Dear fans,

After careful thought and consideration as of Friday July 23, 2004 I tendered my resignation from the H2 Pro-Wrestling project. Our investors have decided due to my resignation and other factors to not proceed with the project effective immediately. As such, all H2 events are now cancelled as the venture has come to an end. All those who paid for tickets will be refunded immediately. My heartfelt and sincere apologies goes out to the dedicated H2 crew and fans for this difficult announcement.

See you at the matches.
Sincerely,
Court Bauer

And with those words, Court Bauer hung another hat of failure on his hat rack.

It's been almost a week since Court Bauer shut down H2 wrestling. While a bigger question may be why does Court get himself involved in all these situations, a question I'm going to look at is, "Is Court Bauer lying?" With some of the information I've recieved, it looks to be yes.

H2 announced their arrival to the wrestling world in the early spring. Promises were made. Hype went through the roof. Many wrestling websites, including this one, actively helped H2, despite Court's shady reputation by plugging his shows. After all wrestling websites are ran by wrestling fans, and all true wrestling fans want to see the business do good. With H2's arrival, it looked like Court was ready to influence the wrestling business. However, the end result was the seemingly the last appearance by Court Bauer in wrestling.

As H2's first show approached on 6/26, H2 claimed there were problems. Problems with the building forced the show to move to another location. Then H2 cancelled their 6/26 show, claiming someone tampered with it. An H2 representative, who did not want to go on the record, pointed the figure at Gabe Sapolsky and Ring of Honor for shutting down H2's debut show. Court Bauer and H2 said up and down that they would prove who shut them down and said they had evidence. Well a month later, no one has seen shit, making me wonder if Court just shut down the show himself due to money issues. I don't think anyone can actually believe that ROH would tamper with H2's first show, as H2 was all the way out in Boston and ROH wasn't even running a show that day. Now that H2's dead and I've looked at everything from every angle, I fully believe that H2 used ROH's name as a springboard for press and exposure. By picking a war, and trying to look like they were getting bullied by ROH, H2 tried to steal ROH fans, before even running a show. Clearly that was Court's objective when he sent the DOI email transcripts between himself and Gabe. While I do stand by for printing the story, as the emails were legit, you could see what Court was trying to do. And by leaving off the last email, in an attempt to be "babyface", was Court's non verbal way of admitting guilt by trying to lure in ROH into a war.

So no, I don't believe ROH tried shutting down H2's first show. If Court Bauer wants to tie all the knots before leaving the wrestling business, he should come clean about why the first H2 show shut down. Show us the proof you have, and let's solve this mystery before you roll off into the sunset.

Now that was just the first show, what about the other 9 shows that Court Bauer had booked, including the debut show on 7/31 and the very publicized 8/28 show? What led to their cancellations and the ultimate cancellation of H2? Court has said that WGO forced him to drop the H2 project and come back to MLW. Court has claimed that WGO bought MLW earlier this year, which then gave Court the idea to create H2 with Teddy Hart. Now WGO wants Court to run it? Where are these contracts that forces Court to do whatever WGO says? After extensive research, there was no way in even proving that WGO actually exists. The only person who knows about WGO is Court Bauer. There's no website. There's no corporate info. There's not even a WGO contact. I wouldn't even trust Court to give me an email contact for WGO, because how do I know it's just not Court on the other end. I am speculating here, but I don't think there is even a real corporation behind WGO. To me, WGO just seems like another company Court created, just like H2, that will never be seen, just like H2.

Another thing leading to this speculation, is that Court Bauer, according to NetworkSolutions.com (A site that lets you know who owns any website) is still the owner of the MLW website. Here's the information that Network Solutions (Who has the best reputation in their field) gave on who owned MLW:
Registrant:
Major League Wrestling, Inc (21829265O)
3220 N Street NW, PMB #358
Washington, DC 20007
US

Domain Name: MLW.COM
Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
IT, MLW
(21829266I)
webmaster@MLW.COM
Box 329
Washington, DC 20037
US
Phone: (914) 762-7339
Fax: (123) 123-1234

Record expires on 21-Jul-2008
Record created on 22-Jul-1998
Database last updated on 06-Jul-2004

It should be noted that the address used in the Registrant field was Court Bauers old home address. Court said he sold MLW to WGO. The database was updated on July 6th, so you would figure that this "huge corporation" would change ownership on the website too. But then again you'd figure a "huge corporation" would have a coroporate website, like every other big and tiny corporation in the world today. There's no record for this WGO that Court claims exists, and therefore I don't see any reason not to believe that Court Bauer is WGO.

