______________________________________________________________________ Thanks for the positive feedback on the new look, the addition of the TidBits archive, and the enhanced navigation buttons. I've finally answered all of my e-mail. ______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ RAW was a taped show this week. It was a well-scripted show again, but the acting was not at the level of previous weeks. In particular, Vince McMahon really overacted to the point that the reality of the story line (and reality is what drives this story line) was stretched thin. Vince McMahon opened the show by admitting that he had assaulted Steve Austin last week, smirking, and saying that he got away with it. He was flanked by Jerry Brisco, Pat Patterson, and a few policemen. Steve Austin came out and told the police to arrest McMahon for his confessed assault. When Patterson and Brisco interjected, Austin accused them of obstructing justice, so the police handcuffed them too. Of course, when Austin yelled verbal insults at the three, poked them, and dumped a beer on McMahon, that was perfectly alright with the police. Throughout the show, the showed Vince & co. being herded to the police car, being put in the police car, etc. Austin constantly harrassed them, without police intervention. Vince protested too animatedly. In the end, just like last time when Austin assaulted a security guard, the police solution to an assault charge was to request an apology. Vince gave an insincere apology. Getting in the ring later, Vince announced his revenge tactic: Austin would have to defend against Undertaker. In this climate of "bait and switch" accusations, after baiting the hook with that match, the WWF switched it into Undertaker choke-slamming Vince and then being attacked by Kane. Austin came in, trapped Vince in the ropes, but was stopped by Dude Love, who took a tremendous chair shot. Soap operatic to the max, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but the overacting really hurt the story line. The Legion of Doom introduced their new partner Darren "Puke" Drosdov, who came out and supposedly puked on the DOA's motorcycles. What a great gimmick. To get him over, Puke got the pin on Chainz. Sunny was not at ringside, so the LOD continued to lose their heat. Dan Severn faced Owen Hart in what seemed like it could be a good match. Severn could have been used in a certain way, but in the half-dozen appearances he's made, they've completely blown it. In this match, the Nation of Domination ran in and Severn got stomped. This will set up a threesome of Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman, and Dan Severn, who will feud with the NOD. Regarding Severn's misuse, the Observer writes: WWF realistically only had one chance, and it wasn't foolproof, to turn Dan Severn into a money player and that would be to have him destroy people and not be a pro wrestler but and outsider, and even at that, the only guy he'd draw money against would be Shamrock if it was made clear that it wasn't a pro wrestling match but a UFC grudge match in WWF rings due to contract legalities. The odds were against it even if it was done right, but unlike Shamrock, who survived and has done well even though not booked well for the most part with a few flashes of exceptions, Severn doesn't have the charisma to overcome this. Unfortunately for WWF, they botch up that outsider angle every time they get the chance and it's hard to fathom why because it's one of the easiest to pull off and as along as it isn't done too often, almost always draws big money (all the New Japan stuff, Savage in Tennessee, NWO in WCW all come to mind). Last we heard was they were thinking of putting Severn in a babyface group with Shamrock & Blackman as The Shooters. They might as well just tie an anvil to Shamrock's bad leg and throw him in the Hudson River and see how long he can tread water because the end result will be about the same. Back on RAW, Jackyl came out with his band of misfits, which included Paul Silva and Golga. Golga appeared to be John Tenta under a hood and Silva is the WWF's new giant. It was bad. Golga beat Headbanger Thrasher in a pitiful match. Vader beat Jeff Jarrett by DQ in another bad match. In the only good match on the show, Taka Michinoku beat Dick Togo of Kaientai. On the weekend's Shotgun show, Taka beat Shoichi Funaki of Kaientai. It's hard to believe that they are going to waste Kaientai that way. No build up to excellent singles matches, just these quickie glorified squashes. I guess that Kaientai vs. Taka & Bradshaw feud seems like the money maker to the powers that be. Sigh. In any case, the weekend match against Funaki was pitiful; compared