June 24, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Dick
Murdoch bio, one of the best PPVs of all time put on by
WCW, Best of the Super Junior tournament, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 24 June 1996 23:57
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 June 24, 1996
It should come as no secret that many pro wrestlers aren't anything like what they are
portrayed on television. Others take from their natural personality and do things to
exaggerate those qualities to become their wrestling personality. In the case of a few,
what you see on television as far as personality is actually the real deal.
Dick Murdoch was almost exactly like the character he portrayed on television.
Sometimes charming. Sometimes obnoxious. Often times hilarious. Always a character.
Always the center of attention. He was a legendary story teller, whether they were true or
not was usually irrelevant, and everyone who met him had their own set of stories to tell
about him. He was one of the great workers of his era. He was a legitimate household
name in Japan, having spent more time in Japan than any foreign wrestler in history
with the exception of Stan Hansen, Abdullah the Butcher and Tiger Jeet Singh. While he
was a star virtually everywhere he went, he was the type of a performer whose talents
were more appreciated and even raised more awe among his fellow wrestlers than to
most of the fans. Although his looks, physique and facial expressions made him a classic
heel, he actually achieved his best success as a drawing card in places like West Texas
and the old Mid South territory as almost a classic kick-ass character babyface.
Hart Richard Murdoch passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack shortly after
midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning, technically in the wee hours on 6/15. He
was 49. He had promoted and wrestled a show the previous night at the old Amarillo
Sports Arena, the same building he practically grew up in as a child watching his father,
Frankie Hill Murdoch, in a legendary area feud against Dory Funk--well before anyone
called him Dory Sr. Murdoch had a backer and was set to run a series of shows this
summer at the Sports Arena called "Blast from the Past Wrestling," with this past week's
show being the third of the series. The night of his death, he was competing in a rodeo
doing bull roping as part of the Coors Team Roping Association, also in Amarillo. As
perhaps America's No. 1 consumer of Coors Light, it was customary to go out after the
rodeo and drink with the guys, well, actually it was customary for Murdoch to drink all
day most any day, but he told his wife that he wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home.
She found him dead on the couch at their home in Canyon, TX, near Amarillo, later that
evening. It was not an unfamiliar story in Amarillo, as a generation earlier, two other
area legendary area wrestlers and tough-guys, Mike DiBiase and Dory Funk Sr., both of
whom were still active, passed away in Amarillo from heart attacks.
The news was a shock to everyone in wrestling, however apparently Murdoch's blood
pressure in recent months had been sky high, and he had gained even more weight.
When he wrestled his final match in Japan on 5/23, he looked almost like an
exaggerated version of himself. Funeral services were held on 6/17 in his hometown of
Canyon, TX.
Dory Funk Jr. knew Murdoch, who was born August 16, 1946 in Amarillo, from when
Murdoch was four years old and Dory was eight. Murdoch traveled around the circuit
with his father from the age of five and the two would see each other at the matches and
see their respective fathers duke it out in the early 1950s. The first incarnation of the
Funk-Murdoch Amarillo feud was so heated that during one calendar year, they
headlined the Amarillo Sports Arena, a small old-time wrestling all that was legendary
world wide among wrestlers for its atmosphere, in singles matches 30 of the 52 weekly
shows. Murdoch was a wild kid even then, running around ringside, throwing chairs,
wanting to hop the rail, and basically being rambunctious and misbehaving. Those traits
never left him, as he was famous within wrestling for people who went out with him for
doing, well, almost exactly what people who watched wrestling on television would
assume Dick Murdoch would do after he had a few beers in him.
If he was outside the ring exactly what he looked like on television to the fans, a beer
drinking crazy *******, he was exactly the opposite inside the ring.
Despite having a physique, which the joke was, looked like a grape balancing on two
sticks, at about 6-foot-3 and weighing anywhere from 260 to probably upwards of 300 in
recent years, Murdoch was among the best workers of his era, certainly among the top
ten in the United States during the late 70s, and probably one of the most versatile
workers of all-time. If need be, he could exchange holds on the mat in an entertaining
manner. As a brawler, he was right up there with Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody as the
top of his era. Despite not looking the part, when he wanted to, he could go up for
dropkicks, leapfrogs and flying head scissors. He was equally effective as a performer as
both a babyface and a heel. Many people talk about the night in Knoxville in 1994 when
he wrestled Bob Armstrong and Armstrong held him in a headlock for 23 straight
minutes and Murdoch knew so many tricks of working in and out of a headlock that they
kept the audience entertained. And when one throws in aspects of working such as
timing, both timing of moves and when to do moves to get maximum response out of
them, crowd psychology and facial expressions, he could best be described, as a worker
the calibre of a Terry Funk that put himself at less physical risk than Funk did. He
probably threw the single best worked punch in the business, and probably one of the
best shoot punches as well if need be outside the ring. And he appeared to have
phenomenal stamina, at least considering how his physique looked, working many
60:00 singles matches during his career, including a few all-time classics at the age of 40
in the Mid South territory in world title matches against Ric Flair. Others would say it
wasn't so much he had great stamina but simply a combination of knowing when to pick
his spots and simply having the guts to work through the exhaustion barrier. Of course,
he was all that on his good days.
When he was in the mood to clown around, which was a lot of the time, particularly as
he got older, he could clown around and get the crowd going as well as almost anyone.
And when he was in the mood to have a stinker of a match, he was strong and tough
enough that his opponent wasn't about to be able to get him to do anything.
And that was the enigma of him. He was strong without looking strong. Agile while
looking anything but. And he was a great natural athlete, without any formal athletic
background.
One story wrestlers from West Texas love to talk about revolved around a West Texas
State alumni football game in the 70s. During his wrestling career, Murdoch was always
billed as a former football player from West Texas State, the college that produced
numerous wrestling stars such as The Funks, Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, Dusty
Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, Tully Blanchard, Manny Fernandez, Tito Santana and Bobby
Duncum. That was one of the few things about him that was a work. Since he was from
the Amarillo area, it just naturally fit when he worked out of the area since the college
built up a mystique in some territories because of the number of successful pro wrestlers
who came out of it, and also because he regularly teamed with Rhodes during the early
part of his career and in many ways was best known in certain parts of the country for
his long-time association with Rhodes, who was the Southeast's No. 1 attraction at the
time. The fact was, Murdoch never even played football in high school. Anyway, being
the b.s. artist and tough guy that he was, he talked his way into an alumni game claiming
he was a former middle linebacker at the school, and played in the game, and the story
in town was that he was so good that they thought he was too rough on the football
players. He was just a large coordinated guy with a lot of guts, whose athletic talents
were in unique events such as the ability to hit a sign on the road with a beer bottle every
time out while driving at 75 miles per hour.
While he was successful almost everywhere he went until the inevitable slow down that
comes with age, he gained his most fame and made his biggest paydays in Japan. As
several wrestlers of today have lucked out financially by being at the right contract stage
at the greatest time ever to be a top wrestler in America, Murdoch was in much the same
position in Japan.
In the early 80s, New Japan and All Japan were at war. Murdoch had been a top star
with All Japan from his debut in 1973, capping it off by winning the United National title
(one of the three titles that comprises today's Triple Crown) from Jumbo Tsuruta on
February 23, 1980, and dropping it back two weeks later. At the time Antonio Inoki of
New Japan was doing a promotional gimmick of creating a tournament to determine the
real world championship, to be called the IWGP title, with a world wide tournament. To
get his new title over as something more than just another promotion creating a world
title, Inoki tried to create the illusion (sound familiar) that it was open to wrestlers from
different companies and to get this illusion over, top stars that had never worked for
New Japan before or had never worked in Japan before needed to be involved. And in
particular, wrestlers that had worked for rival All Japan needed to be involved to give it
the credibility he wanted. New Japan then raided All Japan of its of its top foreign stars,
Murdoch and Abdullah the Butcher, to get the tournament idea over, with Murdoch
debuting on August 21, 1981 with his new employer, with a very lucrative by the
standards of the time contract paying him $7,000 per week and he remained one of New
Japan's top regulars until they stopped using him in August of 1989.
With New Japan, Murdoch was always one of the top pushed foreigners, but promoted
at a level below the megastars such as Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant, more on the level
of people like Adrian Adonis or Masked Superstar, who were top workers and solid
attractions for New Japan. These were the types who would work the six-mans on top
most nights of the tour, occasionally work programs back-and-forth with Tatsumi
Fujinami (the group's No. 2 babyface), and get a rare singles main event and lose to
Inoki, including once in the finals of the 1986 IWGP singles tournament.
It was in Japan that Murdoch's second most famous tag team was born, with Adonis.
The two were similar in many ways. Unique physiques that belied their ability. Good
charisma but not big drawing power charisma. Excellent workers. Both made their
national reputations originally the same way. Murdoch by tagging with a
supercharismatic Dusty Rhodes in Michigan and more so in the AWA, being the team
workhouse to compensate for Rhodes' weakness as a worker. Adonis the exact same way,
only with Jesse Ventura. Billed as the North South Connection, the two became the top
foreign tag team with New Japan during the television glory days of the promotion when
it was on network television in prime time every Saturday night doing monster ratings.
Because of him always being in a top match, his unique character nicknamed the "Super
Rodeo Machine" and the television visibility, it made him a household name in Japan
even though he was never in the top draw position, and kept his career alive in Japan
until his death.
Murdoch & Adonis went to the finals of the Madison Square Garden tag team
tournament in 1983, New Japan's counter to All Japan's traditional World Tag League
event in December, losing to the dream team of Inoki & Hogan. As was traditional, Vince
McMahon Sr. attended the final nights of the tour and it wasn't long before the two were
put together in the WWF as well, with vignettes being done of two totally opposite
personalities being put together. They captured the WWF tag team titles from Rocky
Johnson & Tony Atlas at TV tapings in April 1984 in Hamburg, PA, and held them until
January 21, 1985, losing to Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo. While holding the belts,
they continued to work regularly for New Japan as well, including going to the finals of
the 1984 MSG tournament, losing to Inoki & Fujinami. Since they no longer held the
WWF world belts as a team, New Japan created a new tag team title, the WWF
International tag team titles (the predecessor of today's IWGP tag team titles), and
Murdoch & Adonis were made the first champions, although they almost immediately
dropped the titles to Fujinami & Kengo Kimura. Murdoch left the WWF in 1985 to
return to Bill Watts' Mid South Wrestling, where he had his greatest success as a
babyface in the late 70s as the territory's top star, partially due to politics as the
WWF/New Japan relationship was falling apart and Murdoch was a bigger star in Japan
than in the WWF while Adonis stayed in the WWF, put on an enormous amount of
weight and did the gay gimmick. At that point Murdoch formed a tag team with
Superstar. After Adonis left the WWF and dropped some weight in 1988, the duo was
put back together in Japan, including losing an IWGP tag title match to Riki Choshu &
Masa Saito just two weeks before Adonis' untimely death in an auto accident.
New Japan in the mid-80s was a crazy place to be with all the various styles blended
together. It was the infancy of what is now called shoot style, with the likes of Akira
Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Nobuhiko Takada educating the fans to a new style,
which few foreigners could do and even fewer in those days wanted to learn. Yet it was
Murdoch, who picked up the exchanging submissions almost immediately and was one
of the few wrestlers who could work the new style, and had the respect of the younger
wrestlers as a tough enough guy who would have no fear in punching them in the nose if
anyone tried to get cute.
"He had the most powerful six-inch punch," said Jim Cornette, who liked Murdoch so
much when he managed him in 1987 for Jim Crockett Promotions that he frequently
brought him into Smoky Mountain Wrestling as a secret weapon on major shows. "I
could hold my tennis racquet six inches from him and he'd throw a punch that you
wouldn't even see that would knock it clear across the room. He was the strongest guy
for how he looked."
However in a worked situation, Murdoch had the rep for throwing the best looking
punch in the business, but his opponent would never even feel it.
"I can't think of anyone today to compare him to in that he could get something out of
anyone," said Cornette. "I'd book him in matches and put myself at ringside just so I
could watch. He was hilarious."
Murdoch's first tour of Japan was for Yoshinosato's old Japanese Wrestling Alliance in
February of 1968. He continued with that promotion through 1972, when, working for
the AWA, he and Rhodes toured for the International Wrestling Enterprises which was
affiliated with the AWA, during 1973. He switched to Giant Baba's All Japan Pro
Wrestling in 1973 and remained there until the New Japan jump. After New Japan,
Murdoch worked his way around the indie scene touring for FMW, IWA, W*ING and
WAR with his final match in Japan being on 5/23 for Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi
where he faced the company's namesake in the main event at Korakuen Hall. Tokyo Pro
Wrestling owner Takashi Ishikawa had planned to sign Murdoch this year to build him
back up for a legends feud with Abdullah the Butcher. In all, Murdoch made 54 tours of
Japan.
It was in Mid South Wrestling where Murdoch picked up the guise of Captain *******.
Billed as a former U.S. Marine, which was also a work as Murdoch started in pro
wrestling as a referee right after his 1964 high school graduation and never looked back,
he did a ******* gimmick as a heel tag team with veteran Killer Karl Kox (Herb Gerwig).
Kox, who was 17 years older than Murdoch, did the teacher/student gimmick with him,
with the two capturing the old United States tag titles from Danny Hodge & Jay Clayton.
Next came the inevitable split-up and what was probably the most famous singles feud
of his career.
Murdoch's babyface push came largely from area booker Bill Watts, who at the time had
not yet taken over the territory run by former wrestling legend Leroy McGuirk. Watts
was the top babyface and wanted to slow down, and figured Murdoch, doing the
patriotic former marine ******* gimmick would work great in the Arkansas, Oklahoma
and Louisiana territory. From late 1975 through mid-1977, Murdoch was the area's top
babyface, largely feuding with Kox in what are still thought of today as some of the
greatest matches ever in that area and the feud climaxed in several matches that drew
huge crowds of more than 15,000 at the Louisiana Superdome. It was in this guise where
Murdoch picked up the brainbuster, Kox's finisher, as his pet hold. The strange part is
sometimes, amidst the wild brawling and the blood, in matches that fans watching say
looked as close to real as any matches they ever saw in the territory, Murdoch would at
various opportune times tell a joke and try to crack Kox up. He was forever clowning in
the ring, sometimes doing his Curley of the three stooges sell job. Often in Japan when
working with an American, he'd loudly tell jokes in the quiet arenas in the middle of his
matches that most of the fans couldn't understand. The teacher/student angle was one
of Watts' favorite as he would regularly recreate it as a way to push a new babyface, and
the role was recreated with Murdoch in the teacher role for Ted DiBiase, with the
eventual turn, leading to Murdoch returning home to Amarillo.
Murdoch had already been a top draw for Dory & Terry Funk as an occasional headliner
in Amarillo. He grew up in the city, where his father had been the long-time top heel. He
started out as a referee there right out of high school. One time, during a match where
Sputnik Monroe was facing Duke Myers, a big cowboy got in the ring to go after Sputnik.
Monroe kept his cool and started shadow-boxing and entertaining the crowd, but
judging from the size of the guy, he probably would have killed Sputnik if they locked up
which would have been an embarrassment to the wrestling business in that era.
Murdoch, then 18, jumped in front of Sputnik and beat the hell out of the way and
hurled him out of the ring. That was probably not the first time something like that
happened, and definitely not the last. People remember that in the late 1970s, when
Murdoch was a regular either on top or second from the top in St. Louis, flying in from
whatever territory he was working, that Sam Muchnick could count on about once a year
getting a phone call early the next morning after a show about a fight in the bar, usually
the story ended with one punch being thrown, by Murdoch, and the fight was over. At
that point in time, the biggest draw in St. Louis was Dick the Bruiser, and many credit
wrestlers like Murdoch and Harley Race with their great working ability for keeping
Bruiser's mystique and drawing power alive in main events long after it should have left
him. While Japanese lore has it that Murdoch's first professional match was against Bob
Geigel in Kansas City in 1965, he probably had some matches on the road in the Amarillo
territory before going up to Kansas City and later into Tennessee where he formed a tag
team with Don Carson. The general consensus was in 1965, after working nightly and
training under Geigel and Pat O'Connor, he became a good worker before his 20th
birthday and was the 1965 NWA rookie of the year.
He reprised his fathers' feud, working against both Dory Sr. and Terry in Amarillo, and
occasionally facing Dory Jr. when he was NWA world champion. Since Amarillo was
never a big money territory, Murdoch would come home for a while, but then depart, but
kept building his local name over the years until he became a top drawing card.
"When he was away and would come back, we'd book him against whoever the top guy
was in the territory and we'd always figure on it drawing a sellout," remembered Dory
Jr., who along with Terry owned the Amarillo territory after the death of their father.
After the big run in Mid South, Murdoch, Bob Windham (Blackjack Mulligan) and Mario
Savoldi bought the Amarillo territory from the Funks and ran it for three years, largely
around Murdoch and Mulligan. The first year was good. The second and third weren't.
The group lost so much in the bad years that it resulted in the end of the long history of
the Amarillo territory. It took years, even with Murdoch earning a six-figure income
working part-time in Japan and being a top star in the U.S. in the interim, for Murdoch
to get out of the financial mess the last two years of the territory created for him.
Before Captain *******, The Super Rodeo Machine and the North South Connection
were the Texas Outlaws--Dirty Dick Murdoch and Dirty Dusty Rhodes. The two came
together shortly after Rhodes broke into pro wrestling after playing some semi-pro
football. The two first went into Detroit in late 1969. Patterned after the duo of Dick the
Bruiser, an all-time legend in Detroit, & The Crusher, being two large brawling bullies,
the two won the area's version of the NWA world tag team title from Ben Justice & The
Stomper. After that they went into Florida for the first time, then to Australia, and
achieved their greatest fame during a several year run in the AWA as the No. 2 heel tag
team behind Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens. Their role was basically as a stepping
stone team, in that they would put over a babyface team, which would give the team
credibility and earn them the title shot at Stevens & Bockwinkel, usually on the show the
following month. The two heel teams eventually met in a series of matches where
Rhodes' babyface charisma first became apparent. During this period, the two had a
second run in Florida. After Rhodes hit it big as a babyface in Florida in 1974, Murdoch
would frequently come into town for short, and occasionally long stints, usually to help
Rhodes in a feud, then to turn on Rhodes out of jealousy of Rhodes' popularity.
During the AWA run came the movie, "The Wrestler," a nearly totally forgettable film
produced by Verne Gagne except for the bar scene where a karate guy (played by the late
Harold "Oddjob Tosh Togo" Sakata) kept making fun of Rhodes & Murdoch until they
responded with a campy bar fight scene ending with Togo and a Japanese cohort being
slammed through a juke box.
Murdoch also had a cameo doing wrestling scenes in the Sylvester Stallone movie
"Paradise Alley." While flying from Los Angeles with Dory Funk, where the movie was
being made, to San Francisco, where both were scheduled to appear in a Roy Shire
Battle Royal at the Cow Palace, the two were in first class drinking and telling loud
stories and basically being obnoxious and annoying everyone on the plane, while
apparently being oblivious to everything around them. As the plane landed, Dory
noticed that right next to him on the plane was Bob Hope. He and Murdoch then started
talking to Hope, but when the plane door opened, Hope probably did the quickest sprint
at his even then advanced age out the door.
Perhaps his most memorable angle of the 1980s came in late 1985 on one of the single
greatest one hour wrestling television shows ever. Ric Flair came into Mid South
Wrestling as NWA champion to work at the Irish McNeill Boys Club against Ted
DiBiase, who was then a heel. Murdoch at the time was a babyface, and had just lost the
North American title a few weeks earlier. Still, fans knew of their past teacher/student
relationship. Murdoch came out and asked DiBiase to step aside and let him get the title
shot. DiBiase refused. Murdoch posted DiBiase, who bled like crazy and was carted off.
Bill Watts did a legendary interview warning fans that a pressure bandage has been put
on DiBiase, but he was going to wrestle, but if the bandage came off, he was warning
everyone that it would get very bloody and talked about DiBiase's guts in just taking the
match and comparing it to the lack of guts of Roberto Duran in the no mas boxing match
with Sugar Ray Leonard. Of course DiBiase bled again, came close, but ultimately lost
the title match when he took a bump over the top and basically collapsed on the floor
due to loss of blood. After the match, Murdoch gave him two brainbusters on the floor,
turning himself heel and DiBiase babyface, and allowing them both to leave the territory
because of Japan tag team tournament commitments--Murdoch being suspended,
DiBiase billed as suffering a potential career ending injury.
Murdoch and Watts always had something of a love/hate relationship. Watts would
bring Murdoch in and Murdoch, when motivated, got the job done in the ring and on the
mic. But Watts was a disciplinarian and Murdoch lived by his own rules, which were
basically doing what he wanted when he wanted. One week, trying to make a point,
when Murdoch was on top and the territory had a big money week, Watts fined
Murdoch, who arrived late a few nights and no-showed a date everything he was to earn
that week except $1, and gave him a $1 check to get his attention. The final break-up
occurred in 1986, one year before Watts sold the territory to Jim Crockett. Murdoch was
taking another West Texas State football alumnus with a wrestling family background,
Kelly Kiniski, under his wing (in real life, not in the storyline). He felt Watts was treating
Kiniski unfairly, particularly when he fired Kiniski as part of a numbers crunch.
Murdoch spoke up because in firing Kiniski, Watts kept two bodybuilders with no
wrestling talent because he felt they had more long term potential. The two bodybuilders
were Jim Hellwig and Steve Borden. Murdoch liked to tell the story, whether true or not
is probably another story, that during a run with Watts, the two were together at a bar
after the show and Watts was reading the bible. Murdoch asked if he really truly believed
in it and Watts said yes. Then he asked him if he really believed in the ten
commandments and Watts said yes. Then he asked him what about the one about "Thou
shalt not steal." And as Murdoch's story went, that's when Watts said, "you're fired."
In recent years, Murdoch had continued to work smaller promotions in Japan and
worked independent shows throughout the cities that comprised the old Mid South
territory and in Texas. He had moved to Walsenburg, CO for a few years where he
operated a bar, but in 1995 moved back to Amarillo and was married once again. He had
a passion for steer roping and in his heyday as a wrestler had little time to do it, so he
had more time in recent years
In early 1995, he got another shot with the WWF, appearing in the Royal Rumble and
working some house shows as a manager for Bob Backlund, largely at the request of
Razor Ramon. Ramon was doing a house show program with Backlund, and figured that
it was impossible to have a match with Backlund, so instead he could work around
Backlund using Murdoch, the master at controlling a crowd, to control the match from
the outside. Apparently nobody had any idea of what to do with him and he made his
share of enemies complaining through all the television tapings as they continued to
bring him in, pay him, and not come up with anything for him to do, so eventually he
wasn't brought back. When it was suggested to bring Murdoch in as a manager for John
Hawk, when it was decided to give Hawk the Stan Hansen gimmick, because who could
teach someone to be Stan Hansen better than Dick Murdoch, but Dutch Mantel wound
up getting the nod.
***********************************************************
DICK MURDOCH CAREER TITLE HISTORY
Source: Wrestling Title Histories third edition
Editors note: This is a partial listing and complete records of the Amarillo territory
aren't available and Murdoch was one of that territories top drawing cards in the 70s
and was part owner of the territory in the late 70s
WWF tag team title: w/Adrian Adonis def. Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas April 17,
1984 in Hamburg, PA; lost to Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo January 21, 1985 in
Hartford, CT
WWF International tag team (Japan): w/Adrian Adonis became first champions
1985; lost to Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura May 24, 1985 in Kobe
NWA World tag team title (Michigan/Ohio version): w/Dusty Rhodes def. Ben
Justice & The Stomper (Guy Mitchell/Jerry Valiant/Jerry Heenan) March 21, 1970 in
Detroit; lost to Bobo Brazil & Lord Athol Layton August 8, 1970 in Detroit
NWA U.S. Tag team title: w/ Killer Karl Kox def. Danny Hodge & Jay Clayton
October, 1975; titles vacated when team split up; w/Ted DiBiase def. Buck Robley & Sgt.
Slaughter April 18, 1976 in Fort Smith, AR; lost to Killer Karl Kox & Bob Sweetan May
11, 1976 in Shreveport, LA; w/Ivan Koloff def. Ron Garvin & Barry Windham March 14,
1987 in Atlanta; title vacated April 1987 when Murdoch was suspended
United National heavyweight: def. Jumbo Tsuruta February 23, 1980 in
Kagoshima; lost to Tsuruta March 5, 1980 in Kurioso
International heavyweight: def. Ted DiBiase 1979; lost to Dory Funk April 1979 in
Kansas City; def. Blackjack Mulligan July 1979; promotion folded
North American heavyweight: def. Danny Miller June 5, 1975 in New Orleans, LA;
lost to Killer Karl Kox October 28 1975 in Shreveport, LA; def. Great Zimm (Waldo Von
Erich) March 1, 1977 in Shreveport, LA; lost to Stan Hansen May 2, 1977 in Tulsa, OK;
def. Bill Watts August 4, 1977; lost August, 1977 to Jerry Oates in fictitious match; def.
Oates November 6, 1977 in Shreveport; lost to Ernie Ladd February 14, 1978 in
Shreveport; def. The Nightmare (Randy Colley) August 10, 1985 in New Orleans; lost to
Butch Reed October 14, 1985 in New Orleans
Missouri State heavyweight: def. Ted DiBiase February 26, 1978 in St. Louis; lost to
Dick the Bruiser July 14, 1978 in St. Louis; def. Bruiser March 17, 1979 in St. Louis; lost
to Bruiser May 18, 1979 in St. Louis; def. Bruiser July 13, 1979 in St. Louis; lost to Kevin
Von Erich November 23, 1979 in St. Louis
WWC heavyweight: def. Invader #1 (Jose Gonzalez) October 25, 1992 in Bayamon,
PR; lost to Carlos Colon November 28, 1992 in Manati, PR
WWC TV: def. TNT (Savio Vega/Juan Rivera) November 23, 1991; lost to Invader #1
December 25, 1991; def. Invader #1 January 6, 1992 in San Juan; lost unknown
Mid South tag team title: w/Junkyard Dog def. Ernie Ladd & Bad Leroy Brown
March 30, 1981; title vacated by commission; w/Junkyard Dog def. The Grappler (Lynn
Denton) & Super Destroyer (Scott Irwin) April 27, 1981 in New Orleans; lost to Afa &
Sika 1981
Mid South Brass Knux title: def. Bob Sweetan 1975; lost to Killer Karl Kox 1975
Southern heavyweight: def. Terry Funk April 21, 1971 in Miami; lost to Jack Brisco
June 8, 1971 in Tampa
Florida tag team: w/Dusty Rhodes def. Jose Lothario & Argentina Apollo September
17, 1970 in Jacksonville; stripped of title December 1970; w/Bobby Duncum def. Larry
O'Day & Ron Miller October 21, 1971 in Tampa; lost to O'Day & Miller November 1971 in
Miami
Central States heavyweight: def. Buck Robley December 30, 1978 in Kansas City;
lost to Randy Alls (Randy Rose) January 2, 1979 in St. Joseph, MO; def. Bruiser Brody
May 22, 1980 in Kansas City; lost to Killer Karl Kox July 24, 1980 in Kansas City
North American tag team: w/Dusty Rhodes def. Tommy & Terry Martin November
7, 1968 in Kansas City; lost to Bob Geigel & The Viking (Bob Morse) December 27, 1968
in Kansas City; w/K.O. Kox (Bob Sweetan) def. Geigel & Viking May 8, 1969 in Kansas
City; lost to Luke Brown & Tor Kamata June 12, 1969 in Kansas City; def. Brown &
Kamata June 19, 1969 in Kansas City; lost to Luke Brown & Danny Little Bear June 31,
1969 in Kansas City; w/Bulldog Bob Brown def. Ernie Ladd & Bruiser Brody March 20,
1980 in Kansas City; lost to Takachiho (Great Kabuki) & Pak Song Nam April 17, 1980 in
Kansas City
Southwest heavyweight: def. The Lawman (Don Slatton) January 1, 1970 in
Amarillo, TX; lost unknown; def. unknown 1972; lost to Terry Funk July 13, 1972 in
Amarillo
Western States tag team: w/Bobby Duncum def. unknown 1972; lost to Lord Al
Hayes & Ricki Starr August 24, 1972 in Amarillo; w/Blackjack Mulligan def. unknown
1978; lost to Mr. Sato (Akio Sato) & Mr. Pogo November 30, 1978 in Amarillo
IWA World tag team (Australia): w/ Lars Anderson awarded titles October 1969;
lost to Brute Bernard & Skull Murphy December 5, 1969 in Sydney; w/Dusty Rhodes def.
Mark Lewin & Mario Milano January 21, 1971 in Sydney; lost to Mark Lewin & Killer
Kowalski March 1971
***********************************************************
WCW GREAT AMERICAN BASH POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 238 (97.9%)
Thumbs down 4 (01.7%)
In the middle 1 (00.4%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 108
Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan 69
McMichael & Greene vs. Flair & Anderson 19
WORST MATCH POLL
John Tenta vs. Big Bubba 102
Lex Luger vs. The Giant 20
Steiners vs. Norton & Ice Train 10
Konnan vs. El Gato 10
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Marcus Bagwell 9
Sting vs. Steve Regal 8
PANCRASE BRAWL IN BUDOKAN POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 106 (98.1%)
Thumbs down 2 (01.9%)
In the middle 0 (00.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten 78
Guy Mezger vs. Minoru Suzuki 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Semmy Shiltt vs. Manabu Yamada 18
Masakatsu Funaki vs. August Smisl 16
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 6/18.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
************************************************************
PPV shows come and go, with a few new ones every month. Whether they are good or
bad, because there are so many, few leave any kind of a lasting impression.
However, the WCW Great American Bash show on 6/16 was one of those rare
exceptions. It's hard to believe that a WCW show could be compared with shows on the
level of the J Cup, but this show, for angles, was the single best PPV show ever. For
wrestling, it was very good as well.
Even though there were several good to excellent matches, there were three angles that
stole the show.
1) Steve McMichael turned on Kevin Greene and became the fourth member of the
Horsemen
2) Kevin Nash choke slammed Eric Bischoff off the ramp and through a table after Scott
Hall punched him in the stomach
3) After Chris Benoit beat Kevin Sullivan in a falls count anywhere match that wound up
in a bathroom, Arn Anderson hit the ring and teased turning on Benoit, but instead
turned on Sullivan, which got an amazing crowd response
The show drew about 9,000 fans (7,323 paying $123,406), a figure which has to be a
disappointment considering the amount of hype aimed at the show and that it was in
Baltimore, which has traditionally drawn well for major WCW shows. Like the Pancrase
show two days earlier, the PPV had a bad break going head-to-head with the Chicago
Bulls losing games four and five, which is why they hyped the replay of the show so
heavily on Nitro.
Dusty Rhodes, who was nowhere to be found until minutes before the show went on the
air, came up with his strongest performance as an announcer on the show. It's always
easier to be a good announcer when the show is clicking, and Tony Schiavone was good
as well, although there was a spot where he was hyping the Bash at the Beach and
brought up last year's fiasco, saying that there were 100,000 fans at the show last year.
At that point his nose grew to about the size of the state of Montana.
Speaking of announcers, Pedro Morales, who does the spanish language broadcasts on
PPV for WCW, was injured after the show. They had set up several gimmicked tables for
when it was time for Bischoff to take the bump, so in case he missed one, he'd hit
another. When Morales was coming back from the broadcast, he accidentally stepped on
one of the gimmicked tables, which collapsed and he fell four feet and landed on his
elbow. His elbow wound up all swollen and his hip, knee and back were all injured in the
ball, although he refused to go to the hospital.
Rhodes mentioned the death of Murdoch both at the beginning of the live Main Event
show, and again at the start of the PPV.
A. Rocco Rock (Ted Petty) pinned Jerry Sags (Jerry Seganowich) in 1:46. It was
scheduled as a tag match with Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys. Rock came out by himself
and said Johnny Grunge was injured and asked for a singles match and for the other guy
to go to the back. So Brian Knobs went to the back. The match was short and not all that
good, ending when Grunge came from under the ring and hit Sags with his cast to lead to
the pin. Grunge's injury was actually a broken thumb suffered in the 6/7 match in
Buffalo.
B. V.K. Wallstreet (Mike Rotunda) pinned Jim Powers (James Manley) with a Samoan
drop in 3:07.
C. Jim Duggan pinned Disco Inferno (Glen Gilberti) in 2:09 with a clothesline in a total
squash.
Ric Flair did a great interview at the end of the TV show. The only reason I bring this up
was because he did his bright lights, bit cities routine and when he said big cities, he
looked down Liz' top and everyone had to bite their lip to keep from cracking up.
1. Rick & Scott Steiner (Robert & Scott Rechsteiner) beat Ice Train (Harold Hoag) &
Scott Norton in 10:29. The crowd, which was dead during the pre-game show, got really
into the Steiners. The fans booed Fire & Ice although they didn't play heel at all. Scott
and Norton traded dropping each other on their shoulders at bad angles. Scott Steiner
was worked on for several minutes with Norton using both a shoulderbreaker and
Fujiwara armbar on him. Rick tagged in doing stiff clotheslines and a german suplex on
Norton. The two teams traded near falls with saves with a Japanese style finish until
Scott did a Frankensteiner on Norton for the pin. Very good Japanese style match but
until finishing move itself wasn't taken right. I can't believe they'd even think of trying to
have a guy the size of Norton even try to take a Frankensteiner. ***
2. Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) retained the U.S. title pinning El Gato (Patrick Tanaka) in
6:03 after a power bomb and jackknife cradle pin. Gato was billed from Cabo San Lucas
in Mexico this week after the angle last week was that he was from South America. I
guess once we cross the border and they're all foreigners it really doesn't matter. There
were boring chants. Konnan used a lot of submission moves that the American crowd
still doesn't understand since nobody has ever put them over and the announcers never
get them over. Highlight was him using a sunset flip over the top rope to the floor
turning into a power bomb on the floor which looked dangerous. **
Sting then did an interview for his match later in the show against Steve Regal. The only
reason it's noteworthy is because he was doing a really decent interview until he lost his
train of thought.
3. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) retained the Lord of the Rings ring pinning
Marcus Bagwell in 9:39. Page tried to get heat early by getting on the house mic and
knocking "Carl Ripken." Because Bagwell has such a lame gimmick, few people are
noticing what a great worker he's turning into. Page's matches are all well laid out. The
only weakness of this match is that Page tries in spots to sell like Terry Funk. Sometimes
it's good and sometimes it's bad and it was the latter toward the finish of this match.
Bagwell went for the fisherman suplex but Page hooked the ropes, then Page hit the
Diamond cutter for the pin. The crowd popped big so his finisher is getting over. **1/2
4. Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) retained the cruiserweight title pinning Rey Misterio Jr.
(Oscar Gonzales) in 17:50. This was the best wrestling match on the show and an
excellent technical match. It wasn't the right match to do in that it was a great Malenko
style mat wrestling match. Misterio Jr. showed he was versatile enough as a worker that
he be put in a position where he's not doing Mexican style and still have an excellent
match. However, it was Misterio Jr.'s debut and he's got far more potential to get over
and they should have to his stylistic strengths. Someone whose potential niche if he gets
over like Misterio Jr. as being more of an attraction star (like a reverse Andre the Giant)
and a kids and ethnic hero can't do any jobs until they are over or fans won't believe in
them, even as little as jobs mean nowadays. No matter how much charisma Chavez had,
if he had lost his first two big matches on American PPV, a 145-pound guy whose main
appeal was to Mexicans would have never become for a time the biggest box office draw
in boxing. Anyway, his "Tiger Mask" potential is already done to casual fans because
they saw him in his debut against what fans perceive as a mid-level guy and he lost
twice. After this match and even more after Nitro leaves one with the impression he's a
kid with a few cute moves but no threat to anyone important. Malenko did a great job
working on Misterio's left arm with various slams and submissions. However, by 10:00
in, fans were getting tired of it even though it was all solid and well executed. They
picked up for Misterio's big moves, including a springboard somersault to the floor, a
springboard dropkick and a Frankensteiner off the top before Malenko got the pin using
a power bomb with his legs on the ropes. Most in WCW that had never seen him before
and were skeptical of him seeing how small he was when he showed up wound up raving
about this match. However, he showed less charisma than I've seen of him in any match
in a long time. ****
5. John Tenta pinned Big Bubba (Ray Traylor) in 5:24 with a powerslam. They were put
in a bad spot following the previous match. Bubba worked harder than I've seen him
worker in a long time. But Tenta can't get over as a face and with all the TV time devoted
to this angle, nobody cared. After the match Tenta cut a little off Bubba's beard. *
6. Chris Benoit pinned Kevin Sullivan in a falls count anywhere match in 9:58. Just for
the record, all the bruises on Benoit and Sullivan's face on Nitro the next day were a
result of make-up applied and not because they actually hurt each other in the brawl.
They finally made Benoit a star and Dusty Rhodes was actually hilarious in his
commentary when the two were brawling in the bathroom. The brawl in the bathroom
(with real people in there doing what real people do in a real bathroom) was great,
particularly Sullivan slamming the bathroom door on Benoit's head. It was missing
Benoit flushing Sullivan's head down the toilet. They traded using a garbage fan. Finally
they came back to the ring, but not before Benoit rolled down the stairs. Sullivan kicked
Benoit low and crotched him on the guard rail. Benoit crotched Sullivan on the guard
rail. Benoit threw a table at Sullivan. Finally Benoit put the table on top rope and stood
on the table and superplexed Sullivan off the top for the pin. After the match Benoit
continued to beat on Sullivan until Anderson came down and threw him off. They teased
Anderson turning on Benoit, but instead Anderson and Benoit put the boots to Sullivan
and the crowd went totally nuts. Bubba, Maxx, Meng and Barbarian came out but
Anderson and Benoit were long gone. Anderson then did a great interview after the
match talking about he, Flair and Benoit being a united force. ****
7. Sting (Steve Borden) beat Steve Regal (Darren Matthews) with the scorpion in 16:30.
Regal has been on a roll on the mic of late. This match was for the most part Regal's one
man show and what a show he put on. When it comes to all facets of doing a realistic
looking totally worked wrestling match complete with some shtick and interviews, this
guy is probably the most complete performer in the company. Sting made the big
comeback after selling almost the entire way. ***1/2
8. Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) & Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) beat Steve McMichael &
Kevin Greene in 20:51. These four and Terry Taylor (who trained McMichael and Greene
with help from Flair and Anderson) deserve an enormous amount of credit. The idea of
putting two guys in their first match, even against Flair & Anderson and with the angle
and with notoriety, and going for 21:00 sounds like a recipe for a disaster. McMichael
and Greene did a great job considering their obvious limitations. They weren't exactly
Jun Akiyama in his first pro match, but they were both a hell of a lot better than much
praised debuts of Lawrence Taylor or Oleg Taktarov, or for that matter Booty Man, Jim
Duggan or even the Hulk Hogan of today after fifteen plus years in. They laid out a
tremendous match and nobody got off the page. We've seen plenty of PPV matches with
main event calibre performers against each other nowhere near as good as this. We've
certainly seen many matches when outsiders are brought in that wind up embarrassing
and also they use the outsiders to make the wrestlers look like fools. This match was put
together in a way where the football players got to look impressive using football skills to
knock the wrestlers around, and even use a double figure four and Greene used a suplex
and both football players used high backdrops, but not at the expense of making main
event talent look incompetent. The fact the crowd was largely pro-Flair & Anderson, but
that there were enough fans cheering the football players because of Randy Savage and
Bobby Heenan that the audience popped for every bit of offense by anyone made things
easier. The angle didn't hurt either. At one point Woman raked McMichael's eyes. Then
Debra McMichael and Tara Greene, the respective wives (boy is this going to get heat,
but people were calling here that didn't pay close attention to parts of the show and
thought Kevin Greene's wife was Steve & Debra's daughter), started arguing with
Woman and Elizabeth, then ran away from them with Woman and Elizabeth chasing
them to the back. Finally after Anderson clipped Greene's knee, Flair used the figure
four. Savage attacked Anderson, which brought out Benoit to attack Savage and they
worked on Savage. At this point Greene reversed the figure four while Debra McMichael,
in an expensive dress, came out with Woman and Elizabeth and a suitcase filled with
Savage's money. She convinced Steve McMichael to turn heel, a turn actually teased
twice during the match in the commentary as they made clear that after a career with the
Bears, McMichael played his final season with Green Bay and said he did it because they
offered him more money. He hit Greene over the head with the suitcase and put Flair on
top for the pin, then opened the suitcase and put on a Four Horseman t-shirt to become
the fourth member of the group. Given Kevin Sullivan the credit for basically laying out
the particulars of this angle. McMichael has tremendous heel presence and charisma,
and as long as they keep him in tags with Anderson and Benoit, he won't have to do that
much in the ring to get by. ***1/2
Then came those two large dreaded nameless heels known as "We know who they are."
The men with no name came out to a big babyface pop. Then, as a way to avert a
threatened lawsuit, both men said clearly that they don't work for the World Wrestling
Federation and said to forget about the past and talk about the future. After Bischoff
accepted the challenge and announced the match for Bash at the Beach, Scott Hall
punched Bischoff in the stomach and Kevin Nash power bombed him through a table.
This got a babyface pop among some fans, but left others pretty much stunned. It was
sold great as Schiavone left the broadcast position and Rhodes did a strong unity of the
promotion interview. The fans still mainly cheered Hall and Nash when they left.
9. The Giant (Paul Wight) pinned Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) to retain the WCW
heavyweight title in 9:21. They had no chance following what had gone on. Sting ended
up chasing Jimmy Hart away form the ring. It was a dead match with the only thing of
note with Giant on the top rope, Luger bent down a little and got him on his shoulders
for the rack. He then collapsed under the weight and Giant pinned him with a choke
slam. *1/4
The next PPV on 7/7 from Daytona Beach, FL will consist of the unnamed guys vs. Sting
& Luger & Savage, Konnan defending the U.S. title against Flair, Giant & Sullivan vs.
Benoit & Anderson and if Benoit & Anderson win, Flair gets a shot at Giant, Nasty Boys
vs. Public Enemy in a double dog collar match (they are hoping to get Dennis Rodman to
be in Nasty's corner for this match but that is far from a done deal), Misterio Jr. vs.
Psicosis, Bubba vs. Tenta in what is billed as a Carson City Silver Dollar match and
McMichael vs. Joe Gomez.
***********************************************************
If the Bash took its lumps at the hands of the NBA, the Pancrase Brawl at Budokan PPV
on 6/14 (taped 5/16 at Tokyo's Budokan Hall) likely took even more of a hit. WCW at
least had a lot of hype and tons of television exposure going for it plus a hardcore base of
fans. Pancrase's audience is a group of people who saw the first show, probably mainly
UFC fans looking at something new, and maybe some additional curiosity seekers and
some fringe sports fans. A mainstream event like the NBA playoffs is competition they
likely don't have the hardcore base to handle. In addition, because WCW would have
drawn a much larger audience, the traditional Tuesday night replay of weekend PPV
events went to WCW, leaving Pancrase without a mid-week replay showing.
SEG has taken its lumps when it comes to scheduling since going head-up with the
Tyson fight in December. Its 7/12 UFC PPV comes one day before another Tyson fight,
problems that all crop up well after SEG has locked in its PPV schedule for the year.
While some may not think going a day ahead of Tyson will hurt, there is a boxing/UFC
crossover and a Tyson fight is the most powerful event of any kind on PPV. More
importantly, without its own television show, UFC is sold largely on barker channel
commercials. The barker channels will be devoting the bulk of its commercial time
pushing the more lucrative Tyson fight, leaving UFC with far less of a push.
The show was a similar format to the previous Pancrase PPV show, with a better quality
of matches. Once again, the show received an overwhelmingly positive poll response. It
was an easy thumbs up show, and comparing it with WCW is like comparing apples and
oranges and unfair, but I'd rate the WCW show as being much better even though the
poll results between the two were similar. Bruce Beck replaced Don Wilson on
commentary, working with Ken Shamrock. Beck started out as a novice, but appeared to
be a quick study and by midway through the show he was rolling and did a great job by
the time the main event rolled around. The argument that Beck shouldn't be considered
as one of the best wrestling announcers because he does UFC had merit last year, since
UFC isn't pro wrestling. But that argument is now out the window because he does
Pancrase, which is pro wrestling, and there are only one or two pro wrestling
announcers in the U.S. that can do a call at the level he did for the main event. Shamrock
was good on color to a point and again received overwhelmingly high praise. He was
more comfortable then the first time out. He still did a good job of explaining strategy to
the novice fan. He wasn't as good in getting the various personalities over as divergent
individuals. He had less to work with in his explaining the holds because less
submissions were used on this show. And he did miss many key points during the show.
In every Pancrase event, the argument over legitimacy will come up. Because this event
is pro wrestling and derived from pro wrestling, one should have natural skepticism. Its
supporters believe in it passionately. All the martial arts magazines and newsletters I've
seen have never even questioned its authenticity, which may or may not be a statement
regarding that genre more than evidence of legitimacy. No doubt there have been
worked matches in the past in Pancrase and worked spots, as well as non-worked
matches. The injury rate from the submission holds is far too high for a totally worked
event because in a worked event you wouldn't rip the joint applying a submission and
the fact is, joints have been ripped out to the point the dangerous heel hooks had to be
banned for preservation of the species reasons.
The booking makes absolutely no sense if it is worked on many different levels, although
we've seen that in traditional pro wrestling as well. If it was booked for maximum box
office, then Funaki and Suzuki, who are the drawing cards, wouldn't lose so often and
would be in the title picture when it came to the biggest show of the year, which this card
was.
But there are things that go on that don't look to make sense in a realistic fighting
situation. Then again, there are fighters who have done absolutely stupid things in UFC
and boxing and amateur wrestling matches that clearly aren't worked. Someone
occasionally going down from blows that don't look that devastating happens often in
boxing. But it seems to happen in Pancrase a little more often.
Bas Rutten and Frank Shamrock had what was either a tremendous worked shoot, in
that it the kicks and punches were very stiff and it looked tremendously realistic for a
worked match, far more than you would ever see in any other shoot style wrestling
promotion. Or they had a shoot in which Frank Shamrock did a number of things that
make no sense.
There was a sense that the match seemed to build to a finish looking at it from the finish
backwards. The finish in this case was the doctor stopping the match because of a
dangerous cut near Shamrock's eye. The argument it was a planned finish gains some
strength because there wasn't that much blood coming from the cut at the time the
match was stopped, although when Shamrock was at UFC the next day, his eye looked
pretty bad. I could make the same argument about a finish that seemed to build
throughout the match about Chavez-de la Hoya, and I have no doubts that finish was a
shoot.
Just before the finish, Shamrock was on the mat facing Rutten and just sat there and
took blow after blow aimed to the already cut eye, and even made Hulk Hogan like faces
daring him to throw another blow. Of course we know there is showboating in Pancrase,
and it isn't like good boxers don't taunt their opponents in the same exact way for
psychological or crowd pleasing reasons. Eventually Rutten's legal palm blows turned
into illegal punches to the eye, which earned him a red card and a lost point. Did Rutten
start throwing punches, clearly against the rules in a sport where rules are pretty strictly
enforced and adhered to, because he was frustrated? Or did he do it because the finish
was supposed to be a stoppage on blood, and quite frankly, the palm blows weren't doing
an effective enough job of opening up the cut? In addition, not only did Shamrock,
already with a cut in a dangerous spot that had been looked at once by the doctor,
appear to be doing nothing to avoid the blows, but was actually leaning his head forward
into the blows, clearly shown on replay. On the other hand, the backhand blow to the eye
that Rutten opened the original cut with, because of how fast both were moving and how
it was administered on a turn-around follow-through, could not have been a planned
high spot, at least to the point it would be expected to cut the eye because two guys
moving that fast on a backhand follow through simply couldn't hit a target with that kind
of accuracy. For the two to go into the fight with the idea that were building to a stopped
on blood ending, while the closing sequence would back up the argument, the sequence
of the original cut nearly destroys the argument. The only response can be that they were
building to a stopped on blood finish and by sheer coincidence, Rutten managed to open
a cut with a unplanned spot in the exact same spot he was supposed to open the cut with
later. Of course that is possible, but truthfully what are the odds of that happening?
My basic conclusion is that if it was a work, it was a tremendously stiff, believable
worked match. If it was a shoot, it was very exciting to watch but Shamrock's strategy, or
lack thereof, turned out to be playing right into Rutten's hands.
As for the other matches, Guy Mezger vs. Minoru Suzuki was where Ken Shamrock
missed an important point in commentary. Both had agreed this would be a theme
standing up match, which played to Mezger's strengths as a kick boxer and eliminated all
ground wrestling, so he would have been the favorite. Shamrock announced it as if it
were under traditional rules without the agreement, and thus told a story of Suzuki's
inability to take Mezger down. In fact Suzuki inexplicably unless you knew it was a
theme match, never even tried, and thus was beaten in a rather one-sided fight. Because
of the rules, the match consisted almost entirely of palm blows, kicks and knees and
Suzuki took a pummeling before the finish. But there was some questionable looking
things there as well, in particular a post match where Suzuki, after being knocked out,
got up groggy, shook Mezger's hand, and then collapsed again, a scene very reminiscent
of All Japan women post-match spots.
Masakatsu Funaki vs. August Smisl was short and a lot of fun to watch because of
Funaki's body speed in avoiding the much larger, stronger and slower Smisl. Smisl was a
Bill Kazmaeir sized monster, with a strong background in both Greco-Roman wrestling
and Worlds strongest man contests, and currently is a pro wrestler for Otto Wanz in
Austria. With Smisl having every bit of five inches in height and 88 pounds on Funaki,
Funaki came out looking great as he knocked Smisl down with a kick, which supposedly
knocked Smisl silly since those at the show reported that he couldn't remember much
about the match afterwards. Funaki managed to get behind him and apply a strong
choke in 2:01.
From a pure wrestling standpoint, the best match was Jason DeLucia vs. Osami Shibuya.
The match was almost totally on the mat with both moving quickly and constantly
looking for submissions. DeLucia dominated and won by a 3-0 margin with three
different chokes applied with Shibuya able to get to the ropes each time, before the 15:00
time limit expired.
The second match was less exciting. Semmy Schiltt of Holland vs. Manabu Yamada.
Schiltt was billed at 6-8, 227, and if anything, he looked much taller than that although
that may partially be because Yamada is so short. Because he had that gangly long
limbed high school center type of build, his movements didn't look good because his legs
were so long, although his knees to the face that looked weak at first, looked far more
powerful in slow-motion. Shamrock failed to mention, probably because he simply
didn't know, that Yamada had broken a rib in this match. When Schiltt did a weakly
applied choke sleeper, Yamada tapped at 5:44 because it was twisting him in a manner
that was making the rib pain unbearable, not because the choke was well applied.
The opener was decent but uneventful. Yoshiki Takahashi pretty well dominated the
much smaller Takafumi Ito for their 10:00 match using his superior strength and
balance, however neither delivered any telling blows or came close with any
submissions. With no points during the match, it went to the judges who awarded
Takahashi the decision.
The next PPV will be 8/18, entitled "Kings of Pancrase," showing some of the best
matches in the three-year history of the promotion focusing on Ken Shamrock, Frank
Shamrock, Rutten and Suzuki.
*************************************************************
Black Tiger (Eddie Guerrero) captured New Japan's annual Best of the Super Junior
tournament on 6/12 in Osaka, and followed it up with a second main event performance
losing to IWGP champ Great Sasuke on the 6/17 Skydiving J show at Tokyo Budokan
Hall.
The tournament, which came off as something of a letdown this year due to numerous
injuries, picked up in the final two days with what we've heard were excellent semifinals
and championship match.
The semifinals on 6/11 in Hiroshima before a sellout 5,200 saw Tiger pin Wild Pegasus
in 20:17 and Jushin Liger pin El Samurai in 15:11 with La Magistral. The championship
match the next night before a sellout 6,650 in Osaka saw Tiger pin Liger for the second
time on the tour, using a brainbuster to set up the finish. It was Tiger's biggest career
win in Japan, and probably anywhere else for that matter. Previous tournament winners
were Norio Honaga in 1991, Jushin Liger in 1992, Pegasus in 1993, Liger in 1994 and
Pegasus in 1995. The win made sense on several levels, and it gave credibility to Tiger in
the scheduled IWGP jr. title match on 6/17 and in future title matches as well, and also
heats up a long-term program with Liger.
Results from the 6/17 Budokan show before a crowd estimated at 13,500 saw: 1. Lance
Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka (WAR) retained their WAR International jr. tag team titles
beating El Samurai & Norio Honaga (New Japan) in 13:28 when Storm pinned Honaga
in a good opener; 2. Masayoshi Motegi (Wrestle Dream Factory) pinned Shiryu
(Michinoku Pro) to retain the NWA jr. heavyweight title in 11:51. This was reported as a
poor match because Motegi looked bad; 3. Gran Hamada (Michinoku) retained his
WWA (Mexico) jr. light heavyweight title pinning Tatsuhito Takaiwa (New Japan) in
12:05 with a swinging DDT off the top rope. This match had great heat because the fans
were really into the storyline of the young Takaiwa getting near fall after near fall and
nearly scoring the upset; 4. Shinjiro Otani became the new UWA (Mexico) world light
heavyweight champion beating Kazushi Sakuraba of UWFI in 8:13. Koji Kanemoto was
the champion but he broke his collarbone last month and is out of action. Kenichi
Yamamoto of the Golden Cups was the scheduled challenger but he also missed the
match due to injury. This was a UWFI style match but Otani is such a great worker that
he can have a great match doing any style. Otani made it look as though prelim wrestler
Sakuraba had him checkmated with the chokesleeper at 5:00, before Otani came back
with all his big spots and used a chicken wing cross face for the submission victory; 5.
Super Delfin (Michinoku) retained his CMLL welterweight title pinning Taka Michinoku
(Michinoku/FMW Independent Jr. champion) in 16:09 with a Tiger suplex. These two
had a long history of being tag partners and this was a great flying match, said to be the
second best match on the show; 6. Ultimo Dragon (WAR) retained his International jr.
title pinning Gran Naniwa with La Magistral (Dandina) in 13:58 in a good match; 7.
Liger won the Great Britain jr. heavyweight title pinning Dick Togo (Michinoku) in
15:56. This was the only title change on the show; 8. Sasuke kept the IWGP jr.
heavyweight title pinning Tiger in 16:54 with the Die hard (Splash Mountain off the top
rope) turned into a Frankensteiner finish (the same finish Misterio Jr. has been doing
this year in many of his big matches including the Philadelphia 2/3 fall bout with
Juventud Guerrera). This was said to be the best match of the show.
After the match, all the wrestlers on the show got into the ring and Liger got on the
house mic and said that they need to determine of all the champions, who the real No. 1
junior heavyweight in the world is. Earlier, when Liger was doing the color commentary
for the TV show during the main event, Liger brought it up again and talked about
wanting it during the G-1 Climax tour from 8/2 to 8/6 at Sumo Hall, so apparently Liger
is going to book a Junior tournament of champions with Motegi, Hamada, Otani, Delfin,
Dragon, Sasuke, Tiger and himself for that week.
************************************************************
We don't have complete results from the 6/14 TripleMania IV-B in Orizaba before an
estimated 7,000 fans (half house) at the bullring in that city. The show itself was
described as an awesome show. The main event was a lumberjack strap match where the
new Mascara Sagrada (Kraneo, who didn't look good at all) & Octagon & La Parka beat
Cien Caras & Killer & Heavy Metal in a match with Rey Misterio Jr., Super Calo,
Konnan, Winners, Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera, Halloween and Pierroth Jr. all
interfering freely as lumberjacks. Lady Victoria, who has been doing the babyface valet
role on Konnan's shows in Baja California, made her debut on a major AAA show doing a
run-in attacking Killer's manager Janet and hit her with a chair, which I'm told got the
biggest pop of the entire show. The other major event on the show was a tournament of
champions with Pantera, Guerrera, Villano III, Pimpinela Escarlata, Konnan, Perro
Aguayo, Psicosis and Pierroth Jr., all of whom hold some singles title belt in Mexico. It
came down to Konnan and Pierroth with Pierroth scoring a clean pin using a low blow
and three power bombs. The match was said to be a combination of Japanese, Mexican
and starting to incorporate American styles in as well. The reports we got were that in a
prelim match, El Mosco, who is 18 and has less than one year experience and trained
with Perro Aguayo Jr. in Guadalajara, looked awesome and is about to earn himself a
good spot. Halloween did a space flying tiger drop, and Pimpinela, doing the transvestite
gimmick, stole the show with his aggressive work and heel charisma.
In typical AAA fashion, even though it could be only two weeks away, we're not even sure
of when or where the final TripleMania will be. The magazines are now listing the show
at 7/13 at El Toreo in Naucalpan, although others are listing the same location but the
date at either 6/29 or 6/30 with the wrestlers still under the impression that it is 6/29.
Antonio Pena has told some people it'll be in Naucalpan, but is still telling others it'll be
in Guadalajara.
According to the magazines, the line-up will be the four masks vs. four masks with Los
Payasos & Karis La Momia vs. Los Atomic Juniors (Halcon Dorado Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. &
Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Blue Demon Jr.), a car vs. car match with the WWA welterweight
title at stake with Guerrera defending against Misterio Jr. (since Guerrera is scheduled
to be defending the title in Japan in late July, that seems to indicate he's winning the car
match), an incredible partners match with Aguayo & Octagon & Pierroth vs. Parka &
Cien Caras & Cibernetico, a lumberjack strap match with Sagrada & Pantera & Ultimo
Dragon vs. Los Villanos, Los Destructores vs. El Mexicano & Torero & Salsero and the
opener will be minis with Mini Yeti & Espectritos I & II vs. Super Munequito & Torerito
& Mascarita Sagrada Jr. (formerly Baby Rabbit).
************************************************************
The weekly USWA wrestling tradition in Memphis has officially left the Mid South
Coliseum with the final show--billed as "The Last Blast at the Coliseum," having taken
place on 6/17. We don't have a report on the show at press time. The first match at the
new Expo Building at the Memphis Flea Market will be on 7/1.
In an article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, co-promoter Jerry Lawler complained
crowds had dropped at the Coliseum because of increased security measures such as
fans going through metal detectors and being frisked entering the building, and
wrestling with all the building lights turned on to ruin the atmosphere, along with the
matches being held with left-over ice from the hockey games around. Coliseum manager
Beth Wade, who Lawler has gone round-and-round with for years on various problems,
said they wanted the lights kept bright so the ushers could keep everyone in their seats,
and said the security precautions were necessary because families were coming to the
shows and complaining that they didn't feel sake.
Pro wrestling started its run at the 11,000-seat Coliseum in 1971. During its best one year
period, when Lawler was one of the city's biggest celebrities, Jarrett Promotions (it
wasn't called USWA in those days) drew in excess of 350,000 fans for weekly events. It
has run almost weekly there for most of the past 25 years, with the exception of a brief
period where Lawler and Wade had a falling out and they left the Coliseum, but came
back a few months later. Over the years there have been other televised threats to move
when the Coliseum attempted to raise the rent or charge for parking which Jarrett and
Lawler felt would hurt the crowds.
Crowds had bottomed out this year, sometimes falling as low as $2,000 houses (250
fans) in the past two months. The 6/10 show was up to 700 fans and $5,500 but that was
after being away for three weeks. Part of the crowd decline has to be attributed to
Monday Nitro, giving fans two free hours with major league stars on television head-tohead
with the Coliseum house shows with local wrestlers. Nitro has also forced WWF to
upgrade the match quality on Raw, making it more compelling.
USWA didn't really do anything major as far as bringing in former area stars for the final
event. The biggest angle to draw involved long-time announcer Lance Russell, doing one
of his rare career angles, in the corner opposite long-time friend Lawler. The angle on
television was that Lawler had signed Scott Bowden to a deal as his manager, on a trial
basis (which probably means they were looking for a foil for Russell for an angle) and
Bowden and Russell got into it during the entire television show, ending up with Russell
saying he would be in Cyberpunk Fire's corner in his match against Lawler, with Bowden
in his corner, and would bring one of his golf clubs with him if Bowden got out of line.
The other key matches on the show are Jeff Jarrett vs. Brian Christopher for the Unified
title and a one-night tag tourney for the vacant USWA tag titles (Bill Dundee lost a loser
leaves town match on 6/8, he and Lawler were the champs) with Tommy Rich & Doug
Gilbert, Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine, Bart Sawyer & Flex Kabana, Punisher &
Tony Falk and Men on a Mission.
************************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 6/21 TO 7/21
6/22 ECW Hardcore Heaven Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu vs. Van Dam)
6/22 All Japan Women WWWA Champions Night Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center
(Toyota & Shimoda vs. Inoues)
6/23 WWF King of the Ring PPV Milwaukee, WI Mecca Arena (Michaels vs. Smith)
6/24 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena (Flair vs.
Luger)
6/25 WWF Superstars tapings LaCrosse, WI Civic Center (Michaels vs. Goldust)
6/25 Pancrase Fukuoka Kokusai Center (Ken Shamrock vs. Funaki)
6/26 UWFI/New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall (Fujinami & Fujiwara vs. Takada &
Kakihara)
6/29 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
6/29 WCW Philadelphia Civic Center (Giant vs. Sting)
6/29 RINGS Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Yamamoto vs. Maurice Smith)
6/30 Rikidozan Memorial Multi-promotional show Yokohama Arena (Choshu &
Kitahara vs. Tenryu & Fujinami)
6/30 AAA TripleMania IV-C Zapopan Arena (Karis & Payasos vs. Demon Jr. & Dorado
Jr. & Sagrada Jr. & Tinieblas Jr.)
6/30 WCW New York Paramount (Giant vs. Sting)
7/1 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Flair vs. Savage)
7/5 WWF East Rutherford, NJ Continental Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/7 WCW Bash at the Beach PPV Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center (Hall & Nash & ? vs.
Sting & Savage & Luger)
7/7 Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Zinoviev vs. Ensen Inoue)
7/8 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Lakeland, FL Civic Center
7/9 All Japan Kanazawa (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)
7/11 All Japan Hakata Star Lanes (Kobashi vs. Akiyama)
7/12 UFC X Providence, RI Civic Center (tournament)
7/13 AAA Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium
7/13 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
7/16 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center
7/17 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center
7/20 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (six man tag team tournament)
7/20 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kawada vs. Akiyama)
7/21 WWF In Your House PPV Vancouver, BC GM Center (Michaels & Johnson vs. Hart
& Smith)
7/21 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Anjoh)
RESULTS
6/7 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Cicloncito Ramirez & Mascarita Magica b
Fierito & Guerrerito del Futuro, Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del Futuro & Damian el
Guerrero d Ultimatum & Filoso & Alacran, Star & Youngsters combined tag tournament:
Bestia Salvaje & Chicago Express b Dos Caras & Bronco, El Hijo del Santo & Olimpico b
Felino & Astro Rey Jr., Rambo & Guerrero de la Muerte b El Brazo & Olimpus, Atlantis
& Atlantico b Apolo Dantes & Rey Bucanero, Salvaje & Express b Santo & Olimpico,
Atlantis & Atlantico b Rambo & Muerte-DQ, Express & Salvaje b Atlantis & Atlantico to
win tourney, Dandy DCOR ***** Casas
6/8 Moline, IL (WWF - 3,186): Justin Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz 1/2*, New
Rockers b Duke Droese & Aldo Montoya **, Savio Vega b Owen Hart DUD, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley *, Ahmed Johnson b Davey Boy Smith-DQ -**, Ultimate
Warrior b Vader DUD, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-COR -****, Jake
Roberts b Steve Austin DUD, Undertaker b Mankind DUD, WWF title: Shawn Michaels
b Goldust **1/2
6/8 Youngstown, OH (WCW - 2,620): Diamond Dallas Page b Alex Wright, U.S.
title: Konnan b Big Bubba, V.K. Wallstreet b Joe Gomez, Street fight: Nasty Boys b
Public Enemy, Randy Savage b Ric Flair, WCW title: The Giant b Sting-DQ
6/9 Johnstown, PA (WCW - 1,844): Diamond Dallas Page b Alex Wright, U.S. title:
Konnan b Big Bubba, V.K. Wallstreet b Joe Gomez, Street fight: Nasty Boys b Public
Enemy, Randy Savage b Ric Flair, WCW title: The Giant b Sting-DQ
6/9 Pachuca (AAA): Gran Apaches I & II b Quarterback & El Mosco, Espectro &
Picudo & Perro Silva b Salsero & Winners & Super Calo, Halcon Dorado Jr. & Blue
Demon Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. b Los Payasos & Karis la Momia,
Octagon & Hong Kong Lee (Kato Kung Lee) b Jerry Estrada & Heavy Metal-DQ
6/10 Memphis (USWA - 700): Flex Kabana b Tony Falk, Sir Mo b Bart Sawyer, Miss
Texas b Farren Square, Doug Gilbert b King Mabel-DQ, USWA title: Brian Christopher b
The Punisher, Mask vs. $5,000: Cyberpunk Fire b Jerry Lawler-DQ, Unified title loser
leaves town match: Jeff Jarrett b Jesse James Armstrong, Gilbert won Battle Royal
6/10 Niigata (IWA - 130): Takeshi Sato & Katsumi Hirano b Tudor the Turtle & Jun
Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Orito b Felinito, Hiroshi Itakura & Keisuke Yamada
b Akinori Tsukioka & Flying Kid Ichihara, Takashi Okano b Keizo Matsuda, Steel
Leather & Leatherface b Silver Jason & Vampiro Casanova, NWA & IWA tag titles:
Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Black Hearts
6/10 Imabari (WAR): Yuji Yasuraoka b Jun Kikuchi, Takashi Okamura b Battle
Ranger, Ultimo Dragon b Damian, Arashi b Masaaki Mochizuki, Koki Kitahara & Osamu
Taitoko b Lion Do (Lion Heart) & Ti Do (Big Titan), Gedo & Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki b
Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai
6/11 Hiroshima (New Japan - 5,200 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani
b Yuji Nagata & Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Franz Schumann & Dean Malenko b Black Cat &
Norio Honaga, Kengo Kimura & Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara b Tadao Yasuda &
Osamu Nishimura & Junji Hirata, Keiji Muto b Tatsutoshi Goto, Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo
Yamazaki b Osamu Kido & Kensuke Sasaki, Akira Nogami & Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsumi
Fujinami b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa Chono, Top of Super Junior
semifinals: Black Tiger b Wild Pegasus 20:17, Jushin Liger b El Samurai 15:11, IWGP
hwt title: Shinya Hashimoto b Satoshi Kojima
6/11 Ehime (WAR): Nobukazu Hirai b Jun Kikuchi, Yuji Yasuraoka b Damian, Ultimo
Dragon b Battle Ranger, Osamu Taitoko b Takashi Okamura, Big Titan & Lion Heart &
Jado b Masaaki Mochizuki & Nobutaka Araya & Arashi, Genichiro Tenryu & Koki
Kitahara b Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo
6/11 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Wrestle Dream Factory - 200): UWA welter title:
Super Crazy b Onryo, Yoshiaki Fujiwara b Hiroyoshi Kotsubo, NWA jr. title: Masayoshi
Motegi b Hector Garza
6/12 Osaka Furitsu Gym (New Japan - 6,650 sellout): Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Yuji
Nagata b Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara 10:27, Franz Schumann & Dean Malenko b
Black Cat & Villano IV 9:07, Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura b Yutaka
Yoshie & Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido 11:09, Wild Pegasus & El Samurai b Tatsuhito
Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani 12:57, Osamu Nishimura & Keiji Muto b Hiroyoshi Tenzan &
Masa Chono 11:09, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Kensuke Sasaki & Satoshi
Kojima 10:29, IWGP tag titles: Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Shinya Hashimoto &
Junji Hirata to win belts 16:26, Top of the Super Junior tournament final: Black Tiger b
Jushin Liger 18:44
6/12 Anderson, SC (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 1,200): Marcus Bagwell b
V.K. Wallstreet, Jim Duggan b Gambler, Rick & Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat, Scott
Norton & Ice Train b High Voltage, Diamond Dallas Page b Scotty Riggs, Arn Anderson
b Brad Armstrong, Steve Regal b Johnny Wild, Giant b Cobra & Prince Iaukea & Mark
Starr & ?, John Tenta b Top Gun (David Cannell/Sierra), Lex Luger b Barbarian
6/12 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (W*ING - 2,030 sellout): Bunkhouse match: Wing
Kanemura b Hido, Ricky Fuji & Yuki Ishikawa b Gosaku Goshogawara & Nanjyo Hayato,
Kanemura b Toryu, Bunkhouse match: Mr. Pogo b Hideki Hosaka, Street fight:
Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka b Kanemura & Hido & Hosaka
6/13 Hyuga (WAR): Yuji Yasuraoka & Masaaki Mochizuki b Jun Kikuchi & Osamu
Taitoko, Nobutaka Araya b Damian, Ultimo Dragon b Battle Ranger, Big Titan b
Nobukazu Hirai, Koki Kitahara b Takashi Okamura, Genichiro Tenryu & Arashi b Gedo
& Jado
6/14 Denver (WWF - 2,203): New Rockers b Bushwhackers, Justin Bradshaw b
Barry Horowitz, Savio Vega b Owen Hart, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Steve
Austin b Duke Droese, Ultimate Warrior DCOR Vader, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b
Smoking Gunns-COR, Ahmed Johnson b Davey Boy Smith-DQ, Undertaker b Mankind,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
6/14 Jim Thorpe, PA (ECW): Bad Crew b D-Von Dudley & Buh Buh Ray Dudley-DQ
DUD, J.T. Smith & Little Guido b Devon Storm & Sal Bellomo *, Paul Varelans b Jason
Helton DUD, Mikey Whipwreck b Stevie Richards **1/2, ECW tag titles: Eliminators b
Gangstas **1/2, Bruise Brothers b Hack Myers & Axl Rotten *, Taz b Sandman DUD,
ECW TV title: Pit Bull #2 b Shane Douglas *1/2, ECW title: Raven b Tommy Dreamer
***
6/14 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Damiancito & Ultratumbita b Cicloncito
Ramirez & Ultimo Dragoncito, Atlantico & Olimpico & Ultraman Jr. b Mogur & Chicago
Express & Halcon ***** Jr., Black Warrior (Black Panther) & Scorpio Jr. & Guerrero de
la Muerte b Ringo Mendoza & Mr. Niebla & Bronco, La Fiera & Solar & Vampiro
Canadiense b Rey Bucanero & Violencia & Arkangel, Mascara Sagrada & Dandy & Dos
Caras b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Apolo Dantes & Bestia Salvaje
6/14 West Deptford, NJ (NWA): Blue Thunder b Glenn Osbourne, NWA title: Dan
Severn b Ghetto Blaster, Lost Boys DDQ Greek Connection, Ian Rotten b Mad Man
Pondo, Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac, Skip b Inferno Kid, Icon b Dave Dutch, Twiggy
Ramirez b Gino Caruso, Tommy Cairo b Derrick Domino, Johnny Gunn & Ace Darling b
Brian Christopher & Doug Gilbert
6/14 Hachinohe (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Orito b Felinito, Billy Black b Masanobu
Kurisu, Kageboshi & Shocker b Akihiko Masuda & Shigeo Okumura, Great Kabuki b
Kishin Kawabata, Gekko b Astro Rey Jr., Wazuma (Too Cold Scorpio) & Takashi
Ishikawa b Daikokubo Benkei & Abdullah the Butcher
6/14 Reading, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling): Double Delight b
Assassins, D.Z. Gillespie b Pat Shamrock, Fantasia b Nasty Angel, Cheetah Master b
Shane Shadows, Maxx Crimson b Super Ninja, Boogie Woogie Brown NC Cremator,
Mark Mest b Race Richards, Lance Diamond d Cheetah Master, Brown & Delight b
Gillespie & Assassins, Ray Odyssey b Isaac Yankem
6/15 Hakata (WAR - 2,600): Takashi Okamura b Battle Ranger, Yuji Yasuraoka b
Damian, Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai b Jun Kikuchi & Arashi, Koki Kitahara b
Masaaki Mochizuki, Ultimo Dragon & Genichiro Tenryu b Lion Do & Ti Do, WAR 6 man
titles: Gedo & Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Yoji Anjoh & Yoshihiro Takayama & 200%
Machine
6/15 Omiya (All Japan women - 2,140): Rie Tamada b Genki Misae, Japanese jr.
title: Yoshiko Tamura d Yumi Fukawa 20:00, Tomoko Watanabe b Kumiko Maekawa,
Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno) & Yumiko Hotta b Saya Endo & Aja Kong, Toshiyo
Yamada & Etsuko Mita b Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b
Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda
6/15 Las Vegas (NWC): Louie Spicolli b Lil Haystacks (Wayne Bradley), Larry Powers
b Tama Toa, Don Juan b Navajo Kid (Shawn Dakota), Rob Van Dam & Bobby Bradley
Jr. b Super Boy & Principe Indu, Iron Sheik DDQ Johnny Paine, Sabu won triangular
cage match over Kama and Virgil
6/15 Philadelphia (NWA - 200): Chaotic Kid Cain b Irwin Soul, Brian Christopher b
Ace Darling, Doug Gilbert b Icon, Twiggy Ramirez b Lost Boy (Dan Wolfe), Bad Attitude
NC Jack Rider & Psytron, NWA title: Dan Severn b Ghetto Blaster, Derrick Domino b
Abbuda Singh (Boo Bradley/John Rickner), NA title: Tommy Cairo b Battlestar, Rik
Ratchett b Thomas Rodman, Barbed wire thumb tacks broken glass mouse trap match:
Ian Rotten b Mad Man Pondo
6/15 Forks Township, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling): Cheetah
Master & Jimmy B. Good b Lance Diamond & Shane Shadows, D.Z. Gillespie b Pat
Shamrock, Nasty Angel b Fantasia, Double Delight b Assassins, Aldo Montoya b Skip,
Race Richards & Shamrock b Maxx Crimson & Cremator, Boogie Woogie Brown b
Diablo Macabre, Mark Mest b Super Ninja, Julio Sanchez b Troy Mest, Isaac Yankem b
Ray Odyssey-COR
6/15 Knoxville, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling - 250): The Olympian b
Killer Kyle, Candi Divine b Regina Hale, Chris Powers & Mongolian Stomper b Ricky
Morton & Tracy Smothers, Eight Ball Jones b Bunkhouse Buck-DQ, Cage match: Dirty
White Boy NC Chip the Firebreaker
6/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP - 2,200 sellout): Candy Okutsu & Hikari
Fukuoka b Saburo & Fusayo Nouchi, Tag tourney semis: Rieko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki
b Cutie Suzuki & Tomoko Kuzumi, Kanako Motoya & Dynamite Kansai b Devil Masami
& Tomoko Miyaguchi, Aja Kong b Hiromi Yagi, tourney finals: Motoya & Kansai b
Amano & Ozaki
6/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Gaea - 2,200 sellout): Chihiro Nakano b Ishii,
Nakano b Yamamoto, Mima Shimoda & Toshie Uematsu b Kaoru & Sonoko Kato, Yasha
Kurenai & Mikiko Futagami & Carula b Bomber Hikari & Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie
Sato, Makie Numao & Chigusa Nagayo b Meiko Satomura & Toshiyo Yamada
6/16 Yomiuri Land (All Japan women): Rie Tamada b Yumi Fukawa, Aja Kong b
Genki Misae & Yoshiko Tamura, Takako Inoue & Saya Endo b Tomoko Watanabe &
Kumiko Maekawa, Etsuko Mita b Mariko Yoshida, Kyoko Inoue & Yumiko Hotta b
Kaoru Ito & Manami Toyota
6/16 Kawasaki (Yoshimoto Pro Wrestling - 750): Chikako Shiratori b Kosugi,
Abe b Amano, Koyama b Fujimura, Shiratori & Jaguar Yokota b Cooga & Bloody
Phoenix, Bison Kimura & Neftaly b Lioness Asuka & Esther Moreno
6/16 Hakodate (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Orito b Felinito, Masanobu Kurisu b
Akihiko Masuda, Astro Rey Jr. & Shocker b Gekko & Kageboshi, Wazuma b Billy Black,
Great Kabuki b Shigeo Okumura, Daikokubo Benkei & Abdullah the Butcher b Takashi
Ishikawa & Kishin Kawabata
6/16 Tachikowa (Michinoku Pro - 274): Dick Togo b Sugamoto, Billy Blayze NC
Wellington Wilkens Jr., Mens Teoh & Shiryu b Masato Yakushiji & Mascara Magica,
Super Delfin b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Tiger Mask b
Shoichi Funaki & Gran Naniwa & Taka Michinoku
6/17 Richmond, VA (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 5,638): Konnan b Jim
Powers, Rick Steiner b Stevie Ray, Joe Gomez b Disco Inferno, Arn Anderson & Chris
Benoit b American Males, John Tenta b Big Bubba, Ric Flair b Randy Savage, WCW
cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Rey Misterio Jr., WCW title: Giant b Scott Steiner
Special thanks to: Joel Kolsrud, Jason Freeman, Dan Garza, Scott Hudson, Gregg John,
Peggy Watkins, Bob Verhey, Chuck Langermann, Brian Hildebrand, Coach Kurt
Schneider, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, James Titus, Dan Parris, Leonard Brand, Bill
Needham, Ken Doucet, Dan Moreland, Jesse Money, Walt Spafford
EMLL
The biggest news in Mexico is that Wolf Rubinsky, one of the all-time wrestling legends,
suffered a heart attack while walking in Mexico City on 6/12 and had a bad fall. He was
in very serious condition for two days. Rubinsky had a bad fall on 6/12 on a city street in
Mexico. He was the first wrestler in Mexico to become a movie star, preceding El Santo
who became the biggest star of them all. Rubinsky is the head of the wrestling
commission in the Distrito Federal, although these days Rey Mendoza and Huracan
Ramirez are the real power forces.
The return to Arena Mexico on 6/14 didn't draw flies and our reports are the card was
really bad as well. The main event saw the original Mascara Sagrada return to Arena
Mexico to team with Dandy & Dos Caras to beat Dr. Wagner Jr. & Apolo Dantes & Bestia
Salvaje when Sagrada made Wagner submit in the third fall to set up a match for
Wagner's CMLL light heavyweight title which will likely be this week's main event.
Black Panther has changed his name to Black Warrior.
Sagrada was interviewed both for television and newspapers after the main event and
claimed he was the only and real Mascara Sagrada and was really mad about all the new
Sagrada characters that Antonio Pena has created. I'm not sure if this was an "in your
face" deal or I'm reading too much into this, but Sagrada was accompanied to the ring by
Vicky Palacios, a local beauty queen that was at least at one point the girlfriend of
Konnan.
AAA
Heavy Metal has been suspended for one year from Baja California for failing a drug test.
He tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines and methamphetamines.
There is a great deal of bitterness coming out of the Peace Festival show. At this point
Pena won't be involved in future shows because of the promotional war with EMLL. He
was mad that Antonio Inoki flew to Mexico and thanked Paco Alonso, who didn't even
attend the show, for being involved, and never thanked Pena. Inoki and Alonso met
about doing a show in Mexico City next year and Alonso was made head promoter of the
show and Pena his assistant which Pena wasn't thrilled with, and he was also mad that
New Japan is supposed to be working with AAA, but booked EMLL wrestler Emilio
Charles Jr. on the Junior tournament. Box y Lucha, the so-called bible of Mexican
wrestling reported that the Peace Festival was a flop but did say that Mexican matches
stole the show.
ALL JAPAN
The theme of the next tour seems to be heavy pushes for Brian Dyette, Maunukea
Mossman, Ryukaku Izumida and especially Jun Akiyama. In addition, Gary Albright &
Toshiaki Kawada tag team regularly on this tour, however Kawada & Akira Taue are still
getting a title shot at Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa on 7/9 in Kanazawa. The top three
matches for 7/24 at Budokan Hall are Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi for the Triple Crown,
Misawa & Akiyama vs. Albright & Kawada and Steve Williams & Johnny Ace vs. Stan
Hansen & Mossman.
The other Tokyo dates for the tour are 6/29 at Korakuen with Misawa & Akiyama vs.
Kobashi & Dyette, Izumida & Giant Kimala II vs. Albright & Kawada, Taue & Tamon
Honda vs. Hansen & Johnny Smith and Williams vs. Mossman; 6/30 at Korakuen Hall
with Albright & Giant Baba vs. Misawa & Kobashi, Hansen vs. Akiyama, Dyette &
Williams vs. Taue & Kawada, Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Masa Fuchi for the jr. title and
Mossman & Rob Van Dam vs. II & Izumida; and 7/20 at Korakuen Hall with Fuchi &
Taue vs. Misawa & Kobashi, Akiyama vs. Kawada, Smith & Albright & Hansen vs. Dyette
& Williams & Ace and the four vs. four survival match listed last week.
6/9 TV show did a 2.1 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka won the IWGP tag titles from Shinya Hashimoto &
Junji Hirata in the semifinal on 6/12 in Osaka. Yamazaki suffered a broken finger the
previous night. The challengers were destroyed almost the entire match. At one point
Hashimoto gave Yamazaki such a beating that he was getting destroyed for five minutes,
with Hirata using one finishing move after another on him. When Hirata went for his
Machine suplex, suddenly Yamazaki caught the left arm and gained the submission in
16:26.
Hashimoto had retained the IWGP heavyweight belt on 6/11 beating Satoshi Kojima
after Kojima missed a moonsault and Hashimoto used his DDT in 11:51.
Next tour is 6/23 to 7/17 with The Road Warriors and Brad Armstrong on the entire
tour, and The Giant, Ric Flair, Randy Savage and Lex Luger there for the final two
shows.
There is very serious talk about WCW doing the Starrcade PPV in December live from
Tokyo.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
In what in Japan is actually one of the biggest stories of the week (obviously the
Murdoch news is the biggest story), Kiyoshi Tamura of UWFI, whose contract just
expired, signed with Rings and debuts on 6/29 against Dick Vrij. Tamura, who is 26, has
genuine superstar potential and will be along with Yoshihisa Yamamoto, the two
wrestlers that carry Rings in the future.
In an attempt to regain face, Koji Kitao will face Geza Kalman Jr. in a UFC rules match
on 6/26 at Korakuen Hall. It's being billed as a Vale Tudo match and Kitao's previous
Vale Tudo match was clearly legit since he basically got the hell beat out of him.
Three different Japanese animal rights groups are heavily protesting the idea of bringing
in Terrible Ted, the wrestling bear, for the next Big Japan tour.
IWA officially held a press conference on 6/11 announcing two shows combined with
ECW for 8/10 at Yokohama Bunka Gym and 8/11 at Korakuen Hall. Paul Heyman will
come to Japan along with seven ECW wrestlers, including both the heavyweight and tag
team champions who will defend their titles. The show will probably draw super heat at
Korakuen Hall, although I'm a little more skeptical about Yokohama.
Hector Garza was in Japan this week for Wrestle Dream Factory twice putting over NWA
jr. champ Masayoshi Motegi. After the first match, Garza was hospitalized missing a
move (most likely his corkscrew plancha to the floor) but actually wrestled again a few
days later.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling fired Mr. Pogo, or at least that was what was announced, so the
6/24 loser leaves the promotion match with Abdullah the Butcher was canceled. Instead,
Sabu will wrestle Abdullah in the main event but the loser leaves stips have been
dropped. TPW is now looking to build to a feud where Wazuma (Too Cold Scorpio under
a mask) will have Abdullah as his manager, against Sabu, with Sheik as his manager.
The Golden Cups of UWFI have their first show 7/28 in Kobe with Yoji Anjoh vs.
Kazushi Sakuraba and 200% Machine (I still don't know who he is) against Nobuhiko
Takada. If either Sakuraba or Takada lose, they have to join the Golden Cups team.
FMW will promote a major show on 8/1 at the Shiodome in Tokyo with Megumi Kudo in
another electric explosive barbed wire match.
Correction from the 6/10 issue. We reported that the 6/2 Big Japan show in Nagaoka
drew 1,000 fans but in actuality there were fewer than 200.
Both Gaea and JWP packed Korakuen Hall for afternoon and evening shows on 6/16.
AJW helped both groups, as Aja Kong beat Hiromi Yagi on the JWP card, and Mima
Shimoda and Toshiyo Yamada worked the Gaea show. Yamada was patterned totally
after a young Chigusa Nagayo, right down to losing a famous hair match. They worked a
tag match in the main event with Yamada & Gaea's Meiko Satomura losing to Nagayo &
Toshie Numao to build to a singles match between the two.
In a strange booking deal one week before the 6/22 Champions Night, both tag teams in
the main event did jobs on the 6/15 show in Omiya as Kyoko & Takako Inoue lost a nontitle
to Yamada & Etsuko Mita, and Manami Toyota & Shimoda lost to Mariko Yoshida &
Kaoru Ito. Basically sets up both winning teams for future title matches.
WAR's biggest show of the week was 6/15 in Hakata before 2,600 with the final match of
the feud with Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado beating Anjoh & Yoshihiro Takayama &
200% Machine (subbing for injured Kenichi Yamamoto). No octopuses in this match,
but after the match, Fuyuki and Anjoh shook hands and said they were going to form a
tag team to feud with Tenryu.
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Killer Iwame and Yukari Ishikura are all through with FMW. The
latter two are due to injuries. Matsunaga it was announced has quit the promotion.
Michinoku is doing an angle where long-time rivals Great Sasuke & Super Delfin are
going to form a tag team.
Kick boxer Rene Roza from Holland, who is 2-0 in K-1 and worked for Rings in 1993,
debuts for UWFI on 6/26 against Sakuraba. He's also done several UFC type shoot
shows in Holland.
ECW
Only show of the week was 6/14 in Jim Thorpe, PA. Crowd was way down, ECW having
reported it as 385. The Paul Varelans-Jason Helton shoot fights don't look realistic at all.
Sandman didn't appear to be able to work (although part of it is an angle where he
comes to the ring on crutches and tries to work rather than forfeit the match) and lost
quickly to Taz. Taz also choked out the ref and Tod Gordon, and Bill Alfonso choked out
Missy Hyatt. Eliminators beat Gangstas in a tag title match which was there best match
so far, with much better heat than Philadelphia. Main event saw Raven beat Tommy
Dreamer to keep the ECW title. Raven juiced heavy and the match wound up as a
bloodbath. They brawled in the parking lot. Bruise Brothers and Brian Lee all interfered
and Axl Rotten ended up turning heel at the end by counting the pinfall after the ref was
KO'd despite seeing all the interference.
Perry Saturn was shooting a "House of Pain" MTV video this past week.
Upcoming line-ups are 6/21 in Plymouth Meeting, PA with Sabu vs. Shane Douglas,
Dreamer & Gangstas vs. Lee & Bruise Brothers, Pit Bull #2 vs. Saturn for TV title,
Sandman & Gordon vs. Taz & Alfonso, Chris Jericho vs. Rob Van Dam and more.
6/22 Hardcore Heaven at ECW Arena is Sabu vs. Van Dam, Taz vs. Varelans, Pit Bull #2
vs. Jericho for TV title, Eliminators vs. Bruise Brothers for tag title, Douglas vs. Mikey
Whipwreck, Dreamer vs. Lee and The Samoan Gangsta Party (Matthew & Samula Anoia)
will work.
6/29 in Middletown, NY has Raven vs. Sandman for the title, Eliminators vs. Gangstas
for tag title, Dreamer vs. Lee weapons match, Pit Bull #2 vs. Jericho for TV title and
Douglas vs. Whipwreck.
6/30 in Deer Park, NY at the Community Center has Raven vs. Dreamer for the title, Pit
Bull #2 vs. Douglas for TV title and Brian Pillman will be at that show.
HERE AND THERE
Lots of sad news to report. Ivan Kalmikoff, real name Edward Bruce, passed away on
6/10 after a heart attack in Farmington Hills, MI at the age of 78. Ivan & Karol Kalmikoff
were a famous Russian tag team in the 50s and early 60s who were, of course, not
actually either Russian or brothers. Ivan actually started wrestling in the early 1940s
before serving in the Navy in World War II, and did the Russian gimmick several years
after the war when the cold war heated up. Karol Kalmikoff died of a heart attack at a
young age and Ivan continued to wrestle, but was better known from the mid-60s
through around 1978 as the manager of the Mighty Igor (Dick Garza), who did a Polish
strongman gimmick later copied and taken to greater heights by a younger Ivan Putski.
Ken Farber, a referee in the old West Texas territory passed away back on Memorial Day
weekend.
Billy "Red" Lyons, who was a popular wrestler around the world and later became an
office assistant for both Frank and later Jack Tunney in Toronto (he appeared as one of
the road agents in numerous WWF angles up until the Tunney/WWF split) suffered a
serious stroke this past week and has lost some of his motor skills. Our records have
Lyons as being 71 years old.
The story on the AWA is that they are doing shows on 7/8 and 8/10 in Rochester, MN
and trying to sell shows based on the name. While Verne Gagne is listed as President,
I'm told they are just giving Verne a cut in exchange for using his and the AWA name to
sell the shows.
The World Freestyle Fighting show scheduled for 6/8 was moved to 6/22. Because of the
date, Guy Mezger can't compete since he's got Pancrase on 6/25. There are also plans for
a UFC-style show on 6/29 in Honolulu and former UFC promoter Buddy Albin, who
promoted for of the house shows for PPV events before having a split, is doing no rules
style shows in California and Mississippi in July.
The Mikey Doyle retirement show was moved from 6/28 to 8/16 in La Salle, ONT in
order to get WWF wrestlers Leif Cassidy and Zip to appear.
UFC
The final name in the 7/12 tournament will be Scott Fiedler, real name Scott Warren,
who has both boxed and kick boxed professionally and was a good high school wrestler.
Mark Coleman, who was added last week, placed sixth in the Olympic trials at 220
pounds in freestyle and is being trained by Richard Hamilton in Phoenix, the same camp
where Dan Severn has been training and where Don Frye was originally trained before
Frye went too crazy in practice and was booted out and formed his own training team.
UFC officials say that Frye will not appear on the 7/7 Vale Tudo show in Japan because
it's too close to their event as he's the big name in the event. The bill to officially regulate
and thus legalize UFC in New York state passed the senate this past week and is going
into the assembly. The situation with Providence, RI is that the Department of Business
Regulations has to license them and right now they are awaiting a license. On the
Pancrase show, when they plugged UFC (in a very anti-pro wrestling commercial) they
mentioned a date on PPV but said nothing about a live site and live tickets.
WCW
For probably the first time ever, word of mouth coming off a PPV did a number on the
ratings. The 6/17 Nitro drew 3.2 and 3.6 for the respective hours with a combined 3.4
rating and 5.9 share as compared with Raw doing a 2.3 and 3.8 share. In the head-tohead
hour, it was WCW's largest margin of victory ever. The replay did a 1.5 rating and
3.8 share, which is one of the highest rated replays as well. Not only that, but the show
was tremendous for the first 90 minutes before it started lagging. The show drew 5,638
fans paying $67,300 to Richmond, VA as Rick Steiner pinned Stevie Ray in 2:14 with a
clothesline. After the match Booker T attacked Rick, Scott went to make the save but
Booker came off the top rope with a kneedrop onto Scott, injuring him for his title match
later in the show. Joe Gomez pinned Disco Inferno in 3:22 of a DUD. Arn Anderson &
Chris Benoit who had super heat, although totally as faces, beat American Males in 5:47
when Benoit pinned Riggs. Bagwell and Benoit worked most of the way so it was
excellent (***1/2). John Tenta again pinned Big Bubba in 4:41 with a powerslam.
Afterwards Bubba hit Tenta over and over with a loaded sock (1/2*). Ric Flair pinned
Randy Savage in 12:46 in the match that was probably the key to the rating. After a ref
bump, Savage delivered two elbows, one of which was with Debra McMichael, Woman
and Liz in the way. Then Benoit ran in and was piledriven. Anderson ran in and was
thrown out. McMichael ran in with the briefcase and hit Savage and put Flair on top for
the pin and they beat up Savage again afterwards (***3/4). Dean Malenko again beat
Rey Misterio Jr. in 8:42. Good match but it made no sense and again Misterio Jr. didn't
look anywhere close to as good as he usually does (***1/4). Finale saw Giant pin Scott
Steiner with a choke slam. Scott suplexed him near the finish. Aside from that the match
was horrible. (3/4*).
Bruno Sammartino will referee the four Northeast dates for $2,000 per pop, during the
Flair-Savage match. Pedro Morales will also appear at all the shows, being in Konnan's
corner for matches against Kevin Sullivan.
My how the word turns. After the 2.6 rating for Nash's debut, Sullivan was totally in the
doghouse to the point he wasn't even invited into a booking meeting on 6/11 and there
was considerable speculation his days were numbered. By the next day, things were back
to normal although the word was Sullivan had to agree to give up being an active
performer after his current program finishes to keep his booking job. Of course after this
week, he's the company hero.
The bruises on the face of Sullivan and Benoit on Nitro were make-up applied by Janie
Engel and not actual bruises.
Fall Brawl will be 9/15 in Winston-Salem.
Tentative plan for the August PPV from Sturgis, SD is to have Giant vs. Hogan for the
title and Flair vs. Savage with the women at stake.
Titan made several legal threats regarding the Hall/Nash stuff which is why they had to
admit on television they didn't work for the WWF. Hall has contacted Henry Holmes,
Hogan's attorney, to try and say that most of the mannerisms he used as Ramon, he first
used as Diamond Stud and that it was he and not WWF who came up with the name
Razor Ramon, and also to get the money still owed him.
Jobber Prince Iaukea is Mike Haynor, no relation to the Iaukea family. Former Malenko
student, lately been training at the Power Plant.
Rock & Roll Express, Psicosis, Rey Misterio Jr. and La Parka are all scheduled for Disney
tapings in July.
As of press time, advances for New York and Hartford were decent (around 2,700 tickets
each, NY will sellout since the building holds 3,700) while Philadelphia (1,094) and
Landover, MD (1,399) are bad.
The Savage ban was lifted based on losing the previous Monday to Raw and nothing to
do with long-term planning.
They couldn't do any voiceovers on 9/18 because nobody had put together the 9/24
Nitro show for Charlotte and apparently the plan now is to not book ahead.
Mikey Whipwreck was looking for a job here.
They are looking to sign Misterio Jr. to a contract and Konnan signed a one-year deal.
Only other weekend house show was 9/14 in Norfolk which drew 4,000 people and
$46,308.
After July, they'll be back at Disney 8/21 to 8/29.
Actual Johnstown, PA numbers for 9/10 were 1,844 paying $27,128.
Debbie Combs will be brought in to work with Madusa.
For weekend of 6/15, WCW Saturday Night did a 2.3, Main Event a 1.8 and Pro a 1.3.
Jeff Jarrett's Titan contract expires on 10/7 and he'll start here immediately after that.
For week ending 5/26 (when Nitro was still early because of NBA), WCW drew 5.25
million homes on 172 stations and WWF drew 4.87 million homes on 150 stations.
WWF
Brian Pillman debuted on Raw doing a one minute contract signing acting as a babyface,
but turned heel later which should air this coming week. Pillman had been hospitalized
all week as his ankle was infected and he had a high fever.
At the 9/9 Chicago show, the Vader/Warrior story went like this. They had done 20
second squashes all weekend, somewhat because Vader had a bad hip and more because
Warrior's shoulder is messed up. I guess because the crowd was so big or because
Hellwig was unappreciative or because all the pins are getting so much press in Japan or
whatever, Vader took his clotheslines and then walked out. As he got to the back,
officials basically told him if he didn't walk back in, he might as well walk all the way
back to Colorado and not come back. He got back in the ring and did the match but
ended up walking out again for the count out rather than the pin. Right now there are no
plans to push him until the fall and they want him to drop weight first. But they did
allow him to do a double count out on 9/14 in Denver since it's his home town and lots of
his football players (he coached at Colorado last season) were in attendance, but he did
jobs at the other shows.
Titan has officially started HIV testing.
The Bodydonnas new manager will be called Cloudy. He's a guy who is a long-time
friend of Chris Candito, who wrestled as Jimmy Shoulders, and wears a wig and dresses
up in Sunny's old Bodydonna gear and will chase after Sunny as the Bodydonnas and
Gunns feud. He worked two indie shots this weekend with Skip. He'll debut at the PPV
as Bodydonnas face New Rockers in the free-for-all match.
Mr. Perfect was officially announced as the main event ref for Michaels-Smith. I suspect
that will be a great match because both are probably very motivated coming off the
previous match.
Kevin Kelly (no, not Kevin Wacholz) was hired as an announcer. He'll probably start as
an interview guy but is being groomed to take over Superstars in one year or so when
McMahon steps down. His background is formerly with Eddy Mansfield indies in
Florida.
Dirty White Boy's gimmick will be T.J. Hopper, doing a plumber gimmick, which by the
way, is his regular job as well. Tracy Smothers' gimmick will be something to the effect
of Toby Joe Royal, a good ol' country boy babyface.
Barry Windham, 36, who had knee surgery seven months ago and supposedly is now in
good shape called Titan and will get an interview in the next week or two. Windham was
one of the best, but has a pretty shoddy prior track record with Titan when he walked
out on the Widow Maker gimmick without telling anyone, and hasn't wrestled in several
years after suing WCW over blowing out his knee on several occasions.
Add Bart Sawyer to the list of wrestlers in Memphis on WWF developmental deals.
Weekend houses were 6/14 in Salt Lake City drew 4,032 and $72,472, 6/15 in Denver
drew 2,203 and $38,537, 6/16 in Phoenix drew 7,028 and $116,965 and 6/17 in St. Louis
drew 8,047 and $120,536. Latter two are outstanding, particularly St. Louis with no
local television.
Correction from last week when we wrote that the Moline, IL gate record was set on last
weekend's show. Actually a 1990 Warrior vs. Dino Bravo and 1991 Hulk Hogan vs. Ric
Flair cards drew more money, but it would be the largest since 1991.
Weekend ratings saw Action Zone at 1.3 and Mania at 1.2

 

July 1, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Titan Sports
lawsuit versus WCW, Hall and Nash, King of Ring 1996
with downplay in report of legendary Austin 3:16 genesis,
more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 01 July 1996 12:41
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 July 1, 1996
War has been declared. War has been accepted. Those are the main catch phrases of the
top angle this week in both WWF and WCW.
But in reality, this has nothing to do with the angle on television, and everything to do
with the angle on television.
Titan Sports on 6/20 filed both a lawsuit and a request for a restraining order against
Turner Broadcasting, World Championship Wrestling and Eric Bischoff largely as a
result of WCW's top angle involving Kevin Nash and Scott Hall invading WCW.
The lawsuit has four counts. The first is Unfair competition under the Lanham Act,
claiming WCW has used false and misleading descriptions of fact that is likely to cause
confusion in the marketplace and deceive consumers that Titan is affiliated or sponsors
an interpromotional angle. The second count is Trademark and Trade Dress
infringement and False Designation or Origin, regarding WCW using the trade dress and
persona of Razor Ramon, a Titan trademark. The third count in Connecticut Unfair
competition, citing a violation of Connecticut law by WCW's misleading descriptions of
fact in the angle constitute a deceptive act and that it's use of the Razor Ramon persona
does the same. It also cites WCW circulating false rumors of impending bankruptcy of
Titan Sports as a deceptive act and its constant disparagement of Titan Sports on
television and on its hotlines as an unfair or deceptive act. The final count is a
defamation and libel suit stemming from the 2/5 Nitro show when the lights went out in
Lakeland, FL and Eric Bischoff and Steve McMichael made comments acting like it was
the competition that may have had something to do with the power going out. Bischoff
later apologized on the 2/12 Nitro show for any inference that Titan was responsible for
the outage, although twice that week on the WCW Hotline, both Mark Madden and Gene
Okerlund made statements not so much saying Titan was responsible, but certainly
strongly hinting it was a possibility.
Titan is asking in the suit that TBS and WCW be required to disgorge all profits earned
as a result of this angle, both for the 6/16 and 7/7 PPV shows because Titan is claiming
WCW used bait-and-switch tactics on the 6/16 show leading viewers to believe Nash and
Hall would wrestle as a WWF team on the 6/16 show before announcing that the match
would take place on 7/7, and pay treble (triple) damages of those profits along with
punitive damages and cost of attorneys fees.
In addition, Titan filed a request for a Temporary Restraining Order asking: 1) WCW be
prohibited from making any statements or visual indications that the WWF is affiliated
in any way with this angle or that any wrestler appearing on the WCW programs are in
any way affiliated with WWF; 2) Using any misleading description of fact that is likely to
cause confusion or deceive the public as to the affiliation of any of the wrestlers
appearing on any WCW programs; 3) Using any of Titan's trademarks for names or
dress that would cause confusion among viewers; 4) Making references to Scott Hall as
either "Razor Ramon" or "The Bad Guy" or presenting him with a Hispanic accent or
being from a Hispanic background, with slicked black hair with a single curl in the front,
with a toothpick in his mouth or behind his ear, gold chain or chains around his neck,
wrestling shorts, wrestling boots, a vest, elbow and knee pads; razor blade jewelry or
designs on his clothing or anything else used by Hall during his WWF tenure that would
cause consumers to believe he is portraying Razor Ramon; 5) Making any references
saying Hall is currently affiliated with WWF; 6) Making any references to Kevin Nash as
"Diesel" or "Big Daddy Cool" or presenting him in that character including a goatee-style
beard and moustache, black tank-top, black pants, black leather boots, black vest, black
fingerless glove or gloves, black sunglasses or anything else utilized by Titan during
Nash's tenure with that organization; 7) Making any references saying Nash is currently
affiliated with the WWF; 8) Presenting Hall, Nash or any other former Titan wrestler or
personality without identifying that person by the character name they will use and
explicitly stating which organization that performer is under contract to; 9) Prohibiting
playing any videotapes on television or in commercials of Hall and Nash's appearances
to this point on Nitro and the angle on the 6/16 PPV show; 10) State three times during
every Nitro broadcast and on the preview show for the 7/7 PPV show that: "Scott Hall
and Kevin Nash are both under contract to the WCW and all their actions since May 27,
1996 have been at the direction of WCW. Any statements made by us, or suggestion
made by us, that Hall or Nash were affiliated with the WWF were false and misleading.
The WWF was not, and has not been in any way affiliated with the portrayal of Hall and
Nash since May 27, 1996 and there will not be any matches between WWF wrestlers and
WCW wrestlers on Nitro, on any of our shows, or on any of our pay-per-views. Any
statement or suggestion to that effect by WCW and TBS personnel was false. If you wish
to view WWF wrestlers, you should watch the WWF's programs, including Monday
Night Raw, which airs on the USA Network Monday nights at 9 p.m. EST.
Attorneys David Dunn, representing WCW, and Jerry McDevitt, representing WWF,
appeared before Judge Peter Dorsey in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut
on 6/24 for two hours of arguments regarding the temporary restraining order. Dorsey,
who is in the middle of a major organized crime drug case, after two hours stated that he
doesn't know wrestling and doesn't have the time at this point to devote to the case, but
when his current case is complete, he will devote four days to hearings on the subject
matter, which is expected to be by around the second week of July. The key to that is
that this hearing won't take place before the PPV, which is the key date, so WCW, which
has largely kept quiet about the case, considered no ruling to be a major victory. WWF is
still exploring other legal options and hasn't given up the attempt to get the angle
changed before the PPV takes place.
Neither Vince McMahon nor Eric Bischoff were at the hearing, although both, along with
Nash, Hall and Titan Sports President Linda McMahon, may be required by the judge to
be at the subsequent hearing or be available for depositions in the case.
Among the key points in the hearing were Dunn pointing out that over the past few
years, there have been 41 wrestlers who have left one company to go to the other and in
28 of those cases, the wrestlers switched companies while maintaining the same name
and basic persona and there has never been a lawsuit filed before. Dunn claimed that
most of Hall's mannerisms, from his look, the style or trunks, the hair style, the
toothpick and even referring himself as "The Bad Guy" were created by WCW for its
Diamond Stud character and that it was Titan who copied all of that to create Razor
Ramon. McDevitt argued that if they were to call he and Nash Diamond Stud and Vinnie
Vegas they would have no problem but by not giving Hall and Nash a name, the public
was believing they were still Razor Ramon and Diesel. At one point Dorsey asked Dunn
to have WCW play down the Ramon character and Dunn said he'd suggest that to his
clients provided McDevitt agreed he wouldn't sue WCW based on anything that takes
place on the 7/7 PPV show, which McDevitt wouldn't agree to. McDevitt claimed if he
could get Bischoff under oath at the hearing, that he would only need to ask ten
questions to Bischoff to prove his case conclusively.
McMahon, in a press release by Titan, stated that he regretted filing the suit but said,
"that I have finally been pushed up against a wall with no other options to protect my
company. My wife and I have committed our adult lives to building the World Wrestling
Federation. This company competes very well, and I dare say, stays ahead in a
marketplace where quality of programming, creativity, start development and consumer
interest reflects success. However, when a giant competitor uses your very creations to
dupe and confuse the public, then the playing field isn't level, and you are forced to fight
in a different arena."
McDevitt compared the situation to a 1987 lawsuit won by HBO against Showtime when
Showtime came up with the commercial slogan of "HBO + Showtime, together is better,"
with the idea that Showtime was confusing the marketplace giving the public the idea
the two groups were affiliated with each other.
He argued that if this angle has the likelihood of confusing the public into believing Hall
and Nash represent the WWF in interpromotional matches, that it's an even stronger
version of a similar case. Even with Hall and Nash stating on some shows that they don't
work for the WWF, by WCW not giving them names, he stated it still confuses the public
and he pointed out that on the 6/24 Nitro, it was never stated that the two don't work for
the WWF.
WCW officials claim that they are researching trademarks for current planned new ring
names for Hall and Nash. If the names clear, they'll be given the names as soon as
possible. If not, on the 7/7 PPV show, they'll be referred to by the announcers in that
match as Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
The irony of the lawsuit is that this reverses the positions of both organizations in a
similar 1991 angle involving Ric Flair joining the WWF to feud with Hulk Hogan,
wearing what was then the NWA (now WCW) championship belt. Flair was initially
portrayed by WWF as being a wrestler under contract to a rival organization, and as the
real world champion wearing the rival group's title belt. WCW went to court and won,
getting the belt itself back, whereupon McMahon bought a new belt that was a replica of
the original. At that point they wound in court again, and again WCW prevailed in that
WWF would not be allowed to show the belt on any of its television shows. McMahon
then came up with a clever angle where Jack Tunney banned Flair's belt appearing on
television, and they digitized the belt when Flair would come to the ring, up until the
1992 Royal Rumble when Flair captured the WWF's title belt.
Much of the lawsuit are contentions that WWF and McMahon have made all along,
stating Turner wanted to buy the company and at several occasions has brought up the
idea of doing interpromotional matches and was turned down every time. They suit
stated WCW could have put Nitro on at any time on any day but chose to go head-tohead
with WWF's most popular show, then started the program a few minutes early to
get a jump. The suit claims Nitro was a vehicle to disparage, defame and libel WWF and
its talent rather than promote WCW on its own merits. That at that point, WCW
employees "constantly used their media power and unlimited checkbook" to suggest
WWF talent should join WCW with promises of huge guaranteed contracts and that
WCW and its employees and agents constantly circulated phony rumors of Titan's
impending bankruptcy. In response, WWF started its parody skits creating characters of
Billionaire Ted, Nacho Man, Huckster and Scheme Gene which the suit claims the public
grew to knew as WWF parody characters, and thus when Hall used those terms on the
first Nitro, it would confuse the public into believing he represented the WWF. The suit
claims that after Hall and Nash agreed to join WCW, that WCW implemented a plan to
deceive the public about the status of them suggesting there was doubt they were coming
as a phase of plan to suggest when they showed up it was a surprise and that they
weren't affiliated with WCW. Titan claimed that on the 6/10 Nitro, that Bischoff
deliberately tried to deliberately confuse consumers into believing that WWF vs. WCW
matches would be on the 6/16 PPV show. It should be pointed out that there was the
suggestion of that on the 6/10 Nitro show, but it was made clear on both Saturday
morning and night shows on 6/15 that Hall and Nash would not wrestle on the PPV. On
the PPV pre-game Main Event show it was made clear that on the PPV, WCW would give
either a yes or no as an answer to the challenge and not that the match would take place.
On the 6/16 show, and then repeated on 6/17 Raw and on most (but not all) shows over
the weekend, they aired the complete angle with Bischoff where Hall and Nash both
stated they were not affiliated with the WWF. McDevitt contends that there was no
disclaimer until the PPV show itself, which was viewed by far less people than had
watched the TV angles to that point so they got the benefit of the PPV buys on 6/16
without letting anyone know that Hall and Nash didn't work for the WWF. In addition,
after McMahon had stated on 6/3's Raw and subsequent Superstars on 6/8, that the two
weren't affiliated with WWF, Mark Madden on 6/12 on the WCW Hotline stated, "On
last week's Raw, Vince McMahon said that Big Daddy Cool and The Bad Guy were no
longer affiliated with his promotion. But what else would McMahon say? I mean, when
the good old US or A caught those dirty commie nuclear spies Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, and fried them in the electric chair in the 50s, Russia didn't step forward and
admit responsibility. Espionage is espionage. It's secret." That same hotline message
clearly referred to Hall and Nash in reference to "legalities of using non-WCW talent."
Indeed, both in the Hall/Nash angle and the libel count regarding the lights going out,
the statements with the potential damage in court were 900 line statements by Madden
and Gene Okerlund and really not anything stated on television. If anything, WCW was
given a strong warning to monitor what goes on its hotline more strongly and reports we
have are that from this point forward Madden will be required to submit a script three
days early before his reports air.
Of course, using wrestling hotlines to feed the public false information in order to get
across angles is as old as the idea of wrestling hotlines, and it isn't as if the WWF didn't
manipulate and pull a ruse on the public as to the physical condition of Shawn Michaels
in order to set the stage for its current strong business run. In fact, the entire business
for both companies was built on attempting to deceive the public while creating angles,
which are all inherently ruses.
In legal briefs filed by McDevitt, he claimed WCW is "deliberately trying to destroy the
WWF's reputation by portraying it as sending its wrestlers on to a competitor's show to
physically assault personnel affiliated with WCW. Indeed, the whole point of this fraud
can reasonably be predicted. The finishes of all matches will be controlled solely by the
WCW, and in the end the WCW wrestlers will no doubt trounce the WWF wrestlers,
thereby demonstrating organizational superiority. The fact that Titan expects the WCW's
supposed WWF wrestlers to perform poorly or lose matches contributes to the
irreparable injury in this case.
precisely to make the WWF services look bad in the eyes of the consumers."
***********************************************************
WWF KING OF THE RING POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 118 (84.3%)
Thumbs down 10 (07.1%)
In the middle 12 (08.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith 107
Marc Mero vs. Steve Austin 10
Undertaker vs. Mankind 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Vader vs. Jake Roberts 47
Ultimate Warrior vs. Jerry Lawler 29
Jake Roberts vs. Steve Austin 11
Smoking Gunns vs. Godwinns 11
WCW GREAT AMERICAN BASH FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 322 (98.5%)
Thumbs down 4 (01.2%)
In the middle 1 (00.3%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 138
Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit 98
McMichael & Greene vs. Flair & Anderson 21
Sting vs. Steve Regal 10
WORST MATCH POLL
John Tenta vs. Big Bubba 136
Lex Luger vs. The Giant 29
Steiners vs. Norton & Ice Train 18
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Marcus Bagwell 13
Konnan vs. El Gato 12
Sting vs. Steve Regal 9
PANCRASE BRAWL IN BUDOKAN FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 132 (98.5%)
Thumbs down 2 (01.5%)
In the middle 0 (00.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten 99
Guy Mezger vs. Minoru Suzuki 16
WORST MATCH POLL
Semmy Schiltt vs. Manabu Yamada 21
Masakatsu Funaki vs. August Smisl 17
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 6/25.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
The WWF's fourth annual "King of the Ring" on 6/23 at the Mecca Arena in Milwaukee
continued the streak of positively received PPV shows. While not the blow away show
that WCW delivered the previous week, it featured several solid matches, an excellent
main event, and the bad matches for the most part were kept short and for the most part
given enough of a storyline to carry them through at least some of their weaknesses.
The show, which sold out three weeks in advance with 8,762 paying $142,568, was
highlighted by Shawn Michaels retaining the WWF title over Davey Boy Smith in a
match that certainly made up for their subpar match on the previous show. While the
match was a little slow paced because they went 26:25, the high spots were for the most
part world class in execution and speed, which is saying something since Smith is a
legitimate heavyweight powerhouse. It was the easy pick for best match on the show and
ranks behind only the Michaels vs. Diesel match from Omaha as the best major WWF
match of 1996. In addition, Marc Mero and Steve Austin in the PPV opener put on a
solid match as well. Aside from the stunning Mankind nearly clean victory over
Undertaker, the middle of the card was below par. Vader vs. Jake Roberts told a story
that was played out through the show, but it was a short match with a poor finish. The
Smoking Gunns vs. Godwinns again exemplified the weakness in the WWF tag team
division, as the match was fair and the only great reaction seemed to be a post-match
babyface reaction for Sunny. Ultimate Warrior vs. Jerry Lawler, while the worst match
of the show from a wrestling standpoint, was basically using Warrior to his best
advantage. With his shoulder injury, he needed someone to work with to carry the
match, and while Lawler's athletic days are behind him, there are few in the history of
the business better at using their mouth to get heat and at knowing shortcuts to carry a
match. The fact it was kept to less than 4:00 made it an easy job for Lawler to at least
make a poor match not stink up the joint. Ahmed Johnson's IC title win over Goldust
was an average match. It was a strong performance by Goldust, but the match was
clearly too long and dragged in the middle. They apparently wanted to give Johnson
experience in longer matches since as IC champion they probably don't want him to do
quickies on the road. In addition, with so many of the other matches having to be kept
short due to the limitations of those involved, they had to pick up the time somewhere.
Austin vs. Jake Roberts was all storyline and almost no wrestling. At this point, a bad
main event would have probably made it a negative show, but Michaels and Smith
delivered the match expected and maybe even a little extra.
Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Owen Hart handled the announcing. Ross started out a
little too corny but after the first hour was strong. Hart was a surprise. His delivery is
anything but ready for a three hour show, but he was funnier than expected, at did a
better job in getting the main event over than Lawler would have. The place was loaded
with negative-WCW signs, although also notable were "Disco Fever," "Kill the Kliq" and
basically a commercial for a videotape distributor among others.
A. The Bodydonnas (Tom Prichard & Chris Candito) defeated The Rockers (Allan Sarven
& Marty Jannetty) in 8:06. The Bodydonnas introduced new manager Cloudy (indie
wrestler Jimmy Shoulders), who with the wig looked like one of the female steroid
monster beasts. Jim Ross even joked that she looked like someone on the Russian
womens Olympic team. Fans still think of Bodydonnas a heels even though they turned
so they didn't know how to react to the match and there wasn't much heat. There were a
lot of tremendous moves used back-and-forth, particularly involving Skip, but the two
teams didn't work together well and the bout was a disappointment. Finish saw Leif
Cassidy use the sidewalk slam on Skip, but Cloudy got in behind the refs back and kissed
Leif, who was stunned and Skip schoolboyed him for the pin. I don't know what it says
when you've got two transvestites and two finishes that stemmed from a man kissing
another man. *1/2
1. Steve Austin (Steve Williams) pinned Marc Mero in 16:49 in the first King of the Ring
semifinal. There was a big "Sable" chant early. Owen Hart then came up with a line that
was so funny because it was clearly unplanned where he said that Austin didn't bring a
hose bag to the ring. Never thought I'd hear that term on a WWF broadcast. Austin
dominated the body of the match working on Mero's back and side. They went to near
falls and it turned into a very good opener. As Austin delivered a jawbreaker on Mero, he
must have bit his tongue or lip because he started bleeding from the mouth. It also may
have come from a move Mero threw. Mero used a somersault plancha and followed it up
with a tope, then got near falls with a dropkick off the top and a Frankensteiner off the
top. Austin went for a power bomb, but at the top, dropped backwards dropping Mero's
throat on the top rope similar to a hot shot but Mero kicked out. Austin then got the pin
using his "Stone Cold Stunner," which is basically the same move as the Diamond Cutter
or Ace Crusher. Great effort by both wrestlers. ***3/4
2. Jake Roberts (Aurelian Smith Jr.) beat Vader (Leon White) via DQ in 3:34. Vader
jumped Roberts early and just pounded on him. Roberts hit the DDT and on the way
down, Vader grabbed the ref who went down in a very unconvincing spot and called for
the DQ. The finish was supposed to be more convincing, although it was a weak finish
either way. After the match Vader attacked Roberts and gave him a Vader bomb, with
the storyline being that he damaged Roberts' ribs. 1/4*
3. Smoking Gunns (Mike Plotcheck & Monte Sopp) retained the WWF tag titles beating
the Godwinns (Mark Canterbury & Dennis Knight) in 10:10. Basically no heat at all
except for reactions to Sunny. Finish saw Bart hit Phinneus with his cowboy boot to
allow Billy to pin him. *1/4
4. Ultimate Warrior (Jim Hellwig) pinned Jerry Lawler in 3:50 after some pathetic
clotheslines and a shoulderblock. With Warrior's shoulder injury, they don't want to risk
him doing the press-slam right now. Lawler did a great comedy monologue insulting
individual fans as he came to the ring. The jokes were all older then Lawler himself, and
they're the same lines he's been delivering for 15 years, did it did a great job of getting
the crowd going. Lawler jumped Warrior during his pre-match routine and kept up on
him until hitting a piledriver, which Warrior did the no sell on and went right to the
finish. DUD
5. Mankind (Michael Foley) beat Undertaker (Mark Calloway) in 18:21 with the
mandible claw. Vince McMahon mentioned that Dr. Sam Shepherd introduced that
move into pro wrestling, but didn't mention who Shepherd was (he was the real life
person that the TV show and movie "The Fugitive" was based on) and virtually nobody
knows that guy ended up in pro wrestling. Undertaker was more aggressive then usual
since he was doing the job. A wild, stiff match with the only negative being that it went
too long. Mankind used the elbow off the apron and got a chair, but when he went to use
it, Undertaker kicked the chair into Mankind's face. Mankind took a backdrop on the
floor onto the chair. He took a hard chair to the back. Mankind got out of the tombstone
and hit a neckbreaker, then went for the claw, but it was blocked. Mankind got a lengthy
nerve hold. Later Mankind tried the elbow off the apron again, but this time Undertaker
hit him with a chair on the way down, then gave him a hard chair shot to the head.
Mankind came back with a piledriver for a near fall. Mankind threw a fit not getting the
pin including pulling some of his hair out. Mankind got the urn, but Paul Bearer got it
back. Finally Bearer went to hit Mankind with the urn, but he moved and it hit
Undertaker. Mankind then used the claw and got the submission win. Fans were
basically shocked by the finish. It's gutsy to have a babyface icon lose in such a
convincing fashion, especially a strong gimmick guy, but when they did it at
Wrestlemania X with Bret and Owen, it led to some rematches that drew the biggest
houses in a long time. ***1/4
6. Ahmed Johnson (Tony Norris) won the IC title from Goldust (Dustin Runnels) in
15:34. Johnson started out aggressively and Goldust was good in putting him over. He
even did a running dive over the top rope and came up short and nearly landed on his
head. He threw the ring steps at Goldust but missed him by a mile. Goldust threw the
steps on Johnson and worked on his back. The match got slow in the middle. At one
point there was a screw up as Johnson was in a sleeper and the ref checked his hand and
it went down three times which should be the finish. After a weak piledriver, Johnson
started rubbing and fondling on Johnson. After a sleeper, Goldust kissed Johnson again.
That triggered the superman comeback and Johnson got the pin with the Pearl River
plunge. **
Brian Pillman came out on crutches to do an interview. He basically did his off the wall
nutty persona to the nth degree. He passed Austin while leaving and Austin was coming
almost teasing the idea that the two were friends although nothing about it was
acknowledged in commentary.
7. Austin beat Roberts in 4:28 to win King of the Ring. The storyline was that Roberts
was working on badly injured ribs. Ironically it was Austin who was hurt legit as he
needed 15 or 16 stitches in the tongue and mouth (done backstage at the building, not in
the hospital as was said on television). Austin worked the ribs for about 3:00 and Gorilla
Monsoon came in to stop the match. Roberts begged for him to let it go, which he did. At
this point they got a lot of heat and Roberts made a quick comeback before being cut off.
Austin got the pin with the Stone Cold Stunner and did a strong post-match interview
knocking Roberts religion and drinking problems. 1/2*
8. Shawn Michaels (Michael Hickenbottom) kept the WWF title beating Davey Boy
Smith (David Smith) in 26:25. Mr. Perfect came out as ref and they teased he's be a heel
ref during the show as he was dressing in Jim Cornette's teams dressing room and also
had a few words with Michaels earlier in the show. Monsoon came out and said that
Perfect would be the outside the ring ref (very valuable since almost none of this match
took place outside the ring) and that Earl Hebner would ref in the ring. The first 18:00 of
the match consisted of Bulldog holding Michaels generally in a headlock, and working
high spots off the headlock. Highlights early where Smith pressing Michaels over his
head and dropping him backwards over the top to the floor. He suplexed Michaels
outside the ring. Jose Lothario and Cornette had a brief argument. Smith pressed
Michaels from the floor and threw him back in. Smith whipped Michaels into the
buckles and Michaels did the Ray Stevens bump, and was nailed coming out with a
clothesline. With the exception of a sloppy huracanrana off the apron early on by
Michaels and kind of a clumsy missed diving head-butt off the top by Smith, the high
spots and moves throughout this match were done at a fast speed and were perfectly
executed. At one point Michaels went for a powerslam, Smith reversed it into his own,
but Michaels got behind him and went for the superkick, but Smith blocked it and hit a
clothesline. The last few minutes were one near fall after the other until the dreaded
Hebner bump. Michaels did an elbow off the top and a terribly weak looking superkick.
Perfect jumped in to make the count as did Hebner. Perfect stopped counting at two but
Hebner counted three for the win. After the match, Hart (wearing his cast although in
real life his wrist is recovered and he doesn't wear a cast anymore) hit the ring and
Michaels basically beat both up for a while until the 2-on-1 got to him. Johnson came in,
then came Vader. Cornette hit Lothario with the tennis racquet. Hart hit Michaels with
the cast. Finally Warrior slammed Vader off the top and the heels ran off, to set up the
six-man tag on the 7/21 PPV show from Vancouver, BC, called "International Incident."
****1/4
*************************************************************
On the evening of 6/17, the night after the funeral of Dick Murdoch, a group of wrestlers
from Dallas went into the cemetery where he was buried and had a few beers by the
gravestone, and left a six-pack at the grave when they went back home.
It seems to be the belief now that Murdoch may have died of a massive stroke rather
than a heart attack, although no autopsy was performed. He had been bothered for some
time by high blood pressure and had refused to take any medication for it. He had a nose
bleed for more than 24 hours which wouldn't subside and had gone to the emergency
room the night before he died and given an inhalant because the doctors believed the
nosebleed was allergy related.
There was a large crowd at the First United Methodist Church in Canyon, TX, which was
mainly attended by local wrestling types and others who knew him from around town.
Many of the wrestlers from Dallas made the trek, as did Dory Funk and wife Marti from
Florida (Terry Funk and his wife were on vacation in Europe), his most famous longtime
rival Herb Gerwig (Killer Karl Kox), midget wrestler Cowboy Bradley and women
wrestlers Jean Antone, Marie LaVerne and Kay Noble.
Dusty Rhodes, Murdoch's long-time tag partner, mentioned Murdoch's death both on
the Main Event show and also on the PPV show on 6/16. WWF acknowledged it on Raw
on 6/17, and ECW on its television show on 6/18 with Sandman drinking a beer to his
memory. In fact, Murdoch was buried with a Coors bottle. New Japan had President
Seiji Sakaguchi come into the ring with a large photo of Murdoch at the Skydiving J
show (a TV taping) on 6/17 at Budokan Hall and they did a ten bell salute, as did
numerous indie promotions in the United States.
Since moving back to the Amarillo area in 1995, Murdoch had run a bar on the outskirts
of town along with his infrequent wrestling appearances. Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi,
the last company he had worked for in Japan, has scheduled a Dick Murdoch Memorial
show on 7/27 in Kawasaki with the gate being sent to Murdoch's family.
A couple of added career notes not in last week's issue. Murdoch wrestled under other
ring names such as Big Daddy Murdoch when he first went to Kansas City in the mid-
60s, Ron Carson (as the "brother" and tag team partner of Don Carson around 1967 in
the Chattanooga area) and as The Masked Invader in St. Louis, with a famous
unmasking at the hands of Bruno Sammartino in 1973. Murdoch's last show at the
Amarillo Sports Arena was on 6/6, not 6/13, as listed in the bio.
*************************************************************
Between the sound system going out and the ring and ring cables breaking, it wasn't
until about 12:30 a.m. that the Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam main event at the 6/22 ECW
Arena event went into the ring. Two minutes into that match, the top rope broke. The
two basically ignored it and went through with their scheduled match, with the show
ending at about 12:45 a.m. with both Sabu and Van Dam doing stretcher jobs after Sabu
had scored the win using the Arabian facebuster, despite the fact the top ropes were
broken. In the process, it appeared Sabu re-injured his hand.
Thus ended "Hardcore Heaven `96," one of ECW's best shows (according to most
reports, we did also get several negative complaints regarding the show citing it lasted
too long and about all the mechanical problems), certainly its longest, and the
company's all-time record crowd as well. A crowd reported at in excess of 1,500 jammed
the ECW Arena for a five hour long show. The show had more technical down points
than ever before, but even more amazing up points.
Besides the ring problems, which Paul Heyman after the show was blaming on Al Poling
(911), who runs Ted Petty's ring business, who he claimed gave them a bad ring, blaming
it on ECW giving Brian Lee the choke slam finishing move, there was another major inring
hurdle in regard to the much-hyped Taz vs. Paul Varelans so-called shoot fight.
The match was actually the second most hyped match on the show, stemming from an
angle three weeks earlier. The idea was to create the idea that Taz was a world-class
shooter by having him beat a proven UFC fighter. However, Varelans refused to do a
clean job several days before the show. Since Heyman knew there could be problems in
the ring and the match could stink up the joint, he moved it to early in the show. A
compromise finish was worked out where Perry Saturn dropkicked Varelans from the
top rope allowing Taz to give Varelans a suplex and use the choke finisher in 2:24. After
the match Taz turned the heat on the fans who were mad about the poor match and
weak finish, saying that he could have beaten Varelans clean but it would have made all
the ECW fans happy to see an ECW guy stretch a UFC guy and he didn't want to make
the fans happy. There was tremendous heat regarding Varelans in the days leading to the
show, including a possibility that he wouldn't show up. He also missed a scheduled
session working out the match four days beforehand. The tension got so serious that
Heyman was saying that in a true shoot Taz, who has wrestling and judo background,
would destroy Varelans easily, because the whole idea of this match was designed to get
people to believe Taz was real, like a true shoot has anything to do with any of this.
Heyman also stationed numerous heel wrestlers at ringside for the match, both
Eliminators, Shane Douglas and Rob Van Dam, presumably in case there were problems
in the ring.
Varelans claimed working for ECW was like being involved in the classic con "shell
game." He said when they brought him in, they gave him no indication where he or the
angle was going. Since he was naive to the workings of pro wrestling, he didn't recognize
it initially. He credited several of the ECW wrestlers with smartening him up, telling him
where it was going, warning him beforehand and telling him he shouldn't do a clean job.
Heyman claimed Varelans knew where they were going from the beginning and claimed
to have signed Varelans to a contract with it specifying a choke finish and tap out.
Varelans said he wished he had more practice before being thrown in there and that the
two worked out once for two hours on the mat, but hardly worked out the match at all,
and said he had no problems losing as long as it was a cheat finish but they weren't
paying enough for him to do a clean job plus with him scheduled to be in the September
UFC tournament, he didn't think it was a smart career move to do a clean job to a pro
wrestler even in a worked match. He said Heyman was pressuring him up until the last
second to do the clean finish because he told him he felt it was important not to screw
the fans and even told him he'd ruin him in the pro wrestling business for three years if
he didn't do the clean job. Varelans claimed he's not really interested in doing pro
wrestling regularly until he's done with Vale Tudo rules fighting which is several years
down the road anyway. Varelans brought up another idea for the finish, which he said
Heyman first came up with and he agreed to, which would have been for the Eliminators
to hit their total elimination of him before Taz put him out. Varelans said Heyman nixed
that idea claiming to him that he was splitting up the Eliminators, while Heyman said it
was Varelans who came up with the idea and he wouldn't agree to it. Varelans said Taz
was a great guy and that Taz even told him what they were doing to him was wrong, but
laughed at the idea of guy "who comes up to my waist" being able to beat him or be in
the league with the top guys he's faced in UFC if it was a shoot.
"I'm not big on going back," said Varelans, who has dabbled with the idea of pro
wrestling in Dallas, even though he said he had a good time doing it. "I just wanted to get
it out of the way. It wasn't worth it. I don't like being treated like an idiot. If I'd have
known what it was all about, I'd have never done it."
Varelans also said Heyman promised him none of the footage of the match would ever
air on television, and it would be saved exclusively for home video.
In between came an appearance by Terry Gordy, losing to Raven in an unannounced
ECW title match, and a TV title change where Chris Jericho won the title from Pit Bull
#2 in what was reported as an outstanding match.
Among the other highlights was an angle where Stevie Richards presented Raven with a
new valet, Sandman's real life wife Peaches (in storyline she's his estranged wife).
Sandman didn't care, saying he used to pass her around the dressing room anyway and
all he cared about was when Raven was done with her, he wanted Raven to pay his bill at
the end. However, Sandman's nine-year-old son Tyler came out, dressed like Raven and
Raven put Tyler in from of him and dared Sandman to cane his son. This angle was even
more difficult than it sounds because the mic broke right in the middle and they had to
basically stop the angle but keep things entertaining enough for a long time before
continuing on with the planned angle. The angle apparently is that Sandman's son has
disowned him and now worships Raven. Tommy Dreamer, after winning a Weapons
match from Brian Lee, took one of the most dangerous bumps of the year, being choke
slammed off a balcony near the entrance of the building through three tables that were
piled on top of each other on the floor. Dreamer took the bump and aside from a few
splinters and being a little shaken up, wasn't seriously injured. When the ring broke and
they had a lengthy delay after midnight, Kimona Wanaleia was sent out and did a strip
tease routine, complete with taking off her top, to keep the crowd from getting restless
before the main event. Earlier in the show, Blue Meanie came out as Bluedust, doing a
Goldust gimmick, and wound up being DDT'd by Beulah McGillicuddy. Stevie Richards
& Meanie, who are such an incredible act I'm shocked nobody has gone after them
harder (Al Snow's Leif Cassidy is such a pale imitation) this time also came out as Baron
Von Stevie, with Richards with a headcap making him looked bald and squeezing his
hand doing a claw imitation and goose stepping around the ring and threatening Joey
Styles with the claw, and Meanie as Blue Dust with the Meanie Babe as Marlena. Blood
is being used again in a big way after a temporary moratorium. There had been blood on
most shows of late, which the claim was originally that it was all hardway except it was
happening on every house show, often more than once, the past few weeks. Even before
the show started, ring announcer Joel Gertner started telling bad jokes and Sandman
ran out and caned him to a huge pop, allowing Bob Artese to take over. Oh, and Shane
Douglas exposed himself as well.
Complete results saw Douglas beat Mikey Whipwreck (who is staying with ECW) with a
belly-to-belly in 11:33; J.T. Smith & Little Guido with Sal Bellomo in their corner beat
Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley via DQ when D-Von interfered in a match that
went on too long; Taz over Varelans; Raven pinned Gordy with a DDT on a chair after
lots of outside interference in a match where Gordy got a huge crowd pop. Raven juiced
like crazy for Gordy. Richards brought in barbed wire but Gordy used it to juice Raven
even more; The Eliminators-Gangstas tag title match wound up with both the Bruise
Brothers and Samoan Gangsta Party interfering at the very beginning, Axl Rotten &
Hack Myers went to a no decision with Samoan Gangsta Party amidst lots of run-ins;
Jericho pinned Pit Bull #2 to capture the TV title. Pit Bull #2 bled, although his may
have been an accident. Pit Bull #2 accidentally hit Francine, who was being bothered by
Douglas at ringside; Dreamer pinned Lee in a weapons match where they collected all
the weapons brought by fans before the show and put them in four garbage cans and the
wrestlers used all of them, after the match Dreamer took the incredible bump; and
Sabu's win over Van Dam finished the show.
************************************************************
The latest on the political football regarding the live venue of UFC, this time the 7/12
show in Providence, is that Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Richard Israel ruled that
UFC needs to be licensed under the Department of Business Regulations under the
guidelines set forth for pro wrestling events. As of press time, the DBR had not issued
the show a license so ticket sales have been suspended for the past two weeks in
Providence, RI. SEG promoter David Isaacs said that they expect to get a license this
week as SEG is amenable to the DBR's proposals regarding medical provisions. If it falls
through, SEG has back-up contingency plans.
The bracketing for the tournament has a first round of Don Frye vs. Mark Hall, Gary
Goodridge vs. John Campatella, Mark Coleman vs. Kevin Jakub (a Muay Thai fighter
from Decatur, GA who is a replacement for Frank Lobman who pulled out over a
supposed training injury) and Brian Johnson vs. Scott Fiedler. If things go as expected,
and they rarely do, it will probably wind up with Frye against Coleman in the finals
which will be a real test for Frye since Coleman is a world class wrestler having placed
second in the world championships in freestyle in 1994 at 220 pounds and would be in
good shape since he recently participated in the Olympic trials, placing sixth.
The second Pancrase PPV got murdered by the game five of the NBA playoffs, as buys
were cut more than in half from the first show with just over an 0.1 buy rate and 25,000
total buys (approximately $110,000 company gross). The third PPV show, set for 8/16,
which will be of Best of historical show highlighting Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock,
Bas Rutten and Minoru Suzuki, appears to be an important test to see if buys rebound.
The tentative plan is for a fourth date in October, which presumably would be the 9/7
card from Tokyo Bay NK Hall with a double main event of Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki
for the championship and Ken Shamrock vs. Suzuki.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 6/28 TO 7/28
6/29 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
6/29 WCW Philadelphia Civic Center (Giant vs. Sting)
6/29 RINGS Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Yamamoto vs. Maurice Smith)
6/30 Rikidozan Memorial Multi-promotional show Yokohama Arena (Choshu &
Kitahara vs. Tenryu & Fujinami)
6/30 WCW New York Paramount (Giant vs. Sting)
7/1 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Flair vs. Savage)
7/5 WWF East Rutherford, NJ Continental Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/7 WCW Bash at the Beach PPV Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center (Hall & Nash & ? vs.
Savage & Sting & Luger)
7/7 Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Severn vs. Murphy)
7/8 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Lakeland, FL Civic Center
7/9 All Japan Kanazawa (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)
7/11 All Japan Hakata Star Lanes (Kobashi vs. Akiyama)
7/12 UFC X Providence, RI Civic Center (tournament)
7/13 AAA Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium (Konnan & Aguayo & Octagon vs.
Pierroth & Caras & Killer)
7/13 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu & Gordy & Dreamer vs. Lee & Raven &
Richards)
7/15 AAA TripleMania IV-C Madero (Konnan vs. Pierroth Jr.)
7/16 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Giant vs. Power Warrior)
7/17 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Hashimoto vs. Flair)
7/20 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (six man tag team tournament)
7/20 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kawada vs. Akiyama)
7/21 WWF International Incident PPV Vancouver, BC GM Center (Michaels & Johnson
& Warrior vs. Hart & Smith & Vader)
7/21 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Anjoh)
7/22 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Seattle Center Arena
7/23 WWF Superstars tapings Yakima, WA
7/24 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Taue vs. Kobashi)
7/25 WWF San Francisco Cow Palace (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/27 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Vader)
RESULTS
6/13 Salt Lake City, UT (WWF - 4,032): New Rockers b Bushwhackers, Savio Vega
b Owen Hart, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Steve Austin b Duke Droese,
Ahmed Johnson b Davey Boy Smith, Ultimate Warrior b Vader-COR, WWF tag titles:
Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-DQ, Undertaker b Mankind, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b
Goldust
6/14 Norfolk, VA (WCW - 4,000): Dick Slater b Disco Inferno, Madusa b Rob
Parker, WCW cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Brad Armstrong, Chris Benoit b
Rocco Rock, Diamond Dallas Page b Jim Duggan, Lex Luger b Randy Savage-DQ, WCW
title: Ric Flair b The Giant-DQ
6/14 Lakewood, OH (Cleveland All-Pro Wrestling): Joe Legend b Mike Legacy,
Calavera Cortez b Road Hog, Scott Stone b Rhino Richards, Psycho Mike b Bonecrusher
Broka, Theater of Pain b Super Mario & Canadian Bad Boy, Alexis Machine b Christian
Cage, Bobby Blaze b Sexton Hardcastle, Jimmy Valiant & Beau James b Pain & Agony-
DQ, Johnny Swinger b Manny Fernandez (original)-DQ
6/14 Oklahoma City (Power Zone Wrestling Alliance): Rock & Roll Cowboy b
Slash-DQ, Oklahoma Kid b Billy Phoenix, Tom Jones b Rajun Cajun, Slash & Damian
Kinncade NC Chopper & Nightmare, Psycho & Super X b Randy Rhodes & Rick Garrett
6/15 Orizaba, Veracruz (AAA TripleMania IV-B - 7,000): Ludxor & Venum &
Frisbee & Boomerang & Thunderbird b Ravana & Black Cat II & Duende & Espectro &
Picudo, Latin Lover & Sergio Romo Jr. & Antifaz b Jerry Estrada & Sanguinario &
Arandu, Rey Misterio Jr. & Oro Jr. & Winners & Super Calo b Perro Silva & Halloween &
Kraken & El Mosco, Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Halcon
Dorado Jr. b Los Payasos & Karis la Momia-DQ, Pierroth Jr. wins Champion of
Champions elimination match over Pantera, Pimpinela Escarlata, Juventud Guerrera,
Villano III, Perro Aguayo, Psicosis and Konnan, Lumberjack strap match: Octagon &
Mascara Sagrada & La Parka b Killer & Cien Caras & Heavy Metal
6/15 Phoenix, AZ (WWF - 7,028): Justin Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz, New Rockers
b Bushwhackers, Steve Austin b Duke Droese, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b
Godwinns, Savio Vega b Owen Hart, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Ahmed
Johnson b Davey Boy Smith-DQ, Undertaker b Mankind, Ultimate Warrior b Vader-
COR, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
6/15 Cleveland (Cleveland All-Pro Wrestling): Johnny Swinger b Beau James,
Alexis Machine b Rhino Richards, Bobby Blaze b Christian Cage, Sexton Hardcastle b
Jimmy Valiant-DQ, Psycho Mike b Jason Fabbio, Scott Stone & Bonecrusher Broka &
Super Mario b Canadian Bad Boy & Theater of Pain, Pain & Agony b Calavera Cortez &
Mike Legacy, Manny Fernandez b Joe Legend
6/15 Winter Haven, FL (Florida Wrestling Federation): Nasty Nina b Mr.
Albino, Ned Brady b Ron Thompson, Lightning Kid b Slick Willie, Dennis Allen & Chris
Nelson b Cliff & Billy Anderson, Barry LeFan b Al Hardimon, Brady won Rumble
6/16 St. Louis, MO (WWF - 8,047): New Rockers b Bushwhackers *, Justin
Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz 1/2*, Savio Vega b Owen Hart *1/2, Marc Mero b Hunter
Hearst Helmsley **, Steve Austin b Duke Droese 3/4*, Ultimate Warrior b Vader-COR
**1/4, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b Godwinns 1/2*, Ahmed Johnson b Davey Boy
Smith-DQ **1/2, Undertaker b Mankind ***, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
***1/2
6/16 Cleveland (Cleveland All-Pro Wrestling): Bobby Blaze b Sexton Hardcastle,
Johnny Swinger b Alexis Machine, Rhino Richards b Scott Stone, Jason Fabbio b G Moe,
Psycho Mike DCOR Brett Powers, Joe Legend DDQ Christian Cage, Super Mario b
Canadian Bad Boy, Beau James & Manny Fernandez b Calavera Cortez & Mike Legacy,
J.T. Lightning b Jimmy Valiant, Swinger b Bobby Blaze-DQ to win CAPW title
6/17 Memphis (USWA - 1,000): Miss Texas b Farren Square, USWA tag title
tourney: Flex Kabana & Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk & Punisher, Doug Gilbert & Tommy
Rich b Men on Mission, Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine b Moondogs-DQ, Brown &
Fine b Gilbert & Rich-DQ, Kabana & Sawyer b Brown & Fine to win tournament, Unified
title: Jeff Jarrett DDQ Brian Christopher, Jerry Lawler b Cyberpunk Fire
6/17 Suwa (All Japan women): Yoshiko Tamura b Yumi Fukawa, Mariko Yoshida b
Genki Misae, Toshiyo Yamada b Saya Endo, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b Takako Inoue
& Kumiko Maekawa, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue b Aja Kong & Mima
Shimoda & Tomoko Watanabe
6/17 Takasaki (FMW): Nanjyo Hayato b Toryu, Horace Boulder & Hisakatsu Oya b
Gosaku Goshogawara & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka b Ricky
Fuji & The Gladiator, Bad Nurse Nakamura & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b
Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Super Leather b Hido, Masato
Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Mr. Pogo b Head Hunters & Freddy Kruger
6/17 Largo, FL (Florida Wrestling Association): Pat Powers b T.J. Towers, Dave
Manson b Heavy Metal, Mr. Electricity b Surgeon General, Haystacks Calhoun Jr. b
Chris Nelson, Butch Long & Bill Payne b Wild Child & Stormy Weathers
6/18 Louisville, KY (USWA): Ashley Hudson b Bart Sawyer, Flex Kabana b Tony
Falk, Doug Gilbert b Sir Mo, Cyberpunk Fire b Punisher, Miss Texas b Farren Square-
COR, Unified title: Brian Christopher b Jeff Jarrett-DQ, Gilbert won Concession Stand
Battle Royal
6/18 Shinjyo (FMW): Koji Nakagawa b Gosaku Goshogawara, Hido b Toryu, Miwa
Sato & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama &
Megumi Kudo, Super Leather b Nanjyo Hayato, Mr. Pogo b Ricky Fuji, Head Hunters b
Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka, Street fight: Horace Boulder & Hisakatsu Oya & The
Gladiator b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Katsutoshi Niiyama & Masato Tanaka
6/18 Tomakomai (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Felinito b Orito, Masanobu Kurisu b
Kageboshi, Kishin Kawabata b Daikokubo Benkei-DQ, Shocker & Gekko b Akihiko
Masuda & Astro Jr. Wazama (Too Cold Scorpio) b Billy Black, Great Kabuki & Abdullah
the Butcher b Shigeo Okumura & Takashi Ishikawa
6/18 Obanazawa (Michinoku Pro - 288): Shoichi Funaki b Saito, Billy Blayze NC
Wellington Wilkens Jr., Taka Michinoku b Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask & Mascara
Magica b Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu b Naohiro
Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke
6/18 Greenville, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 347): Lady Killer
(Stacen Allen) b Frank Parker, Freedom Fighter b Russian Assassin, Kevin Kirby b
Butcher Blackwell-DQ, Nightmare NC J.J. Justice, Cruiser Lewis & Swat (Steve Carton)
DCOR House of Pain, Jimmy Valiant b Purple Haze (Johnny Dollar)
6/19 Gainesville, GA (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 1,800/900 paid): Kevin
Sullivan DCOR Pat Tanaka, U.S. title: Konnan b V.K. Wallstreet, Harlem Heat b Scott
Norton & Ice Train, Madusa b Debbie Combs, Rock & Roll Express b Arn Anderson &
Chris Benoit-DQ, Rey Misterio Jr. b Billy Kidmann, Jim Duggan b Gambler, John Tenta
b Bobby Eaton, Disco Inferno b Johnny Fever, Sting & Lex Luger & Randy Savage b
Meng & Barbarian & Maxx, Rock & Roll Express NC American Males, Benoit b Cobra,
Diamond Dallas Page b Eddie Jackie, Sting & Luger & Savage b Dick Slater & Mike Enos
& Wallstreet
6/19 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Samurai Project Promotions - 1,000): Kimura b
Katase, Hiroshi Hatanaka b Shumme Matsuzaki, Guerrero Diablo b Tateno, Miyamoto b
Ho Des Min, Yoshiaki Yatsu b Uchu Majin X, Yuki Ishikawa b Axe Thunder Otsuka,
Ryuma Go & Akiyama & Mummy & Miyamoto b Mr. Pogo & Goro Tsurumi & Ishin &
Silver X
6/19 Tajima (Michinoku Pro - 267): Mens Teoh b Saito, Wellington Wilkens Jr. b
Billy Blayze, Mascara Magica b Masato Yakushiji, Naohiro Hoshikawa & Super Delfin b
Shiryu & Dick Togo, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke b Gran Naniwa &
Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku
6/19 Obihiro (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Orito b Felinito, Billy Black b Masanobu
Kurisu, Kageboshi & Wazama b Shocker & Akihiko Masuda, Astro Jr. b Gekko,
Daikokubo Benkei b Shigeo Okumura, Great Kabuki & Abdullah the Butcher b Kishin
Kawabata & Takashi Ishikawa
6/20 Omagari (FMW): Katsutoshi Niiyama b Okamoto, Hisakatsu Oya b Gosaku
Goshogawara, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari & Bad Nurse Nakamura b Megumi
Kudo & Kaori Nakayama & Aki Kanbayashi, Leatherface b Ricky Fuji, The Gladiator &
Horace Boulder b Toryu & Mr. Pogo, Wing Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka b Head
Hunters & Freddy Kruger (Bob Baragail)
6/20 Hiraga (Michinoku Pro): Mens Teoh b Saito, Billy Blayze NC Wellington
Wilkens Jr., Tiger Mask b Masato Yakushiji, Dick Togo & Shiryu b Naohiro Hoshikawa &
Super Delfin, Mascara Magica & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke b Gran Naniwa & Shoichi
Funaki & Taka Michinoku
6/20 Tokyo (LLPW - 290): Sayori Okino b Sonoko Kato, Michiko Nagashima b
Watabe, Eagle Sawai b Keiko Aono, Bomber Hikari & Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Sato
b Michiko Omukai & Mizuki Endo & Noriyo Tateno, LLPW six women title tourney
finals: Yasha Kurenai & Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori b Karula & Shinobu Kandori &
Rumi Kazama to become first champions
6/20 Hogansville, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): John Arden b Mr.
Deon, Lee Thomas b Keith Arden, Bubbles the Clown b Ken Arden-DQ, Colt Derringer &
David Young b Harley Davidson Crew, Punisher b Bull LeDuc
6/20 Pulaski, VA (Southern States Wrestling): Scott McKeever b David Lynch,
TCB Man b Skinhead, Frank Parker & Roger Anderson b America's Most Wanted, Bad
Boy Buck b Ripley Von Slam, Scott Sterling b Beau James
6/21 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 400): Devon Storm & Damien Kane b Bad
Crew, J.T. Smith & Little Guido b Axl Rotten & Hack Myers, John Kronus b Mikey
Whipwreck, Raven & Stevie Richards b Buh Buh Ray Dudley & D-Von Dudley, Rob Van
Dam b Chris Jericho, Taz & Bill Alfonso b Sandman & Tod Gordon, ECW TV title: Pit
Bull #2 b Perry Saturn, Shane Douglas b Sabu, Brian Lee & Bruise Brothers b Gangstas
& Tommy Dreamer
6/21 Tijuana, Nortecalifornia (AAA - 3,700): Los Pandilleros I & II & III b X-Men
I & II & III, Baja California lt. hwt. title tournament: Halloween b Perro Ruso, El Hijo del
Enfermero b Leon *****, Halloween b Enfermero to win title, Thunderbird b
Halloween, IWAS lt. hwt title lumberjack strap match: Damian b Mascara Sagrada Jr. to
regain title, Super Calo & Tinieblas Jr. & La Parka b Cibernetico & Cien Caras & Picudo,
U.S. & IWAS & AAA titles: Konnan b Pierroth Jr.
6/21 Aomori (FMW): Koji Nakagawa b Okamoto, Ricky Fuji b Nanjyo Hayato,
Hisakatsu Oya b Toryu, Miwa Sato & Bad Nurse Nakamura & Shark Tsuchiya b Megumi
Kudo & Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama, Horace Boulder & The Gladiator b Hido &
Hideki Hosaka, Mr. Pogo b Gosaku Goshogawara, Wing Kanemura b Freddy Kruger,
Head Hunters & Super Leather b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Katsutoshi Niiyama & Masato
Tanaka
6/21 Fujisaki (Michinoku Pro): Shoichi Funaki b Saito, Billy Blayze b Wellington
Wilkens Jr., Taka Michinoku b Masato Yakushiji, Mascara Magica & Tiger Mask b Super
Delfin & Gran Naniwa, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Great Sasuke & Gran
Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa
6/21 Las Vegas (Ladies International Wrestling Association - 200): Liz Chase
& Lori Lynn won Battle Royal, Brittany Brown b Ramblin Rose, Candi Divine b Psycho
Cybil, Joanie Lee & Frankie DeFalco b Angie Jeanette & Buddy Valentine, Fabulous
Moolah & Johnnie Mae Young DDQ Chase & Lynn, Bull Nakano b Akira Hokuto
6/21 Wayne, MI (Great Lakes Wrestling): Mike Kelly b Dr. Jerry, Dredd b
Roughhouse Rob, Ricco Rodrigues & Calavera Cortez b Killer Keith & Bo Lewis,
Nighthawk b Bobby Lee, Skull Ganz b Mike Legacy, Bobby Clancy b Steve Nixon, Dredd
won Battle Royal
6/21 Fall Branch, TN (Southern States Wrestling - 30): TCB Man b Scotty
McKeever, Bubba b Jim Studd, Bad Boy Buck b Ripley Von Slam, Danny Christian &
TCB Man & Studd b Frank Parker & Roger Anderson & David Lynch, Killer Kyle b
Manny Fernandez (original), Scott Sterling DDQ Beau James
6/21 Rome, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Kid Ego b Kenny D, Miss
Brandy b Lady Mandy, Jason Valentine b Nasty Critter-DQ, Dusty Dotson & Scott
Prather b Keith & John Arden, Steve Lawler & Jailhouse Rocker b Ken Arden &
Superstar
6/21 Rossville, GA (TWA): Michael Collins & Outpatient b Cyber Team 5000, Randy
Watkins b Jimmy Sharpe-DQ, Chuck Colt & Rick Justice b Joel Travis & Risk Taylor-
COR, Scott James b Terry Phoenix
6/22 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,511 sellout): Shane Douglas b Mikey
Whipwreck **3/4, J.T. Smith & Little Guido b Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley-
DQ **, Taz b Paul Varelans *, ECW title: Raven b Terry Gordy **1/2, ECW tag titles:
Eliminators NC Gangstas DUD, Axl Rotten & Hack Myers NC Samoan Gangsta Party
(Matthew & Samula Anoia) DUD, ECW TV title: Chris Jericho b Pit Bull #2 to win title
***1/4, Weapons match: Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee ***1/2, Sabu b Rob Van Dam ****
6/22 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (All Japan women WWWA
Champions Night - 4,500): Saya Endo d Takahashi, Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae b
Toshiyo Yamada & Yumi Fukawa, All-Pacific tourney semifinals: Kaoru Ito b Tomoko
Watanabe, Reggie Bennett b Mariko Yoshida, Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b Kumiko
Maekawa & Yumiko Hotta, WWWA super light title: Chaparita Asari b Rie Tamada, All-
Pacific title finals: Bennett b Ito to win title, WWWA tag titles 2 of 3 falls: Manami
Toyota & Mima Shimoda b Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue 32:48
6/22 Naruko (Michinoku Pro - 431): Gran Naniwa b Sugamoto, Billy Blayze b
Saito, CMLL welterweight title: Mascara Magica b Super Delfin to unify title, WWF lt.
hwt title: El Samurai b Great Sasuke to win title, Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku &
Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Naohiro Hoshikawa &
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada
6/22 Ensonoda, Nortecalifornia (AAA - 500): Shamu b El Astro, Thunderbird b
Halloween, Damian & Pandillero I & Super Toro b Leon ***** & El Puerko & Slot Man,
Pierroth Jr. & Cien Caras & Frankenstein b Tinieblas Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & El
Sicodelico
6/22 Fall River, MA (Century Wrestling Alliance - 850): Ace Darling b Devon
Storm, Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac, Joel & Rocky Davis b Jose Valenzuela & Gino
Caruso, Steve Bradley b Flame, Prankster b Sonny C-DQ, Kevin Sullivan b Snuka, El
Mascarado (Bert Centeno) b Pink Assassin, Count Legacy b Knuckles Nelson, Hugh
Morrus b Inferno Kid, Vic Steamboat b King Kong Bundy-DQ, Storm & Eric Spraccia b
Public Enemy-DQ
6/22 Kaneki (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Felinito b Orito, Masanobu Kurisu b Akihiko
Masuda, Shocker & Astro Jr. b Gekko & Tsukikage, Wozama b Billy Black, Great Kabuki
b Kishin Kawabata, Abdullah the Butcher & Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei b Takashi
Ishikawa & Kawabata & Shigeo Okumura
6/22 College Park, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Lucifer b Bob
Starr, Mark Schrader & Earl the Pearl b Steve Corino & Cat Burglar, Schrader won Battle
Royal, Jimmy Cicero b Julio Sanchez, Virgil b Mike Sharpe, Knuckles Zandwich b Joe
Thunder, Jim Powers b Romeo Valentino, Glenn Osbourne & Dark Rebel (Chuck
Williams) b Doink & Mike Khoury-DQ, Boo Bradley b Corporal Punishment
6/22 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Big Mama Cyrus
b Samantha, Man Mountain Mike b Pink Phantom, Bonecrushers b Action Jackson &
Ricky Steele, Colorado Kid & Giant Warrior b Shaw Williams & Steve Stratton, Chris
Graham & Justin St. John b Man Mountain Mike & J.C. Ice, Phantom & Charlie Parker b
Ron McClarity & Reggie Montgomery, Graham & St. John d Bonecrushers, Kid &
Warrior b McClarity & Phantom
6/22 Boonville, IN (Hook'n' Shoot Promotions - 150 sellout): Jason Dawig b
Todd Neilsen, Kevin Sullon d Ross Paxson, Jeff Osborne b Jason Neidy, Sean Brockmole
b Jim Stewart, Jeff Westfall b Sam Shehorn, Eric Sullivan b Ethan McLaughlin, Scott
Sullivan b Sean White
6/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,800 sellout): Black Cat b Yutaka
Yoshie, Hiro Saito b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Kuniaki Kobayashi b Osamu Kido, Brad
Armstrong & Norio Honaga b El Samurai & Jushin Liger, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa
Chono b Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Tadao
Yasuda & Junji Hirata & Keiji Muto, 2 of 3 falls: Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara &
Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Shiro Koshinaka b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro
Otani & Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka & Shinya Hashimoto 22:22
6/23 Chitose (All Japan women): Yumi Fukawa d Yoshiko Tamura, Reggie Bennett
b Saya Endo, Aja Kong & Yumiko Hotta b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe, Takako
Inoue b Kumiko Maekawa, Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda b Manami
Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
6/23 Hara (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Okamoto, Hido b Toryu, Shark Tsuchiya &
Crusher Maedomari & Miwa Sato b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo,
Hisakatsu Oya b Freddy Kruger, Katsutoshi Niiyama & Masato Tanaka b Nanjyo Hayato
& Koji Nakagawa, Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura b Mr. Pogo & Gosaku
Goshogawara, Super Leather & Head Hunters b The Gladiator & Horace Boulder &
Ricky Fuji
6/23 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 712): Saito d Sugamoto, Mascara Magica b
Masato Yakushiji, Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Billy Blayze, Gran Hamada & Tiger Mask &
Naohiro Hoshikawa b Gran Naniwa & Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku, 2 on 3
handicap match: Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Great Sasuke & Super Delfin
6/23 Shizuoka (Yoshimoto Pro - 620): Kosugi b Yano, Neftaly b Princesa Blanca,
Koyama & Jaguar Yokota b Lioness Asuka & Abe, Cooga & Esther Moreno b Chikako
Shiratori & Bison Kimura
6/24 Green Bay, WI (WWF Monday Night Raw tapings - 4,660 sellout): Barry
Horowitz b Don Callis, Mankind b Duke Droese, Shawn Michaels b Marty Jannetty,
Ahmed Johnson b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Bodydonnas b Brooklyn Brawler & Jerry
Fox, Davey Boy Smith & Vader & Owen Hart b Aldo Montoya & Savio Vega & Horowitz,
Undertaker b Steve Austin-DQ, Vega b Justin Bradshaw, Goldust b Marc Mero, Ultimate
Warrior b Owen Hart-DQ, Johnson b Bart Gunn, Mero b J.L. Hopper (Dirty White Boy),
Michaels b Billy Gunn, Warrior b Vader, Undertaker b Mankind, WWF title: Michaels b
Goldust
6/24 Charlotte, NC (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 6,000/4,238 paid): Public
Enemy b Steve Regal & David Taylor, Kip Abee b Kevin Sullivan-DQ, Dean Malenko b
Bobby Walker, Eddie Guerrero b Barbarian, Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit b Rock & Roll
Express, Diamond Dallas Page b Alex Wright, Randy Savage b V.K. Wallstreet, Triangle
match for WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat over Sting & Lex Luger and Steiners to win
titles, Ric Flair b Savage
6/24 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 1,400): Orito b Felinito,
Hiroshi Itakura b Akihiko Masuda, Billy Black b Masanobu Kurisu, Gekko & Kageboshi
b Astro Jr. & Shocker, Great Kabuki b Shigeo Okumura, Wazama b Daikokubo Benkei,
Sabu NC Abdullah the Butcher, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Kishin Kawabata &
Takashi Ishikawa
Special thanks to: Chris McCormick, James Haase, Dominick Valenti, Michelle Lunn, Ed
Aherns, Scott Hudson, Steve Prazak, Paul Terry, Gregg John, Cory Van Kleeck, Jack
Thompson, Marcus Watkins, Danny Deese, Peggy Watkins, Chris Zavisa, Ron Rivera,
Fay Ferguson, Tim Whitehead, Rich Palladino, Mark Taylor, Joshua Christie, Norm
Connors, Jeff Osborne, Matt Creamer, John Muse, Dan Moreland, Steve "Dr. Lucha"
Sims
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
6/3 NEW JAPAN: 1. Satoshi Kojima beat Osamu Nishimura as part of the IWGP
contenders tournament. It was hard hitting but the two didn't work well together and
both looked kind of green. Some stuff was good and some looked bad. Kojima won with
a variation of a Fujiwara armbar in 9:56. *1/2; 2. Kazuo Yamazaki & Yuji Nagata beat
Shinya Hashimoto & Shinjiro Otani in 11:05 when Yamazaki made Otani submit to a
kneebar. They did an angle during the match where Yamazaki kicked Hashimoto hard in
his bad knee. Hashimoto sold it by missing a few shows after this match and Hashimoto
came back to injure Yamazaki later in the tour. It lacked heat early but picked up and
turned into a very good match. ***1/2; 3. Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Kensuke
Sasaki & Junji Hirata in 13:41 when Tenzan pinned Hirata after a moonsault. A lot of
brawling outside the ring and some good stiff in the ring with strong heat. Hiro Saito
interfered and kept Sasaki occupied while Chono & Tenzan double power bombed
Hirata. ***1/2; 4. Jushin Liger pinned Norio Honaga in a jr. tournament match in 11:29
with a palm blow out of nowhere. It was good, although nowhere close to the level you'd
expect for Liger in a tournament match. Honaga held a figure four for at least a minute
before Liger made it to the ropes. Honaga also held a lengthy stomach claw midway
through the match. Needless to say, Honaga is nothing close to what he once was. When
Liger got up, he hit the finishing move and got the pin. It was too bad this match aired
instead of Pegasus vs. Samurai, which was on the same show. They aired clips of that
match and it looked great. ***
6/8 NEW JAPAN: 1. Tatsuhito Takaiwa pinned El Samurai with a mountain bomb
(similar to a fisherman suplex) off the top rope in a major upset. Only the finish aired,
but it looked real good; 2. Otani pinned Black Tiger in 15:20 with a Tiger suplex. Otani
sold the submissions perfectly. About the only negative is that at one point Tiger
rammed Otani's knee into the post twice, crotched him and hit his knee with a chair
twice, and Otani came right back way too fast, although he did continue to sell the knee
for the remainder of the match. Lots of cross-up spots from previous matches, and all
the good near falls at the end. They didn't do as many wild moves as usual, but the
execution was excellent and with the one exception, the psychology was there. ****; 3.
Chono & Tenzan beat Akitoshi Saito & Kengo Kimura in 12:29 when Tenzan pinned
Saito with ahead-butt off the top. Kimura was one of the most consistent workers in the
world in the mid-80s, but that was eons ago in wrestling terms and hasn't shown a thing
in a long time. Saito had a few nice suplexes but that was about it. *1/4; 4. Kojima
pinned Michiyoshi Ohara in 10:32 with a german suplex in a match to determine who
would face Hashimoto for the IWGP title. For a match with that much at stake, there
was little heat. The fans didn't seem to take either of them as serious contenders. It
wasn't a good match either, so that didn't help. *; 5. Hashimoto & Hirata & Nishimura
beat Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka & Nagata in 10:36 when Hirata pinned Nagata with a
Machine suplex. The match continued the focus on the Hashimoto-Yamazaki feud. It
was great with a lot of heat when the two were against each other. It appeared the other
guys were making sure not to steal any focus away from the important issue. ***1/4
EMLL
Not much news other than the 6/21 Arena Mexico show was headlined by Rayo de
Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis & Mascara Sagrada vs. Canek & Emilio Charles Jr. & Dr. Wagner
Jr. and Hector Garza & Dandy & Silver King vs. Felino & ***** Casas & El Satanico.
EMLL is holding a benefit show on 7/31 with the proceeds going to benefit former ring
announcer Vitorino's family.
Gran Markus Jr. turned babyface.
AAA
The final TripleMania has been moved from 6/29 in Naucalpan to 7/15 in Madero, with
the line-up being changed on that show probably to Konnan vs. Pierroth Jr. on top in a
dog collar match, which in Mexico is being billed as a Bull Terrier match. The eight man
cage match stips have been changed in that only the final man losing at the end will
unmask, rather than the entire four-man team.
The line-ups for both 7/12 in Phoenix and 7/13 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los
Angeles are Konnan & Perro Aguayo & Octagon vs. Killer & Cien Caras & Pierroth Jr.,
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis, La Parka & Super Calo & Mascara Sagrada vs. Jerry Estrada
& Heavy Metal & Juventud Guerrera, Tinieblas Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Blue Demon
Jr. vs. Cibernetico & Damian & Halloween and the opener has La Sirenita & Lady
Victoria vs. Natasha (Barbara Blayze) & Shitara.
Konnan's first match back wrestling in Tijuana on 6/21 drew 3,700 fans as he defended
his U.S. title along with IWAS and AAA titles beating Pierroth Jr. in a very heated good
match. Damian regained the IWAS light heavyweight title beating Sagrada Jr. using a
cane for the finish in a lumberjack strap match which was said to be the only other really
good match on the show. The tournament to create the Baja California light heavyweight
title wound up with Halloween beating El Hijo del Enfermero in a bad match. After the
match, Thunderbird, who legitimately was not allowed in the tournament by the
commission because he was under the weight for the light heavyweight division (they
put him on a scale and wouldn't let him in the tournament because he was too light)
challenged Halloween and they had an impromptu match which Thunderbird won but
the commission refused to allow him to win the title. They'll do a title challenge down
the line and build to a mask match, presumably either having Thunderbird gorge himself
with food to make weight or when the commission sees fit to not weigh him. Angel
Mensajero was also scheduled for the tournament but he no-showed since he's wanted
by the police in Mexicali after allegedly being involved in a stabbing. Return to Tijuana is
scheduled for 7/14 with a major card with all the stars (except Heavy Metal, who is
suspended) since they'll be doing this show on the way from Los Angeles to Madero. The
last EMLL show in Tijuana on 6/14 with Santo vs. Felino for the National middleweight
title on top drew about 600.
EMLL is heavily criticizing this group for doing the lumberjack strap matches (and no
doubt will as well for Dog collar matches) saying things like that take pro wrestling to
new lows. AAA counters that the rest of the world is doing things like this and EMLL
doesn't want wrestling to change. Actually in the media, the biggest controversy
continues to be about the Mascara Sagrada name with EMLL having the original and
Pena, who came up with the gimmick, bringing in a new wrestler and having him use the
name.
The Champion of Champions four corners match from the Orizaba TripleMania aired on
television this past weekend in Mexico (which means it'll be on Galavision this coming
weekend) and was said to be ****1/4. The other matches from TripleMania on the
weekend TV were the Juniors vs. Payasos & Karis which ended with Tinieblas Jr. fouling
Karis, then faking as if he'd been fouled, and ref Pepe Casas called for the DQ on Karis
which was said to have been a good brawl, and the lumberjack strap match with Parka &
Octagon & Sagrada vs. Killer & Cien Caras & Heavy Metal which was really wild. The
lumberjacks outside the ring went crazy with the straps. Janet continually interfered.
Lady Victoria came out and was hit with a chair and carried out. Parka put Halloween
through a table. Konnan power bombed Janet on a chair.
NEW JAPAN
Hayabusa was at the Skydiving J show on 6/17 to build up what may be a jump to New
Japan.
They opened the new tour on 6/23 at Korakuen Hall. This tour, up until the final two
days, is being built around Hawk & Animal & Power (Kensuke Sasaki) Warrior working
six mans in all the various cities. In the mid-80s, the Road Warriors were huge
attractions in Japan and the Hell Raisers were a pushed tag team while Animal was out.
With the exception of the Tokyo Dome show, the three had never worked together and it
has been six years since the Road Warriors actually did a tour of various cities in Japan.
TV taping on 6/24 in Seratopia Toki (Shinya Hashimoto's home town) has Warriors vs.
Keiji Muto & Riki Choshu & Satoshi Kojima plus Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan &
Hiro Saito vs. Hashimoto & Junji Hirata & Jushin Liger. 7/2 TV in Hachinohe has
Kojima & Hirata & Hashimoto vs. Warriors, Muto & Choshu vs. Shiro Koshinaka &
Michiyoshi Ohara and Saito & Chono & Tenzan vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka &
Yuji Nagata.
The major shows on the tour are 7/16 and 7/17, both at the Sapporo Nakajima Sports
Center. The 7/16 show has Choshu & Hashimoto vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Koshinaka,
Yamazaki & Iizuka defending the IWGP tag titles against Chono & Tenzan, Sting & Muto
vs. Hawk & Animal, Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage and Giant vs. Power Warrior for WCW
title. 7/17 has Savage vs. Liger, Fujinami & Koshinaka & Akira Nogami vs. Chono &
Tenzan & Hiro Saito, Warriors vs. Kojima & Muto & Choshu, Giant vs. Sting and
Hashimoto defending IWGP title against Flair.
After that show, the next big event will be the G-1 tournament on 8/2 through 8/6 at
Sumo Hall. The heavyweight tournament will consist of two round robin tournaments
with each group's winner facing in the finals on 8/6. A block is Choshu, Hashimoto,
Sasaki, Tenzan and Hirata. B block is Muto, Chono, Yamazaki, Koshinaka and Kojima.
There will also be a tournament to determine the Unified junior heavyweight champion
with all the various lighter weight champions in Japan participating. Dan Severn debuts
with New Japan on that run as well.
6/3 TV did a 2.8 rating while 6/10 did a 1.9. All Japan on 6/16 for the Misawa &
Akiyama vs. Williams & Ace match did a 1.8.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Ken Shamrock suffered a serious left knee injury on 6/18 and had to cancel his 6/25
match against Masakatsu Funaki. Shamrock sent Vernon White in his place. Shamrock
did go to Japan as a symbol of good faith and was on crutches.
Don Frye did pull out of the 7/7 Satoru Sayama Vale Tudo show where he was scheduled
against Doug Murphy because it was five days before the UFC PPV show where he's
considered the biggest star on the show. Surprisingly, Dan Severn will go to Japan as his
replacement against Doug Murphy, who is a fighter out of Matt Hume's stable. It's
surprising to see Severn go to Japan and work for someone other than New Japan,
particularly because if he should happen to lose, and granted he's got to be the heavy
favorite although Vale Tudo has different rules than UFC, it would kill much of what
New Japan is bringing him in for. I don't know that it's worth the risk.
All Japan Women had its WWWA Champions night on 6/22 in Sapporo before 4,500
fans with Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda capturing the WWWA tag titles beating
Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue in a best of three fall match that lasted 32:48 before
Toyota pinned Kyoko in the third with the Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex. It makes
Toyota the first woman since Lioness Asuka in 1989 to hold both the main world singles
and tag team titles simultaneously. Reggie Bennett came out as All-Pacific champion
beating Mariko Yoshida in the first round and Kaoru Ito in the finals of the one-night
tournament. There is a lot of talk that Bennett will participate in the womens UFC show
in Tokyo in August.
Marco Ruas will debut in Japan for Universal Vale Tudo in a show on 8/4 in Urayasu
(Tokyo suburb) as will Harold Howard (UFC III finalist).
The bracketing was announced for the one-night six-man tournament for WAR's six
man belts on 7/20 at Sumo Hall. The current champs, Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado
vacated the belts to that the tournament winners would get the titles. First round has
Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami & Nobutaka Araya (WAR & New Japan) vs.
Nobuhiko Takada & Masahiko Kakihara & Yuhi Sano (UWFI), Koji Kitao & Koki
Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki (Kitao & WAR) vs. John Tenta & Arashi & Osamu
Taitoko (former sumo trio), Choshu & Kojima & Osamu Nishimura (New Japan) vs. Yoji
Anjoh & Yoshihiro Takayama & Kenichi Yamamoto (Golden Cups), Yamazaki & Iizuka &
Osamu Kido (New Japan) vs. Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado.
After appearing on Ryuma Go's indie show on 6/19 at Korakuen Hall, Mr. Pogo
announced that he would no longer be working all the indies and would instead work
only with FMW and would be working as a babyface. His first babyface match was
actually two days earlier on 6/17 when he teamed with Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda to beat The Head Hunters & Freddy Kruger (Bob Baragail) in Takasaka.
Some changes in Michinoku Pro booking. Great Sasuke & Super Delfin formed a tag
team on 6/23 in Fukushima losing a 3-on-2 to Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu in the
main event. On the 6/22 show in Naruko, El Samurai captured the WWF light
heavyweight title from Sasuke in 13:05. This was done to put Samurai into the junior
heavyweight tournament in August since Sasuke is in anyway as IWGP jr. champion.
Also, the CMLL welterweight title situation has been cleared up as Mascara Magica (who
held the title in Mexico) beat Delfin (who held a Japanese version of the same title).
Steve Williams in an interview in Weekly Pro Wrestling said if Giant Baba gives him his
permission, he'd like to compete in a UFC. In the NCAA tournament some 15 years ago,
Williams beat Severn. For years, basically before legitimate shooting actually started
taking place in the past three years, Williams was regarded by many as the toughest
legitimately of all the pro wrestlers.
The first Sabu vs. Abdullah the Butcher match took place on 6/24 at Tokyo Korakuen
Hall for Tokyo Pro Wrestling. There were a lot of problems leading to the match as
Abdullah wanted a juicefest match and Sabu no longer wants to cut himself. The match
didn't sellout Korakuen, which says something in itself. Although the match has
immediate intrigue, if you consider the total clashes of styles, it's a bad match for both
involved and reports from Japan were it was a poor match ending with a no contest in
4:27 with Sabu doing little flying since Abdullah probably didn't want to get anywhere
near his crazy spots. Tokyo Pro has another tour from 7/24 to 7/28 with Abdullah, Sabu,
Wazama (Too Cold Scorpio), Shocker, Astro Jr., Brazo de Oro and Brazo de Plata.
USWA
The final event at the Mid South Coliseum on 6/17 drew a crowd estimated at about
1,000, which has to be a big disappointment with all the hype surrounding the show.
Flex Kabana (Duane Johnson) & Bart Sawyer (Steve Sawyer) captured the USWA tag
titles in the tournament beating Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine in the finals. The
final match at the Coliseum was Jerry Lawler vs. Cyberpunk Fire, with Lance Russell in
Fire's corner. The 70-year-old Russell ended up chasing Lawler's manager, Scott
Bowden, to the back with his trusty driver, however Lawler managed to win the match.
According to the stipulations, Fire had to unmask, which he did, revealing a second
mask.
They really pushed the move to the Flea Market, with the first show on 7/1, hard on the
6/22 television, saying they are lowering the ticket prices (they were $8, $6 and $5) and
that parking would be lower as well. They are promoting being closer to the action hard
in as many media venues as possible.
The only matches announced for the first show are Bill Dundee vs. Wolfie D in a nonsanctioned
match and Goldust & Jeff Jarrett vs. Brian Christopher & Doug Gilbert. It
started with Lawler complaining that Fire cost he and Bill Dundee the tag titles when
Dundee lost the loser leaves town, but he was bringing in a new partner. Naturally it was
Dundee under the mask under his former guise as The American Eagle. At this point
General Manager Randy Hales came out disgusted and said he was sick of the behavior
of both Wolfie D and Bill Dundee wearing masks after loser leave town matches and that
all the problems started last September when Dundee pulled out a knife on D. He said he
wouldn't put up with it any longer and told both to take their masks off. They stalled
wanting the other to do it first so finally they agreed to unmask simultaneously. As they
unmasked, they brawled all over the studio. Hales said he'd book them in a lights out
match with no ref and didn't care what they did to each other.
The television main event saw Jarrett defend the Unified title against Gilbert. Gilbert
had Jarrett pinned with Frank Morrell interfered for the DQ. After the match Tony Falk
clipped Gilbert and Jarrett put him in the figure four.
ECW
The next ECW Arena show will be on 7/13 called Heat Wave '96 with two gimmick
matches on top. There will be a four corners match for the TV title with Chris Jericho,
Pit Bull #2 , Too Cold Scorpio and Shane Douglas. The main event will be a six-man tag
with Raven & Stevie Richards & Brian Lee vs. Terry Gordy & Tommy Dreamer &
Sandman. Raven and Sandman will be put inside of a cage. Dreamer and Lee will have a
match where falls count anywhere. Gordy and Richards will start out on the stage with
the idea that the first man who gets to the cage door will be let in to make it a two-onone.
At that point the door will be locked, but guys can even it up by climbing over the
cage into the ring. To make people think they won't do the obvious finish of having
Richards get pinned, if Richards is the one pinned, whomever pins him gets Raven's title
belt.
The other weekend house show was 6/21 in Plymouth Meeting, PA before 400 fans. The
highlight was an excellent match where Jericho was pinned by Rob Van Dam. Van Dam
is probably going to face Sabu on 8/3 in a stretcher match since Sabu will be in Japan at
the time of the next show. They had a match where Taz & Bill Alfonso beat Tod Gordon
& Sandman when Taz choked out Sandman in 3:18. Douglas was awarded the match
over Sabu when they stopped it due to injury. Finale was the typical brawl with Lee &
Bruise Brothers over Dreamer & Gangstas when they put three cinderblocks on
Dreamer's crotch and smashed the chair on them leading to the pin. At one point during
the match they were in the parking lot smashing each other into cars.
Paul Heyman said that New Jack working the show a few weeks back for Angel Amoroso
(another promoter in Philadelphia who had formerly worked in ECW) wasn't against his
wishes, and that he agreed to it when New Jack reimbursed Heyman half his trans from
Atlanta.
HERE AND THERE
Fabulous Moolah presented her annual show in Las Vegas as part of her LIWA
convention, this year with Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto in the main event before 200
fans. The two did a basic very good match but short of a classic. After the match, both
said that they would like to wrestle more in the United States because their careers in
Japan are basically over. Moolah and Johnnie Mae Young, and I don't even want to
estimate their ages nowadays, worked a tag match in the semifinal against Liz Chase and
Lori Lynn. Pat Patterson attended the show and convention as did Tiger Conway Jr. and
Sr.
T.C. Martin ran a show on 6/15 in Las Vegas headlined by a triangle match with Sabu,
Kama and Virgil which Sabu won, which drew 470 paid and $6,949.
Former and current wrestlers such as Billy Graham, Ernie Ladd, Jake Roberts, Ted
DiBiase and Billy Anderson are doing an Athletes in Ministry deal this coming weekend
in Scottsdale, AZ.
Here's the latest on the AWA revival. Dale Gagner first listed a show on 8/10 in
Rochester, MN as part of the AWA saying that Ken Patera, Kenny Jay, Buck Zumhofe,
Nick Bockwinkel, Sheik Adnan Kaissey, Johnny Valiant and Verne Gagne would be
there. Gagne, after being contacted by local media, said he had no knowledge of any such
show, that he wasn't involved in the show and had no intention of being back in
wrestling. Gagner, who claims in a press release to be the nephew of Verne, said that
Verne's name will be removed from all publicity material and that the group would now
be called the "New AWA."
Century Wrestling Alliance held a TV taping on 6/22 which included Devon Storm,
Jimmy Snuka, Kevin Sullivan, Hugh Morrus and Public Enemy. Sullivan wrestled Snuka
and Sullivan won after Dungeon Master threw a fireball at Snuka. Public Enemy
wrestled Storm & Eric Sbraccia getting DQ'd for putting ref Scott Dickinson through a
table.
All Pro Wrestling will be doing a free show at their gym in Hayward, CA on 6/29 for a
home video release with attendance limited to the first 30 people to call the office.
The World Freestyle Fighting Championships scheduled for 6/22 in Oklahoma City was
canceled again, with the press release stating it was because too many of the fighters
would be unavailable due to injuries and the show would be moved to 10/14.
The August Penthouse with a lengthy article on EFC, will be out next week.
Johnny Swinger won a tournament to crown the champion for Cleveland All-Pro
Wrestling on 6/16 in Cleveland beating Bobby Blaze in the finals. The biggest names in
the three-day tournament were Jimmy Valiant and Manny Fernandez.
New Jack City Wrestling on 6/30 in Asbury Park, NJ has Raven, Bam Bam Bigelow,
Nikolai Volkoff, Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie, Dudleys, Mikey Whipwreck and Ubas on
the show.
Green Mountain Wrestling on 7/21 in Newport, VT at Municipal Building.
UFC
Tank Abbott and Keith Hackney are definites to return for the September PPV and they
are expecting Oleg Taktarov in as well.
Things are undecided regarding Ken Shamrock's future. Shamrock has requested a
return match against Dan Severn. SEG has decided to do away with the superfights at
least for the rest of the year and go with straight tournaments, believing the reason for
the disappointing buy rate on the last show was that there wasn't a tournament. The way
things stand now, the earliest they'd revive the superfight format is February 1997.
SEG isn't expecting anything special when it comes to buy rate for the July show. "We
know we're getting killed," said SEG promoter David Isaacs when it comes to the next
buy rate, because it's coming one day before the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight. UFC is
sold mainly on barker channel ads and with Tyson being the draw that he is, UFC's
number of ads is going to be cut way down to make room for constant Tyson ads. They
are going to push radio harder.
WCW
As for the identity of the third party in the 7/7 main event, it's really a secret. Lex Luger,
which was the original plan, I can't see happening because it would be almost an exact
duplicate of the Steve McMichael angle and it's too soon to do it again. It could still
happen but I don't think it will. Bischoff, Hall and Nash were discussing names this past
week with Mabel as the top candidate, Crush being considered for a brief period and
then dismissed. All agreed Bret Hart would be the best candidate and WCW even floated
the idea it would be Hart on its hotline over the weekend (you'd think after the lawsuit
they'd refrain from doing that crap) but Hart has turned down every offer thrown his
way. Supposedly Bischoff has in the past few days told Hall and Nash to trust him on
this one, but admitted that if they bring someone other than Hart in, and it isn't going to
be Hart, that it will come across as a letdown. It also could be another WCW wrestler
turning on the company.
Nitro on 6/24 from Charlotte (6,000 fans, 4,238 paid, $48,199) was largely a waste of
time. The best match was Rock & Roll Express losing to Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit
and it didn't even come close to two stars, and several of the matches were worse than
awful (Blue Bloods vs. Public Enemy was well into the negative star range and Barbarian
vs. Eddie Guerrero was bad on so many levels it was mind boggling). The positives of the
show were that Tony Schiavone did an excellent job hyping the next PPV and they did a
great job of building to the one notable thing on the show, the TV main. Harlem Heat
won the title in a triangle match over Sting & Luger and the Steiners when Nash and
Hall came out with baseball bats, and amidst the chaos, Booker T schoolboyed Luger
and he and his brother left with the belts while everyone else stared down. About a
zillion Charlotte police officers were in the ring with their hands on their guns in a
standoff with Hall and Nash. Kevin Greene was also there, saying he and Randy Savage
and two others would challenge The Four Horseman after football season ends, and he
also interfered several times in the Savage vs. V.K. Wallstreet match including posting
Wallstreet leading to the finish. The crowd continually chanted "We Want Flair." Flair
was there, but I guess to avoid the tremendous face reaction he would have gotten, he
never came out during the live show except for an interview they did backstage.
Even though the show really dragged, to the point the increase from hour-to-hour was
the weakest to date, it still handily beat the WWF's Raw in the ratings which is a big deal
since it came the day after a major WWF PPV event. Nitro did a 3.2 in the first hour and
3.3 in the second for a combined rating of 3.2 with a 5.7 share, to Raw 2.7 and 4.5 share.
The Nitro replay set an all-time record doing a 1.6 rating with a 3.9 share.
It was reported in various media outlets that Greene received $100,000 for doing the
match at the PPV. Don't know the real number other than it was "slightly less" than the
announced figure. Speaking of that match, whatever happened to Greene's wife and
McMichael's dog in the back?
The bruises on the face of Chris Benoit and Kevin Sullivan these past two weeks have
been make-up and not from the match.
Added to the 7/7 PPV show are Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jim Duggan for the ring and
Dean Malenko vs. Disco Inferno for the cruiserweight title.
The Charlotte crowd was there only to see the Horseman and was either dead for almost
everyone else or heavily booed babyfaces like Rock & Rolls (they were against
Horseman), Savage (who was wrestling Flair in a dark match later in the show), Greene
and Guerrero (whose match had the 70s big-man little-man psychology with the
underdog scoring the upset at the end that doesn't fly in the 90s).
After the lawsuit was filed, they had to cut out a lot of Rhodes' commentary on the 6/22
Saturday Night show.
Randy Savage will be on the 7/2 Regis & Kathy Lee show.
Other weekend ratings saw WCW Saturday Night do a 2.2, Main Event a 2.0 and Pro a
1.3.
6/19 TV tapings in Gainesville, GA before 1,800 fans (900 paying $6,000) saw for 6/22:
Kevin Sullivan and Pat Tanaka brawled out of the building; Konnan beat V.K. Wallstreet,
Harlem Heat beat Fire & Ice and they teased the beginnings of a Fire & Ice break-up
after the match, Madusa beat Debbie Combs in a very short and not good match; Rock &
Roll Express beat Anderson & Benoit via DQ for an over the top rope call. For 6/29, Rey
Misterio Jr. over Billy Kidman in a 3:00 match said to be fabulous, John Tenta (with a
bandage around his head and eye patch) beat Bobby Eaton and Sting & Luger& Savage
beat Meng & Barbarian & Maxx. For 7/6, Rock & Rolls no contest American Males when
Anderson & Benoit ran in and destroyed both teams. Rock & Rolls played subtle heel
before the run-in. Benoit beat Cobra in a terrible match and Sting & Luger & Savage beat
Dick Slater & Wallstreet & Mike Enos (using that name instead of The Mauler).
Texas house show line-ups 7/31 to 8/3 are Giant vs. Luger, Savage vs. Flair, Konnan vs.
Wallstreet, Nasty Boys vs. Public Enemy, Misterio Jr. vs. Malenko, Guerrero vs. Benoit
and Tenta vs. Bubba. 7/24 to 7/27 run through Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia has
Savage vs. Flair, Heat vs. Steiners for tag titles, Malenko vs. Guerrero, Nasty Boys vs.
Public Enemy dog collar, Tenta vs. Bubba and Alex Wright vs. Disco.
Prelim estimates for buy rate for the Great American Bash PPV were in the 0.5 range.
The New York show on 6/30 will sellout as they had 3,700 tickets and $77,000 sold as of
a week ahead. Hartford's advance was $49,000, Philadelphia was $30,000 and
Landover, MD for Nitro was $41,000.
WWF
Besides the six-man main event, also at the International Incident PPV will be
Undertaker vs. Goldust (so Undertaker can get his win back and now that Goldust
doesn't have the IC title, he can do a lot more jobs), Mankind vs. Jake Roberts and Savio
Vega vs. Justin Bradshaw and I'll assume Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas.
Raw taping on 6/24 in Green Bay before a sellout 4,660 paying $73,515 opened with
Don Callis of Winnipeg getting a try-out match losing to Barry Horowitz. Callis was
described as a cross between Raven and Bob Holly, and looked okay. Mankind beat
Duke Droese with Roberts doing commentary. Mankind attacked Roberts and left him
laying after the match. Shawn Michaels beat Marty Jannetty in a ***1/4 match. Jannetty
& Leif Cassidy are now both managed by Jim Cornette. In a non-taped segment, the
Bodydonnas did a face interview to try and insure them getting the right reaction since
their turn hasn't taken. The fans booed them anyway all through the interview and also
on the live show. The live show then went on with Ahmed Johnson over Hunter Hearst
Helmsley with the Pearl River Plunge. Bodydonnas beat Brooklyn Brawler & Jerry Fox.
Cloudy chased after Sunny after the match. Sunny said she was bringing in a singles
wrestler. My guess is it'll be Ron Simmons because of that age old pro wrestling heat
attempting tradition (which never works in fact like it does in booking office theory) of
matching a black man with a white woman. Vader & Bulldog & Owen Hart beat Aldo
Montoya & Vega & Horowitz. Pillman did another interview where he asked McMahon
for his Goddamned money. Goddamned was edited off the West Coast feed of the show
but aired on the live version. Undertaker beat Steve Austin via DQ when Goldust threw
dust in Undertaker's eyes. Match was long and boring. Jerry Lawler tried to get it over
that Paul Bearer was turning heel on Undertaker. After the live show, Vader & Bulldog
beat Godwinns. Pillman did another interview and argued with Vega. Vega beat
Bradshaw but after the match Bradshaw hit him with the bell and hung him. Goldust
beat Mero. During the match Marlena came to ringside and started coming on to Sable.
A lesbian angle. Where in the world did they ever come up with that? Warrior beat Owen
Hart via DQ when Bulldog and Vader did a run-in and they left Warrior laying. Johnson
beat Bart Gunn. Sunny got a big reaction but the match didn't. Dirty White Boy Tony
Anthony debuted as plumber J.L. Hopper and put over Mero and in a long match that
wasn't good. Anthony looked to have gained a lot of weight since his SMW days.
Michaels beat Billy Gunn in a very good match. After, Bulldog, Hart and Vader did a
run-in but Michaels escaped. Team Cornette did an interview and they did a gimmick
that they were arguing with Warrior over a cellular phone in his car. Then on the phone
also were Michaels and Johnson and before you know it, all three hit the ring. After the
tapings were over, and the building was more than half empty, they went through with
the main events--Warrior pinned Vader in ten seconds, Undertaker pinned Mankind in
2:00 and Michaels superkicked Goldust in six seconds. Even though it was a sellout, the
crowd died early and by the time the live show rolled around, it didn't have good crowd
enthusiasm.
Besides Raw, Action Zone did a 1.6 and Mania a 1.2 over the weekend of 6/22.
Todd Pettengill was hospitalized this past week. While he was doing his morning radio
show on WPLJ in New York, he had a kidney stones attack. He was in bed for the PPV
but did talk on the phone during the pre-game show and hyped it anyway.
WWF held a press conference on 6/21 in Montreal to push the 8/2 debut at the Moulson
Center. It's the regular house show (Shawn vs. Vader on top, Undertaker vs. Mankind,
Warrior vs. Bulldog, Johnson vs. Goldust for IC title, Roberts vs. Lawler, Vega vs. Austin
no DQ, Mero vs. Helmsley, four-corners tag team match with Godwinns, Gunns,
Bodydonnas and New Rockers plus Carl LeDuc vs. Bradshaw to open. The one added
bout they are building the show around is a ten round boxing match between Raymond
Rougeau and Owen Hart, stemming from an angle on 1/12 at the old Forum. George
Chuvalo, a former Canadian heavyweight champion who had a famous match about 25
years back against Muhammad Ali, will be in Hart's corner, while Raymond will have
Jacques Sr. and Dino Clavet, an ex middleweight contender in his corner. Jacques Sr.,
Chuvalo, Paul LeDuc (father of Carl who was a name wrestler in Montreal in the 70s as
the brother of the more famous Jos LeDuc), Gorilla Monsoon, Ed Cohen and Owen Hart
were at the press conference. Hart was the funniest saying that he beat up Raymond so
badly at the Forum that Montreal was so embarrassed that they had to close down the
building.
Besides Austin, lots of recent stitching. Mero needed nine stitches to close a busted lip at
the Peoria show a few weeks back. Goldust needed 20 stitches to close a cut in North
Charleston at the last set of tapings.
Pillman's angle is that the international reps of WWF want to nullify his contract
because they believe he'll give the WWF a negative international portrayal because of his
behavior.
Bill Irwin's gimmick will be called The Goon, as a hockey player.
Michaels was on Chet Coppock this past week.
Line-ups for the 7/25 to 7/27 California swing at the Cow Palace, Fresno and Anaheim
Pond are Michaels vs. Vader, Undertaker vs. Mankind, Warrior vs. Bulldog, Johnson vs.
Goldust for IC title, Vega vs. Austin no DQ, Roberts vs. Hart, Mero vs. Helmsley and a
four corners tag team opener with Bodydonnas, Gunns, Godwinns and New Rockers. I'm
not sure why, but in the initial advertising in this market, they were plugging Bret Hart
as appearing but that won't be the case.
THE READERS PAGES
DICK MURDOCH
I remember growing up in Chicago in the 1970s I had a few chances of seeing Dick
Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes team in the AWA. The crowd would chant "We Want Blood"
while Dick the Bruiser & The Crusher pounded the Texas Outlaws to a bloody pulp.
Back then I would not have guessed that I would ever meet or even travel with Murdoch,
but I had the unforgettable privilege of doing that in March of 1994 with Smoky
Mountain Wrestling. To say that Captain ******* lived up to his nickname was a huge
understatement. Murdoch chowed down on hostess pies and potato chips for breakfast,
slammed down Coors Lights all day and night long and urinated anywhere he pleased.
He was loud, boisterous and profane. But he had a certain way of making you feel
special, like hollering, "Goddamn bub. Ain't ya finished yer beer yet?" And the way he
could belched "Hey bub" to me made me feel extraordinary.
When reminded of his 70s bloodbaths with Bruiser & Crusher, Murdoch have his
perspective of it all. Before a match in Chicago, Bruiser told Murdoch that when the fans
chanted "We Want Blood," no matter where he was or what he was doing, to give it to
them. So while Bruiser and Rhodes were fighting in the ring and Murdoch was on the
apron, the chants started.
"Even though I was by myself," he noted, "they all goddamn wanted blood, I goddamn
gave it to them" and he went ahead to Bruiser's dismay to give everyone blood, just like
he was told.
Ron Hed
San Jose, California
LEGENDS AT THE AUD
Before Eric Bischoff and WCW start taking credit for the great job they did in promoting
the Ilio DiPaolo tribute show in Buffalo on 6/7, I'd like to set a few things straight about
who is responsible for the record setting gate.
I've lived in Buffalo for about six years. You can't live in this city for any amount of time
without hearing the name Ilio DiPaolo. Few sports celebrities have reputations that grow
after they retire. Through his restaurant and extensive charity work in the community,
Ilio touched a generation of people who never saw him fight the likes of Nanjo Singh or
Fred Atkins. He remained a legend in Buffalo and is the main reason that 14,852 people
were at the Aud for the card. While I'm sure WCW could have drawn a decent crowd on
its own, they could have never done anything like this. All the local television ads pushed
the legends portion of the show almost exclusively. Thousands of tickets were sold
before any of the WCW matches were even announced. Dick Beyer was all over the
media, appearing on several local TV shows and the alternative rock radio station. Ilio's
family and all those involved in putting this show together should be commended for the
wonderful job they did.
My biggest fear is that WCW will use their success here to further push their "Where the
big boys play" tag line. The big boys that drew this house were Ilio, Bruno Sammartino,
Johnny Powers, Dick Beyer, Waldo Von Erich and the other legends.
As far as the WCW portion of the show, I thought the Nasty Boys-Public Enemy street
fight and Page-Wright were the only above average matches. I was stunned by the huge
pop for Jim Duggan's entrance. Putting him against hometown favorite Lex Luger was
the sort of stupid booking mistake I've come to expect from WCW. I thought Bruiser
Bedlam got himself over better in a legends match than most of the WCW heels.
Tim Dalton
Buffalo, New York
PANCRASE
The Pancrase 5/16 show at Budokan was all shoot matches. The 1996 Truth tour has
been shoots only and I haven't even seen any questionable fights. It was evident that
during the 1995 Eyes of Beast tour that Pancrase became pure shoot events.
Ken Shamrock's commentary for this second PPV for long-time Pancrase fans was not
good at all. He didn't study enough preparing for this event so he missed many
important points on the show.
In the Semmy Schlitt vs. Manabu Yamada match, Schlitt broke Yamada's rib in the very
early stages of the fight. Even the expert Pancrase reporters didn't notice it on the spot.
The Gaora cable TV show has excellent commentary with a guest commentator and the
guest for the Budokan event was Yamada himself.
On the show he revealed all the unanswered questions about the match and why he lost
to such a green fighter. At the time it looked like the doctor was examining Yamada's
bloody mouth, he was actually asking him, "Are you okay with your broken rib?" in
Japanese.
Both Gaora television and the martial arts magazines mentioned Yamada had a broken
rib but Shamrock completely ignored it. I really don't know why. Schlitt's choke was of
elementary level and in no way would Yamada have to submit under normal
circumstances. However, his awkward facial expressions were due to the rib injury and
not because of Schlitt's weak and incomplete choke sleeper. Also, Schlitt was a
semifinalist in the famous Hokuto-flag karate tournament, not the champion.
The ring announcer for this card was the famous Mitsuru Miyata of All Japan
Kickboxing Enterprise. That was also quite interesting because in Japan, all the martial
arts promotions usually hate one another. In particular, the martial arts organizations
hate any pro wrestling organization. However, Pancrase is well liked and respected by
most of the other martial arts organizations so that Miyata did the ring announcing for
the Pancrase show.
The one exception to this statement is Satoru Sayama's Shooting organization which
claims it is the only 100% shooting promotion in the world and they've bad mouthed
Ken Shamrock publicly many times. This is probably why when Shamrock was talking
about Yamada's career, he completely ignored that he was a star with Sayama's Shooting
promotion before joining Pancrase. It was true that Yamada was a karate expert, but all
the Japanese fans know of Yamada as the ex-star from Shooting and I doubt many fans
in Japan even knew Yamada was a karate man.
As for the Ryushi Yanagisawa vs. Oleg Taktarov match, Taktarov underestimated the
quality of the Pancrase fighters and didn't study the rules enough so that Yanagisawa
scored the victory and the fans liked it. I suspect Taktarov would have a hard time
reaching the top level in Pancrase although I rate him very highly as a true all-around
shoot fighter.
During the Guy Mezger vs. Minoru Suzuki match, there were major mistakes and
omissions in Shamrock's commentary. I think Japanese fans hearing the commentary
would be mad at Shamrock while listening to the English PPV.
First of all, this was a "theme" match. Suzuki had agreed to do an all standing fight
against Mezger because their previous fight was stopped by the doctor and Suzuki
wanted to prove himself when it comes to kicking and punching. I like Mezger very
much and he's a rising star who has potential to be a top star. However, his ranking of
No. 6 in Pancrase is quite fair because I believe he currently would have no chance to
beat any of the top six fighters. Once Suzuki would put Mezger on the ground, there
would be no chance that Mezger could beat Suzuki. Martial arts magazine reports had
the same viewpoint and it was considered that Suzuki put himself in a handicap
situation in this match.
The Gaora show and all the magazines mentioned that this was a "theme" match,
however Shamrock never mentioned this important point. In that regard, Mezger's win
was a fluke. However, it is very hard for Americans to understand that wins and losses
are not that important in Pancrase which is also the reason they consider themselves pro
wrestling. The Japanese culture believes in traditional Japanese pro wrestling, the job of
a wrestler is a very honorable thing and the casual wrestling fan understands it culturally
because of the Samurai death-beauty history. That may be very hard to explain to
American television viewers. Unlike in UFC, there are many chances for them to do a
rematch, so Suzuki will get a total match with Mezger for sure. Suzuki's style has always
been like that and he is one who will try a different professional fight format within the
shooting context.
Also, Suzuki's nickname is not "Wind." His entrance music in Japan (probably for
copyright reasons, the PPV show aired none of the live entrance songs) is a big hit song
about the wind and the back of his ring costume reads "wind" in one-word Chinese
character (Kanji).
Yoshiki Takahashi is the loose cannon of Pancrase since his matches tend to become
squash shoots. Unlike Suzuki, Funaki or Fuke, it seems impossible to ask him to do any
type of working or showboating in the ring. He is a bit crazy indeed.
As for the main event, I talked with my wrestling friends before the 5/16 match and that
they all thought Bas Rutten would win once Pancrase made the important rule change
that neither Funaki or Shamrock could act as a second any longer during matches. Frank
was a remote controlled robot fighter controlled by Ken when he beat many of the top
fighters because of Ken's strategic advice. You could actually hear Ken's voice from
ringside and a bi-lingual ringside fan could enjoy the match twice as much. The same
thing can be said for Yanagisawa. When he got Funaki's directions during his fight, he
was a very strong fighter.
Ken was not even there on 5/16 so Frank didn't know what to do and seemed lost.
Nobody liked the doctor stopping the match as a final result, but there was no chance
Frank could have beaten Rutten without Ken's direction. But it was still the best match
on the show.
I don't know the true attendance at Budokan but it was not close to full at all since the
main event pitted two non-Japanese fighters against each other. That's the reality of pro
wrestling.
Tadashi Tanaka
New York, New York

 

uly 8, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
Warrior/WWE relationship falls apart, Olympics and prowrestling,
Rikidozan Memorial, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 08 July 1996 23:54
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 July 8, 1996
The future of Jim Hellwig (Ultimate Warrior) in the World Wrestling Federation is again
in question after the his missing several weekend house shows and the death of his
father.
Hellwig's father, Tom Hellwig, who he had been estranged from since the age of three
and had been living in South Florida, passed away on 6/30.
Hellwig didn't appear for any of his scheduled dates after working television on 6/25 in
LaCrosse, PA. At the house show in Indianapolis on 6/28, it was announced he wasn't
there due to transportation problems.
While on tour on 6/29 in Detroit, the wrestlers were given the word that Hellwig was
through, either he had quit or was fired, nobody was really sure, which is basically the
same thing except in this specific war-time situation, there is a huge distinction. If
Hellwig were to quit, he would be unable to work for WCW for the remainder of his
contract which is believed to have about 14 months left. If he was strictly fired, he could
work anywhere he wanted immediately after termination although WWF could suspend
him for a while before firing him similar to what WCW did with Vader, putting him on
ice for a period of time to keep him from going to WCW. Realistically, except for a one
shot curiosity deal, WCW would be totally insane to want him anyway because of the
inherent problems. Bret Hart was called that morning and told that they were tired of
Hellwig's constant demands and wanted him for emergency duty, to work Detroit and
Pittsburgh to make up for Hellwig not being there. For whatever reason, Hart didn't
come back. A call was then made to Sid Eudy, who has been out of action for months,
and he was brought in as a babyface replacement.
In both Detroit and Pittsburgh, ring announcer Bill Dunn announced that Warrior
wouldn't be there because "he refuses to wrestle in a city like (fill in the blank)," basically
turning him heel and burying him. They offered refunds in both cities, and reportedly a
few dozen did take them in both cities. They said he would be replaced by the craziest
wrestler in the WWF but didn't mention a name. Later in the show, as there were a flock
of run-ins during the Shawn Michaels vs. Vader title match, with four heels (Vader,
Bulldog, Owen Hart and Goldust) fighting two faces (Michaels and Ahmed Johnson), Sid
came out to a huge pop and chased the heels away. Later in the show, he beat Owen Hart
with a power bomb in 41 seconds. The same basic scenario took place the next night in
Pittsburgh. Reports are that Sid was bigger than ever before and as cut as ever to boot.
It is not known exactly what caused the latest Vince McMahon/Jim Hellwig situation,
although this has been a constant situation between the two with Hellwig's constant
demands which has led to him being fired from the WWF on two occasions in the past,
his threats to walk out which have led to him getting huge payoffs to return for PPV
shows, his never arriving in December after an agreement to come in, and the two
having problems once again in the days leading to a Wrestlemania which was built
around his return, not to mention all his problems in dealing with promoters in Europe
and his walking out on his own promotion in Las Vegas the day before the show after
leaving with several sponsorship checks. According to one company source, it was a
problem having to do with a marketing dispute, and reports elsewhere stated it was that
Hellwig found out about something with his likeness being merchandised that he didn't
know about, got mad about it and wanted to make changes in his deal. The gossip among
the wrestlers was that he was unhappy with his Wrestlemania payoff. Hellwig
legitimately earned $550,000 at Wrestlemania VII, and may have earned more the prior
year for his match with Hulk Hogan. At one point in 1992 he held McMahon up before a
Survivor Series event, refusing to wrestle unless he received $1 million per PPV event.
According to a lawsuit filed and then dropped, McMahon agreed to that figure, however
Hellwig was fired before the show took place.
The story got even crazier, as Hellwig had a blow up with the office before the weekend,
but by Sunday it was known he was wanting to return and had phone conversations with
McMahon after no-showing the week, however at no point was anyone aware of a death
in the family. Hellwig did an on-line interview on 7/1, said that his father had died and
claimed that was why he missed the shows, that he couldn't understand why he was
buried in that manner at the house shows or why on the company 900 line tease on Raw
they said he was in the dog house and to call and find out why. Hellwig said he would
return on 7/11 in Albany, NY, which is his next scheduled booking (he had this coming
weekend off due appear at a comic book convention). If Hellwig's story was the case
entirely, there would have been no problem and there certainly was a major problem all
week.
As of press time, WWF marketing officials had been told no decision as to Hellwig's
future had been reached but a decision would be made in the coming days, definitely by
Monday.
WWF officials had made a decision over the weekend, when it was not known about the
death and the decision was leaning toward getting rid of him, not to announce the status
of Hellwig either way because it would screw up the PPV angles and out date the 7/8
Raw show built around an Ultimate Warrior vs. Owen Hart match which ends with
Warrior beating laid out by Team Cornette, which would be a natural way to end his
tenure in the WWF should that be the case, similar to what WCW did after the Sid
Vicious-Arn Anderson stabbing incident in 1993 that they kept Sid's name alive on
television until a previously taped angle where he was laid out, and then portrayed it as
him being seriously injured and he was never seen in the promotion again. At the Raw
tapings, Warrior's strong comeback from the beating was taped for the 7/15 Raw, but if
Warrior wasn't to return, the storyline likely would be that he was injured on 7/8, and
the comeback on 7/15 would be edited out of the show. We're told whatever decision the
WWF makes regarding Hellwig will be made apparent while watching the 7/8 Raw
show. If Hellwig is gone, and given the circumstances and timing, the odds would seem
to be against that being the case, then either Sid or more likely, Yokozuna (since there is
no time to tape an angle for television involving Sid, while Yokozuna is already built into
the storyline with a natural program against all three), would take Hellwig's place in the
PPV main event teaming with Shawn Michaels & Ahmed Johnson vs. Vader & Hart &
Bulldog.
Hellwig's no-show immediately fueled rumors of him being the third man on the Kevin
Nash & Scott Hall team, but based on what we've been told, WCW had decided on the
third man and it wasn't Hellwig. Even if WWF were to fire him, it wouldn't do so until
after the WCW PPV event anyway, so it's pretty much considered a legal impossibility,
more so now than ever with the lawsuit out, that Hellwig would be in the Daytona Beach
match.
A McMahon/Hellwig break-up would be even messier this time than in the past with
their business partnership in both the comic book and the wrestling school in Phoenix
having to be sorted out.
***********************************************************
With the Olympic games just a few weeks away, there is a lot of wrestling history, much
of it largely unknown or long forgotten, when it comes to a connection between the
Olympic games and pro wrestling.
Numerous Olympic wrestlers in the heavier weight divisions and even a few in lighter
weight divisions went on to pro wrestling. Most in the amateur sport of wrestling look
down on pro wrestling because it's a work would call it cashing in their reputation, but
others would see it not at all different from ex-football players that can't act going into
Hollywood. Nobody needs to talk about the differences between amateur wrestling at the
top level and pro wrestling at any level, so it should come as no surprise that the
transition in many cases hasn't been smooth. Does anyone remember the pro wrestling
careers of people like Anton Geesink or Evan Johnson? Others ex-Olympians had long
pro wrestling careers, but they wouldn't have been necessarily noteworthy, such as Dale
Lewis or Brad Rheingans. In some cases, there are men who used their amateur and
Olympic fame as a springboard to win major world titles in the pro game, such as Dick
Hutton, Ed Don George and Khosrow "Iron Sheik" Vaziri. In a few cases, ex-Olympic
wrestlers like Verne Gagne, Danny Hodge, Karl Istaz aka Karl Gotch, Mitsuo Yoshida
aka Riki Choshu, Masa Saito and Tomomi "Jumbo" Tsuruta became legitimate legends
of the pro wrestling game. And one former Olympic wrestler, Hiroshi Hase, not only
became in his prime one of the five best workers in the world and a booker for one of the
biggest wrestling companies around, but took the fame he gained from both pro and
amateur wrestling and the reputation of helping book a major company all the way to
the Japanese Senate, which he is currently serving in.
When the Gold Dust Trio (and now you know where that name came from)--Toots
Mondt, Billy Sandow and Ed "Strangler" Lewis basically ran pro wrestling in the 1920s,
it was natural that many of the top amateurs of that era would break in. Lewis and
Mondt were both the real deal when it came to wrestling. Some consider them two of the
best shooters ever. If you've ever noticed about territories in the past that were run by
wrestlers, they generally favor performers like themselves. That's why you'd always find
a plethora of former area wrestlers and football players working for Verne Gagne, while
you'd always find a territory filled with small men who were willing to bleed working for
Jerry Jarrett, or big ex-college football lineman who had some wrestling ability working
for Bill Watts.
I want to credit Mike Chapman's Encyclopedia of American Wrestling, which is by far
the best reference book I've ever seen on the subject of amateur wrestling in the United
States and has a chapter on amateur stars who went on to pro wrestling, for much of the
historical information on long forgotten wrestlers from previous generations.
The first U.S. Olympic team wrestlers to make the transition to pro wrestling were 1924
Olympic gold medalists Robin Reed and Russel Vis. Reed, like Danny Hodge a
generation later, was a phenom, as even though he competed at 134 pounds, he was the
dominant wrestler of his era in any weight. Several of the leading amateur wrestling
authorities to this day still consider Reed as the toughest American wrestler ever. As an
amateur, Reed never lost a match at any level of competition. As astounding as that
statement is, it's even more impressive when one considers that to prove his point in
1924, even though his competition weight was 134, he entered the regional Olympic
trials in four different weight divisions on the same day, 145, 158, 174 and 191s, winning
all four. While training for the Olympics, it was well known that he was able to pin every
member of the 1924 U.S. team, including the heavyweight. Reed wrestled professionally
for about ten years, but due to his size, was never a major pro star. Vis won a gold medal
at 145 pounds, and wrestled for several years, but also wasn't a major star and never
really enjoyed pro wrestling because, in his own words, he was a lousy showman.
However, a major pro star came out of the 1928 Olympics, Ed Don George, a former
collegiate champion who placed fourth in the heavyweight division. It wasn't long before
he claimed the pro wrestling world heavyweight championship, beating Gus Sonnenberg
on December 10, 1930. That title switch is a story in itself. Sonnenberg was a national
football hero at Dartmouth, who went into pro wrestling and became a huge drawing
card immediately for Boston promoter Paul Bowser. By this time, the Gold Dust Trio
had their inevitable split with Lewis and Sandow remaining together, and Mondt going
to New York using Jim Londos as his top attraction, each with their own title. Lewis
dropped his world title to Sonnenberg in Boston, basically bringing Sonnenberg's
promoter, Bowser, into national power, and the two went on the road playing to big
houses.
As is the historical norm in wrestling, a nasty promotional war got even nastier. Mondt
would continually have his top stars, Londos and Dick Shikat, who were both real
wrestlers, go on the road and make the grandstand challenges to Sonnenberg to matches
that weren't going to happen. He even booked one of his own wrestlers under the ring
name Gus Sonnenberg in states that didn't regulate wrestling and made him a jobber.
The pressure got bad on Lewis and Sandow even though they were making big money
with Sonnenberg on top, because some of the fans began to think of Sonnenberg as a
chicken for avoiding the vocal top challenges. Finally, in Mondt's coup de gras, Londos
arranged for a friend of his, a top-flight 160-pound wrestler who had no name value, to
confront Sonnenberg on a busy street in Los Angeles, gouge his eyes, and beat him up in
front of witnesses. The publicity spread nationwide about the world heavyweight
wrestling champion and a famous football hero being beaten up in front of numerous
witnesses by a little guy. With all the embarrassment that resulted from that, Bowser,
apparently without consulting either Sandow or Lewis, immediately put the title on Ed
Don George, because he felt after that incident he needed the title on someone who was
a feared wrestler.
The title split in numerous directions after that, but George, who dropped the title to
Lewis, wound up winning Bowser's version of the title, which eventually became the first
version of the AWA title generally recognized in New England and Eastern Canada, on
two more occasions in the 30s. George's first title win was historical a lot more than it
being the first Olympic wrestler to claim a world heavyweight title, but because it
signalled the beginning of the end of national dominance for Lewis and Sandow as
promoters since they no longer controlled a major world title.
However, George was not the biggest pro wrestling star to come out of the 1928 Olympic
games. Earl McCready of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan had been recruited by Oklahoma A
& M (now Oklahoma State) and wrestling as a heavyweight, became the first man in
history to win three NCAA titles from 1928 to 1930. He never lost in college, winning
every match but three via pin making him the greatest pinner in American college
wrestling history, a record that brought him all the way to the U.S. National Wrestling
Hall of Fame. In 1928 he represented Canada as a heavyweight in the Olympics. As a pro
wrestler, McCready went all over the world for more than three decades, gaining great
fame in England and Australia, and was a particularly huge star in Western Canada for
Stu Hart, as one of the most well respected wrestlers of his era. McCready's signature
move was the rolling cradle, a move generally forgotten in American wrestling but one of
the signature spots of Manami Toyota.
In 1932, the U.S. team had more success, capturing three gold medals in Los Angeles,
Bobby Pearce at 123, Jack Van Bebber at 158 and Pete Mehringer at 191. Like Reed and
Vis, all went into pro wrestling and none made a major mark. Mehringer, who did get a
title match against Lewis during his short pro career, and always maintained he could
have beaten Lewis in a shoot, became more well known as a pro football player. In fact,
during his era, Mehringer's football/wrestling double success at Kansas was so respected
that in a 1950 poll, he was voted one of the ten greatest amateur athletes of the first halfcentury.
Due to World War II, the Olympics were suspended in 1940 and 1944. It wasn't until
1948 that the Olympics resumed, and that competition in London ended up producing
four of the next generation's biggest pro stars. Ironically, none of them medaled in the
Olympics itself, however few pro wrestling aficionados of the 50s and 60s and many
even into the 70s wouldn't immediately recognize the names of Verne Gagne, Karl
Gotch, Mad Dog Vachon and Dick Hutton.
Gagne actually never competed in the Olympics, as 1948 was the only year that the U.S.
team included two members in every weight division, rather than one, however only one
would be able to compete. Another excellent amateur who was a long-time pro, although
not nearly as big a name in pro wrestling, Joe Scarpello, was on that same team as an
alternate at 174 pounds. Gagne lost in the wrestle-offs for the 191 to Henry Wittenberg,
who won the gold medal. Glen Brand, who took the gold at 174, winning every match
easily, beat Scarpello in a close match at the wrestle-offs. Wittenberg was the original
trainer for Larry Simon, who was better known as the Great Malenko. Gagne's exploits
in pro wrestling, both as a wrestler and as a promoter, both positive and negative, would
be worthy of an entire issue and perhaps a book. He became an immediate superstar in
pro wrestling during the days when pro wrestling was a staple on network prime time
television on the old Dumont Network, as the prototypical clean-cut local jock scientific
wrestler. After just a few years in, Gagne was one of the country's first wrestlers ever to
earn $100,000 in a year, which, to show how times change, was more than any baseball,
football, basketball or hockey player was earning in those days. He wound up as one of
the most powerful promoters in the world from the early 60s through the late-80s. He
made numerous enemies along the way and was among the most hated promoters in
many circles in the entire industry. Gagne held the AWA title ten times from its
inception largely as a title created to make himself the world heavyweight champion in
the Midwest and kept himself in the same role as top babyface and the champion or
leading title contender until his first retirement in 1981--at which point he was 55 years
old. He made several comebacks into his early 60s, and promoted his AWA through
1991, although it floundered in its last several years when it fell victim to the more
modern competition.
Karl Istaz of Belgium, who placed eighth at heavyweight, later became Karl Gotch, taking
his last name after Frank Gotch, the most famous of all American pro wrestlers of the
first half of the century. He had success and was respected and feared world wide, and
was widely believed to have been Ultimate Fighting Champion, as he was a real master
of submissions, during a day when no such competition existed. But he also had a
reputation in the United States as being someone who couldn't draw so in many
territories wasn't pushed hard. Gotch became legendary in Japan, and was later
nicknamed "The God of Professional Wrestling," and continued to wrestle in Japan as a
headliner until 1982, at which point he was 57 years old and still looked impressive.
Even at that late date he remained with a legendary reputation as a shooter, once
turning another Olympic wrestler, Riki Choshu, who was 27 years his junior, inside out
in a workout when Choshu got a little cocky. Even as late as the mid-80s the reputation
was that nobody could beat him in a straight shoot. Gotch was the original trainer of
many of today's Japanese superstars such as Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Akira Maeda and
Nobuhiko Takada, and later was affiliated with both the first and second incarnations of
the UWF as a trainer.
Dick Hutton, who was considered a gold medal possibility, went into the Olympics with
a severe elbow injury and wound up placing sixth as a heavyweight. Many feel he was the
best in the world at that time, having won three NCAA titles (losing in his quest for a
fourth title by a referees decision after a legendary double overtime match against Gagne
in the 1949 finals). While not a top draw in pro wrestling, he did hold the NWA
heavyweight title, at the time the most widely recognized title in the game, from 1957,
beating Lou Thesz in Toronto, until losing to Pat O'Connor in 1959. Hutton's place in
history was largely created by Thesz, the long-time champ who had a falling out with the
NWA over wanting to tour internationally. The NWA didn't want to go without a
champion for any period of time, so Thesz agreed to drop the title. The first pick was
Buddy Rogers, but Thesz refused to drop the title to Rogers based on personal animosity
(Thesz in his entire career never did a job for Rogers), but agreed to lose to the NWA's
second choice, Hutton, since he respected him as the best mat wrestler of the era.
Hutton, like Bob Backlund a generation later, was not very colorful even though he was a
great athlete. Unlike Backlund, he wasn't a great draw either. After losing the title, he
quickly faded from main events and within a few years was out of pro wrestling
completely.
Maurice Vachon, who represented Canada at 174 pounds, became another legendary pro
wrestler and tough-guy, and was the first member of a famed wrestling dynasty which
included brother Paul "Butcher" Vachon and sister the late Vivian Vachon and niece
Gertrude "Luna" Vachon. Mad Dog held the AWA world title five times in the 1960s, the
tag title with his brother and remained a big drawing card in pro wrestling due to his
crazy man gimmick and guttural interviews nearly 20 years past his prime. His 36-year
pro career ended after leaving the AWA for the WWF in 1984, where at his age, having to
get over in new parts of the country wasn't going to happen and he quickly faded from
the scene having burned his AWA bridge behind him. He was still working occasional
independents when, while walking alongside a road, was hit by a car and suffered
injuries so severe it resulted in his leg being amputated.
The only amateur wrestler ever to make the cover of Sports Illustrated, perhaps the
greatest American wrestler ever and probably one of the most underrated athletes of alltime,
Danny Hodge burst on the international scene in 1952 in Helsinki, Finland,
making the Olympic team at 174 pounds, placing fifth. What was noteworthy about that
was the Olympics he was competing in were taking place just after he had finished his
junior year of high school, an unprecedented feat. Hodge's unbelievable athletic exploits
have been written up here many times. He was not only unbeaten in three years of
college wrestling at the University of Oklahoma, breezing to three NCAA titles, but was
never even taken down during his entire college career. His pin percentage in college is
second as the greatest in the history of American collegiate wrestling. He's the only man
in history ever to win national amateur championships in both boxing and wrestling,
capturing the national amateur title in boxing in 1959--two years after first putting on a
pair of boxing gloves. During a ten-day period while a junior in college, he won the
NCAA tournament, and the AAU Greco-roman and freestyle tournaments winning every
match via pinfall. He dominated every match in the 1956 Olympics until the gold medal
match, where he was leading 8-1 against the defending champion from Bulgaria, when a
very controversial pin was called against him and he had to settle for the silver medal.
During his international amateur career between the ages of 18 to 23, he only lost three
matches, all at the international level, all to people who had won gold medals. College
wrestling's Wrestler of the year award is named after him. Hodge was also skilled in
submissions, had inhuman grip strength along with both boxing and wrestling skill, and
few doubt he was another person who would have cleaned up had their been a UFC in
those days. After trying pro boxing for two years, Hodge turned to pro wrestling in 1959
and was one of Leroy McGuirk's two biggest drawing cards and the dominant junior
heavyweight in the world, holding the NWA junior heavyweight title, which at the time
was recognized world wide, seven times from 1960 through his retirement due to
breaking his neck in an auto accident in 1976. Because he was a legend in Oklahoma
from his legitimate exploits and for his strength demonstrations breaking pliers with his
bare hands, Hodge was along with Bill Watts, his area's top babyface for most of his
career. However, due to a lack of charisma and being on the small side, he was never a
major star anywhere else except in Japan.
Hawaiian Harold Sakata represented the U.S. in weightlifting as a light heavyweight in
the 1952 Olympics. Shortly after the Olympics, he embarked on a pro wrestling career
that, on-and-off, lasted about 20 years under the name "Oddjob" Tosh Togo. Sakata's
pro wrestling career was secondary to his career as an actor. His most famous role was
as Oddjob, the heel karate killer with the magic hat in a famous James Bond movie
"Goldfinger," and much of his wrestling push as mainly a mid-level performer was based
on him being the real life Oddjob. In the late 60s, he was in a cough medicine
commercial that was probably the most famous television commercial in the United
States at the time, where he played a Herculean Japanese karate man whose vicious
cough kept him karate chopping everything in sight and making a mess of his house
breaking all the tables and chairs in two, before they got the cough medicine in his
mouth and he was immediately calmed and soothed.
Dale Lewis represented the U.S. in Greco-roman wrestling in as a heavyweight in 1956
and 1960, losing his second round match both times. Lewis, who also wrestled at the
University of Oklahoma, wrestled as a pro for about 15 years, through the late-70s, most
notably as Professor Dale Lewis. He was a name wrestler, but by no means a major star.
The most interesting trivia item regarding Lewis to today's pro wrestling fans is that he
was the heavyweight at Oklahoma at the same time Bill Watts went to the college, and
since Watts was never in his league as a wrestler, Watts could never break onto the
varsity team.
The 1964 Olympic games produced the first of this era's major stars--Masanori Saito of
Japan. Saito was considered the best heavyweight his country had ever produced
breezing to both the national freestyle and Greco-roman titles in 1963, and the Olympics
were on his home turf in Tokyo so he had the potential to become a legitimate national
hero. However, he wound up settling for a sixth place finish. Saito is still active today,
one month from his 54th birthday, both in a wrestling and office capacity after a pro
career that started in 1965 and has taken him all over the world as a major star,
including winning the AWA title in the dying days of that company, and participating in
the legendary first jungle death match against Antonio Inoki.
Japan's Greco-roman representative in the heavyweight division was Yoshiharu
Sugiyama, who didn't place. As Thunder Sugiyama, he was a name wrestler but never a
superstar. He debuted in 1965 and wrestled for 13 years, with Isao Yoshihara's Trans-
World Wrestling Association and later for his International Wrestling Enterprises.
Sugiyama held the IWE's International title, which was its major singles belt, for ten
months, beating Billy Robinson in 1970 and losing to Big Bill Miller in 1971, so for that
period would have been the top star for the No. 3 promotion in the country. He faded
from the top after that point and wasn't heavily pushed as the decade wore on.
Robert Roop, who became better known as Bob Roop, represented the U.S. in the 1968
Olympics as a heavyweight, placing seventh. He wrestled from 1969 through 1987, with
his best success coming in Florida. While he was a genuine star in pro wrestling, he
never achieved the level of success people were predicting for him in 1971 when he was
sent to Madison Square Garden and was considered the most promising young wrestler
in the country. At that point, it was considered almost a given that he'd eventually be
NWA or WWWF world heavyweight champion. His biggest success as a box office draw
was in a 1977 feud with a young babyface named Kevin Sullivan in San Francisco where
the two had the best drawing series of houses at the Cow Palace in more than a decade.
However, in what appeared to be the middle of the run, both Roop and Sullivan were
fired by Roy Shire, allegedly for trying to steal the territory from him. By the end of his
career, he had shaved off the hair of half of his head (shades of John Tenta) and teamed
with Sullivan and as Maha Singh.
A contemporary of Roop's in those Olympics, Hossein Khosrow Vaziri, better known
nowadays as the Iron Sheik, represented Iran in Greco-roman at 177 pounds and was
eliminated after losing in the second round. Vaziri later helped coach the U.S. Grecoroman
team in both 1972 and 1976. It was while coaching in 1972 in Munich that he was
discovered by Gagne, who brought him into pro wrestling in a training camp that two
other members of the 1972 Olympic team, the mammoth heavyweight wrestler Chris
Taylor and the huge weightlifter, Ken Patera. The one-time personal bodyguard for the
Shah of Iran in the early 60s when President John F. Kennedy visited the country, Vaziri
started pro wrestling at only 185 pounds and he was already in his mid-30s. He was
considered a phenom among the wrestlers because of his pure ability and incredible
physical conditioning, being compared to Billy Robinson, then considered by many as
the best pure wrestler in the game. But his ability and conditioning didn't translate to
the public. As a foreign babyface with the clean cut amateur wrestling background, he
was going nowhere until, while touring Japan, he met a sportswriter who suggested he
use his Arabian heritage and copy the legendary Sheik, and the Iron Sheik was born. As
the heel suplex machine, Sheik was a typical Anti-American heel who was a star and
respected as a good performer, but not a major star, until feuding with Sgt. Slaughter in
the WWF and being the transitional heel champion in the WWF between Bob Backlund
and Hulk Hogan for a few weeks in early 1984, by which time he was already 45 years
old. Sheik remained a name in the business through his final major campaign in the
WWF as General Mustafa, ironically by then being billed from Iran's hated enemy Iraq,
both teaming with and later splitting up with Slaughter when Slaughter did his 1991
Iraqi sympathizer angle that led to him being WWF champion and the controversial
Wrestlemania match with Hogan.
Taylor, who along with Dan Gable became America's first genuine celebrity amateur
wrestlers in 1972 in the Munich Olympics that became more legendary for Arab
terrorists kidnapping and then murdering 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
Taylor represented the U.S. in both freestyle and Greco-roman as a heavyweight. At 6-5
and 420 pounds, Taylor was a media darling going into the Olympics. The U.S. hadn't
tasted gold in any form of wrestling since 1960, and Gable was an odds-on favorite going
in, and he won the gold in dominant fashion and became one of the country's most
famous amateur wrestling legends because of it. The U.S. hadn't had a heavyweight gold
medalist since 1924, and Taylor went in as the expected silver medalist, but most
aficionados felt gold was a possibility. He ended up with a controversial bronze in
freestyle. By luck of a bad draw, he faced eventual gold medalist and dominant
heavyweight world champion of the era, Alexander Medved of the Soviet Union, in the
first round. In the most controversial Olympic wrestling decision since Hodge's loss in
1956, Taylor was called for a stalling point in a call considered so bad that official was
then suspended from the Olympics. However, the stalling point was the difference as
Taylor lost 3-2, and ended up winning the rest of his matches enroute to the bronze. He
didn't fare as well in Greco-roman, being eliminated by a legendary over the head bellyto-
belly suplex by Wilfred Dietrich that became a worldwide best selling poster in the
years that followed, in the second round. Dietrich, who won a silver medal, later
wrestled professionally and was a star in Europe during the 70s. Taylor captured two
NCAA titles at the University of Iowa and was the greatest heavyweight pinner since
McCready. He then signed a four-year contract for a reported $100,000 a year--which
would be right near the top of what the biggest names in wrestling were earning in those
days, with Gagne. He was trained in a famous training camp that included Vaziri, Patera,
Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell and a guy named Richard Morgan Fliehr. Despite his
celebrityhood--ABC's Wide World of Sports even aired one of his early pro matches
against Vachon--Taylor was a flop as a pro wrestler. His first pro match amidst tons of
media publicity drew only 1,200 fans. He lacked mobility, charisma and personality, and
didn't get into the comedy routine that made Haystacks Calhoun a star in the era. His
freakish size wasn't as awesome to the public as another newcomer during that time
period, Andre Rousimoff. He faded out of pro wrestling after only a few years and died
in 1979, at which point his weight exceeded 600 pounds.
Patera, on the other hand, dropped 70 pounds from his Olympic weightlifting frame of
330 pounds, bleached his hair, turned heel, and ended up becoming a major star in pro
wrestling after placing fourth in the 1972 Olympics as a superheavyweight weightlifter.
The first American ever to press 500 pounds overhead, Patera was offered $50,000 per
year by Gagne, to try pro wrestling. Patera was a very rare individual in that he didn't
start pro wrestling until the age of 31, but had a lengthy successful career everywhere he
went and turned into a very good worker. He and Saito's wrestling career history
intertwined in one memorable incident in 1983. After a match in Waukesha, WI, the two
apparently went to a McDonalds at about 1 a.m. for some food, but the place was closed
but their were employees inside that wouldn't open the door. Patera, who was a world
class shot putter before going into weightlifting, threw a boulder threw the window of
the McDonalds. Later that night, police came to the hotel room where Patera and Saito
were. In a famous fight scene, ten Waukesha police officers wound up injured, including
one woman officer who had her leg broken by Saito. The end result was both Patera and
Saito spent 1985-87 in prison. While both returned, and Saito actually reached his
biggest level of stardom in Japan the two years after his return, the two years in prison
from the age of 44 to 46 took its toll physically on Patera, who returned to the WWF
(Vince McMahon continued to send Patera's family a check while he was in prison) but
no longer had the fire and his career as a top name ended shortly thereafter. He wrestled
regularly through 1990 and has still done matches from time to time as recently as two
months ago.
Wilhelm Ruska and Anton Geesink, both from the Netherlands, who each captured the
gold medals in judo as heavyweights, both went into pro wrestling. Ruska won two gold
medals in 1972, both as a heavyweight and in the overall division. He went to New
Japan, debuting at the age of 35 on February 2, 1976 in a legendary mixed match at
Budokan Hall doing a job that helped create the worked legend of Inoki as the greatest
mixed martial arts fighter in the world. They had several rematches through the late 70s,
although none as famous as their first match, with the final one, a nostalgia match,
coming in September, 1994, with Inoki naturally winning once again. Ruska also
wrestled some in the United States, and despite a muscular physique that was ahead of
its time, was not a good worker and was never any kind of an attraction. Geesink, who
was something like 6-7 and 305 pounds, won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1964
Olympics in Tokyo, which made him more of a celebrity in Japan since he won the gold
in a Japanese-created sport on Japanese soil. When Geesink started with All Japan Pro
Wrestling, it was with incredible fanfare and one of the biggest pushes of all-time--put at
the same level as guys like Jack Brisco, The Destroyer and the Funks on the depth chart
because of his judo background. His debuted on November 24, 1973, at which time he
was already 39 years old, drew a phenomenal television rating teaming with Giant Baba
to beat Bruno Sammartino & Cyclone ***** in the main event. However, to put it kindly,
he was the pits in the ring, and after a few years, disappeared from the scene.
But far bigger than Patera, the 1972 games produced two of Japan's biggest wrestling
stars of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Tomomi Tsuruta represented Japan at 220
pounds in Greco-roman wrestling in 1972, placing seventh. Tsuruta had previously won
the National amateur title in his weight in both freestyle and Greco-roman in 1971. In a
pro wrestling career that started with a much heralded debut in March of 1973, Tsuruta
is generally considered along with perhaps Jun Akiyama and Owen Hart (ironically both
also top amateur wrestlers) as the best rookies of the past three decades. Tsuruta was an
instant hit and was one of the biggest pushed names in the business and top workers
from his first match in the ring until a serious case of Hepatitis ended his career as a
serious performer in 1992, although he still works comedy matches to this day. Mitsuo
Yoshida, better known as Riki Choshu, wrestled at 220 pounds for Japan in the freestyle
division, being eliminated in the first round. Choshu, in 1982, changed the face of
Japanese pro wrestling forever with a feud against Tatsumi Fujinami that began the
change in Japan from a sport based on American vs. Japanese main events to where the
top drawing matches were Japanese vs. Japanese and Americans became far less
important. Choshu was a tremendously charismatic drawing card in the mid-80s and to
this day is still one of the most popular and well-known wrestlers in the country.
Although past his prime today, Choshu still wrestles for New Japan along with being the
real power in charge of the most successful wrestling company in the world over the past
several years. By headlining some of the biggest houses in history, he'll be recorded as
one of the all-time most influential and biggest draws in history.
There were five men from the 1976 Olympic games that went into pro wrestling, with
five different levels of success. Evan Johnson represented the U.S. at 198 pounds in
Greco-roman wrestling, placing seventh. Brad Rheingans represented the U.S. in Grecoroman
wrestling, and placed fourth. "Buffalo" Allan Coage represented the U.S. in judo
as a heavyweight, winning a bronze medal, and becoming the first American ever to
medal in judo. Klaus Wallas of Austria competed as a heavyweight in judo as well,
placing sixth. Johnson wrestled so briefly in 1981 for Gagne that few even remember it.
Rheingans, a collegiate teammate of Bob Backlund at North Dakota State, also started in
1981 for Gagne and was given a strong push at the beginning, including a feud where he
would regularly suplex Jerry Blackwell and getting some heavyweight title matches, but
his lack of personality doomed his career in the U.S. He continued to wrestle for New
Japan, where he was a mid-level star billed as "Wrestling's Super Computer," through
the early 90s, and still works with that company as a liaison in booking foreign talent.
Coage, who was already a legend in the martial arts community in the United States, was
trained by New Japan shortly after the Olympics to be another martial artists to put
Inoki over. He did so well in training he became a full-time wrestler and despite turning
pro at a relatively old age (35), had a long solid career with both New Japan and
particularly for Stu Hart in Western Canada as main event heel Bad News Allen, holding
the North American title four times. He worked for WWF for a time as Bad News Brown.
He appeared on one of the UWFI PPV shows in the United States in 1994, but by that
time his knees were shot and his mobility gone. Even today, at 54, he still wrestles on
occasion in Canada. Wallas, who came back to the 1980 Olympics and won a silver
medal, turned pro in 1983 and wrestled for a few years getting a strong immediate push
to the top. He was being groomed to be the top star for the CWA in Europe, but before
getting to that level, left the wrestling business. The other was a gold medalist--
heavyweight boxer Leon Spinks, who had a famous boxer vs. wrestler embarrassment
putting over Inoki in 1987 on one of the most important nights in Japanese wrestling
history since it was the night Akira Maeda got over as a mainstream celebrity in a
legendary mixed match with Dan Nakaya Neilsen. Spinks, who briefly held the world
heavyweight boxing championship, winning and losing it back to Muhammad Ali, later
worked as a wrestler working some shows against the likes of Atsushi Onita several
times, Great Wojo and even Jerry Lawler and worked several tours for FMW.
Both the United States and Japan boycotted the 1980 Olympics over the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan, leaving some of the greatest athletes in the world with their hopes and
dreams unfulfilled for a lifetime. Greg Wojciechowski was America's freestyle
heavyweight, and later wrestled as the Great Wojo mainly for Dick the Bruiser around
Indiana. While he was pushed as the top star for the small local promotion for a while,
he never made a national name, and may be best known in the mid-80s for doing the
grandstand play of having his promoter take out ads during the local WWF broadcasts
and issue challenges that were sure to be not answered for straight matches against Hulk
Hogan. Rheingans, who probably would have won a medal, again represented the U.S. in
Greco-roman. Japan's freestyle heavyweight was Yoshiaki Yatsu, who turned pro with
New Japan after the boycotted Olympics. Actually Yatsu's first pro match was in 1980 in
Madison Square Garden. Yatsu, who still wrestles on indie shows in Japan today, was
Choshu and later Tsuruta's (as a tag team called "The Olympics"--holding the Double tag
team title five times) main tag team partner in both New Japan and later All Japan in
the mid and late 80s. At one point Yatsu was one of the hottest stars in the business, and
by 1986 was one of the top five workers. At the age of 31, he did an about face and went
back to his childhood dream of winning an Olympic medal. He went back into amateur
wrestling training and after a seven year layoff, captured Japan's national title as a
heavyweight in 1987. The International Olympic Committee then ruled because he was
in pro wrestling, that made him a professional athlete and thus ineligible for the 1988
games (that rule was amended in 1992). The heartbreak pretty much ended his
enthusiasm and he gained a lot of weight, retired, talked about going for the 1992
Olympics but by then he was unable to get to that level, and then has come back but has
never been the same. Frank Andersson of Sweden, who took the silver medal at 220
pounds in freestyle, did some wrestling, including with WCW as recently as two years
ago, but appeared to disappear shortly after a steroid conviction.
The 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles wound up with two pro wrestlers. The biggest
star was Hiroshi Hase, who placed seventh at 198 pounds in Greco-roman wrestling.
Hase was working as a college professor after the Olympics when New Japan talked him
into becoming a pro wrestler amidst much fanfare. He began his wrestling career in
Puerto Rico, quickly went to Calgary where he debuted in 1986 as the Viet Cong Express,
in a series of classic matches against another rookie, Owen Hart. He remained in Calgary
for about a year-and-a-half before he finally debuted for New Japan on December 27,
1987 beating Kuniaki Kobayashi to win the IWGP jr. heavyweight title--a historical first
in that he was the first wrestler to win a major world title in Japan in his debut match in
the country. Hase gave up his position as the company's dominant junior heavyweight
due to the emergence of Jushin Liger, who needed the position to get the gimmick over.
As a booker, Hase was the most unselfish booker of his era, constantly putting over
lesser talents and never focusing on himself, before suddenly retiring last year when he
was recruited to run for political office, and is currently serving in the Japanese senate.
Tamon Honda of All Japan represented Japan as a heavyweight in freestyle wrestling,
placing fifth in Los Angeles. He returned to the Olympics in 1988 and 1992, losing to
gold medalist Bruce Baumgartner the final time, before debuting as a pro in October,
1993. Because Honda is 32 and hasn't taken to pro wrestling as quickly as the likes of a
Hase or an Akiyama, it doesn't appear he's going to ever be a top flight worker although
he'll probably eventually be pushed into a solid high level position. Dan Severn was an
alternate at 220 pounds, losing a very controversial match in the finals of the trials to
Lou Banach, who went on to win the gold.
Coming out of the 1988 Olympics were a few people who actually never made a strong
mark in pro wrestling. In Greco-roman, the Koslowski twins from Minneapolis, who
Verne Gagne had his eye on for years but by the time they were done with the amateurs,
Gagne was done with promoting. Dennis, at 220, took a bronze, while Duane, at
heavyweight, placed eighth. The two came back in 1992 with Dennis moving up to a
silver and Duane placing seventh. Duane had one or two matches with the second
incarnation of the UWF, including losing to Nobuhiko Takada on a major show. Dennis
went into UWFI in 1993-94 and showed a lot of star potential, but the two sides fell
apart when the first contract ran out and he never returned. Gregori Veritchev of the
Soviet Union competed as a heavyweight in judo, and later worked for FMW as a rival
and tag partner of Onita, but was a poor worker. Another Soviet, womens judoka
Svetlana Gundarenko at 300 pounds, took a bronze, and came back in 1992 and didn't
place. Gundarenko also worked one or two tours in 1992 for FMW, and came back in
1995 to win the first L-1 womens ultimate fight tournament in Japan. David
Gobedjichvili, who was the heavyweight gold medalist in 1988, and came back in 1992 to
win a bronze, did one pro wrestling match at the Tokyo Dome for Pro Wrestling
Fujiwara Gumi in 1992, putting over Minoru Suzuki.
The only other participant in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that went into pro wrestling
was Manabu Nakanishi, a freestyler, who didn't place at 220 pounds. Nakanishi had won
the national championship in freestyle in 1990, 1991 and 1992. He now works as
Kurosawa in WCW, and was thought to be the next Saito-Choshu-Yatsu-Hase level New
Japan superstar, but after nearly four years in pro wrestling, it's apparent that he isn't
catching on. Ironically, the person he beat in the trials for the spot, Jun Akiyama of All
Japan, caught on from the moment he took to pro wrestling like a duck to water, and is
already a top-ten level worker. Current New Japan young wrestlers Yuji Nagata and
Tokimitsu Ishizawa also lost in the Japanese Olympic trial finals for the 1992 team at
198 and 180 respectively.
Chip Minton, who is currently working in the WCW training school and has done a few
matches for both WCW and USWA, was the captain of the medal winning U.S. bobsled
racing team in the 1994 Olympics, the only Winter Olympian that we know of that has
gone on to pro wrestling.
**********************************************************
WWF KING OF THE RING FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 139 (78.5%)
Thumbs down 17 (09.6%)
In the middle 21 (11.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith 127
Marc Mero vs. Steve Austin 18
Undertaker vs. Mankind 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Vader vs. Jake Roberts 53
Ultimate Warrior vs. Jerry Lawler 34
Jake Roberts vs. Steve Austin 19
Smoking Gunns vs. Godwinns 16
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 7/2.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
**********************************************************
World Championship Wrestling's "Northeastern Invasion" tour was something of a
mixed big. Considering the crowds and enthusiasm WCW has been drawing elsewhere of
late, the crowds had to be a disappointment, in particular since they brought in two of
the biggest area stars of the 70s, Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales, in an attempt to
boost the gate.
The shows, in particular the matches in Philadelphia on 6/29, got strong reports (one
report said that the early matches were very good but the second half of the show was
like a bad Nitro). Hartford, with The Giant no-showing the main event due to
transportation problems as he was shooting a movie on the West Coast, got more of a
mixed reaction. We received plenty of reports from New York's Paramount show, with a
generally positive reaction to the shows but some negative comments as well, with the
biggest story being the profane outburst by Konnan after his U.S. title match with Kevin
Sullivan, to fans that were chanting "You still suck," "ECW," and "Sandman kicked your
ass." Konnan after swearing at the fans, which drew him a lot of heat among WCW
officials, said that ECW was in a bingo hall and WCW was where the big boys played and
they were drawing 5,000 people. Sullivan quickly got the mic away from him and
basically did an apology saying that those weren't the opinions of WCW and that WCW
wasn't feel that way and then said some politically very nice things about being a fan of
ECW.
Surprisingly, reports from Philadelphia is that there wasn't much in the way of a
negative reaction from ECW fans, which surprised those at WCW who were expecting it
in Philadelphia but not New York, to the point where even Jim Duggan got a big
reaction. The only concession to location was in the Nasty Boys-Public Enemy street
fight, the Nasty Boys played heel and Public Enemy got the win. However, in New York,
the crowd was vocal and negative and some wrestlers, in particular Konnan and Eddie
Guerrero (who the crowd booed probably more because his opponent, Chris Benoit,
received such a thunderous babyface reaction), were noticeably affected in the ring.
Most reports were that Flair received by far the best babyface reactions in Philadelphia
and New York, although in Hartford it was more Sting. It's really become strange trying
to figure out some fans, because ECW was in Deer Park and drew maybe 400 people, so
there were people chanting ECW at the WCW show instead of actually attending the
ECW show in the same city going on at the same time, and perhaps even more people
chanting ECW than attending ECW. It's as if some fans would rather chant ECW to get
noticed at a so-called major event than actually attend ECW shows when they come to
their city.
In Hartford on 6/28, WCW drew 5,707 fans (3,931 paying $61,141); in Philadelphia on
6/29, they drew 5,606 fans (3,271 paying $50,667) and New York drew about 4,500 fans
(3,700 paying $90,000). New York was 200-300 short of capacity, so from a dollar
standpoint, WCW made about as much as they could have expected, but it has to be a
disappointment to be unable, even though almost full, to sellout a small building in New
York City with basically all the big names in the promotion except Hulk Hogan, and with
Sammartino and Morales added for nostalgia draws, after being out of the market for so
many years. The general reaction we received is that nobody thought Sammartino or
Morales actually sold any tickets to the show, although there were fans at all three shows
who were happy to see them. With the shows being well publicized in all three cities and
it being WCW's first show in a long time in these markets, these figures can't be
considered successful.
In Hartford, there were signs outside the Civic Center saying that The Giant wouldn't be
appearing, although there was no announcement inside the building as to refunds being
offered. Sting, who was scheduled to headline against Giant (they did DQ finishes when
Luger interfered in the other cities), wound up teaming with Luger beating Arn
Anderson and Benoit (who worked twice).
We received conflicting stories as to the reaction of Sammartino and Morales.
Sammartino received what was termed a "lukewarm" reaction in Hartford to referee the
Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage main event. The finish they did was that Flair got the pin
using Brass Knux, which he hid under his arm, and when his arm was raised, they fell,
Sammartino saw them and DQ'd Flair. They did two spot where Sammartino shoved
Flair down and another after the match where Sammartino wanted to get it on with
Flair, who left. Sammartino, now 60, had problems during the match and there were
comments that he did a Bronko Lubich style count not slapping the mat hard, which is
understandable, but not what fans are used to. Apparently he received more than the
$2,000 per show reported here as that figure was the first offer to him, which he turned
down and it was later upped although we don't know what it was upped to. They
changed the finish in New York and Philadelphia to a pinfall after a re-start when
Sammartino saw the object, which seemed to get over better. In New York, we received
reports that Sammartino was very well received with chants of "Bruno" and other
reports that it was actually Morales who was better received. In all three cities, Morales
got involved in the finish of the Konnan vs. Kevin Sullivan matches. Morales, now 53,
decked Jimmy Hart at the finish, and when Sullivan turned around, Konnan
schoolboyed him for the wins in matches where they brawled all over the building all
three nights.
*************************************************************
Nostalgia was also the theme of the biggest show of the weekend, on 6/30 where a
sellout 16,000 fans attended the Rikidozan Memorial event at the Yokohama Arena.
Rikidozan, who was murdered gangland style in 1963, was the first and to this day still
the biggest superstar and national hero in the history of Japanese wrestling. This show
was put together by Junzo Hasegawa, who was the President of the Japan Pro Wrestling
promotion after Rikidozan passed away, who was better known as Yoshinosato, along
with other former wrestlers such as Michiaki Yoshimura (who was the Shawn Michaels
of Japan in his day), Shinya Kojika (current president of Big Japan Pro Wrestling),
Kantaro Hoshino, Kotetsu Yamamoto (a former wrestler now color commentator for
several offices and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
It was a multi-promotional show with 16 different offices represented, including both All
Japan (which only sent a prelim match involving Rikidozan's son, Mitsuo Momota) and
New Japan on the same card. However, unlike the Tokyo Dome show in 1995, this
wasn't a situation where all the groups were competing by putting their best foot
forward. The reaction was that the show was too heavy on the garbage promotions, and
in fact, when the matches started, it appeared there was going to be a poor house as the
majority of fans didn't even arrive until 30 minutes after the show was set to begin so as
to avoid the underneath indie matches. Unlike at the Dome show, the contrast in
working ability was far too noticeable and the show was poor underneath. Part of the
"problem" was that Yamamoto, who ran the show from a booker standpoint, wouldn't
allow chair or foreign object usage, juice, or brawling outside the ring or into the crowd.
Having to keep the match in the ring without gimmicks showed up the poorer
promotions whose wrestlers didn't have the skill, and couldn't rely on the shortcuts to
camouflage lack of working ability.
Ironically, the highlight of the show turned out to be nostalgia from yet another
generation. Satoru Sayama (The Original Tiger Mask), 38, who retired in 1985 and has
had a few comeback matches since then, donned the hood once again for a match
against his protege, the current Tiger Mask (don't know his real name) that works for
Michinoku Pro Wrestling. Sayama, who is largely responsible for the spotlight on and
success of junior heavyweight wrestling in Japan to this day by putting the high-flying
fast-paced style on the map from 1981 to 1983 with New Japan, now owns a martial arts
gym and is a pioneer of sorts in a 180 degree different world as the promoter of both his
own Japanese Pro shooting, a sport he invented, and the Vale Tudo shoot promotion in
Japan. The new Tiger Mask, who has been wrestling for less than one year, is actually so
similar to a young Sayama that it's scary to watch when it comes to physique, moves and
style and is on the verge of being a great pro wrestler. The two had what was reported as
the best match on the show, with Sayama doing all his Tiger Mask style moves, going to
a 30:00 draw and going a three minute overtime period as well without a fall taken.
Sayama, who was said to have been in the best shape he's been in for at least a decade,
did a great job and when the time limit expired, the arena erupted in chants of "more,
more." The new Tiger Mask asked for an overtime, and Sayama agreed to go three more
minutes, but by this point he was all blown up and the overtime saw him mainly used
submissions on the mat.
Complete results saw: 1. In a match from the Samurai Project Promotion, Ryuma Go &
Takeshi Miyamoto beat Samurai Max & Fumio Akiyama in 14:35 when Go pinned Max
in a poor opener. Because it went so long, fans were chanting for them to go to the
finish; 2. In a match from the IWA Kakutoshijuku promotion, Goro Tsurumi pinned The
Mummy in 7:09 after Mummy missed a head-butt off the top rope in another poor
match. Mummy suffered a legit broken rib as he did a clumsy attempt at a diving headbutt
off the top rope. Fans heavily booed the finish; 3. In an FMW match, The Gladiator
(the only foreigner wrestler on the show) & Hisakatsu Oya beat Koji Nakagawa & Masato
Tanaka when Gladiator pinned Nakagawa with a splash off the top rope in 12:13.
Because they had to stay in the ring and not use gimmicks, this was another poor match;
4. In the IWA Japan match, Tarzan Goto pinned Takashi Okano in 16:11 with a power
bomb. This was said to have gone too long and was boring, although with the crowd
dead, Goto violated the rule and used a chair to the head to set up the winning move; 5.
In the Big Japan match, Seiji Yamakawa & Kendo Nagasaki beat Yuichi Taniguchi &
Shoji Nakamaki in 12:58 when Yamakawa pinned Taniguchi with a german suplex. For
the same reason as FMW and IWA, this was a poor match; 6. In the LLPW match,
Shinobu Kandori & Michiko Omukai beat Michiko Nagashima & Eagle Sawai in 12:46
when Kandori pinned Nagashima. The crowd, which was largely people who attend one
show a year, didn't know any of these women except Kandori, and were surprised at
seeing the size of Sawai. Omukai's flying got the first good reaction of the show and the
fans were into Kandori's submissions as well. A very good match; 7. In a combined Gaea
and JWP six womens match, Chigusa Nagayo of Gaea teamed with Hiromi Yagi & Hikari
Fukuoka of JWP to beat Dynamite Kansai of JWP teaming with Gaea's Bomber Hikari &
Toshie Uematsu when Nagayo pinned Uematsu after Fukuoka gave her a moonsault in
13:23. This was said to have been a great match, with Kansai kicking the hell out of her
foes, Fukuoka getting a good reaction to her wrestling and flying moves and Nagayo and
Kansai against each other drawing good heat; 8. In the All Japan match, Mitsuo Momota
pinned Masao Inoue in 8:35 in a fair match. There was much criticism of All Japan for
sending two prelim wrestlers rather than top names to this show, but they had a show of
their own going on at the same time at Korakuen Hall which is about a 40 minute drive
from this arena; 9. In an interpromotional match, Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki over WAR
beat Kitao's dojo's duo of Koji Kitao & Masaaki Mochizuki when Fuyuki pinned
Mochizuki in 12:26 after a running clothesline. Not good at all. Fuyuki did a lot of
comedy which somewhat saved it since Kitao is such a poor worker; 10. In an
interpromotional match with Japan Pro shooting vs. Michinoku Pro Wrestling, Satoru
Sayama as Tiger Mask went to a draw with the current Tiger Mask after 33:00. It's
interesting that Japan Pro shooting bills itself as the only 100% shootfighting
organization in the world, yet its owner and promoter participated in a total high flying
pro wrestling match; 11. In another interpromotional match, Pro Wrestling Fujiwara
Gumi's Yoshiaki Fujiwara went to a double count out with UWFI's Yoji Anjoh when both
were on the floor trying for ankle locks on each other as the ref counted them both out.
The crowd reaction to the finish must have been awful, since Japanese fans hate nonclean
finishes to begin with. To have two guys from so-called shoot groups which always
have clean finishes, do an interpromotional match and not have a finish has to be
considered a slap in the face at the fans. After the match, Fujiwara grabbed the house
mic and quelled the crowd saying he was going to go backstage and bring in Akira
Maeda to wrestle Anjoh. Anjoh sat down in the ring and Fujiwara didn't come back for a
long time and finally said that it was a joke; 12. In a pure New Japan match, said to have
been a very good match, Keiji Muto & Kensuke Sasaki beat Shinya Hashimoto & Junji
Hirata in 14:51 when Muto pinned Hirata after a moonsault; 13. In the main event, a
mixed promotions match, Genichiro Tenryu of WAR & Tatsumi Fujinami of New Japan
beat Koki Kitahara of WAR & Riki Choshu of New Japan in 13:51 when Tenryu pinned
Kitahara with a power bomb. Kitahara suffered a bloody nose and mainly sold for the
two veterans with Choshu getting a hot tag. Overall a good main event.
*************************************************************
In what is a landmark story when it comes to wrestling journalism, but Tarzan
Yamamoto, the editor of Weekly Pro Wrestling since its debut in 1984, resigned this past
week. Yamamoto had been embroiled in a feud with New Japan Pro Wrestling, the
country's largest office, which, along with UWFI and WAR, had banned the magazine
from covering its events for the past few months.
With magazine sales declining, eight percent in the past month alone, while rival Weekly
Gong has seen a 16 percent increase and was selling its copies at the newsstands at a
record rate according to most reports (some reports are that Gong was selling 95% of its
newsstand mags, which is a figure totally unheard of in the magazine publishing
business where 30 to 40% is considered successful) since it was the only full-color
weekly to cover those three offices, Yamamoto resigned. It is believed, although not
official at press time, that New Japan will now allow Weekly Pro, a subsidiary of Baseball
Magazine Sha, to begin coverage of its events starting with the G-1 Climax in August.
With so many major New Japan, UWFI and WAR events in the summer and fall, the
pressure on Weekly Pro to end this war amidst declining sales and as important, the fact
its main competitor has become so hot, has been enormous of late. Weekly Pro has gone
to heavy coverage of All Japan, Michinoku, Rings, Pancrase, the Japanese garbage
groups, Women and American wrestling, and in particular has pushed ECW to the
moon, to pick up the slack. Yamamoto, who is credited with bringing mainstream
coverage of pro wrestling in Japan from the Apter-mag level almost to Observer level,
except that his magazine had a circulation of 300,000 per week making it far more
influential. By all accounts Yamamoto was one of the most powerful and influential
people in wrestling in Japan. According to one book on pro wrestling written in Japan,
Yamamoto was called the most influential person in the entire pro wrestling world.
Because of basically inventing, at least in Japan, a critical approach to covering wrestling
matches and angles and behind-the-scenes news, Yamamoto was often criticized for
revealing too much in his magazines. Traditionalists felt they hurt the business, despite
the fact the Japanese business went through a major upswing during most of that
period. His strong coverage of shooting style groups and shoot sports, and pointing out
they were shoot groups (not saying the others weren't but the allusion was there) along
with being critical of groups with the attitude of "if you don't like us, don't come" made
him numerous enemies throughout the years, both from rival magazines and from
several different offices.
In particular, after successfully promoting a show in April of 1995 which sold out the
Tokyo Dome and had main event calibre matches from 13 different offices, the other
publications and others in the business got even hotter at the power he was able to wield
in that groups were supposedly afraid that if they didn't cooperate with his show, it
would mean diminished coverage in the most important magazine. Rival publications
were so bitter at the power wielded that for the most part they boycotted coverage of in
some ways the biggest pro wrestling event ever in the country. There were fears and
rumors started throughout Japan, which turned out to be unfounded, that Yamamoto,
50, who also hosted his own late-night weekly pro wrestling talk show for most of last
year, was going to use the Dome show, which drew something like $5.5 million, as a
springboard to start his own promotion. Others had criticized him of late for favoring
promotions that he had business dealings with, with Weekly Pro being heavily criticized
by outsiders for its deal where it markets ECW tapes in Japan and in exchange has given
ECW tons of coverage in its magazine.
Yamamoto had bragged at Wrestlemania in regard to the New Japan ban that he had
never lost a war yet (he had previous conflicts with All Japan, WAR, SWS, etc. all of
which resulted in the promotions making amends with him because of the power his
magazine yielded). With New Japan so hot, and Weekly Pro banned from coverage, he
was in a war that this time, he didn't win. However, those close to him say that this
resignation in many ways is more than it seems--a calculated wrestling angle--and that
he's going to leave, write a few books on pro wrestling, and return in another venue as
powerful as ever.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 7/5 TO 8/5
7/5 WWF East Rutherford, NJ Continental Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/7 WCW Bash at the Beach PPV Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center (Nash & Hall & ? vs.
Savage & Luger & Sting)
7/7 Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Severn vs. Murphy)
7/8 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Lakeland, FL Civic Center
7/9 All Japan Kanazawa (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Taue & Kawada)
7/11 All Japan Hakata Star Lanes (Kobashi vs. Akiyama)
7/12 UFC X Providence, RI Civic Center (tournament)
7/13 AAA Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium (Konnan & Aguayo & Octagon vs.
Pierroth & Caras & Killer)
7/13 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu & Gordy & Dreamer vs. Lee Raven &
Richards)
7/14 Shootboxing Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Kimo vs. Sakuraba)
7/15 AAA TripleMania IV-C Madero (Payasos & Karis vs. Dorado Jr. & Demon Jr. &
Tinieblas Jr. & Sagrada Jr.)
7/16 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Giant vs. Power Warrior)
7/16 RINGS Osaka Furitsu Gym (Yamamoto vs. Vrij)
7/17 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Hashimoto vs. Flair)
7/20 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (six man tag team tournament)
7/20 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kawada vs. Akiyama)
7/21 WWF International Incident PPV Vancouver, BC General Motors Place (Michaels &
Johnson & Warrior vs. Hart & Smith & Vader)
7/21 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Anjoh)
7/22 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Seattle Center Arena
7/23 WWF Superstars tapings Yakima, WA
7/24 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Taue vs. Kobashi)
7/25 WWF San Francisco Cow Palace (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/27 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/2 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
8/2 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/3 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki)
8/4 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Hashimoto vs. Tenzan)
8/4 Universal Vale Tudo Uruyasu
8/5 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Muto vs. Koshinaka)
RESULTS
6/20 Xalapa (AAA - 5,500 sellout): Aladin & As del Espacio & Caballero Ninja b
Panter & Caballero ***** & ?, Zuleyma & La Sirenita & Julissa b Fugitiva & Practicante
& Martha Villalobos, Frisbee & Ludxor & Boomerang & Geo & Neo b Mr. Condor &
Marabunta & Angel Mortal & Hollywood & Yeti, Super Muneco & Oro Jr. & Blue Demon
Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. b Los Villanos & Karis la Momia-DQ, Lumberjack strap match:
Mascara Sagrada (new) & Octagon & Demon Jr. b Jerry Estrada & Killer & Psicosis
6/21 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): La Diabolica & La Infernal b Josselyne &
Lady Apache, Olimpico & Olimpus & Ultimatum b Yone Genjin & Espectro Jr. & Cadaver
de Ultratumba, Black Warrior & Scorpio Jr. & Guerrero de la Muerte b Bronco & Super
Astro & Mr. Niebla, Dandy & Silver King & Hector Garza b El Satanico & Felino & El
Hijo del Gladiador, Atlantis & Mascara Sagrada (original) & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. b Canek
& Dr. Wagner Jr. & ***** Casas
6/21 Netzahualcoyotl (AAA): Flama Rojo b Gran Petroneo, Perro Silva & Espectro &
El Mosco b Torero & Salsero & El Mexicano, Mexican national womens title: Martha
Villalobos b Julissa, Los Villanos b Halcon Dorado Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Super
Muneco, Octagon & Pantera & Mascara Sagrada (new) b Jerry Estrada & Fishman &
Kraken
6/22 Winnipeg, MB (WWF - 5,500 fairgrounds show): Savio Vega b Steve
Austin, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-DQ, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Mankind b Jake Roberts, Ahmed Johnson b Owen Hart, Yokozuna b Vader
6/23 Morelia, Michoakan (AAA): Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & Mini Frisbee b
Espectritos I & II, Elimination match: Ludxor & Discovery & Boomerang & Neo & Geo b
Angel Mortal & Mr. Condor & Marabunta & Perro Silva & El Mosco, Rey Misterio Jr. &
Tinieblas Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. b Super Crazy & Picudo & Heavy
Metal & Jerry Estrada-DQ, Killer & Cien Caras b Pierroth Jr. b Octagon & La Parka &
Mascara Sagrada-DQ
6/24 Seratopia Toki (New Japan - 2,250 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Yutaka
Yoshie, Michiyoshi Ohara b Yuji Nagata, Brad Armstrong b Black Cat, El Samurai &
Norio Honaga b Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Shinjiro Otani, Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto
b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido, Osamu Nishimura & Takashi Iizuka b Akitoshi Saito &
Akira Nogami, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Keiji Muto & Riki Choshu & Satoshi
Kojima, Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata & Jushin Liger b Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi
Tenzan & Hiro Saito
6/24 Miyagi (FMW): Shoichi Funaki b Toryu, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Gosaku
Goshogawara b Okamoto & Akira Nogami, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari & Bad
Nurse Nakamura b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Independent jr.
title: Taka Michinoku b Nanjyo Hayato, Elimination match: Super Leather & Head
Hunters & Freddy Kruger b The Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya & Horace Boulder & Ricky
Fuji, No rope barbed wire street fight tornado double hell spider net broken glass death
match: Wing Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka b Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa &
Mr. Pogo
6/25 LaCrosse, WI (WWF Superstars tapings - 3,523): Non-squash results: Aldo
Montoya b Don Callis, Davey Boy Smith b Buck Zumhofe, Marc Mero b Callis, Freddy
Joe Floyd (Tracy Smothers) b Justin Bradshaw, T.L. Hopper (Tony Anthony) b Duke
Droese, Alex Porteau b Barry Horowitz, Bradshaw b Floyd, Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Savio Vega b Who (Jim Neidhart), Jake Roberts b Mankind-DQ, Ultimate
Warrior b Vader-COR, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
6/25 Fukuoka (Pancrase - 7,500 sellout): Kiuma Kunioku b Takafumi Ito, Guy
Mezger d Osami Shibuya, Manabu Yamada d Yoshiki Takahashi, Yuki Kondo b Minoru
Suzuki, Ryushi Yanagisawa b Takaku Fuke, Bas Rutten b Jason DeLucia, Masakatsu
Funaki b Vernon White
6/25 Kasumigaora (New Japan - 2,200): Tokimitsu Ishizawa b Akitoshi Saito, Yuji
Nagata b Brad Armstrong, Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Shinjiro Otani &
Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Black Cat & Norio Honaga b El Samurai & Jushin Liger, Tatsutoshi
Goto b Osamu Nishimura, Tadao Yasuda & Satoshi Kojima b Michiyoshi Ohara & Kengo
Kimura, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata & Osamu
Kido, Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito b Keiji Muto & Riki Choshu &
Takashi Iizuka
6/25 Takasu (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa b Okamoto & Shoichi
Funaki, Taka Michinoku b Toryu, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari & Miwa Sato b
Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Super Leather b Gosaku
Goshogawara, Mr. Pogo b Ricky Fuji, Horace Boulder & Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator
b Nanjyo Hayato & Katsutoshi Niiyama & Masato Tanaka, Street fight: Hideki Hosaka &
Hido & Wing Kanemura b Freddy Kruger & Head Hunters
6/25 Miyagi (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Felinito b Orito, Masanobu Kurisu b
Kageboshi, Gekko & Kishin Kawabata b Astro Jr. & Shocker, Wazama b Shigeo
Okumura, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei, Sabu &
Takashi Ishikawa b Abdullah the Butcher & Billy Black
6/26 Nagoya Rainbow Hall (UWFI - 8,000): Koki Kitahara b 150% Machine,
Kazushi Sakuraba b Rene Roza, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Billy Scott, Yoji Anjoh b Yuhi
Sano, Genichiro Tenryu & Arashi b Yoshihiro Takayama & 200% Machine, Tatsumi
Fujinami & Yoshiaki Fujiwara b Masahito Kakihara & Nobuhiko Takada
6/26 Hiratsuka (New Japan - 3,000): Black Cat b Yutaka Yoshie, Tadao Yasuda b
Yuji Nagata, Osamu Kido b Akitoshi Saito, Shinjiro Otani & Norio Honaga b Jushin
Liger & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Junji Hirata & Riki Choshu b Akira Nogami & Kuniaki
Kobayashi, Keiji Muto & Takashi Iizuka b Brad Armstrong & El Samurai, Hawk &
Animal & Power Warrior b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa Chono-DQ, Osamu
Nishimura & Satoshi Kojima & Shinya Hashimoto b Rusher Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto &
Michiyoshi Ohara
6/27 Louisville, KY (WWF - 3,256): Duke Droese b Aldo Montoya, Montoya b
Droese, Bushwhackers b New Rockers, Savio Vega b Justin Bradshaw, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Phinneus Godwinn b Billy Gunn, Undertaker b Mankind,
Davey Boy Smith b Yokozuna, IC title: Ahmed Johnson b Goldust-COR, WWF title:
Shawn Michaels b Vader-DQ
6/28 Indianapolis (WWF - 5,501): Bushwhackers b New Rockers *1/2, Savio Vega b
Justin Bradshaw, Phinneus Godwinn b Billy Gunn **, IC title: Ahmed Johnson b
Goldust-COR **1/2, Undertaker b Mankind ***, Davey Boy Smith b Yokozuna *, Marc
Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley ***3/4, Johnson b Owen Hart DUD, WWF title: Shawn
Michaels b Vader **1/2
6/28 Hartford, CT (WCW - 5,707/3,931 paid): Chris Benoit b Eddie Guerrero
**1/4, Dean Malenko b Steve Regal **1/4, Jim Duggan b V.K. Wallstreet -*1/2, U.S. title:
Konnan b Kevin Sullivan *1/4, WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat DCOR Rick & Scott Steiner
**1/2, Street fight: Nasty Boys b Public Enemy **1/2, Sting & Lex Luger b Benoit & Arn
Anderson **1/4, Bruno Sammartino ref: Randy Savage b Ric Flair-DQ **
6/28 Takamachi (New Japan - 2,200 sellout): Tokimitsu Ishizawa b Yutaka
Yoshie, El Samurai b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Yuji Nagata b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Osamu
Nishimura b Brad Armstrong, Shinjiro Otani & Satoshi Kojima b Akitoshi Saito &
Tatsutoshi Goto, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata &
Riki Choshu, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami b Jushin Liger & Keiji Muto, Masa
Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito b Shinya Hashimoto & Takashi Iizuka & Osamu
Kido
6/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,150 sellout): Katsutoshi Niiyama b
Okamoto, Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku b Nanjyo Hayato & Toryu, Hideki Hosaka b
Freddy Kruger, Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya & Miwa Sato b Megumi Kudo &
Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama, The Gladiator & Horace Boulder b Ricky Fuji &
Hisakatsu Oya, Hido & Wing Kanemura b Gosaku Goshogawara & Mr. Pogo, World
Street fight six-man championship: Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Masato
Tanaka b Super Leather & Head Hunters to win titles
6/29 Detroit Joe Louis Arena (WWF - 5,930): Bushwhackers b New Rockers,
Savio Vega b Justin Bradshaw, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Davey Boy Smith
b Yokozuna, IC title: Ahmed Johnson b Goldust-COR, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b
Vader-DQ, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-DQ, Sid b Owen Hart,
Undertaker b Mankind
6/29 Philadelphia Civic Center (WCW - 5,606/3,271 paid): Chris Benoit b Eddie
Guerrero ***3/4, Dean Malenko b Steve Regal ***, Jim Duggan b V.K. Wallstreet 3/4*,
U.S. title: Konnan b Kevin Sullivan **1/2, WWF tag titles: Rick & Scott Steiner b Harlem
Heat-DQ **3/4, WCW TV title: Lex Luger b Arn Anderson 3/4*, Street fight: Public
Enemy b Nasty Boys **3/4, Bruno Sammartino ref: Randy Savage b Ric Flair **1/4,
WCW title: The Giant b Sting-DQ *3/4
6/29 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (RINGS - 6,700 sellout): Willie Peeters b Wataru Sakata,
Masayoshi Naruse b Todor Todorov, Bitzsade Amilan b Lufkin, Kiyoshi Tamura b Dick
Vrij, Tsuyoshi Kousaka b Jacob Hamilton, Volk Han b Mitsuya Nagai, Yoshihisa
Yamamoto b Maurice Smith 30:00
6/29 Niigata (New Japan - 3,800 sellout): Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie,
Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Osamu Nishimura & Takashi Iizuka b Tadao
Yasuda & Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Norio Honaga & Shinjiro Otani,
Keiji Muto b Brad Armstrong, Riki Choshu & Yuji Nagata b Michiyoshi Ohara & Kuniaki
Kobayashi, Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata b Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto, Hawk
& Animal & Power Warrior b Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
6/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Satoru Asako b Kentaro
Shiga, Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue,
Johnny Smith & The Patriot & Johnny Ace b Masao Inoue & Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon
Honda, Steve Williams b Maunukea Mossman, Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b
Rob Van Dam & Gary Albright, Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Akira Taue & Takao
Omori, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Kenta Kobashi & Brian Dyette
6/29 Middletown, NY (ECW - 700): Devon Storm b El Puerto Ricano, J.T. Smith &
Little Guido b Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley-DQ, Shane Douglas b Mikey
Whipwreck, Taz b Hack Myers, ECW TV title: Chris Jericho b Pit Bull #2 , ECW tag titles:
Eliminators b Gangstas, Weapons match: Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee, ECW title:
Raven b Sandman
6/29 Honolulu, HI (Future Fights - 3,500): Middleweight tournament: Jay
Palmer b Andres Szarka, Hegart Chin b Hiroki Notsugi, Palmer b Chin to win tourney,
Light heavyweight tournament: Jerry Bohlander b Alan Schible, Chris Charnos b Jesse
Matilla, Bohlander b Charnos to win tourney, Heavyweight tournament: Try Telligman b
Brian Matapua, Telligman b Walt Darby to win tournament
6/29 Sapporo (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Orito b Felinito, Astro Jr. & Shocker b
Kageboshi & Gekko, Kishin Kawabata d Shigeo Okumura, Yoshihiro Takayama & Billy
Black b Masanobu Kurisu & Masashi Aoyagi, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Great
Kabuki & Akihiko Masuda, Sabu b Wazama-COR, TWA tag titles 2/3 falls: Abdullah the
Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei b Takashi Ishikawa & Yoji Anjoh to win titles
6/30 Pittsburgh Civic Arena (WWF - 6,264): Bushwhackers b New Rockers *,
Savio Vega b Justin Bradshaw *, Sid b Owen Hart *, IC title: Ahmed Johnson b Goldust-
COR **, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader-DQ ***, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b
Godwinns **, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley **, Davey Boy Smith b Yokozuna *,
Undertaker b Mankind *
6/30 New York Paramount (WCW - 4,500/3,700 paid): Chris Benoit b Eddie
Guerrero, Dean Malenko b Steve Regal, Jim Duggan b V.K. Wallstreet, U.S. title:
Konnan b Kevin Sullivan, WCW tag titles: Rick & Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat-DQ,
WCW TV title: Lex Luger b Arn Anderson, Street fight: Nasty Boys b Public Enemy,
Bruno Sammartino ref: Randy Savage b Ric Flair, WCW title: The Giant b Sting-DQ
6/30 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b
Kentaro Shiga, Maunukea Mossman & Rob Van Dam b Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku
Izumida, Haruka Eigen & Tamon Honda & Takao Omori b Satoru Asako & Rusher
Kimura & Jumbo Tsuruta, The Patriot & Johnny Ace & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Mark &
Chris Youngblood & Johnny Smith, PWF jr. title: Masa Fuchi b Yoshinari Ogawa to win
title 21:31, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada b Steve Williams & Brian Dyette, Stan Hansen
b Jun Akiyama, Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi b Gary Albright & Giant Baba 27:12
6/30 Deer Park, NY (ECW - 400 sellout): Taz b Pablo Marquez 3/4*, Mikey
Whipwreck b Stevie Richards **1/4, J.T. Smith & Little Guido b Big Dick Dudley & Buh
Buh Ray Dudley-DQ **, Sandman b Bluedust DUD, Pit Bull #2 b Shane Douglas *, Brian
Lee b Dances with Dudley 1/2*, ECW tag titles: Eliminators b Chris Jericho &
Whipwreck ***3/4, ECW title: Raven b Tommy Dreamer ***
7/1 Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (WCW Monday Nitro tapings -
7,000/4,000 paid): WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Rick & Scott Steiner **1/2, Disco
Inferno b Kurosawa DUD, Diamond Dallas Page b Scotty Riggs *, Randy Savage b Greg
Valentine -*, WCW title: The Giant b John Tenta -*1/2, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson &
Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael b Renegade & Joe Gomez & Rock & Roll Express ***,
Bruno Sammartino ref: Savage b Flair
Special thanks to: Nezhyba Mario, Ed Schrieber, Georgiann Makropolous, Bruce
Buchanan, Woody Clay, Gregg John, Ron Lemieux, Dominick Valenti, G.W. Graham,
Bernard Siegel, Dan Reilly, Dan Parris, John Muse, Chris Zavisa, Evan Schlesinger,
David Millican, Edie Bailey, Chuck Langermann, Tim Noel, Matt Langley, Peggy
Watkins, Mike Omansky, Daniel Byrd, Dan Moreland, Jeff Osborne, Jesse Money,
Roland Alexander, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims
ALL JAPAN
There is a story behind-the-scenes going on regarding Toshiaki Kawada but I'm not sure
of all the details. Apparently he gave a magazine interview where he was critical of
management's isolationist policy and suggesting something to the effect that they'd
missed the boat when it came to the interpromotional matches that drew so much
money in the last few years. The rumor had it that Kawada would be doing some jobs
because of that. Whether that's related to this or not, they have done a deal where
Kawada & Gary Albright, who were supposed to be pushed as a team on the tour that
started 6/29, will no longer be teaming. The two were scheduled at the 7/24 Budokan
Hall show to face tag champs Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama, but instead Kawada
faces Albright in a singles match. Baba announced the card will feature four singles main
event matches, but aside from the Kawada-Albright and Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi
Triple Crown match, the other two haven't been announced although no doubt Misawa
and Akiyama will be involved.
Masa Fuchi captured the PWF jr. title for the fifth time beating Yoshinari Ogawa on
6/30 at Korakuen Hall.
Rookie Brian Dyette, who has been getting rave reviews (he has not appeared on
television yet but reports we are told is that after basically one month in wrestling he
already works like a five-year pro), got his first Korakuen Hall main event on 6/29
teaming with Kenta Kobashi losing to Misawa & Akiyama. On 6/30, also at Korakuen,
Dyette and his coach, Steve Williams, lost to Kawada & Taue on a card which also saw
the jr. title change, Stan Hansen pin Akiyama and Misawa & Kobashi over Giant Baba &
Albright when Misawa pinned Albright in 27:12.
Rob Van Dam & Maunukea Mossman are expected to get a mid-level push as a tag team
and will likely win the Asian tag titles over the next two weeks.
6/23 TV show did a whopping 4.4 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Several matches for the G-1 Climax tournament and the junior heavyweight tournament
which both take place 8/2 to 8/6 at Sumo Hall were announced. The G-1 will be the
round-robin in two blocks with five wrestlers in each block, with the two high point
getting meeting in a championship match. The junior tournament of champions will be a
single elimination. On 8/2, in the juniors, Great Sasuke (IWGP jr.) faces Masayoshi
Motegi (NWA jr.) and Jushin Liger (Great Britain jr.) faces Ultimo Dragon
(International jr.) plus G-1 matches with Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto, Kensuke
Sasaki vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Keiji Muto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki and Masa Chono vs.
Satoshi Kojima. On 8/3, in the juniors, Gran Hamada (WWA jr. lt. hwt.) faces El
Samurai (WWF lt. hwt.) and Shinjiro Otani (UWA lt. hwt.) faces the final tournament
participant to be announced (originally it was going to be Super Delfin, but he dropped
his claim to the CMLL welterweight title last week to Mascara Magica--my feeling is it'll
be either Hayabusa or Dean Malenko, since it's supposed to be the eight most important
jr. titles in the sport and leaving Malenko out makes WCW, a New Japan business
partner, look bad). In G-1 matches, Choshu vs. Tenzan, Sasaki vs. Junji Hirata, Muto vs.
Kojima and Shiro Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki. 8/4 will be the junior semifinals plus Choshu
vs. Hirata, Hashimoto vs. Tenzan, Chono vs. Koshinaka and Kojima vs. Yamazaki. 8/5
will be the junior finals plus Choshu vs. Sasaki, Hashimoto vs. Hirata, Muto vs.
Koshinaka and Chono vs. Yamazaki. 8/6 will be Hashimoto vs. Sasaki, Hirata vs.
Tenzan, Muto vs. Chono and Koshinaka vs. Kojima, plus the two highest point-getters
will come back in a championship match. Dan Severn will wrestle on 8/5 and 8/6 but
they haven't announced who his opponents will be.
The current tour, with the main drawing deal being Hawk & Power & Animal touring the
country working six-mans and basically winning every night, has been playing to
sellouts most nights.
6/22 TV did a 2.2 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Besides the Rikidozan show, the biggest shows of the week were Pancrase on 6/25 and
Rings on 6/29. The Pancrase show drew a sellout 7,500 in Fukuoka, largely due to the
Ken Shamrock vs. Masakatsu Funaki announced main event. Shamrock blew out his left
knee in training and underwent surgery on 6/20, thus couldn't wrestle although he did
go to Japan to attend the show. Funaki beat Vernon White via submission in 2:34. The
biggest shock was in an underneath match where Yuki Kondo, who debuted in January,
won a split decision after going 15:00 with Minoru Suzuki. In addition, 20-year-old
Osami Shibuya, who had the great PPV match against Jason DeLucia, held Guy Mezger
to a 10:00 draw with judges calling the match even. In the other top matches, Bas Rutten
beat DeLucia in 8:48 when the referee stopped the match and Ryushi Yanagisawa beat
Takaku Fuke 2-0 on points after they went the 30:00 time limit. On a seven match card,
the first five matches all went the time limit. With things like that, Kondo beating
Suzuki, and the fact that when you watch the tape, the holes just aren't there, I'm pretty
well of the belief that Pancrase is legitimate sport. The next Pancrase shows are 7/22 and
7/23, which I believe are at Korakuen Hall and will be the Neo Blood tournament which
is a tourney for the underneath wrestlers. The next major show isn't until 9/7 which
would be the next PPV taping provided PPV of Pancrase would still exist in the U.S. by
that point, with Rutten vs. Funaki for the King of Pancrase championship and Ken
Shamrock vs. Suzuki. There were lots of rumors swirling around this show that Ken
Shamrock would be going to New Japan next year after his Pancrase contract expires,
and Funaki even addressed them publicly. I don't think there's anything to them, and
they got started simply because Oleg Taktarov is a friend of Shamrock's and he worked
the show in Los Angeles which even though it wasn't a New Japan show is basically
considered as a New Japan show by a lot of people and it is known Inoki wants to create
a shooters promotion as part of New Japan.
Rings had its hottest show in a long time drawing a sellout 6,700 to Tokyo Bay NK Hall,
with the big crowd largely due to the debut of Kiyoshi Tamura. Tamura, who appeared to
have been trimmed down to 180 pounds and was ripped, beat Dick Vrij in 3:41 with a
choke sleeper. The main event saw Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Maurice Smith go the
30:00 time limit with Yamamoto winning a judges decision. The next show will be 7/16
in Osaka Furitsu Gym with Yamamoto vs. Vrij on top, plus Volk Han vs. Hans Nyman,
Bitzsade Tariel vs. Mitsuya Nagai and Tamura vs. Willie Peeters.
The sport of shootboxing has a show on 7/14 at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo which will
have two UFC rules matches--Kazushi Sakuraba of UWFI faces Kimo, which one would
think promises to be a bad night for Sakuraba, and Illoukhine Mikhail of Russia, who
won a Russian version of a UFC tournament last year, faces Meister Hulk of Brazil, who
is the guy who destroyed Amoury Bitetti in the finals of this year's Brazilian Vale Tudo
championship.
UWFI drew an announced 8,000 at Nagoya Rainbow Hall for a main event where
Tatsumi Fujinami & Yoshiaki Fujiwara beat Masahito Kakihara & Nobuhiko Takada in
17:10 when Fujiwara made Kakihara submit to the achilles tendon hold.
Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei beat the TWA (for Tokyo Pro Wrestling) tag
titles on 6/29 in Sapporo beating Takashi Ishikawa & Yoji Anjoh in a 2/3 falls match.
Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka won FMW's World street fight six
man titles beating the first champs, Head Hunters & Super Leather on 6/28 at Korakuen
Hall. Hayabusa was at the show which says that the angle where he was fired was an
angle. He was even attacked at the show by Nakagawa.
ECW
Pete Senerca (Taz) was upset with comments made by Paul Varelans both here and
elsewhere. He said that from the start, Paul Heyman had told him Varelans had agreed
to do the job while Varelans appeared apprehensive about doing it acting like he didn't
know what the plans were for him. He said Varelans had told him he thought it would be
a slow build-up rather than doing the match three weeks after the angle. He said in the
one workout session that had at the ECW school, that Varelans had to be taught how to
properly apply a front headlock and Perry Satullo (Saturn), the other coach at the school
said that trapfighting (which Varelans is a black belt in) must mean that if you get in a
fight, you're trapped. "He doesn't know how to do anything. He's clumsy. Taz could have
eaten him up." Senerca said in their match that Varelans left him several openings to
tear him up. "In a straight shoot, he was wide open at all times." Senerca said the fact
there were several heels around the ring during the match was because it was ECW vs.
UFC and they wanted to show ECW heels as being unified behind him. "I don't need
anyone to defend me. I've lost fights before, but that kid can't beat me." Both Senerca,
who wrestled for two years at the University of Massachusetts and one year at C.W. Post,
and Heyman said that Varelans was offered the opportunity to do a shoot but turned it
down. Senerca said it was in a conversation between the two when Varelans was
unhappy about doing the job, and he said he'd go to Paul and see if they could both get
more money because what they were going to make wasn't enough to do a shoot. He said
Varelans said that it was okay. Heyman said it was in a phone conversation that all three
were on. Senerca said he can see why the UFC people like Varelans, because he's a big
guy with a good look, he's a wild puncher and he can take a good punch, and said that he
doesn't want to say that Varelans was afraid of him, only that Varelans said he wasn't
here to do a shoot. "I've seen him and he definitely doesn't have a glass jaw.
I wouldn't be this hot if he didn't make the silly comments about me being up to his
waist. My size has nothing to do with it. His size is irrelevant. We're all the same size on
the mat. He was wide open so many times in the match.
The only reason I'm bitter is because he's crying the blues." My own feeling is that since
this is pro wrestling we're talking about, as written last week, who would win in a real
shoot has nothing at all to do with it. Pro wrestling is about manipulation, not reality
and the idea for Taz to fight a shooter and get a worked submission win was about
manipulation, no different than what worked for Antonio Inoki for all those years. It
ended up being a bad match and everyone involved seems to be unhappy in hindsight
because things didn't go down as they had all hoped for whatever reason.
Sandman's nine-year-old son, Tyler Fullington, was the star of the weekend with house
shows on 6/29 in Middletown, NY and 6/30 in Deer Park, NY before an estimated 700
and 400 fans. The first night, Raven defended the title against Sandman. Sandman's
knee is still bad and he really can't work so they did the camouflage bit which Raven is
really great at. Sandman was caning everyone when Raven pulled Tyler in front of him.
Sandman stopped. Later in the match, as Sandman was about to win the title, Tyler
caned his father and Raven pinned him. The Middletown show was mainly brawling all
over the building and people called here saying it was dangerous to be a fan because the
wrestlers were running through them and fans were getting minor injuries because they
couldn't get out of the way. Tommy Dreamer and Brian Lee did a spoof on the Sullivan-
Benoit deal, except they went into the womens bathroom and there was a woman in
there and did more damage to the bathroom. We still haven't had anyone flush anyone's
head in the toilet yet, but I'm sure it's coming. In Deer Park, Raven wrestled Dreamer
and they did a spoof on the Michaels-Smith double pin finish. When each ref raised a
hand, both wrestlers simultaneously DDT'd the other ref. Buh Buh Ray Dudley came in
to ref, but D-Von Dudley hit Buh Buh and Dreamer with a chair and one of the refs
recovered and counted the pin. After the match, Sandman ran in, but he wound up being
caned by his son again.
Sandman's wife, who used to be called Peaches, is now being called by her real name of
Lori Fullington. In Deer Park, Eliminators had a Japanese style hot match with Chris
Jericho & Mikey Whipwreck.
Told the crowds both nights were really bloodthirsty, even by ECW standards, so even
though there wasn't anything that would be called good wrestling except maybe the
Eliminators match with Jericho & Whipwreck, the fans came to see the brawling and the
blood, both of which were provided.
On this past week's TV, they aired Stevie Richards doing the Baron Von Stevie deal doing
a poor goose step and claw. It was so bad it was good. They also aired Raven vs. Terry
Gordy. Gordy is nowhere close to what he once was, but they did an excellent job of
hiding it, mainly by keeping the match outside the ring and just having Gordy destroy
Raven with chair shots. They are trying to do the Jake Roberts comeback deal with
Gordy. Actually because Raven did such a great job of camouflaging what Gordy isn't,
the fans thought Gordy was the old Gordy and went really nuts for him during the
match.
Louie Spicolli debuts on 7/12 in Allentown and will wrestle Sabu at the Arena on 7/13.
Afa the Samoan is expected to manage the Samoan Gangsta Party at least in his
hometown of Allentown. Samu has just opened a wrestling gym in Pensacola but will
continue to work ECW.
Brian Pillman didn't appear at the Deer Park show as was the original plan. He had
backed out of it several weeks ago after suffering an ankle infection, which required
surgery, which has caused him to be hooked up to an IV the past few weeks which is why
he had the big patch on his arm doing the WWF stuff at TV.
7/12 Allentown line-up is falls count anywhere with Gordy & Dreamer vs. Raven & Lee,
Jericho defending TV title against Shane Douglas, ECW tag titles with Eliminators vs.
Gangstas, Too Cold Scorpio vs. Pit Bull #2 , Sandman vs. Bluedust and Tod Gordon vs.
Bill Alfonso.
HERE AND THERE
A shoot promotion called "Future Fights" debuted on 6/29 in Honolulu drawing 3,500
fans. Lions Den fighters Jerry Bohlander (UFC VIII semifinalist) and Try Telligman (of
Dallas) captured the light heavyweight (168-199) and heavyweight tournaments
respectively, while Jay Palmer won the middleweight (168 and less) division. Since they
were on the way back from the Pancrase show the previous Tuesday, among those at the
show were Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger and Vernon White and also
appearing at the show were Toru Tanaka and Relson Gracie. Ken Shamrock addressed
the crowd before the show thanking them for supporting events like this and saying they
need to have more sports events like this to show politicians these are hard training
athletes competing in a clean sport. The matches were under free fight rules inside a
24x24 boxing ring.
A correction from the Dick Murdoch bio from two weeks away. Murdoch actually did
spend a brief period of time in the Marine Reserves as a private as one of our readers
served with him.
Craig Peters, who had worked as an editor and writer for Pro Wrestling Illustrated and
its sister "Apter-mags" for the past 15 years, will be leaving at the end of the month to
work doing programs, booklets and running On-line services for Ringling Brothers
circus. Peters, who did the majority of the work on the Pro Wrestling Almanac which is
currently on the newsstands. Time permitting, he may still have his hand involved in the
magazines to a small degree.
UFC
It was believed that over the past week that Bob Meyrowitz struck a deal in Rhode Island
to clear the final obstacle to have the UFC put on, but as of press time on 7/2--just ten
days prior to the event, tickets were still not yet on sale nor was the event confirmed for
the Providence Civic Center so the deal must not have been completed. There was a local
newspaper story that Meyrowitz had agreed to make knee and elbow blows illegal in
exchange for getting clearance. There is some kind of controversy about fighting inside a
cage, but since the judge ruled that the UFC needs to be governed by the same state
guidelines as pro wrestling (go figure), the fact was that there have been cage matches in
the past in Rhode Island.
Gall of the year award goes to New York State Senator Roy Goodman. Goodman
sponsored legislation, which just passed the New York State senate, to regulate UFC type
matches. Last year, Goodman was very public in his part in getting the human cockfight,
you know, EFC, banned from an arena in Brooklyn and they basically had to move the
PPV to a secret location in North Carolina at the last minute. Goodman's bill, which in
his words, "will put an end to the unbridled human cockfighting which can seriously
injure contestants and which sets a terrible example to our youth," would legally allow
UFC and EFC to regularly promote in New York state and his rule changes put into the
bill were basically all the same rules (except mandating time limits of no more than
20:00 which I'm sure that after the 30:00 televised fiascos of the past, that SEG wrote
themselves) that UFC already had. The only difference between the human cockfights of
the past and the regulated pure sport that Goodman talked about creating is that the
state gets its five percent. The same guy who overreacted with all the inflamed rhetoric is
the one to sponsor the bill to bring it in, so long as the state gets its cut, and then sends
out press releases talking about the rule changes he's created, all of which were basically
the rules of the sport going in.
And in USA Today this week, they listed John McCain as one of Bob Dole's top four
choices for Vice President.
WCW
The third member of the heel team for the PPV won't be announced until the night of the
show. Speculation is running rampant about who it is. I've been told that the deal was
finalized last week for whomever it is. My feeling is that it's Hulk Hogan because a
reader was working on the set of the movie Hogan is doing with Roddy Piper and said
that Hogan told Piper he was asked to be the third guy and that he probably was going to
do it. It wouldn't be a disappointment like most mystery partners turn out to be, and it
would be the best thing for Hogan's career in some ways although there is a legit risk
that the heel Hulk Hogan won't have the same PPV drawing power of the babyface
version and when a guy gets 25% of the cut, he'd better have incredible drawing power
or he's not worth it.
Nitro on 7/1 from the U.S. Air Arena in Landover, MD (estimated 7,000 fans; about
4,000 paying $60,000) was good in the sense that it build interest in the PPV because of
the Kevin Nash (who was called Kevin Nash by Eric Bischoff) and Scott Hall (who was
still never identified but did still speak with the Spanish accent) angles. They came out at
the beginning of the second hour through the crowd to huge babyface reactions and sat
in the front row eating popcorn. Then, while a video of Rey Misterio Jr. was playing, they
interrupted it and got on the house mic with tons of security and WCW both faces and
heels coming out. Aside from the fact that Nash is funny as hell, the other reasons (aside
from the fact they are going to get cheered no matter what and it really doesn't matter
who gets cheered as long as people buy tickets to see the match), another reason the
guys are getting cheered is that in every confrontation, it's two guys standing up to like
20 people, half of whom have guns, and they never back down. Later in the show they
aired a segment with the police escorting Hall & Nash to their car and Nash was on a roll
mocking the cops, complaining about his bad knees, saying that if all the cops pooled all
their paychecks they couldn't afford a car like the one he was getting in, talking about
treating the cops to donuts, etc. As far as the rest of the show went, it was better than the
previous week, but not by much. It opened with a **1/2 match with Harlem Heat
keeping the tag titles beating Steiners in 10:49 when Rob Parker showed up as Heat's
new manager and hit Rick, who was on the top rope, with his cane, to lead to Booker T
scoring the pin. The finale saw the Four Horseman beat Joe Gomez & Renegade & Ricky
Morton & Robert Gibson in 11:51. Due mainly to Benoit being ferocious, the match was
very good but the finish was one of the funniest on record. Renegade was on the top rope
and it appeared they were going to do the same exact finish as in the opener, this time
with Steve McMichael using the briefcase. However, Renegade either lost his balance or
simply jumped off the top because McMichael was slow in getting in position.
McMichael, trying to make the angle work, once Renegade took off, threw the briefcase
in the direction of Renegade still trying to save the finish, but missed him by a mile.
Amidst all the confusion, Flair put Renegade in the figure four for the win. In between
were four bad matches. Disco Inferno beat Kurasawa in 3:45 when an older man came
out as a second Disco Inferno, distracted Kurasawa (who played face believe it or not)
and Disco hit him with the disco ball for the pin. It looked even worse than it sounds.
Dallas Page beat Scotty Riggs in 5:42 with the Diamond cutter. Typical Page stuff where
both guys work hard. But they didn't get heat and a lot of the work looked lame. Randy
Savage and Greg Valentine was even funnier. Since they were running out of time, you
could hear the ref give them a 30-second cue and they were nowhere close to going
home. So Valentine did a back suplex, and then laid there like he had knocked himself
out so Savage could deliver the elbow for the pin. Needless to say Greg didn't look good.
And the worst of the bunch was Giant over John Tenta in 6:37 in a near worst match of
the year calibre match. After the match, Bubba did a run-in and shaved off half of
Tenta's beard.
One can safely say WCW has tremendous Monday night momentum and that to this
point even though the shows haven't all been good, the two hour format is a huge ratings
success which can be attributed to the two-hour show getting the jump on Raw which is
a huge advantage, but Kevin Nash and Scott Hall are a big part in it as well because of
the huge replay numbers. For 7/1, WCW did a 3.3 rating and 6.2 share (3.0 the first
hour, 3.6 the second hour) to Raw's 2.6 and 4.5. The replay hours were 1.5 and 1.8
totalling a 1.7 rating and 4.3 share which is another record. WCW Saturday Night did a
2.1 and Pro a 1.4 over the weekend.
Glacier was at the licensing fair and was told his costume didn't look as good in person
as on the videos. He was said to look like Chris Champion although others have told me
he's a guy who has never wrestled before that they are training at the camp. Others have
said it's going to be a futuristic martial arts team. Why do I have this vision of Van
Hammer banging his head going through my brain?
Speaking of Nash, his first son, Tristen Dakota Nash, was born on 6/13.
For the week ending 6/16, total viewership for all WCW programming was 5.73 million
homes on 180 stations compared with 4.01 million homes on 153 stations for WWF.
WWF
Christine Rosati, one of the three overweight women who were put on the old TNT show
in bathing suits and the butt of Bobby Heenan jokes, passed away on 6/27 from the Ecoli
virus at the age of 47. She had been hospitalized for several days, with them believing
she was suffering from Kidney stones. Rosati and sisters Vivian and Diane were life-long
WWF fans out of Hopewell Junction, NY, and used to hold up signs at the early Raw
tapings.
Complete International Incident PPV line-up from 7/21 in Vancouver is the six-man
main event, Undertaker vs. Goldust, Mankind vs. Jake Roberts, Steve Austin vs. Marc
Mero and Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas non-title. If there is a Justin Bradshaw vs.
Savio Vega match, and they did an angle for it at the Raw tapings, it would be on the pregame
show.
From the Superstars tapings on 6/25 in Lacrosse, WI before 3,523 paying $45,786 saw
several debuts. Tom Brandi aka Johnny Gunn debuted as Salvatore Sincerely, coming
out to Italian entrance music doing a gimmick where he tells the fans how much he likes
them but it's insincere, similar to the Rougeaus being from America gimmick years back.
Tracy Smothers debuted as Freddy Joe Floyd from Bowlegs, OK, and is already feuding
with Justin Bradshaw over the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry. Smothers won the first match,
but Bradshaw beat him in a rematch. There is actually an interesting story about the
name and gimmick. Bowlegs, OK is a real place and it is the small town where Jack &
Jerry Brisco grew up before moving to Blackwell, OK. Jack Brisco's given name is Fred
Joe Brisco, while Jerry's is Floyd Gerald Brisco. T.L. Hopper (Tony Anthony) got a win
over Duke Droese. He comes out to entrance music that sounds like a toilet flushing and
brings his favorite toilet plunger, which he calls Betsy, to the ring with it and kisses the
plunger after wins and grinds it into his foe's faces. He's doing a total hick plumber
gimmick, as if WWF doesn't already have enough hick type characters. Alex Porteau
debuted as Alex "The Pug" Porteau, doing an amateur wrestler gimmick. Bill Irwin
debuted as "The Goon," doing a hockey player gimmick with hockey organ music coming
to the ring. Jim Neidhart debuted as Who? from Who Knows Where? wearing an
Assassin mask. Since he did a job for Savio Vega in his debut, Who knows what plans are
in store for him? Also at the taping, Brian Pillman came out doing the Bushwhackers
march with the Bushwhackers, pretending to have turned face, but then hit Luke with
his crutch. Austin is getting the megapush, refusing to wrestle Aldo Montoya and later
Sonny Rogers (actually this was to give him time off because of his lip injury), giving
them both forfeit wins, and then beating them both up after they were awarded the win.
They did an angle where Sunny called out Phinneus to apologize to him, and she ended
up slapping him when she told him she was going to kiss him. It ended with Phinneus
slopping her. In a Mero TV win over Hunter Hearst Helmsley (another job?), Marlena
gave Sable a present and Mero was so mad he slapped it out of her hand.
WWF sent Mero & Sable, Undertaker & Paul Bearer and Shawn Michaels & Sunny to the
New York licensing fair, and had a full blown media packet complete with a
complimentary videotape and lots of space. WCW had a small bit of space as part of the
Turner booth and had a one page piece of paper to hand out. Randy Savage and Glacier
were there. When people asked who Glacier was, the TBS execs who had no idea just
said he was one of "our biggest and most popular stars." Needless to say which group
made the better impression, particularly since they were sending Sunny around the
place in her cowgirl outfit and execs were following her into the booth.
WWF Mag ripped Kevin Nash for leaving for the money.
Skip & Sunny are officially engaged after being together for the past six years.
Other house shows this past week saw Madison, WI on 6/26 draw 2,333 and $34,697,
Louisville on 6/27 drew 3,256 and $51,908, Indianapolis on 6/28 drew 5,501 and
$90,550, Detroit on 6/29 drew 5,930 and $102,822 and Pittsburgh on 6/30 drew 6,264
and $111,738. Detroit and Indy were the best gates for regular house shows in six and
five years respectively.
The wrestlers had lots of problems due to either a flight delay or cancellation getting into
Louisville from Madison, so Aldo Montoya and Duke Droese had to stall about 45
minutes, doing one match which Droese won by turning heel, then a second match
which Montoya won, before the crew sans Jim Hellwig finally arrived.
In Indianapolis, they announced a 10/20 In Your House date and put tickets on sale at
the show and they went quickly.
Barry Windham had a meeting with Vince McMahon this past week. He was said to have
been around 275 pounds, maybe 20 pounds overweight, and was interested in making a
comeback at the age of 36. It looks pretty good that he'll be coming in. Maybe they can
team him with Dustin Rhodes as Silverdust.
Ron Simmons is expected to debut at the next tapings as Sunny's singles star with a huge
push.
Jim Cornette went on the road and got legdropped by Yokozuna after Yokozuna lost to
Bulldog in Detroit, and was carried out by Bulldog, who kept dropping him on purpose
and "accidentally" knocking his head into one thing or another while dragging him out
after dropping him.
Reports from both Indy and Detroit were that the crowd reactions were super up and
down the show, far greater than at Titan shows in the past where only the top guys got
big reactions. Michaels in particular is getting a rock star reaction from teenagers.
Cornette isn't managing Rockers, he just came out on Raw with Marty Jannetty because
it fit into a storyline.
They already shot an angle for Sid vs. Vader when they return to Detroit. Also in both
Detroit in Pittsburgh in the Michaels vs. Vader matches, they had Goldust interfere
(which led to Johnson, Bulldog, Owen Hart and finally Sid cleaning house on everyone)
to set up Michaels-Goldust matches at the next show in both cities.
Bart Gunn missed a few shows this weekend because of a family emergency. In those
cities, Phinneus beat Billy in singles matches.
Steve Austin missed all the shows after television. He had to miss the shows because his
upper lip was mangled, apparently from a kick to the face by Mero at King of the Ring
which was re-opened in the Jake Roberts match. He worked the first night of TV, then
the second night they did the gimmick where he didn't work matches. He consulted with
a plastic surgeon and I don't believe he's going to need plastic surgery to repair the
damage, but they wanted him out of the ring until 7/5.
Weekend ratings saw Action Zone do a 2.0 and Mania a 1.3.
Bret Hart will wrestle on the South Africa tour in September, but there is no firm date on
when he'll return stateside

 

