______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ Well, we own a house. And, jeez, until the move is completed I have the feeling I'll be running myself ragged getting things ready in different ways in both homes. I doubt I'll have the time for a big update until the end of June, although I do think that when my inlaws are in town to help with some house preparations I may be able to find the time to catch up some more on Japanese tapes. Footnote: I wrote most of this text for this past Thursday, but never found the chance to put it up and then thought I might as well wait until after the PPV. ______________________________________________________________________ - Since I haven't had the time for a detailed update over the past couple of weeks, I thought instead that I'd comment on the current North American wrestling scene in an attempt to explain my generally negative attitude with respect to almost all of it. WCW's new regime depresses me to no end. In order for the young guys to get over, their hot moves have to work on somebody. Has Billy Kidman hit a shooting star on anybody of note? Can a group of the young guys lay out one old fart in a sneak attack and have that beating still have an effect by the next TV show? Do any old farts lose cleanly? No, no, no. Hulk Hogan treating Billy Kidman as a jobber does not help Billy Kidman mean anything. In one of the wrestling magazines I send to my friend in Japan, Chris Candido actually talked about how great it is that Hulk Hogan is putting Billy Kidman over. He's either being politically careful by making that statement or he's not all that astute. Billy Kidman is Hogan's punching bag, his jobber, much more so than his equal. Giving the Filthy Animals this high-tech entrance and giving Rey Misterio Jr. a valet doesn't make them stars when they get beaten into the ground four-on-one by one of the old farts. Sting gives absolutely nothing to Vampiro. The old guys do an incredible job of convincing the young guys that they are working balanced programs with them while at the same time losing a match here or there in the most meaningless and unconvincing way (and winning decisively of course). It makes me sick. And Russo's acclaimed writing (well, acclaimed by Russo) is retarded. What storyline occurences on TV actually get pushed on the subsequent TV show? Nash, Hogan, all that shit. The reason nobody gives a hoot about the young guys is in part that there's no care given to the details of their storylines. And when they try to talk about the story lines involving the younger guys, we only discover how horrible those storylines are. The commentators do nothing to remind us of the storylines, they don't build from the previous show, they often contradict the events of the previous show. And titles have to change hands on every show. Apparently, the hot potato booking makes fans feel like titles can change hands at any time. And, apparently, that's going to increase interest in the product. This violates pretty much all of history, but Russo sticks to it. Putting the hardcore title on Eric Bischoff is brilliant, right? Having Bischoff give that title to two wrestlers is brilliant. Having Kevin Nash give the title to Ric Flair is brilliant. One has to conclude that Russo has absolutely no clue what he's doing. Titles need to be respected, and the chase for the title can create tremendous interest when the title means something. Admittedly, it's okay to have a comedy title in the mix, but you can't piss on all of the belts. Yet everything that Russo puts together makes the world title less respected. Honestly, when Jeff Jarrett was laid out by Sting on Nitro this past week and was being put into the ambulance, Russo yelled something about Jarrett being the guy around whom the whole promotion was built. Yet everything that they've done with Jarrett and the title has made Jarrett weak and undermined any chance of him truly meaning anything. And why the heck would you throw away Tank Abbott on Nitro? Rushing Goldberg back to TV to pop a rating and delivering a suspension angle so that Goldberg could finish healing up are not the worst things to do, but using Tank Abbott as fodder is retarded. I pretty much hate everything that WCW is delivering right now for various reasons, but like a moth to a flame I can't resist watching how bad it gets. Watching the PPV hype for the Great American Bash just makes me feel like none of the matches really mean anything. Certainly, none of the hyped matches will be any good. In contrast, the WWF has been making everything about the title belt. They still deliver horrible finishes to keep the title off of Rock, 'cause lord knows he can't lose cleanly to the heel. But they have Chris Benoit. I would like to list Dean Malenko and Eddy Guerrero as other reasons