______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ Well, I received quite a few e-mails asking me to try to continue with longer RAW and Nitro reviews. Even though there are apparently numerous places on the web that run through RAW and Nitro each week, nobody seems to do it with the focus on work/workrate and the heavy sarcasm that I tend to have. So, no promises, but when the time is there I will try to put together those reviews. ______________________________________________________________________ RAW RAW on 03/01/99 aired on tape overnight in Canada. It actually aired live but joined in progress about 15 minutes late because a junior hockey game went over time. Guess how the show opened? If you don't have the correct answer, then you haven't been paying attention the past many months. Vince and the Corporate Team came out for the requisite 20 minutes of talking. Vince had to explain why a burning teddy bear could reduce him to tears. "None of you know the capacity I have to love." That's because "amoebas don't feel very much." Okay, insults laid, "assholes" chanted, the fallout of this 15-minute long interview segment saw the following. * Kane was fired by Vince, with orderlies coming to take him off, but Chyna coming to his aid, with that strange twosome laying out all of the orderlies. Chyna then asked for the responsibility of looking after Kane, asking for a bout with Kane vs. Steve Austin this night. If Kane were to beat Austin, he'd stay with the Corporation. If not, Kane & Chyna would both be fired. * Mankind came out and asked to be referee, saying that he'd show Commissioner Michaels that he (Mankind) deserved to be the special referee at WrestleMania along with Giant. Vince said that Mankind's wish would be delivered if he beat the Undertaker this night. Question: why can Vince make Mankind the referee for the main event on RAW, but Mankind has to impress Michaels to be the referee at WrestleMania? Who makes the matches? * Undertaker's voice laughed at Vince. * After the Vince interview, Michael Cole (still no Jim Ross...) announced that Billy Gunn couldn't wrestle this night. They also showed Ryan Shamrock coming out of a locker room adjusting her skirt, which of course means that she was up to no good. Hey, at least adjusting her skirt doesn't require her to talk or be involved in any spots, things she is incapable of doing. The Indiana University study said that RAW averaged 36 minutes of wrestling per week. I bet that didn't count ring entrances and intros. There can't be 36 minutes of bell-to-bell wrestling, can there. I still remember the 17 minutes of wrestling at the Toronto RAW. Let's compare with tonight. First match was Ken Shamrock vs. Val Venis vs. Goldust for the IC Title, as the triangle match momentum builds to WrestleMania. Ryan came out 10 seconds into the bout, presumably to screw Venis, who dumped her last week. Goldust came out with Blue Meanie. They fired Vader, but the signed Blue Meanie and Viscera. Match had limited wrestling, surprise, with Goldust kissing Ryan and Shamrock going nuts and attacking Goldust outside the ring. Venis retained the title by a countout. Ryan is the cutest of the WWF women, but she has no presence. Surprising, since she's a stripper. After the match, Billy Gunn attacked Venis, even though they had explained that he had pneumonia. Match ran a phenomenal 3:29. Post-match attack lasted 20 seconds. Jim Ross came out, looking a little worse for the wear. His speech was a bit slurred, so he's not ready to do weekly commentary. Damn, more Michael Cole. Ross called out Bart Gunn for an interview segment, saying that Gunn would face Butterbean at WrestleMania. They showed footage of a masked Steve Williams causing Bart Gunn to lose his match last week. Jim Ross did a heel turn of sorts, asking Bart why he wouldn't look him in the face. He rambled on about not getting his job back because nobody wanted to look at him. Ross brought up Steve Williams, saying that Bart tried to take away something from him by ridiculing him. He slapped Bart. Bart poked him in the chest and Steve Williams ran in, of course, hitting a great released German suplex on Bart and a great backdrop suplex on Bart. Ross yelled at Bart. It was sort of weird, but it was cool to see Williams again, especially delivering two great suplexes. Hey, even though he had dropped a few notches on the All Japan work metre stick, Williams is still great enough to outshine his WWF coworkers. Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart faced HHH & X-Pac. Debra came out in a short robe. Debra does nothing for me, not that most of the WWF women do. Sunny was nice. Ryan is alright. But they could all leave and I wouldn't notice. Now, Tori Wilson in WCW, that's another story. Debra said that if anybody wanted to challenge for the titles, she'd give up her robe if the champs lost. Hunter Hearst Helmsley & X-Pac came out. X-Pac is an awesome worker. And the rest in this bout are good, so there was some promise for a good wrestling match here. HHH went for his pedigree less than two minutes in, but JJ made the save. Owen hit an "enzugoori." Man, that's the most butchered move name in North American commentary. Enzuigiri. JJ tried to jump on HHH, who was draped across the second rope, but ended up crotching himself. I mention that spot only because the timing was way off and JJ looked like a moron. Three minutes in they were already doing the desperation tag spot, as both in-ring wrestlers were crawling to their tag partners. While the referee was fondling Debra's butt, DX missed their chance at a pin. Debra bumped off the apron. X-Pac checked on her. Shane McMahon attacked him. HHH was doubled teamed. But Ivory came out to ringside and X-Pac hit the ring again. The bell rang for the DQ. As the champs walked off, D'Lo laid them both out. Ivory ran up on Debra and disrobed her. Madcap booking. The match ran just over five minutes. Can you imagine packing all of that stuff into five minutes? The bout was like a 20-minute bout of old with all of the spots that built to the next important moments edited out. And the climax, so to speak, was really about seeing a skanky, unattractive, fake-breasted, redneck stripped to her lingerie. Debra challenged Ivory to a match later this night. Luna and Tori came out, with Luna challenging Sable. Sable came out, but Tori ended up whacking Luna from behind. Sable powerbombed Luna and the two of them laid into Luna. Afterwards, Tori went to high-five Sable, who basically ignored her. Terri Powers new look and name remind me of Tori Welles, a porn star from 10 years back during my 20s. I should perhaps mention that the first hour ended here, with a whopping 9:00 of wrestling time. "36-minute average" my ass, if you smell what the Rock is cookin'. Well, maybe they'll actually have a main event match this week. Road Dog faced Rocky Maivia, challenging for the WWF Title. The Road Dog was "back from an injury," said Michael Cole, you know, that sort of injury where powder is inserted in your nose against your will. Hey, they did run an injury angle to give Road Dog some rehab time. I guess Road Dog is a good student to be back in the ring in clean form so quickly. Bout started off good because Road Dog's work is good if unspectacular. Rock called Paul Wight out at the 1:30 mark. Regarding Wight, the Observer mentioned that he has had a lot of fat removed from his body and has undergone some body sculpting, but "instead of the fire breathing fierce Giant that they're looking for, they've got this tall burned out looking overgrown high school partier." Rock's obvious weakness was protected again, as he sold, or did his version of selling for less than 30 seconds, before going on offence and doing a few of his usual spots, including doing his own commentary. Wight interfered. Rock finally rallied with three punches, which Rock sold weakly, before immediately going back on offence. Rock ran in to the corner and missed an elbow, which Rock sold badly. Rock took a couple of bumps for Road Dog before hitting the Rock Bottom to set up his elbow for the win. Match ran 4:50, which I guess puts Road Dog in his place. After the match, Al Snow came out, introducing himself on the microphone and challenging Road Dog to a hardcore match immediately. Road Dog chaired Snow and Bob Holly, who came in to the ring. Dog then did an interview, calling the others "pussies." Good way for Dog to walk out with his head up. Back from a commercial, Road Dog yelled for Snow or Holly to come out in the parking lot. Public Enemy came out to the Brood's music, mocking them. They drew no reaction whatsoever for their microphone work. The fans at ringside over their shoulder weren't even paying attention. The lights dimmed, the Brood's music came on, and the lights turned back on with only Johnny Grunge in the ring. He ran off, presumably in search of the wrestler who has carried his fat ass for years. Keep in mind that Public Enemy is with this company now because Terry Taylor had a great idea on how they could be used. Everybody that wants to credit Terry Taylor for the positive things that were in the WCW product while he was there should wonder what purpose having Public Enemy in this promotion serves. We cut backstage quickly, because everybody realized that the Public Enemy skit bit, and found Road Dog & Bob Holly brawling. We cut away from that in 20 seconds because it was also pretty bad. Back to the impromptu brawl after a commercial, they did a few more garbagy spots. Droz faced Steve Blackman in a kendo stick match. A whopping 2:09 in, Teddy Long took a shot and ended up giving the win to Droz when he recovered. Pretty bad. Holly & Road Dog kept brawling, with Al Snow getting involved. Mankind faced Undertaker. Vince McMahon came out to sit at ringside for commentary. Mankind is the only person who still manages to pull good matches out of the Undertaker, albeit that those matches are brawling garbagy matches. This bout wasn't one of those good matches, though, going