From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 03/14 Date: 1996/03/15 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 142927486 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling - Let's try to get things straight: - Diesel has given notice to the WWF and will for WCW in June. He will supposedly work his planned role until then. - Razor Ramon has given notice to the WWF and is suspended for 6 weeks, will miss WrestleMania as a result, but will likely work through to May before heading to WCW. - Johnny B. Badd has left WCW and will head to the WWF shortly. It is rumoured that he may even debut at WrestleMania and that he will immediately be put into a program with Steve Austin. - Rumours persist that Bret Hart will leave the WWF after Wrestlemania, with some reports saying that he will go to WCW as well. All of the above wrestlers would lose their gimmicks, which means that the first three actually lose their ring names. - The WWF has vacated the tag titles (Billy Gunn is recovering from a legitimate injury) and began a tag team tournament to crown new champions. Bracketing looks like this ("*"ed teams have advanced): Skip & Flip vs. Luke & Butch ---\ The Bodydonnas The Bushwhackers \ |-- --\ / \ *Razor Ramon vs. 1-2-3 Kid ---/ \ & Savio Vega & Tatanka \ |-- final *Henry O. Godwinn vs. Marty Janetty / & Phineas I. Godwinn & Al Snow ---\ / \ / |-- --/ Hakushi vs.*Owen Hart / & Barry Horowitz & Davey Boy Smith ---/ The final will take place at WrestleMania. Early predictions are that it will come down to Bodydonnas vs. Godwinns with the Bodydonnas going over. With Razor Ramon out of the WWF, talk is that Savio Vega will surprise everybody by teaming with Steve Austin in the tournament; the two are set for a match at WrestleMania, so I guess the team will argue to heat up a singles feud. - WCW has Uncensored on 03/24/96. Line-up looks like: - Hulk Hogan vs. Arn Anderson, Kevin Sullivan, Ric Flair, and Lex Luger in four cage matches - Road Warriors vs. Sting & Booker T in a Chicago street fight - Konnan vs. Eddie Guerrero for the US Title - Randy Savage vs. Chris Benoit in a falls count anywhere match - Steve Regal vs. David Finlay - Loch Ness vs. Giant - Madusa vs. Col. Parker - The WWF has WrestleMania on 03/31/96. The projected line-up has: - Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title in a 60-minute marathon match - Diesel vs. Undertaker - Vader & Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Yokozuna & Ahmed Johnson & Jake Roberts - Goldust vs. Roddy Piper - Ultimate Warrior vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley - Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega The pre-game show will include: - Finals of the tag team tournament - Huckster vs. Nacho Man with Billionaire Ted as referee There is already some guessing that Johnny B. Badd will take Vega's place. - New Japan's Tokyo Dome Battle Formation takes place on 04/29/96. My Japanese friend Masaki reports the line-up: - Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shinya Hashimoto for the IWGP Title - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Genichiro Tenryu - Road Warriors & Power Warrior vs. Steiners & Scott Norton - Great Sasuke challenges winner of Shinjiro Otani vs. Jushin Liger (on 03/17) for the IWGP Jr. Title - Great Muta vs. Hakushi - Randy Savage vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan - Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono - On the 03/20/96 New Japan show, Chris Benoit faces Shinjiro Otani in a match that will determine the WCW Cruiserweight champion, presumably aired here as the finals of an imaginary tournament. That's guaranteed to be one hell of 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 01/15/96 3.5 5.0 Y 2.4 3.5 N 01/22/96 2.7 - Y 2.9 - Y 01/29/96 2.8 4.0 Y 2.4 3.4 N 02/05/96 2.9 4.0 Y 2.7 3.7 N 02/12/96 3.7 5.3 Y - - - 02/19/96 2.9 4.1 Y 3.1 4.4 Y 02/26/96 3.2 4.6 Y 3.1 4.4 N 03/04/96 - - - 3.6 5.2 - - The PPV buy rates of the past year or so look like this (draw your own conclusions; the PPV universe seems to be about 23.5-million large, so a 1.0 buy rate, say, would correspond to 235K buys): buy rate revenue (millions) 95/01/22 Royal Rumble 1.0 $2.58 95/04/02 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 96/01/22 Royal Rumble 1.1 $3.56 96/02/18 In Your House 0.77 $1.66 (WWF figures) 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 95/02/11 SuperBrawl 0.63 $1.86 WWF Average (past year) 0.76 $1.87 WCW Average (past year) 0.60 $1.66 WWF Average (last 6 months) 0.65 $1.52 WCW Average (last 6 months) 0.50 $1.39 - WCW has Slamboree on 05/19/96. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/26/96 (from Barrie, Ontario, not too far from here). Lee Versage, a local student, tells me that that the WWF will broadcast RAW live the next day from the section of Toronto's Sky Dome where the Raptors basketball team plays and that the subsequent TV tapings may be from Cornwall. I haven't been able to confirm this. - 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. - WCW has a PPV in 08/96. This was just added to the schedule. - 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...