______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ I added a tape update to the web this past weekend. I'm going to try to add a tape here and there in the hopes of getting through the 100+ unwatched tapes I've accumulated. More images next week. _________________________________________________________________ - WCW had Spring Stampede on Sunday. Leading up to the show, it was not a particularly well-kept secret that Randy Savage was going to win the WCW Title from Sting. When he suffered the leg injury, however, everybody started second-guessing that outcome since it seemed unlikely that the match would even take place, that instead Savage would be replaced by some other wrestler. Well, that main event was delivered as always advertised and Savage offered a gutsy performance to win the title in a "garbagy" bland match which mostly served as a backdrop for the continuing friction between Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash. Overall, the show was a notch below the usual WCW fare because the undercard didn't offer as much good stuff as cards gone by. It seems like I always find myself standing on the "thumbs in the middle" fence leaning slightly one way or the other regardless of which company puts on the PPV I'm thinking about. That underlines the really balanced PPV match rating comparison in the table below. This time around, I lean a little to the thumbs down side, but don't feel particularly strongly about that. On to the match rundown: * Bill Goldberg beat Saturn with the jack hammer: the match was slightly longer than the Goldberg vs. Steve McMichael PPV match. Goldberg didn't look comfortable running the ropes at one point. Saturn blew a couple of moves. Of course, the flock came in and Goldberg powered them all out of the ring; the flock run ins are getting old, but since that's what the bookers think works on top (NWO, DX), it's not a big surprise that they do the same thing on the bottom (flock, the WWF gangs). Goldberg powered out of the Rings of Saturn, turning it into a jack hammer. Hot at the start, hot at the finish, with the fans not caring much in the middle. There was a "Goldberg" chant at one point in the middle, but it struck me as something done out of boredom. An OK opener, but it should have been shorter. * El Ultimo Dragon beat Chavo Guerrero Jr.: good match. Chavo did a crazy somersault tope which should have killed him; the move didn't connect that well. Chavo wouldn't take advantage when Dragon suffered a low blow, despite Eddie Guerrero urging him on. The finish was absolutely tremendous: Dragon reversed a spinning DDT attempt into the dragon sleeper. Chavo looked his best ever in this match, which speaks well of him, but also praises Dragon. * Booker T beat Chris Benoit to retain the TV Title: The match had no time limit, going close to 20 minutes (TV Title time limit is 10 minutes). This was a really good match. Near the end, Booker axe kicked the ref when Benoit pulled him into the way. Benoit hit the crossface, but there was no ref to check on Booker, who either crawled towards the ring or tapped before reaching the ropes. Benoit broke the hold, checked on the ref, and met a side kick, giving Booker the pin. The commentators tried to declare this match a wash, suggesting that Booker tapped earlier. * Curt Hennig beat Davey Boy Smith: horrible match. Jim Neidhart and Rick Rude were handcuffed together at ringside. Late in the match, a policeman came to ringside (one had used his handcuffs earlier on) and turned out to be Vincent. Rude was uncuffed and Neidhart was cuffed to the turnbuckle. Smith was whacked on the turnbuckle connector for the pin and demolished afterwards. Bret Hart did not come out to save them, although we had no reason to think that Hart was even at the show. * Chris Jericho beat Prince Iaukea to retain the Cruiserweight Title: It was okay-to-good. At one point, it looked like Jericho was going for a top rope Franksensteiner, but both wrestlers tumbled off the top to ringside. Nobody sold an injury from the fall, so the spot came off strangely. Jericho is absolutely awesome. * Rick Steiner & Lex Luger beat Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell: before the match, Buff feigned an arm injury, quoting JJ Dillon's statement that nobody can wrestle without a doctor's note. Since Buff had no note, the match would have to be cancelled. Dillon came out and pointed out that a doctor was on hand to check out Savage, so there would be no problem inspecting Buff's injury. This led to Buff's lie being exposed. It was a cute moment. The match itself opened with a hot minute-or-so and then fell into mediocrity. Lex Luger was as horrible as always, missing clotheslines by a foot. Rick confonted Scott, who ran away. Lex put Buff in the torture rack. * Psicosis beat La Parka: pretty good match, but nobody cared. Despite there being an issue between Parka & Psicosis, the fans were disinterested even though the wrestling was good. Hmmm, maybe that's because the commentators never bother to give the Mexican wrestlers any real focus on