______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ Each week, I receive a bunch of e-mail, with half-or-so saying that I'm pro-WCW and the other half-or-so saying that I'm pro-WWF. The small remainder correctly comments, I think, that I'm pro quality wrestling, wherever it might occur. _________________________________________________________________ Pictures of the Week Eighteen new pictures. Go to the Pics page to see the full selection, with thumbnails or without. I've added an image code of "zz" for miscellaneous pictures so that I could add some pictures from the Cauliflower Alley Club Banquet. To view any of the pictures, click on the thumbnail. Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku vs. Great Sasuke Tiger Mask Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton vs. Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner Shinya Hashimoto vs. Akira Nogami Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton Hulk Hogan Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi clothesline Scott Norton Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Otani Jushin Liger vs. El Samurai Keiji Muto vs. Hiro Saito Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner Ronnie Garvin Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage Undertaker Chris Candido & Sunny Cauliflower Alley Club Banquet Cauliflower Alley Club Banquet Cauliflower Alley Club Banquet _________________________________________________________________ RAW was a live show with little wrestling. The only potentially promising match on the show, Owen Hart vs. Billy Gunn, turned out to be a nothing bout. The show was built around heating up the New Age Outlaws vs. Cactus Jack & Terry Funk feud, which will surely lead to a title match at WrestleMania in March. After an out of character interview with Cactus & Terry, the two wrestlers had an anything goes match, with the commentators saying "hardcore" more times than the total utterances of the word in previous WWF history. The match was junky garbage wrestling, with a helpful heaping of Funk comedy. If you think I'm alone in expressing sadness about Terry, like I have been for many weeks now, peep this from the Observer: "In some ways because of nostalgia and who he is, it is great seeing Funk in a major event [the Rumble], but because of his physical limitations and his being reduced to a total comedy garbage style and this not being Japan where his legend makes up for it with the crowd and he's respected for just being Terry Funk, it's also sad." Anyhow, they whacked each other with garbage cans, before going to the key spot of the match: Cactus Jack delivering an elbow drop from the TitanTron support structure "onto" Terry in a dumpster. When Cactus flew into the dumpster a lot of styrofoam popcorn flew out, at the same time looking neat and deflating things. The New Age Outlaws hit the scene, tied the dumpster shut, and, in a spectacular-looking spot from some camera angles, pushed the dumpster off the platform. It landed on its side, officials ran out, and the dumpster was opened to show Terry & Cactus lying inside, amidst thousands of pieces of styrofoam popcorn, which again hurt the angle. They drew the whole thing out for several segments, before finally loading Terry & Cactus onto ambulances. During the fracas, everybody came out to check on them and Vince spoke to the Outlaws, all of this to tease the break of kayfabe, as heels cared about faces and the Outlaws said they didn't mean to hurt them. Sunny cried, which, at least for me, was over the top acting. Was it a good angle? I dunno. It killed the crowd live, since they had to sit through the "wait for the ambulance." The Outlaws didn't get a spectacular heel reaction later in the show when they came out for their singles matches. When Cactus & Terry returned at the end of the show to attack the Outlaws, they also didn't get a super strong reaction. Since their tag match will likely take place at WrestleMania, which is going to draw a buy rate for other reasons, it's unclear whether this was a good thing. In my gut, I don't think that the average WWF fan gives a rat's behind about Terry Funk & Cactus Jack and I doubt that this angle will change that. The ratings for the show serve as evidence to this, as there was a sizeable drop from hour one to hour two, when interested fans should have been waiting for promised updates from the hospital. The angle also heats up the next PPV, No Way Out, which can use all the help it can get. Shawn Michaels & Hunter Hearst Helmsley encouraged the Outlaws when everybody else was vilifying them, solidifying their team a bit. When Gunn faced Hart in a cheap, disappointing match that ended with interference, all four of the heels threatened to throw Owen off the platform too, again sort of deflating the earlier angle because of repetition. In the finish of the show, Steve Austin faced the Roaddog, which, you guessed it, ended quickly with interference from everybody, including Funk (in a hospital gown) and Cactus (with an intravenus drip and a sling). In other matches, Marc Mero beat Headbanger Mosh after a groin shot. Sable's bosom looked absolutely grotesque as she bounced her basketballs to the ring. When Mero left WCW, he was so concerned about how his daughter would deal with an angle involving him and another woman; if he's really concerned about messages that his kid receives, and even if he can now justify angles he and Sable are in as being acted out, what kind of message does Sable's gruesome surgeries send? Faarooq faced Chainz; the less said the