From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 08/03 Date: 1995/08/03 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 107405289 sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling - WCW has the Collision in Korea PPV on Friday featuring matches from the New Japan trip to Korea. The show will be cheaply priced at $14.95 in my neck of the woods. 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 - WCW has a Clash of The Champions on WTBS on Sunday. Tentative line-up has: - Vader vs. Arn Anderson & Ric Flair - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd - Sting & Hawk vs. Meng & Kurasawa (Manabu Nakanishi) - Renegade vs. Paul Orndorff for the TV Title - Bunkhouse Buck & Dick Slater & Colonel Parker vs. Harlem Heat & Sister Sherri The Main Event show will also be live but is still officially not part of the Clash. This is due partly to sponsorships of the two programs and the fact that Hulk Hogan would have to be paid a bonus for appearing on a live Clash. Hogan will face Kamala in the live Main Event, with most figuring that the Giant will lay him out to set up a match at Halloween Havoc. Randy Savage will also appear during the evening. - I had the chance to see the Monday Night RAW show from last Monday (RAW airs on tape on The Sports Network in Canada, usually very early Saturday or Sunday morning). The Bret Hart vs. Hakushi match was very good. Hakushi did a reasonable "space flying tiger drop" tope that Tiger Mask I & Cobra did all the time in the early 1980s. It also seemed clear from this show and from the weekend WWF syndies that Jeff Jarrett & the Roadie have (at least temporarily) left the building. The commentary buried Jarrett a fair bit, but the promotion was obviously left a little confused by the situation. Jarrett was going to turn babyface eventually and they had stockpiled gimmicks to sell that now have to be unloaded quickly. - As has been reported in the newsgroup, the WWF has been chopping people off the payroll, including wrestlers (in order of decreasing ability, IMO, with a big gap after the first two): - The Heavenly Bodies: Jimmy Del Ray & Tom Prichard - Hakushi (who reportedly gave notice that he wanted to leave) - Doink (& Dink) - Headshrinker Sionne (with Fatu being strangely repackaged as a literate guy after years as a "savage") - Duke Droese - Tekno Team 2000: Troy & Travis (who were heralded as the future of the New Generation during their debut, right?) - Mantaur - King Kong Bundy From a fan standpoint, all of these movements are really a good thing. The Bodies were terribly mis(un?)used by the WWF and it will be good to see them return (presumably) to SMW. Hakushi was also arguably misused during his WWF tenure. The rest of the list doesn't really demand a second thought. The WWF is bringing in heels Goldust (Dustin Rhodes) and Dean Douglas (Shane Douglas). A long time ago, when Shane was giving those "shoot" interviews in ECW, there was debate about whether his interview ability or the "shoot" content made those interviews entertaining. If the first Dean Douglas sketch is any indication, we have an answer. There is still talk that the Dean will make a play to be the new WWF president. - There is a lot of talk that WCW has reached a deal with Eddy Guerrero, bringing him in for a program with Alex Wright. Apparently, these two and Brian Pillman will be used to rebuild a lighter-weight, faster-paced division, and there is talk that the company is pursuing Chris Benoit, Al Snow, and Sabu. WCW is positive about getting the first two of those three. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/27/95. The tentative line-up has - Diesel vs. Mabel for the WWF Title - Shawn Michaels vs. Sid for the IC Title - Undertaker vs. Kama - 1-2-3 Kid vs. Skip Bodydonna - Steve McMichael & William Perry vs. Owen Hart & Yokozuna The final match is just a rumour. - WCW will air a "UFC-style" PPV on 09/01/95. - WCW has Fall Brawl on 09/17/95, now with Hulk Hogan. The tentative line-up has: - Hogan & Randy Savage & Sting & Vader vs. Shark & Zodiac & Kevin Sullivan & Meng in a Wargames match - Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson - Bunkhouse Buck & Dick Slater vs. Harlem Heat for the WWF Tag Titles - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Renegade - Johnny B. Badd vs. Brian Pillman There is also a strange suggestion that the Wargames match might feature: - Hogan & Vader & Steiners vs. The Giant & Ric Flair & Harlem Heat I suppose we'll have a better feeling for things after the Clash this weekend. - Year-End Awards: Should I run this again this year? For newcomers, I've run a vote every year since 1990, although they've only been really large for the past couple of years. In the next couple of weeks, I will make nicely-formatted copies of the awards posts from over the years available on my WWW home page. In the mean time, are there any suggestions for improvements based on last year's work. Suggestions might include: - having somebody else do it. - running another vote to streamline award categories. - running another vote to establish format details (voter comments?, top three votes?, nominations list?, etc.) Feel free to follow-up this topic in the newsgroup. I will likely not access the group again until Sunday, so you may want to send me e-mail as well since it's unlikely that articles posted Friday will survive until then. - Booking Prediction Tourney: The next tourney card is SummerSlam. - WWW: My home page is at http://barrow.uwaterloo.ca/~hekunze. The wrestling portion includes this post, tape lists, and other stuff, including a reworked version of my SMW Fanweek refiew from last year. - 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. The VideoMarinepiad III home video is now available. Herb...