From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 08/29 Date: 1996/08/29 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 177374556 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to everybody who sent their best wishes over the past two weeks. The honeymoon was a lot of fun. We went to Sandals Antigua (yes, that was an image of the actual resort on 08/08); it was just gorgeous. Many people have asked me to post a picture that's wedding-related, so I've included our engagement photo. From a wrestling perspective, the honeymoon was reasonably uneventful. I did manage to sit through the Clash of Champions in the TV lounge just off the main courtyard. A security guard and a handyman showed some interest in and knowledge of WCW. I didn't ask about S.D. Jones. In the I-couldn't-make-this-up-if-I-tried department, there was a guy at the resort that was the spitting image of the Sandman from ECW. A couple of nights during the week, the resort runs a bingo game for t-shirts and rum (I won a shirt). One of the nights, Sandman played along and when he wasn't getting any numbers he started a "these bingo cards suck" chant at his table! Nobody understood why I burst into laughter on the other side of the courtyard. On a completely different note, I'm starting to run out of space for images and had to pare away most of the images from March and April. My web page data is eating up about 20 megabytes of space! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picture of the Week This week's picture is a collage featuring the 05/28/96 El Samurai vs. Chris Benoit match from the Best of the Super Junior III Tournament. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Otani vs. Malenko] [ - ] Thanks to the efforts of Sanjay & Francesca, I received tapes of both of the PPVs that took place while I was gone. I've managed to watch both shows already. WCW's Hog Wild gets a thumbs up from me, even though the main events were lacklustre. The undercard had three really good matches in Rey Misterio Jr. vs. El Ultimo Dragon, Chris Benoit vs. Dean Malenko (sad finish, though the right guy went over), and Ric Flair & Eddy Guerrero. Anybody who questions Ric Flair's place in the promotion right now needs to see how he took bumps for Guerrero, better than the majority of people that have taken those bumps a hundred times. The twin main event was terrible. The storyline in the tag match, with Nick Patrick playing his role in the win for the Outsiders, was good, but it didn't work out smoothly. Giving Hulk Hogan the title was also the right thing to do, in all likelihood, but the match was atrocious. 1-2-3 Kid was backstage waiting to debut as the fourth NWO member, but the WWF is holding up his contract release - you'd think that if the WWF thought they had a strong legal case against this whole NWO storyline, they'd let Sean Waltman out of his contract in the hopes that WCW would get even closer to crossing the line. Now, they are holding things up because they want WCW to agree to not use his Titan appearance, mannerisms, and dress. Anyhow, since they'd hinted that a fourth NWO member may surface at this event, they did a confusing angle with The Booty Man getting beaten up by Hogan, Nash, and Hall. The show can be summarized as: pretty good undercard, lousy main event. WWF's SummerSlam has the exact opposite summary: lousy undercard, pretty good main event. Boy, have things turned around from the mid-1980s. The undercard was filled with ** matches, some because the wrestlers involved were physically unable to work (Skip), some because the wrestlers involved can't work (Jake Roberts, Sid), and some because the wrestlers involved don't feel like working (Owen Hart, Goldust). The only standouts in the undercard were Sunny, who has tremendous star presence and is easily the top woman in the big two because of it, and Marc Mero. There was a fan at ringside dressed like Goldust and another dressed like Shawn Michaels. During Mero's match with Goldust, Mankind came out and called Sable "Mommy" before scurrying to the back, so maybe this is Mero's next opponent. Mankind's boiler room match with Undertaker was pretty lousy. The early portion of the match was pre-taped to avoid any mistakes and they did an expert job of splicing that with the real action when the wrestlers burst through the boiler room doorway. It was nonsensical brawling for the most part, with Mankind taking some of his trademark bumps, including the "Nestea plunge" bump from the apron. The strong storyline at the finish had Paul Bearer turn on Undertaker after a six-year-long relationship. They dragged this out way too long for my tastes and followed it up by having a group of druids come out from the back to carry the Undertaker away. At least he didn't levitate again. This whole storyline might be entertaining to ten year olds, I suppose. The main event of Shawn Michaels vs. Vader was about as good as you'd expect, although the finish with two restarts was a little weak. Still, the main event is enough for me to give this show a thumbs up. During one of the pull-aparts between restarts, Shawn Michaels echoed the words of so many before him, telling Pat Patterson to "get [his] hands off of [him]." [ - ] There's a lot of talk that Bret Hart will return to the WWF as a heel. [ - ] Jeff Jarrett starts with WCW in October. The team formerly known as the Quebecers, Jacques Rougeau & Pierre Oulette, have signed contracts with WCW. Hulk Hogan's nephew, who has wrestled as Horace Boulder for the garbage promotions in Japan, has also signed with WCW. Randy Savage's brother, Lanny Poffo, is also under contract. Ted DiBiase has debuted in WCW as the manager of the NWO. [ - ] The Observer confirms that WCW will create a women's title for Madusa to wear. Chigusa Nagayo's promotions, Gaea, will be involved in the tournament and other reports have had independents Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto in there too. [ - ] Jushin Liger's brain tumour was benign. There is talk that he'll be able to work the September tour for New Japan. [Otani vs. Malenko] [ - ] Steve Regal was given the TV Title because WCW had plans of bringing in more wrestlers from the UK. They also plan to promote this belt as a world wide title and will air matches with Regal defending in England and Japan, etc. Obviously, Regal is one of the few guys in the company with the ability to work quality matches in such different environments. [ - ] Dan Kroffat was planning on joining Doug Furnas in WCW, but All Japan put the screws to the deal, since WCW has a talent agreement with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Could you have imagined Dan putting together one of his trademarked best-in-the-world finishes with some of the guys in WCW? Egad. There is talk that All Japan & ECW may reach a talent agreement, likely fueled by the presence of Terry Gordy and Steve Williams in ECW. Still, ECW works with the IWA and lord knows that Giant Baba doesn't want anything to do with a promotion like IWA. [ - ] The WWF is apparently going to take a big hit in TV syndication in the fall. This, and the realization that WCW draws a much larger chunk of the adult audience, has given rise to the idea of running a weekly one-hour PPV on Saturday nights at midnight or later, presumably with more risque or mature content. Of course, this leads to a problem, since Saturday night is the best house show night - either people on the PPV couldn't work the house show or they'd have to travel back to New York for the broadcast (the PPV would be from the same location each week). Most recent talk is that this idea is dead in the water because of the inherent risk and because the major PPV companies panned it. [ - ] ECW also some major moments in the past couple of weeks. ECW & IWA ran a two-night show in Japan which the Observer reports was a mixed bag. The first night, 08/10, had "little heat for anything on the show and the work quality was said to have been poor. There were said to have been a few pockets of fans into ECW but for the most part it was a dead crowd." The next night, 08/11, "was said to have been a good card with good heat", although "the work and the heat were better for the LLPW [secondary women's promotion] show" in the afternoon. "The Eliminators were said to have been over the least of the ECW crew [...]. [Steve] Richards got over the biggest of all the ECW wrestlers with the crowd [...]." Stemming from Dave Meltzer's comments on the Rob van Damme vs. Sabu match in ECW, the readers pages of the Observer have been flooded with ECW-related letters. First, one ECW fan took Meltzer to task for calling the above match one-dimensional, ignoring many of the things that Meltzer wrote. The August 19 double issue had several letters on the matter. Excerpts: * Richard Siegel (for some reason, I recall this guy being a doctor that has often commented on AIDS and pro-wrestling): "Fans rarely suffer serious injuries, long term physical disabilities or loss of earning power by incurring bodily damage. Wrestlers do. Fans shouting `ECW! ECW!' as Joey Styles appears on television gets the juices flowing. Fans shouting `ECW! ECW!' as Sabu, Rey Misterio Jr., Tommy Dreamer risk their health taking crazier bumps denigrate the wrestlers. If the suicidal ante is raised every month, how soon before a major tragedy takes place? [...] Blood, whether hardway or by blading, nowadays is stupid. If bosing referees wear gloves, why don't wrestling referees?" * Ric Davies: "My eight-year old likes the brutal style of ECW, but no way am I going to let him watch those interviews or matches where deliquent moron fans are chanting that stuff. I enjoy the brutal style and enjoy the flying, but let's not forget that somewhere should be the word wrestling and whenever that happens, you hear `boring' and `you suck' chants. * Name withheld: "If just about everyone thinks the first match between Sabu an Rob Van Dam was one of the top three matches this year in the United States, everyone must only include people in the bingo hall. "There were many missed spots and a lack of believability [...] Work is not high spots, chairs and breaking tables. Anyone with balls can do this. It takes real talent to work a match and to think it through psychologically. Look at Public Enemy. Now that they're in WCW, you can see them for what they are. Guys who are willing to take a beating but can't work. "[...] there are many WWF and WCW wrestlers who can work ECW style matches. However, most ECW wrestlers couldn't work a straight match." * Paul Armentano: "I was at the Harcore Heaven show and it supplied some great action. What I don't like was just how many fans could have cared less about what was going on in the ring and just come to the Arena to try to get themselves over on television. The wrestlers are the ones who are supposed to be the show, not a bunch of fans chanting stupid obscenities or seeing what foreign object to hand to Tommy Dreamer. [...] All the