a marathon 3:09 before Mankind won a countout victory, with Undertaker going after Vince McMahon. UT tried to choke slam Vince on the commentators' table, but Big Boss Man whacked his knee with his stick. Undertaker choke slammed Mankind. Somehow, Viscera ended up in the ring, but I severely doubt it was a run-in, if you catch my drift. Debra McMichael faced Ivory. The referee sent Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart to the back when Debra entered the ring, and he sent D'Lo Brown to the back when Ivory came out. The women did a hair-pulling brawl. Jackie & Terri Runnels came out. Jackie destroyed Ivory. D'Lo made the save. Match as it was ran an awesome 20 seconds. Kane faced Steve Austin. Mankind was not the special referee. They mentioned that Kane once beat Steve Austin in a first blood match; yeah, I remember that time when Austin refused to drop the title cleanly. Austin went after Kane's legs. After a take down, Kane used his free leg to kick his way free by banging his leg across Austin's head. That's how it was supposed to look; for some reason, I saw Kane pound the heel of his boot into the mat three times. Maybe the noise next to his head made Austin release his grip. Match was better than I expected, but Kane is really pathetic. Fans at ringside reacted noisily to the wrestlers when they brawled in front of them, but it was clear they only wanted to be on TV. Chyna attacked Austin, who turned his back, but managed to backdrop Kane over the guard rail. Austin took a careful back drop on the concrete. It looked like a Ric Flair top rope bump, where he lands on his side to protect his bad parts. Chyna interfered a bit more. The fans only got into it when Austin was on offence. Like Goldberg in WCW, nobody wants to see Austin sell. They did a few near falls before Kane put a bear hug on Austin. At this point in time, the bear hug looks like such a stupid, outdated move. The ref bumped. Austin hit the stunner. Chyna pulled Austin off Kane when the ref recovered. Austin was planning to pummel Chyna, but Kane saved her, hitting a weak back suplex that Austin sold well. Paul Wight came out. Kane did his top rope clothesline, but Austin kicked out. Austin finally kicked Kane low and pounded Kane. The referee ended up pulling Austin off Kane. Wight slipped a chair in the ring, but Austin got it and chaired Kane twice. The chair shots looked weak based on current standards. Chyna hit a low blow on Austin. Kane got back up no worse for the wear. Wight came into the ring, but his kick nailed Kane instead of Austin. Austin gave him the finger and called him a son of a bitch, with Austin's music playing. Austin said that f-word at the top of the ramp. Hey, it wasn't a classic by any means, but at least it ran a respectable 13:30. The finish sucked, though. Are Chyna and Kane out of the Corporation? Who knows? Did Austin get counted out or did Kane get DQed? Who knows? So, the total match time this night out was a surprising 32:58, just below the researchers' calculated average for a year. Now, how much of that was great wrestling? Zero minutes. How much was good? Actually, a chunk was good this week out. I would bet that the total ring entrance time on average rivals the total match time. Nitro Nitro on 03/01/99 aired as a two-hour show overnight on Tuesday. Just to give you an idea of how hard it is to keep current with Nitro on TSN, our TV guides didn't even list the show this week. An on-line search of the Toronto Star's TV guide revealed that the two hour show aired overnight and that the full show aired in prime time on Wednesday. Sure enough, TSN's site corroborated that. But on Wednesday night, the show was replaced by the Toronto vs. New Jersey hockey game. RAW gets very stable time slots and Nitro, even though the show is coming to Toronto at the end of the month, gets bounced around more often than not. And I suspect that the Toronto game only aired in this area...TSN does that sort of thing. The abridged show opened with David Flair listening to Ric's pleas on his phone messages. The show airs too many recaps of previous weeks' events. If they put together short bullet packages to remind people of story lines, it would be alright; but they always seem to air far more review stuff than necessary. Buff Bagwell & Scott Steiner challenged both Rick Steiner & Goldberg. The fans were actually hot for these guys, if you can believe it. They aired some Nitro girl stuff. Boring opening to the show. The Wölfpac invited Rey Misterio Jr. to join them, but Rey seemingly turned them down. Gee, I bet he gets in a tag situation against them and turns to join them. It's not like we haven't seen that in a week or two. In the first match on the show, and what a match it was, Psicosis faced Billy Kidman. Kidman did a great tope, with the fans popping. Larry Zbyszko rambled on about using "defensive offence" instead of "offensive offence." I wish he wouldn't use offensive commentary. Speaking of which, Tony Schiavone called