______________________________________________________________________ I'm looking to complete a tape update for this weekend. ______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ - WCW had Road Wild on Sunday, 08/08/98. All in all, it's tough to give the show a thumbs up. It was about the same pitiful level as Fully Loaded a few weeks earlier. In this case, there were two good matches and nothing else about which to speak. Disappointing, although it was hard to know what to expect since the line-up was hardly announced in advance. To their credit, though, WCW did manage to do some things right on a show that historically has been among the worst efforts each year. This time around, they had larger platforms around the raised ring so that topes could still take place in some matches. They also seemed to have put some effort into having some wrestling fans in the crowd, as reactions were better this year than in previous years when the biker crowd didn't know the story lines. And finally, late in the game they changed course from having Travis Tritt perform for a half-hour during the usual 2:47 of PPV time to instead having him perform after a full-length PPV. But there's little excuse for the wrestling on this show. Run down: * Meng beat Barbarian: A horrible opener. It seemed like they thought this was a good match to show the Sturgis crowd, and, truthfully (and sadly), they did get some reactions from the crowd. Jim Duggan ran in at the end and there was a "USA" chant. Before that, Meng used the Tongan death grip for the win. Jimmy Hart and Hugh Morrus were involved as well. There was an overly cooperative top rope superplex spot. At least it only went 10 minutes with intros. * Public Enemy beat Disco Inferno & Alex Wright: Disco & Alex were accompanied by Tokyo Magnum. Public Enemy are just too bad for words. Alex used a trash can and Rocco came out with a ladder. The referee made the match a street fight on the spot. They used all sorts of stupid foreign objects as the commentators laughed. As the finish neared, Public Enemy took a half-hour to set up their table spot. It was like an ECW match, where everything falls apart while the furniture gets arranged just so that the fans get their spot devoid of any wrestling. Poor Disco Inferno had to lie there for five minutes pretending to be dead. Eventually, they put Disco on the tables and elbowed him from the scaffolding. Magnum made the save, but accidentally splashed Disco who was pinned. Bad garbagy match. Alex walked out. 20 minutes with intros, sigh. * Perry Saturn beat Kanyon & Raven in a triangle match: Falls counted anywhere. There were a couple of creative spots, like a superplex combined with a fallaway slam. The Flock interfered. Lodi tried to powder Saturn, but powdered Horace instead. Horace whacked Lodi with the STOP sign. Saturn hit the death valley driver on Raven for the pin. I didn't expect too much from the match, but still came away disappointed because the booking of anything involving Raven is so junky. 18 minutes with intros. * Rey Misterio Jr. beat Psicosis: First good match. They did a little more mat wrestling than usual, but with these two that's still a strong match. There were topes. Psicosis debuted the ocean cyclone suplex, Manami Toyota's finisher, probably a first on PPV. Rey earned a Cruiserweight title match with the win. 17 minutes with intros. * Stevie Ray beat Chavo Guerrero Jr.: Absolutely pointless match. Chavo tried to make it entertaining and interesting, but Stevie just stinks. It only went 9 minutes with intros, but it did a lot of damage to Chavo. * Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner didn't take place: It's really inexcusable to hype a match a fair bit and then deep six it. Buff Bagwell was darn funny on the microphone during this bit. * Steve McMichael beat Brian Adams: Shoot me. Absolutely horrible. So bad it made me wish I was rewatching the awesome opening match. McMichael blew every spot for the first few minutes of the match, which only went 10 minutes with intros, meaning he blew everything for most of the match. He couldn't even run the ropes correctly. Vince chaired Adams by mistake. One tombstone and it was over. Really bad match. There is no truth to the rumour that McMichael will be programmed against Chavo Guerrero Jr. to see whether a stick horse or a chihuahua will retain the name Pepe. * Juventud Guerrera beat Chris Jericho to win the Cruiserweight Title: Dean Malenko was the referee. He called things fairly, although Tony Schiavone at one point acted like Dean was favouring Juvi, bringing the commentary into the toilet in the process. The camera crew missed the first Dean vs. Chris spot. Match was great. Finish looked cool, but it was overbooked for my tastes: Dean was doubled over while Jericho was on the top rope and Juvi was in the opposite corner. Getting into that positioning is where the overbooking came in. Juvi charged, Dean launched him, and he hit a top rope Franksensteiner that was great. 