From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 05/01 Date: 1997/05/02 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 239057729 Sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) Organization: University of Waterloo Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling [Wrestling TidBits] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As I settle into my new position as a lecturer in the Applied Math department, it seems likely that my internet account information may change. It's possible that this URL will have to move. We'll have to wait and see. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ - ] ECW's Paul Heyman reports that he expects the Barely Legal PPV to get around 50000 buys, which would be an enormous success. Although it was estimated that the PPV universe available to ECW was around 17 million, when the numbers are examined it seems improbable that the show was available to that many homes. The Observer estimates a universe of 14 million for the show. This places the buy rate somewhere between 0.29 and 0.35, beating out the first-time attempts of many wrestling-related PPV ventures, but being beaten by UWFi and Pancrase, which quickly became non-viable on PPV. I received my copy of the show on tape a couple of days ago and have managed to watch it. I think it was a good show, an easy thumbs up, even though the usual weaknesses of the promotion showed through. The wrestling was often sloppy and hesitant, Joey Styles was very good, and the fans were their usual selves. Styles never strayed from the match at hand, like the commentators often do in the big two promotions, and he put real effort into calling moves. He is a big plus. If you only like wrestling that is perfectly executed, then there were no matches on this show for you. Perhaps through a combination of nerves and greenness, there were a lot of moments that would lead to absolute crucifixion if they occurred on a major event by either of the big two promotions. Very quickly, because this is old news, * The Eliminators beat the Dudleys in 6:11 to win the ECW Tag Titles: The Dudleys got in very little offence, a good thing because they are not good. People argue that I have a misimpression of the ECW Arena fans, but they opened this match with a profane chant for D-Von. The Eliminators did a lot of spots, some of them nice, a lot of them sloppy, with absolutely no transitions between anything. They show potential to be great, but I almost laughed at the suggestion that they are anywhere near the best in the world. A good opener with a hot crowd. ** * Rob van Dam beat Lance Storm in 10:10: Both of these guys have a lot of potential. Van Dam has improved tremendously since his Robbie V WCW days, obviously maturing on his All Japan tours. Unfortunately, he's added some silly spots to his repertoire and they all had to turn up here. The spot where his opponent holds a chair in front of his face so Van Dam can kick it into his face is the worst. His charisma and interviewing have improved, the latter surely due to ECW. Lance Storm is a bit out of his element in ECW, seemingly not knowing the rules of the promotion for getting over with these fans. The finish was muddled, filled with sloppiness and a heckling crowd chant. For some reason, I expected a better match from these two and came away disappointed, likely because they tried to do too many spots with chairs during the match, adding to the overall sloppiness. **1/2 * Great Sasuke & El Gran Hamada & Masato Yukushiji beat Mens Teoh & Dick Togo & Taka Michinoku in 16:55: This was a match from one of my favourite promotions in the world, Michinoku Pro. They often put on matches one-and-a-half times as long that all end up being match-of-the-year quality. This match didn't have that extra time and had one flub that was handled well enough by the guys to not be embarrassing, so it won't compare to their best Japanese efforts, but it is still up there behind Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin from WrestleMania as the second best match in North America so far this year. Joey Styles was very good in this match, with lots of facts at hand, but not seeming like he was just reciting them for the viewers; that's a difficult balance and he did it well. He helped establish the individuality of the wrestlers. The fans threw streamers into the ring at the start of the match, which was a very nice touch, a positive action that was soiled when they chanted "You f'ed up" at the wrestlers, and, later, slightly corrected when they gave the wrestlers a standing ovation. The match was great, easily the best match on the show. ****1/2 * Shane Douglas beat Pit Bull #2 in 20:43 to retain the TV Title: Not a good match at all. The most recent Observer writes, "Apparently Douglas is one of the few ECW wrestlers who calls his matches entirely in the ring rather than setting up every spot beforehand in the dressing room. However, since Pit Bull was nervous and because of time constraints on PPV, he set up the whole match in the dressing room and it didn't work." That brings to mind the question of