______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ I uploaded a tape list update on Sunday night. I've cleaned up a couple of small glitches (one tape number, one tape header) since then. It's sort of pointless to mention this here, since if you are reading this the problem won't affect you, but the withauthority.com image of this site was not updated this evening. There's a file system error that I can't repair; it's blocking me from updating the page. _________________________________________________________________ [rm.gif] Movies of The Week Thanks to Chris Newman, I've tweaked the way that the movie clips get downloaded: they are now streamed. Basically, this means that you don't download the whole clip before seeing something. On r.s.p-w and on the web, we've all seen references to the WWF's Steve Blackman being a rookie in pro-wrestling. Attentive fans know he did a stint in Calgary Stampede wrestling, ending at the start of 1988. But, did you know that he even did work for the WWF after his Stampede run? Here's a clip of Steve Blackman, WWF jobber, from 02/88. This is the ten-year anniversary of his WWF jobber stint. The clip just shows the ring intro and runs a short 15 seconds. Once you've looked at the clip, the reason for just showing the intro will become clear: this is also the ten-year anniversary of Outback Jack! Worse yet, had I let it run a little longer, you'd learn that it's also the ten-year anniversary of the third Islander, High Chief Afi. Oh, those were the days...yeah, right. I've also encoded another Ric Flair interview, this one from 1986. It's a significant interview: Flair unveils the new NWA World Heavyweight title, currently used as the WCW World Title. It's a great interview; Flair really gets rocking by the end. _________________________________________________________________ No Way Out The WWF had In Your House: No Way Out (of Texas) on Sunday. I'm sure that many people will praise the show because expectations for it had to be the lowest in recent memory for a WWF event. All in all, I was not too excited by what was delivered: a product that showed the usual problems the WWF has been suffering in recent times, namely a total lack of talent depth, cards bottom heavy with mediocre-at-best matches, and absolutely gruesome boob jobs. Okay, maybe that last one will upset the silicon lovers reading this page, but any sane person has to admit that Sable has crossed the line by a few inflation levels. Combine her twin purchases with the current story-line she is working with her husband and you've got to wonder about Marc Mero's concern for his daughter (raised when he left WCW). Anyhow, back to the show; the best I can possibly do is give the show a thumbs in the middle. Quick run-down: * In the pre-game show, the WWF displayed some rare-in-the-industry honesty by saying that Shawn Michaels would not be on the show, pitching that the main event would instead feature a mystery partner on team DX. During the show, Hunter Hearst Helmsley proclaimed that the match would be three against four, but WWF interviewer Michael Cole said that the WWF would likely assign a fourth man to the match, making little sense. In recent memory, for example, Justin Bradshaw had to wrestle in a handicap situation because his partner was unable to wrestle, and the WWF let that one slide. * Headbangers beat Goldust & Marc Mero: Mero dissed Sable, sending her to the back while keeping Luna at ringside. The match was mostly a heat segment on Thrasher, nothing too bad but far from great. Thrasher bled. Including entrances, they went 21 minutes, which was just way too long for what they had. Finish had Sable come back out, leading to a Headbanger roll-up on Mero for the surprise pin. Sable & Luna faced off a little bit before Sable blew up at Mero, shrieking at him to leave her alone. Not the best opener, just very mediocre. Sable looks grotesquely deformed. * Taka Michinoku beat Pantera to retain the Lightheavyweight title: Best match on the show. Don't act surprised. It was weak at times because Pantera works the soft Mexican style, so his bumps and slaps look phony. There were some cool highspots. Total time including entrances was only 16 minutes, a bit disappointing since they can get close to that length on RAW. I thought that the WWF's policy of have a smaller number of matches on PPVs meant that the good ones might get more time. The finish saw Taka finally hit the Michinoku Driver for the pin. Brian Christopher & Jerry