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

by Dave Meltzer

  In addition, to single these out creates some terrible inconsistencies because movies with themes far more controversial than any ECW angle or violent content that makes ECW look pale by comparison aren’t singled out. In addition, numerous Cablevision systems that won’t air ECW on PPV, do air ECW on broadcast television, some in decent time slots. We have yet to hear of a cable system blacking out individual programs of any type on stations due to perceived content, let alone ECW, yet the same product, on PPV, which consumers have to subscribe to rather than children can witness simply by channel surfing, is being blacked out.

  Even though ECW, with all the high-risk stunts and more frequent stiff shots is more dangerous than WWF or WCW wrestling, both of the latter promotions contain most of the same types of content as ECW, just in smaller doses. In addition, is there any call to ban movies in which stunt men, who on occasion suffer very serious injuries, attempt things far more dangerous than anything done on an ECW show?

  The inconsistencies in regard to violence and danger involving UFC have been stated here numerous times. While networks can show pro boxing, which has a much higher injury and mortality rate; or auto racing, which regularly produces deaths; on weekend mornings and afternoons; UFC, which for the most part isn’t available on broadcast television, is being banned by cable companies. The irony is that the November MARS PPV show was later sold to Mexican television and then broadcast on a Saturday afternoon on an over-the-air Spanish language network nationally in the U.S. and was the source of no censorship or even controversy.

  12 – WCW vs. ECW

  APRIL 7

  Lots of rumors regarding Van Dam leaving for WCW. Supposedly when asked about his martial arts background, Van Dam told someone over the weekend, wait a few weeks and you’ll hear about it from Mike Tenay on Nitro.

  APRIL 21

  Lots of concern in ECW since WCW had Nitro the next night and many of its people were in town. Nick Patrick and one of the members of Harlem Heat came to the building about 30 minutes before the show started. The dressing room reaction from actually several of the guys was to start a fight but it was quelled down pretty quick (it’s amazing that Heyman has now become the level-headed guy).

  Dean Malenko and Ted Petty came to the building but left before the show started, and Kevin Sullivan, Hugh Morrus and Dave Penzer came after the show ended and were cordial with everyone. Gary Juster came to the building to buy a ticket but it was sold out and he wasn’t let in.

  The only ECW performer who came to Nitro was Bill Alfonso. There were people in WCW joking about how the same fans who do those anti-Bischoff and anti-WCW chants on ECW shows were noticeable on television at Nitro right in front of the camera marking out for WCW bigger than they do at ECW.

  APRIL 28

  WCW has made major plays for several of the wrestlers within ECW over the past week. In response, Paul Heyman has either signed or extended the contracts of Shane Douglas, Francine, Eliminators, Sabu, Taz, Joey Styles, the Dudleys, Stevie Richards and Tommy Dreamer all in the last few days and will take steps to do the same by the end of the week with Sandman, the Pit Bulls and Chris Candido.

  WCW apparently offered Raven a three-year deal at six figures per annum to join the NWO. Raven has a meeting with Heyman later this week to discuss the situation. WCW wanted to bring him in immediately, but he’s apparently under contract to ECW through August and under a non-compete clause when it comes to appearing on PPV shows through 10/13. It’s expected that Heyman at the very least would insist Raven stay through the 8/17 PPV show in order to finally put over Dreamer and that Heyman has already contacted Kevin Sullivan to claim WCW is tampering with ECW contracts.

  Heyman’s attorneys also contacted WCW claiming by using the terms “The Extreme Team” (for Ace Darling & Devon Storm, who did a job on the 4/14 show in Philadelphia) and by using the name Kimona, they were violating ECW intellectual property. ECW claims they’ve used the term The Extreme Team since August 1995.

  MAY 5

  Raven (Scott Levy) officially informed Paul Heyman on 4/23 that he was accepting a three-year contract at $225,000 per year from WCW. The belief is that because of the money figures and because he was welcomed into the company by Diamond Dallas Page, Eric Bischoff and Kevin Nash, that he’ll politically be protected and not used in the manner that a lot of the talented wrestlers are used—basically as television cannon fodder to get over the protected group.

