From: hekunze@barrow.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 03/27 Date: 1997/03/28 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 228976011 Sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) Organization: University of Waterloo Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picture of The Week [Image] Due to demand in e-mail, I'm offering another picture of the wonderful Manami Toyota. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] The WWF had WrestleMania XIII this past Sunday. Historically, this PPV gets the biggest buy rate of any PPV for either promotion, but it seems quite possible that this year's show could miss that mark. One would have to think that a buy rate which does not annihilate the recent WCW figures would cause a fair bit of disappointment in the company, which is already consistently losing the television ratings battle. The show was a mixed bag on paper. The build up for the event was probably the worst of any WrestleMania and the loss of Shawn Michaels from the anticipated main event of Shawn vs. Bret Hart seemed to shake things up. On paper, there promised to be one excellent match, which did end up delivering on that promise, a few that had potential but were far from definite, and a horrible main event. Here's a brief run-down: Flash Funk vs. Billy Gunn: This "Free For All" match was nothing special, essentially filling some time while the commentators hyped the PPV. I still like the idea of a live pre-game show which features some wrestling. Blackjacks vs. Godwinns vs. Headbangers vs. LaFon & Furnas: This match was to determine the number one contenders for the tag belts; it was an elimination rules match. They adopted the horrible WCW rule of allowing partners to fight each other, which just makes no sense no matter which promotion does it. The commentators never know how to call the match when partners square off because it is clearly stupid. Unfortunately, the Blackjacks and Furnas & LaFon were the first two teams eliminated, in short order, by countouts. The first elimination being this screwy really set a negative tone, IMO. Godwinns and Headbangers did nothing special for the remainder of the match. The Bangers won with a cannonball splash onto a standing Godwinn, while the referee wasn't looking, so even the final elimination was a bit screwy. [Image] Michinoku Pro's Tiger Mask vs. Shiryu Rocky Maivia beat the Sultan by DQ: A bad match. Sultan is a bad character and a poor wrestler with the gimmick, and Iron Sheik & Bob Backlund add nothing. Rocky is not ready to carry people. The finish saw the heels lay out Rocky, who was saved by Rocky Johnson, his father. It was a bit weird, since Tony Atlas had jumped in on a RAW episode and stopped Rocky from getting into a bad situation; they had shown Tony in the crowd a bit earlier, but we didn't see him when Rocky was in trouble this time. You've got to think that they are setting up an angle where former tag champs Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas have an old grudge and Maivia gets caught in the middle. Unfortunately, that thought is nothing to make this whole thing worthwhile. Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Goldust: Best match so far, but it was at most mediocre. They were competent and delivered a reasonable match, but it was hardly anything memorable and kind of bland to watch, sort of like Marcus Bagwell vs. Scotty Riggs at Uncensored. The finish featured screwy finish number three, as Marlena got bumped into Chyna's waiting bear hug and Goldust got clobbered while trying to save her. Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith retained the WWF Titles against Vader & Mankind: One small notch above mediocre, this match became the best one on the show up to this point. Owen Hart seems to have a little more fire. While the body of the match was okay, the finish was a weak double count out. It was a really terrible non-finish, the kind that's acceptable on TV, when a story-line is being built, and maybe even at an In Your House PPV, but surely not here. Bret Hart beat Steve Austin in a submission match refereed by Ken Shamrock: They worked an intense match that didn't have as much wrestling as they are capable (reminiscent of Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero at Uncensored). It was super. Shamrock did a very good job as referee, being inobtrusive most of the time. Austin bled like mad and the camera got some gruesome close-ups of the spouting wound. The commentators worked it into the match and it helped feed the story line, with Austin blacking out while in the Sharpshooter, having been weakened by the blood loss. The finish was great since Bret got over for winning, Austin got over for his guts (and Vince McMahon was a god in calling this match), and Shamrock got over a bit for holding Bret back when he did his subtle heel turn on the American fans (that would be furthered the next night). It reminded me of the Dusty Rhodes finish, where, battered and bloody, the face blacks out while in Ric Flair's figure four. But this time around it was a little more special, since the heel/face roles were interchanged and the crowd started to turn on Bret and support Austin as the match went on. Legion of Doom & Ahmed Johnson beat Faarooq & Crush & Savio Vega in a Chicago street fight: This match did little for me. The camera work made it hard to catch everything that was going on. A lot of what we did catch looked weak or stupid: Animal's muddled piledriver on the table or, worse yet, all of the times where a wrestler stood idly by instead of trying to save his partner who was inches away, and, to top it off, a lack of selling. I've read some praise for this match, with some people praising it as being close to ECW style brawling, and while I can't agree with the praise, I do agree with the comparison. It was nonsensical, sloppy brawling. The match was a hurt a bit by following the Austin-Hart match, especially since Austin bled from a guard rail shot and none of these guys bled from much worse. The Legion of Doom are bad wrestlers these days, yet they managed to fit right into this ECW style match. Undertaker beat Sid to win the WWF