Lawler hung around and tried to interfere afterwards, but Taka raced off into the crowd. Not as good as a very good Cruiserweight match, but still the best lightheavyweight bout the WWF has given us yet. * Godwinns beat Quebecers: This was as bad as expected. The Godwinns have overstayed their welcome. Jacques Rougeau has lost whatever fire he had (ten years ago). Pierre does a couple of spots that look spectacular because of his size, but he can't do anything lengthy (sort of like Bill Goldberg with three riskier hot moves). This was a throwaway match. * Jeff Jarrett gave up a DQ to Justin Bradshaw to retain the NWA North American title: Who does Bradshaw remind you of? If you don't say Stan Hansen, you haven't been listening to enough of Jim Ross' commentary. Of course, he's nothing like Hansen was, 'cause Hansen was actually really good. Bradshaw, at 37, isn't going to become a hot "young" star in the WWF and he sure isn't about to learn any new tricks; this is as good as it gets. The NWA, except Jim Cornette, were sent back to the locker room, guaranteeing a tennis racquet finish and NWA run-in. Bradshaw had some heat because the show was in Texas, but the match was nothing special again, rising to mediocre if you push it. LOD made the save after the expected finish. * Ken Shamrock & Ahmed Johnson & Chainz & Skull & Eight Ball beat Rocky Maivia & Faarooq & D-Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa & Mark Henry: This match had been hyped as a "war of attrition," which might lead some people to believe it would be an elimination tag match. Nope, "war of attrition" means "tag match." There was good heat. D-Lo was the best worker on his team. Shamrock was the only worker on his team. The match was pretty crummy because of it, but it at least had the right finish for where they have to go: Shamrock got Rocky to submit to his ankle lock. * Kane beat Vader: I know they wanted to increas Kane's credibility for his WrestleMania match with Undertaker, so a win over Vader, who needs time off anyhow, was not a bad idea. But a match longer than 5 minutes was a bad idea. I thought Kane was exposed in this match: at the 10 minute mark, everything got really sloppy and they stopped selling everything for a couple of minutes. Horrible. I think of Kane's gimmick putting him in the same bracket as the Giant or Goldberg: short matches where power dominates reasonably quickly. Kane did the zombie sit-up a few times. Vader couldn't pin him. Kane hit the tombstone and got the pin. Afterwards, Kane snapped and whacked Vader with a huge wrench, a shot that looked pretty good. First a hammer, now a wrench. * Steve Austin & Owen Hart & Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie beat Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Billy Gunn & Roaddog & mystery partner: In one week, the WWF blew more climaxes than a rookie porn star. First, the totally anticlimactic Tyson announcement. Then, after the big build up, the announcement that, yes, Savio Vega would be the mystery partner here, replacing Shawn Michaels. Obviously, the match had been booked with a lot of brawling that required one-on-one pairings, so an eighth guy seemed necessary. Maybe the handicap situation would have made the DX team draw babyface heat (not likely). Well, the announcement was garbage. Oh, and the match had its fair share of garbage wrestling in it too. They brawled for ten minutes, nonsensically and sloppily, using lots of objects that wrestlers had brought to ringside. Cactus Jack was wrapped in barbed wire. The brawling sequence is a smart move to protect Austin: Austin seems involved in the action, gets away with doing skilless low-risk brawling, lots of action distracts the audience away from Austin's poor shape. Finally, Cactus made the hot tag to Austin, who rather quickly hit the stunner on the Road Dog for the pin. After the match, Austin was confronted by Chyna, who shoved him and earned a stunner for herself. RAW was a one hour show from Texas, airing in Canada Monday at midnight EST and on Saturday in the US. US RAW was preempted for a dog show. It appears that the Saturday US broadcast will be a two-hour show. In any case, we saw the Quebecers beat the Legion of Doom by countout when the New Age Outlaws interfered, leading to the LOD running off. The Outlaws come out with a dumpster, tossed Hawk inside, and sat on top to trap him while Animal was worked over in the ring. The commentary pushed the idea that the LOD would finally be facing