Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.

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• We open with the death of Stu Hart at age 88. Despite never being a huge draw or top performer on his own, Stu Hart probably had more of an influence on the wrestling business of today than all but a few people ever. He passed away at a hospital 13 days after he had fallen at home and was suffering from multiple health issues. He died with Bret Hart, Bret's ex-wife Julie, and Stu's granddaughter Jenni Neidhart at his side. Other family members said that Owen's death and the legal battles and family drama stemming from it really aged Stu during the last 4 years and that it had been very hard on him. Born in 1915, had 12 kids with wife Helen, the years running Stampede Wrestling (tons of insane stories here), selling to Vince in 1984 and all the mess there, the Harts joining WWF, the rise of Bret Hart (funny story here about the Hart/Lawler feud when Jerry Lawler would make fun of Helen and Stu Hart for being old. Bret didn't like it at first until he found out Helen thought Lawler was hilarious and she loved it). And then, of course, all the family tragedies for the past decade or so.

• Dave starts going on about Stu's influence and trying to imagine what the wrestling world would be like today without him is impossible. Fritz Von Erich got into the business and was trained by Stu, this leading to the entire Von Erich dynasty. He trained Superstar Billy Graham, and without Graham, do we ever get Hulk Hogan? Do we even get the big colorful muscular steroid era of wrestling which Graham and, later, Hogan were the forebearers of? Billy Robinson and Dynamite Kid never come to North America if not for Stu and in that case, would we still get the famous Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask matches that basically built the foundation of the junior heavyweight division in Japan? With no Dynamite Kid to inspire him, do we still have Chris Benoit? Junkyard Dog doesn't end up in Mid-South if not for his time in Stampede. Do Brian Pillman and Davey Boy Smith still end up in the business? And of course, the legacy of guys like Bret and Owen. Stu Hart's reach on the wrestling industry for much of the past century is far greater than many realize and this is just scratching the surface (if you look at Stu's Wiki page, there's a section of people he trained and it's like 80 people long and features many of the most legendary names ever).

• One final note on Stu. This one deserves to just be copied and pasted: "Stu’s favorite rib was what became known as “Mable parties.” They would do it to the new guys. They’d tell them about this woman who lived in a farm house just outside of town that loved to take care of the wrestlers, but she was married and her husband was out of town. They usually found a good looking woman to play the role. They would take the wrestler to see her, and just as something was about to happen, the husband would come in, furious, with a gun, and kick in the door. The gun would have blanks and one of the wrestlers in on the gag would jump in and try and calm him down. The guy would "shoot" the wrestler, who would go down, preferably readied with ketchup. Stu would tell the guy to run as fast as he could. Sometimes he’d have the guy chase the newcomer sprinting down the vacant highway for miles. While there were many victims, the most famous was the Great Antonio, as he freaked out seeing the guy get shot, the ketchup blood, and people laughed for decades at idea of this 450-pound man with unkempt hair and a scraggly beard running for his life for a mile down an empty road."

• And now we come to Road Warrior Hawk, who also passed away this past week at age 46. While Stu's death was the end of a long life well-lived, Hawk's death is a more tragic and sadly common situation. Toxicology results won't be back for awhile but he had a history of heart disease brought on by decades of hard partying and drug use. He had complained to his wife that he didn't feel good and went to take a nap and when she found him later, he had passed away in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. His death was given the full front page of the Tokyo Sports paper in Japan and Dave says it's impossible to explain to a newer fan just how big the Road Warriors were in Japan at their peak.

• So now we run through Hawk's life and career, forming the team with Animal, immediately getting over huge in the Crockett territory, destroying opponents and getting some of the biggest pops in wrestling aside from Hulk Hogan. But they never sold for anyone, which killed the credibility of most of their opponents and made them difficult to work with everywhere they went. They were also part-owners of the Zubaz clothing line and made big money on that too. Jumped to WWE (renamed Legion of Doom to avoid confusion with Ultimate Warrior) but it was never a good fit. Plus WWF already had Demolition cosplaying as them anyway and Hawk's drug issues led to him quitting. Animal got injured for a few years, Hawk went to NJPW to form a new team with Kensuke Sasaki that did big business for a bit, then reunited with Animal various times since. His drug problems were legendary and WWF even wrote it into a storyline in the 90s, with Hawk being drunk and falling off the Titantron and putting Animal and Droz together as LOD 2000. But in recent years, after suffering from numerous ailments related to his years of not taking care of himself, he finally started getting his shit together. He reportedly had found religion (along with Animal) and had appeared with Ted Dibiase at some church events and had also quit the drinking and drugs, but too late it seems.