TV, instead always straying to Hulk Hogan. In fact, on the PPV, the commentators continued to hype the main events during preliminary bouts, as if there's a reason to do that. They've already got our money, so hype is worthless. Tony Schiavone actually said something like, "Fans, if you're just joining us, you've already missed..." He thought he was calling Nitro; who orders a PPV and joins in at hour two? * Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash beat Roddy Piper & Giant in a bat match: absolutely horrible. The match was all about story line: would the Hogan & Nash team explode? The crowd chanted "Hogan sucks!" After some really bad wrestling, Piper finally grabbed the bat. While Piper was still on the ropes descending with the bat, Hogan came up behind him, grabbed the bat, and...threw it to the ringside floor. That made sense. Schiavone burst into a "he threw the bat away!" commentary, highlighting the stupidity of it. Disciple came down to ringside and passed Hogan a second bat. Hogan batted Giant and hid the bat behind himself, as if he'd get DQed for using a bat in a bat match. After all, it might as well have been the "legal" bat since Hogan had had it in his grasp. When Hogan went to bat Piper, Piper moved and Nash took a gut shot. Piper got the bat, wound up, and lost it to Disciple, who grabbed it from the ring apron and tossed Hogan the "legal" bat. Piper gave up the pin. Afterwards, Hogan encouraged Nash to powerbomb Giant, but batted Nash before he could do the move. A worst match of the year candidate, right up (down?) there with the tag team battle royal at WrestleMania. * Raven beat Diamond Dallas Page to win the US Title: garbage wrestling, also known as Raven's rules. They brawled at the Stampede set, using hay and breaking fences at the mock corral. The selling sucked and the brawling was nonsensical. Raven tossed Dallas on a table that was overly gimmicked, snapping down the middle immediately. So, they moved to an ungimmicked table and Raven dove on Dallas without breaking the table. During this minute, Dallas simply went along with what Raven was doing. Finally, they made it back to the ring, where the flock had delivered foreign objects, including a kitchen sink. All of the flock interfered, but DDP managed to hold them off, including hitting a diamond cutter on Kidman. Finally, a WCW crew hand (actually Horace Boulder, Hulk Hogan's nephew, a regular garbage wrestler not that long ago in FMW in Japan) interfered, knocking Dallas with a stop sign and allowing Raven to hit the DDT on the sink for the pin. * Randy Savage beat Sting to win the WCW Title: more garbagy wrestling. With all of the injuries, that's about all Savage was capable was of delivering. Savage was limping noticeably and had his arm bandaged. He grimaced throughout the match. Sting had the usual lacklustre entrance with excellent pyrotechnics. Sting stopped short of splashing the referee in the corner, only to be whacked from behind by Savage and squashing the ref anyhow. Elizabeth was splashed, which happened a few years too late for anybody to really care. Hulk Hogan had come out to screw up Savage's chances. At this point, though, Kevin Nash came out and set up Savage's win by powerbombing Sting. The NWO started to quarrel after the announcement was made, but we went off the air. RAW tried to build on the tremendous atmosphere of last week's show minus the final few anticlimactic minutes. Unfortunately, the show more resembled those last few minutes rather than the rest of the show. Dude Love debuted an interview segment where Vince fined him $5000. The angle is that Vince really recruited Love to go after Austin, but doesn't openly admit it. Austin vs. Dude Love seemed to fall flat. Faarooq beat Kama in a really lame street fight with a spinebuster. Dan Severn beat Mosh in a bad match. Severn doesn't have any oomph. Goldust and Bradshaw went to a DQ or a no contest when Klub Kamikaze interfered to attack Bradshaw (which makes a lot of sense!). Luna now promised to strip Sable naked and Sable said that she doesn't care if she's naked, as long as she gets her hands on Luna. Too Cold Scorpio & Terry Funk beat the Midnight Express in a non-title match that made it clear how unimportant the NWA Titles are. Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Road Dog & Billy Gunn beat Owen Hart & Legion of Doom when Animal was pinned. The Legion of Doom stink, but they have new tights. Dude Love beat the once-defeated Steve Blackman with an abdominal stretch even though Blackman never submitted. It's all about Bret Hart, with Vince pulling the strings to get his man, Dude, over for his title shot on Sunday. Vince said that he'd love to have Earl Hebner as referee on Sunday and be at ringside himself. Vince promised that something catastrophic would happen on Sunday or he'd refund our money. Steve Austin ran in and attacked Vince for a few seconds before Dude pulled him off. - The WWF has In Your House: The Unforgiven on 04/26/98. Line-up so far has * Steve Austin vs. Dude Love for the WWF Title * Undertaker