______________________________________________________________________ __ __ __ __ _ ____ | | | | | \ | | | |/ _ \ | | | | | \ | | | / \ | | |/\| | | \| | | | | | | | | |\ | | | | | | /\ | | | \ | |__| |_| |__/ \__| |__| \__| [ n a i d O ' s - W r e s t l i n g - N e w s ] Edition 306 March 19, 2001 "I get the news, so you don't have to." http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naidoswrestlingnews ______________________________________________________________________ [Official newsletter & complement to:] http://www.naidOsWorld.com To subscribe: naidoswrestlingnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To unsubscribe: naidoswrestlingnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ______________________________________________________________________ [Table of contents] **Note from naidO **TOP NEWS STORY **Latest news from the WWF, WCW & ECW **[Article] Dave Scherer gives us the latest on WCW **[Article] The WWF has rejected a meeting with Senator Alvin Penn **Parting chair shot **Affiliates ______________________________________________________________________ [Note from naidO] Hello to those just joining. Tell your friends about the BEST newsletter around to subscribe today! **Click for the WCW GREED results: http://www.naidosworld.com/results_gr01.html - This has all got to be a work. No one seemed worried last night, no one seemed scared. The announcers didn't announce like the end was near. There was ONE thing I noticed though, no promo for the next PPV that you always see after pay per views. That's the only interesting thing. - naidO nWN Founder - http://www.geocities.com/naidosnews ______________________________________________________________________ [TOP NEWS STORY] From WCW .com: Effective Tuesday, March 27, WCW programming will begin a period of hiatus. During this hiatus, WCW will review its programming plans and determine the course of future WCW-branded entertainment events. More information will be released as it is made available. Plain and simple ______________________________________________________________________ [News from The WWF] **In case you missed Sunday Night Heat last night, Crash Holly defeated Dean Malenko to become the new Lightweight champion. **The rumored Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle match for Wrestlemania has now been made official. The seeds for this angle will be planted tonight on RAW. (Cred: LWN, 1wrestling) _______________ [News from WCW] **Quick results for WCW GREED: - Jason Jett d. Kwee Wee - Skipper and Romeo d. Kidman and Mysterio, Jr. - Stasiak d. Bigelow - Storm and Awesome d. Morrus and Konnan - Helms d. Guerrero, Jr. - Palumbo and O'Haire d. Luger and Bagwell - The Cat d. Kanyon - Booker T d. Rick Steiner - Dusty and Dustin Rhodes d. Ric Flair and Jeff Jarrett - Scott Steiner d. DDP **For those curious about the mood backstage last night at Greed, the word that was used to me to best describe it was "somber". There were generally two schools of thought among the employees backstage at the show. One group believed that this whole thing was a work, which is I guess to be expected in a business "built on a lie". The other group realized the seriousness of the situation but was holding out hope that it would all work out in the end. **Chavo talks (As heard on 1240 AM WGBB and on http://www.wgbb.com: - Chavo joins the show and claims that he has no idea what is going on with WCW, the workers haven't been informed about anything from the company. - Says it's hard to go out to wrestle when your thinking about your job security. - Chavo said after the Fusient deal was announced in January Eric Bischoff was behind the scenes acting like the boss. Then in the last few weeks he has disappeared, he didn't know what to expect going into Greed. - Chavo wasn't sure if he could go to the WWF if WCW folds. He's not sure if the contracts terminate or if he gets paid through the life of the contract. - Chavo felt that the backstage politics really lent a hand to WCW losing the ratings war to WWF in '98. The top guys refused to even wrestle the up and comers. Said that in the WWF on any given night you could see Buh Buh Ray Dudley beat the Rock, in the WCW, that would never happen. - Claimed that the guaranteed contracts in WCW weren't necessarily a good thing. He said in the WWF if you didn't work you didn't get paid, but in WCW people were taking weeks off for twisted ankles and getting paid. - Thinks a union would be a good thing to protect the wrestlers. If you get hurt in the wrestling business and then can't wrestle, you are out of a job. - If he goes to the WWF , Chavo feels that he and Eddie could really tear the house down either as a tag team or as enemies. (Cred: wcw.com, 1wrestling) _______________ [News from ECW] **not a thing (Cred: ) __________________ [In other news...] **Dave Meltzer Just got off the telephone Monday morning