From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 02/06 Date: 1997/02/07 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 215003031 sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) organization: University of Waterloo newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My doctoral thesis will be submitted next week; the defence should be in late March, assuming all of the examiners can find a common free day in their schedules. This means that I should be able to update the various things that I've neglected in recent weeks. Indeed, I've already stolen some time to get preliminaries for a tape update in order. Thanks again for your patience. I'll also have a longer discussion next week about tapes I've watched. I don't know if I'll watch enough to make a real dent in the 100+ tapes that have acculumated during my busy weeks, but I'm sure that I'll need a bit of down time after finishing my thesis. In-line images are now displayed as clickable icons. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of The Week This week's pictures include two incredible shots of Jushin Liger vs. El Ultimo Dragon, the first from the 07/21/96 WAR show, featuring a really cool shot of Dragon hitting a tope on Liger. The second picture is from the 08/02/9 New Japan J Crown tournament. This shot is just incredible! Finally, I've included a neat pictures of Great Sasuke with all of the J Crown belts. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [FMW's Hayabusa] [ - ] The Observer's review for Souled Out struck somewhat of a balance between the opinion here last week and the general opinion on the net. Dave Meltzer wrote, "NWO Souled Out [...] was the single worst PPV in the history of pro-wrestling. There have been shows where the quality of the matches were worst, although this would be a bad show by that criterion. There have been shows with less heat and worse atmosphere, although this would be a bad show by those criteria as well. But there has never been a show with such poor announcing and outside wrestling skits". And there it is: except for that first sentence, I would generally agree with everthing said. That first sentence, though, just ignores the fact that there was a pretty good match on the show (the ladder match, which Meltzer rated ****). We've seen PPV shows in the past where the commentary during a very good match has not focussed at all on the match, pitching the main event or cracking jokes instead. This time around, Eric Bischoff spent most of his time trying to get the rebel aspect of the NWO over, either by pushing himself or the NWO wrestlers and acting pretty stupid much of the time. And that makes this show the worst show ever? I can't agree with that. We aren't watching World Championship Commentary or the World Commentary Federation; wrestling has to be the top criterion when rating shows. Meltzer rated the matches as follows. * Masa Chono vs. Chris Jericho: **. * Big Bubba vs. Hugh Morrus: 1/2*. * Jeff Jarrett vs. Michael Wallstreet: DUD. * Marcus Bagwell vs. Scott Riggs: *1/4. * Scott Norton vs. Diamond Dallas Page: 1/2*. * Steiners vs. Outsiders: **1/4. * Eddie Guerrero vs. Syxx: ****. * Hulk Hogan vs. Giant: -*1/2. Recall the Rumble ratings from last week. * Helmsley vs. Goldust: **. * Ahmed vs. Faarooq: *1/2. * Vader vs. Undertaler: *1/4. * AAA trios match: *. * Rumble: ***. * Michaels vs. Sid: **. Compare either of these to the infamous WCW Uncensored from 03/19/95: * Marcus Bagwell & Patriot vs. Dick Slater & Bunkhouse Buck: 1/2*. * Dustin Rhodes vs. Blacktop Bully: 1/2*. * Meng vs. Jim Duggan: -*. * Arn Anderson vs. Johnny B. Badd: *. * Randy Savage vs. Avalanche: 1/2*. * Sting vs. Big Bubba Rogers: **1/2. * Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys: **1/2. * Vader vs. Hulk Hogan: ** or WWF King of The Ring from 06/25/95: * Savio Vega vs. IRS: *1/2. * Yokozuna vs. Savio Vega: 3/4*. * Roadie vs. Bob Holly: **1/2. * Shawn Michaels vs. Kama: **3/4. * Undertaker vs. Mabel: -1/2*. * Savio Vega vs. Roadie: *. * Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler: **3/4. * Savio Vega vs. Mabel: -*. * Diesel & Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Tatanka & Sid: *1/2. I dunno. That ladder match seems to make NWO Souled a better show than either of these based on the actual wrestling. The other stuff just shouldn't weigh in too much, IMO. I guess that comes from watching a lot of Japanese wrestling, where one can only pick out the names of moves in the commentary and not understand much else. I guess that comes from the North American "Big 2" commentary being pretty lousy for so long that a dip lower doesn't really