vs. Kane in an inferno match (loser must be set on fire) * Luna vs. Sable in an evening gown match (loser must have gown ripped off) * LOD 2000 vs. New Age Outlaws for the WWF Tag Titles * Owen Hart vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley * Jeff Jarrett sings Nitro aired in full in Canada this week. I'm not so sure that this is a good thing. At the half-hour mark, we enter match one, with Konnan getting a half-crab submission over Chris Adams. The commentators suggest that people might actually want to buy Spring Stampede twice. Barbarian beat Wayne Bloom. In the best Monday night match of the week, Chris Jericho beat Juventud Guerrera with the Lion Tamer. Juventud never surrenders, though, so he ends up blacking out instead. Afterwards, Jericho turns and sees Juvi lying on the ground and says in mock horror, "My god, I killed Juvi!" Jericho is a riot and a great wrestler. Strategically well-timed, hour two starts with Goldberg beating Raven for the US Title, using a jack hammer on a stop sign for the pin. They even had Michael Buffer do the ring intros to make it seem special. La Parka beat El Ultimo Dragon when Chavo Jr. interfered. Chris Benoit got a DQ win over Curt Hennig when Rick Rude interfered to break up the crossface; it was nice to see Benoit get some respect against a "legend." Benoit & Booker T brawled after the match because Booker came in to help out Benoit. Saturn & Hammer had a no contest match. Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell beat Public Enemy with Buff using the blockbuster for the pin. They tease friction between the NWO team over physique-related egos, but they always smile at each other and seem to have a good time. Public Enemy was horrible. Booker T beat Psicosis with a missile dropkick to retain the TV Title. Lex Luger beat Brian Adams with the running elbow in a bad match. Hulk Hogan won the WCW Title from Randy Savage. Savage needs to rest and probably needs surgery, so the result is no surprise. The match was all about story line. Near the end, Kevin Nash came down to help Savage beat Hogan by powerbombing Hogan and placing Savage on top while the referee was out. While Nash is trying to revive the referee, Bret Hart comes down, nails Nash with the title belt, flips the pin around, and revives the referee. Bingo, Hogan gets the title and the commentators have a stroke suggesting that Bret Hart has joined Hogan's NWO team. This fits into Bret not saving Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart on Sunday after saving them at Nitros and Thunders for so long. As I posted yesterday after seeing Nitro, I think it's too early to jump to that conclusion. It seems possible to me that after seeing Sting get screwed out of the title by Savage, Bret wanted to screw Savage out of the title, giving it to the main trouble maker in this story, Hulk Hogan, the guy from who Bret wants to win the title. Although people are expecting a Hogan vs. Nash series to fall out of this, I think it's possible we'll see Hogan vs. Bret Hart first, while the NWO pretends to come back together a bit. Eventually, this could lead to Bret as WCW champ and Hogan banished from the NWO and fighting Nash & company. Hogan vs. Bret is a big money match that WCW is going build to; pairing them together as heels screws that up, since Bret can't reasonably turn face for the feud (and Bret really needs to be the face in the feud). With a huge viewing audience, it was a good time to do something that would spark curiousity. - "What the heck is Herb talking about when he uses words like transitions and psychology when describing wrestlers and pro-wrestling matches?" If you've ever asked yourself that question, you are not alone; particularly in recent weeks, I've received a fair bit of e-mail asking for explanations of those terms. With that in mind, it seems like readers of this page would find it worthwhile for me to discuss those terms. I'm going to assume very little here, so forgive me if I belabor some obvious things. The easiest way to simultaneously describe transitions and psychology is to note that in the absence of these two elements a pro-wrestling match reduces to a choreographed series of spots. The word spot is used to described an event (or sometimes a sequence of events) in a wrestling match. For example, a german suplex attempt reversed with a go-behind into a german suplex might (not surprisingly) be called a german suplex reversal spot. A high spot is a particular type of spot involving a wrestler flying through the air in some way. In the 1980s in North America, exciting high spots were top rope splashes (Jimmy Snuka), top rope cross body blocks (Kevin von Erich), and top rope leg drops (Bobby Eaton); wrestlers like Ricky Steamboat and Greg Gagne were thought of and promoted as high-flying wrestlers. In the 1990s, moonsaults have become routine; Twisting dives, splashes, and cross-body blocks are now state of the art. Somersault topes (pronounced toe-pay, generic term for a dive out of the ring), corkscrew topes, and firebird (450) splashes are moves