Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 09/15 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: jeeves.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 00:08:06 GMT Lines: 131 - WCW has Fall Brawl this Sunday. Line-up has: *- Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck & Arn Anderson & Col. 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 in a loser leaves WCW match - Steve Regal vs. Johnny B. Badd for the TV Title They ran an interview segment this past week where Col. Parker was announced as the replacement for Meng in the Wargames match, pretty much exposing the finish of that match, I would think. - Lots of talk of King Kong Bundy being quickly pushed into the upper mix in the WWF. He already debuted at a TV taping, managed by Ted DiBiase of course, doing his "five count" gimmick from years back when the New Generation wasn't. He's supposed to be pushed straight into a feud with Bret Hart. - The local paper reports that WCW finally squared a deal with Curt Hennig this past week, although he probaby won't be able to debut until November. Hennig will turn out to be the masked guy that clubbed Hulk Hogan's knee at the August Clash. - More on ECW. To summarize, on 08/27 ECW had the sanction of the NWA board of directors to create a new NWA World champion. The winner of the tourney was to drop the title to whomever the board selected when Jim Crockett got his promotion off the ground. Instead, the tourney winner, Shane Douglas, discarded the NWA Title, saying that the ECW title was far more important. Much discussion resulted. Was this a planned backstab? Did Todd Gordon feel he was getting screwed and come up with the backstab in retaliation? The whole affair led to ECW changing the "E" in its name from "Eastern" to "Extreme," apparently to toss the regional implications of "Eastern" at an early stage of rumoured national expansion. Of course, the NWA board declared the tournament void and stripped Douglas of both the title and any recognition of ever having held the title. ECW now calls its title holder the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. Meltzer reports that Paul (E. Dangerously) Heyman and Shane Douglas appeared on wrestling radio call-in shows shortly after all of this, and this is funny: "Douglas claimed that the idea to throw the NWA belt and proclaim the ECW belt as the meaningful one came to him in the ring spontaneously that night and the idea was his and his alone. He categorically denied any premeditation on the part of him or the promotion in what happened. ... Dangerously, having no knowledge of what Douglas had either already said or was going to say, then came on Arezzi's show and said the idea was planned well in advance and said it was a double-cross, but they had their reasons for doing it, and said he'd accept whatever heat came down because of that decision. ... Arezzi also booked NWA board member Dennis Coraluzzo who was at the 08/27 show and the victim of the in-the-ring double-cross as a guest, who said both Douglas and Dangerously were liars, which, by their own contradictions of the same story, it did come off that at least one of them was. ... Gordon's explanation of what happened was that he was called by Jim Crockett and asked to do the tournament. He said he understood the idea was to have Douglas (who would win the tournament) drop the title to one of Crockett's guys and the NWA champion would be Crockett's company champion as was the case in the 1980s. Gordon said he understood the situation, not that he liked it, but was irked when Crockett said the ECW champion could be like the old Mid-Atlantic champion, as a stepping-stone title for the big belt and he didn't want his champion being regarded as simply a stepping-stone. ... He said they had Coraluzzo do the interview after Douglas threw down the belt so he could escape with some dignity. ... But despite what was said by others who possibly didn't even know themselves, Dangerously had planned the scenario before any of the controversy about the tournament had even gone public. `In the practical sense of the word, it was a double-cross. It was premeditated, planned in advance. I can give you a million reasons why Coraluzzo had it coming. We wanted to put the credibility of the history of the NWA title into our title. I'm not Bill Watts, so I'm not going to say that justifies the tactics. I can tell you Coraluzzo brought it on himself. After a year, he kept fucking with our business. What we did was questionable but I think it was justified. But it was a classic wrestling promoter double-cross move. It taught Coraluzzo a lesson. Crockett's done nothing to help the organization. When you do (things like) it, you have to take the criticism because it was an unethical move.'" I'm not going to editorialize about this since I don't have time for a flame war thanks to my teaching, but I do still stand by my thoughts of last week. - 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. Matches are: - Konnan vs. Perro Aguayo, cage, 2-of-3 falls - El Hijo del Santo vs. Eddy Guerrero, mask vs. hair, 2-of-3 falls - Chris Benoit & 2 Cold Scorpio & Tito Santana vs. La Parka & Blue Panther & Jerry Estrada, 2-of-3 trios match - Heavy Metal & Rey Misterio Jr. & Latin Lover vs. Psicosis & Fuerza Guerrera & Madonna's Boyfriend, 2-of-3 falls trios match - Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito vs. Espectrito & Jerrito Estrada, 2-of-3 falls minis match Except for the cage match, this card looks fantastic. - WCW has Clash of Champions XXIX on 11/16/94. Lots of talk that Curt Hennig will debut on this show. - WWF has Survivor Series on 11/23/94. The Hart family feud is expected to generate the main event. It is also expected that Diesel will turn babyface at this show, splitting up with current tag champ partner Shawn Michaels. - WCW has Starrcade '94 on 12/27/94. - Awards: I've received a lot of nominations and will try to get them compiled by the end of weekend, at which point I'll post a second call. In response to several people that have asked, the split of "North American" and "Non North American" has nothing to do with the nationality of the wrestlers involved. It has to do with the soil on which they worked. "Best Match of The Year (North American)" could be any match that took place on North American soil, for example. - 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. My tape list is on the r.s.p-w ftp site (128.227.59.59) in the file herbtape.zip. I have made a total of five compilation tapes for the net: R.s.p-w 1, Japan 1981-1983, Japan 1984-1987, VideoMarinepiad I, and VideoMarinepiad II. If you are interested in details on any of these, just send some e-mail or browse the ftp site. Herb...