• For the love of god, can we get something lighter here? WWE No Mercy is in the books and 2/3 of the way through, it was a pretty great show. Even though it wasn't the main event, the hype for the show was all about Vince vs. Stephanie in the first father vs. daughter match ever. On paper, this sounds horrible but Vince is an incredible heel performer in every way except athletically, and the crowd got into it big, going nuts for Stephanie's near falls. Worth noting that Stephanie was scheduled to get married 6 days after the match, so Dave was curious to see how they'd protect her. Vince stayed away from her face (Linda McMahon later said that she told Vince that if he messed up Stephanie's face right before her wedding, she'd divorce him on the spot) but Stephanie didn't do the same and Vince ended up with a cut under the right eye. The main event of Lesnar vs. Undertaker turned into a chain-on-a-pole match at the last minute and boy was that a bore. But it ended with Vince screwing over Undertaker, which sets up a buried alive match for Survivor Series (which in turn leads to the return of Deadman Taker at WM20 but we'll get there) Kurt Angle vs. John Cena stole the show and was by far Cena's best match ever. Cena lost cleanly by TAPPING OUT (one of only 4 times he ever tapped in his entire career) and Dave thinks it was the wrong move. Cena is the best new prospect and talker the company has and he thinks they need to protect him rather than jobbing him out for the 3rd PPV in a row.

• (While we're on this subject, I have an opinion: making John Cena tap out is the biggest thing WWE has left to offer someone since they ended Undertaker's streak. Making Mr. "Never Give Up" actually give up would be a huge coup for someone and I hope they give someone that honor before he retires next year. Looking at you Gunther....)

• Other notes from the PPV: new signees Ryan Sakoda & Jimmy Yang debuted as Tajiri's henchmen in the opening match with Mysterio. Chris Benoit beat A-Train with a sharpshooter, used in tribute to Stu Hart. This was also done to be a definitive victory to elevate Benoit into the world title picture, as they want to start pushing him as a top guy. Dave worries that they've done too much damage too him that the fans don't see him at that level anymore. Zach Gowan pinned Matt Hardy clean and Dave ain't so sure about that decision. Shaniqua (Linda Miles) returned with new implants to align herself with the Bashams and they made a big deal about her new tits. Okay then. Big Show vs. Eddie Guerrero for the US title saw Eddie throwing everything at him and still losing clean and Dave doesn't get that decision either. People stopped buying Big Show as an unstoppable monster years ago, he's been beaten by everybody at this point. If you want to try and rebuild him, sure, but Dave doesn't think doing it at Eddie's expense on PPV is the move. This just made Eddie look like a midcarder and that's pretty much it. (Well, it did serve the purpose of getting the US title away from Eddie to make room for another belt. With the Eddie, Benoit, and Undertaker/Vince stuff, it's interesting how you can already see the seeds of Wrestlemania 20 starting to come together here in October).

• TNA's big PPV on 11/30 has been postponed because Hulk Hogan has pulled out, claiming a knee injury suffered in the Tokyo Dome match with Masahiro Chono. Hogan is scheduled to undergo surgery on the knee later this week. The PPV (which was to be titled Bound for Glory) has now been pushed back until next year, as Hogan has verbally agreed to work a match with Jarrett for the company. But as noted last week....he has still never signed anything, and now even though they didn't announce Hogan, they still spent the last couple weeks promoting the big 11/30 show and now they gotta back track. As of now, Hogan is still scheduled to work NJPW's Jan 4th show (nope). Prior to the cancellation, TNA had been in talks with the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, which is where Jerry Jarrett promoted his business for decades, to host the show (because Hogan steadfastly refused to wrestle in the Nashville Fairgrounds).

• It's a bad look for TNA, who rushed to get the PPV date cleared and then began promoting it while hinting at Hogan, and now they gotta turn around and cancel all that. It hurts them with cable providers in particular. They also wrote Vince Russo out of the company and are no longer using him, all at Hogan's insistence, and now....no Hogan. He had even taped hours of localized commercials promoting the PPV, so it seems like he really did intend to do it. He had also begrudgingly agreed to make a live appearance at the Fairground tapings beforehand to promote it. But alas, no signed contract.

• Speaking of Hogan, when he was in Japan, he was introduced to all the wrestlers backstage as a "booking advisor." Chono is ultimately the booker (and he, of course, answers to Inoki) but they're trying to get Hogan involved with the company and offering him a role in creative is part of that. Dave doesn't think Hogan has followed Japanese wrestling much at all during the past 20 years since he was last a star there and thinks, without understanding the culture of the country and speaking the language, and living there and following the scene, it's going to be really difficult for him to contribute in a meaningful way. Hogan was flat out told that they aren't eliminating the shoot fight aspect of NJPW. That's Inoki's primary focus and it's not changing. But Hogan and Jimmy Hart were said to be working on trying to at least come up with gimmicks and characters for the fighters, and Hogan really loved Josh Barnett. Chono was agreeable to pretty much everything Hogan and Jimmy Hart wanted on the tour. The angle with Hogan and Jarrett after the match was allowed to happen because Hogan asked. Japanese media had no idea who Jarrett was or what TNA is or why somebody was attacking Hogan with a guitar. Of course, TNA would love a relationship with NJPW. The hope is that NJPW will eventually do a Team Inoki vs. Team Hogan angle and that Hogan's team will feature TNA wrestlers but this is all just wishful thinking until Hogan actually agrees to anything. This entire paragraph feels like a fever dream.

• Random MMA news just because it's interesting: within a matter of hours, the 2 most important heavyweight titles in MMA were vacated. Tim Sylvia surrendered the UFC title after failing a steroid test and, on the same day, Fedor Emelianenko vacated the PRIDE title due to an injury that will force him to miss the heavily-hyped fight with Cro Cop. In the Sylvia case, he admitted guilt, was super apologetic, and as a result, the commission took it easy on him and he only has a 4-month suspension. Fedor, meanwhile, has people doubting his claim of a thumb injury and suspect he's trying to duck Cro Cop because he apparently stalled for weeks to sign on for it and there had been rumors even before this that the fight might not happen (this fight finally happens in 2005 and it did not disappoint, although I wonder if the outcome might have been different 2 years earlier).

• There's a story in Mexico that Blue Demon Jr. may have to stop using that name. He is the adopted son of Lucha legend Blue Demon, but turns out Blue Demon's oldest son claims he owns the rights to it and I guess is trying to stop his step-brother from using it now? (This never turns into anything, he kept the name.)

• Although Konnan and AAA's Antonio Pena spoke for the first time in years at a TNA taping a few weeks ago, things still aren't good between them. Vampiro was planning to jump to AAA and reportedly tried to get Pena to bring in Konnan, but Pena has said the day he works with Konnan again is the day he quits the wrestling business. Then CMLL offered Vampiro a raise and AAA wouldn't match it, so Vampiro isn't jumping anymore (he would eventually go in 2005. Pena, meanwhile, would eat his words and bring Konnan back in 2004 but we'll get there).

• AJPW is doing a show this week and part of the gimmick for the show is that all the wrestlers will be using Metallica songs for their entrance music. The reason is part of a promotional deal because Metallica was scheduled for a Japan tour around this time. The tour has since been canceled but AJPW is apparently still using the music? (All Japan Pro Wrestling and Metallica. Exactly as Giant Baba envisioned.)

• NOAH is planning to hold its biggest show ever at the Tokyo Dome in April, expected to be headlined by Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama for the GHC title (this ends up getting pushed back to July but it happens. Features some AJPW and NJPW involvement and ends up drawing 58,000 allegedly. The planned main event also takes some fun twists and turns before coming back around to Kobashi/Akiyama again).