  WCW wanted him to start on the July PPV show in Daytona Beach but his ECW contract prohibits him from appearing on a rival PPV until 10/13. Heyman is attempting to work out a deal with Bischoff where ECW would get some compensation from WCW for using The Extreme Team in Philadelphia, using Kimona’s name in Philadelphia and to let Raven out of his contract ahead of time.

  On the other hand, at this point it appears the whole Rob Van Dam deal has turned into a total angle. Van Dam was at one point talked about by WCW officials as being close to a done deal, but nothing more has been done about it. My feeling is that the initial “You sold out” reaction was so strong to Van Dam when he was negotiating that it turned into an angle to help add to his heat. Van Dam’s new gimmick being the guy who wants to work Mondays for the rival promotion has boosted him to being one of the most over heels in the group.

  Officially he’s only agreed to stay in ECW through the middle of June, however he has yet to give notice to All Japan, and if he was going to WCW in late June, one would think he would have done so already. Heyman said that Van Dam can do the role that he had first thought would go to Jerry Lawler as being the anti-ECW outsider, and this way he doesn’t have to deal with Lawler. It would make sense for Van Dam to appear on Raw once to get his Monday night gimmick over.

  There are plenty of rumors flying that The Gangstas are headed to WCW although at this point they haven’t given notice to ECW and nobody in WCW is talking about it either.

  The situation with Bill Alfonso and the WCW Nitro taping in Philadelphia is that Alfonso was not at Nitro, but talked with several WCW wrestlers at the hotel after the show and others heard and misinterpreted that as him being at the show. The only reason that’s an important distinction is that Paul Heyman said he’d fire anyone immediately who attended the WCW show.

  MAY 12

  Really nothing major new to report on the situation with Raven (Scott Levy) leaving for WCW. Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff have to negotiate some type of a deal since Heyman’s got the no-compete on PPV with Raven which doesn’t expire until 10/13 and WCW wants him to start on the July PPV.

  Heyman claims to be pretty adamant that whatever the negotiations turn out to be, that he wants Raven to put Tommy Dreamer over on the 8/17 PPV show as his final appearance since he’s planning on Raven vs. Dreamer and Taz vs. Sabu as the two main events on that show.

  Not certain about anyone else, but Richards definitely has no contract here although any reports of him going to WWF or WCW at this point are premature. Apparently Raven has talked with WCW about him but it hasn’t gone any farther than that. It appears pretty much a certainty at this point that Van Dam is staying and that there was little or nothing to the Gangstas rumors.

  MAY 19

  Got conflicting stories on Richards. One, from Heyman, is that Richards had signed a letter of intent to negotiate, thus was basically under a binding agreement, when it was reported here as such and that he has since signed a contract. The other is Richards did sign the letter of intent, which runs out in a few weeks, and has been offered a contract but has yet to sign it although he doesn’t have any outside offers and this shouldn’t be meant to start rumors he’s going anywhere. Several wrestlers have been offered contracts but the hold up in at least a few cases is that the contracts, which call for a minimum per show guarantee, have a six month non-compete clause after the contract expires.

  JUNE 2

  Paul Heyman had a conversation over the past week with Eric Bischoff regarding the Raven situation. Don’t know any details about it other than the belief that
Raven will be in WCW in a few weeks. Heyman was trying to get make a deal where Raven would return for the 8/17 PPV show to put Dreamer over.

  There is a meeting this week with Viewers Choice about carrying that PPV. People who called the Time-Warner corporate offices this week were told that Time-Warner would no longer be carrying either UFC or ECW, and Time-Warner deciding not to carry ECW would likely make VC carrying the show more difficult.

  It’s too early to say what is going to end up happening here but we’ve seen that cable companies generally don’t respond well to reasoning after making decisions of this type, and with the tide in the industry from the NHB situation, you can see ECW being the next on some people’s hit list. At the same time, it will be very hard to logically defend not carrying ECW for a company that carries WWF and WCW and nobody is going to drop WWF or especially WCW (which is owned by Time Warner) right now.

  There are cable insiders who believe the statement a few weeks back by National Cable Television Association President Decker Anstrom where he urged cable operators to pull out of NHB and to curtail violent programming also applies to ECW. ECW isn’t going to run a PPV in New York because it wants to avoid potential commission problems.

  JULY 21

  Richards won’t be wrestling for several months so all his injuries can heal up and he’ll be doing the Abbott & Costello routine with Raven every Monday until then. For whatever this was worth, since both Richards and Raven supposedly had signed contracts that wouldn’t allow them to appear on a competing PPV for six months after 4/13, or mid-October, WCW wasn’t sure until the last minute whether to put them on the show. Not sure exactly how everything went down but as you can see, WCW didn’t take the ECW contracts (which in the case of Raven definitely did exist) seriously because they put them on without getting a release from Paul Heyman.

  JULY 21

  Rob Van Dam and Dory Funk were backstage at Nitro. Funk was also at the PPV. The feeling is that the last time Van Dam showed up at Nitro, it turned into an angle that made him from a mid-carder to a main eventer and with the WWF thing falling apart, he showed up to get the press and the rumor mills going. WCW had no knowledge he was coming although we’d been told in advance, but did let him backstage.

  JULY 28

  ECW was expected to have filed a federal lawsuit early this week against WCW regarding a number of issues including Scott Levy (Raven) and Michael Manna (Steve Richards) appearing at the Bash at the Beach PPV show on 7/13 in Daytona Beach, FL.

  Steve Karel, who is handling the legal situation for ECW wouldn’t comment on legal affairs or if the suit itself had been filed at press time, but did say that ECW considers the actions of both men having violated the terms of their agreements with ECW. Paul Heyman had said over the weekend and ECW had reported on its hotline that a lawsuit would be filed in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York for contract tampering, tortuous interference with contracted personnel and violation of the company’s intellectual property although we have no confirmation such a lawsuit had been filed as of press time.

  Heyman claimed he sent copies of Levy’s contract agreement for the 4/13 Barely Legal PPV which included a six month non-compete clause in regards to appearing on a rival wrestling PPV show to Eric Bischoff but Bischoff, or Nick Lambros, or whomever in WCW made the actual call, still put the Raven and Richards segment on the show.

  For whatever reason, WCW has been very careful when it comes to waiting out contracted periods before debuting WWF talent such as Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Curt Hennig but wasn’t in this case, which may or may not be based on company lawyers interpretation of the solidness of the ECW non-compete clause.

  Heyman said that ECW had threatened legal action against WCW if they were to use Levy on the PPV show and there had been talks in the past between Heyman and Bischoff regarding a contract buy out where WCW would pay ECW for the rights to use Raven immediately on PPV, however WCW refused the deal. Heyman also claims WCW tampered with ECW contracted personnel by using Levy as an intermediary in trying to get James Fullington (Sandman) into WCW and is also claiming WCW has slandered ECW on its hotline.

  The contractual situation with Richards is another of those disputed situations. Heyman claims Manna (Richards) signed on 5/10 an “intention to sign a contract” as opposed to an intention to negotiate deal with ECW and thus was legally under an agreement with ECW at the time he was negotiating with WCW. Manna had admitted to signing a document of that type but claimed its time period for the document had already run out and since he didn’t sign an actual contract that he had no legal obligation to ECW.

  Heyman claims Manna was still under the agreement but that he released him from the agreement due to him claiming that due to a broken neck, Manna was concerned he’d be unable to wrestle the ECW style although there was heat in that Heyman wasn’t aware of Richards appearing on Nitro on 7/7 until the day of the show. Actually when it comes to this case, whatever deal Manna was or wasn’t under is a moot point since ECW isn’t claiming him as being a contracted performer when it comes to his appearing on either Nitro or the PPV show, but is claiming the intellectual rights to the characterization of Stevie Richards and not contractual rights to the person of Michael Manna.

  ECW’s claim is that both Raven and Richards, the characters as opposed to the individuals, and how they are being portrayed, is the intellectual property of ECW and by WCW using them in their former ECW roles it’s a violation of copyright and trademark.

  There have been legal precedents in wrestling in regard to similar situations. For example, WCW, after legal threats, changed the entire name and character of Ray Traylor from The Boss, doing a gimmick very similar to The Big Bossman character in WWF, to The Guardian Angel because WWF claimed the night stick, police uniform, etc. as their intellectual property.

  However, numerous other wrestlers and characters have gone from company to company without changing names and/or gimmicks, but the basic premise is that to maintain a stage name or gimmick such as Randy “Macho Man” Savage, one must have established the name and character before joining the company rather than it be a gimmick established within the company.

  Generally speaking, both companies have allowed wrestlers to use their gimmicked names when working independents after leaving the organization, but the problems surface when trying to use those gimmicks with the rival major promotion. Levy had claimed when establishing the Raven character, which was his idea, that he maintained the rights to the character.

  AUGUST 4

  On the lawsuit front in regard to the proposed suit against WCW mentioned in last week’s issue, to the best of our knowledge, no lawsuit had been filed at press time.

  Sources within WCW have made the following points in defense against the charges by ECW. They claim that Stevie Richards wasn’t even under contract (as had been mentioned here) and his intent to negotiate a deal with ECW expired on 6/10 and he never signed a new deal. He had used the name Stevie Richards before ever wrestling in ECW so they have no right to claim the rights to that ring name. They claim Scott Levy came up with the Raven name and character with the help of Diamond Dallas Page and that Page offered him to Paul Heyman more than two years ago. Heyman at first was reluctant, figuring Levy was going to establish a new gimmick and go back to WWF, but Heyman was promised that Levy would stay a minimum of four months in ECW with the gimmick, and wound up staying closer to two-and-a-half years.

  Although Levy has acknowledged several times that he did sign a non-compete on PPV contract with Heyman that expires on 10/13, he claims not to have a copy of the contract although the claim is that as part of that deal Heyman acknowledged that all intellectual and mark rights of the Raven name and character were Levy’s and not ECW’s which would kill that point.

  Nick Lambros of WCW apparently asked Heyman to send a copy of the contract because they informed Heyman they were planning on using Levy on the 7/13 PPV show. In the letter it specifically stated that if Heyman didn’t respond in ten da
ys, they were going to put Raven on the show. Heyman never responded nor sent WCW a copy of the contract, which from a legal standpoint, because of the warning, WCW feels it was in the clear to use Levy on the show, a point agreed with by one contract lawyer I spoke with regarding that point.

  Eric Bischoff in a Prodigy chat with Bob Ryder basically acknowledged the same point. It was a last minute deal on the PPV as the company was expecting Heyman to spring the contract on them at the last minute and if they felt it was binding, the Raven-Richards segment would have been scrapped from the show.

  AUGUST 18

  According to Steve Karel at ECW, in regard to the legal letters between ECW and WCW and the threatened lawsuit, Paul Heyman had a meeting with Eric Bischoff at a steak house in Orlando, FL and personally showed him a copy of Raven’s contract with the non-compete clause. Heyman claims never to have gotten a letter from Nick Lambros asking for the contract and ECW claims that even if he had, they were under no obligation to send a copy of the contract to WCW before Raven appeared on the Bash at the Beach PPV show.

  Heyman denies that he specifically was ever on the WWF payroll nor that he’s ever been paid even when he appeared on television as a performer for the WWF. He said that ECW was paid for its wrestlers appearing on the various Raw shows and the wrestlers themselves were then compensated by ECW, and that WWF also paid ECW a buy-out for about six weeks when they brought in Too Cold Scorpio but that neither ECW nor he have ever gotten a regular weekly check from WWF.