______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ Sorry to be gone for so long. The move to the house coincided with the office computer replacement. Now, the computer in the office will be amazing when everything gets put in its proper place, but for a period of time I was disconnected from the net. And I've only just unpacked and set up the computer in my home office. Whew! Hopefully, despite having to unpack loads of boxes, I will return to my weekly schedule, with some lengthy contributions. We've got a long weekend in Canada this weekend, so I'm hoping to get caught up on All Japan & New Japan TV. I was careful to put the box containing those tapes in a separate location so I'll be able to find them easily. You wouldn't believe how many boxes of tapes were part of the move. It's damn ridiculous when you see them all stacked up. ______________________________________________________________________ - The WWF had the King of the Ring on this past Sunday, 06/23/00. The TV shows leading up to the PPV were generally great, and, for what seems like the first time in my memory, the WWF finally deserves more praise than scorn for the quality of the wrestling that they deliver. There's still stuff to pick on, and maybe I'm just worn out from my move and need to enjoy the good parts so much that I'm willing to overlook the weak stuff, but I'm not going to even think about negatives. Going in to the King of the Ring tournament, they've actually got the stage set for several potential challengers to HHH (should HHH retain the title in the moronic six-man, title-on-the-line match on the PPV, he'd defend the title againt the King of the Ring). They've got potential issues between HHH and Kurt Angle (over Stephanie), Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and even Rikishi. As I add this paragraph after the show, I struggle to find the words to express my disappointment with the booking decisions of the tournament. Jericho, Benoit, and Guerrero were all removed in the first round of the tournament. There was no awesome match in a tournament which looked like it could deliver several. It wasn't enough to give Rikishi the IC Title on Thursday; they still couldn't have him lose in the tournament. So, even with a good wrestler winning the title, the disappointment of the great wrestlers being relegated to another run at the midcard left me feeling negatively about the show. * Rikishi beat Chris Benoit in the King of the Ring Tourney: Benoit is awesome. His IC Title loss to Rikishi on Smackdown was Rikishi's best singles match in my memory. The loss seemed to suggest that Benoit would go over here and, perhaps, that they were planning to push him up to the next level. After just a couple of minutes, Benoit put on the crossface, but Rikishi made it to the ropes. They dragged out Rikishi's struggle to the ropes to the point that it killed Benoit's finisher. Benoit was pissed, so he left the ring, grabbed a chair, and whacked Rikishi for the DQ. Shit. Start off by depressing me, why don't you? Benoit beat the stuffing out of Rikishi to the point that the commentators said Rikishi's chances in the tournament were affected. The crowd loudly booed the finish, and I'd like to think it was because they wanted Benoit to go further. Damn it all, Benoit is sentenced to midcard action for the foreseeable future. Less than ten minutes in, the best wrestler on the show was already hitting the showers and all of the positive thoughts I had coming in to this show were struggling to survive. They interviewed Chris Benoit to explain why he threw away his KotR opportunity; Benoit said he does what he wants and nobody can stop him. Huh? * Val Venis beat Eddy Guerrero in the King of the Ring Tourney: With Benoit gone, I found myself putting those eggs in Eddy's basket, but something tells me that some crap was at hand in this match as well. Venis had Trish Stratus with him, and Eddy had Chyna with him. Venis has looked good in the ring with Eddy leading into the PPV. Eddy controlled the match. He hit a top rope superplex. Eddy hit the Romero chinlock, which Jim Ross called "a submission move, right there." Val raked the eyes. Eddy went to work on Val's back. The crowd was so into this good match that they chanted "We want puppies!" Val took control with a backbreaker, but Eddy rallied with a suplex. Frog splash attempt was going to miss, so Eddy laneded in a somersault instead. Money shot met with Eddy's knees. They tried to do some quick falls, but Val couldn't move quickly enough to make them as exciting as Eddy's work was Dean Malenko. Val tried to use the ropes to get a pin. Eddy did a top rope rana on Val. As Trish tried to distract the referee, Chyna stopped her. Val grabbed Chyna, who decked him, with Eddy hitting a quick schoolboy for the two. And, shit, if Val didn't hit a fisherman suplex for the pin. So far, two matches ended in the opposite way that I would have liked. Given that Venis vs. Rikishi was established as a semi-final, I pretty much lost all interest in the tournament. * Crash Holly beat Bull Buchanan in the King of the Ring Tourney: The pushed Crash as the Cinerella story of the tourney. Of course, Bull dominated the match. There