better. Jeff Jarrett & a blond, aged Barry Windham faced Justin Bradshaw & Flash Funk, with Bradshaw eventually getting the pin on Jarrett, presumably leading to a singles match at WrestleMania, followed by a feud with Windham. The NWA's gimmick of being the WWF's NWO (NWO is against the tradition of wrestling, NWA is for the tradition of tennis racquet shots) was funny for a minute, but I've quickly begun hoping that they have something better than this planned. Overall, because the angle left me flat, I can't say this was a particularly good show. In stuff we didn't see, All Japan veteran and tremendously-improved Johnny Ace beat Flash Funk. They also gave a try-out to Bobby Duncum Jr., who has worked an All Japan tour or two as well as in ECW. He's nothing special, even when he was in All Japan, surrounded by the best in the world. To quote the Observer, "he's improved to where he's a little below average uncharismatic 6-5 guy, which also describes a good percentage of the company's roster these days." Nitro was a three hour show, condensed to two hours for Canada. And, darn it, if it didn't feel like they picked the worst two hours to show us! I can't judge the two hour show, but the portions that aired in Canada were really weak. We saw seemingly every interview and a few of the generally crummy matches: Booker T vs. Steve Regal, Scott Hall vs. Jim Neidhart, Bill Goldberg vs. Mark Starr, Steve McMichael vs. Davey Boy Smith, Raven vs. Disco Inferno, Steiners vs. Kevin Nash & Buff Bagwell, and the main event of Randy Savage vs. Sting. Not one noteworthy match in the lot. They pushed Chris Benoit vs. Diamond Dallas Page for tonight's Thunder. Disco gave a strong but unmemorable performance against Raven. The Steiners continued their story line, with Scott going it along and squeaking out the win instead of tagging Rick when he could have. With Scott's current angry persona, attacking referees and hogging ring time, maybe they'll go with the story line that he's suffering from roid rage. Nah, probably not, but it explains all of his actions. WCW did seem to learn from the mistake of Starrcade: having Sting just walk to ring like any other wrestler. On this Nitro, in his first legit TV match since his return, Sting had an elaborate entrance, with music and lights setting the mood and Sting himself coming down from the ceiling into the crowd. The shot of Sting being mobbed by fans while the spotlight focused on them was tremendous. Thunder last week went unmentioned because I didn't have time to watch the show before updating the page. Needless to say, the Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho & Eddie Guerrero match put everything else from that week of wrestling in North America to shame! This week, Thunder was a reasonably good show, once again the best of the big three mostly-live weekly shows. Hugh Morrus pinned La Parka in the opener; La Parka chaired Morrus afterwards. Bill Goldberg beat Jim Powers. Goldberg has great intensity, but, as we saw on the weekend when he faced Meng in a longer match, it doesn't carry over well to anything but his patented squashes. Tony Schiavone said something to the effect of "He's more than unbeaten, he's definitely unbeaten." Sigh. In a good short match, Billy Kidman beat Juventud Guerrera. In another good short match, the Villanos & Silver King beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Super Calo & Lizmark Jr. when King pinned Chavo after interference by Psicosis. I guess they are heating up Psicosis vs. Chavo Jr. The Steiners beat Konnan & Buff Bagwell by DQ when Scott Hall interfered as the Steiners were setting up a top rope double team. The interference caused Rick to fly into Scott's back and Scott acted all upset about it. Raven pinned Marty Jannetty in an okay match. Perry Saturn pinned Disco Inferno in another okay match. Jim Neidhart DQ Louie Spicolli when Scott Hall interfered again. This time around, Neidhart was using an object on Louie's throat and Hall made the save. The commentators acted like Hall had saved Louie from a fair defeat. Davey Boy Smith ran in to help Neidhart (whose name was spelled Niedhart in the intro). Steve McMichael ran in to attack Smith and Neidhart helped clothesline him out of the ring. McMichael said that now both guys were on his list. It looks like they are going to head towards a WCW Hart Foundation vs. Three Horsemen match after all, even if it makes the Harts get a heel reaction. Maybe it's planned for the Canadian PPV in May, in which case they might bank on a face reaction for the Harts. In the main event, Chris Benoit & Diamond Dallas Page went to a no contest when Raven and his flock interfered. Page bled a bit hardway. It was a pretty good match, but then I would enjoy watching Benoit wrestle a broom. The ending sucked, although they teased that Benoit & DDP would meet again. - The Observer reports that the original plan for the Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair match at Souled Out was to have Curt Hennig interfere, presumably because he is the greatest of all time, to set up a triangle feud. That had to be scrapped because Hennig suffered a knee injury. - As was pointed out to me in e-mail a few times, Giant has taken a power bomb before, from Kevin Nash last year. - Along with Sean Morley and Adam Copeland, from whom the WWF is expecting big things when they debut, it looks like the WWF is getting ready to take a second stab at pushing Tiger Ali Singh. - I've heard one report that Randy Savage signed a two-year contract extension with WCW, despite his contract not running out until the end of this year. Hulk Hogan has apparently still not signed the three-year deal he's been tabled, a deal that gives him an extra $1.5-million per year. Giant's contract is up in March, and lord knows the WWF would want him so they can dump Kurrgan. Crush will be starting with WCW shortly; another one of those great, young, new, talented wrestlers that they bleated were coming in in 1998 (along with John Nord, Rick Martel, etc.)? - I had the chance to watch a bit of wrestling on tape this weekend. Here's some discussion: * All Japan tag tourney matches: + Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama: Just incredible. Ace was great, but Kobashi was in most of the match, so that made it an easy * * * * 1/2 bout. They were so incredibly stiff with each other. Akiyama is one of my favourite young guys, having improved so quickly in this tough style. The final many minutes of this match were so damn exciting you wouldn't believe it. Misawa took a few bumps straight down on his head, as has become his pattern in recent years. Ace put the cobra clutch on Misawa and then suplexed him for a close fall, but Misawa rallied and hit a tiger suplex and a tiger driver for the pin at 29:50 of a 30:00 bout. I saw this match early on in my tape viewing and figured that no match would compare, and, even though some did, the intensity in the final minutes here is a must-see. + Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa: Also from the tag tourney. The Observer gave it * * * * 3/4 , as I'd learned from r.s.p-w before watching tapes, so I went in thinking it must really be something. I was sorely disappointed. Shinzaki & Hayabusa did some flying spots that looked great, but their team lacked the transitions and psychology that others in the promotion can deliver. It's a pretty match, in some ways, and Misawa & Akiyama did a stellar job at making it very good, but I don't think it deserves to beat out the previous bout or be labelled great. Strangely, then, after watching it, I read the Observer review, which praised it as being better than Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero (presumably from Havoc), a claim I can't agree with at all. Akiyama was particularly great here. + Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue: The tournament final. A damn good match, but I just don't enjoy Akira Taue that much. Unlike Jumbo Tsuruta, who Taue physically resembles and who had a similar style, I haven't been able to look past my distaste for the guy and see how great he is. The match was super: I love the other three guys, and Taue did his role well. The finish was solid, with dangerous moves back and forth, and a real battle between Taue & Akiyama. * New Japan junior heavyweight matches: + Jushin Liger & company vs. Shinjiro Otani & company: There were some tremendous matches in the junior feud. Liger's team (Liger, El Samurai, Kendo Ka Shin) faced Otani's team (Otani, Koji Kanemoto, Tatsuhito Takaiwa) in various ways. On 97/10/31, they had a survival match (similar to a survivor series tag match in the WWF, except that no tags are allowed) that was incredibly state-of-the-art in many ways. Kanemoto had Ka Shin pinned twice, but both times got up and acted more arrogant than anybody on the North America wrestling scene. When he picked up Ka Shin, who works a lot of shoot-style stuff into his matches, for a tiger suplex, Shin countered it into an armbreaker for the submission. This was an incredibly hot beginning to a * * * * 1/2 match that the men in black won. On 97/11/02, Shinjiro Otani faced Chris Benoit with the J Crown on the line. Do I have to tell you this was a * * * * 1/4 match? Didn't think so. They did a lot of fast, clean, technical wrestling. Great stuff. On 97/11/22, team Liger faced team Otani again in a straight six-man that once again knocked my socks off. On 97/11/30, they broke things up with a singles match between Takaiwa & Samurai, with the rest in a tag match. They had another strong six-man match; this set up the 97/12/08 match with Ka Shin challenging for the IWGP Jr. Title against Otani (the J Crown had been disbanded at this point). They did a lot of shoot-style stuff; it speaks volumes for Otani that this match was great. All in all, the highlights of the tail-end of 1997 New Japan TV were these junior matches. + New Japan Super J Cup 1997: The tournament matches from from 05/97 and 06/97, released on commercial video. Lots of great stuff, again usually involving the same players mentioned previously. To mix things up, Takaiwa got a win over Kanemoto in the tournament, reacting like he'd won the lottery in a great finish to a * * * * match. Yoshihiro Tajiri, who we've seen in the WWF lightheavyweight division, was in the tournament, getting a win over Shinjiro Otani on 05/20, with Otani acting like he'd just found out on Jerry Springer that his wife is a lesbian. Despite Otani's tremendous ability, the match doesn't deserve more than * * * 1/2 , so I was glad that Tajiri didn't appear again on the commercial tape. * Garbage wrestling: + Big Japan 96/11/20: Okay, Sanjay Mohanta, garbage wrestling afficionado (believe it or not, he'll find that to be compliment!), asked me to watch this crap. I fast-forwarded over the painful-looking prelims, so the first 27 minutes or so of this commercial tape were palatable, taking maybe two minutes to cover. Yoshihiro Tajiri was in there somewhere, but, even having seen him in an okay match on the earlier tape, there's hardly any point to stop for him. The main event, the reason that Sanjay loves