Psicosis "one of the few masked men remaining in Mexico." Yeah, that's true. Duh. Something tells me Psicosis will be the next guy who has to lose his match in order to get the stellar push that Juvi has enjoyed and that Rey will no doubt enjoy. That's sarcasm folks. Psicosis does a great job of spitting these huge gobs at the moment of impact of moves. When Kidman climbed up for the shooting star press, the crowd was rabid, standing on their feet. Of course that means that Kidman won't get improved positioning. Great match. But the fact that it aired on an edited show means that this probably wasn't an edited show after all. Sigh, there's no way I taped the whole thing. As I said, it's hard to keep track of what TSN is doing. Arn confronted David. Boy, Tory Wilson has great presence and can really deliver a line. She puts every other woman in wrestling to shame in both categories and she doesn't even have any experience in the sport yet. They showed a clip of Meng on "Mortal Combat." They are so inconsistent when it comes to showing WCW wrestlers in outside ventures. They showed this and Wrath's appearance, but they didn't show clips of Goldberg on "The Tonight Show" or Bret Hart & Roddy Piper on "MAD TV." Yeah, Goldberg's appearance was lame, but it would be good to show him next to Costner and Flockhart, even if they then downplay the challenge to Austin. Next match that aired here was Bret Hart vs. Chris Benoit. I'm now thinking the show was in fact edited after all. In e-mail I was told that Rey Misterio Jr. beat Bam Bam Bigelow to take on a "giant killer" gimmick a la Spike Dudley in ECW. Poor Bigelow is going to have some funny stories written about him in the mark mags after this and the Spike loss in ECW. As with everything in WCW, they started this story line two months to late. They should have had things at this stage in December, so that Rey could pin Giant on PPV in January before Giant went to the WWF. Benoit is so friggin' awesome. Obviously, the work was great in this match, but what you should notice compared to other wrestlers that you think are really good is how both of these guys are always in the right position to make everything their opponent tries look as great as possible. The crowd was really into it. A proper program between these guys given the right position on PPVs would help both men immensely and shut the "he's not over" Bret critics up in a hurry. The problem is that some prominent critics are also the guys that decide programs and PPV line-ups. Heenan goofily said these guys were from the same generation, which isn't the way to get a rivalry between them over. Even a sleeper, reverse, sleeper, reverse sequence that usually comes across as boring was intense in this bout because the wrestlers actually know how to draw the fans in and tell a story with their work. Of course, bullshit had to triumph, as Hennig & Windham came out to whack Benoit. Hart put the sharpshooter on and refused to let go when Benoit reached the ropes. Bingo, DQ. Dean Malenko came out and the tag champs laid into him. The crowd yelled "We want Flair," but they don't realize that the Horsemen are impotent in the current bookers' minds. The Wölfpac came out, including Hulk Hogan. Bio break time. Hulk Hogan rambled on about the Flairs among other things, telling Ric that he should retire. The second-level NWO guys tussled a bit. Man, I don't understand how anybody could be a fan of this guy. And I've felt like that for nearly 20 years now, speaking from the moral high ground of having never liked the guy regardless of my age. Even though Konnan is on the wrong side of the political fence in WCW, his video got a prime spot, airing at the 1:30 mark of the 2:00 version of the show. Despite everything that they've done to him in recent times and in the past, the crowd popped quite favourably for Ric Flair's entrance. He's like the terminator...you just can't kill him. Even if you are a blind booker with a huge ego and the smallest fraction of the talent. It was a great interview. Flair said he and Hogan would meet at Uncensored in a cage match, essentially guaranteeing that there would be no interference, with the title on the line. Wow, can you believe to this point (the 1:45 minute mark of the edited show) we were given just two matches, but those two matches were just 30 seconds shorter than all of the matches on RAW put together. One more match to go: Goldberg & Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell. Okay, the wrestling was hardly great, but there did seem to be some interest in seeing Goldberg & Steiner trade moves. All four guys were in at the end, with Rick Steiner coming off the top for a clothesline that maybe should have been a bulldog, pinning Buff. Total bell-to-bell wrestling time in the two-hour show was roughly 45 minutes, two-thirds of which was devoted to great wrestling matches. Still, I can't find myself liking the show overall. There are just too many guys who I would be grateful to never see again. One thing was noticeable, namely that promotion was toning down its product to differentiate itself for the WWF. While fingers and profanity were in full use on RAW yet again, WCW reined in people who had to this point been a bit risque. Even Ric Flair was careful not to promise blood in his match with Hulk Hogan. - WCW has Uncensored on 03/14/99. Tentative line-up has * Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW Title * Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Barry Windham & Curt Hennig for the tag titles * Scott Hall vs. Booker T for the US Title * Kevin Nash vs. Rey Misterio Jr. * Stevie Ray vs. Vincent - The WWF has WrestleMania XV on 03/28/99. Tentative line-up has * Steve Austin vs. Rocky Maivia for the WWF Title with Paul Wight as referee * Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock vs. Val Venis for the IC Title * Undertaker vs. Big Boss Man in a Hell in the Cell match * X-Pac vs. Shane McMahon for the European Title * Sable vs. Luna for the Women's Title * Kane vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley * Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean - Sable stories are making the rounds now. There's a story on her in one of the supermarket tabloids. Believe it or not, they report that she wanted to perfect her body, so, yes, she did undergo breast augmentation surgery three years ago. Like she's only put her breasts under the knife that one time. Sheesh. - On Politically Incorrect on Tuesday night, Bill Maher brought up the hypocrisy of movements that would crucify Ellen or Jerry Springer but not launch a similarly heated campaign against the WWF. Of course, he referenced the university study that Inside Edition requested. His guests then talked about wrestling. The guys knew the names of some wrestlers from years gone by. The real point was made by an actor who said that he took his son to a WWF show recently and couldn't shake the feeling of being white trash. Yup, when forced to admit it, it does seem like that is the demographic that wrestling in North America draws a huge share from. He ended his story by saying that he saw Dennis Miller at ringside, and since he respects Dennis he figured that he wasn't white trash for being there after all. He also said that he watched WWF RAW on Monday with his two kids (I believe they were nine-ish) and said that the wrestling was okay for them to watch, but he had trouble explaining the Playboy commercial to his kids. "Daddy, what's Playboy? Why is Sable in it?" - I finally got around to catching up with my most recent batch of All Japan and New Japan TV. The All Japan stuff included the annual Real World Tag League tournament. Some matches were very good. Vader was a great addition and still seems to have enough in him for the promotion to build a successful year around his presence. Bart Gunn teamed with Johnny Ace for the tourney. Ace has really lost something in recent months but was still so much better than Gunn, who looked like a fish out of water in every appearance. A real embarrassment. Based on Japanese fans' respect for Steve Williams and Gunn's knock out of Williams in the BrawlforAll, Gunn had the chance here to make a name for himself in Japan, but he didn't have a fraction of the necessary abililty to set that up. But you know, you can't be in that environment and not pick up something, so I bet he returns to the US and looks sharper than he did before. That will say a lot about the talent disparity between North American & Japanese wrestling. The tag tourney final saw Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama face Vader & a washed-up Stan Hansen in a bout that the Observer rated * * * 3/4 and that definitely merited that rating. Somehow, Kobashi & Akiyama managed to keep the match strong even when Hansen was a focal point. Off the bat, the Japanese guys sold great for Vader to get him over as a monster. There was bit of give and take before a heat segment on Akiyama. Akiyama is one of my favourites; his work is amazing. Anybody who thinks that Rocky Maivia is a world-class young wrestler should check out Akiyama to get a clue. I'm not saying that Rocky isn't over; I'm just saying he isn't all that good. Last week, I was flamed in e-mail by a few people who thought I said that Bill Goldberg was a better wrestler than Rocky; I said he sold better, even though his selling is one-dimensional. Vader did a cool-looking suplex on Akiyama and delivered some stiff punches. He missed the Vader bomb, Akiyama hit a dropkick to the knee, and Akiyama made the hot tag. Kobashi went to work on Vader's knee, hitting a dragon screw right away and following it up with a backdrop suplex. Hansen made the save. Hansen & Vader double teamed Kobashi. Akiyama was out on the floor. When Vader climbed to the second rope, planning to splash Kobashi, Akiyama managed to scramble to the apron and desperately grab Vader's foot to stop the move. Hansen kicked him away, Vader hit what the commentators called a "Big van crush" splash. As with everything