On the wake of Antonio Cesaro changing his ring name, dropping his character’s first name and going further as just “CESARO”, the WWE has continued in this trend. Now, WWE Intercontinental Champion Big E Langston has dropped the last name and will now be known simply as “Big E” going forward. When asked about the loss of his last name, Langston tweeted “I sold “Langston” for a Segway & a couple 40s.”
Speaking of Big E, he took on Drew McIntyre in last night’s episode of “Main Event”. During the match, Drew was split open hardway over his eye.
Drew tweeted the following…
“This isn’t ballet people. Check out #MainEvent tonight. @BigELangston & myself aren’t scared to get physical #men “
At this time, the WWE is reportedly dragging their feet in regards to signing Sting. The word is that WWE isn’t in a major rush to sign Sting because they aren’t looking to use him for WrestleMania 30. Sting was hoping that a match with the Undertaker would happen at this year’s event.
Over the past few years, the Undertaker’s WrestleMania opponents would meet up at The Undertaker’s private gym to work out their match. Since Sting lives in the Dallas area, he is said to be willing and able to do this.
Most still expect Brock Lesnar will be Undertaker’s opponent this year, but there has been a worry that Lesnar might not want to spend the extra time to work out the match in advance.
Welcome to the very first edition of the “OH MY GOD!” Review!
– So the story here is that I’ve been watching EVERY ECW show that is available in order. Unfortunately, I have not been reviewing them until now. Hopefully I’ll have time to go back and do the old ones but who knows. A little history of where we are now, 4/2/96. Shane Douglas has recently returned from his stay in the WWF as Dean Douglas and has made a deal with both Tommy Dreamer and the Sandman to give them the first two title matches should he beat Raven for the ECW World Title. ECW Tag Team Champions The Eliminators are feuding with the Pitbulls after having given Francine Total Elimination on two separate occasions. 2 Cold Scorpio and Sabu have recently wrestled to 30 minute draws 2 matches in a row. Taz has run 911 out of ECW and Bam Bam Bigelow has come in to replace 911. Bill Alfonso and Todd Gordon have been rolling around on the ground with each other a bunch and JT Smith and Hack Meyers have been feuding nonstop since 1992.
TV 1996-04-02 (from the ECW Arena 1996-03-30)
Champions
TV: 2 Cold Scorpio
Tag Team: The Eliminators
Heavyweight: Raven
– We open the show with Joey Styles in the ring and of course an “E-C-W” chant. As Joey begins to hype the show out comes “The Godfather of Pro Wrestling” Damian Kane with Lady Alexandra. Kane trash talks his former tag teams The Bad Crew and The Headhunters for not listening to his advice as a manager. Since this is the first taping to air nationwide Kane wants a match tonight. Joey tells Kane that he’s not scheduled for a match but Kane refuses to leave. Kane tells Styles he’ll leave if Styles hits Lady Alexandra. Out comes El Puerto Ricano for his match. Kane attacks with a clothesline and suplex to the outside as the crowd chants for Sandman.
Damian Kane w/ Lady Alexandra vs. Mikey Whipwreck ref Paul Richards
Kane issues an open challenge and out comes Mikey. Kane attacks with stomps as soon as Mikey hits the ring. Kane hits more stomps in the corner and a backdrop. Mikey ducks a clothesline and goes on the offense with a crossbody and drop kick that sends Kane to the floor. Plancha by Mikey and Kane gets sent into the crowd. Mikey throws Kane back in and as he tries to get in himself Lady Alexandra holds his foot allowing Kane to hit a slingshot suplex. Mikey back under a clothesline and hits a superkick. FrankenMikey from the top rope for the three count.
– We go to Joey who tells us that Stevie Richards is out of his match tonight against the Gangstas, due to injury taking his place is “Stone Cold” Chad Austin.
Gangstas vs. Blue Meanie & Stone Cold Chad Austin ref Jim Molineaux JIP
With join the action with Austin and New Jack on the floor as Austin is getting hammered with chairs and a fans crutch. In the ring Mustafa with an elbow off the tope rope to Meanie. New Jack continues to beat the crap out of Austin. Meaine takes a big boot in the ring and is thrown to the outside. Mustafa hits a running powerslam on Austin followed by the debut of the 187 diving chair shot for the win. New Jack then repeatedly smashes Austin in the knee with a chair legitimately shattering his knee cap. New Jack gets on the mic and issues a challenge to the Tag Team Champions The Eliminators.