this stuff and urges me to check it out, was a scorpion death match. No, it doesn't have anything to do with Sting's finisher. They took a fish tank, filled it with some sand, and dumped a bunch of scorpions in it. The tank was placed diagonally in the middle of the ring. They also strapped some huge cacti to the trunbuckles. The, ahem, match between Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Shoji Nakamaki saw them throw each other into a cactus, take a suplex on a cactus, and squirm a lot to avoid being dumped in the scorpion tank. I gathered that you had to be in the tank for ten seconds in order to lose. Eventually, Matsunaga got dumped in the tank and Shoji threw himself on top to hold him in for ten seconds. Matsunaga acted like he'd been bitten in the stomach and was driven off by his cohorts, presumably for treatment. Another fifteen minutes of my life that Sanjay has wasted. The worst thing is that when he next calls me, he'll say he was glad that I enjoyed the match. + ECW Extreme Warfare 2 commercial tape: Three horrible matches and one mediocre-at-best match. Bam Bam Bigelow faced Terry Gordy in a bad, boring match, with Joey Styles trying to get me excited to see the "Battle of the Bam(m) Bam(m)s." Public Enemy faced the Gangstas. I should mention that I visited my parents, rabid wrestling fans who get to watch stuff from the world over, and watched this stuff to mix it up a bit. Amidst the All Japan & New Japan highlights listed above, we squeezed in this tape. My mom, at 70 years old, likes a little bit of bloody, violent wrestling in her viewing diet, but mostly goes for good workers. Anyhow, she was excited at the prospect of the first match on this tape; when the Bammers delivered a bummer, she lost some of her steam. But, hey, hey, Public Enemy got the fans waving their hands, so she started to get warmed up again. The match was crap. Nobody sells well. They whack each other with everything. Junky garbage wrestling. We moved into Chris Jericho vs. Sabu. My mom likes Jericho and thinks Sabu is crazy, but gets into him a bit. This match fell flat for her, though, and I found it weak amidst the great Japanese stuff we had been watching. It didn't help (for my mom) that this thing was shot on the fancam. Finally, the tape had Brian Lee vs. Tommy Dreamer in a scaffold match, where the loser would get dumped off the scaffold into a stack of tables. A horrible match that was a momentarily interesting spectacle only because I wondered whether the scaffold, which swung madly back and forth, would actually sustain the weight and movement of these guys. My mom was watching this match, which took place at the ECW Arena, rather intently. After a while, she turned and asked me, "Do you think all of those people [the fans] are low-lives?" I've never expressed an opinion on the ECW fanbase to my mom, so that got me laughing. She said, "20 years ago, when we went to Maple Leaf Gardens regularly, I don't remember people like that being there." The tape closed out with an eight-minute segment of Kimona dancing for the fans; this was deemed necessary because the ring broke down and the fans needed something to occupy them while it was repaired. She gyrated, showed her butt a lot, teased some nudity, and repeated that pattern eight times. I'm married, happy, and this was so unenergetic that I was pretty bored. Teenagers will get excited by it. My dad sarcastically intoned, "Well, it's the first good thing on the tape, but she should do something different." - - RAW 02/02 with a 4.9 rating against a 3.5 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 0.63 (0.61) and average gross of $1.99-million ($1.75-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.92 (0.78) and average gross of $2.97-million ($1.99-million). The details as they stand are available. No Way Out - The WWF has In Your House: No Way Out on 02/15/98. Tentative line-up: * Vader vs. Kane * Steve Austin & Owen Hart & Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie vs. Shawn Michaels & Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Billy Gunn & Roaddog * Ken Shamrock & Ahmed Johnson & Chainz & Skull & Eight Ball vs. Rocky Maivia & Faarooq & D-Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa & Mark Henry * Taka Michinoku vs. Pantera for the Lightheavyweight title - WCW has SuperBrawl VIII on 02/22/98. Tentative line-up * Sting vs. Hulk Hogan * Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell - The WWF has WrestleMania XIV on 03/29/98. Tentative line-up seems to include: * Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels with Mike Tyson involved * Marc Mero vs. Butterbean * Justin Bradshaw vs. Jaff Jarrett * Terry Funk & Cactus Jack vs. New Age Outlaws * Undertaker vs. Kane - The WWF has In Your House on 04/26/98. - All Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 05/01/98. Kenta Kobashi has said that he wants to wrestle in the WWF after this show. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/31/98. - The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/28/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/26/98. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/30/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 09/27/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 10/18/98. - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/15/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 12/13/98. - 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; that "x" is my web spider spam guard. ______________________________________________________________________