24 minutes of great stuff, but not really enough to erase the memory of the really bad stuff that took place earlier. * Bill Goldberg won a battle royal involving Goldberg, Scott Hall, Giant, Scott Norton, Curt Hennig, Lex Luger, Sting, Kevin Nash, and Konnan: Goldberg pretty much eliminated everybody. Hall was first. Nash went after him, elminiating himself. Konnan, Hennig, Sting, Norton, and Luger (by Giant) were next. Giant was speared and jackhammered for the pin, giving away a finish that should have headlined a subsequent PPV. Stupid. It was neither bad nor good. 19 minutes with intros. * Diamond Dallas Page & Jay Leno beat Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff: Eric is now "Mr. Eric Bischoff," a la Vince. Bad match, but no worse than the typical celebrity match. Still, while tolerable as a main event celebrity match, on a show with such extreme lows and following the horrible Rodman/Malone match on PPV last time, it sort of rubbed me the wrong way a little more than it should have. Page and Hogan did all right to make things palatable. Finish saw Kevin Eubanks hit the diamond cutter on Eric and Leno get the pin. The heels attacked afterwards, but Goldberg made the save. Michael Landsberg, host of "Off The Record" on TSN, reported that Dennis Rodman was seen training Jay Leno for this match. Uh-huh. RAW RAW on 08/10/98 was a live show. I always get flamed for saying this, but the WWF really only has one star of the show and that's Steve Austin. This episode brought that home for me a bit, since pretty much everything without Austin was sort of hokey, with some things bordering embarrassment. I don't know who is scripting the secondary story lines, but I felt like a lot of poor ideas were tried at the same time this night. Case in point: the opening sequence involving Mick Foley being berated by Vince McMahon. Good to that point, but then Paul Bearer & Kane came in, with Vince suggesting that Kane was actually the Undertaker (surely not, based on the shoulders), calling him a son of a bitch. Cue hokeyness. The lights go out. Ten seconds later they come back on and the Undertaker is standing in the ring. Ooooh. Ahhhh. Cheesy, to say the least. Luna beat Jacqueline in the opener. Jackie took the crotch bump on the top rope again. Everybody was out there, Mero with Jackie, and Sable with the oddities & Luna. I guess Sable & Luna are friends now, although it has never been explained why. Hey, who remembers story lines anyhow? In the second of what will no doubt be a series of tasteless spots, Hawk tumbled backwards down the ramp as the Legion of Doom headed to the ring. They are going to do a rehab story line with Hawk. Now that will surely get the LOD over again and sell some tickets, right? Animal ended up facing Southern Justice together, but Darren Drozdov came in the ring to help. Jeff Jarrett came in and broke a guitar over Droz. This all seems to be building to a six-man match. Degneration X made up. Chyna mooned the crowd. A total waste of time. In the earlier BrawlforAll match, Darren Drozdov beat Savio Vega. Drozdov was put back in because he broke Hawk's nose. Maybe the story line will be that with his nose broken, Hawk couldn't continue his mild cocaine habit and had to move on to an injectible, harder drug, leading to these new problems. In the second BrawlforAll match, Bradshaw beat Marc Mero in a boring bout. Let's have a tournament where all of the losers get put back in. Val Venis came out with John Bobbitt and Mrs. Yamaguchi so that Venis can reveal that he escaped unscathed last week from those bumbling Japanese munchkins. Oh, and while he was in the ring, he decided to dump Mrs. Yamaguchi. There's no truth to the rumour that Jerry Lawler spoke to Venis about the wrongness of being with a seventeen year-old girl. Standings and bracketing for the BrawlforAll: First Round ______________________________________________________________________ Quarter Finals ______________________________________________________________________ Semi Finals ______________________________________________________________________ Finals ______________________________________________________________________ Steve Blackman Steve Blackman (06/29 TV) Marc Mero ______________________________________________________________________ Bradshaw (08/10 TV); beats Marc Mero Justin Bradshaw Justin Bradshaw (06/29 TV) Mark Cantebury ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Bradshaw (08/17 TV) Savio Vega Savio Vega (07/09 TV) Brakus ______________________________________________________________________ Drozdov (08/10 TV); Droz back in tournament Hawk draw (07/09 TV) Darren Drozdov ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Bart Gunn Bart Gunn (07/16 TV) Bob Holly ______________________________________________________________________ Bart Gunn (07/30 TV) Steve Williams Steve Williams (07/23 TV) Quebecer Pierre ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Bart Gunn (08/17 TV) Dan Severn Dan Severn (07/16 TV); Dan withdraws; Kama back in Kama ______________________________________________________________________ Kama (08/03 TV) Eight Ball 2 Cold Scorpio (07/23 TV) 2 Cold Scorpio ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ The RAW main event was a four corners tag match with Undertaker & Austin vs. Kane & Mankind vs. New Age Outlaws vs. Rocky Maivia & D'Lo Brown. It was a mixed bag with a finish that everybody should have seen coming: Kane chokeslammed Undertaker and got the pin to win the titles. Of course, we are supposed to suspect that Undertaker laid down for for him. It's interesting to see the top story line in the WWF continually use the idea that losses and wins are rigged. Nitro Nitro on 08/10/98 aired in full in Canada. It was the best Nitro in many weeks. On the surface, that's not saying too much, since past Nitros have been so bad. This time we actually got a really good show. For the first time in a while, the show had a lot of wrestling, with some good, resonably long matches in fact, and the interviews were minimized. It's heartening that they won the ratings battle, even if just by a hair. Next week, they'll no doubt return to the talk show format with one-minute matches. In the opener, Jim Duggan beat Barbarian with a roll up. Hugh Morrus came in, but Meng made the save. But all is not cool with the team that seems to be forming with Meng & Duggan. No, Meng has a Tongan tantrum and puts the death grip on all of the wrestlers, including Duggan, and even nails the referee, security, and the little old lady at ringside. Okay, the old lady didn't take the grip. I'm bored by the whole affair, but they were trying to build Meng up for his match with Goldberg this evening. To add some interest to the bout, both NWO factions will be at ringside as lumberjacks. Kanyon beat Saturn when Raven interfered and used a DDT on Saturn. Kanyon didn't see it, but they are teasing that Kanyon & Raven, once such arch-enemies, are now in cahoots. Steve McMichael displayed what he calls wrestling, beating poor Sick Boy, who gets his ring name by working against guys like McMichael. Chris Jericho challenged Stevie Ray for the TV Title. there's no chance of a good match here. Giant came out and choke slammed Stevie and Jericho put the lion tamer on for the win. The commentators sputtered about the title change with Tony saying, "I can't explain the reasoning behind that at all." Okay, he was talking about the Giant helping Jericho, but he should have been saying this the past two or three months for most of the story lines. In a great 9-minute match, Rey Misterio Jr. beat Psicosis & Lizmark Jr. in a triangle bout. Besides the spectacular aerial stuff, they did a good job of telling a story here. Really nice stuff. Lex Luger beat Bret Hart to win the US Title. This was a long match, with a commercial interruption. This is one of the first times in recent months that they've put Bret in a situation that plays to his strengths. In a longer match like this, Bret's story telling ability came to the surface again and he ended up having a good match with Luger of all people. The audience was drawn into the web really