Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 17:24:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199709072124.RAA01105@freenet2.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ag725@freenet.carleton.ca (Rick Scaia) To: nfd@majordomo.aimnet.com Subject: The News From Dayton -- 09/08/97 Reply-To: ag725@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-nfd@majordomo.aimnet.com Precedence: list THE NEWS FROM DAYTON For the week of September 8, 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shawn and the 'Taker / Gordon's Betrayal Read on for more on today's Headline Stories! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The News From Dayton is compiled weekly by: Rick Scaia (ag725@freenet.carleton.ca) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The News -- For the Week of September 8, 1997 The News From Dayton remains a combination of the MOST RELIABLE wrestling news as reported elsewhere in the wrestling underground and the most interesting morsels of exclusive and unique news that I can dig up. The goal is the both inform and entertain you, the Home Viewer, without cluttering up your brain with total lies and fabrications that are common on other web pages. By the way, if you are reading the NFD on one of the RSPW newsgroups, or anywhere on the web other than the Official News From Dayton Web Site, or if you are linking directly here without checking out the main NFD Headlines Page, I strongly encourage you to make the jump to the NFD on the web at http://homepages.udayton.edu/~scaiarij/wrestling/nfd.htm I think you'll find the trip worthwhile, as there are many exclusive features to the NFD Web Site, along with updates on breaking news, so that you don't have to wait a full week for the NFD's take on the latest rumors. THE ALEX MARVEZ COLUMN * Unfortunately for those of us in Dayton, Alex Marvez has moved on to bigger and better things. Instead of covering the Bengals and pro wrestling for the Dayton Daily News, he'll be moving to Denver to cover the Broncos for the Rocky Mountain News starting this season. We are all indebted to Alex for the reliable inside wrestling news he passed along to readers, both via the NFD and by his weekly wrestling column in the Dayton Daily News. Alex hopes to continue a weekly column in Denver, and also hopes that it will be available on the internet. I'll no longer be able to include information from Alex here in the NFD, but if/when his column is available elsewhere on the 'net, I'll be sure to include a hyperlink to it here. IN OTHER NEWS... * Tonight's WWF Ground Zero PPV looks to be something of a "one trick pony" heading in... with a Bret Hart vs. Patriot main event that seems destined to be a formulaic and obvious win for the heel, the WWF has been wise to heavily push the much-anticipated match between Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker as the show's marquee match. Michaels and 'Taker, who have both been near the top of the WWF's talent roster for the past five years (since Michaels split with Marty Jannetty to go solo), have somehow never been programmed together in a major feud. Tonight's match will mark the first time they've ever met one-on-one. And given Michaels' penchant for working his ass off in PPV matches -- not to mention UT's status as one of the sport's most talented big men -- the first contest between the two could well be a memorable one. Add to the fact that both men are talented enough to make this an exciting contest the fact that the WWF's current storylines make this a compelling and interesting match; it's tough to predict the winner. One school of thought has Michaels winning a tainted victory when Paul Bearer finally debuts "Cain," while others think 'Taker will get a win over Michaels to make up for Michaels "dominance" over UT over the past month (during which time Michaels has laid 'Taker out on two separate occassions and cost him the World Title). The reason for so much focus on that match is because the rest of the PPV is a little thin. The Patriot vs. Bret Hart title match is guaranteed to end with Hart still as the champ; while the match itself may be quite good, the story here indicates that the WWF may have gotten a bit overzealous with promoting the USA vs. Canada feud as heavily as they have. Other matches on the card include: o The Fatal Four Way match, with the winners getting the WWF Tag Team Titles (just vacated by Steve Austin and Dude Love). The Headbangers, Owen Hart/British Bulldog, the Godwinns, and the Legion of Doom are the combatants here. It is widely expected that the LOD will finally get the belts after waiting over six months since their federation return. Even though I like three of the four teams in this match (Godwinns are the odd team out), neither of the Big Two has ever shown a skill for making these three- or four-way matches interesting. o A Three Way match for "Nation" supremacy: Faarooq (representing the Nation of Domination) vs. Crush (representing the