Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 09/22 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: jeeves.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 00:32:46 GMT Lines: 105 { Not much to say this week; I didn't spend any time on the phone talking about wrestling. Teaching a course at University is taking a toll on my schedule (research? what research?) and my body (since I'm still sore from the car accident). What little spare time I found I put into compiling the awards nominations...which you'll hopefully see posted in the next day or so. E-mail correspondents, please be patient...I'll try to get things up-to-date by the weekend. Herb... } - WCW's Fall Brawl took place on PPV this past Sunday and saw: - Johnny B. Badd win the TV Title - Jim Duggan win the US Title - Vader earn a "Number One Contender" ranking - Cactus Jack work his final match in WCW - Ric Flair & Hulk Hogan announce their cage match on 10/23 Giving Duggan the second most important singles title caused me to give this show a slight "Thumbs Down." Duggan did get a lot of cheers when he walked to the ring and there was a pretty good "USA" chant during his seconds in the ring. Duggan entered the picture when Rick Steamboat announced he had suffered a back injury and would unfortunately not be able to wrestle tonight. In a good sign of consistent booking, commissioner Nick Bockwinkel announced that he had no other choice but give the title to Steve Austin, the scheduled challenger and former champion. This jibes with the angle at the 08/24 Clash (where Nick said that Hogan would forfeit the belt to Flair if he couldn't wrestle his scheduled match), so at least for one month we had some consistency. The booking of this little story line wasn't too bad and Austin was great, but the final outcome is not a good sign for enthusiasts of ability. Austin came out of this without losing any credibility; he was bowled over by a last second replacement who he was unprepared to face and suffered a quick count, wriggling the whole time, before anybody knew what was happening. There is already talk about Austin getting a World Title push as soon as the Hogan vs. Flair storyline is played out. The booking of the triangular match between Sting & Guardian Angel & Vader was also pretty good, IMO. Sting & Vader were certainly the wrestling highlight of the show, its saving grace as far as match ratings go, and the final "sudden death" minutes (where the loser would be the first off his feet) were played up well by both men. It was nice and a bit of a surprise to see Vader go over. - Ron Simmons, Tex Slazenger & Shanghai Pierce were all given notice by WCW. I guess that axes talk of Simmons being used as the Harlem Heat's manager. - Talk persists about Hulk Hogan signing a several year long deal of some sort with WCW. Current rumours have the deal being for sporadic appearances (with the logic no doubt being that he'll pop big houses if used once in a while) over that time, with Hogan being phased out as the key performer in the company that every announcer has to mention four times each minute. Hogan's series, "Thunder in Paradise," was renewed for 22 new episodes next season, so the company does have to figure out a direction based on severe schedule restrictions for Hogan for a sizeable chunk of the year. There's talk that Hogan sees limited pro-wrestling exposure as a valuable tool to keep his celebrity status and use that to launch himself into other television and flim ventures. - Besides Curt Hennig, talk has Brutus Beefcake and The Road Warriors coming into WCW before the end of the year. - 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 - Paul Orndorff & Paul Roma vs. Marcus Bagwell & Patriot for the Tag Titles - Jim Duggan vs. Steve Regal for the US Title - Johnny B. Badd vs. Honky Tonk Man for the TV Title - Vader vs. Guardian Angel in a strap match - Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson - Nasty Boys vs. Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck On paper, the most promising matches for this show from a work/workrate viewpoint are at the bottom of list. Not a good sign. - 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 - WCW has Clash of Champions XXIX on 11/16/94. - WWF has Survivor Series on 11/23/94. - WCW has Starrcade '94 on 12/27/94. - Awards: Look for the second call for nominations by the weekend at the latest. - 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...