The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two

by Dave Meltzer

  The world has changed and where five years ago everyone in the industry did whatever they could to unsuccessfully deny or hide the problem, today, particularly in WCW, certain wrestlers have at times come close to almost flaunting the fact they are loaded and can get away with it every Monday night. In a business that appears to be more star-driven than ever before, the feeling is a big name can flagrantly do anything these days and get away with it, and that goes a whole lot deeper than the drug issue.

  Can you imagine a situation currently if an NFL team had a publicized quarterback controversy which affected the two guys fighting over the spot so much that they both got into a fight backstage where one pulled the others’ hair out and both wound up aggravating already injured knees to the point both had to miss several key games what the reaction of the team, the league and the media would be? Certainly it wouldn’t be to be somewhat embarrassed and pass it off as boys being boys.

  Realistically, the situation the same night in WCW with Kevin Nash and Roddy Piper, had it happened in another sport, likely would not have resulted in any major disciplinary problems and would have been viewed as boys being boys because nobody got hurt, but I don’t see in any other sport if the Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels situation had happened where the organization would have reacted the way the WWF did.

  In recent months, there have been publicized arrests of Doug Gilbert, Tommy Rich, Steve Williams, Gary Wolf, Anthony Durante, Alex Rizzo (Big Dick Dudley), Leon “Vader” White (twice no less in a two week period in Kuwait) and Billy Travis, not to mention Scott Hall checking himself into rehab and a suspension of Brian “Jesse” James. Those names cut across every promotion and include major superstars and journeyman wrestlers. They don’t include the alarming frequency where major stars have showed up on Monday nights in condition where they are barely making it through their interviews because they are so loaded.

  The aforementioned arrests are all isolated incidents in their own way, some quite minor, some having absolutely nothing to do with drugs, some are almost in their own strange way black comedies, and all can be explained away as isolated incidents except that there are too many of them happening too frequently in a profession where too few people are employed.

  Ever since Hall checked into rehab, combined with WCW continuing to advertise him for shows that they full well knew he wasn’t going to appear on, that company, particularly due to its high visibility with usage of top pro athletes on its major shows, opened itself up for the same potential bullseye of bad publicity that ECW did with the Erich Kulas incident. We may be one incident by a major star away, and perhaps not even that, from one influential reporter playing connect the dots of this story and we’ll be back to a situation where, like 1992, the profession starts lying for cover, and digging itself into a deeper hole.

  In some of the aforementioned cases, wrestlers have lost their jobs or a secondary job. In other cases, nothing of the sort. Probably in a lot of cases the wrestlers shouldn’t have lost their jobs over the incidents. During this same period, drug testing has for all real purposes been dropped in both WWF and WCW although both theoretically still have policies in effect. But even when there was drug testing, virtually nobody in the industry believed the policies were indiscriminately enforced or that if top stars were to fail a test that they would actually be punished unless it was an extenuating circumstance such as Hall’s showing up positive in a test on the same day he gave notice.

  You can’t be realistic and be all pristine about the drug issue in wrestling at the same time. The nature of this industry breeds drug problems. The physical punishment, self inflicted in most cases, can be brutal among the wrestlers with the most internal drive to get over and it’s no surprise that many of the hardest working wrestlers are going to wind up hooked on downers.

  While steroid use is still around, it is nothing close to rampant nor on the level of just five years ago due to the change in the fans tastes for workrate over a stationary cosmetic package. While there are a handful of wrestlers due to their prescribed roles that still almost need to take steroids for their specific role just as virtually every woman in this profession needs a boob job to get over, that number today is exceedingly few.

  But you can’t defend the industry because for those that play those roles because there are certain characters who by their gimmick are pretty well forced to use steroids. Unlike in the 80s where the mentality was you needed the physique to get a good job, the majority of the wrestlers using steroids today really are doing so making their own personal choice, but not all.