Disciples of Apocolypse) vs. Savio Vega (representing Los Boricuas). This will degenerate into a brawl, likely involving outside interference. It'll be predictable. How good it is will depend on how extreme they get. o Goldust vs. Brian Pillman; if Goldust wins, Pillman leaves the WWF forever; if Pillman wins, he gets Marlena as a servant for 30 days. The stip practically guarantees a Pillman win. The match between the two will be decent, but not special. Where they go with the angle will dictate how entertaining this segment is. o Scott Putski vs. Brian Christopher. These are NOT the most talented representatives of the new Light Heavyweight division, but they seem destined to be pushed to the stars. I'm sure this match will be OK, and might even have some intrigue if the father/son feud with Christopher and Lawler is feuled. But give me TAKA Michinoku and Jerry Lynn any day of the week. One area where the WWF could beef up the show and make things interesting is Steve Austin's promised appearance. While he's not expected to be able to wrestle, Austin can definitely fill up some time with his extraordinary interview skills, and might even make a quality guest commentator. But if Titan doesn't do anything above and beyond the six scheduled matches (be it with Austin or with other wrestlers not scheduled to appear such as Mick Foley or Vader), look for Michaels/Undertaker to highlight to PPV event. * Without a doubt, one of the stranger stories of the year to date is this past week's revelation by Bob Ryder (of the Prodigy Mailing List and 1Wrestling.com) that Tod Gordon was working from inside ECW to recruit "extreme" talent for World Championship Wrestling. Gordon was a co-founder of ECW, and supported the company financially through the lean early years. Last year, Gordon did sell his interest in the company to Paul Heyman. However, because the ECW fans had come to like and respect Gordon, he was kept on in a capacity as ECW's figurehead "commissioner." According to Ryder, Gordon was discovered trying to recruit ECW wrestlers to join him in WCW... the angle was going to be that Gordon was leading a group of "extreme" wrestlers into WCW to get revenge for previous talent raids by WCW (which resulted in guys like Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and the Public Enemy leaving ECW). The list of talent Gordon was reportedly working on included Sabu, Rob Van Dam, the Dudleys, Sandman, and John Kronos. This is above and beyond Raven, Stevie Richards, and Perry Saturn (all of whom have already signed with WCW in the past several months). When Gordon was discovered, Paul Heyman immediately alleviated him of all ECW-related duties. At present time, Heyman also appears to have successfully convinced all of ECW's top performers to stay with the company. MiCasa reports that the plot may have been hatched by WCW's Terry Taylor, as Taylor was said to have approached Gordon with the offer. And strangely, it's being said that Kevin Sullivan (who is back with WCW in a limited booking capacity) caught wind of the plan, and actually tipped ECW and Paul Heyman off to it. Without a doubt, this adds a bizarre element to the already weird story. Like I said in updates during the week as this story was breaking, this whole scenario seems almost too weird, far-fetched, and underhanded to be true. Obviously, I'm not alone in thinking that, as such sources as Bagpipe Report have gone on record classifying the whole situation as a worked angle. However, at this point, speculation remains based only on what Bob Ryder has reported, and as such, I believe it's appropriate to report the story as he has: as fact. * BTW, as I mentioned in passing above, Mike C. is back from extended vacation, and has returned to updating the superb MiCasa Wrestling News Page. I'm sure everybody remembers that MiCasa was one of the first wrestling news pages to update nearly every day with quality information; now that it's back up at full speed (or approaching it), it leaps back to the top of the very short list of pages that are worth checking out every day. * The situation with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson being upset about the NWO parody of them last Monday continues to be unclear. Early in the week, it was reported elsewhere that Flair was especially unhappy, as nobody had "cleared" the parody with him. This was apparently untrue, though, as Flair and Arn OK'ed the whole thing, but were somewhat irked that they weren't allowed to save face by doing a Horseman run-in as the segment ended. And now reports continue to circulate that Flair being "especially unhappy" might actually be more accurate than "somewhat irked." While unconfirmed, Flair and Arn were said to have left the Nitro venue early last Monday, and have since no-showed some WCW functions. While weighing the validity of these stories, it's worth remembering that WCW has gone out of their way to promote the idea of "legit heat" between Flair and the Wolfpack in the past, when such heat did not really exist at that level. * ECW shows over the weekend were notable for a few reasons... first, the Sandman returned to action after nearly two months on the shelf with various injuries. He wrestled Sabu during the Massachusetts swing, though their matches ended inconclusively due to outside interference. Secondly, the expected make-shift tag team of John Kronus and New Jack made their first appearances as a team, getting wins over ECW tag champs, the Dudleys, in non-title matches. Kronus and New Jack should make for an entertaining team that will be mega-over with the crowd. And finally, Jerry Lynn -- who was Mr. JL in WCW and appeared to rave reviews on recent WWF programming as a light heavyweight -- wrestled on the shows. * Speaking of recent WWF programming, it might be worthwhile to quickly recap this past Friday Night's Main Event. Much like the previous week's canned show, the actual matches weren't anything special, as the reliance on lame-ass run-in and DQ finishes really got old fast. But unlike last week, they had a fresh Steve Austin interview that was one of the most entertaining things I've seen in a long time. Austin was interviewed at his home in Texas, and while shooting "autographed" pictures of various WWF personalities with his crossbow, took time to verbally berate the WWF higher-ups for suspending him and taking his tag team title. He closed the interview by saying there was no way in hell he'd surrender the IC Title. We'll see about that. Matches on Friday night included: Undertaker getting a DQ win over HHH (when Rick Rude and Shawn Michaels interfered), and the Patriot getting a DQ win over Owen Hart (when Bret Hart and British Bulldog interfered). * The first Friday night special on USA Network earned a 1.6 rating, which souds anemic compared to usual Monday night ratings... however, consider that usual USA Network programming in that timeslot earns about half that, and you can understand why all parties involved are probably pretty happy. Also, we can look at the "share" data (rather than ratings data) for another way of considering performace in the different timeslot. The 1.6 rating translates to a 5.2 share (which means that 5.2 percent of the people watching cable TV on Friday night were watching the WWF). Monday Nitro's last ratings (a composite 4.8) worked out to a share in the mid 5's (meaning 5+% of people watchign TV on Monday night in prime time were watching WCW). This is due to the different number of people who are watching TV at the different times. * With the way WCW has played up "never seeing the NWO parody of the Horsemen ever again," many onlookers expect that the NWO will decide to "take-over" Nitro in coming weeks so that they can air whatever footage they want. Some are even suggesting that the NWO will permanantly take over Monday Nitro, forcing WCW to get a new show (which would be the Thursday TBS show expected to premier in January). * Look for the Mexican minis to re-appear in the WWF in the next two weeks. It's unknown whether they will reprise the mini versions of WWF stars (like Mini Vader and Mini Mankind) or if they will have their own personas. Personally, I like the idea of Mini WWF stars... * Finally, a quick mention of troubles facing USWA. Even though interest in the Memphis based promotion has been up in recent weeks, the promotion just lost its flagship show, a live Saturday morning broadcast on WMC in Memphis, and is now facing a ton of internal problems. Dutch Mantell, who in addition to being the current USWA Unified Champ is also the booker who helped create the increased interest in the USWA product, was said to be on the verge of leaving the company in the last week. Tensions between those on the business end and those on the creative end are said to be running high. In addition to this, USWA was hoping to bring back a lot of talent that had previously done well with the company; the return of Tommy Rich, however, last less than a week. 1Wrestling.com has a complete investigation of all the troubles facing USWA at the present time. This is only the NFD Weekly Edition. Check here every Monday for in-depth coverage of all the past week's news, but don't forget to make the NFD Web Site a regular stop on OTHER days, as the NFD Updates will always include recaps of breaking stories, updated 5-7 times per week! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The News From Dayton is Copyright 1995, 1997 by Rick Scaia. This document, as well as the contents of the pages in the NFD web hierarchy, are the intellectual property of Rick Scaia. Please refer to the "Thanks and Acknowledgements" page for full copyright information. -- Rick Scaia | VISIT ME ON THE WEB A True Yankee Bastard | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~ag725/ ag725@freenet.carleton.ca | http://homepages.udayton.edu/~scaiarij/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - List: nfd - Majordomo v1.94.3 - Aimnet, Santa Clara, California, USA