I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ Over the past few nights, I've slowly plugged away at the 400 e-mail messages that have accumulated over the past month. I'd already deleted most of the spam, so this mail was mostly related to wrestling and mailing lists to which I subscribe. This morning I sent out about 200 e-mails to the people that were awaiting responses. So, I'm finally back up to date and my response time should now return to the usual day or two tops. I will be updating the tape lists on the weekend, I hope. I already have a bunch of new tape data inputted, but I want to add a few more to the mix before putting an update on the web. I'll also be reworking the presentation of the data slightly. There are several legally blind users that use text web browsers to read these pages and I've just learned that HTML tables cause them some grief. There are ways to work around this so that the layout looks cool for everybody. At some point in the future, I'd really like to add a forms page that allows searches of the data, but that's a way off. Please send me feedback on the comparison between WithAuthority and The Wrestling Channel, on the prospect of more pictures, etc. I've received a lot of e-mail already, but I want to make sure to make any decisions in the future with the readers of these pages taken into account. _________________________________________________________________ Picture/Animation of the Week Although I had various requests to produce pictures of certain wrestlers, I received the most requests for animations with 160x120 frame size and loads of frames. With that in mind, and because of the controversy of the whole situation meaning that we'll remember this moment for a long time, here's a relatively huge animated gif of the final sequence in the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels match from Survivor Series. It's 160x120 with 130 frames at 100 colours to conserve space, coming in at roughly 2Mb. Please give me some feedback on whether I've crossed the size line. Last week's Sable animated gif led to a lot of feedback suggesting longer animations were okay. _________________________________________________________________ - Suppose you are the owner of one of the two prime pro-wrestling companies in North America. Your top champion has disagreed with the company direction for a long time and has seemingly continually been at odds with your other top performer. You don't feel that the flavour of your product can change; you've given things a rougher and seedier edge to separate yourself from your opposition. House show business has been great. At your behest -- you want to free up the money spent on this guy -- your top champion exercises an option in his contract so that he can leave for the opposition. A heated "war" has been waged in the industry and your company has repeatedly come out on the losing side, to the point that the areas which you once dominated -- talent roster, ratings, buy rates -- are now dominated by that very same opposition. Losing your top champ is going to hurt like hell, and there's no positive way to spin it, but it is a business decision that you've made. He's leaving, and the bad part is that the opposition can announce his pending arrival in a week, the day after a key PPV title defence. Perhaps stupidly, you've left the title on him until this last minute. Unfortunately, the PPV title defence is against the one wrestler to whom your champ does not want to drop the title, the other top performer in your company. The industry has "evolved," perhaps in part thanks to the current heated competition, so that wrestlers with immense fan appeal are increasingly able to call a lot of their own shots: several key figures in the opposition have directly and negatively affected the booker's carefully laid-out plans, and wrestlers in your own company, including the one guy to whom your champ won't lose, have also played games to control their image and manage their losses. To top it off, your champ has a clause in his contract guaranteeing him creative control over his finishes, so you can't say that he's being an unreasonable primadonna by exercising that clause. The day approaches, the obvious title change isn't agreed to by the champ, although a different title change after the announcement by the opposition could likely be arranged. It's a hot match-up between the best workers in your company; you expect a lot of fans to buy the show. What do you do? That's the story of the WWF Survivor Series this past Sunday. Here's a quick rundown on the undercard, which both for wrestling content and newsworthiness was completely inconsequential: * Billy Gunn & Roaddog Jesse James & Godwinns beat Headbangers & Blackjacks: The first in a line of bad undercard matches. Only Gunn has potential. Gunn & Roaddog survived. A sad