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

by Dave Meltzer

  The other is that a few ECW wrestlers over the past two weeks told Heyman that Gordon approached them regarding a similar plan and storyline. As it turned out, none of them accepted the deal at this point, although Bill Alfonso appears to have been a party to the situation and his ECW tenure looked bleak as he was buried at house shows over the weekend. Perry Saturn’s leaving last week was a different set of circumstances unrelated to the Gordon-Heyman split.

  It is difficult to buy such a scenario as the story is out and may have been discussed actually being able to take place in WCW. What Gordon and Taylor were supposedly putting together begs the question as to whether Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would allow a group of wrestlers, none with any name value to mainstream fans, do what is basically their own angle within the same promotion at a time when their angle is still, based on TV ratings and house show attendance, in its ascension rather than its decline? And even if it was on the decline, we’ve seen how they guard their positions and their angle.

  A source within WCW claimed that Gordon approached Taylor with the idea of being a manager of two or three ECW wrestlers that he would bring along, but that they nixed the idea because they didn’t think Gordon would make a good manager.

  There are other pieces of the puzzle that are somewhat curious and don’t appear to add up, Gordon’s being surprisingly quiet in the wake of his departure from the company that he had founded, particularly since he wasn’t a behind-the-scenes anonymous type money man (although Heyman had been controlling the company finances for some time now and Gordon was more a figurehead television personality with some behind-the-scenes duties) but instead seemed to relish in the kissing up from the hangers on, outside favorable publicity given to himself as the so-called promoter of a cult favorite wrestling company, the “Tod is God” chants from the fans and his own on-air role as commissioner and his frequent bumps.

  The other is that given the opportunity to go to a major league company that is far more stable when it comes to long-term, particularly after several parties expressed dissatisfaction with PPV payoffs, to earn more money and at the same time work a less dangerous style, that at least a few of the wrestlers wouldn’t have taken offers if they were serious.

  From a public standpoint, Heyman has tried to portray the situation as simply a business split and wouldn’t say anything negative publicly about Gordon, although his comments behind the scenes to wrestlers, friends, ECW personnel and others close to the company haven’t been nearly as kind. When Gordon was contacted for comments, he said he didn’t want to discuss the situation but appeared from those who spoke with him to be curiously pleased that he was coming off as a major heel to the ECW fans, almost as if this was an elaborate wrestling angle. His only comments were that it was a personal situation between himself and Heyman and that he didn’t want to talk about it. Gordon is rumored to be divorcing himself not only from ECW, but from the wrestling business.

  When the story became somewhat public knowledge toward the latter stages of this past week, Gordon canceled going to the two ECW shows in Waltham, MA and Revere, MA while the word spread among the boys. Earlier in the week, on several wrestling hotlines including ECW’s own (which was later quickly changed), a story about a mole within ECW looking to steal its wrestlers and bring them to WCW had surfaced, spread to at least some degree by Heyman and/or others in his inner circle.

  It was not a secret to anyone close to the situation that the identity of the so-called mole was going to be Gordon. Heyman had the ECW ticket office, which is part of Gordon’s long-time family business, Carver W. Reed Jewelry Store in Philadelphia, cleaned out on 9/5 after word began surfacing about the story and with Gordon’s name connected, in lieu of setting up a new business office in New York. To show that this was hardly a smooth and well planned out transition, the new business office is something in the talking stages rather than one already set up.

  Heyman toward the end of the week was attempting to get his ducks in a row so to speak on other ECW business that Gordon was involved with, most notably the booking of the ECW Arena, which Gordon has handled and had the relationship with the building owners. Besides Heyman, it appears the most powerful forces in ECW are now all the inner circle of wrestlers sometimes known as the New York Clique—Tommy Dreamer, Taz, Chris Candido and Buh Buh Ray Dudley although Douglas and Sabu also have input.

  Gordon founded ECW as Eastern Championship Wrestling in 1992 after Joel Goodhart’s Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, the forerunner of ECW which Gordon was a business partner in, folded. The company was drawing small houses playing in area night clubs and schools using mostly local wrestlers and a few ex-WWF and WCW mid-level stars before Gordon brought in Eddie Gilbert as booker and started producing a local television show.

