Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 08/25 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: jeeves.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Thu, 25 Aug 1994 17:07:12 GMT Lines: 160 { Thanks for all the positive e-mail about last week's SMW Fanweek review special. Herb... } - WCW's Clash of Champions XXVIII took place last night. Due to the baseball strike, the show was bumped from an original length of two hours to a length of two-and-a-half hours. It showed. They added a number of commercial breaks to the show to fill things out, but when a show's on free TV that's fair game. Leading up to the show, Ric Flair had said he had an "ultimate" surprise for Hulk Hogan, leading to much speculation about the reappearance of the Ultimate Warrior on the wrestling scene. There has always been talk of Curt Hennig coming to WCW when he's contractually allowed, so that was rumoured too. Larry Zbyszko even said that he knew that Flair had a "perfect" surprise. Thank goodness nobody mentioned a "vicious" surprise. Gary Will, Curtis, and I got together for the show. We expect commercials on live shows, so that didn't bother us too much. The key angle of the night saw a masked man come out and whack Hogan's knee from behind a la Nancy Kerrigan. The show was filled with flash updates before Hogan returned from the hospital to the arena. Hogan did an excellent job of selling his knee, far better than I would have expected from him, including delivering the high kick (part of his signature finishing sequence) but tumbling to the ground when his knee gave out and hitting the leg drop but hurting himself on that move too. Our quick run-down looks like this: - Nasty Boys beat Paul Orndorff & Paul Roma ** (non-title, title match on Saturday Night) - Rick Steamboat beat Steve Austin **** (Rick wins US Title) - Dusty & Dustin Rhodes beat Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck **1/2 (DQ, Meng & Arn Anderson come in, Dusty gets laid out) - Antonio Inoki beat Steve Regal * (non-title, Regal worked hard to carry things) - Ric Flair beat Hulk Hogan **3/4 (count out, Hogan sells the knee very well, masked man runs in, Hogan gets destroyed, Sting saves) So, despite the strong angle (which almost always takes away from the wrestling work) and the commercial interruptions, there was a 20-minute excellent match to keep the show on the good side of a "thumbs up/thumbs down" scale. It was annoying that Hulk Hogan wouldn't put Flair over, but nobody here should have expected that (especially since Hogan *has* to be the World champ when they tour Europe). Who was the mysterious masked man? It doesn't matter. By that, I mean it doesn't matter who it actually was. He looked a bit like Curt Hennig the first time, but certainly seemed to be Arn Anderson the second time. Since his identity wasn't revealed at this show, they can make him anybody they want when they "investigate" things. Did this show do it's job? It gave us a strong angle, without completely resolving things (masked man, Hogan's health), it set up a title match on Saturday's TV show with the challengers going in with a win, and established the Wargames pairing that will be revealed shortly. It gave us one excellent match and a couple of pretty good ones. What matters is if interest in the product is increased? Do the TV ratings go up as a result and do the PPV buy rates go up? Although I don't care for Hulk Hogan and I don't want Ric Flair to "make" him in WCW, I would still have to give this show a thumbs up. Without Steamboat vs. Austin, it would drop to a thumbs-in-the-middle at best. - Depressing new arrivals in WCW are Jim Duggan and Honky Tonk Man. Maybe the much talked about Curt Hennig deal will materialize after the Clash. - Meltzer reports that the WWF will not bring in Papa Shango as the mysterious culprit behind Bob Backlund's new behaviour. Shango will return, but with a different character. He also reports that the Barbarian is slated to return. - I finally got around to reading the Wrestler Flyer Interview Collection #3, which had interviews with 2 Cold Scorpio, Dave Meltzer, Sabu, Missy Hyatt, and Roddy Piper. All of the interviews were pretty interesting. 