From: hekunze@watmsg.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 05/10 Message-ID: <1990May10.224923.13243@watmath.waterloo.edu> Date: 10 May 90 22:49:23 GMT Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes) Distribution: rec Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 283 Posted: Thu May 10 23:49:23 1990 { Well, I'm back from my two-week vacation. My TidBits posting will resume it's weekly posting, every Thursday. This is a pretty long one - hope it makes up for my short absence. Herb... } - I mentioned a while back that a strong rumour at that time had Randy Savage wanting to leave the WWF. Well it seems that Savage and Vince McMahon had it out in earshot of behind-the-scenes crews during the recent Saturday Night's Main Event taping. The following exchange is rumoured to have occurred: Savage: "I'm tired of wrestling nobodys." McMahon: "If you don't like it, leave." Also, during WrestleMania VI weekend in Toronto, Savage was not very complimentary to the WWF in a local newspaper interview. It's rather unfortunate that Savage works for an organization that puts little stress on *wrestling* ability (witness Hogan, Warrior, Bravo, Duggan, etc.). Even still, Savage's character is incredibly popular with the fans - so he should still have everything going for him. Yet somehow he gets to step in the ring night after night with Dusty Rhodes, something which big Dust is sure to be smiling about - he's still wrestling against one of the best wrestlers in the world and he isn't even the booker. The rumours persist that Savage wants out of the WWF; he is under contract until the summer. Of course, should Savage leave, we can expect that Lanny Poffo will follow not far behind. Maybe there's something to be read into the joining of Heenan and Curt Hennig and the apparent break-up of Mr. Perfect and the Genius. Should Lanny disappear, it may well indicate that Randy is not far behind. - Also unhappy with his current program in the WWF is Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Not that anybody should care, but Jim is a little peeved about being paired against the Earthquake, who has a tendency to not fully brace his flying sit manouever. Duggan and his aching chest are expected to feud with Dark Destruction (formerly boxer Michael Dokes) in the very near future. - So, Mr. Perfect has joined up with Bobby Heenan. Also rumoured to be joining the "Family" shortly is Rick Martel, who has quietly left manager Slick. So Bobby has (will have) four singles wrestlers: Hennig, Rude, Martel, Barbarian. The question is: what tag-team will be formed out of this mess after Rude, Barbarian and Martel all fail to beat the Ultimate Warrior? I can see some real potential in a Rude-Martel team, with an eventual split up because of ego problems. - Brutus Beefcake is expected to be out for at least 6 weeks after injuring his leg. Also out with leg problems are Tugboat Thomas and Dusty Rhodes. - Andre The Giant is currently doing what is being billed as his retirement tour. It seems the big guy wants to wrestle one more time in all of his favourite cities. - Saw "Hard Rock" Paul Diamond do some squash work on a recent WWF show. Fans of Diamond shouldn't worry though. Word has it that Mr. Fuji's contract with the WWF will expire shortly and the aging manager may leave the WWF. Akio Sato is also rumoured to be leaving at this time. That leaves the road open for Badd Company to re-unite in the WWF. - Bad News Brown allegedly struck a fan at ringside after a recent bout. He's been suspended indefinitely from the WWF. The good news is that we won't have to put up with the stupid "Black afraid of a snake" routine. And maybe, just maybe, the Martel-Roberts feud that was originally scheduled to take place will take place. - Not only can Sapphire not move well in the ring or give an interview, she can't control her punches. It seems that Sapphire broke Sherri's nose recently. - Howsabout that Big Boss Man? He's the one guy that has actually developed AFTER coming into the WWF. I never would have thought it possible. I hear that he carried Jake Roberts through a good match in the Tokyo Egg Dome - whoda thunkit? - Rumoured to be on their way out of the NWA are the Royal Family (Jack Victory & Rip Morgan) when their contract expires. Shane Douglas has been canned. The Youngbloods have quit already, too. Rumours have the Road Warriors leaving when the contract ends at the end of the year. - Owen Hart is due in the NWA in August or September. Also trying out for the NWA is Steve DiSalvo - word has it that his try-out was really bad thought, so we probably won't see him. Paul E. Dangerously seems to be coming in to announce, now that Terry Funk has hit the high road. Larry Cameron is also in as a face. - It seems that Tony Schiavone learned a fair bit from his stint at Titan. The changes implemented to the World Wide Wrestling program in the past couple of weeks take some of the good ingredients of the WWF shows and end up giving the NWA show a more structured feel. I almost feel like they know what they're doing: detail who we're going to see today with still clips, give us some prelim matches, howsabout an NWA wrap-up that advertises the NWA magazine and keeps me up-to-date on the latest angles, finally building to a feature match (this is the part Titan forgets...). Now, if only Tony could get a complementary announcing partner, not a Kevin Sullivan or a Teddy Long, but someone who isn't nauseating. This past weekend's WWW show was probably the best in a long while. In between some squash matches that weren't particularly boring, the Flair-Luger showdown angle was built up nicely. I was overwhelmed to see Barry Windham do a run-in at the end of the match. When Flair came out with is pony-tail, I commented that he reminded me of Windham (as I last saw him in the WWF) and that Windham was supposedly coming in to join the Horseman. I thought this was a nice subliminal hint at the future horseman's identity. Little did I expect the NWA to bring him in on this match. The bit with pounding on Sting's leg was great, too. - Here's a scary thought: The Randy Savage & Sherri Martel vs. Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire saga will have a slight twist in the next couple of months (once Dusty returns) when Brother Love and Elizabeth take on active roles as corner-people for the two teams. This apparently is meant to lead to a six-person tag match at Summer Slam featuring all of the above. Liz in wrestling tights?! I'm there. There's a chance of a Hogan-Warrior rematch at SS too, should the Rick Rude vs. Warrior story not get any heat. - It looks like Flair will almost have to drop the NWA strap to Luger at the PPV on the 19th. Luger just can't afford to fail another time or the fans will lose faith in him. I thought for sure that the "Terry Funk as referee" bit could give a nice screw job ending, but now Terry is gone. Then I figured that a big surprise Barry Windham run-in and four horsemen reunion would be used, but that no longer makes sense since Windham's return was used this weekend. With Flair signed until 1994 it seems possible that he'll drop the belt to Luger, something he apparently prefers over dropping it to Sting. - Some of you net-fans have been guessing at the identity of the fourth horseman. It's no secret that Ole wants strictly a managerial role in things at most, leaving Flair, Arn, and Windham as the three Horsemen. Rumours are strong now that Sid Vicious will be taken on as a Horseman when he returns in July. He may even make an active appearance earlier than that, perhaps even at Capital Combat. His joining the Horsemen will probably be announced before then. In other Horsemen news, Woman was conspicuous by her absence this weekend - rumours say she may be worked out. Then again, she is supposed to be in Flair's corner for Capital Combat. - During my two-week vacation, my mother (a die-hard *wrestling* fan) surprised me by renting WrestleMania VI on videotape. She was really gung-ho about seeing the main event and I was kinda interested too. I know it's a little late but here are some things I observed while watching the card: First of all, the matches were not shown in their entirety. Perhaps this is why the WWF does not announce elapsed times during the matches. The entire card went about 2 and a half hours, not including the ridiculous advertisements that took up the first ten minutes of the tape. The first good match was match number 9 on the card, The Rockers vs. The Orient Express. (Actually, Tito's bump from the Barbarian's clothesline was the first real highlight of the card...). In any case, Sean Michaels and Pat Tanaka worked very well together and I quite enjoyed it until Vince came up with the surprise ending. I can't believe that the "Japanese wrestlers salt the American wrestlers" ending was brought out of the closet. The next point of interest was match 11, DiBiase vs. Roberts. What I was interested in was seeing the SkyDome crowd do the wave, since by now I was rather bored. Unfortunately, the wave was edited out by the WWF technicians. Some more boring stuff took place until we finally reached the main event. First, though, I have to comment on some of the signs that the camera caught the ringside fans with - don't you find it odd how all the ringside sign-holders had signs on the same type of paper with the same type of red letters painted on them? Plants? Never! Now I realize that wrestling matches are really meant for one time viewing only - with the exception of Flair-Steamboat, which Warrior-Hogan had no hope of matching up to - so I watched the match as though I were seeing it for one and only one time. (Unfortunately, this would not be the case, as I later found myself rewinding and slow-motioning my way through it several times, for reasons to be detailed later.) Had I been seeing the match live, I would have been bored. I would have smirked at having seen Hogan do a clean job, and realized that perhaps the best was done with what they had to work with, and that it's good for the business. I wouldn't rate this match as a classic. I probably wouldn't even rate it. I almost felt sorry that $3 had been spent to rent the tape when other more worthier choices were available (like Japanese Women's Wrestling from Korauken Hall, awesome stuff that I rented on impulse later). I can't imagine the tears I would have shed had I spent $150 or even $25 to see this thing live. Through the magic of video tape technology however, I can pour over the match in a little more detail and perhaps see things that bothered me which I may not have realized while watching it the first time. First off, the match went for about 23 minutes; of that time, about 9 minutes was actual wrestling time. That is the big problem with the match. It was kind of eerie watching a match again and realizing that Hogan (!) was carrying the match, working the spots. The Warrior was pitiful! I swear that he missed every non-simple move he did. Not one clothesline looked good - yet Hogan did a great job selling them. Whenever Warrior got tired - about every 2 or 3 minutes - Hogan initiated a rest spot or something to stall for time. There is no way that the Warrior will have any reasonable length of