ECW Tag Team Champions The Eliminators vs. The Dark Riders ref Jim Molineaux Clipped
Saturn starts off with Billy Black. Black hits a superkick sending Saturn to the floor followed by a somersault of the apron to the floor. Tag made to Stud who hits a top rope elbow. We cut to later in the match as Saturn hits a top rope elbow of his own on Black for a two count. Brainbuster and lionsault for another 2. Cut again to Black hitting a splash on Kronus and one more cut to Total Elimination for the victory by the Eliminators. Saturn on the mic accepts the challenge from the Gangstas and calls them out. Gangstas music hits and we get your classic ECW brawl through the crowd and on the stage. Mustafa gets taken out with Total Elimination. The Eliminators drag New Jack back to the ring where the tape him in between two tables and give him Total Elimination which gets a very calm “Oh My God” from Joey. New Jack gets stretchered out of the arena.
– Joey reviews what went down at the Big Ass Extreme Bash between Shane Douglas, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and Raven. He tells us about Brian Pillman being banned from ECW unless he is willing to wrestle Douglas.
Taz w/ Bill Alfonso vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley w/ Sign Guy, Chubby and Big Dick Dudley ref Paul Richards
Buh Buh on the mic and Taz slaps him as he stutters to get his name out. Match starts with a lock up and a school boy for a 2 by Taz. Wrestling sequence with arm bars, hammerlocks and take downs. Buh Buh with a drop kick Taz bails and Buh Buh hits a baseball slide. Buh Buh goes up top but Taz sneaks in and pulls him off as Alfonso distracts. Buh Buh splash in the corner. Buh Buh bomb reversed into a northern lights for 2. Buh Buh hits a bodyslam but misses a top rope splash. Taz with a T-Bone Tazplex and picks up the victory with the Tazmission in 3:49. Taz wont let the hold go so Big Dick breaks his crutch over Taz’s back. Big Dick lifts Alfonso in a press slam but Taz chop blocks him, takes of his knee brace, and puts him in a leg lock. Taz ends it all by dropping to his knees and pointing to the sky a la Sabu.
– We get the “Misirlou” promos with doctors talking about Ravens foot injury, Sandman talking into Missy Hyatts boobs (she’s so awesomely slutty looking), JT Smith talking trash to his LONG time enemy Hack Meyers, The Eliminators tell us about how they come up from the projects and won’t let the Gangstas bring them back there and the Franchise talking about taking back the title from Raven.
My thoughts on the show…
I was not a fan of this episode at all. The opening interview/match was not good and I am just waiting for Damian Kane to be gone from the company. The Gangstas match just shows how much of a piece of garbage New Jack is. The story behind the whole thing from what I have read is that Chad Austin went down to SMW when the Gangstas were there and acted like a big shot. New Jack being New Jack didn’t like that so when he had a chance to take advantage of someone he did. The chair shots he gave Austin were just brutal and as I mentioned he shattered Austin’s kneecap with the last shot after the match had ended. The Eliminators / Gangstas brawl was good and I’m sure will lead to some violent matches in the future however I’m left a little confused as to what happened to the Pitbulls / Eliminators feud. Buh Buh Ray Dudley is insanely over with his stuttering gimmick and is one of the main things I look forward to when watching these shows. Taz mocking Sabu is one of the first times we see Taz respond to the fans chants of “Sabu” when he is in the ring and it will lead to some great matches from those two.
With my confusion over what’s going on in the tag team division and nothing all that important happening this show I give it a thumbs down.