  Many said that in the 80s, even under oath, but when you consider probably 80% or more of the major wrestlers were using steroids just six years ago and today that figure is so much lower among the basic group of people in the industry tells me the decision making process wasn’t internal by the wrestlers, even among those who believed their own decisions were, but coming from external pressures as those same wrestlers who recognize that steroids today aren’t going to be much of a factor in them getting a better job, seem not to be taking steroids today and don’t tell me they are suddenly concerned with their health or the law or had no idea there were negative side effects six years ago.

  The road schedule, while tough, is far easier then in the past when wrestlers really did work 300 matches a year so the need for uppers to keep going while doing seven nights a week isn’t there like in the previous incarnation of drug problems. But while some of the nearly inhuman working conditions of the past in pro wrestling have been alleviated and pressures to juice up have been greatly lessened, there is a problem that is being ignored—that a series of so-called isolated incidents are signs of a dangerous pattern.

  Wolf, 30, and Durante, 29, were arrested on 7/2 at their respective homes in South Philadelphia after a grand jury came up with three indictments against the two for trafficking in 1995 in their home area. They were released on bail and are awaiting trial. At least at the present time, it’s unlikely they’ll be used in ECW, just as Williams was no longer used after his recent arrest.

  21 – Maurice Smith Upsets Mark Coleman

  AUGUST 4

  In the most stunning upset in the history of the Ultimate Fighting Championships, Maurice Smith combined tremendous defense on the ground with superior conditioning to win a unanimous decision over previously unbeaten and some thought unbeatable UFC heavyweight champion Mark Coleman on 7/27 in Birmingham, AL.

  Smith, 36, added the UFC title to his numerous major kick boxing championships including currently holding the ISKA heavyweight title. He’s also done pro wrestling in Japan with organizations such as UWF, PWFG, Pancrase and currently RINGS and actually has lost numerous matches, some shoots, others works, via submission in Japan. His lengthy kick boxing career saw him at one point considered as the best heavyweight in his sport in the world. He survived the first several minutes on his back and largely took control over a completely exhausted Coleman at the 9:00 mark and used his stand-up skill to score points, mainly with leg kicks, while a totally spent Coleman held on for dear life. It probably ranked just behind the 1995 Oleg Taktarov vs. Tank Abbott match as the most dramatic match in UFC history.

  Many, particularly within the world of martial arts magazine, will call this victory of a kick boxer over a wrestler as proof that UFC’s dominance by ground fighters was only because no world class kick boxer has entered, similar to how many magazines tried to trumpet Smith’s win over Marcus Silviera to win the EFC title.

  There couldn’t be more of a wrong statement. It wasn’t kick boxing that beat Coleman, it was scouting, game plan, ground defense and cardiovascular conditioning. No doubt Coleman’s running out of gas so badly after 7:00 will bring up all kinds of whispers, or whether he simply trained for a fast sprint and never believed Smith was going to last on the bottom, which was the prevailing wisdom of how the fight would go going in. Coleman’s conditioning problem is very likely linked to a chemical imbalance from an improper working thyroid that kept him out of Ult
imate Ultimate last December. It was believed in this case, as was the belief going into the Dan Severn match, that in a long match, Coleman would lose, but in this case, nobody gave it much of a chance that it would be a long match.

  The main event saved what turned out to be the most one-sided series of fights in UFC history underneath. As expected, world-class freestyle wrestlers Kevin Jackson and Mark Kerr, both from Coleman’s “Hammer House” team, dominated their respective under and over-200 weight divisions enroute to victory. If anything, their easy wins paved the way for the drama that was to unfold making the show’s climax that much stronger and a very one-sided thumbs up ratio. Coleman, the heavy favorite, appeared likely to use the same vaunted “ground and pound” tactics that his teammates used on a fighter with considerable stand-up skill but not believed to be a serious threat on the ground.