If you go over to MLW.com, and check the privacy policy and other pages, you will see that all contacts for MLW are Court Bauers email address, which furthers the speculation about Court being WGO. Plus there has never even been a name given out as a WGO employee or representative, outside of Court Bauer. Apparently WGO is an Asian company. Well I checked a few things out, and there is no WGO registered in Asia. In fact, the only WGO that is even remotely linked to Asia is the Winnebago corporation. WGO is Winnebago's stock name as well, so for another company to be called WGO, and claim to be an international corporation would probably face heat from Winnebago, such as the WWF/WWE controversy.

Now did Court register the WGO Corporation somewhere? Most likely, but I have no reason to believe that Court isn't the sole owner of WGO until shown other evidence. Anyone can register a corporation or company title. A way of checking would be to check Court's tax records to see if anything was paid on the WGO corporation, but let's be honest nothing Court has done in the wrestling business has been profitable, and you can't pay taxes when your losing money.

So what's the point of all this? Well Court said that WGO is the reason why he backed out. I don't believe that because there is no proof that Court Bauer isn't WGO. In my opinion, I believe it was another issue. Court did say an investor backed out, and could have meant Teddy Hart, but Court was the one who downgraded him in the company, so you have to rule Teddy out. The only thing I can come up with is that Court Bauer is newly married. The majority of women today don't like wrestling, and if you're spending your nest egg on nothing, and getting no return from your investment, you bail. Do I think the fairer sex persauded Court to give this crap up? I wouldn't doubt it. So yes, an investor backed out of H2. His name was Court Bauer.

While all the fancy wording in the world might persaude you to think other wise, make no bones about it. H2 has shut down because Court Bauer allowed it to. I do 100% believe that Court Bauer was going to run H2. This wasn't some elaborate scam. Court did pay for advertising and H2 merchandise, which he took a loss on. Court did refund everyone, including Mike Johnson for the bus to his 7/31 show. Court also gave out free DVD's to the bus trip people. In my eyes, it's easier to take a small loss, than a big loss, and Court realized H2 wasn't going to make the money he wanted and cut his losses short. With rumors of 30-60 tickets presold, I can see why Court would bail. Then again, Court needed to run a show under his belt before anyone can take him seriously, as MLW cancelled shows all the time.

So who's the winners in all this? If there is any positive to come out of this negative situation, Gabe Sapolsky and ROH come out good. They gave H2 a chance and took a wait-and-see approach, as they wanted to see what would happen with H2, concerning the 8/28 doubleshot. They did not commit to anything, and rightfully and wisely so.

Matt Striker/Martel also wins in this. He backed out of an H2 date for ECWA. He showed loyalty to Jim Kettner instead of jumping on the hot thing. Definitely a wise business decision there.

Teddy Hart comes out a tweener in this, as this is just another controversy that Teddy Hart is involved with.

The losers are obviously the fans and workers of H2. Fans lost out on what looked to be a good show. Fans also will now lose even more trust for the wrestling business, as Court wasn't the first nor last one to close up shop. The workers lose a payday and potential heat could arise for accepting a H2 booking over another companies booking. The employees of H2 who might see their reputations tarnished because of all this lose as well. Jim Quinlan, the Boston promoter who left ROH for H2, loses a payday. Julius Smokes who was going to make a highly anticipated commentating debut, also loses out on the chance to show another side of himself.

Court Bauer has singlehandedly destroyed his reputation in the wrestling business. He will forever have to earn trust and respect, and those are two hard traits to build. No one will ever take him seriously again unless he runs a year straight with no problems. (And even if he does that he'll still be questioned) Court has said he's going to work on some screenplays. I think we've seen the last of MLW/WGO/H2/Court Bauer for some time.

But, just remember, you never say never in the wrestling business, so who knows if Court will pop up somewhere in the future. All I know is that to many, he won't be welcomed back with open arms.

And to think, we never got to find out what H2 ever meant.

Sean "The MiC" McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com