was an isolated "boring" chant from the crowd. Match was horrible because Crash didn't really get to work. And of course, Crash hit a surprise roll-up for the win. At least I finally liked one booking decision. * Kurt Angle beat Chris Jericho in the King of the Ring Tourney: After two minutes of Jericho domination, he hit the lionsault and scored a two count. He did the dropkick to Angle on the apron. They went outside to brawl, with Angle gaining control. Earlier on, as Jericho chopped Angle's chest, the crowd delivered a Ric Flair reaction for each shot. Angle's chest was slapped bloody. Jericho hit a backbreaker on Angle for a two count. At just before the five minute mark, Angle took control, hitting a slingslot into the turnbuckles and a suplex. Angle scored a two count off a German suplex, no tiptoes. Jericho charged Angle in the corner, but met a boot. It looked like Angle's foot came down on Jericho's head after the spot, but Jericho shook it off. Rana off the top, just like two matches earlier. Jericho scored a two off a spin kick. Angle tried for the Olympic slam, Jericho dropped down, Jericho hit the lion tamer, Stephanie ran out, the referee decided to ignore the match, and Jericho released the hold as Angle tapped. The referee bumped. Stephanie tried to nail Jericho, but ended up belting Angle instead. Rather than go for the pin, Jericho grabbed Stephanie and kissed her. That allowed Angle to recover and hit his slam for the pin. Pretty good match, but I was a bit sad to see Jericho go. * Christian & Edge beat Scott Taylor & Brian Christopher and Test & Prince Albert and the Hardy Boyz to win the WWF Tag Titles: This was an elimination tag match to determine the WWF Tag champions. At least that meant that the champions would have to be eliminated to lose the titles. The Hardyz worked some fast spots around Albert. T&A's presence in this match really mucked it up; I sure was hoping that they'd be eliminated first. Lita knocked over Trish. Albert tried to go after her. She can take some good bumps (unlike all of the other women in the promotion). Yes, Test was pinned in the ensuing melee! Things slowed for a minute, before Lita snuck in with a rana off the top in a great spot, with Edge giving up a two count. In a messy series of spots, Christian ended up with the tomokaze on Matt Hardy. The new WWF mandate of "no bumps on the top of the head" made some of the moves look weird in this match; they didn't look bad, just different from before. Hardy took the pinning bump face-first. Too Cool finally found themselves in the match. Christian is a really hard worker. Christian & Scotty had some nice time with each other. Edge & Christian went for comedy after the hot tag, mocking Scotty's worm. Christian tried to use one of the belts as an object. Edge got wormed. Brian hit the leg drop off the top. As the referee removed Scotty, Christian used a belt shot to reverse the pin for the title win. * Rikishi beat Val Venis in the King of the Ring Tourney: Despite the commentators pushing Rikishi's earlier injury, he showed no ill effects from that attack. Good lord, Rikishi won the match with a belly-to-belly suplex. He then tried to do a butt drop on her before Val nailed him. Val destroyed him. Wonder if he'll sell any of that? Jim Ross pronounced Rikishi "Rah-kishi" all night. * Kurt Angle beat Crash Holly in the King of the Ring Tourney: Crash is a really hard worker, too. This was good for what it was: a quickie. In short order, Angle hit his slam for the win. * Jerry Brisco beat Pat Patterson in an evening gown match to win the WWF Title: Brisco & Patterson even padded their bras. Jerry brought a board in with him, while Patterson came in with toilet paper and a teddy bear. Jim Ross said that Patterson does "read end work" at the body shop. Pat Patterson sneak attacked Brisco, stuffed a banana in his face and continued to pound him. Patterson wiped a maxi pad in Brisco's face. Brisco hit a bronco buster. It was miserably bad. The crowd booed like crazy, but everybody ignored it, and Jerry Lawler actually laughed throughout this atrocity. Crash Holly ran in with a garbage can and a new referee. The evening gown match was upposed to end when somebody was stripped to a bra and panty. I guess the idea was that Crash ran in, stripped Brisco so that Pat retained the title, and then pinned Pat to win the title. But Pat was stripped down ahead of time, so I guess he really should have pinned Brisco to win the title. I dunno. I was just glad it was over. * Dudleyz beat Road Dogg & X-Pac & Tori in a dumpster vs. tables match: All three DX members needed to be tabled for the Dudleyz to win, and the Dudleyz needed to be put in a dumpster at the same time (or so they said at one point) for DX to win. Dudleyz are pretty bad. X-Pac is a hell of a worker. D-Von hit his head butt to the crotch on Tori, laying there and faking cunnilingus. The commentators obviously were told or felt that they couldn't talk about it, so they suggested that D-Von had knocked himself out. The Dudleyz were tossed into the dumpster, while the referee had his back turned to check on Tori. The Dudleyz crawled out of the dumpster before the referee was clued in. The