From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 05/23 Date: 1996/05/24 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 156434763 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling Wrestling TidBits --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of the Week Since I didn't have any new pictures last week, I've whipped up a couple of collages to make up for it. The first one features the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels match from WrestleMania and the second one features the Great Muta vs. Hakushi match from the New Japan Egg Dome show. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] WCW's Slamboree took place this past Sunday. The quick results are: * Hawk & Lex Luger DCOR Animal & Booker T, 7:00. * Public Enemy b. Chris Benoit & Kevin Sullivan, 5:00. Benoit gets pinned. * Rick Steiner & Booty Man b. Scott Steiner & Craig Pittman, 8:16. Rick pins Pittman with a German suplex. * Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet b. Blue Bloods, 3:41. Duggan pins Taylor. * Dick Slater & Bobby Eaton b. Alex Wright & Disco Inferno, 6:57. Slater pins Disco. * Diamond Dallas Page & Barbarian b. Meng & Hugh Morrus, 5:30. Barbarian pins Morrus. * Scott Norton & Ice Train b. Big Bubba & Stevie Ray, 3:38. Norton pins Bubba. * Ric Flair & Randy Savage b. Arn Anderson & Eddy Guerrero, 4:48. Flair pins Guerrero. * Dean Malenko b. Brad Armstrong to retain the WCW Cruiserweight Title, 8:31. * Scott Norton & Ice Train get a bye into the battle royal. * Dick Slater & Bobby Eaton b. Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet, 4:10. Eaton pins Wallstreet. * Public Enemy b. Ric Flair & Randy Savage by default. * Diamond Dallas Page & Barbarian b. Rick Steiner & Booty Man, 5:11. Barbarian pins Booty Man. * Konnan b. Jushin Liger to retain US Title, 9:30. * Battle Bowl battle royal with winners of tag matches was won by Diamond Dallas Page, 9:37. * Giant b. Sting to retains WCW Title, 10:39. The show was a big disapointment, with only one match (Liger's) breaking **, so it gets an easy thumbs down from me. There were just too many matches and the match lengths suffered because of it. In many ways, this was like the limited-attention-span product of the WWF ten years ago. With WCW having so much TV these days, all of the big stars have been getting title shots, so having the battle royal filled with guys that are extremely unlikely to get a title match made some sense, but those are also the guys that people care the least about -- catch 22. The commentary was abysmal until Mike Tenay came out to save the Liger match. Of course, when he talked about submission moves being worked into the match style because of the success that those moves have had in other styles, Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan were left clueless, since none of the stars of the promotion or the commentators have ever bothered to learn any of these moves. The Cruiserweight title would seem to be dead already, thanks to the promotion doing absolutely everything wrong in creating it (as I rambled about last week). No, besides Liger's performance (and Tenay's) I can't find anything good to say about this show; nothing was too brutally embarrassing, but there was so little worthwhile. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Three of the Four Horsemen]Three of the Four Horsemen --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on Sunday. Line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith for the WWF Title [ - ] Cute line from the Observer: "At the [WCW] tapings the previous week in Daytona Beach, Jackie Crockett violently ripped a `Hogan's Klik' sign out of a fan's hand. I guess they were afraid people would think WCW fans can't spell any better than WWF fans." [ - ] Former SMW wrestlers Tracy Smothers and Tony Anthony, along with Alex Porteau and Johnny Gunn, are being brought in to the WWF to work as jobbers in competitive matches. [ - ] WCW Monday Nitro becomes a two hour show beginning this Monday. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the usually strong post-PPV RAW rating. No word how this affects Canadians who have been receiving the one-hour show on the BBS network. [ - ] [RAW] beat [Nitro] on 05/06 with a 3.5 rating (5.1 share) against a 2.3 rating (4.4 share). It's important to note that Nitro was on earlier than usual. The Monday ratings show a pretty even battle to date. [ - ] The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.75 (0.75) and average gross of $1.94-million ($1.74-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.55 (0.57) and average gross of $1.59-million ($1.59-million). The details are an interesting read. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Kawada vs. Akiyama]Jun Akiyama takes a crazy suplex --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 05/26/96. [ - ] The World Wrestling Peace Festival takes place in Los Angeles on 06/01/96. New Japan, WCW, AAA, EMLL, and others are going to put on a joint card featuring: * Antonio Inoki & Dan Severn vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Oleg Taktarov * Chris Benoit vs. Alex Wright * Giant vs. Sting * Lex Luger vs. Masa Saito * Chris Jericho vs. Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Konnan in a triangle match * Akira Hoktuo & Lola Gonzales vs. Bull Nakano & Neftali * Dos Caras & Hector Garza vs. Gran Markus Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. * Octagon & El Ultimo Dragon vs. Heavy Metal & Psicosis * Atlantis & El Hijo del Santo vs. Silver King & Negro Casas * Great Sasuke vs. Jushin Liger [ - ] WCW has Great American Bash on 06/16/96. Line-up has: * Giant vs. Lex Luger for the WCW Title * Konnan vs. Sting for the US Title * Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs. Steve McMichael & Kevin Greene * Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight Title * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Great Muta * Booty Man vs. Hugh Morrus * Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit [ - ] 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 on 08/11/96. [ - ] WCW has Clash of Champions XXXIII on 08/14/96. [ - ] 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 from Caeser's Palace. It will be an outdoor show. [ - ] 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Cactus Jack & his wife] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] 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. The tape list has recently been updated and will hopefully get another update this weekend. A lot of stuff accumulated at the end of this past term. [ - ] 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Click here to return. E-mail: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca