Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 03/24 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 19:28:10 GMT Lines: 174 - Bret Hart came out of WrestleMania X on Sunday as the WWF World champion. It was well known before the show that the plan was to give Bret an extended title reign at some point this year, but most expected Lex Luger to come out with the title on this show, with the switch to Bret via an interim heel champ taking place later in the year. But Vince McMahon succumbed to the WWF fans, who have always offered Bret Hart more cheers than they give Luger despite the time and money spent pushing Luger. In the post-match interviews, Hart said he would take on all comers, including his brother, Owen, who had pinned Bret earlier in the event. "I'd relish the opportunity of wrestling Owen again when my mind isn't cluttered. Owen is a good wrestler. He can beat me one out of ten times, but never twice in a row." Shawn Michaels is officially "taking time off from wrestling" after his loss at WM X. He is *not* leaving the WWF however. Instead, he will host an interview segment and still be in front of the camera, just not in the ring. Curt Hennig and Roddy Piper returned to the WWF to referee the two World Title matches on the card. Hennig turned heel at the end of the Luger vs. Yokozuna match, in the process screwing Luger out of the title and re-establishing their feud with heel/face roles reversed. Hennig's return should help balance the (perhaps temporary) loss of Michaels. Alundra Blayze probably won't have any Japanese opponents until the end of the year at the earliest. Bam Bam Bigelow is staying around. After all, he's one of the few guys with a name in Japan so the WWF needs him when that short tour comes up. Yokozuna is expected to turn babyface. It will be interesting to hear how his mysterious fall of the ropes will be explained this coming weekend. - WCW has completely dropped the Freebirds vs. Johnny B. Badd story line that was established at SuperBrawl. At least they got rid of the poorer workers in the feud. This type of thing happening is not so surprising as the booking power can trasnferred to Ric Flair. Those transitions are always a little bumpy. - The second UWFi Shootfighting PPV airs on tape on 04/16/94. - Also on 04/16/94, New Japan will be running its annual Top of The Super Junior tourney. Some people are disappointed that the tournament will be a one-night single-elimination deal (instead of the usual tour-long round robin) and that Sabu isn't coming in for it. - WCW has Spring Stampede on 04/17/94. Tentative line-up includes: - Ric Flair vs. Rick Steamboat for the WCW Title *- Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack & Maxx Payne for the WCW Tag Titles in a falls-count-anywhere Chicago street fight - Rick Rude vs. Sting for the WCW International Title - Vader vs. The Boss - Steve Austin vs. Great Muta for the US Title - Steve Regal vs. Brian Pillman for the TV Title - Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck (Jimmy Golden) in a bunkhouse match - Tom Zenk vs. Terra Rizin' Apparently, the plan on this show was for Sting to win the WCW Int. Title from Rude, but Rude doesn't want to drop the strap to Sting. Rude actually lost the title in Tokyo to Hiro Hase on 03/16 and will likely regain it tonight in Tokyo. It would be a pleasant surprise if he didn't, though. Then they could bring Hase over for the PPV to drop the belt to Sting. WCW resurrected its talent trading deal with New Japan a little while ago. - WWF kingpin Vince McMahon's trial for steroid distribution will begin 05/02/94. It's expected that Hulk Hogan will testify against Vince. In the mean time, Jesse Ventura's case against Vince (wherein Jesse argues that he deserves some compensation for his voice being on all of the home videos of the different big shows) began on Monday. The Toronto Sun had a summary article on the weekend dealing with the current situation in the WWF. No new facts in what was really a somewhat distorted view of history. There were interview snippets from Jacques Rougeau. He's 33 years old, been wrestling for 17 years, been married for 8 years, and has 2 sons. Rougeau basically defended and praised McMahon and criticized Vince's enemies, rewriting history here and there along the way. Says Rougeau, "In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would be this big. There have been times over the last few years when I've been mentally blown away by the enormity of the crowds -- the 90000 in Detroit, the 80000 in England and the 60000 in Toronto." Rougeau is quote as making $500000 US a year. "Vince told me the first time I met him that he can't guarantee anything. All he could do was provide an opportunity. I'm often asked why wrestling became so successful and so