From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 10/10 Date: 1996/10/11 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 188963847 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling { Sorry. Forgot to post this when I updated the page yesterdau. } [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've been swamped this past week, so I haven't responded to much e-mail at all. It's likely that next week will be similar. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Sunny ] [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 10/20/96. Tentative line-up has: * Vader vs. Sid for a title shot at Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series * Undertaker vs. Mankind in a buried alive match, where the loser is the person dumped into a grave on the set (reminiscent of the Cactus Jack vs. Vader match at Halloween Havoc years back) * Marc Mero vs. Farooq for the IC Title * Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega * Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Smoking Gunns for the Tag Titles The Observer writes, "Austin-Vega on paper looks to be the best match of the show," which about sums up the lack of depth in the promotion. [ - ] WCW has Halloween Havoc 10/27/96. Tentative line-up has: * Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage for the WCW Title * Harlem Heat vs. Scott Hall & Kevin Nash for the Tag Titles * Ric Flair vs. Giant for the US Title * Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko for the Cruiserweight title in a two out of three falls match. * Jushin Liger vs. El Ultimo Dragon for the eight unified Jr. Titles * Lex Luger vs. Arn Anderson * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddy Guerrero The "two out of three falls" stipulation has apparently been said on TV, although I haven't heard it. The Liger match is still unannounced. [ Sunny ] [ - RAW ] this past week continued the flat angle of introducing Razor Ramon II, Diesel II, and Double J II. While some in the newsgroup thought that Glen Jacobs (Isaac Yankem, Unabom) did a good job as Diesel II, I can't really agree: I don't see any quality matches coming from the guy and I don't see him becoming a major draw in this role because are fans in the arena seem noticely pissed at the angle. The new Razor is just terrible. At least Jessee Jammess (Brian) Armstrong has a hope of delivering some good wrestling. Still, introducing imitations in a promotion that asks us not accept cheap imitations, especially when those imitations are not improvements over the originals, comes across as desperation. [ - ] Sabu has been sniffing around WCW, looking for another chance. [ - ] Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas debut with the WWF in November and will easily instantly be the best team in the promotion. [ Mr. Pogo ] [ - ] Hiro Hase's jump to All Japan, mentioned here last week, was the lead story in the Observer this week. It is reported that Hase, who is one of the best wrestlers and workers I have ever seen in both weight classes in New Japan, will take some time to prepare for the demands of the All Japan ring before returning. It's expected that he'll only work some major shows next year. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 09/30 with a 3.3 rating (5.0 share) against a 2.3 rating (3.3 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. The Observer mentions that Nitro peaked at a 4.1 rating and dipped to a 3.1 rating, but that RAW didn't pick up any of those viewers. 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 0.53 (0.65) and average gross of $1.39-million ($1.69-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.60 (0.57) and average gross of $1.82-million ($1.69-million). This marks the first time ever that the WCW "past six months" figures beat the WWF's figures. You can blame the substantial revenue difference on the cheaper In Your House PPVs, but the actual interest level for WWF shows has also been beaten by the WCW shows. It will be interesting to see if the traditional Survivor Series draws a large buy and turns things back the other way. The details are an interesting read. [ Sunny ] [ - ] The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/17/96. Tentative line-up includes: * Shawn Michaels vs. Vader (or Sid) for the WWF Title * Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart [ - ] WCW has World War III 11/24/96. Current plan is to have a 60-man three-ring battle royal as they did last year, with Hulk Hogan being stripped of the title and the winner of the match becoming champion. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 12/15/96. [ - ] WCW has Starrcade on 12/29/96. The show will be from Nashville. [ - ] 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