• Masahiro Chono was feared to have broken his neck after a spot gone wrong at a NJPW show. He landed badly from a german suplex and had to be stretchered out of the ring. Fortunately just a stinger, no break, but he's been advised to take several months off. His neck has been messed up since suffering a botched piledriver from Steve Austin back in the early 90s, but he's NJPW's top consistent draw and has continued wrestling a full-time schedule (this injury keeps him out of action until the Jan 4th show).

• Antonio Inoki appeared before the Nevada State Athletic Commission to try and get a license to run shows in Las Vegas. Inoki was told "in no uncertain terms" that any shoot fights taking place would be under the same agreed upon rules that UFC uses, and not the rules they use in PRIDE. He was also informed that there could be no worked matches on the card unless specifically designated as pro wrestling matches ahead of time. No trying to pull worked shoots over on the gamblers. Inoki left without officially applying for the license.

• K-1's hopes for a Mike Tyson vs. Bob Sapp match are slipping further and further away. Tyson still can't get a work visa to fight in Japan because of his rape conviction and now he has a legitimate boxing offer on the table in America for early next year and that's obviously going to take priority for him (Tyson ends up fighting a dude named Danny Williams in mid-2004 and loses by knockout, as Tyson is very obviously washed by this time).

• MLW canceled a major show they had planned for Jacksonville, FL because of low ticket sales. They have TV there and it was their first time in the city and they were planning to fly in wrestlers from all over the world to work the show, as well as film weeks of TV for it. But now they canceled it and it puts them in a tough spot.

• Macho Man is still all over the place, promoting his rap album and talking shit to Hogan. While on the Mancow show in Chicago, the host (Mancow) called up Jimmy Hart live on the air. Savage said he wanted to fight Hogan for real and donate the money to charity. Jimmy Hart demurred and said Hogan has a lot going on and to get in line. Hart defended himself and Hogan, saying he helped get Savage into WWF in the 80s. He also said when Savage wanted to jump to WCW in the early 90s, Bischoff asked Hogan if there would be any issues. Even though Hogan and Savage already had heat at that point (over Savage's divorce from Elizabeth), Hogan put that aside and approved Savage's hiring. Eventually, Jimmy Hart hung up on the call. Worth noting that Savage had Brian Adams and Ron Harris with him and that they've been acting as bodyguards for him, because every rapper needs an entourage I guess.

• Sid Vicious filed a small claims lawsuit against a movie director named Ron McLellan because he loaned the director $1500 and hasn't gotten repaid. The director was at a film festival showing his latest movie Stranded which Vicious has a major role in. Vicious said they shouldn't be showing the movie because he hasn't been paid for that either (I can't find ANYTHING about this movie, this must be the most small-time no-budget shit ever).

• Latest ROH show notes: Samoa Joe retained the title over Jay Briscoe. Crowd was super into Jay as an underdog challenger. Joe choked out Mark Briscoe after the match as well. The goal is to elevate both brothers to main event level guys and the crowd apparently was super into both of them on this show. Lots of TNA guys on the show as well, with AJ Styles in particular being hugely over (don't get used to the TNA stars for much longer).

• TNA attendance was way up this week because local newspapers have been talking about Hogan coming in soon. Whoops. On the show, they aired clips of the Hogan vs. Chono match from the recent NJPW show and focused mostly on Chono and putting him over big, because TNA is hoping to put together a deal with NJPW.

• Other Random Assorted TNA Notes: Sonjay Dutt, who impressed officials on a recent MLW show, made his TNA debut this week and was very impressive. Dave Penzer was recently hired and his role is basically to act as booking agent for TNA wrestlers to work on indie shows on off-dates and to make sure TNA gets a cut. Sting signed a 4-match deal with TNA earlier in the year but hasn't even been returning their calls lately about coming back for more dates. Roddy Piper is open to coming back but doesn't want to work a match, so they don't have any ideas for him otherwise.