of top flying wrestlers. It's off-topic but important to note that these maneuvers often get retired early by wrestlers who use them to build their reputation: Jushin Liger doesn't do the somersault tope or shooting star press any more, Kenta Kobashi & Keiji Muto have all but retired their moonsaults because of the damage the move does to the knees. To repeat then, in the absence of transitions and psychology, a wrestling match becames little more than a collection of spots. Some of the most glaring examples of this in my memory are the Eliminators vs. Dudleys match from the Barely Legal PPV on 04/13/97, the Rob van Dam vs. Too Cold Scorpio match from the Living Dangerously PPV on 03/01/98, and Taka Michinoku vs. Aguila from the WrestleMania XIV PPV on 03/29/98. In each of these matches, the wrestlers glaringly moved from one spot to the next, essentially putting on a gymnastic stunt show. In the context of pro-wrestling, I've seen psychology defined as doing the right thing at the right time. Of course, that means doing the right thing to build a match (i.e. keep the fans focused on the match, draw heat, etc.). Psychology encompasses a lot of things, and sometimes seems to conflict a bit with match booking, especially in this era in North America where matches often have far more than the finish booked out in advance. As time passes, psychology changes: good psychology in the early 1980s may not work well in the late 1990s; matches are often shorter (even on PPV), loads of new moves have surfaced, and the style of wrestling evolves. In Japan, psychology plays an essential part in the story that a match tells; in North America, it's often an afterthought or forgotten altogether. Let's look at some elements of psychology. There's * selling, reacting appropriately to the supposed impact of a move. It means staggering for a punch and taking a bump (falling down) for the third punch, say. It means using facial expressions to show pain or anguish while in a submission move or as a tough match wears on. It means using mannerisms that suggest that a body part is sore after a move that supposedly hurts it has been applied (limping after a leg-lock, favouring an arm after an arm hold, etc.). Now that long matches don't happen much any more in North America, the idea of selling in the fifteenth minute of a match a leg injury that occured in the third minute is slowly becoming a lost art. Guys like Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair were the masters of this idea in the 1980s. Of the top guys in this era, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels stand out. Of the younger guys, really only the lighter weight guys with international experience have a deeper level of ability when it comes to selling. To complicate matters, some guys develop into draws even though they do not sell many moves. Sid (Vicious, Eudy) and Ultimate Warrior rose to the top in an era that disregarded ability despite the fact that they couldn't sell to save their lives. On the other extreme of the scale, Curt Hennig developed a reputation for overselling simple moves: who can forget those insane twisting bumps from a simple clothesline (in recent times carried on by Goldust)? And Terry Funk has turned his selling into a punch drunk comedic adventure. * pacing, leaving the right amount of time between moves. After a double knockdown spot, how long should a wrestler lie on the mat, how slowly should he regain his senses, etc.? The best answer is that it depends on the match, on how deeply the fans are into things, on the story that the match is trying to tell. In this era of quick matches for short attention spans, there have been some two-minute television matches that had enough action in them to fill a ten-minute chunk and, with wrestlers with limited ability being pushed, we've also seen ten-minute matches that really only merited two-minutes of time for the story they had to tell. Even in North America, it is often said that matches have an initial "feeling-out" period as the wrestlers act more tentatively before going into the body of the match. In Mexican trios matches, the wrestlers often pair up: when A & B & C face D & E & F, we first see A & D trade a few moves, typically with one of them winning the battle for machismo that is lucha libre, then B & E take their turn, and then C & F take their turn, before we return to A & D. Only after those initial periods do we enter the body of the match. In the key Japanese groups, after a slow match body with some key spots, the match builds to a time interval in which hot moves are traded back and forth, with many near falls to build the excitement. All of these ideas have to do with pacing. * sensible moves. This is a function of booking these days. It doesn't particularly make sense for a wrestler to perform moves that affect lots of different parts of his opponent's body. From a story-telling standpoint, it makes sense to settle down to a single body part or tactic to build to a sensible finish. Some holds, like the facelock in All Japan are used as generic