only two wrestlers tonight, hinting that the "gang warfare" of the WWF has caused them to lose their focus. All of this talk is a way of building to the return of Paul Ellering. Ken Shamrock beat Recon of the Truth Commission. Weak match. Afterwards, Jackyl lectured Recon, slapped him, and turned away, with Recon looking like he wanted to attack him. Marc Mero & Sable were interviewed, apparently having reconciled their differences from the night before. In mid-interview, flowers from a "secret admirer" were delivered to Sable, who ended up walking out on Mero, who chased after her. Actually, the flowers were sent by her plastic surgeon, who wants to thank her for financing his new summer home. Cactus Jack & Terry Funk beat Goldust (in his Goldust garb) & Marc Mero. The commentators tell us that Jack & Terry wanted to wrestle this match legitimately. So, Terry did a small package and Cactus did a go-behind hammer lock reversal. Other than that it was the same old nonsense. Finally, Sable came out with her flowers, distracting Marc & Goldust & the ref, and when Goldust turned around he met a scientific chair shot from Cactus, setting up the pin. The show ended with an interview by Steve Austin. Earlier on, they'd announced that DX was going to file assault charges against Austin for stunning Chyna. Austin addressed that, saying that when you cross the ring ropes you are in his world; he also talked about Michaels missing the PPV to be at home and train for WrestleMania. Nitro was a three hour show, once again condensed to two hours for Canada. Talk persists that TSN is considering carrying the full Nitro show, but for the time being we are left with sometimes-butchered two hour versions. What aired here: * The dedication to Louie Spicolli, who passed away on Sunday. It was nice to see them acknowledge Louie's passing. * Perry Saturn beat Rick Martel, who replaced Disco Inferno, who was laid out by La Parka. * Bill Goldberg beat Hugh Morrus, who must be really happy since returning to the promotion. * Kevin Nash & Scott Hall power bombed the returning Public Enemy through a table at ringside, with Nash getting arrested in the process. The idea of all of this, of course, it to make the power bomb Nash's move by taking it away from everybody else and to get the move over by having a big hubbub occur every time he does it. To me, it shows how crappy Nash is by reminding me he only has one move. Public Enemy had no time to look either good or bad here, so there's no telling if they'll improve. * Barbarian beat Meng by kicking him in the face four times in a bad match. * Curt Hennig beat Bobby Eaton in a nothing match. * Steiners beat Marcus Bagwell & Scott Norton by DQ. * Rick Martel beat Booker T to win the TV Title, after Saturn's interference assisted Martel. JJ Dillon announced that Martel would face Booker at the PPV on Sunday, with the winner having to defend the title against Saturn on the same show. Why the second defence isn't on Nitro the next night is a mystery. It's like they actually try to make JJ look like a moron. * In the best Monday night match of the week, Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko beat Chris Jericho & Eddie Guerrero whin Jericho tapped out to Malenko. This was just super, leaving me to think they should form a new division with just these guys in it. Call it the Herb division. * Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage faced Sting & Lex Luger in the main event, which of course turned into an everybody-runs-in situation in seconds. The final show was of team WCW - Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Sting & Luger - standing in the ring. There are plans to team up Flair & Hart against the NWO later in the year. Thunder this week was live as usual. Quick run-down. The show opened with Bill Goldberg beating Dave Finlay in a short match; Goldberg has three moves and a lot of screaming and intensity, but he sure seems over. Finlay did a great job of putting Goldberg over. Chavo Guerrero Jr. lost to Psicosis after a top rope leg drop. I was happy with that result; they did little to point out that Chavo & Psicosis have a rivalry from recent booking results. Booker T beat Scotty Riggs with an axe kick. They hyped a new move from Booker T, the 110th Street Slam, but Booker never did anything new, even though the commentators were saying "this must be it!" As usual, everybody is not on the same page. Juventud Guerrera avenged his loss against Billy Kidman from last week, getting the win this time with the 450 splash in a good match. Chris Jericho ran in after the match and attacked Juventud, taking off his mask; Juvi has obviously been watching his old Bullet Bob Armstrong tapes and was wearing a second mask underneath. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall faced Mike Enos & Wayne Bloom with the usual result: Nash was led off in handcuffs after a power bomb. Curt Hennig & Bryan Adams, who debuted on Monday Nitro as an NWO member by attacking Bret Hart, had an impromptu brawl with Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart. Everything Hennig & Smith did looked pretty good; everything that Neidhart & Adams did looked pretty bad. La Parka beat Super Calo and chaired Disco Inferno after the match; Disco seemed to run into the ring a bit early, so the ending was sort of funny. Dean Malenko lost to Chris Jericho in a great Herb division match-up ;-). Before the match, Jericho seemed to drop the mask stipulation from his match against Juventud on Sunday, saying that Juvi was so ugly it would be bad for his Jerichoholics to see him unmasked. Chris Benoit & Diamond Dallas Page beat Raven & Saturn in a heated match that was great whenever Benoit did absolutely anything. Page overacted throughout the match and Raven & Saturn were just sort of there. Finish saw Page hit the Diamond Cutter on Raven while Benoit put the Crippler Crossface on Saturn for the tap out. The advertised main event was Randy Savage vs. Sting, hyped throughout the show despite the fact that Savage had been laid out by the NWO earlier in the show when he was caught talking to Lex Luger. At 10:05pm EST, when the show is supposed to end, they started the segment that was to contain this match. Of course, there was no match. The NWO carried out a comatose Savage, who was wearing a Sting mask. The laid him in the middle of the ring and suggested that he had seen the errors of his way. Eventually, Sting and Luger came out and chased them off. They were trying to build some mystery for the PPV on Sunday: Luger & Savage are supposed to meet in a no DQ match, so why were they talking? It didn't really work, as the whole story line, as yet totally unclear, was very confusing. - Dok Hendriks, Sable & Marc Mero will be on "Off The Record" tomorrow (Friday) night. They'll also do stints on the shopping channel. - WCW has SuperBrawl VIII on Sunday. Tentative line-up * Sting vs. Hulk Hogan to decide the vacant WCW Title * Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage in a no DQ bout * Steiners vs. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall for the WCW Tag Titles * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chris Benoit for the US Title * Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera with the Cruiserweight Title vs. Juventud's mask * Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell * Booker T vs. Rick Martel for the TV Title * Perry Saturn vs. TV champion for the TV Title After the PPV, house shows will feature Diamond Dallas Page & Chris Benoit vs. Raven & Saturn tag matches, leading one to a depressing conclusion regarding the finish of the US Title match. Giant will appear on the show to give a progress report on his recovery from Nash's power bomb. - Today, WCW made the cover of the Globe & Mail, Canada's national newspaper. It's not what you think. In a column on the US bobsled team, they mention Chip Minton, saying that "Mr. World Class" wrestles for "Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling." There's a photo inset of Minton wearing a WCW cap and growling for the camera, with caption, "Chip Minton: U.S. pushman works part-time as a wrestler." - Word is that John Tenta will actually come into the WWF after his try-out matches earlier this week. - New Japan had a big show at Budokan Hall on 02/15/98. Results saw * Jushin Liger & Kendo Ka Shin & El Samurai beat Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, with Liger pinning Takaiwa * Naoya Ogawa beat Don Frye, who attacked Ogawa after the match. Antonio Inoki made the save. There's a lot of speculation that Inoki wants Ogawa to be his retirement match opponent, which makes the rest of the crew unhappy since they'll have to lose to him in the tournament to determine who gets the honour. Since Ogawa has lost his newness, nobody wants to job to him. * Osamu Nishimura beat NWO Sting * Manabu Nakanishi beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan * Curt Hennig pinned Satoshi Kojima * Shinya Hashimoto