to watch, but (i) Dean needs long matches to make his magic work and he rarely gets the chance to deliver those bouts and (ii) Eddy's horrible racist character is the most distasteful one in wrestling. And even though these three, Chris Jericho, and Perry Saturn are on the roster, their advancement has been undermined by the return of the Undertaker and Kane, both of whom promise to pull down main event match quality. Not that I'm overly impressed by any Rock vs. HHH match to begin with. The Vancouver RAW sparked some newspaper articles from nonfan observers. They talked about the Godfather, the hos, the women through tables, the profanity, the vulgar gestures, the kids in the crowd, the marketing to children, and the tragic death of Owen Hart. And, you know, not one rational person could argue with one word that I've read in any of those articles. You can't defend the WWF, despite the fact that the promotion delivers better PPV and TV matches and a more coherent product. In the Observer, there have been some letters recently complaining about the tastelessness of WCW or WWF personalities. It's like the Usenet newsgroups used to be when they first became so noisy: one guy says a WCW employee sucks, so somebody else writes to say a WWF employee sucks more. What none of them admit is that all of the guys in charge of North American promotions have made tasteless choices in recent times, all of them have been jerks in the past, oh, three years, say. Russo, Bishoff, McMahon, Jim Ross, Paul Heyman. It doesn't even take any effort to find jerky behaviour for these guys in the past few years. And look at the wrestlers on top of the promotions. Hulk Hogan is a jerk - look at how he has screwed the young guys repeatedly. Sting is a jerk - look at how he has "helped" Vampiro get over. DDP is a jerk - he's nearly as smart as Hogan when it comes to perception. Lex Luger is a jerk - he vetoes any idea that would have him put over a young guy. Kevin Nash is a huge jerk - he can't run, he can barely walk, he kills young guys in mass quantity, and his booking ideas brought the promotion down even further. Shawn Michaels was a jerk, a talented primadonna. Steve Austin was a jerk - he vetoed programs with talented guys just like Hogan and Nash do. HHH is a jerk - he and his buds tried to undermine Chris Jericho's chances. And of course the Rock is a jerk too. In North America, does pro-wrestling attract virtuous people? Of course not. Sure, there's Ric Flair, Bret Hart, and Chris Benoit, and only two of those guys made it to the top. But for each one of those guys on top, there seems to be a load of jerks. That likely plays a big part in what's wrong with the sport in my eyes. With all of these selfish jerks calling the shots, there's little chance of any goodness coming out of it. - WCW had the Great American Bash on this past Sunday, 06/11/2000. I used to order WCW PPVs (and wrestling PPVs in general) to see how good they might be, 'cause there was always something geared towards me on each card. But WCW has become so sad that I found myself ordering this show partly out of habit and mostly out of the macabre desire to see just how bad things will get. I feel very sorry for the great workers in the company who deserve so much better. Overall, with no big surprise, I'd have to give this show a thumbs down. There were no particularly good matches. There were some nice spots. There were the sadly requisite stunt man spots. I don't think any young guy got over, although some might argue about Vampiro. And to top it all off, Hulk Hogan will headline in a title match on the next show. They turned everybody they could find; frankly, I was surprise in hindsight that they didn't turn part of Ric Flair's family on the old man. The key point of the show was to recreate the Hulk Hogan turn that helped fuel the NWO storyline years ago, this time with Bill Goldberg being the unlikely new heel. But Hogan had no legs left as a babyface when he made the turn, while Bill Goldberg, returning from an injury, seemed to have a lot of babyface gas left. A turn could have been great down the line after Goldberg had reestablished himself as the top babyface. But that's the thing, right? In order for Goldberg to be the top babyface, Hulk Hogan and Nash and others would have to lie down for him or at least take demotions like men. And that ain't going to happen in WCW. So they rushed the turn. It was apparent that the crowd didn't want to see it. Whether that will translate into increased interest in what WCW is doing or turn off the few fans they still have will only be known in time. To me, it seemed like they were cutting off Goldberg's legs by putting him in an inappropriate role. I feel like they are going to kill him off, however unintentionally. Rundown: * Lieutenant Loco beat Disco Inferno to retain the Cruiserweight Title: There were just too many clowns at ringside distracting from what could have been a good match. It was messy because of all of the movement outside of the ring and the involvement of those guys. After a few minutes of chaos, the ridiculous finish was delivered. Captain Rection's "dad" came out to ringside, feigned a stroke, and, amidst the ensuing confusion, Loco took a stunner and Lash laid out Disco to kill the teased title change. The referee saw most of this but counted the pin anyhow. The names of the MIA characters are too long and stupid. Tony Schiavone called Van Hammer "Private Stash," which was to be his name, but he complained that he'd be the lowest ranking member of the group, so he became a "Major." Afterwards, Major Guns revived the "dad." Why would she revive somebody on the enemy side? I dunno either. * Kronik beat Mamalukes to become number one contenders to the WCW tag titles: They drew heat on Brian Clark at the start. Okay, I'll forgive you if the lack of crowd noise fooled you into thinking they were doing something else. This was pretty bad. For a shitty match like this, you realize just how much difference the WWF commentary makes to perception of match quality. Don't tell me that any PPV match involving the Acolytes or Godfather, etc., are any better than this crap, but somehow Jim Ross gets you through it with it seeming nowhere near as bad as this match. In WCW, there's something wrong with every element of the product. Bull miscued off the top rope in a terrible spot. They double teamed forever, 'cause there are no rules in WCW any more. That sure seems like a stupid idea now. Good rules present the opportunity to draw heat for rule violations that fans find unacceptable. Oh yes, Vito wore the Hardcore title throughout the match, since Eric Bischoff gave the title to the Mamalukes. While Vito was shining up the belt outside the ring, Bull was pinned. I guess this signals a feud between the Mamalukes. * Mike Awesome beat Diamond Dallas Page in an ambulance match: This offered the first chance for something decent on the show. I don't like Page's punch drunk Terry Funk routine all that much, but he does manage to pull stuff out of guys that don't deliver many good matches otherwise. This was messy brawl. Kanyon was wheeled out in his halo and wheelchair by DDP. Every closeup of Kanyon made him look like he had brain damage, but it was clear that he would factor in the finish. In the old days, DDP would have brought Kanyon to ringside for a few matches before Kanyon would be used in an angle, but this fastforward booking. Awesome basically destroyed DDP, with the idea, I guess, of creating tension over whether Awesome would attack Kanyon. They changed the rules of the ambulance match: now, EMTs were onhand, with the EMTs loading a fallen wrestler onto a gurney and wheeling him to the ambulance; if the wrestler could get up before being put in the ambulance, the match would continue. Awesome hit two frog splashes on DDP, missing a third. Kimberly came out to whack DDP, but Miss Hancock came out and dragged Kim off. Boy, Kimberly is so much more attractive than almost all of the other women in wrestling. DDP snuck in a diamond cutter, which was put over huge. Really, he was a punching bag for the whole match, but this one move threatened to stop the tide. As Awesome was wheeled out on a stretcher from that move, Eric Bischoff came out on the platform with a bat, teasing that he was going to hit Kanyon. DDP saved him, but Kanyon sprung up and attacked DDP, hitting a diamond cutter of the stage onto a safe stunt man platform below. DDP was wheeled off. Kanyon revealed a New Blood t-shirt. Does this make sense? He was almost killed by Awesome, and they aren't changing that part of the story, it seems, yet he would side with him. On one hand, it seemed like a hot, albeit rushed, angle, but on the other it seemed too stupid. Later, Kanyon explained that Eric Bischoff visited him the most in the hospital and explained that he could have DDP's spot if he took out DDP. * GI Bro beat Perfectshawn Stasiak in a boot camp match: More messy brawling. Poor Booker isn't going to get a break from this regime, and nobody deserves one more. Stasiak just isn't that good. He's actually just about as good in the ring as the Rock, although he doesn't have the same facials. Match would end after a 10 count knock out. Booker sold most of the way. No real interest in the crowd. Tony Schiavone mentioned that the Maryland state athletic commission was very concerned about this match because of its brutality, but apparently they were less trouble by all of the references to "burning flesh" in the "human torch" match. Scott Palumbo ran in. Bro got two-on-oned to death, but there are no rules in WCW. He