From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 06/08 Date: 1995/06/09 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 104017417 sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling - One week after the dismal debut of Tekno Team 2000, Renegade debuted on WCW Saturday Night. What annoys me about these things is the way the commentators show no self-respect in hyping these guys. Dok Hendrix says Troy & Trevor "are what the New Generation is all about." Bobby Heenan says he's "never seen anything like this before" (which can at least be interpreted sarcastically) while Tony Schiavone tries to put Renegade over. It's depressing. - The WWF's WrestleMania special on NBC didn't take place after all. - The WWF has sent out postcards promoting the King of the Ring on 06/25/95. Of course, the idea is to remind those impulse buyers and casual fans that there is a WWF show a week after the WCW show. The card subtitles the KotR "Guts & Glory," offers no line-up other than mentioning that there will be a tournament, and slips in that the price is $27.50. - The WWF has a very weak heel side, a problem with the North American mindset of face vs. heel and ((pretty much) nothing else. We've got new heels like Waylon Mercy, Skip Bodydonna, and even possibly Dustin Rhodes under a different name. There's talk now that Razor Ramon might turn heel. - Here's a longwinded story that might give some of you a chuckle. I was in Toronto on the weekend, visiting my parents. We're sitting around chatting when the phone rings and my mom answers it. This is what we hear: - "Hello?" - "Oh really! That's wonderful! What did you say your name was?" - "Oh, come on! Owen Hart is a wrestler! Are you a wrestler?" - "Do you have a brother named Bret?" By the end of the conversation, I had laughed myself to tears. What was this all about? A big scam in Ontario (and elsewhere?) these days involves con artists phoning senior citizens to award them expensive prizes...with the condition that the winner must buy x dollars of . My mother has received 25 such calls since the beginning of the year so she's now completely nonchalant about the whole thing and just tries to pry some incriminating info from the crooks. The call this past weekend was from a guy informing her that she had one $10000, jewelry, and some pens. When she asked his name and he said "Owen Hart," she lost it. He assured her he wasn't lying, but she kept pushing the Hart thing. Owen Hart: You're quite a wrestling fan Mom: I just received several tapes from Knoxville of Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and I watch a lot of wrestling from Japan too. Who's your favourite wrestler Owen Hart? (she used his full name in every sentence ;-)) Owen Hart: Bam Bam Bigelow. Hold on a second; the manager is calling me over. . You won't believe this! You've won *another* prize...a satellite dish! Now, you'll be able to watch all the wrestling you want! Mom: Okay, what do you want from me before I get all of these prizes Owen Hart? Owen Hart: Our sponsor wants to ensure your health. As such, we'd like you to take part in a vitamin plan send us a money order for $1000. Mom: I'm a senior citizen; I don't have money like that to spend on vitamins Owen Hart. Owen Hart: How much would you be willing to spend to claim all of your prizes? Our sponsor just wants some vitamins to be bought. Mom: Five dollars. Owen Hart: Oh no. That's nowhere near enough; I guess we'll have to look for somebody else to claim your prizes. Mom: That's fine Owen Hart. Goodbye. My mom hangs up and turns back to the room where I'm rolled over in laughter after hearing just her side of the conversation and she nonchalantly says, "I just spoke on the phone with Owen Hart." My dad and I were ROTFL. - WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/18/95. Tentative line-up includes: *- No Hulk Hogan *wrestling*, but he will appear in the main event *- Randy Savage (with Hogan) vs. Ric Flair (with Vader) - Blue Bloods vs. Nasty Boys for the WCW Tag Titles - Sting vs. Meng for the US Title (tourney final ?) - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Dave Sullivan - Jim Duggan vs. Kamala - Arn Anderson vs. Renegade for the TV Title - Craig Pittman vs. Marcus Bagwell - Brian Pillman vs. Alex Wright We can expect an altercation between Hogan and Vader to help build to the next PPV. - The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/25/95. The line-up has: - Sid & Tantanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & Diesel *- Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler (loser kisses winner's feet) - King of the Ring Tourney: Mabel --\ |--\ Undertaker --/ \ |--\ Shawn Michaels --\ / \ |--/ \ Kama --/ \ |--- King of The Ring Bob Holly --\ / |--\ / Roadie --/ \ / |--/ Razor Ramon --\ / |--/ ? --/ - The next UFC is slated for 07/14/95. - WCW has another PPV on 07/16/95. This is the show that will take place on a beach with free admission. Tentative line-up includes: - Hulk Hogan vs. Vader for the WCW Title in a cage match - Paul Orndorff vs. Arn Anderson or Renegade for the TV Title - WCW will air a taped PPV on 08/04/95 featuring matches from the New Japan trip to Korea. The show will be cheaply priced at $12.95. Tentative line-up: - Antonio Inoki vs. Ric Flair - Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki - Hawk vs. Tadao Yasuda - Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto - Scott Norton & Masa Chono vs. Akira Nogami & Takayuki Iizuka - Wild Pegasus vs. Too Cold Scorpio - Black Cat vs. El Samurai - Hiro Saito vs. Yuji Nagata - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/28/95. - WCW will air a "UFC-style" PPV on 09/01/95. - Interview: Here's the final installment of an interview with Jim Cornette from Wrestling Perspective (P.O. Box 401, Camillus, NY, 12031-0401, USA; possibly still $1.50 per monthly issue). The interview was conducted on 07/20/93 and will give you an idea of the quality of the newsletter. WP: What's the situation with the NWA and trying to get NWA matches with the NWA champion? JC: I just talked to Dennis Coralluzzo and he's stirring up some shit and Dennis is good at that. I love Dennis. I guess we can join the NWA, it just hasn't been a point that it would be real useful for us so far so we haven't done it. WP: There have been rumors that you've been trying to join. JC: No. We had talked about it and I said, "Yeah, we may do that just to piss somebody off." The thing is any wrestliog promotion tbat is a regular viable promotion can join. They can't turn you down. It's not a matter of trying to join. It's a matter of if you decide to dn it. WP: Big deal. WCW can say that's the end of the NWA belt. JC: No, they can't say that They can say that's the end of us using the NWA belt. As long as there are members of the NWA, tbey can't say that's the end of the NWA belt. WP: So it 's something that 's never going to go away? JC: Basically (laughs). As long as there are members of the NWA who are not affiliated with WCW, there will always be an NWA title. WCW can drop their recognition of it and not use it, but there would still be an NWA to name a champion and continue on with the name. WP: Do you see that as a viable option if you, Coralluzzo and Gilbert got moving? To have a world champion coming in to do occasional shots. JC: Yeah and the problem I see is when the NWA champion had 20 territories to work in, it was great. But now, you'd be hard pressed to find the guy to put the belt on to come to Smoky Mountain, WWA and ECW. As more territories eventually spring up and they will, but who knows how long it will take. The idea of an affiliation and a touring world champion is the best one. It's a matter of you don't want the world champion all the time, so you've got to have a bunch of places for him to go. WP: I don't want to get you started on WCW. But briefly, what's your opinion of how they're doing in 50 words or less? JC: (laughs) Aww Christ. I can't figure it out any more. It's the daggumist thing I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't sit down and think of shit to do that was bad on purpose. I'm flabbergasted. For once, I'm at a loss for words because before it was bad. Now, it's ridiculous. They've got some of the most talented minds I've ever seen thinking of that shit to do because there's no way that a dumb shit could think of anyway to fuck somethiing up as good and as quickly and as regularly as they're doing it. It has to be some on purpose effort (laughs). Where do you even begin? Eric Bischoff for Christ sake. Putting him in charge of anything related to wrestling. Let me go out and find the guy working down at the Jiffy Lube and he'll certainly have some good ideas. WP: Will he have a smile like Eric's? JC: (laughs) I mean the whole thing's just ludicrous. I'm not surprised at anything. The mini-movie and the mass taping, they've finally convinced me there's almost no way to be surprised at whatever they do. WP: If you had total control, would you go back and run WCW? JC: Total control, but TBS still owned it? No, no, no, no, no, no. They'll always find a way to fuck it up. As long as TBS owns the thing, it's doomed. It's just a matter of who's running it as to how quick it's going to go downhill. If all of a sudden they said, "Okay, we're going to take everything to do with the wrestling promotion and stick it in a building on Peachtree Street and have somebody run it and let us know at the end of the month what's happening and we're not even going to act like we own the thing," that's the only way that they will ever, ever do anything with it ever. They would just have to completely set it off to the side somewhere and have one guy run it and have him make all the decisions as far as who was hired and just deliver the tapes to TBS once a week. WP: If Watts was allowed to do that, would it have worked? JC: Yes. If they had left Bill alone and if they had him do exactly what I said. Take it away somewhere, not have to use tbe Turner program services to syndicate TV, not have to use Turner Home Entertainment. Just like it was under Crockett where they came down and did the TV once a week and that was it. Then Watts could have done a great job with it. But as long as TBS owns it and controls it and fucks with it and sticks their nose into it and hires people based on whether their hair looks good, and hires people based on whether they're screwing some girl from Turner Home Entertainment, all of which has happened and continues to, there's no chance. WP: I guess you don't want to be working with Ole? JC: (laughs) You think Ole Anderson would be doing that shit if he had any kind of control? Fuck no. WP: He's done it before, go back to '83. JC: Never this bad. Mini-movies. Did he do any of that shit? Did he do taping four months in advance? What they're doing is all of them are taking their money and doing shit that they know is the shits because they can make more money there doing that shit than they can make anywhere else. I don't want the money that bad to do shitty stuff. - Booking Prediction Tourney: Slamboree results have been posted. I'll get a ballot for the Bash out by Sunday or Monday. - WWW: This post is presented weekly, presumably with some short delay, on Mark Long's r.s.p-w home page on the Web. That page contains a lot of interesting wrestling info, so give it a try at: http://www.luc.edu/~mlong/wrestling.html - 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. VideoMarinepiad III took place earlier this week on 06/05/95. VM III features items from New Japan, All Japan, All Japan Women, AAA, El Gran Hamada's UWF, Portland, NWA, AWA, Memphis, Calgary Stampede, and the Continental Wrestling Federation. Full details and a review will posted by this weekend and the home video will be available next week. Herb...