to what these two would do in Japan, it was off the negative scale, a total waste. The RAW match with Togo was very good, but it compared to a middling Cruiserweight effort, with most top Cruiserweight efforts comparing well to a middling New Japan Jr. effort, if you get my drift. I'm disappointed. Faarooq beat Marc Mero when Sable screwed Mero up again. Since Mero has her under contract, it made perfect sense for him to give her an out: she can pick any WWF wrestler to fight Mero on Sunday, and if Mero loses, Sable is free. Why would he do this? He has to win to return to the situation that he was in before he made the offer to her. I guess we are supposed to think he's confident and wants to play mind games with her. Rocky Maivia faced Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a non-title match that went to a no contest. Jim Ross really pushed this as two young top wrestlers delivering a great match. Well, they are pretty young, I guess. In reality, it was a throwaway match from two decidedly mediocre wrestlers, who have to be pushed to the top of their promotion because there's nobody else around. Nitro was the first three-hour broadcast after several weeks of a chaotic schedule. WCW pulled out all the stops, delivering the best wrestling of the night with ease and trying to create more intriguing story lines. The story lines turned around wrestlers joining the NWO Wolfpac. With all of the reshuffling they've done since the NWO split occurred, these switches are getting old fast; each one has less meaning than the last, no matter how much the commentators hype them. The live crowd did act pretty loudly to the Wolfpac story line, though. For me, the show was highlighted by the fact that they only had a couple of matches with poor wrestlers. To open the show, Raven seemingly fired the flock in hopes of getting his friend Saturn to stay at his side. Fit Finlay beat Mike Enos in an okay match. Saturn beat Glacier in an okay match; Hammer attacked Raven at ringside. In the first story line twist, Lex Luger joined NWO Wolfpac; as I said, it's hard to care. Chris Jericho beat Dandy in a short match and Konnan beat La Parka in a short match. Roddy Piper did an interview segment, with Randy Savage coming out. Bret Hart surfaced and suggested that Roddy Piper and he had colluded to screw Randy Savage at the PPV. At this point, an okay show turned into a great show, with the best hour of broadcast time (forty minutes or so real time) of wrestling action in recent memory. Juventud Guerrera beat Billy Kidman in a great match that was given about eight or nine minutes. Despite everything they have done to him, Juvi is tremendously over (sort of like Shamrock in the WWF). Chavo Guerrero Jr. beat El Ultimo Dragon in a great short match. The interplay between Chavo Jr. and Eddie Guerrero was amazing, as Chavo was really getting into his role. After the match, Chavo was so excited with his new attitude that he challenged Eddie to fight. Eddie acted like he just wanted to get his crazy nephew out of the ring, but did say, "We'll fight later." This led to Jim Dillon coming out to announce that the two would wrestle at the Bash. Dean Malenko beat Lenny Lane in a good short match. Bill Goldberg beat Johnny Attitude in a hot short match; that puts Goldberg at 90-0. Speculation is that he'll face the Ultimate Warrior in UW's return match when he's 99-0. To cap off the good hour, Chris Benoit beat Booker T in a great match, the first of their best of seven series to decide who gets named number one contender to the TV Title. Lex Luger & Sting beat Giant & NWO Sting, pinning NWO Sting. Everybody ran in and the Wolfpac took over the ring. Sting teased that he would join them as the show went off the air. Afterwards, off-air, Sting did put on the NWO Wolfpac t-shirt. Thunder I goofed, forgetting that Thunder was on on Wednesday this week. Luckily, I can get the Southern Ontario rebroadcast on the weekend. - The WWF has In Your House: Over The Edge on Sunday. Tentative line-up has: * Steve Austin vs. Dude Love for the WWF Title (Vince referee) * Rocky Maivia vs. Faarooq for the IC Title * Legion of Doom vs. Skull & Eight Ball * Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Billy Gunn & Road Dog vs. Owen Hart & D-Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa * Vader vs. Kane - There was a lot of excitement at the possibility of Janie Engle leaving WCW for the WWF. As Eric Bischoff's personal secretary, she was privy to loads of sensitive information about the promotion. Fortunately for Bischoff, he was able to keep her in the fold by giving her a big raise. - Some weird talent movement in Japan. All Japan has agreed to use the