Eric Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon feud, Rob Van Dam as a top babyface, and even the potential of ECW as a cult thing to bring emotion on TV.
Another person suggested doing something would compromise the credibility of "Tough Enough," which is Dunn's baby, because doing anything out of this would kill the drama as to who would win, and the million dollar last week payoff would at that point be a formality. It is said that is also a big issue here, and Vince truly believes Tough Enough needs to be fair and balanced, and any acknowledgment of what happened would be so strong as to clinch the result of the competition six weeks early.
I think at this point, they wished, by their taking it off the web site, that they never showed it in the first place, but apparently they didn't truly realize what it was they were showing. The usual wrestling line of thinking was an outsider embarrassed our top shooter so we have to portray it as something different. They didn't realize is the "outsider" was someone they have under contract (all Tough Enough competitors are under contract to the company), so he's not really an outsider (again this where the mentality that screwed the Invasion angle, Goldberg, etc. all comes into play again). They are desperate to create new stars, the audience live got behind the new guy more than any new guy they've pushed in a long time. He can't work yet, but this business has been built forever on guys who can work making those who can't, look like they are world beaters. If Angle truly is the closest modern wrestler to Ric Flair in his prime, and he's never truly been put in a position to be, this would be his chance to prove it, because Flair has done it many times over.
It's just one of the oldest wrestling angles in the world to instantly make a new star by having an unknown portrayed as a jobber beat a top star. Jim Cornette does all the time to introduce new guys in OVW. Of course the "dummies" in charge when Nikita, JYD, Luger, Goldberg, Kerry Von Erich and God knows how many others who started out pushed huge and were horrible when they started that if they worried that the guys weren't ready when they were already getting over, well, they'd have missed what turned out to be the best money drawing period in every one of their careers except Kerry (whose best drawing period came three years later, but it was that early push when he was clueless in the ring but portrayed as a world beater that made him a star and set up his big drawing years).
