From: hekunze@watmsg.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
Subject: Wrestling TidBits   -   04/11
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.153737.20892@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 91 15:37:37 GMT
Sender: news@watmath.waterloo.edu (News Owner)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Lines: 77


 - As mentioned by Charlie Gavinelli earlier this week, Sid Vicious is
   staying in WCW.  Vicious was earning $275000 a year (or just over
   $5000 per week) and was feeling a bit underpaid.  He's been given
   a $100000 raise, bumping him to just over $7000 a week.  This makes
   him the third highest paid WCW wrestler, behind Ric Flair and Lex
   Luger.  No doubt, others in the organization will have something
   to say about this.

 - WrestleMania VII will be released on video-tape today.  It probably
   won't hit video stores for a couple of days.

 - As it turns out, the claims of the WWF that they had set a PPV record
   with WM VII were sheer nonsense.  The Mike Tyson - Razor Ruddock
   boxing match the week before had a higher PPV buy rate!  The buy rate
   represents the percentages of homes equipped with PPV that ordered
   the show.  The WM VII buy rate was lower than the first five WMs.
   Okay, maybe the WWF meant that they earned more money from PPV,
   thus setting a PPV record.  Afterall, a small percentage of a large
   number of homes each paying $29.95 US could yield a large amount
   of money.  Apparently, the show had about 500000 homes request it.
   That means about $15 million.  The WWF gets 40% of that, or about
   $6 million.  Add on the live gate and the few Canadian closed-circuit
   venues and we have the WWF pulling in about $7 million.  This would
   make WM VII the smallest earning WrestleMania of all time.

 - This weekend's "Funeral Parlor" show features the Ultimate Warrior as
   the guest of Paul Bearer.  As we've all predicted, UW will be attacked
   by the Undertaker, who will lock him into the coffin that is part of
   the set.  Amidst cries of outrage from Vince, some flunkies struggle
   to rip the coffin open, eventually succeeding.  This sets up the UW vs.
   Undertaker program.

 - In another taped angle that may air this weekend, Earthquake and Jake
   Roberts have another confrontation.  On last week's syndies, we learned
   that the Earthquake (like Martel, Andre, Bad News Brown before him)
   is afraid of snakes.  Zero points for originality, Vince.  At the
   taping, Earthquake does an Earthquake squash on the bag that contains
   Jake's snake, Damien.  The bag was empty.

 - Despite WCW overturning Tatsumi Fujinami's win over Ric Flair in the
   Tokyo Egg Dome, New Japan and the Japanese sports press are still
   referring to Fujinami as the NWA & IWGP champion.  Ric Flair has the
   actual belt and will be recognized as the champion in North America.
   They are leaving things controversial like this to build some interest
   in the 5/19 PPV where Flair and Fujinami have their re-match.
     Also on this PPV is Sting & Lex Luger vs. the Steiners for the
   WCW World tag titles.

 - From the way the WCW announcers have been talking, it would seem that
   the Freebirds and the Young Pistols will be the two teams chosen to
   fight at the 5/19 PPV for the US tag titles.  The announcement of
   the participating teams comes this weekend.
     Paul E. Dangerously mentioned that New Japan has a different set
   of by-laws that do allow one team to hold more than one title, so
   while WCW must strip the Steiners of the US titles, New Japan has
   no intention of following suit.  With the Steiners defending the
   WCW tag titles at the 5/19 PPV, this means that the IWGP titles
   will go undefended for a while.

 - Lanny Poffo is back in the WWF.

 - Jim Neidhart and Bret Hart will continue to work as a tag team for
   a while, until Vince can find the appropriate way to push Bret.

 - It looks like they've scrapped all ideas of having Brutus Beefcake
   return as a masked wrestler with a phenomenal headbutt.  For the
   time being, Beefcake will work only on hosting his "Barber Shop,"
   which returns this weekend.
                                                            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