wear-down holds that the fans accept as fatiguing the recipient of the move; in this case, it doesn't much matter whether a match ends with a power bomb or a submission because both are believable. However, it's bad form to spend an entire match working over an opponent's leg before ending the match with a surprise armbar submission; this just doesn't happen in Japan. In North America, no effort is put towards this aspect of a wrestling match. While both the WWF and WCW have tried to establish various submission or finishing moves as devastating, with limited exception, they put very little effort into building to those moves. Diamond Dallas Page, Steve Austin, and Chris Jericho can hit their finishers from any position; the lure is when the finisher will come along not what needs to be done along the way to make sure it sticks. Is it any wonder that the typical crowd reaction for a match is a large pop at the start, mostly silence throughout, and then a pop for the finishing move? Or that bookers and wrestlers alike have increasingly little idea how to fill the match time between those two pops? All Japan pro-wrestling probably has consistently the best in-match psychology of any promotion in the world, thanks to the top four players in the group: Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, and Jun Akiyama. A typical marquee match in the group lasts 20+ minutes, often with every move from the get-go meaning something; in other words, the match builds logically to the "near fall" spots that pepper the last few (sometimes ten) minutes. For example, who can forget the famous backdrop driver finish of the 08/31/93 Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams match. Kobashi's selling at the end of the match was a masterpiece (in general, the top four guys listed above have a knack for taking a series of hot moves and getting up just a notch or two more slowly each time). The psychology of the match was great. Taking a broader view, my favourite series of matches from a story-telling and match quality standpoint might well be the Naoki Sano vs. Jushin Liger series from 07/89 through to 01/90. A detailed rundown is on the web. The beauty of that series is how the psychology in each match was based on the previous bout. From the intensity of the wrestlers to the moves and reversals (and reversals of reversals), this series was a work of art the likes of which we'll never see in North American wrestling. Remember the finish to WrestleMania XIV's Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels main event? Superkick attempt, stunner attempt, etc., with each guy trying to counter with his big move. This same subtle "learning of an opponent's moves" comes into All Japan pro-wrestling matches as well. Often, the counters are peppered throughout matches. This means that somebody watching tapes of matches from Japan better appreciates the matches once he's developed some understanding of the large assortment of moves that different wrestlers use. In WCW and the WWF, psychology is becoming a lost art. It's no longer about building a match and telling a story through the actual wrestling. It's about who'll run-in next and cheap heat from crotch-chopping. With the resurgence of the brawling match and the increasing reliance on garbage wrestling, psychology of the type detailed above is no longer a key match element. A North American garbage wrestling match, be it in ECW, the WWF, or WCW, amounts to lots of foreign object shots, with many creative objects coming into play, bleeding in ECW, really limited selling, and no real pacing. I tend to call ECW brawls nonsensical because they are rarely anything more than two guys whacking each other with objects, staggering for a second, and cutting themselves. The only exception to that same criticism in recent memory in WCW or the WWF is the triangle brawl with Chris Benoit vs. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Raven. The reason that Benoit is so great at any style is that he brings a lot of focus to a match. If you examine that match carefully, perhaps comparing it to the Page vs. Raven match at Spring Stampede, you see that Benoit had a focusing effect, repeatedly returning the brawl to something sensible. (That doesn't necessarily mean that he tried to use wrestling moves.) Consider the much-beloved "table spot," wherein a wrestler crashes through a table, be it in the ring or on the floor. The table spot where Bret Hart was sent crashing through a commentators table was fantastic. Compare it to a typical table spot: the table has to be set up, a wrestler has to be plopped onto the table, the wrestler doing the spot has to get into position or run off the ropes, somebody goes through a table. Throughout all of this, time stand stills. It's not unusual to see a minute or two pass wherein the victim of the table spot has to act comatose. Unless the person doing the spot misses, it's nonsense. And if he misses time and time again, it becomes nonsense for that reason. It's a great stunt, though. I've often read that Terry Funk and Atsushi Onita