  Smith held the heavyweight title with the Extreme Fighting Championship company when it went out of business a few months ago and in some circles this was promoted as something of an interpromotional title unification type of match. While Smith was 2-0 in NHB, he hadn’t faced anyone believed to be close to the level of a Coleman, who came into the match with a 6-0 record and having never been seriously challenged in any of his matches. Smith, on the other hand, had lost many mixed matches by submission in Japan to competitors not believed to be anywhere the capabilities of Coleman.

  It is also interesting to note just how strong the connection between working and shooting and pro wrestling and UFC has become when it comes to the top stars of UFC. Of the major champions produced in UFC, only Royce Gracie and Mark Coleman had no connection to pro style wrestling and working. Ken Shamrock was a pro wrestler before UFC and worked with Pancrase during UFC, and is back as a pro wrestler after UFC. Dan Severn was a pro wrestler before, during and will be after UFC. Don Frye did a few pro wrestling matches on small Arizona independents many years ago, but is now with New Japan Pro Wrestling. And now Smith.

  The match started the same way most of the fast and one-sided matches underneath had started, with the powerful world-class wrestler taking down his foe quickly. Smith, who in hindsight beat Coleman more in a mental game than a physical one, made a remark that Coleman punched like a girl (actually that statement was stolen from Tank Abbott’s remarks about Dan Severn before their match which ended up with Abbott on his back almost the entire match). Coleman took the remark seriously and came into the cage looking to quickly tear Smith’s head from his shoulders. Smith came in looking far more concerned than he had made it appear he’d be going into the fight. Smith, for the match by Frank Shamrock, had spent the past several weeks training at the Lions Den. They had clearly done his homework in scouting Coleman and weeks ago were very confident of a game plan that would work against the fighter they considered and in some ways exposed as one-dimensional.

  After taking some punches and head-butts early from Coleman, he was able to, while on his back, neutralize much of the damage with both a Jiu-Jitsu guard and an ability to block the telegraphed roundhouse blows Coleman attempted to throw in. Coleman’s bread-and-butter submission hold, the strangulating headlock that put away Dan Severn and that purportedly in practice he was tapping out Kerr and Jackson with, was blocked and wiggled away from by Smith every time Coleman came close to getting it on. It had been said by numerous people who had viewed Coleman’s matches in the past, that the first person to be able to survive against Coleman early would be the first person to beat him. After a few minutes, it was clear Coleman was tiring out. While people had said it, just how true it turned out to be ended up being the shock of the show.

  After the 6:00 mark, Coleman’s offense slowed down to simply keeping his position on top of Smith. By 7:30, the live crowd 4,800, a near sellout of the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham, began chanting “Maurice,” sensing what was about to unfold. Finally at the 9:10 mark, Smith escaped Coleman’s top position, a clear indication Coleman was running on empty. But when both were on their feet it was clear Smith’s face had been marked and he was tired, looking like he’d been in a war. But Coleman was shockingly even more spent than anyone could imagine. He appeared to be out of breath and cramping, bending over, to a degree the likes of which you almost never see in a combat sports situation, and certainly never see anyone survive with for more than a minute or two longer. Smith’s strategy at this point was to using leg kicks and a few jabs and mainly stay away.

  Those who talked with Smith after the fight said Smith said he never went to the all-out attack even though it appeared Coleman was ready to go out because of fear Coleman’s superior weight would result in them going down with Coleman on top and even though Coleman couldn’t damage him from that position, he didn’t want the judges to see him on his back after spending so much time on his back early in the fight. Coleman did get another take-down at 10:15 in, but Smith was the more aggressive from the bottom throwing elbows. Coleman actually came close at this point to getting his headlock, but Smith threw a few knees to the head from the bottom. Smith escaped and tagged Coleman with some punches before the 12:00 regulation time expired.

