From: hekunze@watmsg.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 02/28 Message-ID: <1991Feb28.210435.2534@watmath.waterloo.edu> Date: 28 Feb 91 21:04:35 GMT Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu (0000-Admin(0000)) Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 125 - The 14 WrestleMania VII matches that have been officially announced are: - Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter for the WWF title - Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage in a retirement match - Curt Hennig vs. Big Boss Man in an IC title match - Hart Foundation vs. Nasty Boys for the WWF tag titles - Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel in a blindfold match - Virgil (with Roddy Piper as corner man) vs. Ted DiBiase - Demolition vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Koji Kitao - Road Warriors vs. Power & Glory - Davey Boy Smith vs. Warlord - Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka - Dino Bravo vs. Kerry von Erich - Tito Santana vs. Jacques Rougeau - Greg Valentine vs. Earthquake - Rockers vs. Haku & Barbarian This is the final list of matches for the card, which makes one wonder whether Jim Duggan, TugBoat, & The SheepWhackers are being punished or phased down or forgotten (my hope: all three). - Someone was curious about current Japanese champions. I believe that Van Vader is the IWGP champion, beating Tatsumi Fujinami shortly after Fujinami's win over Riki Choshu (that was aired on WCW Pro Wrestling). Stan Hansen lost the Triple Crown to Jumbo Tsuruta, who I think still has it. The various tag champs have recently included Keiji Muto & Masa Chono, Hiro Hase & Benkei Sasake, Gordy & Williams, and others I don't recall. I have no idea what the current picture is like. - One thing is for sure in the WWF: After WM, when Sgt. Slaughter has dropped the belt to the Hogan leg-drop, the Sarge will disappear. There is a chance that Sarge will do a face turn and leave a good guy, but it will all happen very quickly - he's ready to leave the ring. Although Vince won't admit that this angle wasn't worth the cost in criticism from main-stream media -- even Sports Illustrated is bashing Vince in their swim-suit issue -- it is going to end permanently. Robert Remus, the Sarge, will take on an office job with the WWF, the only reason he agreed to do his character, and that will be that. Or will it? The cost of this angle may be more than lots of critcism of it alone. Vince is now under the watchful eye of so many people that he is being extremely honest about no-shows, injuries, etc. at the house shows, something that was a foreign, er...international, concept before. - Brother Love will be gone form the WWF in a week. Bruce Pritchard takes on a front office job with Titan. The Brother Love segment will be replaced by a segment hosted by Paul Bearer. - Rumours also have Tony Atlas hanging up his tribal garb and leaving the WWF. Ditto for Shane Douglase, who fortuantely didn't have any tribal garb to hang up, although that was surely just a matter of time. - Mike Rotunda, err... Michael Wall Street, left WCW a short while ago because of contractual problems. He's signed a short-term deal in Japan and is then WWF bound. - Now that WCW has followed suit with the WWF in recognizing title changes only after they've been aired, the confusion has begun. First, there was that whole mess with the TV title, which Arn won back at a taping in early January. Z-Man went on to defend the belt for another month before the taped title change was aired. The latest confusion involves the WCW tag team belts, held by Doom until this past Sunday when they lost the belts to the Freebirds. However, at a taping two weeks ago, the Freebirds faced the Steiners in a tag match, with the Freebirds wearing the World tag team championship belts -- The Birds lost the titles, that they didn't yet have, to the Steiners. This title change will apparently be aired in mid-March. Similar situation with the 6-man belts begin defended before they were won. These kind of shenanigans help the company lose credibility. - In again, out again: Owen Hart, who was supposed to come into WCW at several different points since last September and always pushed it back, is apparently ready to come in in March, perhaps at the next taping. There is talk of teaming Owen with Brian Pillman because they are familiar with each other (from Stampede) and are both high-flyers. - Brutus Beefcake will return to the WWF as a full-fledged wrestler just after WrestleMania. As we've seen from his recent run-ins, the Beefer seems to have a deadly head-butt now. Doctors have advised him not to return to the ring, but he's been rather defiant, and so the doctors have advised him to wear a protective rubber mask in the ring -- the problem is that one strong blow to the face could make his face collapse again. Word now is that Beefer will wear a hockey mask over the rubber mask. A Friday, the 13th, gimmick perhaps? I dunno. But the hockey mask would make Beefer's head-butt even more interesting. - John Nord, The Viking in the WWF, has been re-cast as a heel managed by Mr. Fuji. - There used to be someone on the net who solicited for match predictions for WCW and WWF PPVs - sorry, I forget his name - but he seems to have disappeared (or resigned from this task). Are you net-fans interested in the idea of resuming this practice? I was thinking we could work with a point scheme for predicting various components of a match correctly, and keep track of per-card and overall totals for participants. That said, I would propose the following scheme: For each (standard) match, predict: {possibilities in curly brackets} 4 points - Winner: {heel name(s), face name(s), draw/none} 2 points - Win Type: {clean pin, submission, DQ, count-out, DDQ, Dcount-out, etc.} 2 points - Screw Job: {No, Yes} {If Yes, what? Unseen interference, international object, etc.} 2 points - Run-in: {No, Yes} {If Yes, who makes the run-in?} Options would be modified for gimmick matches, of course. Partial point awards are possible for partially correct predictions, like "Yes" for run-in, but wrong person named. I'll listen to opinions via e-mail and posts for a week, and then post whether or not the game is on, and if it is, the possibly revised prediction list. Please let me know if you are interested and your ideas on format. Herb... As always, comments, criticisms, and questions are encouraged and appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Herb Kunze : "Whether you like it or you don't like it, Applied Math Department : learn to live with it, 'cause University of Waterloo : it's the best thing going today! hekunze@watmsg.waterloo.edu : Woooooooh!" hekunze@violet.waterloo.edu : - Ric 'Nature Boy' Flair