with Time- Warner spokesman Jim Weiss regarding the impending shutdown of WCW. "There are two points I want to make," Weiss said. "WCW is going to be sold. We have options. The other point is that we've decided professional wrestling in its current incarnation just isn't appropriate for the high-scale, up-scale brand that we have built on TNT and TBS Superstation. We're no longer interested in carrying the product." Weiss declined to answer whether an increase in ratings would make WCW "up-scale" enough to have remained on TBS and TNT. He also declined to comment on whether a late WWF bid caused the Fusient deal to unravel. "WCW is not a core business for Turner broadcasting," Weiss said. "We own the greatest film library in the world. We're a content-driven company. We have demands based around the copyrights we own. We're upgrading some of the strongest cable networks in existence. WCW is just not a core business." Weiss confirmed WCW will not be holding its May 6 pay-per-view show. Asked whether wrestling would ever return to TBS or TNT, Weiss said, "We're leaving door open, but in our current incarnation, it just doesn't match up well with the upscale networks we've built. What you're talking about, I wouldn't want to speculate on. For the time being, we're gonna let somebody else worry about it." (Cred: wrestlingobserver) ______________________________________________________________________ [Article] Dave Scherer gives us the latest on WCW In the last day, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety have covered the WCW cancellation story. More and more, the story is getting mainstream press. The Reporter was a little in the dark as, while they announced the cancellation of WCW shows from TBS and TNT, they also said that the "previously announced sale of WCW is proceeding." Their story added that a "TBS Inc. spokesman would say only that WCW definitely will be sold one way or another." The Reporter spoke to the USA Network and asked them about possibly purchasing WCW, and they were told it was "highly unlikely". They pointed out WCW's declining ratings as one of the reasons that they had no interest in the company. A Turner spokesman said that you can count on movies to fill the slot once owned by wrestling on their networks. Meanwhile, Variety reported that wrestling was scrapped on Turner networks because of poor ratings and the fact that "so many advertisers refuse to buy time on wrestling shows that they don't deliver ad revenues commensurate with the young male audience the two series pull in every week." Variety mentioned that TNT and TBS were going for a more "upscale" audience. That had been the plan for TNT for a while now, but they recently decided to take the same approach with TBS. Time Warner had been discussing moving all wrestling to TBS for a while now. TBS is using a new philosophy and it trying to became the network known for syndicated reruns of popular prime time series TV. They are adding "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to their schedule this fall. Variety said that the cancellation "could kill" the Fusient deal. Variety also reported, "The Turner spokesman said other buyers are waiting in line, including the WWF, if Fusient drops out." How much of that is hyperbole we should know very soon. WCW sources have told me that there are indeed other people who they have talked to about selling the company, but a TV deal, somewhere, would be required before any deal could take place. At that time, I see it more as AOL selling off the assets of WCW than selling the company itself. Their main asset in a deal was the TV time that came with the promotion. Without that, all they really have is some equipment, some wrestler contracts and a very damaged brand name. Where the equipment is concerned, that could be sold off. The contracts? I look at it like this. If WCW can make a deal to sell them in a bundle quickly, they would do it. The prevailing thinking by people who see the WWF as a player in this is that Vince could buy the contracts and then tie up all the talent. My way of looking at it is that WCW doesn't have many guys that can draw money, as evidenced by the poor buyrates for PPVs and the sparse turnout at house shows. When you add in plummeting TV ratings, I really have to wonder why Vince would even care to lock that talent out. Yes, there are rumors of a few start up groups coming along, but as WCW and ECW have showed in the last year, unless you can sell a lot of PPVs, TV ads and tickets to shows, it's very easy to get in the red in the wrestling business, very quickly. It would really surprise me to see the WWF get involved at this point, especially when most of WCW's big names would be out of their contracts by December, and Vince could get them for the price he chose. What I see happening, if AOL can't sell the contracts in the next month or two, is them releasing