July 15, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Bash at the
Beach 1996 recap, UFC loses big court battle, Warrior
suspended from WWF, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 15 July 1996 23:33
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 July 15, 1996
BASH AT THE BEACH POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 166 (74.4%)
Thumbs down 28 (12.6%)
In the middle 29 (13.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 172
Sting & Savage & Luger vs. Outsiders 10
WORST MATCH POLL
John Tenta vs. Big Bubba 59
Jim Duggan vs. Diamond Dallas Page 42
Steve McMichael vs. Joe Gomez 36
Nasty Boys vs. Public Enemy 11
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 7/9.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
After a 15-year babyface run that started by accident, Hulk Hogan turned heel amidst
incredible heat in an angle that will be remembered for years as the climax of WCW's
Bash at the Beach PPV show on 7/7 in Daytona Beach.
Hogan turned out to be the mysterious third man on the "Outsiders" team with Kevin
Nash and Scott Hall, but didn't appear until 16:00 into the main event, which had
turned into a tag match with Nash & Hall vs. Sting & Randy Savage, after Lex Luger had
been stretchered out in the early moments.
Hogan came out to a babyface pop after Nash had delivered a low blow on Savage. After
Hogan teased going after Nash and Hall, and they bailed out of the ring, he then
legdropped Savage twice, threw the referee out of the ring, legdropped Savage a third
time and covered Savage while Hall counted the pin. The heat, with a literal flood of
debris being thrown at the ring, was as intense as anything seen in U.S. rings at a major
arena since Jake Roberts and Love Machine were headlining Los Angeles for AAA. After
the match, Hogan gave one of his best interviews in years, basically talking about
building a giant organization up North (the World Wrestling Federation) and making
the owners of that company millions of dollars, then coming to work for Billionaire Ted,
who offered him millions. Hogan portrayed it as if Hogan had proved he was bigger than
pro wrestling, and that the WCW fans were Johnny-come-latelys who wouldn't even be
attending matches for the group if Hogan hadn't have joined and basically called the
fans garbage and told them to stick it because of the way they had reacted to him the
past few months after he had done all kinds of charity work. The half-shoot, half-work
interview was strong and focused enough that it incited enough heat that some fans in
the building were ripping up and throwing down their Hogan merchandise and a few
people were even crying. Still, according to live reports, approximately 25% of the fans
were still cheering Hogan, Nash and Hall (the latter two of whom were reduced to
background performers as Hogan held the spotlight at the finish). Nash and Hall had
received a predominately babyface reaction when the match began.
What appears is that WCW will be built around a worked promotion vs. promotion feud
for the foreseeable future, very similar to the angle that made New Japan millions in
1995-96. The outsider group will be called the New World Order of Wrestling, with
Hogan, Hall and Nash. No doubt Jeff Jarrett and Ted DiBiase will join the group in the
fall when their Titan contracts expire. The Nasty Boys teased on Nitro joining the group,
and no doubt a few others from WCW will "jump" as well, along with WCW making
significant plays for any mainline Titan talent whose contract comes due such as Davey
Boy Smith.
The Hogan turn totally overshadowed the best match on a WCW PPV show in several
years--the Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis opener which was described by one reader as "the
first great match of the 21st century." The two combined pulling out their expected
daredevil and intricate precision high spots with strong mat wrestling and more selling
and psychology than they would do in Mexico, Japan or ECW. I'd rate this match behind
only the Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera match in Philadelphia as the best match in
the U.S. of 1996.
In between the PPV opener and the angle was a basically average PPV show, highlighted
more by the strongest performance in the career of Tony Schiavone as play-by-play
announcer. Schiavone focused the entire show on the main angle and the identity of the
third man, to the point that the show was largely well received despite the mediocre
nature of much of the show, because the key angle paid off in a big way. The angle was in
some ways reminiscent of an Ole Anderson turn in Atlanta on Dusty Rhodes in a cage
match that is still considered one of the prototype heel turns that has been copied
numerous times (most successfully before the 1985 Starrcade involving Rhodes and Ric
Flair), both in terms of the shock value of the turn and the strong post-turn heel
interview. Schiavone ended the PPV show with the line, "Hulk Hogan, you can go to
hell!"
Hogan had agreed to do the heel turn about 11 days before the show, largely because
there was no place left in WCW for him had he not chosen to do so. Hogan's contract
with WCW was scheduled to expire after two more PPV shows, the "Hog Wild" show in
Sturgis, SD next month and "Halloween Havoc" in Las Vegas where, by virtue of a
sponsorship deal with Slim Jim's, they had long promised a Hogan vs. Randy Savage
main event. Since WCW largely focuses its company around Monday night television
ratings and PPV buy rates, Hogan's huge contract became expendable. Since Hogan
doesn't work arena dates, his staying or going isn't a factor on them. In Hogan's usual
great knack of timing, he left WCW to do a movie with Roddy Piper and Gary Busey just
before the NBA playoffs changed the Monday Nitro time slot and wreaked havoc on the
ratings, which appeared to be a great leverage move. However, in the expansion to two
hours, the show's ratings have increased to their consistently highest level to date with
Hogan not on any of the shows. This weakened his leverage position as compared with
Bischoff's in negotiations to stay at his incredible money deal. While Hogan has
continued to draw much stronger buy rates than WCW has averaged without him,
although the gap between those sets of numbers has declined as time has gone on, the
belief is the new program with Nash and Hall was hot enough and would draw basically
as well with or without Hogan. Thus Hogan's huge cut of the PPV revenue would no
longer be worth it. But in the end, Hogan proved to be the ultimate fox once again, in
that this angle on the surface appears to be the hottest angle in the history of WCW, and
Hogan, who a few weeks ago looked like the real outsider, maneuvered himself back into
being the centerpiece.
Even though many would argue the Hogan turn was long overdue based on fan reaction
to him particularly in the Carolinas and in the major cities where fans are more oriented
toward cheering for their favorites (ie Ric Flair) than being the programmed response
robots wrestling fans have long been taken for granted as being by those who run the
business. However, it didn't come without major risks. Hogan's name was still a factor in
buy rates, largely believed to be coming from young children who wouldn't be as apt to
beg parents to buy the shows to see a heel Hogan. Whatever revenue WCW merchandise
brings in was put at major risk as well, as Hogan was the top item seller and clearly
those numbers should drop substantially. For older and long-time fans, seeing the
biggest name in American wrestling do his first turn on a national scale is going to spark
interest in a big way, particularly short term. WCW officials knew that the Hogan turn
had to be done right or it wouldn't be worth the risks, and it could only be done once,
and long-term plans had to be finalized. There was legit fear basically up until the last
day that Hogan would change his mind at the last minute, as he's done in the past when
it comes to major angles that would leave him laying or doing jobs that would elevate
others to a parity position. A "Plan B" contingency idea was that Sting would do a heel
turn and join the Outsiders, largely due to the belief that too many people had
speculated about Luger turning (which was the original plan) or Savage turning but
nobody had speculated on Sting turning and the company wanted a shocking finish to
the show. Hogan's agreement, after a meeting on or around 6/26 between Bischoff and
Hogan in Los Angeles, where Hogan is doing a movie called "The Overlords," was still
being worked on as late as the afternoon of the show. It was at about that time when
Bischoff reportedly told Hall and Nash not to worry about the third man, as the three
had up to that point had many discussions and brought up several names. Because
Bischoff didn't arrive at the building until moments before the start of the live Main
Event show because of last minute working out of details with Hogan, WCW created yet
another last minute angle claiming Bischoff wasn't even there (he was) and that he
might have been kidnapped, an angle that had no conclusion on the PPV show because it
wasn't planned in advance. The angle was pretty much blown off on television the next
day when Bischoff said he was simply at some high level meetings at the last minute.
WCW had attempted to keep the identity of the third man a secret, and largely
succeeded, to the point where speculation had taken up a life of its own, with every
WWF wrestler missing a show and his family members, whether under contract or not,
becoming fodder for the rumor mill. Within the company, only a few knew it was Hogan
although by the middle of the past week many who didn't know for sure were strongly
expecting Hogan was the one and there were those who did know. Hall was telling
people that he didn't know until two hours before match time although that's somewhat
hard to believe.
In the commentary on the PPV show, Hall and Nash were most of the time clumsily
referred to as simply "The Outsiders." There were references to them as Hall and Nash
with no first names, a few times but not many times during the match, which made the
announcing awkward in the main event.
After working for smaller promotions through 1979, Terry Bollea made his first national
mark and was given the name Hulk Hogan by Vince McMahon Sr. when coming to the
World Wrestling Federation as a heel managed by Fred Blassie. He mainly feuded with
Andre the Giant and Tony Atlas in a run that lasted through 1981, which was more
noteworthy in that during the same time period, he toured and made a huge hit with
New Japan Pro Wrestling as a regular tag team partner of Stan Hansen, who at the time
was the most popular foreigner in Japan. With less in the way of babyface/heel
delineation in Japan, Hogan was heavily cheered, although still worked what would be
called a heel style. After leaving the WWF for the AWA, Verne Gagne had him
programmed as the same arrogant heel that he played in WWF, with Johnny Valiant as
his manager and mouthpiece, since Gagne had believed Hogan looked impressive
standing there but couldn't talk. It was on August 9, 1981, that "Hulkamania" was born
in the St. Paul Civic Center when he debuted wrestling three jobbers in a handicap
match, and to the shock of Gagne, received thunderous cheers. Taking note of fan
reaction, it wasn't long before Valiant was quickly ditched and Hogan, who got a big
career break the next year with a role in the movie "Rocky III" was the top babyface in
the company and the top box office drawing card in the country. He led the AWA to
record business in 1982 and 1983 while continuing to tour for New Japan, and after the
Hansen jump to All Japan in late 1981, became, along with Andre, New Japan's top
foreign star. He jumped to McMahon Jr.'s WWF and the rest, both good, bad and ugly,
was the focal point of much of pro wrestling both in and out of the ring since that point.
In those days, many credited the Rocky movie with Hogan's success in wrestling, but
that would be wrong since Hogan was already proving to be a huge draw in the AWA
before the movie was ever released.
Bash at the Beach drew a sellout of 8,300 fans to the Daytona Beach Ocean Center,
which sold out two-and-a-half hours early and turned 2,000 away. The paid attendance
was approximately 6,400 paying $72,000.
A. In a totally dark match, Jim Powers (James Manley) pinned Hugh Morrus (Bill
DeMott).
B. In the first match on the live main event show, Rick & Scott Steiner (Robert & Scott
Rechsteiner) beat Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) via DQ so Heat retained the
WCW tag titles in 5:01. Match was okay, but rushed. After Rick used a bulldog off the top
rope on Stevie Ray, Col. Parker went to interfere. This time Rick blocked him and got his
cane. At this point Sister Sherri returned and jumped on Rick for the title saving DQ.
Sherri and Parker teased that they would go at it, when Sherri grabbed Parker in a
liplock so they are going back to part two of the storyline abruptly dropped earlier this
year when Sherri was fired. *
C. Bobby Walker pinned Billy Kidman (Pete Gruner) in 2:00 with a spear head-butt off
the top rope. Walker nearly fell off the top rope again. Both guys worked very hard and
did nice high spots while they were in there. *
D. Rock & Roll Express (Rick Morton & Ruben Kane) beat Fire & Ice (Scott Norton &
Harold Hoag) in 2:08. Ricky basically got destroyed by both. Ice Train had him beat but
Norton told Train he wanted to tag in. Norton tagged in and put Morton over his
shoulder in a backbreaker, but it wound up with Morton's feet knocking down Train. In
the ensuing confusion, Morton pinned Norton with a backslide. Norton & Train argued
after and did an interview once again teasing a split. This was all a lot worse than it
sounds. DUD
E. Eddie Guerrero pinned Steve Regal (Darren Mathews) with a schoolboy in 3:38. Very
disappointing considering the calibre of who was involved. 1/2*
1. Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzales) pinned Psicosis (Dionicio Castellanos) in 15:18.
They started with some great mat wrestling. Psicosis did an awesome over-the-top tope,
and partially crashed his head into the post. He came back in and used a guillotine
legdrop off the top. Misterio Jr. used a spinning Frankensteiner off the apron to the
floor. He's done this move a zillion times and his head always comes inches from the
floor and never hits, but this time he cracked his head on the floor. What was amazing
about this match is that both were banged up doing their moves, yet continued doing
outrageous spots and hit every spot 100% and even though you saw them crash, their
work showed no indication that the crashes affected their performance in the slightest.
Psicosis did perhaps the greatest hotshot in the history of wrestling. He dropped
Misterio Jr. throat first on the top, and then did a senton from the top rope to the floor,
which appeared to shake himself up. Misterio Jr. used a springboard huracanrana for a
near fall, a springboard dropkick from the apron to the ring. He came off the top
turnbuckle with another spinning Frankensteiner on Psicosis on the apron. In the ring
he used an Arabian moonsault followed by a springboard dropkick to the back which
sent Psicosis sliding across the mat to the floor. Misterio Jr. then did a twisting Asai
moonsault and crashed his knee on the guard rail on the flight over. He went for another
springboard huracanrana, but Psicosis turned it into a power bomb. Psicosis went for a
Splash Mountain off the top rope ("Die Hard" in Japan) but on the way down, Misterio
Jr. turned it into a Frankensteiner for the fall. ****3/4
2. John Tenta pinned Big Bubba Rogers (Ray Traylor) in what was billed as a Carson
City Silver dollar match, which had a sock filled with coins on the top of a high pole. It
was apparent Tenta wasn't going to be able to climb the pole. They did enough gimmicks
combined with Bubba being a good worker to keep it interesting. At one point Bubba
pulled out athletic tape and taped Tenta to the ropes and whipped him with a belt.
Heenan said he was hitting him in the gills. Schiavone responded he didn't have gills and
Heenan goes, "I know, he's not a fish." Bubba pulled out scissors and teased cutting
more hair (let's see, he got half the hair on his head, half his beard, I was scared he was
going for the pubes next), but Tenta saved the day with the one of 225 low blows on the
show. Tenta got the scissors and cut the tape off, getting himself loose, and attempted to
cut the straps on the pole. It wound up with Bubba regaining the advantage and telling
Jimmy Hart to climb the pole. 55-year-old Jimmy climbed up, and while this was going
on, Tenta powerslammed Bubba. As Hart came down, Tenta was waiting, got the sock,
hit Bubba, and scored the pin at 9:00. *1/4
3. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) pinned Jim Duggan in a taped fist match to
retain the ring in 5:39. Page taped Duggan's boots together trapping him around the
post. He pulled out scissors (that was two straight matches with scissors and tape) and
cut the tape off Duggan's fists. Page basically did his Terry Funk routine, this time
bouncing up and down in the ropes, and looked better than usual in doing so. Although
Duggan is just about the worst wrestler in the business and Page is overrated in some
circles (and underrated in others), this match in the ring was much better than it would
be imagined due to Page, who won with a Diamond cutter. After the match Duggan
taped his fist and KO'd Page. *3/4
4. In a double dog collar match, Nasty Boys (Brian Yandrisovitz & Jerry Seganowich)
beat Public Enemy (Ted Petty & Mike Durham) in 11:25. Their typical match with lots of
foreign objects used, lots of stiff shots and almost no selling. It was your basic bad ECW
brawl match sans juice. Sags in particular was atrocious when it came to selling. This
match ranged from being a great brawl in certain spots to a total cluster toward the end.
There were hard shots with garbage cans and lids, chair shots, surfboard shots, etc.
Rocco came off the lifeguard stand in the back and wound up hitting a chair when Sags
yanked his chain for real. He went up a second time and Sags knocked down the entire
lifeguard stand. They used tables. At one point Sags piledrove Rocco on the floor. Rocco
put Sags through a table. Knobs did some more garbage can shots on Grunge. The match
was too long for this style since there is no story or building involved so you can't be out
there for a long time unless it's ECW, and these guys and really got sloppy at the end. It
got worse as they got one of those industrial strength tables that kept not breaking. By
the end the guys were tripping over each other's chains. Finally Rocco was clotheslined
with a chain and Sags pinned him. Public Enemy beat up Nasty Boys after the match.
*1/4
5. Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) beat Disco Inferno (Glen Gilbertti) in 12:04 with the
Texas cloverleaf to keep the WCW cruiserweight title. Shockingly, this was the second
best match on the show. Malenko was awesome in carrying Disco, who actually looked
like a promising good wrestler in there. The storyline was that Disco was actually
dropping his flighty mannerisms and came close to winning on numerous occasions. The
match did a good job of getting Disco over as a serious wrestler when he's focused rather
than just a dancing clown, even though he lost at the end. He made a strong comeback
and even got numerous near falls after Malenko destroyed him for the first 5:30. At one
point Malenko did a springboard dropkick, and when he went for the cloverleaf, Disco
used an inside cradle. Finally Malenko used a Tiger driver and the cloverleaf. The was a
good Japanese style match. ***1/4
6. Steve McMichael pinned Joe Gomez with a tombstone piledriver in 6:44. McMichael
has the attitude and his wife as the look. But it was painful putting two guys who are
both so green out there on a PPV and having them go this long and it exposed him bigtime.
Just terrible. -1/2*
7. Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) pinned Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) to win the U.S. title in
15:39. It was a basic Flair match with all the regular spots. At one point Konnan came off
the apron with a bodyblock on Flair and nearly wiped out Liz in the process. When
Konnan was on the top rope, Woman shook the rope and he crotched himself (low blow
Number 171). Woman later gave Konnan a tremendous low blow which was so good it
should have been the finish. Instead, Konnan recovered from that and they traded figure
fours, and Konnan got a few near falls. Finally Liz distracted the ref and Woman gave
Konnan a horrible looking shot with a high heel shoe and Konnan sold it as if he were
shot, and Flair pinned him with his feet on the ropes. The match was good until the
finish, which looked really bad. Considering the style clash, both did well, although that
probably isn't surprising because Flair has carried a whole lot worse in his career. For
the record, this was Flair's sixth reign as U.S. champion, the last time being when he lost
the title on January 27, 1981 to Roddy Piper. **1/2
8. The Giant (Paul Wight) & Kevin Sullivan beat Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) & Chris
Benoit in 7:59 when Giant choke slammed Anderson. McMichael hit Giant with a
briefcase early and he chased after him. This left Anderson & Benoit to beat on Sullivan
and try to establish him as the face in this match. Sullivan, even though he was being
double-teamed, didn't sell much. His comeback came when he gave Anderson the
sloppiest monkey flip in the history of PPV, onto Benoit. Giant made the tag, Benoit and
Sullivan brawled to he back, and Giant immediately choke slammed Anderson for the
pin. After the match Benoit used a crossbody off the television platform onto Sullivan
and both landed in the beach area set. They brawled back to the ring where Benoit gave
Sullivan a backward superplex off the top rope and kept stomping on him until Woman
ran in and screamed for Benoit to stop hurting Kevin. No acknowledgement was made
about them being married nor were any hints dropped. Giant carried Sullivan out on his
shoulders. **
9. Sting & Randy Savage (Randy Poffo) & Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) went to a no decision
against Nash & Hall. Luger was KO'd early when Sting used a Stinger splash on Nash,
which in storyline was said to have hit Luger although it didn't. Luger's has been
destroyed a million times worse in the past and not even sold it, but this time he did a
stretcher job and the match was halted for a few minutes. Match was so-so, totally saved
by the finish, mainly with the Outsiders beating on Sting. Savage made the hot tag until
Nash low blowed him. Hogan came out and the rest was history. During the post-match,
a fat fan hit the ring (this was definitely no plant) and Nash knocked him down with one
punch and he and Hall really put the boots to him (right on live television) before
security hauled him out. ***
***********************************************************
After controversies with local government officials in every city they've attempted to run
shows in--including some shows that were in question up until the day before or even
hours before the show, the Ultimate Fighting Championship suffered a clear loss this
past week when it lost a court fight in Providence, RI and was forced to move its 7/12
PPV event to the State Fairgrounds Arena in Birmingham, AL.
The state of Rhode Island got a court injunction last week preventing the show from
taking place. Promoters Semaphore Entertainment Group went to Superior Court Judge
Richard Israel, who had ruled previously that UFC would have to abide by the guidelines
of pro wrestling and get a license from the Department of Business Regulations (DBR) to
run its show, to overturn the injunction. Israel refused to reject the injunction saying
that his hands were tied because all appeals weren't exhausted prior to the case going
back to him, and he couldn't rule until the case was heard before an appeals board,
which had pretty well tied the case up.
SEG President Bob Meyrowitz and the DBR had been negotiating for about three weeks,
since the period when ticket sales to the event were put on hold pending the license
being approved. UFC promoter David Isaacs had felt confident Meyrowitz and the DBR
had come to an understanding when Meyrowitz agreed to ban elbow and knee blows.
However, the DBR then called into question the octagon cage, causing a big brouhaha
since Rhode Island had allowed the WWF to hold cage matches and the guidelines as
ruled by the judge were to be the same as pro wrestling. So the DBR then agreed to allow
the matches in a cage provided they were held within a wrestling ring. At this point SEG
had to punt, because the octagon cage is the basic trademark of the UFC and officials
were frustrated because they feel the octagon, because one can't fall out of the ring as in
a boxing ring, makes the event safer and the governmental officials attempting to change
rules are theoretically doing so for safety reasons. DBR officials were also attempting to
get Meyrowitz to ban striking altogether. Others in Rhode Island after Meyrowitz had
agreed to ban the knees and elbows, suggested that given his track record from Detroit
where he agreed in court to ban head-butting and closed fist punching as a court
negotiated settlement to holding the show, and then the rules were never acknowledged
at the show nor really enforced closely, that the same would occur this time. Most of the
governmental hold-up of the show was started when Arizona Sen. John McCain started
the political ball rolling with his local Republican party contacts.
The 7/12 show had a $70,000 advance as of one month before the show, when sales
were frozen, and the Providence Civic Center will be refunding that money. As of 7/8,
the new location in Birmingham had sold about 500 tickets in the 5,200-seat arena since
the show was officially announced on 7/3. The show locally will be going head-to-head
with a USA Wrestling show at the city's major facility, Boutwell Auditorium, featuring
Bob Armstrong and his sons, Tommy Rich and Abdullah the Butcher.
There has been one change in the card, as Kevin Jacob, who was scheduled to face Mark
Coleman in a first round match, suffered a broken hand in training and will be replaced
by Moti Horenstein, a karate fighter from Spring Valley, NY. The alternate line-up has
changed, largely due to attempting to save on travel considerations. Pro wrestler Geza
Kalman Jr. is the only alternate from the original quartet, with the three newcomers
being Sam Adkins, a boxer/wrestler who lost to Don Frye in the semis in San Juan, Felix
Lee Mitchell, a Kung Fu/boxer who lost to Ken Shamrock in the semis in Charlotte, and
Dieseul Berto, a shootfighter/pro wrestler (Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi/worked for
Championship Wrestling from Florida in the mid-80s as Haiti Kid Berto) from Winter
Haven, FL who lost while fighting on Koji Kitao's Universal Vale Tudo show in Japan in
April.
There has been a lot of criticism of this tournament because to most UFC fans, it's Frye
and a pack of unknowns. SEG has been attempting to fill the field with big strikers and a
few quality ground fighters in order to provide fights with striker vs. grappler style
clashes and avoid what has happened when the ground fighters have dominated the
tournament which has been less exciting although technically superior fighting.
SEG did receive a major scheduling break this past week when the Mike Tyson-Bruce
Seldon fight was canceled due to Tyson's illness. The fight, set for 7/13, would have not
only been competition on the same weekend, and Tyson is far and away the biggest
drawing card of anyone on PPV, but would eat up much of the available commercial time
on the barker channels, which is the UFC's main avenue of advertising. Both UFC and
the WWF's International Incident should receive a lot more commercial time with Tyson
out of the picture.
The following event, set for 9/20 in Syracuse, NY, is already facing yet another battle
when Syracuse Mayor Roy Bernardi announced on 7/3 that they would deny a permit for
SEG to hold the event at the On Center. Bernardi said that he was afraid for security
reasons, that the fighters might get out of the cage and injure spectators by continuing to
fight either in the stands or on the street. Isaacs, however, said Syracuse was still the
planned site for the September event, saying he heard about the wire service story but
said that Meyrowitz had talked with the Bernardi who had said he would work with SEG
on the event.
***********************************************************
Jim Hellwig was officially suspended by the World Wrestling Federation on 7/8 due to
missing shows the previous weekend in Indianapolis, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
The suspension, which was announced later that evening on the Raw show, was effective
immediately. Psycho Sid (Sid Eudy) will take all of Hellwig's announced bookings
starting on 7/11 in Albany, NY and continuing through the 7/21 International Incident
PPV show from Vancouver, BC. Sid was flown into Stamford, CT on 7/8, while Shawn
Michaels, Ahmed Johnson and Jim Cornette, who worked Providence the previous
night, stayed in town to do a series of vignettes taped that earlier that day that ran
throughout the Raw show hinting of a secret third partner for the main event against
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith & Vader. They finally announced the partner and had Sid
do an interview at the end of the show after teasing it would be one of several others.
WWF figurehead President Gorilla Monsoon announced the suspension to the fans,
saying that no matter how popular Ultimate Warrior was, no wrestler was above missing
his scheduled appearances and letting down the fans. Monsoon stated that Warrior
would be welcome back provided he posts an appearance bond, which is in fact basically
the truth. There was a lot of negativity among the WWF wrestlers regarding bringing
Hellwig back unpunished for missing the shows. Vince McMahon told Hellwig that he
would be brought back provided he post a large bond, which he would forfeit to the
WWF provided he were to no-show another card. The exact amount Hellwig will be
required to post is being negotiated but it will be in excess of $100,000. Hellwig is said
to have neither agreed to the price, nor indicated that he won't meet the price in order to
return although the belief is that he will return. If Hellwig were to agree to post the
bond, he would probably be written back into the storylines and return to the WWF for
the Monday Night Raw taping on 7/22 in Seattle.
The original plan, provided Hellwig would miss the PPV, to announce him as injured
after the already taped angle involving Hart, Smith and Vader, was nixed, apparently
because too many people were aware of Hellwig's actual situation and they decided
against doing the typical pro wrestling angle. At the beginning of Raw, Monsoon
announced Hellwig as being suspended, but said that the Warrior vs. Hart match, since
it had already been advertised, would take place "tonight." Warrior had to be helped out
of the ring after a post-match attack by Camp Cornette, however in weekend television,
he will be announced as only having been shaken up and his non-appearances will be
announced as being due to the suspension and not due to an injury. The angle where
Warrior, Michaels and Johnson make their comeback on Camp Cornette, which was
scheduled to air on the 7/15 Raw, will be edited off that program. Based on the television
commentary during Raw, it appears that McMahon expects Hellwig to post the
appearance bond and return.
There was tremendous bitterness within the company regarding Hellwig's no-shows.
Reportedly, he was in Indianapolis on 6/28, had a telephone blow up with McMahon
regarding something he saw at a licensing show a few days earlier. WWF sources claim
that at no point did Hellwig complain about his Wrestlemania payoff in the argument,
but he blew up because he saw a slogan of "Always Believe" being used as a WWF
marketing slogan. He felt that was his personal slogan that he had used for years and
that the WWF hadn't paid him for use of the slogan and felt the items with that slogan
should have been his items and he should have been informed of them and receive a cut
of them. Many in the company, particularly in the marketing department, were upset
because Hellwig apparently blew up at people in the department, and also because of
how he handled his no-shows. Hellwig claimed on 7/1 in an interview with Bob Ryder on
Prodigy that he was having no problems with the WWF that caused him to miss the
weekend shows and that he couldn't understand why the announcements were made
about him in the buildings, saying he missed the shows because of the death of his
father. His father in fact passed away on 6/30, but those in WWF claim the time line
doesn't fit since he missed shows on 6/28 and 6/29 as well as 6/30 and that he was in
Indianapolis and flew home. There was also bitterness that Hellwig, who as a WWF
wrestler is banned from giving unauthorized interviews, gave an on-the-record interview
on Prodigy, a competitor to America On-line, which WWF has its contract with. And
even more that he mentioned his father's death as the reason for missing the shows on
the interview, but never even informed the WWF as to the death of his father, who he
had never spoken with since the age of three, until sending a fax to McMahon several
hours later that day.
Hellwig wasn't booked on the WWF weekend shows and appeared as scheduled at a
comic book convention in San Diego, during which time he held a Q&A with wrestling
fans and didn't bring up the idea that he was expecting to be suspended and talked as if
he was expecting to go back on the road with the WWF starting with the show in Albany.
***********************************************************
It's been a trying week for the Hart Family in Calgary due to Matthew, a 13-year-old
nephew of Bret and Owen, contracting a very serious virus which left him in critical
condition for several days.
Matthew is the son of Georgia, a sister of Bret and Owen, and is especially close to Owen
as Owen brought him to Wrestlemania in Los Angeles and was a big wrestling fan and I
believe had done a few pro wrestling style matches with some of his cousins as part of
rodeo shows and they're all surprisingly good considering their age. Owen and Davey
Boy Smith both missed their scheduled weekend appearances due to being in Calgary
and staying at the hospital. The virus was apparently eating away at internal tissue and
Matthew was in and out of consciousness and in the Intensive Care Unit. As of Tuesday
morning, his condition had stabilized and apparently he was doing better than could
have normally been expected, but it was far too early to determine how much damage
had been done in the first 48 hours, which are the most serious. According to one report,
his lower body had been ravaged by the infection to where he was discolored from the
waist down.
***********************************************************
Pro wrestlers Dan Severn and Yumiko Hotta both came out winners on 7/7 in the biggest
Vale Tudo style show as far as major name participants ever in Japan.
The Japanese Vale Tudo event promoted by pro wrestling legend Satoru Sayama drew a
sellout 7,000 fans to Tokyo Bay NK Hall in a show that, because of the bigger name
participants, was more looked forward to in the martial arts world than this coming
week's UFC tournament.
Severn, a late replacement for Don Frye, who SEG got pulled from the event because it
came only five days before their PPV where Frye was the biggest star, defeated Doug
Murphy, a 225-pounder from Matt Hume's Pankration Gym in Seattle. The rules were
modified in this fight in that elbow blows, banned in Japanese Vale Tudo, were legal in
this match. Murphy attempted the same guillotine choke that Ken Shamrock beat Severn
with last year, but Severn reversed it and landed on top near the ropes. Severn, now 10-2
in this style of fighting, maneuvered Murphy into the center of the ring and grabbed a
cross armbreaker for the submission in 3:23.
Hotta of All Japan Women, in her fourth Vale Tudo competition, had a tougher time
with Margot Neyhoft of Amsterdam, the European womens kick boxing champion in the
165 pound weight class and a protege of Gerard Gordeau. Hotta, 29, weighed in at 165
pounds as compared to 161 for Neyhoft. Because Hotta had to respect her foe's striking
ability in a match where both wore gloves, it was a lot more cautious match than Hotta's
previous Vale Tudo rules matches. The two circled, similar to the most recent Severn-
Shamrock match, without even touching for 2:45 of a match with three eight minute
rounds. At this point Neyhoft threw a low kick to Hotta's leg. The two danced around
again with the only blow actually thrown at about 5:00 when Neyhoft tried another kick
to the leg. Near the end of the round Hotta tried to shoot in but Neyhoft backed away
and the round ended with basically no action and the fans chanting for action. In the
second round, Neyhoft again kicked Hotta's leg, and then went in for a tackle and landed
on top of Hotta throwing punches down, however from that position, Hotta maneuvered
out and caught the armlock and got the submission at 4:14. Hotta, now 3-1 in real Vale
Tudo matches, has only lost once, that being to 310-pound Svetlana Gundarenko, but
has found herself in trouble in both of her two previous matches.
The top three matches on the card involved Royler Gracie, a 30-year-old older brother of
Royce Gracie, along with Extreme Fighting stars Igor Zinoviev and John Lewis. Gracie,
who weighed 147 for the fight, was the 1996 champion in the featherweight division at
the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu championships in Rio de Janiero. He faced Noboru Asahi,
a 143-pounder who is the lightweight champion of Satoru Sayama's shooting promotion
with a legit record of 17-1-3, with no losses the past five years. Gracie dominated the
match winning in 5:09 with the choke sleeper.
Zinoviev scored a technical knockout in 44 seconds over Ensen Inoue, who was ranked
as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division in shooting. Lewis, in a 154-pound
weight division match with elbow blows legal, went to a three round (24:00) draw
against Rumina Sato, the No. 1 contender in the welterweight division in shooting.
Rickson Gracie was presented at the show with a championship belt as the first
champion of the Vale Tudo promotion.
Sayama's Vale Tudo promotion rules include: 1) Open finger gloves are optional but not
mandatory; 2) knee-pads, shin guards, cups and ankle supports are optional,
mouthpieces are mandatory; 3) No marital arts gi's are allowed; 4) Matches can end via
knockout, tap out, referee stop, corner man throwing in towel, doctor stop, a ten count
outside the ring and a disqualification; 5) Illegal acts are biting, head-butting, attacking
the eyes or the groin, hair pulling, blows to the spine, using the elbow (unless both
fighters agree to waive the rule), attacking after a knockdown, walking out of the ring or
throwing an opponent out of the ring.
***********************************************************
We have tentative line-ups for both the WCW and WWF PPV shows in August.
The WCW show will be a free outdoor show on 8/10 from Sturgis, SD called "Hog Wild,"
with some of the matches being The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW title, Sting &
Lex Luger vs. Scott Hall & Kevin Nash, Ric Flair defending the U.S. title against Eddie
Guerrero, Harlem Heat vs. Rick & Steiner for the WCW tag titles, Rey Misterio Jr.
defending the WCW cruiserweight title against Ultimo Dragon or Jushin Liger, Chris
Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan in some sort of a gimmick match, Scott Norton vs. Ice Train
and Madusa vs. Bull Nakano in some sort of a gimmick match. It's going to be a real test
for WCW because its previous free outdoor PPV show, the 1995 Bash at the Beach from
Huntington Beach, CA was a total fiasco live and among the worst PPV shows in history.
This will again be tough because it'll be a largely non-wrestling fan crowd, and the show
will last five hours, from 6 to 11 p.m. Eastern, because they are doing the card on a
Saturday night and will be doing a two-hour live WCW Saturday Night show preceding
the PPV itself.
The WWF's annual SummerSlam show, traditionally its No. 2 show of the year, will be
8/18 from the Gund Arena in Cleveland. As of 7/9, advance sales for the show were
already 7,504 tickets and $240,715. It will almost assuredly end up as the second largest
live wrestling gross in the United States of 1996, trailing only Wrestlemania. The line-up
that has been announced in Cleveland is Shawn Michaels vs. Vader for the WWF title,
Ahmed Johnson vs. Owen Hart for the IC title, Ultimate Warrior vs. Davey Boy Smith, a
four-team elimination match for the tag team title with Godwinns, Bodydonnas,
Smoking Gunns and New Rockers, Undertaker vs. Mankind, Jake Roberts vs. Jerry
Lawler and Marc Mero vs. Goldust.
***********************************************************
The July 4th curse among pro wrestlers continued again this year, but not with nearly as
grave circumstances as in the past.
Among the past tragedies on 7/4 have included the deaths of wrestlers Keith "Adrian
Adonis" Franks, David "Canadian Wildman" McKigney and Pat Kelley in an auto
accident near Gander, Newfoundland in 1988, the parasailing accident of Ed "Brutus
Beefcake" Leslie in 1990, and the auto accident death of long-time referee Joey Marella
in 1994.
King of Pancrase champion Bas Rutten and undercard wrestler Leon Dyjk were involved
in an auto accident on 7/4 in Holland. We don't have a lot of details regarding the
accident or the injuries each man suffered other than it was a serious accident and
Rutten is expected to be bedridden for a few weeks. He'll definitely be out of action on
the Pancrase shows later this month, but is expected to return on 9/7 to face Masakatsu
Funaki in a title match at Tokyo Bay NK Hall.
***********************************************************
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Thursday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 7/12 TO 8/12
7/12 UFC X PPV Birmingham, AL Alabama State Fairgrounds Arena (tournament)
7/13 AAA Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium (Konnan & Aguayo & Octagon vs.
Pierroth & Caras & Killer)
7/13 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu & Gordy & Dreamer vs. Lee & Raven &
Richards)
7/14 Shootfighting Carnival Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Kimo vs. Sakuraba)
7/14 AAA Tijuana Auditorio Municipal
7/15 AAA TripleMania IV-C Madero (Payasos & Karis vs. Dorado Jr. & Demon Jr. &
Tinieblas Jr. & Sagrada Jr.)
7/16 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Giant vs. Power Warrior)
7/16 RINGS Osaka Furitsu Gym (Yamamoto vs. Vrij)
7/17 New Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Hashimoto vs. Flair)
7/20 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (six man tag title tournament)
7/21 WWF International Incident PPV Vancouver, BC General Motors Place (Michaels &
Johnson & Warrior vs. Hart & Smith & Vader)
7/21 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Anjoh)
7/22 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Seattle Center Arena
7/23 WWF Superstars tapings Yakima, WA
7/24 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Taue vs. Kobashi)
7/25 WWF San Francisco Cow Palace (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/27 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/2 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
8/2 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/3 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki)
8/3 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu vs. Van Dam)
8/4 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Hashimoto vs. Tenzan)
8/4 Universal Vale Tudo Uruyasu
8/5 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Muto vs. Koshinaka)
8/6 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (G-1 tournament finals)
8/9 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/10 WCW Hog Wild PPV Sturgis, SD (Giant vs. Hogan)
8/10 ECW/IWA Yokohama Bunka Gym
8/12 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Casper, WY Events Center
8/12 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC tournament)
RESULTS
6/25 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Lady Apache & Lady Connors b La
Infernal & Lady Star, Supremo II & Nuevo Lynx & Kundra b Angel de Plata & Pegaso &
Kung Fu Jr., Atlantico & Tsubasa & Kung Fu Jr. b Yone Genjin & Zumbido & Damian el
Guerrero, Silver King & Olimpico & Mascara Magica b ***** Casas & Rey Bucanero &
Guerrero de la Muerte, Dos Caras & La Fiera & Atlantis b Kahoz & Felino & Gran
Markus Jr.-DQ
6/26 Naucalpan (AAA): Julissa & Zaon b Fugitiva & Practicante, Azor & Dr. Cerebro
& Bestia Salvaje (not original) b Fantasy & Oriental & Revolucionerio, Winners & Super
Calo & Salsero b Super Crazy & Perro Silva & El Mosco-DQ, Mascara Sagrada Jr. &
Halcon Dorado Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. b Los Payasos & Super Muneco-DQ,
Konnan & La Parka & Mascara Sagrada (new) b Jerry Estrada & Heavy Metal & Pierroth
Jr.
6/28 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL - 2,000): Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz b
Filoso & Alacran de Durango, Olimpico & Olimpus & Ultimatum b Mogur & Americo
Rocca & Halcon ***** Jr.-DQ, Super Astro & Mascara Magica & Bronco b Black Warrior
& Mano Negra & Guerrero de la Muerte, El Satanico & Felino & ***** Casas b Dandy &
Silver King & Lizmark, Mascara Sagrada & Hector Garza & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. b Dr.
Wagner Jr. & Bestia Salvaje & Apolo Dantes
6/28 Obihiro (All Japan women - 2,340): Genki Misae b Yumi Fukawa, Yumiko
Hotta & Tomoko Watanabe b Mariko Yoshida & Yoshiko Tamura, Mima Shimoda &
Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada b Chaparita Asari & Kumiko Maekawa & Saya Endo,
Manami Toyota b Kaoru Ito, Kyoko Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Takako Inoue & Aja Kong
6/28 Oklahoma City (Power Zone Wrestling Alliance): Rick Garrett b J. Knight,
Wild Thing b Shawn Summers-DQ, Slash DDQ Nightmare, Nightmare & Chopper b
Slash & Damian Kinncade, Treach Phillips Jr. b Psycho-DQ
6/28 Inman, SC (Pro Wrestling Federation - 88): George South b Billy Jack (not
original), Colt Justice (Kilby Gore) b Black Dragon, Rick Savage b Baby Huey, Chris
Hamrick b Carolina Dreamer-COR, Austin Steele & Terry Austin b Sweet Brown Sugar &
Italian Stallion, Dan Jones won Battle Royal
6/29 Kushiro (All Japan women - 2,560): Yoshiko Tamura b Genki Misae, Reggie
Bennett & Chaparita Asari b Saya Endo & Kumiko Maekawa, Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko
Inoue b Mima Shimoda & Tomoko Watanabe, Aja Kong b Etsuko Mita, Manami Toyota
& Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa
6/29 Elmira, NY (United States Wrestling Federation): Danger & Hazard &
H.C. Loc DDQ Stickman & Sweet Pete & Mollman, Lou Marconi b Frank Stalletto,
Rodney Allen & Johnny Diamond b Steve Greiger & Bad Attitude, T.C. Reynolds b
Preston Steele, King Kaluha b Johnny Gunn-DQ, Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac, Gunn
won Battle Royal
6/29 West Allis, WI (Mid American Wrestling - 227): Russian Assassin won
Battle Royal, Frankie DeFalco & Johnny Mercedes b Mauler & Axl Future, Barfly Mike b
Farmer Vic, Spymaster b Dr. X, Chad Love b Simon Stiletto, Billy Joe Eaton b Assassin
(DeFalco), Danny Dominion b Waverider Craig
6/29 Hayward, CA (All Pro Wrestling - 68 sellout/free videotaping): Robert
Thompson b Boom Boom Comini, Duane Jones b Donovan Morgan, Eric O'Grady b
Chris Cole, Mike Diamond b Steve Rizzono, Michael Modest b Matt Hyson
6/29 Munford, TN (American Wrestling Alliance): Mike Williams b Freddie
Rich, Mr. USA b Ripley Prim, Motley Cruz b Romeo Valentine, Todd Johnson b Johnny
Reb-DQ, Derek King b Midnight Cowboy, Blade Boudreaux & Tim White b J.T. Storm &
Blackjack Daniels, Terry Golden b Danny B. Goode, Jimmy Valiant b David Denton &
Lady Vixen
6/29 Waynesboro, VA (Dominion Wrestling Association - 80): Mr. Big Stuff b
Rockin Rebel (not original), John Masters & Latin Lover (not original) b Patriot (not
original) & Mercenary, David Jerrico (David Cash) & Doug Gibson (Doug Ward) b Lady
Killer & Stacey Burke, Jerrico b Chris Hamrick, Preston Michaels b R.C. Luvin
6/30 Dundalk, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation - 506): Romeo
Valentino b Adam Flash, Cat Burglar b Johnny Desire, Bob Starr b Pat Patterson Jr.,
Head Bangers b Dark Rebel (Chuck Williams) & Glenn Osbourne to win MEWF tag
titles, Steve Corino b Earl the Pearl, Jimmy Cicero b Boo Bradley, Knuckles Zandwich b
Mark Schrader, Mad Dog O'Malley b Johnny Taylor, Axl Rotten & Corporal Punishment
b Johnny Gunn & Joe Thunder, Rotten b Punishment to win MEWF title
6/30 Asbury Park, NJ (New Jack City Wrestling): Ace Darling b Nomad, Rik
Ratchett b Rocco Dorsey, Misfits b Bobby G & Reckless Youth, Ghetto Blaster b Devon
Storm-DQ, Mike Sharpe b Cannon, Super Nova b Rockin Ricco, Cujo the Hellhound &
Magic & Hell Raiser b Gino & Lucifer & Mr. Puerto Rico, Jimmy Snuka b King Kaluha
6/30 Martinsburg, WV (National Wrestling League): Adrian Hall b Egon Ecton,
Doug Deeds b Julio Sanchez, Neil Superior b Mark Mest, Corporal Punishment b
Johnny Gunn, Shane Shadows & Switchblade b Grungers, Deeds won Battle Royal,
Nikolai Volkoff b King Kong Bundy
7/1 Memphis (USWA - 1,300): Miss Texas b Samantha, Brickhouse Brown & Reggie
B. Fine b Moondogs-DQ, Koko Ware b Dirty White Boy, USWA tag titles: Jerry Lawler &
Bill Dundee b Flex Kabana & Bart Sawyer to win titles, Bill Dundee b Wolfie D, Moondog
Spot won Moondog Battle Royal, Jeff Jarrett & Goldust b Brian Christopher & Doug
Gilbert
7/1 Asahikawa (All Japan women): Genki Misae b Yoshiko Tamura, Reggie Bennett
& Kumiko Maekawa b Tomoko Watanabe & Saya Endo, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue &
Yumi Fukawa b Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada, Kyoko Inoue b
Mariko Yoshida, Aja Kong & Chaparita Asari b Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito
7/1 Toronto, ONT (Ind): Hurricane Hugo b Mad Dog Rex, Farmer Pete &
Nightstalker b Pee Wee Jones & Bill Skullion, Johnny Paradise b Zack Wylde, Tony
Parisi & Too Hip Shawn & Jason Sterling b Missing Link (original) & Bruiser Bedlam &
Dan Johnson
7/1 Miami, FL (Sunshine Wrestling Federation): Former Cannibal b Todd
Sampson, Clay Hatfield b Bobby Davis, Bounty Hunters b Paul Adonis & Tony Style,
Vampire Warrior b Navy Seal, Clint Esteban b J.R. James, George Suave b Johnny
Attitude, Johnny Torres b Punk Rock, Hatfield b Johnny Golden
7/2 London, England (All-Star Promotions): Legend of Doom (Johnny South) b
Skull Murphy-DQ, Superflys b Stevie Grey & Zebra Kid, Mighty Chang b Rico the
Gladiator, Chang won Battle Royal, Dirt Bike Kid d Doc Dean
7/3 Aomori (New Japan): Yuji Nagata b Yutaka Yoshie, Norio Honaga b Tatsuhito
Takaiwa, Brad Armstrong b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Akira Nogami b Shinjiro Otani, Kuniaki
Kobayashi & Akitoshi Saito b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Hawk & Animal & Power
Warrior b Tadao Yasuda & Masa Saito & Keiji Muto, Satoshi Kojima & Shinya
Hashimoto b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Riki Choshu & Takashi Iizuka &
Osamu Nishimura b Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
7/3 Marukame (All Japan): Masao Inoue b Kentaro Shiga, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b
Satoru Asako, Brian Dyette & Takao Omori b Rob Van Dam & Bobby Duncum Jr.,
Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo
Momota, Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Kenta
Kobashi & Jun Akiyama b Johnny Smith & The Patriot, Stan Hansen & Gary Albright b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Tamon Honda, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa
b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Maunukea Mossman
7/3 Aguascalientes (AAA): Salsero & Winners & Super Calo b Super Crazy & Perro
Silva & El Mosco, Los Payasos b Tinieblas Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. & Blue Demon Jr.-
DQ, Killer b Mascara Sagrada, Pierroth Jr. & Jerry Estrada & Psicosis b Konnan & La
Parka & Octagon
7/3 Wakanai (All Japan women): Genki Misae b Yumi Fukawa, Chaparita Asari b
Saya Endo, Aja Kong & Takako Inoue b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Manami Toyota b
Kumiko Maekawa, Kyoko Inoue & Reggie Bennett & Tomoko Watanabe b Mima
Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada
7/4 Morioka (New Japan - 2,650): Akitoshi Saito b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Akira
Nogami b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Takashi Iizuka b Brad Armstrong, El Samurai b Norio
Honaga, Michiyoshi Ohara & Kengo Kimura b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura, Hawk
& Animal & Power Warrior b Satoshi Kojima & Masa Saito & Shinya Hashimoto, Keiji
Muto & Jushin Liger b Tatsutoshi Goto & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi
Tenzan & Hiro Saito b Shinjiro Otani & Yuji Nagata & Riki Choshu
7/4 Matsuyama (All Japan - 2,300): Maunukea Mossman & Satoru Asako & Tamon
Honda b Kentaro Shiga & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa, Ryukaku Izumida b
Masao Inoue, Brian Dyette & The Patriot b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Masa Fuchi & Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace b Rob Van Dam & Johnny Smith, Toshiaki Kawada b Giant
Kimala II, Gary Albright & Kenta Kobashi b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr.,
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Akira Taue & Takao Omori 21:39
7/4 Oklahoma City (Power Zone Wrestling Alliance - 11,500 free show):
Country Boy Kelly b Psycho-DQ, TNT b Bad Boy, Oklahoma Kid b Wild Thing, Shawn
Summers DDQ Treach Phillips Jr., Randy Rhodes & Rick Garrett & Casey Cannon b
Slash & Doug Masters & Damian Kinncade
7/4 Clinton, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 318): Freedom Fighter b
Russian Assassin, J.W. Steele b Butcher Blackwell, Johnny Dollar b Maxx Miles-DQ, J.J.
Justice b Nightmare, Mikki Free & Ricky Regal b Swat (Steve Carlton) & Cruiser Lewis,
Wahoo McDaniel & Rick McDaniel b Desperado & Jake Mulligan (Terry Randall)
7/4 Mayodan, NC (Ind - 350): Kryptonite b Allan Wayne, Jimmy Valiant b Frank
Parker, Dan Cooley b Sir Warren, David Coe b Skinhead, Heartbreak Express b
America's Most Wanted
7/4 Kings Mountain, NC (North American Wrestling Association - 196):
Krazy Kane Atoms (Chad Byrd) b Scotty McKeever, Home Boy (Mike Wray) b Colt
Justice (Kilby Gore), Flaming Youth (James Kluntz) b Scotty Hot Body (Scott Bradley),
American G.I. (Rich Scruggs) b Rick Starr, Dozer (J.R. Scruggs) b Mad Dog (David
Lynch)
7/4 Rome, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Ken Timbs b Kenny D,
Brandi b Amber Lynn, Dusty Dotson b Komonari, Ken & John Arden b Jason Valentine
& Keith Arden, Steve Lawler b Superstar, Nasty Critters b Ken & John Arden
7/4 Bakersfield, CA (Slammers): Hombre de Oro b El Toro Bravo, Tyrone Little b
Verne Langdon, El Espirito b Pete Malloy, Samoan Kid & Hombre de Oro b Dynamite D
& Little, Jeff Lindberg b Bruce Beaudine
7/5 East Rutherford, NJ Continental Arena (WWF - 7,309): Duke Droese b Leif
Cassidy, Salvatore Sincere (Tom Brandi) b Barry Horowitz, Bodydonnas won triangular
match over Smoking Gunns and Godwinns, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader-DQ, IC
title: Ahmed Johnson b Goldust-COR, No dq: Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Jake Roberts b
Justin Bradshaw, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Undertaker b Mankind
7/5 Towada (New Japan - 2,000): Shinjiro Otani b Akitoshi Saito, El Samurai b
Yutaka Yoshie, Kengo Kimura b Norio Honaga, Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b
Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Yuji Nagata, Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Jushin Liger &
Brad Armstrong, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Tadao Yasuda, Satoshi Kojima & Shinya
Hashimoto b Hiro Saito & Masa Chono, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Osamu
Nishimura & Takashi Iizuka & Keiji Muto
7/5 Osaka (All Japan - 2,050 sellout): Masao Inoue b Kentaro Shiga, Mighty Inoue
& Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Mitsuo Momota & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Rusher Kimura,
Rob Van Dam & Giant Kimala II b Chris & Mark Youngblood, Yoshinari Ogawa & Takao
Omori & Akira Taue b Maunukea Mossman & Satoru Asako & Giant Baba, Stan Hansen
& Bobby Duncum Jr. b Johnny Smith & Brian Dyette, Gary Albright & Tamon Honda b
Ryukaku Izumida & Toshiaki Kawada, Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun
Akiyama b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & The Patriot
7/5 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL - 3,000): One night Grand Prix
tournament: Felino b Tiger Mask, Shocker b Black Warrior, Bestia Salvaje b Yone
Genjin, Great Sasuke b Rey Bucanero, Mascara Magica b Mr. Niebla, Dandy b Astro Rey
Jr., El Hijo del Santo b ***** Casas, Guerrero de la Muerte b Bronco, Felino b Shocker,
Sasuke b Salvaje, Magica b Dandy, Santo b Guerrero de la Muerte, Sasuke b Felino,
Santo b Magica-COR, Santo b Sasuke to win tournament
7/5 Tijuana, Nortecalifornia (AAA - 3,000): X Men I & II & III b Shamu & Los
Chacales II & III, Leon ***** & Thunderbird & Tigre Enmascarado b El Hijo del
Enfermero & Genghis Khan & Bronx Bomber, Tony Arce & Vulcano & Rocco Valente b
Los Pandilleros I & II & III, Ultimo Dragon & Super Muneco & Pantera b Misterioso &
Halloween & Huichol-DQ, Street fight cage match: Damian & Psicosis b Rey Misterio Jr.
& Konnan
7/5 Muronan (All Japan women - 2,540): Genki Misae b Yumi Fukawa, Toshiyo
Yamada b Tomoko Watanabe, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b
Chaparita Asari & Kumiko Maekawa & Saya Endo, Reggie Bennett b Etsuko Mita, Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue b Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda
7/5 Fall Branch, TN (Southern States Wrestling): Christian Brothers & Alan King
b Cooper Brothers & Sir Warren, TCB Man b Steve Flynn, Frank Parker & Roger
Anderson b Ricky Morton & Dan Cooley, Manny Fernandez b Killer Kyle, Jimmy Valiant
b Major DeBeers, Beau James b Scott Sterling
7/5 Rome, Ga (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Dusty Dotson b Komonari,
Brandi b Marie Lavoe, Mike Golden b Jason Valentine-DQ, Brandi b Amber Lynn, Ken
Arden b Billy Love, Steve Lawler b Ken Timbs, Keith Arden d John Arden, Kid Ego &
Jailhouse Rocker b Nasty Critters
7/6 New Haven, CT (WWF - 4,462): Duke Droese b Leif Cassidy, Salvatore Sincere
b Barry Horowitz, Undertaker b Mankind, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley,
Bodydonnas won triangle match over Smoking Gunns and Godwinns, Jake Roberts b
Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, IC title: Goldust b Ahmed Johnson-DQ,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader-DQ
7/6 Enan (All Japan - 2,400 sellout): Satoru Asako b Masao Inoue, Rob Van Dam b
Bobby Duncum Jr., Tamon Honda & Takao Omori b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Giant
Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi, Johnny Smith & Johnny Ace b Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida, Gary Albright
& Stan Hansen b Brian Dyette & Steve Williams, Mitsuharu Misawa b The Patriot, Akira
Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama &
Maunukea Mossman 23:38
7/6 Kanagawa (JWP): Rieko Amano b Fusayo Nouchi, Commando Boirshoi b Yuki
Miyazaki, Candy Okutsu b Tomoko Kuzumi, Hiromi Yagi & Hikari Fukuoka b Tomoko
Miyaguchi & Amano, Miyaguchi & Cutie Suzuki & Devil Masami b Dynamite Kansai &
Kuzumi & Nouchi
7/6 Graz, Austria (CWA): Steve Wright b Klaus Kauroff, Otto Wanz b Rene
Lasartesse, CWA middleweight title: Franz Schumann b David Finlay to win title, CWA
hwt title: Ludvig Borga b August Smisl
7/6 Rome, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Jason Valentine b Deno
Stone, Superstar b Tim Prather, Brandi b Lady Mandy, Jailhouse Rocker b Keith Arden,
Ken & John Arden b Scott Prather & Dusty Dotson
7/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Vale Tudo - 7,000 sellout): Alex Cook b Tomoaki
Hayama, Mustak Abdullah b Sanae Kikuta, Yumiko Hotta b Margot Neyhoft, Ed deKraijf
b Joe Estes, Todd Bjornethun b Eric Lavin, Dan Severn b Doug Murphy, Rumina Sato d
John Lewis, Igor Zinoviev b Ensen Inoue, Royler Gracie b Noburo Asahi
7/7 Aomori (New Japan - 3,000): Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie, Hiro Saito b
Kuniaki Kobayashi, Akira Nogami b Yuji Nagata, Brad Armstrong & El Samurai &
Jushin Liger b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Shinjiro Otani, Hawk &
Animal & Power Warrior b Masa Saito & Keiji Muto & Riki Choshu, Masa Chono &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Tadao Yasuda & Takashi Iizuka, Shinya Hashimoto & Osamu
Nishimura & Satoshi Kojima & Ishizawa b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto &
Akitoshi Saito & Kengo Kimura
7/7 Kyoto (All Japan - 2,350): Masao Inoue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Satoru Asako &
Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Johnny Smith b Brian Dyette, Tamon Honda & Ryukaku Izumida
b Chris & Mark Youngblood, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Mitsuo
Momota & Rusher Kimura & Giant Baba, Asian tag title: Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori b
Rob Van Dam & Maunukea Mossman 20:22, Akira Taue b Giant Kimala II, Johnny Ace
& The Patriot & Steve Williams b Bobby Duncum Jr. & Stan Hansen & Gary Albright,
Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi b Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa 20:20
7/7 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP - 1,980 sellout): Candy Okutsu b Tomoko
Miyaguchi, Okutsu b Fusayo Nouchi, Sugar Sato & Rieko Amano b Yuki Miyazaki &
Commando Boirshoi, Devil Masami b Tomoko Kuzumi, Takako Inoue b Hiromi Yagi,
JWP tag titles: Cutie Suzuki & Dynamite Kansai b Hikari Fukuoka & Kaoru 20:41
7/7 Noheji (All Japan women): Saya Endo b Yoshiko Tamura, Toshiyo Yamada b
Kumiko Maekawa, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b Chaparita Asari & Toshiyo Yamada,
Reggie Bennett b Mima Shimoda, Aja Kong & Tomoko Watanabe b Etsuko Mita & Kyoko
Inoue
7/7 Kawasaki (LLPW - 520): Keiko Aono b Wadabe, Michiko Nagashima b Mizuki
Endo, Rumi Kazama & Noriyo Tateno b Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori, Karula
(Harley Saito) b Sayori Okino, Eagle Sawai & Yasha Kurenai b Michiko Omukai &
Shinobu Kandori
7/7 Fort Lauderdale, FL (Ind - 500): Crazy Brooks b Mike Larea, Ninja b Bobby
Rogers, Disco Donnie b Skullcrusher, War Machine b Lighting Lash, Bugsy McGraw &
The Clown b Greg Valentine & Jerry Grey
7/8 Orlando, FL Disney Studios (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 600
sellout/all freebies): WCW cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Dean Malenko to
win title ****1/4, Steve Regal & David Taylor b Big Bubba & Hugh Morrus 1/2*, Eddie
Guerrero b Psicosis ***3/4, Rick & Scott Steiner b Nasty Boys *1/4, U.S. title: Ric Flair b
Jim Powers *3/4, Chris Benoit b Craig Pittman *, Sting b Arn Anderson *1/4
7/9 Kanazawa (All Japan - 4,250 sellout): Satoru Asako b Kentaro Shiga, Chris &
Mark Youngblood & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Masao Inoue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari
Ogawa, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Masa Fuchi, Brian Dyette &
Gary Albright b Rob Van Dam & The Patriot, Giant Baba & Stan Hansen & Haruka Eigen
b Tamon Honda & Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace &
Johnny Smith b Maunukea Mossman & Takao Omori & Kenta Kobashi, PWF & Intl tag
titles: Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 26:42
Special thanks to: Cory Van Kleeck, Lewis Cobb, Dan Parris, Michael Payne, Bernard
Siegel, Walt Spafford, Gregg John, Mike Omansky, Ken Bevan, Jason Harrison, Fay
Ferguson, Dominick Valenti, Jeff Osborne, Nezhyba Mario, Danny Deese, Peggy
Watkins, Bob Garst, Brandy Arnold, Jeff Bowdren, Jesse Money, Ron Rivera, Steve "Dr.
Lucha" Sims
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
6/2 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kawada beat Kobashi to earn the title shot with a high kick to the
face. Only the last 3:00 aired on television. Based on the heat and intensity in the crowd,
and the work on what aired, this appeared to have been a tremendous match; 2. Taue
pinned Misawa to win the Triple Crown. An excellent match with a lot of big spots. Taue
DDT'd Misawa on the floor. Misawa came back doing a forearm plancha and a rolling
bodyblock off the apron to the floor and got a near fall with a frog splash. Taue made a
comeback german suplexing Misawa on his head twice and got a near fall for the
Dynamic bomb. The crowd popped big when Misawa kicked out of one of Taue's big
moves even though it was the 9:20 mark, which shows the crowd has been educated not
to wait until the 20:00 mark as with last year into believing it could be the finish.
Misawa also kicked out of the nodowa. Misawa made a comeback using his Tiger driver
but Taue kicked out. Finally Misawa came off the top rope for a flying clothesline but
Taue caught him in the throat and planted him with a nodowa for the title change.
****1/4
6/9 ALL JAPAN: 1. Taue beat Kawada in 17:28 to retain the Triple Crown. This was a
disappointment considering who was involved and the stakes. They had a hard time
getting heat because they were following an all-time classic (Misawa & Akiyama vs.
Williams & Ace). Taue just looked okay. They had some good flurries and overall it was a
solid match. After getting a near fall with a Dynamic bomb (Liger bomb), Taue got the
pin after two choke slams. ***
6/16 ALL JAPAN: 1. Misawa & Akiyama retained the tag titles beating Williams & Ace.
The match itself lasted 30:00, about 23:00 of which were on television. Along with
Misterio Jr. vs. Guerrera from Philadelphia and the match where Misawa & Akiyama
beat Taue & Kawada to win the tag titles, one of the three best matches of the year. For
pure execution it ranked behind both of those matches but for drama ranked ahead of
any match this year, including Michaels-Diesel. Williams actually looked pretty sloppy
when it came to selling at times. Ace was very good, but he's no Kawada. Misawa &
Akiyama are out of this world. The match consisted of Williams doing a killer move on
one or the other, and the other having to work by himself for several minutes before his
partner made a comeback. Williams used Misawa's own Tiger suplex on him. At one
point Misawa used a rolling plancha on Ace and followed with a forearm tope on
Williams, then a frog splash and german suplex on Ace. Williams used a backdrop driver
on Akiyama, knocking him out. Misawa rolled Akiyama out of the ring to the floor so he
couldn't get pinned. Williams & Ace then used a double impact on Misawa and he rolled
out of the ring. Williams threw Akiyama in but he kicked out of a pin. Akiyama kicked
out of the Ace crusher. Williams used a throw out german suplex on Misawa. Ace used a
cobra suplex on Akiyama. Akiyama finally hit a german suplex on Ace for a near fall, and
then did his exploder suplex (actually from the commentary it sounds like exploiter
suplex) but Williams made the save. Akiyama used a Northern Lights and another
exploder. Misawa finally KO'd Williams using a Tiger driver on the floor and a Tiger
suplex on Ace. Akiyama then kept getting near falls using the exploder on Ace until he
got the pin after the fourth one. *****
6/22 NEW JAPAN: 1. Black Tiger pinned Wild Pegasus in a semifinal of the Top of the
Super Junior tourney in 20:17. The last 9:00 aired on television and it was a fantastic
match. Pegasus dominated since he was doing the job at the end. All sorts of great near
falls ending with Tiger getting the pin using a brainbuster off the top rope. ****1/2; 2.
Liger pinned Samurai with La Magistral in 15:11. The last 10:00 aired on television. It
was all-action with a lot of great moves back-and-forth. ***3/4; 3. Yamazaki & Iizuka
beat Kido & Sasaki in 10:53 when Iizuka made Kido submit to a kneebar. ***; 4.
Hashimoto retained the IWGP title pinning Kojima in 11:51. Kojima has some great fire
coming to the ring. He's like a Jim Duggan or a Scott Norton in that he looks like he's a
star coming to the ring. In the ring, he's better than Duggan or Norton although he's
only an average wrestler at this point. Hashimoto is a great world champion and showed
it here having a solid world title match with a wrestler who really isn't of that calibre.
After Kojima missed a sloppy moonsault, Hashimoto put him away with an enzuigiri and
a brainbuster. ***1/4
EMLL
The company's biggest show thus far in 1996 on 7/5 at Arena Mexico drew only 3,000
fans for the 16-man Torneo Grand Prix Junior tournament which was won by El Hijo del
Santo, beating Great Sasuke in the championship match in what was said to have been a
*** match. Since it was a one-night tournament, most of the matches were short and
action-packed. The only other foreigner brought in was Tiger Mask from Michinoku Pro,
who lost in the first round to Felino in a disappointing match. Tiger Mask was said to
have been bothered by the altitude and also by never having worked before in Mexico.
Sasuke beat Rey Bucanero in the first round which was said to have been Bucanero's
best match all year, Bestia Salvaje in the second round, Felino in the third round (said to
have been too short). Santo opened beating ***** Casas in a short match, followed by
Guerrero de la Muerte and Mascara Magica before going to the final.
Sasuke and Tiger Mask were in EMLL for three days, largely to scout talent. On 7/6, they
were at Pista Arena Revolcuion in Mexico City teaming with Atlantis to beat ***** Casas
& Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Satanico when Sasuke pinned Casas in the third fall. This was to
set up a match on 7/7 at Arena Coliseo, where Sasuke challenged to Casas for Casas'
NWA welterweight title, which we don't have results of. Tiger Mask was to team with
Vampiro & Lizmark against Violencia (Pirata Morgan) & Satanico & Black Warrior (who
is very good) in the semi.
TV Azteca (Ch. 13 in Mexico City) will start airing PROMELL on a weekly basis every
Saturday afternoon starting on 7/13. The first taping was held on 7/6. This station is
available in the U.S. to dish owners.
Lizmark Jr., who has been out of action with a broken leg since December of 1994, was
expected back in action starting on 7/3.
On 6/20 in Mexico City, during a match where Brazo de Oro was defending his Distrito
Federal heavyweight title against Rambo, Rambo in a non-worked spot, suddenly
collapsed in the second fall. Since it was a title match, they had a doctor at ringside who
rushed in. As it turned out, it was only a severe attack brought on by bronchitis. With the
situation with Oro and Pentagon in recent years, everyone freaked out when a guy
suddenly collapsed in the ring. Rambo should be back in action before you read this.
Brazo de Plata Jr., a third generation wrestler from probably the largest wrestling family
in the world (the Alvarado family of Mexico), will debut this month. He's 15 or 16.
AAA
The 7/12 show in Phoenix will take place at the Celebrity Theater and they run the Grand
Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on 7/13, which for those of you who grew up in the
early 70s watching the Olympic Auditorium wrestling or Roller Games, both of which
were syndicated nationally, they still have the single most famous phone number in the
world in either English or Spanish for the joint, Richmond Nueve Cinco Uno Siete Uno. I
don't want to be a Monday morning quarterback after the fact, but until they improve
their television situation in the United States, they aren't going to be able to run
profitable shows.
The final TripleMania will be 7/15 in Madero headlined by a cage match with Los
Payasos & Karis la Momia vs. The Atomic Juniors (Halcon Dorado Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. &
Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Blue Demon Jr.) with the final man in the cage losing his mask,
Konnan vs. Pierroth Jr. in a Pit Bull Terrier (dog collar) match, Rey Misterio Jr. vs.
Juventud Guerrera in a car vs. car match, Mascara Sagrada vs. Killer, Perro Aguayo &
Los Villanos III & IV vs. Octagon & Cien Caras & Psicosis in a Parejas increibles
(Incredible partners) match, a match to determine the first Relevos Atomicos (four man
team) Mexican national champions with La Parka & Pantera & Ultimo Dragon & Latin
Lover vs. Jerry Estrada & Villano V & Fishman & Pimpinela Escarlata, and the opener
has Mascarita Sagrada & Super Munequito & Mini Frisbee vs. Espectritos I & II & La
Parkita.
The television over the past month in some ways has been the best of any promotion in
the world. Best as far as pure match quality, because in every other way, the TV is totally
primitive compared with the rest of the world when it comes to production (God awful),
crowd micing (even worse) and overall pacing (nothing but wrestling with no interviews
or vignettes). Nevertheless, watching Lucha Lunes after Nitro and Raw on Mondays,
usually no matter what WWF and WCW air, the AAA matches last are like a breath or
fresh air because the work is usually several steps ahead.
On this past weekend's Galavision taped 6/23 in Morelia, they had a ****+ match with
Misterio Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Dorado Jr. & Demon Jr. beating Super Crazy & Picudo &
Heavy Metal & Jerry Estrada via DQ. Mascara Sagrada Jr. was at ringside in a neck
brace selling the tombstone piledriver delivered in Tijuana by Damian 666. The heels all
attacked him, bringing out Mascarita Sagrada Jr. (who is just about the tiniest mini
you'll ever see). Estrada then attacked the mini and laid him out. Finally, the new
Mascara Sagrada did a run-in. Tinieblas Jr. had to carry Mascarita out on his shoulder
because the stretcher was carrying out Mascara Jr. However, Heavy broke the stretcher
over Dorado Jr's back. In the third fall, Misterio Jr. & Demon Jr. did simultaneous
Frankensteiners off the top rope.
In the wrestling war in Tijuana, Kiss, Perro Ruso and Depredator all jumped from
Konnan's side to Miguel Lopez (Rey Misterio), while Misterioso and Huichol jumped to
Konnan's side. The current plan by Konnan is to build up a feud between Misterio Jr.
and Misterioso in Tijuana to be climaxed in September with a mask vs. mask match at
the outdoor stadium.
There will be a major show on 7/14 in Tijuana since virtually the entire top crew will be
in Los Angeles the night before and working TripleMania the night after, but the line-up
wasn't completed at press time. They ran Tijuana on 7/5 with Konnan & Misterio Jr. vs.
Damian & Psicosis in a street fight cage match which was done ECW style, in which they
broke several tables, used four chairs, a barbed wire baseball bat, eggs, golf clubs, a truck
tire, a VCR, a television set, light bulbs and a garbage can as weapons. The show drew
about 3,000. The back of Konnan's head was split open from light bulbs and his arm was
cut up as well, as was evident on the PPV. Psicosis was also heavily busted open although
you couldn't tell on the PPV because he's masked. Halloween did a run-in and they put a
real pumpkin on his head and Misterio Jr. hit and smashed the pumpkin with a chair so
hard that Halloween had a huge welt on his head the size of his hand. Konnan put eggs
on Damian's groin and smashed them on him with a golf club. Super Muneco got super
heat turning heel on Ultimo Dragon & La Parka in the semifinal, and they started a feud
between locals Los Pandilleros, who got a babyface reaction, taking on Los Destructores.
7/6 in Mexicali drew 2,000. Konnan & Misterio Jr. had to work early in the show and
beat Psicosis & Halloween in a short match because they had to catch a flight to make
the PPV show. Also Ultimo Dragon beat Damian in a strap match and in what was
described as the single worst mask vs. mask match in the history of mankind, El
Sicodelico beat Frankenstein. It was so bad they were blowing even the simplest of spots,
although 60-year-old Sicodelico did do a tope which is actually kind of impressive if you
think about it.
ALL JAPAN
Biggest match of the past week was 7/9 in Kanazawa before a sellout 4,250 fans as
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama retained the Double tag team titles beating Akira
Taue & Toshiaki Kawada in 26:42 when Misawa pinned Taue after a Tiger suplex. This
should set up a Taue vs. Misawa Triple Crown match later this year. The other title
match was on 7/7 in Kyoto before 2,350 as All-Asian tag champions Takao Omori &
Akiyama surprisingly retained their titles beating Rob Van Dam & Maunukea Mossman
when Omori pinned Mossman.
Also at the Kanazawa show, they held a special ceremony honoring Haruka Eigen in his
home town for completing 30 years in pro wrestling. Eigen, 50, who works the
undercard comedy match, got to team with Giant Baba, his usual rival, and Stan Hansen
to beat Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida & Tamon Honda.
Another newcomer to this group is Yoshinobu Kanemaru, 19 years old, who is about 5-7,
165 pounds, who had his first pro match on 7/7 in Kyoto teaming with Satoru Asako
losing to Masao Inoue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi.
The 7/24 Budokan Hall card, besides the already announced double main event of Taue
defending against Kenta Kobashi and Kawada vs. Gary Albright, will have Hansen & The
Patriot & Mossman vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith, Misawa &
Akiyama & Honda vs. Baba & Kimala II & Izumida and Masa Fuchi defending the PWF
jr. title against Kikuchi. It's almost amazing to see a Budokan card with Misawa fourth
from the top and in really a nothing match.
The 6/30 (taped the previous night at Korakuen Hall) TV show did a 2.1 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Kazuo Yamazaki is out of action with a broken finger.
Hiroshi Hase will wrestle on 7/26 in his home town of Kanazawa, which is the biggest
city in the district he represents as a senator. It's being billed as his final match ever in
his home town. The tour on 7/23 to 7/29 will be called the "Dragon Legend tour" and
feature no foreign talent, and headlined every night by Tatsumi Fujinami. WAR
wrestlers Koki Kitahara, Nobutaka Araya and Nobukazu Hirai will work the tour.
No word on the final participant in the junior heavyweight tournament at Sumo Hall.
It is believed that Dan Severn's first New Japan opponent during the G-1 tour will be
Yoshiaki Fujiwara.
A correction from last week's Observer story regarding the Olympics. Riki Choshu
represented South Korea, not Japan, in the 1972 Olympic games. For some reason that
slipped my mind. It's a pretty major secret in Japan because the feeling is Choshu
wouldn't be as popular if people knew he was actually Korean and not Japanese, similar
to why it was never let on during Rikidozan's lifetime that he was actually Korean.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Weekly Pro Wrestling announced its new editor named Hamabe, 42 years old. Hamabe
was the No. 2 man big the defunct magazine Big Wrestler, which ran weekly in 1986-87.
According to other sources, the circulation of Weekly Pro had actually dropped 33
percent since the war began, from 150,000 to 100,000, which necessitated the change. It
was clear from the response in the past week that Tarzan Yamamoto had made many
enemies outside of New Japan as well, because nearly everyone who contacted us from
Japan was happy to celebratory about the change.
The All Japan womens shows at Budokan Hall on 8/12 and 8/13 will be a combination of
two tournaments, an Ultimate Fight tournament (announced thus far are Yumiko Hotta,
Lioness Asuka and Reggie Bennett representing pro wrestling) and a tag team
tournament called "Discover New Hero" in which an established star will team with a
young wrestler and it'll be an interpromotional tournament. The first round pairings will
be Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada (AJW) vs. Hikari Fukuoka & Rieko Amano (JWP),
Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari (AJW) vs. Devil Masami & Tomoko Miyaguchi (JWP),
Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Kuzumi (JWP) vs. Takako Inoue (AJW) & Kyoko Ichiki
(IWA), Bison Kimura & Yuki Lee (Yoshimoto Pro) vs. Mima Shimoda (AJW) & Chikako
Shiratori (Yoshimoto Pro), Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae (AJW) vs. Toshiyo Yamada
(AJW) & Sonoko Kato (Gaea), Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (AJW) vs. Shark
Tsuchiya & Bad Nurse Nakamura (FMW), Megumi Kudo & Kaori Nakayama (FMW) vs.
Jaguar Yokota & TBA (Yoshimoto Pro), and Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura (AJW) vs.
Chigusa Nagayo & Hirota (Gaea).
FMW announced an 8/1 show at the Shiodome in Tokyo with Hayabusa vs. Koji
Nakagawa in an explosive barbed wire match on top, plus Megumi Kudo will do another
womens explosive barbed wire match as well. Atsushi Onita will attend the show.
The two ECW/IWA shows in Yokohama and Korakuen Hall will have Raven and The
Eliminators defending their titles, plus Tommy Dreamer, Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Stevie
Richards, Patricia and Kimona. There will be all kinds of gimmick matches on both
shows.
Shinya Kojika held a press conference to announce his tour that begins on 7/19 at
Korakuen Hall with a ladder match with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (making his Big Japan
debut after jumping from FMW) & Shoji Nakamaki vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji
Yamakawa. At the press conference, Matsunaga used a soft drink can and cut it open and
used it to juice Yamakawa in an angle. Also on the tour will be Dr. Wagner Jr. as CMLL
light heavyweight champion defending his title, Aquarius, Lion, Jason Knight, Bull Pain
and Mighty Kodiak.
Yoshiaki Fujiwara held a press conference to announce himself against Tatsuo Nakano
(formerly of UWFI) as the main event for the Dick Murdoch Memorial show on 7/27 in
Kawasaki.
The Pancrase schedule for the rest of the year will consist of a two-day Neo Blood (young
wrestler) tournament on 7/22 and 7/23 at Korakuen Hall, followed by 9/7 at Tokyo Bay
NK Hall, 11/9 in Kobe and the final show of the year on 12/15 at Tokyo Sumo Hall.
Besides Bas Rutten and Leon Dyjk missing the July shows because of injuries suffered in
the 7/4 auto accident and Ken Shamrock being out after knee surgery, both Jason
DeLucia and Takaku Fuke suffered cracked ribs at the 6/25 card in Fukuoka and will be
missing the upcoming shows. Pancrase's latest contenders ratings for Rutten's title are,
in order, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger, Minoru Suzuki, Ken Shamrock, Masakatsu
Funaki, DeLucia, Ryushi Yanagisawa, Vernon White and Manabu Yamada. Finally got to
see the Yanagisawa vs. Oleg Taktarov match edited off the PPV show. Taktarov pretty
much dominated on the ground. Yanagisawa managed to catch him a few times and
bloody him (what a shocker, huh?) but Taktarov should have been an easy winner via a
decision had he not lost the point for the illegal finger choke, which appeared to be a
case of him not understanding the rules rather than a deliberate violation out of
frustration.
WAR will tour 8/25 to 8/31 with Fujinami, Yoji Anjoh, Big Titan, Lance Storm and Bam
Bam Bigelow.
Apparently ticket sales for UWFI's baseball stadium show on 8/17 with Anjoh vs.
Nobuhiko Takada as the main event are going slow. They asked Great Sasuke to work
the show, which says something for a group that bills itself as shooting style to bring in a
Lucha Libre stylist. Sasuke was asked to work against Satoru Sayama, but turned them
down thinking that is Sayama was willing to do a match against him, Sasuke would
rather book it on one of his own big cards. Sasuke may still work the show, however.
Takada-Anjoh appears far too weak on paper for a 46,000-seat building, although it is
part of a major fair in Japan and the wrestling show is the biggest event of the fair so
that by itself should sell a lot of tickets.
Michinoku Pro has booked a whole slew of title matches between 7/20 and 8/3. Among
the title matches include World lightweight (Great Britain version) champ Johnny Saint
defending against Masato Yakushiji twice, Sasuke defending the IWGP jr. title against
Shiryu, Kendo defending the South American middleweight title twice against Gran
Naniwa and once against Shiryu, Piloto Suicida defending the WWA middleweight title
against Sasuke and Super Delfin and Gran Hamada defending the WWA jr. lt. hwt. title
against Mens Teoh.
Toshiyo Yamada works the 7/31 Gaea show in Osaka against her idol Chigusa Nagayo in
a tag match.
Mayumi Ozaki of JWP, who has been out of action with a broken leg and underwent
surgery on 6/27, did an angle on 7/6 at a house show in a swimming pool area in
Kanagawa. Ozaki attacked Dynamite Kansai with her crutch and wound up getting
thrown into the pool. Kansai defends her JWP title against Ozaki on 8/10 at Korakuen
Hall.
RINGS has a major show set for 8/24 at the Ariake Coliseum near Tokyo.
USWA
The debut show at the Flea Market on 7/1, with a ton of pub regarding the new location,
drew a strong crowd of 1,300 paying $7,000 with the main event having Jeff Jarrett &
Goldust beating Brian Christopher & Doug Gilbert when Frank Morrell gave Jarrett a
chain which he used on Christopher for the pin. Also on the show, Jerry Lawler & Bill
Dundee won the USWA tag titles from Bart Sawyer & Flex Kabana.
Ahmed Johnson was brought in for the 7/8 show to challenge Jarrett for the Unified
title. They aired the various Jarrett-Johnson angles from the WWF to build the show up
on tape.
The rest of the 7/8 card was Christopher & Gilbert vs. Morrell & Tony Falk in a
lumberjack strap match, Lawler & Dundee defending the tag titles against Kabana &
Sawyer with Kabana putting up his hair, Dundee & Samantha vs. Wolfie D & Miss Texas
and Reggie B. Fine vs. King Cobra.
Tommy Rich is headed back.
Bert Prentice and USWA have struck a deal to promote joint shows every Friday night in
Jonesboro, AR. The groups have run shows together in the past which have mainly been
successful, but not on a weekly basis.
ECW
The 7/5 and 7/6 shows scheduled for Salisbury Beach, MA were both canceled due to a
problem with the arena.
Tarzan Goto will be working the weekend shows while Gangstas vs. Samoan Gangsta
Party will take place on the 7/13 ECW Arena show.
Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam in a stretcher match will headline the 8/3 ECW Arena show.
Vampiro Canadiense from EMLL is headed in and Paul Heyman is looking at using
EMLL wrestlers.
ECW debuts on 7/27 in Warwick, PA with Tommy Dreamer & Terry Gordy vs. Raven &
Brian Lee, Sandman vs. Taz, Chris Jericho vs. Shane Douglas for the TV title,
Eliminators vs. Dudleys and more.
Sandman's son is turning into another Macauley Culkin in that he's basically stealing the
show.
ECW will air on the Univision affilate in Boston (Ch. 27) at 1 a.m. Fridays, and on Ch. 39
in Burlington, VT in the same slot and is expected to start on Empire Sports cable
Sundays at 11 p.m.
HERE AND THERE
Northeast Wrestling on 7/15 in Poughkeepsie, NY has Ahmed Johnson vs. Davey Boy
Smith for the IC title, Skip, Sunny, Bam Bam Bigelow, Marc Mero, Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Fatu and Tatanka.
Terry Gordy and One Man Gang have been wrestling for the CWA out of Dallas.
Peach State Wrestling on 8/10 in Cordele, GA at Williams Field has Rob Van Dam vs.
Billy Black in a ladder lumberjack loser leaves town match, Abdullah the Butcher vs.
Tony Atlas, Rock & Roll Express vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong (who are heels here),
Gorgeous George III vs. Too Cold Scorpio, Rex King vs. Lee Thomas and Dave Jerrico vs.
Rick Savage. If you mention the Observer at the box office you get $1 off any seat in the
house.
More on the world of politics. New York state senator Roy Goodman introduced two bills
on successive days in January, one bill would ban UFC from New York, the other would
legalize it through the state athletic commission. The bill to regulate it passed 55-2 in the
state senate. It still needs to pass in the assembly and be signed by the Governor, but
since both the New York State Republican and Democratic parties support the bill, it is
expected to pass easily.
The next EFC PPV show is scheduled for 10/4 with Ralph Gracie vs. John Lewis as the
scheduled main event. Unless EFC improves on its last buy rate, it would probably be
the last EFC show, and because of that, they are trying to find a "drawing card" to boost
the buy rate and names like Mark Gastineau have been thrown around. The EFC story in
Penthouse Magazine by Eddie Goldman is in the August issue which is now on the
stands. The article mainly focused on the battle between the Native Indians and the
Canadian government, focusing on the EFC behind-the-scenes events. The most
noteworthy thing about the story wasn't its coverage of the event, but the fact that
Penthouse, which is basically a sister company to EFC, ran an article which flatly stated
that the EFC PPV got a negative reaction from those who watched it. I wonder if WCW
Magazine or WWF Magazine would have the balls to admit in print if they had a poor
PPV event. I guess we already know the answer to that one.
The Quad Cities Ultimate group which had been running in Moline, IL and drew two big
crowds, looks to be in trouble since Illinois Governor Jim Edgar is expected to sign a bill
banning Ultimate Fighting from Illinois. The Rock Island Argus reported in the 6/30
issue that the group will be moving across state lines to Davenport, IA and changing
from being Ultimate Fighting to promoting shootfighting shows, since Iowa also won't
allow Ultimate Fighting. The Iowa rules ban head-butting, and throwing elbows on the
ground, and will require foot pads and karate gloves (great, that only makes it more
dangerous and bloodier which shows another commission that has done its homework).
Matches will have 10:00 time limit and 5:00 overtimes, and if there is no decision, there
will be declared a draw. The matches are also in a boxing ring rather than a cage, again
another measure which shows the commission hasn't done its homework on the subject.
They won't be able to hold tournaments and opponents can't outweigh their foe by more
than 20 pounds.
MEWF is running 8/9 in Baltimore at Teamsters Hall with Axl Rotten, Head Bangers,
Hack Myers and Johnny Gunn; and 8/16 in Catonsville, MD with Bam Bam Bigelow vs.
King Kong Bundy and Gunn, Head Bangers and Boo Bradley. They drew 506 for their
show on 6/30 in Dundalk, MD which saw Head Bangers win the MEWF tag titles from
Dark Side (Chuck Williams & Glenn Osbourne) and Axl Rotten wind up as heavyweight
champion when Corporal Punishment, who had beaten Gunn in a tag match in a cage to
get the belt, simply laid down for him.
Got a newspaper clipping regarding former wrestler Nikita Koloff. Koloff (Scott
Simpson) retired from wrestling in 1992 after receiving one of those Lloyd's of London
insurance settlements after suffering a hernia injury in a PPV match against Vader.
Koloff will be taking a religious mission to Angola this summer, while his 14 and 11 year
old daughters will be taking missions to Germany and Canada. Koloff now works with
the People's Network, a television station that doesn't carry any violence, news or
commercials, and does testimonials where he talks about his wrestling career and sins of
the wrestling business and his devotion to religion since his retirement. Koloff is one of
many current and ex-wrestlers who do religious testimonials, among them Billy
Graham, Ernie Ladd, Tully Blanchard, Ted DiBiase, Jake Roberts and Billy Anderson.
Graham, Roberts, Ladd and DiBiase headlined a deal on 6/28 in Phoenix which was
covered by both the local newspaper and the CBS affiliate.
The 6/23 Winnipeg Sun had a brief on former hockey star Ted Irvine, who is now the
radio color commentator for the Winnipeg Jets. Irvine is the father of Chris Jericho.
Century Wrestling Alliance on 7/19 in Revere, MA at Dellarusso Stadium and 7/20 in
Gloucester, MA at Dorothy Talbert Ice Arena will have Kevin Sullivan, Jimmy Snuka,
Bigelow, Bundy, Devon Storm, Hugh Morrus, Ace Darling and more.
Mid American Wrestling at Wilson Park in Milwaukee on 8/3 has Bigelow and Iron
Sheik.
The 6/23 Houston Chronicle had a story on Japanese college student Junya Inadomi,
who attends West Texas A&M largely because it is in Amarillo and his hero growing up
was Terry Funk.
Otto Wanz ran a big show on 7/6 in Graz, Austria which saw Ludvig Borga retain the
CWA heavyweight title beating August Smisl (who was on the Pancrase PPV), and Franz
Schumann won the CWA middleweight title from David Finlay. Wanz, now 53, came out
of retirement to beat old nemesis Rene Lasartesse, now 68. Steve Wright, the father of
Alex, now 49, also came out of retirement to wrestle old rival Klaus Kauroff. Schumann
and Finlay will be rematched on 7/27 in Vienna.
An indie show in Fort Lauderdale on 7/7 drew 500 fans with Greg Valentine and former
local favorite Bugsy McGraw (Michael Davis) on the bill. McGraw, now 55, was
announced at 271 but looked more like 371.
Phil Mushnick debuts as a weekly TV sports columnist in TV Guide in the 7/13 issue.
WCW
Monday Nitro on 7/8 from the Disney Studios in Orlando saw Rey Misterio Jr. win the
cruiserweight title from Dean Malenko with a spinning huracanrana in 12:48. This was
the best of the three matches the two have had and probably the best match since Nitro
debuted (****1/4). Other results saw Steve Regal & David Taylor over Big Bubba & Hugh
Morrus in 3:08 (1/2*); Eddie Guerrero pinned Psicosis with a frog splash in 8:33
(***3/4). Psicosis looked better than Guerrero in this match; Rick & Scott Steiner earned
a tag title shot beating Nasty Boys in 6:08 when Col. Parker accidentally hit Sags with a
cane and Scott pinned him (*1/4). After the match Nasty Boys did an interview teasing
they were going to join up with Hogan. Ric Flair kept the U.S. title beating Jim Powers
with the figure four with help from Woman in 5:41 (*3/4). Chris Benoit beat Craig
Pittman in 2:43 with a version of a camel clutch when Teddy Long gave up for Pittman
and the two had words afterwards teasing a split (*) and Sting beat Arn Anderson with
the scorpion in 12:18 (*1/2). Hall & Nash showed up during the match and Savage came
out. During the melee, Sting just put Anderson in the scorpion. Sting did one of the best
interviews of his career regarding the Hogan turn, but Savage followed with inane
gibberish. Hall & Nash did an absolutely horrible interview afterwards where they nearly
killed the entire angle by playing babyface and Hall even called Gene Okerlund by his
first name. For such a hot feud with guys who were mouthing off to police and nearly
shot the two previous weeks, everyone was so chummy it killed tons of heat. The first
hour of Nitro was good, but the crowd energy really died in the second hour. Since the
crowd is outdoors and it can get humid and much of the crowd isn't wrestling fans, their
attention span is limited and it showed during the second hour. Hogan appears on the
7/15 show.
During the next month, all tapings will be in Orlando with the Saturday night show
taped every Tuesday. At the 7/9 tapings for 7/13 Saturday Night, Misterio Jr. was
scheduled to defend against Psicosis and Harlem Heat vs. Public Enemy. No card
booked for Nitro at press time.
Blood Runs Cold it going to be several wrestlers, one of whom will be Ray Lloyd.
No ratings available at press time due to July 4th holiday holding everything up one day.
Word we get is that WCW has made a three-year $400,000 per offer to Davey Boy
Smith, while Titan has countered with a $250,000 "down-side guarantee" for five years.
Ted DiBiase will be coming in as a television announcer in the fall, and was told he'd be
added to the Nitro line-up.
Crowd for the Paramount on 6/30 according to the New York State athletic commission
was 3,587 paid and $85,285.
Lots of discussion of bringing in Chris Jericho.
A correction from last week in the Olympic article. Chip Minton's two-man bobsled team
in the 1992 Olympics finished in 14th place, so they didn't medal.
Keiji Muto, Kensuke Sasaki and Masa Saito will be in the U.S. from 8/25 to 8/30 so they
may do WCW TV during that period.
Starrcade looks more and more likely to be from a foreign country, most likely Japan, in
December.
WWF
On the syndicated TV shows in Pittsburgh and Detroit, they apologized for Ultimate
Warrior not showing up and said it was due to a contract dispute but also mentioned
that his father died.
Barry Windham has been offered a contract so odds are very good that he'll be headed
in.
Bret Hart is currently not under contract.
1-2-3 Kid had a meeting with Vince McMahon this past week regarding returning.
Nothing definite was decided.
8/9 in Madison Square Garden will be Shawn Michaels vs. Goldust, Undertaker vs. Steve
Austin, Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas, Ahmed Johnson vs. Owen Hart, Jake Roberts
vs. Mankind and over the weekend they were advertising Ultimate Warrior vs. Vader as
well. If that were to take place it would be interesting if only because I don't see them
having Vader pinned at MSG of all places nine days before he gets a title shot on PPV.
They'd probably do a DQ finish because I can't see them having Warrior do a job either,
if Warrior is back by that time.
Basil DeVito, a long-time Vice President with Titan Sports, who left a few years back,
was hired back as a consultant when it comes to business development. In a sense he'll
replace Lisa Wolfe, who was another company VP in charge of business development
and human resources.
Tentative site for Wrestlemania is the United Center in Chicago.
Weekend house shows drew 7,309 and $150,097 on 7/5 at the Continental Arena in East
Rutherford, NJ, 7/6 in New Haven, CT drew 4,462 and $72,034, and 7/7 in Providence
drew 3,774 and $65,399. Hart, Davey Boy Smith and Marty Jannetty all missed the
weekend due to family emergencies. Jannetty's mother suffered a broken hip and he
returned home. The four corners tag match turned into a triangular match with the New
Rockers out, and Bodydonnas wound up wining when Bart Gunn was pinned after
Cloudy kissed him. As is usually the case when Bodydonnas are involved, the matches
were reported as good. Main event was Michaels-Vader which ended in a DQ when
Goldust interfered. Michaels was left laying and Goldust started kissing Michaels until
Johnson made the save. This sets up Michaels-Goldust returns in those markets. Savio
Vega and Steve Austin continued to have very good arena bouts as well.
Jesse Ventura, who is no longer doing his radio drive-time show in Minneapolis, is said
to be wanting to return here since he has very bitter feelings about his stay with WCW.
Ventura and WWF had a bitter and lengthy lawsuit which Ventura won. Don't know if
there's place for Ventura in WWF, as he can't touch Jerry Lawler, although he'd at his
worst be as good as Curt Hennig.
In Your House for 7/21 in Vancouver had sold 5,826 tickets for about $110,000.
The Los Angeles Times had a lengthy article about Olympic weightlifter Mark Henry,
who is being sponsored by the WWF and will probably join the WWF after the Olympics.
Henry isn't expected to medal. The story talked about Henry's childhood idol being
Andre the Giant and he said that WWF is more honest competition than Olympic lifting
because of the WWF's steroid policy. Funny thing is, Henry in the story said he had been
tested for steroids about 40 times in the last 18 months, which is a lot more often than a
WWF wrestler would be tested, not to say that there's more steroid use in WWF that in
Olympic lifting because that wouldn't be the case today. No mention in the article of Ken
Patera, the last Olympic lifter who made a successful transition.
The 7/9 Village Voice had an article ripping the Goldust character, saying that Goldust
has brought homophobia to new levels in the WWF.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Dale Torborg, the son of former White Sox and
Indians manager Jeff Torborg, wants to wrestle in the WWF. He played two years of
Class A baseball but was cut by the Yankees and failed to catch on.
How soon before someone beats up Jose Lothario to set up a title shot?
THE READERS PAGES
LAWSUIT
Way back in the days when Bill Cosby did stand-up comedy, he made a profound point
about parents intervening in their children's conflicts. Parents don't particularly care
about who is right, all they want is quiet. This was true with my parents. If someone
called or came over to complain about either my brother or I, we were basically screwed.
It didn't matter who started, or who was right, whoever complained had inconvenienced
my parents and by doing so, whatever caused those complaints had to stop. Right or
wrong be damned, all my parents cared about was quiet.
Which leads me to the biggest wrestling story of the year. The WWF filed suit against
WCW for trademark infringement. As I write this, the judge in Connecticut denied the
WWF's request for a temporary restraining order on WCW's angle involving Kevin Nash
and Scott Hall. So, for now, WCW won, right?
Wrong. What happened was WWF snitched to Eric Bischoff's parents. Eric's parents
have proven in the past they don't care about right or wrong. All they want is quiet.
When Vince McMahon wrote a letter about WCW having juice on television, the blades
were put away. When Bischoff started taking on-air swipes at the WWF, McMahon
responded by taking personal shots at Ted Turner and Bischoff was told to stop
provoking McMahon. Now Vince has the Turner legal staff defending WCW in a
Connecticut court room. What are Bischoff's bosses going to say?
They're going to tell him to knock it off and to kill the angle. Bischoff is going to be nottoo-
subtly reminded that the Turner empire wants a cute little wrestling promotion to
play with and take their kids to. It doesn't want legal or political headaches. They're
going to tell him to put together his wrestling shows without making any more waves,
and then bug him for an autographed 8x10 photo of Hulk Hogan for their kids.
Bischoff is usually a hard guy to feel sorry for. But even I have sympathy for him in this
situation. On one hand, he's told to go out there and kick some WWF ass, but then his
own company effectively takes away his legs. And we all know what happens to onelegged
men in an ass-kicking contest.
John McAdam
Dracut, Massachusetts
I've gotten sick to my stomach with this promotional war. Vince McMahon has some
second-rate nerve filing a suit against WCW, especially after putting on those Billionaire
Ted skits and his constant ripping off of Paul Heyman's ideas.
I'm not supporting WCW or Eric Bischoff for a second. Bischoff started all this, but
McMahon should have expected it. Bischoff started by childish name calling. If you think
Bischoff was wrong in putting Nitro on against Raw, you're wrong. That's fair and square
good competition. Where he went over the line was giving away the results of Raw.
McMahon should have taken action but instead responded with skits.
It's always better to avoid a war by using a little common sense. So far, on both sides, all
we've seen is ego and emotional stupidity. McMahon has the right to be upset about
WCW portraying Kevin Nash and Scott Hall as part of the WWF, however, once it was
made clear (not that it has been totally made clear) that Hall and Nash didn't represent
the WWF nor will they in the future, McMahon has no ground to stand on. He needs to
focus on where the real war is, and improve the booking.
He complained about WCW stealing guys mannerisms that he's created. As I recall,
everyone of Marc Mero's mannerisms originated in WCW. Oh, sorry, he's now a Wild
Man instead of a Bad Man. So Jack Armstrong should sue. All the female valets, foreign
objects and lesbian angles are a rip-off of ECW, which makes McMahon a hypocrite.
Matt Obbema
Buena Park, California
MURDOCH
Dick Murdoch was one of my all-time favorite wrestlers. When I started watching Mid
South Wrestling and Georgia Championship Wrestling in the early 80s, I was more
entertained by his matches than anyone else's. This was when Junkyard Dog and Mr.
Wrestling II were the top stars in the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana area. When Murdoch
jumped to Joe Blanchard's Southwest Championship Wrestling, I was even happier
because he was wrestling regularly in my neck of the woods in the Rio Grande Valley. He
was a very accessible man who would infuriate other wrestlers like Manny Fernandez
and Al Perez because he would take an hour after the show to sign autographs for the
fans.
Calixto Gonzales
Edinburg, Texas
DIPAOLO
I want to thank you for the excellent coverage of the 6/7 show in Buffalo. Ilio DiPaolo
was my brother-in-law. Dennis DiPaolo is my nephew. Dennis did one hell of a job
getting the word out in the Buffalo area. Everyone I talked to told me the same thing
about the show. The wrestling was bad but the nostalgia was good. The reason it drew so
well was a combination of a tribute to Ilio and being the last sporting event at the old
Aud.
Ron Martinez
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
TAMURA
I can't believe you gave the Kiyoshi Tamura story so little space. Tamura has a lock of
being the next great superstar in Japan. Rings signing him insures them a future. The
move may have saved strong style wrestling in Japan. I couldn't be happier since Rings
is my favorite strong style promotion and now we can look forward to Akira Maeda
passing his top position to either Yoshihisa Yamamoto or Tamura and a feud between
the two that is sure to follow. Tamura's matches with Dick Vrij, Andrei Kopilov,
Illoukhine Mikhail and Volk Han will keep me buying tapes for years to come.
I don't understand the obsession with Brian Pillman. He's a mid-card worker who has
never been a main eventer. Even in his best years, he was never used right and his role
with WCW could be called a glorified jobber at times. His strength as a worker has been
declining over the past few years and it can only be magnified by his recent injury. He
overacts, and the fact he constantly maintains his character doesn't override the fact that
nothing he does is believable. The angle he's worked to the delight of smart fans gives
people the impression that he's got a psycho personality due to drug problems, and how
is the WWF going to sell that? Average fans know that Pillman walked out in a PPV
match against a fat braindead Kevin Sullivan and he'll probably do a job for minor
leaguer Shane Douglas in ECW. Good luck to Vince but I think he's gotten taken in this
deal. Jeff Jarrett, who has main event potential and hasn't been buried at all going to
WCW is just as big a deal.
These are sad days to be Vader fans. It's so embarrassing. Leon White's mistake was
using his own character in WWF. To get a push in WWF you need to be a transvestite or
some type of pervert. I wonder if he's a good kisser. A makeover might do him a world of
good, like a makeover to All Japan.
I see where WCW is going to make the same mistakes as ECW. Psicosis is not a job boy
to put Rey Misterio Jr. or Konnan over. He's a world-class wrestler and a superstar in
Mexico. If they aren't going to push him, they should bring someone else in to do their
dirty work. If they're going to use AAA wrestlers to sell WCW to the Hispanic audience,
they should bring in wrestlers like Juventud Guerrera, Venum, Ultimo Dragon,
Halloween, La Parka, Super Calo and others and do six man tags with Misterio Jr.,
Psicosis and Konnan and do it right. Psicosis shouldn't do a lot of jobs for Misterio Jr.
because he's in a bigger weight division.
I watched the 6/7 Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace
title match last night. In my eyes it blew away the title change on 5/26 that you gave five
stars to. I see problems with the star system now that so many matches are getting five
stars. A sixth star can't be far away.
Steve Yohe
Montebello, California
DM: Totally agree with your points about Tamura. In the case of Pillman,
the whole point of the story was that a wrestler who had never been a
headliner was able through his own manipulations rather than a push from
anyone, becoming a star and the object of sides bidding against each other.
THESZ BOOK
Just finished reading the Lou Thesz autobiography. What a thoroughly entertaining and
engrossing book. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves wrestling. If only there
were more products like this available for the serious wrestling fan.
I want to vent about something that has really been bothering me of late. That is the
behavior of ECW fans. I've loved wrestling since I was a little kid and will until I die. I
must say that I'm embarrassed that people who call themselves wrestling fans would
chant things like "show your t**s" and "Bischoff takes it up the a**, doo dah." I'm sorry,
but people who really like wrestling don't yell crude and crass remarks like the ones you
hear at ECW shows. Theres a line, and they cross it. It's almost as if they are a group of
people with a chip on their shoulder that have to constantly prove to people around
them that they aren't marks, and somehow have to prove they are hardcore fans. A real
hardcore fan doesn't have to prove it to people around him at shows. The behavior of
many of the American fans at the World Wrestling Peace Festival was downright
embarrassing. Are these people only happy if matches are blade fests with multiple
tables broken? I'm sad to see fans acting idiotic. I know it's a fact of life, but it's still sad
to see it proliferate. The behavior of those fans and the way the fans treat women at
those shows is deplorable. What's next, a gang rape angle getting cheered? I don't want
to hear from ECW fans who say they don't want to be lumped in with the rude ones. I'm
sorry. But if a fan next to you is yelling things like "show your t**s," you should tell him
to shut up.
Dan Cerquitella
Reno, Nevada

 

July 22, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Wrestlers
dominate the UFC, AAA makes return to the United States,
latest in the Monday Night Wars, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 22 July 1996 10:11
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 July 22, 1996
UFC X POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 103 (98.1%)
Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)
In the middle 2 (01.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Don Frye 97
WORST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Moti Horenstein 28
Brian Johnston vs. Scott Fiedler 24
WCW BASH AT THE BEACH FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 222 (78.2%)
Thumbs down 30 (10.6%)
In the middle 32 (11.3%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 210
Sting & Savage & Luger vs. Outsiders 13
Dean Malenko vs. Disco Inferno 8
WORST MATCH POLL
John Tenta vs. Big Bubba 73
Jim Duggan vs. Diamond Dallas Page 61
Steve McMichael vs. Joe Gomez 47
Nasty Boys vs. Public Enemy 11
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 7/16.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
The latest chapter in the evolution of the Ultimate Fighting Championship appears to be
the dominance of the world-class heavyweight wrestlers.
After Dan Severn captured both the Ultimate Ultimate and followed it up in the
controversial superfight championship match in May, a new wrestler, 31-year-old Mark
Coleman of Columbus, OH right out of U.S. Olympic team tryouts, was brought in
basically to be the real test to find out just how tough Don Frye really is and also to play
out some behind-the-scenes revenge of sorts.
Frye proved to be tough once again, but a lot more mortal than in his previous
appearances. When matched up with Coleman in the UFC X championship match, he
fell victim to what many felt would be his achilles heel so to speak, a bigger more skilled
and more powerful wrestler with a good enough takedown to neutralize his boxing skill.
Coleman, with an announced 31-pound weight advantage which looked that if not more,
and a higher level of wrestling skill, was able to take Frye down at will and give him a
brutal pounding for most of the 11:36 before referee John McCarthy stopped the match,
thereby earning first-timer Coleman the $50,000 first prize check.
Coleman, a former wrestler at Miami of Ohio (where he was a classmate of Brian
Pillman) and Ohio State, with two Pan Am games gold medals and the 220-pounder on
the 1992 U.S. Olympic freestyle team, trained for one month at the camp of Richard
Hamilton, a professor of the martial arts from Grand Canyon University, whose camp
has trained in the past both Severn for Ultimate Ultimate and Frye for his tournament
win in Puerto Rico. This gives Hamilton's camp three tournament winners in a row
along with the most recent superfight winner. Coleman was Hamilton's basic second
choice as his camp's entrant to spoil Frye's party, as the two had a falling out before the
Detroit PPV as Hamilton reportedly didn't like Frye's training attitude. Hamilton had
recruited Tom Erikson, the second ranked superheavyweight in the U.S. behind Bruce
Baumgartner, to go into UFC provided he didn't make the Olympic team. Erikson, as
expected, lost to Baumgartner, but was injured in the process and Hamilton instead
brought Coleman, who placed sixth in the trials at 220 pounds, losing to Danny Chaid (a
former college teammate of Steve Williams), the eventual second-place finisher.
Frye wound up not only losing, but being rushed to the hospital, largely due to
exhaustion along with a fractured orbital bone near the eye socket. He was released later
that evening. The one-sided pounding Frye, who had been basically untouched to that
point in going 6-0 in UFC competition and was thought of by many as the new golden
boy of the UFC in the wake of Ken Shamrock's loss to Severn, was a tribute to just how
ferocious Coleman really was and just how much UFC is becoming more-and-more
tailor-made for a world class heavyweight wrestler who has enough training to avoid the
fluke punch or a submission.
UFC X, on 7/12 at the Bill Harris Arena on the Fairgrounds in Birmingham, AL, largely
was considered a major success. The location was officially moved just ten days before
the show from its original site in Providence. Despite some local negative publicity, there
was no real movement to keep the show out of town, unlike the nearly last minute court
fights that nearly stopped the two previous shows in Bayamon, PR and Detroit and
caused this event to change locations. Even more encouraging was with tickets on sale
for slightly more than one week, they were able to sellout to the tune of 4,300 fans
(tickets were scaled much lower than in other cities, from $50 down to $10 because
locals in Birmingham had told SEG officials that nobody would pay $50 in that city
although those ended up being the first tickets sold) despite competition in town of both
pro wrestling in a better arena and a major concert. It's a virtual lock UFC will return to
Birmingham probably in 1997.
It was a basic meat & potatoes UFC show. There wasn't much in the way of special
features introducing people to what was basically a cast of unknown newcomers. Just
the basic tale of the tape and quick interviews, most of which were anything but
memorable. The announcing wasn't bad, but with Don Wilson out doing a movie and
Ken Shamrock not at the show, it took some personality and a little insight out of the
Bruce Beck/Jeff Blatnick duo. Aside from the fights themselves, the most memorable
part of the show was the return of David Lee Abbott, who did an off-the-wall interview
that was bordering on embarrassing. Tank, who was shown on the PPV with a tape of
him doing a legitimate 600 pound bench press (not competition style but that's one hell
of a bench for anyone even with somewhat loose form) the previous day, followed it up
by doing off-color commentary during the Brian Johnston-Frye semifinal that crossed
the border. Abbott appeared to make Blatnick, Beck and probably most of the viewers ill
at ease with his remarks about Johnston's red, white and blue ring shorts (basically
referring to them as cute underwear) and talked about his match with Dan Severn as
saying he spent 20 minutes being raped by Freddy Mercury (who he kept referring to
Severn as, in reference to their match at the Ultimate Ultimate). By the time his
commentary was over and he'd left, Beck remarked that it was questionable if Abbott
would ever be asked back on the airwaves. Nevertheless, Abbott, up to 285 pounds and
pretty much pushed as returning for the September PPV show, once again got the
biggest reaction from the live crowd in Birmingham, which was described from all
sources live as being surprisingly well educated as to the personalities and styles.
The show was the fights. The fights were mostly good, in particular the final two
matches. However, the hype and interest leading into the show seemed the lowest of any
UFC to date, which may tell the tale when buy rate stats are available. The matches were
as competitive as expected and hoped for. For perhaps the first time in the history of
UFC, the results were almost totally predictable with no real surprises. The only two
negatives one could point to in a show that received an overwhelmingly positive
response is that they should have aired the alternate matches (held before the PPV went
on the air) during the long break between the semifinals and finals instead of too many
lengthy interviews and plugs, and the line-up begged for one submission specialist just
so there would be something different than the basic tackle-and-pound fights.
It also can't be emphasized enough that part of the changes in style of fighting are from
the implementation of gloves on most of the fighters. Gloves weren't allowed (an
exception was made for one boxer in the first UFC) during the Gracie era, and were then
made optional, although the majority of competitors chose to go bare knuckled. This
resulted in more wrestling and working to submissions after the take-down, rather than
simply pounding a guy, because bare-knuckle punches over the long haul are doing to do
more damage to the knuckles of the guy throwing the punch unless he's able to land
them on soft tissue and avoid the skull. By this point, even the wrestlers like Severn and
Coleman have gone to wearing gloves to protect their hands. The result is a more
dangerous and a bloodier sport, although one that, if gloves become mandatory, will
ironically face less political opposition, SEG's toughest foe, because of the basic
ignorance that permeates this subject. Although the hardcore martial arts fans would
probably enjoy non-gloved matches, because of more of a reliance on technique and
working for submissions and less on simply brute power to get the first take down and
pound from there, shows like this one are probably closer to what the general public that
buys these shows would like. The argument against it as that they are trying to
demonstrate through UFC what styles are most effective in a real fight situation, as
opposed to things like pro boxing, pro wrestling or movie fights, none of which has
anything to do with true free fighting. In a real fight, people aren't wearing gloves,
although on the other end of the argument, they also are wearing shoes and there are no
rules preventing them from kicking with the shoes as there are in UFC.
Coleman, who came into the show at 245-pounds, in the first drug-tested competition,
showed only one weakness, a lack of conditioning after matches reached the five minute
mark. However, his power and skill level were too high for any of his opponents to
capitalize.
Dr. Richard Istrico, the UFC's regular physician and a member of the medical committee
of the New York State Athletic Commission, implemented the first drug testing, similar
to New York and Nevada rules in drug testing boxing, which means most notably no
steroid testing, perhaps for fear of what would be found out although there is discussion
of including steroid testing in the future. Drugs tested for were PCP, Marijuana,
Amphetamines, Barbiturates, Codeine, Cocaine and Morphine.
A. In a battle of pro wrestlers, Geza Kalman Jr. (1-1), an indie wrestler out of the Detroit
area who is a protege of Dan Severn, beat Dieusel Berto (0-1), a Floridian trained by the
Malenkos who has worked of late for Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi in Japan. Kalman
took Berto down and was able to control his near the fence, and the ref stopped the
match at 5:56 when Kalman threw several hard unanswered punches.
B. Sam Adkins (2-1) beat Felix Lee Mitchell (0-2) via unanimous decision after the 12:00
time limit ran out. This was the only match on the show the fans live weren't into.
1. Frye (5-0) beat Mark Hall (3-2) in 10:23 when the ref stopped the match. Frye planted
Hall almost immediately and Hall went to the guard. Frye continued to throw punches
to Hall's ribs as his main offensive weapon. Hall's ribs turned reddish as Frye continued
to pound on the same spot. Frye kept telling Hall to tap because he didn't want to
seriously hurt him, but Hall kept screaming "Never." Finally ref John McCarthy stopped
the match. Frye seemed to expend a lot of energy in this lengthy match and it appeared
to affect him the remainder of the show. Hall took a tremendous pounding.
2. Brian Johnston beat Scott Fiedler (real name Scott Warren) in a battle of newcomers
when the ref stopped the match at 2:25. Johnston, who is 6-3, 222 with backgrounds in
judo, wrestling, kick boxing and boxing, had the well-rounded credentials. He appeared
to go into the match thinking judo, as he threw a nice judo throw for a takedown. When
he went for a second, Fiedler, who has a kick boxing and wrestling background,
managed to somewhat block it and got behind Johnston, but didn't have the submission
experience to take advantage of his positioning. Johnston escaped and got on top and
threw several punches to the back of Fiedler's head before the ref stopped the match.
The first round bracketing was changed with this match and the Gary Goodridge vs.
John Campatella match flip-flopped the day before the show apparently due to
complaints from some of the participants. It was agreed to since Goodridge was expected
to win his match as was Frye, and it would avoid a Frye-Goodridge match that had
already taken place.
3. Coleman beat first-timer Moti Horenstein, a karate fighter with no ground experience.
Horenstein was a late replacement for Kevin Jacob who broke his hand while training.
Coleman took him down and threw several heard clean punches before the ref stopped it
at 2:43.
4. Gary Goodridge (3-2) beat first-timer John Campatella in 1:29. Campatella was billed
at 5-9, 235, but was more like 5-6 with a thick powerlifter type physique so you had two
powerful men against each other. Campatella got on top first, but Goodridge turned him
and threw four hard punches to the face and Campatella tapped out in 1:27.
5. Frye (6-0) beat Johnston (1-1) in the first semifinal, almost more notable for Tank
Abbott on color. The two traded punches standing up and the younger Johnston actually
looked better, and it appeared a lot had been taken out of Frye in the first match. Finally
Frye got behind him and went for the ribs with punches and elbows. Frye got side
control on the ground and threw an elbow to the head when Johnston, realizing his
predicament, tapped out at 4:38.
6. Coleman (2-0) beat Goodridge (3-3) in a one-sided but heated match. Coleman
immediately took Goodridge down and threw some head-butts. Goodridge made a great
showing even though overmatched, as he used the cage to pull himself to his feet.
Coleman was behind him as if he wanted to throw a suplex, but Goodridge kept his
balance holding the fence. Coleman threw some devastating uppercuts and Goodridge
was unable to land a strong elbow. Goodridge managed a momentary reversal but
Coleman quickly got back in control and threw more solid uppercuts and was bleeding.
Coleman took him down again and threw punch after punch before Goodridge turned
his back to avoid the pounding. Coleman double grapevined his legs and was about to do
serious damage when Goodridge tapped out at 7:00.
7. Coleman (3-0) beat Frye (6-1) in 11:36 to capture the championship. The basic story
here was that Coleman was simply too strong a wrestler for Frye to have any offense.
Frye refused to tap and, similar to the situation where he faced Amoury Bitetti, took a
terrible pounding because of it. Coleman took Frye down and threw lots of heavy
punches and head-butts. Frye took blow after blow, but kept enough sense about him to
stop an opening and try an armbar, but couldn't get it. Frye finally escaped at 4:23, but
was quickly taken down again and took more punishment. At this point McCarthy
stopped the fight so the doctor could check Frye's many cuts and told Frye he'd better
get something going or he was going to stop it. When they re-started, Frye went for a
double leg, but Coleman's balance and power wound up on top. He got behind Frye and
went for a choke, but Frye reversed the position. Finally Coleman began throwing
punches, knees and head-butts before the fight was stopped.
***********************************************************
The World Wrestling Federation is planning its biggest pure house show of 1996 to take
place on 8/24 at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium--ten years to the day after it set what was
at the time the all-time recorded attendance record for pro wrestling in the same
building drawing 69,300 fans.
The show, billed as "WWF X Press" (X to signify it being ten years after the Hulk Hogan-
Paul Orndorff show), will be headlined by Shawn Michaels vs. Goldust in a ladder match
for the WWF title. No other matches have been announced, but it is expected that
Undertaker vs. Mankind in a casket match and Sid vs. Vader will be the other main
matches.
It's a sold show as part of the CNE Fair in Toronto, similar to the Hogan-Orndorff match
ten years earlier, so it's expected to draw the largest crowd for pro wrestling in North
America probably in several years.
**********************************************************
AAA made its return to the United States with house shows on 7/12 at the Phoenix
Celebrity Theater and 7/13 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Both shows did reasonably well considering the poor television penetration in each
market, with the debut in Phoenix drawing 1,700 paying $18,600 and Los Angeles
drawing 2,500 paying $48,000. The show in Phoenix was largely well received, as it
nearly packed a 2,500-seat venue drawing the usual hot AAA audience which created a
strong atmosphere, and AAA will probably be returning as part of the local fair in
September. Los Angeles was by far the weakest show AAA has put on in that market,
both from a poor undercard with little in the way of wrestling, largely replaced by freeform
sloppy brawling.
The shows were also marred by several no-shows, two of them headliners Perro Aguayo
and Cien Caras. Caras missed the show reportedly because his working papers had
expired. Aguayo got in a dispute with Konnan, who ran the tour, about the ECW/FMWish
style of wrestling he's introduced to the Mexican audiences on his shows. In addition,
Aguayo would have missed Phoenix anyway because AAA had a television taping in his
hometown of Zacatecas the same night which he headlined, and they were running a
major angle with him at the show. There was an interview with Pierroth Jr. early in the
show where he mentioned Aguayo not being there, but I heard no mention of Caras not
being there nor were refunds offered. The shows themselves were very similar to the
TripleMania in Chicago where the heels were put over in every match on the undercard,
largely with screw-job finishes, leading to the faces winning the main event--lumberjack
strap matches with Konnan & Octagon beating Pierroth Jr. & Killer with lots of outside
interference from the lumberjacks.
The situation in Tijuana, where Konnan remains in a promotional war with former
teacher Rey Misterio (Miguel Lopez), has gotten more interesting. Konnan ran a show
outdoors at the bullfighting arena on 7/14, drawing approximately 6,500 fans, a figure
that has to be impressive considering they seem to be running that city nearly every
week (the previous show was nine days earlier which drew about 3,000; the next show is
7/21 and Misterio is running the market regularly as well).
The show plunged right into a dichotomy of fans interest creating a weird environment
in the main event--a double chain match street fight with Rey Misterio Jr. & Super Calo
vs. Psicosis & Damian. There is no doubt that the more violent style has helped at the
gate, because they are running the market far too often with the same wrestlers and
continuing to draw well, despite frequent location changes. However, once again, there
were a lot of people walking out during the main event (some of that could have been
because the show lasted in excess of five hours) but the crowd was dead for a lot of the
final two matches. The repeated cane shots and outside interference didn't draw
anywhere near the heat that the traditional heel mannerisms with local undercard
wrestlers had earlier in the show. Although the violence and gimmick matches appear to
be drawing, particularly against the traditionalist group which doesn't have nearly the
star power that's down to about 450 to 600 per show using the top EMLL names, the
crowd in many cases doesn't react to it as compared to traditional style. The main event
featured basically none of the wrestling nor flying that these four have the ability to
deliver, instead a myriad of table breaking spots, outside interference and juice and not
even all that well executed. By the end of the match, a large percentage of the crowd was
gone and many of those that stayed were unruly beyond belief, particularly considering
the city has long had some of the best behaved but most heated crowds you'd find
anywhere in the world. In the outdoor bullfighting arena with a dirt floor, fans were
pelting the ring with dirt and pebbles, and throwing cup after cup of dirt to the point the
police were called and they were chasing people down around the arena. The women
valets, Woman from WCW, who worked the entire tour managing Psicosis (there was a
lot of talk that this would be the start of an angle that would end up with Ric Flair and
Arn Anderson coming to Tijuana), was nailed with one dirt bomb after another.
Halloween, who did a lot of outside interference during the match, was clocked over the
head by a fan with a chair and was knocked silly for about 20 minutes after the match.
There were also two excellent angles in the main event. After Calo was KO'd when
Psicosis gave him an Arabian moonsault while having him buried under chairs, it was
two wrestlers in the ring and four wrestlers (Halloween and the Pandilleros) and two
valets out of the ring all against Misterio Jr. Heavy Metal, a heel who didn't work the
card because he's suspended, but was on the tour, did a run-in as Psicosis and Damian
held Misterio Jr. But instead of attacking Misterio Jr., he attacked Psicosis and Damian,
declaring that he started his career in Tijuana as Canelo Casas and even though fans
haven't always liked him, when he wrestled people like Latin Lover, Santo and Jerry
Estrada in the past, he always did it on his own and not eight-on-one. Misterio Jr. came
back from the dead and he and Metal cleaned house. While Metal carried Misterio Jr.
around on his shoulders to celebrate, he suddenly suplexed his backwards and put the
boots to him, making it nine-on-one. Then Killer, in his costume, came to the ring to
make it ten-on-one, but as Misterio Jr. was being held, Killer attacked all the heels and
pulled off his mask revealing Konnan. The odds ended up too much for Konnan as well,
and finally at 22:09, Misterio Jr. was pinned after being put through more chairs and
tables. The fans were chanting for Aguayo (who was there) to make the save, but
apparently he wants no part of the shena....ns, and it was Octagon who made the last
save with more cane shots. **1/2
Overall Tijuana was a decent show, with some good wrestling in the middle of the card,
but too long and all the shows relied far too much on mic work and gimmicks for heat
and had little in the way of Lucha Libre, and had horrible underneath matches.
In the other results: 1. In a four corners trios match, Los X-Men wound up winning over
Los Pandilleros, Los Renegados (Genghis Khan & El Hijo del Enfermero & El Chacal)
and Los Brujos in 20:38. Terrible match because it was too unwieldy. Pandilleros are
good workers but Brujos and Renegados looked awful. -*;
2. In a womens triangle match, La Sirenita came out the winner via DQ over Shitara and
Natasha in 10:34. Shitara was pinned by Sirenita. Don Juan (a Los Angeles indie
wrestler who was Sirenita's valet) decked Sirenita and began pounding on her until
Pierroth Jr. ran in, teasing as if he was going to make the save for the Mexican girl who
was wrestling the foreigner, but instead he also beat up Shitara. -*1/4;
3. Thunderbird & Firebird & Flamarion beat Halloween & Don Juan & Sueno Chicano in
23:30. Pretty bad although there were good spots in there. Thunderbird did a
handspring up the turnbuckle and turned it into a Frankensteiner off the top rope on
Halloween to win the first fall. Flamarion tried a plancha into a Frankensteiner on the
floor ala Misterio Jr. but it really didn't hit right. Halloween pinned Thunderbird with a
tilt a whirl into a doctor bomb for the second fall. Third fall turned into a dive-fest,
ending with Thunderbird doing a shooting star plancha, but actually not turning all the
way and nearly cracking his head on the ground. Halloween ended up laying down for
Thunderbird in the third fall. After the match they issued challenges back and forth
between Halloween (Baja California light heavyweight champion) and Thunderbird for
the belt and did an impromptu match which Thunderbird won and got a ton of heat.
However, Halloween attacked him with the belt and took the belt with him saying it
wasn't a signed title match. *;
4. Leon ***** & Blue Demon Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. beat Juventud Guerrera & Jerry Estrada
& Cibernetico in 14:15 when the local wrestler, *****, pinned Estrada, to a big pop. ***;
5. Parka kept the IWAS light heavyweight title beating Misterioso. Tirantes played total
heel ref in this one. Misterioso won the first fall with a splash off the top and a fast
count. There was lots of outside interference from El Hijo del Enfermero in the fall in
front of Tirantes. In the second fall, Parka got the pin with a twisting crossbody off the
top and a slow count. In the third fall, the commission booted Tirantes out and the
entire crowd started chanting for Pepe Casas. Casas came in and threw Tirantes out and
got the third fall going, and it was a collection of dives and near falls, mainly by Parka,
who did a plancha off the top to the floor, a leap off the chair into a springboard plancha,
a tope while Misterioso was sitting in a chair, and he tried a plancha with Misterioso in a
chair but Misterioso moved and he plancha'd the chair. At that point they did the
Malenko-Rey Jr. title change finish, with Misterioso throwing Parka into the ring rather
than taking the title via count out, and twice picking him up at two on near falls, before
Parka finally scored the cradle for the pin. ***1/2;
6. Konnan & Aguayo & Octagon beat Killer & Pierroth Jr. & Cien Caras in 16:30 when
Octagon pinned Caras. A decent match but nothing more. *3/4
***********************************************************
ECW drew the largest crowd in its history once again for its 7/13 show at the ECW Arena
in South Philadelphia.
While no real figures are or will be available, the crowd was said to be larger than for the
show three weeks earlier which had set what at the time was the company's record. The
last crowd was estimated at between 1,200 and 1,550 and at this show there was literally
almost no walking space available in the tiny building because fans were so packed in.
Getting real crowds for ECW Arena is basically impossible as based on pressure from
outside sources, the State Athletic commission won't release figures for ECW shows
although when figures were available they were always significantly lower then estimates
elsewhere. In some cases figures were so much lower that it was clear those figures
couldn't have been accurate as few months ago for a packed house show, we received a
figure from the commission that the paid crowd was in the 400's, and it is pretty well
known the ECW shows aren't significantly papered. Crowd estimates from various
attendees at the 7/13 show ranged from 1,300 to the figure of 1,700 claimed with most
estimates in between. The show was said to have been among the best in company
history when it came to crowd reactions as every storyline got a huge response and there
were standing ovations at the end of several matches.
The highlight match, said to be one of the better matches in company history, was a
four-corners match for the ECW TV title with Chris Jericho, Pit Bull #2 , Shane Douglas
and Too Cold Scorpio. It wound up with Douglas vs. Pit Bull. As Pit Bull had Douglas
pinned, Francine turned on Pit Bull, then pulled off her skirt to reveal panties that had
"Franchise" written on them. Pit Bull #1 came out and it wound up with Francine being
super bombed through a table. After that point, Douglas and Pit Bull traded near falls
before Douglas won the title clean with a belly-to-belly suplex in a match that lasted
more than 30:00.
The main event on the show was a bout with Sandman and Raven in a cage, Brian Lee
and Tommy Dreamer brawling all over the place, and Terry Gordy and Stevie Richards
battling over who could get in the cage first to make it a two-on-one. In a bloodbath, it
wound up with Raven being handcuffed with his hands spread as if he were being
crucified, to repeat the spot from last year that is in the show's openings where Dreamer
destroys him with a chair. At this point, Dreamer had a chair and Sandman (who is
noticeably bothered by his bad knee, which he seems to blow out doing minor things on
a weekly basis because he isn't taking time off to rest it) had his cane but Sandman's son
Tyler jumped in front of Raven and spread his arms. Sandman stopped in his tracks, but
Dreamer still wanted to swing the chair and Sandman and Dreamer argued over that
spot. Later in the match was a spot where three tables were set up on top of each other
outside the ring, Dreamer was sitting on the top of the cage and Lee was standing inside
the cage on the top rope and basically shoved Dreamer off (it was supposed to be a choke
slam but really didn't come off as one) and Dreamer for the second show in a row took
the bump through three tables. The match ended with Sandman pinning Raven, which
no doubt will lead to title matches down the line.
Among the other show highlights was the return of 911 and the debuts of Tarzan Goto
and Louie Spicolli. We don't have complete details as to the behind-the-scenes of the 911
deal, although apparently it was a twofold deal. After 911 had refused to do Paul
Heyman's original plan several months ago to put Taz over as a Giant Killer, which
ended with him leaving the promotion, and the Paul Varelans situation backfired,
Heyman finally got the deal done. As Joel Gertner was doing a heel ring announcer bit,
911's music played and he came out and choke slammed Gertner. He then choke
slammed Taz, who was in the ring with Bill Alfonso as part of the angle. As he went for
Alfonso, Taz popped up from 911's trademark spot, suplexed him on his head and
choked him out. In post-show interviews, Brian Lee did an interview basically saying
that he was the king of the choke slams so it's not clear whether 911 was brought in for
the one shot and came in simply to keep the contract supplying the rings for ECW, or if
he's back and had to do this angle as a punishment to get his job back.
Goto, from IWA in Japan (which ECW is running two shows in conjunction with on 8/10
and 8/11 in Yokohama and Tokyo respectively), beat Axl Rotten both on 7/12 in
Allentown and again at the Arena, largely for Japanese photo ops. Goto is an ECW style
brawler, but really didn't get over that big in either city. Spicolli was said to have
surprised everyone having a strong match with Sabu, although they were said to have
went too long and Sabu appeared to have missed his planned finisher. The highlight of
that match was Sabu moonsaulting off the top rope outside the ring and sending Spicolli
through a table.
***********************************************************
Matthew Annus, the 13-year-old grandson of Stu and Helen Hart, passed away just after
midnight on Sunday at Calgary Children's Hospital after an 11-day ordeal.
Annus, the son of Stu and Helen's daughter Georgia and B.J. Annus, a former Stampede
wrestler (1985-86) and bodybuilder/gym owner in the Calgary area, had fallen into
unconsciousness on 7/4 with a disease called streptococcus, which ate away at his
internal organs and caused almost all his vital system to shut down as he went into Toxic
Shock Syndrome. He really wasn't expected to survive 7/5, but fought the disease for
more than one week and seemed to be making progress. He'd been on life support since
that time, on kidney dialysis and a respirator with his heart being the only organ
working, and most of the family had been almost constantly in the hospital hoping and
praying. Bret Hart rushed back from an anniversary weekend with his wife Owen Hart
and Davey Boy Smith were given the weekends off by the WWF. All spent much time
talking with him about things like current WWF angles and the Ultimate Warrior
situation, and his blood pressure which was weak seemed to pick up when Bret and
Owen talked wrestling with him and Bret talked about coming back to the ring. Bret
went on the WWF's company fans cruise and Owen and Smith returned to work on 7/11
and while all were gone, they got the news.
Annus appeared to have been improving on Saturday, and they wanted to take him off
some of his life support systems so they could perform a series of needed operations, but
after beginning the process, he relapsed on Sunday morning. Eventually his lung
collapsed and his heart stopped and he died from cardiac arrest.
Annus was a huge wrestling fan who idolized Bret, Owen and Davey and was already
training to form a second generation British Bulldogs tag team with his younger cousin
Harry, the son of Davey and Diana. The two were scheduled to wrestle in tag team
matches along with Matthew older brother Ted and a family friend for the third year in a
row as part of the annual Stampede wrestling card at the Rockeyford Rodeo near Calgary
on 7/20 and 7/21. The Smiths decided to move back to Calgary from Florida and put a
wrestling ring in their backyard largely so the cousins would be able to spend more time
learning wrestling.
A private funeral was scheduled for this week at Stu's house in Calgary.
**********************************************************
Latest buy-rate figures we've received are that WCW appears to have done an 0.48 buy
rate (120,000 buys; est. $1.34 million) for the 6/16 Great American Bash, WWF appears
to have done an 0.60 (150,000 buys; est. $2.02 million) for 6/23 King of the Ring and
preliminary estimates of the WCW buy rate for the Great American Bash with the Hall &
Nash match with all the intrigue have ranged as high as 0.80 but most have pegged it at
0.71 (178,000 buys; $2.23 million). We have no UFC estimates at press time. One would
have to label all three figures as somewhat disappointing in that WCW actually declined
over the previous year despite its hot television angle. Even though overall interest in
wrestling appears way up, and WCW's television ratings picked up greatly in June with
the new angle and WWF's arena business is up (although running so many fewer shows
and more loaded shows makes comparisons misleading), the PPVs across the board
continue a pretty noticeable decline. That is also somewhat misleading because there are
so many more PPV events this year than any previous year so they should flatten out.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 7/19 TO 8/19
7/20 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (six man tag title tournament)
7/21 WWF International Incident PPV Vancouver, BC General Motors Place (Michaels &
Johnson & Sid vs. Hart & Smith & Vader)
7/21 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Anjoh)
7/22 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Seattle Center Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/23 WWF Superstars tapings Yakima, WA (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/24 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Taue vs. Kobashi)
7/25 WWF San Francisco Cow Palace (Michaels vs. Vader)
7/27 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/1 FMW Tokyo Shiodome (Terry Funk vs. Pogo)
8/2 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
8/2 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/3 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki)
8/3 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu vs. Van Dam)
8/4 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Hashimoto vs. Tenzan)
8/4 Universal Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall
8/5 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Muto vs. Koshinaka)
8/6 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (G-1 tournament finals)
8/9 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/10 WCW Hog Wild PPV Sturgis, SD (Giant vs. Hogan)
8/10 ECW/IWA Yokohama Bunka Gym
8/12 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Casper, WY Events Center
8/12 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/13 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/15 WCW Clash of Champions Denver Coliseum
8/16 WCW Baltimore Arena (Giant vs. Savage)
8/17 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Anjoh)
8/18 WWF SummerSlam Cleveland Gund Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/19 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Wheeling, WV Civic Center
8/19 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Roanoke, VA Civic Center
RESULTS
6/30 Sheerness, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 250): Wildcat d Tyrone
Archer, Alex Shane DDQ Justin Richards, Andre Baker & Amanda Dallas b Doug
Williams & Tanzie Cook-DQ, Titan b Shiro Nagumi, Shane & Ian Johnson b Tony
McMillan & Richards
7/4 Maywood, CA (AIWA): Thrashmaster b Ladies Man, Bloody Maniac & Galeno b
Mace & Johnny Legend-DQ, Dan Fabiano DCOR Tlaloc, Tech 9 & Crazed 1 b Supreme &
Kid Kaos, Payasitos de America b Sammy Delgado & Cara Marcada, Jack Stud DCOR
Ultraman Robin
7/5 Maywood, CA (AIWA): Antonio Rocca b Bloody Maniac, Bubba Storm & Alex
Knight & Dan Fabiano b Sammy Delgado & El Indio & Galeno, Ultraman Robin b Tech
9, Peter Maivia Jr. b Jack Stud
7/7 Providence, RI (WWF - 3,774): Duke Droese b Leif Cassidy, Salvatore Sincere b
Barry Horowitz, Godwinns won triangular match over Bodydonnas and Smoking Gunns,
Jake Roberts b Justin Bradshaw, Undertaker b Mankind-COR, IC title: Ahmed Johnson
b Goldust, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWF title:
Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/7 San Bernardino, CA (Ind - 250): Gary Key b Dick Danger-COR, Ghetto Boyz b
Third Dimension & Ultra Taro, Louie Spicolli b Ragin Raven, Christopher Daniels b
Bulldog Sampson, Irish Assassin b Lil Haystacks, Bobby Bradley Jr. & Suicide Kid b Tim
Patterson & Eddie Williams, Patterson won Battle Royal
7/8 Memphis (USWA - 1,000): King Cobra b Reggie B. Fine, Tony Williams b
Brickhouse Brown, Hubcap match: Wolfie D b Bill Dundee, Doug Gilbert & Brian
Christopher b Frank Morrell & Tony Falk, USWA tag titles vs. Kabana's hair: Flex
Kabana & Bart Sawyer b Jerry Lawler & Dundee to win titles, Unified title: Christopher b
Jeff Jarrett-DQ
7/8 Koji (All Japan women): Genki Misae b Yoshiko Tamura, Mario Yoshida b Saya
Endo, Toshiyo Yamada & Mima Shimoda b Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari, Etsuko Mita
b Tomoko Watanabe, Manami Toyota & Reggie Bennett & Kaoru Ito b Aja Kong &
Takako Inoue & Kumiko Maekawa
7/8 Rochester, MN (AWA - 650): Sam Houston b J.B. Trask, Jonnie Stewart b Twin
Turbo, Nailz DDQ Charlie Norris
7/9 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600 full
house/papered): Hugh Morrus & Kevin Sullivan & Meng & Barbarian b Prince Iaukea
& Butch Long & ? & ?, Greg Valentine b Bill Payne, Konnan b Top Gun (David Cannell),
Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit b Mark Starr & Cobra & Alex Wright, Dick
Slater & Mike Enos b Todd Morton & Joe Gomez, Harlem Heat b Public Enemy
7/9 Asahikawa (New Japan - 2,350 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Yutaka Yoshie,
Shinjiro Otani b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura b El Samurai
& Norio Honaga, Osamu Nishimura b Brad Armstrong, Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi
Ohara b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsutoshi Goto & Akira
Nogami b Yuji Nagata & Satoshi Kojima & Junji Hirata, Hawk & Animal & Power
Warrior b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido & Shinya Hashimoto, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Keiji Muto & Jushin Liger
7/9 Miyagi (All Japan women): Saya Endo b Genki Misae, Tomoko Watanabe b
Kumiko Maekawa, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue b Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada, Mima
Shimoda b Chaparita Asari, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Reggie Bennett b Manami
Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
7/9 Vienna, Austria (CWA - 500): David Finlay b Ulf Hermann, Brian Armstrong d
Tony St. Clair, Michael Kovacs b Hercules Boyd (Greg Boyd)-DQ, Maxx Payne (Darryl
Peterson) b Rambo, August Smisl & Franz Schumann b Drew McDonald & Danny
Collins
7/10 Obihiro (New Japan - 2,200 sellout): Tadao Yasuda b Yutaka Yoshie,
Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Tokimitsu Ishizawa, El Samurai b Shinjiro Otani, Brad Armstrong
& Jushin Liger b Kuniaki Kobayashi & Akitoshi Saito, Satoshi Kojima & Junji Hirata b
Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto, Hawk & Power & Animal Warrior b Hiro Saito &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa Chono, Keiji Muto & Osamu Kido & Osamu Nishimura b
Michiyoshi Ohara & Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka
7/10 Greenville, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 212): Mikki Free b
J.W. Steele, SWAT b Ricky Regal, Cruiser Lewis b Freedom Fighter, Butcher Blackwell b
Johnny Dollar, J.J. Justice NC Nightmare, Jake Mulligan & Desperado b Wahoo
McDaniel & Ricky McDaniel
7/11 Albany, NY (WWF - 4,579): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly -*, Bodydonnas won
four-team elimination match over Godwinns ***, Smoking Gunns and New Rockers,
Steve Austin b Savio Vega *1/4, Owen Hart b Jake Roberts *, Undertaker b Mankind
*1/4, IC title: Goldust b Ahmed Johnson-DQ *1/4, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley ***, Sid b Davey Boy Smith -****, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader **1/2
7/11 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW World Wide tapings - 450 full house/all
freebies): Scott Norton b Todd Morton, Alex Wright b Buddy Valentine, Billy Kidman
b Psicosis, Steve Regal & David Taylor b Steve & Scott Armstrong, Chris Benoit b Eddie
Guerrero, Dick Slater & Mike Enos b Mike Wenner & Mark Starr, Gambler b Chad
Brock, Leprechaun (Dwayne Bruce aka Buddy Lee Parker) b Joe Gomez, Craig Pittman b
Gambler, Norton b Manny Fernandez (not original), Dean Malenko b Kidman, Konnan b
Kurosawa, Arn Anderson & Benoit b Jim Powers & Gomez, Leprechaun b Brock, Eddie
Guerrero & Chavo Guerrero Jr. b High Voltage, Kevin Sullivan b Brock, Ice Train b
Maxx, Big Bubba b Chip Minton, Heat b Slater & Enos, Jim Duggan b Buddy Valentine,
John Tenta b Cuban Assassin, Iaukea b Fernandez
7/11 Hakata Star Lanes (All Japan - 2,500 sellout): Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa b Maunukea Mossman & Rob Van
Dam, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue, Johnny Smith
& The Patriot b Takao Omori & Masao Inoue, Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II b
Chris & Mark Youngblood, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Brian Dyette b Bobby
Duncum Jr. & Gary Albright & Stan Hansen, Kenta Kobashi d Jun Akiyama 30:00, Akira
Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuchi b Mitsuharu Misawa & Giant Baba & Tamon
Honda 22:38
7/11 Kushiro (New Japan - 2,000): Shinjiro Otani b Yutaka Yoshie, Michiyoshi
Ohara & Kengo Kimura b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Tadao Yasuda, Hiro Saito b Yuji Nagata,
Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Brad Armstrong & Norio Honaga, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Osamu Kido, Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b
Kuniaki Kobayashi & Akitoshi Saito, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Masa Saito &
Keiji Muto & Satoshi Kojima, Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Shiro Koshinaka b
Shinya Hashimoto & Osamu Nishimura & Junji Hirata
7/12 Worcester, MA (WWF - 4,556): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly DUD,
Bodydonnas won four team elimination match over Godwinns, Smoking Gunns and New
Rockers ***, Steve Austin b Savio Vega ***1/4, Owen Hart b Jake Roberts 1/2*,
Undertaker b Mankind **, IC title: Goldust b Ahmed Johnson-DQ 3/4*, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley *3/4, Sid b Davey Boy Smith *, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b
Vader *1/2
7/12 Dorits Kitami (New Japan - 1,800): Akitoshi Saito b Tokimitsu Ishizawa,
Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Norio Honaga, Akira Nogami b El Samurai, Osamu Kido b Brad
Armstrong, Shinjiro Otani & Tadao Yasuda b Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura, Shiro
Koshinaka & Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara b Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Liger &
Keiji Muto, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Osamu Nishimura & Junji Hirata &
Shinya Hashimoto, Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki b Hiro Saito &
Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan
7/12 Oceto (All Japan - 1,400): Rob Van Dam b Satoru Asako, Chris & Mark
Youngblood b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Kentaro Shiga, The Patriot b Maunukea Mossman,
Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Mitsuo Momota & Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura, Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida b Masao Inoue & Yoshinari Ogawa, Gary
Albright & Johnny Smith b Tamon Honda & Takao Omori, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira
Taue b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr., Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun
Akiyama b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Brian Dyette
7/12 Allentown, PA (ECW - 900): Taz b Mikey Whipwreck, Louie Spicolli b El
Puerto Ricano, Tarzan Goto b Axl Rotten, ECW TV title: Chris Jericho d Shane Douglas,
Samoan Gangsta Tribe NC Big Dick Dudley & Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Bad Crew b Havoc
Inc., Sandman b Bluedust (Rick Heffron aka Blue Meanie), Sabu b Hack Myers, Too
Cold Scorpio b Pit Bull #2 , ECW tag titles: Eliminators b Gangstas, Terry Gordy &
Tommy Dreamer b Raven & Brian Lee
7/12 Phoenix, AZ (AAA - 1,700): Natasha won triangle match over Shitara & La
Sirenita *3/4, Cibernetico & Damian & Halloween b Blue Demon Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. &
Mascara Sagrada Jr. **3/4, Mexican welterweight title: Psicosis b Rey Misterio Jr. **1/4,
Juventud Guerrera & Jerry Estrada & Heavy Metal b La Parka & Super Calo & Mascara
Sagrada-DQ ***1/4, Lumberjack strap match: Konnan & Octagon b Pierroth Jr. & Killer
***1/2
7/12 Zacatecas (AAA): Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & Super Munequito b Espectritos I & II,
Lumberjack strap match: Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Oro Jr. & El Mexicano NC Karis la
Momia & Payaso Amarillo & Super Muneco, Perro Aguayo & Ultimo Dragon & Latin
Lover b Los Villanos-DQ
7/12 Brighton, TN (American Wrestling Alliance): Todd Johnson b Ripley Prim,
Blade Boudreaux b J.T. Storm, Ty Dalton b Pete Madden, David Denton & Romeo
Valentine b Tim White & Boudreaux, Big Ben b Motley Cruz, Derek King b Kalediscope
Kid (Bill Rush), Terry Golden b Danny B. Goode
7/12 Rossville, GA (TWA): Rick Justice b Dragon Master #1 , Scott James b Dragon
Master #2 , Cyberteam 5000 b Michael Collins & Outpatient, Keith & John & Ken Arden
b Woody Woodchuck & Randy Watkins & Pulpwood, Chuck Colt b Joel Travis
7/13 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,500 sellout): Gangstas b Samoan
Gangsta Tribe, Mikey Whipwreck b Paul Lauria, ECW tag titles: Eliminators b Sabu &
Whipwreck, Dances with Dudley & Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley b Big Guido
(Primo Carnera III) & Little Guido (James Stone) & J.T. Smith, Tarzan Goto b Axl
Rotten, Shane Douglas won four corners match for ECW TV title over Too Cold Scorpio,
Pit Bull #2 and Chris Jericho, Sabu b Louie Spicolli, Cage match/brawl everywhere:
Sandman & Tommy Dreamer & Terry Gordy b Raven & Stevie Richards & Brian Lee
7/13 Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium (AAA - 2,500): Natasha won
triangular match over Shitara and La Sirenita -***, Cibernetico & Damian 666 &
Halloween b Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. 3/4*, Mexican
welterweight title: Psicosis b Rey Misterio Jr. to "win title" *1/4, Jerry Estrada & Heavy
Metal & Juventud Guerrera b La Parka & Super Calo & Mascara Sagrada **1/4,
Lumberjack strap match: Konnan & Octagon b Pierroth Jr. & Killer *3/4
7/13 Portland, ME (WWF - 3,314): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly, Bodydonnas won
four corners match over Smoking Gunns, Godwinns and New Rockers, Steve Austin b
Savio Vega, Owen Hart b Jake Roberts, Undertaker b Mankind, IC title: Goldust b
Ahmed Johnson-DQ, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Sid b Davey Boy Smith,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/13 Saga (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Maunukea Mossman & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Tamon Honda b
Brian Dyette, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Rob Van Dam & The Patriot b Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II,
Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori b Gary Albright & Johnny Smith, Steve Williams & Johnny
Ace b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr., Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari
Ogawa b Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Satoru Asako
7/13 Orlando Disney (WCW attraction matches): Public Enemy b Prince Iaukea
& The Gambler, Eddie Guerrero b Billy Kidman, Chris Benoit b Alex Wright, Big Bubba
b Joe Gomez, Rick & Scott Steiner b Hugh Morrus & Maxx, Ice Train b Cobra
7/13 Ichihara (All Japan women): Genki Misae b Yumi Fukawa, Reggie Bennett b
Yoshiko Tamura, Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida & Manami Toyota b Toshiyo Yamada &
Etsuko Mita & Chaparita Asari, Aja Kong b Mima Shimoda, Yumiko Hotta & Takako
Inoue b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
7/13 Macy, NE (Pro Wrestling America): Mantaur DDQ Randy Gusto, Nailz b
Night Stalker, Charlie Norris & Sam Houston b Nailz & The Hater
7/13 Kissimmee, FL (Southeastern Championship Wrestling - 250): Al
Hardimon b Slick Willie, Blade Runner DCOR Ox, Cliff Anderson b Cowboy Butch, D.J.
Hunter b Randy Starr, Kevin Sullivan & Dick Slater b American Samurai & Rockin
Hillbilly
7/13 Morristown, TN (Tennesee Mountain Wrestling): Chris Steelhart b Rick
Savage, Steve Skyfire b David Jerrico, Chris Powers b Mr. Olympian, Tracy Smothers b
Bunkhouse Buck, Eight Ball Jones & James Blevins NC Mongolian Stomper & Dirty
White Boy
7/13 Anniston, AL (Dixieland Championship Wrestling - 150): Ultimate Power
Ranger b David Lee-DQ, Brad Cooley b Mighty Yankee (Larry Santo), Kevin Neil b
Randy Barber-DQ, The Olympian (David Young) b Foreman (Lee Peak), The Bullet (Bob
Armstrong) & Arachnaman b Lee & War Machine-DQ
7/13 Southern Pines, NC (New Frontier Wrestling Alliance - 100): Dynamo
Kid & Wolverine b Grave Robber & Big Fist Brawler, T.C. Flexer b Devastator, High
Voltage b Champaign, Carolina Warrior b Simba, Punisher b Colt Justice, Ethan Storm
NC Wachee
7/14 Kitamizawa (New Japan - 1,800): Kuniaki Kobayashi & Akitoshi Saito b
Yutaka Yoshie & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Osamu Kido b Tadao Yasuda, El Samurai b Norio
Honaga, Brad Armstrong & Jushin Liger b Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Shinjiro Otani, Akira
Nogami & Shiro Koshinaka b Yuji Nagata & Junji Hirata, Hawk & Animal & Power
Warrior b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura, Takashi Iizuka &
Kazuo Yamazaki b Osamu Nishimura & Shinya Hashimoto, Satoshi Kojima & Keiji Muto
& Riki Choshu b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa Saito
7/14 Sasebo (All Japan - 2,500): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Mighty Inoue, Chris & Mark
Youngblood b Johnny Smith & Maunukea Mossman, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota
b Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Masao Inoue & Ryukaku Izumida & Takao Omori b
Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako & Giant Baba, The Patriot & Johnny Ace b Rob Van Dam
& Gary Albright, Bobby Duncum Jr. & Stan Hansen b Brian Dyette & Steve Williams,
Kenta Kobashi b Giant Kimala II, Mitshuaru Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b
Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa
7/14 Orlando Disney (WCW attraction matches): Steve Regal & David Taylor b
Chad Brock & Chavo Guerrero Jr., Diamond Dallas Page b Disco Inferno, Harlem Heat b
High Voltage, Eddie Guerrero b Bobby Eaton, Mike Enos & Dick Slater b American
Males, Scott Norton b Bobby Walker
7/14 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 1,850 sellout): Takahashi d
Nakanishi, Genki Misae & Etsuko Mita b Mariko Yoshida & Yumi Fukawa, Takako Inoue
b Tomoko Watanabe, Mima Shimoda b Kaoru Ito, Reggie Bennett b Toshiyo Yamada,
Takahashi b Thunder Crack, Chaparita Asari & Kyoko Inoue b Yoshiko Tamura &
Manami Toyota, Yumiko Hotta b Aja Kong
7/14 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Martial Arts Festival - 1,800 sellout): Satoshi
Yoneyama b Pequeno Guerrero, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada b Great Sasuke & Naohiro
Hoshikawa, Koji Kitao b Glen Jacobs (Isaac Yankem)
7/14 Cookeville, TN (USWA): Flex Kabana b Leon Downs, Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk,
Miss Texas b Ferrin Square, Wolfie D b Bill Dundee, Unified title: Doug Gilbert b Jeff
Jarrett-DQ
7/14 Detroit (Insane Championship Wrestling): Rhino Richards b Pierre
Francois, Brian Fury b Alex Machine, Loco Twister Tornado b Christian Cage-DQ, Killer
Kanarek & Gypsy b Blacksmith & Breyer Wellington & Rob Avram, Rick Matrix b Dirty
Tex, Head Bangers b Sex & Violence
7/15 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 450 full
house/all freebies): Rick & Scott Steiner b Scott Norton & Ice Train **, Dean
Malenko b Billy Kidman ***1/4, WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Dick Slater & Mike Enos
1/2*, Madusa b Malia Hosaka *1/2, Meng b Arn Anderson DUD, Eddie Guerrero b Chris
Benoit-COR ***1/2, WCW TV title: Lex Luger NC Big Bubba DUD
7/15 Tsujyo (All Japan - 2,100): Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Bobby
Duncum Jr. b Masao Inoue, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa b Chris & Mark
Youngblood, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, The Patriot & Johnny Ace b Tamon Honda & Takao Omori,
Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Steve Williams & Maunukea Mossman, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama b Stan Hansen & Gary Albright & Johnny
Smith
7/16 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (New Japan - 6,400 sellout): Akitoshi
Saito & Akira Nogami & Kengo Kimura b Yutaka Yoshie & Yuji Nagata & Junji Hirata,
Osamu Kido b Brad Armstrong, Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura b Michiyoshi
Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Jushin Liger & Norio Honaga & El Samurai b Tatsuhito
Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani & Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Ric Flair b Randy Savage, Sting & Great
Muta b Road Warriors, Shinya Hashimoto & Riki Choshu b Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka, WCW title: The Giant b Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki), IWGP tag title:
Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka to win titles
Special thanks to: Richard Riegler, Eddie Sharkey, Ron Lemieux, Ed Aherns, Gregg
John, Peggy Watkins, Dan Parris, Lewis Crain, Dan Curtis, Marv Rubin, Georgiann
Makropolous, Dominick Valenti, David Millican, Joel Lerman, Tim Wright, Jerry Lane,
Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Jesse Money, Joseph Mangiuaracina Jr., Jacob Gilbert, Dean
Ayass, Billy Anderson, Frank Mott, Greg Klein
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
6/23 ALL JAPAN: 1. Baba & Tsuruta & Ogawa beat Izumida & Omori & Honda when
Tsuruta pinned Izumida with a back suplex. Basic comedy match. DUD; 2. Albright &
Kimala II beat Kobashi & Mossman. The match was real good when Albright was in
against either foe. Mossman and Albright have really improved as pro wrestlers over the
past six months. The match went downhill when Kimala II was in, but overall he was
okay. Mossman is going to be a superstar someday, and that day may be fairly soon.
There was a huge pop when Mossman gave II a moonsault off the middle rope because
people thought it might be an upset. Finally II pinned Mossman with a splash off the top
rope. ***1/4
6/30 ALL JAPAN: 1. Williams pinned Mossman after a Dr. bomb. Williams gave
Mossman a lot of offense in this match. Mossman throws kicks about as well as any non-
Japanese wrestler in the entire business. Williams even let Mossman kick out of his
Oklahoma Stampede. **1/2; 2. Misawa & Akiyama beat Kobashi & Dyette. This was not
only Dyette's first television match, but it was as a Korakuen Hall main event. They
announced him as a former outside linebacker for the Denver Broncos and New Orleans
Saints. I'm assuming he went to camp with those teams but never made the teams. He's
only been wrestling two months and is a protege of Williams. He's got height with a lithe
build, kind of like a taller Joel Deaton, but it was way too early for him to be in a main
event. He wasn't like an Akiyama or a Juventud Guerrera where you could pretty well
see he was going to be a superstar from his first match. He's probably better than
McMichael as a technician but doesn't have McMichael's ring personality, although in
this promotion that really wouldn't mean much anyway. They are having him do
basically a combination Niagara Driver and Diesel jackknife as a finisher, but he screwed
it up badly three times as he couldn't get Akiyama on his shoulders. Once he couldn't get
him up, another time he collapsed with him on his shoulders and a third time he
clumsily got him in the position. Finally Akiyama pinned Dyette after two exploiter
suplexes. The other three were all excellent. **3/4
MAY BUSINESS COMPARISON
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 5/95 3,440
Estimated average attendance 5/96 5,890* (+71.2%)
April 1996 4,485*
Estimated average gate 5/95 $43,250
Estimated average gate 5/96 $95,214* (+120.1%)
April 1996 $51,477*
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/95 16.7
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/96 16.7*
April 1996 50.0*
Average cable television rating 5/95 2.3
Average cable television rating 5/96 2.2 (-4.3%)
April 1996 2.2
Major show 1995: In Your House PPV (7,000/3,500 paid/$51,748/est. 0.83 buy
rate/est. $1.26 million
Major show 1996: In Your House PPV (6,000/4,796 paid/$63,435/est. 0.45 buy
rate/est. $561,000 [est. figure due to massive refunds from confusion over power
blackout])
Buy rate -45.8%; Overall event revenue -52.7%
*Dates outside of North America not included in average
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 5/95 **
Estimated average attendance 5/96 2,750
April 1996 3,790
Estimated average gate 5/95 **
Estimated average gate 5/96 $31,580
April 1996 $40,230
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/95 **
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/96 0.0
April 1996 9.1
Average cable television rating 5/95 1.9
Average cable television rating 5/96 1.9
April 1996 2.1
Major show 1995: Slamboree (7,000 fans/4,700 paid/$94,000/est. 0.57 buy rate/est.
$1.46 million)
Major show 1996: Slamboree (7,791 fans/6,308 paid/$104,760/est. 0.44 buy rate/est.
$1.24 million)
Buy rate -22.8%; Overall event revenue -13.5%
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 5/95 2,630
Estimated average attendance 5/96 2,610 (-0.8%)
April 1996 2,680
Estimated average gate 5/95 $127,010
Estimated average gate 5/96 $109,850 (-13.5%)
April 1996 $114,850
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/95 37.5
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/96 33.3
April 1996 50.0
Average television rating 5/95 2.3
Average television rating 5/96 2.8 (+21.7%)
April 1996 2.9
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 5/95 2,330
Estimated average attendance 5/96 3,920 (+68.2%)
April 1996 4,230*
Estimated average gate 5/95 $98,000
Estimated average gate 5/96 $188,690 (+92.5%)
April 1996 $215,000*
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/95 20.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 5/96 55.6
April 1996 100.0*
Average television rating 5/95 1.9
Average television rating 5/96 3.8 (+100.0%)
April 1996 1.9
*Only two shows were held in 4/96 besides Tokyo Dome which makes comparisons
misleading
EMLL
Don't have much in the way of news, but the biggest matches of the past week were a
hair vs. hair match with La Fiera vs. Kahoz on 7/9 at Arena Coliseo and the main show of
the week on 7/12 at Arena Mexico was headlined by Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis & El
Hijo del Santo vs. Canek & Apolo Dantes & ***** Casas which was done to set up a tag
title match, plus Lizmark & Shocker & Bronco vs. El Satanico & Bestia Salvaje & Black
Warrior to set up Black Warrior vs. Bronco in a mask vs. mask match.
The 7/19 Arena Mexico show is headlined by Rayo & Atlantis defending the CMLL tag
titles against Canek & Dantes and the Warrior-Bronco mask match along with Vampiro
& Mascara Sagrada & Dos Caras vs. Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 & Mano Negra
and the EMLL return of Martha Villalobos jumping from AAA. Satanico defends the
CMLL middleweight title against Lizmark on 7/21 at Arena Coliseo.
AAA
The major show of the week was 7/12 in Zacatecas with them attempting to repeat the
angle that put business over the top last year--Perro Aguayo getting busted open with a
beer bottle. This time it was Villano III who did the honors. Perro Aguayo Jr., who has
been out of action since December since his father wanted him to put on more weight
before returning, pretty much made his return doing a run-in after the angle. Super
Muneco, who is a full-fledged heel now, turned on mini Super Munequito in the
undercard. Mascarita Sagrada Jr. did the move of the show, a Hector Garza corkscrew
plancha from the top rope to the floor, made more amazing since he can't be three feet
tall.
Title situation this week was really strange. In both Phoenix and Los Angeles, Rey
Misterio Jr. went into the ring with the Mexican welterweight title and in both cities lost
it in two straight falls to Psicosis in matches that were major disappointments. Both guys
were banged up, particularly their knees, from all the hot moves they had done for
WCW, and Misterio Jr. had to save himself with TripleMania and the WAR Sumo Hall
dates upcoming, but even so, could you imagine those two doing a *1/4 match? In
Tijuana, La Parka came to the ring with the IWAS heavyweight title belt (which Konnan
holds) but they billed it as a light heavyweight title match (which Damian last held only a
few weeks ago) and retained it beating Misterioso in a very good match that went about
25:00 and had near falls and topes galore in the third fall. Parka was the star of the
show. WCW decided against using Parka because they felt American fans wouldn't like
his costume or his comedy but invited him to come in sans both and he didn't want to do
so.
It appears right now they've "learned" from some of the smaller U.S. offices to just bill
whomever as whatever champion and throw a belt on him for the house shows.
The undercards saw womens triangular matches with Shitara, Natasha and La Sirenita
that can be best described as among the worst matches ever. In more ECW type stuff,
Pierroth Jr. ended up slapping, punching and kicking Sirenita after the matches. There
was one impressive newcomer called Badd Blood, a skinny manager who was very active
around ringside and took some great bumps (real name B.J. Darden from San Pedro,
CA, 22).
ALL JAPAN
Basically an eventful week leading up to the Budokan show. The only major card of the
week was 7/11 in Hakata Star Lanes before a sellout 2,500 with a somewhat unique main
event where Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi beat Giant Baba & Mitsuharu
Misawa & Tamon Honda when Taue pinned Honda, and Kenta Kobashi went to a 30:00
draw against Jun Akiyama.
7/7 TV show did a 1.8 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The first of the two-nights in Sapporo on 7/16 drew a sellout 6,400 fans with Ric Flair,
Randy Savage, Sting and The Giant from WCW on the card. Giant retained the WCW
title pinning Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki) with a choke slam in 4:53 in a match fans
got into. It must have looked like quite a size difference because without anything in his
boots, Power is legitimately around 5-7. Sting teamed with Great Muta to beat The Road
Warriors when Muta pinned Hawk. It was the first loss for the Road Warriors, who had
worked six-mans with Power Warrior, thus far in the tour. Since they were building to a
Shinya Hashimoto IWGP title defense on 7/17 against Ric Flair, it meant that Flair had
to go over on Randy Savage, which he did in 11:27. The only report we got is the crowd
was dead for this match as the Sapporo fans weren't into the guys working American
style. The main event on the show saw Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan capture the
IWGP tag team titles beating Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka, who had held the titles
only five weeks, when Chono used the STF on Iizuka in 22:17. Yamazaki missed part of
the tour with an injury and Chono & Tenzan mainly worked him over during the match.
The other top match on the show was Hashimoto & Riki Choshu beat Tatsumi Fujinami
& Shiro Koshinaka when Hashimoto pinned Fujinami with a high angle DDT in 10:35.
The 7/17 show besides Hashimoto vs. Flair, had Giant vs. Sting and Savage vs. Jushin
Liger so Savage could split matches on the tour.
The rest of the tour had nothing really special and nothing special crowds either.
The final wrestler in the junior heavyweight tournament at G-1 still hasn't been
announced.
TV ratings for the show moved to a Monday 2 a.m. time slot on 7/1 only did an 0.9, but
they rebounded back to a 2.6 in the regular time slot on 7/6.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
We still only have sketchy details on the injuries suffered by Bas Rutten in a 7/4 auto
accident in Holland. According to the reports, injuries haven't been specified but Rutten
is expected to be bedridden until the end of the month and it is questionable whether
he'll recover in time for his scheduled 9/7 title match against Masakatsu Funaki.
Apparently Tarzan Yamamoto, after leaving Weekly Pro Wrestling in the wake of the war
with New Japan, said that by his leaving that it was a sign that any journalism within
Japanese pro wrestling is now dead. Actually, we've gotten somewhat of a different
response from people this week in Japan. Yamamoto had made a lot of enemies and
there were people happy to see him "lose the war." However, now that everyone has
really thought about the repercussions of this, we are getting people who recognize just
how dangerous the results of this story are and that it gives New Japan a dangerous
amount of power when it comes to controlling the media.
The line between shooting and working continues to grow thinner. On 7/14, there was a
card of Shootboxing, a Japanese shoot sport that combines kick boxing with wrestling
throws, trips and take downs (no ground work) at Ariake Coliseum, and on the card was
a UFC rules match between Kimo and Kazushi Sakuraba of UWFI. Kimo won the match
in 4:20 with a shoulder submission. However, after the match, it was announced that
Kimo had signed for two matches with UWFI on its stadium shows, facing Yoshihiro
Takayama on 8/17 at Jingu Stadium and facing Yoji Anjoh on the 9/11 Jingu Stadium
show. They even did a pro wrestling angle out of it as if Kimo loses to Anjoh, he must
join the Golden Cups, so clearly this entire thing is a storyline to make Kimo a pro
wrestler and thus Sakuraba needed to put him over to give him credibility for the bigger
matches down the line. In a similar vein, that same day, there was a pro wrestling show
billed as the Martial Arts Festival at Korakuen Hall with Koji Kitao in a UFC match
against Glen Jacobs (Isaac Yankem from WWF), with Kitao winning with a sleeper in
3:27. Clearly Jacobs was there to put Kitao over since Kitao's rep took a pounding from
Mark Hall and Pedro Otarvio in real matches. We pretty much know that an American
pro wrestler with some shoot background was asked to work for Kitao to put Kitao over
and rebuild Kitao's reputation. Since the Kimo match was on a shoot show and the fans
went in thinking shooting, it's one thing. The Kitao-Jacobs match was on a pro wrestling
show, so basically in context it was more like the Taz-Paul Varelans deal rather than a
fixed shoot match.
UWFI announced the following for the 8/17 Jingu Stadium show--Takada vs. Anjoh,
Genichiro Tenryu vs. ? (rumored to be Tarzan Goto), Satoru Sayama vs. Gran Hamada,
Yuhi Sano vs. ?, Takayama vs. Kimo, Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei & ? vs. Kishin
Kawabata & Shigeo Okumura & Gekko in a six-man from Tokyo Pro Wrestling,
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Eloo Maduro and Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Dutch Windmill. With
no New Japan involvement, this is a terrible line-up for such a major show.
FMW announced the main event of its outdoor show on 8/1 at the Tokyo Shiodome as
Terry Funk vs. Mr. Pogo in a electrified explosive match. Funk will be the heel as Pogo
just turned face in FMW. The other top matches of the FMW tour that starts 7/21 at
Korakuen Hall will be the semifinals of the group's tournament to crown an
Independent World heavyweight champion with Wing Kanemura vs. Super Leather and
Masato Tanaka vs. Hisakatsu Oya (title match will be on the 8/1 show) and on 7/31 will
have the six man street fight world title with Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda defending against The Gladiator & Oya & Ricky Fuji.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling begins its next tour on 7/23 with Sabu, Abdullah the Butcher, Billy
Black and Black Wazama (Too Cold Scorpio) among others. The first show will be a free
outdoor show at Atami Sun Beach as part of an outdoor fireworks festival similar to
WCW's Bash at the Beach and the expectation is that this will draw tons more than
WCW did under the same circumstances. They run Korakuen Hall on 7/24 with Sabu vs.
Wazama and Takashi Ishikawa & Anjoh & Kawabata vs. Abdullah & Black & Benkei.
Oleg Taktarov signed to work the Universal Vale Tudo show on 8/4 at Tokyo Bay NK
Hall. They are trying to put together a main event against Marco Ruas, but that hasn't
been put together as of yet.
Pancrase announced its shows for 7/22 and 7/23, both at Korakuen Hall. The highlight
will be the Neo Blood (New blood basically) tournament with the first round matches
being Osami Shibuya vs. Kim Jon Won of Korea, Kunioku Kiuma vs. Peter Williams
(making his Pancrase debut, Kenichiro Yamamia making his debut vs. Satoshi
Hasegawa, also making his debut, and the top match of the first round will be Yuki
Kondo vs. Semmy Schiltt. Two other matches will be Ryushi Yanagisawa vs. Yoshiki
Takahashi and Frank Shamrock vs. Manabu Yamada. The 7/23 show will have the
semifinals and finals of the tournament, plus Funaki vs. Takafumi Ito and Minoru
Suzuki vs. Vernon White.
The main event on the RINGS 8/24 show at the Ariake Coliseum will be Yoshihisa
Yamamoto vs. Ricardo Morais, a Brazilian who will be managed by Renzo Gracie, that
won one of the UFC events in Russia. Morais is listed at 6-8, 250 and is a Gracie student
from Rio de Janiero. As I said, the line grows thinner as this would be the first Gracie
family remember to participate in what is pro wrestling.
All Japan women opened its singles Grand Prix tournament to determine the contenders
ratings for Manami Toyota's world belt on 7/14 at Korakuen Hall. In the main event,
Yumiko Hotta, who is getting the monster push as the shooter, beat Aja Kong in 14:06
with a chicken wing cross face while other first day tourney results saw Takako Inoue
beat Tomoko Watanabe, Mima Shimoda over Kaoru Ito and Reggie Bennett over
Toshiyo Yamada.
USWA
Because he had to stay in Connecticut an extra day to film the impromptu angle where
Sid replaced Ultimate Warrior in the PPV main event, Ahmed Johnson no-showed the
main event on the 7/8 show and was replaced by Brian Christopher, who beat Jeff
Jarrett via DQ when Tony Falk interfered. Also on the show, Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee
lost the USWA tag titles back to Bart Sawyer & Flex Kabana in a match where Kabana
put up his hair.
The 7/15 show was scheduled to have Jarrett defend against Sid Vicious.
ECW
Other notes from the 7/13 ECW Arena. Inside Edition was there filming for an upcoming
segment. The opener saw The Gangstas destroyed the Samoan Gangsta Tribe in 2:30.
This was basically Heyman having an ECW team destroy a WWF team (even though the
latter never actually worked as a team on WWF television other than standing in the
aisle). Mikey Whipwreck beat Paul Lauria, and after the match the Eliminators did a
run-in and destroyed Mikey and then challenged Sabu. Mikey & Sabu came out for an
impromptu tag match which was said to have been very good, ending when they used
the Total elimination on Mikey. The Dudleys (Buh Buh Ray & Dances With & Big Dick)
beat J.T. Smith & Little Guido & Big Guido (area indie wrestler Primo Carnera III) in a
match reported as being totally messed up when Dick pinned Big Guido. The match was
basically to set up another Big Dick vs. D-Von confrontation which got great heat.
On 7/12 in Allentown, PA before an estimated 900, main event saw Terry Gordy &
Tommy Dreamer beat Raven & Brian Lee in a brawl all over the building, Eliminators
beat Gangstas in a bloody bath among the top matches. Crowd was pretty hot for most of
the show. Best match was said to have been a draw with Chris Jericho defending the TV
title against Shane Douglas. There were some reported bad matches on the show as well,
Sabu vs. Hack Myers and in particular a Bad Crew tag match against Havoc Inc. that was
embarrassing.
Only matches we know of for 8/3 at ECW Arena are Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam in a
stretcher match, Eliminators, Gangstas, Samoan Gangsta Tribe and Bruise Brothers in a
four-corners tag match and perhaps Sandman vs. Raven for the title although that hasn't
been confirmed. Talk of people like Vampiro, Dr. Wagner Jr. and Johnny Smith headed
in.
On Los Angeles Prime (not sure if this holds true for anywhere else), the show has been
moved from 2 a.m. on Friday nights to 3 a.m. on Monday nights.
Exaggeration of the week. The three table bump Dreamer took on the previous show off
the elevated section near the balcony was billed on television as a 25 foot drop. If it was,
then the Bruise Brothers, who were setting up the table, are about 23 feet tall each.
HERE AND THERE
There will be a Memorial BBQ for Dick Murdoch on 7/28 at the Caravan Club on 3801
Olson Blvd. in Amarillo at 3 p.m. with a band playing at night.
A correction from last week's issue. Hulk Hogan's AWA arena debut where the fans
turned him babyface on August 9, 1981 took place at the Minneapolis Auditorium rather
than the St. Paul Civic Center as reported.
The "return of the AWA" (basically Dale Gagner using the name to promote shows but
with no involvement of the Gagnes) on 7/8 in Rochester, MN ended up being a three
match show with Nailz vs. Charlie Norris on top. Jonnie Stewart became the new AWA
heavyweight champion beating Twin Turbo in a match to determine the champ.
Former pro wrestler Ray Eckert, who was a star in the 40s and 50s, passed away this
past week at the age of 79.
Border City Wrestling on 8/16 in LaSalle, ONT is holding the Mickey Doyle retirement
show with Doyle & Scott D'Amore vs. Zip & Leif Cassidy, Doink vs. Brooklyn Brawler
and Dan Severn (billed in his only pro wrestling match in the Detroit area in 1996) vs.
Geza Kalman Jr.
The 7/12 USA pro wrestling show in Birmingham, AL which went head-to-head with
UFC using Bob Armstrong, Tommy Rich and Abdullah the Butcher drew approximately
800, which isn't bad for an indie these days. Don't have results but Abdullah no-showed.
Sunshine Wrestling Federation on 7/22 in Miami and Dave & Mary Alper JCC.
Ray Camerena, a Bill Anderson trainee known as Dick Danger, suffered a head injury on
7/7 when he cracked his head on the floor doing a dive in a match in San Bernardino. An
ambulance had to be called, but Camerena is doing fine now.
UFC
The August issue of Mad Magazine had a UFC spoof.
Syracuse, NY is still the tentative site for the 9/20 PPV show, although on the broadcast
when announcing the next date, no location was announced nor was an announcement
made about ticket sales.
The bill to regulate UFC in New York passed the state legislature 148-0 on 7/12, so it is
being sent to Gov. Pataki. The law won't go into effect until 120 days after the Governor
signs it (if he does, but since it won by that high a margin, a veto appears would be easily
overridden) so legally that wouldn't affect the Syracuse deal.
When warming up for the 600 bench on television, Abbott repped out with 500.
WCW
Nitro on 7/15 at Disney Studios saw Rick & Scott Steiner beat Ice Train & Scott Norton
in 10:43 when Rick pinned Train with a german suplex after Train accidentally splashed
Norton when Rick moved. After the match they did an interview where Teddy Long
came out to act as the peacemaker and Norton shoved him down, which infuriated
Train. It looked staged to the max. Dean Malenko beat Billy Kidman in 5:13 with a Texas
cloverleaf in a match where both guys looked great. Kidman has a lot of potential. Kevin
Greene, who got no pop, challenged Steve McMichael right then and there since he
started camp the next day. Harlem Heat kept the tag titles beating Dick Slater & Mike
Enos in 7:39 when Sherri kissed Slater, who was then schoolboyed by Booker T. In
WWF, guys lose when they get kissed by a member of the same sex, in WCW they lose
when they kissed by a member of the opposite sex. Madusa beat Malia Hosaka in 4:07
with a german suplex. It was okay. They tried to act like Hosaka was a Japanese wrestler.
Well, she's of Japanese ancestry. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall than put the letters NWO
over the WCW letters. Fans were chanting Razor and Diesel at them and they were total
babyfaces. Meng pinned Arn Anderson when Barbarian interfered in 10:58. Terrible
match. Well, that was what the finish was supposed to be anyway, although Barbarian
basically missed the clothesline that was to lead to the finish. McMichael and his wife
came out. Debra wasn't polished but whoever came up with what she said did a great
job. They challenged Greene, who had already left. Eddie Guerrero beat Chris Benoit via
count out in 9:38 when Malenko posted Benoit in a ***1/2 match. Finale saw a TV title
match with Lex Luger vs. Bubba ending with no decision when Nash and Hall came out
at 11:30. Nash jackknifed Luger and Hulk Hogan came out and slapped him around.
Hogan then shook Bubba's hand but Hall and Nash jumped him and they beat him up as
well. Hogan did another good interview with the main line saying that Savage has
blamed him for three years about breaking up their marriage when it was Savage who
couldn't rise to the occasion. Fans threw a ton of stuff at Hogan once again. It looked
staged on television because it was all empty plastic bottles, but those live said it was
definitely not staged and they were going after fans left and right because fans were
nearly getting hit with all the stuff thrown. They tried to make Hogan a heel but 60% of
the crowd was for him but he turned himself into a heel with his interview. Earlier in the
show the fans were chanting for Hogan. Steiners, Meng, Barbarian and Anderson all
came out and surrounded the ring while Hogan, Nash and Hall were in the ring as the
show went off the air. They really buried their own talent in the commentary because the
entire show had the announcers say that with Sting, Flair, Savage and Giant gone, that
the "only one left" was Luger (since he was the one they were doing the angle with)
which pretty much tells everyone where the rest of the wrestlers stand. The Disney
studio they do Nitro at holds 450 people, and the reservations are full through early
August. I don't like the look of the TV show at Disney because you feel like you're
watching little league baseball or adult softball in these makeshift grandstands, but there
isn't much of a choice since all the Turner trucks are covering the Olympics. It was a
better show than most of the two-hour shows.
TV ratings the past two weeks. For 7/8, Nitro did a 3.5 and 6.3 share (3.3 first hour, 3.7
second hour) as compared with Raw doing a 2.5 and 4.1 share. Nitro replay did a 1.6 and
3.8 share, once again breaking the all-time record. For 7/15, built around Hogan, the
show did a 3.4 rating and 5.8 share (3.3 and 3.5 in respective hours) do a 2.6 and 4.2 for
Raw. Nitro replay did a 1.8, breaking the record yet again, with a 4.2 share. Other ratings
for the weekend of 7/6 saw WCW Saturday Night do a 2.5, Main Event a 2.2 and Pro a
1.3, while for 7/13, Saturday did a 3.0 which is phenomenal for the summer, Main Event
a 2.0 and Pro a 1.5.
Complete line-up for the Hog Wild PPV show on 8/10 is Giant vs. Hogan (billed now as
Hollywood Hulk Hogan), Luger & Sting vs. Hall & Nash, Flair defends U.S. title against
Guerrero, Harlem Heat defends tag titles against Steiners, Rey Misterio Jr. defends
cruiserweight title against Ultimo Dragon, Benoit vs. Malenko, Madusa vs. Bull Nakano
with the loser getting their motorcycle destroyed by the winner and Ice Train vs. Norton.
The week was spent at Disney with tapings every night. The Saturday Night show was
taped on 7/9. About the only item of interest was the debut of The Leprechaun (Buddy
Lee Parker, real name Dwayne Bruce) as a member of the Dungeon of Doom who likes
Jimmy Hart but is afraid of Kevin Sullivan. Misterio Jr. beat Psicosis in a quickie. They
had a screw-up in that the cheerleaders thought Greg Valentine was a face so they had
the crowd cheer him wildly to make it appear he was really over. Konnan wore an eye
patch selling the lousy high heel hit from the PPV in a match with Top Gun (David
Cannell). Konnan did a run-in in a Horseman match but wound up getting beaten on,
while main event saw Harlem Heat beat Public Enemy.
During the week, besides tapings, they ran regular matches as attractions at Disney, two
matches every few hours to give young guys experience. However, the odds of WCW
moving its offices from Atlanta to Disney appear to have decreased from most accounts.
Nash & Hall are working house shows against Luger & Sting starting 7/24 in Cincinnati.
For Baltimore on 8/16, it'll be Giant vs. Savage, Hall & Nash vs. Sting & Luger, Flair vs.
Konnan, Sullivan vs. Benoit falls count anywhere, Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis, Guerrero vs.
Anderson, Steiners vs. Public Enemy and Regal vs. Malenko.
Upcoming Nitros after they are done at Disney will be 8/12 in Casper, WY, 8/19 in
Huntsville, AL, 8/26 in Palmetto, FL, 9/2 in Chattanooga, 9/9 in Columbus, GA, 9/16 in
Asheville, 9/23 in Roanoke and 9/30 in Cleveland. Tapings for Saturday Night will be at
Disney until 8/13 in Colorado Springs, 8/20 in Dalton, GA, 8/27 back at Disney, 9/4 in
Gainesville, GA, 9/11 in Macon, GA, 9/18 in Dalton, GA and 9/25 in Anderson, SC.
Not a lot of news value out of the Disney tapings for World Wide. Psicosis had a very
good match with Billy Kidman. Kidman was put over clean, and you can make what you
want out of that. Actually they taped three good matches in a row at one point, with that
bout, Blue Bloods vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong and a Chris Benoit win over Eddie
Guerrero. Besides Leprechaun, the only newcomer at the tapings was Chavo Guerrero
Jr. (real name Salvador Guerrero III), who tagged with Eddie and was said to have
looked pretty good. Norton worked matches as a heel.
Still no sign of Blood Runs Cold, who were supposed to debut this month.
The WWF/WCW lawsuit is getting serious as depositions are being taken.
Amazing coincidence department. A newsletter called Ambivalent Response (65-05 79th
Pl., Queens, NY 11379--kind of heavily intellectual coverage of wrestling) made a
comment about the Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis match, not from the PPV but from the J Cup
in December saying "it may prove to be, not the first pro wrestling match of the 21st
century, but the last of the 20th century," eerily similar to a readers comment regarding
last week's match.
WWF
The latest on the Jim Hellwig saga is, despite all sorts of rumors, no change from last
week. Vince McMahon said on Raw that Hellwig's lawyer and WWF have had dialogue
so they were keeping his name alive, but Titan has made no plans for his return nor is he
written into future plans. The story is the appearance bond he's supposed to place before
being allowed back will be closer to $250,000 than $100,000. Hellwig made an on-line
message that largely made no sense in response to claims he missed the show due to a
contract dispute, saying he missed the shows because his father passed away and denied
it was contractually related, and said, "If resolving my personal issues and protecting the
way I chose to believe puts me in the WWF dog house as stated on the money-making 1-
900 line, then so be it. Bow-wow and kiss my ass. Always believe." Hellwig's father, Tom
Hellwig passed away at the age of 58 on 6/30 in Hollywood, FL, and as everyone
continually points out, Hellwig missed shows both on 6/28 and 6/29.
McMahon mentioned the death of Bret & Owen Hart's nephew on Raw.
Expect major changes in television come September. Syndication is expected to take yet
another hit so WWF will be more reliant than ever on cable.
Kevin Kelly debuted on the air doing voiceovers of the Superstars matches for the Action
Zone and Mania shows with Jim Ross doing color.
There is unhappiness among the talent regarding Hellwig walking out, but there is also
feeling that he's done it before and he was still pushed to the moon when he came back.
For similar reasons, the Sid situation has similar feelings in that Sid is a poor worker,
and he was never over like Warrior was, has a shoddy track record and the minute he
comes back, he's again pushed to the moon ahead of guys who have a better track record
and more ability and some who have as big or bigger names. Timing is everything.
Sid is even more limited as a worker this time because he suffered a serious neck injury
last year and is afraid because of warnings from his doctor to take any bumps. That's one
of the reasons they are doing all these one minute matches with him.
Cable ratings for the past two weekends was weekend of 7/6 saw Mania and 1.3 and
Action Zone at 1.7, and for 7/13, Mania did 1.3 and Action Zone 1.5.
The situation with Davey Boy Smith is that Linda McMahon sent a five-year contract to
his lawyer but at press time he hasn't signed it although that delay may be partially
because of the family tragedy. Barry Windham was also sent a contract but hadn't signed
at press time but is expected to sign.
Weekend house shows were 7/11 in Albany, NY drawing 4,579 and $66,946; 7/12 in
Worcester, MA drawing 4,556 and $73,630; 7/13 in Portland, ME drawing 3,314 and
$52,529 and 7/14 in Bangor, ME drawing 2,022 and $34,238. Results were the same
every night, with Shawn Michaels over Vader on top in 5-8 minutes with the superkick,
Sid getting the quick win over Bulldog, Bodydonnas winning the four-team, etc. The
Ahmed Johnson-Goldust finishes saw Johnson first win via count out, but after the
match he kept giving Goldust Pearl River plunges until the ref DQ'd him. In all cities,
they announced about Warrior not being there and offered refunds. In Albany, they
already put tickets on sale at the show for a Raw taping which takes place on 12/30.
WWF has pulled out of Boston because the rent and union costs of running the new
Fleet Center make break-even too high, so they'll concentrate on the Worcester Centrum
instead.
They did a segment with T.J. Hopper as a plumber with him bending over as his pants
going down and his butt showing. Both Curt Hennig and Jerry Lawler on the respective
shows came back with the "Say No to crack" line.
On Raw on 7/15, they ran a storyline throughout the show taped a few days earlier in
Hartford, CT (not at a house show, they just brought the guys to the Civic Center and
spliced it into the show as an angle where Camp Cornette ambushed Michaels and
Johnson and Sid came driving up in a Lincoln and nearly crashed into the building
before chasing the heels away into their own car. It wasn't a good angle (actually it was
pretty lame) but it was good that they got something done. Originally in the show for
that week was the angle where Warrior, Michaels and Johnson made the comeback on
Camp Cornette in the ring taped in Green Bay.
McMahon is making an effort to sign a lot of the key guys to five-year deals as he
apparently wants to avoid more Hall/Nash situations.
1-2-3 Kid was given his release this past week and he's expected to join WCW's
Outsiders.
WWF will be running simultaneous international tours in December, one group going to
Korea, Australia, Singapore and Philippines and the other to United Kingdom and
United Arab Emerates.
Raymond Rougeau is said to have lost 20 pounds and is even cut training for his match
with Owen Hart on 8/2.
THE READERS PAGES
WCW
There have been numerous comments about the momentum lost by WCW from the
lackluster Monday Nitro broadcast from Disney on 7/8 following the incredible Hulk
Hogan angle at the previous night's PPV show.
I agree with those comments 100%. However, the problem with Nitro had little to do
with the performance of the wrestlers or even the booking. It was the setting and the
crowd.
I've attended many Disney tapings over the past two years. Admittedly, the set looks
good on television, and WCW loves going there, due to the state-of-the-art equipment,
the red carpet treatment from Disney officials, and ongoing negotiations concerning a
long-term Disney relationship.
As has been reported, the vast majority of attendees at Disney tapings aren't wrestling
fans. The crowd mainly consists of Disney park visitors looking for a quick respite from
the heat. As for the crowd for the 7/8 Nitro, I'd be willing to bet that less than 10 percent
of them attended, saw or were even aware of what happened at the previous night's PPV
show. I'm not even sure if the front row that was on camera knew they were at a pro
wrestling taping, or they were at the "Indiana Jones" stunt exhibit across the street.
Additionally, the lackadaisical exiting of the crowd directly behind Nash & Hall being
interviewed by Gene Okerlund at the end of the show looked real bad.
I attended the show in Daytona Beach. The heat, anger and emotion from the crowd at
the end was unlike anything I've seen in more than 20 years of going to wrestling
matches. One of the guys I was with commented that it was reminiscent of the near-riot
mentality of a 1970s crowd in the Midwest when Ernie Ladd turned heel. WCW's brass
needs to realize that real, non-manufactured emotion must be captured on the
company's No. 1 television show in order to give credibility to their angles. The Disney
setting is fine for shows such as WCW Pro and World Wide, which usually feature noncompetitive
matches, but for Nitro, Saturday Night, Clashes and PPV shows, it's all
wrong.
Name withheld by request
One thing I'd like to point out about the angle being challenged by Vince McMahon on
some of the legal charges. There is a Pepsi commercial that still airs that shows a man in
a "Coke" outfit putting Cokes in the cooler, and then trying to sneak a Pepsi, and having
the cooler spill its load. This sounds like a perfect parallel to the WWF's charges of
copyright infringement, and in particular Trade Dress infringement and False and
Misleading Descriptions. One would think as big a cola war that's out there that Coke
would, if they could win, file similar charges. If Choke refused to file charges, why should
a court waste time hearing the same charges in a pro wrestling dispute? The man
dressed in the "Coke" outfit is Nash and Hall. He's portraying a Coca Cola employee and
getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, when we all know he really works for
Pepsi. I don't see any trailers saying "This man does not work for Coca Cola, and his
portrayal of a Coca Cola employee, when he in fact is a PepsiCo employee is merely false
advertising on the part of PepsiCo and should not be construed as working for Coca
Cola.
Joey Sprinkle
Roseburg, Oregon
OLYMPIC ARTICLE
I enjoyed the article about the Olympics very much. But it raised an interesting question.
How good were the so-called shooters of pro wrestling? For instance, you mentioned
that Karl Gotch is generally considered one of, if not the best, shooter by the other
wrestlers. But he didn't even medal in the Olympics.
It seems that, with just a few exceptions, when those who later turned pro were
competing in real contests against the best in the world, they came up short. And most of
those who did win gold medals didn't stay in pro wrestling very long.
Don't get me wrong. I know it's a great feat to be a national champion or just to make an
Olympic team. But to be a world champion or Olympic champion means taking it up to
another level.
In a couple of recent articles you've mentioned a book called Wrestling Title Histories.
I'd appreciate it very much if you could print ordering information for the book.
Charles Oliver
Los Angeles, California
DM: The book is available for $40 from Royal Duncan, 7600 N. Galena Rd.,
Peoria, IL 61615.
PANCRASE
Allow me to interject my opinion of Pancrase. The recent PPV confirmed my longstanding
belief that Pancrase is a shoot. Sure, there are instances of showboating but
isn't that the case in almost every sport? If Pancrase is a work, the matches would have a
different kind of entertainment value, which they don't. They would have longer time
limits so they could build up drama. The wrestlers would sell moves, which they don't.
The Japanese top stars would win more often than they do. From the very beginning,
I've always believed Pancrase was legit.
Let's look at the first show they ever ran. On September 21, 1993 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall,
there were five matches. Collectively, they lasted a total of 15 minutes with the longest
match lasting six minutes. No pro wrestling promoter would ever book a show to run
that short. I doubt anyone would pay the high ticket prices they charge if there was even
a hint that what they were seeing wasn't real.
I enjoyed Pancrase more than UFC because the style has more discipline and
sophistication to it. Pancrase wrestlers are better technically than their UFC
counterparts so their matches are more entertaining to watch. However, most of the
time, but not always, I prefer fake over real for reasons of escapism and its ability to
build drama and for entertainment value.
With all the air time given lately to Woman, Elizabeth, Deborah McMichael, Sunny,
Diana Smith, Sable, etc. not to mention the cast of lesbians and bimbos in ECW, I'm glad
to see the womens side of pro wrestling isn't being ignored. All we need now is the
revival of GLOW.
Meanwhile in Japan, Megumi Kudo is getting herself cut to shreds in her quest to
become the female Onita. Well, Bruce Lee begat Angela Mao and Sonny Chiba begat
Yukari Oshima. I should have been Kudo's career path coming. The pictures from her
barbed wire match on the 5/5 Kawasaki Stadium show in Weekly Pro Wrestling were
brutal. I wonder what Kudo or the other women who get kicked stiffly in the face have if
they knew if they came to the United States, all they would have to do is engage in a little
sexual innuendo and stereotypical roles. Their integrity as performers would be shot, but
their health wouldn't be at risk.
Its ironic to see the roles women play in pro wrestling here and in Japan. It's like a
reversal of real life. American women in general play significant roles in our society and
are considered equals to men in most business, pro wrestling being a rare exception.
Japanese women play a less significant subservient role in their society and are expected
to stay home and raise children, although that perception has changed in recent years.
The ECW TV is starting to go downhill. There are several things about the show which I
usually don't pay attention to that are now getting on my nerves. They've gone back to
showing only one entire match per show, leaving too much time for countless promos.
I'm not interested in seeing who is wrestling in Glenolden, PA twenty times in an hour. I
won't vote for Joey Styles for best announcer anymore no matter how many moves he
calls correctly. I've never minded that his style is loud and overbearing, but week after
week, he's turning into an Eric Bischoff type of shill. Styles is now as annoying as the
fans who chant "ECW" just because somebody does a crazy move. Like no wrestlers ever
used tables or chairs or did crazy flying moves in other promotions. I could name at least
a half-dozen promotions world wide that ECW has either copied from or been influenced
by. I also don't see the appeal of Tommy Dreamer. I've seen him in person and he comes
across as a very likeable person, but the persona he plays on television is another story.
On television he comes off as arrogant and unlikable. He's just an average wrestler doing
a hardcore gimmick. I guess he needs to put this rough edge on his personality in order
to appeal to the ECW fans. If I see anymore of Shane Douglas' self-absorbed interviews,
I'll kick in my TV screen. I'm hopeful ECW will revert back to last year's form because if
it doesn't, I'm voting for Monday Night Raw as the best show in this year's awards. In
1996, it has been the most entertaining hour of wrestling.
Ramon Lores
Flushing, New York
ECW
I recently read your description of the first Sabu-Rob Van Dam match in ECW and all I
can say is, what the hell is your problem? In my opinion, and that of just about
everybody who saw it, the match was amazing and one of the three best matches in this
country thus far this year.
You said the match had only one element and went on to say there were tons of missed
spots, no intensity and no believability. Is this really how you saw this match? This is
one of the most asinine descriptions I've ever read and I feel that it embarrassed you as a
writer, embarrassed your publication and embarrassed every one of your subscribers.
The match I saw on TV was 20 minutes of amazing intensity with the crowd going crazy
for every move and the guys selling every single move like they were dead. The intensity
was unmatched by any match I've seen in this country for five years. Tons of missed
spots? I saw one missed clothesline by Sabu, and it still grazed Van Dam's head. Other
than that, the match was nearly flawless. They did hundreds of crazy spots and
connected amazingly on every single one of them. What match were you watching? No
believability? When I see them fighting on a table without it giving way but then I see
Sabu fly through it, I believe that it really hurt. When I see them nailing each other with
stiff kicks and punches, pulling out every move in their respective arsenal and nailing
each other hard with chairs, it looks a lot more believable than anything else I can
imagine.
What are you expecting from a worked match to be believable? When I watch a worked
match with Rey Misterio Jr. and Psicosis, I love every minute of it even though I realize
that nothing they do would actually be possible in a shoot. That style of match is not
believable on any level. But I love it and you love it. So why blast Sabu and Van Dam for
not having believable, intense matches but praise Misterio Jr. and Psicosis?
You also said they resembled the Sabu imitators that have no clue how to work a match.
Your description totally lacked validity. I've seen El Puerto Ricano, Devon Storm and all
the other Sabu imitators and none of them has ever worked a match the calibre of what
Sabu and Van Dam did.
Then you said the match looked as fake as a prelim match with green indie guys. Explain
this ridiculous and stupid statement. They worked their asses off. They bent chairs. They
broke tables. They dropped each other on their heads. They dropped each other on the
floor. They did daredevil flips and leaps into the crowd and never stopped the entire
match. They even mixed in some good solid mat wrestling, power moves and submission
moves.
Finally you said that the majority of the wrestlers in WWF and WCW would see this
match and think it was terrible. What right would Shark have to watch this match and
say it was awful? Or Duggan? Or Hogan? Or Meng? Or Yokozuna? Or Undertaker? None
of these men have worked a decent match in the last ten years and some in their entire
career. The talent roster of WWF and WCW would have no right criticizing this match
because they all wish they could put on the kind of performance Sabu and Van Dam did.
When has a crowd ever watched a match with Big Bubba and cared? So if he watched the
match, saw the crowd chanting both men's name and the name of the promotion and say
they aren't any better than me? That's bull.
Lastly, I have a couple of comments for Steven Grant. He said that ECW is about as real
as Bushwhackers matches. When I see Sandman and Pit Bull #2 take chair shots to the
head that bend the chair without putting so much as a hand up, I believe it. When I see
Sandman put welts on jobbers' backs with a cane, I really he is really destroying them
because I can see the damage. In ECW, guys legitimately get metal chairs bent over their
heads, get put through thick tables, bend metal guard rails with their bodies and have
the most believable looking brawls I've ever seen when I see someone run to the ring
with a garbage pail full of weapons and beat the hell out of whomever is in front of them.
I've never seen wrestling as believable looking as ECW in this country. Why don't you
ask Brian Lee to throw you off the upper stage or choke slam you through two tables, or
ask Sabu to DDT you through a table and see if it's believable?
ECW is the best wrestling I've ever seen in this country and I've been a far for about 12
years. It amazes me how people try and downgrade the greatness of ECW just because
they aren't as big as the two garbage wrestling promotions that I'm forced to watch every
Monday night and forced to read about the next Monday. The next time you watch ECW
TV, please remove your head from your ass before reviewing the matches and give a fair
and unbiased opinion to the readers of your publication and try and regain your now lost
credibility.
Andrew Kessler
Brooklyn, New York
JAPAN
Although I'm an ardent fan of Japanese wrestling, I'd like to make some points ignored.
First, the New Japan vs. UWFI feud came at a time when Keiji Muto was having
excellent title matches and just finished winning a very good G-1 Climax tournament.
The concept of the feud didn't make any sense since all the matches were worked strong
style while under the New Japan banner. Why would New Japan wrestlers work a style
that they don't use regularly? I can't ignore the amount of money made by the feud, but
it ruined the heavyweight division in New Japan. Currently Muto has no role in the
company and hasn't had one excellent match since the feud started. His greatest
strength is being able to wrestle a junior heavyweight style while being a heavyweight.
That's all been neutralized. New Japan admitted having no worthy contenders for
Shinya Hashimoto by having that embarrassing tournament for a title shot with the likes
of Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Osamu Nishimura, Satoshi Kojima and Michiyoshi Ohara, which
took up valuable television time during the Super Junior tournament. The tag team
division isn't much better with them pushing the Golden Cups as a top team. The only
good tag team matches are with the Junior Horsemen.
I had to criticize All Japan because I love the fact there are always clean finishes in the
middle of the ring, but their handling of Dan Kroffat and Doug Furnas is ridiculous.
They haven't been on television more than two or three times in the past year, and are
basically a jobber tag team. They should be in the mix with the top teams. Can someone
explain why Yoshinari Ogawa got to win the junior heavyweight title? Did anyone see the
match Kroffat had with Rob Van Dam last year and all the average title matches Ogawa
has had since winning the title.
Craig Collins
Ansonia, Connecticut
RAY STEVENS
Thanks for the nice article on Ray Stevens. It was quite a poignant statement when you
said that his passing was like the closing chapter of a time that ended long ago that
millions grew up watching. Like yourself, I watched Stevens while growing up in this
area. The first Cow Palace house show I ever saw was in February 1970 with Pat
Patterson vs. Peter Maivia and Ray Stevens vs. Fred Blassie as the main events. I went
with my dad and brother and later saw the legendary Patterson vs. Stevens death match
in July of that year. I saw Stevens in 1971 lost toe U.S. title to Paul DeMarco. In the mid-
70s, while visiting relatives in Chicago, I saw matches an interviews with Stevens & Nick
Bockwinkel along with the likes of Billy Robinson, Verne Gagne, Crusher and Bruiser.
Also, thanks for mentioning Ray's last appearance in March on the Newark public access
channel. I was able to get a tape of the show, which sadly, was his last television
appearance. Without the Observer, I wouldn't have ever known about it.
Marshall Fish
San Mateo, California

 

July 29, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WWE
International Incident PPV, WAR big show, TripleMania
draws 12,000, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 29 July 1996 11:47
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 July 29, 1996
WWF INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 46 (38.7%)
Thumbs down 35 (29.4%)
In the middle 38 (31.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Michaels & Johnson & Sid vs. Vader & Hart & Smith 68
Steve Austin vs. Marc Mero 15
WORST MATCH POLL
Mankind vs. Henry Godwinn 36
Undertaker vs. Mankind 20
Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas 18
Justin Bradshaw vs. Savio Vega 11
UFC X FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 136 (96.5%)
Thumbs down 1 (00.7%)
In the middle 4 (02.8%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Don Frye 131
WORST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Moti Horenstein 35
Brian Johnston vs. Scott Fiedler 34
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 7/23.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
About four years ago, right about the time we were leading into the 1992 Olympics, there
was tremendous hype about the amount of money the "Olympic TripleCast" PPV was
going to bring in. At the time, Vince McMahon was considered basically the King of PPV.
While the biggest boxing events brought in more money, it was the World Wrestling
Federation that had the track record for most consistently bringing in dollars on PPV.
Pro wrestling has continued to be one of the few entertainment events that consistently
does profitable PPVs (Ultimate Fighting, which is basically an offshoot of pro wrestling
but real, and major boxing events being the others), while the TripleCast, with a cast of
celebrities with name value on the Dream Team like no boxing or wrestling event will
ever have, bombed royally. At the time, McMahon pointed out that for PPV to be
successful, the events can't be run of the mill. He pointed that out again when WCW
expanded its schedule to going almost monthly on PPV, but McMahon himself after
pointing that out, followed suit a few months later.
PPV is the one arm, and in many ways the most important arm, of the wrestling business
that isn't flourishing as compared with the past years. While house show attendance has
been way up for both promotions, and television viewership has increased somewhat
(the Monday Night figures give a misleading account of viewership increases because
syndication is dying for both groups so a lot of it is people who used to watch wrestling
on their local station on Saturday afternoon watching one show or the other on Monday
night) and one has to say overall product interest is way up from this point last year,
PPV figures haven't followed suit. They bottomed out in December causing a genuine
scare, but then WWF rebounded earlier this year. WCW is riding a crest of momentum
as both the Monday night and Saturday television ratings show, but looking at the
figures for the past two events (estimated 0.48 and 0.71's--the latter for a show with the
company's best angle in years and a third man tease that gained tremendous attention to
the point many in the industry thought the show would top a one buy rate), the buy rates
aren't reflective of that. In fact, the Bash at the Beach with a Hogan-Vader cage match,
the third meeting between the two after a pair of lackluster matches with bad finishes,
did better than this year's show with the angle and tease of the year and a stronger
undercard on paper.
Which brings us to International Incident on 7/21 from the General Motors Place in
Vancouver, BC. The show was a huge success as a live promotion, drawing 14,804 fans
(11,955 paying $214,985 Canadian), all figures being the largest ever for an In Your
House event. Vince McMahon called the crowd capacity on a few occasions, but the
building actually holds 23,000. Later in the show Jim Ross said the crowd was 15,000,
which violates the basic wrestling tenant of always lying even when the truth is
impressive enough. As a show itself, it was almost that most dreaded thing a PPV show
could be. Not even bad, because we've certainly seen a lot worse. But when it was over, it
was like it might as well had never taken place. It was a show that going in looked to be
one a casual fan could miss and figure that they weren't going to miss anything special.
It's the shows like that where promotions are under pressure to show the fan they were
wrong to skip them, so when a decision like that comes along in the future, the consumer
would lean toward purchasing. Unfortunately, the consumer who skipped this card
would later find out that he didn't miss anything of significance. When a wrestling PPV,
which accounts for approximately 50% of the revenue of WCW (a lower percentage in
WWF, maybe around 20% which is still a substantial chunk) becomes "missable," it
becomes like too many other events on PPV quietly fade away. Admittedly, when there
are 35+ wrestling PPVs in a year counting shootfights, it is impossible for every event to
be special and this wasn't exactly hyped as the show of the year. This event's main
purpose seemed to be to build toward SummerSlam, the event that traditionally is the
No. 2 show of the year on the WWF's calendar. The feeling coming out of International
Incident was it wasn't good or bad, just that it was two hours of almost run-of-the-mill
television with a very good main event, and the excitement level of the WWF going into
SummerSlam appears flat, despite what will be one of the biggest houses of the year in
Cleveland (advance as of 7/22 was 8,843 tickets and $274,380).
The key SummerSlam match is Shawn Michaels vs. Vader. While Vader did score a pin
over Michaels in the six-man, which gave the match some credibility, it was a weak
screw-job finish and Vader didn't come off during the match or post-match as anything
but another large heel and not a real title threat or as someone with a hot grudge with a
very popular champ. After being beaten almost too easily at arenas throughout the
country nearly every night and not being portrayed as a killer on television, it's kind of
hard to sell Vader as being one of the big threats of the year to Michaels despite the huge
size difference, because the size factor has apparently never been less important. While
Owen Hart will probably do as good a job of carrying Ahmed Johnson in a singles match
as anyone in the promotion, he hasn't been positioned in a way where anyone believes
he's a title threat. Sid got a great response in Vancouver, but a mid-card match with
Davey Boy Smith is just a match on paper and a lot less than that in the ring. The tag
team division has been a chronic weakness and the recent non-title match didn't look
like a cure. The Undertaker/Mankind coming through the bottom of the ring was a been
there, done that angle, and the boiler room angle wasn't lit well enough to get across
what one would think they had expected to. Which leaves Jake Roberts against Jerry
Lawler, which actually has potential for hype because of how good both are on the mic
even though athletically it won't impress anyone. Marc Mero vs. Goldust is the other key
issue, with a storyline that will probably play out over the next few weeks as to whether it
is Goldust or Marlena that has the hots for Sable, with Mero at a point where he badly
needs success against someone major for his own credibility as a star on the rise.
The one point deserving of criticism was the handling of the Roberts no-show. At press
time, we really don't know what the real story is. All we know is that Roberts was
scheduled to be on a Toronto radio station the previous Thursday to plug the event and
didn't call in. When the station contacted the WWF as to why Roberts never called, the
WWF supposedly told them (this is what was said on the station) that Roberts had gone
AWOL. During the 30 minute pre-game show, the Roberts-Mankind match was never
mentioned once, and it wasn't until after the PPV show had begun that it was mentioned
Roberts wouldn't be there, that Henry Godwinn would take his place, and his absence
was explained by an obviously worked explanation of a rib injury suffered in the
Vader/Steve Austin matches at the King of the Ring PPV and that the WWF didn't know
until late Sunday that he wouldn't be there. Roberts did a telephone interview on the live
Raw the next night with the injury being called a torn intercostal and that he'd be out
two or three weeks. Unlike Ultimate Warrior, who was never mentioned in the
commentary of the show (his part in the "story" of the main event build wasn't ignored
in a video feature shown twice), Roberts was prominently mentioned. Lawler spent
much of the Mankind-Godwinn substitute match telling his pre-planned Roberts jokes
about drinking and religion and continued it the next night on Raw.
A. In the free-for-all match, Justin Hawk Bradshaw (John Hawk) pinned Savio Vega
(Juan Rivera) in 4:44. Basically a kick-and-punch short match. Finish saw Hawk holding
Vega and manager Zeb pushed Hawk over so he landed on Vega, and Bradshaw used the
ropes for added leverage in scoring the pin. After the match they did a two-on-one on
Vega, ending when Bradshaw branded him on the shoulder. 3/4*
The other event hyped on the free-for-all was a face-to-face interview confrontation
between Jim Cornette and Jose Lothario. Cornette started talking and wouldn't stop.
Cornette was great, but Lothario's voice and mic work was weak on the comeback which
took the steam out of the segment. Naturally it denigrated into Cornette swinging the
tennis racquet, Lothario ducking and knocking down Cornette. Vader then hit the ring,
but before he could touch Lothario, Michaels did a quick baseball slide into the ring and
the agents, including most notably Pat Patterson, did a pull-apart. Right before the show
started, Jim Cornette issued a money-back guarantee to everyone buying the show that
if his team didn't win the main event, he'd refund the entire house gate and PPV
revenue. That angle was drawn money in the past for Cornette and also for USWA, but
being thrown in at the last minute rather than something hyped for weeks, it probably
meant nothing. During the show in the commentary, McMahon continually tried to play
down that statement although it was brought up a few more times by Cornette.
1. In a non-title match, the Bodydonnas (Tom Prichard & Chris Candito) beat the
Smoking Gunns (Monte Sopp & Mike Plotcheck) in 13:05. Before the match, the
Bodydonnas did an interview clumsily explaining why Cloudy wasn't there (they've
dumped the character, it appears WWF has gotten sensitive about the charges of too
many transvestite/lesbian/pervert type characters although the Cloudy deal clearly
wasn't working at all). The match wasn't any less clumsy than the interview. All four
worked hard but it didn't click. Fans still aren't into the Bodydonnas as faces. There was
a "buns of steel" chant, obviously directed at Sunny who still comes across as the only
star of the tag team division. At one point Sunny did a fainting spot, and Skip acted
concerned while Zip tried to talk him out of being concerned, and when he got by Sunny,
she slapped him and the Gunns jumped him. There was another spot which looked
awkward involving the Gunns doing a double-team move that appeared to be messed up
on purpose giving a first tease of a possible Gunns split-up. Skip was mainly beaten on.
Finally Billy came off the top rope and landed with his crotch on Skip's knee, and Skip
made the hot tag. Zip, who in particular isn't good at working as a face, at least within
this gimmick, was quickly cut off when Billy tripped him from outside the ring. Bart
went for the sidewinder slam on Zip, but as the ref was distracted by Billy, Skip came off
the top rope with a dropkick on Bart and Zip fell on him for the pin. 3/4*
2. Mankind (Michael Foley) beat Henry Godwinn (Mark Canterbury) in 6:54. Both
worked hard but the match didn't really get going. Mankind at one point took the mats
from the floor and gave Godwinn a neckbreaker. Mankind later took a slam off the apron
and splatted on the concrete floor. Finish saw Godwinn try the slop drop but Mankind
held onto the ropes, and then quickly used the mandible claw for the finish. *1/4
3. Steve Austin (Steve Williams) pinned Marc Mero in 10:48. They really pushed the
accident from the King of the Ring show where Mero kicked Austin in the mouth, and
showed the clip of where it happened, when Mero used a Japanese rolling crotch cradle
hold and accidentally kicked his mouth while taking him over with his legs. This was a
Japanese style match in that they teased their regular spots, but then crossed things up
with the idea that since they had wrestled before, the other person "knew" the spot.
Since both are relatively new to the WWF and their spots haven't registered that strong
with the fans, it kind of went over the people's heads. At one point Austin worked the
idea that he'd been kicked in the mouth. When Mero hesitated, Austin took over on him
which got a big face pop. Actually Austin got a lot of cheers in this match, particularly
when he scored the clean win. Austin monkey flipped Mero's shoulder into the post. He
also shoved him off the apron and Mero caught his throat on the guard rail, and used a
Bombs away from the middle rope for a near fall. Marlena and the Usher came out to
apparently give a gift to Sable, but instead gave an envelope to Lawler, who handed it to
McMahon and it was never referred to again. The timing of this was bad as she
distracted the crowd with her entrance as the guys were building up to a string of hot
moves. Mero made a comeback doing a moonsault block off the apron to the floor while
the crowd was occupied with other things. The first time Austin went for the stone cold
stunner (Ace crusher), Mero blocked it. After Mero got a near fall with a legdrop into the
ring from the apron, Austin caught him while attempting a huracanrana and turned it
into a hotshot on the top rope, then used the stunner again for the pin. Good match, but
nowhere close to as good as their King of the Ring match. ***
4. Undertaker (Mark Calloway) beat Goldust (Dustin Runnels) via DQ in 12:07. The first
3:15 was all stalling. Undertaker choke slammed Goldust on the stairs and picked up the
stairs but Marlena protected Goldust so Undertaker dropped the stairs. Undertaker
dominated the next several minutes. Goldust undid the turnbuckle padding on whipped
Taker into the unexposed metal on his back. He then dropped the stairs on his back and
went into a camel clutch. Taker made a comeback and hit the tombstone. As he went for
the pin, Mankind came from under the ring and put the claw on him for the DQ and
dragged him under the ring. A bunch of smoke again came from under the ring as the
fans chanted "Rest in Peace." Finally Undertaker popped up from under the ring on the
other side and chased Mankind to the back. The two theoretically continued to brawl
backstage and they showed a brief poorly-lit clip of the two apparently fighting in a
boiler room to set up their boiler room match on SummerSlam. **
5. Vader (Leon White) & Davey Boy Smith & Owen Hart beat Shawn Michaels (Michael
Hickenbottom) & Ahmed Johnson (Tony Norris) & Psycho Sid (Sid Eudy) in 24:32.
Overall a very good main event with, as expected, Michaels carrying the match for his
side. Michaels and Vader traded spots early ending with Michaels doing a plancha.
Michaels came off the apron but missed a bodyblock and caught his throat on the guard
rail. Finally Sid, who appeared to get the best crowd reaction of the show, tagged in
doing a series of stationary clotheslines (where the heel basically does the entire running
into him and taking the bump spot and Sid just stands there with his arm extended).
Johnson tagged in and threw three dangerous back suplexes on Hart, whose landings
didn't look too pretty and he appeared to have hurt his elbow and shoulder legit. He
used the Pearl River plunge on Smith but Vader made the save. Sid tagged in and took
two bumps, one from a vertical suplex being held up for a long time by Smith. Michaels
tagged in, missing a charge and hitting his shoulder on the post. Michaels worked
basically the rest of the match taking punishment from the heels and did a great job. At
one point, where Vader held him in what was a move similar to a bearhug, a fan hopped
the rail and made it all the way to the ring apron. At that point, both Johnson and Smith
seemed to notice him and Johnson blocked him first and the fan took one look at
Johnson in his face, and voluntarily jumped off the apron to the police to a big pop from
the crowd. Smith finally hit the powerslam on Michaels but Sid made the save. The first
tag to Johnson was behind the refs back. Finally Hart accidentally dropkicked Smith off
the top rope and Michaels made the hot tag to Sid at 22:50. Sid cleaned house with
choke slams on all three and then tagged Johnson, who almost immediately tagged
Michaels who did a rocket launcher onto Vader but Smith made the save. Cornette gave
Vader the racquet but Michaels beat him to the punch and hit him with the racquet. As
Michaels set up the superkick, Cornette, grabbed his ankle. Vader then charged into the
corner and gave Michaels a bodyblock and a Vader bomb for the pin. After the match,
Sid power bombed Hart and Smith and when he went to bomb Vader, Smith & Hart
pulled Vader out of the ring. Michaels then did a running tope over the top rope onto
Vader. ***3/4
***********************************************************
Wrestle Association R (WAR) held its most ambitious promotion of the year, two
consecutive nights at Tokyo Sumo Hall on 7/20 and 7/21, to celebrate the fourth
anniversary of the promotion which was created after SWS (Super World Sports) folded.
The first night drew a sellout 11,000 for a one-night tournament for the vacant WAR sixman
titles, won by the UWFI trio of Nobuhiko Takada & Masahiko Kakihara & Yuhi
Sano, beating many-time champs Gedo & Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki in 12:35 when
Takada used the cross armbreaker on Gedo.
The Takada trio had earlier in the show beaten the sumo trio of John Tenta & Arashi
(Isao Takagi) & Osamu Taitoko, and in the most looked forward to match in the
tournament, had beaten Tatsumi Fujinami & Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya in
16:40 when Takada used a reverse armlock for a submission on Araya. It was the first
time in both men's long careers that Takada had ever faced Tenryu, to set up for a
singles match between the two on 9/11 at the Jingu Baseball Stadium in Tokyo. The
other teams in the tournament were the New Japan trio of Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka & Osamu Kido; New Japan's Riki Choshu & Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura;
The Golden Cups trio of Yoji Anjoh & Yoshihiro Takayama & 200% Machine; and Koji
Kitao & Koki Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki. The big drawing points of the show as far
as the tournament itself went were in pre-announced first round matches where Takada
was to face a team with Tenryu and Fujinami; and where Kitao and Tenta's teams would
face off which would be the first Kitao-Tenta meeting since a show many years ago
where the two nearly got into a legitimate fight because of a lack of cooperation in a
singles match which set all-time standards for awful. Kitao was so frustrated since Tenta
wouldn't cooperate that after the standoff where nothing happened, he got on the house
mic and said that pro wrestling was fake, they cut the house mic off, and he ended up
being fired by SWS, the group he was then working for.
There were two other title matches on the undercard, with Jushin Liger & El Samurai
winning WAR's International jr. tag team titles from Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka in
15:45 when Liger pinned Yasuraoka with a fisherman buster, and Rey Misterio Jr.
captured the WWA welterweight title from Juventud Guerrera in 8:36 after a
Frankensteiner in what was reported as the best match of the show. It's quite a
statement that a match with Misterio Jr. against an unknown for a Mexican
championship in Japan was made the semifinal--put on just before the tournament
final, while Liger & Samurai from New Japan challenging a WAR team for WAR's own
tag team titles was put after the first round of the tournament was completed.
The second night was somewhat anti-climactic, drawing a reported 10,000 fans,
although live reports indicate the crowd was closer to 7,500. In the main event, Tenryu
beat Anjoh in 11:44. The fact that Anjoh lost and that the show failed to sellout don't
bode well for the idea that Anjoh is in the main event of the 8/17 Jingu Stadium show
against Takada (that Takada-Anjoh stadium show is actually a sold show to a local
promoter as part of a fireworks/fair type of attraction event so the show will draw well
from just people being around even though the line-up isn't of stadium quality, while the
Takada-Tenryu match is a show UWFI is promoting itself so they have to have stronger
match-ups to draw). While Anjoh has gained a ton of publicity for his big mouth and is
something of a media star nowadays, appearing regularly on talk shows, and is
something of a household name in Japan now, this shows that hasn't translated into
super drawing ability. In a WAR vs. UWFI match, Kitahara beat Kakihara, while in a
New Japan vs. UWFI match, Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka beat Takada & Hiromitsu
Kanehara in 9:20 when Koshinaka pinned Kanehara. Perhaps the most looked forward
to match on the show was a junior heavyweight dream match with Ultimo Dragon &
Yasuraoka & Storm & Misterio Jr. beating Liger & Gedo & Lion Do (Chris Jericho) &
Guerrera when Yasuraoka pinned Guerrera in 17:35.
Both Sonny Onno of WCW and Antonio Pena of AAA were at both shows.
***********************************************************
The other major show of the past week was the final TripleMania on 7/15 in Madero.
The main event on the show, which drew 12,000 fans, was a cage match with the final
man left losing his mask with Los Payasos & Karis la Momia beating Los Atomic Juniors,
Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. in the climax
of a several month feud. Five of the eight wrestlers juiced, and it came down by Karis
and Dorado. Among the folks at ringside during the match where Killer & Janet in the
corner of the heels and Mascara Sagrada & Lady Victoria in the face corner. It wound up
with Killer & Janet handcuffing both Victoria & Sagrada to the cage. At this point
Mascarita Sagrada Jr. (remember this guy when it comes to rookie awards as he's only
been wrestling a few months) came to the ring to uncuff Victoria & Sagrada. He then
climbed the cage and did a flying body press off the top of the cage (considering he's
about three feet tall that takes a lot of guts). Karis moved, so instead he was caught by
Dorado Jr. At this point Karis attacked both and power bombed the mini onto Dorado,
handcuffed them together and climbed out of the cage making Dorado the ultimate
loser. Dorado then turned heel, attacking Mascarita and joining the rest of the heels in
leaving the remaining faces laying. He finally unmasked revealing himself as Antonio
Olmos, and the apparent plan is that Dorado & Pierroth Jr. & Cien Caras are going to be
put together as the top heel trio in the promotion. This was said to have been a very good
match considering the restrictions in that Mexican cage matches are basically climbing
contests with juice.
In the semifinal, Pierroth beat Konnan in a Pit Bull Terrier (Dog collar) match. After
both men had touched three corners, Psicosis and Mosco de la Merced attacked Konnan
and ref Tirantes stood on the fallen Konnan so he couldn't get back up which allowed
Pierroth to touch the final turnbuckle to win. The fans didn't understand the touching of
the corners as this was a first for Mexico and there wasn't a lot of crowd heat.
The other singles match on the show was the Misterio Jr. vs. Guerrera match with each
man putting their cars on the line. Super Calo and Mosco de la Merced were in the
respective corners. Pierroth came out and clotheslined ref Pepe Casas and brought in a
chain. The heels held Misterio's arms spread with a chain and Guerrera caned the hell
out of him. At this point Killer's music played and they basically did the same thing they
did the previous night in Tijuana. The heels gave Killer the cane, and he used it on all the
heels, then unmasked, revealing Konnan. Konnan then revived Casas, who counted the
pin when Misterio Jr. gave Guerrera a Frankensteiner. This was said to have been a very
good match, but not up to their regular standards since Misterio Jr. was banged up
working so many dates of late.
We don't have results of the other two major matches on the show, although in the
opener, Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & Super Munequito & Mini Frisbee beat Espectritos I & II
& La Parkita in a good match but not on the level of the matches they've had of late.
Mascarita did the Hector Garza corkscrew plancha outside the ring once again.
*************************************************************
The buy rate for the 7/12 UFC show fell to an 0.43 figure, which would be about 95,000
homes and an estimated $853,000 total gross. The figures would be the lowest since the
first two UFC shows and represent a significant and consistent decline in buys dating
back one year and the loss of the mystical Royce Gracie from a peak of approximately
260,000 homes.
Even today, despite a field of generally more well-rounded, tougher, larger and smarter
fighters, it is still the Gracie name that isn't there that a lot of people seem to feel is the
measuring stick. UFC ran its own online poll during the PPV event asking who the best
fighter in UFC history was, and 46% said Gracie, despite the fact he hasn't fought in
more than one year after being held to a 36:00 draw against Ken Shamrock. Dan Severn
received 21% of the support while Shamrock received 16%
There are other factors involved, one of which is that even with the cancellation of the
Tyson fight with Bruce Seldon, most PPV operators continued to run commercials
saying that the Tyson fight was canceled rather than replace the original spots with spots
for the other major PPV shows of the month, in specific the UFC, the WWF show and the
three Tenors. WWF and UFC had both counted on the Tyson cancellation to give them
more visibility in the PPV marketplace when it comes to barker channel ads. In the case
of WWF and WCW, with their hours of weekly television programming, it can better
survive a situation like that while for UFC, the barker channel is its life blood. But there
is a lot more than that.
There is little question that UFC was a phenomenon at this point one year ago. With
almost no publicity, it was beating out pro wrestling on PPV and getting tons of
mainstream media coverage, much of it not favorable. Like all novelties, it wasn't going
to last forever unless it became part of the fabric. Even with the big buy rates and a
shocking level of underground interest, the people who hold the keys to traditional
sports coverage, the prime movers and shakers, turned their backs on this, largely
because it was new and they knew nothing about it and also because of the controversy.
That acceptance would have eventually allowed it to continue as an acceptable sport. In
the beginning, it thrived on the theory that you could watch a PPV show and not only see
a lot of good fights, but more importantly, at the end of the night you could see someone
who just might be the toughest man around. The early tournaments were a success
because of the idea of Gracie, a foreigner who rarely threw punches through "magic
technique" was able to subdue everyone in his path, who was both a babyface to some as
the underdog coming through due to lack of size, and heel to others who paid to see the
day when somebody finally punched him in the face and he was in what in people's
imaginations was a real fight. The idea of the Brazilian fighting family, with the 83-yearold
father who never (well, almost never) lost a fight and a 60-year family tradition were
great stories, and while some of the legendary stories were embellished, there was
enough reality in them. After Gracie was giving a severe test by Dan Severn and reduced
to being human by Shamrock, he pulled out. While Shamrock probably would have won
the Gracie match had their been judges, by not coming close to finishing him and also
never winning a tournament, he never replaced him in the eyes of the general public as
the top star despite his action-hero movie star looks. Nor did Severn.
This most recent PPV featured neither Severn nor Shamrock, but instead was built
around Don Frye, who was the star of the previous two UFC shows. However, with no
superfight on this show, there was no direct promoting of anything other than there
would be a tournament and Frye wasn't focused on in the vague television commercials
that appeared to knock pro wrestling ("No Loud Mouths, No Scripts, No Pulled Punches,
No Fancy Costumes") and had no names or line-ups mentioned for the tournament.
While the show itself was good, SEG has been weak in both this and with Pancrase in
being able to promote personalities and build to match-ups, which is what pops buy
rates for both boxing and wrestling. They have come to a point where just promoting the
name UFC itself isn't going to make the event seem like a can't miss.
This buy rate was not unexpected, as SEG beforehand had decided against spending big
money to bring in Brazilians or other foreigners figuring it was going to be a down show.
The next show on 9/20, with no site official, will apparently be built around Mark
Coleman and Tank Abbott. The On Center in Syracuse has a hold on the date, but SEG is
going to wait if or until Gov. Pataki of New York signs the bill to regulate UFC in New
York before publicly announcing the show for Syracuse. Don Frye suffered legitimately a
broken cheekbone, not a broken orbital bone as originally reported here last week, and
Dr. Richard Istrico recommended he be kept out of the next show. He'll probably be
brought back for the Ultimate Ultimate which is scheduled for 12/20. The remaining six
competitors should be finalized over the next two weeks, as Art Davie, who handles
fighter selections, is coming into New York this week for meetings to discuss who will be
brought in. SEG's David Isaacs said they are looking at bringing in some traditional
martial arts fighters and in particular mentioned bringing in one or two fighters from
Japan, and also said they would probably bring in a submission specialist to round out
the field.
Where this number becomes important is when the number drops to the break-even
level on the show. Based on the early shows, break-even on this event is in the $725,000
range so any significant drop from this level becomes threatening.
***********************************************************
The line-up for the WCW Clash of the Champions on 8/15 from the Denver Coliseum (a
free two-hour TBS special) will be headlined by Hulk Hogan, now billed as Hollywood
Hogan, against Ric Flair in the first meeting between the two where Flair is supposed to
be the babyface. The previous Flair-Hogan Clash match, on August 24, 1994, is still the
single most watched wrestling match ever on cable television with the match itself being
seen in 4,126,000 homes and doing a 6.7 rating and an 11.3 share built up by doing the
Nancy Kerrigan angle during the show. The two also hold the WCW record for the
biggest PPV gross with their two matches in 1994.
The remainder of the show has a triangular match for the tag team titles with Sting &
Lex Luger, Harlem Heat and the Steiners, The Giant vs. Chris Benoit, Diamond Dallas
Page vs. Eddie Guerrero, Misterio Jr. defending the cruiserweight title against Psicosis,
Konnan vs. Ultimo Dragon, Chris Jericho debuts against Hugh Morrus and Jim Duggan
vs. V.K. Wallstreet. On paper it looks to be a good show since there is a lot of talent
involved, but doing eight matches on a two-hour Clash usually with a few angles and
interviews thrown in means rush job city for all the matches and usually winds up as a
disappointing show.
***********************************************************
It appears the resignation of Tarzan Yamamoto has not spelled the end of the problems
between New Japan Pro Wrestling, the most powerful wrestling promotion in Japan and
arguably the world, and Weekly Pro Wrestling, the most widely-circulated pro wrestling
magazine in the world.
The two were in a feud for months largely over the issue of critical coverage of pro
wrestling, which turned into a major personal issue. At least on the surface, it appeared
New Japan won last month when Yamamoto, who had been in similar feuds before with
All Japan and SWS, officially resigned under pressure from management from Baseball
Magazine Sha, the parent company of the wrestling magazine. While Yamamoto had his
enemies, the feud and end result appeared to be a major blow for journalistic coverage of
pro wrestling in Japan.
In Japan, there is a difference in the idea of journalism as in the United States. Generally
Japanese are slower to question authority and its newspapers more read like press
releases. Ironically, in wrestling, particularly now with so many promotions and also
because of the timeliness of the coverage (weekly magazines which in Tokyo hit the
newsstands on Wednesday nights and have coverage of matches held as late as two days
earlier), the level of magazine journalism has always been much higher in Japan. In
addition, the magazines need to be better because they are competing with the daily
newspapers that get the results of the matches and the top angles and stories to the
public by the next morning.
While Yamamoto is out of the picture, the major issue, the type of coverage, largely
issues like criticizing the quality of matches and angles and revealing inside information,
are still unresolved. New magazine editor Yoshinori Hamabe has had two meetings with
New Japan, the most recent on 7/19, largely for New Japan to open the doors to Weekly
Pro for the G-1 Climax tournament that starts on 8/2. It now appears unlikely this will
happen, and the New Japan ban of the magazine covering its events may last for several
more months.
The 7/19 meeting ended with Hamabe requesting an exclusive interview with New Japan
booker Riki Choshu, who was basically the person behind the ban (although a Sales
Executive named Nagashima, a former Antonio Inoki publicist who started working for
daily newspaper Tokyo Sports, is the person who wrote the letter and the main person
meeting with Hamabe), to discuss and bring out all the details of the story behind the
story to the readers of the magazine and explain how it has all been resolved. New Japan
said they would consider the request, but at press time hadn't gotten back to the
magazine, which the magazine reporters figure at this point to mean a no. Hamabe told
New Japan without the interview where the entire situation would be made public (while
the magazine readers are aware Weekly Pro and New Japan are feuding and Weekly Pro
can't cover New Japan, neither side has gone public with its side of the story and the
average wrestling fan really doesn't know the details as to what this is all about), they
weren't interested in covering New Japan. Theoretically, Weekly Pro could still cover
New Japan events by buying a ticket and shooting zoom lens photos from the upper deck
rather than at ringside, although the quality would pale in comparison to the rival
publications with better access and they still wouldn't be able to interview the wrestlers.
To this point, Weekly Pro hasn't done that, although they did publish a special magazine
covering the 4/29 Tokyo Dome show with nothing but copy and no photos.
Both WAR and UWFI, who had joined New Japan in the ban of Weekly Pro reporters,
opened their doors to Weekly Pro within 24 hours of Yamamoto's official resignation.
Hamabe has worked for the Baseball Magazine Sha company for the past nine years,
ever since Big Wrestler, the magazine he edited, folded in 1987, although has never
worked within the wrestling division, having spent three years each as a top editor for
Baseball's magazines on rugby, soccer and bowling.
New Japan has continued to do successful business without Weekly Pro, figuring that
the daily coverage in newspapers such as Tokyo Sports and .....n Sports along with
television and the other magazines is enough to keep them as the No. 1 wrestling group
in the country. It's a similar situation to the WWF in the mid-80s when it controlled the
U.S. and made it very difficult for any of the magazines to gain access or coverage,
although part of that decision was based on starting its own magazine. However,
magazine coverage is far more important to the promotions in Japan than in the U.S., as
the magazines are written largely to a more sophisticated public (not that creating their
own angles doesn't exist there), have a wider circulation, and are in a culture that is
more print media oriented. New Japan has plans in the works of starting its own
magazine as well, which would only coverage its wrestlers.
Apparently Yamamoto's resignation came when officials of New Japan set up meetings
with the Board of Directors at Baseball Magazine Sha, which publish about 40 different
magazines. Even though wrestling is consistently the best seller of all the mags (sales
figures vary from the source, although those at Weekly Pro claim the recent drop in
circulation from the feud has put the current weekly figure at about 230,000. Many
others claim much lower figures), the board, largely with a background in legitimate
sports, couldn't understand why it's magazine wasn't covering wrestling's equivalent to
the Yomiuri Giants. Originally Yamamoto came under heat from higher ups, and when
he felt that management was backing him, he left. After six more meetings between New
Japan and the Board of Directors at Sha and as the board has learned more about the
story, apparently the board has decided the real issue wasn't a personal vendetta
between an editor and a wrestling promotion but a real journalistic issue and Hamabe
has been reportedly told to continue to cover wrestling in the manner which boosted the
magazine's circulation in the first place.
***********************************************************
There will be a delay in the fourth issue of the current set, which would normally be
dated 8/12. We will be on vacation during early August. Next week's issue will be mailed
out on its usual Wednesday afternoon and I'm hopeful the final issue of the set will be
mailed on 8/9 although I can't guarantee that. That issue would be the only one delayed
from the regular schedule and the first issue of the new set will go out on time, so for
those who wait until the subscription expires before renewing, the lag in delivery would
mean you wouldn't get your first issue of the new set on time if you don't re-subscribe
early. For the hotline, the only day I'm expected to miss would be 8/3.
***********************************************************
This is the second issue of the current four-issue set. If you've got a (1) on your address
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For the most up-to-date wrestling information, I can be reached every Monday,
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line approximately one hour after the conclusion of the event. For August, the scheduled
will consist of Hog Wild on 8/10 (I won't be a part of the immediate post-show wrap-ups
due to a personal commitment that day but will be on covering the event in the regular
Monday slot), Pancrase on 8/16 and SummerSlam on 8/18.
Besides myself, hotline reports are done by Ron Lemieux (Sunday, Wednesday),
Georgiann Makropolous (Sunday), Mike Mooneyham (Monday), Steve Beverly
(Tuesday, Friday, Saturday), Scott Hudson (Tuesday, Thursday) and Bruce Mitchell
(Thursday, Saturday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 7/26 TO 8/26
7/27 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/1 FMW Tokyo Shiodome (Terry Funk vs. Pogo)
8/2 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
8/2 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/3 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki)
8/3 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu vs. Van Dam)
8/4 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Hashimoto vs. Tenzan)
8/4 Universal Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall
8/5 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Muto vs. Koshinaka)
8/6 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (G-1 tournament finals)
8/9 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/10 WCW Hog Wild PPV Sturgis, SD (Giant vs. Hogan)
8/10 ECW/IWA Yokohama Bunka Gym (Goto & Gannosuke vs. Eliminators)
8/12 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Casper, WY Events Center
8/12 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/13 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/15 WCW Clash of Champions Denver Coliseum (Hogan vs. Flair)
8/16 Kings of Pancrase PPV taped (Frank Shamrock vs. Goes)
8/17 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Anjoh)
8/18 WWF SummerSlam Cleveland Gund Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/19 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Wheeling, WV Civic Center (Michaels &
Undertaker vs. Goldust & Mankind)
8/19 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Huntsville, AL Von Braun Civic Center
8/20 WWF Superstars tapings Columbus, OH Convention Center
8/24 WWF X Press Toronto Exhibition Stadium (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/24 RINGS Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Yamamoto vs. Morais)
8/25 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum
8/26 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Palmetto, FL Manatee Civic Center
RESULTS
7/7 Vancouver, WA (Championship Wrestling USA): Cocoa Samoa b Bill
Sawyer, Tim Kinder b Bodyguard-DQ, Shawn Stasiak b Richie Magnett, Bruiser Brian b
Col. DeBeers, Buddy Wayne b Sumito, Jimmy Snuka & Matt Borne b Lou Andrews &
Dane Rush
7/9 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Pegaso & Kung Fu Jr. b Kundra & Cafre,
Lady Apache & Lola Gonzalez & Xochitl Hamada b Martha Villalobos & La Infernal & La
Diabolica-DQ, Mr. Niebla & Olimpico & Olimpus b Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del
Futuro & Damian el Guerrero-DQ, Dos Caras & Silver King & Brazo de Plata b Dr.
Wagner Jr. & Rey Bucanero & Emilio Charles Jr., Hair vs. hair: La Fiera b Kahoz
7/12 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Saigoncito Dragon & Brazito de Oro b
Pequeno Pierroth & Damiancito, Yone Genjin & Espectro Jr. & Cadaver de Ultratumba b
Atlantico & Olimpico & Alacran de Durango, Felino & Guerrero de la Muerte & Astro
Rey Jr. b Dandy & Mascara Magica & Brazo de Oro, Black Warrior & El Satanico &
Bestia Salvaje b Shocker & Bronco & Lizmark, ***** Casas & Canek & Apolo Dantes b
Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis & El Hijo del Santo
7/12 Birmingham, AL (USA Wrestling - 400): Spiderman d Haitian Prophet, Mr.
Olympia (Jerry Stubbs) b Bo LeDuc, Pez Whatley b Butcher Ali, The Bullet (Bob
Armstrong) DCOR Lord Humongous (Barry Buchanan aka Punisher), Amazon Queen
(Peggy Lee Leather) b Bambi, Johnny & Davey Rich b Nazi Storm Troopers, Tommy
Rich b Iron Sheik
7/14 Bangor, ME (WWF - 2,022): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly, Bodydonnas won
four-team elimination over Godwinns, Smoking Gunns and New Rockers, Steve Austin b
Savio Vega, Owen Hart b Jake Roberts, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley,
Undertaker b Mankind, IC title: Ahmed Johnson b Goldust, Sid b Davey Boy Smith,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/15 Memphis (USWA): USWA tag titles: Reggie B. Fine & Brickhouse Brown b Flex
Kavana & Bart Sawyer to win titles, Miss Texas b Samantha, Bill Rush b Scott Bowden,
Weapons match: Bill Dundee b Wolfie D, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Punisher,
Tony Falk & Frank Morrell b Christopher & Doug Gilbert-DQ, Jerry Lawler b Tony
Williams, Unified title: Sid Vicious b Jeff Jarrett-DQ
7/15 Poughkeepsie, NY (North East Wrestling): Ralph Lemieux b Viper, Danger
Inc. b Italian Sensation & Rocky Shore, Skip b Ray Odyssey, Johnny Handsome b Super
Nova, Abbuda Singh b Tony DeVito, Bam Bam Bigelow b King Kong Bundy, Jim
Neidhart b Doink the Clown, Ahmed Johnson & Fatu b Primo Carnera III & Tatanka
7/16 Osaka Furitsu Gym (RINGS - 4,080): Wataru Sakata b Valentine Olfrain,
Masayoshi Naruse b Sergei Susserov, Kiyoshi Tamura b Willie Peeters, Dick Vrij b
Christopher Hazemann, Bitszade Tariel b Joop Kasteel, Volk Han b Tsuyoshi Kousaka,
Hans Nyman b Yoshihisa Yamamoto
7/16 Kagoshima (All Japan - 3,250): Rob Van Dam b Satoru Asako, Mark & Chris
Youngblood b Kentaro Shiga & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II b
Masao Inoue & Takao Omori, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue, Gary Albright & Johnny Smith b Brian Dyette &
Steve Williams, Johnny Ace & The Patriot b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr., Kenta
Kobashi b Tamon Honda, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Maunukea Mossman
7/16 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600 full
house/all freebies): Meng & Barbarian b American Males, Dean Malenko b Mark
Starr, Eddie Guerrero b Mike Enos, Rick & Scott Steiner b Ice Train & Scott Norton,
Chavo Guerrero (Jr.) b Bobby Eaton, Harlem Heat b Bobby Walker & Jim Powers, Steve
Regal b Disco Inferno, Chris Benoit b Big Bubba
7/16 Vienna, Austria (CWA): David Finlay b Michael Kovacs, Rambo b Brian
Armstrong, August Smisl b Cannonball Grizzly (P.N. News aka Paul Neu)-DQ, Tony St.
Clair b Dan Collins-DQ, Franz Schumann & Ulf Hermann b Drew McDonald & Maxx
Payne-DQ
7/17 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (New Japan - 6,400 sellout): Shinjiro
Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Yuji Nagata, Osamu Nishimura b
Akitoshi Saito, Brad Armstrong & Osamu Kido b Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura,
Norio Honaga & Junji Hirata b El Samurai & Tadao Yasuda, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka b Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara, Randy Savage b Jushin Liger, The Giant b
Sting, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Riki Choshu & Keiji Muto & Satoshi Kojima,
Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsumi Fujinami & Akira Nogami b Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi
Tenzan & Hiro Saito, IWGP hwt title: Shinya Hashimoto b Ric Flair
7/18 Okayama (All Japan - 2,350): Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru & Masao Inoue, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi, Giant Kimala II b Rob Van Dam, Yoshinari Ogawa & Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant
Baba b Ryukaku Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Takao Omori, Bobby Duncum Jr. & Stan
Hansen b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Toshiaki Kawada & Tamon Honda b Gary Albright
& Johnny Smith, Akira Taue b Jun Akiyama, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & The Patriot
b Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Maunukea Mossman
7/18 Orlando Disney (WCW Attraction matches): Brad Armstrong b Kurosawa,
Craig Pittman b Gambler, Bobby Walker b Chad Brock, Disco Inferno b Bobby Eaton,
Mike Enos & Dick Slater b Joe Gomez & Mark Starr, V.K. Wallstreet b Chavo Guerrero
Jr.
7/19 Rock Hill, SC (WCW - 1,303): Big Bubba b Cobra, Eddie Guerrero b Arn
Anderson, Chris Benoit b Dean Malenko-COR, Guerrero & Robert Gibson b David
Taylor & Bobby Eaton, Diamond Dallas Page b Alex Wright, Steiners won four-team
elimination over American Males, Meng & Barbarian and Public Enemy
7/19 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Martha Villalobos & La Infernal & La
Diabolica b Lola Gonzalez & Lady Apache & Xochitl Hamada, Brazo de Oro & Brazo de
Plata & Mascara Magica b Rambo & Rey Bucanero & Guerrero de la Muerte, Lizmark Jr.
& Mascara Sagrada & Dos Caras b Mano Negra & Universo 2000 & Mascara Ano 2000,
Mask vs. mask: Black Warrior b Bronco (Bronco unmasked as Ulises Cantu Gutierrez),
CMLL tag titles: Atlantis & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. b Canek & Apolo Dantes
7/19 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Big Japan Pro Wrestling - 1,400): Satoru Shiga b
Masahiko Kochi, Bruiser Okamoto b Yosuke Kobayashi, Jason Knight b Crusher
Takahashi, Bull Pain & Mighty Kodiak b Yuichi Taniguchi & Ichiro Yaguchi, CMLL lt.
hwt title: Aquarius b Dr. Wagner Jr. to win title, Mr. Pogo b Great Kojika, Ladder street
fight elimination match: Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Kendo Nagasaki &
Seiji Yamakawa
7/19 Ashikaga (All Japan women): Yumi Fukawa d Nakanishi, Takako Inoue b
Reggie Bennett, Toshiyo Yamada & Chaparita Asari & Genki Misae b Manami Toyota &
Kaoru Ito & Yoshiko Tamura, Aja Kong b Mariko Yoshida, Mima Shimoda & Kyoko
Inoue b Etsuko Mita & Yumiko Hotta
7/19 Revere, MA (Century Wrestling Alliance - 1,850): CWA TV title: Knuckles
Nelson b Steve Bradley-DQ, Tombstone b Jose Valenzuela, Devon Storm b Ace Darling,
CWA lt hwt title: El Mascarado (Bert Senteno) b Gino Caruso, Tony Rumble b Big Val
(Val Puccio) to win New England title, Metal Maniac b Pink Assassin, CWA tag titles:
Eric Sbraccia & Sonny C b Joel & Rocky Davis, Kevin Sullivan & Dungeon Master NC
Jimmy Snuka & Vic Steamboat, Bam Bam Bigelow b King Kong Bundy
7/20 Tokyo Sumo Hall (WAR - 11,000 sellout): Ultimo Dragon & Nobukazu Hirai
b Big Titan (Rick Bogner) & Lion Heart (Chris Jericho), WAR six man tourney first
round: Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado b Kazuo Yamazaki & Osamu Kido & Takashi
Iizuka, Riki Choshu & Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura b Yoji Anjoh & Yoshihiro
Takayama & 200% Machine, John Tenta & Arashi & Osamu Taitoko b Koji Kitao & Koki
Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki, Nobuhiko Takada & Masahito Kakihara & Yuhi Sano b
Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami & Nobutaka Araya, Int. jr. tag titles: Jushin Liger
& El Samurai b Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka to win titles, Six-man semifinals: Fuyuki
& Gedo & Jado b Choshu & Kojima & Nishimura, Takada & Kakihara & Sano b Tenta &
Arashi & Taitoko, WWA welterweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Juventud Guerrera to win
title, Tourney finals for title: Takada & Kakihara & Sano b Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado
7/20 Columbia, SC (WCW - 2,459): Big Bubba b Cobra, Diamond Dallas Page b
Alex Wright, Robert Gibson & Eddie Guerrero b David Taylor & Bobby Eaton, Meng &
Barbarian b American Males, Guerrero b Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit d Dean Malenko,
Nasty Boys won triangular match over Steiners and Public Enemy
7/20 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Rob Van Dam & Giant
Kimala II b Mark & Chris Youngblood, Survival series: Maunukea Mossman & Satoru
Asako b Kentaro Shiga & Masao Inoue, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Inoue b Mossman & Asako,
Takao Omori & Asako b Kikuchi & Inoue, Yoshinari Ogawa & Kikuchi b Omori & Asako,
Tamon Honda & Omori b Ogawa & Kikuchi to win series, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura
& Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Ryukaku Izumida, The Patriot b
Bobby Duncum Jr., Stan Hansen & Gary Albright & Johnny Smith b Brian Dyette &
Johnny Ace & Steve Williams, Toshiaki Kawada b Jun Akiyama, Mitsuharu Misawa &
Kenta Kobashi b Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi
7/20 Tokai (All Japan women): Genki Misae b Takahashi, Tomoko Watanabe b
Chaparita Asari, Yumiko Hotta & Yoshiko Tamura b Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa,
Kyoko Inoue b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda b Manami
Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
7/20 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Gaea - 1,600): Meiko Satomura b Matsumoto, Makie
Numao b Chihiro Nakano, Bomber Hikari & Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Sato b
Chigusa Nagayo & Kaoru & Toshie Uematsu, Toshiyo Yamada b Sonoko Kato
7/20 Gloucester, MA (Century Wrestling Alliance - 1,050): Steve Bradley b Ace
Darling-DQ, Pink Assassin b Metal Maniac, King Kong Bundy b Rocky Davis, CWA title:
Kevin Sullivan b Vic Steamboat, CWA TV title: Knuckles Nelson b Devon Storm-DQ,
Jimmy Snuka b Big Val-DQ, CWA lt hwt. title: El Mascarado b Blue Ace (Joel Davis),
Bam Bam Bigelow b Sonny C
7/20 Vienna, Austria (CWA): Rambo b Cannonball Grizzly, Submission match:
Franz Schumann b Dan Collins, Chain mach: Tony St. Clair NC David Finlay, Street
Fight: Maxx Payne b Ulf Hermann, Michael Kovacs & Super Ninja Hanzo (Hanzo
Nakajima) b Drew McDonald & Brian Armstrong-DQ
7/20 Yardville, NJ (NWA - 200): Gino Caruso b Crazy Ivan, Psychotron b Jack
Rider, Inferno Kid b Rockin Rico, Reckless Youth b Tracy Smothers, Ralph Soto & Lester
Muhammad (Rasta the Voodoomon) b Johnny Mantell & Cousin Luke, Twiggy Ramirez
& Adrian Hall b Bad Attitude-DQ, Tommy Cairo & Derrick Domino b Ian Rotten & Mad
Man Pondo, Iron Sheik b Rik Ratchett
7/21 Tokyo Sumo Hall (WAR - 7,500): Yuhi Sano & Kazushi Sakuraba b Nobukazu
Hirai & Osamu Taitoko, Michiyoshi Ohara b Nobutaka Araya, Arashi b John Tenta,
Ultimo Dragon & Yuji Yasuraoka & Lance Storm & Rey Misterio Jr. b Jushin Liger &
Gedo & Lion Do (Lion Heart) & Juventud Guerrera, Jado b Yoshihiro Takayama, Riki
Choshu & Satoshi Kojima b Hiromichi Fuyuki & Ti Do (Big Titan), Tatsumi Fujinami &
Shiro Koshinaka b Nobuhiko Takada & Hiromitsu Kanehara, Koki Kitahara b Masahito
Kakihara, Genichiro Tenryu b Yoji Anjoh
7/21 Greenville, SC (WCW - 4,546): Big Bubba b Cobra, Eddie Guerrero b Arn
Anderson, Chris Benoit d Dean Malenko, Meng & Barbarian b American Males, Eddie
Guerrero & Robert Gibson b Bobby Eaton & David Taylor, Diamond Dallas Page b Alex
Wright, Public Enemy won triangle match over Nasty Boys and Steiners, Randy Savage b
Ric Flair
7/21 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,100 sellout): Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher
Maedomari & Miwa Sato b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Halcon
***** Jr. b Head Banger (Glen Ruth), Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Nanjyo
Hayato b Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji & Toryu, The Gladiator b Katsutoshi Niiyama,
Hideki Hosaka & Hido b Mr. Pogo & Gosaku Goshogawara, Ind. world hwt title
semifinals: Masato Tanaka b Hiskatsu Oya, Wing Kanemura b Super Leather
7/21 Yahaba (Michinoku Pro - 809): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Sugamoto, Mens
Teoh & Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Naohiro Hoshikawa, Central American
middleweight title: Kendo b Gran Naniwa, Tiger Mask & Super Delfin b Johnny Saint &
Piloto Suicida, IWGP jr. title: Great Sasuke b Shiryu
7/21 Tazawako (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Yosuke Kobayashi b Masahiko Kochi,
Bruiser Okamoto b Satoru Shiga, Jason Knight & Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner Jr. &
Crusher Takahashi, Seiji Yamakawa b Bull Pain, Kendo Nagasaki & Yuichi Taniguchi b
Shoji Nakamaki & Mighty Kodiak
7/21 Shinza (All Japan women): Yoshiko Tamura b Nakanishi, Genki Misae b Yumi
Fukawa, Yumiko Hotta & Reggie Bennett & Takako Inoue b Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda
& Toshiyo Yamada, Tomoko Watanabe b Mariko Yoshida, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b
Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue
7/21 Fort River, NJ (NWA - 250): Larry Brisco d Gino Caruso, Cousin Luke b Ian
Rotten, Amazing Martine b Frankie Burns, Johnny Mantell b Ace Darling, NA title falls
count anywhere first blood: Tommy Cairo b Derrick Domino, Bam Bam Bigelow b King
Kong Bundy
7/22 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Monday Nitro taping - 450 sellout/all
freebies): David Taylor b Scott Norton-DQ -*, Konnan b V.K. Wallstreet 1/2*,
Renegade & Jim Powers & Joe Gomez & Alex Wright b Kevin Sullivan & Leprechaun
(Dwayne Bruce aka Buddy Lee Parker) & Hugh Morrus & Barbarian-DQ DUD, Diamond
Dallas Page b Prince Iaukea DUD, Dean Malenko b Chavo Guerrero Jr. *1/4, Meng b Ice
Train-DQ DUD, Eddie Guerrero b Psicosis ***1/2, Sting & Randy Savage & Lex Luger b
Chris Benoit & Arn Anderson & Steve McMichael **1/4
7/22 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pancrase - 2,150 sellout): Osami Shibuya b Kim Jon
Won, Peter Williams b Kiuma Kunioku, Keiichiro Yamamiya b Satoshi Hasegawa, Yuki
Kondo b Semmy Schiltt, Yoshiki Takahashi b Ryushi Yanagisawa, Frank Shamrock b
Manabu Yamada
7/22 Memphis (USWA): Flex Kavana b Yoshi Kwan, Bart Sawyer b Leon Downs,
Johnny Rotten b Tony Falk, Midget D b Miss Texas, USWA tag titles: Brickhouse Brown
& Reggie B. Fine b Moondogs-DQ, Brian Christopher & Wolfie D b Bill & Jamie Dundee-
DQ
7/22 Tokyo (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Sachiko Kadota,
Tudor the Turtle & Hiroshi Itakura b Akinori Tsukioka & Flying Kid Ichihara, Orito b
Felinito, Tiger Jeet Singh & Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert) b Katsumi Hirano & Keizo
Matsuda, Takashi Okano b Ryo Myake, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Keisuke
Yamada & Leatherface (Rick Patterson)
7/22 Miami (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 520): Paul Adonis b Bob Davis,
Punk Rock b Tony Apollo, Bounty Hunter b Navy Seal, Johnny Attitude b Pat Tanaka,
Clay Hatfield & Greg Fiske b Demon Hellstorm & Looter, Davis won Battle Royal
7/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pancrase - 2,250 sellout): Peter Williams b Osami
Shibuya, Yuki Kondo b Keiichiro Yamamiya, Vernon White b Minoru Suzuki, Masakatsu
Funaki b Takafumi Ito, Shibuya b Yamamiya, Kondo b Williams to win Neo Blood
tournament
7/23 Iida (New Japan - 1,500 sellout): Nobutaka Araya b Akitoshi Saito, Akira
Nogami & Kengo Kimura b Yutaka Yoshie & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Michiyoshi Ohara b Yuji
Nagata, Tatsutoshi Goto b Tadao Yasuda, Koki Kitahara & Nobukazu Hirai b Shiro
Koshinaka & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Tatsumi Fujinami b Hiro Saito, Masa Chono &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Riki Choshu & Osamu Nishimura
Special thanks to: Lane Balance, Mike Rodgers, Adam Pennison, Mark Taylor, James
Titus, Gregg John, Ken Doucet, Chuck Langermann, Timothy Walker, Jim Wood, Bruce
Buchanan, Chuck Hines, Sarah Moore, Dominick Valenti, John Muse, Ron Lemieux,
Chuck Klein, Kurt Schneider, Dan Parris, Fay Ferguson, Tony Hunter, Nezhyba Mario,
Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Rich Palladino, Michelle Lunn, Shane Hansen, Gary Langevin,
Jason Gwinn, Jesse Money, Bernard Siegel, Walt Spafford
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
7/1 NEW JAPAN: 1. Yamazaki & Iizuka won the IWGP tag titles (which they've since
lost) from Hashimoto & Hirata in 16:26. Most of the match aired and it was excellent.
Yamazaki was mainly destroyed brutally by Hashimoto's hard kicks, and Hirata put on
his best performance of the year. Yamazaki had his ribs taped and sold perfectly for
everything. Match had great heat. Finish saw Hirata go for the Machine suplex finisher
after Yamazaki had kicked out of his other spots, and Yamazaki out of nowhere caught
the arm in the cross armbreaker for the submission. ****; 2. Muto & Nishimura upset
Chono & Tenzan in 11:09 in a big surprise when Nishimura pinned Tenzan with a lateral
guillotine (abdominal stretch dropped into a cradle). ***1/4; 3. Black Tiger (Eddie
Guerrero) won the Best of the Super Junior tournament pinning Liger in the
championship match in 18:44. Among the highlights were Liger doing a plancha off the
top rope followed by a Liger bomb for a near fall. Tiger missed a plancha but later came
back with a plancha over the post. This was probably the second best junior heavyweight
match of the year in New Japan (only Liger vs. Otani when Liger was champ being
better) with the typical big moves and near falls with lots of heat at the end. Tiger finally
won with a brainbuster off the top rope. ****1/2
7/6 NEW JAPAN: 1. Liger pinned Dick Togo to win the Great Britain junior
heavyweight title in 15:56 in a hot match. Liger carried Togo to a great match. Togo did
the Super Astro spot where he did a plancha over the top rope to the floor landing with a
head-butt onto Liger on the floor. He went for a huracanrana off the apron ala Misterio
Jr. but Liger caught him and power bombed him on the floor. Togo used two sentons off
the top rope for a near fall but missed the third. They traded big moves at this point until
Liger hit a fisherman buster while standing on the top rope and then used the palm blow
for the pin. ***3/4; 2. Super Delfin retained the CMLL welterweight title pinning Taka
Michinoku (Independent jr. champion) in 16:09. Only the second half of the match aired
and it would probably have been even better in an unedited form, because when they
were showing highlights of the card, there were a lot of hot moves from this match
edited out. From a TV standpoint, this was the best match on the entire Skydiving J
show, largely due to Michinoku, who once he gets a little more experience, is going to be
among the elite workers in the world. At one point he did a double springboard plancha
to the floor (jumped onto the top rope, springboarded over the buckles back onto the top
rope and did the plancha). The two traded near falls and the match had super heat, with
one spot noticeably messed up and they went right back to it almost immediately. Finish
saw Delfin use a german suplex, then roll with it and deliver a dragon suplex for the pin.
****; 3. Otani beat Kazushi Sakuraba to win the vacant UWA light heavyweight title in
8:13 with a tiger suplex and a chicken wing crossface submission. Only about 2:30 aired.
What aired looked great, particularly the work of Otani both on offense and selling,
because Sakuraba isn't in his league; 4. Ultimo Dragon pinned Gran Naniwa with La
Magistral to keep the International jr. title. What aired, which was only 30 seconds of
clips, looked fantastic; 5. Gran Hamada kept the WWA jr. lt. hwt. title pinning Tatsuhito
Takaiwa with a swinging DDT. Only the finish aired and at least that was good; 6. Great
Sasuke retained the IWGP jr. title pinning Tiger in 16:54. They did the submissions early
and built into the near falls. The timing on some spots wasn't perfect. It was a basic good
match but it was missing something to make it a great match. The nuttiest move and
only dive was Sasuke climbing to the top, then putting one foot on the post and jumping
out of the ring with a side kick. It's a totally insane move because there is no way to
protect yourself from taking a hip-shattering bump. Doing this move on a regular basis
as Sasuke seems to be doing is going to take a lot of the back end of his career. Finish
saw Tiger going for the Die hard off the top rope and Sasuke turned it into a
Frankensteiner for the pin (same finish as Misterio-Psicosis in Daytona). Two excellent
television shows in a row. ***
7/13 NEW JAPAN: 1. Hashimoto & Liger & Hirata beat Chono & Tenzan & Hiro Saito
in 11:15. This was an all-action match with lots of crowd heat. The crowd made this
match because everything done was over. At one point all three (Hashimoto coming last
naturally) did double foot stomps off the top rope on Tenzan. The heels started working
on Hashimoto's bad knee. Saito at one point did senton after senton on Liger. Finish saw
Hashimoto use a spin kick and DDT to pin Saito. ***3/4; 2. Triple Warriors (as Hawk &
Power & Animal are called) beat Choshu & Muto & Kojima in 6:33 after Hawk & Animal
used the double impact on Kojima. This was a fast-paced sprint type of match similar to
what Road Warriors did in their heyday. Animal was better then expected and obviously
Power can work well against the Japanese. Hawk looked better than usual as well, but I
wouldn't go so far as to say he looked good. ***; 3. Triple Warriors beat Choshu &
Hashimoto & Nishimura in 10:43 when Animal pinned Nishimura with a powerslam.
This match put the Warriors back into 1996. It was a mess in spots, particularly when
Hawk was in, and just so-so overall. *3/4; 4. Chono & Tenzan beat Muto & Iizuka in
12:17 when Chono pinned Iizuka after a low blow and Yakuza kick. Chono took off the
TV announcer's glasses (they have a running feud) and stomped on them (reminiscent of
a famous early 60s angle with The Destroyer and Dick Lane in Los Angeles). Masa Saito,
who was doing color, had to put his hand over his mouth so you couldn't see him laugh.
At one point Muto tried to use the glasses as a weapon but that didn't work. Muto teased
Tenzan by doing exaggerated Mongolian chops. A lot of Chono matches have a great deal
of traditional American face/heel style and since Muto likes that style as well. Match was
so-so until the last few minutes, which were very good. **3/4
EMLL
The 7/19 show at Arena Mexico drew what appeared to be on television the biggest
crowd of the year for EMLL due to a double main event. In the top match, Atlantis &
Rayo de Jalisco Jr. retained the CMLL tag titles beating Canek & Apolo Dantes in a
match described as nothing noteworthy with Rayo and Canek looking bad and the other
two looking decent. The other headliner was a mask vs. mask match with Black Warrior
beating Bronco, who was revealed as Ulises Cantu Gutierrez, 30, of Monterrey. Warrior
looked great and Bronco looked good and the crowd really got into the near falls. Even
though Warrior was the heel, the crowd popped big when he won via submission
because his work was so impressive. Lizmark Jr. finally returned after being out of
action for more than 18 months after a broken leg, teaming with the original Mascara
Sagrada & Dos Caras to beat Universo 2000 & Mascara Ano 2000 & Mano Negra.
The PROMELL promotion has yet to start on TV-Azteca but it should be forthcoming
very soon. There is said to be a very good chance that Telemundo in the United States,
which has a strong relationship with TV-Azteca, would air the PROMELL shows
nationally provided the production quality is up to standards. Televisa, which broadcasts
AAA and EMLL, has decided it won't air any matches of Fuerza Guerrera, Vampiro and
Blue Panther, who are the top PROMELL stars, which is why Vampiro was pulled from
some bookings on what were EMLL television taping shows. El Hijo del Santo has
decided not to work any PROMELL tapings so that way he can maintain his exposure on
the more powerful Televisa since he's got a major EMLL program for the fall.
The top matches this week were set up on the 7/12 show. The main was Rayo & Atlantis
& El Hijo del Santo vs. Canek & Dantes & ***** Casas. It wound up with Casas and
Santo brawling all over the arena, apparently building to a hair vs. mask match which
may take place at the anniversary show in late September (at this point they are leaning
toward 9/20 as the date for the show). Apparently Casas and Santo brawled for nearly
30 minutes all over the building while the other four did the match, and since Canek &
Dantes wrestled Rayo & Atlantis and won the match clean, it set up the tag title match.
After the match in an angle, it was announced that both Casas and Santo were
suspended for two weeks. The mask vs. mask was set up in a six-man where Warrior &
El Satanico & Bestia Salvaje beat Shocker & Lizmark & Bronco.
This group and the UWA are back working together and will promote joint shows every
Thursday night at Pista Arena Revolucion in Mexico City.
Tiger Mask and Great Sasuke were invited back for the anniversary show.
Felino came close to jumping to AAA. He did an interview in Super Luchas, which is
Antonio Pena's magazine, saying that he wanted to wrestle the top AAA wrestlers and
mentioned Psicosis in particular and said that Misterio Jr. was his idol. Apparently Paco
Alonso asked him to stay for three more months and promised to give him more of a
push.
They are running a major show at Arena Coliseo on 7/31 with the gate going to benefit
the family of former ring announcer and publicist Vittorino, who passed away a few
months back of a heart attack.
The Japanese magazines had extensive coverage of the Casas vs. Sasuke NWA
welterweight title match on 7/7 at Arena Coliseo, reporting the crowd at 4,500. From the
photos, that figure may not be an exaggeration as the place looked pretty packed. Casas
won the match to give him the final position in the Junior heavyweight tournament of
champions in Japan next month. The Japanese mags gave Sasuke, the current IWGP jr.
champion, the excuse for losing by saying he was only at 75% because he wasn't
acclimated to either the altitude or the smog.
Mr. Niebla is getting raves from everyone.
La Fiera beat Kahoz on 7/9 at Arena Coliseo in a hair vs. hair match which save both
men bleed buckets.
7/26 at Arena Mexico is headlined by Atlantis & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. vs. Satanico &
Dantes & Black Warrior.
AAA
The legitimate heat between the older and younger wrestlers nearly came to a head
behind-the-scenes in Madero. The older wrestlers, led by Perro Aguayo, want to keep the
Lucha Libre style that the fans know and that they've done their entire careers. The
younger wrestlers, led by Konnan, are doing this emphasis on brawling, outside
interference (outside interference was almost non-existent in traditional Mexican
wrestling, now it takes place in nearly every important match) and trying to incorporate
American and Japanese styles into the matches so the wrestlers when they tour other
countries will be able to work with the wrestlers in those countries without the style
clashes of the past rather than only being able to work good matches with each other.
This is probably the main reason Aguayo didn't want to work the recent American shows
because he knew, with Konnan in charge, the type of matches that would take place and
he doesn't want any part of them. In Tijuana on 6/14, Aguayo was supposed to do a runin
to save the day at the end of the main event, but never left the dressing room so
Octagon had to make the save himself. After the show, Aguayo said that he didn't feel
like getting hit with a garbage can and basically felt that things like tables, ladders and
garbage cans have no place in wrestling and complained to Antonio Pena that Konnan is
ruining wrestling in Mexico. Aguayo is joined by other veterans such as Octagon, Los
Villanos and Fishman in this thinking. It got serious enough that things nearly came to
blows in the dressing room.
Both Latin Lover and Heavy Metal missed the TripleMania show. Pena was planning on
giving the new Mexican national relevos (four-man team) championship to the Rockers
team of Metal & Super Crazy & Picudo & Jerry Estrada, but Heavy is in the dog house.
Heavy did get his one year suspension from Tijuana lifted already after failing a drug
test. They used the old Olympic games excuse that somebody tampered with his sample
and a combination of that and payoffs to the commission and the suspension has been
lifted. Latin they knew of ahead of time and he was replaced by Super Calo. Heavy just
did what Heavy is prone to do apparently. Woman from WCW was also scheduled on the
show to do an angle that would apparently set up Ric Flair and Arn Anderson coming to
Mexico, but that may have already fallen through.
La Parka also did the Hector Garza screw plancha in his match at TripleMania.
There were no television tapings this week and Galavision on 7/27 and 8/3 should air
the Madero card but with the Olympics, can't be sure about anything when it comes to
Mexican TV. It was reported that there will be no television of either group on Televisa
until after the Olympics are over.
Pena is talking about putting together the biggest spectacular ever in Mexico around
November using lots of foreign talent which is one of the reasons he went to Japan over
the weekend.
The Mexican daily sports newspaper Ovaciones reported on the Ric Flair vs. Konnan
title change. The story was far more fiction than fact, talking bout it being a 2/3 fall
match, talked about Flair's offense consisting of moves like clotheslines and dropkicks,
and said the card drew 40,000 fans in Florida. The same story talked about the Misterio
Jr.-Dean Malenko title change the next day and called the title Misterio Jr. won as the
North American welterweight title.
Apparently Super Muneco is getting over huge as a heel.
Box y Lucha had an article this past week ripping AAA for its copying of ECW entitled,
"The suicide of one more promotion" basically saying why bring things like lumberjack
strap matches (which Konnan actually learned from WCW and not ECW) just because
they are done in the United States.
Konnan had a falling out with his business partner in Tijuana and is now 100% owner of
the Baja California promotion.
ALL JAPAN
It was basically a quiet week leading up to the 7/24 Budokan Hall show. Jun Akiyama
had two more singles challenge matches, losing to Akira Taue on 7/18 in Okayama in
17:32 and losing to Toshiaki Kawada on 7/20 at Korakuen Hall. The Korakuen Hall show
had a Survival elimination tag match in which the team of Maunukea Mossman & Satoru
Asako & Takao Omori & Tamon Honda beat Kentaro Shiga & Masao Inoue & Tsuyoshi
Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa which ended up lasting five matches and 35:53 before
Ogawa was the only man remaining on his side.
The next tour will be 8/17 to 9/5 with the final night at Budokan Hall with Stan Hansen,
Steve Williams, Gary Albright, Johnny Ace, The Patriot, Giant Kimala II, Dan Kroffat
and Johnny Smith.
7/14 television show which had the Misawa-Akiyama vs. Kawada-Taue rematch (I
haven't seen it at this writing but was told it was ****3/4) did a 2.1 rating.
NEW JAPAN
There were no real surprises on the second straight night in Sapporo on 7/17 before
another sellout of 6,400 fans. In the top matches, Shinya Hashimoto retained the IWGP
heavyweight title pinning Ric Flair after a DDT in 12:54, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka & Akira Nogami beat Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masa Chono in 10:52
with Fujinami using the dragon sleeper on Saito, The Triple Warriors beat Satoshi
Kojima & Riki Choshu & Keiji Muto in 7:31 when Muto was pinned after the double
impact (this was political in that the previous night, Muto pinned Hawk in a tag match),
Giant pinned Sting with the choke slam in 5:43 and Randy Savage pinned Jushin Liger
with the flying elbow in 8:12. With the exception of Giant, since he's the champ and has
the size gimmick, all the WCW wrestlers basically split while on tour, with Flair beating
Savage the first night, losing the second, Savage doing the favor the first night but
leaving with a win, and Sting being on the winning side of a tag match against the
famous Road Warriors, but then losing to Giant the second night.
There was an incident on the tour, which we don't have much in the way of details on,
where Hawk and Savage got into a fight while on tour. Based on the stories we've heard,
Hawk came out the better of the two.
Dan Severn was officially announced as debuting on the 8/2 Sumo Hall show against
Yoshiaki Fujiwara. It's expected that Severn is being built up for a series of matches
against Muto, with them likely splitting matches since Muto right now is kind of lost in
the shuffle with the top push going to Hashimoto.
New Japan ran a secondary type tour starting on 7/23 in Iida using Tatsumi Fujinami as
the main pushed wrestler plus WAR mid-card wrestlers along with Heisei Ishingun and
underneath New Japan guys with Choshu, Chono, Tenzan and Hiro Saito as the other
NJ headliners. The biggest show of the tour is 7/26 in Kanazawa, which is the home
town and city that Hiroshi Hase represents, billed as Hase's last match in his home town
teaming with long-time partner Kensuke Sasaki against Choshu & Yuji Nagata. The final
show is 7/29 at Korakuen Hall headlined by Fujinami vs. Kengo Kimura which was a
famous feud of probably ten years ago.
***** Casas' first round opponent in the J Crown tournament will be Shinjiro Otani.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Yuki Kondo won the annual Pancrase Neo Blood (younger wrestlers) tournament on
7/22 and 7/23 at Korakuen Hall (sellouts both nights). Kondo beat newcomer Peter
Williams in the finals of the eight-man tournament via unanimous decision after 20:00
with no lost points. To show once again that once people learn the submission game,
that submissions are harder to come by and that the quality of the learning curve has
increased rapidly, even with only young wrestlers, out of eight tournament matches, five
of them went the time limit with no lost points (no rope breaks on submissions or
knockdowns). Osami Shibuya captured third place beating Keiichiro Yamamiya (another
newcomer) by submission. In the first round, Kondo won a split decision over Semmy
Schiltt, the 6-8 guy who upset Manabu Yamada on the PPV show. In non-tournament
matches, Minoru Suzuki continued his slide, this time losing via decision to Vernon
White, while Frank Shamrock returned and caught Yamada in the choke sleeper in 12:44
and Masakatsu Funaki beat Takafumi Ito with the choke sleeper in 2:01. The next
Pancrase will be 9/7 with Rutten vs. Funaki and Suzuki vs. Ken Shamrock as the double
main. That show is scheduled for PPV in the United States in November. It was
originally scheduled for October, but as luck would have it, the date it was set for could
go head-up with the World Series and why chance it?
RINGS ran on 7/16 in Osaka before 4,080 fans with an "upset" in the main event as
Hans Nyman captured the No. 1 ranking beating Yoshihisa Yamamoto in 2:35 via referee
stop. The other top matches saw Volk Han beat Tsuyoshi Kousaka and Kiyoshi Tamura
over Willie Peeters. The 8/24 Ariake Coliseum show's main event of Yamamoto vs.
Ricardo Morais has been changed from RINGS rules to Vale Tudo rules with Renzo
Gracie managing Morais. Don't know if that means the match will be legit but obviously
that's how they are trying to sell it to the Japanese fans, although apparently most
Japanese fans believe RINGS is legit even though the matches are worked to look as legit
as worked matches done to garner crowd pops can look. Maurice Smith faces Kiyoshi
Tamura and world-class Jiu-Jitsu fighter Eigen Inoue debuts against Masayoshi Naruse.
IWA announced its second anniversary shows in conjunction with ECW. On 8/10 in
Yokohama, it'll be Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke defending the IWA & NWA tag titles
against The Eliminators, Terry Gordy & Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven & Stevie Richards,
Leatherface & Hiroshi Itakura vs. Black Hearts (David Heath & Barry Houston managed
by Luna Vachon) and Katsumi Hirano vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley. 8/11 at Korakuen Hall
has Goto vs. Buh Buh for the IWA title, Raven vs. Dreamer for the ECW title,
Eliminators defend ECW tag titles against Keisuke Yamada & Takashi Okano, Keizo
Matsuda vs. Richards and Gordy & Leatherface vs. Black Hearts. I'd expect the Raven-
Dreamer title match and possibly the tag title match from Korakuen Hall to both be
taped and air shortly thereafter on the ECW television show. Also on the tour will be
Paul Heyman, Patricia and Kimona.
FMW opened its tour on 7/21 at Korakuen Hall with the semifinals of its tournament to
crown an Independent world heavyweight champion with Masato Tanaka pinning
Hisakatsu Oya and Wing Kanemura pinning Super Leather (Mike Kirchner). Tanaka vs.
Kanemura will decide the title on the 8/1 outdoor Shiodome card in Tokyo headlined by
Terry Funk vs. Mr. Pogo. That show will also have a retirement ceremony for Yukie
Nabeno, 25 years old, who has been out of action for most of the past year with injuries.
FMW has booked a big show in Nagoya on 9/1 and will headline with the first explosive
barbed wire match ever in Nagoya.
Great Sasuke retained the IWGP jr. title pinning Shiryu on his own Michinoku Pro show
on 7/21 in Yahaba.
Big Japan opened its tour on 7/19 at Korakuen Hall with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga debuting
teaming with Shoji Nakamaki to beat Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji Yamakawa in a ladder
match. Aquarius (?) captured the CMLL light heavyweight title beating Dr. Wagner Jr.
Berto Diuseul, who was an alternate at the last UFC losing to Geza Kalman Jr., is
currently on tour with Battlarts.
Gaea ran an angle on 7/20 at Korakuen Hall where JWP's Mayumi Ozaki came out and
asked Gaea's Toshie Sato to become her tag partner and the two left together.
USWA
Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine won the USWA tag titles from Flex Kavana & Bart
Sawyer on the 7/15 show in Memphis.
Crowds in Memphis since the move from the Mid South Coliseum to the Flea Market
have been spotty. With lots of local pub, the first show did about 1,300 fans and $7,000,
however it dropped to about 700 fans on 7/8. That figure would have been a money loser
at the Coliseum, but it was probably closer to breaking even at the Flea Market or even a
small profit. It was up on 7/15, largely because of Sid Vicious, who has always been a
good draw in Memphis, coming in as a face to challenge Jeff Jarrett for the Unified title.
That main event only went 4:00 with a DQ finish when Tony Falk interfered. Johnny
Rotten, a guy of nearly the same size as Sid, ended up making the save. However, the
7/22 crowd was way down headlined by Bill & Jamie Dundee vs. Wolfie D & Brian
Christopher.
On the 7/15 show, Tony Williams got his head shaved. Jerry Lawler had vowed to beat
Williams twice within 15:00 and if so, Williams would get his head shaved. It was a
weird one as Scott Bowden accidentally hit Lawler with his shoe and Williams scored a
pin at 12:00. Williams then scored another pin at 13:00. Finally, with just seconds
remaining, Lawler did two piledrivers when Bowden distracted the ref, and won one fall,
and then a second fall, just before the time limit expired. Actually they mistimed it
because the second pin actually came at 15:05. Williams then got his head shaved in the
middle of the ring.
On the 7/20 television show, Lawler challenged D for the TV title. Lawler won the title
when Bowden and Bill Dundee interfered, but Williams came out and told ref Downtown
Bruno what happened and he reversed the decision. Most of the show was spent on a
lengthy angle which I'm told wasn't all that good. Dundee started by saying that Wolfie
D always uses people and dumps them. He then brought out Midget D who said Wolfie
used him and got rid of him. Dundee then brought out his son Jamie, now with a
mohawk haircut, who said the same thing. All three attacked D, who juiced, until Miss
Texas chased the midget away and Christopher made the save. In the 7/22 match, it
ended up with Tommy Rich interfering using chloroform to put D out, and then they all
attacked Christopher and he juiced heavily. Rich had turned heel on 7/15, turning on
Doug Gilbert, who is in Japan this week for IWA as Freddy Kruger.
For those in the Memphis area, they are now doing live radio broadcasts of the Memphis
house shows on the local all-sports station which is 1030 AM on the dial.
ECW
The television situation in New York is expected to change this week. About the only
thing definite is that ECW won't be on after a few more weeks in its regular Sunday night
time slot on MSG cable, although it will air during the Prime feed.
There was a minor incident backstage at the Arena show involving Taz and 911. After
being choked out, the idea was that 911 was going to sell it until they brought out
smelling salts to revive him. 911 ended up getting up too soon and Taz had words with
him backstage about it and Big Dick Dudley ended up in the middle. At this point there
are no plans for 911 to be brought back but he did get a huge pop for his return, so
nothing is etched in stone.
They are teasing a split between Perry Saturn and John Kronus since Saturn is making
subtle remarks on interviews about "my belts".
New Jack did a television interview calling Jim Cornette a closet racist and the Gangstas
claimed Cornette owed them money. Apparently this was a combination of the Gangstas'
idea and also Paul Heyman's retribution for three letters Cornette wrote over the years
in the Observer knocking ECW and a recent online message where Cornette said
something to the effect of that Heyman was someone who would rather climb up a tree
and lie than stay on the ground and tell the truth.
Johnny Smith debuts on 8/2 and 8/3.
Upcoming shows are 7/26 in Jim Thorpe, PA with Tommy Dreamer & Terry Gordy vs.
Bruise Brothers, Shane Douglas defends TV title against Pit Bull #2 , Eliminators defend
tag titles against Chris Jericho & Mikey Whipwreck, Raven defends ECW title against
Devon Storm and Taz & Bill Alfonso vs. Sandman & Tod Gordon.
7/27 in Warwick, PA has Dreamer & Gordy vs. Raven & Brian Lee, Douglas vs. Jericho
for TV strap, Gangstas vs. Bruise Brothers, Sandman vs. Taz and Eliminators defend tag
titles against Dudleys.
8/2 in Plymouth Meeting, PA has Sabu vs. Jericho, Dreamer & Gangstas & Pit Bull #2
vs. Douglas & Lee & Eliminators in an elimination match and Sandman & Too Cold
Scorpio vs. Raven & Richards.
8/3 at ECW Arena has Raven vs. Sandman, Sabu vs. Van Dam stretcher match and the
four corners tag title match with Eliminators, Gangstas, Bruise Brothers and Samoan
Gangsta Party.
ECW debuts 8/17 at the Astoria Sports Complex in Queens and runs Deer Park, NY on
8/18.
HERE AND THERE
Larry Hamilton, a major star during the 60s and early 70s as The Missouri Mauler,
passed away on 7/19 from a heart attack. Hamilton was the older brother to WCW
official Jody "Assassin" Hamilton and the uncle of WCW referee Nick Patrick. Hamilton
was a star in the Carolinas on-and-off from 1960 through 1972 for Jim Crockett Sr.,
holding the Eastern States title at least twice and the Atlantic Coast tag team title with
Brute Bernard, along with the Southern title and the Southern tag title with the Great
Bolo.
There are Vale Tudo shows scheduled for 8/23 in Biloxi, MS, 9/14 in Mobile, AL and
9/28 in Lockeford, CA. I believe that Buddy Albin, who used to promote the UFC house
shows for SEG, may be promoting these events although am not sure about that.
Tony Rumble's Century Wrestling Alliance drew two of the biggest indie crowds of the
year over the weekend. On 7/19 in Revere, MA, on a show which included Bam Bam
Bigelow, King Kong Bundy, Kevin Sullivan, Jimmy Snuka and Vic Steamboat among
others, they drew an estimated 1,850 fans (we heard reports as high as 2,200) and
followed it up on 7/20 in Gloucester, MA drawing 1,050 for most of the same crew. At
both shows they had a ten-bell salute for the eighth anniversary of the death of Bruiser
Brody, who was killed in Puerto Rico on July 18, 1988.
The largest indie crowd of 1996 that we have a report on was on 7/1 in Miami where the
Sunshine Wrestling Federation drew a reported 4,000 fans. That group's next show is
8/16 at Tamiami Park in Miami. The Florida bureau of the Wall Street Journal did a
story on this promotion in its 7/17 issue, which is looking to go public.
Bruce Baumgartner has made the rounds knocking pro wrestling before the Olympics.
Baumgartner, favored to win a third gold medal in freestyle, was asked if he had ever
considered going into pro wrestling and his replay was the only way he would do it is if
his family is destitute. He obviously doesn't keep close tabs on pro wrestling, because he
did a column on 7/21 in the New York Daily News knocking pro wrestling, complaining
that his notoriety and financial rewards can't compare to "Hulk Hogan or Sgt. Carter or
Randy Macho Man Savage of the World Wrestling Federation." He called them
bodybuilders (well, they basically were before the Government put the pressure on)
jumping up and down performing for large crowds. "I am embarrassed when I see these
guys on TV or watch them in a commercial. They're not real athletes, they're imposters."
He claimed the WWF wrestlers don't know what real training is, and said they basically
pump up and put on a show, and concluded saying the WWF defames the sport of
wrestling.
Where are they now department? Just saw an article in a local newspaper magazine
supplement on Rick Steamboat and his family. Rick and wife Boni have just opened a
health club in their home town of Lake Norman, NC, which would be their second gym.
Rick has been working 70 hour weeks at the gyms, opening up at 5 a.m. and meeting
with the clients because he feels it's important to know his members on a first-name
basis. The story mentioned that the family occasionally stays in touch with former
popular wrestler Sam Steamboat, who Rick was given his name from.
North East Wrestling ran 7/15 in Poughkeepsie, NY using Ahmed Johnson & Fatu beat
Primo Carnera III (Big Guido in ECW) & Tatanka via DQ plus Bigelow, Bundy, Jim
Neidhart, Skip and Sunny worked the show.
Apparently the USA Wrestling show on 7/12 in Birmingham that went head-to-head
with the UFC and had the better building booked with Bob Armstrong as the headliner
drew closer to 400 than 800. The Lord Humongous who worked against Bullet on the
show was Barry Buchanan aka Punisher.
There will be a show on 8/30 at the Jamil Temple in Columbia, SC in which Fabulous
Moolah and Mae Young will wrestle. In the poster for the show they have a photo of
Young where she looks to be 25 years old, and no exaggeration, that must have been
taken during the Roosevelt or at the latest the Truman administration.
Mil Mascaras worked the 7/19 show in Compton, CA.
WCW
The biggest show of the weekend was 7/21 in Greenville, SC with the final wrestling
show ever at the old Memorial Auditorium (they are tearing it down next month and
opening a new arena in town) which drew 4,546 (about 100 shy of capacity) paying
$51,465. They pushed the nostalgia hard in selling the show. It drew a much older crowd
than usual for today's wrestling and a far more respectful crowd in that they cheered all
the faces and cheered all the heels as well. The only wrestler on the card who was booed
was Randy Savage, who had the misfortune of being booked against Ric Flair, who pretty
much everyone came specifically to see. It was described as a Japan-type atmosphere
with the crowd especially into seeing Flair do all his trademark spots and it was
described as the hottest crowd for a house show in Greenville dating back to the heyday
of Jim Crockett Promotions. Flair and Savage worked the main event with Flair getting a
rock star like reaction, calling the building "The House that Flair built." Flair tried to
turn the crowd against him by yelling at the crowd, but even when he was downing they
crowd they still cheered him wildly. Savage even tried to turn the crowd on the house
mic but was booed and basically gave up trying. The match was bizarre in that when
Flair took his trademark bumps and sold spots big, the crowd cheered every spot as if
they were there for nostalgia to see Flair do his routine for the last time in the building.
They did the finish where Flair KO'd Savage with the object for the pin which got a huge
pop, but then ruined it when the ref saw the object, re-started, and Savage got the pin
with a roll-up which the crowd booed. After the match Flair got on the mic and said
"Thanks for all the years" and walked out to a huge ovation. The rest of the show saw
Public Enemy win a triangle match over Nasty Boys and Steiners which was terrible due
to Nastys and PE botching spot after spot, Diamond Dallas Page pinned Alex Wright in a
very good match, Eddie Guerrero & Robert Gibson beat Bobby Eaton & David Taylor
with Guerrero (subbing for Ricky Morton who missed the weekend because his father,
former Jarrett ref Paul Morton, had a heart attack on 7/19) doing the Ricky Morton
Southern babyface routine. Gibson and Eaton got a great reaction doing old Rock & Roll
vs. Midnight spots. We had reports from all three weekend shows raving about
Guerrero's performance doing the Ricky Morton routine basically saying he was able to
combine the Southern babyface selling with 90s high spots. Also Meng & Barbarian beat
American Males, Chris Benoit drew Dean Malenko over 15:00 in the best match on the
show, Guerrero pinned Arn Anderson in less than 5:00 (Arn got huge cheers but match
was a disappointment) and Big Bubba beat Cobra (Bubba did a good job carrying the
match).
John Tenta was scheduled against Bubba all three nights, and in both Columbia, SC and
Rock Hill, SC, it for some inexplicable reason was billed as the main event (Flair and
Savage only worked Greenville). The WCW booking team, who somehow can't get their
act together when it comes to Japan trips, failed to realize Tenta was booked in Japan
this past weekend, a booking made months ago.
Former SMW referee Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) worked these shows.
The other gates on 7/19 in Rock Hill drew 1,303 and $15,093 and Columbia on 7/20
drew 2,459 and $27,852. In Rock Hill, Meng & Barbarian arrived late so their match
with Males was canceled and the two teams were instead put into a four corners match
with Steiners and Public Enemy, so Nasty Boys, who were scheduled with Steiners & PE
in a triangle, got the night off. It wound up with Nasty's interfering on PE and Steiners
won the match after Faces of Fear and Males were both counted out. In Columbia, Nasty
Boys won the triangle match when Saggs pinned Rocco Rock.
Nitro on 7/22 from Disney (that location is getting old but it's a necessary evil) was a
poor show with the exception of a ***1/2 match where Guerrero pinned Psicosis. The
"big" angle was Kevin Nash and Scott Hall going into the control room and bullying the
directors and producers until the WCW security booted them out, which spared us from
having to watch an eight man tag with Renegade & Joe Gomez & Jim Powers & Alex
Wright beating Kevin Sullivan & Leprechaun & Hugh Morrus & Barbarian via DQ when
Giant came out and choke slammed the faces and then accepted Hogan's challenge for
the title match. The faces all got a video making them out to be young studs walking on
the beach in shades taking their shirts off. While that stuff gets heat with the male fans,
it was a way to at least give them a role so to speak, but then they ended up all being
treated as jobbers. Anyway, the Nash/Hall taking over the show sounded like a good
idea, but in actuality lasted too long and one couldn't wait for it to end. It was like a
Saturday Night Live sketch that wasn't funny and never ended. Chavo Guerrero Jr.
debuted on Nitro and has improved a lot, but still looked green, particularly when it
comes to selling (he has done very little wrestling, and what little he's done is Lucha
Libre style in Juarez where they sell differently so there's no reason he should know how
to sell) in losing to Dean Malenko. Teddy Long was out twice, first in the eight-man tag
getting Powers fired up, and later watching Ice Train against Meng. That match ended
with Scott Norton attacking Meng for the DQ which made no sense in that Norton is
feuding with Train, but after Norton said that nobody is going to get to Train until he
gets to him and he's protecting Train's back until the PPV. TV main was also weird with
Sting & Savage & Lex Luger over Steve McMichael & Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit. It
was scheduled for Flair to be in the match, but Flair didn't arrive for some reason and
they teased he might be the fourth man in the NWO (the idea was to leave the show
hanging to build ratings for Saturday night and next Monday). There was a limo in the
parking lot and Anderson was looking in the windows for Flair, who wasn't there.
McMichael was exposed once again and the match fell apart in spots. Finally Deborah
McMichael went to give Steve the briefcase, but Woman stopped her. As the two women
argued, Savage got the briefcase, theoretically getting his money back and I guess ending
the angle so Savage can move on to his angle with Hogan, and hit Benoit with the
briefcase for the pin in 6:41. After the match, Benoit and Woman argued so it appears
Woman is going to be out of the Horseman entourage and probably wind up with the
Dungeon.
For the first time since it went to the two-hour format, Nitro's ratings fell in the second
hour, going from a 2.7 to a 2.5 which is a testament to just how bad the show was, so the
overall average was a 2.6 rating and 4.2 share. Part of the drop overall can be attributed
to the Olympics, which went head-to-head with the second hour, but not all of it. Raw,
despite being the day after the PPV, only did a 2.2 rating and 3.3 share. The WCW replay
did a 1.5 rating and 3.2 share. The other weekend numbers were Saturday Night doing a
2.7, Main Event a 2.1 and Pro a 1.4, which are all solid.
Even though he's doing nothing but jobs, the folks at WCW are impressed with Psicosis.
Terry Taylor even called him one of the greatest workers in the history of wrestling and
the talk among the booking committee is that he's got more potential for the U.S. than
Misterio Jr., although done correctly, he doesn't because they are looking at Misterio
Jr.'s lack of size as a drawback when in fact it's an attribute if used correctly.
In advertising for house shows this coming weekend, when Nash & Hall start on the road
against Sting & Luger, they are saying in those markets that Hall & Nash will be there,
Sting & Luger will be there and anything can happen.
WCW is talking about cancelling some shows in August because the scheduled
legitimately is rough and the wrestlers are complaining. I can just see Ole Anderson
rolling his eyes talking about when he was wrestling they did 300 dates a year and
worked double shots every weekend and on holidays. Thank goodness for modern times.
The wrestler on the Glacier promos was Ray Lloyd, an indie wrestler from the Atlanta
area who has worked small-time local circuits for several years and also worked for
UWFI in Japan. Blood Runs Cold is going to be five or six martial arts guys doing a
martial arts style of wrestling that only wrestle each other. It doesn't sound promising,
but after seeing The Leprechaun, I figure any idea can no longer be the worst.
Misterio Jr. was scheduled to defend the cruiserweight title against Brad Armstrong on
Nitro, but again, people couldn't figure out scheduling and that Misterio Jr. couldn't
make it from Tokyo to Orlando in one day and be there in time for the live show.
Gene Okerlund did a hotline tease saying he would reveal the fourth member of NWO
(which is the new gimmick) but then never even speculated or hinted about anyone. The
plan right now for the 9/15 PPV in Winston-Salem is a War Games match with the
Horseman vs. NWO, who will have a fourth addition by that point.
The Hogan-Giant finish will be most interesting. Put it this way, the result of that match
will determine a lot who has how much power.
Scott Hall will be depositioned either this week or next by Jerry McDevitt.
They shot an angle in Orlando after the end of Nitro that'll probably air either Saturday
or Monday where Sting & Luger are about to leave the park and Hall and Nash jump
them and beat them up and have a video camera shooting the scene and they mock the
two when they're down. This was done because of the fear that Hogan was
overshadowing them to the point they've become background music.
For overall television viewership the week ending on 7/7, which is the week with the
Who is the third man? mystery, all WCW programming combined were viewed in 6.88
million homes on 175 stations as compared to WWF programming being viewed in 4.20
million homes on 153 stations.
Nitros for October are scheduled for 10/7 in Savannah, GA, 10/14 in Memphis at the Mid
South Coliseum, 10/21 in Mankato, MN and 10/28 in Carson, CA at the Olympic
Velodrome. The WCW Saturday Night shows will starting in October, no longer be taped
in Georgia but moved to either Tuesday or Wednesday night taping nights in whatever
part of the country the crew is touring. They also have house shows in October on 10/18
at the Target Center in Minneapolis, 10/24 in Stockton, CA, 10/25 at San Jose State
University, 10/26 at Arco Arena in Sacramento and the PPV will be 10/27 from the
MGM Grand in Las Vegas with Hogan-Savage on top.
The FTC has basically approved the Turner/Time Warner merger.
WWF
We don't have the complete rundown from the Monday Night Raw tapings on 7/22 in
Seattle's Key Arena, but do have most of the details. The Key Arena, which holds 20,000,
was cut down into about a one-third building configuration which was packed with 6,755
fans paying $91,092. The gate was the largest ever for a Raw taping. On the live show, it
was to open with a tag title match with Smoking Gunns defending against the birthday
boy, Shawn Michaels (who legitimately turned 31 that night) & Ahmed Johnson. Sunny
came out with a birthday cake for Michaels, and since Jim Cornette has a hand in
booking, you knew the cake would wind up in Sunny's face and down her top as well.
Michaels superkicked Billy before the match started and they then stopped it and
announced the match would take place at the end of the show. Marc Mero pinned The
Goon (Barney "Wild Bill" Irwin) in a decent match with some brutal missed spots. Goon
wears the Ice hockey costume and boots that look like ice skates. The gimmick has a
good look to it but he looked worse than awful in his syndicated TV over the weekend.
He looked a little better here, but still pretty bad. One thing is amazing is that Irwin
could pass for being about 30 (his gimmick is he's a guy kicked off amateur teams in
Minnesota which means it should be played by someone in his early 20s) and he's really
42 or 43. There's some controversy regarding the gimmick. Apparently Ontario-based
wrestler Scott D'Amore sent in the idea of being a hockey goon with costume sketches
and basically the entire idea to Titan not all that long ago, then never got called back,
and saw what was he claims were his ideas on Irwin. D'Amore had been doing the same
gimmick for about seven months on shows in Michigan. This isn't the first time that has
happened and it won't be the last. Advice to young wrestlers. If you've got a gimmick
that you think is great and you want to make a career with, trademark it BEFORE giving
the idea to a major promotion. Steve Austin did color during this match and he can
really talk. They did a quick clip of Gorilla Monsoon with Clarence Mason with Mason
wanting to bring in a guy who was arrested (Brian "Crush" Adams) into the WWF and
basically tying Monsoon's hands. This way in storyline, the WWF can claim it was that
dirty lawyer who forced them to take the guy busted for steroids and weapons
possession. Mankind beat Freddie Joe Floyd (Tracy Smothers) with the claw. Mankind
got a face pop. Goldust destroyed Barry Horowitz. WWF has gotten cold feet on the
lesbian angle, as it's been changed from Marlena having the hots for Sable to Goldust
having the hots for Sable and it's Goldust who is having Marlena give Sable the presents
rather than the other way around as the angle was originally going to be. TV main saw
Michaels & Johnson beat Gunns via DQ in 16:15 of a ***1/4 match (Michaels was very
good in particular, what a shock) ending when Ron Simmons dressed up as an Egyptian
attacked Johnson. Lawler in commentary said it looked like Ron Simmons only bigger.
Simmons looked to be in the 300 pound range and his ring name will be Farouk Asar.
Pat Patterson was again part of the pull-apart. Reports we have are that Patterson leased
his Connecticut home he's been trying to sell, and will be moving back to Florida and at
this point isn't officially part of the WWF but was in for the PPV and TV's this week as a
guest. There have been rumors about Patterson now wanting to work full-time, but still
wanting to be around for TV week. For the 7/29 show, Davey Boy Smith without Diana
or Jim Cornette in the corner, pinned Henry Godwinn. Vader pinned Marc Mero. Vader
gave Mero a lot of offense during the match and won with a powerslam. They did
another interview with Cornette and Jose Lothario with Cornette calling him a has-been
riding on Michaels' fame. Austin beat Undertaker via count out when Mankind
interfered and the two brawled to the back. After the match, Undertaker came back and
gave Austin the tombstone, although that may not air on television. They billed Aldo
Montoya as a protege of Jake Roberts (basically he's the protege of anyone who has an
angle with Lawler) and Lawler beat him and poured a bottle of Jim Beam down his
throat. For the 8/5 show, a match with New Rockers vs. Godwinns ended with Gunns
and Bodydonnas both interfering and doing a four-way to build up the four corners
match on PPV. Brian Pillman (who got a big face pop) debuted his Time Bomb segment,
similar to a Piper's Pit, interviewing Michaels, who ended up walking off the set when it
was over. Finale was a Battle Royal for a title shot on 8/19's live Raw, which Johnson
won when he and Goldust went out together but Johnson's feet were tangled in the ropes
and he didn't go all the way over. Theoretically this means 8/19 will have Michaels vs.
Johnson. I think putting Johnson over was a way for WWF to get educated fans to
believe there will be a title change at SummerSlam since Vader vs. Johnson makes more
sense than Michaels vs. Johnson. The only thing I know about the 8/12 show at press
time is that Simmons debuted as Farouk Asar, with Sunny managing him wearing a long
white Egyptian dress, and Crush debuted beating Savio Vega, wearing black pants, a
black t-shirt and a sleeveless jacket.
Other weekend ratings saw Action Zone do a 1.6 and Mania a 1.2.
Iron Sheik will be coming in as a manager starting at the 8/19 tapings.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley has signed a three-year contract and it's expected they'll renew
his push now that they've got a long-term commitment from him.
WrestleMania in 1997 will be from the Rosemont Horizon, not the United Center as we
previously reported.
Kevin Kelly debuted last week as an announcer on cable with Jim Ross and comes across
very well, even more impressive when you consider his limited experience.
Johnson apparently suffered a broken nose during the six-man at the PPV.
Among the signs visible in Seattle were: "WCW" "Bischoff sucks" "ECW" "Sabu" "Hello
Prodigy Smarts" "Taz" and "He's Hardcore."
THE READERS PAGES
WCW
The creative powers at WCW should be commended for the planning and perfect
execution of what is easily the best major promotion wrestling angle of the decade. I
much prefer angles like this, that actually take some thought, creativity and time to
develop as opposed to the current trend of uninspired post-match run-ins that appear to
be quickly thrown together to set up monthly PPV main events.
It would be nice if this one superb angle was enough to erase all that is wrong with
WCW. Unfortunately, this angle, while entertaining, only serves to make WCW's
weaknesses more evident, its over reliance on former WWF stars and lack of ability to
develop interesting talent of its own. Now WCW is going to try and go after even more
WWF talent as their contracts expire and bring them in as part of the New World Order.
While this should certainly turn out to be the biggest money making angle of the year in
the U.S., it doesn't come without a price. One can't help but wonder how many more mid
to high six-figure contracts WCW can offer to WWF wrestlers before the cost vs. profit
margin starts to thin. At some point, WCW is going to have to stop merely buying people
the WWF molded into superstars and instead actually develop some marketable talent of
its own.
Sam Nord
Walnut Creek, California
We the fans are supposed to be idiots if we are to buy the Outsiders angle. Just a few
reasons why. Two men show up with bats but are never arrested. Two men cross barriers
and are never arrested. Did WCW ever hear of restraining orders? The angle started out
well but it's become stupid.
Thomas Filius
Glassboro, New Jersey
I like the Hogan change. It's way overdue. They need to start putting some of the
younger wrestlers over. The old guys need to start being weeded out. UFC is great,
although I missed the last show. WWF whines too much. WCW tries to be too coy about
everything.
Ray Wachter
Lorton, Virginia
ECW
Regarding your comments in the 7/8 Observer regarding ECW coverage in Weekly Pro
Wrestling, I'd like to point out the following facts.
There are more than 30 full-time wrestling groups in Japan, one of which is New Japan,
to fill the pages in Weekly Pro Wrestling. ECW is not used to fill in space vacated by the
15 or so pages that used to be devoted to New Japan coverage. There's absolutely no
correlation between the New Japan feud with our magazine and ECW coverage.
Four or five color pages of an American wrestling promotion in a 160-page magazine
every three weeks is not exactly pushing it to the moon.
Just as ECW evolved and came into its own, our coverage has increased. ECW has such
great story lines that it doesn't do them justice to print only one photo from each match.
Only groups of sequence photos tell the story. I believe the photos selected fairly depict
and capture, as well as you can on film, a night at the ECW Arena.
Currently Weekly Pro Wrestling is marketing one ECW video, which came out a few
months ago, purchased by my editor, Fumi Saito, from ECW, for cash, not for favors or
increased coverage. We have been covering the ECW Arena shows for three years, two
plus of those years without any video deal. Our magazine doesn't favor a promotion
because of an already existing business deal. Fumi believes firmly in ECW as the most
important alternative wrestling promotion in the U.S., consequently he bought the rights
to their video product.
Also, on a personal level, every three weeks I spend many hours in that barbarous
environment, dodging chairs, flying chunks of tables, spatterings of blood, absorbing
censorious chants, giving it my all. My glorious four or five color pages takes some of the
stink out of the beer that falls on my clothes and helps me to forget the feelings of
exhaustion after surviving another night at the ECW Arena.
Linda Roufa
Correspondent, Photographer
Weekly Pro Wrestling Magazine
One comment about Shane Douglas. He's got some nerve talking about Ric Flair and
Shawn Michaels. How many matches has Douglas had that could even be considered as
a match of the year? The only one was the three-way match with Sabu and Terry Funk,
and Sabu and Funk deserve all the credit for that match. Flair has given us some of the
greatest matches in history with the matches with Ricky Steamboat leading the way.
Shawn Michaels has had the ladder matches, the match with Jeff Jarrett and the latest
gem with Diesel. The bottom line is that Douglas sucks.
Kevin Booker
Lynchburg, Virginia
DM: One thing about Douglas everyone needs to realize is the whole spiel is
just a work to get over as both a face and a heel depending upon if you're an
ECW loyal fan or a fan of Flair and Michaels, just like everything else
everyone else says on their interviews. Don't take it as anything more than
that

 

