From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 11/14 Date: 1996/11/15 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 196566183 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you aren't reading this on my web page, click here to make the leap. There are other items to browse. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picture of The Week This week's picture features Sunny. Before people send me a flood of e-mail, NO, there are no nude pictures of Sunny and, NO, I won't sent you any wrestling pictures in e-mail. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Tiger Mask vs. Tiger Mask ] [ - ] Rumours are flying that Curt Hennig has left the WWF. Dave Scherer posted the news first to r.s.p-w, but hotlines are all seizing the story as well. Talk is that Hennig won't be able to show up in WCW until February. You've got to give WCW credit for putting together a story-line that involves a lot of big names and continually one-upping things. There's very little good wrestling produced by the story-line, but that's what WCW undercards are for. [ - RAW ] this week had nothing noteworthy match-wise, for a second week in a row. This week's show focussed on a stupid missed superkick spot in the Shawn Michaels & Sid vs. Davey Boy Smith & Owen Hart tag match, with Shawn nailing Sid by mistake and Sid doing the job to sell it. I've come to the conlcusion that the recent debate over the meaning of the word "mark" now has an answer: anybody looking forward to the Shawn vs. Sid title match this weekend is a mark. Sid is just so lousy. It is hard to believe that he seems even worse than ever. Is it any surprise that the promotion is placing more and more focus in the Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin match up, that promises to be great. [ Sasuke vs. Samurai ] [ - ] The WWF has Survivor Series on Sunday. Tentative line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Sid for the WWF Title * Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart * Undertaker vs. Mankind with Paul Bearer suspended in a cage above the ring * Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Goldust & Jerry Lawler & Crush vs. Marc Mero & Barry Windham & Jake Roberts & Rocky Maivia * Rockers & Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Godwinns & Phil Lafond & Doug Furnas * Savio Vega & Yokozuna & Flash Funk & mystery partner vs. Vader & Faarooq & Razor Ramon & Diesel There is much talk that the mystery man above will be the Ultimate Warrior. Any talk of Randy Savage is misguided. Savage will still be working WCW house shows for a couple of months and is trying to negotiate a new deal with the company. Phil Lafond is Dan Kroffat's real name. We can expect some more ECW involvement for this show and the next night's live RAW. [ - ] WCW has World War III 11/24/96. Tentative line-up has: * 60-man three-ring battle royal with the winner getting a title shot at Hulk Hogan * Rey Misterio Jr vs. El Ultimo Dragon for the J Crown (Eight junior titles recently unified in Japan in a tournament) * Dean Malenko vs. Psicosis for the Cruiserweight title * Scott Hall & Kevin Nash vs. Nasty Boys for the WCW Tag Titles * Giant vs. Jeff Jarrett Although the promotion has said that the winner of the main event gets the next title shot at Hulk Hogan, they have been careful not to say when that title shot would take place. Talk now is that they will go with this match at Starrcade and push Hogan vs. Roddy Piper back to February. Number one pick for winner of this match is Sting. Misterio Jr. may pu his WWA Welterweight Title on the line against the right titles. Expect Malenko to keep his title (no surprise). They have apparently already taped segments with Syxx holding the Cruiserweight title. [ Sabu vs. Abby ] [ - ] The Observer reports that Shane Douglas is refusing to work with the Sandman if Sandman's trademark cane is involved. "When [Stevie Richards] was doing a run-in on Sandman, he got nailed with the cane in the neck and staggered away, then suddenly collapsed. He was paralyzed for a while and taken away in an amluance (this wasn't an angle) and pretty much could only move his fingers for about a half hour, but recovered and was walking around fine by Monday night. Apparently earlier in the week, Douglas was complaining that he didn't want the cane used anymore, because a few weeks back he collapsed after a cane shot to the neck as well. Supposedly Douglas refuses to work with Sandman if the cane is involved anymore." Not only his is skill-to-push ratio one of the worst in the business, now the Sandman is risking crippling somebody. The Observer also carefully suggests that ECW's reaction to the crucifixion angle at a recent ECW Arena show was due to Olympian Kurt Angle's negative reaction and not any particular sense of responsibility on the promotion's part. "Most reports are that the real reason for the apology by Raven after the crucifixion angle was because Angle was so upset about it because he does so much work in the community and has a certain image and felt that it would reflect negatively on him being a part of a group that did something like this." [ Tiger Mask vs. Tiger Mask ] [ - ] We get a one hour condensed Nitro in Southern Ontario on Sunday, so this will seem like a dated comment. I thought that the Marcus Bagwell vs. Brad Armstrong match that opened the 11/04 Nitro was an excellent match, much more than I expected them to deliver, even though I know they are capable of it. I was pretty depressed by the start of the women's division. If those are the types of matches that they'll let the women deliver, what's the point? And to introduce the legendary Chigusa Nagayo as "Zero," a horrible name for a Japanese wrestler, shows little class. And don't even remind me of Sonny Ono. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 11/04 with a 3.4 rating (5.1 share) against a 2.3 rating (3.4 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. This is the week that RAW had the gun angle with Brian Pillman and Steve Austin, which the Observer described as "either a ground-breaking angle in wrestling, or an act of total desperation". Curiousity over the Austin vs. Pillman angle, suggests the Observer, caused the two shows to have even ratings for a few minutes, bur Nitro clobbered RAW by the end of the hour. The even period was during the angle that set up the Shawn Michaels & Sid tag match this past week, so maybe interest in that was what really peaked the rating for RAW. We don't know for sure. 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. [ Tiger Mask vs. Tiger Mask ] [ - ] 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. [ - ] NWO has a PPV in 01/95. [ - ] 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