are masters of psychology. In a limiting sense, that's not a bad attempt to describe them. The limit comes from the fact that neither wrestler has many moves and, hence, package themselves as kings of garbage wrestling. In that framework, moves are secondary and selling amounts to bleeding (expect in WCW and the WWF, explaining Terry's reliance on the punch drunk comedy as selling). Psychology reduces to pacing, something at which both guys are indeed masters. But when things become that limited, I often wonder if it even fits under the pro-wrestling umbrella. And, certainly, in the case of Terry Funk, who once had all the attributes of greatness, it's sad to watch him tarnish his legend, showing that he only has so few remaining elements of what used to be such a complete package. Transitions are the bridging maneuvers between spots. They are the staple of pro-wrestling, the essential elements holding the spots together to build a match. When somebody runs down a match, it often becomes a list like "clothesline, body slam, suplex, pin." That disjoint list of moves sounds more like a wrestling move exhibition than a wrestling match because the transitions are not listed...because they aren't important, right? I don't think so; I think it is very important to recognize the difference between a move exhibition and a match. In the early 1980s, when I routinely attended house shows at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the matches were longer than they are today. It's well-known that the WWF-of-today doesn't want a house show match to exceed ten minutes. WCW doesn't come to this area, but I'd be willing to believe that they also keep things way short. The reason is clear: the current crop of wrestlers can't handle long matches (be it because of age, lack of desire, or ability). So, transitions fall to the wayside except for the wrestlers who broke in when matches still had length or wrestlers who have international experience. I remember with amazement how Ric Flair or Ricky Steamboat could work off an armbar for ten minutes without a single "boring" chant. This was a time when the psychology of such action was clear to fans; don't get me wrong: I don't want to see that today and I don't think it would work today. The point was that they had dozens of ways to move out of an armbar into a spot of some sort and then return to the armbar. It's a tremendous skill that is lacking today in North America. That ability to float from spot to spot seamlessly is what makes the top four All Japan guys so great. It's what makes the past half-year of Jushin Liger & co. vs. Shinjiro Otani & co. in New Japan so great. It's what made the 1988-or-so to 1994-or-so All Japan Women's product so incredible. In this latter promotion, the rookie girls were only allowed to use a few elementary maneuvers (dropkicks, slams, clotheslines) in their matches while they learned about psychology and transitions; only later, did they add in the modern moves. Recall the Eliminators vs. Dudleys match from the ECW Barely Legal PPV on 04/13/97. I remember the raves that that match drew on the net. With a clear mind, watch the match and see how many times the wrestlers just stand there before moving into the next spot. It's like somebody took a tape of a match and cut out all of the transitions, replacing them with a shot of the wrestlers standing still. It's a highlight reel, not a match. The same is true of the other two matches mentioned at the start of this discussion. One of the worst spots that has surfaced in wrestling in recent times is the top rope leg drop across an opponent who conveniently sits on the second rope with legs out of the ring while leaning backwards into the ring and holding on to the top rope awaiting the move. This was the finishing spot in the La Parka vs. Psicosis match at Spring Stampede a few nights ago. The first few times I saw it (in ECW, by Sabu), the victim literally got into that position pretty much on his own, sometimes waiting forever for the bump. It's a horrible spot. La Parka tried to sell that he'd been crotched by the second rope and that he was losing his balance in the tangle, but it still came across weakly. I recall Billy Kidman being the recipient of this spot on a Nitro/Thunder show recently. In that instance, he was standing on the second rope, yelling at the crowd. He was dropkicked in the back, almost fell over the top rope, hung on, wobbled back towards the ring, lost his footing on the second rope, and held on to the top rope to avoid slipping all the way through. In the time it took for him to bounce around like that, his opponent (a Mexican wrestler) climbed to the top rope and hit him with the leg drop exactly as he was turning into the right position. That's the best transition into an this awkward spot that I've seen. Jump to Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Otani from 03/17/96; the match had phenomenal transitions, the pacing was excellent, the selling was top-notch. The match ended with Liger hitting a palm strike to Otani's chin, knocking him senseless