______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ I will update the tape list this weekend; I had hoped to get the update out last weekend, but work got the best of me, and, believe it or not, it's taking a bit of time to get the list of WCW/WWF additions in shape. Apologies to those people who have contacted me and find themselves waiting for the update. By the end of tomorrow, I will have responded to all of my accumulated e-mail. _________________________________________________________________ [rm.gif] Movies of The Week After the tape reviews of last week, I thought I'd include a movie clip of Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama from 11/23/97. The clip features the last 2:30 of the match and comes in at about 640K. Hey, click now and by the time you read the rest of this page, it will be downloaded. The second, shorter clip is of a cute Ric Flair interview from 1985. Ric Flair fans will laugh. Give me some feedback. Do you prefer movies clips, still images as in earlier weeks, or a mix of both? _________________________________________________________________ RAW was yet another taped show with little in the way of good wrestling. The first match placed the Legion of Doom against Barry Windham & Jeff Jarrett; very bad. Quebecer Pierre faced Henry Godwinn; their respective teams face off at the PPV on Sunday. The match was lousy, but Pierre did a cool-looking tope. The dive looked less cool when they replayed it from a sideways perspective. In the only okay match, Brian Christopher & El Pantera faced Taka Michinoku & Aguila. Aguila's greenness still shows, as he flubbed a couple of spots, although nothing was particularly embarrassing. Christopher doesn't belong in this mix. Pantera used the weak Mexican-lucha slaps and still doesn't come off as being versed in the modern style. I'm not sure what to expect from Pantera vs. Taka on Sunday. Ken Shamrock & Chainz faced Faarooq & Rocky Maivia in another match to build interest for the PPV; I can't imagine that worked. Finally, Steve Blackman faced Recon of the Truth Commission. A Headbanger vs. Goldust match also didn't excite. They aired some clips from the WWF press conference announcing the involvement of Mike Tyson as a "ringside enforcer" in the Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin main event match at WrestleMania. To call that announcement anti-climactic would be an insult to all of the anti-climaxes in the world. In any case, they had the requisite photo-op where Tyson stood with arms spread holding apart the two wrestlers. He even remembered to turn around and face the cameras after a few seconds. From the start of this story-line, with Tyson praising "Cold Stoned" at the Rumble and then challenging the "faggot" at RAW, it's been fun to watch Tyson expose his miniature intellect. Indeed, the press conference audio was broadcast in part on the Howard Stern show last Friday morning. Stern said that the WWF had asked him to send somebody, sending him press passes. Stuttering John went to the conference and hit Tyson & McMcahon with some funny questions, my favourite being "Vince, is it true that Mike Tyson is the first convicted rapist to become a part of the WWF family?" John's shenanigans aside, Tyson tried to sound intelligent by using big words like "repepoire" (as in "Shane McMahon and I have a good repepoire") and "intrusiveness" (completely incorrectly, of course). Rumours persist that Tyson will be paid between $3- and $6-million for these WWF appearances. Nitro was a three hour show, once again condensed to two hours for Canada. The Wednesday midnight broadcast of the show was complete, but the Thursday afternoon broadcast was interrupted for a half-hour to go live to a press conference. What aired here: * Konnan beat Norman Smiley. I like Smiley well enough, but the match was nothing special. * Eddie Guerrero & Chris Jericho beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Dean Malenko. Easily the best match of Monday night. After two teamings, Eddie & Chris already show that they could easily become the best tag team in North America (not much of an accomplishment these days, admittedly); I guess that means that they'll never team again. Match ended when Jericho put his Lion Tamer on Chavo. Eddie got a hell of a reaction from the El Paso crowd. * Steve Regal vs. Bill Goldberg. Regal worked stiffly, but any talk of them not cooperating seems misplaced. It was a weird match, like they wanted it to look a bit a "shooty." Goldberg won with the Jackhammer, of course. * Perry Saturn beat Ultimo Dragon. I found this a disappointing booking decision since Dragon is so so so much better than Saturn. * Booker T and Raven had a non-match when the flock came in, with Saturn eventually putting Booker in his Rings of Saturn. Surely, they can come up with better contenders for Booker, can't they? * Randy Savage beat Hulk Hogan by DQ when the NWO interfered on Hogan's behalf after Savage