  Dating back to Goodhart, who was a big fan of Memphis wrestling and put together the kind of shows that he as a fan wanted to see, the company was built largely around the brawling with objects and blood, angles and turns in nearly every match, and what later became known worldwide as either FMW or now ECW style although in both cases (since Atsushi Onita learned the style in the early 80s when he wrestled in Memphis) it really dates back to old-time Southern style booking.

  ECW was spilling a lot of blood in the ring, but it was bleeding to death money-wise and on the verge of folding when Heyman, who Gilbert himself actually brought into the company, maneuvered himself into the booking position in 1993. Building around Terry Funk, Shane Douglas and giving Sabu his first significant exposure in the United States, by early the next year began expanding on the company’s very small cult base of fans and through his amazing talents in media relations, wrestler characterizations and public manipulation and changing the company name to a more hip and catchy Extreme Championship Wrestling, survived and grew largely through its merchandising and videotape sales.

  During a period where both WWF and WCW were at times limited in vision when it came to the present and the future, he was able to introduce new great workers, most of whom were small, that had already been established in either Mexico or Japan to the U.S. audience and is, along with many others, responsible for the break down in the size barrier and the accompanying increase in overall workrate industry wide.

  In addition, many of Heyman’s booking patterns from the wildness to more of a product that appeals primarily to males in their late teens and early 20s, have been copied by WCW and WWF and have helped the resurgence of interest in both groups over the past year-and-a-half.

  ECW presented some of the best wrestling matches in the world in 1995 and early 1996 with the likes of Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rey Misterio Jr., Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis among others, all of whom wound up as the backbone in WCW’s in-ring product taking major steps forward, and few of whom (actually Benoit would be the only exception) would have, despite success elsewhere, been pushed in WWF or WCW due to lack of size.

  But Heyman’s manipulations when it came to others were so good that by the end of 1995, both WWF and WCW were making major pitches toward his top act at the time, the tag team of Public Enemy, with neither group even recognizing PE’s actual lack of wrestling ability. ECW became almost an unofficial stepping stone to WWF and WCW for a lot of mid-level and international talent due to Heyman’s ability to create characters and get a variety of types of wrestlers over, and the fact that so many people pay attention to ECW as the only real alternative in U.S. wrestling.

  Heyman, who eventually bought out the financial control of the company from Gordon, was able to get the group into a loose almost unspoken working arrangement first with WCW briefly (to obtain the services of Brian Pillman) and later a more public relationship currently with WWF, not to mention presenting two PPV shows, all the while building the company around a storyline of being the independent politically incorrect alternative to the big two.

  Exactly what the true story as to what Gordon really did and why isn’t clear. In particular, since at least some of the wrestlers Gordon all
egedly spoke with allegedly had contracts with ECW which one would think he would have known about. Who is said to be under contract with ECW and what those contracts actually stipulate is always questionable given claims about contracts with Raven, Stevie Richards and Saturn and WCW’s ability to use all of them with no problem with the exception of the questionable use of Raven on the Bash at the Beach PPV show because of a PPV non-compete clause in a singular event (as opposed to a long term) contract Raven definitely had signed.

  Heyman apparently informed the WWF of all this weeks ago with the idea that WCW was involved in contract tampering with his company, which he had already claimed in regard to a lawsuit that he publicized on his own television show and hotline but hasn’t been filed at press time. Heyman claimed as well he told Taylor specifically he was tampering with ECW contracted personnel.

  That charge would be similar to a charge in WWF’s lawsuit against WCW that they tampered with Nash and Hall while the two were still under WWF contracts and prior to them giving notice and jumping. In other words, that the two companies could work together in their respective legal claims to try and establish a pattern of behavior by their mutual business enemy.