2 Cold came off as pretty arrogant. Sabu was a nice nut. Piper was a story teller, with experiences that make good stories, coincidentally enough. - WCW taped more World Wide shows in Orlando. Barry Darsow debuted as Blacktop Bully, a heel fan who yells at all of the faces; he was at the Clash last night doing this. Johnny B. Badd wore the TV Title and will feud with Honky Tonk Man. Ric Flair was apparently suspended because of his involvement in the Clash angle. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/29/94. The line-up includes: - Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart for the WWF Title in a cage match *- Diesel (& Shawn Michaels) vs. Razor Ramon (& Walter Payton) for the IC Title *- Headshrinkers vs. I.R.S. & Bam Bam Bigelow for the Tag Titles - Undertaker (Mark Callaway) vs. Undertaker (Brian Lee) - Tatanka vs. Lex Luger *- Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano for the Women's Title *- Mabel vs. Jeff Jarrett The cage match looks very good on paper. I suppose the women's match could surprise if Bull can lift Alundra to a new level. After this show, Owen Hart feuds with Razor Ramon and Bret Hart feuds with Jim Neidhart. The WWF Magazine is hinting that King Kong Bundy will come in to feud with Bret Hart at some point. There is lots of talk that the "two souls" of the Undertaker, evil and pizza delivery, err, good, will be re-unified at this event and that Brian Lee will get some other character. - I had the chance to watch the WWF card from Yokohama, Japan, on 05/07/94. Line-up looked like this: - Rick Martel vs. 1-2-3 Kid 25:03 - Tatanka vs. Ginsei Shinzaki 11:39 - Headshrinkers vs. Smoking Gunns WWF Tag 17:51 - Doink vs. Nobukazu Hirai 11:00 - Bull Nakano vs. Alundra Blayze 14:00 - Owen Hart vs. Masashi Aoyagi 11:19 - Adam Bomb vs. Bob Backlund 16:25 - Undertaker & Genichiro Tenryu 28:10 vs. Yokozuna & Bam Bam Bigelow - Bret Hart vs. Randy Savage WWF 24:30 The WWF Title match was the best of the lot, but even it didn't come near ****. The women's match showed how bad Madusa is compared to Bull. Madusa had learned a lot years back and could be part of a good tag match, but she can't work a singles match with somebody like Bull. At least Bull got to squash her in this match. - WCW has Fall Brawl in 09/18/94. Tentative line-up includes: *- Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck & Arn Anderson & Colonel Parker vs. Dusty Rhodes & Dustin Rhodes & Nasty Boys in a War Games match *- Sting vs. Guardian Angel vs. Vader in a triangular match *- Rick Steamboat vs. Steve Austin for the US Title *- Paul Orndorff & Paul Roma vs. Marcus Bagwell & The Patriot for the Tag Titles *- Cactus Jack vs. Kevin Sullivan *- Steve Regal vs. Johnny B. Badd for the TV Title The triangular match will probably just boil down to two single matches with one repeated participant. These two matches and the US Title match look like could be very good. This is a very reasonable show on paper. - WCW has Halloween Havoc on 10/23/94. Tentative line-up includes: - Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair for the Unified World Title in a cage with Mr. T as special referee and Hogan retiring if he loses - AAA will broadcast a show on live PPV on 11/06/94. - WCW has Clash of Champions XXIX on 11/16/94. - WCW has Starrcade '94 on 12/27/94. - 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 or VideoMarinepiad II, drop me some e-mail. VideoMarinepiad III will probably take place some time in the next week. Details will follow next week. I've uploaded a new .zip file containing my updated tape list to the cactusjack ftp site (127.228.59.59). It's called herbtape.zip again. The new file has a file size of 316K, a full 100K bigger than the previous file. I don't know if Jack's replaced the old version with the new upload yet. The size difference is largely due to my including my query program in the package. There is a read.me file explaining very briefly how this program works. It runs cleanly on my 486 and I'm not going to support it in any way. Play with it if you like and you'll hopefully figure it out. If you find it useful, great. If you have suggestions, I'll listen. I want to completely change the front end of the program, so I've got ideas too. Herb...