had hit his top rope elbow drop. Even when these guys try to work, and I think they did try here, it still stinks, sort of like Sandman or Tommy Dreamer in ECW, who can't impress me no matter how hard people say they try. Elizabeth stopped Hogan from using a chair on Savage. Hogan slapped Savage at the end of the match, after Savage had been knocked silly by the NWO. * Lex Luger and Randy Savage did a little brawl to help set up their no DQ match. Sting came in to save Luger and, with the two faces standing in the ring over a fallen Savage, the NWO showed up. In a somewhat cool and somewhat contrived spot, a net fell from the ceiling ensnaring Sting & Luger. Sting tried to struggle while the NWO, mostly Hogan, laid into him. Luger went fetal and didn't react at all as Bagwell's kicks missed him by a country mile. They abruptly went to commercial as Hogan was pulling Sting out from under and only mentioned that Sting was apparently injured in the attack a segment later. This came off sloppy, and I don't think it was because anything was edited from my abridged broadcast. Steiners won the WCW Tag titles from Kevin Nash & Scott Hall. Rick started. After tagging in Scott, Rick did the old "Tag me!" routine from the apron. Scott eventually got laid out and finally had the chance for the hot tag, instead saying, "I can handle it," or something to that effect. A bump later, he whacked into Rick, the referee deemed it a tag, and Rick snuck in with a top rope bulldog on Hall for the victory. Scott Steiner acted peeved that he didn't get the win, but did hug Rick after some discussion. The commentators did a good job of getting the finish over, but the match itself was story line stuff that continued to build the blow up of the Steiners. It's good for TV, I guess. Thunder this week didn't really have that one killer match that it has seemed to have since its inception. Billy Kidman pinned Prince Iaukea in an okay bout. Meng beat Hugh Morrus and then snapped in a poor match. Diamond Dallas Page beat Mortis, retaining his US Title in a pretty good match. Mortis invented a couple more new moves; he has tremendous potential. Steve McMichael faced Jim Neidhart, whose name was still spelled "Niedhart." Buff Bagwell beat Chris Adams. Chavo Guerrero Jr. lost to Chris Jericho in a good match; Jericho is getting better at his new character. Juventud Guerrera ran in at the end and chased off Jericho to heat up their PPV match. Sick Boy lost to Davey Boy Smith in a throwaway. Afterwards, McMichael hit the ring and they had a weak brawl. Benoit beat Raven by DQ when the flock ran in. I guess that's not the official decision since Raven only wrestles no DQ matches! Anyhow, I do like it that they stop the no DQ matches when everybody comes in; they have not been consistent with this, though. Bill Goldberg beat Glacier in a good short match. If they ever get the tough man division off the ground, Goldberg had been perfectly developed to have short matches filled with power moves and lots of intensity. I don't know that the matches will ever be anything special, but since they are short and intense, they can be entertaining. This week, Goldberg surprised everybody with a pretty good-looking backflip to avoid a leg sweep by Glacier. Finally, with less than ten minutes to go, they had a Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger match. You knew Randy Savage would run in at the finish before it began. Still, Flair gave it a strong effort. Luger is pitiful, screwing up a couple of times, with Flair quickly covering his flubs. Savage, Hogan, and Sting came in at the finish. They hyped the fact that Hogan & Savage would have to team on the next Nitro, facing Sting & Luger, and suggested that they wouldn't be able to work together since they had come to blows earlier in the show. So much for Sting's injury on Nitro. No Way Out - The WWF has In Your House: No Way Out on Sunday. 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 * Goldust & Marc Mero vs. Headbangers * Quebecers vs. Godwinns If you have high hopes for the Vader vs. Kane match (okay, so I'm probably talking to nobody at this point...I hope!), you should join the rest of us after realizing that Vader's eye was injured in the angle where Kane piledrove him. Years ago, Vader had to have a plate put in his head after his eye was dislodged thanks to Stan Hansen. Apparently, the piledriver loosened things and Vader needs a vacation. So, the match will likely be a short squash-like bout, which acutally means it will probably be better than I expected. It's not unexpected for the Undertaker to turn up at the show to heat up his match with Kane. - New Japan has a big show at Budokan Hall on 02/15/98. Lilne-up features * Jushin Liger & Kendo Ka Shin & El Samurai vs. Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa * Naoya Ogawa vs. Don Frye * Hiro Saito vs. Osamu Nishimura * Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Manabu Nakanishi * Curt Hennig vs. Satoshi Kojima * NWO Sting vs. Shinya Hashimoto * Scott Norton vs. Kensuke Sasaki * Keiji Muto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki * Masa Chono vs. Shiro Koshinaka That first match is likely to be incredible; as I mentioned last week, after catching up on New Japan TV, it was my opinion that that feud delivered some absolutely stellar matches. All of the other matches, except for the Frye vs. Ogawa shoot-style match, are NWO vs. New Japan matches. Obviously, Hennig's appearance here is contingent on his knee being up to the match. - WCW has SuperBrawl VIII on 02/22/98. Tentative line-up * Sting vs. Hulk Hogan * Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage in a no DQ bout * Steiners vs. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall for the WCW Tag Titles * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chris Benoit for the US Title * Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera with the Cruiserweight Title vs. Juventud's mask * Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell * Louie Spicolli vs. Larry Zbyszko - All Japan has a big show at Budokan Hall on 02/28/98. Line-up features * Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Johnny Ace for the Triple Crown * Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Steve Williams & Gary Albright for the Double Tag Titles - WCW's Power Plant team, High Voltage, that the movers and shakers seem to be big on have been working tours in New Japan. At one point, months ago, the idea of giving High Voltage the WCW Tag Titles in a surprise victory over the Steiners was actually considered. Anyhow, the current idea is to give them some seasoning by letting them work in New Japan for 1998 before bringing them back for the big push. - The new WCW Thunder set (debuted last week) takes the crew three days to set up, limiting arena choices for the show. - Just when we were coming to grips with the second attempt at pushing Tiger Ali Singh in the WWF, there now comes word that his brother Rob Hans Singh, currently a student at Brock University, will also try to break into wrestling. I know they want to follow their father's footsteps and everything, but they could spare us the pain and just take up real estate fraud. - A while ago, on 01/26/98, New Japan Pro-Wrestling did the "lights off" angle that ECW and WCW have both used in recent memory, wherein the lights turn off and then back on, with a major surprise in the ring. In New Japan's case, the "major" surprise was the debut of Rick Bogner (best known here as Razor Ramon II in the WWF; best known in Japan for his FMW garbage wrestling stint) in an NWO shirt. It's reported that Masa Chono has taken him under his wing in the hopes of making him a New Japan regular, although there is a lot of skepticism from others in the promotions. They also brought in Hayato Nanjyo on the show, a lighter FMW guy, who garbage fans praise as having a lot of potential. From the Observer: "[...]in the undercard, small Hayato Nanjyo debuted teaming with Jushin Liger to beat Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani. However, Nanjyo, who by FMW standards was a great worker, looked terrible in this company including blowing some spots badly to the point that all three other guys in the match had to acknowledge in the press that he was a worse wrestler than they expected." Since his debut, Nanjyo has suffered a broken jaw and talk is that his chance with New Japan is over. Anything that stops them from diluting the junior mix is a good thing. - - RAW 02/09 with a 4.6 rating against a 3.2 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. - PPV buy rates and revenue (in millions) for the WWF and WCW are presented in the following table. WCW WWF Past 6 Months Past Year Past 6 Months Past Year Average Buy Rate 0.82 0.96 0.64 0.69 Average PPV Revenue $2.61 $3.09 $1.84 $2.26 The 1998 PPV summary sheet looks like this: Date Show Buy Rate Gross Average Match Rating Median Match Rating Peak Match Rating matches >= * * * * 98/01/18 WWF Royal Rumble 0.92 (1) $2.94 2.38 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 6) 98/01/25 WCW Souled Out 1.00 (2) $3.20 1.92 * * * * * 11% (1 of 9) Footnotes: (1) WWF claims 1.03; (2) preliminary figure Detailed data is available. - The WWF has WrestleMania XIV on 03/29/98. Tentative line-up seems to include: * Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels with Mike Tyson as a ringside enforcer * Justin Bradshaw vs. Jaff Jarrett * Terry Funk & Cactus Jack vs. New Age Outlaws * Undertaker vs. Kane There's already talk that Shawn Michaels is squirming about losing to Steve Austin. - The WWF has In Your House on 04/26/98. - All Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 05/01/98. During the February tour, the promotion is giving various outsiders try-out matches. - 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. ______________________________________________________________________