• The Rock's chances of being at Wrestlemania 20 just got slimmer. He's signed on for a major role in the movie "Be Cool," a sequel to "Get Shorty" that will also star John Travolta and others. The movie starts filming in January. Rock will play a gay bodyguard who is trying to get into the movie business. This is something like 5 film projects in a row that Rock is now on the books for, with almost no down-time in between. Wrestling is on the back burner for now.

• WWE has been talking to the commission in Edmonton about a PPV next year Dave says No Way Out but it ends up being Backlash. (This PPV ends up being notable for Chris Benoit retaining the world title in front of his hometown in a rematch of the WM20 main event. As of this moment in October 2003, that sentence sounds fucking insane. And yet we're only 6 months away from it happening).

• Triple H was apparently a big hit on the "Blade: Trinity" movie set. Everyone there said they loved working with him and loved his work ethic, which seems to be a common refrain when normies work with pro wrestlers. He apparently spent a ton of time on the set even when he wasn't filming, asking questions and trying to learn as much as he could. He impressed the director so much that they extended his scene and plan to give his character more focus than originally planned when the movie is released. New Line Cinema is said to be interested in him for more roles in the future. There's been talk of him starring in a new Conan movie now that Arnold isn't acting anymore. On the flip side, Triple H made his return to the ring at a house show and immediately pulled his hamstring in the first minutes of the match.

• WWE Confidential already reached out to Road Warrior Animal about doing a story on the passing of Hawk. They had actually planned on doing several stories on dead wrestlers a few months back (after the Elizabeth episodes did huge ratings) and produced a lot of material for them, but never ended up airing it.

• Speaking of Animal....years ago, he reached a weird insurance settlement with Lloyds of London due to a back injury. The terms are strange because he's allowed to work tag matches, but not singles matches. So if Animal comes back into the WWE fold, they will have to put him into a new tag team (Dave must be a psychic. Because there's NO reason whatsoever to assume Animal would ever be forming a new tag team in WWE at that point in his career. But sure enough, that's exactly what ends up happening less than 2 years later).

• Plans for a Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash program have been dropped because Nash is going to have neck surgery soon, which will keep him out of action likely until his contract expires in February of next year. So we may have seen the last of him in WWE. Nash did an interview recently saying his in-ring career may be done anyway because his neck is in constant pain. He said a doctor told him his neck was in worse shape than Austin's and that he needs 4 vertebrae fused. He will be seeing the Kurt Angle magic surgeon instead to try and avoid that. Nash suggested he could still do a bodyguard type role in the future, but Dave doesn't think WWE would re-sign Nash to another big money contract just to have him stand in someone's corner again. And even if he could wrestle more, he spent most of the last 2 years injured. He could end up with an office job backstage. And if you thought backstage politics were bad now, just wait if that happens, Dave says (honestly kinda surprised Triple H hasn't roped Nash into something like that now that he's running the show).

• Notes from 10/16 Smackdown: Eddie Guerrero got choke-slammed on a car and through the windshield by Big Show and it was real glass. No word on whether any rivers were cried or how a certain ROH wrestler felt about it. Eddie ended up getting dozens of shards of glass pulled out of his back and was cut up bad. Dave wonders why they're bothering with safety measures like banning suplexes but still throwing people through real glass. Did we learn nothing from Goldberg nearly losing an arm on TV back in WCW? They showed John Heidenreich giving Matt Hardy a tape of his work and asked him to give it to the new GM. Hardy said he would and then threw it in the trash. Dave says for you indie guys out there giving your tapes to wrestlers, that usually is what happens, so at least that was realistic. That being said, Dave has seen Heidenreich work and he's nowhere NEAR ready for prime time yet and probably shouldn't be handing out audition tapes yet. But he's big, so, ya know.

• Notes from 10/20 Raw: they announced Team Austin vs. Team Bischoff for Survivor Series, which sounds basically just like the recent Tokyo Dome main event. If Austin's team loses, he's gone as GM and if he wins, he's free to resume kicking people's asses for no reason again. Dave feels like this is desperation booking. In the last 3 weeks, they've put up JR's announcer job, Steph or Vince's jobs, and now Austin's job. Dudley's match was a tribute to Road Warrior Hawk with them doing the Doomsday Device finisher to win. There were video packages for both Hawk and Stu Hart (with Vince himself doing the voiceover for the Stu piece). Molly Holly is now being booked to have Jerry Lawler fawning all over her, after years of calling her fat. Goldberg vs. Shawn Michaels main event went 7 minutes and ended in a no contest when Batista made his return and took out both men and reuniting with Evolution.

