History of PCW's Boiling Point I!

[Booker Thee]

PCW set the local scene on fire with their official company launch on March 3rd 2002 with PCW's Commencement of Cool event that featured Eddie Guerrero, Honkytonk Man & Brutus Beefcake and drew 1531 people.

PCW's debut at their weekly venue, the Stratosphere (The LID) failed to meet expectations though it drew respectable for the market. Over the next two months, attendance would slowly rise and PCW began drawing 100+ every week, becoming the only promotion in the Province at the time to be drawing so well on a weekly basis.

Behind the scenes, Davidson and Shallcross were well underway to planning the next big event. They chose July as the ideal month and even had the main event planned before the end of the Commencement Post Game Party on March 3rd.

Immediately following that event, with time to finally relax, PCW Creative Director Michael Davidson sat down with Eddie Guerrero at The Stratosphere to discuss a return visit. Eddie liked the concept put forth for a July return and suggested a main event of himself vs Rey Misterio Jr. The prospect of that match headlinging a local event in Winnipeg was very exciting.

However, those plans were shelved when both Rey and Eddie signed with the WWE one month later. In fact, Commencement of Cool was Eddie Guerrero’s final North American Indy appearance prior to signing with WWE.

With Guerrero Vs Misterio no longer an option, Davidson began looking elseware. Business Consultant Hank Ross, who had been serving as Public Relations Officer for PCW owner John Nguyen's call centre business, approached with the idea of holding the event at CanWest Global Park. Ross claimed to be a close friend of Sam Katz and had been following PCW's development with interest. Intriqued, Davidson requested more information, feeling the cost was probably prohibitive. Ross was confident, based on his conversations with Katz, that he could get the ballpark at a stunningly good rate.

With that possibility looming, Davidson knew he needed a big show to draw enough people to the 7500 seat park to make it look good.

On the competition front, Bobby Jay and TRCW had settled in for a war. The winners would be the fans who would see several former WWE and ECW Superstars come through Winnipeg in 2002.

In Spring, Joe Aiello & Don Callis’ No Hold Barred Wrestling promoted an event at Coyotes Nightclub. This was a major event as it was the second high profile, popular nightclub to show interest in indy wrestling after The Palladium/Stratosphere and was only minutes from The Stratosphere. It was later learned that Coyotes interest was fed as a result of Commencement of Cool’s overwhelming success.

The event featured former ECW Superstars Shane Douglas, Sabu and AJ Styles and drew aprox 400 people, considered a success. Joe and Don would promote other shows in the future, but Coyotes would not take a chance on wrestling again for over a year.

In early April, the CWF’s Ernie Todd approached John with a major power play. He proposed a joining of forces that would see a combined roster, co-promotion of events and the dismissal of Davidson with Ernie assuming Mike’s position. It was a bold step, but Ernie lacked the ability and forsight to be successful and John knew it. In fact, under his own proposed deal, Ernie was reluctant to run at The Stratosphere, predicted TRCW would win the war with PCW and that Davidson and Shallcross were living a dream job and would never be willing to invest their own money. He went on to say that the Stratosphere would never draw and that PCW with Davidson at the helm would never be successful.

John turned him down flat.

Ernie didn’t stop trying though. He was involved in an international project called Ring Warriors, an NWA-style association of promoters that would collectively put on large events with big names. Ernie wanted John to finance the project and even had Ring Warriors executive “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes telephone John to convince him to back the project.

John discussed the matter with Shallcross & Davidson, but ultimately decided that he did not want to work with Ernie and did not want to finance someone else’s project. He again turned Ernie down.

Ring Warriors ceased operations without ever promoting an event. Ernie promoted an event on April 14th 2002 featuring a main event of former WWF and UFC Superstar & NWA World Heavyweight Champion Dan “The Beast” Severn against Ernie himself. The entire local industry let out a collective groan as the promoter and non-wrestler booked himself against the World Champion. The match itself was universally panned and the event drew little more then 100 people. For a show featuring a big name and world champion, it was considered a resounding failure.

