by Dave Meltzer
From the announcement on Wednesday in Japan of the legendary match that will apparently never happen, things have been in a constant turmoil for both Shamrock and the various promotions with designs on using him. Upon hearing the word, SEG immediately called and offered him a two-match deal for slightly more per event than New Japan was offering but not as much overall, for matches against Tank Abbott and provided he won, a title shot against Mark Coleman or whomever the champion was. However, it was their insistence that he could work New Japan, but that he doesn’t lose any matches, or they were pulling the deal off the table.
WWF’s deal offered more long-term security than the Japanese deal and far more than the UFC deal, but would require far more work and travel. WWF insisted on exclusivity. The Japanese deal was for a great amount of money, more than any foreign wrestler has ever received on a per show basis in Japan except for Hulk Hogan, for a limited amount of work. But the contract would expire in November.
WWF, which also immediately sped up negotiations on 2/18—the day word broke throughout pro wrestling that the Hashimoto match was being planned and about to be announced—pressured him to make the decision immediately and must have upped the ante since he flew back to Connecticut to sign the deal rather than meet with Eric Bischoff in San Francisco. For his purposes, WWF for many reasons looked like a better fit than WCW because WWF is looking to create new superstars while WCW has the top of its shows locked up and the booking is more controlled by wrestlers looking to maintain position.
WWF wanted him on as a surprise on Raw on 2/24 with so much talent away in Germany and all the key injuries, plus coming off the weak ratings for the first two-hour live show on 2/17 and were looking to pack every shock possible into the show to try and reverse the weekly ratings defeats. Several months back, WWF and Shamrock had a meeting at their offices about a deal, which fell apart when Shamrock’s asking price was $500,000 per year. At that time, Shamrock had guaranteed fighting contracts with both UFC and Pancrase, both of which were to expire in the latter stages of 1996.
With WWF looking for the home run that will put them back in the ball game, the two sides ended up back talking. Shamrock was looking toward pro wrestling for career longevity at the age of 33, recognizing his shooting days were near the end, after the reality of the hand injury eliminated him after the first round of the Ultimate Ultimate tournament and a lucrative Japanese booking fell through due to his legal problems with Pancrase.
In addition, Pancrase, which still claims he’s under contract with them for four more matches, was making noises once the New Japan match got out. While New Japan did try and negotiate with Pancrase about buying out the remainder of the contract, the two companies at this point are major business rivals. The old school pro wrestling mentality still remains that the shoot style and actual shooting that goes on in Pancrase exposes traditional pro wrestling as being worked and somehow threatens it because of that, despite New Japan doing record breaking business these days, with much of the style popularity coming from incorporating genuine shoot moves into the pro wrestling framework.
At the 2/22 Pancrase card in Tokyo, President Masami Ozaki, whose public statements about Shamrock in Japan after the two sides had the contract problem turned his image in Japan slightly negative publicly, said that the company would take legal action against New Japan if they used Shamrock. However, whatever negativity there was regarding Shamrock disappeared totally when the announcement of the Hashimoto match went public due to the huge buzz on the match.
MARCH 10
Probably the No. 1 topic of conversation this past week, perhaps more within the UFC world than the pro wrestling world, was Ken Shamrock’s decision to go to pro wrestling and the WWF in particular. Realistically, the pro wrestling decision was made weeks ago with the Shinya Hashimoto match the first step of a new career and not simply a one-shot deal.
While some may try and portray this as Shamrock being afraid of Mark Coleman, or Shamrock leaving real fighting because he’s injury prone—and there may be a measure of truth to the latter—the switch to pro wrestling is more a matter of economic reality. Shamrock went into the Ultimate Ultimate with the idea that he’d likely face Mark Coleman in the finals so the idea he got out because of fear of Coleman is unfounded. By all accounts, Shamrock was very confident in his chances to the point he was willing to risk an already made reputation going into a tough tournament. And remember, in the original Ultimate Ultimate plans, his first round opponent was to be Vitor Belfort. So forget the idea that his leaving was trying to duck Tank Abbott’s acceptance of his challenge or anything people wanting to bury him on the way out may come up with.
The future of so-called real fights is now in question, both from the political angle and the economic angle. EFC is hanging by a thread. UFC is licking its wounds and has been stagnant as far as PPV buys since taking the big drop starting in July and is the only real name brand in the game. The other organizations have no concept for economic viability and are going to bail out as quickly as they arrive. And Japan and Brazil are no less uncertain. Even if economic and political conditions were different, Shamrock wasn’t getting any younger and his long-term prognosis would still be the world of pro wrestling, if not right now, maybe another year or two down the road.
Shamrock was quoted in the Dayton Daily News as saying, “What closed the door to me with no-holds-barred fighting was that I couldn’t make enough money to support my family. If I do something I like and can support my family, I will continue to do it. The minute I can’t, I’ve got to do something else.”