in the All Japan style, that little spot got across how devastating a wrestling move can be, that Akiyama desperately had to stop the splash. Tremendous stuff. The Americans kicked more ass, but couldn't get the pin, while the commentators screamed and said "abunai," Japanese for "danger." A stuff powerbomb, but Kobashi kicked out. Hansen set up for the lariat, adjusting his elbow pad. We all knew it was over, since pretty much nobody kicks out of the lariat even at this stage of Hansen's career. But, no, Akiyama climbed to the top rope, dropkicked Hansen in the back, with Hansen running toward Kobashi as a result, and with Kobashi hitting a surprise lariat for the pin. The out-of-nowhere and against-all-odds victory was followed by Hansen & Vader beating the crap out of the Japanese team, leaving them laying. Amazingly good stuff. Backstage, Vader walked into his locker room roaring and screaming "god damn it!" Back to Bart Gunn, in the match with him & Ace facing Vader & Hansen, everything Gunn did was embarrassingly bad. Shoulder tackles looked like crap or didn't connect and a sequence that involved two dropkicks by Gunn was brutal, with one dropkick missing by a country mile and the other being one of those dropkick-to-the-guts mismoves. Really sad. But why do I feel like it won't be long before Michael Cole calls Bart Gunn "the best natural athlete in the WWF," a tag given to Billy Gunn a few weeks ago and Rocky Maivia the last couple of weeks. It's scary that this guy, who looked so bad in an environment where wrestling makes you look good, actually was never really that bad by WWF standards. Speaking of really bad American wrestlers working All Japan, the TV show wrapping up the tag tournament showed this absolutely wonderful tope by Bobby Duncum Jr. He ran across the ring, jumped to clear the top rope, and held the rope with one hand. Well, that took away all of his momentum out toward the crowd, so he ended up going up and crashing straight down, whacking himself on the apron and tumbling in a heap. I watched it a few times because of its comedy value. Poor Akira Taue, who is competent but not a pleasure to watch, just stood there at ringside waiting for the tope. When Duncum launched himself, Taue raised his arms for the catch and then watched helplessly as Duncum crashed to the floor in a heap. Taue always looks a bit stunned to me, but here it seemed like he really was confused. Over to New Japan's Tokyo Dome show, Atsushi Onita sure is a piece of crap. His match with Kensuke Sasaki was junk, but it was sort of fun to watch Sasaki no-sell all of Onita's garbage wrestling offence. The one wrestling-related spot that Onita was given, a piledriver on a table, didn't even come off right because Onita is so bad these days. Not that he was ever good. Like Steve Austin has become in the WWF, Onita the garbage wrestler was a charismatic hero with followers, but his best wrestling days came before his turn to garbage wrestling. Interestingly enough, in both cases (Austin & Onita), the switch to garbage wrestling came when they were physically unable to actually do any wrestling any more due to injuries. An in both cases, a legion of mostly vampire fans came out of the wood work to praise them as great wrestlers. Maybe something was in the air, though, 'cause even the usually awesome junior heavyweight stuff just seemed off sometimes. They still had great matches, but some of the spots didn't click like they usually do. And for whatever reason, I liked the clips that aired of Don Frye vs. Brian Johnston. Yeah, I watch the UFCs, so that has something to do with it, but there's just something about Frye that clicks for me. If used right, he could be a tremendous asset to either WCW or the WWF, neither of which has what I'd call a great track record when it comes to using someone with Frye's talents correctly. Muto's title win over Scott Norton was sort of boring. The highlight of the tape watching over the past week, then, turned out to be the sight of a rejuvenated Vader. After the tag tourney final mentioned above, Vader continued to be the bane of Kenta Kobashi's existence. Consider the events of the first half of January, following on the heels of the tag tourney final, as an example of the kind of booking philosophy that isn't present in North America. Clean finishes don't have to bury the loser. First off, the annual All Japan year-opener on 01/02/99 featured the standard brutally bad battle royal. Thankfully, they only aired some highlights, which would constitute an angle in All Japan: Vader beat the crap out of Kobashi outside the ring, with Kobashi bleeding profusely. Vader just pummelled the poor guy, who sold for him while still displaying the essential fighting spirit in the melee. Jump to 01/07/99, with Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama challenging perennial double tag champions Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue for the titles. Kobashi came out with his eye bandaged and a bandage wrapped