Title: We've had some bad world title change matches in the recent past (Shawn beating Sid, Hogan, etc.), but this one might take the cake. Sid is just horrible and, since the booking focussed on his offence, it was really bad. They tried to book some extra-curricular things (Bret getting involved) to mask the fact that the in-ring action was so bad, but between the two Bret Hart appearances, I can't imagine they fooled anybody. [Image] Michinoku Pro's Tiger Mask vs. Mens Teoh. Teoh will wrestle as Terry Boy on the ECW PPV. Overall, I want to give the show a mild thumbs up because of Austin vs. Bret and the reasonable wrestling in the tag title match. I feel like we should be a bit harder on WrestleMania, though, since it is a more expensive show. There was just a lot of time-filling, mediocre, and less-than-mediocre stuff, and the finishes were pretty bad (even Austin-Bret was screwy, with Austin never submitting, but I think that was a strong finish). [ RAW ] this week featured two noteworthy items. Bret Hart did his heel turn on the American fans, sounding much like Hulk Hogan last year. He did an excellent job on the microphone, IMO, and it was a very strong angle. In a way, it was better than the Hogan angle, because people were booing Hogan for so long before he did the turn. Through subtle work, Bret has been able to get fans to turn on him during the course of a match or the course of an interview. I think we have to give him immense credit for that. I really liked the anti-American premise of his speech and his arguments rung true. Jeez, between Jerry Lawler & Bret Hart there's been commentary that gets over with me on RAW for most of the past several weeks. The second item was the trios match featuring the AAA guys. I thought they worked a good AAA lucha style match, but it was clear that they were not as seasoned as the WCW guys. The difference between these AAA guys or the CMLL guys and the WCW guys, the Michinoku Pro guys, and the guys that worked for El Gran Hamada's UWF in Japan is quite noticeable: they all work a lucha libre style, but the second batch of guys have almost eliminated the weaker spots (the slaps that are sold big time, for example) either by dropping them completely or by working them more stiffly. When lucha libre wrestlers cross over to Japanese, or even American, style, these weak spots really hurt the sense of realism that those audiences are accustomed to (one more so than the other). A final note: The Headbangers' win last night earned them a title shot on RAW that had the usual screwy ending, except this time Owen & Smith got into a physical fight over it. If you don't think that the WWF is taking the Monday night war seriously, notice that a PPV match set up a RAW match. [Image] Dick Togo squashes El Gran Naniwa [ - ] Also on Sunday, Kyoko Inoue successfully defended her All Japan Women's Triple Crown against Aja Kong. In a shocker, Kaoru Ito beat Manami Toyota to earn the number one challenger ranking. [ - ] The Observer reports that Rob Van Dam was backstage at Nitro two weeks ago. Since he's the only remaining ECW regular that really interests me, due in large part to his effort to improve in All Japan, I think it would be great if he came into the Cruiserweight division. I notice he's not on the ECW PPV line-up; recall that Paul Heyman wanted everybody who appears on the ECW PPV to sign a contract with the promotion. [ - ] In his recently posted review of WrestleMania, Rick Scaia commented that the Headbangers are, IHO, the number two tag team in the world behind the Eliminators. I posted a follow-up pointing out that "in the world" is way too gracious, since All Japan Pro-wrestling has several of the top tag teams under one banner. Even on the North American scene, neither of those two teams are the top: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith, for instance, are far more solid workers than either of the other combinations. Anyhow, I was asked to talk about All Japan in e-mail and I thought I'd include the text here as well. Up until a short while ago, All Japan easily had the strongest tag scene of any promotion. The regular teams include Mitsuhara Misawa (now promotion's single champion) & Jun Akiyama (one of my favourite young wrestlers), Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (present tag champs), Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (you wouldn't believe how good these two are in this promotion; it's very sad that Williams' drug bust may screw them), and Dan Kroffat (now Phil LaFon) & Doug Furnas. They've also teamed Kenta Kobashi (arguably the best singles wrestler in the world) with the Patriot (now WWF bound, but also incredibly good in this promotion), and Sabu & Gary Albright. These pairings were for the annual tag tournament, one of the highlight tours of the year in Japanese pro-wrestling: the champs vacate the titles going into the tournament and the tournament winners are declared new champions. Japanese promotions run tours for several (say three) weeks and then take a rest for a week. They often bring in some foreigners for a given tour. If a foreigner appears for many tours in a row, he's usually referred to as a regular. Regular foreigners in All Japan include Williams, Ace, Patriot, Kroffat & Furnas (for years), Stan Hansen, Johnny Smith (for years, but no longer). Foreigners working more recent tours included Rob van Dam (after his Robbie V period in WCW; he learned to work stiffly in All Japan, improving a lot), and, more recently, Jungle Jim Steele wrestling as "The Lacrosse" (don't ask me about the name! I have no clue. Steele is improving as well). Jackie Fulton worked for a long while as the Patriot's tag partner, The Eagle (similar gimmick). It's generally recognized that All Japan style is the hardest style in the world to work. It focusses on very legitimate athletics, work, workrate, no gimmicks in matches and very few on wrestlers (there is often an opening comedy match with Kamala II, but that's not the focus), long matches, and all clean finishes. Most North Americans that work there either work one tour and never return or improve tremendously just to survive. Why would they work such a demanding