guys when their 90 day review window comes up and trying to buy out the guys with guaranteed deals. As for the brand name WCW, it does hold some value. The question will be, what is that value worth. Is it worth 20 million dollars? Not to me. Is it worth a million? Maybe so. (Dave Scherer) ______________________________________________________________________ [Article] The WWF has rejected a meeting with Senator Alvin Penn The WWF has rejected a meeting with Senator Alvin Penn of Connecticut about the content of it's programming due to the nature of his invitation. BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A state lawmaker hopes to convince the World Wrestling Federation to reduce its televised violence. Sen. Alvin Penn, D-Bridgeport, said the WWF was becoming "more tasteless, uncouth and dangerous by the day." Penn, co-chairman of the Legislature's Public Safety Committee, proposed in a news release a meeting with company officials to discuss their programming. "We aren't interested in meeting with people who issue invitations through press releases," WWF spokesman Gary Davis said. The WWF encourages parents to watch its programs with their children, he said. The company urges parents to use its Web site to answer questions about wrestling programs. "It is not everyone's cup of tea," Davis said. "But for 20 million viewers, it is their cup of tea." "We are not looking to get rid of wrestling," Penn said. "But we have a responsibility to our children to look out for them and make sure that they are not delivered a lowest-common-denominator product just because it sells." ______________________________________________________________________ [Parting Chair Shot] Remember, tell your friends about nWN - naidO's Wrestling News today! **Missed any TV Shows? Go to the following link to read the results: http://www.naidosworld.com/tvshows.html Also, be sure to check out the NEW internet home of nWN, http://www.geocities.com/naidosnews for all your archived stats, tv shows, wrestling links, terms and PPV's, and most of all PICTURES! - naidO nWN Founder ______________________________________________________________________ [Affiliates] **http://www.paywindah.com **http://green_mist.homestead.com **http://www.geocities.com/dsherelo **http://www.tommydreamer.net **http://www.stephaniebellars.com **http://www.PaulHeyman.Net - BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF nWN and make it your official newsletter!! Email naido@hotmail.com with your website's address for consideration. ______________________________________________________________________ [News gathering links] **1Wrestling/Dave Scherer/Bob Ryder @ http://www.1wrestling.com **Wrestling Observer/Dave Meltzer @ http://www.wrestlingobserver.com **The Law/Dan Lovranski @ http://www.liveaudiowrestling.com **UltimoWrestling/MrWolfson/CBrown @ http://www.ultimowrestling.com ______________________________________________________________________ [Ads] **ESW - The number one E-Fed on the face of the Earth! The ESW: Extremely Suicidal Wrestling! http://www.geeksoft.net/gin/gfed2/gfed.cgi?lid=1204 **Call The KLiQ Hotline For Daily Pro Wrestling News & Rumors. This call give you the most updated Pro Wrestling News that matters. This call is FREE and allways will be you can call from the US and Canada the # 1-888-561-4391 ! Give it a call. REMEBER it's 100% FREE YOU WILL NEVER BE CHARGED ______________________________________________________________________ [nWN Staff] Founder & Editor: naidO - naido@hotmail.com Columnist: Sam Jerry - SAMJERRY@aol.com Columnist: The Vile - vile316@yahoo.com Columnist: Ted Cabata - tcabata@roanoke.edu ______________________________________________________________________ [Disclaimer] naidO's Wrestling News was founded on April 30, 2000 and is owned and operated by naidO. He, nor this newsletter is in no way, shape, or form affiliated with World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Turner Broadcasting's World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, or any other wrestling organization. Nor the people (staff members), wrestlers, or any other talent in the wrestling. News is gathered from various sources around the net, including newsgroups and are believed to be of public domain and truthful (uh huh). As long as proper credit is given it exempts nWN and it's staff. I (naidO) am just promoting their organization/website. nWN is not responsible for content on affiliate websites or where they may link to including mp3's, warez, kiddie porn and/or other unlawful content. This exempts myself & this newsletter (nWN) from all legal disputes. Anything taken from this newsletter requires written consent from naidO Copyright © 2000, 2001 naidO. All Rights Reserved To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: naidoswrestlingnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Sorry to see you go if you do =(