From: ag725@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Rick Scaia) Subject: [INFO] The News From Dayton -- 09/30/96 Date: 1996/10/01 Message-ID: <52q652$rr0@alpha.sky.net> Organization: The National Capital FreeNet followup-to: rec.sport.pro-wrestling Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling.info For further updates on these and other stories throughout the week, you are always encouraged to stop by the News From Dayton on the World Wide Web at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~ag725/HomePage.news.html In addition to my own coverage of breaking news, you'll always find links to the other great folks and pages who do an even better job of getting breaking news out on a DAILY basis, accurately for the most part, too! As always, the NFD starts with a run-down of the Alex Marvez column from the Sunday Dayton Daily News: * Headline story basically accuses the WWF of an "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy." At heart, it seems as if the Jim Ross angle shot on RAW last week is a set up for something where a group of outside wrestlers are trying to take over the promotion, a la WCW's "New World Order." In this case, there is actual personal motivation for the action, as Jim Ross is going to revealed as orchestrating the departure of guys like Nash, Hall, and Waltman, and arrival of guys like Austin, Pillman, Vader, and Mero in an attempt to get back at Vince McMahon for firing Ross twice and never making him the #1 play-by-play man as promised. Marvez notes briefly that while the angle was exciting, it did not in any way help RAW's ratings skid against Nitro. * Marvez also recaps the Mind Games PPV, calling it "excellent." The main event Mankind/Michaels match was "great. * For those wondering if the ECW thing was shoot or work, Alex weighs in with the following statement: "The WWF has agreed to work with Extreme Championship Wrestling on a limited basis." While Alex complements the parties involved for portraying the two incidents so realistically, he does not that it will lead to a WWF/ECW grudge match in the future. * Alex also takes a quick paragraph to mention the entertaining Monday Nitro of last week, calling it "hilarious." The highlight was the program, according the Marvez was the "Is Andre really your dad?" exchange between Hall and the Giant. * As usual, you can interact with Alex on his "Bodyslams" folder on America Online's Grandstand Wrestling Area, or by e-mailing him at "Alex1Marv@aol.com". Other information that you might enjoy reading: * Here's a rundown of the WWF tapings of last Monday and Tuesday night. If you don't want to know what happens on WWF TV for the next 3 weeks, skip to the next "*". Highlights of the RAW tapings included Vader pinning Michaels in the tag match scheduled to headline tommorrow night's show; Cornette and Lothario leave ringside, leaving the beaten Michaels to be pinned following a Vader Bomb. This could be part of the build up to Vader getting a title shot at Michaels at Survivor Series. As it stands right now, the winner of the Sid/Vader match at the next In Your House will get that title shot. Also at the RAW tapings, we saw a mini-feud develop between Steve Austin and Savio Vega, while the Jake Roberts/Jerry Lawler feud continued, after a match between Austin and Roberts. The other primary highlight of the RAW tapings was that the Perfect/Hunter Hearst Helmsley feud is apparently coming to a head, as they continued building heat between them, to the point of promising the return of Mr. Perfect to the ring at the next live RAW (which is in Ft. Wayne, IN, on October 21). Superstars tapings were a tad more eventful than they have been in recent months now that the show is on USA Network. Easily the most talked about highlight of the tapings happen after a Crush squash match; Crush, after jawing with a fan the entire match, pulls him out of the crowd and assaults him in the ring in a very impressive incident. Also, the Perfect/HHH and Austin/Vega angles were furthered with minor events over the 4 weeks worth of shows. Sunny did not appear at all as a manager, after she had fired her Smoking Gunns and split with Faarooq "on very friendly terms." Apparently, they are going to limit her managerial role so she can continue as a major television personality. Speaking of television personalities, former ECW television personality Lance Wright made his WWF debut here in a minor capacity that might actually have been nothing more than a try-out. Also on the try-out front, Terry Gordy got a chance to showcase his wares in a try-out match against Savio Vega. Gordy wrestled as himself (even hailing from Badstreet, USA), not under a mask, though he did job to Savio Vega. * This week's "WWF LiveWire" on USA Network was really entertaining, being about an order of magnitude more intelligent, both in terms of the hosts and the callers. The show significantly advanced the fascinating Jim Ross angle, with the revelation that Ross was actually suspended from Titan for several days in the past week, but that his lawyer got that suspended after they went through the terms of Ross' long term WWF contract. While callers generally stuck to the major issues, some still asked moron question based on those issues; if the show wasn't on so damned early in the morning, I'd be more than happy to call and help matters out! Still, the hosts did a great job of gearing discussion towards interesting things, and even had no problem at all discussing what would have been taboo topics even a few weeks ago; ECW, Hulk Hogan, the NWO, Nash, and Hall were all named and disucussed. As Todd Pettingill noted after a caller tried to put one over on the hosts, they don't care what you want to talk about because it is the viewers show. Hulk Hogan is fair game on Live Wire. This is a great direction for the show. With Vince McMahon as the guest for the entire hour next week, even I might have to drag my hungover ass out of bed to try to get through and pester him for a Sabu/Michaels match down the road. [If you thought the "wide open" format might be an aberration or a fluke, guess again. The one clip of Live Wire they showed on SuperStars today was of the guy who called about Hogan/NWO; they are serious about building that kind of a "smark" show.] * Eric Bischoff had yet another interaction with the fan his own bad self this past week, appearing on Prodigy prior to Nitro. Some of the highlights included his revelation that Chris Benoit, despite the reports of the less reputable "newsletters" and hotlines out there, is not going anywhere. He's happy with WCW and has *not* given 2 weeks notice. Also, he said that the show that the NWO will get might wind up being the WCW Saturday Night timeslot twice per month. Another interesting sidebar saw Bischoff admitting to borrowing good ideas from various online folks; what I want to know is When the hell do we start getting paid!?!?! In all seriousness, though, the latest example of Bischoff monitoring the 'net for ideas is the plan to strip the WCW titleholder annual and put their belt up for grabs in the 60-man battle royal at World War 3; there has been a lot of negative feedback about that idea, and Bischoff is now considering scrapping the idea because of it. Whatever the motivation, I actually believe this move to be a proverbial "good thing." It may work in Japan, but here in the state, I don't think it'd fly. I also found Bischoff's comment justifying WCW not having a live interaction show like WWF Live Wire to be interesting; he says it is their experience that wrestling fans want to see wrestling, and not talk about it. I will withhold the obvious comment regarding the fact that until three months ago, Bischoff never once gave fans anything worth talking about. * Not to be outdone, Vince McMahon went online for the first of what he suggested might become monthly chats earlier tonight. To me, the most interesting tidbit was the revelation that the WWF is going to pursue legal action against ECW for their interruption of the live broadcasts last week. In my opinion, this is probably a pretty good indication of this being a very cleverly done angle between the WWF and ECW; I know Titan has tended to be very quick to pull the trigger on litigation in the past, but I don't think even they would try to prove that spitting a beer on someone is worth any action more severe than being kicked out of the building. Also revealed during the chat is the fact that WWF Online employees Bob Mitchell and Lee Barstow have been fired; Vince says this had nothing to do with the flap that occured between the WWF and the AOL GrandStand. Also interesting during the chat was that Vince was very complimentary of Bob Ryder (who, it could be said, was "responsible" for the above mentioned flap, though he did absolutely nothing wrong) in answering one of Bob's questions. Vince confirmed rumors that Titan is negociating with the All Japan Pro Wrestling duo of Dan Kroffat and Doug Furnas (Joey Styles in his new AOL GrandStand folder revealed those two are as good as gone from ECW), but that no deal has been finalized. The same was said by Vince of Bret Hart, who the WWF wants to return for a match at Survivor Series against Steve Austin. A final interesting item had Vince revealing that Gene Okerlund, in fact, remains under contract to WCW to this day, and is in no way in danger of appearing anywhere other than WCW or the NWO in the near future. * Another ECW-to-WWF move may be Brian Lee. FWIW, Joey Styles did claim that Gordy, Lee, Kroffat, Furnas, and Lance Wright were all done with ECW in his AOL folder. * WCW has come to terms with Steve McMichael. After signing a one year deal last September to be basically an announcer, with a switch over to wrestling to follow later, McMichael was looking for a sweeter deal now that he's in the ring full time (or what passes as "full time" if you're employeed by WCW). Some places in the middle of the week were reporting that McMichaels' deal might not fall into place, but he did in fact, reach an agreement with WCW late in the week, so he'll be around in his current capacity as a Horseman for a while. * Speaking of Horsemen, Ric Flair suffered a shoulder injury while wrestling in Japan last week. The severity of the injury is unknown, though many sources are saying Flair may be out of the ring for a substantial period of time. Also on the Flair front, anyone trying to tell you Flair's contract with WCW expires later this year is full of it. Flair is with WCW till at least late 1997. * More on ratings from Monday Night, 9/23: Nitro averaged a 3.4 rating over its two hour period, while RAW checked in with relatively disappointing 2.0. I don't think RAW could have been reasonably expected to rebound much above the mid-upper 2.0's, but with a lot of hype geared towards the live show, they should have at least outscored the taped RAW that aired on 9/16. FWIW, it should be noted that the live RAW was an excellent show with the start of an interesting Jim Ross angle; WCW Nitro did not start beating RAW consistantly until several weeks into the Scott Hall/Kevin Nash outsiders angle, so we may have to wait a few weeks to see if RAW gains momentum in the ratings as word of mouth spreads. The quarter hour breakdowns for Monday night are kind of interesting, as Nitro peaked right at 9p.m., with a 4.1, but dropped a whole ratings point as the NWO-flavored final hour went on. RAW actually gained a half ratings point, to close out its final quarter hour with a 2.4 ratings, indicating that the Ross/Razor/Diesel thing was at least somewhat intriguing to most viewers. * There is a lot of talk about a late night Saturday program for the WWF on the Fox Network. Some are suggesting this could be the more "extreme" harder edged show that Titan wanted their weekly PPV to be. This is a rumor that Vince McMahon did not deny in his chat tonight; when asked about the possibility, he merely said something like "Anything can happen in the WWF." * JJ Dillon, who was the number three man in the WWF power structure up until a couple weeks ago, has agreed to a short term deal working in the WCW front office. He will start work there on October 1. * To update the Dayton-area TV run down I did last week: The AWF "Warriors of Wrestling" program I mentioned as being on at 2a.m. on Saturdays is, in fact, on at 2a.m. on early Sunday mornings (or late Saturday night). I got home in time to see only the last 15 minutes of this week's show, but a friend had been watching the whole program gave me his one word assessment as soon as I walked in. He said, "Lame." Neither the round system, nor the existence of Tito Santana, Bob Orton, Greg Valentine, and Tommy Rich in prominent positions impressed him. The program, however, was VERY well produced from what I saw. The Charlie Norris/Hercules match I saw, however, was not worthy of even USWA-level production values. And Lord Alfred Hayes is the worst heel color man I have ever heard. Also to update the Dayton TV wrestling line-up: last week, I mentioned that low-power WUCT-51 has occassionally been showing ECW weekly TV at 7p.m. on Saturday evenings. Well, SportsChannel Cinci again missed its usual Prime Network airing of ECW on late Friday, and again WUCT-51 provided this week's show. It is on their program schedule again for next Saturday evening as well; if you are lucky enough to receive WUCT-51, you should be able to make it thought the next few weeks until SCC adds a second airing of ECW without missing any episodes. -- Rick Scaia | I'm on the Web now! RSPW Posse Minister of OFFENSE | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~ag725/ ag725@freenet.carleton.ca | Prepare to be Disappointed!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------