From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 02/20 Date: 1997/02/21 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 220324410 Sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) Organization: University of Waterloo Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I submitted my doctoral thesis yesterday. As you might expect, things were a little exciting in the past few days. This weekend, I will update the PPV buy rates, TV ratings, and tape list; I couldn't possibly get it done by today. Things should return to normal for next week. My defence is on April 7th. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of The Week [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] I have no time to do any fancy inserting of images, so I've just created a row of clickable icons that will load the bigger pictures. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] This past week was quite tumultuous for the WWF; but, while tumult can be exciting, the potential needs to be judged by the end result. Starting at the beginning, Canadian audiences got to see the 02/13/97 Thursday RAW Thursday special on Friday night. Rocky Maivia won the WWF Intercontinental Title from Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a surprise, but the big surprise saw Shawn Michaels tearfully vacate the WWF Title due to a knee injury. The knee injury surely has to be based in fact, since Shawn's absence kills the WWF's biggest money match (vs. Bret Hart). The talk of Shawn never returning is almost surely an exagerration to make a future return seem remarkable. The segment with Shawn stole the show, which featured little in quality wrestling. Steve Austin was a wild man. Gorilla Monsoon announced that the In Your House show the following Sunday would now see the WWF Title decided in the main event "Final Four" match. The In Your House PPV seems to have really excited some people on the net; my opinion is more sedate. I think it was the best pro-wrestling PPV of 1997 thus far, but that's hardly a major accomplishment considering the middling efforts of January. Quick results: * Marc Mero beat Leif Cassidy: Not as good as you might think. They spent a fair bit of time trying to establish that Mero & Sable have developed an edge. At the end, Cassidy had Mero in the figure four, but Sable pushed the ropes into the ring so Mero could reach them and get the break. Cassidy went over to yell at her and got dumped out of the ring. Sable held him while Mero did a plancha onto him, rolled him back in, and quickly got the pin. Screwy finish #1. * Faarooq & Savio Vega & Crush beat Goldust & Bart Gunn & Flash Funk: About what you'd expect. They drew some heat, but the wrestling was poor. Finish saw Bart have the pin, but Faarooq interfered and stole the win. Screwy finish #2. * Rocky Maivia retained the IC Title, beating Hunter Hearst Helmsley: These guys both tried, but neither is that seasoned yet. Helmsley has not really improved over the years and is still just mediocre; actually, he used to be mediocre but seemed to have a lot of potential, potential he has yet to realize or even move towards. Maivia tries to improve but is still inexperienced. Finish saw Goldust come out to ringside and grab his Goldbutt while gesturing to Helmsley; Maivia snuck up on a distracted Helmsley and schoolboyed him for the pin. After the match, Marlena was attacked by a muscular chick in the crowd, who one can only assume is a new groupie for Helmsley. Screwy finish #3. * Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon beat WWF Tag champs Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith by disqualification: This was the best work that LaFon & Furnas have done since arriving in the WWF, finally working some mildly elaborate spots, but still nowhere near the complexity they worked in All Japan. The match wasn't bad, except when the story line took over: the continuing problems between Hart & Smith surfaced many times. At the end, Davey Smith was all set up for his patented power bomb finish when Owen Hart interfered for no real reason, using his Slammy as a weapon. Owen & Smith argued a bit afterwards, but it looks like their split will be dragged out to WrestleMania (where I had originally expected a singles match between them). Screwy finish #4. * Bret Hart outlasted Steve Austin & Vader & Undertaker to win the Final Four match and the WWF Title: The entire show was built around this match; they did a great job of hyping it. This was the best Undertaker match ever, I would think, although it had nothing to with him. This was Vader's second best WWF performance ever (best being his singles match against Shawn Michaels), a definite improvement over what he's delivered in recent memory. Steve Austin & Bret Hart also worked hard. With all that nice stuff said, though, you would think that when they had to re-book the build-up to WrestleMania because of Michaels' absence, they could have done a better job. In this match, the first let-down was that all four men fought simultaneously in bunkhouse style. The second let-down was that a wrestler could be eliminated from the match by pinfall, submission, or over-the-top-rope elimination. Jeez, even in this match, highlighting a card filled with screw jobs, nobody could lie down for somebody else. The match had no disqualification and no count out rules, so, of course, the wrestlers tried reasonably hard to return to the ring when possible, a totally senseless move, since you could lose in one extra way if you were in the ring. Anyhow, Vader was great, somehow getting cut accidentally (perhaps by a chair shot, perhaps by his mask, perhaps both) near his left eye (ruling out the blade). The camera crew and the commentators didn't ignore it or pull away from it as WCW does, instead using it to add something to the match. Austin was first out, over the top rope of course. Vader was next out, also over the top rope. Luckily, they didn't leave Bret Hart in with Undertaker for more than a couple of minutes, since that surely would have