Ernie Todd also continued his on-going war of words with Shallcross, e-mailing him on April 18th 2002 to claim that his match with Severn was well received by the ‘real fans’ and told Shallcross to enjoy his success ‘while you can’. Todd was unhappy that Shallcross did not support his run for Mayor of Winnipeg – an embarrassing display that fell flat when Todd could not even get enough signatures to be nominated.

Davidson and Shallcross continued plans for a July Supershow. However, John Nguyen was having second thoughts. Satisfied with Commencement and the weekly Stratosphere show, John’s interest in wrestling began to wane. He had other business ventures and concerns at the forefront, inclduing the question of the legalities of his call centre operations and was under RCMP investigation. As a result, John began stepping back his involvement in the day to day operations of the company. This had the benefit of giving Davidson and Shallcross far more freedom to do as they chose with the direction of the company and was much more efficient. However, it became a problem when planning the July Super event as John was non-committal to investing money in the event.

[Booker Thee]

It was May 7th 2002, barely two months after Commencement of Cool, that John first sent an e-mail to Davidson and Shallcross alerting them that as PCW’s main investor, he was pulling back. He closed the PCW Training Centre and wanted a revised business plan showing quicker profit and less investmentf. This caught Davidson and Shallcross of guard as it had been John’s insistence that they be prepared to experience a loss in the first year. However, Hank Ross, an experience business planner, agreed to work on a detailed business plan and cash flow projections for PCW.

On May 28th, John approached Davidson and Shallcross for the first time with an offer to assume all operations of PCW. At the time, John wanted a cash payment to divest his company, Premier Star Entertainment, of PCW and its assets. Davidson and Shallcross felt John’s involvement was crucial and rejected the idea, asking him to remain an investor. For the time being, John agreed. This internal drama was a closely guarded secret. To the outside world, PCW was a pillar of strength and unity. And in reality, all PCW’s operations continued to grow and prosper with little expense to John.

In the meantime, PCW added a second weekly event, every Monday at Rookie’s Sport Bar. Initially, these events were monthly beginning on April 22nd, but their success warranted an increase to weekly. Though Rookie’s events would see a rollercoaster rise and fall in attendance, PCW presented events there for nearly one year.

Apr 22, 2002 - Premier; Rookies Sports Bar; Winnipeg
Sugar Daddy Dixon b. Chad Tatum ... Moses Luke & Big O b. Dean Richtor & Greg Romijn ... Kenny Omega b. Chris Stevens ... Shane Madison b. Rawskillz ... Dark Angel b. Jade - women, underwear match ... Adam Knight b. Chris Parys - Hardcore match ... Kenny Omega, Big O, Moses Luke, Chad Tatum & Rawskillz b. Shane Madison, Sugar Daddy Dixon, Chris Stevens, Dean Richtor, & Greg Romijn

As Spring approached, it became more likely that PCW would hold their summer event at CanWest Global Park and Davidson began planning the show as John gave cautious approval to the expenditure.

With a world class facility like CanWest that sat over 7000, there was only one name that was available that Davidson knew could fill it – Bret “The Hitman” Hart!

Davidson contacted Bret’s agent and worked out a deal. It was then that John changed his mind and said he did not want to fund the show. With the venue and talent negotiations in full swing, this was a shocking blow that threatened the very existence of the company. And then things got very complicated.

The agent called again and offered Mike a deal too good to pass up – Bret Hart and Winnipeg’s own “Rowdy” Roddy Piper!

With this opportunity, Davidson and Shallcross approached John again and pitched the idea to him. He again changed his mind, giving limited approval. He wanted a tight budget, but okayed the continued negotiations for talent and venue.

Hank Ross continued to discuss use of CanWest Global Park, but, according to Ross who insisted on handling negotiations himself, the deal was all but done. Ross also jumped all over the possibility of Piper coming to town and used his contacts to approach the city and province about possibly honoring Piper for his lifetime achievements as a Manitoban.