  The two overtime periods were all Smith, mainly using leg licks. At one point Smith went for a big roundhouse and whiffed badly, lost his footing and went down, but Coleman was so exhausted he couldn’t even move to capitalize on it. Coleman’s attempts at take-down were incredibly slow at this point and not even a threat and at this point the only battle for him was to survive. Smith kept backpedaling and taunting Coleman, telling him to ground and pound him, while Coleman was trying to find out how much time was left, seemingly hanging on with as the living embodiment of the famous Vince Lombardi saying of how fatigue makes cowards of the toughest of us all. Just as the second overtime expired, Smith appeared to go in for the kill, but time ran out and he was awarded the easy decision and the championship. The next day, Coleman’s face was described as looking like he had been on the losing side of a war.

  “Everything he did we had practiced to a t,” said Frank Shamrock, who has trained Smith in ground fighting the past few years. “It was pretty much textbook in how to pick apart a wrestler. It was just a matter of how well he’d last for two or three minutes.”

  Shamrock said that they knew Coleman couldn’t knock Smith out so the only danger was getting caught Coleman’s one submission headlock choke maneuver. Even though virtually nobody within the NHB world gave Smith much of a chance in the fight, both Smith and Shamrock were talking very confidently about winning well before the fight. And Shamrock was talking equally confident about a possible match with Vitor Belfort.

  “I think Vitor would be an even easier match,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, this was a hard fight. Vitor would be more dangerous early on but the match would get easier as it went on.”

  The strategy in that case is that Smith’s usage of leg kicks in a standing fight, over time, would take out Belfort’s leg strength and quickness and eliminate the full body power he brings to those punches.

  Although SEG had been planning its year around a Coleman vs. Vitor Belfort ultimate match in December, officials couldn’t have been more thrilled. They liked Smith, who is a true professional fighter in the sense he knows how to conduct himself, is a great talker and knows how to hype a fight and they believe him to be marketable. The feeling beforehand was that they would have been thrilled even if Smith won and ruined their long-term plans, but just didn’t think it was likely to happen.

  So there’s a new champion. But is Smith now going to become the champion of two consecutive organizations that go out of business? While throughout the broadcast there was hype for a 10/17 show, built around a Belfort main event with no opponent mentioned (there were hints at either Randy Couture or Dan Severn), no location was announced. Economically, these shows can’t be profitable unless more cable systems carry them then carried this show and the previous one and there is no political climate for a turnaround on that issue.

  When promoter Bob Meyrowitz congratulated Kerr a
nd Jackson on their tournament wins and talked about the future, there was trepidation in his voice. Unlike most sports and businesses that fail due to economic conditions, UFC is fighting what at this point appears to be a losing battle against political conditions with no signs of change.

  Perhaps the most interesting note when it comes to the buy rate is that numerous Time-Warner systems around the country actually did carry the event after saying that they wouldn’t. There were at least a few systems that we are aware of that reversed their positions in the past week due to numerous complaints from subscribers. That also means in those systems the event was never advertised and thus the buy rate was likely microscopic with no advance pub in those systems that an event was even taking place.

  In other words it was likely to get almost an 0.0 buy rate which will kill the national average. That may end up making it easier for the cable industry to finish serving up UFC as it sacrificial lamb, or more likely was one of those strange lack of communications in a big business that those of us who follow pro wrestling are familiar with. Promoter David Isaacs acknowledged the numbers weren’t going to be impressive, but that they were thrilled with the main event and were now beginning plans for a follow-up show.

  As a show itself, due to the shortness of the undercard, there were numerous features plugged into the show. Some, talking about the whereabouts of former UFC stars that seemingly had disappeared, were interesting. But there was far too much dead time and the quality of the fights overall was a disappointment. It turned out okay because of how the show-long storyline developed into the main event, but had the main event gone the way of the rest of the show, it would have been the weakest UFC show to date. Some of the one-sidedness was simply things you can’t plan out, such as Johnston just being unable to cope with Bobish and conversely, Bobish being unable to hang with Kerr, as on paper even though the expected favorite won, they shouldn’t have been expected to win so easily. But the squash match nature of several of the matches was expected.