WATCH: Batista returns - Raw 2003

• Notes from next week's Smackdown tapings: Paul Heyman was brought back and announced as the new GM of Smackdown. He's still not back on the creative team but he is officially a "consultant" which means he just emails in ideas from time to time. "On occasion, they are even listened to," Dave says. When talking about Nidia, Dave has a wildly bad prediction here. "By the way, my prediction is the only Tough Enough winner that’ll never make the big show is Hennigan." Whoops! To be fair, he was in OVW at this point and was not remotely good. He improved a lot, quick. But damn. Dude ended up being easily the biggest star to ever come out of Tough Enough. They showed a promo of Bob Holly coming back for revenge on Brock Lesnar for breaking his back, leading Dave to wonder how in the hell they're expecting Bob Holly to be a face going after main event heel Brock Lesnar (well, they gave it a shot).

• The Maryland State Athletic Commission is fining WWE $2000 for the Vince vs. Stephanie match that took place at the PPV. They have bylaws against intergender matches that are subject to a fine. This has actually been a problem before. Back in 1991, at the (infamous) Great American Bash that year, WCW had hyped up a cage match of Rick Steiner & Missy Hyatt vs. Arn Anderson & Paul E. Dangerously. But they ended up having to do an angle before the match to get Missy out of the ring because the commission wouldn't let them do it. Back then, it wasn't even a fine. Just nope, you can't do it. Anyway, this time, someone from the commission reached out to WWE about this before the show and WWE's response was, "Who do we make the check out to?"

• Random Assorted Misc. Notes: Shane McMahon's wife Marissa is pregnant and due in February, which will make Vince and Linda grandparents for the first time. UPW star Chris Mordetzsky will be starting with OVW soon after signing a WWE deal and will be using the name Chris Masters. Nidia's sister (who works in OVW as Nurse Lulu) was the nurse in the Kane skit on Raw last week.

• Notes from OVW tapings: after months of making John Laurinaitis the unseen heel of the company, ol' Johnny Ace finally appeared on the show this week and had a promo face off with Cornette that was about as real as it gets. Cornette accused him of taking guys who aren't ready from OVW and letting them fail in WWE, or taking guys who are ready and giving them stupid gimmicks and stuff like that. Laurinaitis was a great cocky heel, burying OVW and Louisville and getting tremendous heat. They basically turned it into an OVW vs. WWE program. Batista returned, using his old Leviathan gimmick, and the crowd went insane for him (I can't find video of this, searching for it just brings up endless Cornette podcast clips).

• RVD's contract is up next summer for everyone asking. No talks of a renewal yet. RVD has a pretty big downside guarantee that he signed when he first came in but things have changed significantly in the years since and WWE is offering much lower guarantees to people who re-sign lately. Speaking of RVD, he continues to not give a fuck. He did an interview over the weekend and basically buried having the IC title. "For the most part, I don't care," he said before admitting he didn't even know how many times he's held it or even remember who he beat for it most of the times. Complained about people saying he can't cut a promo when all the WWE writers do is script him to say stoner stuff like, "Coooool dude" and then wonder why people think he can't do anything else. Said he was annoyed at the office telling him to tone it down all the time because they're worried about getting hurt, saying he's never gotten seriously hurt other than the one freak broken leg accident in ECW but that happened on a routine baseball slide. He also said weed isn't a gateway drug and people only think it is because they're lied to about it as children. And finally he complained about how WWE makes wrestlers work a certain style so as to not steal the show from the upper card matches. Said in ECW, even if you were 1st or 2nd match on the card, the rule was "go out there and steal the show" but WWE doesn't want people doing that.

MONDAY: more on Road Warrior Hawk's death, more on Hogan's alleged knee injury and TNA situation, AJPW anniversary show, NJPW Tokyo Dome review, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon get married, and more...