well by Hart. After the match, the Wölfpac came out to celebrate. Sting was all red again. Juventud Guerrera beat a clean cut Billy Kidman in the third good-or-better match in a row, all with some length to them. Is this Nitro? What has happened? Well, wait, there's a dip again as Raven beat Horace in a forgettable match. And Curt Hennig won a DQ over Konnan when Konnan used a chain necklace to choke him. Sting & Kevin Nash beat Giant & Scott Hall by DQ. Sting had the Scorpion on Scott Hall, so Giant came in and decked the referee. He didn't attack Sting, though, even though his partner was in Sting's Scorpion. It all makes you say, "Hmmmm." Finally, Goldberg beat Meng in the two-minute main event. It took longer for all of the NWO goons to get to ringside. Meng put the Tongan death drip on Goldberg, who crumbled to the mat. But Meng released the hold and turned away to celebrate the Tongan "count your chickens before they've hatched" festival. When he turned around, he was speared and jackhammered. In a good post-match angle, Hulk Hogan chaired Goldberg from behind and Nash disposed of Hogan and picked up the chair. When Goldberg turned around, Nash was holding the chair, so Goldberg speared him as we went off the air. A really good show, with the last hour-and-a-half or so being really good TV with some really good wrestling. Thunder Thunder on 08/13/98 was another surprisingly different WCW show. As with Nitro this week, they decided to focus upon a few longer matches and not spend as much time talking. I liked the changed even though they didn't necessarily focus on the stellar workers. If I know that WCW TV will have matches of a reasonable length, I'll look forward even more to the times when the good workers appear against each other. In the opener, Scott Hall pinned Konnan clean with the Outsider Edge in an okay 12-minute match. Horace got a DQ win over Raven, when the rest of the Flock came in and laid into Horace. Saturn came in for the save and Kanyon followed suit. This was a 10-minute affair. Stevie Ray challenged the Giant for next week, but also said that he was going to get the TV Title back. Thunder is going to be taped every other week from this point on, assuming that it works out, so they presumably taped Stevie Ray vs. Giant. Chris Jericho got a DQ win over Chavo Guerrero Jr. in a pretty good match with a weak TV ending, as Chavo debuted a new Pepe, this time a stick horse taped to a baseball bat, and whacked Jericho, who had destroyed the more traditional stick horse Pepe. They went 11 minutes or so, with a commercial break included, but they did some nice stuff before the lame finish. Disco Inferno & Alex Wright had yet another match against Public Enemy, winning this one with a neckbreaker. Is this program going anywhere? Anyhow, Meng ran in and destroyed everybody post-match, including Barbarian & Jimmy Hart and some security guys. The crowd didn't care. Tony Schiavone had an orgasm yelling, "When and where will he strike!?!?" No matter how tough Meng might really be, he's never going to be much of anything in WCW because he's a retread wrestler. Kevin Nash faced Curt Hennig. Prior to the match, Nash said that he and Goldberg had made up after the misunderstanding on Monday. Rick Rude came in after only a few minutes and whacked the referee. Scott Hall attacked Nash from behing and Lex Luger saved. In a travesty, Stevie Ray beat Eddie Guerrero, who is seemingly being punished until and unless he signs a contract extension. It was horrible. Worse yet, the audience was really on Eddie's case with an "Eddie sucks" chant. Finally, Bret Hart beat Lex Luger with the sharpshooter after a chair bump involving the referee, thus regaining the US Title he had lost on Monday. The match wasn't as long or as good as Monday's effort. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/30/98. Tentative line-up has * Steve Austin vs. Undertaker for the WWF Title * Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Rocky Maivia for the IC Title in a ladder match * Mankind & Kane vs. New Age Outlaws (not a cage match, but perhaps another gimmick match) * Jeff Jarrett vs. X-Pac * Owen Hart vs. Ken Shamrock in a Lion's Den cage match - Th buy rate for WWF's Fully Loaded PPV is something of a contentious issue. The WWF is claiming a 0.95 buy rate, which would mean that buy rates are on the increase since May. But WCW, which is surprisingly honest about buy rates, is claiming that the WWF show drew a paltry 0.34 buy rate. Independent estimates settle down to a 0.5, the loser buy rate since No Way Out and the second lowest of the year so far for the WWF. - ECW had Heatwave on 08/02/98. I received a copy of the show earlier this week. It turned out to be a very good show, although there were the usual problems of limited psychology and transitions in most of the matches. Run down: * Justin Credible pinned Jerry Lynn: Good opener. They did a lot of good stuff during the match. My one complaint, mentioned above already, is that it felt a bit like they were doing moves with no connections between them, just racing to throw out lots of spots. The finish was filled with interference from Credible's crew before he managed to tombstone Lynn from the top rope. I cringed at the finish since that was the move that broke Hisako Uno's neck in All Japan Women years back, never to be tried again in Japanese wrestling. * Chris Candido pinned Lance Storm: A second good match. I like both of these guys a lot, having met them at SMW Fanweek in 1994. I'll get flamed for saying this, but I'd like to see both of them get work elsewhere, mostly because the chairs and ECW screwyness is unnecessary for the style of wrestling that is their strength. This match was really good in part because they played to Storm's strengths and stayed away from his weaknesses. Tammy Sytch was there after being canned by the WWF; it's rumoured that WCW wants her, but I don't know how that will turn out. In her first appearance, she was already involved in an in-ring spot where he dress top was ripped off. Soon, they'll have taken whatever centerfoldish class she had away from her, turning her into more tawdry trash like Francine and Beulah. Candido won with the Blond Bombshell top rope powerbomb after Tammy came in. * Masato Tanaka beat Mike Awesome: Best match of the show and Tanaka was the best worker of the show. Once again, the booking was great at taking advantage of Awesome's strengths and hiding his weaknesses. Tanaka was great at putting the match together. They unfortunately stuck in some garbagy chair shots to Tanaka's head and did a power bomb through a table at ringside, this time with Awesome taking the bump. It got a little too garbagy for me at some points, but from this point on that was the flavour of the show. Tanaka won with a spinning DDT. * Sabu & Rob van Dam beat Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa: Weird match. There were some good spots in the first 15 minutes or so of the match, but also a lot of disconnected spots. They tried to have some story line in the match with Shinzaki knee being worked over, but the match wasn't really held together by much. Unlike the earlier bouts, there isn't a wrestler in this match that can really hold things together well. And at the 15-minute mark that became patently obvious, as the whole match crumbled into a total cluster. It started when Shinzaki learned that his table was broken and then didn't know what to do. Everything went in slow motion from that point forward, with guys standing around, realizing the script was out the window, and improvising by doing spots that had no meaning. To his credit, van Dam avoided throwing punches throughout the match, since that is his weakness (Funny how that was also a weakness of the Smoking Gunns in the WWF, and now Bart Gunn finds himself with a gimmick of being a puncher). How do you rate a match that had a pretty good first fifteen minutes and an absolutely abysmal and messy final 5 minutes? * Taz beat Bam Bam Bigelow: Bigelow looked the best he had in years. Mostly a brawl, but Bigelow did a lot of stuff to hold the match together. You can't ignore the value that Bigelow and Credible have had to ECW; even though they were going nowhere in the WWF, they have managed to play very important roles in lifting other ECW wrestlers to very good matches. Every match on this show had one outrageous spot to make it memorable: the top rope tombstone, Tammy's dress, the table powerbomb, the table bump where both Shinzaki & Hayabusa went through a table. In this match, the memorable spot was both wrestlers crashing through the ramp at the finish of DDT bump. This was much better than the in-ring bump they did last time around. Afterwards, Bigelow climbed out of the hole and was jumped on by Taz, who hit his submission. * Tommy Dreamer & Sandman & Spike Dudley beat Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Devon Dudley & Big Dick Dudley: Garbage wrestling. Lots of gimmicky stuff. Sandman, in particular, was absolutely pitiful. I'd rather watch the Road Wild opener again than see Sandman. A bad finisher. Unlike the other matches which had some wrestling and bits of garbage, this was garbage with no wrestling. The sad part is that the fans generally didn't react to the wrestling, did react to that one key spot each match, and reacted to the garbage. - Speaking of Sandman, he was apparently involved in a contract renegotiation with ECW. Sanjay Mohanta had the nerve to suggest that Sandman was being talked to by both WCW and the WWF, in the former case to be the fourth horseman and in the latter case to be the newest DX member. I think Sandman had a better chance of being the newest Spice Girl. Oh, and there is no truth to the rumour that Val Venis will bring in someone to aid him in his feud with the five-man Kaientai group, that someone being a larger, darker, illegitimate, Dudleyish brother, Sanjay Yamaguchi. At least there'd be some family resemblance. - New Japan had a big show at the Osaka Dome on 08/08/98. As expected, Masa Chono beat Tatsumi Fujinami to win the IWGP Title for the first time. Also, Koji Kanemoto & Dr. Wagner Jr. lost to Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, who become the first IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag champions. - Kevin Nash is reportedly pissed at Eric Bischoff for letting the booking take a direction that severely hurts the Wölfpac's credibility. From Sting apparently leaving the group last week, dressing in white and black again, to the Wölfpac members playing background roles for Goldberg, say, Nash is apparently complaining up a storm. This might explain why on this week's Nitro Nash was seemingly escalated into a program with Goldberg. Nash wants to hold off his PPV match with Scott Hall until the end of the year. Hall, of course, is back on that bumpy road called "alleged substance abuse." - Many reports that Ultimate Warrior will debut in WCW next Monday at Nitro. There are other reports that he'll be held back. Speculation continues that Ric Flair will return to the group. And it's expected that Vampiro Canadiense will get a big push when he debuts. - The local paper reports that the WWF bought Debbie Reynolds' Las Vegas hotel-casino for $9-million at auction this past week. - WCW has a March, 1999, date to finally "invade" Canada, with a house show in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre. The exact date isn't set yet. It's expected that they will have a data at this new stadium as well as at the Skydome and there's even speculation that one of the show will be a Nitro. The WWF, of course, has been shoring up their rights to the Canadian market, with plans for PPVs and RAWs in Canada later in the year and the just-signed five-year deal for TSN to carry RAW live on Monday nights. - Brian Lee was fired by the WWF. Please don't let him show up in WCW. - Rick Martel, out with a neck injury thanks to Stevie Ray, is apparently considering retiring. - Steve Regal, in training for his re-debut in the WWF after the truly botched first effort, suffered a leg injury that will keep out for several more weeks. Steve Williams will also be out for two months; the WWF hopes to be able to rehabilitate his image. Of course, the plan was to push Williams as a bad-ass tough man, and that is surely out of the window or, at best, severely hurt. - Nitro beat RAW on 08/10 with a 4.7 rating versus a 4.55 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. I still haven't managed to update them; but, hey, I've updated the PPV figures. - PPV buy rates, revenue (in millions), and match statistics for the WWF, WCW, and ECW are presented in the following 1998 summary sheet (the PPV draw(s) are listed, as well as the quality matches): Show Data Match Rating Data Show Details Buy Rate Gross Mean Median Peak % >= * * * * WWF 98/07/26: Fully Loaded Steve Austin & Undertaker vs. Kane & Mankind 0.5 (WWF claims 0.95; WCW claims 0.34; 0.5 independent figure) $2.23 1.81 * 1/4 * * * 1/4 Rocky Maivia vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley 0% (0 of 8) 98/06/28: King of the Ring Steve Austin vs. Kane Undertaker vs. Mankind 