pinned Big Titan * Scott Norton pinned Kensuke Sasaki * Keiji Muto got a figure-four submission from Kazuo Yamazaki * Shiro Koshinaka beat Masa Chono Originally, Hashimoto was slated to face NWO Sting, with Nishimura facing Hiro Saito. But with Chono bringing in Big Titan as the NWO's huge foreigner, they shuffled the matches around a bit. - All Japan has a big show at Budokan Hall on 02/28/98. Line-up features * Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Johnny Ace for the Triple Crown * Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Steve Williams & Gary Albright for the Double Tag Titles - Rey Misterio has had knee surgery and is expected to be out until July. - There is some pressure from Raven & co. to bring in Jake Roberts. - Last week, in mentioning the Tyson press conference, I apparently gave Mike Tyson too much credit. I suggested that he had the intellectual capacity to know that he should turn around for the photo op where he held Steve Austin & Shawn Michaels apart. The Observer reports: "It built to Michaels and Austin challenging each other and looking as if they wanted to go at it, with Tyson and Shane McMahon (who is said to now be a close confidante of Tyson's) holding them apart. As this was going on, because Tyson had his back to the multitude of TV cameras during the key scene of the show, Vince McMahon screamed, "Ring the f---in bell," (whoops, wrong story). Actually he screamed, "Turn around, Mike." - Apparently, when Johnny Ace worked his WWF try-out match, he didn't come to the promotion with any sort of offer from All Japan to counter Vince's ludicrous request. As a result, most people are figuring that the deal is dead before it ever happened, failing in all likelihood because neither promotion really understands the other. Irreconcilable differences. - - RAW 02/09 with a 4.6 rating against a 3.2 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. - PPV buy rates and revenue (in millions) for the WWF and WCW are presented in the following table. WCW WWF Past 6 Months Past Year Past 6 Months Past Year Average Buy Rate 0.82 0.96 0.64 0.69 Average PPV Revenue $2.61 $3.09 $1.84 $2.26 The 1998 PPV summary sheet looks like this: Date Show Buy Rate Gross Average Match Rating Median Match Rating Peak Match Rating matches >= * * * * 98/01/18 WWF Royal Rumble 0.92 (1) $2.94 2.38 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 6) 98/01/25 WCW Souled Out 1.00 (2) $3.20 1.92 * * * * * 11% (1 of 9) Footnotes: (1) WWF claims 1.03; (2) WCW claims 1.1 Detailed data is available. - The WWF has WrestleMania XIV on 03/29/98. Tentative line-up seems to include: * Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels with Mike Tyson as a ringside enforcer * Terry Funk & Cactus Jack vs. New Age Outlaws for the Tag Titles * Owen Hart vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley for the European Title * Rocky Maivia vs. Ken Shamrock for the IC Title * Taka Michinoku vs. Aguila for the Lightheavyweight Title * Justin Bradshaw vs. Jaff Jarrett for the NWA North American Title * Undertaker vs. Kane Pete Rose will appear as a celebrity guest. The plan is to have WrestleMania feature the blow-off matches for many of the current feuds. The WWF is going to bump the price for this show to $34.95. - The WWF has In Your House on 04/26/98. - All Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 05/01/98. During the February tour, the promotion is giving various outsiders try-out matches. - WCW has Slamboree on 05/17/98. It was originally going to take place in Toronto, with a Hulk Hogan vs. Bret Hart main event, but Eric Bischoff believes that the slow build that led to the great buy rate for Sting vs. Hulk Hogan is the way to go. As a result, Bret vs. Hogan in Canada will happen later in the year. - The WWF has In Your House on 05/31/98. - The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/28/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 07/26/98. - The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/30/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 09/27/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 10/18/98. - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/15/98. - The WWF has In Your House on 12/13/98. - Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request. ______________________________________________________________________ Thanks to: Masaki Aso. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. 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