Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 09/16 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 02:11:54 GMT Lines: 167 - The 08/21/93 WCW Saturday Night show (with the Ric Flair vs. Sting 40 minute match) did a 3.4 rating, with Flair vs. Sting peaking at 3.8. That makes the Ric Flair vs. Sting match the most watched match on a weekly cable wrestling show dating back for a couple of years at least. That, combined with the Clash's great ratings gets Eric Bischoff a promotion. - Both Canadian newspapers that I read today featured a picture of NDP party leader arm-wrestling with Paul "Butcher" Vachon while in Montreal during her federal election campaign. Vachon is running for the NDP in a Montreal riding. Imagine him as an elected politician. - The ShockMaster (Fred Ottman, aka Typhoon, Tugboat) will be recast as a klutz named Uncle Fred. He does a run-in on this weekend's WCW Saturday Night show and trips over the guard-rail. And they're giving Eric Bischoff a promotion?! Argh. On the bright side, Michael Hayes will be returning to the ring. Argh. And I'm stuck in Edmonton away from my Japanese tapes for three months. Argh. - As bad as that sounds, listen to this. Steve Lombardi, aka Brooklyn Brawler, has taken on a new gimmick. As "The MVP" Lombardi sports baseball attire to the ring and has his newly shaved head painted like baseball. - Earthquake and Don Muraco are on their way back to the WWF. - WCW has the Fall Brawl PPV on 09/19/93 at 7:00pm EST from Houston. Match line-up: - Ric Flair vs. Rick Rude for the NWA Title - Paul Roma & Arn Anderson vs. Nasty Boys for the tag titles - Sid Vicious & Van Vader & Harlem Heat vs. Dustin Rhodes & Davey Boy Smith & Sting & Uncle Fred in a Wargames match - Cactus Jack vs. Yoshi Kwan - Rick Steamboat vs. Steve Regal for the TV Title - Ice Train vs. Shanghai Pierce - Charlie Norris vs. Big Sky I can't decide how this looks on paper. Flair vs. Rude should be great, WarGames is usually good or better but with this talent?, and the other three non-squashes could go either way. Yikes. All three title matches should feature title changes. - The 09/03/93 NWA convention in Las Vegas saw WCW and New Japan withdraw their membership. WCW will keep the NWA title belt, which they've got proper ownership of, but will not be able to call it anything but the "World Championship." Now why don't they go call it the "real" World Championship, I ask you, and build to a title unification? ;-) Dennis Coraluzzo of the WWA, which has promoted under the NWA banner a few times already, and Jim Cornette of SMW applied for NWA membership. Both were accepted, but Cornette had to promise that his promotion would recognize the NWA World Champion as the champion of the world. - Speaking of the "World Championship" in WCW, with Rick Rude losing the best-of-three series for the US Title to Dustin Rhodes and winning the "World Championship" on 09/19 it seems like they could then go the route that Rhodes, as US champ, is the natural (heh, heh) contender for Rude's title. And, hey, he's even beaten him before. Hopefully, in the mean time, Ric Flair will take the WCW title and be involved in whatever unification match comes about (something tells me Dusty is already sweating at the idea of his son vs. his old nemesis being the unifcation match). - WCW told Sabu they had no place for him, so he might take a future try-out with the WWF. - Tanaka pinned Jerry Lawler in Memphis on Tuesday night. - Doink's face turn began at recent WWF tapings. He threw water on Luna Vachon (think they'll make a melting wicked witch reference?), tripped up Bam Bam Bigelow, was blamed by Jerry Lawler for not getting rid of Bret Hart, and later threw a bucket of water on Lawler. - Latest word is that Brian Pillman's broken ankle will keep him out until the end of the year. - Sid Vicious, unfortunately somebody that WCW can't lose right now without some problems because of all the TV they've taped and PPV promos they've put out, walked out of the WCW tapings on 09/01/93. When he was asked to take a drug test, Sid realized that he had left his Visine bottle in the car and went to get it. Unfortunately, he couldn't find it amongst the steroids in the glove compartment and the squeegees and unused prison garb and shackles in the trunk and then saw Mike Graham and Brian Pillman coming out to track him down, so he was forced to race back inside the building and ask to take the test in a few weeks because his dog ate his notes. This didn't do, so in the end he walked out. Of course, everybody made up eventually and everything is back in order and the promotion continues to have a serious steroid policy in effect: don't use them, don't get newly hired and pushed directly into main events. - Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase won the PWF & All Japan International Tag Titles from Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue on 09/03/93 in Budokan Hall in DiBiase's first match back in Japan after his long WWF stint. - The Toronto Star reports that Hulk Hogan signed a deal to work in Japan (presumably New Japan) for $1-million for 6 matches beginning on 12/02/93. - New Japan's "Wrestle Dinner" (combination dinner with formal-wear fashion show and a 4 match wrestling card) drew a sell-out of 700 guests, with a gate of $210000. - Meltzer reports that Maxx Payne and Kent Cole had a match against each other, with Payne getting his nose broken and Cole re-injuring his knee. Jeez, and Erik Watts wasn't even involved. - Sad news from All Japan Women has Shinobu Kandori vs. Akira Hokuto in a retirement match later in the year. This would be a re-match of the classic pairing from Dream Slam I on 04/02/93, which gave us a bloody ****3/4 match. It's sad news (for me, anyhow) because it seems clear that Hokuto (one of my all-time favourite women wrestlers) is getting ready to settle down and retire. - Lex Luger suffered a back injury, rumoured to be a ruptured disc, in a match against Shawn Michaels at the TV tapings the day after SummerSlam. This means that the WWF has very little with Luger on video-tape because he missed the next day of tapings. The apparent plan is to run with Luger's team defeating Yokozuna's team at Survivor Series, setting up the campaign for Luger to get another title shot at Yokozuna's WWF title. Finally, after much pressure, Jim Cornette will agree to the match if Luger wins the Royal Rumble. Of course, they can really play up Cornette buying off all the heels to put Luger out, etc. This sets up the only real WrestleMania draw that the WWF thinks it has Luger (as challenger) vs. Yokozuna for the WWF title. Luger was in the hospital for four days because of the injury but has apparently been released. No word on if he'll be out of the ring for a while; if so, they can just blame Ludvig Borga. - UWFi from Japan will run a shoot-style PPV which will air in North America on 10/05/93. - WCW has Halloween Havoc on PPV on 10/24/93 (tentative date). Tentative line-up includes: - Big Van Vader vs. Cactus Jack in a "Spin the Wheel, Make The Deal" match - Nasty Boys vs. Ric Flair & Paul Roma for the Tag Titles - Sting vs. Sid Vicious - WCW has the Lethal Lottery on PPV on 11/21/93 and Starrcade just after Christmas. - The WWF has Survivor Series on PPV on 11/25/93 in Boston. Tentative line-up includes: - Team USA: Lex Luger & Steiners & ? (Jim Duggan?) vs. Team Foreign Scum: Ludvig Borga & Yokozuna & ? (Nikolai Volkoff?) - WCW will supposedly run a Clash live from Wembley Stadium in London, England, on 11/25/93 starting at 8:00pm London time. This means that the show will air here on WTBS at 3:00 pm on Thanksgiving. - Videos: I've arranged to get copies of WCW PPVs while in Edmonton. Thanks to everybody that responded to my request. For info on tape discussions, send e-mail with a body consisting solely of the word "help" to Majordomo@cc.gatech.edu. That id handles subscription and unsubscription requests among other administrivia. The list id is rspwtape@cc.gatech.edu. Mail sent to this id will be sent to all current subscribers. Herb...