  SEPTEMBER 22

  All that was said on television about the Tod Gordon situation is that Paul Heyman was on and announced that Gordon was no longer commissioner due to time constraints from having to raise a family and run a family business. After the break-up the two made an agreement not to say anything bad publicly about the other largely because mud-slinging back-and-forth would wind up with both covered in dirt.

  From what we’ve been able to ascertain, when the change in ownership went from Gordon to Heyman, the deal was that Heyman would assume the outstanding ECW debts which Heyman believed was in the $140,000 range but turned out to be closer to $400,000 due to some outstanding lawsuits. Heyman had about four months remaining on paying off Gordon.

  30 – Mark Hall Throws Fight

  OCTOBER 13

  The biggest behind-the-scenes controversy in the history of the Ultimate Fighting Championship unfolded with the claim by Mark Hall that he threw his fight at the 1996 Ultimate Ultimate to eventual tournament winner Don Frye.

  The strange scenario of the fight on 12/7 in Birmingham, AL had been a subject of discussion by many since it had taken place. Frye, coming off a grueling victory over Gary Goodridge in the first round, fought Hall, a stablemate, who replaced an exhausted and dehydrated Kimo, who had to drop out after his first round win over Paul Varelans. Hall won impressively won an alternate match against Felix Lee Mitchell. Frye and Hall had two previous matches, with Frye winning both times, once in a UFC and the other in Japan. Frye won the third fight, the one in question, in 20 seconds with a ankle lock.

  In the 12/16/96 issue of the Observer, the suspicions were noted as it read: “Between Frye’s post-match interview where he praised Hall as one of the greatest fighters in the world, the ease of the victory at a time where Frye badly needed to conserve energy, the fact that both men have the same business manager and the fact that Hall’s first match corner woman, Becky Levy, was in this match Frye’s corner woman, brought out a major air of suspicion in some circles with this match and finish. Despite the suspicion, the reality was that it wasn’t suspicious in the least and Hall actually tapped too late and Frye did some serious damage to Hall’s ankle with the finisher.”

  From being there, and just a few feet away while all this was going on, my immediate reaction to the finish is that it was a work. Same business manager. Such an easy fight when Frye was clearly exhausted. The strange post-match interview. My opinion changed viewing the reaction largely of Hall’s fiance, who, unless she was a top-flight actress, couldn’t have pulled off her reactions of concern at Hall’s apparent injury so convincingly. The suspicion from a major pro wrestling type was that they simply were working the fiance as well. Hall was limping for the rest of the night.

  Still, there had been behind-the-scenes suspicions of the fight, which may have been among the reasons Hall, like Anthony Macias, who lost a suspicious (but in a totally different way) match to Oleg Taktarov in 1995, had never been invited back to a UFC. Since the match, both have become involved in pro wrestling, Frye as a big-show regular with New Japan, and Hall working one show with Kingdom. The story resurfaced after Hall did an interview in Brazil on 9/14 stating that at the Vale Tudo tournament he had done that night, losing in the semifinals, all the matches were real and that some day the truth would come out about his match with Frye. Frye responded by threatening Hall with a lawsuit and also challenging him to a $10,000 winner-take-all match to prove he didn’t need to fix a match to beat him.

  In response to that, Hall wrote a letter which was posted on the Internet on 10/1, written almost like a pro wrestling interview. He claimed Frye came into his dressing room and begged him to throw the match. Hall claimed that both his fiance and two of his students heard the conversation, and that Frye sounded nervous and desperate trying to talk low to conceal the conversation. He said there were also other people’s in Frye’s corner involved in setting this up but refused to mention their names.

  Hall said the decision he made was the wrong one but said he was given an ultimatum and that he believed it would be the end of his fighting career if he didn’t take a dive. He said Frye also tried to make him feel guilty about costing him the championship at UFC X. In that tournament, Frye, who went into the show somewhat ill, exhausted himself in the first round against Hall in winning, barely hung on but still beat Brian Johnston in the semifinals before losing to a relatively fresh Mark Coleman in the finals, taking a horrific beating in the process. Hall also claimed Frye had promised him 20% of his eventual earnings that night for losing the match and then never paid him. Hall said that Frye had given all he had and suffered a broken hand in the first match with Goodridge. He went on to call Frye overrated, a fake and a fraud as Ultimate Ultimate champion and said he’s dodged fights with Marco Ruas, Vitor Belfort and Mark Coleman.

