From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 01/25 Date: 1996/01/26 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 136489367 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling - The WWF's Royal Rumble took place this past Sunday. Predictability in booking has never much bothered me if the actual matches delivered are great, so I won't even address this point that seems to have been the focus of most of the negative reviews in the newsgroup; I will mention that it would be nice if the positive reviewers don't rant about predictability in other promotions to maintain their credibility. In any case, it's sort of irrelevant to rate the Rumble, IMO. The WWF is in a holding pattern until WrestleMania when Shawn Michaels' reign will begin. Still, based on the wrestling of the evening it was not a great show, IMO. Highlights were: - Everything done surrounding the Shawn Michaels story line was thought out and executed perfectly. The seeds for feuds with Vader, Yokozuna, Diesel, and even Davey Boy Smith were planted. The fact that the whole Michaels story line has been so well done and was well-handled here almost makes me forget about everything else on the show. - Gunns vs. Bodydonnas was a good match. It seems like a lot of overly hormonal young guys in the group got so excited about Sunny's butt shots that they praised this match a little much. - Jarrett vs. Johnson was also good. Lowlights were: - Bret Hart vs. Undertaker. UT is such a lousy gimmick when it comes to the actual wrestling in a match. His entrances are moody and I can understand the character being a bit cool, but why is this part of pro-wrestling? Okay, Vince thinks the UT can draw and is popular. But let's not fool ourselves and say that the wrestling ever passes mediocre. In this match, it was below mediocre as Bret just seemed incapable of carrying the gimmick through a whole match. The finish was an absolutely lousy screw job to set up further PPV shows; I could have lived with it if the match had been any good, but to deliver crap and then piss on it at the end was a little much. - Goldust vs. Razor Ramon. Well, the verdict is officially in on Goldust for me. They've given up on him actually wrestling. Dustin Rhodes was a once-great wrestler who when he showed up as Goldust in the WWF stunk the joint out. "Nerves," people said, suggesting that the gimmick maybe had Dustin nervous. "Give him time." In this match, he was almost as lousy as UT, Jim Duggan, Kamala, and the like, a tremendous drop from where he could be. - The Rumble itself. For whatever reason (hmmm, could it be that the first 12 entrants included nobody that seemed willing to work), this match was one of the worst Rumbles in recent memory. It was booked similar to the three-ring battle royal that WCW did last year: all the key players had limited focus until the final few minutes of the match. I think that's what hurt it compared to other years. The first 20-30 minutes was just a lot of going through the motions. Vince's line of the night, in response to Hennig pointing out a booking fallacy in the Rumble, was "It doesn't have to make sense. It's the Royal Rumble!" - Perhaps the most annoying negatives were the illogical explanations and directions that they gave and took this night. I found this very atypical for a WWF show. Gorilla Monsoon happens to be watching the "Free For All" match and gets the ref to watch a tape and reverse his decision. Later, when 1-2-3 Kid blatantly interferes in the IC Title match, are we to believe that Monsoon is no longer around, or no longer watching the monitor, that IC Title matches are somehow less important than the prelim opener? In the strangest move, though, after Diesel screwed the Undertaker out of what they pushed as a definite win (UT had delivered his finisher), Monsoon declares that Diesel is now the number one contender. I guess that losing the Rumble also elevated Diesel. Worse yet, to avoid interference like Diesel had perpetrated earlier, Diesel's match will be in a cage. So, not only does he lose and interfere and then get rewarded...he also gets a plum reward. It made no sense. I know, I know, read Vince's quote above. Overall, I guess I would give the show a thumbs in a middle or a slight thumbs down. Shawn Michaels was handled great. The addition of Vader was super. I liked the Bodydonnas getting a title shot. But there just wasn't enough good wrestling. - WCW had a Clash of Champions last night. The show was a mixed bag, as usual. Highlights were: - Brian Pillman. He's on fire as a heel and finally getting an interesting push as a Horseman. The character and short match time hurt the wrestling a bit tonight, but his intensity was amazing (rivalling Shawn Michaels on Sunday, IMO). - Alex Wright vs. Dean Malenko. A very good match. Wright didn't take Malenko's leg whip in the usual way and it looked like he might really have been hurt. That somehow added a lot of credibility to the leg submission attempts. - Konnan vs. Psicosis. A good match. Psicosis held back a lot, but still showed a few things and Konnan did a lot more than I'm used to seeing him do. Bringing out Mike Tenay made this the match with the best commentary of the past week. Lowlights were: - The Elvis shtick. It's not like it killed what would have been a great match, though. - Hogan & Savage. As bad as they are, they didn't come close to Goldust or UT on Sunday. Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys left me sort of indifferent. My opinion that Johnny Grunge is useless solidifies every time I see them. The street fight match that this brawl set up will no doubt be entertaining, but it will likely contain very little wrestling. In the Observer year-end awards, the Public Enemy came in second in Tag Team of the Year. Meltzer points this out and then points out that the American Males didn't place, but did place on the Worst Team of the Year list despite being, IHO, far superior all-around workers. I also think the Sting & Lex Luger story line has been reasonably well developed and I like that they are at least trying to mix things up from the traditional face vs. heel structure. Overall, I came away giving this show a mild thumbs up. I think I would have been far more positive if the main event wasn't bad, since the undercard was actually good. Nothing on the show was embarrassingly bad except the Elvis shtick, but that was so short it didn't kill me. - I got some mail from Brian Hildebrand, better known as referee Mark Curtis to SMW fans, asking for comments about the promotion's four year run. Brian mentioned that SMW merchandise is still available if anybody wants to get any memorabilia. - WCW has SuperBrawl on 02/11/96. Tentative line-up has: - Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage for the WCW Title in a cage - Hulk Hogan vs. Giant - Harlem Heat vs. Lex Luger & Sting for the WCW Tag Titles - One Man Gang vs. Konnan for the US Title - Johnny B. Badd vs. Diamond Dallas Page for the TV Title - Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys in a street fight - Disco Inferno vs. Alex Wright - The WWF has an In Your House PPV on 02/18/96. - Bret Hart vs. Diesel for the WWF Title in a cage - Goldust vs. Razor Ramon for the IC Title - Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas for the Tag Titles - Shawn Michaels vs. Owen Hart - Undertaker vs. Yokozuna in a casket match - The RAW vs. Nitro ratings war thus far looks like this (draw your own conclusions): WCW Nitro WWF RAW Rating Share Live Rating Share Live 09/04/95 2.9 ? Y - - - 09/11/95 2.5 3.8 Y 2.2 3.2 N 09/18/95 2.4 3.4 Y 2.5 3.4 N 09/25/95 1.9 2.8 Y 2.7 3.8 Y 10/02/95 2.5 3.7 Y 2.5 3.5 N 10/09/95 2.6 3.8 Y 2.6 3.8 N 10/16/95 2.2 3.2 Y 2.5 3.6 N 10/23/95 2.2 3.2 Y 2.6 3.8 Y 10/30/95 2.5 3.6 Y 2.2 3.1 N 11/06/95 2.3 3.2 Y 2.1 3.0 N 11/13/95 2.0 2.9 N 2.6 3.9 N 11/20/95 2.5 3.6 Y 2.3 3.3 Y 11/27/95 2.3 3.3 Y 2.5 3.4 N 12/04/95 2.6 3.8 Y 2.4 3.4 N 12/11/95 2.6 3.7 Y 2.5 3.4 N 12/18/95 2.7 4.0 Y 2.3 3.4 Y 12/25/95 2.5 - N - - - 01/01/96 2.5 3.7 Y 2.6 3.8 N 01/08/96 2.8 3.9 Y 3.0 4.1 N - The PPV buy rates of the past year or so look like this (draw your own conclusions): buy rate revenue (millions) 01/22/95 Royal Rumble 1.0 $2.58 04/02/95 WrestleMania 1.4 $5.10 95/05/14 In Your House 0.83 $1.26 95/06/25 King of the Ring 0.65 $1.68 95/07/25 In Your House II 0.7 $1.08 95/08/27 SummerSlam 0.9 $2.37 95/09/24 In Your House III 0.7 $1.10 95/10/22 In Your House IV 0.4 $0.62 95/11/19 Survivor Series 0.57 $1.47 95/12/17 In Your House V 0.33 $0.68 95/02/19 SuperBrawl 0.95 $2.8 95/03/19 Uncensored 0.96 $2.8 95/05/21 Slamboree 0.57 $1.46 95/06/18 Great American Bash 0.51 $1.32 95/07/18 Bash at the Beach 0.82 $2.37 95/09/17 Fall Brawl 0.48 $1.21 95/10/29 Halloween Havoc 0.6 $1.74 95/11/26 World War 3 0.43 $1.11 95/12/27 Starrcade 0.36 $1.04 WWF Average (past year) 0.75 $1.79 WCW Average (past year) 0.63 $1.76 WWF Average (last 6 months) 0.6 $1.22 WCW Average (last 6 months) 0.54 $1.49 - WCW has Uncensored on 03/24/96. - The WWF has WrestleMania on 03/31/96. The projected line-up has: - Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title - Diesel vs. Undertaker - Huckster vs. Nacho Man with Billionaire Ted as referee - WCW has Slamboree on 05/19/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/26/96. - WCW has Great American Bash on 06/16/96. - The WWF has King of The Ring on 06/23/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/21/96. - WCW has Quake At The Lake on 07/07/96. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/18/96. - WCW has Fall Brawl 09/15/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 09/22/96. - WCW has Halloween Havoc 10/27/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 10/20/96. - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/17/96. - WCW has World War III 11/24/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 12/15/96. - WCW has Starrcade on 12/29/96. - WWW: My home page is at http://barrow.uwaterloo.ca/~hekunze. The wrestling portion includes this post, tape lists, awards history, Japanese wrestling stuff, and other things. - 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. Herb...