whether wrestlers who are given a finish and a general idea for a match and then put it together in the ring are somehow "better" than wrestlers who have to plan everything out in advance; I'm not sure how I feel, because I really only care about the quality of the end product. Still, if Glacier & Mortis have a ** match on PPV, I don't think I'm going to think they are young superstars, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, this match was filled with screw ups. In a way, it's not such a bad thing, since it would have been hard for a good match to follow the Michinoku match. * * Taz beat Sabu in 17:49 by submission: Good but disappointing, considering what had been built. Sabu was a lot less sloppy than usual, which really helped this match. Taz was pretty good on the ground, but the crowd surprisingly had no reaction to most of what he did. I liked the in-ring stuff a lot more than all of the table spot and chair-vaulting stuff that Sabu did; it's much less contrived. The finish was muddled again. ***1/4 * Terry Funk beat Sandman & Stevie Richards in 18:00-or-so to win the title shot against Raven: The final two matches were the FMW part of the show. That's not completely fair. They started out attempting to do some triangle wrestling spots. Sandman got a ladder and they did a few ladder spots before the match just degenerated into FMW madness, with Terry Funk playing the Atsushi Onita role. I really respect the wrestling accomplishments of Terry Funk, but if this is all he's currently capable of doing, he's tarnishing his legend a lot more than other guys who have stayed on past their prime. Maybe I'm alone with this opinion, but I get sad when I see Terry perform garbage wrestling in Japan or North America. Sandman was incredibly sloppy, as usual, and will probably severely injure himself or his opponent at some point; I draw no pleasure whatsoever from watching him. Stevie Richards has some strange charisma and potential, but it didn't really surface here. Besides the ladder, they used a garbage can; boy, I couldn't suggest better symbolism. After Stevie was eliminated by a double power bomb, Sandman wrapped himself in barbed wire and bounced himself off Funk. Funk finally rallied and hit a moonsault for the win. * Terry Funk beat Raven in 7:20 to win the ECW Title: Funk was bleeding profusely when the match started and basically just lay there taking a beating and occasionally being checked by the doctor at ringside. I told you he was Onita. After guest commentator Tommy Dreamer disposed of a Dudley by dropping him through three tables (although it was too obvious that Dick jumped off the balcony through the tables), he hit the ring and DDTed Raven. Funk got the miraculous roll-up win thereafter. If they could have stayed on the air a few more minutes, I'm sure we would have seen Terry crying into the camera, taking back the gimmick that Onita had learned from him years before. The ratings above are my thoughts without looking at the Observer's ratings. I didn't rate the last two matches because I don't feel comfortable rating garbage wrestling. Without the Michinoku match, I think the show would have been a slight thumbs up. Although it was better than the average WCW or WWF PPV, I don't think it was the best PPV thus far this year. [ - ] As was mentioned last week, WCW has made some plays for ECW wrestlers. Most of the wrestlers were immediately signed to extended contracts with ECW, but Raven seems to have slipped through the crack. It is likely that he will appear for WCW in the very near future, although he will not be able to wrestle until his no-compete clause runs out in October. He has apparently signed a three-year deal with WCW. [ RAW ] this week continued with the very strong Steve Austin vs. Hart Foundation story line; is there any other story line in the promotion? The wrestling this week was better than last week (which had terrible in-ring action) because of Owen Hart, but it was still nothing special. They started the heel turn of Furnas & LaFon by having them lose to the Legion of Doom. The WWF has two excellent teams (Furnas & Lafon and Smith & Hart) but it doesn't look like we'll be seeing them against each other when both teams are motivated. Sigh. The Legion of Doom is bad and even the momentary glimpses of the excellence of Furnas & LaFon was not enough to save this match. In other wrestling, Owen Hart won the IC Title from Rocky Maivia with a surprise roll-up out of a suplex reversal. Owen seems to be turned on by his new position. Rockabilly lost to Flash Funk; there was miscommunication between Billy and Honky Tonk Man so they are either using the idea that the combination needs to get acquainted before being successful (seems likely), or they are going to do a quick split after the failure of the new gimmick and give HTM a new protege (seems unlikely). The story line of the show saw Steve Austin acting like a bat out of hell again. At the finish, Austin confronted Bret Hart, who was in a wheelchair, on the platform and was knocked down by Jim Neidhart, making a surprise return to the fold. Once again, the show gave me the feeling that the wrestling was secondary; I don't know if this is such a good thing. [Muta vs. Liger] I had the chance to watch the New Japan 10/20/96 show (commercial tape) headlined by the Great Muta vs. Jushin Liger in a match that pulled out all the stops when it comes to gimmicks. With ring entrances the match went less than 14 minutes, and the ring entrances were reasonably elaborate. Worse yet, they teased making contact for the first few minutes of the match, which were not particularly exciting by any standard. Eventually, though, things got interesting and the gimmicks took over. Muta, who had spit green mist at the start of the match, went nuts and tried to rip off Liger's mask. Having ripped the mask enough to uncover Liger's face (although we couldn't see it yet, because he was he lying face down on the mat), Muta went to get a chair to use as a weapon [Muta rips at Liger's mask] . When Liger stood, however, he raised his head to show that his face was painted white, freaking out Muta, who stood there stunned; Liger then spit green mist in his face. Liger than scrambled outside of the ring and found a knife at ringside. He came back into the ring and proceeded to cut off the upper half of his ring costume, revealing that his chest and shoulders were also painted with black highlights [Liger's body paint] . The audience "ooohed." The match degenerated into gimmicks at this point, with a table getting involved, and all that jazz. Eventually, Muta blew some red mist on Liger and hit the moonsault for the win [Image] . This match was nowhere near what these guys are capable of and I was pretty disappointed with the reliance on gimmickry from guys that have talent. I rated it **1/2. Oh well, things actually got worse, since this New Japan show was followed by an old FMW show from 09/23/91, headlined by Tarzan Goto vs. Atsushi Onita in a barbed wire, electrified steel cage match. [ - ] New Japan has a major show on 05/03/97 in the Osaka Dome. Line-up has: * Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoyi Ogawa for the IWGP Title * Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima for the IWGP Tag Titles * Shiro Koshinaka vs. Kengo Kimura * El Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Great Sasuke & Norio Honga & El Samurai vs. Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Hanzo Nakajima & Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto * Antonio Inoki & Tiger King (Satoru Sayama) vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Jushin Liger * Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner & Keiji Muto vs. Scott Hall & Kevin Nash & Masa Chono * Lex Luger & Giant vs. Scott Norton & Marcus Bagwell * Syxx & NWO Sting vs. Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata * Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan * Tokimitsu Ishizawa vs Kazuo Yamazaki [ - ] [Nitro ]beat [RAW ] on 04/21 with a 3.38 rating against a 2.75 rating. For the next month, the shows will not be head-to-head. 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 0.55 (0.54) and average gross of $1.42-million ($1.41-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.70 (0.65) and average gross of $2.05-million ($1.92-million). The details as they stand are available. [ - ]The WWF has [In Your House ] on 05/11/97. Tentative line-up has: o Undertaker vs. Steve Austin for the WWF Title o Ahmed Johnson vs. Faarooq & Crush & Savio Vega (in three separate matches) o Ken Shamrock vs. Vader o Sid vs. Mankind o Flash Funk vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley [ - ]WCW has Slamboree on 05/18/97. Tentative line-up has: o Ric Flair & Roddy Piper & Kevin Greene vs. Scott Hall & Kevin Nash & Syxx o Steve McMichael vs. Reggie White o Steiners vs. Konnan & Hugh Morrus o Madusa vs. Luna Vachon o Chris Benoit vs. Meng in a death match o Rey Misterio Jr vs. Yuji Yasuraoka o Ultimo Dragon vs. Steve Regal for the TV Title o Dean Malenko vs. Prince Iaukea or Jeff Jarrett for the US Title o Mortis vs. Glacier This is the first WCW PPV line-up in a while that doesn't have at least one excellent match on paper. There are some matches with potential, but things could go either way for this show. [ - ] The WWF has King of The Ring on 06/08/97. Tentative line-up has: o Undertaker vs. Ahmed Johnson for the WWF Title o Davey Boy Smith & Owen Hart vs. Shawn Michaels & Steve Austin [ -]WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/15/97. [ - ]The WWF has [In Your House ] on 07/06/97. [ - ]WCW has Bash at the Beach on 07/13/97. [ - ] The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/03/97. [ - ]WCW has Hog Wild on 08/09/97. [ - ]ECW has its second PPV on 08/17/97. [ - ]The WWF has [In Your House ] on 09/07/97. [ - ]WCW has Fall Brawl on 09/14/97. [ - ]The WWF has [In Your House ] on 10/05/97. [ - ]WCW has Halloween Havoc on 10/26/97. [ - ]The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/09/97. [ - ]WCW has World War III on 11/23/97. [ - ]The WWF has [In Your House ] on 12/07/97. [ - ]WCW has Starrcade on 12/28/97. [ - ]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