style? The money used to be great compared to what they could earn in North America; these days with "the war" the pay drop may have disappeared (and with the lighter style in America, the American groups are appealing to these guys). The bigger reason is that politics take less of a role in these promotions. Push is based on work; you influence your own success in a very real way. [ - ] In good news, Steve Williams appeared for All Japan's Champion Carnival despite his current legal problems. Williams was caught coming through the airports with drugs, mostly pain killers and some steroids. A felony possession charge was laid; I don't know if the legal issues have been resolved. [ - ] I had the chance to catch up on All Japan & New Japan TV this past weekend; "catch up" isn't quite accurate, but I've finally seen into February's television. The New Japan Tokyo Dome show in January was rather weak. Obviously, Liger vs. Sasuke and the main (Hashimoto vs. Choshu) were strong matches (for different reasons), but the undercard was not very exciting for me. Great Muta faced Power Warrior in a mediocre match. The New Japan vs. Big Japan matches were horrible. Shoji Nakamaki is as bad as Mr. Pogo. In the next tour, Marcus Bagwell & Scott Norton & Masa Chono represented the NWO. It was strange seeing an American angle put over on Japanese TV. Bagwell worked tremendously hard, both with his ringwork and with his heelish tactics, to get over with the crowd. I've got even higher hopes for him now. The junior tag match on several TV shows was always excellent. In the All Japan world, I finally saw the two title changes. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue won the titles from Steve Williams & Johnny Ace in a very good match that was not quite as good as these guys have done in the past. Mitsuhara Misawa won the Triple Crown from Kenta Kobashi in an incredible match. Only the second half of the match aired, but it was phenomenal, easily the best match I've seen so far this year. [ - ] WCW has Spring Stampede on 04/06/97. Tentative line-up features: * Kevin Nash & Scott Hall vs. Steiners for the WCW Tag Titles * Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa for the WCW Women's Title * Dean Malenko vs. Chris Benoit for the US Title * Prince Iaukea vs. Steve Regal for the TV Title * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage in a no DQ match * Public Enemy vs. Steve McMichael & Jeff Jarrett * Harlem Heat, Lex Luger, and Giant in a four corners match to determine the next contender for Hulk Hogan * Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Yuji Nagata There are two matches on this list that look just outstanding. Randy Savage has done jobs for Page at house shows. Scott Hall may not be able to work this show. [Image] Hayabusa gets violent [ - ] Also in the Observer, while talking about last week's Monday Night RAW, it's mentioned that Jerry Lawler went out to warm up the crowd and did his ECW rants to "very little response. While there were many noticeable ECW signs, this was the first show where there were also a lot of negative ECW signs to go with the positive, but the crowd response to ECW was minimal." [ - ] WCW comes to Montreal, Quebec, making a rare visit to Canada, on 04/11/97. Planned matches include: * Hulk Hogan vs. Jacques Rougeau * Giant vs. French Canadian Pierre in a "patch match," where each wrestler wears an eye patch * Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear * Lex Luger vs. Steve McMichael * Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko Several matches with local wrestlers will also be added. [Image] Shinya Hashimoto defeats Kazuo Yamazaki [ - ] New Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 04/12/97. Featured line-up includes: * Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoyi Ogawa for the IWGP Title * Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura vs. Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki for the IWGP Tag Titles * Antonio Inoki vs. Tiger Mask I (Satoru Sayama) * Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke for the J Crown * Great Muta vs. Masa Chono (match is billed as "The World of Darkmen") * Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Manabu Nakanishi (Kurosawa in WCW before returning to New Japan) * Satoshi Kojima & Junji Hirata vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Osamu Nishimura * Shiro Koshinaka vs. Ishikawa * Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan * El Samurai vs. Shinjiro Otani [ - ] 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 (?) ECV is also rumoured to be trying to get on PPV. [ - ] The WWF has [In Your House ] on 04/20/97. Tentative line-up features: * Undertaker vs. Mankind for the WWF Title * Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Legion of Doom for the WWF Tag Titles * Goldust & Marlena vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Chyna * Ahmed Johnson vs. Faarooq & Crush & Savio Vega in a handicap match * Honky Tonk Man's new find (Disco Inferno?) vs. Jesse James First it was getting the midgets on TV, now the WWF and WCW are both racing to have a mixed tag match. It looks like the WWF is going to win this race. If you wonder how Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith can still be a team at this point, or if you think that they are set to break up, there is a suggestion that the two of them, along with Bret Hart, will form a small heel group. [ - ] [Nitro ] beat [RAW ] on 03/24 with a 3.0 rating against a 2.5 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. [ - ] The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.49 (0.59) and average gross of $1.21-million ($1.54-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.68 (0.64) and average gross of $1.97-million ($1.90-million). Early reports are that WCW's Uncensored scored a better buy rate than SuperBrawl did (0.75). 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. I will be adding a tape update some time this weekend. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to: Masaki Aso. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Click here to return. E-mail: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca