______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ My third-year students write their final exam tomorrow morning. As a result, I've spent a lot of time this week in office hours. Next week, I'll update the Nitro icon. I'll also try to have some images up. ______________________________________________________________________ - WCW had Spring Stampede this past Sunday, 04/11/99. Going into the show, it really wasn't too clear what we should expect. Talk persists that WCW is self-destructing, that forces within (read: Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash) are purposely undermining the chances of success of the promotion, that everybody is pretty disgruntled. That hardly makes for a good atmosphere to deliver a kick-ass PPV. Still, on paper there were some promising matches and nothing that looked like it would stink up the joint too badly (an improvement over the Meng-type undercard matches we've become used to, and a definite improvement over a WWF undercard). There is talk that WCW decision-makers are thinking about pushing the idea that you'll actually see some wrestling on a WCW show! What a concept. As I've said for weeks on end now, the 4.0 +/- 0.5 ratings that Nitro gets may be below RAW's ratings, but they are still pretty strong. A lot of people watch Nitro. It seems like they should differentiate themselves from RAW instead of trying to be lewd, cute, and near-pornographic. The obvious difference to focus on is wrestling, since Vince McMahon tries very hard to distance himself from the "wrestling" label. In a recent interview brought to my attention by a reader, Vince said that "WWF" stands for "World Wrestling Federation," but he wishes he could get the "wrestling" out of there. WCW is thinking about going with a "Shut up and wrestle!" slogan that sounds similar to the "NWA: We Wrestle!" slogan from 10 years back. Slogans, new sets, and hints of wrestling being the focus won't mean squat if there isn't an honest attempt to put the wrestling (and hence great wrestlers) over. With interest in and curiousity over the future of the promotion, we moved into this PPV, walking on egg shells. Overall, I think it is impossible not to give the show a thumbs up. For wrestling and in-ring action, I think it may well have been the best PPV this year. It was certainly mounds better than WrestleMania by that measure, even though WrestleMania will generate mounds more money. As I reread the previous sentence, I know that I'm going to get e-mail from people either saying or telling me that others are saying that WrestleMania blew away Spring Stampede as "sports entertainment." You see, that's the trend nowadays among WWF cheerleaders. Five years ago, WWF cheerleaders praised the wrestling skills of Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, and others, as they (and me too) talked about how great it was to have wrestling and great workers be on top in and the focus of the promotion. Now it's like they've all gone to "WWF Marketing Camp" or something. I get e-mail saying that "sports entertainment" is great, comparing WCW and the WWF as two "sports entertainment" products. It's a way to take stuff that is and always has been important -- production value, story lines, interviews -- and make their total somehow more important than the actual wrestling. That's the point I'll always argue, as I continue to question exactly what it is that the WWF promotes. The WWF admits that they don't want to be called wrestling; I can understand why. The cheerleaders, who years before praised the wrestling and acted like they were wrestling fans, are more than happy to accept that statement from the WWF, witness the total obliteration of wrestling matches from RAW and PPVs, witness the total lack of heat that any non-main wrestling match draws from WWF crowds, and witness the smutty product that the WWF delivers, while all the while saying that WCW sucks because Hogan (and others) can't wrestle and the guys that can work are hindered by the egos on top. While that criticism of WCW is justified (and I make it myself), it seems hypocritical to (a) criticize one promotion for letting its great workers deliver great undercard matches while never pushing them up the ladder, and (b) praise another promotion that has few great workers, doesn't put on many matches, and certainly doesn't deliver many great matches at all, drifting instead the world of talentless garbage wrestling matches. Back to Spring Stampede, the matches generally all drew some heat, with only a few "boring" chants here and there. One still sensed that a chunk of the crowd was really there to see the main event matches, but, as we've seen time and time again on Nitro and PPVs, undercard matches with great workers can go longer and get over with the crowd. (That's why the WWF has such trouble with their undercards. They get no reaction for anything in the ring because they don't have (m)any great workers. The solution on RAW has been to pretty much eliminate undercard matches by booking two-minute run-in deals as standard fare. That strategy has already invaded WWF PPVs to a degree, as all but one of the WrestleMania undercard matches were under 10 minutes, most of them substantially under 10 minutes, leading to a 170-minute wrestling PPV with just 80 minutes of bell-to-bell wrestling.) There were several really good matches at Spring Stampede, all of which got over with the crowd. Although history tends to make one side with the doomsayers, I came out of the show at least for a few moments hoping that decision makers would follow-up in a good way. On to the rundown: * Juventud Guerrera beat Blitzkrieg: Blitzkrieg was billed as "from the cosmos." The winner of this match earned a title shot on Nitro, meaning that Nitro would likely have one great match for sure this week. The crowd popped pretty loudly for Juvi's entrance and popped a lot for the ringwork as well. It struck me that the WCW crowd is much different than a WWF crowd. These are guys that we really shouldn't care about, but for some reason the crowd decided to get into it anyhow. Blitzkrieg constantly adjusted his mask. Juvi hit a gorgeous tope suicida; Blitzkrieg followed up with a moonsault out of the ring. They did a lot of counters to holds, which was nice for me to see. They seemed to flub a top rope spot, but they kept on going. Blitzkrieg missed a skytwister press. Juvi hit his driver, getting a two count. Rana off the top rope by Blitzkrieg for a two. They jockeyed for position on the top rope with Juvi getting a Juvi driver off the top. That looked pretty dangerous. Very good opener. Match ran 11:11. * Bam Bam Bigelow beat Hardcore Hak: Hak came out with barbed wire, a table, Chastity, and his stick. Bigelow came out with a laundry cart filled with plunder. At least there was no pretense that this was going to be anything but a garbage wrestling match. Even though I've seen more garbage wrestling than most people reading this, I don't feel qualified to call the bouts good or bad. Pretty much all garbage wrestling looks the same to me because it seems that the so-called kings of this "style" are all sloppy as hell and the matches are all really contrived. Speaking of which, wouldn't you know there was another folding table under the stagecoach set up in the entryway. Hak laid out Bammer on the table, Bammer lay there for a minute, Hak climbed the stagecoach (which rocked around dangerously), and Hak did a somersault dive on Bigelow. Meanwhile, Chastity was unloading Bigelow's plunder into the ring, or, as Tony put it, she "[got] the gimmicks out." They brawled back to the ring, stopping a time or two to actually punch each other. I appreciated that a bit because I can't handle guys walking miles through the crowd or to and from the ring in a headlock or hair-pull spot. Hak put a table between the ring and the guard rail, but it was too short and ended up falling down. You knew that Hak was going to bump through that table anyhow, so it really was just another stunt man spot. Hak went for a suplex, but this first real move was flubbed by both of them. Hak pulled a ladder into the ring. He dropkicked the ladder onto Bigelow. He somersaulted onto the ladder while it was across Bigelow. He bulldogged Bigelow on the ladder. He pulled out another table and a piece of the guard rail. Chastity fixed the table that was supposed to bridge the ring apron and the rail. Hak climbed the ladder, Bigelow knocked it, and Hak flew through the table at ringside. Too predictable. Bigelow used a fire extinguisher up Chastity's skirt. Hak did a Russian leg sweep on the guard rail. Finally, on the top rope, Bigelow managed to gain control and hit his power bomb variant off the top rope through a table. Bigelow yelled, "Who's hardcore?" Tony said, "Fans have a clue; don't try this in your backyard." I wouldn't call this good wrestling, because it wasn't wrestling, but I would say that WCW outgarbaged the WWF. Match time: 11:31. Before anybody e-mails me about garbage wrestling, I've had every argument possible with Sanjay. I found it funny that this past week in the Observer somebody flamed Dave Meltzer regarding Vince McMahon's cage bump not getting loads of praise, saying that Meltzer would have raved if Ric Flair did it. Meltzer responded that had it been Ric Flair in that spot he would have reported how sad it was that a great wrestler felt the need to do a spot like that. Meltzer said, and I've said this same thing many times here and to Sanjay, that there's nothing that praiseworthy about guys doing stuff that anybody could do provided they were crazy or stupid enough to take the risk. On one hand we've got Hak (or any other garbage wrestler) doing a garbagy dive or bump that anybody willing to throw their body through the air could duplicate. On the other hand we've got guys like Chris Benoit, Rey Misterio Jr., Kidman, etc., who do stuff that requires such skill that an average person or even the majority of trained and experienced wrestlers have no hope of duplicating the stuff. I think one the latter guys deserve loads of praise for developing mostly-unparalleled skill at their craft, while the former guys deserve, at best, a vulturous stare and a shake of the head. * Scotty Riggs beat Mikey Whipwreck: Riggs came out doing a narcissist gimmick, looking into a mirror. I don't know why they added this match or why they decided to kill Mikey by having him lose to somebody with no value. The crowd yelled "boring!" one minute in and got a bit louder by the five minute mark. There was some sloppiness in the work, but it was an okay match, although not worthy of PPV time. Riggs won with his fivearm. Match time: 7:07. * Konnan beat Disco Inferno: I thought this was a bland match, as both guys need somebody more spectacular to work off of. Konnan hit the 187 DDT but Disco kicked out. The last minutes were actually quite good, but overall the match was lacklustre. Match time: 9:17. * Rey Misterio Jr. beat Billy Kidman to retain the Cruiserweight Title: Excellent match, maybe two or three minutes too long. Rey did a head scissors spot outside the ring and whacked his head against the steps, kicking them madly as he was holding his head. They did lots of counters and counters to counters, along with several topes. Rey used a top rope bulldog, similar to how he won the title from Kidman, but Kidman kicked out. Wow, continuity. Kidman did the shooting star on the floor. He tried to do it in the ring a few times, and the crowd just roared at each attempt; that move is hot. Rey used a top rope rana for the win. It's too hard to run through this match carefully, but it was really solid. Match time: 15:36. * Dean Malenko & Chris Benoit beat Perry Saturn & Raven: The Horsemen came out with Arn Anderson. Perry Saturn & Raven came out with a table. The crowd yelled "Horsemen suck!" This was a test of whether the promotion would stick to its storyline: since Saturn & Raven wanted Kidman & Rey to have the titles because they would be easier to beat, Saturn & Raven should lose here to confirm that Benoit & Malenko are a tough team to beat. This was a great match. The referee missed a potential win by Raven & Saturn. Benoit & Malenko were awesome. Raven finally hot tagged Saturn, who came in on fire. He suplexed Dean, nailed Arn, and put his skirt over Benoit's head. The Horsemen rallied with that cool dropkick & german suplex double team. Benoit & Raven then tumbled out of the ring. Dean hit the cloverleaf. Arn celebrated, but Saturn made the ropes. Benoit hit his headbutt off the top, and Dean managed to get a two count. There was a lot of heat. Raven hot tagged in near the end. Somehow a chair got in the ring, and Raven used it for his drop toe hold spot on Benoit. With Dean in the ring against Raven, Saturn tried for a cross body onto the table on Chris, but Chris was moved by Arn, and Saturn was out of it. In the ring, Raven DDTed Dean. Arn went in the ring, picked up the chair, was confronted by the ref, put the chair on Raven's head, was told to the leave the ring by the ref, and kept the ref occupied. Benoit hit a headbutt onto the chair and then rolled out of the ring. Dean flipped over for the pin. Afterwards, a bleeding Benoit was helped out by the other Horsemen members. Match time: 14:17. * Scott Steiner beat Booker T to win the US Title tourney final: Steiner's act may draw heat, but it does nothing for me. He's lost whatever in-ring working ability he had. All he does is talk and stall now. Booker T was great. Steiner should have been DQed numerous times, but it never happened. Loads and loads of time-killing stuff from Steiner; don't let the match time fool you. Steiner pulled the ref into a bump. T was on offence, hitting an axe kick, a pancake spot, and a spin kick. There was no ref to count. T got the ref to his feet, but Steiner laid him out from behind. Sidewalk slam. On the top rope, T was caught by Steiner, who used his frankensteiner to get a two count. Steiner pulled out an object and punched T with it while he was up for a suplex. That got the pin. It's not like we didn't know that Steiner would get his win back from T. This match wasn't anywhere near as good as their previous match. Match time: 15:22. * Goldberg beat Kevin Nash: A test of ego, with the right result. Is there hope? Lex Luger & Liz came out to ringside with Nash. The first few minutes were boring, with Nash dominating and doing crappy stuff. Goldberg finally rallied at the five minute mark. He went for his spear, but Nash leapfrogged, the ref took a shot, and Luger chaired Goldberg. That was a choreographed spot, but it was okay. Nash went for the power bomb. Goldberg grab Nash's crotch and squeezed. Luger came in, but Goldberg speared him. He speared Nash. Jackhammer. Three count. Hardly a classic match, but at least it had the right result. Match time: 7:48. * Diamond Dallas Page beat Ric Flair & Sting & Hulk Hogan to win the WCW Title: Randy Savage refereed. He came out with his new girlfriend, who they billed as Gorgeous George (as had been rumoured). Michael Buffer didn't do the ring announcements. Ric Flair came out first; I hate that. Sting came out last. Hogan's punches are pitiful, but why single them out of his awesome arsenal? It's not like he's Billy Gunn or Rob van Dam, with punches being the glaring weak move that he does. DDP & Flair flubbed a neckbreaker spot. DDP used Bret Hart's figure four on Hogan on the post. At that point, I dreamed that Page won the match, faced Steiner for the title and retained, faced Hart for the title and lost it, and Hart faced Goldberg for the title. Sting broke up DDP's move. The idea was that whoever got the pin in the ring would be the champion. It made no sense for Sting to break up DDP's move since he couldn't win with it anyhow. DDP had removed himself from title contention while in that move. Sting should have gone after Flair for a pin. Oh well, you can't analyze the psychology in these matches. Trainer Danny Young came out to take Hogan away. Eric Bischoff came out check on Hogan as he was leaving the ring. Thankfully, Hogan didn't run-in; I was damn glad this wasn't an elimination match. Once Hogan was gone, the match improved enough to actually become good. They did that retarded double sleeper spot. With Flair applying the figure four, Savage hit an elbow on him. DDP used the Diamond Cutter for the three count. That would be DDP's first world title reign. Nobody was interviewed to explain things. Savage helped Flair get the title and now he took it away. Weird finish. Match time: 17:35. Overall, it was a good show. I'm not so sure why they would give the title to DDP, but there was an internal movement to get it off of Flair. Total bell-to-bell time was 1:49:44, in other words 110 minutes out of 170. That's 1.4 times the bell-to-bell wrestling as WrestleMania. Usually, with WCW that means we got to see a small bit of wrestling that was much better than the WWF average rating and a whole lot that was worse, but this time around that was definitely not the case. For my money, this was a far superior show. RAW RAW on 04/12/99 was a live show that aired at midnight on TSN in my neck of the woods. I taped Shotgun Saturday Night on WPIX on the weekend (in Canada, we get a few US superstations on cable if we pay for them). They aired the crucifixion of Ryan Shamrock, er no, the "symbolification" of Ryan. Boy, the police came off looking really adept again, didn't they? There was Vince McMahon watching the Undertaker terrorize this kidnapped young woman, and the police just stood around Vince instead of rushing to her rescue. Back to RAW, it opened with a one-minute recap of last week's RAW. Interestingly enough, it seemed like no wrestling took place. That's the impression one was left with. Remember when recaps of past story lines involved at least a little bit of wrestling action? Perhaps something athletic? Nope, on RAW they involve crucifixion and tearful family moments. The show opened with the Corporation coming out. After the terrorizing of last week, Vince still apparently believed that the safest place for his daughter to be was backstage at the arena. Again, though, he wasn't going to take an active role in the night's events, leaving things to Shane. Why was Vince even in the building? Does anybody really think this is great story line stuff? Ken Shamrock grabbed the microphone before we could be introduced to more nonwrestling personalities in Shane's friends and said that the Corporation didn't help him or Ryan last week. Shane said "I feel your pain" and then asked Stephanie to come to ringside. Stephanie: "Shane wouldn't put me in jeopardy." Vince reluctantly went with Stephanie and the moronic police guard. Boy, I really felt that the McMahon family was concerned about the threats to Stephanie. This was wrestling, er, drama. Stephanie came in the ring smiling like Pat Patterson on the south end of a northbound Brooklyn Brawler. Vince asked what Shane was up to. Shane laid into Vince, saying that his priorities were out of whack. Shane laid into Jim Ross just so we knew that Shane was supposed to be the heel (they have abandoned Jim Ross' heel turn...) and that Vince was supposed to be the face. He said that Jerry Brisco and Pat Patterson were fired. JR: "Like him or not, that's not right." The crowd chanted for Austin because this story line was so compelling. Vince said that he was going to go home with Stephanie. Shane smacked Vince. Wow, this is sports entertainment. Better than men in their underwear, better than wrestling, better than 90210, better than NYPD Blue. What drama. What tension. What acting. What a Rock, er, crock. Shamrock seemed to quit the Corporation, politely waving bye because so many kids might be watching RAW. Segment ran about 13-14 minutes, so we were pretty much back on schedule. Bring on those two-minute tour de forces and that awesome women's wrestling that puts AJW in its prime to shame. Back from a commercial, we had to recap the oscar-nominated soap-operatic scene that had just occurred. Vince thanked Ken for his loyalty. Vince & daughter & goons climbed into a limo to leave. Oh yeah, time for some great action, a women's four corners match. Half of Sable's ass was on display in her (st)ring outfit. Sable did her grind. Boy, she can't undulate at all. Instead of being a turn-on, it comes off as comedic...to me anyhow. Sable (with Nicole Bass) faced Tori (new ring outfit) & Ivory & Jacqueline. Since they are planning a show that will focus on the women, surely this would be an awesome match. Nicole laid out everybody in 30 seconds. Sable did another anemic grind. No bell rang, no match took place. That's the way to tease and build to that * * * * classic match on a PPV. This was so awesome I almost forgot the name Akira Hokuto. Undertaker promised another sacrifice. Alright, the TSN censors will have some work to do. JR: "Why are so many innocent people being punished?" Hey, Jim, don't feel so bad. We do choose to tune in. Next segment, Steve Austin came out with the unskulled WWF Title. Austin will face the Rock at the next PPV, with Shane McMahon as referee. The idea is that Rock will have to be turned face in the near future, so this will likely be the blow-off and maybe even the turn; it will certainly lead to the turn. Remember on 90210 when Brandon turned on Dillon? Now that was sports entertainment. Austin promoed his match and then called out Rock to hand the skulled belt over. Austin used Rock's catchphrases, saying he'd lay out Rock if Rock didn't show. Rock came on the Titantron; he was out on a bridge, challenging Austin to find him and take the belt from him. Austin said he'd get the belt back tonight. The Big Slow Paul Wight (I swear that's what I read on my TV screen) came out. Wait, are we going to have a wrestling match?! Okay, a sports entertainment match? I think this RAW must have set a record. We were over 40 minutes into the show without a second of bell-to-bell wrestling time. Maybe Vince's plan is to make the bellringer obsolete. Just get rid of the whole bell concept. It's old. Do they have a bell on 90210 or NYPD Blue? Big Slow must have said something because we got a 10 second crowd shot before jumping back to the Brood's entrance. Undertaker told Edge & Gangrel to abandon Christian, who lost in 81 seconds to Big Slow; hey, don't get excited...they didn't even make contact until the 40 second mark. They turned Big Slow because he wasn't getting over as expected. They have tried and will try to give him Austin's rub. And they are giving him the Vader/Norton/Road Warriors in Japan or Goldberg/Road Warriors in the US style treatment with his match bookings. Mankind talked about facing Big Show at the PPV. Shane told his friends to go take out Mankind. Billy Gunn came out. The crowd reacted great. Can't you feel for those poor bastards for sitting through this stuff? I don't understand why these tapings sell out because the live audience doesn't get anything out of them. Gunn faced Val Venis. JR called them "two great young athletes." I guess so, but they only have to go for two-to-four minutes. For what this was, it was okay. It wasn't great wrestling by any stretch. They did that time-warp thing again; at the two-minute mark they started acting like they had gone 20 minutes. Gunn got dumped. Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart came out for the DQ at 3:41. Debra, breasts-a-popping, made a move on Val, but was taken away by the tag champs. Remember that 90210 episode where Dillon wore a shirt with "PISS" written on it? Well, if I'm not mistaken we had a whopping 5:02 of bell-to-bell wrestling in the first hour of RAW. That's a record. What will Vince do when he has whittled that down to zero? We know he'll try to get a negative bell-to-bell tally, but how will he do it? I'm enthralled. I've got to know. Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart faced The Acolytes. JR: "They are deadly." No question about that. Jeff Jarrett & Ron Simmons did the single-worst neckbreaker spot of 1999, particularly involving guys with this many years of experience. (Maybe it was meant to honour the flubbed neckbreaker spot on the WCW PPV.) Luckily this isn't a wrestling show. At 1:22, the Brood came in, with the bell ringing at 1:28. Ha, you expected a full two-minute affair, didn't you? Boy, that WWF, always mixing us up! Undertaker came out afterwards. I just can't wait for Undertaker vs. Big Slow vs. Kane in a triangle match. Midian was holding Debra while the others held back JJ and Owen. Undertaker said that he would have to sacrifice Debra because Vince left him no other choice. You see, Vince left with Stephanie and Undertaker was going to take her tonight. Yeah, okay, he had her that other RAW and let her go, but now he really wants her. Ken Shamrock ran in with a baseball bat. Undertaker said that Ken would never see Ryan again if Ken hit him. Oh, so Undertaker kidnapped Ryan last week while the police stood by Vince, and here I thought that the police just stood idly by during a crucifxion, er, symbolification. Undertaker told Ken that Ryan was in the boiler room. After whacking a few goons, Ken ran off to get Ryan. Undertaker laughed, so we expected a trap. Big Boss Man, looking good for a hanged man (as opposed to Venis, who is a hung man), challenged Goldust for the IC Title. Before the match could start, the Godfather came out with his ho train. Godfather wanted Boss Man's spot, offering him a ho in trade. Boss Man said he'd do the trade for all five hos. JR described this scene as "frivolity." Uh-huh. Goldust did a horrible belly-to-back suplex on Godfather. During this lacklustre bout, JR told us that there were two matches still on tap, so don't worry, we should break the 10-minute total bell-to-bell time barrier. It was another two-minutes-seemed-like-twenty style match, except this time the viewers also felt that that much time had passed. Godfather did a poor death valley driver to win the title at 3:55. The hos came out to celebrate. There was something sad about JR saying "all five of the Godfather's Detroit hos" out to celebrate; he seemed to lower himself to the level of this crap. Isn't there a single fan out there who is bothered by all of these four- or six-minute title changes? We used to laugh at the "workers" who were put over in that way. D'Lo Brown challenged Bob Holly for the Hardcore title. Al Snow came out to do commentary, saying that he was going to protect the title. The story line is that Snow wants the title. Since Snow faces the winner of this match at Backlash, why would he care who won or lost. D'Lo used a hockey stick and a chair, but Holly rallied. Snow passed a red liquid to Holly, who broke the glass on D'Lo's head. D'Lo kicked out. JR was excited about the broken glass in the ring. Holly pulled out a table and plopped it in the ring. D'Lo hit a powerbomb. Holly put himself on the table; okay, D'Lo was next to him, but Holly clearly hopped on the table on his own. D'Lo laid out an interfering Snow, who pulled Holly out of the way of the table frog splash, with Holly getting the win at 4:33. Was this a good match? Does anybody really think so? Undertaker had Ken Shamrock. Rock found a fishing rod on the bridge and decided to fish. The Ministry was ready to crucify, er, symbolify Ken Shamrock. They had two crosses, er, symbols, and Undertaker told Edge & Gangrel to put Christian on one. Meanwhile, Ken broke free. Mankind came out. Mankind & Shamrock & Edge & Gangrel & Christian fought Midian & Viscera & Ron Simmons & Bradshaw while the Undertaker watched. This was bad brawling at its finest. Undertaker descended on Gangrel's entrance elevator. X-Pac & Kane defended the Tag Titles against Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Test. Since X-Pac faces HHH at the PPV, we had to expect a build up of that story line. Ring entrances took a while. There were about 10 minutes left in the show, and we still had to go see Austin beat up Rock, so we might have expected a marathon 5-minute match. X-Pac wanted to tag, but Kane just kept on plugging. X-Pac finally tagged himself in. Chyna got a smack in. JR: "Damn her, damn her!" X-Pac finally hit a spinning heel kick on HHH and tagged in Kane. With both HHH & Test outside the ring, HHH tossed Test back in and walked off with Chyna. Tombstone for the win at 6:28. Rock was beeped on the bridge. Ken Shamrock came out to say some words about the Undertaker, calling him out. The lights dropped. When they came back on, Undertaker was in the ring. He sucker punched Ken, who rallied and laid into UT. Acolytes & Midian ran in. Viscera showed up 20 seconds later. Shamrock was pummelled. Boss Man & HHH ran out to save Shamrock. Were they going to side with Vince? No! They turned on Shamrock, laying into him. The lights dropped again. Back to the bridge, Austin drove up. They brawled. Rock threw Austin into the river, tossing the belt in after him. The shot of Austin hanging over the edge of the bridge railing seemed chopping, so I guess the WWF was using those "Hollywood special effects" that Vince always talks about. Tally time: total bell-to-bell wrestling time on this show was a whopping 21:26. Next week on RAW, we get a classic Big Slow vs. Viscera battle; hey, the show's not about wrestling. Nitro Nitro on 04/12/99 followed the really good Spring Stampede PPV the night before. While the company will likely never regain the ratings lead on Monday, it would be nice if, after the initial crap that the booking change brought us, the general quality of the PPV carried over to Nitro. I don't think it will happen, and, as the new Nitro logo appeared onscreen, I felt like I was entering a struggling restaurant with a redesigned menu that still listed all the same food. When the show opened, they did a wide shot of the new entryway; is it just me or does the frame look a bit like a skinny maple leaf? First test: will they use the first hour of Nitro more effectively? They have pretty much killed it in recent weeks. Sting hit the ring at the open. "It is good to be back." He tried to reestablish himself as the top player in the promotion. He took a knock at Diamond Dallas Page. Sting called out DDP, saying that he was going to make Nitro different from here on. Oh, but wait, Sting left the ring, so his confrontation with DDP will take place later in the show. They need to build things in the first hour, don't they? First match: Juventud Guerrera challenged Rey Misterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight Title. I expected a title change since the plan is to use Rey & Kidman in the tag division in a three-way program involving Benoit & Malenko and Saturn & Raven. Rey wore a mechanic-type jump suit that had "Pure Playaz" written on it. At the start of the match, they talked about Hulk Hogan leaving the title match at the PPV saying that Hogan's "knee popped" and that Hogan was meeting with Jim Andrews the day after the PPV. Before the match, the commentators talked about Juvi & Rey not need their masks, etc. Juvi & Rey did a lot of great stuff, although Juvi did a little too much playing to the crowd early on. The crowd chanted "Juvi sucks," even though he still drew great cheers for his high spots. Having Juvi collaborate with Disco Inferno seems to have been a way to get him a bit of heel colour. Juvi hit a great power bomb after catching Rey's rana attempt. The firebird splash was stopped by Rey, who went for his frankensteiner. The Horsemen ran in. The crowd booed big time. They laid into Rey after dumping Juvi. I was disappointed by that. They should have changed the title and then had the run-in. Raven & Saturn ran in. No sign of Kidman. Raven & Saturn dumped the Horsemen. "Still no Kidman," said Tony. Hmmmm, maybe they are building some dissension? Saturn helped Rey up, Rey shoved him, Saturn & Raven laid out Rey. Match time: 5:43. Hardcore Hak confronted Hugh Morrus & Jimmy Hart, who were talking about facing Bam Bam Bigelow, the "King of Hardcore," this night. Hak whacked Morrus with his cane, saying that's how one beats Bammer. Morrus caned a stage hand. Man, I love this hardcore stuff. Back from a commercial, they talked about Bret Hart quitting, mentioning that he talked about the story on NBC. Hey, for the first time in recent memory, they aired clips of a wrestler's appearance on a network program! After another commercial, they talked about Bigelow beating Hak at the PPV. Bigelow faced Hugh Morrus, who came out with Jimmy Hart & Hak's cane. The commentators called it a kendo stick match, but it seemed like it was just another garbage wrestling match. They put a couple of tables in the ring. Morrus was dumped through one table and then moonsaulted the other. Bammer hit a headbutt for the in. Match time: 5:01. During the match, they talked about Bammer demanding a title belt be created for these hardcore or extreme matches. Tony even said, "Can you imagine what that title belt would look like?" Sigh, they are going to mimic the WWF. Kidman arrived at the building, explaining to Rey that he couldn't watch him 24-7. Rey seemed okay with the explanation. Rey's outfit reminds me of Jason the Terrible's outfit in Japan a few years back. Yikes. They recapped the main event from the PPV. DDP came out for an interview. DDP vs. Scott Steiner for the title tonight. Page drew heel heat. He said he wished that Hogan had been in the ring for the whole match, I guess setting the stage for a match with Hogan, sigh. DDP said that Sting deserved a shot "right here, tonight." He announced that he wanted Steiner in the main event this night. More miscommunication as DDP made this big announcement that the commentators had already told us about. If they want to hype things for the TV viewers that the arena crowd doesn't know, they should just say so. "Fans, we understand from DDP that he's requested a match with Steiner tonight and that that match will take place! The fans here in the arena don't know about this match yet, but we wanted to share it with the viewers at home so you know that we hae a great show ahead." What's wrong with that? Instead, Gene Okerlund puts DDP on the spot over Sting's challenge when the commentators have already told us that DDP vs. Steiner is on. Ric Flair came out for an interview, accompanied by Arn Anderson & Charles Robinson. Flair said that he was going to hold the world title belt up. Gene Okerlund said he couldn't do that, but Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan said Flair could. Randy Savage & Gorgeous George came out. Savage said he was going to "lay the smack down" for us. Savage brought out a contract that said his word was final. Flair said that Savage would never wrestle in WCW again. They never once mentioned that Savage was the reason that Flair even had the world title. Flair ripped up Savage's contract. Charles Robinson called George a bimbo, so she knocked him on his butt. She looked tarty, so she should get over. It came down to this: at Slamboree, George faces Robinson to determine if Savage gets reinstated. I couldn't figure out what the upside was for Flair. Why would he agree if he doesn't get anything out of a victory. Sting came out and challenged Flair to a match later in the show. Man, this was like RAW, a 12-minute interview segment that really only established a couple of things. El Dandy & La Parka (returning from an injury, right?) faced "the Master Blasters," a team managed by Jimmy Hart. The Blasters were steroided goons, probably from the Power Plant. The commentators mentioned that the Blasters were a gimmick ten years back. Ha ha. Kevin Nash came into the ring at the 1:40 mark. He ended up laying out all four guys as a way to rehabilitate himself after his job the night before. It was a little over the top because Nash doesn't move well. Nash explained that he made a deal with Ric Flair at the last Nitro: if Nash made sure that Flair left the ring with his title, Nash would get a title shot at the next PPV. So, Nash screwed Hogan at Nitro last week to earn his own title shot. Okay. But Nash then went on to flame DDP for what he did to Hogan at the PPV. Nash never addressed this inconsistency and the commentators mentioned it much later seemingly by accident. Nitro has its own disk jockey, name DJ Ran. Tony said that Ran spins the tunes, but when I played around in the day we would say spinning the wheels of steel. Oh well, my expression is probably now as unhip as Tony's. Psicosis faced Billy Kidman. Good match. Time to rehab Kidman, no doubt. Psicosis hit a nice tope. They each took a few tremendous bumps. Psicosis hit a top rope frankensteiner, but Kidman kicked out of the move that beat him the night before. Kidman ended up hitting the shooting star, with all of the fans standing. Jeez, do the crowds love that guy or what? Match time: 7:36. Goldberg did an interview. Gene Okerlund put Goldberg over huge, saying that he has an unbeaten one-on-one record. Goldberg mentioned Bret Hart. He also mentioned DDP. Rick Steiner challenged Booker T for the TV Title. I didn't watch too much of this match because I was minding my daughter. Stevie Ray whacked Steiner with his slap jack so his brother got the win at 5:32. As the second hour of Nitro came to a close, Scott Steiner came to the ring to hit an interview. Jeez, one would think that the title match was coming early in the show, but Tony said right away that the match wasn't coming yet. I could hear a bunch of people switch channels. Steiner must have gotten a bit too off-colour for TSN, 'cause there was definitely a jump discontinuity in his interview. DDP didn't impress Steiner by winning the title. Hey, don't pretend that that's a real "phenonenon." Steiner's interviews are incredibly unappealing to me. What a useful segment. Kenny Kaos faced Goldberg. It was pretty much a one-man show for Goldberg to continue to get his heat back. The crowd was into Goldberg, no doubt. Kaos took Goldberg up for a fireman's carry, paused embarrassingly long before gently dumping Goldberg, took forever to climb to the top and hit a leg drop, climbed up again, did a really sad missed dive. Goldberg hit his moves for the finish. Match time: 4:23. Goldberg gestured that he wanted a title belt around his waist. Ricky Rachmann and DJ Ran talked about Steiner vs. DDP. Why does Ricky have a job? Ric Flair faced Sting. Remember in 1988 when their Clash match made Sting? A lot of time has passed. Sting never reached the heights that everybody hoped he would. Ric Flair never reach the lows that persistent misuse tried to put him at. And, here, 11 years later, the two have a rather routine match on Nitro to mark Sting's return to the promotion. Sting wore these goofy white boots with black toes. Were they white-taped black boots? It looked like he an impediment. He press slammed Flair a few times. Flair "Oh God"ded like a pro. Sting brought him back into the ring. The referee was Charles Robinson. Flair was great at drawing heat; while he's physically showing the signs of his age these days, he is still damn incredible. Flair basically hit a bunch of illegal moves while Sting came back with legitimate moves. Flair clipped Sting outside the ring. Back inside, Flair went after the leg. Sting put the figure four on Flair. Charles Robinson looked constipated by the thought of giving the match to Sting. The match stretched, but it was good. Arn distracted Sting, so Flair could attack from behind. Flair put on the figure four with help from Arn. Randy Savage came out. Savage whacked Anderson, who held his neck. Sting hit the scorpion death drop. Charles Robinson counted the three, acting like it hurt him to do so. Arn came in the ring, with Sting putting the scorpion deathlock on him. Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko were nowhere to be seen. In a way, that was a good thing, since the idea was to rebuild Sting with this match. Match time: 14:25. Wow, this one match ran nearly 70% of the bell-to-bell RAW time. I enjoyed this match, although it was hardly a classic. Michael Buffer introduced Roddy Piper as a guest commentator for the main event of DDP vs. Scott Steiner. Nitro on 04/05/99 aired in Canada at 4:00am on 04/09/99 in two-hour edited form. As a result, I didn't include a run-down in last week's update. I normally would just skip the show in an update 10 days afterwards, but WCW debuted its new look and style this night, so I figure I'll do a quick recap. The showed opened with the new logo and stage set-up. It looks pretty good, but we've seen in the past that wrestling companies can sometimes spend a load of money on an aesthetic makeover when the more deeply-rooted problems are the reason for their moribund state. If they don't do something about the underlying problems, business still worsens. The show opened with Goldberg coming out for an interview. He had the same hopper with him that Ric Flair used to draw an opponent for the Club La Vela Nitro. Goldberg said he was the victim of a screw job and that he was taking matters into his own hands. The name 1e drew from the hopper would be his next target. Before he could draw a name, Kevin Nash came out and made a match between himself and Goldberg for the Spring Stampede on Sunday, 04/11. It only ran just over eight minutes, so it didn't piss me off too much. I watch wrestling to see wrestling, so the routine 15-to-20-minute interview segments that start RAW annoy me, particularly because they always contain the same cavalcade of personalities saying the same catchphrases. It bores me. The idea of setting up matches that fans will stay tuned to see is good, but taking 20 minutes every time and repeating all of the catchphrases, etc., annoys me. If Goldberg & Nash come out every week on Nitro and repeat this performance, I'll start harping on it like crazy. In vignettes early in the show, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson met with different NWO Wölfpac members. I guess that realignment will continue. The plan was to put Ric Flair together with Lex Luger, Scott Steiner, and Kevin Nash as the new heel NWO squad. They've already hinted at a Nash & Hulk Hogan split with Tori inciting things. It sure seems like the vision is to put the belt back on a babyface Hogan who will then feud with a heel Nash. The vignettes seemed to build to that Hogan vs. Nash split. These things annoy me because the presumption is that none of the people that get slighted in a single vignette see it, even weeks later. First match saw Konnan beat Lizmark Jr. in 5:52. Lizmark did the robot!? Match was bland; fans chanted boring. Ric Flair came out to say that he would face Hulk Hogan tonight on Nitro. He said he was taking the match off the PPV to have it tonight instead. The interview was tremendously long-winded. Diamond Dallas Page came out. He wanted in the match, asking for a "three-way dan"; Dan's a busy boy. Goldberg came out and said he'd be in the match as well. Oh man. I was hoping that El Dandy would come out and say that he was going to be in the match. This segment made me feel like I was watching the WWF. Who makes the matches in WCW, anyhow? Flair said no to all of this, but Gene Okerlund informed us that the four corners match is on. Tony Schiavone tells us that the champ can lose the title without losing the match. Scott Steiner faced Meng in a US Tourney semi-final match. These WCW tournaments are a joke because they don't give brackets. That protects the booker a bit, sure, but the cost is too great. Scott Steiner did a brutal pre-match interview. He brought up the "Kimberly for 30 days" clause, ending by saying that he doesn't have "30 days and 30 nights" for DDP's wife. He said he didn't have "30 days and 30 nights" to show Kimberly what a "phenonenon" he is. He said he didn't have "30 days and 30 nights" for so many things, but apparently this interview wasn't one of them. I can't imagine anybody likes Steiner's interviews. Meng it so boring. He has no star power whatsoever. He's not a great worker. What's the point of pushing him in any way? I think that guy who sat next to me at the WCW SN taping in Kitchener a couple of weeks ago must be the only Meng fan in the world. You've got to be a bit of a freak to Meng fan. A little kid yelled "You suck!" at Steiner. From the mouths of babes. I kind of turned off during this match because it appealed so little to me. The commentators told us that the four corners match (suddenly it wasn't a dance any longer) will actually be a Texas tornado match and that Booker T will face Chris Jericho in the other US tourney semi-final. Gee, probably everybody reading this would pick Jericho to put over out of these four guys, but I'd bet that Steiner gets his win back from Booker T in the final. The commentators also told us that Meng is one of the most feared men in pro-wrestling; I know I fear being put to sleep by his matches. Steiner used a low blow and a belly-to-belly, getting the pin on Meng, using the ropes for leverage. Match time was 6:13 of drudgery. In a match that everybody has been waiting for, we saw a battle royal involving Vincent & Horace & Brian Adams & Stevie Ray to determine who would be the leader of the NWO Black & White. I guess that Scott Norton has no ambition. I found myself hoping that the ring would just open up and swallow all four of these guys. Hey, throw Meng in there too and I'm really happy...and the company would save a wad of dough on contracts. Each guy had his own entrance to the same music. Jeez. I had some people e-mail me about the bell-to-bell wrestling tallies that I've been doing for RAW & Nitro. The point was that Nitro pretty much always has the best wrestling match of Monday night. That's true, but based on total time, we have to endure more crap to get that good or great match, don't we? This was a great example of that crap. Battle royals suck. This one sucks to the third power. The commentators had no idea what to say. I heard a sucking noise. Oh, that was the sound of people turning their attention to RAW. Okay, that's a joke. This story line is so compelling that I'm sure millions of viewers switched over from RAW. Man, as scary as this statement is, Meng has more star power and abililty than any of these guys. Just shoot me. When Vince is eliminated, the crowd claps lightly. Yay, the match is one quarter done! Sometimes I don't think that Stevie Ray can run the ropes. Horace hit a low blow on Stevie. That's two low blows in three matches. Stevie dumped Adams & Horace for the win in a totally painful 7:36. I could barely breathe after this. Raven & Perry Saturn challenged Rey Misterio Jr. & Billy Kidman for the WCW Tag Titles. See, if you suffer through all of the earlier crap, you can actually get a good match on WCW TV. It seems pretty fair that Raven & Saturn could screw Benoit & Malenko out of the titles and then get a title shot themselves. The plan is to have these three tapes feud over the title for a while. Hey, it's the best tag team division on paper that we've had in a while in North America. The champs came out to Konnan's music, which makes sense. Does Konnan believe he's a butt? "Asses to asses and butts to butts. Back, oh, back, oh, back, oh, I believe I'm a butt." I think the guy has a real ass fetish. Kidman rules. They went to a commercial during the match. Sigh. This match drew good heat. I think that WCW should ignore the ratings difference betwen RAW and Nitro and try to cultivate a fanbase that appreciates this sort of match, since it is something that the WWF can't deliver with its roster. Rey did the bronco buster. The second time, Raven raised his foot, so that was the third low blow in four matches. The ref bumped. Saturn caught Rey's springboard rana attempt and ended up hitting the death valley driver. The Horsemen came out and destroyed Saturn, laying Rey on top. The ref counted the win. That was exactly what anybody would have expected as the finish. I sure hope that the program that they come up with for these three teams actually includes some clean wins. The champs look weak because they haven't beaten anybody without help. Match time was 6:58 not counting commercial break. Michael Buffer introduced the "fourway dance" main event with "Texas tornado rules" for the heavyweight championship of the world. Ric Flair came out first. I hate that. Hulk Hogan, Diamond Dallas Page, and Goldberg came out in that order. Kevin Nash was doing guest commentary. At least we didn't have to sit through an entrance for him too. Hey, I wonder if they clipped out Sting's important message. Ah, no, Tony tells us that Sting has yet to appear. Charles Robinson is the referee. Earlier on, Kevin Nash asked Robinson if he was a Flair mark. A fan in the crowd holds up a licence plate that says "WHOOOOOO." I guess he's a Goldberg fan asking "Who's next?" Flair says "Wooh!" or maybe "Woo!" but you can't tell me it's spelled "Who!" That's a question, fool! Match had good intensity, but it was hardly a classic. Hogan hit the leg drop on Flair, but DDP dove in the ring and broke up the pin. The fans chanted "We want Sting!" Everybody worked pretty hard, but it still wasn't a great match or anything. Goldberg did his press powerslam on Flair but didn't go for the cover. Flair was crotched into the post. That's almost a perfect show if you want a low blow per match. They brawled out to the commentary table, which is not at ringside. The fans chanted "We want Sting!" Why exactly do people want Sting, anyhow? Hogan's offence looks so weak even when he tries to work hard. His punches suck. His clotheslines suck. Goldberg jackhammered DDP, but Hogan saved. Goldberg speared DDP, then Flair, then Hogan. Two count on Hogan. Jackhammer on Hogan. Nash ran in. The bell rang. Sting descended. Match ran 10:58. Randy Savage's voice came up to narrate a video. At the PPV, Flair & Hogan & DDP & Sting will have a four corners match for the WCW Title with Randy Savage as referee. There will be a winner. Who makes the matches in WCW? Savage? Why the hell is Savage screwing Flair after he helped him win the title? It's so confusing. - The WWF has In Your House: Backlash on 04/25/99. Tentative line-up: * Steve Austin vs. Rocky Maivia for the WWF Title with Shane McMahon as referee * Mankind vs. Big Slow Paul Wight * Undertaker vs. Ken Shamrock * X-Pac vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley * Bob Holly vs. Al Snow for the Hardcore title - More description of recent Japanese tapes. The 01/31/99 All Japan TV show started with a six-man match that really focused on Vader and Kenta Kobashi being on opposite sides. Remember that Vader had beaten Kobashi bloody during the year-opening battle royal. Kobashi lose his tag title after that. Kobashi was beaten by Vader after that. The heat for those two locking up and even Jun Akiyama going after Vader was great. The crowd was much more quiet during other pairings. Kobashi & Vader blew a suplex spot and the crowd went silent. Vader didn't go up; they just did the spot again for a big pop. Good match, but Yoshihiro Takayama sucks. In a surprisingly great match, Yoshinari Ogawa beat Masahito Kakihara to retain the PWF Jr. title. Kakihara was just amazing here. I've always thought he was darn good, but this was the first singles match where he really showed it. Ogawa is no slouch, but doesn't usually deliver * * * * 1/4 singles matches. Kakihara did a lot of shoot spots since they fit with his background. He hit several stiff kicks on Ogawa's head, finally missing one outside the ring and just nailing the post. Even with the shin guard, that had to hurt. The match was edited for TV. Usually they join a match in progress and show it from that point forward to the finish. Here, they showed a bit and then segued to another part of the match. Maybe they removed some weaker spots, but what aired was great. After the post kick, we jumped to later in the match where Kakihara hit an achilles tendon submission. Great intensity as Ogawa made the ropes. Takayama was still hobbling to sell his leg injury from kicking the post. When Ogawa hit a sleeper, countering Takayama's sleeper, Takayama dropped down and hit a kick to the head. Ogawa hit a few backdrop suplexes. Two count. A tiger driver attempt was blocked by Takayama, who went for a northern lights suplex, but Ogawa blocked that with a roll-up. They started doing really fast spots with loads of counters like that. It was great wrestling. Finish was great. Ogawa missed a charge into the corner, posting his shoulder. When he stumbled out, Kakihara hit an armbar submission, but Ogawa rolled him up. Ogawa a three count, Kakihara released the hold, and Ogawa sold his arm like it was ready to fall off. The 02/07/99 All Japan TV show was a Giant Baba tribute. It was a pretty emotional show. They showed clips of a lot of his matches, many of them very old, so it was an interesting show for that. The 02/07/99 New Japan TV show also opened with a tribute to Giant Baba. They did a very solemn bell-ringing ceremony. The Jr. heavyweight tag matches were the only real highlights of this show and the show from the subsequent week. That's not completely true, since there was one good heavyweight tag match as well. Kendo Ka Shin & Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Jushin Liger & El Samurai in a great match. Lots of great moves, too many to mention really. Wagner looked strong with cool submission moves. Finish saw Ka Shin catch El Samurai sleeping on the top rope, jumping up and slapping on a armbar submission. The 02/14/99 New Japan TV show had a stupid match with the returning Masa Chono facing both Keiji Muto & Hiro Saito. It went to a no contest decision, had blood and a run-in, and was just this close to being too garbagy for me to handle. As it was, I just thought it was a really bad match. In the Jr. heavyweight match of the show, Kendo Ka Shin & Dr. Wagner Jr. faced Jushin Liger & El Gran Hamada. I love Hamada. Even though he's a pretty old guy now (48) especially for this style of wrestling, he still is a tremendous worker with loads of acrobatic and cool spots. I don't think any other wrestler has been as good over 40 as Hamada has been. Hamada, of course, it probably best known for taking UWA wrestlers from Mexico and touring Japan with them in 1990 under his UWF banner. Those tours were essentially the pre-birth of Michinoku Pro wrestling, featuring a hybrid style of lucha libre wrestling with stiffer new japan Jr. heavyweight style work. They let Hamada hit all of hit patented spot. Age is starting to show on Hamada, who was for the first time a notch below the other workers in this style. Wagner used two Michinoku drivers on Liger for the finish, with Hamada mistakenly breaking up the pin and the ref counting anyhow. The finish seemed mistimed because of it and left things on a flat note. The 02/21/99 New Japan TV show started out poorly. The only good match on the show saw Dr. Wagner Jr. challenge Jushin Liger for the IWGP Jr. Title. It was good but not great. Although Wagner had that great match with Koji Kanemoto last year, I think he's better in tag matches because the style switch up is neat in that setting. Here, things just seemed a notch below what Liger and the other Jr. heavies do in other singles matches. Match ended when Liger hit a brainbuster suplex off the top. The 02/28/99 New Japan TV show opened with Shinjiro Otani & Tatshito Takaiwa defending the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight tag titles against Dr. Wagner Jr. & Kendo Ka Shin. Great match. Joined it progress, the match opened with Wagner hitting Goldberg's spear on Takaiwa. Takaiwa no sold a top rope brainbuster suplex, getting up imediately. Wagner no sold Takaiwa's offence. It was a bit weird, but they seemed to be going for comedic value and the crowd was giggling. Thankfully, it got serious pretty quickly. Otani is god. Wagner acted the ham when he outsmarted Otani, so when Otani outsmarted him, he hammed it up as well. Otani dodged a Michinoku driver by Wagner, tagging in Takaiwa. Ka Shin also tagged in. In short order, Ka Shin had his armbar submission on Takaiwa and things picked up in a hurry, getting very serious. You could feel the crowd change its tone, reacting to the "we're not playing any more" feeling. Match was great from this point on, with loads of hot moves, great work, and great psychology. Ka Shin got an armbar submission from Otani, so we had new champions. Great match. The main event on this show saw Satoshi Kojima face Kensuke Sasaki to determine a challenger for the IWGP Title. Match was great. It was weird, though, because the lighting and sound were totally unprofessionl. Kojima deserves the lion's share of the credit for the match quality here, as he was really good. Sasaki used two northern lights bombs for the win. All Japan TV on 02/14/99 started off with more tearful discussion of Giant Baba's passing. The show opened with the final match in the six-man tournament. The match featured Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa & Masahito Takayama vs. Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga. Shiga, the youngest of the lot, got the pin on Takayama in a great moment. In this company, even the guys that aren't at top level looked good. Really good match. The 02/21/99 TV show started with Jumbo Tsuruta presumably announcing his retirement. When Baba passed on, Tsuruta no longer felt honour-bound to stay close to the company. The match on this show was a horrible six man bout. I'd rather not talk about it. On the 02/28/99 TV show, Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (WWF's Hakushi) won the All Asian tag titles from Jun Izumida & Tamon Honda. Match wasn't great. Hayabusa is one-dimensional, like Sabu. He hit a bunch of high spots on cue, but showed limited psychology and no transitions at all. Blah. Shinzaki is not much better. They need to be in the ring with great workers to have a great match of more than one dimension. It wasn't good wrestling, but I think a lot of North American fans would rave about it, 'cause they rave about lesser stuff. Finally, the 03/07/99 TV show featured Vader's title win over Akira Taue. After breaking his forearm in the match discussed last week, new Triple Crown champion Toshiaki Kawada had to vacate the title. Since they wanted to build to Mistuaru Misawa vs. Vader and Vader had already beaten Kenta Kobashi, there was little else they could do except have Vader face Akira Taue to determine the new champion. Lacklustre match, bad for a Triple Crown bout. I don't like Taue much at all, so that didn't help me. They miscommunicated early on, but they actually did alright as the match wore on. The best part was Stan Hansen coming out to congratulate Vader after the win. Vader gave a sedate interview afterwards. That was sort of funny because he had been ranting and raving in interviews on earlier shows, complaining that he deserved a title match. - I also managed to watch more of the old Japanese TV tapes; I had three tapes to go when I started out this time. The next tape in the series started with the New Japan 12/08/90 TV show. That show opened with a tag match from Baghdad, Iraq, that was part of Antonio Inoki's Peace Festival tour. They only aired a few minutes. The remaining TV bouts, taped the day before, were mostly lacklustre. Keiji Muto & Masa Chono beat a pair of Russians in a bland match, as the Russians were clearly on their last legs in the promotion. Following that, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka beat Masa Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi in an okay match. This was nothing special. Afterwards, Saito applauded the winning team and gestured that the crowd should applaud them. The TV main saw Scott Norton & Brad Rheingans & Bad News Brown face Riki Choshu & Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki. In his pre-WWF days, both here in Japan and in Calgary, I really like Bad News Brown. He never really did anything in his WWF run, did he? Norton tried to be a Vader clone, hitting really stiff clotheslines, shoulder tackles, and other moves, and acting like a really mean American. But Norton no-sold everything. Hase was tremendous in making Norton look like a monster. Norton wne tdown to his knees for a Choshu lariat, but just got right back up and started pounding. He didn't go down for dropkicks or anything else. Norton pinned Hase with a power slam. Next up was the 12/15/90 All Japan TV show, featuring matches from the annual tag tournament. Well, this had to be good. It seemed like the last few tapes all had rocky starts. First match was Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue. I can only speak for myself, but Jumbo vs. Misawa had a special aura to it, sort of like Flair vs. Steamboat. They were such great foils for each other. I didn't enjoy Taue's work, but that's nothing new. The younger Taue fit in better here than the older Taue fits into the current product. The match built to the usual quick close finishes. The final minutes were awesome. Kawada hit the power bomb on Taue for the pin after numerous near falls and close saves. Second match was Terry Gordy & Steve Williams vs. Stan Hansen & Dan Spivey in the tournament final. The teams went into the final with Hansen & Spivey ahead by one point. That meant that Gordy & Williams had to win to win the tournament, while Hansen & Spivey would still win if the match were a draw. Before the match, they showed the two teams in the locker room area awaiting their ring entrances. Spivey was doing his wide-eyed shtick. The crowd was damn hot. The out-of-the-ring brawling early on was a bit flat. Spivey didn't fit in. Hansen rammed a table against Gordy's head. I guess it built pretty well, but I had trouble with Spivey being in there. Near the end, they double suplexed Williams for a two count. Spivey cleared Gordy from the scene. Hansen and Spivey did a lame-ass spike piledriver on Williams for a two. Hansen did a pretty weak lariat. Hansen whipped Williams to the ropes to hit a better lariat, but Williams ducked and hoisted Hansen up, hitting the powerslam for the pin. That was Williams first pinfall ever on Hansen, so that made the match memorable. It was also memorable because they really stretched the match out, teasing the draw finish, with the pinfall coming at the 29:59 mark of a 30:00 match, if you can believe that! After the match, Williams did an interview with a translator. "First of all, Merry Christmas. Second of all, Stan Hansen, Danny Spivey, Jumbo, Taue, Kawada...they're all great wrestlers, but we're number one!" Gordy: "It's great to be alive, and it's great to be number one in Japan." Williams: "And...Get well Baba!" (Baba had broken his leg earlier in the tournament.) That was sort of cool to see, actually. On to the 12/15/90 New Japan TV show. It opened with Ban Ban Bigelow facinf Keiji Muto in a pretty good match. Muto was the wrestler who actually works in his matches, not the slug that came out most of the time in the past few years. Muto went for a missile dropkick, missed, and Bigelow splashed him for a two count. Bigelow then hit a vertical suplex and a headbutt for another two count. Bigelow lifted Muto for press slam, strolled over to the ring ropes to toss him out of the ring, and Muto shifted, fell off, and got a school boy for the three count. Next up, Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki defended the IWGP Tag belts againt Strong Machine & Tatsutoshi Goto. If you've been reading this things over recent weeks, you'll remember that Machine & Goto got a surprise win over Hase & Sasaki before the latter team won the titles. I don't really like Tatsutoshi Goto, and Strong Machine is also not that great, so I didn't really see the lure in this match, although they did have a win over the champs. Do I need to say that Hase was great. About ten minutes in, Hase hit a hot tag on Sasaki, who came in with a dropkick on Goto. Goto tagged, and Sasaki went to work on Machine. Goto attacked from behind, and the challengers took over. Outside the ring, Goto laid out Sasaki, including a post job, while Machine laid into Hase in the ring. The champs were getting pummelled. Sasaki was gushing. Back in the ring, Sasaki was whipped to the corner. Goto was whipped in afterwards, but Sasaki ducked under him, charged out of the corner, dropkicked Machine out of the ring, turned and powerslammed a charging Goto. Great sequence. The crowd erupted. Hase came in, legs wobbly, hit the northern lights suplex for a two count. Sasaki and Machine got it on. A second northern lights suplex secure the win for the champs. Good final few minutes. The TV main was a six man. Shiro Koshinaka was the only standout worker in the main. The 12/29/90 New Japan TV show opened with a cool little match between Jushin Liger and Negra Casas. I'd seen it before and gave it a * * * * 1/4 rating. I hadn't seen the rest of the show and, when the second match came up, I figured that was a positive. The second match was Keiji Muto vs. Tiger Jeet Singh. Singh attacked Muto with his saber pre-match, drawing blood. He did garbage wrestling shit for a few minutes, with the fans dead silent before finally chanting Muto's name. Muto finally did rally, but didn't get the win. No, Singh instead pulled out a sharp object and laid waste to Muto and everybody that came in. Match, like Singh, was crap. It was the kind of stuff that might happen in the WWF nowadays and have people raving about how great it was. Sigh, "progress" sucks. A cool match came next: Masa Chono vs. Lou Thesz. It was more of an exhibition. Thesz was too hold to do anything, but Chono and the fans treated him with respect. Chono went for a belly-to-back suplex at the start and let Thesz put an array of arm locks and the like on him. It wasn't good, but it was sort of neat to see. They did some of the Flair-Steamboat close pin spots, but flubbed them up. Thesz tried to do a double-underhook suplex but he couldn't hold Chono's weight, losing his balance. Shortly thereafter, Chono got an STF submission. They hugged. After that, Nick Bockwinkel came out to face Masa Saito. Weird show. They worked off a headlock for many minutes. Then a sleeper. Then leg locks. Saito hit his backdrop suplex for the win, with Bockwinkel taking a great bump. We moved into a a match for the IWGP Tag titles, with Strong Machine & Hiro Saito challenging Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki. This time, the champs came out on fire. But once again, the challengers ended up pummelling the champions for the most part. Hase got in and went to school. Now, Hase & Sasaki started with hot moves. But the challengers came back, getting several shockingly close near falls. Saito hit his top rope senton on Hase for the three count! Well, geez, that was disappointing for me. Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga in the WWF) faced Shinya Hashimoto in a shootfighting/boxing match. Ugh. Halme pummelled him for three rounds before getting the win. Sigh and ugh. In the main event, Riki Choshu faced challenger Tatsumi Fujinami in an IWGP Title match, but no finish aired on TV. Finally, the 12/22/90 New Japan TV show showed up. Maybe this was the first show from 1991, but I don't think so. They started airing Scott Norton two-minute squases, as they tried to get him over like the Road Warriors got over in Japan years earlier. The only good match on the show was Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Shiro Koshinaka & Takayuki Iizuka. Hase & Sasaki successfully defended the IWGP Tag titles. Good match, with Sasaki using the powerslam to pin Iizuka. Two tapes to go in the series! Then I'll dip into the 200+ unwatched tapes. - WCW may bring Madusa Micelli back in a valet-type role. WCW has also signed a deal with UFC bad boy David "Tank" Abbott, with the plan being to have a program with Goldberg. I don't know how they can have a program between these two with Goldberg never putting the new threat over. - It's weird to see WCW waste whatever they could have gotten out of Vampiro. Juventud Guerrera complained to Kevin Nash after his Nitro match with Vampiro, saying that Vampiro didn't protect him in the ring and he was banged up because of it. As a result, Nash apparently told Vampiro that he wouldn't be appearing on Nitro or Thunder any longer. Wouldn't you know that tonight he had a match on Thunder against Buff Bagwell, so I guess things have been settled somewhat. He put Buff over. It just seems stupid to have him do jobs when he means nothing. The result is that he will never mean anything. And since he means nothing, his jobs really could have been done by somebody else to gain the same effect. - Lots of news regarding talent leaving the big two. WCW officially canned Davey Boy Smith, who has been sidelined thanks to a spinal infection. There's no doubt that Smith's back troubles were exacerbated by taking a bump on the trap door that WCW used in its ring when the Ultimate Warrior had his failed short run. It's pretty sad to see WCW not support one of its wrestlers at least somewhat through a trying time. It's weirder still because the promotion has stood by Jim Duggan and Brian Hildebrand during their cancer battles. I received one e-mail likening the Davey Boy Smith situation (termination while sidelined) to the firing of Steve Austin years back. Austin was fired because he never provided medical documentation regarding his injury or his projected return. WWF cheerleaders who like to flame don't mind omitting a few details here and there. Meanwhile, the WWF did some housecleaning, said to include Blue Meanie, Legion of Doom, Public Enemy, Disciples of Apocalypse, Blue Meanie, Duane Gill, Fatu, and, perhaps most surprisingly, Steve Williams. Speculation is that since the current WWF product is all about story lines and not at all about wrestling, with the focus moving towards a power struggle in the McMahon family, Vince McMahon has done a remarkable thing: he's made wrestlers (okay, mostly bad wrestlers) obsolete. The funny name on that list is Public Enemy. Here, they've burned their bridge with ECW, picked the WWF's lower offer over WCW's better bid in the hopes of bigger exposure, and their lack of ability was completely exposed in a product mix that features so many bad wrestlers that horrible wrestlers stand out like sore thumbs. Wouldn't it be funny if they came crawling back to WCW? (Hopefully, the promotion will have the sense to laugh and slam the door.) - In a pretty funny story, Sid Eudy is history with ECW. The funny part is that Sid said he purposely no-showed an ECW even because he wanted to send the message to Paul Heyman that he (Sid) should get the book. Can you imagine anybody being stupid enough to let Sid be a booker? Heyman kicked him to the curb. There is a lot of talk that ECW might get the RollerJam Friday night slot on The Nashville Network. - While flipping around the converter on the weekend, I popped across several commercials involving wrestling personalities. It just seemed weird to run across them in a matter of a few minutes. Mankind did his pasta commercial. Steve Austin & D'Lo Brown did a 1-800-COLLECT commercial. And shootfighting personality Maurice Smith plugged the Juiceman. On the Juiceman commercial, they also promoted a brochure that will teach you "How to juice to lose weight." That's what Dusty Rhodes was doing! - 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 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 99/03/14: Uncensored Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 0.73 $3.48 1.83 * * * * * 1/2 Billy Kidman vs. Mikey Whippreck 0% (0 of 9) 99/02/21: SuperBrawl Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 1.1 $5.27 1.89 * * 1/2 * * * 1/4 Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Kevin Nash Scott Steiner vs. Diamond Dallas Page 0% (0 of 9) 99/01/17: Souled Out Bill Goldberg vs. Scott Hall Ric Flair & David Flair vs. Curt Hennig & Barry Windham 0.78 $3.64 1.83 * 1/2 * * * * Billy Kidman vs. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera vs. Psicosis 11.1% (1 of 9) Last 6 0.85 $3.91 1.67 1.92 3.71 3.6% (2 of 55) 1999 0.87 $4.13 1.85 2 3.583 3.7% (1 of 27) 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 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. ______________________________________________________________________