by Rick Scaia
OnlineOnslaught.com

After his partnership with Rob Van Dam hit the skids (the duo lost the tag team titles), Kane was quite clearly under-performing my Freakish Monster standards.  Steve Austin and RVD both tried to motivate him in their own ways.  Triple H and Evolution even tried to bring him into their fold.  When nothing worked to light a fire (HA!) under Kane, and when he spurned Evolution, the next step was this: Triple H vs. Kane, World Title vs. Mask.  Kane agreed.  And Kane lost.

Unmasking that first night, Kane's "hideous scars" were hidden behind too much mascara, and in later weeks, they'd renege on that aspect of Kane's past, saying his scars were more mental than physical.  Though trying to rationalize away certain parts of Kane's known past occasionally scored a hit, Kane's descent into madness and whackjob behavior was not, in my mind, as effective as it could have been.

By targeting Linda McMahon, Jim Ross, and Shane McMahon for his attacks, Kane barely, if ever, played with Actual Wrestlers during these first few months unmasked.  And his antics with those three were dubious at times.  The JR Barbeque, the jumper cables to the balls, the flaming dumpster, the run-away limo, the three-camera Chinese dinner... all this stuff resulted in Kane's first half-year maskless being less productive than I thought it should have been.

And while Kane was losing his mask, Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper were both losing their jobs.

Hogan, his body worn down and his mind at odds with the creative plan for "Mr. America" decided to part ways with the company after a chat with Vince McMahon.  Piper, on the other hand, was pretty much told to go home by the Fed after he made controversial remarks about the wrestling business on HBO's "Real Sports."  Oddly enough, the final WWE shows for both me wound up being SD! tapings at Madison Square Garden (where both icons were pinned in tag match settings).

Also in June: Classy Freddie Blassie passed away at the age of 85.  I completely missed out on Blassie's wrestling career, but if half the stories I've heard are true, he wasn't just a trend-setter: he was practically taking his life into his own hands just by going out in to public because he had fans so dead set against him.  Blassie the manager was well-known to me, however, and he'll be sorely missed.  You can check OO's full Freddie Blassie Tribute right here.
 

