Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 10/13 Message-ID: Sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: jeeves.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 03:08:35 GMT Lines: 156 - The Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan storyline continued this past weekend on WCW television. On the live Main Event on Sunday night, Hogan and Dave Sullivan faced Ric Flair and a mystery partner. We were to believe that the mystery partner is the same masked man who whacked Hogan's knee at the Clash and Sting's knee at Fall Brawl, but in this case it was Bunkhouse Buck. With usual predictability, Hogan allowed nobody to get an advantage on him, once again helping to put Flair over as a legitimate foe. Argh. After the match, another masked man ran in and Hogan's knee was attacked. If he came back from the hospital at the Clash and held off Flair, why should we believe that he won't be able to recover in two weeks for the PPV this time? The only thing that has been done to cast any doubt on the finish of the Havoc retirement match between Flair and Hogan is the somewhat creative footage of Flair and Mr. T on a Chicago street corner. Since Hogan won't do anything to get his foe over or to at least make the finish seem a little uncertain, the only weak link that can be played up is T. That footage was re-broadcast this weekend but never investigated or anything. Bobby Heenan laughs about Flair having an ace in the hole and Hogan still talks about hid friend Mr. T reffing the match. For what it's worth, the Observer mentioned that Flair was talking about the PPV match being his last and said that the current plan is to keep Flair around as a commentator and personality, perhaps luring him out of retirement (something Flair has said won't happen) a year down the road. This PPV will be successful monetarily, but it's really unclear what the cost will be if in fact one of their best in-ring performers is forced out of action. Losing a top notch worker is never good as far as I'm concerned. - To balance the bad news, WCW's lightheavyweight tournament is slated to take place in November, with tourney matches airing on the Pro and Main Event show. The whole shebang is meant to showcase Brian Pillman once again, this time using the link with New Japan and AAA to bring in talent that is able to work a more Japanese style with Pillman. Apparently, Hulk Hogan has no problem with others on the card outshining him as long as it's clear that he's a heavyweight and they are not. - The Sports Network, the Canadian cable sports channel, has picked up WWF Monday Night RAW for broadcast on Wednesday Afternoon not-so-RAW. The show will air at 5pm EST and replays will be aired on Thursday and Friday at strange hours. This will be the first chance for Canadian fans who don't own satellite dishes to catch the show regularly. Beginning with this week's show, we get a special Event Centre to hype WWF shows across Canada. The segments are hosted by Charlie Minn, who I've never heard of before. In fact, he was pretty funny and got me to watch the segments. This will wear off, but I thought he had some good facial gestures during the segments. The wrestling on this week's show was hopefully far below the standard which gets this show so many "Best TV Show" of the year nominations. - Speaking of RAW, we got to see Jerry Lawler unveil his midget sidekick "Queasy." Randy Savage's commentary here it the expected punchline, although we really could take him "feeling a little Queasy" more than one way. Doink hinted that he'd have a little surprise for Lawler this weekend, no doubt his additional midgets, Wink and Pink. This all leads to the much anticipated Survivor Series match. - The Warlord, Sgt. Slaughter, and Tito Santana were all backstage at a past WCW TV taping. All are apparently looking for work, but there's no word on whether any of them will be brought in. One of the three might not be too bad. - 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 the loser retiring - Paul Orndorff & Paul Roma vs. Marcus Bagwell & Patriot for the Tag Titles with Patriot's mask on the line - Jim Duggan vs. Steve Austin 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 - Dave Sullivan vs. Kevin Sullivan Muhammed Ali will present the WCW Title belt to the winner in the main event. In exchange, WCW will donate some of the proceeds to the Muhammed Ali Foundation. Terry Funk will work this show and fulfill all of his other October commitments before leaving the company. - 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 (& Octagon) vs. Eddy Guerrero (& Love Machine), 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 The second plug for this show aired on WCW's Main Event show. Chris Cruise has taken over the promos and will also do the commentary. Canadian cable companies will apparently not carry the show, so I may be looking for a tape of it. - UWFi has a PPV on 11/11/94. - WCW has Clash of Champions XXIX on 11/16/94. Tentative line-up has: *- Hulk Hogan & Sting vs. Vader & Curt Hennig - WWF has Survivor Series on 11/23/94. The tentative line-up has: - Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund for the WWF Title - Undertaker vs. Yokozuna in a casket match *- Davey Boy Smith & Razor Ramon & Fatu & Barbarian & 1-2-3 Kid vs. Jim Neidhart & Owen Hart & Shawn Michaels & Diesel & Jeff Jarrett - Doink & Dink & Wink & Pink vs. Jerry Lawler & Queasy & Wheezy & The Little Prince *- Lex Luger & Adam Bomb & Mabel & Smoking Gunns vs. Tatanka & King Kong Bundy & Bam Bam Bigelow & Heavenly Bodies The tag matches will all be elimination style matches. The final match started to take shape on RAW this week when all but the Gunns and the Bodies got involved in the Luger vs. Bigelow match. - WCW has Starrcade '94 on 12/27/94. The tentative line-up has: - Hulk Hogan vs. Vader for the WCW Title - Ric Flair vs. Sting Obviously, this line-up may well change depending on what happens at Halloween Havoc. - Awards: I received a few leads that will help me clear up some of the questions in the nominations. Some of the questions were not addressed though (and I missed asking a couple), so here are the open ones: - Did Terry Funk & Kevin Sullivan team in the past year? (I think not) - Did Dynamite Kansai & Cutie Suzuki team in the past year? (I think the person probably meant Mayumi Ozaki not Cutie Suzuki) - Did the following three matches take place between 11/09/93 and 11/08/94: - Jushin Liger vs. Chris Benoit - Konnan vs. El Vampiro Canadiense - Typhoon vs. Yokozuna In answer to the the "Did Hulk Hogan work as a heel in the past year?" question, the answer that the old lady at the Clash tried to hit him has no relevance. If you want him to be "Worst Babyface" that's an okay nomination, but these four categories (Best/Worst Babyface/Heel) deal with the success of the company's intent. - 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. I had the chance to catch a few interesting things over the weekend: lots of All Japan Women, with the highlight being the tag matches involving Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota, and the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Vader UWFi world championship match. The UWFi match was aired as a TV special. They did a great job with all of the build up and Vader's demeanour throughout the thing was fantastic. Herb...