Picture of the Week This week's picture is another collage featuring the FMW Kawasaki Baseball Stadium show from 05/05/96. _________________________________________________________________ - WCW has the Bash at the Beach this past Sunday. Brief results: * The Steiners beat Harlem Heat by DQ when Colonel Parker interfered. Sherri Martel returned and re-united with Parker. * Rock'n'Roll Express beat Scott Norton & Ice Train when Norton was pinned after a team screw up, further teasing the split of the team. * Rey Misterio Jr. beat Psicosis in a tremendous match and an excellent opener for the PPV. Mike Tenay did guest commentary and was about as good as usual. Tony Schiavone still showed little interest in learning to call matches in this style. This was easily the best match of the show and one of the best matches on PPV this year thus far. The next night Misterio went on to win the Cruiserweight Title on Nitro. * John Tenta beat Big Bubba in a Carson City Silver Dollar match. Terrible finish that had 1980s WWF written all over it. * Diamond Dallas Page beat Jim Duggan in a taped fist match. Ditto. Page's style just doesn't work that much for me. He was tolerable when Johnny B. Badd was wasted against him, but it's ever clearer that his push is worthless. * Nasty Boys beat Public Enemy in a double dog collar match. This was uninspired brawling that will surely get some raves from certain fans. They brawled back to the fake beach set up for the event and did some spots involving the props. * Dean Malenko beat Disco Inferno to retain the Cruiserweight Title. This was a bit of a surprise. Inferno's offence is not strong but they did a good job anyhow and approached the *** range. Inferno's gimmick is pretty funny, but it's annoying when it affects the match too much. * Steve McMichael beat Joe Gomez. Terrible, as expected. McMichael used the tombstone piledriver for a finish. I saw the show with local fan, Sanjay Mohanta, who always tries to explain the strengths of ECW in our discussions. I couldn't resist pointing out that McMichael's first match had him doing a figure four, his second appearance had him do a power slam, and his third match had him do a tombstone; he's adding a move a match. Only in WCW (Sanjay would say ECW) can we watch somebody improve like that right before our eyes! * Ric Flair beat Konnan for the US Title. This was also pretty good, although the finish (both Liz & Woman interfering) made Flair look weak again, hurting his credibility as a title contender, if they want to push him as such. * Giant & Kevin Sullivan beat Chris Benoit & Arn Anderson when Giant choke-slammed Arn for the pin. Benoit was great as you'd expect and Sullivan was the same old piece of crap as always. They brawled to the beach setting, but it was mostly uneventful. Benoit did a tope off the broadcast platform onto Sullivan. The Horsemen got a good reaction. After the match, Benoit superplexed (belly-to-back) Sullivan and Woman came out screaming "don't hurt him!" and the like in a weird spot. * Scott Hall & Kevin Nash went to a non-finish with Sting & Randy Savage & Lex Luger. Before the PPV started, I described this match exactly except for the Luger swerve (Luger was eliminated early on, thanks to an accidental Stinger Splash, setting up the idea that he could come back out as an Outsider). The Outsiders (they have a team name, anyhow, and were called Nash and Hall a few times during the match) said they would fight two-on-three. After Luger's elimination, they had an okay match until both of the faces were pretty much laid out. The commentators had tried to get over the idea that, with Luger eliminated so early, WCW should be able to bring out a replacement partner. I don't think they did a good job of getting this point across. In any case, when Hulk Hogan came out, we were to think he was going to confront the heels. Instead, he leg dropped Randy Savage and one of the Outsiders counted the pin (the referee had been discarded by this point for the non-finish). Gene Okerlund hit the ring and Hogan did an interview that would embarrass most of the "hardcore" interview heroes, easily his best in years: Gene: Hulk Hogan? Excuse me, excuse me. What in the world are you thinking? Hogan: 'Mean' Gene, the first thing you need to do is to tell these people to shut up if you want to hear what I've got to say. Gene: I've been with you for so many years for you to join up with the likes of these two men absolutely makes me sick to my stomach. And I think that these people here, and a lot of other people around the world, have had just about of enough of this man and this man. And you want to put yourself in this group? You've gotta be kidding me! Hogan: Well, the first thing you've got to realize, brother, is that this right here is the future of wrestling. You can call this, the new world order of wrestling, brother. These two men right here came from a great big organization up north and everybody was wondering who the third man was. Well who knows more about that organization than me, brother? Gene: I've been there. I've done that. You have made the wrong decision, in my opinion. Hogan: Well, let me tell you something. I made that organization a monster. I made people rich up there. I made the people that ran that organization rich up there, brother. And when it all came to pass, the name Hulk Hogan, the man Hulk Hogan, got bigger than the whole organization, brother. And then billionaire Ted, amigo, he wanted to talk turkey with Hulk Hogan. Well, billionaire Ted promised me movies, brother. Billionaire Ted promised me millions of dollars and billionaire Ted promised me world caliber matches. And as far as Billionaire Ted, Eric Bishoff, and the whole WCW goes, I'm bored, brother. That's why these two guys here, the so-called Outsiders, these are the men I want as my friends. They're the new blood of professional wrestling, brother. And not only are we going to take over the whole wrestling buisness, with Hulk Hogan, and the new blood, the monsters, with me. We will destroy everything in our path, Mean Gene. Gene: Look at all of this