IN OTHER NEWS

• The Rock made a one-off appearance on the June 2 RAW, as the announced guest of Chris Jericho on the Highlight Reel. Jericho actually schemed with Christian to execute a 2-on-1 attack on Rock, who was bailed out courtesy of a save from Booker T. The segment (and subsequent attempted "Rock-a-roonie") effectively cemented Rocky as a babyface so that he would have the full support of the fans when his new movie came out later in the year...
• Kurt Angle returned to WWE TV on SmackDown!, and was immediately welcomed as a babyface by fans. His turn to the good side was aided by the former "Team Angle" turning against Kurt, and Kurt announcing his mutual respect for and friendship with one-time rival, Brock Lesnar...
• Less than two weeks before The New TNN was scheduled to change its name to SpikeTV, filmmaker Spike Lee filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the name change, and got Johnny Cochran to represent him. He made the mind-numbingly retarded allegation that a network called SpikeTV would unfairly infringe on his first name, trick viewers into thinking Lee was affiliated with the network, and would benefit from the name recognition that he, Spike Lee, had worked so hard for for so many years. Bafflingly, a judge in New York State actually believed Lee's case had enough merit to issue a restraining order preventing the scheduled name change until the case could be heard...
• Mick Foley made a surprise return to WWE TV in June, as the special referee for the Kevin Nash/Triple H PPV Hell in the Cell match. He was brought in by Steve Austin in storylines, though in reality, he had made his peace with WWE and Vince McMahon earlier in the year, and knew that getting his face on TV would be beneficial, as he was getting set to release his first novel, "Tietam Brown." Foley was a part of WWE storylines for a little less than a month, and was written out after a backstage attack by Evolution's Randy Orton...
• For his part, Orton returned in June (as a mysterious ski-mask-clad man aiding Ric Flair and Triple H against Shawn Michaels). Although they numbered only three for the time being, they began the business of re-establishing the "Evolution" brand name immediately...
• WWE dabbled in conducting live, online polls during RAW, usually over the most asinine of matters. The concept actually would have had a ton of value if the Fed was interested in doing an on-going series of questions, with real-time results on a bottom-of-the-screen crawl (like FOX's "Virtual Manager" for instance), but they'd always take one silly question, hype it for two hours, and then reveal the foregone conclusion of an answer near the end of the show. Lame....
• With Bad Blood, WWE entered the era of eight brand-specific PPVs per year (and four "Joint Productions": Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series)... RAW had the honor of starting the ball rolling, and outside of an underrated main event Hell in the Cell match between Triple H and Kevin Nash, mostly fumbled the ball. The show featured the awful "Redneck Triathlon" and very little else of merit. Luckily, SD! immediately saved the brand-specific PPV concept with a tremendous show the following month...
• At the end of its fiscal year, WWE posted its first loss since 1997 (of nearly $20 million). A big part of those losses were related to "The World" which WWE had shut down earlier in the year, although business was pretty much down across the board versus fiscal year 2002. Also in June, WWE announced the buy back of almost $20 million worth of stock from Viacom (who had invested in WWE when the Fed jumped over to TNN/MTV from the USA Network)...
• In the quarterly conference call with investors, Linda McMahon made two interesting revelations: one, that WWE would continue to receive $2 million and an "Executive Producer" credit on any movie in which Dwayne Johnson is billed as "The Rock." And two, the Fed was pursing non-MTV options for "Tough Enough 4," as TE was the only WWE series ever to draw more female viewers than male viewers...
• NWA-TNA made headlines in June. First, AJ Styles finally unseated Jeff Jarrett as the NWA Champion in June. Then, two weeks later on the promotion's 1st Anniversary show, Sting was imported to work in the main event (in a tag match with Jeff Jarrett against Styles and Syxx-Pac)...
• WWE released Jamal of 3 Minute Warning....
• Rico, after more than a month of house shows, debuted his flamboyant new persona on RAW, and was accompanied by TE2 alum Jackie Gayda...
• In a WWE.com interview, Shawn Michaels griped gently about getting only 15 minutes for his PPV match against Ric Flair (the PPV went off the air 10 minutes early, and in the days leading up to the show, he had been told they'd have upwards of 30 minutes). Within hours of being posted, the interview was censored to eliminate the complaint. Further proof that WWE had no intentions of using the internet to propagate genuinely "smart" or insider news...
• Mark Jindrak was slated to team up with Randy Orton on some house shows in June, fueling speculation that he'd be brought in as another member of Evolution. This would not pan out, and Jindrak would eventually debut as a "rookie" tag team with Garrison Cade. Jindrak would also reveal later in the year that he even filmed a "Reservoir Dogs" style walking-down-the-street entrance video for Evolution, but that Vince nixed the idea due to the internet leaking the house show bookings...
• Bradshaw and Ron Simmons returned to SmackDown! as a tag team in June. And inside of two weeks, Ron Simmons reverted back to being "Faarooq," as well...
• WWE shuffled its taping schedule so that RAW would take place in Vancouver, BC, in August... the same city where the Rock, conveniently enough, would be filming his latest movie. Rock even confirmed in interviews that he was expecting to take part in a match on the show, after doing an angle a few weeks prior. However, producers of his film did not have insurance to cover an injury to the Rock in a match, and WWE decided not to just cart Rocky out for a one-off promo when they needed to focus on other storylines and characters....
• Following a seven month lay-off due to another shoulder injury, Billy Gunn returned to the SD! brand, recycling his "Mr. Ass" gimmick from years past. As an Ass Man, Gunn was quickly paired up with Torrie Wilson in storylines, though it did little to help Gunn's career....
• After a month of vignettes, Gail Kim was promoted to the main RAW roster and won the WWE title in her debut (in an 8 woman battle royal). Gail's win came at a time when WWE needed to get the title off of Jazz, who needed several months off to deal with a leg injury...
   

NOTABLE quOOtables

RATINGS TRENDS
(Note: RAW's cable ratings are converted to broadcast numbers 
for our monthly comparisons)

PAY-PER-VIEW RESULTS

TITLE CHANGES

Rey Mysterio beat Matt Hardy to win the WWE Cruiserweight Title on 6/03... AJ Styles beat Jeff Jarrett for the NWA Title on 6/11... La Resistance beat Rob Van Dam and Kane to win the World Tag Team Titles on 6/15... America's Most Wanted beat Triple X for the NWA Tag Team Titles on 6/25... Gail Kim won an 8-woman Battle Royal to win the World Women's Title on 6/30... 

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