I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ All of the feedback regarding the animated gifs was positive, but nobody bothered to pin down what file sizes are acceptable. Obviously, file size is determined by three factors: size of each frame, number of colours in each frame, and number of frames in total. So, here are two 320x200 gifs (as opposed to the Ground Zero gif, which was only 200x150). The first is a gif with 45 frames devoted to WCW's Fall Brawl, with each frame having at most 50 colours to keep file size down. It is still over 1 Mb! The second is a gif with 15 frames devoted to Brian Pillman & Marlena, this time allowing a full 256 colours, if necessary, in each frame. The file is just under 1Mb! Give me feedback about which variables to control: frame size, colours, or total frames. _________________________________________________________________ - The WWF had One Night Only on PPV on Sunday. I think the show deserves a mild thumbs up because the final three matches were all pretty good. Quick rundown: * Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Dude Love: Not a bad opener, but absolutely nothing special. Helmsley is so heavily overrated (overpushed) by the WWF, that the Observer reports it is continually causing problems in the locker room. Shawn Michaels wants his friend pushed, yet, even with Chyna at his side to help, Helmsley can't get over strong. Anyhow, Dude got caught with a surprise pedigree for the finish. * Tiger Ali Singh beat Leif Cassidy after a top rope bulldog: Singh figured to get some crowd support from being Canadian, since it was clear the WWF expected the Harts to be faces here, but it didn't work. He delivered a sloppy pre-match interview encouraging kids to be drug free just like him...uh-huh. A poor match, even though it was short. Even Cassidy couldn't carry Singh to something interesting. * Headbangers beat Savio Vega & Miguel Perez: Giving the belts to the Bangers seems to have been a mistake, IMO. They can be carried to something good by exceptional wrestlers, but they can't keep a match with boring opponents interesting. Perez, despite all of Sanjay's and other's praise as a ***** work machine and despite his one or two short-but-spot-filled appearances on Nitro and in agreement with the generally crappy matches I have seen him in prior to his WWF stint, does nothing in his current role. * Patriot beat Flash Funk: The crowd booed Patriot out of the building, so while they were not pro-Canadian, per se, they at least had the sense to be anti-American. Wasn't there talk of Funk getting repackaged at some point? He needs it badly. They didn't work that well together, maybe because Patriot was flustered by the crowd reaction and maybe because Funk is seemingly incapable of putting together a coherent match any more. Interesting to see the battle of Buff Bagwell's former tag partners...maybe not. Patriot hit the Uncle Slam. * Legion of Doom beat the Godwinns: A lousy match, ending with the Doomsday Device. Cletus couldn't afford the plane ticket from Bucksnort. A very sad match. At this point, the show looked to to be completely abysmal, worse than most of the other WWF PPVs this year at the same point in the show. * Vader beat Owen Hart: Tremendous work by Owen and, to a lesser degree, by Vader. Owen got strong support from the crowd, even thought the crowd had been luke warm to Bret in an earlier interview. I think this was the best match on the show from a wrestling standpoint; the main event had way too much screwy stuff in it. Owen came close to winning several times, which was nice to see. A year or two ago, they wouldn't even have considered booking this one closely. Lots of good wrestling. Vader won with a powerslam. * Bret Hart beat Undertaker by DQ: A senseless finish to an otherwise passable match. The match was quite lengthy, only to build to a crummy non-finish. The crowd supported both wrestlers, perhaps Hart a tad more. They both did babyface and heel moves, making for an entertaining match at points. Eventually, Undertaker "snapped," or so the commentators said, and got DQed. Horrible ending. * Shawn Michaels beat Davey Boy Smith to win the European Title: A solid match, with Michaels putting on a hell of a show again, as usual. Despite the exceptional and superior quality of everything that Bret does, Michaels still manages to maintain a greater aura as a superstar. Rick Rude, Chyna, and Helmsley got involved, as they continue to try to get Helmsley over, so the match disintegrated into a cluster. No Hart Foundation guys came out in support, which made them look weaker than the Horsemen when the NWO ran that group down. The ring was set up on a riser, like WCW did at Road Wild; while that helped kill undercard matches on the WCW show, since the flyers couldn't fly, it had no effect on this show, since the WWF doesn't have much on the flyer roster. In this match, the set-up finally came in to play, as Smith got his foot caught in the ring set-up. He was pummelled and eventually placed in the figure four. After a lengthy period without a submission, the referee called for the bell anyhow, ruling that Smith couldn't continue without risk of injury. A good main event, but it was marred by too many people being involved. I'm sort of torn on the finish. Yeah, it's a classic way to have the face lose without losing, but, in an environment that is trying to get submissions over, they should have had the Bulldog black out if they didn't want him to tap out. RAW this past Monday was live from Madison Square Garden. I thought it was an excellent TV show. In fact, despite occasional flaming e-mail that calls me anti-WWF when I criticize poor wrestling, I think that RAW had been, more often than not, a very strong TV show over the past year, playing no small part in the improvement in WWF business. The exceptions are the taped shows, which do lose a certain energy. Anyhow, the wrestling highlights were not that plentiful this time, but there were several memorable and well-executed occurrences: Steve Austin stunned Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart finally came to blows, Cactus Jack made his WWF debut in a falls count anywhere match, and Owen Hart & Brian Pillman had a few humourous moments early on. The current standings in the IC Title tournament: Quarter Finals Semi Finals Finals Brian Pillman Brian Pillman Dude Love Owen Hart Goldust Owen Hart Owen Hart Ken Shamrock Faarooq, replacing Shamrock Faarooq Faarooq Ahmed Johnson Ahmed Johnson Rocky Maivia - WCW has signed John Nord and Barry Darsow, which seem to me to be two more sad additions. Wayne Bloom was also offered a contract. - Time to eat some crow, since I was apparently pretty darn confused myself last week. To correct myself, New Japan's J Crown consisted of eight titles: * WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Title * British Jr. Heavyweight Title * WWA Jr. Lightheavyweight Title (Mexico) * NWA Welterweight Title (Mexico) * UWA Lightheavyweight Title (Mexico) * IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: a New Japan belt, created in 1986 and first held by Shiro Koshinaka, who defeated the Cobra (who went on to an unmemorable unmasked career under his real name, George Takano). * NWA Jr. Heavyweight Title: adopted by New Japan in 1982, when Tiger Mask defeated Les Thornton on 05/05. The title change is not recognized in North America, where the title is abandoned in 1988. In Japan, it was abandoned in 1985, when the idea of creating the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight title caught fire. * UWA WWF Lightheavyweight Title Last week, I interchanged New Japan's WWF Junior Heavyweight and the UWA WWF Lightheavyweight Title from Mexico. My discussion of the WWF Jr. Heavyweight Title was correct but irrelevant. It's this Mexican WWF Lightheavyweight Title, that was created in a tournament in Japan in 1981, that lead to a series of matches and a major feud between first champion Perro Aguayo and tournament finalist El Gran Hamada. I even have numerous matches between them on tape. In any case, much like the WWF Jr. Heavyweight Title, the belt was not used on WWF shows. The WWF is creating a new lighheavyweight title for the new division. New Japan's dismantling of the J Crown has little to do with this, although the WWF has finally decided to exercise a claim to the old belt, probably because WCW's business ally is using it. - FMW has a show in Kawasaki Stadium on 9/28/97. Line-up has: * Atsushi Onita vs. Wing Kanemura * Gladiator vs. Masato Tanaka * Shark Tsuchiya vs. Aja Kong * Ken Shamrock vs. Vader - The WWF has Badd Blood on 10/05/97. Tentative line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker in a cage match where the cage has a roof * Head Bangers vs. Godwinns for the Tag Titles * Owen Hart vs. Faarooq in the Intercontinental Title tournament final * Bret Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Patriot & Vader in a flag match * Rocky Maivia & Kama vs. Hawk & Animal * Brian Pillman vs. Dude Love in a falls count anywhere match It's my understanding that the cage match will feature a Thunderdome style cage that actually sits on the ringside floor; it will be chain link. They have announced that under the ring will be inspected before the match to ensure that there is no interference in this match...which of course means that the finish will be due to interference, presumably Cain getting involved in the match by misteriously coming out from the under the ring. They are apparently going to do a very slow build to the first Undertaker vs. Cain match. The original plan was to have a six-man tag with Faarooq & Rocky & Kama against the LOD & Ken Shamrock. Since Shamrock got injured and it's the wrong time to give Ahmed Johnson a win over Faarooq in an adjusted semi-final tournament match, the only option was to give Faarooq a DQ win, heating up Faarooq vs. Ahmed. Presumably, the weak six-man match will be turned into a weak tag match. - Rumour has it that All Japan wants to use the Blackjacks in their annual tag team tournament. The WWF is already planning to kill the team and repackage the wrestlers. - - RAW 09/22 with a 3.7 rating against a 2.3 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 0.59 (0.52) and average gross of $1.51-million ($1.32-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.69 (0.67) and average gross of $2.12-million ($2.02-million). The details as they stand are available. - WCW has Halloween Havoc on 10/26/97. Tentative line-up has: * Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper in a cage * Giant vs. Kevin Nash * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage * Jeff Jarrett vs. Curt Hennig for the US Title Surely, the last match was planned to be Jarrett vs. Steve McMichael since they have the issue, but with Hennig's title win and Jarrett's Fall Brawl victory, this is the current situation. - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/09/97. - WCW has World War III on 11/23/97. - FMW has a major show in Kawasaki Stadium on 11/28/97. - The WWF has a PPV on 12/07/97. - WCW has Starrcade on 12/28/97. - 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. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. Don't forget to delete the leading "x" from my e-mail address;