Shane Madison suggested the name Boiling Point for the event and the date was tentativly set for Thursday, July 11th 2002 at CanWest Global Park.

As Davidson’s negotiations with the agent representing Piper and Hart continued, a date change was required. Due to a previous engagement with his children, Hart preferred the date of July 25th. Unfortunately, as the show approached, Piper’s schedule did not allow him to appear on that date and he bowed out of the event. Piper’s cancellation was a real blow as the City of Winnipeg had agreed to honour the Wrestling legend and rumor had it, that Mayor Glen Murray himself might possibly appear.

With Piper unable to appear, Davidson set to work securing another superstar for the event. This caused some minor disagreements amongst Davidson and Shallcross, as well as Madison and Damon, as they all disagreed on the best course of action. Eventually, Davidson opened negotiations with The Legion of Doom, a blockbuster deal that would see the greatest tag team of all time headline Boiling Point.

On June 20th 2002, John finally made up his mind for the last time. He e-mailed Mike Davidson and told him he had no intention of investing capital into Boiling Point and was canceling the show. Davidson rejected the idea. By this time, the show had been put together – wrestlers contracted, advertising ordered and the venue secured. For Davidson and Shallcross, their vision of PCW included shows such as Boiling Point and they felt canceling the show would do more damage to the company then was recoverable. Davidson counter offered John and a deal was agreed to – Davidson and Shallcross were to raise the costs themselves and John would support it.

On June 24th 2002, PCW and the wrestling world received a staggering blow. Bret “The Hitman” Hart suffered a stroke and was hospitalized with partial paralisys. In addition to the obvious concern for the health and welfare of the greatest Canadian wrestler ever, Davidson and Shallcross had some major business decisions to make. That morning, Davidson made several calls to ascertain the severity of Hart’s condition and decide on a course of action.

To protect Hart’s privacy, little was really known of his condition. Initial reports indicated the situation was life threatening while secondary reports revealed his condition as minor. In the days following the stroke, Hart’s official response was that he was fine. As a result, all scheduled appearances were considered a go. Much rumor and innuendo permeated the situation, but with a signed contract and a strong desire to see a healthy Bret Hart appear in Winnipeg, Davidson had little choice but to trust the booking agent and assume Hart would appear as scheduled. To cancel his appearance at this point would have put PCW in breach of contract.

During the summer, PCW began performing live wrestling events at Winnipeg Blue Bomber Tailgate parties. In return for the donation of the 20 minute live event, PCW received the opportunity to distrubite promotional material and advertise their full time events.

In early July, PCW distributed several thousand promotional flyers to Bomber fans advertising Boiling Point featuring Bret Hart and The Legion of Doom. It was then that Shallcross began realizing the extent of damage done by the media’s reporting of Hart’s stroke – the vast majority of people who expressed an interest in the event scoffed at the notion that Hart would appear and looked at PCW’s promotional efforts as false advertising.

[Booker Thee]

Within days, official word finally came to Davidson that Hart was not going to be in a condition to appear in Winnipeg. Only with the official cancellation could PCW move forward, voiding the contract with Hart and looking for a suitable replacement. This was a very serious blow to the company as Hart was to be the biggest star ever to appear on a Mantioba independent wrestling event. Even worse, the financial cost was staggering as literally thousands and thousands of dollars worth of promotional material was now useless.

The bad news continued to mount as negotiations with the Winnipeg Goldeyes to use CanWest Global Park continued to move at very slow pace. PCW business consultant Hank Ross was personally responsible for the negotiations and pledged to Davidson and Shallcross that the building costs would be extremely favourable as a result of his friendly relationship with Sam Katz. In fact, Ross assured Davidson and Shallcross the cost for the world-class ball park would be less then PCW had paid for the beautiful Investors Group Athletic Centre, the amount PCW had budgeted for a venue. With little choice but to trust Ross, Davidson turned his attention to finding more talent to shore up the show.