have much effect. [ picture ] Michinoku Pro's El Gran Naniwa dragon suplexes Shiryu. Michinoku Pro puts on one of my favourite wrestling product, a blend of the best of Mexican Lucha Libre and Japanese junior heavyweight styles. I would credit El Gran Hamada for bringing this style of wrestling to Japan in the early nineties, when he brought UWA wrestlers in from Mexico under the UWF banner. The only very poor matches that Michinoku Pro matches I've seen are the ones which also involve FMW wrestlers: talk about a style clash! [ - RAW ] this past week aired matches from the Toronto Triple Threat show at Skydome. In Canada, we saw one hour of the USA show, with the second hour airing next week. The WWF commentators constantly said they would not use "bait and switch tactics" (in reference to Nitro's terrible Robin Hood stunt), but they had promised to air the entire Royal Rumble match in all of the lead-up plugging for this show and, in the end, they only aired some clips. The Toronto house show came off as unimpressive from a wrestling standpoint, although the large crowd was cool. [ - ] The WWF's newest arrival, Tiger Ali Singh, was all over the air on Toronto area channels this past week. They are trying to make him seem like a big deal, but I'm sure that illusion will disappear when he steps in the ring. The funniest appearance was on the local multicultural station during an Indian program; I stumbled across this when I flipped on the TV on Saturday and it happened to be tuned to the station. Tiger Jeet Singh said that he and his son would form a tag team and then be entered into the Guiness Book of World Records because of it. It's incredible that this known real estate crook (Jeet Singh) can say things to the media (about his Japanese payoffs and his general popularity) and have them take every line as fact. [ - ] The Observer reports that Randy Savage's new WWF contract is worth $1-million per year and that WCW is justifying it by pointing out that the Slim Jim sponsorship (which leaves if Savage leaves) brings in $500K per year. [ - ] The WWF has a live two hour "Thursday RAW Thursday" special on 02/13, featuring the rematch between Shawn Michaels & Sycho Sid. The show airs in Canada on TSN the following day. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 02/16/97. Line-up features: * Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin vs. Undertaker vs. Vader in a no DQ elimination match for the WrestleMania WWF Title shot. * Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Phil LaFond & Doug Furnas for the WWF Tag Titles [ picture ] FMW's Mr. Pogo is easily one of my least favourite wrestlers, since he's also one of the least talented wrestlers in the world. He's made a career on garbage wrestling, which has a questionable connection to actual wrestling. [ - ] WCW has SuperBrawl on 02/23/97. Tentative line-up has: * Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper for the WCW Title * Kevin Nash & Scott Hall vs. Giant & Lex Luger for the Tag Titles [ - ] WCW has Uncensored on 03/16/97. [ - ] ECW has their first PPV on 04/13/97, airing from the ECW Arena from 9pm to 11:55pm. Tentative line-up includes: * Sabu vs. Taz * Terry Funk vs. Sandman vs. Stevie Richards in a triangle match for a title shot against Raven later in the show * Shane Douglas vs. Pit Bull #2 for the TV Title * Great Sasuke & Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada vs. Dick Togo & Taka Michinoku & Terry Boy The affiliated (?) The WWF has [In Your House ] on 04/20/97. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 01/27 with a 3.6 rating (5.4 share) against a 2.8 rating (4.4 share). Nitro's two hour broadcast rating is averaged. The detailed ratings are a click away. [ - ] I will try to get the PPV figures updated in the next week or two. Apologies. The details as they stand are available. [ picture ] From the G1 Climax tournament, Keiji Muto performs one of the hottest moves in New Japan at the time, the dragon screw, on Shiro Koshinaka. Koshinaka has long been one of my favourites. has long been one of my favourites. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 05/11/97. [ - ] The WWF has King of The Ring on 06/08/97. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 07/06/97. [ - ] The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/03/97. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 09/07/97. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 10/05/97. [ - ] The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/09/97. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 12/07/97. [ - ] 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