by Dave Meltzer
Both WWF and WCW offer guaranteed contracts which both pay for injuries suffered on the job and wrestlers are paid when injured. The level of pay is equal to or better than All Japan in regard to the talent they are wooing. The travel schedules in each company is not nearly as demanding as had been the case in the past. That, coupled with lesser physical demands in the U.S. and the bonus of not being in Japan for a month at a time which can play serious mental games, you can see why All Japan, which hasn’t changed its salary structure or how it treats foreign talent while the market has changed, is rapidly losing much of its talent base.
Wilkes follows in the heels of Phil LaFon (formerly Dan Kroffat) & Doug Furnas as All Japan regulars who have left the promotion in recent years. But it would be the loss of Williams that would be the most damaging.
Williams, has been positioned as All Japan’s top foreign star since his return to the company one year ago—and held that position before a year-long suspension as well. While Stan Hansen has more name recognition, it is well established Hansen is long past his prime and exists largely on two decades of name identity and is no longer featured regularly on top as a single.
Williams had a well-known reputation at the University of Oklahoma as a college football and four-time NCAA place-winner heavyweight college wrestling star. He handed Dan Severn his only pinfall defeat in four years of college competition in 1981 and lost a close decision as a senior to Bruce Baumgartner in the NCAA tournament finals in 1982 before going to work for Bill Watts’ Mid South Wrestling. He was regarded in many circles as arguably (Meng was generally the other person with that rep) the single toughest person legitimately in the pro wrestling business for many years.
He eventually migrated to New Japan and switched over to All Japan for a famous run as tag team partner of Terry Gordy. He eventually worked his way up the All Japan ladder both from a workrate and position standpoint to where he was considered one of the best performers in the world in 1994, and the premier American wrestler in the All Japan style.
His rise, and for a short while his career, came to a halt after being banned from going to Japan in March of 1995 when he was caught at customs with a small amount of marijuana. He had a previous offense in the United States in 1988 when on a Japanese trip, at the Detroit airport he was caught carrying controlled substances including steroids and cocaine which nearly cost him his job with Jim Crockett Promotions.
Williams showed surprising loyalty to Giant Baba after the 1995 problem, by turning down WWF offers and working very few independent dates over that year, and waiting until he could return to Japan. The feeling is Baba had to pull major strings and it showed just how powerful Baba really was in getting Williams back in one year, since Paul McCartney for a similar offense wasn’t allowed back in Japan for more than a decade.
He returned and performed better than just about anyone could have expected going from a one-year layoff right into such high level of competition at last year’s Champion Carnival, but as the months in Japan went by, his work wasn’t the same. Even so, his June 7, 1996 match at Budokan Hall teaming with Johnny Ace in a loss to Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama was voted the Observer’s 1996 match of the year. In addition, his Champion Carnival final match loss to Akira Taue and the later match where he and Ace won the belts from Misawa & Akiyama were close to that level.
However, the first two tours of 1997 appeared to show a noticeable decline in his work and he really didn’t get over in ECW where he’s made several appearances between Japan tours. Given his age and the physically demanding style of All Japan, it really is the right time for him to make a move if he ever would want to try WWF—although this last minute snafu could throw a red flag on those plans.
The negotiations aspect of the story is actually bigger in regard to All Japan than WWF, although Williams would get at least the chance to reach a level of American stardom that he never quite reached in the past by going to WWF. The jury is out on whether, if he makes the move, that from a WWF standpoint it isn’t two years too late. Either way, it is largely expected Williams will work the upcoming Champion Carnival tour for All Japan even if he signs with the WWF, but after that is unknown.
As far as All Japan, by failing to keep pace with what is offered elsewhere, it is in danger of turning into the AWA of the 90s. All Japan was progressive at one point in regard to offering good money and regular positions with its talent. Just a few years ago All Japan was different from just about any company in the world in that the talent did nothing but rave about the company, were thrilled to be there, and praised their boss, with only the minimal grumblings that are inherent in a company of top athletes as part of a business where winners, losers and your position in the promotion are decided by forces often out of the wrestlers’ control.
But nothing has changed since that time except everything else in every other major promotion, and All Japan’s policy of no insurance coverage, only paying for treatment of injuries if the wrestler gets his treatment in Japan, and not paying wrestlers for time off while recuperating from injuries, which actually was progressive at one point in the business that just ignored injured talent, is today behind the times. By relying so heavily on workrate, it has a harder time filling spots when wrestlers leave when they get better offers, particularly now when the list of available free agents in wrestling who are super workers is decidedly thin or non-existent.
In addition, its core talent base is all, with the exception of Kenta Kobashi and Jun Akiyama, in its mid to late 30s and the physical style has taken its toll on every key member of the company. While the company survived quite well in 1995 without Williams, losing him at this point, even if his work isn’t at the same level, would be more damaging because Hansen is two years older and it would leave Gary Albright as the only foreigner who could headline as a single as it’s questionable whether Johnny Ace could draw as a single in a top spot.
MARCH 31
The political power of Shohei Baba in Japan was made evident to everyone as he was able to get Steve Williams into Japan for the Champion Carnival tournament that began on 3/22.
Williams, arrested days earlier for possession of a large amount of pain killers at the Laredo, TX airport—his third similar such arrest over the past ten years—was thought to have gone from being a sought after commodity in the WWF to someone whose pro wrestling career was in jeopardy due to the surprising amount of media coverage his arrest received worldwide.
According to those who work in the law in this kind of field, Williams was very lucky on several accounts. The first is that he was allowed to post bond, the second is that with such a large amount of drugs allegedly found on him and the two people he was traveling with that he wasn’t charged with intent to distribute and only with illegal possession without a prescription, the third is that the government didn’t take his passport away from him and the fourth is the Japan let him back in the country, the latter of which showed Baba’s considerable pull.
As mentioned last week, Baba’s power in Japan was shown by his ability to get Williams back in the country in one year when the biggest rock promoters in the world weren’t able to get Paul McCartney back into Japan for decades for a similar offense.
After learning of the arrest, Baba told reporters on 3/19 that the Carnival tour would go on as planned with Williams’ involvement. The explanation was apparently something along the lines that since Williams wasn’t caught with marijuana, the drug that led to him being booted out of Japan in 1995, that he would be allowed into Japan. One can only speculate why his U.S. passport wasn’t pulled with a felony charge hanging over him, but perhaps since his means of earning a living is his job in Japan, not allowing him out of the country would cost him his job.
Williams worked the ECW show on 3/14 in Downingtown, PA and was scheduled to win a handicap match on the 3/15 ECW Arena show to set up some sort of a confrontation with Taz, but didn’t appear at the Arena show and was arrested the morning of 3/17.
Williams arrived
in Japan, professing his innocence to the charges, and worked a six-man tag on opening night at Korakuen Hall teaming with Johnny Smith & The Masked Tornado (Richard Slinger) to beat Maunukea Mossman & Stan Hansen & Giant Kimala II. The next night he debuted in the Carnival tournament with a pin on Kimala II.
11 – Pay-Per-View Censorship
MARCH 24
The future of the Ultimate Fighting Championships, Extreme Fighting Championships and the success of the upcoming Extreme Championship Wrestling PPV shows all took turns for the worst over this past week due to what basically amounts to a controversial issue of cable system PPV censorship.
The NHB industry took a major hit this past week with the announcement that Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI Cable), the largest cable chain in the country, will no longer carry the shows. The decision will not effect the upcoming EFC show on 3/28 but either that or the 5/30 UFC show will likely be the last carried by TCI as some reports are saying this decision will go into effect on 6/1. An article in the 3/17 Multichannel News indicated the 3/28 show would be the final one carried. UFC officials stated that it was doubtful the 5/30 show would be carried by TCI but they were still hoping.
TCI systems comprise between four and five million of the remaining 20-21 million addressable homes that were still carrying the shows. Between addressable cable homes and satellite dish owners, there were 26.2 million homes with PPV accessibility in total as of last month (within the industry and media reports will give a higher number but this is the realistic figure), and NHB had lost five to six million of them already when Viewers Choice of Canada, the Cablevision systems in the U.S. and Inter Media Partners systems had decided to no longer carry the programming. But the TCI hit is the biggest one yet because not only is it the largest carrier, but the most influential and there is legitimate fear this will create a domino effect that will reverberate throughout the cable industry and wind up as the fatal blow for NHB on PPV.
With EFC basically hanging by a thread and already being in critical financial condition leading up to the current show, it likely signals the final death knell of the promotion after the 3/28 card. About the only thing that could save the promotion is a huge turnaround in the buy rate coupled with TCI changing its mind. Those close to the situation have indicated that if this decision had come down sooner, the 3/28 show may have been canceled by the promoters even though TCI would still have carried it largely because the idea was that this would be a show to help build an audience for the future, and now there doesn’t look to be much of a future. The show is going on in Des Moines, IA since much of the costs of running the show have already been incurred so they might as well go ahead with it.
UFC had taken several recent hits of late, but promoter David Isaacs of parent Semaphore Entertainment Group said that his company was in the business for the long haul. He cited a belief that it is a combination of the fallout from the controversy in New York and the hiring of a new President of TCI from San Francisco—Leo Hindery—to attempt to turn around that company’s ailing financial situation, that led to the recent decision.
Hindery, who was named President of TCI last month by CEO John Malone, is an arch-conservative who was CEO of Inter Media Partners, the first system to decide to not carry NHB PPV programming. Although Hindery had been a long-time foe of NHB, including participating in a debate at a cable conference with SEG President Bob Meyrowitz, the decision hit the genre from left field.
The belief of late had been that Hindery had come around to the realization the matches weren’t as violent or dangerous as their political foes had made them out to be. In fact, Inter Media had changed its position a few months back regarding NHB and carried the 2/7 UFC show. However, Jedd Palmer, Senior Vice President of programming for TCI said the decision came directly from Hindery. ECW had expressed that its product is theater and not sport to TCI to attempt to differentiate itself from the NHB genre which it is mistakenly lumped into and painted with the same brush.