Wrestling legend, “Hands of Stone” Ronnie Garvin recently spoke about Dusty Rhodes putting Crockett out of business and more. Here are the highlights…
Politics playing into his NWA Title run, and Dusty Rhodes “putting Crockett out of business”: “…It was strictly politics. Dusty Rhodes was the booker and he was against it. You know, what are you going to do. He didn’t book me anywhere during the whole time I had the belt until the rematch because Dusty Rhodes was a very, very jealous guy when it came to guys getting over. He was the wrong guy to be a booker. He is the one who put Jim Crockett out of business. He is the reason Jim Crockett had to sell and was losing his butt…It was the same thing with the Rock and Roll Express. He couldn’t stand the Rock and Roll Express getting over like rock stars. I mean, girls would go crazy. They had to have some protection for the Rock and Roll Express, the girls would attack them, just like rock stars, it was unbelievable. So, Dusty Rhodes had to book himself with them as a six man tag team. But, the whole thing was politics, I didn’t care…I made money and then when the return, the belt went to Flair, and I was gone a short time after that. I didn’t put up with that kind of stuff… When I was the world champion, it was big time politics. I just don’t play politics, I don’t play politics. I refuse to do it. People tell you it was a great moment. Yeah, it was ok, but I had a whole lot of better matches and better memories than being the World Champion. The World’s Champion was probably the biggest paycheck, but so what. Like I said, its politics and it’s not driven by talent, it is driven by politics. There was a lot of guys that would’ve made good World Champions, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Ted DiBiase…but a lot of guys they don’t want to be on the road and they don’t want to travel and they weren’t in bars every night drinking either. There was a lot of guys that like to be home bodies. They don’t want to be in California one night, and New York another night, and then go to Japan, or be in Puerto Rico another night. It’s a hard life, and then they found a guy in Ric Flair that didn’t want to be home, he wanted to be all over the planet…they was basically what the world champion was, he was all over the place. So, if you didn’t want to see your house just become the world’s champion so you didn’t know where you lived…”
His decision to retire at 45, and his thoughts on performers who stay around too long becoming “has beens”: “…It was time for me to do an exit. You got to know when to quit. You stay in the business until you are sixty years old, you look like an imbecile. First of all you know you are broke and you become a has-been. That is what I hate to see. Guys are in the ring and they are sixty years old, I mean come on, I know it’s not real, but your body, you look like an old douche bag, your skin is sagging. The older you get, the more you look like a pear, you might want to go as a human pear. You might make some money, it might be a good angle, I don’t know. But, I was forty-five years old and I said goodbye, time to go…”
Being booked in an angle by Dusty Rhodes that led to him leaving Jim Crockett Promotions: “…Well, I was a heel all my career until the end. Until the last ten years I was a heel my whole life. I was a heel in a lot of places…so, I didn’t care, I was me. I could’ve been a good guy, and if I wrestled Hulk Hogan, I would’ve been a bad guy, because a guy was liked a whole lot more…and the thing about Dusty Rhodes, he wanted to wrestle me. He thought he could beat me, because he was jealous that I had wrestled all of the Four Horseman, and I had beaten Ric Flair, and he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t sleep at night. I know that, so he figured if he turned me heel, then he’d wrestle me and he would get himself over. He even gave me a partner and a manager, so he could beat my partner, he could beat my manager, and he could beat me. It was an ego thing, so I left…He lays in the ring in Baltimore, Maryland and he never put his hands on me, I was gone, goodbye…then he went on TV on top of that and said that he beat me up in a bar. But he never had a tape of that because it never happened. That was it, so I never wrestled him…they set up a deal, where Gary Hart had put a bounty on Dusty Rhodes and he wanted to turn me heel in Baltimore an in that town I was over, I had won two titles there, I was a big baby face in that town. So he wanted to do it there. When I did knock him out, half of the crowd cheered anyway, but that was it, I was gone. The way I quit was very simple…I got on the airplane and shook hands with everybody…probably eight or ten guys, and I said, ‘I’ll see you guys, I don’t know where or when, but I will see you guys down the road somewhere. They thought I was joking, but I walked off the plane with my bags and I went home…I never did take any bullsh*t in wrestling from anybody…”
His thoughts on Vince McMahon and his effect on the business: “…Vince is very successful. I’d be crazy to critcisize that. The business has changed and it is not going to go back to the way it was and it’s going to change again from what it is today. Somewhere down the road it will change again. That’s why a lot of promoters got left behind. They thought he was going to go bankrupt, he was going to kill wrestling, they thought he was going to destroy the business, and what did he do. He took it over, they all went out of business, so Vince had a vision and it worked…”
Why he decided to end his career during his WWF run: “…I told Vince, I can’t sing, I can’t dance, and I can’t rock and roll… I’ve always liked Vince, he was a very honest guy, but I didn’t fit there, you have to be realistic. It was not my kind of wrestling…I go in the ring and I wrestle, I put on a fight and tried to make it as believable as I could…So, instead of going around dressed up like a clown or all in polka dots, I loved that one when Vince put polka dots on the ‘fat man.’ I thought that was great, Vince is a genius, putting polka dots on the ‘fat man.’ But no, I just didn’t fit in that environment…I could not do what he wanted, he never told me that, but I could just see it. To be successful there you have to be able to do different things than I was used to doing. When I started in the sixties, we sold wrestling…”
Cpl. Dick Peters is back with another mission straight from the Top Secret Super Classified Operation known as Operation Gimmick Impossible. This week we are going to debrief a fairly large nose goblin known as Bastion Booger. But before we can get to my Booger pick this week, we have to touch base on another character all together. I guess you could call this a double mission.
Operation 1: From Friar to… Sewer Creature?
Bastion Booger, aka Mike Shaw, came into the WWF in 1993. His most memorable runs on a national scale were likely in the NWA/WCW under a few different gimmick names during 1989 & 1990, including “Norman the Lunatic” & “Trucker Norm”. Prior to his run with the NWA, Shaw had a long, successful run in Calgary’s Stampede Wrestling, where he performed under the name Mukhan Singh, and feuded with the like of Owen Hart. Believe it or not, Shaw & Owen stole the show on many occasions up in Canada. Following Shaw’s run in the NWA, he headed down to Dallas, Texas and the Global Wrestling Federation, where he returned to the Mukhan Singh character by claiming the happy-go-lucky Norm character in NWA was all a ruse. GWF backers would pull out of the company, and the more recognizable names like Shaw were soon released from their Global “contracts”. And that brings us to…
FRIAR FERGUSSON
Originally, the character’s name was to be the “Mad Monk” (a heel version that attacked Typhoon during an untelevised angle), but Vince McMahon would alter the character before it made it to air. If you ask me, the only thing MAD about this gimmick, was it’s creator thinking it was a good idea. The Monk would return at the next taping under the moniker “Friar Ferguson”, where he would make his television debut by coming to the aid of an enhancement talent that was being mauled by Bam Bam Bigelow following a squash match. This appeared to have set up a future match between the two big men, but it was never meant to be… or was it? We’ll get to that later. The following week (the same tapings) on Raw, Friar Ferguson would have his first, and last, wrestling match. Check out the Friar as he has some fun with Chris Duffy below.
What an awesome name by the way. Friar Ferguson? Had a great ring to it. However, the gimmick wasn’t meant to be. The Catholic church diocese of New York City didn’t care for the gimmick, and in hindsight who really did? So back to the drawing board Vince went. He already had Shaw under contract, and now he was forced to ditch the Monk gimmick. And I for one can’t thank the Catholic Church enough. But there were other gimmicks brewing in the mind of the mad-genius McMahon. Oh, yes there was.
Operation 2: I’m the…..Booger Man
After Vince caved in to the Catholic diocese complaints, he would brainstorm ideas for Shaw’s new character, but it wouldn’t take long. There was one brainchild that McMahon had in his mind, just sitting there waiting to be born. That my friends, was Bastion Booger (Sebastian Booger was the originally proposed name based on some reports)! The Booger character’s original draft was to feature a hideous mask, complete with horns and other ugly features. The costume was to be silver, with scales or spikes made into the gear. In short, Vince had planned for the Booger character to be a “Sewer Creature”. Sounds great doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to see those blueprints? If the Friar didn’t get over, this thing sure would! McMahon took one look at Shaw and realized, he didn’t need the mask and the gimmicks to look hideous, this would save Vince some money! Shaw was built for the character, bald where he needed hair, hair where he should be bald, a giant hump on his back, and well over 400 pounds by this point in his career, Mike Shaw would make the perfect Bastion Booger. With the Friar gone, a couple of months later we were treated to the debut of the Booger Man.
I guess he was meant to be some gargoyle type character, according to Vince’s commentary. With a theme song that started off in the baritone of “I’m the BOOGER MAN”, to the hideous fart and snot noises that followed, it was evident from the beginning of the character, that the “Booger man” was going to be nothing more than a low card gimmick after he lost his debut match to Virgil on WWF Superstars (aired 6/19/93). Though Bastion would avenge this loss by defeating Virgil the following week, he really was nothing more than enhancement type talent that would be used to put over the upper level guys. Perhaps Booger’s biggest moment in the World Wrestling Federation would be when he defeated “The Rocket” Owen Hart. Now this isn’t the Owen Hart that came around after Survivor Series 1993. No, at the time the Booger character beat Owen Hart, Owen was being used as enhancement. While these two had thrilled fans in Stampede some years earlier, Booger’s weight prevented them from doing the same in the WWF. Below is the video featuring Booger’s biggest accomplishment in the World Wrestling Federation…
Operation 3: The Booger has been picked
Months went on, and Booger would do jobs for everyone from Marty Jannetty to the 1-2-3 Kid. Bastion would make his only WWF PPV appearance as part of the 1993 Survivor Series, where he teamed with The Headshrinkers & Bam Bam Bigelow to take on the “4 Doinks”. Leading into this PPV, the real Doink had defeated Booger in a match on Raw, then spiked Bastion’s pizza (which laid in the corner of the ring) with hot sauce. After losing the match, Booger needed a quick pick-me-up so he reached for his pizza, took a big bite, and BURNED HIS MOUTH! Now if anything constitutes a feud, it’s putting hot sauce on my pizza, damn it! Booger would continue his infatuation with eating over wrestling as he entered the Survivor Series match gnawing on a turkey carcass on his way to the ring.