fans around me didn't care about Dreamer, they just cared whether or not they got their hands on a piece of broken table." * Ramon Lores: "ECW action is violent to be sure, but it's believability factor is on a cartoon leverl rather than a reality level. "[...]I like many things about ECW inclusing the violence, the good work ethic of the wrestlers and the entertaining angles. However, I don't put ECW on a pedestal and worship it like some people seem to be doing. Every major promotion in the world has good points and bad points. There isn't a perfect promotion out there and ECW is far from perfect, and very overrated to boot. "[...]Most ECW angles and chants are either too obscene or too inside for an outsider to undertand, appreciate or be entertained by." * "[...]ECW should also be taken to task for its appalling portrayal of its femal characters. Couldn't Heyman come up with better ways to quell fans boredom than to make Kimona do a strip tease or go on the mic and offer free blowjobs courtesy of Divine Brown?" [ - ] The Observer had created a Hall of Fame, inducting a large group of wrestling personalities to start. The list looks like this (in alphabetical order): Perro Aguayo, Andre the Giant, Bert Assirati, Giant Baba, Jim Barnett, Wild Red Berry, Fred Blassie, Nick Bockwinkel, Paul Boesch, Bobo Brazil, Jack Brisco, Bruiser Brody, Dick The Bruiser, Mildred Burke, Abdullah the Butcher, El Canek, Negro Casas, Riki Choshu, Jim Cornette, The Crusher, Alfonso Dantes, Blue Demon, The Destroyer, Ted DiBiase, The Dusek Family Riot Squad, Jackie Fargo, Ric Flair, Tatsumi Fujinami, Dory Funk Jr., Dory Funk Sr., Terry Funk, Verne Gagne, Cavernario Galindo, Ed Don George, Gorgeous George, Frank Gotch, Karl Gotch, Superstar Billy Graham, Eddie Graham, Rene Guajardo, Salvador Gori Guerrero, George Hackenschmidt, Stan Hansen, Bret Hart, Stu Hart, Bobby Heenan, Danny Hodge, Hulk Hogan, Antonio Inoki, Rayo De Jalisco, Tom Jenkins, Don Leo Jonathan, The Fabulous Kangaroos, Dynamite Kid, Gene Kiniski, Fred Kohler, Killer Kowalski, Ernie Ladd, Dick Lane, Jerry Lawler, Strangler Lewis, Jim Londos, Salvador Lutteroth, Akira Maeda, Devil Masami, Mil Mascaras, Tiger Mask, Dump Matsumoto, Earl McCready, Leroy McGuirk, Vine McMahon Jr., Vince McMahon Sr., Danny McShane, Rey Mendoza, Mitsuhara Misawa, Joe "Toots" Mondt, Sam Muchnick, Bronko Nagurski, Pat O'Connor, Kintaro Oki, Atsushi Onita, Pat Patterson, Antonio Pena, John Pesek, Roddy Piper, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Rikidozan, Yvon Robert, Antonino Rocca, Road Warriors, Billy Robinson, Buddy Rogers, Lance Russell, Bruno Sammartino, Billy Sandow, El Santo, Jacki Sato, Randy Savage, The Sheik, Hisashi Shinma, Dara Singh, Gordon Solie, El Solitario, Ricky Steamboat, Joe Stecher, Tony Stecher, Ray Steele, Ray Stevens, Nobuhiko Takada, Genichiro Tenryu, Lou Thesz, Jumbo Tsuruta, Frank Tunney, Mad Dog Vachon, Big Van Vader, Johnny Valentine, Fritz von Erich, Whipper Billy Watson, Cowboy Bill Watts, Jaguar Yokota, Stanislaus Zbyszko. [ - ] WCW has Fall Brawl 09/15/96. Tentative line-up has: * Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Sting & Lex Luger vs. Hulk Hogan & the man formerly known as Razor Ramon & the man formerly known as Diesel & the man formerly known as 1-2-3 Kid in a War Games match * Giant vs. Randy Savage * Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys for the WCW Tag Titles * Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Super Calo for the WCW Cruiserweight Title * Konnan vs. Psicosis for the Mexican Title * Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. * Scott Nortn vs. Ice Train in a submission match Page's match will set up his program with Eddy Guerrero. Over the years, it's been shown that it's hard to have a bad War Games. Still, the bad ones are the most recent ones. Anyhow, there are three pretty good matches on paper in the middle of the list above. [Extreme J] [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House] on 09/22/96. Tentative line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind for the WWF Title * Faarooq Asad vs. Marc Mero in the TC Tourney final * Undertaker vs. Goldust in a match that must end by pinfall * Vader vs. Sid * Mark Henry vs. Jerry Lawler * Jim Cornette vs. Jose Lothario This card has been completely re-worked. [ - ] [Nitro] beat [RAW] on 08/19 with a 3.5 rating (5.8 share) against a 2.9 rating (4.4 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. This is the tenth straight week that Nitro has beaten RAW in the ratings on Monday night, sometimes by a very substantial margin. The detailed ratings are a click away. [ - ] The PPV buy rates of the past six month (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.74 (0.70) and average gross of $1.93-million ($1.77-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.60 (0.54) and average gross of $1.80-million ($1.28-million). The details are an interesting read. [ - ] 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. Tentative line-up has: * Sting & Lex Luger & Randy Savage & Giant vs. Hulk Hogan & the man formerly known as Razor Ramon & the man formerly known as Diesel & the man formerly known as 1-2-3 Kid in a War Games match [ - ] 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 live from Tokyo. [ - ] 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to: Masaki Aso. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Click here to return. E-mail: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca