Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 03/31 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 12:57:47 GMT Lines: 141 - As mentioned on the net already, Dave Meltzer heaped a lot of praise on Shawn Michaels for his fantastic performance at WrestleMania X. He wrote, "Shawn Michaels put on one of the greatest individual performances in the history of the business... Michaels, in one of his last shows with the company before going on what is planned to be a several month long sabbatical, put on a performance that left just about everyone in wrestling in awe in his ladder match with Razor Ramon. The match, probably the best match ever on a WWF PPV show, somehow overshadowed one of the greatest matches in WWF history between Bret Hart and Owen Hart that opened the show and a WWF title change with Bret's later regaining of the WWF title from Yokozuna in an average match in the evening's finale. The Hart-Hart match, with Owen scoring the surprise clean win to elevate him to the upper echelon, appeared when it was over to be a strong match-of-the-year candidate and was a tad better than the legendary Rick Steamboat-Randy Savage WrestleMania III match which has largely been considered the greatest match in modern WWF history because of the stronger finish and every bit as good overall work." In the ladder match review, he wrote that "Michaels took so many great bumps you couldn't begin to list them all." Perhaps it should be noted that this ladder match was virtually identical to the run of ladder matches that Michaels and Ramon did at the house shows earlier in the year. Practice makes perfect. - Speaking of ladder matches, on 04/01/94, SMW has "Bluegrass Brawl" which will feature a Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Candito ladder match. They have been having very good ladder matches at the house shows and one wonders if they'll try to outdo the WM X one here. Also on this show will be the R'n'R Express vs. Heavenly Bodies "loser leaves SMW" match which will be the Bodies final match with SMW before switching to the WWF full time. - The early reports have the WM X buy rate at around 1.7. - As already posted, Cactus Jack had his right ear ripped off in a match against Vader in Munich on 03/16. Jack did the "usual" head-caught- between-the-top-and-middle-ropes spot, but because the ropes were too tight had trouble getting out and lost his ear in the process. He did finish the match, though, and got a ringside photographer to take a picture of his ear before going off for medical attention. Ring announcer, Gary Michael Cappetta carried the ear to the back and put it on ice, with his relatively quick action saving about one-third of the ear, which was later re-attached by doctors. Even with all of this, Jack will still work the Spring Stampede PPV on 04/17, one month after this brutal injury. On that show, he's involved in a falls-count-anywhere anything-goes street fight, stipulations that usually see him do crazy things, so one wonders if the injury will affect how he works this match. - Also on the WCW European tour, Ron Simmons tore a bicep, Vader broke an eardrum and referee Randy Anderson broke his leg. - The second UWFi Shootfighting PPV airs on tape on 04/16/94. The show will air 7 out of 8 matches from the opening round of the 16-man tourney that takes place on 04/03/94 in Osaka. Of course, Vader's match is the one omitted from the PPV, but with his injury it's unclear whether he'll make the show. The current line-up looks like: Dan Severn --\ /-- Yoji Anjyo |--\ /--| Masahito Kakihara--/ \ / \-- Victor Zangiev |--\ /--| Salman Hashimikov--\ / \ / \ /-- Gary Albright |--/ \ / \--| Super Vader --/ \ / \-- Billy Scott |-- winner --| Dennis Koslowski --\ / \ /-- Vladimir Berkovich |--\ / \ /--| Naoki Sano --/ \ / \ / \-- Jean Lydick |--/ \--| Kiyoshi Tamura --\ / \ /-- Nobuhiko Takada |--/ \--| Bad News Allen --/ \-- Kazuo Yamazaki - Also on 04/16/94, New Japan will be running its annual Top of The Super Junior tourney. - 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' As expected, Rick Rude regained his WCW Int. Title from Hiro Hase in a title change that probably will never get mentioned in North America. Now the question is whether or not he'll agree to drop it to Sting as planned. Hopefully, we won't get some screwy non-finish as is usually the case when somebody pulls this stunt. Brian Pillman is currently working without a contract and will apparently complete his WCW bookings while negotiations continue. He's not getting listed on new booking sheets in the meantime. There is talk that the WWF is making a play for Brian. - WWF kingpin Vince McMahon's trial for steroid distribution will begin 05/02/94, the same day that WrestleMania X gets released on home video. - The WWF syndies debuted with the new post-WrestleMania look this weekend. Superstars has Vince McMahon working with Jerry Lawler and Challenge has Stan Lane working with Ted DiBiase. Talk is that it will be revealed that DiBiase paid off Curt Hennig to turn on Lex Luger in Luger's title shot at WrestleMania. - 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 Lotsa talk that Tully Blanchard vs. Terry Funk will be one of the legends matches on this show, leading to the return of Tully. - 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. If you are interested in getting a copy of VideoMarinepiad I, drop me some e-mail. In response to e-mail questions, yes, VideoMarinepiad will most likely become a regular event. The plans are in the works for VM II in June. All promotions will be considered for participation in VM II and hopefully we'll showcase a diverse selection of matches so that fans of any one promotion won't feel insulted. Stay tuned. I had the chance to watch a little bit of JWP stuff on tape the other night. The match featured the return of Reggie Bennett to Japan, working in a JWP tag match. Reggie weighs 350 pounds if she weighs an ounce and is quite top-heavy. She wears wrestling tights with tight cut-off denim shorts on top. During the match, she did a few too many power moves and somehow burst the seam in her shorts, so she was effectively wearing a denim skirt. Well, in subsequent moves, we got to see a little more of Reggie than we probably wanted to. Herb...