He immediately turned to the short list of talent that had been considered to headline the event in the first place. On top of the list was Markus “Buff” Bagwell, a former WCW and WWF Superstar who was young, marketable, with a well known name in the business and an incredible look. It took only a few short phone calls to sign Bagwell to the event. The internet detractors howled that Bagwell had a reputation for troublemaking and would certainly not appear at the event. As usual, they were wrong. Bagwell ended up being a complete joy to work with, an absolute professional and a very nice individual. On a side note, the same detracters also claimed Eddie Guerrero would not show up at Commencement and were wrong then too.

PCW would once again return to Brandon, Manitoba in relation to Boiling Point, this time being contracted by OCC’s Nightclub to provide an event headlined by The Legion of Doom. That event would take place on Wednesday, July 24th 2002, the day before Boiling Point.

On the positive side, attendance continued to hold steady at The Stratosphere Nightclub as creative was geared towards setting up matches for Boiling Point. In a groundbreaking angle, “The Mecca” Shane Madison was reported to be unhappy with the creative direction of his company. Davidson played the internet detractors with absolute precision as PCW appeared to scramble to cover-up Madison’s disappearance from weekly events and rumoured resignation. Two weeks before Boiling Point, Madison interrupted a live event at The Stratosphere, slapped Davidson across the face and revealed to a shocked audience that every promise that had ever been made to him had been broken. He said he would wrestler at Boiling Point against former partner and newly popular babyface, “Playboy” Will Damon and then he was done with PCW. He also hinted that he did not care what Davidson had planned for the match and would be going into business for himself.

The angle was stunningly realistic and PCW was flooded with inquiries from fans and others in the industry. In the weeks leading up to Boiling Point, Madison would only appear once at live events, perfectly setting up the match against Damon.

On the competitor front, the CWF continued to be a non-factor, preferring to concentrate on out of town dates rather then Winnipeg-based shows. On July 8th 2002, Ernie Todd telephoned john and offered to sell the CWF to him and to come on board as a paid employee to run PCW. Once again, John refused Ernie’s offer with this statement:

“Thank you for your voice mail. At this time, I regret to inform you that I'm not interested in your company, it's assets and talents. In regards to hiring you on as an employee and using your expertise, well, by the looks of it, you can't even run your own company to make it successful, what makes you think that you can run mine. If you believe that you can work for me and make my promotion successful, why can't you do that to yours.”<br>
A disappointed Ernie thanked John and said his “insults have given me a new inspiration."

Later in the summer, it would be clear that the new inspiration was offering to work with TRCW.

TRCW and owner Bobby Jay continued to put up a passionate fight to compete with PCW. With the Indiginous Games scheduled for Winnipeg at the end of July, Bobby scheduled an event at Le Rendezvous headlined by Aborigional superstar Tatanka. Many in the industry believed this was a stroke of genius, assumeing that the thousands of aborigionals that would be in Winnipeg at the time would be anxious to take in the event, scheduled for August 1st, to run in direct competition to PCW’s live Stratosphere event one week after Boiling Point. TRCW’s event was to be called Summer Heat. In response, Shallcross prepared promotional material referring to their July 21st event as Beat The Summer Heat (which would become a regular Summer attraction on the PCW calander) and intended to go head to head with TRCW and outdraw their supershow with a regular live event.

The week of Boiling Point, several problems surfaced. Because Davidson and Shallcross had invested their own capital into the event, they were on a strict budget and could not afford any surprises. Unfortunately, that is what occurred on Monday, July 22nd when they received the quote for CanWest Global Park. Already anxious and upset that CanWest was taking so long to supply a quote, PCW was stunned to learn, only a few days prior to the event, that the building was going to cost them approximately twice what they had paid for the Investors Group Athletic Centre for Commencement and was nearly a 5-digit proce tag. The figure far exceeded what Davidson and Shallcross had been lead to believe and they considered the late arrival of the quote to be suspicious. The fact the Goldeyes required half up front did not make matters any better.

PCW’s relationship with the Goldeyes was intended to be a long and prosperous one. In addition to using CanWest Global Park, PCW agreed to hold monthly events at Walker Theatre which was a not for profit business headed by associates of Sam Katz. The Walker needed dates filled and PCW was willing to fill them. But the quote for the ballpark left a sour taste in the mouths of Davidson and Shallcross, who were faced with the possibility of having to cancel the show as their break even point had just been moved up considerably.

Faced with no way to move the event and several contracts signed, PCW had no choice but to move forward and hope for the best.

[Booker Thee]

One of Hank Ross’ other duties, in addition to negotiating the deal with the Goldeyes, was to book the airline tickets for the former WWE Superstars. Because Hank had a reletive in the travel agent business, he insisted on doing this, confident he would receive a good deal. Unfortunately, Ross booked Hawk on a late flight, Wednesday, July 24th. This was a problem because PCW had a booking in Brandon at about 9:00 PM featuring the Legion of Doom. Hawk was scheduled to arrive around 8:00 in Winnipeg. Unable to change the ticket, Shallcross was to pick Hawk up and speed him to Brandon in time for the main event.

The one thing that did go right was Animal’s arrival on Wednesday July 24th. Davidson and Shallcross picked him up from the airport and took him to the hotel. Later in the day, the PCW Superstars along with Animal met at the PCW offices to head to Brandon for the live event. Shallcross attended the airport and awaited Hawk.

Immediately, there was a problem as Hawk’s flight from Minneapolis continued to show repeated delays. Shallcross and Davidson kept in constant touch via cell phone with Davidson able to lengthen the show as long as Hawk was on his way. After a two hour delay, the flight from Minneapolis finally arrived. Unfortunately, Hawk was not on it.

While there was a second Minneapolis flight coming in later that night, this meant Hawk would not make it to Brandon. The manager of the venue in Brandon was not sympathetic. Fortunately, Animal spoke with him and he agreed to the show would go on as planned. Shane Madison took the place of Hawk, teaming with Animal.

At the airport, Shallcross waited for the second flight from Minneapolis which arrived without Hawk. With little choice, Shallcross contacted Hawk’s home in Florida. His wife assured Shallcross that Hawk was en route as he had flown out of Florida as scheduled. Because a major storm in Minneapolis had delayed several flights, Shallcross assumed Hawk had caught a later one. By 4:00 am, the majority of Minneapolis flights had arrived and Hawk was not on them. Shallcross left the airport and returned home.

Davidson, Animal and the PCW superstars returned to Winnipeg about 2:00AM. At 5:30 AM, they were to be in the Stratosphere Nightclub for a live edition of A-Channel’s The Big Breakfast with host (and PCW Superstar) Jimmy Mac. At around the same time, Hawk’s wife called Shallcross to let him know that Hawk had stayed with family in Minneapolis when it was learned that his flight was delayed indefinitely. He had booked a new flight and would arrive late in the afternoon, the day of Boiling Point.

The Big Breakfast went very well and an exhausted Davidson and Shallcross returned to the PCW offices to finish up some last minute duties. At about noon, Davidson received a call from Buff Bagwell, who was in Minneapolis awaiting his connection. He was calling just to touch base, but Davidson reminded him his flight was leaving in four minutes. A stunned Bagwell realized he had forgotten that he was now on central time and assumed he had an hour. He raced for the plane, but did not make it. Fortunately, he was able to change to a later flight and was now coming in on the same flight as Hawk.

That afternoon, the PCW ring crew headed by Greg Romijn attended to CanWest Global Park. Stadium manager Wayne Jackson met them and assured them that the ballpark staff were there to assist them. Unfortunately, he would not allow the crew to drive the van right up to the diamond where the ring would be set up and the staff refused to use their field vehicles to assist in bringing the heavy steel pieces of the ring into position. In fact, unless Mr. Jackson was actually there, the staff sat and watched the PCW crew struggle to do everything. This would not have been a major issue except the park staff appeared in the very high quote and were being paid by PCW.