0.85 $3.86 1.72 * 1/2* * * * * 1/2 Undertaker vs. Mankind 11.1% (1 of 9) 98/05/31: IYH Over the Edge Steve Austin vs. Dude Love 0.65 $2.90 1.06 1/2* * * * * 1/2 Steve Austin vs. Dude Love 12.5% (1 of 8) 98/04/26: IYH Unforgiven Steve Austin vs. Dude Love Kane vs. Undertaker 0.85 $3.78 1.75 * * * * * Steve Austin vs. Dude Love 14.3% (1 of 7) 98/03/29: WrestleMania Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin Kane vs. Undertaker 2.20 $9.52 1.81 * * * * * * 1/4 Michaels vs. Austin Cactus & Funk vs. NAO 0.0% (0 of 8) 98/02/15: IYH No Way Out HHH & NAO & Vega vs. Austin & Owen & Funk & Cactus Kane vs. Vader 0.45 $1.67 1.43 * 1/2 * * * 1/2 HHH & NAO & Vega vs. Austin & Owen & Funk & Cactus 0.0% (0 of 7) 98/01/18: Royal Rumble Shawn Michaels vs. Vader Royal Rumble 0.97 $3.62 2.38 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 Royal Rumble Max Mini & Nova & Mosaic vs. Battalion & Torio & Tarantula 0.0% (0 of 6) Last 6 0.92 $3.99 1.60 1.46 3.79 6.4% (3 of 47) 1998 0.92 $3.94 1.69 1.61 3.75 5.7% (3 of 53) 1997 0.61 $1.84 2.18 1.81 3.792 27.9% (6 of 21) Show Data Match Rating Data Show Details Buy Rate Gross Mean Median Peak % >= * * * * WCW 98/07/06: Bash at the Beach Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs. Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone 1.6 $7.21 1.81 * * 1/4 * * * * Juventud Guerrera vs. Billy Kidman 11.1% (1 of 9) 98/06/14: Great American Bash Hulk Hogan & Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper & Randy Savage Sting vs. Giant 0.8 $3.52 1.67 * * 1/4 * * * 1/2 Chris Benoit vs. Booker T 0.0% (0 of 9) 98/05/17: Slamboree Kevin Nash & Scott Hall vs. Sting & Giant 0.72 $3.20 1.92 * * 1/2 * * * 1/4 Chris Benoit vs. Dave Finley Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko Eddie Guerrero vs. Ultimo Dragon 0.0% (0 of 9) 98/04/19: Spring Stampede Sting vs. Randy Savage Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash vs. Giant & Roddy Piper 0.72 $3.20 2.40 * * 1/2 * * * * Ultimo Dragon vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. DDP vs. Raven 20.0% (2 of 10) 98/03/15: Uncensored Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage Sting vs. Scott Hall 1.10 $4.12 1.69 * * 1/2 * * * 3/4 Raven vs. DDP vs. Chris Benoit 0.0% (0 of 9) 98/02/22: SuperBrawl Hulk Hogan vs. Sting Outsiders vs. Steiners 1.10 $4.12 1.67 * 1/4 * * * 3/4 Juventud Guerrera vs. Chris Jericho 0.0% (0 of 10) 98/01/25: Souled Out Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair Giant vs. Kevin Nash Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage 1.02 $3.81 1.92 * * * * * Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Super Calo & Lizmark Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera & La Parka & El Dandy 11.1% (1 of 9) Last 6 1.01 $4.23 1.87 2.21 3.71 5.4% (3 of 56) 1998 1.01 $4.17 1.87 2.04 3.75 6.2% (4 of 65) 1997 0.77 $2.45 1.96 1.98 3.813 5.9% (6 of 102) Show Data Match Rating Data Show Details Buy Rate Gross Mean Median Peak % >= * * * * ECW 98/08/02: Heatwave Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow 3.08 * * 1/4 * * * * Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka 16.7% (1 of 6) 98/05/03: WrestlePalooza Shane Douglas vs. Al Snow Sabu vs. Rob van Dam 0.24 $0.45 0.64 1/2* * * Mikey Whippreck vs. Justin Credible 0.0% (0 of 7) 98/03/01: Living Dangerously Shane Douglas & Chris Candido vs. Al Snow & Lance Storm 0.23 $0.42 1.56 * * * * * 1/4 Buh Buh Ray Dudley & D-Von Dudley vs. Spike Dudley & New Jack vs. Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney 0.0% (0 of 8) Last 6 0.24 $0.44 1.69 1.58 3.08 4.8% (1 of 21) 1998 0.24 $0.44 1.69 1.58 3.08 4.8% (1 of 21) 1997 0.22 $0.38 2.10 2.50 3.583 10.0% (2 of 20) Longer-term data is available. The data now runs back to 1991. A table of wrestlers who have delivered quality matches is also online. - All Japan goes to Budokan Hall on 09/11/98, with Kenta Kobashi defending his Triple Crown against Akira Taue. - WCW has Fall Brawl on 09/13/98. Tentative line-up has: * Goldberg vs. Giant for the WCW Title - New Japan is running a tournament to determine challengers for the WCW Tag Titles. The tournament final takes place on 09/21/98. New Japan somewhat embarrassingly announced that Sting & Kevin Nash were the champions after they had lost the belts. - 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. ______________________________________________________________________