Vince made a hilarious disgusted face at the entire entrance. As you’d imagine, the match was a complete joke, Booger would set one of the Bushwacker Doinks up for his finisher dubbed “A TRIP TO THE BATCAVE” (there is not a more fitting of a name for a finisher). Booger would stand over top of his opponents face, do a little wiggle dance, then drop to his knees, thus thrusting his bubble crotch into his opponent’s mouth and seemingly smothering his opponent in the process.
In this instance, instead of going for the pin the guy got up so he could eat a banana. After eating the banana he tried the Batcave move again but it didn’t work out as well the second time around. Booger was ultimately eliminated and sent back to the locker room in a memorable Series appearance that had nothing to do with his wrestling. The best moment that Shaw had on the show was during a scene that he wasn’t even a part of. Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan were talking about the “superstar of the year” and after talks about some of the names up for it, like Bret Hart and Lex Luger, Bobby Heenan looks at the camera and says “Booger is my pick!”. Classic Bobby.
At the turn of the year, just into 1994, there was a tag team encounter pitting the Smoking Gunns vs. Booger & Bam Bam Bigelow. During the match, Booger took a fascination to Bigelow’s “main squeeze” Luna Vachon on the floor. Bastion left the match and began to grope on Luna, drawing Bigelow into the mix. The result ended with the Smoking Gunns grabbing a count out victory after Booger & Bigelow got into a brawl on the floor. This would lead to a match between the two a week later (we finally got the Bam Bam vs. Friar payoff) on the 1/10/94 episode of Raw where Bigelow basically squashed Bastion in under 3 minutes. Booger would continue on, even joining guest commentary for Raw on 2/7/94. Believe it or not, in the “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” department, Mike Shaw was quit witted and fairly humorous on the mike, so guest commentary was a perfect fit. Booger was scheduled to be a participant in the 1994 Royal Rumble but pulled a storyline no-show due to an “upset stomach”, with Vince claiming he had eaten too much. In reality, they had Booger skip the Rumble match to leave his spot open with no entry to make the fans think that Bret Hart was too injured to participate. For the next few months Booger would be relegated to putting over guys like Owen Hart, Sparky Plugg, and the Earhquake. Booger teamed with Yokozuna a handful of times heading into WrestleMania X to go over on Men on a Mission, I don’t even know what to think about that. Booger’s appearances at house shows would slowly dwindle month-to-month, and his TV appearances were almost nonexistent after February, save for one match against Koko B. Ware in April (Booger jobbed). Booger’s last few months were spent putting over new comers and tryout guys like Duke Droese & The Cuban Assassin on the house shows. By August 1994, Booger had been picked clean, and the character would disappear off into the sunset, or up someone’s nose, or maybe Booger was just flicked… It’s unclear.
Debriefing Mission 4: Bastion Booger
The Booger character was used mainly as enhancement talent for upper level stars and it worked in that sense. I personally think the Friar Ferguson gimmick would have been a more amusing character in the long run, but it was obvious that Bastion Booger was Vince’s pick (pun intended). WWF ran New York a lot in those days so they probably took the complaints of the diocese seriously and that is why the Friar gimmick was quickly dismissed. With a name like Bastion Booger, the gimmick was designed and utilized to be disgusting, and mission accomplished when it comes to that. Starting off with his snot, fart, whatever the hell those sounds are as entrance music, the constant eating of food in a slobbish manner, all the way down to his “Trip To The Batcave” finisher where he dropped his leg rolls and junk right in the face of his opponents. Everything about this guy was disgusting and in that sense the gimmick was a complete success. However, a gimmick shouldn’t be designed to gross out the audience and that be it. If the gimmick is disgusting but accomplishes something else then great, but when the sole goal of a gimmick is to make you throw up then you need to re-evaluate what you are doing. All in all, this is one of the worst of the worst as far as gimmicks are concerned and thankfully it didn’t last to long. This is living proof that you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, MAYBE you can even pick your friend’s nose in this day and age, but only Vince McMahon can pick… BASTION BOOGER! Mike Shaw himself had went on record that he felt bad about his WWF run because he got a lot bigger weight wise and he couldn’t do what was used to doing. Shaw said he felt he didn’t give Vince everything he had. Sadly, Mike Shaw passed away on September 11th, 2010 of a heart attack at the young age of 53.