killed the match intensity. After a choke slam on Hart, Undertaker was distracted by Steve Austin, who stormed ring side, acting like a wild man again. After some fumbling, Bret managed to dump Undertaker over the top, thanks to Austin. Screwy finish #5. I enjoyed the show. The main event was exciting and the undercard was a throw-away, as has typically been the case with WWF shows in the recent past. But the finishes?! After several years of poor business, the WWF managed to rebuild its business by being reasonably legitimate and using clean wins. Now, they've seemingly forgotten what got them to the dance, offering screw job after screw job instead. I have to give the show a moderate thumbs in the middle because the screw jobs left a bad taste in my mouth, and it was clear from how the show ended that Undertaker was going to be in the main event at WrestleMania, challenging for the WWF Title. Bret vs. Shawn had me excited, Bret vs. Undertaker has me bored, especially when the price tag is so high. All of this leads us to the live [ RAW ] on 02/17. In Canada, we got to see a one-and-a-half hour long version of the show on TSN. This will continue for a couple of weeks, after which we'll get the full two hour show. From what I could tell, we missed the Marlena incident, where the muscular chick mauled her again. There were few commercials, so I think we missed nothing else. The point of RAW was to have a WWF Title match between Bret Hart & Sid. It was going to start the show, but Steve Austin attacked everybody, potentially injuring Sid, so the match was delayed. Midway through, the match was going to take place, but Austin attacked Bret, potentially injuring him and delaying the match again. Finally, the match took place at the end of the show. With Sid in the ring, you know what the quality of the match was. After the intros, they went to commercial with Jim Ross saying, "so we can show you this match in its entirety." Apparently, that phrase means something else in the WWF, since they did interrupt the match for a commercial break. At the end, Steve Austin came out and cracked Bret with a chair while Bret had Sid in the Sharpshooter. The ref missed this interference and Sid got the pin with the powerbomb. This leads to an Undertaker vs. Sid match for the WWF Title at WrestleMania. From the way they were hyping the match at the end of RAW, it seems doubtful that that plan will change. Of course, I don't think we could come up with a worse match for the WWF Title, using the upper echelon guys, since these are the two worst of the lot. Talk about a come-down: first Bret vs. Shawn, then Bret vs. Undertaker, then Sid vs. Undertaker. And all of these matches at an inflated price! I know one WrestleMania PPV subscriber that the WWF has lost. In the recent past, the strength of the promotion has been the great main events. That strength goes out the window for the most important PPV show of the year for the company. Looking at the screw jobs that abounded the In Your House and RAW and looking at the new main event for WrestleMania, it appears that the WWF thinks that the business is so hot right now, they can't possibility kill it by doing stupid things. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it (reminds me of a cartoon where a father says this to his son, who has failed a history test. His son responds, "not at my school. Teachers fail nobody."). Also on RAW, Jerry Lawler went into a diatribe about ECW, telling the truth a la Terry Funk (re: FMW, described last week), basically saying that the promotion had substandard talent and challenging them to appear on next week's RAW. Paul Heyman phoned in and accepted the challenge. It appears that Heyman has done the smart thing to try to get some cross-over buys for his PPV in April. It wouldn't seem far-fetched to expect Lawler to challenge an ECW wrestler to a match at WrestleMania, with Heyman hoping that the largest PPV audience of the year causes some spill-over to occur for his show. Still, we come out of this incredible week with many changes for the WWF: * No Shawn Michaels. An incredible to their biggest asset in the past year, great main events. What great main events are left? Hart vs. Austin, and, uh... * Two hour (mostly live) RAWs. This is good news for TV fans, but can the WWF fill two hour shows each week? Who didn't we see in the two hour In Your House and the two hour RAW? The WWF seemingly doesn't have the talent depth to put on weekly two hour shows with any freshness in the line-ups. The only good thing that could come of this is if the WWF tries to have longer matches on the RAW shows. There are quite a few guys who can't work longer matches, but it would be a nice thing to return to, IMO. * Sid as champion. Ugh. As I've said before, apparently the fight between the "Big 2" isn't over ratings, it's over who can have the worst world champion. [ - ] 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 for the Tag Titles * Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Jericho for the US Title * Dean Malenko vs. Syxx for the Cruiserweight Title * Steve Regal vs. Rey Misterio Jr. for the TV Title * Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett, with the winner being a Horseman * Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Big Bubba * Harlem Heat vs. Publis Enemy vs. Faces of Fear * trios match [ - ] 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 WrestleMania on 03/23/97. Tentative line-up features: * Sid vs. Undertaker for the WWF Title * Ahmed Johnson vs. Faarooq in a street fight [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 04/20/97. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 02/03 with a 3.04 rating (4.6 share) against a 2.64 rating (3.9 share). This was the first battle of two hour long shows; the ratings are averaged for the two hours. The detailed ratings are a click away. [ - ] I will get the PPV figures updated by next week! Apologies. The details as they stand are available. [ - ] 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