around his head to hold the cotton over his eye. He looked a mess thanks to the attack by Vader. Of course, after the usual 25-minute long awesome bout, with Kawada & Taue repeatedly working over Kobashi's head and eye with DDTs and the like, Kobashi pulled out a miracle and got the pin to win the titles. Eight days later, though, Kobashi was set to face Vader. Kobashi still had his head wrapped, although his eye now only looked a bit swollen. The match was great. Vader powerbombed Kobashi on the ringside floor in an awesome spot. He also used a chair on Kobashi's head, with Kobashi spitting blood. Kobashi tried to work over Vader's knee while Vader stuck with devastating power moves. The crowd was really into it. Kobashi finally signalled that he had enough of Vader and went for a clothesline, with both men selling the impact huge. Vader got up first though and charged Kobashi, knocking him down. An attempted splash off the top was turned into a powerbomb on Vader, with Kobashi fullowing up with a moonsault, a move he missed earlier. He got a two count. Vader rallied, put Kobashi in position and hit his own moonsault. The crowd was rabid at this point. An attempted German suplex by Vader turned into some counters and punches, with Vader eventually getting the suplex, following it was a second-rope Vader bomb, and another! Kobashi kicked out. Vader then went up for the "Big van crush," his splash off the second rope. Bang, three count. Vader left the match a legitimate challenger for the Triple Crown, while an injured Kobashi showed great fighting spirit and had just come off a tremendous tag title win to keep him over. You gotta love it. And you gotta love seeing Vader, that self-proclaimed "big fat piece of shit" in the WWF, working two matches in six weeks that were better than anything his former promotion has managed to deliver in that same time period. - New Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 04/10/99. Line-up has * Keiji Muto vs. Don Frye for the IWGP Title * Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami for the IWGP Tag Titles - It seems unbelievable, but ECW PPVs will be available in Canada beginning with the May show. - For whatever strange reason, I caught the last few minutes of MAD TV this past weekend. Roddy Piper tried to get Will Sasso and Debra Wilson to reconcile. After they made up, Piper said that the final thing that had to happen to make things right was Sasso chairing Wilson in retaliation. She ran off with Sasso chasing her. - Lots of confusing news about WCW. On the one hand, internal talk is that the promotion is going to clean things up and focus on the perceived positive differences to distinguish themselves from the WWF. There is a lot of negative pub right now when it comes to pro-wrestling, and there is internal pressure to ensure that WCW doesn't always get stained by the brush that is really intended for the WWF. Suddenly, then, Billy Kidman was back on Nitro this week, and we ended up getting two really great long wrestling matches, the sort of stuff that no WWF pairing could deliver unless X-Pac wrestled himself. Eric Bischoff has suggested for a while now that the WWF is feeling heat from its sponsors, while Vince McMahon has pointed out that the WWF has not lost a single sponsor since they took on the rough edge. One would suspect that both those claims are true, realizing that sponsors probably make serious decisions after the sweeps period. On the one hand, those decisions are affected by ad rates and TV ratings, and on the other hand, they are also affected by image. There are people who think that some current sponsors won't want to be linked to the "bad boy" image that the WWF has been fostering. So, just as one thinks that the obvious positive difference between the WWF and WCW is that WCW has a lot of guys under contract who can actually wrestle great matches and draw in fans with their work/workrate and the story that their wrestling tells (as we see in every Bret Hart or Chris Benoit match, the cruiser matches, and many lucha libre matches), just as WCW Nitro airs longer better wrestling matches by a longshot than RAW, as Nitro gets whacked in the ratings but continues to draw a consistent 4.0 plus/minus 0.5 rating, just at this time things look great for fans like me, right, fans who don't find much entertainment in the profanity, breasts, catchphrases, breasts, mostly bad garbage wrestling, breasts, zero in-match heat, and breasts that it takes to imitate the WWF's product. Then word breaks in the Observer that a booking meeting on 02/16/99 flies in the face of the dreams in the previous paragraph. The Observer said that the discussion focused on "plans to bury certain wrestlers, in particular Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Konnan, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Raven, Kanyon, Chris Jericho, and Bam Bam Bigelow for various reasons. Hart and Nash came out of a previous booking meeting with heat and Nash tried to get word out