From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 11/21 Date: 1996/11/22 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 198011323 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 pictures features Sunny, not just once, but twice. Apologies for not having any in-line images this week. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] The WWF had Survivor Series on Sunday. I'd give the shows a mild thumbs up just for the one very good match with Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, even though that match was not a match of the year candidate as I would have expected. At its past PPV, the WWF didn't offer a pre-game show match, but this time they returned to the old formula of giving away a pretty lousy match for free, building the Billy Gunn vs. Bart Gunn feud that nobody seemed to care about. Highlights included: * Austin vs. Hart. They worked a very good match, but it didn't really live up to my expectations. The ending was directly from the Roddy Piper vs. Bret Hart WrestleMania match in 1992 and it wasn't satisfying then either. * The debut of Doug Furnas & Phil LaFond (Dan Kroffat in All Japan). Now, these guys are the best tag team in the world consisting of North American wrestlers, so it's no surprise when they embarrass a tag division that boasts the Godwinns as strong contenders, but they were wonderful here. The finishing sequences were a bit of a let-down, considering the stuff that LaFond usually puts together in All Japan, where he booked the most elaborate finishing sequences in wrestling. It was great that they went over and seem destined for an immediate tag title feud. * That's it. No other highlights. Lowlights included: * Sid vs. Shawn. Sid just gets worse and worse, so it's no surprise that the match focussed on story lines. Sid whacked Jose Lothario in the chest with a WWF camera, Jose sold it like he was being electrocuted for being involved in such a cheap angle, Shawn lost focus on the match and kept trying to look after Lothario while Drs. Goulet, Garea and Patterson failed to show with their usual promptness, and Sid eventually power bombed Shawn for the pin. Was it the worst World Title match in history? No. Hulk Hogan has been involved in worse because his opponents have been worse (Giant, or, if you want a horror story, Zodiac). Was it a terrible match? Without a doubt. Of course, they had added a stipulation to the Austin vs. Hart match that the winner would get a title shot on 12/15, so the only logical conclusion is tha Hart will regain the belt then and that, despite any comments to the contrary, Hart probably demanded the title immediately as a condition for returning to the WWF for less money than he could make in WCW. * The appalling elimination match with Savio Vega & Yokozuna & Flash Funk & mystery partner vs. Vader & Faarooq & Razor Ramon & Diesel. The mystery partner turned out to be the legendary Jimmy Snuka! If that's not bad enough, they actually had guys half his age sell big for him in totally unrealistic spots. Flash Funk is a sad gimmick. I liked Too Cold Scorpio, but the new character is lame. Maybe he'll be able to get over because of his work, anyhow, or maybe, like Austin, he'll work so hard that it sets him apart from the pack, but it's not a good beginning. Faarooq is now from the "Nation Of Abomination," oh sorry, he's the "Abomination Of the Nation," oh crap, he's from the "Nation Of Domination." Whatever it is, he still makes me NOD off to sleep when he wrestles. PG-13 rapped during his entrance, leading me to think that my first label of his new gimmick is most correct. Razor & Diesel looked absolutely terrible, as usual. Yokozuna looked bad too. Vader has been nothing but disappointing except for one or two matches in his WWF career. Savio Vega was good. This match ended very quickly after a really cheap double DQ, but the more I think about things, that was probably a good thing. * The Undertaker. He gets buried alive, bursts his hand through the graveyard soil amidst lightning and thunder, ominously talks of the doom facing Mankind & Paul Bearer without actually appearing, and then finally appears...dressed in black leather! I can't relate to people who like this crap. They are pushing that the Undertaker is going to "wrestle more," which I guess means he'll actually try a move now and again. He did a drop toe hold and the commentators sold it like they'd never seen the move before and like we should be really impressed to see it now. Yawn. At the end, poor Terry Gordy ran into the ring as the executioner and stopped Undertaker from getting the traitorous Paul Bearer. Does this mean we have another wonderful feud to look forward to? There is talk that Mankind & the Executioner will form a tag team. * Jim Ross & Vince McMahon forgetting that they have the most heated feud in the promotion, Ross further distancing himself from the new Diesel and Razor Ramon, etc. I was left indifferent by Rocky Maivia's performance. On one hand, he was green but okay. On the other hand, he defeated some established stars too quickly. [ - ] 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 [ - RAW ] this week was mildly interesting. In Southern Ontario, the live shows used to air at 9pm EST on CKVR, but I guess it's technically difficult to get the 8pm EST live US broadcast ready for broadcast by 9pm (CKVR did not move the show as USA did), although I don't know why. So, CKVR greeted us with a "special" taped show, featuring the Goldust vs. Shawn Michaels match from the Friday RAW special, along with the IC Title tourney matches from previous RAWs. At least TSN had the current show on tape at midnight. The highlight for me, once again, was the team of Furnas & LaFond, although I know it's not going to be long before I'm disappointed by the simple finishes they are doing. They have nobody to work against that can handle the intricate finishes I'm used to seeing from them. [ - ] There is much talk about Curt Hennig joining WCW in a leadership role in the NWO angle early in the new year. There is a lot of doubt that Hennig will ever step back in the ring, but I guess WCW feels that his name value will keep the NWO angle strong. [ - ] The Observer reports the WWF is abandoning its group drug testing policy due to cost. The cynic might also suppose that since the media no longer really cares about pro-wrestling anyhow, the potential damage of a scandal is no longer high. And, heck, if we look at some of the big name stars in either of the big two, all drug policies that have been in effect have to be considered a joke. [ - ] The Observer also reports that the WWF is considering having a late night show on Saturdays beginning 01/04/97 to air only in the New York area. [ - ] Apparently, Larry Zbyszko will return to the ring for matches with Scott Hall. If it's one match and Larry puts Hall over clean, then I think it's okay. Otherwise, they only weaken Hall by doing this. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 11/11 with a 3.5 rating (5.2 share) against a 2.5 rating (3.6 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. 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. No doubt, he'll work against Faarooq of the Nation of Constipation. [ - ] WCW has Starrcade on 12/29/96. The show will be from Nashville. [ - ] NWO has a PPV in 01/95. [ - ] Rec.sport.pro-wrestling: There are many people reading this that no longer check into the r.s.p-w newsgroup - they have told me this in e-mail. I thought it worthwhile to inform readers of this page (in October there were 25000 accesses of this page; thus far in November, accesses top 18000) that there has been discussion of creating a moderated pro-wrestling newsgroup. There has been some opposition to the idea of having a new newsgroup with separate articles, and even more opposition to the notion that some posts, even ones that are wrestling-related, have no value because they do not further current discussions or introduce generally interesting new topics for discussion. As a result, there is a chance that all of this preliminary talk will lead to nothing or something so close to the current newsgroup that there is no point in doing it. I'm curious if readers of this web page that have left the newsgroup have strong feelings about this. Please drop me an e-mail if this is the case. [ - ] Software: At some point in the not too distant future, I may be asking, via this page, for some beta testers for something I've been playing around with. Keep in mind that I'm currently writing my PhD thesis, so I may just be thinking wishfully here, but I've made some good progress with my pet project on a couple of recent weekends, and I think, at the worst, I'll have something together by early in the new year. This is something I have been working on occasionally over the past two years or so. [ - ] 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