rallied, knocked out Palumbo, whacked Stasiak, and scored the win. Aren't Palumbo & Stasiak the tag champs? Was this a smart thing to do with them? I guess they are just holding the belts for Kronik. * Shane Douglas beat Wall in a five tables match: The commentators had no clue what the stipulation was. Wall is the opposite of over. He's also the opposite of good. Crowd could not have cared any less. Shane would driven through two tables at ringside. The winner would be the guy who put his opponent through the most tables after five were broke. Shane lured Wall to a big ladder that had a stack of tables behind it. Dumbly enough, Wall climbed the ladder in just the right way to risk losing the match with the big bump. It was so moronic, rivally the worst contrived stuff that ECW has done. Wall took the bump and, ahem, got his heat back, aheam, by laying out the referee afterwards. Good lord, this show sucked. * Tank Abbott faced Scott Steiner in the asylum: Vince Russo should be put in the asylum after booking this show. Rick Steiner was dropped into the match to make it have a level playing field. Maybe they just wanted to make it even worse. At least before we had the chance of Scott's ego turning the match into something other than what it was supposed to be. I left the room for one minute and the match was over when I came back. Did I rewind to check the result? No. * Hulk Hogan beat Billy Kidman: Horace Hogan was the referee. Hogan would have to retire if he lost, but he'd get a title shot if he won. In his continuing efforts to put Kidman over, Hogan sold nothing and basically bounced Kidman around like a pinball. Finally, Kidman hit the worst DDT in history on a chair on Hogan for a two count. He hit a splash for another two count. Kidman went through the commentary table. Hogan is a piece of shit. Torrie came out. She ended up turning on Kidman, with Hogan getting the pin. There were rumours that at one point in time they had planned to put Kidman over here. Yeah, I believe that. * Ric Flair beat David Flair: Russo was at ringside. Ric beat up everybody. Reid Fliehr & Ashley Fliehr got involved. Ric hit the figure four and David gave up immediately. Vince Russo said he'd retire Ric on Nitro the next night. * Vampiro beat Sting in a human torch match: They had a torch on a platform high above the Titantron, er Nitrovision screen. Vampiro doused Sting with gas. They didn't even pretend to wrestle. They walked to the Nitrotron and Vampiro climbed up. Sting took a small bump off the structure. When they go up top, they only showed things from this one hokey camera angle. It was pretty clear that they didn't want us to be able to see the whole platform because something or somebody was up there for some reason. Sure enough, Vamp ended up knocking down Sting. When "Sting" got up, Vamp torched him, and "Sting" took a dive off the platform onto a stunt man set up below. Even though all of the fire was out just from the fall, the crew came out and sprayed a million fire extinguishers, no doubt to mask the fact that this guy was a stunt man and not Sting. Tony Schiavone reacted quickly for the first and only time of the night, saying that the fire extinguishers would have a cooling effect on Sting's burned flesh. Scott Hudson spoke about the current trends in North American wrestling, saying "This is not wrestling any more." Indeed. But hey, the finish was probably better than the condom on the arm routine that Kane did. * Jeff Jarrett beat Kevin Nash to retain the WCW Title: Ernest Miller introduced Konnan as bellringer, Rey Misterio Jr. as timekeeper, Disco Inferno as beltkeeper, Juventud Guerrera as announcer, and himself as enforcer referee. Not one of these announcements meant a thing, just like the WCW Title belt. They brawled into the crowd. Kevin Nash is nearly immobile, and he wasn't any good when he was mobile. The Animals attacked Nash's knee. Jarrett worked on his knee. The crowd worked on its sleep. Nash eventually laid out all of the Animals and had Jarrett pinned, but the referee had bumped for Rick Steiner. Scott Steiner & Tank Abbott were brawling in the aisle. This was a total mess. As Nash was getting pummelled by everybody in the ring, Goldberg came out to a huge pop. The heels scattered. Nash and Jarrett were in the ring. Goldberg charged, spearing Nash for the big heel turn. The crowd yelled "Goldberg sucks!" Whether this will turn out good or not is unclear. This was the big shocker that Eric promised: those frigging old babyfaces wanted to protect their spots again, so Goldberg is possibly going to have his character killed. ______________________________________________________________________ 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. ______________________________________________________________________