opener. * Truth Commission beat DOA: Interrogator was the sole survivor. A really bad match, since nobody involved can acutally work. Interrogator is so bad that pushing him this hard was embarrassing. The Truth Commission's manager, The Jackal, doesn't work well, IMO. * Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart & Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon beat Vader & Goldust & Marc Mero & Steve Blackman: This was billed as Team Canada against Team USA. The first match with a few good workers, but the face side is severely hindered, since Goldust is turning and had an injured wrist, Mero also seems to be a pseudo-heel and doesn't do anywhere near as much in the ring as he used to, and Blackman can't do much of anything. So, it was Vader's match to carry for his side. He did as a good a job as can be expected, but the match was still poor. Smith survived. * Kane beat Mankind: Mankind tried. He did a lot of his patented bumps and some variations. He did his half. Kane is Glen Jacobs...he is not good. No sane person would consider this a good match. That said, Kane is going to get over despite the stupidity of it all. They wrestled under red lights, which was more than a little annoying. The pyrotechnic devices are strapped to the ring posts for the whole show, but when Kane gestures and they go off, the commentators pretend he has supernatural powers. It's worse than being fooled by fake Stings time and time again. * Ken Shamrock & Ahmed Johnson & LOD vs. NOD: Five useless matches in a row at this point. Shamrock has learned a lot in a short time. D.Lo Brown was the second best wrestler in the match, which is a compliment to him and a heavy criticism of the rest. * Steve Austin beat Owen Hart to win the IC Title: Both guys are coming back from injuries, Austin's admittedly more brutal. The match was depressingly short and uneventful. Austin is hot, but if he has a few more matches like this, it will kill him. At this point, I was pretty depressed. Austin looks to be reduced to a shadow of his former self. The undercard was the poorest of any show in recent memory. It really needed a lightheavyweight elimination match, or a Mexican minis elimination match, or the once-rumoured Japanese women's elimination match. Instead, we were hammered into the ground with non-stop poor wrestling. After all of this, only Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels remained, the departing champ against the one person to whom he won't drop the belt. For the entire show, Vince McMahon was unseen, presumably trying to come up with a booking arrangement that was agreeable to all parties. It had long ago been decided that Hart was leaving, with the match even being hyped as the last chance to see these two guys against each other. So, remembering the first paragraph above, what do you do? Vince chose the doublecross, the ambush, and some, unthinkingly, IMO, will say he made the right call. The match unfolded weirdly. Hart & Michaels brawled all over; it was really good stuff, crisp and with intent, not careless and contrived at all. Vince McMahon came out to convince the guys to get in the ring. Eventually that happened. They had a reasonably good match, although it was not near the marathon match at a past WrestleMania. Shawn Michaels spoke too loudly again (as he had on RAW the previous week, in a match against Ken Shamrock that seemed to be thrown together at the last second), clearly talking to Bret Hart about his bleeding hand. Then came one of the few spots that seemed to have been carefully booked. Referee Earl Hebner took a bump along with both wrestlers. Shawn Michaels recovered first and slapped the Sharpshooter on Hart. This spot has been done in other recent Hart matches, so surely Hart wouldn't balk at the suggestion. In fact, it seems likely that the match booking would follow the routine of having Hart escape from his own finisher and Michaels also not fall victim to his own finisher; you know the routine: these guys know each other so well that they do each other's moves but they each escape from their own moves. Maybe a non-finish was promised to Hart with a make-up loss planned the next night on RAW against one of the list of opponents to whom Hart was willing to drop the strap. Anyhow, as Michaels barely gets in position for the Sharpshooter, referee Hebner immediately - before Hart can have a chance to react - calls for the bell as if Hart submitted, when every fan watching knows that it was not the case. Michaels releases the hold, Bret scissors Michaels' leg for a second with a look of total disbelief on his face before letting Michaels free, Bret yells at McMahon and spits on him, Michaels looks damn upset as he grabs the title and gets escorted away, the referee races from the ring as soon as he signals for the bell, and they fade to black less than a minute after the doublecross. There is much speculation that Michaels was in on the ambush of Hart. Because of the ending, there is a strong curiousity factor attached to watching this match, but the match rating has to take a large hit over it, making this one of the worst PPVs of the year from a match quality standpoint. I gave the show a thumbs down. At the end of the night, then, Michaels has the belt, Hart has lost to him in his own hold, and all is well, right? Wrong. Earlier, I suggested that Vince made the wrong call and I stand by that. Since Bret had the creative control clause in his contract, you can't even say that Vince was justified in doing what he did: within a certain legal framework, employers should be able to tell employees what to do, unless they give those employees a contract with creative control. Ignoring that issue completely, a heavy-handed approach has repercussions that can often make it the wrong move. Consider: * With a large audience watching, Vince completely devalued the world title. Every single fan watching has to think that Bret Hart was screwed out of the title. In a way, it's worse than if Bret was allowed to forfeit the title and walk away from the company. * Wrestler morale plummetted to a new low. It's standard business sense to know that if a stellar employee is treated like refuse, all of the other employees are going to get depressed over it. By refusing to lose to Michaels, Bret may have lost his "stellar" standing, you say, but Michaels is hardly the king of popularity in the company, with his record of egotism unmmatched. As we saw the next night on RAW, many wrestlers (Owen, Neidhart, Bulldog, LOD, Windham, Vega, LOD, Mankind) boycotted the show in response. * Hart & WCW can now refer to the botched doublecross in interviews. Already on Monday Nitro, they talked about Hart not being a quitter, etc. Hart may have been leaving the WWF in displeasure anyhow, but now he leaves an enemy. * Despite deserving all the praise in the world as a worker, Shawn Michaels has constantly shown himself to be a primadonna when it comes to being a company man. Sure, Bret showed a little of that on this night, but is the WWF really better off now? This runs a little into second-guessing Vince for wanting to get rid of Bret. * Who is going to believe a "creative control" clause in a contract offer from the WWF in the future? What were the alternatives? It sure seems like the title had to leave Bret this night. So, the obvious choice is to go the "verbal contract" route. Have Bret & Shawn deliver a stellar match that goes to a time limit draw or a no contest or some other sort, without ripping off the fans from a great match. Then have Wrestler X appear somehow, perhaps to stop a post-match brawl between Shawn & Bret. Bret could grab the microphone and say he is sick of people getting involved in his business when they don't have any place in it, etc., and, despite being exhausted, he could offer Wrestler X a shot at the belt right then. Bingo, he drops the strap however decisively we can convince him to do it. He leaves with the excuse that he had already worked a match. The new champ gets over for beating Bret decisively. We've got a title change clip that could open RAW and that could be replayed whenever the war demands Bret be embarrassed. Bret reportedly agreed to drop the belt to Ken Shamrock, Jeff Jarrett, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, etc., so surely there was somebody who they could have agreed on for that night. Instead, Bret leaves for WCW in a stronger position than everything he leaves behind, IMO. There are reports that Bret refused to lose the title on this show, period, a stand that is perfectly within his contractual rights. Anybody that dumps on Bret for not giving the WWF an easy out, which he contractually does no have to give them, after the promotion asked him to leave, is knocking on the wrong door. - Connected to the Bret Hart story, several Canadian papers ran stories about his departure before Sunday. That has been well-documented on the net. However, some sources also reported that Owen Hart planned to follow Bret as soon as possible. I don't know the details of Owen's WWF contract, so I have no clue when he could leave. It's worth mentioning, since with Bret leaving and Austin likely never being the same, Owen & Davey Boy Smith are among the top five workers in the promotion now, if they weren't before. Statements that Owen is planning to leave and speculation that Smith will also follow are reasonably crippling suggestions. RAW this past Monday was a weird show. Intrigue was high, since the PPV the night before left the WWF Title weak and the upper echelon of the promotion in tatters. Boycotts were planned and, sure enough, numerous wrestlers refused to appear. Jim Ross seemed to be sympathetic towards Hart, perhaps because the company had to present that face to win back the boycotters. Shawn Michaels tried to sound convincing when he said he beat Bret Hart and chased him out of the WWF, but I can't imagine anybody over 10 who saw the PPV bought the line. Indeed, the crowd was filled with signs that suggested that the fans were less than enamoured with a decision to get rid of Bret. And the fans even chanted his name during the interview, which really seemed to tick Shawn off. Marc Mero & Ahmed Johnson had a bad match which ended with Mero getting DQed for using a low blow; afterwards, Mero tried to use his Diamond Cutter style finish, but it didn't work. Taka Michinoku defeated Devon Storm in the second best match of the weekend wrestling run. Taka is great, but couldn't carry Storm to a cohesive match, so the bout came off like a bunch of spots slapped together. The only other interesting parts: Blackjack Justin Bradshaw started to get pushed as a bunkhouse fighter, although he lost in a handicap match against Jesse James & Billy Gunn (talk continues that Bradshaw will be repackaged); Steve Blackman returned; Butterbean got involved with Marc Mero, with Mero teasing a boxing match between the two at some point down the road; Ken Shamrock & Hunter Hearst Helmsley had a passable match that saw Shawn Michaels interfere, with no finish announced as the show ended. If Shamrock vs. Michaels and Mero vs. Butterbean doesn't excite you, they also started building to Steve Austin vs. Rocky Maivia, Goldust vs. Vader, and, of course, the Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku lightheavyweight final. The lightheavyweight tournament standings are: Quarter Finals Semi Finals Finals Aguila Aguila Super Loco Taka Michinoku? Taka Michinoku Taka Michinoku? Devon Storm Scott Taylor Scott Taylor Eric Shelley Brian Christopher? Brian Christopher Brian Christopher? Flash Flanagan Nitro this past Monday was a pretty good show, easily delivering the best wrestling action of the weekend with a great Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero title match that saw Eddie regain the Cruiserwelt strap. The show opened with the NWO walking out with Canadian flags, announcing that Kevin Nash was now back, Nash coming out, and finally saying that Bret Hart was coming to the NWO. They went on to sing "Oh Canada!" to Bret, completely butchering the lyrics and the melody, which surely should indicate that Hart will not go to the NWO. I took it as a somewhat subtle angle that most American fans would miss, since they don't know the tune of the Canadian anthem. Steve Regal & Dave Taylor were given a win over Harlem Heat. They don't have any credibility (yet?), but they are a great team. Disco Inferno began his next life as a loser who uses the Stone Cold Stunner, since WCW is mad that WWF midcarder Marc Mero is using Diamond Dallas Page's finishing move, however slightly modified. The other interesting moments saw Yuji Nagata beat Alex Wright; Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn go to a no contest when everybody got involved, including the godawful Van Hammer with a new look; the aforementioned match of the weekend with Eddie Guerrero regaining the Cruiserweight belt and staring down Dean Malenko; Diamond Dallas Page going to a DQ with Curt Hennig; and Lex Luger & Ric Flair delivering a surprisingly passable match (after all of Luger's recent dogs) with no finish. The show closed as Sting was laid out by the NWO. - New Japan disbanded the J Crown last week, returning the various belts to their original promotions. Only the IWGP Jr. Title remains. - WCW has World War III on 11/23/97. Tentative line-up has: * Three-ring, sixty-man battle royal, with the winner earning a WCW Title shot at SuperBrawl in February * Ric Flair vs. Curt Hennig for the US Title in a no DQ match * Steve McMichael vs. Bill Goldberg * Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero for the Cruiserweight Title * Yuji Nagata vs. El Ultimo Dragon - The WWF has Degeneration X In Your House on 12/07/97. Tentative line-up has: * Shawn Michaels vs. Ken Shamrock for the WWF Title * Vader vs. Goldust * Marc Mero vs. Butterbean * Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley * Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku for the lightheavyweight title in the tournament final - WCW has Starrcade on 12/28/97. Tentative line-up has: * Sting vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW Title - - RAW 11/10 with a 4.4 rating against a 3.4 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. - The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.59 (0.52) and average gross of $1.51-million ($1.32-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.69 (0.67) and average gross of $2.12-million ($2.02-million). The details as they stand are available. - 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