big. The answer is always the same -- Vince McMahon. He is a genius. He sees things that no one can see. He will then make people believe it. I'm a puppet on a string and he pulls the strings. I have nothing but respect for Vince." Later Rougeau says, "I'm as straight as they come and it was very difficult working a few years ago when a lot of people were doing drugs and taking steroids. I figured that if you smoked or sniffed you deserved what you was coming to you, which meant being fired. That's why I think Vince made enemies. Wrestlers start to believe their own character. When they go back home, they've got no job and are frustrated. They have to express their hatred and have to blame someone, so they blame Vince." The columnist writes: "Today, there is only one competitor, the WCW. While they compete for the wrestling dollar, the associations are vastly different. "The WWF sells entertainment. It admits it's not real, that outcomes are predetermined. "The WCW sells wrestling. But it hasn't been able to sell entertainment." - WCW has already started pushing the Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan story line, which would easily be their biggest drawing main event of the year. There is talk that their first PPV match will take place at the July Great American Bash. Meltzer reports that Hogan wants to wait until August and run in Wembley Stadium. - The Observer reports confidently that the buy rate for WCW SuperBrawl was .67, meaning that if we exclude WrestleMania, which will easily see a big buy rate increase from the past few WWF PPVs because it is WrestleMania, WCW and the WWF are not that far apart as far as buy rates for their big shows go. Add in the above two items (Vince's trial, Hulk Hogan) and it's very hard to predict what will happen over the course of this year. - WCW has Slamboree II on 05/22/94. Tentative line-up includes: - Rick Rude vs. Vader for the WCW International Title - Steve Austin vs. Johnny B. Badd for the US Title - Steve Regal vs. Larry Zbyszko for the TV Title - Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck Tully Blanchard is making noise about wanting to return to WCW full-time. It's expected that he'll at least make an appearance at this PPV and perhaps even wrestle. - The WWF has the King of the Ring PPV on 06/19/94 from Baltimore. There's some confusion here because the WWF has announced a card in another city on this date. - Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request. Basically, all of the tapes in my video collection are available. I hesitate to mention VideoMarinepiad I, but I think the few who are offended are beaten out by the many who are interested. The review for the show was posted a couple of days ago. If you didn't see it and are interested, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy. As I mentioned in the review, one of the matches didn't survive two dubs without excessive loss in video quality and two others did survive to be watchable but not that great. Without the three poorer matches, the VM I home video is 5 hours long. The two chunks of space are 45:04 and 26:24 long. After running a query to extract excellent video quality matches and tossing away things that aren't in the flavour of VM I and then letting match length be the guide, I would like to suggest that the blank spots be filled as follows: The 26:24 spot gets (minus intros, so it fits): 08/19/90 AJW Akira Hokuto vs. Manami Toyota ****1/2 28:05 This match starts incredibly fast after Hokuto chooses to slap Toyota instead of accepting her handshake offer. At this point in time, Akira wasn't wrestling with the ninja gimmick; she had short red-brown hair. The match is just super, as every encounter between these two is. The 45:04 spot gets (trimmed ever so slightly): 03/07/91 UWFh Yoshihiro Asai & El Gran Hamada ****1/2 24:07 & Perro Aguayo vs. Black Power & El Signo & El Texano (2 out of 3 falls) I wanted viewers to realize what Lucha Libre is like in Japan. While some matches have assorted comedy spots (like the first match at VM I did), the high workrate is what makes these matches special. You make the Mexican product stiffer and make it flow a little smoother and just pump up the workrate. Hamada really shines in this match as does Asai once the first fall is over. The final fall has a couple of nice dives in it. After the match, money rains into the ring as the fans show their appreciation for the work of these guys. 11/14/92 WWA Chris Candito vs. Sabu (raw) WWA Jr ***1/2 22:09 While this final match was only rated ***1/2 by me when I watched it, Sabu is amazing as usual. Candito does his somersault tope. Sabu does the Asai moonsault, a plancha, a top-rope Frankensteiner and other wild things. Would interested people please let me know how this sounds? Herb...