Since that mission has been picked and flicked it is time for yours truly, Cpl. Dick Peters, to head back to headquarters and find out what the Commander has in store for me next week. Until next time CrazyMaxers, this is Cpl. Dick Peters, standing at attention.
Steve Austin put a kibosh on reports that part of the reason that we will not wrestle again was from realizing how dangerous a return to the ring would be after filming Tough Enough and banging himself up in the ring. Austin called it a “Total. Bulls–t. Story.” on Twitter.
Austin has often said that he was physically able to wrestle again. When asked by Chris Jericho on the Talk Is Jericho podcast if he would return for a match, Austin revealed why he probably wouldn’t.
“To totally get ready for a high caliber match like WrestleMania 30, I would think that would mean a three month training window – for timing, getting back in the ring, taking bumps, to do it right,” Austin said. “You do that, you bump for three months, you get in the storylines, you go to the Monday Night RAWs, you do the creative, you have the big blast-off match at WrestleMania… and then, there it is. There’s the big match at WrestleMania. Then what?
“Then three months later you’re going to get your paycheck after all the pay-per-view counts come back, and then you cash your check. Then what? Where do you go? You make some money, but you get all revved up. You have your thirty minute window, and then what? You’ve gotta decompress, download, maybe recover…
“I know where I’m at in my life right now where anything’s possible. Being involved in some capacity would be fun. But, I like the way I operated back then, I like the way the landscape was back then, I like the creative liberties and freedoms I had back then. I don’t know that walking in there right now, that I would have those same freedoms, and I don’t know that I could operate in that system.
“And when I say what’s next, I mean that on a personal front, I mean Steve Austin as a person. I know there so many of my fans that follow me on Twitter, and who listen to my show – The Steve Austin Show – that would love to see me in a match. And I love my fans first and foremost, and they are people that I worked hard for, to build up that fan base and they’ve been really, really loyal to me and I really, really treasure them. And I know they’d like to see me in a match. You’ve just gotta understand that the shoes that I’m in right now, and where I’m at now, that I don’t say that to insult you or that you would want me to be in another match, it’s just a personal thing with me. Again, I love the wrestling business and the fans, my fans, and I love the WWE.”
As previously reported on the net, Texas songwriter and musician James D. Papa is suing WWE, Michael “Hayes” Seitz and others for using and profiting from “Badstreet, USA” and other 1990s WCW Slamjam-era theme songs without his permission or giving him compensation. He also claims that WWE cost him money after THQ contacted him for using “Badstreet USA” for a Legends of Wrestlemania video game, only to instead use a “clone” version by Jim Johnston. He filed a motion in September 2013 to appeal decisions made against him in the lawsuit after having his attorneys replaced.
Papa said that he didn’t talk very much with his former attorneys and had “little of substance” from the legal team, even when rulings were made against him. He said that he wasn’t told that several defendants, including Seitz, were dismissed from the suit or that WWE tried to get the case moved to another jurisdiction from the state of Texas. The defendants were dismissd because the court ruled that Papa could not prove they had jurisidiction over them. They also dismissed his copyright infringement claim against all of the defendants.
After his case was initially dismissed, Papa replaced his lawyers and filed a new, altered complaint against Michael Seitz, Stephanie Music Publishing Inc and World Wrestling Entertainment, along with VE Newco LLC, the parent company of Vivendi Entertainment (distribution of WWE DVD and Blu-rays), Yukes (WWE video games) and Take-Two Interactive (who owns the WWE video game license after last year when THQ filed for bankruptcy).
WWE has once again denied any wrongdoing and claimed that since Papa “consented to use” of his music in WCW and WCCW broadcasts, the WWE would have the rights since they acquired the copyrights “lawfully”. They also said that the music in the World Class documentary would be “fair use” and that Papa did not have the copyright of the “clone song” that Johnston created so any claim against that song should be thrown out. They requested a jury trial, and a date has been set for March 23, 2015, unless a settlement is made.
– Daniel Bryan appeared on NFL Total Access on the NFL Network earlier this evening and judged the beards of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, New York Jets center Nick Mangold and Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Brett Keisel. Keisel got a “Yes!” from Bryan, while Mangold and Luck both got a “No!” You can check out video of his appearance at this link.