Why WWF, where his success is far less certain than New Japan, where it would be almost a given? Simply, the WWF put more money on the table. They made the investment, and after losing out on major talent in the past, it’s up to the WWF to make that investment pay off. Whether they have the foresight to pull it off is a question. Whether they have the patience to pull it off is a question. And whether it can be pulled off in the United States is also not totally certain, because it requires educating fans to something new which is never a lock that it’ll work although a good promotion with patience more often that not can pull that process off.
The WWF is not expecting to build the company around Shamrock by any means. Despite winning an incredible bidding war for Bret Hart, it’s clear the company isn’t going to be built around him either. Despite being arguably the best all-around performer in the States and a proven drawing card, the company had decided not to build around Shawn Michaels either. Although WWF is very different from New Japan, they are taking the current New Japan plan where there is a group at the top, that any of the top guys on a given night can beat any of the other top guys.
The top level at this point is Undertaker, Sid, Steve Austin and Bret Hart. Shamrock will no doubt be put in a position to join that quartet, as will probably one or two others like perhaps Davey Boy Smith when he makes his complete turn, and Shawn Michaels will undoubtedly be back at that level if and when he returns. And everyone recognizes Shamrock can’t get there if he’s portrayed as just another babyface wrestler. George Scott years ago saw him as the next Ricky Steamboat in the Carolinas, right down to working the same angles to get him over with Paul Jones than he had done with Steamboat an era earlier. But before he came anywhere close to that level, Scott’s promotion went under and he became a star in Japan doing worked shootfights, and later doing real shootfights. But for him to fulfill the stardom Scott saw in him, the last thing he needs to be is another Steamboat.
It’s no secret what needs to be done, basically educating the audience to submissions with Shamrock portrayed as the master of that game. Will it work? Perhaps not immediately. So the question becomes patience, something pro wrestling promotions have lacked greatly in these days of a new head-to-head ratings battle every Monday night.
For the short run, Shamrock is not going to be a guy who makes a difference in the ratings and a new style isn’t going to be understood or over with the new audience for him
by next Monday night. I don’t know if any one person can be a one-man ratings changer, but certainly if there was, it isn’t him. But with the right build-up and booking, and the right opponent, he should be someone who can draw money and interest on PPV for the right match with the right build. If this becomes the beginning of a new road with more emphasis on matwork, realism, and submission finishes, thus enabling wrestlers to get away with less acrobatic and risky high spots and save their bodies in a business where the injury rate and risks seem to get higher by the week, it’s better for everyone.
But a change like that can’t happen overnight. This happened in Japan, as much by necessity because the top guys were breaking down from the punishment, as by someone with a long-term focus deciding to change it. And pro wrestling is all psychology. All Japan got a simple move like Mitsuharu Misawa’s facelock over as a killer finisher a few years back. How? Because Jumbo Tsuruta submitted to the move and presto, that’s all it needed. If the WWF has Shamrock make the top stars tap to whatever maneuver or maneuvers he’s pushed as having as his finishers, they’ll be recognized by people as deadly finishers. If they’re treated the way the WCW announcers treat those same submissions when Dean Malenko has them on, as an excuse to babble about Roddy Piper, then the resulting fan reaction to them will be the same as in WCW.
In the U.S., with more bodies to choose from and stars that can get away with coasting on the road, or avoiding the road altogether, it isn’t the necessity to get simple maneuvers like facelocks, sleepers, kneebars and armbars over and change what the classic match builds to as it was when similar changes were made in Japan to protect the bodies of the guys on top that need to headline for years to come.
And another point needs to be made in a business so ratings driven. When these changes were made within the Japanese business, while arena business largely stayed strong and in some cases got even stronger as the matches increased their believability factor, the fact was, initially, ratings dropped. They eventually rebounded, but there was a period where they got dangerously low across the board. The casual audience wasn’t as entertained at the same time the more serious audience was able to suspend disbelief, take the product more seriously and thus increasing the drama quotient, and the end result was more tickets sold for the major matches. As we’ve noted many times and as history shows clearly both short-and-long-term, drawing money at the gate and drawing television ratings are two entirely different animals which require two entirely different approaches to the game.
It’s also funny the reaction I’ve received to the Shamrock signing. Several veteran legends of the not too distant past (some of whom are still around today) thought he’d be the perfect person to put the world title on because of his credibility, and put on quickly. A few current wrestlers who follow UFC also believed his potential for stardom was great and that the WWF made a tremendous move for the organization.
But there are dissenting views as well. If the WWF thinks that because Shamrock is on its television or on its PPV shows that UFC fans that saw him as a major superstar will suddenly buy the WWF product, I don’t see it happening. And while there is a crossover between the two audiences, it’s not significant enough to instantly make someone a superstar anymore than bringing in a pro football star and not doing a good job of hyping him makes him a drawing card.
Kevin Greene and Steve McMichael, and to a greater extent Lawrence Taylor, were all legitimate pro football stars and pro football is one hell of a lot bigger entity than either UFC or pro wrestling. And the initial angle for all these men was given tons of pub and put over as if it was the biggest event of the year within those respective companies. WWF would hit a home run if Shamrock’s angle was done anywhere near as well as the angles leading to the debut of Taylor, Greene and McMichael were done. Yet both angles bombed on PPV when it came to buy rate even though the matches in both cases were much better than anyone could have hoped for going in.
