From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 11/07 Date: 1996/11/09 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 195572713 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling { While getting caught up on news, I didn't see this in the group, so I probably forgot to put it up on Thursday. } [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picture of The Week This week's picture features the Rey Misterio Jr. vs. El Ultimo Dragon match from Hog Wild. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Sasuke vs. Samurai ] [ - ] Roddy Piper's deal with WCW will include some limited wrestling, rumoured to be a main event against Hulk Hogan at Starrcade (which seems like the second worst Starrcade main event in history behind Hogan vs. Ed Leslie). Piper basically picks up Randy Savage's spot; Savage is noticeably history with the promotion, with his name not being mentioned much at all, even the week after his PPV main event match. There is a lot of talk that Savage will end up in the WWF. Talk persisted that he and Hogan were going to jump to the WWF and take over the upper echelon of the promotion, but Hogan has signed a three year deal with WCW, so that's unlikely. [ - RAW ] this week had nothing noteworthy match-wise, but did deliver a controversial angle. It would appear that Bret Hart isn't interested in working an angle to build up his match with Steve Austin at Survivor Series, doing a rather relaxed interview with Austin last week and not appearing this week. Instead, to keep heat on Austin and explain Brian Pillman's absence (due to surgery), the WWF has put together an angle with Austin turning on Pillman. Things reached a boiling point this week, when, in live segments interspersed throughout a taped RAW, Austin tried to break in to Pillman's house. Pillman sat at the ready with his gun, looking as deranged as ever. It was sort of riveting and sort of embarrassing. As Austin stormed into the house, Pillman looked ready to fire and "the satellite feed died." The moribund commentators kept telling us that they were working hard to re-establish contact with the mayhem, and finally did at the end, when an awkward Kevin Kelly rambled about the break-in and the "...explosions..." (his hesitation, thinking better about "gunshots," presumably). As I've posted on this, I think that the angle was a poor decision by the WWF and I didn't care for it. At the same time, wrestling in North America has been filled with a lot of new stuff that has crossed what were previously boundaries. Think about recent times: * Giant falling off the Cobo Hall arena, only to return to wrestling; * Undertaker dying and levitating to the ceiling; * Undertaker being buried alive by a group of heels; * Tommy Dreamer crashing through as many tables as possible from heights undreamt of; * NWO members demolishing WCW wrestlers with baseball bats; * ECW fans bringing objects for wrestlers to use on each other; * Axl & Ian Rotten bleeding like stuck pigs in gruesome gimmick matches (barbed wire bat,glass on fists); * Shawn Michaels collapsing in the ring as if dead; * Nine-year old Tyler Fullington being used in angle and in the ring, surrounded by bleeding, swearing guys whacking each other; * Francine being power-bombed through tables; * Kimona writhing in the ring because she liked getting spanked; * Kimona coming out to strip for the crowd to buy some time for the show; * Angel being stripped topless; * ECW Fans throw a hundred+ chairs into the ring; * Sandman gets crucified on a cross; * Wrestlers and fans get set on fire (by accident) in the ECW Arena; and * much more if you include the garbage wrestling in Japan. IMO, this WWF decision showed poor judgment: kids watch their show (especially when they've just moved an hour earlier) and think it is real. That means that they have a greater responsibility than a comic book or a TV show. Still, of all of the things listed about, I think the worst of the lot are the use of Tyler (not just in an angle, but in an in-ring angle) and the grievous mistreatment of women. Remember when it was a big deal for a babyface to even consider slapping the heel's female valet? I can remember babyfaces feeling ashamed for doing so to help reduce the heat that the promotion or the face received. Now, even when Tommy Dreamer shows Beulah's panties to every side of the ring, it's tame. I find it depressing and probably one of the strongest indictments of the promotion and it's fans (minus a set of measure zero; for you, Cheetah ;-)). [ Hakushi ] [ - ] The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/17/96. Tentative line-up includes: * Shawn Michaels vs. Sid for the WWF Title * Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart * Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Goldust & Jerry Lawler & Crush * Undertaker vs. Mankind with Paul Bearer suspended in a cage above the ring vs. Marc Mero & Barry Windham & Mark Henry & Rocky Maivia * Rockers & Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Godwinns & Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas This last match replaces the tag title match that had previously been in the cards. There are already problems, though, as rumours persist that Marty Jannetty is history with the WWF. I say let Kroffat & Furnas win the titles in a debut challenge match; they are easily the best team in the business consisting of wrestlers from North America. The Observer reports that the original plan was to have Shawn Michaels vs. Vader as the main event for this show, but that it was switched on the fly perhaps partly because Vader had a broken foot. Meltzer muses that, while the original plan was to have Michaels lose the title to Vader and regain it in reasonably short order, the return of Bret Hart to the fold and a probable title win for him at WrestleMania next year left some people feeling that Michaels and the title would be hurt by having three title changes between now and April. So, Michaels will keep the title through to his match with Bret and they'll likely start building the match slowly at Survivor Series. It's speculated that another elimination tag will be added, featuring Flash Funk (Too Cold Scorpio, not a big enough star to keep his name), Savio Vega, Farooq, Vader, Razor II, Diesel II. [ - ] WCW has World War III 11/24/96. [ - ] How's this for an improvement? While Public Enemy is out, they'll be replaced at house shows by Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera. Unfortunately, they'll be facing the Nasty Boys. [ Kimona ] [ - ] Funny blurb from the Observer, discussing ECW angles: "Taz said that [Olympic gold medalist Kurt] Angle was the best amateur wrestler in the world but that he was going to show him the difference between the best amateur wrestler and the best professional wrestler. He then showed him a tape of Kenta Kobashi. Just kidding." Hey, I laughed out loud. [ - ] Entertainment Tonight did a three-minute segment on Hulk Hogan this past weekend, showing some clips from Halloween Havoc and featuring the other NWO members. It was memorable only because one of the hosts mentioned John Stossel in jest without explanation. [ Sasuke vs. Samurai ] [ - ] I had the chance to continue watching the Michinoku Pro stuff I mentioned last week. Highlight match this week was the 07/27/95 match between Great Sasuke and El Gran Naniwa. This was Naniwa's first career win over Sasuke and it was pretty good (***1/2 or so). Fans of stunts would be amazed at one spot. With Naniwa on the ringside (hardwood, no mats) floor, Sasuke went to the top rope to hit a plancha, but got caught by Naniwa. After getting hit, Sasuke was left sitting on the top turnbuckle with his legs out of the ring and his side to the ring (can you picture this?). Naniwa climbed up to the top and hit a top rope Frankensteiner right down to the hardwood floor. I don't know why Sasuke takes these chances. [ - ] On the Canadian front, talk persists that WCW is planning a tour that will hit Toronto early in the new year. If promoted well, Hogan vs. Piper would draw an immense house in Toronto, where Piper has always been huge, [ - ] The reason for the disappointing Eddy Guerrero vs. Diamond Dallas Page match at Halloween Havoc seems clearer now: the Observer reports that Eddy broke a rib during the match and that he was suffering from a high fever. This also explains why the finish was called so poorly; they went to it early and the commentators weren't expecting it yet. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 10/28 with a 3.5 rating (5.2 share) against a 2.0 rating (2.9 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. As anticipated, the previous week's closer showing (the closest since June) turned out to be nothing more than a small blip in Nitro's coninued trouncing of RAW; as explained last week, Nitro had an incredibly strong replay showing, indicating that fans skipped the live Nitro for some other reason than RAW (the ratings for RAW were about the same as always). Despite all of the lip service paid by the WWF to not being concerned with Monday ratings, Vince is clearly stressed about the situation and is taking some good compromise actions to try to improve things. RAW will still be taped in monthly installments, but a live storyline will be woven into the show (like the Austin/Pillman incident this week) so that there is still some element of surprise in the broadcast. This means that only the wrestlers involved in the live angle need to be available (read: paid) for work that night. The commentary will be done live as well, which really screws up Jerry Lawler, who was wrestling in Memphis on Mondays. 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). The details are an interesting read. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 12/15/96. Ahmed Johnson is expected back for this show. [ - ] WCW has Starrcade on 12/29/96. The show will be from Nashville. [ Hikari Fukuoka ] [ - ] 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