Isaacs confirmed a loss of TCI systems would mean a significant change in business but said they were in the game for the long haul and that the company’s business plan was to hang on and wait until dishes gain more popularity, at which time the company won’t be as dependent upon decisions made by cable companies. That could be a long ways in the future. It would be a drop of between 15 and 25 percent in revenue for the shows provided buy rates stayed the same, depending upon whose stats you use—virtually all of which will work against the bottom line. This forces SEG, which is not one of these vanity promotions with no business concept, to cut costs in order to remain financially viable.
This means purses for the fighters, already a controversial issue, would have to be scaled back once again to coincide with the dropping revenue. This would make it more difficult for SEG to bring in the top quality names. Even before the TCI loss, losses from the previous show due to the last minute move had caused purse cutbacks for the upcoming show which will cause the 5/30 show to not feature any kind of a championship match.
The complete 5/30 line-up was finalized this past week with a Vitor Belfort vs. Tank Abbott main event. The site hasn’t been revealed, but inside rumors indicate Augusta, GA or a site near Augusta as the prime candidate. There will also be a four-man under-200 and over-200 pound weight division tournaments. The original triple main event single match format with one tournament was dropped due to purses being scaled back, and that was among the reasons that champion Mark Coleman, Don Frye and Marco Ruas, all of whom had been negotiated with and appeared to be on the show at one point, won’t be appearing.
For the money offered, none of the potential match-ups involving those three were able to be put together as Frye wanted more than what was offered to face either Coleman or Ruas, and Coleman wanted more to face Ruas. In addition, there were political problems in that Belfort’s camp had claimed they weren’t going to allow to him to participate in the show if he was lower on the card than Ruas (a secondary plan was to put Belfort and Abbott as the lead attractions in a heavyweight tournament), who he was willing to fight, but SEG sees the 19-year-old Belfort as one of its biggest potential drawing cards and doesn’t want to risk him this early against the likes of Ruas or Coleman.
The under-200 division will include Ensen Inoue of Satoru Sayama’s shooting promotion in Japan (who lost in 47 seconds last year to Igor Zinoviev in Japan but has extensive experience in both Vale Tudo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and a strong shooting background), Guy Mezger of Pancrase (2-0 UFC record), Christophe Leninger (0-1 UFC record with a loss to Ken Shamrock in UFC III, but a U.S. nationally ranked 189 pounder in judo) and Royce Alger (A highly-regarded amateur wrestler who is Dan Gable’s assistant coach at Iowa). The tournament winner theoretically will face Jerry Bohlander to determine the first under-200 UFC champion in July. Although it is against the rules of Lions Den to allow Lions Den fighters to fight each other, both Ken and Bob Shamrock waived the rule at the request of Mezger as SEG wasn’t going to allow him in the tournament if he wouldn’t agree to fight Bohlander should he win.
The heavyweight tournament line-up includes NHB veteran David Beneteau (2-3 UFC record, 4-4 overall) and 300-pound pro wrestler Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga in WWF), who was a boxer in Finland many years ago and is currently training under Gene LeBelle for NHB competition. Halme is best known as a fighter in wrestling circles for a three-punch knockout of Scott Norton in a Japanese bar years ago when both were regulars with New Japan Pro Wrestling, although there are reports it was a sucker punch knockout. The other confirmed entrant is Steve Graham, who all we know about is that he’s big and strong.
However, for the top quality names to work in the United States, SEG may wind up being the only place to go because if EFC is gone, the remaining competition is largely of the fly-by-night variety with fighters having no capability of making a serious name outside of the most hardcore of fans.
ECW, which went in with only an estimated 16 million homes cleared due to Viewers Choice deciding not to car
ry its 4/13 PPV because of a combination of perceived violent content and what it considered an unacceptable storyline (The Tyler Fullington angle, which ECW has since dropped) took another hit from Cablevision Systems Corporation, which is strongest in the Northeast, particularly in theoretical ECW strongholds such as Connecticut, Boston and Long Island. Exactly how many homes this entails isn’t clear because some of the Cablevision systems were already not carrying the events due to relying on Viewers Choice for their PPV channels. This comes on the heels of a few Inter Media Systems that use Request as its PPV carrier including Nashville, TN also deciding not to air the ECW PPV.
Although NHB and ECW are two entirely different animals, one being a somewhat dangerous and sometimes brutal sport, although both aspects are highly exaggerated by its opponents and in the media; the other being a sometimes violent and dangerous form of theater, the censorship issues involving both are similar.
While cable companies are publicly-owned businesses that due to that fact should have the right to make decisions on what they will and won’t carry, they are somewhat unique, like the power companies, in that they are basic monopolies within their franchise area. Consumers don’t have a choice if they don’t agree with the decisions of their cable company to switch to another company. Their only choice is to switch to buying a satellite dish.
However, the inconsistencies in regard to both animals and the attempts to eliminate them from PPV raises serious questions. Unlike over-the-air television, PPV is something consumers have to subscribe to. The argument that these shows are harmful to children is somewhat questionable in that they have to be specifically ordered and paid for, no different from the adult movies that most of the systems that are banning these programs still air.