Dudleyz sneak attacked DX and set up a double table spot. Road Dogg ended up taking the bump through the two tables. Tori basically stayed out of things on the floor. D-Von superplexed X-Pac through a table. Tori tried to flee but the Dudleyz corner her. She ran into the dumpster. As the Dudleyz opened the dumpster to go after her, Road Dogg & X-Pac chaired them into the dumpster for the win. But the Dudleyz still managed to get Tori after the match. Tori favoured her right arm during this, as if she was banged up earlier on. Of course, they drove her through a table. Buh Buh yelled "I got you, bitch" as he left the ring. How endearing. * Kurt Angle beat Rikishi in the King of the Ring Tourney Final: Jim Ross continued to think that someone named "Rah-kishi" was in this match. Rikishi had his arm wrapped after the attack by Venis. It may have been bandaged, but he still didn't favour it in any way. You'd think he wouldn't throw punches or at least shake his arm in pain a bit after a punch. Rikishi tried to use the stinky face, but Angle hit a low blow. They talked about the history of the KotR, with Jerry Lawler talking about Owen Hart. Rikishi was pretty damn bad. He actually started punching with his left hand to sell the earlier injury. Wow. Rikishi stinky faced Angle, who immediately hit his slam afterwards. He only drew a two count. Angle kicked out of a butt drop. Angle hit a belly-to-belly suplex of the turnbuckles for the pin. At least the result of the tournament was palatable. * Undertaker & Kane & Rock beat Vince McMahon & Shane McMahon & HHH for the WWF Title: Earlier on, Vince told Linda McMahon that he wouldn't need any outside interference to win the match. On Smackdown a few days before, the heel side won this same match using a load of interference. I guess that was supposed to suggest that one of the faces would win the title this time out. It just seemed retarded to put the WWF Title on the line in a six-man tag match, but the angle was that the faces would each stop the other from winning the title. They showed Kurt Angle backstage watching on. The heel side spent all of their build-up time explaining that the faces wouldn't work well together because nobody would want anybody else to get the pin, but the flipside to that is that HHH surely wouldn't want his partners to cost him the title. They sure seem to be setting up HHH for a babyface turn in the not too distant future. The more things change, the more they remain the same: here was a WWF main event match featuring mostly guys who are all character and no skill, one guy who is physically struggling, and two guys are mediocre between the bells. This could have been a six-man tag from the Hogan era. The novelty of seeing Vince and/or Shane in matches has worn off and been replaced by the reality that they are not workers. As they paired off outside the ring, the camera crew focused largely on HHH vs. Rock, which actually went back to the ring. HHH hit the pedigree, but Rock kicked out. The commentators suggested that Undertaker made the save, but it sure didn't look like it. Match was mostly the faces controlling. Rock didn't tag out when he could have. Vince rubbed Rock's neck, a move which the commentators called a choke. Vince did a goofy boxing shtick on Rock, who was punished because he refused to tag out. There was surprisingly little heat during what should have been a heated segment of beating up Rock. Rock rallied with punches, but Vince struck a low blow to zero reaction. It seemed like they dragged out the beating on Rock for too long, so the crowd lost interest, but even when he rallied on HHH, the crowd was pretty darn quiet. Kane & Undertaker took the McMahons out. With the McMahons laid out, Kane attacked the Undertaker, a move that the commentators almost missed. As Rock was going for the elbow, Kane caught him in a choke slam. The commentators and HHH acted like Kane had joined the faction. But, no, he tombstoned HHH. The pin was interrupted by Undertaker, who laid out Kane outside. Undertaker asked for a chair, so Lawler gave it to him, and Undertaker chaired Kane. UT chokeslammed Shane through the commentary table. In the ring, Vince hit the McMahon elbow, nope, he ran into the Rock Bottom to lose. So, Rock managed to get the title, but not by beating the champion. - So much has happened since my last update. I think I'll just address things in point form as the come to mind. * Lance Storm debuted in WCW in a totally meaningless way, as only WCW could do it. Shouldn't the promotion take a great worker like Lance and try to take advantage of the fact that he hasn't been killed off by Hogan and company like pretty much all of the good workers in WCW have been? You know, Lance doesn't have to overcome several years of midcard positioning and valuelessness. Surely, then, he should surface and immediately get involved in the main event storylines. Maybe he should have come in all pissed off that Goldberg turned. Better yet, he should have come in all pissed off that the circumstances in WCW (Hogan & Nash in control, etc.) made Goldberg feel like he had to turn. That would allow them to shift Goldberg to tweener status and back to babyface, while beginning a move of making Hogan & Nash & companies the "holding down the workers" heels that they should be. Instead, Lance runs in from the crowd in various midcard-at-best matches, each time positioning himself a less meaningful. WCW sucks. * The WWF has banned bumps to the top of the head. That means that piledrivers are history, along with brainbuster suplexes and top-of-the-head DDT and rana bumps. Okay, they might still use such a bump in rare circumstances, hopefully to make those bumps mean more. But it just seems weird to see face-first DDT bumps and back-first rana bumps. I hope this doesn't mean that WCW will try to have more of those bumps to differentiate the product. And don't for a second try to argue that the WWF is getting rid of these bumps because Vince cares about the welfare of his wrestling talent. If he cared about the health of the talent, he'd crack down on stunt man spots, stiff garbagy stuff, and steroids. If he cared about the health of the talent, Mick Foley wouldn't have done pretty much all of the things that he is revered for by vampire fans. * ECW brought in Tony Mamaluke, formerly Tony Marinara in WCW, as a wrestler. It says something that the guy was too high a risk for WCW or the WWF to use him. Sure enough, he took the sickest bump of the year, landing neck first on the guard rail on a missed somersault tope. He seems like he might be a hard, and perhaps good, worker, but I can't stomach the sick bumps and the lack of conscience of using him that way. * Vince Russo has supposedly quit his writing role with WCW. The product instantly improved in the ring, even though it is still a total mess. Sadly, this means Ric Flair finally gave up his hair for an angle that fizzled. * On this week's Nitro when the Yung Dragons beat Big Vito three-on-one, Tony Schiavone had the nerve to say that it was yet another major upset. Way to make them seem important, Tony, suggesting that you actually expected Vito to beat all three of them. Oh, and don't the Wild Animals come across as horribly meaningless jobbers? Somehow, I figure that there's a way to use that talent better, not that WCW will ever find it. * The WWF tried to introduce changes to its product after the PPV this Sunday. On RAW, Vince McMahon basically removed himself from storylines for a while, under the pretense that he's going to be Linda's "genetic jackhammer." With Vince gone, Mick Foley returned to fill the microphone time that Vince vacated. That should be entertaining. It was funny to hear Mick say that the 20-minute interview segments involving HHH would have to stop, doing so during a 20-minute interview segment involving HHH. * Wasn't it sad to see Edge & Christian squashed by Kane & Undertaker for the tag titles? That was a WCWish move, making the young workers seem totally worthless to get older and physically-damaged (in one case, anyhow) wrestlers over. Undertaker is horrible now; I know, he pretty much always was. His revamped gimmick sucks too. * I can't figure out why WCW would bring Three Count back to TV and ten change their song. The previous song was catchy in the right way to help get them over; the new song doesn't have the same effect. * Why would WCW give Ernest Miller a commissioner gimmick? The guy pretty much only merits a pink slip, but WCW finds a way to pay him for doing nothing. It's not like he's known for his great interview skills. * Despite the generally positive feelings I have about the WWF in-ring product -- well, positive compared to WCW or the WWF's historic quality level -- I can't help but think about how wasted Taka Michinoku, Sho Funaki, and Esse Rios are. Surely, those guys and a few others could be put into good quality lightheavyweight matches. If the WWF really cared about delivering some good wrestling on the undercards, they'd do this, right? Okay, maybe Dean Malenko, X-Pac and other natural lightheayweights wouldn't want to be typecast, but surely the foreign guys who who can work but not talk could be used in the role of delivering strong matches. It's interesting that the Mexican/Japanese wrestlers that WCW misused so sadly and badly are suing the promotion, while the WWF has a much worse record in diversity: the above-mentioned guys are killed off despite being more talent than most, Eddy Guerrero has to adopt the most racist gimmick in the business. Word has it that WCW execs aren't too worried about the lawsuit, anyhow: they can argue that discrimination isn't the explanation for the misuse of the talent; pointing to the radicals in the WWF, HHH, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, they can simply argue that WCW has always been incompetent when it comes to using talented wrestlers. The only real discrimination is towards wrestlers with talent; it isn't race-based. * First Vince Russo ripped up Scott Hall's contract. The Goldberg had a nice, crisp contract. He chewed it up. Now Goldberg has this chewed up and tattered contract. Were there only two copies? I guess so. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. Don't forget to delete the leading "x" from my e-mail address; that "x" is my web spider spam guard. ______________________________________________________________________