Simply put, fans of those athletes from real sports, have no interest in seeing them in something they consider a joke. The Shamrock UFC fans have no interest in seeing Shamrock participate in something they consider a joke. The few super hardcore Shamrock fans who will order pro wrestling if he’s on it don’t number enough to make any difference in a TV rating or a buy rate just as the name Kevin Greene, coming off a Pro Bowl year and with media publicity, won’t make a difference in a national buy rate unless his angle is strong enough on its own to make that difference. However, if any of the above mentioned names made the transition to being wrestling stars, were given the right training and push, they could very quickly become major stars.
McMichael, with very little training and ability in the ring, certainly nowhere close to what Shamrock has, is a legitimate star with less than one year and only a handful of matches largely due to charisma and a lot of help in positioning by being put in a high-ranked group. And at this point while in the ring, his NFL legitimacy was a major help in him getting there. In the case of Shamrock, with the right angle and push, he’ll have an easier time getting over because of his legitimacy to the new audience. But nobody from the outside has a strong enough name to get over with the lack of that right angle and push in American wrestling.
New Japan is in a major bind. Everyone knows the story and they made a major mistake. In this day and age, you can’t announce a match publicly until the match is signed. By jumping the gun, New Japan left its business even flatter than the WWF’s is at this point. The idea of pro wrestling is to tease the audience into wanting to see a specific thing, and then when interest is at a peak, giving it to them. New Japan had a winner of an idea and knew it, and told the public about it before it was etched in stone. Now they have an empty public, all waiting and wanting to see something they can’t deliver.
Unless they pull a major rabbit out of their hats, whatever they can deliver is going to look second rate in comparison. Very similar to WWF spending nearly one year building up the idea of Bret Hart getting another crack at Shawn Michaels’ title, and then pissing it away by looking for short-term answers, abandoning it as a feature, and then losing out on it completely.
UFC, the company because of its non-worked nature that has far less control over its bookings, allowed Shamrock to do strong hype for a match that may have drawn the most interest of any match it could present as far as to the general public. And now it can’t deliver the match either. As worked pro wrestling, both in the U.S. and Japan, look for outsiders to either do the New Japan special angle or pop in as a surprise American mystery partner angle, UFC stars, whether they have pro wrestling experience or not, are going to be looked at.
And don’t think nearly every one of them would be interested. Pro wrestling offers more money, more security, more stability and less danger. Martial arts fans may want their sport to be this pure thing where people compete for honor and wanting to prove their skills, but that thought process doesn’t last long once you’re in the world of professional entertainment and you’re the economic commodity. And the problem with UFC is, once someone reaches the top level, there are only two places to go. Down—or somewhere else.
8 – Naoya Ogawa Signs For NJPW
MARCH 17
New Japan Pro Wrestling officially announced at a press conference on 3/7 that Naoya Ogawa, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in judo in the 209 pound weight class, would replace Ken Shamrock as Shinya Hashimoto’s opponent in the main event on the 4/12 show at the Tokyo Dome. It was announced two days later that the match wouldn’t be for Hashimoto’s IWGP heavyweight title because it would be under martial arts rules—no time limit and must be a finish by either submission or knockout with pinning not applicable to the match.
Virtually all the sports pages in Japan on 3/8 listed the Ogawa-Hashimoto announcement as that day’s lead sports story on the front page, which was a level of publicity that a Hashimoto-Shamrock match wouldn’t have been able to achieve. As of press time, only two other matches on that show have been announced, the Great Muta vs
. Masahiro Chono and the J Crown title defense of Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke.
The feeling in Japan from just about everyone close to the situation is that this main event should draw a sellout, which because of raised mid-level prices, would likely be the largest live gate in the history of Japanese pro wrestling. However, with the yen falling as compared to the dollar of late, the gate wouldn’t in U.S. dollars top the all-time record of $6.1 million for the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Keiji Muto first match.
While Ogawa, 28, is not the name Shamrock is to pro wrestling fans in Japan, he is a far more famous name among the general public. In addition, he’s a legitimate national sports legend since he won three world championships and seven national championships in a sport invented and popularized in Japan. This will result in far more mainstream media publicity for the match as a lot of media outlets that would shy away from coverage of a match involving a pro wrestler against an Ultimate Fight star, would give coverage to the pro wrestling debut of a national legend in judo in a Tokyo Dome match against the IWGP champion.
While Ogawa at the press conference hinted that he would be receiving 100 million yen (about $825,000) for the match, it’s doubtful that figure is anything even close to resembling a legitimate number as the figure Shamrock was offered for the same position on the same card which would have sold out just as easily wasn’t anywhere close to that figure.
When Ogawa made the decision to go into pro wrestling, apparently feeling he’d gone as far in judo as he could after finishing fifth in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, he at first contacted Giant Baba and All Japan Pro Wrestling. Baba turned down Ogawa as he didn’t want to offer a huge financial guarantee to someone unproven when it came to pro wrestling since his company is essentially a workrate promotion almost devoid of gimmicks.