  Hall mocked Frye’s finishing hold saying, “You made me look like an idiot in UU 96 with one of your so-called predator leglocks when you finally got it somewhat in and I did my little acting routine, most people could see the fight was fixed. I thought you knew how to do a leglock. You lied to me. I should have rolled up out of it and broke your damn nose like I did in Japan. I broke my ribs four weeks before our fight in Japan. But I kept that quiet and still showed up to fight. I still wore your butt out and even broke your nose. It was hard to train and get in proper condition because of my ribs. If I would have been in better condition, I think I would have beaten you in Japan.” He then issued his own weird challenge.

  “I can’t even dignify those remarks with a reply,” Frye said in response. “Look at the tape of the fight. It speaks for itself. I had fought him and beaten him two other times. Why didn’t I just pay off Gary Goodridge?”

  Frye claims that since the Ultimate Ultimate, Hall came to Arizona to train with him for a match in Brazil but left after two or three days complaining about the heat and, after getting food poisoning from a restaurant sandwich, started blaming him for the weather and the sandwich. Hall claimed Frye brought him out to Arizona and was going to pay him his cut for taking the dive, but after a few days Frye told him money was tight and he had a big tax bill coming and didn’t pay him and Hall left furious.

  Later Frye did a seminar for Hall in California, and before the seminar, Hall asked to borrow $800 for advertising. Frye said he sent it to him under the guise he’d be given it back from the money from the seminar. The seminar was a financial flop and Frye said he felt so badly for Hall, who lives in his gym, that he didn’t ask him for his $800 and just wrote it, and the money he spent to travel to the seminar and for his hotel, off as business losses.

  The fighting world, and for that matter, any one-on-one sport is subject to potential strange goings on. There are works, like pro wrestling. Then there are things like Sumo, Pancrase, K-1 and RINGS which can be a w
eird mixture of shooting and working and even shooting but with professional agreements made ahead of time about what won’t be done even though those agreements could affect the outcome.

  Tanking matches is commonplace in tennis, but it’s not considered a worked sport. Fixed matches in boxing, usually with the fix known to only the promoter and the guy taking the dive (often the winner of the fight doesn’t even know he didn’t win legitimately) are more common than most people realize (although less common than most within the pro wrestling industry believe). There are matches fixed by the promoters, but there can also be fixed matches where the competitors themselves make a deal unbeknownst to the promoters, which if Hall’s charges are true, this would fall into the category of.

  However, these charges are very serious when it comes to UFC. Not as serious when it comes to its future because its future depends more on cable companies than any internal problems with the events credibility. But even though UFC has a crossover audience with pro wrestling, and UFC competitors on a weekly basis seem to drift into pro wrestling, UFC is not traditional style pro wrestling and thus its credibility has to be well protected. In addition, the fact is, news travels very fast these days and UFC has numerous enemies inside and outside the martial arts world, who would love to attack them for looking the other way when someone claimed one of their fights, one that in a large part affected the outcome of their biggest tournament of the year, was fixed.

  To an extent, many in UFC recognize this, and they have become very leery of booking two fighters in any tournament from the same team or with the same manager stemming from the suspicions coming out of Ultimate Ultimate with so many fighters managed by Robert DePersia—Varelans, Frye, Hall, Goodridge and Johnston.

  However, SEG needs to look at this situation rather than ignore it, because the credibility of its biggest show of 1996 is now in question. Hall’s future with the group has to be done, because either he fixed a fight, which should be grounds for never being brought back, or he lied in public and claimed his loss was a fix, which should also be grounds. However, if Hall’s statements are true, and his description went into a lot of detail, then Frye also can’t be brought back, and more importantly, questions need to be asked about who these other parties were that Hall was talking about involved in pressuring him, and they also have to be expelled from having any part in the promotion.