crap in this ring. this is what's in the future for you, if you want to hang around the likes of this man, Hall, and this man, Nash. Hulk Hogan: As far as I'm concerned, all of this crap in the ring represents these fans out here. For two years, brother, for two years, I held my head high. I did everything for the charities. I did everything for the kids. And the reception I got when I came out here? You fans can stick it, brother. Because...and if it wasn't for Hulk Hogan, you people wouldn't be here. And if it wasn't for Hulk Hogan, Eric Bishoff would be still selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis. And if it wasn't for Hulk Hogan, all of these "Johnny-come-lately"s that you see out here wrestling wouldn't be here. I was selling out the world, brother, while they were bumming gas to put in their car to get to high school. So the way it is now, brother, with Hulk Hogan and the new world organization of wrestling, brther, me and the new blood by my side. Whatcha gonna do when the new world order runs wild on you? Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do? Gene: Hey! Don't touch me! I'm gonna see the lawyers. Tony, Bobby, Dusty, damn it, let's get back to you. Tony Schiavone: For Bobby the brain Heenan, for Dusty Rhodes, Gene Okerlund, I don't know, I'm Tony Schiavone...Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell...we're out of here...straight to hell. Overall, with that opening match and the final angle, this show has to get a thumbs up. While I don't care for a few of the storylines, WCW seems to have adopted a booking strategy that focusses on a lot of angles, with some surprisingly strong ones. The other highlight for me was during the Hogan turn when a moronic fan charged the ring only to get stomped a bit by Hall and Nash before the police took him away and hopefully locked him in the moron asylum. Hall & Nash are my new favourites for doing to this guy what I've long felt every ECW ringside fan deserves. - It looks like the Ultimate Warrior may be on his way out of the WWF. As is well known already, UW missed his house show dates after the late June TV taping. This week on RAW, they aired a message from Gorilla Monsoon burying the Warrior a bit for the no-shows and saying that he won't re-appear until he posts an appearance bond; that cover story was muddled when Monsoon said that UW vs. Owen Hart would take place on the show as advertised. They didn't really bury Warrior during the match, so I guess there's a chance that something will be worked out. Warrior missed the shows because his father died, but the Observer hints that there's more to the story. The Observer also points out that a split between the WWF and UW would be complicated by their business partnerships in the Warrior University and with the comic book. In the mean time, a match that could seemingly only improve with his elimination seemingly became worse as Psycho Sid was brought in as the replacement sixth man for the PPV match. The Observer reports that Bret Hart turned down an offer to fill the spot. - I forgot to mention that on my flight home from Montreal a couple of weeks back I flipped through Time magazine's Olympics special. They had a story on Bruce Baumgartner that took some shots at pro-wrestling, most notably when Bruce, seeing Dr. Death Steve Williams on a TV screen, laughed at the name and said he ate him up. - The New Japan Jr. Tournament takes place from 08/02 to 08/06 and will involve many notable Jr. champions from around the world. With Dean Malenko dropping the title to Rey Misterio Jr., one can only hope that Rey is added to the tourney roster. - The Observer talks about the 06/29-06/30 ECW house shows in New York: "Told the crowds both nights were really boold thirsty, even by ECW standards, so even though there wasn't anything that would be called good wrestling except maybe the Eliminators match with Jericho & Whipwreck, the fans came to see the brawling and the blood, both of which were provided." This weekend, I'll likely find the time to watch some more recent ECW major shows. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/21/96. Line-up has: * Vader & Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Shawn Michaels & Ahmed Johnson & Psycho Sid * Undertaker vs. Goldust * Mankind vs. Jake Roberts * Savio Vega vs. Justin Bradshaw * Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas * Steve Austin vs. Marc Mero Justin Bradshaw vs. Savio Vega may be the Free For All match. By adding the Austin vs. Mero match, they've finally put on a match that actually promises to be excellent. The main event could be good since well booked six man tags can hide weaknesses. - Nitro beat RAW on 07/01 with a 3.3 rating (6.2 share) against a 2.6 rating (4.5 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. Over the past three weeks Nitro has scored the three hhighest shares since the head-to-head competition began. The Observer reports that for the week ending 06/16, total WCW viewership was 5.73 million on 180 stations, and total WWF viewership was 4.01 million on 153 stations. The detailed ratings are a click away. - The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.80 (0.75) and average gross of $2.09-million ($1.72-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.55 (0.56) and average gross of $1.58-million ($1.62-million). The details are an interesting read. - WCW has Hog Wild on 08/10/96. - WCW has Clash of Champions XXXIII on 08/14/96. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/18/96. - The WWF has the sequel to the Big Event at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto on 08/24/96. Line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Vader for the WWF Title - 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. This is the first show that Jeff Jarrett can work. - 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. The Observer reports that there are very serious talks about doing the show liver from Tokyo. - 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. _________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me