that Hart wasn't a team player. The burying of Hart would have to be careful because Bischoff still wants to push Hogan vs. Hart for Halloween Havoc, feeling he needs to get some value out of all the money he's paying Hart, while Nash doesn't want to push Hart feeling he's not over, and apparently Biscboff truly understands so little about wrestling that Hart the idea that Hart jobs for the likes of Booker T or Chris Benoit is believed to have no correlation to his ability to draw in a PPV main event against Hogan. Benoit & Malenko have been called "vanilla midgets," and are clearly being programmed in a manner to make sure they don't get over as well. It's said their burial can't be as obvious, which it hasn't been, because Bischoff did promise both of them pushes but he's clearly had it whispered in his ear by Hogan and Nash that both are too small to be serious headliners (and in the case of Malenko, I'd agree he was better off in the cruiserweight division but Benoit's work is so believable he can be taken seriously with anyone). It was Nash who got in Goldberg's air about killing the Goldberg-Jericho program before it ever really got started pointing to Jericho's size, and at this point there is a iot of fear that Jericho will jump when his contract expires in July if the WWF even gives him an offer in the ballpark to WCW's offer. Bigelow didn't get over despite the big push when coming in, and there's still a lot of heat from the time that Bigelow and Shane Douglas wouldn't let Scott Hall into backstage when he arrived with his friend Justin Credible at an ECW house show in Hall's home town of Orlando, which also stems from years earlier when the Clique ruled the WWF and Bigelow, coming off the L.T. loss, was supposed to get a big face push and things were done to make sure in that situation he didn't get over as well. Piper has a big name, but is seen as having nothing left, and it appears Konnan has an underlying issue with Lex Luger, who has become a close Nash ally for various reasons, which has him somewhat in the dog house politically. It's also clear that everything done over the past two weeks has been done to kill Flair, particularly taking the beating on Monday and having to job on the Sunday PPV, presented to an unhappy Flair in the guise of him doing something to help his son get over." Well, that sucks. - It's expected that Vader will win the Triple Crown on 03/06/99. Further reinforcing that prediction are the jobs that Vader has done in tag matches on the current tour. It's routine All Japan booking for the future champ to do jobs to set up matches after his win. - The Observer liked WCW's SuperBrawl a lot more than I did, it seems. I think that one atrocious finish that no fans wanted to see after another really turned me off. Still, I think the * * * 1/4 rating for the Rey Misterio Jr. & Konnan vs. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall match was generous, as generous as some recent ratings for the Mankind vs. Rock matches. All of these bouts were one-man stunt shows. - The Observer also mentioned that Hector Garza ripped his scrotum in a Thunder match. Yow. It also reports that Billy Kidman is working without a contract. - 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 99/02/14: St. Valentine's Day Massacre Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon Mankind vs. Rocky Maivia 1.2 $5.33 1.28 * 1/4 * * * 3/4 Mankind vs. Rocky Maivia 0.0% (0 of 8) 99/01/24: Royal Rumble Mankind vs. Rocky Maivia Royal Rumble 1.57 $6.97 1.83 * 1/2 * * * 3/4 Mankind vs. Rocky Maivia 0.0% (0 of 6) Last 6 1.13 $5.01 1.42 1.33 3.46 1.9% (1 of 54) 1999 1.39 $6.15 1.52 1.38/FONT> 3.75 0.0% (0 of 14) 1998 1.02 $4.42 1.60 1.63 3.65 4.0% (4 of 101) Show Data Match Rating Data Show Details Buy Rate Gross Mean Median Peak % >= * * * * WCW 99/01/17: Souled Out Bill Goldberg vs. Scott Hall Ric Flair & David Flair vs. Curt Hennig & Barry Windham 1.83 * 1/2 * * * * Billy Kidman vs. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera vs. Psicosis 11.1% (1 of 9) Last 6 0.82 $3.66 1.20 1.33 3.75 3.6% (2 of 55) 1999 1.83 1.5 4 11.1% (1 of 9) 1998 0.93 $3.96 1.54 1.73 3.73 4.5% (5 of 111) Show Data Match Rating Data Show Details Buy Rate Gross Mean Median Peak % >= * * * * ECW 99/01/10: Guilty As Charged Shane Douglas vs. Taz 0.2 $0.42 1.68 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Super Crazy 0.0% (0 of 7) Last 6 0.22 $0.42 1.93 2 3.42 5.3% (1 of 19) 1999 0.2 $0.42 1.68 2.5 3.5 0.0% (0 of 7) 1998 0.23 $0.43 1.56 1.5 3.00 3.7% (1 of 27) Longer-term data is available. The data now runs back to 1991. A table of wrestlers who have delivered quality matches is also online. - The WWF has In Your House on 04/25/99. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/23/99. - The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/27/99. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/25/99. - 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. ______________________________________________________________________