title reign. Even Randy Savage will have trouble making him look competent. But then, I'm a wrestling fan. The only good part of rewatching the match was noticing Dave Hebner almost screw up the big passing of the strap. Someone forgot to brief Dave (or he forgot) that Hogan was to hand the belt to Warrior and endorse him as champ. Dave actually picked up both belts and then somehow only gave the IC belt to the Warrior and Hogan suddenly had the world belt. The cry-baby look on Hogan's face as he was carted out of the stadium was pretty good, too. Oh yeah, my mom absolutely hated the card, "The most boring card [she's] seen in years." But then, a few days earlier she watched Flair-Steamboat from the Chi-Town Rumble, so her standards were high. - Also, just some quick comments on the last Saturday Night`s Main Event. Wasn't the Warrior looking incredibly light? The guy can't be more than 230-235 pounds right now and he still blows up on the runway! Life in the WWF will be difficult when (and if) Hogan leaves for a while if this guy has to carry the organization. The Rockers vs. Hart Foundation match-up was no-doubt the best wrestling match of the year thus far in the WWF. But for the stupid ending this match had it all. Hopefully one of these teams will win the belts from the inferior Demolition and we can have them feud for the title across the title. Definitely a better draw than Warrior vs. anyone. - The following quote has been attributed to Vince McMahon following the WWF/New Japan/All Japan card in the Tokyo Dome a short while back: "I think that the fans know the difference between Japanese wrestling and the WWF. I agree that Japanese wrestling is better than WWF wrestling, but I think that the fans were still excited by our show." Thanks for the newsflash, Vince. At least he's acknowledged that there's an organization on the planet with better wrestling; who knows, maybe he'll realize the same holds for North America alone. Regarding the Tokyo Dome card, apparently most of the matches were between wrestlers from the same organization. This was basically a card of one-up-manship as each group tried to out-perform the other and show they had the best product. Apparently the New Japan athletes really put on a hell of a hard performance. As one might expect, the best match involving the WWF was Randy Savage vs. Genichiro Tenryu. Also, in somewhat of a surprise, Hogan vs. Hansen was notable because Hogan actually tried to wrestle, knowing that's what sells to the Japanese crowds. Although he was rather stiff, it's said that Hogan wrestled the best match of his career on this card (no snide remark required ;-). Also, Hogan has apparently stated that he wants to do one final tour of Japan before retiring from wrestling. Finally, the WWF World Tour will only feature the Warrior vs. DiBiase match from the Tokyo Dome show. And I thought this might be a WWf tape I would actually be excited about renting. - Question: How come losing a match by a clean pinfall makes someone immortal? It kinda worries me that Steve Lombardi, Downtown Snake Brown, and Buddy "I worked hard for this body" Rose will be walking the Earth forever. - I noticed that Hulk Hogan gave homage to another famous cartoon character Bug Bunny on Bugs' 50th anniversary TV special. They did a little cameo of the Hulkster being told by Mean Gene Okerlund that he'd been challenged to a match by Bugs. Hogan ended up bowing out, noting that he didn't want to face someone who had lasted 20 films with Elmer Fudd. - I think that the Family Feud wrestler's special has been done pretty nicely and will help improve the visibility of the NWA perhaps. It's a little confusing that they used the WCW acronym instead of the NWA. Nonetheless, the chosen family for the show is a good display of the beefcake available outside of the WWF, and the guys have really portrayed a fun image. They really have no worry about appearing stupid with Sly Stallone's mom on the same show. - The NWA is returning to Southern Ontario for the first time in years! Several, maybe 4 or 5, years ago the NWA had a show in Hamilton that drew well but was never followed up. Now after the successes of WWF cards at the Canadian National Exhibition and the SkyDome, the NWA is planning a card at the CNE Stadium on June 27. Word has Ric Flair, Lex Luger, and the Steiners on the bill. - It's kind of interesting that the latest NWA souvenir catalog has no Ric Flair merchandise in it. But then, the WM VI souvenir package had no Hulk Hogan merchandise in it either. - How about this Lithuanian angle? The Bolshevik break-up is apparently going to use it and the AWA is using to help keep Nikita Koloff over as a face. Speaking of which, Nikita beat Larry Zbyskzo by countout on the joint NWA & AWA card on the weekend. The NWA helped fill the card to repay the loan of the Destruction Crew earlier this year. - Dustin Rhodes is trying out for the WWF. Still temporarily in the WWF is Terry Taylor, still playing the Red Rooster. Terry actually left for while and is filling time, since the NWA won't negotiate with him while he still under contract to Titan. Also returning as a proficient jobber is Jim Brunzell. Herb... As always, comments, criticisms, and questions are encouraged and appreciated. *********************************************************************** * Herb Kunze * "Whether you like it or not, * * Applied Math Department * learn to live with it, 'cause * * University of Waterloo * I'm the best thing going today!" * * hekunze@watmsg.waterloo.edu * - Ric 'Nature Boy' Flair * ***********************************************************************