remaining Michinoku Pro wrestlers on its next tour; it was known that the Michinoku Pro guys wanted to work with the group, but it's a surprise of sorts that Baba would agree, since it could be seen as compromising his style and he's usually so conservative. Of course, Steve Williams will leave All Japan shortly to work in the WWF and other Michinoku Pro guys (Taka & Kaientai) are in the WWF presently. With Baba using Vader at the Dome show, there's some speculation again about the possibility of broader talent trades. The same variables hold, though: only Vader & Shamrock can mean something in the All Japan style. If Baba opens up the style, though... - New Japan prez Seiji Sakaguchi is apparently coming to the US to meet with Eric Bischoff in the hopes of keeping their talent trade deal alive. Sakaguchi wants some top talent for the 08/08 Osaka Dome show. Right now, it's rumoured that the core of great young wrestlers in WCW will be heading to the WWF in 1999 when their contracts run out. Of course, if WCW has a New Japan deal with some life to it, not to mention if the booking situation improves a bit, it's possible that WCW could keep these guys around. For me, that's the lifeblood of the promotion. - The only wrestling-related stuff I managed to watch on tape this past week was the recent Ultimate Fighting Championship. I thought it was a really good show. I probably enjoyed the Carlos Newton vs. Dan Henderson match more than 80% of the North American we see, and, just like a lot of North American wrestling, I didn't agree with the end result. - Regarding WCW's Slamboree PPV, the Observer once again hinted that Chris Benoit's position has a lot to do with Kevin Sullivan's position. For the Raven vs. Diamond Dallas Page match, the Observer wrote, They smashed each other into garabge cans and used weapons such as a VCR [...] and of course the bullrope, just so Dusty can let everyone know he's booking this shit. Slamboree had a high median and average match rating, even though the peak didn't hit * * * * . - RAW tied Nitro 05/25 with a 4.2 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 1.05 0.89 0.93 0.74 Average PPV Revenue $3.71 $3.02 $3.58 $2.55 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 2.2 (4) $9.52 1.81 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of 8) 98/04/19 WWF IYH Unforgiven 1.75 * * * * * 14% (1 of 7) WWF Average 1.21 $4.94 1.83 * 1/2 * * * 1/2 3.6% (1 of 28) 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) 98/04/19 WCW Spring Stampede 0.7 $2.62 2.4 * * 1/2 * * * * 20% (2 of 10) 98/05/17 WCW Slamboree 1.92 * * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of 9) WCW Average 0.98 $3.67 1.92 * * 1/4 * * * 1/2 6.4% (3 of 47) 98/03/01 ECW Living Dangerously 0.23 $0.42 1.56 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of 8) 98/05/03 ECW WrestlePalooza 0.64 1/2 * * 0% (0 of 7) ECW Average 1.13 * 1/4 * * 1/2 0% (0 of 15) Footnotes: (1) WWF claims 1.03; (2) WCW claims 1.1; (3) preliminary figure; (4) possibly WWF figure; Detailed data is available. - New Japan has a big show on 06/05/98. Line-up includes: * Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Shinya Hashimoto for the IWGP Title * Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Don Frye * Jushin Liger & El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin & Yuji Yasuraoka & Hayato Nanjyo vs. Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Masakazu Fukuda & Shiryu in an elimination tag match - WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/14/98. Tentative line-up includes: * Hulk Hogan & Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper & Randy Savage * Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho for the Cruiserweight Title * Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. * Bill Goldberg vs. Curt Hennig * Booker T vs. Chris Benoit (final of the best of seven series) - The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/28/98. - WCW has Bash at the Beach on 07/12/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/26/98. - WCW has Road Wild on 08/08/98. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/30/98. Jerry Springer is expected to be involved in the show. - WCW has Fall Brawl on 09/13/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 09/27/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 10/18/98. - WCW has Halloween Havoc on 10/25/98. - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/15/98. - WCW has World War III on 11/22/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 12/13/98. - WCW has Starrcade on 12/27/98. - 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. ______________________________________________________________________