Davidson went home to get ready and would attend the ballpark while Shallcross was to pick Hawk and Bagwell up at the airport, drop them off at the hotel and then head to the park.

While at the airport, Shallcross received constant phone calls from Romijn who was unable to locate Wayne Jackson when they needed things and was complaining that the park staff were not very helpful. A later call was made to inform Shallcross that Jackson had changed his mind about letting PCW have full access to the PA system and would need some of their own equiptment. A further call came in to let Shallcross know that Jackson had refused to allow Netvidtv.com to set up their cameras to tape the event. A frustrated, exhausted and angry Shallcross called Stratosphere manager Tom Manos and asked him to head to the park to look after the problems as he was stuck at the airport.

[Booker Thee]

When the flight finally arrived and unboarded, both Hawk and Bagwell were scrutinized by customs officials. This left Bagwell very shaken. Being a professional, he was able to give a stellar interview from Shallcross’ cell phone in the car, live on 92 CITI FM.

Shallcross dropped Bagwell and Hawk off at the hotel and finally attended the ballpark. What the Goldeyes lacked in customer service (and they lacked a lot), they made up for in having a beautiful facility. Though Boiling Point drew about 1200 people, the cavernous nature of the ball park, made it appear less and was not condusive to a ‘hot’ audience. This was disheartening to Shallcross and Davidson, but they forged ahead.

While not being nearly as critically acclaimed as Commencement, the PCW superstars put on a thrilling show. And by the time the Legion of Doom hit the ring for the main event, the crowd popped huge. Adam Knight and Darren Dalton did not look out of place with the Road Warriors, both in terms of size and presence and obviously ability. As the LOD set up for their finisher, Shallcross, who was standing at field level, received a call on his two way radio from the sound booth located on the top of the park.

It was almost 11:00 PM and Jackson had ordered the DJ to turn off the system and play no more music that night. Shallcross replied that the match was almost done, but Jackson refused to relent. An irate Shallcross finally erupted, telling the DJ to inform Jackson that the show would be over in five minutes and if that wasn’t good enough, he would come up to the booth and play the music himself. Jackson relented and allowed the show to finish

July 25, 2002 – Boiling Point; Canwest Global Ball Park; Winnipeg
Rawskillz defeated Chad Tatum to win the PCW Junior Heavyweight title ... Moses Luke, Big O, & Greg Romijn beat Chris Stevens, Chad Ripley, & Bugsy Slugg ... Ronnie Attitude pinned Sugar Daddy Dixon ... Doug Lunney defeated Donnie DiCaprio by reverse decision ... Mike Angels & Dean Richtor beat Mentallo & Kenny Omega ... Buff Bagwell pinned Chris Parys ... Shane Madison beat Will Damon ... The Legion of Doom (Animal & Hawk) pinned Darren Dalton & Adam Knight

Although Boiling Point was successful in drawing apromimately 1200 fans, becoming one of the highest drawing independent wrestling event in North America that year, Shallcross and Davidson were disappointed. They had invested their own money and costs had ballooned out of control. As a result, even with the positive attendance figure, Boiling Point was considered a disappointment, financially.

John was sympathetic (Though he put absolutely no money into PCW) and over the next few weeks offered to walk away from PCW, essentially giving PCW and all it’s assets to Davidson and Shallcross without further return on his investment. But they refused, wanting to keep John in the loop, if for no other reason then to allow to outside world to focus their attention on the millionaire backer, not knowing that it was really Davidson and Shallcross who had been running PCW since May.

PCW turned their attention to the next weekly Stratosphere show, Beat The Summer Heat, August 1st 2002. With the heavy promotional efforts of Boiling Point, Davidson and Shallcross hoped for an increase in attendance at their weekly event. What they got was beyond they hopes. Over 350 fans turned out for Beat The Summer Heat. At that event, Shallcross debuted as the new host of the weekly show.

More importantly, as TRCW promoted Summer Heat at the same time headlined by former WWF Superstar Tatanka, PCW hoped for success. In head to head action, with TRCW featuring a former WWF star, PCW outdrew their competition.
Attendance at the Stratosphere would even out, but PCW would draw 200+ every week until close to Christmas, an incredible accomplishment.

Unfortunately, PCW would still have to deal with negative fallout from Boiling Point as it relates to the Winnipeg Goldeyes. The week after the event, they received the final invoice for rental of the ballpark and it was even higher then the quote and featured several charges that Davidson and Shallcross 100% disagreed with. As a result of the dispute, revenue generated through ticketmaster was held by the ticket company until both sides could agree.

Davidson and Shallcross drafted a letter of position and submitted it to Wayne Jackson. It was dismissed outright. In a telephone conversation, Jackson and Shallcross engaged in a heated exchange and the unproffesionalism of the ballpark representative was glaring.

Jackson claimed that the rental contract was made with Hank Ross who stated that he understood all charges. Jackson further stated that if PCW had a problem with the invoice, they should have voiced their concerns the night of the event, even though he admitted the invoice was not prepared until several days later.

As a result of Ross’ positive friendly relationship with Sam Katz, Davidson and Shallcross allowed him to set up a meeting at the ballpark with Wayne Jackson. According to Ross, Kats would certainly not be there.

The second week of August, Davidson, Shallcross & Ross attended CanWest Global Ballpark for a meeting. In the boardroom was Wayne Jackson and two other Goldeyes officials as well as Sam Katz.

Because Jackson and Shallcross had an atagonistic relationship and Ross wished to remain somewhat impartial, it was decided that Davidson would speak on behalf of PCW. Early on in the meeting, Davidson had Jackson on the defensive, prompting Ross to encourage Davidson to move on to another point.

Eventually Katz agreed with many of PCW’s points, but took several opportunities to insult and belittle Davidson and Shallcross. In the end, Katz agreed to discount the invoice by $500, a figure that was not even close to what PCW felt was fair. Katz replied that the offer was ‘take it or leave it’. Davidson deferred to Shallcross who responded, ‘with all due respect, we’ll leave it’.

Katz immediately left the room, followed by Shallcross and Davidson. Ross hung back to confer with Jackson. When Ross finally made it out to the parking lot, he found a fiery Davidson and Shallcross who were more then willing to take the matter to court, feeling the obvious media converage would not be a bad thing for PCW. Ross was in disagreement, fearing a court battle would hurt his friendship with Katz and anger John who had told Ross specifically to watch over Davidson and Shallcross and represent his interests.

Ross informed his collegues that in his conversation with Jackson in the boardroom, Jackson had asked them to submit a counter offer the following Monday. Ross pleaded with Davidson and Shallcross to reconsider Katz offer, which he felt was generous. It was thought that Ross was very concerned about his positive relationship with Kats because the Goldeyes offer was several thousand dollars shy of what PCW disputed. They all agreed to give it some thought over the weekend.

By Monday, Davidson and Shallcross were eager to resolve the matter, either through a counter offer or the filing of court papers. An e-mail came through from the Goldeyes requesting that PCW release the ticket money from Ticketmaster as agree upon in the settlement. Since they had rejected the settlement offer, Davidson and Shallcross were stunned and angry. They immediately began drafting a response and planning a course of action. They were resigned to the fact that the matter would end up in court.

Ross then shocked them both by saying he had called the Goldeyes and accepted their offer on behalf of PCW. An enraged Shallcross and Davidson immediately took the conversation to the privacy of the board room and expressed their unhappiness with Ross.

Ross countered that he felt it was a good offer and was not prepared to go to court. Shallcross was in favour of refusing to aknowledge the acceptance of the settlement, feeling that Ross lacked the authority to speak on their behalf in that matter. Davidson leaned that direction as well, but recognized that it would damage them in court to have apparently accepted and then changed their mind. As a result, they had no choice but to accept the settlement.

And with that, the book was finally closed on PCW's Boiling Point!