for the pin. To New Japan fans, that finish instantly established the palm strike as a finishing blow. The Observer called this a must-see match that was very close to match of the year calibre. Since that time, Liger has used that blow as a finisher in many matches, wrapping psychology and transitions around it, to the point that it has become an integral part of Liger's offence. It allowed Liger's matches to tease an over finisher while the reducing the number of crazy spots that Liger has to do. Since the majority of the brawling matches we see (here or in Japan) are deficient when it comes to psychology (the pacing in Japan is better, but that's about it), we're left looking for transitions from one nonsensical spot with poor selling to the next one. It doesn't really happen in ECW all-out brawling matches. In matches that mix in some wrestling, like the famous triangle match on 02/05/94 in ECW or the Masato Tanaka vs. Wing Kanemura match on 08/01/96 in FMW, a * * 1/2 affair can result and receive * * * * * level praise from some fans. Maybe those fans don't think that psychology and transitions are important, opting instead to judge matches like highlight reels or stunt man performances, but I find that too unfair an approach to the wrestlers that actually tell sensible stories with great matches. And that's why I comment about psychology and transitions when discussing wrestling. - All Japan's annual Champion Carnival ended as follows: Wrestler Wins Losses Draws Score Mitsuharu Misawa 8 1 3 19 Jun Akiyama 8 1 3 19 Toshiaki Kawada 8 2 2 18 Kenta Kobashi 8 2 2 18 Stan Hansen 8 3 1 17 Steve Williams 8 3 1 17 Johnny Ace 12 Gary Albright 10 Akira Taue 8 Takao Omori 6 Wolf Hawkfield 4 Giant Kamala II 4 Jun Izumida 0 The Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama final match on 04/18/98 went 22 minutes with Misawa winning despite his injuries (broken finger, broken knee). - All Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 05/01/98. Line-up has: * Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada for the Triple Crown in a no time-limit match * Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs. Stan Hansen & Vader * Jun Akiyama vs. Hiro Hase * Wolf Hawkfield & Johnny Smith vs. Jado & Gedo * Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue vs. Headhunters * Jumbo Tsuruta & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota vs. Masa Fuchi & Haruka Eigen & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi * Maunakea Mossman vs. Daisuke Ikeda * Steve Williams & Gary Albright vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito Kakihara * Akira Taue & Takao Omori & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Gladiator & Hideki Hosaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda * Giant Baba & Hayabusa & Kentaro Shiga vs. Giant Kimala II & Ryakaku Izumida & Jinsei Shinzaki * Satoru Asako vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru - Nitro beat RAW 04/20 with a 5.1 rating against a 4.4 rating. After winning the ratings war for one week, RAW returned to second, with the usual ratings gap re-established. It will be interesting to see how the post-PPV RAW does next week. Nitro is going to have its stable time slot jostled around through May for NBA games. That gives RAW a good chance to gain momentum. 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 1.11 0.95 0.63 0.64 Average PPV Revenue $3.86 $3.15 $2.26 $1.93 I have not lumped in the WrestleMania figures in the above table, since I'm still waiting to hear how the numbers settle. Presently, it looks like WrestleMania will come in at just over a 2.0, which is a tremendous figure. However, with the cost of Mike Tyson thrown into the mix, WCW's Starrcade probably actually left more money with the promotion. Here's the 1998 summary sheet: Date Show Buy Rate Gross Average Match Rating Median Match Rating Peak Match Rating matches >= * * * * 98/01/18 WWF Royal Rumble 0.97 (1) $3.62 2.38 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 6) 98/02/15 WWF IYH No Way Out 0.45 $1.67 1.46 * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 7) 98/03/29 WWF WrestleMania 1.78 (4) $7.7 1.81 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of 8) WWF Average 1.07 $4.33 1.86 * * 1/4 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 21) 98/01/25 WCW Souled Out 1.02 (2) $3.81 1.88 * * * * * 11.1% (1 of 9) 98/02/22 WCW SuperBrawl 1.1 (3) $4.12 1.68 * 1/4 * * * 3/4 0% (0 of 10) 98/03/15 WCW Uncensored 1.1 $4.12 1.69 * * 1/2 * * * 3/4 0% (0 of 9) WCW Average 1.07 $4.02 1.76 * 1/2 * * * 3/4 3.6% (1 of 28) 98/03/01 ECW Living Dangerously 0.23 $0.42 1.56 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of 8) Footnotes: (1) WWF claims 1.03; (2) WCW claims 1.1; (3) preliminary figure; (4) preliminary figure; Detailed data is available. - WCW has Slamboree on 05/17/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/31/98. - WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/14/98. - 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. 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