August 5, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Major
changes to WWE syndication, Herb Abrams dies, Kobashi
wins Triple Crown for the first time, more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 05 August 1996 22:23
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 August 5, 1996
WWF INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 63 (41.4%)
Thumbs down 47 (30.9%)
In the middle 42 (27.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Michaels & Johnson & Sid vs. Vader & Hart & Smith 92
Steve Austin vs. Marc Mero 19
WORST MATCH POLL
Mankind vs. Henry Godwinn 49
Undertaker vs. Goldust 23
Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas 21
Justin Bradshaw vs. Savio Vega 16
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 7/30.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
WWF/95 WWF/96 WCW/95 WCW/96
Paid Attendance 3,275 5,486 2,008 3,502
Average gate $44,658 $80,505 $20,668 $40,801
Avg. cable rating 2.13 2.03 2.10 2.17
Est. avg. buy rate 0.95 0.79 0.75 0.56
Estimated average PPV revenue $2.66M $2.19M $2.01 $1.62
It's almost amazing how fast things change in the pro wrestling industry. Only six
months ago, it appeared that 1996 was going to be anything but a banner year for the
United States industry. As 1995 came to a close, house shows were continuing at a low
level for WWF although there had been a slight increase after Thanksgiving. WCW had
shown a house show increase in 1995 as compared to two previous terrible years, but it
was still not looked at as a category in which the company was expecting to make any
money. Buy rates were declining to dangerous levels. Television ratings, surprisingly,
were remarkably stable considering the WWF's top rated show was getting head-to-head
competition.
The theory was that house shows were becoming simply a loss leader for both
promotions. They would run shows basically to give the wrestlers work, to keep the local
syndication television stations happy since they were buying ads on their local stations
and in some cases paying the local station a percentage of the gross, thus as a way to
keep their television in good time slots in the markets, and simply to give the company a
live presence in markets which theoretically would help in terms of television ratings
which translates into ad revenue and merchandising. If a show made money, that was
good, but the idea was almost to run shows not to lose too much money. The money
would largely be made on the monthly PPV show, which were declining rapidly, and in
ancillary ways such as ad revenue, merchandising, magazines, 900 lines, etc.
Six months later all the theories are out the window. While PPV per show revenue is
down significantly on both sides, in the case of WWF, they've run six PPVs thus far in
1996 as opposed to four in 1995 so the decline is somewhat misleading in that the
company has probably derived more actual dollars from PPV this year as in the same
period last year. WCW on the other hand ran four shows in 1996 and 1995 so the decline
is exactly what it appears to be. Nevertheless, it appears even with a hotter product
overall and what appears to be far more overall interest in wrestling, buy rates haven't
followed suit. The WCW "Outsiders" angle, which has been a huge boon to television
ratings, when the payoff came, drew less on PPV despite coming on the heels of perhaps
the best PPV show in years, than the July show did the prior year. WWF numbers
continue on a declining course for the most part since a very strong first quarter with
very successful Royal Rumble and a successful first In Your House.
What has been the surprise is that both companies are making sizeable profits touring.
In the case of the WWF, the numbers above are misleading in a sense that the company
is running less than half as many shows as they did last year, which means more shows
in major markets and all the big talent is on every show, so no "B" shows in smaller
markets to take down the average. Nevertheless, if house shows were looked at as being
break-even last year, the changes have been for the better because they are clearly
profitable once again. In the case of WCW, the huge increase is a result of a few things,
overall more interest in the company which mainly stems from the Monday Nitro show
being live each week and drawing good numbers; and the Ric Flair-Randy Savage angle
which headlined the vast majority of house shows this year and picked business up in a
big way.
From a television ratings standpoint, the results aren't a surprise. WCW has increased,
largely due to Nitro. WWF has declined, again largely due to Nitro.
For the industry as a whole, this year has been a surprising positive. In an industry that
has largely been on a slight decline after a fallout in 1992, this year has been the first
sign of a serious resurgence of overall interest, even with PPV declining likely due to the
number of shows being presented catching up with both sides. It's better for the
promoters, as it appears for the first time since perhaps the mid-80s, there are two
national companies that are both making a profit and neither is in a decline or in any
apparent danger of not being around for the long haul. It's better for the wrestlers,
although some need a crash course in basic economics.
As has been the case the past few weeks in the NBA with the incredible deals signed by
Shaq and Michael Jordan, the second and third level players have had salaries brought
into the stratosphere as well. Any breakthrough by the top level usually brings the pay
scale up for the middle and lower level players. Instead of players being upset or jealous
of dollar figures that on the surface look ridiculous, every new record should be
something all the underneath boys, whether it be in wrestling or basketball, should look
as a positive because it'll eventually carry over. The greatest thing for the WCW wrestlers
and the single greatest thing for the industry as a whole was Kevin Nash and Scott Hall
jumping to WCW.
It was great for WCW because it made the wrestling war that much more competitive. It
forced the hand of Vince McMahon into giving downside guarantees on contracts,
breaking a lengthy company policy against any type of guaranteed salary except for Hulk
Hogan. The WWF was making more money in the late 80s, but at that point, McMahon
didn't see Jim Crockett, who was offering guaranteed deals, as the threat he sees the
current WCW, and basically got everyone to sign those legendarily one-sided contracts.
No more. It shocks me so many WWF wrestlers are resentful of the rumored deal that
"unproven" Brian Pillman signed, forgetting that in the real world, breakthrough deals
like that eventually up the pay scale for the industry. The same with WCW wrestlers and
Kevin Nash's deal. Sure, there are wrestlers who have during their career drawn more
money and may be better performers than either of them in their respective companies
that are earning less money. Life isn't fair and in almost every aspect of life, timing is
everything. But as an overall industry pattern, these deals are the best thing for
everyone. The pattern for this industry for close to 100 years is that very few people
controlled a very large percentage of the wealth, and those very few people in almost
every case except those lucky enough to become international attractions, were the local
promoters. While there were plenty of wrestlers who made a ton of money in the 80s by
being in the right place at the right time far more than having any special talents (what
special talents did Ed Leslie have other than growing up with a guy whose coat tails he
could ride or Larry Pfohl have other than picking the right parents and coming along at a
time when that meant more than talent?), there were few long-term guarantees like
there are now, and one hell of a lot rougher schedule for the ones making the money.
In September, we'll undergo yet another change in the industry's landscape. Titan Sports
has made a decision to drop compensation when it comes to its syndicated package.
Compensation deals, which basically means the company pays the television station to
run its program as opposed to the opposite which had been the backbone of the
television industry until the past few years, have been around for decades. Once the
television industry realized the local wrestling television show, no matter how much it
drew in local ratings, was a necessity for the local promoter to fill his houses, they were
able in many cases to cut themselves in for a small piece of the action. Still,
compensation deals were in their infancy until Titan Sports in 1984 began buying
existing traditional time slots in major markets from the local promotion. Eventually
Titan was able to wean many of its compensation deals away because it became an inproduct
and stations could sell advertisers on the show. As advertisers started shying
away from buying the local wrestling shows, television went on to other things and both
WWF and WCW for the most part in the major markets have been paying for television
time, to keep the local presence in the market and because it's basically a necessity to
have syndication in the big markets to sell national advertising and because it was
thought that one couldn't run profitable house show business consistently in a market
without the direct television advertising the show. The costs of maintaining a
syndication network (whether local or national) nowadays must be more than income
from the national advertising one can garner from that network, or else WWF wouldn't
have made this decision. There are many who blame the weekly debt of maintaining
syndication as the key factors that put down Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation
in 1987 and Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988. It was also the key reason Smoky
Mountain Wrestling was never able to turn the corner. The debt of buying television in
markets one was planning to run house shows was considered a necessary and
increasing cost of doing business.
Things have changed. Largely due to a hotter product and changing viewer patterns. The
WWF and WCW have done consistently strong business this year going on tour with a
large percentage of shows in markets without any local television, sold basically off
locally bought mass media advertising and publicity and the hype generated off the
Monday night cable shows. In years past, it was the syndicated shows that were the
prime shows as far as development of angles, and fans who watched one show per week
would watch the weekend syndication on their local station. Now everyone knows if you
watch one show per week, to watch on Monday nights and house shows sold with ads
bought on the Monday night shows can do profitable business.
Let's use the San Francisco market as an example shows how the events have played out
over the years. In 1984, the WWF, to so-called "outsiders"--bought the time slot of the
AWA in the San Francisco market on a mid-level UHF station, Ch. 20, for $100,000 per
year. While lots of forces in wrestling complained about the territorial infringement, it
was hardly different historically than four years earlier when the AWA did pretty much
the same thing in the dying days of the Shire territory. The AWA was forced to pay to get
on a weaker station. Eventually, the WWF was able to gain enough popularity to move to
Ch. 2, the leading independent station on the West Coast for both its Superstars and
Challenge shows paying the station in the neighborhood of $150,000 per year along with
five percent of the grosses from local house show (closed-circuits of Wrestlemania
counted in this formula as KTVU used to make a lot of money in the early days of WM
when it was primarily closed-circuit before PPV matured). At some point that
compensation figure may have been lowered or even dropped. As the years went on,
WWF drew consistently huge business in both San Francisco and Oakland off that
station. At one point, NWA bought one of the top slots away from WWF, which lost
Challenge, and with the loss of the "B" show, there was a noticeable decline in the WWF
crowds and NWA came in, sometimes doing good business but usually doing what would
be termed disappointing houses. Challenge eventually replaced the NWA World Wide
once again, the WWF's business went back up. Eventually , Challenge was dumped, and
the gates fell. Finally in the wake of all the bad publicity, Superstars was dumped and for
the most part WWF hasn't had syndication in this market, one of the top five in the
country. And without television, the rare house shows in the market didn't draw except a
few television tapings in a medium-sized college gym in San Jose. The WWF hadn't run
the Cow Palace after a series of shows were unprofitable, drawing under 3,000 paid on a
few occasions even with generally strong line-ups, since December of 1994. This past
week, on 7/25, the WWF returned with the same loaded line-up they've run everywhere
else on a Thursday night, and despite no local television, drew 5,466 fans and by
increasing ticket prices since it would be the only show in the building all year, drew a
$96,388 gate, a figure that was surely quite profitable. By, with the exception of cities
like Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and a few other majors, running only once per
year, the idea of traditional building of returns or putting heat on heels at the house
shows aren't as important outside a few core cities, so you just get the guys out there, go
through the paces and put the faces over at the end of the night so everyone goes home
happy.
The September changes have potential to be major on a lot of levels. If the WWF really
dumps compensation, the reality is they aren't going to be on strong stations in major
markets and will have worse time slots. Their overall audience will decline, which means
a decline in ad rates, particularly in comparison with rival WCW. Obviously the belief is
the decline in ad rates will be less than the money they were paying in compensation or
the move wouldn't be made, which is a sign that the advertising market for wrestling on
TV has softened.
This leaves the field wide open for WCW, which has no intention of changing its policy.
WCW syndication (which is a misnomer and syndicated advertising is a combination of
all syndicated and cable shows) has beaten out WWF's almost every week this season.
The most recent figures, for the week ending 7/14 (the Monday night show and weekend
cable and syndication shows following the Hogan turn), saw among the biggest gaps
ever--WCW being seen in 6.49 million homes on 184 stations and cable (the vast
majority of these viewers are on cable), while WWF was seen in 3.92 million homes on
155 stations and cable. With WWF losing strong stations and time slots in key markets
come September, this gap should widen greatly next television season to the point the
respective television packages won't even be in the same league to advertisers.
One of the things we've pointed out here in the past going over numbers that nearly
everyone who analyzes this product hasn't figured out is that much of the change when it
comes to viewership and the perception of WCW "catching up" or "passing" WWF comes
to changes in the television industry having nothing to do with the products presented
by either company. Throughout the modern (post-1984) history of wrestling, the WWF's
traditional strength has been in syndication, while WCW has often held the advantage in
cable because of the history of wrestling in the Saturday and Sunday afternoon slots on
TBS dating back to the infancy of cable. With syndication declining in importance due to
the proliferation of infommercials and other factors that make it cost prohibitive and
with all the key angles on Mondays as opposed to on the weekend syndication with
Monday as simply a review of what happened (and these changes in television
syndication more than any other factor are why territories aren't coming back at least at
this point in time despite the yearnings of those who remember the good old days), it
gave WCW a natural advantage in that the ball game was being played on their home
court. Comparing cable ratings even during times when WCW was down and out in
every other category more often than not saw WCW actually ahead of WWF, just as it
shows today. However, WWF no longer has the syndication advantage to make up for
that deficit. In many ways this, along with the dropping of compensation, will hand the
crown to WCW as the leader in wrestling television in terms of total viewership and to
the national advertisers.
According to WWF officials, they believe they'll maintain a network in excess of 100
stations (they currently have just over 150) even without compensation, however it is the
bigger markets that they'll be most vulnerable in since those are the markets they'll lose
without compensation. With Fox's baseball programming, both New York and Los
Angeles syndication will be moved, with the New York Superstars show following the
Saturday baseball game. Without compensation, it's doubtful either Fox station will keep
WWF and they'll be scrambling for weaker stations in the fall. If New York and Los
Angeles turn out like San Francisco, in that they can't find a station to carry the shows,
those shows will drop in importance once again even though WWF officials have
continually denied rumors floating that they are considering dumping syndication
altogether. Many shows with longstanding histories, Phil Donahue being an example,
were no longer able to survive once losing New York and San Francisco.
Obviously the WWF recognizes all this and figures in its streamlined form of running
maybe 150-175 domestic house shows as opposed to nearly 1,000 in its heyday, with a
strong concentration on PPV, that this current upturn in business will continue.
***********************************************************
Kenta Kobashi has long been thought of as arguably the single greatest in-ring
performer in the industry, and certainly he's been consistently in the top three for the
past five years.
However, it wasn't until 7/24 that Kobashi captured his first singles championship, All
Japan's version of the world heavyweight title--its Triple Crown, in a stunning upset of
Akira Taue at Tokyo's Budokan Hall before a sellout 16,300 fans.
Due to the traditional seniority system in All Japan, Kobashi has always "ranked" behind
Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada. Even though he started as roughly the same
time as Taue, because Taue was older, had a name from sumo wrestling before turning
pro, and as time went on, needed the extra push because Kobashi got over strong based
purely on ability, Kobashi had never beaten Taue in a singles match. With Taue having
just won the title in a surprise upset over Misawa two months earlier in Sapporo, the
belief was Kobashi was among the series of wrestlers Taue was going to beat before
eventually losing the crown to either Misawa or Steve Williams. However, for the second
time this year, Giant Baba pulled the upset finish out of the bag in a Triple Crown title
match with Kobashi scoring the pin in 27:25. Kobashi ended the match with one eye
shut, apparently from a stiff kick to the face, and it was feared there might be problems
with the orbital bone but it was just a swollen eye. The match aired on All Japan's 7/28
television show.
Kobashi, now 29, is not expected to have a long reign as holder of the title that has to be
considered either the first or second most prestigious title (because of how it is booked
in that the champion always looks strong and there is no such thing as a gimmick finish,
and also because of the credibility and quality of its recent champions and title matches
with Misawa being the closest thing to an old-style world champion in the current
wrestling scene) in the world (WWF arguably because of its world-wide scope would be
the other one).
***********************************************************
Eccentric sometimes-wrestling promoter Herb Abrams passed away on the morning of
7/23 from cardiac failure in what was reported by the New York Post as an apparent
drug overdose.
Abrams, who was 41, stopped breathing after being handcuffed by police in his office at 7
Penn Plaza in Manhattan after he was going on a spree bashing up furniture on several
floors of the building with a baseball bat and pulling on fire alarms at about 6 a.m. He
was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and was declared dead at about 7:30 a.m.
Police were called about an emotionally disturbed person and arrived at 6:10 a.m. and
found Abrams naked, covered with baby oil with two women in the office.
Abrams, who started a wrestling promotion called the Universal Wrestling Federation in
1989, was the lowest level of the food chain of wrestling promoters with his reputation
for stiffing wrestlers and others when it came to paying bills on his shows. He had prior
arrests in several states, among them California, North Dakota, Colorado, Florida and
South Carolina, largely for skipping town after shows without paying bills. Abrams had
also been arrested twice in recent months on drug possession, trespassing and for
attempting to attack and molest a women in his Manhattan office. His most recent foray
in wrestling was a live cable special on SportsChannel America called the "Blackjack
Brawl" on September 25, 1994 from Las Vegas headlined by Steve Williams vs. Sid
Vicious and using major names such as Dan Spivey, Johnny Ace, Missy Hyatt, Bob
Orton, Tony Halme, Cactus Jack and Jimmy Snuka. The event, which drew just 228 paid
in a 17,000-seat Arena despite Abrams pulling a coup in getting Williams on the Jay
Leno show to plug the event, was so bad on so many levels that despite a tiny viewing
audience, was voted the Worst Major Wrestling card in the Observer poll for that year.
He had re-opened his office and was working on sending wrestlers on a tour of Mexico at
the time of his death.
Police found cocaine and valium in his system and believed he died of a drug overdose.
Police had found Abrams with cocaine in his office in an April arrest when he was
allegedly holding a women hostage and robbing her, and he was charged in that incident
with unlawful imprisonment, assault and attempted rape in a case that was still pending.
Abrams was a long-time wrestling fan in New York dating back to the days of Superstar
Billy Graham and Bruno Sammartino. He ran a clothing store and burst onto the
wrestling scene in 1989 at a John Arezzi fans convention in New York announcing the
formation of his new federation that was going to put the WWF out of business. Abrams
named a list of wrestlers, many if not most of whom he had never spoken with, that were
going to headline for his fledgling group, including Bruiser Brody, who had died one
year earlier, and saying that his booker would be Blackjack Mulligan, who at the time
was in prison for counterfeiting. He claimed to have signed exclusive contracts with
many of the top names in All Japan, who at the time weren't working in the U.S., saying
he'd loan them to Japan in their time off. Some people even took what he said seriously.
However, Abrams did manage to get television on some cable stations and had some
major league talent from the start, including Williams, Bam Bam Bigelow and Paul
Orndorff and even had Bruno Sammartino at one point doing his television
commentary. He started stiffing some wrestlers he was mad at on pay almost
immediately, among them being Honkytonk Man, Louie Spicolli and Bill Anderson, a
practice he'd later become known for. He built up for a PPV show on June 9, 1991 at the
Manatee Civic Center in Palmetto, FL with Williams vs. Bigelow on top, which drew
about 550 fans live but was far from the worst PPV show in history even though the buy
rate was among the lowest ever. After that time, he'd disappear from the scene for a
while, then return running a few more tapings, disappear, and the trend continued for
the past five years. To his credit, he pulled off several major coups for a promoter of his
level, such as a fair amount of cable penetration at times for his television show, more
than other established groups that ran regularly were able to do. He did run a PPV show
that wasn't all that bad and was able to con a major casino into co-promoting a television
special, which was all that bad, in Las Vegas.
***********************************************************
We've got a few details when it comes to upcoming major shows. The World Wrestling
Federation's first PPV after SummerSlam will be on 9/22 from the Core States Spectrum
in Philadelphia with a listed double main event of Shawn Michaels & Jose Lothario vs.
Davey Boy Smith & Jim Cornette and an IC title match with Ahmed Johnson vs. Vader.
On paper, those matches don't appear to anything that is going to spike a buy rate.
Although Cornette can build up a program as well as almost anyone in the business,
there's some question as to whether he has the kind of heat, since he's done so many
pratfalls and been the butt of so many jokes, that would make people buy a PPV to see
him beaten up, particularly since Lothario has little name value outside of South Texas
and he's done little at this point to be the beloved older legend fans want to see kick the
young punk's butt.
WCW has added two matches to the line-up listed last week for the 8/15 Clash of
Champions television special, Madusa vs. Bull Nakano and Randy Savage vs. Meng.
Doug Furnas is also scheduled to debut on this show. Although few remember this,
Furnas actually broke into wrestling in Knoxville in an angle with Kevin Sullivan and the
two have been friends since that time. This brings a total of at least ten matches to the
live television special from Denver. Even if the show is increased to two-and-a-half
hours in length from the normal two hour Clash (we believe that's the case but it hasn't
been confirmed), ten matches seems a bit much, particularly since the line-up is loaded
with workers who don't need to be rushed.
UWF-International of Japan held a press conference this past week to announce its
second baseball stadium show in a row, this being its biggest card of the year on 9/11 at
the 46,000-seat Jingu Stadium in Tokyo. As was already known, the first-ever singles
match between Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu will headline. Other matches
announced were Yoji Anjoh vs. Kimo under what is being billed as UFC rules, Yuhi Sano
vs. Shinya Hashimoto, Masahito Kakihara vs. Kensuke Sasaki (this will probably be
Sasaki's chance to get the win back since Sasaki put Kakihara over last October at the
Tokyo Dome show), Jushin Liger vs. Kazushi Sakuraba plus four more singles matches
involving Yoshihiro Takayama, The Original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama), Hiromitsu
Kanehara and Kenichi Yamamoto.
***********************************************************
The WWF returned to this area on 7/25 at the Cow Palace for a typical house show as
part of a West Coast swing. The show was uneventful, with the main topic of
conversation being the number of fans kicked out for being out of control. As you'd
expect, the best crowd reactions were for Shawn Michaels and Undertaker, although
neither drew a phenomenal reaction. The heat level would be best described as average.
The crowd was generally older (although there were kids) than one would expect,
particularly the front row which looked almost like a reunion of people who had been
attending Cow Palace shows since the Shire days. There were a ton of banners around
ringside, and not all of them complimentary. There were several pro-WCW banners
including things like "Watch Nitro" and a guy in a Hogan mask with pro-Hogan banners.
There were a surprising amount of pro-Vader banners, although I wouldn't describe it as
a heel crowd since most of the faces were cheered, but there were enough fans booing
Michaels in the main event that it unnerved him and he taunted them a lot in his postmatch
routine. My reaction when the show was over is that I thought the last house
show I'd seen in Tijuana was one hell of a lot better after seeing this card than I did when
that show was over.
Before the show they announced that Ultimate Warrior, Jake Roberts and Ahmed
Johnson wouldn't be there and offered refunds through the end of the third match.
1. Justin Bradshaw pinned Bob Holly.
2. In the four-corners match, the Smoking Gunns won in 21:58. This match was both
good and terrible. It was good in that Skip was the best wrestler on the entire show
although the crowd never got into the Bodydonnas as babyfaces. It was bad in that parts
of the match were excruciatingly bad, particularly a 5:30 long segment where literally
nothing happened. At 4:55, Henry Godwinn pinned Leif Cassidy with the slop drop
eliminating the New Rockers. Cassidy and Skip worked great together so it was a shame
to see him out so fast. Shortly after this point, Phinneus was in with Skip and they did a
spot where both tagged a Gunn and both did the Fargo strut out of the ring. This left
Billy vs. Bart, and I kid you not, they sat in the ring with their arms folded and did
nothing. I guess the idea was to build heat on them as the lone heels left but it just killed
the match. Finally at the 12:00 mark, Billy tagged Phinneus and the match re-started.
Billy Gunn is improving in persona and work but Bart is way behind. At 15:07, the
Godwinns were counted out when Phinneus chased Sunny (who naturally was over as a
total babyface and far more over than anyone else in the match) to the back. The last few
minutes had Zip selling until making the hot tag. Skip kissed Sunny after he had put Bart
down. With Skip's back turned, Billy switched with Bart and when Skip turned around,
Billy pinned him with an inside cradle. After seeing so many four-corners matches from
different promotions, most of which are unwieldy and disappointing, I can't wait to
move onto the next hot gimmick. *1/2
3. Steve Austin pinned Savio Vega in 9:22 after a low blow. Austin got a babyface
reaction. People reacted to him as if he were a star which was something of a surprise. **
4. Owen Hart pinned Aldo Montoya with a spin kick in 4:32. Fans weren't into Montoya
at all but the work was decent. After the match, I guess to satisfy fans who were upset
about Roberts not being there, Montoya gave Hart a DDT, which got no pop at all. 1/2*
5. Undertaker pinned Mankind in 12:24 with a tombstone. The finish got a big pop. It
was a slow match with some brawling. *1/2
6. Yokozuna, subbing for Johnson, pinned Goldust in 1:11. Yokozuna has gained a lot of
weight since the last time he was around. He looked like he ate most of Duke University.
The guy could no longer move at all. He did a Samoan drop, a legdrop and banzai and
that was the match. The idea was that since there was a sub in a key match, you put the
babyface over so the fans aren't as unhappy about the top face not being there. DUD
7. Marc Mero pinned Hunter Hearst Helmsley in 5:23. The match was fine while it lasted
but it was way too short for these two. *3/4
8. Psycho Sid pinned Davey Boy Smith in 3:49. Sid's one bump came from a suplex, and
Owen Hart had to distract Sid for Davey to gain the advantage. Sid immediately came
back with a power bomb for the pin. Fans were chanting for Sid, but it wasn't an
overwhelming chant although the biggest of the show. DUD
9. Shawn Michaels pinned Vader with a superkick in 6:59. Both worked hard and there
was nothing wrong with the moves or execution but it was too short for a world title
match and there was no build at all to the match. Michaels was the second best worker
on the show behind Skip. Jose Lothario punched Jim Cornette at the finish. The
finishing move was totally unconvincing. A trivia note that among those in attendance at
the show was the mother of Leon White, who lives in Modesto, about two hours away
from the Cow Palace and this is probably only the second or third time she's ever seen
her son wrestle live. **1/4
It was announced that the next area show would be on January 10, 1997 at the San Jose
Arena. Whew.
The biggest house show of the weekend was two nights later at the Anaheim Arrowhead
Pond drawing 8,050 fans and $139,640 for the first time in the building since
Wrestlemania. They made a few booking changes for that show, largely having to do
with having a return date booked in the building on 10/9. As has been the case in most
cities, the Bodydonnas were put over in the four-corners match. Since the main event on
the Anaheim return was booked as Michaels vs. Goldust, they couldn't put Yokozuna
over Goldust so Goldust got the quick win. To build heat for that match, Goldust
interfered in the Michaels-Vader match, which was put on before intermission since
actions in that match were leading to the top three matches on the next show, ending
with a DQ finish. With the two-on-one taking place on Michaels, Sid did the run-in to set
up Sid vs. Vader on the return show. They also announced, since they ran spots as well
during that match, that Cornette would wrestle Lothario in a singles match. Undertaker-
Mankind was moved from before intermission to the final match on the show since they
needed to put the main event on early so they could build the grudges and then
announce the top matches for the return.
***********************************************************
We have a couple of notes regarding our recent feature on former Olympians who went
on to pro wrestling. As it turns out, we left out a very important figure in the story in that
he's the only person ever to both win a gold medal in the Olympics and a major world
heavyweight wrestling championship. Thanks to former wrestler and long-time historian
Steve Neece of Muscle Mag International for this info.
Henri Deglane won the Greco-Roman gold medal in the unlimited division in the 1924
Olympics representing France. He was later involved in a pro wrestling controversy
about the world heavyweight title. On May 4, 1931, Deglane wrestled champion Ed
"Strangler" Lewis in Montreal. If you go back to the piece in the 7/8 Observer, you'll
notice in the section on Ed Don George, when Boston area promoter Paul Bowser, who
had gotten into the championship picture as a key figure with Lewis when he had his
wrestler, Gus Sonnenburg so hot that Lewis and Billy Sandow, who controlled a version
of the title, wanted the title on him to feud with Lewis which brought Bowser into the
trust. George was given the title by Bowser, without telling either Lewis or Sandow, after
Sonnenburg had been embarrassed on a busy street corner when a no-name
middleweight wrestler who was friends with rival promotion star Jim Londos beat up
Sonnenburg in front of witnesses that got a ton of pub in that the world champion
wrestler was beaten up on a busy street by a small no-name guy. Bowser put the title on
George, who was in the Olympics with the idea he wanted the title on a guy who could
handle himself against an attack out of the ring or a double-cross in the ring. Lewis
apparently got revenge on April 14, 1931 by telling George he was going to win the title
that night in the ring, and with Lewis' rep, even as good a wrestler as George was, he
didn't challenge him and voluntarily dropped the title at Lewis' request, which was a
double-cross on Bowser. It was only three weeks later that Bowser got his revenge,
booking Lewis to defend the title against Deglane in Montreal.
Stories about this match differ. According to Lou Thesz' recollections in his book, after
the second fall of the match that Lewis was under the impression he was going to win,
Deglane bit himself on the arm until he drew blood while in the dressing room (in those
days the wrestlers returned to the dressing room between falls in the main events for
several minutes in order for the promoter to make money selling concessions). He kept
it covered and in the third fall, screamed, showed the ref the teeth marks, and the ref
saw all the blood and disqualified Lewis and declared Deglane champion. Others have
claimed that the "Battle of the bite" finish was a worked finish that everyone involved
knew about beforehand as simply a gimmick finish for controversy purposes in changing
the title without Lewis having to do a job. As it turned out, that was the final split
between the Lewis camp and the Bowser camp which lends credence to the Thesz story
as being the accurate one, as Bowser recognized Deglane as world champion with Boston
and Montreal as his main cities, but Lewis continued to be recognized as champion in
some other cities and basically took off for Europe. Deglane held his version of the title
until February 9, 1933 when he lost to George in Boston.
Also, Ken Patera didn't place fourth in the 1972 Olympics, as he missed all of his press
attempts, and while this isn't confirmed, Harold Sakata may have been in the 1948
Olympics instead of the 1952 Olympics as listed in the article.
We've also had several questions regarding Laurent Soucie since the article came out.
Soucie wrestled for a few years in the early 80s in the AWA, WWF and Stampede
Wrestling among other places. Soucie was a world-class amateur wrestler, placing as
high as second in the 1978 World Cup and sixth in the 1979 World Championships in
freestyle at 198, and when he started wrestling was billed as being part of the 1980
Olympic team, but he actually wasn't on that team as Ben Peterson was the U.S. rep in
that weight in the boycotted Olympics.
***********************************************************
Next week's issue, which is the final issue of the set, will be mailed out two days later
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Makropolous (Sunday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 8/2 TO 9/2
8/2 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
8/2 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/3 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki)
8/3 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sabu vs. Van Dam)
8/4 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Hashimoto vs. Tenzan)
8/4 Universal Vale Tudo Tokyo Bay NK Hall
8/5 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (Muto vs. Koshinaka)
8/6 New Japan Tokyo Sumo Hall (G-1 tournament finals)
8/9 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/10 WCW Hog Wild PPV Sturgis, SD (Giant vs. Hogan)
8/10 ECW/IWA Yokohama Bunka Gym (Goto & Gannosuke vs. Eliminators)
8/12 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Casper, WY Events Center
8/12 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/13 All Japan Women Tokyo Budokan Hall (Womens UFC & tag tourney)
8/15 WCW Clash of Champions Denver Coliseum (Hogan vs. Flair)
8/16 Kings of Pancrase PPV taped (Frank Shamrock vs. Goes)
8/17 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Anjoh)
8/18 WWF SummerSlam Cleveland Gund Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/19 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Wheeling, WV Civic Center (Michaels vs.
Johnson)
8/19 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Huntsville, AL Von Braun Civic Center
8/20 WWF Superstars tapings Columbus, OH Convention Center
8/24 WWF X Press Toronto Exhibition Stadium (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/24 RINGS Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Yamamoto vs. Morais)
8/24 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
8/25 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader & Cornette)
8/26 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Palmetto, FL Manatee Civic Center
9/1 FMW Nagoya
9/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Chattanooga, TN UTC Arena
RESULTS
7/15 Ciudad Madero (AAA TripleMania IV-C - 12,000): Cardenal & King Boy b
Novato I & Acertijo, R-15 & Munrak b Lover Boy & Dragon Boy, Mascarita Sagrada Jr. &
Super Munequito & Mini Frisbee b Espectritos I & II & La Parkita, Elimination match:
La Parka & Winners & Super Calo & El Mexicano b Jerry Estrada & Fishman & Villano V
& My Flowers, Car vs. car: Rey Misterio Jr. b Juventud Guerrera, Parejas increibles:
Perro Aguayo & Los Villanos III & IV b Octagon & Psicosis & Cibernetico-DQ, Bull
terrier chain match: Pierroth Jr. b Konnan, Cage match loser unmasks: Los Payasos &
Karis la Momia b Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Halcon
Dorado Jr. (Dorado unmasked as Marco Antonio Olmos, 27)
7/16 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Cicloncito Ramirez & Mascarita Sagrada
b Guerrerito & Damiancito, Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz b Babe Richard & Alacran,
Americo Rocca & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Halcon ***** Jr. b El Hijo del Solitario & Mr.
Niebla & Olimpus, Bestia Salvaje & Chicago Express & Damian el Guerrero b Olimpico &
Dandy & Ringo Mendoza, Lizmark & Silver King & La Fiera b Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo
del Gladiador & Dr. Wagner Jr.
7/19 Chalmette, LA (CWF - 300): Twister b Sexy Boy Busby, Lord Humongous b
Tommy Martinelli, Joe Cain & Kevin Northcutt b Scott Armstrong & Tazmanian Devil,
Hardtime Express b Halfbreed & Doink the Clown (Dusty Wolfe), Bad Medicine b Cajun
Connection, Davey Rich b Tommy Rich-DQ, Junkyard Dog b Bunkhouse Buck
7/19 Inverness, FL (Ind): The Wizard (Kevin Katlyn) d Tommy Wright, Malia
Hosaka b Blayze, Charlie Leigh Jr. b Buddy Valentine, Warlord b Dick Slater-DQ
7/19 Willingboro, NJ (National Wrestling Federation - 500): Gino Caruso b
King Kaluha, Katy Kincaid b Kattra, Larry Winters & Ron Shaw b Lost Boys, Tony Atlas
b Lumberjack, Nikolai Volkoff b Mad Russian
7/20 San Francisco (Incredibly Strange Wrestling - 650): Vivonica b Linda
Fatal, El Thing b Skeletor, Klu Klux Klown b El Kaltiki, Donovan Morgan b Duane Jones,
Dr. Loco b El Acidoso, La Chingona b Poor White Trash, Bonehead b Dinty Moore,
Skeletor b Thing-DQ, La Migra b El Mexicana Blanca & Bomba
7/20 Bayou Battrie, AL (Unified Championship Wrestling - 300): Gladiator b
Sexy Boy Busby, Cousin Boudreaux b Motor City Mad Man, Maxx Payne DCOR Bourbon
Street Brawler #1 , Doink the Clown (Dusty Wolfe) b Bourbon Street Brawler #2 , Tommy
Rich b Marcel Pringle, Joey Barrett DCOR Tyrone the Tyrant, Al Savage b Boris Zhukov
7/21 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Kundra & Supremo II b Sakura & Sombra
de Plata, Reyes Veloz & Escudero Rojo & America b Pegaso & Zumbido & Alacran, Angel
de Plata & Atlantico & Ciclon Ramirez b Nuevo Lynx & Guerrero Maya & Mogur, Atlantis
& Dandy & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. b Felino & Apolo Dantes & Black Warrior, CMLL
middleweight title: El Satanico b Lizmark
7/21 Marrero, LA (Cajun Wrestling Federation - 285): Blade Boudreaux b Lord
Humongous, Sandman (not original) b Halfbreed, Taz (not original) b Joe Cain, Carl
Fergie b Tommy Martinelli, Doink the Clown (Dusty Wolfe) b Al Savage, Hardtime
Express DCOR Cajun Connection, Tommy Rich DDQ Davey Rich
7/22 Seattle (WWF Monday Night Raw tapings - 6,755): Salvatore Sincere b
Billy Two Eagles, Sid b Justin Bradshaw-DQ, Marc Mero b The Goon, Mankind b Freddy
Joe Floyd, Goldust b Barry Horowitz, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns NC Ahmed
Johnson & Shawn Michaels, Davey Boy Smith b Henry Godwinn, Vader b Mero, Steve
Austin b Undertaker-COR, New Rockers NC Bodydonnas, Johnson won Battle Royal,
Sid b Smith, Faarooq Asad (Ron Simmons) b Skip, Crush b Savio Vega, Godwinns b T.L.
Hopper & Who (Jim Neidhart), WWF title: Michaels b Owen Hart-DQ, WWF title:
Michaels b Vader, IC title: Johnson DCOR Asad, Undertaker b Mankind
7/23 Atani Sun Beach (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 65,000/free beach fireworks
festival show): Masanobu Kurisu b Hokuto, Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata b Tamura
& Shocker, Gekko b Astro Rey Jr., Black Wazama (Too Cold Scorpio) & Akihiko Masuda
b Billy Black & Great Kabuki, Shigeo Okumura won Battle Royal, Abdullah the Butcher
& Daikokubo Benkei b Kishin Kawabata & Takashi Ishikawa
7/23 Yakima, WA (WWF Superstars tapings - 2,922): Non-squash results:
Salvatore Sincere b Billy Two Eagles, Sid b Brooklyn Brawler, Aldo Montoya b Jerry
Lawler, Undertaker b Who, T.L. Hopper b Barry Horowitz, Marc Mero b Who, Mero b
Steve Austin-DQ, Freddy Joe Floyd b Zeb, Sid b Marty Jannetty, Floyd & Savio Vega b
Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Crush b Montoya, Sid b Davey Boy Smith, Undertaker b
Mankind-DQ, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/23 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600 full
house/all freebies): Dean Malenko b David Taylor, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Chris
Benoit & Steve McMichael b Jim Powers & Chavo Guerrero Jr. & American Males, Sting
& Randy Savage b Nasty Boys, The Giant b Booty Man
7/23 Kingsport, TN (National Championship Wrestling): Spoilers b Chuck
Carrol & Chris Steelhart, Sweet Aphne b Stan Lee, Scott Sterling b Beau James, Skyfire d
Eddie Golden, Jeff Tankerley & Shannon Castle b Bad P.D., Tim Horner b Bunkhouse
Buck
7/23 Ibor City, FL (Southeastern Pro Wrestling Federation): Johnny Attitude b
Panama Jack, Jim Magnum b Buddy Valentine, Billy Mac & Chris Nelson b T.R. Ranger
& Mike Marcello, Jimmy Del Rey b Indio, Cuban Assassin b Freight Train Freddy,
Manny Fernandez (not original) b Pepe Prado
7/24 Tokyo Budokan Hall (All Japan - 16,300 sellout): Rob Van Dam & Takao
Omori & Yoshinari Ogawa b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Satoru Asako & Kentaro Shiga
10:23, Brian Dyette & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Chris & Mark Youngblood 8:57, Jumbo
Tsuruta & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Masao Inoue & Mighty Inoue & Haruka
Eigen 9:51, PWF jr. title: Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Masa Fuchi to win title 18:58, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith b Stan Hansen & The Patriot & Maunukea
Mossman 11:54, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b Giant Baba &
Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida 17:24, Gary Albright b Toshiaki Kawada 12:18,
Triple Crown: Kenta Kobashi b Akira Taue to win title 27:25
7/24 Cincinnati (WCW - 3,559): Alex Wright b Disco Inferno, Dog collar match:
Public Enemy b Nasty Boys, Dean Malenko b Eddie Guerrero, WCW tag titles: Rick &
Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat to win titles, Scott Hall & Kevin Nash b Sting & Lex Luger-
DQ, Non-title: Randy Savage b Ric Flair
7/24 Kiryu (New Japan - 2,150): Kuniaki Kobayashi b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Akira
Nogami b Nobukazu Hirai, Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura b Akitoshi Saito &
Tatsutoshi Goto, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Michiyoshi Ohara, Hiro Saito & Masa Chono b Riki
Choshu & Yuji Nagata, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Nobutaka Araya & Koki
Kitahara
7/24 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 1,150): Shocker & Masanobu
Kurisu b Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata, Masao Orihara b Tamura, Shigeo Okumura &
Yoshihiro Takayama b Great Kabuki & Akihiko Masuda, Black Wazama b Sabu-COR,
Takashi Ishikawa & Kishin Kawabata & Yoji Anjoh b Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo
Benkei & Billy Black, Benkei won Battle Royal
7/24 Brooklyn, NY (Universal Superstars of America): Golden Greek b Tony
Rambo, Ken Sweeney b Duke Snider, Rhino Powers DDQ East Village Riot Squad, Virgil
b Gino Caruso, Bam Bam Bigelow b Typhoon, Bodyguard for Hire b Christopher
Michaels
7/24 Wakayanagi (Michinoku Pro - 232): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro
Hoshikawa, Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa b Kendo & Piloto Suicida, World Lightweight
title: Johnny Saint b Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke b
Shiryu & Dick Togo & Mens Teoh-DQ
7/25 Oyama (New Japan - 1,850 sellout): Nobukazu Hirai b Yutaka Yoshie, Akira
Nogami & Akitoshi Saito b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Tadao Yasuda, Hiroyoshi Tenzan &
Masa Chono b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Shiro Koshinaka b Hiro Saito, Riki
Choshu & Yuji Nagata b Nobutaka Araya & Koki Kitahara, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu
Nishimura b Kengo Kimura & Kuniaki Kobayashi
7/25 Shimizu (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 725): Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata b
Masanobu Kurisu & Shocker, Astro Rey Jr. b Akihiko Masuda, Black Wazama & Shigeo
Okumura b Billy Black & Great Kabuki, Tamura won Battle Royal, Sabu b Gekko,
Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei b Takashi Ishikawa & Kishin Kawabata
7/25 Yokkaichi (FMW): Nanjyo Hayato b Okamoto, Crusher Maedomari & Shark
Tsuchiya b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama, Hisakatsu Oya b Tetsuhiro Kuroda,
Super Leather & Head Banger & Toryu b Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji & Shoichi Funaki,
Megumi Kudo b Miwa Sato, Masato Tanaka & Katsutoshi Niiyama b The Gladiator &
Halcon ***** Jr., Street fight: Wing Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka b Mr. Pogo &
Koji Nakagawa & Gosaku Goshogawara
7/25 Koji (IWA - 150): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Katsumi Hirano & Tudor the Turtle b Ryo Myake & Akinori Tsukioka, Orito b Felinito,
Tiger Jeet Singh & Freddy Kruger b Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda, WWA
lightweight title: Hiroshi Itakura b Flying Kid Ichihara, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b
Takashi Okano & Leatherface
7/26 Muncie, IN (WCW - 3,500): Alex Wright b Disco Inferno ***1/4, Dog collar
match: Public Enemy b Nasty Boys *1/2, Dean Malenko b Eddie Guerrero ***3/4, WCW
tag titles: Rick & Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat **3/4, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall b Sting &
Lex Luger-DQ **1/2, Non-title: Randy Savage b Ric Flair **3/4
7/26 Kanazawa (New Japan - 3,800 sellout): Nobutaka Araya b Yutaka Yoshie,
Tadao Yasuda b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara b Tatsuhito
Takaiwa & Osamu Nishimura, Hiro Saito b Akitoshi Saito, Akira Nogami & Kengo
Kimura b Arashi & Nobukazu Hirai, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Masa Chono
& Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Riki Choshu & Yuji Nagata b Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki
7/26 Jim Thorpe, PA (ECW - 600): El Puerto Ricano b Super Nova, D-Von Dudley b
Hack Myers, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Taz b Sandman,
Gangstas b Devon Storm & Damien Kane, Brian Lee b L.A. Smooth, ECW tag titles:
Eliminators b Mikey Whipwreck & Chris Jericho, Terry Gordy & Tommy Dreamer b
Bruise Brothers
7/26 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz b Reo Jr. &
Principe Franky, Americo Rocca & Mocho Cota & Karloff Lagarde Jr. b Olimpus &
Fantastik & Alacran, Rambo & Kahoz & Chicago Express b Olimpico & Mr. Niebla & El
Brazo, Guerrero de la Muerte & Felino & Rey Bucanero b Silver King & Dandy &
Mascara Magica, Atlantis & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. b El Satanico & Black Warrior &
Apolo Dantes
7/26 Kyoto (FMW - 2,200 sellout): Hideki Hosaka b Okamoto, Katsutoshi Niiyama
b Head Banger, Nanjyo Hayato & Ricky Fuji & Hisakatsu Oya b Taka Michinoku &
Shoichi Funaki & Shiryu, Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo b Miwa
Sato & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya, The Gladiator b Halcon ***** Jr., Hido &
Wing Kanemura b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka, Street fight: Terry Funk & Super
Leather b Koji Nakagawa & Mr. Pogo
7/26 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kitao Dojo - 1,200): Daisuke Ikeda & Berto Dieseul b
Satoshi Yoneyama & Yuki Ishikawa, Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado b Yuji Yasuraoka
& Takashi Okamura & Masaaki Mochizuki, Koki Kitahara b Scott D'Amore, Koji Kitao b
Geza Kalman Jr.
7/26 Yahatahame (IWA - 200): Morinaga b Suganuma, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Tutor the Turtle b Takeshi Sato, Keizo Matsuda & Jun Nagaoka b Ryo Myake & Akinori
Tsukioka, Freddy Kruger & Tiger Jeet Singh b Katsumi Hirano & Leatherface, Orito b
Felinito, Flying Kid Ichihara & Mr. Gannosuke & Tarzan Goto b Keisuke Yamada &
Hiroshi Itakura & Takashi Okano
7/26 Hoya (All Japan women): Yumi Fukawa b Takahashi, Mariko Yoshida b Genki
Misae, Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita b Yoshiko Tamura & Takako Inoue, Yumiko Hotta
b Toshiyo Yamada, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Kaoru Ito & Reggie
Bennett & Manami Toyota
7/26 Aizu Wakamatsu (Michinoku Pro - 377): Kendo b Masato Yakushiji, Piloto
Suicida d Johnny Saint, Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Tiger
Mask, Great Sasuke & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Dick Togo & Shiryu-DQ, WWA jr. lt.
title: Gran Hamada b Mens Teoh
7/27 Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (WWF - 8,050): Justin Bradshaw b Bob
Holly, Bodydonnas won four team elimination match over New Rockers, Godwinns and
Smoking Gunns, Sid b Davey Boy Smith, Owen Hart b Aldo Montoya, WWF title: Shawn
Michaels b Vader-DQ, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Goldust b Yokozuna, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Undertaker b Mankind
7/27 Dayton, OH (WCW - 4,100/3,100 paid): Alex Wright b Disco Inferno **1/2,
Dog collar match: Nasty Boys b Public Enemy ***1/2, Eddie Guerrero b Dean Malenko
****, WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Rick & Scott Steiner to regain titles ***, Kevin Nash
& Scott Hall b Lex Luger & Sting-DQ ***3/4, Non-title cage match: Randy Savage b Ric
Flair ***3/4
7/27 Nagoya International Center (New Japan - 2,320 sellout): Akitoshi Saito b
Yutaka Yoshie, Michiyoshi Ohara b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Tadao Yasuda b Akira Nogami,
Tatsutoshi Goto b Hiro Saito, Nobukazu Hirai & Koki Kitahara b Kuniaki Kobayashi &
Kengo Kimura, Shiro Koshinaka b Nobutaka Araya, Tatsumi Fujinami b Osamu
Nishimura, Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Riki Choshu & Yuji Nagata
7/27 Warwick, PA (ECW - 860): Taz & Bill Alfonso b Sandman & Tod Gordon,
Super Nova b El Puerto Ricano, Hack Myers b Devon Storm, Mikey Whipwreck b Stevie
Richards, ECW tag titles: Eliminators b Pit Bull #2 & Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Gangstas b
Bruise Brothers, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Chris Jericho, Taz & Brian Lee b Terry
Gordy & Tommy Dreamer
7/27 Kawasaki (Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi Dick Murdoch benefit show -
459): Ultraman Jr. & Phoenix & Kid b Arkangel & Blazer & The Greek, Onryo b Figaro,
Masashi Aoyagi & Shigeo Okumura NC Masayoshi Motegi & Hirofumi Miura, Shinichi
Nakano b Kamikaze, Yoshiaki Fujiwara b Tatsuo Nakano
7/27 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (LLPW - 1,500): Sayoro Okino b Wadabe, Mizuki Endo
b Keiko Aono, Harley Saito b Michiko Nagashima, Shinobu Kandori b Eagle Sawai,
LLPW six woman titles: Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori & Mikiko Futagami b Michiko
Omukai & Noriyo Tateno & Rumi Kazama
7/27 Sakata (Michinoku Pro - 426): Super Delfin b Kendo, Shiryu & Mens Teoh &
Dick Togo b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada, WWA middleweight
title: Great Sasuke b Piloto Suicida to win title
7/27 Utsunomiya (All Japan women): Rie Tamada b Shinza, Yoshiko Tamura b
Nakanishi, Genki Misae b Yumi Fukawa, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida b Mima
Shimoda & Yumiko Hotta, Toshiyo Yamada b Tomoko Watanabe, Etsuko Mita & Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue b Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett & Kaoru Ito
7/27 Obihiro (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Crusher Takahashi b Satoru Shiga, Ichiro
Yaguchi b Yuichi Taniguchi, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Yosuke Kobayashi, Dr. Wagner Jr. b
Masahiko Kochi, Bull Pain b Bruiser Okamoto, Seiji Yamakawa & Kendo Nagasaki &
Jason Knight b Mighty Kodiak & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Shoji Nakamaki
7/27 Maebashi (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Astro Rey Jr. & Billy Black b Brazo de Oro
& Brazo de Plata, Gekko b Shocker, Black Wazama b Akihiko Masuda, Great Kabuki b
Kishin Kawabata, Sabu b Tamura, Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei b Shigeo
Okumura & Takashi Ishikawa
7/27 Vienna, Austria (CWA - 1,000): August Smisl b Drew McDonald, Tony St.
Clair b Bruiser Mastino (Mantaur)-DQ, Rambo & Michael Kovac b Brian Armstrong &
Dan Collins, David Finlay b Ulf Hermann, CWA middleweight title: Franz Schumann b
Kendo Kashin (New Japan's Tokimitsu Ishizawa)
7/27 Knoxville, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling): Stan Lee b Chris Steelhart,
K.C. Thunder DCOR James Blevins, Eddie Golden & Steve Skyfire DCOR Rick Savage &
Dave Jerrico, Tracy Smothers (Freddy Joe Floyd) b Rick Savage, Mongolian Stomper &
Chris Powers b Eight-Ball Jones & Mr. Olympian, Bunkhouse Buck b Dirty White Boy
(T.J. Hopper) to win TMW title
7/28 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center (New Japan - 2,250): Nobutaka Araya b
Kuniaki Kobayashi, Akira Nogami b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Osamu Nishimura b Akitoshi
Saito, Michiyoshi Ohara b Hiro Saito, Kengo Kimura b Tadao Yasuda, Koki Kitahara &
Nobukazu Hirai b Yuji Nagata & Tatsumi Fujinami, Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b
Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsutoshi Goto
7/28 Kobe (UWFI - 2,100 sellout): Hiromitsu Kanehara b 100% Machine, Masahito
Kakihara b Kenichi Yamamoto, Yuhi Sano b 150% Machine, Yoshihiro Takayama b Billy
Scott, Nobuhiko Takada b 200% Machine, Yoji Anjoh b Kazushi Sakuraba
7/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 1,650): Kawamoto d Wakizawa,
Genki Misae b Takahashi, Rie Tamada b Yumi Fukawa, Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada
b Yoshiko Tamura & Mariko Yoshida, Kyoko Inoue b Chaparita Asari, Manami Toyota &
Mima Shimoda b Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe, Reggie Bennett b Aja Kong, Yumiko
Hotta b Takako Inoue
7/28 Sapporo (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Crusher Takahashi b Yosuke Kobayashi,
Yuichi Taniguchi b Masahiko Kochi, Mighty Kodiak & Bull Pain b Satoru Shiga & Bruiser
Okamoto, CMLL lt. hwt. title: Dr. Wagner Jr. b Yoshihiro Tajiri to win title, Barbed wire
board street fight: Kendo Nagasaki & Jason Knight b Ichiro Yaguchi & Mitsuhiro
Matsunaga, Barbed wire board street fight: Seiji Yamakawa b Shoji Nakamaki
7/28 Hachioje (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 615): Akihiko Masuda b Astro Rey Jr.,
Shocker b Brazo de Oro, Black Wazama b Tamura, Great Kabuki b Billy Black, Sabu b
Gekko, Shigeo Okumura & Kishin Kawabata & Takashi Ishikawa b Abdullah the Butcher
& Daikokubo Benkei & Brazo de Plata
7/28 Hotohira (IWA - 2,500/fairgrounds festival show): Takeshi Sato & Tudor
the Turtle b Akinori Tsukioka & Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Orito b Felinito,
Tiger Jeet Singh & Freddy Kruger b Hiroshi Itakura & Katsumi Hirano, Keisuke Yamada
b Ryo Myake, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara b Leatherface &
Takashi Okano & Keizo Matsuda
7/28 Toa (Michinoku Pro - 213): Gran Naniwa & Naohiro Hoshikawa b Tiger Mask
& Masato Yakushiji, Johnny Saint d Mens Teoh, Kendo & Gran Hamada b Dick Togo &
Shiryu-DQ, Super Delfin & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Great Sasuke & Piloto Suicida
7/29 Orlando Disney (WCW Monday Nitro taping - 450 full house/all
freebies): Jim Duggan b Mike Enos -***, Sting & Randy Savage & Lex Luger NC Steve
McMichael & Chris Benoit & Ric Flair *3/4, Rick & Scott Steiner b High Voltage 1/4*,
Eddie Guerrero b Big Bubba **, WCW title: The Giant b Greg Valentine DUD
Special thanks to: Larry Goodman, Adam Pennison, Paul Spiegel, Gregg John, James
Stanios, James Titus, Georgiann Makropolous, Dominick Valenti, Dan Parris, Travis
Edgeworth, G.W. Graham, Sarah Moore, David Millican, Ken Doucet, Evan McClosky,
Fay Ferguson, Nezhyba Mario, Jesse Money, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
7/14 ALL JAPAN: 1. Misawa & Akiyama beat Taue & Kawada to retain the double tag
titles. This turned into an excellent match, but wasn't on the level of Misawa &
Akiyama's recent title matches against Kawada & Taue and Williams & Ace. Misawa and
Taue both did dives in the early minutes. Misawa took punishment for a long time,
climaxed by Kawada dropping him on his head with a backdrop. Akiyama tagged in but
was cut off and destroyed. The champs made a comeback with Misawa using a forearm
tope (elbow suicida) and Akiyama a simultaneous plancha. Akiyama hit his exploder
suplex, but Kawada came back with a high kick. They teased Taue using the choke slam
off the apron on Akiyama but Misawa saved him. Lots of crowd heat at this point. Taue
used his dynamic bomb and german suplex for near falls and even choke slammed
Misawa and german suplexed him again on his head for more near falls. Misawa came
back with a Tiger-driver on Taue, who kicked out, and even kicked out of a Tiger suplex,
but laid down after a second Tiger suplex. An excellent finish. ****1/2
7/14 ALL JAPAN WOMEN: 1. Chaparita Asari retained the WWWA super lightweight
title beating Rie Tamada with the sky twister. Match went 12:09 and more than half
aired on television. It was a collection of good moves with little heat, which is basically
the story now for this promotion. Asari did a plancha from the top rope to the floor
where she flew like Santo or Lizmark in their primes, but then did a flip dive that landed
short. The sky twister didn't hit right. Technically a good match but not much emotion.
***1/4; 2. Reggie Bennett pinned Kaoru Ito to win the vacant All-Pacific title. About 2/3
of the match aired with Bennett winning with a power bomb. **1/2; 3. Manami Toyota &
Mima Shimoda won the WWWA tag titles from Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue. Basically
the entire match aired. Shimoda must have been injured because she wasn't in much. As
a group, these top women are still solid workers but they seem to be past-their-primes
physically, funny since all are 25 or 26, but AJW women of the past traditionally peak
around 22 or 23, and AJW style is very physically oriented. The match didn't have the
heat, which has been the story all year, but they had a big crowd. Toyota is missing more
spots than ever before, particularly here springboard stuff off the ropes and has cut
down on the number of big moves which may say something about all those moves
physically catching up to her. That said, it was an excellent match lasting more than
30:00 with great near falls. Toyota lost her balance attempting a springboard somersault
plancha but hit a remnant of the move. She won the first fall out of nowhere by
springboarding off the top rope from the ring back into the ring and hitting a sunset flip
on Takako, which was a hot move. After lots of great near falls, Kyoko pinned Toyota
with a clothesline. Third fall saw Toyota attempt to do her springboard somersault
plancha right, and the first time, she fell off the ropes, but into the ring unharmed. She
went and did it again, and was unsteady on the ropes but pulled the move off. The teams
continued to trade near falls including Kyoko and Toyota doing their signature moves
(Niagara Driver and Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex) on each other before Toyota
pinned Kyoko after a JOC suplex starting with Kyoko on the top rope. ****
JUNE BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 6/95 3,000*
Estimated average attendance 6/96 5,028 (+67.6%)
May 1996 5,890*
Estimated average gate 6/95 $45,860*
Estimated average gate 6/96 $82,266 (+79.4%)
May 1996 $95,214*
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/95 14.3*
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/96 6.3
May 1996 16.7*
Average cable television rating 6/95 2.2
Average cable television rating 6/96 1.8 (-18.2%)
May 1996 2.2
Major show 1995: King of the Ring (16,590 fans/14,142 paid/$311,680/est. 0.65 buy
rate/est. $1.68 million)
Major show 1996: King of the Ring (8,762 sellout/$142,568/est. 0.60 buy rate/est.
$2.02 million)
Buy rate -7.7%; Overall event revenue +8.5%
*Overseas dates not included in average
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 6/95 2,400*
Estimated average attendance 6/96 4,070 (+69.6%)
May 1996 2,750
Estimated average gate 6/95 $24,500*
Estimated average gate 6/96 $55,245 (+125.5%)
May 1996 $31,580
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/95 0.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/96 0.0
May 1996 0.0
Average cable television rating 6/95 1.8
Average cable television rating 6/96 2.0 (+11.1%)
May 1996 1.9
Major show 1995: Great American Bash (6,000 sellout/5,218 paid/$63,000/est. 0.51
buy rate/est. $1.32 million)
Major show 1996: Great American Bash (9,000/7,322 paid/$123,406/est. 0.48 buy
rate/est. $1.34 million)
Buy rate -5.9%; Overall event revenue +5.8%
*WCW ran only two house shows in 6/95, so comparisons are misleading
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 6/95 2,450
Estimated average attendance 6/96 2,100 (-14.3%)
May 1996 2,610
Estimated average gate 6/95 $102,900
Estimated average gate 6/96 $70,300 (-31.7%)
May 1996 $109,850
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/95 66.7
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/96 66.7
May 1996 33.3
Average television rating 6/95 3.0
Average television rating 6/96 2.8 (-6.7%)
May 1996 2.8
Major show 1995: Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout/est. $1.1 million)
Major show 1996: Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout/est. $1 million)
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 6/95 3,450
Estimated average attendance 6/96 4,350 (+26.1%)
May 1996 3,920
Estimated average gate 6/95 $163,460
Estimated average gate 6/96 $198,830 (+21.6%)
May 1996 $188,690
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/95 35.3
Percentage of house shows sold out 6/96 50.0
May 1996 55.6
Average television rating 6/95 2.2
Average television rating 6/96 2.3 (+4.5%)
May 1996 3.8
EMLL
The main angle on the 7/26 show at Arena Mexico was building up a CMLL welterweight
title match with Guerrero de la Muerte challenging Mascara Magica. The match
probably takes place this week as Guerrero teamed with Felino & Rey Bucanero and
destroyed Magica, who teamed with Silver King & Dandy, making him submit in the
third fall before the challenges were issued back-and-forth. Guerrero challenged for the
title while Magica said he wanted Guerrero's mask on the line. There was a shoot
stretcher job in a prelim match where Olimpico went to do a somersault plancha but his
belt buckle caught the top rope and he ended up going straight down landing on the back
of his head on the floor but ended up being okay. The main event of the card saw
Atlantis & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. over Apolo Dantes & Black Warrior & El Satanico. It
was Lizmark Jr.'s first television match and he looked good and wasn't limping, but not
as good as he looked before the broken leg according to what we've heard.
Although EMLL has complained about the wild matches ruining wrestling that AAA is
putting on, this past week in Monterrey, Hector Garza faced Sangre Chicana in an ECW
style weapons match which was basically the same deal AAA has been doing.
The PROMELL show on TV-Azteca still hasn't started, and apparently they will be doing
television tapings on 8/9 and 8/16 with the new start date of the show pushed back to
8/16. The first taping will be in a 2,500-seat building in Tlalnepantla with Vampiro &
Lizmark Jr. & Fantasma vs. Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 & Violencia (Pirata
Morgan) and Angel Azteca & Super Electra & Skayde vs. Panterita del Ring & Shu El
Guerrero (former AAA Kraken who jumped here after getting a big push in AAA) &
Zapatista.
Satanico beat Lizmark on 7/21 at Arena Coliseo to retain the CMLL middleweight title.
The Vittorino family benefit show will be on 8/14 at Arena Coliseo with Lizmark &
Vampiro & Hector Garza vs. Canek & Emilio Charles Jr. & ***** Casas on top plus Mil
Mascaras, Tinieblas, Blue Demon and Fuerza Guerrera are all scheduled to attend as
guests.
AAA
Antonio Pena announced the biggest show of the year on 11/20 at Plaza de Toros (the
same building that Konnan vs. Cien Caras drew 50,000 fans in 1993) and announced it
would include the top wrestlers from WCW, New Japan and WAR.
The biggest show of the week was on 7/26 in Hidalgo with Konnan & Mascara Sagrada &
Rey Misterio Jr. headlining against Pierroth Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. (in his first main
event as a heel) & Killer. During the match, heel valet Janet, who is like a Sherri Martel
in her prime and has tremendous heat, came out with a second women at ringside,
wrestler Migaly. The faces had Lady Victoria on their side. Victoria was eliminated from
the match when Janet gave her a piledriver, and the way they sell the piledriver in
Mexico, the idea of doing it to a woman is brutal. They did a post-match angle where
Migaly turned on Janet to build for a hair vs. hair match down the line. For those
keeping track of all the titles, on this card was a match where the Mexican minis title was
at stake with Super Munequito defending against Espectrito I (don't know the result but
this card will air on television in Mexico City this coming weekend and on Galavision on
8/10).
The weekend television aired the rest of the TripleMania show from Madero on 7/15.
Bouts that aired were La Parka & Winners & Super Calo (subbing for Latin Lover) & El
Mexicano beating Jerry Estrada & Fishman & Villano V & My Flowers (subbing for
Heavy Metal who apparently went on another binge and never made it out of Tijuana the
night before) in what was called a very good match. The Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud
Guerrera match was described as being ****, but not on the level of their previous great
matches in Tijuana or Philadelphia this year. This was the match where Mosco de la
Merced and Pierroth Jr. came out and used chains to spread Misterio Jr's arms apart.
Pierroth Jr. had already used the cane on Misterio Jr. and clotheslined ref Pepe Casas.
Killer's music came out and they handed him the cane, but he turned on both and pulled
the mask off revealing Konnan. After the ensuing melee, Misterio Jr. won the match and
then destroyed Guerrera's car. There is some question as to the long-term of Guerrera
with this promotion. He's moved back in with his father, who is the head of the
PROMELL promotion, and some see him moving back as the inevitable first step in
going back to PROMELL. The other match was a Parejas Increibles (Incredible partners)
match where Perro Aguayo and Villanos III & IV technically beat Octagon & Psicosis &
Cibernetico via DQ. It was a bad match. After it was over, Psicosis and Cibernetico
turned on Octagon and brawled with him to the back. Then Los Villanos turned on
Aguayo who naturally by this point had juiced heavy. Perro Aguayo Jr. did a run-in for
the save, but it wound up with the real Killer doing a run-in and breaking a board on
both Aguayos.
Although the Misterio Jr. match with Guerrera stole the show on the WAR show on
7/10, the reports from Japan are that it wasn't as good a match as Misterio Jr's Japanese
debut against Psicosis on the J Cup show. WAR is booking a major show on 10/11 in
Osaka and that's when Misterio Jr. will return to Japan.
Nuevo Laredo remains the hottest city in the country doing huge crowds every week,
including several sellouts of the 13,000-seat outdoor baseball stadium, using La Parka,
Latin Lover and Pimpinela Escarlata as the top draws.
The soap opera which was to star Mexican rock star Gloria Trevi and include both
Vampiro and Konnan ended up being canceled when Trevi broke up with her manager
and jumped to Televisa.
This group returns to Acapulco, which at one point they were banned forever from
appearing in because of the wild scene at the previous show, on 8/17. They also return to
Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City on 8/16 with (not another) four corners match
with Perro & Perro Jr., Konnan & Misterio Jr., Guerrera & Killer and Psicosis & Pierroth
Jr.
Tijuana is scheduled for 8/2 with Octagon & Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. vs. Pierroth
& Guerrera & Misterioso on top plus Halloween vs. Thunderbird in the Baja California
title match, Leon ***** & Flamarion & Firebird vs. El Hijo del Enfermero & Genghis
Khan & Damian and (yet another) four corners match with Los Pandilleros, X-Men, Los
Brujos and a new group called The American Legion (Black Blood & Don Juan & Sueno
Chicano).
Some talk of Louie Spicolli coming in for dates in Northern Mexico.
ALL JAPAN
Besides the Triple Crown switch, the other top matches on the 7/24 Budokan show saw
Gary Albright beat Toshiaki Kawada with the choke sleeper (this result was pretty well
expected since Kawada was going to have to do a major job for comments made recently
in the press), Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda beat Giant Baba &
Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith beat
The Patriot & Stan Hansen & Maunukea Mossman and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, on about his
103rd try, finally beat Masa Fuchi to win the PWF jr. title with a german suplex in 18:58.
7/21 TV show did only a 1.4 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The biggest show of the week was 7/26 in Hiroshi Hase's home town of Kanazawa with
Hase & Kensuke Sasaki losing to Riki Choshu & Yuji Nagata in the main event when
Choshu used the lariat on both Hase & Sasaki and pinned Hase. New Japan's gimmick
when it comes to these things is athletic credibility, so Hase would figure to lose as how
can a guy, as great a wrestler as Hase is, work as a senator and then in his first match
back beat the top stars who have been wrestling almost every night and are in top
wrestling shape? Hase's presence drew a sellout of 3,800 fans. Choshu carried Hase
around on his shoulders after the match and Hase said he would continue to
occasionally wrestle. Also on the show, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka beat IWGP
tag champs Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan in a non-title match.
This current satellite tour has drawn mostly full houses in smaller buildings.
Tokimitsu Ishizawa has left for a tour of CWA for Otto Wanz under the name Kendo
Kashin. On 7/27 in Vienna, he lost when challenging for the CWA middleweight title
against Franz Schumann. He's expected back in January.
7/27 TV show did a poor 1.2 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
The two-night womens Ultimate Fight tournament on 8/12 and 8/13 at Budokan Hall
will have first round matches of Yumiko Hotta vs. TBA; Colleen Heliece, a kick boxer
from Netherlands, against Yoshimoto Pro wrestler Lioness Asuka; Tania White, a
bouncer from Australia billed as a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner against Reggie Bennett; and
Rojeiea Elena, a Russian judoka, vs. Yoko Takahashi, a former AJW wrestler who now
competes in martial arts.
FMW's top matches for 8/1 at the Shiodome in Tokyo are an explosive barbed wire
match with Mr. Pogo vs. Terry Funk, the finals of the Independent world heavyweight
title tournament with Wing Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka, a one-on-three cage match
with Megumi Kudo vs. Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari and another girl (both
Miwa Sato and Bad Nurse Nakamura, who were originally scheduled in a one-on-four
cage match, have been fired by FMW this past week), hair vs. hair match with Nanjyo
Hayato vs. Taka Michinoku and a 12 man Battle Royal. Funk returned to Japan on 7/26
drawing a sellout 2,200 in Kyoto teaming with Super Leather to beat Koji Nakagawa &
Pogo in a street fight match when Funk pinned Pogo after using fire on him.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling, All Japan women, LLPW and Kitao all ran Korakuen Hall this
week and none of the groups sold out the small building. AJW is back on 8/4 with
Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda defending the WWWA tag titles against Toshiyo
Yamada & Etsuko Mita. Tokyo Pro on 7/24 had the first Sabu vs. Too Cold Scorpio
match (Scorpio is known as Black Wazama under a mask) with Wazama winning via
count out. LLPW had its trios title defended on top on 7/27. Kitao ran on 7/26 as he
again tried to rebuild his reputation after losing two real matches doing a worked UFC
style match where he beat Geza Kalman Jr. (1-1 in UFC) in 2:18 and Koki Kitahara beat
Scott D'Amore in another match worked to look like UFC. Both Kitao and Kitahara are
attempting to get into the UFC tournament in September. Even though Kitao lost to
Mark Hall on a fluke, if he or Kitahara were to be put in with Tank Abbott, it would be an
ugly massacre.
The Golden Cups of UWFI ran a show in Kobe on 7/28 selling out a 2,100 seat arena
with poor masked wrestlers known as 100% Machine, 150% Machine and 200%
Machine losing to Hiromitsu Kanehara, Yuhi Sano and Nobuhiko Takada. After the
show, Takada said that was the only show they'd work as he doesn't want masked
wrestlers in UWFI.
Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi ran on 7/27 in Kawasaki drawing 459 fans to a Dick
Murdoch Memorial show with Fujiwara beating Tatsuo Nakano on top.
Several of the groups this past week have run free shows as part of fireworks festivals or
country fair type of events. The biggest was Tokyo Pro's show on 7/23 at Atami Sun
Beach which was reported as being viewed by more than 65,000 fans.
Apparently this is not an angle although it sounds like one, but there is real heat in WAR
between Genichiro Tenryu and Hiromichi Fuyuki, who are the group's biggest stars and
have a relationship that dates back to All Japan. Publicly Tenryu doesn't like Fuyuki's
comedy style and says it has no place in WAR. In addition, NHK (one of the Japanese
networks) recently did a show on pro wrestling (Hashimoto, Yoji Anjoh and Great
Sasuke were guests) and in an interview with Fuyuki, he said something to the effect that
pro wrestling was worked which also got traditionalists like Tenryu hot about admitting
that on a highly rated network show. Fuyuki worked Kitao's show on 7/26 and said he
was going to work on the indie circuit leaving WAR.
The wrestler Aquarius that beat Dr. Wagner Jr. for the CMLL light heavyweight title last
week on the Big Japan tour, unmasked this week revealing himself as former IWA and
EMLL wrestler Yoshihiro Tajiri. Tajiri dropped the strap back to Wagner on 7/28 in
Sapporo.
Among the parade of title matches for Michinoku this past week, the only title change
saw Great Sasuke win the WWA middleweight title from Piloto Suicida on 7/27 in
Sakata. Sasuke is already starting to promote his 10/10 show at Sumo Hall in which his
plan is to wrestle Dynamite Kid.
On the 7/19 Big Japan show, we reported the main event (Nagasaki & Yamakawa vs.
Nakamaki & Matsunaga) as a ladder match but it was actually a scaffold match. At one
point Matsunaga jumped off the scaffold (it was much lower than the old scaffolds in
NWA, looked to be about nine feet high) onto Yamakawa who was on a table laying on
barbed wire and of course they went through the table.
Universal Vale Tudo runs its second show on 8/4 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall with an eightman
UFC style tournament which includes former UFC prelim fighters Joel Sutton (2-0
in alternates matches), Jason Fairn (0-1 losing to Guy Mezger) and Anthony Macias (0-
2) plus several famous Brazilians (Marco Ruas, Hugo Duarte and Wallid Ismail) have
singles matches.
Rickson Gracie and Masakatsu Funaki appeared together on the television show SRS (a
weekly talk/action show which covers legit fighting sports). The show was based around
the 7/7 Vale Tudo show. Gracie was none too gracious talking about fighters like Igor
Zinoviev and Dan Severn, saying the only one on the show who showed him anything
was his brother Royler and said nobody else impressed him. When matches with Severn
or Zinoviev were brought up, Gracie pretty much blew both of them off saying why
would he want to fight guys that he's not impressed with.
Illoukhine Mikhail of RINGS defeated the most recent Brazilian Vale Tudo champion
Mestre Hulk by submission in 7:03 of a shoot match on a 7/14 shoot show in Japan.
USWA
Basically nothing much going on since the television show was canceled on 7/27. The
show had originally been moved earlier in the morning because of NBC Olympics
coverage since WMC-TV is an NBC affiliate. However, due to the bombing the night
before, NBC news was covering that aspect during the time wrestling was scheduled.
With the show not airing, they canceled the 7/29 show in Memphis because it wouldn't
have drawn anyone.
ECW
The final ECW show in the regular Sunday night time slot on MSG cable would have
aired on 7/28. The station changed program directors and the new director canceled the
show. ECW will air on about 40% of the MSG affiliates with the Prime broadcast and
they were expected to sign a deal on Ch. 31 in New York, which is a business/sports
station, for Saturday nights at 1 a.m. which may start as early as this coming weekend.
Sandman has moved back to Philadelphia from Utah, where he had been working a
regular job at.
Beulah will replace Kimona on the Japanese tour. Paul Heyman's plan at this point is to
air both Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer and Eliminators vs. Takashi Okano & Keisuke
Yamada title defenses from 8/11 at Korakuen Hall on the TV show that airs on 8/13.
Gary Albright has been talked with about coming in, but it probably won't be for several
more months.
Vampiro's debut will likely be on the 8/24 card. Heyman wanted him on 8/3, but before
Heyman confirmed the date with Vampiro, Vampiro got himself booked for that
weekend on shows in the Cancun area of Mexico. Originally the idea was to put Vampiro
vs. Louie Spicolli on the 8/3 show.
Chris Jericho's last date is 8/3 while the Bruise Brothers will either finish up on 8/3 or
8/24.
Raven missed the weekend shows due to pneumonia, while Pit Bull #2 missed the date
in Jim Thorpe because he was arrested and I believe not charged as part of a bar fight
the previous night. Actually Raven was at the 7/26 Jim Thorpe show but was so sick he
couldn't work so they ran an angle where he challenged Sandman, who came out and all
the heels jumped Sandman and that was the extent of his activities. That crowd was up
to 500-600, while 7/27 debut in Warwick, PA drew 860 with Taz & Brian Lee beating
Terry Gordy & Tommy Dreamer. Lee used the Asiatic spike on Gordy to leave him laying
while Taz choked out Dreamer and Bill Alfonso choked out Beulah. This set up an angle
that is to air on this week's television where Dreamer wants to get Terry Funk as his
partner for the 8/3 Philadelphia show but Gordy talks him out of it and gives him a
partners' name but the name will be kept secret until match time.
8/2 in Plymouth Meeting, PA is Sabu vs. Chris Jericho, elimination match with Dreamer
& Pit Bull #2 & Gangstas vs. Shane Douglas & Lee & Eliminators, Sandman & Too Cold
Scorpio vs. Raven & Stevie Richards, Rob Van Dam vs. Hack Myers and Johnny Smith
vs. Spicolli.
Added to 8/3 at ECW Arena are Scorpio vs. Jericho and Douglas defending TV title
against Pit Bull #2 along with the Dreamer & ? vs. Lee & Taz match.
HERE AND THERE
According to our best reports, Larry "Missouri Mauler" Hamilton was around the age of
67 at his death and had been working in Missouri as a bail bondsman.
Thanks to the readers of Global Newsletter which voted this newsletter and the
Wrestling Observer Hotline as the Best Wrestling Publication and Best Wrestling
Hotline respectively.
Todd Pettingill on his WPLJ radio show was ripping and making fun of Herb Abrams
and the story about his death.
Bert Prentice has gotten television on Ch. 39 in St. Louis on Friday nights.
Empire Wrestling Federation on 8/4 in San Bernardino.
Missy Hyatt will be appearing at the Red Lion Inn in San Jose over Labor Day weekend
for a sports show, as will Bret Hart. For more info you can contract Kirk White at the
Seventh Inning Stretch at 510-797-7759.
All Pro Wrestling in this area has a show on 8/3 with only 70 tickets available. For more
info call 510-785-8396 and if you mention the Observer, you'll get a $1 discount on
tickets.
Mil Mascaras worked again on 7/26 in Compton, CA as did Mascara Ano 2000.
UFC
Nothing really new regarding the 9/20 PPV show. There is a good chance that Brian
Johnston of San Jose will be brought back for that show, in which at this point, the only
confirmed names entered are Mark Coleman and Tank Abbott. There is still no official
site for the show. Keith Hackney, who was originally invited to appear, declined the
invite.
WCW
The WCW tag titles changed hands twice over the weekend. On 7/24 in Cincinnati, in
what was originally scheduled as a non-title match, Rick & Scott Steiner beat Harlem
Heat when during a pre-match argument, Heat agreed to put the belts up. Steiners
continued to beat Heat all weekend until the final show of the tour on 7/27 in Dayton
where Heat regained the belts when Stevie Ray hit Rick over the head with the title belt
leading to the pin.
The 7/29 Nitro show was basically a backdrop for a major angle. While a match with
Sting & Lex Luger & Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair & Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael was
going on, Jimmy Hart ran from the back and said the Outsiders were back there. He
finally got everyone to stop the match and go to the back. When the camera got there,
Arn Anderson and Marcus Bagwell were laid out. Scotty Riggs ran out and Scott Hall hit
him in the head with a garbage can lid and laid him out (the problem here is Nasty Boys
and Public Enemy have been destroying each other with much stiffer garbage can lid
shots for months and most of the time they don't even sell the blows, let alone get taken
away in the ambulance after one of them). Rey Misterio Jr. then jumped off a guard
railing but Kevin Nash caught him and torpedo's his head into the trailer. The Outsiders
(the only ones there were Nash and Hall but in storyline we are supposed to believe Hulk
Hogan and a fourth person were involved so I guess it's the best angle Hogan has ever
done and he probably wasn't within 3,000 miles of the place) then jumped in a limo with
Randy Savage on the roof of the limo and drove away. They sold it forever (the selling of
the angle was tons better than the angle itself) with Woman freaking out, Benoit nearly
in tears, Sting and Flair going into the same ambulance to comfort Anderson and
Bagwell, Misterio Jr. having his mask taken off before going into the ambulance and
screaming to Guerrero that there were four of them, etc. While the angle itself was a
ratings killer for the night, it'll pay off in the long run because the curiosity after the
angle should held the ratings this coming Saturday and Monday and it should help the
buy rate on 8/10. Bobby Heenan walked off the show claiming he's got a bad neck and
couldn't risk being out there so Eric Bischoff did the second hour with Tony Schiavone
and Larry Zbyszko. It was one of those deals where they sold the angle for so long it got
boring, and then kept selling it for so long it eventually made a bigger impact. The
wrestlers on the remainder of the show were acting distracted in their matches. The only
interview was with Giant after choke slamming Greg Valentine in 1:41 of a title match
and he did a strong babyface interview and Jimmy Hart did a hilarious interview saying
that he's lied so regularly and so often that sometimes he even believes his own lies and
that some day he'll have to pay for it. The show also featured a worst match of the year
candidate with Jim Duggan beating Mike Enos.
Even with the Olympics, the Nitro opened with a huge audience because the Saturday
show was moved back an hour and 35% of its regular audience didn't watch and Sunday
was pre-empted, so that artificially inflated the Monday rating. However, after a 3.2 first
hour, it fell to a 2.9 in the second hour, the second straight week with a drop.
Nevertheless, the overall average of 3.0 rating and 4.8 share is something WCW would
have been happy with going against the Olympics, particularly since WWF's Raw did a
2.1 rating and 3.1 share. Nitro replay averaged a 1.7 rating and 3.5 share which is a huge
replay number, which set a new replay record.
Other weekend numbers saw Saturday night moved one hour later do a 1.7 and Pro do a
1.1.
Baltimore and Norfolk on 8/16 and 8/17 respectively have been canceled. Too many of
the wrestlers complained about the schedule for August.
Rick & Scott Steiner are rumored to have signed a contract.
Weekend house shows saw 7/24 in Cincinnati draw 3,559 and $49,819, 7/25 in
Charleston, WV drew 2,500 and $31,000; 7/26 in Muncie, IN drew 3,500 and $40,000
and 7/27 in Dayton drew 4,100 (3,100 paid) and $40,000. Flair-Savage in non-title
matches (which weren't announced in the building as non-title) headlined all four nights
with Savage winning. The Dayton match was a cage match. Nash & Hall debuted on the
road working against Sting & Luger. Nash & Hall came out through the crowd to get big
pops since obviously they shouldn't dress in a WCW dressing room according to the
angle. In some cities they got a big babyface pop, in others, a strong heel pop. They
dominated the matches until Luger made the hot tag and put Hall in the rack. Nash then
came in with a chair, but Sting got the chair from him. The ref saw Sting with the chair
and DQ'd him, but after the match Sting laid both out with the chair. Reports from
basically every show were that the Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero undercard matches
(they traded wins) were the best on the show generally in the ***3/4 to **** range.
The one-hour Saturday night show was taped on 7/23 at Disney. Benoit and Woman did
an interview arguing about the finish at Nitro which Woman blamed on Deborah
McMichael. After a Sting & Savage win over Nasty Boys with Savage using the briefcase
on Sags for the pin, the McMichaels came out and stole back the briefcase. Steiners beat
Enos & Dick Slater when Sherri kissed Slater again leading to the pin, and afterwards
Slater and Sherri argued as they seemed to build up a triangle with Steiners, Heat and
Slater & Enos. They aired a "paid commercial by NWO" airing the beating on Sting as he
was going to his car taped in Orlando, which they said was taped in Cincinnati and Giant
beat Booty Man on top.
Lee Marshall has been doing play-by-play on both Pro and World Wide of late. The only
conclusion I can come to about that assignment, since Marshall is by far the worst of the
WCW announcing bunch, is that Tony Schiavone (who is in charge of those
assignments) wants to make sure the only guy who gets any visibility is a guy that
nobody will ever think is a better announcer than he is.
Schiavone & Dusty Rhodes mentioned on Saturday the death of Missouri Mauler.
For the 8/3 Saturday Night show (taped 7/30 at Disney) the top bouts are Giant vs.
Knobs, Flair vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Savage vs. Benoit.
WWF
Ahmed Johnson's injury was announced on Raw as being a ruptured kidney from the
attack by Ron Simmons (correct spelling would be Faarooq Asad). Other reports are that
it was really a severely bruised kidney and that Johnson has had blood in his urine, but
they don't know exactly when it happened. Johnson also broke his nose during the sixman,
presumably from a stiff kick to the face by Owen Hart. He was considered doubtful
for this coming weekend but the presumption now is that he'll start back at
SummerSlam (the IC title match has been changed to Asad as the challenger).
Jake Roberts presumably will also start back at that show. All sorts of stories are
circulating as to what has kept him out of action but we can't confirm anything.
Independent estimates for the WWF International Incident PPV were that it did an 0.37
buy rate (92,000 buys; est. $830,000 company income). WWF internal numbers are
estimating an 0.53 buy rate.
Local syndication of Ch. 5 in New York will start at 4 p.m. or whenever the baseball
game ends.
There is, or at least was, tremendous heat on Jim Cornette coming off the weekend tour,
largely due to a backstage argument he had with Shawn Michaels after the match in
Anaheim. Apparently they had worked out a spot where Michaels was going to superkick
Cornette, but Cornette either tripped and fell down and Michaels superkicked air, or I
guess Michaels felt Cornette double-crossed him on the spot. There were problems
already between the two stemming from something that apparently happened after the
show in San Francisco. Anyway, after they went behind the curtain in Anaheim,
Michaels immediately began yelling at Cornette about the spot and Cornette began
yelling back and it became a big deal internally.
Clarence Mason will become a regular manager for Crush, who they admitted on Raw
was arrested on a weapons violation and controlled substance violation (although
steroids themselves weren't mentioned). Mason is obviously not his real name, and he
was a former Assistant D.A. in real life from somewhere in Florida who was a big
wrestling fan and became friends with Ernie Ladd, who made the connection with the
WWF with him.
Iron Sheik will be brought back at the next tapings as a coach, as opposed to manager.
Fatu had his head shaved and was told to lose a lot of weight and be introduced as a new
character from the Middle East. They will probably once acknowledge that the new guy
was Fatu, similar to why Jerry Lawler mentioned Ron Simmons' name once on Raw last
week. The idea behind this is by saying who it is once, you aren't insulting the
intelligence of the fans who figure it out, but not to dwell on it either. Sheik was under
the impression he'll be given a major push and it'll be a hot deal because they are using
him to exploit the heat from recent terrorist activities all over the news.
Barry Windham's gimmick will be The Stalker. He's not going to be a stalker like the
kind of people that stalk celebrities, but more of a big-game hunter gimmick.
The Bruise Brothers are also returning, although only for a similar level push as Freddy
Joe Floyd, T.J. Hopper, etc. in that they'll occasionally get a TV win but mainly be used
to put over the tag teams that are being pushed, and they aren't going to be sent on the
road. WWF encouraged them to continue with ECW, however Paul Heyman didn't want
to use anyone that loses on WWF television or is affiliated with WWF.
Pat Patterson's situation is that he won't be returning to office work, but will be helping
with television and maybe go on the road one week a month to keep his hand in things.
At least that's what Patterson is said to want. Supposedly he has no desire to work in the
office again or help write the television shows.
They were really starting to push a Bret Hart return in the television commentary.
Tons of pub, both on Raw and mainstream, regarding Mark Henry, the
superheavyweight lifter who will be billed as the world's strongest man when he starts
with WWF, presumably around September. He lifts after press time but before any of
you are reading this. Henry is a life-long wrestling fan and one of the few Olympic lifters
who is also a strong powerlifter. While he is neither the strongest Olympic lifter (which
is a more technique oriented sport) nor strongest powerlifter (which is more power
oriented), because he's good at both, you can make an argument for him being the
world's strongest man although most people in the lifting world consider a guy named
Anthony Clark (who ironically has a wrestling connection himself in that he does
strongman exhibitions on some of the religious shows that guys like Billy Graham and
Ted DiBiase appear on) who bench presses in the mid-700s as the world's strongest man
right now.
WWF has officially severed all ties with Warrior University and the Warrior comic book,
so just about everyone is presuming that relationship is now dead. Warrior's name isn't
mentioned by anyone at this point.
Vader is said to be in the 360 pound range legit, down from 410.
Buddy Landel probably won't be able to wrestle after blowing out his knee slipping on
ice last winter until January or February.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley should be getting a renewed push now that he's signed a longterm
contract.
Rumors are flying around regarding Too Cold Scorpio, but nothing confirmed.
Ron Simmons was working as a Warehouse manager for a Coca-Cola plant in or near
Atlanta since his last wrestling foray. WCW was interested in bringing him back last
November starting with the three-ring Battle Royal PPV but the sides didn't agree on
money terms.
The Vancouver PPV show drew what is believed to have been the largest crowd and
definitely the largest house in the history of wrestling in that city.
Superstars taping on 7/23 in Yakima, WA before 2,922 fans paying $41,562 saw Billy
Two Eagles from Oregon work a dark match losing to Salvatore Sincere. Aldo Montoya
pinned Jerry Lawler after a DDT (to build up an angle on next week's Raw where Lawler
piledrives him). Zeb works, putting over Freddy Joe Floyd to set up Floyd & Savio Vega
beating Zeb & Justin Bradshaw the following week. Montoya was back as a jobber
putting over Crush.
The 8/25 show at the Nassau Coliseum will be an all-tag team show with Michaels &
Lothario vs. Vader & Cornette, Johnson & Sid vs. Hart & Smith, Undertaker & Roberts
vs. Goldust & Mankind, Gunns vs. Godwinns for the belts, Bodydonnas vs. New Rockers,
Marc Mero & Vega vs. Helmsley & Steve Austin and Bushwhackers vs. Bradshaw & Zeb.
Besides the S.F. and Anaheim shows, other gates for the week were 7/24 in Spokane, WA
drawing 3,810 and $58,349 and 7/26 in Fresno drawing 5,032 and $73,071.
The biggest show of the coming week is the debut at the Moulson Center on 8/2 in
Montreal with the Raymond Rougeau-Owen Hart boxing match, and that show already
had a $114,000 advance as of press time.
Cornette did an amazing job of putting over Jose Lothario on the Raw show, much better
than the similar deal on the free-for-all. Lothario came off good as the old proud retired
wrestler (kind of like a Perro Aguayo in 15 years) but I just don't know if he has enough
name recognition and empathy outside of southern Texas where it'll mean something on
a national basis which is clearly what they are building it up for. When Cornette did the
stuff with Bob Armstrong, Armstrong had been the local hero in that area on-and-off for
more than 20 years.
THE READERS PAGES
WCW
I think the turn of Hulk Hogan will be a successful short-term boost to his career just as
the turn of Andre the Giant boosted his career near the end. Hogan has unwittingly been
a heel for the past few years. Fans were so turned off by his persona that they were
completely sick of him. Even though it will probably come out at a date to be determined
by Hogan and his booking cronies that he went undercover to break the NWO down
from within to protect his post-wrestling acting career, this turn should be a business
boost to WCW as fans who wouldn't buy PPVs because Hogan was in the main event and
wouldn't lose, will now buy them to see him lose. His interviews so far have been great,
and the heat has far surpassed anything WCW has ever done and is equal only to when
Barry Windham turned on Lex Luger for shock and emotional value.
I wonder if Paul Heyman wasn't a friend of yours since time began if you would be so
lenient of the bloodfests, degradation and humiliation of women, brawling in the
audience and suicidal bumps which are the mainstays of the ECW? I have a feeling if
WWF and WCW tried to copy ECW at the same level ECW does things, you would
crucify them all over the Observer.
Even though I don't like or condone most of what ECW does, I do admire the genius of
Heyman in his ability to get people and his promotion over to his so-called smart fan
audience, even if the only way to get over with them is suicidal bumps and bloodfests.
When the Dudley gimmick petered out as quickly as it got over, he introduced D-Von
and the gimmick regained much of its heat. Most of his storylines are cohesive which
makes the TV something to watch. But due to the sociopathic violence-loving crowd
ECW attracts, it turns off a lot of wrestling fans from wanting to actually go to the
events. It would also be nice if Heyman did something to discourage the crowd from
getting involved in matches by handing weapons to workers. It sets a dangerous
precedent and eventually will lead to a fan actually getting involved in a match.
Something also needs to be said about Joey Styles. He is probably the true star of the
company. He clearly gets over the storylines, sometimes spending minutes per show
reviewing a story. His voice inflections and enthusiasm make it clear to the fans who the
heel and faces are, which is something otherwise not so clear-cut. His story reviews
should be required viewing for WCW and WWF announcers who either can't or don't get
the storylines over to the public. For someone who has only been doing his job a few
years, Styles is a true revelation.
Sandy Krebs
Brooklyn, New York
ECW
I'm writing to express the feelings that were evoked in me and others by just one
sentence in the 7/8 Observer. The sentence I refer to discussed the criticism that Tarzan
Yamamoto and Weekly Pro Wrestling received regarding their coverage of ECW, and it's
supposed relationship to the business dealings between Weekly Pro and ECW.
While you were referring to criticisms made by others, and chose not to interject your
opinion on the subject or validity of the criticisms, in doing so, you offended a very good
friend. When I read that sentence, my first thought was that you allowed this person to
appear in a way that wasn't warranted or deserved and I've later learned he too believed
that to be the case.
Although I was happy to see you give so much attention to the changes in the hierarchy
at Baseball Magazine Sha as it relates to the resignation of Yamamoto, I feel the need to
defend Fumi Saito, the editor of all pages covering ECW.
As you know, I'm very good friends with Fumi Saito. Although he wasn't named, he was
the main player in your characterization of what reads as an underhanded relationship
between a magazine editor and a promotion that gets covered in the magazine. There
may be critics, but their criticisms of ECW and Fumi Saito's business dealings are not
consistent with the facts and don't make sense when you understand the dynamics of the
dealings between Paul Heyman, Tod Gordon and Fumi Saito.
First, Fumi Saito believes deep to the core that ECW is a revolutionary force in American
pro wrestling and will prove to be revolutionary in Japanese wrestling as well. Although
the promotion of ECW in Weekly Pro would, in fact, help to advance his beliefs and
would also help in the sales of videos that he invested heavily in, this is not his
motivation. What is much closer to reality is his profound belief in the wrestling product
that is responsible for both his extensive coverage and then later the investment in the
video rights. Remember, his generous coverage of ECW began before his initial
investment in the videos.
Paul Heyman, who is always trying to handle too much business at one time with little
help from his staff, was very inefficient in this matter and screwed Fumi Saito around by
not delivering the videos in a speedy fashion. This was very frustrating to Fumi Saito and
led to many rather brisk and intense faxes from Fumi Saito to Heyman. Fumi Saito could
have leveraged the deal by cutting back on magazine coverage of ECW, but his
professionalism and integrity to print what he believed deserves printing would not
allow him to use that leverage to his advantage.
Also, the extensive coverage of ECW is one of the things that separates Baseball
Magazine from Gong Magazine. Both give generous coverage to the "big two" of the U.S.
scene, but it is Baseball Magazine that chooses to recognize the No. 3 up and coming
promotion. This gives their readership a little something different to look forward to.
Paul Heyman knows Fumi Saito is a huge mark for ECW and is very happy to get the
coverage, but he has never demanded or asked for it in any way. It is Fumi Saito's belief
in ECW as a revolutionary product and force that motivates him to cover it in the
manner he does.
I'm very surprised that you didn't defend Fumi Saito's character in all of this as you are
well aware that it is he, and not Tarzan Yamamoto, who is responsible for the business
relationship with ECW. You wrote it to sound like the various criticisms were warranted.
I hope you understand the effects on his character that were affected by the implication.
Scott Goldstein
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I feel compelled to respond to Andrew Kessler's endless barking about the superiority of
ECW in the 7/22 issue. It is apparent he has a very narrow view of the business.
While ECW is an excellent well-targeted product, it is in no way worthy of the undying
praise. Actually, if you properly analyze it, ECW is nothing more than a gimmick
promotion packaged for an alternative market. Paul Heyman's niche is the hardcore fan
and his company has succeeded to a degree in capturing this fan base. In no way is this
the best promotion in the history of pro wrestling, or even the best promotion of today.
Face the facts, there is a reason ECW programming runs at 2 or 3 a.m. In its current
form, ECW will never garner widespread mainstream interest and it seems a lot of its
fans just can't stand it. Get over it and be happy you've got an alternative to watch.
Count your lucky stars that Vince McMahon has his hands full with WCW and no longer
has the power to snuff out promotions like ECW. By the way, I'm wondering who forces
people to watch the garbage put out by the big two every Monday night. Is the on/off
switch on your TV broken? Yes, the ECW crew works its ass off, but the key word here is
work, just like every promotion past and present. In my mind, the classic definition of a
great wrestling promotion is one in which everything is presented as believably as
possible and as close to that of a real sport. Many promotions of the non-too-distant
past, Jim Crockett and Bill Watts' territories in particular, displayed outstanding
realism, drama and excitement. ECW, on the other hand, is as predictable as it gets. Stiff
chair shots, blading, etc. had their place in the promotions of the past but were used for
maximum impact to augment the product, not to be the entire product. The constant
parade of this stuff in ECW renders the gimmicks almost meaningless when it comes to
storylines. Hell, they are the storylines. Does ECW really look like anything remotely like
a legitimate sport? Like it or not, Steven Grant was correct when he said that ECW is in
fact no more real than watching a Bushwhackers match. It's stiffer by a country mile, but
no more realistic.
John Drake
Athens, Georgia

 

ugust 14, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: New
Japan on fire, G-1 and J-Crown tournaments, Ultimo
Dragon makes history, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Wednesday, 14 August 1996 00:08
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 August 14, 1996
ICHI, NI, SAN, DA!
If you look at a listing of the largest crowds and biggest gates in the history of pro
wrestling, one company dominates the list. While an argument can be made that the No.
1 promotion in the world today is the World Wrestling Federation, because of its
stronger international presence, no argument can be made that within its home country,
no promotion right now is any hotter or has the kind of mainstream appeal and
popularity as New Japan Pro Wrestling.
The evidence of the latter was clear throughout Tokyo this past week. Can you imagine
an equivalent of this at any point in either the United States, Mexico or Europe? During
the closing days of the Olympics and with baseball season in full swing, that the cover
story with four large color photos for three straight days in several of the daily sports
pages revolved around the G-1 Climax and J Crown tournaments. By the time the finals
rolled around on 8/6, New Japan had drawn approximately 55,000 fans and probably
well in excess of $3 million in ticket sales and who can even estimate how much in
concessions to the same building over five days. Standing room tickets for the
championship night at Sumo Hall were being scalped for $100 to $200. Not that this is
anything new. The G-1 tournament, which debuted at Sumo Hall in 1991, has annually
done figures in this range, and has gotten so popular that there are even betting pools,
similar to the NCAA basketball tournament in the United States, with insiders and
outsiders trying to figure out who is going to beat who with what move and how much
time the matches will last.
From having three sellouts at the Tokyo Dome over the past year, to selling out four of
five nights this past week at Sumo Hall, to building for its long-term future better than
any promotion in the world, there are many who would say New Japan in many ways is
the closest thing to a model of what a national wrestling promotion should be.
The name that immediately comes to mind when the promotion is mentioned, is its
founder, all-time legend and spiritual leader, Antonio Inoki. There is no wrestler of the
modern era, and few if any ever, who have had more enduring impact on pro wrestling
in their part of the world. And there are none, in history, who have been able to maintain
his level of popularity for more than three decades.
This didn't exactly happen overnight. In fact, to adequately explain how New Japan got
to where it is, one needs to go back 36 years.
Rikidozan was the lord of Japanese wrestling, a mythical national hero who has been
described as the Babe Ruth of his country. Like the Babe, he actually grew bigger in
death than he was in life, not that he wasn't plenty big in life. In his case he was stabbed
to death in a night club incident that was believed to have been gangland related at the
age of 36. A few years before his death, Rikidozan heard about a Japanese-born high
school track star named Antonio Inoki. Inoki had been living with his family during his
teenage years in Brazil. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that Rikidozan also recruited a
baseball pitcher named Shohei Baba at about the same time. The two were trained
together, actually debuted on the same card on September 30, 1960, and the rivalry
between the two, at times peaceful, at other times exceedingly bitter, would end up
dominating and at times being the focal point of wrestling in their country for more than
three decades.
At first, he was known as Kanji Inoki, to hide the fact he was half-Brazilian during a time
where it was believed that fact would be detrimental to his getting over. After the death
of Rikidozan three years later, which led to the public finding out about gangster
involvement and control of the pro wrestling world, the business hit the first of several
historical lulls. At around the same time, both Baba and Inoki were sent to the United
States for seasoning by Rikidozan, with the plan, which has remained traditional in
Japan, for sending young wrestlers abroad and then bringing them back as stars. Baba
was a headliner throughout the United States in major cities and a big money draw as a
heel because of his size, which was rare for wrestlers of that era. Inoki was a prelim
wrestler generally working smaller territories. Baba returned as a star and JWA was
built around him in its recovery period, with grudge matches against the top Americans
of the day, such as Dick the Bruiser, Killer Kowalski, Bruno Sammartino, Johnny
Valentine and Fritz Von Erich. When Inoki returned, he had to settle for the No. 3
babyface spot, also behind Toyonobori.
During this period, Inoki met Hisashi Shinma starting a relationship that would last
three decades that was every bit as historically significant as the Vince McMahon
Jr./Hulk Hogan relationship. Frustrated with his position in the Japanese Wrestling
Association (JWA), at the time the national monopoly wrestling company, he did what at
the time was unthinkable. Inoki, Toyonobori, Hiro Matsuda, a wrestler right out of the
recent Olympic games in Tokyo named Masa Saito, along with Shinma, who bankrolled
much of the operation, formed the original Tokyo Pro Wrestling company. That lasted
about one year, with Inoki placed in the top position. It was long enough as the top star
that when the group folded and Inoki was brought back into the JWA, he was now in the
No. 2 position, behind only Baba. Although he was positioned behind Baba in the
pecking order in that Baba held the International title and feuded with the top
Americans, in many ways the two were considered equals since Inoki was considered the
most skillful and technical of the Japanese wrestlers, a reputation enhanced with two
legendary 60:00 draws in late 1969 against Dory Funk Jr. for the National Wrestling
Alliance world heavyweight title.
By 1971, the situation changed once again. Inoki and Baba, working together at this time
attempted a coup, attempting to rally all the boys together to take the promotion over
from President Junzo Hasegawa (who had wrestled in the Rikidozan days as
Yoshinosato). This coup initially failed, and in the fallout, Baba, the promotion's top
star, was protected, and Inoki was the one who took the heat, and was fired in December
of 1971. Inoki and Shinma immediately set up forming their own company, known as
New Japan Pro Wrestling, with its first show on March 6, 1972. Without recognition of
the National Wrestling Alliance, which basically controlled most of wrestling in those
days including the World Wide Wrestling Federation, which was then part of the NWA,
and the AWA supplying its talent to a smaller group in Japan called International
Wrestling Enterprises that had formed a few years earlier, Inoki and Shinma were
largely froze out of the top foreign talent.
The two were able to lure scientific master Karl Gotch, a renegade of sorts who was
legendary in Japan, but had a reputation for being kicked out of territory after territory
in the United States largely because he was so good a legitimate wrestler, so
uncooperative with promoters and not really much of a drawing card for the promoters
to put up with the headaches and inability to control him. Gotch was both a star wrestler
and a trainer for JWA in the early 60s and one of Inoki's original wrestling teachers and
recognized by the Japanese press and hardcore fans as one of the sports grand masters
along with Lou Thesz. New Japan brought Gotch in and recognized him as the "real"
world heavyweight champion. What gave the group instant credibility was on its first
show, Gotch wrestled and surprised everyone by pinning Inoki in the main event, a
match that is still remembered to this day. The storyline was that Inoki, who had been
out of action several months after being fired and busy putting together a new company,
wasn't in top shape, while Gotch, without those pressures, was. It was the beginning of
the concept of athletic credibility which in one of the many early concepts that became
the backbone of the company and are largely responsible for much of today's success. It
set the stage for the first New Japan card to draw 10,000 fans, the Inoki-Gotch rematch
on October 4, 1972, where Inoki scored his big win and "finally" won his elusive first
world title.
Over the next year, Baba wound up quitting JWP to form All Japan Pro Wrestling, which
opened in late 1972 and immediately because of Baba's pull, gained recognition from the
NWA, which sealed the fate of JWA, which was forced to fold by April of 1973.
***********************************************************
New Japan opened one of the biggest series' in its history on 8/2 at Sumo Hall, opening
both the G-1 and J Crown tournaments. The G-1 is the traditional top singles
tournament in the promotion, kind of a "King of the Ring" but with all the top stars and
on a much larger basis. The J Crown was a first, a tournament to unify eight different
titles from around the world and create the supreme World junior heavyweight
champion.
The J Crown opened with title vs. title unification matches on the first two days,
followed with two semifinals which would be two belts vs. two belts, and finished with
the "biggest junior heavyweight match in history," in which eight different titles would
be at stake. The titles ranged from those with international importance (IWGP junior
heavyweight), longstanding national tradition (NWA welterweight which dates back to
the 30s and the days of El Santo in Mexico), recent creations (WAR International junior
heavyweight), ones with some history (WWF light heavyweight), replicas of some with
major history which mean nothing today (NWA junior heavyweight) to more minor ones
(Great Britain junior heavyweight, WWA junior light heavyweight and UWA light
heavyweight--the latter belt which isn't even recognized by UWA but has become a
secondary New Japan jr. title). But the biggest story of the J Crown was hardly the major
promotion match which created the most decorated champion of all-time in any weight
class.
The day before G-1 opened, Riki Choshu, the booker, most famous full-time performer
and the guy who basically runs the show in New Japan, announced that it would be his
final G-1 tournament. The story was played up big in most of the sports papers and the
gimmick worked to perfection, as the reaction to Choshu on the first night, and for that
matter, for the rest of the week, had the kind of intensity that you'll rarely see in any
sport. He was Jimmy Connors in his last U.S. Open, the overwhelming sentimental
favorite. To make matters more dramatic, his opening match, the main event on the first
night, was against Shinya Hashimoto, current IWGP heavyweight champion and New
Japan's current top star.
Sumo Hall, which holds 11,066, was packed, scaled from 10,000 yen (about $93) down
to 4,000 yen ($37). There were a few empty seats, crowd announced at 11,000--but no
tickets were available at the box office. The fans were electric before the show even
started. You know a promotion is over when the theme song from its television show
plays, and the fans clap to it in unison.
1. Yuji Nagata beat Tatsuhito Takaiwa with a cross armbreaker submission after an
exploder suplex (a combination of a captured suplex and a uranage) in 12:20. These two
are both very good wrestlers who will be major stars in the future. Nagata is the best of
the company's young workers and will probably at some point years down the line grow
to the Muto, Chono, Hashimoto level. A real good opener. ***1/4
As would become the pattern for the week, the match started on the mat with real stiff
blows back-and-forth. The younger wrestlers are generally more innovative, and work a
lot of UFC spots into their match, before trading near falls and getting submissions with
the other struggling to get to the ropes. Right now the hot moves in Japan mainly stem
from the famous Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada last October at the Tokyo Dome--the
leg whip, or Dragon screw as it's known in Japan, the cross armbreaker which actually
dates back to a famous Inoki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh match in the 70s but is back in vogue
due to the Gracies (on television when it's used, the announcers will usually scream
about the Gracies to get it over) and of all things, a pro wrestling move that meant little
in Japan for years, but dates back to the days of Buddy Rogers, the figure four leglock,
since Muto made Takada submit to it in one of the biggest matches in pro wrestling
history. But any submission that has worked in big matches of late, whether it be the
STF, the Power Strangle, the crooked head scissors (known as V-4 armlock now), drew
incredible heat nearly every time it was applied. New Japan style is almost elementary in
its simplicity. The punches, chops, kicks and clotheslines are stiff and well executed.
Guys do what they can do that looks good, and if they can't do a move that looks right,
they simply don't do it. The key to the style right now is psychology, which is funny
because Japanese wrestlers are generally thought by Americans to not know psychology,
when in fact as a group nowadays they are further ahead psychologically than even the
smartest workers in the United States. Throughout the week, fans, and these are largely
very well read, exceedingly informed fans who watch closely, didn't recognize that Riki
Choshu hardly did a thing all week but a few signature moves, take a pounding, and
show tremendous fire in his comebacks adding to the natural drama of the storyline he
created that got over. They didn't recognize that Masahiro Chono, the most charismatic
heel in the world right now, starts every match boring and has to pick his spots perfectly
to build a match because he's never been the same athletically since suffering a severe
neck injury in 1992. Matches are for the most part very similar, but even after five days
in the same building, the crowd reactions rarely were less then spectacular for the
finishes. They start slow with the crowd quiet. Usually at the point it starts to get boring
(and sometimes after that point), they big things up with the submissions and near falls,
building to the ultimate crescendo which comes with a clean win in the middle. In five
days, every match had a clean finish, the biggest pops were for the submission finishes,
and there was nothing even remotely close to a run-in or a referee bump to prime the
crowd that the finish was coming. If there is a key in all this, it's that every fan in the
building knows the match will end with one of the big moves, but they don't know which
one, so everyone that escapes the move gets a pop. And that everyone, from the opening
match guy to the biggest star in the company, is susceptible when caught in or by one of
the other guys' signature (because most have a few) moves. How many times can you
recall seeing the top babyface in the promotion lose three consecutive singles matches
clean in the middle without gimmicks, outside interference or any real excuse, and be
over more at the end of the week than he was at the beginning? How many top babyfaces
in a promotion would even take the risk to find out? Yet, like many other things, this is a
story that builds from something that was successful in the past.
2. Takashi Iizuka (Takayuki Iizuka) & Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura beat
Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto in 16:54 when Iizuka pinned
Nogami after a blizzard suplex. Iizuka and Nogami are long-time tag partners and
should be heated rivals since Nogami turned heel joining the Heisei Ishingun group
(kind of a Japanese version of the Dungeon of Doom), but this feud is about as over as
Big Bubba vs. John Tenta. Nogami has added reddish hair to his look. Iizuka is a
talented wrestler lost in the shuffle and appears to wrestle at that level. Yasuda is a huge
(6-6, 310) ex-sumo who is kind of clumsy and looks out of place with all the smaller stud
wrestlers in this group, but has actually become an underneath cult figure who gets huge
pops for moves like giant swings, bodyblocks into the corner and in particular, for his
double-arm suplex. Nishimura is the one young wrestler in the company that just
doesn't have it. His moves are fine, but he's lacking badly in charisma and has no facial
expressions. Goto is basically an old slug who moves slow, but his offense is at least stiff
and he can get by a bit with a tough-man gimmick. This match got wild when the heels
did a stuff piledriver on Nishimura. From that point on the match was excellent with
great heat. The two sides went back and forth with near falls, kicks outs and saves before
the finish. ***1/2
3. In the first J Crown match, Great Sasuke--real name Masanori Murakawa (IWGP jr.
heavyweight) defeated Masayoshi Motegi (NWA jr. heavyweight) to unify the two belts
in 11:50. Sasuke got the first huge pop on the show coming out. Motegi, who wasn't over,
hit a plancha at the bell and quickly worked on Sasuke's bad knee early, wrapping it
around the post and using a chair on it to get people into it from the start. After a
uranage, he used a half crab and then an STF to continue to damage it. Sasuke made a
comeback doing an incredible tope con hilo (in this case a majestic dive way over the top
rope doing a mid-air flip). The two traded big moves back and forth until Motegi tried a
gut wrench off the top rope but Sasuke landed on top, and then quickly hit a german
suplex and a tiger suplex for the pin. ***3/4
4. Ultimo Dragon--real name Yoshihiro Asai (WAR International jr. heavyweight)
defeated Jushin Liger--real name Keiichi Yamada (British jr. heavyweight) to unify the
belts at 2:38. Dragon dropkicked Liger out of the ring and immediately hit a tope, then
climbed to the top rope and did a flip plancha to the floor. Liger in the ring made a
comeback with a throw out german suplex and some koppo kicks. They went right to the
finish, with Dragon going for La Magistral (another over move since it's been used as a
finish in numerous jr. matches this year) for a near fall, going for a second but Liger
blocked and reversed it (the finish of their previous match at the J Cup in December),
but Dragon reversed the reversal into a cradle of his own for the pin. The crowd went
nuts and was buzzing for about two minutes after the finish. At the time this looked like
great booking even though one would expect a 20:00 classic with these two. It was
exactly what the crowd wasn't expecting and most important, it educated them to the
idea that for the rest of the week, the finish could come at any time. However, as the
week went on, it became apparent the true reason for this finish was quite a bit more
serious. ***
5. Dan Severn pinned Yoshiaki Fujiwara in 10:30. This match was worked to look like a
total shoot, although it obviously wasn't. Severn didn't wear either his NWA or UFC belts
to the ring nor was he announced as either the NWA or UFC champion. The two traded
getting each other into the mount, but since both were "sportsmen," neither punched
from the top. This was Fujiwara's best performance in years as he carried Severn and
pulled out some really unique submissions out of nowhere which had people thinking
Severn would lose and Severn sold them great. The fans seemed like they wanted to pop
for Severn, but he never showed any fire and it was really Fujiwara who they reacted to.
The finish saw Severn use four straight firemans carries into suplexes with Fujiwara
kicking out each time and getting weaker each time. After the fourth one, Fujiwara was
basically out, and after the fifth one, he was pinned. Finish was flat because fans
expected to see Severn win with a submission, but overall it was a very good match.
***1/4
6. In the first G-1 match in the B Block, Masahiro Chono (2 points) beat Satoshi Kojima
(0) in 13:46 with the STF. A shockingly great match with excellent heat. Kojima is
limited when it comes to moves, but has tremendous fire and charisma. The people seem
to really like him, but they also recognize he's not the calibre of the top guys yet and
accept him at his level. The ring broke near the finish when Chono went for a sunset flip
off the top rope which ended up being pretty well screwed up. ****
7. In the A block, Kensuke Sasaki (2) beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan (0) (Hiroyoshi Yamamoto)
in 15:03 with the reverse ipponzei (judo hiplock), Northern Lights bomb and Power
strangle submission. Very stiff. Both got huge reactions coming out. This probably would
have been an excellent match but a few minutes in, Sasaki slapped Tenzan in the ear so
hard that Tenzan was knocked silly. Sasaki had to hold a chinlock for several minutes
before Tenzan recovered enough to continue the match. When Tenzan finally got it back,
they picked things up with both doing all the hot moves to each other. ***1/2
8. In the B block, Kazuo Yamazaki (2) beat Keiji Muto (0) in 13:39. Excellent match.
Muto dominated the first half on the mat but fans believe in every slight move Yamazaki
does because of his UWFI background. The story of the match was that Muto kept going
for the Dragon screw and Yamazaki kept fighting his way out. Finally Muto got two
straight Dragon screws, hit the moonsault and put the figure four on in the middle, but
Yamazaki made the ropes. Muto did another Dragon screw, and went for the figure four,
but Yamazaki pulled a counter into a cross armbreaker and got the submission in a
major upset. The place went nuts for the upset, with people throwing the cardboard
cartons drinks come in all over the building (traditionally at Sumo Hall for sumo
matches, fans buy pillows so it on since most of the lower level seats don't have chairs
they are boxes where four people sit on the floor and shoes aren't allowed in the boxes--
however after the 1991 G-1 after two classics with Muto vs. Vader and Muto vs. Chono,
fans threw so many pillows that pillows were banned from the building, so the in thing
for a match of the year is to throw the cardboard cartons). ****
9. In the A block, Riki Choshu (Mitsuo Yoshida) (2) pinned Shinya Hashimoto (0) in
17:14. Very simple but incredibly heated and one of the best matches from a psychology
standpoint I've ever seen. The closest thing to compare this match to would be the
Michaels-Diesel match from Omaha earlier this year in that the drama and heat was
incredible. This match was tons more stiff and the emotion was better since Choshu and
Hashimoto are more over than Michaels and Diesel were on the respective nights,
however Michaels is incredible and I'd rate the two matches as basically equal as the best
non-All Japan heavyweight matches of the year. Basically Hashimoto just kicked the
crap out of Choshu. He got several near falls and near submissions and beat the hell out
of him more outside the ring. After a whip into the guard rail, Hashimoto went for a spin
kick but Choshu blocked it and Hashimoto hit the floor, selling his right knee. Choshu
then began working on the knee, which was the story of the tournament. Choshu got in
the ring and when Hashimoto struggled to the apron, he ran across the ring for a
clothesline, but shocked everyone by basically taking out Hashimoto's knee big-time.
When Hashimoto finally got in, he was hit with two lariats on the basically immobile
Hashimoto who refused to go down but couldn't move and was a sitting duck. As Choshu
went for a third, Hashimoto blocked it and gave him a stiff chop. Hashimoto's comeback
was quickly cut off, and Choshu went for a superplex. This is the one bad spot which
actually happened three times during the week, as ref Massao "Tiger" Hattori, who
always refs Choshu's matches, puts his hand on Choshu's butt to balance him when he
does the superplex off the top which really looks cheesy. Choshu then delivered five
lariats on Hashimoto, who again refused to go down but couldn't move out of the way,
before he finally collapsed and was pinned. There were no cartons left to throw because
of the previous match but the place went crazy for the upset, setting the tone for the
week. ****1/2
From a wrestling standpoint, this was the best show I've seen this year. The WCW Great
American Bash PPV may have been a better show because of angles, but for consistent
calibre of wrestling, this rates among the best. Backstage at the show were Marco Ruas,
Pedro Otarvio and Hugo Duarte, three top Brazilian Vale Tudo fighters who were in
town for a Vale Tudo show two days later. They challenged New Japan's wrestlers to
matches. Inoki, on behalf of the promotion, accepted the challenge. Nobody was quite
sure if it was an angle or not, which is the kind of angle Inoki has specialized in during
his career.
***********************************************************
New Japan struggled early, but scored a big coup when Seiji Sakaguchi, who became the
No. 2 star in JWA behind Baba after Inoki was kicked out, joined the group instead of
Baba's All Japan as JWA was falling apart. Inoki and Sakaguchi formed the main event
tag team on most shows, positions they basically maintained throughout the decade.
With most of the NWA (and most WWWF, since it was part of the NWA at the time)
wrestlers unavailable, New Japan attempted to gain equal credibility to All Japan as the
top international group by buying the National Wrestling Federation, Pedro Martinez'
promotion out of Buffalo and Cleveland. The other American deal they made was with
the Mike LeBelle promotion in Southern California, an NWA member which played a
major part in early Japanese wrestling history since people like Rikidozan, Kintaro Oki
and Giant Baba were all headliners. LeBelle became the main booker for foreign talent
into the group, which didn't give them the kind of a talent pool as All Japan, but at least
gave them access to the wrestlers that worked the Los Angeles territory.
Since the Gotch title was created from cloth, Inoki wanted to win a real American world
title. The NWF's champion, Johnny Powers, became one of New Japan's biggest stars of
the 70s after dropping the title to Inoki on December 10, 1973. However, the NWF
quickly fell apart in its home area since Inoki couldn't draw in those cities, so his dream
of being a superstar in the United States again remained elusive, even while wearing a
world title belt. Inoki created Tiger Jeet Singh as his first big rival, and on October 14,
1973, the group broke its attendance record by drawing 12,000 fans as Inoki &
Sakaguchi beat Thesz & Gotch in 47:00.
Perhaps New Japan's most successful concept ever is those rare occasions where they
are able to convince the general public that a specific match is so important, with stakes
so high, it was going to be real in that the outcome wouldn't be predetermined. The
famous recent example was the company's most successful show ever with Muto vs.
Takada last year. But that concept was invented more than 20 years earlier.
Shozo "Strong" Kobayashi was the International champion of the No. 3 promotion in the
country, the IWE. Inoki and Shinma were able to get Kobayashi to jump to their
company, although they attempted to play it up originally as champion from one
promotion vs. champion from the other in a time when promotions in Japan didn't work
together. While IWE stripped Kobayashi of its title six weeks before the match, it became
the hottest match in the short history of the company with Inoki solidifying his claim to
be the biggest star in Japan when he beat Kobayashi in their first meeting on March 19,
1974 before 16,500 fans. He was able to pop a similar crowd later in the year for his first
match against the No. 1 Korean wrestler of all-time, Oki.
Inoki took the fake shoot concept one step farther, by luring Wilhelm Ruska, an Olympic
heavyweight gold medalist from Holland (opening up a Japan-Holland shootfighting
connection that continues strong to this day), considered at the time the strongest judo
fighter in the world. The first mixed martial arts match in the modern history of pro
wrestling took place on February 6, 1976, with Inoki naturally going over. This began a
plan which would end up with Inoki becoming the biggest sports star in his country and
perhaps one of the biggest in the world.
But even the best laid plans....
Before the Ruska match, Inoki and Shinma had already put together a deal for the
biggest match in the history of pro wrestling--Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali from Budokan
Hall. Inoki, the world champion (well, NWF version) of pro wrestling, Ali, the biggest
star in the history of boxing and the current world heavyweight champion. Between the
money that could be generated in Japan, and the money they figured the combination of
Ali's name and the answering of the question as to who would win between a boxer and a
wrestler in the rest of the world since Ali was without question the most famous athlete
in the world at the time--the big UFC question nearly 17 years ahead of its time, Inoki
and Shinma had figured it to be the biggest money match in either boxing or wrestling
history. Ali was offered $6 million to do the match and do the job at the end, which
would have been the biggest payoff of his career--bigger than any of the Frazier fights
and with none of the health and danger risks involved, since the match was going to be a
work.
The finish worked out would be for Ali to pummel Inoki with his boxing skills, bloodying
him up. Gene LeBelle would be the referee. LeBelle, was a sometimes pro wrestler with a
shooter rep from his days in judo, the brother of Mike, and better known as the
obnoxious television announcer for the Los Angeles promotion that was Inoki's business
partner and ironically now has gained a second life as a legendary magazine martial arts
figure. LeBelle would continually want to stop the match but Inoki would refuse to allow
him to check the cut, a common theme in pro wrestling in those days. Finally, Ali, being
the sportsman that he was, would ask the ref to stop the match so he wouldn't have to
give him more of a beating. At that point Inoki would make the big comeback, hit the
enzuigiri, and score the pinfall. In the United States, the fans that liked Ali could point to
the controversial finishing sequence, plus it would theoretically build to a rematch where
all involved could line their pockets even more. In Japan, it was the typical Inoki gutsy
finish. By beating Ali, he'd become a national hero in his country. In those days there
was nothing the Japanese loved more than one of their own who could be the best in the
world at something. And he's become a sports figure whose name would be known in
every country, bigger than any wrestling star in history, including the elusive United
States where after beating Ali, he could theoretically go into any arena and be a main
event superstar draw.
Of all of Inoki and Shinma's business ideas that were successful and a few that weren't,
this was the greatest idea of all. It also turned out to be the biggest failure of all.
This got a ton of publicity in the United States, but as the fight, set for June 25, 1976, was
about to come down, reporters figured out the world martial arts champion was nothing
more than a fake pro wrestler that they would see on Saturday afternoon television in
the United States. The reporters who were to hype the show were largely the local boxing
reporters, who had ties with the local boxing promoters. Since it was the pro wrestling
promoters in most cases who were promoting the venues and the boxing promoters had
been frozen out, the fact this was going to be pro wrestling business as usual, only on the
largest scale ever, was hardly kept secret from the press. Inoki, with his large jaw, was
nicknamed "The Pelican" by Ali in hyping the fight. Fred Blassie, a legend in Japan as a
wrestler and a legendary talker, wrestler and manager in the United States, was sent
around the country to be Ali's manager to hype the fight to the press and be a familiar
heel name to wrestling fans. The idea of the match controlled by the pro wrestling
promoters and not the boxing promoters was to make Ali, and thus boxing, as the heel,
and pro wrestling, as the babyface. Inoki had also arranged for Chuck Wepner, a boxer
who was the real-life person that was the inspiration to the original "Rocky" movie, to do
a job for Andre the Giant at Shea Stadium, and at one point, Henry Clark, a ranked
heavyweight, was to have a mixed match putting over then-NWA champion Terry Funk
in an NWA city, the latter of which fell through well before the card ever took place. The
matches would air on closed-circuit throughout the United States, theoretically drawing
both the boxing audience and the wrestling audience.
A funny thing happened on the way to the payoff window. Everything fell apart. Outside
of the Northeast (where Vince McMahon Sr., who had taken control of the show in the
U.S. and had "lucked" into his hottest grudge match perhaps in history between Bruno
Sammartino, coming back from nearly three months off with a broken neck, and Stan
Hansen, who accidentally dropped Bruno on his head during their first meeting, as the
top selling match to wrestling fans), the wrestling promoters of the NWA, with no
representative on the big show and since it wasn't their idea, didn't want to push the
concept to their local fans and the NWA still controlled most of wrestling in the U.S. and
Canada. So with the lack of television wrestling hype in most markets, that was strike
one. The media treated it as a farce basically saying it would be fixed, which was, in fact,
the original idea. Strike two. Then, Ali, who no doubt was feeling tremendous pressure
by this time from both the boxing community and the media in the U.S. for being part of
this farce, got cold feet about doing the job.
It wasn't doing the work that was the problem or even making someone look good. Ali
had already done an angle where he did a run-in during a Gorilla Monsoon match and
Monsoon gave him an airplane spin and dropped him in the middle of the ring, and
while leaving, Monsoon said for probably the first time and certainly not the last time,
that Ali would get destroyed by Inoki because he "doesn't know a wristlock from a wrist
watch." Ali also participated in three worked mixed matches on an AWA show in
Chicago that aired on ABC's Wide World of Sports the week before the match, with
Howard Cosell doing the commentary, not shilling for it a bit, and kept making the point
that in all this nonsense, there is a chance of a mistake and Ali could get hurt. After Ali
KO'd two AWA jobbers, he fought mid-card wrestler Buddy Wolfe, doing a fairly decent
job selling for Wolfe's wrestling moves before pummelling him in his comeback, beating
him when it was stopped on blood, and then laying a haymaker on Bobby Heenan who
took the classic wrestling big bump, replayed over and over again on Wide World.
When Ali got to Japan, he expressed his concern. The match nearly fell apart. Inoki and
Shinma, basically with their futures at stake, tried to save the venture. In the days prior
to the match, the situation rapidly would change from the entire show was canceled, to it
would be a shoot, to where they were still negotiating a finish. Finally, more negotiations
had to take place, because if it were a shoot, they needed rules as Ali's side was not about
to throw him in there with an unknown commodity in a no rules situation. In the event
of them being unable to work out a finish (Inoki and Shinma weren't about to pay $6
million to Ali and then have Inoki lose the match), rules were worked out that largely
handicapped Inoki. Kicks to the head and throat were illegal, as were suplexes, chokes
and Inoki couldn't punch the face bare knuckled. They literally were still trying to work
out a finish until it was time to go out there and there they were, with no finish, with no
high spots, in a real live contest with the world watching.
Luckily many people have seen the most recent Dan Severn-Ken Shamrock match. Take
away with six minutes flurry between the 18:00 mark and the 24:00 mark, and you've
got Ali vs. Inoki. Inoki laid on his back, attempting to kick at Ali's legs until Ali would
eventually be slowed and Inoki could put him away, kind of an inverted version of what
Marco Ruas was successful in doing to Paul Varelans. Round after round. Ali did go
down two or three times, but before Inoki could do anything with him, he grabbed the
ropes causing a break. Ali did, during the course of 15 rounds, land a total of six
punches, none of which did much damage to Inoki. Ali's legs actually took so much
damage from Inoki's kicks to behind the knee that he was hospitalized after the match
and in the long run many think it quickened Ali's decline as a boxer, but the fact the fight
was historically significant to Ali's career as a boxer meant nothing at that moment to
anyone watching. Nevertheless, without getting so much as a scratch in the ring, Inoki
was damaged worse than Don Frye against Mark Coleman. With no action, the fight was
ruled a draw. Inoki, the wrestler, had laid on his back for the entire fight. Although this
is a legitimate mixed martial arts fighting strategy (Yuki Nakai used it to beat the much
larger Gerard Gordeau in a Vale Tudo match in 1994), like Severn employed with
Shamrock, the public in Japan didn't know it. God knows nobody in the United States
had a clue. Fans were furious and Inoki disgraced himself.
Because most of the wrestling promoters didn't push the show or Inoki hard, since he
wasn't one of their boys, it ended up flopping financially as well as artistically, outside of
the Northeast (where the live show drew 32,000 to Shea Stadium, one of the largest
American crowds ever to that point and drew the biggest live gate in American pro
wrestling history to that point and most Northeast cities did well on closed-circuit) and
even there the draw was Bruno. Shinma and Inoki were destroyed financially, as was the
reputation of pro wrestling in Japan as its biggest star embarrassed himself on a
worldwide stage. Ali only ended up receiving closer to $2 million and the whole thing
wound up in lawsuits.
Looking back at this event 20 years later and having seen mixed matches, the irony is
that if Inoki was a top-flight real wrestler, even under the rules that greatly handicapped
him, he still should have taken Ali in a shoot. In other words, after the whole original
plan that fell apart, the only thing that kept Inoki from being the biggest wrestling star in
the world, and New Japan from being the biggest wrestling company of all-time, and
Inoki becoming a sports celebrity worldwide of monumental proportions, was of all
things, the fact he wasn't really a great wrestler. It was Royce Gracie or Dan Severn vs.
Mike Tyson of their eras, but instead of it being Royce Gracie or Dan Severn, it was
Shawn Michaels. Figuratively, at this point it appeared New Japan was caught in a
Gracie choke and the ropes were five miles away. But like a New Japan match, it just set
up another comeback. But this wasn't the last time New Japan Pro Wrestling would look
like it was down for the count.
***********************************************************
The second night at Sumo Hall on 8/3 couldn't possibly live up to opening night. It was
also the only non-sellout of the week, with the crowd announced as 10,500, which
looked to be maybe a few hundred more than it really was. While it was a solid show
with only two matches below average, it was the weakest show of the tournament.
1. Akitoshi Saito pinned Takaiwa in 13:04 after a cross arm german suplex. Very stiff
early. It slowed in the middle. It picked up at the end with Takaiwa, who looked good
once again, kicking out of one big move after another before finally losing. Another
strong opener. ***
2. Goto & Nogami beat Nagata & Iizuka in 11:43. Nagata pretty well carried the match
picking the crowd up with his fire and stiff offense. He was stuff piledriven on the floor
and destroyed until he hit an overhead belly-to-belly out of nowhere and made the hot
tag. Iizuka kept giving his foes uranages. Nagata tagged in for the finish, getting several
near falls before being hit with Goto's back suplex for the pin. ***
3. In the J Crown, Shinjiro Otani (UWA light heavyweight champion) pinned Jose
"*****" Casas (NWA welterweight champion) in 11:34. Both looked good but there's an
inherent style clash between Lucha and New Japan strong style, even though Otani is
probably the most versatile pro wrestler in the world in that he can have a great match
with nearly anyone of any style. It was damn good, but a little to Lucha oriented for the
crowd. They went back-and-forth with near falls before Otani got the pin after a
springboard spin kick. ***1/2
4. El Samurai--real name Osamu Matsuda (WWF light heavyweight champion) pinned
Gran Hamada--real name Hiroaki Hamada (WWA junior light heavyweight champion)
in 12:38. The WWF title belt was created in 1981 when New Japan and WWF had a
working relationship (Shinma was the figurehead WWF President before Jack Tunney),
largely for a two country feud in Japan and Mexico involving Hamada and heel rival
Perro Aguayo. After Shinma was ousted from New Japan, Hamada went with him and it
became exclusively a Mexican title with no actual WWF recognition except historically
and returned to Japan recently when Great Sasuke won the belt, and lost it before the
tournament to Samurai. The first half was slow. It picked up, but Hamada blew out his
knee on his first plancha. They did an innovative spot where both were standing on the
top rope like Hamada was doing to do a superplex, but Samurai bearhugged Hamada
and both jumped off with Samurai sticking his knee under Hamada's crotch giving him
basically a super reverse atomic drop for a big pop. Samurai wound up using a back
superplex, which Hamada landed wrong on and blew out his shoulder, and then a power
bomb for the pin. Samurai didn't do much and while Hamada worked very hard, age has
taken its toll and he was pretty banged up. **1/2
5. Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Kido beat Kengo Kimura (Takashi Kimura) & Fujiwara in
11:29 when Kimura pinned Kido with his Inazuma (leg lariat). Fujinami just looks out of
place today. It's really sad. *1/4
6. Sasaki (4) beat Junji Hirata (0) in an A block match in 5:08. The match seemed to be
building fine when Hirata used a turning powerslam and his leg was in the wrong place
and his knee went out bad. Sasaki then used his ipponzei but Hirata clearly was done
and couldn't get up. It was clear it was no work. The match was stopped and Hirata had
to be carried out on a stretcher and had to forfeit the rest of the tournament. What's
significant is that the tournament is booked in such a manner that every match has a
purpose when it's over, and they had to re-book the entire A block to get where they
wanted to end up. In hindsight, it appears that Hirata was supposed to win this match
since there was no upsets on this card, which forced the Choshu-Sasaki planned finish
on 8/5 to change and left the A block decided going into 8/6. 1/2*
7. Muto (2) pinned Kojima (0) in a B block match in 15:21. This match dragged early
with Muto largely working on Kojima's left arm. A big spot was when Muto went for his
handspring elbow into the corner but Kojima caught him with a rabbit lariat (lariat to
the back of the head, also called enzui lariat). It picked up from there, with Muto ending
up using three Dragon screws, a moonsault, and got the figure four on for the
submission. **1/2
8. Choshu (4) pinned Tenzan (0) in an A block match in 5:12. Choshu had hurt his right
knee the previous night in having his best match in years so he didn't do much. Tenzan
carried the short match. Finish saw Tenzan do two diving head-butts off the top rope,
and as he pranced around and played to the crowd, Choshu got up, and when Tenzan
turned around, Choshu hit him with a devastating lariat. Tenzan's eyes rolled he sold it
so great, and the finish made sense in that everyone knew Tenzan had been legit
knocked silly the previous night, and was pinned. *1/4
9. Shiro Koshinaka (2) pinned Yamazaki (2) in a B block match in 13:50. Koshinaka is
one of the all-time most underrated wrestlers in history. Both guys got huge reactions
coming out. Both guys traded getting their shoulders posted. The early matwork got
really good heat because the fans believe everything Yamazaki does. He held a chicken
wing cross face twice with Koshinaka making the ropes. As Yamazaki went for a cross
armbreaker, Koshinaka went after Yamazaki's broken fingers (suffered on the previous
tour) and started stomping and dropping knees. Yamazaki got more submissions with
Koshinaka making the ropes. After two Dragon screws, Yamazaki missed an enzuigiri
and Koshinaka immediately hit a power bomb for a near fall. After a back suplex and
near fall, Koshinaka hit a second power bomb for the pin. Great match. ***3/4
***********************************************************
The financial and credibility damage from the Ali match nearly ruined New Japan. But
largely through TV-Asahi, one of Japan's major networks which broadcast New Japan
and did a Super Bowl like rating for the match, the company was kept afloat. To rebuild
both Inoki and the company, several major things took place. The first was to remove
the stench of the Ali match with a series of victories by Inoki over martial arts
superstars. Ruska was brought back, as was another judo Olympic medalist, "Buffalo"
Allen Coage, who later became a name pro wrestler as Badnews Allen. Karate stars Eddy
"Monster Man" Everett and Willie Williams (who is still active today in Rings and has
made himself a long career in Japan off losing a famous match to Inoki) and boxer
Wepner were brought in along with Mike Dayton, a former Mr. America competitor who
made a name for himself doing strongman stunts, and one or two obscure pro wrestlers
who they masqueraded as martial arts stars. In addition, stemming from the Inoki-Ali
deal, Shinma, Inoki and McMahon Sr. became business partners which gave Inoki
access to WWF wrestlers. Andre the Giant became a regular top attraction doing the
perhaps the best monster heel role in wrestling a decade before ever doing it in the
United States, as did Hansen, beginning a career that would make him the biggest
foreign star ever to appear in Japan. McMahon Sr. even sent the likes of Dusty Rhodes
and Billy Graham to New Japan, and it was with New Japan in 1980, before the AWA or
WWF, that Hulkamania was first created as the powerhouse blond with the huge
physique who became the only person besides Inoki who could physically stand up to
Andre. And Bob Backlund became a regular visitor as WWF champion.
After all his mixed match wins, Inoki was presented by McMahon a belt as WWF World
Martial arts champion in late 1978. Inoki would often come to Madison Square Garden
and defend the title. While he never got over big in New York and his matches were
never highly pushed locally, the press in Japan attempted to create the mystique of Inoki
as an international superstar playing up his WWF victories huge.
But that wasn't enough. Inoki's rival, Giant Baba, had held the NWA title, albeit for one
week periods that ended when the original champion's tour was concluded, twice during
the 70s. By this point, the two men who started together were involved in an all-out war
for the top position in Japan. New Japan and McMahon Sr. put together a deal for Inoki
to get the WWF title from Backlund, under similar circumstances. On November 30,
1979, Inoki pinned Backlund in Tokushima to become WWF champion, a result in all
history books in Japan but never acknowledged by the WWF in the United States. That
match was not a double cross. The rematch the next week was. On December 6 in Tokyo,
Backlund was scheduled to regain the title and for Inoki to save face at home, his most
bitter rival, Singh was to interfere in the finish. Which is what happened. However,
Shinma, who was WWF President, declared the match no contest and ruled that Inoki
was still champion. This resulted in a series of hot telegrams from LeBelle and McMahon
to Japan. Since Inoki was scheduled to appear in Madison Square Garden on the
January 1980 show which would be broadcast in Japan, Inoki apparently wanted his
fans to see him as the main event champion defending the WWF title in Madison Square
Garden once. McMahon, who had Bobby Duncum set up as Backlund's foil of the month,
refused to acknowledge the Japanese angle. A compromise was worked out since the
match aired in Japan, where it was announced in Japan that the title was held up, that
Inoki, since he had already won the title, was already booked to defend his martial arts
title on the card, so Backlund and Duncum would meet for the vacant title. Forget that
Backlund was billed as champion on television and defending the title in the U.S. from
the moment he returned from Japan. Nevertheless, if you watch a tape of that MSG
house show, Backlund doesn't wear the belt coming to the ring, and ring announcer
Howard Finkel doesn't announce him as champion in the pre-match ring introductions.
Perhaps the most heated period in the Baba-Inoki war was just about this time. Since he
was never going to get the WWF title again, Inoki and Shinma decided to do one better,
create the ultimate world heavyweight wrestling championship. Baba and Inoki actually
worked together for the biggest all-star show up to that point in time in Japan in 1979, as
a tag team beating Abdullah the Butcher and Tiger Jeet Singh. But after working one
show together, the split afterwards left things even more bitter. Shinma and Inoki
decided that to give the title credibility, that wrestlers from all over the world regardless
of promotional affiliation would be involved. They created mythical tournament matches
throughout the world and to show that, like the deal with Kobayashi years earlier, they
got wrestlers from other promotions to join in to create the idea that while wrestling
may be worked, these stakes are so big that this isn't. The IWE was about to go under so
Inoki signed up its biggest stars, Rusher Kimura and Animal Hamaguchi, and created a
worked interpromotional feud that set the stage for the glory days of New Japan. In
addition, he raided two of All Japan's top foreign stars, Abdullah the Butcher and Dick
Murdoch. Baba responded by raiding back Tiger Jeet Singh, Inoki's long-time top rival,
and in the biggest coup of all, signed Stan Hansen.
Even though Baba still had most of the top American draws at the time except for
Hogan, Andre and Butcher; the likes of Hansen, Bruiser Brody, The Funks, Harley Race,
Mil Mascaras and NWA champion Ric Flair, New Japan's lead at the box office was
beginning to become commanding. Yet, like in 1976, when things at the time couldn't
possibly look better, the reality was they almost couldn't get worse.
***********************************************************
The third show at Sumo Hall was a Sunday afternoon show at 3 p.m. It wasn't the best
show of the week, but did contain the best match of the week and one of the better
matches of the year. The crowd was pretty well packed again with a crowd announced as
a sellout 11,000. Perhaps this was the most impressive sellout of the week because it was
only the midpoint of the tournament, the Olympics were closing down, and both All
Japan women (which drew about 1,600 fans) and Universal Vale Tudo (which drew
3,200) were running shows that afternoon.
1. Ohara beat Nagata in 9:55. Another good opener particularly toward the finish with
Ohara finally hitting his choke slam and going into a cross armbreaker for the
submission. ***
2. Yasuda & Nishimura & Iizuka & Kido beat Goto & Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi
& Nogami in 14:45. Kido got a pretty good crowd reaction as a cult comedy figure,
particularly when he did his wakigatamae (Fujiwara armbar). However, this match got
dull, particularly with Iizuka vs. Nogami which continued to be dead. It finally got good
toward the end with near falls going back and forth before Yasuda got a submission from
Saito with the boston crab. There was a huge pop for the finish since, Yasuda, who has
also become a cult figure, scored the win and also because at the finish, Kido had
Kobayashi in the wakigatamae. *1/2
3. Liger & Norio Honaga beat Casas & Takaiwa in 12:04. Honaga is in his last year, as
he's expected to retire and become a referee in 1997. Casas pretty much carried the
match as Takaiwa didn't show much, Honaga looked bad and Liger actually looked good
but obviously was limited. He particularly got a big pop doing La Magistral on Liger.
Casas did a senton off the apron and a tope. He busted his eye open legit hitting the
guard rail on the tope, and later did a senton off the top rope. Honaga tried a Mexican
submission move on Casas that was supposed to be the finish but the two didn't work it
right and it looked bad, so Honaga then pinned Casas after a sunset flip. **3/4
4. Dragon (WAR International jr. heavyweight & British jr. heavyweight champ) pinned
Otani (UWA light heavyweight & NWA welterweight) in 16:04 to end up with four belts.
Dragon tried La Magistral twice in the first 90 seconds but Otani blocked it both times.
They went to matwork with them doing a great job exchanging holds. Otani was the best
worker of the week because he's got the youthful athletic ability along with great facial
expressions, charisma and psychology. Dragon can work to the level of anyone when he
wants to, but due to so many injuries, generally picks his spots and he picked this one.
After Dragon missed a plancha to the floor, Otani hit a rolling bodyblock off the apron
and got a near fall with the springboard spin kick that he beat Casas with which got a
super pop. He then used a tiger suplex for Dragon kicked out, then missed a springboard
dropkick. Dragon hit La Magistral but Otani kicked out. Dragon went for a huracanrana
but Otani reversed it into a cradle. He followed getting near falls with a dragon suplex
and a quebrada (springboard from the middle rope into the ring moonsault block). Otani
came back with a dragon suplex. Otani then went for a superplex standing on the top
rope but Dragon reversed it while both were standing into a combination gordbuster
into the ring and DDT off the top rope, with both selling the bump big. Dragon got up
first and used a running power bomb for the pin. ****3/4
5. Sasuke (IWGP jr. heavyweight & NWA jr. heavyweight champ) pinned Samurai
(WWA jr. light heavyweight & WWF light heavyweight champ to capture four belts in
16:25. Samurai opened with a tope. The match was actually slow early before they kicked
it in. Sasuke did an Asai-moonsault which wound up with both on the ringside tables on
the tape machines and Samurai's back bending on the guard rail. Then Sasuke did his
insane rider kick, which is a move where he climbs to the top rope, balances on the top
of the post, leaps off deep into the aisle with a one-foot thrust kick. There is no way to do
that move without hurting yourself and as spectacular as it looks, there's no way it's
worth it. Sasuke is a fantastic worker but doing things like this is going to shorten his
career. Anyway, instead of crashing his hip on the floor, he landed with his shoulder on
the floor taking the brunt of the bump. After missing a quebrada in the ring, Samurai hit
two reverse DDT's (Henry Godwinn's slop drop), but missing a head-butt off the top
rope. Sasuke went for a brainbuster, but Samurai reversed it into a third reverse DDT
and got a near fall with a thunder fire power bomb, followed by a superplex while
standing on the top rope. Then came an even more spectacular series of moves as Sasuke
came off the top rope but Samurai moved, however Sasuke rolled on the mat, landing on
his feet rather than taking a bump and immediately hit a Frankensteiner, which Samurai
reversed and which Sasuke then reversed for an incredible near fall. Sasuke quickly
followed with a german suplex and power bomb for the pin. ****1/4
6. Yamazaki (4) beat Kojima (0) in a B block match in 9:56. Kojima worked on
Yamazaki's bad hand, and Yamazaki came back working on Kojima's knee. The fans
booed Kojima who did nothing but go for the bad hand. After trading some near falls
and submissions, Kojima missed a moonsault and Yamazaki immediately put the cross
armbreaker on for the submission. *1/2
7. Tenzan (2) pinned Hashimoto (0) for the biggest win of his career in 11:27 in the A
block. Hashimoto sold his knee big from the finish the first night and the match had
super heat with the crowd roaring for the nearly immobile Hashimoto to come back
despite being barely able to move. Hashimoto would make his comebacks with the hard
kicks before Tenzan would kick the knee and get back in control. Finally Hashimoto
went for a brainbuster but the knee gave out. Tenzan came off the top rope with two
head-butts to the knee to get a near fall. He then put on the figure four, sloppy the first
time since it's not his move, but got it on good the second time in the middle of the ring.
Hashimoto managed to struggle to the rope, but was immobile there and Tenzan used
another head-butt off the top rope to the knee for the pin. ***3/4
8. Koshinaka (4) beat Chono (2) in 22:10 in the B block. Even though this doesn't sound
on paper like a big show main event, both got huge reactions coming out because each is
considered the leader of one of the heel groups. They started fast but it got dead until the
10:00 mark. The matwork was pretty much boring. At that point they picked it up and it
was excellent from there trading all kinds of big moves. Chono used an STF first at the
16:40 mark but Koshinaka made the ropes. Chono undid the turnbuckle padding and
ran Koshinaka into the exposed metal twice. After trading more big moves, Koshinaka
got behind Chono and went for the dragon suplex, but Chono kicked him low and put
the STF on in the middle. Chono then switched it to a cross armbreaker but Koshinaka
made the rope. They traded several more near falls before Chono hit a Yakuza kick but
Koshinaka just stood there, came back with a butt bump and a power bomb for the pin.
***3/4
Choshu increased his point total to six winning via forfeit over Hirata, who was injured,
to give him a 3-0 record.
***********************************************************
Perhaps the single most important concept Shinma and New Japan should be credited
with is promoting junior heavyweight wrestlers on a major level in a top company. The
junior heavyweight division had largely been dead in the United States after the mid-70s
with the retirement of Danny Hodge, and in reality, even Hodge was only a big deal in
the McGuirk (later Watts Mid South) territory where his real sports legend was well
known. Although there had been previous junior heavyweight champions in Japan, it
was never a big deal on any kind of level.
The concept may have been created as much out of necessity as anything else. Inoki had
a young protege named Tatsumi Fujinami, who was a spectacular worker but too small
at the time to be taken seriously by the standards of the day. At the same time, there was
a lot of interest in Mexican wrestling because All Japan's Mil Mascaras had turned into
an incredible drawing card with his unique moves and flashy ring costumes. Since most
of the best wrestlers in Mexico were undersized by Japan standards, Shinma created
both a WWF junior heavyweight championship (for Fujinami) and a light heavyweight
championship (which actually never got over as big for Gran Hamada) and worked out a
talent exchange deal with Francisco Flores, who headed the UWA, at the time the most
successful promotion in the Mexico City area. The junior heavyweight title made
Fujinami a star, and made stars out of his challengers like Chavo Guerrero, Canek, El
Solitario, most importantly, Dynamite Kid, and a young man from Calgary named Bret
Hart.
Eventually Fujinami became big enough to be considered a top heavyweight, but his
move may have been prompted more by one of Shinma's greatest creations of all--Tiger
Mask.
Satoru Sayama was a super athlete in the New Japan camp, the greatest flier ever in
camp who was also particularly adept at kick boxing and he was a terrific shooter for his
size as well. But he was only 5-5 and 160 pounds, far too small to be a pro wrestler in
those days. He was sent away to both Mexico and England, where, to say he was a
sensation would be the understatement of all-time. Sayama, who wrestled for less than
two years total in Mexico, is generally considered high on any list of the all-time greatest
wrestlers ever in that country and every Japanese wrestler who comes to the country is
immediately and unfavorably compared with him. In England, under the name Sammy
Lee, billed as a cousin of Bruce Lee, he became a phenom as well with his feud with
Mark "Rollerball" Rocco.
Tiger Mask was originally a popular television cartoon in Japan, with a pro wrestling
theme. Tiger Mask was an orphan who learned to wrestle, who had a twin brother that
he didn't even know he was related to who became his biggest rival, the hated Black
Tiger, a role played in the Tiger Mask wrestling days by Rocco. And he had a big friend
called the Giant Zebra. Ironically, the Giant Zebra in the cartoon was supposed to be a
secret animated version of Giant Baba. Shinma, in order to appeal to young children
who were largely in the All Japan camp due to the popularity of Mascaras and Terry
Funk, since the teenage and young adult audience were Inoki's core crowd due to the
martial arts matches, wanted to create a real-life version of Tiger Mask and make him a
small speedy wrestler so young children could empathize with him. The choice came
down to Sayama or Hamada, both of whom were exceptional but smaller wrestlers. In
April of 1981, Sayama debuted under the mask against Dynamite Kid, who would go on
to be his legendary rival. While kids immediately took to the character, the hardcore
audience didn't like the gimmick. The costume was too cartoonish for the hardcore
Japanese audience used to black boots and black tights, plus he was too small. But after
dispatching of one wrestler after another from Mexico using a style never seen before in
Japan, eventually the hardcore audience had to admit Sayama was something special.
Fujinami moved up to the heavyweight division, and on January 1, 1982, Sayama
defeated Kid to become WWF junior heavyweight champion. He later defeated Les
Thornton to become NWA junior heavyweight champion and for the most part held both
titles until August of 1983, when he announced his retirement. Shortly after that
retirement ended the period where everything New Japan did turned to gold.
After the IWE feud came perhaps the biggest and among the most important angle in the
history of the Japanese business. Riki Choshu, who was basically No. 4 on the pecking
order behind Inoki, Fujinami and Sakaguchi, did a fake shoot angle where he was
frustrated and turned on Fujinami. Choshu formed a group called Ishingun (the current
Heisei Ishingun group is a modern day copy of that angle), a supposed promotion within
a promotion to feud with the established New Japan stars, called Seikigun. The
combination of foreign stars like Hogan, Andre and Butcher, the Ishingun vs. Seikigun
Japanese feud and Tiger Mask and rivals like Dynamite Kid, Black Tiger (Mark Rocco),
Steve Wright, Hamada, Bret Hart and Kuniaki Kobayashi in the middle spelled the
greatest run of box office success perhaps in the modern history of wrestling. New Japan
sold out 90% of its dates over a one year period. Its television show aired in Prime Time
on Saturday nights and drew between a 20 and 25 rating every week, making it usually
among the top five television shows in the country. It set the stage for the monthly
magazines to go weekly and placed Japan as the worldwide hotbed and revolutionary
force in pro wrestling.
Up to that point, with the exception of the rare interpromotional match like Inoki's
earlier matches with Kimura and Strong Kobayashi, the top drawing matches in Japan
and virtually all the main events involved Japanese vs. Foreigner. The bigger name the
foreigner, the more money the feud would draw, which enabled the few foreigners with
huge names or karate stars willing to help in the creation of Inoki's illusion to make the
biggest payoffs anywhere in the world at the time while wrestling in Japan. However,
Choshu's charisma on top changed the equation for ever more, and was the beginning of
what is today's Japanese wrestling world.
And then, as quick as it all came, it was over. While Inoki and Shinma had created one of
the great business booms ever, suddenly it was no longer the Inoki one-man show but an
entire card of super over monster draws. With their singles feud over the WWF
International heavyweight title, Fujinami and Choshu suddenly became stars of almost
the same magnitude of Inoki. Perhaps nobody would have figured it out for many years
either except another of those funny things happened on June 2, 1983.
For more than two years, Inoki had created a phony world wide IWGP heavyweight
tournament with announcing standings and results involving some of the biggest names
in the world until the finals were scheduled in May of 1983. It turned out to be one of the
biggest tournaments in history, and came down to Inoki and Hogan. While Inoki was on
the ring apron, in one of the most famous spots in Japanese wrestling history, Hogan
ran across the ring and gave him a lariat, which at the time was his finishing move in
Japan since they never would accept the legdrop as a finishing move. Inoki hit his head
on the floor, panic ensued, Inoki swallowed his tongue, was totally unconscious. Inoki
couldn't continue get up, was thrown back in the ring by the wrestlers around the ring, I
guess hoping for a miracle in that Hogan would find a way to pin himself, but Inoki
didn't move and after a lot of confusion, the match was stopped. Hogan's first pro
wrestling world title was not the one part of a well thought out marketing plan and
Hogan had the title Inoki had spent years building up for himself to win. Inoki was hurt
so badly from the fall that he was out of action for three months, and it was years before
he fully recovered his stamina. He was really never the same physically on a consistent
basis although he did have a few memorable matches over the years, including one as
late as January 4, 1996 against Vader.
Everyone figured business would drop without the big star on the shows. But Choshu
and Tiger Mask and Fujinami were so hot that the company continued to sellout every
night. Suddenly the other headline wrestlers realized they should be all earning a lot
more money when they were on top with all the sellout houses. Exactly what happened
behind-the-scenes at this point isn't well documented, but the end results once again
changed the face of wrestling history.
With Shinma running the business, he and Inoki had used company money to save
Inoki's side businesses that weren't as successful. The money from all the sellout houses
disappeared to save Inoki's outside interests as fast as it came and then some. The
wrestlers, furious about the embezzlement of funds, attempted a coup, similar to what
Baba and Inoki tried more than a decade earlier. When the coup failed, it was Sayama
who was in the Inoki position, in that he was the one about to take some major heat.
Rather than face the repercussions, he suddenly retired, but the details of Inoki and
Shinma's being caught embezzling millions from the company went public.
Inoki had to give up his Presidency of the company, and Shinma, the booker and
Chairman of the Board, who was the mastermind behind creating what at the time was
the biggest wrestling promotion probably in history--basically the creator of the Inoki
illusion, the Tiger Mask explosion and the Choshu revolution, was the big scapegoat,
having to resign completely. Inoki returned as a wrestler, but by this point feelings had
embittered toward him. The company proved it could draw without him, physically he
was past his prime, yet he continued to be on top and would never put over the
upcoming stars. Choshu and Fujinami's feud was still on fire, even after a multitude of
double count out finishes on major shows. When the public first heard word about the
embezzlement scandal involving the wrestling hero, business dropped, similar to a poststrike
atmosphere in baseball, at least after the early strikes. And like with baseball, a
few months later, fans forgot and business was strong. But the bitterness remained.
First Shinma, mad because he was the scapegoat and with plenty of ideas left, created
his own promotion, the Universal Wrestling Federation, and went about his new job of
creating his second Inoki, a 24-year-old former karate star named Akira Maeda. Shinma
initially got the backing from the WWF and sent Maeda there to win the International
title that Fujinami and Choshu had feuded over. But that deal fell apart while Maeda was
on tour, and suddenly Maeda, sent to the WWF as a star, was forced to do jobs every
night. Maeda brought his trainer, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, and his "little brothers" in New
Japan with him to UWF, Nobuhiko Takada, the young wrestler with perhaps the most
potential of all, and Kazuo Yamazaki, the long-time training partner of Sayama. Shinma
also convinced veterans including Rusher Kimura to join with his group and even made
a play for Inoki to leave New Japan although Inoki apparently agreed at one point and
then backed out. Karl Gotch was then hired as trainer, and Gotch tried to convince the
wrestlers to change the style to something more serious and realistic. The UWF became
the first pure shoot illusion--illusion in that it was simply just a stiffer work but paved
the way to a whole new trend in Japanese wrestling, a nine-year long journey from fake
shoots popular only among hardcores in Tokyo, to a brief period as the most successful
promotion in the world, all the way to the end products, today's UFC, Vale Tudo (which
Sayama is now a promoter of), Pancrase and K-1 kick boxing.
Ironically, Shinma was booted out of the group he created before long. With the
company's new direction not exactly setting the world on fire, some of the wrestlers went
to Sayama, the retired superstar who, while a great flier and Lucha stylist, still in his
heart always preferred a more realistic style from his kick boxing and shooting
background. Sayama, who had written a wrestling expose called "Kayfabe" during his
period out, talking about the scandal and the fact wrestling matches were
predetermined, agreed to come back for a huge payoff. Having Sayama work greatly
boosted the group's credibility and they became a hot cult ticket in Tokyo, although still
had trouble drawing elsewhere. Sayama made a he goes or I go ultimatum regarding
Shinma, as the bitter feelings remained from the New Japan period, and the wrestlers
backed Sayama. However, Sayama and Maeda ended up with an ego clash of their own
one year later while the company was falling apart in the middle of its own gangster
scandal. In September of 1985, about 18 months after its debut, the first UWF ran its
final wrestling show and Sayama retired for the second time.
There was even more bad news on the horizon. A second IWGP heavyweight title
tournament was held in 1984, with Inoki set to win the title he had built up for himself
and gaining revenge for his loss to Hogan. However, by this time, Hogan was WWF
champion and on the verge of becoming the biggest mat star on the planet. Hogan didn't
want to do a clean job, no doubt nor did his promoter, Vince McMahon Jr., want him to,
but Inoki definitely had to go over this time. A compromise finish was worked out where
they would twice do double count outs and have the match restarted, and at the finish,
Choshu would come out and give both Hogan and Inoki lariats outside the ring. Inoki
would crawl in before the count and win the match via count out. That compromise was
the worst thing possible for business, not that it would be the last time Hogan would be
involved in a finish described afterwards as that. Fans were so fed up with the finish that
they rioted, destroying the hallowed building and were setting fires. The rioting lasted
for something like 20 minutes, and when the dust cleared, New Japan was banned from
its big show arena for one year, killing its chances of doing monster gates. TV-Asahi was
getting a really bad taste in its mouth about the people who ran the company and the
fans who attended the matches.
That was hardly the biggest blow to New Japan. In late 1984, Naoki Otsuka, New Japan's
leading house show promoter, had a falling out with the hierarchy as well and initially
wanted to create his own company using Choshu as the top draw. While that never got
started, Otsuka worked together with Baba behind-the-scenes and Choshu, Masa Saito,
Animal Hamaguchi, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Kobayashi, Super Strong Machine, Hiro Saito,
Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith and a half-dozen others left New Japan for All Japan,
changing the balance of power completely. With Inoki's rep in shambles, and almost all
its biggest stars walking out, TV-Asahi, which kept the company afloat after the
embezzlement scandal, had seen just about enough. It literally came down to Fujinami,
who both All Japan and UWF were courting, as to the survival of the company. Fujinami
stayed. The network kept the company going, and in 1985, Inoki got a measure of
retribution by stealing one of Baba's biggest stars, Bruiser Brody. The Inoki-Brody feud
picked business up from its low levels. All Japan had taken advantage of Inoki's
weaknesses and rebounded with fresh matches to become the dominant force in
Japanese wrestling. The signing of Brody to what at the time was the biggest money per
week deal probably in the history of wrestling up to that point, drew strong enough
television ratings, usually between a 15 and a 20, sometimes higher for the Inoki-Brody
singles bouts, that the danger of the network folding the company had ceased.
***********************************************************
The biggest match in the history of junior heavyweight wrestling, at least on the surface,
took place on 8/5. Both Ultimo Dragon and Great Sasuke came out with four models
apiece, each holding a title belt over their heads. The two themselves were an amazing
story. Yoshihiro Asai was part of the New Japan dojo, but couldn't make the grade,
largely because of his size. But he wanted to be a wrestler so bad that, similar to Keiichi
Yamada a few years earlier, he flew to Mexico and in a foreign country knowing nothing
except that it was the land of Mil Mascaras, turned himself into a great wrestler and
returned to Japan and made a big hit. Masanori Murakawa, who came from a more
upper class background, would literally follow wrestling tours around the country as a
teenager. He turned pro with a couple of his friends as an undercard green wrestler in
the Lucha style promotion run by Shinma's son where Asai had become the top draw.
Murakawa first went under the name Masa Michinoku, which means "Masa on the way"
(current wrestler Taka Michinoku, is not his brother, but a kid who grew up wanting to
be the next "Takada on the way") Asai became Murakawa's teacher and as often
happens, within a few years, the student surpassed the teacher. Doing daredevil moves
that were beyond anything seen to that point in Japan, the Great Sasuke started to
develop a following. Murakawa started his own Lucha promotion in Japan, doing the
bookkeeping himself in the morning, and became the Japanese version of Smoky
Mountain Wrestling, going into tiny villages at the local high school or rec center
running shows in which they ran on such a tight budget that they didn't even bring
chairs--the fans would sit on the floor and watch the matches from close range. Now that
they're more successful, sitting on the floor and watching Michinoku pro has become a
cult thing in the Northeastern section of Japan. Nobody that goes to the shows wants to
sit in chairs. It was the biggest match of their careers, but like everything else in
wrestling, things don't always end up as they seem.
1. Otani beat Nagata in 12:56 with an achilles tendon submission. After Otani's great
performance the previous night, he did a totally different match this time, total UWFI
style on the mat exchanging holds with some suplexes at the end. A great opener. ***1/2
2. Goto pinned Hiro Saito in 10:42 after two back suplexes. The first half of the match
was terrible, mainly brawling with no heat. Saito picked things up and carried Goto to a
really good and very heated last few minutes, doing senton after senton on him for near
falls. **
3. Kobayashi & Nogami beat Liger & Samurai in 14:24. Liger did a lot of comedy early.
Eventually the heels stuff piledrove him on the floor. Kobayashi did a superplex on
Samurai and Nogami followed with a splash off the top (the old Power & Glory finisher)
for a near fall. Samurai also kicked out of a stuff power bomb and Kobayashi's trademark
fisherman suplex. Finally Liger mad the hot tag and eventually gave Kobayashi a
plancha. In the ring, Samurai got a near fall with a german suplex on Nogami. When he
tried a second, Nogami reversed it and used a rolling german suplex (a series of two in a
row rolling and holding onto the first once) to score the pin. ***1/4
4. Fujinami beat Nishimura in 7:32 with an abdominal stretch, one of Inoki's 70s
finishers that was called in those days the grand cobra twist. Another dead match with
Fujinami using a total 70s style, including doing two Billy Robinson backbreakers to set
up the abdominal stretch. 1/4*
5. Hashimoto & Kojima beat Akitoshi Saito & Ohara in 13:48. This match was incredible.
Hashimoto limped to the ring and the New Japan doctor got in his way and tried to tell
him not to work. Hashimoto shoved him aside, but then while in the ring, apologized to
him. The doctor stayed at ringside during the match and kept teasing he was on the
verge of stopping it. Kojima reminds me of the Nasty Boys with similar charisma but a
lot more talent. Ohara and Kojima slapped the hell out of each other. Hashimoto tagged
in and they went right for the right knee. The match had tremendous heat and was
worked more of a U.S. faces vs. heel style with Ohara and Saito continually working the
knee. Finally Hashimoto hit a DDT on Ohara and tagged out. Kojima was doubled on but
kicked out of a power bomb. After a few more near falls on Kojima, with his back turned,
Hashimoto slapped Kojima's back without him knowing it to tag in. They continued
working the knee with Hashimoto making explosive comebacks. Finally Hashimoto went
for his brainbuster, and at the top, teased the knee giving way as it had the night before.
Finally the knee gave out again in the middle of the move, but Ohara was already up, so
Ohara landed even harder on his head and was pinned. Ohara was carried from the ring
while Hashimoto laid there immobile for several minutes before being helped back. An
incredible performance by Hashimoto. ****
6. Sasuke captured all eight belts pinning Dragon in 13:56. The match had great
atmosphere between all the belts and the teacher vs. student storyline, with Yuji
Yasuroka seconding Dragon and Tiger Mask seconding Sasuke. They started with fast
moves like arm drags in the ring. Dragon used the dragon screw into a Texas cloverleaf
for a near submission. Later Dragon faked a dive, then backed off, and went for the tope.
Dragon then hit the move he made famous, the Asai moonsault, but all the years of
doing moves like that have taken its toll and his right knee went out. In the ring he used
a brainbuster and Liger bomb for near falls but was limping really bad. With both men
standing on the top rope, Sasuke did a standing dropkick which sent Dragon to the floor.
Sasuke hit his own Asai moonsault and got up limping as well. In the ring, Sasuke
missed a moonsault and Dragon used a tiger suplex for a near fall. Dragon went behind
Sasuke while both were on the top rope to do a rana off the top, but turned it into a
huracanrana for a near fall. He teased doing a power bomb off the apron (the move Dos
Caras did to Sasuke last year which, as ironies would have it, cracked Sasuke's skull), but
Sasuke blocked it. Sasuke then did the crazy move of the match. He went to the top
apparently for another Rider kick, but instead balanced himself on the post and pushed
off, flying way out in the aisle and doing a full flip. Unfortunately, Dragon was even
farther out and didn't catch him, and in the turning, landed with the back of his head
cracking on the floor. It was serious enough that he groggily got into the ring and told
the ref he was hitting the finish as quick as possible. Sasuke missed another moonsault,
Dragon got a near fall with La Magistral. As Dragon went for a power bomb, it was
turned into a Frankensteiner. Dragon didn't know it was the finish but Sasuke and the
ref did, and the ref counted three even though Dragon actually kicked out. The finish
looked bad because of that. The finish was supposed to come four spots later, with
Dragon using the running power bomb he used to beat Otani the previous night, and
Sasuke turning that into a Frankensteiner the second time and getting the pin. The
President of TV-Asahi came into the ring to present Sasuke with an award. Somehow I
don't think the President of NBC would do that after the main event at Wrestlemania.
Sasuke left amidst a celebration carrying six belts around his arms and wearing two
around his waist. ****1/4
Inoki came out to a thunderous ovation every night just before intermission. Ovations
the likes of which no other wrestler alive could get except in their wildest imagination.
When he came out this time, he mentioned how spectacular a match it was and that it
must have been, since when he was a wrestler, he only had one belt.
7. Chono (4) beat Yamazaki (2) in 12:25 in a B block match. It started fast and soon
slowed. Then Chono got heat working on Yamazaki's fingers. Yamazaki got a choke right
in the middle with apparently no escape, however Chono broke it by going after the
finger again. Chono finally got the STF in the middle, and at the same time bent the bad
hand back in a wristlock and Yamazaki submitted. **
8. In a match to determine the A block championship and a slot in the finals, Choshu (8)
beat Sasaki (4) in 15:13. Another teacher vs. protege match with great heat. Very stiff but
also simple when it came to moves. They traded head-butts and Sasaki kept using the
Power strangle for near submissions and Choshu having to go to the ropes. By the third
time, there was super heat. After Choshu broke the move, Sasaki went for a pin but
Choshu kicked out to a huge pop. Choshu then began hitting lariats, but on the third
one, Sasaki caught him in the ipponzei but somehow while doing the move, Choshu
caught him in a Rickson Gracie choke while on top. Sasaki was smothered underneath
and you couldn't see him as Choshu had him buried. Ref Hattori was selling it like crazy
frantically trying to check Sasaki but being unable to see him tap or go out. After a long
time with Choshu on top, the ref stopped the match. What hurt the finish was when
Sasaki finally got up, he complained to Hattori that he had never submitted, and Choshu
then hit him with a lariat and ordered Hattori to count to three. The American style
post-match was flat and kind of killed Sasaki the next night. Apparently the original plan
was for Sasaki to beat his teacher for the first time on this show, which would set up a
playoff the next day after Sasaki beat Hashimoto, which Choshu would then win. ***1/2
9. Muto (4) beat Koshinaka (4) in 11:59 in a B block match. Muto needed the win here or
he'd be mathematically eliminated. The match actually started out a little weak since
Koshinaka's knee went out doing a spot so the spot looked bad and Muto had to put him
in a resthold. When he was recovered, they made up for lost time with Muto doing all his
signature spots (handspring elbow, facebuster, dropkick off the top) and finally went for
a Frankensteiner off the top rope but Koshinaka held on and Muto landed on his head.
Koshinaka hit one big move after another for near falls which got big pops as Muto kept
kicking out. Finally Muto hit the dragon screw and followed it with a dropkick off the top
rope to the back. He put Koshinaka on the top as if he was going to Frankensteiner or
superplex him, but instead used a dragon screw, followed by a moonsault and went for
the figure four, but Koshinaka turned it into an inside cradle for a near fall. Koshinaka
then one big move after another in rapid succession for near falls before Muto caught
him with another dragon screw and got the figure four on in the middle. Probably the
best finish of the entire week. ****1/4
The show itself was the best one of the tournament. But the post match had a bad note.
Sasuke had to be taken to the hospital. He cracked his head in two places landing doing
the flip dive while kicking off the ringpost. He needed five stitches to close one of the
cuts, but fractured his skull, apparently similar to his injury against Dos Caras. He was
then allowed to leave the hospital in Tokyo the next morning but had to check into the
hospital in his home town of Aomori in Northern Japan.
In the tournament, Hashimoto (2) technically got a forfeit win over Hirata, but it really
didn't matter since he was mathematically eliminated. Choshu was in the finals. In the B
block, Koshinaka, Chono and Muto all had 2-1 records and four points. Koshinaka had a
match with Kojima, which he figured to win, and Muto and Chono were to face each
other. If there was a tie, there would be a playoff with the winner facing Choshu later
that night.
***********************************************************
After the UWF folded, Maeda, Takada, Fujiwara and Yamazaki returned to New Japan
in January of 1986, but it was a short but important trip. The wrestlers all had nowhere
else to go. And New Japan needed them, since it was trying to remove the stench from a
screwed up tag team tournament which ended 1985. Inoki & Sakaguchi were scheduled
to face Brody & Jimmy Snuka. A few days before the finals, Brody, who went to Japan in
a bad mood to begin with, had a singles match with Sakaguchi, a huge former national
judo champion, turn into a semi-shoot with Brody using his chain and attacking
Sakaguchi's knee. Since Sakaguchi was the President of the company, Brody figured his
days were numbered and on the train as they were going to Tokyo for the championship
match, Brody simply got off the train. Snuka, to show loyalty to Brody, got off with him.
Trying to make the best of a horrible situation, a no-show in the tag tournament finals,
Inoki & Sakaguchi wrestled Fujinami & Kengo Kimura in the impromptu finals, and for
the first time, Inoki allowed his protege Fujinami to pin him.
Maeda's return was the next stage of the interpromotional angle, this time bigger than
ever. There was more box office power in Inoki vs. Maeda than any wrestling match in
company history. Only one problem. Maeda absolutely refused to put Inoki over. At one
point, booking without a finish in mind or perhaps with the traditional double count out
in mind, New Japan announced an Inoki vs. Maeda match for Sumo Hall, and sold all
11,000 tickets in a few hours. However, they had to change it to a ten-man tag match
main event with the UWF vs. New Japan because Maeda wouldn't put Inoki over, or
even work with him, and worse than that, there was legitimate fear what Maeda would
do in the ring to Inoki. However, the Maeda submission oriented style, while able to sell
a lot of tickets for the right dream match, wasn't as successful to the casual fans who
didn't understand the less flashy submission moves. While 1986 educated a lot of casual
fans to submissions and paved the way for the future success of shoot style pro wrestling
that followed a few years later, TV ratings fell and New Japan eventually lost its Saturday
night prime time slot.
Maeda was a combination charismatic star and problem. He couldn't work well with
Americans, but had great matches with Japanese. They had a goldmine match but
couldn't put it on because neither would do a job or even make the other look good, or
for fear, like in Maeda's famous match with Andre the Giant, it would turn into an
uncooperative disaster. All these things built Maeda's reputation with the younger fans
and he was still expected to be the Inoki of the future. That was only made clearer when
New Japan went back to the old formula, the mixed martial arts match, booking a
double main event on October 9, 1986--Maeda against a former world light heavyweight
kick boxing champion named Don Nakaya Neilsen, Inoki against a former heavyweight
boxing champion Leon Spinks. The show drew a sellout crowd, but more importantly,
drew a 29 rating on television. Things couldn't have gone better for Maeda, as he and
Neilsen put on the greatest mixed match, at least up until that time, in history, while
Spinks was a total disaster as an opponent to put over Inoki. The clamor was greater
than ever to build the company around Maeda.
New Japan got another boost when the prodigal son, Choshu, returned in mid-1987 after
leaving All Japan while holding its PWF heavyweight title, bringing back most of the
wrestlers he took with him. Suddenly New Japan had talent like in the glory days, but so
much damage had been done over the previous four years that neither the crowds nor
television ratings picked up like everyone thought Choshu's return would do. With
Choshu and company back, Maeda was suddenly no longer the flavor of the month.
Which leads to...the shoot kick.
The original UWF, idolized by the teenagers of that time as the real deal, was a hot ticket
at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, but really nowhere else. After the promotion folded and
Maeda and Takada returned to New Japan, the New Japan Korakuen Hall shows were
considered UWF home court. A six-man tag was scheduled at Korakuen Hall in
November of 1987 with Choshu's team against Maeda's and rumors were flying several
days beforehand that something was going to happen. As Choshu held Osamu Kido in a
scorpion, leaving himself wide open, Maeda threw a legitimate kick as hard as he could
to Choshu's eye. While it didn't knock Choshu down, it did bust his eye and break an
orbital bone. New Japan was faced with one major predicament. What Maeda did was
simply shoot a kick in a style that worked kicks were thrown regularly. To make a big
deal about it publicly would be basically a public admittance wrestling was a work and
let everyone know the kick was a shoot. To ignore it would be even worse for business,
because anarchy could take over in a minefield of egos. Maeda was immediately
suspended, and New Japan laid out a series of stipulations which he'd have to follow,
such as spending several months in Mexico where he'd have to do Lucha style and make
little money, and when he returned, put Choshu over clean in a singles match (Maeda
had not done a job for any Japanese wrestler except Fujiwara, who had a shooter
reputation, since his return), as his punishment. Maeda refused and never wrestled for
New Japan again. Yet his cowardly act ironically made him (along with Hulk Hogan) one
of the two hottest wrestlers in the world. A very minor incident took place that same
week. A hot-headed 18-year-old wrestler who was the star of the dojo, with such amazing
potential that was already wowing fans in prelim matches was also suspended, in this
case for punching out a cab driver. His name was Masaharu Funaki. Business dropped in
the tag tourney with Maeda suspended and Choshu injured, to the point that only 5,000
fans attended the finals of the 1987 tag tournament, while at the same time, All Japan
was on fire as it brought back Brody, Butcher and Snuka for its tag tournament.
At this time, Inoki went for a WWF angle instead of a New Japan angle. He got the man
who ruled the night time air waves in Japan, the Japanese equivalent to Johnny Carson
in those days, to become manager for a new monster superstar by the name of Big Van
Vader. Jim Hellwig was originally supposed to be the monster who was going to be
pushed as the new generation Stan Hansen or Hulk Hogan. Hellwig, however, went with
the WWF, leaving New Japan with a second choice--Leon White. White's debut, beating
Inoki in 2:00 at Sumo Hall, was disastrous since the place was sold out based on an
Inoki vs. Choshu main event. With fans mad after an angle that saw Inoki want to face
the debuting monster instead of Choshu, they ended up first having Inoki beat Choshu
in a quick 6:00 match, followed by Inoki losing in almost a squash to an unknown in
order to make his rep immediately. At the time, Vader was a large green wrestler and his
beating Inoki caused the place to riot. The talk show host immediately bailed out of the
angle. Ironically, over the next year, while feuding with Fujinami, Vader became the
most improved wrestler in the game and after that disastrous debut, turned into exactly
what New Japan was hoping for, the next generation version of Stan Hansen.
Rather than return to New Japan, Maeda got financing to form the second version of the
UWF, with Takada, Yamazaki, Fujiwara and some time later, Funaki and Minoru Suzuki
following suit. The UWF with its more realistic style, sold out every card but one during
1988 and 1989, most in a manner of hours. All Japan and New Japan had made a habit
of double count out finishes when big stars were matched against each other, while UWF
ended every match with a submission or knockout. Fans at the All Japan and New Japan
shows started reacting very negatively when the finishes weren't clean, and the
promotions had no choice but to change decade long booking patterns created basically
to "protect" the stars.
This was also the beginning of the end of Inoki as a full-time wrestler. After Inoki broke
his foot, Fujinami beat Big Van Vader to finally escape the shadow of Inoki and win his
first world heavyweight title. After carrying Inoki to his first classic match in years, a
60:00 draw where Fujinami retained the title, Fujinami, in the No. 2 slot for so long,
pulled his own power play, threatening to leave the company unless he was treated as
the No. 1 star. It worked for a short time as Fujinami headlined while Inoki sat out and
crowds dwindled, so Inoki was asked back once again for his last run on top.
With business slow, Inoki went back to his past. With communism crumbling in the
Soviet Union, it was Inoki who was the first person to negotiate the deal to bring in
Soviet amateur athletic stars into professional sports. The latest fake shoot, in that
people believed these legitimate Soviets with no understanding or knowledge of pro
wrestling wouldn't do lay down and do jobs for wrestlers, led to the biggest crowd in the
history of Japanese wrestling up to that point--53,800 fans and a world record
$2,781,000 house at the Tokyo Dome on April 24, 1989 to see Inoki, knowing it was time
to change the formula, putting over Soviet judo champion Shota Chochyashivili via a
fifth round knockout finish, thus finally losing his first mixed match and his World
Martial Arts title. Since that time, New Japan has promoted annual shows at the Dome,
with it selling out the building quickly for the second show, on February 10, 1990,
drawing nearly twice as many fans as Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas did in the same
building the night before for an interpromotional match as New Japan's Choshu &
George Takano faced All Japan's Genichiro Tenryu & Tiger Mask (Mitsuharu Misawa)
and selling out most of the others since. By 1995, New Japan ran three dome shows, two
in Tokyo, one in Fukuoka and drew more than 300,000 fans over two days at May Day
Stadium in North Korea.
It was on the first Tokyo Dome show that New Japan went back to its past once again,
attempting to create a second Tiger Mask type character in Keiichi Yamada, taking the
Japanese comic book and television cartoon character of Jushin Liger. After Sayama
retired, New Japan took George Takano, and put him under the hood as The Cobra.
Coming so soon after Sayama, even though Takano was a talented wrestler, he lacked
charisma and couldn't stand up to the obvious comparisons and the gimmick fizzled,
although not before Cobra had some memorable matches. After Cobra was scrapped, the
junior heavyweight division revolved around a classic feud between Takada's UWF style
and Koshinaka's traditional pro wrestling style. After Takada went back to UWF,
Koshinaka's new rival became Hiroshi Hase, who eventually dropped the title to Liger.
Liger went on to become the best wrestler in the world for a time, and through his own
booking and creation of a new generation of Dynamite Kids (Chris Benoit), Black Tigers
(Eddie Guerrero) and Bret Harts (Dean Malenko), the junior heavyweight division
flourished like never before. Finally, some 15 years after Tiger Mask lit up the stage in
Japan, junior heavyweights like Shawn Michaels, Benoit, Rey Misterio Jr., Guerrero and
the like appear to be leading the future path of American wrestling.
Inoki's grip on the top was loosening, so he saved face and announced in 1989 he was
retiring from wrestling full-time to run for the Japanese senate. He actually won the
election, in a typical Inoki finish, winning in a close call as the final ballots were being
counted. Ironically, Inoki in infrequent doses is now far more popular and much more of
a drawing card and legend today than he was during his mythical heyday against the
martial artists and Tiger Jeet Singh. After Choshu, Fujinami and Vader traded the world
title back-and-forth, it was time for today's New Japan to take over, the one-time three
Musketeers of Muto, Chono and Hashimoto. And a few years later, they'll pave the way
for the likes of Tenzan, Kojima, Otani and Nagata. During this period, Choshu, who
nearly killed the company with his jump, along with allies Hase and Masa Saito pretty
much took over the political power within the company and drove it to its current
heights. Fujinami, ironically the man who saved the company back in 1984 when it was
at deaths door and the only star who remained loyal to the company during the bad
times, ended up out of the political power and the No. 1 spot that he spent most of his
life waiting patiently for Inoki to vacate.
***********************************************************
Things were at a fever pitch for what everyone figured to be Choshu's last hurrah on 8/6.
Like Connors in his last U.S. Open, he had long since come full circle, from the rebellious
bad guy with so much charisma that he changed decade long booking patterns, to the
veteran whose days as a headliner seemed over but for this one week, he was attempting
to relive his glory days. The plan worked, which is the beauty of pro wrestling, in that
unlike real sports and the Jimmy Connors story, stories like this can be written for
maximum drama and emotion and with the right finish, and this was Choshu himself
writing the beginning of his final story as a wrestler. The asking price on the street for
tickets was $100 if you were lucky, $200 if you weren't. After two straight days as the
leading sports story, obviously an SRO crowd announced at 11,500 was going to be
there. But although Choshu wrote and nearly executed his perfect story, reality again
struck and Choshu wasn't the story.
1. Iizuka & Yasuda & Takaiwa beat Ohara & Nogami & Goto in 11:36. Reality set in early
as Yasuda, the cult favorite, looked clumsy as ever in the early going killing all the crowd
heat. The guys chopped the hell out of each other to where everyone's chest was covered
with bruises. It never got going, although the final few minutes of near falls got great
crowd heat. Yasuda pinned Nogami with a pathetic splash off the top rope, in that
Yasuda's feet landed on the mat well before his body landed on Nogami. *1/4
2. Nagata & Nishimura upset Hiro Saito & Tenzan in 11:32. This wasn't good either, even
with Nagata involved. Nishimura was dead, and Saito left his working shoes in the
match with Goto. The crowd popped big for the finish, as Saito missed a senton off the
top rope and Nagata came back with a koppo kick and an inside cradle. *1/2
3. Kojima (2) upset Koshinaka (4) to eliminate him from the B block in 10:33. It started
out hot with stiff clotheslines back and forth and lots of no sell spots. Koshinaka did a
great job carrying the match, since Kojima really doesn't have much of a repertoire
outside of a great clothesline and a sloppy moonsault, but he's got an amazing amount of
charisma live for someone so relatively young. The match ended up with near falls going
back-and-forth and great heat. Koshinaka got near falls with all his signature moves.
After a butt bump off the top, Koshinaka went for a power bomb, but Kojima blocked it.
Kojima delivered a power bomb of his own for a near fall, but missed a moonsault.
Koshinaka then wrapped Kojima up in an inside cradle, but Kojima reversed it and
scored the pin--the biggest victory thus far in his career. The place went nuts for this
finish, and afterwards Kojima climbed the ropes, and basically did a nestea plunge
backwards into the ring, almost as if he fainted in disbelief of scoring such a big win.
***3/4
4. Sasaki (6) pinned Hashimoto (2) in 9:13. After all the drama Hashimoto provided in
previous nights, this match didn't cut it. With both eliminated mathematically, fans were
really waiting for Muto vs. Chono. Sasaki's reaction was dead coming out stemming from
the Americanized finish to his match with Choshu. And while Hashimoto got an
awesome reaction, the tag match the night before played out the knee injury storyline to
perfection, and to the crowd, it was like they blew their load in regard to Hashimoto the
night before and weren't going to get up for the same thing so quickly. Sasaki opened
with a dropkick to the knee and the scorpion. He continued to work on the knee
throughout. Hashimoto made brief comebacks but mainly Sasaki dominated, and didn't
look that good in doing so. The doctor came out again and teased stopping the match.
Sasaki worked over the knee with the prison deathlock. They got up and heated up the
crowd by spitting in each other's face and trading ultra stiff blows. However Hashimoto's
mobility was gone and Sasaki hit him with a lariat and followed with an ipponzei for the
pin. It was a week of a crowd popping for upsets of this type, but this didn't quite cut it.
*3/4
5. Chono (6) beat Muto (4) in 24:43 to win the B block and earn the match with Choshu.
They did a fast open teasing their big moves, but then it went to the mat for a long time
and even with all the crowd interest, it actually got boring. They picked things up and it
was the typical Muto vs. Chono excellent match with the same spots from years past.
Muto hit the handspring elbow and facebuster, but then messed up a Frankensteiner off
the top as Chono held onto the ropes. Muto then got up and went for a german suplex,
but Chono low blowed him and Chono used Muto's own figure four on him. After a rope
break, the two traded Yakuza kicks and dropkicks back-and-forth reminiscent of their
1992 G-1 tournament match. Chono got the STF a few times including once on the floor
after Muto missed a handspring elbow and hit the guard railing. Muto came back with a
windsprint clothesline but Chono caught him with a kick to the face. Chono got back in
the ring and Muto had to crawl in on his hands and knees. Muto hit a Frankensteiner for
a near fall but missed a moonsault and Chono put on the STF for a long time. The
teasing of this submission before the rope break was probably the best job of the entire
week and that's saying a lot because that is one spot that was worked often to perfection.
Finally Muto hit the dragon screw, hit the moonsault and went for the figure four, but
right before he locked it, Chono caught him with a low blow and pinned him with an
inside cradle. Fans were throwing their drink cartons like crazy in appreciation for the
quality of this match. ****
Inoki came out after this match to the same frenzied reaction he'd been getting doing the
same thing in the same spot all week. This time he mentioned that two years ago he
started his final countdown to retirement and joked that, that's been an awful long
countdown. He said he had a dream for his final opponent, but it was only a dream.
Giant Baba.
6. Fujinami & Kido beat Kimura & Kobayashi in 12:37 when Fujinami gave Kobayashi
two Billy Robinson backbreakers and made him submit to the abdominal stretch. Just
awful. The fans were laughing about how bad it was which is sad because Fujinami was
once the best worker in the business and his character can't do comedy. Missed spots
everywhere. -*
7. Casas & Otani beat Liger & Samurai in 13:19. The crowd was actually kind of dead for
this match early even though Casas & Otani looked good carrying things. Casas, whose
eye was bandaged up from a cut two days earlier, did a nice tope on Liger. Things picked
up from there, although Otani hurt himself during the match as he appeared to be
dropped on his shoulder more than his back in receiving a stuff power bomb and was
holding his neck the rest of the match and bleeding from the mouth. Casas pinned
Samurai with La Magistral. ***1/4
Liger then was given the house mic. There was a story in the newspaper that morning
vaguely saying that Liger may not wrestle for the rest of the year. Liger quickly went over
his situation, saying that doctors had discovered a tumor in his brain. He would be
undergoing a biopsy to see if it was malignant later in the week, and would have an
operation later in the month (8/23 to be exact) to have it removed. If it's benign, he
expected to return to the ring. If it's malignant, his career could very well be over, and
asked the crowd to pray for him. His music played and he received a thunderous sendoff,
as fans realized it could be for the last time as an active wrestler.
8. Choshu pinned Chono in 13:45 to win the G-1 tournament. Choshu was fired up
coming off the blocks with three Saito suplexes for near falls. Chono then went after
Choshu's bad knee. After too many no-sell spots by Choshu to the point he was killing
big moves, Chono got the match story going with an STF on the floor. After Chono broke
the hold and got in the ring, Choshu laid almost motionless as if he'd passed out from
the pain. Fujinami, his most famous rival, who was at ringside cheering him on, slapped
Choshu in the face several times to "awaken" him. Chono got him in a half crab in the
ring and there was a huge pop when Choshu made the ropes. Chono spit on Fujinami
and piledrove Choshu twice but Choshu kicked out. He went back to the STF but Choshu
got to the ropes again. Choshu made a comeback with two lariats and a scorpion, but
Chono made the ropes. After another lariat, Choshu put the scorpion on in the middle
and got the submission. A basic simple psychology match with great heat. It was a good
match, but after everything that had taken place during the week, the climax of Choshu's
one week story ended up being anti-climactic. ***1/4
New Japan had announced a press conference in Tokyo at 3 p.m. on 8/7. Choshu said
that his left knee was bad and was hurting him the entire week. He said he would be
retiring in 1997, although he's announced his retirement before, with his final match
being at one of New Japan's scheduled three Dome shows next year. Choshu's final
storyline hasn't been completely played out. He's counting on the emotion of his final
stand to have a little more shelf life, in particular his final shot at the world title and a
final tag team program with Fujinami getting another day in the sun as his partner.
While not yet announced publicly, it is believed Hashimoto defending the title against
Choshu will headline a 10/6 card at the Tokyo Dome, a building the size of which New
Japan never dared to attempt during his and the company's glory days of 1982.
Liger, 31, told the press he had a tumor two centimeters in diameter in his brain. He said
he would be going back to his home town in Fukuoka and enter the hospital on 8/21 for
a laser operation two days later. He said he had been suffering major headaches since
June, to the point at one point during that tour he went to the hospital to find out what
was wrong. Before this tour, the doctors found the tumor. He said he fully expected to
return to the ring.
***********************************************************
While Inoki was in the senate, he and Shinma got back together and continued creating
their illusions. Shinma ran Inoki's senatorial office and the two continued their angles,
such as Inoki making a political version of a grandstand play with the government of
Iraq, which as it turned out, perfectly coincided with the hostages being released. At one
point, Inoki's ego got the better of him and announced he was running for Mayor of
Tokyo. When it became obvious he couldn't possibly win, he looked to finally get trapped
in a situation with egg on his face. However, a political poll came out among males
under 30 in Tokyo, who grew up watching Inoki on prime time television, and, believe it
or not, within that one demographic group, Inoki had the most support of all the
mayoral candidates. The next day, Inoki dropped out of the race. Being mayor of Tokyo
was nice and all, but he had more important things to do, such as working for Peace and
Harmony in the world.
But everything while in the senate didn't run smoothly. Shinma claimed he was finally
fed up with creating the illusions and storylines and apparently, of Inoki not living in
reality. He got Inoki's secretary to come forward with stories of numerous political
improprieties and tax evasion. Shinma himself came forward as well with more
damaging charges. It was a huge news story for a few weeks and there was plenty of
support for Inoki being impeached from the senate and being indicted on serious
charges. Of course, Inoki denied all, and no indictments ever resulted. But the story
spelled the difference in Inoki receiving a crushing defeat in 1995 when he ran for reelection.
New Japan continued the same training program that has created more Hall of Fame
calibre wrestlers over the past two decades than all others combined. Inoki, much as he
would have liked to, had his chance with Ali to do something athletically real two
decades ago but couldn't pull it off. His hated rival and other prodigal son, Maeda,
wanted to do the same thing but was also held back by the fact he, too, was just a pro
wrestler, although he's taken wrestling one step closer to reality. Some 17 years after the
Ali fiasco, mixed martial arts matches have become something of the rage. And the final
generation right out of New Japan's camp, Funaki, has actually become the sports reality
that Inoki's fantasy and Maeda's dream were of becoming. But Funaki's comparative
success today as compared with Inoki and Maeda in their heyday has also been proof
that fantasy is often far more powerful than reality.
The single greatest angle in the history of wrestling took place in September of 1995--the
New Japan vs. UWFI feud which led to the Muto vs. Takada match. By this time, the
man who specialized in the concept, Inoki, had almost nothing to do with New Japan's
business and is basically a figurehead brought before the fans on big shows. It's the
Choshu show and his biggest angle resulted in an unprecedented three Tokyo Dome
sellouts over a seven month period and more than $20 million in live revenue (gates
plus concessions) over the three shows including the biggest money live show of alltime.
It was the same old trick. Create a promotion vs. promotion feud and put together a
match that fans believe because the stakes are so unbelievably high, that fans believe
nobody will do the job and they actually believe they're going to see something real.
Whether it was Inoki vs. Kobayashi, Inoki vs. Ruska, Inoki vs. Kimura, Inoki vs.
Chochyashivili or the elusive Inoki vs. Maeda or the biggest one ever--Muto vs. Takada,
the story is basically the same, the characters are just updated.
***********************************************************
We'll be doing a double issue next week to catch up everything in the United States. A
few headlines. Ahmed Johnson is scheduled to undergo kidney surgery on 8/12 so he's
out indefinitely and the match with Faarooq Asad (Ron Simmons) at SummerSlam has
been scrapped.
Jeff Jarrett quit USWA and will sit out until starting with WCW in early October.
Mr. Pogo suffered a serious neck injury on 8/1 in Tokyo taking a bump through broken
glass and barbed wire onto pavement at an outdoor show in a match against Terry Funk.
WAR has a show scheduled on 10/11 in Osaka with Sasuke defending all eight belts in a
rematch against Dragon, and Misterio Jr. defending his title against Psicosis.
Current line-up for the 9/22 IYH PPV from Philadelphia is Cornette & Vader vs.
Michaels & Lothario, Owen & Bulldog vs. Sid & ? (scheduled as Johnson but that could
change), Gunns vs. Godwinns for tag titles (which also may change), Vega vs. Asad,
Mankind vs. Mero and Undertaker vs. Goldust.
At the Universal Vale Tudo show on 8/4 in Tokyo, Marco Ruas beat Steve Jennum (UFC
III champion) in 1:45 via knockout, Oleg Taktarov beat Joe Charles in 4:42 and Hugo
Duarte knocked out Harold Howard (UFC III second place) in :29 and Richard Heard, a
wrestler, beat Fred Floyd to win an eight-man tournament.
The WWF's lawsuit against WCW, TBS and Eric Bischoff is scheduled to go to trial in
New Haven on 8/19 but rumors have it that it won't get that far.
Steve Williams debuted on ECW's 8/3 show at the Arena drawing 1,500 teaming with
Tommy Dreamer to lose to Taz & Brian Lee when Lee pinned Dreamer. Sabu over Van
Dam, Scorpio over Jericho (in his last ECW match) and Gangstas winning a four-team
elimination over Bruise Brothers, Samoan Gangstas and Eliminators to take the tag belts
also on show. ECW lost its New York time slot before the first show aired. Apparently
Ch. 31 took one look at the tape which was bought as an infommercial rather than
regular programming and decided it would never air anything of that type. It's been said
before and it'll be said again, the life blood of wrestling in this country is television. And
if ECW persists on having all the blood, the angles where the women get beat up, and the
swearing audible from the crowd chants and bleeping in interviews as a constant on the
show, they aren't going to take anything but little baby steps when it comes to growth.
A bikini contest with Sunny, Sable and Marlena will be on the free-for-all before
SummerSlam.
Pit Bull #1 (Gary Wolfe) suffered a broken neck and will be out of action for quite some
time. They are playing it up as a skull fracture (which it wasn't) and a career ender,
which it isn't expected to be but it is very serious.
New Japan and WCW have a joint single elimination tournament from 9/19 to 9/23 in
Japan with first round being Chono vs. Sting, Koshinaka vs. Morrus, Hashimoto vs. Hall,
Muto vs. Regal, Choshu vs. Norton, Tenzan vs. Anderson, Luger vs. Sasaki and Fujinami
vs. Flair.
WWF drew 9,128 fans and $172,451 on 8/2 in Montreal at the Moulson Center with the
typical tour results. In the special match, Raymond Rougeau beat Owen Hart in a boxing
match when Hart's second, George Chuvalo (a former heavyweight contender who
fought Muhammad Ali in the early 70s), got tired of Hart's attitude and KO'd him.
WCW beat WWF on 8/5 in the ratings, WCW doing 3.0 in both hours averaging a 3.0
and 5.4 share to Raw's 2.8 and 4.6. However, the big story is that viewers were switching
to Raw in droves during the show. Raw opened with a 2.2 and showed phenomenal
growth ending at 3.5. Nitro opened at 3.4, and lost its audience after what I was told was
a horrible interview by Sting & Luger (who have a lot of heat on them because of it),
ending with a 2.6. Other weekend ratings saw WCW Saturday Night at 2.3, Pro at 1.1,
Action Zone at 1.8 and Mania at 1.5.
1-2-3 Kid set to debut for WCW this week.
Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas were scheduled to start this month but politics (they are All
Japan wrestlers and New Japan is putting the screws to the deal) seem to have at least
temporarily gotten in the way.
Ron Reis also scheduled to return from Japan. That didn't last long.
Jacques Rougeau & Pierre Oulette signed their WCW contracts on 8/1 but they have no
starting date scheduled. Horace Boulder, the nephew of Hulk Hogan, also signed a
$125,000 per year deal but again no imminent plans of him being used.
It appears whatever problems there were with Cornette and Michaels have at least on
the surface blown over.
Pancrase PPV taped 9/7 with Suzuki vs. Ken Shamrock and Rutten vs. Funaki will air in
the U.S. on 11/3, an experiment in moving to Sundays, the traditional wrestling PPV
night.
Some talk of Yoji Anjoh being in the next EFC PPV show in October

 

Aug 19 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Jushin Liger
turn for the better, bad news for Ahmed Johnson, business
getting out of control and word to the wise, more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 19 August 1996 10:26
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 August 19, 1996
WCW HOG WILD POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 65 (43.6%)
Thumbs down 55 (36.9%)
In the middle 29 (19.5%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Chris Benoit vs. Dean Malenko 82
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon 37
WORST MATCH POLL
Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant 67
Scott Norton vs. Ice Train 19
Based on phone calls and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 8/13. Statistical
margin of error: +-100%
The situation involving Jushin Liger (Keiichi Yamada) appears to have taken a turn for
the better over the past week. While this is not confirmed at press time, it appears that
the biopsy of his tumor revealed it wasn't cancerous. The situation, which was certainly
career threatening if not life threatening, appears to not be so serious to the extent that
Liger's doctor has okayed for him to return to wrestling on 8/18 for a Michinoku Pro
Wrestling show in Aomori. As the irony would have it, that promotion had scheduled a
major show, and two of its top stars, the Great Sasuke and Tiger Mask were going to
have to miss the show because of recent injuries. Sasuke suffered a fractured skull in his
J Crown tournament final match on 8/5 at Sumo Hall against Ultimo Dragon and
probably won't return to action until September. Tiger Mask blew out his knee on 8/6
during an MPW show in Imabetsu.
In 1994, Liger was scheduled to work a special show for Michinoku Pro in Aomori, but
just before that show was to take place, he suffered the broken ankle which kept him out
of action for nearly one year and missed the show. So the storyline, which has reality to
it, is that Liger felt he owed the fans in that city an appearance, plus it helped out
Michinoku Pro, a promotion that Liger has had strong business relations with over the
years with Sasuke, its owner, being a primary foe for Liger on major New Japan shows.
Liger announced that his doctor, after finding out the tumor wasn't cancerous, said that
it would be okay to wrestle.
Liger will undergo surgery to remove the tumor on 8/23. His recovery depends upon
whether or not they'll have to operate on the brain to remove the tumor, which largely
depends on the size of the tumor, which is believed to be two centimeters in diameter.
Liger said he's hopeful of returning by the September New Japan tour, which starts on
9/12, although it is believed that should they have to operate on the brain, it becomes a
lot more tricky surgery and his recovery time could be significant.
Liger had been deaf in his left ear for the past three years which he believed stemmed
from the punishment he'd taken to the head as a wrestler, and had been suffering of late
from serious headaches. The doctors discovered the tumor when he went to get his
headaches checked out in June, which he kept quiet and scheduled the surgery after the
J Crown tournament.
***********************************************************
The news wasn't as positive this past week for Ahmed Johnson (Tony Norris). Johnson
had emergency kidney surgery on 8/6 and was in intensive care for several hours. He's
expected to be out of action for about three months. He returned home after surgery by
the end of the week. Clips of the surgery were aired on Monday Night Raw on 8/12 and
the storyline is that it is a possible career ending injury stemming from attacks by
Faarooq Asad and his competing in a Battle Royal. The IC title will be put up in a
tournament which begins on the 8/19 Raw television show. Asad won't be wrestling on
the SummerSlam show as they decided to simply cancel the Johnson-Asad match and
give the remaining matches more time.
In addition, Skip (Chris Candito) suffered a cracked vertebrae in his neck in a freak
accident at the 8/9 Madison Square Garden show. The injury apparently occurred when
Skip was taking a sidewinder slam, which is actually far simpler than moves he does with
ease on a regular basis. He was taken to the hospital after the show and was put in a
neck brace. At press time it wasn't certain how long he'd be out of action or how the
SummerSlam show would be affected since he was in a four corners match for the tag
team titles. The injury was never acknowledged on the Raw show.
The complete SummerSlam line-up for 8/18 in Cleveland will be a bikini deal with
Sunny, Marlena and Sable (not a bikini contest) and a Steve Austin vs. Yokozuna match
on the free-for-all. The PPV will consist of Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega, a four corners
match (or perhaps a triangle match) for the tag titles, Goldust vs. Marc Mero, Jake
Roberts vs. Jerry Lawler, Sid vs. Davey Boy Smith, Undertaker vs. Mankind in a boiler
room match and Shawn Michaels vs. Vader.
***********************************************************
This business is a work. And it's really getting out of hand. There is inherent danger in
every contact sport. Most of these wrestlers when it comes to injuries work numerous
dates per year and last longer than, for example, pro football players. But when you see
the risk the guys are taking, and the sad part is the risks are largely to please the
audience because the guys who take the risks genuinely love performing, a lot of these
guys are going to have a very painful second half of their lives. Hurting is part of
wrestling and that has to be accepted. But being crippled at a young age is something
that is really sad. It's a lot worse in Japan than the United States because of the work
ethic, but experience has shown that whatever is going on and getting over in Japan will
eventually spread to the United States (and visa versa).
*************************************************************
WCW took its lumps over the weekend from a natural disaster similar to how the WWF
did a few months back with its PPV from Florence, SC.
Just over one hour before the WCW Hog Wild PPV was scheduled to begin, a major
blackout occurred which encompassed parts of nine states, most heavily in California.
Many people who did have power were unable to order or receive the PPV as well
because computers at many cable companies had no power to process orders. Power
returned at various times, but again, if the computers weren't working, orders for replay
shows couldn't be processed. As WWF learned with the situation earlier this year, when
something like this occurs, buys for the replay show don't come close to making up for
the loss viewership.
As for the show itself, it came off to me as a mediocre show despite a strong line-up on
paper and three very good matches. The wrestling was better than average for the first
six matches. The last two matches were major letdowns when it came to heat and
storyline. A lot of promised things weren't delivered, although the promotion shouldn't
be faulted for it because it had to do with things out of its control. And the announcing
and booking for the show were atrocious. It was a mistake to go with the same
announcing crew for a five hour show (including a two hour live WCW Saturday Night
show) with the addition of Bobby Heenan for the PPV itself being a subtraction since he
appeared to be out to lunch much of the show. The show ended with five consecutive
screw-job finishes, all based on a form of outside interference.
Another negative was the setting. The show was held outdoors, with the ring on a
platform well above the dirt ground which cut down on a lot of outside the ring flying
maneuvers. The crowd itself, which was estimated by those live at about 5,000 (free
outdoor show) although Bobby Heenan gave the figure at one point as being 300,000,
were not wrestling fans and clearly don't watch the television as they had no idea what
was going on most of the way.
The fourth member of the NWO was scheduled to debut on the card, and it was Sean
Waltman (1-2-3 Kid). However, Titan has yet to send him his legal contractual release
after agreeing to do so, with the belief that they were simply screwing with WCW.
Waltman was at the show and ready to do whatever but WCW wouldn't allow him on the
show without the release. There were also complaints about Randy Savage not being
there after he did several interviews talking about being there and attacking Hogan.
Savage wasn't there at all. It was actually explained on Nitro the week before that Savage
had traded his interview time on this PPV for a future title shot (which takes place in Las
Vegas for Halloween Havoc). The feeling was if Savage was there, he'd have to attack
Hogan, and if security stopped him, it would make the rest of the show where security
wasn't going to stop a million run-ins, be ridiculous. In addition, if Savage were to attack
Hogan before the match, it would risk turning Hogan babyface. Luckily, there was no
risk involved at all in that one, since this crowd didn't watch wrestling on television and
Hogan got a total babyface reaction during his entire match with Giant anyway. On the
positive side, the potential risks involved in putting the five hour live television show on
for a total biker audience, such as them getting mad and throwing bottles (as happened
in front of the beach crowd last year in Los Angeles) didn't pan out. The audience didn't
seem to have any idea what it was watching and was embarrassing in that the only
wrestlers who got any kind of heel heat were Harlem Heat. It was clear it was because
they were black and nothing else. But the fans weren't at all unruly.
Before the PPV was a two-hour live WCW Saturday Night show. Because of the power
failure on the West Coast, I want to thank Tim Whitehead for details on parts of the
shows that we were unable to tape (I was unable to be home for the show live and it was
just as well because I couldn't have seen it anyway), and also want to apologize for those
who tried to call in after the show as with power out, the answering machine wouldn't
work and messages couldn't be picked up.
A. Public Enemy (Mike Durham & Ted Petty) beat Dick Slater & Mike Enos in 3:47 when
Rocco pinned Enos. 1/4*
B. Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) pinned Chavo Guerrero Jr. (Salvador Guerrero III) in
4:24 after a splash mountain. Konnan played heel, allowing Guerrero a lot of acrobatic
offensive. Guerrero is showing potential and Konnan is a better worker as a heel.
Konnan did a post-match interview starting a heel turn, saying that he's patterned his
career after Hulk Hogan and is still patterning his career after Hogan. *3/4
C. Nasty Boys (Jerry Seganowich & Brian Yandrisovitz) beat High Voltage in 3:22 when
Knobs pinned Kenny Kaos. Nasty Boys did an interview saying they were neutral for now
in the WCW vs. NWO feud. 1/4*
D. Alex Wright pinned Bobby Eaton with a dropkick off the top rope in :30. DUD
E. Kevin Sullivan & Meng (Uliuli Fifita) & Barbarian (Sionne Vailahi) beat Jim Powers
(James Manley) & Mark Starr (Mark Ashford-Smith) & Joe Gomez in 3:06 when Meng
pinned Starr after a thrust kick. 1/4*
F. David Taylor (subbing for Psicosis who is out of action for the rest of the month with a
dislocated elbow) pinned J.L. (Jerry Lynn) in 2:37 using the tights. This was supposed to
be the beginning of a Psicosis singles push. All action. *
G. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) pinned Renegade (Richard Williams) in :53
with the Diamond cutter. DUD
H. Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) pinned Hugh Morrus (Bill DeMott) in :40 with a DDT.
Dungeon of Doom attacked Anderson but the Horsemen made the save. DUD
1. Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzales) pinned Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) in 11:35 to
retain the WCW cruiserweight title. Dragon was billed as Ultimate Dragon. Sonny Onoo
came out with Dragon to signify him as the heel. The fans chanted "USA" during the
match which makes perfect sense. The ring being on the high platform hurt this match
more than any of the others because it made a lot of the normal Misterio Jr. moves even
more dangerous. Dragon did a great job as a heel considering he's rarely ever played the
role. The two traded nice moves including Dragon using a running Liger bomb early.
After Dragon missed a handspring elbow into the corner, Misterio Jr. hit a springboard
dropkick. Misterio Jr. then followed with a springboard plancha all the way to the floor
which was about four feet lower than usual. Dragon also did a plancha although his was
a far more safer as he landed on the platform. After Dragon scored a serious of near falls,
Misterio Jr. tried a Frankensteiner off the top, missed, then ran up to the second rope
and did it again and scored the pin. ***3/4
2. Scott Norton beat Ice Train (Harold Hoag) via submission with a wakigatamae
(Fujiwara armbar) in 5:05. Train came out with his shoulder all taped from an angle
where Giant beat him up (not very convincingly) earlier in the show. Norton worked on
the arm the entire match. *
3. Madusa (Debra Micelli) pinned Bull Nakano (Keiko Nakano) in 5:00 in the winner
bashes up the losers' bike. Nakano attacked Madusa with nunchakus at the bell. As
Nakano took control, the crowd, having no idea who these women were but being into
the bike vs. bike gimmick, started chanting "Harley" since Madusa rode a Harley into the
ring (at least I think that's what it was for, since Madusa really doesn't look much at all
like Harley Race). They were having a decent match, although rushed, until a totally
screwed up finish. Nakano was supposed to do a bridging back suplex and the ref would
count, at the count of two Madusa would raise her shoulder and the ref would count
three. Anyway, the women did the finish, and ref Randy Eller stopped his count at two.
Neither women could figure out why and hesitated. They did the same spot again and
again the ref didn't count three. Then a third time, and again Madusa raised her
shoulder and the ref counted three but nobody knew it. Sonny Onoo then grabbed a
sledgehammer and threatened the Harley. Madusa jumped out of the ring and got the
sledgehammer and smashed Bull's Honda a little bit. *1/2
4. Chris Benoit pinned Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) in 1:55 of the second overtime.
From a technical standpoint, this was as good a match as you'll ever see in the United
States. The crowd didn't get into it much because they don't know the guys nor the
moves, but it was non-stop for almost 27:00 with near fall after near fall. The
announcers were lame during this match having no clue what the guys were doing half
the time. Crowd had no idea either. Benoit did a plancha and in the last minute of
regulation superplexed Malenko for a near fall. Malenko used a power bomb at the bell,
which actually sounded a few seconds before the 20:00 mark. In the first overtime,
Benoit used Malenko's own Texas cloverleaf on him and the two traded submissions.
This time Malenko got an inside cradle at the bell. They went into a second overtime,
and when it was announced they were doing it, the fans booed. Benoit got a near fall
with a dragon suplex. Malenko came back with the cloverleaf and switched it to an STF.
Woman tried to interfere and Malenko went after her, allowing Benoit to use a
schoolboy holding both the tights and the ropes for the pin. A fantastic match marred by
the crowd and the finish, which was a different match but reminded me of the Rey
Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera match in New York in that the work was excellent but
the crowd and screwed up finish took away from it. In another setting with a different
finish, it would have been a match of the year candidate. ****1/4
5. Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) retained the WCW tag titles beating the
Steiners (Robert & Scott Rechsteiner) in 17:53. Heat got the best heat on the show for all
the wrong reasons. I guess those bikers don't like the colored folks. Lots of suplexes early
by the Steiners. I could live without ever seeing these teams against one another, but this
was one of their better matches. They got heat on Rick for most of the second half of the
match. Finally Scott made the hot tag hitting an overhead belly-to-belly on Booker T.
Rob Parker went to throw powder in Scott's eyes but it went into Booker's eyes instead.
Sherri then threw powder in Scott's eyes and Parker hit him with his cane, which was a
great shot since it broke in two, and Booker pinned him. The crowd threw a lot of stuff
into the ring at the screw-job since they were into this match. **3/4
6. Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) pinned Eddie Guerrero in 14:14 to retain the U.S. title. The
fans were into Flair since he's probably one of the few on the card they had actually
heard of. Typical Flair match with stiff chops back-and-forth a few Guerrero spots
thrown in. Highlights were his doing a rope-walk huracanrana and a great swinging
DDT which Flair sold better than most in Japan. After Guerrero hit the frog splash, he
sold as if his knee had gone out. Flair put on the figure four and Woman held onto him
for added leverage before Guerrero "passed out from the pain." ***1/2
7. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall beat Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) & Sting (Steve Borden) in 14:36.
After all the hype, this match didn't have much heat, wasn't very intense, and the
announcers after building it up so big dropped the ball in making it seem important.
Sting was in most of the way taking a pounding but it really wasn't that good. Finally he
made the hot tag. Sting had Nash in the scorpion on the floor while Luger put Hall up in
the rack. Hall's legs knocked down ref Nick Patrick, who clumsily fell, clipping Luger's
knee and Hall fell on top while Patrick fast counted him. The idea for the finish was
clever but the execution of it looked terrible. *1/2
8. Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) pinned Giant (Paul Wight) to regain the WCW title in
14:55. Hogan was cheered and the fans were chanting for him as they had no idea about
the heel turn. Hogan looked to be about 60 years old as he had obviously dieted down so
much for his birthday that his face was drawn and the sun made his body look real old.
Hogan stalled early and basically did 60s heel tactics. All the offense by Hogan looked
awful and he doesn't bump as a heel so that kills that idea. Giant did the Hogan
superman comeback in one of the campiest spots ever in a wrestling match. It was like
watching the worst movie ever made--or the worst wrestling match. Well, between that
triple decked cage contraption earlier this year and Warrior-Goldust, this match is
luckily eliminated for worst match considerations but would be up there in another year.
The campiest part of all was Giant doing the Hogan foot to the face, and missing it by a
foot. Hall interfered and was slammed off the top rope and choke slammed. Nash got
Jimmy Hart's megaphone and then got choke slammed. Hogan got the megaphone and
hit Giant with it and scored the pins and got a huge babyface pop. Booty Man, wearing
an NWO t-shirt as if he was the fourth guy, showed up with a birthday cake (Hogan
turned 43 the next day) and Hogan thanked him. Then Hogan got Nash and Hall to turn
on him. Hogan then spray painted NWO on the title belt. With the angle being everyone
in WCW was uniting against NWO, it was ridiculous that nobody came to Giant's aid
although I guess had they done so it would have gotten in the way of the angle. -*1/2
***********************************************************
ECW, in conjunction with the IWA, ran two shows in Japan over the weekend
performing before its two largest crowds in history. Overall the tour has to be considered
a mixed bag.
The first show, on 8/10 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym drew about 1,800 fans in a 4,900-
seat arena. The show was described as poor, with no matches better than two stars and
even below the level of the poor 8/1 FMW show in Tokyo. In the matches involving ECW
wrestlers, Buh Buh Ray Dudley pinned Katsumi Hirano in 3:37 in a terrible match. It
was scheduled as both an NWA & IWA tag title match with Tarzan Goto & Mr.
Gannosuke defending against The Eliminators, however Gannosuke has a badly blown
out knee and is expected out of action for several months. It switched to a non-title
handicap match with Goto taking both on, and wound up with Kronus pinned Goto, who
juiced, after a splash onto a desk, in 8:53. The main event had Terry Gordy (who was
reported to us as the most over wrestler on the show although Heyman said Raven was
the most over) & Tommy Dreamer beat Stevie Richards & Raven in 13:08 when Dreamer
pinned Richards. Raven, who really shouldn't be working because of a foot injury, did
nothing here as he was attempting to save himself for his title defense the next night.
Richards was the only one of the four who did much of anything. Patricia attacked
Dreamer during this match but Dreamer punched her. There was little heat for anything
on the show and the work quality was said to have been poor. There were said to have
been a few pockets of fans into ECW but for the most part it was a dead crowd.
The 8/11 show at Korakuen Hall was the about-face, drawing a sellout crowd of 2,000,
with probably close to half the fans in the building wearing ECW t-shirts and being
totally into everything including chants of "ECW." It was said to have been a good card
with good heat. In comparison with the LLPW show that was held noon that same day
and also drew a sellout (headlined by a six-man tag team match with a team captained
by Shinobu Kandori against a team captained by Chigusa Nagayo), the work and heat
were better for the LLPW show. In the main event, Goto retained his IWA title pinning
Dudley in 4:38. Dudley got a good reaction and did a running dive over the top rope
which is impressive for someone of his size. Raven kept the ECW title pinning Dreamer
in 11:08 when Raven hit Dreamer with a chair after Dreamer had piledriven Patricia.
Both juiced, as did Richards, who interfered freely, and brawled all over the building.
This match was to have aired on the ECW television show on 8/13.
The Eliminators vs. Keisuke Yamada & Takashi Okano was really strange. According to
those there live, it was announced as being an ECW tag team title match, although
Eliminators did not have the belts. However, they read a proclamation announcing it as
a title match and the ring announcer billed them as ECW tag team champions.
Eliminators, of course, lost the belts on 8/3 in Philadelphia to The Gangstas in a four
way dance, but had been scheduled all along to have a title match on this show. The
immediate belief regarding the surprise title change (Paul Heyman claimed it was simply
the right thing to do that night and it wasn't something he was planning on doing but felt
he had to) in Japan was that Heyman didn't want his tag team champs losing to an
outside team (since before Gannosuke's injury, they would have had to have lost the
NWA/IWA tag title match the night before) so did the title switch because that's
Japanese mentality about not wanting a group's champion to lose to outsiders. Heyman
claims when he got to Japan he told the office about the title switch and refused to allow
them to bill it as an ECW tag title match. Suggestions were made to bill it as an ECW
International tag team title match, which Heyman said that he nixed because ECW only
has one set of tag champions, and according to Heyman, he claimed it was Eliminators
billed at the show as the No. 1 international contenders for the IWA tag team titles.
However, in checking again with people there, they claim the proclamation and ring
announcement said it was an ECW tag title match and that the fans in the building who
follow ECW closely were really surprised because word of the title change the previous
week had spread to the hardcore fans. The newspapers the next day all reported it as an
ECW tag team title match, although at least one of the magazines, in order to avoid
confusion since the magazines print ECW results, reported the match as being for the
ECW International tag team titles. The Eliminators were said to have been over the least
of the ECW crew and won the match in 14:01 when Saturn pinned Okano in what was
actually more of a too long squash match with Eliminators doing some nice moves and
selling little. Richards beat Matsuda in 5:38 in what was said to have been an acceptable
short match. Richards got over the biggest of all the ECW wrestlers with the crowd since
he did the Public Enemy dancing in the crowd which is something rarely done in Japan
and the fans really got into it. Richards also worked smart for that audience in that he
did the "hot" Japanese moves like an STF and I believe a dragon screw, before winning
with the superkick (Steviekick).
***********************************************************
We've got some updates statistics as it relates to the World Wrestling Federation. In the
8/5 Observer, we had some business comparisons between 1995 and 1996 in which we
were comparing January through June of both years to see how things have changed.
The WWF has released some numbers that are slightly different, although tell the same
story.
In 1995, the WWF averaged 3,527 fans and $61,842 per show. As of 8/4, the WWF had
averaged 5,661 fans and $94,176 per show thus far in 1996. The differences in the
figures, which are relatively minor, is that in the figures we were using, we weren't
including the actual arena grosses for PPV shows, only for "regular" house shows, which
would lower the average in that the PPV shows naturally on average are going to
outdraw an average house show. In addition, for 1995, the figures were for the entire
year and not just the first six months, and for 1996, the figures included July and the
first weekend of August. For the year 1995, the WWF averaged a 2.18 for a combination
of its three cable shows, while as of 8/5, the average for 1996 was 2.06.
From the debuts of Raw and Nitro, starting with the Nitro debut on 9/4 and through
8/5, Nitro had a 2.8 average rating and 4.4 average show in 1.87 million homes on an
average week. Raw has averaged a 2.8 rating and 4.1 share and in 1.866 million homes
during an average week. The Nitro replay averages a 1.2 rating and 3.2 share in 826,000
homes per week. For 1996, it's basically also a dead heat. WCW averages a 3.0 rating and
4.8 share in 1.98 million homes to Raw's 2.9, 4.4 but in 1.986 million homes because
USA network is available in more households than TNT now. Since WCW started the
two-hour format, it averages a 3.1 rating/5.3 share in 2.073 million homes to Raw's
2.6/4.1 in 1.746 million homes.
***********************************************************
A few more notes from Japan. Besides the New Japan shows, the other two shows we
attended were of FMW and All Japan Women.
The FMW show was on 8/1 at the Shiodome in Tokyo, which actually isn't an outdoor
arena, but looked more like a large vacant lot which they set up a make-shirt arena and
brought in chairs, with no raised seating for. It was pushed as FMW's major show of the
summer and drew an SRO crowd of 3,580 paying $250,000.
FMW was Japan's first and originally most successful in a long line of garbage
promotions, largely due to the drawing power of Atsushi Onita and the unique gimmick
matches on major shows. With Onita having retired, the promotion is trying to find its
identity. It first went with Hayabusa as the top star, but a high flying Lucha stylist didn't
click, despite him massacring his body in barbed wire matches. Masato Tanaka seemed
to have been pushed as the top guy, until a few weeks ago, when Mr. Pogo, the group's
all-time biggest heel, made a babyface turn largely to feud with Terry Funk with their
first major singles match on this show.
Even so, it was a terrible show, combining generally poor work with an almost total lack
of crowd heat.
The show opened with the retirement ceremony for woman wrestler Yukie Nabeno.
1. In the opener, Mamoru Okamoto, who has been wrestling a few weeks, defeated Hideo
Makimura, who was making his pro debut, in 8:22 with a boston crab submission. The
two wrestled like it was their first match and you really couldn't tell if either had or
didn't have potential. DUD
2. Kaori Nakayama pinned Miwa Sato in a womens match in 9:53 after a moonsault in
an upset. Pretty weak match, but it was all action. 1/4*
3. Next came a Royal Rumble with, in order, Ricky Fuji and Hideki Hosaka starting.
Following every 90 seconds were Gosaku Goshogawara, Halcon ***** (Jose Estrada
Jr.), Hido, Toryu, The Gladiator, Katsutoshi Niiyama, Super Leather (Mike "Corporal"
Kirchner), Hisakatsu Oya and Tetsuhiro Kuroda. It was terrible, and I mean terrible,
with no heat. Gladiator was the first to get any heat and he's kind of the FMW version of
Sid, although a better athlete, in that he has charisma and a look. He basically single
handedly eliminated everyone until Hido jumped him. Hido, who appeared to be the
best worker of the bunch and had charisma, was left with Kuroda and they traded big
moves and near falls until Hido moonsaulted Kuroda who was under two chairs and got
the pin in 26:34. The last few minutes with the two left in wasn't bad, but it wasn't good
either. But most of the way it was one of those matches that you thought would never
end. -*3/4
4. Taka Michinoku pinned Hayato Nanjyo in 16:29 in a caballero contra caballero (hair
vs. hair) match. It started slow and didn't have much heat, but built into a good match
with decent heat. Both these guys are really small, smaller than you'd think seeing them
on television. Michinoku is one of the more talented wrestlers around and he's only 22
years old. Hayato at one point did a combination Asai-moonsault with a corkscrew
which was pretty wild. At another point Michinoku gave him a german suplex so high
that he actually landed on his feet. At another point Michinoku went for his springboard
plancha but was caught on the floor by a dropkick. Hayato did all his hot moves and
looked good, since he was doing the job at the end. Michinoku won with a Michinoku
Driver II (I know, you're asking what's a Michinoku Driver I? So am I). The move is a
combination Northern Lights bomb and tombstone piledriver. Hayato got very little hair
cut after the match, but shaved his head bald backstage. ***1/4.
5. Megumi Kudo won a three-on-one match over Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari
& Bad Nurse Nakamura in 17:10. We were incorrect a few weeks back when we reported
Sato and Shark had been fired by FMW. They had a penalty cage in the aisle and Kudo
got the one of the heels in the cage to put her at less of a disadvantage. A horrible match.
At one point Sato handed Shark a sickle which she used to cut off some of Kudo's hair,
which I guess was okay. Then she drove the sickle into Kudo's forehead causing her to
juice heavy. Then they used a chain on her and put her in the cage for a while. Then they
introduced a cane wrapped in barbed wire. When Kudo ducked, Nurse hit Shark with the
barbed wire cane and Kudo then used a reverse Gori special bomb on Nakamura for the
pin. After the match, Shark blew a fireball on Kudo which actually missed by a lot but
Kudo still sold it as if it hit. DUD
6. Hayabusa beat Koji Nakagawa in 21:42. This was Hayabusa's first match back since
the Kawasaki Stadium show. He got almost no reaction coming out which was scary. I've
seen both these guys do very good matches but this was really bad. Very sloppy and slow
and way too long. After 10:00, they started doing flying moves but because the match
was so bad, the crowd didn't really get into the moves. Hayabusa did an Asai-moonsault
and a springboard leg lariat. Nakagawa did a tope. Nakagawa is a Bret Hart copy with
the same kind of hair, ring outfit, ring mannerisms and even uses the scorpion as his
finisher. The finish was a collision with both going down, but Nakagawa got to his feet by
ten and was ruled the winner. Real bad finish didn't help matters. DUD
7. In the final match of a tournament to determine the Independent World heavyweight
champion, Wing Kanemura pinned Masato Tanaka in 14:47 after a Thunder fire power
bomb. Best match on the card. Both these guys are good wrestlers. Stiff and lots of good
moves back and forth. ***1/4
8. Terry Funk beat Mr. Pogo in a match with explosive barbed wire and no ropes around
two sides of the ring, and no ropes but boards with explosives, glass and barbed wire on
the floor around the other two sides. Funk played total heel and was managed by Victor
Quinones, who is also this promotion's booker, although it's like the last time Perro
Aguayo tried to be a heel in Mexico, the fans in Japan will always love him no matter
what he does. Funk teased going off the apron into the glass and barbed wire constantly
wobbling around on the apron but always keeping his balance. Pogo constantly teased
going into the barbed wire. The psychology of the match worked and it had heat. Finally
Funk back suplexed Pogo onto the barbed wire and blew him up. The explosion was
pretty cool. Since it was a vacant lot, the explosion blew the dirt from the lot in the air
and it wound up in everyone's eyes near ringside for a few seconds. Quinones threw in a
chair on fire on Funk used it on Pogo's knee until the knee was on fire. Then Quinones
gave Funk a branding iron on fire and he blew a fireball at Pogo, who took a bump off
the apron and through the broken glass and into the barbed wire where a huge explosion
took place. This was at about the 5:30 mark and Pogo never moved again. Funk kept
playing the crowd waiting for Pogo to get up, but he never did. Realizing something was
wrong after a few minutes and Funk starting to run out of things to do, Quinones
brought him back the branding iron on fire and we went to blow a fireball on the
motionless Pogo. Unfortunately, the wind acted as Pogo's magic shield and blew the
fireball back. He tried again, same result. Finally Funk got on his hands and knees and
blew the fireball on Pogo's back, which caught on fire. It must have been great to be Pogo
at that moment. Paralyzed, laying in broken glass and barbed wire and then you're on
fire and you can't move to put it out. The referee finally stopped the match at 11:20. Pogo
apparently suffered a serious neck injury and was rushed to the hospital in an
ambulance. The last word we received is that he suffered a very serious neck injury and
was still bedridden and couldn't walk and will be out of action for a while. However,
FMW this past week announced Pogo as appearing in the main event on the 8/23 show
at Korakuen Hall. *
***********************************************************
All Japan women ran on 8/4 at Korakuen Hall with a show built around a celebration of
the beginning of the tenth full year of the careers of Manami Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada,
Etsuko Mita and Mima Shimoda. The idea was to re-unite the two with their most
famous partners (Toyota with Yamada and Mita with Shimoda) as a set up match for
Toyota & Shimoda, who are the current WWWA tag team champions, defending against
Yamada & Mita on the 8/16 show.
It's been written here in the past, but has become more obvious over the last few months
than ever before, regarding the talent situation here. Japanese womens wrestling has
always been a cyclical business. It was huge in the mid-80s, then faded in the late 80s. It
started a rebuilding era around 1990 and seemed to peak in late 1994, although for the
most part still had a strong year in 1995. The downward slide had already started last
year but this year it's become noticeable as the formerly automatic sellouts at the home
base of Korakuen Hall aren't happening.
To understand the whys, you have to understand what AJW was and how it has changed
over the years. AJW was a promotion in the late 70s and through the 80s that drew
almost entirely teenage girls. I can't come up with a cultural equivalent in the United
States and certainly there is no sport that would draw a similar type audience. The group
was built on simple formulas. Take young cute women, usually starting before the age of
20, only a few years older than the core audience, and portray them as combination
athletic stars, rock stars and big sisters to those in the crowd. Match them with wild
psycho biker butch heel women, best exemplified by Dump Matsumoto. As the faces got
beaten up and sometimes carved up, the fans shrieked and screamed in horror.
Sometimes they made the big comebacks and won at the end, sometimes they didn't. But
the shelf life on top was short for a variety of reasons. One, Japanese culture in those
days included creation of teenage female rock stars, who become the sensations of the
nation for a season or two, then fade into oblivion. The women wrestlers, aimed in those
days at the same audience, lasted a little longer, but it was largely the same pop idol
rather than sports star deal. You needed to constantly create a new sensation and get
them hot, to draw with next generation of teenage girls as the 13 to 15-year-olds usually
lost interest in their wrestling when they discovered boyfriends. Secondarily, the
physical punishment because of the incredible workrate plus physiological factors in that
women athletes peak younger than men made it so that by the age of 23 or 24, most of
the women were past their primes as workers.
The prototype and most successful period of AJW was built around The Crush Gals,
Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka, who in their primes were no doubt the highest paid
women wrestlers of all-time (an article on the Crush Gals phenomenon in the Wall
Street Journal estimated their annual income at more than $250,000 per year in their
peak--most of it from merchandising). At their peak, they were legitimate rock stars with
top ten hits, and wrestling heroines. To insure a rapid turnover, there was a mandatory
retirement age of 26, so the group was always dominated by young fresh faces and fresh
feuds. It wasn't until the introduction of rival promotions such as JWP, that wrestlers
like Devil Masami, who didn't want to quit wrestling at 26, had an option to continue
their careers. Even though the Crush Gals, along with contemporaries like Jaguar
Yokota, were actually better workers than any of the men, the traditional male wrestling
fans wouldn't be caught dead at a womens show, it would be akin to your friends finding
out you were playing with Barbie dolls. After the Crush Gals boom wore off, and they
and arch-rival Dump Matsumoto faded from the scene, womens wrestling hit the
downward spiral.
To revive interest, the AJW promotion tried something different. They started sending
their women wrestlers, and they had hot workers at the time such as Bull Nakano, Akira
Hokuto and a teenage Manami Toyota, to appear on mens shows. In nearly every case,
the women stole the show, particularly the unique heel tag team of Aja Kong & Bison
Kimura. The hardcore wrestling fans were impressed, and the barrier of attending
womens shows broke down, largely also because the popularity with the teenage girls
had waned so attending the show didn't seem out of place for a male fan. AJW in its
latest glory period, which peaked with the Tokyo Dome show in 1994, drew regular
wrestling fans and its top stars like Hokuto were more over to regular rank-and-file
wrestling fans than the major pop celebrity Crush Gals ever were. However, there is a big
negative in all that which has played itself out.
To break into All Japan women at one point would have been harder than to break into
any promotion in the world. During the heyday of the Crush Gals, they were the idols of
young girls growing up in Japan and literally hundreds and even thousands every year
wanted to become pro wrestlers. Usually a selection process cut try-outs, with cut-offs
made based on athletic resume, down to a few hundred, of which maybe seven or eight
would be picked, and maybe of that, half would survive long enough to have their first
match and maybe one or two would actually make it as stars. With odds that steep, it's
no surprise that the percentage of survivors that turned into awesome workers was
higher than any promotion in the world, because they were drawing from a higher
percentile of athlete. However, in recent years, with the bulk of the fans being traditional
wrestling fans, it is not a pop phenomenon among the young girl set and fewer than ever
aspire to be like their hero Chigusa. The numbers who attended the annual try-outs
dwindled down to a few dozen, so the calibre of the seven or eight picked was nothing
like it was in 1987 when Toyota, Yamada, Mita and Shimoda, all of whom grew up
watching the Crush Gals, were the cream of a large crop.
So AJW, and quite frankly, all of Japanese womens wrestling since the top stars in the
other groups are women who grew up idolizing the Crush Gals as well and generally
(with a few exceptions like Shinobu Kandori) weren't good enough to make the grade
with AJW. Toyota and company are stale and have peaked as performers on top and
there are no fresh match-ups. But the quality of those who debuted in the 90s who under
the old system would be pushed to the top, can't compare with the women on top and
aren't over to the fans, so the veterans are maintaining their position and not being
encouraged to step down because there are no suitable replacements.
Having said all that, the 8/4 show at noon was a very good card. After the opener, every
match was entertaining. The crowd was about 1,600, which is the first AJW show at
Korakuen I've ever been to that wasn't a sellout, although that wasn't really a surprise
given that's been the case the past few months.
1. In a rookies match from the Class of `96, who all had debuted within the past three
weeks, Momoe Nakanishi & Miho Wakizawa beat Nana Takahashi & Yachio Kawamoto
in 9:59 when Nakanishi pinned Kawamoto. AJW rookies are only allowed to do a few
moves, body slams, snap mares, dropkicks, boston crabs and one or two other moves.
The theory is that they have to learn a match and to work from the ground up, and for
one year you do nothing but a few moves you perfect and learn the fundamentals of
transitions. On the surface limiting wrestlers for one year, which is more than 200
matches by this group's schedule, seems ridiculous, but it's hard to argue with a
methodology that has created such a high percentage of off-the-charts workers in the
past 15 years. Nakanishi was the best of the four, but none of the four showed anything
that made you see can't miss superstar of the future in them. *
2. In a comedy match, they had one midget dress up as Tarzan Yamamoto (recently
resigned editor of Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine) and the other as Riki Choshu. Little
Tarzan Yamamoto vs. Choshu Tsunokake (the midgets real last name that played
Choshu was Tsunokake) went only 2:41, which was the perfect time as once the joke ran
out, it was over. It was billed as settling the biggest feud in all of pro wrestling. It was
hilarious while it lasted, as the Choshu midget would give the Yamamoto midget a lariat,
and the Yamamoto midget would write down as if he was writing a match review in his
notebook. Everyone was cracking up for almost the entire way even though as a match
itself it was terrible. They did a double count finish was the midget ref gave Choshu a
spin kick knocking him out of the ring and he gave the fastest 20 count for the double
count out. After the bout the Choshu midget said the ref was a heavy drinker and then
said that Womens Gong was the best wrestling magazine around.
3. Rie Tamada pinned Yuka Shiina in 8:06 after a dropkick off the top rope. Shiina is in
her second year and is already a good worker. Tamada was good as well. **1/4
4. Yumiko Hotta & Yumi Fukawa & Takako Inoue beat Kaoru Ito & Genki Misae &
Yoshiko Tamura in 18:40 of a damn good match. Hotta was clearly taking it easy to rest
up for her shoot matches although she threw brutal kicks on the younger girls. Lots of
near falls and near submissions and heat ended up being pretty good. Fukawa pinned
Tamada after Hotta kicked her in the forehead. ***1/2
5. Chaparita Asari pinned Mariko Yoshida in a major upset in 15:22. Yoshida isn't as
good as she was 18 months ago. Asari is a tiny girl, like 4-10 and 105 pounds, who is
improving as a worker after first getting over for a few sensational flying spots. But she's
too small to ever be a headliner. It picked up at the end with both doing some
entertaining spots and building a good finish before Asari scored the pin with a sloppy
huracanrana off the top rope. Huge pop for the upset finish. Asari, who apparently hurt
herself along the way, collapsed at the finish and had to be helped out. ***1/4
6. Aja Kong pinned Tomoko Watanabe with a backhand punch (called huracan) in 14:47.
They brawled into the seats and wrestled well in the ring. They whipped each other
through rows of chairs. Then went to near falls and near submissions. Watanabe
delivered a shotgun lariat. Kong sold her knees great after a figure four spot. The
finishing punch was so stiff I don't see how Watanabe didn't get knocked silly, and she
may very well have since she was helped out. A very stiff well worked exciting match.
***1/2
7. Reggie Bennett pinned Kyoko Inoue for the first time in 12:07 after a splash off the top
rope. Slower than the previous matches because both are very large. Inoue is the most
charismatic of the current AJW wrestlers but she's gained a lot of weight and athletically
isn't close to the level she was last year. Bennett, who has also gained weight, has
improved even more since last year. Of all the Americans who have gone to AJW in the
past ten years as regulars, she's the first one to really get it. Madusa never really made it
as a good worker. Debbie Malenko technically was a good worker but never really got the
personality part down. Terri Power was a great athlete but injuries seemed to keep her
from getting the whole package together. Bennett has it all, it's a shame she started so
late as she's 35 years old and if she were ten years younger, would probably develop into
the best working American wrestler ever. She's kind of a female Bam Bam Bigelow with
this group. As usual, lots of great near falls at the end. ***1/4
Before the main event was a ceremony with the four women in the main event. Each was
given a large photo of the four of them together. It was almost like the four cheerleaders
together at their graduation ceremony or the four bridesmaids getting presents after the
wedding. The fans threw as many streamers into the ring as you've probably ever seen in
your life when it was over.
8. Toyota & Yamada beat Mita & Shimoda in 13:12. After the ceremony, where they all
almost cried, they had to do a match with each other. They were all having too much fun
and pretty much went through one patented spot or move after another. Match didn't
have intensity although it was executed nearly flawless (one missed spot) and everyone
recognized everything they did. After a double reversal of a cradle, Toyota pinned
Shimoda. ***3/4
***********************************************************
All Japan women followed it up with its most ambitious promotion of the year, two
consecutive nights at 16,000-seat Budokan Hall.
The shows, billed as "Discover New Heroine" on 8/12 and 8/13, co-promoted by Weekly
Pro Wrestling magazine, was something of a major disappointment at the gate was an
estimated 4,500 fans attending the first night (announced at 9,300) and about 6,000
attending the second night (announced at 9,500). From what we were told, they needed
to draw about 6,500 each night to break even.
The advances had been weak going in largely blamed on the cards being built around
two different tournaments which each would start on the first night and conclude on the
next night, a tag team tournament in which an established star would team with a young
wrestler, and the U! tournament, which was basically a UFC or Vale Tudo tournament
for women. The belief is the shows would have drawn a lot better with an
interpromotional series of main events, climaxed by world singles and tag team title
matches each night involving Manami Toyota against women from other offices.
The first night, which consisted of first round matches in both tournaments was overall a
disappointing show, although it was described as still being the calibre of a good regular
house show in the U.S. The second night was much better, although still not of the
calibre one would expect from a major AJW show.
The U! tournament was clearly a total shoot, with the competitors wearing gloves and
rules against biting, head-butting, attacking the eyes, hair pulling, elbows to the face and
head and spine blows, and all matches had no time limit which is really scary in a shoot
situation. The tournament was clearly designed by AJW for Yumiko Hotta to go over,
since she had more training and experience doing this than anyone in there, which
consisted of three other pro wrestlers and three kick boxers with no ground skill which
means they had little chance. The wild card was the lone real threat, Rosina Elina from
Russia, who placed third in the 1995 European judo championships at 158 pounds. After
gaining a lot of weight this year (she was estimated as being right around 200), she went
for the Olympics in the unlimited class but lost in the trials to Svetlana Gundarenko
(who won the womens L-1 tournament, the first womens UFC style tournament, last
year).
Elina was too strong on the ground for any of her three opponents, and ended up beating
Hotta in the finals in 12:44 with a cross armbreaker. Most of the match was standing as
when Hotta went to the mat with Elina, she was being controlled and got out of there.
But her punches had little effect on someone who had a 40-pound weight advantage.
Finally Elina got the mount, started reigning in the punches, and used a forearm choke
to take a lot out of Hotta. When Hotta tried to escape, she was caught in the cross
armbreaker and quickly submitted. Both the promotion and Hotta seemed really upset
since this tournament and much of the promotion this year in bringing in kick boxers
and sending her to Vale Tudo (carefully booked since until Elina, all she had faced were
stand-up fighters) was designed to get Hotta over as their so-called shooter.
In Elina's first round match, she faced former pro wrestler Yoko Takahashi, who
wouldn't submit to the cross armbreaker quickly and ended up dislocating her elbow
before submitting in 6:06. Elina's semifinal match was against the much larger Reggie
Bennett, winning with a combination straight armbar and wristlock in 9:47. Hotta beat
Lioness Asuka with a cross armbreaker in 3:11. Hotta controlled Asuka on the mat after
the 1:20 mark and worked for the hold until that point. The tournament matches the
second night were a lot better than the first night, as Hotta, Bennett and Asuka were able
to take down and control the kick boxers, but all being relatively inexperienced at
submissions (in the case of Bennett, maybe five days of training total at Super Tiger
Gym), they mainly rode and it wasn't very entertaining.
It took Bennett 18:29 before putting away Holland kick boxer Elma Wayhoff. Bennett
was able to take down and mount Wayhoff at will. However, Bennett has no experienced
punching in a competitive situation so her blows from the top had little snap. Finally
Bennett was able to clamp on a V-1 armlock, which is similar to a hammerlock, and
began hyperextending Wayhoff's elbow and she submitted. Asuka beat Margot Neyhoft,
the same Holland kick boxer that Yumiko Hotta beat on the 7/7 Vale Tudo show. Asuka
took her down and controlled her from the side and was patient before starting punches
and kicks to the side and also won in 15:31 with a V-1 armlock. Hotta's first round match
was against savate fighter Valerie Witt from France. Hotta immediately took her down,
although at one point Witt escaped and got behind her but didn't have the experience to
follow up. Hotta got the same V-1 armlock (Hotta, Asuka and Bennett were all learning
the same basic submission techniques the week before the show from Yuki Nakai at
Super Tiger gym which explains all winning the same way) at 6:05.
In the tag team tournament, Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Kuzumi of JWP defeated Aja
Kong & Yoshiko Tamura of AJW in the championship match in 18:05 in a ****1/4
match. Kong and Kansai beat the hell out of each other and beat the hell out of the
younger girls. Kuzumi was injured in her quarterfinal match earlier in the night legit.
Kuzumi, who got over more than any of the younger girls in the tournament, pinned
Tamura with a twisting splash off the top rope. There were several good tournament
matches on the second night, including quarterfinals with Kansai & Kuzumi vs. Tomoko
Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa, Kong & Tamura vs. Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari and
a semi with Kong & Tamura beat Toshiyo Yamada & Sonoko Kato. The second best
match on the second night was a **** with Yamada & Kato upsetting Manami Toyota &
Rie Tamada. The first night ranged from below average matches, generally without
much heat, to one **** match with Kansai & Kuzumi beating IWA's Kyoko Ichiki &
Takako Inoue.
While I didn't get official confirmation that this happened, it was reported in the
newspapers before the second night that after the show, FMW's Megumi Kudo, its most
popular woman wrestler, 27, would announce her retirement. Actually it'll be a build-up
as she'll retire at the May 5, 1997 show at Kawasaki Baseball Stadium.
***********************************************************
Over the last few years, probably about the time WWF and WCW both started doing Hall
of Fame gimmicks, we've had suggestions from people to do an Observer Hall of Fame.
The problem with doing a Hall of Fame is exactly what do you pick based on? There are
some monumental figures in the history of pro wrestling that may not have been very
good wrestlers. There are good wrestlers that never really amounted to much because
they didn't get a break. There are top players in the industry who may have been
assholes in real life. And unlike in baseball, which has the most famous Hall of Fame, we
can't argue statistics. Some world champions represented the best pro wrestling had to
offer during their time, and other champions simply were people who chose friends or
parents wisely, or simply owned the belts themselves and put themselves over to feed
their egos.
And that's not to mention the international and historical aspects. Simply put, there is
nobody alive who could have seen all the candidates perform during their prime. Then
again, those problems are inherent with all sports. Of course, unlike in other sports,
championship title reigns and who beat who are often totally meaningless when it comes
to pro wrestling. And then there's the controversy aspects which are totally impossible in
trying to make abstract judgements of wrestlers from different eras against one another.
There are opening match wrestlers in Japan today who are better workers than the best
workers of other eras. There are opening match wrestlers in Mexico who can fly better
than Argentina Rocca or anyone from that era in their wildest dreams. If we were to pick
ten guys, there would be another 100 that people would argue, and in many cases be
correct, were more deserving. If we were to pick 110, that would open up another 200,
and so on. And where do you draw the line? And what do you judge based on?
So with all those inherent problems, you know where this is going and it's time to start it
off.
WCW has apparently dropped its deal since this year's Slamboree had no Hall of Fame
deal as part of the show. Let's face it, their Hall of Fame seemed to honor company
employees well ahead of much bigger names. And WWF. While WWF does a classy job
every year with its Hall of Fame banquet, how can we take seriously a Hall of Fame
which honored manager extraodinaire James Dudley, who even the most ardent WWF
fans had forgotten ever had a role in front of the camera, before honoring Bruno
Sammartino, one of the two biggest names in the history of the promotion.
So this is it. Over the past few weeks I've polled a lot of people regarding a lot of different
people and gone over lists of wrestlers and studied different history books on wrestling,
as limited in scope as most of them are. I came up with a list of people who I was sure
belonged in. After that point, I narrowed the list down once again to a listing of people
who in my mind a Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame would be remiss in not listing. There are
dozens of others that I believe belong in, but there are so many to start with here that
others can wait for another time. As far as criteria used, overall stardom and importance
in developments and changes in the industry, great working ability, drawing power and
people who a legitimate historical representation on pro wrestling couldn't avoid
mentioning with at least some prominence. Very few names fit in every category. A few
are strong perhaps in only one. Whether the influences in the long run have been
positive or negative to the overall growth of the industry isn't really taken into account as
much as they were important influences. If they were good people or bad people is also
not something to be taken into account. After all, this is pro wrestling and it evolved
from the carnivals, has been run for the most part by con men, and those who have
succeeded at it the best were the most successful con men. To dismiss someone because
he was a liar or a thief (thief being a figurative and literal term depending upon who
we're taking about) would be hypocritical in covering an industry such as this. We're not
looking for the nice guy all-star team although some of these people are nice guys. We're
not necessarily looking for survivors or even consistent main eventers in a territory as
much as people who in some form or fashion were monumental
The only non-abstract criteria is that to be considered, the wrestler has to be at least 35
years old or have been active for at least 15 years. There are really only a half-dozen or so
names that I would have put in there that didn't make it because they haven't been active
long enough, and when they reach the age or years in wrestling status, they'll be placed
on a ballot and no doubt the ones that belong would become first-ballot names. Unlike
in other sports where they wait until the person has retired, usually for five years like in
baseball, in pro wrestling that isn't as applicable because some people never retire, and
usually those who make a big deal out of saying that they are retired are the first ones
ready to do a comeback angle.
The names listed below are those who are so-called first ballot wrestling Hall of Famers,
in that when we came across the name, there was little or no debate needed as to
whether or not they belonged. There are several dozen more than I thought belonged, so
if a name is missing and there are many important ones that are, don't think that means
they weren't considered or even believed to belong, just that there was at least a question
about them. And remember everyone is limited to frame of reference and everyone is
going to be biased to parts of the world they've seen and time frames that they've
followed wrestling. This is a totally impossible task to do fairly. Anyway, I'm sure plenty
of you have names, in fact I'd believe everyone of you has names that you believe belong
ahead of names listed here. Everyone is encouraged to comment, and we're compiling a
list for balloting for later in the year so if you can think of people and have reasons you
believe they belong, send comments and we'll try and get them in the readers pages and
also list them for future consideration. Just for the record, I really had a hard time in
that it appears some periods of time are over-represented and others under-represented,
and the toughest ones are the ones right on the borderline with Wilbur Snyder and
Edouardo Carpentier probably coming as close as anyone to being considered and no
doubt we'll cause a lot of controversy based more on who isn't here than by who is. In
the future, we'll have a balloting among long-time readers and at least for the future add
ten names per year based on those getting the most votes. At some point we may start
adding fewer names, but I'm sure that's years away so it's not something to worry about
today.
Some of the names will be familiar to all readers. Some will be unknowns to all but the
most ardent fans because wrestling history largely is forgotten, and there is little
knowledge of pro wrestling on an international basis. The names are listed in
alphabetical order:
PERRO AGUAYO - Currently the most popular wrestler in Mexico at the age of 50.
A tremendous worker in his prime and very charismatic.
Held titles in every weight division from middleweight to heavyweight in a 26-year
career.
ANDRE THE GIANT - Billed at 7-4 and as much at 550 pounds, one of the great
drawing cards in history, probably one of the two biggest draws internationally of alltime.
Actually was closer to 6-9 and 350 pounds in his prime, although his weight no doubt
passed 500 as he grew older and the affects of acromegaly took its toll.
Probably weighed in the 250 pound range when he started wrestling in France at the age
of 18.
Never a great athlete, but among the most feared wrestlers ever because of his size.
A tremendous heel in Japan and probably the most popular wrestler in the United States
simultaneously in the late 70s.
Holds all-time U.S. record drawing more than 78,000 to Pontiac Silverdome for 1987
match against Hulk Hogan.
Real name Andre Rousimoff.
Passed away at the age of 46 in 1993.
BERT ASSIRATI - Reputedly one of the toughest men ever in wrestling, although
since his entire career was in Europe, there really isn't much known about him except
legendary stories about his brutality in the ring which probably shouldn't be praised.
However, he was British Empire heavyweight champion for 12 years from 1939-51, and
came back for a second reign from 1955-60.
Even well into his 50s, he was tremendously feared and there are those who speak of
him as being the toughest man alive during his heyday.
GIANT BABA - One of the two biggest wrestling stars in Japan of the 60s and 70s, and
one of pro wrestling's historically most successful promoters.
Real name Shohei Baba.
Had three brief runs as NWA champion, and more lengthy runs dominating
International title in 1963-72 and PWF title from 1973-84.
Former pro baseball player.
JIM BARNETT - Controversial promoter who ran successful operations in many parts
of the country including Indianapolis, Australia and Georgia and was a key member of
the WWF and WCW front offices.
A key player in the early days of Georgia Championship Wrestling and its original
association with Ted Turner.
WILD RED BERRY - Many-time holder of the world light heavyweight title in
California who had a second career as the first great pro wrestling manager in the 50s
with the Fabulous Kangaroos.
FRED BLASSIE - One of pro wrestling's all-time great heels and developed a heel
interview style copied by many over the years.
A headliner and a top draw until the day he retired to become a manager, Blassie was
probably the single most famous wrestler in Southern California during the 60s and
early 70s.
His matches with Rikidozan in Japan were remembered for decades and were the
subject of tons of mainstream media both in the United States and Japan.
Four-time WWA world champion.
Survived numerous serious injuries and health setbacks over an active career that lasted
more than 35 years.
Coined the phrase pencil-neck geek.
Has worked in pro wrestling for approximately 60 years.
NICK BOCKWINKEL - Second generation wrestler who was one of the great workers
of the 60s and 70s, four-time AWA champion as Verne Gagne's classic rival.
Formed a legendary tag team with Ray Stevens.
Known for giving articulate interviews.
PAUL BOESCH - Former wrestler and promoter in Houston.
One of the most well-liked and respected wrestling promoters in history.
Among the trivia notes of his life included introducing Stu Hart to Helen Hart and
teaching Verne Gagne the sleeper hold.
Passed away in 1989 at the age of 75.
BOBO BRAZIL - A headliner everywhere he appeared from the late 50s to early 70s,
particularly in the Detroit area.
Not a classic wrestler or great worker, but a monumental figure as being an international
superstar during a time when racism was prevalent both in the country and large and in
the industry itself.
While it wouldn't be a noteworthy point today, it is historically important in a racist
world that he was the most famous black wrestler ever in the United States.
Real name Houston Harris.
JACK BRISCO - Former NCAA champion who held the NWA title twice from 1973-75.
The country's leading upcoming babyface of the early 70s, best known for a classic feud
chasing Dory Funk Jr.'s NWA title.
Was scheduled to win the title, but Funk missed the match after suffering a shoulder
injury and instead won it from Harley Race a few months later.
Brother Jerry, now a member of the WWF front office, was also a great performer.
One of the elite pure wrestlers of all-time.
Changed the face of pro wrestling by selling his stock in Georgia Championship
Wrestling, Inc. to Vince McMahon Jr. in 1984, giving the WWF a tremendous television
advantage by controlling both TBS and USA in the early days of the wrestling war.
BRUISER BRODY - The classic brawler of his era.
A major drawing card wherever he appeared in the United States and the most popular
foreign wrestler in Japan at the time of his death in 1988 at the age of 42 after being
stabbed in a Puerto Rico locker room by Jose Gonzalez, the territory's booker, who was
acquitted by reasons of self defense after a controversial trial.
Real name Frank Goodish.
DICK THE BRUISER - The prototype of today's Tank Abbott. A great drawing card
almost everywhere he went, particularly in St. Louis and Chicago, until well into his 50s.
Native of Indianapolis, where he finished his career as a promoter, is still probably the
most famous wrestler of all-time to residents of that city.
While Bruiser had his enemies, particularly for those who worked for him as a promoter,
he was one of pro wrestling's all-time legendary characters.
From most accounts, neither a good wrestler nor a good worker, and certainly wasn't in
the twilight of his career, but had a great reputation as a roughhouser.
Formed famous tag teams with The Crusher and with Wilbur Snyder.
Passed away in 1991 at the age of 62 from a heart attack.
Former pro football player with the Green Bay Packers 1952-54.
Held the AWA title once and held his own WWA title numerous times.
Real name Richard Afflis.
MILDRED BURKE - The biggest star in the history of American womens wrestling
from the late 30s through mid 50s. While she was the wife of Billy Wolfe, who controlled
the stable and handled the booking for all the women wrestlers, her reputation has it
that she was legitimately the best of the women wrestlers during the period it was in its
heyday in the United States.
Real name Mildred Bliss, she started wrestling against men in carnivals and as legend
has it, was never defeated by any man within 15 pounds of her weight.
ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER - Native of Windsor, Ontario. After being a pro for
about ten years, reinvented himself as a Sudanese Wildman and became one of the most
famous wrestlers ever in Japan with a style that allowed him to remain as a headliner
well into his 50s.
Still active today at the age of 61.
Real name Larry Shreeve.
CANEK - Mexico's top heavyweight from the mid-70s through the early 90s, holding
the UWA (when for the most part it was the top promotion in Mexico)'s world
heavyweight title at least a dozen times.
With the exception of Ric Flair, has probably held nationally-recognized versions of the
world heavyweight title more times than any other wrestler in history.
Formerly a huge formula draw against foreign menaces that invaded Mexico.
Feuded with the likes of Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, Tiger Jeet Singh, Antonio
Inoki, Big Van Vader, Lou Thesz, Andre the Giant, Abdullah the Butcher, Hulk Hogan
and Stan Hansen.
However, never made it as a big star outside his home area.
***** CASAS - The top worker in Mexico for most of the 1980s.
Influential stylistically since was the prototype so many of today's younger Mexican
wrestlers emulated from.
Second generation wrestler.
Father Pepe Casas was a top heel and currently is AAA's chief referee.
Younger brothers wrestle as Felino and Heavy Metal.
RIKI CHOSHU - Former Olympic wrestler who changed the face of Japanese pro
wrestling with his 1982-83 feud with Tatsumi Fujinami to a Japan vs. Foreigner to
Japan vs. Japan main event on the top cards.
A charismatic wrestler who was a superstar in his heyday, and later arguably among the
two or three most successful promoter/bookers in the history of wrestling.
Real name Mitsuo Yoshida.
Held both the IWGP title three times and also UWA title.
Probably drew more $1 million plus gates than any wrestler in history.
JIM CORNETTE - With the possible exception of Bobby Heenan, the greatest manager
in the history of wrestling and among the top five interviews ever.
Has also been influential behind the scenes running his own promotion.
THE CRUSHER - The most popular wrestler and perhaps biggest consistent draw in
the Midwest during the 70s.
Three-time AWA champion, tag champ five times with Bruiser and once each with Billy
Robinson and Red Bastien.
Drew one of the highest television ratings ever for pro wrestling in a match against Giant
Baba.
More famous as a gimmick character performer than for any kind of wrestling or
working ability, but as a powerhouse for his time, was a headliner everywhere he
appeared.
Real name Reginald Lisowski.
ALFONSO DANTES - Father of current EMLL stars Apolo and Cesar Dantes.
Four-time NWA light heavyweight champion, dominating the belt in the 70s and a noted
bully in the ring from the mid-60s through mid-80s.
BLUE DEMON - Legendary partner, co-star and bitter rival of El Santo.
Considered as the best shooter in Mexico in his youth.
Held the NWA welterweight title consecutively from 1953-58.
Movie star and top wrestling attraction from the 50s through the early 80s.
THE DESTROYER - Outside of Mexico, probably one of the two most famous world
wide masked wrestlers of all-time and certainly the most famous non-Mexican to wear a
mask.
Legendary in Japan not only for wrestling but for starring on a highly-rated network
prime time comedy show.
Feud with Rikidozan in Japan made him a household word in that country and
continued as a headliner in Japan for more than 20 years.
Held both the AWA and WWA versions of the world title.
Real name Dick Beyer.
TED DIBIASE - One of the top workers of the 80s along with being a great interview.
Seemed like a prototype for a future NWA champion until wrestling changed.
Went to WWF during its heyday and was one of its most successful heels as the Million
Dollar Man.
Forced to retire after recurring neck injuries in late 1993.
Stepfather Mike DiBiase was a top pro, a world junior heavyweight champion and a
former AAU national champion.
THE DUSEK FAMILY RIOT SQUAD - The brother combination of Ernie, Emil,
Rudy and Joe (although many family members and alleged family members were named
Dusek as the years went on) popularized tag team wrestling in the Midwest in the 1930s
as heels.
Real family last name was Hason.
Joe ended up as the promoter in Omaha into the early 80s.
JACKIE FARGO - The biggest draw in the huge Gulas/Welch territory during the
1960s and early 70s along with Jerry Jarrett and Tojo Yamamoto.
Basic brawler type.
RIC FLAIR - Arguably the greatest wrestling performer of all-time. Credentials don't
even need to be mentioned.
Real name Richard Fliehr.
TATSUMI FUJINAMI - Arguably the best Japanese worker of the 80s.
Brought the junior heavyweight division into the spotlight in Japan.
Probably the best worker in the world before suffering a back injury that nearly ended
his career.
Returned to the ring but has never been the same.
DORY FUNK JR. - NWA champion from 1969-73, considered as one of the greatest
champions in the history of the organization and top workers of his era.
Second generation wrestler, son of Dory Funk Sr., around wrestling his entire life as a
main event wrestler, promoter, booker and trainer.
Trained most of the top wrestlers appearing in All Japan.
DORY FUNK SR. - Former NWA jr. heavyweight champion and the biggest wrestling
star ever in Amarillo.
Noteworthy both as a headline babyface locally and long-time local promoter with
national influence and also for helping start many of the next generation's biggest
wrestling stars and for being known as King of the Texas Death matches.
TERRY FUNK - Considered one of the greatest workers, interviews and all-around
performers of all-time.
NWA champion from 1975-77.
Became one of the biggest foreign babyfaces ever in Japan after a legendary 1977 match
with he and his brother against Sheik & Abdullah the Butcher.
VERNE GAGNE - Mr. AWA during the 60s and 70s as its President, leading promoter,
top star, trainer and more often than not, world champion.
One of the country's all-time great amateur wrestlers, winning NCAA titles in 1948 and
1949 at the University of Minnesota and winning the World junior heavyweight title as a
rookie pro in 1950.
He became a TV matinee idol in the 50s as the Jack Brisco of his era when wrestling was
on network television and one of its first $100,000 per year performers.
Maintained star status throughout his career which lasted until his mid-50s with several
comebacks after that point.
Not well liked as a promoter, but was one of the country's most influential promoters
through the mid-80s.
CAVERNARIO GALINDO - The most famous heel in the early history of Mexican
wrestling.
ED DON GEORGE - Amateur great, two-time AAU champion and U.S. Olympic team
heavyweight in 1928 who held the world title on three occasions in the 1930s and later
become a promoter.
GORGEOUS GEORGE - The superstar of network television.
In 1949, Gorgeous George was the biggest television star in the country stemming from
pro wrestling and his association with Bob Hope.
Changed the face of pro wrestling around the world with the bleached blond hair,
flamboyant robes, and semi-sissyish ring style.
Actually Raymond Wagner from all accounts was a good junior heavyweight wrestler
who never made money until copying some gimmicks from Lord Lansdowne, and going
to Hollywood and getting on national television.
Probably no American wrestler including Hulk Hogan was more famous during his peak
years.
Made huge money for a short while but his career at the top was short because of a
problem with alcohol and died young and penniless in 1963.
FRANK GOTCH - The man most responsible for popularizing wrestling, both pro and
amateur, as a sport in the United States.
World champion from 1908-13 in a form as probably part-shoot part-work and retired
as unbeaten champion.
First famous matches in U.S. history were his 1908 and 1911 matches with George
Hackenschmidt.
Some would call him America's greatest wrestler ever, but who really knows?
In history books is known as the first NWA champion even though the NWA didn't form
until four decades later.
Died a few years after retiring at the age of 39.
KARL GOTCH - Former Olympic wrestler out of Belgium known as perhaps the
premier shooter of his time.
While not a big draw or necessarily even the greatest main event worker during his
prime, he's a noteworthy figure because of his true in-ring ability, and because he
coached many future superstars and in that way influenced them and the future
direction of wrestling and was able to demonstrate scientific wrestling skill at the top
level.
Got the Gotch name from Frank Gotch.
Instrumental in the formation of both New Japan Pro Wrestling and later incarnations
of the UWF movement.
Real name Karl Istaz.
SUPERSTAR BILLY GRAHAM - Perhaps the top heel of the 70s, the charismatic
former bodybuilder was the predecessor and boyhood hero to Hulk Hogan.
By his own admission a poor worker in the ring, he was a tremendous interview and
personality and a top drawing card.
WWWF champion 1977-78.
One-time training partner of Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
While not the first pro wrestler to use steroids, was certainly the most famous of the 70s,
ushering in a black era of pro wrestling in the 80s epitomized by Hulk Hogan, The
Ultimate Warrior and the Road Warriors.
Real name Eldridge Wayne Coleman.
EDDIE GRAHAM - A top wrestler more important as perhaps the most progressive
wrestling promoter of the 70s with Championship Wrestling from Florida.
Son Mike wrestled in Florida for nearly two decades.
Real name Edward Gossett.
Committed suicide at the age of 55 in 1985.
RENE GUAJARDO - Six-time NWA middleweight champion in the 60s and half of
Mexico's most famous heel tag team ever with Karloff Lagarde.
SALVADOR GORI GUERRERO - Former NWA welterweight, middleweight and
light heavyweight champion and one of Mexico's biggest stars from the early 40s
through late 60s.
Tag team with El Santo, known as the Atomic Pair, was Mexico's most famous babyface
tag team ever.
Four sons, Salvador Jr. (Chavo), Mando, Hector and Eddie and one grandson, Salvador
III (Chavo Jr.) have become pro wrestlers.
Promoted wrestling in El Paso during the 60s and 70s and later booked in Los Angeles
in the late 70s.
Considered one of the great shooters in Mexico of his era.
Invented the camel clutch.
Originally from Arizona, moved to Mexico to become a wrestling legend.
GEORGE HACKENSCHMIDT - The original Russian Lion, Generally considered the
first true world heavyweight champion, having won it in 1901 winning tournaments in
France, Germany and Russia in the same year, then winning a tournament in England in
1904 and beating the American champion, Tom Jenkins, in 1905.
A bodybuilder/strongman who lost two famous matches to Frank Gotch, both
apparently having been shoots although the second appears to have been a double cross
when the two agreed to work a match where Hackenschmidt had agreed to lose provided
he get to take one fall but Gotch beat him two straight.
Since he outlived Gotch, was very vocal and had many friends, he got much history
rewritten to as having been cheated in both Gotch matches.
STAN HANSEN - The most popular and most successful foreign star ever to appear in
Japan.
Still active today at 46 and holds the record for most tours ever by a foreign wrestler to
Japan.
In his prime was a super performer although he's not at that level anymore.
Started out as a major star feuding with Antonio Inoki, then jumped to All Japan in 1981
in one of the most dramatic wrestling jumps in history.
Former college football star at West Texas State University.
BRET HART - Second-generation wrestler who became one of the best workers of the
90s.
His reign as WWF champion changed the face of the organization as one being
dominated by large steroid monsters to its current form based around more athletic
types.
STU HART - The patriarch of one of the largest wrestling families ever.
Former Canadian amateur champion who was a top star in New York, and eventually
moved back home to Edmonton to form Klondike Wrestling in 1948, which eventually
became Stampede Wrestling.
Gave numerous wrestlers either their start or first major break in North America
including Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith, Billy Robinson, Billy Graham, Greg
Valentine, Junkyard Dog and Jake Roberts.
BOBBY HEENAN - Probably one of the two greatest managers of all-time in a career
that started in the mid-60s and continued through 1991.
Remained active as a television announcer.
Among his most famous charges were Nick Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens, Blackjack Lanza,
Ric Flair, Andre the Giant, John Studd and Ken Patera.
Perhaps the single most important heel figure in the glory days of the AWA.
DANNY HODGE - Among the greatest wrestlers the United States ever produced.
1956 Olympic silver medalist, three-time and unbeaten NCAA champ in college, and a
member of the U.S. amateur wrestling Hall of Fame.
Went into pro wrestling and was the dominant junior heavyweight champion nearly his
entire career from 1960 until breaking his neck in a 1976 auto accident.
Not particularly charismatic, but would rank as pound-for-pound probably the single
greatest legitimate wrestler in the modern history of pro wrestling.
HULK HOGAN - Probably the biggest drawing card of all-time on an international
basis.
Although a below average performer, hit with the right look at the right time and became
the biggest star ever in the United States.
Real name Terry Bollea.
ANTONIO INOKI - The most popular wrestler in the world today.
Former Senator in Japan with a career as legendary as they come.
A very fast athlete with great conditioning and reflexes who, through manipulation,
convinced Japan he was the greatest shooter in the world, but became one of its two
biggest draws ever as a result.
RAYO DE JALISCO - Considered by many as the most charismatic of all the 1960s
wrestlers in Mexico.
Son currently wrestles but largely lives off the father's name.
The biggest wrestling star ever in Guadalajara.
Tag teamed with El Santo in the 60s.
TOM JENKINS - Three-time American champion in the early 1900s.
Wrestler who lost to both Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt to set them up as the
top wrestlers of the next decade.
DON LEO JONATHAN - A tremendously agile 300-pound powerhouse who wrestled
from the mid-50s through mid-70s and generally considered up until his retirement as
the best working big man in the history of wrestling.
Wrestlers from that era will always question how Jonathan, who was a natural
powerhouse, would have looked had be come along 20 years later in the era of weight
training and of physiques.
Known as the Mormon Giant, was a globe-trotting headliner for virtually his entire
career.
THE FABULOUS KANGAROOS - Al Costello & Roy Heffernan from Australia were
the classic tag team from the late 50s through late 60s in the United States. Costello later
formed a second incarnation of the Kangaroos with Don Kent in the Detroit area and
other incarnations later. Invented many of the double-team moves.
DYNAMITE KID - One of the best and most innovative wrestlers of the early 80s.
Did a great deal to popularize junior heavyweight wrestling in both Western Canada and
Japan.
Most famous for a feud with the original Tiger Mask and tag team called the British
Bulldogs.
Had to retire young due to constant injuries from a damaging ring style.
Real name Tom Billington.
GENE KINISKI - NWA champion from 1966-69 and a top headlining heel every
territory he appeared.
Considered one of the great workers of his era.
Former Canadian football player who was a hard-nosed big man.
FRED KOHLER - Built Chicago into one of the hottest wrestling cities in the late 50s
and early 60s around Buddy Rogers.
Promoted the record-breaking Rogers-O'Connor match at Comiskey Park.
KILLER KOWALSKI - One of the top heels in wrestling from the mid-50s through the
mid-70s.
Will forever be noted for a mistake in the ring when he kneedropped Yukon Eric off the
top rope, ripping his ear from his head.
Very agile for a big man of his era and noted for conditioning.
A former weightlifter, started out as Tarzan Kowalski.
Real name Walter Kowalski, now runs a wrestling school near Boston.
ERNIE LADD - A former AFL football star in the 60s who wrestled in the off-season,
and quit football while still a top name because he could make more money as a
globetrotting heel. At 6-9 and 315 pounds during a time when there was nobody except
Andre the Giant in wrestling anywhere near that size, was a formidable and fearsome
heel.
Although he was an agile big man, it was his size, football reputation as a killer
combined with being a large black man in a white man's world that made him one of the
top heels and biggest drawing cards anywhere during the 70s.
DICK LANE - The voice of pro wrestling in Southern California for more than two
decades, coined the phrase "Whoa Nelly!" Also the voice of the Roller Games.
JERRY LAWLER - Biggest star in his hometown of Memphis for nearly 25 years.
Tremendous ring psychologist and among the greatest interviews in history.
Fans who see him as a mid-card comedy figure today would be shocked at how in his
prime he probably within his area the biggest local celebrity of any wrestler and had
classic matches against some of the greats and more impressively, not so greats and had
a consistent weekly drawing power unmatched by any of today's wrestlers.
Still active today at the age of 46.
STRANGLER LEWIS - Real name Robert Freidrich, the leading wrestling star of the
1920s and part of a promotional trio that was the McMahon/Hogan of its era.
Rated on most lists as among the greatest shooters ever.
Dominated the world title in the 20s.
His 1915 match with Joe Stecher which lasted five hours, 45 minutes to a draw, may
have been responsible for changing wrestling from sport to work completely.
Later managed NWA champions Lou Thesz and Dick Hutton in the 50s.
Got his name originally from an 1890's champion wrestler who was the original
Strangler Lewis (Evan Lewis).
JIM LONDOS - Real name Chris Theopolous, was the biggest drawing card in the
country during the 1930s.
Wrestled Strangler Lewis in St. Louis in 1935 and drew a U.S. 36,000 fans and a
$95,000 gate, a gate record that stood until 1951 and an attendance record that lasted
until Rogers-O'Connor in 1961.
Still a major drawing card into the early 50s.
SALVADOR LUTTEROTH - Formed EMLL in the mid-1930s and was the leading
promoter in Mexico until his death more than 40 years later.
AKIRA MAEDA - The person most associated with the changing of the in-ring style
and booking patterns in Japan to more of an emphasis on submissions and clean
finishes where even the biggest stars submit at the end.
Top star of UWF in its 1988-90 heyday and formed RINGS.
A huge drawing card in his prime and when it comes to changing the entire face of
wrestling in a country, has been as influential as any wrestler of his era.
DEVIL MASAMI - The most enduring name in the history of Japanese womens
wrestling.
A super worker with great ring psychology in her prime.
Matches with Jaguar Yokota against the Crush Gals were classics that helped set up All
Japan women for its greatest run of popularity up to that point in 1985.
Real name Masami Yoshida.
MIL MASCARAS - The one wrestler out of Mexico who became the biggest export
name his country ever produced.
A tremendous drawing card in parts of the United States, in particular Southern
California, and also with children in Japan.
Was a major movie star in Mexico during the 60s and a talented flying heavyweight
bring a style of work that neither Japanese or American fans were familiar with along
with tremendous charisma.
Outside of Mexico, there is no doubt the two biggest name masked wrestlers ever were
Mascaras and Destroyer.
Still active today at the age of 59.
Younger brother Dos Caras was one of Mexico's biggest superstars of the 70s to the
present.
Real name Aaron Rodriguez.
TIGER MASK - The original, Satoru Sayama.
Many would argue the greatest performing lighter weight wrestler ever and certainly the
most influential ever as he was largely the one who took junior heavyweight wrestling in
New Japan and brought it to the level that made it the staple it has become today.
Had a short but storied pro wrestling career, as a phenom in Mexico and England before
a 1981-83 run as Tiger Mask and 1984-85 run with the original UWF as Super Tiger.
Perhaps the fastest wrestler ever to appear in a ring in his prime and stylistically many
years ahead of his time.
Many years after his two pro wrestling retirements has made a few comebacks, but is
more influential today than perhaps ever before for creation of the sport shooting and
promotion of Vale Tudo in Japan.
DUMP MATSUMOTO - Kaoru Matsumoto, with biker outfit, kendo stick, oil can, face
paint and tatoos was a character more than a decade ahead of her time.
The greatest heel in the history of Japanese womens wrestling and one of the great
monster heels of all-time.
The dramatic theater of her matches against the likes of Chigusa Nagayo gives meaning
the word "heat" that has never been seen in the United States.
EARL MCCREADY - The greatest pinner in the history of heavyweight wrestling in the
United States at Oklahoma A & M in the late 1920s who went on to represent Canada in
the 1932 Olympics.
McCready parlayed his legitimate wrestling ability into a pro career which lasted
through the 50s and made him a pioneer in pro wrestling in England, Canada and
Australia.
LEROY MCGUIRK - Former NCAA champion at Oklahoma A & M who went on to be
the dominant junior heavyweight in pro wrestling holding the world title consecutively
from 1940-50, before having to retire after being blinded in an out-of-the-ring incident.
After retiring, McGuirk became the head of a territory in Oklahoma that expanded to
include five states using Danny Hodge and Bill Watts as the top stars until the
promotion went under in 1980.
VINCE MCMAHON JR. - The single greatest wrestling promoter ever when it comes
to the pure promotion aspect.
A controversial figure who made many enemies along the way, but also brought pro
wrestling to a new level monetarily through introducing merchandising aspects, getting
in on the ground floor of PPV and turning Hulk Hogan from a wrestling star to a
celebrity.
A third generation wrestling promoter.
VINCE MCMAHON SR. - Built the consistently top drawing territory in the United
States in the 50s through the mid-80s in the Northeast through a very simple formula
style of booking babyface champions and rotating in heel challengers and catering to
large ethnic bases with babyfaces representing them.
DANNY MCSHANE - NWA jr. heavyweight champion 1951-53, who was one of the
great heels of his era.
Popularized juice matches in Southern California and Texas in the 1940s while holding
the world light heavyweight title four times and Texas title six times.
Huge drawing card in his heyday.
REY MENDOZA - Perhaps Mexico's biggest star of the 60s holding the NWA light
heavyweight title a record six times.
Still active as part of the Mexico City commission.
Had five sons who wrestled, three of whom are still active as Los Villanos.
A major player in the formation of the UWA which became the hot promotion in the
country in the late 70s.
MITSUHARU MISAWA - Current top star in All Japan Pro Wrestling and among the
greatest workers in history when it comes to combining stiffness, athletic and
psychological aspects.
The main player in a string of Tokyo sellouts that number past the six straight year
mark.
First made a hit in 1984 as the second Tiger Mask and has been among the top workers
in the business for most of the past 12 years.
JOE "TOOTS" MONDT - The third member of the Gold Dust Trio that dominated the
pro wrestling world in the 1920s with Billy Sandow and Strangler Lewis.
Noted for being perhaps the best wrestler of his era with the possible exception of Lewis.
Broke from that group and went with Jack Curley in New York and paired with Jim
Londos, the biggest wrestling star of the 30s.
Remained a formidable player from the promotional end, generally controlling wrestling
in New York through the mid-60s, when he was Vince McMahon Sr.'s partner before
losing influence.
SAM MUCHNICK - President of the National Wrestling Alliance for most of its glory
days and promoter in St. Louis for nearly 40 years.
St. Louis was often considered the wrestling capital of North America during his tenure.
Saved the NWA from a major anti-trust case through connections with a long-time
friend, Mel Price, in the House of Representatives which made him the power behind the
NWA and booked the champions during the group's heyday.
Had a reputation for being a very honest payoff man.
BRONKO NAGURSKI - A pro football all-time legend from the 30s who quit in his
prime to go into pro wrestling and was immediately put over as world champion in 1939.
Nagurski wrestled until around 1960 although he wasn't a major star once television
came on the scene as he didn't project himself well.
PAT O'CONNOR - NWA champion from 1959-61 and considered the most famous pro
wrestler ever to come out of New Zealand.
Booker during the glory days of the St. Louis promotion.
Ranked highly by his peers as one of the greatest wrestlers of his era.
Feud with Buddy Rogers set attendance records that lasted two decades.
Passed away in 1990 at the age of 62.
KINTARO OKI - Korea's all-time greatest wrestler, who springboarded into the South
Korean senate from his wrestling fame.
A major star in Japan during the 60s and 70s, and former WWA world champ in the
United States.
ATSUSHI ONITA - One of the biggest one-man drawing cards in the history of
wrestling.
Took garbage wrestling to a level previously unheard of including drawing crowds in
excess of 40,000 fans with weak undercards against the likes of Terry Funk, Genichiro
Tenryu and for a retirement match against Hayabusa.
Was actually a promising wrestler and junior heavyweight champ in All Japan before
knee injuries ended his first career in 1984, but became a charismatic superstar in his
second career after spending time in prison in between.
PAT PATTERSON - Started wrestling as a teenager in Montreal and developed into
one of the best workers of the 60s and 70s.
Tag team with Ray Stevens, which included runs as both NWA and AWA tag champions
is generally considered among the all-time great teams.
A major star everywhere he appeared, but most well-known in Northern California.
After retiring from active wrestling, was Vince McMahon's main booking assistant
during the big run of the WWF as the first truly international wrestling promotion.
ANTONIO PENA - Changed the face of Mexican wrestling with the formation of AAA,
including building up the biggest show in the history of Mexico, TripleMania I in 1993
which drew 50,000 fans.
Booked EMLL into its hottest period ever in the early 90s before forming AAA and
quickly turning it into the hottest drawing promotion in the country.
JOHN PESEK - A wrestler out of Iowa who was a major pro star in the 30s including a
run as world champion that many wrestlers of that era called the greatest legitimate
wrestler in the world of his time.
Reputation as a shooter was so strong that world champions of his era largely avoided
him.
RODDY PIPER - The top heel of the 1980s in the United States.
Along with Hogan, probably as singularly responsible as any wrestlers for the WWF
going mainstream in 1984-85.
One of the greatest interviews ever.
A top heel in every territory he appeared in from the mid-70s until his babyface turns
and eventually for the most part leaving wrestling for the movies.
Real name Roderick Toombs.
HARLEY RACE - Seven-time NWA champion from 1973-83 and one of the best
workers of his era.
Not charismatic by modern standards, but took holding the NWA title as seriously as
any.
Started wrestling as a teenager and became a big star in his home Kansas City territory.
DUSTY RHODES - One of the top babyfaces and biggest drawing cards in wrestling
from the mid-70s through mid-80s and the biggest star in the Florida and Georgia area
during his prime.
Former college football player at West Texas State.
Not a good worker, but tremendously charismatic taking an interview style ripping off
Muhammad Ali.
Son wrestles as Goldust.
Real name Virgil Runnels.
RIKIDOZAN - Former sumo wrestler Mitsuhiro Momota put pro wrestling on the map
through his televised matches in the late 50s, creating a wrestling dynasty the likes of
which has never been seen.
Stabbed to death at the age of 39 in 1963.
Actually Korean, which was hidden throughout his career, as was his connection to
mobsters.
With the exception of El Santo and Frank Gotch, probably the most historically
important pro wrestler in history.
YVON ROBERT - Montreal's biggest wrestling star ever.
Held numerous versions of the world title between 1936-1956.
Had a son who wrestled briefly in the 70s.
ANTONINO ROCCA - Huge drawing card in the 1950s stemming from television.
My most accounts, Rocca was a poor wrestler who got over as a huge ethnic babyface,
and reportedly earned $180,000 in the late 50s, a figure unheard of in those days for a
wrestler or any athlete for that matter.
Noted for dropkicks and cartwheels, although his flying would be very primitive by
today's standards.
ROAD WARRIORS - Hawk & Animal, real name Mike Hegstrand and Joe Laurinaitis,
were the tag team of their era both in the United States and Japan.
While never top workers, they were the classic representatives of the 1980s steroid era of
pro wrestling.
After joining WWF and changing names to Legion of Doom, never quite maintained the
same level and after Animal's 1992 back injury, the duo was dead as a team for several
years before a 1996 rebirth.
BILLY ROBINSON - One of the greatest pure wrestlers and top shooters of his era.
Originally from England and its countries biggest star of the 60s, came to the United
States and was a major star in the United States and Canada during the 70s.
One of Japan's major headliners of the 70s.
Most famous were feuding with Verne Gagne and Nick Bockwinkel over the AWA title.
Still working as a trainer for UWFI in Nashville.
BUDDY ROGERS - Some would say Rogers was the greatest heel of all-time, and most
would say that during his era of the 50s he was the single best worker in the profession.
Set a U.S. record for a 1961 match with Pat O'Connor in Chicago drawing 38,622 fans--a
record that stood for 26 years.
An important figure in the formation of the WWWF and its first world champion.
Also held the NWA title 1961-63 although would have no doubt held it much longer if
not for outside ring feud with Lou Thesz.
Career as one of the biggest stars in the industry ended abruptly in 1963 after a heart
attack, although he made several comebacks over the next two decades.
Had a tremendous physique, up through the day he died.
Real name Herman Rohde.
Passed away in 1992 at the age of 71
LANCE RUSSELL - The voice of Memphis wrestling for more than 40 years.
Perhaps the best ever as smoothly handling a broadcast and back-and-forth repartee
with the wrestlers, including carrying green wrestlers on interviews and working with
heels to get them over.
BRUNO SAMMARTINO - WWF champion from 1963-71 and 1973-77.
Perhaps the biggest drawing card in the United States during the 60s and 70s, and
certainly the biggest in the Northeast.
Drawing power never slowed down until his first retirement in 1981.
A former strongman type.
While wins and losses are of course, works, it is still noteworthy that he did exceedingly
few jobs during a career that lasted nearly 30 years.
BILLY SANDOW - The Vince McMahon of his era, the dominant promoter in the 20s
when pro wrestling had a large national following, working hand-in-hand with Strangler
Lewis and booked the top talent around the country, introduced things like working
mapped out programs to wrestling and created the first non-wrestler ever as a world
champion in football star Wayne Munn.
EL SANTO - Easily one of the two or three most beloved wrestlers in history and the
greatest wrestling legend in Mexico.
According to Mexican reports, to get a gauge on his popularity one would have to
combine the popularity of Schwarzeneggar, James Bond and Superman.
Real name Rodolfo Guzman.
Passed away in 1984 at the age of 67.
Wrestled for 41 years and starred in 44 movies.
The biggest movie star ever in Mexico as well as being the biggest wrestling star.
By no means one of the greatest ever, but among the most charismatic.
His son, who is actually a far better wrestler than his more famous father, was the top
drawing card in Mexico from 1984 to 1991.
JACKIE SATO - Ushered in a new era of women's wrestling in Japan as half of a tag
team called the Beauty Pair with either Maki Ueda or Nancy Kumi in the late 70s which
not only were rock-star like singers aimed at Japanese girls but also were the best
working pro wrestlers of their era.
Three-time WWWA champion.
RANDY SAVAGE - Second-generation wrestler who became one of the five biggest
stars of the 1980s in the WWF.
A tremendous, albeit inconsistent worker in his prime.
Real name Randy Poffo.
A former minor league baseball player.
THE SHEIK - Probably the top heel in wrestling from the mid-60s through mid-70s.
Got tremendous heat doing a Middle Eastern heel and working short blood matches
although always limited as a worker.
Still active at the age of 70 although it would be better for all concerned if he wasn't as he
suffered a serious heart attack after wrestling a match in Japan at age 69 and nearly died
a few years earlier after escaping too slowly during a fire match which the ring caught on
fire.
Promoted Detroit with himself as the major star and drew consistent sellouts for years at
Cobo Arena, although also killed the city by continually pushing himself after his run
was over and for advertising talent that wasn't going to appear.
Real named Ed Farhat.
Uncle of Sabu.
HISASHI SHINMA - Booker and Chairman of the Board of New Japan Pro Wrestling
in its building days until being ousted for his part in an embezzlement scandal in 1983.
Many of the concepts that changed the face of Japanese wrestling such as the creation of
Tiger Mask, the Riki Choshu heel turn and the mixed martial arts matches with Antonio
Inoki largely were his ideas.
DARA SINGH - India's top wrestler of the 1950s who was also a major star in England.
Drew huge stadium houses against Lou Thesz in his home country during the late 1960s.
Thesz rated Singh as one of the best wrestlers of all-time.
GORDON SOLIE - Generally considered the best television announcer in pro wrestling
during the 70s, when he appeared regularly in Florida and Georgia every week.
EL SOLITARIO - Considered on almost every list as one of the five biggest stars ever in
Mexico.
Passed away in 1986 at the age of 39.
Former NWA light heavyweight champion in the 70s.
RICKY STEAMBOAT - One of the greatest workers of the 80s.
Had classic feuds with Ric Flair and Randy Savage and is generally considered Flair's alltime
best opponent.
Noted within the profession for being as professional in the ring as any wrestler of his
calibre.
Retired in 1994 after a serious back injury and now owns two gyms near Charlotte.
Real name Richard Blood.
JOE STECHER - Three-time world champion in the Lewis era, generally considered as
the No. 2 wrestler of the era.
Legendary as a shooter.
Brother Tony Stecher later become one of the most powerful promoters in history.
TONY STECHER - Brother of Joe, became the promoter in Minneapolis and turned
that city into a wrestling hotbed which is remained until the mid-80s.
One of the original founders of the National Wrestling Alliance.
RAY STEELE - Real name Pete Sauer, held the world title in 1940-41 and was
considered one of the great wrestlers of his era.
RAY STEVENS - Generally considered the single best worker in the business during
the 60s and one of its biggest drawing cards as well.
The most famous wrestler ever in the San Francisco area.
Formed two of pro wrestling's legendary tag teams with Nick Bockwinkel and Pat
Patterson.
Passed away in 1996 at the age of 60.
NOBUHIKO TAKADA - Top star of the UWFI promotion from its inception in 1991.
The constant in the single greatest drawing run in history--three shows in seven months
drawing more than 60,000 fans in the same building in 1995-96 at the Tokyo Dome
against Keiji Muto twice and Shinya Hashimoto in what was billed as promotion vs.
promotion battles.
A super worker in his prime.
Noted for being one of the best and fastest kickers ever in wrestling.
GENICHIRO TENRYU - Former top name sumo wrestler who left to become a pro
wrestler in 1976 amid much fanfare.
Although pushed hard his entire career, he was actually a below average worker getting a
big push until blossoming in 1984.
While not a big draw on his own, his name is in the record books as having headlined
more huge gates than almost any wrestler ever.
LOU THESZ - With the possible exception of Ric Flair, would be the first wrestler
named by many as to who is the greatest in pro wrestling history.
Held different world title versions from the age of 21 in 1937 through holding the UWA
title in Mexico as late as 1978 including dominating the 1950s NWA belt when it was the
leading belt in the world.
Rikidozan's most famous opponent in Japan.
Author of the best book ever written on pro wrestling.
Drew pro wrestling's first $100,000 house against Baron Leone in Hollywood, CA
defending his world title in 1952.
JUMBO TSURUTA - A main eventer and top level worker from his first match in
Japan in 1973 until hepatitis ended his career as a serious performer in 1992.
Wrestled in the 1972 Olympics.
While his career lulled during the 80s, but had a rebirth in a feud with long-time tag
team partner Genichiro Tenryu and by 1991, was arguably the best worker in the
business.
Real name Tomomi Tsuruta.
FRANK TUNNEY - Long-time Toronto promoter who ran one of the most successful
promotions in the world from the 40s to his death in the early 80s.
A key member of the NWA and had a hand in other wrestling offices as well.
MAD DOG VACHON - Former 1948 Olympic games wrestler and noted during his
prime as one of the toughest men in the game, despite being relatively small.
Remained a headliner until the end of his career because of his crazed gimmick.
AWA champion four times during the 60s.
BIG VAN VADER - The greatest working 350+ pound wrestler in history.
Held world titles on four continents (North America, Asia, Central America and Europe),
a feat perhaps unmatched in history.
One of Japan's biggest draws of the late 80s and early 90s.
JOHNNY VALENTINE - Although never a major world champion, was a top NWA
title contender from the 50s through a retirement forced upon by a 1975 airplane crash
while he was still a major headliner.
Legendary for his stiffness and brutality in the ring and being one of the toughest men
ever to wrestle.
Son Greg was a major star.
Real name John Wisniski.
FRITZ VON ERICH - A main eventer throughout a nearly 30-year long career who
became a noteworthy and powerful promoter in the Dallas area and had five children
who became wrestlers, three of whom were major stars before all but one died from
either drug overdoses or suicides. While the history of the Von Erich family is hardly a
positive, the fact Von Erich was a main event heel everywhere he went during his prime
and the biggest star ever in the Dallas area, along with being a legend in Japan, makes it
impossible to leave him off this list.
Real name Jack Adkisson.
WHIPPER BILLY WATSON - Probably the biggest wrestling star in Toronto.
Real name William Potts.
Held the NWA title in 1947 and 1956 and dominated the Ontario-based British Empire
championship from 1947-1959.
Continued as a top star in the area through the early 70s when an auto accident ended
his career.
Son wrestled as Whipper Watson Jr.
COWBOY BILL WATTS - A headliner because of his size and power from the start of
his career in the early 60s until his retirement in the mid-80s.
Watts was not the greatest worker, but his size and conditioning was a rarity in his era
and was always on top.
Noted for being a tremendous interview.
Perhaps more of a Hall of Fame candidate for his run as a booker in places like Georgia,
Florida and the Ozarks and a progressive stint as a promoter from the late 70s through
1987.
JAGUAR YOKOTA - The first off-the-charts worker in the All Japan womens office.
Had a brief but skyrocketed career as the top womens worker up to that point ever,
winning her first WWWA title at the age of 19 in 1981, and basically dominating the title
until her retirement at the end of 1985.
Real name Rimi Yokota.
Stylistically was the predecessor to Manami Toyota.
Made a comeback in 1994 and now wrestles for the JD promotion.
Trained most of today's top All Japan women.
STANISLAUS ZBYSZKO - A two-time world champion in the 20s who came to the
U.S. already in his 40s with the reputation of being in his prime in Europe a worldbeater.
Reportedly had a famous match against The Great Gama in India which was a free show
that drew more than 100,000 fans.
A world class wrestler who reputedly made a fortune in Europe as its top star.
Came to the U.S. for the first time in 1909 and lost to Frank Gotch.
Real last name was Cyganiewicz.
Lost his fortune and in his mid-40s, came to the United States and became a top
attraction in the 20s.
Will forever be a part of wrestling history for, at the age of 50, shooting on non-wrestler
Wayne Munn and winning the world title in a double-cross, which had long-term
historical consequences of promoters through the 60s generally wanting the world title
on real wrestlers to avoid such a situation occurring again.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 8/16 TO 9/16
8/16 Kings of Pancrase PPV taped (Frank Shamrock vs. Goes)
8/17 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Anjoh)
8/18 WWF SummerSlam Cleveland Gund Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
8/19 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Wheeling, WV Civic Center
8/19 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Huntsville, AL Von Braun Civic Center
8/20 WWF Superstars tapings Columbus, OH Convention Center
8/24 WWF X Press Toronto Exhibition Stadium (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/24 RINGS Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Yamamoto vs. Morais)
8/24 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Raven & Douglas vs. Sandman & Pit Bull #2 )
8/25 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader & Cornette)
8/26 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Palmetto, FL Manatee Civic Center
9/1 FMW Nagoya station outdoors (Tanaka & Nakagawa & Kuroda vs. Kanemura & Hido
& Hosaka)
9/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Chattanooga, TN UTC Arena
9/5 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Hansen)
9/6 WWF Houston Summit Arena
9/7 Pancrase Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
9/7 WWF Dallas Reunion Arena
9/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Columbus, GA Civic Center
9/11 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Tenryu)
9/15 WCW Fall Brawl PPV Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Coliseum (Flair &
Anderson & Luger & Sting vs. NWO)
9/16 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto vs. Chono)
9/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Asheville, NC Civic Center
RESULTS
7/24 Spokane, WA (WWF - 3,810): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly, Smoking Gunns
won four corners match over New Rockers, Godwinns and Bodydonnas, Steve Austin b
Savio Vega, Sid b Goldust, Undertaker b Mankind, Sid b Davey Boy Smith, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/25 Charleston, WV (WCW - 2,500): Alex Wright b Disco Inferno, Eddie Guerrero
b Dean Malenko, Dog collar match: Nasty Boys b Public Enemy, WCW tag titles: Rick &
Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall b Sting & Lex Luger-DQ, Nontitle:
Randy Savage b Ric Flair
7/25 Pincher Creek, Alberta (Ind - 225): Joe Sharpadze b Steve Elliott, Mike
Anthony b Steve Gillespie, Eric Schwartz b Dennis Himmler, Kenny Johnson b Blackjack
Helton, Bruce & Ross Hart b Great Gama & King Lau, Gothic Knight (Ed Gatzky) b
Powerhouse Neidhart (Jason Anderson)
7/25 Indianapolis (Circle City Wrestling): Vic the Bruiser b Bulldozer, Sean V b
Dave the Rave, Dallas & Austin James b Jack Slater & The Professor, Rip Rogers b
Raptor, Mike Samples NC Flash Flanagan
7/26 Fresno, CA (WWF - 5,032): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly, Bodydonnas won
four corners match over New Rockers, Godwinns and Smoking Gunns, Owen Hart b
Aldo Montoya, Sid b Davey Boy Smith, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Undertaker b
Mankind, Yokozuna b Goldust, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWF title:
Shawn Michaels b Vader
7/26 Actopan (AAA): Mini Frisbee & Mascarita Sagrada b La Parkita & Espectrito II,
Oro Jr. & Ludxor & El Mexicano b Tony Arce & Vulcano & Rocco Valente, Mexican minis
title: Espectrito I b Super Munequito-DQ to win title, Perro Silva & Karis la Momia &
Psicosis d Venum & Torero & Pantera, Halcon Dorado Jr. & Killer & Pierroth Jr. b
Mascara Sagrada & Rey Misterio Jr. & Konnan
7/26 Reading, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling): Mr. Oo la la b
Juggernaut, Butcher Blackwell b High Voltage, Double Delight b D.Z. Gillespie &
Assassin [URL=http://www.wrestlingforum.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1]#1 -DQ[/URL] , Mark Mest b Pat Shamrock, Lance Diamond d Cheetah Master, Max
Crimson b Cremator, Race Richards b Macabre-DQ, Julio Sanchez b Ace Darling, Troy
Mest b Mark Mest
7/26 Rhinelander, WI (Mid American Wrestling - 200/fairgrounds show):
Frankie DeFalco b Astro Nuevo, Billy Joe Eaton b Spymaster, Farmer Vic b Russian
Assassin, Super Ninja b Waverider Craig
7/27 Alexandria, VA (IPWA): Major DeBeers b Johnny Desire, Poison Ivy b Chad
Austin, Sheik Ali Amin (Julio Sanchez) b Marc Ash, Sean Powers b Brian Perry, Lucifer b
Bob Starr, Abbuda Singh b Jimmy Cicero-DQ, Earl the Pearl b Steve Corino-DQ,
Darkside (Glenn Osbourne & Chuck Williams) b Headbanger Mosh (Chaz Warrington)
& Roger Anderson to win IPWA tag titles, Cue Ball Carmichael b Johnny Gunn to win
IPWA title in cage match
7/27 Rhinelander, WI (Mid American Wrestling - 300/fairgrounds show):
Spymaster b Waverider Craig, Billy Joe Eaton DCOR Frankie DeFalco, Farmer Vic b
Super Ninja
7/27 Lake City, FL (Southeastern Wrestling Association): Tequila Sunrise b
Chuck E. Cheese, Checkmate b Hard Rock Rick, Don Fonte b Navy Seal, Johnny Blade b
Jason Hex, Taz (not original) b Olympian, Lord of Discipline b Terry Travis-DQ, Florida
Hurricane b Dragon Slayer
7/28 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): America & Supremo II b Pegaso & Babe
Richard, Ultimatum & Filoso & Olimpus d Halcon ***** Jr. & Reyes Veloz & Escudero
Rojo, Olimpico & Ciclon Ramirez & Ringo Mendoza b Rey Bucanero & Chicago Express
& Damian El Guerrero-DQ, Dos Caras & Silver King & Lizmark b Apolo Dantes & Black
Warrior & Gran Markus Jr.-DQ, Mask vs. mask: Lynx b Angel de Plata (unmasked as
Tito Urreola)
7/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,520): Nobukazu Hirai b Yutaka Yoshie,
Yuji Nagata b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Osamu Nishimura b Tadao Yasuda, Hiroyoshi Tenzan
b Akira Nogami, Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara b Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono,
Akitoshi Saito & Shiro Koshinaka b Nobutaka Araya & Koki Kitahara, Tatsumi Fujinami
b Kengo Kimura
7/29 Honda (All Japan women): Genki Misae & Miho Wakizawa b Momoe
Nakanishi & Yachio Kawamoto, Yoshiko Tamura b Nana Takahashi, Mariko Yoshida &
Yumi Fukawa b Rie Tamada & Yuka Shiina, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & Reggie
Bennett b Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda & Chaparita Asari, Etsuko Mita b Toshiyo
Yamada, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
7/29 Iwate (Michinoku Pro - 271): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji,
Johnny Saint b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Kendo & Piloto Suicida b Gran Naniwa & Super
Delfin, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke b Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo
7/29 Osaka (LLPW): Mizuki Endo b Keiko Aono, Noriyo Tateno b Rumi Kazama,
Michiko Omukai b Wadabe, Shinobu Kandori b Harley Saito, LLPW 6 man titles: Yasha
Kurenai & Carl Midori & Mikiko Futagami b Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima & Sayori
Okino
7/29 Sittingbourne, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 103 sellout): Ian
Johnson b Mr. Vain & Adam Exclusive, Andre Baker b Justin Richards, Falls count
anywhere: Gary Steele b Tony McMillan, Wildcat d Tyrone Archer, Johnny Storm b
Robbie Thomas, Titan b Shiro Nagumi, Baker & Alex Shane b Richards & Doug Williams
7/30 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600 full
house/all freebies): WCW tag titles: Harlem Hat b Dick Slater & Mike Enos, Ric Flair b
Chavo Guerrero Jr., Ice Train b Gambler, Alex Wright b Brad Armstrong, Public Enemy
b Butch Long & Bill Payne, Dean Malenko b Steve Armstrong, Meng b Renegade, Chris
Benoit b Randy Savage-DQ, The Giant b Brian Knobs, Booty Man b Johnny Attitude,
Giant b Long & Payne & K.C. Thompson
7/30 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JD - 1,200): Koyama b Yanu, Neftaly & Princesa Blanca
b Esther Moreno & Alda Moreno, Cooga b Bloody Phoenix, Mima Shimoda & Chikako
Shiratori b Kosugi & Jaguar Yokota, Lioness Asuka b Yuki Lee, Asuka b Lee, Carlie b
Bison Kimura
7/30 Yokkaichi (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Yuka
Shiina b Momoe Nakanishi, Yoshiko Tamura & Rie Tamada b Genki Misae & Yumi
Fukawa, Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota &
Chaparita Asari & Mariko Yoshida, Takako Inoue b Kaoru Ito, Kyoko Inoue & Reggie
Bennett b Aja Kong & Etsuko Mita
7/30 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Babe Richard & Pegaso b Supremo &
Fiero, One-night tag tourney to determine top contenders for CMLL tag titles: Mascara
Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 b Ringo Mendoza & El Brazo, Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. b
Shocker & Mascara Sagrada, Bestia Salvaje & Damian el Guerrero b Dandy & Olimpico,
El Hijo del Gladiador & Gran Markus Jr. b Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther, Lizmarks b
Mascara & Universo, Gladiador & Markus b Salvaje & Guerrero, Gladiador & Markus b
Lizmarks to win tournament
7/31 Tokyo (FMW - 1,880 sellout): Hayato Nanjyo & Katsutoshi Niiyama b Mamoru
Okamoto & Halcon ***** (Jose Estrada Jr.), Hido b Shiryu, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher
Maedomari & Miwa Sato b Aki Kanbayashi & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Hideki
Hosaka & Wing Kanemura b Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku, Barbed wire barricade
match: Super Leather (Mike Kirchner) & Terry Funk b Mr. Pogo & Gosaku
Goshogawara, World six man street fight title: Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa &
Masato Tanaka b Ricky Fuji & Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator (Mike Alfonso)
7/31 Hakodate (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Bruiser Okamoto b Satoru Shiga, Bull
Pain b Yosuke Kobayashi, Ichiro Yaguchi b Yuichi Taniguchi, Seiji Yamakawa &
Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Masahiko Kochi, Mighty Kodiak b Crusher
Takahashi, Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Kendo Nagasaki & Jason Knight
7/31 Koshuhara (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi & Yachio Kawamoto b
Nana Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa, Yoshiko Tamura b Yumi Fukawa, Reggie Bennett &
Rie Tamada b Genki Misae & Yuka Shiina, Takako Inoue b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong b
Mima Shimoda, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Kyoko Inoue &
Tomoko Watanabe & Chaparita Asari
7/31 Osaka (Gaea - 1,500): Mayumi Ozaki & Toshie Sato & Rieko Aono b Kaoru &
Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Uematsu, Yumiko Hotta b Bomber Hikaru, Toshiyo
Yamada & Sonoko Kato b Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura
8/1 Beaumont, TX (WCW - 3,200): Konnan b V.K. Wallstreet 3/4*, Alex Wright b
Terry Taylor 3/4*, Eddie Guerrero b Chris Benoit **3/4, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey
Misterio Jr. b Dean Malenko-DQ ***1/2, Street fight: Public Enemy b Nasty Boys ***1/2,
Big Bubba b John Tenta-DQ DUD, Non-title: Randy Savage b Ric Flair **, WCW title:
The Giant b Lex Luger 3/4*
8/1 Aomori (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Ichiro Yaguchi b Satoru Shiga, Bruiser
Okamoto b Yosuke Kobayashi, Seiji Yamakawa b Mighty Kodiak, Yoshihiro Tajiri &
Masahiko Kochi b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Crusher Takahashi, Jason Knight b Bull Pain, Shoji
Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Kendo Nagasaki & Yuichi Taniguchi
8/1 Amagaseki (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto, Yuka
Shiina & Genki Misae & Momoe Nakanishi b Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa & Nana
Takahashi, Mima Shimoda b Tomoko Watanabe, Takako Inoue & Chaparita Asari b
Yoshiko Tamura & Toshiyo Yamada, Kyoko Inoue b Kaoru Ito, Aja Kong & Yumiko
Hotta & Etsuko Mita b Manami Toyota & Reggie Bennett & Mariko Yoshida
8/1 Shitsugawa (Michinoku Pro - 180): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Sugamoto,
Johnny Saint b Piloto Suicida, Kendo & Tiger Mask b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran
Naniwa, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Super Delfin & Great
Sasuke
8/1 Niigata (Battlarts - 498): Katsumi Usuda b Satoshi Yoneyama, Daisuke Ikeda b
Alexander Otsuka, Takeshi Ono d Minoru Tanaka, Carl Greco b Shoichi Funaki, Dieseul
Berto b Yuki Ishikawa
8/1 Mexico City Pista Arena Revolucion (EMLL): Sombra de Plata & Guerrero
Aguila b Bull Terry & Arima, Lady Connors & Xochitl Hamada b La Diabolica & Selena,
Fantasik & Principe Franky & Mano Negra Jr. b Medico Brujo & Hombre Lobo & Morije
Loco-DQ, Emilio Charles Jr. & Bestia Salvaje & Rambo b Atlantis & Solar & Fantasma,
Hair vs. hair: Dandy b Babe Face
8/1 Phoenix City, AL (NWF TV tapings): Brian Logan b Vic Rose, Assassin b Scotty
McKeever, Anthony Michaels b Bounty Hunter, Eli the Eliminator b Drew Golden, Jerry
Oates & Masked Superstar b Alan Lynch & Hunter, Greg Brown DCOR Joel Deaton,
Michaels b Mighty Yankee, Greg Valentine b Dale Stevens, Grappler b Lee Thomas, Eli b
Billy Smith, Deaton & Bucky Siegler b Greg Brown & Don Sanders, Manny Fernandez &
Dusty Wolfe b McKeever & Billy Gunther
8/2 Montreal Moulson Center (WWF - 9,128): Carl LeDuc b Justin Bradshaw 1/2*,
Bodydonnas won four team elimination over New rockers, Godwinns and Smoking
Gunns **, Aldo Montoya b Jerry Lawler *, Sid b Davey Boy Smith DUD, Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley **, Steve Austin b Savio Vega **1/2, Undertaker b Mankind
***, Yokozuna b Goldust DUD, Boxing match: Raymond Rougeau b Owen Hart *, WWF
title: Shawn Michaels b Vader **
8/2 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 800): European jr. title: Mikey Whipwreck b
Dirt Bike Kid to win title, Bruise Brothers b Bad Crew, Axl Rotten b Devon Storm, Taz b
El Puerto Ricano, Too Cold Scorpio & Sandman b Johnny Smith & Stevie Richards,
Louie Spicolli b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Rob Van Dam b Hack Myers, Shane Douglas &
Brian Lee & Eliminators b Gangstas & Tommy Dreamer & Pit Bull #2
8/2 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz b Filoso &
Alacran, Mr. Niebla & El Hijo del Solitario & Ultimatum b Lynx & Espectro Jr. & Halcon
***** Jr., Brazo de Plata & Brazo de Oro & Silver King b El Satanico & Black Warrior &
Rambo-DQ, Apolo Dantes & Emilio Charles Jr. & Canek b Hector Garza & Atlantis &
Rayo de Jalisco Jr., CMLL welterweight title: Guerrero de la Muerte b Mascara Magica
to win title
8/2 Isezaki (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Ichiro Yaguchi b Masahiko Kochi, Yuichi
Taniguchi b Satoru Shiga, Mighty Kodiak b Bruiser Okamoto, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Crusher
Takahashi b Yoshihiro Tajiri & Yosuke Kobayashi, Seiji Yamakawa b Bull Pain, Shoji
Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Kendo Nagasaki & Jason Knight
8/2 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 229): Johnny Saint b Sugamoto, Wellington
Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa DCOR Kendo & Piloto Suicida, Tiger Mask b Masato
Yakushiji, Shiryu & Dick Togo & Mens Teoh b Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Naohiro
Hoshikawa
8/2 Sapporo (JD - 860): Abe & Esther Moreno b Princesa Blanca & Yano, Neftaly b
Alda Moreno, Kumiko Maekawa & Chaparita Asari b Koyama & Chikako Shiratori,
Cooga & Bloody Phoenix b Yuki Lee & Jaguar Yokota, Bison Kimura b Lioness Asuka
8/2 Taber, Alberta (Ind - 290): Bounty Hunter & Dennis Himmler b Blackjack
Helton & Joe Sharpadze, Keith Hart b Steve Gillespie, Rick Titan (Big Titan) b Kenny
Johnson, Mike Anthony b Phil LaFleur (Dan Kroffat), Bruce & Ross Hart b Cuban
Assassin (Angel Acevedo) & King Lau, Gothic Knight b Powerhouse Neidhart-DQ
8/2 Boca Raton, FL (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 900): Johnny Torres b
Mannibal the Cannibal, Clint Esteben b Larry Lane, Punk Rock b Paul Adonis, Clay
Hatfield b Bobby Davis-DQ, Duke Droese b Demon Hellstorm
8/2 Jonesboro, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling): Bart Sawyer b Reggie
B. Fine, Giant Warrior b Ron McClarity, Brian Christopher b Fine, Colorado Kid b Justin
St. John, Wolfie D NC Jamie Dundee
8/2 Albemarle, NC (Hardcore Wrestling Alliance - 90/free show): Russian
Assassin (Ray Hudson) & Brimstone Shocker b Carolina Pit Bull & Playboy, Sweet
Dreams (Mark Howard) b Juicer, Venom b Champagne, Rick Michaels b High
Performance, Willow the Whisp (Jeff Hardy) b High Voltage (Matt Hardy), Dreams b
Ryder
8/3 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,500 sellout): European jr. title: Mikey
Whipwreck b Devon Storm, Johnny Smith b Louie Spicolli, Axl Rotten NC D-Von
Dudley, Stevie Richards b Sandman, Too Cold Scorpio b Chris Jericho, ECW TV title:
Shane Douglas b Pit Bull #2 , Brian Lee & Taz b Steve Williams & Tommy Dreamer, ECW
tag titles: Gangstas won title in four corners match over Eliminators, Samoan Gangstas
and Bruise Brothers, Stretcher match: Sabu b Rob Van Dam
8/3 Koriyama (Michinoku Pro - 435): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Sugamoto, Johnny
Saint b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Tiger Mask & Kendo b Super Delfin & Piloto Suicida, Dick
Togo & Mens Teoh b Great Sasuke & Masato Yakushiji, Central American middleweight
title: Shiryu b Gran Naniwa to win title
8/3 Hashimoto (All Japan women): Rie Tamada & Yoshiko Tamura & Momoe
Nakanishi & Yachio Kawamoto b Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Nana Takahashi &
Miho Wakizawa, Reggie Bennett b Chaparita Asari, Mariko Yoshida b Mima Shimoda,
Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue b Genki Misae & Etsuko Mita, Yumiko Hotta b Tomoko
Watanabe, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b Aja Kong & Takako Inoue
8/3 Asahikawa (Battlarts - 144): Takeshi Ono b Dieusel Berto, Carl Greco b Minoru
Tanaka, Katsumi Usuda b Alexander Otsuka, Yuki Ishikawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda d Taka
Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki, Daisuke Ikeda b Satoshi Yoneyama
8/3 Kuchian (JD - 320): Bloody Phoenix & Kosugi b Koyama & Abe, Yuki Lee b Alda
Moreno, Cooga b Princesa Blanca, Bison Kimura b Neftaly, Esther Moreno & Lioness
Asuka b Chikako Shiratori & Jaguar Yokota
8/3 Puebla (AAA): Quarterback b The Rose, Tornado & Discovery b Duende &
Ravana-DQ, Cien Caras & Halcon Dorado Jr. & Fishman & Angel Blanco Jr. b Super
Calo & Latin Lover & Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada, Pierroth Jr. & Los Villanos III
& IV & V b Super Muneco & Los Payasos, El Mexicano & Hong Kong Lee (Kato Kung
Lee) & Kato Kung Lee Jr. b My Flowers & Baby Sharon & Pimpinela Escarlata, Pierroth
& Villanos b Caras & Dorado & Fishman & Blanco
8/3 Milwaukee (Mid American Wrestling - 782): Farmer Vic & Bouncer Bullinski
& Chad Love b Jawbreaker Jones & Billy Wild & Super Ninja, Danny Boy Hawkins
DCOR Pete Madden, Barfly Mike b Mauler, Spymaster & Col. Blatnik b Frankie DeFalco
& Johnny Mercedes, Waverider Craig b Danny Dominion, Billy Joe Eaton b Bam Bam
Bigelow-DQ
8/3 Corning, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling): Reggie Montgomery b
Charlie Parker, Man Mountain Mike won Battle Royal, Jason Shipman b Justin St. John,
Colorado Kid b Giant Warrior
8/3 Hayward, CA (All Pro Wrestling - 91 sellout): Erin O'Grady b Boom Boom
Comini, Chris Cole & Donovan Morgan b Duane Jones & Bill Calhoun, Joe Applebaumer
b Rick Turner, Robert Thompson b Steve Rizzono, Chicano Flame NC El Flamingo,
Frank Dalton DCOR Mike Diamond, Michael Modest b Matt Hyson
8/3 Concord, NC (Carolina Championship Wrestling - 130): David Osbourne b
Killer Force #1 , Willie Clay b One Man Possee-DQ, Baby Huey b Equalizer, Tom Jackson
& Will from the Hill b Cannon-DQ, L.A. Stephens b Gary Royal-COR, Jackie Fulton b
Rikki Nelson
8/3 Jacksonville, FL (Renegade Championship Wrestling - 116): Johnny Blade
b Jerry Blanchard, Tequila Sunrise b Don Fonte, Taz & Saber b Grave Diggers,
Checkmate b Hard Rock Rick, Scott Andrews & Damian Storm b Smurfs, Lord of
Discipline b Twisted Sister
8/4 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Universal Vale Tudo - 3,200): Eugenio Tadeau b Nigel
Scantelbury 2:20, Pedro Otarvio b Manabu Ohara 30:00, Hugo Durate b Harold
Howard 0:29, Tournament first round: Fred Floyd b Ennis Crowel 1:41, Sinisa Kapicic b
Denilson Maia 4:52, David Hood b Mikhail Patrick 9:32, Richard Herd b Scott Groff
1:05, second round: Floyd b Kapicic-forfeit, Herd b Hood 4:26, Herd b Floyd 1:58 to win
tournament, Oleg Taktarov b Joe Charles 4:42, Marco Ruas b Steve Jennum 1:45
8/4 Ottawa, ONT (WWF - 5,572): Carl LeDuc b Justin Bradshaw, Smoking Gunns
won four corners match over New Rockers, Godwinns and Bodydonnas, Owen Hart b
Aldo Montoya, Yokozuna b Goldust, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader, Steve Austin b
Savio Vega, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Sid b Davey Boy Smith, Undertaker b
Mankind
8/4 Sapporo (Battlarts - 516): Dieusel Berto b Satoshi Yoneyama, Katsumi Usuda &
Shoichi Funaki b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Alexander Otsuka, Carl Greco b Takeshi Ono, Taka
Michinoku d Minoru Tanaka, Yuki Ishikawa b Daisuke Ikeda
8/4 Hakodate (JD - 590): Koyama b Abe, Princesa Blanca b Bloody Phoenix, Yuki Lee
& Jaguar Yokota b Chikako Shiratori & Lioness Asuka, Esther Moreno & Cooga b Bison
Kimura & Alda Moreno
8/4 Nagai (Michinoku Pro - 287): Johnny Saint b Sugamoto, Wellington Wilkens Jr.
b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Piloto Suicida & Gran Naniwa b Kendo & Tiger Mask, Shiryu &
Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Masato Yakushiji
8/4 Monterrey (AAA - 6,000 sellout): Halloween & Karis la Momia & Damian &
Espectro b Latin Lover & Silver Star & Antifaz & Sergio Romo Jr., Konnan & Rey
Misterio Jr. & Venum & Tinieblas Jr. b Heavy Metal & Picudo & Super Crazy & Jerry
Estrada, Lumberjack strap match: Aarandu & Pierroth Jr. & Sanguinario b Winners & La
Parka & Frisbee, Hallowen & Karis & Damian & Espectro b Konnan & Misterio Jr. &
Venum & Tinieblas Jr.
8/4 Mexico City Pista Arena Revolucion (EMLL): Cafre & Kundra b Pegaso &
Kung Fu Jr., Filoso & Ultimatum & Alacran b America & Reyes Veloz & Kundra, El Hijo
del Gladiador & Americo Rocca & Karloff Lagarde Jr. b El Brazo & El Hijo del Solitario &
Rambo, Hair vs. hair: Damiancito b Mascarita Magica, Bestia Salvaje & Gran Markus Jr.
& Kahoz b Brazo de Oro & Silver King & Lizmark Jr.
8/4 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Bart Sawyer b
Sizzler, Charlie Parker b Reggie Montgomery, Bill Dundee & Sawyer b Giant Warrior &
Justin St. John, Colorado Kid b Motor City Mad Man
8/4 San Bernardino, CA (Empire Wrestling Federation): Eddie Williams b Vik
Victory, Gary Key b Jason the Butcher, Ghetto Boyz b Tama Toa & Silver Wings, Irish
Assassin b Suicide Kid, Louie Spicolli & Bulldog Sampson b Chris Daniels & Ragin
Raven, Bobby Bradley b Lil Haystacks (Wayne Bradley)
8/5 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 450 sellout/all
freebies): WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Rock & Roll Express, Malia Hosaka b Madusa,
Alex Wright b Chris Benoit-COR, Randy Savage b Steve Regal, Booty Man b Ric Flair-
DQ, WCW title: The Giant b Craig Pittman, Lex Luger & Sting b Nasty Boys
8/5 Memphis (USWA - 875): Bart Sawyer b Punisher, Flex Kavana b Leon Downs,
Tony Falk b Tony Williams, Johnny Rotten b Ashley Hudson, USWA tag titles:
Moondogs b Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine to win titles, Jamie Dundee b Wolfie D,
Koko Ware b Bill Dundee, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Tommy Rich-DQ, Unified
title: Ware b Jerry Lawler-DQ
8/5 Osaka Furitsu Gym (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Satoru Shiga b Yosuke
Kobayashi, Yuichi Taniguchi b Masahiko Kochi, Jason Knight b Crusher Takahashi, Bull
Pain & Mighty Kodiak b Ichiro Yaguchi & Seiji Yamakawa, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b
Kendo Nagasaki
8/5 Hamamatsu (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Akinori Tsukioka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Orito b Felinito, Takashi Okano & Tudor the Turtle b Jun Nagaoka & Katsumi Hirano,
Black Hearts (Barry Houston & David Heath) b Keizo Matsuda & Leatherface (Rick
Patterson), Terry Gordy & Hiroshi Itakura & Keisuke Yamada b Tarzan Goto & Flying
Kid Ichihara & Ryo Myake
8/5 Hakodate (Battlarts): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Alexander Otsuka, Shoichi Funaki b
Takeshi Ono, Dieusel Berto b Satoshi Yoneyama, Daisuke Ikeda & Taka Michinoku b
Minoru Tanaka & Yuki Ishikawa, Katsumi Usuda b Carl Greco
8/6 Tokin (IWA): Jun Nagaoka b Akinori Tsukioka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Orito b
Felinito, Keisuke Yamada & Tudor the Turtle b Katsumi Hirano & Takeshi Sato,
Leatherface & Terry Gordy b Black Hearts, Ryo Myake & Flying Kid Ichihara & Tarzan
Goto b Keizo Matsuda & Takashi Okano & Hiroshi Itakura
8/6 Komoki (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Masahiko Kochi b Satoru Shiga, Ichiro
Yaguchi b Yosuke Kobayashi, Bruiser Okamoto b Bull Pain-DQ, Jason Knight &
Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Crusher Takahashi, Seiji Yamakawa b Mighty
Kodiak, Barbed wire board street fight: Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Shoji Nakamaki b Kendo
Nagasaki & Yuichi Taniguchi
8/6 Imabetsu (Michinoku Pro - 107): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Sugamoto, Taka
Michinoku & Inazuma b Hayato Nanjyo & Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask & Gran
Hamada b Gran Naniwa & Ricky Fuji, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Naohiro
Hoshikawa & Koji Nakagawa & Super Delfin
8/6 Greenville, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 283): Freedom Fighter
b Purple Haze (Johnny Dollar), Steve Anderson d J.W.Steele, Butcher Blackwell b
Dollar, Mikki Free & Ricky Regal b Desperado & Jake Mulligan (Terry Randall), Cruiser
Lewis NC Swat (Steve Carlton)
8/6 Front Royal, VA (National Wrestling League - 500/fairgrounds show): Metal
Maniac & Switchblade & Shane Shadows b Texas Outlaw & Blackhawk & Crow, Lust NC
Bill Gregory, Odd Squad won Battle Royal, Jimmy Snuka b King Kong Bundy
8/7 Warwick, RI (WWF - 1,733): Bob Holly b Justin Bradshaw **, Owen Hart b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley ***, Strap match: Savio Vega b Goldust **1/2, Steve Austin b
Aldo Montoya ***, Sid b Vader DUD, Davey Boy Smith b Marc Mero 1/2*, WWF tag
titles: Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-DQ **, Undertaker b Mankind *
8/7 West Helena, AR (USWA - 600 sellout): Miss Texas & Flex Kavana b Samantha
& Punisher, Moondog Spot b Tony Myers, Wolfie D b Jamie Dundee, USWA title: Brian
Christopher b Bill Dundee, Doug Gilbert b Tommy Rich-DQ, Unified title: Jerry Lawler
b Koko Ware-COR
8/7 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Chicago Express & Felino & Mano Negra b
Mr. Niebla & Dandy & El Brazo, Hair vs. mask: Olimpico b Damian el Guerrero, CMLL
tag titles: El Hijo del Gladiador & Gran Markus Jr. b Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis to win
titles
8/7 Choshi (IWA - 150): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Orito
b Felinito, Takashi Okano & Tudor the Turtle b Akinori Tsukioka & Katsumi Hirano,
Black Hearts b Leatherface & Hiroshi Itakura, Tarzan Goto & Flying Kid Ichihara & Ryo
Myake b Terry Gordy & Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda
8/7 Urbana, OH (Big Time Wrestling): Beau James b Bobby Fulton, Debbie Combs
b Robbie Rage, Sean Casey b Badstreet, Tracy Smothers b Grim Reaper, Combs & Fulton
b James & Rage
8/8 Hyannis, MA (WWF - 1,964): Bob Holly b Justin Bradshaw, Owen Hart b Hunter
Hearst Helmsley, Strap match: Savio Vega b Goldust, Davey Boy Smith b Marc Mero,
Steve Austin b Aldo Montoya, Sid b Vader, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Smoking Gunns-
DQ, Weapons match: Undertaker b Mankind
8/8 Shimozumo (IWA - 600): Takeshi Sato b Akinori Tsukioka, Emi Motokawa b
Kadota, Tudor the Turtle & Keizo Matsuda b Jun Nagaoka & Katsumi Hirano, Takashi
Okano & Hiroshi Itakura b Ryo Myake & Flying Kid Ichihara, Orito b Felinito, Keisuke
Yamada & Terry Gordy b Black Hearts, Tarzan Goto b Leatherface
8/8 Seki (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Satoru Shiga b Yosuke Kobayashi, Yuichi
Taniguchi b Ichiro Yaguchi, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Masahiko Kochi, Bruiser Okamoto b Bull
Pain, Dr. Wagner Jr. b Crusher Takahashi, Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji Yamakawa & Jason
Knight b Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Mighty Kodiak
8/8 Honjo (Michinoku Pro - 291): Hayato Nanjyo b Masato Yakushiji, Shiryu b
Naohiro Hoshikawa, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh b Gran Naniwa & Wellington Wilkens Jr.,
Koji Nakagawa & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada b Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku &
Ricky Fuji
8/8 Corning, NY (United States Wrestling League): Johnny Diamond b
Milwaukee Mauler, A.C. Lake b Steve Corino, Preston Steele & T.C. Reynolds b Damage
Inc., Johnny Gunn b Tony DeVito, Demolition Ax b Primo Carnera III, Bam Bam
Bigelow b King Kaluha-DQ
8/9 New York Madison Square Garden (WWF - 11,314): Justin Bradshaw b Aldo
Montoya *1/2, Godwinns b New Rockers *, Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley
***1/2, Mankind b Jake Roberts DUD, Sid DCOR Vader **, Yokozuna b Owen Hart *1/2,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b Bodydonnas
**, Savio Vega b Davey Boy Smith *1/2, Undertaker b Steve Austin-DQ
8/9 Omagari (Michinoku Pro - 310): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji,
Gran Naniwa b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Dick Togo & Shiryu b Hayato Nanjyo & Koji
Nakagawa, North American mid-heavyweight title: Ricky Fuji b Mens Teoh, Super
Delfin & Gran Hamada b Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki
8/9 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz b Filoso &
Mano Negra Jr., El Hijo del Solitario & Ultimatum & Fantastik b Yone Genjin &
Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del Futuro, Rey Bucanero & El Signo & Astro Rey Jr. b El
Brazo & Ringo Mendoza & Ninja de Fuego (Kendo), Guerrero de la Muerte & Rambo &
Bestia Salvaje b Brazo de Oro & La Fiera & Mascara Magica-DQ, Dos Caras & Lizmark &
Lizmark Jr. b ***** Casas & El Satanico & Black Warrior-DQ
8/9 Nezahualcoyotl (AAA): Hollywood b La Ley, Discovery & Tornado b Ravana &
Duende, Pierroth Jr. & Los Villanos III & IV & V b Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada
Jr. & Mascara Sagrada & Tinieblas Jr., Karis la Momia & Espectro & Damian &
Halloween b El Mexicano & La Parka & Winners & Super Calo, Lumberjack strap match:
Torero & Salsero & Frisbee b My Flowers & Baby Sharon & Pimpinela Escarlata, Pierroth
& Villanos b Karis & Espectro & Damian & Halloween
8/9 Tlalnepantla (PROMELL): Colt & Enigma b Kamikaze & Ave de Fuego, Ultimo
Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde b Gakic & Lyguila, Angelito Azteca & Mini Electra b Payasito
I & Piratita Morgan, Angel Azteca & Skayde & Super Electra d Shu El Guerrero &
Panterita del Ring & Zapatista, Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 & Cyborg b
Fantasma & Vampiro Canadiense & Brazo de Plata
8/9 Honesdale, PA (World Wide Wrestling Alliance): Steve Savage b Max
Diesel, Blue Thunder b Glenn Osbourne, Nasty Angel b Fantasia, Sniper b Metal Maniac,
Derek Domino b Harley Lewis, Jack Hammer b Gino Caruso, Jimmy Snuka b Johnny
Rock
8/10 Yokohama Bunka Gym (ECW/IWA - 1,800): Orito b Felinito, Kyoko Ichiki b
Emi Motokawa, Keizo Matsuda & Tudor the Turtle b Jun Nagaoka & Takeshi Sato,
Keisuke Yamada & Takashi Okano b Ryo Myake & Flying Kid Ichihara, Buh Buh Ray
Dudley b Katsumi Hirano, Black Hearts b Hiroshi Itakura & Leatherface, Handicap
match: Eliminators b Tarzan Goto, Tommy Dreamer & Terry Gordy b Raven & Stevie
Richards
8/10 Bethlehem, PA (WWF - 3,038): Justin Bradshaw b Aldo Montoya, Marc Mero
b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Yokozuna b Owen Hart, Godwinns won triangle match over
New Rockers and Smoking Gunns, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Davey Boy Smith b Jake
Roberts-DQ, Sid DDQ Vader, Undertaker b Mankind, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b
Goldust
8/10 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP): One-night tourney for JWP jr. title: Tomoko
Kuzumi b Tomoko Miyaguchi, Fusayo Nouchi b Yuki Miyazaki, Rieko Amano b Kanako
Motoya, Kuzumi b Nouchi, Amano b Hiromi Yagi, Kuzumi b Amano to win title, Devil
Masami & Cutie Suzuki & Commando Boirshoi b Hikari Fukuoka & Candy Okutsu &
Miyaguchi, JWP title: Dynamite Kansai b Mayumi Ozaki
8/10 Kogawa (Michinoku Pro - 490): Shiryu b Masato Yakushiji, Koji Nakagawa b
Naohiro Hoshikawa, Ricky Fuji & Mens Teoh b Hayato Nanjyo & Gran Hamada, Shoichi
Funaki & Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo b Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa &
Super Delfin
8/10 Toyama (LLPW): Michiko Omukai b Wadabe, Mikiko Futagami b Sayori Okino,
Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori b Noriyo Tateno & Keiko Aono, Karula b Mizuki Endo,
Rumi Kazama & Shinobu Kandori b Michiko Nagashima & Eagle Sawai
8/10 Niigata (Gaea): One-night tag team tournament: Sugar Sato (Toshie Sato) &
Chikayo Nagashima b Chigusa Nagayo & Makie Numao, Toshie Uematsu & Matsumoto
b Kaoru & Ishii, Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato b Bomber Hikaru & Chihiro Nakano,
Sato & Nagashima b Uematsu & Matsumoto, Sato & Nagashima b Satomura & Kato to
win tournament
8/10 Ohara (JD): Yano b Abe, Bloody Phoenix b Neftaly, Yuki Lee & Bison Kimura b
Alda Moreno & Esther Moreno, Jaguar Yokota & Chikako Shiratori & Yoko Kosugi b
Lioness Asuka & Cooga & Koyama
8/10 Cordele, GA (Peach State Wrestling - 612): Dale Lucas b Carolina Kid, David
Jerrico d Rick Savage, Rex King b Lee Thomas, Too Cold Scorpio b Gorgeous George III
(Rob Kellum), Ladder lumberjack weapons loser leaves town match for Cordele City
title: Rob Van Dam b Billy Black, Rock & Roll Express b Twisted Sister (Ricky Knoff) &
Scott Armstrong, Tony Atlas DCOR Abdullah the Butcher
8/10 Fall Branch, TN (Southern States Wrestling): Danny Christian & Johnny
Thunder b Cooper Brothers, Killer Kyle b Tracy Smothers, Danny Christian b Steve
Flynn-DQ, Major DeBeers b El Toro, War Machine & Bubba & Johnny Thunder b Frank
Parker & Roger Anderson & Beau James, Machine won Battle Royal
8/10 Charlotte, NC (Hardcore Wrestling Alliance - 88): Ethan Storm b Russian
Assassin (Ray Hudson), Grunge Master (Larry Skipper) b Brian Polk, Star Ryder
(Hudson) b Rick Michaels, Sweet Dreams b Juicer
8/10 Brighton, TN (American Wrestling Alliance): J.T. Storm b Chris Mason,
Johnny Reb b Kim Hanson, America's Most Wanted b Todd Johnson & Derrick King,
David Denton & Motley Cruz & Bad News b Blade Boudreaux & Tim White & Chris Gray,
Don Bass b Danny B. Goode
8/11 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (ECW/IWA - 2,000 sellout): Orito b Felinito, Emi
Motokowa b Kyoko Ichiki, Tudor the Turtle & Katsumi Hirano & Hiroshi Itakura b
Akinori Tsukioka & Ryo Myake & Flying Kid Ichihara, Stevie Richards b Keizo Matsuda,
Leatherface & Terry Gordy b Black Hearts, ECW tag titles: Eliminators b Keisuke
Yamada & Takashi Okano, IWA title: Tarzan Goto b Buh Buh Ray Dudley
8/11 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (LLPW - 2,020 sellout): Chihiro Nakano b Keiko Aono,
Makie Numao b Sayori Okino, Mizuki Endo b Michiko Omukai, LLPW 6 woman titles:
Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima & Shark Tsuchiya b Carol Midori & Yasha Kurenai &
Mikiko Futagami, Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama & Harley Saito b Noriyo Tateno &
Meiko Satomura & Chigusa Nagayo
8/11 Kofu (Kitao Dojo - 4,500 sellout): Pequeno Guerrero d Yoshikazu Taru, Yuki
Ishikawa b Satoshi Yoneyama, Daisuke Ikeda b Alexander Otsuka, Nobukazu Hirai &
Yuji Yasuraoka b Arashi & Jun Kikuchi, Gedo & Jado b Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi
Okamura, Hiromichi Fuyuki b Nobutaka Araya, Genichiro Tenryu & Koji Kitao b Koki
Kitahara & Tatsuo Nakano
8/11 Akita (Michinoku Pro - 434): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji, Ricky
Fuji & Shoichi Funaki b Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa, Independent jr. title: Taka
Michinoku b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu b Gran Naniwa &
Super Delfin & Gran Hamada
8/11 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): El Cafre & Fiero b La Flecha & Principe
Franky, Yone Genjin & Lynx & Corazon Salvaje b Supremo II & America & Bufalo
Salvaje, Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del Futuro & Halcon ***** Jr. b Ultimatum &
Atlantico & Kung Fu, Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Rey Bucanero & Americo Rocca b El Brazo &
El Hijo del Solitario & Ringo Mendoza, Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera & Gran Markus
Jr. b Dos Caras & La Fiera & Brazo de Plata
8/11 Baltimore (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Bluedust (Blue Meanie) b
Mad Dog O'Malley, Menace 2 Society b Head Bangers, Lucifer b Bob Starr-DQ, Darkside
(Chuck Williams & Glenn Osbourne) b Cat Burglar & Ramblin Rich, Mark Schrader b
Corporal Punishment, Knuckles Zandwich b Joe Thunder, Earl the Pearl & Boo Bradley
b Steve Corino & Jimmy Cicero, Johnny Gunn b Johnny Taylor-DQ, Axl Rotten b Hack
Myers
8/11 Quakertown, PA (World Wide Wrestling Alliance): M.Quackenbush b
Gordon Holmes, Blue Thunder b Glenn Osbourne, Derek Domino b Chris Krueger, Jack
Hammer b Darkside Rebel (Chuck Williams), Diablo Cujo b Sniper, Harley Lewis b Mike
Sharpe
8/11 Detroit (Insane Championship Wrestling): Brian Fury b Breyer Wellington
& Pierre Francois, Bill Scullion b Blue Scorpion, Rhino Richards NC Francois, Malcolm
Monroe b Alexis Machine, Havoc Inc. b Midnight Riders, Bruiser Bedlam b Ian Rotten,
Tex Monroe b Psycho Ric
8/11 Gunma (Wrestle Dream Factory): Fukuda b Bashara, Madness b Wolf & Aja
Koji, Shi....mi b Shinichi Shino, Hirofumi Miura b Hiroyoshi Kotsubo, Silver King &
Hector Garza & Onryuo b Masayoshi Motegi & Super Crazy & Kamikaze, Yoshiaki
Fujiwara b Shinichi Nakano
8/12 Tokyo Budokan Hall (All Japan women Discover New Heroine - 4,500):
Kaoru Ito & Saya Endo & Momoe Nakanishi b Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Mariko
Yoshida 18:12 ***1/4, First round tag team tournament: Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b
Chigusa Nagayo & Hirota (Gaea) 9:13 ***, Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo (FMW) b
Jaguar Yokota & Yuko Kosugi (JD) 18:13 **, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b
Miss Mongol (Aki Kanbayashi) & Shark Tsuchiya 10:29 ***, Toshiyo Yamada & Sonoko
Kato (Gaea) b Genki Misae & Etsuko Mita 11:30 *, Bison Kimura & Yuki Lee (JD) b
Chikako Shiratori (JD) & Mima Shimoda 13:45 *1/2, Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko
Kuzumi (JWP) b Kyoko Ichiki (IWA) & Takako Inoue 15:22 ****, Manami Toyota & Rie
Tamada b Hikari Fukuoka & Rieko Amano (JWP) 16:18 ***, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita
Asari b Devil Masami & Tomoko Miyaguchi (JWP) 16:18 ***1/4, U! tournament first
round shoot matches: Rosina Elina (Russia judo) b Yoko Takahashi (Japan pro
wrestling) 6:09, Reggie Bennett (USA pro wrestling) b Elma Wayhoff (Holland kick
boxing) 18:28, Lioness Asuka (Japan pro wrestling) b Margot Neyfoft (Holland kick
boxing) 15:31, Yumiko Hotta (Japan pro wrestling) b Valerie Witt (France savate) 6:05
8/12 Casper, WY (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 6,408/4,220 paid): Kevin
Sullivan & Meng & Barbarian & Hugh Morrus b Dick Slater & Mike Enos & High Voltage
DUD, Diamond Dallas Page b Renegade 1/2*, Konnan b Jim Powers *1/4, Chris Benoit b
Ron Studd *1/4, WCW tag titles: Rick & Scott Steiner b Harlem Heat-DQ *1/2, WCW
cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Ultimo Dragon ***1/4, Ric Flair b Randy Savage
**3/4, Sting & Lex Luger NC Scott Hall & Kevin Nash *3/4
8/13 Tokyo Budokan Hall (All Japan women Discover New Heroine - 6,000):
Tag tournament quarterfinals: Bison Kimura & Yuki Lee b Megumi Kudo & Kaori
Nakayama 16:51, Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Kuzumi b Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko
Maekawa 14:12 ***1/2, Toshiyo Yamada & Sonoko Kato b Rie Tamada & Manami Toyota
13:21 ****, Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari 14:22 ***1/2,
Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno) won 20 woman Royal Rumble 27:03 DUD, Semifinals:
Kansai & Kuzumi b Kimura & Lee 2:43, Kong & Tamura b Kato & Yamada 12:25 ***1/2,
Finals: Kansai & Kuzumi b Kong & Tamura 18:05 ****1/4, U! tournament: Rosina Elina
b Reggie Bennett 9:47, Yumiko Hotta b Lioness Asuka 3:11, Elina b Hotta 12:44 to win
tournament
Special thanks to: Ron Lemieux, Adrian Chavarria, Charles Butera, Chuck Langermann,
Dave Rude, Tim Noel, Dan Parris, Lewis Crain, James Tucker, Dean Ayass, Gregg John,
Bernard Siegel, Sarah Moore, Bert Prentice, Dominick Valenti, William Jordan, Kevin
Carson, Jesse Money, Bob Garst, Woody Carlson, Walt Spafford, Michael Omansky,
Jerry Glascock, Frank Mott, Bruce Mitchell, Georgiann Makropolous, John Williams,
Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Fay Ferguson, Roland Alexander, Dan Curtis, David Millican,
Kim Lamberth, Ross Hart, Mike Heimberger, Mike Johnson
EMLL
PROMELL ran its first television taping on 8/9 in Tlalnepantla and was said to have
drawn a good crowd but the show was marred by no-shows, which included Lizmark Jr.
and Violencia (Pirata Morgan) in the main event and Blue Panther (one of the
promotion's founders who is said to have moved to Los Angeles) on the undercard.
Fuerza Guerrera, the other founder, wasn't scheduled for the show. However, both
worked EMLL's 8/11 main event at Arena Coliseo and Panther started a major angle
with La Fiera who was stretchered out and taken away from the arena in an ambulance.
The PROMELL TV show is scheduled to debut on 8/17 on TV-Azteca (available on
satellite, don't know air time). Main event ended up being Mascara Ano 2000 &
Universo 2000 & Cyborg Cop over Fantasma & Vampiro & Brazo de Plata. Brazo de
Plata was a surprise since anyone appearing on this television is said to be banned from
appearing on Televisa. Mascara made Vampiro submit in the third fall to set up a singles
match on the 8/16 television taping and there wasn't much underneath.
Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador captured the CMLL tag team titles from
Atlantis & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. on 8/6 at Arena Coliseo. Rayo was injured in the second
fall so Atlantis basically went on alone in the third fall. After losing, Rayo & Atlantis both
put up their masks challenging for a title rematch. Gladiador & Markus got the shot
winning an eight-team tournament on 7/30, beating the Lizmarks in the finals.
Also on the 8/6 Coliseo show, Olimpico beat Damian el Guerrero in a mask vs. hair
match so Damian was shaved and the fans liked this match so much that they threw lots
of money into the ring.
The other major title change took place on 8/2 at Arena Mexico where Guerrero de la
Muerte beat Mascara Magica to win the CMLL welterweight title with a low blow finish.
After the two worked in a trios match on 8/9 which ended up with them ripping each
others' masks and Magica juicing heavy, they set up a mask vs. mask match that
headlines the 8/16 show. Semi on 8/16 is Rayo & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. vs. Emilio
Charles Jr. & Markus & Black Warrior.
Dr. Wagner Jr. returned 8/13 from his tour of Japan with Big Japan.
The Vittorino benefit show takes place 8/14 at Arena Coliseo with Vampiro & Dandy &
Lizmark vs. Charles & Canek & Apolo Dantes and Los Brazos vs. ***** Casas & Felino &
Americo Rocca as the double main.
Dandy beat Babe Face (a big star from the 70s who used to tag team with Bret Hart in
Japan) in a hair vs. hair match on 8/1 at Pista Arena Revolucion. Two nights later Dandy
headlined the same building beating Charles to keep the NWA light heavyweight title.
They also had a minis hair match in the same building on 8/4 with Damiancito beating
Mascarita Magica.
Hector Garza beat Pirata Morgan (who is now under a mask as Violencia) in a hair
match on 7/29 in Puebla.
AAA
Most of the current focus on the major shows are tournaments to create new National
Relevos (four-man team) championships which ended up with Los Villanos & Pierroth
Jr. winning the championship match on 8/9 in Nezahualcoyotl over Karis la Momia &
Espectro & Damian & Halloween. Among the tournament winners over the past two
weeks were Halloween & Karis la Momia & Espectro & Damian (the 8/4 Monterrey
tournament) and Pierroth & Villanos (8/3 Puebla).
The Distrito Federal (which governs pro wrestling in the Mexico City metropolitan area)
officially banned cage matches and street fight matches and finally officially stripped
Fuerza & Juventud Guerrera of their National tag team titles for failure to defend the
belts (since they work in different promotions). They also ruled that the only wrestler
who can use the Mascara Sagrada name in the D.F. would be the original who works for
EMLL now. AAA was really mad about the cage match ruling and its magazine, Super
Luchas, took EMLL to task since EMLL was the one behind the banning of cage and
street fight bouts, but when Carlos Elizondo (EMLL affiliated promoter) ran on 7/26 in
Monterrey, who used a street fight weapons match with Garza vs. Sangre Chicana as his
main event. There had only been two previous cage matches in the D.F. this decade, a
1990 match with Mil Mascaras vs. Kimala and a 1991 match with Cien Caras vs. Rayo de
Jalisco Jr.
Antonio Pena is interesting in bringing Big Titan in as the top foreign heel after seeing
him on the WAR shows in late July.
AAA returns to Juan de la Barrera Gym on 8/16 with Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr. &
Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Pierroth & Cien Caras & Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera as
the main event. Aguayo Jr. is said to now weigh between 176 and 183. His father had
kept him out of action since December because he wanted him to gain more weight.
The original Halcon Dorado, now 70, was furious at Halcon Dorado Jr. for losing his
mask at the TripleMania show.
Tijuana on 8/16 has a lumberjack match with Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Leon
***** vs. Pimpinela Escarlata & Misterioso & El Hijo del Enfermero on top and a ladder
match underneath. Plan in Tijuana is still to build this summer for an outdoor show with
Misterio Jr. vs. Misterioso.
Halloween needs surgery as he has two huge blood blisters in his head from taking
brutal chair shots, one from Misterio Jr. when a pumpkin that was supposed to cushion
the shock of the blow fell off right before the chair crashed on him, the other was a blow
from a fan.
Next U.S. shows are 10/20 and 10/21 in Phoenix and Tucson with Mascaras & Aguayo
vs. Caras & Pierroth in the main event. Don't ask me why they are headlining with
Mascaras. I guess they think there are a lot of fans with long memories around.
ALL JAPAN
The new tour opens on 8/17 at Korakuen Hall with Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama &
Takao Omori vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Brian Dyette, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira
Taue vs. Patriot & Stan Hansen and Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako vs. Dan Kroffat &
Masa Fuchi. 8/18 at Korakuen has Yoshinari Ogawa & Taue & Kawada vs. Giant Baba &
Misawa & Asako, Patriot & Gary Albright & Hansen vs. Johnny Smith & Ace & Williams,
Kobashi vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (Triple Crown champ vs. PWF jr. champ) and an Asian tag
team title match with Akiyama & Omori defending against Kroffat & Fuchi.
Pretty much a typical tour after that point with the only other title match before
Budokan being on 8/20 in Osaka with Kikuchi defending against Asako.
9/5 Budokan double main event is Kobashi's first title defense against Hansen, and
Misawa & Akiyama defending the tag titles against Ace & Williams.
Kazuhiro Asari, 26, a former pro boxer who has fought in the United States, is training
to start with this group, probably on the next tour.
7/27 TV show, which had the Kobashi-Taue title switch, only did a 1.0 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Apparently Riki Choshu, besides injuring his knee in the match with Shinya Hashimoto
on 8/2, also was urinating blood after the match. He had to shoot his knee up to go out
before his match on the second night against Hiroyoshi Tenzan and in the championship
match against Masahiro Chono. There has been no public announcement as of yet
regarding a Tokyo Dome show on 8/6 and again reiterated that he would retire after
1997 when New Japan will run debut shows at the new Nagoya Dome and Osaka Dome.
Road Warrior Hawk will miss the next tour as he has already had knee surgery.
Line-ups for the next tour. It opens 9/12 in Miyagi with Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki,
Animal & Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki) vs. Steiners, Choshu & Junji Hirata &
Takashi Iizuka vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka & Akira Nogami, Keiji Muto &
Satoshi Kojima vs. Chono & Hiro Saito and Kurosawa vs. Tenzan.
9/13 in Nagaoka has Hashimoto vs. Tenzan, Animal & Power vs. Choshu & Muto,
Steiners vs. Chono & Hiro Saito, Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka and
Kurosawa vs. Kojima.
9/14 in Gunma has Hashimoto vs. Koshinaka, Animal & Power vs. Steiners, Choshu &
Yuji Nagata vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka, Kurosawa vs. Chono.
9/16 in Nagoya has Hashimoto vs. Chono, Animal vs. Tenzan, Fujinami & Muto vs.
Steiners, Power vs. Kurosawa and Otani vs. Black Tiger (Eddie Guerrero).
9/17 in Kofu has Hashimoto vs. Kojima, Animal & Power vs. Chono & Tenzan, Muto &
Hirata vs. Steiners, Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Kido & Yamazaki and Kurosawa vs.
Choshu.
9/19 in Okayama has first round matches of the WCW/New Japan tournament with
Muto vs. Steve Regal, Hashimoto vs. Scott Hall, Koshinaka vs. Hugh Morrus, Chono vs.
Sting plus Animal & Power vs. Chono & Hirata, Scott Norton & Arn Anderson vs.
Steiners, Pegasus (Chris Benoit) & Samurai vs. Dean Malenko & Black Tiger and Ric
Flair vs. Kurosawa.
9/20 in Osaka has more first round matches with Fujinami vs. Flair, Sasaki vs. Lex
Luger, Tenzan vs. Anderson and Choshu vs. Norton plus Muto & Sting vs. Steiners,
Hashimoto & Black Tiger vs. Animal & Pegasus.
9/21 at Korakuen Hall (which sold out almost immediately when tickets were put on
sale) as the quarterfinal tournament matches.
The semifinals and finals are on 9/23 at Yokohama Arena plus Sasuke defends all eight
belts against Otani and Animal & mystery partner vs. Steiners.
Ultimo Dragon is at least tentatively scheduled to win all eight titles from Great Sasuke
in the fall.
Dan Severn is expected to return in October.
Weekly Pro Wrestling photographers were back for the G-1 Climax tournament. New
Japan allowed them either one or two photographers at ringside but wouldn't give them
backstage access to interview the wrestlers.
As best as anyone can tell, the story on Randy Savage and Hawk from Japan on the July
tour went something like this. Savage's music was playing, I believe for the match with
Jushin Liger. But he never came out. After everyone waiting, the ring announcer
nervously called for an intermission. When they found Savage, he was on the ground. As
best anyone knew, apparently Hawk's current girlfriend, who was a friend of Hulk
Hogan and his wife Linda and he was set up with her through them, also knew Savage
and Savage must have said something and Hawk popped him. That isn't exactly the first
time Hawk has popped someone in Japan (or the United States for that matter).
7/27 TV show did a 1.2 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Ken Shamrock apparently canceled his 9/7 match at Tokyo Bay NK Hall because his
knee won't be fully recovered. This is the next Pancrase U.S. PPV show (for 11/3).
Matches announced for that show underneath the Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki title
match are Guy Mezger vs. Ryushi Yanagisawa, Minoru Suzuki vs. Jason DeLucia,
Vernon White vs. Takayoshi Yoshimasa and Frank Shamrock vs. Yuki Kondo. SEG
officials have said that Ken Shamrock has talked with them about perhaps doing the
Ultimate Ultimate tournament after all. To do so, Ken would have a hard time doing
both that and a match on 12/15 at Sumo Hall against Frank since UU is the week after.
Ken has negotiated with the WWF for a post-shoot career as an American pro wrestler
but reports out of the WWF were that his initial demands were too high. Shamrock was a
traditional style pro wrestler (even though Pancrase is an important part of today's pro
wrestling world) in the Carolinas and in Japan and I believe was trained by Nelson Royal
and Buzz Sawyer years before UFC ever came about.
With both Great Sasuke and Tiger Mask out of action with injuries, Sasuke has gotten
Satoru Sayama to wrestle two shows for his promotion this week. It also allows Sayama
to work before small crowds to test himself out and work into some condition before his
stadium show on 8/17 against Gran Hamada.
LLPW drew a sellout of 2,020 to Korakuen Hall on 8/11 with Shinobu Kandori & Rumi
Kazama & Harley Saito beating Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura & Noriyo Tateno on
top, plus the LLPW six women tag title change with Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima
& Shark Tsuchiya from FMW winning the belts from Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori &
Mikiko Futagami.
JWP ran Korakuen Hall on 8/10 with Tomoko Kuzumi winning the first of her two
tournaments this week beating Rieko Amano to win the JWP jr. title. Candy Okutsu had
been the champ but vacated the title to lead to the tournament. Dynamite Kansai
retained the JWP title pinning Mayumi Ozaki with splash mountain in 20:22.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling's next tour will be 9/15 to 10/8. They have a special show on 8/25
at Yokohama Bunka Gym with the winner of a tag match with Takashi Ishikawa &
Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Yoji Anjoh & mystery partner facing Abdullah the Butcher &
Daikokubo Benkei, plus Dandy defending the NWA light heavyweight title against Gekko
(Masao Orihara), Sabu vs. Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) and The Sheik (at 70 years
of age) vs. Kishin Kawabata.
Shiryu won the Central American middleweight title beating Gran Naniwa (who had won
the title a week earlier from Piloto Suicida) on 8/3 in Koriyama.
Silver King, Hector Garza and Super Crazy are on tour this week for Wrestle Dream
Factory.
After its 8/24 card in Tokyo's Ariake Coliseum with Ricardo Morais (Russian UFC
second winner) vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto on top, plus Denilson Maia (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu)
vs. Illoukhine Mikhail (Russian UFC first winner), Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Maurice Smith,
Masayoshi Naruse vs. Eagen Inoue (Sayama shooting); Rings returns on 9/25 in
Sapporo with Volk Han vs. Tamura, Yamamoto vs. Andrei Kopilov and Hans Nyman vs.
Bitzsade Tariel. I just saw tapes of the past two Rings shows and enjoyed almost every
match. The matches are worked but worked in a manner where they look totally
believable (except they are usually too dramatic to be shoots). Actually because they do
more striking on their feet and the matches are more exciting since they are doing spots,
this would have more appeal in the U.S. than Pancrase although it's still something too
new that audiences really aren't quite ready for.
A correction from something here several weeks back. On the 6/30 Rikidozan Memorial
show in Yokohama, the match with Satoru Sayama against Tiger Mask didn't go 35:00.
It actually went about 13:00 to a double count out, and was then re-started and went a
few more minutes so it was more like 16-18 minutes.
USWA
Jeff Jarrett has left the promotion so Jerry Lawler was given the Unified title in one of
those phantom title change matches.
the 8/5 show drew 875 fans which was pretty good considering the calibre of things right
now. Wolfie D and Jamie Dundee continue to have good matches with each other.
The 8/5 show had Koko Ware vs. Bill Dundee with the winner to face Lawler for the title.
Ware won, but Dundee interfered in the title match saving it for Lawler with the DQ
finish so set up a tag match with Ware teaming with Wolfie on 8/12.
On the 8/3 television show, when talking about the 8/5 show, Lawler told fans not to
stay home and watch Raw because it was taped several weeks ago and all he did was beat
the crap out of Aldo Montoya.
ECW
Some notes on the 8/3 ECW Arena show. It opened with Stevie Richards, Super Nova,
Blue Meanie and Don E. Allen dressed up like the rock band KISS playing "I wanna rock
& roll all night" in one of the single greatest skits I've ever seen in my life. Sandman
came out and caned all of them, singing "I wanna kick your ass all night, and party every
day" as he caned them. Raven, Tyler & Lori Fullington came out and it wound up with
Richards superkicking Sandman and Raven hitting him in the eye with the cane.
Sandman juiced heavily to set up their match later in the show. Mikey Whipwreck
retained the European jr. title (which he won the previous night in Plymouth Meeting,
PA from Dirt Bike Kid, who is an indie wrestler in England who made his own belt to
work in ECW) beating Devon Storm. Johnny Smith debuted beating Louie Spicolli. Fans
didn't know much about Smith but he was a good worker but lacked charisma. Axl
Rotten and D-Von Dudley had a match mainly with stiff chair shots going to a no
decision until Big Dick chased D-Von away. Raven couldn't wrestle because of his foot
injury, so Richards defended the title for him against Sandman. Sandman ended up
pinned by Raven when it was all over after lots of outside interference. Lori Fullington
attacked Missy Hyatt, who is being de-emphasized. Too Cold Scorpio pinned Chris
Jericho with a first-ever ECW shooting star press. After the match, Jericho, in his final
match, praised ECW and the fans and got a nice send-off. Pit Bull #1 (Gary Wolfe) came
out announcing his broken neck (which is legit) before the Shane Douglas TV title
defense against Pit Bull #2 . Wolfe got the broken neck when he landed wrong from a
DDT by Douglas at the last show. Brian Lee & Taz beat Steve Williams & Tommy
Dreamer when Lee choke slammed Dreamer onto a garbage can. The big spot of the
match, which went about 7:00 and wasn't that good, was Dreamer taking a Taz t-bone
suplex off the top of the stage onto a table on the bottom level. During the match Bill
Alfonso attacked Beulah McGillicuddy who somehow during the melee broke her wrist
legit. Gangstas won the four way match to take the belts. Samoan Gangstas came out in
handcuffs and were pinned quickly. Bruise Brothers were pinned by Eliminators after
one of them got the total elimination. Eliminators went for total elimination on New
Jack, but he ducked and Kronus ended up kicking Saturn. New Jack came off the top
rope with a chair for the pin. Kronus and Saturn argued after the match. Sabu beat Rob
Van Dam is a stretcher match described as very good with a lot of variations on the usual
spots.
Referee Paul Richards is talking about booking shows in New England.
Several New York area dates have been canceled after losing television.
It has been reported that Kimona is through here. That may be true and may not be true
in that she was done at one point but they may bring her back. She was pulled from the
Japan tour and replaced by Beulah.
The 8/18 show in Deer Park, NY was canceled, however the 8/17 show in Staten Island is
still on. That show at the Sportsfest has three title bouts with Raven vs. Sandman,
Douglas vs. Pit Bull #2 and Gangstas vs. Samoan Gangstas plus Sabu vs. Van Dam,
Vampiro (debut) vs. Louie Spicolli, Scorpio vs. Saturn, Whipwreck vs. Kronus and
Dreamer & Gordy vs Lee & Richards and the return of the rock band KISS, or a
reasonable facsimile.
8/23 in Reading, PA billed as Requiem for a Pit Bull to tribute Gary Wolfe, has
Eliminators vs. Dreamer & Gordy, Raven & Lori vs. Missy & Sandman and Gangstas vs.
Samoan Gangstas.
ECW Arena on 8/24 is Sandman & Pit Bull #2 vs. Douglas & Raven, Gordy vs. Lee in a
Bad street match, Missy vs. Lori and Dreamer vs. Taz.
HERE AND THERE
Paul Alperstein's AWF is expected to re-start this fall having cleared a lot of major
market television stations including New York and Los Angeles in a.m. slots in the fall.
The group starts 9/21 on Ch. 2 in New York right after WCW. Lord Al Hayes is said to be
part of the announcing team along with Ken Resnick and Mick Karch. They have tapings
coming up this month in Rochester, WA and Tampa, FL with Sgt. Slaughter, Tito
Santana, Road Warriors, Koko Are and Buddy Rose scheduled.
Extreme Fighting III is scheduled on PPV on 10/4. Don't know the location. Matches
listed on the last schedule we saw were Marcus Conan Silviera defending the
heavyweight title against Denilson Maia of Brazil, Yoji Anjoh vs. Jean Riviere, Igor
Zinoviev vs. Paul Jones for the middleweight title, Ralph Gracie vs. Eugenio Tadeau of
Brazil, Melvin Murray vs. John Lewis and Alfonso Alcaraz vs. Joao Roque.
Harold "Junior" Carr, who co-promoted Championship Wrestling of America out of
Indianapolis with Jeff Cohen, passed away sometime over the past two weeks.
A group out of Chalmette, LA on 9/6 has ECW wrestlers Raven, Stevie Richards, Axl
Rotten, along with Pez Whatley, Scott & Steve Armstrong and others booked.
Ray Odyssey is out for six to eight weeks with an injured vertebrae in his back.
Larry Sharpe is moving the Monster Factory from Clementon, NJ (the Coliseum went
bankrupt) to Woodbury, NJ.
Former Global owner and World Class syndicator Max Andrews is now doing a golf
series for United airlines flights where he goes to exotic golf courses and reports trying
to get those on the flights to consider vacations in those areas.
Peach State Wrestling drew 612 on 8/10 in Cordele, GA with Tony Atlas double count
out Abdullah the Butcher on top and a loser leaves town lumberjack ladder weapons
match with Rob Van Dam over Billy Black. Too Cold Scorpio interfered to set up Van
Dam vs. Scorpio on the next show.
Shawn Stasiak, the son of Stan, who is a rookie wrestling in the Oregon area, is said to
have a lot of potential.
There will be a shoot show under submission wrestling and Pancrase rules on 8/31 in
Evansville.
A correction, Bert Prentice doesn't have any St. Louis television although he is
attempting to get some.
Victor Quinones of FMW was in Austria attempting a talent exchange deal with Otto
Wanz.
Both Brian Armstrong (Roadie) and Maxx Payne left the current Vienna tournament
without warning on 8/5. Apparently attendance on that tour was at an all-time low.
Payne was talking with wrestlers about quitting wrestling at the end of this year.
Outlaw Championship Wrestling debuts on 9/21 in Lake Hiawatha, NJ at the Power
Bomb Arena also known as the East Coast Pro Wrestling school.
Sunshine Pro Wrestling has shows 8/30 is Micuosukee Tribe in Miami and 8/31 in
Perrine, FL.
Texas All-Star Wrestling on 8/17 in Humble, TX at Bingo Hall.
Iron Sheik did a public appearance near Atlanta at a pre-Olympic meet and greet and
billed himself as a 1980 Olympic wrestling gold medalist. That's a stretch. Actually Sheik
was at the Olympic wrestling matches in Atlanta almost every day.
Tommy Fierro, Mike Walters and Steve Hicks are doing a show on 11/1 in Cullman, AL
with Iron Sheik vs. Bob Armstrong on top.
Roland Alexander and Pacific Coast Sports in Northern California are going to put
together a two-day Northern California pro wrestling reunion on 10/12 and 10/13. For
any former wrestler interested in attending, you can contact Alexander at 510-785-8396.
All Pro Wrestling is running shows at their Pacific Coast sports gym in Hayward on 9/7
and 9/28.
Green Mountain Wrestling on 10/6 in Newport, VT at the National Guard Armory.
WCW
Nitro on 8/12 in Casper, WY drew 6,408 fans (4,220 paying $51,930) which is kind of
amazing in a market that small. Among the highlights saw Konnan, working as a heel
with fans chanting USA at him, beating Jim Powers in 3:19 in one of those matches the
announcers ignored. Then he did an interview where he called NWO the New World
Odor and basically ended the interview as a face even though the fans continued to boo
him. Ron Reis returned as Big Ron Studd (his mentor was the late John Studd) and was
pinned by Chris Benoit after a superplex in 3:32 to set up Benoit vs. Giant on the Clash.
Studd is a legit 7-2 and probably three or four inches taller than Giant, so you can
imagine what it looked like when he was standing next to 5-8 Benoit. Benoit told him to
go back to wrestling school after the match. Steiners beat Harlem Heat via DQ in a title
match when Sherri tripped Scott, but ref Nick Patrick (who wasn't a heel yet on this
program) saw Rob Parker running around the ring and called the DQ in 8:57 of a *1/2
match. Rey Misterio Jr. beat Ultimo Dragon in 4:34 with a Toyota roll. All good moves
but too short (***1/4). Ric Flair pinned Randy Savage in 11:44. After a ref bump, Hulk
Hogan came out and hit Savage with a chair and Flair pinned him. Hogan explained he
didn't hit Flair with a chair because he wanted Flair at 100% for the match at the Clash
when he beats Flair (**3/4). Finale saw Sting & Lex Luger NC Scott Hall & Kevin Nash
in 3:58 when Sting was going for the stinger splash on Hall, but Nick Patrick pulled Hall
out of harms' way and Sting crashed into the buckles. The Four Horsemen then did a
run-in and chased Hall & Nash from the ring.
Tentative top three matches for the 9/15 PPV show in Winston-Salem are a War Games
with Flair & Arn Anderson & Sting & Luger vs. the NWO, Savage vs. Giant and Benoit vs.
Chris Jericho.
WCW won the 8/12 ratings battle in a big way, doing a 3.3 rating and 6.0 share (3.2 first
hour, 3.4 second hour) as compared with Raw doing a 2.0 rating and 3.1 share. The
Nitro replay did a 1.5 rating and 3.5 share. This may have been the biggest margin of
victory to date. Other WCW weekend numbers saw Saturday Night do a 2.3, Main Event
a 2.1 (boosted by being the day after a PPV that much of the West Coast couldn't see)
and Pro a 1.6.
Steve Regal is expected to win the TV title from Luger over the next few weeks and they'll
try and give the belt prestige since Regal has tours of both England and Japan in
September. They are planning on taping some Regal matches with the likes of Danny
Collins and David Finlay in England and airing them as TV title defenses (WCW is
looking to bring in more wrestlers from England in 1997) and also having him work
singles matches on the Japan tour and tape them as TV title defenses. Regal is getting
the title because originally he and Eddie Guerrero were supposed to do a program over
the U.S. title. However, the decision was changed to Flair keeping the title, and Diamond
Dallas Page got himself worked into a program with Guerrero instead of Regal.
Ted DiBiase starts at the end of this month while Jeff Jarrett won't be legally available
until the first week of October. 1-2-3 Kid will start as soon as Titan signs off on his
release.
Regular house shows the weekend before last saw 7/31 in Corpus Christi, TX drew 3,300
and $38,000; 8/1 in Beaumont, TX drew 3,200 and $37,000; 8/2 in Midland, TX drew
3,000 and $34,000 and 8/3 in Lubbock, TX drew 3,000 and $32,000.
Page wants to do a deal where he would be the Stevie Richards flunky to Ric Flair, but
Flair is said to not be so hot on the idea. Flair would in that scenario be Page's
benefactor, since they started a benefactor storyline with no idea where they were going
with it.
Add Lanny Poffo to the list who are under contract, although there are no plans of using
him. Must be nice to be a nephew or brother to a top wrestler in WCW.
TV Guide apologized to WCW on its 8/16 issue. A few weeks earlier it mentioned WCW
Nitro as being on TBS when of course it is on TNT.
The 10/28 Nitro that was scheduled for Carson, CA has been moved. Tentatively it'll be
at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, but I'd expect that to be changed as well but it'll be
somewhere in Southern California.
About a dozen wrestlers from the Gaea promotion will be coming in for a world womens
title tournament that'll probably come down to Madusa vs. Chigusa Nagayo. Don't know
exactly when, other then it's coming.
Tickets for Halloween Havoc in Las Vegas go on sale 8/31.
The local Utica, NY baseball team has bought a show from WCW for the early fall.
Highlights of the 8/5 Nitro show. Harlem Heat beat Rock & Roll Express to keep tag
titles in 11:31 when Parker and Sherri distracted Robert Gibson. Malia Hosaka upset
Madusa when Sonny Onoo interfered. Alex Wright beat Chris Benoit via count out when
Benoit was brawling with Dean Malenko outside the ring. Randy Savage pinned Regal
with the elbow. Booty Man beat Flair via DQ when all the Horsemen destroyed Booty
Man. Luger & Sting beat Nasty Boys and Giant pinned Craig Pittman. At one point Sting
& Luger went into a vacant limo and found a wreath of flowers sending condolences to
the death of WCW. That was a copy of something Jim Cornette sent to Jim Herd years
ago for real.
WWF
Although the house show business continues strong, the television situation is going to
weaken greatly in the fall as expected. At this point, it is widely expected that WWF will
lose its syndication in the new season on the Fox stations in New York, Chicago and Los
Angeles. At this point there are no done deals for new stations in any of the markets.
They will continue to tape a Superstars show even if they aren't in any major markets
(they are losing most of the big cities television because they are no longer going to pay
stations to air their shows) because they need the footage for Action Zone, so there is no
point in dropping Superstars in syndication if it loses the top markets because the
footage needs to be taped anyway. The WWF is saying publicly it is eliminating paying
for television time (obviously because it isn't cost-effective which is funny for all those
wanting to pay for TV time to break into new markets when an established group like
WWF can't make it financially feasible), that because it is doing fewer house shows and
is focusing more on cable television, PPV shows and international house shows.
The 2.0 Raw rating was doubly disastrous because it came on a show that had them
doing teases the entire hour, teasing a Vader planned attack on Shawn Michaels, Sunny
being on television with no clothes on (yeah, sure), Bret Hart's announcement regarding
his retirement (he said that he would make an announcement at some point) and Gorilla
Monsoon's announcement regarding the IC title, not to mention Michaels in the
television main against Owen Hart. Jerry Lawler was phenomenal on color, and both
Bob Backlund and Clarence Mason were hilarious as well although Backlund can only be
taken in small doses. Word we get is that the tentative plan is for Hart to make an
appearance at the Philadelphia PPV to make his announcement but he'd then probably
be out much of the rest of the year, unless they shoot an angle with Steve Austin at that
show.
Barry Windham will be a babyface as The Stalker. He's got some house show bookings in
late September against Who (Jim Neidhart).
There's nothing at all to the rumors of negotiations with Too Cold Scorpio. Simply a
story that had no truth to it, not that it couldn't happen someday.
McMahon flew to Calgary a few weeks back to finalize Bret Hart's new storyline and
program.
A Brian Pillman "Ticking Time Bomb" segment with Michaels that was scheduled to air
on the 8/5 Raw was pulled from the show because they weren't happy with how it turned
out and was replaced by a new Michaels interview.
8/9 in Madison Square Garden drew 11,314 paying $239,594. Best match was said to
have been Marc Mero vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley from all accounts. Jake Roberts
worked the show (he was in the corner of Aldo Montoya for shows during the week) but
lost in :40 to Mankind via submission. Mankind played with the snake after the match
rather than sell for the snake. Sid and Vader went to a double count out. Sid was over big
with the crowd. Michaels pinned Goldust in the main event. After the match, Mankind
attacked Michaels and Undertaker made the save. Gunns beat Bodydonnas in the match
where Candito was injured. Savio Vega pinned Davey Boy Smith. The promotion
because of the longstanding history of Puerto Rican draws at MSG dating back to Miguel
Perez Sr., Victor Rivera and Pedro Morales, is going to avoid Vega doing jobs at all costs
in that building. Final bout had Undertaker beat Austin via DQ when Mankind
interfered. Michaels came out, and then Goldust joined him before the faces ran
everyone off. Next show is an afternoon show on 9/29 with Michaels & Undertaker vs.
Mankind & Goldust, Vader vs. Sid in a lumberjack match and Faarooq vs. Yokozuna.
Also at MSG, Jim Ross did an interview with Mark Henry. Helmsley came out and
Henry ended up shoving down Helmsley. Fans chanted USA but there were also people
riding on Henry and a sizeable b.s. chant when they announced him as the world's
strongest man since he only finished 14th in the Olympics. Henry having signed a ten
year contract with the WWF is an apparent shoot which is a surprising risk. Henry has
been a wrestling fan from childhood, and the WWF sponsored his training for the
Olympics and it was well known he'd go into wrestling after the Olympics. However, the
track record of former lifters going into wrestling is spotty at best. Paul Anderson and
Doug Hepburn, the two strongmen of the 50s, never really made it in pro wrestling.
Need I remind anyone of Bill Kazmaier or Ted Arcidi. Tosh Togo was a bigger star as an
actor than a wrestler. Doug Furnas made it in Japan, but his record lifts had virtually
nothing to do with it. Ken Patera was a legitimate star in the 70s and 80s. Anyway, a ten
year deal for someone who has yet to attend his first wrestling training class is certainly
ambitious. They expect Henry to trim down from 410 to 350 and debut perhaps as early
as September. Henry is very agile for his size and can dunk a basketball, which is
something both Patera and Furnas were and that Arcidi, Anderson, Hepburn and
Kazmaier weren't. Henry, who is 25, pulled a muscle in his low back (which will delay his
starting his wrestling training for a few more weeks) attempting a 408 pound snatch
which limited him to 14th place. Another thing that may be something to consider is that
Furnas was a college football star, while Patera was a star in college track, whereas
Henry, as the world's strongest teenager, still wasn't even a good high school football
player.
On Raw this week, Ron Simmons was referred to as Faarooq rather than Faarooq Asad.
House shows over the past two weeks were 8/2 in Montreal for the opening of the
Moulson Center drew 9,128 and $172,451; 8/3 in Quebec City drew 3,954 and $73,385;
8/4 in Ottawa also in a new building drew 5,572 and $125,590; 8/6 in Cohasset, MA
drew 1,733 and $38,957; 8/7 in Warwick, RI drew 1,651 and $37,963; 8/8 in Hyannis,
MA drew 1,964 and $43,923; Madison Square Garden; 8/10 in Bethlehem, PA drew
3,038 and $45,000 and 8/11 in Scranton, PA drew 3,138 and $49,354.
Duke Droese has quit the promotion and has worked some indies in Florida, but is
planning on going to law school in the fall. Somehow that doesn't sound right, does it?
Bruise Brothers got crewcuts for their re-appearance. Don't know what their new
gimmick will be.
At MSG, the music guy accidentally cut off the music during Michaels' ring intro and
Michaels, being the perfectionist he is, starting swearing up and down in the ring and
again acting unprofessional.
Toronto for 8/24 has more than a $200,000 advance and the advance for Cleveland is
something like 13,000 tickets sold for this weekend so they'll end up having close to
20,000 in the building with comps and all.
Crush debuted on TV and has a good heel look but no charisma and his work is still the
same. Mason has great potential, however.
Besides Raw, weekend ratings saw Action Zone at 2.0 and Mania and 1.4.
On the small shows during the week in New England, due to injuries, Hart beat
Helmsley and Vega beat Goldust in strap matches, Sid beat Vader and Undertaker beat
Mankind in the main events. Roberts was in Montoya's corner against Austin and DDT'd
him after the match and put the snake on him for big pops.
THE READERS PAGES
WCW
They should have used Dick Murdoch as the third man. Even dead, he's a better worker
than Hulk Hogan.
Morton Nicholson
Richmond, Virginia
I'm tired of hearing people claim that Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Konnan and
others can't draw on PPV. They are absolutely right in that the way WCW uses them,
they can't draw. But the fault lies with the WCW announcers and bookers and not with
the ability of the wrestlers.
Consider this. When the announcers talk about Randy Savage during an Eddie Guerrero
match but never talk about Guerrero during a Savage match, who will fans think is more
important and who will they want to see? How often is Malenko ever mentioned when
he's not in the ring? ECW does more to get Malenko and Guerrero over today than WCW
does. They talk about them in almost legendary terms when reminiscing about people
who have held the ECW TV title.
My feelings toward Dusty Rhodes have gone from disapproval to disgust. While waiting
to watch ECW, I was passing the time watching WCW Pro. During a Chris Benoit match,
Chris Cruise called him the Canadian Crippler and then said Benoit would be well off if
he were to emulate the career of the original Crippler, Ray Stevens, whom Cruise then
went on to praise as one of wrestling's all-time greats. Instead of following up on this,
Rhodes did everything in his power to change the subject and never talked about
Stevens. In a business often ridden with sleaze, that was one of the more despicable
things I've heard by an announcer in a while.
There are aspects of WCW that are better than in years past. Bill Watts nearly killed
WCW and Eric Bischoff deserves credit for reviving interest in the product. I've always
said Bischoff is a great businessman. However, while making brilliant business deals
with New Japan and getting the cream of the crop from ECW and making the deal to get
Nitro, he's wasted what he's made the deals to pick up. I absolutely love watching the
New Japan guys, but in WCW they are portrayed as petty one-dimensional characters
sold on nothing but outdated xenophobia. I dare anyone to say those guys can't draw.
Consider the millions of dollars they draw every year at the Tokyo Dome shows. It's like
if the Braves traded for Ken Griffey Jr. and then used him as a platoon player and
ordered him to bunt every time up so that the older guys on the team wouldn't look bad.
It's ridiculous to see a wrestler like Benoit, who could be a great world champion if
pushed correctly, suffering in a weak angle to get Kevin Sullivan over. But at least he has
an angle. That's more than Guerrero and Malenko have.
Finally, what's the point of having a WCW TV title on Lex Luger? It's not as if he needs it
to get over. He seldom defends it on TV. It seems like a pointless title nowadays when
you consider how often the WCW heavyweight title is defended on television. WCW has
a lot of amazing talent, but if they continue to waste it and dwell in antiquity they will
continue to be held in contempt by fans around the world.
Lou Pickney
Nashville, Tennessee
ECW
Fans rarely suffer serious injuries, long term physical disabilities or loss of earning
power by incurring bodily damage. Wrestlers do. Fans shouting "ECW, ECW" as Joey
Styles appears on television gets the juices flowing. Fans shouting, "ECW, ECW" as
Sabu, Rey Misterio Jr., Tommy Dreamer risk their health taking ever crazier bumps
denigrate the wrestlers. If the suicidal ante is raised every month, how soon before a
major tragedy takes place? Do Paul Heyman or Tod Gordon awake to physical pain and
discomfort? Blood, whether hardway or by blading nowadays is stupid. If boxing
referees wear gloves, why don't wrestling referees?
Richard Siegel
Bethpage, New York
I agree with the letter about the ECW chants. My eight-year-old likes the brutal style of
ECW, but no way an I going to let him watch those interviews or the matches where
those delinquent moron fans are chanting that stuff. I enjoy the brutal style and enjoy
the flying, but let's not forget that somewhere should be the word wrestling and
whenever that happens, you hear "boring" and "you suck" chants. As for them doing a
pay-per-view, I just don't see the big name matches that will sell interest to a national
audience.
Ric Davies
Bay City, Michigan
We recently read the letter from Andrew Kessler in the 7/22 issue and ask what is his
problem? If just about everyone thinks the first match between Sabu and Rob Van Dam
was one of the top three matches this year in the United States, everyone must only
include people in the bingo hall.
There were many missed spots and there was a lack of believability, and by refusing to
admit this, it only showed Andrew's bias. Work is not high spots, chairs and breaking
tables. Anyone with balls can do this. It takes real talent to work a match and to think it
through psychologically. Look at Public Enemy. Now that they're in WCW, you can see
them for what they are. Guys who are willing to take a beating but can't work.
In his slam of the wrestlers in other groups, there are many WWF and WCW wrestlers
who can work ECW style matches. However, most ECW wrestlers couldn't work a
straight match.
We've seen bar fights. They aren't as entertaining as ECW brawls, but they are real fights
and look nothing like ECW fights. Stiffness has nothing to do with believability. Would
someone in a bar fight let you moonsault them or chokeslam them through a table or
have you hit them with a chair without putting their hands up to block it? No.
It's fine that you are a fan of ECW. You should sit down on Monday nights and watch
ECW tapes. We enjoy ECW. But we take it for what it is, like a Jackie Chan movie. Lots
of high spots with no substance.
Names withheld by request
I have to admit that I love ECW. It's great to hear that 911 is back. I always loved that
gimmick. I also loved Germany's greatest athlete, Baron Von Stevie. Richards and the
Meanie are the most hilarious people on any wrestling television show these days. I have
to admit I wonder about Tommy Dreamer's sanity taking those bumps through three
tables. Can someone put Liz Poffo in touch with Sandman's son so she can learn how to
deliver a line.
Mike Lanzalotti
Williamstown, New Jersey
I was at the Hardcore Heaven show and it supplied some great action. What I don't like
was just how many fans could have cared less about what was going on in the ring and
just come to the Arena to try and get themselves over on television. The wrestlers are the
ones who are supposed to be the show, not a bunch of fans chanting stupid obscenities
or seeing what foreign object to hand to Tommy Dreamer. Speaking of Dreamer, the
angle he did with Brian Lee through three tables was one of the most dangerous stunts
I've ever seen in wrestling. But I don't know how well the intended purpose of the angle
got over. All the fans around me didn't care about Dreamer, they just cared whether or
not they got their hands on a piece of broken table. It doesn't seem like the fans have too
much respect left for the high risks these guys take.
Paul Armentano
Silver Spring, Maryland
You made a comment recently about ECW fans showing up at a WCW show and
chanting ECW. You brought up the fans that did that attended a WCW show instead of
an ECW show in the same city at the same time. I don't know about elsewhere, but when
ECW scheduled shows in Salisbury, MA that were canceled, their ticket prices were quite
steep. They were $25 ringside and $18 general admission. Considering what ECW offers
these days, those are high prices. The WWF on the cape charged $20.50 for its top seats.
We've started getting ECW on Ch. 27 out of Worcester and I've taped the three shows
that have aired. Joey Styles is annoying, the camera work is inconsistent. I think Chris
Jericho and the Eliminators have a big future and that Shane Douglas is the most
overrated wrestler in the world today. I'll keep watching the show but thus far ECW
seems like more hype than substance. The only reason I never attend the AWF shows
that pop up in this area is also because their ticket prices are too high. They charge $12
for ringside and $10 for G.A. for bargain basement wrestling.
Andy Thurston
Waltham, Massachusetts
All of the bashing that ECW has taken on the pages of the Observer is sad. I'd expect
such inane ramblings from the mainstream press, who salivate at the opportunity to
criticize all pro wrestling, such as the Ginsu job that "A Current Affair" did on ECW.
However, hearing such goofiness from people who I assume are more than just casual
fans tells me there are people who don't understand anything about business in America
or ECW's place in the business of pro wrestling.
When people invest money in a business, large or small, they want to know they're going
to get their money's worth. They want to know their money is being spent wisely. They
want to see employees of that company bust their hump for the company and its
customers. ECW provides all these things and a whole lot more. More than anything that
happens in the ring, ECW is great because unlike so many corporations in the U.S. and
the "big two" promotions in this country, ECW delivers on its promises, rarely
disappoints, always surprises, sometimes titillates and always leaves you wanting more.
I mean, how many times have you said to yourself, "Damn, I wish Wrestling Challenge
didn't end so fast today?"
ECW is the result of its leaders deciding what kind of product they want to sell, to whom,
and following through on their blueprint, never swaying from it and believing in what
they are doing. From its inception, ECW has claimed that it's not for everyone. It doesn't
try to be. That's its beauty. ECW has made the decision to step out of line, be different,
take chances and roll with the punches that comes when people try and depart from
tradition. These are traits we all should have.
As for the in-ring antics being a little off-beat, so what. The E in ECW stands for
Extreme. The claim that ECW is a wall-to-wall gimmick show aimed at testosteronecrazed
men between 18 and 35 is correct, but what's wrong with that? Every smart
business in the U.S. has a target demographic, be it children, senior citizens, family
audience, etc. ECW is doing nothing more than solidifying its base, a smart, sound
business strategy. For those who claim this style has cut into its national popularity, I
beg to differ. The loud contingent of "Heyman-heads" at the World Wrestling Peace
Festival, pro-ECW signs at every PPV show put on by WWF and the young man wearing
an ECW t-shirt at the Arcadia shopping mall last month are all examples that ECW is not
just a Philadelphia thing. If ECW has to suffer from a lousy time slot on a weak TV
station due to its interesting product, I'd rather that was the case than having ECW kowtow
to television people and water down its show just to make more money. AAA's
television problems in the U.S. haven't slowed its growth and success in the states, so
why should ECW change its philosophy?
The next time you spend $30 on a PPV or $50 on a ringside ticket and come away
feeling insulted and ripped off by what you've been fed, as I was after seeing
Wrestlemania XII live in Anaheim even though I got free tickets, just remember that
ECW isn't for everyone, but it may be for you.
Shawn Flanagan
Los Angeles, California
I've read all kinds of opinions, pro and con, concerning ECW. I haven't felt the urge to
write on the topic until I read Andrew Kessler's letter. While I don't agree with all the
opinions in the Observer and of its readers, I respect all types of differing viewpoints and
that everyone has a right to their opinion. Andrew Kessler has a right to his opinion, but
I have to take him to task for many of his statements.
Kessler criticized you for a negative review of the first Sabu-Rob Van Dam match at the
ECW Arena. I re-read the review, in the 5/20 issue. If he took the time to read it, he
would know your review wasn't entirely negative. You stated the match had only one
element to it--the insane daredevil spots and that many WWF and WCW wrestlers
would think a match like that was terrible. I can agree with that assessment. I also
agreed with your assessment that it was a must-see match because of the spots and that
the match did cater to its core audience.
Kessler took exception to your and others points that ECW matches have no
believability. He made a good point concerning the stiff blows, but he blew his point big
time making his point about foreign object use. Has he recognized the wrestlers using
hollowed out gimmick tables? Does he not notice the lack of metal supports for the
tables? A real table doesn't break cleanly when a wrestler takes a bump. Manami Toyota
takes bumps on non-gimmicked tables, which don't break on impact, only bend slightly.
The chair shots are brutal, but they're also light weight folding chairs, which is why the
metal bends upon impact. I've sat in them. If the ECW guys would use the thicker chairs
like those in Madison Square Garden on each other a dozen times a night, they'd be on
life support.
If we were to apply that logic about believability to other fighting situations, are we also
to assume that stunt people in bar fight scenes in movies that get bottles and chairs
smashed on them or fly through plate glass windows are also believable? The stunts
aren't believable, but they are incredible to watch, like a Jackie Chan flick. That's how I
feel watching a typical ECW match. Contrary to Kessler's letter, Sabu and Van Dam
didn't hit every spot right. Sabu was really hurting because he landed badly on some
spots. Movie stunt people get injured legitimately as well if a stunt or blow lands wrong.
ECW wrestlers work more like stunt people than traditional pro wrestlers.
ECW action is violent to be sure, but it's believability factor is on a cartoon level rather
than a reality level. It's similar to Wile E. Coyote coming back for more punishment from
Roadrunner after falling off a cliff. ECW wrestlers continue brawling after dozens of
mostly gimmicked objects come crashing on their heads.
Personally, I like many thing about ECW including the violence, the good work ethic of
the wrestlers and the entertaining angles. However, I don't put ECW on a pedestal and
worship it like some people seem to be doing. Every major promotion in the world has
good and bad points. There isn't a perfect promotion out there and ECW is far from
perfect, and very overrated to boot.
Your review of the first Sabu-Van Dam match was fair and unbiased because you made
both the positive and negative points of the match clear. Giving every ECW main event
five stars and praising even its most inane angles isn't fair and unbiased. WWF and
WCW deserve bashing for a lot of things they've done in the past, but they don't have a
hammerlock on idiotic angles. J.T. Smith pretending to be Italian is as idiotic as The
Giant pretending to be Andre's son. The Dudleys are no different than all the Hillbilly
characters in the WWF in the mid-80s. I'd be almost ashamed to admit that I'm a
wrestling fan to a non-wrestling fan based on things ECW has done, as I would be
ashamed of things WWF and WCW have done. Most ECW angles and chants are either
too obscene or too inside for an outsider to understand, appreciate or be entertained by.
ECW also isn't exactly original in its concept. For all the whining the ECW flunkies have
done about the big two promotions ripping off its concepts, most ECW angles and
brawls are taken directly from stuff I've seen in the past on old Memphis, Watts, FMW
and W*ING tapes. Kessler called WWF and WCW garbage wrestling, yet doesn't realize
that ECW is actually the ultimate garbage wrestling promotion because its primarily
copying the garbage wrestling promotions of Japan like FMW and the original W*ING.
ECW wrestlers often engage in drawn-out brawls to mask their true working ability.
Most of the ECW wrestlers can't build a match, but most ECW fans don't want a built
match, they want blood and action from the first bell, so the wrestles start the violence
and the high spots the minute the bell rings. Barbed wire brawls and broken tables have
been around in the United States long before Paul Heyman entered the wrestling
business. The only thing entirely original about ECW is the obscene vulgarity of its
wrestlers and its core audience.
ECW should also be taken to task for its appalling portrayals of its female characters.
Couldn't Heyman come up with better ways to quell fans boredom than to make Kimona
do a strip tease or go on the mic and offer free blowjobs courtesy of Divine Brown? WWF
and WCW do no better when it comes to negative stereotyping of women, but ECW
thrives on these stereotypes. I'm hardly a feminist but I'd like to think I have a higher
opinion of women in wrestling than ECW has. I might rant about this subject more than
an average wrestling fan because I like and respect Japanese women wrestlers, who
would never survive in ECW because the fans would rather chant sexual come-ons at
them instead of pay attention to their workrate. As for the sexually frustrated pinheads
who ogle at any borderline attractive female ECW attendee walking around the arena, I
strongly suggest they get a life, or at least keep their hands out of their pants. They are
the reason I'd never take a date to an ECW house show.
This is not meant as an attack on Andrew Kessler, just a discussion of some of his
viewpoints. It's just that the fans that go to MSG to WWF shows and chant "ECW" is
getting old real fast. If they love ECW so much, why are they paying big bucks to see
WWF when they can save their money and attend ECW live?
I don't mean to attack all ECW fans. I know many fans who love ECW and aren't jerks at
all. It takes a few bad apples that spoil the bunch.
Ramon Lores
Flushing, New York
KOBASHI WINS TITLE
I was shocked at the news of Kenta Kobashi beating Akira Taue. What's happened to old
conservative All Japan? I thought Taue winning over Mitsuharu Misawa was the biggest
upset in the history of the company, but this tops it. There's no doubt that Giant Baba's
booking philosophy has changed. After years of pleasurable predictability, All Japan has
made 1996 the year of surprises. Taue winning the Champion Carnival and the Triple
Crown, and Misawa & Jun Akiyama winning the tag titles with Akiyama scoring the pin
on Toshiaki Kawada, Misawa pinning Taue in the title defense and even the switching of
the junior heavyweight title from Dan Kroffat to Masa Fuchi to Tsuyoshi Kikuchi are
examples of breaking away from the old Baba pattern. The only surprise result now
would be no more surprises.
This seems to be a move toward the New Japan booking style of Riki Choshu where
anyone can beat anyone. I'm hoping Baba is smart enough to not go completely in that
direction because All Japan has something New Japan hasn't had for years, a worker
who stands out above everyone else in the company as the prototype world champion.
Misawa has played the role of champion better than any wrestler of this decade. Any
demotion of Misawa from that slot would be upsetting. He doesn't have to have the belt
all of the time, but the presumption should be he's always either champion or the
leading contender.
The reason for the changes is All Japan's inability to draw big outside of Tokyo. While
New Japan is a world organization, All Japan is the world's greatest mom and pop
regional promotion. Will the change in booking philosophy increase attendance outside
the home base? I don't think so. The real problem is fans know that all the major shows
take place at Budokan Hall. So even when they put on a strong line-up in Sapporo or
Nagoya, the fans don't rush to buy tickets because they know if it was an important
match it would be at Budokan Hall. Baba needs to put on historical shows in other
arenas, which would mean building to more than one major show per tour. How can he
do that? By having more title matches and more titles. Before 1989, they had eight
different titles. Now it's two major titles and two minor titles. They could also promote
more contenders matches and introduce stipulation matches. Please, No cage matches
or exploding barbed wire matches in All Japan. I'd rather the world just end.
Expansion may affect Budokan Hall's long list of sellouts just as WWF expansion hurt
attendance at Madison Square Garden, but I hope not. To me, a Budokan Hall main
event is the only thing left that symbolizes credibility and integrity within pro wrestling
and the Budokan main events are the best matches in the world.
Tarzan Yamamoto's big mistake was acknowledging publicly the conflict between
Weekly Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling. They should have continued
covering the hostile company with unbiased objective coverage even if their photos
weren't up to the quality of Gong. A true journalist covers the news no matter what. If
they had to buy a ticket, they should have bought a ticket. In not covering the biggest
wrestling company in the world, they were revealing to their readers that their job is
actually one of publicity and promotion and not of reporting the most important news
events. By inserting his ego into the dispute, as if the problem was just another pro
wrestling angle, Yamamoto sealed his fate.
Steve Yohe
Alhambra, California
PANCRASE
As much as I respect your opinion, I can't believe you are falling for this Pancrase crap.
Trust me, I really want it to be real. Because of the Observer, I have considered that
maybe I'm wrong but when I play the tapes, there are just too many obvious signs. To
say that it must be legit because so many of the fights are now going the time limit is like
saying pro wrestling must be real because of how many matches end with a
disqualification. It is just a way for someone to lose without hurting their reputations too
much since they didn't submit. As you have pointed out, most fans in Japan believe that
RINGS is legit but just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true.
I also disagree vehemently with your statements that less submissions are occurring in
fights because the fighters are now smarter and better trained. This gets proven to be
untrue every time a Gracie steps in the ring. Most fights don't have a clue how to apply
submissions correctly. Learning a move itself is the easy part. I could teach you most of
the truly effective submission moves in a couple of hours. What takes years to perfect is
how to get them on an unwilling opponent. You could learn all of the effective punches
in boxing pretty quickly, but it would take years and some talent to be able to use them
effectively.
The Gracies don't have any magic secrets. What they have is years of experience in
submission fighting. What holds them back is their lack of size. Put Royce Gracie in the
ring with someone who is within 15 pounds of his weight, and even if they are smart or
well trained, my money is that Royce will make them submit. There were submissions
against fighters that were supposed to be good at Sayama's Vale Tudo show. The fighters
they have currently competing in the UFC's are simply not well trained and experienced
in submissions.
Joe Silva
Richmond, Virginia
The 6/25 Pancrase card was a very memorable and significant show on many levels.
While UFC stars are all short-lived, Masakatsu Funaki has continued as the main
drawing card since the beginning of Pancrase and even from his Pro Wrestling Fujiwara
Gumi days. He always delivers an entertaining match and should be praised for that.
The reason why SEG's Pancrase PPV shows look inferior to the television shows in Japan
is the lack of effort in getting each fighters' distinctive character over. At Pancrase, postmatch
interviews, either in the ring or in the dressing room play an important part to the
fans, which is one of the things that differentiates this from Olympic wrestling. The
legitimate sport is a professional fight but the athletes are trained how to talk because
they are in the pro wrestling environment. Funaki's interview challenging Bas Rutten in
September was a well-done interview to build attendance for the next show.
Ken Shamrock was at the show but couldn't fight due to his injury. Because Pancrase is a
shoot, fighters' careers are going to be short. Shamrock's imminent retirement was
announced at the show. Funaki, his close friend, realized that he remaining time on top
will also be limited and that this is his chance to step forward.
The 7/16 Rings card was an excellent show except for the disappointing main event, but
the attendance was poor. Rings are mostly Korean-Japanese fights including Akira
Maeda and a strong fan base is in Osaka, where the biggest Korean community lives, so
the attendance was a bad sign. Unlike Pancrase, the Rings top ten ratings are a joke
among smart fans. The regular RINGS format contains one or two matches per show
without predetermined endings, however it is still different from a Pancrase shoot.
Wataru Sakata had a shoot match against a Dutch kick boxer but it wasn't that
impressive. Kiyoshi Tamura again looked very sharp. As with his debut on the 6/29
show, he is the highlight.
Despite the fact it's not a shoot, many consider RINGS the richest source of real fighters
and martial artists due to the strong Russian connection. Volk Han is Mr. Ultimate and
respected by everyone, so that when the submission illusionist/***** master met
Tsuyoshi Kousaka, the match turned into one of the best worked shoot matches ever. It
was an exciting and interesting human chess match until the unfortunate Han knee
strike cutting Kousaka deep and the match having to be stopped. The line between
shooting and working became very thin with this match.
Yoshihisa Yamamoto totally dominated Hans Nyman since he did the job at the end. But
because it followed the Han vs. Kousaka match, which was so impressive, and the
sudden finish, the main event didn't get over. The chance of it being a legit shooting
match between Yamamoto and Ricardo Morais on 8/24 is fairly good. Under the
Japanese sports logic, the No. 1 ranked fighter in a promotion can't lose to an outsider,
so Yamamoto first had to lose to Nyman before going into a shoot match.
Tadashi Tanaka
New York, New York
SUNSHINE WRESTLING FEDERATION
It's really hard to establish a new federation in this day and age. Therefore I think it is
remarkable the Sunshine Wrestling Federation has come so far in such a short time. To
my knowledge in 1996, no U.S. independent promotion has drawn more than 4,000 fans
for a single show. I believe doing that is a singular and significant achievement.
The SWF is doing something right and I believe something different. I believe this is
worthy of a special story and recognition in the Observer.
I learned from Wall Street Journal reporter Jody Needle that you gave her background
info for her recent story. Observing this industry for a while, it is easy to become a cynic.
Smart promoters can use that to their advantage in building a federation.
In our future: 1) Television. We are taping every show and should have them available in
the fall; 2) Possible regular venues besides our successful spot shows; 3) We are
considering putting together a national alliance of independent promoters for joint
television sales, ratings exposure and most importantly, the development of licensing.
One federation has agreed in principle to join, Johnny Diamond's Northern Wrestling
Federation based in Ohio and Northern Kentucky. The NWA would be great but it
appears to be a mere shadow of what it once was, therefore, we need a new alliance for
the 21st century.
Currently the SWF is talking to venture capitalists and investors for major expansion. If
that comes, fine, and the WSJ story was a real push in that regard. If it doesn't come, we
have sufficient capital and cash flow to continue our expansion.
Currently I've been appointed chairman of the individual sports committee of the 800-
member Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the Florida Bar Association. I
represent pro wrestlers as well as being President and Commissioner of the SWF and
represent one WWF superstars.
Bernie Seigel
Sunshine Wrestling Federation
THESZ BOOK
Last night, KCAL here in Los Angeles ran a story on Ultimate Fighting. It was one of the
more balanced pieces I've seen. It did show all the familiar clips, and it played up the
danger. But it did point out there were a lack of injuries and the grappling skills
involved.
Much of the piece was an interview with Royce and Rorion Gracie. They really played up
the Gracie family legend, Royce as the toughest man on Earth and the challenge to Mike
Tyson. The reporter pretty much stated as fact that Tyson couldn't beat Royce.
I just read the Lou Thesz biography. I can't tell you how great it was. It was one of the
best sports books and the best wrestling book I've ever read. One question. Have Thesz
or Karl Gotch or Billy Robinson or any of the great wrestlers of the past said anything
about UFC or Pancrase? What do they think of these sports? How do they rank the
submission artists in them like all the Gracies, Ken and Frank Shamrock, Dan Severn
and Oleg Taktarov? It would be interesting to speculate on how some of the great
wrestlers that Thesz talks about might have fared in these types of competition.
Charles Oliver
Los Angeles, California
DM: I spoke to Thesz regarding UFC and Pancrase. He doesn't believe either
are true athletic contests but likes them both. He hates the idea of
politicians and athletic commissioners wanting UFC banned because he
thinks they're ignorant on the subject. He's got several UFC tapes and said
some of the guys aren't that good and some of the athletes were very good.
He said that he believes Dan Severn is the most sophisticated mechanically
sound all-around wrestlers he's seen in either sport and doesn't think Ken
Shamrock or Royce Gracie are in his class. He sees that Shamrock has been
working longer on submissions, which is Dan's weakness, but for pure
wrestling he believes Shamrock isn't at Severn's level. As a wrestler, he said
the Gracies aren't the top level because the idea in wrestling is to avoid
being on your back. He remembers Shamrock from his days as Vince Torelli
as a pro wrestler in the Carolinas and said his protege, Mark Fleming, didn't
have any problems with him. He worked with Severn in UWFI and saw him
in workouts and said he could physically control and dominate everyone
over there at will, but wasn't as good standing there exchanging blows. As
far as comparing them to great wrestlers of the past, he said because the
rules they are playing under are so different, you can't make a fair
comparison. The game changes completely when you allow chokes. The
expert wrestlers from the carnival days because of how times were, were
schooled in crippling the more competitive opponents so they didn't want to
or couldn't come back for rematches while in both UFC and Pancrase, the
guys are looking for sportsman victories and not to hurt anyone, tear any
joints or ruin any careers. Many of the hooking holds he learned, which he
said could really put somebody out of commission, are never used in UFC or
Pancrase. Those who have talked with Gotch have said that he isn't
impressed by the Pancrase or UFC fighters.
This is a completely unsolicited pitch to all Observer subscribers to get a hold of Lou
Thesz' book. It's a fantastic, honest, comprehensive look at the life of a pro wrestler and
probably the best one there's been. I spend a lot of time on the net, and lately have had
my fill of rspw, the pro wrestling discussion group on usenet. It was great for a few years,
but it's not mostly a yapfest of extremely young and stupid marks who read some B-level
sheets and think they're smart, arguing over whether Shawn or Bret is the greatest
worker of all-time or whether the last ladder match of last ECW match is the greatest
match in history. The myopia of this generation of allegedly smart fans is breathtaking.
It reminds me of young country music fans on the net arguing over whether Shania
Twain or Garth Brooks is the greatest country singer ever and that have never even
heard of Hank Williams or Merle Haggard. The Thesz book is a terrific antidote for this
kind of markdom, and aside from its historical importance, is marvelously written.
Jeff Levin
Virginia Beach, Virginia
NWO ANGLE
The WCW/NWO scenario is the most creative and realistic angle I can recall in an
American promotion going back to the 1960s. It has allowed me to suspend disbelief.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for the best reporting of the current
wrestling scene available today, and also your excellent historical coverage spiced
periodically with in-depth features.
In the 7/29 issue, you stated WCW's Blood Runs Cold doesn't sound promising and that
nothing could be worse than The Leprechaun. I basically agree. However, on the same
page, you state that WWF's Goon gimmick has a good look to it. Where is your
impartiality? If you aren't more discerning, someone might accuse you of accepting
payola from Vince Jr.
Gimmicks that will sell today if properly pushed are Buddy Rogers arrogance, Killer
Kowalski's subtle and not so subtle heel tactics, Lou Thesz straight-laced no-nonsense
hooker who can't be beaten. Currently, Steve Regal's snobbery coupled with educated
ability in the ring, Dean Malenko's shooter and Arn Anderson's meat and potatoes
toughness are other examples.
It's a sad state of affairs when today's promoters take the lazy way out by catering to
children rather than to adults. The Leprachuan, Goon, Undertaker or Goldust? I don't
think so. Either bring back realism to pro wrestling or don't insult our intelligence and
label it wrestling.
Joe Margosian
Racine, Wisconsin
ILLEGAL BOXES
Do you feel the buy rates of PPV shows are significantly affected by people having illegal
cable converters? More events per year on PPV make owning illegal boxes an attractive
offer. The box seems to be a one time cost of about $200 and are easily available. I've
heard people talk about watching pro wrestling or UFC events but they didn't purchase
them because they own a box. Cable service isn't available yet in my neighborhood, but if
so, I'd only purchase a few PPV events a year. The choice would be based on how well the
event is hyped. Those with illegal boxes don't need the show hyped to them. They'll
watch it for free anyway.
Rene Clement
Middle Village, New York
DM: There's no way to estimate how much illegal boxes are affecting buy
rates of wrestling and UFC. Boxing promoters have claimed they think it's a
very significant problem and Top Rank claimed that cable companies not
getting a handle on that problem is a reason more major boxing events,
such as the recent De la Hoya-Chavez fight, will be moved back to closed
circuit.
UFC
Just a quick idea on the next Severn-Shamrock match. The best way to make the
rematch marketable is to add this stipulation. At the 15 minute mark, the entire octagon
will be blown up with a giant explosion. Mr. Pogo could even second one of them in the
match.
John Mohlman
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I saw the Detroit UFC live and dug it the most. Schultz vs. Goodridge was festive and
Koji Kitao is about as good of a shooter as he is a worker. He was a clubfooted lunkhead
at the AAA Ampitheatre show in Chicago a few months ago. I dug Severn-Shamrock a
lot. It was two focused strategists, each refusing to break from their game plan no matter
what the crowd did. It was very tense. But I wouldn't want to see a match like that all the
time. The trash fans at the Cobo wouldn't have appreciated a great shoot unless they had
hockey sticks in their hands.
Rocco Malce
Chicago, Illinois
I was channel surfing and caught the "A Current Affair" piece about cockfighting. It was
a run-of-the-mill piece where interviews were conducted with the drunken guys who
gamble on the fights and the animal rights activists who want it banned, and hidden
camera shots of the fights themselves were shown.
It only became interesting to me when they listed the states where cockfighting is still
legal--Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma and the place where they filmed the fights and
did the interviews--Arizona--the home state of Sen. John McCain.
How could McCain spend so much time going on talk shows and calling up his political
buddies in trying to get UFC banned while cockfighting is legally taking place in his
home state? The irony of it all is that it was McCain who coined the phrase about UFC
being "the human cockfight." That statement is fairly accurate as long as you ignore the
following points. UFC fighters are human beings fighting of their own volition and they
aren't fighting with large razor blades attached to their feet.
Doug Gruner
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

 

August 26, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WWE
considers weekly Saturday Night PPVs, SummerSlam just
another show, health problems for big stars, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 26 August 1996 12:17
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 August 26, 1996
WWF SUMMER SLAM POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 44 (29.1%)
Thumbs down 72 (47.7%)
In the middle 35 (23.2%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Vader 90
Undertaker vs. Mankind 13
Goldust vs. Marc Mero 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts 43
Four tag team elimination 28
Yokozuna vs. Steve Austin 19
Undertaker vs. Mankind 15
WCW CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 6 (05.2%)
Thumbs down 87 (75.7%)
In the middle 22 (19.1%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 68
Triangle tag team 10
Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Jim Duggan vs. V.K. Wallstreet 37
Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 25
Giant vs. Chris Benoit 20
WCW HOG WILD FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 125 (45.6%)
Thumbs down 89 (32.5%)
In the middle 60 (21.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Chris Benoit vs. Dean Malenko 126
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon 82
WORST MATCH POLL
Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant 119
Scott Norton vs. Ice Train 45
Madusa vs. Bull Nakano 8
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 8/20.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
The World Wrestling Federation is considering adding a weekly Saturday night PPV
show according to several sources within the company and an independent trade journal
report.
The experimental one hour show, which current plans have if it does transpire, would be
done live every Saturday night from New York City, starting at midnight. The show
would be heavily aimed at the adult audience, which most take to meaning a more risque
ECW like television product and because of that, may mean the show would be shown on
the West Coast at midnight rather than live. The show has been proposed to both
Request and Viewers Choice within the past week and reports are that neither company
was leaning toward accepting the proposal, which would mean that WWF would, if it
were to choose to implement it, have to market the show on a cable company by
company basis and thus the total universe would be far less than it has with its current
PPV shows and make the idea that much more of a financial risk.
Ever since the decision was made months ago to discontinue paying for syndication,
which in effect has resulted in losing the syndicated shows starting with the fall season
in several major markets including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the WWF had
been negotiating for a new television show. According to some reports, the original idea
was to add a show on cable or on a secondary television network, somewhere other than
the USA network because Titan didn't want to have all its eggs, with the weakening of
syndication, in one basket because a change in direction of USA at that point would
threaten the company if it had all its key television on that network. According to one
Titan source, WWF had considered and is still considering adding the hour in a late
night cable or network slot, which some believe to mean on Fox network, as Fox has for
the past year toyed with the idea of a late night wrestling time slot, or on another cable
station. However, with no cable or network deal having come to fruition (although
sources say there are still negotiations going on), Titan has explored the idea of adding
the hour as a weekly PPV show.
The working plan is for a $9.95 show. According to Pro Wrestling Torch, the idea was
already finalized last week by Vince McMahon and will be offered starting in September
or October. One Titan source said this past weekend that the idea was nowhere near that
level, that the idea of doing a weekly PPV show had just recently been proposed
internally and was a long way from being a done deal. Internally within Titan on 8/20, it
was considered as being an idea proposed and nothing close to implementation or being
aggressively worked on. The word was that if it were to take place, there is no way it
could be started as early as October. If the show were to take place, the content would
"push the envelope" far more than they can on USA network. Another Titan source
indicated that while the deal was strongly discussed internally over the past week, there
are tons of details needing to be worked out, that the content would be "more raw than
Raw" and indicated the odds of it being attempted "as an experiment" are greater than
50 percent but that said categorizing it as a done deal was terribly premature.
Sources within cable have estimated that if WWF were to attempt something of this
nature, given little money would likely be budgeted for marketing the weekly shows, that
break-even for a bare-bones production (with none of the special effects and production
values Titan's PPV and television shows are known for) of this type would be in the
neighborhood of 62,000 buys per week. A buy rate figure isn't applicable because if
Titan could only clear, let's say 10 million homes, or 20 million homes, it would still
need basically the same number of buys as a break-even point. Break-even would be
quite a bit less for a taped show, although given the nature of the marketplace, if a show
is taped unless it is taped in an empty arena, results would get out almost immediately,
particularly since the plan would be for it to be taped at the same site so the audience
would largely consist of the same group of regular fans. Traditional WWF PPV shows
have never come close to dropping to that level although some recent In Your House
shows have fallen to the 110,000 buy level according to Titan sources and to below
100,000 buys according to other figures. If Titan wouldn't be able to clear the show in at
least most of the entire PPV universe, which consists of an estimated 25 million homes
between cable and dish owners, it's very doubtful it could garner 62,000 buys every
week. If the show has the type of production values people would expect from Titan
Sports PPV and television shows, it would probably mean a break-even of well over
70,000 buys every Saturday night past midnight with little in the way of childrens
viewing and far less multiple household viewing that the current early evening Sunday
PPV events. While one would think based on curiosity, that the first one or two shows in
this format would do more than 70,000 buys, it is really questionable whether it could
maintain that level. If we look at history, the first In Your House show did an 0.83 buy
rate and since that time in about a one year period the buy rates have dropped roughly in
half. The idea of doing a weekly series is nothing new. SEG, in its first incarnation, had a
weekly Thursday night concert series on PPV that ultimately proved to be unsuccessful.
Titan's attempt to do a more adult oriented television show may stem from its being
beaten badly in the adult market by WCW. Based on demographic break-down figures
for the television shows on 8/12, where WCW won the night by a 3.3 to 2.0 margin, the
margin of victory is far more significant when it comes to adult viewership. Of WCW's
total audience, the break-down was 79.25 percent 18 and over and 20.75 percent
children and teens. For the WWF, the break-down was 62.25 percent 18 and over and
36.75 percent children and teens, which means in total viewership on 8/12 head-to-head
last week, WCW garnered a 68 percent to 32 percent share of the adult viewers or a
more than two-to-one ratio. The WWF's edge when it comes to overall children and
teenage viewership was by a 52-48 percent margin or nearly a dead heat. For 8/19, the
break-down of adults vs. kids & teens for both groups was remarkably similar in internal
percentage (WCW was 79.375 adults; WWF was 61.50 percent adults) but with the larger
audience for Raw, the WWF held a 61-39 edge with kids & teens while WCW held a 61-
39 edge with adults. Basically WCW's margin of victory was based on the fact there are a
lot more adults watching TV at that hour than kids and teens. By aiming one television
show at the adult market, Titan is attempting to shore up its main demographic
weakness.
If Titan is to do weekly PPV shows from New York, there are several other factors that
need to be considered. One would expect because the shows would begin at midnight,
that Titan would book a smaller building so it wouldn't be as difficult to fill at a late
hour. However, in the wake of the recent riot in Madison Square Garden after a Riddick
Bowe boxing match, the commission has gotten even stricter when it comes to "pushing
the envelope." At the ECW show this past weekend, the ECW was told there could be no
fighting outside the guard rails, that foul language used on an occasion or two wouldn't
be cause for disciplinary action but repeated use would be, and that any blading would
result in the promotion being banned from the state. No matter how risque the WWF
was planning on going, it's doubtful a return to the days of blading would be part of the
package so that wouldn't be a hindrance, but if they were attempting to do a show with
lots of foul language to copy ECW, that could turn into a problem. Pushing the envelope
would probably more revolve around angles with more mature and sexual and perhaps
more violent themes.
A secondary consideration is the house show business. Currently the WWF runs house
shows virtually every Saturday night except the night before the Sunday PPV shows (and
I'd expect that the Saturday night PPV show wouldn't take place on the night before a
regular PPV show as the schedule for five majors and seven In Your House shows wasn't
to be effected by the addition of the new series), and it's the best drawing night of the
week. By running a live show out of New York, it would mean that at least six, possibly
more, wrestlers who are on the weekend tour, would have to be flown (or drive of the
tour is in the Northeast) back from tour and miss the most potentially profitable house
show per week, which would theoretically weaken the shows, thus lower the grosses and
profit margin. On the other hand, even if one were to order 40 weekly shows priced at
$9.95, seven In Your House shows priced at $19.95 and five majors at $29.95, the
annual cost would be $687.40, a figure which on the surface sounds very high and it is,
but it's still cheaper than season tickets for even mid-level seats for NBA, Major League
Baseball and NHL teams in major markets. Plenty of successful teams in those sports
have no trouble doing 15,000 season tickets within one market, and in this case, the
WWF's one market encompasses the entire United States and Canada. Nevertheless, the
odds of WWF being able to do 70,000 buys every week on PPV don't look good given the
already downward trend of buy rates, and that's not taking into account transportation
costs and whatever amount of money lost by not having as many top names on the
Saturday night house shows, not to mention that it might have a negative effect on the 12
other higher priced PPV shows.
It's basic economics that when business is going bad (and currently the WWF's business
isn't bad although the television aspect of their business is weakening) that you can take
one of two tactics. Either raise prices and hope that your hardcore customers are willing
to pay the higher price to make the product economically solvent, or throw as much
product out there with a cheap price hoping that the cheap price and tons of product will
bring volume up to solvent levels.
With the U.S. Open pre-empting Raw in its regular time slot over the next two weeks,
the show is moving to a one-hour special on 9/6 headlined by Shawn Michaels vs.
Goldust for the WWF title which was taped on 8/19 and said to have been a four-star
match with Michaels winning, and Mankind doing a post-match run-in. There is already
talk of WCW televising its regularly scheduled house show (far from a done deal at press
time and one that I don't expect to take place) that night in Shreveport to go head-tohead,
as there is talk that the Friday night special is an experiment for a new time slot
for Raw for the new season. If that were to take place, it would be promoted at the Nitro
one-year anniversary special. If that isn't to take place, they'll probably promote the 9/2
regular Nitro as the one year anniversary special (the first Nitro was on September 4,
1995). Vince McMahon didn't announce Raw on the first show of the new tapings that
aired live on 8/19, with the threesome of Kevin Kelly, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler
handling the show with no mention of McMahon not being there. McMahon has talked
for months about giving up his announcing duties and spending more time working with
the talent at the tapings. When Kelly was originally brought in it was with the idea that
he was being groomed to host the Superstars show. Apparently McMahon was at least
talking of giving up the Raw duties as well and concentrate more on producing all the
television shows. Kelly has been really impressive in the short time he's been in WWF.
WCW is expected to add Mike Tenay as the third man with Eric Bischoff and Bobby
Heenan on the second hour of Nitro starting with the 8/26 show in Palmetto, FL.
In other WCW television changes for the new season, The Main Event show which is
mainly second-run matches, will be moved from Sunday to the early Saturday morning
time slot. The Pro show, with all new matches, will be moved from Saturday morning to
Sunday at 5:05 p.m. Eastern time and be used primarily to hype Nitro the next day.
Because the show is being moved one hour earlier, on Sundays when there is a PPV
show, they will no longer do the live pre-game show from the building. The belief is it
was making the crowds sit too long on the big shows, although I thought it was a great
vehicle for last-minute PPV buys. Now there will be a one-hour gap between the end of
the Pro show and the beginning of the PPV shows.
***********************************************************
The WWF's traditional No. 2 event of the calendar year, SummerSlam, wound up being
just another in the stream of almost weekly PPV events, and in the case of this past eight
day period, three PPV events and one Clash. The show had a blase undercard and an
excellent main event, which made it somewhat the opposite of WCW's Hog Wild the
previous week, with the strong undercard and poor main event.
It appears that will be the story of things for the remainder of 1996 as well. WWF simply
doesn't have the depth, nor the quality of super underneath workers that WCW now has
in abundance. On the other hand, WWF has Shawn Michaels on top, an almost
guaranteed strong main event, while WCW will be headlining its big shows with Hulk
Hogan, and you can't get much more opposite than that when it comes to comparing
ability.
Where the show proved to be the No. 2 event of the year was live at the Gund Arena in
Cleveland, setting a state record with a $413,168 house, which would be the second
biggest live gate of the year in North America behind only Wrestlemania at the Pond in
Anaheim, on a paid attendance of 14,926 with more than 17,000 in attendance in a
building set up for just under 20,000. It was a pretty rabid crowd, with little in the way
of non-WWF posters (noticeable pro-NWO posters and a "Modell sucks" banner). There
was said to have been small chants of both NWO and ECW during the show, but neither
was audible on the PPV. The announcing was done by Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and
Curt Hennig and about the only comment about that threesome is that they should
change Hennig's nickname to Mr. Perfectly Useless.
A. Steve Austin (Steve Williams) pinned Yokozuna (Rodney Anoia) in 1:52 when
Yokozuna went up for the banzai, and the gimmicked ring ropes broke and he fell into
the ring and was pinned. The reverse camera angle on the replay clearly showed
Yokozuna pulling the gimmicked turnbuckle apart so the ropes would collapse. DUD
They aired a Free-for-all interview with Undertaker and Paul Bearer where Bearer did a
very subtle tease of his late show heel turn.
Then aired a beach party deal. There were some people complaining about faces and
heels being in the same place but given the type of skit it was, it didn't seem to matter.
The whole skit consisted of teasing viewers with seeing Sable, Marlena and eventually
Sunny in bathing suits. Unfortunately, there was a background model with Hunter
Hearst Helmsley who stole the scene. It ended up building into a situation where nobody
was in the pool but Jerry Lawler and they pretended their was a crap in the pool. Lawler
freaked out. T.L. Hopper jumped in the pool and picked it up, although it was really just
a candy bar, and ate the candy bar to gross everyone out.
1. Owen Hart beat Savio Vega (Juan Rivera) in 13:23. The crowd chanted "Owen" early
on. It started slow until Vega's shoulder hit the ringpost. Hart worked on Vega's
shoulder and continued to sell his wrist because of the cast gimmick. The early part of
the match was slow but it picked up with a good final few minutes with near falls.
Clarence Mason came out and they teased a break-up with Hart and Jim Cornette
because Cornette didn't come out for the match as they showed him still in the dressing
room with Vader. The first big near fall was after a Hart dropkick off the top. When he
went to the top again, Vega kicked him and Hart crotched himself. Vega used a
backward superplex but Hart got his cast behind Vega's head so Vega took a bad fall as
well. Hart then hit Vega with the cast, knocking him out, and put the sharpshooter on.
With Vega out, the ref stopped the match. After the match, Justin Bradshaw and Zeb
came out and called Vega a Puerto Rican dog and said they were going to send him back
to the island. Bradshaw clocked Vega in the aisle as he was being helped out of the ring
by the officials. Not a bad match, but disappointing considering the talent involved and
that this was such a major card. **1/2
2. The Smoking Gunns (Monte Sopp & Mike Plotcheck) retained the WWF tag titles in a
four corners elimination match over New Rockers (Marty Jannetty & Allan Sarven),
Godwinns (Mark Canterbury & Dennis Knight) and Bodydonnas (Chris Candito & Tom
Prichard) in 12:18. Skip was wearing a neck brace and they acknowledged the injury
from Madison Square Garden. He actually never touched a soul during the short period
his team was in. Another major disappointment, far worse than reports and what we've
seen of this same match on the road. Billy Gunn also had a brace on his hand from a
thumb injury. There was a big "Sunny" chant early. The Bodydonnas were out first at
4:00 when Jannetty tripped Zip and Billy pinned him. The Rockers then kept screwing
up and hitting the Gunns. Hank finally pinned Leif after a slop drop in 7:18. The match
was bad by this time and only got worse, with a dead crowd. Finish was Phinneus use the
slop drop on Billy, but the ref was distracted by Sunny and Hillbilly Jim arguing at
ringside. At this point Bart came off the top rope onto Phinneus, and put Billy on top for
the pin. At the end of the match, Sunny got on the house mic talking about how the
Gunns were what men are supposed to look like and knocking how ugly the women in
the audience were, and then a huge poster of Sunny came down from the ceiling. Jim
Ross said that she had missed a trip to the woodshed when she was younger. Does that
mean we're about to see the inevitable spanking? DUD
3. Psycho Sid (Sid Eudy) pinned Davey Boy Smith in 6:24. Sid led cheers for himself.
Cornette again didn't come out as he was preoccupied with Vader. Mason again came
out. This match was better than one would think, but still not a good match. Sid took a
few bumps and protected Smith more than he did at the house shows. Smith used his
powerslam on Sid, but instead of going for the pin, was distracted since Cornette came
out and was arguing with Mason. Smith went for a second powerslam, but Sid got out of
it and used the choke slam. *
4. Goldust (Dustin Runnels) pinned Marc Mero in 11:01. First major turning point was
Goldust backdropping Mero over the top rope. Goldust knocked him off the apron and
he crashed into the guard rail, then dropped his throat on the guard rail. Mankind came
out and chased Sable around the ring calling her "Mommy" and she acted all freaked out
screaming. Mankind then ran away from ringside. Mero did a flip plancha over the top
and a legdrop ito the ring. Mero debuted his new finisher, a shooting star press, which
they are going to call the "Wild Thing." However, Goldust still won the match with the
curtain call. After the match, Goldust acted as if he was going to sexually molest Sable
and was scaring her to death when Mero finally got up and made the comeback and
basically beat Goldust to the back. For some reason, these two didn't work as well as
you'd think. Goldust's knee may have been bothering him as he didn't do all that much.
**1/4
5. Jerry Lawler pinned Jake Roberts (Aurelian Smith Jr.) in 4:07. This was mainly the
Lawler comedy show, telling one wino joke after another. He also wore a Baltimore
Ravens jersey which got tremendous heat. Mark Henry did color although he really
didn't say much and was laughing at some of Lawler's jokes which he really wasn't
supposed to be doing, although he acted disgusted with Lawler as well. Lawler brought
out a giant bottle in a bag as a present for Roberts. Roberts pulled out the snake and
chased Lawler with it and he ran away. Roberts put the snake away and they started the
match. Roberts teased the DDT a few times but it ended with Lawler hitting Roberts in
the chest with the bottle and getting the pin. After the match, Lawler poured what was
supposed to have been a bottle of whiskey down Roberts' throat and all over his face.
When Lawler tried to do it a second time, Henry stopped him. This appears to be setting
up Lawler's as Henry's first foil. DUD
6. Mankind (Michael Foley) beat Undertaker (Mark Calloway) in 26:20 of the Boiler
Room match. The rules of the match is that the first person to break out of the Boiler
Room and get to the ring and get the urn from Paul Bearer would be the winner. The
first part of the match was taped the previous day, largely for timing and possible editing
purposes if something were to go wrong. It was like a movie fight scene with the two
bashing each other with objects and Mankind taking hellacious bumps and taking sick
punishment. The problem was, with no crowd noise audible and the announcers not
voicing over the action, the fighting sequence was way too long. Among the highlights
were garbage can shots, Mankind turning steam on in Undertaker's face, low blows with
an object, etc. They even had a few segments where the picture went out, which must
have been on purpose since it was pre-taped, but were kind of bad. Mankind did an
elbow drop off a ladder to the floor once, and later took a bump while Undertaker threw
down the ladder and he was near the top of the ladder. Mankind got out first and put all
kinds of barricades blocking the door. Undertaker still got out the door. The rest of the
segment (from the point the door opened where you saw the referee by the door) was
done live and it was really good. They brawled in the backstage area with Mankind
taking a bump over a table. Mankind smashed Undertaker with metal steps and
supposedly threw scalding coffee on him. Undertaker broke a 2x4 over Mankind's back.
Mankind rammed Undertaker into the ring steps and gave him a piledriver on the floor.
Undertaker made a comeback and threw Mankind off the apron where he took the
Nestea plunge bump backward crashing to the floor. Undertaker went to get the urn
from Bearer, who turned his back on him. Mankind used the mandible claw and went to
get the urn but Undertaker sat up. Mankind put the claw back on Undertaker. Bearer
then slapped and kicked Undertaker and finally hit him with the urn and gave the urn to
Mankind. After the match the lights went out and music played and a group of druids in
the dark carried the "dead" Undertaker to the back. No rating because so much of it was
taped, but Bearer was great doing the turn and both worked very hard. The only negative
was the boiler room stuff lasted too long and needed commentary and crowd noise. The
announcers did a great job with the turn.
7. Shawn Michaels (Michael Hickenbottom) pinned Vader (Leon White) to retain the
WWF title. Vader noticeably had dropped weight. Jim Cornette did a pre-match
interview talking about a Peter Frampton song from 20 years ago. That was as bad as the
Ric Flair interview a few months back talking about a song that was probably from the
same summer. Excellent match. Michaels did a dive over the top rope early and got in
the ring and kind of did a Hogan spoof. Michaels used a huracanrana in the ring and
then got on Vader's shoulder and used a rana over the top rope. Michaels went over the
top to do a plancha into a Frankensteiner, but Vader caught him at the top and power
bombed him on the floor. Vader whipped Michaels into one turnbuckle and he took the
Ray Stevens bump out and back in, then across the ring where he took a Harley Race
bump over the top to the floor. Vader dropped Michaels stomach on the top rope for a
near fall. When Vader went to do a sit splash, Michaels got his knees up and caught
Vader in the groin. Michaels came off the top with a stomp, then used a crossbody and
both went over the top. Vader pressed Michaels and dropped his throat on the guard rail
and the bell ring signalling a count out win at 13:53. Cornette began ranting and raving
about not wanting a count out win and challenged Michaels to re-start the match. While
it never appeared Michaels accepted, the match was restarted. Vader went after Jose
Lothario giving Cornette the chance to use the racquet on Michaels. Vader got a near fall
with a belly-to-belly. Vader went for a power bomb, but Michaels stalled at the top and
began punching him. After an elbow off the top, Michaels teased the superkick. Cornette
grabbed his leg and threw the tennis racquet to Vader. Michaels got the racquet first and
hit Vader and Cornette with it several times each for a DQ in 2:10. Again Cornette asked
for the match to be re-started as they did a pull-apart brawl, and Gorilla Monsoon
okayed it. In the re-start, Michaels finally hit the superkick, but Vader kicked out. After a
ref bump, Vader hit the power bomb but there was originally no ref to count the fall. A
second ref counted the fall but Michaels then kicked out. Vader climbed up for the Vader
bomb, but Cornette told him to go up to the top for the moonsault. Vader missed the
moonsault and Michaels climbed to the top with a moonsault bodyblock and got the pin
at 2:56 of the third re-start. ****
***********************************************************
The health situations surrounding some of the major name wrestlers may have taken a
turn for the worst this past week.
As announced on the WWF PPV, Ahmed Johnson (Tony Norris) was hospitalized again
this past week when his kidney continued bleeding. By the end of the week he was back
out of the hospital but a continuation of the bleeding, which the surgery was supposed to
stop, could result in them having to remove his kidney.
The situation involving the Great Sasuke is cloudy is secrecy with a lot of concern
because reporters have been banned from seeing him although insiders say his condition
is "pretty bad" stemming from a fractured skull suffered while landing on his head on a
dive during the 8/5 match in Tokyo against Ultimo Dragon, which in storyline fashion,
was his biggest career win. Apparently, although this is not confirmed, Sasuke may need
some sort of brain surgery and could be out of action for a while.
From a storyline standpoint, at the time of his being hospitalized after the Dragon
match, Sasuke held nine different lighter weight title belts. One of them, the WWA
middleweight title, was already vacated when Sasuke missed a scheduled title defense on
8/17 (Pantera of AAA won the title beating Naohiro Hoshikawa). The other eight belts
are next scheduled for title defenses on 9/23 at Yokohama Arena against Shinjiro Otani
and 10/11 in Osaka against Ultimo Dragon. The original plan was for Dragon to win all
eight belts on that show. In addition, Sasuke's company, Michinoku Pro Wrestling, had
scheduled the biggest card in its history on 10/10 at Tokyo Sumo Hall with Sasuke
scheduled to headline against Dynamite Kid. At this point, his appearing on all those
dates are questionable.
Jushin Liger did wrestle for Michinoku Pro on 8/18 in Aomori before his operation to
remove a brain tumor scheduled for 8/23. We've had it confirmed that the biopsy of the
tumor was benign and the tumor was relatively small, and there is a chance he'll return
from surgery to the ring as early as the New Japan September tour.
***********************************************************
The restraining order hearing involving the WWF lawsuit against WCW for trademark
infringement was scheduled to take place this week, but a settlement between the two
sides on that aspect took place before the hearing.
In a consent order signed by both sides, WCW agreed to not have any employees or
independent contractors who work for the company call Scott Hall either Razor Ramon
or The Bad Guy or call Kevin Nash either Diesel or Big Daddy Cool. In addition, WCW is
not allowed to state that either Hall or Nash currently work for the WWF. Since WCW
wasn't about to do any of that anyway, it appeared to be pretty much an amicable deal.
Apparently there is heat within WCW because WWF was able to find out about
interoffice memos sent when Hall and Nash first started working for the company where
they were called by their Titan names, which will no doubt be used by Titan in the
lawsuit aspect of the case.
Titan is still bringing the lawsuit forward asking for damages from WCW for trademark
infringement and unfair competitive practices with no date set as of yet for the jury trial.
In other legal entanglements, the situation regarding Sean Waltman seems to have
wound up with 1-2-3 Kid temporarily locked up as a pawn between the two warring
sides.
Apparently WWF agreed to give Waltman a release from his contract, and Waltman
reached a deal with WCW and was going to debut on 8/10 as the fourth member of the
NWO team. However, before signing the release, Titan listed not only the name 1-2-3
Kid but mannerisms, dress and look of the character that they claimed as intellectual
property and since it wasn't settled and still isn't settled, Waltman is tied up. Waltman
did a Prodigy interview with Bob Ryder believing that he's become a pawn in the lawsuit.
In addition, both WWF and WCW have been carefully scrutinizing the WCW hotline for
veiled mentions of 1-2-3 Kid because since Waltman hasn't been released, if there are
any mentions, WWF can use it as lawsuit ammunition that here WCW is still talking
about bringing in talent that is under contract to Titan Sports (since Bret Hart wasn't
under Titan contract, whether he is right now I don't believe so but am not sure, starting
rumors of his coming doesn't fall under that umbrella).
***********************************************************
WCW ran its third live show in the space of five days with a Clash of the Champions
special from the Denver Coliseum on 8/15. Due to the rushed nature of trying to cram
eight matches into a two-hour format, it came off more like Thursday Nitro then a
special major show with only one strong match. The show drew a full house of 8,304
fans, with 5,931 paying $70,111.
The show drew a 3.5 rating and 6.2 share in 2.2 million homes. It's not a bad number,
although well down from the 4.5 that the January Clash did and that's with Hogan vs.
Flair, which is the best mainstream match to deliver television ratings with the possible
exception of Hogan vs. Savage. The basic feeling is that since it came a few days after a
PPV, it wasn't hyped anywhere near the level of previous Clash shows and to most it was
just a second edition of Nitro for the week and 3.5 is a great Nitro rating. The first hour
didn't do well, averaging a 2.5 rating while the second hour averaged a 4.2, which is
strong. You can compare that jump to the relatively minor jumps in ratings between the
first and second hours of Nitro, although the second hour of Nitro does have the head-up
competition. But again it says something because the largest audience is there for Hogan
vs. Flair, no matter how bad the match is, as that match did a 4.7 rating and 7.3 share.
That's a far cry from their 6.7 rating and record audience two years ago at the Clash but
it's still more than all the great young wrestlers can pull.
In pre-show dark matches, Mike Enos & Dick Slater beat Jim Powers & Mark Starr, and
the Nasty Boys beat Mr. J.L. & Bobby Walker.
1. Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzales) pinned Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) to retain the
cruiserweight title in 12:07. Malenko replaced Psicosis who is still out of action with a
dislocated elbow. This wasn't as good as some of their previous matches but easily the
class match of the show. Misterio Jr. did all kinds of flying spots early including a
baseball slide into a spinning head scissors on the floor and a quebrada inside the ring.
Malenko did a gut wrench into a hot shot like move and a brainbuster. After a
commercial break they came back and the two did an incredible series of reversals.
Misterio Jr. did a running flip plancha over the top and a moonsault block off the guard
rail which was a little sloppy. He got near falls with a springboard dropkick and a
springboard huracanrana. When Misterio Jr. went to the top, Malenko climbed up and
gave him a stomach block or gut buster while standing on the middle rope and got the
pin, but Misterio Jr.'s leg was under the ropes. Referee Randy Anderson re-started the
match and Misterio Jr. hit a rana immediately for the pin. ***3/4
2. V.K. Wallstreet (Lawrence Rotunda) pinned Jim Duggan in 3:48 when Duggan went
to tape his fist and got the ref all wrapped up with the tape and Wallstreet schoolboyed
him using the trunks for the pin. DUD
3. Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) pinned Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) in 2:57 when
Dragon did a german suplex, went for a second but Konnan reversed it and got the pin
using the tights. This booking was from the planet Mars. Konnan is turning heel, but
goes against a guy who could easily be the face except he's got Sonny Onno in the corner
and Onno even does a spot interfering to insure Konnan as the face. A waste of Dragon's
talents to do such a short match. *1/4
Ice Train did an interview on Compuserve and Scott Norton jumped him. It was so
campy it was funny, although nobody could take it seriously because it looked so
ridiculously staged.
They played music for Randy Savage, who never came out (maybe Hawk found him
again). Actually he wasn't even there, then announced that he was injured on Nitro the
previous Monday by Hulk Hogan. It's weird because they had never promo'd the match
to begin with, so nobody would have been mad about Savage no-showing live except by
playing his music and him not being there, then they were mad. They announced his
opponent, Meng, the winner via forfeit. In another match originally on the scheduled but
never promo'd, Chris Jericho didn't debut on this show against Hugh Morrus. For
whatever reason (like already having too many matches for two hours to begin with), the
match was canceled, however nobody ever got around to telling Jericho, who didn't
know what to do when a plane ticket for the show never arrived. Jericho is scheduled to
debut for WCW this week now.
4. Madusa (Debra Micelli) pinned Bull Nakano (Keiko Nakano) in 2:42. Sunny Onno
accidentally kicked Nakano and Madusa won with a schoolboy, or I guess in this case, a
schoolgirl (I don't know if girls ever do things like that to each other on the playground).
A waste of talent since it was so short. 1/2*
5. Eddie Guerrero pinned Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) in 4:20 with a frog
splash coming out of nowhere to win the Battle Bowl ring. This was a good match, but
too short. After the match, Page hit two diamond cutters (that move gets a big pop) on
Guerrero before Chavo Guerrero Jr. showed up. Page still shoved him away and gave
Eddie another diamond cutter off the middle rope. It wasn't made clear if Guerrero got
the ring or if Page took it and after watching Nitro a few days later, it was still a
confusing issue. **
6. The Giant (Paul Wight) pinned Chris Benoit in :23. Woman pulled Benoit's vest over
his shoulders so he was helpless, and Giant dropkicked him and gave him probably the
best choke slam in the history of the world for the pin. What a waste of talent. I guess
that's the theme for this show. DUD
7. A triangle match for the WCW tag titles with Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman),
Steiners (Robert & Scott Rechsteiner) and Sting (Steve Borden) & Lex Luger (Larry
Pfohl) ended with a no contest in 13:22 when Kevin Nash and Scott Hall attacked Sting
& Luger outside the ring. Scott had just given Booker T the Frankensteiner and had him
pinned for what would have been a title change when heel ref Nick Patrick saw the
interference and called it a DQ. They tried to play up that since Hall & Nash had attacked
Sting & Luger outside the ring, that he should have counted the fall and played it up as
part of his turn. Of course logically, he should have thrown it out for outside interference
even if the interference wasn't in the ring. Nick Patrick did a post-match interview
explaining what a great referee he was, and the scary part was this was a better interview
than either Hogan or Flair did on the show. *3/4
8. Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) beat Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) via DQ in 8:23 so Hogan
retained the WCW or NWO title. Pretty embarrassing that the belt still says "Giant" on
it. Bobby Heenan made the lame comment of the show saying "Did you think you'd ever
see people cheering Ric Flair and booing Hulk Hogan?" No, never, except just about
every time they've been in against each other in the last eight months. The funny part
was, the crowd was actually cheering Hogan more than Flair because NWO has become
the cool thing because of how lame WCW has portrayed its side as being. There were lots
of pro-Hogan and pro-NWO banners and even a "Hogan for President" sign. This looked
like an old-timers match. It was said because Flair was working hard and still couldn't
carry Hogan to a decent match. Finish saw Hogan use the superman comeback and get
cheered for it, but missed the legdrop and Flair used the figure four. At this point, Hogan
threw down the ref and Hall and Nash interfered for the DQ. Steve McMichael, Arn
Anderson, Sting and Luger all made an immediate save. 1/2*
***********************************************************
We've got line-ups for the three PPV shows in September.
The complete WCW Fall Brawl show on 9/15 in Winston-Salem, NC will be War Games
with Sting & Luger & Flair & Anderson vs. Hall & Nash & Hogan & ? (at this point the 1-
2-3 Kid deal may fall through and he may not be officially released from his Titan
contract and thus able to work here by this date. Ted DiBiase will be in before this show,
I don't believe he's going to be wrestling due to injuries and insurance reasons, and this
show is a few weeks before Jeff Jarrett's WWF contract expires so at press time we don't
know who the guy will be but it'll probably be a WCW mainline star turning if it isn't
Kid); Giant vs. Randy Savage, Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys for WCW tag titles, Konnan
vs. Psicosis for the Mexican heavyweight title (Konnan actually does hold the AAA and
IWAS heavyweight belts but not the Mexican title), Misterio Jr. vs. Super Calo for the
WCW cruiserweight title, Benoit vs. Jericho, Page vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr., and a match
which must be decided via submission with Scott Norton vs. Ice Train. Tickets went on
sale over the weekend and as of 8/19 they had sold 2,936 tickets for $64,735, about twothirds
of that was done in the first three hours tickets went on sale as there was a lot of
local publicity for tickets going on sale.
The 9/20 UFC PPV will be a tournament, which at this point is still tentatively set for
Syracuse, NY. Tickets aren't on sale nor is there any local publicity for the show. On the
Pancrase PPV that aired on 8/16, the only thing announced was a date for the show, no
site nor anything about buying tickets to see the show live, and the commercials were
built totally around Tank Abbott and Mark Coleman. There are four other confirmed
names, the most celebrated being Fabio Gurgel, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter who won
the BJJ world championships in the 200 pound weight division this past February in Rio
de Janiero. Gurgel was beaten in the open division by Amoury Bitetti (who lost to Don
Frye in the May UFC in Detroit) in the same tournament after winning his weight class.
Gurgel is the only person who has ever beaten Royce Gracie in Jiu-Jitsu competition and
apparently that's the reason Royce Gracie no longer competes in the Jiu-Jitsu
tournaments in Brazil, and because of that, many are talking of him as having a good
shot at winning the tournament. The basic belief is that the only type of fighter who is
going to beat Coleman would be either a good submission fighter or a Dan Severn type
who can match up to him as a wrestler but has more anything goes experience. The other
interesting newcomer will be Igor Vovchanchin of Russia, who won the third Russian
Absolute tournament, which is basically a UFC knockoff event held inside an octagon.
Vovchanchin is a stand-up fighter whose style it is to just throw punch after punch, but
has sombo experience. A stand-up fighter who is 5-8, 213 would appear to be an easy
mark for a good large wrestler the likes of which have dominated UFCs of late, but
apparently Vovchanchin dusted some good ground fighters in the last Russian
tournament with a style that consisted mainly of punching people out. The other two
confirmed names are Julian Sanchez from Texas, a 290-pound kick boxer, and Brian
Johnston, who was in the July UFC in Birmingham and lost in the second round to Don
Frye.
The WWF has revamped and rebooked the 9/22 In Your House/School of Hard Knocks
PPV show from Philadelphia going with Michaels vs. Mankind for the title as the main
event, with the other known matches at this point being Mark Henry vs. Lawler,
Lothario vs. Cornette, Undertaker vs. Goldust in a curtain call match (must end via
pinfall), Faarooq vs. Mero in the finals of the IC title tournament and Vader vs. Sid. As of
8/19, its advance was remarkably similar to the WCW advance for its September PPV-
-2,973 tickets and $62,770. The next PPV after that will be 10/20 from Indianapolis
which is currently slated for Michaels vs. Goldust, Sid vs. Vader and Smoking Gunns vs.
Godwinns but I suspect that will change since they've already given Michaels-Goldust
with a finish away for free.
***********************************************************
And yet another PPV this past week was the "Kings of Pancrase" show on 8/16. The show
was built around the King of Pancrase championship title, airing all of the title change
matches (Minoru Suzuki vs. Frank Shamrock and Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten, which
had previously aired on American PPVs were edited down to about one minute of
highlights) and showing numerous wins of Ken Shamrock, Suzuki, Frank Shamrock and
Rutten dating back to Pancrase's inception in 1993.
The show would have made a good introduction to the top stars of the promotion
(Masakatsu Funaki was also featured building to his upcoming title shot at Rutten and
hyped as perhaps a future champion). There were strengths, in particular Bruce Beck,
who has turned into the smoothest pro wrestling announcer in the country and brought
out a lot of background info on the different wrestlers, and Ken Shamrock, who is still
stiff in spots but does a great job on color. However, it didn't work in situations where
Shamrock would feign surprise at finishes of matches which took place months or years
ago. At one point before the Frank vs. Rutten match which aired on the last Pancrase
PPV where before the match started, Ken predicted it would go the time limit to a
decision when anyone who had seen the previous PPV show knew the finish already and
the phony building up of surprise isn't needed when people know these are taped
matches from months ago.
On the negative side, SEG is still novices to the pro wrestling and boxing world of hyping
and building. While they aired a 1993 match where Funaki beat Rutten (the next PPV
main event is Rutten defending against Funaki--although that also was never mentioned
nor hyped on the broadcast), they didn't hit the subject hard enough of Funaki having a
prior win over the champion. There were complaints that they didn't bring up Rutten's
serious auto accident on 7/4. They also didn't mention the next PPV date, the card for
the next date, have any interviews hyping the next date, and the only mention of UFC at
all during the show was a commercial that airs on the barker channels. With Shamrock
and Beck, a UFC competitor and the UFC's play-by-play announcers, they should have
discussed the upcoming UFC or at least talked about Mark Coleman and Tank Abbott,
who the commercial was built around.
As mentioned several times here before, even at best, Pancrase was going to be a hard
sell to the American public, but without hyping and building, it's an almost impossible
sell. In addition, as a "Best of" show, the quality of the matches that they picked were
questionable. Nearly every Pancrase fan in the U.S. that I know will immediately call the
Frank Shamrock vs. Allan Goes match from 1995 as the best match in the history of the
promotion, but it didn't air, even though they were featuring Frank (perhaps because
Frank was held to a controversial draw and Goes in some ways looked the better of the
two). In addition, whatever Pancrase is or isn't when it comes to legitimacy, I believe if it
is legitimate now, that wasn't always the case and that some of the "best of" matches
didn't look legit in spots. As a rule, the older the matches, the more questionable they
looked, which is understandable because the more current, the more years these guys
are removed from the traditional pro wrestling world.
A positive comes to the treatment of pro wrestling. In previous Pancrase and UFC
shows, they almost run away from the mention of the term pro wrestling. Dan Severn is
never referred to as a pro wrestler, nor is the pro wrestling part of Ken Shamrock's
background ever mentioned. However, on this show, they were honest to a fault when it
came to backgrounds at least of the Japanese (they still haven't brought up that Ken was
a pro wrestler and Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi where Ken fought before Pancrase is
closer to pro wrestling than it is to UFC). Manabu Yamada was mentioned as being a
star in shooting (Satoru Sayama's rival promotion) before joining Pancrase, and Bruce
Beck talked about Minoru Suzuki's childhood hero being "the legendary Antonio Inoki,"
talked about Suzuki, Yusuke Fuke and Masakatsu Funaki in terms of number of years of
"pro wrestling experience" and talking about Suzuki growing up as a teenager and
watching the legendary June 1983 Hulk Hogan vs. Inoki match and that match inspired
him to become "a pro wrestler." The belief is going in that Pancrase was going to be
more of a hit with martial arts fans in the U.S. as opposed to pro wrestling fans, but SEG
apparently has come to the conclusion that the main audience buying Pancrase consists
of pro wrestling fans.
Overall, my opinion was there were too many matches (10 in complete form and several
more in edited form, which is a lot when you are talking about a promotion with a
limited number of fighters) and not enough interviews and hype. They did a better job of
getting over the five key personalities on this show then they had in previous shows.
Others felt that lack of hype a positive in the show as compared to the other major shows
during the week. I came out of this show less enthusiastic about seeing future Pancrase
shows than I did after seeing the previous two PPV shows.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 8/23 TO 9/23
8/24 WWF X Press Toronto Exhibition Stadium (Michaels vs. Goldust)
8/24 RINGS Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Yamamoto vs. Morais)
8/24 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Raven & Douglas vs. Pit Bull #2 & Sandman)
8/25 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader & Cornette)
8/26 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Palmetto, FL Manatee Civic Center
9/1 FMW Nagoya station outdoors (Tanaka & Nakagawa & Kuroda vs. Kanemura & Hido
& Hosaka)
9/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Chattanooga, TN UTC Arena
9/5 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Hansen)
9/6 WWF Houston Summit Arena
9/7 Pancrase Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
9/7 WWF Dallas Reunion Arena
9/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Columbus, GA Civic Center
9/11 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Tenryu)
9/14 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
9/15 WCW Fall Brawl PPV Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Coliseum (Flair &
Anderson & Luger & Sting vs. Hogan & Nash & Hall & ?)
9/16 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto vs. Chono)
9/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Asheville, NC Civic Center
9/20 New Japan/WCW Osaka Furitsu Gym (Muto & Sting vs. Steiners)
9/21 WWF Baltimore Arena
9/22 WWF School of Hard Knocks PPV Philadelphia Core States Spectrum (Michaels &
Lothario vs. Vader & Cornette)
9/23 New Japan/WCW Yokohama Arena (WCW/New Japan tournament finals)
9/23 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Hershey, PA Park Arena
RESULTS
8/6 Cohasset, MA (WWF - 1,733): Bob Holly b Justin Bradshaw, Owen Hart b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Strap match: Savio Vega b Goldust, Sid b Vader, Steve Austin b
Aldo Montoya, Davey Boy Smith b Marc Mero, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Smoking
Gunns-DQ, Undertaker b Mankind
8/8 Mexico City Pista Arena Revolucion (CMLL - 600): Principe Odin Jr. & Billy
Robles b Jaguar Sagrado & Cobra de Fuego, La Flecha & Apolo Chino & Enemigo
Publico b Los Machos I & II & III-DQ, K-2 & Tsubasa & Aero Flash b Diabolik & Angel
Satanico & Corazon Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr. & El Signo & Gran Markus Jr. b Atlantis
& Aero Flash & Mr. Niebla
8/9 McMinnville, TN (Hardcore Championship Wrestling): Shane & Steve
Morton b Strickly Business, Quinton Quarisma b Michael Lee, Troy Eaton b Tony Falk,
Prozac Jac NC John White, Eaton b Larry Valentine-DQ
8/10 Houma, LA (Mid South Wrestling - 250): Tommy Martinelli b T.J. Sullivan-
DQ, Tazmanian Devil & Twister b Shogun Warrior & Ripper, Bronco Bob b Motor City
Mad Man, Southern Patriot Eagle b Southern Patriot Falcon, Al Savage b Halfbreed,
Frankie Rhodes & Sandman (Kevin Northcutt) b Hardtime Express, Doink the Clown
(Dusty Wolfe) b Joe Kane
8/10 Mount Airy, NC (PWA): Hollywood Kid b Charlie Trixter, Scorpion d Texas
Outlaw, Vladimir Koloff b Bobby Sechrist, Big Slam Vader (Walter McDonald) b Marc
Ash, Bobby & Jackie Fulton b Bingham Brothers, Wahoo McDaniel b Robert Bingham
8/11 Scranton, PA (WWF - 3,138): Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Justin bradshaw,
Godwinns won triangle match over Smoking Gunns and New Rockers, Marc Mero b
Owen Hart, Savio Vega b Davey Boy Smith, Undertaker b Mankind, Steve Austin b Jake
Roberts, Sid b Goldust, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
8/11 Netzahualcoyotl (UWA): Puma 2000 b Linterna Verde, Sombra Negra & Blas
Espana b Bat Blue & Gran Leo, Los Machos II & III & Loco Valentino b Rey Dragon &
Gran Leo & Relicario, Ruben & Relicario b Adrian El Exotico & Tigre de Oro-DQ, El
Signo & Angel Satanico & Skeletor b Aero Flash & Los Rayos Tapatios I & II
8/12 Memphis (USWA): Johnny Rotten b Punisher, King Cobra b Ashley Hudson,
Flex Kavana & Bart Sawyer b Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine, USWA tag titles:
Moondogs b Kavana & Sawyer, Wolfie D b Jamie Dundee, USWA title: Brian
Christopher b Bill Dundee-DQ, Tommy Rich NC Doug Gilbert, Unified title: Jerry
Lawler b Koko Ware, Ware won Battle Royal
8/13 Keimai (Michinoku Pro - 355): Gran Naniwa NC Wellington Wilkens Jr.,
Super Delfin b Battle Cat, Super Boy & Tiger Mask b Taka Michinoku & Mens Teoh-DQ,
Tiger Mask Sayama b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Shoichi Funaki & Shiryu & Dick Togo b
Masato Yakushiji & Pantera & Gran Hamada
8/14 Tsuruoka (Michinoku Pro - 597): Taka Michinoku d Shiryu, Battle Cat b Mens
Teoh-DQ, Shoichi Funaki & Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Super Delfin, UWF Super
welter title: Pantera b Gran Naniwa, Tiger Mask Sayama & Super Boy & Wellington
Wilkens Jr. b Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa
8/14 Kannapluss, NC (IWA - 650 free show after baseball game): Jimmy
Valiant b Assassin (Buddy Porter), Super Mario b Kevin Kirby, Vladimir Koloff b L.A.
Stephens, Nikolai Volkoff & Masked Superstar (Bill Eadie) & Gary Royal b Big Cheese
(Sal Corrente) & David Isley & Gene Ligon
8/15 Tanohata (Michinoku Pro - 233): Shoichi Funaki b Sugamoto, Battle Cat b
Masato Yakushiji, Pantera & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Super Boy & Gran Naniwa, Dick
Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku b Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Tiger
Mask & Naohiro Hoshikawa
8/15 Bakersfield, CA (Slammers): Pete Malloy b El Toro Bravo, Hombre de Oro b
Bruce Beaudine-DQ, Samoan Kid b Tyrone Little, Dynamite D & El Espirito b Jesus
Zapata & Malloy, Bravo & Little b Oro & Kid
8/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan Women - 1,650): Nana Takahashi & Miho
Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto & Momoe Nakanishi, Kumiko Maekawa & Saya Endo b
Rie Tamada & Yuka Shiina, Tomoko Watanabe & Genki Misae b Reggie Bennett & Yumi
Fukawa, Mariko Yoshida b Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong b Kaoru Ito, Kyoko Inoue b Takako
Inoue, WWWA tag titles 2/3 falls: Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda b Etsuko Mita &
Toshiyo Yamada 23:49
8/16 Mexico City Juan de la Barrera Gym (AAA): Winners & La Parka & Ultimo
Dragon b Los Villanos-DQ, Hair vs. hair: Janet b Migaly, Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. &
Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr. b Cien Caras & Juventud Guerrera & Pierroth Jr. &
Heavy Metal
8/16 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Saigoncito Dragon & Cicloncito Ramirez
b Fierito & Damiancito, Olimpico & Olimpus & Ciclon Ramirez b Halcon ***** Jr. &
Reyes Veloz & Escudero Rojo, La Fiera & Shocker & Brazo de Oro b Rambo & Bestia
Salvaje & Rey Bucanero, Gran Markus Jr. & Emilio Charles Jr. & Black Warrior b Rayo
de Jalisco Jr. & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr., Mask vs. mask: Mascara Magica b Guerrero de la
Muerte (revealed as Luis Demetrio Enriquez)
8/16 Tlalnepantla (PROMELL): Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b Enigma & Colt, Ultimo
Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde b Ninja de Fuego & Dragon de Oro, Angel Azteca & Super
Elektra & Skayde b Zapatista & Panterita del Ring & Shu El Guerrero, Fantasma &
Cyborg Cob & El Brazo b Violencia (Pirata Morgan) & Blue Panther & Angel Blanco Jr.,
Mascara Ano 2000 b Brazo de Plata
8/16 LaSalle, ONT (Mickey Doyle retirement show Border City Wrestling -
950 sellout): Luther Wilson b Davey Daulton, Brooklyn Brawler b Skull Ganz,
Canadian Destroyer & Death Dealer b Larry Brun & Pat Ryan, Johnny Swinger b Pierre
Francois, Terry Richards b Otis Apollo, Bobby Clancy & Mike Legacy b Calavera Cortez &
Ricco Rodriguez to win BCW tag titles, Dan Severn b Geza Kalman Jr., Bruiser Bedlam b
Doink the Clown, Mickey Doyle & Scott D'Amore b Bodydonna Zip & Leif Cassidy
8/16 Catonsville, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Johnny Desire b
Bob Starr, Steve Corino b Earl the Pearl, Head Bangers b Menace 2 Society, Ramblin
Rich Myers b Quinn Nash, Corporal Punishment & Axl Rotten b Glenn Osbourne &
Chuck Williams to win MEWF tag titles, Boo Bradley b Knuckles Zandwich-COR, Mark
Schrader b Jimmy Cicero, Johnny Gunn (Salvatore Sincere) b Joe Thunder, Bam Bam
Bigelow b King Kong Bundy
8/16 Springfield, IL (Windy City Wrestling): Brandon Bishop b Ivan Urkoff, El
Marlin b Mike Anthony-COR, Bobby Dean b Little Tokyo, Brett Sanders b Ripper
Manson, Midwest Wrecking Crew & Crusher Pierce b Bad Influence & Chi-Town T,
Turbo b Bob Backlund
8/16 Reading, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling): Freight Train
Jones b Dave Dutch, Race Richards III won elimination match, Jihad Hussein b Pat
Shamrock, D.Z. Gillespie & Assassin b Double Delight to win PCW tag titles, Cremator b
Maxx Crimson, Boogie Woogie Brown DDQ Butcher Blackwell, Lance Diamond b
Cheetah Master, High Voltage won Battle Royal, Troy Mest b Mark Mest to win PCW
title
8/16 Inman, SC (Pro Wrestling Federation - 52): Rick Savage b Baby Huey-DQ,
David Jerrico NC Chris Hamrick, George South b Carolina Dreamer, New Flaming
Youth & J.C. Southern b Austin Steele & Terry Austin, Dreamer won Battle Royal
8/16 McMinnville, TN (Tennessee Valley Wrestling Federation): Jason
Valentine b Kid Ego, Miss Brandy b Sweet Candy, Yoshi Kwan b Scorpion, Dusty Dotson
& Scott Prather & Jailhouse Rocker DDQ Keith & Ken & John Arden, Ricky Morton b
Mike Golden
8/17 Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (UWFI - 5,000): Dutch Windmail b Kenichi
Yamamoto, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Tiger Maduro, Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei &
Great Takeru b Kishin Kawabata & Shigeo Okumura & Gekko (Masao Orihara), Tiger
Mask Sayama d Gran Hamada, Kimo b Yoshihiro Takayama, Kazushi Sakuraba b
Masahito Kakihara, Genichiro Tenryu b Yuhi Sano, Nobuhiko Takada b Yoji Anjoh
8/17 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Kentaro Shiga b
Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tamon Honda & Yoshinari Ogawa b Johnny Smith & Tsuyoshi
Kikuchi, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Mighty
Inoue & Ryukaku Izumida, Gary Albright b Masao Inoue, Dan Kroffat & Masa Fuchi b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako, Stan Hansen & The Patriot b Akira Taue & Toshiaki
Kawada, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Giant Kimala II b Kenta Kobashi & Jun
Akiyama & Takao Omori
8/17 Staten Island, NY (ECW - 1,033): ECW title: Raven b Sandman, Louie Spicolli
b Hack Myers, Buh Buh Ray Dudley b Devon Storm, Mikey Whipwreck b John Kronus,
Too Cold Scorpio b Perry Saturn, Terry Gordy & Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee & Stevie
Richards, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Pit Bull #2 , ECW tag titles: Gangstas b
Samoan Gangstas, Sabu b Rob Van Dam
8/17 Noshiro (Michinoku Pro - 401): Taka Michinoku & Shiryu b Wellington
Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa, British lightweight title: Battle Cat b Masato Yakushiji,
WWA middleweight title: Pantera b Naohiro Hoshikawa to win vacant title, Shoichi
Funaki & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Super Boy & Tiger Mask & Super Delfin
8/17 Ottawa, ONT aft. show (NWF/NCW): Davey Daulton b Bruiser, Executioners
b Iceman & Andy Ellison, Nikolai Volkoff NC Jules Strongbow, Wendi Richter b Angel,
Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac-DQ
8/17 Ottawa, ONT p.m. show (NWF/NCW): Davey Daulton b Bruiser, Nikolai
Volkoff & Jules Strongbow b Executioners, Wendi Richter b Angel, Bruiser won Battle
Royal, Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac
8/17 Spring Place, GA (World Christian Federation): Scotty James b Allen
Vernor, Tom Prichard (?) b Southern Rebel, Billy Montana b Country Cuz, Johnny Blaze
b Jimmy Sharpe, Johnny Quaz & Joey Funk won four way elimination match
8/18 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Mitsuo Momota b Masao
Inoue, Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Kentaro Shiga & Tamon Honda, Rusher
Kimura & Jumbo Tsuruta b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen, All-Asian tag title: Takao
Omori & Jun Akiyama b Dan Kroffat & Masa Fuchi, Kenta Kobashi b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi,
Stan Hansen & Gary Albright & The Patriot b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny
Smith, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Mitsuharu Misawa & Giant
Baba & Satoru Asako 23:05
8/18 Aomori (Michinoku Pro Wrestling - 1,050): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b
Sugamoto, Mens Teoh b Battle Cat, Super Boy & Shiryu b Masato Yakushiji & Naohiro
Hoshikawa, UWF super welter title: Super Delfin b Pantera to win title, Jushin Liger &
Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada b Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo
8/18 Kawasaki (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Yoshiko
Tamura b Momoe Nakanishi, Tomoko Watanabe & Yuka Shiina b Rie Tamada & Genki
Misae, Yumiko Hotta & Mima Shimoda & Takako Inoue b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito &
Saya Endo, Manami Toyota b Kumiko Maekawa, Kyoko Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Aja
Kong & Etsuko Mita
8/18 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Gaea - 1,500): Matsumoto b Makie Numao, Chihiro
Nakano b Ishii, Toshiyo Yamada b Kaoru, Meiko Satomura b Bomber Hikaru, Mayumi
Ozaki & Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima & Rieko Amano b Chigusa Nagayo & Sonoko
Kato & Toshie Uematsu & Hirota
8/19 Wheeling, WV (WWF Monday Night Raw tapings - 4,903): Rick Titan
(Big Titan) b Frank Stalletto, Flex Kavana b David Haskins, Sid b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Marc Mero b Steve Austin-DQ, Mankind b Alex Porteau, Stalker (Barry
Windham) b Justin Bradshaw, Stalletto b Lou Marconi, Faarooq b Savio Vega, The
Sultan (Fatu) b Jake Roberts, Owen Hart b Davey Boy Smith-COR, Vader b Freddy Joe
Floyd, Goldust won Battle Royal, Shawn Michaels b Yokozuna, WWF title: Michaels b
Goldust, Porteau & Bob Holly b Smoking Gunns, Stalker b T.L. Hopper, Undertaker b
Salvatore Sincere, Mero b Owen Hart, Faarooq b Sid-DQ, Mero b Jerry Lawler,
Undertaker b Mankind
8/19 Huntsville, AL (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 5,850/3,760 paid): Jim
Duggan b V.K. Wallstreet 1/2*, Chris Benoit b Bobby Eaton **1/2, Scott Norton b Disco
Inferno DUD, Dean Malenko b Steve Regal ***1/4, Nasty Boys b Public Enemy *, Chavo
Guerrero Jr. b Diamond Dallas Page **1/2, WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b American
Males *3/4, The Giant NC Randy Savage *
Special thanks to: Mark Taylor, Marcus Watkins, Adam Penninson, Steve "Dr. Lucha"
Sims, Ken Bevan, Gregg John, Dan Parris, Danny Deese, Sarah Moore, Scott Kavanaugh,
Norm Connors, Jesse Money
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
7/7 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kimala II & Izumida beat Chris & Mark Youngblood when Izumida
pinned Mark after a splash off the top rope. Only the finish aired but it looked okay; 2.
Kawada & Kikuchi beat Albright & Rob Van Dam in 9:38 when Kikuchi pinned Van Dam
after a german suplex. The only real heat was for Kawada vs. Albright. Van Dam did
some good moves and some moves that didn't look good as well. A lot of his offense
looked pretty bad which hurt the match since he was in most of the way. His best move
was a moonsault block off the guard rail on Kikuchi. *1/2; 3. Hansen & Bobby Duncum
Jr. beat Taue & Omori in about 13:00. Duncum is improving but he's still not good.
Visually he looks almost exactly like his father. Hansen and Omori, who were a tag team
at one point when they were pushing Omori as the bright new star (which didn't work
and he's been lost in the pack since), worked real stiff together. Not much heat. Hansen
looked better than he usually does but still didn't get all that much heat. **
7/21 ALL JAPAN: 1. Hansen & Baba & Eigen beat Izumida & Kimala II & Honda in
about 14:30 when Hansen pinned Izumida after a lariat. This show was in Eigen's home
town and it was celebrating his 30th anniversary of his pro debut, so the home town
crowd was into most everything he did including his spit spot. The match went too long
and got really bad. II & Izumida did some decent comedy tag team spots. 1/4*; 2.
Williams & Ace & Johnny Smith beat Maunukea Mossman & Kobashi & Omori. Smith
appeared to be the lightest I've ever seen him and in his best shape since coming to
Japan. He's a good worker but doesn't have much charisma. There was a big pop when
Mossman kicked out of Ace doing a Rocker dropper on him. Finally Mossman got
pinned after Williams & Ace did the double impact on him. Mossman also showed his
lack of experience at one point doing the lamest DDT on record. **3/4
7/27 NEW JAPAN: 1. The Giant pinned Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki) to retain the
WCW title in 4:53 with a choke slam. It actually was good for what it was, although
hardly what a world title match should look like. Basically they built up to Giant taking
one bump, then he came back and finished Power off. *1/4; 2. Sting & Keiji Muto beat
Road Warriors in 7:15. Match wasn't much. At one point they were supposed to do the
Double Impact on Muto and have him kick out, but Hawk missed the move, which
wasn't supposed to happen. Then they tried again and this time Hawk was supposed to
miss the move, which he did. Muto then gave Animal a rana, but Animal kicked out, and
Muto immediately schoolboyed Hawk and pinned him. The Warriors attacked Sting &
Muto after the match and left them laying. Totally outdated style and finish. *1/4; 3. Riki
Choshu & Shinya Hashimoto beat Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka in 10:35 when
Hashimoto pinned Fujinami after two DDT's. Most of the match consisted of Choshu &
Hashimoto roughing up Koshinaka. **; 4. Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan won the
IWGP tag titles from Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka in 22:17. Most of the match aired
on television. It was a good but basic match. Chono mainly worked on Yamazaki's bad
hand. There were the expected good near falls and near submissions at the end. Iizuka
seems to have lost the fire which hurt the match. Finally Chono used the STF on Iizuka
for the submission. ***1/4
8/3 NEW JAPAN: 1. Fujinami & Koshinaka & Akira Nogami beat Chono & Tenzan &
Hiro Saito in 10:52 when Fujinami beat Saito with a dragon sleeper after a Billy
Robinson backbreaker. This was a real good match, even with Fujinami involved. ***1/4;
2. Triple Warriors (Hawk & Animal & Power) beat Muto & Choshu & Satoshi Kojima in
7:31. Muto and Sasaki worked most of the match so it was really good, a lot better than it
would appear on paper. It was a hot fast-paced match but both teams teasing doing the
Double Impact as a storyline. Muto had his working shoes on here, perhaps since he was
doing the job at the and. Hawk & Animal used the Double Impact on Muto for the pin,
reversing the pin from the previous week's television show. In taking the move, Muto did
the flip bump and landed on his bad knee. ***1/2; 3. Clips aired of Hiroshi Hase in
action in his match with Sasaki losing to Choshu & Yuji Nagata. Even though Hase was
the focal point of the piece, he went down when Choshu lariated him. It's the old athletic
credibility booking formula we talked about a few weeks back. Even though it was Hase's
home town and he was coming out of retirement, he couldn't be expected to beat the
New Japan guys who are in top shape wrestling every night. I know one can point to
Inoki's comebacks as an exception to this rule, but it's the basic New Japan booking rule;
4. Hashimoto pinned Ric Flair in 12:54 to retain the IWGP title. A big disappointment.
Most of the match consisted of Flair working on Hashimoto's knee. Everything Flair did
on offense looked good, although some of his bumps are out of context in this
environment. It appeared they were building to a good 20+ minute world title match,
but out of nowhere and way too early, Hashimoto hit a DDT for the pin. The finish was
flat and match was too short for what they were doing. A really weak world title match,
particularly considering the principles who both have plenty of experience in working
world title matches. Basically it was either styles, or eras, depending upon how you want
to phrase it, that conflicted. *1/2
8/4 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kobashi pinned Taue to win the Triple Crown in 27:25. About
22:00 of the match aired on television. It was an excellent match, although not the best
match these two have had against one another. It had a slow build although even during
the early stages it was basically stiff blows back and forth without teasing any finishes.
They started doing the big moves and near falls at about 18:00. They kept teasing Taue
doing the nodowa off the apron, and at one point Kobashi reversed things and used a
legdrop off the middle rope onto Taue on the floor. Taue twice used the nodowa in the
ring and both times Kobashi kicked out. Kobashi also used a nodowa on Taue. The finish
in particular was excellent. At one point, Taue did a high kick to Kobashi's eye and it
immediately started swelling shut and then used a dynamic bomb for a near fall. Taue
used an enzuigiri but Kobashi got his foot under the ropes. Taue teased doing a choke
slam with Kobashi sitting on the top rope, but Kobashi reversed it into a swinging DDT.
Kobashi used a Tiger suplex, a legdrop and a moonsault for near falls, the last of which
got a super pop when Taue kicked out. After a power bomb and jackknife pin, Taue again
kicked out to a super pop. After a german suplex, Taue got up with nailed Kobashi with a
clothesline. Finally Kobashi got the pin after a legdrop off the middle ropes. The place
went nuts. The TV show ended just seconds after the pinfall but you could hear an
amazing pop and see a swarm of people hit the ring in celebration like never before. Just
from those seconds it appeared to be the biggest world title change pop anywhere in
years, including Hashimoto beating Takada. From those live they pretty much said the
same thing, but the quick cutaway really didn't do the finish justice. That's the perils of a
22-minute television show in a promotion that does 30-minute main event matches to
fully tell the complete story. ****1/4
EMLL
The 8/16 Arena Mexico main event saw Mascara Magica beat Guerrero de la Muerte in a
mask vs. mask match. The finish was controversial in that Magica got Muerte in a rolling
cradle and ref Rafael Gonzalez saw Muerte waving his hands all around which in Mexico
is a sign of submission and called for the bell which got a huge pop for the finish. Muerte
immediately got up and said that he hadn't quit, that he was waving his arms to get out
of the hold. Muerte did unmask and said that his name was Luis Demetrio Enriquez, 30
years old, from Guadalajara. After the match, former wrestler El Troyano hit the ring
and began hugging Magica and it was revealed that Magica is the son of Troyano. The
crowd was said to have been decent, which is impressive since there was a huge
rainstorm and also because AAA and PROMELL both ran television tapings in the same
city that night.
The PROMELL show, which airs on TV-Azteca in Mexico City from 2-4 p.m. Central
time Sundays, is being taped every Friday in Tlalnepantla. This week's taping was
scheduled to be headlined by Vampiro vs. Mascara Ano 2000, however Vampiro legit
had his knee blown out this week and is expected to be out of action for about six weeks.
Vampiro came to the ring and Brazo de Plata took his place and lost the match to
Mascara. The injury took place on 8/14 at the Vittorino benefit show at Arena Coliseo
when Apolo Dantes took his knee out.
Apparently the 8/23 Arena Mexico card will have a double headliner with Brazo de Oro
vs. Rambo in a hair match and Rayo de Jalisco Jr. defending the CMLL heavyweight
strap against Gran Markus Jr.
For dish owners, the PROMELL show is available on M2, either Ch. 22 or Ch. 24 at 2
p.m. Central time and there is supposed to be a different AAA/EMLL show on satellite at
Noon Central time on Sundays on M2, Ch. 14.
AAA
The return to Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City on 8/16 drew about 4,000 fans
with a main event of Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. & Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr.
beating Cien Caras & Pierroth Jr. & Heavy Metal & Juventud Guerrera in two straight
falls when Misterio Jr. pinned Pierroth Jr. which is a big deal since Misterio Jr. is 140
pounds and Pierroth Jr. is the Mexican heavyweight champion. The failure to sellout the
first show at Juan de la Barrera in months was blamed on a downpour since virtually all
tickets sold in Mexico are walk-up sales. It was Perro Jr.'s first major match back and he
was said to have looked phenomenal, and Heavy Metal was said to have looked the best
he's looked in years. Metal missed the TripleMania show in Madero several weeks back
and has been in the major doghouse, and nearly lost his job over it, and apparently that
was his wake-up call, as at least for this week he's been working to his potential.
Nevertheless, the biggest story was in the semifinal, a womens hair vs. hair match with
Janet vs. Migaly. It was said to have been the most heated womens match of the year in
Mexico, and no doubt it was since Janet has so much heat doing the heel valet role. It
ended with one of those typical wild scenes that have put AAA and the Box y Lucha
commission in the Distrito Federal at odds. Pierroth was in Janet's corner while Lady
Victoria was in Migaly's corner (since this is an angle leading to a Victoria vs. Janet hair
match blow-off down the line). Pierroth power bombed Victoria while Janet used the
tombstone (which in Mexico is sold like a deadly maneuver and is the most illegal move
possible) on Migaly but heel ref Tirantes didn't call it and Janet won. It wound up with
Konnan coming out, chairs being thrown all over ringside (including chairs nearly
hitting the commissioners) and La Sirenita, another woman wrestler, getting pounded
on by Pierroth. There was a lot of fear that come the commission meeting early this
week, that they'd take actions against AAA and the wrestlers involved in the brawl.
AAA returned to Acapulco after being "banned for life" after a wild show there several
months back on 8/17, drawing 8,000 fans as Konnan & Misterio Jr. won the IWAS tag
titles beating Guerrera & Jerry Estrada when Misterio Jr. did a moonsault block off the
top onto Guerrera, who was being held up on Konnan's shoulders, for the pin. Guerrera
is expected to take on a new mask and a new name shortly. In the dressing room before
the show, Guerrera was complaining about losing both his welterweight title (in Japan
on 7/20 to Misterio Jr.) and his tag team title and it ended up with Konnan and Antonio
Pena talking to Guerrera saying that they thought he was going to join his father in
PROMELL. He assured them that he wasn't leaving because he had no opponents there.
The whole thing wound up being settled with Guerrera agreeing to change his name and
his mask because Pena and Konnan felt that by using his former ring name, he was
basically giving publicity for his father who is the enemy. It's expected Guerrera will go
to WCW with a new name probably in October.
The 8/16 show in Tijuana with no big names drew 1,000 with Misterioso beating Blue
Demon Jr. for some kind of a title to build Misterioso up for his feud with Misterio Jr.
The biggest news from the show is that the rival promotion's top heel, Fobia (who is the
younger brother of Psicosis), jumped replacing the injured Psicosis. Psicosis was to team
with Halloween & Damian against Los Pandilleros, and the Pandilleros attacked Psicosis
and "injured his arm" (which was already injured coming in) which brought Fobia in to
do a run-in. 8/30 in Tijuana is supposed to be a major show but nothing has been
booked as of yet.
This week's television tapings are 8/21 in Tlalnepantla with a four corners match tag
team match and 8/23 in Minatitlan with Konnan & Misterio Jr. vs. Pierroth & Psicosis in
a cage street fight match.
They are debuting a new wrestler under the Kraken name. The original, Shu El
Guerrero, jumped to PROMELL.
ALL JAPAN
The biggest news from here of the past week was an article in .....n Sports on 8/15 in
which the subject of interpromotional matches was brought up in an interview with
owner Giant Baba. Baba said that his wrestlers would never wrestle against New Japan
because of the longstanding rivalry, and that they would never do interpromotional
matches against Big Japan, IWA or WAR because those groups are either run or
headlined by, respectively, Shinya Kojika, Tarzan Goto and Genichiro Tenryu, all of
whom were former All Japan employees, I guess because there are bitter feelings with
Baba over the way they all handled their exits. Baba did leave the door open to UWFI
saying he respected the style that group did, which led to all sorts of rumors flying about
Nobuhiko Takada doing singles matches against the top All Japan wrestlers. However, it
appears those rumors are blown way out of proportion and there is nothing on the
immediate horizon regarding Takada working against the All Japan wrestlers.
The new tour opened with shows 8/17 and 8/18 at Korakuen Hall. With Doug Furnas
skipping this tour, Dan Kroffat and long-time rival Masa Fuchi formed a tag team and
beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako on 8/17 to set up an All-Asian tag team title
match against Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori the next night, but the champions once
again retained the titles in 19:56 when Akiyama pinned Kroffat.
It was the typical stuff on top with the six man tags, the second night being something of
a different match since Baba was involved teaming with Misawa & Asako losing to
Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa.
Kawada & Taue lost a tag on the first night in an upset to Stan Hansen & The Patriot
when Hansen lariated Taue for the pin, which, since it was a television card, was done to
give Hansen credibility for his title shot on 9/5.
8/4 television show did a 1.7 rating.
NEW JAPAN
WAR announced this past week that the main event of its 10/11 show at Osaka Furitsu
Gym would be the first singles match ever between Genichiro Tenryu and Keiji Muto,
who will don the Great Muta gimmick for that match. That card is also tentatively
scheduled to have Great Sasuke vs. Ultimo Dragon for all eight belts and Rey Misterio Jr.
vs. Psicosis.
There is a war of words going on in the press between New Japan and several of the
smaller promotions, most noticeably Shinya Kojika and Kendo Nagasaki's Big Japan
group. This could be an angle, since New Japan is known for angles like this, but for
some reason I think this is just a war of words in the press. It started in the aftermath of
the Rikidozan show on 6/30. After the show, Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto and Muto
were mad about the card and mad about appearing on the same stage as some of the
indie promotions since by all accounts, the undercard matches on this show were awful.
They pretty much said that if such as show was proposed again next year that they
wouldn't be a part of it unless the poor groups weren't involved. If you understand just
how hard the New Japan wrestlers had to train to become pro wrestlers and the quality
of their workers compared to the indies in Japan, you can understand their basic
problem, which actually dates back years but came across publicly because they
appeared on the same show with a lot of bad matches, regarding all the magazine
publicity the smaller group wrestlers get with the belief those wrestlers hadn't paid their
dues and aren't of the quality of real pro wrestlers. None of the indie promotions until
this past week commented when Kojika challenged the New Japan wrestlers to
interpromotional matches, which may be him simply looking for pub or the beginning of
an angle.
8/3 television show did a 1.4 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
The biggest show of the past week was UWFI's Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium card on
8/17 which was pretty much a major flop drawing an estimated 5,000 fans (announced
at 10,500 but that was an inflated figure) to the 46,300 capacity stadium. It was a sold
show to a local festival, which actually makes the attendance even less impressive. It was
a combination of presenting such a poor line-up for a stadium show and coming on the
heels of so many major cards in Tokyo the past few weeks so everyone is suffering at the
gate now. In the main event, Nobuhiko Takada beat Yoji Anjoh in 11:26 with a knockout
kick in a bout with the stipulations that if Anjoh won, Takada would have to join the
Golden Cups, but if Takada won, then the Golden Cups would have to break up. To build
to next month's Takada vs. Tenryu match, Tenryu pinned Yuhi Sano in 8:59, while the
other top matches saw an upset with Kazushi Sakuraba making Masahito Kakihara
submit in 14:31, Kimo beat Yoshihiro Takayama with a choke sleeper in a one-sided
squash lasting 1:16 (this is to build up for Kimo vs. Anjoh on 9/11 in the same stadium)
and Satoru Sayama, as Tiger Mask, went to a 15:00 draw against his rival from 1981-82,
Gran Hamada.
All Japan women ran 8/16 at Korakuen Hall, again failing to sellout doing an estimated
1,600 headlined by Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda keeping the WWWA tag titles
beating Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada in a best of three fall match which lasted 21:49.
The only group that ran regular shows this past week was Michinoku Pro, and they're
beset by injuries, with Sasuke out, Tiger Mask missing a lot of shows because of his knee
injury, Pantera breaking his nose and going home from the tour early and Hamada
working every night on a blown out knee and shoulder. This led to the two biggest junior
heavyweight legends of all-time in Japan appearing on the small group shows. Jushin
Liger worked 8/18 in Aomori drawing a card of 1,050 as he teamed with Gran Naniwa &
Hamada beating Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki. That was on the same
show where Pantera broke his nose, and during that match Pantera dropped the UWF
Super welterweight title back to Super Delfin in just 3:15 as they stopped the match
early. Pantera had retained the title beating Naniwa on 8/14. Satoru Sayama worked
8/13 in Keimai drawing 355 pinned Naohiro Hoshikawa, and 8/14 in Tsuruoka before
597 teaming with Super Boy (Los Angeles wrestler) & Wellington Wilkens Jr. to beat
Hoshikawa & Tiger Mask & Hamada. After doing the two shows, Sayama talked publicly
about challenging Sasuke for all eight titles. I saw Sayama wrestle on tape from the
Rikidozan show, and it's another example of the style and time changing. He's now 38,
which is younger than a lot of main event wrestlers, but has basically not done pro
wrestling regularly since 1985 and has put on a lot of weight. The combination of the
weight, the age, and how much farther the younger fliers have taken the sport really
shows. He still does the coolest drop toe hold I've ever seen, but he looks primitive in the
ring compared with a guy like Hamada, who is older and more beat up, but lived through
all the changes and changed with them.
All Japan women has a New Generation show on 9/1 at Korakuen Hall headlined by
Chaparita Asari vs. Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno) for the WWWA super lightweight
title as the main event, which is the first time to my knowledge they've ever tried to
headline with these sub-five foot women. Also Manami Toyota vs. Hiromi Yagi of JWP,
Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa defend the Japanese tag title against Sugar Sato & Chikayo
Nagashima of Gaea, Kumiko Maekawa defends Japanese title against TBA, Yoshiko
Tamura defends Japanese jr. title against Tomoko Miyaguchi from JWP and Saya Endo
has a five round boxing match against a woman boxer.
Kakihara of UWFI will work the 8/25 Battlarts show.
Hiromichi Fuyuki apparently is leaving WAR and debuts this week for Big Japan.
Michinoku Pro will be holding a tournament from 9/12 to 9/23 to crown a new UWA
middleweight champion for Mexico. The title had been vacant for a long time when
Ultimo Dragon was champ and he left the promotion. Finally Wrestle Dream Factory
had what was billed as a title elimination match where Masayoshi Motegi beat Hector
Garza, but Motegi then returned the title. Super Astro is the biggest Mexican name
coming in for the tournament.
USWA
With Jeff Jarrett gone it appears they are giving Tommy Rich the top heel slot. Rich
leads a heel group that includes Bill and Jamie Dundee, Tony Falk and Samantha, who
they now have dressed up like a poor woman's version of Deborah McMichael.
Frank Morrell was turned babyface and back into a referee. It started during a match
with Bill Dundee vs. Wolfie D for the TV title. After all the heels interfered for the DQ on
Dundee, Brian Christopher and Bart Sawyer ended up making the save. While this was
going on, ref Downtown Bruno was "injured" hitting his head on the side of the ring. The
announcers said that the only other USWA local ref, Bill Rush, was at a golf tournament
so they had no ref. Randy Hales then asked Morrell to ref saying that the promotion was
in a bind and they couldn't run anymore matches on television unless he agreed. Tony
Falk told Morrell he couldn't do it and Morrell basically said he was old enough to make
his own decisions. Later, in a match with Falk vs. Sawyer, Morrell counted as Sawyer
pinned Falk and the heels jumped Morrell after the match. It wound up with Hales
having to ref since they had no ref.
Colorado Kid from Bert Prentice's group appeared on TV as a babyface billed as North
American champion (the title belt from Prentice's promotion) using the claw as a
finisher.
Later in the show during a match with Christopher vs. Jamie Dundee with Bill Dundee
and Samantha at ringside, Hales ordered Bill and Samantha to leave. After the match all
the heels beat up Hales.
Flex Kavana turned heel on the 8/12 show in Memphis on Bart Sawyer after the two lost
a tag title match to the Moondogs.
They had a match on that show with Wolfie D beating Jamie Dundee and earning the
right to continue doing the PG-13 gimmick.
Koko Ware won a Battle Royal to win a truck, which he's putting up this week against
Jerry Lawler's car.
The Memphis show was moved from Monday to Friday, 8/23 this week, probably
because several of the area wrestlers were booked at the WWF's Raw tapings this week,
Tony Williams vs. Scott Bowden, Brickhouse Brown vs. Flash Flanagan, Kavana vs.
Sawyer, Miss Texas vs. Lady Eagle, Doug Gilbert vs. Bill Dundee, a street fight with
Jamie Dundee vs. Wolfie D, Christopher defending the USWA title against Rich, Lawler
vs. Ware and an eight person with Gilbert & Christopher & Wolfie & Hales vs. Bill &
Jamie Dundee & Samantha & Falk.
ECW
Biggest news from the lone weekend show on 8/17 in Staten Island, NY which drew
1,033 fans paying $20,515 were the injuries. Stevie Richards suffered one broken rib and
several bruised ribs when Blue Meanie did a moonsault on him and his knee accidentally
cracked a rib. Both Missy Hiatt and Lori Fullington had their arms and elbows banged
up swinging canes at each other. We don't know the extent of Hiatt's injuries but it was
feared she may have suffered a broken elbow, but the elbow was very swollen and she
was hospitalized. Fullington's elbow was pretty swollen as well but she wasn't
hospitalized.
Raven may have had foot surgery this week.
At the card, Raven beat Sandman with a DDT to keep the ECW title, Too Cold Scorpio
pinned Perry Saturn in what was said to have been the best match on the show, Terry
Gordy & Tommy Dreamer beat Richards & Brian Lee, Shane Douglas beat Pit Bull #2 to
keep the TV title, The Gangstas beat Samoan Gangstas to keep the tag titles (Sam Anoia
missed the card because of a family funeral so Lloyd Anoia subbed under the name L.A.
Smooth) and Sabu beat Rob Van Dam on top.
Vampiro's debut, set for this show, was postponed again due to him blowing out his
knee.
Reggie Bennett is tentatively slated to debut on the 9/14 show and will almost for sure be
booked against a male undercard wrestler.
While this isn't confirmed, there is talk in Japan that Manami Toyota, Mima Shimoda,
Etsuko Mita and Toshiyo Yamada are booked for the 12/13 show at the ECW Arena.
The television show this past week was largely taped from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo.
While it wasn't the best ECW show ever by a long shot, ECW did a better job getting its
company over as an international success on its television in tiny Korakuen Hall than
either WWF or WCW have been able to do drawing huge crowds at the Tokyo Dome in
the past. The crowd was pretty similar to an ECW Arena crowd, with the funniest thing
being them chanting, in English, "He's hardcore" at Tommy Dreamer. The Eliminators
were announced in Japanese at ECW tag team champions but didn't have any belts, but
obviously it wasn't announced that way in English on television. Their opponents,
Takashi Okano & Keisuke Yamada, looked pretty bad. Raven-Dreamer was about what
you'd expect with the highlight actually being Richards' interference. Except for the
chants the fans learned from either seeing the tapes or magazine coverage, the crowd
reactions for the show were typical for a better than average indie card at Korakuen Hall.
There were two different Japanese tours at the Staten Island show (they also were at the
Clash in Denver and SummerSlam) and so merchandise sales were way above usual.
8/23 in Reading, PA billed as "Requiem for a Pit Bull" has Van Dam vs. Pit Bull #2 ,
Eliminators vs. Dreamer & Gordy, Raven & Lori Fullington vs. Sandman & Missy and
Gangstas vs. Samoan Gangstas for tag titles.
8/24 at ECW Arena is headlined by a Natural Born Killaz match which is a cage match
with weapons at the top of the cage with Gangstas vs. Eliminators, Raven & Douglas vs.
Pit Bull #2 & Sandman, Gordy vs. Lee in a bad street match, Hiatt vs. Lori Fullington,
Taz vs. Dreamer and Big Dick & Buh Buh Ray Dudley vs. D-Von dudley & Axl Rotten.
There are negotiations, far from finalized, to do shows on 10/11 in New Orleans and
10/12 in Biloxi, MS.
HERE AND THERE
Border City Wrestling promoted its Mickey Doyle retirement bash on 8/16 in LaSalle,
ONT before a sellout 950 fans. Doyle & Scott D'Amore won the main event beating Leif
Cassidy & Bodydonna Zip, billed as Team WWF. Dan Severn beat Geza Kalman Jr. in
what was billed as a UFC style match on the same show. Doyle, who started wrestling 26
years ago, basically pinned both of them for the finish. Even though they aren't headline
WWFers, give the two credit for doing the right thing for the show because in the same
situation, I can think of a number of wrestlers who would think they were "too good" to
do it (and who aren't anywhere near as good).
There will be a shoot show under submission or Pancrase rules on 8/31 in Evansville, IN
at the Salvation Army Community Center with a tourney for the Hook'n'Shoot
Pankration title. Observer readers are invited to attend free if they call 812-428-4951.
A group called Reality Combat ran a show over the weekend in Atlanta which was a total
fiasco. Basically nobody got paid and the guy in charge was arrested. It was a closeddoor
show done with the idea of it being marketed on videotape.
Wrestleradio USA hosted by Ed Symkus and Vinnie Carolan celebrates its 4th
anniversary on 8/31. The show airs on 1410 AM in Brockton, MA at Noon.
Manny Fernandez has started doing his own television show in West Virginia called
Independent Wrestling Alliance.
New Age Wrestling debuts 9/9 at the University of Tennessee campus in Chattanooga.
Roland Alexander of Pacific Coast Sports in Hayward, CA is putting together a Northern
California wrestlers reunion for later this year and is looking to get in touch with anyone
who would know the whereabouts or a contact address for Bill Miller, Bob Ellis, Bill
Watts, Curtis Iaukea, Don Muraco, Angelo Mosca, Pepper Martin, Pampero Firpo,
Gerhardt Kaiser, Art Neilson, Stan Neilson, Nick Bockwinkel and Lars Anderson.
Alternative Publishing at 4245 Francis Wy., La Mesa, CA 91941 has a booklet called "On
the road with Killer" about Killer Kowalski, available for $4.95 or for $7.95 with an
autograph.
Don Dawson, P.J. Maurin and K. Phillips have put together a 100-page book with a lot of
background historical info about pro wrestling for $20 (money orders only) at Shooting
Star Press, 7-286 Bunting Rd. #175 , St. Catharines, ONT L2M 7S5 which is a good
background primer for those new to the inside world of wrestling.
Steve Helwagen has updated his Ric Flair Record Book at 1350 W 5th Av. #30 , P.O. Box
12453, Columbus, OH 43212 for $30. This 110-page book, is a must for a Flair fan or for
those of you who have a wrestling library.
WCW
Nitro on 8/19 from Huntsville, AL (5,850 fans; 3,760 paying $44,344) saw Jim Duggan
over V.K. Wallstreet in 5:26 hitting him with the taped fist; Chris Benoit pinned Bobby
Eaton with a head-butt off the top rope in 4:01 in a good short match; Scott Norton
made Disco Inferno submit to the Fujiwara armbar in 4:02; Ice Train did an interview
with Teddy Long so I guess Long is his manager now; Dean Malenko pinned Steve Regal
with an Oklahoma side roll in 9:31 in a very good match; Nasty Boys over Public Enemy
in 4:24 in a very sloppy brawl after Sags moved out of the way of the PE sandwich on a
table, Knobs pinned Rocco with an elbow drop; Chavo Guerrero Jr. upset Diamond
Dallas Page with a backslide in 4:28 of a very good match after Page several times
refused to pin Guerrero. After the match Page destroyed Guerrero with the diamond
cutter and took off Nick Patrick's belt and began whipping him while Patrick really did
nothing. Randy Anderson then ran in and took the belt from Page. Most of the show was
built around Patrick's heel turn as ref. One thing about the angle, Patrick does such a
good job on interviews that they picked the right man for the job. Harlem Heat kept tag
titles beating American Males in 4:09 when Booker T shoved Marcus Bagwell off the top
rope and he was powerslammed by Stevie Ray for the pin. Started real sloppy but got
good when Bagwell tagged in. Sting & Lex Luger were supposed to wrestle Ric Flair &
Arn Anderson, but instead they had a lengthy discussion and all agreed to be tag
partners against the NWO at War Games. There wasn't the expected big pop from the
crowd for the agreement, but the segment was well done, in particular the mic work of
Anderson who has been phenomenal on nearly every skit he's been involved in of late.
Finale saw Giant NC Randy Savage in 47 seconds when Savage went wild and hit every
member of the Dungeon of Doom with nice sounding chair shots.
Nitro and Raw were both very good shows, and the combined audience was one of the
highest ever. Nitro did a 3.5 rating and 5.8 share (3.4 first hour; 3.5 second hour)
compared to Raw doing a 2.9 and 4.4 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.3 rating and 3.2
share. Other WCW weekend numbers saw Saturday Night at 2.6, Main Event at 2.1 and
Pro at 1.4.
As far as head-to-head quarter-hour analysis, for the second week in a row, the biggest
gap between the two shows was, ironically enough, when Michaels was on last week's
Michaels-Owen Hart match did a 2.0 while WCW finished with a 4.1 (at the time of the
rating it was actually Flair-Savage). This week the Horseman-Sting & Luger interview
deal did a 4.1 while Shawn vs. Yoko did a 2.9.
WCW Saturday Night was taped on 8/20 in Colorado Springs, CO before a sellout 2,037
(1,500 paying $18,940). The first hour aired on 8/17 with nothing special taking place.
Main was another Harlem Heat NC Steiners match when Nasty Boys attacked all four
and Sherri and left Sherri laying (although she was fine at Nitro). Top matches to air on
8/24 are Luger over David Taylor for the TV title and Flair over Malenko for the U.S.
title. The Luger-Taylor is apparently a step in the set-up for Regal to get that title.
Malenko is expected to regain the cruiserweight title, although probably not for at least
two months.
Super Calo is scheduled to work TV tapings leading up to the PPV, while Juventud
Guerrera, probably under a new ring name, is expected in October.
Preliminary estimates on the Hog Wild PPV have ranged from 0.4 to 0.7, with most
reliable figures at 0.62, although that's with a smaller universe since much of the West
Coast was blacked out. Even though Hogan appeared on the show, it was structured that
he didn't get a 25% cut from the show.
Originally there wasn't going to be a live Raw on 9/23 because so many of the big names
would be in Japan for the Yokohama Arena tournament, but a show has been added for
Birmingham, AL.
The 10/28 Nitro will almost certainly be coming from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, so
expect a heavy AAA influence on that show.
Chris Cruise had an attack of appendicitis but was back doing voice-overs within a week
of his operation.
WWF
Raw on 8/19 from Wheeling, WV before 4,903 fans and a $54,887 gate (both figures are
the best for Wheeling since 1990). It opened with try-out matches. Rick Titan (Big Titan
from WAR) got a try-out beating Frank Staletto. Titan didn't look good but Staletto
looked good enough that they brought him back later for a try-out match. Flex Kavana
got a second look (he's already under contract) beating David Haskins. In the IC title
tourney first round, Sid beat Hunter Hearst Helmsley and during the match, Mr. Perfect
came to ringside and left with Helmsley's girl. Also in the tourney first round, Marc
Mero beat Steve Austin via DQ when Austin pulled the ref in front of him and the ref
DQ'd Austin instead of Mero. Mankind beat Alex Porteau. Bob Backlund introduced his
new guy, and as expected, it was Iron Sheik who brought out a masked man in a similar
costume as Kwang, called The Sultan, who is Fatu with a shaved head. Stalker (Barry
Windham) debuted beating Justin Bradshaw. He looked okay but the gimmick looked
stupid. He's using the superplex as his finisher. Can you say Steve "Skinner" Keirn.
Stalletto got his second try-out beating Lou Marconi, who he works with on are indie
shows with regularly. Faarooq pinned Savio Vega in an IC tourney match. Sultan
debuted and beat Jake Roberts when Lawler distracted Roberts and Sultan used the
camel clutch as the finisher. Then came the live Raw, which was the best Raw show in a
long time. It opened with an IC tourney match with Owen Hart over Davey Boy Smith
via count out. It was a good action match. It ended with Sunny at ringside doing
commentary. Smith fell onto Sunny by accident and was counted out in a weak finish.
After the match Sunny poured a drink all over Smith claiming he was looking up her
skirt. Jim Cornette then started yelling about Mason and Sunny and called Sunny a
yellow slut. Fans were chanting "Bulldog" as if they thought he was doing a babyface
turn. Vader beat Freddy Joe Floyd. During both matches there were periods of static and
lights going on to indicate Undertaker was around. Vader had a stare down with Mark
Henry before the match. Paul Bearer & Mankind did an interview with Bearer saying
he's been carrying Undertaker and said Undertaker had passed away. The music played,
the lights went out, and the druids brought a limp Undertaker to ringside and deposited
him on the floor. His music played and he sat up and raised his arms and Bearer and
Mankind ran away. Bearer's facial expressions were awesome. Another Stalker video,
again looking too much like the Skinner character. The did a four-man Battle Royal for a
title shot at Michaels on 9/6 with Sid, Vega, Austin and Goldust which Goldust won. Sid
was out first and came back in and choke slammed the other three. Austin seems to be
getting over as a babyface. Finale saw Michaels over Yokozuna in a non-title match.
Yokozuna was back as a heel and managed by Cornette for no apparent reason other
than them explaining they've gotten back together. Michaels must be an incredible
worker because this was an exciting short match and I didn't think it was possible for
Yokozuna to have a match that good at his weight. At one point Cornette attacked
Lothario hitting him with the racquet and slapping him around. After the live Raw, the
Michaels-Goldust match, said to be **** and the best match on the show, was taped for
9/6 with Michaels winning. After the match, Mankind did a run-in. Porteau & Bob Holly
upset Smoking Gunns in what I believe was a non-title match when Hart & Smith
distracted the Gunns leading to them losing and building up a Cornette vs. Sunny feud.
They'll probably put them in a match since Cornette career ambition is to put over as
many women and retired wrestlers as humanly possible. Stalker beat T.L. Hopper and
Undertaker beat Salvatore Sincere (Undertaker gave him a surprising amount of
offense). In the IC tourney semifinals, Mero pinned Hart after hitting him with Hart's
cast. This may look good on television but was horrible live. After the match was over,
they made the two go into the ring, challenge each other to a rematch, and then did the
exact same finish. Obviously the finish didn't look good on TV the first time and
McMahon made them do it over. In the next IC tourney match with Faarooq vs. Sid, the
exact same thing happened. Sid was DQ'd for hitting him with a chair (Faarooq went
down way before the chair came near him), then they did a rematch challenge, and did
the exact same finish which looked better the second time. Lawler issued a challenge to
Henry, who said he hadn't been training enough to start but they'll probably have that
match at the PPV. Cornette did a workout segment that was said to have been great with
Tony Williams where basically Vader beat up Williams and Cornette was taking credit. It
should be good because he's done things similar to this many times in the past. In the
dark bouts, Mero pinned Lawler in 30 seconds and Undertaker pinned Mankind in one
minute.
As of 8/20, the advance for the outdoor show in Toronto on 8/24 was 13,690 and
$321,408, so people wise it'll outdraw Cleveland.
Whatever thoughts of taking legal action against Lex Luger were dropped long ago as
Luger did have a contract loophole that allowed him to make the jump last September.
Weekend ratings saw Action Zone at 2.0 and Mania at 1.3.
THE READERS PAGES
HALL OF FAME
Names I'd add to your list--Edouardo Carpentier absolutely should be in, Gorilla
Monsoon, as a wrestler, not a figurehead, Ricki Starr, Spyros Arion, Dr. Jerry Graham
and Ray Morgan. A personal favorite of mine was Handsome Johnny Barend, but he's
not quite up to the calibre of most of your list.
Mike Omansky
Wyckoff, New Jersey
Loved the Hall of Fame issue. Very well thought out and very well done. While reading
through it, I, like most people,thought some names that I loved as a child should have
been there. But when thinking about it rationally, I agree that they probably didn't
deserve it. I also would have liked to have seen some friends in the business in there, but
they can make it later. The only name that really struck me by its absence was Moolah. I
know that some people don't care much for her, but she's somebody that everyone grew
up watching and that everyone knows. Other than that, you hit everything pretty much
perfectly.
Hulk Hogan as a wrestler is starting to remind me of Andre the Giant. While Hogan has
never been a great, or even good, or even mediocre worker, it seems that even the
limited skills he once possessed have deteriorated to the point where he should be
embarrassed to be in the ring. Can't they find something else for him to do? Maybe do
more B movies or something? While I loved the heel turn and thought at the time it was
the best thing they could have done, it turned out to be only good as a one shot gimmick
and it's back to the same old b.s. By the way, didn't anyone besides me notice on Nitro a
few weeks back when Jim Duggan called Hogan "a great technical wrestler." I missed the
rest of Nitro as I couldn't stop laughing.
Wesley Daniel
Matairie, Louisiana
WCW
I'm just a tiny bit confused about Woman's ongoing turn saga. The Four Horsemen are
heels, feuding with the Dungeon of Doom, who are also heels. However, when either
group faces or talks about the Outsiders, then they're babyfaces. Now if Woman turns on
the Horsemen, she should be a face. But if she joins the Dungeon of Doom, she turns but
she's still a heel.
Similarly, Sting and Lex Luger are faces. However, when they faced the Steiners, they
wrestled like they were the heels. Public Enemy gets cheered when they wrestle the
Nasty Boys or American Males, but they're the heels, except when they wrestle in
Philadelphia on Saturdays. Harlem Heat has two managers to interfere, but they still
needed a heel ref to call a DQ to save their titles at the Clash.
To review, Sting & Luger hate Ric Flair & Arn Anderson. But they made the save for Flair
at the Clash. That sets up a tag team match for Sting & Luger against Flair & Anderson.
And everyone, whether heel or face, hates the Outsiders. And no matter how hard they
push it, nobody cares about Scott Norton or Ice Train. Gee, that's too bad. It's the most
clear cut babyface/heel angle in WCW.
Jeffrey Cohen
Bayside, New York
8/14 ISSUE
Congratulations on the 8/14 issue of the Observer. This may be the best one ever. It
seems every time you go to Japan, you come back with a killer issue jam packed with
history and inside information. First request. Go to Japan more often.
If readers were interested in your history of the New Japan promotion, they would do
well to obtain two valuable pieces of history which will allow them to see many of the
matches you described. The first is the Antonio Inoki 30th anniversary memorial laser
disc set issued about four years ago. It contains the complete versions of 12 of his most
famous matches including those you talked about against Dory Funk Jr., Johnny
Powers, Shozo Kobayashi, Kintaro Oki, Lou Thesz, Tiger Jeet Singh, Jack Brisco and
Billy Robinson. Valis has a multi-volume set called "History of the IWGP title" which
gives a fairly complete history of New Japan's most prestigious title belt.
Reading the issue brings me two more requests. Please some day do similar issues on
both All Japan and the All Japan womens office. It would be wonderful if you would
write a complete history of Japanese wrestling or at least a modern version of your 1986
"Who's Who in Wrestling" book.
Were there ever any singles matches between Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba when they
were rookies? What do you think are the chances that the two will ever oppose each
other even under limited conditions as a ten minute exhibition?
Chris Zavisa
Plymouth, Michigan
DM: Baba and Inoki wrestled several times in the first year or two of their
careers, with Baba winning every time. Right now I'd say the odds of them
meeting are slim, but you can never tell about the future.
PANCRASE
Anyone that saw the Kings of Pancrase PPV realizes that the Ultimate Fighting
Championship really limits their fighters in demonstrating their full abilities. Ken
Shamrock is a more complete fighter than he's been able to show. His ability to strike,
both with kicks and open-hands, and grapple is really limited by the charge and hold-on
UFC style. Also the Pancrase matches are more exciting considering the constant
restarting of stalled action. SEG has also done a better job in getting over the
personalities of the Pancrase fighters. This would have been for a better introductory
PPV show.
Dominick Zammetti
Stow, Ohio
DM: I think the more important point of UFC is educational. In a real-life
fighting situation rather than in one contrived by referees, strict rules and
re-starts, what works is tackling, holding on and pounding unless one is
super skilled. Sad but true. More flashy and impressive techniques, such as
cool looking kicks or combination kicks and flashy punches, can be
demonstrated within the framework of certain combat sports with rules,
but they actually don't work for the most part in a real fighting situations
against tough ground fighters who'll see the kick go up and use it as radar to
tackle the one leg left standing. It isn't that UFC limits its fighter showing
technique, it's that in a real fight, cool impressive techniques are more for
the movies

 

Sept. 2, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
SummerSlam 96 fallout, tons of storylines at WCW
tapings, Bret Hart's future in WWE, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 02 September 1996 00:59
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 September 2, 1996
WWF SUMMER SLAM FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 75 (33.8%)
Thumbs down 109 (49.1%)
In the middle 38 (17.1%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Vader 134
Undertaker vs. Mankind 18
Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega 13
Goldust vs. Marc Mero 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts 58
Four tag team elimination 39
Steve Austin vs. Yokozuna 35
Undertaker vs. Mankind 16
WCW CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 9 (07.0%)
Thumbs down 97 (75.2%)
In the middle 23 (17.8%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 79
Triangle tag team 10
Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 9
WORST MATCH POLL
Jim Duggan vs. V.K. Wallstreet 49
Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan 26
Giant vs. Chris Benoit 22
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 8/27.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
WCW had a slew of new storylines come up this past week as it taped television shows
on 8/20 in Dalton, GA (for the WCW Saturday Night show on 8/31), had Disney tapings
from 8/22 through 8/25 and did a live Nitro on 8/26.
Among the highlights from the tapings:
A live Nitro angle where Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall attacked Sting, Lex
Luger and the Four Horsemen and basically left them all laying and Hogan spray
painted "NWO" on all but Luger and also spray painted a black streak down the middle
of Ric Flair's head to make him look like a reverse skunk. The angle drew incredible heat
live with fans showering the ring with debris. It started as Chris Benoit & Steve
McMichael were wrestling Sting & Luger. Luger was "injured" and laid out while Sting
and Benoit were missing top rope moves on each other in the ring. Hogan came out and
taunted McMichael, allowing Hall to ambush McMichael and lay him out. Nash then
used the jackknife on Benoit while Hall used the Razor's edge on Sting to lay them out
and spray paint them. Flair and Anderson made the save but they were soon
overpowered as well and spray painted. It was the best angle since the debut angle of
Hogan as a member of the NWO. There will be lots of fans cheering NWO as it's hard to
not think three guys laying out the top six wrestlers isn't cool but it really doesn't matter
who gets cheered if the War Games draws a strong buy rate, and this was a great angle to
build up that PPV show.
The debut of Ted DiBiase on Nitro. They teased DiBiase as being the fifth member of the
Horseman and teased that he looked in great shape and would come out of retirement,
and would introduce a sixth member next week. The real plan for now is he'll be the
manager/coach of the NWO team and not wrestle. The current plan is to introduce
either Sean Waltman or someone else as the next NWO member on the 9/2 Nitro as I
believe there may be a back-up plan if Waltman's deal isn't worked out. The WWF in its
release that they've offered him that hasn't been completed refuses to allow him to
portray a character that has the look or the mannerisms of 1-2-3 Kid, which leaves a lot
of room for interpretation of look and mannerisms. With the legal case involving the
Scott Hall/Razor Ramon character, WCW didn't want to risk things which is why
Waltman's debut has been delayed. All could easily change in either direction this week.
The resolution between WWF and WCW regarding the restraining order in the lawsuit
was a very minor matter in comparison to the actual lawsuit itself.
With no competition from Monday Night Raw, which was pre-empted by the U.S. Open
(and will be again on 9/2), Nitro set its all-time record doing a 4.3 rating and a 7.2 share.
The hourly breakdowns were 3.8 for the first hour (highest ever for the first hour which
is important because the first hour is always unopposed which means it's an indication
of interest in WCW's product as opposed to Raw not being there) and 4.8 for the second
hour. It is also the first time since going to the two-hour format that the share increased
in the second hour (6.7 to 7.7). The jump of a full point from the first hour as opposed to
the usual 0.2 and the increase in share is totally a result of Raw not being there. The
second hour was the highest rated hour for a non-special wrestling show (like a Clash)
dating back to the mid-80s. When WWF went unopposed with Ultimate Warrior's
television debut in April, it drew a 4.7 rating. The Nitro replay did a 1.4 rating a 3.5
share, which is actually a little lower than it had been doing the past few weeks.
Steve Regal captured the TV title from Lex Luger on 8/20 in Dalton, GA in a match
where Hall & Nash did a run-in and posted Luger, and threw him in the ring for Regal to
pin him.
Juventud Guerrera and Super Calo debuted on 8/25 at Disney. Guerrera worked four
times, beating Bobby Walker and losing twice to Rey Misterio Jr. (the first was real good,
the second match only went 2:00 and wasn't much) and once to Konnan which was said
to have been good. Since Psicosis missed the taping with the dislocated elbow, even
though he would have been ready for the PPV, WCW decided since they have Guerrera
for television the next few weeks, to put Guerrera as a babyface in the match with
Konnan on the 9/15 PPV for the "Mexican heavyweight title." Guerrera debuted on Nitro
the next night and had a very good match against Billy Kidman, however they made a
huge mistake in putting him out there to do an interview since he barely speaks English
at all, and they attempted to get him to say something about NWO. The interview was a
disaster, made only worse by Gene Okerlund pulling an Ed Whalen and walking from
Guerrera while he was talking leaving him standing there like an idiot. Even though he
worked as a face, the fans booed him as he spoke Spanish. I recognize in some circles
Okerlund has a reputation for being great at handling interviews because he's got the
wit, but in reality he's absolutely horrible in his job which should be to allow the
wrestlers to get over, particularly new ones, and not for him to be the star of the
television show. Calo was given two TV wins, not looking all that good in his first win but
looking a little better in beating Kidman in a second match. In addition, minis Espectrito
and Mascarita Sagrada Jr. will debut at house shows on 9/13 in Knoxville and most
likely work the 9/16 Nitro from Asheville, NC. Ultimo Dragon returns in late September
and will get regular bookings.
Chris Jericho also debuted on 8/20 in Dalton, GA and actually got more of a heel
reaction. His Nitro debut on 8/26 was against Alex Wright, with them doing the same
finish that they handicapped Eddie Guerrero with in his WCW debut. It was the old
babyface being injured and the other babyface refusing the victory which used to work
well in opening matches and everyone would clap at the end back in the early 70s, but
always gets booed in the 90s because nobody likes cleaner-than-thou babyfaces
anymore. Jericho was having a good match with Wright and Eric Bischoff talked him up
pretty big so they'll probably take care of him. He also had a good match at Disney
against Chris Benoit on 8/25.
After months of hype, Glacier (Ray Lloyd) debuted on 8/23, and worked several matches
against Big Bubba (who he's going to be beating at all the house shows once they send
him) which are likely more try-outs than taped matches. He looked so-so, wearing a ring
outfit that was described as similar to the Max Moon gimmick in the WWF. He mainly
does kick boxing moves (this is Bischoff's idea since he comes from a kick boxing
background) and is designed to attract young kids. They taped a match with regular
lighting, then tried out a gimmick where all the ring lights were turned down and they
wrestled in blue lighting with the gimmick that Glacier has super powers, but since his
blood runs cold and his name is Glacier, that his weakness is the lights so his matches
must be done in blue light or he loses his powers. Hey, I'm not coming up with these
scripts, just reporting them. He missed his finish both times.
It appears Konnan is going to wind up as a member of the Dungeon of Doom, as he
worked as a tag team with Kevin Sullivan on 8/25 tapings.
Something is expected to happen to Harlem Heat, Col. Parker and Sherri, because in all
of Heat's matches, neither Sherri nor Parker accompanied them to ringside.
The Bobby Eaton split with the Blue Bloods officially took place at the 8/26 Nitro as
Eaton and David Taylor brawled to the back after losing to the Steiners. Eaton vs. Taylor
matches had already been taped for future television on 8/24 at Disney with Eaton,
billed as being once again "Bobby Eaton" from Huntsville, AL, winning with a swinging
neckbreaker.
Jerry Flynn, a Florida indie wrestler who lost at the WCC PPV show and has done Pro
Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi matches in Japan, got a try-out to be part of the Blood Runs
Cold martial arts team, working once as a face against Ned Brady, and once as a heel
against Mark Starr, and didn't look impressive either time.
It was also changed at the Fall Brawl PPV show from Heat defending the tag titles
against Nasty Boys to yet another Heat vs. Steiners match. Scott Steiner has a hip injury
and missed the Disney tapings. He suited up for the Nitro match on 8/26 against the
Blue Bloods, but never made any body contact during the match and was limping
noticeably.
************************************************************
The future wrestling plans of Bret Hart became a major topic of discussion this week
based on several reports that Hart may not return to the World Wrestling Federation
domestically despite all the television hype building for his return over the past few
weeks.
Hart left this past week for a lengthy visit to South Africa to both film a television show
called "Sinbad" and participate as the headline attraction in the WWF's South Africa
tour from 9/8 to 9/12. Hart had agreed to do the South Africa tour several months back,
apparently because it was a part of the world he had never been to and wanted to see,
and also because he'd be the top attraction on the tour with Shawn Michaels remaining
in the U.S. to headline domestic shows.
According to several reports, Hart and Vince McMahon had a meeting several weeks ago
where both agreed to a proposed scenario building to Hart's return to the WWF,
although probably not until either the end of 1996 or early 1997. The scenario was
believed to be that Hart would appear at a WWF PPV event (scheduled to be the 9/22
show from Philadelphia) to make an announcement concerning his retirement, and that
whatever his announcement would be, that event would climax with an angle involving
Hart with most likely Steve Austin although Hart wasn't expected to return for several
months after that point.
On television they had already begun building a Hart vs. Steve Austin program, and one
would expect Hart's return would climax in a Wrestlemania match next March against
Shawn Michaels. However, some close to Hart insist that he's changed his mind about
working post-South Africa dates (although WWF certainly wouldn't be aware of it at
least through mid-week if that were the case as they were still building the Hart-Austin
angle on television this past weekend). Another report is that WCW has continued to
make a play for Hart, and while he hasn't responded to whatever unofficial offers had
been thrown his way to this point, the latest offer included both pro wrestling and a
three movie deal from Turner and he's said to be considering this latest offer because it
would give him a jump start on the inevitable life after wrestling than any 39-year-old
athlete has to consider. WCW sources confirmed there was dialogue with Hart going on
but they didn't think anything going on between the two sides could be termed at all
serious. According to an Internet report which may have reliability because the other
facts regarding Hart in it were accurate and things that wouldn't have been widely
known, stated that Hart would be writing about all this shortly in his column in the
Calgary Sun newspaper.
Hart is in one of the most enviable bargaining positions right now of any wrestler in
history. With his WWF contract having expired months ago, he is a free agent in the
middle of a fierce wrestling war between two sides who are both successful financially at
present, both very competitive, and most important, both who have deep financial
pockets. Hart would be by far the biggest coup possible for either side no the free agent
market as the biggest name on the American scene without a contract. In addition, he
has tremendous name value internationally. One would think with the ante between the
two sides having escalated in recent months with jumps back-and-forth and head-tohead
Monday night television, that Hart should he play his cards right, be able to get a
contract from either side if he wants to play the two sides against each other he would
have a good chance as putting together the biggest money guaranteed contract deal
outside of Hulk Hogan's in history. This will almost surely be the best opportunity of his
career and an opportunity few have had in the history of the business. Even if Hart really
has no interest in working for WCW, it would be in his best interests to get the word out
that he does and negotiate back-and-forth. Whether Hart is really willing to sever ties
with the WWF remains a big question based on past statements about being
uninterested in working for WCW.
Hart has been with the WWF since late 1984, when McMahon bought out Stu Hart's
Stampede Wrestling territory. He has family members that are long-time WWF
wrestlers and his long-time business manager, Carl DeMarco, now heads Canadian
business operations for the WWF.
**********************************************************
The WWF drew the largest paid crowd in North America to attend pro wrestling in
several years on 8/24 for the Canadian National Exhibit WWF X Press show at Toronto's
Exhibition Stadium.
The show was ten years to the day of what was at the time a record setting sellout crowd
in the same building. Sunday's version was nowhere near the 69,300, which at that point
the largest recorded crowd in pro wrestling history, for the Hulk Hogan vs. Paul
Orndorff match, which was the biggest attraction of the annual CNE. However, this
year's show was the largest turnout for any CNE event in many years, drawing 21,211
fans paying $436,612 Canadian. The show was a sold show by Titan to the CNE, which
means Titan didn't take in that kind of revenue, but instead was paid an undisclosed
guarantee going in by the CNE.
It is believed to have been the largest paid crowd for a pro wrestling event on this side of
the world in more than three years (the Konnan vs. Cien Caras match on April 30, 1993
in Mexico City drew approximately 50,000). It would be the largest paid crowd in the
U.S. and Canada since Wrestlemania on April 5, 1992 in the Indianapolis Hoosier Dome
(Hogan vs. Sid Vicious) which drew 62,000 fans and approximately 37,000 paid.
Another 4,000 fans attended a special Olympics softball fund raiser over the same
weekend, and also saw "Sycho Sid" win of tug-of-war from an elephant.
We don't have a lot in details on the wrestling show itself other than the results: 1. Jose
Lothario pinned Jim Cornette; 2. Godwinns beat New Rockers; 3. Hunter Hearst
Helmsley pinned Bob Holly; 4. Savio Vega beat Justin Bradshaw in a Caribbean strap
match; 5. Steve Austin beat Marc Mero via count out when Mero was saving Sable, who
was being chased by Mankind. Mero was bleeding from a cut to his chin; 6. Faarooq
pinned Aldo Montoya; 7. Sid pinned Vader with a choke slam; 8. Smoking Gunns
retained the WWF tag titles losing via DQ to Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith; 9.
Undertaker beat Mankind in a casket match; 10. Shawn Michaels beat Goldust in a
ladder match in what was said to have been the best match on the show.
In a surprise, it was announced that the next WWF show in the Toronto market would
be on January 31, 1997, from the Sky Dome rather then the traditional Maple Leaf
Gardens. Sky Dome was the site of the 1990 Wrestlemania match with Hogan vs.
Ultimate Warrior which drew what is still far and away the North American all-time
record live gate ($3.4 million U.S. on 64,287 paid) which is still roughly double the No. 2
all-time mark.
*********************************************************
New Japan will make the announcement this week regarding its October date at the
Tokyo Dome.
The show, which is believed will take place on 10/9 (it may be 10/6, although apparently
there is a baseball game on hold for the Dome that day), is believed to have four different
themes.
The main theme would be to take advantage of the interest in "anything goes" or
Ultimate fighting, apparently to build an angle of New Japan wrestlers vs. Brazilian Vale
Tudo fighters. This is a similar angle to past New Japan box offices successes for the first
Tokyo Dome show in 1989 working with Russian amateur wrestling champions, and last
year doing the promotion vs. promotion angle with UWFI shootfighters. This theme will
actually debut on the 9/23 Yokohama Arena show where Brazilian luta livre fighter
Pedro Otarvio (who is known in Japan for having beaten Koji Kitao earlier this year)
faces Keiji Muto. What will be interesting is to see how Brazilian Vale Tudo fighters with
no pro wrestling background but who have a real fighting background will react to things
like selling, working and putting people over. Theoretically that should be no different
than the Russians in the same situation, but every culture is different, as was evidenced
by the goings-on at a RINGS show on 8/24. Obviously these aren't gong to be classic
worked matches. Dan Severn will probably be involved somewhere in this scenario.
A second theme will be a major title match with the eight different junior heavyweight
titles defended, with some talk that the challenger for the title on this show will be
Satoru Sayama. In addition, there will be a reprise of the New Leaders vs. Now Leaders
feud in which the post-40 veteran types will feud with the younger stars within New
Japan, and the final theme will be a preliminary feud with New Japan vs. indies, with
them bringing name indie wrestlers to come in and work underneath programs
stemming from the angle where the indie wrestlers were criticized by New Japan. That
angle is going to be somewhat tricky as the quality of the work of most of the indie
wrestlers in Japan won't allow the angle to hold together after the hype, so it appears
they are going to stick to using experienced veteran indie wrestlers like Tarzan Goto or
Kendo Nagasaki who should be able to work a good brawl style match. The problem with
the New Japan feuds as it regards the indie groups, as the UWFI thing showed, is that
there is tremendous heat at the beginning and money that can be made doing it, but
when it's done, it becomes very difficult for the indie groups fans to be able to support
their group after their heroes were "destroyed" in the end by New Japan. Kind of similar
thought process to what a lot of people feared with the WWF/SMW relationship in that
the SMW top stars would go on WWF TV and be nobodies, and then when they would
come back to SMW, they were supposed to be somebodies again and it was hard for fans
to take them as somebodies enough to where they could still draw good crowds.
*************************************************************
The strange death of Maryland independent wrestler Neil Caricofe early Friday morning
has led to a lot of area press including reports from family members that Caricofe had a
history of seizures.
The 33-year-old Caricofe, who wrestled for years on area indies, including his father
Dick's National Wrestling League under the ring name Neil "The Power" Superior out of
their home town of Hagerstown, MD, was involved in a half-hour struggle with a
number of area police officers at about 4:30 a.m. at the Fenwick Inn, where they used
batons and pepper spray to subdue him before he lost consciousness and died in the
parking lot due to respiratory failure. Results of an autopsy weren't available at press
time.
Caricofe's mother Pat tried to explain the strange situation in Sunday newspaper reports
saying that her son often suffered seizures at night and that "it wasn't unusual for me to
find him in the kitchen in the middle of the night, roaming around in his underwear with
his eyes closed. He always slept in his underwear, or in the nude." She said that her son
never talked during his seizures and said the seizures were caused by a neurological
problem that may have resulted from a pro wrestling injury.
The police responded to a complaint of a guest at the hotel saying that a naked man was
roaming around causing a disturbance on the seventh floor. When the five officers
approached Caricofe, who is 6-4 and 267 pounds, he was said to have been shadow
boxing and acting strangely, and when they attempted to take him into custody and
handcuffed him, he broke free and ran downstairs to the parking lot, including hitting
his head on a vending machine while running away. He was flailing his arms, and
according to police, didn't attack the officers, but did resist their efforts to subdue him.
The officers used batons on his legs and pepper spray to attempt to subdue him on the
seventh floor, but he got away until he was surrounded in the parking lot and collapsed,
and died a short time later in a nearby hospital.
Caricofe worked as a correctional officer at Central Laundry in Sykesville, MD, a prerelease
center, along with wrestling since 1989 after being trained by Afa the Samoan.
He wrestled mainly in the area, but had gone on tours to wrestle in Hawaii, Guam and
Saipan during his career, and had worked as a jobber for World Championship
Wrestling. He was the heavyweight champion for his father's NWL which ran shows in
Maryland and West Virginia, and also owned the Neil Superior School of Wrestling in
Hagerstown.
In the Monday newspapers, Caricofe's father said that he didn't hold the Ocean City
police liable and thought his son probably was at fault. His son suffered a possible
broken nose, swelling around his eyes and a bruise on the back of his head in the
incident which Dick Caricofe and witnesses believed came from Neil hitting his head on
the vending machine.
**********************************************************
The thin line that seems to exist in some situations between shooting and working got
that much thinner this past week in the evolution of RINGS.
Ricardo Morais, a 6-foot-9, 265 pound Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter who earlier this year
won the second Russian Absolute (similar to UFC) tournament, made his debut within
the guise of pro wrestling in the main event on 8/24 at Tokyo's Ariake Coliseum beating
RINGS's current top star, Yoshihisa Yamamoto, in 46 seconds by knocking him out with
a series of punches in a match under Vale Tudo (as opposed to RINGS) rules.
The match followed an even more controversial Vale Tudo rules match involving
Russian Illoukhine Mikhail (winner of the first Russian Absolute, 2nd to Morais in the
second but has done jobs in worked matches in RINGS and also lost shoot matches in
Vale Tudo in Japan) against debuting Denilson Maia of Brazil. In that match, the two
fighters battled to the 20:00 time limit and the match was ruled a draw. The Brazilian
contingent, similar to what appeared in Denver after the Marco Ruas-Oleg Taktarov
match at the Ultimate Ultimate, protested the decision claiming that Maia should have
been awarded the decision because Mikhail had been given a yellow card (rule breaking
caution similar to soccer) during the match. The post-match heat backstage got so bad
that the Brazilians refused to allow Morais to go out for his main event match unless
they first awarded Maia the victory. Finally, in order to quell potential fans problems for
destroying credibility by awarding a decision for reasons that would be technically
against the rules, and the long-term and short-term problems if the advertised main
event didn't take place, worked out a compromise with the Brazilians and put Maia and
Mikhail back in for an immediate rematch, all agreed while they were setting up the
main event. In the rematch, Maia beat Mikhail with an armlock in 4:53, quelling all the
problems for the moment.
Apparently both fights were shoots according to our live reports, which would mean
RINGS is in the midst of changing in that it had been a promotion with mainly worked
matches on top with an occasional undercard shoot. However, with its founder and
President, Akira Maeda, set to return after his latest knee injury on the 10/25 show, the
main events can't continue to go in that direction or it would expose the Maeda myth,
particularly now at the age of 36 after all the injuries and with the higher quality of
foreign fighters. Whether the matches were truly shoots or not will be apparent in the
months to come, as if Maeda or Yamamoto are able to beat Morais in rematches, it
would most likely have been that the most recent main event was simply to create a
monster foreign top star to breathe new life into RINGS. Whatever it is should be
obvious on tape, since even though one could work a 46 second believable fake shoot,
there is no way two non-workers such as Maia and Mikhail could do so for 25 minutes. It
wouldn't be unheard of for RINGS to not predetermine the finish of a main event match,
as the Yamamoto's win via a close decision after going 30:00 with Maurice Smith earlier
this year appeared to be an uneventful shoot.
With Maeda out of action, Yamamoto has been pushed as the group's top star, with a
reputation largely gained from losing in a legit Vale Tudo tournament match to Rickson
Gracie in 1994 that lasted about 20 minutes, by far Gracie's longest and toughest match
in Japan. Up until that time, he had been a young protege of Maeda's being groomed for
future stardom, but with something less than a .500 win-loss percentage. Yamamoto had
been ranked No. 1 in RINGS up until losing on 7/16 to Hans Nyman, a job that appeared
to be done to make sure that the No. 1 ranked fighter in the group wouldn't lose to an
outsider since doing a shoot is a risky proposition. At least that's all theoretical. Time
with tell the answer, because if Yamamoto gets a rematch later this year and comes back
to beat Morais, it may simply be the age old promotion of creating a monster heel,
putting him over huge as unbeatable at the beginning, so when the top babyface finally
downs him, the babyface is over bigger than ever and it's all part of the process of
building Yamamoto for a long-run on top.
But with Maeda out of the main events, and with the debut of Kiyoshi Tamura, a former
UWFI wrestler, on the 6/29 show, RINGS had taken on a fresh new look and seemed to
be rebuilding interest based on the sellout of 6,700 on 6/29 at NK Hall and the crowd of
9,000 at the 8/24 Ariake Coliseum show (although the 7/16 show in Osaka drew an
unimpressive crowd of 4,080). Even though Maeda's name value is much stronger than
the younger wrestlers, for the current style and trend with interest rebounding to
continue, Maeda really needs to stay out of the ring. He's better off as the figurehead
leader and retired superstar running the show and handling promoting the shows rather
than being in the main events and getting in the way of the top stars that are building the
company for life after Maeda. Anyway, his return puts the company in what really isn't
much different from the same dilemma that numerous wrestling companies in the world
have and continue to face.
***********************************************************
Preliminary indications from this last week are that the WWF's SummerSlam looks to
have done approximately an 0.58 buy rate (approximately 145,000 buys; est. $1.74
million company revenue). That would be a huge drop from last year's figures of an 0.9
buy rate and $2.37 million, continuing the string of consistently dropping figures since
the beginning of the second quarter from last year when it comes to PPV buy rates for
both WWF and WCW.
SEG's taped Kings of Pancrase PPV on 8/16 did its second straight 0.1 buy rate (25,000
buys; est. $100,000), this time not going head-to-head with the NBA playoffs. SEG has
moved all future Pancrase PPVs to Sunday nights, the next being 11/3, believing it to be
the traditional PPV night for pro wrestling fans, which appears to be their primary
audience. The UFC's will remain on Friday nights because SEG believes it already has its
own tradition as being a Friday night show and of being something people set time aside
to see, whereas Pancrase is something that people don't know and figure it's best for
sampling to do it on a pro wrestling night on a week where there happens to be no other
pro wrestling PPV show.
***********************************************************
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(Monday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 8/30 TO 9/30
8/30 AAA Mexico City Juan de la Barrera Gym (Aguayo & Konnan & Octagon vs.
Pierroth & Killer & Cibernetico)
9/1 FMW Nagoya station outdoors (Tanaka & Nakagawa & Kuroda vs. Kanemura & Hido
& Hosaka)
9/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Chattanooga, TN UTC Arena
9/5 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Hansen)
9/6 WWF Houston Summit Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/7 Pancrase Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
9/7 WWF Dallas Reunion Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Columbus, GA Civic Center
9/11 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Tenryu)
9/14 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams & Dreamer vs. Eliminators &
Lee)
9/15 WCW Fall Brawl PPV Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Coliseum (Flair &
Anderson & Luger & Sting vs. Hogan & Nash & Hall & ?)
9/16 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto vs. Chono)
9/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Asheville, NC Civic Center
9/20 New Japan/WCW Osaka Furitsu Gym (Muto & Sting vs. Steiners)
9/20 EMLL Anniversary show Mexico City Arena Mexico (Jalisco Jr. vs. Markus Jr.)
9/21 WWF Baltimore Arena
9/22 WWF Mind Games PPV Philadelphia Core States Spectrum (Michaels vs.
Mankind)
9/23 New Japan/WCW Yokohama Arena (WCW/New Japan tournament finals)
9/23 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Hershey, PA Park Arena
9/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Birmingham, AL
9/24 WWF Superstars tapings State College, PA Penn State University Gym
9/25 RINGS Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Yamamoto vs. Kopilov)
9/27 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena
9/28 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena
9/29 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
9/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cleveland Convocation Center
RESULTS
8/13 Colorado Springs, CO (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 2,037
sellout/1,500 paid): Dick Slater & Mike Enos b Bobby Eaton & David Taylor, Ric Flair
& Arn Anderson & Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit b High Voltage & Renegade & Joe
Gomez, Nasty Boys b Bobby Walker & Mark Starr, Harlem Heat NC Rick & Scott Steiner,
Giant b Jim Powers, Slater & Enos b Renegade & Mike Wenner, Steve Regal b Walker,
WCW TV title: Lex Luger b Taylor, Bull Nakano b Madusa, Ultimo Dragon b Mr. J.L.,
Kevin Sullivan & Hugh Morrus & Meng & Barbarian b Powers & Renegade & High
Voltage, Konnan b Mark Starr, U.S. title: Ric Flair b Dean Malenko
8/13 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Lynx & Corazon Salvaje b Pegaso & Kung
Fu Jr., Americo Rocca & Mogur & Karloff Lagarde Jr. b Filoso & Ultimatum & Alacran,
Martha Villalobos & La Diabolica & Tania b Lola Gonzalez & Lady Apache & Xochitl
Hamada, Dandy & Mr. Niebla & El Hijo del Solitario b Felino & Chicago Express &
Damian El Guerrero-DQ, ***** Casas & Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Satanico b Dos Caras &
Brazo de Plata & Mascara Sagrada
8/14 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL Vittorino Memorial show): Elegido &
Goldman b Los Satangeles I & II, Cicloncito Ramirez & Panterita & Mascarita Magica b
Ultratumbita & Brazito de Oro & Damiancito, Elimination match for Vittorino trophy:
Mascara Magica & Mr. Niebla & Rencor Latino & Astro Rey Jr. & America b Rey
Bucanero & Sagrado & Shocker & Olimpico & Halcon ***** Jr., Los Brazos & Jaque
Mate b El Hijo del Gladiador & Americo Rocca & Mogur & Apolo Dantes, Lizmark &
Dandy & Vampiro Canadiense b Apolo Dantes & ***** Casas & Emilio Charles Jr.-DQ
8/16 Rochester, WA (American Wrestling Federation - 250): Koko Ware b
Honkytonk Man, Sgt. Slaughter b Buddy Rose, Charlie Norris & Tom Zenk b Bob Orton
& Greg Valentine, Moondog Moretti b Nailz-DQ, Tito Santana b Blacktop Bully-DQ
8/16 Gordonsville, TN (Ind - 250 sellout): Screaming Eagle b Billy the Kid, Tim
Prichard b Convict, Emmy Lou & Julie b Richard Lowe & Savannah, Shane Morton &
Larry Valentine b Strickly Business, Tony Falk b Kevin the Thumper, Tracy Smothers b
Jeff Jarrett
8/16 Miami (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 610): Bobby Davis b Clay Hatfield,
Paul Adonis & American Eagle b Bounty Hunters, Johnny Torres b Punk Rock, Clint
Esteban b J.R. James, Demon Hellstorm b Duke Droese-DQ
8/17 Acapulco (AAA - 8,000 sellout): Salsero & Frisbee b Duende & Canalla,
Lumberjack strap match: Torero & Super Calo & Bobby Lozcano b Hallowen & Mosco de
la Merced & Karis la Momia, Mascara Sagrada & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Mascarita
Sagrada Jr. b Espectro & Halcon & Espectrito I, La Parka & Perro Aguayo & Perro
Aguayo Jr. & Winners b Pierroth Jr. & Cien Caras & Villano IV & Fantasma de la
Quebrada Jr.-DQ, IWAS tag titles: Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. b Jerry Estrada &
Juventud Guerrera to win titles
8/17 Rochester, WA (American Wrestling Federation - 500): Buddy Rose b
Sumito, Greg Valentine b Moondog Moretti, Koko Ware b Honkytonk Man-DQ, Tom
Zenk b Nailz, Tito Santana & Charlie Norris b Blacktop Bully & Bob Orton
8/17 Morgan City, LA (Universal Wrestling Federation - 550): Billy Knight b
Allen Storm, Rott Wyler b Brother Love, Sam Houston b Tim Brooks, Teddy Noll b
Doink the Clown, Typhoon b One Man Gang-DQ
8/17 Nanaimo, BC (Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling -
1,250/fairgrounds show): Magic Dragon & Pink Power Ranger b Iron Maiden &
Baby Huey, Bulldog Bob Brown Jr. b Alex Torchia, Mike Roselli b Michelle Starr to win
ECCW title
8/17 Humble, TX (Texas All-Star Wrestling - 335): Johnny Blade b Ricky Blue,
Top Guns d Austin Rhodes & Wichita Willie, War Dog DDQ Mad Dog, Bubba Monroe b
The Gladiator (Rick Leribus), Humongous (Bob Murphy) & G.Q. Knight & Rico Suave b
The Mercenary (Bruce Bennett) & Al Walker & Manu
8/18 Rochester, WA (American Wrestling Federation - 225): Tom Zenk b
Blacktop Bully, Buddy Wayne b Bodyguard, Charlie Norris & Billy Two Eagles b Greg
Valentine & Buddy Rose, Koko Ware b Honkytonk Man, Bob Orton won Battle Royal,
Tito Santana b Orton
8/18 Los Angeles All Nations Center (Ind): Sombra de Plata & Gemini Kid b
Vandal Drummond & Lobo Salvaje-DQ, Maquina Infernal & Pink Butterfly b La Cobrita
& Angel Star, Shamu Jr. & Agulia Azteca b Ku Klux Klan #1 & Profeta, Piloto Nuclear &
Sagrado b Jack Studd & Dan Faviano, Platino & Zarco & Fallen Angel b Perro Ruso &
Crazy Boy & Poison
8/19 Okazaki (All Japan - 2,450): Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Ryukaku
Izumida & Takao Omori b Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari Ogawa, Mighty Inoue & Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Jun Akiyama b
Tamon Honda, Gary Albright & The Patriot b Johnny Smith & Johnny Ace, Steve
Williams & Giant Kimala II b Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat, Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta
Kobashi & Satoru Asako b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
8/19 Takasaki (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Nana Takahashi, Genki
Misae b Yuka Shiina, Yoshiko Tamura & Mariko Yoshida b Rie Tamada & Saya Endo,
Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett & mima Shimoda b Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Kumiko
Maekawa, Tomoko Watanabe b Etsuko Mita, Mariko Yoshida & Kyoko Inoue b Manami
Toyota & Kaoru Ito
8/20 Columbus, OH (WWF Superstars tapings - 2,739): Non-squash results:
Vader b Savio Vega, Owen Hart b Flex Kavana, Salvatore Sincere b Aldo Montoya, Jake
Roberts b Who, Goldust b Zip, Faarooq b Barry Horowitz, Vega b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Stalker b Goon, Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Bob Holly & Alex Porteau,
Steve Austin b Freddy Joe Floyd, Grim Twins (Bruise Brothers) b New Rockers, Sid b
Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust, Undertaker & Roberts b Mankind & Jerry
Lawler
8/20 Dalton, GA (WCW Saturday Night tapings): Ice Train b Kurosawa, Giant b
Renegade, Chris Jericho b Mr. J.L., Rick Steiner NC Nasty Boys, Diamond Dallas Page b
Billy Kidman, Scott Norton b Bobby Walker, Meng & Barbarian b Cobra & Craig
Pittman, WCW TV title: Steve Regal b Lex Luger to win title, Public Enemy b Gambler &
Ted Allen, Giant b Kurosawa
8/20 Osaka Furitsu Gym II (All Japan - 2,050 sellout): Kentaro Shiga b
Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Johnny Smith b Masao Inoue, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura &
Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Giant Kimala II &
Ryukaku Izumida b Takao Omori & Jun Akiyama, PWF jr. title: Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b
Satoru Asako 21:19, Stan Hansen & Gary Albright & The Patriot b Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace & Dan Kroffat, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda 25:29
8/20 Mito (All Japan women): Genki Misae & Nana Takahashi b Yoshiko Tamura &
Miho Wakizawa, Mariko Yoshida & Rie Tamada b Saya Endo & Kumiko Maekawa,
Chaparita Asari b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong b Takako Inoue, Reggie Bennett & Tomoko
Watanabe & Mima Shimoda b Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Yumiko
Hotta b Kyoko Inoue
8/20 Kodenju (Michinoku Pro - 293): Battle Cat b Sugamoto, Shiryu b Naohiro
Hoshikawa, Super Boy & Shoichi Funaki b Gran Hamada & Masato Yakushiji, Taka
Michinoku & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin & Wellington
Wilkens Jr.
8/21 Asahikawa (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b M. Takahashi, Momoe
Nakanishi b Yachio Kawamoto, Yoshiko Tamura & Genki Misae b Rie Tamada & Saya
Endo, Takako Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa,
Manami Toyota b Kaoru Ito, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue b Aja Kong &
Toshiyo Yamada & Mima Shimoda
8/21 Yokosuka (FMW): Mamoru Okamoto b Hideo Makimura, Kaori Nakayama b
Miss Mongol, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Ricky Fuji, The Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya b Super
Leather & Toryu, Koji Nakagawa b Halcon *****, Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku b
Hayato Nanjyo & Hayabusa, Megumi Kudo b Bad Nurse Nakamura, Street fight: Hideki
Hosaka & Hido & Wing Kanemura b Gosaku Goshogawara & Tetsuhiro Kuroda &
Masato Tanaka
8/21 Murokawa (Michinoku Pro - 268): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Sugamoto,
Battle Cat b Masato Yakushiji, Gran Hamada b Super Boy-DQ, Shiryu & Mens Teoh &
Dick Togo b Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa & Naohiro Hoshikawa
8/21 Tlalnepantla (AAA - 2,000): Venum and Frisbee co-won Battle Royal, Onenight
tag team tournament: Pierroth Jr. & Espectro b Mosco de la Merced & Heavy
Metal, Cien Caras & Halcon Dorado Jr. b Octagon & Salsero, Konnan & Mascara Sagrada
Jr. b Fishman & Kraken (Antifaz), La Parka & Frisbee b Rey Misterio Jr. & Venum, Caras
& Dorado b Pierroth Jr. & Espectro, Konnan & Sagrada Jr. b Parka & Frisbee, Konnan &
Sagrada Jr. b Caras & Dorado to win tournament
8/22 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Pro tapings - 600/all freebies): Alex
Wright b Scott Armstrong, Craig Pittman b Terry Davis, Ice Train b Maxx, Dean
Malenko b Brad Armstrong, Chris Benoit b Ron Studd, Scott & Steve Armstrong b Bill
Payne & Rick Thames, Dallas Page b Prince Iaukea, Nasty Boys b Payne & Thames, Train
b Cliff Sheets, Chavo Guerrero Jr. b Iaukea, Benoit b Jim Powers, V.K. Wallstreet b John
Tenta, Harlem Heat NC Public Enemy, Gambler b Randy Starr
8/22 Tokuyama (All Japan - 2,450): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Giant Kimala II &
Ryukaku Izumida b Giant Baba & Kentaro Shiga, Gary Albright b Masa Fuchi, Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Takao Omori & Satoru Asako & Masao
Inoue, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat, Mitsuharu Misawa &
Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith
8/22 Kumagaya (FMW): Mamoru Okamoto b Hideo Makimura, Miwa Sato b Ikeda,
Super Leather b Toryu, Shoichi Funaki & Hisakatsu Oya b Gosaku Goshogawara &
Katsutoshi Niiyama, Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo & ? b Miss Mongol (Aki
Kanbayashi) & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya, Hayabusa & Hayato Nanjyo b
Hideki Hosaka & Hido, Wing Kanemura b Halcon ***** (Jose Estrada Jr.), Tetsuhiro
Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka b Ricky Fuji & Taka Michinoku & The
Gladiator
8/22 Kawahoku (Michinoku Pro - 439): Battle Cat b Sugamoto, Wellington
Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji, Super Boy b Gran Naniwa, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick
Togo b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada
8/22 Sayama (All Japan women): Yumi Fukawa d Momoe Nakanishi, Kumiko
Maekawa b Saya Endo, Mariko Yoshida b Reggie Bennett, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito &
Yoshiko Tamura b Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue & Genki Misae, Etsuko Mita b Aja
Kong, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue b Tomoko Watanabe & Mima Shimoda
8/22 Osaka (JD - 410): Koyama b Abe, Yuko Kosugi b Yano, Princesa Blanca b
Neftaly, Rie Tamada & Chikako Shiratori b Chiquita Azteca & Pekenia, Bison Kimura &
Kosugi b Jaguar Yokota & Koyama, Lioness Asuka & Yuki Lee b Cooga & Bloody Phoenix
8/22 Benton, KY (All Star Wrestling - 100): Spoiler b Gator, Dennis Mason b
Ashley Hudson, Mike Felker b Tony Falk, Wolfie D b Jamie Dundee, Brian Christopher b
Jeff Jarrett
8/23 Magi (All Japan - 1,900): Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari Ogawa b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru & Satoru Asako, Mitsuo Momota & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Mighty Inoue & Masa
Fuchi, The Patriot b Masao Inoue, Giant Baba & Stan Hansen & Rusher Kimura b
Haruka Eigen & Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida, Gary Albright b Dan Kroffat, Steve
Williams & Johnny Smith b Tamon Honda & Akira Taue, Kenta Kobashi b Johnny Ace
24:21, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Toshiaki Kawada & Takao Omori
8/23 Reading, PA (ECW - 500): Sandman & Missy Hyatt b Raven & Lori Fullington,
Hack Myers b Super Nova, Mikey Whipwreck b Little Guido, Louie Spicolli b Buh Buh
Ray Dudley, ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Samoan Gangsta Party, Tommy Dreamer &
Terry Gordy b Eliminators, Brian Lee b Pablo Marques (El Puerto Ricano), Rob Van
Dam b Dreamer
8/23 Memphis (USWA - 900): Johnny Rotten d Brickhouse Brown, Diaper match:
Tony Williams b Scott Bowden, Flash Flanagan b Tony Falk, USWA womens title: Miss
Texas b Lady Eagle, North American title: Colorado Kid b Giant Warrior, Doug Gilbert b
Bill Dundee-DQ, Street fight: Jamie Dundee b Wolfie D, USWA title: Brian Christopher
b Tommy Rich-DQ, Car vs. truck: Koko Ware b Jerry Lawler, Texas death match:
Christopher & Gilbert & D & Frank Morrell & Randy Hales b Bill & Jamie Dundee &
Rich & Falk & Samantha
8/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,150 sellout): Ricky Fuji & Shoichi Funaki b
Gosaku Goshogawara & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Taka Michinoku b Toryu, Megumi Kudo &
Kaori Nakayama b Miss Mongol & Crusher Maedomari, The Gladiator b Halcon *****,
Street fight: Shark Tsuchiya b Rie Tamada, Hisakatsu Oya b Super Leather, Koji
Nakagawa b Hayabusa, No rope barbed wire street fight tornado death match: Hideki
Hosaka & Hido & Wing Kanemura b Hayato Nanjyo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato
Tanaka
8/23 Gosen (Michinoku Pro - 1,005): The Hater b Wellington Wilkens Jr., WWA
middleweight title: Super Boy b Naohiro Hoshikawa to win title, Shiryu & Mens Teoh &
Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada
8/23 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Supremo II & Kundra b Kung Fu Jr. &
Mano Negra Jr., Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del Futuro & Damian El Guerrero b
Olimpus & Alacran & Ultimatum, Super Astro & Mr. Niebla & Olimpico b Scorpio Jr. &
Rey Bucanero & Astro Rey Jr., Rambo & Felino & Emilio Charles Jr. b Brazo de Oro &
Mascara Magica & Silver King-DQ, Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Mascara Sagrada b
Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador & Dr. Wagner Jr.
8/23 Minatitlan, Veracruz (AAA - 2,000): Hollywood & Quarterback b Ludxor &
Salsero, Winners & Super Calo & Venum b Picudo & Mosco de la Merced & Angel Veloz,
Mexican minis title: Espectrito b Mascarita Sagrada Jr., Cage match street fight: Konnan
& Rey Misterio Jr. b Pierroth Jr. & Juventud Guerrera
8/23 Vienna, Austria (Catch Wrestling Association - 850): Franz Schumann b
Terminator Mastino (Mantaur aka Mike Hallick), Cannonball Grizzly (P.N. News) b
Rambo, Ulf Hermann & Tony St. Clair b Robert Fasser & Drew McDonald, August Smisl
b Fit Finlay-DQ, Otto Wanz b Terry Funk-DQ
8/23 Marshfield, MA (IWF - 3,000/fairgrounds show): Mike Hollow b Russian
Mauler (Richard Byrne), Violet Flame b Joanie Lee-DQ, Irish Leprechaun b Tiny the
Terrible, Bushwhackers b Tim McNeany & Jim Cody, Bushwhackers b King Kong Bundy
& Bulldozer-COR
8/23 Alexandria, VA (Independent Pro Wrestling Alliance - 100): Justin St.
John b Lucifer, Jimmy Cicero b Scotty McKeever, Head Bangers won triangle match
over Glenn Osbourne & The Rebel and Bad Boyz, Ali Amin b Adam Flash, Big Slam
Vader (Walter McDonald) b Nikolai Volkoff-DQ, Johnny Gunn (Salvatore Sincere) &
Cue Ball Carmichael b Steve Corino & Cicero
8/24 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,400 sellout): Louie Spicolli b Devon
Storm, Mikey Whipwreck b Little Guido, Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley b Axl
Rotten & D-Von Dudley, Lori Fullington b Lady Alexander, Bad street match: Terry
Gordy b Brian Lee, Rob Van Dam b Doug Furnas, Double dog collar match: Sandman &
Pit Bull #2 b Shane Douglas & Raven, Taz NC Tommy Dreamer, Weapons cage match
for ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Eliminators
8/24 Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (RINGS - 9,000): Willie Peeters b Wataru Sakata,
Masayoshi Naruse b Eagen Inoue-DQ, Kiyoshi Tamura b Maurice Smith, Mitsuya Nagai
b Dick Vrij, Kyokushin karate rules: Walter Schnabelt b Vladimir Kuramenchev, Volk
Han b Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Vale Tudo rules: Denilson Maia d Illoukhine Mikhail 20:00,
Vale Tudo rules re-start: Maia b Mikhail, Vale Tudo rules: Ricardo Morais b Yoshihisa
Yamamoto
8/24 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Pro tapings - 600 full house/all
freebies): Big Bubba b Eddie Jackie, Rick Steiner b Booker T, Meng & Barbarian &
Hugh Morrus & Kevin Sullivan b Scott & Steve Armstrong & Marcus Bagwell & Mark
Starr, Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit b Nasty Boys, Public Enemy b High Voltage, Bobby
Eaton b David Taylor, Jerry Flynn b Ned Brady, Glacier (Ray Lloyd) b Bubba, Harlem
Heat b Dick Slater & Mike Enos, Diamond Dallas Page b Chavo Guerrero Jr., Chris
Jericho b Manny Fernandez, Ice Train b Scott Norton, Flynn b Starr, Jim Duggan b
Brady, Glacier b Bubba
8/24 Iwanuma (Michinoku Pro - 1,500): Masato Yakushiji d Battle Cat,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. NC The Hater, Super Boy & Mens Teoh b Naohiro Hoshikawa &
Gran Hamada, Shiryu & Dick Togo b Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin
8/24 Tokyo (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto, Chaparita
Asari & Yoshiko Tamura & Momoe Nakanishi b Rie Tamada & Genki Misae & Nana
Takahashi, Aja Kong & Saya Endo b Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa, Kaoru Ito b
Mariko Yoshida, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe & Reggie Bennett b
Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda
8/24 Jonesboro, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling - 370): Giant Warrior
& Ron McClarity b Bone Crushers, Flash Flanagan b Mike Samples, Bart Sawyer b
Brickhouse Brown, NA title: Colorado Kid b Charlie Parker, Unified title: Jerry Lawler b
Brian Christopher
8/24 Uledi, PA (Steel City Wrestling): Virgil b Lord Zoltan, T.Rantula b Lou
Marconi, Fat Man b J.T. Nightmare, Frank Staletto & Marconi b Power Company,
Demolition Ax b Greg Valentine-DQ, Brian Costello b Hercules, Typhoon & Ax b Texas
Hangmen to win SCW tag titles
8/24 Bridgeville, PA (United States Wrestling League - 350): Sgt. Youngblood
b J.T. Lightning, Johnny Gunn b Steve Corino, Milwaukee Mauler b Psycho Mike,
Preston Steele & T.C. Reynolds b Hollywood Escorts, Bobby Blaze b King Kaluha, Virgil
b Lord Zoltan, Jimmy Snuka b Metal Maniac
8/25 Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (WWF - 6,823): Bushwhackers b Zeb &
Justin Bradshaw, Grim Twins (Bruise Brothers) b New Rockers, Marc Mero & Savio
Vega b Steve Austin & Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Mankind & Goldust b Undertaker &
Jake Roberts, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b Godwinns, Shawn Michaels & Jose
Lothario b Vader & Jim Cornette, Sid & Jim Neidhart b Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith-
DQ
8/25 Onomichi (All Japan - 1,600): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Mighty Inoue & Masao Inoue b Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako, Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida b
Tamon Honda & Yoshinari Ogawa, Gary Albright & The Patriot b Johnny Smith &
Johnny Ace, Giant Baba & Stan Hansen b Steve Williams & Dan Kroffat, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Takao
Omori
8/25 Yokohama (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Ciclon Ramirez b El Guerrero, Solar &
Shigeo Okumura b Violencia (Pirata Morgan) & Akihiko Masuda, Kenichi Yamamoto b
Shinobu Tamura, Yoji Anjoh & Tiger Mask Sayama b Takashi Ishikawa & Yoshihiro
Takayama, Sabu b Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio), Kishin Kawabata b King Kong-DQ,
NWA light heavyweight title: Dandy b Gekko-DQ, NWA light heavyweight title rematch:
Dandy d Gekko, TWA tag titles: Anjoh & Sayama b Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo
Benkei to win titles
8/25 Kobe (WAR): Osamu Taitoko b Jun Kikuchi, Ultimo Dragon b Battle Ranger,
Takashi Okamura & Nobukazu Hirai b Masaaki Mochizuki & Yuji Yasuraoka, Big Titan b
Lance Storm, Gedo & Jado b Arashi & Koki Kitahara, Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka
Araya b Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki
8/25 Sendai (Michinoku Pro - 3,500): Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada b Battle
Cat & Sugamoto, Pro Wrestling America title: Wellington Wilkens Jr. b The Hater to win
title, Shiryu & Super Boy b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Naniwa, Mens Teoh b Tiger
Mask, Super Delfin b Dick Togo-DQ
8/25 Yokosuka (Wrestle Dream Factory): Madness b Shinichi Shino, Tajiri b
Azteca, Hiroyoshi Kotsubo b Shinigami, Onryo b Cosmic Soldier, Unibos b Fukada,
Hector Garza & Masayoshi Motegi b Super Crazy & Kamikaze, Shinichi Nakano b
Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Wolf won Battle Royal
8/25 Tokushima (Battlarts): Alexander Otsuka b Minoru Tanaka, Shoichi Funaki &
Taka Michinoku b Takeshi Ono & Katsumi Usuda, Yuki Ishikawa b Carl Greco, Masahito
Kakihara b Satoshi Yoneyama, Daisuke Ikeda b Dieseul Berto
8/25 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling - 140): Ron
McClarity b Reggie Montgomery, Bone Crushers b Giant Warrior & McClarity, Bart
Sawyer b Charlie Parker, NA title: Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee
8/25 Redford, MI (Insane Championship Wrestling): Denny Kass b Rhino
Richards, Alexis Machine d Brian Fury, Breyer Wellington b Pierre Francois, Ghetto
Blaster b Magic, Ian Rotten b Mad Man Pondo, Bruiser Bedlam DCOR New Jack
8/26 Palmetto, FL (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 1,384 sellout): Juventud
Guerrera b Billy Kidman ***, Kevin Sullivan & Big Bubba b Marcus Bagwell & Jim
Powers *1/4, Chavo Guerrero Jr. b Mike Enos 1/4*, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey
Misterio Jr. b J.L. *1/4, Giant b Jim Duggan *, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson b Rock & Roll
Express *1/4, Chris Jericho NC Alex Wright **1/4, Rick & Scott Steiner b Bobby Eaton &
David Taylor 1/4*, Sting & Lex Luger NC Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael ***
Special thanks to: Kurt Brown, Steve Prazak, Stuart Kemp, Dominick Valenti, Adam
Pennison, Ken Verret, Ed Aherns, Bernie Siegel, Norm Connors, Ronnie Crowder, Ron
Lemieux, Eric Covil, Miguel Perez Jr., Gregg John, Markus Gronemann, Robert Wagner,
Bruce Bennett, Kevin Carson, Tony Friedmann, Marcus Watkins, Dan Parris, Georgiann
Makropolous, Sarah Moore, Ken Doucet, Timothy Walker, Robert Rothaas, Bert
Prentice, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Richard Riegler, Mike Rodgers, J. Steve Hicks, Jesse
Money, Nick Podsvirow, James Haase
EMLL
The 8/23 Arena Mexico main event saw Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Mascara
Sagrada over Gran Markus Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador. After the
match, Caras & Rayo challenged Markus & Gladiador for a match for the latters' CMLL
tag team titles and that's expected to be the 8/30 main event. The belief right now is that
they are building to the Anniversary show on 9/20 with a mask vs. mask match with
Rayo vs. Markus, which will be a terrible match. Because both are big names with their
masks at stake, particularly Rayo's mask, EMLL believes it can draw its first Arena
Mexico sellout (17,100) since the Atlantis vs. Mano Negra mask match at the 1993
Anniversary show. The semi continued the Rambo vs. Brazo de Oro feud that will end up
in a hair match at some point since they both juiced heavy in their semifinal match and
when it was over continued challenging each other to a hair match. Rambo claimed in a
post-match interview that he would win the hair of all three Brazos before the end of
1996.
For those with dishes searching for the PROMELL show, it aired four-and-a-half hours
late on a different TV-Azteca channel on 8/25. Reports on the PROMELL tapings thus
far is that the production is slightly better than AAA (which isn't saying much), the
production of the studio voice-over announcing sound-mixing is better than AAA (which
is saying nothing since the sound-mixing on the AAA shows is often terrible), that the
undercard matches are okay but nothing has been close to ****, and that the main events
have been awful.
Hector Garza returns from Japan (Wrestle Dream Factory) this week.
AAA
Antonio Pena has apparently gotten agreements from WAR, New Japan and WCW
regarding his planned 11/20 card at Plaza Mexico (an outdoor stadium) in Mexico City
and that in addition to AAA talent, appearing on the show would be Genichiro Tenryu,
Gedo, Jado, Koki Kitahara, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Keiji Muto, Jushin Liger, Shinjiro Otani,
Ric Flair, Randy Savage, The Giant and Kevin Sullivan.
Konnan's next border tour is 8/31 in Mexicali, 9/1 with a 6 p.m. show at Auditorio
Municipal in Tijuana and 9/2 in Nogales with Konnan, Perro Aguayo, Mascara Sagrada,
Mascara Sagrada Jr., Super Calo, Rey Misterio Jr., Juventud Guerrera, Psicosis, Pierroth
Jr., Destructores and Misterioso as the headliners.
Even though Juventud Guerrera will go by his original name in the United States with
his original gimmick, there is still talk of having him change his name and gimmick in
AAA although he's still the same name at this point.
They've got a weak show booked for 8/30 at Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City with
Aguayo & Konnan & Octagon vs. Pierroth & Cibernetico & Killer, Tinieblas Jr. & Blue
Demon Jr. & Misterio Jr. & Sagrada Jr. vs. Cien Caras & Jerry Estrada & Guerrera &
Halcon Dorado Jr., Oro Jr. & Venum & Mexicano vs. Super Muneco & Perro Silva &
Karis la Momia as the top bouts.
TV tapings this past week were 8/21 in Tlalnepantla which drew 2,000 for a one-night
tag team tournament which ended up with Konnan & Sagrada Jr. over Caras & Dorado
in the finals, and 8/23 in Minatitlan, which also drew 2,000 amidst hurricane warnings
locally, as Konnan & Misterio Jr. beat Pierroth Jr. & Guerrera in a street fight cage
match which saw outside interference climbing in from Venum, Super Calo, Picudo,
Dorado Jr., Karis, Espectro and Mosco de la Merced with chairs, tables, ladders, etc.,
ending when Konnan KO'd Pierroth after hitting him with a fire extinguisher. Told the
crowd didn't get into this match as it was a crowd looking for Lucha and not the
brawling. Espectrito I retained his Mexican minis title beating Mascarita Sagrada Jr.
when Mosco de la Merced attacked Sagrada Jr. and put Espectrito on top for the pin.
The new Kraken in this promotion (original Kraken, who was getting a big push, Shu El
Guerrero, left for PROMELL), used to wrestle as Antifaz. A new undercard wrestler
called Hollywood is the younger brother of Calo.
The reason Latin Lover hasn't been wrestling a lot of late is that he's been appearing in a
play in Monterrey.
Super Luchas, which is the newsstand magazine which Pena publishes, has listed the
past two weeks that Dragon and not Sasuke won the J Crown and the eight belts.
ALL JAPAN
Typical quiet week with the biggest show on 8/20 in Osaka before a sellout 2,050 with
the usual six-man with Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa over
Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda when Taue choke-slammed Honda
in 25:29 as the main event. The only title match of the week was on the show with
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi keeping the PWF jr. title pinning Satoru Asako in 21:19, while All-
Asian tag champs Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori lost a non-title match to Ryukaku
Izumida & Giant Kimala II, who are becoming something of a cult underneath team
since Izumida paints up his face and body to be like a Japanese Kimala.
8/11 TV show did a 2.5 rating.
Because this group has become so stale, a lot of people believe that in 1997, they'll end
up bringing Nobuhiko Takada in, since it gives them a ton of fresh singles matches that
can draw (vs. Kobashi, Kawada, Misawa, Taue, Williams, Albright, Akiyama and even
Hansen).
NEW JAPAN
Jushin Liger had what was termed a successful 50-minute laser brain operation on 8/23
in Tokyo to remove the benign tumor. Liger was able to leave the hospital to return
home to Fukuoka (which is a long trip) that day and the doctors will check his progress
on 9/10, at which point he's expected to get clearance to return to the ring, perhaps in
time for the next series opener on 9/12.
Riki Choshu held a press conference on 8/23 to respond to comments made by Shinya
Kojika (Big Japan Pro Wrestling President) and Takashi Ishikawa (Tokyo Pro Wrestling
President) to build up for the New Japan vs. indies feud for the Tokyo Dome. Choshu
basically said he doesn't respect Kojika's opinion and that his promotion consisted of
nothing but small names.
Great Muta will wrestle Genichiro Tenryu in a singles match for the first time on the
WAR 10/11 Osaka show, which also includes Nobuhiko Takada & Masahiko Kakihara &
Yuhi Sano defending the WAR six-man titles against a mystery team, Great Sasuke
theoretically defending the eight junior belts against Ultimo Dragon and Rey Misterio Jr.
defending the WWA welterweight title against Psicosis. It'll be the first time in a few
years that Muto has donned the Muta gimmick. When Tenryu worked New Japan's big
shows regularly in 1993, for whatever reason, they never got around to doing a singles
match against Muto.
Scott Hall is looking to put together a separate deal from his WCW deal to come here
more often. Years ago, Hall was a New Japan regular.
The 8/10 and 8/17 television shows aired the G-1 matches from the 8/2 and 8/3 cards
respectively. The matches were generally about a 1/2* better live than on television,
because both the crowd intensity was lost and stiffness always comes across better live,
not to mention that most of the matches were edited which removes some of the
storyline. They will still well produced television shows. 8/10 did a 2.3 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Besides the two Vale Tudo matches on the 8/24 RINGS show, other key matches had
Volk Han retain his No. 3 ranking beating Tsuyoshi Kousaka in a rematch with an
armlock in 13:52. These two on the previous show had one of the better RINGS matches
of the year, but it was stopped without a submission due to Kousaka having a cut near
his eye. Mitsuya Nagai retained his No. 7 ranking beating Dick Vrij, plus Kiyoshi Tamura
made Maurice Smith submit to an armlock in 10:58 and Masayoshi Naruse of RINGS
beat Eagen Inoue of the Sayama Shooting promotion via DQ when Inoue was redcarded.
How's this for a strange team and a strange match. Tiger Mask Sayama & Yoji Anjoh
captured the TWA (Tokyo Pro Wrestling) tag titles from Abdullah the Butcher &
Daikokubo Benkei on 8/25 in Yokohama when Anjoh made Benkei submit in 14:23 with
a Fujiwara armbar (wakigatamae). Sabu pinned Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) while
they had a strange NWA light heavyweight title deal involving Dandy and Gekko (Masao
Orihara). Gekko was DQ'd in just 5:08 for dropkicking the referee which naturally pissed
the crowd off royally, so the two agreed to wrestle five more minutes and the time limit
ran out. It was announced that this was Dandy's 45th consecutive victory in title
defenses. The Sheik appeared at the show as well, as Sabu's manager. Sheik was
advertised to wrestle, but TPW after bringing him in, wouldn't allow it and King Kong
(I'm assuming it's the Dallas area wrestler but don't know for sure) subbed. Anjoh &
Sayama defend against Butcher & Benkei in a rematch on 9/15. They are doing a weird
angle that hasn't been completely explained to me within this group. Several of the
underneath wrestlers threatened to quit the promotion because they weren't happy
(remember, this is a work), so Takashi Ishikawa quit as President and it's going to wind
up on 10/8 in Osaka with a match between Ishikawa vs. Anjoh where the winner gets
control of the company.
The deal with Sayama doing all this wrestling now is that even though he was the
founder and is the figurehead leader of Japanese Pro Shooting and Vale Tudo, behind
the scenes the Board of Directors of those companies pushed him out of power. Sayama
has a huge amount of outside debts, which no doubt led to this happening, and he needs
to go back to pro wrestling, which he had often vowed he would never do, to make
money to pay back his debts. Sayama is working on the independent market charging
$5,000 per shot.
Nothing much new regarding Great Sasuke, although all the magazines had photos this
past week of him in his hospital bed. Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi) is expected to start back
full-time with Michinoku Pro Wrestling with the Sumo Hall show on 10/10 as the top
draw if Sasuke can't return.
If the Tokyo Dome is 10/9, that'll be part f a week of big shows in Japan since Michinoku
Pro's biggest show is at Sumo Hall the next night, TPW will have the Ishikawa vs. Anjoh
on 10/8, WAR runs 10/11 in Osaka with Tenryu-Muta and JWP has Sumo Hall booked
on 10/13 for its biggest card of the year.
Eddie Sharkey's Pro Wrestling America title changed hands on 8/25 in Sendai on the
Michinoku Pro show as Wellington Wilkens Jr. (who years ago worked for Sharkey's
Minneapolis-based indie group) beat The Hater.
FMW opened its new tour this week and Mr. Pogo was not a part of it. Don't know his
condition since the injury in the 8/1 match with Terry Funk but it is now expected that
Pogo will return to wrestling in a few months to build up to his final match on May 5,
1997 at Kawasaki Baseball Stadium which would also be Megumi Kudo's final show.
Pogo said that he wanted to team with Atsushi Onita for his final match.
Masahito Kakihara of UWFI worked a show for Battlarts on 8/25 beating Satoshi
Yoneyama in 54 seconds.
USWA
The Memphis shows as an experiment have moved from Mondays to Fridays. The first
Friday show was 8/23 which drew about 900 fans, which is roughly what they had
drawn the previous week for the Monday show, headlined by a Texas death match where
Brian Christopher & Doug Gilbert & Wolfie D & Frank Morrell & Randy Hales beat Tony
Falk & Tommy Rich & Bill Dundee & Jamie Dundee & Samantha when Samantha
couldn't answer the bell after Wolfie gave her a piledriver. The heel group (Falk, Rich,
Dundees and Samantha) are known as the Clique (what an original name) and pretty
much all interfere in each others' matches.
They are doing more co-operative ventures with Bert Prentice's North American All-Star
Wrestling office as Colorado Kid defended his North American title beating Giant
Warrior on the show, plus Flash Flanagan, Mike Samples and Prentice all worked
television on 8/24. It's not a promotion vs. promotion thing, at least right now, however
the top stars from each group are working both sides so that they all have more work.
Hales is on vacation aside from working the 8/23 show, so Jerry Lawler has been doing
the booking, and is bringing Jake Roberts and Sid Vicious in for the 8/30 card. Lawler
vs. Roberts, doing their WWF feud, headlines the show, while Sid is part of a group
called the Clique-busters with Christopher & Gilbert & D to face Rich & Dundees & Falk.
Jesse James Armstrong (Brian James aka The Roadie) returned from Austria and got a
huge babyface pop on the 8/24 television show, beating Bill Dundee by DQ when the
Clique interfered. Flanagan debuted and looked good beating Falk by DQ when the
Clique interfered.
Samples, who has short blond hair now and wears the same type of trunks to make him
look like a bigger version of Chris Candito, managed Giant Warrior (a tall guy out of
Virginia) and is feuding with Colorado Kid.
Koko Ware is now feuding with Brickhouse Brown. On the 8/23 Memphis show, Ware
beat Lawler in a non-title match in which Lawler put up the truck that Ware had
supposedly won in a Battle Royal on the 8/12 card and Ware having to put up his car to
get a shot at getting "his" truck back.
On 8/24, with time running out on the live TV show, Flex Kavana challenged Lawler for
the title and said he'd leave town if he lost. With about 15 seconds left in the TV show,
Lawler hit Kavana with a chain and as they went off the air they announced Kavana was
gone.
Complete show for 8/30 besides the two already listed main events are Ware vs. Brown,
Morrell vs. Falk, Armstrong vs. ?, Colorado Kid & Spellbinder vs. Samples & Giant
Warrior and Flanagan vs. Bart Sawyer.
ECW
Missy Hiatt, Damien Kane and Lady Alexander are all through with the promotion. Hiatt
wasn't technically fired as there is a chance she'll still be involved with promotion of a
1997 wrestling calendar that she was producing with photos of the various ECW women,
but she won't be on television, at the arenas or part of the storylines. It was basically a
deal where she was blamed for Kimona quitting the promotion as the two were friends.
She was written out of the script at the ECW Arena show when Stevie Richards said he's
drop his sexual harassment lawsuit against her if she'd leave Sandman, which she agreed
to do, then ran him down, and Sandman proceeded to cane the hell out of her for her
exit. Kane and Alexander were then fired because Kane made some sort of remarks
about Paul Heyman asking Alexander to take Missy's spot in the match against Lori
Fullington, which she did, but I guess it caused more problems. Kane was being used
mainly because he promoted the ECW shows in Reading, PA and because it was his
license ECW had been using since the split with Ed Zohn over the fire incident last year.
However, Heyman has gotten himself a promoters license for Pennsylvania.
The 8/24 ECW Arena show drew another packed house of an estimated 1,400. The main
event was a weapons cage match in which masked guys on the top of the cage handed
Gangstas and Eliminators weapons to use. It was the expected bloodbath with Perry
Saturn being the star of the match coming off the top of the cage several times. At one
point one of the masked man hit New Jack with a guitar, which turned out to be Shane
Douglas as he unmasked, but New Jack kicked out. Finish saw Saturn on the top of the
cage once again, but New Jack threw a garbage can at him and he took a bump off the
top of the cage backwards through a table to the floor. This left John Kronus alone and
New Jack pinned him after coming off the top rope with a chair on him. The double dog
collar match had Sandman & Pit Bull #2 over Raven & Douglas when PB pinned Raven
after taking Raven's loaded boot off and hitting him with it, which sets up Raven title
defenses upcoming against PB 2 including the 9/14 ECW Arena show. Douglas walked
out on Raven at the finish. Tons of blood in this match as well. Taz vs. Tommy Dreamer
ended up with no finish as Taz got the choke on, but Beulah ran in, as did Terry Gordy.
The Eliminators hit Gordy with Total elimination and Brian Lee put the Asiatic spike on
Gordy. Eliminators also destroyed several other underneath guys like Hack Myers, etc.
who came in for the save. This was done to set up Eliminators & Lee vs. Dreamer &
Gordy & Steve Williams on 9/14. The other major angle saw Doug Furnas debut, but he
lost to Rob Van Dam in what was said to have been a very good match. Furnas got over
big with the crowd. After the match Furnas clotheslined Van Dam and challenged him to
a tag match with Dan Kroffat as his partner, and Van Dam agreed and picked Sabu to be
his partner on 9/14. In other bouts, Gordy beat Lee in a Bad Street match, Lori
Fullington beat Lady Alexander, Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Big Dick Dudley beat D-Von
Dudley & Axl Rotten (now with black hair in braids doing a gay gimmick very similar to
area indie wrestler Twiggy Ramirez) in a match where Buh Buh did some crazy flying
moves for a guy his size and where Rotten was said to have done a great job carrying Big
Dick, Mikey Whipwreck beat Little Guido to keep the "European jr." title and Louie
Spicolli pinned Devon Storm.
The 8/22 show in Reading, PA was said to have been the worst ECW show in months,
drawing about 500 fans. It was billed as Requiem for a Pit Bull due to the injury suffered
by PB 1, however there was nothing special on the show in that regard. PB 2 no-showed
the main event against Van Dam, which they said was because somebody slashed his
tires in Philadelphia. Heyman said that he was actually picked up with an outstanding
warrant and arrested on the spot at home and that in Reading, nobody had heard from
him nor knew where he was or if he would eventually get there, and that he actually only
made it to the ECW Arena the next night after being released a few minutes before his
scheduled dog collar match. Dreamer, who banged up his ribs badly, subbed, losing to
Van Dam. Dreamer still worked the next night. Raven did have surgery on his foot and
took it easy on the last few shows until 8/23 where he had to work hurt.
There are only four shows booked for September, 9/13 in Jim Thorpe, PA, 9/14 at the
Arena, 9/20 in Plymouth Meeting, PA and 9/27 in Allentown.
Douglas & Francine have great heel chemistry.
The deal with the Japanese women is that All Japan women is putting together a
vacation package where Manami Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada, Etusko Mita and Mima
Shimoda will go with fans on a December vacation to New York. They did something like
this on a beach vacation last year with Takako Inoue and others, and they like to have
them do one wrestling show as part of the package, so they were looking for an area
indie to do their tag match and the 12/13 ECW date at the Arena fit into the schedule, so
it's not like it's any political deal of working against WWF or WCW, who they were
working with last year, although WCW now appears to be working with Gaea and JWP
as opposed to AJW and WWF appears to have no interest in womens wrestling.
They did an angle on television building to the Gangstas-Eliminators where New Jack
claimed he had a niece who was killed in the projects and blamed himself on not
winning the tag titles sooner so they could have money enough money to get her out of
there, and said they won the tag titles because they needed the money because the family
didn't have enough money to pay for the headstone. They interspersed the interview
throughout the show and finished the show with the Eliminators attacking New Jack
and leaving him laying saying they didn't care or something to that effect. So now they're
working deaths of family members to get sympathy for the babyfaces.
HERE AND THERE
The next Extreme Fighting PPV has been moved from 10/4 to 10/18. No live site has
been announced but supposedly they are considering St. Louis, New York (depending
upon how fast the law goes into effect) or Oklahoma City.
The American Wrestling Federation was scheduled to tape television last week in
Rochester, WA but instead simply ran three house shows 8/16 to 8/18 which drew 250,
500 and 225 respectively. Wrestlers that appeared at the shows included Buddy Rose,
Greg Valentine, Moondog Moretti, Koko Ware, Honkytonk Man, Tom Zenk, Nailz, Tito
Santana, Charlie Norris, Bob Orton, Blacktop Bully, Billy Two Eagles and Sgt. Slaughter.
A group called International Fighting Inc., headed by Buddy Albin, which is the same
group that promoted the Russian Absolute shows, ran its first show on 8/23 in Biloxi,
MS drawing 3,000 fans for an eight-man tournament won by Anthony Macias (UFC IV
& VI), beating Brian Gassaway in the finals. The only recent pro wrestler involved was
Jean Lydick (ex-UWFI), who lost to Macias when the commission stopped the match
due to him having a bloody nose and Lydick was apparently very upset about the match
being stopped. This group's rules are that when the fighters go to the ground, after two
minutes, no matter if a guy has a near submission or whatever, they are put back on
their feet. They have upcoming dates booked for 9/14 in Mobile, AL and 9/28 in either
Birmingham, AL or Lockeford, CA.
With attendance this season at an all-time low, Catch Wrestling Association promoter
Otto Wanz, who was his group's biggest star during the late 70s and early 80s, came out
of retirement for the 8/23 show in Vienna to go against Terry Funk (in for the one
show). The crowd was estimated at only 850 which was blamed on ticket prices ranging
from $22 to $49 with no major foreign talent on the undercard. Wanz, now 53, vs. Funk,
52, was a short match without much action because Wanz, who looked to weigh 450, was
pretty much immobile. Funk was DQ'd for the finish. The ring entrances for both men
and crowd heat for Wanz' return were said to have been great.
Former wrestler Bulldog Bob Brown suffered a serious heart attack recently and was
actually clinically dead for a brief period during the ambulance ride to the hospital, but
has recovered and is said to be doing well.
Killer Kowalski had his annual fair grandstand show in Marshfield, MA on 8/23 drew an
estimated 3,000 fans with Bushwhackers and King Kong Bundy as the headliners.
In Dallas, Grizzly Smith is gone as booker for the Continental Wrestling Federation.
James Beard and Johnny Mantell are doing the booking. They are still doing around 900
fans every Friday night, a little more than one-third of that being paid. They are doing an
anniversary show on 8/30 with Sicilian Studs (Guido Falcone & Vito Mussolini)
defending the tag titles against High Voltage (Devon Michaels & Bo Vegas, not the WCW
guys using the same ring name), Charlie Norris vs. One Man Gang in a cage match, Steve
Cox defending the heavyweight title against Terry Gordy and Scott Putski vs. Manu.
Chris Adams is doing TV tapings in Mississippi this month.
Pro Wrestling International on 9/14 in Indianapolis will have Mo and Mabel debuting.
The Cauliflower Alley Club will be holding banquets on 10/5 at the Jetport in Newark,
NJ and on 10/26 in Tampa. The latter date appears to be a matter of not checking things
out since Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes were slated to attend, but since it's the night
before a WCW PPV show, both will likely have to be in Las Vegas that night. Mike
Graham, Gordon Solie, The Briscos and Wahoo McDaniel are scheduled to attend the
event in Tampa.
The second Northern California Wrestling Legends reunion will take place with a show
in Modesto, CA on 10/12 and a barbecue on 10/13 at the Pacific Sports gym in Hayward.
Detroit indie promoter Gary Woronchak (Midwest Territorial Wrestling) and local
newspaper columnist is a candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives in his
hometown of Dearborn, MI after winning the republican primary early this month.
Open Concepts of P.O. Box 4554, San Clemente, CA has published a 105-page booklet
with real names of most active wrestlers from the past decade plus for $24.
The IWA held a show on 8/14 after a local minor league baseball game.
Bret Hart will be the guest on the Cable radio network's Squared Circle talk show which
airs 8/30 at 9 p.m. Pacific time.
Tommy Fierro and Steve Hicks have a show on 11/1 in Cullman, AL with Bob Armstrong
vs. Iron Sheik, 200% Machine (UWFI) vs. Steve Armstrong and Punisher vs. Scott
Armstrong and they'll be honoring Bob Armstrong at the show.
Billy Anderson has a show no 9/8 at the Boys & Girls Club in San Bernardino with
Bobby Bradley & Louis Spicolli vs. Ghetto Boyz on top.
UFC
The 9/20 PPV show has been moved officially from Syracuse, NY to the Augusta, GA
Richmond County Civic Center, a 6,000-seat arena that has frequently housed WCW
television tapings. The change was because the New York Executive branch (read that
Governor Pataki) wasn't rushing to sign into law the bill that would put UFC under the
state athletic commission that the state house and state senate had passed and time was
running out.
There are no additions to the line-up listed last week, although at present, Igor
Vovchanchin is not 100% definite. They are working with immigration to get him into
the country and they hope to get it all worked out this week. Fabio Gurgel, the Brazilian
entrant, is already in the United States. We expect to have the line-up and the bracketing
within two weeks, and the follow-up show, Ultimate Ultimate II on 12/20, is expected to
have the line-up completed and pairings announced by the end of September. The
working idea is for that show to be from Birmingham, AL, since the City Council passed
a resolution after the last show thanking SEG for bringing the event into town and
invited them back at any time.
WCW
Results from 8/26 Nitro from Palmetto, FL (sellout of 1,384 paying $20,600) saw
Juventud Guerrera over Billy Kidman in 3:40 switching a rana on the top into a
huracanrana off the top in a very good match; Kevin Sullivan & Big Bubba over Marcus
Bagwell & Jim Powers in 4:20. Powers actually pinned Bubba but heel ref Nick Patrick
said he got his shoulder up, ordered the match re-started, and Bubba attacked Powers
from behind and used the Bubba slam for the pin; Chavo Guerrero Jr. pinned Mike
Enos, when Dick Slater made a switch after a ref bump, but Guerrero still pinned Slater
in 4:35; Misterio Jr. kept the cruiserweight title pinning J.L. in 14:04 in a match that
wasn't good at all. The first half of the match was a backdrop for Hogan, Hall and Nash
spray painting NWO on a Turner truck so they did nothing but rest holds. By the time
they got up and went to near falls, the crowd wasn't into it, and the springboard
huracanrana finish was messy; Giant pinned Jim Duggan with a choke slam in 4:34;
Flair & Anderson beat Rock & Roll Express in 4:28 when Anderson DDT'd Ricky Morton
and Flair pinned him. Boy has the quality of this match dropped about ***1/2 since
1990. Morton, who always looked ten years younger than he really was, has caught up to
his real age; Chris Jericho NC Alex Wright in 4:53 when Wright was injured and Jericho
refused the win. They were having a good match at the time. Actually Wright looked
even better than Jericho; Steiners beat Bobby Eaton & David Taylor. Rick was supposed
to turn a crossbody by Eaton while on Taylor's shoulders, into a powerslam, but didn't
quite turn it and wound up landing on his head but Eaton still laid down for the pin in
3:29 and Eaton and Taylor split up after; Sting & Luger NC Chris Benoit & Steve
McMichael in 5:42 when the big angle took place.
Besides Nitro, other weekend ratings saw Saturday Night at 2.5, The Sunday Pro in the
new time slot at 1.5 and Main Event at 1.6.
The reason the Main Event show was moved to Saturday a.m. is that they want to get
those numbers over a 2.0 figuring that's when they'll hook the kids which is their
weakest demo. The Sunday Pro is going to struggle because the 6:05 p.m.
Saturday/Sunday tradition on TBS goes back to basically the infancy of cable. When they
moved the Saturday show back an hour several years ago, which made it a prime time
show on the East Coast and was supposed to increase the numbers, ratings fell and they
moved it back to the traditional time and ratings went back to normal. That tradition is
what kept ratings competitive during the period while the product totally blew and
changing the Sunday time messes with tradition.
Highlights of the 8/20 Dalton, GA taping included Jericho's debut against J.L. (some hot
moves but they didn't work well together), Rick Steiner in a handicap match (since Scott
was injured) against Nasty Boys ended with Harlem Heat attacking Nasty Boys (so why
are Heat scheduled against Steiners on PPV?) and Regal winning the TV title from
Luger. This all airs on 8/31.
Mike Tenay's debut as the third announcer on the second hour of Nitro will be on 9/2.
Chris Cruise was back at work doing voiceovers this past week after having his appendix
removed.
Dusty Rhodes is trying to work himself into the role as coach of the WCW team to
counteract DiBiase.
Scotty Riggs is injured so Bagwell has been teaming with others like Jim Powers.
Misterio Jr.'s title defense at Havoc against Dean Malenko which is what they're building
to will be a 2/3 fall match at least according to the last plans we know of since this stuff
changes daily.
The house show set for 10/26 in Sacramento at Arco Arena was canceled so they'll have
an extra day in town to promote the Halloween Havoc show in Las Vegas.
October and November TV tapings are: 10/1 in Canton, OH (Saturday); 10/7 in
Savannah, GA (Nitro); 10/8 in Greenwood, SC (Saturday); 10/14 in Memphis (Nitro);
10/16 in Anderson, SC (Saturday: 10/21 in Mankato, MN (Nitro); 10/23 in Dalton, GA
(Saturday), 10/28 at Los Angeles Sports Arena (Nitro); 10/30 in Rome, GA (Saturday);
11/4 in Grand Rapids, MI (Nitro); 11/5 in Gainesville, GA (Saturday); 11/7 to 11/10
(Disney); 11/11 in St. Petersburg, FL at the Bayfront (Nitro); 11/12 to 11/14 (Disney:
11/18 in Fayetteville, NC (Nitro); 11/19 in Rock Hill, SC (Saturday); 11/25 in Greenville,
NC at East Carolina State University (Nitro) and 11/27 in Augusta, GA (Saturday).
The World War III PPV will be on 11/24 at the Norfolk Scope.
Juventud Guerrera & Rey Misterio Jr. are booked as a tag team working with Konnan &
Super Calo at house shows.
There is another "Outsider" on the booking sheet starting on 9/28 in Columbus, OH as
Outsider #4 (assumed to be Waltman) faces Jim Powers and #5 teams with Hall & Nash
vs. Flair & Anderson & Benoit. I don't believe Jeff Jarrett is free for another week. Davey
Boy Smith's original contract was up this week and I hadn't heard that he had officially
signed but he's certainly being pushed in WWF as if he's in their long term plans since
they seem to be grooming him for the tag team title. Whoever #5 is has to be a big name
because he's going to work a singles program with Sting.
10/18 in Minneapolis at Target Center will be Flair vs. Savage for U.S. title, Anderson &
Benoit & McMichael vs. Hall & Nash & #5 , Sting vs. Giant, Heat vs. Nasty Boys for tag
titles, Steiners vs. Slater & Enos and Page vs. Eddie Guerrero.
10/24 in Stockton and 10/25 in San Jose has Savage vs. Giant, Flair vs. Eddie Guerrero
for U.S. title, Hall & Nash & #5 vs. Anderson & Benoit & McMichael, Luger & Sting vs.
Steiners, Sullivan & Konnan vs. American Males, Jericho vs. Morrus, Misterio Jr. vs.
Malenko for cruiserweight title and Calo vs. Guerrero Jr.
WWF
Superstars of Wrestling is moving to USA network on Sundays starting on 9/22. Don't
know time slot or details but hopefully we'll have it by next week. I'm assuming that
either means the end of Action Zone and Superstars gets its time slot, or a change in AZ
since that show basically consists of running re-voiced over Superstars matches and it
would be ridiculous to run the same matches on the same station on the same day.
While this also isn't confirmed, but the reaction almost everywhere to the idea of the
weekly PPV seems to be negative and if it does take place, it won't be any time soon.
Add Smoking Gunns defending tag titles against Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith to the
9/22 Mind Games PPV.
General belief is Marc Mero will win the IC tourney. Faarooq already has a strong
program with Ahmed Johnson once he comes back, and they really don't need the IC
title to get that program heated. Mero has no strong program, has done a lot of jobs of
late, and basically needs a strong win so I'd expect some sort of a fluke finish because no
way is Faarooq going to lose cleanly this early.
Superstars taping on 8/20 in Columbus, OH before 2,739 paying $42,488 had in nonsquashes,
Vader over Savio Vega, Flex Kavana got a try-out as a face putting over Owen
Hart, Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Tony Williams and during the match, Mr. Perfect
walked out with Helmsley's girl (this happened repeatedly during the tapings and at
least appears to be building to a program between the two), Jake Roberts beat Who,
Goldust beat Zip, Vega beat Helmsley when Perfect left again with a girl, Helmsley got
distracted and walked into a spin kick for the pin, Stalker beat Goon, Steve Austin beat
Freddy Joe Floyd, Grim Twins (Bruise Brothers with a very short crewcut) over New
Rockers and in dark matches, Sid pinned Vader, Michaels over Goldust and Undertaker
& Jake Roberts over Mankind & Jerry Lawler. During the Stalker's match, there were
loud chants of "Barry, Barry." Brian Pillman did an interview with Austin where Austin
again talked about Bret Hart. Crush is using the heart punch as his finisher.
Pat Patterson will do commentary on some of the IC tourney matches under the guise
that he was the first IC champion. When he came out, they played the "stripper" music I
guess as some sort of an inside joke.
Royal Rumble will apparently be in San Antonio.
Weekend ratings saw Mania do a 1.4 and Action Zone a 2.3, the latter its best number in
a long time, probably due to not having Raw and a lot of the regular Raw watches viewed
AZ to get their weekly WWF fix.
Shane McMahon will be getting married in a few weeks.
No word yet on when Skip will return. He had a fractured fifth cervical vertebrae and the
doctors also found two fractured lumbar vertebras that he's been working on for a few
months that he didn't even know about.
Ahmed Johnson's condition is said to have improved a lot over the past week. Originally
doctors felt he wouldn't be able to return until December, but he's recovering much
quicker than anticipated.
This week's angle is that Yokozuna is still a heel, but he's not back with Jim Cornette.
Besides Columbus and Toronto, other gates this week were 8/21 in Toledo, OH drawing
3,379 and $55,900 (best Toledo gate in six years), 8/22 in Chatham, ONT drawing 2,260
and $36,276 Canadian (basically a sellout in a small building) and 8/25 at the Nassau
Coliseum drew 6,823 and $146,114 for the night of all tag team matches.
At Nassau, Grim Twins replaced Bodydonnas beating New Rockers. Mankind & Goldust
beat Undertaker & Roberts when Mankind made Roberts submit. Of course Michaels &
Lothario beat Vader & Cornette. With Johnson out of the main event, Sid's mystery
partner was Jim Neidhart as a babyface without the mask under his real name and they
won via DQ over Hart & Smith when Vader interfered.
I believe Mark Henry's deal is a 10-year contract at a $250,000 per year downside
guarantee. He isn't the only person that has been offered a 10-year deal and most of the
high level wrestlers are getting $250,000 per downside guarantees. My feeling is that
anyone over 35 (and I don't know that anyone in that age bracket is getting ten-year
deals thrown at them) should take the long-term guarantee but anyone younger
shouldn't sign for more than two years because the salary level in this business is going
to increase at a fairly good clip over the next few years similar to the escalation in a lot of
sports due to WCW going to bid high for any top wrestler whose deal is up and when
looks to be top dollar now won't be top dollar in three years.
Dark matches for the Mind Games PPV are advertised as Vader vs. Sid, Stalker vs. Crush
and Roberts vs. Helmsley.
THE READERS PAGES
UFC
I'd like to comment on both UFC IX and UFC in general. I wasn't as turned off as most
people with the Shamrock-Severn rematch, although I wasn't fascinated with it either.
Both fighters deserve criticism for this poor display, although they are not completely at
fault. Some of the blame must go to SEG and its vague judging criteria.
Ken Shamrock was often critical of the excessively cautious approach of Royce Gracie
and has stated he prefers to face aggressive fighters. He's as guilty as those he accuses.
Shamrock has refused to compete in tournaments since withdrawing from UFC III
before the championship match. He virtually caused the creation of the superfight
because of his desire to fight only Gracie. Although he was victorious, Shamrock was
unimpressive against lesser opponents in UFC III. He seems to be much more
comfortable when preparing for a specific opponent that he can study and devise a game
plan for. As Dan Severn noted, Shamrock is a counter fighter and doesn't seem to initiate
or create offense. For the second straight superfight, Shamrock was reversed while on
top, while looking for an opening. Kimo, not possessing the defensive skills of Severn,
left himself open to the kneebar, which Shamrock saw and took advantage of. In the post
match, Ken said that's what Kimo gave him so that's what he took. In other words,
Shamrock wasn't looking to create an opening or set Kimo up for the kneebar, he was
reacting instead of initiating. So if he faced an opponent that didn't give him anything to
retaliate to, he won't initiate, and viewers are left with a super bore.
With all apologies to Mark Schultz, Dan Severn is the best pure wrestler in UFC. He is
among the largest and most powerful UFC fighters, and throw in his skill level as a
wrestler with his strength and you get a guy that can pretty much take anybody down
and control them. This looks very impressive and probably sways a lot of judges'
decisions since it appears Severn could lie on top of people all night if he wanted to. He
probably could, but that doesn't mean he would ever finish off a top-level competitor
since his submission skills are still lacking.
While I found your stalling card system theory intriguing, I don't believe it would solve
other problems inherent in all sports where the outcome has to be decided by judging.
Since SEG has gone to judges decisions, they should also institute some clear guidelines
to go by when a match goes the time limit. I'd propose a point system being adopted
similar to the one in Pancrase, with points taken away for stalling, for rope breaks, for
knockdowns, etc. Perhaps combine this with points similar to amateur wrestling for take
downs and escapes and points for effectiveness of strikes. Of course, you'd have to find a
way to keep the likes of Severn or Schultz from piling on points by continually taking
their opponent down. My proposal would be to nullify points for takedowns after the
first one, if the person doing the take down doesn't get the opponent in a dangerous
position. I'd even attempt to have the match score posted so everyone in the arena and
the competitors know exactly what the score is, so the competitor who is trailing would
know he'd have to initiate some major offense at the expense of his defense. Of course,
this is also an imperfect system, but hopefully it would inspire competitors to fight and
keep on fighting. I'm one of the apparently few people willing to give Marco Ruas the
benefit of the doubt in his match against Oleg Taktarov. I believe in his heart, Ruas
thought he was ahead when the fight was stopped to check on Taktarov's cuts, he
decided at that point not to take anymore risks. If a running score had been posted, Ruas
would have realized he was behind and perhaps the audience would have gotten the
classic match we were on the way to having. I distinctly remember watching the fight at
work and a co-worker who was watching the bout in another room came into my room
during the stoppage and commented that he hoped the match wouldn't be stopped
because it looked like we were on our way to a classic fight.
Some other things for SEG to consider. First, since WCC went under, why not bring Bart
Vale and Renzo Gracie into UFC? You could match them up in their fight which never
came off as a service to loyal fans, with the winner getting a shot at the superfight
champion. Promotion vs. promotion matches work great and UFC gains two more
legitimate top names to its ranks. One is a Gracie, whom every competitor worth his salt
wants to face. The other holds a dubious victory over Shamrock and a revenge match
could be set up between the two of them.
Second, as a defense against raging moralists, the events should be referred to as open
rules fighting rather than no rules fighting. After all, there are rules. Saying the fights are
open rules, so as not to favor a specific fighting style, would give the impression that it's
a sporting event. Nobody should ever refer to UFC as no-holds-barred since it isn't the
case, and leads the lazy and uninformed to make false assumptions about the product.
I'd like to point out that although I've been critical in this letter, I have the utmost
respect for the majority of UFC combatants. I also think scrapping the superfight in
favor of doing only tournaments is a bad idea.
Burt Turelli
Fort Lee, New Jersey
DM: I want to make one comment regarding Vale vs. Shamrock. To put any
credence into the result of a worked pro wrestling match to set up a UFC
rematch does a number on the credibility of UFC. Shamrock lost pro
wrestling matches in Mid Atlantic and in independents and to Takada but I
don't think that means any of the guys who beat him like Col. Rob Parker in
his previous lifetime should be considered top contenders in UFC. UFC
attempted to get Vale to face Royce Gracie in the first superfight before
offering the slot to Shamrock because some people were wowed by the
reputation Vale had created for himself by using that pro wrestling
championship belt Yoshiaki Fujiwara gave to him so he could promote
himself as world champion on his own shows as a legitimate title. Vale
turned down facing Gracie, Shamrock got the slot and the rest is history.
Vale and other supporters of his have since Shamrock gained fame, tried to
trumpet the fact he beat him to give Vale credibility as a top notch fighter,
ignoring that what he beat him in was a pro wrestling match where Vale was
the promoter and defending his own championship.
8/14 ISSUE
The 8/14 issue was journalistic excellence. The story of New Japan's origin and growth
throughout the years, intermingled with the house show results from G-1 and J Crown
made for one of the most enjoyable Observers ever. I didn't even miss the news for once.
I must say, I'm intrigued by Sasuke holding eight championship titles. Will these titles
ever be recognized separately again? I can't wait to see some of the matches from the
tournament. I was very saddened to hear of Jushin Liger's brain tumor and wish him the
very best. One can only wonder if all the insane bumps on his head may have caused this
misfortune.
Ric Davies
Bay City, Michigan
I want to comment on how much I enjoyed the historical look at New Japan Pro
Wrestling. It's pretty gutsy to devote 11 pages in a 12 page newsletter to a single story.
Tracy Byers
Louisville, Kentucky
I have to admit that after seven years I was about to let my subscription expire, but your
8/14 issue was so good that I feel compelled to renew again. You are an excellent writer
with a lot of knowledge of the subject matter, and when you allow your own voice and
enthusiasm to come through, the result is a dramatic, compelling and historically
fascinating piece like the one about New Japan Pro Wrestling.
On the other hand, I think it's unfortunate that so much space is wasted on UFC and
other shootfighting stuff. If I cared about UFC, I'd read a UFC magazine or sheet. I
understand that you and a lot of wrestling fans are UFC marks, although I really can't
understand why. But it seemed as though every week I was skimming through pages and
pages of UFC information. While the Mexican and Japanese coverage in the Observer
remained good, your coverage of American wrestling, which I assume is the main reason
most people read the Observer, amounted to little more than three or four pages of
meaningless house show results and recaps of Nitro and Raw.
Your obvious dislike of ECW is frustrating, and for ECW marks like myself and probably
a large percentage of your readers, hard to figure out. It's hard to argue with the fact that
ECW is by far the best American television show in at least ten years. You are so quick to
point out ECW's flaws, but still overlook the fact that WCW and WWF are still mostly
using wrestlers with poor work ethics, and doing angles that are boring or meaningless. I
can't remember watching one ECW match, even if I didn't like the match, and thinking
the wrestlers weren't trying their hardest. Also, both WCW and WWF have co-opted a lot
of ECW talent and ideas. For a while, Raw was practically a second-rate copy of ECW.
And I would think that the fact Paul Heyman has taken supposedly the smartest fans
and turned them into the dumbest marks would at least be fascinating to you.
Dan Weisberg
New York, New York
SUNSHINE WRESTLING FEDERATION
Rarely does a situation arise when an organization has to respond to a letter which is
written by a promoter in the Observer, but this is one of those times.
We refer to the letter written by Bernie Siegel of the Sunshine Wrestling Federation, in
which he extols great adulation upon himself for the fine and outstanding job he and his
cohorts have done in drawing some 4,000 free patrons to a recent show on an Indian
reservation. In the same letter, Siegel makes a powerful and thought provoking
statement where he concludes that the NWA is a mere shell of what it once was and that
a new organization must be formed for the 21st century.
Perhaps Siegel needs a lesson in history and humility. As little as two years ago, the
NWA had five member promotions. The number today is 13, including both the IWA and
Wrestle Dream Factory in Japan and the recent additions of Sean Brown's Can-Am
Promotion in Toronto and Craig Cole's Southland Promotions in the Carolinas. Both
organizations ran regularly under various names in 1995-96, and now will run under the
NWA name. In all probability, if not for the personality clash between Dennis Coraluzzo
and the management of ECW, Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman, ECW would still be a
member today.
It should also be pointed out that when the NWA was at its peak, there were only 26
organizations that were members. The fact that the NWA is a shell of what it once was
can't be argued, especially when interpreted by someone who doesn't have the
knowledge and experience of being involved in the business of pro wrestling.
When WCW made the decision to drop its affiliation with the NWA, it did so in its own
best interest. Regional promotions were no longer operational because they could no
longer keep up with rising television production costs, so the NWA and WCW became
synonymous with each other. In the years that followed, WCW was able to establish
WCW as its own brand name and thus no longer needed the familiarity of the NWA, nor
any of its inactive members, to help determine its future. In hindsight, it was the right
business move for WCW, despite crippling the NWA itself, as the Murnicks, Gary Juster,
Sandy Barr and New Japan Pro Wrestling all quickly followed WCW's lead in leaving the
organization.
However, even with all the turmoil which had occurred, including bad debts for legal
services, in-fighting among member promoters and the popular opinion that the NWA
no longer existed, which was never the case, the NWA had to change with the changing
times. Today, despite not having any members with television exposure in the United
States, the NWA is the healthiest it has been in years.
Our World champion, Dan Severn, is one of the most recognized names in the sport
thanks to his participation in UFC, and had worked for many organizations including
non-NWA members such as Vale Tudo and New Japan Pro Wrestling. With that in
mind, my question to Siegel is how would he compare his champion, Demon Hellstorm,
with ours? He talked of television and of licensing, but mostly he just talks.
It should be noted that Mr. Siegel's partner, Bill Brown, a Miami insurance salesman
who sells wrestling tickets door-to-door, has requested NWA membership at least a
dozen times over the past two years. He's been denied due to a territorial conflict. It is of
our collective opinion that Mr. Siegel's comments reek of sour grapes, and in so
recognizing that, we strongly suggest the SWF should concentrate its efforts on building
up its paid attendance before trying to license Demon Hellstorm dolls, watches and
lunch boxes.
NWA Board of Directors
HALL OF FAME
Some of my thoughts on your Hall of Fame. I've been a wrestling fan since the early 50s.
Some additions to be considered: Bobby Davis - Managed Buddy Rogers and Johnny
Barend. Took great bumps and gave great interviews; Haystacks Calhoun - First good
large wrestler. Very popular back East; Wild Bull Curry - One of the best villains I've ever
seen. Had great matches with The Sheik in Ohio and Michigan; Dick Murdoch - Your
biography says it all; Yukon Eric - One of the best early strongmen with his lumberjack
gimmick. Had some good matches with Verne Gagne, Killer Kowalski, Reggie Lisowski,
Art Neilson and Hans Schmidt; Hans Schmidt - One of the best German heel wrestlers;
Great Bolo - Headlined up and down the Atlantic Coast as a masked wrestler.
If you include jobbers in the Hall of Fame, you should consider Soldier Barry, who put
over all the babyfaces that came to the WWWF in the 50s; Arnold Skaaland, who put
over all the heels that came to the WWWF in the 50s; Benito Gardini, who put over
everyone in the Midwest in the 50s.
Don't forget Fabulous Moolah, Gene Stanlee, Ricki Starr, Mark Lewin, Boris Malenko,
Jose Lothario, Don Eagle, Jay Strongbow and one of my favorites, Louis Tillet.
Dick Fagerlund
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Loved the Hall of Fame feature. I hope you will consider Wolf Ruvinskis in the future.
He had a great impact on the Lucha scene in the 50s and really helped put Lucha Libre
into the cinema in that era. He produced and starred in "La Ultima Lucha," a flick
directed by Fernando Oses in 1956. This is easily the best wrestling movie ever made.
This was in the era before the Santo movies, when Mexican cinema was still high quality.
I love the Santo flicks, but La Ultima Lucha was a quality melodrama, beautifully shot
and had the best filmed wrestling sequences I've ever seen in a movie. Also, Ruvinskis is
the only wrestler that comes to mind that went from appearing in movies playing a
wrestler to become accepted as an all-around prolific character actor.
Also, thanks for remembering Dick Lane. I remember Jeff Walton telling us how
brilliantly Dick Lane worked on live television. Walton noted when he would feed Lane
last minute pitches or corrections over his earpiece while he was still speaking to the
fans on the air. Lane would not only receive the message loud and clear while he spoke,
but also delivered those last minute lines without missing a beat. His slick work aside,
the charisma that he and Jimmy Lennon had on-air was half the reason I enjoyed the
glory days of Los Angeles wrestling.
A few more I consider worthy of the Hall of Fame: Charro Aguayo, Ciclon Veloz and
Black Shadow.
I'm sure you'll kick yourself when you realize you left out the following great promoters:
Nick Gulas - Tennessee promoter best remembered for reuniting wrestlers with their
families. When a wrestler worked the Gulas territory and got his first payoff, he had no
choice but to return home penniless.
Ted Thye - Another class promoter who deserves credit for upping Australian
citizenship. He would lure American wrestlers there, give them plenty of work and
permanently bonded them with Australia by giving them no fare home.
Herb Abrams - Vince got the WWF involved with NBC. Baba got All Japan involved with
NTV, but only Abrams was able to get the UWF involved with the FBI.
Kurt Brown
Brea, California
I'm a new subscriber and enjoy the format and writing greatly. As a long time follower of
pro wrestling, I do have some comments to make regarding your list of inductees to the
Hall of Fame. I have no problem with most of those listed, but I do find Ted DiBiase and
Randy Savage as iffy choices, but I must question a few omissions.
Growing up in New England during the 70s, the WWWF was the only game in town, and
with the exception of Bruno Sammartino and Fred Blassie, I believe you left several key
players off the list.
Ernie Roth - The Grand Wizard. Besides being one of the greatest interviews ever, he
was obviously a major influence on the careers of Paul Heyman and Jim Cornette. He
was over the top flamboyant, ahead of his time and would have fit in just fine in the 90s.
Joe Scarpa - Chief Jay Strongbow. He was never a great worker, reminded me of Jim
Duggan, and looked more like a diner cook than a pro wrestler, but during the 70s, with
the exception of Sammartino, nobody packed a house like Strongbow. Most of the WWF
TV coverage in that era revolved around him, usually when he was attacked by the latest
heels. I dare Shawn Michaels to claim he had the kind of rabid fan support this guy had.
Lillian Ellison - Fabulous Moolah - Whether through her own power or what, she didn't
do a job for 30 years. How many performers in history have had that kind of clout?
I can think of a few others, Abe Ford, the Boston promoter, Joe McHugh, the ring
announcer and Lou Albano, whose contributions on camera were invaluable right into
the Hogan era.
Tom Ferreira
North Conway, New Hampshire

 

Sept. 9, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Giant joins
NWO, Davey Boy falls through, Bret Hart scheduled to
return, Warrior lawsuit, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 09 September 1996 13:38
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 September 9, 1996
After the original plan to debut Davey Boy Smith as the new member of the New World
Order fell through, WCW instead turned The Giant into the new member of the NWO,
presumably being the fourth member of that team for the 9/15 Fall Brawl PPV War
Games main event.
The Giant switch to NWO came after a Four Horseman vs. Dungeon of Doom (Kevin
Sullivan & Big Bubba & Meng & Barbarian) main event. After the Horseman won the
match, the NWO came out and in typical heel fashion, the three members beat up eight
WCW wrestlers, half of whom would be considered top names (and people think it's
surprising that people are cheering NWO). Finally The Giant came running down the
aisle to apparently make the save for the out-manned WCW side (jeez), but instead
turned on that side, getting a huge face pop from the hot crowd of 5,893 fans in
Chattanooga, TN, and joined NWO (as if they were needing any help by this point) and
began destroying everyone in sight. Finally Randy Savage did a run-in and began hitting
the NWO members with a chair. Since eight guys weren't nearly enough to stand up to
three, Savage had little chance going against four and wound up being overpowered by
the four and leg dropped three times by Hogan. When the Dungeon and Horseman
recovered after selling about as three times as long as would be feasible, their comebacks
were far too easily thwarted. The NWO then chased the announcers from the set and
destroyed the set (which I'm told they weren't supposed to do and that's an expensive
set). After an interview where they started by talking about Ted DiBiase's money being
the catalyst for the Giant turn, Giant started talking about being in this giant house with
20 Harleys but instead of continuing with the DiBiase money storyline, instead was
talking about Hogan's house. At one point in the middle of the ranting and raving, the
Horsemen and Dungeon again came to the set to do their eight-on-four attack and the
NWO members once again pounded them into the ground as if it were nothing, and
continued the interview nonchalantly. It was a great angle as far as gaining attention and
further putting NWO over, but it got so ridiculous that it wound up killing the opposition
in the process, making Flair and Anderson look like impotent old men who were totally
out of their league as opposed to two people who fans couldn't wait to see get revenge
from the previous weeks' great angle. Benoit and McMichael for the second straight
week were made to look like common jobbers, as were the Dungeon members. It's pretty
much imperative that at next week's Nitro they do an angle where the NWO shows
vulnerability so people have interest in War Games as being a competitive match-up
because the angle in some ways weakened War Games as a draw. However, doing so is
going to be difficult because they are back in the syndrome of Kevin Sullivan, Arn
Anderson and Jimmy Hart putting together all the television shows, and then Hogan
shows up on Monday and re-does everything. Right now nobody can complain about it
because ratings are up, but it's killing the other bookers because all their long-term plans
are constantly having to be thrown out the window such as the Giant vs. Nash and
Hogan impending feuds.
The turn itself was another of those last-minute plans when the original plan of trying on
the first anniversary of Nitro, to duplicate the angle that put the show on the map where
Lex Luger surprised everyone out of nowhere strolling onto the set after wrestling on the
previous nights' WWF house show. This time it was supposed to be Davey Boy Smith.
However, four days before Nitro, on the day his WWF contract was set to expire, Smith
signed a five-year contract, believed to be with a $250,000 per year downside guarantee,
with the WWF. WCW's offer to Smith was said to be substantially higher, and for fewer
dates per year. The original offer made to Smith months ago was a three year deal at
$400,000 per year, and the latest offer had to be at least that figure if not higher. When
Smith gave notice to the WWF three months back after his messed up PPV title match
with Shawn Michaels, which wasn't that he was necessarily leaving but to avoid his
contract rolling over, WCW officials secretly believed he was coming in. However,
several weeks later, Smith's attorney sent WCW a letter saying that the two sides were
unable to come to terms, and Smith also moved from Tampa back to Calgary, which
most assumed meant he was no longer considering going to WCW since Tampa would
be the perfect city to live given where most of the WCW events are scheduled. At this
point Smith agreed to stay with WWF, with the lower money figure guaranteed
reportedly not being the crux of the negotiating problems and it was more that he was
unhappy about not being told of his future programs ahead of time and not getting what
he thought was the push he was promised into the title picture. In particular, Smith was
reportedly unhappy about after having what most would consider two of the three best
WWF matches over the past nine months (title matches against Bret Hart in Hershey
and Shawn Michaels in Milwaukee), that in neither case was he programmed for
rematches at the house shows and was instead used at the house shows lower in more of
a stepping stone role. The other side of the coin was that even though he had two
excellent title matches, neither drew huge buy rates and Smith was thought of as a guy
who can be a great worker when he's motivated, but not a great draw on top as a title
challenger.
Titan and Smith had been going back-and-forth over the past few weeks regarding
actually signing the contract when negotiations with WCW picked up as WCW informed
Smith they had no problem flying him in from Calgary as they do routinely with other
regulars who live in foreign countries. What if any verbal deal Smith may have made
with WCW is unknown, but when WCW shot the angle on 8/26 where Ted DiBiase
talked of introducing No. 4 and No. 5, at that point WCW was apparently believing
Smith to be No. 4.
When Vince McMahon got wind, which was believed to have been on 8/28, that Smith
was on the verge of making a deal with WCW, he made a phone call to Smith along with
WWF attorney Jerry McDevitt and finally reached him the next day and was said to have
been furious. The bone of contention was that Smith had apparently made a verbal
agreement to continue with the WWF and sign the five-year contract even though he had
not actually signed and that Smith's attorney had already signed a preliminary entering
into contract several weeks ago. The latter basically was that the two sides agreed that
Smith was staying but that all terms hadn't been agreed to so he wouldn't have been
phased out on television while details of the negotiations were still ongoing. Whether
legal threats in regard to what would be perceived as going back on both the verbal and
written agreement were made, as Titan was under the belief that it had a written
agreement with Smith and obviously is going to enforce it, are not clear but by the end of
the day both sides had agreed to terms and Smith signed the deal.
Apparently Smith felt that when he made the verbal agreement, he was promised in
return that he would be pushed as a top heel and that over the past three months, he felt
he the promised push wasn't kept since he had been basically used during the period to
put over Sid in quickie squashes. While in the process of doing the house show jobs he
apparently was told the PPV finish would be different, but it turned out to be the same,
and there was further problems because the Sid vs. Smith match was booked and laid
out to go in the 15:00 range and be more competitive than the 90 second house show
matches, although Sid would still go over at the end. Then the match was cut way short
at literally the last second, perhaps even while in the ring, with the reason being that the
show at that point was running long. Judging from television, it appeared that Smith &
Owen Hart were being groomed to win the tag team titles, and with the signing, it would
make the Philadelphia PPV show on 9/22 as the likely spot for the switch. In addition,
one would suspect that a major factor in Smith's staying is the stronger WWF presence
in Europe, where Smith, particularly in the United Kingdom, was a huge babyface star
and merchandise seller a few years ago. An eventual turn could theoretically put him
back in the same position, which is something WCW wouldn't be able to offer since it
has far less of a presence in Europe.
The Giant turn was WCW's last minute panic move since it had promised to introduce
two new members of the NWO on the 9/2 television show. The other new member in the
original plan, Sean Waltman, was also not introduced on the show, apparently because
he's also being held up as a pawn in the legal battle between the two companies. The
latest word we've heard is to play it safe and to avoid giving WWF more ammunition in
its lawsuit against WCW, that WCW at least as of our last word wasn't going to use
Waltman for nine months, until his WWF contract expires. They were hints at the end of
the show of more NWO members being introduced, and one is believed to be Jeff
Jarrett, whose WWF contract expires on 10/4. Bam Bam Bigelow, who hasn't wrestled
for the WWF for nearly one year, also has a WWF contract that expires over the next
several weeks and WCW had expressed interest in using him when his contract expired,
although we haven't heard his name in connection with coming to WCW since June
when Eric Bischoff talked to Bigelow about coming when his WWF contract expired at
the World Wrestling Peace Festival.
The last minute turn will changes already scripted plans in regard to house shows and
upcoming PPV events. Giant was scheduled to wrestle Kevin Nash at Halloween Havoc
on 10/27 in Las Vegas and obviously that will have to be changed. At press time we have
no word on if Giant will work twice at Fall Brawl, since he'd theoretically be scheduled
for both a singles match with Savage and the War Games. In addition, at basically all the
house shows, Hall & Nash have a question mark as a partner and Giant already had
singles matches booked on those shows. The other matches on the original plans for
Halloween Havoc, besides the Hogan vs. Savage WCW title match, were Flair vs. Hall for
the U.S. title, Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko in a two of three fall match for the
cruiserweight title, and Ultimo Dragon vs. Jushin Liger for all eight national and world
titles since Dragon is slated to win the eight belts on 10/11 in Osaka.
Halloween Havoc tickets went on sale on 8/31 in Las Vegas with a major autograph
party with Savage, Bobby Heenan and Gene Okerlund. WCW set an all-time dollar
record for first day sales, doing approximately $94,000 although that was only 2,000
tickets for the MGM Grand because the first six rows of seats, which went almost
immediately, were all priced at $100.
The angle with The Giant turn was multi-faceted. It started early in the show when the
NWO limo showed up and Hogan, Hall and Nash came out and ordered the "fourth
man" to stay in the limo because there were cameras there. Earlier in the show, during a
Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho match, Ted DiBiase showed up in the crowd, stayed for
a few matches, but then left. Later, the Four Horsemen, looking for revenge from the
previous week, went out to the limo but nobody was there, signalling that whomever it
was was in the building. Then, to explain why Sting & Lex Luger weren't there to save
the eight or nine other WCW wrestlers, they did an angle where Sting & Luger were
chasing ref Nick Patrick, who had DQ'd them in 39 seconds in a match against the
Steiners. Patrick ran out the back door near where the limo was, but didn't get in the
limo. At that point DiBiase was getting out of the limo, making it clear he was with the
NWO instead of the Horsemen as was teased the previous week. Sting threw a rock or
brick through the limo window, and the limo drove off. Sting & Luger then stole a police
car and chased them down the freeway. Finally, after the Horseman had beaten the
Dungeon of Doom in an eight man, Hall, Nash & Hogan came out and destroyed both
teams by themselves until it appeared Giant would make the save, but instead Giant
joined in with them.
The plan to make the Horseman look like jobbers wasn't the original angle, but a revised
angle came up with by Hogan which has caused at least a few of the wrestlers to
complain once again Hogan is booking for his own ego rather than for business. The
original plan was to create a situation where the Horsemen would be involved in a
scenario where they would jump and run off Hall and Nash, and about that time Hogan
would arrive and be by himself. As he was being beaten on, then the Giant would come
out for the finishing touches on Hogan, but instead Giant would choke slam all the
Horsemen. However, Hogan refused that scenario and came up with the one that was
used.
The only decision in regard to booking made at press time is that at the weekend house
shows, the Giant & Bubba vs. Hall & Nash matches will be changed to Bubba & Meng &
Barbarian vs. Giant & Hall & Nash. Giant vs. Savage will definitely take place at the Fall
Brawl PPV, but whether Giant will work twice, or if they'll do a 40 second quickie in
Giant-Savage and Giant becomes the fourth man were all things that weren't going to be
decided the Saturday Night show for the weekend was being taped on 9/4.
***********************************************************
After spending the past several years as pro's wrestling's largest isolationist promotion,
All Japan Pro Wrestling entered into an agreement with Union of Wrestling Force
International (UWFI) after a post-midnight meeting in Tokyo on 8/31 between AJPW
President Shohei "Giant" Baba with UWFI's CEO, Ken Suzuki and its President and top
star, Nobuhiko Takada.
The deal starts with UWFI's 9/11 show at Tokyo's Jingu Baseball Stadium where All
Japan's Toshiaki Kawada will face UWFI's Yoshihiro Takayama.
Coming on the heels of the disastrous UWFI show at the Stadium on 8/17 (drawing only
5,000 fans to the 46,000-seat stadium), UWFI reportedly first went to New Japan for
help in allowing them to use foreign heels that would create interest on this show by
appearing for the first time doing UWFI style, and theoretically eventually be groomed
to put Takada over and create new programs. With New Japan's foreign talent coming
almost exclusively from WCW, the two sides couldn't put the deal together.
Takada and Suzuki then went to Baba and asked for Stan Hansen, who would have been
built up for an eventual major match against Takada. According to Japanese newspaper
reports, Baba went to Hansen with the idea and Hansen didn't want to do it. Because of
style clashes and the fact that neither Takada nor Hansen are anywhere close to what
they once were or what their name value is, a match between the two would have likely
been a major disappointment. UWFI asked for either Kawada or Akira Taue as a second
choice because politically there would have been problems with initially starting the feud
by using either Kenta Kobashi (Baba's current world champion) or Mitsuharu Misawa
(generally considered by everyone as the company's No. 1 wrestler and a match with he
and Takada needn't be rushed), and Baba went with Kawada. Of all the All Japan
wrestlers, his style fits in the best with their style, and one would think a first singles
Takada vs. Kawada match would be a big draw and also be a great match to set the stage
for a long-term series between the two companies. The next day, Baba talked with
Kawada at the All Japan house show and Kawada, who had been critical recently in
public of All Japan's isolationist policies, agreed to work the show that one would think
would eventually build to a Takada vs. Kawada match. The story broke huge the next day
in all the sports pages and Baba said that as of this point no deals had been reached for a
larger scale promotion vs. promotion set of matches, although many assume this is stage
one for Takada and other UWFI wrestlers to repay the favor and work an
interpromotional program in All Japan rings.
What's unique about Kawada appearing on this show is that he'll be working the same
show as New Japan top names Shinya Hashimoto and Kensuke Sasaki, along with
WAR's Genichiro Tenryu. While that happened last year at the Weekly Pro Wrestling
show (not Tenryu, but All Japan and New Japan wrestlers on the same show) and to a
much lesser extent on the Rikidozan show on 6/30, this is still somewhat unique in
Japan.
The main matches announced for UWFI's 9/11 are Takada vs. Tenryu in their first ever
singles match, Yoji Anjoh vs. Kimo, Yuhi Sano vs. Hashimoto, Takayama vs. Kawada,
Masahito Kakihara vs. Sasaki and Tiger Mask Sayama vs. The Cobra (George Takano).
The latter match was also announced this past week and actually has some historical
significance, as when Sayama left New Japan in 1983, the company used Takano under
The Cobra gimmick as its top junior heavyweight for several years, although Cobra
basically failed in being able to follow in the position of the legendary Sayama. Takano
has wrestled only on occasions on small indie shows over the past few years, and hasn't
worked using The Cobra gimmick in probably about ten years.
************************************************************
Several sources indicate that despite stories to the contrary, Bret Hart will return to the
WWF to wrestle Steve Austin on the Survivor Series PPV show on 11/17 from Madison
Square Garden.
Hart was originally scheduled to return for the 9/22 Mind Games PPV to do an interview
segment which would lead to an angle to build up his match with Austin. However, that
has yet to be announced for the show and we've received unconfirmed reports that Hart
will still be in South Africa filming the new "Sinbad" television show. Whether the
originally planned angle will take place on the 10/20 PPV to build up for Survivor Series
isn't confirmed, but it would make sense that things would happen that way.
Apparently when Hart and McMahon reached a verbal agreement for Hart to return,
after McMahon flew to Calgary to meet with Hart in the days following the Vancouver
International Incident show, the scenario the two agreed on was for a match with Austin
at Survivor Series, followed by appearances at the December and January PPV shows.
Hart would go back on the road full-time sometime in January to build up for
Wrestlemania. The apparent sketchy plan would be that they would shoot an angle at the
Royal Rumble to lead to the Hart-Michaels return match at next year's Wrestlemania. It
would make sense that the title switch would take place at that show for several reasons.
First off, Hart had made it clear he wouldn't return unless the belt was in the cards and
he was unhappy enough at having to put Shawn Michaels over last year and it's doubtful
he'd agree to come back if it meant putting him over a second time. Second, Michaels
has apparently made it clear that he would put Hart over in a title match provided he
was promised to get the belt back at a specific time in the future.
Hart had told business friends that he was offered substantially more money by WCW
(he had told one person it was triple what he had made in WWF) but felt that going to
that company would be a step down.
***********************************************************
Jim Hellwig filed an unfair termination and trademark infringement lawsuit against
Titan Sports on 8/28 stemming from his dismissal after missing three house shows on
6/28, 6/29 and 6/30.
The suit claims Titan reneged on its 18-month contract for more than $1 million with
Hellwig, who has legally changed his name to "Warrior." Warrior's basic complaint is
that Titan Sports and Vince and Linda McMahon wrongfully fired him for missing the
three shots while his father was dying and that they used terms like "Warrior," "Ultimate
Warrior" and the slogan "Always Believe" without honoring their contractual
commitments to Hellwig. In doing so, Hellwig claims the McMahons and Titan have
infringed on his registered trademarks and are deceiving and confusing consumers.
The WWF's contention all along was that Hellwig missed the three shots after a dispute
with Vince McMahon with Hellwig, while in Indianapolis for the 6/28 show, being upset
after having seen the phrase "Always Believe" used in a trade show and made demands
to McMahon or else he wouldn't work the weekend shots. On 6/30, Hellwig's father did
pass away in South Florida and their contention was that he went public with that
information of his father dying as the reason for his missing the three shows before later
sending a fax to McMahon about his father having died. Two of the shows he missed
preceded the death of his father.
Hellwig filed a major multi-million dollar lawsuit against Titan in 1992, which was
dropped on the day Titan wrote its response to his charges.
WWF attorney Jerry McDevitt said the lawsuit was vague in that it didn't list any specific
instances of registered trademark infringements and felt the phrase "Always Believe"
isn't something that could be trademarked and dismissed the suit as being without any
merit. "He sued us before and ran for cover as soon as we responded." McDevitt also
said the current suit contained some of the same "phony allegations" as in the 1992 suit.
**********************************************************
WWF was involved in yet another weekend controversy along with the American On-line
service over what in some ways could be called a censorship issue.
It involves AOL, which has both a WWF section on wrestling and a separate section
unaffiliated with the WWF called Grandstand in which people also discuss and post
news items (more often wrong than correct) on wrestling. Since the WWF section makes
a lot of money for AOL and because WWF has an exclusive contract with AOL and thus
can't do anything with other existing on-line services, some officials of World Wide
Properties, the company that runs the WWF's on-line, magazine and other
merchandising, have complained about the negative comments of late regarding WWF
posted on AOL. Apparently the WWF believed since it had a contract that binded it
exclusively with AOL, it thought AOL in return shouldn't have any sections other than
the WWF section that dealt with the WWF.
It apparently came to a head when an editorial was written by Jim Finch criticizing the
WWF's plan (an idea, which as it turns out, was already dead before the editorial was
written) of doing weekly PPV shows. Apparently Bob Mitchell, the Vice President of
World Wide Properties, attempted and succeeded in getting that editorial removed from
the boards. AOL had reportedly taken a lot of heat from World Wide Properties, in
particular complaints about people talking about items that had been taped but had yet
to air on television. After the WWF complaints, apparently AOL officials, apparently
acting on its own, went one step farther and removed numerous negative posts about
WWF from the Grandstand section and all the WWF folders were outside the WWF
section were removed.
The AOL members took this as the WWF was infringing on freedom of speech and it
caused a huge weekend controversy with WWF in the major bad guy position and every
scandal from the past being rehashed. Finally on Sunday night, Vince McMahon
supposedly told Mitchell to do whatever it would take to make it go away since doing
anything different would have created a battle that he couldn't come out as anything but
the bad guy in, and no doubt he wants those days to be over since he knows better than
anyone what can be the end result of that. The WWF had already taken heat from trying
to protect its trademarks and sending legal threats to people who scanned and sent
WWF photos without the company's permission. In the end, WWF and AOL offered a
joint apology on 9/3 for whatever misunderstandings had taken place.
***********************************************************
Aja Kong captured the Japan Grand Prix tournament by pinning Kyoko Inoue in 18:29
in the final match of the round-robin on 8/30 in Osaka Furitsu Gym before 5,300 fans.
Going into the final night, Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Reggie Bennett and Yumiko Hotta were
all tied with 14 points (seven victories) with Kong vs. Kyoko and Hotta vs. Bennett
scheduled, presumably setting up the two winners for a championship match later in the
show.
But for perhaps the first time all year, AJW booked a non-finish as Hotta and Bennett
ended up in a double knockout trying to work a match to look like a shoot, since both
were coming off appearing in the U shoot tournament a little more than two weeks
earlier. This left both without any points for the match and made the following Kong vs.
Kyoko match to determine the tournament winner and top contender for Manami
Toyota's world title. The booking was similar to New Japan's G-1 tournament where
going into the final day, it appeared that Shiro Koshinaka was going to tie with the
winner of the Keiji Muto vs. Masa Chono match for the B block and the rights to go to
the championship match against Riki Choshu, but instead they had Satoshi Kojima
upset Koshinaka and avoided doing the playoff match that on paper was close to a sure
thing.
Kong pinned Inoue after hitting her three times with the huracan (very stiff backhand
punch). The Toyota-Kong title match, which will be Kong's first shot at the WWWA title
since losing it last year to Dynamite Kansai, will headline the AJW show on 10/6 at
Nagoya Aiichi Gym.
The rankings in the tournament are also used to rank the contender's for Toyota's title
which are used the remainder of the year, so the standings ended up: 1) Kong (16); 2)
Hotta, Kyoko Inoue and Bennett tied (14); 5) Toshiyo Yamada and Mima Shimoda tied
(12); 7) Takako Inoue and Kaoru Ito tied (10); 9) Etsuko Mita, Mariko Yoshida and
Tomoko Watanabe tied (8); 12) Chaparita Asari (4).
***********************************************************
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Thursday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 9/6 TO 10/6
9/6 WWF Houston Summit Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/7 Pancrase PPV taping Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
9/7 WWF Dallas Reunion Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Columbus, GA Civic Center
9/11 UWFI Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium (Takada vs. Tenryu)
9/14 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams & Dreamer vs. Eliminators &
Lee)
9/15 WCW Fall Brawl PPV Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Coliseum (Flair &
Anderson & Luger & Sting vs. Hogan & Nash & Hall & Giant)
9/16 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto vs. Chono)
9/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Asheville, NC Civic Center
9/20 UFC XI Proving Ground PPV Augusta, GA Richmond County Civic Center
(tournament)
9/20 New Japan/WCW Osaka Furitsu Gym (Muto & Sting vs. Steiners)
9/20 EMLL Anniversary show Mexico City Arena Mexico (Jalisco Jr. vs. Markus Jr.)
9/21 WWF Baltimore Arena
9/22 WWF Mind Games PPV Philadelphia Core States Center (Michaels vs. Mankind)
9/23 New Japan/WCW Yokohama Arena (WCW/New Japan tournament finals)
9/23 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Hershey, PA Park Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
9/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Birmingham, AL BJCC Coliseum
9/24 WWF Superstars tapings State College, PA Penn State University Gym (Michaels
vs. Vader)
9/25 RINGS Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Yamamoto vs. Kopilov)
9/27 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/28 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/29 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
9/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cleveland Convocation Center
10/6 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Toyota vs. Kong)
RESULTS
8/17 Leysdown, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 100): Adam Andrews b JCB,
Doug Williams b Titan-DQ, Jason the Terrible b Ian Johnson, Dave McMillan b Alex
Shane, Johnny Storm & Steve Smith b John Stokes & Robbie Thomas
8/17 Sheerness, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 150): Serial Killer b Adam
Andrews, Robbie Thomas b Johnny Storm, Double hair match: Sheppey Lads b Tony
McMillan & Justin Richards, Dustman Dave b Annihilator, Titan b Gary Steele, Doug
Williams b John Stokes
8/23 Cudahy, CA (AIWA): Kid Kaos b Bubba Storm-COR, Rosa Salvaje b Leopardo
*****, J.T. Houston & Thrashmaster b Jack Stud & Tech 9, Cheryl Rusa b Babe The
Farmers Daughter, Stud b Rick Sadist
8/25 Vancouver, WA (Championship Wrestling USA): John Rambo b Tim
Kinder, Bruiser Brian b Richie Magnett, Sumito & Bodyguard b Buddy Wayne & Col.
DeBeers, Dane Rush & Lou Andrews b The Clown & Billy Two Eagles
8/25 Los Angeles All Nations Center (Ind): Lobo Salvaje & Vandal Drummond b
Fisico Nuclear & Sombra de Plata, La Cobrita b Pink Butterfly, Aguila Azteca & Shamu
Jr. b El Profeta & Ku Klux Klan #1 , Bronx Bomber & Jack Stud & Tech 69 b Piloto
Nuclear & Dan Faviano & El Sagrado, Piloto Suicida & Chris Daniels & Zarco b Crazy
Boy & Poison & Impacto 2000-DQ, Perro Ruso b Misterioso
8/26 Matsue (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Hideo Makimura, Miss Mongol (Aki
Kanbayashi) b Ikeda, Rie (Bad Nurse Nakamura) & Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo b
Miwa Sato & Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari, Super Leather (Mike Kirchner) b
Ricky Fuji, Hayato Nanjyo & Halcon ***** (Jose Estrada Jr.) & Hayabusa b Toryu &
Taka Michinoku & Hisakatsu Oya, The Gladiator (Mike Alfonso) b Katsutoshi Niiyama,
Street fight: Hideki Hosaka & Hido & Wing Kanemura b Gosaku Goshogawara & Koji
Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka
8/26 Kyoto (WAR): Nobukazu Hirai b Jun Kikuchi, Lance Storm b Battle Ranger,
Nobutaka Araya & Masaaki Mochizuki b Takashi Okamura & Koki Kitahara, Ultimo
Dragon b Yuji Yasuraoka, Hiromichi Fuyuki & Yoji Anjoh b Gedo & Jado, Genichiro
Tenryu & Arashi b Big Titan & Bam Bam Bigelow
8/26 Ota Takabayashi (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto,
Genki Misae b Momoe Nakanishi, Kaoru Ito & Rie Tamada b Yoshiko Tamura & Saya
Endo, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b Mariko Yoshida & Manami Toyota,
Reggie Bennett b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong & Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada b Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue & Mima Shimoda
8/26 Imabori (Battlarts - 280): Takeshi Ono b Alexander Otsuka, Dieseul Berto b
Katsumi Usuda, Yuki Ishikawa b Satoshi Yoneyama, Daisuke Ikeda b Shoichi Funaki,
Minoru Tanaka b Carl Greco
8/27 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW World Wide tapings - 600 full house/all
freebies): WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Dick Slater & Mike Enos, Konnan b Disco
Inferno, Hugh Morrus b Leroy Howard, Diamond Dallas Page b Prince Iaukea, Arn
Anderson & Chris Benoit b Meng & Barbarian, Heat b Renegade & Jim Powers, Ice Train
b V.K. Wallstreet, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Pat Tanaka, Konnan b
John Tenta, Nasty Boys b Maxx & Morrus, Chris Jericho b Jerry Flynn, Eddie Guerrero b
Inferno, Rock & Roll Express b High Voltage
8/27 Kasahara (WAR): Battle Ranger b Takashi Okamura, Nobukazu Hirai b Jun
Kikuchi, Lance Storm b Osamu Taitoko, Koki Kitahara b Masaaki Mochizuki, Gedo &
Jado b Ultimo Dragon & Yuji Yasuraoka, Big Titan & Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi
Fuyuki b Nobutaka Araya & Arashi & Genichiro Tenryu
8/27 Tottori (FMW): Hayato Nanjyo b Mamoru Okamoto, Miss Mongol b Ikeda,
Hideki Hosaka b Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji b Toryu & Super
Leather, Miwa Sato & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Megumi Kudo & Kaori
Nakayama & Rie, Street fight: Hido & Wing Kanemura b Gosaku Goshogawara & Koji
Nakagawa, Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Katsutoshi Niiyama b Hiskatsu Oya & The
Gladiator & Halcon *****
8/27 Yonago (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto, Saya Endo
b Momoe Nakanishi, Toshiyo Yamada & Genki Misae b Rie Tamada & Yoshiko Tamura,
Aja Kong & Takako Inoue b Mima Shimoda & Yumiko Hotta, Kaoru Ito b Etsuko Mita,
Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Reggie Bennett b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko
Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa
8/28 Nagano (All Japan - 2,800 sellout): Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Masao Inoue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari Ogawa, Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue, Dan
Kroffat & Gary Albright b Ryukaku Izumida & Giant Kimala II, Tamon Honda & Takao
Omori b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada b Stan Hansen &
Johnny Smith, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot
8/28 Himeji (WAR): Yuji Yasuraoka b Jun Kikuchi, Lance Storm b Battle Ranger,
Arashi b Osamu Tachihikari, Koki Kitahara b Takashi Okamura, Gedo & Jado b Ultimo
Dragon & Masaaki Mochizuki, Hiromichi Fuyuki & Bam Bam Bigelow & Big Titan b
Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai
8/28 Sanjyo (FMW): Toryu b Hideo Makimura, Miwa Sato b Ikeda, Kaori Nakayama
& Megumi Kudo & Rie b Miss Mongol & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya,
Hisakatsu Oya & Super Leather b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Katsutoshi Niiyama, The
Gladiator b Halcon *****, Hayabusa & Hayato Nanjyo b Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji,
Hideki Hosaka & Hido & Wig Kanemura b Masato Tanaka & Katsutoshi Niiyama &
Gosaku Goshogawara
8/28 Acapulco (EMLL - 225): Lover Boy & Black Silver b El Guerrero & Histrion,
Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Corazon Salvaje b El Sagrado & Punky, Hector Garza & Shocker &
Apolo Chino b Felino & Bestia Salvaje & Emilio Charles Jr.
8/28 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Giant Warrior b
Bonecrusher, Charlie Parker b Reggie Montgomery, Bart Sawyer b Ron McClarity,
Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee-DQ
8/29 Jonesboro, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling - 360): Charlie
Parker b Reggie Montgomery, Giant Warrior b Bonecrusher, Bart Sawyer b Ron
McClarity, Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee, Jerry Lawler b Koko Ware, Kid & Christopher
tied in Battle Royal
8/29 Sayreville, NJ (Universal Wrestling Superstars - 350): Gino Caruso b Ice
Pick-DQ, East Village Riot Squad b Rhino Power-DQ, Virgil b King Kong Bundy-COR,
Booty Man b Greg Valentine-DQ, Hell Raiser b Kodiak Bear
8/29 Nagoya (Battlarts - 238): Naohiro Hoshikawa b Satoshi Yoneyama, Carl Greco
b Shoichi Funaki, Katsumi Usuda d Minoru Tanaka, Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka
b Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda, Hoshikawa b Dieusel Berto
8/30 Osaka Furitsu Gym (All Japan women - 5,300): Momoe Nakanishi b Miho
Wakizawa, Yumi Fukawa & Kumiko Maekawa b Saya Endo & Genki Misae, Tomoko
Watanabe b Kaoru Ito, Mariko Yoshida b Takako Inoue, Etsuko Mita b Mima Shimoda,
Manami Toyota & Yoshiko Tamura b Toshiyo Yamada & Rie Tamada, Yumiko Hotta NC
Reggie Bennett, Aja Kong b Kyoko Inoue to win Grand Prix tournament
8/30 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW World Wide tapings - 600 full
house/all freebies): Alex Wright b Disco Inferno, Brad Armstrong b Chavo Guerrero
Jr., Billy Kidman b Jerry Lynn, Chris Jericho b Prince Iaukea, Public Enemy b Joe
Gomez & Renegade, Jim Powers b Mark Star, Giant b Gomez, Chris Benoit b Jericho,
Glacier b Pat Tanaka, Eddie Guerrero b Dean Malenko, Brad Armstrong b Lynn, Lex
Luger DDQ Rick Steiner, Randy Savage b Meng
8/30 Shizuoka (All Japan - 3,300 sellout): Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako, The Patriot b
Tamon Honda, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Gary Albright b Giant Kimala II, Jun Akiyama b Ryukaku
Izumida, Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi b Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat, Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue & Takao Omori b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith
8/30 Memphis (USWA - 850): Bart Sawyer d Flash Flanagan, Colorado Kid & Tony
Williams b Mike Samples & Giant Warrior, Jesse James Armstrong b Punisher, Frank
Morrell b Tony Falk, Koko Ware DCOR Brickhouse Brown, Sid Vicious & Brian
Christopher & Wolfie D & Doug Gilbert b Bill Dundee & Jamie Dundee & Tommy Rich &
Falk, Unified title: Vicious b Jerry Lawler to win title
8/30 Gunma (WAR): Kamikaze b Fukuda, Takashi Okamura & Osamu Taitoko b Jun
Kikuchi & Nobukazu Hirai, Masaaki Mochizuki & Ultimo Dragon b Lance Storm & Yuji
Yasuraoka, Big Titan b Arashi, Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Gedo & Jado,
Tatsumi Fujinami & Genichiro Tenryu b Nobutaka Araya & Koki Kitahara
8/30 Yamazaki (FMW): Miss Mongol b Ikeda, Miwa Sato & Crusher Maedomari &
Shark Tsuchiya b Kaori Nakayama & Rie & Megumi Kudo, Toryu & Super Leather b
Katsutoshi Niiyama & Mamoru Okamoto, Hisakatsu Oya b Halcon *****, Street fight:
Hido & Wing Kanemura b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Gosaku Goshogawara, Ricky Fuji & Taka
Michinoku & The Gladiator b Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa & Hayabusa, Masato
Tanaka b Hideki Hosaka, Nakagawa won Battle Royal
8/30 Mexico City Juan de la Barrera Gym (AAA): Pimpinela Escarlata & My
Flowers & Babe Sharon b Frisbee & Discovery & Ludxor, Super Muneco & Perro Silva &
Karis La Momia b Oro Jr. & Salsero & Mexicano, Rey Misterio Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Blue
Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. b El Halcon & Cien Caras & Jerry Estrada & Juventud
Guerrera-DQ, Konnan & Octagon & Perro Aguayo b Cibernetico & Villano IV & Killer
8/30 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Olimpico & Olimpus b Guerrero Maya &
Guerrero del Futuro, Mascara Magica & Shocker & Olimpico b Bestia Salvaje & Halcon
***** Jr. & Karloff Lagarde Jr., Dandy & Atlantis & Lizmark b Black Warrior & Emilio
Charles Jr. & ***** Casas-DQ, CMLL tag titles: Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador
b Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Dos Caras-DQ, Hair vs. hair: Rambo b Brazo de Oro
8/30 North Reading, MA (Yankee Pro Wrestling - 300): Brickhouse Brown (not
original) b Rick Charles, Flash the Stinger b Trouble Man Montero, Irish Leprechaun b
Dana Carpenter, Power Company (Power Twins) b Storm Brothers, Arabian Assassin b
Juan King, Rick Fuller b Pat Garrett, Charles won Battle Royal, Greg Valentine b Scott
Ashworth, Booty Man b Kevin Kelly (not Nailz)
8/30 Columbia, SC (LIWA): Brutal Bushman won Battle Royal, Mad Matt DDQ
David Palmer, Buddy Valentine & Mae Young b Lori Lynn & J.Eagley, Fabulous Moolah
b Kate O'Connor, Billy Bad b Superstar
8/30 Miami (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 550): Punk Rock b Buck
Quartermain, Jimmy Del Rey b Andre Moore, Malia Hosaka b Lady Vendetta, Clay
Hatfield b Bobby Davis, Paul Adonis b George Suave, Johnny Torres b Mad Man Pondo,
Chief White Eagle & Lone Eagle b Demon Hellstorm & Little Bad John
8/30 White, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Dusty Dotson b Komonori,
Scorpion b Hog Head Croy, Rick Justice b Scott Prather, Bounty Hunter b Repo Man,
Keith & Ken & John Arden b Maxx Steel & Terry Lawler & Kid Ego
8/31 Utica, NY (WCW - 1,200): Scorch b Kid Chris, Alex Wright b Disco Inferno,
Chris Jericho b Dean Malenko, Hugh Morrus b John Tenta, Nasty Boys b Public Enemy,
Jim Duggan b Meng, Scott Hall & Kevin Nash b Sting & Lex Luger-DQ, Non-title: The
Giant b Ric Flair
8/31 Omiya (All Japan - 2,800 sellout): Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida b Dan Kroffat & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Jun
Akiyama & Takao Omori b Masao Inoue & Satoru Asako, Johnny Ace d The Patriot
30:00, Steve Williams & Gary Albright b Johnny Smith & Stan Hansen, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari
Ogawa
8/31 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (WAR - 1,800 sellout): Takashi Okamura b Battle
Ranger, Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai b Osamu Tachihikari & Arashi, Lance Storm
& Yuji Yasuraoka b Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Gedo b Masaaki Mochizuki,
Jado b Koki Kitahara, Gedo & Jado b Mochizuki & Kitahara, Genichiro Tenryu &
Tatsumi Fujinami & Ultimo Dragon b Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki & Big
Titan
8/31 Nara (FMW): Hideo Makimura b Mamoru Okamoto, Miss Mongol b Ikeda,
Hisakatsu Oya b Toryu, Kaori Nakayama & Rie & Megumi Kudo b Shark Tsuchiya &
Crusher Maedomari & Miwa Sato, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Halcon ***** & Hayabusa b
Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji & The Gladiator, Super Leather b Katsutoshi Niiyama, No
rope barbed wire street fight tornado death match: Hideki Hosaka & Hido & Wing
Kanemura b Gosaku Goshogawara & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka
8/31 Hiratsuka (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto, Saya
Endo b Momoe Nakanishi, Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b Yoshiko Tamura & Genki
Misae, Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita & Reggie Bennett b Mima Shimoda & Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue, Yumiko Hotta b Mariko Yoshida, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b
Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa
8/31 Kawasaki (Battlarts - 282): Carl Greco b Alexander Otsuka, Takeshi Ono b
Katsumi Usuda, Daisuke Ikeda & Dieusel Berto b Shoichi Funaki & Satoshi Yoneyama,
Yuki Ishikawa b Naohiro Hoshikawa
8/31 Batesville, MS (USWA): Bill & Jamie Dundee b Moondogs, Miss Texas b Luna
Vachon, Colorado Kid d Wolfie D, Jerry Lawler b Brian Christopher
8/31 Emory, TX (Lone Star Wrestling Alliance - 200): Kit Carson b Anthony
Calletti, Scott Putski b Killer Brooks, Jimmy James b Carson, Bo Vegas b Black Bart,
Terry Gordy DCOR One Man Gang
8/31 Greenport, NY (Universal Superstars of America): G.Q. Smooth b Psycho
Bates-DQ, Chucky (Dances With Dudley) b Intruder, Virgil b A.J. Steele, Booty Man b
Greg Valentine-DQ, Bodyguard for Hire b L.A. Gore
8/31 Goulds, FL (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 640): Alex G & Andre Moore
b J.R. & Tommy James, Little Lone Eagle b Little Bad John, Johnny Torres b Mad Man
Pondo, Demon Hellstorm b Death Row 3260, Death Row won Battle Royal
9/1 Nagoya Station (FMW - 4,510 sellout): Mamoru Okamoto b Hideo Makimura,
Ikeda b Miss Mongol, Ricky Fuji & Taka Michinoku b Hayato Nanjyo & Gosaku
Goshogawara, Megumi Kudo & Rie & Kaori Nakayama b Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher
Maedomari & Miwa Sato, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Hisakatsu Oya, Hayabusa b Falcon,
Street fight: The Gladiator b Super Leather, No rope explosive barbed wire double hell
dynamite match: Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Wing
Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka
9/1 Tochigi (All Japan - 2,050): Kentaro Shiga & Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru & Takao Omori, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Mighty Inoue, Yoshinari Ogawa b Satoru
Asako, Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Giant Kimala II
& Dan Kroffat b Gary Albright & Johnny Smith, Stan Hansen b Ryukaku Izumida, The
Patriot & Kenta Kobashi d Steve Williams & Johnny Ace 30:00, Giant Baba & Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue b Mitshuaru Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda
9/1 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 2,300 sellout): Miho Wakizawa b
Sekiguchi, Yuka Shiina & Momoe Nakanishi b Genki Misae & Yachio Kawamoto, Nana
Takahashi b Koyama, Kick boxing: Yumiko Watanabe b Saya Endo, All-Japan jr. title:
Tomoko Miyaguchi b Yoshiko Tamura to win title, Tomoko Watanabe b Kumiko
Maekawa, All-Japan tag title: Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima b Yumi Fukawa & Rie
Tamada to win titles, Manami Toyota b Candy Okutsu, WWWA super light title:
Chaparita Asari b Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno)
9/1 Takaoka (Michinoku Pro - 1,600): Tiger Mask b Masato Yakushiji, Wellington
Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Tomoko Kuzumi b Rieko Amano, Shiryu & Mens
Teoh & Dick Togo b Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada
9/1 Tijuana, Notrecalifornia (AAA - 5,200): Los X Men & Bola de Humo b La
Sombra & Los Brujos -*, Thunderbird & Jungla & Flamarion & Sombra b Halloween &
Genghis Khan & Sueno Chicano & Forastero *, Los Pandilleros I & II & III b Tony Arce &
Vulcano & Rocco Valente-DQ **, Misterioso & Damian & Fobia & El Hijo del Enfermero
b Rey Misterio Jr. & Leon ***** & Super Calo & Mascara Sagrada Jr. *, Konnan &
Mascara Sagrada & Perro Aguayo b Pierroth Jr. & Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera *
9/1 Tokyo (Battlarts aft. show): Shoichi Funaki b Alexander Otsuka, Daisuke Ikeda
b Takeshi Ono, Katsumi Usuda b Yuki Ishikawa
9/1 Tokyo (Batllarts p.m. show): Shoichi Funaki b Minoru Tanaka, Dieseul Berto &
Carl Greco b Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama, Yuki Ishikawa b Takeshi Ono,
Daisuke Ikeda b Katsumi Usuda to win one-day tournament
9/1 Poconos, PA (Universal Superstars of America): H.Z. Loke b A.J. Steele,
Primo Carnera III b Kodiak Bear, Lord Zoltan b T.C. Reynolds, Doink the Clown b Tim
Pyer, Johnny Gunn b King Kaluha, Rodney Allen & Johnny Diamond b King Kong
Bundy & L.A. Gore
9/1 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Bonecrusher b Ron
McClarity, Charlie Parker b Reggie Montgomery, J.T. Atlas b Vance Nevada, Bill Dundee
b Bart Sawyer, Loser leaves town: Colorado Kid b Giant Warrior
9/1 Spring Place, GA (World Christian Federation): Randy Watkins b Joey
Funk, Outpatient & Chuck Colt b Keith Karloff & Red Scorpion, Johnny Quaz & Joey
Funk b Scott James & Watkins, Widow Maker b Billy Montana, Johnny Blaze b Jimmy
Sharpe
9/2 Chattanooga, TN (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 5,883/5,180 paid):
Diamond Dallas Page b Alex Wright ***, Harlem Heat b Greg Valentine & Buddy
Valentino (Buddy Valentine) *, Chris Jericho b Dean Malenko ***1/2, The Giant b Brad
Armstrong 3/4*, Randy Savage b Ron Studd 1/2*, Rick & Scott Steiner b Sting & Lex
Luger-DQ -*, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael b Kevin
Sullivan & Big Bubba & Meng & Barbarian ***1/4
9/2 Memphis (USWA): Flash Flanagan b Tony Falk, Tommy Rich b Bart Sawyer,
USWA tag titles: Moondogs b Vampire Warrior (David Heath) & Punisher (Barry
Buchanan), Koko Ware b Brickhouse Brown, Luna Vachon b Miss Texas, USWA title:
Brian Christopher b Mike Samples-DQ, Jesse James Armstrong & Wolfie D b Bill &
Jamie Dundee, Unified title: Jerry Lawler b Sid Vicious to regain title
Special thanks to: Ron Lemieux, Ed Aherns, Dean Ayass, Kurt Brown, Gregg John,
Dominick Valenti, Chuck Langermann, Tony Friedmann, Ken Doucet, Danny Deese,
Sarah Moore, Dan Parris, Ron Lemieux, Scott Cornish, Bernard Siegel, Hernan Villareal,
Rob Moore, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Bert Prentice, Mike Rodgers
HISTORY OF JAPAN GRAND PRIX FINALS
1985 - Lioness Asuka beat Dump Matsumoto
1986 - Yukari Omoro beat Chigusa Nagayo
1987 - Chigusa Nagayo beat Dump Matsumoto
1988 - Bull Nakano beat Yumiko Hotta
1989 - Mitsuko Nishiwaki beat Madusa
1990 - Manami Toyota beat Yumiko Hotta
1991 - Kyoko Inoue beat Aja Kong
1992 - Aja Kong beat Manami Toyota
1993 - Akira Hokuto beat Yumiko Hotta
1994 - Yumiko Hotta won round-robin
1995 - Manami Toyota beat Yumiko Hotta
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
8/4 ALL JAPAN: 1. Albright beat Kawada with the sleeper in about 12:00. This was
Kawada's punishment for publicly criticizing company policy. Kawada got enough in to
make it a good match, but mainly Albright dominated throwing suplexes and getting
near submissions. What happened was good, but not great, but fans weren't ready for
the finish at that time since they're conditioned to the major singles matches lasting
longer, so it was a flat finish. **3/4; 2. Williams & Ace & Johnny Smith beat Hansen &
Patriot & Maunukea Mossman. A lot of missed spots. Hansen worked harder than usual
but he's barely hanging on. Williams was below par. Ace wasn't in until the finish but
looked good. Mossman worked a lot and he's got potential but is still pretty green. Finish
saw Smith pin Mossman after an elbow drop off the top rope. *1/2
JULY BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 7/95 2,980
Estimated average attendance 7/96 4,773 (+60.2%)
June 1996 5,028
Estimated average gate 7/95 $38,480
Estimated average gate 7/96 $78,075 (+102.9%)
June 1996 $82,266
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/95 9.5
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/96 0.0
June 1996 6.3
Average cable television rating 7/95 2.1
Average cable television rating 7/96 1.9 (-9.5%)
June 1996 1.8
Major show 7/95: In Your House II (6,482 paid/$74,930/est. 0.7 buy rate/est. $1.08
million PPV revenue)
Major show 7/96: In Your House (14,804/11,955 paid/$214,985 Canadian = $156,939
U.S./est. 0.37 buy rate/est. $830,000 PPV revenue)
Est. buy rate -47.1%; Total est. event revenue -13.9%
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 7/95 1,890
Estimated average attendance 7/96 3,200 (+69.3%)
June 1996 4,070
Estimated average gate 7/95 $19,710
Estimated average gate 7/96 $39,800 (+101.9%)
June 1996 $55,245
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/95 0.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/96 11.1
June 1996 0.0
Average cable television rating 7/95 1.9
Average cable television rating 7/96 2.3 (+17.4%)
June 1996 2.0
Major show 7/95: Bash at the Beach (est. 9,000 fans/free admission/est. 0.82 buy
rate/est. $2.37 million PPV revenue)
Major show 7/95: Bash at the Beach (8,200 sellout/6,400 paid/$72,000/est. 0.71 buy
rate/est. $2.23 million PPV revenue)
Est. buy rate -13.4%; Est. total event revenue -3.0%
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 7/95 2,370
Estimated average attendance 7/96 2,430 (+2.5%)
June 1996 2,100
Estimated average gate 7/95 $80,470
Estimated average gate 7/96 $82,620 (+2.7%)
June 1996 $70,300
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/95 53.3
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/96 46.2
June 1996 66.7
Average television rating 7/95 1.8
Average television rating 7/96 1.6 (-11.1%)
June 1996 2.8
Major show 7/95: Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout/est. $1 million)
Major show 7/95: Budokan Hall (near sellout/gate ?)
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 7/95 2,510
Estimated average attendance 7/96 2,710 (+8.0%)
June 1996 4,350
Estimated average gate 7/95 $95,220
Estimated average gate 7/96 $112,490 (+18.1%)
June 1996 $198,830
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/95 36.3
Percentage of house shows sold out 7/96 47.1
June 1996 50.0
Average television rating 7/95 1.3
Average television rating 7/96 1.5 (+15.4%)
June 1996 2.3
EMLL
The TV of EMLL or AAA didn't air this past Sunday because President Zedillo's state of
the union address was during the normal wrestling time slot.
The major weekend show was 8/30 at Arena Mexico with a double main event as Rambo
beat Brazo de Oro in a hair vs. hair match. Since Rambo already beat El Brazo in a hair
match earlier this year, it apparently will set up a match at the year-end show in
December where Rambo will face Brazo de Plata in a hair match. However, with Brazo
de Plata having appeared on PROMELL television on rival TV-Azteca, it might be
difficult because anyone on TV-Azteca can't appear on Televisa, which would mean if
they were to set up that feud, none of the angles could air on television which weakens
the feud's drawing power considerably. The other top match saw Gran Markus Jr. & El
Hijo del Gladiador retain the CMLL tag titles beating Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. in
two straight falls. The second fall had a DQ finish after Rayo was fouled behind the refs
back, he ripped off Markus' mask, which apparently beings the build for their mask vs.
mask match in a few weeks.
Brazo de Plata is still working for PROMELL as well, as he headlined their television
taping on 8/30 in Cuautitlan with El Brazo & Super Elektra vs. Fuerza Guerrera & Blue
Panther & El Signo. Andy Barrow, long-time manager of Killer, is now with PROMELL
as a wrestler while Jerrito Estrada, who had disappeared from sight, worked the
undercard along with Furia Guerrera, the younger brother of Juventud Guerrera.
Atlantico had his mask at stake against the hair of Kung Fu on 9/1 at Arena Coliseo with
Kung Fu no doubt losing what little hair he has left.
EMLL ran 8/28 in Acapulco and drew about 225 fans, and Super Luchas, the AAA house
organ really played up that AAA had drawn 8,500 for its show in the same city 11 days
earlier.
AAA
Biggest show of the week was 8/30 at Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City with
Konnan & Octagon & Perro Aguayo beating Cibernetico & Villano IV & Killer in two
straight falls ending when Konnan power bombed Cibernetico. In the semi, Rey Misterio
Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. beat Halcon Dorado Jr. &
Cien Caras & Jerry Estrada & Juventud Guerrera when Dorado low blowed both Sagrada
Jr. and Tinieblas Jr. for the DQ. Newspaper reports on the show said that Misterio Jr.
looked "even more spectacular than usual."
Konnan's 9/1 show in Tijuana drew a near sellout of 5,200 at the Auditorio. It was the
basic ECW style throughout the show, which has both been continuing to draw well and
also be the subject of lots of complaints with run-ins in most matches and mainly
brawling with furniture and weapons and little in the way of wrestling. They did all sorts
of feuds and challenges throughout the show. Halloween and Thunderbird continued
their feud. Venum, who is originally from Tijuana, challenged Fobia (younger brother of
Psicosis) to a hair vs. mask match. Los Destructores were brought in and they basically
ran a Tijuana vs. Mexico City program against local heels Los Pandilleros, who became
the faces since they're local. The finish saw Psicosis do a run-in but he attacked Los
Pandilleros, explaining that even though he was from Tijuana, he wanted to show that
only wrestlers from Tijuana can beat up wrestlers from Tijuana. Fobia came up to help
Psicosis, before Venum came out to brawl with Fobia. The semi had Misterioso &
Damian & Fobia & El Hijo del Enfermero beating Rey Misterio Jr. & Leon ***** &
Super Calo & Mascara Sagrada Jr. in a total ECW garbage style match ending with a
clean finish as Misterioso pinned Misterio Jr. with a kneedrop to the stomach, basically
to held build intrigue for their mask vs. mask match that will be at the bullring fairly
soon. Main event was a rushed job as Konnan & Mascara Sagrada & Aguayo beat
Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis & Pierroth Jr. All three falls combined lasted 11:15, since
the show had already lasted around four hours at that point.
A couple of new Misterio Jr. spots from recent TV shows here in tag matches with
Konnan. One spot is Konnan monkey flipping Misterio Jr. who ends the move doing a
Frankensteiner. The other is Konnan press slamming him while Konnan stands on the
middle rope, throwing him onto Pierroth, who catches him, and while he's there,
Misterio Jr. twirls around and winds up doing a huracanrana.
Apparently the "missing" AAA/EMLL television show that is unavailable in the United
States or from television in Mexico City on satellite may be available off television from
Hermosillo on M1, Ch. 6, at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Sundays.
ALL JAPAN
Complete card for 9/5 at Budokan Hall is Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen for the Triple
Crown, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama defending the tag titles against Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace, Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki
Kawada & Masa Fuchi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Takao Omori vs. Gary Albright, Giant Baba &
Masao Inoue & Satoru Asako vs. Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida & Dan Kroffat,
Jumbo Tsuruta & Kentaro Shiga vs. The Patriot & Johnny Smith and Rusher Kimura &
Mitsuo Momota vs. Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen.
The main match of the week was 9/1 in Tochigi where Patriot & Kobashi went to a 30:00
draw with Williams & Ace in a battle of tag title contenders. Patriot and Ace also worked
a 30:00 singles draw on 8/30 in Omiya.
There is apparently considerable heat regarding Doug Furnas negotiating with WCW, as
he's off the next tour as well, which makes three in a row, and Kroffat has been doing
jobs almost every night on this tour.
After the Budokan, they are off until 9/22 and tour until 10/18 at Budokan with Hansen,
Williams, Albright, Ace, Patriot, Kimala II, Kroffat, Bobby Duncum Jr., Rob Van Dam
and Dory Funk.
Misawa & Akiyama beat Patriot & Kobashi in a non-title match on 8/28 in Nagano
which was said to have been one of the best matches of the year.
This year's tag team tournament will have Misawa & Akiyama, Williams & Ace, Patriot &
Kobashi and Taue & Kawada as the contending teams.
Brian Dyette, the former football player protege of Steve Williams who they were hoping
to train to be a major force, didn't show up for this tour and is done with the promotion.
The heavyweight boxer who they were training only lasted three days on the road before
he wanted out. To say working with this promotion isn't easy is an understatement. I
think that's why most of the wrestlers that come here wind up turning into good
workers, because if they don't, they couldn't survive.
8/18 TV show did a 3.8 rating while 8/25 did a 4.4. Who can figure out why.
NEW JAPAN
There was no press conference all week regarding the Tokyo Dome show. At this point
there appears to be some question whether or not the show will take place due to a
variety of issues. The original date of 10/6 is out the window because the Nippon Ham
Fighters baseball team which plays at the Dome may have a playoff game on that date.
Later dates have problems because of an inability of holes in the TV-Asahi prime time
schedule. There is still the problem of getting Brazilians to do jobs. If no announcement
is made this week then the show would have fallen through because as it is it's really late
to be making an announcement of a show that you need to sell 50,000+ tickets for to be
a success.
A correction from last week when he mentioned regarding the Muta vs. Tenryu match
that Keiji Muto hadn't done the gimmick in a few years. He actually did it in April for the
Tokyo Dome match against Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi).
8/24 television show, which aired the fourth night of Sumo Hall's G-1 tournament, drew
a 2.1 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Great Sasuke is now out of the hospital and doing office work but no word on when he'll
return to the ring. Jinsei Shinzaki will be returning to Michinoku Pro shortly as the main
draw with Sasuke out of action.
There will be a Vale Tudo show on 11/17 promoted by Satoru Sayama. The working idea,
none of which has been announced publicly of yet, is to do a U.S. vs. Japan series with
Japanese fighters facing a U.S. team that would include Dan Severn, Don Frye and Paul
Varelans.
Don't expect Ken Shamrock back in Pancrase.
JWP is running a wrestling and dinner show at a hotel banquet room on 10/4 with
tickets, which include a full-course dinner and free drinks, going from $180 to $250.
IWA's next tour will be 9/22 to 9/29 with Tommy Rich, Dr. Luther (Len St. Clair),
Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert), Pirata Morgan Jr., Mr. Niebla (from EMLL who lots of
people rave about as being the best young wrestler in the promotion) and Leatherface
(Rick Patterson). Beulah and Patricia from ECW are also scheduled for the tour.
The tournament for the vacant UWA middleweight title which will be contested in
Michinoku Pro from 9/12 to 9/23 will have Tiger Mask, Mens Teoh, Super Astro, Masato
Yakushiji and Shiryu.
In FMW, there have been some minor changes regarding the women. Bad Nurse
Nakamura has changed her name to Rie, and is working as a face teaming with Megumi
Kudo. Aki Kanbayashi has turned heel working as Miss Mongol. FMW ran a major show
on 9/1 outdoors in Nagoya with the first explosive barbed wire match ever in that city
drawing a sellout 4,510 fans with Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda
beating Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka & Hido. The injury that has kept Mr. Pogo out
of action was described as a severe neck injury.
All Japan women, after failing to sellout Korakuen Hall for the past several shows,
packed the building with 2,300 fans on 9/1 for a show that actually concentrated on
undercard wrestlers and didn't include most of the major AJW stars such as Aja Kong,
Kyoko Inoue, Mima Shimoda, etc. The only top name that appeared on the show was
Manami Toyota, who beat JWP's Candy Okutsu in the semifinal. Most of the show was
built around undercard title bouts in interpromotional matches. The main event saw the
WWWA Super lightweight title headline for the first time ever as Chaparita Asari pinned
Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno) of the JD Promotion in a match with great flying
moves but the body of the match wasn't great. Azteca injured her neck badly on the
finisher, which was Asari doing a form of a Frankensteiner off the top, and had to be
hospitalized after the match. There were two title changes underneath as the Gaea team
of Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato won the All-Japan tag team titles beating AJW's
Yumi Fukawa & Rie Tamada in a great match that went more than 20:00 with lots of
great near falls. The other saw Tomoko Miyaguchi of JWP capture the All-Japan jr. title
pinning Yoshiko Tamura with a crucifix off the middle rope in a good match.
WAR on 8/31 at Korakuen Hall drew 1,800 with Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami & Ultimo
Dragon over Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki & Big Titan on top. The hottest
match on the show was an interpromotional match where Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka
beat the New Japan team of Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa when Yasuraoka
surprisingly pinned Otani with a german suplex.
The Brazilian leader of the crew that we talked about going to stop Ricardo Morais from
fighting at the 8/24 Rings show was Renzo Gracie. Gracie also had words in mid-ring
(not-worked) with Akira Maeda over the controversial Denilson Maia vs. Illoukhine
Mikhail match.
USWA
The Unified title changed hands twice over the Labor Day weekend. First, on 8/30 in
Memphis, Sid Vicious subbed for the no-showing Jake Roberts to win the title from
Jerry Lawler using the power bomb in about 90 seconds. In the rematch on 9/2, Lawler
put up both his hair and his manager Scott Bowden's hair against the title, so naturally
Lawler regained it.
No word on why Roberts no-showed although when he did, Lawler over the house mic
claimed it was because he was passed out in the Atlanta airport and then it was said
simply that Roberts missed his flight.
Other title change was at the 8/31 television show, Jamie Dundee won the TV title from
Wolfie D when his father interfered and they used the hubcap on Wolfie.
Jamie Dundee did an interview saying he couldn't understand why Jesse James
Armstrong would team with Wolfie D since they had nothing against each other.
Armstrong came out and said Jamie was right, but that he had a problem with Bill
Dundee because Bill had spray painted him in Louisville.
Samantha is now wearing a neck brace to sell the piledriver Wolfie gave him on the 8/23
show.
The 8/30 show drew about 850 fans, which is profitable at the Big One Flea Market. A
similar sized crowd at the Mid South Coliseum would have been a money loser.
Lawler did an interview saying on Saturday that he was going to do push-ups and sit-ups
for one day and he'd be in the best shape of his career.
Tommy Rich said that Labor Day was his favorite holiday because he didn't have to buy
anyone presents and because they always had wrestling matches that night so he'd get to
beat someone up.
Vampire Warrior and Luna Vachon are in, with Luna working a program against Miss
Texas. Vampire started out teaming with Punisher against the Moondogs on 9/2, but
walked out on him during the tag title match.
They had a USWA and NAW combined Battle Royal on 8/29 in Jonesboro which came
down to Colorado Kid of NAW against Brian Christopher. Christopher turned himself
heel as both men went over together to set up a rematch.
ECW
No house shows for two more weeks.
The situation involving Samu was that he had his throat slashed in a restaurant brawl
and needed 50 stitches.
HERE AND THERE
Doug Bady, a regular Howard Stern guest who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy and
was a regular at Southern California pro wrestling and lucha libre shows, passed away
on 8/23. He also worked as a comedic sidekick for the late Sam Kinison and was guest
timekeeper at the World Wrestling Peace Festival, which was a story in itself, and with
his partner had done guest ring announcing on local WWF house shows. He used to
attend Southern California Lucha Libre shows and annoy the Mexican fans by chanting
"USA" like an American wrestling mark.
The current line-up for the EFC PPV show on 10/18 is Marcus Conan Silviera vs.
Denilson Maia and Bart Vale vs. Rodney McSwain in the heavyweight division, Igor
Zinoviev vs. ?, Allan Goes (who had the famous Pancrase match against Frank Shamrock
in 1985) vs. Edouardo Ommati, Matt Hume (who was on the most recent Pancrase PPV
in what was a somewhat suspicious looking match against Ken Shamrock) vs. Erik
Paulsen (WCC) and Todd Bjornathan (former Pancrase fighter) vs. Rudy Moncayo (UFC
VI & EFC I), Ralph Gracie vs. Ali Mihoubi and Eugenio Tadeau vs. John Lewis in the
lightweights and Alfonso Alcaraz vs. Joao Roque in the bantamweights. The Gracie
match looks to be another squash since he's facing a kick boxer. Ralph Gracie refused to
fight either John Lewis or Tadeau, both of whom are skilled ground fighters, while
Renzo Gracie refused to fight Goes.
AWF did a television taping on 8/24 in Tampa and has a press conference on 9/12 in
New York to kick off its fall television schedule. The group has bought television time in
most major markets.
We have a report that the attendance on the Mickey Doyle retirement show in LaSalle,
ONT was closer to 475 than the 950 reported here, but there is no way to verify those
figures.
Greg Price's All-Star Wrestling has upcoming shows on 9/7 in Statesville, NC (Rob Van
Dam vs. Billy Black), 9/18 in Chase City, VA (Johnny Gunn vs. Gorgeous George III),
9/19 in Wilson, NC (Gunn vs. Barbarian) and 9/20 in Mount Airy, NC (Gunn vs.
Barbarian).
Green Mountain Wrestling on 10/6 at 2 p.m. at the National Guard Armory in Newport,
VT.
Fabulous Moolah and Johnnie Mae Young both worked a Moolah card on 8/30 in
Columbia, SC. Johnnie Mae is 72 years old and Moolah couldn't be far behind.
RF Video at P.O. Box 797, Langhorne, PA 19047 is selling tapes of the old SMW
promotion hosted by Jim Cornette including several arena matches directly off the
master tape that either didn't appear on television, or complete matches where only clips
aired on television.
A group called Yankee Pro Wrestling featured a wrestler called Juan King, who looks
exactly like Don King.
A correction from last week's results. The 8/24 show billed as Steel City Wrestling was
actually Grand Slam Wrestling, although they were using the Steel City Wrestling
license. So the tag title change referred to in the results with Typhoon & Demolition Ax
beating The Texas Hangmen was for the Grand Slam Wrestling tag titles. The SCW tag
champs are Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie.
At the IFC show on 8/23 in Biloxi, MS, Anthony Macias beat all three guys in under one
minute. The match with Jean Lydick, which the commissioners stopped when Lydick, a
protege of Billy Robinson, had his nose broken by the first punch, was stopped at the
eight second mark and you can imagine he was upset by that.
UFC
A correction from last week. Fabio Gurgel, who is in the next UFC, never beat Royce
Gracie in a jiu-jitsu match. Gurgel did win the recent world Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
championships in the 200-pound weight class in Rio de Janiero in February. The fighter
who did beat Royce Gracie, causing Gracie to no longer enter Jiu-Jitsu competitions was
Fabio Santos.
Ken Shamrock is pretty much committed to entering the Ultimate Ultimate on 12/20,
which would be the first UFC tournament he's entered since UFC III. He had long vowed
never to enter another UFC tournament. The Ultimate Ultimate will be, maybe not from
an excitement level, but from a competitive level, the toughest show ever to win with
Shamrock, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman and Don Frye as pretty much solid guys in and
Oleg Taktarov and Marco Ruas maybe being in as well.
Cal Worsham (1-1) has apparently been added as the seventh man in the 9/20 PPV show
tournament with one slot still remaining.
WCW
Besides the main angle, other Nitro highlights for 9/2 from Chattanooga before 5,893
(5,180 paying $63,040) had Diamond Dallas Page over Alex Wright in 3:43 with the
Diamond Cutter in a very good short match. Gene Okerlund interviewed Nick Patrick
who had words with Okerlund. Can't wait to see the Patrick vs. Okerlund match. No, it
isn't really going to happen. Rob Parker gave Sherri presents which I guess explained
why neither was at ringside while Harlem Heat beat Greg Valentine & Buddy Valentino
(Florida indie wrestler Buddy Valentine). Nasty Boys jumped Heat during their
interview. It's basic being Heat vs. Nasties for the tag title on Fall Brawl instead of Heat
vs. Steiners as was announced last week. Chris Jericho pinned Dean Malenko with a
front cradle in 9:00 of a very good match. Match would have been even better except
Ted DiBiase walked out during the match and they had to go to rest holds so the
wrestlers didn't steal the crowds attention from the important thing going on in the
crowd (that's a first). While this wasn't national, in numerous systems around the
country, WWF was able to buy two national ads for the Shawn Michaels vs. Goldust
Friday Raw special. Giant pinned Brad Armstrong with a choke slam. Randy Savage
pinned Ron Studd with an elbow off the top. Steiners beat Sting & Lex Luger in 39
seconds when Rick shoved Luger into Patrick, who was grazed but called for the DQ.
Sting & Luger then chased Patrick out of the building and he ran away, and they wound
up stealing a police car and chasing down DiBiase. Horsemen beat Bubba & Sullivan &
Meng & Barbarian when Flair, with help from Woman, used the figure four to beat
Sullivan in 16:42. Match had a ton of heat because the Horsemen were so over as faces,
and was darn good most of the way since Benoit worked most of the match. The opening
sequences with Sullivan trying to figure out how to work with McMichael are some of the
most unintentionally hilarious moments you'll see. They were trying to tell the story that
Woman was putting business in front of personal and she was screaming that at Benoit
after since he helped Flair beat her husband (although we aren't supposed to know yet
that it is her husband).
The Disney tapings on 8/30 was loaded up with good wrestling with lots of air time
devoted to the good younger wrestlers like Alex Wright, Brad Armstrong, Billy Kidman,
Chris Jericho, etc. Public Enemy is now doing a Bushwhackers type gimmick where they
dance and hug fans as they come to the ring. Benoit beat Jericho in a good match, and
Eddie Guerrero beat Dean Malenko in an even better match. Glacier, who wrestled in the
blue light, beat Pat Tanaka. Lex Luger wrestled Rick Steiner in a singles match and as
both guys went over the top rope together, Nick Patrick disqualified both of them.
After doing a sack in the Carolina Panthers opening game on 9/1, Kevin Greene strutted
around like Ric Flair. It was reported on many news outlets he was doing the Ric Flair
strut.
Only house show of the past week was 8/31 in Utica, NY at the baseball stadium before
1,200 fans. Two local DJ's had a horrible opener, although one ended up throwing a
fireball for the finish. The best two matches were the first two, with Wright over Disco
Inferno and Jericho pinning Malenko. The final three matches lasted only 15:00 total,
with Jim Duggan over Meng in an awful match, Hall & Nash beating Sting & Luger via
DQ with a Nick Patrick finish as Sting had Hall in the scorpion and Hall submitted, but
Patrick instead DQ'd Sting since Hall wasn't the legal man in the ring. Hall & Nash were
the most over babyfaces on the show (followed by Flair), and momentarily after that
finish being so screwed, the fans got behind Sting, but when he stood on the post to get
more cheers, they ended up booing him out of the place. Flair did a job in about 5:00 for
the Giant's choke slam in a poor match.
Some notes on the record-setting 8/26 Nitro show. The rating peaked midway through
the second hour, during the Flair & Anderson vs. Rock & Roll Express match with a 5.0,
and then it dropped to a 4.7 for the remainder of the show including the angle at the end.
The demographic breakdown percentages were about the same which means that the
kids and teens audience that usually watches WWF, didn't watch this show with no
WWF competition on at the same time. However, the highest concentration of kids came
for the Rey Misterio Jr. vs. J.L. match where 15% of the audience was under 11 (WCW
traditionally is 10 to 12%), however Misterio Jr. had no affect drawing any extra
teenagers.
WWF
A correction on the upcoming PPV show. It's being held at the Core States Center, not
the Core States Spectrum. It's the first wrestling show at the new building, which seats
22,400. I was told that it's the nicest arena in the country to watch a sports event in.
The weekly PPV idea has been totally dropped as it simply wasn't fesable on a number of
levels.
Kurt Angle, who won the gold medal at 220 pounds in the Olympics, received an offer
from Linda McMahon. Angle has also recieved offers from at least two Japanese
promotions, at least one of which was either RINGS or UWFI.
Achim Albrecht (that's probably spelled wrong) who is a German bodybuilder who has
been in recent Mr. Olympia contests signed a deal with WWF. Although he's not as tall
as Jim Hellwig or Lex Luger, Albrecht would certainly when he wrestles, have by far the
greatest physique of anyone ever to step foot in a pro wrestling ring as advances in, well,
nutrition (and other things that guys call nutrition) put him well above the level of
former Mr. Olympia types from other generations like Roy Callendar or Earl Maynard.
Albrecht was the guy in the Joe Weider ads for Muscle Mass powders that aired on cable
a few years back. I don't know if he has any kind of athletic background but it on the
surface sure seems like a major risk taking a steroid freak out of the gym and trying to
make him a wrestler, not that 11 or 12 years ago, a few guys with minimal or even no
talent following the same route became huge stars.
Shawn Michaels is on the cover of the October Playgirl. The article mainly has him
talking about what kind of women he likes.
There is still underlying heat between Michaels and Jim Cornette and also Jim Ross.
Apparently Michaels feels he's drawing the big houses but that the booking is outdated
and resented Cornette, who works in the office, getting a big push. Someone had to take
the blame for the original main event of Vader & Cornette vs. Michaels & Jose Lothario
that was changed to Michaels vs. Mankind.
The South Africa tour, which is headlined mainly by either Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy
Smith or Hart & Marc Mero vs. Smith & Owen Hart, which starts on 8/8, is almost
totally sold out for every show.
Some upcoming major dates. Survivor Series is 11/17 in Madison Square Garden with
Raw on 11/18 in New Haven and Superstars on 11/19 in Springfield, MA. The final PPV
of the year will be In Your House on 12/15 in West Palm Beach, FL. The Royal Rumble
will be January 19, 1997 at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, and they are planning right
now for a 72,000-seat set-up so they must have huge plans for the show, which is in
Michaels' home town. The February 16, 1997 In Your House will be from Memphis, and
Wrestlemania is March 30, 1997 from the Rosemont Horizon.
Carl DeMarco, who is the President of WWF Canada, hasn't been Bret Hart's business
manager since May 1995, but was for several years.
TV Guide in Canada ran a feature with Sunny's chocolate chip recipe.
The storyline on the Mr. Perfect/Hunter Hearst Helmsley deal isn't to set up a feud
between the two but that Perfect is taking the women away so Helmsley concentrates
more on his wrestling and Perfect will end up being a mentor of sorts for him so set
HHH for a push after doing jobs all summer.
Vader is now using the power bomb as a finisher and will feud with Sid over who has the
best power bomb.
They are doing some sort of an angle involving Brian Pillman with Bret Hart talking
about Stu Hart as Pillman's father figure.
Roddy Piper was at the CNE show in Toronto on 8/24. By the way, that was the largest
non-PPV crowd to see pro wrestling in North America since July 31, 1988, when a Hulk
Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match at Milwaukee County Stadium drew 25,866.
The Bodydonnas are no more. Zip (Tom Prichard) is being taken off the road and will
work as a trainer for guys like Mark Henry and Albrecht and anyone else they sign. Skip
is injured, and when he comes back, it'll be with a new gimmick and probably back as a
heel.
Pillman will be doing color commentary on the 9/6 Friday Raw special.
There have been interviews shot with Faarooq holding the IC title for whatever that is
worth.
Correction from last week. At the 8/25 Nassau Coliseum show, we had an incorrect
result in the Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Sid & Jim Neidhart match. The finish
saw Hart pin Neidhart, not a DQ for Vader interfering. Vader did attack Sid after the
match.
Hart & Smith got a total babyface reaction against Smoking Gunns in their first meeting
on the Toronto show, and this was after Hart & Smith tried to get heel heat working an
angle with two local football players.
THE READERS PAGES
ECW
On 8/3, I attended the ECW Arena show just like so many times before. But this time
was different. I sat up in the bleachers with my friends like I always do. I waited one
hour for the show to start. During the first match, my friend and I held up a W*ING--
King of Danger banner. Nobody minded it. Then right before the third match was about
to start, Axl Rotten vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley, we held up the banner again so Axl could
see it. Five or ten seconds later, three or four security cops came up really hostile to us
and threatening us saying they were taking the banner away. I never saw this kind of
hostility before from security when fans threw things in the ring at the wrestlers or got
into altercations with wrestlers. I've been coming to the ECW Arena for more than two
years. What does holding a banner of a Japanese promotion do to get people to hot and
upset?
Jeff Rychlak
Royersford, Pennsylvania
I had to write in response to the recent wave of negative letters concerning ECW. The
main criticism of ECW that annoys me is the claim that its brutal style lacks
believability. Some readers have written that ECW lacks believability because there is no
way anyone could take the punishment that these guys supposedly take and continue to
come back. While I feel that assessment is valid, I find it laughable that any Observer
readers fail to recognize that all pro wrestling is built on a lack of believability. The idea
of a man being punched in the face without being busted open. A vertical suplex lacks
believability. Even a whip to the ropes lacks believability. Not only do wrestling moves
lack believability, but so do most gimmicks and angles. Undertaker is a great gimmick,
but there's no believability. Where is the believability in Shawn Michaels beating men
the size of Vader and Yokozuna?
What WWF and WCW puts on television is no more believable than what ECW does.
The only difference is fans have been taught to accept traditional American pro wrestling
as believable and ECW hasn't been around long enough to do this.
Anyone who thinks any pro wrestling and particularly ECW isn't physically demanding
is sadly mistaken. I've been an independent referee in the past and have seen first-hand
what physical demands these men must meet. They are true entertainers and great
athletes. For people to demean the athletic ability of these men is wrong.
Joe Zanolle
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
SUNSHINE WRESTLING FEDERATION
I've been a big fan of wrestling since the age of 12 and over the years I've grown a real
fondness for it and at times have been disappointed by what I've seen. While in the
service, my wife and I got to meet many of the stars of the old Florida Championship
Wrestling promotion and to this day I've maintained a friendship with some of those
people. I suppose because of my fondness for wrestling, I try and keep friendly with
people in and around the sport. The reason I'm telling you this is so I can qualify myself
to be able to make the statement I am about to with some authority.
What kind of a promoter publicizes his or her immediate business plan in a forum like
the Observer for all the rival promoters to read? Is he trying to get other marks to invest
in his pipe-dream? I can understand trying to garner interest in the Wall Street Journal
to get potential investors, but where does he get off asking for special coverage because
he drew 4,000 fans? Bernie Siegel neglected to mention that the only reason he drew so
many fans was that the show was a guaranteed show at an Indian reservation and
anyone who was there could watch the show for free, including thousands of
underprivileged kids who were there as part of some sort of a camp program. I know this
to be true because I was there.
He states they're going to do television, create a new type of multi-promotional
organization and even try to get into licensing. What a joke that is. This is a group that
uses hand-held camcorders at their shows. What makes them think they can do what
ECW hasn't been able to do, what Herb Abrams, Max Andrews, Joe Pedicino, Mario
Savoldi and countless others couldn't do with real production crews and much better
shows. These people have had real big name talent behind them like Bam Bam Bigelow,
Steve Williams and others. Who does the SWF have? Demon Hellstorm. That's a
licensing bonanza for you.
What about people like Bill Watts and Fritz Von Erich that ended up going out of
business? Does Siegel think he knows more about the wrestling business than these
guys?
In regard to his statement about taking venture capitalists for major expansion, that
means going public. Back in 1986, while living in Atlanta, I was ignorant enough to
invest $15,000 in a wrestling penny stock called Global Wrestling out of Boca Raton, FL.
I bought the restricted stock at 25 cents a share and thought I hit paydirt when the stock
went up to $18 per show. Today, it makes fine wallpaper. All the people associated with
taking the company public ended up in jail. Three or four years ago, I got a call from a
broker who offered me a stock called Madison Sports. They supposed were going to have
both wrestling and roller derby divisions, although I can't remember the names of their
respective organizations. I thought about it for about a milisecond and decided to pass.
All I can say is that I haven't seen any new major wrestling or roller derby organization
pop up in the last three years.
The other thing that irked me was Siegel saying the NWA is a mere shadow of what it
once was. Although that's true, I don't see the SWF champion main eventing on a UFC
PPV. I don't see him wrestling for New Japan or in Japanese Vale Tudo events.
According to the NWA's Miami promoter, Howard Brody, Siegel's partner, Bill Brown,
has called Dennis Coraluzzo asking for NWA membership but was turned down because
Brody is their promoter in the area. I'm sure when Brody and Coraluzzo read Siegel's
letter implying the demise of the NWA, they'll get perturbed.
It's great that Sunshine runs successful little spot shows in and around Miami drawing
200 to 500 at the local little league fields by selling tickets door-to-door, but that's along
way from Madison Square Garden or even the ECW Arena.
Wrestling isn't like it once was and there's a reason for it. When people try and buy their
way into the business, it never works. Sometimes it doesn't even work for people who
have grown up in the business and are not only well-financed, but know the difference
between a work and a shoot.
It's unfortunate that 99.9% of the time outsiders fail in wrestling is because it becomes
an ego trip of tremendous proportions.
Tim McKenna
Miami, Florida
Over the years, I've had the opportunity to meet and correspond with many of the major
wrestling promoters around the world, as well as many independent promoters. If there
is one thing I've observed, it is that there is no bigger threat to the wrestling business
than the naivete of fledgling promoters. Bernie Siegel has two chances of being
successful in the wrestling business, slim and none.
The successful promotion of pro wrestling in today's world requires a vast amount of
varied knowledge, talents and skills. There are many, many promoters, some of whom
had lengthy track records of success and some of whom had an awful lot of money
behind them who couldn't cut the mustard. What exactly qualifies Bernie Siegel to
succeed when others such as Jim Cornette, Jim Crockett, Ron Skoler and others have
failed? Perhaps he'd like to discuss promoting fortunes with John Arezzi, T.C. Martin,
Joel Goodhart or Gordon Scozzari, and if he doesn't know who those people are, he
should.
Basing ones qualifications for wrestling success as a show that drew 4,000 people at an
Indian reservation, where anyone on the reservation could see the show for free, will
never make anyone a threat to WWF, WCW or anyone else for that matter.
Paul Alperstein's AWF will be on television in many major markets this fall, only
because Alperstein is literally spending millions of dollars to make it happen. Just how
soon do you think he's going to be seeing the better part of his investment back? Why
not ask Tod Gordon how much money he went through before ECW reached its current
level? That company still has to pay for its television time and is losing markets on a
regular basis. At least ECW has a unique product for the American market.
Siegel says that most importantly he's going to develop licensing. Wake up! The WWF
doesn't even do its own licensing anymore. If Vince McMahon can't make a go of it, well?
Consider this. Someone like Jim Cornette, who has one of the most brilliant minds in the
modern history of pro wrestling, who followed the business from a young age could not
pull off what you are attempting. Have you been around wrestling day-to-day half as
long as Cornette, have you been a fan as long as Cornette, have you seen as many cards
as Cornette. If you answered no to any of those questions, your present business course
is delusional. You may be able to get a story out of the Wall Street Journal, but those of
us who have been near the wrestling business for a length of time aren't being fooled.
I can tell you from many years of experience in the entertainment industry, that just
because you can sit at a table and be a party to the business, doesn't mean you can
actually compete in that business. You have the experience of a slingshot in a machine
gun world. Pro wrestling doesn't need people holding its checkbook who aren't
experienced or qualified to conduct its business competently. Before you take any
investors money and before you lose your own money, you need to either give it up or
book a lot more Indian reservations.
Sheldon Goldberg
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
HALL OF FAME
I must commend you for tackling the "Hall of Fame" idea. The very nature of pro
wrestling makes it a tongue-in-cheek, opinionated effort at best. If you had given me the
assignment, I'd have broken the Hall into five major categories, Pre-1950 wrestlers,
Post-1950 wrestlers, promoters, managers and announcers.
The first group would consist of those who performed before the advent of television.
Those of us who saw them live realize that their efforts were lackluster when compared
to today's wrestlers. Most were small, not particularly athletic looking, had very little or
no charisma, and often participated as buck grabbing part-timers who had other means
of making a living.
Television required visual appeal. Thus the pro wrestler became a big, muscular
showpiece replete with fancy ring costumes. They become more dedicated, better
trained, more dextrous and stronger than their predecessors. The money, popularity and
other perks appealed to more. Thus the competition became greater and the
requirements to be a member of the elite increased. By yesterday's standards, any
preliminary wrestler of today would have been a superstar based on ability.
Promoters, like baseball owners, shaped pro wrestling based on business opportunities.
They were and are masterful psychologists who know their audiences well. One
difference is that today's promoters must include in their plans an important partner,
television station managers.
Managers. How much did and do they lend to their charges popularity? A whole lot.
Their pitchman capabilities became the sizzle to the steak. At times they become more
important than those they represent in the ring.
A wrestler, regardless of ability, can be a disappointment to the audience if the television
announcer chooses to downplay him. How many times have we heard announcers alter
the perception of the viewer by the way they handle the action? How often has the
ignorance or lack of understanding of the psychology of what is going on in the ring
ruined a great match and a great performer? You've harped on this deficiency many
times.
I'd like to make some comments and corrections to your article.
Wild Red Berry was the Jim Cornette of his era. He could do wonders with words and
allegories. He was also a darn good wrestler in his day, and specialized in sneaky ways to
win matches. His specialty, the Gilligan twist, was the forerunner of today's scorpion
deathlock, except it was applied in a standing position.
Gorgeous George's real name was George Wagner. Raymond was his middle name.
Karl Gotch was not the name Karl Istaz used in the WWWF. He was known as Karol
Krauser. Vince McMahon Sr. changed it because he felt there would be confusion if he
used the name Gotch.
You failed to mention about Eddie Graham that he was half of the Graham Brothers tag
team with Dr. Jerry in the early days of the WWWF.
Dick Lane was, besides the premiere West Coast wrestling television announcer, an
accomplished movie actor. He had supporting cast credits in films such as "I Can Get It
For You Wholesale," "The Outcast of Poker Flats," and "Union Pacific" just to name a
few.
Greg Valentine is not blood related to Johnny Valentine. He took his name because he
facially resembled the former.
I'd also add the following to your list:
Jack Pfeffer - A former carnival pitchman of European bearing who parlayed himself
into the powerful promoter in New York and the surrounding areas. He controlled
Madison Square Garden and the major New York arenas and had in his stable most of
the big East Coast names. He was a maverick who was despised by other promoters
because he wouldn't join their "good ol' boys" club and was a cheapskate as he worked
his wrestlers for peanuts.
How could you leave out Gene Stanlee? He was the Billy Graham or Hulk Hogan of his
day. Bleached blond, resplendent in sequined robes with an ever present smile who
lacked talent but had tons of showmanship. His main competitor for popularity in the
early 50s was Antonino Rocca.
Although unknown to most Americans, India's Great Gama should be on your list. A
hulk of a man, his strength was legendary. Wrestlers in Asia performed not in rings but
on a level ground, usually patches covered with sand or soft dirt. The symbol of a
champion was a large baton ornate metallic truncheon. It was reported that he had a
match with George Hackenschmidt that drew 70,000 fans.
In regards to Hackenschmidt, he was also a world renown chess master.
Lastly, there should be a category for ring announcers. Don't the likes of Jules
Strongbow, Jimmy Lake, Gary Capetta, Johnny Adie and Jimmy Lennon deserve some
recognition? They were an essential, albeit small part of the business.
Howard Siegel
Yonkers, New York
DM: Karl Gotch wrestled as Karol Krauser in the WWWF in the early 60s,
but came back in the early 70s to form a championship tag team with Rene
Goulet under the Karl Gotch name. Greg Valentine is the son of Johnny
Valentine, although Johnny during his active career never wanted it known
because he felt it would kill his image if fans knew he was old enough to
have a son that was wrestling. In hindsight, the one name I'm convinced of
that deserved mention that I hadn't thought of was Jimmy Lennon. Based
on legend, Great Gama belongs but so much of his legend is based on
heresay and is almost impossible to corroborate but I recognize in his day
there were people who thought he was better than Gotch or Hackenschmidt.
Then again, I've heard the viewpoint that Hackenschmidt was simply a guy
with a great body for his time period promoted to be a champion and not a
skilled wrestler.
I think the idea of an Observer Hall of Fame is an excellent one. Any time we are able to
honor the people that have provided us with enjoyment over the years, we should do so.
Basically I have no complaints with the names you listed, even though there are a few
names I don't recognize, but I'd like to list some people I feel are worthy of this honor.
First and foremost is Wahoo McDaniel, which I believe was a glaring omission.
Generally he would set attendance records in almost every territory he wrestled in. In
the Mid-Atlantic, his ring wars against Johnny Valentine and Ric Flair were legendary.
He's held nearly every title in every territory he worked with the exception of the world
title. When one thinks of Wahoo, they think of his vicious chops, but he could also
wrestle. Those who witnessed his world title matches against Jack Brisco, Terry Funk
and Harley Race can attest to that.
In the tag team division, no list would be complete without Jerry & Eddie Graham and
Ole & Gene Anderson. While neither team were brothers, it doesn't diminish the
importance each had during their limelight.
With manager Bobby Davis, no team drew more heat then the Graham Brothers. While
you've listed Eddie and Billy Graham, don't you feel the catalyst for their success was
Jerry Graham? Those of us who are old enough can remember the tremendous matches
between the Graham Brothers against the likes of Argentina Rocca & Miguel Perez, Mark
Lewin & Don Curtis, and the Bastien Brothers.
The Anderson Brothers did exactly what the sport is called. They wrestled. No music, no
fancy robes, no dancing, no strutting. Just going in and beating their opponents
including teams like Wahoo McDaniel & Paul Jones, Tim Woods & Dino Bravo and Ric
Flair & Greg Valentine. Could they draw heat? So much so that they drove an 80-yearold
man to stab Ole after a match in Greenville.
Several promoters were listed and I'd like to suggest both Jim Crockett Sr. and Jr. While
I wasn't living in the Mid Atlantic area during the reign of Jim Sr., I am aware he was a
very well respected and successful promoter. Jim Jr. did a tremendous job in the 70s
and early 80s by making the Mid Atlantic area one of the hotbeds, if not the hotbed of
pro wrestling by bringing in the likes of Valentine, McDaniel, Flair, Woods, Blackjack
Mulligan, Sgt. Slaughter, Ricky Steamboat, Ivan Koloff, the Andersons, Roddy Piper, etc.
One more question, where was Dick Murdoch's name?
Jim McNerney
Midland, North Carolina
Your article on the Hall of Fame was an enjoyable read. I'd like to see more than just an
Observer Hall of Fame. If there ever is to be one established, it's gong to be a long time
before all the deserving are awarded. Several dozen is way too many to put in at one
time. It's a similar situation to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, where legends like The
Beatles and the Rolling Stones didn't get inducted the first year. I recently visited St.
Louis. Can you think of a more historically appropriate place for a Pro Wrestling
Museum and Hall of Fame?
I think the most conspicuous omission from your list wasn't Wilbur Snyder, but Dave
Meltzer. I don't think it's necessary to list credentials. There are pioneer sports writers
who are in the baseball and boxing Hall of Fames, and rightly so.
Jonathan Fogelman
Editor, Ambivalent Response
I think an Observer Hall of Fame is an excellent, long overdue idea. I think a good idea
would be to split wrestlers categorized by decades. Maybe start from the 30s, 40-50s,
60-70s, and 80s-90s. This would make voters give fair representation to wrestlers from
each time period and eliminate nightmare ballots consisting of nothing but post-1984
wrestlers. Also, take into consideration you are starting something new for a profession
that is a century old. Baseball ballots don't have the problem of choosing between Babe
Ruth and Eddie Murray, but imagine having five slots and having to choose between
Bruno Sammartino and Randy Savage. Both are deserving, but does Savage deserve to
go in before Bruno? By giving each decade a few slots, each vote becomes more relative.
Everybody has strong ideas about what makes a good wrestler. I'm not a big fan of
today's acrobatic style, but recognize great talents like Jushin Liger and Rey Misterio Jr.
Most people recognize greatness and I'm confident most Observer readers share a sense
of what a good wrestler encompasses within their best decade. I never saw Otto Graham,
Joe DiMaggio or Bob Cousy, but I've heard the stories, seem the videos and you can read
the stats. Wrestling doesn't have the stats, but we still have the stories and the videos.
I've listened to my grandfather talk about seeing Strangler Lewis when he was a kid.
This can be fun every year but I hope some serious effort goes into the structure of this
project. The fans, and more importantly, the deserving wrestlers, have waited too long
for something like this.
Ron Russiatano
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Great job on the Hall of Fame. I enjoyed your selections far more than the others I've
seen over the past five years. As a quick test, I've always looked to see if Earl McCready is
included. As you can guess, he's usually left out in favor of someone like Chief Jay
Strongbow or Blackjack Mulligan or another deserving but lesser star.
As a first ballot listing, I thought you included nearly everyone who inarguably had to be
there. Vader didn't belong with this group, even with his collection of world titles.
Superstar Graham was a bit of a gift as well.
I'd have included the Sharpe Brothers, although tag teams can be tough because some of
the most notable tag teams included guys that wouldn't be considered individually like
the Mills Brothers, Anderson "brothers" or even Black Gordman & Goliath.
As tough as tag teams are, what do you do with people like Fabulous Moolah or Sky Low
Low? I think you've got to put them in.
Ernie Roth may not be a first-ballot pick, but he was the best manager I ever saw. Al
Haft, Morris Siegel and Eddie Quinn seem like obvious picks, along with Don and Herb
Owen. If you're going to include Gordon Solie and Lance Russell, then how about
Stanley Weston and Bill Apter?
And when you do put in Edouard Carpentier, please don't call him "Edouardo" even
though he was billed that way in cities where promoters didn't know the difference
between French, ersatz Italian or Spanish.
Gary Will
Waterloo, Ontario
Great job on the Hall of Fame idea. Just a few minor quibbling. I thought you put way
too many people in at one time. It would have been better to begin with a dozen or so
and add four or five each year. That way you get a better feel for the importance of each
inductee.
No real problems with the people you put in. But among the people you left out, a few
names seem worthy to me. Fabulous Moolah. Before everyone starts rolling their eyes,
let's face it, she was womens wrestling in the United States for almost 30 years. Next,
Mr. Wrestling II. Longevity should count for something. Besides, he was the big star on
TBS when it first went national. Third, Nick Gulas. I know he was disliked, but he ran a
huge territory for years, gave some of the biggest stars their first breaks and defined a
style of wrestling that still has influence today through Jim Cornette. I think Farmer
Burns should also be included since he trained men like Frank Gotch and Joe Stecher.
Charles Oliver
Los Angeles, California
For further consideration for the Hall of Fame. Dennis James, the first great East Coast
television announcer. He was instrumental in making wrestling popular in the early days
of television. Also Lord Littlebrook, surely room should be made for this small but
important man.
Richard Siegel
Bethpage, New York
Why no Bull Curry?
Patrick Jones
Houston, Texas
Where's Gran Hamada?
Mike Lorefice
Poughkeepsie, New York
I can't believe you left Wahoo McDaniel off the list. His drawing power, ability and
legitimate athletic credentials were at least comparable to Ernie Ladd and Bronko
Nagurski. He was a headliner wherever he went, which can't be said about Wild Red
Berry. He was a major influence behind the scenes in helping the early careers of Ric
Flair and Ricky Steamboat. The fact that the guy is nearly 60 and is still working indies
is further testimony to his deservedness.
In closing, I noticed the PROMELL television show is using the Ultimate Warrior's
entrance music as their opening and closing themes. Does this mean that we'll soon be
seeing Jerry McDevitt studying for the Mexican bar? Or does it just mean that Jim
Hellwig is now no-showing in Tlalnepantla?
Richard Sullivan
Forest City, North Carolina

 

Sept. 16, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: American
pro-wrestling changes again, New Japan cancels Oct Tokyo
Dome show, UFC brackets for Proving Ground PPV, tons
more!
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 16 September 1996 21:39
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 September 16, 1996
Oh what a tangled web we weave when our only goal is to deceive. . .
American pro wrestling changed once again this weekend. All the fake turns and fake
angles and apparent desperation tactics to draw television ratings hid the real story of
the weekend--the "jack off" power of those running wrestling when it comes to running
angles and cons on the internet and to a lesser extent running angles aimed at hardcore
fans and newsletter readers because of the immediate internal gratification of the
successful swerve.
Of course there was far more to a weekend where WWF created a story of Razor Ramon
and Diesel returning as an attempt, which wound up basically failing, to try and get
ratings in a Monday night battle that the company has consistently lost. In running an
angle that became the top item of interest in the company, thus overwhelming its hype
for the coming PPV show, whatever comparatively small amount of revenue they
generated on their 900 line by creating a top angle with a negative reaction payoff to the
fans who were teased (a cardinal rule of promotion is to never tease something you
aren't going to deliver) at the box office either on PPV or at the arenas paled with the
amount left on the table by not promoting its 9/22 PPV well.
As it was, despite numerous predictions to the contrary, the angle failed to deliver the
rating, as WCW's Nitro, despite its own problem, a massive turnoff at 9:15 p.m. after the
fake Sting angle, still handily won the 9/9 ratings battle with a 3.7 rating and 5.8 share
to Raw's 2.4 and 3.4. The Nitro replay did a 1.4 rating and 4.9 share. WCW basically
doubled WWF's adult audience, winning by a 66-34 percent margin, while WWF only
held an edge in the kids and teens department by a 57-43 percent winning margin.
However, there were more than triple as many adults watching wrestling as a
combination of kids and teens so it's the adult audience that makes the difference in who
wins on Mondays.
In a nutshell, this explains the wrestling war. Because of Shawn Michaels and
Undertaker, characters that basically appeal to kids and teenagers (and in the case of
Michaels, a wrestler who has a strong negative appeal to adults on top--in studying the
weekly demos, when Michaels is in a match, the number of kids & teens will be at its alltime
high for either group, but the number of adults watching is generally at a lowest
point for any major name in the business), WWF draws better at the arenas because
adults are more set in their ways and don't go to entertainment events like movies,
wrestling, sports, etc. with the regularity of kids with their parents or teenagers with
their peer groups. But the television viewing, particularly on Monday night, is adult
oriented and the WWF is losing out with characters with less adult appeal and also
because WCW has the familiar names that the adults grew up with.
WCW fell into the same trying too hard to swerve trap on Monday, running a fake Sting
heel turn, where prelim wrestler The Cobra was dressed up as Sting, and attacked Lex
Luger at just after 9 p.m. Eastern time. At that point the WCW rating had hit a 4.2 and
seemed poised for its first opposed 4.0 total rating after breaking the 4.0 barrier the
previous two weeks without wrestling opposition (the 9/2 rating of 4.3 being Nitro's
most impressive mark to date since the second hour went against the first hour of the
Cowboys-Bears Monday Night game that drew a whopping 19.5 rating). However one
wishes to analyze what happened next or ignore the tale the rating tells is up to them,
but the 4.2 fell to a 3.2 over a 15 minute period. While WWF showed decent growth
during that quarter (2.1 to 2.5), 60% at minimum and probably more of the 700,000
plus homes that turned off Nitro during a 15 minute period simply turned off wrestling
at that point. Whether the masses saw it was a fake Sting, or the Sting turn, which
dominated the remainder of the show, following in the footsteps of The Giant turn was
one hot-shot too many, or nobody wanted to see Public Enemy vs. Meng & Barbarian or
one minute of Rey Misterio Jr. which were the matches taking place during that quarter,
or whatever, it was a colossal ratings drop on a night when almost all the news for WCW
was positive.
The announcers played the Sting angle huge as if Sting had turned heel and joined the
NWO and actually did a tremendous job of getting it over as a stunning angle. The angle
was made more believable because they used a tape of Sting's voice (Steve Borden
himself wasn't in Columbus, GA that night) talking with Ted DiBiase about whether he
could trust him as Luger came out. Luger was in the middle of a match against Rick
Steiner when Nick Patrick called Luger to the parking lot saying something involving
Sting was going on outside the ring. It was all teased a few minutes earlier with an
interview where Sting "no-showed" the interview as Luger and the Horsemen were there
to talk about the War Games match and the focal point of the interview, rather then the
PPV main event, was on where Sting was. Luger came out and the fake Sting jumped
him and punted him around. Surprisingly, the show went off the air leaving the fans
with no hints that it wasn't actually Sting that turned basically so that the WCW
executives could read internet posts all week and congratulate themselves on being con
men par excellence, getting in the way of the fact that their jobs are to draw television
ratings and PPV buys.
Bischoff apparently believes that fans going into a PPV not knowing who will appear in
the main event will add buys to the mystery element. If you look at the history of
wrestling and the biggest houses and PPV buy rates in history, there is no evidence in
the past of this being the case and there have been plenty of mystery partner angles done
over the years. Of course, the business is constantly changing and the Hulk Hogan turn,
which in many ways turned the company and Bischoff babyface to smart fans because of
the surprise element, has now been followed up with basically the same angle with The
Giant, done when Davey Boy Smith fell through, and a fake swerve with Sting. However,
the Bash at the Beach buy rate would have almost certainly been higher than the 0.7 it
turned out to be had the Hogan angle been done one week before the show on television
and the company had the benefit of Hogan's drawing power and a week of hyping the
match for the PPV show, even if the drama at the end of the show itself wouldn't have
been nearly as strong, and most importantly, they wouldn't be able to get off on causing
a ton of speculation on newsletters, hotlines and internet, all of which combined proved
this weekend to have no effect on television ratings. WCW can go on one of several
directions on the PPV show, with the most dramatic being that the fake Sting will be on
Hogan & Hall & Nash's team at War Games and with either Steve McMichael or Chris
Benoit (and given the talent in the ring and the fact this isn't a match that has been
practiced to death, this wouldn't be the night to use McMichael in that role) joining the
Flair-Anderson-Luger team. Late in the match, the real Sting can show up and either
protest his innocence with nobody believing him, or save the day, or the real Sting could
be put in the NWO corner and turn on him saying it was his own undercover plan (thus
not revealing that it wasn't Steve Borden in the angle). Or they actually could turn him,
although that seems to be the least likely of all potential scenarios. All of this will cause a
ton of speculation and curiosity over the week. But as Bash at the Beach showed, that
has minimal effect on buy rate.
WWF learned that lesson the hard way this week that all the speculation in the world
didn't mean squat in the ratings. On Friday night's "Raw Championship Friday," a much
ballyhooed special headlined by a Shawn Michaels vs. Goldust match on USA network,
Jim Ross said he had the biggest news story of his 20-year career and would reveal it on
the hotline. However, instead of doing so, he revealed later in the show that Razor
Ramon and Diesel were negotiating to return to the WWF. He said he'd have more
details on the hotline and that there would be more information over the weekend on
Mania, Action Zone and Raw. On the hotline, which no doubt did near record business,
Ross basically said negotiating were taking place and he got this information from his
best source. Despite hype to the contrary, there were no updates on either Mania or
Action Zone, as both shows are taped the previous Tuesday and Vince McMahon didn't
even come up with this angle until Thursday, at which point very few in Titan were clued
in on what was going on and most in the company were stunned by Ross' announcement
on the show.
On the Monday afternoon, McMahon sent a post online in continuation of this angle
saying that Ross would be forced to apologize for the statements, doing the swerve that
they were dropping the angle since most people by this point knew Hall and Nash
weren't going back. However, on Raw, Ross said he apologized because his comments
upset delicate negotiations with Ramon, but that he was standing by his story and that
negotiations with Diesel were going strong. He continued to promise before every
commercial break to have more on the story at the end of the show as a way to keep
viewers (even with that, there was a minimal change in ratings once the show got going)
and hit the angle hard again at the end of the show.
Kevin Nash and Scott Hall knew nothing of this angle, finding out amidst a ton of
commotion within wrestling while appearing on Friday night at the WCW house show in
Shreveport. There is no loophole in the respective contracts which have more than two
years left nor have their been any talks of them rejoining the WWF.
Because of all the speculation, particularly online and on hotlines that Friday's
announcement caused, the WWF confused that with having done a successful angle.
However, the weekend ratings for Mania and Action Zone (1.2 and 1.7 respectively) were
about what they usually get, while the Raw 2.4 was actually lower than its average.
The statement was basically designed as a hotshot angle to reverse the trend which has
seen WCW dominate the ratings since it switched to the two-hour format in late May. In
particular, history over the years has shown that WWF Raw numbers coming back from
the two week Monday gap after the U.S. Open usually take a few weeks to get back to
normal and this was seen as a way to pique curiosity and get the numbers back on track
immediately. There was little more to the idea than that, although there is a plan, which
may or may not be implemented because numerous people in Titan and most in
wrestling think it would be a huge mistake, to payoff the angle by using Rick Bogner
(WAR's Big Titan) as "The Bad Guy Razor Ramon" and Glen Jacobs (formerly Isaac
Yankem) as "Big Daddy Cool Diesel." Putting new actors in established roles is
commonplace in soap operas, and has been done without fans reacting negatively in pro
wrestling with characters such as Doink the Clown in the WWF after Matt Osbourne was
fired, or with occasional masked wrestlers in Mexico and the United States after disputes
with promoters, but it's never been done in modern times with unmasked distinctive
wrestling stars of such high profile. The general belief is this plan, if implemented, will
backfire greatly, even though the belief is that Bogner actually can do Razor Ramon
better than Scott Hall since he did a great job with the gimmick on an ECW show in
Allentown, PA as "Slice and Dice Ramirez."
There is even talk that if fans reject the characters that Titan can always turn them heel,
thus the boos will be the reaction they want to get from the fans. Of course there are
numerous different kinds of heat and different types of boos and not all booing heat for a
heel is the kind of heat that is a positive.
The other potential endings to this angle, which may be drawn out as long as the
company gets feedback on it (which could be a mistake because it comes off to most as
among the sleaziest angles in years and whatever interest it's created among insiders
and hardcores didn't translate to the masses), would be to simply put the heat on Jim
Ross at the end saying his source was wrong, or saying that as often happens in highlevel
negotiations, that the negotiations fell through. WCW really can't react publicly to
deny the story because of the lawsuit, because by reacting and saying that Razor Ramon
and Diesel (since the names Kevin Nash and Scott Hall have never been used) or even
not using those names and talking about the wrestlers Titan is referring to being under
contract and not leaving would play into WWF's hands in the lawsuit as it could be
construed as an admission they were using Nash and Hall as Diesel and Ramon without
using those names publicly.
Despite being the main focus of hype on syndication and on cable for two weeks to the
extent that the 9/22 PPV show has been down played, and ads bought throughout WCW
Nitro four days earlier, the WWF Championship Friday show with Michaels vs. Goldust
wound up doing a 1.8 rating and 3.1 share. That alone quells virtually any chance, if
there was any to begin with and my guess is that there wasn't, of Raw moving to Friday
nights.
***********************************************************
New Japan Pro Wrestling officially announced this past week that it would not be
holding a Tokyo Dome card in October.
The reason given publicly for the show being canceled was that the 10/6 date would be
unavailable as the Nippon Ham Fighters, one of the two baseball teams that play its
home games at the Dome (the other being the Yomiuri Giants) either needed the date as
a make-up for a rain out earlier in the season or for a potential playoff game (I'm not
exactly sure which). The Dome show had never officially been announced but had been
in the semi-planning stages for months and the Tokyo magazine that does ticket listings
for events in the October magazine did have New Japan at the Tokyo Dome listed.
New Japan had run three house shows at the Dome over the past year, off of which sold
out and it's estimated that the combined revenue of the three events between ticket sales
and souvenirs was well over $20 million, so a cancellation of an event of this magnitude
is basically equivalent to the WWF scheduling a second Wrestlemania during the year
and then canceling it (since the traditional January 4th Dome show is the Japanese
equivalent to Wrestlemania).
There were multiple reasons New Japan decided against holding the show. The New
Japan/Antonio Inoki plan for the main event was a singles match with Inoki vs. Royce
Gracie, something that had largely been a secret publicly. There had been talks going
back-and-forth with New Japan and Rorion Gracie, probably for some time, as at least
two months ago martial arts magazines had quoted Rorion as saying that Royce was
planning on fighting in Japan in October. At that time, most of the speculation was it
would be on a K-1 show or with a shoot style promotion and none of the magazines were
speculating on it being a New Japan show. The story we've been told is that the Gracies
were asking $1 million for the match, which would be the highest figure anyone would
have ever been paid for doing a match on a pro wrestling card with the exception of
Muhammad Ali in the 1976 match with Antonio Inoki.
According to claims in a lawsuit by Jim Hellwig against Titan Sports, at one point Vince
McMahon had agreed to pay Hellwig $1 million per PPV event, although their
relationship fell apart before the first show Hellwig was supposedly going to get that
figure. Whether Hellwig's claim was legitimate or not (and he did earn $550,000 for his
1991 Wrestlemania match against Randy Savage) isn't clear because WWF attorney
Jerry McDevitt dismissed most of Hellwig's claims in that and his current lawsuit as
being fiction. It is believed Hulk Hogan's highest payoff in his WCW contract calling for
25% of the company PPV revenue would fall slightly more than $600,000 for his biggest
matches against Ric Flair and Vader and that he earned in the range of $750,000 for his
1987 Wrestlemania match against Andre the Giant, which was the biggest show in
American wrestling history.
While New Japan had never paid anyone except Ali, who was obviously during his time
tons more of a big name than Gracie is today, that type of money, apparently they agreed
to the price figuring the market value of such a match in Japan. While nobody would say
so publicly, it is believed negotiations fell apart because Inoki wanted to win the match
and as it was explained, Gracie would rather die than "throw a match," and as with the
Ali match, New Japan wasn't going to pay that kind of money for a match and not have
their representative get his hand up.
There were other problems, such as being unable to get a prime time slot on TV-Asahi
for the show if it didn't take place before 10/10 (the date the slot was cleared) and the
inability to book the Dome before that time. In addition, without the Gracie match, New
Japan questioned whether it had anything that could sell 50,000 tickets with only a few
weeks of hype. The front office of New Japan, which included booker Riki Choshu,
reportedly worked itself past exhaustion last year in running the special record-setting
show in October and then coming back in January, was also relieved because of how
little time left and how much work would need to be done to put together a show of that
magnitude.
************************************************************
The Ultimate Fighting Championships officially completed the bracketing for its 9/20
PPV show called "Proving Ground" from Augusta, GA late 9/6.
The only question mark at press time concerns Russian Absolute winner Igor
Vovchanchin, as his being allowed in the country is currently being held up in red tape
when it comes to his getting a proper working visa. While it is possible he'll be in this
tournament, they are going under the assumption he won't be and that he'll probably be
brought in for the February 1997 show. If SEG is able to get Vovchanchin, who won the
most recent Russian Absolute (UFC style) tournament, into the country, it would create
an intriguing first round match-up against Tank Abbott. As it stands right now, Sam
Adkins (1-1), who is a 260-pound ex-boxer with some wrestling background who was
destroyed by Don Frye in February's UFC VIII in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, is scheduled to
be executed by Abbott in the first round.
The bracketing consists of Mark Coleman vs. Julian Sanchez (a kick boxer from Houston
billed at 290 pounds), Brian Johnston (UFC X, 1-1 record) vs. Reza Nasari, Abbott vs.
Adkins and Jerry Bohlander (UFC VIII, 1-1 record, Ken Shamrock protege from the
Lion's Den) vs. Fabio Gurgel (World champion in the 200-pound weight class in the
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu championships in February in Rio de Janiero). The latter pairing was
put together to satisfy fans who complained about the repetitive tackle-and-punch style
matches with no working for the submissions that were the key finishing maneuvers in
the early UFCs, and put two skilled submission fighters against one another in a Lion's
Den vs. BJJ match which would lead to a second round match-up with Abbott vs. a
submission specialist, the last of which, vs. Oleg Taktarov, is generally considered one of
the two most exciting fights in UFC history.
Nasari, billed at 198 pounds, is from Iran and won the world championships in Grecoroman
wrestling in 1986 so he's got the grappling background, and is also one of the top
rated Wing Chun fighters (a striking martial art) and teaches his own martial art called
Realistic Combat Arts. As history has shown, anyone with that level of wrestling skill,
even without a decade of training in striking arts, is someone to be reckoned with in UFC
competition.
One would suspect by the draw, that the semifinals would be Coleman, who rumors say
is going to come into this tournament at 260 pounds (he was 245 when he won UFC X),
facing Nasari, who would be a far more highly skilled wrestler than Don Frye but
unproven in this type of competition; and Abbott most likely facing Gurgel. Abbott has
been training for power, as evidenced by his 600 pound bench press on television, and is
currently well in excess of 300 pounds on a 5-10 frame and is expected to come in
around 295 pounds, 45 pounds heavier than in Ultimate Ultimate. Other competitors
believe carrying that kind of weight on his frame would create a stamina problem, but
Abbott is a powerhouse with a strong punch and while far from a world-class wrestler
(as the Severn match showed), he is a much better wrestler than most give him credit
for. Gurgel is a legitimate BJJ top-class fighter with Vale Tudo experience, but will
probably give away 80 to 90 pounds against a hard hitter with balance.
Alternate matches are Roberto Traven (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 215 pounds) vs. David Berry
(Kung Fu, 216 pounds) and Scott Ferrozo (335 pound pit fighter who lost to Bohlander
in UFC XIII) vs. Sam Fulton (a kick boxer from nearby Athens, AL).
Five names are confirmed for the Ultimate Ultimate on 12/20 in Birmingham, AL--Ken
Shamrock, Dan Severn, Frye, Coleman and Abbott. Hype has it that Shamrock will be
training the hardest he ever has to atone for his performance in the Severn match and
answer all the questions about him as he attempts to use this event to allow him to
finalize his rep and retire as a martial arts legend.
They are making a slight rule change in that they are developing a soft-side shoe that
would be legal to kick with. UFC rules have been a fighter can go barefoot and kick, or
wear a shoe, giving them better stability for wrestling, but then kicking would be illegal.
However, while wearing the kicking shoe, one can't kick a man when he's down.
************************************************************
Bas Rutten retained his King of Pancrase championship to headline Pancrase's third
anniversary show on 9/7 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall, taped for PPV with a U.S. air date of
11/3.
The show drew a standing room only crowd of 7,250 fans in the 7,000-seat arena, with
the Pancrase matches due to some changes in style, resembling more muay thai fighting
with some grappling as opposed to an emphasis on submission wrestling.
Because of that, most of the results, including the main event, was considered surprises
to the hardcore Pancrase fans (and many of the Pancrase wrestlers as well) who largely
were expecting a title change due to Funaki's superior wrestling ability to Rutten and
thoughts Rutten may not have fully recovered from a serious automobile accident on
7/4.
As it was explained to me, the fighters have become so skilled at blocking submission
attempts (hence all the time limit draws on recent shows), that the referees were
ordering stand-ups and re-starts as soon as action got "stale" on the mat as the frequent
stand-ups increase the chances of punishment and thus clean finishes from strikes as
style evolution worked away from submissions. It was described as the next step in the
continual evolution of hybrid martial wrestling and wrestling. A similar evolution took
place in Brazil where Vale Tudo matches at one point were dominated by submission
fighters, and than as people learned to block submissions, they were dominated by good
defensive ground fighters with strong striking and positioning skills. Those changes have
meant a difference in the prototypical Pancrase fighter from someone great at
submissions and strong standing as well such as Funaki or Ken Shamrock or someone
with some quickness standing and good balance and wrestling skills like Frank
Shamrock or Minoru Suzuki, to the dominance of a powerful striker who is good enough
defensively on the ground to cause a stalemate and hence, a re-start, and dominate while
standing up, a description that fits Rutten, by far the heaviest hitter in the organization,
to a "t."
The main event saw Rutten win via knockout in 17:05 in what was described as a great
match and the best match on the card. There were lots of violent and stiff exchanges on
their feet, with Rutten always able to block Funaki's attempts to finish him on the
ground once they went down. At one point they called a controversial rope break lost
point on Rutten when he used the ropes to stabilize himself rather than to escape from a
submission. Funaki was apparently getting destroyed at the end, and was bloodied up
from various parts of his face including a broken nose and eyes that swelled to the point
it greatly affected his vision from Rutten's palm thrusts and kicks and was knocked
down several times. Several times Funaki was knocked down and the crowd believed he
wasn't going to get up, and finally Rutten caught him with a knee to the chin and put
him out. After the match Funaki gave a speech where he said the match was like a dream
to him and it was his best match since turning pro since he felt he did his best in though
he took tremendous punishment and lost, and doing ones best is what's important and
got a huge reaction from the crowd.
Funaki had up to this point been dead-set against doing UFC because he believed in
fighting for art and not in fighting being brutal, but at the company's third anniversary
party the day after the show, he said he wanted to do a UFC. Masami Ozaki (Pancrase
President) went to the U.S. after the show to both set up doing a live house show in 1997
in the United States, attend the next UFC show, and negotiate with SEG about getting
Funaki into a UFC next year. SEG has mentioned Rutten, Yoshiki Takahashi and Frank
Shamrock as people they were interested in using for UFC, with the main problem being
that since Pancrase runs monthly, it's hard to clear the schedule. SEG had been
interested in using one of those names on this current PPV, but with Pancrase having
such an important show two weeks earlier, it made doing so impossible.
The description to me is that the live crowd was totally into everything but in a studious
rather than a boisterous way. However, there was a fight in the crowd during
intermission which is something that is exceedingly rare in Japan which shows cultures
coming closer together.
The semifinal, where Guy Mezger retained his No. 2 ranking beating Ryushi Yanagisawa
via a 3-0 unanimous decision after the 20:00 time limit expired, was said to have been
the worst match on the show. Yanagisawa didn't do much in the match and the crowd
sensed it and was booing him a lot. Yanagisawa also received a yellow card for stalling.
Without question, the biggest upset on the show saw No. 1 ranked contender Frank
Shamrock via knockout to rookie Yuki Kondo in 12:43 with a kick to the head. It was an
interesting match to watch since Shamrock was clearly better on the ground, but on their
feet, Kondo was the stronger fighter. Apparently Shamrock came out strong and
dominated early. When Shamrock had Kondo mounted and went to throwing body
blows, Kondo was able to reverse him several times. As the match wore on, it appeared
Shamrock got both tired and frustrated with his inability to do anything with Kondo, and
at one point got a yellow card for throwing a punch to the face. Kondo finally scored a
flurry with two palm blows and a kick to the face, with Shamrock falling through the
ropes and injuring himself on impact with the floor and being unable to continue for the
knockout win. Kondo, who debuted on the 1/28 card, now has an 8-0-1 record in
Pancrase with wins over both Shamrock and Suzuki and a draw against Osami Shibuya.
While this has not been officially announced, it was strongly hinted at the party the next
day that Rutten's next title defense, which will be on 12/15 at Tokyo Sumo Hall, will be
against Kondo.
Jason DeLucia continued the losing streak of Minoru Suzuki with a knockout with a
palm thrust in 4:58. Suzuki got to his feet from the blow, but the referee stopped the
match anyway because the ref believed his eyes were glassy. At the party the next day, it
was strongly hinted that the promotion wanted Suzuki to take several months off to heal
up his injuries from the past several months. The other Lion's Den fighter, Vernon
White, had a brutal match against Yoshiki Takahashi which saw Takahashi get knocked
down several times before he finally ate a kick and was KO'd at 19:43 and did a stretcher
job.
***********************************************************
Paul Alperstein's American Wrestling Federation is scheduled to hold a press conference
on 9/12 at the All-Star Cafe in New York to hype its new fall season broadcasts which
begin nationally on 9/21.
The group has purchased television time in most of the major markets, including 45 of
the top 50 markets, which would make it have more syndication clearances than any
group in the United States except WCW, since WWF is losing syndication in most of the
major markets due to deciding against paying for television time. It's an incredible load
to carry, as evidenced by the fact WWF walked away from those costs (in excess of $2
million per year) with a recognizable product to advertisers.
Industry insiders estimate that the AWF will be spending in the $4 million range per
year for compensation, including in excess of $300,000 per year in both the New York
and Los Angeles markets, a figure there would be no way to recoup on advertising
revenue. Those in the wrestling syndication business consider the AWF's entree as a
negative for the industry overall because with one company willing to pay big money in
nearly every major market for clearances, it makes stronger the belief among those with
syndicated stations that pro wrestling should exist only as paid programming and thus
make it harder, no matter what the ratings pro wrestling delivers, to get shows on
broadcast television without paying for the time.
AWF held its first television tapings for the new season for its show entitled "AWF
Warriors of Wrestling," on 8/24 in Tampa, and plans on using The Road Warriors, Sgt.
Slaughter, Tito Santana, Bob Orton, Greg Valentine, Tommy Rich, Missy Hyatt, Tom
Zenk, Blacktop Bully and Charlie Norris as its top stars. The television matches will
differ from traditional U.S. style in that they'll use the European and boxing rounds
system.
***********************************************************
The line between work and shoot continues to be blurred with the formation of yet
another new promotion in Japan known as "The "U" Japan," which will have its first
show on 11/17 at the Ariake Coliseum (11,000 seats) in the Tokyo Bay Area.
The group will be run by Dai San Promotions, a collection of former New Japan house
show promoters, although this group is not related to New Japan Pro Wrestling.
This group is basically attempting to take the UFC concept live into Japan, using fighters
familiar to Japanese fans either through pro wrestling or UFC videotapes (which are
more popular as far as the rental market goes in Japan than traditional pro wrestling
videotapes), as well as the Octagon cage set-up and referee John McCarthy.
However, there is one huge difference between this promotion and UFC in that this will
either be a combination of worked and shoot matches, or shoot style matches with
predetermined finishes according to information we've received. While we don't have a
lot of details, we do know that at least three U.S. promotions, one of which is the WWF,
have been contacted by this group, which has connections in San Francisco so there is a
good chance the event will be videotaped for the U.S. market, and were told that their
fighters or wrestlers could be protected on the finishes if need be.
The idea for the main event on the first show was Kimo vs. Vader, and the WWF was
approached within the past few weeks about this match, however there is zero percent
chance of that match taking place because 11/17 is the same day as the WWF's Survivor
Series. They also have a rematch scheduled from UFC with Koji Kitao vs. Mark Hall, and
UFC competitors Dan Severn, Don Frye, Gary Goodridge and Paul Varelans are all
scheduled on the first show. We had incorrectly listed this show last week as being a
Satoru Sayama's Vale Tudo promotion. What makes Severn and Frye's name on the
show interesting is that the show will take place five weeks before Ultimate Ultimate,
which both are scheduled in. I suspect Severn and Frye will both be "protected" for that
reason (Frye has expressed interest in doing pro wrestling in Japan and forming a tag
team with Severn) as either an injury or a loss on a show like that so close to the
Ultimate Ultimate could result in SEG pulling them from the show or them having to
withdraw from the show, and in the case of Severn, who has to be considered a favorite
in Ultimate Ultimate, you are talking about putting a $150,000 potential winning payoff
at risk.
Because Kimo received this booking, he pulled out of his scheduled pro wrestling date on
9/11 for UWFI at the Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium against Yoji Anjoh, which was
actually billed as the semifinal to the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu match. In
reality, the real No. 2 draw on the show, and arguably even the biggest drawing match
on the show, is the end of All Japan's isolationist policy when it comes to
interpromotional matches and the Toshiaki Kawada vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (UWFI)
match. The word we've been given is that approximately 40,000 tickets have been sold
in a 46,000-seat stadium, about 20,000 of which were sold over the past week after the
announcement of Kawada working the show. David Beneteau of UFC, making his pro
wrestling debut, will replace Kimo in the match against Anjoh.
***********************************************************
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Besides myself, hotline reports are done by Beverly (Saturday, Tuesday, Friday),
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Thursday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 9/13 TO 10/13
9/14 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams & Dreamer vs. Eliminators &
Lee)
9/15 WCW Fall Brawl PPV Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Coliseum (Flair &
Anderson & Luger & Sting vs. Hogan & Hall & Nash & Giant)
9/15 All Japan Women Yokohama Bunka Gym
9/16 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto vs. Chono)
9/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Asheville, NC Civic Center
9/20 UFC XI Proving Ground PPV Augusta, GA Richmond County Civic Center
(tournament)
9/20 New Japan/WCW Osaka Furitsu Gym (Muto & Sting vs. Steiners)
9/20 EMLL Anniversary show Mexico City Arena Mexico (Jalisco Jr. vs. Markus Jr.)
9/20 FMW Sapporo Nakajima Sports Arena (Head Hunters vs. Kanemura & Hido)
9/21 WWF Baltimore Arena
9/22 WWF Mind Games PPV Philadelphia Core States Center (Michaels vs. Mankind)
9/23 New Japan/WCW Yokohama Arena (WCW/New Japan tournament finals)
9/23 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Hershey, PA Park Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
9/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Birmingham, AL BJCC Coliseum
9/24 WWF Superstars tapings State College, PA Penn State University Gym (Michaels
vs. Vader)
9/25 RINGS Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Yamamoto vs. Kopilov)
9/27 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/28 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/29 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
9/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cleveland Convocation Center
10/6 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Toyota vs. Kong)
10/7 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Savannah, GA Civic Center
10/8 Pancrase Nagoya Toyohashi Sports Center (Frank Shamrock vs. Takahashi)
10/8 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Osaka Furitsu Gym (Anjoh vs. Ishikawa)
10/10 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Shinzaki vs. Hayabusa)
10/11 WAR Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tenryu vs. Muta)
10/12 All Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym
10/13 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Goldust)
10/13 JWP Tokyo Sumo Hall
RESULTS
8/26 Chesterfield, VA (Southern Wrestling Alliance): R.C. Luvin b Kevin
Dalton, Miss Linda b Brenda Lee, Shane b Larry the Intimidator, Hot Squad & L.L. Cool
b Houston Brothers & ?, Night Hawk b Wrangler, David Jerrico (David Cash) b Rick
Savage, Roger Anderson (Roger Hill) b Dorty Reed, Jeff Collett b Vladimir Koloff-DQ,
Wahoo McDaniel & Johnny Ringo b Bunkhouse Boys
8/31 Naples, FL (Ind - 400): David Isley b Midnight Rider, Overlords b Frankie
Capone & Samurai Warrior, Malia Hosaka b Blaze, Sam Houston & Sushi Man Riki b
L.A. Stephens & Thunderfoot I (Isley), Vladimir Koloff b Rockin Randy, Randy won
Battle Royal
8/31 Cape Hateris, NC (All-Star Championship Wrestling): Chris Stevenson b
Cue Ball Carmichael, Doink b Julio Sanchez, Poison Ivey NC Corporal Punishment, The
Ref b Punishment, Big Slam Vader b Jimmy Cicero, Stevenson won Battle Royal
8/31 Evansville, IN (Hook'n'Shoot Promotions - 363 sellout): Wrestling rules:
Eric Shellenghargri d Tim Petersime, Eric Cleig b Jeff Osborne, Phil Stoffolino b Cade
Swallows, Jay Oppenheim b Russ Paxon, Ian Haynes b Tony Crawly, Pancrase rules:
Sean Brockmole d Butch Smith, Stoffolino d Gary Griffith, Sam Shehorn b J.R. Douglas,
Pankration hwt title tournament: Austin Long b Nick Tesla, Mark Nelson b Mike
Kennedy, Long b Nelson to win tournament
9/2 Chichibu (All Japan - 2,050 sellout): Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b
Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Tamon
Honda & Masao Inoue, The Patriot & Gary Albright b Stan Hansen & Johnny Smith,
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Takao Omori & Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue &
Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari Ogawa b Dan Kroffat & Johnny Ace & Steve Williams
9/3 Iwaki (All Japan - 2,200): Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b
Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa, Gary Albright b
Masao Inoue, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b Tamon Honda & Akira Taue, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace b Takao Omori & Toshiaki Kawada, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun
Akiyama & Satoru Asako b Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat & Johnny Smith
9/3 Kasu (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Sekiguchi, Nana Takahashi b
Miho Wakizawa, Kumiko Maekawa & Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo b Rie Tamada & Yumi
Fukawa & Genki Misae, Manami Toyota b Yoshiko Tamura, Takako Inoue & Mima
Shimoda b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Reggie Bennett
b Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
9/4 Gainesville, GA (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 1,800 sellout/heavily
papered): Diamond Dallas Page b Jim Duggan-DQ, Bobby Walker b Arn Anderson-
DQ, V.K. Wallstreet b Randy Savage-DQ, Lex Luger b Ron Studd, Rick Steiner b
Kurosawa, Chris Jericho b Billy Kidman, Bobby Eaton b David Taylor, Ice Train b
Gambler, Nasty Boys b High Voltage
9/4 Tokyo (All Japan women - 3,260 free show): Yachio Kawamoto b Miho
Wakizawa, Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo d Momoe Nakanishi & Nana Takahashi, Manami
Toyota & Mima Shimoda & Yoshiko Tamura b Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita & Genki
Misae, Kaoru Ito b Mariko Yoshida, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue b Yumiko Hotta &
Tomoko Watanabe
9/5 Tokyo Budokan Hall (All Japan - 14,500): Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota
b Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue, The Patriot & Johnny Smith b Kentaro Shiga & Jumbo
Tsuruta, Giant Kimala II & Dan Kroffat & Jun Izumida b Giant Baba & Masao Inoue &
Satoru Asako, Gary Albright b Takao Omori, Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon
Honda b Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuchi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Triple Crown: Kenta
Kobashi b Stan Hansen, PWF & Intl tag titles: Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Mitsuharu
Misawa & Jun Akiyama to win titles
9/5 Matsudo (All Japan Women): Nana Takahashi b Sekiguchi, Yoshiko Tamura b
Momoe Nakanishi, Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b Yuka Shiina & Genki Misae, Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda & Tomoko
Watanabe, Toshiyo Yamada b Kaoru Ito, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida b Kumiko
Maekawa & Yumiko Hotta
9/5 Bakersfield, CA (Slammers): Samoan Kid b Dynamite Kid, Hombre de Oro b El
Toro Bravo, Bruce Beaudine b Verne Langdon, Bravo b Samoan Kid, Jeff Lindberg b
Tyrone Little
9/6 Shreveport, LA (WCW - 6,810/6,107 paid): Scott Norton b Ice Train,
Diamond Dallas Page b Joe Gomez, Hugh Morrus b John Tenta, WCW tag titles: Harlem
Heat b Terry Taylor & Rick Steiner, Lex Luger b Ric Flair, Scott Hall & Kevin Nash & The
Giant b Big Bubba & Morrus & Barbarian
9/6 Chalmette, LA (CWF): Tommy Martinelli b Blond Bomber, Kevin Northcutt b
Paul Edwards, Gator b Lord Humongous-DQ, Crazy Joe & T.J. Sullivan NC Ripper &
Saxon, Doink the Clown b Joe Kane, Tommy Rich b Doug Gilbert-DQ
9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Pancrase - 7,250 sellout): Satoshi Hasegawa b Kim Jon
Wang, Takafumi Ito b Osami Shibuya, Katsoumi Inagaki b Keiichiro Yamamiya, Manabu
Yamada b Kiuma Kunioku, Yuki Kondo b Frank Shamrock, Vernon White b Yoshiki
Takahashi, Jason DeLucia b Minoru Suzuki, Guy Mezger b Ryushi Yanagisawa, King of
Pancrase title: Bas Rutten b Masakatsu Funaki
9/7 Dallas Reunion Arena (WWF - 7,326): Bushwhackers b Justin Bradshaw &
Zeb 1/4*, Faarooq b Bob Holly 3/4*, Jose Lothario b Jim Cornette DUD, Stalker (Barry
Windham) b Jerry Lawler 1/2*, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns DCOR Grim Twins
*1/4, Sid b Vader 3/4*, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust **1/4
9/7 Springfield, TN (USWA): Vampire Warrior (David Heath) b Flash Flanagan,
Frank Morrell b Tony Falk, Street fight: Wolfie D b Jamie Dundee, Miss Texas b Luna
Vachon, Texas death match: Brian Christopher & Jesse James Armstrong & D & Morrell
b Vampire & Mike Samples & Falk & Jamie Dundee
9/7 Askall (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi & Yachio Kawamoto b Miho
Wakizawa & Sekiguchi, Nana Takahashi d Yumi Fukawa, Toshiyo Yamada & Yuka Shiina
b Genki Misae & Mima Shimoda, Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida & Manami Toyota b
Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada & Yoshiko Tamura, Etsuko Mita b Takako Inoue,
Reggie Bennett & Yumiko Hotta b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
9/7 Yardville, NJ (NWA - 300): Inferno Kid b Bud Precious, Ralph Soto DCOR Gino
Caruso, Crazy Ivan b Don Motoya, Lost Boys b Jack Rider & ?, Iron Sheik b Rik
Ratchett-DQ, Bad Attitude b Downward Spiral, Reckless Youth b Derrick Domino to win
NA title
9/7 Chatham, ONT (NWA - 155): Jimi V b Mike Legacy, Tommy Knox b Larry
Destiny, Geza Kalman Jr. won Battle Royal, Bobby Clancy b Danger Boy, Destiny &
Kodiak b Tim & Tommy Knox, Barbed wire baseball bat match: Tex Monroe NC Shawn
Brown, Doink b Lumberjack, NWA title: Dan Severn b Kalman Jr.
9/7 West Newton, PA (Pro Wrestling Express - 742): Extreme Militia b Giant
Hillbillies, M. Quackenbush b J.B. Destiny, Brian Anthony DCOR T.Rantula, Danny
Gregory b Lord Zoltan, Bubba the Bulldog b Bonecrusher-DQ, Black Cat & Paul Atlas b
Lou Marconi & Stevie Richards
9/7 Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canadian Wrestling Federation): Power Rangers b
Bobby Collins & Chad Ripley, Todd Bullet b Caveman Broda, Bobby Jay b E.Z. Ryder,
Robby Royce b Leatherface (Rick Patterson), Bugsy Sluggliano b J.T. Atlas, Spice
Richards b Vance Nevada
9/7 Houma, LA (Mid South Wrestling): Mr. Wrestling III (Dale Wolfe) b Shogun
Warrior, Twister b T.J. Sullivan-DQ, Bronco Bob b Crazy Joe-DQ, Joe Kane b Doink the
Clown, Frankie Rhodes & Kevin Northcutt b Ripper & Saxon, Tommy Rich b Doug
Gilbert-DQ
9/7 Hayward, CA (All Pro Wrestling - 65 sellout): Rick Turner b Jay Smooth, Joe
Applebaumer b Chicano Flame, Erin O'Grady b Bill Calhoun, Robert Thompson b Frank
Dalton, Michael Modest & Steve Rizzono b Chris Cole & Donovan Morgan
9/7 Greenville, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 70): J.W. Steele b
Russian Assassin (Johnny Dollar), Ric Nelson & Joe Harley b Freddy Rich & Michael
Williams, S.W. Steele DCOR Maxx Miles, Freedom Fighter b J.J. Justice, Cruiser Lewis b
Swat, Ricky Regal & Mikki Free b Desperado & Jake Mulligan
9/7 Spring Place, GA (World Christian Federation): Chuck Colt b Southern
Rebel, Randy Watkins b Billy Montana, Jimmy Sharpe b Outpatient, County Cruz &
Randy Rotten b Keith Karloff & Red Scorpion, Johnny Quaz & Joey Funk b Scotty James
& Watkins
9/8 Oklahoma City (WWF - 3,405): Jose Lothario b Jim Cornette, Bushwhackers b
Zeb & Justin Bradshaw, Faarooq b Bob Holly, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns b Grim
Twins, Stalker b Jerry Lawler, Sid DDQ Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
9/8 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP - 2,000 sellout): Korakuen Hall tag titles:
Tomoko Kuzumi & Tomoko Miyaguchi b Yuki Miyazaki & Rieko Amano, Mayumi Ozaki
& Amano & Sugar Sato b Cutie Suzuki & Commando Boirshoi & Miyazaki, Devil Masami
& Kanako Motoya b Miyaguchi & Fusayo Nouchi, Jaguar Yokota b Hiromi Yagi,
Dynamite Kansai & Kuzumi b Hikari Fukuoka & Candy Okutsu
9/8 Miyagi (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Yumi Fukawa &
Rie Tamada b Chaparita Asari & Yuka Shiina, Mima Shimoda b Genki Misae, Mariko
Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Kumiko Maekawa & Yoshiko Tamura, Kyoko Inoue & Takako
Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita
9/8 Marrero, LA (CWF): Crazy Joe DDQ T.J. Sullivan, Gator b Paul Edwards, Carl
Fergie b Tommy Martinelli, Joe Kane b Mr. Wrestling III (Dale Wolfe), Al Savage b
Doink the Clown, Kevin Northcutt & Gary Nations b The Ripper & Saxon, Doug Gilbert b
Tommy Rich
9/9 Columbus, GA (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 6,000): Super Calo b Pat
Tanaka *1/4, Nasty Boys b Amazing French Canadians (Jacques Rougeau & Pierre Karl
Oulette) *1/2, Submission match: Scott Norton b Craig Pittman 1/2*, Juventud Guerrera
b Joe Gomez 1/4*, Rick Steiner b Lex Luger-COR *3/4, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey
Misterio Jr. b Billy Kidman **, Meng & Barbarian NC Public Enemy *1/4, John Tenta b
Randy Savage-COR DUD
Special thanks to: Dan Parris, Tim Noel, Gregg John, Hernan Villareal, Trent Van
Driessen, David Millican, B. Daniels, Sarah Moore, Jesse Money, Chuck Langermann,
Georgiann Makropolous, Shawn Brown, Jeff Osborne, Robert Edlhauser, Bob Ryder,
Roland Alexander
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
8/11 ALL JAPAN: 1. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi won the PWF jr. title from Masa Fuchi. Both
guys tried and this match went around 20:00, but they've both declined a lot from three
years ago when they had a hot feud, Fuchi because of age and Kikuchi because he took
too much of a beating for too long. They worked the match around spots doing
consecutive back suplexes, which was a key spot in probably their most famous singles
match. Finish saw Kikuchi do rolling german suplexes on three occasions, and finally on
the third try, he got the pin which would be Kikuchi's first big singles match pin on Fuchi
after a number of tries. However, it came too late and it was terribly anti-climactic
although it was a good match. ***
8/18 ALL JAPAN: 1. Jumbo Tsuruta & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota beat Mighty
Inoue & Masao Inoue & Haruka Eigen in 9:52 when Momota pinned Masao. Kimura is
awful. They built the match around the Eigen spit spot and again he spit in Kimura's
mouth. Actually this was better than the usual because of Mighty and Masao Inoue who
did some wrestling and the finish itself was decent. *1/2; 2. Misawa & Akiyama & Honda
beat Baba & Izumida & Kimala II. II's body was so painted up he looked like a giant
mural. There were some awful spots with Baba vs. Honda. II & Izumida have some
double team spots that get over. Honda looked really bad. The match never got going
and Akiyama ended up pinning Izumida with the exploder suplex. *1/4
8/25 ALL JAPAN: 1. Albright beat Fuchi with a chinlock submission. Fuchi worked a
smart match, mainly doing hit-and-run stuff. But the match had no heat. *; 2. Misawa &
Akiyama & Honda beat Williams & Ace & Smith when Akiyama pinned Smith after a
Northern Lights suplex. The crowd was dead for this match as well. The work was on the
sloppy side as well. After the match they shot an angle building up Budokan where
Williams used a backdrop driver on Akiyama, dropping him on his head, and then the
two did the double impact on Misawa and left him laying as well. A nothing match,
however. *1/4
EMLL
The 9/6 Arena Mexico show was headlined by Rayo de Jalisco & Tinieblas Sr. & Dos
Caras vs. Gran Markus Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Apolo Dantes in no doubt a continuation
of the Rayo-Markus feud. We don't have results of the main since it didn't air on the
Sunday television, but in the second and third matches from the top on that show, Silver
King & Dandy & Mr. Niebla beat Emilio Charles Jr. & ***** Casas & Black Warrior in a
***1/4 match and Super Astro & Shocker & La Fiera beat Mano Negra & Rey Bucanero &
Bestia Salvaje in another good match.
The PROMELL taping on 9/6 in Cuautitlan was headlined by a Mexican national trios
title match with Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera & El Signo defending against El Brazo
& Brazo de Plata & Super Elektra, who beat them in a non-title match the week before.
Dandy had a hair vs. hair match on 9/3 against Chicago Express that one would suspect
Dandy won.
AAA
AAA has a show booked on 10/19 in Phoenix but we don't have a line-up for it.
Konnan is planning on running two stadium shows in October at the Tijuana bullring.
Tentative plan is that the first show will be in mid-October headlined by Rey Misterio Jr.
vs. Misterioso in a mask vs. mask match, Octagon & La Parka vs. Psicosis & Fobia, Leon
***** vs. El Hijo del Enfermero in a mask vs. mask match and Konnan is attempting to
do the Inoki mixed martial arts gimmick against a karate or tae kwon do guy. The second
would be around 10/30 as a Halloween spectacular using some WCW talent that's
already in the Southwest for Havoc and Nitro. Nothing is finalized on that deal but they
are looking at bringing in two WCW headliners plus do a triple hair match with
Pandilleros vs. Destructores and a mask match with Halloween vs. Thunderbird and a
singles with Perro Aguayo vs. Psicosis. The next Tijuana is 9/13 at the Auditorio with
Aguayo, Mascara Sagrada Jr., Destructores and Cibernetico as the Mexico City talent
being brought in.
The biggest show in company history using wrestlers from WCW, New Japan and WAR
has been moved from 11/20 to 11/29 in Mexico City.
They are building up a feud with Juventud Guerrera vs. Salsero to end up with a mask
vs. mask match. Salsero is a good flier but has been working prelim comedy style
matches so he's gotten used to that lazy weak offense.
Over the weekend, they had a show on 9/7 in Chihuahua which drew 3,000 with Konnan
& Aguayo vs. Killer & Cien Caras, Octagon & Parka & Latin Lover vs. Jerry Estrada &
Heavy Metal & Villano III, Rey Misterio Jr. & Perro Aguayo Jr. vs. Psicosis & Juventud
Guerrera and the minis, which for a show of that calibre is a weak crowd. Basically the
same crew on 9/8 in Juarez drew a sellout in an 8,000-seat arena. A second crew
worked weekend shots in Monterrey on 9/8 (Mascara Sagrada & Mascara Sagrada Jr. &
Mascarita Sagrada Jr. vs. Pierroth Jr. & Espectrito I & Halcon Dorado Jr.) and Nuevo
Laredo on 9/9 (Pimpinela Escarlata defending the Mexican light heavyweight title
against Latin Lover).
The 8/30 Juan de la Barrera Gym show in Mexico City drew 4,000. Pierroth Jr. is
suspended in the DF for all the wildness during the Janet vs. Migaly hair match on 8/16
including power bombing Lady Victoria. They held a hearing on 9/4 with Wolf Ruvinskis
with Konnan to try and settle all the problems. It came out amicable after some arguing.
The commission came out of it understanding why Konnan was doing the wild
FMW/ECW style matches but they still felt it was too radical of an approach. Konnan
promised that he wouldn't do that style within the DF anymore and they dropped the
threatened $1,500 fine and one month suspension. The commission has made it clear
that it's not going to tolerate wildness as they suspended Pierroth and also put EMLL's
Emilio Charles Jr. on probation for doing a fairly common heel spot of putting a
babyface's leg into the permanent chairs at Arena Mexico and kicking the chair.
The last Northern tour besides the 5,200 crowd on 9/1 in Tijuana saw Mexicali on 8/31
drew 3,500, San Felipe on 9/2 drew 3,000 and Nogales on 9/3 drew a sellout 2,700.
ALL JAPAN
The tour ended on 9/5 at Budokan Hall with the double headliner as Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace captured the PWF and International tag team titles beating Mitsuharu
Misawa & Jun Akiyama in the main event, while Kenta Kobashi retained the Triple
Crown pinning Stan Hansen. Apparently Hansen had one last great match left in him as
both matches were said to have been fantastic. The show drew an estimated 14,500 fans
but All Japan still announced it as a sellout 16,300. Apparently with the bloom off the
rose of this promotion, even in its home Tokyo area, due to staleness, they've been
announcing Budokan sellouts but the shows have been big crowds but they definitely
haven't sold out since June, or even before that. All Japan continues to sellout smaller
Korakuen Hall every time out which is no great accomplishment, but they had a string of
sellouts at both Korakuen and Budokan that dated back to around 1990 and they are
trying to keep it going publicly even though the reality isn't the case. The show was said
to have been great due to the two main events both being super matches. It opened with
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota over Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue when Kimura
pinned Eigen with an abdominal stretch dropped into a cradle in 10:44 and their typical
comedy match built around the Eigen spit spot. The Patriot & Johnny Smith beat Jumbo
Tsuruta & Kentaro Shiga in 11:58 when Smith pinned Shiga after a Liger bomb. It was a
pretty good match since it was mostly Smith working with Shiga and Smith looked really
good. Tsuruta was only in briefly, doing his trademark spots. Giant Kimala II & Jun
Izumida (Ryukaku Izumida has changed his ring first name to Jun actually about two
weeks back) & Dan Kroffat beat Giant Baba & Masao Inoue & Satoru Asako in 14:44
when II pinned Asako with a splash. It was a bad match with the foreign team breaking
up after the match with Kroffat kicking II in the groin. Gary Albright pinned Takao
Omori in 6:13 after a dragon suplex. Since Omori was doing the job, he dominated early
until Albright cut him off with his big suplexes which Omori sold huge. The match was
okay but too short since the fans weren't into the finish since it came before they were
ready for a finish. Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon Honda beat Toshiaki Kawada
& Masa Fuchi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi in 17:24 when Taue pinned Kikuchi with the nodowa
(choke slam). It was real good when Kawada was in with Taue as they beat the crap out
of each other and okay the rest of the way. The crowd takes Honda more as a comedy
figure than a serious star. Kawada was super over since he's a focal point right now with
his interpromotional match. The Kobashi-Hansen match went 26:07. Hansen came out
more serious than usual and didn't play to the crowd as he usually does in his ring
entrance. This got the crowd into it as Hansen being focused on winning the title for one
last time. This was said to have been Hansen's best singles match since his match with
Kobashi about three years ago which was a strong match of the year finisher, and this
was described as being in the ****1/2 range. A big spot came about 9:00 when Hansen
power bombed Kobashi on the floor and pounded on him for several minutes. Kobashi
finally made the comeback and smashed Hansen's lariat arm into the ringpost. Hansen
was selling the arm big. At this point the crowd was almost 50-50, as they were into
Hansen as the elder statesmen in what people figured was his last great match, and
Kobashi is over having just won the title after the long quest. At the 19:00 mark they
went back-and-forth with near falls. There was one super near fall when Hansen hit a
lariat and Kobashi barely kicked out when everyone in the arena thought it was the
finish. Kobashi came back with two lariats and got the pin. Hansen attacked Kobashi
after the match and the fans booed Hansen and threw the PWF belt into the crowd. The
finale saw Williams & Ace win the tag titles when Ace pinned Akiyama in 28:47 with his
cobra back suplex. This match had super pacing and was said to have been even better
than the Hansen-Kobashi match, but a shade below the tag match these two teams had
earlier this year which may have been the best match of the year. Ace and Akiyama were
crossing up each others' spots. Williams got a bloody lip at one point. Williams finally hit
the backdrop driver on Misawa, so Akiyama had to wrestle several minutes alone.
Akiyama later gave Williams a Northern Lights suplex on the floor knocking him out of
action. Williams and Misawa both recovered and later Williams gave Misawa another
backdrop driver which he sold like he was dead. Ace got one near fall after another on
Akiyama before finally putting him away. Even though Kobashi is the champ, Misawa is
still viewed by the fans as the top wrestler in the promotion and he got the best
reactions.
They did angles to set up both main events which is a change of pace since All Japan has
almost never done angles, which shows they know they've got to do more than they've
been able to get away with in the past because they were able to sellout based on simply
great work on top.
Nothing has been announced for the next tour from 9/28 to 10/18 with major shows on
10/12 in Nagoya and the final night at Budokan Hall.
After the show, Baba said the deal with Kawada at this point is still a one-shot deal
(there are rumors that Misawa and Nobuhiko Takada have already met to work out their
program for next year). When asked if it would be possible for the UWFI wrestlers to
work All Japan shows, he said no deal has been made but he'd be receptive toward one,
but said he wouldn't work with any other groups and said that he wasn't going to attend
the Jingu Stadium show.
9/1 TV show did a 2.8 rating.
The tag title change aired on television on 9/8, and the Kobashi-Hansen airs on 9/15
which should be a welcome relief since the television during August (which ironically
drew big ratings) was terrible.
NEW JAPAN
Lots of changes in the current tour due to injuries. This past week, Great Sasuke, Scott
Steiner and Scott Hall all canceled the upcoming tour. Sasuke of course canceled due to
his fractured skull and Steiner due to his hip injury, which must be serious since they
aren't expecting him for the tag team tournament in October either. The deal with Hall
apparently is that his WCW contract differed from the standard in that he can make his
own New Japan deal, and this tour was something that WCW booked him on and I guess
they didn't have the right to. Marcus Bagwell will take his place and face Shinya
Hashimoto in the first round of the WCW/New Japan single elimination tournament.
Hawk also canceled the tour about a month back because he underwent knee surgery, so
the big deal originally on this tour of doing several Steiners vs. Road Warriors matches
has totally fallen apart. Because of all the injuries, the late September run, traditionally
the company's second biggest house show run of the year (after August), is really
lackluster.
Sasuke has officially vacated the eight junior belts and all eight belts will go to the
winner of the 9/23 Yokohama match with Shinjiro Otani vs. El Samurai. The winner of
that match defends on 10/11 in Osaka against Ultimo Dragon. Since Pegasus (Chris
Benoit), Dean Malenko and Black Tiger (Eddie Guerrero) are all on the tour, it's
something of a letdown to see Samurai put in the match for all eight vacated titles.
The tag team tournament will be 10/12 with the finals on 11/4 with Masahiro Chono &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki, Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton,
Satoshi Kojima & Kurosawa, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka, Rick Steiner &
mystery partner, Keiji Muto & mystery partner, and Steve Regal & David Taylor.
For whatever reason, and it appears most of this is because of better crowd micing, the
8/24 and 8/31 television shows (airing the G-1 matches from 8/5 and 8/6 respectively)
had the matches actually come across slightly better on television than they did live in
the arena, which is saying something considering how good the 8/5 show was live.
With the Dome canceled, the belief right now is that Big Japan and Kendo Nagasaki will
do some kind of an angle at the 9/15 show in Nagoya, perhaps leading to some New
Japan wrestlers appearing on the Big Japan Nagoya card the next day, and Nagasaki
working an underneath singles match on 9/23.
8/31 TV did a 3.4 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Great Sasuke made his first public appearance since his injury on his own show on 9/1,
but he had to be helped around the arena in a wheelchair. Michinoku Pro is going to
keep its 10/10 Sumo Hall booking even though its top draw can't appear, and the main
event will be Hayabusa vs. Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi).
It is believed that Nobuhiko Takada's final match with either New Japan or WAR will be
on the 10/11 Osaka show, so Takada & Yuhi Sano & Masahito Kakihara will probably
have to drop the six man titles (their opponents for that title defense still hasn't been
decided). After that point the speculation is that Takada and maybe a few others from
UWFI will affiliate themselves in an All Japan feud.
JWP has Sumo Hall booked on 10/13 for a show which will be broadcast in a three-hour
live prime-time television special on WOWOW. No matches have been announced
except Dynamite Kansai & Aja Kong will form a tag team in the main event.
I saw the top two matches on the RINGS 8/24 show. The Denilson Maia vs. Illoukhine
Mikhail match was a shoot. What actually happened after the match is that it was ruled a
draw and the Brazilians, in particular Maia and Renzo Gracie, started screaming to the
ref that Maia should have won via decision (which he probably should have). Mikhail by
this time had gone back to the dressing room, but his manager, Volk Han, was still in
there arguing with Gracie and with Akira Maeda. The argument didn't occur backstage
as was reported here. Anyway, I guess Gracie told them that unless the match continued,
they weren't going to have Ricardo Morais come out for the main event so Maeda
ordered a re-start. Mikhail didn't seem thrilled about it coming out but even in the restart
the finish was controversial as the ref stopped it when Maia caught Mikhail in an
inverted cross armbreaker, but Mikhail hadn't submitted yet. Morais vs. Yoshihisa
Yamamoto went 46 seconds and it was really too short to tell if it was a work or a shoot
although I'd guess the latter. It looked no more or no less real than the Mike Tyson-
Bruce Seldon match and even though the fans were nicer about it than the boxing fans,
you can imagine that they weren't thrilled that "their" top star losing that fast in the
main event.
What was surprising after seeing it on tape was the Kimo vs. Kazushi Sakuraba match on
7/14 which I figured was a work since it set up Kimo's appearances on the UWFI shows.
From seeing the tape, that match was a shoot and an exciting one at that as Sakuraba
was impressive being competitive.
Hiromichi Fuyuki debuts for IWA on its September tour.
Mr. Pogo was at a few of the FMW house shows last week. He was dressed up in his
gimmick but didn't wrestle because of his neck injury, but is expected to return for the
next tour. The two biggest shows on that tour are 9/20 in Sapporo at Nakajima Sports
Center with Head Hunters defending the Brass Knux tag titles against Wing Kanemura
& Hido, Taka Michinoku defends the Independent jr. title against Ricky Fuji, Pogo vs.
Super Leather in a Texas Death match, Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda defend the World street fight six man titles against Terry Funk & The Gladiator
& Horace Boulder, and Hayabusa vs. Hisakatsu Oya with the winner getting a shot at
Kanemura's world title. On 9/24 at Korakuen Hall the main is Hayabusa & Pogo &
Tanaka vs. Funk & Gladiator & Boulder.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling has a tour from 9/15 to 10/8 with Abdullah the Butcher, Black
Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) and Shocker as the top foreigners. Opening night in Aomori
has Yoji Anjoh & Tiger Mask Sayama defending the TWA tag titles against Abdullah &
Daikokubo Benkei and a handicap match with Takashi Ishikawa vs. Shinobu Tamura &
Shigeo Okumura & Gekko. Storyline there is that those were the three wrestlers who
complained about Ishikawa and got him removed as company President. The match to
determine the new company President between Ishikawa vs. Anjoh is on 10/8 in Osaka,
which also has Sayama vs. Great Kabuki, Abdullah vs. ?, and a junior heavyweight
tournament with Gekko, Tamura and Shocker.
Jaguar Yokota appeared on the JWP show on 9/8 at Korakuen Hall beating Hiromi Yagi.
And in what is believed to be a world record for the longest title stipulation match in
history, on 9/30 in Omiya, Shoji Nakamaki faces Mitsuhiro Matsunaga in a Chandelier
broken glass cabinet drum barbed wire baseball bat barbed wire street fight death
match.
Beulah and Patricia from ECW won't be appearing on the next IWA tour.
On the UWFI show a few months back, the masked wrestler 200% Machine is Tom
Bertan (Tom Burton), 150% Machine is the wrestler Kamikaze from Wrestle Dream
Factory, and 100% Machine is indie wrestler Fukumentaro.
USWA
Bill & Jamie Dundee beat The Moondogs on 9/3 in Louisville to win the USWA tag titles.
Moondogs appear to be gone.
The Labor Day show with Jerry Lawler and Scott Bowden putting up their hair against
Sid Vicious' Unified title, which naturally Lawler regained, did a poor house of about
$3,800 (about 700 fans), which is probably still profitable since the Flea Market has so
much lower costs than the Mid South Coliseum. Neither Lawler nor Vicious was even
brought up at television this week since both are on the road working for WWF.
They move back to Friday this coming week, 9/13, with a card billed as a series of dream
matches. The storyline is that Bart Sawyer's dream match was a singles match against
Steve Doll (why?), Referee Bill Rush's dream match was a match against referee Frank
Morrell with the winner getting to be the full-time USWA referee on the road, Mike
Samples dream match was against Flash Flanagan, Brickhouse Brown's dream match
was against Koko Ware and if he wins, Ware has to form a tag team with him, Bill
Dundee's dream match is a singles match with Randy Hales and if Dundee wins, he gets
to become booker (I'm not making that one up). They came up with a plausible storyline
to explain the inexplicable. Hales said that if he knew Dundee was going to pick a match
against him as a dream match that he would never have done the dream match concept,
but that if he didn't agree to the match, the entire clique (Dundees, Tommy Rich, Tony
Falk, Samantha) wouldn't work the show and he wouldn't be able to put on the card.
Dundee said that if Hales just agreed to let him run the promotion he wouldn't beat him
up but Hales said he'd rather have his neck broken then hand the job over to Dundee.
Miss Texas' dream match was a back alley street fight (strip match) against Luna
Vachon. Jamie Dundee's dream match was a handicap match with he and father Bill
against Wolfie D. Brian Christopher's dream match was a singles match against manager
Scott Bowden. Wolfie D's dream match was a tag match with Jesse James Armstrong
against the Dundees in a barbed wire match. Tommy Rich's dream match was a match
against Christopher with Tony Falk as referee with the winner getting title shots at both
Lawler's unified title and also at Shawn Michaels' WWF title and the loser having to
leave town for 30 days. Since Rich is booked starting in two weeks for IWA in Japan, I
guess that tells you what you need to know about that result.
Luna is now doing a gimmick where she bites people on the neck where they say she is
biting the carotid artery and it acts like a sleeper hold. It looks like she's giving the guys a
hickey and they pass out.
They are out of Nashville for four weeks because of the fair.
ECW
There were no shows this past week with them returning to action with shows this
upcoming weekend.
9/13 in Jim Thorpe, PA is entitled "The Unlucky Lottery" with Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam,
Sandman & Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven & Brian Lee in a stipulations to be drawn at
ringside match, Perry Saturn vs. Pit Bull #2 , Gangstas vs. Shane Douglas and a partner
he picks at ringside in an ECW tag title match, Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Mikey
Whipwreck & Louie Spicolli, Axl Rotten & Hack Myers vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley & D-Von
Dudley in a Nightmare Partners match (basically the AAA Parejas Increibles gimmick) a
match that must end via submission with Taz vs. Little Guido plus Steve Williams and
Johnny Smith.
9/14 is billed as When Worlds Collide, and besides already announced Terry Gordy &
Williams & Dreamer vs. Eliminators & Lee, Raven vs. Pit Bull #2 and Sabu & Van Dam
vs. Kroffat & Furnas, will be Douglas vs. Spicolli for the TV title, Taz vs. Smith, Buh Buh
vs. Rotten and a tag title match to be announced.
9/20 in Plymouth Meeting, PA has Raven vs. Van Dam, Sabu vs. Saturn, Douglas vs. Pit
Bull #2 , Gangstas vs. J.T. Smith & Guido for the tag titles, Dreamer vs. John Kronus in a
weapons match, Taz vs. Smith and Gordy vs. Lee in a match that can only end with the
Oriental spike.
9/21 in Middletown, NY has Raven vs. Sandman in a cage match for the title, Sabu &
Van Dam vs. Eliminators, Gangstas defend tag titles against Samoan Gangsta Party,
Gordy vs. Lee in the Oriental spike match, Douglas defends TV title against Pit Bull #2
and Taz vs. Smith.
Axl Rotten's new gimmick is not a gay gimmick based on local indie wrestler Twiggy
Ramirez but a punk music gimmick based on Marilyn Mason.
The proposed (but never announced publicly) ECW dates for October in New Orleans
and Biloxi, MS are definitely off. There were also very preliminary talks about running a
show at the Olympic in Los Angeles but that doesn't look like it's going to happen at any
time soon.
The plan right now is to build for the biggest show of the year on 11/16 as the November
to Remember. It's a definite that won't be a PPV show nor that there will be a PPV date
for at least four months as to properly market something new like that you need to give
the cable companies a good four month advance on the date and as of right now nothing
of that type has been done.
Joel Gertner is a riot doing the heel ring announcer gimmick although it's basically the
short-term payoff stuff. He insults the fans and Sandman canes him.
HERE AND THERE
The reason the Frank Shamrock vs. Allan Goes match didn't air on the Kings of Pancrase
PPV was due to legal reasons. There is a lawsuit pending between Goes and Pancrase
regarding Goes' tearing his achilles tendon in the match, so Pancrase didn't want the
match broadcast in the U.S.
According to Peter William, Otto Wanz' co-promoter of the CWA, the reason Maxx
Payne and Brian Armstrong left is because they had planned on doing a hard rock CD in
the Austria with Payne playing guitar and Armstrong singing. The deal fell through. Otto
Wanz is similar to Giant Baba in his traditional approach so wouldn't let Payne use the
guitar as a gimmick. Besides, as mentioned before, crowds and business are way down.
To show how bad, they've announced that there will be no tournament next year in
Vienna, which is something that has been held annually since World War II. The main
reasons, besides low attendance, is that noise regulations for the outdoor shows are now
that the cards must end at 10 p.m. and they were unable to get a license to allow them to
keep the shows going until 11 p.m., and also that taxes are high. Wanz pays both a sports
tax and an entertainment tax because as a traditionalist, he refuses to admit pro
wrestling is worked and thus pays the sports tax. Apparently the government promised
Wanz and the other local promoters that as soon as they "admit" that they aren't sport,
the government would pay the sports tax back, but the government, which is in a
financial bind, has changed its mind and is forcing the local promoters to pay both taxes.
The WWF doesn't have this problem because they admitted that their shows weren't
sport to local town councils.
The next CWA tournament starts 9/12 in Hannover. The biggest shows on the tour will
be 10/5 when old-timers Rene Lassartesse and Axl Dieter will be brought back for a
legends match, and on 10/12 when Franz Schumann defends the CWA middleweight
title against Mike Lozansky.
Oregon Championship Wrestling has a show 9/13 in Eugene, OR with Moondog Moretti
& The Kat & Lil Nasty Boy vs. Billy Two Eagles & Amy Burns & Cowboy Lang.
The North South Wrestling Alliance based in South Carolina has been fined $900 by the
state athletic commission for running shows without a license and using unlicensed
wrestlers.
Daniel Byrd of P.O. Box 105, Natrona Heights, PA 15065 has put out a booklet for $5
listing real names and with trivia questions largely WWF related.
Upcoming indie dates in the Baltimore area are 9/13 MEWF in Dundalk, MD; 9/14
MEWF in College Park, MD; 9/21 IPWA in Alexandria, VA; 10/13 MEWF in Dundalk,
MD and 10/26 IPWA in Alexandria, VA.
Any East Coast promoters looking to book MEWF wrestlers can contact Bob Starr at
7490 Rabon Ave., Baltimore, MD 21222.
Wahoo McDaniel continues to work his "retirement match" as gimmicks throughout the
Carolinas.
Larry Sharpe and King Kong Bundy have put out a comedy/serious book as a guide to
becoming a pro wrestler called "Hittin' the Mat" at Department 188, Mantua, NJ 08051.
For example, in the dos and don'ts of being a pro wrestler, they emphasize good hygiene.
"No one wants to wrestle someone who stinks or has bad breath. Even if your gimmick is
to be a stinking bum, but a good-smelling stinking bum."
The Mickey Doyle retirement on 8/16 reportedly actually drew 682.
Some CWA updates at the Dallas Sportatorium. The 8/30 show drew 1,100 fans, about
450 of which were paid for a Charlie Norris vs. One Man Gang cage match plus High
Voltage (not the WCW team) winning the tag titles from the Sicilian Studs and Terry
Gordy worked the show. Grizzly Smith was let go as booker because Devon Michaels
wanted to run things on his own and being a bodybuilder type, really wants to push guys
with muscles on top.
Chris Adams taped television in Terrell, TX on 9/5 with Johnny Mantell and James
Beard has his bookers and they have house shows in the Louisiana/Mississippi area
booked for October.
Reckless Youth beat Derrick Domino to win the NWA North American title on the 9/7
show in Yardville, NJ. The champion was Tommy Cairo but he no-showed. The highlight
of the show was Iron Sheik doing the Macarena dance which apparently was hilarious
and it does sound like it has possibilities.
The Von Erich 30-minute episode on "A Current Affair" was rebroadcast the last week of
August.
The Power Zone wrestling ring, owned by Tom Jones, was apparently stolen as there was
an article this past weekend about the missing ring saying it was the same ring that
people like Danny Hodge and the Von Erichs wrestled in. The police report valued the
ring, which has been used for wrestling matches in Oklahoma for 50 years, at $10,000.
Eric Shaw is attempting to put together a show for 10/24 in the Los Angeles area with
Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie and Rob Van Dam but don't know location yet.
WCW
Sean Waltman officially got his release this past week from WWF after all and is legal
and available to work WCW and is expected to be introduced either on the PPV or Nitro
next week. It certainly appears the two companies are playing childish games with each
other on items like this.
The minis matches this week at house shows and on PPV have been canceled. The
original plan was for Mascarita Sagrada Jr. to wrestle Espectrito I and the match was to
be announced on Nitro as taking place on Fall Brawl on the 9/9 Nitro show. That fell
through because they were already booked in Mexico. The second plan was for Mini
Frisbee to wrestle Espectrito II at the 9/15 PPV and on 9/16 Nitro along with on a few
house shows, but that has also fallen through because so many of the AAA wrestlers
don't have proper working papers. The plan for now is for the minis to be brought in
when all the paperwork is taken care of.
The Nitro originally planned for 10/28 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena has been moved
to the America West Arena in Phoenix.
If the NWO team wins at War Games, which it almost certainly will, the stipulations are
that the NWO gets its own segment on television (which will also allow Hall, Nash and
the rest to wrestle on television matches) and get their own tag team titles.
There was a lot of internal turmoil over the past week regarding how the angle on 9/2
went down basically killing off the Horsemen. Ric Flair (whose contract expires in
November) once again made noises about taking time off and Steve McMichael is said to
be pretty unhappy about how everything went down. Other mid-card wrestlers are also
unhappy because of the belief that Hogan won't let anyone else but his guys get over, and
they're already over so they don't have to hold anyone else back. Of course, with the
ratings where they are and Hogan signed through 1998, don't expect things to change
much.
Hogan himself had a major scare on 9/8, as he was on his jet ski riding around with his
six-year-old son Nicholas Bollea tied to the back in an inner tube when there was a
serious accident as Nicholas crashed into pilings. It could have been worse, but the
extent of the injuries were that Nicholas suffered a concussion and needed stitches in his
head and his arm was put in a sling but overall will be fine. Hogan still showed up for
Nitro the next day because he felt it was important to be part of the last angle before the
PPV show.
The basic plan for Halloween Havoc right now is Benoit & Anderson vs. Meng &
Barbarian, Ultimo Dragon vs. Jushin Liger for the eight belts, Diamond Dallas Page vs.
Eddie Guerrero, Rey Misterio Jr. defending the cruiserweight title against Dean
Malenko, Harlem Heat defending the tag titles against the Steiners, Ric Flair defending
the U.S. title against The Giant, Hogan defending the WCW title against Randy Savage
and a few more matches to be decided upon.
Former SMW referee Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) is now a regular ref in WCW
replacing Randy Eller, who appears to have been fired.
Nitro on 9/9 in Columbus, GA which drew 6,000 fans (not sure how much was paid but
the gate was $54,000) saw Super Calo pinned Pat Tanaka in 2:24 when Tanaka tried a
form of a superplex and Calo landed on him for the pin. Calo moved well in his debut but
there was a style clash so the match wasn't good. They had a commercial for the official
NWO t-shirts (home made NWO t-shirts are a big thing at most of the arenas right now).
Nasty Boys beat Amazing French Canadians (what a goofy name) who were announced
by their real names, Jacques Rougeau Jr. and Karl Oulette. There was no hints that these
two were a championship tag team elsewhere or that they were major stars in Canada or
anything, and they came out basically in a glorified jobber role. Finish saw Knobs hit
Oulette with his French flag and Sags pinned him in 3:25. It was Rougeau's first match
since his retirement match two years ago and he didn't do much. Oulette, who has
gained a ton of weight in all the wrong places, did a bunch of acrobatic moves anyway
and sort of reminded me of a younger Adrian Adonis in that he was way more agile than
you'd think he could be given his body type. Gene Okerlund called them the Rougeau
Brothers. Wonder if Vince will send a nasty legal letter since I'm sure he's got that
trademarked. Scott Norton beat Craig Pittman in a submission match in 2:59 when Ice
Train threw the towel in as Pittman was caught in the flash black (wakigatamae).
Juventud Guerrera beat Joe Gomez in 2:12 with a springboard screw splash (called hiro
con plancha). This match killed the show live. It was a horrible match to book because of
the size difference, huge technical discrepancy not to mention style clash. Gomez really
screwed the match up and was yelled at backstage, but the real problem was putting the
match together in the first place. Rick Steiner beat Luger via count out in 6:59 when
Patrick came out and called Luger to the back for the Sting angle. Rey Misterio Jr. kept
the cruiserweight belt beating Billy Kidman in 1:39. They could have had a great match
but were given no time. Meng & Barbarian NC Public Enemy in 10:41. Match was awful
except for one amazing spot where Barbarian came off the top rope to the floor and
crashed through a table when Grunge moved. Rocco also moonsaulted Meng through a
table. The match fell apart at the end. They did a Dungeon of Doom interview with
Konnan in his new guise as a Mexican gang member. Main event saw John Tenta beat
Randy Savage via count out in 3:00 when Teddy Long came out and called Savage to the
back. All the WCW wrestlers at the end surrounded two limos but the NWO guys were
gone, but they had spray paint cans and they attempted to spray paint WCW on their
limos, but it didn't work since it was pouring rain in the parking lot. I thought the TV
was good because of angles and intrigue, but it was horrible as a live show with the short
matches and terrible finishes. The fans live were furious, booing heavily after the show
because they didn't know about the angles in the parking lot and all the saw were guys
walking out in the middle of matches. All this wasn't lost on WCW, as they are going to
buy a video wall and bring it to all Nitros starting in January (currently they rent one for
PPV shows). They are also going back to Columbus, GA for a show in December and
going to only charge $5 a head for tickets as a way to make it up to the fans in the city.
Starrcade is now planned for 12/29 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. There had
been talk of Tokyo. Nitros in December are 12/2 in Dayton, OH; 12/9 in Charlotte; 12/16
in Pensacola; 12/23 in Macon, GA and 12/30 in Knoxville.
TV ratings for the weekend of 8/31-9/2 were Main Event at 1.5, Saturday Night at 2.6,
Pro at 1.2 and Nitro with a 4.3 rating and 7.0 share (4.0 first hour, 4.6 second hour) and
the Nitro replay with a 1.2 rating and 2.8 share.
The Nitro rating actually would have been a record 4.4 had they not ended the show nine
minutes early which was a screw-up big-time. What happened was they didn't do the
Steiners vs. Sting & Luger match because Scott is injured and can't work so they did a 39
second match when it was blocked off for 6:00, and the Randy Savage squash that week
also went short and the eight-man didn't make up for the lost time for whatever reason.
The angle at the end, while entertaining television, was poorly planned from a time
management standpoint. And then Hogan and Giant did an estimated $40,000 damage
to the set in something that wasn't planned. The peak rating for Nitro that week was 4.7
for the Horseman vs. Dungeon match and the rating fell off during the post-match angle.
For the weekend of 9/7-9/9, Main Event did a 1.4, Saturday Night a 2.5, Pro a 1.7
(Glacier debut after six months of hype) and Nitro did a 3.7 (3.7 first hour, 3.7 second
hour) and Nitro replay did a 1.4.
The Baywatch episode filmed last year with Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Vader,
Kevin Sullivan and others from WCW was rerun this past week.
Saturday Night tapings on 9/4 in Gainesville, GA before a papered full house of 1,800
saw among highlights, Page over Duggan via DQ when Patrick DQ'd him for using a
closed fist; Bobby Walker over Anderson via DQ when Patrick DQ'd him for an over the
top rope, V.K. Wallstreet over Savage via DQ when Savage used an elbow off the top on
ref Randy Anderson; Bobby Eaton pinned David Taylor when Geeves tripped Taylor in a
bad match, Chris Jericho pinned Kidman in a good match and a bunch of squashes.
The actual crowd for WCW's house show on 8/31 in Utica, NY was 1,114. Business was
much better this past weekend. With shows that were weak on paper, with three matches
deep with Hall & Nash & Giant over Bubba & Meng & Barbarian (Barbarian missed
Shreveport so Morrus subbed), Luger over Flair in what fans live were led to believe was
a U.S. title match but when Luger won no announcement of a title change was made and
Flair left with the belt, and Heat keeping the tag titles beating Rick Steiner & Terry
Taylor (sub for Scott) drew 6,810 (6,107 paid) and $60,911 on 9/6 in Shreveport; 5,463
paid and $52,914 on 9/7 in Little Rock and 2,900 (2,406 paid) and $31,635 on 9/8 in
Jackson, TN.
WCW may have a minor Germany tour from 12/3 to 12/16 but a lot of the major names
would be kept home to do Nitros.
Glacier debuted on television on Sunday. They played it up huge. He didn't look
particularly good or bad, but overall he's mainly an elaborate ring entrance doing a
martial arts comic book type gimmick aimed at a kids audience.
Scott Hall's head was split when Savage did the chair shot on him on the 9/2 Nitro.
It appears that Nancy Sullivan fell out of her top on that show although the camera
switched to the opposite angle saving her embarrassment before it happened. It
appeared to be during the finish where she bent over to hold Ric Flair's hands while she
had the figure four on Kevin Sullivan.
Another faux pas of live television was when Giant climbed off the podium during the
brawl moments after that, he tripped and took a spill on the floor, but at least he had the
poise to recover and beat everyone up rather than overreact to it.
On the 9/9 show, Bobby Heenan accidentally called Meng "Haku" and Bischoff did an
elaborate on-air apology for it saying that Haku was his WWF name and he's in no way
associated with the WWF.
Hogan's second home in Los Angeles (his 18,000 square foot mansion is in the
Clearwater, FL area), a 3,700 square foot home which he bought from the late Redd
Foxx, is on sale for $1.5 million.
Bischoff was negotiating a new deal with Savage this past week.
WWF
Undertaker missed the weekend house shows due to a staph infection in his arm. He cut
the arm open doing the Boiler Room match on 8/18, and it apparently got infected over
Labor Day weekend when he worked some shots in Puerto Rico for Carlos Colon. He was
hospitalized and pumped full of IV fluids to kill the infection but wasn't well in time to
make the shots. There is chance he'll be ready for this coming weekends shows but it's a
day-to-day deal.
With Undertaker off the tour, they brought in Mark Henry and of all people, Cowboy Bill
Watts, to work angles with Mankind. Henry worked in Austin, Houston and Dallas,
ending up using the bearhug on Mankind. Not sure of the exact angle Watts did in
Oklahoma City (I didn't get a report from Tulsa so am not sure if Watts did the same
thing or not but would assume that he did). I believe Watts did an interview where he
talked about how great the WWF was and then Paul Bearer came out and Watts ended
up slapping him in the face and then Mankind jumped Watts. It was described as the
same angle Watts did with Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express in early 1984 which
built to probably the biggest house show run in the history of Mid South Wrestling.
Weekend house shows had Bushwhackers over Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Faarooq over
Bob Holly, Jose Lothario over Jim Cornette (very short match since Cornette's knee has
been swollen of late), Stalker over Jerry Lawler, Gunns vs. Grim Twins (finishes have
been Gunns winning or double count outs), Sid vs. Vader (finishes have been DDQs and
Sid winning) and Shawn Michaels over Goldust. Report from Dallas and Oklahoma City
were that both shows were pretty weak with Michaels-Goldust the only match in even
the ** range either night. Business continued strong as Austin on 9/5 drew 3,454 and
$49,557; Houston on 9/6 drew 6,948 and $95,314 which is a great figure going against
High School Football which is almost a religion in Texas; Dallas on 9/7 drew 7,326 and
$106,425 which is the biggest WWF crowd and gate ever in that market and the biggest
crowd in the market since around 1987; Oklahoma City on 9/8 for an afternoon show
did 3,405 and $49,485 which is the WWF's best gate in the city since 1990; and Tulsa on
9/8 at night drew 3,485 and $47,999 which is the WWF's best gate ever in Tulsa.
Henry got what was described as a polite response to his angle but there are lots of
catcalls when they announce him as the world's strongest man. They really should cool it
on that because even if one can make an argument that's true, because his performance
in the Olympics is so visible, fans don't buy it and it gets him negative heat. Although
that negative heat is nothing compared to the reaction from at least some fellow
wrestlers who are jealous of his guaranteed contract without having had one match and
the fact he was being paid by the WWF during his Olympic training. It's similar to the
heat a few years ago on the bodybuilders. The wrestlers have the mentality that they
draw all the money and get paid based on what they draw and take the bumps and resent
guys getting money that they believe they've derived for the company without going on
the road and taking bumps, somehow like it's stealing money from them. It's a pretty
lame attitude in some ways that dates back to the territory and carny days, but it is still
prevalent among wrestlers who don't get guaranteed money (those on guaranteed
contracts look at things differently). Henry also has heat due to bad personality mixes,
not that his personality is bad but there are those who perceive it as such and then all the
other aspects go into it as well.
I wouldn't be shocked to see a surprise WWF title change at a house show before the
October PPV show to Vader. Two hints have been thrown, plus the fact that the 10/20
PPV show from Indianapolis won't have Michaels on the show. The double main is Sid
vs. Vader and a buried alive match with Undertaker vs. Mankind. The stips for the latter
appear to be something along the lines of they'll create a cemetery set with an open grave
and the match will start in the ring and end when one buries the other in the gave and
pours the dirt on him.
Current plan for the new TV season starting the weekend of 9/21 and 9/22 goes like this.
Mania will undergo a total facelift at 10 a.m. Saturday mornings being interactive with
phone calls, faxes, e-mail notes, etc. with a wrestler in studio. They are attempting to add
a show on WGN at 11 a.m. to follow Mania on Saturday mornings with the one show
leading to the other, but that isn't a done deal. On Sunday, Action Zone will be gone and
Superstars will take its place, but it'll be moved up one hour to 11 a.m. to avoid the NFL
pre-game shows on the networks. Superstars will be pulled from syndication and the
main show in syndication will be entitled "Challenge" but no word on what form that
show will take, as they aren't going back to doing separate tapings for Challenge.
There are other television proposals out there and McMahon still wants to do a late
Saturday night ECW-like live show from New York but the idea of doing it on PPV has
been dropped.
The final Superstars show in syndication this coming weekend will be ten years of
highlights of the show and supposedly air famous clips with lots of people who aren't
with the company any longer.
All charges were dropped in Syracuse, NY against the military guys who attacked Shawn
Michaels, Davey Boy Smith and Sean Waltman last October. Don't know why.
On the Raw Championship Friday, Brian Pillman said that he was going to interview
Bret Hart at the 9/22 Mind Games PPV. While there is a one percent chance this will
change, the plan right now is that Hart won't be there and they are going to attempt to
make it clear to fans ahead of time that Hart won't be there because the last thing they
need now is the idea that they are using Hart to sell the PPV show and have him not
show up. The working plan is for Pillman to do something that winds up mocking Hart.
Hart did return on 9/8 in Durban, South Africa for a one-week tour. The first show of
the tour did a sellout 9,000 fans, and I believe the entire tour will be sold out with Hart
as the main attraction. They are taping a live national television special in South Africa
on 9/14 in Sun City headlined by Hart vs. Steve Austin and they may shoot an angle
there to build up Hart's return at Survivor Series.
Kurt Angle, the Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling at 220 pounds, was in the
office on 9/5 and had a meeting with Vince McMahon. They must feel that there's a
decent shot of getting him because that fact was announced on television, but there is no
deal done at this point. Interest has also been expressed in Matt Ghaffari, who took the
silver in Greco-roman in the superheavyweight division losing to Alexandre Karelin.
Tom Prichard is regularly training Duane Johnson (Flex Kavana in USWA), Henry and
Achim Albrecht for debuts shortly. Henry starts out on the next PPV against Jerry
Lawler. Johnson, with his background in the sport and some experience, is the most
advanced in the class. Albrecht has a soccer and boxing background before he got into a
high level of competitive bodybuilding. He's in his early 30s which is fairly late to start. I
guess the idea of using him is both the physique fetish which McMahon has had great
success in the past at marketing and also to try and create a German superstar for the
European tours. Ghaffari is 34 or 35, but then again, Iron Sheik started at about the
same age with a very similar background and had a very successful career.
They are hopeful to get Brian Pillman in the ring by mid-November but it's too early to
pinpoint a date, and hopeful for Ahmed Johnson to return by the December PPV show.
Johnson is said to be feeling a lot better.
An update regarding the Toronto Sky Dome show on 1/31. Sky Dome has both the big
set-up which they used for Wrestlemania VI, and an arena set-up which WCW once
used. The Arena set-up would be to just put seats on the stadium floor and lower deck
and accommodate 20,000, which is the idea, not to do a major stadium show that night.
It's simply a move to Sky Dome as the regular Toronto house show arena from Maple
Leaf Gardens because Sky Dome has been wanting WWF as a regular tenant for some
time.
9/29 in Madison Square Garden has Stalker vs. Goon, Bob Holly vs. Salvatore Sincere,
Alex Porteau vs. Justin Bradshaw, Freddy Joe Floyd vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Jake
Roberts vs. T.L. Hopper, a four-corners tag match for the titles with Owen & Davey Boy,
Gunns, Godwinns and Grim Twins, Savio Vega vs. Steve Austin, Marc Mero vs. Faarooq
for the IC title, Sid vs. Vader in a lumberjack match and Michaels & Undertaker vs.
Goldust & Mankind. It'll be interesting to see how this does because it'll be the first time
WWF has attempted to run the New York market without local syndicated television
since around 1968.
TV ratings for the weekend of 8/31-9/1 saw both Mania and Action Zone do 1.3 ratings.
For 9/6 to 9/9, the Raw special did a 1.8, Mania a 1.2, Action Zone 1.7 and Raw 2.4. For
whatever this is worth, Raw's audience consisted of 35% kids and teens, its highest
percentage to date (or its lowest percentages of adult audience to date, however one
wants to take it), while Nitro's audience in the second hour head-to-head was 83%
adults and 17% kids and teens.
THE READERS PAGES
THESZ BOOK
I recently had the chance to compare the Lou Thesz book "Hooker" with the Japanese
translation edition by Koji Miyamoto and the difference was shockingly large. Although
the Japanese hard-cover fancy book contained 200 photos and was sold nationally
through Baseball Magazine Sha as opposed to the mail-order process of the American
book, the Japanese book completely omitted any kayfabe information and was written as
an autobiography of a hero called "The Iron Man."
I can't say that it was bad, since the Japanese appreciate pro wrestling living legends
more than Americans and circulation figures are everything in that industry. Because the
book sold to the general public, the publisher decided to keep the myth and fantasy
about Lou Thesz and pro wrestling. The final outcome is there are two very different
autobiographies of the same person. But I was deeply moved by the historical facts one
could only learn from the English version and I speak very highly of that book. It was
another example of Weekly Pro Wrestling style which is heavily edited and skewed print
journalism.
I found a letter in the readers page saying that Tarzan Yamamoto should have covered
New Japan shows from paid seats and not doing so was his mistake. However, Weekly
Pro has never been true journalism. It's a double structural illusion derived from pro
wrestling. It's part shoot journalism of course, and even includes worked-shoot print
angles, but it is still the magazine fantasy that we all love, so it would have been foolish
for it to report on New Japan matches at that time.
I know that many Observer readers subscribe to Weekly Pro only for the photos and I
would rate it as the world's finest photo journalism wrestling magazine. It's worth
paying more than $10 each week to get it in the United States. But as evident in the Lou
Thesz book, you may be aware that in essence it is still the same as a Bill Apter
magazine. I have nothing against that. As with being in the ring, customers and readers
have a right to choose and pay for what they want and pro wrestling is a work business.
Some people prefer Atsushi Onita's theatrical wed drama. Others enjoy shootfighting. I
personally enjoy Lucha Libre. The problem in Japan is that there is no Observer or 900
lines and that's why Yamamoto's last word was that "journalism was dead."
The only true wrestling journalism in Japanese was probably my own book, "Worldwide
Pro Wrestling," published in 1995 by Shuei-sha. Sheui-sha is the nation's top publisher
and it's rare that the giant Random House type firm published a pro wrestling book for
the mass market. The reason I bring my own book up is that when I read "Hooker," it
was if I was reading my own book in English, especially the first chapter was amazingly
similar to a chapter in my book. I was so happy since the biggest legend in pro wrestling
explained this bizarre world in the same way I did.
The 8/14 Observer was your masterpiece issue and it's my regret that many Japanese
fans have not yet discovered it. As a native who grew up watching Antonio Inoki, the
article shows the realization of the international video age. Regardless of nationality or
where you currently live, wrestling fans share many of the same values of this universal
industry.
I'd like to bring up two matches in detail since I felt it made sense for readers.
The first was the Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match on June 26, 1976. Although
you stated it ended up as a shoot, I believe the time limit draw decision was
predetermined. But it was not a worked match. They never rehearsed anything or
discussed doing high spots. My belief comes from reading Hisashi Shinma's book called
"Good-bye Antonio Inoki" (1993). The manager of Inoki for 26 years never stated this in
print, but there were hints if you read between the lines. He wrote it as if the draw
ending was the provision that allowed New Japan to not pay Ali the $6.1 million. The
$1.8 million had already been paid in advance before Ali had arrived in Tokyo.
Remember at that time the exchange rate for $1 was 300 yen, and money figures of this
type were simply unheard of in Japan for any form of show business.
No matter what happened before hand, it was still something of a shoot match and it's
the right thing to compare it to the Dan Severn vs. Ken Shamrock match. I found the
same strained atmosphere in that match. What happened was beyond both fighters'
wildest imaginations or game plans, as they fought a very serious fight with enormous
fear of the skills of the other. Ali himself admitted that the match with Inoki was a very
fearful experience. I firmly believe had there never been an Ali-Inoki match, there would
have been no UWF, Rings, Pancrase or even UFC today.
It's interesting to note that in the 20th anniversary Ali-Inoki book published by Weekly
Gong, the editor stuck to his beliefs that the match was a shoot and that's why it was so
boring for the general public. While I didn't learn anything new from that book, it's great
that Japanese are always trying to learn from the past and that new wrestling fans are
learning important history from buying that book.
Karl Gotch, who taught the art of hooking to Yoshiaki Fujiwara and many others,
seconded Inoki in the match with Ali. He was interviewed in the book and talked about
Pancrase, his ideal pro wrestling promotion. While he praised Masakatsu Funaki and
Minoru Suzuki, his last two true students, he questioned why the Shamrock brothers
were pushed in Pancrase since he sees them as streetfighters and not wrestlers. He's
sure never changed after all these years.
Although Inoki lost a lot of his reputation with the public and well as experienced a
financial debt from the Ali match, he learned an important lesson which made him a
strong leader of the innovative venture capital business known as New Japan Pro
Wrestling. That leadership later led to him earning a Senatorial seat for one term, so pro
wrestling historians need to focus more on the importance of that one night in Budokan.
Inoki took the blame for the poor match, but there was a difference from the Shamrock-
Severn UFC match since Inoki was both the wrestler in the match and the promoter of
the match. Unlike the Vince McMahon-Hulk Hogan relationship, Shinma, a real-life
religionist was a business and artistic manager so Inoki's burden as a top star was much
bigger than that of Shawn Michaels today.
Everyone liked seeing Ali at the Atlanta Olympics. I'd like to mention that Inoki was the
only opponent of Ali who kept in contact with him. Over the last few years, they
appeared together in Peace and Harmony related events in Cuba, Los Angeles, North
Korea and Tokyo. It is well-known that Ali learned his showmanship that made him the
world's most famous athlete by growing up watching Gorgeous George and Fred Blassie.
However, it was Inoki who made him respect pro wrestling as a sport.
The other match I'd like to talk about was the Hulk Hogan vs. Inoki match on June 2,
1983. Your writing might give the impression that an accident happened during the
match, but it was actually a work. It was a Hisashi Shinma super angle which fooled
everyone, long before Brian Pillman-Kevin Sullivan took place and the impact was huge.
A famous example was that many young Japanese including 15-year-old Minoru Suzuki
decided to become pro wrestlers after watching that match in order to gain revenge on
Hogan for their hero.
The most amazing fact was that all of the national media, network television news and
newspapers blindly bought the angle. The media that didn't cover pro wrestling reported
Inoki going to the hospital and legitimate major news. Naturally after finding out the
truth, the media bashed pro wrestling as fake so Shinma's absolute peak as booker
actually ended up hurting the industry.
While things didn't take place as planned, it was an angle to explain the physical decline
of Inoki. Most agree that Inoki's peak as an athlete was 1974-75 and by this point in
time, Inoki suffered from a serious case of diabetes. He was unable to wrestle for three
months, but not because of an incident in that match but from diabetes and other
related illnesses. Where New Japan is distinguished as different from WWF and WCW is
the concept of athletic credibility. Although the IWGP tournament was Inoki's baby,
because of his illness, the booking committee gave the chance to a young and powerful
Hogan.
Neither the AWA nor the WWF created Hogan. Japanese fans first discovered his
enormous potential as a star and 1983 was during his athletic prime. It's sad that most
Americans saw Hogan after 1984. Vince McMahon's brilliant marketing idea was simply
a theft, using what had already happened within New Japan as his own market research
plan.
The last thing I'd like to mention wasn't a wrestling match, but something that happened
on October 14, 1989. While Senator Inoki was delivering a speech at a political meeting,
a thug assaulted him with a knife and Inoki was bloodied. All the television and
newspapers covered it as a major news story and nothing different has ever been
revealed today. But I wasn't the only one who smelled an angle. I'm not surprised by
anything that happens within the wrestling world, but I was scared when I saw the
television coverage all over the place. I believe that was the point when Shinma
recognized Inoki wasn't living in reality. When Shinma learned that Inoki made a secret
deal to offset his big debt in exchange for dropping out of the race to be Mayor of Tokyo,
Shinma went public. It was Shinma's mercy is not revealing everything that may have
kept Inoki out of jail and enabled him to finish his Senatorial term.
This year is the fifth anniversary of Riki Choshu being the Executive Booker of New
Japan Pro Wrestling. At the fifth G-1 tournament, he finally put himself over. But as a
long time New Japan follower, I never liked his way of thinking including his views of
wrestling journalism and I know I'm not the only one with that feeling among the
generation that watched the Ali-Inoki match live on television.
Choshu made a famous remark saying that Tarzan Yamamoto is the UWF concept itself.
It was funny that the man in charge of New Japan admitted that the UWF movement
was not created by Akira Maeda or Nobuhiko Takada, but manipulated by the editor of a
wrestling magazine. He recognized Yamamoto as not only his biggest enemy but his
main rival as being the most influential person in the pro wrestling industry.
As a wrestling booker, it is impossible to satisfy all the different types of wrestling
audiences at the same time. However, Keiichi Yamada is the rare exception so he is the
best booker in the world in the New Japan junior heavyweight division. If one is running
a major league promotion, they need to target the marks, smarks and smart fans
combination. Choshu focused too much on what smarks think through reading too much
Weekly Pro. I believe that's the real problem with the pro wrestling scene in Japan
today.
Live attendance is record breaking and magazine readership is high, but that's all within
the pro wrestling village. In the real world outside the village, weekly television ratings
air in the late night time slot and ratings are low. The turnover rate among wrestling
fans has shortened because they don't promote in a way to cultivate long-time fans.
Many pro wrestling insiders were happy to see Yamamoto go, but I hope Choshu ends
up being punished as well. Otherwise, many will point to the peaking of the New Japan
empire very soon.
Tadashi Tanaka
New York, New York
DM: Over the years I've talked with a lot of people regarding the Ali-Inoki
and I'm pretty sure the story in the 8/14 issue was accurate as I heard
basically the same story from several insiders to the match over the years.
Independently, in the Ali biography by Thomas Hauser, which is an
excellent and extremely accurate book, the story of Ali-Inoki was related the
same way. I've heard many different version of the Hogan-Inoki match story
including the one mentioned. The key point whether or not it was a planned
finish of that match or not, is that the post-match changed the face of
wrestling in Japan and the screwed up finish in the rematch one year later
only made a bad situation worse.
NWA
The reason the NWA doesn't have the power and prestige of old is simply the promoters
won't work together for the benefit of all. Most of the NWA promoters only care about
themselves and getting themselves over. It's time to work together so we can make some
of the money there to be made rather than WWF and WCW having all of it. Cooperation
is not only beneficial, it's crucial to the survival of the independents. NWA means
cooperation to me.
Shawn Brown
NWA Promoter
Chatham, Ontario

 

Sept. 23, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Welcome to
WCW in 1996 with Fall Brawl PPV, everyone lying to
everyone else, more fun and games
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 23 September 1996 01:03
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 September 23, 1996
WCW FALL BRAWL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 71 (45.5%)
Thumbs down 56 (35.9%)
In the middle 29 (18.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Super Calo 51
Konnan vs. Juventud Guerrera 38
Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit 34
WORST MATCH POLL
Scott Norton vs. Ice Train 54
War Games 37
Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys 8
Based on phone calls and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 9/17. Statistical
margin of error: +-100%
Fall Brawl. Great undercard wrestling. Bad main events. And booking with more holes
than Swiss Cheese. Welcome to WCW. That's how it has been. That's how it will be. If
you want to see good matches, be happy because you'll get a lot of them on almost every
PPV show now, just not on top. If you want to see good main event matches and don't
care about the prelim matches, then you've got the WWF with Shawn Michaels, soon to
have Bret Hart, and little undercard depth. If you want booking that makes sense within
its own parameters, stick with ECW. When it comes to PPV, the choices are obvious and
at least each side has one strong item on its plate to deliver.
Let's see the logic for this week. Randy Savage is a challenger that nobody believes has a
prayer of winning the title from Hulk Hogan on the next PPV show. How does WCW
convince its crowd that Savage actually has a chance? They beat him in a singles match,
and then have him come back and get destroyed again in a later angle.
It's War Games. The most violent and dangerous match of all-time. Who do Lex, Flair
and Arn get for their fourth partner when it appears Sting is gone against a team that has
a huge size advantage and has been running roughshod including spray painting them,
busting up their car, etc? Why, they get nobody, even though two ready and willing
Horseman are there and theoretically another 40 WCW wrestlers should be there as well
begging to get in on the fight since it's all anyone underneath talk about on their
interviews to the exclusion of getting their own programs over. Well, WCW figured out
that makes no sense, so they decided not to have Steve or Deborah McMichael (who
were there) on camera. After all, that wouldn't make sense. Then, during an interview,
Sting shows up saying it wasn't him that made the attack last week but nobody believes
him. Why didn't Sting call his best friend Lex up to explain it to him that night, being
that the attack was on national television. Don't worry, there's a great explanation there.
As explained the next night in Nitro by both Tony Schiavone and Eric Bischoff, Sting was
in Japan last week doing a promotional tour and didn't know what happened. Only
problem was, they forget to tell Sting his own angle before television, so he improvised
on the live interview saying that he was in Atlanta after flying in from Los Angeles, saw
Nitro on television and was so people didn't trust him that he decided not to talk to
anyone, including his best friend, for a week. Then Sting comes into War Games anyway,
since Flair and company went in without a fourth guy. Then he leaves. Wasn't the whole
idea of the cage so nobody can get in or out? And why did three referees end up in the
ring at the end? And then there was a finish where it appeared Lex Luger submitted to
the fake Sting's scorpion. Except the next night on Nitro they said Luger never
submitted. So why did the match end? And what does it make Sting look like when they
can get a bum like Jeff Farmer who everyone in the crowd knew was bogus (those poor
announcers still had to sell it) and he was able to do everyone of Sting's spots with no
problem? And because the NWO wasn't under contract, they were able to hold up
Bischoff that if they won the match, they'd get their own TV show or they wouldn't
appear. Does WCW make it a practice of advertising a main event match for one month
without having anyone under contract? And then, to top it all off, after Sting walks off
and half turns heel, Flair and Anderson have a post-match brawl against Hogan, Hall
and Nash, and get no help from Benoit or McMichael, and with no logical way to get
them out of the picture, they simply walk off as well (this was off camera but there was
no explanation on television as to where they had gone or why they weren't fighting
other than perhaps the NWO had signed up a magician who made them disappear).
Then the entire NWO team destroys Savage for several minutes and not one WCW
wrestler tries to save him, despite a whole PPV card filled with people who supposedly
want to drive the NWO away. Finally, somebody tries to save him. Elizabeth. What???
Where does this come from. Wasn't she just trying to destroy him last week? And then,
as she's getting symbolically raped and pillaged and spray painted, where are the
Horseman to save her? Well, must be that they were mad at her for still having feelings
for Savage. Okay, but then why on television the next night were they all together and
nobody ever questioned her about Savage and her behavior. And after Savage was
destroyed by a band of thugs and with his ex-wife in the pile, did he show up the next
night without even a scratch, do his regular incoherent interview not bringing any of it
up and not even mentioning Elizabeth. Welcome, to the Twilight Zone of booking.
Nothing has to make sense because whatever is booked is going to be changed at the last
minute by HH, with no time to put the stories back together. But it doesn't matter,
because ratings are good because they've got the angle that can't be destroyed.
But the undercard was great. Of course live, it was pushed as a one match show, the fans
in Winston-Salem at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum came to see their Horsemen get
revenge. And they left with all the air out of their sails. Too bad. It's been something like
eight years since the Greensboro market has turned out like this for wrestling--11,300 in
the building, 10,714 paid, $153,914 and another $52,000 in gimmick sales (mostly
Horseman merchandise which outsold NWO four-to-one, something that is no doubt
uniquely geographical and wouldn't happen anywhere else). They didn't care about the
guys doing moves they'd never seen, even if their eyes were popping out a few times
when they did them.
1. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) pinned Chavo Guerrero Jr. (Salvador
Guerrero III) in 13:07 when he reversed a backslide (the move Guerrero beat him on
Nitro with) into a Diamond cutter. Shockingly good. Page was really impressive carrying
Guerrero, who is still very green although he has potential. Actually a great opener
except it went a few minutes too long. Good crowd reaction, great moves, exciting near
falls. Page worked so well you really didn't get a sense Guerrero was only half his size.
Guerrero did moves like a springboard clothesline, dropkick off the top, a flying
huracanrana off the top. Page got a huge pop when he spun Guerrero into a doctor bomb
for a near fall before the finish. ***1/2
2. Ice Train (Harold Hoag) beat Scott Norton in a submission match in 7:18. Norton
attacked Teddy Long, allowing Train to come from behind him with a full nelson and
Norton tapped out. They mainly traded power moves. It wasn't that bad, although there
is some problem with logic in that an armbreaker, which hurts like hell, can't make
someone tap and the wrestler gives up a move like that voluntarily, but a full nelson,
which is very uncomfortable but doesn't hurt to anywhere near the same degree, is a
finisher in this day and age. *1/4
3. Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) pinned Juventud Guerrera (Anibal Gonzalez) in 13:45 to
retain what is billed as the Mexican heavyweight title. Guerrero tripped over the ring
steps playing to the camera while not watching where he was going as he walked
backwards. A great match with Konnan using a lot of power moves and Guerrera doing
one spot after another springboarding off the ropes in both rings like an acrobatic kid
who was just given a new gym set-up. At one point Guerrero did a triple springboard
into a bodyblock, followed with a tope and a springboard huracanrana off the guard rail
that Konnan dropped into a power bomb on the floor. There were a few missed spots but
lots of incredible moves and good near falls. Both men got tired toward the end. Konnan
got near falls toward the end with a power bomb and jackknife pin, followed by a super
fishermanbuster, before finally winning with the power drop while standing on the
middle ropes ("Die Hard"). ***3/4
4. Chris Benoit pinned Chris Jericho (Chris Irvine) in 14:36. Yet another excellent
match. This had two negatives. The first is that the crowd was 100% for Benoit and
wasn't going to cheer for anything Jericho did, and the two had obviously worked out a
match designed for Jericho, the babyface, to get the crowd pops. So from a crowd
reaction standpoint, they didn't do the match for the live crowd. The other problem is
that the announcers didn't call a thing. Actually it was an incredible match with one
great move after another and stiff chops. Fans booed Jericho at some points because
Benoit was over huge being a Horseman, and were dead as Jericho got near falls and
came close to the upset. From a technical wrestling standpoint this was the best match
on the card and as good a match as you'll see anywhere. All kinds of great moves and
near falls before Jericho crotched himself on the turnbuckle, and Benoit got the pin with
a back superplex while standing on the top rope. ****
5. Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzalez) pinned Super Calo (Rafael Garcia) in 15:47 to retain
the WCW cruiserweight title. Even though Calo put on an incredible performance, since
nobody knew who he was, they didn't react to anything except an occasional big for a big
move. So the match was dead early since the early part was designed to give Calo
credibility and offense. He did some incredible moves including a dropkick off the top
rope to the floor, a plancha into a rolling head-butt on the floor (Super Astro spot) and
an incredible head scissors into a cradle coming off the top rope. Then Misterio Jr. came
alive with a full flip bodyblock, which seemed to do a number on his elbow. He did a
springboard into the ring but was met with a perfectly timed Calo dropkick. He did a
springboard into a Frankensteiner on the floor, and another springboard somersault
splash. The match ended with one of the best finishing moves ever, Misterio Jr. back
flipping off the top rope into the other ring, then springboarding off the top rope in one
ring onto the top rope in the other ring into a picture perfect huracanrana for the pin.
****
6. Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) retained their WCW tag titles beating Nasty
Boys (Brian Yandrisovitz & Jerry Seganowich) in 15:31. After the previous matches, this
didn't figure to hold up but it was a surprise. A strong change of pace, but the two teams
that are usually sloppy somehow weren't and worked a very stiff match with a lot of heat,
mainly due to Sherri being far more involved then usual. Sherri was so wild it was like
seeing the Sherri of old (or Janet in AAA). A surprisingly good match ending when
Sherri broke a cane over Knobs' head and Booker T pinned him. The funniest part of the
match was at one point when the Nasty Boys were beaten up outside the ring, Bobby
Heenan talked about how it would do Heat no good to win that way because they can't
win the titles on a count out, forgetting of course that they were already champs to begin
with. It appeared that neither Dusty Rhodes or Tony Schiavone recognized Heenan's
lack of logic, but finally it appeared somebody from the back monitoring it gave them the
word that it was Heat who were the champions. ***1/2
7. The Giant (Paul Wight) pinned Randy Savage (Randy Poffo) in 7:47. The match had a
lot of heat and was well put together and decently worked considering who was involved.
Finish was lame. Savage had bodyslammed Giant and given him the elbow off the top. At
this point Hulk Hogan came out and Savage chased him to the back, where he was
ambushed by chair shots by Nash and Hogan and thrown into the ring and pinned. Ref
Nick Patrick missed all this arguing with The Giant. *1/2
Mike Tenay did an interview with Luger, Anderson and Flair, where Sting came out and
said it wasn't him that attacked Luger. Luger didn't believe it. The highlight was Flair,
who must be on remote control these days, calling Tenay "Gene."
8. Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) & Kevin Nash & Scott Hall & Fake Sting (Jeff Farmer) won
the War Games over Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) & Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) & Ric Flair
(Richard Fliehr) & I guess Sting (Steve Borden) in 18:15. The match had super heat but it
was booked so much for ego that it left everyone on a flat note. Really there was nothing
particularly good about the match except that the feud is so over and the Horsemen were
so over that the match had great heat. They didn't bring the teams out together largely
because they wanted the element of surprise for the final two men in, and also because
they didn't want the fake Sting at ringside for so long that the crowd would chant fake
Sting at him and the announcers would be forced to pretend they didn't hear it and still
sell him as the real Sting. Hall started against Anderson for 5:00 which were pretty
uneventful. Of course the NWO won the coin flip (why can't I ever bet anyone on who is
going to win the coin flip in War Games). The Horsemen needed J.J. Dillon who was the
world champion coin flip picker with a strong of 55-0 in the 80s. Luger came in. Nobody
cared about Luger when he was announced, but he did get pops with his "hot entrance."
Hogan came in and the place went nuts waiting for Flair, who low blowed everyone in
sight. When the fake Sting came out, the place started chanting for the real Sting. The
fake Sting gave all the WCW team stinger splashes. Real Sting came out and gave all the
NWO guys Stinger splashes and then walked out, supposedly mad that nobody trusted
him. Hogan then legdropped Luger and fake Sting put him in the scorpion for the win.
*3/4
After the match Luger crawled to the back trying to find Sting while Flair & Anderson
brawled with Hogan, Hall and Nash. Savage came out and Flair & Anderson did the
disappearing act. Giant joined in as well and they destroyed Savage with a choke slam.
Elizabeth came out and they gave Savage another choke slam. They spray painted NWO
on Elizabeth's dress and on Savage and Savage was choke slammed again. Then the
NWO chased the announcers away and ended the show about nine minutes early. Well,
at least they didn't break any equipment on their way out.
*************************************************************
In following up on last week, we are in an environment right now, and this goes for
WWF as well as WCW, where everyone is working (read that lying) to everyone else,
even employees and doing angles, some of which have nothing to do with drawing
money or ratings and some of which do. Well, they are being done theoretically to build
ratings but ratings come from hooking casual fans, not doing insider angles that are
geared toward fooling the hardcores that are already watching religiously. Running
angles geared primarily for immediate reaction on the hotline and internet, and despite
thoughts to the contrary, people who subscribe to newsletters, spend time on the
internet when it comes to wrestling and call hotlines just by spending so much of their
day in those pastimes react very differently than people who occasionally watch one
hour of television a week. It's hooking those occasionals that is what makes a difference
in the ratings. Hooking hardcores can work as far as PPVs and house show attendance
since that's basically something limited to a small audience to begin with that is willing
to spend money on wrestling.
Looking at basic math, there are approximately 3.5 to four million homes watching
wrestling right now every Monday night. The biggest PPV show of the year,
Wrestlemania, drew less than 10% of that audience and most PPVs nowadays are doing
closer to four percent of the total Monday night TV wrestling audience. That four to ten
percent willing to spend money on wrestling is already watching religiously whether you
do a hotshot angle or not, or whether you don't even run angles. To increase TV viewers,
the main audience you are looking at and we are talking basically 95% plus of the
audience, is a group of people who don't look at pro wrestling as something they are
going to spend any money on. Just from a numbers standpoint, an angle aimed at
serious fans will only for the best angles (this year the only angles that fit that bill were
the Shawn Michaels return and the NWO angle) increase PPV orders by let's say, 50,000
orders. And that's 50,000 people out of the entire country. But 50,000 people out of the
entire country is just under an 0.1 difference in TV ratings points on cable. Nevertheless,
the mind set in both WWF and WCW right now is on getting off on the instant reaction
and the satisfaction that comes from fooling people. I'm not sure that the other 95% of
the TV audience has the interest or the patience to follow storylines that are too
confusing or have too much depth.
ECW is the exact opposite. They are only drawing from that small niche so they can get
almost as inside as they want and ECW aiming at the instant reaction isn't nearly as
detrimental to their business because they aren't basing success and failure on the
difference between a 2.5 and a 3.5 national rating on Monday night, because that 95% of
the Monday Night audience that doesn't spend money on wrestling for the most part
isn't even aware ECW exists. For ECW to become a real national force and be in the
position to draw national ratings, it'll have to start catering to a wider demographic as
well.
If there is any better example of this, the discrepancy in the reaction to the Sting angle
on 9/9 would be the case. It was immediately lauded as this creative angle, and it was.
But when one out of every four viewers turns off their television set after an angle, that
angle didn't result in greater viewer curiosity. It was the exact opposite result. People
curious about something don't react by turning off their television sets. And there was
no-follow up ratings boost the following week nor any indication from any preliminary
indicators that this increased PPV buys.
When you experiment, you are going to have your hits and misses and you learn from
them. WCW deserves credit in the Sting angle for playing it all the way out on television
despite the fact that it was no secret to a small percentage that it wasn't the real Sting.
And even if it didn't work, they at least got to do beat the WWF by two weeks to doing an
imposter angle. Even more pronounced is the current Titan angle, which at least appears
to have a lot more depth to it. Despite the Razor/Diesel news being huge among people
who spend their money on wrestling (unfortunately for Titan, it isn't going to mean
anything because if anything it'll detract from buys for the PPV), as the subsequent
ratings have shown, it's meant nothing in the ratings when it's been pushed as the main
item on television now for two straight weeks. The fact is that despite insider wrestling
interest peaking greatly over the past week, the Monday night audience dropped from a
6.1 aggregate to a 5.7 this week (the drop is probably more due to the opening of the new
fall network TV season than anything else) on a week where there should have been the
traditional 0.3 bump (and theoretically more than 0.3 if the Sting angle had really made
casual fans curious about what was going to happen next) coming the day after a major
PPV.
Actually, all these technological changes are good for insider type fans because they are
going to be more in control than ever before of what happens in wrestling. Long-term
this is going to make for a better product from their standpoint because there will be
more angles, more complex angles, better talent and better wrestling matches as the past
year has shown and since this is the audience that spends their excess time and money
on wrestling, I'd suspect live show attendance to increase. PPV buys, which really are far
more profitable, won't increase although they should in this type of environment, until
the number of shows is cut back on.
***********************************************************
The WWF continued its Razor Ramon/Diesel angle, the first part of which will climax on
the 9/23 live Raw from Hershey, PA. It's a definite that Rick Bogner and Glen Jacobs
will be Razor and Diesel respectively on the live show, as heels, as Bogner canceled his
WAR tour to start in the new role with the WWF.
It's funny, because while Bogner was in Japan, Tokyo Sports ran a major story saying he
was going to be the new Razor Ramon in WWF and he was told how it's a top secret that
nobody knows about and here the big secret was in a mainstream daily newspaper with a
circulation in the seven figures.
This week's twist was that Gorilla Monsoon announced that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash
were under contract to another organization and that while he liked Jim Ross, he said
that he felt someone was hoodwinking the WWF fans. So the deal now is that it was all
Jim Ross, and not the WWF, so the WWF tries to separate itself from the heat since
people are considering this angle a pathetic ratings getting fraud. It appears there is a lot
more depth to the angle this week since Ross continued to insist they would be on
television next week live even though Monsoon told him not to, and Ross, who has
turned into the focal point of the angle and was made almost semi-heel although not
completely, sticking to his story in the end. It was played up too strong during the entire
show to be just the introduction of new characters that on their own wouldn't be able to
get over.
The angle, despite being the subject of more talk than any angle in a long time in
wrestling, hasn't done squat for the ratings as WCW won the 9/16 battle by its largest
margin to date, averaging a 3.6 rating and 5.3 share (3.5 first hour, 3.6 second hour) to
WWF's 2.1 rating and 3.0 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.4 rating and 3.4 share.
***********************************************************
If there was any one promotion that exemplifies the ever-changing nature of pro
wrestling fans and just how quickly one can go from the Penthouse to the Outhouse in
pro wrestling, it is the Union of Wrestling Force International (UWFI).
Formed five years ago as part of the split when the second version of Japan's UWF, the
modern era's first so-called worked-shoot promotion fell apart, the UWFI, since it
wound up with more big names from the UWF and retained the style that made the
latter promotion the hottest in the world during its three-year run, became the leading
so-called shoot group in the world. So-called because it was actually just a more
realistically and more stiffly worked version of pro wrestling.
Behind its President and biggest star, Nobuhiko Takada, the group flourished, peaking
in 1993 and 1994 by drawing in excess of 15,000 fans per show and regularly packing
Budokan Hall in Tokyo as Takada turned back performers as diverse as Vader (while he
held the WCW world title), former heavyweight champion boxer Trevor Berbick, Gary
Albright, Dan Severn (before Severn was in UFC and had a name), Kazuo Yamazaki, Koji
Kitao and Salman Hashimikov basically copying the booking strategy that propelled
Antonio Inoki to the stratosphere. That's hardly coincidental, as the threesome that ran
UWFI from a business standpoint since Takada was more simply the group's drawing
card and star athlete rather than the day-to-day business leader, grew up as New Japan
wrestling fans--Ken Suzuki, a former wrestling fan club president and wrestlers Yuko
Miyato and Yoji Anjoh.
Then, due to mismanagement and more due to the rapidly changing tastes, the onset of
real shooting and Anjoh attempting to embarrass Rickson Gracie and failing miserably
and Takada's on-again off-again political aspirations and lack of fire in his matches that
killed his personal popularity that the company was built on, the group began a rapid
decline that had it on the verge of going out of business midway through 1995. While the
New Japan feud, the biggest money feud in pro wrestling history, and the feud that set
the stage for basically everything that is going on in the United States one year later (an
environment of worked shoot angles aimed at the hardcore fans and worked promotion
vs. promotion feuds), set Takada off on a box office run unprecedented in pro wrestling
history. But even as Takada was selling out the Tokyo Dome, the bloom was way off the
UWFI rose. To repeat an analogy, New Japan ate the fruit, basically destroying the
shooting myth of UWFI enroute to putting its own company over, since UWFI needed
them as a last-ditch shot at survival. This created what everyone figured to happen,
UWFI having problems drawing on its own. Its own base audience believed them to be
the real deal, and were left disappointed when that audience saw them go down to defeat
and embarrassment against the fake pro wrestlers. Also, as real shooting, due to UFC's
popularity, educated people more to what true fighting looked like, a style with still a
good deal of pro wrestling influence and moves and a type of drama that rarely or
doesn't exist in a real-life situation, UWFI and its main star Takada lost much of their
base audience to the more realistic UFC, Vale Tudo and Pancrase groups.
The best example of all this was on 8/17, when the group drew just 5,000 fans to
46,000-seat Jingu Baseball Stadium in Tokyo.
However, that failure was not the end, but perhaps the start of a new beginning. What
appears to be an impending feud with All Japan should revitalize interest in both groups
in 1997.
But until the All Japan series gets underway, there was still one legendary stadium
dream match left--Takada vs. WAR's Genichiro Tenryu--on 9/11 at the same Jingu
Baseball Stadium. While our reports of a 40,000 ticket advance appear to have been
exaggerated, the addition of Toshiaki Kawada of All Japan to the show did jump-start
ticket sales over the last ten days and an estimated 30,000 fans (announced as 41,087)
with tickets scaled from $180 down to $45 attended the show--actually the third largest
crowd in the history of so-called shoot wrestling even though this was obviously a pro
wrestling show. It would have almost certainly been the third largest gate of the year
trailing the two New Japan Tokyo Dome shows.
The show was described as okay, with three good matches, a few others that were okay
and a few that were really bad. While Takada-Tenryu was technically the best match
(rated at around ***3/4), with Takada winning in 19:30 with a cross armbreaker
submission, the bout with the most heat was Kawada vs. Yoshihiro Takayama of UWFI,
described as Takayama's best singles match of his career before losing at the end. The
show also featured the intriguing unique experience of seeing Takada, Kawada and
Shinya Hashimoto all on the same show.
1. Eloo "Tiger" Maduro of the Kamakura Gym (Gerard Gordeau's gym) in Amsterdam,
Netherlands knocked out UWFI's Kenichi Yamamoto in 8:00 with some bad looking
punches to the ribs. This was a bad match as Maduro didn't know what he was doing.
Yamamoto also didn't look good and Maduro, with no pro wrestling experience, made
Yamamoto look bad when Yamamoto was trying to throw suplexes.
2. Hiromitsu Kanehara (UWFI) defeated Nikolai Gordeau (Gerard's older brother which
should give you an idea of how old he must be) with a kneebar submission in another
terrible match.
3. Kazushi Sakuraba (UWFI) defeated Masao Orihara (Tokyo Pro Wrestling) in 10:41
when the match was stopped after Orihara was knocked down five times from kicks.
This was a pretty good match with good heat. Sakuraba destroyed Orihara early, and
Orihara came back using some pro wrestling spots like a lariat, a dropkick off the top
rope and two piledrivers which got big pops. Sakuraba didn't sell the pro wrestling spots
well, however.
4. The Original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) defeated The Cobra (Gyogi "George"
Takano) in the legends match in 12:54. Cobra was New Japan's chosen replacement after
Sayama left the promotion in 1983 as the star of the junior heavyweight division. Cobra
had some great matches in those days but saddled as the replacement for Sayama, who
was such a phenom, he never got out of Sayama's shadow nor really got over. The crowd
was super into it at the beginning but it quickly died out because the two didn't work
well together. Sayama did his fast drop toe hold spot and Cobra tried a space flying Tiger
drop early but missed a tope con hilo (dive with a flip). After Cobra missed a plancha to
the floor, Sayama gave him a tombstone piledriver on the floor. He went to the top rope
as if he was going to do a diving head-butt from the top of the post to the floor. Cobra
moved, which he apparently wasn't supposed to do, but Sayama got back in the ring and
they gave Cobra a fast count and it ended via count out. The fans booed the count out
finish heavily and this was generally considered a pretty bad match.
5. Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan) pinned Masahito Kakihara (UWFI) with a lariat and a
Northern lights bomb in 8:43. This was pretty much payback for Sasaki putting
Kakihara over last October at the Tokyo Dome, because at the time New Japan appeared
to be building up Kakihara for something and Sasaki was the one to put him over for the
build. New Japan pretty much had Choshu kill off Kakihara at the next Dome show.
Sasaki made Kakihara look bad by not selling for him because of the size difference.
Overall it was said to have been an okay match.
6. Kawada pinned Takayama in 8:43. The place went nuts for Kawada and the match.
Kawada kicked the hell out of Takayama, but also sold great for his comebacks. Kawada
used three high kicks to the face, but Takayama kicked out of the pin attempt, before
Kawada hit a fourth kick and got the three. The two shook hands after the match. This
was said to have been in the ***1/2 range.
7. Hashimoto pinned Yuhi Sano (UWFI) after a brainbuster. This was mainly matwork.
When it wasn't on the mat it was worked real stiff using hard chops and kicks back-andforth
and both doing no-sell spots. Finally Hashimoto kicked Sano in the face and head
which Sano sold big. It was an okay match which basically got over the storyline of New
Japan destroying UWFI.
8. Anjoh defeated David Beneteau of UFC with an achilles tendon submission (heel
hook) in 2:48. Beneteau replaced Kimo, who one would suspect pulled out of this match
because of his offer from "U Japan," and didn't want to do a job in a worked match
because it would hurt his future marketability. It was a bad match as Anjoh's punches
were badly pulled and Beneteau, in his first pro wrestling match ever, didn't do a thing.
After the match, Gerard Gordeau came out and they did a pull-apart deal with Anjoh to
apparently build up a future match.
9. Takada beat Tenryu in a very good match. Very stiff back-and-forth. Takada sold big
for Tenryu. At one point Tenryu used a dragon screw (leg whip) on Takada, which is the
most over move in Japan right now, so it got a huge pop. Takada threw a series of knees
to Tenryu's forehead and Tenryu bladed. The two traded submissions and rope breaks.
Tenryu also got a few near falls on Takada using a stiff lariat, a rabbit lariat (to the back
of the head) and other moves. Tenryu went for a power bomb but Takada got the
armbreaker. Tenryu managed to get of it the first time, but submitted the second time.
***********************************************************
There were a couple of major front office and on-air changes in both WWF and WCW
this past week.
Gene Okerlund's contract with WCW expired mid-week is he's said to no longer be with
the company. He said good-bye to a lot of people early in the week and on Thursday
morning, all WCW employees got a memo saying that Okerlund was no longer with the
company. While he appeared on the PPV show doing a pre-taped countdown show and a
package, he wasn't mentioned the rest of the show and Mike Tenay handled the
interviews and apparently has Okerlund's spot (and working for one hell of a lot less
money) as the interviewer on PPVs, Nitro and Saturday Night. Between Okerlund's base
contract and his cut of the 900 line, it was believed he was earning in the neighborhood
of $420,000 per year and was looking for a raise. Depending upon which story one
chooses to believe, Okerlund either a few weeks ago or over the past few days spoke with
Vince McMahon about coming back but not a lot of interest was shown. Okerlund had
been playing the going-to-Titan card in negotiations with WCW. Since the Titan card has
been played, Okerlund is expected to come back to the negotiating table with WCW and
most feel there is a good chance he'll end up returning. There is also at least some
thought within the company that this entire scenario is a work designed to work those
within the company and wind up with Okerlund being the announcer for the NWO. Even
though it was clearly not Sting in the 9/9 angle, a fact that became well known very
quickly even outside the company, those in the company were still being worked all
week.
J.J. Dillon (Jim Morrison), who was one of the key talent liaisons and bookers in the
World Wrestling Federation, resigned on Thursday afternoon. The news came as a shock
apparently to Vince McMahon, although there had been rumors of it for several weeks
since Dillon had gone to Orlando at the same time WCW was doing Disney tapings.
Dillon left WCW shortly after the Turner takeover, frustrated with the situation in WCW
with certain individuals in the TBS structure who he believed had no knowledge of
wrestling, and taking an estimated $185,000 per year position with Titan Sports
working with Pat Patterson in talent coordination. He suffered a major salary cutback
during the period WWF business took a tumble, but he is basically a level-headed
individual in his 50s with three pre-school children and it's hard to see him walking out
of a job without a net, which is why everyone assumes he's WCW bound. We do know
that feelers have been sent, but whether he had a deal made beforehand isn't known.
Dillon would be valuable to WCW in that he possesses a great deal of knowledge of the
Titan organization as he was privy to where all the bodies are buried so to speak, not to
mention the obvious storyline role where he could reprise his role as the leader of the
Four Horsemen.
Another front office change in the WWF is the addition of Jake Roberts (Aurelian Smith
Jr.) to the booking committee. Roberts had been pushing for this for several months.
The way the structure is set up right now, Roberts will join Jim Cornette as the assistant
to Bruce Prichard, who writes the television shows. Despite other people taking heat for
booking, the booker is, has and always will be Vince McMahon, although Prichard,
Cornette, Jim Ross and Jerry Brisco certainly all have a hand in coming up with ideas, it
is still McMahon's decision on what ideas are going to be implemented and how. The
role for the other people has always been to take the heat, which is actually a role
historically in wrestling where many major promoters of the past that actually did their
own booking and storylines, would use a loyal wrestler as their booker to deliver the
messages and thus take the heat from people who aren't happy with their push (which is
95% of the guys in wrestling due to the nature of the industry).
************************************************************
JWP held a press conference on 9/13 to announce its biggest show of the year and
perhaps in its history, a multi-promotional show working with five outside promotions
called "Ryogoku Big Project" on 10/13 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Ryogoku is the section of
Tokyo where Sumo Hall is located.
The show will be broadcast live on WOWOW, the Japanese equivalent to HBO from 4 to
7 p.m. on a Sunday late afternoon. Joining host JWP will be All Japan Women, Gaea
Japan, JD (Yoshimoto Pro Wrestling), IWA Japan and Michinoku Pro Wrestling.
The main event on the show will have long-time rival powerhouses Aja Kong of AJW and
Dynamite Kansai of JWP forming a tag team to go against Kyoko Inoue of AJW and
Devil Masami of JWP.
The semifinal is also a unique match-up as a mixed tag team match with Great Sasuke
(Sasuke is tentatively expected to return to action on 10/10 for the Michinoku Pro show
at Sumo Hall, although his appearing at either of these dates isn't a definite) & Tiger
Mask of Michinoku Pro teaming with JWP women Hikari Fukuoka & Hiromi Yagi
against MPW men wrestlers Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa and JWP women Candy
Okutsu and Commando Boirshoi in what should be an aerial spectacular as they are all
basically high flying wrestlers.
The remainder of the card pits Manami Toyota (AJW) vs. Tomoko Kuzumi (JWP), Cutie
Suzuki (JWP) & Plum Mariko (JWP) & Yuki Miyazaki (JWP) vs. Sugar Sato (Gaea) &
Mayumi Ozaki (JWP) & Rieko Amano (JWP), Tomoko Miyaguchi defends AJW's All-
Japan jr. title that she won on 9/1 from Yoshiko Tamura of AJW, against Emi Motokawa
of IWA, plus Kanako Motoya (JWP) vs. Yumi Fukawa (AJW) and opener will be Fusayo
Nouchi (JWP) vs. Yuko Kosugi (JD).
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 9/20 TO 10/20
9/20 UFC XI Proving Ground PPV Augusta, GA Richmond County Civic Center
(tournament)
9/20 New Japan/WCW Osaka Furitsu Gym (WCW/New Japan tournament)
9/20 FMW Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Head Hunters vs. Kanemura & Hido)
9/21 WWF Baltimore Arena
9/22 WWF Mind Games PPV Philadelphia Core States Center (Michaels vs. Mankind)
9/23 New Japan/WCW Yokohama Arena (WCW/New Japan tournament finals)
9/23 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Hershey, PA Park Arena (Michaels vs. Vader)
9/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Birmingham, AL BJCC Coliseum
9/24 WWF Superstars tapings State College, PA Penn State University Gym (Michaels
vs. Vader)
9/25 RINGS Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Yamamoto vs. Kopilov)
9/27 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/27 EMLL Anniversary show Mexico City Arena Mexico (Jalisco Jr. vs. Markus Jr.)
9/28 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/29 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Goldust &
Mankind)
9/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cleveland Convocation Center
10/5 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sandman & Dreamer vs. Raven & Lee)
10/6 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Toyota vs. Kong)
10/7 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Savannah, GA Civic Center
10/8 Pancrase Nagoya Toyohashi Sports Center (Frank Shamrock vs. Takahashi)
10/8 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Osaka Furitsu Gym (Anjoh vs. Ishikawa)
10/10 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Sayama & Mascaras & Sasuke vs.
Dynamite Kid & ? & ?)
10/11 WAR Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tenryu vs. Muta)
10/12 All Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym
10/13 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Goldust)
10/13 JWP Tokyo Sumo Hall (Kong & Kansai vs. Masami & Kyoko Inoue)
10/14 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Memphis, TN Mid South Coliseum
10/18 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Kawada)
10/18 EFC III PPV Tulsa, OK Expo Square Arena (Conan vs. Vale)
10/18 WCW Minneapolis Target Center (Flair vs. Savage)
10/20 WWF In Your House PPV Indianapolis Market Square Arena (Undertaker vs.
Mankind)
10/20 New Japan Kobe (Super Grade tag team tournament)
RESULTS
9/1 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): El Cafre & America b Supremo II &
Americo Rocca, Lola Gonzalez & Lady Connors b Lady Star & Tania, Ciclon Ramirez &
Olimpus & Olimpico b Rocca & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Damian El Guerrero, Mask vs.
hair: Atlantico b Kung Fu Sr., Lizmark Jr. & Tinieblas Sr. & Mascara Sagrada b Bestia
Salvaje & El Hijo del Gladiador & Gran Markus Jr.-DQ
9/3 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Fierito & Damiancito b Cicloncito Ramirez
& Ultimo Dragoncito, Atlantico & Ultimatum & Alacran b Yone Genjin & Guerrero del
Futuro & Guerrero Maya, Ringo Mendoza & Olimpico & Mascara Magica b Mogur &
Guerrero de la Muerte & Halcon ***** Jr., El Hijo del Santo & Atlantis & Mascara
Sagrada b El Hijo del Gladiador & Felino & El Satanico-DQ, Hair vs. hair: Dandy b
Chicago Express
9/5 Austin, TX (WWF - 3,452): Bushwhackers b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Faarooq b
Bob Holly, Jose Lothario b Jim Cornette, Stalker b Jerry Lawler, WWF tag titles:
Smoking Gunns DCOR Grim Twins, Sid b Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
9/6 Houston (WWF - 6,948): Bushwhackers b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Jose
Lothario b Jim Cornette, Faarooq b Bob Holly, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns DCOR
Grim Twins, Stalker b Jerry Lawler, Sid b Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
9/6 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Lady Apache & Xochitl Hamada b Martha
Villalobos & La Diabolica, Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Americo Rocca & Astro Rey Jr. b Filoso
& Olimpus & Ringo Mendoza, La Fiera & Shocker & Super Astro b Mano Negra & Rey
Bucanero & Bestia Salvaje, Silver King & Mr. Niebla & Dandy b Black Warrior & Emilio
Charles Jr. & Bestia Salvaje, Gran Markus Jr. & Apolo Dantes & Dr. Wagner Jr. DDQ
Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Dos Caras & Tinieblas Sr.
9/6 Xochimilko (AAA): Mini Frisbee & Torerito b La Parkita & Espectrito II, Konnan
won Battle Royal, Winners & Latin Lover b The Killer & Heavy Metal, Super Calo &
Pantera & Perro Aguayo Jr. b Super Muneco & Pimpinela Escarlata & Cibernetico-DQ,
Konnan & La Parka & Salsero b Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis & Jerry Estrada
9/6 Cuautitlan (PROMELL): Mariachi & Furia Guerrera b Los Rayos Tapatios I & II,
Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito b Jerrito Estrada & Piratita Morgan, Ultimo Guerrero
& Ultimo Rebelde b Black Jaguar & Brazo Cibernetico-DQ, Tiburon & Cyborg Cop &
Nuevo Huracan Ramirez b Violencia (Pirata Morgan) & Zapatista & Andy Barrow,
Mexican national trios title: Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther & El Signo DDQ Brazo de
Plata & El Brazo & Super Elektra
9/8 Durban, South Africa (WWF - 9,000 sellout): Sultan (Fatu) b Aldo Montoya,
Savio Vega b Isaac Yankem, Crush b Barry Horowitz, Steve Austin b Jake Roberts,
Yokozuna b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Godwinns b New Rockers, Owen Hart b Marc
Mero, Bret Hart b Davey Boy Smith
9/8 Monterrey, NL (AAA): Winners & Venum b Picudo & Corsario *****, Pantera &
Tinieblas Jr. b Villano IV & Sanguinario, Mascara Sagrada & Mascara Sagrada Jr. &
Mascarita Sagrada Jr. b Pierroth Jr. & Halcon Dorado Jr. & Espectrito I
9/9 Jonesboro, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling - 239): Charlie Parker
b Romeo Valentino, Reggie Montgomery b Ron McClarity, Vampire Warrior b Bart
Sawyer, Luna Vachon b Miss Texas, Colorado Kid & Brian Christopher b Bill & Jamie
Dundee
9/10 Cape Town, South Africa (WWF): Barry Horowitz b Marty Jannetty, Leif
Cassidy b Aldo Montoya, Sultan b Phinneus Godwinn, Crush DCOR Savio Vega, Steve
Austin b Yokozuna, Henry Godwinn b Isaac Yankem, Jake Roberts b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley, Bret Hart & Marc Mero b Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith
9/10 Albany, GA (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 5,100/1,800 paid): Amazing
French Canadians b Steve & Scott Armstrong, Jim Powers b Disco Inferno, Diamond
Dallas Page b Super Calo, Kevin Sullivan & Konnan b ?, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey
Misterio Jr. b Juventud Guerrera, Renegade b ?, Jim Duggan b ?, Big Bubba b ?, J.L. b
Billy Kidman, David Taylor b Bobby Eaton, WCW cruiserweight title: Misterio Jr. b
Guerrera, Konnan b Calo, Hugh Morrus b Kidman
9/10 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JD - 900): Momoe Nakanishi & Yachio Kawamoto b
Yuka Kosugi & Koyama, Princesa Blanca & Neftaly b Yano & Abe & Esther Moreno,
Yoshiko Tamura b Bloody Phoenix, Kick boxing rules: Fumiko Ishimoto b Yoko
Takahashi, Chikako Shiratori d Yuki Lee, Jaguar Yokota & Lioness Asuka b Bison
Kimura & Cooga
9/11 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (W*ING [FMW] - 2,002 sellout): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b
Toryu, Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Rie (Bad Nurse Nakamura) & Kaori
Nakayama, Hido & Hideki Hosaka b Head Hunters, Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa b
Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku, Super Leather b Jason the Terrible (Roberto
Rodriguez), Bunkhouse match: Hayabusa b Hido
9/11 Kitakami (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Sekiguchi, Chaparita Asari &
Yuka Shiina b Rie Tamada & Genki Misae, Kaoru Ito & Kumiko Maekawa b Mima
Shimoda & Yoshiko Tamura, Kyoko Inoue b Mariko Yoshida, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko
Mita & Takako Inoue b Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko Watanabe
9/12 Miami (WWF - 3,045): Bushwhackers b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Who (Jim
Neidhart) b Pug (Alex Porteau), Stalker b Jerry Lawler, Casket match: Undertaker b
Mankind, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns DCOR Grim Twins, Faarooq b Bob Holly, Sid
b Goldust, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
9/12 Sendai (New Japan - 4,500 sellout): Akitoshi Saito b Tatsuhito Takaiwa,
Dean Malenko & Shinjiro Otani b Black Tiger (Eddie Guerrero) & El Samurai,
Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b Yuji Nagata & Osamu Nishimura, Osamu Kido b
Kuniaki Kobayashi, Masahiro Chono & Hiro Saito b Satoshi Kojima & Tadao Yasuda,
Kurosawa b Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka & Akira Nogami b
Riki Choshu & Junji Hirata & Takashi Iizuka, Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Animal &
Power Warrior, Shinya Hashimoto b Kazuo Yamazaki
9/12 Yonezawa (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Chaparita
Asari & Rie Tamada b Yuka Shiina & Yoshiko Tamura, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda b
Genki Misae & Mariko Yoshida, Kaoru Ito b Kumiko Maekawa, Yumiko Hotta & Kyoko
Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada & Takako Inoue
9/12 Takahata (Michinoku Pro Wrestling): Shoichi Funaki b Satoshi Yoneyama,
Alexander Otsuka & Naohiro Hoshikawa b Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Yoshito Sugamoto,
Mens Teoh b Tiger Mask-COR, Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo b Masato
Yakushiji & Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada
9/12 Bristol, England (All-Star Wrestling): Brian Maxine b Mal Flanders, Doc
Dean & James Mason & Johnny South d Marty Jones & Skull Murphy & Mighty Chang,
Blondie Barrett b Cosmos, Steve Regal (WCW) b Robby Brookside
9/12 Manila, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling - 228): Teddy Sweet b
Ron McClarity, Miss Texas b Samantha, Colorado Kid b Giant Warrior, Jamie Dundee b
Bart Sawyer, Brian Christopher b Bill Dundee
9/12 Indianapolis (Circle City Wrestling): Jack Slayer b Sean Vee, Vic the Bruiser
b Dave the Rave, Rip Rogers b Jerry Faith, Flash Flanagan b Dallas & Austin James
9/13 Knoxville, TN (WCW - 2,550): Lex Luger b Dick Slater, Konnan b Chavo
Guerrero Jr., WCW cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Super Calo, WCW tag titles:
Harlem Heat b Marcus Bagwell & Brad Armstrong, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Chris
Benoit b Meng & Barbarian & Hugh Morrus, Scott Hall & Kevin Nash b Nasty Boys,
Randy Savage DCOR The Giant
9/13 Nagaoka (New Japan - 2,500 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Yutaka Yoshie,
Dean Malenko & Black Tiger b Norio Honaga & El Samurai, Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi
Ohara b Shinjiro Otani & Yuji Nagata, Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura
b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura & Osamu Kido, Kurosawa b Satoshi Kojima, Rick
Steiner & Keiji Muto b Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka
b Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu & Junji Hirata b Animal Warrior &
Masa Saito, Shinya Hashimoto b Hiroyoshi Tenzan
9/13 Jim Thorpe, PA (ECW - 400): Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Hack Myers b Bad Crew,
Taz b Little Guido, Johnny Smith b Super Nova, Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas b Mikey
Whipwreck & Louie Spicolli, ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Shane Douglas & Samu, Steve
Williams b Devon Storm, Pit Bull #2 b Perry Saturn, Sandman & Tommy Dreamer b
Raven & Brian Lee, Sabu b Rob Van Dam
9/13 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Olimpus & Alacran b America & Lynx,
Lioness Asuka & Lady Star & Martha Villalobos b Lola Gonzalez & Lady Apache &
Xochitl Hamada, Elimination match: ***** Casas & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Rey Bucanero
& Mogur b La Fiera & Super Astro & Olimpico & Mr. Niebla, Emilio Charles Jr. & Apolo
Dantes & El Satanico b Mascara Sagrada & Lizmark Jr. & Silver King-DQ, Gran Markus
Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador & Dr. Wagner Jr. b Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Atlantis & El Hijo
del Santo
9/13 Tehuacan (AAA): Chiquita Boom & Reyna Apache b Migaly & La Practicante,
Ravana & Duende b Caballero del Ring & Fuera Aera, Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & Super
Munequito b Espectritos I & II, Psicosis & Perro Silva & Picudo & Karis La Momia b
Frisbee & Venum & Ludxor & Winners, Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr. & Latin Lover
b Cien Caras & Heavy Metal & Halcon Dorado Jr.
9/13 Memphis (USWA): Steven Dunn b Bart Sawyer, Frank Morrell b Bill Rush,
Flash Flanagan b Mike Samples, Brickhouse Brown b Koko Ware, Brian Christopher b
Scott Bowden, Bill Dundee b Randy Hales, Back Alley street fight: Miss Texas b Luna
Vachon, Jesse James Armstrong & Wolfie D b Bill & Jamie Dundee, Loser leaves town:
Christopher b Tommy Rich
9/13 Takahato (Michinoku Pro - 246): Naohiro Hoshikawa & Wellington Wilkens
Jr. b Satoshi Yoneyama & Alexander Otsuka, Mens Teoh b Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask
& Gran Hamada b Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku, Shiryu & Dick Togo b Gran
Naniwa & Super Delfin
9/13 Baltimore (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Joe Thunder b Cat Burglar,
Steve Corino & Jimmy Cicero b Johnny Desire & Johnny Taylor, Bob Starr b Lucifer,
Cue Ball Carmichael b Quinn Nash, Menace 2 Society b Corporal Punishment &
Headbanger Mosh, Royce Prophet b Earl the Pearl, Boo Bradley b Knuckles Zandwich-
COR, Darkside (Glenn Osbourne & Chuck Williams) & Damien kane b Head Bangers &
Jeff Jones, Johnny Gunn b Spellbinder-DQ, Mark Schrader b Axl Rotten to win MEWF
title
9/14 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,250 sellout): Gangstas b J.T. Smith &
Little Guido, Gangstas b Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie & Super Nova, Sandman b
Devon Storm & Bad Crew, Axl Rotten b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, D-Von Dudley b Hack
Myers, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Louie Spicolli, ECW title: Raven b Pit Bull #2 ,
Sabu & Rob Van Dam d Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas 30:00, Taz b Johnny Smith,
Eliminators & Brian Lee b Terry Gordy & Steve Williams & Tommy Dreamer
9/14 Johnson City, TN (WCW - 4,515/3,954 paid): WCW cruiserweight title: Rey
Misterio Jr. b Super Calo, Konnan b Chavo Guerrero Jr., WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b
Marcus Bagwell & Brad Armstrong, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit b Meng &
Barbarian & Hugh Morrus, Lex Luger b Dick Slater, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall b Nasty
Boys, The Giant b Randy Savage-DQ
9/14 Gunma (New Japan - 3,250 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Norio Honaga, El
Samurai & Osamu Kido b Dean Malenko & Black Tiger, Yutaka Yoshie & Satoshi Kojima
& Junji Hirata b Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami, Hiroyoshi Tenzan
b Tadao Yasuda, Kurosawa b Masahiro Chono-DQ, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b
Riki Choshu & Yuji Nagata, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura b Tatsutoshi Goto &
Kengo Kimura, Animal & Power Warrior b Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto
b Shiro Koshinaka
9/14 Mobile, AL (International Fighting Council - 3,200): Raymond Brooks b
Willie Williams (not Rings fighter), Hwt tourney first round: Ricky Crawley b Jimmy
Norton, Justin Martin d Frank Cracci, Brian Gassaway b Lorne Phillips, Mike Sciortino b
Eric Daniel, Cracci b Crawley, Sciortino b Gassaway, Sciortino awarded tournament
when Cracci couldn't come out for finals due to injured knee; Super heavyweight
tourney: Wes Gassaway b Cal Heald, Jack McLaughlin b Wayne Braswell, Harry
Moskowitz b Robert Morris, Matt Tew b Joe Sigler, Gassaway b McLaughlin, Moskowitz
b Tew, Gassaway b Moskowitz to win tourney
9/14 Shizukuihsi (Michinoku Pro - 321): Alexander Otsuka b Hoshino, Wellington
Wilkens Jr. b Satoshi Yoneyama, Tiger Mask b Shiryu, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Taka
Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa & Masato
Yakushiji
9/14 Fujisawa (All Japan women): Yachio Kawamoto b Sekiguchi, Yuka Shiina b
Nana Takahashi, Rie Tamada & Momoe Nakanishi b Chaparita Asari & Yoshiko Tamura,
Etsuko Mita b Genki Misae, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada b Yumiko
Hotta & Mima Shimoda & Tomoko Watanabe, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Aja Kong &
Kumiko Maekawa
9/14 Dyer, TN (USWA): Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk, Mike Samples b Tony Myers,
Vampire Warrior b Flash Flanagan-COR, Luna Vachon b Miss Texas, Wolfie D & Jesse
James Armstrong b Bill & Jamie Dundee
9/14 Morristown, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling): Rick Connors b Mike
Powers, Stan Lee & Chris Steelhart b K.C. Thunder & John Sullivan, Eight-Ball Jones b
Stan Lee, Powers won Battle Royal, Mongolian Stomper b Bunkhouse Buck to win TMW
title
9/14 Indianapolis (Pro Wrestling International - 70): Lightning Rod b T-Rex,
Quicksilver b Rex, Diamond Dan b Kimala Jr., El Diablo b Johnnie Walker, Trash
Losigan & Mad Man Pondo b Men on a Mission
9/15 Omiya (FMW): Toryu b Mamoru Okamoto, Rie b Miss Mongol (Aki
Kanbayashi), Jason the Terrible b Hayato Nanjyo, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Gosaku
Goshogawara, Megumi Kudo & Kaori Nakayama b Miwa Sato & Shark Tsuchiya, Hido &
Hideki Hosaka & Taka Michinoku b The Gladiator & Horace Boulder & Ricky Fuji,
Winner take all pole match: Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda b Hisakatsu Oya & Super Leather & Head Hunters
9/15 Aomori (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Masanobu Kurisu b Takahashi, Great Kabuki
b Kishin Kawabata, Mike Anthony (Mike Lozansky) & The Natural (Don Callis) b Astro
Rey Jr. & Takeru, Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) b Bo White, Handicap match:
Takashi Ishikawa b Masao Orihara & Shigeo Okumura & Shinobu Tamura, TWA tag
titles: Yoji Anjoh & Tiger Mask Sayama b Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei
9/15 Kurikoma (Michinoku Pro - 206): Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama b
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Yoshito Sugamoto, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada b Naohiro
Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji, Mens Teoh b Shiryu, Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki b
Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa
9/15 Yokohama (All Japan women): Chaparita Asari & Rie Tamada b Yuka Shiina
& Genki Misae, Mima Shimoda b Yoshiko Tamura, Tomoko Watanabe & Kyoko Inoue &
Toshiyo Yamada b Kumiko Maekawa & Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida, Aja Kong & Takako
Inoue b Etsuko Mita & Yumiko Hotta
9/15 Hataka (Wrestle Dream Factory - 700): Bashara b Fukada, Shinichi Shino b
Shinigami, Azteca & Onryo b Fujizaki & Soldier, Masashi Aoyagi & Hiroyoshi Kotsubo b
Wolf & Unibos, Ultimo Dragon & Yuji Yasuraoka b Super Crazy & Masayoshi Motegi,
Shinichi Nakano b Kamikaze
9/15 Poplar Bluff, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Charlie Parker b
Jason Shipman, Reggie Montgomery b Ron McClarity, Bart Sawyer b Mad RussianCOR,
Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee
9/16 Nagoya Aiichi Gym (New Japan - 11,000 sellout): Tadao Yasuda b Yuji
Nagata, El Samurai & Norio Honaga b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Dean Malenko, Shinjiro
Otani b Black Tiger, Satoshi Kojima b Michiyoshi Ohara, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka & Osamu Kido b Akitoshi Saito & Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Riki
Choshu & Osamu Nishimura NC Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura, Animal Warrior b
Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Power Warrior b Kurosawa, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b
Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto b Masahiro Chono
9/16 Asheville, NC (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 5,000/2,800 paid): WCW
cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Juventud Guerrera ***3/4, Diamond Dallas Page
b Ice Train *1/2, AAA hwt title: Konnan b Super Calo ***1/2, Brad Armstrong b Hugh
Morrus *3/4, Scott Norton b Randy Savage-DQ **1/4, Glacier b Big Bubba *, Ric Flair &
Arn Anderson b Marcus Bagwell & Chris Jericho **3/4, Lex Luger b Steve McMichael &
Chris Benoit-DQ *
9/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Gaea - 2,200 sellout): Bomber Hikari b Ishii,
Matsumoto b Hikari, Chihiro Nakano & Makie Numao b Kaoru, Meiko Satomura b
Hirota, Chigusa Nagayo b Toshiyo Yamada, Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima b Toshie
Uematsu & Sonoko Kato
9/16 Numanon (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Mamoru Okamoto, Miwa Sato b Ikeda,
Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol & Shark Tsuchiya, Super Leather b
Gosaku Goshogawara, Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka b Taka
Michinoku & Ricky Fuji & Toryu, Street fight: Head Hunters & Hiskatsu Oya b Jason the
Terrible & Hideki Hosaka & Hido
9/16 Hachioje (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Fujii, Nana Takahashi &
Sekiguchi b Yachio Kawamoto & Miho Wakizawa, Chaparita Asari & Mariko Yoshida b
Yumi Fukawa & Yuka Shiina, Kaoru Ito b Genki Misae, Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita &
Yumiko Hotta b Yoshiko Tamura & Rie Tamada & Kumiko Maekawa, Takako Inoue &
Kyoko Inoue b Aja Kong & Tomoko Watanabe
9/17 Kofu (New Japan - 3,500 sellout): Yuji Nagata b Yutaka Yoshie, Norio
Honaga & Black Tiger b Shinjiro Otani & Dean Malenko, Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi
Goto & Kengo Kimura b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & El Samurai & Takashi Iizuka, Osamu
Nishimura & Tadao Yasuda b Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara, Tatsumi Fujinami &
Shiro Koshinaka b Masa Saito & Junji Hirata, Kurosawa b Riki Choshu, Animal & Power
Warrior b Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan-DQ, Shinya Hashimoto b Satoshi
Kojima
Special thanks to: Ken Verret, Sarah Moore, Adam Pennison, Mark Taylor, Brandy
Arnold, Scott Griffin, Frank Mott, Bob Garst, Phil Jones, Georgiann Makropolous,
Dominick Valenti, Dan Parris, Fay Ferguson, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Tim Whitehead,
Bert Prentice, Jerry Glascock, Jesse Money
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/8 ALL JAPAN: 1. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace won the Double tag team titles from
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama in 28:47. It was edited down to about 22:00 on
television. Even though it was an excellent match with great moves and psychology and
great pacing for such a long match, there was one major bad sign and that was the lack
of heat. Even when they used their signature moves for near falls in the first 15:00, the
fans didn't buy them as finishes and really didn't pop that big. The big moves got heat
but until the final few minutes of the match, there was no sustained heat. This could also
be due to poor crowd micing because the live reports we got were that the heat was
excellent and it sounded like the match played a lot better live than on television.
Misawa's right knee was injured legit so they were protecting him somewhat during the
match in that Akiyama worked most of the way. It wasn't as if Williams didn't drop him
on his head or take his head off with stiff clotheslines. At one point Ace used a
combination Ace crusher and throat drop on the top rope to put Misawa out for a while.
Akiyama used two exploder suplexes for near falls on Ace. Finally, Williams & Ace used
the double impact on both Akiyama, then Misawa at the 25:00 mark. They got some
near falls on Akiyama, but Akiyama made a comeback with two exploders on Ace and
that kick out got a big pop. Williams used a Doctor bomb on Akiyama. Misawa started
hitting his discus forearms on Williams but Williams managed to catch him and drop
him on his head. Ace then used a doctor bomb on Akiyama for a near fall before getting
the three using a cobra suplex. ****1/2
EMLL
The Arena Mexico shows continue to build to the Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs. Gran Markus Jr.
mask match. On 9/6 in a trios match, both men were disqualified in the third fall which
is a rare finish in Mexico. On 9/13, Markus & El Hijo del Gladiador & Dr. Wagner Jr.
beat Rayo & Atlantis & El Hijo del Santo in the main event when Markus pinned Rayo.
Rayo issued a challenge for the mask vs. mask match which at last word looks to be
taking place on 9/27 which will be the Anniversary show instead of the originally
planned 9/20. They are moving it back a week apparently to get an extra week to build
heat for a Santo vs. Gladiador semifinal match for the Mexican middleweight title. The
semi was a trios where Emilio Charles Jr. & Apolo Dantes & El Satanico beat Mascara
Sagrada & Lizmark Jr. & Silver King via DQ when Charles faked that King had fouled
him and the two issued hair match challenges after the match. Third from the top was
the best Arena Mexico match in a long time, said to be ****, an elimination match where
***** Casas & Mogur & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Rey Bucanero beat Mr. Niebla & Super
Astro & Olimpico & La Fiera when Casas made Niebla submit to the scorpion when they
were the last two left in the ring. It was said that it was the best Casas has looked in a
long time and everyone continues to rave about Niebla. There was yet another angle in
the second match on the card as Lioness Asuka from Japan appeared teaming with Lady
Star & Martha Villalobos to beat Lola Gonzalez & Xochitl Hamada & Lady Apache. Told
it was good when Asuka was in with Apache but not all that good the rest of the way.
Asuka used a power bomb on Gonzalez and a german suplex on Hamada to get her over.
Asuka came in to challenge for Gonzalez' TWF world womens title on 9/20 at Arena
Mexico, which she should win and take back to Japan since this angle is getting play in
Japanese magazines, which would become the world title for the JD promotion.
AAA
Not a lot of big news since the major names were in WCW this past week and crowd
were down generally with the exception of 9/16 in Nuevo Laredo which drew another
sellout (13,000) at the baseball stadium in what remains the hottest city in North
America for wrestling as Latin Lover beat Pimpinela Escarlata to win the Mexican
national light heavyweight title. It appears right now that the Tijuana bullring shows in
October will be on 10/15 and 10/30, but obviously those dates are subject to change, and
there are negotiations going on to bring Randy Savage and Scott Hall in for the
Halloween show since they'll already be on a WCW West Coast tour.
An interesting booking note is that since mid-July, at every television taping, the
babyfaces have been put over in the main event. Of course, that's been WWF standard
procedure going back to the beginning of time.
The combination show with New Japan, WCW and WAR on 11/29 will be a one-night
relevos (four man team) tournament with teams from each promotion.
ALL JAPAN
No official announcements were made this past week regarding the line-ups for the next
tour, which has major shows on 10/12 in Nagoya and 10/18 at Budokan Hall. Rumor has
it that they'll headline Budokan with Kenta Kobashi defending the Triple Crown against
Toshiaki Kawada, which would be an intriguing match-up since Kobashi has never
beaten Kawada in a singles match.
The 9/8 television show headlined by the tag title change drew a 3.0 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Business continues on fire as the new tour opened on 9/12 and every show thus far has
sold out including a crowd of 11,000 at Aiichi Gym in Nagoya on 9/16. The headline
storyline is Shinya Hashimoto redeeming himself after losing all his singles matches at
the IWGP tournament, as he's thus far scored clean wins over Kazuo Yamazaki,
Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Shiro Koshinaka, Satoshi Kojima and Masahiro Chono. Another
storyline from Nagoya was the beginning of an undercard feud with New Japan against
Big Japan Pro Wrestling. Midway through the show, Shinya Kojika, the President of Big
Japan, along with nine of his wrestlers, the biggest name being Kendo Nagasaki, hit the
ring and grabbed the house mic. Kojika asked what made New Japan the major league
saying that his wrestlers have spirit and issued them a challenge to come to the Big
Japan house show (which was taking place the next day, on 9/17 in Nagoya) and saying
he's giving them an invitation to come and if New Japan doesn't show up they're
chickens. The New Japan fans booed this angle heavily. Another angle is the return of
Kurosawa (Manabu Nakanishi) from WCW with a major push. Kurosawa will have nine
singles matches on this tour and if he loses more than half of them, he has to return to
WCW. In his first four matches, he pinned Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima, got a shocking
submission win over Riki Choshu using the Canadian backbreaker, got a rare DQ win
over Chono and lost to Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki). Chono then asked Kurosawa to
join his group but Kurosawa turned him down. The other storyline was supposed to be a
Road Warriors vs. Steiners feud which fell apart due to both Hawk and Scott being
injured, so it's now Animal & Power vs. Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto. The first night, Rick
pinned Power after suplexing him on his head so hard that Power had to miss the second
show of the tour. On the third night of the tour in Gunma, it was reversed as Animal
pinned Muto in the tag match. In Nagoya, Animal worked a singles match pinning
Tenzan in just over 4:00. On that same show, Koshinaka & Tatsumi Fujinami beat
Steiner & Muto when Koshinaka pinned Steiner.
Actually they are going more into Americanized booking in that there have been two
non-finishes in tag matches (Animal & Power vs. Chono & Tenzan ending with a DQ and
Choshu & Osamu Nishimura vs. Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura ending in a no
contest) along with the DQ in the Chono vs. Kurosawa match all in one week. Usually
that's about a year's worth of non-finishes by New Japan standards so it appears with
their success at the gate they are taking the easy way out of some things because none of
these finishes were necessary when it comes to angle building. Where they'll start to
weaken themselves at the gate is if they do non-finishes in the main events or title
matches.
After a follow-up visit with his doctor on 9/10, it was decided that Jushin Liger should
rest for a few more weeks so his first match back will be on 9/23 in Yokohama against
Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit).
The television shows on 8/24 and 8/31 which aired the final two nights of G-1 were two
excellent television shows. The matches came off every bit as good on television as they
did live, in fact, in some ways more dramatic because unlike on the early nights, they did
a better job of micing the crowd. The shows have all been tremendously produced and
put together. The 9/7 television show aired first round matches from the J Crown
tournament plus Dan Severn vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, and 9/14 was scheduled to air the
semifinals and finals of the J Crown tournament.
9/7 TV show did a 1.6 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Michinoku Pro Wrestling announced its 10/10 line-up from Tokyo Sumo Hall, which
will be the biggest show in company history. The working idea is to headline doing a
trios match with the best flier in Japan of the 70s, 80s and 90s together--Mil Mascaras &
Tiger Mask Sayama & Sasuke, provided Sasuke can return on that show. Their
opponents haven't been named, but one of them will be Dynamite Kid, so it'll be the first
time Sayama and Kid, who revolutionized lighter weight wrestling in the early 80s, have
been in the ring against each other since the final singles match in 1983. Jinsei Shinzaki
(Hakushi) returns on that show against a mystery opponent (most likely Hayabusa),
plus Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa vs. Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki, Gran Hamada &
Super Delfin & Masato Yakushiji vs. Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu, Naohiro
Hoshikawa vs. Johnny Saint and prelims.
On the Gaea house show on 9/16 at Korakuen Hall, after the main event, Chigusa
Nagayo got into the ring and announced a new wrestler was joining the promotion and
than Akira Hokuto's theme music played and she came out to a big pop. Hokuto said
she'd be working full-time for Gaea starting 11/16 and there will be a press conference in
Tokyo on 9/19 to announce the deal. Don't be shocked to see Bull Nakano follow suit as
both stopped working for AJW earlier this year. The deal is that Gaea is the group that
has signed the working relationship with WCW, so Hokuto, Nakano and Nagayo will
almost surely all be part of the new tournament to crown a WCW/Gaea combination
world champion that is scheduled to take place in WCW rings later this year.
More notes on the 8/24 RINGS show. This was definitely one of the most important
wrestling cards all year on several levels. There were either four or five true shoots on an
eight match show, which is an amazing situation for a group that was a working group
for the most part up to this point. Willie Peeters (who recently won a UFC style
tournament in Holland) beat Wataru Sakata in a match that appeared to be a shoot.
Then Egan Inoue of Sayama's shooting promotion faced Masayoshi Naruse of Rings in a
shoot match that was really exciting for a shoot match. There was a Kyokushin Kai
karate match (no blows to the face allowed) that was obviously a shoot, although boring
to a pro wrestling audience since pure legit karate has limited offensive moves (basically
limited to forms of strikes). The final two matches under Vale Tudo rules appeared also
to be shoots, although with a 46 second match that is short enough that you don't have
to be a great worker to be able to pull it off. The Brazilian who fought Illoukhine Mikhail
that we referred to as Denilson Maia was actually named Adilson Lima. That 25:00
match resembled a Ken Shamrock match with Oleg Taktarov or Royce Gracie minus the
head-butts (which weren't allowed) but it didn't appear the audience was bored because
they understood what was going on. The best match on the show was Volk Han vs.
Tsuyoshi Kousaka once again. It was a rematch of their 7/16 classic and it was clearly a
worked match again. Within the framework of the RINGS style was a fantastic match
because it looked legitimate (the only "flaw" is it was "too exciting" to be legitimate) but
maintained true believability while being a work and still maintaining tremendous heat
and excitement with constant submissions and reversals to an audience totally educated
to what they were doing. It's nearly an impossible balance but I guess it's not impossible
after all. Although these guys don't know pro wrestling selling and bump taking, within
their style, these guys are both fantastic workers. Actually Han is probably the most
underrated great worker in the world right now. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Maurice Smith
appeared to be a work, but was done in a fashion that it was pretty convincing as well
and the fans were into it even though there really wasn't a lot of action. The other match,
Dick Vrij vs. Mitsuya Nagai, was a super stiffly worked kick and slap fest. From start-tofinish
this was the best RINGS show I can remember and you can see this group that was
stale for a long time becoming a hot promotion. It will almost have to go back to
primarily or even totally worked matches since starting in November they do the annual
Battle Dimension tournament, with it starting 10/25 at Aiichi Gym in Nagoya, 11/22 at
Osaka Castle Hall, 12/21 at Fukuoka International Center and finishing up on 1/22 at
Tokyo Budokan Hall.
The "U" Japan put tickets on sale this past week ($45 to $180) for 11/17 at Ariake
Coliseum and is advertising Kimo vs. Vader on top, even though our reports were that
Vader hasn't been booked for the show.
It's almost a definite that Ken Shamrock won't be returning to Pancrase. According to
those close to him, the current plan, subject to change, is that Shamrock is training for
Ultimate Ultimate with the idea that it'll be his last fighting competition and to go out
with a bang. Because of the increase in strikes to the face, the photos of the last Pancrase
after the show in the magazines, particularly Funaki, really looked brutal. Pancrase has
Budokan Hall booked on 12/27.
The next UWFI show is 9/30 in Morioka with Nobuhiko Takada & Kazushi Sakuraba vs.
Yoji Anjoh & Kenichi Yamamoto, Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Masahito Kakihara, Yuhi Sano
vs. Nikolai Gordeau, Tiger Mask Sayama vs. TBA and Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Billy
Scott.
All Japan women announced three semi-major shows on 9/28 at Hakata Star Lanes
headlined by Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda defending the WWWA tag titles against
Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito; 10/4 in Kyoto headlined by Toyota vs. Ito and 10/6 in
Nagoya with Toyota defending the WWWA title against Aja Kong. Toyota has been out
of action this past week with an injury.
FMW ran an angle on its 9/15 show in Omiya where Hido & Hideki Hosaka & Taka
Michinoku (replacing Wing Kanemura who missed this tour due to injuries suffered in
the explosive match on 9/1) beat The Gladiator & Horace Boulder & Ricky Fuji. After the
match, Gladiator & Boulder turned on Fuji, who had been pinned saying they were
carrying him and insulting him because he's Japanese. The main event was a Battle
Royal with the FMW group of Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda beating Super Leather & Hisakatsu Oya & Head Hunters with a supposed 20
million yen ($180,000) on a pole which Hayabusa climbed and won for his team so that
was his way of being back with FMW.
Tokyo Pro opened its tour on 9/15 in Aomori with Yoji Anjoh & Tiger Mask Sayama
retaining the TWA tag titles beating Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei when
Anjoh made Benkei submit. Takashi Ishikawa beat Shinobu Tamura & Shigeo Okumura
& Masao Orihara in the three-on-one handicap match. The storyline is that those three
undercard wrestlers were the ones who complained about how Ishikawa was running the
company and got him to lose his Presidency of the company (the presidency will be
decided on 10/8 when Ishikawa faces Anjoh in a singles match). They must have another
major angle up their sleeve because they've got Sumo Hall booked on 12/8. On this tour
are Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio), Mike Anthony (Mike Lozansky) and The Natural
(Don Callis) from Canada and Astro Rey Jr. from EMLL. After Anjoh & Sayama had
retained the title, Great Kabuki went to Ishikawa and said he wanted to form a team to
challenge for the titles. It appears that Sabu will be through with this promotion shortly.
He was supposedly making $6,000 per week with the group, but had problems with how
they were treating The Sheik, and also because they wanted to program him against
Abdullah and he didn't want to do that program since he basically couldn't do any of his
stuff in that kind of a match. Apparently he has one more contractual date left and that
will be it.
Michinoku Pro will be holding a show to honor Gran Hamada on the beginning of his
25th year as a pro wrestler on 11/12 in Hamada's original home town of Maebashi.
Both Gaea and LLPW ran 9/16 at Korakuen Hall. Gaea sold out with AJW's Toshiyo
Yamada facing her idol, Nagayo, and Yamada put Nagayo over by submission with a heel
hold in under 2:00. LLPW drew 1,857 with Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima & Shark
Tsuchiya (FMW) beating Michiko Omukai & Harley Saito & Noriyo Tateno to keep the
LLPW trios titles. Next LLPW at Korakuen Hall is 10/27 with Karula (Saito under a
mask) defending her LLPW title against Sawai.
USWA
As expected, Brian Christopher beat Tommy Rich in the loser leaves town for 30 days
match as the main event on the 9/13 show in Memphis. By winning, Christopher will get
shots at both the Unified title held by Jerry Lawler this coming week and later at the
WWF title, with the possibility being that it'll be Vader instead of Shawn Michaels
coming to Memphis as champion.
Scott Bowden has now hired Vampire Warrior and Luna Vachon as his bounty hunters
to get Christopher, since they held a match on 9/13 where ten fans were the lumberjacks
with belts whipping Bowden as he ran away from Christopher. Vampire and Luna told
Bowden they didn't care about the bounty money, they only cared about dishing out
pain. On television, Luna worked a match against mens jobber Ripley Prim and beat
him, with Vampire interfering freely.
The show this coming week will be on 9/19--a Thursday--with Lawler defending against
Christopher, a double ladder match with the losing team having to split up with Wolfie D
& Jesse James Armstrong vs. Bill & Jamie Dundee, a first blood match with Christopher
vs. Vampire, a womens first blood match with Luna vs. Miss Texas, Randy Hales vs.
Samantha and if Hales wins, Samantha has to leave town, but if Samantha wins, then
Bill Dundee takes over as USWA promoter, Mike Samples vs. Steven Dunn, Brickhouse
Brown vs. Flash Flanagan and Bart Sawyer vs. Tony Falk.
ECW
Another slew of injuries at the ECW Arena show on 9/14. The most serious was to a
rookie named Kareem Horton from the ECW training school who was doing a Head
Hunter/Abdullah gimmick and was on the top rope and somehow lost his balance and
landed wrong, breaking his leg. Johnny Smith tore out his AC joint in his shoulder in the
early moments of his match with Taz. Shane Douglas collapsed backstage (this was a
shoot) after doing a run-in during the Pit Bull #2 vs. Raven title match, apparently reinjuring
his back and neck after hurting them earlier in the week lifting weights. People
really freaked out about Douglas since he basically collapsed backstage but he was okay
when he was examined at the hospital. Doug Furnas suffered a broken nose in his tag
match. Tommy Dreamer's ribs are also still in bad shape as they were re-injured at the
9/13 show in Jim Thorpe, PA so he couldn't do his regular insane bump (it was supposed
to be a choke slam off the top rope through a table this time) at the Arena show. Ring
announcer Bob Artese also could have been seriously hurt as during a brawl with a chair,
the chair leg wound up flying into his face and came inches from taking out his eye. He
ended up bleeding from under the eye. As it was, the show was described as not on the
level of the previous several shows with only one memorable match, the Furnas & Dan
Kroffat vs. Sabu & Rob Van Dam match described as being ***1/2 to ****, ending in a
30:00 draw. The bout was described as super stiff All Japan style, with excellent
psychology in building to great false finishes, but Sabu missed a lot of spots (and looked
awesome on the ones he didn't miss) which gave the match a sloppy feel, although I was
told most of the crowd didn't react badly to that. The crowd was estimated at about
1,250. Main event saw Eliminators & Brian Lee over Terry Gordy & Steve Williams &
Dreamer. Dreamer worked most of the match and it was mainly in the ring since he was
hurt. Gordy had Lee in the Oriental spike when the Eliminators gave him the total
elimination for the pin. Williams gave Kronus an Oklahoma Stampede through a table.
The Eliminators tag match with Gordy & Williams (which was the purpose of re-uniting
them as a team) is planned for 10/26 at the Arena.
The show opened with Gangstas beating the FBI (J.T. Smith & Little Guido) in a short
match. Then Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie & Super Nova came out dressed like the
Godwinns, calling themselves the Stamford Hillbillies, and the Gangstas came out and
beat them up as well. Sandman was supposed to wrestle Devon Storm, but the Bad Crew
came out with Storm and Sandman ended up beating all three up and pinning all of
them. They introduced a new heel ref, Julio Caeasar Alfonso. Apparently with its most
popular acts in early squashes, it toned down the heat, particularly since next up was
endless Dudleys. Axl Rotten beat Buh Buh when D-Von hit Buh Buh with a chair. Then
D-Von beat Hack Myers in a bad match. They introduced a new Dudley called Spike
Dudley (Matt Hyson, a 150-pounder from California) which Buh Buh presses and throws
on his opponents. Douglas beat Louie Spicolli to keep the TV title in a decent match.
After the match, Douglas destroyed TV announcer Lance Wright giving him a DDT and
he did a stretcher job (Wright has a try-out with the WWF, where he formerly worked,
later this week). Raven kept the ECW title amidst a ton of interference, mainly from
Douglas, beating Pit Bull #2 in a match where the finish got a lot of heat for the near
falls and Taz beat Johnny Smith in a typical Taz match using the choke finisher.
They attempted to bring the Rock & Roll Express in to work against The Gangstas at
literally the last minute, but it couldn't be put together since Ricky Morton had a prior
booking in the Carolinas.
The show had less out of the ring brawling and blood than the previous shows.
The previous night in Jim Thorpe, PA before 400 was an overall strong "B" show.
Kroffat & Furnas beat Mikey Whipwreck & Spicolli in a match that wasn't good as there
were "NWO" and "boring" and "We Want blood" chants and a lot of missed spots.
Apparently Whipwreck was really worried going in about working the All Japan stiff
style. Gangstas beat Douglas & Samu with Douglas never tagging in and the Gangstas
destroying Samu's neck which they are playing up since Samu had his throat slashed a
few weeks ago in a real life fight and the scars are very noticeable and will probably be
played up for an angle. Steve Williams beat Devon Storm and after the match,
Eliminators attacked Williams and Dreamer saved. Pit Bull #2 beat Perry Saturn in a
good match when Pit Bull #1 distracted Saturn. Sandman & Dreamer beat Raven & Lee
in a very heated double-juice match, while Sabu beat Rob Van Dam in the main event of
what was reported as a decent to very good match. After the match, Kroffat & Furnas
jumped both men just as Van Dam was about to shake Sabu's hand.
Smith will be out of action this current week because of the shoulder injury.
Furnas & Kroffat are booked for this coming weeks shows.
Tentative plans for 10/5 at ECW Arena are Sandman & Dreamer vs. Raven & Lee. If Lee
loses, he gets his head shaved; if Raven loses, he loses the belt; if Sandman loses, he gets
10 whacks with the cane; and if Dreamer loses, Beulah has to leave ECW; Douglas vs. Pit
Bull #2 , Taz vs. Smith and possibly Sabu vs. Furnas if Sabu isn't booked in Japan that
week as he may finish his Tokyo Pro Wrestling commitments that week. I don't believe
any of this has been announced yet.
9/27 in Allentown, PA has Raven defending against Gordy, Douglas defending against
Pit Bull #2 , Gangstas defending against Richards & Meanie, Dreamer vs. Lee falls count
anywhere and Sabu vs. Saturn.
10/11 in Revere, MA at the Wonderland Greyhound Park (1,000 seats) has Raven vs.
Sandman for the title, Gangstas vs. Samoan Gangstas for tag title, Douglas vs. Pit Bull #2
for TV title, Sabu vs. Scorpio, Taz vs. Whipwreck, Dreamer vs. Lee weapons match.
10/12 in Burlington, MA at the Strike One Sports and Rec Center (800 seats) has Raven
& Lee vs. Sandman & Dreamer falls count anywhere, Gangstas defending against
Samoan Gangstas, Douglas defending against Myers, Sabu vs. Saturn, Pit Bull #2 vs.
Kronus, Tod Gordon vs. Bill Alfonso, Taz vs. Whipwreck and Furnas vs. Scorpio.
The reason Kimona left ECW was because she was unhappy in the babyface role with
Dreamer because she felt she had nothing to do since Beulah was clearly top dog in that
twosome, and because she said she makes more money dancing than what she was
getting paid in ECW and said Missy Hyatt had nothing to do with her leaving. She's now
with AWF.
The television show "American Journal" did a piece this past week on ECW. Paul
Heyman was thrilled with the piece since the group staged a street fight brawl with stiff
garbage can shots and the show was going to air the shows in slow-mo and of course the
shots were landing hard so they wouldn't look bad in slow-mo.
HERE AND THERE
The American Wrestling Federation held a press conference on 9/12 in New York which
included Sgt. Slaughter, Tito Santana, Road Warrior Hawk, Ken Resnick, Rico Suave
(heel manager who is also one of the heads of the company), Paul Alperstein (company
President and bankroller), Missy Hyatt and Kimona from ECW. Resnick will do the
announcing and Hyatt will be the hostess of the show. Kimona, who recently quit ECW,
will start out as the ring card girl but they'll eventually do an angle to bring her into a
bigger spot. The next TV tapings are 10/6 to 10/8 in Tampa. Also announced as being
involved are Mr. Fuji as a heel manager (why doesn't that surprise me), Lord Al Hayes as
an announcer and Jim Brunzell as commissioner and several other names were
mentioned as wrestling with the group, most of whom have been mentioned here in the
past but also mentioned were Tony Atlas, Mr. Hughes and Chris Adams. The television
starts this coming weekend (9/20) with a very strong station line-up that includes CBS
affiliates in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Other major market
stations include KBHK in San Francisco (in the prime time slot of 2 a.m. Saturday),
WLVI in Boston, WBDC in Washington DC, KDFI in Dallas, WAPL in Detroit, WVPA in
Atlanta, WVAB in Cleveland, KLGT in Minneapolis, WTMU in Tampa, WFOR in Miami,
WPTT in Pittsburgh, WBFF in Baltimore, WTXX in New Haven, KTTY in San Diego and
KGMA in Houston. I'm expecting they'll be airing old shows starting next week because
they've done so many tapings over the past few years with very little of it airing in highprofile
spots.
Dr. Jerry Graham, a legendary heel of the late 50s, is currently hospitalized with a
broken leg in Glendale, CA.
Another EFC update. It appears the show on 10/18 will take place at the Tulsa Expo
Square Arena. There will be several rule changes as part of political concessions about
getting the show approved locally without the previous headaches the group has had in
having both of its PPV shows nearly canceled at the last minute. We don't know what the
concessions are but it is believed they'll include mandatory gloves (which they had at the
last show), fighting with rounds similar to boxing, and a time clock on the ground which
means let's just say a 45 second clock, at which point the fighters are stood up even if
they are close to a submission. The irony to those who follow this is that all three of these
rules to make the fighting more civilized in reality only makes it more dangerous. The
latest line-up is Marcus Silveira vs. Bart Vale (Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, UWF,
Rings, WCC) for the heavyweight title, Igor Zinoviev vs. John Lober for the
middleweight title, John Lewis vs. Joil Mendes, Ralph Gracie vs. Ali Mihoubi, Alan Goes
(Pancrase) vs. Marcio Cestilho, Joao Roque vs. Abdelaziz Cherigui, Matt Hume
(Pancrase/Pankration) vs. Erik Paulsen (WCC/Sayama shooting) and Todd Bjornathan
(Pancrase) vs. Rudyard Moncoyo (UFC).
Chris Adams held television tapings in Terrill, TX doing a series of 30 minute television
shows called Mid South Wrestling for the Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas markets.
Among those on the shows included Rod Price, Bob Orton, One Man Gang, Greg
Valentine, Terry Gordy, Tommy Rogers and Missy Hyatt.
Where are they now department? Former AWA wrestler Earthquake Ferris is now
working in Northern California as a high school football coach.
Vampiro Canadiense is tentatively scheduled to work 10/4 in Compton, CA.
Bert Prentice's North American All-Star Wrestling celebrates its second year as a regular
territory next month.
The IFC (Buddy Albin shootfighting promotion) show scheduled for Lockeford, CA on
9/28 was canceled and the next IFC show will be 11/29 in Biloxi, MS. IFC ran on 9/14 in
Mobile, AL and drew 3,200 fans with no fighters with any prior name value at all, and
considering the prices IFC charges, that says something for the concept.
At least two other UFC-clone groups are working behind the scenes. One group, which
may be called World Fighting Federation (WFF) is scheduling a PPV show for 11/22 in
Birmingham (which, of course, is the same city SEG is planning running the Ultimate
Ultimate in four weeks later) and claiming to have Renzo Gracie, John Lewis and several
big-name Brazilians including Mario Sperry. The "U Japan" group in Japan's 11/17 show
is scheduled either for a second show live or a taped PPV show from the first card on
January 10, 1997. Let's just say I'm skeptical of any of these new events getting to PPV.
UFC
A few notes on the current field. Reza Nasari, who was listed here as being a former
world champion in Greco-roman wrestling in 1986, apparently won a junior tournament
in Germany at 165 pounds but not the actual world championship so he's got a strong
wrestling background, but on paper shouldn't be able to beat Mark Coleman in a
wrestling match. He's had articles written on him and his system in martial arts
magazines.
It's almost a definite that Igor Vovchanchin won't be in the tournament and they are
talking about bringing him in as an alternate for Ultimate Ultimate before putting him in
a February tournament.
As of press time, approximately 1,800 tickets had been sold in Augusta, GA (6,500
capacity which isn't too bad since that's by history primarily a walk-up city.
Apparently both Fabio Gurgel and alternate Roberto Traven are considered by
reputation as two of the best fighters in Brazil.
WCW
Nitro on 9/16 in Asheville, NC drew about 5,000 fans (2,800 paying $44,000). Rey
Misterio Jr. beat Juventud Guerrera to keep the cruiserweight title in 9:26. Much of this
match didn't air either due to commercials or to them breaking into the match to show
NWO stuff. What did air looked tremendous and without Mike Tenay there (now doing
interviews), Tony Schiavone was clueless how to call the moves. Highlight was Guerrera
doing a springboard into a Scorpio splash. They barely got back from outside clips in
time for the finish, which was Guerrera doing a power bomb while standing on the top
rope and while on the way down, Misterio Jr. reversed it into a Frankensteiner.
Diamond Dallas Page beat Ice Train in 4:43. They were showing NWO stuff and actually
missed the finish. Too bad they had it on replay as it was as lame as it comes. Train had
Page in the full nelson but Page got the towel from Teddy Long and threw it into the ring
and ref Nick Patrick ruled that Long had thrown the towel in for Train. Konnan kept the
Mexican title (he was wearing the AAA world heavyweight title belt) pinning Super Calo
in 6:44 after a splash mountain. During this match Sean Waltman was at ringside and
was interviewed where he acted as if he didn't have a clue what was going on. Later in
the show he was given a new name by the NWO, "Six." Waltman was said by Schiavone
to have been wrestling under the name 1-2-3 Kid in the WWF but that he was released
from his contract by that organization. Except for one moment where Konnan didn't go
over when Calo tried a head scissors off the top into a cradle spot, and Konnan actually
landed on Calo and the bout momentarily fell apart, it was excellent. Calo took great
bumps and did incredible moves (tope with a flip, dropkick off the top to floor,
springboard crossbody outside, Super Astro plancha into a head-butt). Konnan also
debuted a move which was a combination bearhug into a Northern lights
bomb/brainbuster combination. Brad Armstrong pinned Hugh Morrus in 3:54 when
Morrus hit the moonsault, but as he was celebrating, Armstrong pinned him. Scott
Norton beat Randy Savage via DQ when Savage went nuts and hit Norton with a chair
three times at 6:38 and then threw down Nick Patrick. Glacier pinned Big Bubba with a
side kick to the chin in 2:42. Glacier is basically just a ring entrance. He does a bunch of
Sayama/Takada type spots with half the speed and half the impact. Sting came out for
an interview, obviously not listening to what had been said earlier, and said basically he
was sticking by the fans who stuck by him, that WCW could stick it and that he was now
declaring himself a free agent. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson beat Chris Jericho & Marcus
Bagwell when Flair used the figure four on Bagwell in 11:07. This match was ruined
because they overdid a spot where NWO fliers fell from the ceiling. They dropped so
many and they kept falling that it killed the match as fans kept throwing stuff in the ring.
Bagwell worked great with Flair. Flair & Anderson didn't do any of Jericho's Japanese
spots. Final was Luger in a handicap match (since Sting left him) against Chris Benoit &
Steve McMichael. Not good. Luger had Benoit up in the rack when Flair and Anderson
interfered for the DQ in 6:21 and they destroyed him after the show. They strongly
played up that next week most of the top WCW wrestlers except Savage will be in Japan
and pretty much told everyone that the NWO would be taking over the show next week,
which I guess is the working plan.
Real story. A woman called the WCW offices last week complaining because her five year
old had spray painted NWO on her one year old.
Paul Wight had to buy the Cadillac they destroyed in the angle that aired on Saturday.
They got a rented Cadillac that was supposed to be Lex Luger's car and the NWO
destroyed it. They had an agreement with the rental place how much damage would be
done and basically totally exceeded it in the heat of battle and Wight became the
scapegoat.
Lots of heat in Columbus, GA regarding the Nitro show on 9/9 because it was advertised
locally that Hogan, Hall, Nash and Sting would wrestle on the show, none of whom
appeared in the building in front of the fans as the angle was done outside and they had
no video wall in the building. That show drew both the largest live crowd (6,000) and
largest live gate ($54,000) in the history of wrestling in Columbus, GA.
There will be a Nitro on January 13, 1997 in New Orleans which is the week of the
NATPE convention in that city.
Speaking of Swiss cheese booking, the WCW world title will be declared vacant after
Havoc once again with the belt going to the winner of another 60 man three ring Battle
Royal at World War III. The working plan (subject to change) is to declare the world title
vacant every November and make the Battle Royal an annual event. We can only hope
for good matches on the undercard.
Steve Regal was in England defending the TV title this past week and goes to Japan this
coming week. That was all supposed to be talked about on WCW television but somehow
I don't know if anyone even knows Regal has the title since it's never been mentioned on
Nitro or even on the Saturday show except the show where the title change itself aired.
Current plan, which could change, is for NWO to get the Saturday night show either one
hour per week, or two hours every other week. The NWO TV show is a cute idea but I
don't know how they can work it. Who will they wrestle? If it's the same WCW jobbers,
then it's obvious it's the same promotion. If they want to have competitive matches, it's
not like they are going to wrestle each other, so they'll have to use the Bagwells of the
world to put them over. Ted DiBiase will be the color announcer. No decision regarding
play-by-play man.
Weekend house shows drew 2,550 and $33,310 on 9/13 in Knoxville and 3,954 paid
(4,515 total) and $46,339 on 9/14 in Johnson City. Tons of NWO chants during the
show. Fans booed hell out of Nasty Boys when they wrestled Hall & Nash to the extent
Nastys were pissed afterwards because Hall & Nash worked the match as babyfaces as
well. Crowd didn't cheer any of the faces all night except Brad Armstrong (local star from
SMW) and Randy Savage got a polite response. They didn't boo Luger but did chant
NWO at him during his match with Dick Slater (who nobody was going to cheer).
Weekend ratings for 9/14-15 besides Nitro saw Main Event do a 1.3, Saturday Night a
2.6 and Pro a 1.6.
WCW Saturday Night tapings on 9/10 in Albany, GA drew 5,100 fans (1,800 paying
$18,000). No major names were there. Calo did a job for Page. Misterio Jr. beat
Guerrera again two more times. David Taylor beat Bobby Eaton and not much else.
Jimmy Golden was at the Nitro tapings in Asheville, NC trying to get his job back.
Neal Pruitt deserves much of the credit for the great production of the NWO segments.
He splices in a lot of stuff that they don't even know is being filmed like when they laugh
at each others' dirty jokes.
The NWO tag title idea may have been temporarily dropped. Originally they were going
to have Hall & Nash beat Sting & Luger in Las Vegas on 10/27 for the newly created
NWO tag titles. However, they changed directions with Sting and now Hall & Nash will
face Harlem Heat for the WCW tag titles that they'll almost surely win, and Luger faces
Arn Anderson. Rest of the card remains the same and I guess Elizabeth will be in
Savage's corner against Hogan.
General feeling is that the reason they are going to vacate the world title is to get the belt
off Hogan without having to get him to do a job.
WWF
A couple of deaths of former WWF employees to report. Juanita Wright, who used the
name Sapphire as the manager of Dusty Rhodes, passed away on 9/11 in St. Louis of a
heart attack at the age of 61, although her friends in wrestling seem to insist she was
several years younger than that. Wright was a long-time wrestling fan out of St. Louis
who got involved in local indies doing some wrestling and more refereeing under the
name Princess Dark Cloud. When Rhodes went to WWF and they were trying to
humiliate him with an Aunt Jemimah-looking love interest/manager, Terry Joyal (Terry
Garvin), who was working the WWF front office at the time, suggested Wright, who he
remembered as a long-time fan from when Joyal worked in the office for the Kansas City
promotion. Ironically, the gimmick got over pretty big and Sapphire got very popular
during her short run, until at the end turning heel on Rhodes (you can't trust those
women) being bought off by Ted DiBiase's money, and there was little use for her at that
point so she faded away. Also, "Friendly" Bob Freed, the Madison Square Garden ring
announcer in the early 70s between Johnny Addie and Howard Finkel, passed away back
on 8/23 at the age of 77. Freed was a huge man, actually much larger than most of the
wrestlers which made the photos of him announcing ruin the effect of the size of the
wrestlers in a territory based around large heels.
It was legit that WWF sold out every show in South Africa and turned away people at all
the venues. They were sold shows to a local promoter so nobody really knows the paid
attendance and grosses but crowds ranged from 6,000 to 9,000.
Bret Hart was on Raw taped from South Africa saying he wouldn't be at the PPV in
Philadelphia so they made it clear and called Brian Pillman and Owen Hart liars and
said that he was through with his commitments with WWF and that he hadn't decided
about his future. He's also been ripping on Shawn Michaels in interviews both in
newspaper and radio interviews. While he probably dislikes Michaels, most of it is
probably a work to build up a return match. Working plan we last heard was still Hart
vs. Austin at Survivor Series.
Faarooq vs. Marc Mero for the IC title finals was moved from the Philadelphia PPV to
the live Raw the next night in Hershey, PA which shows how much emphasis they are
putting in their Monday night ratings. Pat Patterson will ref. I can see the finish already.
Sunny will show some thigh to distract Patterson to lead to a finish but it won't work.
There was an article in .....n Sports in Japan saying Kurt Angle had signed with WWF
but we're told an offer was made to Angle but that thus far Angle hasn't accepted the
offer.
Undertaker was back in action for all the house shows this weekend.
Ahmed Johnson had another minor setback this past week but it wasn't his kidney, but
is still expected back around the first of the year.
Chris Candito will be back as a heel with a new gimmick probably around December.
Shane McMahon, the son of Vince, was married on 9/14.
Michaels is getting some heat at the house shows due to the Playgirl cover. In Miami on
9/12, it was reported that half the crowd cheered for Vader and that the guys were
cheering for him and chanting Texas sucks at Michaels when he showed his new Texas
tatoo.
The Mania show that goes interactive starting next week will be hosted by Jim Cornette
and Sunny and called "Live Wire." The WGN show starts at 9 a.m. Saturday mornings
this coming week called "Blast off." It's real interesting that McMahon complained about
WCW going head-to-head with Raw to the point he made it a point of legal action in a
lawsuit that it still outstanding, but he put a show on WGN to go head-to-head with an
existing WCW show on TBS. Live Wire, Superstars and Raw will all have commentary
done live and they'll do a lot of the angle shooting live so people don't get advanced word
of things. Matches themselves will be done at the tapings and some angles will be, but a
lot of angles will be done live at the Titan studios to try and bring more of an element of
surprise to the shows and hopefully close the Monday night gap in particular.
Besides Raw, the weekend numbers for 9/14-15 were Mania at 1.3 and Action Zone at
1.7.
They aired clips of Hogan and Savage on the final Superstars in syndication, the ten year
anniversary. They got their digs in, showing a 1986 Savage-Steamboat match with Curt
Hennig saying how good Savage was in his prime and Gorilla Monsoon noting that his
prime was ten years ago. The two clips of Hogan were him getting destroyed by
Earthquake and by Andre and they came back and said that Andre had done more for
the WWF than any wrestler in history which appeared to be knocks at both Hogan and
Bruno Sammartino.
Advance for the PPV in Philadelphia as of six days in was 6,800 tickets.
Weekend house shows saw 9/12 in Miami draw 3,045 and $52,830; 9/13 in Huntington,
WV drew 3,163 and $45,770; 9/14 in Louisville drew 3,262 and $56,354 and 9/15 in
Nashville drew 3,301 and $50,464.
THE READERS PAGES
SUNSHINE WRESTLING FEDERATION
My mild comments in the Observer suggesting that it was unfortunate that the NWA was
a shadow of its former self ruffled the feathers of the NWA's Florida promoter, Howard
Brody, who hid behind the pseudonym "NWA Board of Directors" in the letter attacking
the Sunshine Wrestling Federation. His real purpose was to drive a wedge between longtime
friends Dennis Coraluzzo, an NWA promoter, and Bill Brown, the SWF promoter.
They are both insurance salesmen in their other lives.
To clear the record, there have been several informal discussions with Brown, Coraluzzo
and Brody about the SWF joining the NWA. We've never been told "No," only that we
should wait until the directors work out the territorial problem.
While the NWA name has allure, without proof of a program to benefit its members and
evidence of a solid legal infrastructure and by-laws, I can't say whether it would be
worthwhile for the SWF to join.
The NWA letter challenged me to take a course in humility which I'll gladly do when
Howard Brody takes a course in promoting from Bill Brown. Bill's "door-to-door"
promotion works. As a result, we draw excellent crowds and have many sponsor
organizations. In the past three years, the SWF has run more than 50 shows in South
Florida compared to the NWA's three, and none so far this year.
The SWF show that drew 4,400 fans was not a free show at an Indian reservation as
falsely represented in the NWA letter and by "eyewitness" Tim McKenna, whose
imagination must have been working overtime. The show actually took place at the
Coconut Grove Convention Center in Miami on 7/1. It was a pre-paid show. All of our
shows are regular shows or pre-paid shows and as long as they produce revenue for the
organization, the SWF owes nobody any apologies. I don't see other independents in
Florida drawing anything close to our shows.
The only free shows the SWF has promoted were two shows for the Special Olympics.
The letters placed a bigoted and negative connotation to the term "Indian reservation
shows," as if having Native American sponsorship is an embarrassment. This
implication is ridiculous. We've held two very successful shows this year at the
Miccosukee Tribe in Miami. The Miccosukees operate a multi-million dollar bingo and
gaming facility and are excellent sponsors and have a lot of knowledgeable fans.
It really took a lot of gall for Observer reader Sheldon Goldberg to question me about my
qualifications in the sports and entertainment business and predicting certain SWF
failure without even trying to learn the basic facts about SWF. He bought, hook, line and
sinker, the NWA's false story about a free show at an Indian Reservation.
Hey, and don't knock our champion, Demon Hellstorm. He's a great worker. While there
are no Demon Hellstorm lunch boxes yet, we sell plenty of buttons, pictures and t-shirts
of him at our shows.
Bernie Siegel
Commissioner, Sunshine Wrestling Federation
HALL OF FAME
Let me put my two cents worth into the Hall of Fame. I'd have included the following:
Ernie Roth - A top flight manager as the Grand Wizard and other personas. Ernie knew
how to get the fans going.
Bull Curry - A carny wrestler from the 30s that became one of the sport's greatest
villains. He started the action from inside the ring to outside the ring. He was doing
what they call ECW style before anyone in ECW was even born.
Jack Pfeffer - One of the greatest promoters the sport has ever had. A real power force
and wheeler dealer. A year before Buddy Rogers passed away, he stated on the radio
show that Dan Reilly and I had when asked about Jack said, "What wrestling needs
today is a Jack Pfeffer."
George Gordienko - Almost was NWA champion. Had his politics been different, he
would have been the man to replace Lou Thesz as world champion instead of Dick
Hutton.
Tom Burke
Springfield, Massachusetts
DM: The background on Gordienko, who wrestled through the mid-70s, is
that he's acknowledged as being one of the best and toughest wrestlers ever
and was also incredibly powerful when it came to weightlifting. Thesz
thought so much of his ability that he wanted to drop the NWA title to him,
however this was during the Joe McCarthy era when freedom was a
different concept then it is today. Gordienko was a member of the
Communist Party and when this was found out, wasn't allowed into the
United States which is saying something since Sam Muchnick in those days
had a lot of political pull with his relationship with a Missouri member of
the U.S. House of Representatives named Mel Price.
Your Hall of Fame was outstanding. While I may dicker with a few choices, your
selections represented a formidable cross-section of names behind important events in
pro wrestling history. Thank goodness you didn't do it like other sports, like use a panel
of "experts" who end up being biased as hell, or use voting from fans, who tend not to
know facts.
I'm especially interested in recognizing women and submit the following list for future
consideration. I imagine some didn't make it because they didn't meet the age or
experience requirements. Penny Banner, June Byers, for her role in the early days of
womens wrestling, Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo, particularly Nagayo; Bull Nakano;
Fabulous Moolah, champ for three decades and synonymous with American womens
wrestling; Akira Hokuto; Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki as the Jumping Bomb
Angels for their evolution of the flying style in the U.S. and Japan; Leilani Kai, a top
wrestler for more than two decades, in two Wrestlemanias, helped get the Japanese
women over in tag matches with Judy Martin against the Jumping Bomb Angels, and
holder of tag team titles in both the U.S. and Japan with Martin; Sherri Martel, both as a
wrestler and manager; Manami Toyota; and Vivian Vachon, an early female practitioner
of power style wrestling, a sex symbol, subject of a 70s movie "Wrestling Queen" and a
singing star.
On the promotional side, I suggest Ann Gunkel, instrumental in the formation of what
became TBS, Christine Jarrett, mother of Jerry and long-time promoter in Louisville;
Lia Maivia, whose controversial Hawaiian promotion was a powerful member of the
NWA; and Linda McMahon, whose major role in the WWF is overshadowed by her
husband Vince.
Robert Rothaas
Shady Side, Maryland

 

Sept. 30, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WCW
beating WWF handily week-after-week, classic Foley vs.
HBK Mind Games match, UFC 11 review, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 30 September 1996 01:02
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 September 30, 1996
WWF MIND GAMES PPV POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 149 (78.0%)
Thumbs down 24 (12.6%)
In the middle 18 (09.4%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind 170
WORST MATCH POLL
Jim Cornette vs. Jose Lothario 58
Jerry Lawler vs. Mark Henry 37
Savio Vega vs. Marty Jannetty 10
Savio Vega vs. Justin Bradshaw 8
UFC XI PROVING GROUND PPV POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 61 (50.8%)
Thumbs down 32 (26.7%)
In the middle 27 (22.5%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Scott Ferrozo vs. Tank Abbott 62
Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio Gurgel 39
WORST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Julian Sanchez 19
Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio Gurgel 11
WCW FALL BRAWL FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 101 (44.5%)
Thumbs down 83 (36.6%)
In the middle 43 (18.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Super Calo 63
Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit 57
Konnan vs. Juventud Guerrera 48
WORST MATCH POLL
Scott Norton vs. Ice Train 83
War Games 53
Randy Savage vs. The Giant 9
Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys 8
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 9/24.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
It was the biggest and most important Monday night battle to date.
The WWF, losing the Monday night head-to-head rating battles by record margins the
previous two weeks, was set to peak. It was its much ballyhooed beginning of the new
fall season. It was the climax of the Razor Ramon/Diesel angle that now has to rank as
the biggest flop since the Edsel. And it was the day after a fake shoot angle working with
ECW. They had the finals of the Intercontinental tournament (Marc Mero beating
Faarooq), pulled from the PPV show in order to help the rating. Not to mention the
traditional bump one normally gets coming the day after a PPV and the fact they were
going live. The latter is the most overrated criteria of all as in the days when there was
no Nitro, it was generally the final week of the tapings or the oldest matches that which
had the most time for the results to circulate that drew the best Raw ratings in any cycle,
eventually the Internet will change that and that does have to be taken into account for
future planning of the business, but the percentage of wrestling fans with Internet and
newsletters combined today is probably less than two percent, hardly enough to make an
iota of difference in a national rating.
WCW was hardly sitting still. With most of its talent in Japan since the original plan was
to do a taped show this week, they practically promised that the NWO would take over
the show, which they did, to the point they took out an ad in USA Today practically
giving the angle away.
The results. Monday Nitro did a 3.4 rating and 5.2 share (3.3 first hour, 3.5 second
hour). Monday Night Raw did a 2.0 rating and 2.9 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.4
rating and a 3.2 share.
For the past several weeks, ever since the introduction of this Ramon/Diesel angle, the
WWF television has reeked of desperation. The TV is put together constantly begging the
viewers in every commercial break not to tune away and leading the viewers along with
teases the rest of the show that end with all the sincerity of a 900 line pitch. It's failed,
miserably, in fact, despite it being for the most part the talk of the inside of the wrestling
industry. The decision making processes, the constant striving for attention and
attempts to be the thing talked out on Tuesday on the hotlines and internet, the one
audience WWF is successful in being talked about on, is killing its adult audience, and
that's the audience it needs to win on Mondays.
Jim Ross ended up as the scapegoat for the Razor/Diesel angle, something that had been
clear from the bad reaction to the angle from the second week. After a brief glimpse the
night before on the PPV where Rick Bogner and Glen Jacobs, dressed as Razor Ramon
and Diesel, attacked Savio Vega, the television show was built around teasing their
appearance later in the show. It made the WWF come across that much more foolish
since Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were shown early on during Nitro, also live, and well
before WWF unveiled its new men, they had "taken over" Nitro and were making a joke
about accepting no imitations. WCW had its own inside joke during that show,
introducing Michael Jones, formerly Virgil in the WWF (a name given as a knock on
Dusty Rhodes, who was the NWA booker at the time the character was introduced), as
the new Chief of Security for the NWO and named him Vince. Finally Ross came into the
ring to "deliver the goods."
Instead it was a tremendous one-man performance. Yet another worked shoot angle.
Ross turned on the WWF, saying that he left a good job in Atlanta, was also an
announcer for the Atlanta Falcons and brought in to be the lead play-by-play man in the
WWF. He said his first appearance was at Wrestlemania IX where they had him dress in
a toga, and said he left broadcasting the NFL to where a toga. He said that if you check
his call of the King of the Ring that year that it was a level above what anyone else in
wrestling is capable of, and said that everyone in the audience knows he's the best playby-
play announcer in the business, which actually got a big babyface pop. He then said
he was taken off television because the egotistical owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon,
couldn't stand the competition. He got some cheers at that point but more boos. He
talked about getting Bells Palsy and then being fired two weeks later and said how he
had to tell his new wife and two little girls that their dad had been fired. He said he had
to live in Connecticut, which he called an overpriced hellhole. He said when McMahon
got indicted, that they brought him back and then let him go again. Finally he was
brought back in a front office position for 50 cents on the dollar and basically said that
the wrestlers who left and wrestlers who came in were no coincidence, basically implying
that the guys who left were the result of him sabotaging the company to try and take the
heat off the company itself, similar to his role in the Ramon/Diesel angle. He then
introduced Ramon with the original entrance music, which got a big pop, and then when
it became apparent it was someone else, the crowd deflated. Almost immediately, Vega
attacked him and the show went off the air without introducing Diesel, as if attempting
to hold back on what was promised one more week for ratings purposes.
On the television that airs next week, they taped an argument with Ross and Gorilla
Monsoon (which wasn't broadcast to the fans live) and Vega had a singles match against
Ramon which ended when Diesel interfered, and they did the jackknife and Razor's edge
on Vega after the match. The fans didn't boo as the promotion expected, they had a few
boos and mainly deflated fans. Lots of people walked out of the building during the
attack and apparently it came off really bad live. On television they can sweeten the
sound, but I don't know if its salvageable as an angle. After the show some in WWF were
talking about dropping the angle completely, even before the ratings came in. For the
past several weeks, the WWF has pushed a Friday Night Raw special and the weekly
Monday shows pretty much at the expense of its PPV show and house shows (which
were doing very well all year and have taken a dip the past few weeks). It's been a loselose
since the tactics didn't drive up the ratings, either. It appears the end result of this
will be WWF's main angle, attempting to create its own outsider group led by Ross
which will probably include the heels that used to work for WCW like Brian Pillman,
Steve Austin, Vader, along with the new Razor and Diesel, if they can be salvaged,
perhaps Mankind, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Faarooq and others to face Team WWF.
But that wasn't the only thing tried. Several weeks ago, Vince McMahon contacted Paul
Heyman about the two sides working together against their mutual enemy which would
make sense since the PPV show was scheduled for Philadelphia. The two worked out
their own fake shoot, kept it pretty much hush-hush, where Heyman, Tommy Dreamer
and Sandman attended the PPV show and briefly got involved and it was barely
mentioned, because if it was pushed harder, hardcore fans would see it was an angle.
This epitomized the biggest problem facing the industry today. It's not that working an
angle with ECW was a bad idea, it's a no-lose situation for ECW provided its wrestlers
don't end up jobbing out for WWF, because it gets that group more exposure. It can be a
positive for WWF, in fact, it's something the group needs to turn up the heat. But both
sides, both Heyman and McMahon, were more concerned about putting together an
angle that would fool people, which, in fact, they largely accomplished, than an angle
that would do business and spike the ratings, which was supposed to be the idea of the
whole thing. The fact was, to the casual fan watching the PPV show, they didn't even
remember that Sandman threw a beer at Vega and smashed a beer can on his head and
juiced, since it happened in a nothing opening match and they don't know who those
guys are to begin with, it was never acknowledged or pushed in commentary as they
were more concerned with fooling smart fans than getting something over, and many
more angles took place on the show which climaxed with a tremendous match. The next
day several wrestling officials had fooled themselves, ironically, because such a large
percentage of people who gave them immediate response didn't think it was an angle
and the super hardcore WWF fans in Philadelphia live were furious at ECW, that proved
it was successful, forgetting that the majority of people, because it wasn't pushed as an
angle, didn't even know it took place. The internet and hotline response to this as the
lead story in wrestling (which it was to that audience, as it is to the newsletter audience)
confused people into thinking it would mean something to the television ratings the next
night.
Actually, Heyman played it right. His audience will know about it on their television as
he'll play it up big. It gets his group over as a renegade group, exactly how it has
positioned itself, particularly with the much more high profile NWO around and he no
longer has the monopoly on that market. The next night, ECW "crashed" WWF on the
live Raw, with Taz jumping over the guard rail with a sign that says "Sabu fears Taz" and
it was again blown off, although given a minute bit of commentary with Ross talking
about the promotion that runs at the Bingo Hall looking for their 15 minutes of fame.
Actually a lot more happened after they cut immediately to a commercial (a Heyman
demand so as to make it appear it wasn't supposed to happen) including McMahon
screaming about not letting it happen and it got over great in Hershey, PA, with the fans
chanting "We Want Taz" after the commercial break.
The question is where it goes from here. The only plan originally that McMahon and
Heyman made was to do the angle on the PPV as an attempt to spike the ratings the next
night, which obviously didn't work, nor could it possibly have worked. The PPV was
probably only seen in 100,000 or so homes at best, virtually all of whom religiously
watch Raw anyway. If you shoot an angle on Raw or Nitro, which reaches millions, if
done successfully, it can help a buy rate on a PPV. It's a lot more difficult to do it the
other way around because of simple numbers. At least right now, the ECW audience is
too small to make any difference in a national rating and the nature of what they did
pretty well guaranteed that almost nobody would get it or remember it except the
hardcore percentage of the audience, which is already watching to begin with. That may
change in the future, but that's the reality of today. But emotion of being in a war
replaced analysis of business and looking at simple numbers. This has been the WWF's
downfall as it is spending more energy competing in a war it can't win on Mondays
because of WCW's one hour jump on them, then focusing on areas that are and can be
successful.
McMahon and Heyman may work together in the future, and a correctly done
interpromotional feud can benefit both. If there is a long-term feud done, these angles
that started this way can work as the first part of a successful slow build, but supposedly
there were no plans in the works after Monday. Heyman is against doing any
interpromotional matches because that would expose to his audience, and this angle was
perfect for Heyman's small niche audience, that he's working with the group he's spent
years knocking on his television.
Yeah, it was the biggest and most important Monday night battle to date. Until next
week.
**********************************************************
When it comes to PPV, at least you know what you get into going in. WCW will give you
great undercard matches, bad main events, and booking that makes no sense. WWF will
give you a great main event, weak undercard matches, and booking that ranges from
creative to desperate. And with UFC, it's a shoot so nobody really knows what to expect.
The WWF's latest In Your House PPV, entitled "Mind Games" on 9/22, the first pro
wrestling event in the new Core States Center in Philadelphia, had an exceptional main
event, nothing else worth noting as far as match quality, and the beginnings of a few
angles that will at least garner a lot of talk among inside fans. As mentioned the past two
week, for whatever reason, booking in WWF, WCW and ECW are all more greatly
influenced than ever by the quick response and immediate gratification of attempting to
be the product of conversation for the day and the ability to make people believe their
angles aren't really angles.
The show itself drew a strong crowd of approximately 15,000 in the 22,400-seat arena,
with 11,969 paying $210,290, both all-time records for an In Your House live gate (the
7/21 International Incident show drew slightly more money but it was in Canadian
dollars so this was a record when it came to overall worth of the gate).
The location of Philadelphia made for the potential of a unique atmosphere, which the
WWF did a great job of quelling. There was fear going in based on the lessons learned by
WWF and WCW in running major PPV events in Philadelphia in the past is the
unpredictable crowd responses, whether cheering certain heels, or chanting ECW. The
main source of concern was the Mankind vs. Shawn Michaels match, since at least to a
core of fans, Mankind is something of a legend in Philadelphia and he was wrestling in
arguably the biggest match of his career. Michaels has gotten a lot more boos at recent
arena shows since the Playgirl magazine he was on the cover of came out. To quell that,
Mankind did an interview on the free-for-all show basically saying how glad he was to
get out of ECW, without ever mentioning ECW by name, but instead talked about being
glad he's no longer wrestling at the Bingo Hall in front of unappreciative fans, to attempt
to get the fans who would have cheered him to boo him. Apparently it worked, as he got
more cheers than boos coming out for the interview, but was hardly cheered at all in the
Michaels match, with Michaels getting the same type of babyface reaction you'd expect
in any other arena. In addition, with the ECW angle slated for early in the show, the fans
were led early by Tommy Dreamer and Sandman into doing their ECW chants, and then
when they were escorted out of the building, the fans WWF was worried about pretty
much got it out of their system and whatever chants were attempted later in the show
were barely audible on PPV.
Vince McMahon was back in the announcers chair for this show, largely to begin the
tease for the angle on the next night with Jim Ross.
The free-for-all opened with yet another Jerry Lawler/Mark Henry angle, this time with
the two doing a debate that ended with Lawler slapping Henry in the face and walking
off. At this point, probably as part of the pre-event agreement, just as the television was
going to a Shawn Michaels video piece, Dreamer got up and led the live crowd in an
ECW chant, clearly visible on TV but not acknowledged on TV immediately, so the fans
live would do the chant while the television audience was somewhere else, again, in a
way to get it out of the fans' system with minimal interruption. To set up the angle, when
another chant started, McMahon and Ross talked about a local wrestling franchise in
town with very ardent fans and you may hear some strange chants, and then talked
about how glad they were that those fans had bought tickets to attend a WWF event. In
an attempt to garner last minute buys, Ross again teased that Razor Ramon and Diesel
might show up on the card.
A. Savio Vega (Juan Rivera) pinned Marty Jannetty in 5:22 when he rolled through on a
crossbody block off the top rope. This match was done to set up an added Vega vs. Justin
Hawk Bradshaw match (which itself was added as a backdrop for the ECW angle) for the
PPV show. Bradshaw did an interview saying how mad he was that he had never been in
a WWF PPV event. After Vega won, Bradshaw and Zeb jumped him and Bradshaw
choked him with a bullwhip, and Vega later did an interview accepting the challenge for
the strap match on the PPV event. The spots in this match were done in slow-motion.
1/2*
1. Vega beat Bradshaw (John Hawk) in 7:09 in a Caribbean strap match with the same
finish as in almost every strap or chain match. The heel drags the face around to three
corners while the face also touches the corners, then as the heel is attempting to pull the
face so he could touch the final corner, he pulls so hard the face goes flying right into the
final buckle for the win. The two whipped each other pretty hard with the strap. Match
itself was mainly a backdrop for the ECW angle. Sandman, Dreamer and Paul Heyman
were at ringside and Sandman threw his beer at Vega, smashes the beer can on his head
and juiced (a planned juice spot on a WWF PPV event which is interesting if only
because of the letters Vince McMahon wrote Ted Turner last year), lit a cigarette while
security led all three off. Off camera, but very noticeable to the live fans, Sandman,
Dreamer and Heyman were calling attention to themselves at ringside up to that point of
the show and Heyman kept giving the finger to McMahon, and McMahon gave him dirty
looks back. A lot of people live thought all this was a shoot. After the match, they did a
far away shot of the new Razor and Diesel attacking Vega in the locker room after the
match. Even in the far away shot, it seemed obvious it wasn't Kevin Nash and Scott Hall,
although the clip was so far away and so sudden in and out it's doubtful the majority of
those watching picked up on that. At this point McMahon acknowledged that Ross
wasn't just making up a story, positioning himself in the babyface role when the fans
turned on the angle which was set up to be blamed on Ross. McMahon later in the show
was more skeptical when Ross brought the subject up, Ross slipped in a mention of
McMahon's indictment, the two had a few minor arguments about who was better,
Owen Hart or Davey Boy Smith, and McMahon even made mention that he thought
Ross' statements about Razor and Diesel were nothing but a stunt to garner TV ratings,
acknowledging all the negative reaction and acting like he agreed with the negative
reaction to the angle up to that point, thereby positioning himself as the babyface when
the angle went down. *1/4
2. Jose Lothario (Jose Lothario Garcia) pinned Jim Cornette with a left to the head in
:57. Cornette's knee has been swelling of late so it was even worse than you'd think. After
the match they showed Cornette "knocked out" laying on a bed signing a piece of paper
which apparently is the angle where Cornette was tricked into signing away the contracts
of Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith to Clarence Mason. -*
Brian Pillman came out for the Bret Hart interview that didn't take place. He's no longer
on crutches and seemed to be walking much better. He brought out Owen Hart who said
that Bret was afraid of Steve Austin. Austin came out and did a promo on Bret saying
that if you put the letter "S" in front of Hit Man, that's what Bret Hart is, and saying he's
worse than a chicken, he's the slimy stuff that comes out of a chicken's butt.
3. Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith won the WWF tag titles from the Smoking Gunns
(Mike Plotcheck & Monte Sopp) in 10:59. When the poster of Sunny came down, it was
all marked up giving her a beard and a moustache which supposedly Hart & Smith did.
Mason came out to manage Hart & Smith. Billy Gunn has dropped noticeable weight,
perhaps because of the hand injury he can't do any weight work and got really skinny.
Smith led the crowd in a chant of "Bart sucks Billy." After the Gunns used the sidewinder
slam on Smith, Mason distracted the ref and Hart came off the top on Billy for a good
near fall. Finish saw Billy and Bart collide, and Smith used the powerslam on Bart for
the pin. Match itself was a disappointment considering who was involved and the fact it
was a title change match. After the match Sunny got on the mic and called the Gunns no
good cowboy wannabees, fired them, and stormed off. **1/4
4. Mark Henry beat Jerry Lawler via submission with a backbreaker over the shoulder in
5:13. Lawler mainly bumped for Henry. At this point, Henry seems a lot closer to Bill
Kazmaier than to Ken Patera. After the match, Leif Cassidy, Jannetty and Hunter Hearst
Helmsley all jumped Henry and he cleaned house on all of them, ending by pressing
Helmsley and throwing him over the top rope on both Rockers. Henry showed nothing.
DUD
5. Undertaker (Mark Calloway) pinned Goldust (Dustin Runnels) in a final curtain
match in 10:23. The heat spot was Goldust throwing the gold dust in Undertaker's eyes
so he sold for a few minutes. He made the big comeback, winning with the tombstone.
*1/2
6. Shawn Michaels (Michael Hickenbottom) retained the WWF title beating Mankind
(Michael Foley) in 26:25 via DQ. Mankind was brought to the ring in a casket by druids.
There were a few "ECW" chants but they were barely audible. Michaels used a twisting
crossbody off the middle rope to the floor early. He drove the back of Mankind's head
into the floor and used an elbow off the top early. He teased the superkick but Mankind
ran away. Michaels dove over a table on the floor to tackle Mankind and later rammed
him knee into the ring steps and got in the ring and gave Mankind a chop block, rammed
his knee into the casket, used the dragon screw (called legdrag) to set up the figure four.
This was pretty much a Japanese psychology type of match at this point. He continued
doing a dropkick to the knee, a half crab, ending with a rope break and continued on top
until going for a huracanrana and Mankind turned it into a hotshot. Mankind then
started stabbing his knee with a pencil supposedly to get the feeling back. After Michaels
did the Ray Stevens flip into the corner and caught his ankle in the turnbuckles,
Mankind went to work. At another point, Michaels on the floor gave Mankind a drop toe
hold and Mankind crashed his head on the steps. It's a good thing he started with a lot of
brain cells, because more matches like this and he's going to have a lot less. Mankind
then did the Psicosis spot of running headfirst into the ringpost when Michaels moved.
Mankind was whipped into the ropes and hung himself in between the ropes, but when
Michaels came after him, Mankind used the mandible claw. He kept the claw on and
Michaels escaped sending Mankind into the guard rail. Michaels clipped him with a
chair and smashed the chair on his claw hand and began stomping the hand. Mankind
came back back flipping Michaels over the top rope to the floor and doing his elbow drop
off the apron onto the concrete. He did a swinging neckbreaker on the floor and a double
arm DDT for a near fall, followed by a piledriver for another near fall. Mankind threw
Michaels into the casket but Michaels fought his way back out. Michaels used a
crossbody off the top for a near fall, and when he went up again, Mankind shook the
ropes and Michaels crotched himself. He went for a backward superplex from the middle
rope outside the ring, but Michaels turned in mid-air and the two went crashing
backwards through the spanish announcing table. Back in the ring, Mankind was on the
top rope with a chair when Michaels did a Sabu spot running across the ring, leaping off
a chair and superkicking the chair Mankind was holding into his face. As he went for the
pin, Michaels strangely got up and started punching Vader for the DQ. My guess is
Vader was supposed to interfere at the count of two but was a tad bit slow and they had
to improvise. As Michaels took care of Vader, Paul Bearer hit Michaels with the urn. Sid
then ran in and chased Vader to the back. Bearer used the urn and Mankind sat up ala
Undertaker and went to put Michaels in the casket, but when they opened the lid,
Undertaker got out of the casket (they did the revolving inside casket gimmick) and
chased Mankind to the back. A super match but the weak ending kept it from being a
match of the year. ****3/4
In the post-show dark matches, Jake Roberts beat Helmsley, Faarooq pinned Marc Mero
with a sidewalk slam and Sid pinned Vader in a horrible match which was almost all
stalling.
***********************************************************
There were several different themes to the Ultimate Fighting Championship XI--Proving
Ground PPV show on 9/20 in Augusta, GA at the Richmond County Civic Center.
It was yet another night where an unforeseen situation occurred and what was a good
show up to that point ended on a flat note with with no championship match, as there
was nobody left for Mark Coleman to face in the finals. Injuries knocked off undercard
winners Jerry Bohlander and Scott Ferrozo and the last remaining alternate, Roberto
Traven of Brazil. Traven, who had a hand injury but it was questionable the seriousness
of it, largely took one look at the situation and decided not to face the imposing
Coleman, who captured his second consecutive tournament. Coleman joins only Royce
Gracie, who won three times when UFC was in its infancy and he was far ahead of the
game; and fellow wrestler Dan Severn, as people who have captured two tournaments.
But surprises, upsets and injuries were hardly the dominant theme to the show. Just
nine months ago, the fortunes of UFC and pro wrestling were going in different
directions. While the first Ultimate Ultimate last December took its lumps by going on
the same night as a Mike Tyson fight on Fox television which ended up being the highest
rated show in the history of that network, it set a record for replay showings and came
back with a taped New Years Eve special, both of which drew more buys than either the
WWF or WCW live PPV events that same month. While UFC's February PPV event was
considered a success with the buy rate at 0.7, its subsequent shows in May (despite
drawing a record live gate) and July showed decreases to 0.6 and 0.43, basically falling
back to the level of when UFC first started in late 1993. Pro wrestling, with the declining
buy rates of late 1995, looked to be taking major lumps in the PPV market in competition
with the real stuff. While the pro wrestling buy rates have fluctuated greatly this year,
the UFC fad seems to have only gone downward.
The change in atmosphere in Augusta, GA was noticeable from previous events. Previous
shows were filled with mainstream media, from CNN to Entertainment Tonight to
20/20 to the Today show to tabloid television to major magazines and all the martial
arts magazines. They were filled with articles, mainly negative, overplaying the brutal
aspects of the game. Hardcore fans, fighters, managers, aficiandos and hangers-on
congregated around the hotel and fans came from all over the country on tours to attend
the live events. In both February and May there were court cases that went right to the
11th hour before it was a certainty the shows would go on as scheduled. The UFC was
front page news in the city the event was taking place, often on a repeating basis several
times in the days leading and following the show.
It appears both the UFC and the UFC-bashing in the media spearheaded by Sen. John
McCain, were 1995 fads, and fads come and go very quickly in society. The atmosphere
surrounding this UFC was quite subdued. Many of the major stars created in UFC's have
gone their own ways as more wildcatting indies threaten to go on PPV. As many insider
predictions in 1994 and 1995 when UFC was on a roll, this does look to turn out like kick
boxing. Basically, kick boxing became a fad with some popularity in the United States, a
new sport like boxing but adding in kicks and giving the public an alternative where fans
would recognize, because they have more skills, that theoretically kick boxers should be
tougher than boxers (it isn't always the case, but that's another story). As more
promoters created their own organizations, more world titles were created and the
champions all avoided one another. Without the mainstream pub in the U.S. that keeps
pro boxing a step ahead of all other combat spots, the kick boxing fad quickly ended and
the only place kick boxing is really a major sport is in Japan, and it's generally believed
K-1 major matches, which are major events in Japan, are at least sometimes worked.
UFC was a phenomenon, outdrawing pro wrestling on PPV for a short while despite
having no television, outdrawing all but the major boxing events despite having no
mainstream media publicity to get the "importance" of its results to the masses. But it's
reality time now. As UFC-clones dilute its marketable names and the names that are
over and people believe are the top guys continue to disappear, the popularity is waning.
The mainstream press has all but dried up. The local press barely acknowledged the
show was taking place. Martial arts magazines have recently run from the events largely
because UFC exposed both their articles and their sponsors, all the avant guard martial
arts, as largely being frauds and that strong amateur wrestlers or submission grapplers
can routinely handle mystic techniques like kung fu, forms of karate and all the other
magical systems when it came to a reality situation. In the long run, that's far more
significant than the fact a surprising amount of injuries left one PPV show without a
main event.
Preliminary buy rate estimates are about an 0.45, a slight increase from the July show.
Because the universe is lower for UFC than pro wrestling because so many systems
particularly in Canada and the Northeast don't carry the event, it means approximately
90,000 buys and $889,000 in revenue after the split which should be profitable but not
overly so.
The Ultimate Ultimate, which has been moved up two weeks to 12/7 (SEG liked the idea
of running on Pearl Harbor Day and wanted to stay away from both the Riddick Bowe
fight and Christmas), and will most likely be in Birmingham, AL although that hasn't
been officially announced publicly, is going to be a turning point for the company. It
needs both a quality line-up and quality hype or that boulder rolling downhill that comes
as a tail-end of all fads will continue.
The show, which drew about 4,500 fans (just over 4,000 paid) in the 6,500-seat arena,
with only about two weeks of local publicity, drew a rabid pro wrestling like audience.
Another theme, even more significant to the hardcore audience although nothing
important from a long-term marketing level, is another example of the evolution and
reality of fighting. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu dominated the early UFCs, in particular Royce
Gracie. While most UFC fans believe Gracie, who got out before he was defeated
(although had the present judging system been in effect, he likely would have lost via
decision in his draw with Ken Shamrock), is the best UFC fighter in its history as judged
by a poll at the previous show, the hardcore fans, even those with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
backgrounds, recognize this past weekend's show as the death of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as
the so-called perfect or even the most superior fighting system.
The BJJ hopes were stymied twice already this year. First, February tournament favorite
Joe Morreira was unable to advance past Paul Varelans in the first round. That was
explained by Morreira not coming in his best shape and the reality of fighting someone
with a 115-pound weight advantage. Then BJJ world champion Amoury Bitetti, was
pummeled by Don Frye in May in a brutal encounter, which was somewhat explained by
the fact Bitetti made a tactical mistake of trying to slug it out with a boxer (the same
mistake he'd made earlier in the year in losing the 1996 Vale Tudo finals in Brazil--the
first time BJJ had gone down to defeat) and Frye is a very tough fighter.
But there was no explaining away perhaps the most important result of the show, a first
round match where Fabio Gurgel lost to Lion's Den fighter Jerry Bohlander by a
unanimous decision. Gurgel, who lost a controversial judges decision in the absolute
weight class finals at this year's BJJ world championships to Bitetti after the two went
the time limit and battled to a 0-0 score, was considered one of the top five BJJ
practitioners in the world. Despite not having the famous last name, he was considered
within the BJJ world as a better and more skilled fighter than Royce Gracie. Many felt
he'd run through Bohlander, Tank Abbott and finally Mark Coleman to show BJJ's
superiority as had been proven before. The reality is that no fighting system works
forever, because the system on top gets studied for holes by everyone wanting to be on
top. Gracie was unbeatable in the first two UFCs and today a younger, stronger and
more skilled practitioner of the same art lost to a 21-year-old junior level fighter who
was slightly outweighed and had less than two years experience from the Shamrock
Lion's Den. And if that wasn't enough, to add insult to injury, Traven, Gurgel's training
partner and another top-ranked BJJ practitioner, said to have the best defensive guard
in all of BJJ since nobody he had ever faced had ever passed his guard in BJJ
competition, wouldn't even go into the finals against the ferocious Coleman, claiming a
broken hand that, while injured (he was icing his hand after his alternate round fight
since he threw several bare knuckle punches to his opponent's head), apparently wasn't
broken.
All that was lost to most of the audience. In fact the announcers themselves never picked
up on that theme. The theme that dominated the show was demise of the Tank.
David Lee Abbott had somehow become the most popular and talked about UFC fighter.
The modern-day answer to Dick the Bruiser purported as a champion bar fighter, and in
just 18 seconds of his first UFC fight on July 14, 1995, as he destroyed a supposed 400-
pound (more like 340) Samoan, turned himself into the hero to the beer drinking crowd,
just as Bruiser and Crusher had done a generation earlier when pro wrestling had
credibility with that crowd. While the Tank came into the show with a 3-2 record, most
fans were able to explain away his losses. It was the altitude of Casper, WY that did him
in in the most exciting UFC fight to date against Oleg Taktarov (actually it was his
inability to finish Taktarov early before his punches lost their power). And besides, even
though he tapped, when it was over, Taktarov had to be taken to the hospital and Tank
got up and went drinking that night with the boys. The 20:00 one-sided humiliation at
the hands of Dan Severn has largely been explained away by revisionist history. It was
the fault of having a time limit to fights. See, real fights like the kind Tank is the king of
don't have time limits. Of course, those kind of real fights never last 20:00 before the
cops come either. See, Severn was just riding the clock. He was just holding him down
and not wanting to fight him standing up because he knew that when Tank got up he'd
have knocked him out. Of course, given the rules and the reality of what a fight really is,
Severn, who pounded him at will the entire fight, had no reason to finish him nor really
ever made much of an attempt to do so. While he'd never publicly admit to it, secretly he
wanted to punish him for as long as possible because of comments Abbott had made
about him. Abbott hadn't been around since then, since he was suspended for a brawl at
a PPV that he was supposed to be serving as Paul Herrera's corner man in.
So Tank's beady eyes and scowl were the model for the poster. The return of the Tank
was the main thing being hyped in all the television commercials. And the worst thing
happened when you don't book finishes, Tank went in the tank. So now Tank is an
overrated unskilled bum, forgetting that he took the highly-skilled Taktarov to a classic
match. What actually happened was a huge miscalculation.
When Abbott fought Severn, he trained in the mountains with wrestlers, did roadwork,
and the body fat melted from his body. Well, some of it. He came in at a hardly svelte
250 pounds, down some 30 pounds from his normal partying and brawling weight. And
he was overpowered and manhandled by Severn. So the problem he figured was he lost
too much strength when his bodyweight came down. So he trained heavy, bulking up
past 300 and doing 600 pound bench presses for doubles, didn't worry at all about
eating or drinking, at least as legend goes, so that nobody would be able to out power
him. He was going to be the real Tank. The only problem is, whatever he weighed, billed
at 298 pounds (they don't do weigh-ins but he looked to be 285, maybe more, and he's
really only 5-10), was way too much. He ran out of gas in 70 seconds in his second round
match with Scott Ferrozo (an even shorter 335-350 pound former Nevada state high
school wrestling champion and Division II All-American noseguard who came from the
alternates bracket and replaced an injured Bohlander) and was still able to bull a guy
who actually outweighed him by an estimated 45 to 52 pounds, into the fence at will.
Once he got Ferrozo where he wanted him, he held on for dear life waiting for a second
wind that never came, absorbing whatever limited distance knees and punches Ferrozo
could deliver, doing almost no offense, basically looking like a pathetic blown up whale,
and losing a clear-cut decision.
Ultimate Ultimate 1996 looked on paper to be the greatest martial arts tournament in
history a few weeks back. Ken Shamrock had committed, wanting to atone for his poor
performance against Dan Severn and finish his fighting career out with a bang. There
was Severn, last year's winner and the only person who can rightly claim to be the true
UFC champion. There was Coleman, perhaps the toughest man ever to enter a UFC. Don
Frye is a quality fighter with an exciting style. Abbott is the hero of the bars and a top
drawing card. And perhaps even Marco Ruas or Oleg Taktarov could be brought in.
Everything is more up in the air today. Shamrock is more determined than ever. He's
given up Pancrase for good and has at least given thoughts this will be his last UFC. After
the show, Shamrock said he's going to see if he can get back the drive he had before
while getting ready for this show. If he gets the drive back, he may stick around next year
because he's going into this with more focus than ever before. If not, he knows it'll be
time to get out because without that drive, that's when you start getting beaten and
getting hurt. On paper, Shamrock-Coleman looks to be the match in that most would
rank them as the two best in the UFC right now, perhaps ever, and they'll be bracketed
to not meet until the championship match.
Everything else is a question mark. Frye, who is booked to theoretically face Coleman in
a rematch in the semifinals, has a date booked with U Japan on 11/17 in Tokyo. That's
only three weeks before the toughest tournament of his life, and whether the match is
work or shoot (and right now even the fighters themselves apparently don't know), the
jet lag and break from training that two trips to Japan and a fight will necessitate is
definitely real. Right now he's under contract to do both shows, since the Ultimate
Ultimate was originally set for 12/20 when he made the Japan commitment. Frye is
trying to figure out a way out of the U Japan show. Abbott, now 4-3, was talking at the
post-match party like he may not come back. Unless he's willing to drop weight and get
into shape, he'd have little chance against Shamrock, who would be bracketed to meet
him in the second round, who has more skill and who it's a given will show up in top
shape. Severn is still being talked with, but was never mentioned on the PPV. Not only is
he also booked on the U Japan show, but rumor has it he's going to leave UFC and join
one of the many new promotions opening up called World Fighting Federation that will
supposedly get off the ground on PPV in January. Ruas is a doubtful, as he has a fight on
11/10 in Rio de Janiero and his manager, Fredrico Lappenda and SEG haven't seen eye
to eye on money, foreign video rights, etc. which has led to him not appearing this year.
Taktarov is slated to headline for yet another clone promotion, this one called Reality
Superfighting on 11/22 and has already sent out ad slicks to cable companies hyping the
show around the "Gracie vs. Taktarov" main event. The Gracie will be Renzo Gracie.
Since all participants are supposed to be previous winners or second place finishers,
there is a very limited list of those that should be available, none of which have any
marketing name nor would be thought of having a strong chance to ultimate win the
thing. Royce Gracie won't do it and couldn't win, and would be lucky to get out of the
first round of such a tournament. Gerard Gordeau won't do it, couldn't win, and would
have to be even luckier than Gracie against the guys in this now. Patrick Smith has no
chance. Steve Jennum and Harold Howard would be lucky to last 3:00 before losing a
first round match. David Beneteau can't win, although he'd at least be a credible first
round opponent but there is heat with him and SEG since he broke his hand and never
told anyone, leaving them scrambling for a replacement literally hours before the show
in May, not to mention doing the job on a high profile pro wrestling show on 9/11 in
Japan. There's Paul Varelans, but he's signed for the U Japan show three weeks earlier
and also did a job on a pro wrestling show. Gary Goodridge is also signed for U Japan,
and he'd at least be a credible first round opponent. And I guess the second place
finisher in this past tournament was Scott Ferrozo, which, if nothing else, would make a
good first round opponent in a match people would be interested in if he was Abbott's
first foe for a hyped rematch.
A. Ferrozo beat Sam Fulton in 1:45 when Fulton tapped out after being knocked down
and pounded. This looked like a tough man contest with two huge (Fulton weighed 268)
unskilled guys throwing wild punches at each other. Ferrozo got a bloody nose. Fulton
was knocked down by Ferrozo and was lost when the match went to the ground.
B. Traven beat David Berry in 1:33 after mounting him and throwing elbows and
punches to the back of Berry's head. Typical BJJ win over a stand-up fighter who was
lost the minute he hit the ground.
1. Coleman beat Julian Sanchez in :44 with a submission from a headlock choke after
being easily taken down. Sanchez, who was 6-3, 300, but not in any kind of shape, had
no business being in the main draw and was easy fodder for Coleman, who hardly
needed to be protected.
2. Brian Johnston beat Reza Nasri of Iran in :27 as he quickly took Nasri down and
pummeled him with punches and head-butts, busting Nasri's nose badly before ref John
McCarthy pulled him off. His nose was basically underneath his left eye. McCarthy,
realizing Nasri was out, jumped into the fray so enthusiastically that in pulling Johnston
off, he basically clotheslined him across the nose and gave him a bloody nose, which is
why Johnston was swearing and going crazy after the match. McCarthy later apologized
to Nasri, who was 5-10 and 205 pounds with a Greco-roman wrestling and wing chun
background, for getting there one punch too late. Johnston, from San Jose, CA, is the
prototypical future UFC fighter in that he combines boxing, kick boxing, judo and
wrestling skill and training rather than being a master of one specific discipline. He was
also about 15 pounds heavier than he was two months ago, 6-4 and a ripped 235-240.
3. Abbott beat Sam Adkins when Adkins tapped in 2:06 after Abbott used his forearm to
both choke Adkins and drive the top of his head into the cage. The top of Adkins' bald
head looked like he was a human waffle.
4. Bohlander beat Gurgel via 3-0 decision after the two went the 15:00 time limit. This
was the only skill match on the show. They were two grapplers, Bohlander at 190 and
Gurgel a few pounds heavier, and a match-up of BJJ vs. Lions Den, which is its own
rivalry. Bohlander made a lot of use of the fence in this match, to avoid takedowns, and
to maintain his position on top every time Gurgel tried to reverse. After using the fence
to keep his balance and avoid the take-down, Bohlander used a wrestling wizard for a
take-down and Gurgel went into the guard. Bohlander got a warning for stomping using
boots and while they were standing, Gurgel connected with a solid punch at 2:00 which
staggered and bloodied Bohlander and wound up hurting him. Gurgel took him down
from there and Bohlander went in the guard. As Gurgel went to pass the guard,
Bohlander reversed him and got on top which turned out to be the key move of the
match. Bohlander, while in the guard, threw a lot of punches to the ribs, knees to the
spine and head-butts. The only real move Gurgel tried from the bottom was a triangle
choke (move Gracie surprised Severn with) but Bohlander saw it coming and easily
avoided it. After the win, Bohlander, who had a nice-sized cut in his forehead from the
punch and was pretty beaten up from throwing the head-butts, was complaining about
pressure on his brain and taken to the hospital, thereby couldn't continue in the
tournament. By being unable to continue, he missed his date with destiny as if he'd have
beaten Abbott and there is a good chance he would have, he'd have made himself an
instant superstar.
5. Coleman beat Johnston in 2:20 after taking him down and throwing several headbutts
and heavy punches. Announcer Don Wilson, who did his poorest job to date, talked
about how even an amateur kick boxer like Johnston was able to get leg kicks in on
Coleman and what a smart tactic it was, not recognizing Coleman was taking the kicks to
time the kicks to shoot. On the third kick, Coleman shot and it was the beginning of the
end. Johnston had to go to the hospital to be stitched up and did have the line of the
show, when asked why he tapped so quickly, he said that if he had taken one more blow
from Coleman, that by the time he woke up, his clothes would be out of style.
6. Ferrozo beat Abbott via 3-0 decision after going 15:00 regulation and a 3:00 overtime
to become UFC's newest bar room cult star. Ferrozo had a cut above his eye early from
the first exchange, but Abbott bulled him into the fence and held on as he lost his wind.
Ferrozo was taunting Abbott calling him a pussy as Abbott held on to the cage and
Ferrozo threw the knees and punches. McCarthy finally re-started them, and Ferrozo out
punched Abbott but Abbott got him back in the same spot until the end of regulation. In
overtime, it was the same story, Ferrozo out punching him and Abbott backing him into
the corner again, this time Ferrozo at least got himself backed into the corner where Don
Frye (his manager) was so Frye could give him hands on instruction.
After this match, Ferrozo seemed lively enough while doing an interview talking about
having whupped Tank and praising Frye, his trainer. Frye said he didn't want any credit
that he wasn't some guy leeching off world champions, which I assumed was a knock at
Richard Hamilton, his former trainer, although the two were shaking hands backstage.
Ferrozo then went backstage and simply collapsed, a man who weighed between 335 and
350 legit fighting for 18:00 does that to you. He was hospitalized for exhaustion and
dehydration. While this was going on, on the PPV show, they interviewed Frye, who
claimed to be chomping at the bit to get back at Coleman and also challenged Mike
Tyson; Shamrock, who did the best promo in UFC history, a pro wrestling style interview
(although unlike a pro wrestling interview, he did mean what he said) regarding the next
show and Abbott; and then Abbott came out and said he performed poorly and let
himself down, didn't care that he let his fans down, and that he had trained for little guys
and wasn't prepared for Ferrozo. This makes little sense figuring that Coleman was the
heavy favorite to win and he's hardly a little guy. At this point a graphic read that
Coleman would instead face Traven as Ferrozo was out. But Traven didn't want to go on.
A panicked group of SEG head honchos went to Abbott and asked him if he'd fight
Coleman. Abbott said his hands were swollen and he was out of gas, but if they asked
him a second time, he'd do it. After talking amongst themselves and with others, the
decision was made that if they put Abbott out there for a slaughter, while it would be
good for the moment and there would be less heat among the fans at home because
there would be a final, it would kill the tournament's credibility totally in letting a guy
who lost into the final. In a real sports tournament, there are forfeits due to injuries all
the time. Coleman was brought into the ring and announced as the winner while
Hamilton held up a sign for Coleman challenging Royce, Renzo and Rickson Gracie all
on the same night. Coleman himself, lacking in both charisma and interview ability but
being a total real warrior, was actually mad that even though he was being handed the
first place check ($50,000) without having to fight again, because he was focused and
ready to go.
Coleman's win made it the fourth straight tournament won by Hamilton's camp in
Phoenix, AZ. Hamilton, ironically a member of the same church congregation as Sen.
John McCain, whose quieting down on this issue coincides with the lack of mainstream
coverage, has recruited some of the best wrestlers in America, including Tom Erickson
(who placed second in the trials to Bruce Baumgartner in the heavyweights and is
scheduled for the 11/22 Reality Superfighting PPV), Kevin Randelman and Mark Kerr to
dominate all the different UFC and UFC clone events after helping train and then having
business falling-outs with both Frye and Dan Severn. Yet another elite wrestler, Danny
Chaid of San Jose, is interested in doing UFC (although he's not in the Hamilton camp).
Chaid beat Coleman in the 1996 Olympic trials before losing in the 220 pound finals to
eventual gold medalist Kurt Angle.
While the PPV show aired a replay of the Abbott-Ferrozo match since they had about 35
minutes of PPV time remaining, Coleman and one of his wrestling buddies, Randelman
(a two-time NCAA champion from Ohio State who is in the Hamilton camp and is likely
to debut on the U Japan card), got in the ring and basically did a UWF style pro
wrestling match trading take-downs and suplexes without doing the UWF kicks. This
didn't get over well with the fans who were yelling for the NWO to do a run-in at this
point.
With the exception of Nasri, whose nose was a mess, all the fighters who were
hospitalized were rather quickly released after being checked out.
Among the pro wrestling types at the show were Masami Ozaki (President of Pancrase),
Frank Shamrock and WCW performers Glacier, Ron Studd and Chris Kanyon, a much
smaller list than at previous UFC shows.
The prior UFC, which was one of the best received to date, proved that UFC doesn't need
a lot of glitz and that a bare-bones show with good fights will be well received. However,
there were a lot of major time management problems on this show. It is a given that
there needs to be at least a 20 to 30 minute intermission between the last semifinal and
the championship match to give the winner of the semi adequate recuperation time.
They should either add a non-tournament fight to the show or air the alternate matches
in their entirety. On this show, with so much dead time, there was no excuse not to air
the alternate matches. Once again, with all that dead time, there was no hyping
Pancrase, despite one of its top stars, Frank Shamrock, being at the event as Bohlander's
coach, nor were there any fighter profiles at all to fill in the time when the early matches
ran so quickly. There needs to either be a rule against hanging onto the fence as a
stalling tactic, or McCarthy needs to re-start the fighters very quickly when they start
hanging onto the fence. In particular, the fence spelled the difference in the Bohlander-
Gurgel match, and created a lessening of action in Abbott-Ferrozo. They need a
backstage reporter on the shows to explain the nature of the injuries and what was going
on backstage because to the audience at home, the injuries being brought to the
announcers' attention so late made the show appear disorganized.
***********************************************************
New Japan completed its second major singles tournament in as many months with
another huge success, selling out every show of the G-1 Climax special series.
The New Japan vs. WCW tournament ended up with a total New Japan flavor, with
Kensuke Sasaki pinning Shiro Koshinaka in the finals on 9/23 at the Yokohama Arena
before a sellout 17,010 fans. Sasaki used the power strangle hold he had used to win via
submission from Lex Luger and Ric Flair earlier in the single elimination tournament,
but Koshinaka escaped. Koshinaka then used his flying hip attack that he had used
earlier that night to reach the finals by upsetting Shinya Hashimoto, also for a near fall,
before Sasaki used the Northern lights bomb followed by two clotheslines to score the
pin in 12:10.
Sasaki reached the finals via forfeit when Scott Norton, who he most likely was originally
booked to beat in the semis, suffered a shoulder injury legit in his 9/21 match against
Hiroyoshi Tenzan.
Norton was the only WCW wrestler to make the final four. Sting beat Masahiro Chono in
the first round before being pinned by Koshinaka in the quarterfinals. Hugh Morrus lost
his first round match to Koshinaka. Marcus Bagwell was a late sub for Scott Hall, and
lost his first round match to Hashimoto. Steve Regal won his first match over Satoshi
Kojima, before losing to Hashimoto in the quarterfinals. Norton pinned G-1 Climax
winner Riki Choshu and Tenzan before having to forfeit his semifinal match against
Sasaki. Arn Anderson was pinned in the first round by Tenzan. Luger submitted in the
first round to Sasaki. And Ric Flair pinned Tatsumi Fujinami in the first round, but
submitted to Sasaki in the quarterfinals.
The four-night tournament drew sellout of 4,500 on 9/19 in Okayama, 6,850 on 9/20 at
Osaka Furitsu Gym and 1,904 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall (a show that sold out more than
six weeks earlier) on 9/21 before the championship round on 9/23.
Norton wasn't the only WCW wrestler injured on tour, as Flair also suffered a shoulder
injury in his match against Sasaki also on 9/21. No word at press time on how long
either would be out of action. Flair's injury forced a change in the undercard in
Yokohama, as originally Regal was going to defend the WCW TV title on the show in a
match that theoretically was going to be taped for airing in the United States to show
Regal defending the title all over the world, plus Flair & Arn Anderson would face Sting
& Luger. Regal took Flair's spot in the tag match instead, which ended when Sting used
the scorpion on Anderson. Flair was also involved in a huge upset on the 9/19 show in a
non-tournament match, submitting to Kurosawa's torture rack after Kurosawa broke the
figure four. Kurosawa got the super push on this tour beating Flair, Tenzan, Kojima,
Morrus, Choshu and Chono (via DQ) but losing to Sasaki, Animal Warrior and Rick
Steiner.
Complete results from Yokohama: 1. Shinjiro Otani & Dean Malenko beat El Samurai &
Black Tiger (Eddie Guerrero) in 13:19 when Otani pinned Samurai with a Dragon suplex
in a great match. Originally Otani was to face Samurai for the eight title belts, but with
Great Sasuke scheduled to return in a few weeks, he's going to defend the title on 10/11
in Osaka against Ultimo Dragon as originally planned; 2. Kojima & Yuji Nagata & Osamu
Nishimura & Junji Hirata beat Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami &
Kuniaki Kobayashi in 9:40 when Kojima pinned Ohara in a so-so match; 3. Luger &
Sting beat Anderson & Regal in 12:03. This match was so-so; 4. Choshu & Fujinami beat
Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto when Fujinami made Goto submit to the dragon
sleeper in 7:08. Match was bad; 5. Animal Warrior pinned Tadao Yasuda in 3:31 after a
powerslam in a poor match; 6. Rick Steiner pinned Kurosawa in 8:00 after a clothesline
in another poor match; 7. Koshinaka pinned Hashimoto in 10:56 after the flying hip
attack to go to the tournament finals in a good match; 8. Jushin Liger returned in his
first match since undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor one month earlier. In a
surprise, Liger pinned Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit) in 18:31 with a jumping Liger bomb
in the best match of the show. It was their typical great match exchanging big moves; 9.
Keiji Muto beat Pedro Otarvio, a Brazilian Luta Livre fighter who made a name for
himself in Japan by beating Koji Kitao on 4/5 in a Vale Tudo shoot match. This was a
worked match to look like a shoot with them doing tackles, mounts and punches straight
down. Otarvio at one point got an armbreaker but Muto made the ropes. Muto ended up
getting in the mount and began punching him straight down until ref Tiger Hattori
stopped the match in 6:06. Match wasn't good by pro wrestling standards and didn't
have much heat, but it was a huge media deal in Japan since it was covered as if it was a
shoot and that a pro wrestling superstar beat a Brazilian Luta Livre fighter in a mixed
match; 10. Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan retained the IWGP tag team titles
beating former champs Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka in 18:06 when Chono pinned
Iizuka with a Yakuza kick. This match had a ton of heat; 11. Sasaki pinned Koshinaka to
win the tournament.
**********************************************************
The oldest wrestling promotion in the world, Mexico's Empresa (EMLL), celebrated its
63rd anniversary of its first card ever with its annual biggest show of the year at Arena
Mexico before a crowd estimated at 10,500.
The Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, formed in 1933 by Salvador Lutteroth, was the
first pro wrestling promotion ever in Mexico and remained the leading promotion in
Mexico through the late 70s and picked up again in the late 80s to be the dominant
group over the next few years. It still runs more shows and employs more wrestlers than
any wrestling company in the world. The group is now run by Paco Alonso, one of
Lutteroth's five sons, and while it is not the dominant force in Mexico that it has been,
because it owns most of its arenas and thus pays no rent, it remains with a solid financial
base even though of late it has been drawing poor crowds generally.
Results from the show were: 1. Los Malditos (Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz) defeated
Filoso & Olimpico in 2/3 falls; 2. Lioness Asuka of the JD promotion in Japan captured
the TWF womens world championship from Lola Gonzalez. The TWF title will become
the world title for the JD group, and they originally put the belt on Gonzalez when the
promotion opened so that a Japanese star could go abroad and capture a world title and
bring it back, thus giving it more credibility within Japan. The first two falls both lasted
about 1:00. The third fall was good; 3. Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. & Olimpico beat El
Satanico & Scorpio Jr. & Bestia Salvaje via DQ when Salvaje fouled Olimpico in the third
fall. Olimpico replaced Atlantis, who was originally scheduled in this match but had to
move up one match because of a cancellation the day before the show by Mil Mascaras
(the fact Mascaras wasn't going to be at the show did make the local Friday morning
newspapers so the promotion did try and get the word out). Dandy was then scheduled
in this match but he no-showed; 4. Dos Caras & Silver King & Atlantis beat Miguel Perez
Jr. & Canek & Emilio Charles Jr. Most of the match itself focused around Silver King vs.
Charles, and since they're both good workers, it was a good match. Both juiced. During
the third fall, Silver King pinned Charles. After the match, Perez turned on Charles for
losing the match and Canek then attacked Perez. Post-match saw challenges by Charles
for a hair vs. hair match against Silver King and by Perez for a match against Canek for
his UWA heavyweight title. Even though Charles is a heel, since he's a solid worker and a
fixture at Arena Mexico, he was cheered a lot in this match; 5. ***** Casas beat El Hijo
del Santo in a one fall non-stipulation singles match. They had a press conference the
day before the card in which these two brawled with each other to hype late ticket sales.
This was reported as being an incredible brawl from start-to-finish with both juicing
buckets and Santo's mask being destroyed. The thing played up the biggest was that
Casas, the heel, was heavily cheered. Even though Santo has been one of the most
popular wrestlers in Mexico for nearly 15 years, ***** Casas, who plays heel, at Arena
Mexico, is equivalent to Ric Flair in Charlotte or Greensboro. However, even saying all
that, the reaction being so pro-Casas and anti-Santo stunned everyone in the promotion.
Casas scored the clean pin and the whole arena was chanting "Casas, Casas." Santo then
grabbed the house mic and had tears in his eyes and tried to turn babyface to the fans,
but they drowned him out with boos. Santo finally told the fans to go to hell and said
that he wouldn't wrestle again at Arena Mexico unless he was booked in a mask vs. hair
match against Casas. While one would expect the fans to pop for such a statement and
be excited about such a major stipulation match among two of the biggest stars in the
company, the crowd again surprised everyone by not wanting the match. Apparently the
crowd has become smart enough to realize that if such a match were to take place, that
Casas would have to lose and lose his hair, and the fans didn't want to see that happen.
Casas bled so much that he "collapsed" after the match and was stretchered out; 6. Rayo
de Jalisco Jr. retained the CMLL world heavyweight title beating Gran Markus Jr. in 2/3
falls when Rayo got the pin with a small package. No doubt the match was awful. After
the match, Markus claimed his foot was on the ropes during the pin and challenged Rayo
to a mask vs. mask match. Rayo refused, saying he had accomplished his goal to beat
and humiliate Markus in a singles match.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 9/27 TO 10/27
9/27 WWF Detroit Joe Louis Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/27 EMLL 63rd Anniversary show Mexico City Arena Mexico (Jalisco Jr. vs. Markus
Jr.)
9/28 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena (Michaels vs. Goldust)
9/29 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
9/29 All Japan Giant Baba 35th anniversary show Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Misawa &
Kobashi & Honda vs. Baba & Taue & Kawada)
9/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cleveland Convocation Center
10/5 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sandman & Dreamer vs. Raven & Lee)
10/6 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Toyota vs. Kong)
10/7 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Savannah, GA Civic Center
10/8 Pancrase Nagoya Toyohashi Sports Center (Rutten vs. Yamada)
10/8 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Osaka Furitsu Gym (Anjoh vs. Ishikawa)
10/10 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Sasuke & Sayama & Mascaras vs.
Dynamite Kid & ? & ?)
10/11 WAR Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tenryu vs. Muta)
10/12 All Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Williams & Ace vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
10/13 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Goldust)
10/13 JWP Tokyo Sumo Hall WOWOW live television special (Kong & Kansai vs.
Masami & Kyoko Inoue)
10/14 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Memphis, TN Mid South Coliseum
10/18 All Japan 24th Anniversary show Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Kawada)
10/18 EFC III PPV Tulsa, OK Expo Square Arena (Conan vs. Maurice Smith)
10/18 WCW Minneapolis Target Center (Flair vs. Savage)
10/20 WWF In Your House PPV Indianapolis Market Square Arena (Undertaker vs.
Mankind)
10/20 New Japan Kobe (Super Grade tag team tournament)
10/21 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Fort Wayne, IN Memorial Coliseum
10/21 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Mankato, MN Civic Center
10/22 WWF Superstars tapings Cincinnati Gardens
10/23 New Japan Nagasaki (Super Grade tag team tournament)
10/25 RINGS Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Maeda vs. ?)
10/25 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon
10/26 WWF St. Louis, MO Kiel Center
10/26 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Williams & Gordy vs. Eliminators)
10/27 WCW Halloween Havoc PPV Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel (Hogan vs. Savage)
RESULTS
9/9 Johannesburg, South Africa (WWF - 6,000 sellout): Sultan b Aldo
Montoya, Savio Vega b Isaac Yankem, Crush b Barry Horowitz, Godwinns b New
Rockers, Yokozuna b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Marc Mero b Owen Hart, Steve Austin b
Jake Roberts, Bret Hart b Davey Boy Smith
9/9 Nuevo Laredo (AAA - 12,500 sellout): Winners & Venum & Sergio Romo Jr. &
Babe Toscano b Picudo & Kraken & Sanguinario & Perro Silva, Villanos IV & V & El
Halcon (Halcon Dorado Jr.) b Tinieblas Jr. & Pantera & Ultimo Dragon-DQ, Street fight
cage match: Pierroth Jr. b Mascara Sagrada, Mexican national light heavyweight title:
Latin Lover b Pimpinela Escarlata to win title
9/10 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Kundra & Fiero b Pegaso & Angel de
Plata, Filoso & Ultimatum b Escudero Rojo & Reyes Veloz, Ciclon Ramirez & Atlantico &
Zumbido b Damian el Guerrero & Guerrero Maya & Guerrero del Futuro-DQ, Dandy &
Dos Caras & Ringo Mendoza b Felino & Scorpio Jr. & Black Warrior, El Hijo del
Gladiador b El Hijo del Santo
9/12 Johannesburg, South Africa (WWF - 6,000 sellout): Barry Horowitz b
Marty Jannetty, Aldo Montoya b Leif Cassidy, Sultan b Phinneus Godwinn, Crush DCOR
Savio Vega, Steve Austin b Yokozuna, Henry Godwinn b Isaac Yankem, Jake Roberts b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Bret Hart & Marc Mero b Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith
9/13 Huntington, WV (WWF - 3,163): Bushwhackers b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb,
T.L. Hopper b Freddy Joe Floyd, Faarooq b Bob Holly, Stalker b Jerry Lawler, WWF tag
titles: Smoking Gunns DCOR Grim Twins, Sid b Goldust, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b
Vader
9/13 Xochimilko (PROMELL): Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b Mariachi & Caballero
Aguila, Los Payasitos I & II & Piratita Morgan b Brazito de Plata & Dragoncito de Oro &
Gitanito, Ultimo Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde b Gitano & Black Jaguar, Mascara Ano
2000 & Universo 2000 & Violencia (Pirata Morgan) b Cyborg Cop & Tiburon & El Hijo
del Huracan Ramirez, Mexican trios title: Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther & El Signo b
Super Elektra & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo-DQ
9/14 Louisville, KY (WWF - 3,262): Freddy Joe Floyd b T.L. Hopper, Bushwhackers
b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Faarooq b Bob Holly, WWF tag titles: Smoking Gunns DCOR
Grim Twins, Jerry Lawler b Stalker, Sid b Goldust, Casket match: Undertaker b
Mankind, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
9/17 Louisville, KY (USWA): Steven Dunn b Bart Sawyer, Johnny Rotten b Vampire
Warrior-DQ, Frank Morrell b Robert Briscoe, Flash Flanagan b Mike Samples,
Lumberjack strap match: Brian Christopher b Tony Falk, Bill Dundee b Randy Hales,
Back Alley brawl: Miss Texas b Luna Vachon, Handicap match: Wolfie D b Bill & Jamie
Dundee, Barbed wire match: Bill & Jamie Dundee b Wolfie D & Flanagan, USWA title vs.
loser leaves town for 30 days: Christopher b Tommy Rich, Unified title: Jerry Lawler b
Sid Vicious to "win" title
9/17 Shizuoka (WAR): Masaaki Mochizuki b Takashi Okamura, Eagle Sawai & Sayori
Okino b Rumi Kazama & Keiko Aono, Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka b Ultimo Dragon &
Battle Ranger, Osamu Tachihikari b Kamikaze, Genichiro Tenryu & Nobukazu Hirai b
Gedo & Jado, Yoji Anjoh & Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Arashi & Nobutaka
Araya & Koki Kitahara
9/17 Nagoya (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Black Warrior b Masahiko Kochi,
Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner Jr., Bruiser Okamoto b Dances with Dudley, Mitsuhiro
Matsunaga & Axl Rotten b Seiji Yamakawa & Yuichi Taniguchi, Barbed wire bat no rope
drum street fight: Kendo Nagasaki b Shoji Nakamaki
9/17 Kanayama (Michinoku Pro - 237): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Yoshito
Sugamoto, Alexander Otsuka b Satoshi Yoneyama, Danny Collins & Tiger Mask b Super
Delfin & Gran Naniwa, Shiryu b Masato Yakushiji, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shoichi
Funaki b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Super Astro & Gran Hamada
9/18 Matsumoto (WAR - 1,000): Takashi Okamura b Jun Kikuchi, Rumi Kazama &
Keiko Aono b Sayori Okino & Eagle Sawai, Lance Storm b Battle Ranger, Arashi b
Osamu Tachihikari, Masaaki Mochizuki b Nobukazu Hirai, Gedo & Jado b Yuji
Yasuraoka & Ultimo Dragon, Genichiro Tenryu & Koki Kitahara & Nobutaka Araya b
Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki & Kamikaze
9/18 Acapulco (EMLL): Ludwig Star & Apolo Chino b Sangre Guerrera & Mogambo,
Lola Gonzalez & Flor Metalica b Lioness Asuka & Lady Star, CMLL tag team titles:
Atlantis & Lizmark b El Hijo del Gladiador & Gran Markus Jr. to win titles
9/18 Iwaki (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Masanobu Kurisu b The Natural, Daikokubo
Benkei b Akihiko Masuda, Astro Rey Jr. b Mike Anthony, Black Wazma b Kishin
Kawabata, Kawabata won Battle Royal, Takashi Ishikawa b Shinobu Tamura, Masao
Orihara & Shigeo Okumura & Abdullah the Butcher & Bo White
9/18 Rikuzen-Takada (Michinoku Pro - 191): Masato Yakushiji b Yoshito
Sugamoto, Gran Naniwa & Satoshi Yoneyama b Tiger Mask & Naohiro Hoshikawa,
Super Astro b Mens Teoh, Shoichi Funaki & Shiryu & Danny Collins & Dick Togo b
Alexander Otsuka & Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada
9/18 Takamatsu (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Yuichi Taniguchi b Yosuke
Kobayashi, Seiji Yamakawa b Satoru Shiga, Bruiser Okamoto b Masahiko Kochi, Dr.
Wagner Jr. b Black Warrior, Kendo Nagasaki b Axl Rotten, Lumberjack match: Ichiro
Yaguchi & Shoji Nakamaki b Dances with Dudley & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
9/19 Okayama (New Japan - 4,500 sellout): Shinjiro Otani & Dean Malenko &
Black Tiger b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & El Samurai & Wild Pegasus, Osamu Nishimura b Yuji
Nagata, Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Takashi Iizuka & Tadao Yasuda, Rick Steiner &
Lex Luger b Arn Anderson & Scott Norton, Kurosawa b Ric Flair, Animal & Power
Warrior b Junji Hirata & Keiji Muto, New Japan/WCW tournament first round: Steve
Regal b Satoshi Kojima, Shiro Koshinaka b Hugh Morrus, Sting b Masahiro Chono,
Shinya Hashimoto b Marcus Bagwell
9/19 Memphis (USWA - 450): Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk, Flash Flanagan b
Brickhouse Brown, Steven Dunn b Mike Samples, USWA g.m. job vs. loser leaves town:
Randy Hales b Samantha, First blood: Luna Vachon b Miss Texas, Koko Ware b Vampire
Warrior, Bill & Jamie Dundee b Jesse James Armstrong & Wolfie D, Unified title: Jerry
Lawler b Brian Christopher-DQ
9/19 Obihiro (FMW): Jason the Terrible b Gosaku Goshogawara, Miwa Sato b Ikeda,
Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa b Taka Michinoku & Toryu, Kaori Nakayama &
Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol & Shark Tsuchiya, Hisakatsu Oya b Ricky Fuji, The
Gladiator & Horace Boulder b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka, Head Hunters b
Hayabusa & Katsutoshi Niiyama, No rope barbed wire street fight tornado death match:
Terry Funk & Super Leather b Hido & Hideki Hosaka
9/19 Ishikawa (WAR): Osamu Tachihikari b Jun Kikuchi, Keiko Aono & Rumi
Kazama b Sayori Okino & Eagle Sawai, Battle Ranger & Yuji Yasuraoka b Masaaki
Mochizuki & Takashi Okamura, Ultimo Dragon b Lance Storm, Nobutaka Araya b
Kamikaze, Gedo & Jado b Nobukazu Hirai & Koki Kitahara, Bam Bam Bigelow &
Hiromichi Fuyuki b Arashi & Genichiro Tenryu
9/19 Niigata (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 485): Astro Rey Jr. & Shocker d Mike
Anthony & The Natural, Bob White b Masanobu Kurisu, Masao Orihara & Shigeo
Okumura b Takeru & Black Wazma, Takeru won Battle Royal, Abdullah the Butcher b
Shinobu Tamura, Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei b Kishin Kawabata & Takashi
Ishikawa
9/19 Onagawa (Michinoku Pro - 219): Alexander Otsuka b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada b Shoichi
Funaki & Danny Collins, Super Astro b Masato Yakushiji, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick
Togo b Satoshi Yoneyama & Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin
9/19 Koidego (All Japan women): Sekiguchi b Fujii, Yuka Shiina & Miho Wakizawa
d Yumi Fukawa & Momoe Nakanishi, Chaparita Asari & Kumiko Maekawa & Rie
Tamada b Mariko Yoshida & Genki Misae & Nana Takahashi, Etusko Mita & Toshiyo
Yamada b Tomoko Watanabe & Yoshiko Tamura, Yumiko Hotta b Mima Shimoda,
Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b Aja Kong & Takako Inoue
9/19 Imabari (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Ichiro Yaguchi b Satoru Shiga, Dances
with Dudley b Bruiser Okamoto, Black Warrior & Yoshihiro Tajiri b Masahiko Kochi &
Dr. Wagner Jr., Barbed wire street fight: Yuichi Taniguchi & Kendo Nagasaki b Shoji
Nakamaki & Axl Rotten
9/20 Osaka Furitsu Gym (New Japan - 6,850 sellout): Kurosawa b Hugh
Morrus, Sting & Shiro Koshinaka b Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono, Keiji Muto & Rick
Steiner b Wild Pegasus & Animal Warrior, Steve Regal & Marcus Bagwell b Black Tiger &
Shinya Hashimoto, New Japan/WCW tournament first round: Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Arn
Anderson, Ric Flair b Tatsumi Fujinami, Scott Norton b Riki Choshu, Kensuke Sasaki b
Lex Luger
9/20 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (FMW - 4,850): Jason the Terrible b
Gosaku Goshogawara, Hayato Nanjyo b Toryu, 2 vs. 3: Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo
b Miwa Sato & Miss Mongol & Shark Tsuchiya, Independent jr. title: Taka Michinoku b
Ricky Fuji, Super Leather b Katsutoshi Niiyama, World Brass Knux tag titles: Head
Hunters b Hido & Hideki Hosaka, World Street fight six man titles: Masato Tanaka &
Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka b The Gladiator & Horace Boulder & Terry Funk,
Katsutoshi Niiyama b Hayabusa
9/20 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 450): New Jack b J.T. Smith & Little Guido &
Bad Crew & Salvatore Bellomo, Doug Furnas b Hack Myers, Spike match: Terry Gordy b
Brian Lee, Mikey Whipwreck b Devon Storm, Tommy Dreamer b John Kronus,
Sandman b Samoan Gangsta Matthew, Taz b Louie Spicolli, ECW TV title: Pit Bull #2 b
Shane Douglas-DQ, Sabu b Perry Saturn, ECW title: Raven b Rob Van Dam
9/21 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,904 sellout): Yuji Nagata & Shinjiro
Otani b El Samurai & Black Tiger, Marcus Bagwell & Rick Steiner b Hugh Morrus & Arn
Anderson, Takashi Iizuka b Hiro Saito, Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura & Tatsumi
Fujinami b Dean Malenko & Wild Pegasus & Lex Luger, Animal Warrior b Kurosawa,
New Japan/WCW tournament quarterfinals: Scott Norton b Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Shiro
Koshinaka b Sting, Kensuke Sasaki b Ric Flair, Shinya Hashimoto b Steve Regal
9/21 Baltimore Arena (WWF - 4,016): Justin Bradshaw b Aldo Montoya *, Stalker
b Hunter Hearst Helmsley 1/4*, Mark Henry b Jerry Lawler-COR -***, Godwinns b New
Rockers DUD, Faarooq b Marc Mero *, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader **1/2, WWF
tag titles: Smoking Gunns b Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith *, Savio Vega b Crush-DQ
DUD, Sid b Goldust DUD, Undertaker b Mankind **1/2
9/21 Middletown, NY (ECW - 250): Louie Spicolli b Damian 666, Doug Furnas b
Hack Myers, ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Samoan Gangsta Party, Buh Buh Ray & Spike
Dudley b Exotic Express, Tommy Dreamer b Little Guido, Taz b Mikey Whipwreck,
Brian Lee b Terry Gordy, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Pit Bull #2 , Eliminators d Sabu
& Rob Van Dam, Cage match for ECW title: Raven b Sandman
9/21 Nashville, TN (USWA): Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk-DQ, Steven Dunn b Mike
Samples, Flash Flanagan b Falk, First blood: Luna Vachon b Miss Texas, General
manager job vs. loser leaves town: Randy Hales b Samantha, First blood: Brian
Christopher b Vampire Warrior, Double ladder match: Bill & Jamie Dundee b Wolfie D
& Jesse James Armstrong
9/21 Takigawa (FMW): Miss Mongol b Ikeda, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Gosaku
Goshogawara, Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa b Hido & Taka Michinoku, Megumi
Kudo & Kaori Nakayama b Miwa Sato & Shark Tsuchiya, Head Hunters b Jason the
Terrible & Toryu, The Gladiator b Ricky Fuji, Street fight: Terry Funk & Super Leather &
Hisakatsu Oya b Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda
9/21 Ina (WAR): Osamu Tachihikari b Jun Kikuchi, Rumi Kazama & Keiko Aono b
Eagle Sawai & Sayori Okino, Koki Kitahara b Yuji Yasuraoka, Nobukazu Hirai b Lance
Storm, Ultimo Dragon b Battle Ranger, Gedo & Jado b Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi
Okamura, Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya & Arashi b Hiromichi Fuyuki & Bam
Bam Bigelow & Kamikaze
9/22 Kanazawa (IWA - 250): Katsumi Hirano b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b
Kadota, Tudor the Turtle b Takeshi Sato, Mr. Niebla & Pirata Morgan Jr. b Akinori
Tsukioka & Flying Kid Ichihara, Ryo Myake b Keizo Matsuda, Hiroshi Itakura & Tommy
Rich b Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert) & Dr. Luther (Len St. Clair), Tarzan Goto & Mr.
Gannosuke b Keisuke Yamada & Leatherface (Rick Patterson)
9/22 Hirsaki (Michinoku Pro - 292): Naohiro Hoshikawa b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa b Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama, Danny
Collins & Shoichi Funaki b Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh &
Shiryu b Super Delfin & Super Astro & Tiger Mask
9/23 Hershey, PA (WWF Superstars tapings - 3,923): Salvatore Sincere b Tom
Cosati (Steve Corino), Steve Austin b Jake Roberts, Godwinns b Grim Twins, Vader &
Jim Cornette b Shawn Michaels & Jose Lothario, Smoking Gunns b New Rockers,
Faarooq b Alex Porteau, Sultan b Aldo Montoya, Sid b Goldust, Matt Hardy b Jason
Arndt, IC title tourney final: Marc Mero b Faarooq to win title, Owen Hart & Davey Boy
Smith b Bodydonnas, Stalker b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Vader b Henry Godwinn, Savio
Vega b Razor Ramon (Rick Bogner)-DQ, Freddy Joe Floyd b Helmsley-COR, Mero b
Diesel (Glen Jacobs)-DQ, Roberts b Jerry Lawler, Vader b Phinneus Godwinn, WWF
title: Michaels b Austin-DQ, Undertaker b Mankind
9/23 Birmingham, AL (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 4,308): WCW
cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Super Calo, Konnan & Kevin Sullivan b Juventud
Guerrera & Brad Armstrong *1/4, Chris Jericho b Mike Enos *1/4, Glacier b Pat Tanaka
DUD, WCW tag titles: Public Enemy b Harlem Heat to win titles -*, Greg Valentine b
Randy Savage-DQ DUD, Six b Jim Duggan, NWO Sting b Bo LaDue, Kevin Nash & Scott
Hall b High Voltage
9/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (WAR - 1,500): Osamu Tachihikari b Jun Kikuchi,
Nobutaka Araya b Arashi, Yuji Yasuraoka & Lance Storm b Masaaki Mochizuki & Ultimo
Dragon, Shinichi Nakano & Koki Kitahara b Nobukazu Hirai & Takashi Okamura, Gedo
& Jado b Kamikaze & Hiromichi Fuyuki, Genichiro Tenryu b Bam Bam Bigelow
9/23 Towada (Michinoku Pro - 327): Satoshi Yoneyama b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji,
Shoichi Funaki & Shiryu & Danny Collins & Dick Togo b Alexander Otsuka & Super
Astro & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada, UWA middleweight title tourney final: Tiger
Mask b Mens Teoh to win vacant title
9/23 Hakata (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Seiji Yamakawa b Black Warrior, Dr.
Wagner Jr. b Yoshihiro Tajiri, Bruiser Okamoto & Kendo Nagasaki b Dances with
Dudley & Axl Rotten, Three Chandelier broken glass no rope barbed wire street fight:
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Shoji Nakamaki
9/23 Honjyo (FMW): Jason the Terrible b Toryu, Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa b
Mamoru Okamoto & Katsutoshi Niiyama, The Gladiator b Gosaku Goshogawara,
Megumi Kudo & Kaori Nakayama b Shark Tsuchiya & Miwa Sato, Terry Funk & Super
Leather b Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji, Street fight: Head Hunters & Hisakatsu Oya b
Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa
Special thanks to: Travis Edgeworth, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Gregg John, Mark Taylor,
Adam Penninson, Ed Aherns, Trent Van Driesse, Edie Bailey, Georgiann Makropolous,
Dan Parris, Dominick Valenti, Fay Ferguson, Norm Connors, Robert Rothaas, Kurt
Schneider, Timothy Walker, Mike Mahoney Jr.
EMLL
Besides the anniversary show, they also held a CMLL tag team title match on 9/18 in
Acapulco with Atlantis & Lizmark winning the titles from Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo del
Gladiador.
They continued an Arena Coliseo feud with El Hijo del Santo vs. El Hijo del Gladiador as
they met in a singles match on 9/10 with Gladiador winning to set up a match for Santo's
Mexican national middleweight title down the road. They are pushing the story behind
this feud as Gladiador attempting to get family revenge since El Santo beat El Gladiador
in a famous mask vs. mask match in the 50s. Even so, the match was bloody, not good
and had little heat.
At the PROMELL TV tapings on 9/13 in Xochimilko, Mexican trios champs Fuerza
Guerrera & Blue Panther & El Signo kept the belts beating Super Elektra & Brazo de
Plata & El Brazo via DQ.
AAA
The biggest news is that a peace treaty of sorts is being worked out with Paco Alonso and
Antonio Pena after one of the most brutal wrestling wars in history. Apparently the two
sides have reached an agreement to no longer raid each others' talent (we'll see how long
that lasts).
Pena is having some serious negotiations about bringing back Blue Panther and Fuerza
Guerrera, which should tell you how PROMELL is doing. Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo
2000 have also tried to return but Pena isn't interested in them because they are too
high on the pay scale and only mean something if they're in a trio with Cien Caras.
Mascara Sagrada (the new one who used to be Kraneo) won the real Mexican
heavyweight title from Pierroth Jr. on 9/20 in Actopan before a sellout 2,700 fans.
Current Tijuana schedule (subject to change in a big way) are for shows on 9/29 (Leon
***** vs. El Hijo del Enfermero in a hair vs. hair match and Perro Aguayo vs. Pierroth
Jr. in a chain match plus Pandilleros vs. Misterioso & Psicosis & Fobia in a cage match);
10/20; 11/1 (tentative ideas for this one are Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Misterioso in a mask vs.
mask match, La Parka & Octagon vs. Psicosis & Fobia and they are talking about
bringing Randy Savage and Scott Hall in for the show); 11/15 (Destructores vs.
Pandilleros hair vs. hair) and 12/1 (Thunderbird vs. Halloween mask vs. mask and Pepe
Casas vs. Tirantes hair vs. hair).
The next American dates are tentatively 10/18 in Phoenix and 10/19 in Tucson.
Some notes from the Mexican light heavyweight title change on 9/9 in Nuevo Laredo
which sold out the bullring (12,500) where Latin Lover beat Pimpinela Escarlata.
Apparently the women were naturally behind Latin, but Pimpinela, who is a local heel
who does a transvestite gimmick who has been the heel on top while drawing a string of
sellouts (Nuevo Laredo is right now the hottest city in the Western Hemisphere for
wrestling as they are running weekly with frequent sellouts) is now getting cheered by
the male fans which is really weird considering the gimmick. Apparently the main event
didn't get into the ring until after 11 p.m., by which time most of the fans were way in the
tank. It was one of those Pena specials. Janet and Pierroth Jr. were both in Pimpi's
corner while Mascarita Sagrada Jr. was in Latin's corner. Janet attacked Mascarita and
that distracted the ref, so Pierroth ran in and tried to foul Latin, who moved and ended
up fouling Pimpi, who was then pinned. Semi saw Pierroth beat Mascara Sagrada in a
bloody street fight cage match which included using chairs, tables, boards and a fire
extinguisher and even with the cage there was interference from five wrestlers including
Janet and Mascarita.
Halcon Dorado Jr. is now going by the name El Halcon wearing an outfit similar to Cien
Caras basically as the new Dinamitas tag team.
ALL JAPAN
They are holding a special show on 9/29 at Korakuen Hall to celebrate the 36th
anniversary of Giant Baba's pro debut (September 30, 1960) with Baba & Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda.
The two major shows on the upcoming tour which starts 9/28, are 10/12 in Nagoya and
10/18 at Budokan Hall. Nagoya is headlined by Steve Williams & Johnny Ace defending
the tag team titles against Kobashi & The Patriot, Kawada vs. Gary Albright and
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Rob Van Dam for the PWF jr. heavyweight title. Budokan has
Kobashi vs. Kawada for the Triple Crown, a six-man match billed as the All Japan 24th
anniversary Memorial match with Misawa & Akiyama & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Baba & Dory
Funk & Taue plus Stan Hansen & Williams vs. Albright & Patriot.
NEW JAPAN
The next tour will be the annual Super Grade tag team tournament from 10/12 to 11/1
with Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki, Shinya
Hashimoto & Scott Norton, Satoshi Kojima & Kurosawa, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka, Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner, Steve Regal & David Taylor and Kazuo Yamazaki
& Takashi Iizuka.
There was nothing really new with the Big Japan shoot angle. After hitting the ring on
the 9/16 New Japan show in Nagoya and challenging the New Japan wrestlers to show
up at their card the next night and saying they were chickens if they didn't, nothing
happened at the Big Japan show. Big Japan President Shinya Kojika came out and
challenged New Japan to come to Omiya for their 9/30 show and said he would be
sending tickets to Omiya to the New Japan office to invite them to the show. Rumor has
it that the plan is for the Heisei Ishingun guys to show up and start the feud at that
show.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Apparently the Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Maurice Smith match on the 8/24 RINGS card was a
shoot. The Rings Battle Dimension tournament, which has to be a work since it's booked
four shows in, beings on 10/25 in Nagoya. The first round matches are Gokiteza Berkley
vs. Todor Todorov, Illoukhine Mikhail vs. Kiyoshi Tamura, Tsuyoshi Kousaka vs. Dick
Vrij, Mitsuya Nagai vs. Willie Peeters, Bitzsade Tariel vs. Nikolai Zouev, Volk Han vs.
Masayoshi Naruse, Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. David Hahareshivili (an Olympic medalist
in judo in 1992 from Russia) and Akira Maeda vs. TBA.
10/8 Pancrase in Nagoya has Bas Rutten vs. Manabu Yamada in a non-title match,
Jason DeLucia vs. Yuki Kondo, Frank Shamrock vs. Yoshiki Takahashi, Minoru Suzuki
vs. Takafumi Ito and Ryushi Yanagisawa vs. Semmy Schiltt. Shamrock may not be on
that show as he's wants to take off until December to heal up. Shamrock said that the
first year he was in Pancrase he'd have two easy matches and one tough one and it would
go like that, but now there is no such thing as an easy match as the young guys know
both the old style and the new style and coming back every six weeks with a hard match
every time is why everyone is breaking down.
Vader is definitely out of the U Japan show, not that he was ever in. U Japan is looking
for a pro wrestler to face Kimo in what has to be a worked match, since the two names
they were looking at were Terry Gordy or Sabu. I'd be pretty well certain Sabu wouldn't
do it and I'd hope Gordy wouldn't because it would kill the promotion before it starts.
Becky Levy, who is the big powerlifting woman who has been in the corner of Don Frye
and Scott Ferrozo at UFC's, will do a womens match on that show against Yoko
Takahashi, a former pro wrestler who lost in the first round of the U womens shoot
tournament in August on the AJW big shows.
Manami Toyota was back in action after her injury on 9/21.
WAR ended its tour on 9/23 at Korakuen Hall before 1,500 with Genichiro Tenryu
pinning Bam Bam Bigelow in the main event. The 10/11 WAR show in Osaka with
Tenryu vs. Great Muta on top is almost totally sold out already. The WAR six man title
defense by Nobuhiko Takada & Yuhi Sano & Masahito Kakihara will be against
Hiromichi Fuyuki & Yoji Anjoh & Bigelow and I suspect it'll be a title change as it'll
probably be the final show Takada works with WAR. On this past tour, Kamikaze from
the Wrestle Dream Factory promotion replaced Big Titan in all of Titan's scheduled
bookings since Titan started with WWF.
FMW's major show of this tour was 9/29 in Sapporo before 4,850 fans which was Terry
Funk's first match in Sapporo in many years. With the group's world champion, Wing
Kanemura, still out of action with an injury, they had a match with Hisakatsu Oya vs.
Hayabusa with the winner getting the next shot which Oya won. After the match Jinsei
Shinzaki (Hakushi) hit the ring and started praying to Hayabusa which is a small angle
to set up their match on 10/10 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka
& Koji Nakagawa kept the Street fight six man titles beating Funk & Gladiator & Horace
Boulder, Head Hunters kept the Brass Knux tag titles beating Hido & Hideki Hosaka and
Taka Michinoku kept the independent jr. title pinning Ricky Fuji.
Michinoku Pro ended its tour on 9/23 in Towada before 327 fans with the finals of the
UWA middleweight title tournament with Tiger Mask pinning Mens Teoh to become the
new champion.
Big Japan on 9/23 in Hakata had a Three chandelier crushed glass no rope barbed wire
street fight on top with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga beating Shoji Nakamaki on top. Also on
the Big Japan tour were Axl Rotten, Dances with Dudley, Black Warrior (EMLL) and Dr.
Wagner Jr.
USWA
The 9/19 show in Memphis drew 450 fans and $2,600 which are among the lowest
figures in history. The main event saw Jerry Lawler beat Brian Christopher via DQ in a
match that saw both Scott Bowden and Mark Henry interfere to set up a tag main event
for 9/27.
Probably the biggest news of the past week was an interview Lawler did on the Memphis
TV show on 9/21. Lawler mentioned that WCW would be taping Monday Nitro in
Memphis on 10/14 and that they'd be bringing all their stars to town including Jimmy
Hart, who was a lounge singer making $95 a week before Lawler got him into wrestling.
He said it'll be live on free television so you can stay home and watch it for free. He also
said that fans shouldn't be "idiots" and buy tickets because there will be free tickets all
over town and said the last time WCW came to Memphis they gave away 7,000 free
tickets. He mentioned a radio station that would be giving away free tickets and he
mentioned again that he didn't want any of the local fans to be idiots and to actually buy
tickets. Apparently the advance for that show is already 1,200 paid tickets and Memphis
traditionally is a weak advance city.
Lawler is also back as booker replacing Hales. This is interesting only if because Lawler
hardly goes to the other cities because of his schedule and isn't even at every Memphis
show.
Also on the 9/19 card, Bill & Jamie Dundee beat Jesse James Armstrong & Wolfie D in a
match where the losing team would have to split up. On television, Randy Hales said
that because of how the Dundees won, that he was overruling the pre-match stips,
although Armstrong is obviously on his way out. In the match where Hales put up his
job as General Manager to Bill Dundee in a match against Samantha, who would have to
leave town should she lose, Hales won the match.
Apparently Luna Vachon and Vampire Warrior are working here as a prelude to going to
the WWF and working on getting their gimmick down.
Brickhouse Brown turned babyface saving Miss Texas from an attack by Vampire and
Luna.
Complete 9/27 card is a six-man tournament (first round matches are Colorado Kid vs.
Crusher Bones, Tony Falk vs. Flash Flanagan and Bart Sawyer vs. Mike Samples) with
the winner to get a shot at Christopher's USWA title, Brown & Texas vs. Luna &
Vampire, Dundees vs. JJ Armstrong & D in a texas death falls count anywhere match
and Lawler & Scott Bowden vs. Christopher & Mark Henry in a match where if either
Lawler or Christopher get pinned, they'll lose their Unified or USWA title to the person
who pinned them.
ECW
Terry Gordy's final show will be 10/26 at the ECW Arena as he's heading to WWF to
work as a masked wrestler. Gordy & Williams will face the Eliminators at that show, and
they'll also have a rematch with Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Sabu & Rob Van Dam.
Weekend house shows were 9/20 in Plymouth Meeting, PA before 450 fans and 9/21 in
Middletown, NY before 250 fans. Main stuff in Plymouth Meeting saw Raven keep the
ECW title beating Van Dam, Sabu beat Perry Saturn in a match with a lot of missed
spots which were blamed on a bad ring, Pit Bull #2 beat Shane Douglas via DQ with a lot
of outside interference, Heel ring announcer Joel Gertner announced it was his 21st
birthday and they brought out a cake and Tommy Dreamer came out and if you can't
figure out how that turned out you haven't been watching wrestling very long. Mustafa
missed his flight so New Jack ended up beating up on J.T. Smith, Little Guido, Bad Crew
and Sal Bellomo to open the show.
Devon Storm busted his head open in a match with Mikey Whipwreck on 9/20 and had
to miss the 9/21 show.
Johnny Smith missed the weekend because of the shoulder injury from the 9/13 show.
Kroffat also missed the weekend as he was banged up in the tag match last week and
wanted to rest up before going to Japan so Furnas worked singles both nights.
Patricia (Meanie Babe) went to the IWA Japan tour after all so she's done here.
Pablo Marques is now wrestling in Puerto Rico.
Dreamer pulled a groin muscle over the weekend.
Damian 666 was brought in from Mexico for Middletown and put over Louie Spicolli.
Spike Dudley (Matt Hyson) debuted and looked good in a tag match with Buh Buh Ray
against the Exotic Experience, who are two of the students at the ECW school doing a
gay act. Douglas beat Pit Bull #2 and Pit Bull later destroyed Gertner. Eliminators drew
with Sabu & Van Dam in a good match but there were still ring problems and Raven beat
Sandman in a cage match on top.
Saw the American Journal piece since it aired on the ECW TV show as well. Definitely a
puff piece. They didn't air the staged slow-mo garbage can hit segments. The story was
positive for ECW stating that when it formed it performed in front of crowds of a dozen
and now sells out in front of thousands every show.
The TV debuts on WUCT in Dayton Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at Noon.
HERE AND THERE
More changes on the EFC PPV on 10/18. The main event was changed last week to
Conan Silviera vs. Bart Vale, billed as EFC heavyweight champion vs. World
shootfighting champion. However, Vale then backed out of the match and it's been
changed again to Silviera vs. Maurice Smith (Rings), who will be billed as both the
current World heavyweight champion in both kick boxing and Muay Thai (he's held both
in the past but holds neither today) and Vale vs. Murakami Kazunari who is billed as
1996 Japanese champion in Judo, and given this group's track record, it's good money
that probably isn't the case. Smith has been training with Ken Shamrock helping
Shamrock get ready for Ultimate Ultimate even though they work with rival promotions
in Japan.
Another where are they now? Remember Big Bully Busich? Anyway, over this past
weekend he was the m.c. for a segment at the Mr. Olympia contest (not the contest itself)
where Anthony Clark, billed as the strongest man in the world, attempted, and failed to
set a world record with an 800 pound bench press (he's done 740).
AWF lost its New York television before it ever started as the CBS affiliate canceled the
show before its first airing. The group was only able to sell one national ad (Nintendo)
and the rest of its ads are pi's which means its economics look even worse than originally
thought.
Former WWF champ Billy Graham was scheduled for yet another hip operation on 9/25,
this time on his left hip. His socket fell apart and the hip slipped out of position making
it a high risk for dislocation. It was only eight weeks since his operation to repair his
right hip. Graham and Ted DiBiase are scheduled to put on another "Empty Ring"
drama about Graham's career in wrestling on 10/31 at the Echoes of Faith Church in
Ontario, CA.
Bill Anderson has a show on 10/6 in San Bernardino, CA headlined by Louie Spicolli vs.
Irish Assassin.
MEWF promoter Dennis Wipprecht Jr. said that Bob Starr, listed in the Observer last
week, has nothing to do with booking MEWF talent and if anyone wants to book MEWF
wrestlers, managers, referees, a ring or a cage they can contact him at 410-783-5416.
Former wrestler Dan Denton will direct a film called "Break Heart Summer" which will
be shot in Vancouver next summer. Denton has just completed producing and directing
a hockey documentary called "They Shot the Puck South."
WCW
Monday Nitro drew 4,308 paying $59,000 on 9/23 in Birmingham. The show started
with one of the best Nitro matches to date--unfortunately, it was a dark match that
didn't air between Rey Misterio Jr. beating Super Calo to keep the cruiserweight title
which got great heat and was super. Calo wound up dislocating his elbow during the
match and was rushed to the hospital and will be out of action for a while. The first hour
of the show was pretty bad. It started with Konnan & Kevin Sullivan beating Brad
Armstrong & Juventud Guerrera in a rushed 2:39. After the match Sullivan and Big
Bubba attacked Konnan, but then hugged him and it was described that it was Konnan's
gang initiation being attacked. The match was rushed, as was the angle. Chris Jericho
beat Mike Enos in 7:37 in a match that went too long and did nothing to get Jericho
over. Glacier, who was over huge due to the ring entrance, pinned Pat Tanaka in 1:10,
and then did another elaborate ring exit. As WWF has shown with Undertaker and
Goldust, if you've got an elaborate entrance, people take the gimmick as being star
quality. Glacier's matches will be kept short because the work can't match up to the
entrance. Public Enemy won the tag titles from Harlem Heat in an awful match when
Rocco pinned Booker T with a small package in 11:14. It was announced that PE would
then defend against Hall & Nash at Halloween Havoc, but there is a good chance Heat
may regain the belts and be back in the original slot over the next week or two. Matt
Ghaffari, the Olympic silver medalist in the superheavyweight division in Greco-roman,
who the WWF was also interested in, was introduced during the show. He was brought
to the show and Eric Bischoff is negotiating to bring him in. It appears right now that
Kurt Angle is interested in continuing until the 2000 Olympics and won't be taking the
offers thrown his way by both WWF and WCW. Greg Valentine beat Randy Savage via
DQ in 2:59, after which the NWO destroyed Savage once again and took over the
television show. Even though there was a whole crew of wrestlers there including guys
on the show in the first hour, nobody helped Savage and nobody got involved as NWO
took over the show. The Giant worked as the ring announcer (and did a good job) and
the NWO team kept Bischoff there and tortured him throughout the second hour. The
second hour had no wrestling to speak of, but was hilarious as Kevin Nash is one funny
dude. They brought out Mike Jones as Vince. Brought out a black NWO race car which
Kyle Petty (who will be on Nitro on 9/30) will be driving in NASCAR's Charlotte 500 on
10/5. Nick Patrick refereed the NWO matches after Randy Anderson walked off. Nash
talked about Jim Powers saying he's all jacked up and juiced up (slang for being loaded
with steroids) and said how all the boys in the gym are glad he's in town. They beat up
Powers. Hogan then talked with the Nasty Boys and they certainly suggested they were
going to the NWO. Right now, the only member on the horizon for NWO is Jeff Jarrett
(which explains the WWF feature where they "exposed" Jeff Jarrett on Raw), as there's
nothing at present when it comes to bringing in Bam Bam Bigelow, who actually was
anti-clique in WWF and problems with the clique were among the reasons he left WWF.
Behind the scenes Nasty Boys have been legit complaining to Hogan about things after
working a series of matches against Hall & Nash, who played to the crowd as babyfaces
and didn't sell, leaving Nastys to be booed and look stupid. Actually, that's the entire
angle. Speaking of looking stupid, Jim Duggan was supposed to wrestle Ron Studd, but
Hogan and Nash beat him up (Hogan throwing some of the lamest punches to go along
with Studd's lame selling) and Six (Sean Waltman) fought Duggan, selling the whole
match before Giant choke slammed Duggan and Waltman pinned him. Bischoff came off
like a total wimp the entire hour. The NWO is totally over, but who wouldn't be with this
kind of booking. The NWO Sting beat Bo LaDue in 1:35 with the scorpion which was
hilarious and Hall & Nash beat High Voltage in an interminable 10:20.
A correction from last week. Ric Flair is under contract with WCW until November 1998,
not 1996, however he has talked of taking time off because he wants to spend more time
at home. Don't count on it happening, though. Savage is another situation. Either his
contract has expired but because of the commitment to Slim Jim's, which sponsored the
Vegas show and basically booked the main event themselves, he's staying until the end
of October, or his contract expires in November. Either way, there is legitimate concern
he'll leave for WWF (and don't even think for a second WWF won't take him back)
because he's been unhappy with the way things are going.
Estimates are that Fall Brawl did an 0.65 buy rate which is 162,000 buys and $2 million
in event revenue.
Negotiations with Gene Okerlund are continuing.
J.J. Dillon starts with WCW on 10/1, although no idea what position but it isn't believed
to be in front of the camera.
Besides the Nitro number, the other weekend numbers saw Main Event do a 1.4,
Saturday Night a 2.5 and Sunday a 1.6.
Typical snafu. After Ed Leslie did an interview saying he wasn't The Butcher and he
wasn't The Booty Man, Tony Schiavone came back and said we've just heard an in-depth
interview with the Booty Man.
In the demo breakdowns for 9/16, Nitro held a 67-33 edge in adults while Raw held a 52-
48 edge in kids and teens.
Hogan wanted to piledriver Elizabeth at the Fall Brawl PPV but Bischoff overruled it
figuring the word may get to Ted Turner and they'd all wind up in trouble.
WWF
The top of the organizational chart was changed this past week. Vince McMahon had
been CEO of Titan Sports and Linda McMahon was President. Now it's been changed as
the position of President has been dropped, Vince McMahon is now Chairman of the
Board and Linda McMahon and Neville Meyer are co-CEOs. Meyer is a newcomer to the
wrestling industry in charge of expansion of the company and has a background in other
forms of entertainment including movies and Broadway, although I'm not exactly clear
what that entails.
They opened the new fall season this weekend. Blast Off on WGN is basically the old
Mania show with Todd Pettingill doing a show aimed at younger kids and replaying the
Raw matches from the previous Monday. That show drew an 0.5 rating. Live Wire on
USA, which replaced Mania, had Jim Cornette and Sunny take phone calls and faxes that
appeared to be mainly screened and planted and the two bickered back and forth. That
show wasn't well received and drew a 1.1 rating its first time out. Superstars, which was
the same Superstars show with Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect announcing plus doing live
angles from Philadelphia to push the PPV show (Lawler throwing water on Mark Henry,
Mankind doing a pull-apart with Michaels) did a 1.5 rating. I didn't see Live Wire, but
many feel that show had a lot of problems in its current format. Since they do the shows
live every Saturday morning, both Jim Cornette and Sunny have been taken off the road
shows. Jake Roberts will also be taken off the road shows effective the end of October as
he's going to work full-time in the office.
Complete rundown of the Monday Night Raw taping on 9/23 in Hershey, PA (3,923
paying $63,010). It opened with Salvatore Sincere beating Tom Cosati (Steve Corino) in
a dark match. Cosati is a local indie promoter with a lot of enemies and Corino used his
name. Steve Austin beat Roberts when Lawler spit alcohol in Roberts' face and Austin
used the Stone Cold Stunner. Lawler and Austin doubled on Roberts until Vega made
the save cleaning house. Helmsley did an interview, that took him three takes live,
basically calling Perfect a has-been and challenged him to a match on Raw. They seem to
have turned Perfect babyface but I have this vibe that it's the Jim Cornette/Dynamite
Dudes angle where this all leads to Helmsley beating Marc Mero when Perfect doublecrosses
Mero. Godwinns beat Grim Twins, who are called Jason and Jared. Vader &
Cornette beat Michaels & Lothario when Lothario chased Cornette to the back leaving it
as a singles match and Vader scored the pin. Both Goldust and Sid did run-ins and it
wound up with Sid and Michaels cleaning house on Vader and Goldust. Gunns as
babyfaces beat New Rockers. Faarooq beat Alex Porteau. Sultan beat Aldo Montoya. Sid
beat Goldust with the power bomb. Vader jumped Sid and gave him a splash, but Sid
didn't sell it and choke slammed Vader. Then they went live with the IC title match
where Mero pinned Faarooq. Perfect was said to have helped Mero out to start a
babyface turn for him. Ref Pat Patterson threw Sunny out, but she came back later with
a loaded purse with a brick in it. Sunny and Sable started fighting after Sunny threw the
purse in, Faarooq got it but Mero punched him, hit him with the purse and used the
shooting star press for the pin in 12:31 (**3/4). Mero did a lot of good stuff in this match
but when Faarooq was on top the match slowed. It later came out Sunny had a brick in
the purse. Apparently Sable accidentally stiffed Sunny in the eye during their slap fight.
Sunny was originally supposed to beat up Sable but Mero wouldn't go for it which
caused a lot of backstage heat between Mero and Sunny. Mero is expected to be a
transitional champion. They exposed Jeff Jarrett's concert from July 23, 1995 as being
faked (since he's going to WCW in a few weeks) and said they were bringing the real
Double J in, as Brian James (The Roadie aka Jesse James Armstrong) signed a five year
contract which is mind blowing in and of itself considering his track record. Anyway,
he'll be announced as coming in next week. Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith managed by
Clarence Mason, beating Bodydonnas (in their final match with the gimmick) in 7:04
(**3/4) when Owen used the sharpshooter on Skip. Skip apparently took a bad bump
during the match. This match was where Taz jumped the rail. Final saw Stalker beat
Helmsley in 10:20 with a superplex (*) when Helmsley was distracted as Perfect walked
off with his girl again. Match wasn't good. Stalker works too lethargic for today's fastpaced
style. After the live show, Vader beat Henry Godwinn with a moonsault. Vega beat
Ramon via DQ when Diesel interfered. Ross interviewed Perfect who said he was coming
back. Freddy Joe Floyd beat Helmsley via count out. Helmsley came out with another
girl and handcuffed her to the post. Perfect came out and got the key from a security
guard and left with her again. Helmsley chased after Perfect and Perfect decked him in
the aisle, and he was counted out. Mero beat Diesel via DQ when Ramon interfered.
Ross accompanied Diesel to the ring but then went to ringside. They announced the
winner of the Sid vs. Vader match on 10/20 would wrestle Michaels (who isn't on the
next PPV) for the title at Survivor Series on 11/17. Roberts came out, probably in his final
appearance, pretending to be drunk, staggering around and Lawler laughed at him.
Roberts then DDT'd and pinned Lawler immediately and poured a bottle of liquor on
Lawler as he was out. Vader beat Phinneus Godwinn. Sid was at ringside for the match.
Michaels beat Austin via DQ when Vader interfered. Vega came to make the save but
Austin used the stunner on him. Sid then ran in and went after Vader. Austin then
whipped Michaels into Sid and the two stared down as if they were going to go at it, but
instead joined forces to run Vader and Austin out. Undertaker beat Mankind in the final
dark match.
The only regular house show of the week was 9/21 in Baltimore which drew 4,016 and
$69,881

 

Oct. 7, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Hiroshi Hase
jumps to All Japan, Undertaker vs. Mankind Buried Alive
set, lowest paid MSG card of all time for WWE, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 07 October 1996 01:27
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 October 7, 1996
WWF MIND GAMES PPV FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 178 (79.1%)
Thumbs down 28 (12.4%)
In the middle 19 (08.4%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind 190
WORST MATCH POLL
Jim Cornette vs. Jose Lothario 64
Jerry Lawler vs. Mark Henry 45
Savio Vega vs. Marty Jannetty 11
Savio Vega vs. Justin Bradshaw 8
UFC XI PROVING GROUND PPV FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 81 (53.6%)
Thumbs down 38 (25.2%)
In the middle 32 (21.2%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Scott Ferrozo vs. Tank Abbott 74
Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio Gurgel 51
WORST MATCH POLL
Mark Coleman vs. Julian Sanchez 28
Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio Gurgel 13
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 10/1.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
In something of a major shocker, former New Japan booking assistant and current
Japanese Senator Hiroshi Hase announced on 9/29 that he would be starting with All
Japan Pro Wrestling in January.
Hase made the announcement in an interview with Tokyo Sports, after the story of his
negotiations with All Japan made the weekly wrestling magazines a few days earlier.
Hase said he had two meetings with All Japan President Shohei "Giant" Baba, on 9/9
and 9/19, and after his second meeting, Baba agreed that he could join All Japan. After
that second meeting, he met with New Japan later the same day to inform them of his
decision before the word leaked out publicly.
However, Baba, when asked the day earlier after his Korakuen Hall show on 9/28 by
reporters about Hase coming to All Japan (before Hase himself announced it the next
day), laughed at the story entirely, claiming that all he knew was what he read in the
wrestling magazines and said that he had never met with Hase.
Hase, who was one of the top five workers in the world in the early 90s, left pro wrestling
full-time last year in a successful attempt to gain a senatorial seat in the Japanese Diet
(senate) representing Kanazawa, the area he grew up in where he's a local sports hero as
a national champion and Olympic games competitor in amateur wrestling, and went on
to be a pro sports superstar with New Japan Pro Wrestling. His six-year term expires in
2001, at which time he'll be 40 years old. Hase's popularity in the senate and in his local
area is such that it's believed he has a long career in front of him as a national political
major player so he's become something of a dual celebrity in that he was a respected
sports star in Japan who became a respected politician, and is also married to the female
host of Japan's version of the national "Good Morning America" type network early
morning talk show.
Hase was Riki Choshu's main assistant as booker for the New Japan promotion from
1991-95, a period where the company did tremendous business on a level when it comes
to big shows that no company in pro wrestling history has ever achieved including
numerous Tokyo Dome sellouts. Despite being probably the best worker in the company
of all the heavyweights, Hase kept himself in the mid-cards often and regularly put over
lower ranked wrestlers with their winning move in order for both he and Choshu to set
an example for a company where basically everyone does clean jobs for the good of the
business. As a wrestler, Hase holds the unique distinction in Japan of being the only
wrestler in the history of Japan's major leagues to win a world title on his first match in
the country, beating Kuniaki Kobayashi on December 27, 1987 at Tokyo Sumo Hall to
win the IWGP junior heavyweight title, which he held on two occasions. His main feuds
were against Owen Hart (a rivalry started when both, with similar size, talent and
background, broke in together in late 1985 in Stampede Wrestling) and Shiro
Koshinaka, before he finally put over Jushin Liger on May 25, 1989 which basically
signalled the beginning of the current era of New Japan junior heavyweights dominated
by Liger. He then graduated to the heavyweight division, and although never holding the
IWGP heavyweight title, although he did have one classic match challenging Shinya
Hashimoto, he did beat Rick Rude for what was once the WCW world heavyweight
(called in Japan the International title at the same) title for a short period, held the
IWGP tag title twice each with Keiji Muto and Kensuke Sasaki and went to the finals of
the 1993 G-1 Climax tournament putting over Tatsumi Fujinami at the end.
Nevertheless, Hase suffered something of a falling out with New Japan over the past
year. While none of this has gone public, the belief is it stems from the death of a Hase
protege in the New Japan dojo about a year ago. Hase had recruited a national collegiate
champion wrestler from Senshu University, which was the same University where both
Hase and Choshu had won the Japanese collegiate national title at, to follow in their
footsteps as a major star for New Japan. Apparently the wrestler, whose name was
Gompei, was somewhat skeptical of pro wrestling and his family was even more
skeptical. It took several visits and assurances from Hase to the parents to give them
their blessing to allow him to move into the New Japan dojo and beginning training.
Just two weeks after they gave the okay, on his second day of training, Gompei,
reportedly while practicing taking bumps, took a bump on his head, passed out and died.
Although New Japan gave Gompei an elaborate funeral and ran a benefit show for him,
both the parents and Hase were never able to get a straight story on exactly what
happened at the dojo that day. Hase would continually try and get the straight story and
the company line seemed to be it was an unfortunate situation that everyone felt bad
about and wanted to forget ever happened. Recognizing that Hase was so unhappy about
the situation, New Japan arranged for a major show in Kanazawa at the end of July, to
be built around an appearance by Hase in the main event, just as his New Japan contract
as a consultant was about to expire, figuring that would pacify Hase. However, the
problem still remained. New Japan also promoted Hase's 1996 matches, a January
match at the Tokyo Dome and his July match, as his final matches both times, but Hase
never said it was his retirement match either time and after both matches talked about
continuing. With his work in the Senate, Hase could probably only wrestle a few times
each year at most and apparently New Japan only wants Antonio Inoki to have that kind
of standing.
The current plans the way Hase explained in the article were for Hase, 35, to train in the
All Japan dojo to get ready for his return, as he freely admitted that he's in the worst
shape of his life, and have one match early in the year with All Japan (there is some talk
of All Japan doing its first ever Tokyo Dome show in February with Nobuhiko Takada
and Hase as the top outsiders) before going back to full-time senatorial duties and then
come back for a second match in July.
***********************************************************
The line-up, as it stands right now, for the WWF Buried Alive In Your House PPV show
on 10/20 at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis will be Undertaker vs. Mankind in the
Buried Alive match (they will construct a cemetery near ringside and the object is to go
from the ring to the cemetery and the winner is the first person to bury the loser in the
cemetery), Sid vs. Vader with the winner getting a title shot theoretically against Shawn
Michaels in the main event on the 11/17 Survivor Series PPV show, Marc Mero defending
the IC title against Faarooq, Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith defending the tag team titles
against Smoking Gunns and Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega.
The thinking behind Michaels not wrestling on the show is that he's been in the main
event on every PPV show since Wrestlemania and they figured it's time to try a show
with someone else on top. Michaels will almost surely be on the show in some fashion,
but it won't be in a match. On paper this differs from the recent WWF shows which were
top-heavy, in that the main events were excellent and the undercards largely so-so to
bad. Considering Mankind's performances on recent main events (and in the Boiler
Room match he put on a superb performance, it just came off weak on television due to
it going so long without piping in the crowd noise and having commentary), the main
event should be very good even without Michaels. Sid-Vader looks on paper like a dog,
but it looks to be the only one on the show. Mero-Faarooq was a decent match on Raw
thanks to Mero. Hart & Smith vs. Gunns was a disappointment at the last PPV but
should be a better than average match. Austin-Vega on paper looks to be the best match
on the show.
WWF officials have been told internally that the Mind Games PPV drew an 0.7 buy rate,
which would be a huge success given that the hype for this show took a back seat to
trying to hotshot for Monday night television ratings. The figures we received from
outside sources claimed an 0.42 buy rate (105,000 buys; $838,000 company revenue)
which would be the lowest of the three PPV shows in October, well behind WCW at 0.65
(WCW officials are claiming an 0.75) and slightly trailing UFC at 0.45.
*************************************************************
A combination of the loss of television syndication in the New York market and a weak
line-up wound up with the lowest paid attendance for a pro wrestling show in Madison
Square Garden in more than 40 years and perhaps ever. According to WWF figures on
the 9/29 show, 3,917 fans paid $146,437.
That paid figure doesn't sound accurate for two reasons, one is that gate with that many
paid averages more than $37 a ticket and I believe that's more than the top price for
tickets so it doesn't add up, and secondarily, a few days before the show the advance had
topped 4,000 paid. Based on a $146,000 house and the pattern of ticket buying in New
York, the paid attendance should have been closer to 5,500, which would still be the
lowest paid attendance for an MSG card dating back at least 40 years. However,
estimates from those who attended live were between 6,000 and 7,000 total, and the
total attendance listed by WWF for the show was 6,747 (2,830 comps), which fits right
into the live estimates.
This is the first period WWF was without syndication in the New York market since a
brief period in 1968. The lack of syndication meant it was the first card promoted in the
market in years without localized interviews. The television promotion was limited to
one 30 second ad per show taken out in most systems on the USA network shows, and
those only focused on two matches, the Shawn Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust main event and the Sid vs. Vader lumberjack match. While there have been
many lower grosses in the modern era because of lower ticket prices, this was the fewest
paid and total fans dating back at least to the early 1950s if not farther. The strange part
of all this is it comes just a few months after the WWF set consecutive gate records for
non-PPV shows at MSG with legitimate overflow sellouts of the building scaled for
16,227 for pro wrestling on 3/17 (17,000 fans; 14,824 paid; $299,596; Michaels & Diesel
vs. Bret Hart & Undertaker main event) and 5/19 (18,800 fans; 16,564 paid; $319,411;
Michaels vs Diesel cage match main event). The two shows were the first non-PPV
events to legitimately sellout MSG since the mid-1980s. The most recent MSG show
before this one, on 8/9, headlined by Michaels vs. Goldust drew 11,314 paying $239,594.
I, nor other long-time MSG regulars, can't recall a WWF show in Madison Square
Garden dating back to the 50s that drew less than 6,500 paid.
The WWF is attempting to get its syndicated Wrestling Challenge show on in the New
York market by early 1997, either in its traditional Saturday afternoon slot on the
Madison Square Garden cable network, or on the local Ch. 31, but no deals have been
completed. Because of the nature of the city, fans in New York, probably more than in
any other city in the country, although this also holds true for Los Angeles and to a lesser
extent Chicago, will not attend what they consider to be a show with a second-level lineup
since they are cities used to top-shelf in all forms of entertainment. The ten-match
WWF show, featured a card filled with prelim level wrestles like Salvatore Sincere, Alex
Portaeu, Bob Holly, Justin Bradshaw, T.L. Hopper and Freddy Joe Floyd, none of which
are bad performers on their own, but all on the same MSG card made the New York fans
think they were getting something second-rate and most stayed home. It's a unique New
York mentality in this regard since the WWF ran over the weekend also in Detroit and
Pittsburgh, both of which drew what would be considered healthy but not outstanding
crowds by today's standards of just under 5,000 paid and comes one month after WWF
had one of its better box office months in history when it comes to average gross to per
event in August, topping the $90,000 mark. The idea cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh
would outdraw Madison Square Garden on the same weekend is something that would
have been considered unheard of.
In the top matches on the show, Michaels & Undertaker beat Mankind & Goldust when
Michaels pinned Goldust after a superkick in a long match after Undertaker had chased
Mankind to the back; Vader pinned Sid (first pinfall loss for Sid since his return to the
WWF as a babyface) in a lumberjack match which was said to have been terrible with
Steve Austin's interference leading to Vader's win. After the match, Sid power bombed
everyone in sight; Marc Mero beat Faarooq by DQ to keep the IC title when Faarooq hit
Mero with the title belt; Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith kept the tag titles in a four
corners match over Grimm Twins, Godwinns and Smoking Gunns, with the Gunns as
the final team in. Hart & Smith got babyface reactions coming to the ring, leaving the
ring, and throughout the match, although when crowd numbers dwindle, the fans who
stay are the most hardcore and therefore more likely to cheer the better wrestlers as
opposed to those playing the babyface role; and Steve Austin pinned Savio Vega with the
stun gun in what was said to have been the best match on the show. The latter result,
while not a surprise given Austin is being built up for the Bret Hart match on the next
show, is noteworthy in that the WWF has attempted to protect Vega (not beat him
cleanly) in Madison Square Garden so he could theoretically be an ethnic babyface
(traditionally ethnic babyfaces have a hard time maintaining their drawing power within
their ethnic group after doing clean jobs).
The next MSG show will be Survivor Series on 11/17, which should be an easy sellout.
The only match mentioned during the show, and it was never said as a definite, is the
Bret Hart vs. Austin match, which is the planned co-feature on the show. Hart is still
kayfabing his return to some by denying it for angle purposes, but he's already told at
least a few friends for months that he'd be returning for Survivor Series while denying it
to others. Unless, of course, he's changed his mind but hasn't told the WWF this. The
main event is the Vader-Sid winner on the 10/20 PPV show against theoretically
Michaels. There are a lot of different ways this can go. Supposedly Vader has been
promised the title soon, although those kind of promises in wrestling historically mean
nothing until they happen. U Japan is still trying to book Vader to work the same date in
Japan and supposedly is throwing huge amounts of money around to both him and
WWF, although it is still unlikely that deal could be put together. If we look at things
logically, one would expect the WWF would want to have the hand raised of the guy
challenging for the title on the next house show, which would lean one to believe Vader
would beat Sid in Indianapolis and then get the title shot. It could also be Vader losing to
Sid, winning the title at the house show in Chicago, setting up natural matches in title
defenses against both Michaels and Sid. And it could be none of those scenarios since
logical booking has often been forgotten in recent times where it's more important for
stories to swerve semi-smart fans than to make sense in building up a match to draw
money to the majority of fans.
With its decision to no longer pay stations to carry their shows, WWF has lost local
television in most of the largest markets (they maintain syndication right now in 45% of
the country), since station managers in those markets see pro wrestling in the category
of paid programming since other promotions (AWF and WCW) are willing to pay big
money for generally weak time slots just to have a presence on local television in those
markets. WWF has shown over the past year plus an ability to draw very well for the
most part in cities that no longer have syndication, based on lots of local television and
radio advertising, some newspaper advertising, and buying ads on the local USA
network shows. What will be interesting now is to see how both the Los Angeles and
Chicago markets, both of which also lost syndication in the past few weeks, draw for live
shows on 10/13 and 10/25 respectively, although both of those shows have a stronger
quality (Michaels vs. Vader) main event.
***********************************************************
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For the most up-to-date wrestling information I can be reached every Monday,
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(Monday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 10/4 to 11/4
10/5 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sandman & Dreamer vs. Raven & Lee)
10/6 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Toyota vs. Kong)
10/7 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Savannah, GA Civic Center
10/8 Pancrase Nagoya Toyohashi Sports Center (Rutten vs. Yamada)
10/8 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Osaka Furitsu Gym (Takada vs. Abdullah)
10/10 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Sasuke & Sayama & Mascaras vs.
Dynamite Kid & Kobayashi & Dos Caras)
10/11 WAR Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tenryu vs. Muta)
10/12 All Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Williams & Ace vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
10/13 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Goldust)
10/13 JWP Tokyo Sumo Hall WOWOW live television special (Kong & Kansai vs.
Masami & Kyoko Inoue)
10/14 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Memphis, TN Mid South Coliseum
10/18 All Japan 24th anniversary show Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Kawada)
10/18 EFC III PPV Tulsa, OK Expo Square Arena (Conan vs. Maurice Smith)
10/18 WCW Minneapolis Target Center (Savage vs. Flair)
10/20 WWF In Your House PPV Indianapolis Market Square Arena (Undertaker vs.
Mankind)
10/20 New Japan Kobe (Choshu & Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Norton)
10/21 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Fort Wayne, IN Memorial Coliseum (Michaels
vs. Vader)
10/21 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Mankato, MN Civic Center
10/22 WWF Superstars tapings Cincinnati Gardens (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader &
Cornette)
10/23 New Japan Nagasaki (Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka)
10/25 RINGS Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Maeda vs. Kopilov)
10/25 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 WWF St. Louis Kiel Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams vs. Eliminators)
10/27 WCW Halloween Havoc PPV Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel (Hogan vs. Savage)
10/28 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Phoenix, AZ America West Arena
11/1 New Japan Hiroshima Green Arena (Super Grade tag team tournament finals)
11/1 AAA Tijuana El Toreo (Misterio Jr. vs Misterioso)
11/3 Pancrase Tokyo Terror PPV taped 9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
11/4 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
RESULTS
9/14 College Park, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Cue Ball
Carmichael (Chris Jackson) b Cat Burglar, Boo Bradley (John Rickner) b Quinn Nash,
Spellbinder b Private Pain, Head Bangers b Adam Flash & Romeo Valentino & Jeff
Jones, Lucifer (Tim Burke) b Bob Starr, Knuckles Zandwich b Joe Thunder, Jimmy
Cicero b Earl the Pearl, Johnny Gunn b Duke Droese, Mark Shrader b Corporal
Punishment (Dan McDevitt)
9/21 Amori (Michinoku Pro - 189): Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Super Delfin & Gran
Hamada b Danny Collins & Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama, Shiryu b Super
Astro, Shoichi Funaki & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Tiger Mask &
Gran Naniwa
9/21 Nakamura (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Satoru Shiga b Masahiko Kochi,
Yuichi Taniguchi b Bruiser Okamoto, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Black Warrior b Seiji Yamakawa
& Yoshihiro Tajiri, Kendo Nagasaki b Axl Rotten, No rope barbed wire no time limit
death match: Shoji Nakamaki & Ichiro Yaguchi b Dances with Dudley & Mitsuhiro
Matsunaga
9/21 Omihachiman (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachio Kawamoto,
Yoshiko Tamura & Nana Takahashi b Momoe Nakanishi & Yuka Shiina, Mariko Yoshida
b Chaparita Asari, Takako Inoue & Rie Tamada & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota
& Genki Misae & Kaoru Ito, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita b Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada
9/21 Dover, OH (Steel City Wrestling - 4,800 grandstand fair show): Cody
Michaels b Frank Staletto, Hangman b Fat Daddy, Patriots b T.Rantula & Metal Maniac,
Lou Marconi b Paul Atlas, Lord Zoltan b Virgil-COR, Jimmy Snuka b Bunkhouse Buck
9/21 Bloomsburg, PA (UWWA - 225): Glenn Osbourne b Larry Winters, Ace
Darling b Devon Storm, Debbie Combs b Malia Hosaka, Bad Attitude b Super
Destroyers, Salvatore Sincere b Doink the Clown, Tito Santana b Jimmy Del Rey, Nikolai
Volkoff b King Kong Bundy-DQ
9/21 Philadelphia (Tri County Championship Wrestling): Onyx Dahmer &
Twiggy Ramirez b Lost Boys, Urban Sol b Billy Reale, Axl Future DDQ Luke Sintill, Don
Montoya won Battle Royal, Winter Steele & Amazing Martine b Angel & Frankie Burns,
Chubby Dudley b Derrick Domino-DQ, No rope barbed wire match: Bull Pain NC Mad
Man Pondo
9/21 Alexandria, VA (IPWA): Earl the Pearl won triangular match over Johnny
Graham and Ali Amin, Abbuda Singh (John Rickner) b Justin St. John, Chuck Williams
& Glenn Osbourne b Head Bangers, Big Slam Vader b Scotty McKeever, Frank Parker &
Roger Anderson b Lucifer & Bob Starr, Axl Rotten & Corporal Punishment b Sean
Powers & Billy Simmons, Mark Shrader b Chris Stevenson, Debbie Combs b Malia
Hosaka, Cue Ball Carmichael & Johnny Gunn b Jimmy Cicero & Steve Corino & Royce
Proffitt
9/22 Tako (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Yachio Kawamoto, Nana
Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Chaparita Asari & Yoshiko Tamura b Yuka Shiina & Yumi
Fukawa, Manami Toyota b Genki Misae, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Rie Tamada &
Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong & Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Toshiyo Yamada &
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita
9/22 Hirasaki (Michinoku Pro - 292): Naohiro Hoshikawa b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Gran Naniwa b Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama, Danny
Collins & Shoichi Funaki b Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh &
Shiryu b Super Delfin & Super Astro & Tiger Mask
9/22 Mount Washington, PA (Steel City Wrestling - 310): Cody Michaels b
Frank Staletto, Metal Maniac & T.Rantula b Patriots, Stevie Richards b Lou Marconi, Fat
Daddy b Masahiro Panic, Lord Zoltan DCOR Virgil, Jimmy Snuka b Bunkhouse Buck
9/22 Santa Paula, CA (Antonio Alvarez Promotions): Vandal Drummond b
Palomino Ramirez, Ultra Rojo b El Cadete, Payasitos Americanos b Demonio Rojo &
Cara Mercada, Kolorina & Rosa Salvaje b Corsario de Plata & Super Toro, Misterioso &
Piloto Suicida & Christopher Daniels b Super Boy & Capitan Oro & Perro Ruso-DQ
9/23 Omiya (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Mike Anthony b Astro Rey Jr., Shinobu
Tamura & Black Wazma b Masanobu Kurisu & Bo White, Daikokubo Benkei & Crusher
Takahashi b Abdullah the Butcher & Akihiko Masuda, Takashi Ishikawa NC Shigeo
Okumura, Yoji Anjoh & Masao Orihara b Kishin Kawabata & Great Kabuki
9/24 State College, PA (WWF Superstars tapings - 3,189): Shawn Michaels b
Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Zip, Jake Roberts b Salvatore Sincere, Marc Mero b Leif
Cassidy, Diesel b Aldo Montoya, Crush b Freddy Joe Floyd, Stalker b Goon, Non-title:
Godwinns b Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith, Roberts b Marty Gardner, Faarooq b
Roberts, Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Julio Sanchez, Sultan b Barry Horowitz, Razor
Ramon b Bob Holly, Floyd b Mike Fury, Faarooq b Gardner, Fury b Jason Arndt, Vader
b John Crystal, Goldust b Alex Porteau, Sincere b Vega, Montoya b T.L. Hopper,
Smoking Gunns b Spiders (Head Bangers), Al Phillips b Bob Starr, Vega b Terry Gordy,
WWF title: Michaels b Vader, Undertaker & Sid b Mankind & Goldust
9/24 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,150 sellout): Hideki Hosaka b Gosaku
Goshogawara, Hayato Nanjyo b Ricky Fuji, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Toryu, Kaori
Nakayama & Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol (Aki Kanbayashi) & Shark Tsuchiya,
Hiskatsu Oya b Koji Nakagawa, Head Hunters & Super Leather (Mike Kirchner) b Taka
Michinoku & Hido & Jason the Terrible (Roberto Rodriguez), Street fight: Terry Funk &
The Gladiator (Mike Alfonso) b Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa (Eiji Ezaki)
9/24 Matsuyama (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Tudor the Turtle b Akinori Tsukioka, Hiroshi Itakura & Katsumi Hirano b Ryo Myake &
Flying Kid Ichihara, Mr. Niebla b Pirata Morgan Jr., Keisuke Yamada & Leatherface
(Rick Patterson) b Dr. Luther (Len St. Clair) & Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert), Mr.
Gannosuke & Tarzan Goto b Keizo Matsuda & Tommy Rich
9/24 Saga (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Bruiser Okamoto b Satoru Shiga, Yoshihiro
Tajiri b Black Warrior, Dr. Wagner Jr. b Dances with Dudley, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b
Yuichi Taniguchi, Barbed wire board street fight death match: Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji
Yamakawa b Axl Rotten & Shoji Nakamaki
9/24 Kure (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Yachio Kawamoto, Nana
Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b Yoshiko Tamura & Yuka
Shiina, Mima Shimoda & Chaparita Asari b Takako Inoue & Genki Misae, Yumiko Hotta
b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota &
Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
9/25 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (RINGS - 3,853): Peter Dykman b
Wataru Sakata, Christopher Hazemann b Masayoshi Naruse, Mitsuya Nagai b Tsuyoshi
Kousaka, Volk Han b Kiyoshi Tamura, Bitsaze Tariel b Hans Nyman, Andrei Kopilov b
Yoshihisa Yamamoto
9/25 Montgomery, AL (WCW Saturday Night and Main Event tapings -
4,100/1,800 paid): WCW tag titles: Public Enemy b High Voltage, Dean Malenko b
Brad Armstrong, Eddie Guerrero b Maxx, Konnan b Gambler, Mike Enos & Dick Slater b
Chris Jericho & Jim Powers, Chavo Guerrero Jr. b Disco Inferno, Meng & Barbarian b
Scott & Steve Armstrong, Lex Luger b Juventud Guerrera, Big Bubba b Randy Savage-
DQ, Amazing French Canadians b Voltage, Jericho b Konnan-DQ, Powers b J.L., Prince
Iaukea b Colorado Crusader, Scott Vick b Big Sexy, Gambler b Hog Higgins
9/25 Kurume (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Bruiser Okamoto b Masahiko Kochi,
Seiji Yamakawa b Yuichi Taniguchi, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Black Warrior b Yosuke Kobayashi
& Yoshihiro Tajiri, Kendo Nagasaki b Dances with Dudley, Barbed wire board street
fight: Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Axl Rotten b Ichiro Yaguchi & Shoji Nakamaki
9/25 Kudamatsu (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Yachio Kawamoto, Rie
Tamada & Yuka Shiina b Yumi Fukawa & Momoe Nakanishi, Tomoko Watanabe b
Yoshiko Tamura, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Chaparita Asari b Toshiyo Yamada &
Takako Inoue & Genki Misae, Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda b Yumiko Hotta &
Etsuko Mita
9/26 Union City, TN (USWA - 1,250): Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk, Johnny Rotten b
Tony Meyers, Texas death match for USWA tag titles: Bill & Jamie Dundee b Wolfie D &
Jesse James Armstrong, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Vampire Warrior, Unified
title: Mark Henry b Jerry Lawler-DQ
9/26 Osaka (IWA - 739): Takeshi Sato b Akinori Tsukioka, Emi Motokawa b Uchida,
Keizo Matsuda & Tudor the Turtle b Katsumi Hirano & Ryo Myake, Flying Kid Ichihara
& Mr. Gannosuke b Pirata Morgan Jr. & Mr. Niebla, Hiromichi Fuyuki b Hiroshi
Itakura, Tommy Rich & Keisuke Yamada b Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther, Tarzan Goto b
Leatherface
9/26 Shiga (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Akihiko Masuda & Shocker b The Natural &
Mike Anthony, Bill White b Masanobu Kurisu, Kishin Kawabata b Astro Rey Jr.,
Abdullah the Butcher b Shigeo Okumura, Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) & Masao
Orihara b Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei-DQ, Takashi Ishikawa b Shinobu Tamura
9/26 Kumamoto (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Aishima & Yukimura b Suganuma &
Morinaga, Bruiser Okamoto b Axl Rotten, Black Warrior & Dr. Wagner Jr. b Masahiko
Kochi & Yoshihiro Tajiri, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Yuichi Taniguchi, No rope barbed wire
thumb tacks death match: Seiji Yamakawa & Kendo Nagasaki b Dances with Dudley &
Shoji Nakamaki
9/26 White, GA (North Georgia Wrestling Alliance): Nasty Critter & Woody
Woodchuck b Terry Watkins & Frankie Lee, Komonari b Kenny Deese, Mike Roberts b
Kid Ego, Bounty Hunter b Dusty Dotson, Ken & John Arden & Critter b Team Extreme &
Maxx
9/27 Detroit Joe Louis Arena (WWF - 4,847): Bob Holly b Brooklyn Brawler, Jake
Roberts & Aldo Montoya b Justin Bradshaw & Zeb, Stalker b Hunter Hearst Helmsley,
Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Grimm Twins b Smoking Gunns, Undertaker b Mankind,
WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, IC title: Marc Mero b
Faarooq-DQ, Sid b Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
9/27 Allentown, PA (ECW - 750): Taz b Jimmy Cicero, Mikey Whipwreck b J.T.
Smith, Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Spike Dudley b Erotic Experience, Terry Gordy b John
Kronus, Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee, New Jack b Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie, ECW
TV title: Shane Douglas b Pit Bull #2 , Sabu b Perry Saturn, ECW title cage match: Raven
b Sandman
9/27 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL - 9,000): Prelim results unavailable, Rayo
de Jalisco Jr. & Lizmark & ***** Casas b Bestia Salvaje & Apolo Dantes & El Satanico,
UWA hwt title: Canek b Miguel Perez-DQ, Hair vs. hair: Emilio Charles Jr. b Silver King
9/27 Nezahualcoyotl (AAA): Loco Valentino & Retador & Skeletor b Frisbee &
Torero & El Mexicano-DQ, Picudo & Super Muneco & Karis la Momia b Winners & Perro
Aguayo Jr. & Blue Demon Jr.-DQ, Heavy Metal & Jerry Estrada & Psicosis b Octagon &
La Parka & Latin Lover
9/27 Wakayama (IWA): Akinori Tsukioka b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Katsumi Hirano b Tudor the Turtle, Mr. Niebla b Pirata Morgan Jr. Keizo Matsuda b
Ryo Myake, Leatherface & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Dr. Luther & Freddy Kruger, Tarzan Goto
& Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara b Keisuke Yamada & Hiroshi Itakura & Tommy
Rich
9/27 Aie (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Bill White b Akihiko Masuda, Daikokubo Benkei b
Masanobu Kurisu, Shinobu Tamura & Mike Anthony b Shocker & Astro Rey Jr., Masao
Orihara d Kishin Kawabata, Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa b Black Wazma & Shigeo
Okumura, Abdullah the Butcher b The Natural
9/27 Onomichi (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Masahiko Kochi b Satoru Shiga,
Bruiser Okamoto b Yosuke Kobayashi, Seiji Yamakawa & Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner
Jr. & Black Warrior, Kendo Nagasaki b Axl Rotten, Barbed wire board street fight death
match: Dances with Dudley & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Shoji Nakamaki & Ichiro Yaguchi
9/27 Matsuura (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Yachio Kawamoto, Saya
Endo b Miho Wakizawa, Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b Yuka Shiina & Yoshiko Tamura,
Mima Shimoda & Tomoko Watanabe & Genki Misae b Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue &
Chaparita Asari, Toshiyo Yamada b Mariko Yoshida, Aja Kong & Etsuko Mita b Manami
Toyota & Kaoru Ito
9/27 Chiba (JD): Abe b Yano, Koyama b Yuko Kosugi, Koyama b Abe, Chiquita Azteca
(Esther Moreno) b Bloody Phoenix, Princesa Blanca & Lioness Asuka b Neftaly & Cooga
(Miori Kamiya), Bison Kimura & Chikako Shiratori b Jaguar Yokota & Yuki Lee
9/28 Columbus, OH (WCW - 3,016): Jim Powers b Juventud Guerrera, WCW
cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Dean Malenko-DQ, Lex Luger b Rick Steiner, Six
(Sean Waltman) b Eddie Guerrero, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall b Ric Flair & Chris Benoit,
Giant b Randy Savage-DQ
9/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Tamon Honda b Masao
Inoue, Dory Funk b Mighty Inoue, Masa Fuchi & Haruka Eigen & Jun Izumida b Mitsuo
Momota & Rusher Kimura & Giant Baba, Rob Van Dam & Maunukea Mossman b
Kentaro Shiga & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Gary Albright &
Takao Omori, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot & Giant Kimala II b Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace & Dan Kroffat, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako
9/28 Hakata Star Lanes (All Japan women - 3,150 sellout): Miho Wakizawa b
Yachio Kawamoto, Genki Misae & Nana Takahashi b Saya Endo & Momoe Nakanishi,
Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe & Yumi Fukawa b Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita &
Chaparita Asari, Kyoko Inoue b Yoshiko Tamura, Aja Kong & Rie Tamada b Yumiko
Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa, WWWA tag titles 2/3 falls: Manami Toyota & Mima
Shimoda b Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida
9/28 Memphis (USWA): Tourney for USWA title shot: Colorado Kid b Crusher
Bones, Flash Flanagan b Tony Falk, Mike Samples b Bart Sawyer, Flanagan b Samples to
win tournament, Miss Texas & Brickhouse Brown DDQ Luna Vachon & Vampire
Warrior, Texas death match for USWA tag titles: Bill & Jamie Dundee b Jesse James
Armstrong & Wolfie D, Brian Christopher & Mark Henry b Jerry Lawler & Scott Bowden
9/28 Enan (IWA): Jun Nagaoka b Takeshi Sato, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Mr. Niebla
& Pirata Morgan Jr. b Flying Kid Ichihara & Akinori Tsukioka, Katsumi Hirano b Tudor
the Turtle, Mr. Gannosuke & Ryo Myake b Tommy Rich & Hiroshi Itakura, Tarzan Goto
b Keizo Matsuda, Leatherface & Keisuke Yamada b Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther
9/28 Salem, NH (IWF - 400): Brian Walsh b Tim McNeaney, Joanie Lee b Violet
Flame to win IWF womens title, Diesel (Glen Jacobs) b Tony Roy, Irish Leprechaun b
Dana Carpenter, Annihilator (Jim Cody) b Richard Byrne, King Kong Bundy & Scott
Taylor b Diesel & Bulldozer-DQ
9/28 Paulsboro NJ (NWA): Ace Darling b Julio Sanchez, Himalaya Playas b J.R.
Ryder & East L.A., Derrick Domino b Don Montoya, Downward Spiral b Bad Attitude,
Rik Ratchett b Billy Reale, Ican b Pat Shamrock, Lost Boys b Ralph Soto & Rasta the
Voodoomon, Reckless Youth b Jimmy Del Rey
9/28 Astoria, NY (IWF): Ken Sweeney b Kodiak Bear-DQ, Macumba b 666, Jason
Knight b New Dynamite Kid, Nikolai Volkoff b Mad Dog
9/28 Brooklyn, NY (East Coast Wrestling Association): Steve Corino b Gino
Caruso, Spanish Angel b Johnny Gunn-DQ, Gunn b Angel, Rodney Allen & Armand b
Fabian Street & Billy Walker, D-Von Dudley DDQ Jason Knight, Jimmy Snuka b Latin
Lover (not original), Spellbinder b Steven Dunn, Bam Bam Bigelow b Tatanka
9/28 Jasper, TN (Semic City Wrestling): Kevin Walker b Mike Starr, Ken Arden b
Billy Night, Outlaw Dennis & Billy Cooper b Bo Black & Mr. Mark, Ken Arden b Billy
Cooper, Richie Dye b Jeff Bowman
9/28 Spring Place, GA (World Christian Federation): Johnny Quaz b Randy
Rotten, Jimmy Sharpe b Chuck Colt, Outpatient b Ninja, Scotty James & Randy Watkins
b Red Scorpion & Keith Karloff, Johnny Blaze b Billy Montana
9/29 New York Madison Square Garden (WWF - 6,747/3,917 paid): Salvatore
Sincere b Bob Holly *, Justin Bradshaw b Alex Porteau DUD, Jake Roberts b T.L.
Hopper 1/2*, Stalker b Goon *, Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith won four corners match
over Godwinns, Smoking Gunns and Grimm Twins to keep WWF tag titles, Lumberjack
match: Vader b Sid **, Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Freddy Joe Floyd *, Steve Austin b
Savio Vega ****, IC title: Marc Mero b Faarooq-DQ DUD, Shawn Michaels & Undertaker
b Mankind & Goldust ***1/2
9/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan Giant Baba 36th anniversary show -
2,100 sellout): Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Satoru Asako
& Dory Funk, Rob Van Dam & The Patriot b Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, Dan Kroffat
& Bobby Duncum Jr. & Stan Hansen b Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori & Masao Inoue,
Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Gary Albright & Maunukea Mossman, Giant Baba &
Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada b Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda
9/29 Kawagoe (IWA): Katsumi Hirano b Takeshi Sato, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Mr.
Niebla & Pirata Morgan Jr. b Tudor the Turtle & Jun Nagaoka, Keizo Matsuda &
Leatherface b Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther, Hiromichi Fuyuki b Ryo Myake, Mr.
Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara b Keisuke Yamada & Hiroshi Itakura, Tarzan Goto b
Tommy Rich
9/29 Kita Kyushu (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Yachio Kawamoto,
Yumi Fukawa b Miho Wakizawa, Rie Tamada & Yuka Shiina b Yoshiko Tamura & Saya
Endo, Chaparita Asari & Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida b Genki Misae & Tomoko
Watanabe & Kyoko Inoue, Manami Toyota b Etsuko Mita, Takako Inoue & Yumiko
Hotta b Toshiyo Yamada & Aja Kong
9/29 Tateyama (Battlarts - 200): Yuki Ishikawa b Alexander Otsuka, Minoru
Tanaka b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Katsumi Usuda b Satoshi Yoneyama, Hiroshi Ono &
Daisuke Ikeda b Ishikawa & Shoichi Funaki
9/29 Liberty, OH (IWA): Kid Thunder & Wildman b Kid Dynamite & Cody Michaels,
Batman b Milwaukee Mauler, Greg Valentine b Lord Zoltan, Malia Hosaka b Debbie
Combs to win IWA womens title, Preston Steele b Siva Afi, Jimmy Snuka b Gino Caruso
9/30 Cleveland, OH (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 4,318): WCW tag titles:
Public Enemy b Juventud Guerrera & El Tecnico (Pete Gruner aka Billy Kidman) 1/4*,
Alex Wright b Dean Malenko **, Eddie Guerrero b Jim Powers *3/4, Hugh Morrus b
Brad Armstrong 1/2*, Arn Anderson b Chris Jericho *3/4, Lex Luger b M. Wallstreet *,
Meng & Barbarian b Rock & Roll Express DUD, Chris Benoit b Rick Steiner 3/4*
9/30 Iwate (UWF International - 2,650): Kamigawa d Matsui, Hiromitsu
Kanehara b Billy Scott, Tiger Mask Sayama b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Nikolai Gordeau b
James Stone (ECW Little Guido), Yoshihiro Takayama b Masahito Kakihara, Kenichi
Yamamoto & Yoji Anjoh b Nobuhiko Takada & Kazushi Sakuraba
9/30 Omiya (Big Japan Pro Wrestling): Yosuke Kobayashi b Eagle, Ichiro Yaguchi
b Masahiko Kochi, Yuichi Taniguchi b Satoru Shiga, Seiji Yamakawa b Black Warrior,
Yoshihiro Tajiri b Dr. Wagner Jr., Bruiser Okamoto & Kendo Nagasaki b Dances with
Dudley & Axl Rotten, Chandelier broken glass drum cabinet barbed wire baseball bat no
rope barbed wire street fight double hell death match: Mitsuhiro Matsunaga b Shoji
Nakamaki
Special thanks to: Scott Hudson, Dominick Valenti, Joe Grana, Robert Rothaas, Kurt
Brown, Tarron Coalson, Bill D'Anna, Georgiann Makropolous, Danny Deese, Ken
Doucet, Sarah Moore, Michael Omansky, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Dominick Valenti,
Tim Harshmann, Jim Harris, Jesse Money
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/1 ALL JAPAN: 1. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa beat Satoru
Asako & Masao Inoue & Takao Omori when Ogawa pinned Asako with a back suplex. A
nothing match, which is pretty sad considering the quality of matches at least some of
these guys are used to having. *1/2; 2. Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot beat Stan Hansen &
Dan Kroffat when Patriot pinned Kroffat after a sidewalk slam in 17:00. Focus was
Kobashi vs. Hansen to build up their singles match. Kobashi worked almost the whole
match for his side, which makes it even more disappointing since this was a bad match.
Hansen attacked Kobashi after the match, but it wasn't the kind of attack that would
make you get all that interested in seeing a singles match. *
AUGUST BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 8/95 2,300
Estimated average attendance 8/96 5,520 (+140.0%)
July 1996 4,773
Estimated average gate 8/95 $32,000
Estimated average gate 8/96 $91,368 (+185.5%)
July 1996 $78,075
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/95 7.1
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/96 6.7
July 1996 0.0
Average cable television rating 8/95 2.1
Average cable television rating 8/96 1.9 (-9.5%)
July 1996 1.9
Major show 8/95: Summer Slam (18,062 fans sellout/est. 16,000 paid/$353,705/est 0.9
buy rate/est. $2.37 million
Major show 8/96: Summer Slam (17,000 fans/14,926 paid/$413,168/est. 0.58 buy
rate/est. $1.74 million
Buy rate -35.6%; Overall event revenue -21.0%
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 8/95 1,800
Estimated average attendance 8/96 2,492 (+38.4%)
July 1996 3,200
Estimated average gate 8/95 $19,170
Estimated average gate 8/96 $29,646 (+54.6%)
July 1996 $39,800
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/95 0.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/96 22.2
July 1996 11.1
Average cable television rating 8/95 1.9
Average cable television rating 8/96 2.3 (+21.1%)
July 1996 2.3
Major show 8/95: Clash of Champions (4,059 fans/$53,000/3.0 rating)
Major show 8/95: Hog Wild (5,000 fans/all free/est. 0.62 buy rate/est. $1.42 million
Major show 8/95: Clash of Champions (8,304 sellout/5,931 paid/$70,111/3.5 rating)
Rating +16.7%
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 8/95 2,340
Estimated average attendance 8/96 2,360 (+0.9%)
July 1996 2,430
Estimated average gate 8/95 $79,390
Estimated average gate 8/96 $80,240 (+1.1%)
July 1996 $82,620
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/95 40.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/96 70.0
July 1996 46.2
Average television rating 8/95 2.1
Average television rating 8/96 3.1 (+47.6%)
July 1996 2.6
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 8/95 11,200
Estimated average attendance 8/96 11,000 (-1.8%)
July 1996 2,710
Estimated average gate 8/95 $560,000
Estimated average gate 8/96 $600,000 (+7.1%)
July 1996 $112,490
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/95 100.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 8/96 80.0
July 1996 47.1
Average television rating 8/95 1.1
Average television rating 8/96 2.3 (+109.1%)
July 1996 1.5
EMLL
They had a second straight big crowd, estimated in the 9,000 range, on 9/27 at Arena
Mexico for a double main event with Emilio Charles Jr. beating Silver King in a hair vs.
hair match and Canek retaining the UWA heavyweight title beating Miguel Perez via DQ.
Charles-King was said to be a *** match with double juice and lots of near falls before
Charles got the clean pin using a huracanrana off the power bomb. The crowd basically
cheered both men. Charles hasn't lost a hair match since 1989, a fact brought up heavily
in the hype. Canek vs. Perez was said to have been so-so with Perez having to carry
Canek, with a DQ finish when Perez hit the referee. It was announced it was Canek's
161st title defense for whatever that is worth.
After being cheered like crazy last week for his singles match against El Hijo del Santo,
***** Casas was booked on the babyface side this week without a turn teaming with
Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Lizmark against Bestia Salvaje & Apolo Dantes & El Satanico on
the same show. Casas was super over as a face leading chants of "tecnicos, tecnicos,"
working the match tecnico style, and scoring a third fall win using the scorpion
deathlock on Salvaje. For some reason, the comparisons of Casas and Ric Flair are
similar in that they are often the most popular wrestler in their respective companies as
heels, but somehow when they turn babyface, I guess because their style is so familiar to
the fans who like them as heels, they are actually more popular as heels than when
turned face.
AAA
Mascarita Sagrada Jr. won the Mexican minis title from Espectrito I in Orizaba a few
weeks back.
There are beginning to be the obvious problems with so many of the top names spending
so much time in the United States with WCW as far as being unable to use the top stars
in the promotion so the house show line-ups in Mexico are beginning to suffer greatly.
With the Mexican economy in the toilet, even though the AAA wrestlers for the most
part (with the exception of Konnan who has a contract) are the lowest paid of all the
wrestlers in WCW, it is still more than they make in Mexico. Konnan and Antonio Pena
are also at odds currently over Pena wanting to bring in and push more pretty boy type
babyfaces that dance like strippers (the Winners, Latin Lover types) including plans for a
second Winners and they've just brought in Babe Toscano, a Latin Lover clone from
Monterrey.
With so many of the top stars abroad, the only major show this week was 9/27 in
Nezahualcoyotl with Heavy Metal & Jerry Estrada & Psicosis over Octagon & La Parka &
Latin Lover on top when Estrada pinned Lover in the third fall with a senton off the top
rope in a good match. There was an angle in the semifinal with Winners & Blue Demon
Jr. & Perro Aguayo Jr. facing Picudo & Karis la Momia & Super Muneco. During the
third fall, Karis and Picudo turned on Muneco, so apparently they are planting the seeds
for Muneco to turn back face (that sure didn't last long). The other match was an
interpromotional match against UWA (which remains barely alive and uses the same
building as its main arena) with the UWA trio of Loco Valentino & Retador & Skeletor
beating Frisbee & Torero & Mexicano via DQ.
Lady Victoria (Victoria Moreno, a Southern California native no relation to the Moreno
womens wrestling family in Mexico) is now wrestling under the name Chiquitibum.
Winners is going to feud with Perro Silva.
The other weekend house shows were headlined by such weak matches as 9/28 in
Puebla with Mascara Sagrada & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & Latin Lover vs. Killer & Villano
III & Heavy Metal, 9/28 in Huitzoco with Pantera vs. Jerry Estrada and basically
nothing underneath that and 9/29 in San Juan Pantitlan with Sagrada & Aguila Solitaria
& Salsero vs. Kraken & Espectro & Picudo.
ALL JAPAN
The new tour started with shows on 9/28 and 9/29 at Korakuen Hall. The 9/29 show
was the 36th anniversary of the pro wrestling debut of Giant Baba, so Baba worked the
main event teaming with Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue to beat Mitsuharu Misawa &
Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda in 28:35 when Taue pinned Honda with the dynamic
bomb (Liger bomb). They did an angle during the match to build up the Kobashi vs.
Kawada title match where Kobashi dropped Kawada on his head and knocked him out.
Usually it's been Kawada dropping Kobashi on his head, but I guess since even though
Kobashi is champion, he's going into the title match as the underdog, they did the
traditional angle in reverse.
The double main on the first night of the tour saw Kawada & Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa
over Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako and Kobashi & The Patriot & Giant Kimala
II over Johnny Ace & Steve Williams & Dan Kroffat when surprisingly Kobashi got the
pin over Ace rather than Kroffat who would be the one expected to do the job in that
situation normally and even more so now since this is believed to be his final tour with
the company since he's probably starting with WWF after this tour.
The situation here has greatly changed now when it comes to foreign morale. A few years
back, the regulars here saw working for All Japan as being the best regular job in
wrestling. The pay was good, you had 24-30 weeks off per year, and a great deal of the
normal stress associated with wrestling (constant fear of being swerved and career being
buried by poor booking; lying from the office; constant travel) really didn't exist. Those
who headlined here didn't want to be anywhere else, as noted by the fact that Stan
Hansen in his prime was one of the top heels and workers in the world and while he had
short stints elsewhere, he never gave up Japan since he knew he had the best position
around. Ditto people like Terry Gordy and Steve Williams, who as big men who could
work were constantly the type of wrestlers the top American offices wanted as regulars.
Anyway, it has changed and a lot of the talent sees with both WWF and WCW constantly
looking for new talent (that they in most cases will use up as TV fodder but that's
another story) and willing to pay well for it, combined with the fact the All Japan fans
have seen everything, the booking has become stale, and the fact is that the top guys
have beaten each other to death and none are what they once were (Jun Akiyama would
be the lone exception), without a major infusion from a Takada, who would even then
only be figured to work the big shows, things are going to get worse before they get
better.
9/15 TV show did a 1.4 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, which will be billed as "'97 Wrestling World in Tokyo
Dome," tickets go on sale on 10/10. Traditionally New Japan does in excess of $1 million
the first day tickets are on sale. Prices this year are $270, $135, $90, $72 and $45, so the
20,000 upper deck tickets that have been $30 traditionally have been raised, but other
seats have been lowered as well. It appears a sellout is scaled to be around $5.5 million.
Apparently the Keiji Muto vs. Pedro Otarvio match on 9/23 in Yokohama was said to
have been one of the most horrendous matches of all-time. Otarvio has really gotten a
bad reputation among the Brazilian fighters for being the first "sleazy" one to "sell out"
and do a job for a pro wrestler. Apparently all the fans knew the match was a work
within the first minute since it was a terrible looking match worked to look like a shoot
and that Otarvio tapped out from punches from the mount by Muto that were obviously
pulled. There are still a lot of pro wrestlers and no doubt a lot of pro wrestling fans that
think things like UFC and Vale Tudo are also worked like pro wrestling, but the key
unanswered question is, how come the same guys when they do worked matches,
whether they be Dan Severn, Gerard Gordeau, Pedro Otarvio, Paul Varelans or
whomever, it becomes obvious their worked matches that are worked to look like shoots
are worked, yet their "supposed" worked matches in shoot promotions don't look at all
like works?
There was a lot of second-guessing the New Japan/WCW tournament in that they bring
in all the top guys from WCW and then beat them all quickly (although because of the
style differences and credibility problem in that the WCW wrestlers offense all looks
weak to Japanese fans they almost have to do so) and that none of the WCW guys even
made the final four (Scott Norton is still considered by fans as a New Japan wrestler).
The booking idea of putting Shiro Koshinaka vs. Kensuke Sasaki in the championship
match and putting Sasaki over, was to elevate those two to the level of Muto, Masahiro
Chono and Shinya Hashimoto and create even more parity at the top. Of the five, Sasaki
is the one who needs the push the most. Still, it's hard to argue with sellouts every night.
Sonny Onoo was in with the WCW crew as Eric Bischoff's representative since Bischoff
stayed back to do the Nitro show. Onoo was supposed to manage Kurosawa, but
Kurosawa didn't want him in the corner so he had no role as a performer on the tour.
The main business message he carried from Bischoff regarded WCW's heat with Animal
Warrior. Bischoff told New Japan that he didn't want any of his wrestlers anywhere near
Animal, which meant in the ring either with him or against him. That's why the Animal
& Power vs. Rick Steiner & Muto feud (which was supposed to be Road Warriors vs.
Steiners but for some reason whenever that feud is supposed to take place, it falls apart)
was dropped in mid-stream and why Animal was relegated to working a singles match
against Tadao Yasuda in Yokohama. WCW is supposed to book all the New Japan
foreign talent but I guess since Road Warriors at one time were such a big deal in Japan,
they've been able to keep their jobs with New Japan even having left WCW.
The angle with Big Japan continued on the 9/30 Big Japan show in Omiya. Big Japan
sent tickets to the New Japan office and challenged the wrestlers to appear. Instead, four
members of the New Japan front office including Nagashima came to Omiya and met
with Shinya Kojika (Big Japan President). While nothing was officially announced
coming out of this, the belief is that this will lead to an angle with Big Japan vs. Heisei
Ishingun.
Next New Japan tour is the tag team tournament from 10/13 to 11/1. With Norton out of
action due to his shoulder injury, it is expected that Junji Hirata will reform his tag team
with Hashimoto. Opening night at Korakuen Hall has Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs.
Satoshi Kojima & Kurosawa, Tatsumi Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Steve Regal & David
Taylor. The major cards are 10/20 in Kobe with Sasaki & Riki Choshu vs. Hashimoto &
Hirata; 10/23 in Nagasaki with Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka and Chono & Tenzan vs. Regal & Taylor; 10/28 in Kagoshima with Muto & Rick
Steiner vs. Chono & Tenzan, Hashimoto & Hirata vs. Regal & Taylor and 10/30 in
Hakata with Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Choshu & Sasaki.
Fujinami's Mug Promotion has shows on 10/5 and 10/7 and will be doing an undercard
tournament using debuting Japanese wrestlers that Fujinami is training named
Nobuyuki Kurashima and Kazuhiko Shoda along with British wrestlers Shane Lisby,
Darren Marones, Jessef Guira, Johnny Patrick and Darren Flech plus New Japan's
Osamu Nishimura.
9/15 TV show did a 2.2 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
It was announced on 9/30 that Nobuhiko Takada had agreed to work the Tokyo Pro
Wrestling show on 10/8 in Osaka against Abdullah the Butcher. For obvious reasons,
that's a bizarre match-up, particularly since there is both a style clash as everything
Butcher does would be against everything Takada does and visa versa, plus, how do they
work out a finish? Since UWFI remains deeply in debt, Takada has basically put himself
out on the indie market charging 30,000,000 yen ($27,000) per match which is
probably the highest per match price any wrestler in history has ever been able to get on
a semi-regular basis working indie (WAR and Tokyo Pro) dates in wrestling history.
Other guys like Jim Hellwig may have asked as much at times, but were never able to get
anything even resembling a figure like that. This appearance by Takada creates double
heat in that WAR had a show at the same building in Osaka on 10/11 and had paid
Takada the big fee as well to appear, and now basically by appearing for Tokyo Pro,
which is a rival group, in some ways they've undercut his value. The WAR Osaka show,
headlined by Genichiro Tenryu vs. Great Muta in their first ever singles match, Takada &
Masahito Kakihara & Yuhi Sano defending the WAR six man titles against Bam Bam
Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki & Yoji Anjoh, Great Sasuke defending the eight junior titles
against Ultimo Dragon and Rey Misterio Jr. defending the WWA welterweight title
against Psicosis is just about sold out anyway. The TPW owner, who is a money mark
named Ishizawa, was a big-time Takada/UWF mark to begin with. Originally, TPW was
attempting to bring in Tiger Jeet Singh as Butcher's mystery opponent but that deal fell
through and with a hole in the card at the last minute, they went with Takada. Complete
show on 10/8 besides Takada-Butcher is Takashi Ishikawa vs. Anjoh with the winner to
become President of the company doing the same interpromotional fake shoot front
office angle that's pretty much become in vogue everywhere in the world right now,
Tiger Mask Sayama vs. Great Kabuki which would be their first ever singles match (and
probably would have meant something if it was 1983), Sabu vs. Black Wazma (Too Cold
Scorpio), Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Daikokubo Benkei, Cooga & Bloody Phoenix vs. Esther
& Alda Moreno from JD, Shigeo Okumura & Astro Rey Jr. & Takeru vs. Kishin Kawabata
& Mike Anthony (Mike Lozansky) & The Natural (Don Callis, a wrestler from Winnipeg
who looks like a young Howard Stern and does awesome interviews, although I guess
neither of those things would register in Japan), Masao Orihara vs. Shocker and Shinobu
Tamura vs. Kenichi Yamamoto. I believe that will be Sabu's final match with TPW as
even though he's earning a rumored $6,000 per week, he believes the promotion has
double crossed him on several issues. Sabu has made inquiries about getting back into
WCW so he could also get back with New Japan.
RINGS ran on 9/25 in Sapporo and drew 3,853 fans for its final show before the Battle
Dimension tournament and was filled with surprises in that all the Japanese stars and
top ranked Hans Nyman all did jobs on the show. The only win by a Japanese wrestler
was Mitsuya Nagai, and that's because he beat another Japanese, Tsuyoshi Kousaka,
which has to be a mild upset since Kousaka was coming off the two great matches
against Volk Han and his stock was rising. Top pushed star Yoshihisa Yamamoto
suffered his third loss in a row, this time losing to a knee cross submission by Andrei
Kopilov in 12:33. This sets up Kopilov as Akira Maeda's first opponent in the
tournament that starts on 10/25 in Nagoya. Bitsaze Tariel become the No. 1 ranked
wrestler according to the ratings, beating Nyman in a match for that position via KO in
5:19 (Nyman had won the spot from Yamamoto in July). Volk Han retained his No. 3
ranking beating hot newcomer Kiyoshi Tamura in 10:32 via submission with a reverse
armlock in the other top match. With Yamamoto having lost three matches in a row and
having looked unimpressive in a 30:00 decision win over Maurice Smith before losing
the three bouts, this is either being done to set him up to win the Battle Dimension
tournament or because he failed in shoot situations and this is a so-called shoot group,
they feel they have to phase him down from the top. It'll be evident as the tourney goes
on two months back.
The main event on the 10/10 Michinoku Pro show at Sumo Hall, the biggest show in the
history of the company, was announced as Sayama & Sasuke & Mil Mascaras vs.
Dynamite Kid & Kuniaki Kobayashi (Sayama's big rival 1982-83) & Dos Caras (I believe
it would be the first time Mascaras has ever wrestled his brother anywhere, but certainly
the first time in Japan). They did officially announce the Hayabusa vs. Jinsei Shinzaki
(Hakushi) match this past week as well. The show is going to sellout as the advance was
around 9,000 two weeks out.
FMW finished its tour on 9/24 at Korakuen Hall before a sellout 2,150 with Terry Funk
& The Gladiator beating Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka in a street fight on top. After the
match, FMW created its own NWO angle, creating a new heel group called FMW (Funk
Masters of Wrestling) to feud with the babyface FMW. After the match when Funk
announced the creation of his heel group, Horace Boulder, The Head Hunters,
Hisakatsu Oya and Super Leather along with heel manager Victor Quinones (the group's
booker) all joined the group. So this promotion has three basic groups, regular FMW,
heel FMW and the W*ING army. Mr. Pogo didn't work this tour but attended every show
and would do interviews before the fans asking the fans to help him to get Atsushi Onita
to come back. The actual FMW plan is to run a show on 12/11 in Tokyo with Onita &
Pogo as a tag team against Hayabusa & Shinzaki. Even though Funk was put in the lead
position and business was very good on the tour with him as the big draw, he isn't
expected back for several months and won't be back for the rest of the year. The idea is
that Onita won't come back full-time, but will work maybe three or four shows in 1997
and perhaps push an Onita-Funk match at Kawasaki Stadium next year.
After the final show of the tour in the hotel, Fumi Saito of Weekly Pro Wrestling
magazine got into an argument with Quinones. The two have had problems in the past,
and the argument escalated from exchanging words to exchanging dirty words and
Quinones got up and allegedly sucker punched Saito in the right eye and nearly knocked
him out. This wasn't an angle. FMW immediately apologized. There may be legal
ramifications stemming from this. Anyway, it's the first incident that I can recall where a
wrestling personality has punched a reporter (except in worked angles) since 1984 (John
Stossell and David Shults).
IWA's main angle on the current tour revolves around the debut with the group of
Fuyuki as a heel. Fuyuki, managed by Patricia debuted on 9/26 in Osaka beating Hiroshi
Itakura. Patricia distracted the referee to allow Fuyuki to win. Patricia also managed
Leatherface on this tour. Leatherface lost the main event to Tarzan Goto, who after the
match vowed that if Patricia continued to distract him, he was going to take scissors and
cut her dress off.
WAR announced Korakuen Hall shows on 10/28 and 11/9. The 10/28 show will feature a
six man tag title match with Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon & Nobutaka Araya
challenging the winner of the 10/11 match (which no doubt will be Bigelow & Fuyuki &
Anjoh since Takada's $27,000 per match price makes no economic sense in a building
like Korakuen Hall where the total gross for a sellout would be $80,000ish). 11/9 is
headlined by the first ever singles match with Tenryu vs. Kazuo Yamazaki, plus Jushin
Liger & El Samurai defending the WAR International jr. tag titles against Lance Storm &
Yuji Yasuraoka.
All Japan women ran a semi-major event on 9/28 at Hakata Star Lanes drawing a legit
sellout of 3,150 as Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda retained their WWWA tag titles
beating Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida (Toyota's regular tag partners) in a best of three fall
match which went 30:57 before Toyota pinned Yoshida with the Japanese Ocean
Cyclone suplex. The next AJW event will be the annual tag team tournament from 10/13
with the finals on 12/1 at Korakuen Hall. Once again they are doing the gimmick
attempting to get the younger girls over and teaming a star with a younger girl. This
failed at the box office in a one-night tourney in May at Korakuen Hall, and failed again
for a two-night tourney at Budokan Hall in August, but the company needs to keep going
in this direction as it has to build itself for its future. Teams are Aja Kong & Yoshiko
Tamura, Toyota & Rie Tamada, Yumiko Hotta & Momoe Nakanishi, Kyoko Inoue &
Chaparita Asari, Shimoda & Reggie Bennett, Toshiyo Yamada & Saya Endo, Etsuko Mita
& Genki Misae, Yoshida & Ito, Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa and Tomoko Watanabe &
Kumiko Maekawa. The top four point-getters in the round robin go into the so-called
final four on 12/1 with the first place point-getter vs. four and two vs. three, and then the
winners meet for the championship. Opening night is 10/13 at Korakuen Hall with Kong
& Tamura vs. Toyota & Tamada, Hotta & Nakanishi vs. Takako & Fukawa, Bennett &
Shimoda vs. Ito & Yoshida and Mita & Misae vs. Yamada & Endo. The other major
shows on the tour are 10/21 in Osaka (Kong & Tamura vs. Maekawa & Watanabe); 10/24
in Omiya (Toyota & Tamada vs. Ito & Yoshida) and 11/4 back at Korakuen Hall (Kong &
Tamura vs. Kyoko & Asari, Toyota & Tamada vs. Takako & Fukawa, Bennett & Shimoda
vs. Misae & Mita and Hotta & Nakanishi vs. Maekawa & Watanabe).
The main JD program revolves around the return of Lioness Asuka with the TWF world
title. On 10/6 in Kawasaki, Bison Kimura faces Cooga (Miori Kamiya) with the winner
getting the first title shot on 11/16 in Osaka. Bull Nakano is leaning toward joining JD
rather than Gaea.
Social Pro Wrestling Federation will be running a tournament from 10/28 to 11/7 using
its wrestlers (Yoshiaki Yatsu, Isamu Teranishi, Murderer and Ichiro Yaguchi), an indie
(Poison Sawada) and Americans (Action Jackson, Steve Cox and Rod Price).
Big Japan ran another chandelier broken glass drum cabinet barbed wire baseball bat no
rope barbed wire street fight double hell death match on the 9/30 Omiya show with
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga beating Shoji Nakamaki.
UWFI ran 9/30 in Iwate before 2,650 with Takada & Kazushi Sakuraba losing the main
event to Anjoh & Yamamoto. Sayama worked the show beating Naohiro Hoshikawa of
Michinoku Pro, while ECW's Little Guido worked as James Stone, losing to Nikolai
Gordeau.
For whatever this is worth, the Baseball Magazine Sha martial arts magazine, which is
the best selling martial arts magazine in the world, when it covers shoot world
performers in pro wrestling, if they believe the match is a shoot they analyze is in great
details with lots of photos, and if they believe it's a work, they gloss over it quickly and
give it one photo although they don't editorially differentiate saying a match it a work,
it's a way for the reader to understand. Anyway, the 8/24 Maurice Smith vs. Kiyoshi
Tamura match got the one photo treatment.
USWA
The biggest news is that Randy Hales has quit the promotion as General Manager, not
only just as booker as we'd reported last week. Hales hasn't entirely quit as he's moved
from Nashville back to Jonesboro, AR and will run USWA shows in Arkansas towns, but
is done as road manager largely over frustration with the company all the problems that
anyone who has ever worked for the company ends up having. Not certain who will be
taking Hales' position. Jerry Lawler is booking, but he's gone most of the time and he
can't run all the shows since he won't be at most of them.
Jesse James Armstrong has also left, obviously for WWF.
Believe it or not, the biggest angle involves manager Scott Bowden and John Rainey, a
local radio sportscaster on the all-sports station that sometimes, but not always, carries
a radio broadcast of the Memphis cards. In the 9/27 main event, Bowden & Lawler lost
to Mark Henry & Brian Christopher when Rainey decked Bowden which led to Henry
pinning him. This sets up a match on 10/3 in Memphis with Rainey vs. Bowden billed as
a boxer vs. wrestler match. The other matches on the 10/3 show are Lawler & Dundees
vs. Wolfie D & Christopher & Brickhouse Brown in a stretcher match, Lawler defending
the Unified title against Steven Dunn, Christopher defending the USWA title against
Flash Flanagan, Tony Falk & Mike Samples vs. Bart Sawyer & Johnny Rotten and more,
although not much more.
With a lot of local publicity regarding Henry coming to town, they drew an estimated
1,250 fans on 9/26 in Union City, TN which was more than double what the Memphis
show drew, with Henry over Lawler via DQ on top.
ECW
Only show of the week was 9/27 in Allentown, PA before an estimated 750 was Raven
beating Sandman in a cage match for the title when Stevie Richards interfered and
superkicked Sandman; Sabu pinned Perry Saturn; Shane Douglas retained the TV title
beating Pit Bull #2 , New Jack won a handicap match over Blue Meanie & Richards who
were dressed up like Public Enemy and called Flyboy Stevie Richards and Meanie
Grunge.
Mustafa missed a show for the second weekend in a row.
The new tag team that were the first guys brought in from the school are called the
Erotic Experience, not the Exotic Experience as reported here last week.
They didn't hype the WWF feud deal heavily on television, but it was brought up with
Joey Styles calling the ECW Arena the most famous Bingo Hall in all of sports and at one
point threw a punch at the camera and said, "Hey Vince, bingo."
Rock & Roll Express debut as heels to work against The Gangstas for the tag titles
probably at the 10/5 Philadelphia show.
The match with Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Rob Van Dam & Sabu aired on the
television this past week. The 30:00 match was edited down to 26:00. From what I'm
told what they edited out was to protect Sabu as on the TV version you didn't see Sabu
missing spots. Kroffat was in a league of his own as they haven't had a mat wrestler in
this promotion of that calibre since Malenko and Guerrero left. Van Dam did some great
high spots but other parts of his work weren't good. Overall I'd give it in the ***1/2 range
because it was more like a Lucha match that wasn't top level in that it had great moves
and high spots but fell apart in spots as opposed to a smooth American or Japanese style
at its best level. It certainly blew away anything WWF or WCW had on this past
Monday's television.
The rock band "Wheezer" has a song getting some radio air play with an ECW reference
to Grunge legdropping New Jack through a table.
HERE AND THERE
A correction from the 8/19 issue. Mel Price, the House of Representatives member who
was close to Sam Muchnick and apparently was a key person in Muchnick bailing the
NWA out of the late 50s Justice Department investigation, was from the 12th District in
Illinois and not from Missouri. Also, Vader technically was world champion on three
continents, not four.
Lou Thesz called to note regarding the letter in the 9/23 issue that the difference
between the Japanese book written with Koji Miyamoto and the American book with Kit
Bauman is that they are two entirely different books, the Japanese book is a biography
and the American book is an autobiography. We constantly get letters asking about the
autobiography and the best way to get information would be to send a SASE to P.O. Box
8686, Norfolk, VA 23503. As mentioned before, my feeling is the book is the best book
ever written about pro wrestling in English and I think it's really a shame how the book
has largely been ignored outside of a few circles.
Ultimate Championship Wrestling will be running a free show on 10/12 at Bohemia Hall
in Astoria, NY.
Billy Graham underwent a six-hour hip replacement surgery on 9/25 and is still
hospitalized at this writing. It was a pretty serious deal, coming just eight weeks after
surgery to replace the other hip, and it's expected to be a nine month long recovery
period.
Renzo Gracie accepted the Richard Hamilton challenge for a match against Mark
Coleman, saying he'd fight Coleman any time, saying that Coleman has no technique
that would make him tap. Of course that's a verbal acceptance which is a long way from a
contractual acceptance. Since the two work for rival promotions, Gracie for Reality
Superfighting and Coleman for UFC. Hamilton held up a poster after Coleman won the
last UFC challenging Rickson, Royce and Renzo Gracie all in the same night. Hamilton
said they'd agree to fight under any rules and under any time limit. Renzo Gracie fights
at about 165 pounds so he'd be giving up 85 pounds.
The Entertainment Technology magazine called Axcess in the August/September issue
has a lengthy article about Buddy Albin's IFC show in Kiev of the Ukraine Republic.
Glen Jacobs worked as Diesel on Walter Kowalski's 9/28 show in Salem, NH and got
good reviews trying to do all the Diesel spots. They had advertised Isaac Yankem being
there, so fans weren't pissed off about being promised Diesel and getting another guy.
AWF is running a house show on 10/19 in Anoka, MN with Tito Santana & Sgt.
Slaughter vs. Blacktop Bully & Nailz, Tom Zenk vs. The Hater and Lenny Lane vs.
Horace the Psychopath as the top three matches.
Les Thatcher is running a Heartland Wrestling Association show on 10/12 in Lebanon,
OH at the National Guard Armory with Ricky Morton vs. Killer Kyle and Mike Samples
vs. Bobby Blaze as the double main event. If you bring an Observer to the ticket window
you get $1 off. For more info call 513-771-1650.
All Pro Wrestling is running 10/5 at their Pacific Coast Sports Gym in Hayward, CA. If
you mention the Wrestling Observer, you get $1 off. Since the gym holds less than 100,
tickets must be reserved in advance at 510-785-8396. The group is running its biggest
show to date on 10/12 at Johansen High School in Modesto, CA billed as Night of
Champions bringing in several legends of Northern California wrestling, plus a Battle
Royal and a tournament for both the group's heavyweight and junior heavyweight belts.
Pharoh Entertainment and IPW are putting on a Wrestlepalooza show with two rock
bands plus 911, Axl Rotten, Brick Bronsky, Reckless Youth and more on 10/19 at the
New Britain, CT Sports Palace. For ticket into call 203-365-0062.
WCW
Monday Nitro on 9/30 in Cleveland drew 4,318 paying $52,000 for one of the worst
Nitros in history. The live crowd reacted furiously pelting the ring with garbage after the
show went off the air since the matches were for the most part terrible. The television
show was built around the NWO (what else is new?) and they were all having a party at
the hotel room so none of the NWO wrestlers, nor Ric Flair (shoulder injury), nor Sting
(doing a movie), nor Randy Savage (hanging out at the hotel) appeared before the live
crowd. To make things worse to the live crowd, they introduced Savage for an interview
and he never came out, which may be effective television for telling a story but you can
imagine what it does to a crowd pissed off legitimately for about a dozen other reasons to
begin with. WCW is going to attempt to alleviate the problem by buying a video wall
(they rent one for PPVs right now) so at least the live crowd can see the cut-aways. The
NWO stuff looked like public access TV although there were a few funny lines. Nasty
Boys joined the NWO and Jerry Sags bent over and spread his cheeks saying he was
doing an impression of Eric Bischoff on last week's TV show. Bischoff walked off the set
early into the second hour for no explainable reason although what Sags did may not
have been planned (although there is so much swerving going on these days that you
never know) and nobody seemed to know ahead of time that Bischoff was going to walk
off. Between that and Savage's calling Liz a son of a bitch twice, they may be pushing the
envelope themselves. They were hinting that Bischoff was going to the NWO party as a
tease the rest of the show but that was just something the announcers made up on the
spot as it wasn't a storyline discussed before hand, and he never showed up there and
was never seen again the rest of the show. Elizabeth wound up at the party with a
storyline that she's apparently signed an acting contract with Hogan but wants to get out
of it, then Savage saw her leaving the room and freaked out with her screaming "You
don't understand." Now that Liz is turning face, her outfits have changed from black to
white and the necklines have gone up. Let's see, a bunch of guys throw you down and
spray paint your nice dress, and then a few weeks later you end up in a hotel room with
about nine of them alone. I can just imagine what those folks who thought Tyson was
innocent were thinking of her. Once Liz turns face, her shelf life as far as being useful is
about two months max although they've done about as much with her as a heel as they
can. Hogan brought his son Nicholas to be on television (must be nice to have a two hour
weekly show as a personal vehicle) who is the son that was involved in the boating
accident three weeks ago. Kyle Petty was also at the party and they talked about his
driving the NWO car. Bischoff did a great promo to open the show saying his biggest
mistake ever was bringing Hogan to WCW (which is also his biggest worked line ever).
The WCW car now has a Sting face on it which supposedly is an apology from WCW to
Sting for doubting him. Public Enemy kept the tag titles beating Juventud Guerrera & El
Tecnico (Billy Kidman under a hood, although it surprised me it was Kidman since the
guy froze in the ring and Kidman is usually a good worker) in 2:06. Kidman subbed at
the last minute for Psicosis who didn't show up as scheduled, likely because he still
doesn't have his working papers in order. PE should have lost the tag title before you
read this as later in the show after an abysmal match where Meng & Barbarian beat Rock
& Roll Express, they tried to make the save for Rock & Roll and Meng chop blocked
Grunge and they destroyed PE. It was one of the saddest things in a long time watching
Robert Gibson standing on the middle rope leading the crowd in a "Rock & Roll" chant
we've seen for almost 15 years now as Morton's getting plastered and get the deaf
treatment in response. PE was to defend the belts on 10/1 in Canton, OH (to air on
WCW Saturday Night on 10/5) against Harlem Heat and no doubt the knee will spell the
difference. Grunge legit was going to undergo knee surgery (that's why they did the angle
to set up them feuding with Faces of Fear) so he'll be out a few weeks. And in typical
WCW fashion, on the promo package for Havoc that aired on Raw, they listed the tag
title match as Heat defending against Hall & Nash. Alex Wright upset Dean Malenko,
which pretty well guarantees Malenko beating Rey Misterio Jr. for the cruiserweight belt
in Las Vegas. A weird finish saw Eddie Guerrero use the german suplex on Jim Powers,
but heel ref Nick Patrick counted three and raised Guerrero's hand as the announcers
were protesting Guerrero hadn't gotten his shoulder up. Made Guerrero look like a heel
and he seemed visibly thrilled on TV having to play along with such a dumb finish. It
ended up with Nick Patrick challenging Teddy Long to be a ref, so I guess Teddy Long
will go back to being a ref. Arn Anderson pinned Chris Jericho with a DDT in 5:34. The
booking committee in almost record time is trying to make sure Jericho, who has
potential, doesn't get perceived by anyone as being able to break into the upper echelon.
Main event saw Chris Benoit pin Rick Steiner in 4:25 when Steve McMichael used the
briefcase on Rick as Deborah distracted the ref. The crowd was dead by this point and
even that match, which had potential to be great, wasn't even good. Anderson and
Woman browbeat Liz about her sympathizing with Savage during two interviews, and
she didn't come to ringside with Anderson for the match with Jericho.
Nitro drew a 3.3 rating (3.4 first hour, 3.1 second hour which is the biggest second hour
drop in history which speaks volumes for the quality of the show) and 5.0 share. Monday
Night Raw did a 2.3 rating and 3.3 share while the Nitro replay did a 1.4 rating and 3.0
share. It's the fifth consecutive week that Nitro ratings have dropped from the week
before, and second straight week (and third of the last four) where there has been a
major turn-off factor as the show goes on. Still, I'm sure the company would be thrilled
with averaging a 3.3 for the year. Word we get is that Bischoff recognized just how bad a
show it was. Other weekend numbers saw Main Event do a 1.4, Saturday Night a 2.5 and
Pro a 1.3.
Flair worked the weekend house shows. Well, actually, he appeared at the shows. In both
Columbus, OH (3,016 paying $40,572) and Steubenville, OH (1,500 paying $20,320), he
and Benoit wrestled Hall & Nash. Six hit the ring and Benoit chased him to the back,
allowing Hall & Nash to double-team Flair, who never got his robe off. Benoit came back
and worked the entire match, such as it was, since it went less than 5:00 each night, by
himself and ended up being pinned when Six interfered. Flair saw Dr. Jim Andrews, the
noted surgeon in Birmingham, on Monday afternoon, and he recommended surgery on
the shoulder which, if Flair does it, would keep him out of action at least a few weeks or
probably at least until the PPV show. Flair vs. Savage was scheduled to headline most of
the house shows over the next few weeks, so they may change them to triangle matches
with Sting, Savage and Giant. Report from the Columbus show was very negative. Only
Misterio Jr. vs. Malenko, which had a cheap DQ finish when Dean threw the ref in the
way of a Misterio Jr. dropkick, had their working shoes on and they had a great match.
Guerrera jobbed for Jim Powers. Lex Luger pinned Rick Steiner in a match described as
terrible as both appeared to be major jetlagged. Six pinned Eddie Guerrero in what was
described as a disappointing one-sided almost squash. The combined time of the two
main events, which were the Flair match and the Giant vs. Savage (Savage DQ'd in 3:30
for hitting Giant with a chair) was less than 7:00.
Sting's storyline is actually to explain his absence as he's doing a movie called "Liar,
Liar" starring Jim Carrey. I can think of a lot of wrestling personalities who should be
stars in a movie with that name.
The working plan for the NWO TV show is that they'll do the Saturday Night two-hour
show every other week starting in November or December.
This past weekend's Saturday Night show was taped 9/25 in Montgomery, AL before
4,100 (1,800 paying $18,000). Public Enemy kept tag titles beating highly ranked
contenders High Voltage, Malenko beat Brad Armstrong and afterwards Malenko did an
angle where he clotheslined Misterio Jr. and took his mask off. The way they shot the
angle made Misterio Jr. look to be only five feet tall. Then again, that's about what he is,
but they really exposed his lack of size by not taking care in how the angle was shot as
Tony Schiavone looked like Andre the Giant next to him. Just in case people haven't
gotten the clue that Jericho is a jobber, he teamed with Powers and lost to that awesome
combination of Dick Slater & Mike Enos. Guerrera did a squash in 1:00 for Luger. They
had try-outs for Colorado Crusader (not good), Scott Vick and Big Sexy (who showed
some potential) and Hog Higgins (who looked terrible and may have been former Texas
jobber Hacksaw Larry Higgins as he was said to have looked older than Killer Brooks).
J.J. Dillon started working in the office on Tuesday. Bischoff had a pep talk before the
9/23 Nitro with the wrestlers saying he wanted to beat McMahon by 1.5 again. He told
the wrestlers that Dillon would be coming in and apologized to Kevin Sullivan, saying
Dillon would be his assistant because he's heard Dillon is a good organizer and said that
he was apologizing because it was the first chance he had gotten to tell Sullivan about
this. Ironically, this Dillon deal was probably a done deal a long time ago because one
major WCW figure was bragging back in late April about how Dillon was coming in, and
Dillon had his house in Connecticut for sale for several months, then quit with no notice
when the house closed.
With the exception of Misterio Jr. (who works house shows this weekend), the rest of the
Mexicans aren't due back until 10/24 in Stockton.
Super Calo will be out for about another month.
Some demographic notes on the 9/23 Nitro and Raw. The NWO segment, despite it
being entertaining to many, was a ratings turn-off. When they did the take-over, Nitro
had risen to a 4.1 rating and the following quarters dropped to 3.7, 3.1 and 3.2 which is
another huge drop--the second straight huge drop when WCW did an NWO angle in the
second hour. Those viewers that left for the most part didn't turn to Raw, which did 2.0,
1.8, 2.0 and 2.4 quarters. It's clear that the company desperately needs to do two things-
-wipe out the NWO Sting so that just WWF and not pro wrestling in general gets painted
with the same brush by fans tired of bogus performers; and do an angle that makes the
WCW/NWO angle not look like a 73-0 shutout as fans are tuning out every week when
the angles hit as opposed to the angles being the turn-on when NWO first came on the
scene. The positive note about the 9/23 show, which also translates into the NWO taking
over, is that it was the first show where WCW beat WWF in teenage viewers head-tohead.
WCW had a 65-35 edge in adults which is about the usual margin (before the
NWO angle started, WCW started the show with a 69-31 edge) and WWF had a 53-47
edge in 2-11s, also the usual margin. WWF usually has about a 55-45 edge in teens, but
with Michaels and Undertaker off the show and NWO on, the edge was WCW's by a huge
66-34 margin, or nearly 2-1. All those margins would have been far bigger had they not
done the NWO take-over. During the first 30 minutes of the NWO take-over, WCW lost
33% of its adult viewership, 27% of its kids and even 16% of its teenagers, and none of
those groups switched to Raw.
WWF
In his first major act as Co-CEO, Neville Meyer fired five Vice Presidents--Ausbert de
Arce (Senior Vice President of World Wide Properties), Lee Barstow (Vice President of
New Media who headed the AOL division), Chris Bert (Head of the merchandising
department), Ed DeLong (Head of International licensing) and Bob Mitchell (Vice
President of Publications and who worked with Barstow doing the AOL division).
Barstow and Mitchell were both involved in that AOL censorship fiasco a few weeks
back. The belief internally is that Meyer wants to restructure those divisions and bring in
his own people, although when Meyer first was hired, the word from former company
employees was to expect some front office people to get the ax as he'd basically be hired
to do the dirty work. Anyway, all those positions are expected to be filled shortly, while
the J.J. Dillon position isn't going to be filled. Dillon's duties will be divided up with
Linda McMahon handling contract negotiations with talent, Jerry Brisco and Jim Ross
working as office liaisons with the talent, Ross handling personal appearances and Bruce
Prichard handling the rest of talent coordination.
Brian James (Roadie) will be using the ring name Jessee Jammess (that's J-e-double sdouble-
e, J-a-double me-e-double s) as the new Double J with bleached blond hair.
Sometimes I think the Buried Alive concept on the next PPV is apropos for the entire
promotion when you see things like this, the new Razor and the new Diesel.
Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas are expected to debut in November. The two haven't signed
contracts, but had a meeting at Titan on 9/16 and both were offered contracts,
presumably to work against Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith for the tag team titles. They
would be giving up All Japan for this deal. In an interesting twist, WCW, which they
were first planning on going to since Furnas was broken into wrestling by Kevin
Sullivan, was given a chance to meet the Titan offer and didn't do so, so as always seems
to happen in this business, a measure of complacency may be beginning to set in with
the group that is perceived to be on top.
Terry Gordy did a try-out match without a mask putting over Savio Vega at the 9/24
Superstars tapings in State College, PA. He was said to have looked so-so. Other notes
from the show which drew 3,189 paying $50,277 were Shawn Michaels over Justin
Bradshaw, new Diesel over Aldo Montoya, Godwinns over Hart & Smith in a non-title
match, Faarooq over Jake Roberts, Salvatore Sincere upset Savio Vega when Austin
interfered to heat up their match on the next PPV. They did an interview where Faarooq
and Sunny had an amicable split since Sunny is being taken off the road, both to do the
Live Wire every Saturday morning, and also, with Skip no longer on the road, Sunny was
getting heat with a lot of people. In the interview they tried to throw in a faint allusion
that the two may be doing each other for that famous black male/white female
stereotype heat that gets done over and over in wrestling to appeal to some sort of
prejudices yet never seems to click with a public that appears to be generally not as
prejudice when it comes to interracial relationships in 1996 as wrestling promoters
believe them to be. Without Sunny around, Faarooq is going to need all the help he can
get.
Other house shows this week saw 9/25 in Danville, PA draw 860 fans and $14,619; 9/26
in Saginaw, MI drew 3,753 and $50,058; 9/27 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit drew 4,847
and $83,810; 9/28 in Pittsburgh Civic Arena drew 4,990 and $88,274 and MSG on 9/29
ended the tour.
Much of the talent and the office wasn't clued in on either the Jim Ross or the ECW
angles. Virtually nobody knew the Ross angle ahead of time including announcer Kevin
Kelly, whose reaction on air was legit. They clued Jerry Lawler in to make sure he
wouldn't react as a heel which would kill the fake shoot aspect of the angle, but a lot of
the talent didn't know what was going on, although if you saw the TV, you could see the
past two weeks that a Ross heel turn looked to be the end result. Bruce Prichard and
Vega were told about the ECW angle since they were directly involved, and I'm sure
much if not all the ECW talent knew, but the WWF talent didn't know beforehand on the
first night (obviously they had figured it out when they did the same thing the second
night).
ECW angle was talked about on Live Wire where a caller asked out ECW and Jim
Cornette joked about them running shows in a bingo hall, but not on the other shows.
Most of the TV was built around the Ross vs. McMahon feud. Ross is trying to maintain
his credibility as an announcer calling things straight while still portraying the lead heel
persona. It's weird to say the least. On Live Wire, they made sure that everyone knew
Ross was the heel in this scenario portraying him as a postal worker who went bananas
one day. On Superstars, Ross mainly did straight commentary although he threw in a
few barbs at McMahon. On Raw when they showed a photo of McMahon, Ross called it
his America's Most Wanted photo. He asked on Superstars if McMahon will show up on
Live Wire (10/5) in a sleeveless shirt so we can see his biceps and triceps and if anyone
will ask him how he got them. Yet on Raw, he still talked of Bret Hart as being his friend.
He said he brought in real athletes to play Razor and Diesel and it wasn't a Billionaire
Ted skit like McMahon came up with to make fun of people who are more successful
than he is. That last line was a surprise because it was almost an acknowledgement on
the air on a WWF show that WCW has surpassed them, even though in PPV the two
sides are fairly even, WWF still has a huge lead in house shows, international presence
and merchandising, and the only category WCW has a real edge in is television
viewership, and quite frankly, in years past, there have been numerous periods WCW
drew better cable ratings than WWF (although never at the current level of disparity)
and nobody in those days talked of WCW as being the No. 1 group.
WWF and Dennis Coraluzzo had worked out a talent agreement where Coraluzzo would
use the WWF talent that needed seasoning like Duane Johnson, Mark Henry, Achim
Albrecht, etc. to give them experience, but that has already fallen through due to the
ECW angle.
Lawler's drawing of Bill Clinton in a wrestling ring duking it out with Bob Dole is on the
cover of the October issue of Comedy Magazine. They also have a feature on Lawler
talking about his 1982 feud against Andy Kaufman. Speaking of Lawler, Eric Bischoff on
Prodigy made these comments regarding Lawler telling people not to buy tickets to the
WCW Nitro taping on 10/14 in Memphis--"I think Jerry Lawler exposed himself quite a
bit with that little stunt. Jerry Lawler in my opinion is a small time, going nowhere
individual who is probably at the end of any kind of professional career he may have
had. Perhaps his bitterness is showing through. Then again, Jerry Lawler owns half of a
promotion that is lucky to draw 150 people to an event at a flea market, so I can
understand why he'd be bitter."
Jim Neidhart is apparently gone.
They are doing a lot better job of hyping the 10/20 PPV show even with getting the other
television storylines over as compared with the lack of push for the 9/22 show. They
were hyping that McMahon and Ross would both do commentary on that PPV,
attempting to use that as a selling point of the show since McMahon vs. Ross is being
pushed as the biggest feud in the promotion.
Helmsley challenged Mr. Perfect on the Raw show in the commentary, and boy does
Helmsley need work on carrying his accent and believably delivering lines through more
than once sentence. Rick Bogner looked real green in his TV match with Vega. It only
makes a bad gimmick worse when the guy doing it looks green. The tag match with
Vader & Cornette (Cornette will only manage Vader and rarely go on the road) vs.
Michaels & Jose Lothario was a very good match, far and away the best wrestling on
Monday night television, since Vader and Michaels worked virtually the entire match
and Vader scored a clean pin with the Vader bomb to set up more title matches down the
road. They didn't acknowledge in the commentary (you could see it out of the corner of
the screen) that Lothario chased Cornette to the back right before the finish.
Besides Raw, other weekend ratings saw Blast Off do an 0.5, Live Wire a 1.0 and
Superstars a 1.7. If the ratings don't increase on Live Wire with McMahon on as guest, it
would be a very bad sign for the show. The second Live Wire was said to have been
better than the first. It was pretty clear they aren't using fake callers as nearly every
caller froze which made for a clumsy show, and one caller snuck in a reference to the
NWO and Hulk Hogan which Todd Pettingill overreacted to. I don't doubt they use real
faxes and e-mail questions (although the e-mail from someone named Wade who said
that Vince McMahon was his hero seemed rather curious) but their choices of questions
and comments to use (all basically being storyline and pro-whatever babyface position
they are trying to push) made the show get pretty redundant and totally predictable.
On television, Lou Albano talked about being inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame and
mentioned Baron Mikel Scicluna, The Valiant Brothers and Killer Kowalski (who he
mentioned twice, probably because he was twice as big a star as the others he
mentioned). The next day at MSG, the names announced besides Albano were Pat
Patterson, Valiants and Jimmy Snuka.
THE READERS PAGES
TV BUSINESS
Regarding the AWF. A mark or a very smart man (to quote Tommy Rich) pays $4-5
million for good television stations in mostly bad time periods to produce one television
show with aging wrestlers. The one hour show will do no better than a 1.0 rating. The
spots will end up at $2,000 to $7,500 max. If they can average $5,000, and that's
optimistic, 52 weeks of programming might gross $3.64 million. The 25% agency cut
and All-Americans commission leaves $2.73 million. You don't need Ross Perot graphs
to see the problem with the bottom line. Logically, AWF bails out in the middle, stiffs
stations on pay, and pro wrestling is hurt once again.
Regarding ECW. It's often quite good featuring some talented performers. It's always
rude, infantile and sophomoric. Either they have to change the show or they'll make no
inroads on free TV. The "V Chip" looms on the horizon.
The good news in wrestling is the house shows are picking up and the boys are getting
work. More real talent is needed. Fans need more of an education to Lucha Libre.
The bad news is too much WCW hotshotting, so-so PPV buy rates and too little
suspension of disbelief and drama.
My guess is growth for USWA and ECW over the next year; a crash and burn for AWF, a
new distributor for WCW and WWF. In short, it should be an interesting year.
Recommendations--I get to see bits and pieces of various small promotions like Windy
City, IWF, NAWA, Century. It's often tough viewing, but I keep watching because these
guys are helping to keep the industry alive. More specific coverage by you would help.
Last, a plea to smart fans. Shut up. Don't screw up the live shows. Enjoy what you know
but respect the business. That's really being smart.
Bill Behrens
President, SBI
RAMON-DIESEL
Shouldn't the Ramon/Diesel angle weaken the WWF's lawsuit regarding misleading the
public? If anything, the angle should help WCW prove the entire wrestling business is a
work and none of it should be taken seriously by rational people.
Kevin Hancer
Edina, Minnesota
UFC
A few weeks ago you printed a letter of mine where I suggested SEG could build up a
fight between Ken Shamrock and Bart Vale as a revenge match, since Vale held a victory
over Shamrock. My intent was not to imply that it was a legitimate shoot win, but since
neither party has ever pointed out that it wasn't a legitimate match and the win is used
in every Vale bio ever printed, I believe SEG would go along with the ruse and use it for
build-up purposes.
For Ultimate XI, maybe for the first time ever, a thumbs down. I believe the event has
been slowly deteriorating since the Ultimate Ultimate. The advent of most competitors
wearing gloves and more and more bloated wrestlers and brawlers involved has led to a
digression in skill level. The only technique we see now is take down and mauling. In my
letter after UFC IX, I said I thought Don Frye was overrated as an all-around fighter. In
UFC X, I believe he exposed his weakness at finishing and punched himself out in his
first fight against Mark Hall, since he didn't even attempt to apply any kind of
submission hold and instead attempted to batter his opponent into submission instead.
Sadly, this seems to be the same method employed by the majority of fighters SEG is
now bringing in. The end result is UFC is beginning to resemble the cockfights their
detractors say they are.
The best match was the slugfest between the fat brawlers, Tank Abbott and Scott
Ferrozo. Tape of this match can be provided as evidence against any argument this is
athletic competition. Unfortunately the once again humiliated and overrated Abbott has
already been booked to serve as fodder for a truly skilled fighter at the Ultimate Ultimate
'96. Hopefully Ken Shamrock will get a chance to make good on his promise in his
interview, which was the highlight of the show, and destroy the myth of Tank once and
for all so we won't have to see this obnoxious pig given a forum to express his psychotic
and borderline criminal views any longer. Second best was Jerry Bohlander vs. Fabio
Gurgel. I believe Gurgel would have probably won had there been no time limit. If it was
a fight to the finish, would Bohlander have expended energy on offense that is at best
deceptive looking in its effectiveness or would he have conserved it in an attempt to
work for a finisher? I realize this is all moot since these are no longer the rules this game
is played under, but the concept of who is really the Ultimate Fighter then is no longer
really the issue. The worst bout is a tie between any of the continuing mismatches that
took place in the first round.
It's amazing that after all this time, SEG has no concept of TV production and pacing of a
show. With all the money these events make, couldn't we see a professional looking
fighter profile put together for once? How can they not be prepared to go to features or
even to show the complete alternate matches during these frequent interminable lulls in
the show. As for the less of every alternate to injury, my feeling in this case is if a
competitor is too injured to go on after he wins, especially in the case of a decision, I'd
like to see the loser get a shot at redemption that night if nobody else is available. I
certainly would have preferred seeing Gurgel got a shot against Coleman rather than
Coleman simply being awarded the title.
Here is what I think the Ultimate Ultimate seedings should be: 1. Dan Severn; 2. Royce
Gracie; 3. Ken Shamrock; 4. Oleg Taktarov; 5. Marco Ruas; 6. Mark Coleman; 7. Don
Frye; 8. Tank Abbott. First round matches would include two rematches from the last
Ultimate Ultimate (Severn vs. Abbott, Taktarov vs. Ruas) plus two new intriguing
match-ups.
Also, I have no arguments with your Hall of Fame selections, except that Moolah should
have been a no brainer. And Edouard Carpentier's win over Lou Thesz was really the
catalyst for the formation of the AWA and WWA and set the model for the splintering of
the WWWF. That combined with his other credentials should have been enough to get
him in.
Only because a friend and I have been wondering about this since childhood, was Bob
Freed the Madison Square Garden ring announcer during the frequently repeated Waldo
Von Erich vs. Bruno Sammartino match when Bruno wrestled with a broken arm? I
believe this is on Bruno's "Greatest Sports Legends" appearance.
Burt Turelli
Fort Lee, New Jersey
DM: Whether SEG would go along with the ruse, which I don't believe they
would, is a moot point since Vale would never agree to fight Shamrock in a
legit match. As for the Ultimate Ultimate seedings, it's best to forget about
Royce Gracie in UFC. He isn't going to do it, and even if he did, he couldn't
beat the top guys in there today. As for Bohlander-Gurgel, if in a boxing
championship match, one boxer knowing full well he can't knock the other
out, outboxes the other through 85 percent of the match and wins via clearcut
decision, boxing aficionados don't go running around saying he never
went for a knockout punch and if there had been no limit to rounds they
wouldn't have won and because of that the guy who holds the championship
has no finishing skills, isn't really a good boxer or a worthy champion.
ALBRECHT
Achim Albrecht as a wrestler raises a lot of questions regarding Titan's drug testing
program. Even throwing out the drug issue, there's the question of what he'll look like
after being on the road for a while. Bodybuilding doesn't mix well with other sports
during the best of times, let alone in a sport where people spend so much time on the
road. It's hard enough at home to eat well and get enough sleep. The only way I can see
him as a draw would be with fans who read Weider magazines. And what will they think
when he doesn't look as big, hard or cut anymore? I don't even want to think about what
his work will be like. Let's home this isn't a return to the bad old days.
Christopher Mowbray
Greystanes, New South Wales, Australia
DM: You don't get to today's professional ranks of bodybuilding without
being both a genetic freak and without tons of drugs. However, even taking
away the drugs (if we go under the assumption that'll be the case) and
putting the guy on the road, he's still a genetic freak and his physique will be
as impressive as any physique in the history of wrestling off steroids. He
won't draw with bodybuilding fans whether juiced up or not, so it hardly
matters if he doesn't look as big, hard or cut as he looked while in
bodybuilding competition. But like with Jim Hellwig and others who are
given pushes in a worked sport that espouses to be anti-steroids, the
message is still totally hypocritical.
HALL OF FAME
Tag teams seem to be missing from your Hall of Fame list. Here are a few suggestions.
The 1980s produced several innovative tag teams like the Midnight Express, Fabulous
Ones and Rock & Roll Express. They all drew and were influential. How about The
Freebirds? They were top draws and influenced the business with their use of entrance
music.
The recent Nitros were probably the best wrestling television programs in a long time.
Whatever the WWF is doing with Jim Cornette and Jose Lothario, and it may be well
done, pales in comparison to the NWO angle. All the readers that have bashed WCW
over every little thing should give them the credit they deserve. There is a great shoot
angle on top, wrestlers like Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko have solid programs, and
excellent workers like Steve Regal and Rey Misterio Jr. have belts. What more could they
want?
Ian Goodwin
Brooklyn, New York
Hall of Fame considerations. Spyros Arion - both as a villain and a hero, played both
roles well; Dr. Jerry Graham - In his day he could really play a crowd; Ricki Starr -
brought ballet to wrestling; Jimmy Snuka - one of the first wrestlers to use the top rope;
Fuzzy Cupid and Little Beaver - two of the best midgets; Ivan Koloff; Bob Orton - an
underrated performer; Carlos Colon - Puerto Rico's biggest star; Fabulous Moolah - long
career; John Tolos - successful throughout the United States; Kerry Von Erich - the King
of Texas wrestling.
Victor Mather II
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Hall of Fame list was amazingly well thought out. However, I was shocked that you
failed to include Chigusa Nagayo or the Crush Gals as a tag team. I'm pretty sure she
meets the established parameters, and that she deserves recognition ahead of Devil
Masami, taking nothing away from Masami, of course.
Frank Strom
Revere, Massachusetts
DM: Chigusa Nagayo is in her 14th year as a pro (since she didn't wrestle
from 1989-93) and is 31 years old, so by our standards, wouldn't be eligible
for one more year at which point I'd think she should be a lock. Lioness
Asuka is in her 13th year as a pro and is 32 or 33 years old so wouldn't be
eligible until 1998

 

Oct. 14, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Bret Hart
sweepstakes, where will he end up?, Ric Flair rotator cuff
injury, NWO angle success or failure, more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 14 October 1996 01:21
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 October 14, 1996
The Bret Hart sweepstakes appears to have reached its 11th hour and most likely
nobody, perhaps including Hart himself, right now knows for sure who is going to end
up as the winner.
While the WWF had been planning for Hart's return at the Survivor Series and he is
already being advertised for a late November tour of England, WCW has countered with
a strong offer which would be at least three times as much money as Hart has ever
earned in wrestling guaranteed. It is known that up until this past week, the WWF was
going through its long-time planned storyline for Hart, which would have started with a
match with Steve Austin and continued to Wrestlemania, where more likely than not,
the plan was for Hart to regain the title from Shawn Michaels or whomever was
champion at the time. Hart had previously stated and was apparently sincere, that he
wasn't interested in returning to the WWF unless they offered him the title, something
the company apparently was willing to do, more so now than ever since they even
themselves appear to acknowledge they are No. 2 on the U.S. scene and need all the
friends and ammunition they can muster to battle WCW.
As a wrestler, Hart is in one of the most enviable positions bargaining wise of any
wrestler in history. At 39, he's theoretically at the tail end of his peak years in the
industry but still not only among the top performers in the business, but also considered
by most as one of its most popular and most marketable stars. In Europe, where the
WWF does regular tours, he's generally recognized as the biggest drawing card of all.
He's the lone performer at his level whose contractual situation is such that he can sit
back and take bids, and with the exception of Hogan, would be the second wrestler in
history who should be able to play his cards right and get a guaranteed money deal in
excess of $1 million per year.
Ironically, while money is a major concern, considering Hart's age and the fact that this
could be his last shot at this kind of money, talking with those close to him only gives
conflicting signals.
Despite the fact the WWF has planned for Hart's return as the main item for the fall and
there has been tremendous television hype already regarding an initial showdown with
Austin planned for Survivor Series, Hart has told some that he hasn't agreed to return,
while other friends and those in the WWF say Vince McMahon and Hart agreed on the
major points of his return scenario when McMahon visited Hart at his home in Calgary
back in July. The WWF has been pushing its television based on the idea Hart would
return while hinting that he wouldn't for the dramatic purposes of being a surprise when
he does, but still hedging its best in some ways since Hart has made it clear all along that
if the right acting offer came across that he'd take it. It appears WWF officials became
quite concerned over the past week when they received word that WCW has made an
huge offer--a three-year-deal to Hart worth supposedly close to $9 million--one which
the WWF couldn't even afford to come close to matching. Whether that figure is even
close to being on the level, word we've received is that Hart has yet to contact WWF
regarding the offer or even that he's negotiating with WCW, or officially cancel the plans
on the books. However, when the word of that kind of an offer from WCW, whether real
or not, reached WWF officials, it was a major shock because for the first time the feeling
among many higher-ups is that the odds were better than 50% he would choose WCW
over WWF because three plus times the money is almost impossible to turn down at this
stage of his life, belt or no belt. It is believed Hart in his best year with Titan earned very
high six figures and even this year, between working full-time for three months, a sixfigure
Wrestlemania payoff and merchandising royalties, would earn a solid six-figure
income even taking the major portion of nine months off.
Those close to Hart say that if the right acting gigs come up, he'd readily turn his back on
wrestling and get on with the next stage of his life. He was in Los Angeles over the past
week or two doing voiceovers for an episode of "The Simpsons" where he'll place the
voice of a pro wrestler. Others say Hart will make his decision based on a number of
factors, recognizing this is his best shot at making a huge amount of money because he's
in a unique position during a unique time. Whatever contractual ties Hart actually has to
WWF are minimal, and at worst he'd be able to leave by giving three months written
notice.
**********************************************************
On August 20, 1995, a small promotion in Japan ran what could be called the ultimate in
garbage wrestling, a one-night death match tournament at Kawasaki Baseball Stadium
and drew a whopping 28,757 fans--one of the largest crowds to attend pro wrestling
anywhere in the world that year.
One year later, apparently on its last legs, this same promotion gained a decent amount
of publicity by bringing in ECW for a pair of shows in the Tokyo area which had mixed
results.
On 10/3, IWA Japan owner Kishu Asano announced the group would be running its
final tour and close up after its 10/12 show. With nearly 30 promotions with numerous
different styles running in the Tokyo area alone, to say the independent market in that
area is over saturated would be an understatement. The IWA promotion, which debuted
in May of 1994, during a two-and-a-half year run included such off the wall events such
as thumb tack death matches, bed of nails matches, barbed wire baseball bat matches,
explosive matches, death matches in a bath house brawling into an all-women steam
room amidst topless women and broken glass matches, particularly matches with Cactus
Jack and Shoji Nakamaki with thumb tacks sticking all over both men's respective
bodies, will probably wind up in the cult library of wrestling videotapes for taking the
concept of early 1980s San Antonio sex and violence, blood and barbaric wrestling to a
level many steps farther than FMW, the group which popularized the blood and barbaric
part of that style in Japan.
The way the story was reported in Japan is that the group's top star, Tarzan Goto, told
Asano that he and proteges Mr. Gannosuke and Flying Kid Ichihara, would be leaving
the group to join Tokyo Pro Wrestling. Asano realized that without them, his promotion
couldn't continue and asked them to stay for the final tour at which time the promotion
would close its doors. Whether it actually happened that way or not is subject to
speculation. After losing much of its top drawing foreign talent, in particular Terry Funk,
Cactus Jack (who won the tournament on the promotion's biggest show) and The Head
Hunters, largely due to Asano having a falling out with booker Victor Quinones, who
then went to rival-FMW, taking Funk and the Head Hunters with him while Jack ended
up working for FMW as well before going full-time with WWF, the most recent IWA
tour, which drew poorly, had a foreign talent list consisting of Leatherface (Rick
Patterson), Tommy Rich, Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert) and Dr. Luther (Len St. Clair)
along with Mexican wrestlers Mr. Niebla and Pirata Morgan Jr. and valet Patricia as was
building up to an interpromotional grudge match with Goto against WAR's Hiromichi
Fuyuki.
That's quite a far cry marketability wise from the biggest show in company history,
which included Funk, Jack, Dan Severn, Tiger Jeet Singh, Terry Gordy, Head Hunters,
Silver King and El Texano.
With so many of the smaller promotions operating deeply in the red in Japan, in many
cases being kept afloat by money marks, this is hardly expected to be the final story of
this type this year in Japan. However, with all the pluses and minuses one can say about
the IWA Japan promotion, there are only a handful of wrestling companies in history
that can claim to have promoted a show that drew as many fans as they did that summer
afternoon in a rundown baseball stadium.
***********************************************************
Ric Flair is expected to be out the rest of the year due to a torn rotator cuff which needs
surgery. Flair was originally scheduled for an operation on 10/3 in Birmingham, AL, but
WCW wanted him to get a second opinion from one of their own doctors, who also
recommended surgery which was expected to take place sometime this week.
Flair had shoulder problems dating back to the early part of the year, but the injury got
so bad it put him on the shelf after a 9/21 match in Tokyo against Kensuke Sasaki. An
angle was done on the 10/7 Nitro where Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Six and The Giant
supposedly attacked Flair with a baseball bat for the storyline explanation of his
absence. The only thing that aired was in an obviously lit up portion of the dressing
room with studio lights visible, Flair was on the ground writhing in pain, Elizabeth and
Woman were in the background almost in tears, an aluminum baseball bat was around
along with the NWO members.
Before the surgery was performed, it was believed that Flair would require about three
months off post-surgery before he could return. With Flair, who will be 48 in February,
after a career of 24 years where he's taken enormous amounts of punishment nightafter-
night, the belief now is that for his career to continue without more physical
breakdowns in 1997, he'll need to be protected. It's a compromise in some fashion since
Flair had been unhappy of late because of WCW's going back to a nearly full schedule of
house shows. Flair had signed his contract extension during the period WCW was
mainly taping television and running rare house shows, and adding so many dates to his
schedule while making the same money. So it is believed that in order to get the most
out of whatever is left of his career, he'll be given more of a Hogan-type schedule where
he'll only wrestle the major shows and used as a manager/leader of the Horseman type
role upon his return. While nothing has been done to set this up, it is believed Jeff
Jarrett will take his spot within the Four Horseman.
************************************************************
Without a doubt, the most talked about angle of this and nearly any year is the NWO
angle. Some are calling it the best angle in years. Some are crediting it with being the
catalyst for WCW finally overtaking WWF as the No. 1 wrestling promotion in the
United States. Nearly everyone credits it with putting WCW on fire, even though most
recognize the fire has been burning less and less bright by the week due to angle overkill.
A funny thing happens when you examine the numbers. Everything isn't as it seems. We
ran a comparison this past week between WCW before and after the NWO angle started
and the results were startling, particularly in gauging the effectiveness of the angle,
particularly in comparison to WCW's previous major angle, the Elizabeth turn on Randy
Savage and joining up with Ric Flair, which turned the company's house show business
fortunes around, yet has never gotten mainstream credit for being one of the most
effective WCW angles since Turner took the company over.
First let's look at house shows. In comparison, we took the five month period from 2/1
through 6/30 as the pre-NWO angle period. From 7/1 through 10/7 is considered the
post-NWO angle. While Scott Hall debuted on television in late May, it actually wasn't
until July when he and Kevin Nash began working the house shows.
Pre-NWO angle per show averages: 3,592 paid, $41,407
Post-NWO angle per show averages: 3,063 paid, $37,208
This is not saying the angle was a bad idea. Actually the angle itself was a great idea, as
almost all interpromotional angles are, although one can argue the execution of it has
fallen apart in recent weeks. But those figures contradict the idea that this angle has
created more of an interest in people wanting to pay to see WCW than was there during
the before the angle started. This isn't saying it's a bad angle, but in effectiveness at
drawing money, this is hardly Muto-Takada or even Hogan-Orndorff. It's not even Flair-
Savage and it's actually not a whole lot bigger than Sting-Rude.
One factor in this decline in live show attendance may have to do with putting the title
on Hogan. During the early part of the year, the title bounced back-and-forth with Flair
and Savage, and later Giant, so most house shows were headlined by a world title match.
Once Hogan won the title in August, there are no world title matches at the house shows,
so if the belt means anything, that may explain some of the decline. However, the slight
decline in attendance (July average was 3,200 paying $39,800) started with Hall & Nash
on the road and Giant still holding the world title defending it on every show. If the belt
means something, then it's questionable keeping it on someone who doesn't work the
house shows. If it doesn't, somebody ought to examine why and concentrate on putting
some credibility back in it because a strong title belt should mean something at the box
office and be the key aspect of the story lines in most cases.
Television ratings are another story. We'll date the beginning of the angle for television
purposes one month earlier, since Hall arrived in late May and began building up for
Nash's arrival by early June.
Pre-NWO angle per show average rating: 2.20
Post-NWO angle per show average rating: 2.23
Even with the ratings increase every Monday night which can be directly correlated with
the debut of Hall, the fact is, for just about every viewer gained on a Monday, it averaged
out to a viewer lost on a Saturday or a Sunday. Realistically, even though on paper this
looks to be a dead heat, actually that is a statistical fallacy because traditionally ratings
go down during the summer and they didn't this year. The fact WCW ratings actually
stayed even, and actually increased a tiny amount over the summer months is quite a bit
more impressive than the numbers would tend to show. The NWO angle has been good
for ratings, or the increase to two hours on Monday has been good for ratings, and since
they both happened at the same time, it's probably a combination of both and it's
impossible to say which was more important than the other right now. However, angles
over three of the past five weeks have led to a scary level of people switching channels.
Since everyone nowadays looks at the Monday numbers as the barometer of success,
from a bragging rights situation, the angle looks great. But ratings for the other three
cable shows have actually shown a slight decrease, but again, that would be expected
because that's the traditional summer pattern, and WCW's summer drop of the Saturday
show ratings didn't take place to the level of previous summers. The Sunday numbers
have dropped, particularly in recent weeks (the 9/29 Sunday show drew the lowest
rating in the history of the show except in weeks when it went head up with the Super
Bowl), but that's more attributable to being moved from the traditional 6:05 p.m. start
and a down playing of the importance of the show than any story lines going on.
So what of pay-per-view. In comparing buy rates, I took the February, March and May
WCW shows (there was no PPV show in April) as the pre-NWO period and July, August
and September shows as the post. The June show, which drew the lowest buy rate of the
year (and, ironically, would be considered by most as the best WCW PPV event of the
year), I didn't consider in either category because I'm not sure which it would be fair to
put it in. The first actual match Hall & Nash worked, which was the match with the
Hogan turn, was in July. However, the NWO angle was in full bloom by June, and it was
well known Hall & Nash would appear on that show in an angle, but they were not the
focal point of that show.
Pre-NWO average buy rate: .62
Post-NWO average buy rate: .66
So there has been an increase, although certainly not anything to be considered
staggering. The fact is, when it comes to putting dollars in the company, the arrival of
Hall and Nash and the impact of the NWO angle pales in comparison to the original
arrival of Hogan in 1994, where his house show and buy rate figures were almost night
and day different from the priors, and economically his impact on the company
financially did pay for his $4 million plus annual salary. If you look at the figures and
remember that both Hall and Nash's salary adds $120,000 per month in salary expenses
for WCW (not to mention that their contract deal gives them perks on the road such as
hotel and car paid for that traditionally haven't been covered by wrestling promotions in
the past), it's a lot harder to make the same statement. In fact, if you combine the slight
drop in house show per show average with the slight increase in buy rate, the figure you
wind up with is that since Hall and Nash came, WCW takes in an extra $48,800 per
month while spending maybe $125,000 more to take in that money. But that figure may
be considered a drop in the bucket if the goal is to do a number on the WWF every
Monday, which is generally what has been happening. Merchandising isn't factored in
this picture and that may slightly close that gap a little more.
*************************************************************
Sandman (James Fullington) regained the ECW heavyweight title in what apparently a
last-minute decision in a tag team match to headline the 10/5 show at Philadelphia's
ECW Arena.
The scheduled match was Sandman & Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven & Brian Lee. The
stipulations were Sandman would have to take ten lashes with the cane if he was pinned;
Beulah would have to leave ECW if Dreamer was pinned; Raven would lose the title to
whomever pinned him and if Lee was pinned, he'd have to get his head shaved.
The match had to be changed at the last minute due to personal problems involving
Raven (Scott Levy), which are expected to keep him out of action for an undetermined
length of time, believed to be around a few weeks, which pretty much came to a head the
previous day. With a combination of both the champion missing the show, and the
challengers in the tag team title match (Rock & Roll Express) also no-showing for
reasons unclear at press time (they worked a show that same night in Harrgote, TN
instead), booker Paul Heyman figured he'd have to give the sellout crowd estimated at
1,200 something extra to make up for it and gave them a previously unplanned title
change. Stevie Richards subbed for Raven, with the Raven stipulations about the title
change reverting to Richards, and Sandman pinned Richards after a DDT to capture the
title. The nutty Tommy Dreamer bump of the show came when Lee choke slammed him
off the stage through four tables, a bump that looked visually more impressive than the
previous three table bump because the tables all broke.
With Rock & Rolls, who were never actually announced on television (TV publicity listed
Gangstas as defending the title against a mystery team), missing the show, Heyman
wound up with two tag title matches on the show. First Gangstas went to a no contest
with Richards & Blue Meanie, who were dressed up like Public Enemy and called Flyboy
Stevie and Meanie Grunge, when the Eliminators interfered. Then Eliminators got an
unadvertised title shot later in the show and lost, but after the match Perry Saturn put a
table on the top rope and a ladder on top of the table and came off the top of the ladder
twice, doing a fist drop on each Gangsta.
To explain from a storyline standpoint the temporary absence of Raven, they did a postshow
angle in the hotel room that will air on television next week where they have a
"press conference" for Sandman winning the title, and at the event, Richards comes out
and they explain that Sandman has filed custody papers to get custody of his son Tyler,
and that when Raven found out, he skipped the country with Sandman's son and both
are now nowhere to be found.
*************************************************************
It is expected that a deal will be signed this week for the first major American pro
wrestling star to participate in a shoot match.
Bam Bam Bigelow is expected to sign this week to oppose Kimo Leopoldo in the main
event of "The U Japan" inaugural show on 11/17 at the Tokyo Bay Ariake Coliseum.
Word we've been told is that the new promotion was waving huge money at several big
name American wrestlers, Vader being their first choice, to participate in a legitimate
match against the Hawaiian who made himself a name in UFC III by injuring Royce
Gracie to the point he couldn't continue in the tournament, even though he actually lost
the match in less than 4:00 by submission to an armbreaker. The idea was for the
promotion to make Kimo a bigger name in Japan by beating a pro wrestling superstar in
Japan with a believable reputation. After the Gracie match which made him a name in
the martial arts world despite a martial arts background that consisted of little more
than street fighting, Kimo has gotten plenty of work in Japan. Despite having never
participated in a sanctioned gloved fight, stepped out of his element and was
embarrassed in a high-profile kick boxing match against Japanese martial arts star
Masaake Satake, defeated Patrick Smith in a UFC rules match, defeated pro wrestler
Kazushi Sakuraba (UWFI) in July in what may or may not have been a worked UFC
rules match (it looked legit and was on a legit sports show called shootboxing but it fit
too nicely into a later UWFI storyline), defeated pro wrestler Yoshihiro Takayama on a
UWFI show in what was a worked match, won a couple of fights on Pankration shows in
Hawaii where he was their heavyweight champion, and lost via submission to Ken
Shamrock in a UFC Superfight this past February in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Kimo would
have almost surely finished his UWFI program by doing the job for Yoji Anjoh at the
9/11 Tokyo Jingu Stadium show, but he canceled when the U Japan deal came through.
While there have been several recent matches with so-called no rules fighters facing pro
wrestlers in Japan, Anjoh vs. David Beneteau and Pedro Otarvio vs. Keiji Muto just this
past month, that were worked, and some that were apparently shoots (Kiyoshi Tamura
vs. Patrick Smith and Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Ricardo Morais, both of which were so
short it's impossible to tell for certain), and people like Shamrock, Dan Severn, Bart
Vale, Geza Kalman Jr. and others with backgrounds in pro wrestling who have
participated in shootfights, Bigelow would be the first major name American wrestler to
do something of this type if the match ends up being legit as Bigelow was told it would
be.
Bigelow, now 34, who wrestled in high school and was a street fighter in his youth before
getting into pro wrestling in 1986, is expected to receive somewhere in the neighborhood
of $70,000 to $85,000 for the match, as the actual figure had not been agreed to at
press time. At one point many years ago, Bigelow, who is a very gifted athlete for his size,
was talked with by boxing promoters as a gimmick opponent in a boxing match for Mike
Tyson because of his size, look and the bald head with the tatoos, but the deal never
came to fruition. While he's best known in American wrestling for his Wrestlemania XI
match with Lawrence Taylor, he was, along with Vader, New Japan's top foreign star for
several years.
Vader was the promotion's original choice as Kimo's opponent, but negotiations fell
apart because the card was the same day as WWF's Survivor Series. U Japan was
interested in either Terry Gordy or Sabu to fill the spot, but Bigelow, who was a major
star for years with New Japan before embarking on his most recent WWF run, is still a
bigger drawing name in Japan and would be believed by the majority of Japanese fans to
be far tougher that either of those two. Paul Heyman at one point tried to arrange Al
Poling (911) for the match, figuring it was a no-lose situation as if Poling got lucky, he'd
be able to bring him back into ECW with a legit shoot reputation, and if he didn't, no
harm was done since he's not using the guy anyway. Since he doesn't have a name in
Japan, U Japan wasn't interested. At one point Taz' may have come up but Heyman felt
because of his long-term plans for Taz, taking the match wasn't worth the potential risk,
plus such a match would have meant almost nothing at the box office for U Japan.
While this also hasn't been officially announced, there has been discussion this past
week of Dan Severn vs. Koji Kitao and Mark Hall vs. Don Frye (who will apparently be
doing both this show and the Ultimate Ultimate three weeks later although SEG is
attempting to discourage fighters from trying to do both because of the injury risk so
close before a tournament), also as shoot matches as apparently the decision has been
made to do an all-shoot show rather than a mixture which would kill credibility fairly
quickly. The promotion is also negotiating seriously with Ken Shamrock to appear, and
apparently the money figure is high enough that he's considering it despite it being only
a few weeks before the Ultimate. The change from the original Kitao vs. Hall match
makes little sense as it was a natural rematch of a Kitao loss where Kitao would be
figured to have a shot at redemption, something he wouldn't figure to have against
Severn.
***********************************************************
A combination of a poor line-up, the general lack of talent and a Thursday night show
combined on 10/3 to draw the smallest crowd perhaps in the history of Memphis weekly
wrestling--just 372 fans paying $1,800, to the Big One Flea Market.
The headline match was a stretcher match where Brian Christopher & Brickhouse Brown
& Wolfie D beat Bill & Jamie Dundee & Jerry Lawler when Jesse James Armstrong
interfered and power bombed Jamie Dundee through a table and he was carried out.
With the recent resignation of Randy Hales, who had largely been running the
promotion administratively for the past several months, and probably the poorest
overall talent roster in the history of the promotion, exactly what the future holds for
USWA has to be asked. The key thing keeping the company able to operate at the current
level is that Louisville and Nashville have kept crowds up as compared to Memphis,
which for years carried the territory. In addition, because its weekly live television show
has a history unparalleled by any wrestling television show in the country (in the early
80s, the local wrestling show outdraw even the highest rated network prime time shows)
and still does competitive numbers, the company has a deal where it doesn't have to pay
for production, which enables it to continue when basically every other 1980s wrestling
promotion except the World Wrestling Federation has now either folded or been sold to
people with deeper pockets that have kept it afloat during periods of huge amounts of
red ink.
************************************************************
A correction from last week's issue regarding the article on Madison Square Garden. The
actual paid attendance at the 9/29 show was 6,747. That is still among the lowest figures
of the past 40 years, although not as bad as the original listed figure here last week.
There may have been one or two shows over the past few years with crowds in or near
that same vicinity, although from the late 50s through late 80s, nobody can recall
crowds dropping below about 8,000.
It appears that WWF's bid to get syndication on WBIS in New York may have fallen
through as WCW is expected to get an 11 a.m. Saturday afternoon slot on that station
shortly.
The idea of doing a late Saturday night live television show from New York with a more
hardcore theme is back on the table. Details are unavailable as nothing has been
finalized as to whether they can get the show on cable, do the show weekly or as a
monthly special, or even go back the original idea of doing it as a PPV event.
***********************************************************
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1988: 11/14
1989: 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27, 4/10, 4/17, 5/22, 5/29, 6/5, 6/12, 6/19, 6/26, 7/3, 7/10,
7/17, 7/24, 7/31, 8/7, 8/14, 9/3, 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30, 11/13, 12/4,
12/11, 12/18
1990: 1/15, 2/5, 2/19, 3/12, 3/26, 4/16, 4/23, 4/30, 6/4, 6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23,
8/30, 9/24, 9/29, 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, 12/17, 12/24
1991: 1/8, 1/14, 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 4/1, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22, 4/29, 5/6,
5/12, 5/20, 5/27, 6/3, 7/15, 7/22, 8/19, 8/26, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4, 11/25, 12/1, 12/9, 12/16,
12/23
1992: 1/6, 1/10, 3/16, 4/6, 4/13, 4/19, 4/27, 5/4, 5/11, 5/18, 5/25, 6/1, 6/15, 6/22, 7/29,
7/6, 7/15, 7/20 (double), 7/27, 8/3, 8/10, 9/1, 9/7, 9/8 (double), 9/21, 9/29, 10/5,
10/12, 10/19, 10/26, 11/2, 11/9, 11/16, 11/23, 11/30, 12/7, 12/28
1993: 1/15, 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/15, 3/29, 4/5, 4/12, 5/17, 5/24, 5/31, 6/15, 6/21, 6/28,
7/5, 7/12, 7/19, 8/2, 8/9, 8/16, 8/23, 9/6, 9/15, 9/20, 9/27, 10/11, 10/18, 10/25, 11/1,
11/8, 12/6, 12/27
1994: 1/3, 1/10, 1/17 (double), 1/24, 2/7, 2/14, 2/21, 2/28, 3/7, 3/28, 4/4, 4/11, 4/18,
4/25, 5/2, 5/9, 5/16, 5/26, 5/30, 6/6, 6/10, 6/20, 6/27, 7/4, 7/11, 7/18, 8/1 (double),
8/8, 8/15, 8/22, 8/29, 9/5, 9/12, 9/19, 9/26, 10/3, 10/10, 10/17, 10/24, 10/31, 11/7,
11/14, 11/21, 11/28, 12/5, 12/19, 12/26
1995: 1/2, 1/16 (double), 1/23, 1/30, 2/6, 2/13, 3/7, 3/20, 3/27, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24, 5/1,
5/8, 5/15, 6/5, 6/12, 6/19, 6/26, 7/3, 7/10, 7/17, 7/24, 7/31, 8/7, 8/14, 8/21, 8/28, 9/4,
9/11, 9/18, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 11/6, 11/13, 11/20, 11/27, 12/4, 12/11, 12/18, 12/26
1996: 1/2, 1/8, 1/15, 1/22 (double), 1/23, 1/29, 2/5, 2/12, 2/19, 2/26, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18,
3/25, 4/1, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22, 4/29, 5/6, 5/13, 5/20, 5/27, 6/3, 6/10, 6/17, 6/24, 7/1, 7/8,
7/22, 7/29, 8/5, 8/14, 8/19 (double), 8/26, 9/2
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 10/11 TO 11/11
10/11 WAR Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tenryu vs. Muta)
10/12 All Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Williams & Ace vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
10/13 WWF Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (Michaels vs. Goldust)
10/13 JWP Tokyo Sumo Hall WOWOW live television special (Kong & Kansai vs.
Masami & Kyoko Inoue)
10/14 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Memphis, TN Mid South Coliseum
10/18 All Japan 24th anniversary show Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Kawada)
10/18 EFC III PPV Tulsa, OK Expo Square Arena (Conan vs. Maurice Smith)
10/18 WCW Minneapolis Target Center (Savage vs. Giant vs. Sting)
10/20 WWF In Your House PPV Indianapolis Market Square Arena (Undertaker vs.
Mankind)
10/20 New Japan Kobe (Choshu & Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Hirata)
10/20 AAA Phoenix Celebrity Theater (Konnan & Parka & Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis &
Guerrera & Killer)
10/21 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Fort Wayne, IN Memorial Coliseum (Michaels
vs. Vader)
10/21 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Mankato, MN Civic Center
10/22 WWF Superstars tapings Cincinnati Gardens (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader &
Cornette)
10/23 New Japan Nagasaki (Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka)
10/25 RINGS Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Maeda vs. Kopilov)
10/25 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 WWF St. Louis Kiel Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams vs. Eliminators)
10/27 WCW Halloween Havoc PPV Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel (Hogan vs. Savage)
10/28 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Phoenix, AZ America West Arena
11/1 New Japan Hiroshima Green Arena (Super Grade tag team tournament finals)
11/1 AAA Tijuana El Toreo (Misterio Jr. vs. Misterioso)
11/2 WWF Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/3 Pancrase Tokyo Tough PPV taped 9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
11/4 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
11/8 WWF Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena
11/9 Pancrase Kobe
11/10 WWF Cleveland, OH Gund Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust)
11/11 WCW Monday Nitro tapings St. Petersburg, FL Bayfront Center Arena
RESULTS
9/26 Saginaw, MI (WWF - 3,753): Justin Bradshaw b Aldo Montoya, Stalker b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Faarooq b Savio Vega, Steve Austin b Jake Roberts, Grimm
Twins b Smoking Gunns, Mankind b Bob Holly, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Owen Hart
& Davey Boy Smith-DQ, IC title: Marc Mero b Goldust, Sid b Vader
9/28 Hyde Park, MA (Empire Pro Wrestling): El Mascarado b Flame, Steve
Bradley b Alex Payne, Astro Man b Bandit Rossi, Rick Fuller b Pierre the Mountie (not
Karl Oulette), Britanny Brown b Ramblin Rose
9/29 Steubenville, OH (WCW - 1,500): Jim Powers b Juventud Guerrera, WCW
cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Dean Malenko-DQ, Rick Steiner b Lex Luger, Six b
Eddie Guerrero, Ric Flair & Chris Benoit b Scott Hall & Kevin Nash-DQ, Randy Savage
DDQ The Giant
9/29 Detroit (Insane Championship Wrestling - 275): Jimi V b Pierre Francois,
Battlestar b Jason the 13th, Christian Cage NC Blackjack Shalack, Paul Segal b J.T.
Lightning, Perro b American Kick Boxer, Hector Hatcher NC Sewer Dweller, Bull Pain b
Rhino Richards, Sex & Violence b Havoc Inc., Ric Matrix b Tex Monroe
10/1 Canton, OH (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 2,000): WCW cruiserweight
title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Juventud Guerrera, Meng & Barbarian b John Tenta & Ron
Studd, Eddie Guerrero b Joe Gomez, Arn Anderson b Vic Steamboat, Chris Benoit &
Steve McMichael b Rock & Roll Express, Dean Malenko b J.L., Lex Luger b Renegade,
Brad Armstrong b Mark Starr, WCW tag titles: Harlem Heat b Public Enemy, Guerrera b
Starr, Rock & Roll Express b David Taylor & J.L., Jim Powers b Disco Inferno, Konnan b
Pat Tanaka, Bobby Eaton b Taylor
10/1 Takeda (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Yachiyo Kawamoto, Saya Endo
b Yumi Fukawa, Rie Tamada & Genki Misae & Momoe Nakanishi b Kumiko Maekawa &
Yuka Shiina & Nana Takahashi, Kaoru Ito b Yoshiko Tamura, Aja Kong & Toshiyo
Yamada & Chaparita Asari b Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe, Takako
Inoue & Yumiko Hotta b Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida
10/1 Raleigh, NC (Southern Championship Wrestling): Dark Patriot (Ed Jones)
b David Blanchard, Timber the Lumberjack b Poison Ivey (James Ivey), Bad Boy Buck b
Little Frankenstein, Viper b Gorgeous George III (Rob Kellum)-DQ, Timber b
Blanchard, Beau James b Stryker, David Jerrico b Rick Savage, Chris Stephenson b Big
Slam (Walter McDonald)
10/2 Fukushima (All Japan - 2,300): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga, Yoshinari
Ogawa b Masao Inoue, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Maunukea Mossman & Dory
Funk, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue
& Masa Fuchi, Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Takao Omori & Tamon Honda, Jun
Akiyama d The Patriot 30:00, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Gary Albright & Dan
Kroffat, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Rob Van Dam b Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta
Kobashi & Satoru Asako
10/2 Uwa (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Momoe
Nakanishi b Yachiyo Kawamoto, Mariko Yoshida & Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa b Genki
Misae & Yoshiko Tamura & Saya Endo, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito b Rie Tamada &
Kumiko Maekawa, Takako Inoue b Chaparita Asari, Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada &
Tomoko Watanabe b Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue
10/2 Annaka (Battlarts - 106): Daisuke Ikeda b Satoshi Yoneyama, Shoichi Funaki b
Alexander Otsuka, Minoru Tanaka b Katsumi Usuda, Takeshi Ono & Ikeda b Yuki
Ishikawa & Naohiro Hoshikawa
10/2 Rockingham, NC (All-Star Wrestling - 375): David Jerrico b German Storm
Trooper (Chuck Coates), David Isley b Rick Savage, Greg Valentine b Gorgeous George
III (Rob Kellum)
10/3 Tsuruoka (All Japan - 1,950 sellout): Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Dory Funk & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Jun Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Mighty Inoue &
Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Kenta
Kobashi & The Patriot & Maunukea Mossman b Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda & Takao
Omori, Stan Hansen b Giant Kimala II, Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako b Rob Van
Dam & Gary Albright, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Dan Kroffat b Toshiaki Kawada &
Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa
10/3 Memphis (USWA - 372): Tony Williams b Shaw Williams, Terry Golden b Tony
Myers, Johnny Rotten & Bart Sawyer b Tony Falk & Mike Samples-DQ, John Rainey b
Scott Bowden, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Flash Flanagan, Unified title: Steven
Dunn b Jerry Lawler-DQ, Stretcher match: Christopher & Wolfie D & Brickhouse Brown
b Bill & Jamie Dundee & Lawler
10/3 Hiroshima (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 526): The Natural b Akihiko Masuda,
Masanobu Kurisu b Crusher Takahashi, Shocker b Mike Anthony, Shigeo Okumura b
Astro Rey Jr., Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei b Black Wazma & Masao Orihara,
Abdullah the Butcher & Billy Black b Kishin Kawabata & Shinobu Tamura
10/3 Takamatsu (All Japan women): Yuka Shiina b Yachiyo Kawamoto, Yumi
Fukawa b Miho Wakizawa, Rie Tamada & Yoshiko Tamura & Nana Takahashi b Genki
Misae & Saya Endo & Momoe Nakanishi, Tomoko Watanabe & Chaparita Asari b Takako
Inoue & Kumiko Maekawa, Yumiko Hotta b Toshiyo Yamada, Aja Kong & Etsuko Mita &
Kyoko Inoue b Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida
10/3 Richmond, VA (Ultimate Championship Wrestling free show): Swede
Stone won Battle Royal, Roger Anderson & Frank Parker b Lady Killer (Stacey Burke) &
John Masters, Debbie Combs b Malia Hosaka, Doink the Clown b Mercenary of Mayhem
(Kevin Dalton), Tracy Smothers b Demolition Ax-DQ, Ricky Morton b Vladimir Koloff to
win UCW title
10/3 Doniphan, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling): Man Mountain Mike
b Terry Zane, J.T. Atlas b Crusher Bones, Charlie Parker b Reggie Montgomery,
Colorado Kid b Tower of Doom
10/3 Bakersfield, CA (Slammers): Pete Malloy d Tyrone Little, Samoan Kid d
Dynamite D, Verne Langdon b El Toro Bravo-COR, Jeff Lindberg & Samoan Kid b Bravo
& Little, Lindberg b Bruce Beaudine
10/4 Nihatta (All Japan - 2,400): Masao Inoue b Satoru Asako, Mighty Inoue b
Kentaro Shiga, Dory Funk & Rob Van Dam b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa,
Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Jun Izumida & Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi, Giant Kimala II & Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Steve Williams & Johnny
Ace & Maunukea Mossman, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Gary Albright & Dan Kroffat,
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue &
Takao Omori
10/4 Xochimilko (AAA): Ludxor & Century 2000 b Quarterback & Mancha Negra,
Mini Karis & Mini Killer & Espectrito I b Torerito & La Parkita & Mascarita Sagrada Jr.,
Mascara Sagrada Jr. & New Winners (Mosco de la Merced) & Winners b Los PayasosDQ,
Octagon & La Parka & Ultimo Dragon & Tinieblas Jr. b Los Villanos III & IV & V &
Super Muneco
10/4 Jonesboro, AR (USWA): Flash Flanagan b Mike Samples, Bart Sawyer b Tower
of Doom, Johnny Rotten b Crusher Bones, Debbie Combs b Malia Hosaka, USWA tag
titles: Bill & Jamie Dundee b Brian Christopher & Wolfie D, Unified title: Colorado Kid b
Jerry Lawler to win title
10/4 Kyoto (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Chaparita Asari
& Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo b Mariko Yoshida & Yumi Fukawa & Momoe Nakanishi,
Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada &
Yoshiko Tamura, Manami Toyoda d Kaoru Ito 30:00, Aja Kong & Genki Misae b Yumiko
Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada
10/4 Minami Atami (Battlarts - 154): Yuki Ishikawa b Satoshi Yoneyama, Naohiro
Hoshikawa b Alexander Otsuka, Minoru Tanaka b Shoichi Funaki, Daisuke Ikeda &
Takeshi Ono b Ishikawa & Katsumi Usuda
10/4 Johnson City, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling - 100): Steve Skyfire b
Chris Steelhart, Big Bubba & James Blevins b Stan Lee & Rick Savage, Eddie Golden b
David Jerrico, Dirty White Boy b Mongolian Stomper, Tracy Smothers b Rick Savage
10/5 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,200 sellout): Louie Spicolli b Doug
Furnas, Mikey Whipwreck b J.T. Smith, Submission match: Taz b Johnny Smith,
Eliminators b Samoan Gangstas, ECW tag titles: Gangstas NC Stevie Richards & Blue
Meanie, ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Eliminators, Bam Bam Bigelow b Terry Gordy, DVon
Dudley b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas NC Pit Bull #2 ,
Sandman & Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee & Richards (Sandman pins Richards and by
match stipulations wins ECW title)
10/5 Calgary, Alberta (WWF - 5,062): Ted Annis & Harry Smith b T.J. Wilson &
Andrew Picarnia, Crush b Bob Holly, Stalker b Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Savio
Vega, Smoking Gunns b Grimm Twins, Jake Roberts b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, IC title:
Marc Mero b Faarooq-DQ, Sid b Goldust, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy
Smith b Godwinns, Undertaker b Mankind, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
10/5 Harrgote, TN (Capital Pro Wrestling): Jerry Thunder b Johnny Hart, Eric
Rose b Carolina Kid, Mongolian Stomper b Kendo the Samurai, Ron Studd DDQ Bubba
Hutton, Big Sexy & Rick Connors b Tony Barnett & Steve Armstrong, Big Jess & Kid
Lightning b Alex & Felix Hutton, Chip Scarbow b Butch Cassidy, Rock & Roll Express b
Dick Slater & Tony Prichard, Ron Garvin b Bunkhouse Buck
10/5 Van Buren, MO (North American All-Star Wrestling - 282): Charlie
Parker b Reggie Montgomery, Debbie Combs b Malia Hosaka, J.T. Atlas b Crusher
Bones, Bert Prentice b Harvey Whippleman, Whippleman won Battle Royal, Unified
title: Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee
10/5 Niimiya (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Nana Takahashi, Saya Endo
b Yumi Fukawa, Mima Shimoda & Yuka Shiina & Yachiyo Kawamoto b Rie Tamada &
Genki Misae & Miho Wakizawa, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Yoshiko Tamura b
Manami Toyota & Chaparita Asari & Kaoru Ito, Mariko Yoshida b Kumiko Maekawa, Aja
Kong & Toshiyo Yamada b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
10/5 Matsuyama (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Shinobu Tamura b Crusher Takahashi,
Masanobu Kurisu b Astro Rey Jr., Shocker b Akihiko Masuda, Kishin Kawabata b Billy
Black, Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei b Black Wazma & Mike Anthony, Masao
Orihara & Shigeo Okumura b The Natural & Abdullah the Butcher
10/5 Omiya (Mug Promotions - 1,390): Catch of Lancashire tournament first day:
Shane Lisby b Nobuyuki Kurashima, Darren Marones b Kazuhiko Shoda, Darren
Fletcher b Jessef Gyler, Osamu Nishimura b John Patrick, Lisby b Marones, Nishimura
b Fletcher, Non-tourney: Tatsumi Fujinami b Joe Malenko
10/5 Yoshimatsu (LLPW): Keiko Aono b Wadabe, Rumi Kazama b Aono, Noriyo
Tateno b Sayori Okino, Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo b Yasha Kurenai & Mikiko
Futagami, Harley Saito & Michiko Omukai b Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima
10/5 Winston-Salem, NC (All Star Wrestling - 590): David Jerrico b David Isley,
Bambi b Leilani Kai, Greg Valentine b Gorgeous George III
10/5 Madison, NC (Ind - 157): Bobby Coe b David Coe, Don & Rocky Kernodle b
Super Cobra (Chuck Coates) & Cobra (David Isley), Jimmy Valiant b Executioner (Frank
Parker)
10/5 Hayward, CA (All Pro Wrestling - 93): Boom Boom Comini won Battle Royal,
Comini b El Flamingo, Erin O'Grady b Jay Smooth, Steve Rizzono b Rick Turner,
Chicano Flame & Donovan Morgan & Chris Cole b Frank Dalton & Joe Applebaumer &
Border Patrol (Mike Diamond), Michael Modest b Robert Thompson
10/5 Fall Branch, TN (Southern States Wrestling): Iceman b Johnny Thunder,
Roger Anderson b TCB Man, Bad Boy Buck b Mike Cooper, Steve Flynn b Rich
Mansfield, Super Mario b Stan Brown, Beau James b Allen King, K.C. Thunder b Danny
Christian to win SSW title, Death Riders b Dan Cooley & Scott Sterling to win SSW tag
titles
10/6 Nagoya (All Japan women - 6,100): Saya Endo & Miho Wakizawa b Nana
Takahashi & Yachiyo Kawamoto, Yuka Shiina b Momoe Nakanishi, Tomoko Watanabe &
Kaoru Ito b Yoshiko Tamura & Genki Misae, Kick boxing shoot match: Kumiko
Maekawa b Yumiko Watanabe, Mima Shimoda & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita b
Chaparita Asari & Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa, IWA title: Takako Inoue b Mariko
Yoshida, Kyoko Inoue b Yumiko Hotta, WWWA title: Manami Toyota b Aja Kong
10/6 Edmonton, Alberta (WWF - 5,418 sellout): Crush b Bob Holly, Stalker b
Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Smoking Gunns b Grimm Twins, Jake
Roberts b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, IC title: Marc Mero b Faarooq-DQ, Sid b Goldust,
WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, Undertaker b Mankind,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader
10/6 North Charleston, SC (WCW - 2,842): The Barbarian b Dick Slater, Glacier b
Big Bubba, Nasty Boys b Public Enemy, Diamond Dallas Page b Eddie Guerrero, WCW
tag titles: Harlem Heat b Kevin Nash & Scott Hall-DQ, The Giant won triangular match
over Sting and Randy Savage via DQ
10/6 Hirosaki (All Japan - 1,850): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga, Dory Funk b
Maunukea Mossman, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen &
Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Gary Albright & Rob Van
Dam, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Masao Inoue & Tamon
Honda & Takao Omori, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Bobby Duncum Jr. & Stan
Hansen, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako b Steve Williams & Johnny
Ace & Dan Kroffat
10/6 Annaka (IWA - 125): Takeshi Sato b Akinori Tsukioka, Emi Motokawa b
Kadota, Mr. Niebla b Pirata Morgan Jr., Tudor the Turtle & Keisuke Yamada b Keizo
Matsuda & Jun Nagaoka, Tommy Rich b Katsumi Hirano, Leatherface & Hiroshi Itakura
b Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara, Tarzan Goto & Ryo Myake b Freddy Kruger &
Dr. Luther
10/6 Kawasaki (JD - 740): Yano b Abe, Princesa Blanca b Yuko Kosugi & Koyama,
Esther Moreno b Alda Moreno, Hikari Fukuoka b Yuki Lee, Bloody Phoenix & Cooga &
Neftaly b Jaguar Yokota & Lioness Asuka & Chikako Shiratori
10/6 Sasebo (LLPW): Keiko Aono b Watabe, Mizuki Endo b Aono, Shinobu Kandori b
Michiko Nagashima, Karula & Noriyo Tateno b Rumi Kazama & Michiko Omukai, Eagle
Sawai & Sayori Okino b Yasha Kurenai & Mikiko Futagami
10/6 Newport, VT (Green Mountain Wrestling): Mercenary b Red Ninja,
Archangel b Juggernaut & Winnie the Grizzly, Curtis Slamdog b Mike Mayhem, Rip
Morrison b Bob Evans-DQ, Sonny Goodspeed b Chad Thunder Storm, Maverick Wilde b
Scott Sharkey-DQ, Iceman b Mayhem, Morrison & Johnny Royal b Evans & Goodspeed,
Sharkey b Storm, Wilde b Evans, Slamdog b Mercenary
10/6 Lake Hiawatha, NJ (World Wrestling Enterprises): Rick Silver b Chris
Krueger, God of War b Bob Kelly, Hot Rocker b Chino Martinez, Joe Rules b Dr. Click,
Midnight b James Proper, Silver b War, Rocker b Rules-COR, Dave Desire b Mike
Masters, Silver b Rocker
10/7 Savannah, GA (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 4,300): Harlem Heat b
Public Enemy 3/4*, Diamond Dallas Page b Jim Powers 1/4*, Meng & Barbarian b High
Voltage DUD, Glacier b Mike Wenner *, Jeff Jarrett b Hugh Morrus *1/2, Arn Anderson
b Renegade *, Lex Luger b David Taylor DUD, Rick Steiner b Chris Benoit ***1/2
Special thanks to: Barry Driscoll, Christopher Bors, Tony Friedmann, Gregg John, David
Stylianov, Steve Hall, Roland Alexander, Dan Parris, Bert Prentice, Fay Ferguson, Joe
Grana, Dominick Valenti, David Dennis, Mike Mooneyham, Ross Hart, C.T. Goss, David
Rude, Tim Noel, Tim Whitehead, Jesse Money, Tim Hager
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/15 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kobashi pinned Hansen to retain the Triple Crown in 26:07. This
was an excellent match, certainly much better than anyone had a right to expect from
these two. Kobashi put on a killer performance carrying most of the load since Hansen is
pretty limited these days since he's 47 years old. More than his age, is the wear and tear
of a generation of consistent Japanese main events. Even though Hansen really doesn't
move like he used to, it was his best singles performance in a few years. They worked a
very stiff early portion. At one point Hansen did a flying shoulderblock through the
ropes which the announcers called a tope suicida, which may have been giving it
something of a benefit of the doubt. The first key spot was at 10:00 when Hansen pulled
the pads off the floor and gave Kobashi a brutal power bomb on the floor. Kobashi sold
for several minutes (about 3:00 of this portion was edited off television) before Hansen
lariated the ringpost at 18:00. Kobashi began working on Hansen's left arm including
using the cross armbreaker. The last 5:00 saw them go back-and-forth with near falls,
with Hansen finally hitting a right-armed lariat at 23:00 and Kobashi kicking out.
Kobashi hit a lariat and Hansen kicked out, before Kobashi got the three count with a
second lariat. The type of match and that Kobashi scored a clean pin on Hansen was very
effective in adding to his credibility as world champion. ****1/4
9/21 NEW JAPAN: Before the first match started they aired the Big Japan angle
(taped 9/16 in Nagoya). Shinya Kojika (President of Big Japan) arrived with eight of his
wrestlers to the New Japan show. To show the level of that company, with the exception
of Kendo Nagasaki and Yoshihiro Tajiri, none of the eight were recognizable. They went
to the locker room and you could hear yelling back-and-forth (as if they and Riki Choshu
were arguing). They stormed out of the locker room and went to the ring and wanted to
grab the house mic. At first, Tadao Yasuda blocked the ring but eventually New Japan
ring announcer Hideki Tanaka called off the dogs and gave them the mic where they
issued the challenge to the New Japan wrestlers to show up at their card the next night
in Nagoya (none of them did) and the fans booed. It wound up in a brawl involving
several of the younger New Japan wrestlers, Takashi Iizuka, and several of the Heisei
Ishingun wrestlers. Finally Shinya Hashimoto came out and basically was directing
traffic as the ring was cleared. The angle ended with an interview with Kojika outside the
ring where he challenged the New Japan guys to show up at his show on 9/30 in Omiya
(which office reps did come to). This was an obviously staged angle, but far more
effective at least as a first stage angle than the ECW/WWF angle that in many ways this
is similar to (except Big Japan has no cult following); 1. Choshu & Osamu Nishimura no
contest with Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto in 9:38. Choshu threw the ref out of the
ring. Tatsuhito Takaiwa gave Choshu a chair and later hit the ring himself, as did
Yasuda, to make it a four-on-two. As they were brawling outside the ring, Choshu
whipped the ref into the guard rail and he ruled it a no contest. After the match, Choshu
attacked Nishimura as well. It appeared the storyline was that Choshu was so mad at the
intrusion that he went wild on everyone. Fans booed the lack of a match and lack of a
finish. 1/4*; 2. Power Warrior pinned Kurosawa in 4:56 with the ipponzei and lariat. It
was super stiff back-and-forth, in particular with them slapping their faces really hard,
to make up for the fact Kurosawa can't work. *1/2; 3. Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka beat Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto in 9:40 when Koshinaka pinned Steiner with a
sunset flip coming out of the corner. It was a good match since Muto and Koshinaka
worked most of the way and they work great together. ***1/4; 4. Hashimoto pinned
Masahiro Chono in 13:42 after a brainbuster in a non-title match. This was more of a
gimmick match, very similar to all the Raven matches this year when he had his bad
foot, where they use continual outside interference to carry the body of the match.
Chono is super over and does a great job of hiding to a very smart audience the fact that
he really doesn't do much, since he mainly works tags. Ref Massao Hattori was thrown
out of the ring early. Hiro Saito and Hiroyoshi Tenzan then both interfered while he was
out. Chono undid the padding on the turnbuckles and threw Hashimoto into them.
Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima brawled outside the ring. At that point they went to the
finish with Chono using the STF, and Hashimoto making the ropes. Chono ripped at
Hashimoto's nose which started to bleed and put the STF on again. Hashimoto made the
comeback with his fast foot sweep which is a cool move considering his size. There was a
lot of heat at the finish. ***1/4
9/22 ALL JAPAN: 1. Albright pinned Takao Omori in 6:13 after a dragon suplex. They
worked well together for a short match. **1/2; 2. Taue & Ogawa & Honda beat Kawada &
Fuchi & Kikuchi in 17:21 when Taue pinned Kikuchi after a nodowa (choke slam). The
match had great heat most of the time Taue was in against Kawada. The crowd didn't
react much the rest of the way but the work itself was good most of the way through. The
fans don't believe in the stretch plum, Kawada's old submission winner, anymore as he
had the hold on Taue in the middle while his partners were holding off the other guys on
Taue's team and the crowd really didn't pop for it. ***1/4
9/28 NEW JAPAN: 1. Steiner & Muto beat Animal Warrior & Pegasus (Chris Benoit)
in 7:16 when Muto pinned Pegasus after a moonsault. Mainly it was Muto vs. Pegasus,
and while they worked their spots great together, it wasn't much of a match because it
was too short and because Pegasus did basically nothing on offense. At one point Rick
lifted up his leg like he was a dog peeing on Animal. **1/2; 2. Tenzan pinned Arn
Anderson in a first round match of the WCW/New Japan tournament in 9:45 with a
head-butt off the top rope. Anderson worked his own style well, but his style doesn't
translate well into Japanese wrestling. *3/4; 3. Ric Flair pinned Fujinami in 10:31. This
was probably the first rematch in Japan between these two since their legendary 1991
match at the Tokyo Dome which at the time set the all-time crowd record for Japan. A
lot has changed since that time. This was about as good a match as Fujinami would
probably be able to do in singles nowadays against a foreigner since he and Flair are
totally on the same page. It wasn't the hard fast New Japan style, but fans understood
what it was and liked it a lot. They expected and got to see the Flair show, the begging,
the falling on his face and the hard chops, all of which got huge reactions. Fujinami used
the dragon screw on Flair a few times, and as he went for the figure four a second time
(he'd gotten it on earlier), Flair caught him in an inside cradle for the pin. ***; 4. Scott
Norton pinned Choshu in 5:41 after two lariats. All action and lots of heat, but it was a
short match and obviously with these two there were no great moves. **3/4; 5. Kensuke
Sasaki beat Lex Luger with the Power strangle submission in 9:37. Fans didn't react to
Luger at all, and basically groaned when he started flexing in the ring. Both worked hard
the entire way and it wasn't a bad match, but Luger's style doesn't get over in Japan.
*1/4
EMLL
The only news we have is that the line-up for the biggest show of the past week on 10/4
at Arena Mexico was headlined by Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Dos Caras & Lizmark vs. Miguel
Perez & Apolo Dantes & Dr. Wagner Jr., ***** Casas & La Fiera & Dandy vs. Black
Warrior & Bestia Salvaje & Felino and Mascara Magica & Super Astro & Olimpico vs.
Scorpio Jr. & Arkangel & Mogur.
AAA
Line-ups for 10/19 in Tucson, AZ and 10/20 in Phoenix, AZ are Konnan & La Parka &
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis & Killer, Blue Demon Jr. & Tinieblas
Jr. & Mascara Sagrada vs. Destructores, Mascara Sagrada Jr. vs. Damian for IWAS light
heavyweight title, Misterioso & Super Muneco vs. Cibernetico & Halloween and a
womens triangular match with Natasha, Shitara and La Sirenita. The next Tijuana is
10/18 at the Auditorio.
There are lots of major behind-the-scenes problems. As mentioned last week, the heat
between Konnan and Antonio Pena has built up over a variety of disagreements
regarding the pay of the AAA wrestlers while working in WCW, their unavailability for
dates in Mexico City and fighting over availability of talent to work Konnan's border
shows. It was all expected to come to a head this week and could conceivably wind up
with Konnan and the wrestlers who work for WCW switching over to PROMELL, which
is going to be re-named PROMO Azteca. Cien Caras has already jumped to PROMO
Azteca to join his brothers as the Dinamitas and that promotion is making a big play to
get El Hijo del Santo as a regular (he's been going back-and-forth working house dates
for that office but still doing his TV with EMLL), the original Mascara Sagrada who has
been working for EMLL, and Lizmark Jr. Don't be shocked to see either Mr. Niebla,
Miguel Perez or Felino wind up with the group Konnan ends up with, leaving EMLL.
Blue Panther and Fuerza Guerrera along with Lasser and Panterita del Ring are expected
to jump back from PROMO Azteca to AAA with Panther and Fuerza tentatively
scheduled to debut on 10/14. Panther and Fuerza were the ones who basically started the
PROMELL promotion after leaving AAA.
The wrestler working under the name New Winners, who teams with the original
Winners as a tag team called The Winners, formerly wrestled as Mosco de la Merced.
On 10/4 in Xochimilko, they debuted three new minis, a Mini Karis la Momia, and a
Mini Killer with debuting manager Mini Janet. She doesn't look like Janet (who is the
best heat getting manager in the business right now) but I guess in that situation you
can't be picky. But the Mini Janet interfered freely in Mini Killer's debut that night.
They are continuing the Super Muneco turn, although not necessarily to babyface.
Muneco teamed with Los Villanos on the 10/4 show against Ultimo Dragon & Tinieblas
Jr. & La Parka & Octagon and basically laid down in the third fall and allowed Parka to
pin him after he and Villanos had problems. Villanos then destroyed him after the match
leaving him in what was described as a swimming pool of blood until finally Los Payasos
made the save. It appears they are going to wind up with a heel vs. heel feud over the
National Relevos (four man team) belts with Pierroth Jr. & Villanos vs. Payasos &
Muneco.
10/5 show in Zacatecas headlined by Parka & Sagrada & Demon Jr. vs. Pierroth Jr. &
Halcon (Halcon Dorado Jr.) & Killer in a cage match drew 5,500.
ALL JAPAN
A basic week of house shows with little in the way of surprises although one may
consider a 10/6 match in Hirosaki where Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida beat Rob Van
Dam & Gary Albright as a minor upset although the former team is getting a push.
The annual tag team tournament was announced as being from 11/16 to 12/6 with the
finals at Budokan Hall. About the only surprise about the schedule is that for the first
time in recent memory, the tag tourney won't be running in Nagoya. All Japan is
running there on 10/12 and I guess figured coming back for the next tour would be too
soon. The biggest shows of the tag tourney tour will be 11/28 and 11/29 both in Sapporo
and 12/2 in Osaka. No announcement has been made regarding teams, but you can
figure it'll come down to Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama, Kenta Kobashi & The
Patriot, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue and Steve Williams & Johnny Ace and perhaps
Gary Albright & Stan Hansen if they aren't given different partners.
NEW JAPAN
Tag tourney starts on 10/12.
Tatsumi Fujinami's Mug Promotions ran on 10/5 in Omiya before 1,390 with a
tournament using several rookies from England and two Fujinami proteges (Nobuyuki
Kurashima and Kazuhiko Shoda) making their debuts. The tournament final was set for
10/7 with Osamu Nishimura vs. Shane Lisby. Fujinami beat Joe Malenko in the main
event on the show.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
A correction from last week when we mentioned Nobuhiko Takada per-show pay. We
had an incorrect decimal when reporting the figure at 30 million yen when it was
actually three million yen, although the correct figure does translate into $27,000 per
show. Takada is believed to have earned 20 million yen ($180,000) for his New Japan
Tokyo Dome matches which drew the record houses. Reportedly Tenryu's asking price
(not that he actually got it but he may have come close) for the Jingu Baseball Stadium
show on 9/11 was $90,000 to put Takada over.
The biggest show of the past week was 10/6 in Nagoya where All Japan women drew
6,100 fans for the Manami Toyota vs. Aja Kong WWWA title match. This came just one
week after selling out a big show in Hakata as well, so the promotion is beginning to go
with the idea of running more big shows outside of the Tokyo area. The show was
considered a major success since the group was coming off two unsuccessful big shows
at Budokan Hall in August, and that crowd was larger than what All Japan has been
drawing in the same building in Nagoya for its big shows in the same market (Nagoya
has traditionally been a New Japan city since the beginning of time). Toyota retained the
title with the Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex in 21:07 after tons of near falls. The
semifinal was a match to determine the next world title challenger, with Kyoko Inoue
pinning Yumiko Hotta in 19:13 with the Niagara Driver and in the other top match,
Takako Inoue retained the IWA title pinning Mariko Yoshida with a enzui knee (called
Takako panic) off the top rope in 23:00. The last three matches were said to have all
been great. The angles coming out of the show are that the Toyota-Kyoko Inoue title
rematch will take place in December at Sumo Hall. The story line on this one is that the
two had the 60:00 draw in May of 1995, but the long-awaited rematch on 3/31 of this
year came during a time was Inoue was suffering from a shoulder injury so she wasn't at
100% and they couldn't do the match they wanted (not that the match they did wasn't
great) so they are going to do it again with Inoue healthy. Takako Inoue after her match
hinted of retirement and said she was so impressed with Yoshida that she wanted to
form a tag team with her and challenge Toyota & Mima Shimoda for the belts later this
year.
It appears Sabu's tenure with Tokyo Pro Wrestling ended a few days early. Sabu flew to
Osaka for his final three match tour with the group, which was scheduled to end on the
10/8 show (the one with the Takada vs. Abdullah the Butcher match). Don't have the
complete story but hopefully will get it by next week, but the fallout of everything was
that Tokyo Pro wanted Sabu, since he was leaving, to put over two Japanese wrestlers
the first two nights and then put over Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) on the big show.
He was willing to put over Scorpio, but not the Japanese wrestlers so he didn't work the
first two shows and as of the last word we'd heard, he was expected to have already
flown home before the big show of the tour.
FMW will hold a match for its world heavyweight title on 10/26 at Korakuen Hall with
Wing Kanemura (who has been out of action with injuries since 9/1) returning to defend
against Hisakatsu Oya.
It appears now that Atsushi Onita doesn't want to return until the Kawasaki Baseball
Stadium show next May rather than return in December.
USWA
Colorado Kid captured the Unified title from Jerry Lawler on 10/4 in Jonesboro, AR. Kid
is the top star for the North American All-Star Wrestling group that runs in Arkansas
and Missouri and has a working relationship with USWA. Kid showed on up live
Memphis television the next morning with Bert Prentice (North American's promoter)
as his manager and Prentice said that Lawler was the most famous wrestler in the world
and the only true world champion.
Luna Vachon and Vampire Warrior are history.
Sean Venom, who has wrestled as Sean Vee in Indianapolis for Mike Samples, debuted
on television. The gimmick is that Venom (check out the last name) is friends with Jake
Roberts and is coming in because he's tired of what Lawler has been saying about
Roberts. This led to some hilarious byplay as Lawler came out and said that if he was a
friend of Roberts, his real job must be as a bartender, and said that he'd bet that both he
and Roberts probably think Beethoven's Fifth is a bottle. Venom came back and pulled
out a snake and chased both Lawler and Samples around the studio.
Another new comedy figure is called Trailer Park Trash, and Lawler was making fun of
him saying that he probably only has a black and white television and Trash said that
when he puts beer cans on the antenna, the reception on his TV comes in better.
Reports we received were that the 10/3 Memphis match where Brian Christopher kept
the USWA title beating Flash Flanagan with his feet on the ropes was one of the best
matches in Memphis in a while. The opposite could be said about a match with local DJ
John Rainey and Scott Bowden, described as the worst match in history, complete with
ring announcer Cory Maclin announcing Bowden as the winner when Rainey at one
point was so blown up he couldn't get up, even though Rainey was supposed to win.
They had to re-start the match and do a quick roll-up that was also pretty messed up.
The Unified title match on that show had Lawler defending against Steven Dunn, with
the finish being that Lawler kept using an object, finally had it hidden in his mouth,
Dunn punched him in the stomach, Lawler coughed and the object came out and the ref
saw it for the DQ.
10/10 show probably won't draw much better with Colorado Kid defending the Unified
title against Lawler, Christopher defending USWA title against Flanagan, Jesse James
Armstrong vs. Jamie Dundee in a match that can only be won with a power bomb,
Wolfie D vs. Bill Dundee in an I Quit match, Miss Texas vs. Madusa (not Debra Micelli
but a 5-5 local girl using the same name), Tony Falk vs. Brickhouse Brown, Venom &
Dunn vs. Samples & Motley Cruz and Bart Sawyer vs. Trash.
ECW
Thus far scheduled for 10/26 at ECW Arena is Eliminators vs. Terry Gordy & Steve
Williams, Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas and probably Tommy
Dreamer vs. Brian Lee.
Other notes from the 10/5 show saw Louie Spicolli upset Doug Furnas with the Death
Valley bomb in the opener in what was said to have been a good match; Mikey
Whipwreck beat J.T. Smith; Taz beat Johnny Smith in a submission match; Eliminators
beat Samoan Gangstas; Gangstas went to a no contest with Stevie Richards & Blue
Meanie (doing the Public Enemy gimmick) when Eliminators interfered to set up the
impromptu match later in the show. One thing that needs to be noted about ECW is that
when there is a no-show, they generally do things to make the show better than it would
have been rather than simply cancel matches to get through the evening. The difference
in handling a bad situation between the 10/5 ECW show in Philadelphia and the 10/6
WCW show in Charleston, SC (see WCW section) was staggering. Heyman got in the
ring, announced refunds offered through the end of intermission, said Rock & Roll
Express (who were never publicly advertised) weren't there and that Raven wouldn't be
there. D-Von Dudley beat Buh Buh Ray Dudley in a match with brutal chair shots and
the highlight being when Big Dick Dudley did a moonsault on Axl Rotten. Bam Bam
Bigelow debuted and pinned Gordy in a bad match when Eliminators interfered.
Gangstas kept the tag titles in the added match over Eliminators when New Jack came
off the top rope with a chair onto Kronus. After the match, the Eliminators gave both
New Jack and Mustafa the total elimination, then put a table on the top rope and Kronus
came off the table with a kneedrop. Saturn put a ladder on the table on the top and came
off the ladder twice onto each Gangsta laying them out. Shane Douglas went to a no
decision with Pit Bull #2 . Douglas attacked Pit Bull #1 who was still wearing the halo (I
believe he actually hasn't needed it for about a week) in an angle that turned the place
silent. As they were attending to Pit Bull #1 , Joel Gertner, the heel ring announcer,
announced Douglas as the winner and was tackled first by Tod Gordon and later by
Heyman. PB #1 was taken away in an ambulance. Finally Sandman & Dreamer beat
Richards & Lee in the match where Sandman ended up capturing the title.
ECW starts on Network One on 11/1.
The crowd for the last show in Middletown, NY reported as 250 here was larger. We
should have an exact figure in next week's issue but it is believed to be 600-700.
Paul Heyman is thinking about using Lance Storm, Rod Price and Tommy Rogers
although no deal has been made as of yet.
Expect Joel Gertner to get an even bigger push.
Mustafa missed the show in Allentown, PA on 9/27 because of missed flight connections
as since he's now living in Reno, NV, it's a cross country flight every weekend. New Jack
over the house mic said it was because he was arrested. Amazing how the world changes
in that to get a babyface over for a no-show you announce he's arrested when he really
isn't.
The Erotic Experience is supposed to be doing a chicken act and not a gay act.
The Wheezer song "Half Japanese girls" which has a line about Grunge putting New
Jack through a table is now No. 4 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mikey Whipwreck and Sabu are scheduled to work a show in England on 12/14.
HERE AND THERE
The Cauliflower Alley Club ran a banquet run in Newark, NJ on 10/5 which was the first
one of these events attended by Vince McMahon and family so it was heavily-WWF
oriented. There's an irony in that because for years WWF and CAC had nothing to do
with one another. In fact, in 1991, CAC ran its banquet in Los Angeles which by
coincidence was the day before Wrestlemania at the Sports Arena, and there wasn't one
WWF person at the banquet and those who wanted to go were discouraged or swerved
from doing so. But times change. McMahon was there to accept an award for his late
father, while also awarded into the CAC Hall of Fame were Tony Cosenzo, Dom DeNucci,
Afa the Samoan, Jimmy Snuka, Killer Kowalski, Curt Hennig and Sunny. Also among
those in attendance were Arnold Skaaland, Chris Candito, Tom and Bruce Prichard, Pat
Patterson, Shane McMahon, Lou Thesz, former promoter Abe Coleman, Fred Blassie,
Davy O'Hannon, Tommy Cairo, Ted Lewin, Lou Albano, Red Bastien, Karl Von Hess,
Billy Darnell, Ray Stern, Dennis Coraluzzo, Jim Kettner, Ace Darling, Kodiak Bear, Gino
Caruso, Tom Brandi, Duane Johnson and bodybuilder/soon-to-be-wrestler Achim
Albrecht among others who blew everyone away with the size of his shoulders. Reports
were it was largely uneventful other than the McMahon appearance, although there were
lots of complaints regarding Albano's behavior, some even saying that Albano ruined the
entire evening. The Conan O'Brien show was there trying to make fun of the festivities
asking the wrestlers questions about politics.
Reality Superfighting is scheduled for an 11/22 PPV date from Birmingham, AL with
Oleg Taktarov vs. Renzo Gracie as the main event. The line-up as scheduled consists of
three superfights (the other two of which will also be Brazilians vs. Russians), an eightman
tournament with one fighter representing one of eight different countries (the
American will be Tom Erickson, a freestyle wrestler who has been ranked No. 2 behind
Bruce Baumgartner for many years; the Brazilian will be Maurilo Bustamante, who is a
legit big name in BJJ) and a 16-man tournament not on PPV taped that afternoon for
potential cable television product. The kicker on this one is they are claiming that all
matches will have no time limit and you can imagine a Gracie-Taktarov match under
those rules. If they both come in top shape, which is a big if, they may still be going at it
by Christmas. Anyway, people who complain about time limits will get their wish
although that creates a big problem for PPV. A match like that could go two hours and it
could go two minutes.
Nothing much new on Ultimate Ultimate (still tentatively scheduled for Birmingham as
well). Ken Shamrock will be wearing gloves since of the other three confirmed, all of
them will wear gloves. Shamrock doesn't like fighting with gloves but apparently this is a
sign he's going to be far more aggressive and less technical in going out for fast victories
due to the tournament format. Masami Ozaki of Pancrase had a meeting with SEG and
they pretty much agreed that Pancrase would send top fighters to UFC in 1997.
Speaking of Pancrase, when Ozaki returned this past week to Japan, he said that
Pancrase would be running a live event in Las Vegas in 1997.
EFC got a small amount of press including in USA Today for a grandstand angle where
they claimed to offer millions of dollars to Roy Jones Jr., the IBF super middleweight
boxing champion, to face Ralph Gracie.
Bruno Sammartino apparently just recently got a hold of the Thesz autobiography and
was fuming with Thesz characterization of him. Actually Thesz said he respected
Sammartino as a person and complimented him on being a stand-up guy, but also said
Sammartino was totally overrated as a wrestler and talked about the proposed 1965
NWA vs. WWF title unification match which never took place between the two of them
and spoke as if beating Sammartino in a shoot wouldn't have been any problem. Of all
things, it was the latter which Sammartino was furious about.
The former Yvonne Race, ex-wife of Harley, was on "Oprah Winfrey" this past week
talking about being in an abusive marriage.
AWF ran a television taping over the weekend in Tampa.
Pankration is running a show on 10/11 in Honolulu with tournaments in three weight
divisions and a John Hess vs. Victor Gracie (the adopted son of Carlson Gracie) main
event.
A show on 9/13 in Eugene, OR was the first pro wrestling in the state of Oregon in one
year.
Ron Rivera of P.O. Box 3099, Fullerton, CA 92834 has videos available of numerous
Baja California AAA shows.
El Hijo del Santo, Vampiro, Rey Misterio, Brazo de Plata and Pirata Morgan headlined
on 10/4 in Compton, CA.
There is now weekly Lucha Libre shows in Anaheim, CA on Sunday afternoons.
Southern States Wrestling on 10/19 in Fall Branch, TN at Sampson Center headlined by
Tracy Smothers vs. Beau James. If you mention the Observer you get $1 off ticket price.
WCW
Harlem Heat regained the WCW tag titles on 10/1 in Canton, OH at the Saturday Night
tapings from Public Enemy as expected, so they'll defend the belts against Kevin Nash &
Scott Hall at the 10/27 PPV show. Match went 5:40 when Col. Parker hooking Grunge's
knee with the cane and then Stevie Ray hitting Grunge's knee with the cane and getting a
pin. Probably more eventful than the title change was a disturbance during the match in
the crowd when a few black fans were fighting a few white fans which distracted most of
the crowd from the match itself. It was covered up on television by making it appear the
crowd was distracted because the NWO was in the stands (which they were). Match was
really bad with a bad finish as well.
Nitro on 10/7 in Savannah, GA (4,300 paying $54,074) saw Heat again beat Public
Enemy in 13:12 when Booker T came off the top with a chair onto Grunge's knee as heel
ref Nick Patrick was hugging Sherri. Match was bad, but it was the best of their three
recent TV matches. Diamond Dallas Page pinned Jim Powers with the Diamond cutter
in 2:37. Randy Savage did an interview, and with all the stuff he could talk about being
that he's been destroyed in a million identical angles (with the million and first on the
way), involved in a complicated story line with his wife that nobody except the bookers
have a clue about, and is in the main event against Hulk Hogan on the next PPV, spent
virtually the entire interview putting over the fact that the Slim Jim car finished 10th in
an auto race on Saturday night while Kyle Petty crashed the NWO car (the Sting car
didn't even qualify for those of you NASCAR fans who wondered what happened to that
important part of the storyline). Meng & Barbarian beat Hugh Voltage in 3:43. Glacier
pinned Mike Wenner in 2:25 with a side kick. Glacier did some cool moves but still no
transitions and it's still really all in the ring entrance. Jeff Jarrett debuted beating Hugh
Morrus with the figure four in 4:07. Jarrett looked good and did a good babyface
interview although he worked heel style. The announcers hinted he was coming in for
the NWO, but apparently the plan is for him to replace Ric Flair in the Four Horsemen.
Arn Anderson pinned Renegade in 7:07 which was probably about the time the football
game ratings went up. Lex Luger racked David Taylor in 2:36. After the match Anderson
destroyed Luger with a chair in a pretty effective angle. Rick Steiner pinned Chris Benoit
in 12:58 when Rick got the briefcase and used it on both Benoit and Steve McMichael.
This was a very good stiff match with lots of great moves, and would have been excellent
except they had to sit down and do nothing for a few minutes so as not to distract the
fans from Hogan arriving in the building and babbling on with Nasty Boys. Scott Steiner
was at ringside, moving very gingerly, and it was announced he has to undergo back
surgery for bulging discs and that would mean he'll be out of action for a few months as
well. When Rick was in Japan, he was talking as if Scott's first match back might be at
the Tokyo Dome. After the match they did the angle where they destroyed Flair, which
led to the angle where they forced Liz to watch as they destroyed Savage forever with no
help once again. It was a great angle. At least it was the first time they did it.
WWF bought two commercials in most of the country, the first airing at 8:56 p.m. telling
viewers to "Make the switch to Raw" and also for the PPV, and a second commercial at
about 9:45 p.m. trying to get them to switch in the final quarter hour. The Buried Alive
PPV commercials were awesome.
The Make the switch to Raw was all for naught, as WCW did a 3.5 rating and 5.4 share
(3.5 first and second hours) to Raw's 2.1 rating and 3.0 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.3
rating and 3.6 share. By demo group, WCW had the edge 66-34 in adults, WWF had the
edge 54-46 in teenagers and it was 50-50 with kids with WCW having a microscopic
0.001 ratings edge among kids.
Unlike the previous week where WCW had that horrible show and WWF edged up to
where it was 3.0 to 2.7 in the final quarter, the gap in the final quarter for the Benoit-
Steiner finish and angle vs. Sid-Goldust was 3.7 to 2.0.
Other weekend numbers saw Saturday Main Event at 1.3, Saturday Night at 2.4 and Pro
at 1.9.
Besides Flair's shoulder surgery and Grunge's knee being scoped, Rocco Rock is getting
elbow surgery for floating bone chips. PE should be out of action about one month.
Matt Ghaffari is being seriously talked with but apparently no deal has been done. Kurt
Angle has pretty much decided against doing pro wrestling.
10/1 Saturday Night tapings in Canton, OH drew 2,000 paying $18,000. Rey Misterio
Jr. beat Juventud Guerrera in about as good a match that only goes 3:56 as you'll ever
see (and with about the worst job of commentary on a match of that quality that you'll
ever see as these guys were risking life and limb while the announcers were laughing
about ignoring it and talking about Nick Patrick. Which followed with Meng & Barbarian
over Ron Studd & John Tenta. Very little else of note on the show besides the tag title
change. Vic Steamboat, the brother or Ricky, did a job for Arn Anderson, using the
Steamboat name. Since basically every single viewer at home in the country was
probably wondering if Vic Steamboat was any relation to Rick Steamboat, I guess since
Rick is on bad terms with management or because when you're gone you're forgotten,
the announcers (Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes) never answered the question nor
acknowledged anything significant about the Steamboat name. Ted DiBiase did an
interview where he talked about next week being NWO Saturday Night, which led people
to believe the NWO show would start this week. Actually the Saturday Night show will
consist of a regular taping on 10/8 in Greenwood, SC and one match taped at the gym
with no fans with Nash & Hall beating up two jobbers as they each do the announcing
while the other does the wrestling and the commentary is supposed to be inside and
hilarious, with no fans but tons of fake crowd noise which is supposed to be a spoof on
the WWF in case you don't figure it out.
Miguel Perez is headed in.
Eric Bischoff did make a hot phone call to the hotel room where Hogan and company
were hanging out regarding Jerry Sags bending over and spreading his cheeks (and he
didn't even know at the time what happened to the ratings after that).
Otto Wanz was in Cleveland and Canton at the WCW shows attempting to book talent to
keep his company alive.
All the wrestlers were sent legal letters saying they couldn't use terms like "WWF,"
"Diesel," "Razor Ramon," "Big Daddy Cool" and "The Bad Guy" on television.
J.J. Dillon won't be having a role in front of the camera.
Steve Regal was working this past week for Otto Wanz in Germany defending the WCW
TV title against Tony St. Clair.
In typical WCW quality control, on the Pro show over the weekend, Nick Patrick was on
without the neck brace. Patrick did an interview saying he's going to try and get the refs
to boycott WCW (as a spoof of the baseball umps) because of the actions of Savage.
At this point it appears to be at least decent odds that Savage will be through with the
company shortly after the PPV. Don't know. Can't believe he'd go through this abuse
every week without getting the belt, even if he then gave it up for the Battle Royal
gimmick.
Besides Canton, house shows this week were 10/2 in Erie, PA (1,731 paying $28,436)
and 10/6 in North Charleston, SC (2,841 paying $37,000). There was also a sold show
on 10/5 in Dothan, AL. The announced Charleston line-up was Flair vs. Savage, Nash &
Hall vs. Anderson & McMichael, Heat vs. Steiners for tag titles, Sullivan vs. Benoit street
fight, Sting vs. Giant, Glacier vs. Bubba, Page vs. Eddie Guerrero and Norton vs. Ice
Train. With all the injuries, it was changed and was reportedly a horrible show with
Barbarian pinning Dick Slater in a terrible match, Glacier over Bubba in a match where
the ring entrance got a pop but it died once the match started, Nasty Boys over Public
Enemy in a match described as worse than most of their bouts, Page pinned Eddie
Guerrero in the best mach on the show, Heat beat Hall & Nash via DQ when Hall hit one
of them with the title belt in a bad match where Nash did absolutely nothing and
supposedly was upset backstage about the finish (Hall & Nash received 75% cheers).
Main event was the Sting-Savage-Giant triangle match. Sting vs. Giant went for a few
minutes. Savage tagged in and within 30 seconds, he and Sting both threw Giant over
the top rope and both were DQ'd so Giant was awarded the match by DQ in like 5:00.
Despite momentum being high, there was a total lack of motivation and the card was
described as a town-killer quality.
There is becoming more and more behind the scenes heat in the Hall-Nash-Hogan
camp, not to mention the disenchantment of those not in the camp. Nash & Hall are
tired of playing background vocals and mad about the money Hogan is making.
The video wall was brought to Nitro in Savannah and will be at all future Nitros.
For the week ending 9/15, the combined WCW television audience was 6.02 million
homes on 154 stations and cable. To show how little syndication nationally means, the
combined syndicated rating of all WCW shows nationally for that week was only 0.3,
with the rest of the audience all coming from the cable shows. The combined WWF
audience from all television was less than 3.3 million as they didn't crack the top 20 so
the total WWF viewing audience since the loss of syndication is way down this new
season.
WWF
The main weekend television story was the continuation of the Jim Ross angle. Vince
McMahon was on Live Wire in a much hyped show and basically said nothing. He used
Dok Hendrix to get over his usual storyline so that he didn't say anything bad about
anyone (WCW has lost millions of dollars, it's a Ted Turner personal vendetta because
he couldn't buy the WWF, etc.) although he did say Turner had a lack of business ethics.
He came off bad in knocking Ross saying that Ross was misrepresenting things in that
he wasn't fired twice, that the first time his contract ran out and they chose not to renew
it (which reminded me of McMahon on Larry King saying that Mel Phillips had never
been an employee of the World Wrestling Federation). He said the second time Ross was
fired for talking to the wrong people, and used Hendrix again to say "stupid sheet
writers" so he didn't have to say it. Ross even brought up on the Superstars show the
next day that the interview that got him fired (an interview with Pro Wrestling Torch) he
had done during a period he wasn't even working for the WWF which was the case
although the interview was printed after he was re-hired, and the WWF then fired him
because of it. Live Wire also introduced a new character Vic Venum (Vince Russo), who
has been doing the magazine and on television is basically doing a Mark Madden "I'm a
real journalist" gimmick. A lot of people liked the gimmick but I thought he was getting
in the way. A lot more of Live Wire is planted than I was aware of, as some but probably
not most of the calls that are supposed to be from fans are planted as if you notice the
calls are usually about the subject that the particular segment is talking about. Anyway, I
do know of several calls that were supposed to be fans that were planted, but also they
were very quick to hang up on people before asking a second question so they are afraid
of the non-plant callers asking questions they don't want to address or making silly
remarks. Paul Heyman called up, as "Bruce from Connecticut" (and Sunny reacted as if
it was her brother-in-law which I guess, if Zip and Skip are brothers, that if you mix
wrestling storyline with reality which many are prone to do, he is), as if in that entire
state there is only one person named Bruce, and yelled at McMahon saying he was
copying all his ideas from him and screamed "Shut the f up" (so he didn't swear on
television) as the cue to be cut off. Ross called and blamed McMahon for his Bells Palsey
because of the stress McMahon put him through after McMahon and Venum were
congratulated the WWF for being the only organization to have the guts to hire someone
with Bells Palsy and put him on television). The show remains bad largely due to the
quality of the questions and subjects being discussed. At one point they mistakenly
showed the computer screen as Sunny was talking about how the conversation in the
chat room was favoring Vic Venum over McMahon, and then when they showed the
screen, all that was on there were comments apparently from little kids saying things
like "Hi Sunny," "I love you Sunny," and "I'm glad you dumped Skip."
Even with the hype of McMahon being there to answer the charges by Ross, the show
only did a 1.0 rating, while Blast off did an 0.7 and Superstars did a 1.7.
They are really hyping the Mr. Perfect return on 10/21 live Raw trying to compare it to
the return to the NBA of Michael Jordan. Perfect is still on Lloyd's of London disability
and I guess they are trying to get him to negotiate his way out of the policy so he can
return as they are looking for babyfaces who can work near the top, particularly if Bret
Hart doesn't return.
Ross, I guess for the work he's doing in this angle, was named Vice President of
Wrestling Administration and Bruce Prichard was named Vice President of Talent
Relations (J.J. Dillon's old role) on 10/4. They are using the Ross job promotion in the
angle claiming that Dillon gave him the job and a no-cut contract before leaving but that
he had kept it secret until this past week.
From all accounts, there is nothing planned on the books regarding interpromotional
matches with ECW, but it's pretty much a lock that a lot more will take place between
the two groups. ECW aired supposed pirated footage from the recent WWF tapings,
which will result in the angle to WWF lawyers threatening a lawsuit and heating up the
feud that much more.
Early November house shows will be billed as The Night of Armageddon with Shawn
Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust in cage matches with old Texas death
rules (continue until one man can't continue) and Sid vs. Vader in stretcher matches
along with Marc Mero vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith
vs. Godwinns.
If Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas sign as expected, they may debut at Survivor Series or the
next night's Raw.
Glen Jacobs looks good doing the moves as Diesel and is physically very impressive and
worked a good big man squash against Aldo Montoya on TV, but had no transitions in
the match with Marc Mero (Mero had to carry it) but the gimmick still comes off week
because he looks bad trying to be a copy and doesn't have the charisma. It's also weak
that they bill him as 7-feet-tall when he's obviously several inches shy of that.
Weekend house shows saw Winnipeg on 10/4 draw 6,099 and $102,595; Calgary on
10/5 drew 5,062 and $88,630 and Edmonton on 10/6 drew a sellout 5,418 and $96,372
at the Agricom (the regular building they usually run was booked). They had a ton of
local pub in Calgary as $1 off every ticket was given to the Alberta Children's Hospital in
the name of Matthew Annis, the nephew of Bret, Owen and Davey Boy Smith who died
over the summer. Matthew's 16-year-old brother Ted teamed with Harry Smith, the 11-
year-old son of Davey Boy, to beat 16-year-old T.J. Wilson and Andrew Picarnia in the
opener on the Calgary show. The crowd gave the four a nice ovation. Told they looked
good doing their spots but they were told to go home earlier than was originally planned
and out of nowhere so it didn't build for a finish. Some things never change. The event
got front page coverage in the local press. As expected, Hart & Smith were over as
babyfaces against the Godwinns since both live in Calgary.
Since Sunny has been for the most part taken off the road and off managing, she's been
given a new guaranteed money announcing/personal appearance contract.
The video features for the next PPV are excellent and even without Michaels wrestling
on the show, I'd expect an increase in the buy rate.
THE READERS PAGES
ECW
I should have written this months ago as I've long been sick and tired of the current
wave of ECW bashing in the letters and columns.
As a fan who has not missed an ECW Arena show since "The night the line was crossed"
two-and-a-half years ago, I feel it is time to rise to the defense of the company I know
and love so much. I've also attended all of the New York shows and a number of the spot
shows. On the first night I went, there was one small set of bleachers and no high quality
TV production lights. You could walk freely around the small building without fear of
being trampled on as there were only 600-800 fans in a building that now has almost
twice that many on many occasions. The one thing I immediately enjoyed was the
comfort and companionship of being surrounded by all the other so-called smart fans.
Back then there was also a word that has no meaning to many of the fans today, and that
is respect.
This word has a long association with ECW beginning at the end of the first main event I
saw in that building. The audience gave the three main event performers a standing
ovation for the first time and the crowd was said to have risen to a new level of respect
for wrestling. This respect began a tradition that continued throughout 1994 and 1995,
but I fear it is being lost in 1996. The likes of Sabu, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Eddie
Guerrero, Public Enemy, Cactus Jack, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Mikey Whipwreck,
Pit Bulls, Shane Douglas, Raven and many others have put their lives and careers on the
line countless times to benefit the company and to entertain the fans. Sadly, I've also
seen the men and women of this company parading around before and after the events
like walking wounded coming off a wartime battlefield. The most recent injury was that
of Gary Wolfe.
For those who may not know, Gary was already out of action prior to the 7/13 neck
injury. He had been out for two months after suffering a torn bicep at the gym. When
Shane Douglas put Gary in a simple DDT during the four-way TV title match, which he
was not a participant in, he went down trying to protect his injured arm and instead
wound up taking the bump on his neck and spine. It's a little known fact he walked
around for several days before he realized this injury should have kept him immobilized
in the halo he now wears. When he went to the doctor for X-rays, the doctor asked him
how he got there. Wolfe drove himself there never knowing he was risking paralysis with
every turn of his head. The fans didn't cause Wolfe's injury be demanding he be
hardcore. He wasn't giving in to any bloodthirsty demands placed on him. The injury
was an accident caused by a bad bump, not by Shane Douglas or anything else. Of course
when he announced his retirement three weeks later, there was a small but vocal
contingent of fans who believed the whole thing was a work and these fans are the ones
that have continually shown many ECW workers a great deal of disrespect. There have
been times when it seems that more than two-thirds of the current audience is made up
of these bloodthirsty, disrespectful, hormonally deranged and socially-challenged fools
who are more concerned with being part of the action than with what goes on in the ring.
ECW fans have changed since I first started going to shows at the Arena. Perhaps the
change occurred when ECW began expanding to New York and Florida in 1995. These
are clearly not the same fans who respected every wrestler who appeared in the
ECW/NWA title tournament two years ago. These are not even the same fans who
watched in awe as Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero thrilled us with their classic
matches last summer. These fans were exposed to the product through word-of-mouth
or through the television show. There are many fans who only go to the ECW shows to
get their chance to be hardcore, or to find some way to participate in the action itself.
There was even a time when the minority of disrespectful fans would be silenced by the
majority who knew better. But now many times, those of us who enjoy the abilities of
talented performers wind up being the minority. These are the xenophobic inbreds who
booed Rey Misterio Jr. and Psicosis in their debut match. These are the sex-crazed
wonders who yell "Show your tits" at every attractive female, whether performer or not.
These are the same geniuses who blamed Mick Foley, Chris Jericho and Public Enemy
because "they sold out" for greater career and financial opportunity, and in some cases,
for their health.
I'm certainly not one to wholly embrace everything ECW does. The loss of television in
New York and other markets because the television show is too over-the-top for most
broadcast executives is an inexcusable error. I'm not happy watching the Dudleys
clobber each other with chairs or watching Bill Alfonso and Tod Gordon roll around the
ring with each other. I'm not happy with a world champion who has been too injured to
defend his title now for almost six months. I don't respect a poorly planned,
sensationalistic lesbian kiss who drew no money for the company and made some of the
crowd into more sex-crazed perverts. I don't understand why one of the most over
babyfaces in the company has done little else for the past year-and-a-half except be
tossed from greater heights as he continues his quest, not for the world title, but in his
pursuit of new and unusual foreign objects to beat someone over the head with. I do
respect and appreciate the talents of the likes of Taz, Rob Van Dam, Stevie Richards,
Mikey Whipwreck, The Eliminators and many other faces old and new that have walked
through those dressing room doors. Through it all, I'll remain an ECW front row
ringside fan.
I'll continue to support ECW not because I want to be a smart mark or be hardcore, but
because I believe in the potential for greatness this company and its performers have
and continue to be part of this innovative and exciting vision that Paul Heyman has
created. ECW didn't create its smart marks or its dumb marks, or the loud and the rude
and the bloodthirsty and the misbehaved fans. Most of them were already that way to
begin with. ECW can't be held responsible for the behavior of its fans at its own shows,
or when they go to somebody else's shows.
I get the impression that you still enjoy the ECW television show but that you are no
longer enthused about the product or the company. I've seen bias against ECW and what
could be described as incomplete and inaccurate reporting on ECW in yours and other
newsletters. Is this the case? What is your current opinion of ECW? Are you an ECW
basher? Do you have something against ECW? Otherwise, keep up the great work.
Paul Sosnowski
Perth Amboy, New Jersey
DM: Any incomplete or inaccurate reporting comes from the fact that by not
attending the live shows, the reports are based on a compilation of
conversations and faxes with and from various people at the show, usually
around a half-dozen different people, and everyone sees things differently.
If there are any inaccuracies, bring them to our attention because it's our
policy to correct things. Since I usually (not always due to each of our
insane schedules but nearly always) talk to Paul Heyman and go into detail
with him all the finishes, angles and where he's going with them on ECW
Arena shows, a lot of that may be in his perspective as promoter he sees
things differently (and often because he's backstage because of problems
may miss something and explain an angle or finish the way he assumes it
went because he booked it which isn't always exactly how it happens) from a
fan who doesn't know where's going with the idea and may assume or see
something differently. It's the same as the immediate reports after a Japan
show as compared with the reports of the same matches after they are on
television. As for my current opinion of ECW, I see it as a very creatively
booked promotion. Heyman does a super job with the talent he has at hand.
I wrote a long piece after attending the New York and Philadelphia shows
several months back and my opinion on ECW hasn't changed much since
then. ECW Arena was a place you wouldn't bring a date or kids or family to,
but you could have fun in the atmosphere. The New York show was a place
that made you embarrassed that you were there. I believe I want to see ECW
succeed far more than many or even most of the fans who have the ECW can
do no wrong attitude, some of whom attend the events live and
unfortunately are more concerned with getting themselves noticed than
embarrassing the company they profess to love. If not overlooking those
pitfalls that has kept ECW from riding the wave of the huge growth in
attendance and interest over the past year that WWF and WCW have had is
ECW bashing, label it as such. The more companies there are, the better off
the industry is. In addition, Heyman, far more than anyone else in the
business, looks for genuine talent out there and is open minded when it
comes to how to utilize it. Heyman does the best job in the industry at
maximizing wrestlers' good points and minimizing their shortcomings. So
much so that not only wrestling fans, but even people in the industry
become marks for Heyman's creations and miss the shortcomings until
they're stuck with talent they don't know what to do with which is why some
of Heyman's biggest stars failed when they took the next step up. But this
country isn't Japan, and television is the life blood of a wrestling
organization. No matter how creative the television show, if it contains
things that keep it from airing on television or airing on television in a time
slot where the masses may stumble on it and get hooked, it might as well be
the biggest tree falling in an empty forest for all the real impression it is
going to leave. By not eliminating things from the television show that keep
the show from losing time slots as it did in Florida and New York, or being
moved to Monday at 3 a.m., as it was on cable in Los Angeles, while the
company maximizes its utilization of its talent within its storylines, it
doesn't maximize its potential audience and instead caters to a small, loyal
niche audience that is both its success at staying afloat and downfall in
serious growth at the same time. ECW is very important in that it is the
most successful small group in the U.S. and from an idea standpoint and
gimmick standpoint, we've all seen how much WWF and WCW have taken
and tried to take from them. At the same time, on a world wide basis, we are
still talking about a company that has yet to draw 2,000 paid to a house
show in its history and plays regularly in Philadelphia, one of the biggest
markets in the world, and has run several shows in New York, the nation's
No. 1 market, so it has to be put in its proper perspective. Taking things on a
world wide perspective, compare it with RINGS, which started as about the
same time, often draws 5,000 and occasionally 10,000 fans to its shows, has
strong television coverage, has created a style all its own, and has run
successfully not only in its home country but drawn well in Russia and
Holland as well. Or compare it with Pancrase, which is only three years old,
and has been so revolutionary that it has taken pro wrestling almost or
completely to the realm of legitimate sport, and also packs 5,000-seat
arenas for its shows. AAA was revolutionary in that it became the hottest
promotion in its country (and in some cities in a foreign country) within the
first year of its existence in a country that has a strong wrestling tradition,
developed more good young talent than any promotion in the world,
although in many ways it has failed in capitalizing on its previous success or
reaching its full potential. ECW has grown much slower, but hasn't taken
the steps backward, but even today AAA has network television exposure in
Mexico and in Tijuana, just as an example, a city far smaller than
Philadelphia, AAA has copied ECW to the max and draws consistent crowds
three or four times as large. In many ways, ECW is still basically an
Americanized FMW with better television and better characterizations of
the undercard wrestlers but without the major drawing cards that FMW
had. It has more good workers than FMW usually had mainly through
utilizing Japanese talent between tours, but in lacking an Onita and a
promotional backbone, it is nowhere near as popular as FMW is today, let
alone in FMW's heyday when it was the same type of revolutionary force in
the Japan market that inspired even more copying in that market than have
copied ECW in this market.
At this time I'd like to let the readers know the class I recently experienced from the
people in charge of ECW. A few weeks ago, word leaked out that I was selling ECW
videotapes illegally. An attorney called my home and told me that I must stop all
operations so that no legal action would take place. He also asked me to contact Tod
Gordon about this matter. I did just that, fearing the worst. Gordon assured me he
wouldn't seek any legal action, nor did he ask for a list of customers or for money that
was made selling the tapes. I thanked him for being so very kind and understanding and
wished that no hard feelings be held against me. He said none would and hoped that I
continued to support ECW.
Jay DeChellis
Weymouth, Massachusetts
I keep reading about the so-called smart fans at ECW. If they are so smart, how come
they loved Sabu until Paul E. tells them not to. Then they hate Sabu until Paul E. tells
them to love him. Paul Heyman is a puppeteer and programs the fans as well as any
promoter ever. He programmed them to hate the Pit Bulls, then to love them. To hate
the Gangstas, and now the smart fans are giving the Malcolm X signal when the
Gangstas enter the ring, keep in mind that most of the ECW fans don't even know the
true meaning of this signal.
This is not a knock on ECW, which is the best wrestling in the U.S. in ten years, or
Heyman, who provides great ideas and wrestling for his market, or any of the wrestlers,
who work hard to provide the fans with great entertainment. This is to point out the
term smart fans is a contradiction in terms.
David Katz
Mount Holly, New Jersey
NEIL SUPERIOR
We still don't have the autopsy back on the death of my son, Neil Superior. I was given
the impression that he was fighting with the police. Now, they tell me he wasn't fighting
with the police, he just wouldn't lay down. I was also told that the police tried to
resuscitate him. Now eyewitnesses say that they didn't. There are a lot of questions and
few answers. The only thing I know for sure is that Neil came in contact with police on
the seventh floor of the Fenwick Inn alive, and ended up outside of the building dead
surrounded by police. He was beaten very badly and all "because he would not lay
down." The family has hired two attorneys to look into this to see if it is another case of
overacting by the part-time summer police of Ocean City, MD.
Richard Caricofe
President, National Wrestling League
Hagerstown, Maryland
HALL OF FAME
Editors note: Due to editing, the response to the UFC letter in the 10/7 Observer didn't
answer the question as to whether or not Bob Freed was the ring announcer for the
Madison Square Garden match with Bruno Sammartino vs. Waldo Von Erich. I
haven't seen the time, but the time frame would have been correct that Freed should
have been the ring announcer for that match.
ALI-INOKI
Although I didn't detail enough in the letter, I have more evidence to conclude that the
time up draw in the Inoki-Ali match was predetermined. On that Saturday, the match
took place in the afternoon for an almost live broadcast from 1 to 2:50 p.m. and had a
prime time rebroadcast as a special later that night from 7:30 to 9:21 p.m.
The Prime time special was billed as "Martial Arts Olympics" and also included the
Andre the Giant vs. Chuck Wepner match from Shea Stadium and the Wilhelm Ruska vs.
Jackie Fargo match from the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. The afternoon almost
live show drew a 54.6 peak rating and a 46.0 average rating. The prime time rebroadcast
drew a 26.3 peak rating and a 19.0 average rating. Considering the technology available
at that time, it's safe to assume that television producers knew the match was going 15
rounds so the time frame of the broadcast was predetermined and that may have
possibly prevented Inoki from shooting in aggressively.
I also believe the three judges were fixed to determine a draw. Although Gene LeBelle
was advertised as Ali's side's hand-picked referee, we all know who he is. The final
scorecard was that LeBelle called it a draw, Kokichi Endo (a former tag team partner of
Rikidozan and obviously a judge on the wrestling side) gave it to Ali, and a Japanese
boxing official gave it to Inoki. Considering the members, it's safe to assume they were
instructed to call the match a draw.
In the 20th anniversary book by Weekly Gong, ten people were interviewed for the book
including Inoki, Hisashi Shinma, Karl Gotch, LeBelle, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Kotetsu
Yamamoto (New Japan booker at the time) and others. The editorial stance in the book
is that the match was a complete shoot, so I don't know how straight the interviews were
or not since Gong is a "dream and fantasy" smark magazine. Shinma and others did say
there are still many things they can't talk about. That remark and the way the book was
written led me to conclude it was a strangely worked match within the shooting context.
Even if I was right in terms of the real truth, that doesn't mean anything inside the ring
itself. No matter if or what both business sides had agreed to, the match was a shoot in
some fashion.
I'm not only aware of Thomas Hauser's book, but also saw the tape "Ali: The Whole
Story" in 1994 in which Ali's doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, said that contrary to the general
public's belief, it was a real fight. I even said so in my own book. Videos and books are a
mainstream thing so we must care about the general public's reaction while a class
magazine is the place for the real truth. I'm not an insider regarding that match and my
beliefs are only my opinion for the smart Observer readers, but I hope it wound up with
other people examining the historical epic match more.
The reason why the "Kings of Pancrase" videotape didn't include the Frank Shamrock vs.
Allen Goes match is that Goes broke his contract with Pancrase. He had signed a
multiple match contract and never came back. While Pancrase is suing Goes for
breaking his contract, the most important lesson for pro wrestling fans was the fact that
Goes couldn't beat Frank Shamrock. When Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu masters like Goes saw
Pancrase videotapes, they thought it would be easy for them. Then Goes entered the ring
and found out the reality. He claimed his problem was that the rules are different, but
everyone knew that was the case beforehand. He also injured his leg by Frank's heel
hook, but never gave up or tapped out. It's true he was out of action for six months
because of the injury suffered in that match.
Tadashi Tanaka
New York, New York

 

Oct. 18, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Bret Hart
agrees to 20-year contract with WWE, AAA wrestlers likely
giving notice to WCW, Mr. Perfect return, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Friday, 18 October 1996 14:54
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 October 28, 1996
WWF BURIED ALIVE POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 67 (67.0%)
Thumbs down 18 (18.0%)
In the middle 15 (15.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Undertaker vs. Mankind 52
Steve Austin vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley 14
WORST MATCH POLL
Vader vs. Sid 58
*Barry Windham vs. Justin Bradshaw 8
*Votes from those attending the show live
EXTREME FIGHTING III POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 80 (90.9%)
Thumbs down 6 (06.8%)
In the middle 2 (02.3%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Maurice Smith vs. Conan Silviera 76
Igor Zinoviev vs. John Lober 7
WORST MATCH POLL
Allan Goes vs. Anthony Macias 31
Eric Paulsen vs. Matt Hume 17
Ralph Gracie vs. Ali Mihoubi 15
Based on phone calls and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 10/22. Statistical
margin of error: +-100%
Bret Hart agreed to a 20-year contract with the World Wrestling Federation just prior to
making the announcement of his returning on the live Monday Night Raw show from
Fort Wayne, IN on 10/21.
Hart, subject of the biggest bidding war in the history of pro wrestling, turned down an
offer from World Championship Wrestling, and in the live interview, acknowledged the
offer and praised WCW, which he only referred to as a rival company to the WWF,
saying they treated him with honesty and integrity in the negotiations. Hart had been
asked over the weekend by the WWF to, in a dramatic fashion, rip up the WCW contract
on the live interview as a retaliation for things such as Madusa throwing the WWF
womens belt in a garbage can, but refused to do so.
Hart gave probably the best interview of his career, and one of the best interviews you'll
ever see, basically acknowledging the very items he was wrestling back-and-forth with in
his own head over the past several months. Hart talked about the death of his nephew,
Matthew Annis, over the summer, and how he had promised him he would return to
wrestling. The story Hart spoke of was true, as he told Annis if he'd get better he
promised to return to wrestling (actually at the time he said at SummerSlam) and that
for a brief moment Annis responded. Hart both praised Shawn Michaels as a great
wrestler, didn't complain about the finish of their Wrestlemania match simply saying
that he had lost and he didn't take losing well, but also said that he was tougher than
Michaels and smarter than Michaels, and made remarks about not being able to dance,
maybe not being as cute, and not posing in girlie magazines. Then he said that he would
return to face the best wrestler in the WWF, and instead of saying it was Michaels, said it
was Steve Austin, who he faces at Survivor Series on 11/17 in Madison Square Garden.
Terms of the WWF contract aren't known for certain, although the actual figures
bandied about within the industry and that were reported here last week are higher than
the actual numbers on the contract on both ends, although both deals would have
amounted to more money guaranteed over the three year period than all but two or
three pro wrestlers have earned over their entire career. It is believed the WWF deal
amounts to slightly less than $3 million per year guaranteed over the first three years of
the contract, and a lesser amount for a non-performer contract that would cover the
remaining 17 years which is why Hart in the interview said he'd be with the WWF for
life. It is believed the total figure amounts to somewhere between $11 million and $14
million over the length of the contract. Hart has made it clear that he didn't want to
wrestle past his prime as most of the major superstars in wrestling end up doing,
particularly since he's been outspoken about Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair's continuing to
wrestle in their mid-to-late 40s. Hart is also well known for being, well, the opposite of
extravagant when it comes to lifestyle so he should be easily set for life and in some ways
it's an amazing story for someone who not all that many years ago during the drug era
seemed destined to be a very talented mid-card performer.
While Hart had largely decided, after apparently changing his mind twice earlier in the
week, to go to the WWF after a meeting with Vince McMahon on 10/10 when McMahon
came to Calgary to make the deal, it may not have truly been a definite decision until
Sunday night. He had told friends that he was going back to WWF after the meeting with
McMahon, but had his own list of stipulations he wanted McMahon to agree to that
McMahon hadn't gotten back to him about as of 10/15 and reportedly his decision was
starting to waffle. However, McMahon got back to Hart on 10/16 and agreed to what
Hart wanted and he appeared once again in the WWF camp but was going to let Eric
Bischoff pitch him one last time that evening. The pitches ended up continuing backand-
forth until Sunday night. Hart was in San Jose over the weekend for a Neil Young
benefit show, and as late as after the WWF PPV show was still entertaining offers not
only from Bischoff and McMahon, but also was called by Kevin Nash and Scott Hall
attempting to convince him to join WCW as they told him they loved working there
because the travel scheduled is so much easier on their family life.
Bischoff faxed his last WCW contract offer to San Jose and was somewhat confident as
late as Saturday that he was still going to pull the deal out even after the WWF plugged
Hart's appearance on Raw and strongly suggested his return to the WWF as a full-timer
on its "Live Wire" show that morning. Those close to the situation seemed to doubt that
if Hart actually had taken the Bischoff offer, that he'd have made the announcement on
the live Raw and that the sign he was appearing on Raw constituted the agreement of the
deal. The WWF must have taken it that way as on the previous week's Raw, no mention
of Hart being there was ever made and obviously in a ratings war, the return of one of
the biggest names in the industry is something you'd hardly want to keep quiet.
However, five days later on Live Wire, Hart's return was promoted for all it was worth.
On the WWF PPV show on Sunday night, it appeared the WWF expected Hart to appear
on Raw but was still hedging its bets, as Jim Ross claimed he was the one bringing Hart
back, which, in case it fell through, could be used to put more heat on Ross as the heel in
the feud with McMahon. As Hart did his interview, McMahon pretended not to know
what Hart was going to say and originally acted as if he thought he'd lost Hart to WCW,
before Hart made the announcement. Sources close to Bischoff said that Bischoff had
nothing but good things to say about how Hart handled himself in the negotiations and
felt it was very classy how he handled it on television.
The contract Hart was looking at from WCW guaranteed him $2.8 million per year over
three years. It was broken down initially into an $800,000 per year deal for a maximum
of 180 total dates as a pro wrestler, and two movie deals per year at a minimum $1
million per movie with the Turner Time Warner corporation. This break-down, probably
similar to the Hulk Hogan deal, allows WCW to not have all of the expense of the total
huge contract on its books and thus make it easier to run as a profitable company. In
addition, it circumvents the clause in the contract of Scott Hall, and probably Kevin
Nash as well, that guarantees that their contracts would increase individually if any
newcomer signed for more money than they earned, in that they were guaranteed to
always be, behind Hogan, the highest paid wrestlers in WCW. Hall and Nash are both
earning $780,000 per year, so Hart's signing based on their contract clause, would have
given each a small $20,000 per year raise, however if the contract was structured
differently and it was a $2.8 million per year WCW offer alone, based on that clause,
each of them would also have to be given raises to the same level--meaning basically to
get Hart it would cost WCW nearly $6.8 million extra per year. This is some speculation
that Michaels got the same type of clause in his WWF deal, which may be why Hart's
structure of his contract may also not call for a huge guarantee "for wrestling" and a lot
of the guarantee may be figured in other ways. On Sunday night, Hall (and Nash if it was
in his deal) agreed to waive that contractual clause as a way for Bischoff to increase the
offer to Hart to another level without having to give each of them big raises since both
felt it was important to them to have Hart in WCW.
There's is yet another interesting key to this story. One of the things Hart had
complained in the past that could stand in his way of going to WCW was the presence of
Hulk Hogan. Yet, apparently, in the final negotiations, McMahon talked to Hart about
both Hogan and Randy Savage's WCW contracts coming due between now and the end
of the year. He suggested it was possible, or even suggested it was more than possible
that one or both, and Hogan being the more likely, would end up back in the WWF in
1997. One would think if McMahon had brought that up, that a promise that Hart would
get his elusive win over Hogan (Hart has had a problem with Hogan since he felt Hogan
quit the WWF in 1993 rather than put Hart over at that year's SummerSlam PPV for the
title as Hogan was willing to drop it to "big" Yokozuna and leave rather than do a job for
"little" Hart), and the idea Hogan might be there may have worked as a positive in
clinching the deal. There is no question as things stand right now that there is a lot of
concern in the WCW camp about Hogan and Savage leaving together and taking their
unresolved top angle with them, and maybe taking a couple of their friends (Elizabeth,
Giant?) on the trip. McMahon's willingness to guarantee money, and in particular
guarantee the amount it took to get Hart, has to whet the appetite for both Hogan and
Savage as far as being top names without a contract and the recipients of a bidding war.
***********************************************************
It is expected that all the AAA wrestlers working for WCW will be giving notice
sometime this coming week to leave AAA for Promo Azteca Promotions after the split
between Antonio Pena and Konnan.
Besides Konnan, expected to leave are Super Calo, Rey Misterio Jr., Lady Victoria,
Pierroth Jr., Los Destructores, La Sirenita, Super Crazy, Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera,
Halloween, Damian, Natasha, Mosco de la Merced with several others on the maybe list.
Most of the group got together on 10/14 in Mexico City after Misterio Jr. and Psicosis
had returned from Japan. They were on a $2,000 deal for their match on 10/11, but each
received $1,600 and were told that Pena was given a commission for the remaining
money which neither knew about. On their previous WAR matches they had gone for
$1,500 with no commission and this match the two were to get a raise to the $2,000
mark.
As mentioned last week, there have been numerous problems between Konnan and
Pena, from the style of promotion that Konnan has run in Tijuana to problems with the
wrestlers who haven't been booked into WCW believing that WCW is a territory similar
to how EMLL does Los Angeles in that all the different guys go one weekend at a time
not understanding WCW wants the same small group every time. There was also a
problem with the guys working so much for WCW that they weren't available as much to
AAA and Pena and the office weren't making a commission from WCW using his
wrestlers as would be the case in normal wrestling business operations (although Pena
has talked about trying to re-do the WCW deal to include the office getting a
commission) since Konnan instead put together the deal. There was also a dispute since
the 24 hour television cable all-combat sports channel in Japan offered AAA $1,500 to
$2,000 per week for its television show and Pena turned it down wanting more money,
which Konnan thought was a bad move.
It all came to a head when Pena took the Tijuana promotion away from Konnan, and
then tried to patch Rey Misterio up with AAA and came up with an angle for Misterio to
debut saving his nephew on the 10/18 show (which never transpired because of bad
blood between Damian and Misterio stemming from Misterio going to the local
newspapers and giving away the result of the Psicosis vs. Ultraman mask match and
saying how Ultraman/Damian was paid off to throw the match which wound up with his
wife and kids taking major heat all over town). Konnan met with TV Azteca during the
week and proposed a deal to bring the entire crew. His demands, which TV Azteca
accepted, were that there would be no commission to the PROMO Azteca company for
deals already done with the wrestlers coming in regarding either Japan or WCW; WCW
would have first priority on dates with all the wrestlers they are currently using; that the
wrestlers would be free to accept bookings anywhere in the world except on shows
promoted by Televisa (which means they could work EMLL house shows); that the
wrestlers would earn the same on a per match basis as they had been earning with AAA;
and that he wanted himself to produce his own television show which he would try and
do more of an ECW style. TV Azteca agreed when it comes to the latter demand to add a
second weekly television show that Konnan would be in charge of on a two month trial
basis, and that they would tape the show outside the Distrito Federal so Konnan would
be able to make it a wilder show without problems from the local commission. Konnan
asked for a press conference with major coverage by the network for the last week of
October to publicly announce the signings.
Because Pena owns the rights to both the Octagon and La Parka gimmick, both will
likely stay with AAA since neither would be as successful with a new gimmick. Parka,
although a very talented worker, when it comes to gimmick is similar to Undertaker in
WWF that since the company owns the gimmick, he's pretty much there for life. The
other top names expected to stay with Pena were the camp that has been against Konnan
having so much power to begin with, which includes Los Villanos, Killer, Halcon Dorado
Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, Perro Aguayo, Perro Aguayo Jr., Latin Lover and Heavy Metal.
*********************************************************
Even with the combination of the much ballyhooed return of Mr. Perfect (who as it
turned out didn't return after all) and the announcement by Bret Hart and coming live
one day after a PPV show, WWF still lost the Monday Night battle to a generally
lackluster WCW show on 10/21. Raw did a 2.6 rating and 3.6 share, which in some ways
has to be considered a positive against competition which included both the second
game of the World Series and NFL football; while Nitro did a 3.2 rating and 4.6 share
(3.3 first hour, 3.0 second hour) which made it the closest race in several weeks. The
Nitro replay scored a 1.7 rating and 4.0 share which is among its best ever, which says
the slight drop in WCW rating was probably more due to baseball and football than a
lessening of interest in what WCW is doing.
The Mr. Perfect return was all an angle to set up Hunter Hearst Helmsley winning the IC
title from Marc Mero when Perfect clocked Mero with a chair on the live Raw. They did
an angle midway through the show where Helmsley rammed a cart into Perfect,
supposedly taking out his knee. Gorilla Monsoon then announced Perfect couldn't
wrestle and Perfect brought Mero out to take his place. After some goading, Perfect told
Helmsley that Mero would put the title up against him since Helmsley refused to wrestle
otherwise which Mero ended up agreeing to. Perfect is back as a heel and will apparently
advise Helmsley.
On 10/14, WCW drew a 3.2 rating and 4.9 share (3.4 first hour; 3.1 second hour) to
Raw's 1.8 and 2.5 share. The Raw rating (which actually was a 1.78) was the lowest rating
in the history of Raw, partially due to the St. Louis-Atlanta NL baseball playoffs and the
49ers-Packers which drew a 7.0 and 18.9 respectively. During the head-to-head hour,
WWF trailed during the middle of the show by only a half-point, only to have WCW
blister them by a whopping 3.4 to 1.7 as WCW had Hogan doing the monologue where
the NWO beat up the Nasty Boys going head-to-head with WWF having Shawn Michaels
vs. Steve Austin in a singles match.
*********************************************************
Against competition from the first game of the World Series, the World Wrestling
Federation presented an ordinary PPV show.
The 10/20 In Your House Buried Alive show at the Market Square Arena in
Indianapolis, the first WWF PPV of 1996 without show saver Shawn Michaels in a
headline role, came off as more of a basic house show with a good gimmick match on top
than a can't miss memorable show. The show drew 9,649 fans of which 8,238 were paid
with a gate of $135,605, the largest wrestling crowd and gate in the Indianapolis market
since the 1992 Wrestlemania.
The show ended with a scene from the movie "Carrie" as Undertaker was buried alive
under mountains of dirt by Mankind, a masked Executioner (Terry Gordy), Justin
Bradshaw, Goldust, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Crush and Paul Bearer. They did some
thunder and lightning special effects in the building which scared Bradshaw, Goldust,
Crush and Helmsley away. After another so-called thunder storm, Undertaker's
trademark purple glove came out from the grave as the show went off the air. It was no
more or less silly than The Giant surviving the fall off Cobo Arena last year at Halloween
Havoc.
The Jim Ross-Vince McMahon storyline continued in the first two matches. Ross came
out to a big pop as the PPV show began joining McMahon and Jerry Lawler at the
announcing table. However, they did a gimmick where Ross' headset and mic continued
to malfunction. Ross continued to blame it on a practical joke by McMahon, while
McMahon claimed that Ross was the technical advisor on the show. The two did their
storyline with McMahon coming off strongly as the face and Ross playing a stronger heel
role than in the past, trying to get his character more into the old fuddy duddy
Oklahoma hick role as they made fun of his references to Will Rogers and being taken to
the woodshed, and Ross complained about Sunny not wearing enough clothes. After the
second match, Ross stormed off complaining about the headset and mic, got in the ring
and did an interview taking credit for bringing Bret Hart back, and left. He was seen
twice more during the show, once talking to Mr. Perfect, who acted as if he and Ross
were friends as he appeared to be reverting to a heel role in some ways during the Marc
Mero vs. Goldust match that he ended up getting involved in. The other time he basically
took over a Dok Hendrix interview with Sid and tried to do what appeared to be a
Howard Cosell gimmick making fun of the softball questions Hendrix was going to ask
Sid.
There were two changes in the original line-up. Savio Vega was replaced by Hunter
Hearst Helmsley in the PPV opener against Steve Austin due to an undisclosed injury
which was apparently suffered on a weekend tour of Puerto Rico. While Austin-Vega
would have been a better match, Austin had a good match with Helmsley who was a very
solid and suitable replacement. Faarooq missed the IC title match with Marc Mero and
was replaced by Goldust, which as a match is an improvement. The actual reason was his
hamstring injury suffered last week. To explain it in storyline, they did an angle at the
pre-game show where Faarooq bad-mouthed Ahmed Johnson. Then they switched to a
locker room scene with Johnson holding a 2x4 and Faarooq on the ground, similar to
the angle WCW did two weeks earlier with Ric Flair, where you actually don't see an
angle but see the guys and an object and it's left to your imagination what actually
happened. They had Gorilla Monsoon announce both changes on the pre-game show
and ended up doing a storyline suspension on Johnson.
A. Barry Windham pinned Justin Bradshaw (John Hawk) in about 20:00 of a dark
match said to have been terrible with one missed spot after another. This took place
during the Free-for-all portion of the show, but for whatever reason, they didn't air or
acknowledge the match and the Free-for-all portion was nothing but hype for the show
so the idea of doing a Free-for-all match or advertised gimmick seems to have been
dropped.
1. Steve Austin (Steve Williams) pinned Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Paul Levesque) in
15:30. Austin got the face reaction from the crowd. Austin seems to be getting over as a
face as the swearing flipping off character. During the match, the fans were chanting for
Perfect because Perfect had confrontations with both although mainly with Helmsley.
Perfect came to ringside to take away the model to a big pop. As Helmsley went after
Perfect, Austin jumped Helmsley from behind. Austin and Perfect then had words and
Perfect pulled Austin down off the apron to the floor. As Perfect was leaving, Austin
threw a drink all over his suit. Helmsley then jumped Austin and brought him into the
ring while Perfect left with the model. Helmsley set up for the Pedigree, but dropped it
seeing Perfect leave with the model and chased him to the back where they were
separated by officials. Austin then came to the aisle and jumped Helmsley. Helmsley
ended up suplexing Austin on the floor, but Austin came back by monkey flipping
Helmsley into the post. Back in the ring, Austin did a spot where he appeared to crotch
himself, then got up unhurt and flipped off the fans and Helmsley and hit the stone cold
stunner for the win. ***1/4
2. Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith retained the WWF tag titles beating Smoking Gunns
(Mike Plotcheck & Monte Sopp) in 9:17. They were doing a storyline of Billy still having
the hots for Sunny and wanting to get Sunny back while Bart didn't care. Bart's pretty
much the face while Billy is still a heel. Once again these two teams who on paper should
have very good matches had another average match. Finish saw the Gunns have the
sidewinder slam on Hart set up, but Billy took forever to get to the top rope. As he came
off the top, Smith was behind Bart and pulled him out of the way so Billy legdropped
canvas. Owen then pinned Billy after a spinning heel kick. **
3. Marc Mero pinned Goldust (Dustin Runnels) to retain the IC title in 11:38. Mero did a
lot of good moves in this match, but the two didn't work together as well as you'd think.
Goldust looked worse than usual. Mero did a Liger dive flip plancha and injured his left
knee legit on the landing. He worked the rest of the match without appearing to be either
in great pain or grounding the match due to injury, but was noticeably limping the next
night at Raw and his Raw match was toned down from his usual style. At 8:00, Goldust
got on the house mic and threatened to slip tongue to everyone in the audience. Mero
did a move where he was on the top rope facing the ring, then jumped out and reversed
positions like a gymnast on the balanced beam, and did a moonsault block. Mr. Perfect
was doing commentary and acting heelish in some ways but cheering for Mero at the
same time. The ref was out of it and Perfect left the broadcast position to apparently ref.
Helmsley then came out. Goldust went to attack Perfect from behind but Perfect decked
him. The officials then separated Helmsley and Perfect and in the ring, Mero used a
blockbuster suplex (Samoan drop) and shooting star press (Wild thing) for the pin.
**3/4
4. Sid (Sid Eudy) pinned Vader (Leon White) in 8:00 to earn the shot at the WWF title at
Survivor Series. Shawn Michaels came out to do commentary. Before the match he blew
his nose in Jim Cornette's handkerchief in the ring. Sid was awful, although the match
was probably better than you'd expect given the participants. At one point Sid even did a
crossbody off the top and Vader caught him and slammed him. Vader twice had Sid
pinned but picked him up at two. As he went for his Vader bomb finisher, Sid got his
knees up. Sid went for the power bomb but Cornette distracted him the first time,
resulting in Sid raising the ropes as Cornette was about to come in and getting crotched.
Second time Vader gave Sid a low blow. Vader went for the power bomb but Sid blocked
it, and eventually got the pin with a choke slam. Michaels got in the ring and shook Sid's
hand to lead to their title match. Michaels was having trouble carrying on a conversation
while he was doing the commentary, but even he made more sense than the incoherent
interview with Sid that followed. 3/4*
5. Undertaker (Mark Calloway) beat Mankind (Michael Foley) in 18:25 in the buried
alive match. They had built a dirt mound cemetery behind the ringside seats on the
arena floor. Although the ending was goofy, the match itself was a really good effort by
both. Mankind took lots of crazy bumps into the guard rail, over the guard rail, onto the
floor and on the steps. Undertaker actually did a great plancha and must be the biggest
guy ever to try such a stunt. This was worked similarly to a lot of recent ECW main
events with crazy bumps and brawling, but the work itself wasn't as sloppy. Undertaker
took a hard chair shot to the face from Mankind after no-selling an urn shot by Paul
Bearer. At one point they brawled back to the cemetery area and Undertaker was thrown
in the grave, but pulled Mankind into it. Mankind threw dirt in Undertaker's eyes.
Undertaker hip tossed Mankind off the dirt mound onto the floor and DDT'd him on a
chair in the ring, hit him with a chair and legdropped him with a chair on his face.
Undertaker threw him on the ring steps a few times and finally hit the tombstone.
Undertaker carried him to the cemetery but Mankind recovered and got the Mandible
claw on. Undertaker got out and choke slammed Mankind into the grave for the victory
and started burying him with dirt. As the ref tried to stop Undertaker from throwing dirt
on him, he twice threw the ref off the cemetery. Finally Terry Gordy showed up under a
mask with a shovel and hit Undertaker with the shovel, pulled Mankind out of the grave
and put Undertaker in the grave. Several heels began burying Undertaker until the
thunder and lightning in the arena and the "Carrie" finish. ***3/4
***********************************************************
Maurice Smith, a 35-year-old kick boxing superstar of the 80s who has turned to
Japanese pro wrestling in recent years first with Pancrase and now with RINGS, won the
Extreme Fighting Championship heavyweight title beating Marcus "Conan" Silviera of
Carlson Gracie Sr.'s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu team.
Smith, a member of the Lion's Den team, seconded by Frank Shamrock, came out as the
star of EFC's third PPV show, which was almost a remarkable improvement over the
group's two previous disastrous events.
The show drew an estimated 2,300 fans or just under a half house to the Tulsa, OK Expo
Square Arena. The show was the first so-called No Holds Barred event that was officially
sanctioned by a government body, in this case the Oklahoma Boxing Commission, that
had been held in the United States. The event was also covered as a sporting event
locally by the Tulsa World, who ran several articles on the event as it would had it been a
local boxing or kick boxing show, without the human cockfight references or talks about
potential fatalities or other exaggerations of the dangers.
Only a few minor rule changes were made from previous events--mandatory gloves on
competitors (which was also the case in EFC II), no using the fence for leverage or
holding onto the fence (also the case in EFC II), no head-butts and no elbows to the base
of the spine (this rule was implemented by figurehead commissioner Jose Torres, a
former light heavyweight champion boxer), although in running down the rules of the
event on television before the first match, only the fence rule was acknowledged. In
addition, the matched would consist of three five minute rounds, rather than the no
rounds system as in the past, with a one minute rest period in between. The rounds were
called phases.
The show had good points and bad points in comparison to recent UFC and UFC clone
events. Time management was a plus. They held three matches before the start of the
PPV, and were going to air tapes of them to fill in time gaps so you didn't have the
lengthy discussion and down time that hurt recent UFC events. As it was, the matches
were long enough that none of them had time to air. The taped features getting the
audience to know the competitors were far superior to what UFC has done. The
matchmaking was strong, as most of the matches were competitive and there was really
only one match that was a blow-out. The fence ruled proved to be a positive as it kept the
fights moving instead of stalling. The officiating was inconsistent. Referee John
Donehue appeared to have blown the call in the Anthony Macias vs. Allan Goes match,
in which Goes should have been disqualified for flagrant rule violations, and recognizing
it, appeared to overcompensate and threatened very quick disqualifications for
accidental head-butts in the later matches. The biggest negative was the lack of judges,
so even though a match could have been totally one-sided, if it went the time limit, it was
declared a draw. The camera work still left a lot to be desired and the locker room
interviews were pretty bad as a rule, although it's ridiculous to expect these guys to have
pro wrestling interview skill. And we still had the phonied up records and credentials,
although those are hardly unique to this promotion. For the first time ever, we did have
real weights announced as the commission did weigh-ins before the fights. Not real ages
in all cases, however. In some ways John Peretti was excellent in doing color as far as
talking about what he expected fighters to do, but he's not smooth in other ways. Dave
Bontempo has improved since his first show, but is nowhere close to the league of Bruce
Beck.
A. In what turned out to be a non-televised match, Joao Rouque (139 pounds) beat
Abdelaziz Cherogio (142) in 4:02 with an armbar.
B. Todd Bjornathan of Matt Hume's AMC-Pankration stable in Seattle beat Rudyard
Moncayo in 2:50 with a heel hook.
C. Kevin Nix beat Marvin Howard with an armbar in a fast match.
1. John Lewis (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) and Johil de Oliveria (Luta Livre) went to a draw after
three five minute rounds in a lightweight (159 pound limit) fight. Lewis dominated the
match and would have won via an easy decision, although he never came close to
finishing de Oliveria, who was billed as the super lightweight champion of the Universal
Vale Tudo promotion in Japan (a falsified credential and I don't have a record of him
even working for that promotion). Lewis was hurt by the rules banning the elbows and
head-butts which are two of his most important weapons.
2. Matt Hume (AMC-Pankration) beat Eric Paulson (Sayama's shooting) in :44 of the
third round when the doctor stopped the match due to a deep forehead cut apparently
caused by either a knee or a punch. Paulson's claimed credential as the light heavyweight
champion of shooting in Japan (Sayama's promotion) was a legit credential. These were
evenly matched guys, 183 and 180 pounds respectively, who would have surely gone the
distance if it wasn't for the cut. There was good standing fighting and good wrestling, but
neither was that aggressive.
3. Ralph Gracie (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) destroyed Ali Mihoubi (French kempo karate) in
1:34 with an armbar to keep the lightweight (159) title. Mihoubi was billed as 5-0, and in
a change from normal exaggerations, was actually quite a bit taller as he was three
inches taller than Gracie, billed at 5-8 (and is probably closer to 5-6). In the pre-match
taped interview, Peretti told Mihoubi that Gracie thinks that karate is all bullshit.
4. Allan Goes (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) beat Anthony Macias in 3:52 in a middleweight (199
limit) fight. Goes took Macias down and threw a lot of punches, several head-butts and
began fish hooking (ripping the mouth), the latter two of which were illegal. Although he
was warned early, he continued to head-butt. Macias corner basically quit for him since
they were fed up with Goes' tactics. They billed Goes, who has a legitimate BJJ world
championship from 1994, with an unlikely record of 198-0-1 and claimed that he once in
a gym fight had made Tank Abbott tap out (the actual story is that a few years ago
Abbott challenged Goes in his gym and they had a match, which Goes apparently has
videotape proof of, but that both agreed no punching would be allowed, and Goes made
Abbott tap out twice. Goes reminded Abbott of this at the UFC in Puerto Rico, perhaps
several times over the course of the week, which led to their brawl at the February UFC
show in the aisle as the show was going on). Goes' rep was of being the Brazilian version
of Abbott in that he was a dirty fighter and this match didn't hurt that reputation at all.
After the match Goes claimed that Macias had violated the rules first by throwing an
elbow, although Macias's elbow would have been legal since only elbows to the neck and
spine were illegal and the Macias elbow was similar to a Misawa elbow to the face.
5. Igor Zinoviev retained the middleweight title going the three phases to a draw with
John Lober. Zinoviev entered the match was a badly injured left shoulder although that
was largely a secret, although there were points during the match where you could tell.
This was a very exciting fight early on which included the first Northern Lights suplex in
a shoot match on an American PPV show. Zinoviev had Lober hooked in a front facelock
when Lober gave him the Northern Lights, however Zinoviev still held onto the front
facelock. The match went back-and-forth early with Lober getting a reversal and having
Zinoviev on the defensive. Zinoviev regained the advantage and was pounding on him
when the first round ended. Zinoviev dominated the second round. It appeared both
were gassed out in the third round as Zinoviev was using his boxing skill basically as a
defensive tactic and appeared to be happy with escaping with a draw even though he was
winning the fight. Lober was just waiting for his second wind and threw a few punches
that basically missed badly. In the post-match, Zinoviev appeared thrilled with the draw,
which again appears to have been because of the shoulder injury coming in. Lober, who
got a minor head cut in the first round, made a name for himself by going the distance.
Had their been a decision, Zinoviev would have been the easy winner. Former pro
wrestler Gene LeBelle, who since he's one of booker Peretti's instructors, is kind of
portrayed as the guru of fighting in this promotion, was in Zinoviev's corner, as was Oleg
Taktarov (who is now working with LeBelle), both of whom did interviews in the pregame
show.
6. Murakami Kazunari, billed as the 1996 Japanese Judo champion, beat Bart Vale,
billed as the Shoot Fighting world champion, in 4:37. Kazunari was not a national judo
champion, nor did he use any judo tactics and instead appeared to be a hybrid type of
fighter that these events spawned. He did place third in his weight in a national Jiu Jitsu
tournament this year. Vale's reputation is largely built on self promotion of victories
over the likes of Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Ken Shamrock and a world championship in a
worked pro wrestling promotion that was the promoter of. He took that into the martial
arts world where he was pushed as the shootfighting world championship from Japan
and used that claim to get tons of martial arts world pub and features all the way from
MTV to Sports Illustrated. Let's just say there was no shortage of people who were
absolutely thrilled to see him get his clock cleaned for that reason. Vale was also billed as
being 34 years old, when he's in his mid to late 40s. The age difference was the factor
here. Vale, a 241-pound man who was in great shape for his age, didn't have the reflexes
or stamina because of the age to hang with an opponent who may have been as much as
25 years younger (Kazunari was 22 or 23, depending upon which source one wants to
believe). Vale was also billed as being unbeaten although he just lost in K-1 about six
weeks back and lost in Rings over the summer as well, although the latter was a worked
match. Anyway, his myth was destroyed and he looked bad in the process, as he failed to
get a submission with a straight armbar, and turned his back as he was getting pounded.
He was basically punched out on his feet by someone with no competitive background in
striking, had his nose broken, and the ref had to stop the match.
7. Smith beat Silviera to win the heavyweight title. Silviera took Smith down in the first
round but Smith was able to turn him and get some blows in from the top. After the
match Smith told people he was more thrilled about reversing Silviera on the ground
than about knocking him out on his feet. Smith started to dominate in the second round
using whipping leg kicks to keep Silviera at bay. He exposed Silviera's weakness when it
comes to take-downs, as he was able to back away from all of Silviera's heavily
telegraphed attempts, and on their feet, Smith's skill as a kick boxing legend was
dominant as it figured to be. At one point Silviera actually appeared to have Smith in
trouble throwing punches, but Smith battled his way back with punches and kicks in a
great exchange. Smith was billed as the current world heavyweight champion in kick
boxing. If that were the case, he wouldn't have turned to pro wrestling in Japan. They
did mention his ground fighting experience from Pancrase. In his pre-match interview,
Smith said that two years ago (before Pancrase) he couldn't have done well in an event
like this. The crowd saw the upset coming and was chanting "Maurice" loudly, also
because the generally unknowledgeable Tulsa fans (who were chanting for DDTs
whenever guys would get a front facelock which showed it drew a pro wrestling type
audience) wanted to see the American beat the foreigner. In the third phase, Smith
continued with the low kicks to set up the roundhouse upside the head that knocked
Silviera for a loop and the ref stopped the match at 1:36.
There was talk after the show of the boxing commission fining Goes $500 from his purse
for his illegal tactics although we don't know if that actually happened.
Perhaps the best brawl of all was in the hotel lobby between EFC promoter Donald
Zuckerman and Reality Superfighting booker Tom Huggins (which has its first show on
11/22). Huggins claimed he came up with the Extreme name first (his company is called
Extreme Productions) and Zuckerman stole it from him since he got his show on PPV
first. Huggins was in the lobby of the hotel blatantly recruiting fighters from this show to
jump to his group and the two were in the lobby in front of witnesses threatening to sue
each other, and as most know, those lawsuits have the potential to be a lot more
devastating than the damage done inside the ring.
Gary Dell'Abate of the Howard Stern show ring announced two of the matches. No
return date was announced. There had been a lot of talk going in that this would be the
last PPV show from this group unless the buy rate picked up. There was no buzz coming
into the show and buy rates for UFC type events have been on the decline and this group
was coming off two bad shows. Even though it was the strongest line-up on paper, the
general public doesn't know these names and the show wasn't well promoted nor have
the promotional advantage of the previous two shows of being mired in controversy and
getting national headlines and debate in the week leading to the show. They didn't build
to or hint at anything for the future. It is known that the "plan" for the next PPV was to
match Conan vs. Vale as the main event and the final two matches were booked to build
to that match, but as happens in this genre, the best laid plans mean nothing once the
match begins. The talk at the show was of a next show in February or March, depending
on how the buy rate came out.
**********************************************************
New Japan officially made the announcement of the top five matches on the 1/4 Tokyo
Dome show on 10/17 with a few differences from the previously talked about (but never
officially announced) line-up listed here last week.
As mentioned previously, the announced main event will be Shinya Hashimoto
defending the IWGP heavyweight title against Riki Choshu. The other four announced
matches all have a New Japan vs. outside organization theme--Ultimo Dragon of WAR
defending the J Crown (eight lighter weight championships) against Jushin Liger, Jinsei
Shinzaki (Hakushi) of Michinoku Pro Wrestling vs. Shiro Koshinaka, Great Muta vs.
Shoji Nakamaki of Big Japan Pro Wrestling and Masahiro Chono vs. Mitsuhiro
Matsunaga of Big Japan Pro Wrestling.
On paper, this is the weakest group of main event matches in New Japan Tokyo Dome
history, at least since the first show built around Russians that had never done works
before. Matsunaga and Nakamaki are terrible wrestlers whose main claim to fame is
willingness to take bumps into beds of nails or on thumb tacks so perhaps New Japan is
going to venture into that field with crazy gimmick matches. They are doing an angle
where Chono thinks it's beneath him to face Matsunaga and has threatened to quit the
promotion rather than do that match. In addition, Matsunaga's gimmick is that he's not
part of Big Japan, but a free agent that works for Big Japan, and is also in the angle
refusing to do the show at the request of Big Japan President Shinya Kojika. Nakamaki,
on the other hand, is saying that he's thrilled to get a chance to wrestle a big star like
Muta on a major show.
*********************************************************
On the All Japan side, the promotion announced a seven team field for the 20th annual
Real World Tag League tournament which starts 11/16 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall and
finishes 12/6 at Budokan Hall.
The only minor surprise is that Sabu will be teaming with Gary Albright instead of Rob
Van Dam, which was the original plan. In addition, Sabu has only reached a signed
agreement for this one tour rather than the 15 weeks per year deal that he and Baba had
verbally agreed on when he was in Japan.
The teams are Double tag team champions Steve Williams & Johnny Ace, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Jun Akiyama, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot,
Stan Hansen & Takao Omori and Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II.
The tournament format will change from past years with the fewest number of teams in
history, as each team will face each other team twice instead of the traditional once, so
each team will have 12 tournament matches. Promoter Giant Baba announced that by
each team facing each team twice, he'd be able to present top line-ups in both the big
cities and the small towns every night of the tour. This creates a lot of different potential
booking ideas as the top teams can split matches with each other. Nevertheless, with a
seven-team field, three of which (Williams & Ace, Misawa & Akiyama and Taue &
Kawada) can be considered legitimate threats to win it all, it's being called the weakest
and least anticipated tournament in history.
***********************************************************
Bas Rutten officially vacated the King of Pancrase championship on 10/19 leaving that
promotion somewhat in a lurch with its biggest show of the year scheduled for 12/15 at
Budokan Hall.
It was announced that Rutten wanted to take time off from Pancrase because his wife
just gave birth to his first child. This comes on the heels of a contract dispute with Ken
Shamrock who at this point won't be returning to the promotion and leaves them
without who would generally be considered at this point as their two best fighters and
two biggest foreign names and with their biggest show of the year to promote. There
have been threats of legal action by Pancrase against Shamrock who is under contract
for three more matches for the group.
Reports we've gotten are that the tournament will contain the top eight contenders,
although we're not sure who that will be, with the first round taking place on 11/9 in
Kobe and the semifinals and championship match at Budokan Hall. Masakatsu Funaki
and Frank Shamrock will be in the tournament and would probably have to rank as the
favorites. We had heard that Guy Mezger would be another, however the last word we'd
received is that due to a broken nose, he wouldn't be ready to fight until December.
Jason DeLucia and Yuki Kondo would almost surely be two others in the tournament
and based on the latest Pancrase ratings, also in should be Minoru Suzuki, Ryushi
Yanagisawa, Osami Shibuya and Vernon White. Because of the tournament, this may
create a situation where Lions Den fighters would have to oppose one another which is
something they generally avoid.
*********************************************************
WCW is a virtual lock to break it's all-time gate record for the Hulk Hogan vs. Randy
Savage Halloween Havoc match on 10/27 in Las Vegas. As of five days before the show,
the advance was 5,755 tickets and because of the high ticket prices, the gate was
$171,920. The company's all-time record gate was set earlier this year for the Ilio
DiPaolo Memorial house show in Buffalo, NY at $193,456.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 10/25 TO 11/25
10/25 RINGS Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Maeda vs. Kopilov)
10/25 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 WWF St. Louis Kiel Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams vs. Eliminators)
10/27 WCW Halloween Havoc PPV Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel (Hogan vs. Savage)
10/28 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Phoenix, AZ America West Arena
11/1 New Japan Hiroshima Green Arena (Super Grade tag team tournament finals)
11/2 WWF Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/3 Pancrase Tokyo Tough PPV taped 9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
11/4 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
11/8 WWF Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/9 Pancrase Kobe (King of Pancrase tourney first round)
11/10 WWF Cleveland, OH Gund Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust)
11/10 Universal Vale Tudo Sao Paolo, Brazil (Ruas vs. Taktarov)
11/11 WCW Monday Nitro tapings St. Petersburg, FL Bayfront Center Arena
11/16 ECW November to Remember Philadelphia ECW Arena
11/16 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (World Tag League tournament opening night)
11/17 WWF Survivor Series New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Sid)
11/17 The U Japan Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Kimo vs. Bigelow)
11/18 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings New Haven, CT Veterans Memorial Coliseum
11/18 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Civic Center
11/19 WWF Superstars tapings Springfield, MA Civic Center
11/21 All Japan Fukuoka Hakata Star Lanes (Tag team tournament)
11/22 Reality Superfighting PPV Birmingham, AL (Renzo Gracie vs. Taktarov)
11/22 RINGS Osaka Castle Hall (Battle Dimension tournament second round)
11/22 WWF Montreal Moulson Center
11/23 WCW Baltimore Arena (Hall & Nash vs. Heat)
11/24 WCW World War III PPV Norfolk, VA Scope (Three ring Battle Royal)
11/25 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Greenville, NC East Carolina University Arena
RESULTS
10/10 Prince George, British Columbia (WWF - 3,707): Crush b Bob Holly,
Stalker b Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Jake Roberts b
Giant Titan (Rick Bogner), Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith won four-team elimination
match over Smoking Gunns, Godwinns and Grimm Twins to retain WWF tag titles,
Savio Vega b Faarooq-DQ, IC title: Marc Mero b Goldust, Sid b Vader, Undertaker b
Mankind
10/12 Tacoma, WA (WWF - 4,509): Stalker b Justin Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Savio
Vega, Grimm Twins b Smoking Gunns, Crush b Jake Roberts, Undertaker b Mankind, IC
title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy
Smith b Godwinns, Sid b Vader, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
10/12 Modesto, CA (All Pro Wrestling - 1,078): Moondog Moretti b Frank Dalton,
Robert Thompson b Steve Rizzono, Michael Modest b Ric Thompson, Mike Diamond b
Joe Applebaumer, Robert Thompson b Morretti, Modest b Diamond-forfeit, Super
Diablo b Donovan Morgan, Erin O'Grady b Chris Cole, Thompson b Modest to become
PWC hwt champ, Diablo b O'Grady to become PWC jr. hwt camp
10/14 Yokkaichi (New Japan - 3,700): Akitoshi Saito b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, El
Samurai & Norio Honaga b Yutaka Yoshie & Shinjiro Otani, Michiyoshi Ohara &
Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura b Tadao Yasuda & Yuji Nagata & Osamu Nishimura,
Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Kuniaki Kobayashi & Akira Nogami, Osamu Kido &
Junji Hirata b Steve Regal & David Taylor, Jushin Liger & Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b
Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki b
Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Tatsumi
Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka
10/14 Numazu (All Japan - 3,350 sellout): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru, Yoshinari Ogawa b Masao Inoue, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Dory
Funk & Takao Omori, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Gary Albright &
Tamon Honda, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace & Dan Kroffat b Stan Hansen & Bobby
Duncum Jr. & Rob Van Dam, Maunukea Mossman & The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako
10/14 Isezaki (FMW): Ricky Fuji & Toryu b Hideo Makimura & Mamoru Okamoto,
Rie & Kaori Nakayama b Crusher Maedomari & Miwa Sato, Masato Tanaka & Koji
Nakagawa b Gosaku Goshogawara & Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol,
Hideki Hosaka & Taka Michinoku b Hayabusa & Hayato Nanjyo, The Gladiator b
Katsutoshi Niiyama, Hisakatsu Oya & Super Leather b Wing Kanemura & Jason the
Terrible
10/15 Hamamatsu (New Japan - 3,350): Michiyoshi Ohara b Shinjiro Otani,
Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Osamu Kido b Akitoshi Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto, Jushin Liger & El
Samurai b Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b
Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura b Yuji Nagata
& Junji Hirata, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki,
Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Steve Regal & David Taylor, Tadao Yasuda & Kensuke Sasaki
& Riki Choshu b Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
10/15 Kasumigaora (All Japan - 2,100): Rob Van Dam b Maunukea Mossman,
Dory Funk & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Masao Inoue & Mighty Inoue, Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Jun Izumida & Masa Fuchi, Takao Omori
& Jun Akiyama b Tamon Honda & Kentaro Shiga, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Giant
Kimala II & The Patriot, Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. b Gary Albright & Dan
Kroffat, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta
Kobashi & Satoru Asako
10/15 Utsunomiya (FMW): Hideo Makimura b Mamoru Okamoto, Jason the
Terrible b Toryu, Hayato Nanjyo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Gosaku Goshogawara & Masato
Tanaka, Kaori Nakayama & Rie & Megumi Kudo b Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher
Maedomari & Miss Mongol, Hayabusa & Koji Nakagawa b Ricky Fuji & Taka Michinoku,
Super Leather b Katsutoshi Niiyama, No rope barbed wire street fight tornado death
match: The Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya b Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura
10/16 Anderson, SC (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 2,300/2,000 paid): Joe
Gomez b Sonny Trout, Dick Slater b Scott Armstrong, Diamond Dallas Page b Scotty
Riggs, Dean Malenko b Alex Wright, Jeff Jarrett b Steve Armstrong, Meng & Barbarian b
Bunkhouse Buck & Mike Enos, Lex Luger b Mark Starr, Ron Studd b Chavo Guerrero
Jr., Chris Benoit b Craig Pittman, Chris Jericho b Marcus Bagwell, Luger b Roadblock
10/16 Atsugi (New Japan - 2,300): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Yutaka Yoshie, Hiro Saito b
Shinjiro Otani, Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi & Shiro Koshinaka b El Samurai &
Norio Honaga & Jushin Liger, Steve Regal & David Taylor b Akira Nogami & Michiyoshi
Ohara, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Yuji Nagata & Junji Hirata, Tatsumi
Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura b Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono, Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Riki
Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki
10/16 Koga (FMW): Gosaku Goshogawara b Mamoru Okamoto, Kaori Nakayama b
Miwa Sato, Toryu & Ricky Fuji b Hideo Makimura & Koji Nakagawa, Crusher
Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Megumi Kudo & Rie, Taka Michinoku & Wing
Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka b Hayato Nanjyo & Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa, The
Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Street fight:
Super Leather b Jason the Terrible
10/16 Uozu (All Japan women): Saya Endo b Nana Takahashi, Yumi Fukawa b
Momoe Nakanishi, Reggie Bennett & Etsuko Mita b Chaparita Asari & Yoshiko Tamura,
Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae b Yumiko Hotta & Yuka Shiina, Takako Inoue b Rie Tamada,
Mima Shimoda & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota & Mariko
Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
10/17 Niigata (New Japan - 3,500 sellout): Hiro Saito b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Osamu
Nishimura b Yuji Nagata, Tadao Yasuda & Takashi Iizuka b Steve Regal & David Taylor,
El Samurai & Norio Honaga & Jushin Liger b Akitoshi Saito & Akira Nogami & Kuniaki
Kobayashi, Kazuo Yamazaki b Shinjiro Otani, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b
Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka b Osamu Kido &
Kensuke Sasaki, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Riki Choshu & Junji Hirata,
Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto
10/17 Toyama (All Japan women): Yoshiko Tamura b Fujii, Yuka Shiina d Momoe
Nakanishi, Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe b Yumi Fukawa & Takako Inoue,
Kyoko Inoue & Genki Misae b Saya Endo & Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda b Mariko
Yoshida, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & Chaparita Asari b Yumiko Hotta & Reggie
Bennett & Rie Tamada
10/18 Tokyo Budokan Hall (All Japan - 14,000): Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako b
Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yoshinari Ogawa 11:05, Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue & Haruka
Eigen b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura 10:39, Giant Kimala II &
Jun Izumida b Dan Kroffat & Rob Van Dam 9:21, Johnny Ace & Maunukea Mossman &
Bobby Duncum Jr. b Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda & Takao Omori 10:59, Stan Hansen
& Steve Williams b Gary Albright & The Patriot 16:29, Dory Funk & Giant Baba & Akira
Taue b Jumbo Tsuruta & Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama 15:36, Triple Crown: Kenta
Kobashi d Toshiaki Kawada 60:00
10/18 Minneapolis Target Center (WCW - 7,700): J.L. b Chris Jericho-DQ, Six
DCOR Jericho, Meng & Barbarian b High Voltage, Eddie Guerrero b Diamond Dallas
Page, Madusa b Leilani Kai, Chris Benoit & Arn Anderson b Nasty Boys, WCW tag titles:
Harlem Heat NC Scott Hall & Kevin Nash, Randy Savage won triangular match over
Sting & Giant who were both counted out
10/18 Shigehara (New Japan - 2,000): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Yutaka Yoshie, El
Samurai b Norio Honaga, Yuji Nagata b Shinjiro Otani, Hiro Saito b Osamu Nishimura,
Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Steve Regal & David Taylor, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Akitoshi Saito & Akira Nogami, Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto &
Kengo Kimura b Jushin Liger & Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto, Scott Norton & Shinya
Hashimoto & Junji Hirata b Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki & Tadao Yasuda, Tatsumi
Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan
10/18 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 525): ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Mikey
Whipwreck, Taz b Road Kill, Hack Myers & Louie Spicolli b Bad Crew, New Jack b Axl
Rotten, Eliminators b Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley, Doug Furnas b Devon Storm, Pit
Bull #2 b Sammy Silk (Samula Anoia), Sabu b Too Cold Scorpio, Cage match: Tommy
Dreamer b Brian Lee, Cage match for ECW title: Sandman b Stevie Richards
10/18 Mexico City Juan de la Barrera Gym (AAA): Gran Apaches I & II b
Marabunta & Angel Mortal, Espectritos I & II & Mini Killer b Super Munequito &
Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & La Parkita, Elimination match: Quarterback & Kraken & Mr.
Condor & Picudo & Mosco de la Merced b Frisbee & Discovery & Ludxor & Venum &
Boomerang, Super Muneco & Los Payasos b Los Villanos & Pierroth Jr., Juventud
Guerrera & Heavy Metal & Histeria (Super Crazy) b Octagon & Latin Lover & La Parka
10/18 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Alacran & Ultraman Jr. & Olimpus b
Reyes Veloz & Mogur & Astro Rey Jr., Head Hunters & Miguel Perez b Dos Caras &
Lizmark & Atlantis, Hair vs. hair: ***** Casas b Bestia Salvaje
10/18 Tijuana, Nortecalifornia (AAA - 3,000): La Sirenita & American Lady
(Victoria Moreno) b Shitara & Natasha (Barbara Blaze), El Hijo del Enfermero &
Genghis Khan & Sueno Chicano b Firebird & Sombra & ?, Psicosis & Fobia b Leon *****
& Jungla, Tony Arce & Vulcano & Rocco Valente b Los Pandilleros I & II & III, Konnan &
Tinieblas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Rey Misterio Jr. b Killer & Cibernetico & Misterioso &
Damian-DQ, Mask vs. mask: Halloween b Thunderbird
10/18 Sendai (Michinoku Pro - 1,000 festival show): Tiger Mask b Yoshito
Sugamoto, Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Gran Naniwa, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b
Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa
10/18 Toyama (All Japan women): Yumi Fukawa b Fujii, Momoe Nakanishi b Nana
Takahashi, Reggie Bennett & Rie Tamada & Yoshiko Tamura b Etsuko Mita & Kumiko
Maekawa & Saya Endo, Toshiyo Yamada b Genki Misae, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari
b Yumiko Hotta & Yuka Shiina, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Mima
Shimoda & Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
10/19 Bensalem, PA (ECW - 325): Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley & Hack Myers b
J.T. Smith & Axl Rotten & D-Von Dudley, Taz b Road Kill, New Jack b John Kronus,
Perry Saturn b Mikey Whipwreck, Brian Lee b Pit Bull #2 , ECW TV title: Shane Douglas
NC Tommy Dreamer, Too Cold Scorpio b Sabu, ECW title: Sandman b Stevie Richards
10/19 Ito (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hayato Nanjyo b Hideo Makimura & Mamoru
Okamoto, Jason the Terrible b Toryu, Megumi Kudo & Rie (Bad Nurse Nakamura) &
Kaori Nakayama b Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari & Miss Mongol (Aki
Kanbayashi), Hisakatsu Oya & Super Leather (Mike Kirchner) b Gosaku Goshogawara &
Katsutoshi Niiyama, The Gladiator (Mike Alfonso) b Ricky Fuji, Hayabusa & Masato
Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa b Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka & Taka Michinoku,
Nanjyo won Battle Royal
10/19 Itoigawa (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Fujii, Saya Endo b Nana
Takahashi, Mima Shimoda & Chaparita Asari & Yumi Fukawa b Yoshiko Tamura & Yuka
Shiina & Kumiko Maekawa, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae,
Manami Toyota b Rie Tamada, Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue b
Yumiko Hotta & Reggie Bennett & Tomoko Watanabe
10/19 Ichinoseki (Michinoku Pro - 401): Shoichi Funaki b Axe Thunder Otsuka,
Tiger Mask & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Gran Naniwa & Super Yone (Yone Genjin), Super
Delfin b Satoshi Yoneyama, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu b Great Sasuke & Gran
Hamada & Masato Yakushiji, Jinsei Shinzaki b Naohiro Hoshikawa
10/19 Humacao, PR (World Wrestling Council): Skull Von Crush b Farmer Sam,
Shawn Morley d Rey Gonzalez, Chief Black Feather b Pablo Marques (ECW El Puerto
Ricano), La Ley b D-Lo Brown, WWC tag titles: Texas Hangmen b Ricky Santana & Jim
Steele, Universal title: Hurricane Castillo Jr. b Carlos Colon to win title
10/19 New Rochelle, NY (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Glenn Osbourne
& Chuck Williams b Private Pain & Corporal Punishment, Head Bangers b Osbourne &
Williams, Little Louie b King Sleazy, Boo Bradley b Jimmy Cicero, Nikolai Volkoff b
Doink the Clown, Steve Corino b Hard Rock Kid, Tony Atlas b Iron Sheik, Booty Man b
Big Slam Vader, Jason Knight & Axl Rotten b Flash & Mark Schrader
10/19 New Britain, CT (International Pro Wrestling - 100): Punisher (not Barry
Buchanan) b Juan King, Ali Amin b Matthew Storm, Rocky Shore & Danny Justice b
Guillotine LeGrand & TNT (not original obviously), Brick Bronsky b Frank Stalleto,
Reckless Youth b Dave Keller, Bronsky won Battle Royal, 911 b Amin
10/19 Greensboro, NC (Alternative Championship Wrestling - 125): Denny
Cooley b Frank Parker, Dream Warrior II DCOR Grave Digger, Ron Studd & Billy
Simmons b Mr. Excellent & Pat Friday, Studd b Scorpion, Hair vs. hair: Jimmy Valiant b
Shaska Whatley (Pez Whatley), Ricky Morton b Rick Link
10/20 Kobe (New Japan - 6,800): El Samurai b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Tadao Yasuda &
Shinjiro Otani b Akitoshi Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto, Osamu Nishimura & Yuji Nagata b
Steve Regal & David Taylor, Rick Steiner & Junji Hirata b Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono,
Osamu Kido & Tatsumi Fujinami b Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura, Kazuo
Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Akira Nogami & Shiro Koshinaka, Manabu Nakanishi b
Michiyoshi Ohara, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Satoshi Kojima, Great Muta (Keiji Muto) b
Jushin Liger, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki b Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton
10/20 Phoenix, AZ (AAA): Suicide Kid b Jerry the Crusher, Lady Victoria won
triangular match over Natasha & Shitara, Super Muneco & Fobia b Pandillero I & Killer,
Misterioso & Leon ***** b Damian & Halloween, Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. b Juventud
Guerrera & Psicosis, Mil Mascaras b KGB
10/20 Tokyo (IWA - 250): Katsumi Hirano b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa & Tudor
the Turtle b Kadota & Akinori Tsukioka, Takeshi Sato & Pirata Morgan Jr. b Mr. Niebla
& Flying Kid Ichihara, Tommy Rich & Keizo Matsuda b Ryo Myake & Mr. Gannosuke,
Keisuke Yamada & Leatherface b Dr. Luther & Freddy Kruger, Tarzan Goto b Hiroshi
Itakura
10/20 Mikuni (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Fujii, Yoshiko Tamura b Yumi
Fukawa, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi b Rie Tamada &
Genki Misae & Yuka Shiina, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Toshiyo Yamada & Saya
Endo, Takako Inoue b Kaoru Ito, Manami Toyota & Reggie Bennett & Mariko Yoshida b
Yumiko Hotta & Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita
10/21 Fort Wayne, IN (WWF Monday Night Raw tapings - 4,555): Freddy Joe
Floyd b Mike Diamond, Shawn Michaels b Davey Boy Smith-DQ, Jesse James b
Salvatore Sincere, Crush b Aldo Montoya, Sid b Owen Hart-DQ, Godwinns b Smoking
Gunns, IC title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Marc Mero to win title, Flash Funk (Too Cold
Scorpio) b Leif Cassidy, Steve Austin b Bob Holly, Mankind b Floyd, Sultan b Alex
Porteau, Razor Ramon b Mero, Billy Gunn b Floyd, Lumberjack match: Goldust DDQ
Barry Windham, WWF tag titles: Hart & Smith b Michaels & Sid, James & Mero &
Undertaker b Goldust & Mankind & Austin
10/21 Mankato, MN (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 4,034): Eddie Guerrero b
High Voltage Rage, Chris Jericho b Bobby Eaton **, Dean Malenko b Jimmy Graffiti
(Jimmy Del Rey aka Jim Richland) **3/4, Diamond Dallas Page b Craig Pittman 1/2*,
Jeff Jarrett b Ron Studd DUD, Lex Luger b Roadblock DUD, Harlem Heat b American
Males *, Meng & Barbarian b Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers *, Imposter Sting NC J.L.
DUD
Special thanks to: Chuck Hines, Dan Parris, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Rich Palladino,
Scott Hudson, Frank Mott, Bart Orkline, John Williams, Coach Kurt Schneider, Brian
Smith, Gary Graham, Dan Curtis, Timothy Walker, Jon Elias, Jesse Money, Roland
Alexander, Dominick Valenti, Eric Dahlberg
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
10/5 NEW JAPAN: 1. Sasaki beat Flair in 9:37 with the Power special. Flair got pops
for his trademark bumps, the flip into the buckle and the face first bump along with his
begging. Overall it wasn't a good match. It appeared Sasaki's ipponzei (judo hip toss)
was the move that tore Flair's rotator cuff as he appeared to almost pull the arm out of
the socket doing the throw just before the finish. 3/4*; 2. Norton pinned Tenzan in 4:59
with a powerslam. Only the finish aired. Norton's shoulder was already injured by the
time the match was joined and he was obviously in major pain. It was pretty clear they
went home early because Norton was hurt; 3. Koshinaka pinned Sting in 9:37 with a
sunset flip out of the corner. Only the finish aired. It looked average, but at least it was
better than the two previous matches; 4. Hashimoto pinned Regal after a DDT in 16:16.
This was a very good hard-fought match. Regal punished Hashimoto with hard palm
blows. Hashimoto came back with his stiff kicks. At one point Regal reversed
Hashimoto's DDT in his Royal stretch, which is similar to an STF except instead of a step
over toe hold, it's a deathlock and crossface combination. Regal kicked out of a DDT and
a brainbuster before the second DDT did the trick. These four matches were the
quarterfinals of the New Japan/WCW tournament. ***1/2; 5. Liger pinned Pegasus in
18:31 after three Liger-bombs. Finish was anti-climactic. Most of what aired was good,
but it was nowhere close to the calibre of what you'd expect from these two. This was
Liger's first match back after the brain surgery. ***; 6. Muto made Pedro Otarvio tap out
from punch after punch from the mount in a worked shoot style match in 6:06. The
match was pretty intense until the bell rang. Otarvio had no clue once the match started
and there was little heat. Muto was good but had nothing to work with. Otarvio also
tapped out early as they had more spots to do. DUD
10/6 ALL JAPAN WOMEN: 1. Takako Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe & Yumi Fukawa
beat Chaparita Asari & Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada. This match was edited down
from 17:12 to 9:30 on television. Based on the edited version, this was a good match with
lots of near falls at the end. Finish saw Watanabe pin Mita after three screwdrivers,
which is a cross between a back suplex and a uranage. Everyone looked good except
Fukawa, who is as small as Asari and was basically a non-entity. ***1/4; 2. Kyoko Inoue
made Yoshiko Tamura submit to a half crab in 1:53. Tamura whipped Kyoko in the
guard rail about a half-dozen times before the match even started. *1/4; 3. Aja Kong &
Rie Tamada beat Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa. This match was edited down from
24:01 to 14:45. Very good match. Tamada, who is very small as are most of the new
women, looked good. Kong and Hotta worked pretty stiff, but not unusually stiff. Kong
pinned Hotta after a brainbuster. ***1/2; 4. Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda retained
the WWWA tag titles beating Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida in 2/3 falls. This match went
31:00 and was edited down on television to 25:30. If this same match had been held at
Korakuen Hall with a hotter crowd instead of in an outlying arena, it would have been a
strong match of the year candidate. As it was, it was one of the best matches this year,
never slowing down at all, with lots of great moves and near falls. Ito and Yoshida did a
simultaneous handspring elbow on their foes at the bell. Toyota did all her usual spots
including a springboard plancha in the first fall. Ito & Yoshida put Toyota on a table
outside the ring and Yoshida did a plancha off the top rope onto her on the table, but
they use the tables that don't break in AJW. Then Ito did the double foot stomp off the
top rope onto Toyota who was on the table that didn't give. In the ring, they gave Toyota
a double super fisherman buster before Ito pinned her with a super fisherman buster.
Second fall was quick with Shimoda pinning Yoshida with a Tiger superplex. Third fall
was awesome with great near falls back-and-forth. Among the highlights were Ito &
Yoshida doing a double head-butt off the top on Shimoda. Shimoda used a tope and
Toyota followed it with a springboard somersault plancha to the floor. Toyota &
Shimoda did a double missile kick (dropkick off the top rope) on Ito. Ito & Yoshida came
back with a Santo/Octagon double tope and Yoshida followed it with a running plancha
off the top to the floor but ended up hitting her partner. Shimoda got near falls on both
with La Magistral, a move which is over right now so it got big pops. They did lots of
near falls before finally they did a new double-team maneuver where Toyota used a
Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex on Yoshida in combination with Shimoda coming off the
top rope with a cross body. ****1/2
10/12 NEW JAPAN: 1. Chono & Tenzan retained the IWGP tag titles beating Yamazaki
& Iizuka in 18:06 when Chono pinned Iizuka after a Yakuza kick. About half the match
aired on television. Match was a little less than you'd expect from these four but the
finish was strong. ***1/4; 2. Koshinaka pinned Hashimoto in 10:56 to go to the New
Japan/WCW tournament finals. Hashimoto dared Koshinaka to attack his knee to show
it was no longer injured. Started slow and turned into a typical strong New Japan match
with the near falls. The new spot was Koshinaka using a flying butt bump and
Hashimoto fell into the ropes and collapsed, "injuring" himself on the fall and selling it
big, allowing Koshinaka to use a second butt bump for the pin. Since it was a new spot,
the fans didn't really get it but it was more of an education spot that will be over in the
future. ***1/4; 3. Sasaki pinned Koshinaka after a series of lariats to win the
tournament. Pretty simple basic but good match. ***1/4
EMLL
***** Casas beat Bestia Salvaje in a hair vs. hair match to headline the 10/18 show at
Arena Mexico.
On 10/15 at Arena Coliseo in Mexico City, Black Warrior captured the NWA light
heavyweight title from Dandy using a german suplex as the finisher. On that show,
Hector Garza returned to Mexico City and started a feud with Emilio Charles Jr.
They continued the Atlantis & Lizmark program against the Head Hunters on 10/18, this
time Hunters & Miguel Perez beat the tag champs who paired with Dos Caras.
Jushin Liger is headed in from 11/10 to 11/19.
UWA apparently has gotten a television contract with ESPN International with the first
taping on 10/20 in Naucalpan headlined by Canek & Ultimo Dragon & Oriental vs.
Scorpio & Ultimo Vampiro & Dr. Cerebro in a cage match.
Reports are that Mano Negra Jr., who is the 16-year-old son of Mano Negra, is even
better than either Perro Aguayo Jr. or Juventud Guerrera were when they were the same
age (and better than Aguayo Jr. is right now) so he's apparently a future superstar.
Televisa is still trying to get AAA and EMLL to work together on two combined shows as
television specials, but both promotions don't want to do so and are working at making
surely the concept fails.
AAA
They had a hot show on 10/18 at Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City with a wild
main event as Juventud Guerrera & Heavy Metal & Histeria (formerly Super Crazy,
doing a ring style and wearing a costume similar to Psicosis) beat Octagon & La Parka &
Heavy Metal. At one point Parka power bombed Guerrera threw two chairs. Histeria
subbed for Fuerza Guerrera, who no-showed what was supposed to be his debut. Super
Muneco & Los Payasos beat Los Villanos & Pierroth Jr. in a non-title match to set up a
match for the National relevos (four man team) titles.
The Saturday night show which had been off satellite for several months is back on at
8:30 p.m. Eastern time.
Cien Caras was still booked for a television taping on 10/19 in Acapulco.
Rey Misterio Jr. and Psicosis were double booked on 10/20 for both Phoenix, AZ and
Monterrey in Mexico. They worked the Phoenix show. No word on how the show drew
but Mil Mascaras was brought in and beat KGB in the main event.
The final AAA show in Tijuana promoted by Konnan was 10/18 before 3,000 fans with
Halloween beating Thunderbird amidst tons of near falls, flying moves, dives and
outside interference in an incredibly bloody match. At one point a guy in a Blue Demon
Jr. mask ran in but attacked babyface Thunderbird and was unmasked as Damian.
Thunderbird ended up removing his mask after losing when Psicosis low blowed him
behind the refs back and the crowd nearly rioted at the finish. The show was said to have
super heat, tons of blood and was mainly ECW style but without the gimmicks.
Halloween, Thunderbird, Rey Misterio Jr., Vulcano and Pandillero I all bled Muto-Hase
like puddles.
ALL JAPAN
Kenta Kobashi retained the Triple Crown going to a 60:00 draw with Toshiaki Kawada
to headline the 10/18 24th anniversary show at Budokan Hall that drew an estimated
14,000 (of course announced as a sellout 16,300). Reports we received were that it was a
fantastic match. It was the first 60:00 draw in a singles Budokan main event in so long
that nobody can even remember the last time. Kobashi and Kawada had done the only
60:00 draw in a Triple Crown title match in January 1995 in Osaka which was probably
the single best 60:00 draw match I've ever seen. After the match Kobashi talked about
defending the title against Steve Williams and Mitsuharu Misawa and also talked about
wrestling top names from other organizations. The show went live head-to-head with a
K-1 show on national network television that had captured the fancy of the entire
country with the return of Masaake Satake after being out a year-and-a-half with an
injury to the point it had more interest among wrestling fans than even a major
wrestling show (the special itself drew a 15.6 rating while the Satake-Andy Hug main
event, which Hug won despite fighting with a broken arm and with rumors flying of a
worked finish for Satake to be put over and there may be more to that story but I want to
see a tape of it first, did a 27.5 rating). They had two other special matches on the show,
a six-man match where Dory Funk & Giant Baba & Akira Taue beat Jumbo Tsuruta &
Misawa & Jun Akiyama in 15:36 when Taue pinned Tsuruta after a choke slam, which
would be the first time they've asked Tsuruta to do the job since he returned as basically
an exhibition performer after hepatitis ended his career as a serious wrestler, and
Williams & Stan Hansen formed a rare tag team beating The Patriot & Gary Albright
when Hansen lariated Patriot in 16:29.
The TV show this past weekend, which normally would have aired the Kawada-Kobashi
match, was pre-empted due to network coverage of the election so that match will air
this coming weekend, or perhaps be broken up into airing over two weeks.
Dan Kroffat, in his final week with the company, was pinned by Bobby Duncum Jr. in a
tag match on 10/15 in Kasumigaora.
There was a meeting on 10/16 between Baba and Seiji Sakaguchi for one hour about the
situation with Hiroshi Hase. Baba claimed at the meeting that he had never met with
Hase nor had he made a decision about letting Hase into All Japan. Hase had of course
already announced he was going to All Japan in 1997 and had met with Baba twice to
finalize the deal. Apparently Sakaguchi told the press after the meeting that the two had
no plans for a follow-up meeting.
NEW JAPAN
Tag team tournament standings as of 10/20: Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto 3-0; Riki Choshu
& Kensuke Sasaki 2-1; Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto 2-2; Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka 1-1; Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan 1-2; Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka 1-2; Steve Regal & David Taylor 1-2; and Satoshi Kojima & Manabu
Nakanishi 1-2.
The final tour of the year will be 11/20 to 12/10 with The Road Warriors, Brad
Armstrong, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Bobby Walker. That WCW deal sure sends them the
biggest stars in the world.
The major show of the week was on 10/20 in Kobe before 6,800 with Choshu & Sasaki
beating Hashimoto & Norton when Sasaki pinned Norton in 9:40 with a lariat. In
addition, they had a singles match with Great Muta vs. Jushin Liger and did a lot of
gimmicks. Muta ripped off Liger's mask, and Liger had Muta-like white face paint
underneath covering his face. Liger then got a knife and cut off his ring costume top and
revealed his body covered with body paint as well. At one point Liger blew green mist in
Muta's eyes as well. The match ended up really wild with Muta blowing red mist in
Liger's eyes and beating him with a moonsault in 17:35.
In the other key tournament matches this week, on 10/18, Fujinami & Koshinaka beat
Chono & Tenzan when Koshinaka power bombed Tenzan in 11:56; 10/17 in Niigata had
Steiner & Muto beating Norton & Hashimoto when Muto pinned Hashimoto after a
Frankensteiner in 13:56; Steiner & Muto beat Choshu & Sasaki on 10/16 when Steiner
pinned Sasaki with a front suplex and 10/14 in Yokkaichi saw Norton & Hashimoto beat
Fujinami & Koshinaka when Norton pinned Koshinaka.
Liger needs to have a follow-up brain operation which he's going to get done on 11/7 but
it's nothing serious as he should be back in the ring within three days.
Kazuyuki Fujita, a top calibre freestyle wrestler, makes his pro debut on 11/1 in
Hiroshima against Yuji Nagata, who was also a national-class freestyle wrestler before
joining New Japan. Fujita had been working with New Japan before the Olympics as
New Japan wanted to have someone in its stable place in the Olympics (similar deal to
WWF with Mark Henry). However, Fujita, who wrestles at 220, lost in the Olympic
trials. He was a high school national champion and won two collegiate national
championships at Nihon College.
Even though they scored a win over Fujinami & Koshinaka, Regal & Taylor have been
buried since that time losing non-tourney matches to the likes of Osamu Nishimura &
Yuji Nagata (with Nishimura even pinning Regal) and to Iizuka & Tadao Yasuda.
9/28 TV show did a 1.9 rating while 10/5 did a 3.6 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
There will be a shoot or combination shoot and worked show on 12/15 at the Fukuoka
Dome. We only have sketchy reports on the show, but a press conference is scheduled to
officially announce the show on 10/28. The expectation is that Antonio Inoki will work a
shoot on that card as the main draw, and that they will have a rematch with Keiji Muto
vs. Pedro Otarvio. As bad as their match turned out, it did draw a huge house and a big
television rating. Obviously for a show at that size of a place, some huge names will be
needed to draw.
Michinoku Pro has its annual tag team tournament from 10/30 to 11/10 with Great
Sasuke & Kato Kung Lee, Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo, Dick Togo & Shiryu, Taka
Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki, Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa and Tiger Mask &
Gran Naniwa.
Gaea is running a tour of Singapore and will be holding a match to crown its first
champions which will be called AAAW champions. The singles title will be decided
between Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami and the tag team title with Sugar Sato &
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura. Akira Hokuto will also work on
that tour. I suspect that Nagayo will win and defend the title in WCW in mid-November
against Madusa.
Yoji Anjoh has signed to do the U Japan show on 11/17 facing Juan Alvarez of Brazil. No
opponent has been decided on yet for Dan Severn on that show.
After seeing the tape, the Kimo vs. Yoshihiro Takayama match on the August UWFI
stadium show was a shoot, and a brutal one at that. On the last RINGS show (9/25),
Kiyoshi Tamura and Volk Han put on a great worked shoot style match with Han going
over. Takada-Anjoh was a disappointing main event for such a major show, but Takada-
Tenryu was very good, basically about what you'd think it would be given the two. Saw
the 9/7 Pancrase as well, which is the show that airs 11/3 on PPV in the United States.
Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki and Frank Shamrock vs. Yuki Kondo are both
incredible matches. To me they were two of the three best shoot matches of the year
(Don Frye vs. Amoury Bitetti in the Detroit UFC being the other) and I'm someone who
prefers the ground skill above the striking and these were both mainly standing brawls.
Those who have seen every Pancrase show rated it as the best Pancrase show in history.
Hiromichi Fuyuki's final show with WAR will be 11/2 so all the talk about his leaving
hasn't been an angle, it's just been waiting for his contract to expire. There is a working
relationship with Big Japan opening up as Shoji Nakamaki and a mystery partner
(rumored to be President Shinya Kojika) will wrestle Gedo & Jado on 10/28 at Korakuen
Hall. With Fuyuki leaving, expect the six man titles to change hands as Fuyuki & Bam
Bam Bigelow & Yoji Anjoh defend against Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya & Ultimo
Dragon.
USWA
The big angle of the week was the return of Randy Hales doing a Jim Ross gimmick.
Hales, who quit the promotion five weeks ago, was brought back as booker and General
Manager as a surprise as nobody except Jerry Lawler and announcer Dave Brown were
told about it before the live television show. Hales came out wearing blue jeans and a
ragged t-shirt (he's always been in a suit-and-tie on television) and hadn't shaved in
about a week. He gave the basic Ross interview, saying that ever since he was ten he
wanted to be in wrestling, that everyone he knew laughed at him all his life but he fooled
all of them because he worked harder than anyone else in wrestling and was smarter. He
said that since he was running there company, the USWA was the only wrestling
promotion in the United States to have made a profit over the past three years and that
the live show in Memphis is the highest rated wrestling show in the United States (both
statements are technically true). He then said it's all been because of him. He said the
owner of the company has a BMW and a Mercedes and a big house in Hendersonville,
TN and that the owners have all these things because of the money he made for them.
He brought up how Eddie Marlin hasn't been around, and Dave Brown brought up about
the health problems (Marlin's wife has been ill) and said Marlin got old, fat and lazy and
he and his wife sit on their couch all day and do nothing but eat and sleep and spend
more on groceries each week than the promotion was paying him. He said that if you're
last name isn't Jarrett or Marlin, they don't care if you eat or not. He mentioned how he
was paid so poorly that he was evicted from his apartment and his car was repossessed
(also true) and then showed his empty wallet to Cory Maclin (who was freaking out
about this time because he wasn't in on it). He said that since he quit, the talent in the
company has been horrible and the television has been terrible (also basically true).
Finally they brought security to take him away and he said, what are they going to do, hit
me? He then started hitting himself. Finally Jerry Lawler dragged him away. Later in the
show, Wolfie D, who was Hales' best friend in the company, and I guess by this point
had been clued in to the angle, came out and said how Hales was a great guy and how
when his daughter turned one, Hales was the only person in wrestling to give her a
birthday present. Lawler then started talking about who cares about this and he and D
started arguing with D defending Hales. Hales came out and said D wasn't his friend,
they D was only nice to him because he was the boss and would drive him around in his
Cadillac and that he made Wolfie D and without him, Wolfie D would be some kid still in
the hood. Brian Christopher, who is both teaming and feuding with D, came out and
agreed with Hales, and then Hales told Christopher that he was a bigger idiot than
Wolfie and started complaining about how Christopher would always show up late for
work. Apparently from a storyline standpoint, the angle is going to be that Hales will
manage Lawler as a heel, but in reality he and Jarrett have worked out their problems.
The other noteworthy item on the TV is that Lawler hasn't given up when it comes to the
WCW show last week in Memphis. Lawler interviewed some fans in the crowd that had
attended the WCW show. Lawler said that he tried to tell everyone what WCW was about
but nobody would listen to him. He brought up how Tony Schiavone said it was the
biggest crowd ever at the Coliseum. The fan estimated the crowd at 6,000 so Lawler
brought up that Schiavone lied. He asked another fan about the signs pro-Lawler
brought to the show and the fan said all the signs were confiscated at the door and
another fan said they wouldn't let him in with a crown (although they eventually did let
him in with the crown after he complained). Another fan said that the matches were very
disappointing because the top names like Hogan, Savage, Flair, Nash and Hall didn't
wrestle and Lawler said WCW stands for "We Can't Wrestle." He then said that everyone
with a ticket stub from the Nitro show could attend his show at the Flea Market on
10/21.
Doug Gilbert was fired before he went on this IWA tour, which puts him in a bad
situation since IWA is folding this week.
Christopher & D worked as a tag team but kept pulling the other off as they went to
make the pin as each wanted to make the pin to prove they were the better man on the
team and they ended up brawling with each other until the faces pulled them off.
They did an angle where Johnny Rotten came out with Sid Vicious and Sid claimed that
Rotten was actually his younger brother (that isn't true and that since he's busy with the
WWF that Rotten would take care of USWA business.
10/21 show was Steven Dunn vs. Denny Cooley, Super Mario vs. Tony Falk, Mike
Samples & Trailer Park Trash vs. Sean Venom & Bart Sawyer, Bill & Jamie Dundee vs.
Christopher & D for the held up USWA tag titles with Jimmy Valiant as referee,
Colorado Kid vs. Sir Mo for the Unified title, Christopher vs. D and a Battle Royal.
There is some talk of Mike Samples Circle City Wrestling group in Indianapolis getting
on local television with a combined TV show with USWA.
ECW
House shows this week drew an estimated 525 on 10/18 in Plymouth Meeting, PA and
and an estimated 325 on 10/19 in Bensalem, PA. Sandman beat Stevie Richards in the
main event both nights in title matches while Sabu split two matches with Too Cold
Scorpio. Sabu losing the second night is something of a surprise since Scorpio started
two nights later with the WWF.
Devon Storm was jawing with a fan the first night when the fan hit him across the eye
with his cane and split Storm's eye open and he had to be hospitalized and missed the
next night.
A fan on the second night was jawing with Taz and Taz shoved the fan backwards, but
then got on the house mic and said that he respected the fan because he wasn't a pussy
like Sabu.
New Jack worked singles matches both nights because Mustafa wasn't booked this
weekend.
A correction from last week. Perry Saturn suffered a concussion in the match with Sabu
on 10/12, but didn't collapse in the dressing room. According to Saturn, he was just a
little light headed from the concussion after the match and would have been able to work
the next night if there had been a show. Sabu also ended up with a kidney injury from
the same match as he gave Saturn a twisting DDT outside the ring through a table taking
the bump on his kidneys but also didn't miss any matches.
The legit attendance and gross from the Middletown, NY show a few weeks back was 742
paid and $13,645. Really. I know nobody there will believe it, but that's the real number.
HERE AND THERE
Add Cal Worsham and probably but not definitely Brian Johnston to the previous list
(Ken Shamrock, Mark Coleman, Tank Abbott, Gary Goodridge, Don Frye) in Ultimate
Ultimate on 12/7. There is one spot remaining and supposedly they are hoping for a
surprise big name for the last spot and once that deal is or isn't made, expect the
bracketing to be finalized by early next week. Abbott is expected to enter the tourney at
275 pounds, or down about 23 pounds from his weight at the previous show. UFC is very
interested in Victor Belfort Gracie (who will be billed as Victor Belfort most likely), who
beat John Hess in 14 seconds in Hawaii, for 1997. The plan, not etched in stone, is to reintroduce
the superfight at the February 1997 PPV with Dan Severn returning to face
whomever wins the next tournament. There are proposals out there for another format
change, one idea thrown out has been to do four-man tournaments instead of eight
mans, thus eliminating the first round and using four name fighters, and then doing a
few superfights as well. With superfights, it's easier to compete with the other groups at
getting the top fighters since the guys who have made names for the most part don't
want to fight three times on one show when they can make a good guarantee fighting
once for a rival group.
NWA promoter Dennis Coraluzzo's Excalibur Promotions was barred from being
involved in outside fund raisers as the Division of Consumer Affairs in New Jersey got a
temporary restraining order against Edward Miller's companies. The Division claimed
both companies solicited funds on behalf of Make-a-wish and Sunshine foundations
without their permissions as part of telemarketing campaigns without permission of the
charities. The lawsuit was scheduled to be heard this week. The TRO doesn't have
anything to do with Coraluzzo's pro wrestling promotions nor is Coraluzzo banned from
promoting fund raising pro wrestling shows. Coraluzzo said that he expected the TRO
against his company and all subsequent potential fraud charges would be dropped this
week as he claimed he was implicated simply because his company's name was on a
contract signed by Miller without his consent.
A correction from the 10/21 issue. In the 10/5 results from Ashford, England, the correct
result of the match with Andre Baker & Jim Neidhart vs. Titan & Tiny McMillan was a
double count out.
AWF ran a house show on 10/19 in Anoka, MN before 250 fans. Heard the show itself
was decent. Next AWF TV taping will be 12/15 in Las Vegas. Plan is for Road Warriors to
win the tag titles from Greg Valentine & Tommy Rich at the tapings and the promotion
is talking about doing a PPV in late 1997. They'll need something totally different from
what they've got now to be able to pull that off profitably.
The long-awaited Oleg Taktarov vs. Marco Ruas rematch is now slated for 11/10 in Sao
Paolo, Brazil.
Chris Lash and Charles MacLaurin are planning on starting their own promotion called
Allied Powers Wrestling Federation in 1997.
Century Wrestling Alliance on 11/1 in Revere, MA has Kevin Sullivan vs. Vic Steamboat
and Tony Atlas vs. King Kong Bundy.
Ringside Wrestling of Indiana is holding a Legends Night on 11/17 in Hobart, IN with
Jimmy Valiant, Moose Cholak and Paul Christy.
Empire Wrestling has shows at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on 11/2 in Rialto, CA at the Assembly
of God.
Cue Ball Carmichael suffered a fractured right orbital bone when Joe Thunder landed on
him off the top rope on 10/13. Blood was spewing through his eye and nose. He's
expected out six to weight weeks.
Rick Garrett's wrestling ring in Oklahoma, which dates back to 1939, and was stolen in
August, was recovered a few weeks back. The theft of the ring got some local publicity
and was reported here when it happened. One of Garrett's wrestling friends heard about
a ring being offered at a flea market and Garrett went to "buy it," saw it was his ring and
had arranged for a police officer to meet him at the salesman's house.
Such names as Mil Mascaras, El Hijo del Santo, El Sicodelico, KGB, Rayo de Jalisco Jr.,
Dos Caras, Dr. Wagner Jr. and Super Astro have all appeared over the past two weeks at
the small Southern California weekly shows in Compton.
Ron Hutchison's Fighting Arts wrestling will be holding a show to raise toys for
underprivileged children on 11/10 at the Jimmie Simpson Rec Center in Toronto at 2
p.m. Admission is free but they'd appreciate an unwrapped toy left at the front door.
Extremely Strange Wrestling pm 10/27 at Oddfellows Temple in Martinez, CA.
Jimmy Valiant and Pez Whatley have been doing hair vs. hair matches in the Carolinas
where neither of them end up with their heads shaved.
A clarification from 10/14. Otto Wanz is the CWA promoter in Graz and Bremen while
Peter William is the promoter in Vienna and Hannover, so Steve Regal's WCW TV title
vs. Tony St. Clair's Commonwealth title match which was a double count out was
promoted by William, not Wanz. The same show was Mike Lozansky brought in to lose
to middleweight champ Franz Schumann. Maxx Muscle from WCW will be brought into
CWA which is the result of Wanz' trip to the WCW shows. Keen eye for talent, huh?
Latest news from Puerto Rico. Savio Vega's promotion that is running opposition to
WWC had Bam Bam Bigelow, Yokozuna, Mr. Fuji, Duke Droese, Vega and WWF spanish
language announcer Hugo Savinovich were in for shows over the weekend. One show
was canceled and a show in Manatee, PR drew only 150, a far cry from the big house
Undertaker, Mankind and Goldust drew in the same city a couple of months back when
Undertaker suffered the staph infection. In the WWC, Hurricane Castillo Jr. won the
Universal title from Colon on 10/19 in Humacao, PR. D-Lo Brown, who weighs 280,
tried a shooting star press and landed on his face, knocking out his front teeth. Twin
Turbos from Windy City Wrestling in Chicago are headed in to feud with Texas
Hangmen with a gimmick that both teams will do the switches. Buddy Landel headed in
this week. Rex King & Shawn Morley who are teaming here are going to All Japan as a
team for the January tour.
Missy Hyatt works a show for Championship Wrestling Federation on 11/16 in Warren,
MA.
Among those wrestling for Continental Wrestling Alliance in the weekly Dallas
Sportatorium shows of late have included Rod Price, Scott Braddock, Mike Davis, Shawn
Summers, One Man Gang, the Dallas version of High Voltage, Scott Putski, Black Bart,
Steve Cox and former college football star Marcus Dupree.
All Pro Wrestling drew 1,078 fans and $16,115 on 10/12 in Modesto, CA for tournaments
to crown a heavyweight (Robert Thompson) and junior heavyweight (Super Diablo)
champion. It was part of the weekend area legends celebration. On hand at the show
were Pepper Gomez, former area ref Frank Nocety, Jerry Monti, Art Dominguez and
Paul DeMarco. Among those at a barbecue the next day at their gym in Hayward, CA
were Theresa Theis, Jack Laskin, Moondog Moretti, Cowboy Lang, Fritz Von Goering,
Alexis Smirnoff, Dan O'Shocker and Bob Bockwinkel. Their next show will be 11/2 at the
Pacific Coast Sports guy in Hayward.
WCW
Nitro on 10/21 from Mankato, MN (4,034 paying $52,155) was on the boring side with
the exception of an interview with Ric Flair, who basically put Jeff Jarrett over to lead to
Jarrett becoming the new Horseman, and vowed to kick NWO ass when he gets back
from surgery and said he'd be in Jarrett's corner against The Giant at Havoc. Flair is
scheduled for surgery on 10/23 and isn't expected back in action until January but will
attend all Nitros to do interviews. The operation will be videotaped with comments from
the doctor and it'll air on television in some form. After all this time, Flair finally got
back in the interview groove. They also did a taped interview with Hulk Hogan from
Denver where he's doing the Three Ninjas movie where they revealed Hogan forced
Elizabeth against her will to do the interview where she said she still loved Savage and at
the end of the show Savage basically threatened to kill Hogan. Hogan looked more like
his grandfather, no exaggeration, he looked in his 60s and I couldn't believe he'd let
himself be on a wrestling show looking older than Lou Thesz does today. But he did a
great heel segment. The rest of the NWO did an angle with Sting where the Imposter
Sting was wrestling J.L. when the real Sting came out and put him in the scorpion. All
the NWO guys were there but none helped Imposter Sting. Afterwards they asked Sting,
dressed in black, to join the NWO and Sting didn't give a positive or negative answer.
The idea here is to do an angle based on the shoot situation with Bret Hart, but this time
WCW can win. Jim Richland (Jimmy Del Rey) debuted as Jimmy Graffiti losing to Dean
Malenko in 6:45 in the best match on the show. The wrestling was really good but since
nobody knew who Graffiti was, since he had short hair and is really out of shape and
kind of rusty but still very talented, they just thought he was a new jobber and I guess by
the result they were right. Richland had been out of the wrestling mainstream since
losing his job in WWF while a potentially damaging lawsuit (which apparently has been
settled) was still outstanding. Roadblock (Joe D'Aquisto) got racked by Lex Luger (he
actually debuted a few days earlier at the Saturday Night tapings in Anderson, SC on
10/16) although it took Luger three tries to get him. Roadblock is a legit 6-7 (it was
funny since Mike Tenay kept saying he was 6-5, and there he was four inches taller than
Luger who they've been billing at 6-5 all through his wrestling career) and probably at
least 400 and has gotten a lot better since the last time I saw him (he was really awful
then). Anyway, he's best known in wrestling for about ten years ago when the WWF was
doing a TV taping in Rochester, NY, he wanted to be a pro wrestler and Hulk Hogan
blew him off at the gym that day, so he went to the show and just as Hogan was going to
wrestle One Man Gang, he hit the ring and took Gang down (he was a good high school
wrestler) and was pounding on Gang and a panicked Slick was pounding on his back
with his cane and it was having no effect. Hey, that isn't the first time something like
that happened. Afa & Sika got into the business first because they were rowdy huge
marks at the Cow Palace who security had one hell of a time trying to keep them from
killing the heels like Pat Patterson until Roy Shire got them into the business basically to
send them away and save the heels in his business.
They continued the Nick Patrick/Teddy Long storyline as Patrick blamed Long for
costing Craig Pittman the match with Diamond Dallas Page.
They also seem to be subtly starting a Marcus Bagwell turn as in the American Males vs.
Harlem Heat match, Bagwell made the save just a second late so Riggs was pinned.
Tommy Rogers & Bobby Fulton returned as The Fantastics doing a job for Meng &
Barbarian (Rock & Rolls were the original planned foes) in 5:19 of a match that got no
heat although Rogers & Fulton's work was really good. They portrayed it as if Fulton &
Rogers had no chance as the Faces of Fear didn't sell for them so there was no heat live
since no matter how tough Meng & Barbarian may be in real life, nobody cares about
them. The commentary made it even more one-sided so it made the match come off as
more boring than it should have.
Besides the Nitro numbers, for the weekend of 10/19-20, Main Event did a 1.1, Saturday
Night a 2.5 and Pro a 1.7. For 10/12-13 the numbers were 1.4, 2.4 and 1.7 respectively.
The reason Bischoff seemed off in the announcing was because he was very nervous
about how Bret Hart was going to handle his interview since he knew WWF would want
Hart to rub it in his face.
There had been talk of Gene Okerlund returning for this past Monday's show, but
apparently the new deal still hasn't been completed.
TNT just started airing a new commercial with Sting as the star of the show which pretty
much says he'll end up as the WCW focal top babyface. After all these years of trying to
push him in that position with it never working, you'd think it might be time to give
someone else a shot.
The reason the Ultimo Dragon-Jushin Liger match was pulled from Las Vegas is because
WAR has a show on 10/28 at Korakuen Hall and it would be impossible for Dragon to
work in Las Vegas on 10/27 and made it to Tokyo the next day (because of the time
difference, you can work 10/27 in Japan and make it to the U.S. to work 10/28) in which
Dragon would win one-third of the six man titles presumably. Anyway, Tenryu wouldn't
let Dragon miss the show. Dragon's WAR contract expires at the end of the year and
there is talk that he may try and get a WCW deal since WCW style is physically easier
than Japanese or AAA style and he's had tons of injuries over his career.
Brian Knobs was said to be very unhappy at how the angle where the Nasty's got jumped
by the NWO went down since he came off looking like a geek.
At the Memphis show, the ring girl was announced as the daughter of Jackie Fargo (she
was his daughter Charlotte) and she got a huge pop.
They are taping the NWO Saturday Night matches on Mondays in the empty arena
before fans are let in for Nitro. Hall & Nash work this coming week.
WCW Saturday Night tapings on 10/16 in Anderson, SC drew 2,300 (2,000 paying
$18,000). Nothing of note other than Savage vs. Roadblock ended up with Savage not
being there and Roadblock beating up a jobber. After the show went off the air, Luger
came in and racked Roadblock to make sure he'd be able to do it on the live Nitro match.
Anyway, he did it a lot easier on this show.
Buddy Lee Parker has dropped the Leprechaun gimmick and is now Jack Boot. Believe it
or not, some group complained about WCW's gimmick being a negative portrayal of
Leprechaun's so they dropped the gimmick. Really.
10/18 in Minneapolis at Target Center drew 7,700 and $100,400 plus another $54,000
in gimmick sales ($31,000 WCW; $23,000 NWO) so it was a huge success. Flair, Hall
and Nash were the most over. Flair, who was scheduled against Savage in the main
event, was there and did an interview before the show talking about what a great
wrestling history Minneapolis has and apologized for not wrestling. Wrestling highlight
was a double count out with Six vs. Chris Jericho as their first meeting before the PPV
which was said to have been a great match. Jericho wrestled J.L. but Six attacked J.L. to
get Jericho DQ'd and Jericho challenged him. Top two matches had screwjob finishes,
Hall & Nash vs. Harlem Heat ended up with Nasty's interfering for a no contest, while
Savage-Sting-Giant triangle match ended with Sting and Giant both counted out fighting
outside the ring leaving Savage as the winner.
Booker T has a back injury so he has been limited in the ring over the weekend and isn't
expected to be 100% by PPV time which makes a bad match on paper look that much
worse since he's the entire tag team.
Other weekend house shows saw 10/19 in LaCrosse, WI did 2,000 fans and $25,300 and
10/20 in Sioux Falls, SD drew 3,100 and $36,000.
On TV this past week, Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes were announcing a match
where Dusty Wolfe worked as a jobber. Rhodes lost it so badly that he billed himself as
Dusty Wolfe that he forced Schiavone to call him Scott Wolfe instead.
Latest overall ratings for the week ending 9/29 saw AWF on 77 stations doing an 0.5 in
syndication, WCW on 154 stations and cable doing a 5.8 rating (syndication total rating
1.5) and WWF on 96 stations and cable doing a 3.1 rating (syndication total rating is
0.3).
Update on the Hogan lawsuit in Minneapolis. Hogan filed a lawsuit in January for
extortion against Kathleen Kennedy, a former employee of his now-defunct Pastamania
restaurant at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, and her lawyer, Peter Johnson, saying
they threatened to go to police about a sexual transgression. Kennedy claimed that on
September 2, 1995 (night of the first Nitro show) at the Bloomington Marriott Hotel, she
was sexually assaulted by Terry Bollea, who forcibly put his penis in her mouth in spite
of her efforts at physical resistance and verbal demands that he stop and claimed it
occurred under circumstances where he couldn't possibly have believed based upon her
conduct that she was consenting. Kennedy's affidavit also stated, "Since the day of the
letter, I have been advised by others of sexual misconduct by Mr. Bollea, including,
specifically, allegation that he has raped another woman." Bollea's affidavit says he
didn't sexually assault Kennedy and complained about getting the threatening letter on
Christmas Eve saying that the private investigator who gave him the letter apologized for
serving him during the holiday season but said he had been expressly instructed to do
so. Bollea claimed the contents and timing of the delivery of the letter were damaging to
him both personally and professionally. Bollea attempted to get police to file charges
against the lawyer for extortion but the police turned down the request.
Johnny Grunge had the knee operation.
SuperBrawl '97 in February will be at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
Chigusa Nagayo is expected on the 11/18 Nitro show against Madusa.
11/23 in Baltimore is Hall & Nash vs. Heat for the tag titles, Giant vs. Sting, Luger vs.
Anderson, Sullivan vs. Benoit, Six vs. Misterio Jr. and Konnan & Hugh Morrus vs.
Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis.
The wrestler who had the try-out as Hog Higgins wasn't long-time wrestler Larry
Higgins, but Pittsburgh indie wrestler T.Rantula.
WWF
Raw on 10/21 in Fort Wayne, IN drew 4,555 and $62,724. Mike Diamond of All Pro
Wrestling in California got a tryout losing to Freddy Joe Floyd. Shawn Michaels beat
Davey Boy Smith via DQ when Owen Hart interfered and Sid made the save to set up a
tag match later and again Sid & Shawn shook hands. Jesse James debuted beating
Salvatore Sincere. Then came the live show where Sid beat Owen Hart via DQ when
Smith interfered and Michaels made the save and Sid and Michaels shook hands. Sid has
gotten so bad it's almost amazing. He's always been bad, but compared to what he is
now, he used to be Flair in his prime. Godwinns beat Gunns when Billy and Bart collided
again and Henry used the slop drop on Bart and Billy walked out on him. Mero lost the
title to Helmsley after the Perfect angle. Too Cold Scorpio debuted as Flash Funk, the
black sheep of the Funk Family, with a hat, a fur coat basically doing a pimp gimmick
and beat Leif Cassidy. Razor Ramon beat Mero when Perfect and Helmsley both
interfered. A lumberjack match with Barry Windham (no longer with face paint of doing
the Stalker gimmick) and Goldust ended in a DDQ. Among the lumberjacks were
Perfect, Mark Henry, Flex Kavana (Duane Johnson) and Jerry Lawler. The main angle
was Owen & Davey Boy vs. Shawn & Sid which saw Shawn accidentally superkick Sid
who was then pinned. After the match, Shawn and Sid finally went at it. Main event was
a six-man with Jesse James & Mero & Undertaker over Goldust & Mankind & Austin.
Only matches announced for Survivor Series are Michaels defending against Sid,
Undertaker vs. Mankind with Paul Bearer in a cage above the ring and Bret vs. Steve
Austin and it was hinted at Owen & Smith defending against Godwinns.
Based on the recent arrivals, one really wonders about the seriousness of the WWF drug
policy nowadays.
Achim Albrecht in camp already hates taking bumps so they have put a mattress in the
ring for him to learn the moves on.
Jake Roberts was supposed to appear at a Take Back Our Streets Campaign on 10/16 in
Melbourne, FL. He wasn't there and they announced he had flown back home because
one of his kids had been stung by a bee and it got infected.
On the international superstars show, Gorilla Monsoon said that Razor Ramon's real
name was Joe Beavis, not Rick Bogner. Joe Beavis was also the name they gave Joe
Aiello, a Winnipeg television wrestling announcer, when he worked for WWF.
Ratings for the weekend of 10/19-20 besides Raw were Blast Off at 0.6, Live Wire at 1.3
(number is steadily climbing; this past week was the best show thus far) and Superstars
at 1.3. The previous week is that 0.7, 1.2 and 1.6.
Full Metal debuted this week at No. 184 on the billboard album charts.
Bret Hart's episode of "Sinbad" airs in November and the episode of "Simpsons" airs in
April

 

Oct. 21, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Bret Hart
signs gigantic WWE deal, split between Konnan and
Antonio Pena, Monday Night Wars hot but fewer watching
wrestling, more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 21 October 1996 23:10
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 October 21, 1996
After a bidding war the likes that have never been seen in this profession, Bret Hart
appears likely to be choosing the World Wrestling Federation for a deal that may pay
him more over four years than any wrestler in history with the exception of Hulk Hogan
has made in a career.
As of press time on Tuesday, the belief based on those who had spoken with Hart is that
he had made his choice on 10/10 after a meeting with Vince McMahon, after changing
his mind at least twice during the week, and would be returning to the WWF starting on
the live 10/21 Monday Night Raw in Fort Wayne, IN. The original plans, a match with
Steve Austin at Survivor Series and probably a rematch with Shawn Michaels at next
year's Wrestlemania would likely come to fruition. However, based on the last reports
we had heard, Hart had neither informed WCW nor WWF of his decision. Supposedly
Hart himself had several stipulations he had expressed to McMahon, and until the two
sides would come to an agreement on them and at press time Hart hadn't heard back
from McMahon on his demands, Hart won't have finalized his decision. As things stand
at press time, the expectation from the WWF was that Hart would appear on Raw and do
the Survivors match with Austin, but there it wasn't a lock. Those close to Hart claim
he's more negative about working at WCW because of the potential of bumping heads
with Hogan, but that it's almost certain he'll sign with one group or another within a few
days and WWF is the more likely of the two.
Exactly how high the bidding war, or if there was a bidding war since both WWF and
WCW deny there was one, depends upon who one talks with. In most forms of
entertainment and sports, contracts are often heavily exaggerated publicly to make the
star look that much more special to the public and all in those worlds accept and
understand that. Since pro wrestling doesn't get any real media coverage, the
exaggerated money figures often are products of the wrestlers or the promoters
exaggerating in whatever direction to either brag or reach a certain end. In the old
American pro wrestling system of wrestlers being paid based on the house, it was
beneficial when recruiting wrestlers to come to a territory for a promoter to lie about
what the boys were making, and the wrestlers often naturally lied about it as well since
the secretive business was almost consumed by dishonesty. With guaranteed contracts,
that situation has changed. It is now in the best interest of promoters to downplay how
much they are paying the other wrestlers and most of the figures leaked out to the
wrestlers as to what another wrestler is making turn out to be on the low side, so that
wrestlers negotiating will believe the salary structure is lower than it really is. If some of
the figures bandied about in the Hart negotiations are legit, all of a sudden all the
wrestlers that were thrilled to sign $250,000 guaranteed deals will all of a sudden feel
terribly underpaid.
So here is the money and negotiating situation over the past week based on several
different sources. As reported here last week, WWF officials believed they had a deal
with Hart to return since McMahon met with Hart in Calgary in July, with Hart
returning at Survivor Series against Austin, and in recent weeks, the television has been
heavily geared toward promoting that feud. Hart himself had denied ever making that
agreement publicly, and WWF officials were publicly denying it as well seemingly to
create more mystery in the story line. Hart had originally been expected to come into
Philadelphia originally for the "Mind Games" PPV on 9/22 to do an angle with Austin to
set up Survivor Series, but a television filming commitment got in the way of that
appearance, and WWF created an angle around all that to heat up the issue. While this
was all going on, Hart received a huge initial offer from WCW, believed to be $2.2
million per year for three years guaranteed, which would have been about triple what he
made in his best year with the WWF as champion. Originally Hart wasn't interested in
working for WCW as he'd said on numerous occasions with lots of negative remarks
about it being a second-rate organization and he also didn't want to have to deal with
Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, whom he had problems with for both personal and
professional reasons (both with Hogan, more professional with Flair). However, with the
Time Warner merger and the fact WCW has been able to get acting gigs for many of its
wrestlers and promises in that direction were made to Hart, who has aspirations to be an
actor after his wrestling career ends and is 39-years-old, Hart started to express interest.
Less than two weeks ago, McMahon was apparently told by Carl Demarco, the head of
WWF operations in Canada and Hart's one-time business manager, that WCW had
upped its offer to a $3 million per year, three year deal (or four year deal according to
another source close to Hart) with a maximum of 180 working days per year, and he was
strongly leaning toward accepting it. McMahon, upon hearing this, called Hart, who
confirmed basically what had been said. McMahon said he'd like a shot at changing his
offer to keep Hart, and flew to Calgary this past week to meet with Hart. Hart apparently
told McMahon at the meeting before they started to negotiate that no matter what his
decision was, he wanted to appear on the live Raw on 10/21 (which Titan had been
wanting him to debut on all along) to tell the fans as a shoot of his decision and why he
made the decision. McMahon agreed to this stipulation before making what was termed
an "amazing" offer.
By this time, WCW was extremely confident they were going to land Hart because
nobody in wrestling believed McMahon could afford to match the $3 million per year
figure, or even the $2.2 million. Scenarios were worked on to lead to Hart's showing up
as the savior of WCW and eventually building to matches with the likes of Hogan, Flair
and even Sting.
Titan sources claim McMahon didn't come close to matching the $3 million per year
WCW offer. WCW sources claim he not only matched the offer but upped it to a great
degree. Sources close to Hart basically confirm the WCW story, and claim the McMahon
offer was just under $4 million per year for a four year deal, which is more than one
would think the company could afford given the revenues it takes in, but with some sort
of outside involvement in financing the deal and with one very important but
undisclosed perk added to the pie, and a basic guarantee of a job with the organization
for as long as he'd want to work there. The $4 million per year is supposedly not in cash,
but with a series of "goodies" that all added up together if liquidated would come to $4
million per year. WCW, Hart and nearly everyone privy to what was going on in the
negotiations were stunned McMahon would make that lucrative of an offer. While Hulk
Hogan has probably earned more than that in some years, no other pro wrestler in the
world has ever earned money anywhere near that ballpark and only the biggest
superstars in the industry in history had ever earned $4 million in the ring during their
entire careers. Certainly with the exception of Hogan, if the deal comes to $15 million or
more over four years, that no other wrestler has ever made that kind of money in the
ring during his career as Hart would figure to make in four years. And for all of Hart's
talents and popularity, he is nowhere close to the mainstream icon and drawing card
that Hogan is or was. Hart, who apparently was WCW-bound before the meeting with
McMahon, apparently changed his mind once, if not twice, again, and supposedly had
made a final decision although what that decision was being kept secretive from
everyone in wrestling. The attitude on 10/11 in both WCW and WWF in regard to where
Hart was going changed, as WCW felt almost certain he was WWF-bound and WWF
officials, who felt there was a better than 50% chance he was WCW-bound all week, had
changed their tune. While publicly, WCW is claiming not to have gotten into a bidding
war for Hart and that the figures going around were ridiculous, Bischoff made a lastditch
effort late Friday afternoon, supposedly equalling if not slightly topping the
McMahon offer.
Surprisingly, on the 10/14 Raw, there was no mention at all that Hart would appear on
the 10/21 live show. There may have been trepidations internally since Hart had
changed his mind a few times over the past few weeks, and also because there were
stipulations that hadn't been agreed to and no new contract that had been signed by that
time and it appears to be company policy at this time not to start building up anything or
anyone unless all the contracts were finalized because of the war time environment and
the fact there is an enemy that would delight in crossing up planned on storylines.
However, with the ratings battle the way it is, it is surprising that a definitive
announcement by Hart about his future wouldn't be hyped for all it was worth.
The subject of Hart's current deal with WWF is also something speculative. Hart's
contract, signed in September 1992, was different from all other WWF contracts in that
it gave him the option to leave at any time provided he gave 90 days notice. Other WWF
contracts, which all are automatically renewable, give the wrestler the option to leave
giving 90 days notice only during a certain window each year. At one point in early 1992,
WCW made Hart a lucrative (for that time frame) offer when he was Intercontinental
champion and Hart was going to take the offer at the time, but found out the hard way
when approaching McMahon about leaving that it wasn't during his window period, and
wasn't able to make the move. Hart was under the impression that when leaving after
Wrestlemania, it basically constituted his 90 days and he's free to join WCW at any time.
The WWF is apparently under a different impression and at one point there was talk
that WWF wanted him to return and do a few key high-profile jobs over a 90-day period
before joining WCW.
Hart made numerous interesting comments in a supposed shoot column in the Calgary
Sun on 10/12 after the meeting with McMahon and the counter by Bischoff, which while
not giving his decision, gives away strong hints and his thought process.
"I'd gone higher in wrestling than I'd ever allowed myself to dream of. It didn't seem that
I had anything left to prove. When you're that high up it's a long fall down. I don't want
to be one of those guys that hangs around long after he's past his prime and embarrasses
himself and his fans every time he steps into the ring. I realize that wrestling is sports
entertainment but, for my taste, lately there's been too much emphasis on the
entertainment and not enough weight put on athletics and sportsmanship. There's an
upstart group in the states whose extreme style is all about brawling. There's another
group that, at around the time of Wrestlemania XII, seemed to be where worn out
wrestlers worked, although that has since changed and they've brought in a lot of
exciting, technically knowledgeable guys. The WWF, had, in my opinion, lots some of its
balance and become too youth oriented--Clowns instead of Pipers and Perfects. The
WWF's catering to kids came to its ultimate end when Shawn Michaels became
champion. I'm not saying that Shawn isn't talented because he is. In fact, I knew Shawn
would be the one coming up behind me sooner or later. The only thing is that it
happened "sooner." Shawn has always had a tremendous ego and maybe, based on his
ability, it's justified. The problem is that they allowed his character to get out of control.
They call him "flamboyant" and I call him obnoxious. I was annoyed and concerned
about a lot of things in the business at around the time of Wrestlemania XII. I didn't
leave because Shawn Michaels became champion. In fact, the business could use more
guys with Shawn's dedication. I'd reached a fork in the road and I needed to stop long
enough to be able to read the signs.
I've found that a lot of wrestlers develop a sort of tunnel vision--they eat, sleep and
breathe wrestling. It's fair to say it's a symptom of the lifestyle. As much as I made a
conscious effort not to neglect outside interests, the schedule was so brutal that all you
could do in the end was submit and look forward to a time when there will be time.
In the six-and-a-half months since Wrestlemania XII, I've given myself time to do some
of the things I've had on hold for over a decade. I realized that I wasn't enjoying them
nearly as much as I'd anticipated and it took me a while to understand why. I figured out
that part of it is because I have something much more serious than tunnel vision. I was
born with wrestling in my blood and there's no medicine that's going to cure me. As
much as I didn't want to admit it to myself, to me, wrestling can never be just a job. I
couldn't really relax knowing that the sport was speeding off in what I consider to be the
wrong direction. I realized that I was wrong when I thought I had nothing left to prove in
wrestling. In fact, it just may be that my toughest fight is ahead of me. I'm going to try to
prove that one man can make a difference when it comes to restoring the credibility and
dignity that professional wrestling has lost. I have no delusions about single-handedly
changing things over night, but maybe if I can get the tide flowing in the right direction,
wrestlers and fans will see my point and help to row the boat upstream. My memories
are not yet greater than my dreams. I decided to return to the ring but where and when
remains a big question.
A wrestling organization who is a competitor to the WWF has offered me an amazing
amount of money to work for them. I'd be working less days than with the WWF and
making a lot more money. I realized that in a few years I could be sitting on a beach
somewhere and never have to work another day in my life. Being that the WWF is a
family owned business I didn't think they could ever come up with enough money to
match this offer. I've said before that I'm not greedy for money but that I'm greedy for
respect. I guess for most people it would be a simple decision. If they pay you more and
work you less, that's where you go. But for me it wasn't that cut and dry and that's when
I realized that wrestling isn't just a job. My family has generations caught up in it. I
started asking myself hard questions about loyalty, integrity and weighing that against
the fact I have four kids that could benefit from the money long after I'm history. I owe
the lifestyle I enjoy today to the WWF. I do feel a sense of loyalty to Vince McMahon, but
his company, its directions and its priorities, have changed.
In the words of the Million Dollar Man, "Everybody has a price." I've lost sleep over it
but I've made my decision.
. It was like choosing between two lovers--they both want you and they'd both treat you
good and they both have their own little benefits. No matter how good the one you end
up with is, you're always going to wonder what you've missed."
***********************************************************
There has been chaos involving AAA again this past week regarding a potential split
between Konnan and Antonio Pena.
The problems between the two surfaced over the past two weeks over a number of
subjects. Several of the veteran wrestlers, in particular Perro Aguayo, Octagon, Cien
Caras (who has since quit the promotion) and Los Villanos have been vehement in
objecting to the style change from a Lucha Libre style to more of an FMW/ECW
brawling style. That style has been successful at the gate in some markets, in particular
border cities like Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo, caused AAA much commission problems in
Tijuana, Mexico City and Guadalajara, and in some cities has resulted in a silent
audience that walked out or didn't even respond during main events. In addition, there
were the inherent problems of Konnan promoting several border towns and highlighting
certain wrestlers and not using other wrestlers, and also being the talent liaison and
talent booker of Mexican talent for WCW. Pena had problems stemming from wrestlers
unhappy they weren't being booked into Konnan's cities, and wrestlers who weren't
getting a shot to work in the United States. Konnan had apparently polarized the
dressing room into those who were his allies and being taken care of and those who were
his enemies, who are gaining in power.
The result is that Pena's has attempted to be the talent booker for WCW, which hasn't
happened yet, and has taken the profitable Baja California border territory away from
Konnan, with his final tour being this coming week which includes shows 10/18 in
Tijuana with Thunderbird vs. Halloween in a mask match, along with shows on 10/19
and 10/20 in Tucson and Phoenix respectively. This pulls the rug on the promotion just
before Konnan was planning his biggest show to date, an outdoor card on 11/1 headlined
by Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Misterioso in a mask vs. mask match. Pena also pulled that match
from Tijuana and is now expected to run it on a major show in the future, perhaps on
PPV as he's talked of doing his own PPV show.
The end result may be a final split between Pena and one of his two biggest (along with
Aguayo) drawing cards as Konnan has talked about leaving and taking his regular group
with him, although most members of that group are under contract to AAA for the next
several months. This would be a sizeable blow to AAA from a workrate standpoint and
be a huge benefit to whichever promotion they would join. However, there is no
guarantee what would happen since Konnan's main leverage would be as talent liaison
with WCW, where the wrestlers he books are able to earn considerably more than what
they make in Mexico.
************************************************************
In recent months, several people credited the Monday Night wars as having revitalized
interest in pro wrestling. Certainly few would have thought in August of 1995, just before
the debut of Nitro, that two pro wrestling shows going head-to-head would be averaging
nearly a 6.0 rating, or delivering a combined average of 3,984,000 homes watching pro
wrestling at one time on a weekly basis. It was almost hard to believe there could be that
many wrestling fans, or that they would for the most part continue at that level even
against the competition of Monday Night Football.
The reality is that fewer people are watching pro wrestling on television now than at any
point as far as we can go back. Syndication is dead. Years ago, there were periods where
the WWF syndication was worth a national five to seven average and the combined
syndication plus cable often topped an aggregate 10.0 rating. To show how far
syndication has fallen, the combined national syndicated rating for WWF for the
weekend ending September 15 (the last week we have figures for) was an 0.2 or less; for
WCW it was an 0.3. The total audience watching more different shows than ever from
both WWF and WCW combined nowadays, combined with ECW, USWA, AWF and
everyone else, would be less than watched WWF alone during its heyday. And let's not
forget that during that period of the WWF heyday in the mid-1980s, there were strong
audiences for NWA, Mid South, World Class, Memphis plus a dozen other weaker
territories throughout the United States, most of which were doing big ratings within
their local area. But even if we go back one year, before the Monday night wars, the loss
of syndicated audience for both WWF and WCW over the past year, not to mention the
erosion of ratings for all cable shows except Nitro and WCW Saturday Night, has
resulted in a drop in viewing for the combined WWF/WCW universe (although the drop
is all from the WWF side as WCW has shown an increase overall due to Nitro) even with
the addition of Nitro--the most watched weekly pro wrestling show since the heyday of
Superstars in syndication. So we can't be misled by the idea that more people are
watching wrestling now than in the past because more people are watching pro wrestling
during one single time slot (Monday night, 9 p.m. Eastern) than at any time in the
history of cable television.
Having gotten the reality out of the way, it's time to look at the most competitive pro
wrestling time slot in history, who is watching, and what we can learn about why WCW
is leading and what WWF needs to do to catch up.
Even before looking at numbers, a few things are obvious. The adult audience is the
most important in that time slot, and WCW has been nearly doubling the WWF audience
when it comes to adults. We can try and make things more complicated than they are,
but the basic gist is that WCW has the wrestlers the current audience grew up on, the
names they're familiar with, and that combined with the two hour format, is the key to
the success. As much as some readers want to see Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey
Misterio Jr. and others as the focal points and wouldn't miss it if Hulk Hogan and Randy
Savage were put out to pasture, the casual audience knows the latter two names. WWF is
able to dominate the house show business for a number of reasons. One is that they have
the slight edge in one of the age groups (teenagers) that are more likely to attend a live
event. They promote the shows better locally. They generally run in better arenas (the
top arena in the market whereas WCW often runs in the secondary building). They run a
deeper line-up of names when it comes to house shows (even though overall they can't
match WCW's talent depth). And they have Shawn Michaels, who may not be a big
drawing card with the over-25 television audience, but is the biggest drawing card when
it comes to the age group of people who actually regularly attend live pro wrestling
shows. In addition, the performer WCW builds all its television around, Hulk Hogan,
doesn't work the house shows so that takes the edge of all their house shows as
presenting all the stars on the roster, something WWF is able to do.
Breaking the total viewing audience down by age and sex (we don't have figures for 55
and older) for the period of July through September of 1996 (the third quarter) and then
looking at the third quarter of 1995, where there was only a Raw show. We'll see what
audience has stayed with Raw, what audience has switched shows, and what audience
has been added and then see if we can learn anything from that.
Nitro Raw Raw '95
Men 18-34 631,000 (Nitro edge 61-39%) 397,000 499,000
Men 35-54 745,000 (Nitro edge 68-32%) 354,000 488,000
Women 18-34 243,000 (Nitro edge 54-46%) 209,000 260,000
Women 35-54 357,000 (Nitro edge 66-34%) 184,000 248,000
Children 2-11 368,000 (Raw edge 52-48%) 384,000 460,000
Teenagers 12-17 336,000 (Raw edge 54-46%) 389,000 349,000
What we find is a substantial increase in total viewership across the board. Raw has
taken its biggest viewership hits in inverse order of the age of the audience. In other
words, the older the audience, the more likely they are to be new viewers, which has to
be a surprise, and also it appears the new Monday night wrestling viewers are far more
likely to be watching WCW instead of WWF. This is interesting because the majority of
the syndication and cable viewing loss over the past season was the decrease in viewing
of WWF. The older age of the audience coincides with WCW headlining with names like
Hogan, Savage, Ric Flair, Sting and Lex Luger who all made their names during the mid
and late 80s. What is interesting is that WCW holds a lead in women 18-34 despite the
WWF featuring younger and better looking wrestlers on top, which shows that sex
appeal of the wrestlers is vastly overrated as compared with perceived celebrityhood
when it comes to getting women to watch wrestling. They'd rather see someone who they
recognize and therefore think is a big star ahead of someone who is younger and better
looking. This is even stronger when it comes to women past 35, as WWF lost by
percentage as many women viewers in the 35-54 age group over the past year as it did
men (roughly 27%)--and those are the two age groups where WCW is totally dominant.
Even with the addition of Nitro going head-to-head, WWF has increased its audience of
teenagers, which again can be largely attributed to Michaels' appeal and perhaps to
Sunny, since those along with Undertaker are the three acts that get the biggest crowd
reactions at the house show these days. The problem is when it comes to Michaels, WWF
has to recognize the obvious. Michaels is the biggest drawing card the company can run
with on the road since he has the most appeal with the age group that goes to live events.
All those 35+ WCW fans have increased company attendance per live event, but you are
still talking about one company averaging $40,000 and the other averaging $80,000 on
the road and not all of that difference is that WWF charges generally higher ticket prices.
However, Michaels appears to have a negative appeal to the generally older television
audience, with both men and women, which is understandable with his cocky character
portrayal and stripper routine as a babyface apparently overcoming his tremendous
amount of ability. It is also noteworthy that those same characteristics are a positive
since the house show attendance has increased with him as champion, and even with
head-to-head competition, more teenagers are watching Raw now than in the pre-Nitro
period when Diesel was champion despite no head-to-head competition in those days--
the only age group where Raw has shown an increase.
While WWF has lost about 20% of its audience across the board either to disinterest or
to WCW, the vast majority of the WCW audience is an older group that never watched
Raw.
So what does all this mean? If WWF wants to win on Monday night, to do so it will have
to sacrifice its biggest drawing card on the road. They have to decide whether it is more
important to draw ratings on Monday, or to draw money on the road because the
audience they need to win on Monday is an older audience, and that style will hurt them
on the road when it comes to drawing. The WWF's emphasis on pop culture slang,
current events and attempting to tie into fads in the announcing means nothing to the
main group that is watching wrestling at that hour and giving WCW the big advantage.
In a sense, they are similar to ECW and for that matter to New Japan as well, although
not nearly as far down one path or as appealing down the other, in that by trying to stay
modern and hip, they lose the vast majority of the audience that may very well be behind
the times from a pop culture standpoint, but they are the ones who control the television
ratings in that specific time period. With the baby boomer generation getting older, it
appears pro wrestling has its own version of the Richard Nixon silent majority
dominating the ratings on Monday nights. Trying to get "more extreme" or "more
hardcore" ala ECW looks to be a path that will only pigeon-hole their appeal that much
more, even if at the same time it'll create more fervent fans and maybe even draw more
fans to the arena shows, which has pretty much been the story thus far this year for the
WWF. Despite the fact it would appear to be recycling over-the-hill talent or recreating
the past, the numbers show it may be more important for the WWF to get a Randy
Savage, a Roddy Piper or a Ric Flair then if they actually could bring back the original
Diesel or Razor Ramon if they are looking at winning on Monday as their priority. Both
American and Japanese wrestling have shown time and time again that good television
ratings and big arena business are two entirely different animals. Sometimes you get
them both, but there is far less of a correlation than one would think on the surface. In
the summer of 1995, when Raw ratings were through the roof, their house show business
was in the toilet. In the summer of 1996, with Raw getting its ass handed to it every
week, the WWF house show business was the best it had been in years. There are two
directions they can go. The New Japan (and to a lesser extent All Japan) direction, which
is killer big show business aimed at the serious audience and little or no concern for the
ratings (which are limited to begin with in Japan because of the poor time slots), which
is in a culture where pro wrestling has far more mainstream appeal and the networks
have traditionally had a lot of impact on the business. Or the WCW direction, where the
aim is for ratings on Monday night and if the house shows are good, that's a plus, but
ratings on Monday are the priority. Unfortunately they are two different masters and
you can't serve both equally at the same time.
This is similar in some ways with the dilemma New Japan faced ten years ago when the
original UWF wrestlers led by Akira Maeda returned to New Japan after the group
folded to do the interpromotional gimmick. The UWF style, which was many years
ahead of its time, was a hot style to the teenagers and young adults--the ticket buying
public--and the right big match (which never happened because they never could get all
the political problems ironed out) was a huge ticket seller. However, the general public
didn't understand the submissions and matwork so TV ratings went down to the point
New Japan lost its prime time network time slot within two years. New Japan survived,
and eventually flourished, despite having much poorer television time slots, by running
angles catering to the age group that bought the tickets and is the No. 1 promotion in the
world today despite a 1:45 a.m. time slot.
***********************************************************
It was a huge week in Japan when it came to major shows from various different offices
and with various levels of success.
In many ways, the big battle was in Osaka where Tokyo Pro Wrestling and WAR were
both running shows at the Furitsu Gym within three days of each other. Those two
promotions are business enemies since the key wrestlers for TPW, Takashi Ishikawa,
Daikokubo Benkei and Great Kabuki, were all wrestlers that broke away from Tenryu.
However, the UWFI wrestlers, in particular Nobuhiko Takada and Yoji Anjoh, were
working both shows. There was heat on the former since Takada's price tag is so high
and just one week before the show, Tokyo Pro, in need of an opponent for Abdullah the
Butcher when negotiations with Tiger Jeet Singh fell apart, paid Takada the big money
for the slot. This infuriated WAR since they were already paying Takada to appear on
their show three nights later.
That battle wound up easily being won by WAR, which drew a legitimate sellout and its
biggest crowd ever in Osaka on 10/11, while TPW had what was described as a fiasco of a
show before a crowd estimated at 1,200 (announced as a ridiculous 3,669) since the
Takada-Butcher match was only announced one week before the event and since that is
exactly the kind of match the fans who would buy tickets to see Takada wouldn't want to
see.
For the record, Takada beat Butcher in 8:15 in a match described as horrible. Takada
looked like he didn't want to be there from the start and was criticized for making a
situation that was already bad that much worse. Because of Butcher's limitations, there
wasn't one wrestling move in the match. Takada sold the first 6:00 for Butcher's chops
and head-butts and finally Butcher did the running elbow but Takada kicked out.
Takada's comeback consisted of a flurry of kicks, mainly to the chest, and a pin. After the
match, when the reporters went backstage to interview Takada, they were told by
Takada's p.r. people that Takada wanted a few minutes to take a shower and would be
available after the main event (a match with Takashi Ishikawa losing to Anjoh billed as
for the Presidency of TPW--judging from the attendance, either nobody bought the angle
or cared about it, I was told it was the former). While the main event was going on,
Takada and his contingent all snuck out of the building.
From the main event, Anjoh and the Golden Cups are now running TPW, which is
supposed to have another big show in early December at Sumo Hall, but after this show
bombed even with big name outside help, it's hard to believe they'd attempt to run an
11,000-seat building. Apparently the money mark named Ishizawa behind TPW has
already bought 33% of the UWFI stock and there are rumors that the presidency change
was a storyline cover for an attempt to merge the two groups, both deeply in debt,
together in some fashion with Ishikawa and Great Kabuki losing their office power.
The other key matches on the TPW show saw Kabuki and Tiger Mask Sayama do a
double count out which was doomed because that's the worst finish possible in Japan,
and Black Wazma (Too Cold Scorpio) beating Sabu (details later).
WAR did sellout the 6,500-seat Gym, its biggest crowd ever in Osaka, but announced the
crowd at a laughable 9,110, with Genichiro Tenryu pinning Great Muta with a power
bomb in 17:19 in the main event. This was a bloody match that was said to have been
really exciting. At one point Muta broke a beer bottle on the ringpost and the glass went
flying and cut up a photographer at ringside. This sets up a rematch in New Japan rings
where no doubt they will even up the score. Anjoh & Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi
Fuyuki captured the WAR six-man titles beating Takada & Yuhi Sano & Masahito
Kakihara in 11:32 when Anjoh used a heel hook on Kakihara. Apparently the match had
a lot of comedy since Anjoh and Fuyuki are basically comic performers and Bigelow can
do that as well.
Ultimo Dragon captured the J Crown (the eight different lighter weight wrestling titles--
IWGP world jr. heavy, NWA world jr. heavy, WWA world jr. light heavy, WWF world
light heavy, Great Britain jr. heavy, WAR International jr. heavy, UWA world jr. light
heavy and NWA welterweight) from Great Sasuke in 13:43 with a running power bomb.
Dragon's first title defense was originally to be at WCW's Halloween Havoc against
Jushin Liger, but there has been a political fallout and both wrestlers have been pulled
from the WCW show. It was said to have been a good match. Instead, Dragon's first two
title defenses will be on 12/13 at Tokyo Sumo Hall against Gedo, and against Shinjiro
Otani on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome. The other two key matches on the show saw Nobutaka
Araya & Nobukazu Hirai over Gedo & Jado, and Rey Misterio Jr. pinning Psicosis in
13:21.
Nagoya also had three major shows over the past week, starting with the 10/6 All Japan
womens card which was reported on last week. On 10/8, Pancrase ran before a sellout
2,800. The new Pancrase style, with the frequent stand-ups, which airs on U.S. PPV on
11/3, now favors those with better muay thai fighting skill above those with wrestling
skill largely to create a more exciting product and take advantage of the huge popularity
of K-1. The change in style will mean a change in who can beat whom, as the general
belief is that in an anything-goes style of fighting without stand-ups, that people like Ken
Shamrock, Frank Shamrock or Masakatsu Funaki could beat Bas Rutten, but in the
current form, Rutten is almost unbeatable. Ironically, in the top five matches on the
show, the only submission finish came from Rutten, as he beat Manabu Yamada in 54
seconds with an ankle submission. The other top matches all went the time limit and
were decided either by points or judges decisions, as Jason DeLucia beat Yuki Kondo (it
was Kondo's first career loss and takes the steam off of the planned Rutten vs. Kondo
title match in December), Osami Shibuya beat Vernon White, Minoru Suzuki beat
Takafumi Ito and Kunioku Kiuma upset Guy Mezger on a split decision. Suzuki had to be
hospitalized after his match due to herniated discs in his neck and at first was believed
to be out of action for another year, but Suzuki has since said that he'll be back well
before then. Masakatsu Funaki and Frank Shamrock didn't work the show, since both
took brutal beatings at the 9/7 PPV taping from Rutten and Kondo respectively, in
particular Funaki, who will return to action on 11/9.
The third major Nagoya event within one week (actually there were four shows in the
city that week as JWP also ran a Nagoya show on 10/9) was All Japan on 10/12 at Aiichi
Gym before 6,100 fans, basically the same size crowd as the women drew six days
earlier. The key matches on the show were Steve Williams & Johnny Ace retaining the
double tag team titles beating Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot in 32:33 when Williams
pinned Patriot with a tiger suplex in what was said to have been an exciting match,
Toshiaki Kawada (being built up for his Triple Crown shot at Kobashi on 10/18) pinning
Gary Albright in 9:03 with a high kick to the face, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama &
Tamon Honda beating Masao Inoue & Takao Omori & Akira Taue in 20:25 when
Akiyama pinned Inoue, Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat over Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II
in 8:50 and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi retained the PWF jr. title pinning Rob Van Dam in 16:20.
In addition, there were major shows at Tokyo Sumo Hall three days apart, although in
that case, the shows with Michinoku Pro and JWP were hardly considered as warring
with one another and the Michinoku wrestlers even worked a mixed semifinal on the
JWP show.
Michinoku Pro, a Northeastern Japan small town regional promotion in Japan, ran the
biggest show in its history on 10/10 drawing 7,980 fans out of its territory at Tokyo
Sumo Hall. The big draw was the dream match with Mil Mascaras & Sayama & Sasuke
(in his first match back since suffering a cracked skull on 8/5) taking on Dos Caras &
Kuniaki Kobayashi & Dynamite Kid, the latter wrestling his first match in Japan in
several years. The match was put on in the middle of the card because of the realization
by the promotion that it almost had to be a disappointment because all the wrestlers
except Sasuke are years past their prime, and Sasuke was coming back too soon after a
very serious injury. It started out even worse as for the first time ever in Japan, 58-yearold
Mascaras, as he came to the ring to his "Sky High" theme song from his 70s heyday,
tripped while hurdling over the top rope into the ring. Mascaras laughed it off, climbed
back out of the ring and hurdled the rope back into the ring. All six wrestlers received
huge reactions from the fans who came to the show to see nostalgia. It was the biggest
pop all of them except Sayama and Sasuke have received anywhere in many years. It was
Sayama's first time in the ring against Dynamite since their most famous match of all
more than 13 years ago. However, Dynamite, 37, was physically shot more than any of
the rest of them because of nerve damage that has numbed the entire left side of his
body and left him really skinny. He did his snap suplex and fist drop, but couldn't even
climb the ropes, and at one point when Sayama set him up for a suplex, he had to tell
Sayama he couldn't take the bump which resulted in an embarrassing spot. Mascaras
and Caras had their working shoes on and Mascaras even did a plancha to the floor that
was described as hardly being the majestic move he did in his prime, but it was
impressive enough just that a guy that age would do it. We've heard mixed reports on
this match, ranging from it was terrible to that the fans really enjoyed it since they came
to see nostalgia. The finish saw Caras pin Sasuke in 15:30 after a power bomb and after
the match they issued challenges back-and-forth to set up a mask vs. mask match
between Caras and Sasuke which should take place in 1997.
It was largely agreed that the match that followed it, a ten-man tag where Dick Togo &
Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki beat Gran Hamada & Super
Delfin & Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji in 32:07, made the card and
was among the best MPW matches of the year. The finale saw Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi)
pin Hayabusa in 15:16. The match was a disappointment in that the execution of the
moves was good, but the set up of the moves, particularly from Shinzaki, was really slow.
As one woman wrestler at the show described it, you could do your nails in the time it
took them to set up their wild spots. The show ended with Sasuke back in the ring asking
Shinzaki to join his side in Michinoku Pro's top feud, Seikigun (Sasuke, Hamada, Tiger
Mask, Delfin, Naniwa and Yakushiji) against Kaientai (Dick Togo's heel group) and he
agreed to do so which was the angle to set up Shinzaki's return as a babyface to
Michinoku Pro full-time, the group he started his career with. Sasuke then thanked the
crowd for attending and said that the group would run another major show in Tokyo
next year.
On 10/13 at Sumo Hall was the final major show of the week, the WOWOW live threehour
television special by JWP called "Ryogoku Big Project" before 6,000 fans
(announced at 10,003). We should have a complete rundown of the show next week, but
the main event was an upset as Kyoko Inoue & Devil Masami beat Aja Kong & Dynamite
Kansai in 17:28 when Inoue pinned Kansai, which no doubt sets the two up for a singles
match later this year. The next two matches down were a mixed match with Michinoku
Pro, as MPW's Sasuke & Tiger Mask teamed with JWP's Hikari Fukuoka & Hiromi Yagi
to beat MPW's Delfin & Naniwa and JWP's Boirshoi Kid & Candy Okutsu in 22:24, and
AJW's top star, Manami Toyota, pinned JWP's rising star, Tomoko Kuzumi in 15:17.
***********************************************************
New York Governor George Pataki signed into law on 10/10 the bill which would
essentially put Ultimate Fighting under the auspices of the State Athletic Commission
and therefore settle any questions as to its legality. The law goes into effect on February
10, 1997.
The bill was sponsored by State Senator Roy Goodman of New York City, ironically the
same senator who got a ton of publicity locally by successfully getting the first Extreme
Fighting Championship PPV show moved out of Brooklyn at the last minute. Goodman
actually introduced two bills in the state senate within one day of each other, one
attempting to ban UFC-type events, and the other to basically legalize them, but with the
state collecting tax revenue from the events as they would fall under athletic commission
jurisdiction. The bill passed both houses of the New York legislature with ease.
Passage of the bill virtually guarantees a major UFC event within New York state in 1997.
The September PPV show was originally scheduled for Syracuse, NY, but due to
problems with local politicos including the mayor, the event was moved a few weeks out
to Augusta, GA.
The major provisions of the new law is to require UFC promotes to go through the same
licensing procedures as boxing and pro wrestling promoters; set an 18-year-old
minimum requirement for participation; children under 18 can only attend live events if
accompanied by parent or guardian; matches are limited to 20 minute time limits
(which would require a slight change in UFC rules as the tournament championship
matches have traditionally had time limits ranging from 24 to 33 minutes); fighters can
only have three matches on a given evening and can't compete for a time frame in excess
of 60 minutes during any 72-hour period; Requires fighters to wear a mouthguard and a
groin cup; prohibits fighters from competing less than 90 days after a knockout; would
fine promoters $100 if the advertising doesn't state the admission price; and requires
that promoters post a pond before sanctioning the show.
In a nutshell, from a legislative standpoint in New York, the only difference between
human cockfighting and athletic competition is whether the state can get its cut.
************************************************************
After a falling out with Tokyo Pro Wrestling this past week, Sabu (Terry Brunk) agreed
to a deal with All Japan Pro Wrestling for 15 weeks a year, as a regular partner of Rob
Van Dam (Rob Szatkowski) starting with the tag team tournament next month.
In a strange situation, Sabu, who was finishing up this past week with Tokyo Pro
Wrestling, leaving a reported $6,000 per week indie gig because he believed the office
had lied to him on numerous occasions, ended up wrestling on TPW's big show in
Osaka.
The Osaka show was to be Sabu's final match with the group, however when he arrived
in the Osaka area, he was asked by booker Great Kabuki to put over Daikokubo Benkei
on a spot show and refused, saying he would put over Too Cold Scorpio (who wrestles
there as Black Wazma) but nobody else. There are also reports that TPW attempted to
pay Sabu less than his agreed amount for this tour since it was his final tour. Sabu had
been unhappy about the TPW office almost from the beginning because he said he didn't
want to work any barbed wire matches, nor work at all with Abdullah the Butcher,
because he recognized the style clash would make for an impossible match. He believed
they went back on their word by then almost immediately booking a singles match with
him and Butcher, and with Butcher running things, it was a total Butcher match. It was
believed Sabu was going to simply fly home without doing the Osaka show, but instead
he did a double swerve.
Sabu took a taxi to the gym (traditionally all the wrestlers come from the hotel to the
arena together on a bus) and came in the front door in costume just as Kabuki was
announcing that Sabu had suffered an illness and wouldn't be appearing. Since Sabu was
in costume running around fine in front of the fans, it basically forced TPW's hand and
they had to put Sabu on the card and had to pay him since the fans saw him and he
worked with and put over Scorpio.
While this was all going on, Sabu was involved in secret negotiations with All Japan and
agreed to the deal, which would basically end up with Sabu & Van Dam as a regular tag
team getting the spot vacated by Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas as a mid-card team that
will bounce around the All-Asian tag team titles with the mid-card Japanese wrestlers.
The tag team tournament starts on 11/16 at Korakuen Hall, but Sabu got special
permission to arrive two days late on his first tour since he had a prior commitment to
do the ECW "November to Remember" show on 11/16 that he had agreed to headline
since one of the working plans for that show was a main event where Sabu & Terry Funk
would form a tag team against Van Dam and a dream partner. Whether Van Dam will be
available isn't known, since Van Dam would be due to start on 11/16 with All Japan and
thus be unavailable to ECW unless Baba gave him permission to miss the first two
shows, and the Funk deal may be more of an idea than something that had actually been
agreed upon.
While the deal was agreed on, the contract hasn't been signed at press time. There are
those within All Japan who are skeptical since Sabu will have to totally modify his style
to fit into All Japan.
************************************************************
The working idea right now for the January 4, 1997 Tokyo Dome show, which along with
Wrestlemania is traditionally the biggest money wrestling show of the year, is to have a
headline match of Shinya Hashimoto vs. Riki Choshu for the IWGP heavyweight title.
While no matches have been officially announced, it is believed other top matches on the
show will include a Great Muta vs. Genichiro Tenryu rematch from the first match held
this past week, Ultimo Dragon defending the J Crown (eight belts) against Shinjiro Otani
and Jushin Liger vs. Tiger Mask Sayama. Seven independent group wrestlers will work
the undercard feuding with Heisei Ishingun. To culminate the Big Japan vs. New Japan
feud, Big Japan will send Kendo Nagasaki, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Shoji Nakamaki and
Yoshihiro Tajiri, along with three others from other independent groups which may
include Hiromichi Fuyuki and Tarzan Goto.
************************************************************
The wrestling career of Wahoo McDaniel has come to a close due to a serious heart
condition. McDaniel, 59, was one of the biggest names in pro wrestling particularly
during the 1970s and early 1980s in the Carolinas, where he was opponent of perhaps
the most famous feud of the early career of Ric Flair.
McDaniel had been working regularly on tiny independents in the Carolinas since 1990,
when he lost his job as a road agent in World Championship Wrestling after long-time
friend Ric Flair quit as booker. McDaniel's last wrestling at the major league level would
have been with the AWA in 1989 although he was part of a legends match on the 1993
WCW Slamboree show. In 1995, McDaniel had announced he would be retiring to join
the pro bass fishing tour, and wrestled retirement matches as a gimmick throughout the
Carolinas, but continued to wrestle. In early September, he was diagnosed with a serious
heart condition and forced to cancel the remainder of his bookings.
McDaniel had a colorful sports career which dated back to the late 1950s as a football
player for Bud Wilkinson's legendary University of Oklahoma football team under his
real name of Ed McDaniel where he set a record with a 90+ yard punt. He bounced
around the American Football League from 1960-69 with the New York Jets, the old
New York Titans (predecessors to the Jets), Denver Broncos and was on the original
Miami Dolphins.
He started wrestling during the off-season in 1962, and due to his legitimate Indian
heritage, was nicknamed Ed "Wahoo" McDaniel. While his football exploits were always
heavily exaggerated within pro wrestling (he was billed as a many-time All-Pro
footballer but in actuality he only started two seasons and really bounced from team to
team), the only reason he became something of a name in football was because of his
unique gimmick of being a name wrestler during the off-season. In 1964, while playing
in New York as a starting middle linebacker, he gained national notoriety because the
p.a. announcer had a gimmick of saying "Tackle by guess who?" and the fans would all
chant, "Wahoo, Wahoo." From that point forward, due to the football gimmick, he was a
headliner everywhere he went as a wrestler for the next two decades, known for his stiff
tomahawk chops which were the forerunner of the Ric Flair chop.
************************************************************
The coroner's report on the 8/23 death of Neil Caricofe, who wrestled independently for
his father's National Wrestling League as Neil "The Power" Superior, was released this
past week and stated Caricofe's death was due to a combination of a bad heart,
performance enhancing drugs and alcohol.
Caricofe, who wrestled seven years mainly in the Maryland and Virginia area but had
also worked as a jobber for World Championship Wrestling, was involved in an
altercation with police at the Fenwick Inn in Ocean City, MD at about 4:30 a.m. which
started on the seventh floor and ended in the parking lot.
According to an article in the Washington Post, Assistant medical examiner James Locke
blamed Caricofe's death at the age of 33 on a bad reaction to a combination of alcohol,
ephedrine, anabolic steroids and gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), the latter three are
illegal drugs regularly used by bodybuilders, and GHB has also made a comeback as a
party drug of late. The coroner also found that Caricofe had advanced heart disease. In
combination with Caricofe's bad heart, the effects of the ephedrine would increase the
risk of heart failure, and when used in combination of alcohol and GHB, may have led to
respiratory failure and death.
Police had used pepper spray and their batons in an attempt to get the 6-4, 267-pound
Caricofe under control in the parking lot. The coroners said the beating didn't cause any
internal injuries and had nothing to do with his death, saying there was no indication the
pepper spray triggered the heart problem.
Caricofe's father Dick Caricofe was the promoter for the National Wrestling League, an
independent group based out of Hagerstown, MD which promoted in Maryland and
West Virginia, and his son owned the Neil Superior School of Wrestling in Hagerstown.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 10/18 TO 11/18
10/18 All Japan 24th anniversary show Tokyo Budokan Hall (Kobashi vs. Kawada)
10/18 EFC III PPV Tulsa, OK Expo Square Arena (Conan vs. Maurice Smith)
10/20 WWF In Your House Buried Alive PPV Indianapolis Market Square Arena
(Undertaker vs. Mankind)
10/20 New Japan Kobe (Choshu & Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Hirata)
10/20 AAA Phoenix Celebrity Theater (Konnan & Parka & Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis &
Guerrera & Killer)
10/21 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Fort Wayne, IN Memorial Coliseum (Michaels
vs. Vader)
10/21 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Mankato, MN Civic Center
10/22 WWF Superstars tapings Cincinnati Gardens (Michaels & Lothario vs. Vader &
Cornette)
10/23 New Japan Nagasaki (Fujinami & Koshinaka vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka)
10/25 RINGS Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Maeda vs. Kopilov)
10/25 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 WWF St. Louis Kiel Center (Michaels vs. Vader)
10/26 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Gordy & Williams vs. Eliminators)
10/27 WCW Halloween Havoc PPV Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel (Hogan vs. Savage)
10/28 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Phoenix, AZ America West Arena
11/1 New Japan Hiroshima Green Arena (Super Grade tag team tournament finals)
11/2 WWF Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/3 Pancrase Tokyo Tough PPV taped 9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
11/4 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
11/8 WWF Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/9 Pancrase Kobe
11/10 WWF Cleveland, OH Gund Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust)
11/11 WCW Monday Nitro tapings St. Petersburg, FL Bayfront Center Arena
11/16 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (World Tag League tournament opening night)
11/16 ECW November to Remember Philadelphia ECW Arena
11/17 WWF Survivor Series New York Madison Square Garden (Bret Hart vs. Austin)
11/17 The U Japan Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Kimo vs. Bigelow)
11/18 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings New Haven, CT Veterans Memorial Coliseum
11/18 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Civic Center
RESULTS
10/1 Croydon, England (All-Star Wrestling): Jason Cross & Hanzo Nakajima d
Doc Dean & Eric Oslo, British Undertaker b Sgt. Slaughter (not original), Happy
Humphrey (Blondie Barrett) b Hillbilly Jake, Dean won Battle Royal
10/3 Margate, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 350): Gary Steele b Wildcat,
Tony McMillan b John Stokes, Jim Neidhart & Andre Baker b Doug Williams & Titan,
Justin Richards b Robbie Thomas, Tyrone Archer b Johnny Storm-DQ
10/4 Winnipeg, Manitoba (WWF - 6,099): Stalker b Justin Bradshaw, Crush b
Bob Holly, Jake Roberts b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Grimm Twins b Smoking Gunns,
Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Undertaker b Mankind, IC title: Marc Mero b Faarooq-DQ,
WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, Sid b Goldust, WWF title:
Shawn Michaels b Vader
10/4 Bristol, England (All-Star Wrestling): Hanzo Nakajima b Blondie Barrett,
British Undertaker b Sgt. Slaughter, Steve Regal (WCW) & Buffalo Beanie b Ian
Diamond & Jason Cross, Happy Humphrey (Barrett) b Hillbilly Jake, Doc Dean won
Battle Royal
10/4 Maidstone, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 300): Gary Steele b Robbie
Thomas, Dave McMillan b John Stokes, Jim Neidhart & Andre Baker b Doug Williams &
Titan, Johnny Storm b Tyrone Archer, Alex Shane b Justin Richards
10/4 West Allis, WI (Mid American Wrestling - 120): Axl Future b Adam Pierce,
Farmer Vic & Bouncer Bullinski b Pete Madden & Billy Wild, Barfly Mike b Chad Love,
Waverider Craig b Danny Hawkins, Johnny Mercedes b Frankie DeFalco, Agency b Billy
Joe Eaton & Craig
10/5 Ashford, England (Hammerlock Wrestling - 275): Tyrone Archer b
Wildcat, John Stokes b Johnny Storm, Jim Neidhart & Andre Baker b Tony McMillan &
Titan, Alex Shane b Adam Mansfield, Doug Williams b Dave McMillan
10/6 Fresnillo (AAA - 2,500): Hollywood & ? b Gran Apaches II & III, Angel Mortal
& Mr. Condor & Marabunta b Discovery & Boomerang & Gran Apache I, Los Villanos b
Los Payasos-DQ
10/6 San Bernardino, CA (Empire Wrestling Federation): Vik Victory b Third
Dimension, Jason the Butcher b Ultra Taro, Christopher Daniels & Ghetto Boyz b
Suicide Kid & Bulldog Sampson & Cincinnati Red, Eddie Williams b Dick Danger, Irish
Assassin b Louie Spicolli
10/6 Houma, LA (Mid South Wrestling - 175): Halfbreed b Motor City Mad Man,
Joe Kane b Southern Patriot, Natural Born Killers b Twister & Flash, Patriot & Frankie
Rhodes b Black Ninja & Richie Valentine, Crazy Joe b Psycho Mike, Rhodes & Kevin
Northcutt b Paul Edwards & Blonde Bomber
10/7 Red Deer, Alberta (WWF - 2,255): Crush b Bob Holly, Stalker b Justin
Bradshaw, Jake Roberts b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Steve Austin b Giant Titan (Rick
"Razor Ramon" Bogner), Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith won four team elimination
match over Godwinns, Smoking Gunns and Grimm Twins to retain WWF tag titles,
Savio Vega b Faarooq-DQ, IC title: Marc Mero b Goldust, Sid b Vader, Undertaker b
Mankind
10/7 Hachinohe (All Japan - 2,450): Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b
Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi & Mighty Inoue, The Patriot & Dory Funk b Giant Kimala II
& Jun Izumida, Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori b Gary Albright & Tamon Honda, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace & Dan Kroffat b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. & Rob Van
Dam, Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Satoru Asako b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira
Taue & Maunukea Mossman
10/7 Tokyo (Muga Promotions - 1,620 sellout): Nobuyuki Kurashima b Kazuhiko
Shoda, John Patrick b Jessef Guiler, Darren Marones b Darren Fletcher, Osamu
Nishimura b Shane Lisby, Lisby b Joe Malenko, Tatsumi Fujinami b Nishimura
10/7 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (IWA - 1,000): Katsumi Hirano b Takeshi Sato, Emi
Motokawa b Kadota, Tudor the Turtle b Akinori Tsukioka, Pirata Morgan Jr. & Hiroshi
Itakura b Mr. Niebla & Flying Kid Ichihara, Keizo Matsuda b Ryo Myake, Tommy Rich &
Keisuke Yamada b Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b
Hiromichi Fuyuki & Leatherface
10/7 Himeji (Tokyo Pro Wrestling): Masanobu Kurisu b Takahashi, The Natural &
Mike Anthony b Astro Rey Jr. & Akihiko Masuda, Kishin Kawabata b Billy Black,
Shocker b Masao Orihara, Great Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei b Shigeo Okumura &
Shinobu Tamura, Abdullah the Butcher b Black Wazma
10/8 Nagoya (Pancrase - 2,800 sellout): Katsoumi Inagaki b Chitose Hasegawa,
Ryushi Yanagisawa b Semmy Schiltt, Kunioku Kiuma b Guy Mezger, Minoru Suzuki b
Takafumi Ito, Osami Shibuya b Vernon White, Jason DeLucia b Yuki Kondo, Bas Rutten
b Manabu Yamada
10/8 Osaka Furitsu Gym (Tokyo Pro Wrestling - 1,200): Kenichi Yamamoto b
Shinobu Tamura, Gekko (Masao Orihara) b Shocker, Cooga & Bloody Phoenix b Esther
& Alda Moreno, Shigeo Okumura & Astro Rey Jr. & Takeru & Masanobu Kurisu b Kishin
Kawabata & Mike Anthony & The Natural & Billy Black, Yoshihiro Takayama b
Daikokubo Benkei, Black Wazma b Sabu, Tiger Mask Sayama DCOR Great Kabuki,
Orihara b Yamamoto to win Junior flag, Nobuhiko Takada b Abdullah the Butcher, Yoji
Anjoh b Takashi Ishikawa
10/8 Lethbridge, Alberta (WWF - 3,834): Crush b Bob Holly, Stalker b Justin
Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Jake Roberts b Giant Titan, Owen
Hart & Davey Boy Smith won four team elimination match over Smoking Gunns,
Godwinns and Grimm Twins to retain WWF tag titles, Savio Vega b Faarooq-DQ, IC
title: Marc Mero b Goldust, Sid b Vader, Undertaker b Mankind
10/8 Greenwood, SC (WCW Saturday Night and Main Event tapings - 2,600
sellout/2,100 paid): Jeff Jarrett b Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero b Disco Inferno, Ron
Studd b Jack Boot (Dwayne Bruce aka Buddy Lee Parker), Hugh Morrus b Prince
Iaukea, M. Wallstreet b Jim Duggan-DQ, Chris Jericho b Steve Armstrong, Harlem Heat
b Dick Slater & Mike Enos, Kevin Sullivan b Scott Armstrong, Imposter Sting b
Bunkhouse Buck, Lex Luger b Jim Powers, Bobby Eaton b Harrison Norris, Enos b Jerry
Lynn, High Voltage b Starbuck Brothers, Maxx b Mike Wenner
10/8 Tanagura (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Sekiguchi, Yumi Fukawa b
Momoe Nakanishi, Genki Misae & Yoshiko Tamura & Nana Takahashi b Yuka Shiina &
Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada, Mima Shimoda b Saya Endo, Manami Toyota & Kaoru
Ito b Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada & Chaparita Asari b
Tomoko Watanabe & Etsuko Mita & Kyoko Inoue
10/9 Medicine Hat, Alberta (WWF - 2,554): Crush b Bob Holly, Stalker b Justin
Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Jake Roberts b Giant Titan, Owen
Hart & Davey Boy Smith won four-team elimination match over Smoking Gunns,
Godwinns and Grimm Twins, Savio Vega b Faarooq-DQ, IC title: Marc Mero b Goldust,
Sid b Vader, Undertaker b Mankind
10/9 Nagoya (JWP): Boirshoi Kid b Kanako Motoya, JWP jr. title: Tomoko Kuzumi b
Fusayo Nouchi, Cutie Suzuki & Hikari Fukuoka b Rieko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki,
Dynamite Kansai & Candy Okutsu & Tomoko Miyaguchi & Kanako Motoya b Devil
Masami & Hiromi Yagi & Boirshoi & Amano
10/9 Ohhira (All Japan women): Sekiguchi & Miho Wakizawa b Nana Takahashi &
Fujii, Momoe Nakanishi & Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo b Yoshiko Tamura & Rie Tamada &
Yumi Fukawa, Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada & Genki Misae b Yumiko Hotta &
Chaparita Asari & Kumiko Maekawa, Aja Kong b Takako Inoue, Manami Toyota & Kaoru
Ito b Mima Shimoda & Kyoko Inoue
10/9 Fukaya (IWA): Katsumi Hirano b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota,
Tsukioka & Flying Kid Ichihara b Tudor the Turtle & Takeshi Sato, Mr. Niebla b Pirata
Morgan Jr., Super Leather b Ryo Myake, Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther b Keizo Matsuda &
Hiroshi Itakura, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke b Keisuke Yamada & Tommy Rich
10/10 Tokyo Sumo Hall (Michinoku Pro - 7,980): Johnny Saint b Naohiro
Hoshikawa, PWA hwt title: Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Lenny Lane, Yuki Ishikawa &
Alexander Otsuka b Daisuke Ikeda & Satoshi Yoneyama, Dynamite Kid (original) &
Kuniaki Kobayashi & Dos Caras b Great Sasuke & Mil Mascaras & Tiger Mask Sayama,
Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b Gran Hamada
& Super Delfin & Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji, Jinsei Shinzaki b
Hayabusa
10/10 Kurashiki (All Japan - 1,100): Maunukea Mossman b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Masao Inoue, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen &
Mighty Inoue, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Dory Funk & Masa Fuchi, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace b Gary Albright & Rob Van Dam, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b
Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako, Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa & Giant Baba b Stan
Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. & Dan Kroffat, Mitsuharu Misawa & Tamon Honda b
Toshiaki Kawada & Takao Omori
10/10 Memphis (USWA - 375): Bart Sawyer b Trailer Park Trash, Mike Samples &
Motley Cruz b Steven Dunn & Sean Venom, Brickhouse Brown b Tony Falk, Miss Texas
b Medusa (Tasha Simone), I Quit match: Wolfie D b Bill Dundee, Power bomb through
table match: Jamie Dundee b Jesse James Armstrong, USWA title: Brian Christopher b
Flash Flanagan-DQ, Unified title: Colorado Kid b Jerry Lawler
10/10 Ueda (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi & Sekiguchi b Miho Wakizawa &
Fujii, Saya Endo & Genki Misae & Yoshiko Tamura b Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa &
Nana Takahashi, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue b Toshiyo Yamada & Mima Shimoda,
Yumiko Hotta b Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong & Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b
Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & Rie Tamada
10/10 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP - 900): Hikari Fukuoka b Tomoko Kuzumi,
Candy Okutsu b Tomoko Miyaguchi, I Quit ***** jacket match: Hiromi Yagi b Rieko
Amano, Boirshoi Kid & Fukuoka b Kanako Motoya & Fusayo Nouchi, Fukuoka & Okutsu
& Yagi b Kuzumi & Miyaguchi & Amano
10/10 Isehara (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Keizo
Matsuda b Tudor the Turtle, Pirata Morgan Jr. & Mr. Niebla b Akinori Tsukioka &
Flying Kid Ichihara, Mr. Gannosuke b Katsumi Hirano, Hiroshi Itakura & Keisuke
Yamada b Dr. Luther & Freddy Kruger, Tommy Rich & Leatherface b Tarzan Goto & Ryo
Myake
10/10 Indianapolis (Independent Wrestling Alliance): Harvey Nichols d Sean
Casey, Gator McAllister b ?, 911 b Smoky Mountain Massacre, Reckless Youth b Tracy
Smothers, Rocco Rock b Bull Pain, Taipei death match: Ian Rotten b Mad Man Pondo
10/11 Osaka Furitsu Gym (WAR - 6,510 sellout): Takashi Okamura b Jun Kikuchi,
Mikiko Futagami & Yasha Kurenai b Michiko Nagashima & Eagle Sawai, Osamu
Tachihikari b Fukuda, Masaaki Mochizuki & Arashi b Yuji Yasuraoka & Koki Kitahara,
WWA welterweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Psicosis, Nobukazu Hirai & Nobutaka Araya
b Gedo & Jado, J Crown: Ultimo Dragon b Great Sasuke to win eight belts, WAR 6 man
titles: Yoji Anjoh & Bam Bam Bigelow & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Nobuhiko Takada & Yuhi
Sano & Masahito Kakihara to win titles, Genichiro Tenryu b Great Muta
10/11 Revere, MA (ECW - 903 sellout): ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Samoan
Gangstas, Doug Furnas b Johnny Smith, Louie Spicolli b Devon Storm, Buh Buh Ray
Dudley & Spike Dudley b J.T. Smith & Little Guido, Taz b Mikey Whipwreck, ECW TV
title: Shane Douglas b Pit Bull [URL=http://www.wrestlingforum.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=2]#2 -DQ[/URL] , Weapons match: Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee,
Eliminators b Erotic Experience, Sabu b Too Cold Scorpio, ECW title: Sandman b Stevie
Richards
10/11 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Olimpus & Atlantico & Principe Franky
b Halcon ***** Jr. & Espectro Jr. & Cadaver de Ultratumba, Brazo de Oro & Super
Astro & Shocker b Arkangel & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Scorpio Jr., Black Warrior & Bestia
Salvaje & Felino b ***** Casas & La Fiera & Dandy-DQ, Head Hunters & Miguel Perez b
Atlantis & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr.
10/11 Mitsuikaido (All Japan women): Sekiguchi b Fujii, Yuka Shiina b Nana
Takahashi, Genki Misae & Saya Endo b Momoe Nakanishi & Yoshiko Tamura, Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue b Mima Shimoda & Aja Kong, Tomoko Watanabe b Kumiko
Maekawa, Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita b Manami Toyota & Kaoru
Ito & Chaparita Asari
10/11 Hyuga (JD - 320): Yuko Kosugi b Abe, Neftaly b Chiquita Azteca (Esther
Moreno), Bloody Phoenix & Cooga b Yuki Lee & Koyama, Princesa Blanca b Chikako
Shiratori, Jaguar Yokota & Lioness Asuka b Esther & Alda Moreno
10/12 Nagoya Aiichi Gym (All Japan - 6,100): Bobby Duncum Jr. b Maunukea
Mossman, Dory Funk & Satoru Asako b Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari Ogawa, Masa Fuchi
& Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota,
PWF jr. title: Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Rob Van Dam, Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat b Giant
Kimala II & Jun Izumida, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b Masao
Inoue & Takao Omori & Akira Taue, Toshiaki Kawada b Gary Albright, PWF & Intl tag
titles: Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot
10/12 Koriyama (New Japan - 3,000 sellout): Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie,
Kuniaki Kobayashi b El Samurai, Jushin Liger & Norio Honaga b Tatsuhito Takaiwa &
Shinjiro Otani, Tatsutoshi Goto b Hiro Saito, Steve Regal & David Taylor b Osamu
Nishimura & Osamu Kido, Kengo Kimura & Michiyoshi Ohara b Tadao Yasuda &
Kensuke Sasaki, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka & Akira Nogami b Yuji Nagata &
Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Satoshi
Kojima & Riki Choshu, Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner & Manabu Nakanishi (Kurosawa) b
Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton & Junji Hirata
10/12 Burlington, MA (ECW - 849): ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Samoan Gangstas
3/4*, Louie Spicolli b J.T. Smith 1/4*, Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley b Erotic Experience
1/2*, Bill Alfonso b Tod Gordon DUD, Pit Bull #2 b John Kronus *3/4, Too Cold Scorpio
b Doug Furnas **3/4, Johnny Smith b Devon Storm ***, Taz b Mikey Whipwreck *,
Sabu b Perry Saturn ***3/4, Sandman & Tommy Dreamer b Brian Lee & Stevie Richards
***
10/12 Nashville (USWA): Bart Sawyer b Trailer Park Trash, Mike Samples b Sean
Venom-DQ, I Quit match: Wolfie D b Bill Dundee, Power bomb through table match:
Jamie Dundee b Jesse James Armstrong, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Flash
Flanagan-DQ, Unified title: Colorado Kid b Jerry Lawler
10/12 Mito (FMW): Mamoru Okamoto & Hayato Nanjyo b Hideo Makimura &
Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Rie b Miss Mongol, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Gosaku Goshogawara,
Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Megumi Kudo & Kaori Nakayama, Koji
Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa b Taka Michinoku & Ricky Fuji & Toryu, Super
Leather b Hideki Hosaka, Street fight: The Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya b Jason the
Terrible & Wing Kanemura
10/12 Tokyo (IWA): Tudor the Turtle & Takeshi Sato b Katsumi Hirano & Jun
Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Hiroshi Itakura & Pirata Morgan Jr. b Flying Kid
Ichihara & Akinori Tsukioka, Leatherface b Mr. Niebla, Tommy Rich b Keizo Matsuda,
Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther b Mr. Gannosuke & Ryo Myake, Tarzan Goto b Keisuke
Yamada
10/13 Tokyo Sumo Hall (JWP The Ryogoku Big Project - 6,000): Fusayo
Nouchi b Yuko Kosugi, Kanako Motoya b Yumi Fukawa, All-Japan jr. title: Tomoko
Miyaguchi b Emi Motokawa, Mayumi Ozaki & Rieko Amano & Sugar Sato b Cutie Suzuki
& Plum Mariko & Yuki Miyazaki, Manami Toyota b Tomoko Kuzumi, Great Sasuke &
Tiger Mask & Hikari Fukuoka & Hiromi Yagi b Super Delfin & Gran Naniwa & Candy
Okutsu & Boirshoi Kid, Devil Masami & Kyoko Inoue b Dynamite Kansai & Aja Kong
10/13 Anaheim, CA Arrowhead Pond (WWF - 5,331): Barry Windham (not
Stalker) b Justin Bradshaw, Vader b Jake Roberts, Jose Lothario b Jim Cornette, Grimm
Twins b Smoking Gunns, Steve Austin b Savio Vega, Undertaker b Mankind, IC title:
Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Sid b Vader, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey
Boy Smith b Godwinns, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
10/13 Tupelo, MS (WCW - 3,500/2,948 paid): Alex Wright b Chavo Guerrero Jr.,
Chris Jericho b Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan b M. Wallstreet, Meng & Barbarian b Nasty
Boys, Randy Savage won triangle match over Sting & Giant via DQ, Non-title: Kevin
Nash & Scott Hall b Harlem Heat
10/13 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,920 sellout): Tatsuhito Takaiwa b
Yutaka Yoshie, El Samurai b Hiro Saito, Shinjiro Otani & Osamu Nishimura b Kengo
Kimura & Akitoshi Saito, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto b Jushin
Liger & Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Junji Hirata &
Tadao Yasuda, Yuji Nagata & Kensuke Sasaki & Riki Choshu b Takashi Iizuka & Osamu
Kido & Kazuo Yamazaki, Steve Regal & David Taylor b Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro
Koshinaka, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi
10/13 Karuisawa (All Japan - 1,100): Rob Van Dam b Kentaro Shiga, Dory Funk b
Masao Inoue, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi & Mighty Inoue, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari
Ogawa, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Gary Albright & Maunukea Mossman, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Tamon Honda b Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat & Bobby
Duncum Jr., Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Takao Omori b Kenta Kobashi & The
Patriot & Satoru Asako
10/13 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 1,750): Sekiguchi & Nana
Takahashi b Fujii & Miho Wakizawa, Kumiko Maekawa b Tomoe Nakanishi, Genki
Misae & Etsuko Mita b Saya Endo & Toshiyo Yamada, Yuka Shiina & Yumiko Hotta b
Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa, Kyoko Inoue b Tomoko Watanabe, Mariko Yoshida &
Kaoru Ito b Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett, WWWA super light title: Chaparita Asari
b Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno), Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b Manami Toyota & Rie
Tamada
10/13 Baltimore, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation): Lucifer & Cue Ball
Carmichael b Quinn Nash & Bob Starr, Adam Flash b Johnny Gunn-COR, Earl the Pearl
b Billy Wilde, Damian Kane b Jeff Jones, Steve Corino & Jimmy Cicero b Mad Dog
O'Malley & Johnny Taylor, Corporal Punishment b Spellbinder, Glenn Osbourne b Head
Banger Mash, Mark Schrader b Axl Rotten, Boo Bradley b Knuckles Zandwich,
Carmichael b Joe Thunder, Earl the Pearl b Corino, Chuck Williams & Osbourne b
Menace 2 Society, Bradley b Starr, Head Bangers b Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie
10/14 Memphis (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 6,930/5,650 paid): Dean
Malenko b Brad Armstrong ***1/4, Jim Duggan b M. Wallstreet -*, Hugh Morrus b Jim
Powers *3/4, Lex Luger b Greg Valentine *1/4, Eddie Guerrero b Cheetah Kid 1/2*, Jeff
Jarrett b Big Bubba ***, Harlem Heat NC Meng & Barbarian 3/4*
Special thanks to: Robert Rothaas, Chuck Langermann, Dan Parris, Scott Hudson, Walt
Spafford, Mark Taylor, Adam Pennison, Rob Goldberg, Gary Langevin, Ross Hart,
Edward Noda, Dominick Valenti, Del Jones, Ken Doucet, Shane Robinson, Matthew
Cail, Trent Van Driesse, Dan Parris, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Jerry Lane, Jim Kettner,
Evan McClosky, Neil Sabatini, Mike Mahoney Jr., Tom Noble, Ronnie Crowder, Dean
Ayass, Mike McGuire, Scott Despres
EMLL
The Head Hunters & Miguel Perez returned on the 10/11 show at Arena Mexico beating
Atlantis & Lizmark & Lizmark Jr. in what was nearly a total squash, which could set the
Hunters up for a CMLL tag title shot next week.
The other major program at Arena Mexico is a continuation of the ***** Casas vs.
Bestia Salvaje feud. In the semifinal on 10/11, Casas & Dandy & La Fiera were
disqualified against Salvaje & Felino & Black Warrior when Casas got a plaque from a
fan at ringside and smashed it over Salvaje's head with glass breaking everywhere.
Jushin Liger is said to be headed in which may wind up being a major political deal since
AAA, WCW and New Japan are supposed to be the triumvirate that works together
which would mean Liger should only appear for AAA in Mexico.
Now that he's a babyface, Casas is doing almost a total Riki Choshu gimmick with the
same tights, same boots and same babyface mannerisms, same type of selling and
storyline in his matches, right down to using the lariat and scorpion deathlock as his
finishing routine. Casas is getting an amazing reaction at Arena Mexico and the
comparison to Ric Flair in Charlotte and Greensboro is right on the money.
AAA
Volador will be returning under a new gimmick in February. He's been out of action for
months after a serious auto accident.
Super Crazy will be getting a name change and a gimmick make-over as Genesis.
The Winners tag team idea has already been dropped and New Winners is back as
Mosco de la Merced.
Televisa has ordered AAA and EMLL to do a combined show as a television special but
there is so much bitterness between the two groups that everyone is balking about doing
it.
Just before he was scheduled to return, Blue Panther had an about face and is staying
with PROMO Azteca. Fuerza Guerrera, who founded the PROMELL promotion, has
returned to AAA.
ALL JAPAN
Kenta Kobashi suffered a broken eardrum but is still working every night leading up to
his Triple Crown title defense against Toshiaki Kawada on 10/18 at Budokan Hall.
9/22 TV show did a 2.1 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The tag team tournament tour opened on 10/12 before a sellout 3,000 in Koriyama but
the first tournament matches were the next night at Korakuen Hall. Scott Norton's
shoulder has recovered enough that he's back in as Shinya Hashimoto's tag team
partner.
Tournament results from 10/13 at Korakuen Hall before a sellout 1,920 saw Masahiro
Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan defeat Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi (formerly
Kurosawa, who has gone back to using his real name) when Chono used the STF on
Nakanishi, and Steve Regal & David Taylor beat Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka
when Regal pinned Koshinaka.
Shinya Kojika was at the Korakuen Hall show and had a worked argument in the
dressing room with Riki Choshu as he presented Choshu with his seven member
independent wrestling team to face the New Japan wrestlers at the Tokyo Dome. Kojika
announced four of his Big Japan wrestlers (Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Yoshihiro Tajiri, Shoji
Nakamaki and Kendo Nagasaki) and said there would be three others.
Fujinami's Muga promotion ran a show on 10/7 in Tokyo before a sellout 1,620. Osamu
Nishimura won the tournament beating Shane Lisby, to get a singles match against
Fujinami in the main event which Fujinami won. The biggest news was since it was a
Fujinami show in Tokyo, and Fujinami has been a superstar in Japan since 1978, he
invited a lot of celebrities including two of the biggest name sumos of the era, Akebono
and Konishiki which, with no exaggeration, would be the equivalent of Michael Jordan
and Magic Johnson (since Konishiki is a few years past his prime) attending an indie
show in the U.S. With the exception of Joe Malenko, the foreign wrestlers Fujinami uses
are proteges of Ray Wood, the famous wrestling coach from the now defunct Wigan Gym
in Lancashire, England which produced such notables as Karl Gotch, Billy Joyce and
Billy Robinson. Gotch and Joyce are being brought to Japan by Fujinami for his
December tour.
9/21 TV show did a 2.2 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
The U Japan announced its 11/17 Tokyo Ariake Coliseum line-up for a shoot show in the
octagon under UFC rules. Matches announced were Kimo vs. Bam Bam Bigelow as was
reported here last week, a Brazilian named Johnny Ramirez vs. TBA, Dan Severn vs.
TBA, Mark Hall vs. Don Frye, Katsumi Usuda (pro wrestler from Battlarts) vs. Wallid
Ismael (one of the biggest names in Brazilian Vale Tudo and Jiu Jitsu), Gary Goodridge
vs. Patrick Smith, Shinji Katase (a karate star in Japan) vs. Paul Varelans and a womens
match with Becky Levy (the powerlifting trainer of Frye and Scott Ferrozo) vs. Yoko
Takahashi, a former woman wrestler who is now a martial artist but lost in the first
round of the recent U tournament that All Japan women put on in August. Koji Kitao
won't be doing the show. Since the promotion announced his name before he had agreed
to do it, and he decided not to work the show, leaving Severn without an opponent.
Goodridge may not do the show because he's agreed to do Ultimate Ultimate. Ken
Shamrock is considering doing the show just to get a tune-up match before Ultimate
Ultimate. The line-up on paper doesn't look to be a show that'll do big box office
business and considering the expenses and amount they are shelling out for talent, they
need a huge house to break even. They were handing out fliers for this show after some
of the recent big pro wrestling events in Tokyo with the fliers basically headlining with
something that would translate into "The Myth of Pro Wrestling will die." The whole
idea of the show is that the promoters have been trying to get a big name pro wrestler to
do a shoot with Kimo and get destroyed.
WAR's next big show will be 12/13 at Sumo Hall, and besides Ultimo Dragon vs. Gedo
for the J Crown will be the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu rematch. Most fans
can see the interpromotinal top guys doing splits of matches and because of that, it's
expected this show won't have anything close to the interest of the first meeting since
everyone expects Tenryu to win to even things up.
A correction from last week regarding the IWA. The promotion is scheduled to fold after
10/26, not 10/12, so there are two weeks left. There have been rumors of re-starting the
group next February, but the odds seem great against it. Publicly, several of the
Japanese wrestlers and also Tommy Rich have been begging the owner, Kinroku Asano,
to keep the group going. The final Korakuen Hall show was on 10/7 with Tarzan Goto &
Mr. Gannosuke vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Leatherface, managed by Patricia on top. The
"highlight" was Patricia taking off her panties and Fuyuki putting them over Goto's head
after they had thrown powder in his eyes, so that when he cleared his eyes, he saw the
panties over his head.
With IWA folding, Goto, Gannosuke, Flying Kid Ichihara, Fuyuki, Gedo and Jado are
rumored to be forming their own booking agency where they would book themselves as
a group to all the different independent promoters.
Victor Quinones was suspended legit for the next two FMW tours because of the incident
with reporter Fumi Saito. There are still unresolved legal problems from the incident.
Akira Hokuto starts with Gaea on 10/22. She's only been to the dojo twice since she
started and there are people thinking there will be a major ego conflict between her and
Chigusa Nagayo.
All Japan women opened their tag team tournament on 10/13 at Korakuen Hall with
Genki Misae & Etsuko Mita over Saya Endo & Toshiyo Yamada; Yuka Shiina & Yumiko
Hotta over Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa; Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida over Reggie
Bennett & Mima Shimoda; and Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura over Manami Toyota & Rie
Tamada.
JWP ran Korakuen Hall on 10/10, head-to-head with the Michinoku show, and only
drew 900 fans for a show where most of the big names didn't appear and Hikari
Fukuoka worked three matches. Yoji Anjoh went to the show and gave flowers to
Fukuoka and Candy Okutsu. Anjoh is doing a gimmick where his favorite wrestler is
Fukuoka, and now that he's president of Tokyo Pro, I guess this is an angle to set up
using those two on TPW shows.
Masami Ozaki of Pancrase announced that he had selected 14 new Americans to debut
with the company over the next several months.
USWA
The 10/10 show in Memphis drew the second straight house of less than 400 fans and
$1,900. Due to poor crowds the past two weeks, no show is being scheduled for this
week and they are going to return to the traditional Monday starting on 10/21. They had
given up on Mondays because they had blamed the small crowds on attempting to run a
show head-up with free Nitro and Raw. However, moves to other nights have resulted in
crowds falling. In addition, the other big excuse of the year was the security at the Mid
South Coliseum turning fans off, however since the move from the Coliseum, crowds
have continued to drop, making everyone realize the problem is the talent. In addition,
WCW drew a big crowd on 10/14 at the Coliseum for Nitro despite Jerry Lawler's best
efforts to sabotage the show.
The tag team titles are now held up as at the 10/12 television show, a match with Bill &
Jamie Dundee defending against Brian Christopher & Wolfie D ended up in a double
pin. The match for the held up belts takes place on 10/21.
Although Lawler is technically the booker, since he's gone so much, Bert Prentice is
basically running things and bringing in much of his crew from his North American
promotion and building up Colorado Kid as the top babyface. Kid once again beat Lawler
on the 10/10 show when Sean Venom came to ringside with a snake, which freaked
Lawler out, and Kid schoolboyed him. In the other top matches, Brian Christopher kept
the USWA title although he was pinned by Flash Flanagan, as he put a foreign object in
Flanagan's tights and told the ref to check Flanagan, and ref Downtown Bruno checked
him and found the object and called for the DQ. Jamie Dundee beat the soon to be
departing Jesse James Armstrong in a match which could only end with a power bomb
through the table when Bill Dundee interfered. Earlier Wolfie D had beaten Bill Dundee
in an I Quit match when Armstrong grabbed the house mic and imitated Dundee's voice
saying that he quit.
Lawler did another interview trying to sabotage the Nitro. He brought out a copy of the
10/7 Observer, said what it was and even mentioned Dave Meltzer in California (and not
even knocking it) and read what was written about the Nitro taping on 9/30 in
Cleveland. He called WCW ripoff artists saying they advertise people and matches who
don't appear and told people if they want to see Nitro, they should stay home and watch
it on television, but then said if they had any brains, they'd watch Raw instead.
Lance Russell hasn't been around doing commentary in several weeks and it appears
he's done. Lawler has been doing the commentary with Dave Brown and Cory Maclin.
Russell had been doing the announcing whenever he was in town, but he frequently
travels around the country visiting grandchildren, however he's been in town and not
been on the show and his name is no longer mentioned.
The woman who appeared on the 10/10 card in Memphis as Medusa to wrestle Miss
Texas, was Tasha Simone.
ECW
The first shows in the Boston market were successful as 10/10 in Revere, MA drew a
sellout 903 and 10/11 in Burlington, MA drew just shy of a sellout of 849 with both gates
right around $15,000. The first night saw Gangstas open beating Samoan Gangstas in
2:00 to keep the tag titles in the typical brawl. Doug Furnas pinned Johnny Smith in
what I was told was technically very good but the fans didn't get into it chanting boring
and we want blood. Louie Spicolli beat Devon Storm in a **1/2 match. The FBI beat The
Dudleys when D-Von hit Buh Buh with a chair. Taz beat Mikey Whipwreck in the typical
Taz match. Shane Douglas beat Pit Bull #2 in a TV title match when PB2 threw down the
ref for a DQ. Douglas punched a fan who was heckling him. Match was said to have been
stiff but not as good as some of their recent bouts. Tommy Dreamer beat Brian Lee in a
weapons match. Highlight was Blue Meanie waving a condom at Beulah. Eliminators,
working as babyfaces since they are from Boston, beat Erotic Experience. Sabu pinned
Too Cold Scorpio in a great **** match and Sandman kept the ECW title pinning Stevie
Richards in a very good match. Richards made a joke about Ted Kennedy saying that like
Ted Kennedy says, "I'll cross that bridge when I drive over it." They had a post-match
brawl in which Terry Gordy made a surprise appearance. Crowd was said to overall be
less respectful than a Philadelphia audience. They return on 11/23.
Next night in Burlington, MA was also a good show. In the key matches, Pit Bull #2 beat
John Kronus. After the match, Douglas did a run-in and supposedly broke his knuckle so
he couldn't defend the title later in the show. Actually he suffered a hamstring injury the
previous night. Scorpio pinned Furnas in a **3/4 match. Dudleys beat Erotic Experience
and D-Von again destroyed Buh Buh with chair shots. Buh Buh did a tope after the
match on everyone. Johnny Smith pinned Storm in a match where Douglas came out
with his fist taped and attacked Smith and it wound up with them removing the tape and
finding a chain. Taz beat Whipwreck in the typical Taz squash. Whipwreck is really
improving as a worker of late. Sabu pinned Saturn in a ***3/4 match. Saturn apparently
suffered a concussion during the match and collapsed backstage afterwards. Main was
the typical brawl with Sandman & Dreamer over Lee & Richards. Post-match the crowd
started throwing chairs. There are as many different stories as to exactly what happened
as there are people telling them, but it appears that the fans started throwing chairs like
they see on television, and either the sound man or the security told them to stop. One
fan then threw a chair right at that person's face while others were throwing chairs in the
ring. Tommy Dreamer then jumped on the fan and several of the larger wrestlers in the
company including Buh Buh, Sandman, Taz, Pit Bull and Spicolli had to basically fight a
few fans and throw others out that were out of control. It wasn't as if the entire crowd
was like that, but there were enough that it was a real disturbance and the ringside area
looked like a war zone by that time the wrestlers got everyone out.
Douglas is expected to be able to work this coming weekend.
Raven is expected back on the 10/26 show at ECW Arena but that isn't a definite.
The situation with Rock & Roll Express appears to have been that they didn't get their
plane tickets until the last minute and by that point had already agreed to do the
Tennessee show. They still may be brought in to work with Gangstas since Paul Heyman
wants the Gangstas as tag champs to work longer than the length of their song and
longer than a brawl with weapons in a garbage can last and knows Rock & Rolls are good
enough workers to pull that off.
Prime Sports West which includes the Los Angeles, San Diego and Portland markets, has
pulled ECW from its 3 a.m. Mondays time slot due to program content. With Fox taking
over the entire Prime Network nationally very soon, that entire network is expected to be
revamped.
There is talk of running shows in Cincinnati, Dayton and Indianapolis in December.
For those from out of town interested in attending the November to Remember on 11/16,
which will be the group's biggest show in its history, please call on 10/28 at 215-928-
9772 for tickets that morning as tickets will be gone quickly.
10/18 in Plymouth Meeting, PA has Sabu vs. Scorpio, Dreamer vs. Lee cage match,
Sandman vs. Richards cage for the title and Douglas vs. Whipwreck TV title.
10/19 in Bensalem, PA has Sabu vs. Scorpio, Sandman defending against Richards,
Douglas defending against Dreamer, Pit Bull #2 vs. Lee, Saturn vs. Whipwreck and New
Jack vs. Kronus.
10/25 in Jim Thorpe, PA has Sandman & Scorpio vs. Eliminators, plus Gangstas and
Douglas defend and all the regulars plus Steve Williams.
10/26 at ECW Arena besides Sabu & Van Dam vs. Dan Kroffat & Furnas, Eliminators vs.
Gordy & Williams, has Sandman defending against Scorpio and a scaffold match with a
table under the scaffold with Dreamer vs. Lee.
11/1 in Middletown, NY has Sandman vs. Scorpio, Douglas vs. Dreamer, Gangstas vs.
Eliminators, Sabu vs. Furnas plus Williams appears.
11/2 in Staten Island, NY has Dreamer & Sandman vs. Lee & Richards in a cage, Sabu &
Van Dam vs. Eliminators, Williams vs. Scorpio, Pit Bull #2 vs. Furnas, Gangstas defend
against FBI, Douglas defends TV title against Hack Myers and more.
Bobby Bradley Jr. is expected to get a tryout soon.
Some talk of Douglas, Taz and Perry Saturn being put together next year as the new
Triple Threat, to feud with Pit Bulls and Kronus.
HERE AND THERE
Among those appearing at the 10/6 AWF television tapings in Tampa were Missy Hyatt,
Bobby Bradley Jr., Fire Cat (Brady Boone), Charlie Norris, Billy Two Eagles (from
Portland), Fidel Sierra, Chris Adams, Steve Doll, Blacktop Bully, Sgt. Slaughter, Konnan
2000 (Scott Putski), Texas Hangmen, Koko Ware, Mr. Hughes, Tony Atlas, Nailz, Road
Warriors, Honkytonk Man and One Man Gang. They drew about 500 fans, who were
paid $50 apiece by the promotion and given catered food to attend making it at negative
$25,000 house which must set some sort of a record. AWF starts back on Ch. 2 in New
York at 1:30 a.m. Sundays starting 10/20. There are negotiations to bring AWF to the FX
cable channel as early as January.
The current issue of the Ring Magazine has an article on Danny Hodge.
Steve Regal remains in England for All-Star Promotions.
Some updates on wrestling in Puerto Rico. Television announcer Isaac Rosario is now
wrestling and involved in a feud teaming with Carlos Colon against heel manager Rico
Suave (Julio Estrada--who does one hell of an interview) & top heel Hurricane Castillo
Jr. Texas Hangmen hold the WWC tag titles having recently won them from Rey
Gonzalez & Ricky Santana. D-Lo Brown, Shawn Morley and Skull Von Crush have been
in and Buddy Landel was in for one week. There is a rival promotion which has some
kind of a connection with the WWF as Juan Rivera (Savio Vega) is doing a lot of the
booking and among those working for that group have been Duke Droese, Fidel Sierra
and Joe Don Smith.
Add Gary Goodridge to Mark Coleman, Tank Abbott, Ken Shamrock and Don Frye as to
those who have confirmed being in the Ultimate Ultimate on 12/7. Dan Severn will be
doing a show in Brazil in late October before doing the U Japan on 11/17. Severn has not
cut all ties with UFC, but didn't want to do a tournament and instead is looking at
putting his championship up against the Ultimate Ultimate winner on the February PPV
in a superfight if SEG decides to go back into doing superfights.
UFCF (United Full Contact Federation), also called Pankration, ran a show on 10/11 in
Honolulu. Among those attending the show were Ken and Frank Shamrock, Relson
Gracie, and most of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team including Shaquille O'Neal.
In the main event, Victor Belfort Gracie (adopted son of Carlson Gracie) destroyed 6-8,
290-pound John Hess (UFC V) in 14 seconds. In the heavyweight tournament, Peter
Williams of the Lions Den, who went to the finals of this year's Neo Blood tournament in
Pancrase and lost to Yuki Kondo, beat Joe Charles (2-1 UFC record) with a kneebar in
less than 2:00 in the finals.
Speaking of Ken Shamrock, the guy is so serious about the Ultimate Ultimate that he's
leaving California with training partners Williams and Jerry Bohlander for the next two
months to train full-time in Cincinnati with Bengals strength coach and Hammer-
Strength machine innovator Kim Wood.
Jim Neidhart recently finished a three day tour with Hammerlock Wrestling out of
England.
Carolinas indie wrestler Rikki Nelson suffered a broken leg playing for an Arena Football
league team in Concord, NC.
There is an English language wrestling magazine in the Mexican magazine newsprint
format focusing on masked wrestlers called The Rasslin Magazine from Parts Unknown
at P.O. Box 520, Hamtramck, MI 48212. It mainly covers Mexican and Japanese
wrestling news and Mexican cinema news in a satirical manner at $2.95 per shot. It also
asks that "If you are a major U.S. wrestling promotion, please do not steal costuming for
use on a jobber at a pay-per-view."
Michael Panichelli, 69, who wrestled as the Jersey Tiger in the 40s and 50s died on 10/1
in Buena Borough, NJ.
WCW
Chris Jericho vs. Six will replace the Liger-Dragon match on the Havoc PPV show. Jeff
Jarrett will replace Ric Flair in the U.S. title match against The Giant, so apparently the
title is held up.
Nitro on 10/14 in Memphis drew 6,930 (5,650 paying $67,815). While there have been
tons of larger crowds at the Coliseum over the years, to my recollection, I can only recall
two larger gates, one for a Ric Flair vs. Jerry Lawler NWA title match and one for a Bret
Hart vs. Lawler cage match for the WWF title. Tony Schiavone on the air thanked "Mr.
Lawler" for putting all the fans in the seats (on television they tried to claim it was a
sellout and the largest crowd ever in Memphis) and said they'd see him at the Flea
Market on Thursday. The crowd was really hot and pro-NWO. Show was good with a few
twists. Dean Malenko pinned Brad Armstrong in 5:28 with the old Tim Woods 3/4
nelson and leg grapevine pin in a very good match. Jim Duggan speared M. Wallstreet (I
guess since Virgil is now Vincent, V.K. has to change his initials so as not to confuse the
fans) in 4:38. Obviously awful. Hugh Morrus pinned Jim Powers with a moonsault in
6:32 in what was basically there for Nick Patrick to slow count Morrus several times as
he'd go down for the count when Powers was on top and "injure his neck" and sell it.
Patrick and Teddy Long argued again afterwards. Lex Luger racked Greg Valentine in
6:35. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. They announced, as another spoof on Roberto
Alomar, that they've denied Patrick's request to fine Savage $1 million and suspend him,
but will fine him $500 and suspend him for the first five days of 1997. Patrick did a great
interview. Savage came out for an interview and they showed a tape of Elizabeth begging
for forgiveness and saying she still loved him as much as when she said "I do." Savage
nearly cried, didn't say a word, and left the building. Without saying a word it was the
best work he's done since joining the company. Eddie Guerrero pinned Cheetah Kid in
2:41 with a frog splash. Cheetah Kid was the name Ted Petty used to use before
becoming Rocco Rock. Short and kind of sloppy. Jarrett pinned Big Bubba in 6:41 of a
good match. Jarrett got a huge reaction since it was Memphis and they made the point of
saying that Jarrett can't sing a lick, but that doesn't matter in WCW. Fans were loudly
chanting "Double J" which was never acknowledged in the commentary. I wonder if
WWF can sue the fans for trademark violation? Finally Meng & Barbarian no contest
Harlem Heat when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash came to ringside and both teams went
after them and were outside the ring. Hogan and the NWO bunch did an interview to a
great reaction, both positive and negative at the same time. It was a good performance
by Hogan as they pretended they've kidnapped Liz, who has apparently signed a contract
with them after leaving the Horsemen (none of this has been made clear in the storyline
so in order to make sense of the stories, we have to pretend we understand the missing
links in the story) and Hogan tried to say that what she said about Savage in the
interview was the work of a great actress when Liz tried to slap him. Eventually the
Nasty Boys came out looking like two geeks and telegraphing to anyone that they were
about to get jumped, which is exactly what happened. Scott Hall later said Harlem Heat
weren't even from Harlem, they were two hillbillies from Texas.
No ratings available at press time due to Columbus day holding everything up one day.
They've already taped vignettes with Jarrett in the Four Horsemen.
It is believed a deal was reached with Gene Okerlund where he'll return in a reduced role
for less money.
The WCW Saturday Night show was taped on 10/8 in Greenwood, SC before a sellout
2,600 (2,100 paying $20,000). Almost nothing significant on the show. The NWO
segment was taped before the card started on 10/7. Hall & Nash wrestled with a crowd of
two people (DiBiase and Vincent) and they piped in all kinds of fake crowd noise as they
wrestled the Starbuck brothers, said to be twins, a fat black guy and a skinny white guy,
billed as being stars from Madison Square Garden and being from Stamford, CT. The
guy who wasn't in the ring would do the commentary. It was a 12:00 segment edited
down to 5:00, and even then it was about 2:00 too long. There was some good inside
humor which of course is lost on 99% of the crowd, but stuff like that gets old in a hurry.
So naturally they're going to do it again next week. Actually as bad as the Saturday show
usually is, that and the Nick Patrick interviews are the most memorable thing about the
show.
At the Nitro from Cleveland on 9/30, if you had a dish, you could find the back-haul feed
from the hotel room and see Kevin Sullivan after the NWO segments handing the guys
their scripts, telling them where to sit and what to say. It's amazing something that bad
was actually scripted. Anyway, after the show ended those watching on dishes could see
Savage and Liz walk back into the room where Eric Bischoff, Sullivan and the NWO guys
were all talking about what a great job they'd done.
There was a Benoit vs. Juventud Guerrera match that was said to have been wrestled at
warp speed on World Wide over the weekend.
Flair was advertised as being at Nitro to do an interview, but wasn't there. He's supposed
to have the surgery done this week.
All accounts throughout wrestling are that Savage's contract will be up in mid-
November. If he wins the title at Havoc, than all those accounts were a ruse planted by
WCW. If not, I'd expect they're correct. It's just that they're building too much around
Savage for him to be gone in one month, not to mention that where Savage goes, so goes
the Slim Jim account which is a huge advertising account and they pumped $250,000
into the Havoc PPV not to mention put their own race car out there. There have also
been a lot more segments taped with Liz to lead to them getting back together in the
storyline.
Only house show of the week was 10/13 in Tupelo, MS with 2,948 paying $37,839 with
the Savage-Giant-Sting triangle match on top.
Expect a PPV show in Memphis in 1997 because they were so thrilled with the Nitro
turnout.
The real Sting is supposed to return for the 10/21 Nitro in Mankato, MN so everyone
knows ahead of time that he'll appear in some form at Havoc.
Bischoff did another Prodigy chat ripping on Lawler and said it was a pathetic situation
regarding the comments Lawler had made on Memphis TV about WCW being ripoff
artists. He also said that WWF does a better job at post-producing television than WCW
because they have more resources and more manpower behind it, but they blow WWF
away when it comes to live television.
Mr. Niebla and Felino's name (two of EMLL's better workers) have been bandied about
as coming in, and it may happen as WCW wants to bring more Mexicans that can work
in, but at this point they haven't even been talked with about it. Felino is the middle
brother between ***** Casas and Heavy Metal.
Nobody really knows how the Time-Warner merger will affect WCW. There is talk about
having the two Clashes moved from TBS to HBO, however the Time-Warner side isn't
crazy about the idea of pro wrestling on HBO.
WWF
No word on exactly what the deal with Mr. Perfect is. They pushed like crazy his return
on the 10/21 live Raw against Hunter Hearst Helmsley again this week. Supposedly
Vince McMahon is going to buy out his disability policy and get him to return but there's
a lot of skepticism whether he really wants to return. Supposedly he's told friends that
it's all just part of an angle, but the way it's being pushed, it's hard to believe they'd do
that. We'll all find out live.
Segments with Jesse James have been really good.
Bret Hart will appear at Johnny Sports Cards in Santa Clara, CA on 10/18 from 7-9 p.m.
For more info call 408-248-9703 and will also be appearing at a benefit for Neil Young
at the Shoreline Amphitheater that weekend in Mountain View, CA.
At the 10/13 house show in Anaheim, CA, they taped two matches for the ABC-TV show
"Boy Meets World." That show has two characters who are fat kids that are supposed to
be the sons of Vader (who has been on a few episodes as his wrestling character). Vader
beat Jake Roberts in one match and Barry Windham (without his Stalker gimmick) beat
Justin Bradshaw. Brother Love (Bruce Prichard) worked as a heel manager in both
matches until Jake ended up DDTing him. Brian Pillman and Sunny were also brought
to the show for an interview. Pillman and Sunny were talking until Steve Austin came
out and chased Sunny away and challenged the winner of the Michaels-Goldust title
match, with the Michaels vs. Austin match headlining the next show on 1/11.
The top rope broke twice during the show and Michaels and Goldust had to work in a
ring with no bottom rope as they moved the bottom rope to where the top rope was.
Faarooq suffered a hamstring injury. At press time he was questionable as far as working
the PPV match against Marc Mero.
WWF reports are that Ken Shamrock's demands were much higher than what they're
paying everyone else that's coming in new which is why negotiations went nowhere.
Live Wire has gone from bad to worse. This past week they dumped Vic Venom, Jim
Cornette and Dok Hendrix and left the show with just Todd Pettengill and Sunny. The
previous week was too cluttered to be sure, but the format can't survive with the
survivors either. Sunny's role was turned into a total bimbo with the whole show built
around her changing into outfits behind a curtain and Todd drooling, like the final days
of the WBF show where they dumped the bodybuilders and tried to save it by building it
around Cameo Kneur, the blonde co-host. Sunny would have far more longevity in this
business dumping the jiggle act because she's got talent at ringside. She can only play
this role for a few years but if she's portrayed in a different light she can be around
forever. Conceptually Live Wire is a great idea for a show with fans interaction, but
they've got the wrong people doing it and the wrong ideas. For it to work, it has to have
better callers (and obviously they aren't in complete control of that but I've done enough
shows of this type to know that callers react to the nature of the show itself and if they
talk about dumb subjects, they'll get dumb calls and the opposite is also true over the
long haul) asking questions that are interesting and talk about non-storyline items.
Trying to do call-in within the framework of storyline for one hour is death, and WWF
should have already learned that from when it did its radio show a few years back. And
having Sunny pretend to get love letters from Hulk Hogan just cheapens the entire
company and makes it come across as if they're a distant No. 2.
The new promotional strategy is to now pretend that Rick Bogner and Glen Jacobs are
simply Razor and Diesel, with all the announcers talking about the "return of Razor and
Diesel" and even Goldust doing a bit trying to get over how happy he is that the sexy
Razor is back in the WWF. Bogner worked as a babyface against Austin on some of the
Canadian shows (and as a heel against Roberts as well) under the name Giant Titan as
opposed to Razor Ramon.
At the 10/5 Calgary show in the kids match, one report we got is that it was the best
match on the entire show with Ted Annis doing a moonsault and a superplex and Harry
Smith doing a Randy Savage elbow off the top. The four worked a good AAA style match
for 8:00. One of the agents complained they were exposing the business, however, I
guess by having such a good match. Anyway, the people liked it.
Business over the past week. 10/7 in Red Deer, Alberta drew 2,255 and $39,714; 10/8 in
Lethbridge, Alberta drew 3,834 and $49,776 (best house ever in that city), 10/9 in
Medicine Hat, Alberta drew 2,554 and $35,929 (best house ever in that city), 10/10 in
Prince George, British Columbia drew 3,707 and $59,980, 10/11 in Victoria, British
Columbia drew 3,825 and $61,468, 10/12 in Tacoma, WA drew 4,509 and $77,174 and
10/13 in Anaheim, CA drew 5,331 and $100,892.
With the exception of Anaheim, which is the first show in the market since WWF lost
local syndicated television, all the houses were strong considering the size of the
markets.
Perfect and Austin did a tremendous face-to-face argument on Superstars. Austin's
gimmick appears to be how many times per minute he can say the word "ass."
They had Crush attack a planted fan and beat up the fan on television.
Stalker has been looking really slow and unimpressive.
Terry Gordy under a hood is supposed to be involved in the Buried Alive match finish
enroute to working a program against Undertaker.
Vince McMahon returns as host of Raw on 10/21 working with Jerry Lawler and Jim
Ross. The gimmick is that Ross was replaced but he's still going to show up anyway so he
and McMahon can go at it. Ross is a total riot in the new role with all the inside jokes
about McMahon and his personal experiences in the company in the past and the
gimmicks they come up with.
On the "Superstars" show sent out of the country, which is done by Kevin Kelly and
Gorilla Monsoon, over the weekend when they aired the Double J segments, Monsoon
screamed out in the next match that Jeff Jarrett was nothing but a liar, just like his
father

 

Nov. 4, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Roddy Piper
agrees to deal with WCW, Raw moving up one hour, WCW
sets another all-time gate record, tons more!
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 04 November 1996 20:36
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 4, 1996
WCW HALLOWEEN HAVOC POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 71 (64.5%)
Thumbs down 24 (21.8%)
In the middle 15 (13.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 93
WORST MATCH POLL
Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage 85
WWF BURIED ALIVE FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 95 (63.8%)
Thumbs down 33 (22.1%)
In the middle 21 (14.1%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Undertaker vs. Mankind 74
Steve Austin vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley 22
WORST MATCH POLL
Vader vs. Sid 84
*Barry Windham vs. Justin Bradshaw 8
*Votes from those attending the show live
EXTREME FIGHTING III FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 95 (92.2%)
Thumbs down 6 (05.8%)
In the middle 2 (01.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Maurice Smith vs. Conan Silviera 84
Eric Paulson vs. Matt Hume 9
Igor Zinoviev vs. John Lober 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Allan Goes vs. Anthony Macias 36
Ralph Gracie vs. Ali Mihoubi 19
Eric Paulson vs. Matt Hume 18
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 10/29.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
Roddy Piper agreed to an undisclosed deal with World Championship Wrestling and
debuted doing an undisciplined in-ring dialogue with Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc
that saw the three-hour satellite time actually expire before the two finished talking.
Hogan had signed a three-year deal with WCW four days before the show, spurning a
supposed five-year offer from the WWF. However, the future of Randy Savage with
WCW at press time was questionable as the two sides hadn't agreed to terms after
Savage and Eric Bischoff spent several hours throughout the week attempting to put
together a new deal and at this point Savage's final national appearance with WCW was
at Havoc although he's agreed to work the house shows this coming weekend since his
contract has a few weeks left and he's booked on those shows. Savage's negotiating
leverage with WCW was greatly reduced when Hogan signed. Savage himself has some
name value, but the idea of Hogan leaving with Savage to WWF and continuing their
program started in WCW would have been a huge temporary blow to the company.
Hogan was claiming to have received a monstrous offer from WWF, said to be $5 million
per year, which would have theoretically, if you choose to believe the stories, started with
a surprise appearance winning the Royal Rumble and leading to another WWF title
reign as a heel.
Details of the Piper deal aren't available, other than the deal was for a combination of
doing movies and appearing on WCW television events and probably some rare pro
wrestling matches. Piper, 45, has largely been retired from pro wrestling and has gotten
steady work as a straight-to-video action movie star over the past few years, had been in
serious negotiations with WCW for several weeks and the deal was thought to have been
finalized two days before the show. Negotiations with Piper were going on simultaneous
to those with Bret Hart, and WCW's loss of Bret Hart in a wooing battle with WWF isn't
thought to have had any impact one way or the other on the Piper negotiations since
WCW had at one point within the past few weeks planned future storylines around both
being with the company, with the plans at that point being for Hart to have a personal
issue with Hogan and others, while Piper would be the rallying point figure for the WCW
wrestlers.
On Friday, word reached McMahon of the deal, although not from Piper. Over the past
seven years, there have been numerous attempts to WCW to sign Piper, all of which
resulted in Piper returning to the WWF. It had almost become an inside joke in the
industry that Piper would negotiate with WCW just to get the word out to the WWF,
which would then bring him back.
However, McMahon, learning about the deal in some fashion ruined the surprise aspect
of Piper's appearance to a few. On the WWF Live Wire show the next morning, the Jim
Ross hotline tease was to call the hotline and find out about the wrestling plans of Roddy
Piper and if he would he sign with a rival organization. On the report, Ross mentioned
that reliable sources had told him that Piper would be signing with WCW, although the
Halloween Havoc debut wasn't mentioned since that obviously could have boosted the
buy rate for that show a terribly minuscule amount, and positioned it as though the deal
was primarily a movie deal that would include appearing with the wrestling company
and doing some matches, which is apparently an accurate portrayal of the deal.
There was much concern within WCW on Saturday morning about the word leaking out
since the company had tried hard to keep it a surprise even from all its own employees
(there were wrestlers that knew about it ahead of time, although supposedly Piper kept it
a surprise even from friends he was socializing with in Las Vegas the night before the
show). Few fans put two and two together and there was shockingly little buzz going
around before the show about Piper debuting on the card. On Nitro, from a storyline
standpoint, Eric Bischoff was telling people not to read anything into Piper's appearance
and portrayed it as a one-time thing but that is a work.
Piper (Roderick Toombs), who had wrestled almost exclusively with the WWF since
leaving Jim Crockett Promotions in late 1983 and had most recently worked as acting
President and substituted for the suspended Razor Ramon in a combination
match/parking lot brawl (the latter taped about one month ahead of time and aired as if
it were live) against Goldust at this year's Wrestlemania, in which he suffered a broken
hand.
After Hogan had retained his title beating Randy Savage, bagpipe music played and
Piper showed up. Hogan and Piper talked back-and-forth over the mic, with Hogan
putting Piper over saying that Piper was on his level and it was the two of them that put
pro wrestling on the map with Piper making references to the 1985 "War to Settle the
Score" MTV special and subsequent original Wrestlemania and the two even shook
hands. Piper said he wasn't there to represent WCW, just himself. After the mutual
admiration, which went on too long as both men either didn't see or ignored the frantic
time cues that were being given to them that the show was going off the air, Hogan made
a remark about Piper having to squat when he went to the bathroom since he was
wearing kilts. That added some heat, with Piper bringing up that he was the only
wrestler Hogan had never beaten (Piper at the point in his career when he did the
program with Hogan wouldn't do any jobs since at that point in the American business
some of the top names simply refused to do so) but the segment went on so long since
both largely rambled without purpose, that the three-hour satellite time expired before it
went anywhere, missing Piper's closing ramblings where he, among other things,
compared Hogan to O.J. Simpson. Many cable companies cut off the signal at 10:55 p.m.
Eastern time in order to show commercials for upcoming events before the replay. Those
systems received a lot of complaints about going off the air in the middle of what
appeared to be the main angle on the show and apparently WCW has given word to offer
replay showings for free to people who complained. WCW signed off the air at 10:59
p.m. since the replay was due to begin seconds later. Piper's magnetism on the mic is so
unique, similar in many ways to Jesse Ventura, in that they actually can ramble on and
have nothing to say and a lot of people because of their personal charisma and delivery,
still find it to be positively brilliant. Piper's last major angle with Goldust would probably
have been considered a success, but his previous major angle for a coming out of
retirement match with Jerry Lawler was a failure both when it came to buy rate and also
because the two had a poor main event match.
Many within WCW are seeing Piper as something of a replacement for Randy Savage,
whose contract expires in a few weeks and still hasn't signed as the two sides can't agree
on Savage wanting to work a much more limited schedule. Savage's loss to Hogan was
positioned that if need be, it could be the "writing Savage out" of the storyline, or if need
be, a continuation of their angle, although at press time the thoughts within the
company seemed to be that Savage was finished. Piper probably at this point will mean
more than Savage when it comes to one PPV buy rate against Hogan, but it's doubtful
he'll have the long-term legs because he's even more limited than Savage at this point in
the ring due to injuries and not wanting to wrestle more than a few shots per year.
Savage, largely through WCW bringing Elizabeth back and doing soap opera like
storylines with the two of them, turned into one of the kay players in the company both
when it came to angles that drew ratings and money at the gate in 1996, as the Flair-
Savage angle revitalized what had been a lagging house show business for WCW almost
since the inception of the company. It's questionable how much life was really left in
Savage since his personal performance of late both in and out of the ring has been poor.
Piper won't go on the road like Savage. The idea is for him to work maybe three or four
PPV matches during a year and do interviews regularly on Nitro where his name,
charisma and familiarity will solidify WCW's hold on the older audience that controls
the Monday ratings. While not solidified, the belief is that his first wrestling appearance
for WCW will be against Hogan at Starrcade on 12/29 in Nashville.
***********************************************************
Monday Night Raw will be moving to up one hour, to 7:57 p.m. Eastern time on the USA
Network starting 11/4. While WWF had been talking to USA about changing the time of
Raw for months, it was the network's somewhat sudden decision to make the change
that wasn't finalized until 10/25, leaving WWF and USA with very little time to promote
the change.
Since the change is coming so abruptly, it may take two weeks before the Raw audience
gets solidified with the new time. But once that happens, on paper it would seem to be a
positive move for both WWF and USA.
By going head-to-head with the first hour, WCW no longer has the one hour lead-in to
tease and build for the second hour that goes head-to-head. WCW will have to run more
key matches and angles in the first hour, or risk a pattern where fans watch the first hour
of Raw, then tune into Nitro to see the key happenings afterwards. More than perhaps
anything else including the content of the respective shows, it's the addition of the first
hour of Nitro going unopposed to build the second hour that has led to WCW
dominating the ratings since late May, and this change will take that advantage away
from WCW. It is believed, although not official, since USA will start three minutes early
to theoretically get a jump on TNT, that Nitro will follow suit and start three minutes
before the hour as well. In addition, by going one hour earlier, WWF moves away from
the competition of Monday Night Football. With its slight superiority in the kids
demographic, it also gives WWF a chance to capitalize on it during a time slot where
more kids in that age group will be watching.
In addition, Raw is going to do its key angle live in studio or via satellite each week,
working the taped matches around the angle, as a way for the main thrust of each week's
show to not be known in advance.
For 10/28, Nitro did a 3.5 rating and 5.2 share (3.7 first hour, 3.3 second hour) as
compared to a 2.0 rating and 2.9 share for Raw. The Nitro replay did a 1.1 rating and a
2.9 share. What's most interesting is the second hour drop despite all the hype for the
Piper/Hogan confrontation in the second hour. With the Piper/Hogan deal going
against Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith in the final quarter hour, the WCW edge
was 3.4 to 2.1. With the Bret Hart/Steve Austin face-to-face interview going against a
Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero match, the WCW edge was 3.1 to 2.1. On 10/21, the
combination of the return of Hart and Mr. Perfect nearly gave the WWF a chance to
actually win the head-to-head hour. While Nitro held an 0.3 lead over the first half hour,
the Hart interview proved to be a major channel switcher as WCW declined from 2.8 to
2.4 while WWF rose from 2.5 to 3.0, the first quarter hour in a long time where WWF
had the edge. However, the final Hogan/Savage angle with the taped interview from the
movie location and Savage's reaction picked WCW up to a 3.5 finish while WWF
dropped down to a 2.3 for the Mero-Helmsley IC title change. My feeling on the final
quarter, since the Mr. Perfect return was hyped much bigger than the Bret Hart
interview, is that the fans who switched over to see Hart, when they saw they were being
screwed on the Perfect angle, switched back--in droves--to Nitro to see Hogan and
Savage with the star power ahead of Mero and Helmsley give a good wrestling match
with a great angle. This is all theoretical at this point, but my feeling is if Perfect had
done the match has all the hype had led people to believe, that WWF would have
maintained its audience and actually won the hour but lost it because enough fans felt
they were being screwed.
***********************************************************
WCW set all-time records for both live gate and souvenir sales for the 10/27 Halloween
Havoc PPV show from the MGM Grand Hotel Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The $224,660 house on 8,390 tickets sold (approximately 10,000 in the 14,000-seat
building itself) broke the company's live gate record set for the Ilio DiPaolo Memorial
show earlier this year in Buffalo of $193,456, although that record was largely set based
on the ability to charge high prices for the best tickets since it was Las Vegas, as WCW
has done numerous shows over the years that have drawn more than 8,000 paid. In
addition, the event did approximately $69,000 in merchandise, roughly half of which
was NWO merchandise. Merchandise revenue at the house shows has skyrocketed in
recent weeks at the arenas, largely through the addition of the NWO merchandise stand.
The show itself fit the typical WCW pattern, lots of good wrestling underneath and a
terrible main event. It included two title changes with Kevin Nash & Scott Hall winning
the tag team titles from Harlem Heat and Dean Malenko capturing the cruiserweight
title from Rey Misterio Jr. The biggest news story of the event was the Piper appearance.
A. Jim Powers (James Manley) pinned Pat Tanaka in the opening dark match.
B. Psicosis (Dionicio Castellanos) & Juventud Guerrera (Anibal Gonzalez) defeated
Damian & Halloween when Guerrera pinned Damian after giving him a Frankensteiner
while Damian was on top of Psicosis' shoulders. Apparently these four tore the house
down and according to one report, it was even better then the match which followed that
opened the PPV show. It was Halloween's WCW debut, while Damian debuted with the
company earlier in the week on a house show run in California.
1. Malenko (Dean Simon) pinned Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzalez) in 18:32 to capture the
cruiserweight title. This was easily the show stealer. Misterio Jr. did a running tope over
the top rope with a flip, and then grabbed the mask that Malenko had stolen and
changed masks in the ring. Malenko worked on Misterio's legs for the body of the match,
including using a quebradora (spinning backbreaker) and a Northern Lights suplex with
a hammerlock combination. Both were on the top rope exchanging blows and both took
a bump to the floor. Misterio Jr. used a springboard somersault bodyblock and got a
near fall with an Oklahoma side roll. Misterio Jr. used a twisting bodyblock quebrada
(springboarding off the middle rope outside the ring) outside the ring, followed it up
with a picture perfect Frankensteiner in the ring for a near fall. As Misterio Jr. went for
his springboard huracanrana, Malenko dropped him into a power bomb for a great near
fall. After some more near falls, Malenko got the pin using a doctor bomb off the middle
ropes. ****1/4
2. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) pinned Eddie Guerrero in 13:41. This match
was below par because it just wasn't Guerrero's day. Not only was he suffering from a
high fever, but also broke a rib at one point during the match and they had to cut the key
three minutes of big moves and near falls back-and-forth out because he was in so much
pain. The two were having a pretty good match up to that point. Guerrero did a
tremendous plancha just before the finish, which may have been where he hurt his rib
since the match seemed to lose it after that. Page hit a Diamond Cutter out of nowhere,
and even announcer Tony Schiavone called it as if Guerrero had blocked the impact of
the move, making the finish seem even more anti-climactic when Guerrero didn't kick
out. Guerrero was down in the ring for a long time as a shoot after the match. **1/2
3. The Giant (Paul Wight) beat Jeff Jarrett via DQ in 9:56 due to outside interference
from Ric Flair. Jarrett did a really good job carrying Giant, who is difficult to pull a good
match out of. Finish saw Jarrett get the figure four on the floor, but Giant grabbed
Jarrett by the throat and broke it and was about to choke slam him when Flair, who was
at ringside, hit a low blow and ref Nick Patrick called for the DQ. After the match, all the
Horsemen got in the ring and Giant walked out. **
4. Syxx (Sean Waltman) pinned Chris Jericho (Christopher Irvine) in 9:49 after a spin
heel kick. Good match. Basically the concept was to get Patrick over as a heel ref. Jericho
kept getting near falls and Patrick would take forever to get into position and deliver
slow counts. Finally when Syxx hit the kick, Patrick got down immediately and delivered
a fast count. ***1/4
5. Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) beat Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) with the torture rack in
12:22. Better than you'd think considering Luger was involved. It was a typical Luger-
Anderson match where both were working hard. Luger hit Anderson hard in the back
three times with a chair to gain revenge for the angle on Nitro, then put him in the rack
and Anderson submitted. After the match, to set up the next angle, Anderson did a
stretcher job and they announced he was taken to the hospital and that Flair and Jarrett
went with him, to explain why they weren't there for the next angle. **3/4
6. Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit beat Meng (Uliuli Fifita) & Barbarian (Sionne
Vailahi) in 9:23. No heat at all for the match. McMichael worked decent big man spots
back-and-forth with Meng with Meng doing a sumo gimmick and McMichael using the
football tackle gimmick. This match did have the single greatest spot on the card, where
Barbarian gave Benoit an over-the-head belly-to-belly superplex while standing on the
top rope and flew Benoit so far that you'd think he was going to land in California. Finish
saw McMichael hit Meng with the briefcase and Benoit pinned Meng after a head-butt
off the top rope. After the match Barbarian hit McMichael with the briefcase and Meng
gave him a piledriver. Kevin Sullivan, Konnan and Big Bubba, who were at ringside for
the previous matches, then hit the ring and it was five-on-one on Benoit, who held them
all off for a while before being destroyed. As McMichael recovered, Sullivan clocked him
again with the briefcase. Match wasn't much but the post-match angle was good. They
did a spot where Sullivan started yelling at Woman saying that no matter what, he's the
man, which I guess will lead to the acknowledgement that Woman and Sullivan are
married. *1/2
7. Hall & Nash won the WCW tag titles from Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) in
13:07. Better than you'd expect given who was in the ring. There was a fight in the crowd
which diverted the crowds attention from the match early on. There were loud chants of
both "Razor" and "Diesel." Wonder if Titan will attempt to get a TRO on the fans if they
come back to Las Vegas? Finish saw Booker T use the Harlem hangover on Hall. Nash
came in to make the save and Rob Parker ended in the ring as well. Nash glared at
Parker, who handed him the cane and ran away. Nash broke the cane over Booker T and
put Hall on top for the pin. ***1/4
8. The ghost of Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) pinned the corpse of Randy Savage (Randy
Poffo) in 18:37 of what turned into a Jimmy Valiant style comedy match which made no
sense given the storyline of this as the ultimate grudge match. Hogan came out wearing
a wig and sunglasses and actually worked wearing the glasses for the first 7:00 which
tells you how physical the two worked. Savage finally pulled his wig off and stuffed it in
his mouth and Savage put the wig and glasses on. Hogan came back and destroyed
Savage with chair shots and crotched him on the guard rail. Elizabeth showed up. Hogan
started yelling at her and Savage schoolboyed him for a near fall. Hogan threw Liz at
Savage and clotheslined him and gave him the big foot. Liz ran in the ring and got on top
of Savage. Finally Hogan threw Liz off and went for the legdrop, but missed. Ted DiBiase
gave Hogan an object, but Liz got the object from him. Then came a ref bump of Randy
Anderson. Patrick came in to ref and even Ray Charles could see what was coming next.
Savage hit the elbow off the top and Patrick went down and counted to two, then solid it
was if his neck was gone and writhed in pain while Savage continued to cover Hogan.
Savage attacked Patrick. Hogan got the object from Liz but Savage blocked the punch
and got the object and hit him, knocking him out. Giant came out and after DiBiase
pulled Savage out of the ring, Giant gave him a choke slam and put Hogan on top and
Patrick recovered and counted the pin. After the match, Giant poured ice water on
Hogan to "revive" him so he could do his interview segment with Piper. *
***********************************************************
It all hit the fan in Mexico this past week with TV-Azteca holding a press conference on
10/24 which had extensive coverage including on the network evening news, the top
rated talk show in Mexico and was covered in all the area newspapers and nationally
throughout Mexico by AP as Konnan, Rey Misterio Jr. and the rest of the AAA wrestlers
that work for WCW jumped from the group to form their own promotion.
At the press conference were Konnan, Super Calo, the original Mascara Sagrada, Los
Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras reunited with Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000)
and Vampiro. It was announced that TV-Azteca would be running two separate wrestling
companies with separate television shows, which the long-term plan is to give them
separate identities, similar to AAA and EMLL, but in this case down the road eventually
it would build into a promotion vs. promotion feud.
PROMELL will remain with its own name and identity, with Mascara Ano 2000 as the
President. The company would consist of traditional Lucha Libre style with stricter
rules, including enforcing the 20 count for fighting outside the ring and an automatic
disqualification for touching an official, with Mascara Ano 2000 saying they want to
make wrestling not a circus.
The second group will be PROMO Azteca, run by Konnan, which would do a more ECWstyle
television show with faster-paced matches, more videos and interviews and
Konnan said they would bring in Americans from WCW. The top names in that group
would be Konnan, Misterio Jr., Calo, Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera, Robin Hood, Frisbee,
Halloween, Damian, the former Mini Frisbee who will be re-named Metro Konnan, and
in a surprise, Vampiro. Konnan and Vampiro apparently have buried the hatchet for
mutual benefit as each believes that if they work together as a tag team they'll be able to
heat the other up. Konnan also promised several more surprise additions to the
company over the next month. Nearly everyone suspects that Pierroth Jr. will come in as
top heel, including AAA, since on 10/25, AAA held a company meeting of its wrestlers at
its office in Mexico City to decide how to counteract what was happening, and Pierroth
Jr., the group's top heel, wasn't told of the meeting, but when he found out from another
wrestler and showed up, they abruptly canceled the meeting figuring he'd leak word to
PROMO Azteca. He's also been taken off the AAA booking sheets. Konnan said that he
didn't like the heel ref gimmick in AAA with Tirantes and said he didn't like the idea that
the referee has become a bigger star than most of the wrestlers. He said that he didn't
like AAA commentary because the commentators just get themselves over, tell jokes and
don't call the matches, at which point a lot of the reporters clapped. He criticized AAA
for having too much in the way of dancing and comedy, and said his group would
combine high-flying and traditional wrestling with things like chain matches and
breaking tables and said that he didn't want to attack Pena personally.
Well, that didn't last long. Cien Caras spoke and was very diplomatic about everything,
saying he left AAA simply because he wanted to get back together with his brothers and
wouldn't say anything negative about the company.
The original Mascara Sagrada then started what is bound to be an even nastier war than
the recent ones, claiming AAA wrestlers paid two percent of their earnings into a union
for retirement funds and injuries and claimed the union didn't exist, that the wrestlers
don't get a cut of the TV money, that at the TripleMania in Madero, a Japanese company
paid Pena for the rights to do a commercial video of the show for Japan and that none of
the wrestlers got a cent, and then claimed that Pena had a romance with Aguila de Acero
and gave him the name Mascara Sagrada Jr. which is the first time publicly anyone has
made comments like that about Pena. He said Pena took a nobody like Kraneo and gave
him the name Mascara Sagrada. He said he didn't blame the wrestlers because he said in
the same situation if he was making $20 per night and had a chance to make $100 a
night that he'd have taken it, but said he was mad at Pena for giving the name he worked
hard to give life to, to a wrestler who was his love interest. Konnan then said he wanted
to say high to Pena and his little friends Venum, Chucho and Mascara Sagrada Jr.
Pena, however, was working hard over the past week and talked most of the wrestlers
who had talked of jumping with Konnan out of it except the ones with the WCW
connections. In many cases, the wrestlers came out of it with raises, for example,
Tinieblas Jr. got his salary doubled from $140 (which is the level of most of the top
names in Mexico such as La Parka, Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis, etc.) to $280 per match.
He's told the wrestlers that he was going to get the WCW connection away from Konnan,
as one of the biggest disputes is that Pena wanted Konnan to book more different
wrestlers into the United States rather than the same group every time, not
understanding how difficult it is for outsiders to get over in WCW. In the dressing room
on 10/18 in Mexico City, Pena gave a speech about the company all being family, and
said that Konnan, Calo, Misterio Jr. and the rest were all under contract to AAA and that
Televisa would be suing them and anyone else leaving preventing them from working for
TV-Azteca, which scared some, although others recall similar threats made when Blue
Panther and Fuerza Guerrera left and no lawsuits were ever filed. The wrestlers were
chanting "Viva La AAA" in unison after Pena's speech in Mexico City. Pena tried to get
Calo to stay but Calo said the big mistake was taking the Tijuana territory from Konnan,
which was largely the final break between the two. He told Misterio Jr. that since he was
under contract to AAA, that he'd make him live up to his contract.
************************************************************
After a press conference on 10/28 and some weekend negotiations, Antonio Inoki's
venture into the Ultimate Fight world with a 12/15 show at the Fukuoka Dome may turn
into one of the most controversial events of the year and the ramifications world wide
are huge both in and out of the pro wrestling world.
The promotion, called Universal Vale Tudo, announced the Keiji Muto vs. Pedro Otarvio
(Brazil Luta Livre) rematch, which the general belief is will be a rematch of their worked
match on 9/23 with Muto likely doing the job as part of the deal to get Otarvio to do the
first job. The other match announced was Ken Shamrock vs. Hugo Duarte, generally
considered as being along with Marco Ruas one of the two best Brazilian Luta Livre
fighters. Koji Kitao vs. TBA (most likely Gerard Gordeau), which would likely also be a
work although both have done both worked and shoot matches in the past. Also
announced was an eight-man tournament which would include Oleg Taktarov as the
biggest name along with Dieseul Berto of Battlarts. The matches will be held in an
octagon cage with the same rules as in UFC except adding a no hair pulling rule.
Shamrock doing the event may result in legal action in Japan because Pancrase was
planning its biggest show of the year for the same night at Budokan Hall and company
believes Shamrock is still under exclusive contract to them in Japan. Pancrase has
threatened legal action against both Shamrock and Universal Vale Tudo should
Shamrock appear. While not publicly acknowledged, it is generally believed Universal
Vale Tudo, with Inoki as the producer, is believed to be a group created by New Japan
Pro Wrestling to promote this style of event.
At press time, Shamrock hadn't signed a contract for the match with Duarte but had
signed a letter of intent with UVT to do the match, which one would think would be a
shoot given Duarte's reputation. Some within the shoot world of Japan apparently
believe this event with the New Japan Pro Wrestling kind of money backing, could be
New Japan's way to "kill" the Japanese public's fascination with shooting by presenting
worked matches in an octagon cage. Business foes of New Japan believe the company
may think the prevalence of legitimate matches in the Japanese pro wrestling scene
could over the long haul threaten the popularity of New Japan's traditional pro wrestling
since it's portrayed as serious sport in New Japan, particularly if Pancrase and K-1 get
live network prime time exposure in 1997. It's somewhat surprising that Shamrock
would do a fight just eight days after the Ultimate Ultimate, given the physical damage
that odds are he'd receive if he were to accomplish his goal of winning three hard fights,
let alone if he suffered a loss or injury along the way, and agreeing to do so makes one
think the offer to do so has to be serious. No doubt serious money has to be in the cards
for Shamrock to do this event since it's being held at the Fukuoka Dome, the largest
indoor building in Japan with a capacity of nearly 80,000, however the general feeling is
the building is too large and the names aren't attractive enough to the general public to
make this show a success in such a large venue.
Apparently after the huge success of K-1 as a live network television special on 10/18, the
Fuji Network plans for two more similar live specials in 1997, and there are negotiations
to extend it to one or two live network specials of Pancrase as well, which would change
the entire wrestling landscape in Japan should such a deal be completed.
Perhaps more importantly, it was announced in Japan that the 12/15 Universal Vale
Tudo event would air as a PPV event on tape delay in the U.S. in early 1997 through
Turner Broadcasting. While I'm not certain contracts have been signed and this is
actually a done deal, if that were to be the case, it would be promoted through the WCW
branch of Turner similar to the K-1 PPV shows. Where this would be monumental is
twofold. First, depending upon Shamrock's contract with Semaphore Entertainment
(UFC) and when it expires and what it actually entails in regard to competition on PPV
in the United States, Shamrock's match certainly would to the U.S. audience be the most
important selling point of the event and if his match does appear, he'd be appearing on a
UFC-type PPV in opposition to UFC. Second, and more importantly over the long haul, it
would be the first octagon cage type event broadcast in the U.S. where it at least appears
going in that some of the matches would be worked, which could, if word got out which
it probably would, muddy the waters for all promoters of similar PPV events in the
United States.
Shamrock appearing on the event appears to have widened what had already been a rift
between Shamrock, who trained and booked all the American wrestlers for Pancrase,
and the company headed by Masami Ozaki. While Shamrock's main contract with
Pancrase expired on 4/30, it was a nine-event one-year deal. During the one-year term
of the contract, Shamrock actually only did three Pancrase matches, however Pancrase
credits him with doing five matches since he appeared at two of the events that he
couldn't participate in due to elbow and knee injuries that required surgery so the
organization believes he owes them three more matches before the contract would
expire. Pancrase originally wanted to do a Ken vs. Frank match as Ken's Pancrase
retirement match to be a headline match at the Budokan show, but neither brother
wanted to do the match. The Shamrocks believe that since Pancrase gave Ken
permission to do UFC events during the year under contract, that his participation in
UFC events as Pancrase's representative constitutes his other fights during that time
frame and the contract has been completed. In October, Shamrock and Ozaki had agreed
to a second non-fighting contract to be the group's U.S. representative, to promote the
sport of Pancrase in the United States, and to send American fighters to Japan. Where
this gets messy is that when Ozaki came to the United States recently and met with
fighters who claimed they had sent videos and resumes to Shamrock and hadn't heard
back, he then booked 14 Americans to work in Pancrase in the future, bypassing
Shamrock, which Shamrock felt was a breach of his role as American booker. This has
led to further problems as, with the exception of Jason DeLucia, Pancrase appears to
have shut the door on Shamrock's Lions Den fighters, who had become somewhat
dominant over the past year. Apparently that's made things worse because of the belief
that Pancrase is taking the dispute with Ken, the fighter, out on the fighters that Ken
manages and that Ozaki has kept Ken from settling this issue with Masakatsu Funaki,
who is part owner of Pancrase and Ken's long-time friend and sometimes training
partner and corner man. Frank Shamrock and Guy Mezger are under contract to
Pancrase and at this point Pancrase won't be bringing either back and apparently won't
be paying Frank Shamrock for his remaining matches under the existing contract which
explains why neither is in the tournament to crown the next King of Pancrase despite
being Numbers one and two in the current ratings behind Bas Rutten. There is a
secondary dispute since Frank Shamrock and Mezger were wanting to do seminars in
Japan and Pancrase felt since they were in Japan that it would be part of the company's
domain. Pancrase also believes there is a chance that Frank Shamrock will second Ken
on the 12/15 show, thereby appearing at a major event on the same day as the major
Pancrase event. In addition, Pancrase also will no longer book Vernon White, another of
the Lions Den fighters, who was working on a match-by-match basis with the company.
Shamrock himself felt that by participating in both Pancrase, a sport, and UFC, a war,
the training and instincts necessary in each were at times conflicting and decided he
needed to concentrate on one, being UFC, to the exclusion of the other.
With King of Pancrase champion Bas Rutten missing the December Budokan show as
well, combined with the Shamrocks and Mezger missing due to the political problems
and Minoru Suzuki being out of action due to an injury, the group will have a skeleton
crew for its supposed major show of the year. The card will be headlined by a match to
create the new champion. The original idea for an eight-man tournament has been
dropped to a four-man due to injuries and the Shamrock dispute, with first round
matches with Masakatsu Funaki vs. Yuki Kondo and DeLucia vs. Osami Shibuya on 11/9
in Kobe and the winners meeting on 12/15.
While Rutten will miss the show due to the birth of his first child, both K-1 and Rings
have made very strong offers for him of late. The Rings offer was seven matches for
$200,000, but he declined the offer since the contract specifically stated that he may be
asked to do jobs in worked matches. Ken Shamrock reportedly had turned down a
$50,000 per match offer with Rings about two months ago because of the same
stipulation and Mezger was offered a deal for a lot more money than Pancrase that he
turned down at the same time, although with the situation developing the way it is, he
may have to consider it.
************************************************************
We've got all but one match for the 11/17 Survivor Series line-up. The show will consist
of three singles matches--Shawn Michaels vs. Sid for the WWF title, Bret Hart vs. Steve
Austin, and Undertaker vs. Mankind with Paul Bearer suspended in a cage above the
ring. They are going to build the latter match with the idea that after the match when
Bearer's cage is lowered into the ring, that Undertaker will finally get his hands on him.
In addition, there will be three of the Survivor Series traditional eight man elimination
tag team matches. In two of them, The New Rockers & Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith
face The Godwinns & Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Jerry
Lawler & Goldust & Crush vs. Marc Mero & Mark Henry & Stalker (Barry Windham will
still be using that moniker) & Rocky Maivia (Duane Johnson's ring name in WWF).
There will be one more eight man match which will likely include Flash Funk, Savio
Vega, Faarooq, Vader and possibly the new Razor Ramon and Diesel.
As of 10/28, there were 10,684 tickets sold for the Madison Square Garden event for a
$371,260 advance. The show will easily sellout as with comps, there probably won't be
room for more than 15,000 or so paid.
************************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/1 TO 12/1
11/1 New Japan Hiroshima Green Arena (Super Grade tag team tournament finals)
11/2 WWF Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/3 Pancrase Tokyo Tough PPV taped 9/7 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Rutten vs. Funaki)
11/4 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
11/8 WWF Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/9 Pancrase Kobe (Funaki vs. Kondo)
11/10 WWF Cleveland, OH Gund Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust)
11/10 Universal Vale Tudo Sao Paolo, Brazil (Ruas vs. Taktarov)
11/11 WCW Monday Nitro tapings St. Petersburg, FL Bayfront Center Arena
11/16 ECW November to Remember Philadelphia ECW Arena (Funk & Dreamer vs. Lee
& Douglas)
11/16 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Williams & Ace)
11/17 WWF Survivor Series New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Sid)
11/17 The U Japan Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Kimo vs. Bigelow)
11/18 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings New Haven, CT Veterans Memorial Coliseum
11/18 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Civic Center
11/19 WWF Superstars tapings Springfield, MA Civic Center
11/21 All Japan Fukuoka Hakata Star Lanes (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)
11/22 Reality Superfighting PPV Birmingham, AL (Renzo Gracie vs. Taktarov)
11/22 RINGS Osaka Castle Hall (Maeda vs. Fujiwara)
11/22 WWF Montreal Moulson Center
11/23 WCW Baltimore Arena (Hall & Nash vs. Heat)
11/24 WCW World War III PPV Norfolk, VA Scope (Three ring Battle Royal)
11/24 All Japan Kobe (Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace)
11/25 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Greenville, NC East Carolina University Arena
11/28 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi &
Patriot)
11/29 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada &
Taue)
12/1 New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall
RESULTS
10/18 Tlalnepantla (PROMELL): Kamikaze & Dragon b Wolf & Cobra, Mariachi &
Colt b Goku & Zaraiya, Ninja de Fuego & Skayade & Dragon de Oro b Ultimo Guerrero &
Ultimo Rebelde & Enigma-DQ, Panterita del Ring & Shu El Guerrero & Zapatista b
Super Elektra & Huracan Ramirez Jr. & El Hijo del Huracan Ramirez-DQ, Brazo de
Plata & Zorro & Mascara Sagrada b Mascara Ano 2000 & Enrique Vera & Angel Blanco
Jr.
10/19 Acapulco (AAA): Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & La Parkita b Espectro I & Mini Karis,
Frisbee & Venum & Discovery & Boomerang & Ludxor b Quarterback & Mosco de la
Merced & Picudo & Mr. Condor & Black Cat II, Mexican National relevos championship:
Los Villanos & Pierroth Jr. b Super Muneco & Los Payasos
10/19 Anoka, MN (American Wrestling Federation - 250): Wayne Bloom b
Lester the Jester, Tom Zenk & Billy Blaze b Hater & 14, Horace the Psychopath b Lenny
Lane, Dan Jesser b J.B. Trask, Sgt. Slaughter & Tito Santana DCOR Nailz & Blacktop
Bully, Psychopath won Battle Royal
10/21 Beppu (New Japan - 3,150): Kuniaki Kobayashi b Yutaka Yoshie, Junji Hirata
& Osamu Kido b Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara, Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto b
Hiro Saito & David Taylor, Osamu Nishimura & Manabu Nakanishi b Yuji Nagata &
Tadao Yasuda, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Akira
Nogami & Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto &
Satoshi Kojima, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto,
Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki
10/21 Osaka (All Japan women - 1,650): Yuka Shiina b Nana Takahashi, Yumi
Fukawa d Momoe Nakanishi, Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett b Toshiyo Yamada &
Saya Endo, Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Takako Inoue b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
& Genki Misae, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b Yoshiko Tamura & Aja Kong,
Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada d Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari
10/22 Cincinnati, OH (WWF Superstars tapings - 3,137): Non-squash results:
Barry Horowitz b Mike Diamond, Smoking Gunns b New Rockers, Justin Bradshaw b
David Haskins, Sid b Jason Grimm, Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Alex Porteau, Diesel &
Razor Ramon b Aldo Montoya & Horowitz, Shawn Michaels b Salvatore Sincere, Barry
Windham b Brian Costello, Marc Mero b Goldust, Mero DDQ Goldust, Bart Gunn &
Freddy Joe Floyd b Billy Gunn & T.L. Hopper, Sultan b Haskins, Jesse James b Goon,
Billy Gunn b Bob Holly, Tug-of-war: Mark Henry b Crush, Sid & Mero & Undertaker b
Goldust & Austin & Mankind, WWF title: Michaels b Helmsley
10/22 Rochester, MN (WCW Saturday Night & Main Event tapings): Mike
Enos & Dick Slater b Harlem Heat-DQ, Jeff Jarrett b Roadblock, Eddie Guerrero b J.L.,
Dean Malenko b Alex Wright, Jimmy Graffiti b Cheetah Kid (Mike Haynor), Chris
Benoit b Craig Pittman, Meng & Barbarian b High Voltage, Chris Jericho b Graffiti, Joe
Gomez b J.L., High Voltage b Tommy Rogers & Bobby Fulton, Ron Studd b Roadblock
10/22 Sao Paolo, Brazil (Universal Vale Tudo - 3,000): Tournament: Dave
Bobish b Mauro Bernardo del Santos, Geza Kalman Jr. b Fernando Bosco Cerchiari,
Kevin Randelman b Luis Maciel, David Beneteau b Egidio Amado, Bobish b Beneteau,
Randleman b Kalman, Superfight: Dan Severn b Mario Netto, Championship:
Randelman b Bobish
10/22 Kumamoto (New Japan - 3,000): Yuji Nagata b Yutaka Yoshie, Michiyoshi
Ohara b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Norio Honaga & El
Samurai, Osamu Nishimura & Tadao Yasuda b Shinjiro Otani & Satoshi Kojima, Jushin
Liger & Kensuke Sasaki & Junji Hirata b Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo
Kimura, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b David Taylor & Osamu Kido, Scott Norton
& Shinya Hashimoto & Manabu Nakanishi b Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi
Tenzan, Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka b Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto
10/22 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pancrase - 1,500): Kunioku Kiuma b Keiichiro
Yamamiya, Osami Shibuya b Satoshi Hasegawa, Ryushi Yanagisawa d Takafumi Ito
10/22 Nakata (Michinoku Pro - 217): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji,
Gran Naniwa b Axe Thunder Otsuka, Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku b Super Delfin
& Tiger Mask, Jinsei Shinzaki b Satoshi Yoneyama, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu b
Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa
10/22 Kamaki (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Fujii, Saya Endo b Momoe
Nakanishi, Toshiyo Yamada & Chaparita Asari & Rie Tamada b Mariko Yoshida & Rie
Tamada & Yumi Fukawa, Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe b Etsuko Mita &
Genki Misae, Kyoko Inoue b Mima Shimoda, Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & Reggie
Bennett b Aja Kong & Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta
10/23 Evansville, IN (WWF - 2,646): Justin Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz *, Crush b
Bob Holly 1/4*, Steve Austin b Barry Windham **, Sid b Mankind **1/4, Sultan b Aldo
Montoya 1/2*, IC title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ ***, Four corners
match for WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith won over Godwinns, Smoking
Gunns and Grimm Twins *3/4, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust ***1/2
10/23 Nagasaki (New Japan - 2,500): Yutaka Yoshie b Tatsuhito Takaiwa, David
Taylor b Osamu Nishimura, Akira Nogami b El Samurai, Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi
Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b Shinjiro Otani & Yuji Nagata & Kensuke Sasaki, Riki Choshu
& Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Kido b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono,
Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Jushin Liger & Satoshi Kojima, Shinya Hashimoto &
Scott Norton & Junji Hirata b Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto & Manabu Nakanishi
10/23 Shizuoka (UWFI - 2,300): James Stone (ECW Little Guido) b Matsui, Kenichi
Yamamoto d Billy Scott, Tiger Mask Sayama b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Hiromitsu Kanehara
b Masahito Kakihara, Yoshihiro Takayama b Keith Rody, Nobuhiko Takada & Yuhi Sano
b Kazushi Sakuraba & Yoji Anjoh
10/23 Kodaka (Michinoku Pro - 184): Tiger Mask b Yoshito Sugamoto, Gran
Naniwa b Masato Yakushiji, Jinsei Shinzaki b Satoshi Yoneyama, Shoichi Funaki &
Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Axe Thunder Otsuka &
Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke
10/23 Saitama (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Fujii, Momoe Nakanishi b
Sekiguchi, Kaoru Ito & Nana Takahashi & Yoshiko Tamura b Chaparita Asari & Genki
Misae & Saya Endo, Takako Inoue & Mima Shimoda b Mariko Yoshida & Manami
Toyota, Yumiko Hotta b Etsuko Mita, Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe & Reggie
Bennett b Chaparita Asari & Toshiyo Yamada & Kumiko Maekawa
10/24 Stockton, CA (WCW - 2,500 sellout): Madusa b Leilani Kai **1/4, Lex Luger
b Big Bubba 1/2*, Syxx b Chavo Guerrero Jr. ***1/4, Scott Hall & Kevin Nash b Arn
Anderson & Chris Benoit **1/4, American Males b Konnan & Kevin Sullivan-DQ *1/4,
Luger b The Giant-DQ -*
10/24 Sasebo (New Japan - 2,500): Norio Honaga b Yutaka Yoshie, El Samurai b
Shinjiro Otani, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami b Yuji Nagata & Tatsuhito Takaiwa,
Junji Hirata & Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Tadao Yasuda & Kensuke Sasaki &
Riki Choshu, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki,
Jushin Liger & Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro
Chono
10/24 Joetsu (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Hideo Makimura, Rie b Miwa Sato,
Katsutoshi Niiyama b Gosaku Goshogawara, Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b
Kaori Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, RMW North American title: Hayato Nanjyo b Ricky
Fuji to win title, Hideki Hosaka & Hido & Wing Kanemura b Toryu & Jason the Terrible
& Taka Michinoku, Street fight: Super Leather & Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator b Koji
Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa
10/24 Tokai (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Emi Motokawa b Kadota, Akinori
Tsukioka & Pirata Morgan Jr. b Tudor the Turtle & Mr. Niebla, Freddy Kruger & Dr.
Luther b Katsumi Hirano & Keizo Matsuda, Keisuke Yamada b Ryo Myake, Hiroshi
Itakura & Leatherface & Tommy Rich b Flying Kid Ichihara & Tarzan Goto & Mr.
Gannosuke
10/24 Omiya (All Japan women): Saya Endo & Nana Takahashi b Sekiguchi &
Momoe Nakanishi, Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Toshiyo Yamada &
Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Reggie Bennett & Mima
Shimoda, Aja Kong & Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe b Yumiko Hotta & Yumi
Fukawa & Yuka Shiina, Yoshiko Tamura won Battle Royal
10/25 Chicago Rosemont Horizon (WWF - 7,979): Justin Bradshaw b Barry
Horowitz, Crush b Bob Holly, Steve Austin b Barry Windham, Grimm Twins b Smoking
Gunns, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader, Sultan b Aldo Montoya, WWF tag titles:
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, IC title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Marc
Mero, Undertaker & Sid b Mankind & Goldust
10/25 Nagoya (RINGS - 4,995): Gokiteza b Todor Todorov, Tsuyoshi Kousaka b
Dick Vrij, Kiyoshi Tamura b Illoukhine Mikhail, Mitsuya Nagai b Willie Peeters, Bitzade
Tariel b Nikolai Zouev, Volk Han b Masayuki Naruse, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b David
Khahareshivili, Akira Maeda b Andrei Kopilov
10/25 San Jose, CA (WCW - 2,231): Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit b Kevin Sullivan
& Konnan-DQ **3/4, Juventud Guerrera b Psicosis **3/4, Syxx b Chavo Guerrero Jr. **,
Madusa b Leilani Kai *1/2, WCW cruiserweight title: Rey Misterio Jr. b Dean Malenko
***1/2, Eddie Guerrero b Damian 666 **1/2, Lex Luger b Big Bubba 1/4*, Scott Hall &
Kevin Nash b American Males *1/2, Randy Savage b The Giant-DQ -*1/2
10/25 Miyazaki (New Japan - 3,350 sellout): Kuniaki Kobayashi b Yutaka Yoshie,
Osamu Kido b Tadao Yasuda, Hiro Saito & David Taylor b Akitoshi Saito & Akira
Nogami, Shinjiro Otani & Yuji Nagata b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Osamu Nishimura & Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki
& Junji Hirata b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura, Rick Steiner &
Keiji Muto b Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono
10/25 Jim Thorpe, PA (ECW - 432): Louie Spicolli & Mikey Whipwreck b Stevie
Richards & Blue Meanie, Doug Furnas b Devon Storm, Steve Williams b Johnny Smith,
Brian Lee b Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Tommy Dreamer b Axl Rotten, Sabu & Rob Van Dam
b J.T. Smith & Little Guido, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Hack Myers, Eliminators b
Sandman & Too Cold Scorpio, ECW tag titles: Gangstas b Eliminators
10/25 Nakayama (Michinoku Pro - 340): Axe Thunder Otsuka b Satoshi
Yoneyama, Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Jinsei Shinzaki b Gran
Naniwa, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b Great
Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Tiger Mask & Masato Yakushiji
10/25 Nagaoka (IWA): Jun Nagaoka b Akinori Tsukioka, Tudor the Turtle b Takeshi
Sato, Leatherface b Katsumi Hirano, Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther b Pirata Morgan Jr. &
Mr. Niebla, Hiroshi Itakura b Ryo Myake, Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid
Ichihara b Keizo Matsuda & Keisuke Yamada & Tommy Rich
10/25 Chiba (All Japan women): Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Momoe
Nakanishi b Sekiguchi, Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Kumiko Maekawa & Saya Endo
b Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda & Toshiyo Yamada & Yumi Fukawa, Aja Kong &
Yoshiko Tamura b Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae, All-Pacific title: Reggie Bennett b
Tomoko Watanabe, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida
10/25 Jonesboro, AR (North American All-Star Wrestling): Terry Golden d
Bart Sawyer, Jamie Dundee b Shaw Williams, Charlie Parker b Teddy Sweet, USWA
title: Brian Christopher b Wolfie D-DQ, Unified title: Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee
10/26 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,350 sellout): Hack Myers & Buh Buh
Ray Dudley & Davey Morton (David Jerrico) b J.T. Smith & Axl Rotten & D-Von Dudley,
Mikey Whipwreck b Johnny Smith, Taz b Little Guido, Chris Candito b Spike Dudley,
ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Cody Michaels, ECW title: Sandman b Too Cold Scorpio,
Eliminators b Steve Williams & Terry Gordy, Scaffold match: Tommy Dreamer b Brian
Lee, Sabu & Rob Van Dam b Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas
10/26 Kurume (New Japan - 3,000): Shinjiro Otani b Yutaka Yoshie, Osamu Kido
b Akitoshi Saito, Kengo Kimura b Yuji Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi b Tatsutoshi Goto,
Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b El Samurai & Norio Honaga &
Jushin Liger, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata b Rick Steiner & Keiji
Muto & David Taylor, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki d Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka 30:00, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura & Satoshi Kojima b Masahiro
Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
10/26 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,150 sellout): Hideki Hosaka b Hayato
Nanjyo, Michiko Omukai b Miss Mongol, Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa b Tetsuhiro
Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa, Taka Michinoku & Hido b Toryu & Ricky Fuji, Miwa Sato &
Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Kaori Nakayama & Rie & Megumi Kudo, Super
Leather b Katsutoshi Niiyama, Street fight: The Gladiator b Jason the Terrible, Ind.
world hwt title: Wing Kanemura b Hisakatsu Oya
10/26 Kameda (IWA): Takeshi Sato b Jun Nagaoka, Tudor the Turtle b Akinori
Tsukioka, Katsumi Hirano b Ryo Myake, Pirata Morgan Jr. b Mr. Niebla, Keizo Matsuda
& Tommy Rich b Freddy Kruger & Dr. Luther, Keisuke Yamada & Hiroshi Itakura &
Leatherface b Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara
10/26 Henderson, TN (USWA): Wolfie D b Bill Dundee, Johnny Rotten b Bart
Sawyer, USWA title: Brian Christopher b Ric Hogan, Miss Texas b Tasha Simone,
Unified title: Colorado Kid b Jerry Lawler
10/26 Kashimadai (Michinoku Pro - 281): Tiger Mask b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Satoshi Yoneyama & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Axe Thunder Otsuka & Naohiro
Hoshikawa, Jinsei Shinzaki b Gran Naniwa, Shoichi Funaki & Shiryu & Mens Teoh &
Dick Togo b Masato Yakushiji & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke
10/26 Deer Park, NY (Ultimate Championship Wrestling - 67): Gary Reno b
Doc Havoc, Jimmy D. Ranged b Mike Norman, Rayo de Plata b Aquario, Paul Lauria b
Gillotine LeGrand, Shark Attack Kid b Kamikaze Kid, Tommy Cairo b Tiger Khan-DQ,
Teddy Reade b Jesse Havoc, Black Sheep & Pharaoh b Crazy Ivan & Blitzkrieg, Falcon
Coperis DCOR Jim Neidhart
10/26 Calacun, NY (Eastern Shores Wrestling): TNT (not Juan Rivera) b Prince
of Pleasure, Jim Dyer b Coco Savage, 911 b Hercules Hernandez-DQ, Rodney Allen &
Johnny Diamond b Samoan Gangstas-DQ, Rocky Shore b Dave Justice, 911 & Sir Mo b
Hernandez & Primo Carnera III-DQ
10/26 Wilmington, DE (East Coast Wrestling Association): Glenn Osbourne b
Armageddon, Mike Mayhem b Commando, Ace Darling b Inferno Kid, Viper b Johnny
Blaze, Boogie Woogie Brown b Mr. Oooh La La, Lance Diamond b Rockin Ronny,
Cheetah Master b Japanese Assassin, Brown won Rumble Battle Royal
10/27 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (LLPW - 1,350): Keiko Aono b Wadabe, Noriyo
Tateno & Mizuki Endo b Michiko Nagashima & Sayori Okino, Shark Tsuchiya b Michiko
Omukai, Rumi Kazama & Shinobu Kandori b Mikiko Futagami & Yasha Kurenai, LLPW
title: Eagle Sawai b Karula (Harley Saito) to win title
10/28 Phoenix, AZ (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 6,300/3,175 paid): WCW
TV title: Steve Regal b Juventud Guerrera *1/2, Diamond Dallas Page b Mike Enos
**1/4, Dean Malenko b Jim Powers **1/2, Jeff Jarrett b Ricky Morton **1/2, High
Voltage NC Amazing French Canadians 1/2*, Rey Misterio Jr. b Jimmy Graffiti ***,
Chris Benoit b Eddie Guerrero **3/4, Booker T b Lex Luger-COR *
10/28 Kagoshima (New Japan - 3,200 sellout): Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi
Ohara b Yutaka Yoshie & Shinjiro Otani, El Samurai b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Tatsutoshi
Goto b Hiro Saito, Jushin Liger b Norio Honaga, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka &
Osamu Kido b Yuji Nagata & Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura, Tatsumi Fujinami &
Riki Choshu b Akira Nogami & Kengo Kimura, Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Masahiro
Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Kensuke Sasaki & Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima b
Junji Hirata & Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto
10/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (WAR - 2,000 sellout): Battle Ranger b Takashi
Okamura, Osamu Tachihikari b Fukuta, Arashi b Jun Kikuchi, Shoji Nakamaki & Shinya
Kojika b Gedo & Jado, Masaaki Mochizuki & Nobukazu Hirai b Lance Storm & Yuji
Yasuraoka, WAR six man titles: Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon & Nobutaka Araya b
Hiromichi Fuyuki & Yoji Anjoh & Bam Bam Bigelow to win titles
10/28 Memphis (USWA - 800): Bart Sawyer & Super Mario b Tony Falk & Denny
Cooley, Flash Flanagan b Trailer Park Trash, Steven Dunn b Brickhouse Brown, Sean
Venom b Mike Samples, Jimmy Valiant b Jamie Dundee-DQ, USWA tag titles: Brian
Christopher & Wolfie D b Devil Dogs, Bill & Jamie Dundee b Sid Vicious & Johnny
Rotten, USWA title: Ric Hogan b Christopher to win title
Special thanks to: Bruce Bennett, Georgiann Makropolous, Eric Dahlberg, Robert Lugo,
Dominick Valenti, Dan Parris, Dave Dennis, Sarah Moore, Barry Driscoll, Bert Prentice,
Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Walt Spafford, Jesse Money, Tadashi Tanaka, Lou Pickney,
Marcus Watkins, Tom Noble, Tony Friedmann
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/30 ALL JAPAN: 1. Rob Van Dam & Maunukea Mossman beat Tsuyoshi Kikuchi &
Kentaro Shiga when Van Dam pinned Shiga with a split legged moonsault. Match went
14:58 but only the last 5:00 aired on television. It was real good during that period with
Van Dam particularly impressive and lots of near falls. ***1/4; 2. Toshiaki Kawada &
Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako
in 22:47. Excellent match. About what you'd expect a six-man to be with talent of this
level. Something of a surprise finish with Kawada pinning Akiyama after two power
bombs, although it makes booking sense since it was the TV building up to Kawada
challenging for the Triple Crown. ****1/4
10/13 JWP: This was the live television special from Sumo Hall on WOWOW, so it
would be similar to a Clash of the Champions, except in this case, the top matches were a
lot better. 1. Fusayo Nouchi of JWP pinned Yuko Kosugi of JD in 5:09 with a german
suplex. Kosugi is green to the point she probably shouldn't even be in a pro match yet.
She does seem to have athletic potential. Nouchi did a good job of carrying her to a
decent match. *; 2. Kanako Motoya of JWP pinned Yumi Fukawa of AJW in 8:15 with a
rolling senton off the top rope. This was the worst match on the card as these two had a
lot of problems working together. 3/4*; 3. Tomoko Miyaguchi retained the JWP jr. title
pinning Emi Motokawa of IWA in 8:25 after a blockbuster suplex (Samoan drop).
Motokawa has a punk rocker look and wasn't bad, but Miyaguchi didn't show much.
*1/4; 4. Sugar Sato of Gaea teamed with Mayumi Ozaki & Rieko Amano to beat Plum
Mariko & Cutie Suzuki & Motoya in 15:23. None of these six would qualify as great
workers, but the combination turned into a fast-paced great match with lots of near falls.
Sato, who is an 18-year-old rookie, has a ton of potential. Suzuki and Ozaki, the veterans,
pretty much directed traffic. Mariko, who has been out of action for a long time, showed
ring rust. Heat was nothing special but they kept going and going and built it into a great
match. One dangerous missed spot was Mariko going for a Frankensteiner off the top
rope on Amano and they lost their balance and both went crashing to the floor nearly
killing each other. Finish saw Amano got the armbreaker on Mariko for the submission.
***3/4; 5. Manami Toyota of AJW pinned Tomoko Kuzumi in 15:17 with a Japanese
Ocean Cyclone suplex. Started fast. Slowed in the middle and picked up and turned into
a great match with near falls. The only negative is that there wasn't one person in the
building who thought Kuzumi had a chance to win so the crowd didn't react to her
getting near falls, and her coming close to the superstar with near falls before losing was
the entire idea of the match. Toyota didn't do her big show main event repertoire but
more worked as if it was a spot show, but did a great job carrying things. Even if she was
on cruise control, which it would be unfair to say she was, she's one of the great workers
in history. ***1/2; 6. Tiger Mask & Hiromi Yagi & Great Sasuke & Hikari Fukuoka beat
Gran Naniwa & Boirshoi Kid & Super Delfin & Candy Okutsu in 22:24 in a
Michinoku/JWP mixed match. Another very good match with tons of dives and lots of
good flying moves including Fukuoka doing a moonsault double foot stomp. The
problem is while people enjoyed the match, the man vs. woman scenarios, in which the
men did a great job selling for the women and putting them over in a fairly believable
fashion (as believable as possible anyway) made it seem like a comedy exhibition so the
heat was never serious no matter how hot the action got. Fukuoka pinned Boirshoi after
a Tiger driver. ***1/2; 7. Kyoko Inoue & Devil Masami upset Aja Kong & Dynamite
Kansai in 23:32. This card was built around the idea of Kong & Kansai forming a dream
tag team. Kong was the most impressive of the four and even threw in one tope and
missed a second one. Started slow but work was solid throughout. It built into the best
match on the card with all the near falls at the end, finishing with Inoue pinning Kansai
after three power bombs. This was promoted as the biggest JWP show of the year and it
turned out to be a good show after a slow start with the green underneath women.
However, to pull off a good major show, JWP needed outside help from other
promotions. ***3/4
EMLL
In a strange finish, The Head Hunters won the CMLL tag team titles for a matter of
seconds in their main event on the 10/25 Arena Mexico show against Atlantis &
Lizmark. The Hunters scored the clean pin, but continued destroying their foes after the
match under finally the ref DQ'd them and took the belts back away from them. The
semifinal continued the two major feuds in the promotion as Dos Caras & Hector Garza
& ***** Casas beat Bestia Salvaje & Emilio Charles Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. via DQ when
Salvaje was disqualified for pulling out a butterfly knife and starting to chop off Casas'
hair. Salvaje had lost his hair the previous Friday to Casas. The other feud out of that
match was Garza vs. Charles as they're building to a hair match, likely in December as
they were pushing on television that Garza in nearly five years as a pro has never lost a
hair match and Charles hasn't lost one since 1989.
AAA
Outside of the dispute already covered, not a whole lot going on. The shows in Tuscon
and Phoenix on 10/19 and 10/20 respectively weren't successful. Antonio Pena at the
last minute pulled La Parka, Tinieblas Jr., Cibernetico, Blue Demon Jr., La Sirenita, Los
Destructores and Killer from the card and actually booked Rey Misterio Jr. and Psicosis
elsewhere as well but they did the American bookings instead. The Tuscon show drew
only 200 fans while Phoenix drew 2,000 with Mil Mascaras vs. KGB and Konnan &
Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera as the double main event. The Phoenix
show didn't draw a lot of Lucha Libre fans as it was a free grandstand show as part of the
fair and the fans that came for the most part didn't know who the wrestlers were nor
react to their flying moves nor their table breaking. It's really weird since AAA drew
1,700 a few months back in Phoenix for a regular show and the crowd was totally into
everything.
ALL JAPAN
In another break in All Japan's formerly isolationist policy, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Don
Arakawa will work the 11/28 and 11/29 shows in Sapporo.
The major cards of the tag team tournament series where each team faces each team
twice will be 11/16 at Korakuen Hall with Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Giant Kimala II & Jun
Izumida and Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot vs. Stan Hansen & Takao Omori; 11/17 at
Korakuen Hall has Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot, Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kimala
& Izumida and Hansen & Omori vs. Williams & Ace; 11/21 in Hakata has Misawa &
Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue, Kobashi & Patriot vs. Sabu & Gary Albright and Williams &
Ace vs. Kimala & Izumida; 11/24 in Kyoto has Misawa & Akiyama vs. Hansen & Omori,
Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace, Kawada & Taue vs. Sabu & Albright; 11/28 in
Sapporo has Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi & Patriot, Kawada & Taue vs. Williams &
Ace and Albright & Sabu vs. Kimala & Izumida; 11/29 in Sapporo has Misawa & Akiyama
vs. Kawada & Taue, Kobashi & Patriot vs. Sabu & Albright, Hansen & Omori vs. Kimala
& Izumida; 12/2 in Osaka has Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot, Misawa & Akiyama
vs. Albright & Sabu and Williams & Ace vs. Hansen & Omori and the final night of the
round-robin on 12/4 in Niigata has Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace, Misawa &
Akiyama vs. Kimala & Izumida and Kawada & Taue vs. Albright & Sabu. The top two
point getters meet for the championship on 12/6 at Budokan Hall.
Only the final 20+ minutes of the Kawada-Kobashi 60:00 draw from Budokan aired on
television on 10/27.
The Hiragana Times, a bi-lingual Japanese/English magazine in its September issue had
a story written by Dory Funk about his earliest big matches in Japan as world champion
against Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki.
9/29 TV show did a poor 0.9 rating while 10/6 did a tremendous 4.6.
NEW JAPAN
The tag team tournament has started to fall apart as Shiro Koshinaka blew out his knee
on 10/22 in a tag match where he and Tatsumi Fujinami beat Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto;
while Steve Regal returned home because his pregnant wife was suddenly taken ill.
Koshinaka had surgery and will be out of action for about three months. Prelim wrestler
Tatsuhito Takaiwa injured his elbow and needed surgery and will be out of action for two
months. Takaiwa was scheduled to go to Mexico in November so that's been put on hold.
In the key tournament matches this past week, 10/21 in Beppu had Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka over Steiner & Muto when Yamazaki pinned Steiner and Masahiro Chono
& Hiroyoshi Tenzan over Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki when Chono used the STF on
Choshu.
10/22 in Kumamoto saw Fujinami & Koshinaka over Steiner & Muto.
10/24 in Sasebo saw Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi over Iizuka & Yamazaki.
10/25 in Miyazaki saw Steiner & Muto over Kojima & Nakanishi and Scott Norton &
Shinya Hashimoto over Chono & Tenzan.
10/26 in Kurume saw Choshu & Sasaki go to a 30:00 draw with Yamazaki & Iizuka.
10/28 in Kagoshima had Muto & Steiner over Chono & Tenzan.
As of 10/28, of those still in contention, Steiner & Muto were in first place with five
points; Hashimoto & Norton, Choshu & Sasaki and Yamazaki & Iizuka have four; Chono
& Tenzan and Nakanishi & Kojima have three so you can see it's booked close. With
Regal and Koshinaka's teams both out, it screws up the previously planned booking
similar to how G-1 was screwed up when Junji Hirata was injured. Top two point-getters
meet in the championship match on 11/1 in Hiroshima.
10/12 TV did a 2.8 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
The 24-hour Samurai cable channel, which would air pro wrestling and other related
martial arts type events, which was scheduled to debut in September, is now scheduled
to start on 12/1. For its first night on the air, Antonio Inoki is supposed to produce a live
prime time event on 12/1 at Yoyogi Gym in Tokyo which would be a combination UFC
and pro wrestling with independents (since the New Japan wrestlers are all under
contract to TV-Asahi and can't wrestle on another network).
Dan Severn's opponent on the 11/17 U Japan show will be Amoury Bitetti of Brazil, who
is the 1996 BJJ world champion that Don Frye massacred at the Detroit UFC.
RINGS had the first show of its annual Battle Dimension tournament on 10/25 in
Nagoya drawing a disappointing crowd of 4,995 to see the return of Akira Maeda after
being out for several months with knee surgery. Maeda, in a non-tournament match,
beat Andrei Kopilov in 4:59 with an armlock. Reports are that he didn't look impressive,
and considering the size of the crowd, people weren't dying to see him return either.
Since Maeda left and the younger wrestlers became the focal point, RINGS has changed
and Maeda, the creator, would now look almost out of place in the ring as opposed to
being in a commissioner/promoter role, even though he's obviously got more name
value than all of them. On 11/22 in Osaka, Maeda will headline against Yoshiaki
Fujiwara. In some of the tourney matches on 10/25, Tsuyoshi Kousaka beat Dick Vrij,
Kiyoshi Tamura beat Illoukhine Mikhail, Mitsuya Nagai over Willie Peeters, Bitzsade
Tariel beat Nikolai Zouev, Volk Han beat Masayuki Naruse and Yoshihisa Yamamoto
beat 1992 Olympic judo gold medalist (209 pounds) David Khahareshivili (so add that
name to the list of Olympians that have done pro wrestling--he'd done some matches in
the past as well but we forgot him when we put together the article). Second round has
Yamamoto vs. Gokiteza, Nagai vs. Tamura, Han vs. Kousaka and Tariel vs. Hans Nyman.
More legal problems. Hiromichi Fuyuki, Gedo and Jado all quit WAR after the 10/28
Korakuen Hall show. It was well known for months that Fuyuki would be leaving when
his contract expired on 12/7. WAR President Takei had a meeting with Fuyuki on 10/25
where he, Gedo and Jado said they would work 10/28 and be finished, even though they
were booked and advertised through the end of this current tour on 11/2. Gedo & Jado
are under contract for a longer period of time and Takei said if they appear for another
promotion, he'd file a legal action against them. On his final night with the group,
Fuyuki did a clean job for Genichiro Tenryu so the six-man tag titles changed hands with
Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon & Nobutaka Araya beating Fuyuki & Bam Bam Bigelow & Yoji
Anjoh. In Gedo & Jado's final match, they lost to Big Japan's Shoji Nakamaki &
President Shinya Kojika.
Svetlana Gundarenko, the 317-pound Russian woman who won the L-1 (womens UFC)
tournament in 1995 is booked on 11/13 at Korakuen Hall for an LLPW show at Korakuen
Hall against Shinobu Kandori, who she beat in the championship match. The match in
1995 was a shoot and was promoted by a pro wrestling company. No word what this
match will be. The match is in jeopardy since on 10/27 at Korakuen Hall, Kandori broke
her nose in a pro wrestling match. Gundarenko placed fifth at the Atlanta Olympics this
year. Eagle Sawai captured the LLPW title from Karula (Harley Saito) on the 10/27
Korakuen Hall show.
Final IWA card was 10/26 in Kameda. After the show, they announced they would be
suspending operations but were planning on re-starting the company in February with
22-year-old wrestler Keisuke Yamada as company President.
Atsushi Onita appeared at the FMW show on 10/26 at Korakuen Hall doing a backstage
angle with Mr. Pogo. Pogo asked Onita to be his tag team partner and Onita slapped him
in the face and said he's retired from wrestling. Pogo returns on 11/6 to the ring from the
neck injuries suffered on 8/1 in the match with Terry Funk. On the 10/26 show, Wing
Kanemura retained his Independent world title beating Hisakatsu Oya in the main
event.
Ryuma Go's Samurai Project Promotion runs 11/27 to 12/2 with Tiger Jeet Singh, Jesse
Barr and The Crow as foreigners.
USWA
The return to Monday nights on 10/21 didn't help the crowd as they drew another 375
fans and $1,800 to the Flea Market in Memphis. Brian Christopher & Wolfie D won the
held up USWA tag titles from Bill & Jamie Dundee in a match with Jimmy Valiant as
referee, and after the match the Dundees beat up Valiant. With the move to Mondays,
that's the end of the 200-year era with Jerry Lawler as the consistent Memphis headliner
and top singles champion since the Raw voiceovers are now done live on Monday nights
and he won't be available. Lawler is still announcing the television on Saturday
mornings with Dave Brown and Cory Maclin.
The 10/28 show saw the crowd increase to an estimated 800, largely due to the
appearance of Sid Vicious teaming with Johnny Rotten to lose to the Dundees. On that
show, Macho Warrior Ric Hogan, doing a gimmick where he combines the interviews
and mannerisms of the four, managed by Randy Hales, beat Christopher to win the
USWA title when Hales hit Christopher with a briefcase.
Christopher & Wolfie did an interview where they made up and were proud to be each
others' partners.
Now that this group has gotten back television in Evansville, IN, there's talk about
making it a regular stop on the tour again.
Lawler is doing the booking at least at present, not Randy Hales, as Hales isn't into
comedy and at this point it's all a comedy show. Hales this week said that since he made
PG-13, he was going to make more superstars and introduced a tag team called the Devil
Dogs, two masked wrestlers. So in their squash match, the Dogs got pounded on by the
jobbers for 7:00 until Hales finally pulled them out of the ring, where they lost by count
out, saying that since they have title matches upcoming, they can't waste their time in
matches like this and said what the fans saw in the match was all part of their strategy.
They ended up losing the tag title match.
He later introduced Hogan, who was said to be really funny and really bad. His
interviews are a combination of Hogan and Savage and in the ring he does the
mannerisms of the four wrestlers.
Hales later did an interview where he went nuts ala Bob Backlund and said that his only
real friend in wrestling is Lawler and got so upset he began frantically pulling his clothes
off.
Johnny Rotten did an interview saying that his brother Sid Vicious was on the road with
WWF that day, so the Dundees beat him up, to set up the tag.
Mike Samples said he had something that would neutralize Sean Venom's snake, and
brought out a dog he called Hercules, who it turned out was totally tame and tiny and
said it was a snake eating dog and then tried unsuccessfully to get the dog to act mean.
Cory Maclin said he thought that dog would be a light snack for Venom's snake and the
arena match ended up going 19 seconds.
10/28 other top matches had Steven Dunn beat Brickhouse Brown to earn a USWA title
match and Valiant beat Jamie Dundee via DQ in less than 1:00 when Bill interfered.
Bart Sawyer is returning back to Oregon.
ECW
Line-up for the November to Remember on 11/16, which is the biggest show of the year,
will be Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Shane Douglas & Brian Lee, Sandman vs.
Raven for the ECW title, Sabu & Rob Van Dam vs. Eliminators with the winners getting
a tag title shot at Gangstas later in the show, Mikey Whipwreck vs. Chris Candito, Louie
Spicolli vs. Too Cold Scorpio and Axl Rotten vs. Hack Myers.
The 10/26 show at the ECW Arena before a sellout estimated at 1,350 fans was said to
have been a hot show. It opened with Myers & Buh Buh Ray Dudley & Davey Morton
(David Cash aka Dave Jerrico, a protege of Ricky Morton) beating J.T. Smith & Axl
Rotten & D-Von Dudley when Spicolli did a run-in and gave Smith the Death Valley
bomb. Whipwreck pinned Johnny Smith in a good match. They did an interview with
Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle who did commentary on the match with Taz beating
Little Guido. Taz said that Angle was the best amateur wrestler in the world but that he
was going to show him the difference between the best amateur wrestler and the best
professional wrestler. He then showed him a tape of Kenta Kobashi. Just kidding.
Candito debuted pinning Spike Dudley in a very good match. Candito was over huge,
although he several times pointed to the stage area where Sunny was and there were
huge chants of Sunny and Tammy along with chants of Skip is dead. After the match
Candito kissed the ring and did a promo running down the WWF and talking about
being there when ECW was first formed doing a babyface promo, and said he's help
rebuild ECW because it's the shits now, turning heel at the end of his promo. Shane
Douglas kept the TV title beating Cody Michaels from Pittsburgh in a match where Pit
Bull #2 kept trying to hit the ring and was held back. Sandman kept the ECW title
pinning Scorpio after Scorpio missed a move off the top rope. After the match,
Sandman's son Tyler hit the ring dressed like Sandman and started hugging his father.
Raven hit the ring along with Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie, Super Nova and Lori
Fullington and destroyed Sandman including caning him in the eye busting his eye open,
and finally Raven pulled out a cross from under the ring and tied Sandman to the cross
and put barbed wire around his head and crucified him. Apparently this angle was even
too extreme for ECW, because after intermission, Raven came in the ring out of
character saying he was Scott Levy apologizing to anyone he may have offended for what
happened. From what we're told, Angle, backstage, was really upset about the angle
thinking it might ruin his image and feeling double-crossed about being there and there
were some fans who freaked out about it. It's doubtful he'll be back. After intermission,
Eliminators beat Steve Williams & Terry Gordy in a disappointing match. Saturn power
bombed Williams on the floor early so much of the match was them destroying Gordy,
who looked really bad. The finish was incredible with Saturn doing an elbow drop off the
scaffold onto Gordy for the pin, and both Saturn and Gordy went out on stretchers.
Dreamer beat Lee in the scaffold match, in which before going on the scaffold for 4:00
on top, they brawled all over the building with Dreamer a bloody mess. They piled four
tables up on top of each other so when Lee took the bump backwards, it was only a few
feet down, breaking the first table, but the other tables didn't break so he was shaken up
a little from the fall. Paul Heyman said it was the best match this year at the ECW arena
although other reports said it ranged from fair to good. Finale saw Sabu & Rob Van Dam
beat Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas in a match said to have not been as good as their
previous match, but still a very stiff match, when Sabu pinned Furnas after Kroffat hit
his partner coming off the top rope.
10/25 in Jim Thorpe, PA before 432 fans was "highlighted" by another altercation
involving fans. After The Gangstas beat Eliminators in the main event, a police officer
from a nearby town and New Jack got into it. Who started it depends on whose version
one chooses to believe but New Jack hopped the guard rail after the guy and punches
were exchanged and Saturn, Buh Buh Ray Dudley and maybe Taz ended up out there
and there was what was described as a riot lasting from 15 seconds to three minutes, in
which New Jack ended up collapsing and paramedics came. Although both ECW and
WWF of late are doing angles with so-called fans getting beaten up by wrestlers, this
definitely wasn't one of them.
ECW starts on WHAI in Bridgeport, CT on Fridays at 8 p.m. and on Network One
satellite on Fridays at midnight.
The Douglas-Pit Bull #1 angle from the show three weeks ago was one of the best angles
of its type in years.
Taz will be doing a gimmick where he refuses to wrestle until he gets a match with Sabu.
Davey Morton will become a full-timer as Heyman was very impressed with him and is
moving to Philadelphia.
11/1 in Staten Island, NY at Sportsfest has Dreamer & Sandman vs. Raven & Lee in a
cage, Sabu & Van Dam vs. Eliminators, Douglas vs. Spicolli for TV title, Williams vs.
Scorpio, Pit Bull #2 vs. Furnas, Tod Gordon vs. Bill Alfonso and more. 11/2 in
Middletown, NY has Sandman vs. Scorpio for ECW title, Douglas vs. Dreamer for TV
title, Gangstas vs. Eliminators for tag title, Sabu vs. Furnas, Pit Bull #2 vs. Lee.
Scorpio's final show will be 11/16 before going with WWF full-time.
HERE AND THERE
There was a Universal Vale Tudo event on 10/22 in Sao Paolo, Brazil before 3,000 fans.
Dan Severn was scheduled against Pedro Otarvio in the main event, but Otarvio was
injured so Severn instead fought Mario Netto. The match went the entire 30:00 time
limit and 10:00 overtime, with Severn mainly dominating on the ground, but not being
aggressive at all, and winning an easy decision. The overtime period was mainly dancing
around until Severn took him down near the end. Next time you hear a Brazilian
complain about time limits and judges decisions, just remember when they do the stuff
in their own country, the matches have time limits and judges decisions. There was also
a tournament won by Kevin Randelman, a two-time NCAA champion from Ohio State,
who is Mark Coleman's training partner. Coleman was in Randelman's corner. The first
round consisted of Americans (or in the case of Dave Beneteau, a Canadian) against
Brazilians and the Brazilians lost every match. Pro wrestler Geza Kalman Jr. won his
first match making his Brazilian foe tap out from punches from the top, but tapped out
at 10:00 to Randelman when Randelman was pounding him with punches from the
mount.
In the EFC show, Igor Zinoviev went into the match with John Lober with a shoulder
injury, but his shoulder was separated early in the match from the landing from the
Northern Lights suplex, which explains why he was so thrilled to hang on for the draw as
he fought almost the entire match with a separated shoulder.
On the AWF television show that aired the weekend of 10/19, Bob Orton beat Tito
Santana to win the title due to outside help from Mr. Fuji and Sheik Adnan El-Kaissey.
Caught the show this weekend. It reminded me of watching the recent Brady Bunch
movies. It's a bunch of guys and a style of wrestling that was in vogue about 15 years ago,
transported through a time machine to the present where it looks so silly and out of
place that it becomes campy. The wrestlers themselves are doing the exact same things
they did when they were 15 years younger, but look 15 years older. Mick Karch does a
total 1970s pro wrestling announcer gimmick with all the ancient cliches. It was
hilarious with Karch trying to get over a bulbous Koko Ware and a early 40s Tony Atlas
who moves like his feet are in cement blocks as a young speedy tag team challenging
Greg Valentine and Luscious Tommy Rich, whose physique at middle age is beginning to
resemble Buddy Rose. The TV itself is very well produced, basically a copy of mid-80s
WWF production. Naturally the money mark, Paul Alperstein, who funds the group, is
pushed as the babyface President incessantly. Definitely good for a few laughs at 2 a.m.
on Saturdays.
Billy Graham had to cancel his religious drama based on his wrestling career scheduled
for this week in Ontario, CA because of his recent hip surgery.
A correction. The late Neil Superior never worked as a WCW jobber.
Another correction, the Championship Wrestling Federation show listed last week for
11/16 in Warren, MA is actually Warren, MI.
European Wrestling Association presents Ultra Kaos '96 in London, England on 12/14 at
Walthamstow Assembly Hall with Mikey Whipwreck vs. Dirt Bike Kid for the jr.
heavyweight title that Kid lost to Whipwreck in ECW. The winner of that match faces
Sabu for the title on the same show.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story on 10/27 about former wrestler Johnny
DeFazio. Basic idea of the article was that he turned down what would have been a
promising career as a wrestler to head his local steelworkers union, and how in the 80s,
U.S. steel wilted and pro wrestling flourished.
Public Enemy is scheduled to wrestle Billy Joe Eaton & Barfly Mike on 11/2 in West
Allis, WI, but with the recent surgeries to each, I don't know if that's possible.
Among the wrestlers who worked over the weekend at the Compton, CA and Los Angeles
All Nations Center Lucha shows were minis Mascarita Sagrada, Octagoncito, Jerrito
Estrada and Piratita Morgan along with Pirata Morgan.
WCW
Nitro on 10/28 from Phoenix drew about 6,300 (3,165 paying $34,771) for a very strong
show. The wrestlers pretty much all had their working shoes on as with the exception of
a non-match with the Amazing French Canadians vs. High Voltage (which ended when
Nasty Boys attacked Voltage) and the Lex Luger vs. Booker T match, all the matches had
a good workrate. Steve Regal returned keeping the TV title beating Juventud Guerrera in
a good short match although the people running around with NWO banners distracted
the crowd from the match. Diamond Dallas Page pinned Mike Enos in a good match
although Hall & Nash came out to divert attention and they teased that Page would be
joining the NWO. Dean Malenko pinned Jim Powers in a match where Malenko looked
great. They continued the Teddy Long/Nick Patrick storyline as Patrick missed when
Powers had Malenko pinned as he was arguing with Long. Psicosis came out to scout
Malenko. Jeff Jarrett beat Ricky Morton with the figure four. Morton is really getting fat
but these two worked a good match. Rey Misterio Jr. beat Jimmy Graffiti in a
tremendous short match. Chris Benoit beat Eddie Guerrero when Steve McMichael hit
Guerrero with the briefcase. The idea they were selling is that both were injured from the
previous night, Guerrero's rib injury was legit while Benoit's injury was a work. It was a
good match given the theme they were both hurt and in pain, but not a good match in
their typical style. Booker T beat Luger by count out when Sting was in the audience and
Luger saw him and went out to talk with him but Sting left and Luger was counted out.
They showed the Hogan-Piper segment from the previous night and Hogan closed the
show with an interview saying how Piper was scared of him and had begged off. A.C.
Greene of the Phoenix Suns was wearing an NWO shirt but yelling at Patrick for being a
heel ref (please make some sense out of that logic). A local TV station was doing a
segment on Greene being a pro wrestling fan which is why he was acting so vociferous.
10/22 in Rochester, MN was the Saturday Night tapings which drew a $16,000 house.
Nothing major happened other than they taped a match with Ron Studd beating
Roadblock.
Gene Okerlund was scheduled to return at the 10/28 Nitro, but the two sides still haven't
reached a contract agreement. I believe the deal with Okerlund is he's been offered
around $180,000 to work five dates per month (one PPV and four Nitros), and would
have no office or hotline duties.
Bischoff teased that the NWO now wants part of Nitro rather than the Saturday night
show.
Glacier will be back in a few weeks. They want to change his routine a little and also have
ordered more multi-colored lights for his ring entrances.
It appears Craig Pittman is going to end up going heel.
10/24 in Stockton, CA drew a sellout of about 2,500 paid and $32,000. The crowd was
really hot, mainly a rural biker type crowd which made it a good atmosphere. I was told
the NWO was more over at this show than any show to date, but really everyone was
over. The show was marred by an incredible amount of no-shows. There were the noshows
due to injuries--Ric Flair, Super Calo and Scott Steiner; due to being in Japan--
Rick Steiner; due to who the hell knows what--Sting; due to being booked elsewhere for
personal appearances--Diamond Dallas Page; and a whole slew who didn't make it
because the San Francisco Airport was delaying planes landing for a few hours such as
Randy Savage (who had an early flight but changed it to a later flight so he could
negotiate with Eric Bischoff in Las Vegas and do personal appearances that day), Rey
Misterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera or 12 noshows
in all with no announcement made to the crowd at any point. It could be forgiven
not doing so at the beginning of the show since nobody knew who was going to arrive
and almost nobody was there when the card started. Madusa beat Leilani Kai in a solid
match with a lot of heat. Lex Luger beat Big Bubba (he dropped him twice trying the rack
finisher before getting him the third time) in a long match with heat but no wrestling.
Syxx pinned Chavo Guerrero Jr. in the best match on the card. Hall & Nash beat
Anderson & Benoit in a match where the crowd booed the hell out of Anderson & Benoit,
who worked total heel style and Hall & Nash worked babyface style with Hall getting
doubled on almost the entire way and the fans chanting "Razor, Razor." American Males
beat Konnan & Kevin Sullivan via DQ when Konnan hit Riggs with an object and
Sullivan got the pin, but the ref saw the object and reversed things. Because of the heat,
the show was decent even with all the no-shows, but the main event killed it. Savage noshowed,
so Luger came out to work against Giant, and it only went 3:59 before Hall &
Nash hit the ring, but Luger ducked out and was never touched and it was a DQ, so it
was a negative star match.
They postponed Flair's surgery until 10/30 as they wanted him at the PPV and after
surgery, the doctors don't want him moving his arm for several weeks.
10/25 in San Jose, CA drew 2,231 and $34,865 for a show where most of the good
wrestlers showed up, but the crowd came really only to see Nash and Hall so it really
didn't get into the undercard that much. This card had a lot of messages, not all of them
good, about the current direction. Hall & Nash were so over that nobody cared about
anyone else and while NWO is over, WCW wasn't in the least, nor were any WCW
wrestlers. Even more surprising is that while the crowd was pro-NWO, it was a much
smaller crowd than one would expect. The NWO fans come because they like their guys.
The WCW fans don't come because their side always loses. The Mexican fans don't come
because their favorites turn out to be prelim boys. So overall, the crowd is much smaller
than anticipated. There were no Mexicans at all in the crowd despite using all the
Mexicans on the show. If the idea of bringing the Mexicans in was to solidify that demo
in the WCW camp, it has failed miserably. When the Mexicans came in on their own they
drew nearly triple the gate and double the crowd in the same building, and this time,
with all the Halls and Nashes and Flairs (not there but advertised as being there) added
to the mix, none of the Mexican fans came. I'd say the message is twofold. First, Mexican
fans want to see Mexican heroes, not people they thought were stars in preliminary
matches in the big-time only to show that they really aren't the stars worldwide that they
thought they were. It's pretty clear as well as since the AAA wrestlers started appearing
(and being presented as prelim wrestlers) in WCW, they've had no drawing power on
AAA shows in the U.S. anymore despite having tons more exposure. If you look at
promotions with huge ethnic draws in the past, it's because the ethnic stars were on top
and rarely did jobs. Ethnic draws don't work when they're in prelims and they are stars
to the people portrayed as jobbers. When Konnan and Misterio Jr. can work in San Jose
and draw no Mexicans, it really says something about how poorly they've been utilized if
the idea of using them was to draw Mexican fans. If the idea is just to have some talented
guys working prelims, than none of this is of any significance. Second, it appears
Mexican fans have no interest at all in American wrestling, or at least this version of
American wrestling. In the past they've turned out to WWF shows in the area even when
WWF had no Mexican wrestlers on the show, so in other words, how they're using these
guys is a major turnoff to that group. Anderson & Benoit beat Konnan & Sullivan via DQ
in a good opener with the same finish as in the Konnan-Sullivan match the night before.
Actually Benoit got a very strong crowd reaction, particularly brawling with Sullivan all
over the building. It was advertised as Konnan & Sullivan vs. Males and Four Horseman
vs. Outsiders but flip-flopped for absolutely no reason and with no announcement to the
crowd that couldn't understand it. Behind me there was a father whose son was asking
him if a certain wrestler (I think it was Savage but could be wrong) was going to be there
since his name was on the line-up sheet and the father said something to the effect of,
he's a big star, so they only come to the arenas when they feel like it. Guerrera pinned
Psicosis in a disappointing match since Guerrera missed a few spots and the crowd was
totally not into them. When they did hot moves and kicked out of near falls, the fans
booed because they wanted it to be the finish, that's how bad the match got over live but
the two worked basically a non-stop good match. It was way toned down compared to
what you'd see of these guys in Mexico. As they learn to work American style to impress
their bosses, which they don't fully know, they are less impressive to the crowd than
when they do what they are masters of. Syxx pinned Chavo Guerrero Jr. Nash watched a
few seconds of the match which killed the crowds interest in the match. He realized it
and left, but the damage was done. Syxx even had to get on the mic to tell the crowd the
match was going on in the ring. This was a crowd that came to see two celebrities in their
eyes--Hall and Nash, and nobody else. Madusa pinned Kai in a match where the crowd
didn't care about it but it was watchable. Misterio Jr. pinned Malenko in a great match.
It was basically the exact same match as in Las Vegas minus the dives and with a
different finish. Both were cheered equally as it seemed both were so good the crowd
respected their performance. Eddie Guerrero pinned Damian, making his WCW debut.
It was a solid match but the crowd didn't know or care about Damian. Luger beat Bubba
with a schoolboy. After the fiasco on Monday and Thursday, Luger didn't even try the
rack. Hall & Nash beat Males in a so-so match with Hall & Nash working all the face
spots and being over like crazy. Males had Raye Hollitt (Zap from American Gladiators)
in their corner although she never played a part in the match. Finish saw them drag the
corpse of Savage to the ring for a match with Giant that was negative several stars. Giant
threw him around for a few minutes until Savage blocked a choke slam, did a bodyslam
and Hall, Nash and Syxx hit the ring for the DQ but Savage bailed before he got touched.
However, Syxx did the ring announcing and said the NWO reversed the decision because
Savage used a foreign object and they posed in the ring afterwards.
Plan right now is to do a Nitro from San Jose State the day after the SuperBrawl at the
Cow Palace in February. There were wrestlers who were fans growing up that had never
worked the Cow Palace and know of its history (in the 60s, the Cow Palace ranked right
there with Madison Square Garden as the top wrestling building in the country) that
were excited about working a big show in that arena.
They had a Crockett tombstone at Havoc.
Maxx Payne was backstage at Havoc saying he's given up wrestling and gone into a
career playing the guitar.
Entertainment Tonight was in Las Vegas doing a feature on Hogan as a bad guy.
Nitro on 11/4 in Grand Rapids, MI was set up for about 5,000 in a 12,000-seat building
and was already sold out as of the weekend, so tickets weren't available on Monday until
they decided to open up the second deck. They are expecting a $100,000 house for the
show.
Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera as a tag team will be replacing Public Enemy at the spot
shows against Nasty Boys. Grunge got his knee scoped this past week, while Rocco
Rock's elbow surgery was scheduled for 10/30.
They are doing a tournament to crown a WCW womens champion (three guesses who
dominates that title) which will include matches starting at the 11/4 Nitro. In the
tourney include Madusa, Chigusa Nagayo, Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, Leilani Kai,
Malia Hosaka and Kaoru.
Ratings for the weekend of 10/26 saw Main Event at 1.4, Saturday Night at 2.1 (going
against the conclusion of the World Series) and Pro at 1.6.
The 8 p.m. Eastern start of the Havoc PPV was because it was in Las Vegas and not
something that will be a regular thing.
Exact house numbers for last weekend were 10/18 in Minneapolis 7,473 and $100,400;
10/19 in LaCrosse, WI 1,990 and $24,250 and 10/20 in Sioux Falls, SD 2,716 and
$36,034.
WWF
Brian Pillman had ankle surgery on 10/23 in Cincinnati once again. They did an angle
the night before which aired on Superstars where Steve Austin destroyed his ankle
because he thought Pillman was putting over Bret Hart, then blocked the ambulance
from taking him to the hospital with his car. On Raw Austin threatened everyone in sight
as he was in studio to do a face-to-face with Hart. He threw down a stage hand,
threatened the make-up girl, until the police arrived but Austin told the police they
couldn't do anything to him because Vince McMahon wouldn't let anything happen to
him because of all the money he was going to make McMahon. Austin is working really
hard to get his character over and it seems to have broken him out of the pack into a
genuine headliner.
Pillman's ankle didn't heal properly from the previous surgery, so they had to re-break
the ankle and start the healing process from scratch. It'll be at least six months before
he'll be able to wrestle again if it heals properly this time.
They started doing televised features on Duane Johnson, who will go as Rocky Maivia to
honor his father and grandfather and showed tape of both of them in the WWF. Funny
to see how short Peter Maivia was compared to the wrestlers of today since in his day he
was a Samoan monster. They taped a segment on 10/26 at the Cauliflower Alley banquet
with Duane and Rocky Johnson where the father was awarded. Highlight of that
banquet was Dory Funk and Jack Brisco doing their final angle. Brisco, 55, who has been
a recluse in recent years, showed up in great shape. Funk presented Jack and Gerald
with an award and mentioned that he'd wrestled Jack at least 300 times and gave him a
Dory Funk t-shirt. The Briscos ripped it up. Dory went after Jack and had to be held
back by Dan Severn. They referred to the Briscos on TV as "former WWF tag team
champions (which they never were although that was about the only regional title Brisco
didn't win in a territory he regularly worked)."
Road agent Chief Jay Strongbow (Joe Scarpa) suffered what was first feared to have
been a heart attack at the 10/21 Raw tapings in Fort Wayne, IN as he slumped over while
sitting in a chair. He was hospitalized but it was an 80% blockage of an artery that was
cleared up and he was released from the hospital on 10/25.
Achim Albrecht should be in the ring within the next few weeks, doing house shows with
Salvatore Sincere. The two are going to work out their match in the gym. I'm told
Albrecht has a tremendous attitude when it comes to wanting to learn, which is the exact
opposite of Mark Henry. A few weeks back, Albrecht blew out his knee and needed is
scoped and tore the pec of Chris Candito as they were working on high spots.
Candito quit at the TV tapings because they didn't have as role for him and wanted him
to stay on to teach Albrecht, Henry and Johnson and he felt that at 24, it was too young
for him to be out of the ring and teaching new talent, so he quit to go to ECW and
probably All Japan in 1997. The original idea was for Candito to do an Eddie Gilbert type
gimmick as a tag team partner with Barry Buchanan (SMW Punisher), but the idea was
dropped. Candito apparently is also leaving over heat with Shawn Michaels, who
apparently would get upset at him using hot moves in prelim matches on the house
shows, moves which he thought were apparently his domain.
Since Sunny has a lengthy big money contract, she's staying, although she won't be going
on the road tours and her job will mainly be public appearances, working TV nights and
doing the Saturday morning Live Wire. She's toned down the airhead bimbo part of her
original role on the Live Wire and is doing a role more like her real self over the past two
weeks.
Barry Windham and Vader both suffered broken foots. Windham broke his foot at
television. Vader broke his foot in the "Boy Meets World" taping match in Anaheim on
10/13 against Jake Roberts. He worked the PPV match with Sid on the broken foot, but
then missed TV and the house shows (which he was scheduled to work main events
against Shawn Michaels on) until returning on 10/25 in Chicago.
The original plan was for Vader to beat Sid at the Buried Alive show and to beat
Michaels for the title at Survivor Series. The plan was changed, but I don't believe the
broken foot had anything to do with the change in plans. Perhaps Hart coming back and
the idea that they'll spend from now until Mania building for Hart-Michaels and not
muddy the waters by switching the title earlier. Perhaps something else. Vader and
Faarooq (who was supposed to win the IC title and is out of action until 11/17 with a
badly torn groin) were both told they had to switch the original plans and not give them
the belts because J.J. Dillon was at the meetings where those long-term plans were
made, and since he worked for the opposition, they had to change all the storylines he
knew. If that's the real reason for the changes, which I doubt, it's the silliest thing I've
ever heard. If the plans make sense and will draw, the fact WCW knows of them, even if
they try and get the word out, isn't going to make the slightest difference in them
drawing. If they don't make sense and won't draw, they could be the greatest guarded
secret in the history of mankind, but they still won't draw.
Titan must have been extremely confident Bret Hart was coming because the box sleeve
for the Survivor Series video lists Michaels vs. Vader (the original plan) and Hart vs.
Austin as the top two matches.
Savio Vega's injury was a torn calf muscle that he got in the gym.
They expect Ahmed Johnson back for the December PPV show.
In the storyline, Mr. Perfect's wrestling license was revoked (since he had no intention of
wrestling anyway since he's making so much on disability insurance) but he'll be going
on the road as Hunter Hearst Helmsley's manager.
On the Live Wire show a few weeks back when Johnson was on, a caller who said he was
black, asked about racism in the WWF and Johnson said there wasn't any. It was
actually a set up call as the "caller" was Kevin Dunn, a white producer of the show.
Weekend ratings for 10/26 were Blast Off at 0.7, Live Wire at 1.3 and Superstars at 1.7.
Besides the Austin-Pillman angle, also at Superstars on 10/22 in Cincinnati which drew
3,137 paying $48,773 saw The Gunns wrestle The Rockers. Billy walked out on Bart,
leaving him to face both men, but Bart won anyway. Marc Mero had two matches with
Goldust. Mero won the first, but apparently the ref wasn't supposed to count to three, so
they had to get back in the ring and re-do the finish with the DDQ ending it was
supposed to be and will air. Lance Wright is now the ring announcer at Superstars and
also doing some ring announcing at the house shows. Too Cold Scorpio's role as a
babyface pimp character is designed after the "Huggy Bear" character of the "Starsky
and Hutch" television show from the 70s. Bart & Freddy Joe Floyd beat Billy & T.L.
Hopper, and after the match Billy beat up Hopper and tried to make up with Bart, but
then beat Bart up as well. Undertaker & Mero & Sid beat Goldust & Mankind & Austin.
They did a tug-of-war with Henry vs. Crush. Henry was winning when Helmsley joined
Crush, as did Goldust, but Henry was still winning and finally all three attacked Henry.
Dark match main saw Michaels over Helmsley in 10:00 of a DUD match of nothing but
stalling.
Dark matches from the Indianapolis Buried Alive PPV that we inadvertently left out of
last week's issue were Godwinns over Rockers in a * match, and Michaels keeping the
title over Goldust in a **1/4 match.
House shows this week were 10/23 in Evansville, IN drew 2,646 and $35,127; 10/24 in
Springfield, IL drew 2,480 and $33,657; 10/25 in Chicago drew 7,979 and $149,753;
10/26 in St. Louis drew 4,778 and $75,583 and 10/27 in Cape Girardeau, MO drew
2,089 and $31,528.
The Australia/Malaysia/Philippines tour scheduled for the end of November and early
December was canceled and in its place they are running smaller cities in the Northeast.
They still have two shows booked during that time frame in the United Kingdom.
Wrestlemania was announced as taking place at the Rosemont Horizon to the fans there
at the 10/25 house show.
Crush has been doing an angle which was copied from ECW where he's beating up fans
and security guards.
Clarence Mason will be managing Faarooq.
Michaels and Smith had a hot match on Raw.
THE READERS PAGES
INDIES
It really burns me up when I read a letter saying how much the U.S. wrestling scene
sucks. The truly annoying part about it is that fans blame the promoters, blame the
wrestlers, etc. but fail to assign the blame to themselves.
Think about it. Where is the young talent going to come from? The independents. Check
out the results pages sometimes. Many of them list attendances. The average attendance
is about 100 fans for an independent show in my area. Do you honestly think a promoter
can afford to pay his wrestlers what they're worth on a $700 gate? I see many letters in
the Observer decrying the big two for the lack of talented workers, but where do you
develop new talent? The independents.
I've been wrestling for nearly eight years. You have no idea how hard it is to put my body
through the physical abuse I do when there are 75 people in the building. It makes you
feel very unappreciated. Most wrestlers can't cope with it and quit within their first year.
The money situation doesn't help either. Truly dedicated martyrs, or morons, depending
on your point of view, I feel that I fit into both categories some days, will travel more
than 100 miles to work for $25 to $50. That doesn't even cover food or gas in some
cases. Some guys, myself included, will travel more than three hours each way on a
Sunday, work a shot, and get home at 2 a.m. and then get up and go to work the next
day.
My suggestion to fans. Attend some independent shows. Admittedly, you're bound to see
some slobs out there. But through trial and error, you can usually find a decent
promotion running regularly in your area. If you see someone you think is good, tell the
promoter. The chances are he'll keep booking the guy to keep you coming. In the
independent world, every single fan counts. Tell the worker you like his work as well.
Everyone at this level could stand a compliment now and again. If you and a group of
friends like a guys work, send letters to WWF or WCW. If they think there's a chance he
could put a few dollars in their pockets, they may give him a try out. Above all else,
attend the matches. I work for Ringside Wrestling out of Nashua, NH. I guarantee you
this. Come out and me and the boys will work our balls off for you.
Scott "Maverick Wild" Despres
Ashburnham, Massachusetts

 

Nov. 11, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Infamous
angle where Austin broke into Pillman's house, thoughts
on Hall of Fame issue, Pancrase PPV, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 11 November 1996 23:46
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 11, 1996
PANCRASE: TOKYO TOUGH POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 96 (99.0%)
Thumbs down 1 (01.0%)
In the middle 0 (00.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki 73
Frank Shamrock vs. Yuki Kondo 12
WORST MATCH POLL
Jason DeLucia vs. Minoru Suzuki 11
Osami Shibuya vs. Takafumi Ito 9
WCW HALLOWEEN HAVOC FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 122 (68.9%)
Thumbs down 34 (19.2%)
In the middle 21 (11.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 134
WORST MATCH POLL
Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage 123
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/5.
Statistical margin of error: +-100%
In something that was either a ground-breaking angle in wrestling, or an act of total
desperation, WWF ran a live angle on 11/4 based on scenes from the movie "Cape Fear"
(the same movie that spawned the Waylon Mercy character) where Steve Austin broke
into Brian Pillman's house and Pillman held him off with a gun as his wife was
screaming.
The angle was done to establish the WWF's new time slot one hour earlier on Raw, and
to establish the idea that even though the WWF matches are taped three out of every
four weeks, that a major live angle will take place every week on the show.
The angle started with them establishing the scene at Pillman's house in Walton, KY (it
was his real house) and them talking about Austin threatening to come back during the
show and Pillman pulled out a gun in case he got in. Austin did a phone call from a
supposed car phone on his way from the airport. It was established the two were longtime
friends and even acknowledged they were a championship tag team (in WCW,
which goes against former WWF policy of not recognizing incidents and angles in
WCW). Austin showed up and was met in front of the house by two of Pillman's friends
(actually two students from Les Thatcher's wrestling school) and in the one really lame
scene, Austin had a bad fight scene with the two of them, slamming one into the car and
throwing the other into an algae-infested kiddie pool. Several minutes later when they
want back to the house, Austin broke a window on a door and got into the house and
Pillman hobbled off the couch and pointed a gun at him. At this point the picture died
and they tried to tease for the rest of the show as to what happened. After doing a taped
angle to build up the Shawn Michaels vs. Sid match and a tag title match on next week's
Raw, which in the long run all had to be totally ineffective and a bad idea to run that
angle at a point when it couldn't get over, they went to another taped Razor Ramon vs.
Marc Mero match. That match was backdrop for a phone call between Kerwin Silfies, a
WWF producer, and Vince McMahon, claiming the lights were off at the Pillman house
but lights were on in the rest of the neighborhood, that the police who were called hadn't
arrived and they couldn't figure out why other than Pillman's house was in the sticks,
and they had no idea if satellite transmission would be restored. When asked if they
heard a gun go off, Silfies said he heard a sound that could have been that. After teasing
it throughout the rest of the show, the picture went back on at the end with a commotion
in the house and the idea that Pillman's shot, that didn't hit Austin, had scared him
away. But Austin came back at this point and the two were held apart from each other
with Pillman hobbling around pointing the gun and swearing at Austin (which wasn't
edited off the delayed West Coast feed which makes me believe it was fine with the USA
network, and there is a much larger story than the Monday Night wrestling wars here
because USA, which used to do phenomenal ratings with its Murder She Wrote, Raw,
Silk Stalkings line-up has gotten beaten across the board all night by TNT's wrestling
and USA is probably every bit as desperate if not more than WWF to do something for
shock value to change that trend) while Kevin Kelly screamed for someone to call the
police and the show went off the air at that point. Pillman either legitimately sprained or
twisted his knee hobbling around doing the angle.
Was it a good angle? Did it go too far? Was it offensive? It's a good angle if it works.
Pillman and Austin's acting in the angle was good. Other aspects, in particular Austin
beating up the two jobbers, was a little corny. Being the talk of wrestling, which it was
for one day, can be a good sign, but if it doesn't translate to increased ratings or money,
it still doesn't make it successful. I'm beginning to fear we're entering a wrestling
environment filled with angles that have one-day shelf lives, which means by
Wednesday, everyone has forgotten about them long before they really amount to
anything. Next week's ratings across the board will be an indication if this angle had
legs. Too far? It's new ground. Dangerous ground in that they've created the
environment, and WCW has as well, where absolutely nothing that goes on in the ring
matters anymore. The outside ring storyline is everything and action in the ring is
meaningless. WCW had a tremendous match going on at roughly the same time with
Chris Benoit vs. Hector Guerrero, and the live audience in Grand Rapids, MI had their
backs to the ring and were looking at the NWO guys instead of watching two great
wrestlers work their ass off. Was it offensive? Not to me. Maybe to others. It's no
different than any other violent television show. The only offensive thing on wrestling
that night to me was the racist stereotype of Sonny Onno.
The bottom line is that WCW drew a 3.4 rating and 5.1 share and WWF drew a 2.3 rating
and 3.4 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.2 rating and 3.0 share. In the head-to-head hour,
WCW did a 2.9, and without second hour competition, picked up to a 3.8 (it actually
would have been a 3.7 for that hour but they went 11 minutes past the hour with all the
Hogan/Piper stuff again and that managed to give them an extra .1 in the ratings).
Looking at the quarter hours tells another story. WCW had a full point lead at 3.0 to 2.0
when they did the tease where Pillman pulled out the gun and the signal went out.
Curiosity over that did make a significant difference, as the third quarter saw them neckand-
neck with a 2.8 rating. Most interestingly, despite the WWF's teasing to get viewers
to stay tuned, and this shocked me, WCW for the final quarter hour while Benoit and
Guerrero were doing their match, picked up to a 3.2 while WWF dropped to a 2.5.
Bottom line. The angle worked, not nearly as well as the Bret Hart interview two weeks
earlier, but it worked for a few minutes. But it was also teased for too long in between
segments and was a major turnoff with the WWF traditional kids audience. The idea was
to keep viewers from switching back until the end of the show. The end result was that
viewers switched back to Nitro while Raw was still going on in the final 15 minutes.
It's still too early, as we need to wait a few weeks until WWF fully establishes the new
time slot, as to what the effects of the change are. Raw's number was slightly higher than
it's been averaging over the past few weeks, but even with that angle, the increase wasn't
much. Nitro over the past few weeks has been doing huge in the first hour and slightly
falling off against football and Raw in the second hour (before football season, when
there was Raw, Nitro almost always gained in the second hour). It's clear without Raw in
the second hour, that Nitro is going to do huge ratings. Whether Raw can close the gap
in the head-to-head hour is something that remains to be seen as this was closer than it
has been in several weeks with the exception of the week where WWF had both Hart and
supposedly Perfect's return on the same show. You can say that in its first week with the
show not even established in the time slot yet, that it did a slightly better number than
before and the gap was closed as a positive. Or you can say with the most hardcore
hotshot (pardon the pun) angle to date, they still only did a 2.3 rating and lost viewers to
Nitro as the angle went on, as an overall negative.
The WWF's drop in the final quarter hour consisted of 125,000 kids switching off--most
interesting is at the same time Nitro gained 124,000 kids during the same quarter so
you've got to figure they were basically the same kids; 11,000 teenagers switching off,
63,000 Men 18-34, 105,000 Men 35-54, 49,000 Womens 18-34, 20,000 Women 35-54
and 12,000 Women 55+. The only audience that stayed with the angle as opposed to
switching to Nitro in the final quarter hour was Men 55+. Nitro gained at the same time
in every grouping except with Women 35-54.
The angle, and more importantly the switch-off factor in the final 15 minutes, saw it
become the first time Nitro has beaten Raw with the kids audience, winning by a 53-47
margin. Raw had a 55-45 edge in teenagers. Nitro had a 61-39 edge in adult males and a
56-44 edge in adult females (which is actually when it comes to adult females, Raw's best
showing in a while so perhaps the idea of the wife held captive in her own house has
some appeal to women watching because aside from that group and the teenagers, Raw
did worse head-to-head than usual, particularly in kids which was the group it figured to
pick up with because of the time slot move). The other notable thing when it comes to
demographics is that the Hogan/Piper stuff, despite the age of the participants, seems to
have the most appeal with teenagers and men 18-34 and a lot less of an appeal to the
men 35-54 that one would think grew up on wrestling watching those guys.
WWF opened the show at 7:57 p.m. while Nitro started at 8 p.m., something I suspect
will be changed in future weeks. The general feeling within WCW at this point seems to
be that NWO is what everyone wants to see and what is feuding the current increase in
ratings (which actually aren't up as compared with pre-NWO this year but are up judged
against the same time last year), buy rates (which actually are only slightly up), house
shows (which actually were down last time we checked as an average although some
recent houses have been way up) and merchandising (which is way up). While many
wrestlers have been upset over them having NWO guys in the stands and basically
killing their Monday television matches (Steve Regal and Juventud Guerrera were really
upset last week after their Nitro match), the belief in the company is if the NWO guys
aren't on television, people will switch stations (forgetting that ratings before the NWO
angle were at almost the exact same level). Anyway, the plan right now is to do NWO
Monday Nitro head-to-head with Raw, and WCW Monday Nitro in the second hour,
although I'm not sure how many weeks it'll be before this change takes place.
***********************************************************
Back in August, we did our first Hall of Fame issue. Doing something of this type, as
subjective as it all is, particularly in an entertainment form like pro wrestling where the
statistical arguments that the baseball Hall of Fame are loaded with are inconsequential.
It also brought more response than any feature we've done in years, and not surprisingly
so. Hall of Fame type ideas in wrestling come and go. In recent years, both WCW and
WWF have started Hall of Fames, although WCW has since dropped the idea after much
criticism since they inducted Angelo Poffo primarily because he's the father of Randy
Savage more than any accomplishments as a wrestler. No doubt WWF will get criticism
this year if anyone takes their Hall of Fame seriously for inducting long-time mid-card
wrestler Baron Mikel Scicluna and perennial television jobber Johnny Rodz on 11/16
before headliners too numerous to mention, the most notable of which would be Bruno
Sammartino, one of the most important figures in the history of the company.
As mentioned, since that time we've gotten tons of letters. Many brought up wrestlers
they had seen in their area while growing up, most of whom were solid names. Some
wanted a jobbers wing, and there is an argument that without the jobbers to make the
stars look good in the ring on television, the stars wouldn't look good. But you also have
to draw the line or the whole exercise becomes meaningless. The first so-called class
listed 126 wrestlers, promoters, managers or announcers, which may be way too many to
start with, but even looking back I can't think of more than a few names on the entire list
that would even be questionable. In looking back on the list, the period from the 50s
through the 70s is the most well represented, with some 40 personalities apiece from all
three decades. It narrows down with the 80s and 90s, partially because it's too early in
some cases to figure historical significance, and secondarily, because historical figures
seem to gain in importance after they are no longer on television each week. For
example, with the dozens of letters we received about various people who were
neglected, nearly all from the 50s through 70s, we didn't receive even one letter about
Sting, who is a better worker than some on the list, and during his day was a bigger star
than many, perhaps most, who made the list. Kids who are growing up now and become
interested in wrestling history in 20 years would put guys like Sting and Undertaker on a
list without question, and maybe even Lex Luger, but those of us watching them now
probably dismiss them because they are current and because we're all aware of their
shortcomings and know they aren't Ric Flair or Bret Hart. Fact is, they made more
money than all but a handful of the guys on the list. And on a national basis, since
wrestling is now national, were better known names. Another name that is intriguing is
Jesse Ventura. Not as a wrestler, although he was a major star, but as an announcer. On
one hand, he really only did the announcing gig for about seven years, and the last few of
them he was pretty bad. He wasn't the first heel to do commentary. I'm sure there were
guys doing that in the 50s. But he was so good that he paved the way for the idea that
became a given in our culture that every television show needed a heel to bounce off the
babyface, and with a few exceptions, that has remained the case to this day. If Ventura
had flopped, the idea would have been dropped in 1985 and wrestling television as we
know it in the United States would be different. In that way, he was more influential
than a lot of guys who could work magic in the ring.
Anyway, from the original list, I can come up with two major oversights, which we'll get
into next summer, and there are other wrestlers who become eligible based on the
guidelines that should be considered, or maybe even be locks, to be added to the list.
With basically around 40 performers from the 50s, 60s and 70s apiece, my own feeling
is we've gone as "deep" as we should when it comes to wrestlers from that time period.
Not that there may not be a few from each decade that belong, but the so-called "next
level down" category of stars, like Tim Woods, Dick Murdoch, Jacques Rougeau Sr.,
Wahoo McDaniel, Mark Lewin, Boris Malenko, Curtis Iaukea, Jay Strongbow types, and
literally there are dozens and dozens that fit into that category, since we had a list longer
than those who made it of those that were under consideration, who were stars, but not
international superstars of the level of a Stan Hansen, Harley Race, Jack Brisco or a
Dusty Rhodes during the 70s, as an example, really shouldn't be added or it would
require opening the floodgates to hundreds more. Actually one of the criterion I was
thinking myself in my own thoughts on the list were that if a wrestler was on the Stan
Hansen level, they were in. If they were on the Dick Murdoch level, that's exactly the
level where the line gets drawn. Not that Murdoch himself wasn't a better worker than
probably 90% of those on the list and isn't someone to be considered at some point.
Which leads us to the Fabulous Moolah. Of all the names asked about, Moolah was
mentioned more than any other, with people saying that she should be in as a nobrainer.
On my original list, I thought the same way. The only American women
wrestlers I considered were Mildred Burke (the most famous women wrestler of the 40s
and early 50s) and Moolah since they were the undisputed champions of their respective
eras. The problem was, when going down the list and mentioning Moolah, someone
asked me why she should be in, because unlike Burke, she neither had the reputation of
being a great wrestler, nor was a headliner, nor was a big draw. When running down the
reasons (basically, longevity and the belt and just this feeling that she should be win), I
realized I didn't have any good reasons at all. Sure, Moolah was around forever. She's
still around today. She held the belt forever, but it was a belt that for most of that time
period meant nothing when it came to drawing. Les Thornton held a meaningless belt
forever, and nobody would consider him. Bob Backlund held the WWF belt for nearly six
years, and that was a belt that headlined the biggest arenas in the country during that
time period and more often than not, drew, and I can't see him making the list. I was
against the idea of putting women or midgets in to fill a quota. If they were major
historical figures or super workers, that's one thing (and the only so-called midget I can
think of that would qualify is Espectrito, and he's way too young), but guys who were
around forever that worked mid-card doing burlesque show spots, I just don't see that in
something that's supposed to be exclusive. Using that criteria, every mid-card gimmick
guy that got a few laughs and was a little bit over in a territory that lasted three decades
should be in as well. How about Rusher Kimura, who in his peak angles drew tons more
money? Was Moolah ever a big drawing card on her own? No. Burke was one of the ten
biggest draws in the industry in her prime and considered the top dog when there were
dozens and dozens of full-time women wrestlers, when womens wrestling was
something of a big deal. Under Moolah, times changed and for the most part, womens
wrestling died. It's for the most part still dead today. What if Madusa were to somehow
be able to stick around until she's 55? Granted, this is a world where few women even
have jobs as wrestlers in the United States, and the world has changed since the 70s and
today's public, whether positive or negative, isn't going to get into seeing a 50-year-old
in a leotard no matter how much plastic surgery she's had, nor would today's promoters
dream of presenting it, so it isn't going to happen. But if it would and she dominated a
world title belt until that time, does that make Madusa a Hall of Fame calibre wrestler?
And I suspect (although I don't know) that Madusa is a far better wrestler than Moolah
was during her prime. Some may argue that point and bring up that Moolah had enough
ring "shooting" ability to double-cross a much younger Wendi Richter into a pinning
predicament against her own knowledge when the WWF wanted to double-cross Richter
and get the belt off her. Besides, in due time there are enough super workers that are
women from today's era that if we keep this up, there will hardly be a shortage of women
wrestlers on the list. None of them lasted as long, but almost all were far better workers,
and also involved in key spots on cards that drew both big houses, and even bigger
television ratings. Of course, one can argue that there are men names on the list who
weren't good workers, and a few who weren't major draws (although in those cases they
are historically important figures). Perhaps Moolah belongs because of historical
importance. But my feeling is you could write a history of pro wrestling without devoting
much space to Moolah's accomplishments. And it's hard to make a case for Moolah in an
international wrestling Hall of Fame without including Irma Gonzalez and Irma Aguilar,
both of whom were around as long (and are still around in a more prominent role than
Moolah) and were probably as big names (it's hard to compare culturally since they were
all in their primes probably in the 60s and it isn't like people were trading videos in
those days and the accuracy of the printed word can't be taken at face value). I'd have to
assume Aguilar and Gonzalez were better wrestlers because I saw them in the past two
years when they had to be in their mid-to-late 60s and they were even then better than
Moolah was in the 70s.
Which brings us to the next generation. The following active wrestlers and/or managers
or promoters made the original list, of which one had to be more than 35 years old or
have wrestled professionally for 15 years to quality--Perro Aguayo, Giant Baba, Abdullah
the Butcher, Canek, ***** Casas, Riki Choshu, Jim Cornette, Ted DiBiase, Ric Flair,
Tatsumi Fujinami, Dory Funk, Terry Funk, Stan Hansen, Bret Hart, Bobby Heenan,
Hulk Hogan, Antonio Inoki, Jerry Lawler, Akira Maeda, Devil Masami, Mil Mascaras,
Tiger Mask Sayama, Vince McMahon Jr., Mitsuharu Misawa, Antonio Pena, Roddy
Piper, Road Warriors, Randy Savage, Nobuhiko Takada, Genichiro Tenryu, Jumbo
Tsuruta, Vader and Jaguar Yokota.
Which of today's wrestlers, and for that matter, promoters and managers, belong and
don't belong? Who may belong at some point? It would probably take almost an entire
issue to go through my thoughts on the various candidates. So I'll just throw some
names out now and think about them yourselves for now.
Jimmy Snuka, Ultimate Warrior, Kerry Von Erich, Terry Gordy, Davey Boy Smith, Barry
Windham, Steve Williams, Rick Rude, Sting, Chris Benoit, Curt Hennig, Jake Roberts,
Scott Hall, Shawn Michaels, Lex Luger, Undertaker, Cactus Jack, Dos Caras, Lizmark,
Konnan, Paul Heyman, El Hijo del Santo, Ken Shamrock, Volk Han, Masa Saito,
Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Jushin Liger, Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto, Masahiro Chono, Shiro
Koshinaka, Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue, Kenta Kobashi, Masakatsu Funaki, Great
Sasuke, Steiner Brothers, Sgt. Slaughter, Paul Orndorff, Villano III, Cien Caras, Atlantis,
Gran Hamada, Ultimo Dragon, Carlos Colon, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Bas
Rutten, Jim Ross, Michael Hayes, Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera, Emilio Charles Jr.,
Silver King, La Parka, Akira Hokuto, Bull Nakano, Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Chigusa
Nagayo, Lioness Asuka.
***********************************************************
Semaphore Entertainment Group's fourth Pancrase PPV show on 11/3, taped 9/7, was
easily its best show to date. But what does that really mean when the viewership and
overall interest in the product hasn't caught on?
Pancrase is a monumental three-year-old experiment within the world of pro wrestling.
The truest athletic competition within the pro wrestling framework dating back as far as
anyone alive can remember. And after three years, in a group that has certain
advantages going for it that other attempts didn't, mainly some marketable faces, in
particular Masakatsu Funaki, a smarter overall audience base, in the Japanese shoot
style fans, the promotion is facing a crossroads on many fronts.
With its rules, in particular the one banning punching to the face, it falls short in the
violence imagination quotient as compared to other shoot groups that have preceded it
in the United States. That's particularly important in the American market where it's too
sportsmanlike, too civilized, too Japanese and most important, seemingly too
unimportant for the American sports fan.
The PPV was an experiment to see if Sunday night, the traditional pro wrestling PPV
night, would increase the buy rate past the 0.1 level the past two shows have stalled at
after debuting at a strong 0.25. At this point there are no scheduled future PPV dates.
On the Japanese front, the group has its own problems. The contract dispute with Ken
Shamrock, which has spread to affecting in some form the participation of several Lions
Den fighters, takes away some of its biggest stars.
In a related story, Shamrock has pulled out of his 12/15 match at the Fukuoka Dome
with Hugo Duarte. The reason given is that since Antonio Inoki's people were in serious
negotiations to have the show air on PPV in the United States on a taped delay in 1997,
Shamrock couldn't do the show because it would be working against SEG and UFC. The
Shamrocks brought up the possibility of doing the match, but having it not air in the
United States as part of the PPV show, but everything seems to have fallen through in
that regard. Apparently one of the reasons Inoki's people were able to offer Shamrock a
huge money figure for one match was the ability to use Shamrock's name in marketing
the event on PPV in the United States. It's still somewhat surprising to see the match fall
apart completely over the PPV aspect, since they have a huge stadium (actual capacity is
69,000, not 80,000 as listed here previously) to fill for a card that on paper doesn't
appear to have anywhere close to enough drawing power to pull that off. Perhaps the
threatened lawsuit from Pancrase over their claim that Shamrock would still be under
exclusive contract to them until he returns and does the final four fights left on his
previous contract also played a factor.
According to Pancrase President Masami Ozaki, the company had threatened legal
action against Shamrock, but not against Universal Vale Tudo as written here last week.
Nagashima, who is one of the New Japan primary office officials, had called Ozaki about
the problem which, along with the involvement of Antonio Inoki, has led to people
believe this show is actually a New Japan promotion under another name, and
supposedly all insiders in Japan know the show is going to be a flop but the belief is that
will be okay for the promoters as well since there are those who believe the purpose of
the show is to nip the shooting style popularity in the bud because it threatens the longterm
popularity of traditional pro wrestling.
According to Ozaki, Shamrock fought four matches under the contract and was credited
with one more since he came to Japan while injured for the November 4, 1995 show, on
the nine match contract of May 1, 1995. Shamrock also came to Japan after his knee
operation this year but Ozaki doesn't credit that as a match because he was under a
separate area management contract (which expires in December but Pancrase stopped
paying him in October due to the dispute), so he believes Shamrock owes the company
four matches, not three as listed in the Observer last week. His claim is the contract
specifically states all matches are shoots and that Shamrock received $200,000 in his
monthly salary for the one year duration of the contract. Ozaki claims the contract
specifically brought up participation in UFC events saying that Pancrase would allow
Shamrock to do UFC events but they would not count as Pancrase matches in the
contract. He said that Shamrock phoned Masakatsu Funaki many times but it was
Funaki that didn't want to return his phone calls because of the contract dispute and
that Funaki is on his side of the dispute, which is surprising since Funaki and Shamrock
have a long friendship.
Ozaki also said that Guy Mezger is still with Pancrase. He broke his nose on the 9/7
show and couldn't fight again for six weeks, which means he had to miss the 11/9 show.
Mezger was originally selected as one of the four to be in the tournament to determine
the new King of Pancrase but couldn't participate due to the injury, but is scheduled to
appear on the 12/15 show. Ozaki also claimed he knew from Mezger about the idea for
he and Frank Shamrock to do seminars and didn't care about it, and claimed it was
Ken's idea to do the Ken vs. Frank match and that nobody in Pancrase ever made the
suggestion that the brothers fight each other. Bob Shamrock, Ken's father and manager,
claimed it was Pancrase's idea to book such a match on 12/15 and interviews with Frank
Shamrock have talked about him not wanting to fight his brother. Ozaki claimed as it
regards Vernon White, his future with Pancrase is pending since everyone at Pancrase
likes him.
The toll of injuries continues to add up, and it's going to add up faster as the nature of
the sport itself changes. With the wrestlers learning more and more how to block, spot
and avoid the submissions, the matches become more stand-up striking matches, which
naturally lead to a higher risk of injuries, particularly with a limited number of fighters
and matches taking place every six weeks. From a marketing standpoint, the reality of
true athletic competition as opposed to worked competition is that there is a gap, often
lengthy, between a wrestlers' physical peak and his marketing peak. Most top wrestlers
hit their drawing power peak around their mid-30s, and with the nature of name value
being what it is, many have more drawing power in their 40s when they are no longer
top athletes, then even in their 30s. In a shoot sport, the time line is a lot shorter. By the
time the wrestler gets over the biggest, as often as not, his athletic skills are already in
decline. In a worked environment, that can be made up for by learning shortcuts in the
ring. It's a lot harder when the worked aspect is removed, particularly when it comes to
recovering from injuries, let alone winning and losing.
According to those who saw both the Japanese television broadcast of this show and the
American PPV version, this was the first time that the American version was said to have
been superior, largely due to the great job of color by Eric Perret, who replaced
Shamrock. Perret started out knowledgeable, but perhaps too low key, but picked up
excitement as the latter matches picked up the pace. It helped that he had two of the
most exciting matches in Pancrase history to work with. Bruce Beck did a great job as
well, although the event as American television product was still hampered by the lack of
taped features, interviews and personality profiles that give life to the wrestlers
themselves who are all appearing basically cold to the majority of the audience.
The show opened with 20-year-old Osami Shibuya, one of Pancrase's biggest hopes for
the future, going to a 10:00 draw against Takafumi Ito. Since Shibuya is one of the four
in the upcoming King of Pancrase tournament, doing an even match against an
undercard wrestler wasn't the step up in the pack. The match was basically even,
highlighted by consistent blocks of attempted submissions on both sides, and it would
have been hard to pick a winner. In the second match, where Manabu Yamada beat
Kiuma Kunioku, Yamada seemed to just play defense most of the way until he got
popped in the face and decided to end up. As mentioned many times before, the Frank
Shamrock vs. Yuki Kondo match was one of the best matches in Pancrase history. The
two were constantly working for submissions on the ground, without much luck.
Shamrock dominated on the ground, but was working harder to make things happen,
and apparently ran out of gas earlier. The tide turned at the 8:00 mark with most of the
rest of the match on their feet, where Kondo held the edge. Kondo's eyes were puffed up,
which wasn't really mentioned in the commentary, from Shamrock's strikes, and
Shamrock had a bloody nose, which also wasn't mentioned. Shamrock eventually ate a
kick and fell through the ropes to the floor at 12:43.
A marathon striking encounter followed between White and Yoshiki Takahashi. This
went 19:43, which is incredibly long when you consider that there are no rounds for the
fighters to catch their breath. Even though Takahashi would have the edge once they
went to the ground since he's the better wrestler, mainly due to fighting when he
probably shouldn't have because of an injury, Takahashi wanted to avoid the ground, as
did White. Takahashi managed a few take downs, but basically there were standing there
throwing palm blows and kicks, with some great flurries. White had a greater reach but
Takahashi seemingly didn't mind taking blow after blow. White was knocked down once
and also given a yellow card for a low kick, while Takahashi went down twice, so the
score was 2-2 as both tired fighters went for broke in the end until Takahashi took a kick
to the chin and the ref immediately saw he was gone and stopped the fight. On the PPV
version, they didn't show that Takahashi had to be carried out on a stretcher, nor was it
acknowledged in the commentary. In the last 2:00, Takahashi took 21 head blows.
The Jason DeLucia vs. Minoru Suzuki match was probably the weakest match on the
show. Suzuki wanted to avoid getting hit while shooting in, which made him overly
cautious. Nevertheless, he shot, took a palm to the temple, and went down hard and the
match was stopped after just 3:00.
Rutten-Funaki was the classic Pancrase match up of striker vs. wrestler. However, the
difference was that Rutten can wrestle and Funaki can strike as well. Rutten's entire
training for this match consisted of going to Australia and training with Larry
Popodopolous in avoiding submissions. Funaki tried to set up numerous submissions,
but Rutten saw them all coming and was able to get out of them. Rutten lost one point
for a controversial rope escape called, as Rutten grabbed the rope inadvertently rather
than to escape a submission, but it gave Funaki the point lead in the early going. On
their feet, the more the fight went on, Rutten's unbelievable power in his palms and feet
did more and more damage. As the match wore on, Rutten was able to score his first
knockdown. The second knockdown broke Funaki's nose. As the match wore on, it was
like the first Rocky movie, with Funaki taking ungodly punishment and his movie star
face basically being disfigured from swelling in the process. After the third knockdown
(Funaki also lost a point due to a rope escape), Funaki had one lost point left and the
crowd went nuts and he played to the crowd like a pro wrestler about to make the big
comeback. In that way it was like traditional pro wrestling but had more drama because
of the heightened believability. Funaki attempted the big comeback, but it was for
naught as he just took knees and palms and kicks and somehow held on until a knee to
the chin finished him. It was even more compelling when the final moments were shown
in slow-mo just what a war Funaki put on to stave off what was the inevitable. It was an
incredible performance by Funaki.
***********************************************************
All Japan women announced the complete line-up for its final major show of the year on
12/8 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Already announced was Manami Toyota defending the
WWWA title against Kyoko Inoue in the main event. Other matches announced were
Dynamite Kansai (JWP) & Aja Kong vs. Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida, Mima
Shimoda & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita vs. Reggie Bennett & Tomoko Watanabe &
TBA, Chaparita Asari defends the WWWA super lightweight title against Fusayo Nouchi
of JWP, Rie Tamada vs. Chikako Shiratori (JD), Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Yoshiko
Tamura vs. Bloody Phoenix (Miori Kamiya--JD) & Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno) &
Pequena Azteca (Alda Moreno) and opening up with Tanny Mouth & Genki Misae vs.
Tomoko Miyaguchi (JWP) & Emi Motokawa (IWA).
In addition, there will be four shoot matches on the show. Under UFC rules, Yumiko
Hotta gets a rematch against Rosina Elina, the Soviet judo player who won the U
tournament beating Hotta in the finals this past August, and Kaoru Ito faces Tania
White of Australia. In addition, there will be two shoot matches under kick boxing rules
with Kumiko Maekawa vs. Aya Mitsui (a kick boxer) and Saya Endo vs. Yoko Takahashi
(JD).
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/8 TO 12/8
11/8 WWF Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind &
Goldust)
11/9 Pancrase Kobe (Funaki vs. Kondo)
11/10 WWF Cleveland, OH Gund Arena (Michaels & Undertaker vs. Mankind & Goldust)
11/10 Universal Vale Tudo Sao Paolo, Brazil (Ruas vs. Taktarov)
11/11 WCW Monday Nitro tapings St. Petersburg, FL Bayfront Center Arena (Hogan vs.
Luger)
11/16 ECW November to Remember Philadelphia ECW Arena (Funk & Dreamer vs. Lee
& Douglas)
11/16 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Williams & Ace)
11/17 WWF Survivor Series New York Madison Square Garden (Michaels vs. Sid)
11/17 The U Japan Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Severn vs. Matsunaga)
11/18 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings New Haven, CT Veterans Memorial Coliseum
11/18 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Civic Center
11/19 WWF Superstars tapings Springfield, MA Civic Center
11/21 All Japan Fukuoka Hakata Star Lanes (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)
11/22 Reality Superfighting PPV Birmingham, AL (Renzo Gracie vs. Taktarov)
11/22 RINGS Osaka Castle Hall (Maeda vs. Fujiwara)
11/22 WWF Montreal Moulson Center
11/23 WCW Baltimore Arena (Hall & Nash vs. Heat)
11/24 WCW World War III PPV Norfolk, VA Scope (Three ring Battle Royal)
11/24 All Japan Kobe (Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace)
11/25 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Greenville, NC East Carolina University Arena
11/28 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi &
Patriot)
11/29 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada &
Taue)
12/1 New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall
12/1 All Japan Women Tokyo Korakuen Hall (tag team tournament finals)
12/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Dayton, OH Hara Arena
12/2 All Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
12/6 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Real World Tag League championship match)
12/7 UFC Ultimate Ultimate PPV Birmingham, AL (Shamrock, Coleman, Abbott, Frye,
Johnston, Goodridge, Worsham)
12/8 All Japan Women Tokyo Sumo Hall (Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue)
RESULTS
10/21 Memphis (USWA - 375): Steven Dunn b Denny Cooley, Tony Falk b Super
Mario, Sean Venom & Bart Sawyer b Mike Samples & Trailer Park Trash, USWA tag
titles/Jimmy Valiant ref: Brian Christopher & Wolfie D b Bill & Jamie Dundee to win
held up titles, Unified title: Colorado Kid b Bill Dundee-DQ, Christopher DDQ D, Flash
Flanagan won Rumble Royal
10/24 Springfield, IL (WWF - 2,480): Justin Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz, Crush b
Bob Holly, Steve Austin b Barry Windham, Sid b Mankind, Sultan b Aldo Montoya, IC
title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Four corners tag match for WWF belts:
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith beat Godwinns, Smoking Gunns and Grimm Twins,
WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Goldust
10/26 St. Louis Kiel Center (WWF - 4,778): Justin Bradshaw b Barry Horowitz
1/2*, Crush b Bob Holly 1/2*, Steve Austin b Barry Windham *1/2, IC title: Hunter
Hearst Helmsley b Marc Mero ***, Sid & Undertaker b Goldust & Mankind **, Sultan b
Aldo Montoya DUD, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns **,
Grimm Twins b Smoking Gunns 1/2*, WWF title: Shawn Michaels b Vader **
10/28 Isezaki (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa & Rumi Sekiguchi b Fujii &
Momoe Nakanishi, Yoshiko Tamura b Nana Takahashi, Saya Endo & Toshiyo Yamada b
Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada b Genki Misae & Etsuko
Mita, Mima Shimoda b Chaparita Asari, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Reggie Bennett
b Aja Kong & Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa
10/29 Kitakyushu (New Japan - 2,000): Michiyoshi Ohara b Yutaka Yoshie, Yuji
Nagata b Shinjiro Otani, Kengo Kimura b David Taylor, Akira Nogami & Kuniaki
Kobayashi b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki b Akitoshi
Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto, Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata & Scott Norton b Satoshi
Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi & Osamu Nishimura, Rick Steiner & Keiji Muto b Tadao
Yasuda & Kensuke Sasaki, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito b Osamu
Kido & Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami
10/30 Rome, GA (WCW Saturday Night & Main Event tapings - 2,300/1,200
paid): Eddie Guerrero b Jimmy Graffiti, Meng & Barbarian b Rock & Roll Express, Joe
Gomez b Cheetah Kid (Mike Haynor), Big Bubba & Kevin Sullivan b Jack Boot (Dwayne
Bruce) & Chavo Guerrero Jr., Jeff Jarrett b John Tenta, WCW TV title: Steve Regal b
Bobby Eaton, Chris Benoit b Chris Jericho, Chavo Guerrero Jr. NC Pat Tanaka, WCW TV
title: Regal b Cheetah Kid, Jericho b Eaton
10/30 Hakata Star Lanes (New Japan - 2,500 sellout): Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki
Kobayashi b Yutaka Yoshie & Yuji Nagata, Shinjiro Otani b Norio Honaga, Jushin Liger
b El Samurai, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Tadao Yasuda, Manabu Nakanishi & Scott Norton &
Shinya Hashimoto b Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto, Rick Steiner
b Takashi Iizuka, Masahiro Chono & Hiro Saito b Junji Hirata & Tatsumi Fujinami,
Osamu Nishimura & Kensuke Sasaki & Riki Choshu b Osamu Kido & Satoshi Kojima &
Keiji Muto
10/30 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Battlarts - 2,000 sellout): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b
Satoshi Yoneyama, Kruger b Shoichi Funaki, Katsumi Usuda b Carl Greco, Alexander
Otsuka & Yuki Ishikawa b Hiroshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda, Independent jr. title: Taka
Michinoku b Minoru Tanaka
10/30 Aomori (WAR): Takashi Okamura b Jun Kikuchi, Lance Storm b Battle
Ranger, Nobutaka Araya b Masaaki Mochizuki, Ultimo Dragon & Yuji Yasuraoka b
Fukuda & Kamikaze, Arashi b Osamu Tachihikari, Genichiro Tenryu & Koji Kitao b
Nobukazu Hirai & Bam Bam Bigelow
10/30 Kusumigaseki (All Japan women): Momoe Nakanishi b Fujii, Reggie
Bennett & Chaparita Asari & Nana Takahashi b Kumiko Maekawa & Yoshiko Tamura &
Genki Misae, Toshiyo Yamada & Saya Endo b Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa, Aja Kong b
Mima Shimoda, Yumiko Hotta & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota &
Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito
10/30 Akita (Michinoku Pro - 366 sellout): Mens Teoh b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny Lane, Dick Togo
& Teoh b Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa, Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo b Great Sasuke &
Kato Kung Lee
10/31 Yamaguchi (New Japan - 2,500 sellout): Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie,
Tatsutoshi Goto b Tadao Yasuda, Yuji Nagata b Michiyoshi Ohara, Shinjiro Otani &
Norio Honaga b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Osamu Nishimura & Kensuke Sasaki &
Tatsumi Fujinami b Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura, Rick Steiner &
Keiji Muto b Hiro Saito & David Taylor, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Takashi
Iizuka & Junji Hirata, Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Satoshi Kojima & Manabu
Nakanishi
10/31 Kamiioso (WAR): Osamu Tachihikari b Jun Kikuchi, Lance Storm b Takashi
Okamura, Yuji Yasuraoka b Masaaki Mochizuki, Ultimo Dragon b Battle Ranger, Koji
Kitao & Arashi b Fukuda & Kamikaze, Bam Bam Bigelow & Nobukazu Hirai b Genichiro
Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya
10/31 Yuse (Michinoku Pro - 350): Lenny Lane b Yoshito Sugamoto, Jinsei
Shinzaki b Gran Naniwa, Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa b Great Sasuke & Kato
Kung Lee, Mens Teoh & Dick Togo & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b
Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo & Tiger Mask & Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Masato
Yakushiji
10/31 Narita (All Japan women): Miho Wakizawa b Fujii, Tomoko Watanabe &
Genki Misae & Momoe Nakanishi b Kaoru Ito & Kumiko Maekawa & Saya Endo, Takako
Inoue & Yumi Fukawa b Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura, Manami Toyota b Mariko
Yoshida, Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada & Chaparita Asari b Mima Shimoda & Reggie
Bennett & Kyoko Inoue
11/1 Hiroshima Green Arena (New Japan - 7,000 sellout): Yuji Nagata b
Kazuyui Fujita, Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Shinjiro
Otani & Norio Honaga, Tadao Yasuda & Takashi Iizuka b Akira Nogami & Kuniaki
Kobayashi, Osamu Nishimura & Manabu Nakanishi b David Taylor & Osamu Kido,
Kensuke Sasaki & Junji Hirata b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Satoshi Kojima &
Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono,
Super Grade tag team tournament final: Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto b Keiji Muto
& Rick Steiner 21:54
11/1 Richmond, VA (WWF - 4,426): Sultan b Bob Holly 3/4*, Justin Bradshaw b
Aldo Montoya *1/4, Bart Gunn b Billy Gunn-COR *, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader 3/4*,
WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns *1/2, IC title: Hunter Hearst
Helmsley b Marc Mero **, Cage match: Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Mankind &
Goldust **1/2
11/1 Hammond, IN (WCW - 3,940 sellout): Syxx b Chavo Guerrero Jr., WCW
cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero b Diamond Dallas
Page, Nasty Boys b Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera, Lex Luger b Chris Benoit, WCW tag
titles: Kevin Nash & Scott Hall b Harlem Heat-DQ, Sting won triangular match over
Giant (COR) and Savage (DQ)
11/1 Staten Island, NY (ECW - 400): Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley b D-Von Dudley
& Rick Rage, Pit Bull #2 b Devon Storm, Mikey Whipwreck & Davey Tyler (David Cash
aka David Jerrico) b Erotic Experience, Bill Alfonso b Tod Gordon, Steve Williams b Too
Cold Scorpio, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas NC Louie Spicolli, Eliminators d Sabu & Rob
Van Dam, Cage match: Tommy Dreamer & Sandman b Brian Lee & Raven
11/1 Muronan (WAR): Jun Kikuchi b Takashi Okamura, Masaaki Mochizuki b
Fukuda, Kamikaze b Osamu Tachihikari, Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka b Battle Ranger
& Ultimo Dragon, Koji Kitao & Nobutaka Araya b Nobukazu Hirai & Bam Bam Bigelow,
Genichiro Tenryu b Arashi
11/1 Iwate (Michinoku Pro - 479): Lenny Lane b Yoshito Sugamoto, Jinsei Shinzaki
b Gran Naniwa, Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada,
Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo & Shiryu b Masato
Yakushiji & Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Tiger Mask & Great Sasuke & Kato Kung Lee
11/1 Revere, MA (Century Wrestling Alliance - 1,100): Mohammad Hussein (Lou
Fabbiano) b Jose Valenzuela, Knuckles Nelson b Steve Bradley-DQ, King Kong Bundy b
Joel & Rocky Davis, Bull Montana b Salomon Horowitz, Paul Zine b Thomas Rodman,
Tony Rumble b Tombstone, Strap match: Kevin Sullivan DDQ Vic Steamboat, Pink
Assassin b Prankster, Salvatore Sincere b Steve Corino, Doink the Clown b Johnny
Angel, Bundy b Tony Atlas, Cash Money Boys DDQ Johnny Grunge & Nelson
11/1 Inwood, NY (Universal Superstars of America): Scott Putski b El Mascardo
(Bert Centeno), Chip Scarborough b Butch Cassidy, Beer House Mike b Super Destroyer
(Gino Caruso), Booty Man b Greg Valentine, Duke Snider b Vic Williams, Bodyguard for
Hire NC Mike Sharpe
11/1 Reading, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling): Jihad Hussein b
High Voltage (not WCW), Troy Mest b Diablo Macabre, Cremator b Mike Mayhem,
Glenn Osbourne b Maxx Crimson, Romeo Catino & Boogie Woogie Brown b Lance
Diamond & Julio Sanchez, Lou Albano b Jud the Stud, Freight Train Jones b Mark Mest,
Cheetah Master b Ace Darling, Barry Windham b Crush-DQ
11/2 Landover, MD U.S. Air Arena (WWF - 3,383): Sultan b Bob Holly DUD,
Justin Bradshaw b Aldo Montoya *1/2, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn **, Stretcher match: Sid
b Vader DUD, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns 1/4*, IC title:
Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Marc Mero **3/4, Cage match: Undertaker & Shawn
Michaels b Mankind & Goldust ****
11/2 Kallang, Singapore Indoor Stadium (Gaea - 7,000): Toshie Uematsu b
Maiko Matsumoto, Bomber Hikaru b Makie Numao, Kaoru & Rina Ishii b Uematsu &
Chihiro Nakano, Akira Hokuto b Sakura Hirota, AAAW jr. tag titles decide match:
Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura b Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima, AAAW world
womens title decide match: Chigusa Nagayo b Devil Masami
11/2 Middletown, NY (ECW - 700): Louie Spicolli b Stevie Richards, Handicap: Big
Dick Dudley b Erotic Experience, Too Cold Scorpio b D.D. Tyler (Dave Cash), Buh Buh
Ray & Spike Dudley b Axl Rotten & D-Von Dudley, Pit Bull #2 b Brian Lee, Mikey
Whipwreck b Raven, Pit Bull #2 b Pittsburgh Steel Team, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas
b Tommy Dreamer, ECW title: Sandman b Scorpio, ECW tag titles: Gangstas won
triangle match over Sabu & Rob Van Dam and Eliminators
11/2 Kushiro (WAR): Battle Ranger b Ishii, Takashi Okamura b Jun Kikuchi, Osamu
Tachihikari b Yuji Yasuraoka, Lance Storm & Masaaki Mochizuki b Fukada & Kamikaze,
Arashi b Nobutaka Araya, Genichiro Tenryu & Koji Kitao b Bam Bam Bigelow &
Nobukazu Hirai
11/2 Mogami (Michinoku Pro - 279): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Yoshito Sugamoto,
El Hijo del Santo & Super Delfin b Masato Yakushiji & Kato Kung Lee, Tiger Mask &
Gran Naniwa d Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku 30:00, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick
Togo b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny
Lane
11/2 Flemington, NJ (Universal Superstars of America): Scott Putski b El
Mascarado, 911 b Kodiak Bear, Chip Scarborough b Butch Cassidy, Jimmy Snuka b Gino
Caruso, Booty Man b Greg Valentine, Bodyguard for Hire NC Hell Raiser
11/3 Worcester, MA (WWF - 3,363): Sultan b Bob Holly DUD, Justin Bradshaw b
Aldo Montoya DUD, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn **, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader *1/4,
WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns **3/4, IC title: Marc Mero b
Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ ***, Cage match: Undertaker & Shawn Michaels b Mankind
& Goldust ****
11/3 Saginaw, MI (WCW - 3,618): WCW cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Chris
Jericho, Nasty Boys b Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis, Syxx b Chavo Guerrero Jr., Lex
Luger b Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero b Diamond Dallas Page, Sting won triangular
match over Randy Savage (DQ) and Giant (COR), WCW tag titles: Scott Hall & Kevin
Nash b Harlem Heat
11/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,960 sellout): One-night tag team
tournament: Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka b Norio Honaga & Junji Hirata, Shinjiro
Otani & Kensuke Sasaki b Akitoshi Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira
Nogami b Yutaka Yoshie & Shinya Hashimoto, Jushin Liger & Keiji Muto b El Samurai &
Tatsumi Fujinami, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido,
Otani & Sasaki b Nagata & Iizuka, Ohara & Nogami b Muto & Liger, Masahiro Chono &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito b Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura & Manabu
Nakanishi, Nogami & Ohara b Sasaki & Otani to win tournament
11/4 Grand Rapids, MI (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 7,568): Marcus Bagwell
b Brad Armstrong **1/4, Diamond Dallas Page b Ice Train **1/2, WCW cruiserweight
title: Dean Malenko b Scotty Riggs *1/4, Chris Benoit b Hector Guerrero ***1/2, Madusa
b Reina Jubuki (Akira Hokuto) *3/4, Chris Jericho b M. Wallstreet *1/2, Lex Luger b
Booker T **1/2
11/4 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,760 sellout): Yuji Nagata b Yutaka
Yoshie, Osamu Kido b Norio Honaga, Junji Hirata b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Takashi Iizuka
b El Samurai, Jushin Liger & Kensuke Sasaki & Keiji Muto b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi
Tenzan & Masahiro Chono, 2 of 3 falls: Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi
Goto & Kengo Kimura & Akira Nogami b Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura & Satoshi
Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi & Shinya Hashimoto
11/4 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 1,450): Rumi Sekiguchi b Fujii,
Tanny Mouth b Saya Endo, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Miho Wakizawa b Toshiyo
Yamada & Momoe Nakanishi & Nana Takahashi, Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda b
Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae, Yumiko Hotta & Yuka Shiina b Tomoko Watanabe &
Kumiko Maekawa, Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa b Rie Tamada & Manami Toyota,
Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura
11/4 Gainesville, FL (NWA - 150): Jerry Flynn d Joe DiFuria, Rob Van Dam b Fire
Cat (Brady Boone), Black Hearts b Phi Delta Slam, Dory Funk b Greg Valentine, Steve
Keirn b Hercules
Special thanks to: Shane Hansen, Tim Noel, Dan Gosse, Joe Grana, Alex Marvez, Scott
Hudson, Gregg John, Scott Despres, Mike Payne, Dean Ayass, Phil Jones, Dominick
Valenti, Edie Bailey, Georgiann Makropolous, Dan Parris, Sarah Moore, Mike Mahoney
Jr., Steve Prazak, Rich Palladino, Joe Grana, Roland Alexander, Jerry Lane, Jesse
Money, Ed Mandel
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
10/13 MICHINOKU PRO: This was a taped special of the 10/10 Sumo Hall card. 1.
Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka beat Daisuke Ikeda & Satoshi Yoneyama in a
Battlarts match. This was a shoot style match with the hard kicks combined with
submission holds and a little bit of Japanese style traditional pro wrestling thrown in. It
was pretty good for what it was. ***; 2. Dos Caras & Kuniaki Kobayashi & Dynamite Kid
beat Mil Mascaras & Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask Sayama in 15:30. This match was edited
down to about 3:00 of highlights, which, since it was the match with the most interest
and drawing power on the show, pretty much tells you what you need to know about the
match. At least what they aired looked fine. Obviously they edited so much out so as not
to embarrass the legend of most of these guys. Dynamite looked to weigh about 145
pounds as he looked like a stick figure of the Dynamite Kid. He did do the fast suplex on
the floor, but nothing else due to injuries. Even though Mascaras, at 58 or 59 with no
physique and not much flying ability, is hardly what you think of as Mil Mascaras, he
was actually very impressive for his age. Can you imagine Wahoo McDaniel or Billy
Robinson in the ring at this point doing a few flying moves and a plancha to boot? Finish
saw Mascaras accidentally hit Sasuke with his flying body press, Dynamite then gave
him a tombstone piledriver and Caras pinned him after a power bomb; 3. Dick Togo &
Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki beat Gran Naniwa & Gran
Hamada & Super Delfin & Tiger Mask & Masato Yakushiji in 32:56 when Togo pinned
Delfin. An off the charts flying and high spots exhibition. This match didn't have the
intensity or psychology that you'd expect from an All Japan mens or women match of
the year. That said, it's a must-see nearly flawless match with one great move after
another non-stop and it's as good a match for the Michinoku style as probably is
humanly possible, for sure when you take Sasuke at 100% out of the mix. Michinoku &
Funaki, who work for various indies as a tag team, were really impressive doing
simultaneous moves. If they get more exposure and team together for another year, they
have the potential to be one of the all-time great tag teams. Yakushiji is small, but his
timing and moves are excellent. Naniwa, who is only 19, is probably destined to become
one of the great workers of the next generation. Barring injury, Michinoku is almost a
lock for that category even throwing in the fact he's very small. *****; 4. Jinsei Shinzaki
(Hakushi) pinned Hayabusa in 15:16. This match can be described as the epitome of a
match with no transitions and little in the way of psychology. Hayabusa did one
incredible spot after another, doing things I've never seen even Too Cold Scorpio or Rey
Misterio Jr. do, but they did nothing in between the spots. He did just an acrobatic spot,
stopped, set up another, until finally missing. Shinzaki then did his spots and got the pin
with a power bomb. A total nothing of a match, but noteworthy just because of
Hayabusa's moves being state of the art. *1/4
10/19 NEW JAPAN: 1. Liger & Rick Steiner & Muto beat Chono & Tenzan & Hiro Saito
in 12:17 when Muto used the Steiner brothers high angle DDT off the top while Saito was
on Rick's shoulders and Rick pinned him. Saito's head slipped out on the way down so
the finish didn't look right, but overall a real good match. ***1/4; 2. Yamazaki & Iizuka
beat Kobayashi & Nogami in 11:06 when Yamazaki used the wakigatamae (Fujiwara
shoulder armbar) on Nogami. **1/4; 3. Kido & Hirata beat Regal & Taylor in 12:06 when
Kido used the wakigatamae on Taylor. Only the last few minutes aired on television and
the wrestling was fine but it was a dead match. *; 4. Choshu & Sasaki beat Nakanishi &
Kojima in 12:32 when Choshu pinned Kojima after a lariat. Match was really stiff backand-
forth. Only negative to the match was Nakanishi who was really bad. By the latter
stages of the match these guys were potatoing each other all over the place. **3/4; 5.
Hashimoto & Norton beat Fujinami & Koshinaka in 13:06 when Norton pinned Fujinami
after a lariat. The work was solid throughout the match but the finish came out of
nowhere. **1/2
10/26 NEW JAPAN: 1. Norton & Hashimoto beat Kimura & Goto in 11:35 when
Hashimoto pinned Kimura with a DDT. They all worked stiff but it was pretty bad in
spots, particularly when Goto was working with Norton. *1/4; 2. Kojima & Nakanishi
beat Hirata & Nagata in 11:53 when Kojima pinned Nagata after an elbow off the top.
Nakanishi was awful again and even Nagata couldn't save him. Another bad match. *1/4;
3. Yamazaki & Iizuka beat Chono & Tenzan in 14:22. It was just a typical match a lot of
the way with Iizuka getting pounded on. It turned into a great match after Yamazaki
mad the hot tag with good false finishes as they all did their hit moves on one another.
Chono piledrove Yamazaki on a chair and Tenzan followed coming off the top rope with
a head-butt for a strong near fall. Tenzan then went for a power bomb and hit the move,
but while throwing Yamazaki down, Yamazaki reached through and grabbed the arm
and turned it into an armbreaker for the submission finish. Finish was excellent. ***3/4;
4. Muto & Steiner beat Choshu & Sasaki in 9:24 when Steiner pinned Sasaki after a front
suplex. Muto had his working shoes on and made the match. ***1/2
10/27 ALL JAPAN: 1. The Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada 60:00 draw for the
Triple Crown title was edited down to 23:30. It's hard to rate the match since so much of
the building was edited out but it couldn't hold a candle to some of their previous singles
matches including their best match in Osaka last year. They did a ton of hot moves as
expected, but the story of the last 10:00 was that they were selling that they were both
exhausted (and considering the style, they probably were) so it was slow paced and
didn't have a hot finish. Also, once they had gone that long, the fans pretty much saw the
60:00 draw coming. I'm not sure if the fans haven't gotten so smart that the 60:00 draw,
which was the classic match finish a generation ago, simply doesn't work today, even
though it did last year. Fans wanted to see Kobashi's first ever singles win over Kawada,
and if it didn't come, would be happy having witnessed a world title change, but it
seemed like seeing the 60:00 draw wasn't what they were looking for. The crowd
reactions were good in spots, but definitely not on the level of the typical Budokan
classic main event. But the promotion has lost a lot of heat over the past year and the
morale of the wrestlers has taken a turn for the worst as well. That's significant when
you have a company that has made its reputation on presenting the best main events in
the world, because even the best wrestlers with bad morale and dealing with a
promotion on the downswing aren't going to be able to consistently meet that standard.
Part of the idea of doing this match was because K-1 was on network television with its
biggest show ever the same night and took the spotlight away, even when it comes to
most of the wrestling fans, and Kobashi and Kawada wanted to put something on that K-
1 couldn't match. Well, it was clearly a lot better than Andy Hug vs. Masaake Satake.
SEPTEMBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 9/95 1,940*
Estimated average attendance 9/96 3,872*** (+99.6%)
August 1996 5,520
Estimated average gate 9/95 $23,230*
Estimated average gate 9/96 $62,253*** (+168.0%)
August 1996 $91,368
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/95 3.7
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 0.0***
August 1996 6.7
Average cable television rating 9/95 1.6
Average cable television rating 9/96 1.4** (-12.5%)
August 1996 1.9
Major show 9/95 In Your House (5,146 fans/$62,392/est. 0.7 buy rate/est. $1.10 million
PPV revenue)
Major show 9/96 In Your House (15,000 fans/11,969 paid/$210,290/est. 0.48 buy
rate/est. $960,000 PPV revenue
Est. buy rate -31.4%; Overall est. event revenue +0.9%
*Denotes all-time record low for promotion
**Because of changes in television formatting, direct comparisons are misleading. Also
denotes all-time record low for promotion
***Overseas shows not included in averages
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 9/95 2,140
Estimated average attendance 9/96 3,454 (+61.4%)
August 1996 2,492
Estimated average gate 9/95 $18,750
Estimated average gate 9/96 $40,403 (+115.5%)
August 1996 $29,646
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/95 0.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 0.0
August 1996 22.2
Average cable television rating 9/95 1.9
Average cable television rating 9/96 2.3 (+21.1%)
August 1996 2.3
Major show 9/95: Fall Brawl (6,600 fans sellout/5,100 paid/$72,000/Est. 0.48 buy
rate/Est. $1.21 million PPV revenue)
Major show 9/95: Fall Brawl (11,300 fans/10,714 paid/$153,914/Est. 0.65 buy rate/Est.
$1.62 million PPV revenue)
Est. buy rate +35.4%; Overall est. event revenue +38.3%
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 9/95 2,710
Estimated average attendance 9/96 2,100 (-22.5%)
August 1996 2,360
Estimated average gate 9/95 $92,040
Estimated average gate 9/96 $65,100 (-29.3%)
August 1996 $80,240
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/95 50.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 60.0
August 1996 70.0
Average television rating 9/95 2.7
Average television rating 9/96 2.0 (-25.9%)
August 1996 3.1
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 9/95 6,570
Estimated average attendance 9/96 6,110 (-7.0%)
August 1996 11,000
Estimated average gate 9/95 $369,100
Estimated average gate 9/96 $308,530 (-16.4%)
August 1996 $600,000
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/95 52.9
Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 100.0
August 1996 80.0
Average television rating 9/95 2.0
Average television rating 9/96 2.0
August 1996 2.3
EMLL
The main thrust this week was continuing the major angles involving The Head Hunters
against the Mexicans and the Dandy vs. Black Warrior and ***** Casas vs. Bestia
Salvaje singles angles. The main event at Arena Mexico on 11/1 was Hector Garza &
Atlantis & Brazo de Plata vs. Hunters & Gran Markus Jr. This match didn't air on
television because Brazo de Plata has been appearing on TV-Azteca (EMLL will use
PROMELL wrestlers on its house shows and visa versa but if you appear on television
for one network you can't work for the other which is the reason El Hijo del Santo hasn't
appeared on TV-Azteca even though he works tons of PROMELL house shows). So
instead they aired a match from 11/29 at Arena Coliseo with Hunters & El Satanico vs.
Mexican heels Apolo Dantes & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Emilio Charles Jr. where Satanico
ended up turning on the Hunters. Hunters were wearing the CMLL tag belts to the ring
so don't know if they "stole" the belts after the match last week (which they lost via DQ)
or if a rematch has subsequently been held but I'd assume the former. The other top
match at Arena Mexico had Black Warrior & Felino & Scorpio Jr. beat Casas & Dandy &
La Fiera due to outside interference from Salvaje who caused Casas to be pinned in the
third fall.
On television, they were pushing Jushin Liger & Shinjiro Otani as coming in November.
Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Liger were scheduled but Takaiwa was injured. Chaparita Asari of
AJW will defend her WWWA Super lightweight title this coming week in Mexico.
PROMELL
The war of words continued through the past two weeks. Antonio Pena held a press
conference on 10/29 in response to last week's series of public appearances by the
wrestlers who jumped and Mascara Sagrada. Pena also appeared throughout the week
on various radio stations in Mexico, often with Perro Aguayo, talking about Konnan's
past legal problems, talking about how he's been put in jail a number of times, been
deported twice, the lawsuits that have been brought against him and basically portrayed
him as a foreigner that came to Mexico and made a reputation by beating up Mexicans,
that he proved himself to be a traitor and Aguayo mentioned that he himself has twice
had to bail Konnan out of jail (true stories, after brawls with out of control fans). Konnan
returned to Mexico from the U.S. and fired back saying that he was the one who was the
catalyst in getting AAA exposed in the United States and that Pena would have dropped
the ball, that he put the WCW connection together, that Pena used him to be his bad guy
to fire wrestlers that Pena didn't want and Pena basically had used him over the years to
do his dirty work. He said he left because TV-Azteca offered him the chance to produce
his own television show and then asked where all the union dues the AAA wrestlers had
been paying has gone. He then claimed Pena was an alcoholic, had turned to drugs, that
he had held AAA together for the past eight months because of it, that Pena pushed
wrestlers because they had relations with him, claimed Pena had sent people to Tijuana
and Nogales to have him beaten up, talked about a strange incident involving Psicosis
and said that if anything happened bad to him or his wrestlers that there would be
retribution from the other side. Konnan then spray painted the AAA heavyweight title
belt and threw it in a garbage can. He said that Pena was taking a percentage from the
wrestlers earnings from WCW but never showed up for scheduled meetings with WCW
and said that Aguayo was a relic from Jurassic Park. Aguayo was back on the radio
claiming Konnan was a coward who had beaten up on wrestling fans. He also claimed
the contracts that Pena had with the wrestlers who have jumped aren't valid because the
contracts are with AAA, which as a corporation no longer exists since AAA had its name
legally changed to PAP and the contracts aren't with PAP.
Since that point there has been dialogue from Konnan with the AAA office where they
basically claimed Konnan got the stories wrong and they didn't send anyone to have him
beaten up in Tijuana or Nogales and claimed no knowledge of the Psicosis incident (this
took place last week where Psicosis got a phone call in his hotel from one of Rey Misterio
Sr.'s assistants saying that Halloween and Damian wanted to meet with him, but when
he got in the car, they wind up in a deserted part of Tijuana with no Halloween or
Damian in sight, and, fearing the worst, Psicosis punched out the assistant and ran
away). They said that before tensions escalated they wanted to quell things down.
Pena then went to Tijuana on 10/31 for a meeting with Damian, who is the most
influential wrestler in that area in that most of the younger local talent will probably
follow Damian's lead. However, Damian turned down Pena. Pena then held a press
conference with the President of the local Televisa affiliate and the two said that they
would put Konnan's promotion out of business within two months. Pena ran an AAA
show in Tijuana on 11/1 which drew about 1,600 to the Palenque headlined by the local
team, Los Pandilleros, beating the national team, Los Destructores in a triple hair vs.
triple hair match. While that was the planned blow-off of the feud when Konnan was
booking, Pena kept the plans intact and had his wrestlers lose the match as a way to woo
the local wrestlers to his side, and apparently will be working with Rey Misterio Sr.
During the match, Pandillero I missed a plancha and his headfirst on the floor and was
hospitalized with a concussion legit.
Gran Apaches I & II jumped from AAA to PROMO Azteca and Konnan has claimed he'd
have four more major announcements, two of which will appear as a surprise on the
11/15 show which is his first television taping with the main event of Konnan & Rey
Misterio Jr. & X vs. Psicosis & Panterita del Ring & X.
AAA
From all accounts, the workrate has been increasing on the recent television shows.
Canek will be brought in as a heel to have a legends feud against Aguayo. Of the Tijuana
main wrestlers, it appears that Misterioso will be the only one that sides with Pena.
There is a good chance that Heavy Metal will be turned back babyface.
There is some heat with Ultimo Dragon and Pena over Dragon working a major show at
El Toreo for yet another rival promotion which was a television taping for ESPN
international on 11/3 as part of a cage Battle Royal where the last man in would lose his
mask. I believe the show was being promoted by Dragon's in-laws. And speaking of Irma
Gonzalez and Irma Aguilar, the top womens wrestlers in Mexico of the early 60s were
booked in a womens tournament on that same show where the loser would either lose
her hair or mask.
Fuerza Guerrera did show up at the 10/21 television tapings in Madero (replaced
Pierroth Jr. in the eight-man feud with Villanos against Super Muneco & Payasos.
Pierroth has not left the promotion although lots of people are thinking that's likely to
happen). Guerrera also did a run-in starting a feud with both Aguayo and his son.
Expect major pushes for Mosco de la Merced (as a new Juventud Guerrera), Histeria (as
a new Psicosis) and Venum (as a new Rey Misterio Jr.). All three have potential, and
Histeria is already quite good, but Mosco and Venum are still really green at this point.
Histeria is wearing a costume exactly like Psicosis, except he's shorter and fatter so
comes off like a bad copy (similar to if the new Razor or Diesel were actually good
workers) even though he's actually a really good worker.
ALL JAPAN
Basically nothing going on until the tag tourney starts on 11/16.
The 10/13 television show did a 3.4 rating.
NEW JAPAN
Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto captured the Super Grade tag team tournament
beating Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner in the finals on 11/1 on Hiroshima before 7,000 fans.
The finish came in 21:54 when Hashimoto pinned Steiner after a DDT. Most of the
match saw Norton worked over before making the hot tag. The storyline of the
tournament is that on 10/25 in Miyazaki during the match against Masahiro Chono &
Hiroyoshi Tenzan, there were several miscues where they would hit each other, but they
still came back to win the match and continued as a team this past week. After the match
Hashimoto said he didn't want to team with Norton anymore and challenged him to a
singles match so it appears this is to set up the winner of the Hashimoto vs. Riki Choshu
match at the Tokyo Dome to make their first defense against Norton in early 1997. Final
standings were: Norton & Hashimoto (6), Muto & Steiner (5), Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki
(4), Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki (4), Chono & Tenzan (3), Satoshi Kojima &
Manabu Nakanishi (3), Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka (2) and Steve Regal &
David Taylor (1).
Antonio Inoki announced he would be running a show on 12/1 at the Yoyogi Gym in
Tokyo. If you recall several months back we talked about the formation of a 24-hour
Samurai TV station which would be an ESPN-like station which would cover pro
wrestling and kick boxing and air basically tapes of U.S. and Mexican promotions along
with the smaller Japanese offices, and have a daily news segment covering the wrestling
news like Sports Center and things like that. The station was supposed to debut in
September, but was delayed until 12/1. So they are running a prime time live card to
hype the first night in operation. Since New Japan has a major show that night in
Nagoya, and also because the New Japan wrestlers are under contract to TV-Asahi and
thus can't wrestle on this cable station, Inoki is putting together a show with
independent wrestlers including Tiger Mask Sayama, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Great Sasuke,
Shinichi Nakano and Kazunari Murakami (the guy who beat Bart Vale on the Extreme
Fighting show) along with other indie wrestlers and martial artists.
Yamazaki suffered either a back or a rib injury on 10/29 and will be out of action for a
while. He was scheduled to headline the 11/9 Korakuen Hall show for WAR against
Genichiro Tenryu and it appears that match won't take place.
They are hopeful that Koshinaka will return from knee surgery in time to work the 1/4
Tokyo Dome show.
This group announced its major shows for the early part of 1997 as 1/4 at the Tokyo
Dome, 2/8 and 2/9 in Sapporo, 2/16 at Tokyo Sumo Hall, 3/20 in Nagoya, 3/25 at
Tokyo Gymnasium and 5/3 at the Osaka Dome.
They also held a one-night tag team tournament on 11/3 at Korakuen Hall with Akira
Nogami & Michiyoshi Ohara beating Sasaki & Shinjiro Otani in the finals. The top
seeded team of Muto & Jushin Liger lost in the semifinals to Ohara & Nogami. With
Koshinaka out, they are putting a lot more steam behind the remaining members of
Heisei Ishingun as they headlined Korakuen Hall on 11/4 with HI members Akitoshi
Saito & Ohara & Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura beating Tadao Yasuda &
Nakanishi & Osamu Nishimura & Kojima & Hashimoto in a best of three fall match
which went about 27:00.
Koji Kanemoto is expected to return from reconstructive knee surgery at the 1/4 Dome
show.
The television show on 11/2 was pre-empted.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Dan Severn's opponent on the 11/17 U Japan show has been changed from Amoury
Bitetti to pro wrestler Mitsuhiro Matsunaga. I don't know if they'll allow Matsunaga to
bring in a barbed wire baseball bat on fire into the octagon, but it sounds like a
ridiculous match. This match in the ads is pushed as the main event and Kimo vs. Bam
Bam Bigelow has been pushed as the semi-final. Supposedly the idea of the show is to
have UFC-type fighters destroy pro wrestling names. Although Gary Goodridge is billed
as fighting Patrick Smith on the show, word we've received is that Goodridge isn't
appearing on this show.
The toll adds up in Pancrase as Manabu Yamada had another operation on his right arm
and he'll be out of action for some time, while Katsoumi Inagaki had operations on both
elbows so he'll be out for three months.
Tokyo Pro Wrestling owner Kataro Ishizawa held a press conference on 11/1 with former
IWA booker Akio Sato. They basically announced that Tokyo Pro would change its name
and become a new promotion unifying various factions under Hiromichi Fuyuki (WAR),
Tarzan Goto (IWA) and Yoji Anjoh (UWFI) which should basically wind up as a merger
of TPW and UWFI since Ishizawa had already bought 33% of the UWFI stock, with
Fuyuki, Gedo, Jado and Goto, Flying Kid Ichihara and Mr. Gannosuke all being a part of
the new promotion.
The 11/13 rematch with Svetlana Gunderanko vs. Shinobu Kandori at Korakuen Hall was
canceled since Kandori broke her nose on 10/27. She was also supposedly in a taxi cab
accident over the weekend which ended any chance of recovering in time to do the
match.
Next FMW tour is 11/6 to 11/16. On the first night in Shizuoka they'll have Head Hunters
& Hiskatsu Oya vs. Wing Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka with the winners getting a
shot at the Six man street fight champions Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro
Kuroda on 11/16 in Osaka. Mr. Pogo returns to the ring on 11/6 against Crypt Keeper
(Jose Estrada Jr.). Hayabusa faces Taka Michinoku on 11/16.
Michinoku Pro is in the midst of its tag team tournament.
Battlarts holds its tag team tournament from 11/27 to 12/4 to Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi
Ono, Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka, Carl Greco & Katsumi Usuda Minoru Tanaka &
Naohiro Hoshikawa and Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku.
Doink the Clown, who I assume is Ray Apollo, is coming to WAR on the next tour.
GAEA ran a show on 11/2 in Singapore drawing a reported 7,000 fans to crown its first
world champion as Chigusa Nagayo pinned Devil Masami for the newly created AAAW
title. They also crowned AAAW jr. tag team champions with Sonoko Kato & Meiko
Satomura beating Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima.
AJW has its tag tourney ongoing. As of 11/4, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari are far in
the lead with 13 points while Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda, Etsuko Mita & Genki
Misae, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa and Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura are all
tied for second with six points. Finals are 12/1 at Korakuen Hall.
Steve Cox, Action Jackson and Rod Price are all on tour with Yoshiaki Yatsu's Social Pro
Wrestling Federation.
From the photos, Akira Maeda really looked out of shape for his return on the 10/25
RINGS show. Also, photos tell why David Khahareshivili, who won the gold at 209 in the
1992 Olympics in judo, didn't come back to Atlanta to defend his crown. He lost on the
RINGS show to Yoshihisa Yamamoto, but from the photos, he'd be hard pressed to make
it if there was a 309 pound weight class.
USWA
A correction from last week. The house on 10/28 in Memphis was $2,000 so it was
closer to 400 paid than to the 800 we listed.
The big angle this week was that Wolfie D turned heel on Brian Christopher. D hit
Christopher with a garbage can to the head and knocked him out and poured the
garbage all over him, then slapped him around with a newspaper from the garbage can
and rubbed celery in his face. The Dundees then celebrated that Wolfie was back with
them. This leaves the promotion with only Christopher as a top babyface. Christopher
came back and did an interview talking with Jerry Lawler and said how Lawler has
turned into nothing but a joke teller in WWF and USWA but when he was younger he
used to be a butt kicker. He then told his father that he wanted him to become the old
Lawler and his help in kicking some butts. The crowd went nuts wanting Lawler to turn
face and chanted "kick butt" and Christopher got on his knees and begged Lawler to be
his partner. Lawler screamed "No" at him saying he'd never team with a guy who got on
his knees and begged and laughed at him. Lawler told Christopher to become a man and
told him to get lost and bring back the Hooters girls.
When the show opened, Lawler brought out two women from Hooters because he said
they've been doing the same show opening for 20 years and he wanted to liven it up.
Randy Hales did an angle where he got mad because people started rumors that he'd had
a nervous breakdown, then acted like he was having one. Bert Prentice said he wanted to
help Hales and Hales told Prentice he was a fat slob.
Mike Samples claimed his dog Hercules was stolen and offered a $10,000 reward to
anyone who could find his dog.
The 11/4 Memphis show had Tony Williams vs. Crusher Bones, Tony Falk vs. Steven
Dunn, Mike Samples & Wolverine vs. Flash Flanagan & Sean Venom, Miss Texas vs.
Tasha Simone, Bill Dundee vs. Brickhouse Brown, Johnny Rotten vs. Jamie Dundee,
Colorado Kid vs. Ric Hogan for the unified title and Christopher vs. D.
ECW
Shows over the weekend were 11/1 in Staten Island before an estimated 400 and 11/2 in
Middletown, NY before an estimated 700 (this crowd may have been larger because
Middletown is an arena where for some reason because of the size of it, it makes the
crowd appear smaller than it really is). Staten Island show was in a building with no heat
and was said to have been colder than it was outside inside which ruined the show.
Apparently there was some heat with the athletic commission regarding the use of Tyler
Fullington and all the blood. Top matches saw Steve Williams pin Too Cold Scorpio in a
good match. Fans were chanting "You sold out" at Scorpio, who, like Johnny Grunge,
rubbed his fingers to signify money and told fans that if they were offered $200,000 a
year, they'd take the job as well. Shane Douglas kept the TV title beating Louie Spicolli in
a bloodbath. Eliminators went to a 25:00 draw with Sabu & Rob Van Dam and Tommy
Dreamer & Sandman beat Raven & Brian Lee in a cage match with lots of blood.
Middletown featured a major angle where Brian Lee choke slammed Pit Bull #2 off the
top of a production truck through three tables. Apparently the angle was even nuttier
than when Dreamer did similar things. They were really pushing Lee and his choke slam
since he's on top at the November to Remember, as later in the show during a Douglas
vs. Dreamer TV title match, Lee choke slammed Dreamer leading to his losing. Douglas
then put Beulah in a full nelson and they wound up with Beulah and Francine going at it.
They ran in one wrestler after another, with Lee choke slamming all of them. While this
was going on, a fan threw a chair which hit Francine, but she was okay. Stevie Richards
wasn't so lucky. When he was doing a run-in on Sandman, he got nailed with the cane in
the neck and staggered away, then suddenly collapsed. He was paralyzed for a while and
taken away in an ambulance (this wasn't an angle) and pretty much could only move his
fingers for about a half hour, but recovered and was walking around fine by Monday
night. Apparently earlier in the week Douglas was complaining that he didn't want the
cane used anymore, because a few weeks back he collapsed after a cane shot to the neck
as well. Supposedly Douglas refuses to work with Sandman if the cane is involved
anymore. Main event on the show was a Gangstas vs. Eliminators tag title match which
ended up with Sabu & Van Dam involved as well, but Gangstas wound up winning and
keeping the titles.
Williams missed the second night while Doug Furnas, who said good-bye to everyone
last weekend, was advertised on the shows but wasn't there.
Kurt Angle was almost clueless on the commentary during the Taz vs. Little Guido
match. They tried to put it over like both WWF and WCW wanted him but he chose
ECW. Most reports are that the real reason for the apology by Raven after the crucifixion
angle was because Angle was so upset about it because he does so much work in the
community and has a certain image and felt that it would reflect negatively on him being
a part of a group that did something like this.
HERE AND THERE
Billy Graham had yet another medical mishap over the past ten days. On 10/24, the hip
he had surgery on five weeks earlier dislocated. While in the hospital undergoing
another operation, he suffered a collapsed lung and a chemical burn of his lungs and will
have a lengthy recovery period.
The next shoot PPV in the U.S. will be called MARS (Martial Arts Reality Superfighting)
on 11/22 from Birmingham, AL. The commercials for this event have been airing on
Monday Night Raw over the past few weeks with Renzo Gracie vs. Oleg Taktarov as the
main event. They are billing them as both having never been pinned and never
submitted, which is really weird since being pinned has nothing to do with any of this.
The theme is Russian sombo vs. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with two other superfights having
Mario Sperry (Brazil) vs. Alexander Zalusky (Russia, billed as sombo but really a big
Greco wrestler with little submission experience) and Carlao Barreto (Brazil) vs.
Alexander Rafalski. Idea of the tournament is to have eight participants, all from
different countries with first round match-ups of Tom Erickson (USA, who is actually a
better wrestler today than Dan Severn, Mark Schultz or Mark Coleman as he ranked
second in superheavyweight behind Bruce Baumgartner over the past several years) vs.
Alexander Khramovksy (Russia), Serge Narsisyan (France) vs. Roong Bunsimma
(Thailand), Murilo Bustamante (Brazil, a legit big-name in that country) vs. Christopher
Hazeman (Australia, a prelim RINGS wrestler) and Jin Yung Kim (Korea) vs. Yosunori
Matsumoto (Japan).
Johnny Grunge worked his first match back after knee surgery on 11/1 in Revere, MA for
Century Wrestling Alliance. He teamed with Knuckles Nelson, since Rocco Rock hadn't
recovered from his elbow surgery. The CWA show had an interesting mix with WCW
booker Kevin Sullivan, WWF prelim wrestler Salvatore Sincere along with Doink the
Clown, King Kong Bundy and Tony Atlas all appearing.
Igor Zinoviev is undergoing surgery for a shoulder separation and herniated discs for
injuries both going into and coming out of his EFC match with John Lober.
Pancrase has no plans to do a house show in Las Vegas in 1997 as had been talked about
in Japan.
MEWF on 11/10 in Dundalk, MD with Head Bangers vs. Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie
plus Johnny Gunn, Axl Rotten and more, and 11/16 in Hampstead, MD with Typhoon vs.
Mabel, King Kong Bundy vs. Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana vs. Papa Shango plus Duke
Droese, Mike Sharpe, Debbie Combs and Head Bangers and 11/23 in Upper Marlboro,
MD with Demolition Axe, Axl Rotten and Boo Bradley.
Blast from the past. Jack Victory, whose name hasn't been heard of in years (last we
heard he was working at an Atlanta strip club), worked a match on 10/31 in Cartersville,
GA. Reports are he has gained 70 pounds in all the wrong places since he last appeared
on the scene, but he was bumping all over the place and still throws one of the best
looking punches in the business.
I caught the All Pro Wrestling show at their gym in Hayward, CA on 11/2. These guys
work hard. It kind of has a 70s flavor when it comes to the base of the match, but you'll
see a lot of the more modern wild suplexes and topes thrown in. They are doing a tag
title tournament on 11/23. Mike Diamond, one of their students, blew out his knee doing
a WWF try-out match at the last tapings against Barry Horowitz.
George Mayfield of 243 Market St., Highspire, PA 17034 will be in Japan from 12/30 to
1/7 and can pick up merchandise for anyone who contacts him ahead of time.
Clint Terrell at 501-835-0189 of Shorewood, AR is going to be running shows in his area
after the first of the year and is looking for area talent.
UFC
It is basically a lock that the winner of the Ultimate Ultimate will face Dan Severn to
unify all the titles in the February 7, 1997 PPV show which will be in Niagara Falls, NY.
February 7 is one day after the New York law regulating UFC goes into effect, and one of
the co-sponsors of the bill to regulate (thus end the legality question) in the state was
from the Niagara Falls district. Besides that superfight, they will have two four-man
tournaments, in an over-200 pound and in an under-200 pound division.
Ultimate Ultimate is confirmed for Birmingham, AL (there had been thoughts of moving
the show because Birmingham is also hosting the 11/22 Reality Superfighting show but
it was decided to go ahead with the initial plans) at the State Fairgrounds Arena, which
is the same site as the show this past July.
The May 1997 PPV will have several singles matches and one four-man tournament. The
idea is to create an over-200 and under-200 champion and that each PPV will have at
least one, if not two, title matches, and either one, or two, four-man tournaments.
Because promotions in the U.S. and Japan are allowing the top fighters to only fight
once, SEG was having a hard time getting the big names to agree to enter events where
they may have to do three fights in one night. In addition, most of the top fighters under
200 weren't interested in going into matches against opponents that would have
substantial weight advantages over them. I suspect they'll alternate having an under-200
and over-200 title match on every other PPV show, so that every PPV show will have a
superfight title match and a tournament.
The final slot in Ultimate Ultimate hasn't been filled. There are three names under
consideration, and once the final pick is made, bracketing should be announced,
probably within the next week or two.
Don Wilson is out as commentator for the next show and will be replaced by a roving
reporter so backstage items like injuries won't be handled as clumsily as they were on
the last show.
Expect more personality features to push personalities and to create storylines within
the concept starting with the next show.
WCW
Nitro on 11/4 from Grand Rapids, MI drew 7,568 fans and a Nitro record $102,340
house as it was only the fifth event of any kind in the new arena. The crowd made the
show as it was super hot from the start. Marcus Bagwell pinned Brad Armstrong in
10:29 with a cross-body in a match where Bagwell did very subtle things to begin his
heel turn as an insincere goody two shoes babyface. Diamond Dallas Page pinned Ice
Train with the Diamond cutter when Hall & Nash attacked Train behind Teddy Long's
back. Train actually didn't sell getting pounded on with the belt, but when he was
distracted by arguing with Patrick, Page hit the cutter on him at 6:32 of a good match.
The fact it was good says not only that Train has improved but just how good a worker
Page is turning into. Dean Malenko kept the cruiserweight title beating Scotty Riggs in
3:20 when Bagwell was mad at Riggs for how he was doing and threw him into the ring
to be pinned. Chris Benoit pinned Hector Guerrero in 12:03 with a schoolboy when
Guerrero was distracted by Woman. A great ***1/2 match. Hector was using the Cien
Caras hair-coloring treatment and with the black hair looked almost exactly like brother
Eddie and wrestled as good if not better than Eddie. They did an interview with Jeff
Jarrett (who is actually out of action for a few weeks with a messed up ankle suffered in a
match five days earlier when his ankle buckled underneath him in a TV squash against
John Tenta that aired on Saturday but the injury isn't being acknowledged since there
are enough worked--Benoit and Anderson--and real, Flair, Horseman injuries already).
Steve McMichael and Benoit were there and they basically pointed out Jarrett wasn't a
Horseman. Madusa pinned Reina Jubuki (Akira Hokuto) in a womens title match in
3:14 with a german suplex. This was the beginning of a three-week-long tourney for a
WCW womens title that Madusa will likely win. Watching the match at ringside was
Zero (who was referred to as formerly being Chigusa Nagayo) with Sonny Onno, who
faces Madusa next week. Zero is the name of the planes the Japanese used on the
Americans in World War II, so it's a major offensive stereotype except that except for
whomever came up with the name, nobody even knows it. Onno's act doing that Dick
Tracy early 60s Japanese character would be the pits even if it wasn't racist. Basically
Zero would be the equivalent of Hogan going to Japan and wrestling in Hiroshima under
the name H-Bomb. As for the tournament, Hokuto is actually in as two different
wrestlers, under the hood as Jubuki and without it as herself. Also in will be Kaoru of
Gaea, who is a solid worker, Malia Hosaka, and two younger women from the Gaea
office. Expect Madusa vs. Hokuto as the championship match on 11/18. Chris Jericho
pinned M. Wallstreet with a small package and they did another Jericho, Teddy Long,
Alan Sharpe (WCW p.r. guy who is playing the role of Patrick's lawyer--Patrick gives a
better interview although Sharpe's interviews haven't been bad) and Patrick deal that
went nowhere. Finale saw Lex Luger over Booker T in 8:27 of a match way better than
you'd figure from these two when Col. Parker came to ringside, Booker T saw him and
got mad and Luger schoolboyed Booker T. After the match it appeared Sherri was mad
at Parker.
NWO will be doing a PPV in January from Cedar Rapids, IA. Don't know how they'll be
able to pull off a three-hour show.
Nothing new on the Randy Savage front other than he's going to continue to work all the
house shows for two months but isn't booked for any television under a new deal is
signed. The hold-up is that Savage wants to work only 100 dates and apparently is
looking for a huge raise as well.
Besides the 60 man Battle Royal with the winner likely to face Hogan for the title at
Starrcade (expect Sting to win if he's involved), also at World War III PPV will be Giant
vs. Jarrett, Hall & Nash defending tag titles against Nasty Boys, Ultimo Dragon
defending the eight junior titles against Rey Misterio Jr., and Malenko defending the
cruiserweight title against Psicosis. It'll be real interesting to see how they explain the
eight belts Dragon has, since one of them is the WWF light heavyweight and two others
are the NWA junior heavyweight and welterweight. Also, supposedly Misterio Jr. is
going to have his WWA welterweight belt at stake in that match which is weird, since
that belt has also never been acknowledged in WCW.
Flair finally had the surgery on his shoulder this past week. He may be out of action even
longer than three months as the plan isn't for him to return until the Uncensored PPV in
March. The plan was to run a major angle at a Nitro in Charlotte where Hall & Nash
attacked his 19-year-old son David, which would lead to a match with the Horseman
teaming with Kevin Greene (who will be re-introduced as Flair's friend, I guess,
forgetting the McMichael angle from last year) against five members of the NWO. That
plan may be dropped because word leaked out, which, if that's the case, is ridiculous.
We've been through this before, but everyone with half a brain knew about Hogan's
angles with Andre and Orndorff in 1987 and 1985 respectively way ahead of time. If it
was today, WWF would probably just drop the angle dead because people found out
about it because too many have the attitude it's more important to surprise and fool
people than it is for angles to make sense and make money.
Other weekend ratings for the weekend of 11/2 saw Main Event at 1.4, Saturday Night at
2.4 and Pro at 1.8.
They are now going to do main event matches as dark matches after Nitro because fans
in many of the cities have left unhappy about not seeing good matches. On 10/28, they
did Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera vs. Halloween & Damian, and I was told they did a
super match, but fans left as it was going on and paid no attention, so on 11/4 it was
Luger vs. Giant (don't know anything about it other than it took place). On 11/11 in St.
Petersburg, Hogan will defend against Luger.
Disney tapings start this week. Besides the women from Gaea (Bull Nakano isn't coming
because she went with JD instead of Gaea), coming in for the tapings from Mexico will
be the regular crew plus the return of Super Calo, along with Halloween and Damian.
Konnan tried to put together a deal to bring in Felino but as of last word, EMLL
promoter Paco Alonso didn't want one of his best wrestlers going to the United States.
Hogan had recent appearances on both Entertainment Tonight and scheduled for 11/6
on Regis & Kathy Lee, largely to build up the movie he's doing called "Santa with
Muscles" that escapes (as opposed to being released) this weekend. They also have some
sort of an angle set up for the NWO that will take place at the Cable Ace awards which is
why Hogan keeps talking about it on his interviews.
Saturday Night and some Main Event matches were taped on 10/30 in Rome, GA before
2,300 (1,200 paying $12,000). Only major items of interest were that Kevin Sullivan
attacked ref Randy Anderson's son, Jarrett blew out his ankle, Benoit pinned Jericho,
and Pat Tanaka injured his hip taking a bump from the Nasty Boys who did a run-in
during a Tanaka vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. match.
One of the reasons they did this angle with Sting is that in his contract, it called for a
specified maximum amount of dates in the year and WCW only had a few dates left and
they needed them for major house shows so they had to get him off much of the
television and minor house shows.
The current plan, which can change, is that in January, they'll go to tape the Saturday
night show every other week with four-hour tapings instead of the weekly two-hour
tapings, as a cost cutting measure.
Weekend house shows saw Hammond, IN on 11/1 draw a sellout 3,940 paid and
$52,028; 11/2 in Battle Creek, MI drew 3,604 and $50,877 and 11/3 in Saginaw, MI
drew 3,618 and $50,795. Mains across were the triangles with Giant, Savage and Sting
with Sting winning after Savage hit Giant with a chair, causing Savage to be DQ'd and
Giant to be COR'd.
Hammond, which drew the Chicago hardcores, did a phenomenal $27,000 in
merchandise and Nitro did another $38,000 in merchandise.
Nitro was built up to a supposed announcement of Eric Bischoff (who wasn't there)
signing a Hogan vs. Piper match. They are going to stall that off for a while. It was
planned for Starrcade, but I've heard talk it may be held off until SuperBrawl at the Cow
Palace and that Piper will first get a pin on Giant before getting at Hogan.
There will be no World Cup at this years Starrcade.
Prelim estimated on Havoc buy rate are between 0.7 and 0.85, which would be an
increase over last year and WCW sources are claiming it was double of what WWF did
the previous week, although we don't have any WWF figures other than indications it
wasn't good. The Extreme PPV the same weekend did like an 0.14.
A correction from the 10/28 issue. Jimmy Graffiti was never named in a lawsuit in
Anaheim. The WWF ceased booking Jimmy Del Rey (and Tatanka) based on an
investigation into a claimed incident by Jerry McDevitt, but no lawsuit was ever filed.
Del Rey wasn't out of the wrestling mainstream because of the incident, as he was
working for ECW, then had shoulder surgery, and is now back in action with WCW.
WWF
The remaining match at Survivor Series will be an eight-man elimination with Savio
Vega & Flash Funk (Too Cold Scorpio) & Yokozuna and a mystery partner against Vader
& Faarooq & Razor Ramon & Diesel. In addition, Mark Henry suffered a broken leg in
training bouncing off the ropes so his spot will be taken by Jake Roberts. This hasn't
been said on television yet because there are still pre-taped angles where Henry is
involved. I'm not sure that the $2.5 million invested in Mark Henry will go down in
history as one of Vince McMahon's best money investments.
Sunny was on MTV's "Singled Out" this past week.
Weekend TV numbers saw Blast Off at 0.7, Live Wire at 1.0 and Superstars (which was a
very good show with a great Bret Hart interview, but started off bad with a tag match
with Razor & Diesel followed by Double J, which showing those two matches in
succession really makes the company look bad) at 1.4.
Weekend house shows saw 11/1 in Richmond, VA draw 4,426 and $78,303; 11/2 in
Landover, MD drew 3,383 and $59,246 and 11/3 in Worcester, MA drew 3,363 and
$54,706. Steve Austin and Vega missed the shows with them announcing injuries at the
arena and it was announced and refunds were offered, which puts them well ahead of
WCW in that regard. Billy Gunn beat Bart in two singles (Bart won via walk out in the
other bout). Sid beat Vader in the stretcher matches by clotheslining Vader over the top
onto the stretcher. Heard those bouts were horrible. They teased a tag title change in the
Godwinns vs. Hart & Smith match to get a big pop, but it was later reversed and Hart &
Smith won. Helmsley beat Mero in the matches when Mr. Perfect was there to interfere,
while Mero won via DQ when Perfect wasn't on the road. Main were matches in a cage
until one man can't continue with Michaels & Undertaker beating Goldust & Mankind.
Reports from the second two nights were that the matches were **** (first night got a
**1/2 report) with Undertaker tombstoning Goldust on a chair and he couldn't continue.
They brawled all over the place, constantly going out the door and over the top which
sort of kills the idea of the cage, but since the name of the game is to copy ECW, that's
the new idea.
Vader appears on "Boy Meets World" with the match with Jake Roberts from Anaheim
on 11/15.
Bret Hart will be on Sinbad on 11/9.
The build-up for Hart vs. Austin has been some of the best WWF build-up work in a long
time. Michaels vs. Sid has taken a major back seat.
The Razor/Diesel gimmick isn't working, and Rick Bogner is looking really bad.
George Steele is in a FILA tennis shoe commercial with Grant Hill.
Has anyone ever seen the move called a "Japanese arm drag" done by a Japanese
wrestler?
If the ECW angle hasn't been dropped for the present, the next angle will likely take
place at Survivor Series or Raw the next night.
Bret Hart goes on the road in January and will only work PPVs until that point.
The belief in hindsight is that Pillman's ankle didn't heal properly the first time because
he never took the time off to let himself fully heal as he was constantly traveling and
putting pressure on it too early going to all the TVs, doing ECW, negotiating, etc. Having
it get infected didn't help. This time he's going to have to lay off it completely for
months.
THE READERS PAGES
HART
For someone with ambition of movie stardom, Bret Hart has taken one giant step
backwards. No matter how superior his wrestling skill is, any WCW wrestler now has
more market clout via the connection of Turner and Time Warner. The recent losses in
WWF local syndication drastically shrinks Hart's promotional value. In this era when
veteran actors take pay cuts to get roles in movies made by major studios, Hart has
passed on a perfect sweetheart deal--he could have both cashed the giant paycheck and
worked with the most influential company, which would have advanced his acting career
as well in order to raise WCW's crossover audience and boost their return on their big
wrestling investment. Lindsay Wagner still gets told congratulations today because 20
years ago she made Universal TV pay big bucks for her as "The Bionic Woman."
Regardless of the reasons he chose WWF, Hart's can't be so very greedy for respect from
the movie industry if he missed his spot to help Vince McMahon score a clean pin on
Ted Turner.
Name withheld by request
WCW/WWF
After reading the 10/7 issue regarding the battle between WWF and WCW, it seems
more clear than ever that Vince McMahon is playing to WCW's strengths by limiting this
war to a cable television ratings chicken fight.
What's amazing is that WCW got him to do it. His reaction to the success of WCW
television since the debut of Nitro has been totally opposite to the ones he had in past
cases where WCW beat WWF on cable each and every week.
During the summer of 1989, the TBS Main Event show was consistently drawing ratings
more than a full point better than the WWF's main cable show, Prime Time Wrestling.
McMahon didn't care about the WWF getting beaten on cable at that time because he
knew he was blowing the NWA out of the water at the arenas, in merchandising and on
PPV buy rates. Also, he knew nobody cared a lick that the NWA was winning on cable.
None of that changed until Raw came around. The motivation for creating Raw wasn't so
much to beat WCW in cable ratings, but for the WWF to keep its clearances on the USA
network, since its ratings had been sagging.
Then Nitro came around and WCW challenged McMahon's own concept. WCW
succeeded because when the two companies finally met head-to-head, the attention of
the wrestling fans was totally absorbed into the battle on Monday nights.
Now, it's not significant who is doing better at the arenas or on PPV. The only thing that
matters are the previous weeks Monday night ratings. Everyone had gotten caught up in
this. Even McMahon.
For a man who previously had been mainly focused toward the well being of his
company, even to a fault in some people's eyes, his reaction has been uncharacteristic.
McMahon had two options to take in response to the emergence of Nitro, especially now
that Raw is beating beaten handily every week.
He could conclude that the situation is no different than in the past when the
opposition's superior ratings on cable had no substantial impact on what is most
important, money. That is, build toward what would make the most money in the long
run, not hotshotting to beat Nitro in a certain week.
He has chosen recently to go on the defensive and panic. He's blatantly trying to copy
WCW's success with the debut of the new Razor and Diesel and the eventual formation
of his own "Outsiders" group.
I can't imagine how cheap this must look to a casual fan. And that's what McMahon
must take into consideration more than anything, because now it looks to the casual fan
that the WWF is admitting defeat.
Why is this happening? Because WCW succeeded in striking McMahon where he's most
vulnerable. By making the fight personal. His ego has certainly been bruised by the
raids, the ratings and by WCW's constant insistence that it is winning the war.
Now it looks like McMahon believes that too, so he's doing what he can for his own ego's
sake. Not building based on what will make money.
If there ever was a doubt that ego rules the American pro wrestling industry, not talent,
creativity, or profits, this era of the business is blowing that thought process to pieces.
Jeff Lowe
Wilmore, Kentucky

 

Nov. 18, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Curt Hennig
looks to jump ship, rules of wrestling on TV, WWE sends
memo regarding drug testing, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 18 November 1996 20:37
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 18, 1996
PANCRASE: TOKYO TOUGH FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 121 (99.2%)
Thumbs down 1 (00.8%)
In the middle 0 (00.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki 94
Frank Shamrock vs. Yuki Kondo 14
WORST MATCH POLL
Jason DeLucia vs. Minoru Suzuki 15
Osami Shibuya vs. Takafumi Ito 11
Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/12.
Statistical margin of error:+-100%
It appears that Curt Hennig may become the latest wrestler to switch affiliations from
WWF to WCW. Hennig met with Eric Bischoff late this past week and the two sides
apparently reached a verbal agreement on a deal where Hennig would return as an
active wrestler. However, Titan Sports is contesting the agreement, claiming in a legal
letter from Jerry McDevitt to WCW that WCW was interfering with Titan's contracts. In
the letter, Titan was under the assumption that Hennig would make a surprise
appearance on the 11/11 Nitro show and warned WCW that it would take legal action if
such was the case. In any event, Hennig would not be able to use the name Mr. Perfect,
since that name is a WWF creation, and WCW was believed to not be planning on using
Hennig so quickly due to his WWF contract, with his expected starting date with WCW
being early February. McDevitt declined to state how long Hennig was under contract,
just that the contract was valid and there was no provision in it to give 90 days notice at
this time. Hennig didn't appear as a scheduled guest on Live Wire Saturday (although
circumstances during the week may have altered the planned format of that show, and
the excuse they gave that he wasn't there because of problem with planes landing in New
York that morning could have been accurate as far as there being weather problems that
morning) or as color commentator on Superstars on Sunday, the latter may be a sign
that he gave word to Titan and they pulled him from the show, but certainly the letter
from Titan shows the company was aware of Hennig's meeting. Hennig on Monday was
still being advertised as being part of Survivor Series in a managerial role.
Hennig, 38, is only one year older than Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, but has been
collecting for years on disability insurance from ring injuries. He's also two years older
than Barry Windham, who during the same period was every bit his equal in the ring
and whose comeback after lengthy absences from injuries has been thus far a flop. In his
heyday, Hennig was among the best wrestlers in the country. Because he was always
protected and pushed as a major star in the WWF, he has strong name identity and
because of being pushed better, does mean more just from name value than Windham.
Of course what he can do in the ring at this point is questionable. Since leaving the WWF
with a badly damaged back in 1991, Hennig has made a few comebacks that were
nowhere close to his previous working standard in the ring, and walked out once on an
apparent agreed upon comeback after turning on Lex Luger doing a referee gig at a
Wrestlemania. Whether Hennig was ever considering returning in the recent angle with
Marc Mero and Hunter Hearst Helmsley depends upon who one believes. Talking of
returning as an active wrestler is also surprising since in a recent newspaper interview
he talked about not wanting to go back to the ring because he didn't want to aggravate
injuries to the point he wouldn't be able to enjoy his life after wrestling and is believed to
be in great financial shape.
**********************************************************
There are three cardinal rules to remember when watching pro wrestling on television:1)
Everything is a work designed to get over a storyline; 2) The word work is a euphemism
for con game or lie, an often entertaining one but in its heart one nonetheless, but with a
nicer ring to it. Work is a carnival word for con, just as mark is a carnival term for
gullible sucker, not a term of endearment for sports fan or loyal customer; 3) When in
confusion about anything, remember rule No. 1 and realize it really means rule No. 2.
There turned into something of a controversy this past week regarding the reaction to
the angle on the 11/4 Monday Night Raw television show where Steve Austin supposedly
broke into Brian Pillman's house and was basically held off with a gun.
Reaction to the angle varied. Since the angle wasn't designed to promote a current feud
(somewhere down the line Pillman and Austin will probably wrestle, but that isn't going
to happen until next spring at the earliest) and in actuality took heat away from a
current feud (a key transition angle in the Shawn vs. Sid story was told on the same show
and was basically lost in the shuffle), it's real sole purpose was twofold. To establish
Raw's new time slot and to garner ratings. It probably succeeded in the former and did
to a point in the latter, although not as well as those involved in the angle would have
liked. While pulling even with WCW's Nitro for a 15 minute block was a positive, it had
to be almost a devastating blow that in the midst of the ultimate hotshot angle for such a
significant audience turnaround in the final quarter hour where WCW went from deadeven
to an 0.7 ratings advantage. Some people were very offended by the angle, even to
the point where Steve Beverly in the Columbus, GA Journal and on the Wrestling
Observer Hotline suggested the USA network cancel Monday Night Raw. However,
reaction on the internet ranged from 70 to 75 percent positive (we've heard in other
groups the reaction wasn't nearly as positive) with some calling it the most compelling
hour of wrestling television ever, although if it was that compelling, the audience
wouldn't have dropped as the angle went on.
All this controversy led to the USA Network, which was in on the angle from the
beginning, trying to distance itself from the angle and apologizing, saying they'd never
let something like this happen again and claiming to have had no knowledge as to the
extent the angle was going to be taken. The WWF at first apologized for the language
used in the angle (which neither the WWF nor USA knew about in advance, which was
the only aspect of the angle which occurred on the spur of the moment as basically
Pillman, and to a lesser extent Austin, got carried away with trying to make such a
contrived angle as realistic as possible) but not for the angle itself. This led to the first
somewhat fascinating segment of what up to this point had been a disappointing Live
Wire television show on 11/9. With Sunny off in Europe doing advance work for a WWF
tour in a few weeks and Todd Pettingill with non-WWF commitments, Dok Hendrix
hosted the show and had Vince McMahon and Jim Ross as guests. McMahon, in his
Father Flanagan role, apologized for the angle, said it was all the WWF's fault and his in
particular since he heads the company, tried to divert blame away from USA network,
which by this point was no doubt sick of the heat when it was in the midst of its own
change of management, and even the wrestlers themselves. Pillman and Austin were
both on the show doing phone-ins, with Pillman apologizing for what happened and in
particular for getting carried away with the language he used, although McMahon down
played Pillman having to apologize and again took all the blame. They read from e-mails
and took phone calls from people who were both very negative, and some that were
positive about the angle, with McMahon taking the tact that even if the angle was
popular with the public, it was the wrong thing to do. Kevin Kelly was also on the show
and explained in hindsight it was all a publicity stunt by Austin, trying to tone down the
breaking and entering type of crime it appeared to be on television, noting that the
minute the cameras were off, Austin left Pillman's house without an incident.
Of course, all that controversy gave the angle something of a life of its own. Remember
the cardinal rule. Anything that takes place on a television wrestling show is a work,
generally formulated (and sometimes not planned in advance) and designed to advance
storylines. If anyone was really sorry about the angle, whether it be USA Network or the
WWF, do you think the angle would have been hyped to death all weekend after and
shown on every WWF program of the weekend? It wasn't until after the angle had aired
on every WWF television show all weekend long that Jim Ross, on Superstars,
sanctimoniously said how that footage would never appear on WWF television again. It
should be noted that on Raw the next night, the angle was barely even alluded to. The
gun itself was digitized out in the replay showings on USA, but not in syndication. There
were mentions in the angle replays of the gun existing and even in digitized form, there
was no question Pillman was cocking a gun. The swearing was bleeped, but then again,
this is Saturday and Sunday morning television. And one can't discount the fact that no
aspect of the angle, including the swearing, was edited off the replay version of Raw that
aired three hours later on the USA Network's West Coast feed. If USA was truly
appalled, would that have been the case? The comparisons with ECW's handling of an
angle one week earlier where Raven crucified Sandman on a cross, then apologized
(from most accounts largely because gold medalist Kurt Angle, a guest of ECW, was
furious at being part of a show that included something like that), are most interesting.
The ECW angle was never replayed, or for that matter even acknowledged or mentioned
on television at any time. Even in its generally uncensored home videos, where all the
cussing on interviews is left in, the decision was made not to put the card on video. This
is not to say anyone should or shouldn't apologize or any of these angles went over the
invisible line, but saying that at least within the worked aspect of pro wrestling, ECW
handled being sorry as one would handle being sorry, whether or not one chooses to
question the true sincerity and motivations behind those decisions. WWF handled it as a
company trying to use a controversy to make the angle stronger would have. This is not
to suggest within the working environment of pro wrestling that they were wrong to do
so, just that anyone taking any apologies from something done in that manner seriously
would be the height of naivete.
ECW has been doing mock crucifixions going back more than one year, including the
chair shot in the cage match that Tommy Dreamer gave Raven that's been in the
television show opening seemingly forever and the more graphic Raven deal with
Dreamer in the Eagle's nest last year the night they had the fire. Whether they were bad
taste or not, what happened at the last show was part of the natural evolution of the
previous angles and nothing new. In heavily Catholic Mexico, Konnan, based on what he
had seen both on video and from working in ECW, copied that same thought process.
While I never saw the angle live in Philadelphia, I did a few times in Tijuana and the
crowd reaction was more of being perplexed than being outraged at a religious depiction.
The depictions, which culminated nights of violent orgies, if anything, drew
disappointing heat from crowds that had been so much brutality in one evening that
they had become by that point desensitized. If anything was over the line on those
shows, it was the culmination of the show itself desensitizing the audience rather than a
religious depiction in an angle that didn't appear to offend anyone.
Which brings us to knives, baseball bats, axes and fire before we come back to guns. On
March 30, 1995, I attended an FMW house show in Yokohama, Japan. It was one of the
Atsushi Onita's final matches, a gimmick-oriented wet drama pitting The Great Nita
(Onita's attempt to copy the Great Muta gimmick) and King Pogo (Mr. Pogo). Here's a
brief description of the match. Pogo pulled out a hatchet and carved up Onita's back and
mouth. Onita got it away and used it on Pogo. Pogo cut off his comeback by blowing a
fireball to Onita's face, getting back the hatchet and carving up Onita's shoulder. Blood
was flowing like crazy from various points in Onita's body. What do you think the crowd
reaction was to all this? Probably shrieking like crazy as their favorite babyface was
suffering a near death experience and urging him on to yet another improbable
comeback? You can imagine how shocked I was when the reaction was a ho-hum "done
this, seen that" reaction. At this point Pogo brought out the baseball bat wrapped in
barbed wire, and eventually Onita got it away and used it back on him, to a similar lack
of response. Onita got a near fall with a facebuster on the barbed wire baseball bat. Pogo
then blew a second fireball, and then got hedge clippers which he used to cut up the
barbed wire that surrounded the ring and wrapped Onita up like a mummy in barbed
wire. Pogo then got another baseball bat, this time on fire and as Onita was wrapped up
in the barbed wire and trapped, Pogo hit him with the fire bat and gave him a facebuster
on the bat which was on fire but Onita kicked out. Onita made yet another comeback, got
the fire bat and used it on Pogo. Finally Pogo's last gimmick pulled out was a jagged
edged machete and he stuck Onita with it and got the pin. This wasn't a gimmicked
blow-off match. This was the nightly deal. The crowd had been so desensitized to knives
and bats and fire that they didn't really react to any of this. The flip side, of course, is
that they drew 4,850 fans and a gate that was probably close to $300,000 on a night
where the weather could be best described as a torrential downpour.
No, they didn't use a gun. But they put on a show that was more graphically violent than
anything ECW has ever done and WWF ever will do, and pretty much anything short of a
horror movie in our culture. Of course, everyone knew basically what the show was when
they bought their tickets. There was no outrage or offense taken by the audience as they
left, probably more concerned with getting to the train station without getting too
soaked than worrying about the condition of the two wrestlers.
Perhaps Pillman pulling out the gun crossed an invisible line. If that was the case, than
WCW had crossed it first. A few years ago, Harley Race not only pulled out a gun, but
shot Cactus Jack with a taser gun on a PPV main event Texas death match against Vader.
More recently, in a skit where the Outsiders were about to hit the ring with baseball bats,
what appeared to be an entire Charlotte police force hit the ring with their hands on
their guns ready to draw, right there on live television.
This is not defending the angle either. Austin has broken through as a real superstar
over the past few weeks and Pillman can do a bonafide nutso act better than most. But
the moment Pillman pulled the gun and the satellite went out, this became an incredibly
contrived angle that wreaked of desperation. While watching it, I agreed with the
viewpoint it was compelling and was as shocked as anyone that they lost viewers to
WCW as they teased going back to the house for the second half of the show. But it was
compelling because, like the fake Razor, the fake Double J and the weekly fake
bombshell news stories that are teased and never materialize, of the fascination with just
how desperate appearing the WWF television appears to be and afraid they come off as
when it comes to inability to maintain viewers interest. WCW is in the same war, and
they do the same teases, but manage to do so within the framework of putting on a
continuing wrestling show. Certainly they keep trotting the Outsiders out there because
they're afraid viewers will switch and it does overshadow what could be some very
exciting wrestling that they ignore and don't let get over. This angle was the ultimate
with the WWF in doing so to an even greater extreme.
I fail to see how this angle in any way is any worse than the cartoon violence of burying
someone alive or someone falling off a five-story building. It was not reacted to or
portrayed nearly as dramatically as last year's angle with Shawn Michaels, which
ultimately was successful in that Michaels seemed to increase in popularity and Royal
Rumble did a shockingly high buy rate for his return. In that one, the WWF teased, and
went off the air with the idea, that one of its biggest and most popular performers, who
was beaten to a pulp in a real-life confrontation that was heavily publicized, playing off
that reality, faked like he had suffered a stroke, heart attack or aneurism and went off
the air teasing viewers with the idea that his life could literally be in the balance and he
laid in the ring. Now that was tasteless. Racist and xenophobic portrayals, particularly
when aimed at young children, which are part of almost daily pro wrestling activity, are
really tasteless. A break-in scene more mild than what normally appears on "Silk
Stalkings" on the same night on the same network is just a contrived storyline.
Don't think for a second the angle wasn't carefully planned out. Vince McMahon and
Bruce Prichard flew to Pillman's home on 11/1 to make sure everything was set up
perfectly. The USA network was informed of everything, and nixed only two items--the
plan that Pillman's wife Melanie would take a bump, and that Pillman would fire two
shots (which would turn out to be blanks later that evening) and then the satellite would
go out. It instead played as the satellite going out and Kerwin Silfies in a later phone call
teasing the idea that he may have heard two shots fired. Even though things a lot worse
typically appear on USA network programming, the network approved everything up to
that point but not the latter two items because it felt that pro wrestling purports to be
more realistic than standard fare television programming. The angle was actually
supposed to be taped on 11/2 and then inserted into Raw as if it were live. Austin was
pulled from his house show appearances in Richmond, Landover and Worcester,
announced in the buildings as being injured, for further preparation of the angle. For
whatever reason, the decision was changed literally at the last minute to not tape the
angle and it was actually done live.
Everything is subject to taste. To the people offended by something, it is an offensive
angle. The WWF should be held to higher standards because the company was built
around marketing to children. But today, there is a warning at the beginning of every
WWF television show. Parents who think the current direction isn't right for children to
watch should take that warning at face value rather than blame the company for
something they explicitly warned them about at the beginning of the episode. Maybe
WWF is guilty of trying to be all things to all types of fans, a scenario that simply isn't
possible to pull off. And more than that, if people have a problem with what is portrayed
on pro wrestling when it comes to childrens viewing, they should have realized long ago
that pro wrestling, whether it be Vince McMahon's or anybody else's, isn't something
that should be trusted by anyone to be anything but what it is. A con game.
***********************************************************
A few weeks back, the WWF sent the following memo to its wrestlers:
"This memo is to advise of certain changes in our drug collection and testing efforts, and
to reiterate our position on the use of illegal and performance enhancing drugs. As each
of you know, the Company instituted systematic drug testing years ago on a group basis.
Additionally, the standard talent contracts contain provisions strictly prohibiting the use
of illegal and performance enhancing drugs which subject any offender to termination of
their contract.
As a result of our drug testing program, the incidence of use of illegal and performance
enhancing drugs is so slight that group testing is no longer cost effective or necessary.
Thus, we are, effective immediately, suspending drug collection and testing on a group
basis. In doing so, we wish to reiterate that the strict prohibition against use of such
drugs remains our policy and that any person caught violating our policy will be dealt
with strictly. Additionally, we reserve the right to test any individual, at any time, for the
use of illegal substances. If any individual tests positive for any prohibited substance,
appropriate sanctions up to and including termination may be imposed."
So what does that exactly mean? Hopefully, this memo can be taken at face value. To
accept it as a given that's the case would also, when taking history of drug problems,
company statements and what has come out in testimony in a few trials, be quite naive.
The history of Titan Sports, drug testing, steroid use, and outright lies and deceptions,
could fill several chapters in a lengthy book. In hindsight, the stories are even more
fascinating, and more deceptive, than were when they were going on. And times also
change.
Titan began regular drug testing, only for cocaine, in 1987 after an embarrassing
incident where Jim Duggan and Iron Sheik, who were feuding at the time, were traveling
together in New Jersey and got busted with drugs in their car. The tests were expanded
to other drugs, most notably anabolic steroids, in late 1991 stemming from bad publicity
largely from Phil Mushnick in the New York Post after the trial where Dr. George
Zahorian was convicted of distributing steroids to several WWF wrestlers including
Roddy Piper, and in the trial it came out that Zahorian sold steroids to both McMahon
and Hulk Hogan. Hogan's famous denial on Arsenio Hall (which he later had to admit in
court was a lie) opened a chapter in wrestling history that started with a 40 percent
decline in WWF house show business by the end of 1992, continued with Hogan leaving
the WWF and testifying as a government witness against McMahon in the later trial, and
ended with him signing with WCW.
When it comes to pro wrestling, it is totally unrealistic to believe any company can be
drug free. Companies that claim to be, and the WWF and even WCW have in the past,
accomplish nothing but destroying credibility they'll eventually need when the inevitable
problems surface. Historically, this business has had a major problem with drugs, both
performance enhancing and recreational, up to and including numerous deaths and
horrible medical problems to both well-known and not-so-well-known performers.
Wrestling was hardly alone in problems when it came to recreational or performance
enhancing drug use, although in the 80s it was probably more of a steroid-driven sport
than anything this side of bodybuilding and perhaps powerlifting. While the nature of
the sport makes it almost a given that there will be more problems when it comes to
abuse of pain killers than most forms of entertainment, and over the past year abuse of
prescription pain killers has almost surely been the biggest drug plague in the industry,
the traveling lifestyle, big money and celebrityhood creates situations that cut across the
board to any major sport or entertainment figure.
The fallout stemming from the Zahorian trial and subsequent changes in the physiques
of wrestlers (and just as important, disappearance from the scene of so many major
WWF headliners over a short period of time), was a key reason, although hardly the only
reason, for the WWF's (and WCW's as well) business taking a major turn for the worst in
1992 and an economic downswing that lasted several years. In many ways, it didn't show
a lot of signs of recovery until the past year or two (ironically, when, more due to the
success of WCW as opposed to lack thereof of WWF, there became a public belief that
the WWF was hitting the skids).
Due to societal changes and drug testing, the cocaine era of wrestling, while use isn't
extinct, the era itself is long over. Do you even remember the last cocaine-induced noshow
on a major card? There was a time period in this business when that was almost a
nightly occurrence. The steroid era, again while use isn't extinct, is also over, based on
the type of star being pushed to the top. In 1989, the odds were extremely long in the
WWF that a super talented performer of average size and build could be a headliner.
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were just as good in the ring then, and if the 75 to 90
percent figure that was bandied about in the McMahon trial by Hogan and Warrior as to
percentage of those in WWF using was accurate, there is no guarantee which side of
those percentages the two, with all their talents as lower card performers, were.
Whichever side of that figure the two were on, they were still the most talented wrestlers
in the promotion, and way behind on the pecking order some untalented dinosaurs. In
1996, a performer such as those described, almost certainly juice free at this point, are at
a premium and can be worth millions of dollars per year in a bidding war. More than
drug testing, therein lies the difference in the wrestling world, although within the
WWF, a long period of drug testing was certainly necessary to bring about the changes
as they currently stand.
There's a lot that can be said about drug testing, whether it be WWF, WCW, NBA, NFL,
ABC, UFC, IOC, NCAA, AAA or anywhere else. This is the real world. There will always
be a double standard in a star driven entertainment business. In any form of
entertainment, stars are always going to be protected. The organizations involved will
always deny it. There will always be some use; some people beating tests because testing
isn't infallible and there are performance enhancing drugs that can't be detected in
screening no matter how much organizations pretend that isn't the case; some favored
souls finding out about the dates of tests ahead of time; people having clean friends
supply their urine for tests; positive results of tests ignored or overlooked and explained
away without punishment; or certain drugs not tested for the very reason that those
involved in the testing don't want confirmation of what they already know. It creates a
bad environment at times. It lends itself to legitimate complaints and bitterness from
those who have to abide by rules they see the stars flaunting getting away with. It's
wrong across the board. And it's the reality of situational ethics. There have been claims
of every one of the above having happened within pro wrestling and I can pretty much
guarantee that some of it is definitely true.
I think that at this point to be critical of the WWF for the policy change without giving it
time to see the results is unfair. To not be skeptical about it is stupid. There's past
history that's hard to overlook. But time will tell the tale and in a world where men work
without much clothes, it's hard to hide the effects of heavy use of steroids. One has to be
skeptical when one sees hiring of several individuals with past problems when it comes
to drug use or at least passing tests just weeks before this policy change is announced
and rumors of new steroid monsters on the way back. According to WWF wrestlers, the
letter was a formality explaining a situation that seems to have been the case for at least
some time now as two prominent names that have been with the company for a few
months have confirmed only being tested once or twice in that period. The only star who
got nailed this year was Scott Hall--coincidentally, on the very day he gave notice that he
was going to WCW. There's no question that Hall failed the test, apparently for pot, but
the timing of it certainly raised a lot of eyebrows about the coincidence of him being the
only major star to be suspended all year for failing a drug test. A few undercard
performers have been as well, but the only two I'm aware of were people who had no
role. One has to at least wonder about a promotion that has a strict drug policy
recruiting an Achim Albrecht, a mid-30s product of a bodybuilding environment more
chemically oriented today than pro wrestling was on its worst days, and then cutting
back on testing, particularly with the company's own experience in regard to being
unable to clean up its bodybuilders when it had its own bodybuilding federation a few
years ago. While the pro wrestling environment is no longer such as one needs steroids
to have any kind of a chance at decent financial rewards, even when loaded with talent,
having a good physique is still a plus and rewarding untalented individuals for their
physiques with big money and then not having a meaningful and enforced policy will
inevitably revert the business back to the 80s. While one can argue that the business was
financially more successful at that time, it was still the excesses of the 80s that spawned
the decline of the early 90s and if the beginning of that pattern is back in place, the end
result of that pattern will almost assuredly follow.
The WWF shouldn't be held to any different standard when it comes to drug testing as
the industry as a whole. Currently when it comes to drug testing, it is largely nonexistent.
But even in non-tested companies, for whatever reason, the number of steroid
monsters walking around isn't plentiful. USWA is existing at a financial level where any
meaningful testing is simply a luxury that can't be afforded. ECW may or may not be
able to afford it financially. Paul Heyman in vague terms addressed the situation before
a show saying that he didn't care what the guys did on their own time, as long as they
were okay during the 20 minutes that they were in the ring. He also has long said he
feels drug testing is unconstitutional. However, the legality and constitutionality of drug
testing has gone to and been approved by the Supreme Court. Enforcing the policy in
court has, at times, been a problem, the most famous being the situation with track star
Butch Johnson, largely because proper procedure wasn't followed and a clerical error
was made. Even out of court, enforcing policies in real sports have been filled with
numerous contradictions.
Heyman admitted his group has its share of use, but claimed it was less than WCW. In
Japan, the only testing I know of is that the New Japan organization tests for HIV, which
to my knowledge is the only pro wrestling organization that does so. There are no tests
that I know of for steroids or recreational drugs, and it isn't as if there haven't been
problems, largely with Americans touring, over the years. UFC tests for HIV and a wide
variety of performance enhancing drugs, mainly amphetamines, but not steroids. It's no
secret use of steroids is prevalent if not rampant among current competitors and being
on steroids changes the competition, although there is a feeling that there are negatives
as well as positives when it comes to competitive edge of going in juiced up. WCW has a
program. Exactly what it is, is subject to question but there are tests, but some question
as to whether the big stars are ever tested. Nevertheless, up until a few months back
when WWF stopped its frequent testing, the word within wrestling among wrestlers
trying to talk wrestlers from jumping from WWF to WCW included that there was less of
a hassle when it came to drugs. I'm not saying even one wrestler of those who jumped
did so for that reason, but I do know those reasons were brought up to individuals as at
least one factor in the decision making process. And with lawsuits going in one direction
mentioning many petty things, don't you think it's interesting that Eric Bischoff's
comments about it being well known Titan selectively enforces its policy, printed in a
mainstream newspaper, were never addressed in Titan's later lawsuit against Bischoff?
And what about Titan's insinuations, on Raw in front of millions no less, that WCW had
no real steroid testing?
But even with whatever the WCW policy is as compared to WWF, steroid use in WCW is
way down from the 80s or even the early 90s when it was routine that many, if not most
of the wrestlers would fail steroid tests and never be suspended. That isn't saying nonexistent
because that is almost certainly not the case. I'm aware of wrestlers now in
WCW with long histories of steroid use that are not on steroids today. I can't point to
one wrestler right now in WCW that would be pushed more if he was on the gas, or less
if he were to get off. Luger and Sting, whether on or off, made their names during
another era and are living off that stardom now. Ditto Hogan and Savage, or Hall and
Nash, whether large or small. Mid-card guys who may be on would have the same push
off. The days of the 80s where a Luger, a Hellwig, or even a Hogan, none of whom would
have even been pro wrestlers had they never used steroids and have made millions in the
ring, are different from the 90s where Renegades and Van Hammers with the same basic
attributes were given the same megapush and then almost completely forgotten. Of
course, if Albrecht shows up in the ring looking like he stepped off the Olympia stage,
gets a megapush with no talent and everyone turns a blind eye to it, all bets are off, other
than the over/unders on when the next generation of physical tragedies will start
showing up.
***********************************************************
This is the third issue of the current four-issue set. If you've got a (1) on your address
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1995 WRESTLING OBSERVER AWARDS
It's that time of the year again when it's time for the readers voting for the 17th annual
Wrestling Observer awards. To the best of my knowledge these are the only awards that
are both international in scope and covered and acknowledged by wrestling media
internationally. The time frame of these awards is from December 1, 1995 through
November, 30, 1996. Anything taking place between those dates should be what is taken
into consideration and anything either before or after these dates doesn't count. Ballots
won't be accepted until December 1, so don't mail anything out until after Thanksgiving.
Ballots will be accepted through early January (we'll give the cut-off date in a few weeks,
but to be on the safe side, plan on mailing by Christmas because holiday mail service is
pretty bad) and our annual awards double issue will be in mid-January. If you've got
opinions on various awards you're encouraged to send them in as quickly as possible for
the letters section.
Although there remains traditional babyfaces and heels in some promotions, such as
WWF, in promotions such as WCW and in Japan (and for the most part ECW with a few
exceptions) the designations for the most part don't really fit. Babyface and heels are
starting to become passe terms, and popularity and hated are often becoming almost the
same thing. The idea of best babyface and best heel was to honor those who sold tickets
based on their portrayals of good vs. evil regardless of their workrate, but with evil being
good due to cultural changes in the way society responds, those categories really don't fit
anymore. However, because of tradition we are keeping the categories but the idea of
heels being booed is passe and this is more regarding box office and heat getting,
whether positive or negative, in both cases. It's kind of weird when wrestlers turn heel to
become better accepted as babyfaces nowadays.
We are also dumping the most obnoxious category, which I've been wanting to dump for
a few years (besides, we know who is going to win ahead of time).
"CATEGORY A" AWARDS. PICK A FIRST, SECOND AND A THIRD PLACE
FINISHER IN EACH CATEGORY. POINTS WILL BE AWARDED ON A 5-3-2
BASIS. THE WINNER OF THE AWARD IS DETERMINED BY TOTAL
POINTS.
1. WRESTLER OF THE YEAR - This category is open to all forms of pro wrestling or
wrestlers in reality fighting. This is for a combination of being both an important figure
and influential wrestler in a positive manner in the business over the past year,
combined with being a great performer in the ring during the same period. Last year's
top three were Mitsuharu Misawa, Shawn Michaels and Manami Toyota.
2. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER - This is based on ring work as the only criterion
and by work, that means "work" in that shooting isn't to be considered. Simply, the three
best workers in the world over the past year, things like drawing power or charisma
aren't to be considered here. The ones who put on the most consistently excellent
matches and individual performances. Last year's top three were Manami Toyota, Eddie
Guerrero and Rey Misterio Jr.
3. BEST BABYFACE - Based on a combination of drawing power and heat generated in
he buildings. Ring work is not considered a criterion. Last year's top three were Perro
Aguayo, Atsushi Onita and Shawn Michaels.
4. BEST HEEL - Again, based on a combination of drawing power and secondarily on
ability to garner and maintain heat. Last year's top three were Masa Chono, Ric Flair and
Cactus Jack.
5. FEUD OF THE YEAR - This should be based on a combination of having a compelling
storyline and angles along with having great matches on a consistent basis that
strengthened the box office. Last year's top three were Dean Malenko vs. Eddie
Guerrero, Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer and New Japan vs. UWFI
6. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR - For the best working regular tag team during the
previous year. Last year's top three were Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi, Public
Enemy and Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue. Pretty scary, huh?
7. MOST IMPROVED - This is based on having made the biggest strides in ring work
over the balloting period. This is not for someone who has always had the ability that is
being given their first push. Last year's top three were Johnny B. Badd, Mikey
Whipwreck and Juventud Guerrera.
8. MOST UNIMPROVED - Based on the biggest decline in ring work over the same
balloting period. This shouldn't be for people who have always sucked. Last year's top
three were Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger and Diesel.
9. BEST ON INTERVIEWS - Who have the best interviews on a consistent basis over the
past year. Reputation from previous years shouldn't be taken into account and it should
be based on the entire year rather than one or two great interviews. Last year's top three
were Cactus Jack, Ric Flair and Jim Cornette.
10. MOST CHARISMATIC - What wrestler has to do the least to get the most out of it.
Last year's top three were Shawn Michaels, Perro Aguayo and Atsushi Onita.
11. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER - This is for having the ability to use a wide variety
and high level of technical wrestling ability within the context of putting together great
worked matches. Last year's top three were Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Eddie
Guerrero.
12. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD - This is for the wrestler who uses brawling
tactics to put together the best matches during the previous year. Last year's top three
were Cactus Jack, Terry Funk and Public Enemy.
13. BEST FLYING WRESTLER - This is for the wrestler who doe the most innovative
and solidly-executed flying maneuvers within the context of putting together great
matches. Last year's top three were Rey Misterio Jr., Great Sasuke and Sabu.
14. MOST OVERRATED WRESTLER - The wrestler who gets the biggest push despite
lacking in-ring ability. Last year's top three were Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger and Diesel.
15. MOST UNDERRATED WRESTLER - The wrestler with the most ability who, for
whatever reason, doesn't get a push commensurate with their talent. This should be
based on work during the past year and not something based on reputation as a worker
garnered years ago. Last year's top three were Skip, Al Snow and Dean Malenko.
16. BEST PROMOTION - Should be based primarily on which group puts together the
best live and televised product on a consistent basis, and secondarily, the ability to sell
that product at the box office. Theoretically the top pick should be a company at or near
the top in both categories. Last year's top three were New Japan, ECW and All Japan.
17. BEST WEEKLY TELEVISION SHOW - Weekly television shows only are eligible, not
specials or monthlies. This is for the best consistent week-to-week show, not for a
specific episode of a specific program. Last year's top three were ECW, New Japan and
All Japan 30.
18. MATCH OF THE YEAR - Pick the three best matches, in order from the time period
listed. Last year's top three were Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue from 5/7 at Korakuen
Hall, Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon from 8/27 in Pittsburgh and Rey Misterio Jr. vs.
Psicosis from 10/7 in Philadelphia.
19. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR - This is based on ring performance and not how someone is
pushed. By the standard of the category, a rookie wrestler is someone who hasn't had a
wrestling job with a company that runs regular shows or worked regularly on indies
prior to September 1, 1995. Last year's top three were Perro Aguayo Jr., KGB and Chris
Kanyon. Among the candidates this year are The Giant, Flex Kavana, Steve McMichael,
Bobby Walker, Mosco de la Merced, Yuki Kondo, Kiuma Kunioku, Peter Williams,
Semmy Schiltt, Sugar Sato, Shinobu Tamura, Momoe Nakanishi and Mano Negra Jr.
20. MANAGER OF THE YEAR - Self explanatory. Last year's top three were Jim
Cornette, Paul E. Dangerously and Brandon Baxter.
21. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER - Lead announcers on a broadcast only are
eligible for this award. Secondary announcers on a broadcast have their own award. Last
year's top three were Joey Styles, Jim Ross and Lance Russell.
22. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER - All announcers are eligible. Last year's top
three were Steve McMichael, Eric Bischoff and Dusty Rhodes.
"CATEGORY B" AWARDS. PICK ONE IN EACH CATEGORY. WINNER
CHOSEN ON BASIS OF FIRST PLACE VOTES.
1. BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD OF THE YEAR (Weekly Pro Wrestling 4/2 Tokyo
Dome last year's winner)
2. WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD OF THE YEAR (WCW Uncensored 3/19 Tupelo
last year's winner)
3. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER (Rey Misterio Jr's flip dive into Frankensteiner on
floor last year's winner)
4. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (WCW Gene Okerlund 900 line comeons
and lies)
5. BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Jerry Lawler last year's winner)
6. READERS PERSONAL FAVORITE WRESTLER (Manami Toyota last year's winner)
7. READERS LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Hulk Hogan last year's winner)
8. WORST WRESTLER/ROOKIES INELIGIBLE (Renegade last year's winner)
9. WORST TAG TEAM (Bunkhouse Buck & Dick Slater last year's winners)
10. WORST WEEKLY TELEVISION SHOW (WCW Saturday Night last year's winner)
11. WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji last year's winner)
12. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (Sting vs. Tony Palmore 1/4 Tokyo last year's
winner)
13. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR (Hogan vs. Dungeon of Doom last year's winner)
14. WORST ON INTERVIEWS (Hulk Hogan last year's winner)
15. WORST PROMOTION (WCW last year's winner)
16. BEST BOOKER (Paul Heyman last year's winner)
17. PROMOTER OF THE YEAR (Riki Choshu last year's winner)
18. BEST GIMMICK (Disco Inferno last year's winner)
19. WORST GIMMICK (Goldust last year's winner)
20. MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (This is for the wrestler who, when he appears
on television and you have friends or family in the room with you, makes you the most
embarrassed to be a wrestling fan. Hulk Hogan last year's winner.)
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/15 TO 12/15
11/16 ECW November to Remember Philadelphia ECW Arena (Dreamer & Funk vs. Lee
& Douglas)
11/16 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Williams & Ace)
11/17 WWF Survivor Series PPV New York Madison Square Garden (Bret Hart vs.
Austin)
11/17 The U Japan Tokyo Ariake Coliseum (Severn vs. Matsunaga)
11/18 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings New Haven, CT Veterans Memorial Coliseum
11/18 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Civic Center
11/19 WWF Superstars tapings Springfield, MA Civic Center
11/21 All Japan Fukuoka Hakata Star Lanes (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)
11/22 Reality Superfighting PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena (Renzo
Gracie vs. Taktarov)
11/22 RINGS Osaka Castle Hall (Maeda vs. Fujiwara)
11/22 WWF Montreal Moulson Center
11/23 WWF Baltimore Arena (Hall & Nash vs. Heat)
11/24 WCW World War III PPV Norfolk, VA Scope (Three-ring Battle Royal)
11/24 All Japan Kobe (Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace)
11/25 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Greenville, NC East Carolina University Arena
11/28 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi &
Patriot)
11/29 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada &
Taue)
12/1 New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall
12/1 All Japan women Tokyo Korakuen Hall (tag team tournament finals)
12/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Dayton, OH Hara Arena
12/2 All Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
12/6 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Real World Tag League tournament championship
match)
12/7 UFC Ultimate Ultimate PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena (Shamrock,
Coleman, Abbott, Frye, Johnston, Goodridge, Worsham, Viktor Gracie)
12/7 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
12/8 All Japan Women Tokyo Sumo Hall (Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue)
12/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena
12/9 Michinoku Pro Osaka Rinkai Sports Center
12/10 New Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym
12/11 FMW Tokyo Komazawa Olympic Park Gym (Hayabusa vs. Sasuke)
12/13 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Takada vs. Tenryu)
12/15 Universal Vale Tudo Fukuoka Dome (Muto vs. Otavio)
12/15 WWF In Your House PPV West Palm Beach, FL Memorial Auditorium
12/15 Pancrase Tokyo Budokan Hall (Funaki vs. DeLucia)
RESULTS
10/25 Netzahualcoyotl (AAA): Mini Frisbee & La Parkita b Mini Fabuloso Blondy &
Sultancito Gargolita, Torero & El Mexicano & Frisbee b Skeletor & Retador & Loco
Valentino, Tinielbas Jr. & Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. b Karis la Momia &
Espectro & Espectro de Ultratumba, Perro Aguayo & Perro Aguayo Jr. b Fuerza Guerrera
& Mosco de la Merced-DQ, Mexican light hwt title:Latin Lover b Jerry Estrada
10/25 Atzacoalco (Promo Azteca):Gitoncito & Dragoncito de Oro b Los Payasitos II
& III, El Brazo Cibernetica & Gitano d Jurassico & Rocky Santana, Enigma & Ultimo
Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde b Skayde & Ninja de Fuego & Dragon de Oro, Super Elektra
& Tarzan Boy & Vaquero Romo b El Signo & Andy Barrow & Panterita del Ring, Vampiro
Canadiense & Fantasma & Brazo de Plata b Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo
2000-DQ
10/25 Acapulco (EMLL):Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito b Jerrito Estrada &
Piratita Morgan, Angel Azteca & Brazo de Oro b El Signo & Mano Negra, Canek & Brazo
de Oro & Lizmark Jr. b Sangre Chicana & Apolo Dantes & Black Warrior-DQ
10/25 Mexico City Deportivo Bondojito (EMLL):Ultimo Dragoncito b
Pierrothtito, Pegaso b Alacran, Martha Villalobos & La Diabolica b Xochitl Hamada &
Lola Gonzalez, Solar & Ninja de Fuego & Lizmark Jr. b El Satanico & Scorpio Jr. & Babe
Face, Dos Caras & Silver King & Mascara Sagrada b Bestia Salvaje & Dr. Wagner Jr. &
Emilio Charles Jr.
11/1 Hansonville, VA (United Wrestling Alliance):Juicer d Soul Taker (Roddy
Cox), Super Mario b Beau James, Rich Mansfield b Taker, Iron Man b G-Dog, Rick
Newson & Eddie Golden b Ricky Morton & Mike Samson, Eddie Bruiser b Alex Shane
11/2 Roseville, MI (Insane Championship Wrestling - 175):Jimi V d Breyer
Wellington, Tony Smalls NC Lucifer, Rhino Richards b Brian Fury, American Kick Boxer
b El Perro, Psycho Ric b Death Wolf-COR, Alexis Machine b Ghetto Blaster, Bull Pain b
Chi Chi Cruz, Ian Rotten b Mad Man Pondo
11/3 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 487 sellout):Lenny Lane & Shiryu b Wellington
Wilkens Jr. & Yoshito Sugamoto, Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo b Tiger Mask &
Masato Yakushiji, Jinsei Shinzaki b Gran Naniwa, Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b
Great Sasuke & Kato Kung Lee, Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada b Mens Teoh &
Dick Togo
11/3 Chigasaki (All Japan women):Rumi Sekiguchi b Fujii, Etsuko Mita & Rie
Tamada & Miho Wakizawa b Genki Misae & Nana Takahashi & Momoe Nakanishi,
Mariko Yoshida b Saya Endo, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Takako Inoue & Yumi
Fukawa, Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b Yumiko Hotta & Yuka Shiina, Kaoru Ito &
Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada & Mima
Shimoda
11/3 San Bernardino, CA (Empire Wrestling Federation):Gary Key b Vic
Victory, Haystacks Brothers b Third Dimension & Ultra Taro, Bulldog Sampson &
Cincinnati Red b Ghetto Boyz-DQ, Christopher Daniels b Suicide Kid, Dick Danger b
Eddie Williams, Irish Assassin b Bobby Bradley
11/4 Halifax, Nova Scotia (WWF - 4,691): Justin Bradshaw b Bob Holly, Sultan b
Carl LeDuc, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, WWF tag titles:
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, IC title:Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley-DQ, Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Mankind & Goldust
11/4 Memphis (USWA - 480): Crusher Bones b Tony Williams, Steven Dunn b Tony
Falk, Flash Flanagan & Sean Venom b Mike Samples & Wolverine, USWA womens title:
Tasha Simone b Miss Texas to win title, Brickhouse Brown b Bill Dundee-DQ, Johnny
Rotten b Jamie Dundee-DQ, Unified title:Colorado Kid NC Ric Hogan, Brian
Christopher b Wolfie D-DQ
11/5 Gainesville, GA (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 1,400 sellout): Psicosis &
Juventud Guerrera b American Males, WCW TV title: Steve Regal b Jim Duggan-DQ,
Diamond Dallas Page b Ice Train, Amazing French Canadians b Harlem Heat-COR,
Chris Benoit b Hugh Morrus, WCW cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Rey Misterio
Jr., Lex Luger b Maxx, Duggan b The Gambler, Benoit b Hector Guerrero, Morrus b Jim
Powers, High Voltage NC Hard Body Harrison & Jack Boot, WCW cruiserweight title:
Malenko b Guerrera, Page b Cheetah Kid, Canadians b Bobby Eaton & Chavo Guerrero
Jr., WCW TV title:Regal b Psicosis
11/5 Fukushima (All Japan women):Miho Wakizawa & Rumi Sekiguchi b Fujii &
Momoe Nakanishi, Yuka Shiina b Tanny Mouth, Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada &
Genki Misae b Etsuko Mita & Chaparita Asari & Nana Takahashi, Takako Inoue & Yumi
Fukawa b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura b Toshiyo Yamada
& Saya Endo, Yumiko Hotta & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami Toyota &
Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett
11/6 Sydney, Nova Scotia (WWF - 3,727): Sultan b Carl LeDuc, Bob Holly b Justin
Bradshaw, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader, WWF tag titles: Owen
Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Smoking Gunns, IC title:Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley-DQ, Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Mankind & Goldust
11/6 Shizuoka (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hayato Nanjyo b Gosaku Goshogawara &
Mamoru Okamoto, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Toryu, Koji Nakagawa b Ricky Fuji, Megumi
Kudo & Kaori Nakayama b Miss Mongol (Aki Kanbayashi) & Shark Tsuchiya, Crypt
Keeper (Julio Estrada) b Mr. Pogo, The Gladiator (Mike Alfonso) & Super Leather (Mike
Kirchner) b Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa, Street fight:Hisakatsu Oya & Head Hunters b
Hido & Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura
11/6 Kuroishi (Michinoku Pro - 246):Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo & Masato
Yakushiji, Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa b Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa, Dick Togo
& Mens Teoh b Great Sasuke & Kato Kung Lee, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny Lane
11/6 Ryoda (Social Pro Wrestling Federation):Cougar b Condor, Steve Cox b
Action Jackson, Isamu Teranishi & Poison Sawada & Masahiko Kochi b Sedman &
Murderer & Rod Price, Ichiro Yaguchi b Yoshiaki Yatsu
11/7 Izumo (FMW): Toryu & Ricky Fuji b Katsutoshi Niiyama & Hideo Makimura,
Hisakatsu Oya b Hideki Hosaka, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka b Gosaku
Goshogawara & Koji Nakagawa, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari b Kaori
Nakayama & Megumi Kudo, Head Hunters b Hayato Nanjyo & Mr. Pogo, Hayabusa b
Crypt Keeper, Street fight:The Gladiator & Super Leather b Hido & Wing Kanemura
11/7 Hamamatsu (Social Pro Wrestling Federation):Nishino b Phantom
Funakoshi, Masahiko Kochi b Sedman, Cougar b Condor, Poison Sawada & Isamu
Teranishi & Yoshiaki Yatsu b Murderer & Rod Price & Action Jackson, Ichiro Yaguchi b
Steve Cox
11/8 Buffalo, NY (WWF - 7,672): Sultan b Bob Holly, Holly b Justin Bradshaw,
Steve Austin b Aldo Montoya, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader, IC
title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy
Smith b Godwinns, Armageddon cage match:Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Mankind
& Goldust
11/8 Actopan (AAA - 5,000 sellout): One-night tag team tournament:Los Villanos
IV & V b Los Payasos Azul & Rojo, Blue Demon Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. b Villano III &
Fuerza Guerrera, Super Muneco & Pantera b Cibernetico & Mosco de la Merced, Canek
& Histeria (Super Crazy) b Payaso Amarillo & Century 2000, Villanos IV & V b Demon
Jr. & Sagrada Jr., Muneco & Pantera b Canek & Histeria, Muneco & Pantera b Villanos
IV & V-DQ
11/8 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Supremo II & Kundra b Angel de Plata &
Pegaso, CMLL world womens title tournament:Lady Apache b Xochitl Hamada,
Chaparita Asari b La Diabolica, Apache b Asari to win vacant title, Super Astro & Mr.
Niebla & Mascara Magica b Espectro Jr. & Cadaver de Ultratumba & Karloff Lagarde Jr.,
***** Casas & La Fiera & Brazo de Plata b Scorpio Jr. & Rambo & Felino, Dr. Wagner
Jr. & Emilio Charles Jr. & Apolo Dantes b Hector Garza & Lizmark & Dos Caras
11/8 Mexico City Balneario Olimpico (Promo Azteca):Black Jaguar & Kamikaze
d Cobra & Cabellero Aguila, Gitancito & Brazito de Oro b Jerrito Estrada & Piratita
Morgan, Ultimo Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde & Andy Barrow b Skayde & Cyborg Cop &
Brazo Cibernetico, Angel Blanco Jr. & Enrique Vera & Shu El Guerrero b Vaquero Romo
& Zorro & Dragon de Oro, Mascara Sagrada & Fantasma & Vampiro Canadiense b
Universo 2000 & Panterita del Ring & Pirata Morgan-DQ
11/8 Iwaideyama (Michinoku Pro - 158):Tiger Mask b Yoshito Sugamoto, Lenny
Lane & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Kato Kung Lee & Naohiro Hoshikawa, Shoichi Funaki
& Taka Michinoku & Shiryu b Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke, Dick
Togo & Mens Teoh b Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo, Jinsei Shinzaki b Gran Naniwa
11/8 Shimizu (All Japan women):Miho Wakizawa & Rumi Sekiguchi b Yuka Shiina
& Fujii, Yoshiko Tamura & Genki Misae & Tanny Mouth b Etsuko Mita & Momoe
Nakanishi & Nana Takahashi, Rie Tamada & Manami Toyota b Saya Endo & Toshiyo
Yamada, Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett b Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe,
Kaoru Ito b Mariko Yoshida, Yumiko Hotta & Kyoko Inoue b Aja Kong & Takako Inoue
11/9 Kobe (Pancrase - 3,500): Kim Sooh b Takafumi Ito, Kiuma Kunioku b Satoshi
Hasegawa, Yoshiki Takahashi b Keiichiro Yamamiya, King of Pancrase tournament
semifinals:Jason DeLucia b Osami Shibuya, Masakatsu Funaki b Yuki Kondo
11/9 Milwaukee (WWF - 3,103): Bob Holly b Sultan, Jesse James b Justin
Bradshaw, Steve Austin b Aldo Montoya, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Stretcher match: Sid b
Vader, IC title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, WWF tag titles: Owen Hart &
Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, Armageddon cage match:Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b
Mankind & Goldust
11/9 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (WAR - 2,100 sellout): Gokauku Umibouzu b Jun
Kikuchi, Takashi Okamura & Masaaki Mochizuki b Fukuda & Kamikaze, Masayoshi
Motegi b Battle Ranger, Doink the Clown b Onryo, Bam Bam Bigelow & Nobukazu Hirai
b Osamu Tachihikari & Arashi, Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya b Kazuo Yamazaki
& Takashi Iizuka, Int. jr. tag titles:Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka b Jushin Liger & El
Samurai to win titles
11/9 Aomori (Michinoku Pro - 341):Kato Kung Lee & Wellington Wilkens Jr. b
Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Naniwa, Shiryu & Mens Teoh & Dick Togo b Masato
Yakushiji & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny Lane, El Hijo del
Santo & Super Delfin b Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku
11/9 Old Bridge, NJ (Universal Superstars of Wrestling - 490):Hellraiser b
Rocco Dorsey, Magic b Lord Zieg, Jimmy Snuka b King Kong Bundy, Booty Man b Greg
Valentine, Bodyguard for Hire b Super Nova
11/9 Mendham, NJ (NWA - 300):Billy Reil won Battle Royal, Rasta b Don Montoya,
Ace Darling b Mr. Puerto Rico (Ralph Soto), Cousin Luke b Rik Ratchett & Donny B,
Jason Knight b Chubby Dudley, Angel (Angel Amoroso) b Nasty Nikki (Nikki Amoroso),
Icon b Derrick Domino-DQ, Reckless Youth b Beach Bully (Inferno Kid Danny
Germundo), Bushwhackers b Invaders (Bad Attitude)
11/9 Leesburg, FL (WWA - 150):Lonestar Kid b Mad Matt-DQ, Butch Taylor b
Buddy Valentine-DQ, Bounty Hunter DCOR Bad Medicine, Cuban Assassin b Dirty
Dave, Hercules b Dick Slater
11/9 Candor, NC (Championship Wrestling Federation - 145):Carolina Warrior
b Nick of Time, Big Cheese (Sal Corrente) & David Isley b Cruel Connection (Willie Clay
& Ray Hudson), Will Shooter & Tim Jackson b Cannon & One Man Posse, Kid Dynamo b
Black Skull, Clay DCOR Rick Link, Simba & Southern Rocker b Slash & Muhamed
Abdul, Juicer b Star Ryder
11/9 Spring Place, GA (World Christian Federation):Million Dollar Dream &
Larry Santana b Billy Montana & Terry Phoenix, Great Scott b Larry Blade, Randy
Watkins b Dragon, Outpatient & Johnny Quaz b Keith Koloff & Phoenix, Montana &
Bounty Hunter b Santana & Johnny Blaze-DQ
11/9 Clayton, NC (ICW):Soulman b David Daniels, Dark Starr b Rob McBride, D.C.
Queen & Sebastian Kane b Army of Aggression, Brandi Wine b Foxy Lady, Marc Ash
DDQ Major Justice
11/9 Jacksonville, FL (Wide World of Wrestling):Mizer Moore b Blue Demon
(like it's the original), Penguin b Blazer, Pat McGuire b Gerald Hamilton, Gerald
Hamilton b Playboy, Blare Rogers b Soultrain Garman, Moore & Larry Hamilton DDQ
T.J. Jackson & Alex G
11/10 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW World Wide tapings - 600 sellout/all
freebies):Horace Boulder (Mike Bollea) b J.L., Chris Benoit b Terry Sawyer (not
original), Chris Jericho b Scott Armstrong, Harlem Heat b Butch Long & Bill Payne, Big
Bubba b Leroy Howard, Sting b Hugh Morrus, Miguel Perez b Steve Armstrong, Meiko
Satomura b Malia Hosaka, Lex Luger b Barbarian, Billy Kidman b Jerry Flynn, Kevin
Sullivan & Konnan b Scott Armstrong & Kenny Kendall, Rey Misterio Jr. b Chavo
Guerrero Jr., Scott Norton b Chris Nelson, Alex Wright b Sonny Trout, Meng &
Barbarian b Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit-DQ, Luger b Morrus, Perez b Ciclope
(Halloween)
11/10 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 416 sellout): Tiger Mask b Yoshito Sugamoto,
Masato Yakushiji & Kato Kung Lee b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Wellington Wilkens Jr.,
Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku & Shiryu b Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada & Great
Sasuke, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny Lane, Tag team tournament finals:Mens Teoh & Dick
Togo b Super Delfin & El Hijo del Santo
11/10 Gosen (All Japan women):Nana Takahashi b Rumi Sekiguchi, Tanny Mouth b
Momoe Nakanishi, Kumiko Maekawa & Yoshiko Tamura & Genki Misae b Etsuko Mita
& Yumi Fukawa & Saya Endo, Yumiko Hotta & Yuka Shiina b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru
Ito, Takako Inoue b Rie Tamada, Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett b
Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
11/10 Baltimore (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation):Bob Starr b Joey
Matthews, Steve Corino b Adam Flash, Jason Knight b Earl the Pearl, Danny Rose b
Quinn Nash, Raven & Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie b Johnny Gunn & Samoan
Gangstas, Lucifer b Knuckles Zandwich, Jimmy Cicero b Joe Thunder, Glenn Osbourne
& Chuck Williams & Mark Schrader & Boo Bradley b Head Bangers & Axl Rotten &
Corporal Punishment
11/11 St. Petersburg, FL (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 3,800): Madusa b Zero,
Jeff Jarrett b Chris Benoit-DQ **1/2, Zero (Chigusa Nagayo) b Malia Hosaka DUD, Rey
Misterio Jr. b Ciclope ***1/2, Lex Luger b Scott Norton 1/2*, Harlem Heat DCOR
Amazing French Canadiens DUD, Konnan b Chris Jericho-DQ *1/4, Miguel Perez b
Juventud Guerrera ***1/4, Meng & Barbarian b American Males -*1/4, WCW title:Hulk
Hogan b Luger, Perez b La Parka
Special thanks to:Steve Prazak, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Jaywant Bhalla, Walt Spafford,
David Stylianov, Ed Aherns, Dana Prillaman, Frank Mott, Gregg John, Mark Taylor, Dan
Parris, Michael Scarberry, Joe Grana, Chuck Langermann, Dan Parris, Sarah Moore,
Marcus Watkins, Dominick Valenti, Jon Elias, Ron Lemieux, Eric Dahlberg, Michael
Iong, Jesse Money
EMLL
Reyna Jubuki (Akira Hokuto) was officially stripped of the CMLL womens title just one
day after she appeared on the WCW Nitro show (although the timing was just
coincidental) doing the job for Madusa. Jubuki got the title in 1984 largely because she
was living in Mexico because she was married to the wrestler Talisman. After they broke
up, she left the promotion without dropping the title even though they were pushing a
feud with her against Lady Apache. A four-woman tournament was held on 11/8 at
Arena Mexico with Apache (who was formerly married to Gran Apache I, hence the
name) beating Chaparita Asari in the finals. Asari got rave reviews in the newspaper.
The top two matches on the show was Dr. Wagner Jr. & Apolo Dantes & Emilio Charles
Jr. beat Hector Garza & Lizmark & Dos Caras in a very good match ending when Wagner
pinned Caras clean in the middle to apparently set up a new program between the two.
In the semi, ***** Casas & La Fiera & Brazo de Plata (who appeared on Televisa after
appearing on TV-Azteca only a few weeks back) won over Rambo & Scorpio Jr. & Felino
when Casas pinned Scorpio Jr.
The story on the Head Hunters and the tag belts is that they stole the belts after losing
via DQ in the match against Atlantis & Lizmark, and they've left Mexico for Japan with
the title belts. This is the first time we've heard of that type of an angle being run in
Mexico.
Felino was being wooed by both AAA and Promo Azteca, formally agreed to stay with
EMLL.
Promo Azteca
The biggest news is the apparent defection of La Parka from AAA. Parka was the group's
second biggest drawing card (behind Perro Aguayo), and arguably its most important
wrestler since he's got a long future, which can't be said for Aguayo, who turns 51 in
January. Apparently Parka was offered a doubling in per match pay from $135 to $270
per show, but on the second show under the new deal, he failed to get his money. We
don't have it officially that he's coming in, but since he worked Nitro on 11/11 in a dark
match, that appears to be a sign. On the AAA television show over the weekend, Parka
got a huge push and it was announced on the show that he would be appearing in the
1997 WWF Royal Rumble, which at this point looks to be not happening. Expect Parka
to debut on the debut show of Konnan's promotion on 11/15 in Xochimilko. Antonio
Pena owns the rights to the Parka name, however Mascara Sagrada and Mascarita
Sagrada both left and took their gimmicks with them, although Pena then created a
multitude of characters from the gimmick. However, Parka's got a unique style, unlike
Sagrada, that'll be impossible to duplicate. The debut of the Konnan & Vampiro team
isn't expected to take place that night as Vampiro is on a Northern tour this coming
weekend.
El Brazo has changed his name to Brazo Alvarado.
It appears the first major feud being pushed in this promotion is Universo 2000 vs.
Mascara Sagrada.
AAA
In an effort to strike back at Konnan and WCW, it appears that Antonio Pena is
attempting to put together a working relationship with the WWF. The first hint of it was
the television mention of Parka going to the Royal Rumble, and there is talk Pena will
meet with Vince McMahon sometime in the future.
Pena runs another show in Tijuana on 11/15 and runs Mexicali the next night. They are
also talking about running a blow-out show on 12/15. There's been no talk of late of the
planned international spectacular for 11/20 with WCW, New Japan and WAR, so with all
the chaos, I'm under the assumption it isn't taking place.
Gran Apaches I & II, who were expected to join Konnan, have reportedly signed
contracts with Pena.
Pena held a press conference and announced he would be introducing ten new wrestling
characters over the next month, and gave the biggest hype to a new wrestler called
Flaying (which actually means Flying), to take the place of Rey Misterio Jr. It is believed
the guy getting this gimmick was formerly Venom of the Cadetes de la Espacio, who is a
19-year-old from Tijuana with a lot of potential and great guts when it comes to doing
moves but has a long way to go. He's scheduled to debut next week.
They ran two major angles on 10/25 in Netzahualcoyotl. In the main event, Latin Lover
retained the Mexican National Light heavyweight title beating Jerry Estrada. Heavy
Metal was in Estrada's corner and interfered freely in the first two falls. During the third
fall, after a ref bump, Metal grabbed a beer bottle and teased hitting Latin with it, but
instead hit Estrada who went down and out for Heavy's babyface turn. Earlier in the
show they used the bottle in another angle as Aguayo's Sr. & Jr. wrestled Fuerza
Guerrera (getting the monster push as a returning heel) & Mosco de la Merced when
Mosco broke a bottle on Aguayo Sr.'s head. The beer bottle angle popped a slew of big
houses in 1985 when Mascara Ano 2000 broke it the first time over Perro Sr's head, but
has since turned into a cliche as this is at least the third time it's been done over the past
18 months.
At a recent taping in Puebla (not sure of date), Estrada beat Heavy in a Pit Bull Terrier
(dog collar) match that was said to have been disappointing. They also started a feud
with Canek vs. Cibernetico, as the two were partners with Guerrera against Octagon &
Tinieblas Jr. & Parka and it wound up with Canek and Guerrera walking out leaving
Cibernetico alone with all three.
Even with the defections, AAA drew a sellout on its major show over the weekend with
5,000 fans on 11/8 in Actopan for a one-night tag team tournament won by Super
Muneco (who is back as a babyface) & Pantera.
It was announced on the weekend AAA television show that Warlord (WWF wrestler
from years ago) was coming in.
JAPAN
Atsushi Onita held a press conference on 11/12 and announced he would be coming out
of retirement for the 12/11 show at Tokyo's Komazawa Olympic Park Gym and face Mr.
Pogo in Pogo's final match. The original plan was for Pogo to retire in May, but
apparently the injuries suffered in the August match with Terry Funk pretty well spelled
the end of his career. Pogo returned to action on 11/6 losing to Crypt Keeper after being
out of the ring for three months. Also on that show will be the first ever singles match
with Great Sasuke vs. Hayabusa. Pogo had been asking Onita to form a tag team with
him since he's turned face, and this all could end up being a deal that'll culminate in
both coming out of retirement and forming a tag team for the May Kawasaki Stadium
show. FMW's major show of the week was the tour opener on 11/6 in Shizuoka where
Hisakatsu Oya & Head Hunters earned a shot at the six man titles (which takes place on
11/16 in Osaka against champs Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda)
beating Wing Kanemura & Hido & Hideki Hosaka in a street fight match. Hido broke his
leg in the match and estimates are he wouldn't be able to return for three months.
Pancrase held the semifinals of the King of Pancrase tournament on 11/9 in Kobe before
3,500 fans. Jason DeLucia used the choke on Osami Shibuya in 11:45 and Masakatsu
Funaki took just 1:43 to get the choke on Yuki Kondo, so Funaki vs. DeLucia for the
vacant title will headline 12/15 at Budokan Hall. That's still a weak main event for a
building the size of Budokan. A correction from last week's issue. Guy Mezger's broken
nose was suffered on the 10/8 show, not the 9/7 show, and it's pretty well expected that
he'll be on the December Budokan show.
WAR ran 11/9 at Korakuen Hall drawing a sellout 2,100 for a double headliner. Jushin
Liger & El Samurai lost the International jr. tag titles to WAR's Lance Storm & Yuji
Yasuraoka in 18:31 when Yasuraoka pinned Samurai with a german suplex. In the other
match, it was scheduled as a singles match with Genichiro Tenryu vs. Kazuo Yamazaki,
however Yamazaki was injured last week. They ended up with Yamazaki in the ring but I
guess due to his condition, it was changed to a tag match with Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka losing to Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya. After the show Liger had another doctor's
appointment to check on the aftermath of his brain operation and the doctor said that
what remained of the brain tumor was smaller than ever and gave him the okay to
continue wrestling and Liger is headed for an EMLL tour.
Michinoku Pro Wrestling is running a tour of the Republic of Zambia in February.
Dick Togo & Mens Teoh won the Michinoku Pro tag team tournament beating Super
Delfin & El Hijo del Santo in the finals on 11/10 in Fukushima.
Koji Kanemoto, who has been out of action for months with knee surgery, was at the
New Japan show on 11/4 and issued a challenge to Big Japan's Yoshihiro Tajiri for a
match on the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show.
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga and Shoji Nakamaki have a singles match upcoming under
lumberjack rules, but instead of the lumberjacks being wrestlers, they are going to be
scorpions.
UWFI appears to be running its final series of shows between now and the end of the
year. On 11/20 in Sapporo the main is Nobuhiko Takada & Masahito Kakihara vs. Yoji
Anjoh & Billy Scott; 11/23 in Sendai is Takada & Naoki Sano vs. Nikolai Gordeau &
Anjoh; 12/25 in Hakata is Takada & James Stone (ECW's Little Guido) vs. Scott & Anjoh
plus a four-man tournament with Kazushi Sakuraba, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Yoshihiro
Takayama and Kenichi Yamamoto and 12/27 at Korakuen Hall will be Takada in a
singles match against the winner of the 12/25 tournament.
Latest TV ratings were New Japan on 10/19 doing a 2.8 and All Japan on 10/27 doing a
4.1.
USWA
The 11/4 Memphis show headlined by Brian Christopher vs. Wolfie D saw the crowd pick
up to 480 paid and $2,300.
Ron & Don Harris as The Bruise Brothers as opposed to the Grimm Twins, captured the
USWA tag titles from Christopher & D at the 11/9 live television show when D refused to
tag in and Christopher finally got pinned.
At the 11/4 show, Tasha Simone won the womens title from Miss Texas due to outside
interference from Crusher Bones.
Goldust, Diesel and Razor Ramon are headed in for the weekend of 11/23.
WMC-TV has banned the use of blood on the television show.
Randy Hales and Bert Prentice started a feud with Hales acting like a five-year-old
yelling at Prentice saying that he's fat and can't catch him and ran away. Prentice said
when his 210 pounds lands on Hales he'll squash him, and announcer Jerry Lawler
started laughing when Prentice claimed to weigh only 210.
Lawler will challenge for the Unified title on television on the 11/16 show.
11/11 line-up was Flash Flanagan vs. Tony Falk, Sean Venom vs. Mike Samples in a
snake box match, Steven Dunn & Texas vs. Simone & Bones, Hales vs. Prentice,
Colorado Kid vs. Ric Hogan in a Unified title vs. USWA title unification match, Bill &
Jamie Dundee vs. Johnny Rotten & Brickhouse Brown and a rematch with Christopher
vs. D
ECW
No shows over the weekend.
Terry Funk's appearance on the 11/16 show isn't a one-time deal as the plan right now is
for him to work semi-regularly for a little while.
The idea of using Manami Toyota and the Japanese women on an ECW Arena show
doesn't appear in the cards. The only ECW Arena show in December will be on 12/7,
with them returning on the first Saturday in January. AJW finishes its current tour on
12/8 with a Sumo Hall show so there's no way the women would be available on the 12/7
date. The idea they were going to appear is because AJW is doing a fan club deal where
Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada, Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita were going to spend a
vacation with fans in New York after 12/8 and wanted the idea of them appearing live on
a show in the U.S. to be part of the vacation deal. They may work wherever ECW is that
following weekend or on a New York indie show, or not at all as I haven't heard anyone
confirm dates with them in the U.S.
The plan right now is to run debut shows in Indianapolis and perhaps Ohio the final
week of December.
The plan also is to build to a major show in February. Paul Heyman had to make a
decision by the latter part of this week whether or not to take a PPV date in February, as
to do PPV right, you need the three months lead time for the right type of promotion.
Heyman was planning on doing a Friday night if he does one and wanted to do it on a
weekend without WWF or WCW. Since the February schedule at this point shows UFC
on 2/7, WWF on 2/16 and WCW on 2/23, that would seem to indicate 2/28 as the best
date possible although the odds were as good as not that Heyman wouldn't do a PPV
that soon.
11/1 in Staten Island, NY officially drew 734 and $14,315 and 11/2 in Middletown, NY
drew approximately 910 and $17,900. Staten Island was down from $20,000 the
previous show, while Middletown was up from $14,000.
The television show this past week was basically building to the Funk return. They first
announced the main event as Tommy Dreamer & Pit Bull #2 vs. Brian Lee & Shane
Douglas. Then they ran the angle where Lee choke slammed PB2. It was actually off the
top of the ring truck through three tables, not a television production truck as the truck
had Ted Petty's (Rocco Rock) name on it. It appeared from television, because the height
of the truck was higher than the heights Dreamer had gone from, to be the most
dangerous bump of that type so far. Douglas and Lee then did interviews begging for
Dreamer to bring the old man back and the show ended with Dreamer on the cell phone
calling the Double Cross ranch.
11/22 in Webster, MA has Sandman vs. Raven for the title, Beulah & Dreamer vs.
Francine & Douglas, PB #2 vs. Lee, Eliminators vs. FBI, Mikey Whipwreck vs. Chris
Candito and Louie Spicolli vs. Taz. 11/23 in Revere, MA has Sandman vs. Raven in a dog
collar match for the title, Douglas vs. Dreamer for TV title, Gangstas vs. D-Von Dudley &
Axl Rotten for tag titles and Lee vs. Spicolli.
HERE AND THERE
Viktor Belfort Gracie is the final man in the Ultimate Ultimate tournament on 12/7 in
Birmingham. Gracie is the 20-year-old, 210-pound adopted son of Carlson Gracie Jr. We
should have the bracketing in next week's issue as it hadn't been finalized at press time.
The only information we had at press time on the 11/10 show from Sao Paolo, Brazil was
that Marco Ruas defeated Oleg Taktarov via decision in the main event, avenging his loss
in the first Ultimate Ultimate.
Ken Patera, who celebrated his 55th birthday three days earlier, wrestled on an IWA
show in Circleville, OH on 11/9.
The Dark Side (Chuck Williams & Glenn Osbourne) won the MEWF tag titles on 11/10 in
Baltimore in what was actually an eight-man tag stipulation match teaming with Boo
Bradley & Mark Shrader to beat Head Bangers (previous champs) & Axl Rotten &
Corporal Punishment. ECW wrestles Raven, Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie and Samoan
Gangstas worked the undercard.
On the AWF television show over the weekend, Bob Orton won the held up AWF title
beating Tito Santana.
Pro Wrestling International ha a show on 11/22 in Waukegan, IL at Fiesta Palace with
fans mentioning the Observer at the door getting $1 off on GA tickets.
Northern California's All Pro Wrestling is now airing on community access (not sure of
time and day) in Hayward, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Castro Valley, Fremont, Union
City, Foster City, San Jose, Campbell and Cupertino.
Pharoh Entertainment holds a Wrestlepalooza II on 11/30 in New Britain, CT at the
Sports Palace with an IPW heavyweight title tournament plus 911, Bam Bam Bigelow
and Public Enemy will appear. Mentioning the Observer gets you $1 off any seat.
WCW
Nitro on 11/11 in St. Petersburg, FL drew about 3,800 fans at $49,230 for a night of the
strange. It opened with a taped match that will air at some point in the future which will
be a second round match in the WCW womens tournament between Madusa and Zero
(Chigusa Nagayo) which Madusa won. Apparently Sonny Onno screws up and causes
Zero to lose, and after the match they have a big break-up, which made no sense 30
minutes later to the live crowd since they were back together again for the first round
tournament match on the live show. Last week we thought Zero was a name taken from
the Japanese fighter planes in World War II, but actually it's the name taken from the
percentage of Nagayo's ability that she's shown on this tour. Match was bad, as was her
later match beating Malia Hosaka. TV opened with Jeff Jarrett over Chris Benoit via DQ
in 9:05 when Sting hit the ring and gave Jarrett a reverse DDT (slop drop), which is
going to be his new winning move. Woman told Benoit to help Jarrett up because they
knew he was a WCW wrestler and that they weren't sure where Sting stood. Jarrett
showed no signs of a bad ankle, which is surprising since the previous Monday he was
really having trouble getting around and the thought was he wasn't going to be in the
ring until the PPV. They aired some clips of Dr. Jim Andrews talking about Ric Flair's
injury and said Flair would be back in about four months. Zero beat Hosaka. It would
have been hard to believe in 1986 that ten years later Nagayo would be doing this. Gene
Okerlund returned, they said from an extended vacation, handling the interviews. They
interviewed Dallas Page, when Kevin Nash and Scott Hall came out and they did a total
inside angle that had to be lost on 99% of the audience where Nash and Hall asked Page
to join the NWO. Page was mad because he was the 8th guy asked and they explained
they couldn't let him in on what was going on sooner because he lived two houses down
from Eric Bischoff (which he does). Page then got a chance to rant about what the boys
say behind his back that he gets his push because he's Bischoff's friend, talking about all
the hours he's put in at the Power Plant to improve his wrestling. Well, at least I
understood it, and it may have been the only thing on the show I understood. Rey
Misterio Jr. beat Ciclope in 5:58 of a really good match. Ciclope is the Tijuana wrestler
Halloween. I guess they thought coming out with a mask shaped like a pumpkin would
be silly. So they gave him a mask with one eye instead. Psicosis, Dean Malenko, Ultimo
Dragon and Onno all watched the match from ringside so the fans were distracted in a
variety of ways but they still appeared to get into it. Ciclope looked great. They did a
move toward the end where Ciclope was standing on the middle rope outside the ring,
Misterio Jr. climbed on his back and gave him a rana with both taking a big bump to the
floor. Dragon and Onno had seven belts with them (they left the WWF light heavyweight
belt in the dressing room for obvious reasons) although it was never explained exactly
what all the belts were nor announced he'd be wrestling Misterio Jr. on the PPV show.
Tony Schiavone said Dragon owned eight belts and had brought four of them to the ring
with him. Hall & Nash came out again building up whatever they're going to do at the
Cable Ace awards on 11/16 and basically building up that they were going to take over
the first hour of Nitro in a few weeks. Hall and Larry Zbyszko started some heat which is
the beginning of some sort of an angle to build for Zbyszko getting back in the ring
against Hall. Lex Luger beat Scott Norton with the rack in 9:20 of a pretty bad match.
French Canadiens and Harlem Heat went to a double count out in a nothing match
which ended with Col. Parker (who now manages the Canadiens) fighting with Sherri.
Very little of this match, including the finish, was ever acknowledged on TV as they were
instead showing an angle where the Nasty Boys were trying to get into the building the
security wouldn't let them in because they weren't with WCW or NWO. They were then
shown hanging out in the back with the Booty Man. This gets really weird later. Konnan
beat Chris Jericho via DQ in 5:14 when Konnan dropkicked Jericho into ref Nick Patrick,
who Jericho barely grazed, and then called for the DQ. Apparently they are going to add
a Patrick vs. Jericho match with Jericho having one hand tied behind his back to the
WW3 PPV show. Match fell apart at the finish for a variety of screwed up reasons.
Miguel Perez debuted and ended up being the star of the show pinning Juventud
Guerrera in a good action match that went 3:56, including doing a Space flying tiger
drop and and reversing Guerrera's attempt at a Frankensteiner off the guard rail into a
power bomb on the floor. Ted DiBiase then again asked Sting to join the NWO, pointing
to the fact he did the NWO a favor by beating up Jarrett. Show ended with Meng &
Barbarian over American Males. Match consisted of one mistimed spot after another
with no heat. Bagwell was supposed to cause Riggs to lose and I guess he did, but it was
done in such a way that it wasn't called on TV and nobody noticed it. Jimmy Hart then
asked Eric Bischoff if they could make the Hall & Nash vs. Nasty Boys tag title match at
WW3 into a triangle match with Meng & Barbarian. Bischoff said it was a good idea.
Problem was, the Hall & Nash vs. Nasty Boys match had never been announced publicly,
and they had just done an angle about 35 minutes earlier where the whole idea of it was
that Nasty Boys weren't in WCW. Bischoff then had to explain Nasty Boys were still
under contract to WCW. Then they aired a Roddy Piper music video from 1992 that
looked like something out of the worst 1960s beach movie ever done. It looked like
something produced by Ed Wood. They're lucky that Piper is bullet proof (in that he'll
maintain his popularity no matter what they do to him) because almost any wrestler in
the world with that horrible video that went nowhere would be dead. Can you imagine if
Michaels or Hart did something like that and they put it on WWF television. They might
as well retire. Hogan then did an interview with Liz wearing a Santa's helper outfit and
looking unhappy doing so. After the show ended, Hogan kept the title pinning Luger in a
short nothing match. Luger racked Hogan, but DiBiase, Vincent and Giant all interfered
and Giant destroyed Luger and Hogan pinned him. After that match was over, they sent
Perez and the debuting La Parka to the ring and they actually had what was described as
a very good match although virtually the entire audience walked out on them. Perez
ended up winning and reports from those there live were that Perez was the star of the
night.
Nitro ended up doing a 3.5 rating and 5.2 share as opposed to Raw doing a 2.5 rating
and 3.6 share. In the head-to-head hour, Nitro's did a 3.0, and did a 4.0 for the second
unopposed hour. Although it was still an 0.5 lead, that is the closest margin in the headto-
head hour in several weeks, which lends credence to the belief that the one hour
earlier time slot is a competitive advantage for WWF as opposed to going head-to-head
in the second hour when Nitro has had an hour jump on them. Titan is actually getting a
three minute jump by starting at 7:57 p.m. and that jump probably held to the first 15
minutes being dead even at 2.7. At that point, WCW continually grew and held a solid
lead for the rest of the show while WWF dropped for the next half hour, before getting
back to 2.7 at the finish. Nitro had one strong ratings jump (2.9 to 3.3) during the
Misterio Jr. match, and second strong jump (3.2 to 3.9) at 9 p.m. when Raw ended,
peaking at a 4.4 for the Piper video and Hogan interview. In the head-to-head hour, Raw
devastated Nitro with kids by a 66-34 margin, so the idea that parents would keep kids
from watching Raw from the gun angle actually if anything worked big-time in reverse.
When it came to teenagers, Raw dominated by a 70-30 mark, also much larger than
usual. When it came to adults, Nitro held a 61-39 edge, so the closeness of the race came
because WWF did better with kids and teens and not because they are doing better
overall with adults, although they did have a huge edge in women 18-34, a group they
usually trail in. Where Nitro beat up Raw on was Men 18-34, where it totally devastated
Raw, it had a decent edge in Men 35-54, a slight edge in Women 35-54 and a gigantic
edge in Men and Women 55+.
Other weekend numbers saw Main Event at 1.5, Saturday Night at 2.5 and Pro at 1.7.
We don't have much on the Disney tapings that took place starting 11/7 and continue
through this week. The Sting angle is going to continue for a while because on a World
Wide show taped for late December, he was in the same Marcel Marceau gimmick and
black coat and didn't do any of his moves and used the reverse DDT as a finish. Besides
Ciclope as a jobber, the only other newcomer at the taping we know of was Horace
Boulder (Hulk's nephew Mike Bollea), who wasn't a jobber and didn't look all that bad.
Since they're at Disney this week, they taped two weeks of Saturday Night on 11/5 in
Gainesville, GA before a sellout 1,400. Highlights from 11/9 saw Males screw themselves
again in losing to Psicosis & Guerrera; Steve Regal beat Jim Duggan via DQ for the tape;
Page pinned Ice Train setting up the Nick Patrick/Teddy Long argument; Canadians
beat Heat via count out when Heat was beating up Parker outside the ring; Benoit
pinned Hugh Morrus but was destroyed after the match by Sullivan, Bubba and Max.
Judging from the interviews, I guess the idea of Sullivan-Benoit is that Sullivan and
Woman had a past, but not a present and that Benoit and Woman have a present.
Malenko kept the cruiserweight belt pinning Misterio Jr. in a good match. For 11/16,
Benoit pinned Hector Guerrero; Nasty Boys did a run-in during a jobber match and beat
everyone up and challenged Hall & Nash, Malenko kept the cruiserweight belt beating
Guerrera in a match not nearly as good as it sounds, Canadiens beat Chavo Jr. & Bobby
Eaton in another match not as good as it sounds and Regal kept the TV belt beating
Psicosis.
12/8 in Winston-Salem, NC has Nasty Boys vs. Hall & Nash, Sting vs. Anderson, Jarrett
vs. Giant, Jericho vs. Syxx, Dick Slater & Mike Enos vs. Meng & Barbarian, Joe Gomez
vs. Eaton and Chavo Jr. vs. Duggan. Much of the crew will be in Germany in early
December.
The first Hogan-Piper match is pretty much now a definite for Starrcade, so I'm not sure
if that means Piper wins the Battle Royal, or the Battle Royal winner gets a shot at some
other point. The only other Starrcade matches I've heard are something with Benoit and
Sullivan, probably a tag involving Anderson and Konnan, and the finals of the womens
tournament, which will be Madusa vs. Akira Hokuto.
Public Enemy was scheduled to work an indie show on 11/2 in West Allis, WI for Mid-
American Wrestling. It wound up with WCW, which apparently had major heat over the
whole deal since the city was close to Milwaukee, putting the nix to it. Rocco was going
to have to miss the show anyway since his elbow surgery ended up being two days before
the show, but Grunge was going to team with a local guy and was told he'd be fired if he
showed up so he didn't do the show. It ended up with Frankie DeFalco & Billy Wild
wrestling as Public Enemy against Barfly Mike & Billy Joe Eaton.
Hogan was on Regis & Kathy Lee wearing an NWO t-shirt, explaining that he's the same
good guy he's always been, he just plays a renegade in wrestling so half the fans boo him
and the other half cheer him. "Santa with Muscles" is getting great reviews. Gotcha!
Actually the reviews are terrible and it died in its opening weekend.
For the week ending 10/27, all the WCW shows combined were in 5.92 million homes on
151 stations and cable. The WWF shows combined were in 3.62 million homes on 87
stations and cable. Taking out the cable, for pure syndication, WWF did an 0.3 for the
week in syndication and WCW did a 1.1
WWF
The new ECW-like television idea is tentatively called, ironically enough given the issues
of the past week, "Shotgun Saturday Night," is slated to start on 1/4. The show is still in
the formulative stages and that 1/4 date is just a target date as opposed to being etched
in stone. The idea is for it to be a live one hour show starting at midnight Saturday night
to be market specific only in the New York market, and not be a national show. The show
would be taped at a revolving series of night clubs in New York as opposed to small
arenas. The idea would be eventually to syndicate the show in more markets, but
probably on a week delay in the other markets as the cost of doing a live show every
week for syndication in that time slot wouldn't be cost effective.
No word at all on who the mystery partner will be in the Yokozuna & Savio Vega & Flash
Funk & X vs. Vader & Faarooq & Razor & Diesel match other than it won't be Ahmed
Johnson, as he's not due back until mid-December. Whomever it is will be someone who
isn't presently in the WWF. Rumors were going around about Jim Hellwig, but he's still
got a lawsuit outstanding against Titan so I can't see that happening.
From what I hear, there will be no ECW angle at Survivor Series, although eventually
some sort of an angle may take place. I heard one version of what could happen is that
WWF would name its December house shows the Holiday Hell tour, which is the name
ECW has been using for the past few years, and they'll have a pretend legal fight be the
catalyst for the angle.
The Full Metal album dropped off the charts after two weeks.
House shows this past week saw 11/4 in Halifax, Nova Scotia do 4,691 and $81,919; 11/5
in St. Johns, Newfoundland drew 3,793 and $81,909; 11/6 in Sydney, Nova Scotia drew
3,727 and $74,667; 11/7 in St. John, New Brunswick drew 3,241 and $57,717; 11/8 in
Buffalo for the first wrestling show at the Marine Midland Arena drew 7,672 and
$144,670; 11/9 in Milwaukee drew 3,103 and $49,362 and 11/10 in Cleveland drew 3,455
and $64,540. The results were basically the same as they've been the entire tour. Jesse
James went on the road for the final two dates beating Justin Bradshaw. Steve Austin
was also back on the road beating Aldo Montoya, while the Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs.
Marc Mero matches all ended with HHH Dq'd since Mr. Perfect wasn't on the road.
Madison Square Garden is nearly sold out for Survivor Series and the gate should top
$500,000.
The move of Raw to the new time slot was a decision made by USA, not WWF. While the
move is positive for WWF in the long run, WWF doesn't have the power within USA to
change its prime time schedule and in fact, USA only gave WWF about nine or ten days
notice of the change because it was doing so poorly on Mondays and decided to make a
quick change because of the November sweeps.
WWF added another point to its lawsuit against WCW this past week as on 11/7, Jeff
Katz on the WCW Hotline said something to the effect that USA gave Titan an
ultimatum to get the ratings up or Raw would be moved to midnight. Titan claims
they've never had any communication of anything of the short. WCW would best be
served until this lawsuit has settled to keep its 900 line guys from talking about WWF
because they can't help but be homers on the line, and with a pending lawsuit, all it does
is add ammunition.
Dan Kroffat will be using his real name of Phil LaFond.
Mark Henry's broken leg should keep him out of training from four to six weeks. The
injury hasn't been acknowledged on television because they still have taped angles with
Henry yet to run. Supposedly the injury will be announced during the Survivors pregame
show.
Billy Gunn vs. Bart Gunn will be on the pre-game show.
WWF officials naturally deny the figures and stipulations talked about when it comes to
any dealings with Hulk Hogan.
Rocky Maivia segments continue to be great.
As coincidence would have it, Steve Austin was on the same plane with almost the entire
WCW crew coming back from doing the angle. WCW guys came from Detroit and
connected in Cincinnati, enroute to Atlanta, where Austin lives.
TV ratings for the weekend of 11/9-10 saw Blast Off at 0.6, Live Wire at 1.2 and
Superstars at 1.7.
In his first show as commentator on Superstars, Jim Cornette told a joke about how a
burglar broke into Sable's house and she screamed "Rape" and the burglar screamed
"No." A few minutes later, Jim Ross apologized for the joke saying Titan doesn't want to
make light of domestic violence. Cornette then very sarcastically apologized saying he'd
never want to ever offend anyone, and thanked Ross for taking him off Live Wire, which
he called the "My Mother the Car" of wrestling TV shows.
Plans for 1997 when it comes to scheduling at this point are to continue the one tour
going on at a time situation with one change. This year for the most part (and there were
exceptions) when there were foreign tours going on, there were no domestic shows. The
general plan for 1997 is when there are foreign tours, to also have domestic tours. There
has been talk about running consistent "B" shows, but it's not even close to happening at
this point.
Mankind & Executioner will be put together as a tag team.
Shawn Michaels was on with Regis & Kathy Lee building up Survivors on 11/11.
The promotion for Hart-Austin as a match has topped anything in WWF since the Hart-
Michaels match.
Vader vs. Austin takes place on the 11/18 live Raw from New Haven.
TV tapings for early 1997 are Raw on 1/20 in Beaumont, TX and Superstars on 1/21 in
Baton Rouge, LA and Raw on 2/17 in Nashville and Superstars on 2/18 in Knoxville.
THE READERS PAGES
PANCRASE
The Pancrase shoot experiment seems to be coming to an end. The part of the theory I'd
like to rag on is their hypothesis that human beings can take shots including kicks to the
head like they appear to receive in worked matches, and go home unharmed. The brain
just isn't made for that. Masakatsu Funaki is a great worker and has potential to be one
of the greatest wrestling stars in Japan, but he's not, no matter what any PPV announcer
or Tadashi Tanaka says, a great shooter. All of his Pancrase matches have been either
worked or shoots against people they knew ahead of time he could beat. Bas Rutten
toyed with him and tried to spare his boss a beating by working a safe match. Once
Rutten got hurt, he lost his patience and took Funaki's head off. Funaki was finished
after the first knockdown. The ref refused to save Funaki even after his skull bounced off
the mat like a basketball. Funaki may have proven his manhood to the macho Japanese
wrestling fans, but a few more matches like that will have Funaki as brain dead as Jerry
Quarry. Putting Minoru Suzuki back in the ring was scandalous. Anyone viewing his last
few matches could see he has brain damage. He needs a retirement, at least from shoot
matches, not time off. Promoting real shoots gives you a responsibility to protect the
health of your athletes, for the good of the company if for no other reason. UFC and
Extreme Fighting do a good job of this, but I don't know if Pancrase realizes it. At this
rate, if they continue to encourage stand-up kick boxing over mat wrestling, they are
going to need a new roster of stars every nine months. We may need to send John
McCain over their to help them clean up their act.
All this being said, I thought the PPV was a great show and a thumbs up. Rutten vs.
Funaki was brutal and one of the best shoot matches ever from a spectator standpoint.
It's just stupid to let people kick you in the head.
Steve Yohe
Montebello, California
SUNSHINE WRESTLING FEDERATION
Responding to Bernie Siegel's letter in the 9/23 issue, there are a couple of points I'd like
to clarify.
The point of Siegel's original letter was to get some special recognition and a story in the
Observer because he believes he's accomplished something special with his Sunshine
Wrestling Federation. He alluded to two things, a show that drew 4,400 fans and an
article in the Wall Street Journal about his promotion attempting to raise funds to
expand nationally. I found the tone and content of his letter to be almost completely
naive to the reality of promoting pro wrestling on a national scale.
There is nothing wrong with selling wrestling shows to Indian Reservations or any other
group. My comments were in no way derogatory toward Native Americans or anyone
else. My point is there is a mammoth difference between selling a show and promoting
one. Siegel was misleading the readers by blurring that line.
In most cases, a sold show is bought and paid for by a group, organization or individual,
who in turn rents the building and sells the tickets. It is the buyer of the show who is
actually the promoter. The company selling the show is more like a producer, furnishing
a product for a fee.
I've worked with several sold shows in the area and can tell you most of these shows are
well attended. Killer Kowalski has done shows that have drawn in excess of 1,000 and
some of the local fair shows have drawn more than that. But this is not due to the lure of
wrestling or the wrestlers. It is to support an organization. The event would most likely
have drawn the same crowd if it were a dance, a pony ride or a bake sale. Wrestling is
just the event being used as a vehicle to raise funds.
Regarding the show that drew 4,400 being a free show on an Indian Reservation, I have
to admit that was wrong information. It turns out the show at the Coconut Grove
Convention Center on 7/1 was sold to bus loads of underprivileged children from local
day camps. The fee for this show netted the SWF about 25 cents per person. Hardly the
makings of a powerhouse promotion.
When Siegel and Bill Brown sell 4,400 tickets to a wrestling card solely on their
wrestlers being major attractions, that would be the time to be impressed. But to say you
promoted a show that drew 4,400 when you simply sold a show to a group that bussed
in 4,400 kids from local day camps is misleading people. Truly successful promoters do
not need to ask for special stories or recognition in wrestling newsletters.
Sheldon Goldberg
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
WCW/WWF
Oh how things stay the same despite everyone being snowed into believing they've
changed. My interest in WCW was really high for a couple of months, and I'm still
interested in the cruiserweights, culminating in the Hulk Hogan turn. Crowds go up and
ratings increase when people want to see the top heel get his ass kicked by the top
babyfaces. Of course there's room for alterations of this time honored principle as long
as they are logical.
Week after week we see Hogan and his cronies laying to waste the faces as well as the
heels for that matter. Nobody could possibly believe that anyone in WCW stands a
chance against the NWO by this point. The original concept is a solid one. The
interpromotional feud. But in typical WCW fashion, its execution has been completely
botched. Watch for the ratings to begin their descent while Titan's begin to increase.
Lance LeVine
Chokehold University
Chicago, Illinois
You should finally call attention to the revolutionary nature of Eric Bischoff's booking.
He is cleverly leading WCW into the next century by putting its primary emphasis on
dramatics and using the wrestling as putty around it. This way person work rate
becomes irrelevant the same way Cheers could lose Shelly Long and replace her with no
loss of ratings. As long as WCW vs. NWO provides great melodrama, Bischoff can kiss
off Randy Savage or any other wrestler with no damage to the audience. The
revolutionary aspect of the idea is that WCW's popularity is being generated by deemphasizing
the work itself. Vince McMahon had a similar idea but had the wrong
execution because he aimed for fantasy instead of melodrama.
S.C. Dacy
Hollywood, California
I'm really enjoying what's happening in the WWF with the Jim Ross angle and the fake
Razor and Diesel. Turnabout is fair play. The fake-shoot interviews with the disgruntled
Ross was one of the few things happening in wrestling that made me sit up and laugh.
Obviously more is to come with this and I look forward to upcoming editions of Raw.
Steve Gerber
El Toro, California
I must discuss with you the influence of the internet and the newsletters on the Monday
night ratings. Even though someone may not have access to the internet or read a
newsletter doesn't mean that they don't know what happens ahead of time on a taped
Raw. Word of mouth is the strongest form of media to wrestling fans. Most likely,
everyone who watches wrestling knows someone who can tell them the next four weeks
of WWF Raw angles. If you already know what happened, you don't want to watch. I'm
guilty of channel flipping for the same reason.
If Raw was live every week, fans would see who the superior booker in the wrestling
industry is if history doesn't make that obvious. The WWF's only hope at this point may
be to run live television every Monday. They should seize the opportunity to do a live
weekly show to take their already well-constructed angles to the next level. Then it
would be back to an even playing field. Everyone would see what Nitro truly is, a bunch
of mediocre wrestlers looking like bad actors in weekly skits. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash
have been there for months and they've had maybe three or four television and PPV
matches total. It's painfully obvious that every NWO angle is written by Hogan on the
back of a napkin on his way to Nitro.
Scott Ondreyko
Salem, Massachusetts
DM: If that logic is the case, then Raw ratings should skyrocket the week it's
on live, and they don't. If that is also the case, soap operas, dramas and sitcoms
on the networks would be done live because those scripts get out in
advance to the super hardcore fans of the show just as wrestling scripts do.
Fact is, the super hardcore fans who know the scripts ahead of time,
whether they be of network shows or of pro wrestling shows, make up such
a tiny percentage of the audience that they are statistically insignificant
when it comes to ratings points. If there are four-and-a-half to five million
wrestling television viewers on a Monday, I find it hard to believe that more
than two or three percent of them would know someone who reads a
wrestling newsletter or looks at internet posts on pro wrestling, because if
that was the case the combined number of different people who read
internet news groups and read pro wrestling newsletters would have to
come close to one million at the least. If every single person in those two
categories watched Nitro instead of Raw because they knew the results
ahead of time, which is a ridiculous assumption, it would make an 0.1
difference total in the ratings for each side. Most people who watch
wrestling on television never would think of buying a PPV, going to the
arena, or spending much of any time thinking about pro wrestling except
during the hour or two of escapist entertainment they spend watching it
each week. By being part of the so-called hardcore community, we get the
feeling that we're the average viewer, and we're not. It's not that they're
dumb and we're smart, it's that very a very tiny percentage of television
viewers actually care about the television show or pro wrestling all that
much. If they did, there would be insider newsletters for Friends and
Seinfeld that would have 20 million readers and instead of 300 people going
into a heavily publicized on television live chat with Vince McMahon after a
Raw, there should be one million people. Fact is that right now the casual
television audience is more interested in the WCW product.
Here's an interesting note I'll bet those great historians at WCW haven't thought about.
If Roddy Piper were to beat Hulk Hogan for the title, he'd become only the seventh man
in the 61-year combined history of the NWA and JCP to join the Triple Crown club,
having held the world title, U.S. title and TV title. The others are Ric Flair, Dusty
Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Sting, Barry Windham and Lex Luger. To take it one step
farther, the men on that list are all also members of the Quadruple Crown club, when
you add in the tag team titles, although Piper wouldn't be eligible for that one.
I hope for all the recent talk about wrestling history on WCW television of late, they
actually bother to dig into their own archives and show fans that there was pro wrestling
before 1984, and that wrestlers like Flair and Piper were selling out arenas before there
even was Hulk Hogan.
If they've finally figured out that their demo is an older audience that appreciates
attention to history and detail, then why not use the more than 3,000 hour video library
that's just collecting dust? Show Piper hanging Greg Valentine at the old Charlotte
Coliseum. Show the great Flair-Piper verbal confrontations. Show the feuds with Wahoo
McDaniel and the Briscos. If they can find any old TBS footage that Ole Anderson didn't
haul to the dump, maybe people would recognize that Piper did more to build Turner's
empire from the ground floor than either the Atlanta Braves or Bernard Shaw. Turner
made more money off those Slim Whitman and Ginsu knife PI's during Piper's stint on
TBS than he did for the first five years of CNN.
If they continue to push Piper and Hogan as the two kings of wrestling who become
media icons, it only solidifies Vince McMahon's assertion that Eric Bischoff is nothing
more than a hack with blank checks at his disposal. If they get it across that Piper was a
big deal in wrestling on TBS long before McMahon ever got a hold of him, it'll strengthen
the idea that WCW was the group built on tradition and also show McMahon and Hogan
didn't invent the wrestling industry.
As for the split in Mexico, let me get this straight. Konnan doesn't want to work for a
promotion that uses heel referees and has announcers who only know how to crack jokes
and get themselves over and don't call the matches? It doesn't take Alanis Morrisette to
see the irony in that one.
Richard Sullivan
Forest City, North Carolina

 

Nov. 25, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Sid wins
WWF Title, Curt Hennig no-shows WWE, Bischoff turns
heel and joins NWO, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 25 November 1996 20:37
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 25, 1996
WWF SURVIVOR SERIES POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 111 (67.7%)
Thumbs down 34 (20.7%)
In the middle 19 (11.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin 117
Sid vs. Shawn Michaels 18
WORST MATCH POLL
Faarooq's team vs. Vega's team 61
Undertaker vs. Mankind 24
Helmsley's team vs. Mero's team 14
Billy's team vs. Bart's team 12
Based on phone calls and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/19. Statistical
margin of error:+-100%
Sycle Sid captured the WWF title to headline the 1996 Survivor Series on 11/17 at
Madison Square Garden, beating Shawn Michaels in a match much better than anyone
had the right to expect. The title change builds up a Sid vs. Bret Hart title match on the
WWF's next PPV show called "It's about time" on 12/15 from West Palm Beach, FL. The
apparent plan, subject to change of course, is that Hart is going to win the title at that
show and more likely than not, the long term plan still is for Hart-Michaels at
Wrestlemania after a Royal Rumble tease where apparently they'd have Michaels, Austin
and Sid all positioned as possible winners and getting the big WM title shot.
Exactly if or when plans changed in regard to what appears to be a speeding up of the
process of getting the title to Hart is unknown. Originally, Michaels was scheduled to
lose the title at Survivors to Vader. When the plans were changed to replace Vader with
Sid, it's unknown whether the title change part of the plan went with it or if the plan was
changed during the last week, as just before the event the word out was that Sid would
win the title, then lose it to Hart. However, in WCW-like fashion, WWF ran promos for
an upcoming house show in this area on 1/10 in San Jose that must have been shot
within the past few days but started running the night after Sid had won the title, billing
Michaels vs. Mankind as the main event on that show with Michaels defending the WWF
title and Hart as challenging Hunter Hearst Helmsley for the IC title. Obviously if Hart
will be champion that night, it wouldn't be mentioned in local promos, however if
Michaels wasn't to be champion at the point the promos were going to air, one would
think they'd cut promos billing Sid's match as the title match if it had been planned
earlier than the last minute. Of course it could be the 90s deal where everything has to
be kept secret from the people working in the company, thereby the promos are screwed
up by the time they air. If Hart is going to win the title next month, it seems like rushing
a process that could be very lucrative being teased, but that has always been WWF style
when it comes to creating a superhero on top as champion dating back to the beginnings
of the promotion in the 60s, to just put the belt on him quickly rather than do a lengthy
tease before making the switch.
***********************************************************
Another change of plans regards the situation with Curt Hennig. Hennig met and agreed
to terms with Eric Bischoff late the previous week and then no-showed his scheduled
WWF television appearances on Live Wire and Superstars along with his booking for
house shows in Buffalo and Cleveland as Hunter Hearst Helmsley's second.
With the no-shows, WWF probably figured Hennig was WCW-bound and had Jerry
McDevitt send out the basic legal threats regarding tampering since Hennig was still
under contract. The WWF was under the impression that Hennig was going to debut on
the 11/11 Nitro in a Lex Luger type deal, although those in WCW insist that was never
the plan because they were aware of Hennig still having a WWF contract, and that his
debut wouldn't be until February, after his contract expires.
As the week went on, Hennig and McMahon had at least one phone conversation in
which everything apparently was settled, or at least that's what those in the WWF were
of the impression of. By late in the week the belief was that not only would Hennig
return for Superstars and the PPV, but that he would sign a new big money contract with
the WWF as a wrestler. However, when Hennig no-showed a personal appearance on
11/16 and the PPV on 11/17, the WWF realized Hennig is all but gone.
There must have been major underlying heat between Hennig and McMahon for Hennig
to not only jump, but to also burn McMahon and the WWF on two consecutive weekends
on the way out the door. The story going around is that Hennig had no interest in
returning to the ring, as he was a very short time away from a lifetime disability
settlement in his Lloyd's of London policy which would have paid him a reported
$300,000 lump sum. However, something happened, which Hennig blamed McMahon
for, which led to Lloyd's not going to pay the lump sum, which, without the lump sum,
probably lessened Hennig's reasons for not wanting to return to the ring. Lloyd's, which
no longer sells disability insurance to pro wrestlers after having to pay out to such a high
percentage of those that purchase policies during the short period they were offered.
Rick Rude, Ted DiBiase, Road Warrior Animal, Hennig and Nikita Koloff among others
all collected on policies. In the case of all but Animal and Hennig, they collected the big
lump sum for permanent disability and have never returned to the ring. When he
decided he was going to return, due to the bitterness with McMahon, he decided to
contact Bischoff and WCW. If it actually happened in this way, then Bischoff and WCW
would be less in jeopardy of a tampering charge if Hennig came to them rather than the
other way around.
***********************************************************
The latest saga of the NWO is that on the 11/18 Nitro show, Eric Bischoff turned heel
joining with the NWO. This was an idea that was rumored for a long time and may have
been considered for a while, but it was done at this time for reasons having nothing to do
with long-term plans.
It was simply that the NWO hour of Nitro will be the first hour because the theory at
WCW, and we'll certainly find out if it's correct, is that people watch the shows now
mainly for NWO. Judging from the reaction at the arenas, I'd guess it's a logical
assumption. So they wanted to put NWO head-to-head with Raw. And Eric Bischoff
wants to be on the air at the same time as Vince McMahon. It's that simple and there's
nothing more to it than that. So when the NWO hour starts, which should be in a week
or two, Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko will do that hour, and the second hour will have Tony
Schiavone (who walked off the first hour this week after an argument with Zbyszko),
Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay.
The Bischoff turn came when Roddy Piper made his Nitro debut. They had been hyping
that Piper might be there the entire show, and then Bischoff (and in hindsight doing this
was a disaster for the ratings), still playing babyface, said that Piper wouldn't be there
and it was only a rumor. The only hint of a turn was Tenay in the first hour asking why
Bischoff ever made the deal before the War Games PPV match to give the NWO a TV
show if they won. They also did a segment with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Syxx and Giant
talking with Dallas Page acting as if there was a secret they all knew and being surprised
that both Page and Giant didn't know the secret. Bischoff was in the ring apologizing for
remarks he'd made earlier as Hulk Hogan was slapping him around, when Piper showed
up and said Bischoff was a liar and made up that he was trying to sign the match when
he wasn't trying at all. Actually this wasn't spelled out, but that was what he was
supposed to say. At this point the entire NWO hit the ring and held Piper while Hogan
and Bischoff hugged. It was really weird because the fans were throwing things so police
and security hit the ring and looked like fools because the NWO guys were beating up
Piper and they did nothing. Kind of like a fight going on in the street and the cops
coming in and surrounding it but doing nothing and watching for a car to illegally park.
Piper used a dirty word on live television. At the end, though, Piper really looked old for
the first time ever in a wrestling ring as he was blown up. The angle came off good on
television, and probably could be used to answer lots of questions about why NWO was
able to do whatever it wanted, but also makes no sense in that the entire idea of the feud
was because of Bischoff's remarks and it was Bischoff who was attacked to start the feud.
Of course, they could say that was all a work. You know, a work of a work, of a work, of a
work.
Nitro won the ratings battle on 11/18 doing a 3.2 rating and 4.7 share to Raw's 2.4 rating
and 3.5 share. Nitro did a 2.8 in the head-to-head first hour and a 3.5 in the second
hour. The Nitro replay did an 0.9 rating and 3.0 share.
While the Nitro numbers had to be a disappointment for Piper's live debut, even more so
because the final quarter hour with the Hogan interviews have done huge every week
and this time with both Hogan and Piper involved it was only a 3.3, down from the peak
of 3.6 for Lex Luger and Chris Jericho's matches. Just wait until the U.S. ratings services
catch up to Japanese technology in that instead of quarter-hour breakdowns they have
minute-by-minute breakdowns. Then we'll all be driven crazy. But the Raw figure has to
be more disappointing coming the day after a major PPV show where it changed the
world title, as the number was lower than the previous week and a 2.4 figure is its
average for the year.
***********************************************************
Headlined by the title change and a classic match with Bret Hart's return against Steve
Austin, the WWF put on a strong Survivor Series before a nearly packed Madison Square
Garden (it was about 900 tickets shy of a legitimate sellout) with 18,647 fans, 16,266
paying $529,522, the second largest North American gate of 1996.
The show was part of the WWF Hall of Fame weekend, with an induction ceremony the
previous night at the Marriott Marquis Hotel. The word on the ceremony is that most
enjoyed it, particularly when Shane McMahon gave a speech about his grandfather,
although there were complaints that at $125 a head, it was a bit pricey.
The show was a success in most people's eyes, as Hart-Austin, with tremendous hype
leading up to it, lived up to expectations. By carrying through the tremendous work he's
done building the match in the ring, Austin pretty well has taken a major step in the past
two months into being a wrestler who should be on top for years. Michaels put on yet
another stellar performance carrying Sid to what may have been the best match of his
career. And the WWF attempted to immediately create new stars by putting them over
in elimination matches, in particular creating Doug Furnas & Philip LaFon (the former
Dan Kroffat now wrestling under his real name) as the top contenders for the tag team
titles, and positioning Rocky Maivia for the beginning of what hopefully will be a long
run as the group's upcoming superstar. Furnas & LaFon were left with tag champs Owen
Hart & Davey Boy Smith in their elimination match and beat them in two straight falls.
Maivia, in his match, was left with Crush and Goldust and beat them both quickly. It was
kind of opposite ends of the spectrum as far as the performance of each. Furnas &
LaFon, with eight years of All Japan, were better technically than any team in the WWF
in years with the exception of the current champions, but as babyfaces showed minimal
crowd interaction (LaFon actually is great at working the crowd and Furnas isn't bad at
it, but both are better at it playing the subtle heel role). Maivia showed a good amount of
charisma for someone lacking so much in experience, but was only put in the ring in
spots, basically to cover for his lack of experience, although there was no denying his
athletic potential. He was only in the match twice, once mainly working high spots with
Jerry Lawler, who did a great job with him, and then for the short finishing sequence
where the crowd got behind him big, but it was noticeable that he needs to be protected
rather than exposed at least until he gets more experience in the ring.
A. Jesse James (Brian James) & Aldo Montoya (P.J. Walker) & Bob Holly (Robert
Howard) & Bart Gunn (Mike Polchlopek) won the pre-game show elimination match
over Sultan (Solofa Fatu) & Justin Bradshaw (John Hawk) & Salvatore Sincere (Tom
Brandi) & Billy Gunn (Monty Sopp) in 10:46. James sung his song coming to the ring.
Billy now wears a black hat and black coat. Sultan camel clutched Montoya in 3:00 for
the first fall. Bart pinned Sincere to win the second fall in 3:55. Bradshaw pinned Holly
for the third fall in 1:40. James schoolboyed Bradshaw in the fourth fall in :11. James
pinned Sultan with a small package in :58. Billy pinned James in :15 with a Rocker
dropper. This left Bart vs. Billy, which was teased the entire match and the two had to
this point not been in with one another. The highlight was Billy calling Bart a son of a
bitch, which, considering they are supposed to be brothers, was quite a statement.
Anyway, Bart pinned Billy in :47 with a forearm smash. Nothing wrong with the match
except that being on the pre-game show with almost no hype, it came off rushed and by
positioning it also established all the participants in the match as being people not
meant to be taken seriously as stars. *1/4
1. Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon & The Godwinns (Mark Canterberry & Dennis Knight) beat
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith & Leif Cassidy (Allan Sarven) & Marty Jannetty in 20:41.
LaFon, the former Dan Kroffat, going by his real name, was billed as being from Paris,
France. The match was designed to get he and Furnas, who were billed as former Asian
tag team champions, over as the new top contenders for the tag titles. There was some
nice wrestling early, particularly when Cassidy was in. Jannetty was limping badly
having suffered some kind of a foot injury, which may have been a broken foot but
wasn't confirmed at press time. Henry Godwinn pinned Jannetty in 8:12 after the slop
drop. Hart pinned Henry in :06 after a spin kick. Smith pinned Phinneus in :46 with a
powerslam. LaFon pinned Cassidy in 4:39 with a backwards superplex where LaFon
flipped Cassidy all the way over on his face on the way down. This left the tag champs vs.
the new team with the new team winning in straight falls. LaFon pinned Smith with a
sunset flip in 3:39. On the way out, Smith clipped LaFon, so he sold for Owen for a
while. Finally he made the hot tag to Furnas who hit an overhead belly-to-belly, his
specialty dropkick and his hoist german suplex where he flips the opponent over onto his
head on the way over in 3:19. ***1/4
2. Undertaker (Mark Calaway) pinned Mankind (Michael Foley) in 14:52 after a
tombstone. Paul Bearer was in a cage above the ring. Undertaker came out with a new
ring costume, dropping from the ceiling in a ring outfit with bat wings, and with a new
haircut as well as a way to debut a new Undertaker who does more wrestling. This match
made psychological sense, but was nowhere close to the level of some of the previous
matches these two have had. Also, after doing boiler room matches and buried alive
matches where Undertaker was all but killed, it's hard to put the two guys in a regular
match and get people jazzed about it. Most of the way it was Undertaker working on
Mankind's fingers. Mankind took a backdrop over the guard railing as they were fighting
in the stands, back into the ring area. He came back with a running flip off the apron to
the floor. At one point Undertaker had Mankind by the throat for the choke slam but
Mankind got the mandible claw at the same time. Because the hands had been worked
on, the claw didn't work to its normal level of effectiveness and Undertaker was able to
hit a choke slam. Mankind came back using a foreign object but Undertaker hit the
tombstone for the win. Bearer was lowered into the ring, but before Undertaker could do
anything to him, The Executioner nailed him from behind. Taker came back and ran
Executioner off in a weak sequence. **1/4
3. Marc Mero & Rocky Maivia (Duane Johnson) & Barry Windham & Jake Roberts
(Aurelian Smith Jr.) beat Crush (Brian Adams) & Jerry Lawler & Hunter Hearst
Helmsley (Paul Levesque) & Goldust (Dustin Runnels) in 23:44. This match was
designed to make Maivia into a new sensation. Helmsley came out without a female
escort or Mr. Perfect, who went AWOL. Mero and Sable came out with new hairstyles.
Helmsley stayed away from Mero early. Maivia was given the huge push and came in
early and Lawler did a great job of carrying him. Maivia, who is 24 years old, showed a
ton of athletic potential and looks to have a chance to be what they want him to be,
which is one of the top guys in the company, but they'd better be careful and not to shove
him too fast as he's not there yet. Lawler mocked Roberts as being a drunk and Roberts
hit the DDT on him for the pin in 10:01. Goldust pinned Windham in 2:43 with the
curtain call. Windham, with a moustache, is unfortunately beginning to really resemble
his father Blackjack Mulligan facially. Even more unfortunately, he's beginning to
resemble his father's wrestling ability as well. Mero pinned Helmsley with the Merosault
(on the top rope facing the ring, jumping up and reversing the position like a
gymnast on the balanced beam and hitting a moonsault bodyblock) in 6:36. After Mero
missed his flip plancha, Crush pinned him in 1:13. Crush pinned Roberts with a heart
punch in :21. This left Crush and Goldust in with Maivia and the fans started chanting
"Rocky, Rocky." At this point, without a magician like Lawler, Maivia looked a lot more
human. Crush went to heart punch him but he moved, and Goldust got the blow. Maivia
pinned Crush with a crossbody in 2:18 and then pinned Goldust with a shoulderbreaker
to win the match in :32. **
4. Bret Hart pinned Steve Austin (Steve Williams) in 28:36 in a textbook example of how
to build a long match of the year calibre performance without doing any suicidal moves.
Austin came out to mainly cheers, although Hart's cheers were much louder and he was
clearly the crowd favorite once the match started. They started with tremendous
matwork, with Austin's stun gun being the first hot move. The first signs of brawling
came at 10:00. For the rest of the way the two went back-and-forth with big moves and
near falls turning it into a very good match. They took it to the next level when Austin
monkey flipped Hart onto the table where Hugo Savinovich and Carlos Cabrera were
doing the Spanish language broadcast. The two wound up brawling under the table while
Hugo sold it as if he was dead. Austin slammed Hart on the table and gave him an elbow
off the apron as he was laying on the table. Hart reversed things using Austin's stun gun
on him and getting a near fall with an Oklahoma side roll. After a piledriver for a near
fall by Hart, he went to the top rope but Austin caught him, crotched him and went wild
on him with punches and chops. Every chop on this show and basically any show almost
anywhere nowadays brings a "whoo!" After a top rope superplex by Austin, Hart caught
him in a cradle for a great near fall. There was super heat at this point with fans chanting
"Let's Go Hit Man." After a Stone Cold stunner, Hart became the first to kick out of the
hold. Austin went for a Texas cloverleaf but Hart made it to the ropes. Hart went for a
sharpshooter but before it was applied, Austin made the ropes. Finally Austin clamped
on the cobra, or Million Dollar Dream, but Hart climbed the turnbuckles and kicked off
and landed on top of Austin for the pin. ****1/2
5. Faarooq (Ron Simmons) & Razor Ramon (Rick Bogner) & Diesel (Glen Jacobs) &
Vader (Leon White) went to a double disqualification with Flash Funk (Charles Skaggs)
& Jimmy Snuka (James Reiher) & Yokozuna (Rodney Anoia) & Savio Vega (Juan Rivera)
in 9:48. Snuka, 53, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame the previous night, came in
as the mystery partner. Faarooq came out with a new outfit which looks a lot better,
flanked by PG-13 as his rapper sidekicks in the Nation of Domination (NOD, as a 90s
version of LOD). Snuka got no pop as the surprise partner when he came out, but got a
reaction when he tagged in for the first time. It was totally dead for Ramon & Diesel.
Funk came out with two women dancers called the Funkettes. The main thing he did was
a moonsault off the top rope to the floor on Vader, which elicited a loud "ECW" chant.
Yokozuna, who looked to weigh about 720 pounds and could barely walk without
blowing up, used a uranage on Vader and Vader landed on his shoulder and was injured
to the point he couldn't work the next night. Fans booed Diesel as he did the old Diesel
mannerisms and this wasn't heat in any kind of a positive way. Vader did a good job
protecting Snuka's legendary status by selling for him and going up for a slam for him.
Finally Diesel pinned Vega in 8:39 with a jackknife after Vader rammed his back into the
post. Snuka did the splash off the top at :49 on Ramon for the second fall. At this point
everyone hit the ring and began swinging chairs and it was ruled a double DQ at :20 and
the match was stopped. It appeared to be a rush job to end the thing as the show was
running long. Match itself was fair but the finish really sucked. *
6. Sycle Sid (Sid Eudy) captured the WWF title from Shawn Michaels (Michael
Hickenbottom) in 20:02. A couple of stories in this match. Michaels did an incredible
job carrying Sid to probably the best match in his career. He should be given a lot of
credit for professionalism because we've seen guys on the night they've had to drop the
strap really pout and be babies about it, killing their match. The other story was just how
much the crowd turned on Michaels during the match. It started with light booing early
but as the match went on, the booing was huge every time Michaels did any offense.
Michaels let it affect him visibly even if it didn't affect his performance, as he gave the
crowd dirty looks, and spit and swore at ringsiders that were booing him. This turned
into a very good match with Michaels using flying and speed moves and Sid using power
moves. They went back-and-forth with near falls toward the end, each teasing their big
moves but getting it stopped by the other. Early in the match, a camera man got in Sid's
way on a spot which built up the finish. At the end, Sid got the camera and nailed Jose
Lothario with it. Lothario took a delayed bump and began clutching his chest and the
announcers acted as if Lothario was suffering a heart attack. Michaels hit the superkick
but instead of going to pin Sid, jumped out of the ring to help Lothario. Sid finally got up
and hit Michaels with the camera as he hovered over Lothario, and threw him in the ring
and pinned him after a power bomb. Michaels crawled out of the ring and again began
hovering over Lothario, with Michaels selling the idea that what was happening with
Lothario was a lot more important than losing the title. ***3/4
It was announced that Sid would defend the title against Hart on the next PPV.
Antonio Pena of AAA was at the show.
It was announced at the show that the next card in Madison Square Garden would be on
1/25 with Bart vs. Billy, Bret vs. Vader and Sid vs. Undertaker for the WWF title.
The only negative about the show is I thought it was really tacky to have a 62-year-old
man do a fake heart attack as an angle, even though it was a way for Michaels to save
face while dropping the title. At the very least they should have gone off the air with
some sign saying that he wasn't going to die. They basically went off the air with the idea
that he might die. Granted, this is all a work and old men have heart attacks on soaps on
the time, but as the USA network said when nixing certain things out of the Pillman
angle, it purports to be too real. My feeling is an injury angle is fine, but doing something
to purport to be life threatening and then leaving the air with it made it come off as yet
another sleazy way to try and spike a television rating for the next night. On the live
Raw, they really didn't answer the question as to Lothario's condition other than tease
throughout the show that Michaels might be on when he wasn't, blaming it on Lothario's
condition which they said was possible cardiac arrest, but also said that he refused
medical attention the previous night. Since when does someone get a heart attack and
then refuse medical attention? The other bad part about it is upping the ante of
desensitizing fans, which is being upped tremendously by the week, to where even the
most drastic angle won't have much of an effect. Basically they did the gun angle, and
one week later nobody cared and the angle was basically dropped. This time they did a
fake heart attack and for the most part, nobody even cared when it was going on nor was
there any evidence of concern in the crowd either live that day or on television the next
night, partly because Lothario wasn't over and also because angles have been hotshotted
to death so that even near death doesn't make fans care anymore.
***********************************************************
ECW held the biggest card in its history on 11/16, the fourth annual "November to
Remember" at the ECW Arena. Without a doubt the show drew more interest going in,
as it sold out four hours early, which is an Arena record, packing right at 1,500 fans into
the building. I'm told it was the largest crowd legitimately ever in the place (we've heard
higher numbers bandied about in the past but I was told this really was the biggest
crowd).
ECW's good points and bad points have been beaten to death. It's noteworthy in that no
promotion of its size, probably in history, has done a better job when it comes to
marketing creative T-shirts, selling videotapes and using television to maximize its
strengths and obscure its weaknesses. It is alive, which is a feat in itself and if the truth
were to be known, one year ago at this time the odds weren't all that great that would be
the case today. And there don't appear to be any signs that it won't be alive one year
from now, or that this weekend's show was the zenith when it comes to popularity for
this company.
I left the ECW Arena with the same feeling I have at every show but one that I've
attended from the promotion. It was a good show. The wrestlers worked very hard. A lot
of thought was put into the storylines. And the wrestling itself is incredibly overrated in
some circles. It's great independent level wrestling, and that's a compliment because it's
an independent level promotion. But a few weeks back I attended a local indie show at a
gym in Hayward, CA, and I can't say there was much of a difference overall when it came
to work rate between the two shows. The guys take more risks than WWF or WCW guys
and a few of them are better, but overall the level of the work isn't at major league level.
The local indie guys worked as hard as they could, took some risks, and threw some 90s
moves. Their matches by and large built better and had more psychology. Overall, the
real green guys on the Hayward indie were worlds away from being even the worst
wrestler on the ECW show, but the guys with a little experience weren't that far off.
Robert Thompson and Steve Rizzono worked a more solid match than anything at
November to Remember with the exception of a match with a legend like Terry Funk or
a wrestler with world class potential like Chris Candito. ECW had more blood, more
broken tables, more low blows, more topes and more risks and God knows tons better
storylines. But in doing so many spots with high margins of error, I also groaned tens
times as much at the ECW Arena over missed spots than I did at the local show, and
some of those guys had only five or six matches under their belt. Granted, you'll never
see as many wild moves in any WWF or perhaps even WCW, All Japan or New Japan
match as Sabu & Rob Van Dam vs. The Eliminators, but the top guys in that promotion
will never miss as many spots as they did as well, and they'll control the crowd a lot
better.
It may have been a bad night, because it was very cold in the building, but the ECW
crowd heat wasn't there except in a few carefully designed spots. It was similar to the
FMW Onita-Pogo thing described in last week's issue. Hard chair shots. Seen that. Low
blows like crazy. Seen that. Hard chops. Whoo! Topes. Yawn. Topes where tables break.
"ECW! ECW! ECW!" Outside interference. Yawn. Women taking bumps. Yawn. Terry
Funk doing a moonsault to the floor. "ECW! ECW! ECW!" Loser leave town matches.
Yawn. Raven vs. Sandman. Yawn. The Blue World Order. Great show open. Sabu and
Taz in the same ring looking at each other. Incredible heat. Lights go out just as they
lock up. Groan (although it was the right kind of a groan in that people will pay money to
see them finally go at it).
The show started with Taz & Bill Alfonso in the ring doing an interview with Taz yelling
and swearing at Paul Heyman on the stage saying he was going to ruin his surprise and
said there would be a major show in the spring. In a speech before the show to the
wrestlers, Heyman said that he had signed a contract to do a PPV show in either March
or April although never gave a date. Later he said it wasn't definite they would do a PPV
and would have to make a final decision this week but was leaning in that direction.
1. Stevie Richards pinned David Tyler Morton Jerrico in 9:25. Richards, Blue Meanie
and Super Nova came out with a bunch of people running around with signs saying
BWO for Blue World Order. Meanie, wearing a t-shirt that said "Da Blue Guy" with fried
chicken bones instead of toothpicks in his ears, Nova was Hollywood Bob Starr (an
inside rib as it's the name of a Maryland indie wrestler) doing the Hollywood Hogan
gimmick with painted on beard and posing, while Stevie did the Diesel as "Big Daddy
Stevie." Richards said he turned down an invitation to the Cable Ace awards to come to
this "welfare office." It was hilarious. Then the match started. It was a hard crowd in that
they didn't react to any wrestling, would "Whoo" at chops and figure four teases, and
only react to low blows. So what did the guys do? Lots of low blows. By the fifth one, they
weren't getting reactions anymore either. There were "you f---ed up" chants at missed
spots. Both worked hard. It was a little sloppy in spots. Richards won after (what else?) a
low blow with a superkick. *1/4
2. Axl Rotten pinned Hack Myers in 4:25 with a double arm DDT on a chair. Mainly
chair shots. Myers juiced bit-time. The best working was after the match when Myers
was acting delirious over loss of blood. 1/4*
3. Buh Buh Ray Dudley pinned D-Von Dudley in 10:20 by throwing him in the air and
catching him on the way down in a diamond cutter. It was a hot finishing move. Chants
were "We Want Some Dick" and "Kill All Dudleys" killed the wrestlers chances of getting
any heat in the match. They traded hard chair shots. The two didn't work well together
unless they were stiffing each other with chairs. 1/2*
At this point Joel Gertner, the heel ring announcer, ran out and announced that D-Von
had won the match. He explained that before the pin, D-Von was so far ahead on points.
As Buh Buh got in Gertner's face, Gertner, who is by no means svelte, called him "fat
boy." Before Buh Buh could destroy him, Rotten hit him with a chair. Spike Dudley did a
run-in doing some well-timed moves before Rotten clotheslined him out of his boots.
Buh Buh and Spike were getting destroyed, and somewhere in all of this Sign Guy
Dudley took the most wicked chair shot of the night from D-Von. Gertner was putting
the boots to Buh Buh, which wasn't a pretty sight, before Big Dick made his requisite
save to a big pop. It wound up with Big Dick giving Gertner a moonsault, although he
didn't quite get all the way over and landed almost head first on him. Naturally that got a
huge pop. Except for Gertner's offense, the angle was really good.
4. Eliminators went to a time limit draw after two overtimes with Sabu & Van Dam in a
match where the winners were to get a title shot later in the night. It started really sloppy
with the crowd waiting for something to pop for. At 6:30, Sabu hit Kronus with a chair
and they were off to the races. Sabu did all kinds of great moves, highlighted by a triple
jump legdrop (off a chair, off the top rope, back in the ring). Probably the best part of the
first match was a seven minute segment between 8:00 and 15:00 which was great.
Saturn dove off the apron into the crowd onto Sabu. Kronus used a plancha on Van
Dam. Sabu went off a chair with a somersault legdrop on Kronus. Saturn did a tope con
hilo, ending up by clotheslining Sabu off the apron. Then in the move of the show,
Kronus did a space flying Tiger drop. Van Dam followed with a running flip dive. Sabu
went off the chair, off the ropes into a plancha. Sabu used a swinging DDT through a
table. Saturn juiced, then came back and did his elbow drop off the top rope where he
gets higher off the ropes than anyone I've ever seen. At this point, it seemed the crowd
figured out they were going to a draw. The last 3:00 saw them do near fall after near fall
with no pops for anything. Fans chanted "Three Way Dance" after the bell rang at 19:52.
Instead, Tod Gordon got in the ring and announced a 5:00 overtime which got a
surprisingly little pop. The first overtime saw the bell ring at 3:52. It was really bad,
consisting of either moves missed on purpose off the top rope, or moves missed not on
purpose. Gordon came out and announced a second 5:00 overtime. There was some
booing, but once they locked up, the crowd suddenly got into it. The second overtime
was incredible, with Sabu doing a tope, Van Dam doing a plancha, Van Dam doing a
quebrada off the guard rail, Saturn doing a high kneedrop off the top rope. With Kronus
and Van Dam on the mat, Saturn and Sabu both tried quebradas at the same time, and
wound up hitting each other in mid-air as they criss-crossed which was a great spot, and
then the bell rang at 3:11. Most people liked the match, but there were too many missed
spots, particularly Sabu seemed to be sloppy more often than not, and the time shaving
in OT came off bad, particularly in the second hot OT. ***
5. Chris Candito pinned Mikey Whipwreck with a power bomb off the top rope in 11:54.
This was the best match for pure work on the show, but the crowd wasn't into it coming
back from intermission. Candito looks more and more like Eddie Graham every day.
Whipwreck did a plancha into the crowd which got no reaction. After the match Candito
said that he was wrestling with a broken back and a broken neck, which was true, and
had spent the last two years carrying pieces of something (can't remember the word he
used, but it rhymes with hit) and put over Whipwreck. **3/4
6. The Gangstas won the three-way dance over Sabu & Van Dam and Eliminators in
8:54. Gangstas got the biggest pop coming out of anyone on the show except Funk. They
brawled all over the place in this match. Kronus and New Jack bled. Sabu tried another
tope but did so into a chair. Van Dam did another flip dive. Saturn did a plancha. Right
before the finish, Sabu had set up a table and was going to go off the chair and off the top
onto the table where Saturn and Kronus were both laying. However, he tried it twice and
both times lost his balance on the top rope. By this point it got ridiculous with the guys
having to stay on the table. They brawled and put them back on, and this time Sabu
instead went for a flip plancha, they moved, and he went through the table. Taz came out
as Sabu had Saturn beat. Sabu was distracted so Saturn and Kronus used the total
elimination to pin him in 8:47. Immediately New Jack hit Saturn with a chair and
pinned him to win the match. ***1/4
7. Next up saw Joey Styles come out and say ECW was here to say goodbye to one of the
greatest athletes ever, basically saying that just like Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Chris
Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, they were saying good-bye. Interesting that Malenko's name
got a good pop, Jericho's name didn't get much of a reaction and some boos, Benoit's
name got a huge pop as if they recognized him being a superstar who used to work here,
and Guerrero's name got only a fair reaction. Too Cold Scorpio came out and the fans
chanted "There it goes" and "You sold out." Styles said what a pleasure it was to have
Scorpio, who held the tag title and the TV title four times, for the past two-and-a-half
years, while fans chanted "sell out" at him. Scorpio then said that he wouldn't miss even
one of the fans there. That got the fans cheering him momentarily. Scorpio said that
everyone in the building knows he's going to do a job and pass the torch to the next guy
who comes out. Devon Storm came out and Scorpio said that they want him to pass the
torch to him in a match where the loser had to leave for 15 days. Scorpio then destroyed
Storm in 1:00. He actually missed the moonsault legdrop (Harlem hangover) the first
time but had enough poise to not pin Storm and do it again before the pin. Then, he
asked for a loser leaves town for one month and J.T. Smith (who fractured his jaw the
previous night) came out and Scorpio moonsaulted him for the pin in :32. Scorpio
landed on his face, on the move, but luckily Smith's bad jaw wasn't hurt worse. He then
asked for a loser leaves town for two months. Myers came out (he's actually moving to
Florida so this was his last ECW appearance) and Scorpio used the Scorpio splash on
him in 1:15. Then he asked for a loser leaves for one year and Louie Spicolli came out.
When Scorpio saw Spicolli, he asked him why he was coming and then told the crowd
that Spicolli was leaving with him because he was the mystery partner at Survivor Series
the next day. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a major miscalculation by Paul
Heyman (I thought it was a great idea when I heard it, but we all miscalculated in that
nobody in the crowd seemed to care about the mystery partner and most based on the
reaction wasn't even aware of a mystery partner). Anyway, they wrestled and Spicolli
pinned Scorpio with a Death Valley driver in 2:14 but by this point the segment was dead
and there was a surprising lack of a pop. Scorpio then stayed in the ring and said that he
wasn't leaving and nobody could make him leave. With Smith, Myers, Spicolli, Little
Guido and Storm all at ringside, they all looked like idiots as they just stood outside the
ring while Scorpio said nobody had the guts to make him leave. Taz came out and said
he settled his score with Scorpio already but told him to leave because it's his ring.
Scorpio then talked about going to the big time, bigger arenas and bigger money. Taz
said Scorpio could walk out or he'd beat him out. Scorpio basically responded saying
that he had no reason to get hurt before his big pay days and left, and Taz said, "See you
later Flash." Taz then said he's staying in the ring until Sabu came out. Well, he didn't
say it quite that politely. He then held ring announcer Bob Artese hostage in the ring
waiting for Sabu. Tod Gordon came out and Taz ended up choking him out while Artese
got away. Paul Heyman came out and began choking Bill Alfonso so Taz gave him a back
suplex and choked him out. Then the lights went out for a few seconds. When they came
back on, Sabu was in the ring with Taz and the place was going nuts. The heat grew
thunderous and just as they locked up, the lights went out again. People were furious.
Naturally when the lights came back on, both were gone. I thought it was a very clever
angle in a sense, but the lights going out like that is pretty contrived.
8. Sandman retained the ECW title pinning Raven in 15:07. This match was horrible on
every level. Richards, Meanie and Nova came out with shorts and suit jackets cut off at
the waist to do play-by-play. It started with Richards explaining that Raven was going to
show everyone wrestling, that wrestling wasn't huracanranas or Asai-moonsaults, and
that Dan Gable in his career never did a huracanrana and that Bruce Baumgartner never
did an Asai moonsault. He said Raven didn't care if the fans enjoyed the match or not.
Richards did commentary as Raven basically worked the left arm for 3:00. The
commentary didn't work. The idea didn't work. The fans didn't care about the wrestling.
Then they did their regular brawl, and it didn't work even more than the other stuff. This
match contained two of the worst spots I've ever seen. First, after a ref bump, they did a
spot where Raven held Sandman, set up a table behind him, Meanie got on the top rope
for a moonsault. Richards went to superkick Sandman, who moved, however the
superkick missed Raven by two feet. With Meanie already up top and ready to fly, Raven
had no choice but sell the missed move and falling on the table. Meanie's moonsault
grazed off both Raven and the table, making it a perfect two-for-two on the spot. Later,
as Sandman, whose comebacks were unusually bad, was about to clobber the cowering
Raven, his son Tyler got in the way. As Sandman was distracted, his wife Lori grabbed
the cane and was supposed to hit him in the head. She swung it four times, missing
badly every time. It's one thing to not be able to hit a 90 mile per hour fastball coming
from 60-feet, but a stationary 260 pound man who is one foot away? Basically time had
to stand still as Sandman waited to take the bump, and on the fifth swing, she finally hit
him. They did a lot of near falls, but got no reaction for them by this point. Nevertheless,
Sandman did get a nice pop when he scored the pin after a DDT on the guard rail. This
match was considerably worse than the Hogan-Savage match on the last WCW PPV
show. -*
9. Funk & Tommy Dreamer beat Shane Douglas & Brian Lee in 26:12. WWF missed the
boat big-time on Douglas. Not so much his work, but his ring presence as a heel is right
up there with the best guys in the business. Lee was sick with food poisoning before the
match. This was an excellent match to end the show. Lots of brawling all over the
building and even outside the building. Lots of blood. Basically this was exactly the kind
of match people come to ECW to see. Dreamer gave Francine an atomic drop which got
almost no reaction. Lee choke slammed Dreamer through a table and he sold for several
minutes as the two destroyed Funk. Finally Funk took three piledrivers, the third off the
apron through a table and he was out. Then it was time for Dreamer to go it alone.
Beulah and Francine brawled until Lee head-butted Beulah. Douglas took off her neck
brace and gave her a belly-to-belly which Beulah did a great job of getting over by
screaming before Douglas threw her. Dreamer and Funk were both juicing big-time at
this point. The juice is almost weird now after going so long watching all the other
promotions live that never use the blade, now the blade seems almost like a freak show
rather than something that for years was an accepted part of wrestling. Since the fans
here see it and it's what they come to see, it works. Douglas did a springboard crossbody
into the crowd on Dreamer and destroyed him with a chair. Funk, after being laid out all
this time, did a moonsault off the top rope to the floor on all three. Funk used a chair to
both Lee and Douglas' knee and went for the spinning toe hold. Finally Dreamer hit Lee
with a television camera (ECW did it first) and Funk DDT'd and pinned Lee. Lee &
Douglas destroyed Funk & Dreamer after the match until Pit Bull #2 came out and
cleared the ring. ***3/4
*************************************************************
The first ever octagon-cage show in Japan, largely pushed around three main events
involving pro wrestlers wasn't a great night for the wrestlers.
Of the seven pro wrestlers involved in the inaugural "The U Japan" promotion card,
which apparently was either an all-shoot card or all shoot but one match card on 11/17 at
the Tokyo Bay Ariake Coliseum, six of them came up losers. It was guaranteed that at
least one wrestler would win, and pretty much that it would be Dan Severn, since his
match was against pro wrestler Mitsuhiro Matsunaga of Big Japan Pro Wrestling.
Bam Bam Bigelow, the biggest name American style pro wrestler ever to do a high
profile shoot match in this era, lost to Kimo in 2:15 in a one-sided match which ended
the show before a crowd announced at 7,000 but closer to 5,000 in the 12,000-seat
arena with an estimated 2,000 of that being papered. Since the payoffs had to be large
considering the matches were shoots, with Bigelow's pay probably in the $70,000 to
$80,000 range, it's questionable if this was a financial success since the revenue is all
based on live gate and a later videotape release and early reports are the show lost an
estimated $227,000. However, reports we received is that fans considered it a successful
show and it was announced after the card that the group was booking the same building
for a second show in March, although others think that's far from a definite.
Bigelow was seconded by Ray Apollo, sans costume and make-up, who was in Japan on
tour with him working as Doink the Clown for the WAR promotion. Bigelow wore a
black amateur wrestling style singlet as opposed to his fireball pro wrestling ring outfit,
and was said to have been way down in weight, but still had 80 to 100 pounds on Kimo.
In some circles the show was advertised as the night the myth of the pro wrestler dies,
and this match did just that, as pro wrestling fans were shocked to see Bigelow, a longtime
veteran monster of the Japanese ring wars, get basically tackled immediately,
mounted, and punched out, getting a deep cut above his eye, before getting behind him
and choking him out in the final match on the show.
The Severn-Matsunaga match was equally one-sided. Matsunaga, at 231 pounds, despite
having an extensive karate background, wasn't thought to pose any trouble for Severn.
Because of Severn's reputation, the promotion had offered big money for a Japanese pro
wrestler to face him and all the major names contacted turned them down. After the
match, Matsunaga noted that he probably would have needed to hit Severn with a
barbed wire baseball bat before the bell to have a chance. The Japanese version of the
match to explain it to pro wrestling fans that Matsunaga did nothing that he usually does
in pro wrestling is that he had so much respect for Severn, he didn't want to use any
dirty tactics. Severn had Don Frye as his second, while Matsunaga had pro wrestler
Ichiro Yaguchi of Big Japan in his corner. Severn took Matsunaga down within five
seconds and started punching, then did a couple of suplexes and got the submission with
a wakigatamae (Fujiwara armbar) in 1:19. This may have been a worked match and if it
wasn't a work, there may have been an agreement going in that neither would punch to
the face.
The most competitive match on the show saw UWFI pro wrestler Yoji Anjoh face Sean
Alvares, a 25-year-old, 230-pound Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter. Anjoh appeared with
Nobuhiko Takada, Kazushi Sakuraba, Yoshihiro Takayama, Kenichi Yamamoto, Naoki
Sano, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Masahito Kakihara all in his corner. Anjoh took Alvares
down first and controlled him until attempting a leglock, which failed and Alvares
reversed him. The match went back-and-forth, with Alvares breaking Anjoh's nose with
a punch from the top. Anjoh managed a reversal and controlled the match until Alvares
escaped. They ended up doing a standing fight near the cage. Anjoh maintained his
position holding the cage. As the match progressed standing, Alvares was more effective
throwing punches and eventually Anjoh tapped out in 34:27.
There were two matches that matched-up UFC competitors, as Don Frye beat Mark Hall
in 5:29 with a choke and David Beneteau (replacing Gary Goodridge who pulled out of
this show to do Ultimate Ultimate) beat Patrick Smith in 2:10 when Smith tapped out
from punches from the mount. Katsumi Usuda, a pro wrestler from Battlarts, was
bloodied up and lost to Wallid Ismael of Brazil, a small Jiu-Jitsu fighter with a large
reputation in 3:10, with a choke finish. In the first two matches, Paul Varelans of UFC
beat Japanese karate fighter Shinji Katase, who has also worked for a variety of Japanese
indie pro wrestling groups including Union, Big Japan and Tokyo Pro, in 31 seconds as
he overwhelmed him with punches at the bell; and Becky Levi, the 215-pound
powerlifter who is part of Frye's team, destroyed Yoko Takahashi of the JD promotion
when Takahashi's corner threw in the towel as Levi was on top of her throwing punches
at 2:13.
TV-Asahi aired 20 minutes of highlights of the show on 11/18 on a highly rated talk
show. The newscaster was negative about the show, saying it was brutal and not sport.
This is apparently the first of the U.S. style negative reporting on this type of activity.
Although Vale Tudo events have been held in the past, because of all the blood and usage
of the octagon cage (previous Vale Tudo fights have been in boxing/wrestling rings) left
a bad taste and it wouldn't shock people if politicians got involved in attempting to ban it
as in the U.S.
***********************************************************
New Japan had an updated announcement this past week regarding the 1/4 Tokyo Dome
show. The 12-match show will consist of five main events with three title matches.
Besides the main event matches previously announced, Shinya Hashimoto vs. Riki
Choshu for the IWGP heavyweight title, Ultimo Dragon vs. Jushin Liger for the J Crown
eight titles and Shiro Koshinaka vs. Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi from WWF), there will also
be an IWGP tag team championship match which won't be announced until after a tag
title match on 12/1 where Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan defend against Kazuo
Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka. The final main event match, originally The Great Muta vs.
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga match was changed to Muta vs. Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki)
as Matsunaga won't be doing the show . Matsunaga doesn't have a contract with Big
Japan although works regularly for the group, and apparently didn't want to put Muta
over and be part of the Big Japan vs. New Japan angle. The match is much stronger in its
revised form.
Four other interpromotional matches in the New Japan vs. Big Japan feud were
announced with Chono, provided he's not part of the tag title match, taking on Big
Japan's Shoji Nakamaki in what is sure to be a horrible match. In an equally horrible
match on paper, Masa Saito, the elder statesman of New Japan at 54-years-old, faces 54-
year-old Shinya Kojika, the president of Big Japan. Tatsutoshi Goto faces and will no
doubt be the one to put over the small group wrestler as he meets Big Japan's top star
Kendo Nagasaki. In what will likely be the best of the interpromotional matches,
Shinjiro Otani faces Yoshihiro Tajiri. Although New Japan over the years has been the
masters of making money off interpromotional angles (and in destroying rival
companies in the process of those pay days), running a feud with the tiny Big Japan
group at the Tokyo Dome sounds a little ambitious, but this card will probably draw well
simply based on the tradition that the big show of the year on 1/4 at the Dome always
draws well. The other three matches will be singles matches involving Antonio Inoki and
the return of Koji Kanemoto, plus a tag match with Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi
teaming up. Weekly Fight hinted that Inoki's opponent could be Dory Funk, who
apparently has split with All Japan after 24-years with the company. Over the years
there has been talk from time to time of matching Inoki vs. Dory because their 1969
60:00 draw for the NWA title is one of the legendary matches in Japanese mat history,
but because of the political rivalry between All Japan and New Japan, it was never
possible except at one point when the groups briefly exchanged talent, to put the match
together, but the timing was never right during that short window of opportunity in
1990. That is amazing if you think about it--even the idea being floated around and
speculated about running a match based on an angle, which actually wasn't even an
angle but simply a match that has gone down in history, and that match took place more
than 27 years earlier. It will be Inoki's first match since his June Peace Festival bout in
Los Angeles. Inoki turns 54 later in January.
The card looked weak on paper when just the top matches were announced, and now
with the entire show announced, if anything, it looks worse. Choshu and Hashimoto had
a miracle of a match in August during the G-1 tournament at Sumo Hall, and they're
hoping that lightning will not only strike again at the Dome but also at the box office for
the Dome. Obviously Dragon-Liger should be a show stealer and one would have to
figure that it would be Liger's time to get the J Crown, being that Dragon is expected to
sign a deal with WCW for 1997. Keiji Muto vs. Kensuke Sasaki on a Dome show with
Muto having his working shoes on would be expected to be a stiff good match, but with
Great Muta vs. Power Warrior doing the gimmick, it's a lot more questionable.
Koshinaka will be wrestling his first match after coming back from knee surgery (he's
walking with a cane now) but his match with Shinzaki should at least be decent. But with
the exception of Otani vs. Tajiri, the Big Japan feud matches, which is the entire midcard,
look to be terrible.
************************************************************
The working idea for WCW's Starrcade on 12/29 from Nashville is to headline the show
with Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper. While this hasn't been fully decided, the last idea we'd
heard was that the first meeting would be a non-title match which Piper should win, to
set up a title match for 2/23 in San Francisco on the SuperBrawl PPV. Other working
ideas for the show are Scott Hall & Kevin Nash defending the tag team titles against
Meng & Barbarian, Ultimo Dragon defending the J Crown against Dean Malenko, Eddie
Guerrero vs. Diamond Dallas Page which apparently would be the finals of a U.S. title
tournament, Madusa vs. Akira Hokuto in the finals of the WCW womens title
tournament, Rey Misterio Jr. vs. ? (which WCW is working on being Jushin Liger or
another international star), Chris Benoit vs. Big Bubba and Lex Luger vs. The Giant.
Conceptually it's a pretty strong line-up as they've got a main event that should draw no
matter what the undercard is from a marquee standpoint, although it's probably not
going to be pretty in the ring. But the undercard, as has been the case on most recent
WCW PPV shows, looks to potentially have no less than three and as many as five great
matches.
*********************************************************
This is the final issue of the current four-issue set. If you've got a (1) on your address
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(Monday).
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/22 TO 12/22
11/22 Martial Arts Reality Superfighting PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena
(Renzo Gracie vs. Taktarov)
11/22 RINGS Osaka Castle Hall (Maeda vs. Fujiwara)
11/22 WWF Montreal Moulson Center (Michaels vs. Mankind)
11/23 WCW Baltimore Arena (Hall & Nash vs. Heat)
11/24 WCW World War III PPV Norfolk, VA Scope (Three-ring Battle Royal)
11/24 All Japan Kobe (Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace)
11/25 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Greenville, NC East Carolina University Arena
11/28 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi &
Patriot)
11/29 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada &
Taue)
12/1 New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall (Choshu & Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Hirata)
12/1 Samurai TV opening night special Tokyo Yoyogi Gym (Sasuke & Hamada & Delfin
& Hoshikawa & Yakushiji vs. Togo & Teoh & Shiryu & Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki)
12/1 All Japan Women Tokyo Korakuen Hall (tag team tournament finals)
12/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Dayton, OH Hara Arena
12/2 All Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
12/6 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Real World Tag League tournament championship
match)
12/7 UFC Ultimate Ultimate PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena (Shamrock,
Coleman, Abbott, Frye, Johnston, Goodridge, Worsham, Belfort)
12/7 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
12/7 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Anjoh & Okumura vs. Goto & Gannosuke)
12/8 All Japan Women Tokyo Sumo Hall (Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue)
12/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena
12/9 Michinoku Pro Osaka Rinkai Sports Center
12/10 New Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Chono & Tenzan vs. Road Warriors)
12/11 FMW Tokyo Komazawa Olympic Park Gym (Onita vs. Pogo)
12/13 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Takada vs. Tenryu)
12/15 WWF In Your House PPV West Palm Beach, FL Memorial Auditorium (Sid vs.
Bret Hart)
12/15 Pancrase Tokyo Budokan Hall (Funaki vs. DeLucia)
12/16 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Tampa, FL Ice Palace
12/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Pensacola, FL Civic Center
12/16 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Nagoya Nakamura Sports Center
12/17 WWF Superstars tapings Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center
12/21 RINGS Fukuoka International Center (Battle Dimension tournament semifinals)
RESULTS
11/3 El Toreo en Naucalpan (Groupo Revolucion): Antar & Neblina & Fantasy b
Hipnosis & Bombero Infernal & Viento *****, Princesa Dorada won womens Battle
Royal, Mask vs. mask: Fugitiva b Dorada (unmasked as Claudia Martinez, 24), El Sismo
& Adrian El Exotico & El Mastadante b Mr. Jack & Oriental & Revolucionario, Hair vs.
hair: El Cuervo b Tony Rivera, Ultimo Vampiro & El Mexicano b Canek & Scorpio Jr.,
Mask vs. hair: Canek b Scorpio Sr., Last man out loses mask cage match:El Vigilante lost
revealing Jesus Caballaro
11/4 Puebla (AAA): Mini Frisbee & La Parkita & Super Munequito b Mini Karis la
Momia & Espectritos I & II, Lumberjack match: Salsero & Torero & Winners b Casandro
& My Flowers & Pimpinela Escarlata, Bull Terrier match:Jerry Estrada b Heavy Metal,
Octagon & La Parka & Tinieblas Jr. b Canek & Cibernetico & Fuerza Guerrera-DQ
11/5 St. Johns, Newfoundland (WWF - 3,793): Bob Holly b Justin Bradshaw,
Sultan b Carl LeDuc, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader, WWF tag
titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, IC title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley-DQ, Armageddon match:Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Goldust & Mankind
11/5 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL):Saigoncito Dragon & Orito b Felinito &
Damiancito, Guerrero Maya & Reyes Veloz b Zumbido & Alacran, Ray Bucanero b
Atlantico, Jaguar b Lynx, Mr. Niebla b Brandon, America d Ultimatum, Brazo de Oro &
Ringo Mendoza & Olimpus b Sangre Chicana & Mano Negra & Arkangel, Atlantis &
Lizmark Jr. & Shocker b El Satanico & Black Warrior & Gran Markus Jr.-DQ
11/7 St. John, New Brunswick (WWF - 3,241): Sultan b Carl LeDuc, Bob Holly b
Justin Bradshaw, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Stretcher match: Sid b Vader, WWF tag titles:
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, IC title: Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst
Helmsley-DQ, Armageddon match:Shawn Michaels & Undertaker b Goldust & Mankind
11/9 Morgan City, LA (Universal Wrestling Federation - 535):Bill Ash b Doink,
Tim Brooks b Joey Comeaux, Samu b Highlander, Samu b War Machine & Brother Love,
Junkyard Dog DDQ One Man Gang
11/10 Sao Paolo, Brazil (Universal Vale Tudo - 1,000 sellout): Tournament:
Vernon White b Keyes Beesom, Yuri Oulianotski b Hubert Numrich, Pedro Rizzo b
Nicco, Richard Heard b Michael Tielrroy, White b Oulianotski, Rizzo b Tielrroy,
Superfight: Marco Ruas d Oleg Taktarov 30:00, Tournament finals:Rizzo b White
11/11 Memphis (USWA - 430): Flash Flanagan b Tony Falk, Snake box match: Mike
Samples b Sean Venom, Steven Dunn & Miss Texas b Crusher Bones & Tasha Simone,
Randy Hales b Bert Prentice, Unified title vs. USWA title:Colorado Kid b Ric Hogan-DQ,
Bill & Jamie Dundee b Brickhouse Brown & Johnny Rotten, Brian Christopher b Wolfie
D-COR
11/11 Omuta (FMW):Hideo Makimura & Koji Nakagawa b Mamoru Okamoto &
Hayato Nanjyo, Shark Tsuchiya b Miss Mongol, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Toryu, Crypt
Keeper & Hisakatsu Oya b Mr. Pogo & Gosaku Goshogawara, Megumi Kudo b Miwa
Sato, Hayabusa b Ricky Fuji, Head Hunters b Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Super
Leather & The Gladiator b Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura
11/11 Takaoka (All Japan women):Momoe Nakanishi b Rumi Sekiguchi, Tanny
Mouth b Nana Takahashi, Etsuko Mita & Genki Misae & Saya Endo b Reggie Bennett &
Yumi Fukawa & Yoshiko Tamura, Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada b Yuka Shiina &
Yumiko Hotta, Toshiyo Yamada b Mima Shimoda, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue &
Tomoko Watanabe b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Kumiko Maekawa
11/11 Greenville, SC (Southern Championship Wrestling - 100):Nightmare b
Terry Anderson, Desperado b Troy Clash, J.W. Steele b Cruiser Lewis-DQ, Brody Chase
& Mike Hart b Collision Inc., J.J. Justice b El Toro, Freedom Fighter b Chuck Jones,
Johnny Dollar b Enforcer (Clash), House of Pain b Collision Inc., Road Hoggs b Jones &
Anderson, Desperado & Steele DDQ Jake Mulligan & Maxx Miles, Ringlords b Jones &
Rebel, Fighter b Toro
11/12 Gunma (Michinoku Pro - 3,500 sellout):Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Naohiro
Hoshikawa, Gran Naniwa b Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask Sayama b
Shoichi Funaki & Taka Michinoku, Jinsei Shinzaki b Lenny Lane, Gran Hamada & Great
Sasuke & Super Delfin b Shiryu & Dick Togo & Mens Teoh
11/12 Yashiro (FMW): Toryu b Mamoru Okamoto, Crusher Maedomari b Miwa Sato,
Crypt Keeper & Super Leather b Hideo Makimura & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Megumi Kudo
b Miss Mongol, Mr. Pogo b Ricky Fuji, Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura b Masato
Tanaka & Gosaku Goshogawara, Street fight:Head Hunters & Hisakatsu Oya & The
Gladiator b Hayato Nanjyo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Hayabusa
11/12 Kanazawa (All Japan women):Tanny Mouth b Rumi Sekiguchi, Yuka Shiina
b Momoe Nakanishi, Toshiyo Yamada & Yoshiko Tamura & Genki Misae b Etsuko Mita
& Yumi Fukawa & Saya Endo, Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue b Mima
Shimoda & Reggie Bennett & Tomoko Watanabe, Yumiko Hotta b Kumiko Maekawa,
Kaoru Ito & Manami Toyota b Aja Kong & Rie Tamada
11/13 Kokura (FMW):Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hayato Nanjyo b Hideo Makimura &
Gosaku Goshogawara, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Ricky Fuji, Megumi Kudo b Miwa Sato, Mr.
Pogo b Toryu, Hisakatsu Oya & Super Leather & Crypt Keeper b Wing Kanemura &
Hideki Hosaka & Taka Michinoku, The Gladiator & Head Hunters b Hayabusa & Masato
Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa
11/13 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (LLPW - 1,091):Sayori Okino b Keiko Aono, Aono b
Watabe, Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori b Mizuki Endo & Michiko Omukai, Eagle
Sawai b Okino, Yasha Kurenai b Rumi Kazama, Harley Saito & Noriyo Tateno b Michiko
Nagashima & Sawai
11/13 Yoshida (All Japan women):Tanny Mouth b Nana Takahashi, Genki Misae b
Yuka Shiina, Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b Etsuko Mita & Yoshiko
Tamura & Momoe Nakanishi, Tomoko Watanabe b Saya Endo, Toshiyo Yamada &
Takako Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Kyoko
Inoue & Yumiko Hotta b Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda
11/14 Kurashiki (FMW): Ricky Fuji b Toryu, Shark Tsuchiya b Miwa Sato, Crypt
Keeper b Mamoru Okamoto, Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol, Head Hunters b Mr. Pogo &
Gosaku Goshogawara, Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka & Hayabusa b Hayato Nanjyo &
Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Street fight:The Gladiator & Hisakatsu Oya &
Super Leather b Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka & Taka Michinoku
11/14 Kameda (All Japan women):Yumi Fukawa & Nana Takahashi b Tanny Mouth
& Rumi Sekiguchi, Yoshiko Tamura b Yuka Shiina, Toshiyo Yamada & Saya Endo b
Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe, Etsuko Mita & Reggie Bennett & Kyoko Inoue b
Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda & Genki Misae, Kaoru Ito b Rie Tamada, Yumiko Hotta &
Takako Inoue b Mariko Yoshida & Manami Toyota
11/15 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 600): European jr. title: Mikey Whipwreck b
Dirt Bike Kid, Chris Candito b Spike Dudley, Rob Van Dam b David Jerrico, Axl Rotten
& Bad Crew b Rick Rage & Hack Myers & Devon Storm, D-Von Dudley b Buh Buh Ray
Dudley, Eliminators b J.T. Smith & Little Guido, ECW TV title:Shane Douglas b Louie
Spicolli, Tommy Dreamer & Sandman b Raven & Stevie Richards, Sabu b Too Cold
Scorpio
11/15 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL): Ultraman Jr. & Ultimatum b Kundra &
America, Gran Alternativa tournament finals: Emilio Charles Jr. & Rey Bucanero b
Hector Garza & Mr. Niebla, ***** Casas & Silver King & Lizmark Jr. b Apolo Dantes &
Scorpio Jr. & Bestia Salvaje, CMLL lt hwt titler. Wagner Jr. b Jushin Liger
11/15 Xochimilko (Promo Azteca - 2,700 sellout):Black Jaguar & Kamikaze b Colt
& Caballero Aguila, Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito b Jerrito Estrada & Piratita
Morgan-DQ, Dragon de Oro & Tiburon & Gitano b Andy Barrow & Ultimo Guerrera &
Ultimo Rebelde-DQ, Pantera del Ring & Zapatista & Shu El Guerrero b Super Elektra &
Super Calo & Fantasma, Cien Caras & Psicosis & Blue Panther b Konnan & Rey Misterio
Jr. & Angel Azteca-DQ
11/15 Takasago (FMW): Katsutoshi Niiyama b Gosaku Goshogawara, Crusher
Maedomari b Miss Mongol, Crypt Keeper b Hideo Makimura, Head Hunters b Ricky
Fuji & Toryu, Megumi Kudo b Miwa Sato, Taka Michinoku & Hideki Hosaka & Wing
Kanemura b Hayato Nanjyo & Koji Nakagawa & Hayabusa, Street fight:Super Leather &
The Gladiator & Hiskatsu Oya b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka & Mr. Pogo
11/15 Hazlet, NJ (Universal Superstars of America - 900):Ice Pick b Lord Zieg,
Hell Raiser b Gino Caruso, Rhino Power b A.J. Steele & L.A. Gore, Jimmy Snuka b Greg
Valentine, Booty Man b King Kong Bundy-COR, Bodyguard for Hire b Ace Darling
11/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout): Satoru Asako b
Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga &
Maunukea Mossman, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue &
Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Johnny Smith & Gary Albright b Masao Inoue & Tamon
Honda, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori, Akira Taue &
Toshiaki Kawada b Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama d
Steve Williams & Johnny Ace 30:00
11/16 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center (FMW - 1,860): Katsutoshi Niiyama b Ricky
Fuji, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari b Michiko Omukai, Wing Kanemura b
Toryu, Super Leather & Crypt Keeper b Mr. Pogo & Gosaku Goshogawara, Megumi Kudo
b Rie, The Gladiator b Hideki Hosaka, Hayabusa b Taka Michinoku, World six man
street fight tag titles:Head Hunters & Hisakatsu Oya b Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa
& Tetsuhiro Kuroda to win titles
11/16 Nagaoka (All Japan women):Momoe Nakanishi b Rumi Sekiguchi, Yoshiko
Tamura b Tanny Mouth, Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Nana Takahashi b Yumi Fukawa
& Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo, Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari b Etsuko Mita & Genki
Misae, Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda b Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada, Aja Kong &
Takako Inoue & Kumiko Maekawa b Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko
Watanabe
11/16 Osaka (JD - 460 sellout):Bloody Phoenix b Sagabe, Neftaly b Abe & Koyama,
Yuki Lee b Princesa Blanca, Esther & Alda Moreno b Yuko Kosugi & Jaguar Yokota,
Phoenix & Cooga b Chikako Shiratori & Lioness Asuka
11/16 Sendai (Gaea):Bomber Hikaru b Sakura Hirota, Chihiro Nakano & Makie
Numao b Rimi Ishii & Toshie Uematsu, Akira Hokuto b Meiko Satomura, Mayumi Ozaki
& Sugar Sato b Chikayo Nagashima & Rieko Amano, Chigusa Nagayo b Sonoko Kato
11/16 Pensacola, FL (Ind - 600):Carolina Kid d Ron Davies, Lord Humongous b
Punisher, Carolina Kid & Don DiBiase b Al Savage & Davies, Ken Lucas b Marcel
Pringle, Rock & Roll Express b Scott & Steve Armstrong, Scott Armstrong won Battle
Royal
11/16 Blackwood, NJ (NWA - 350): NWA tag titles: Twiggy Ramirez & Adrian Hall b
Bad Attitude, Bro East L.A. b Julio Sanchez, Jimmy Shoulders DCOR Jason Knight,
Inferno Kid b Mr. Puerto Rico, Rik Ratchett b Don Montoya, Lost Boys b Harley Lewis &
Derrick Domino, Patch b Gus the Greek, NA title:Reckless Youth (Tom Carter) b Ace
Darling, Doink the Clown b Rocco Dorsey
11/16 Cleveland, OH (Cleveland All Pro Wrestling - 287):Johnny Walker b
Breyer Wellington, Denny Kass b Pierre Francois, Bad Blood b Doug & Dan Hannon,
Kodiak (Scott Stone) b Brian Fury, T.C. Reynolds b Preston Steele, J.T. Lightning b Iraqi
Assassin, Ian Rotten b Mad Man Pondo
11/16 Warren, MI (Championship Wrestling Federation - 359):Johnny
Paradise b El Diablo Rojo, Bobby & Woody Lee NC Mike Kelly & Rock Stevens,
Knighthawk b Death Dealer, Tommy Starr b Killer Kanareck, Larry Brun b Annihilator,
Bobby Clancy b Otis Apollo, Cold Brothers b Keith Calhoun & Brad Johnson, Ricco
Rodrigues b Steve Nixon, Calavera Cortez b Skull Ganz
11/17 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout):Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b
Kentaro Shiga, Masao Inoue & Mighty Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Satoru Asako,
Masa Fuchi & Haruka Eigen b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Yoshinari Ogawa &
Tamon Honda & Giant Baba b Maunukea Mossman & Gary Albright & Johnny Smith,
Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori, Jun Izumida & Giant
Kimala II b Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b Akira
Taue & Toshiaki Kawada
11/18 New Haven, CT (WWF Monday Night Raw tapings - 4,968): Glen Ruth b
Brian Walsh, Billy Gunn b Marc Mero-DQ, Executioner b Freddy Joe Floyd, Justin
Bradshaw b Jesse James, Scott Taylor b Nick Barberi, Mero b Billy Gunn-DQ, Steve
Austin b Mankind-DQ, Faarooq b Savio Vega, Doug Furnas & Philip LaFon b Leif
Cassidy & Bob Holly, Rocky Maivia b Salvatore Sincere, Flash Funk b Goon, Diesel b
Phinneus Godwinn, Mero & Jake Roberts b Hunter Hearst Helmsley & Billy Gunn,
Goldust b Bart Gunn, Bret Hart b Owen Hart-DQ, Sid b Helmsley-COR, James b
Bradshaw, Undertaker b Mankind, WWF title:Sid b Vader, Shawn Michaels b Austin
11/18 Florence, SC (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 4,164 sellout): High Voltage
NC Galaxy (Damian 666) & Ciclope (Halloween), La Parka b Juventud Guerrera ***1/2,
WCW cruiserweight title:Ultimo Dragon b Dean Malenko-DQ **, Amazing French
Canadians b American Males 3/4*, Lex Luger b Hugh Morrus *1/4, Chris Jericho b
Johnny Grunge *, Jeff Jarrett b Bobby Eaton DUD, Big Bubba b Jim Powers DUD, Chris
Benoit b Eddie Guerrero ***3/4
11/18 Fuji (All Japan - 3,200 sellout):Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako, Giant Baba &
Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Gary
Albright b Tamon Honda, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Giant Kimala II & Jun
Izumida, Stan Hansen & Takao Omori b Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue, Mitsuharu
Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Maunukea Mossman b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace &
Johnny Smith
Special thanks to:Jeff Osborne, Dominick Valenti, Jerry Bohlander, Gregg John, Adam
Pennison, Bobby Baum, Georgiann Makropolous, Dominick Valenti, Chuck Langerman,
James Haase, Tim Harshamnn, Travis Edgeworth, Kurt Schneider, Fay Ferguson, Dan
Parris, Danny Deese, Dan Curtis, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Sarah Moore, D.C. Chambers,
Jesse Money
EMLL
Jushin Liger, billed simply as "Lyger," had a one week tour with this promotion. On
11/12 at Arena Coliseo, he won a triangle match for the Arena Coliseo trophy over Dandy
and Emilio Charles Jr. The rules were the match continued until one wrestler had beaten
each of the other two. Liger beat Dandy via submission, then Charles beat Dandy via
submission leaving Liger vs. Charles and Liger scored the pin. However, on 11/15 at
Arena Mexico, he lost in a CMLL light heavyweight title match to Dr. Wagner Jr. The
match was said to have been great with one near fall after another by Liger before finally
doing the job, however the house was poor. Liger's other major Mexico City match was
on 11/16 at Pista Arena Revolucion teaming with Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Dos Caras against
Gran Markus Jr. & El Satanico & Scorpio Sr.
They also had a one-night Gran Alternativa tournament in which a star teams with a
younger wrestler on 11/15 at Arena Mexico where Charles Jr. & Rey Bucanero winning in
the finals over Hector Garza & Mr. Niebla in what was apparently also a great match.
11/22 at Arena Mexico has ***** Casas & Garza & Dandy vs. Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr.
& Felino as the main and Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Lizmark Jr. & Silver King vs. Charles Jr.
& Bucanero & Satanico.
El Hijo del Santo is touring Panama.
On a show in Texcoco, a fan in the crowd pulled out a gun and shot local wrestlers Latin
Boy and his brother Furia Latina, 26, the latter of whom was killed.
Promo Azteca
Konnan's first major show on 11/15 in Xochimilko had both its ups and its downs. The
show, which was a television taping, drew a sellout 2,700 with Cien Caras & Psicosis &
Blue Panther beating Konnan & Rey Misterio Jr. & Angel Azteca via DQ when Konnan
hit the referee. Blue Panther replaced the announced Felino on the rudo side. As
reported here last week, Felino is staying with EMLL, which also means that Felino
won't be going to WCW where he was scheduled to debut as one of the 60 men in the
Battle Royal at World War III. Pierroth Jr. was scheduled to show up as a surprise,
however Antonio Pena talked him into staying with AAA and he wasn't there, although
nobody knew he was supposed to be there. Juventud Guerrera also no-showed as he was
in the United States working the WCW Orlando tapings. However, in a major coup, La
Parka is with this group having left AAA. Konnan's television show, which would be a
break-off of the regular promotion, is supposed to start in January and it may run headto-
head on Sunday mornings with the AAA show on Televisa.
Biggest show of the week is 11/22 in Cuautitlan with Konnan & Tarzan Boy & Zorro vs.
Pantera del Ring (formerly Panterita del Ring) & Panther & Pirata Morgan on top plus
Rey Misterio Jr. in the semi.
AAA
After losing La Parka, Antonio Pena convinced Pierroth Jr., his top heel, Mini Frisbee
and Gran Apaches, all of whom Konnan was after, to stay. Pena also made a big offer to
Vampiro. Some of his leverage in keeping the wrestlers is the promise he can get them
work in the WWF, and since there is very little knowledge in Mexico of what actually
goes on in the United States and the WWF name has a history, the belief from most of
the Mexican wrestlers is that working for the WWF is a bigger deal than working for
WCW. Pena's own magazine, Super Luchas, this week reported Pierroth Jr. and Fuerza
Guerrera would both be in the WWF Royal Rumble. Pena legitimately had a meeting
with Vince McMahon on 11/13 in Connecticut, and came back for Survivor Series trying
to put together a deal where he could get WWF talent for major shows and where he
could get his own talent some WWF payoffs for working in the U.S. The weakness of the
deal, and WWF itself, with most of the higher ups having no knowledge whatsoever
about wrestling outside its little world, is that AAA right now has very few wrestlers who
could mean something in the U.S. The only ones I can think of would be Jerry Estrada,
who is a great worker that they wouldn't know how to use and couldn't be pushed, Heavy
Metal, who is talented but inconsistent, and Villano IV, who can work but would lack
color in the U.S. They've also got guys like Perro Aguayo Jr., Venum and Mosco de la
Merced who are going to be great in a couple of years, but aren't ready yet.
Pena, besides signing Canek, also signed this past week Tinieblas Sr., the 57-year-old
former movie star, Jaque Mate and Masakre.
AAA's biggest shows of the past week were on 11/15 in Tijuana and 11/16 in Mexicali. The
report we got from Tijuana is that the show drew 3,000 fans as Canek (replacing Parka)
& Payasos faced Pierroth & Fishman & Killer and someone else (scheduled as Damian
but he no-showed working WCW instead) and Aguayo Jr. & Pantera & Leon ***** vs.
Estrada & Mosco & Fobia. In Mexicali the next night, Pena debuted a new wrestler called
La Parka Jr.
The new wrestler Flying isn't Venum. Not sure who he is.
Ultimo Dragon is definitely through with AAA.
They interviewed Pentagon on television, whose career was thought to be over after
suffering a cocaine induced respiratory failure incident in the ring. He hasn't put all his
weight back but looks much better than one year ago, when his weight was said to be like
90 pounds, and talked about possibly returning to the ring.
Pena's former minis, Mascarita Sagrada, Octagoncito, Jerrito Estrada and Fuercita
Guerrera filed a suit against him for a number of items including back pay and
merchandise money and the hearing will take place on 11/22.
The story behind Parka's leaving is that Pena suggested he turn back heel and form a trio
with Damian (who as it turned out also left) and Crazy 33 from Juarez, and feud with
Octagon. Parka never actually quit, he just no-showed all his bookings ala Curt Hennig
and showed up at Disney on the weekend of 11/9, going AWOL. When Pena called his
house to find out, Parka's wife was told to say that they had a big fight and that Parka
had left and she didn't know where he was, instead of telling him he was in Florida for
WCW. That's when Pena immediately got out the news that Parka was booked for Royal
Rumble, figuring if he heard about it watching television or reading the papers, that if he
was thinking of leaving, it would convince him to stay.
Because of all the problems losing the WCW affiliation and so many wrestlers, the
planned 11/29 international spectacular with New Japan, WAR (which would have been
involved because of Dragon, who also quit) and WCW was scrapped. They are now
planning a major show for mid-December, site unannounced, which would be an eightman
tournament in which the loser of each match continues wrestling and the ultimate
loser loses his hair, with Latin Lover, Heavy Metal, Jerry Estrada, Crazy Boy 33, Perro
Silva, Javier Cruz, Aguayo Jr. and X.
Ricardo Bautista of AAA sent a letter to another newsletter ripping Konnan for what he
thought Konnan was saying about Pena in the U.S. The letter was kind of strange, in that
Pena denied that he was a drug dealer (as best I can tell, no such charge was ever made)
and said Konnan is doing a rouse to destroy his character and hurt his business
opportunities in the U.S. He claimed Konnan went behind Pena's back to make deals
and sign contracts with WCW without Pena's permission.
Galavision ratings in the U.S. for the last quarter were the Saturday show did a 1.3 and
the Monday night Lucha Lunes did an 0.6. The Saturday number was about half of what
it was three years ago. My feeling is Galavision killed itself when it comes to ratings
when it switched from being all-AAA to being part AAA and part EMLL, not because
EMLL is bad (it was for a long time but has been a lot better of late), but because it
confuses the marketplace.
ALL JAPAN
The tag team tournament opened on 11/16 at Korakuen Hall, and after three days, there
have already been some major surprises to shake things up and the official introduction
of Hiroshi Hase as the newest member of the promotion. In probably the single biggest
upset in the 20-year history of the tag team tournament and possibly the history of the
promotion, on 11/17, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun
Akiyama at Korakuen Hall when Izumida pinned Akiyama in 15:49. In a minor surprise
in the main event of the same show, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi beat Akira Taue &
Toshiaki Kawada when Patriot scored his first pinfall ever on Kawada with a power
bomb in 23:30. Taue & Kawada suffered their second loss on 11/18 in Fuji, in another
upset against Stan Hansen & Takao Omori when Hansen used a right arm lariat (his
specialty is the left arm lariat) to pin Taue in 13:28. There were no surprises on opening
night at Korakuen Hall as Kobashi & Patriot beat Hansen & Omori, Taue & Kawada beat
Izumida & Kimala II and Misawa & Akiyama went to a 30:00 draw against Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace.
Hase was brought to the ring by Baba on the 11/16 Korakuen Hall show, which aired on
television the next night. Hase said that he considers himself a rookie wrestler in All
Japan and would debut on 1/2 at Korakuen Hall. It is believed in between his duties in
the senate that Hase will wrestle maybe 10 matches next year for All Japan. He admitted
that because of his layoff in the senate that he was in the worst condition of his life and
needs to train hard to get ready to get back into the ring.
Standings as of 11/18 were:Kobashi & Patriot 3-0, Williams & Ace 1-0-1, Hansen &
Omori 1-2, Taue & Kawada 1-2, Izumida & Kimala II 1-2, Misawa & Akiyama 0-1-1 while
the team of Gary Albright & Sabu opens tournament competition on 11/20.
The 11/3 television show did a 1.5 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The next tour beings 11/20 in Soka with Riki Choshu & Keiji Muto & Takashi Iizuka vs.
Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito and Hawk & Power & Animal Warrior
vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima as the headline matches.
There are two majors on the tour. On 12/1 at Nagoya Rainbow Hall, Choshu & Kensuke
Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Junji Hirata, Chono & Tenzan defend the IWGP tag titles
against Kazuo Yamazaki & Iizuka, Muto & Osamu Nishimura vs. Tatsumi Fujinami &
Akira Nogami, Road Warriors vs. Nakanishi & Kojima and Jushin Liger vs. Brad
Armstrong.
12/10 at Osaka Furitsu Gym has Road Warriors vs. Chono & Tenzan, Sasaki vs. Kojima,
Hashimoto vs. Nakanishi, Fujinami vs. Armstrong, Muto & Liger vs. Hirata & Shinjiro
Otani and Choshu & Yuji Nagata vs. Yamazaki & Iizuka.
Chris Jericho should be starting here as a regular in 1997.
10/26 television show did a 2.4 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
The 12/15 Fukuoka Dome show, which was really a New Japan promotion and was being
negotiated about being put on a delayed basis on PPV in the United States, was officially
canceled due to lack of ticket sales. Without Ken Shamrock involved, it definitely
lessened WCW's interest in doing a PPV of the show, and even with him, tickets weren't
moving as there was no match worthy of a Dome main event when it came to ticket
buying interest on the show.
Pancrase and Ken Shamrock are trying to have a meeting to settle their problems in the
United States. Pancrase suggested a meeting on 11/28, but that was Thanksgiving day
and Shamrock wanted it on another day. Pancrase is trying to get Frank Shamrock back
for the 12/15 Budokan Hall show and right at press time we've received info that this will
probably happen. Where things stand right now is that Ken was Frank's manager and
Pancrase won't deal with Ken, so Frank picked Bob Shamrock as his manager and they
sent a letter saying they wouldn't deal with Bob either and suggested Guy Mezger be his
manager. There is also a money dispute with Frank in that Pancrase, due to the dispute
with Ken, hasn't paid him since the dispute and he's under a salaried contract with the
group.
Speaking of Pancrase, Bas Rutten's wife had a baby girl on 11/6. His wife was due several
weeks later which is why he didn't want to fight on the 12/15 show and he won't fight
until 1997. I guess there is some unhappiness from Rutten about being stripped of the
title over this.
Another Pancrase fighter, Semmy Schiltt of Holland, won a major karate tournament in
Tokyo on 11/16 called the Hokuto Flag Karate tournament. It's a mixed martial arts
event that is primarily standing, but ground fighting is also legal but after 15 seconds
they stand the fighters up. Submissions are legal in this event. Schiltt, who went to the
semifinals last year, went 6-0 and used a choke finish to win several of his matches.
The line-up for Antonio Inoki's 12/1 show in Tokyo which is the live opening night prime
time debut of the Samurai TV cable network, has this strange line-up. On top will be a
ten-man Michinoku tag with Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Naohiro
Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji vs. Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku
& Shoichi Funaki, which no doubt will be a classic match, plus Ultimo Dragon defends
the J Crown against Gran Naniwa, Koji Kitao vs. Mabel (yet another classic), Tiger Mask
Sayama vs. Masaaki Mochizuki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Shinichi Nakano, Wilhelm Ruska
(a 55-year-old former Olympic judo gold medalist that was a famous 70s rival of Inoki),
vs. Yuki Ishikawa, a Battlarts tag match with Carl Greco & Katsumi Usuda vs. Daisuke
Ikeda & Takeshi Ono, Ryushi Murakami (the guy who beat Bart Vale on the last EFC) vs.
a kick boxer and another kick boxing match.
The newest incarnation of Tokyo Pro Wrestling has major shows on 12/4 in Nagoya (Yoji
Anjoh & Masao Orihara vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Shocker from EMLL and Great
Kabuki vs. Too Cold Scorpio) and 12/7 at Sumo Hall (Anjoh & Shigeo Okumura vs.
Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke, Takashi Ishikawa & Kabuki & Daikokubo Benkei vs.
Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado).
Koji Kitao vs. John Tenta in a singles match was added to the WAR Sumo Hall show on
12/13 with the Tenryu vs. Takada main event. This match actually has weird significance
because many years ago these two had a singles match booked and it was among the
worst matches of all-time (with those two I bet that's a shock). But the circumstances
made it newsworthy in that apparently Kabuki was mad at Kitao because of his attitude
and told Tenta, who had a rep as being one of the toughest men in wrestling at the time,
to make a fool of Kitao. Not to mention that Kitao was made also because they wanted
him to do a job for Tenta and since Kitao was a superstar in sumo and Tenta was an
opening match guy in sumo (both were famous in sumo, Tenta for being a foreigner and
Kitao for being the top star in his era), Kitao wouldn't do it. Tenta simply stood there
and wouldn't cooperate and Kitao didn't know what to do and basically nothing
happened. After the match Kitao was so mad he got on the house mic and said that pro
wrestling was fake (they immediately cut off the power on his mic) and was fired by the
old SWS promotion. On that same show, Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka defend the
International jr. tag titles against Tiger Mask Sayama & X.
Michinoku Pro drew a sellout 3,500 to Gunma on 11/12 for a card to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the pro debut of Hamada. Hamada teamed with Sasuke & Delfin to beat
Shiryu & Teoh & Togo in the main event. The other top match saw the current Tiger
Mask team with mentor Sayama to beat Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki, who are the top
indie tag team in Japan. Shiro Koshinaka, walking with a cane, attended the show to
"scout" Jinsei Shinzaki for their Dome match. Koshinaka and Tatsutoshi Goto also
attended the 11/18 Big Japan card to "scout" Kendo Nagasaki.
FMW ended its tour on 11/16 in Osaka before 1,850 fans as Hisakatsu Oya & Head
Hunters won the World six man street fight belts from Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa
& Tetsuhiro Kuroda. They did an angle after the match where Hayabusa & Mr. Pogo did
a run-in as the heels kept beating on the faces afterwards, and the Hunters destroyed
Pogo who was supposedly injured and sent back to the hospital. The idea is that Pogo is
too hurt to wrestle Atsushi Onita. I've got a feeling the whole deal is to set up Onita &
Pogo as a tag team against the Hunters on the big show 12/11 but that hasn't been
announced yet. Onita wasn't at the 11/16 show, but did attend the 11/15 show in
Takasago saying he didn't want to team with Pogo but wrestle him. 12/11 will be Pogo's
final match. He's retiring both because of injuries, a bad heart and because he's about to
get married. Shinobu Kandori of LLPW appeared at the show and they announced she
would face Megumi Kudo on the big FMW show on 12/11 in Tokyo.
USWA
Jerry Lawler captured the Unified title from Colorado Kid on the 11/16 television show
in Memphis. The title change makes no sense since Lawler never works house show in
Memphis anymore. The finish saw both Randy Hales and Bert Prentice get involved, and
as the referee was distracted, Lawler used an illegal piledriver. At this point, PG-13 will
be working three out of every four Mondays in Memphis as they are only scheduled to do
TV tapings and PPV shows for WWF and not go on the road with WWF.
Doug Gilbert may return as a babyface to team with Brian Christopher since the territory
has no faces, although that isn't a definite. Since Gilbert isn't around, Christopher's tag
partner was Johnny Rotten.
The 11/11 show drew 430 fans and $2,184 which is pretty much in line as to what they've
been doing of late. In the match to unify the Unified belt with the USWA belt, it wound
up with Ric Hogan getting DQ'd against Colorado Kid so each kept their respective title.
11/18 in Memphis has Crusher Bones vs. Brickhouse Brown, Bobby Bolton (a Michael
Bolton lookalike said to be from the Northwest) vs. Tony Falk, Sean Venom vs. Mike
Samples in a snake box match, Hales vs. Prentice in a lumberjack match, Bruise
Brothers defending USWA tag titles against Steven Dunn & Flash Flanagan, Hogan vs.
Christopher for USWA title, Colorado Kid vs. Bill Dundee and Rotten & Christopher vs.
Bruise Brothers.
ECW
Besides the November to Remember, the other show of the weekend was 11/15 in
Plymouth Meeting, PA drawing 600 fans for what pretty much everyone was saying was
a subpar show. It may have been the last show in the building as well, because of new
management of the building. It wasn't a problem with content of the wrestling or that
the shows weren't profitable for the building, but that the new owner of the building,
which is a temple, simply didn't want wrestling of any kind there.
In regard to the cross angle, Scott Levy said that he didn't think he should apologize and
the fuss over it was silly because it was wrestling, but that since he is Jewish, Paul
Heyman is Jewish and Tod Gordon is Jewish, that he could understand why apologizing
may have been the thing to do. Heyman said that Kurt Angle was offended and probably
felt like he was double-crossed. He said Angle's reaction was part of the reason they
apologized but it was not the primary reason.
HERE AND THERE
Some notes on the Reality Superfighting PPV on 11/22. The Oleg Taktarov vs. Renzo
Gracie match will have a 20:00 time limit, which means there is a very good chance it'll
end in a draw since I don't believe they are having judges decisions. I guess the reality of
satellite time killed the idea of putting the two in with no time limit. You've probably all
seen the TV commercials, which were very well done, for this event as they've advertised
like crazy on Raw and Nitro the past several weeks. It's the biggest budgeted event, but
the reality is that they'll need an 0.7 buy rate just to break even and the reality of the
genre is that isn't going to happen.
A correction from last week's issue regarding the 11/10 match in Sao Paolo, Brazil
between Marco Ruas and Taktarov. We reported that Ruas won the decision, but there
were no judges involved and the match was ruled a 30:00 draw. By all accounts, had
there been a decision, Ruas would have won the match as it was all stand-up fighting
with Ruas, being the better boxer and kicker, winning most of the exchanges. Neither
man was hurt badly, although Taktarov bled heavily from a small cut. Both had
contractually agreed that leg kicks would be banned in the fight, however both ignored
that agreement. Ruas broke his left hand which was swollen huge by the end of the fight.
Taktarov's right hand was swollen like a club, and may have been broken as well, which
says something since he's got a fight 12 days later. With about 20 seconds left, Taktarov
finally took Ruas down but time expired before he could get Ruas in trouble. The match
was in a boxing ring and no gloves were allowed. Pancrase's Vernon White participated
in the tournament on the same card, winning his first match with a heel hook and
second match with a knockout. In the finals, he fought Pedro Rizzo, who is Ruas' top
student. The match went about 8:00 before Rizzo knocked White out basically by
stomping on his head. Rizzo had won a Vale Tudo tournament in Amsterdam, Holland
on 10/26 as well.
Former UWFI wrestler and EFC competitor Steve Nelson is promoting shows in
Amarillo that are apparently drawing huge houses for indies. The reports we've heard,
unconfirmed, are that he's drawn 2,500 and 4,500 for his two recent shows, with Dan
Severn headlining the latter show. The shows are either shoots or UWFI style,
depending upon who you talk with, although by all accounts, Severn's match was UWFI
style pro wrestling. Terry Funk was really upset about the way the shows have been
promoted because Nelson is promoting them locally by saying that his matches are real
while pro wrestling is fake.
The next EFC PPV show is tentative for 3/7 from either Tulsa or Oklahoma City.
John Tatum showed up on an indie show on 11/16 in Pensacola. Apparently Tatum is
running the building the show was at and got involved in a Battle Royal finish. Tatum
now hair short hair and nobody knew who he was.
Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam and Salvatore Sincere vs. Greg Valentine is the dual headliner on
12/26 in Gastonia, NC. For more info call 910-306-1952.
Danny Hodge, at the age of 62, showed up at a University of Oklahoma event over the
weekend and showed everyone he's still got the superhuman grip by crushing an apple.
Bill Prince is running a show billed as Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling on 12/14 in
Rockingham, NC with The Eagle (Jackie Fulton) vs. Iron Sheik on top. Wonder if that
name is still owned by Jim Crockett?
Ch. 7 in New York did a story on breast implants this past week and interviewed Missy
Hyatt.
UFC
The bracketing for 12/7 isn't official at press time, as it's gone back-and-forth throughout
the past several days. The working idea on 11/19, and this changed several times during
the week, is to open with Mark Coleman (5-0) vs. Viktor Belfort Gracie (0-0), who will
be billed on television as Viktor Belfort without the Gracie. However Carlson Gracie has
agreed to endorse him as his group's representative and the top Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
fighter in the world. The other first round match-ups are Tank Abbott (4-3) vs. Cal
Worsham (1-1), Ken Shamrock (5-2-2) vs. Brian Johnston (2-2) and Don Frye (6-1) vs.
Gary Goodridge (3-3). So the original idea of putting Shamrock and Abbott in one
bracket and Frye and Coleman in the other has been changed, largely because Frye and
Coleman have become friends (aside from wrestling, they have something in common in
that they both hate Richard Hamilton, their former trainer) and said that they didn't
want to fight each other unless it was necessary in the finals. This put the bracketing in
bad shape since Shamrock insisted on fighting Abbott in the second round because his
interview was a shoot and there are personal reasons involved in a grudge match
between the two. You know what's great about UFC as compared to pro wrestling. Pro
wrestling creates grudge matches when reasons aren't there. UFC has reasons for real
grudge matches but the public never knows about them. Theoretically this should put
Coleman vs. Abbott and Shamrock vs. Frye as the semis, but of course, you never know.
The bracketing appears to give the edge to Coleman as far as being a favorite. While he's
never faced a submission fighter, in a short time limit match, he has to be favored over
Belfort Gracie and if he wins, he probably won't take a beating in the process. Belfort
Gracie's first no rules fight was on 10/11 in Honolulu beating John Hess, who is 6-8,
290, in 14 seconds. Both Rickson and Relson Gracie have had negative things to say
about him being billed as a Gracie, although that is his legitimate last name since
Carlson adopted him legally. Abbott was given on paper the easiest first round foe, but
Coleman should have no trouble with Abbott. Shamrock has probably the toughest first
round foe, and while he should win, he's in there with a guy who is better at both boxing
and kick boxing than he is and who has skills in judo and wrestling, although not at
Shamrock's level. Frye has beaten Goodridge before. The point is that Shamrock should
have a tough first round fight, and a second round fight with Frye could be a war, and
then he'll have to face Coleman, who shouldn't be hurt in either fight. Of course, this
could all change if the bracketing changes.
Shamrock will appear on Conan O'Brien on 11/22, and CNN had a piece scheduled on
UFC for 11/20.
Goodridge just came off winning the Yukon Jack world arm wrestling championship.
The alternate matches have Steve Nelmark (1-0) vs. Marcus Bossett (0-1) and Todd
Bowden (0-1) vs. Joel Sutton (2-0) plus Sam Fulton is also being brought in as an
alternate in case of injuries in the main draw.
Viktor Belfort Gracie, who beat John Hess in 14 seconds in a match a few weeks back in
Honolulu, is about 200-205 pounds and 20 years old.
They will be implementing some kind of a rule regarding using the cage. The rule hasn't
been completed but the vague idea is that holding the fence to stall, as has been used in
several fights, most recently by Abbott, will result in an immediate re-start. However,
using the fence for leverage in regard to momentary contact to improve positioning, as
was used by Jerry Bohlander on the last show, will be legal.
There are no plans as far as a future date for Pancrase PPV shows as the 11/3 show did
poorly. The idea isn't dead, just on hold for now. SEG's David Isaacs will be going to
Japan next week to meet with Masami Ozaki about a battle plan for 1997. What SEG
wants is for Pancrase to send them tapes from Japan which includes more interviews
and hype so they can build a storyline ala pro wrestling PPV shows from card-to-card,
and also for Pancrase to send them a fighter or two to UFC to get the fighter's name over
if he does well, and thus give UFC fans some name recognition when it comes to the
Pancrase fighters.
WCW
Nitro on 11/18 in Florence, SC drew a sellout 4,164 paying $36,030. The show opened
with The Nasty Boys, High Voltage and Galaxy & Ciclope (Damian & Halloween) all laid
out in the ring with chairs by Kevin Nash & Scott Hall. They then challenged Meng &
Barbarian who bullied Tony Schiavone around. Schiavone got mad at walked off the set.
Meng & Barbarian brawled backstage with Hall & Nash. La Parka pinned Juventud
Guerrera in 9:22 with a rolling bodyblock off the top rope. Parka looked great in his TV
debut. The match was booked for 4:30 but for whatever reason, they didn't tell the guys
to go home and the match did get sloppy toward the end because Lucha style is highly
planned and they did everything planned and were calling spots in there waiting for the
signal to go home. Ultimo Dragon, with seven belts (leaving the WWF belt in the
dressing room), beat Dean Malenko via an over-the-top rope DQ in 4:02 in a WCW
cruiserweight title match. What they did was good but the finish sucked. French
Canadians beat American Males when once again Riggs caused Bagwell to get pinned
and the two argued after the match. Lex Luger racked Hugh Morrus. Luger did an
interview and Sting came out with a baseball bat, shoved Luger with the bat and then
handed him the bat and left. Chris Jericho pinned Johnny Grunge with a dropkick off
the top. Hogan bullied Eric Bischoff, followed by the Dallas Page segment with the
NWO. Jeff Jarrett beat Bobby Eaton with the figure four in a surprisingly awful match.
Ric Flair, who got the biggest pop of the show, was in Jarrett's corner going wild with his
arm in a sling. Big Bubba pinned Jim Powers in a nothing match. Chris Benoit pinned
Eddie Guerrero in 11:56 of a ***3/4 match rolling through a Frankensteiner.
No house shows this past week as they just did Disney tapings. The Mexicans mainly
worked as jobbers.
Weekend TV ratings saw Main Event at 1.5, Saturday Night at 2.6 and Pro at 1.7.
The Cable Ace awards angle on 11/16 wasn't much. Hogan, Hall and Nash showed up for
four skits. The storyline is that they weren't allowed in, but finally the woman who is
Drew Carrey's enemy on the Drew Carrey show gave them a pass. When the show was
over, they wound up in Carrey's dressing room and supposedly were working him over
behind closed doors when the show went off the air. Told it wasn't funny at all.
George Michael Sports Machine will be filming a segment on Rey Misterio Jr. on the
11/23 show in Baltimore.
Here's a list of the 60 men in the Battle Royal for 11/24 PPV in Norfolk:Tony Rumble (a
promoter in New England who books Kevin Sullivan on indies all the time), Luger, Arn
Anderson, Benoit, Page, Steve McMichael, Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Jim Powers, Jarrett,
Malenko, Konnan, Bubba, Harlem Heat, French Canadians, Jack Boot (Dwayne Bruce),
American Males, Steve Regal, Guerrera, Morrus, Ron Studd, Roadblock, Parka, David
Taylor, Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan, Eaton, Meng, Barbarian, Joe Gomez, Sullivan, High
Voltage, Ice Train, Prince Iaukea, Grunge, Renegade, Mike Enos, Luscious Luther (?),
Bunkhouse Buck, M. Wallstreet, Alex Wright, Mark Starr, Ciclope, Galaxy, Super Calo
(who probably can't work as he won't be cleared until 12/11), Felino (who definitely
won't be there), Jimmy Graffiti, Misterio Jr., Dragon, Scott Norton, the almost late Craig
Pittman, J.L., Buck (I know he's listed already but he must be one great wrestler to be
two different people in the same Battle Royal), Mike Wenner, Vic Steamboat and Kevin
Nash. No Giant or Sting among others, despite all weekend Sting being advertised as
being in it. They added Canadians vs. Heat and if Heat wins, Sherri gets five minutes
with Rob Parker to the PPV show and Piper will show up to sign for the match with
Hogan at Starrcade.
Piper's deal appears to be to work four or five wrestling matches per year and make
about 15 interview appearances throughout the year. The prime focus of the contract is
that Turner will be developing a syndicated television show built around Piper as a
Bounty Hunter or police man type role. The contract was apparently for huge money.
The reason Raye "Zap" Hollitt was in the Males corner on the 10/25 show in San Jose is
because Hollitt co-stars with Bagwell in the movie "Day of the Warrior."
Nitro dates for the first three months of 1997:1/6 in Monroe, LA; 1/13 in New Orleans at
the Superdome; 1/20 at Chicago United Center; 1/27 in Des Moines, IA; 2/3 in
Memphis; 2/10 in Jacksonville; 2/17 in Tampa; 2/24 in San Jose or Stockton, CA; 3/3 at
the Omni in Atlanta; 3/10 in Corpus Christi, TX; 3/17 in Savannah, GA; 3/24 undecided
and 3/31 in Philadelphia at the Core States Spectrum.
WCW Uncensored will be 3/16 in Charleston, SC.
The NWO PPV show will be 1/25 in Cedar Rapids, IA.
WWF
Notes from the 11/18 Raw tapings in New Haven before 4,968 paying $80,780. It
opened with Glen Ruth (one of the Head Bangers) beating Brian Walsh in a dark match.
Billy Gunn beat Marc Mero via DQ in a match which saw both Hunter Hearst Helmsley
and Jake Roberts interfere, so I guess the idea that Roberts wasn't going to wrestle
anymore has already been dropped. This match was said to have been so messed up that
they re-did it later in the show. Executioner beat Freddy Joe Floyd. Justin Bradshaw
beat Jesse James when Zeb interfered. Scott Taylor pinned Nick Barberry in a match
that almost surely won't air. The live show began with Steve Austin over Mankind via DQ
when Executioner interfered. Austin subbed for Vader, whose shoulder was injured the
night before and couldn't take the bumps required for the hot match they wanted out of
this spot. Undertaker made the save for Austin but Austin attacked Undertaker, and
then when Undertaker was about to make his comeback, Austin walked off. Match was
real good but finish was real bad. Faarooq pinned Savio Vega after Jamie Dundee hit
him with a 2x4. Ahmed Johnson made the save after and they seemed to be building up
Johnson vs. Faarooq for the PPV. Doug Furnas & Philip LaFon beat Bob Holly (subbing
for injured Marty Jannetty) & Leif Cassidy. Then for future tapings, Mero beat Billy
Gunn via DQ with Roberts and Helmsley again getting involved. Rocky Maivia beat
Salvatore Sincere. Flash Funk beat Goon. Diesel pinned Phinneus Godwinn. Mero &
Roberts beat Helmsley & Billy Gunn. Goldust pinned Bart Gunn. After the match Billy
Gunn came out and he and Bart fought again. In the main event for 11/25, Bret beat
Owen via DQ when Austin hit Bret with a chair. Davey Boy Smith came out and I'm not
sure exactly what happened here but it appeared to be the beginning stages of Smith's
babyface turn. Sid beat Helmsley via count out. James beat Bradshaw when Zeb's
interference backfired. I believe it was here or at least this was the beginning of an angle
where Bradshaw turns babyface on Zeb. Undertaker pinned Mankind. In dark matches,
Sid beat Vader to keep the title in 1:40, so Vader did work the show but they kept it
short, and Michaels pinned Austin.
SummerSlam in 1997 will be at the Continental Arena in East Rutherford, NJ.
Achim Albrecht's debut will be on the tour that begins 11/29, working against Zip (Tom
Prichard), who is his trainer.
There is a better than 50% chance that Charles Wright (Soul Taker/Papa Shango/Kama)
will return.
There were talks with Randy Savage. Apparently the two sides were far apart on terms
and no talks are going on any longer. The feeling is that Titan is so fearful of raids that
they only want guys that they sign for three to five-year contracts and the feeling is that
Savage may help in the short run because of his name, his guarantee would be so high
and they wouldn't want him on top for long so it makes no sense to sign him long-term,
but they don't want him on TV for one year and then have him go back to WCW when
the deal is up either.
Roddy Piper did call Vince McMahon recently to explain the situation, apparently saying
the reason he didn't call before showing up in WCW is because it was supposed to be a
secret.
Weekend ratings were poor, particularly with it being a major PPV weekend, with Blast
Off at 0.3, Live Wire at 1.0 and Superstars at 1.5.
McMahon did a commentary really trying to push the idea of Michaels as a Man's Man
because of how heavily he was booed the previous night.
THE READERS PAGES
WCW/WWF
I'm maybe the only one left but I still believe the WWF is No. 1. Television isn't the only
item in a successful company. As the Vice President of the USA network said, nobody
figured WCW would pump so much money into Nitro. I'm positive WCW will lose
money this year.
Bret Hart would have been out of his mind to go to WCW. Who cares about the money.
He's not going to go anywhere in WCW as long as Hulk Hogan is around.
Chuck Mullen
Munhall, Pennsylvania
Without sounding as if I'm trying to blow smoke up your skirt, the newsletter is better
than ever. It has taken me a while to get back into the flow of it, but the format is cleaner
and easier to read and digest.
Anyway, until I saw his music video last night, I couldn't imagine anything worse than
one of Roddy Piper's movies, except perhaps one of Hulk Hogan's movies. But I was
wrong. What an image killer.
With the NWO never wrestling on television, everyone else in the promotion seems like
a jobber. There are no other angles except Teddy Long vs. Nick Patrick. It's way too
fuzzy. Is everyone in WCW lining up against the NWO or has that angle been dropped?
Outside of Sting, they've reduced the rest of the team to second match level of
importance and the Mexicans are made out as opening match guys. Even the NWO's
jobber, Syxx, doesn't wrestle on TV and because of that he even seems like he's on a
different level than everyone else. Perhaps this will change with NWO Nitro, but right
now they need some definition of other feuds and angles. That way they can clarity and
enhance other wrestlers' roles and strengthen the overall show. Don't get me wrong. I
like the NWO concept. I'd just like to see them wrestle and be challenged.
Bryan Dorfler
San Francisco, California
MICHAELS
When it became apparent that Vince McMahon was going to build his organization
around Shawn Michaels, I told everyone who would listen that it was a mistake. The
reason was simple. No adult male is going to support an obnoxious, blond ponytail
wearing self-professed sexy boy no matter how well he does in the ring. The character is
a major turnoff. The athlete isn't. The same section of the audience that didn't accept
this gimmick the first time he came around ten years ago isn't going to like it any better
now. As long as McMahon insists on having a hyperactive Ricky Morton knockoff as the
centerpiece of his company, a segment of the potential audience is going to stay away.
Russ Cress
Union, New Jersey

 

Dec. 2, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Royal Rumble
to AlamoDome, "Viktor Belfort Gracie" and UFC Ultimate
Ultimate, Santo turns heel, tons more!
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 02 December 1996 20:46
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 December 2, 1996
WCW WORLD WAR III POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 10 (10.9%)
Thumbs down 74 (80.4%)
In the middle 8 (08.7%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon 80
WORST MATCH POLL
Battle Royal 31
Triangle tag team match 21
Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick 9
REALITY SUPERFIGHTING I POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 46 (44.2%)
Thumbs down 39 (37.5%)
In the middle 19 (18.3%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Tom Erikson vs. Murillo Bustamante 47
Renzo Gracie vs. Oleg Taktarov 25
WORST MATCH POLL
Tom Erikson vs. Murillo Bustamante 16
Juan Mott vs. Yasunori Matsumoto 10
WWF SURVIVOR SERIES FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 152 (66.1%)
Thumbs down 53 (23.0%)
In the middle 25 (10.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin 168
Sid vs. Shawn Michaels 21
Furnas' team vs. Hart's team 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Faarooq's team vs. Vader's team 90
Undertaker vs. Mankind 29
Billy's team vs. Bart's team 17
Helmsley's team vs. Mero's team 15
Based on phone calls, fax messages and letters to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/26.
Statistical margin of error:+-100%
The World Wrestling Federation held a press conference on 11/20 in San Antonio that
actually received heavier coverage nationally in Mexico than in the United States to
announce its Royal Rumble PPV show from the 72,000-seat Alamo Dome.
The show will be the most ambitious live event the WWF has promoted on its own (the
stadium show on 8/24 in Toronto was promoted by the Canadian National Exhibit)
since the 1992 Wrestlemania at the Hoosier Dome. While the Alamo Dome has a
24,000-seat set-up for basketball, the WWF is hoping that the combination of building
the show around home-town wrestler Shawn Michaels' quest to regain the WWF title,
the final appearance of one-time area top draw Jose Lothario as his manager, low
bottom ticket prices and discount coupons passed around throughout the state at Taco
Bell to get a break on that low price and tremendous local sponsorship including the
show being co-promoted by the local newspaper, will enable them to draw their best live
crowd in the United States in years. They are setting up seating and selling tickets based
on the 72,000-seat configuration instead of the 24,000-seat version. The last time the
WWF was able to draw 20,000 fans paid to a live event in the United States would have
been combining both the live and adjacent closed circuit crowds for Wrestlemania X in
1994 at Madison Square Garden and the Paramount Theater nearly three years ago, and
before that you'd have to go back to the 1992 Wrestlemania VIII at the Hoosier Dome.
Attempting to promote the show around a locally based "Rocky" story, complete with
Jose Lothario playing Mickey as the trainer with a story line serious heart condition,
makes one believe that Sid will be retaining the title at the next PPV show in West Palm
Beach. While the press conference had three wrestlers speak--Michaels, Bret Hart and
Pierroth Jr. from the AAA promotion (Mark Henry was also there but didn't appear on
television), there was much internal consternation over the fact that just four days after
being given the title in a move that would certainly be questioned by anyone with even
the slightest memory of track records, Sid Eudy no-showed this important public
appearance claiming that he'd overslept. Nevertheless, the idea appears to be built
around a common and successful promotional theme both from Rocky movies and pro
wrestling over the years, most recently used by WCW at Starrcade '93 in Charlotte with
Ric Flair putting up his career to challenge monster heel champion Vader. In hindsight,
it appears the idea all along for this show was to basically copy that idea, but take it to a
much larger scale, with Michaels challenging Vader, and eventually the decision was
made to switch Sid to the Vader role. One would have to think the scenario would go
something like this--Michaels, who will be at ringside doing the television commentary
for the Hart-Sid match, will get involved in the finish, probably leading to a non-finish,
since it is an In Your House show, and almost surely with Hart on the verge of taking the
title. This leads to Hart to be frustrated since Michaels gets the next shot. Michaels, with
Lothario in his corner, naturally wins the title in San Antonio, probably with some sort
of angle involving Hart, setting up his likely loss to Hart at Wrestlemania as appears to
have been in the plans all along. The house shows for late January will be headlined by
triangle matches with Sid, Hart and Michaels. Nevertheless, on WWF house show
promos airing in this market this past weekend, probably taped just before the Sid-
Michaels title change but for airing after the title change, Michaels is still listed as being
the champion and defending his title which either leads one to believe the title switch
wasn't planned in advance, or the right hand no longer knows what the left hand is doing
in the WWF. This is not to rule out the possibility of Hart winning the title in West Palm
Beach, since Hart-Michaels is certainly a viable main event for such a major show in
Michaels' home town, but that would mean it would be hard to do that match again at
Wrestlemania to have the spark necessary for the major show of the year. And at this
point there doesn't look to be as strong a Wrestlemania main event on the horizon.
The WWF publicly announced at the press conference and on its weekend television
some sort of a promotional tie-in with AAA, and had Pierroth Jr., the company's top
heel, shown on its television and had Bret Hart make derogatory comments about him
and the Mexican wrestlers. Doing it in San Antonio makes sense from a knee-jerk
reaction since San Antonio has a huge Mexican population, that has a history in previous
generations of supporting Mexican wrestles since Lothario was the city's top draw in the
early 70s. However, when AAA was strong and drawing almost everywhere, it couldn't
sell any tickets in San Antonio and had to cancel a scheduled house show, and we've
already seen with WCW that the idea of just putting Mexicans on the card, and good
Mexicans at that, to draw Mexican fans to American wrestling simply doesn't work. I'm
told the AAA deal is a trial relationship with no definite plans other than to take things
how they come. On the AAA television show over the weekend they announced Pierroth
Jr. and Latin Lover as being in the Royal Rumble, and also showed a video of Shawn
Michaels as if he were coming to AAA. It may wind up that AAA will run a joint show in
Mexico with the WWF, as WWF has always had thoughts of running a show in Mexico
City, which is among the largest cities population-wise in the world. The news of the deal
wasn't lost on Eric Bischoff, who immediately attempted to get all the former AAA
wrestlers that were appearing with WCW for the World War III weekend to sign
contracts. AAA promoter Antonio Pena had told WWF as part of original negotiations
that the wrestlers in WCW such as Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera,
Konnan, etc. were all under contract to him and there was definitely some talk about
Pena being able to go to court and get the contracts enforced and then be able to direct
those wrestlers into WWF. Pena and his American representative, Frank Patts, were at
the press conference, which led to extensive publicity on the press conference both in
Mexico, where it garnered network coverage, but on Galavision in the United States as
well which was the only national network news coverage of the event. Konnan's claim
has been that while all those wrestlers do have contracts with AAA, that AAA no longer
exists except as a name on the television show and a marquee emblem, since amidst all
the various turmoil in Mexico, Pena closed AAA and opened a new company called PAP
which is the corporate name of the AAA group, but that none of the wrestlers are under
contract to PAP. While Misterio Jr., Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera were being paid as
contract performers by WCW (getting a regular guaranteed paycheck as opposed to
being paid per match), as of the weekend, they may have signed papers that were the
intent to negotiate papers, but Konnan would have been the only one actually under
contract. WCW publicly showed either how shaken up they were of the turn of events of
Pena making a deal with McMahon, or how mad they were, since on Nitro on 11/25, they
took the mask off Villano IV, who had jumped from AAA to Promo Azteca just a few days
earlier, and used him as Mexican TV jobber for Steve Regal under the name Tony Pena.
The complete WWF PPV line-up for the 12/15 It's Time show in West Palm Beach, FL
besides Sid vs. Bret Hart for the WWF title, is Davey Boy Smith & Owen Hart vs. Razor
Ramon & Diesel for the WWF tag team titles, Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Marc Mero for
the IC title, Undertaker vs. Executioner in an Armageddon match and Flash Funk vs.
Leif Cassidy, plus a free-for-all match with Rocky Maivia vs. Salvatore Sincere. The two
main events that won't be on the PPV show are Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind and Steve
Austin vs. Goldust.
***********************************************************
With just over one week to go before the Ultimate Ultimate on 12/7 from Birmingham,
AL, both Mark Coleman and Viktor Belfort Gracie have dropped out of the show and will
be replaced by Kimo Leopoldo and Paul Varelans.
Coleman, the only unbeaten fighter in the tournament and winner of the previous two
UFC tournaments, dropped out on 11/26 after wrestling with his decision over the
weekend. Coleman had contracted some sort of a flu bug, which may be a form of mono,
when he went to Brazil to second Kevin Randelman for a show on 10/22 and hadn't been
able to shake it or effectively train. In addition, Coleman has a legal headache on his
plate because his former trainer, Richard Hamilton, got a legal injunction against him
regarding a claimed contract breach after Coleman walked out on Hamilton after
winning two UFC's under his tutelage.
Belfort Gracie pulled out a few days earlier with a torn posterior meniscus in his knee,
apparently suffered in training, although even before officially pulling out, there were
claims within the martial arts world that he wouldn't appear because he didn't want to
sign the contract which called for two-years of exclusivity on PPV by SEG without much
in the way of guaranteed money. SEG officials were expecting Belfort Gracie to debut
when his knee heals, on either the February or May PPV shows.
Because of the pullouts at the last second, the bracketing is still in question with SEG
officials hoping to have it finalized just after press time. At press time, literally, the first
round matches appeared to be Ken Shamrock vs. Brian Johnston, Don Frye vs. Gary
Goodridge, Kimo vs. Varelans and Tank Abbott vs. Cal Worsham, but there could still be
minor alterations in that. The latest idea is the semis would match up the Shamrock-
Johnston winner against the Frye-Goodridge winner, since it theoretically creates a
Shamrock-Frye and Abbott-Kimo semifinal if the favorites should win, which are both
quality semifinal matches with name fighters to the casual UFC fan. However, the main
reason SEG moved Shamrock and Abbott into opposite brackets was because Frye and
Coleman had complained about fighting each other in the semifinals claiming they were
friends, and with Coleman out, that goes out the window. Since Shamrock's interview
created a lot of interest in a Shamrock-Abbott match and both Shamrock and Abbott
wanted that match originally, which still would have the most interest of any of the
potential semifinals, and Frye-Kimo is also an intriguing match, it wouldn't be a surprise
to see the bracketing wind up that way, either.
Kimo and Varelans are both coming off wins at The U Japan show on 11/17 in Tokyo,
Kimo in very brutal fashion over Bam Bam Bigelow, and were both still in training as
they were scheduled for a 12/13 match against one another in Honolulu. When Varelans,
who got the nod first to replace Belfort Gracie, pulled out on the Honolulu match, it left
Kimo with no fight so literally with no notice on 11/25, SEG contacted him upon learning
of Coleman pulling out and he quickly agreed to terms, which included both agreeing
that should they win the tournament, they'd face Dan Severn in February.
Kimo gained fame in the martial arts world by injuring Royce Gracie in a now legendary
match that Gracie actually won with an armlock submission in 1994. Kimo has never
won a match on American PPV, with his two appearances being the loss to Gracie and a
later loss to Shamrock to a kneebar submission this past February in Puerto Rico,
although he reversed Shamrock and gave him a mouse on his eye from a wicked punch
in the process. However, Kimo is unbeaten in non-UFC no holds barred fighting (he
suffered an embarrassing loss in a kick boxing match in 1994) around the world, with at
least seven wins in Japan and Hawaii, three of which were over pro wrestlers (Bigelow,
Yoshihiro Takayama and Kazushi Sakuraba) in shoot fights, but none over big name
fighters (biggest name he's beaten is Patrick Smith). Kimo is said to weigh 235, although
in his match with Bigelow, he looked to be more like 215, down from nearly 260 in his
match with Shamrock. Varelans, whose main attribute is his size at 6-8 and 325 pounds,
has been a mid-level fighter, with a 4-3 UFC record with losses to Severn, Marco Ruas
and Tank Abbott but an upset win over highly-rated Brazilian Jiu Jitsu stylist Joe
Morreira by decision. He's compiled a 2-1 record in non-UFC matches in Japan and
Russia.
The loss of Coleman, while ruining the potential for a Coleman vs. Shamrock final that
had to be the most likely of all championship matches, may be a blessing in disguise for
SEG because it leaves Coleman untouched for a title match with the Severn vs. Ultimate
Ultimate champion unified title winner on the May PPV show. However the Coleman
match was supposed to be the ultimate challenge for Shamrock, and certainly would be
for Coleman. If Shamrock were to make it to the finals which he'd be favored to do, his
foe would either be Kimo, who he's already beaten, although not easily, or Frye, who
doesn't possess the power of Coleman. He wouldn't answer all his critics as this
tournament originally figured to do since he would have won a tournament without
Coleman or a major Brazilian Jiu Jitsu star.
***********************************************************
In perhaps the most shocking angle of this or any other year, El Hijo del Santo turned
heel on 11/22 at Arena Mexico.
Santo, son of arguably the most popular wrestler who ever lived anywhere in the world,
who has been a babyface for his entire career, did the angle in the main event. The match
was scheduled with heels Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr. & Felino facing faces ***** Casas
& Hector Garza & Dandy. The match started without Felino, as Salvaje & Scorpio Jr.
were attacking Casas in the ring, before his partners ring entrance. At this point, Felino
hit the ring, with some question as to make it three-on-one, or perhaps shockingly help
Casas since it's no secret that the two are brothers in real life. Felino then took off his
Felino costume (a Tiger costume) and mask and revealed underneath it, Santo in his
ring attire. The fans popped huge figuring Santo was going to help his long-time rival
Casas, and were stunned when he joined the two heels in attacking Casas. The
description was the place initially went quiet, but shortly thereafter it had incredible
heat. The heels went over on Casas in both the first and third falls, losing the second fall
via DQ.
Traditionally EMLL runs one of its two biggest shows of the year in mid-December at
Arena Mexico, so this angle could lead to a Santo vs. Casas match. They've been building
up a major stip match between the two ever since Santo jumped from AAA in 1995, but
in their last singles meeting, Casas received huge cheers since he's basically become at
Arena Mexico the equivalent of Ric Flair in Charlotte, which meant that Santo, as a face,
was booed out of the building. After that match, EMLL immediately turned Casas
babyface and Santo never returned to Arena Mexico until his surprise appearance.
***********************************************************
Conceptually, for pro wrestling to flourish, risks from time-to-time have to be taken. The
idea of taking risks is that sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. A good
promotion learns from both those that do work and those that don't. Unless that
promotion has a bottomless pit of money and doesn't need to learn.
This best sums up World War III on 11/24 from the Norfolk Scope Arena, WCW's now
annual 60-man three-ring Battle Royal. The company tried it last year, and what
resulted was a major problem in that putting three different pictures on a screen
resulted in boredom personified to the television viewer at home. The only positive of
the Battle Royal last year, is that they did the three-ring show for 15:00, and had another
14:00 to where the action was confined to one ring and at least was watchable at home,
and fairly exciting to boot, but generally even with that the three-ring Battle Royal idea
was considered a major flop. I don't know if it's an inability to remember things and
lessons from one year ago or just sheer arrogance, but the idea of booking something
basically the same, with the only change being that of the 28:21 of the Battle Royal this
year, they went 25:20 of three-ring impossible-to-watch action, and then when they got
into the final ring with ten men left, it was one of those Titanic (everyone jumps
overboard as fast as possible) Battle Royals that in the late 70s and 80s killed the Battle
Royal gimmick which in many cities during the 70s was the single biggest drawing
match of the year.
The show was a successful local promotion, drawing a turnaway crowd of 10,314 fans, of
which 7,018 were paid with a gate of about $118,000. The show itself was first
announced as a sellout one day in advance, but they managed to open up 1,300 more
tickets on Sunday, which quickly went sold and they turned away several hundred at the
door. What could have been a major problem, and turned into a minor problem, was a
local promotion in Norfolk in which every person who ordered the Halloween Havoc
PPV was supposed to be able to get two free tickets to World War III. The problem is
that more than 3,000 people in Norfolk bought Havoc, a number far more than
estimated, which meant the potential was there for having to service 6,000 basically free
tickets in a 10,000 seat arena. As it turned out, only half that many were serviced, but it
obviously held down the final gross and paid attendance by 20 percent.
On paper it looked to be a two-match show, and it turned into a one-match show since
the Dean Malenko vs. Psicosis cruiserweight title match, while a solidly wrestled match
and easily the second best match on the show, wasn't really close to what it should have
been. If anything, the Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon match, one which had high
expectations going in, was even better in reality and turned out to be among the best
matches of the year in the United States. The rest of the matches were bad, and aside
from the opener, the only positive thing on the show was the angle to lead to the Hulk
Hogan vs. Roddy Piper match at Starrcade. In that angle Piper did his best job in years
of doing what he does best, basically running down new heel Eric Bischoff, bringing up
his past association with Vincent (then Virgil) in the WWF when he gave Piper ugly
looks, and in the end, the entire NWO overpowered Piper, lifted up his kilt to reveal the
scars from his hip replacement surgery, attacked the hip (for obvious reasons Hogan's
attack on the hip was very careful to the point of looking ridiculous) and spray painted
NWO on his bad hip. Piper basically crawled and limped out of the ring afterwards, but
not before both sides had signed a contract for the war to settle the score that was never
settled, or something to that effect, playing off the idea of their 1985 match which aired
live on MTV called "The War to Settle the Score," which was the predecessor for the first
Wrestlemania.
A. In the opening dark match, La Parka (Adolfo Tapia) pinned Villano IV (Tomas Diaz
Mendoza). I was told this was a very good match, and since the crowd was so hot for the
show, they were into the match. Villano IV debuted with WCW in this match. He's part
of the Los Villanos trio, three sons of the legendary Rey Mendoza who played a role of a
masked Villano in a 60s movie, which was the best working main event level heel trio
remaining in AAA (Los Diabolicos, who are an undercard trio, are better in some ways),
and Konnan this past week convinced them to jump to Promo Azteca which in Mexico is
a major news story. V-4 will be another of those good working Mexican wrestlers
working as jobbers in WCW.
1. Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) pinned Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzalez) in 13:48 to
retain the J Crown, which is the IWGP junior heavyweight title; the NWA junior
heavyweight and welterweight titles; the UWA light heavyweight title; the WAR
International junior heavyweight title; the WWF light heavyweight title; the Great
Britain junior heavyweight title and WWA junior light heavyweight titles. None of the
belts have been mentioned by name in the U.S., simply that Dragon has eight belts that
he won in Japan. This was move after move with nearly flawless execution, particularly
by Dragon. It was pretty clear Dragon called the match since it was done in his style and
he dominated most of the way using one move after another to gain near falls. Among
the moves he used were a springboard dropkick, a german suplex, a torture rack
followed by a quick drop, a power bomb, a power bomb into a hot shot (or stun gun), a
giant swing, a fisherman buster, a brainbuster, a tombstone piledriver, a tombstone
piledriver on the floor, a plancha into a full body splash on the floor, a rana on the top
rope reversed into a huracanrana climaxing with a running Liger bomb, all of which
Misterio Jr. kicked out of. Misterio Jr. came back with a double springboard into an
Arabian moonsault, a springboard dropkick to the back, a tope con hilo (Silver King
dive), a springboard sunset flip and a handspring into a rana turned into a huracanrana.
The finishing sequence saw Dragon use a dragon suplex for a near fall, Misterio Jr. come
back with a Toyota roll for a near fall, and then when Misterio Jr. went for his
springboard huracanrana, Dragon caught him in mid-air, and slingshotted him off the
top rope and dropped him into a power bomb for the pin. ****1/2
2. Chris Jericho (Chris Irvine) pinned Nick Patrick (Joe Hamilton Jr.) in 8:02 with a
superkick in a match where Jericho had one hand tied behind his back. Given the
limitations in this type of a match, it was better than expected and definitely watchable.
Actually Patrick, who started out as a referee about 16 years ago and later wrestled for
several years until blowing out his knee working for Bill Watts, did a great job of taking
bumps and of facial expressions. *1/4
Ric Flair came out for an interview and got the biggest pop of the night. He didn't have
much to say, though.
3. The Giant (Paul Wight) pinned Jeff Jarrett in 6:05 with a choke slam. Flair wasn't in
Jarrett's corner as had been advertised, since it would have made no sense with the
planned finish. This match wasn't nearly as good as their previous bout. After Jarrett
threw Giant over the top rope, Sting came down and gave Jarrett a reverse DDT, and
Giant got back in the ring for the coup de gras. The rest of the show saw the announcers
speculate as to whether or not Sting had joined the NWO. *1/4
Roddy Piper came out to sign a contract to face Hulk Hogan. Hogan didn't come out at
first, instead Bischoff, Vincent and Ted DiBiase came out, causing Tony Schiavone to
deliver the line that he'd never thought he'd see the day that Eric Bischoff and Vincent
were walking down the aisle together. Piper was awesome carrying the angle,
challenging Hogan to a no DQ match. Finally Hogan came out with the rest of the NWO
crew, and did the hip angle. Hogan did a great job carrying his end of the angle as well.
Too bad they have to wrestle a match.
4. Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) beat Amazing French Canadians (Jacques
Rougeau Jr. & Karl Pierre Oulette) in 9:14. An awful match except for Booker T doing a
few cool spots. Rougeau, who was once a good worker, seems like he doesn't want to do
anything but collect a paycheck nowadays. The finish of the match was pretty creative.
The Quebecers TM brought two sets of ring steps into the ring and put a table across the
top rope, and a set of steps under the table and over the table. Rougeau stood on the
steps under, or actually near the table. Oulette climbed to the top of the steps on the
table and they went to do Le Cannonball, but missed. Booker T then used the Harlem
hangover on Oulette for the pin. Because of the pre-match stips, that meant Sherri
would get five minutes with Col. Parker. Sherri decked Parker and threw him over the
top rope and gave him two flying clotheslines. She then (and she had taken her high
heels off by this time) did a crossbody off the top but Parker kicked out and then took
off. The five minutes wound up being closer to 1:30. 3/4*
5. Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) pinned Psicosis (Dionicio Castellanos) in 14:33 to retain
the WCW cruiserweight title. The match started with solid mat wrestling but the crowd
was totally dead. It was Malenko's match and he really did little to allow Psicosis to show
his strengths. While part of this can be blamed on poor announcing not getting holds
over, by this point it has to be accepted that in WCW that Malenko's holds not being over
because of the announcing is simply a given. After all this time, Malenko deserves some
of the blame for calling a match that is great for the tiny minority of fans and shows all
the Japanese fans and shoot wrestling fans that he's a top level Japanese style worker,
but that means nothing to the audience he's wrestling in front of until the announcers
explain what it is that he's today with those holds. He either needs to tell the announcers
what he's doing and why and what hurts if he was doing it for real and get them to teach
the audience, or if not, don't do it. As it was, the announcers, instead of explaining what
it was he was doing, used the fact he was doing matwork to not call the match and to talk
about Hogan and Piper. Psicosis at one point slipped off the top rope and crashed
headfirst into the guard rail. I'm sure he was supposed to crash into the rail on the spot,
but it looked bad because of the slip. Psicosis big move was a twisting Orihara moonsault
from the top rope to the floor. It built into being a fairly good match, although probably
not at the level it could have been considering who was in it. After a series of near falls,
Malenko scored the pin with a Japanese rolling crotch hold. **3/4
6. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall retained the WCW tag titles in a triangle match beating Nasty
Boys (Brian Yandrisovitz & Jerry Seganowich) and Meng (Uliuli Fifita) & Barbarian
(Sionne Vailahi) in 16:08. A long nothing match that went nowhere. The absolutely
ludicrous WCW triangle rules were in effect in that the match ended with whomever
scored the pin getting the win and the belts. The rules were mocked to the point of
stupidity when Hall and Nash were tagged in and Nash simply laid down for Hall which
would enable them to keep the belts, except that the pin was broken up. It ended up with
Knobs decking Jimmy Hart on the apron and the megaphone went flying. Hall got the
megaphone and KO'd Knobs with it, and Nash used the jackknife on Knobs for the pin.
1/2*
7. The Giant won the 60 man three ring Battle Royal in 28:21. For the record, the 60
participants were Lex Luger, Eddie Guerrero, Tony Rumble, Diamond Dallas Page, High
Voltage, M. Wallstreet, American Males, Craig Pittman, Harlem Heat, Big Bubba, Hugh
Morrus, Konnan, Ron Studd (called John Studd several times by Dusty Rhodes), Steve
Regal, La Parka, Pez Whatley, Steve McMichael (boy has his career gone nowhere),
Disco Inferno, Renegade, Joe Gomez, Meng, Barbarian, Bunkhouse Buck, Arn
Anderson, Johnny Grunge, Ciclope, Galaxy, Syxx, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Giant, Scott
Norton, Ultimo Dragon, Jimmy Graffiti, Mike Enos, Rey Misterio Jr., Roadblock, Ice
Train, Jack Boot, Jim Duggan, Chris Benoit, Juventud Guerrera, Amazing French
Canadians, Prince Iaukea, Malenko, Jarrett, Bobby Eaton, Jim Powers, David Taylor,
Jericho, Alex Wright, Mark Starr, J.L., Villano IV, Rick Steiner and Kevin Sullivan. The
line-up changed in the last week as they added most of the NWO members including
Giant, who ended up winning, that weren't scheduled originally to be a part of it. Even
though Sting was in all the advertising as a participant, the decision was made weeks ago
against him being in it. It was impossible to follow, made worse by the fact that most of
the announcers didn't appear to know who half the participants were. The funniest one
was Villano IV, whose name was never mentioned, and when he was eliminated right on
screen, it appeared nobody knew who he was so the elimination was simply ignored. At
one point, for comedy purposes, Lee Marshall took a bump. The Horseman and
Dungeon of Doom brawled all over ringside from the start and all were eliminated for no
apparent reason even though none ever took a bump over the top. This was stemming
from the angle shot the night before in Baltimore, which made sense to everyone in
Baltimore the night before and nobody else since the angle didn't air on the show. At one
point Lee Marshall talked about Scott Steiner being eliminated, even though he wasn't
even in the match, and Rick Steiner, who was, hadn't been eliminated. It was basically a
25:00 test pattern in the middle of a bad PPV show. The NWO guys all stayed in the
corner by themselves and did very little during the match. Finally they came down to the
final ten, Luger, Jarrett, Regal, Misterio Jr., Guerrero, Page, Giant, Syxx, Hall and Nash.
The WCW crew squared off with the NWO crew except Page at the beginning was
neutral. Regal threw out Guerrero, Giant threw out Misterio Jr. with one arm pitching
him onto Guerrero, Nash clotheslined Jarrett over, Page went over when Regal ducked a
charge, and the entire NWO then eliminated Regal. All this happened in less time than it
took to write it. This left Luger with the entire NWO. Luger got Giant on the top rope
and from that position racked him on his shoulders but it was broken up. He then threw
Hall out, threw Syxx on Hall, and racked Nash. Giant then knocked both Luger and Nash
out of the ring to win. Finish was good at least. Can't wait to see what they learned from
this fiasco to give a better match next year. 1/2*
***********************************************************
Within the no holds barred world, there was a lot of interest created by the debut of a
new promotion on PPV--Martial Arts Reality Superfighting (MARS) and their main
event of Renzo Gracie vs. Oleg Taktarov on 11/22 in Birmingham.
The promotion was built around a series of Brazil vs. Russia matches, and unfortunately
for the promotion, they held the card in Birmingham, which isn't exactly the perfect city
(as if one in the United States exists) for that time of a lure to mean something. The
disaster this turned out to be financially was evident from the opening scene, when it
appeared there were more press and seconds of fighters than actual fans, which
numbered about 200 in the 5,000-seat State Fairgrounds Arena, the same site as
Ultimate Ultimate in two weeks.
The lack of fans live seemed to translate on PPV where early reports are the show will do
in the range of an 0.08 buy rate, which, if accurate (the show reportedly needed close to
an 0.95 buy rate just to break even because of all the money they had spent, particularly
on television commercials which ran all over the pro wrestling shows the past few
weeks), would be red ink bleeding to the tune of seven figures. In many ways this was
reminiscent of the first World Combat Championship show except that show had more
exciting fights. There was a lot of press before the show within the martial arts
publications that both groups would become the major force in the industry because
they spent a lot of money on promotion. WCC ended up being nothing more than a
memory after huge losses on its first show when the buy rate was so weak. With the
success of UFC on PPV in 1994 and 1995, some promoters feel events of this type--
reality fighting--on PPV are a license to print money, but the biggest reality of that type
of fighting is just the opposite. This genre doesn't have close to the fan base of pro
wrestling, and in pro wrestling there are still to this day only two companies that have
proven they can do business on PPV. The group scheduled its second PPV on 3/28, and
we'll see if they keep that date.
This group was marketed as a show for the purist, using high quality Brazilians, and
eliminating things like stand up and restart rules as in UFC, and eliminating judges
decisions, trying to make it more the Brazilian way (forgetting that they have usually
have judges decisions in Brazil). This led to the problems that plagued UFC before it
implemented those rules, particularly in the tournament championship match. It also
wanted no time limits on matches, but the reality of PPV time made that one impossible.
Bottom line. Whether it be pro wrestling, pro football, or most certainly reality fighting,
to make money, you have to aim at the casual audience, not the purist. Renzo Gracie
may be a wonderful fighter, but the general public doesn't know him or care about him
enough to promote a match with Oleg Taktarov and draw money with it, because it
certainly didn't fail from a lack of getting the word out.
The two main matches were as opposite as one could get. The tournament final pitted
Tom Erikson, the best pure wrestler ever to enter an event of this type, against Murillo
Bustamante, a well-known Jiu-Jitsu fighter in Brazil and generally ranked in the top five
or six all-around fighters in that country. Erikson, a world class superheavyweight who
has beaten basically every top heavyweight in the world today with the exception of
Bruce Baumgartner during an illustrious career, didn't appear to make the transition to
this style as easily as Dan Severn or Mark Coleman. He was able to use his wrestling skill
to destroy a 300-pound Soviet in the first round, but had no skill in submissions to
finish him. He annihilated current pro wrestler Willie Peeters (RINGS) in the second
round, before facing Bustamante, who was outweighed by about 85 pounds. This could
best be described as a combination of two famous matches. For the first 20:00, it was
the Royce Gracie-Dan Severn match, with the world class wrestler, totally inexperienced
in this situation, taking down the experienced Jiu Jitsu fighter immediately, and
overpowering and doing minor damage to him, but being unable to do serious damage
because of the strong guard. However, Bustamante, although he nearly snuck an armbar
in once, was unable to get the finishing submission in. Finally at the 19:40 mark, the two
ended up back on their feet. At this point, because of his superior size and power,
Erikson decked Bustamante, who saw that fighting on his feet wasn't to his advantage,
so he laid on his back. For most of the rest of the fight, which ended in a 40:00 draw, it
was the Ali-Inoki match (In a Japanese Vale Tudo event, 155-pound Yuki Nakai used
this same strategy to eventually trap and beat the noted karate fighter Gerard Gordeau).
Erikson was on his feet, Bustamante on his back. Occasionally Erikson would jump
down, throw some quick but not all that effective blows, and basically escape before
being caught in a guard, and challenge Bustamante to stand. At the 36:00 mark,
Bustamante decided to finally stand up and was again knocked down and stayed down
until the end, where, without judges decisions, it was a draw so there was no tournament
champion. While on television it was announced (and told to the fighters during the
match in an effort to get them to be more offensive) that with a draw, both would share
the losers purse, contractually it read differently and each received $36,500. In the
contracts, it enabled the promotion to change the time limits as will, which they did, as
the match started out as a 20:00 time limit, and then when they were going nowhere,
was extended to 30:00, and then to 40:00 before they gave up in futility. If there had
been a judges decision, Erikson would have easily won, however in many ways this was a
great victory for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in that a BJJ guy faced one of the five best
superheavyweight wrestlers in the world giving up 85 pounds, and stayed with him
without ever being in great danger for 40:00. If you are talking about an art form for self
defense against a larger attacker, that's a tremendous example. Even more, the BJJ guy
spooked the wrestler so much on the ground that the wrestler didn't even want to go to
the ground, theoretically his domain, with the much smaller man. After the match
Erikson complained about Bustamante not getting up and fighting, but the blame went
both ways, as Erikson could have gone down and fought had he chosen to. Erikson had
Mark Coleman in his corner during his matches.
The superfight was another testament to the legendary Gracie family, as Renzo Gracie
gave away about 35 pounds to Oleg Taktarov, and the sloppy Taktarov caught a
tremendous mule kick to the face almost immediately and keeled over. Gracie delivered
one great punch to the face before the ref stopped the match in just 1:04 of a match
people figured to last nearly forever. Taktarov, whose cheek was busted open and was
fairly bloody, complained about the decision and refused to shake Gracie's hand after the
match. Later that night he apologized explaining that he didn't even know he'd been
knocked out, and when he came to, he couldn't understand why the fight wasn't still
going on. Reports from those at the show weren't surprised at all at the quickness or
Gracie's victory, since Taktarov had a broken hand and didn't appear to be himself at all
after taking a beating in a match with Marco Ruas just 12 days earlier. One can even
question MARS allowing Taktarov in that condition to go into the match because it gives
the genre such a bad name, but at the same time, it would have been a disaster if he
hadn't have fought since the entire show was built around one match and there was no
suitable replacement at the last minute. Taktarov had agreed to do this show before
doing the Ruas match, and pretty well came in less than top condition from such a brutal
long match.
There were a few ties to pro wrestling on the show. The host of the show, who didn't do
any play-by-play, was Craig Minervini, better known to pro wrestling fans under his
pseudonym as former wrestling commentator Craig DeGeorge. Christopher Hazeman of
Australia, a first round tournament loser, is a prelim wrestler for RINGS. Peeters, who
beat Serge Narsisyan in the first round before losing to Erikson in the semifinals is both
a former Holland cage match (UFC style fighting) champion (if any of you want to see an
example of psychotic fighting you should see Peeters in this style fighting in Holland,
although obviously he was against a lower level of competition) and a regular for RINGS.
And Narsisyan, a French savate fighter, will debut on 12/15 for Pancrase.
They had a tournament before the PPV started that afternoon, with basically 0 fans in
attendance. It was billed as a future stars tournament, and was won by Mark Hanson,
who defeated former pro wrestler Jean Lydick (UWFI), who was seconded by Billy
Robinson, in the finals. The match ended when Lydick tapped after taking a pounding.
Current indie wrestler and shootfighter Geza Kalman Jr. fought Lydick in the first round
and took a pretty good beating before tapping out. Anthony Macias from the most recent
EFC was a first round loser as well.
1. Erikson beat Aleksander Khramstovsky in 8:56 when the match was stopped with
Erikson giving the 300-pound Russian a terrible beating in a one-sided match. Erikson
got tired because he was expending so much energy giving Khramstovsky a pounding,
but Khramstovsky basically laid on his stomach and took punishment and got no offense
in at all.
2. Bustamante beat Hazeman in :59 when Hazeman's corner threw in the towel on he
gave Bustamante his back and Bustamante was giving him elbows to the spine.
3. Peeters beat Narsisyan in 5:13. Both had bloody noses. Peeters got the early edge
taking him down and bloodying his nose with punches and head-butts. Narsisyan
reversed on him but they wound up back on their feet. Peeters knocked him down with a
punch and Narsisyan's corner threw in the towel.
4. Juan Mott beat Yasunori Matsumoto in 5:21. Matsumoto was 40-years-old, billed
from Japan but actually from Des Moines. Mott was a late replacement from Atlanta.
Mott KO'd Matsumoto with a devastating knee to the chin and threw seven more
punches on the unconscious Matsumoto before the ref stopped the fight way late. This
was a very poor job of officiating, although apparently the officials were told not to stop
fights early.
5. In the first superfight, which was actually taped one hour before the show went on
PPV with only a few dozen fans in attendance, Carlos Baretto, a top-notch BJJ fighter
destroyed Alexander Rufalski of Russia in 1:00 after he was mounted and pounded and
his corner threw in the towel.
6. Erikson made Peeters submit to a cross face in :31. Peeters was told by his corner to
stay away from Erikson, so naturally the first thing he did was charge and throw a kick,
and Erikson planted him. How long will it take people to realize that you can't throw a
kick against a wrestler or you'll be off balance and on your back in no time.
7. Bustamante beat Mott in 1:09. Mott was taken down, took a few punches, turned to
his stomach and tapped out before really taking any punishment.
8. In another taped superfight, Mario Sperry beat Andrey Dudko in 4:14 with what is
known in Brazil as a Kimura armlock, since it's the move the famous Jiu Jitsu fighter
Kimura used in the 50s to hand Helio Gracie one of his only two losses of his fighting
career. In pro wrestling it's known as a hammerlock or chicken wing.
9. Erikson and Bustamante went to a 40:00 draw in the tournament finals. One
interesting thing to note about this match, since it did so well in the best match poll, is
this is where having no live crowd made a match better. If there were, let's say, 2,000
people there, they would be chanting boring at the top of their lungs and it would have
come off terribly. Instead, this match with no action, since the only fans live were super
hardcores who were into the strategy and the announcers kept emphasizing what great
strategy the fighters were following, a lot of people thought it was a dramatic, if
unsatisfactory, match.
10. Gracie, who weighed about 180, beat Taktarov, announced at 205 but clearly at least
35 pounds heavier, in 1:04 via knockout. Taktarov's reputation took a major beating
here, since his main claim to fame was his inability to get hurt or tap out in lengthy
matches with Marco Ruas, Dan Severn, Tank Abbott and Ken Shamrock, and here he
was KO'd by a much smaller man. From all accounts, Taktarov came in totally
overconfident and didn't take Gracie as serious competition for himself and this was the
result of that. It also shows that it's hardly a good idea to take two major fights in 12
days, particularly since the first one was a grueling battle. Taktarov wore a black glove
around his injured right hand similar to a Blackjack Mulligan glove, but even with the
injury, still threw some early punches.
***********************************************************
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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/29 TO 12/29
11/29 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada &
Taue)
12/1 New Japan Nagoya Rainbow Hall (Choshu & Sasaki vs. Hashimoto & Hirata)
12/1 Samurai TV opening night special Tokyo Yoyogi Gym (Sasuke & Hamada & Delfin
& Hoshikawa & Yakushiji vs. Togo & Teoh & Shiryu & Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki)
12/1 All Japan Women Tokyo Korakuen Hall (tag team tournament finals)
12/2 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Dayton, OH Hara Arena
12/2 All Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Kawada & Taue vs. Kobashi & Patriot)
12/6 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Real World Tag League tournament finals)
12/7 UFC Ultimate Ultimate PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena (Shamrock,
Coleman, Abbott, Frye, Johnston, Goodridge, Worsham, Varelans)
12/7 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sandman vs. Raven)
12/7 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Anjoh & Okumura vs. Goto & Gannosuke)
12/8 All Japan Women Tokyo Sumo Hall (Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue)
12/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena
12/9 Michinoku Pro Osaka Rinkai Sports Center
12/10 New Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Chono & Tenzan vs. Road Warriors)
12/11 FMW Tokyo Komazawa Olympic Park Gym (Hayabusa vs. Sasuke)
12/13 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Tenryu vs. Takada)
12/15 WWF In Your House PPV West Palm Beach, FL Memorial Auditorium (Sid vs.
Bret Hart)
12/15 Pancrase Tokyo Budokan Hall (Funaki vs. DeLucia)
12/16 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Tampa, FL Ice Palace
12/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Pensacola, FL Civic Center
12/16 Michinoku Pro Wrestling Nagoya Nakamura Sports Center
12/17 WWF Superstars tapings Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center
12/21 RINGS Fukuoka International Center (Yamamoto vs. Tamura)
12/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Macon, GA Civic Center
12/26 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Bret Hart & Michaels vs. Vader & Austin)
12/27 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (Sid vs. Mankind)
12/29 WCW Starrcade '96 PPV Nashville, TN Municipal Auditorium (Hogan vs. Piper)
RESULTS
11/12 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600 full
house/all freebies): Kevin Sullivan b Scotty Riggs, Chris Jericho b Craig Pittman, Arn
Anderson b Bunkhouse Buck, Amazing French Canadians b Mark Starr & K.C.
Thompson, Jeff Jarrett b Mike Enos, WCW TV title:Steve Regal b Dean Malenko
11/15 Tijuana, Nortecalifornia (AAA - 3,000):Mozambique & Mandingo &
Mazambula b Firebird & Jungla & Venum (not original)-DQ, Perro Aguayo Jr. & Leon
***** & Pantera b Jerry Estrada & Mosco de la Merced & Fobia, Canek & Los Payasos b
Killer & Pierroth Jr. & Fishman & Misterioso
11/15 Pueblo, CO (Wrestling Superstars - 250):Jason Michaels b Derek Stone,
Don Juan b Mike Starr, Randy Taylor b Jeff Lujan, Honkytonk Man b Jeff Gaylord,
Lujan & Stone b Taylor & Michaels, Doink the Clown & Typhoon b Vincent (Virgil aka
Mike Jones) & One Man Gang
11/18 Osaka (Gaea): Maiko Matsumoto b Sakura Hirota, Bomber Hikari b Rimi Ishii,
All Japan tag titles:Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato b Chihiro Nakano & Makie Numao,
Akira Hokuto b Toshie Uematsu, Chigusa Nagayo & Sonoko Kato b Meiko Satomura &
Kaoru
11/19 Springfield, MA (WWF Superstars tapings - 5,230/3,447 paid):Freddy
Joe Floyd b Scott Taylor, Vader b Tim McNeany, Steve Austin b Bart Gunn, Flash Funk b
Brian Walsh, Head Bangers b Aldo Montoya & Alex Porteau, Godwinns b Roy Raymond
& Nick Barbary, Jesse James b Sultan-DQ, Leif Cassidy b Taylor, Executioner b Bert
Senteno, Goldust DCOR Hunter Hearst Helmsley *1/2, Barry Windham b Raymond,
Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith & Crush b Jake Roberts & Marc Mero & Savio Vega *,
Faarooq b Floyd, Rocky Maivia b T.L. Hopper, Vega b Senteno, Razor Ramon & Diesel b
Tony Roy & Walsh, Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon b Head Bangers 1/2*, Bart Gunn b
Helmsley-DQ *, Crush DCOR Vega 1/2*, Austin b Windham, Shawn Michaels b
Faarooq-DQ **, Sid & Undertaker b Vader & Austin **
11/20 White Plains, NY (WWF - 2,075): Barry Windham b Salvatore Sincere,
Sultan b Aldo Montoya, WWF tag titles: Godwinns b Owen Hart & Leif Cassidy-COR,
Steve Austin b Goldust, Rocky Maivia won 20 man Royal Rumble, Billy Gunn b Bart
Gunn, IC title:Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Undertaker b Vader
11/20 Niage (All Japan - 1,800):Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Johnny
Smith b Maunukea Mossman, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Masao
Inoue & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Tamon
Honda & Jun Akiyama, Gary Albright & Sabu b Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, The
Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue
& Yoshinari Ogawa b Mitsuharu Misawa & Giant Baba & Satoru Asako
11/20 Soka (New Japan - 1,500):Tadao Yasuda b Yutaka Yoshie, Shinjiro Otani b
Black Cat, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Brad Armstrong, Junji
Hirata b Michiyoshi Ohara, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Akitoshi Saito b Yuji Nagata & Kazuo
Yamazaki, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi &
Shinya Hashimoto, Kengo Kimura & Akira Nogami b Osamu Nishimura & Tatsumi
Fujinami, Riki Choshu & Keiji Muto & Takashi Iizuka b Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan &
Masahiro Chono
11/20 Sapporo (UWFI - 2,000 sellout):Eloo Maduro b James Stone (ECW Little
Guido), Tiger Mask Sayama b The Cobra (George Takano), Nikolai Gordeau b Naoki
Sano, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Kenichi Yamamoto, Yoshihiro Takayama b Kazushi
Sakuraba, Billy Scott & Yoji Anjoh b Nobuhiko Takada & Masahito Kakihara
11/20 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Big Japan - 2,000 sellout): Yosuke Kobayashi b
Yuichi Taniguchi, Jester b Satoru Shiga, Fantastik & Ricky Santana b Goku & Yoshihiro
Tajiri, Juice & Grey Skull (Texas Hangmen) b Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji Yamakawa,
Scorpion lumberjack match:Shoji Nakamaki b Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
11/20 Yaizu (All Japan women):Saya Endo & Momoe Nakanishi b Yumi Fukawa &
Yuka Shiina, Genki Misae b Tanny Mouth, Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe b
Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito, Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda b Aja Kong & Yoshiko
Tamura, Manami Toyota b Rie Tamada, Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Toshiyo
Yamada b Yumiko Hotta & Etsuko Mita & Chaparita Asari
11/20 Hollywood, FL (Sunshine Wrestling Federation - 400)aul Adonis b
Punk Rock, Joe DeFuria b Vampire Warrior, Johnny Torres b Snot Dudley, Bob Davis b
Larry Lane, Duke Droese b Demon Hellstorm
11/21 Hull, Quebec (WWF - 1,732): Sultan b Bob Holly, Faarooq b Barry Windham,
IC title:Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Undertaker b Goldust, Carl LeDuc b
Aldo Montoya, Vader b Rocky Maivia, Marc Mero DCOR Mankind, Godwinns & Bart
Gunn b Owen Hart & Leif Cassidy & Billy Gunn
11/21 Hakata Star Lanes (All Japan - 2,800 sellout):Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro
Shiga, Masao Inoue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Satoru Asako, Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Stan Hansen & Takao Omori &
Johnny Smith b Maunukea Mossman & Tamon Honda & Giant Baba, Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace b Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, The Patriot & Kenta Kobashi b Sabu &
Gary Albright, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama
11/21 Choshi (New Japan - 1,300):Yuji Nagata b Yutaka Yoshie, El Samurai b Black
Cat, Osamu Nishimura & Manabu Nakanishi b Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi,
Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Brad Armstrong b Norio Honaga & Jushin Liger, Michiyoshi
Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka, Hawk & Animal & Power
Warrior b Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata & Keiji Muto, Akira Nogami & Kengo Kimura b
Shinjiro Otani & Riki Choshu, Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono b
Satoshi Kojima & Shinya Hashimoto & Osamu Kido
11/21 Kobe (All Japan women - 2,650): Genki Misae & Saya Endo & Nana
Takahashi b Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Momoe Nakanishi, All Japan championship:
Rie Tamada b Kumiko Maekawa to win title, Tomoko Watanabe b Toshiyo Yamada,
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Chaparita Asari b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito &
Yoshiko Tamura, IWA vs. All-Pacific title:Takako Inoue b Reggie Bennett to win All-
Pacific title, Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue b Aja Kong & Yumiko Hotta
11/21 Panama City, FL (Pro Wrestling Federation)r. Feelgood b Black Angel,
Bambi b Peggy Lee Leather, Head Shrinkers b Rock & Roll Express, George South d
Italian Stallion
11/22 Osaka Castle Hall (RINGS - 7,880): Nikolai Zouev b Wataru Sakata, Dick
Vrij b Masayuki Naruse, Mega Battle tournament quarterfinals: Kiyoshi Tamura b
Mitsuya Nagai, Volk Han b Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Gokiteza Bakouri,
Bitzsade Tariel b Hanse Nyman, Non-tourney:Akira Maeda b Yoshiaki Fujiwara
11/22 Montreal (WWF - 6,018): Godwinns b Owen Hart & Leif Cassidy, Barry
Windham b Bob Holly, Faarooq b Aldo Montoya, Undertaker b Vader, Sultan b Carl
LeDuc, Savio Vega b Goldust, WWF title: Sid b Steve Austin, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, IC
title:Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Marc Mero-DQ, Shawn Michaels b Mankind
11/22 Okayama (All Japan - 2,800 sellout):Satoru Asako b Kentaro Shiga,
Maunukea Mossman & Johnny Smith & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa, Jun
Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda, Mighty Inoue & Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Gary Albright &
Sabu b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot
11/22 Chiba (New Japan - 2,350):Black Cat b Kazuyuki Fujita, Yuji Nagata b Tadao
Yasuda, Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Brad Armstrong & Chavo Guerrero Jr.,
Osamu Kido & Kazuo Yamazaki b Tatsutoshi Goto & Akitoshi Saito, Shinjiro Otani &
Norio Honaga b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro
Chono b Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi & Osamu Nishimura, Shinya Hashimoto
& Junji Hirata b Michiyoshi Ohara & Kengo Kimura, Hawk & Power & Animal Warrior b
Takashi Iizuka & Keiji Muto & Riki Choshu
11/22 Webster, MA (ECW - 300): Buh Buh Ray Dudley b D-Von Dudley, Taz b Spike
Dudley, Tommy Dreamer & Beulah b Shane Douglas & Francine, Stevie Richards b
Roadkill, Louie Spicolli b G.Q. Gorgeous, Eliminators b Mikey Whipwreck & Chris
Candito, Pit Bull #2 b Brian Lee, Rob Van Dam b Super Nova, ECW title:Sandman b
Raven
11/22 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL):Solar & Mascara Magica & Super Astro b
Americo Rocca & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Astro Rey Jr., El Satanico & Emilio Charles Jr. &
Rey Bucanero b Silver King & Lizmark Jr. & Rayo de Jalisco Jr., El Hijo del Santo &
Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr. b ***** Casas & Dandy & Hector Garza
11/22 Shizukuishi (Big Japan):Goku b Yosuke Kobayashi, Ricky Santana b Satoru
Shiga, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Fantastik, Grey Skull b Yuichi Taniguchi, Kendo Nagasaki b
Jester, Shoji Nakamaki & Tornado Juice b Seiji Yamakawa & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
11/22 Sakaide (All Japan women):Saya Endo & Yuka Shiina b Miho Wakizawa &
Genki Misae, Yoshiko Tamura b Momoe Nakanishi, Mima Shimoda & Reggie Bennett b
Yumi Fukawa & Takako Inoue, Kyoko Inoue b Chaparita Asari, Aja Kong & Mariko
Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita
11/22 All Castle, Ontario (Border City Wrestling - 350):Skull Ganz b Johnny
Swinger, Professor Maxwell b Jake Steele, Gene Miller b Brad Johnson, Maximum
Intensity b Cold Brothers, Otis Apollo & Denny Kass b Breyer Wellington & Pierre
Francois, Larry Brun b Canadian Destroyer, Scott D'Amore b Brooklyn Brawler-DQ
11/22 Battleford, Saskatchewan (IWA Hardcore Wrestling - 370):Alexis
Machine b Desperado, Rhino b Jim Fury, Doink the Clown b The Natural (Don Callis),
Desperado b Felcher the Great, Natural b Rhino
11/22 Fairless Hills, PA (UWWA):H.D. Ryder b Moose Maretti-DQ, Dark Ninja b
Tony Stallone-DQ, Larry Winters b Lost Boy, Chuck Williams & Glenn Osbourne b
Marvelous Inc., Doug Devereaux b Doink the Clown, Ace Darling b Billy Kidman, Tito
Santana b Big Slam Vader, Williams & Osbourne split Battle Royal
11/22 Birmingham, AL aft. show (Reality Superfighting - 0): Ethan Andrews b
Lance Batchelor, Tournament first round: Mark Hanson b Sean McCulley, Moti
Horenstein b John Dixon, Martin Villa b Anthony Macias, Jean Lydick b Geza Kalman
Jr., Leon Baker b Mike Beebe, Second round: Hanson b Horenstein, Lydick b Baker,
non-tourney: Justin Martin b Frank Shewer, Final:Hanson b Lydick
11/23 Baltimore (WCW - 6,500): Rick Steiner b Barbarian *1/2, Jeff Jarrett b Big
Bubba DUD, WCW cruiserweight title: Dean Malenko b Eddie Guerrero **3/4, Konnan
& Hugh Morrus b Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera **3/4, Syxx b Rey Misterio Jr. **, Lex
Luger b Arn Anderson *1/2, Falls count anywhere: Kevin Sullivan NC Chris Benoit
**1/2, Giant b Sting-DQ *1/2, WCW tag titles:Scott Hall & Kevin Nash b Harlem Heat **
11/23 Yonago (All Japan - 2,850 sellout):Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru, Mighty Inoue b Masao Inoue, Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura b Haruka
Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Stan Hansen & Takao Omori b Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida,
Yoshinari Ogawa & Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada b Giant Baba & Tamon Honda &
Maunukea Mossman, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b Gary Albright & Sabu, Kenta
Kobashi & The Patriot & Johnny Smith b Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama & Satoru
Asako
11/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,910 sellout):Shinjiro Otani b
Kazuyuki Fujita, Tatsutoshi Goto & Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie & Black Cat, Osamu
Nishimura b Brad Armstrong, Kengo Kimura b Hiro Saito, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira
Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b El Samurai & Norio Honaga & Jushin Liger, Hawk &
Animal & Power Warrior b Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata & Keiji Muto, Masahiro Chono
& Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Kazuo Yamazaki & Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Kido &
Shinya Hashimoto b Manabu Nakanishi & Takashi Iizuka & Riki Choshu
11/23 Revere, MA (ECW - 947 sellout): G.Q. Gorgeous b Roadkill DUD, Chris
Candito b Stevie Richards **1/4, Brian Lee b Louie Spicolli **3/4, Rob Van Dam NC Pit
Bull #2 ***1/4, ECW tag titles: Gangstas NC Mass Transit & D-Von Dudley, Eliminators
b Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley **, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Tommy Dreamer
***3/4, ECW title dog collar match:Sandman b Raven ****
11/23 Sendai (UWFI - 2,800):Billy Scott b Eloo Maduro, Tiger Mask Sayama b
Shoichi Funaki, Masahito Kakihara b James Stone, Kenichi Yamamoto b Kazushi
Sakuraba, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Yoshihiro Takayama, Nobuhiko Takada & Naoki Sano
b Nikolai Gordeau & Yoji Anjoh
11/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP):Tomoko Kuzumi & Fusayo Nouchi & Emi
Motokawa b Kanako Motoya & Rieko Amano & Hiromi Yagi, Esther Moreno b Boirshoi
Kid, Mayumi Ozaki b Plum Mariko, Cutie Suzuki & Dynamite Kansai b Hikari Fukuoka
& Devil Masami
11/23 Toi (All Japan women):Momoe Nakanishi b Miho Wakizawa, Yuka Shiina b
Nana Takahashi, Chaparita Asari & Saya Endo & Etsuko Mita b Yoshiko Tamura &
Toshiyo Yamada & Genki Misae, Takako Inoue b Yumi Fukawa, Kaoru Ito & Mariko
Yoshida & Manami Toyota b Yumiko Hotta & Reggie Bennett & Rie Tamada, Kyoko
Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Mima Shimoda & Aja Kong
11/23 Des Moines, IA (Extreme Challenge - 800):Travis Fulton b Clayton Miller,
Tyrone Roberts b Rick Graveson, Paul Wells b Jason Godsay, Brian Dunn b Allen Porter,
Jesse Jones b Scott Gonyo, Dave Strasser b Rolando Higueros, Dennis Reed b Matt
Anderson, Jeremy Horn b Gary Myers, Pat Iletich b Earl Loucks, Dan Severn b Steven
Goss
11/23 Arao (Gaea):Akira Hokuto & Toshie Uematsu b Bomber Hikari & Mieko
Satomura, Kaoru b Sakura Hirota, Chigusa Nagayo & Maiko Matsumoto b Sugar Sato &
Chikayo Nagashima, Hirota won Battle Royal
11/23 Tono (Big Japan):Ricky Santana b Yosuke Kobayashi, Fantastik b Satoru
Shiga, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Goku, Grey Skull b Seiji Yamakawa, Shoji Nakamaki b Juice,
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & The Jester b Kendo Nagasaki & Yuichi Taniguchi
11/23 Salem, NJ (NWA - 850 sellout):Ace Darling b Billy Kidman, Downward
Spiral b Lost Boys, James Morgan b John Gray, Kid Flash b Rik Ratchett, Mr. Puerto
Rico DCOR Rasta the Voodoomon, H.D. Ryder b Icon, Don Montoya b Patch, Jason
Knight won triangular match over Jimmy Shoulders and Derrick Domino
11/23 Lima, OH (AWA)anny Davis b The Sarge, Lady Satan b Debbie Combs, Rip
Rogers b Koko Ware, Combs & Davis b Satan & Sarge, Bob Orton b Hercules, Virgil b
Honkytonk Man
11/23 Plainview, NY (Universal Superstars of America):Gino Caruso b Colt,
King Kong Bundy b Caruso, Rhino Powers b O.J. Steele & D.W. Dudley, Greg Valentine
b Typhoon-DQ, Bodyguard for Hire NC L.A. Gore
11/23 North Adams, CT (IWF - 1,200):Brian Walsh b Tim McNeany-DQ, Joanie
Lee b Rain Drop (Snooky Fink), Doink the Clown (Steve Lombardi) b Mike Hollow, Scott
Taylor b Bulldozer-DQ, Richard Byrne b Annihilator (James Cody), Taylor & Doink b
Bulldozer & Bob Backlund
11/24 Kyoto (All Japan - 1,390 sellout):Satoru Asako b Maunukea Mossman,
Masao Inoue & Johnny Smith b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tamon Honda, Masa Fuchi &
Haruka Eigen & Mighty Inoue b Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura & Giant Baba, Giant
Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Toshiaki Kawada &
Akira Taue b Sabu & Gary Albright, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Stan Hansen &
Takao Omori, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace
11/24 Ichihara (New Japan - 1,400):Black Cat b Yutaka Yoshie, Norio Honaga b
Chavo Guerrero Jr., Yuji Nagata b Kazuyuki Fujita, Shinjiro Otani & Brad Armstrong b
Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono b Akitoshi
Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Michiyoshi Ohara & Akira Nogami &
Kengo Kimura b Tadao Yasuda & Junji Hirata & Riki Choshu, Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka b Manabu Nakanishi & Keiji Muto, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b
Shinya Hashimoto & Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura
11/24 Kawasaki (JD - 700 sellout):Abe b Sayabe, Princesa Blanca b Koyama, Alda
Moreno b Neftaly, Emi Motokawa & Bloody Phoenix b Yuko Kosugi & Yuki Lee, Lioness
Asuka b Esther Moreno, Mima Shimoda & Jaguar Yokota b Cooga & Chikako Shiratori
11/25 Salisbury, MD (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 3,278): Lex Luger DCOR
Arn Anderson *, Diamond Dallas Page b Disco Inferno *1/4, WCW TV title:Steve Regal b
Tony Pena (Villano IV) **, Eddie Guerrero b Konnan **3/4, Big Bubba b Rick Steiner *,
Rey Misterio Jr. b Psicosis *, Jeff Jarrett b Alex Wright 3/4*, Meng & Barbarian NC
Harlem Heat DUD
Special thanks toan Reilly, Woody Carlson, Leonard Brand, Joe Tisone, Bill Brown,
Ken Verret, Gregg John, Georgiann Makropolous, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Dominick
Valenti, Edie Bailey, Mike Mahoney Jr., Matthew Cail, Chad Olson, Matt Herrold, Chuck
Langerman, James Haase, Jerry Lane, Ken Doucet, Sarah Moore, Walt Spafford, Eddie
Goldman, Jesse Money
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
11/3 ALL JAPAN: 1. Izumida & Kimala II beat Dan Kroffat & Rob Van Dam in 9:21
when II pinned Kroffat, since it was his final show with the company, with a big splash.
Except for a spot where Kroffat and Van Dam simultaneously came off the top on II, it
was a nothing match. II was supposed to use a splash from the top for his finish, but he
fell off the ropes, so did the splash from ground level. 1/2*; 2. Taue & Baba & Dory Funk
beat Tsuruta & Misawa & Akiyama in 15:36 when Taue pinned Tsuruta with a choke
slam, mainly involving Akiyama. This was the company's 24th anniversary special match
so they put Baba, Tsuruta and Funk, who were the foundations of the early part of
company history, in with Taue, Misawa and Akiyama, who are three of the foundations
of the modern company. There were a few nice spots, particularly when Akiyama was in,
but overall nothing much as a match either. *1/4
11/9 NEW JAPAN: 1. Choshu & Sasaki & Hirata beat Goto & Kimura & Ohara in 10:18
when Choshu pinned Ohara after a lariat. The fans were into it and they worked a fast
pace, but the timing was pretty bad. 3/4*; 2. Otani & Nagata beat Liger & Samurai in
15:27 when Otani pinned Samurai with a springboard into a spin kick. Excellent match
with Samurai giving Nagata a tope, Otani following with a plancha and Liger hitting a
plancha. They hit near falls back-and-forth before the finish. ****1/4; 3. Muto & Steiner
beat Kojima & Nakanishi in 16:28 when Muto pinned Nakanishi with a DDT off the top
rope. This was an excellent match, which is shocking because Nakanishi, who is
probably the worst worker in the promotion, was involved. Another great performance
by Muto. Kojima also did a great job carrying the match with his fire and stiff offense.
****; 4. Hashimoto & Norton beat Chono & Tenzan in 15:01. The story of this match was
that Hashimoto and Norton kept screwing up. Basically Hashimoto accidentally
clobbered Norton on four occasions before Norton finally had enough and walked out.
This left Hashimoto against both and so the match had a lot of heat. Hashimoto did well
until Hiro Saito interfered. They worked on Hashimoto for a while and got some near
falls on him. Finally Saito gave him three sentons and Tenzan used a head-butt off the
top. At this point Norton came back and cleaned house. Norton's comeback had perfect
timing when it comes when to do stuff, but less than perfect timing of the spots
themselves. Finally Hashimoto & Norton were able to work together as Norton held
Tenzan for Hashimoto to deliver a flying spin kick. Hashimoto then pinned Tenzan after
a brainbuster. ***
11/10 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kikuchi pinned Rob Van Dam to retain the PWF jr. title in 16:20.
Real good, particularly Van Dam. Van Dam did all kinds of unique high spots and the
two worked together well and built a good match. The only weakness in the match is that
some of Van Dam's basic punch/kick offense still didn't look believable enough for this
level but his big moves were great. They built into some good near falls and switches
back-and-forth before Kikuchi blocked a german suplex and turned it into a front rolling
cradle for the pin. ***1/2; 2. Williams & Hansen beat Albright & Patriot. This was a
special 24th anniversary bout featuring probably four of the five biggest foreign stars (no
Johnny Ace) in the promotion. It was a bad match most of the way but did have a
storyline worked through the match that built to a strong finish. Albright gave Williams
a german suplex on the floor and Williams sold it as if he was out. Hansen had to work
several minutes by himself and finally as Albright set up the dragon suplex, Williams
suddenly revived and made the save. Williams tried a hot comeback with Albright but
his powerslam didn't work since he barely got Albright off the ground. They really didn't
click until the end, when Patriot used the full nelson buster (full nelson into basically a
slam) on Hansen for a strong near fall and Albright hit the german suplex on Williams.
Patriot went off the top for a shoulderblock on Hansen, who moved and it hit Albright.
Hansen then lariated Patriot for the pin. *1/4
11/16 NEW JAPAN: 1. Choshu & Fujinami beat Nogami & Kimura in 8:20 when
Fujinami made Nogami submit to the dragon sleeper. Better than you'd think,
particularly when Choshu was in. **; 2. Liger pinned Norio Honaga with a fisherman
buster. Honaga is well past his prime but Liger carried him to a good match. ***; 3.
Nakanishi & Sasaki & Kojima beat Hashimoto & Hirata & Scott Norton in 13:44 when
Sasaki pinned Hirata after a lariat. Fast-paced generally hot match. Nakanishi is looking
a lot better now that he's gotten away from doing the Kurosawa gimmick. The only weak
part of the match was Nakanishi vs. Norton, but at least it was stiff and believable, if not
pretty. Sasaki also did a messed up ipponzei spot with Hirata near the finish. ***1/2; 4.
Muto & Rick Steiner beat Chono & Tenzan in 10:21 when Muto pinned Tenzan after a
DDT off the top rope. Another fast paced very good match. Chono & Tenzan make a
tremendous heel tag team when it comes to timing and pacing and Chono is one of the
smartest workers around when it comes to picking his spots and the ability to have a
good athletic match without doing anything but basic spots worked around his STF
finisher. They are easily the best working heel tag team in the business. Muto has had his
working shoes on consistently of late and this was no exception. ***1/2
EMLL
Besides the Santo turn, it's been largely a slow week.
Promo Azteca
Besides Los Villanos, also jumping this past week from AAA was Salsero. Both he and La
Parka debuted on 11/22 at the major show of the week in Cuatitlan before a sellout
2,500. Villanos haven't started here yet since Villano IV went to WCW as soon as he
jumped. La Parka went on television this past week and said that he was the only and the
original La Parka and that all others using the name are phonies, in response to AAA
creating a La Parka Jr. Salsero's leaving was based on a business dispute in Juarez.
Apparently Salsero and a wrestler known as Crazy 33 promoted an AAA show in Juarez
which drew a sellout in the 9,000-seat arena, and somehow in the aftermath, Salsero
and Crazy had a business break-up which he blamed on Antonio Pena and joined Promo
Azteca.
There were meetings this past week with EMLL about running a major joint show but no
deal was reached.
AAA
Only other news is that on television, it was announced they were forming a new Atomic
Juniors quartet with Tinieblas Jr. & Mascara Sagrada Jr. & La Parka Jr. & Blue Demon
Jr. No word as of yet who Parka Jr. is.
ALL JAPAN
Tag team tournament standings as of 11/25:Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot 6-1; Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue 4-2; Steve Williams & Johnny Ace 3-2-1; Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun
Akiyama 2-2-1; Gary Albright & Sabu 2-3; Stan Hansen & Takao Omori 2-5 and Jun
Izumida & Giant Kimala II 1-5.
Hiroshi Hase debuts on 1/2 at Korakuen Hall and will also work dates on 1/3 at
Korakuen Hall and 1/5 at Hakata Star Lanes.
There has been nothing even hinted of late about the possibility of Nobuhiko Takada
working for this promotion.
Appearing on the January tour will be Steve Williams, Stan Hansen, Johnny Ace, Gary
Albright, The Patriot, Bobby Duncum Jr., Rob Van Dam, Sabu, The Eagle (Jackie
Fulton) and The Lacrosse (Jim Steele).
In tournament matches this week, on 11/20 in Niage before 1,800, Sabu & Albright
debuted as a team beating Izumida & Kimala II and Patriot & Kobashi beat Hansen &
Omori.
11/21 at Hakata Star Lanes before a sellout 2,800 had Williams & Ace over Izumida &
Kimala II, Patriot & Kobashi over Albright & Sabu when Kobashi pinned Sabu, and the
main event saw Kawada & Taue beat Misawa & Akiyama in 29:46 of a 30:00 time limit
when Kawada pinned Akiyama after a kick to the face.
11/22 in Okayama before a sellout 2,800 in matches that aired on the 11/24 television
show, had Sabu & Albright over Hansen & Omori in 13:40 of a bad match when Sabu
pinned Omori, Kawada & Taue over Williams & Ace in 20:07 when Kawada pinned
Williams after a kick to the face in a great match; and Misawa & Akiyama over Patriot &
Kobashi in 24:01 when Akiyama pinned Patriot with an exploder suplex in a great
match.
11/23 in Yonago before a sellout 2,850 had Hansen & Omori over Izumida & Kimala II
and Williams & Ace over Sabu & Albright when Williams pinned Sabu after a Doctor
bomb in 18:16.
11/24 in Kyoto had Taue & Kawada over Sabu & Albright when Taue choke slammed
Sabu in 12:57, Misawa & Akiyama over Omori & Hansen in 13:31 when Akiyama pinned
Omori, and Patriot & Kobashi (wrestling in his home town) over Williams & Ace when
Kobashi pinned Ace in 24:22.
11/10 TV show did a 1.5 rating.
NEW JAPAN
The new tour opened on 11/20 in Soka and has been pretty much uneventful with no
major matches thus far. The foreigners are The Road Warriors, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and
Brad Armstrong, with Bobby Walker no-showing the tour. You can figure out how the
foreigners are being used--Warriors mainly working and winning in six-mans with
Power Warrior, while Guerrero and Armstrong are working the junior heavyweight
matches underneath and not getting much of a push.
Antonio Inoki held a press conference at New Japan headquarters in Tokyo on 11/21 and
announced that Tiger Jeet Singh, Dory Funk and Willie Williams all wanted to wrestle
him in 1997. It is believed that Williams, a one-time karate superstar in his late 40s, who
had a famous martial arts match with Inoki in 1979 and has made a career in Japan for
the past several years living off the fame of that loss, most recently with RINGS, will
probably be his foe at the Dome. He'll probably finally wrestle Funk some time this
coming year. Inoki wasn't supposed to wrestle again until the Dome show, but I guess
the 12/1 TV special wasn't gaining enough interest and he announced that he would
make his comeback on that show against Billy Gasper, which is the name of a masked
man in a main event feud during one of those forgettable periods in New Japan history.
The guy who played various Gasper brothers in those days included Bob Orton, Karl
Moffatt and Darryl Karolet.
Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura will challenge whoever has the IWGP tag title match
(Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan defending against Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka on 12/1) at the Dome show which only makes a dull card on paper that much
duller. Fujinami & Kimura were the first IWGP tag team champions back in 1985 and
held the titles three times before splitting up their tag team in 1988 and feuding on-andoff
since that time.
Shinya Kojika of Big Japan will appear at the 12/10 Osaka card to do an angle to build up
the Tokyo Dome.
11/9 TV show did a 3.7 rating.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Line-up for Pancrase on 12/15 at Budokan Hall is Masakatsu Funaki vs. Jason DeLucia
for the King of Pancrase championship, Frank Shamrock defends his No. 1
contendership against Kiuma Kunioku, Guy Mezger defends his No. 2 contendership
against Yuki Kondo, plus Ryushi Yanagisawa vs. Jack McLaughlin (35 years old, who
appeared as an alternate in a UFC last year losing to Joel Sutton, making his debut),
Osami Shibuya vs. Semmy Schiltt, Yusuke Fuke vs. Kim Jong Wan, Keiichiro Yamamiya
vs. Wesley Gassaway (27 years old, winner of a Buddy Albin IFC shootfighting event on
9/14) and Satoshi Hasegawa vs. Serge Narsisyan (French fighter who appeared on the
MARS PPV show over this past weekend losing to Willie Peeters). It's a strong line-up
for a regular show but very weak for a Budokan show, since Minoru Suzuki, Yoshiki
Takahashi, Katsoumi Inagaki, Manabu Yamada and Takafumi Ito are all out with
injuries due to the brutality of the style. The deal with Frank Shamrock was put back
together about a week ago as on 11/14, Pancrase paid Shamrock his monthly contractual
salary for the month and booked him on the December show. There are still unresolved
issues including why Shamrock, who is the No. 1 contender for the vacant title, wasn't
put in the tournament to create the new champion. It appears Ken Shamrock and
Pancrase will have a meeting at some point after Ultimate Ultimate to try and settle their
contract problems.
WAR, Kitao Dojo, Wrestle Dream Factory, Michinoku Pro, Big Japan, Samurai Project
(Ryuma Go's promotion), Battlarts and the defunct IWA are joining together as "The
Union" as the groups had a press conference on 11/23. Basically it appears that these
groups are joining together for their secondary level real-life war with the new Tokyo Pro
Wrestling which includes much of the falling apart UWFI and the IWA guys that quit
like Tarzan Goto, Mr. Gannosuke and Flying Kid Ichihara. The first major project
together is the 12/13 Sumo Hall show headlined by Genichiro Tenryu vs. Nobuhiko
Takada. The rest of the card has Koji Kitao vs. John Tenta, Ultimo Dragon defending the
J Crown against Rey Misterio Jr., Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka defending the
International jr. tag titles against Tiger Mask Sayama & TBA, Nobutaka Araya vs. TBA,
Arashi & Osamu Tachihikari vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & Nobukazu Hirai, Tatsuo Nakano
vs. Satoshi Yoneyama (Battlarts), Ryuma Go vs. Samurai Max (both from Samurai
Project), Takashi Okamura & Yoshikazu Taru vs. Kamikaze & Masakazu Fukuda
(Wrestle Dream Factory), Doink the Clown (Ray Apollo) & Battle Ranger vs. Keisuke
Yamada & Keizo Matsuda (IWA tag team) and Jun Kikuchi vs. Seiji Yamakawa (Big
Japan).
In two of what appear to be the final shows in the history of the company, UWFI ran
11/20 in Sapporo (Billy Scott & Yoji Anjoh over Takada & Masahito Kakihara) and 11/23
in Sendai (Takada & Naoki Sano over Anjoh & Nikolai Gordeau). The promotion has two
more dates before the end of the year, at which point it's questionable what will happen
next.
RINGS quarterfinals of the Battle Dimension tournament on 11/22 in Osaka before
7,880 fans saw Kiyoshi Tamura over Mitsuya Nagai with an armbreaker, Volk Han over
Tsuyoshi Kousaka with an armbreaker, Yoshihisa Yamamoto over Gokiteza Bakouri with
the choke and Bitzsade Tariel over Hanse Nyman via knockout. In a non-tournament
match and their first singles match in many years, Akira Maeda beat Yoshiaki Fujiwara
in the main event. This sets up the semifinals on 12/21 in Fukuoka with Tamura vs.
Yamamoto and Han vs. Tariel. Finally got a tape of the October RINGS show. Tamura
vs. Illoukhine Mikhail was an excellent RINGS style match, although not at the level of
the Tamura-Han classic the previous month. Han vs. Masayuki Naruse was a god match
but had a little too many pro wrestling elements thrown in such as Han throwing Naruse
over the top rope to be believable. We noted about that show since Yamamoto beat
David Khakhaleishvili, the judo gold medalist in 1992 at 209 pounds, about not being
able to make 309 these days. That was no exaggeration, as they did a weigh-in before
that match and his shoot weight was 341.
Also saw a 20:00 television talk show segment on "The U Japan" card on 11/17. It was
clear every match was a shoot except Dan Severn vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, which was
an obvious work, with bodyslams and sidewalk slams before the Fujiwara armbar finish.
I recognize these promoters are the ones who put things together as works and not
Severn, and that anyone who has ever done pro wrestling has done worked matches at
one time or another (like almost every time), but my feeling is in the long run it's a
mistake for promoters to put worked pro wrestling style matches on their UFC-like cards
and because Severn does so many worked matches on shoot shows, it does mean one has
to question his matches going in from this point forward. Then again, in Japan, most of
the shoot style wrestling groups have been works from the start and don't suffer from a
public credibility problem over that fact. Kimo gave Bigelow a brutal beating with one
bare knuckle punch to the eye after another. Bigelow's eye looked like hell after the
match. Bigelow lasted longer than most do in the situation of getting straight on blows
right to his eye one after the other, as he didn't tap until he turned over and was choked
out. Don Frye's win over Mark Hall was a lot more brutal than their UFC match in July.
It appeared the Yoji Anjoh vs. Sean Alvares match was very exciting, as the spots they
aired had super crowd heat.
All Japan women ran a major show as a television taping, with the show airing on Fuji
Network over this past weekend, on 11/21 in Kobe before 2,650 fans with two title
changes. Rie Tamada won the All-Japan title from Kumiko Maekawa. They had a
unification match with IWA champion Takako Inoue pinning All-Pacific champion
Reggie Bennett. The main event had Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue, who face each
other for the WWWA title on 12/8, form a tag team to beat Aja Kong & Yumiko Hotta.
USWA
A couple of title changes over the past week. Brian Christopher beat Macho Warrior Ric
Hogan on 11/18 in Memphis to regain the USWA title. Hogan is gone to greener
pastures. The unemployment line is probably greener pastures than USWA these days.
While we don't have a gate figure, we're told that 11/18 show drew even worse than any
of the recent shows, which would mean less than $1,700. Steven Dunn & Flash Flanagan
captured the USWA tag titles from The Bruise Brothers (WWF's Grimm Twins) at the
live television show on 11/23 in Memphis due to outside interference from Johnny
Rotten, and it appears they were setting up a tag match in a week or two with Rotten &
Sid Vicious against the Bruise Brothers.
The major angle of the week was Jerry Lawler turning face, at least for one week. It
actually started with something in real life earlier in the week. Lawler had to testify in
Mississippi in front of the gaming commission that pro wrestling was entertainment
because they wanted him to get a promoters' license to continue to run shows in some
casinos. At the hearing he said pro wrestling wasn't real, saying it was as real as Santa
Claus and the Easter Bunny, and even though Lawler doesn't mean anything in
Memphis anymore, he's still a famous name from the past in that part of the country. So
Lawler admitting under oath that pro wrestling was fake became a big news story in the
entire area. Lawler then came out on television as a total babyface and tried to explain
this away to his loyal fans. He explained that the USWA has been promoting shows at
the Sheraton Casino and Lady Luck Casino in Mississippi and that of late, there haven't
been any shows because the boxing commission found out. He said the gaming
commission sent him an application for a license to run shows and claimed to get the
license it would cost him at least $8,000 in an investigations fee. Lawler said on
television that he doesn't know why he even got the application because he's just a
wrestler, not a promoter. He then used the Roddy Piper explanation after Vince
McMahon admitted pro wrestling matches were all entertainment and the winners and
losers were predetermined, trying to say that he said what he said so he wouldn't have to
pay $8,000 and made a joke out of saving himself that money, said he really didn't say
what the local newspaper said that he said (that pro wrestling wasn't real and it was all
entertainment) and he was misquoted and just said that wrestlers don't make more
money if they win their match than if they lose, but did admit he told the commission it
was as real as Santa and the Easter Bunny. He then said he still believes in Santa and the
Easter Bunny and brought out two Hooters girls dressed up as Santa and the Easter
Bunny. He then ran down the local newspaper, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, saying
that when they brought Mark Henry into town and went to the paper to have a story
done on an Olympic hero coming to town, the paper didn't want to have anything to do
with it because he was a pro wrestler. He then said he didn't think the Commercial
Appeal was real and held up a USA Today and said it was a real newspaper. It was then
announced that Lawler would be defending his Unified title on a Thanksgiving night
show in Memphis against Akeem Muhammad, billed as a 6-10, 325-pounder from the
Nation of Domination, and made a joke about filling the tank of his car up with Texoco
before coming to the Flea Market to beat the guy up. The turn came when Christopher &
Johnny Rotten were scheduled in a tag match against Nation of Domination (formerly
PG-13). They stuff piledrove Rotten before the match so Christopher took them both on
in a handicap match. Finally they handcuffed Christopher to the bottom rope and were
destroying him when Lawler made the save. Christopher demanded that Lawler be his
partner against NOD on Thanksgiving night and Lawler agreed, and they wound up
having another confrontation, with Lawler throwing a fireball at them.
It appears there has been a split between this promotion and Bert Prentice, since
Colorado Kid is gone.
Razor Ramon & Diesel worked Memphis television as a tag team and looked awful.
Complete show for 11/28 in Memphis is Bobby Bolton vs. Reggie B. Fine, Brickhouse
Brown vs. Tony Falk, Flanagan & Dunn defending the tag titles against Mike Samples &
Mo, Christopher defending the USWA title against Bill Dundee, Lawler defending the
Unified title against Muhammad, Lawler & Christopher vs. NOD and a Turkey Battle
Royal where the last man left in the ring is declared the Thanksgiving turkey.
ECW
One of the strangest deals in a long time, a combination angle and non-angle, took place
on 11/23 in Revere, MA. A 17-year-old named Eric Kulas was put in the ring with The
Gangstas and New Jack juiced him, apparently with an Xacto knife. Apparently Kulas,
who had never had much in the way of formal training and probably had never been
gigged before, moved as he was being sliced and it hit an artery and blood flowed like a
faucet. Kulas, who used the name Mass Transit, subbing for no-show Axl Rotten in a tag
title match teaming with D-Von Dudley, needed 50 stitches to close the wound.
Supposedly Kulas came to the building with some midget wrestlers and thought he was
going to do something with them, and then they bailed on him. The idea of the angle was
for him to where a uniform like a public official and get destroyed by The Gangstas, and
New Jack asked him before the match if he wouldn't mind bleeding and he apparently
said that he wouldn't. He wanted to cut himself, but New Jack wanted to do it since he
was more experienced. The show was held up after this incident for a long period of time
because various people, including Kulas' father, were freaking out and because it took 25
minutes to clean the ring up from all the blood. The father was screaming about suing
the promotion and later claimed that when he brought his son to the hospital, that they
wanted to press charges of child abuse against him because the authorities were alerted
because of how bloody he was, and nobody believed that something like that happened
in a pro wrestling match. To get their babyface character over more, New Jack after the
incident on the house mic said that either for all he cared the guy could bleed to death or
even he hoped the guy would bleed to death, depending upon which version one chooses
to believe.
The show that night in Revere, MA drew a sellout 974, but a television taping the
previous night in Webster, MA drew only 300.
They continued the gimmick where the Blue World Order tried to take over at both
shows.
In Webster they did an angle where Chris Candito & Mikey Whipwreck were teaming
against The Eliminators and Candito wouldn't help Whipwreck. Whipwreck legit injured
his elbow during the match.
They did an angle where Shane Douglas attacked and "injured" J.T. Smith, who was
actually really injured going in. It was Smith's last weekend with the promotion as he
moved from Philadelphia down to Virginia.
Sandman beat Raven to headline both shows, with the Revere show being a dog collar
match.
Tommy Dreamer gave Francine a tombstone piledriver in Revere with her dress going
south so everyone got a long panties shot.
Sunny was at the show in Revere.
12/7 ECW Arena line-up is Sandman vs. Raven for the ECW title in a barbed wire match,
Tommy Dreamer & Beulah vs. Shane Douglas & Francine, Sabu vs. Perry Saturn and Taz
vs. Rob Van Dam.
Terry Funk will return to ECW in January.
Next Boston area tour will be 1/3 and 1/4 with the latter date in Revere. The idea is to
make Revere a bi-monthly spot.
A correction from last week. When writing about the David Jerrico vs. Stevie Richards
match at the last Arena show, it mentioned that Richards won with a superkick after a
low blow, but it should have read that Jerrico was the one who delivered the low blow.
HERE AND THERE
The amateur wrestling publication Wrestling Institute Newsmagazine named its all-time
U.S. Greco-roman team and three pro wrestlers made the list. Dennis Koslowski, who
worked for about one year with UWFI in 1994, was named the best 220-pounder in
history based on capturing a bronze medal in the 1988 Olympics and a silver in 1992.
Brad Rheingans, who placed fourth in the 1976 Olympics and was expected to medal in
the boycotted 1980 Olympics, was listed as a top contender to that crown. Rheingans
wrestled throughout the 80s and got short pushes early in his career in the AWA, and
became affiliated with New Japan later in his career as a mid-level wrestler and talent
booker. The other listing was Jim (Baron Von) Raschke as one of the greatest
superheavyweights ever based on his placing third in the 1963 world championships.
UFC commentator Jeff Blatnick, the 1984 gold medalist as a superheavyweight, was also
on the list although they picked Matt Ghaffari as the best superheavyweight in U.S.
history.
Correction from the 11/18 issue when talking about steroids in sports. When the subject
of track and field was brought up, the subject name should have been Butch Reynolds,
but Butch Johnson.
At a Killer Kowalski show on 11/23 in North Adams, CT, Kowalski's womens champ,
Joanie Lee, defended the title against Rain Drop, who was male wrestler Snooky Fink
under a mask with a blonde wig, and who apparently was convincing enough that some
of the fans bought that he was a woman wrestler.
United States Championship Wrestling is on WPPT, Ch. 22, in Pittsburgh on Sundays at
11 p.m.
Indie pro wrestler Maurice McGruder is in the World Tough Man contest finals which
will be held 12/6 and 12/7 and appear on PPV later in the month.
Dan Severn worked a show on 11/23 in Des Moines, IA called Extreme Challenge before
800 fans. The card consisted of nine shoot matches, while Severn worked a UWFI style
match in the main event so fans were disappointed with that match.
A book called "Sports Champions" which has short bios on the 2,200 most important
figures in North American sports history lists former pro wrestlers Frank Gotch, Chris
Taylor and Danny Hodge as the only ones on that list, the latter two for their amateur
exploits.
Empire Wrestling has a show on 12/1 at the Boys & Girls Club in San Bernardino, CA.
Dan Severn works a show on 12/29 at the Miccosukee Gaming Center in Miami, FL for
Sunshine Pro Wrestling as well as Luna Vachon, Duke Droese and Vampire Warrior.
Fabulous Moolah appears for Mid American Wrestling on 12/6 in West Allis, WI.
All Pro Wrestling has shows 11/30 in Lakeport, CA and at its gym in Hayward, CA on
12/14.
UFC
UFC had a seven minute piece largely on the show this past May in Detroit on the debut
edition of CNN's American Edge television show on 11/20. Piece wasn't as negative as
most, and Shamrock came off well as anything but the stereotype of what you'd expect a
no holds barred fighter to be. So the ones stereotyped as the knuckle-draggers were the
fans, which, considering the crowd in Detroit was more blood-thirsty than any UFC live
event I've been to, wasn't as unfair a portrayal as many would like to say. I can't say
anything good about the piece, however, as it was shallow and didn't break any ground
or discuss anything that would require thought on the subject.
Shamrock was on Conan O'Brien on 11/22 demonstrating holds in a comedy sketch
where he came off well.
WCW
Nitro on 11/25 in Salisbury, MD (3,278 paying $38,365) was something of a blah show
even though some of the short matches had good wrestling. It opened with a U.S. title
tourney first round match with Lex Luger and Arn Anderson going to a double count out
in 15:31 of a match that was worse than it sounds. Basically a nothing happening match,
with the only highlight being The Giant getting on the house mic just before they went to
the finish, which was Luger holding Anderson in the rack but he was outside the ring. So
both were eliminated from the tourney, which theoretically should come down to
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero at Starrcade. They aired clips throughout the
show from the PPV the night before. Larry Zbyszko, when talking about the Nick Patrick
vs. Chris Jericho match, said that Jericho outweighed Patrick by 100 pounds (which I
guess means Nick's real weight should be right around 113 pounds). Eric Bischoff came
out with the NWO and did the same interview he did two nights earlier in Baltimore,
saying that everyone in WCW has 30 days to get their contracts switched over to NWO
contracts. At this point, Marcus Bagwell and Scotty Riggs came out. Bagwell joined the
NWO while Riggs protested, and the entire NWO destroyed Riggs after Bagwell gave
him a neckbreaker, as if you couldn't see that one coming. It's a good move in that
Bagwell is a real talented worker who was on the verge of having a career going nowhere
fast. Put in the hot group, he'll at least get a chance for people to notice and take his
talent seriously. Page pinned Disco Inferno with a diamond cutter in 2:14. It was short,
but Page looked real good. Steve Regal retained the TV title against the unmasked
Villano IV (still wearing a "IV" on his tights just in case anyone couldn't figure out which
Mexican he was), as Tony Pena, in 3:05 with the Regal stretch submission. Excellent
transition wrestling back-and-forth. I guess the folks at WCW forgot that when you do
this angle to humiliate the guy you make fun of, the jobber is supposed to look like a
total piece of crap, not like a great mat technician. In another U.S. title tourney match,
Eddie Guerrero pinned Konnan when he crashed on him as Konnan tried the splash
mountain in 5:23. Another good match. Big Bubba pinned Rick Steiner in 3:16 when
Sting came down from the rafters and gave Steiner the reverse DDT for the pin. Steiner
coming to the ring had made some comments about Sting. Rey Misterio Jr. pinned
Psicosis in 2:19 with the Frankensteiner off the Die hard finish. Way too short. Psicosis
really needs to leave this promotion or he'll become the 1990s version of Terry Taylor. At
the rate he's going, having his career go the way of Taylor would be a best-case, not a
worst-case scenario. Chris Benoit & Nancy Sullivan did an interview doing that angle
that only Kevin and Nancy understand. Benoit talked about what happened in Baltimore
and how the entire Dungeon of Doom couldn't get the job done. Nancy said to Kevin that
it's over now. Benoit and Nancy had really good charisma together. Benoit's interviews
have never been thought of as his strong point but they are now. This was the best he's
ever come across as a personality anywhere. Jeff Jarrett beat Alex Wright with the figure
four in 2:18. Wright is another talent lost in the mix. Finale was a DUD match with
Meng & Barbarian vs. Harlem Heat going nowhere for 4:00 until the NWO came out and
destroyed all four of them.
As usual, WCW won the Monday battle, for something like the 23rd week in a row,
although numbers were down on both sides. Nitro did a 3.1 rating and 4.6 share (2.7
head-to-head hour, 3.5 unopposed hour) to Raw's 2.1 rating and 3.1 share. Raw's
numbers continue to be disappointing since the show featured Bret's first television
match, against his brother, plus a live interview with Michaels. In examining the headto-
head quarters, Nitro opened with a 2.5 to 2.1 edge, but increased its lead to 3.0 to 1.9
while it had the Bischoff interview angle. The gap narrowed after that, but Nitro never
had less than an 0.5 lead. Nitro's peak in the second hour was a 4.0 for the tape of the
Piper/Hogan angle from the PPV the night before and the Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis
"match" (more like a high spot), dropping to a 3.4 for Jarrett vs. Wright and Meng &
Barbarian vs. Heat and the ending angle. Nitro replay did a 1.1 rating and 2.5 share.
Other weekend ratings saw Main Event at 1.4, Saturday Night at 2.7 and Pro at 1.7.
Bischoff's gimmick is based on the character Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wallstreet."
Jerry Sags suffered a mild concussion after getting pounded on with a chair on the 11/18
Nitro by Scott Hall.
The word we got was the NWO hour of Nitro would start on 12/2, however on the 11/25
show, there was no mention of that happening next week. The last word was that
Bischoff and Ted DiBiase would announce the first hour and that Tony Schiavone,
Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay would do the second hour, and that Larry Zbyszko
would end up doing some sort of a television angle with Scott Hall.
Gene Okerlund is back on the 900 line. Since with the sleazemaster gone, hotline
business dropped a ton, so they had to bring him back after all. Jeff Katz, who made the
remark about Raw being moved to midnight if the ratings don't improve which resulted
in more of those threatening letters, was dumped to bring Okerlund back.
Giant has a cameo in the Schwarzeneggar movie "Jingle all the way," which is apparently
on the verge of being a flop by Arnold proportions.
Craig Pittman did an apparent heel turn on the Saturday Night show. Pittman, managed
by Teddy Long, was wrestling Jericho. Pittman worked as a heel which Long didn't like.
It wound up with Long arguing with Pittman, allowing Jericho to dropkick Pittman off
the top for the win. Long then raised Jericho's hand after the match and managed him at
the PPV the next day.
The house show on 11/23 in Baltimore drew about 6,500 and $86,000. Flair, who was in
Jarrett's corner, got the biggest pop on the show. Scott Steiner appeared at the show in
Rick's corner. Dean Malenko beat Eddie Guerrero in a cruiserweight title match. Konnan
& Hugh Morrus destroyed Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera in what was described as a
great but one-sided match. It was Guerrera's 22nd birthday and the Mexican wrestlers
were on the stage singing Happy Birthday to him during the match. Syxx pinned
Misterio Jr. when Patrick's neck gave out as Misterio Jr. had a pin, but the neck was fine
when Syxx used a spin kick. This was really strange since the George Michael Sports
Machine, a nationally syndicated sports show, was at the card because they wanted to do
a feature on Misterio Jr., so they have him job and I was told the match was well below
normal Misterio Jr. standards. Sullivan-Benoit ended up back in the bathroom, this time
with the entire Dungeon of Doom staked out in the bathroom and they annihilated
Benoit. Nancy attempted to attack Kevin but was held back by Meng & Barbarian. Giant
beat Sting via DQ. They turned all the lights out, and when they were turned back on,
Sting was in the ring. That sounds familiar but I can't figure out where they got that idea
from. Anyway, Sting used the bat for a DQ. Finale saw Hall & Nash, with Bischoff in
their corner, over Heat when Syxx distracted Booker t, who was pinned.
Cards for 12/7 in Winston-Salem and 12/8 in Asheville, NC have been canceled. The
feeling is that the line-ups on paper were too weak for those markets, particularly with
Flair being injured and so many of the wrestlers in Germany.
The Nitro shows on 12/2, 12/9 and 12/16 will be somewhat skeleton crews because many
of the bigger names will be in Germany and none of the Mexicans are booked for any
Nitros, or any shows at all for that matter, until 12/30.
WWF
A few clarifications on the Raw taping in New Haven on 11/18. As aired on this
weekend's show, what actually happened in the Bret vs. Owen match is that Austin hit
Bret with a chair for the DQ. Austin then put Bret's ankle in the chair to do the Pillman
deal on him with Owen cheering him on, but Davey Boy Smith ran in and stopped him
saying that enough was enough. Austin tried again and Smith stopped him. Austin
ended up hitting Smith with a chair and then Owen began arguing with Austin, who
walked off. They are trying to get Austin over as a babyface since the lone wolf is a
babyface role and he's getting cheered anyway, but still keep him a heel since his biggest
programs will be against faces. The babyface/heel dichotomy is on the verge of being
dead anyway. What happened with the Justin Bradshaw babyface turn is that Bradshaw
& Zeb were facing Jesse James in a handicap match and Zeb caused Bradshaw to lose
the match. After the match, Bradshaw lariated Zeb and branded him. Sounds like Zeb's
career prospects aren't the best. The Undertaker-Mankind match was taped for Raw and
I believe airs on 12/9 and is said to have been an outstanding match. They also did a deal
where Marc Mero posed with the IC belt, which would lead one to believe that Mero will
win the title before the next PPV, but I'm told it was all a swerve.
Smith missed house shows this week because he left for England early because his sister
was very ill. Leif Cassidy took his place teaming with Owen Hart.
Marty Jannetty's actual injuries at Survivor Series were a chipped bone in his foot and a
bad ankle sprain. The ankle injury is more serious than the foot injury but they are
hopeful he'll be back in action in a week or so.
Ahmed Johnson's return is now set for the Raw tapings on 12/16 and his first house
show will be on 12/26 in Chicago. The idea right now is to not book a match against
Faarooq for as long as possible to create more anticipation of such a match.
Here's the best detailed version of the Curt Hennig story I can come up with. Hennig was
contemplating a huge lump sum settlement from Lloyd's of London, which was either
$150,000 (according to WWF sources) or $300,000 (according to others). To get the
settlement he'd have to basically sign a deal that he was permanently disabled and could
never wrestle again. Apparently as they were doing the angle for the match with Hunter
Hearst Helmsley, while what they did was a back-up plan, apparently the WWF was
under the impression there was at least a solid chance Hennig was going to come back
and wrestle as a face, although Hennig apparently never gave them a yes or a no until
just a few days before the Raw match. Since WWF figured he might wrestle and since he
was under a disability deal with Lloyd's, the WWF's legal department sent a memo to
Lloyd's to try to reach a settlement regarding the deal. At that point Lloyd's nixed the
idea of paying Hennig the lump sum for permanent disability because they believed he
was thinking about returning to the ring, so therefore he wasn't permanently disabled.
Hennig was furious thinking the WWF had double-crossed him which led to him
contacting WCW and going there as revenge. After no-showing the weekend of 11/9, he
and McMahon talked things out and McMahon offered him a five-year wrestling
contract with a $300,000 per year downside guarantee, which Hennig verbally agreed
to, and McMahon felt everything was cool since Hennig was guaranteed far more money
in the contract than whatever he was going to make in the Lloyd's settlement. Hennig
had during the week told others in the WWF that he was coming back as a wrestler and
had been training with Brad Rheingans. While we don't know the WCW figures,
apparently Bischoff's offer for a three-year deal was higher so Hennig went with WCW,
without telling McMahon, and no-showed an autograph session, the Hall of Fame
dinner, Survivor Series and the Superstars voice-overs. The WWF is claiming Hennig
has breached his contract, which expires in May, by no-showing the past three weeks.
The threat is there for this to wind up in court because the belief is that WCW will debut
Hennig well before May.
The latest on the Shotgun Saturday Night show is that it's scheduled for a 1/4 start date.
While this hasn't been officially confirmed, my belief is that they have a TV deal done
and are keeping it quiet for fear WCW will try and buy it out, because you don't book
buildings a few weeks out on the hopes you can at the last minute put together a TV deal.
The show will air live at Midnight on Saturday nights and will be put up on satellite, so
it'll air live on a syndicated network they are attempting to put together both Eastern
and Central time, and on a three-hour tape delay on the West Coast, with Vince
McMahon and Todd Pettingill most likely as announcers. McMahon, Bruce Prichard and
Paul Heyman went out to scout various night clubs in New York City to revolve tapings
in, although Heyman is not an official consultant for the show, but it wouldn't be a shock
to see him have some kind of involvement in it. What's interesting about this is that
McMahon had heavily criticized WCW for the expense of going live every week because
of the six-figure costs each week of doing such a show, and now he's doing it himself,
with similar costs of going live, but doing a syndicated show that has the added expense
of perhaps having to buy time, having to put together a syndicated network that will
almost surely not reach as many homes as TNT, and being in a time slot where it's going
to be basically impossible to draw the kind of ratings WCW does with its live show so
they can't make nearly as much selling ads for the show. In addition, by running a live
show at midnight on Saturday, it'll mean WWF has to water down its Saturday night live
shows since some of the stars will have to be pulled from the tour each week, and
Saturday night is theoretically the most profitable night for house shows.
Savio Vega twisted his knee but didn't even miss a show.
Some PPV locations for 1997 after Mania. 4/20 in Green Bay, 5/11 in Baltimore, 6/8 is
King of the Ring in Providence, 7/6 in Calgary, 8/3 is SummerSlam at the Continental
Arena (Meadowlands) in East Rutherford, NJ, 9/7 in Louisville. Other PPV dates are
10/5, 11/9 (Survivor Series) and 12/7. You can see they are making a habit of as the year
goes on doing the PPV shows as early in the month as possible. With all the shows on
PPV, in the cable guides, the positioning of the advertising favors the shows early in the
month. Events like SummerSlam and Survivors are a couple of weeks earlier in the year
than they've been traditionally.
First two house shows after Christmas are 12/26 in Chicago (Sid vs. Mankind, Bret &
Michaels vs. Vader & Austin) and 12/27 at Nassau Coliseum (Sid vs. Mankind, Michaels
vs. Austin).
Preliminary estimates for Survivors have ranged between an 0.48 and 0.58 buy rate,
which have to be a huge disappointment considering it was Hart's first match back and
how well promoted the show was.
Road agent and former wrestler Arnold Skaaland collapsed backstage at the Survivor
Series, apparently because his blood sugar was low, but was back at work by 11/20.
Superstars taping on 11/19 in Springfield, MA before 5,230 fans (3,447 paying $42,128)
had only a few major notes. Austin beat Bart Gunn when Bart was distracted by Billy.
After the match Austin used the stunner on Billy as well. Head Bangers (Glen Ruth &
Chaz Warrington) debuted and looked pretty good. Jesse James beat Sultan by DQ.
Goldust double count out Helmsley for the IC title. Jim Cornette did an interview asking
Rocky Maivia to let him manage him and Maivia ripped up the contract. They are doing
the gimmick where all the managers are after Maivia and he turns them all down. No
doubt he's got potential, but in recent years fans have shoved back at most green guys
shoved down their throats and this is beginning to look like a shove rather than natural.
Hart & Smith & Crush over Jake Roberts & Mero & Vega. Ahmed Johnson has a
confrontation with PG-13 and Faarooq which apparently came off well. Doug Furnas &
Phil LaFon beat Head Bangers in a match said to have been disappointing. Bart Gunn
beat Helmsley via DQ when Billy interfered. Crush double count out Vega. Austin
pinned Barry Windham in a nothing match. Shawn Michaels beat Faarooq via DQ when
PG-13 interfered. In the dark match, Sid & Undertaker beat Vader & Austin when Sid
pinned Vader.
Other house shows this week saw 11/20 in White Plains, NY draw 2,075 and $32,302,
11/21 in Hull, Quebec drew 1,732 and $28,267 and 11/22 in Montreal drew 6,018 and
$121,290. In White Plains, they held a 20-man mini Royal Rumble which came down to
Diesel, Crush and Maivia, and if you can't figure out who won that, you aren't paying
attention. Maivia did do his first job in Hull to Vader. Austin pinned Goldust in White
Plains and Austin received basically 100% cheers. In Montreal, Michaels pinned
Mankind in the main event, while Sid had a title defense pinning Austin.
Cassidy changed his look and dropped the geek persona on his own as a way to get
noticed, basically because his contract is coming up and he recognizes at this point he's
going nowhere.
On Live Wire they made mention that WWF is apparently reviving the idea of doing a
call-in radio show.
Jim Ross was still making subtle references this weekend of feuding with Vince
McMahon, but it's been heavily downplayed. At one point Ross talked about the crowd
in Springfield being a capacity crowd and saying this wasn't a theme park side show with
a crowd herded in like cattle (in reference to WCW World Wide) or in a Bingo Hall. The
line would come across a lot better if it really was a capacity crowd.
Weekend ratings were well up from last week with Blast off at 0.7, Live Wire at a record
1.4, and Superstars at 1.5.
On Raw 11/25, they did a live interview with Michaels and Jose Lothario where they
claimed Lothario's heart was damaged in the deal with Sid. They acknowledged Michaels
being booed at MSG and tried to do what they did last year with Kevin Nash after he lost
the title by giving him an attitude.
Flash Funk looked awesome, both in the ring as a wrestler, and in his entrance gimmick
with the women, in his Superstars debut over the weekend

 

Dec. 9, 1996 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Ultimate
Ultimate 1996 preview, 24-hour fight channel debuts,
October business comparisons, tons more
Written by Bryan Alvarez Monday, 09 December 1996 20:37
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 December 9, 1996
WCW WORLD WAR III FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 26 (18.3%)
Thumbs down 101 (71.1%)
In the middle 15 (10.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon 114
WORST MATCH POLL
Battle Royal 44
Triangle tag team match 24
Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick 16
REALITY SUPERFIGHTING I FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 52 (40.6%)
Thumbs down 53 (41.4%)
In the middle 23 (18.0%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Tom Erikson vs. Murillo Bustamante 55
Renzo Gracie vs. Oleg Taktarov 29
WORST MATCH POLL
Tom Erikson vs. Murillo Bustamante 20
Juan Mott vs. Yasunori Matsumoto 12
Based on phone calls, fax messages and letters to the Observer as of Tuesday, 12/3.
Statistical margin of error:+-100%
A group of fighters and the fledgling sport of so-called no-holds-barred fighting come to
an important crossroads this weekend.
The second version of the Ultimate Ultimate PPV, generally considered the biggest event
of the year in the genre, combines several behind-the-scenes storylines. There is a
promotion that had enormous growth and success from late 1994 through the end of
1995, struggling to regain lost ground. There is a sport that is no longer threatened with
extinction by politicians, as it was a year ago, but still threatened by a number of forces,
not the least of which is a tremendous difference in the amount of publicity going into
the event as in the previous year, ironically caused by the same politicians who wanted it
banned. And there are eight fighters, all of whom to one degree or another, have a
professional career hinging on the balance.
Ultimate Ultimate on 12/7 in Birmingham's State Fairgrounds Arena, is not the ultimate
of all martial arts events. Losses in recent weeks of one of the co-favorites, Mark
Coleman, the lack of a name Brazilian fighter, and non-participation by Dan Severn, the
defending champion who is waiting this tournament out to face the winner, weakens
what could have been the deepest field ever. Losing Viktor Belfort Gracie also
theoretically weakens the line-up. But it is still the strongest tournament since last year's
Ultimate Ultimate and the biggest event of the year, largely due to the presence of Ken
Shamrock.
Shamrock, 32, who had maintained for more than a year that he would never enter a
tournament, changed his tune, largely to atone for his poor showing in his last fight, a
loss by decision to Severn on 5/17. Without Shamrock, this would be just another UFC
PPV show with a slightly stronger field than usual.
The finalized bracketing, as suspected in last week's issue, are Shamrock (5-2-2) vs.
Brian Johnston (2-2) and Tank Abbott (4-3) vs. Cal Worsham (1-1) in one half, and Kimo
(0-2) vs. Paul Varelans (4-3) and Don Frye (6-1) vs. Gary Goodridge (3-3) in the other
half. The order of the matches isn't finalized, although Shamrock-Johnston will open the
show. The most likely semifinals coming out of those matches are Shamrock vs. Abbott,
a grudge match that at one point one year ago could have been the single most
marketable match in the UFC but having lost its luster to a point because both men are
coming off poor performances, and Kimo vs. Frye, a match that may be too even to call.
Even though both Shamrock and Abbott are coming off disappointing matches, Abbott,
coming in overweight and losing the decision to Scott Ferrozo on 9/7, Shamrock would
surely go into such a match as the favorite, provided the punishment each man takes in
their first round match, which is always a key and unpredictable variable, is similar.
UFC remains the "name brand" to the casual audience and is still the only NHB
promotion that has been able to consistently draw sizeable buy rates on PPV. Even with
a tremendous amount of advertising on television and mailing out 200,000 programs to
those who have ordered similar shows in the past, Reality Superfighting laid a major
lemon when it comes to buy rate with an estimated 20-25,000 buys nationwide. But as
the leader, it is also the most maligned, coming under regular criticism in martial arts
magazines, from the fighters and even from its most loyal fans due to problems that
always seem to arise in a fledgling sport where rules are constantly tinkered with and
fine-tuned to create the most exciting potential product.
The martial arts magazines, in particular Black Belt, seemingly embrace and just on the
bandwagon of every competitor, pointing out beforehand the ways it is superior to UFC,
generally picking at UFC because of the quality of some of the weaker first round losers,
which has been a valid criticism, although one hardly limited to UFC. Made up
credentials and records, and booking people into tournaments that most insiders
recognize have no shot at winning has cut across every group in this genre, although
some more than others.
It's hard to know what exactly to expect. Shamrock will go in the heaviest and strongest
that he's ever gone into such a competition, particularly when it comes to his legs and
back, probably around 222 pounds, although strength is hardly the most important
factor in something like this. Skill often overcomes strength, and when it comes to a
tournament, conditioning, generally considered Shamrock's greatest strength, provides
an important factor as well. The question on Shamrock is durability. The knock on him
from other competitors is that how did he become superfight champion and at one point
and probably still today, the biggest star in the company, if he's never won a tournament.
Shamrock only entered two tournaments. In the first UFC in late 1993, Shamrock was a
novice to this type of fighting, at least in comparison with the experience level of Royce
Gracie, and lost to a choke rather quickly, a loss he somewhat avenged with a 36:00
draw in 1995 that ended Gracie's involvement in UFC. In 1994, at UFC III, Shamrock
won two matches, although looked particularly lackluster in his second win and injured
his knee, and forfeited rather than coming out for the finals, which in hindsight
considering the fortune of the two finalists (Harold Howard and Steve Jennum, neither
of whom won another NHB match anywhere in the world since that tournament),
should have been a match Shamrock should have won easily. Entering this tournament
appeared to be a way that Shamrock could answer all his critics in one night and make
himself the biggest star in the genre.
Well, that's what it looked like when he confirmed entry. The onus is on Shamrock. If he
does anything but win, no matter how the tournament goes, he'll only fuel his critics and
be viewed by them as a guy with the marketability, but not the ability. But with people
like Severn, Coleman and Marco Ruas out of the picture, winning the tournament won't
answer all the questions, although could put Shamrock in line for a series of PPV main
events against the three aforementioned names provided he can keep winning.
As mentioned last week, the lone positive of Coleman's late withdrawal is that SEG
theoretically has most of next year booked with ease. Severn vs. Shamrock in February.
The winner against Coleman, who may or may not be put in the heavyweight
tournament in February, on the May show. Plus there will be Ruas hanging in the wings
against whomever winds up as the undisputed king in May, and no doubt with NHB
fighting gaining more exposure around the world, more names will surface as top
contenders as well.
The storylines go deeper than Shamrock, attempting to become the second straight onetime
pro wrestler to capture the Ultimate Ultimate, which would be more significant in
Japan, where he's already a huge name in the pro wrestling world, than in the United
States. But if anything, Abbott has more on the line than Shamrock. Once thought of as
the group's biggest drawing card and someone just a break or two away from being a 90s
bad boy celebrity, the reputation of Abbott, who hadn't fought in a UFC event in nine
months due to a suspension, took a spill in two ways at the 9/7 UFC in Augusta, GA. Not
only did he lose in unimpressive fashion in the semifinals, coming in strong but
overweight and running out of gas quickly, but in a show built around his return and a
showdown with Coleman that never transpired, the buy rate of 0.45 showed his
mainstream appeal may have been overrated. Reports are that Abbott will show up in
considerably better shape, reports are that he'll be about 25 pounds lighter than last
time, and has been telling people that he wanted Shamrock in the first round to prove it
and is talking as if he can win the whole thing. There is also an underlying grudge
between the two of them, basically because in many ways the two are as opposite as two
fighters can be, both in look, training techniques, lifestyle and attitude. It's actually the
typical pro wrestling promoter dream match-up of the clean-cut babyface against the
ugly rude heel, both loaded with charisma, but unlike in building up the dream match,
both are coming off unimpressive losses.
Shamrock's first round opponent, Johnston, at 6-4 and probably close to 240 pounds,
with considerable skill in boxing, kick boxing, judo and wrestling, has been training for
this event in Sierra Vista, AZ with Frye's camp. The main difference between the two is
Johnston's lack of big match experience. Worsham is basically an unknown. He was in a
UFC in 1995, being called in at the last minute with basically about a weeks notice, and
showed some good punching ability before losing to a much larger Varelans. He came
back in May with about 25 more pounds and a lot more ground experience. He looked
impressive in beating Zane Frazier, but it's often misleading how impressive someone
looks in beating up someone who isn't at his level. Worsham is being brought in as a guy
to put up an entertaining fight, but not to threaten Abbott's getting into the second
round. But just how good he is at this point is a question mark.
In the other half, Kimo has never won in UFC, but has looked impressive in brutal
victory after brutal victory elsewhere in the world. Kimo is said to weigh 235, down from
250-260 in previous matches, but in his match with Bigelow looked more like 215.
Varelans, his first round foe, is big at 6-8 and 325 pounds, and with ten fights around
the world under his belt, has experience, but is a definite underdog. Frye, who looked to
be about 215 for his match in Japan against Mark Hall a few weeks back, has one UFC
loss to Coleman, but has looked terrorizing in most of his victories, He beat Goodridge in
the finals of February's tournament in Bayamon, PR, largely through having both
superior boxing and wrestling skill and conditioning, to counter Goodridge having the
power edge.
Handicapping Kimo vs. Frye may be the toughest of all. From a background standpoint,
Frye has an edge, having been a good collegiate wrestler and a professional boxer. Kimo
was basically a glorified street fighter who made a name by putting a hurting on Royce
Gracie before losing. In that fight he appeared lacking in skill, but had raw talent that
couldn't be denied. Both have the necessary killer instinct. Kimo has never been in a
match where he's physically been beaten up, as his losses to Gracie and Shamrock were
basically because of his foes having huge advantages when it came to submission skill.
Frye showed enormous heart in fighting Coleman, although he took a terrible beating in
the process. Since Kimo's match with Gracie, he's had two years of training for fighting
in events like this and appears to be 200% improved when it comes to technique, but
since his recent wins haven't come against top-level opponents, mainly pro wrestlers or
unskilled big guys being fed to him in Hawaii, just how much his technical improvement
means won't be answered until or unless he meets Frye.
Shamrock's toughest foe, if he's to get to the championship match, may not be Kimo or
Frye. When it comes to a third fight, particularly since the second fight doesn't look to be
easy for anyone, a lot depends on who takes the least amount of punishment in previous
fights. When it comes to Shamrock, Frye and Kimo, the things to look for in their early
matches, is not only how they win, provided they win, but how much punishment they
take in winning and how much energy they expend in those matches. And what if there
is an injury? An alternate being thrown in a second round fight would seem to give the
opponent of that alternate a huge edge going into the finals. But all things being equal,
Shamrock beat Kimo before, and by all accounts is in better condition now than he was
in February. With Frye, there are a lot of variables. Frye is a credible wrestler, but not a
world-class wrestler. He's a dangerous boxer, likely more dangerous than Shamrock, but
it's doubtful Shamrock would want to fight this on his feet.
When it comes to the late withdrawals mentioned last week, Coleman's illness is legit as
he was complaining about being too weak from a bug contracted in Brazil to properly
train while in Birmingham at the MARS event. Whether Belfort-Gracie's knee injury is
legit, or maybe even is legit, but not the primary reason for pulling out is subject to more
question. At the MARS event, the talk among the Brazilians was that Belfort-Gracie
wasn't going to sign to do the event because the contract had a two-year non-compete
clause without much in the way of guaranteed money. There was no talk among the
contingent over the weekend of any kind of a knee injury. When his handlers pulled him
out, they told SEG of a knee injury and sent along a medical report which showed a
severe enough knee ligament tear that UFC's doctor, Dr. Richard Istrico of New York,
agreed that he shouldn't do the event. However, Belfort-Gracie is not under contract to
SEG in regards to participating in an event in 1997 when the reported knee injury heals.
In learning from the problem of not having enough alternates to have a championship
match due to numerous injuries at the last tournament, seven alternates are being
brought in. Alternate matches will be Marcus Bossett (1-1) vs. Steve Nelmark (1-0), Tai
Bowden (0-1) vs. Jack Nilsson Jr. (a local PKA kick boxer), Mark Hall (2-2) vs. Felix Lee
Mitchell (1-1) and they are also bringing in Sam Fulton (0-1) just in case everyone in all
three alternate fights beats each other to death. The plan is to air the alternate fights
during the PPV show during breaks between matches. Dan Severn and Scott Ferrozo will
also be brought in to build up their matches in February and a video feature of Severn's
wrestling career is being put together.
***********************************************************
Sunday may have been a monumental day in the history of wrestling. Or it may be much
to do about nothing.
"Fighting TV Samurai!," the first-ever 24-hour pro wrestling and martial arts television
network, debuted with a live pro wrestling show put on by Antonio Inoki. The debut in a
sense was nearly as inauspicious as they come, as a day or two before match time, only
about 3,000 homes in the entire country of Japan had signed up for the premium
channel as part of the debut of PerfecTV (similar to DirecTV in the United States)
satellite system. PefecTV itself had about 100,000 homes signing up head of time for its
debut this past week. To say that figure for Samurai is disastrous would be an
understatement, but it also should be noted that networks such as ESPN and CNN lost
zillions of dollars for years before not becoming established parts of our cultural fabric.
Whether this network has the backing to survive what will almost surely be zillions of
dollars in losses before it may start to pay off is the big question, but the backers were
talking about the year 2005 before they expected things to start paying off.
The belief in Japan, particularly Tokyo, is that cable television will never be a big deal in
the country due to zoning laws, but the small home satellite dishes such as have just
come to the United States, may bypass cable as the way to increase from just broadcast
stations to a potential of 50 stations with premium channels such as Samurai.
Among the pro wrestling features on the new network are old historical television hours
from both All Japan and New Japan, a Sunday night live mens pro wrestling card from
8-10 p.m. every week revolving among several mid-level offices (All Japan and New
Japan have current network deals, as do Rings and Pancrase on cable stations, so this
weekly show will air groups such as WAR, Tokyo Pro Wrestling, Big Japan, etc.), a
Tuesday night live womens pro wrestling card from 8-10 p.m. from either JD, LLPW or
Gaea (since JWP has a cable deal and All Japan women have a network deal), a Sunday
10-11 p.m. slot showing Golden Age of wrestling American tapes, Monday 8-9 p.m. with
WCW Pro International, Monday 9-10 p.m. with Lucha Libre (not sure which group but
I'm led to believe Promo Azteca has the inside track), Friday 9-10 p.m. will be a weekly
Antonio Inoki sports talk show (why does the name Jay Leno come to mind?), and
perhaps the most important show of all will be a nightly Sports Center type show from 11
p.m. to midnight which will give results, cover angles and rundowns of all the pro
wrestling events happening that night around Japan. This will speed the time the masses
can get information of live wrestling events. In addition, the entire 300-run episode of
the Tiger Mask cartoons have been purchased, and there will be another weekly show
that will air 1981-83 matches from Satoru Sayama as the original Tiger Mask. There will
actually be eight hours of programming each day that will be repeated in three cycles.
The general feeling going in is that this is going to be a hard thing to make a go of, but
most people were laughing at the ideas of CNN and ESPN for years, although an all
sports station is one thing, but a station with nothing but pro wrestling, kick boxing,
karate and Vale Tudo is another.
The prime time debut of the network on 12/1 was a live show put together by Inoki
before a sellout crowd of 3,700 at the Yoyogi Gym in Tokyo. The show was said to have
been confusing, since it combined kick boxing, shidokan karate with independent
traditional and worked-shoot style pro wrestling matches. After the kick boxing and
shidokan matches, there was a tag team match from Battlarts, a small Japanese group
that does worked-shoot style matches. None of the first three matches had any heat. This
was followed by an interpromotional match where Ultimo Dragon retained his eight
junior titles beating Gran Naniwa of Michinoku Pro wrestling with a Frankensteiner in
12:29 in a bout said to have been average. The original Tiger Mask (Sayama) beat Kitao
Dojo's Masaaki Mochizuki by pin with a Tiger suplex in 8:22 in what was reported to us
as a poor match. After the match Sayama said he was picking Mochizuki to be his
partner for 12/13 when he challenges Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka on the WAR Sumo
Hall card for the International jr. tag titles. Next was an interpromotional indie match
with PWFG's Yoshiaki Fujiwara over Wrestle Dream Factory's Shinichi Nakano with the
choke in 8:55, followed by a "mixed" match with Wilhelm Ruska, the 1972
superheavyweight and overall gold medalist in judo, now 56-years-old, beating Yuki
Ishikawa of Battlarts with the choke in 3:37. In a bizarre match-up, Koji Kitao beat
Mabel via armbreaker submission in 4:55. Mabel actually popped the crowd doing a
dropkick and an enzuigiri. The original main event was a 10-man Michinoku Pro match
where Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki beat Super
Delfin & Masato Yakushiji & Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Naohiro Hoshikawa in
16:41. The main event, Inoki's first match since his June match in Los Angeles at the
World Wrestling Peace Festival, saw Inoki wrestle a man in a pirate costume (from a
forgettable late 80s angle) known as "The Gasper," winning with an armlock in 4:58.
Gasper is believed to be a poor Japanese wrestler and this was a bad match. The show
had a weak advance with the Michinoku match as the main event, so Inoki added
himself to his show about a week out and it worked because it was a legit sellout. Before
the Inoki match started, Willie Williams, a former karate star who had a famous mixed
match against Inoki on February 27, 1980 before a sellout at Sumo Hall, which ended
without a winner as the doctor stopped the match ruling neither could continue in the
fourth round, challenged Inoki for the 1/4 Tokyo Dome, the rematch that is 17 years in
the making as the two, for whatever reason, never had a rematch. After Inoki's match, he
agreed, provided it was a no holds barred match.
*************************************************************
There has been a tremendous amount of literature cross our desk this past week
regarding both pro wrestling and UFC-fighting. Certainly the most-read and most talked
about article this past week was Joe Queenan's column "Average Joe" in the 11/30-12/6
TV Guide. The article, called "Get a Grip," was about the Monday night wrestling wars.
It was a largely critical article, mainly of Milton Bradley and Nintendo for sponsoring
either Raw and/or Nitro. Queenan called Monday night wrestling the "creepiest, most
unnerving, least scientifically explainable, most downright bizarre (television)
programming of all." Luckily for Queenan, the night he decided to investigate pro
wrestling was the night the WWF gave him more ammunition for his thesis than he
would ever need--the Pillman/Austin angle at Pillman's house.
Not to say Monday Nitro came up unscathed, but the best Queenan could do to knock
the program was talking about a "hefty (?), highly athletic woman named Reina Jubuki"
and her womens match against Madusa on that evening's Nitro and making a few cute
remarks about Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. He then concluded that the two pro
wrestling shows supplied "the most sadistic, stomach-turning, gross, psychologically
discombobulating programming on television today."
The opposite of that was this month's Live Magazine, which boasts a circulation of
400,000. It's a mail order magazine sent to people as puff articles based around their
local ticket outlet mailers letting people know the entertainment events coming their
way. Apparently the articles are mainly tradeoffs, since the magazine was selling WWF
action figures and the article about Jerry Lawler was mainly a WWF puff piece. To its
credit, Lawler came off good and the piece was largely accurate aside from some
exaggerations about live attendance.
The October-November issue of Axcess, an Entertainment and Technology bi-monthly
had a story about the Gracie family, focusing on Royce and Rorion. The Gracies claimed
they split with UFC over implementation of time limits, and they pushed the idea of
Royce's challenge to Mike Tyson which Rorion admitted would probably never happen.
The November 1996 issue of John Parrillo's Performance Press (an underground
bodybuilding mag) has a one-page story of Mark Coleman, pushing the idea that he's
been using Parrillo's food supplements. An interesting note in the December 1996 Black
Belt is that the Pancrase promotion had a listing to contact its Los Angeles office for
American martial arts fighters who believe they have the skill to participate.
The February 1997 Muscle Mag International in one of its columns leads with the story
of Achim Albrecht and Mark Henry joining the WWF, and even mentions the Observer
as the source of the Albrecht story (which was awfully nice of the author, Observer
reader and one-time pro wrestler Steve Neece, since he actually left a message on my
machine about Albrecht joining WWF before I'd ever heard about it). Neece listed
prominent national and international bodybuilding stars that had preceded Albrecht
into wrestling that included John Lees, Earl Maynard, Roy Callendar, Spencer Churchill,
Harold Poole, Don Ross, Armand Tanny, Jim Hellwig (Ultimate Warrior), Andre Drapp,
Eric Pederson (Fritz Von Goering), Pepper Gomez, Tony Sillipini (Tony Marino),
Seymour Koenig, Zabo Koszewski, Dick Garza (Mighty Igor) and Anthony White (Tony
Atlas). Other prominent names come to mind that he left out including Freddy Ortiz,
Aaron Rodriguez (Mil Mascaras), Joe Bednarski (Ivan Putski) and Wayne Coleman
(Superstar Billy Graham) although the latter three weren't international level
bodybuilders but all did bodybuilding contests, the latter two doing them at the same
time as pro wrestling with Putski's best bodybuilding placings coming in Over-40 events
as he was more of a powerlifter than a bodybuilder in his younger years. Of those names,
Mascaras was a genuine international legend, Graham was one of the biggest stars of the
70s, Gomez (who I believe competed with Sean Connery in a Mr. America contest) was a
major star in the 50s and 60s particularly in Texas and California, Warrior was a huge
attraction, Putski had a run as a major draw in Texas and New York and Igor and Tony
Atlas had runs as big stars as well. The article also mentioned the exploits of Sailor Art
Thomas, who it said never did well in bodybuilding shows in the 50s because of the bias
of the times (in those days, blacks were never allowed to win major bodybuilding
championships--my how times have changed) but it was said that in the early 60s he was
a better bodybuilder than most of the Mr. America winners of that time frame.
In listing famous strong men that went into pro wrestling when talking about Henry,
among those listed were Bert Assirati, Doug Hepburn, Paul Anderson, Bruno
Sammartino, Chuck Fish (Great Mephisto), Herbie Schiff (Herbie Freeman), Harold
Sakata (Oddjob Tosh Togo), Ken Patera, Ted Arcidi, Tom Magee, Bill Kazmaier and
Doug Furnas. The article said that Don Arnold, who is generally believed to be the first
man to do a legit 400 pound bench press (in 1948), went into pro wrestling in 1950 and
had a long career, and said rumors had it that Yukon Eric and Killer Kowalski were
among the earliest men to do 400 on the bench and that Hercules Cortez was said to be
able to bench press 500 pounds more than 35 years ago, at a time when few could boast
that kind of prowess. Scott Norton's name should certainly be on any list of that type as
he did 640 on the bench under meet conditions many years ago, a figure topped among
those who did pro wrestling by only Arcidi and Kazmaier, who held what were at the
time world records of 705 and 661 during their prime years. It's interesting to note that
although Henry is being billed as the world's strongest man in the WWF, his totals in
powerlifting are actually less than those of Furnas, who was probably 150 pounds lighter
when establishing his world record at the time marks. Henry is a rarity in the lifting
world in that he was competing at the top level in both powerlifting and Olympic lifting.
*************************************************************
This is the second issue of the current four-issue set. If you've got a (1) on your address
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For the most up-to-date wrestling information I can be reached every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday on the Wrestling Observer Hotline (900-903-9030/99 cents per
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Eastern time after UFC on option seven. For UFC, Bruce Mitchell will be on option eight
about 20 minutes after the completion of the show, and Steve Beverly will be on option
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also have an option five feature answering readers questions which is updated every few
weeks depending upon volume of questions.
Besides myself, hotline reports are done by Bruce Mitchell (Thursday, Saturday), Scott
Hudson (Thursday, Tuesday), Steve Beverly (Friday, Saturday, Tuesday), Ron Lemieux
(Sunday, Wednesday), Georgiann Makropolous (Sunday) and Mike Mooneyham
(Monday).
1996 WRESTLING OBSERVER AWARDS
Balloting is now open for the Observer awards. All responses should be mailed by
Christmas as our deadline will be the first week of January as far as doing final
tabulations. Remember that the time frame for the awards is anything happening within
pro wrestling internationally from December 1, 1995 through November 30, 1996.
Anything before or after those dates shouldn't be taken into consideration. Results of the
awards will be printed in our double issue in mid-January.
"CATEGORY A" AWARDS. PICK A FIRST, SECOND AND A THIRD PLACE FINISHER
IN EACH CATEGORY. POINTS WILL BE AWARDED ON A 5-3-2 BASIS. THE
WINNER OF THE AWARD IS DETERMINED BY TOTAL POINTS.
1. WRESTLER OF THE YEAR
2. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER
3. BEST BABYFACE
4. BEST HEEL
5. FEUD OF THE YEAR
6. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR
7. MOST IMPROVED
8. MOST UNIMPROVED
9. BEST ON INTERVIEWS
10. MOST CHARISMATIC
11. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER
12. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD
13. BEST FLYING WRESTLER
14. MOST OVERRATED WRESTLER
15. MOST UNDERRATED WRESTLER
16. BEST PROMOTION
17. BEST WEEKLY TELEVISION SHOW
18. MATCH OF THE YEAR
19. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (refer to 11/18 issue for eligible candidates)
20. MANAGER OF THE YEAR
21. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
22. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
"CATEGORY B" AWARDS. PICK ONE IN EACH CATEGORY. WINNER CHOSEN ON
BASIS OF FIRST PLACE VOTES
1. BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD OF THE YEAR
2. WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD OF THE YEAR
3. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER
4. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC
5. BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR
6. READERS PERSONAL FAVORITE WRESTLER
7. READERS LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER
8. WORST WRESTLER/ROOKIES INELIGIBLE
9. WORST TAG TEAM
10. WORST WEEKLY TELEVISION SHOW
11. WORST MANAGER
12. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR
13. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR
14. WORST ON INTERVIEWS
15. WORST PROMOTION
16. BEST BOOKER
17. PROMOTER OF THE YEAR
18. BEST GIMMICK
19. WORST GIMMICK
20. MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (This is for the wrestler who, when he appears
on television and you have friends or family in the room with you, makes you the most
embarrassed to be a wrestling fan)
MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 12/6 TO 1/6
12/6 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (Real World Tag League tournament finals)
12/7 UFC Ultimate Ultimate PPV Birmingham, AL State Fairgrounds Arena (Shamrock,
Abbott, Frye, Johnston, Kimo, Varelans, Goodridge, Worsham)
12/7 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena (Sandman vs. Raven)
12/7 Tokyo Pro Wrestling Tokyo Sumo Hall (Anjoh & Okumura vs. Goto & Gannosuke)
12/8 All Japan Women Tokyo Sumo Hall (Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue)
12/9 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena
12/9 Michinoku Pro Osaka Rinkai Sports Center
12/10 New Japan Osaka Furitsu Gym (Chono & Tenzan vs. Road Warriors)
12/11 FMW Tokyo Komazawa Olympic Park Gym (Onita & Tanaka & Nakagawa & Pogo
vs. Head Hunters & Oya & ?)
12/13 WAR Tokyo Sumo Hall (Takada vs. Tenryu)
12/15 WWF It's Time PPV West Palm Beach, FL Memorial Auditorium (Sid vs. Bret
Hart)
12/15 Pancrase Tokyo Budokan Hall (Funaki vs. DeLucia)
12/16 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Tampa, FL Ice Palace
12/16 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Pensacola, FL Civic Center
12/17 WWF Superstars tapings Daytona Beach, FL Ocean Center
12/20 Michinoku Pro Nagoya Nakamura Sports Center (Michinoku vs. Delfin)
12/21 RINGS Fukuoka International Center (Yamamoto vs. Tamura)
12/23 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Macon, GA Civic Center
12/26 WWF Chicago Rosemont Horizon (Bret Hart & Michaels vs. Vader & Austin)
12/27 WWF Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum (Sid vs. Mankind)
12/29 WCW Starrcade '96 PPV Nashville, TN Municipal Auditorium (Hogan vs. Piper)
12/30 WWF Monday Night Raw tapings Albany, NY Knickerbocker Arena
12/30 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Knoxville, TN Civic Coliseum
12/31 UFC Ultimate New Year's Eve PPV
1/4 New Japan Tokyo Dome (Choshu vs. Hashimoto)
1/5 WWF Los Angeles Sports Arena (Sid vs. Undertaker)
1/6 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Monroe, LA Civic Center
RESULTS
11/13 Orlando Disney Studios (WCW Saturday Night tapings - 600
sellout/all freebies): Chris Jericho b La Parka, WCW TV title:Steve Regal b Bobby
Eaton, Kaoru b Sonoko Kato, Konnan b Eddie Guerrero-DQ, Harlem Heat b Bunkhouse
Buck & Mike Enos, Chris Benoit b Juventud Guerrera, Diamond Dallas Page b Scott
Norton
11/15 Queretearo (AAA):Hombre de Plata & Astro Man I & II b Los Neurosis I & II &
Crazy, Osiris & Junior Kiss b Diaman & Macabro I, Mascarita Sagrada Jr. & La Parkita b
Espectrito I & Mini The Killer-DQ, Latin Lover & Winners b Babe Sharon & My Flowers,
Perro Aguayo & Mascara Sagrada & Tinieblas Jr. b Fuerza Guerrera & El Halcon (Halcon
Dorado Jr.) & Cibernetico
11/17 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL)amiancito & Fierito b Cicloncito
Ramirez & Ultimo Dragoncito, Fantastik & Pegaso & Principe Franky b Fiero & Yone
Genjin & Supremo II, Olimpus & Alacran & Ultraman Jr. b Mogur & Americo Rocca &
Astro Rey Jr., El Satanico & Rambo & Karloff Lagarde Jr. b Solar & Tarzan Boy &
Mascara Magica, Jushin Liger & Silver King & La Fiera b Scorpio Jr. & Dr. Wagner Jr. &
Black Warrior-DQ
11/18 Mexicali (AAA - 600):Firebird & Jungla & Venum (not original) b Mandingo &
Mazambula & Mozambique, Pantera & Leon ***** & Perro Aguayo Jr. b Mosco de la
Merced & Fobia & Jerry Estrada, Los Payasos & Canek b Pierroth Jr. & Fishman & Killer
& Misterioso
11/19 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Alacran & Pegaso b Supremo II & Cafre,
Martha Villalobos & La Diabolica & La Infernal b Flor Metalica & Lady Apache & Lola
Gonzalez, Onita Jr. (Flying Kid Ichihara) & Olimpus & Atlantico b Yone Genjin &
America & Lynx, Guerrero de la Muerte & Damian El Guerrero & Espectro Jr. b Mr.
Niebla & Jaguar & Olimpico, Elimination matchr. Wagner Jr. & Karloff Lagarde Jr. &
Black Warrior & Apolo Dantes b Atlantis & Dos Caras & Shocker & Lizmark Jr.
11/22 Cuautitlan (Promo Azteca - 2,500 sellout):Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b
Galgo & Colt, Piratita Morgan & Fuercita Guerrera b Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito,
Jurassico & Enigma & Pachuco b Tiburon & Skayde & Gitano, Vaquero Romo & Salsero
& Antifaz b Andy Barrow & Ultimo Rebelde & Ultimo Guerrero, Konnan & Zorro &
Tarzan Boy b Blue Panther & Pirata Morgan & Pantera del Ring-DQ
11/22 Bristol, England (All-Star Wrestling):Brian Maxine b Blondie Barrett, Pat
Roach b Buffalo Beanie, Dan Walsh b Ricky Knight, Pete Collins b Jimmy Ocean & Zebra
Kid
11/23 Fork Union, VA (Universal Championship Wrestling):Major Menace won
Battle Royal, California Kid b Riot, Swede Storm b Lady Killer, Jerry Lee & Kevin dalton
b Mr. Big Stuff & Latin Lover (not original obviously), Ray Storm b Demolition Ax-DQ,
Bambi b Peggy Lee Leather, Ricky Morton b John Masters
11/25 Hachinohe (Big Japan): Satoru Shiga b Yosuke Kobayashi, Ricky Santana b
Goku, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Fantastik, Grey Skull b Yuichi Taniguchi, Kendo Nagasaki b
Jester, No rope barbed wire street fight death match:Shoji Nakamaki & Juice b
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Seiji Yamakawa
11/25 Osaka (LLPW - 1,051): Mizuki Endo b Sayori Okino, Miss Mongol b Keiko
Aono, Harley Saito & Shinobu Kandori b Rumi Kazama & Wadabe, Noriyo Tateno b
Michiko Omukai, LLPW six women tag titles:Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima & Shark
Tsuchiya b Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori & Yasha Kurenai
11/26 Hakodate (All Japan - 2,200):Johnny Smith b Kentaro Shiga, Masao Inoue &
Mighty Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi
b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot & Maunukea
Mossman b Giant Baba & Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon Honda, Steve Williams & Johnny
Ace b Giant Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Stan
Hansen & Takao Omori, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Gary Albright & Sabu
11/26 Hirosaki (New Japan - 2,650 sellout):Yutaka Yoshie b Kazuyuki Fujita,
Brad Armstrong b Shinjiro Otani, Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b El Samurai &
Norio Honaga, Jushin Liger b Chavo Guerrero Jr., Akitoshi Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara &
Tatsutoshi Goto b Yuji Nagata & Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Nishimura, Tatsumi Fujinami
& Kengo Kimura b Shinya Hashimoto & Satoshi Kojima, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi
Iizuka & Osamu Kido b Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
11/26 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (FMW - 2,150 sellout): Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Gosaku
Goshogawara b Hideo Makimura & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher
Maedomari b Rie & Ikeda, Megumi Kudo b Miss Mongol, Hayabusa b Ricky Fuji,
International jr. title:Taka Michinoku b Hayato Nanjyo, The Gladiator & Crypt Keeper &
Super Leather b Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura & Winger, Head Hunters &
Hisakatsu Oya b Mr. Pogo & Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa
11/26 Tokyo Ota Ward Gymnasium (JWP - 3,128): Hiromi Yagi b Fusayo Nouchi,
Boirshoi Kid b Rieko Amano, JWP jr. title:Tomoko Kuzumi b Kanako Motoya, Mayumi
Ozaki b Plum Mariko, JWP tag titles; Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka b Dynamite
Kansai & Cutie Suzuki to win titles
11/26 Ogaki (All Japan women):Momoe Nakanishi b Miho Wakizawa, Yoshiko
Tamura b Yuka Shiina, Genki Misae & Saya Endo b Chaparita Asari & Yumi Fukawa,
Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue & Reggie Bennett b Mima Shimoda & Toshiyo Yamada &
Etsuko Mita, Kaoru Ito b Rie Tamada, Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe b Manami
Toyota & Mariko Yoshida
11/27 London, England (WWF - 7,000 sellout): Barry Horowitz b T.L.Hopper,
Rocky Maivia b Justin Bradshaw, Crush b Bob Holly, Faarooq b Barry Windham,
Executioner b Aldo Montoya, WWF title: Steve Austin b Sid-DQ, Bret Hart b Vader,
WWF tag titles:Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, Undertaker b Mankind
11/27 Ichinoseki (New Japan - 1,700):Shinjiro Otani b Yutaka Yoshie, Chavo
Guerrero Jr. b Black Cat, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Brad Armstrong & Norio Honaga,
Osamu Kido & Osamu Nishimura b Akitoshi Saito & Kengo Kimura, Kuniaki Kobayashi
& Akira Nogami b Kazuo Yamazaki & Yuji Nagata, Hawk & Power & Animal Warrior b
Tadao Yasuda & Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata, Keiji Muto & Manabu Nakanishi b
Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara, Tatsumi Fujinami & Takashi Iizuka & Satoshi
Kojima b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito & Masahiro Chono
11/27 Minoa (All Japan women - 1,280):Momoe Nakanishi b Rumi Sekiguchi,
Nana Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Tomoko Watanabe & Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa b
Yuka Shiina & Saya Endo & Yoshiko Tamura, Toshiyo Yamada b Genki Misae, Kyoko
Inoue & Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta b Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Chaparita Asari,
Manami Toyota & Reggie Bennett b Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda
11/28 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (All Japan - 4,400): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi &
Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako, Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen b
Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura, Stan Hansen & Takao Omori b Johnny Smith &
Maunukea Mossman, Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Don Arakawa & Tamon Honda b Masao
Inoue & Masa Fuchi & Giant Baba, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Sabu & Gary
Albright, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada d Steve Williams & Johnny Ace 30:00, Kenta
Kobashi & The Patriot b Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama
11/28 Birmingham, England (WWF - 7,000 sellout): Executioner b Barry
Horowitz, Barry Windham b Justin Bradshaw, Crush b Bob Holly, Rocky Maivia b T.L.
Hopper, Bret Hart b Mankind, Steve Austin b Aldo Montoya, Undertaker b Vader, WWF
tag titles: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith b Godwinns, WWF title:Sid b Faarooq
11/28 Natori (New Japan - 1,800):Black Cat b Kazuyuki Fujita, Akitoshi Saito b
Yutaka Yoshie, Tadao Yasuda b Kuniaki Kobayashi, Jushin Liger & El Samurai & Norio
Honaga b Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Shinjiro Otani & Brad Armstrong, Osamu Nishimura &
Junji Hirata b Akira Nogami & Michiyoshi Ohara, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b
Manabu Nakanishi & Osamu Kido & Keiji Muto, Satoshi Kojima & Shinya Hashimoto b
Tatsutoshi Goto & Kengo Kimura, Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito b
Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki
11/28 Memphis (USWA - 600): Bobby Bolton b Reggie B. Fine-DQ, Tony Falk b
Tony Myers, USWA tag titles: Steven Dunn & Flash Flanagan b Mike Samples & Sir Mo,
USWA title: Brian Christopher b Bill Dundee-DQ, Unified title:Jerry Lawler b Akeem
Muhammad-DQ, Nation of Domination (Wolfie D & Jamie Dundee) b Lawler &
Christopher, Muhammad lost turkey Battle Royal
11/28 Mutsu (FMW):Katsutoshi Niiyama & Hideo Makimura b Mamoru Okamoto &
Gosaku Goshogawara, Crusher Maedomari b Rie, Hideki Hosaka b Hayato Nanjyo,
Miwa Sato & Shark Tsuchiya b Ikeda & Megumi Kudo, Mr. Pogo b Ricky Fuji, Crypt
Keeper & Super Leather b Dragon Winger & Wing Kanemura, Head Hunters &
Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator b Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka
& Hayabusa
11/28 Yoshiga (All Japan women):Tanny Mouth b Fujii, Miho Wakizawa b Rumi
Sekiguchi, Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Yoshiko Tamura b Chaparita Asari & Genki
Misae & Momoe Nakanishi, Manami Toyota b Saya Endo, Reggie Bennett & Mariko
Yoshida & Kaoru Ito b Toshiyo Yamada & Mima Shimoda & Rie Tamada, Aja Kong &
Takako Inoue b Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe
11/28 Knoxville, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling):Mike Powers b Dr. Dan,
Eight Ball Jones b Shaw Michaels, Ricky Rockett b David Jerrico, Chris Powers &
Mongolian Stomper b Ricky Morton & Davey Rich (David Haskins), Tracy Smothers
DCOR Bunkhouse Buck
11/29 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (All Japan - 5,150):Maunukea Mossman
b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga, Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura & Don Arakawa b Yoshinari Ogawa & Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen, Yoshiaki
Fujiwara & Masa Fuchi b Satoru Asako & Tamon Honda, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b
Masao Inoue & Johnny Smith, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II b Stan Hansen & Takao
Omori, Sabu & Gary Albright b Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun
Akiyama b Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada
11/29 Saijyo (New Japan - 1,550 sellout):Shinjiro Otani b Kazuyuki Fujita,
Michiyoshi Ohara & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Yutaka Yoshie & Osamu Kido, Brad Armstrong
& Chavo Guerrero Jr. b Black Cat & El Samurai, Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Akitoshi Saito,
Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Yuji Nagata & Kazuo Yamazaki, Hawk & Animal
& Power Warrior b Osamu Nishimura & Takashi Iizuka & Tatsumi Fujinami, Hiro Saito
& Masahiro Chono b Jushin Liger & Keiji Muto, Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto &
Akira Nogami b Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata & Tadao Yasuda
11/29 Downingtown, PA (ECW - 679): Axl Rotten b Spike Dudley, G.Q. Gorgeous
Quartermain b Roadkill, Chris Candito b Super Nova, Eliminators b Little Guido &
David Jerrico, Taz NC Rob Van Dam, Buh Buh Ray Dudley b D-Von Dudley, Pit Bull #2
b Rick Rage, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Tommy Dreamer, ECW title:Sandman b
Raven
11/29 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL):Lady Apache & Xochitl Hamada b Lady
Star & La Diabolica, Olimpico & Altantico & Ultraman Jr. b Espectro Jr. & Cadaver de
Ultratumba & Damian El Guerrero, Mascara Magica & Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata b
Rambo & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Gran Markus Jr.-DQ, Rey Bucanero & El Satanico &
Emilio Charles Jr. b Silver King & Dos Caras & Shocker, ***** Casas & Dandy & Hector
Garza b El Hijo del Santo & Scorpio Jr. & Bestia Salvaje
11/29 Akita (FMW): Gosaku Goshogawara & Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Mamoru Okamoto &
Katsutoshi Niiyama, Hayato Nanjyo b Hideo Makimura, Ricky Fuji b Winger, Miwa Sato
& Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya b Ikeda & Rie & Megumi Kido, Crypt Keeper &
Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator b Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka & Mr. Pogo, World
Brass Knux tag titles:Head Hunters b Hideki Hosaka & Wing Kanemura, Hayabusa b
Super Leather
11/29 Yonezawa (Big Japan): Ricky Santana b Goku, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Fantastik,
Grey Skull b Seiji Yamakawa, Kendo Nagasaki b Jester, No rope barbed wire street fight
death match:Juice & Shoji Nakamaki b Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Yuichi Taniguchi
11/29 Fremont, CA (Big Time Wrestling - 250):Robert Thompson b Frank Dalton,
Erin O'Grady d Steve Rizzono, Earthquake Ferris b Joe Applebaumer, Cowboy Lang b
Little Nasty Boy, Victoria Moreno b Barbara Blaze, Johnny Paine b The Sgt., Border
Patrol (Michael Modest & Mike Diamond) b Super Diablo & El Demonio
11/30 Lowell, MA (WWF - 2,678 sellout): Argo (Achim Albrecht) b Dr. X (Tom
Prichard), Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon b New Rockers, Sultan b Jesse James, Savio Vega
b Salvatore Sincere, IC title:Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Razor Ramon &
Diesel b Grimm Twins, Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Shawn Michaels b Goldust
11/30 Sendai (All Japan - 4,500 sellout):Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru,
Johnny Smith b Yoshinari Ogawa, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher
Kimura b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Giant Baba & Tamon Honda &
Satoru Asako b Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot & Maunukea Mossman, Stan Hansen &
Takao Omori b Gary Albright & Sabu, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Jun Izumida &
Giant Kimala II, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Steve Williams & Johnny Ace
11/30 Kanazawa (New Japan - 3,200 sellout):Yutaka Yoshie b Kazuyuki Fujita,
Brad Armstrong & Hiro Saito b Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Yuji Nagata &
Shinjiro Otani b Michiyoshi Ohara & Akitoshi Saito, Jushin Liger & El Samurai b Norio
Honaga & Chavo Guerrero Jr., Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto b Osamu Kido & Tadao
Yasuda, Hawk & Animal & Power Warrior b Manabu Nakanishi & Junji Hirata & Shinya
Hashimoto, Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka b Osamu Nishimura & Keiji Muto,
Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Satoshi Kojima & Tatsumi Fujinami
11/30 Bensalem, PA (ECW - 250): New Jack b D-Von Dudley, Axl Rotten b David
Jerrico, Pit Bull #2 b Rick Rage, Eliminators b Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley, Chris
Candito d Rob Van Dam, ECW TV title: Shane Douglas b Tommy Dreamer, ECW
title:Sandman b Raven
11/30 Shirakawa (FMW):Koji Nakagawa & Gosaku Goshogawara b Mamoru
Okamoto & Katsutoshi Niiyama, Rie b Miss Mongol, Mr. Pogo b Ricky Fuji, Shark
Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari b Ikeda & Megumi Kudo, Head Hunters & Hiskatsu Oya
b Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda, The Gladiator & Super Leather &
Crypt Keeper b Wing Kanemura & Hideki Hosaka & Winger
11/30 Lake Grove, NY (Universal Superstars of America):Chucky b Intruder,
Gino Caruso b Lord Zieg, O.J. Steele DCOR L.A. Gorgeous, King Kong Bundy b Scott
Putski-DQ, Virgil b Greg Valentine
11/30 Brooklyn, NY (Eastern Shores Wrestling):Latin Lover (not original) b
Spanish Angel, Jimmy Cicero b Jason Knight, Steve Corino b Cue Ball Carmichael, Team
USA b Chuck Williams & Glenn Osbourne, Primo Carnera III b Metal Maniac,
Spellbinder b Mike Kaluha, Big Matty Smalls (Matthew Anoia) b Duke Droese
11/30 Morristown, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling):Big Bubba (not WCW
wrestler) b Dr. Dan, Eddie Golden b Chris Steelheart, Mike Powers b K.C. Thunder,
Mongolian Stomper & Chris Powers b Ricky Morton & Eight Ball Jones, Bunkhouse
Buck b Tracy Smothers
11/30 New Britain, CT (International Pro Wrestling)unisher (not Barry
Buchanan) b Sweet Pea Simpson, Bad Boys b TNT & White Trash, David Powers b Frank
Stalleto, Brick Bronsky b Julio Sanchez, Bronsky b Powers, Bam Bam Bigelow b Boo
Bradley, Doug Flex b Mutilator, Rocco Rock b Dean Powers, Rick Fuller b Convict, 911 b
Bronsky
12/1 Tokyo Yoyogi Gym (Anton Promotions Samurai TV taping - 3,700
sellout): Kick boxing rules: Yusuke Arai b Kiyoteru Iima, Shidokan karate rules:
Kazunari Murakami b Hiroyshi Wakasa, Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono b Alexander
Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama, J crown championship:Ultimo Dragon b Gran Naniwa,
Tiger Mask Sayama b Masaaki Mochizuki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara b Shinichi Nakano,
Wilhelm Ruska b Yuki Ishikawa, Koji Kitao b Mabel, Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu &
Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki b Great Sasuke & Super Delfin & Masato Yakushiji &
Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada, Antonio Inoki b The Gasper
12/1 Nagoya Rainbow Hall (New Japan - 10,000): Black Cat b Kazuyuki Fujita,
Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi b Brad Armstrong & Chavo Guerrero Jr., Akitoshi
Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b Yuji Nagata & Yutaka Yoshie & Osamu
Kido, Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Road Warriors b
Satoshi Kojima & Tadao Yasuda, Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami b Osamu
Nishimura & Keiji Muto, Riki Choshu & Kensuke Sasaki b Shinya Hashimoto & Junji
Hirata, IWGP tag titles:Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Kazuo Yamazaki &
Takashi Iizuka
12/1 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan women - 2,100 sellout): Rumi Sekiguchi
b Fujiii, Miho Wakizawa b Nana Takahashi, Genki Misae & Tanny Mouth b Saya Endo &
Momoe Nakanishi, Yumiko Hotta b Yuka Shiina, Tag tourney semifinals: Tomoko
Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa b Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda, Manami Toyota &
Rie Tamada b Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari, finals:Toyota & Tamada b Watanabe &
Maekawa, Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito & Yoshiko Tamura b Toshiyo
Yamada & Etsuko Mita & Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa
12/1 Poughkeepsie, NY (WWF - 1,737): Argo b Dr. X, Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon b
New Rockers, Sultan b Jesse James, Savio Vega b Salvatore Sincere, IC title:Marc Mero
b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Razor Ramon & Diesel b Grimm Twins, Billy Gunn b
Bart Gunn, Shawn Michaels b Goldust
12/1 Kodama (FMW): Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Hideo Makimura, Crusher Maedomari b
Miwa Sato, Katsutoshi Niiyama b Ricky Fuji, Rie & Megumi Kudo b Shark Tsuchiya &
Miss Mongol, Hayabusa b Winger, Crypt Keeper & Super Leather b Hideki Hosaka &
Wing Kanemura, Street fight:Head Hunters & Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator b Masato
Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Mr. Pogo & Gosaku Goshogawara
12/1 Odawara (JD):Yuko Kosugi b Sagabe, Abe b Kokia, Emi Motokawa & Princesa
Blanca & Chikako Shiratori b Koyama & Neftaly & Bloody Phoenix, Cooga b Yuki Lee,
Lioness Asuka & Alda Moreno b Jaguar Yokota & Esther Moreno
12/1 Baltimore (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation):Quinn Nash b Earl the
Pearl, Jason Knight b Joe Thunder, Bob Starr b Johnny Taylor, Knuckles Zandwich b
Cat Burglar, Jimmy Cicero b Boo Bradley, Glenn Osbourne & Dark Rebel b Samoan
Gangstas, Corporal Punishment b Johnny Desire, Chris Candito b Mark Schrader, Adam
Flash b Steve Corino, Raven & Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie b Freaks of Nature (Head
Bangers) & Axl Rotten
12/2 Dayton, OH (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 3,800 sellout): Glacier b Hard
Body Harrison, Amazing French Canadians b Joe Gomez & Renegade, Meng &
Barbarian b Robert Gibson & Scotty Riggs, Kevin Sullivan b ?, WCW cruiserweight
titleean Malenko b Billy Kidman, Jeff Jarrett b Big Bubba, Eddie Guerrero b David
Taylor, Arn Anderson b Jim Powers, Chris Benoit b Steve Regal, Lex Luger b Rocco
Rock, Sting NC Rick Steiner
12/2 Osaka Furitsu Gym (All Japan - 4,500):Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu
Kanemaru, Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Maunukea Mossman & Satoru Asako,
Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Tamon Honda & Johnny Smith, Giant Baba & Rusher
Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Mighty Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Steve
Williams & Johnny Ace b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun
Akiyama b Gary Albright & Sabu, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue b Kenta Kobashi & The
Patriot
12/2 Utica, NY (WWF - 1,600): Barracus (Achim Albrecht) b Dr. X, Doug Furnas &
Phil LaFon b New Rockers, Sultan b Jesse James, Savio Vega b Salvatore Sincere, IC
title:Marc Mero b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Razor Ramon & Diesel b Grimm Twins,
Billy Gunn b Bart Gunn, Shawn Michaels b Goldust
12/3 Gifu (All Japan - 2,350 sellout):Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Kentaro Shiga, Johnny
Smith & Maunukea Mossman b Satoru Asako & Mighty Inoue, Haruka Eigen & Masa
Fuchi b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshinari
Ogawa b Giant Baba & Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue, Steve Williams & Johnny Ace b
Sabu & Gary Albright, Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot b Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida,
Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Stan Hansen & Takao Omori
Special thanks toavid, Stylianov, Gregg John, Chuck Morris, James Titus, Dan
Parris, Pat Crocker, Phil Jones, Roland Alexander, Jim Davis, Tim Noel, Steve "Dr.
Lucha" Sims, Dominick Valenti, Georgiann Makropolous, Tadashi Tanaka, Scott
Cornish, Jesse Money, Stuart Kemp
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
11/24 ALL JAPAN WOMEN: 1. Genki Misae & Saya Endo & Nana Takahashi beat
Yuka Shiina & Yumi Fukawa & Momoe Nakanishi when Misae pinned Nakanishi
basically out of nowhere. 1/2*; 2. Rie Tamada won the All-Japan singles championship
from Kumiko Maekawa in 9:59 with a dragon suplex. Not much heat but the wrestling
was okay. *1/4; 3. Tomoko Watanabe pinned Toshiyo Yamada in 11:39 with the screw
driver, which is a back suplex turned into a power bomb. About half the match aired on
television and it appeared to be a good match. A highlight was when they were brawling
outside the ring, Watanabe threw Yamada all over the television announcers. **; 4.
Chaparita Asari & Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda beat Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito &
Yoshiko Tamura. About 7:00 of the 18:00 match aired. Based on TV, it appeared to be a
great match with four straight dives at one point and great near falls before Asari
surprisingly pinned Yoshida by coming off the top rope with a spinning head scissors
and turning it into a cradle. ***3/4; 5. Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue beat Aja Kong &
Yumiko Hotta in what was billed as a "Best four" match basically meaning the top four
wrestlers in the promotion. Match went 20:05, but only half of it aired on television. It
looked pretty good based on what aired, with Toyota pinning Kong with a Japanese
Ocean Cyclone Suplex while Kong was on the top rope. Lowlight was Toyota going for
her springboard somersault plancha but landing just short of Hotta and hitting her head
on the floor. She appeared to be shaken up, but only momentarily and got back in the
ring and did the rest of her stuff. Inoue has really packed on the weight of late which
doesn't bode well for her title match on 12/8. Even though the wrestling was good in the
final two matches, the heat was generally down throughout the show and there were no
signs during the show of the promotion regaining its lost spark. Most of the television
show was built around the beginning of the 10th year of the careers of Toyota, Yamada,
Mita and Shimoda and showing clips of them starting with their try-out, rookie matches,
singing (badly) and big matches throughout their careers. It was too obvious just how
much hotter the crowds were in those matches as compared with this year. Make no
mistake about it, pro wrestling is a star-driven business and Japanese womens pro
wrestling has thrived on constantly creating new stars, and the weakness is that there
aren't any new stars to bring new life to the careers of the older stars giving them their
challenges on the way up. ***1/2
OCTOBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
Estimated average attendance 10/95 3,170*
Estimated average attendance 10/96 4,133 (+30.4%)
September 1996 3,872*
Estimated average gate 10/95 $43,220*
Estimated average gate 10/96 $59,062 (+36.7%)
September 1996 $62,253*
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/95 5.6*
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/96 5.9
September 1996 0.0*
Average cable television rating 10/95 1.6
Average cable television rating 10/96 1.4 (-12.5%)
September 1996 1.4
Major show 10/95:In Your House PPV (10,339/est. 9,000 paid/$127,976 Canadian--
$93,422 U.S. equivalent/est. 0.4 buy rate/est. $619,000 PPV revenue)
Major show 10/96:In Your House PPV (9,649/8,238 paid/$135,605/est. 0.4 buy
rate/est. $798,000 PPV revenue)
Est. buy rate even; Est. overall event revenue:+31.0%
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 10/95 2,930
Estimated average attendance 10/96 2,963 (+1.1%)
September 1996 3,454
Estimated average gate 10/95 $31,000
Estimated average gate 10/96 $36,685 (+18.3%)
September 1996 $40,403
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/95 0.0
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/96 5.9
September 1996 0.0
Average cable television rating 10/95 2.0
Average cable television rating 10/96 2.2 (+10.0%)
September 1996 2.3
Major show 10/95:Halloween Havoc (13,000/7,000 paid/$138,040/est. 0.6 buy
rate/est. $1.74 million)
Major show 10/96:Halloween Havoc (10,000/8,390 paid/$224,660/est. 0.7 buy
rate/est. $1.96 million)
Est. buy rate +16.7%; Est. overall event revenue +16.3%
ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 10/95 2,650
Estimated average attendance 10/96 2,470 (-6.8%)
September 1996 2,100
Estimated average gate 10/95 $90,000
Estimated average gate 10/96 $83,890 (-6.8%)
September 1996 $65,100
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/95 31.3
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/96 20.0
September 1996 60.0
Average television rating 10/95 3.0
Average television rating 10/96 4.0 (+33.3%)
September 1996 2.0
Major show 10/95:Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout/est. $1 million)
Major show 10/96:Budokan Hall (14,000/gate unknown)
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Estimated average attendance 10/95 4,370
Estimated average attendance 10/96 3,015 (-31.0%)
September 1996 6,110
Estimated average gate 10/95 $223,200
Estimated average gate 10/96 $112,274 (-49.7%)
September 1996 $308,530
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/95 42.9
Percentage of house shows sold out 10/96 38.9
September 1996 100.0
Average television rating 10/95 2.7
Average television rating 10/96 2.9 (+7.4%)
September 1996 2.0
EMLL
Matchmaker Jose Peonono Medina went to Japan on 11/29 to hold a press conference
announcing an EMLL tour from 2/2 to 2/6 with shows at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo,
Nagoya, Kobe and the final show at the Komazawa Olympic Gym in Tokyo. This will be
only the second foreign promotion (WWF was the first, doing a largely unsuccessful tour
in 1994) ever to try and tour Japan on its own without working with one of the local
offices. EMLL will be sending 20 wrestlers to Japan and the two will be highlighted by
three title matches, Rayo de Jalisco Jr. (who was at the press conference, as was All
Japan women wrestler Mariko Yoshida) will defend the CMLL heavyweight title against
Apolo Dantes, Black Warrior will defend the NWA light heavyweight title against Hector
Garza, and Lady Apache will defend her newly-won CMLL womens title against Yoshida.
From all accounts, this is the hottest promotion in Mexico right now due to the El Hijo
del Santo turn and it also has the best workrate on top. AAA is decimated by the loss of
its best workers and is now relying on big names from the past so the workrate is way
down. The work on the Promo Azteca shows has for the most part been uninspired, but
this promotion has what AAA had in the past with a good blend of young talent on the
rise and headliners who are over who seem to get into working with each.
The main event on the 11/29 Arena Mexico show was the return match with Santo &
Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr. against ***** Casas & Dandy & Hector Garza which
apparently drew a big crowd. The angle actually started before the show as they were
doing an out-of-the-arena interview with Santo on the street. At this point both Casas
and Dandy jumped him and were throwing food in his face and basically left him laying
as a crowd of fans who were pro-Casas cheered them on. The heat and match psychology
was said to have been incredible during the bout itself with fans hitting the ring trying to
attack Santo with bottles. The police ended up having to guard the aisles from rushing
fans. Garza attempted a shooting star press outside the ring but landed short on his neck
and shoulders and didn't move for the rest of the match, which didn't appear to be an
angle and he ended up being stretchered out after the match was over. Apparently this
move was supposed to knock out Scorpio Jr. & Salvaje, and they sold it as such even
though the move landed short, which left Santo in the ring against both Casas and
Dandy and the two destroyed him and pinned him clean. After the match Dandy
challenged Santo to a hair vs. mask match which will apparently headline the 12/6 Arena
Mexico card, which is the year end spectacular coming one week earlier than usual. The
final Mexico City show will be 12/8 at Arena Coliseo.
At this point Santo is only working as a heel in Arena Mexico to build up the Dandy
match, and build eventually to the Casas match, but is working as a face throughout the
rest of Mexico.
Monterrey is running shows on four consecutive Sundays which will include building to
a La Parka vs. Sangre Chicana mask vs. hair match which you can guess the result. On
the 12/1 show, Konnan & Parka & Santo formed the face trio. Konnan & Parka both
turned on him, which wound up with the crowd booing Konnan & Parka since it was a
two-on-one. That's almost a surprise because the reports from a lot of people right now
are that Parka is the most popular wrestler in the country. Konnan & Parka did an NWO
bit where they told Santo that they were Promo Azteca wrestlers and asked Santo if he
was and Santo said he was an independent and wrestles for himself, and they told Santo
that he's either with them or against them and attacked him.
Lizmark Jr. is attending law school around his wrestling schedule. Promo Azteca is
attempting to get him to jump.
EMLL, with the U.S. major offices closed off since AAA and Promo Azteca have the
deals, is attempting to not only do its Japan tour next year, but also book talent into
Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua.
Former wrestler Panico, a George Steele lookalike, whose career ended last year after a
series of heart attacks, has been given a job as a road agent.
Rayo de Jalisco Jr. retained his CMLL heavyweight title beating Mascara Ano 2000 on
11/6 in Aguascalientes.
Hector Garza is booked for Otto Wanz from 12/3 to 12/8, and then will head to Japan
before returning on 12/15.
Promo Azteca
La Parka debuted with this promotion being introduced before the main event on the
11/22 show in Cuautitlan and got into a shoving match with Pirata Morgan. He received
a huge reception, and his first match with this group was on 11/29 in Reynosa. Parka did
a magazine interview saying he left AAA because the company didn't pay enough
attention to its wrestlers as human beings. He said that when he had severe personal
conflicts that AAA just subbed a replacement and called him Parka Jr. and said he didn't
leave over money. Translated, he left over money as his missing shows due to the severe
personal conflicts were actually when he was in the United States working for WCW.
Espectrito and Mini Frisbee officially jumped this past week as had been expected.
They taped an angle on 11/26 in front of a local gym where Piratita Morgan jumped
Mascarita Sagrada. Before the interview was over, the other minis such as Jerrito
Estrada, Fuercita Guerrera, Brazito de Plata and Octagoncito were all involved. It led to
a mask vs. hair challenge between Mascarita and Morgan which was the main event on
11/29 in Cuautitlan. During the angle it was brought up that in August of 1991 that the
two had a similar stip match that Mascarita won, and you can bet it was the same result
this time.
TV tapings for this coming week are 12/4 in Aguascalientes with Konnan & Mascara
Sagrada & Angel Azteca vs. Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 and Rey
Misterio Jr. & Tarzan Boy & Zorro vs. Psicosis & Pantera del Ring & Juventud Guerrera.
On 12/6 in Xochimilko it's Konnan & El Brazo & Tarzan Boy vs. Blue Panther & Pantera
del Ring & Enrique Vera which is at least at this point scheduled to start an angle to
build to a Brazo vs. Vera hair match.
This group is also running 12/15 in Tijuana and 12/16 in Los Angeles with Konnan,
Parka, Psicosis, Misterio Jr., Salsero, Damian and Halloween on the tour. All the Tijuana
local wrestlers that had been working for AAA such as Los Pandilleros, Leon *****,
Misterioso and Fobia are scheduled to start with this promotion on the Tijuana show.
Reports we're getting is that the most impressive workers on the shows are a mid-card
tag team of Ultimo Rebelde & Ultimo Guerrero, who remind people of young Psicosis',
both from Torreon, and Gitano, a bodybuilder originally from Tijuana.
Xochitl Hamada and Martha Villalobos were negotiating to jump this week.
The current working idea is for Konnan's television show to debut in late January when
TV-Azteca launches its own new all-sports channel.
Vampiro is telling friends that he won't be teaming with Konnan after all. He said that
after what Antonio Pena and Perro Aguayo said publicly about Konnan, that he was
afraid it would hurt his rep to team with him. He's apparently also mad at Konnan for
getting the tatoo on his arm, which he believes is copying his gimmick.
Konnan is expected to begin negotiations with ***** Casas about doing a major joint
show with EMLL, perhaps in February, in Mexico City.
AAA
On the television show on 12/1, there was a taped interview with Ricky Santana, El
Boricua (Dave or Fidel Sierra or Cuban Assassin in U.S.) and Tasha (who I believe is
Sierra's wife who has worked in Puerto Rico as Miss Fantasy) saying they were headed
in, which I guess means that Antonio Pena is doing business with Victor Quinones. In an
even bigger surprise, Canek announced he had a mystery partner who would become his
regular tag team partner and announced during the show it was Mil Mascaras. The two
will feud with Pierroth Jr. & Cibernetico. In addition, Yeti has returned with a mascot
called Paqui to feud with Tinieblas Sr. and Alushe. Let's just say the workrate in those
two feuds will be something approaching atrocious. On 12/6 in Nezahualcoyotl,
Mascaras & Canek & Tinieblas will be the heel trio on top for the anniversary show.
Antonio Pena is using his deal with WWF as a negotiating tool telling lots of big name
wrestlers that if they come with him he can get them work in WWF. Among those he's
talking with are Santo, Vampiro and Lizmark, telling them if they come with him he can
get them into the WWF. Santo told Pena he'd work house shows for him, but not
television, as he's going to remain an independent.
On their way out, Los Villanos dropped their AAA trios titles on 11/19 in Naucalpan to
local wrestlers Oficial & Vigilante & Guardian, although the loss itself was to set up a
cage match rematch in the same building on 12/1.
Super Luchas, which is the magazine that Pena puts out, listed just about every major
name in the promotion as working the Royal Rumble show.
La Parka Jr. is the wrestler who was most recently Karis la Momia.
Payasos appear to be going full-fledged babyface. The TV main event, taped on 11/18 in
Mexicali was Payasos & Parka Jr. vs. Pierroth Jr. & Killer & Fishman & Misterioso. The
heels jumped Parka Jr. early and injured him, so Canek ended up taking his place. As the
heels were destroying the faces with Knux, Parka Jr. came back out with a metal screen
and clocked the heels leading to the face win.
ALL JAPAN
Tag team tournament standings as of 12/4:Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot 8-3-0, Toshiaki
Kawada & Akira Taue 7-3-1, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama 7-3-1, Steve Williams &
Johnny Ace 6-3-2, Gary Albright & Sabu 3-8, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II 3-8 and
Stan Hansen & Takao Omori 3-9. With the exception of Hansen & Omori, who are
finished with tournament action, the remaining teams had their final match on 12/4 in
Niigata (Kobashi & Patriot vs. Williams & Ace, Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kimala II &
Izumida and Kawada & Taue vs. Albright & Sabu). The top two point getters go to the
championship match on 12/6 at Budokan Hall, which I'm told is already sold out. If you
figure Kawada and Misawa's team should win, and Misawa's team win is a lock, they'll
each have identical records. If Williams & Ace beat Kobashi & Patriot, it would put
Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue,. and the two teams split their tournament
matches. If Patriot & Kobashi win, that leaves three teams left, but there is a chance
Sabu's team may score an upset. If Patriot & Kobashi to 30:00, they'll clinch a berth in
the finals so they only have to avoid losing, which means they'll probably lose.
Overall the feeling is that this has been a good tour, but nothing compared to tag team
tournaments of the past.
From all accounts, it appears the deal to bring in Nobuhiko Takada next year to work
singles matches against the top guys is dead, which is too bad because it's a gimmick that
both sides badly needed.
Hiroshi Hase at his All Japan debut stated that he's always wanted to work for All Japan
ever since he started wrestling. Technically there is something to this because when
Hase was first recruited by Riki Choshu, Choshu was working for All Japan and Hase
was first introduced in the All Japan ring. However, when Choshu and his crew jumped
back, Hase was with them so he never actually wrestled for All Japan. Hase never
mentioned New Japan in his speech and New Japan has still never publicly announced
nor acknowledged that Hase has left.
Sabu has been doing the job in all of his team's losses including doing jobs for both
Kimala II and Omori, while Albright is getting the pin in most of the wins. The feeling is
that he's doing okay, basically better than some thought he'd do but not nearly as good
as his supporters expected him to do. Baba has allowed him to do his gimmick spots
with the chairs and tables even though it's against the All Japan serious style because
without the gimmick spots, he's a small, below average worker so what's the point of
using Sabu if you're not going to let him be his gimmick. There were complaints from
some wrestlers about it but Baba told them Sabu had his approval to do the spots. In
some cities, which I guess means if the building was expensive, they wouldn't let Sabu do
the spots so it has varied but he's done them in most places.
Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Don Arakawa debuted for All Japan working 11/28 and 11/29 in
Sapporo. The first night Fujiwara & Arakawa teamed with Tamon Honda of All Japan to
beat Giant Baba & Masa Fuchi & Masao Inoue. The second night it was Fuchi & Fujiwara
over Honda & Satoru Asako while Arakawa was put in the Mitsuo Momota spot teaming
with Baba & Rusher Kimura in the comedy match. There is a good chance Fujiwara will
work the entire January tour for All Japan.
Neither Sapporo show sold out for the tag tourney, drawing 4,400 and 5,150
respectively, nor did they pack Osaka on 12/2, which drew about 4,500.
This week's tournament matches were 11/26 in Hakodate before 2,200 saw Williams &
Ace over Kimala II & Izumida, Kawada & Taue over Hansen & Omori and Misawa &
Akiyama over Sabu & Albright; 11/28 in Sapporo had Kimala II & Izumida over Sabu &
Albright, Taue & Kawada went to a 30:00 draw with Williams & Ace, and Patriot &
Kobashi beat Misawa & Akiyama when Kobashi pinned Akiyama; 11/29 in Sapporo saw
Izumida & Kimala II over Hansen & Omori when Izumida pinned Omori, Sabu &
Albright over Kobashi & Patriot when Albright used the dragon suplex on Patriot, and
Misawa & Akiyama beat Kawada & Taue when Misawa pinned Kawada in 20:33; 12/2 in
Osaka had Williams & Ace beat Hansen & Omori, Misawa & Akiyama beat Sabu &
Albright when Akiyama pinned Sabu, and Taue & Kawada beat Patriot & Kobashi when
Taue choke slammed Patriot; 12/3 in Gifu had Ace & Williams over Sabu & Albright,
Patriot & Kobashi over Izumida & Kimala II and Misawa & Akiyama over Hansen &
Omori.
NEW JAPAN
With Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan retaining the IWGP tag titles beating Kazuo
Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka on 12/1 in Nagoya before 10,000 fans, it pretty well finalized
what is on paper in some ways the least attractive Tokyo Dome show ever. One could say
the first Dome show with the Russians in 1989 was worse because none had ever done
pro wrestling, but at least the gimmick of using Russian world-class amateurs in a pro
ring was something different. Besides the matches already announced and the Inoki vs.
Willie Williams match, Chono & Tenzan defend against Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo
Kimura, Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi) faces Michiyoshi Ohara (sub for Shiro Koshinaka
who the doctors ruled this past week wasn't going to make it back from his knee injury in
time for the match which takes away one of the few potentially decent matches), Koji
Kanemoto faces a mystery opponent and the opener will be an eight-man with Junji
Hirata & Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura vs. Yamazaki &
Iizuka & Osamu Kido & Yuji Nagata.
The plan as it stands right now is for Ultimo Dragon to retain the J Crown against Rey
Misterio Jr. and Dean Malenko on 12/13 and 12/29, and then drop the title to Jushin
Liger on 1/4. Theoretically Misterio Jr. should beat Liger at Starrcade just days before he
wins the title, which would establish Misterio Jr. as a contender for Liger's title in 1997,
although I'm not 100% certain New Japan would want Liger to do a high profile job for
someone he outweighs by 70 pounds although they haven't cared much about what
happens in the U.S. in the past.
The other major result on the 12/1 Nagoya show was a tag match where Riki Choshu &
Kensuke Sasaki beat Shinya Hashimoto & Hirata. Finish saw Choshu give Hashimoto
three lariats which had him "out on his feet," allowing Sasaki to score the pin after a
Northern lights bomb. It sets up the Dome since Choshu basically knocked Hashimoto
out, and also gave Sasaki a clean win over the current world champion to set him up for
a 1997 title challenge.
This group is negotiating to run shows in China next year.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Atsushi Onita showed up at Korakuen Hall on 11/26 to shoot the final angle leading to
his return on 12/11. The main event was a six-man tag with Head Hunters & Hisakatsu
Oya against Mr. Pogo & Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa. After the heels won, they
hung Pogo by a chain and Onita hit the ring and saved Pogo. After the match, Onita said
that in his life he told one lie, and that was that he would never wrestle again and asked
the audience if they had ever lied in their life. It was pretty clever, but didn't do the job
since the crowd booed Onita and chanted that he was a liar. Onita kept asking the crowd
if they could understand his position and fans were chanting at him not to lie. Onita had
also vowed he wouldn't team with Pogo, but the angle ended up with Onita & Pogo
agreeing to team with Nakagawa & Tanaka against Head Hunters & Oya and a mystery
partner on 12/11 in Tokyo's Komazawa Olympic Gym, which is about a 4,000-seat arena
and I believe it's already sold out.
The overall wrestling scene in Japan has been rather dull of late, with a major swing of
big shows in Tokyo between 12/6 and 12/15 with 12/6 All Japan Budokan, 12/7 Tokyo
Pro at Sumo Hall, 12/8 AJW at Sumo Hall, 12/11 FMW, 12/13 WAR at Sumo Hall and
12/15 Pancrase at Budokan.
All Japan women ended their tag team tournament on 12/1 at Korakuen Hall before a
sellout 2,100 with Manami Toyota & Rie Tamada, who finished in fourth place in the
round robin, beating Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa in the finals. The
semifinals saw Watanabe & Maekawa over Reggie Bennett & Mima Shimoda and Toyota
& Tamada beating first place finishers Chaparita Asari & Kyoko Inoue.
Nude picture books of both Toyota and JD's Chikako Shiratori were released in the past
few days.
A correction from last week. The Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Shoji Nakamaki match that
we reported was a lumberjack match with live scorpions as lumberjacks was actually a
snake box match but live scorpions instead of snakes in the box.
Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka won the JWP tag titles from Dynamite Kansai & Cutie
Suzuki on the group's major end of the year show on 11/26 at Tokyo's Ota Ward Gym
before 3,128.
Noriyo Tateno won an LLPW tourney to become the No. 1 contender for Eagle Sawai's
championship, but Sawai won the title match on 12/3 in Tokyo.
Add Yamazaki & Iizuka vs. Koki Kitahara & Nobutaka Araya to the WAR 12/13 card.
General consensus on The U Japan show is that it was a very amateurish production.
One insider believes the Anjoh vs. Alvares match may also have been worked, citing that
the UWFI wrestlers at ringside never got excited or panicked as seconds in shoot
matches almost always do, and that at one point Takada looked bored and simply left
ringside, something you'd think a second wouldn't do. Bam Bam Bigelow's second,
Doink the Clown sans make-up, was listed in the magazines as Gary Fall, which is the
real name of Ray Apollo. Another version is that the wrestler wanted a worked match
but the Brazilian wouldn't go for it on the day of the event, and Anjoh basically hung on
the fence for a lengthy stalemate since Alvares did nothing either being afraid to make a
fatal mistake, before finally getting Anjoh off about 30 minutes in. After the match
Tatsumi Fujinami said that he wished the shooting groups wouldn't exploit pro wrestling
and pro wrestling fans saying it's the fame of the wrestlers that draws the fans to these
events.
Takashi Ishikawa will be leaving Tokyo Pro, the group he founded, with the
restructuring of the company that wound up with him out of power. He may go back to
WAR although Genichiro Tenryu may not want him back because of the way he left to
form his own company.
USWA
The crowd was up for the Thanksgiving show in Memphis on 11/28. We don't have
official figures but apparently the show the previous week drew the all-time record low
crowd, some are saying as low at 150 people. Thanksgiving was up to an estimated 600
for Jerry Lawler's first match back as a babyface teaming with Brian Christopher to lose
to the Nation of Domination (PG-13) when Akeem Muhammad interfered, hitting
Lawler with a chain. Earlier in the show Muhammad was DQ'd challenging Lawler for
the Unified title for bodyslamming ref Downtown Bruno. Muhammad, billed at 6-10 and
325 pounds from the Nation of Domination turned out to be the wrestler who worked
here years ago as the Big Black Dog. He later was the final guy left in a Battle Royal
where the object was to jump over the top rope, thus being the Thanksgiving turkey.
Prelim wrestler Bobby Bolton is Winnipeg area wrestler Chi Chi Cruz.
On TV 11/30, the NOD added two new members, Reggie B. Fine is now Kareem
Olajuwon and Randy Hales is now Randy X doing the Malcolm X sign. They announced
they would have a huge surprise next week adding yet another member to the team and
said it would be a major superstar. I have a feeling it'll be Bill Dundee, who will then
turn it down and turn babyface, since on TV they had a USWA title match with
Christopher defending against Dundee, and when Dundee was DQ'd when the NOD
interfered, Dundee was mad at them for costing him the match.
Apparently the latest attempt to rebuild Memphis is going to be to move the shows to
Wednesdays, as the card this week is on 12/4 and they are talking about it being an every
Wednesday deal. They used to run the casino shows on Wednesdays and they're back in
the casinos since Jerry Lawler, by admitting wrestling was a work, got them back in
through the gaming commission. The territory is doing poorly overall now and the
guaranteed casino shows are more important than ever. For the past year, the weekly
Louisville and Nashville shows have been carrying the circuit since Memphis has been a
money loser most weeks. However, both Louisville and Nashville are down as well. Most
of the wrestlers are now earning the minimum $40 per show and have other jobs to
carry them.
With Memphis moving to Wednesdays it does mean that Lawler can be programmed
back as a regular. This week's card is Brickhouse Brown vs. Tony Falk, Johnny Rotten vs.
Sir Mo, Bill Dundee vs. Bolton, Christopher defending the USWA title against Mike
Samples, Lawler defending the Unified title against Colorado Kid, Steve Dunn & Flash
Flanagan defending the tag titles against Kareem Olajuwon & Akeem Muhammad and
the main event is Lawler & Christopher vs. NOD with Rotten handcuffed to Muhammad
at ringside.
ECW
There was more discussion this past week regarding the incident on 11/23 in Revere, MA
where New Jack bladed 17-year-old Eric Kulas (350-pound Mass Transit) who bled like a
water faucet, with people live saying it was more blood than they'd ever seen in a pro
wrestling match. Since it was the slowest week for news in a long time in the U.S. scene,
it became a prime topic of conversation because of the age of the kid, the public reaction
from New Jack, and the sheer quantity of blood spilled. New Jack, in character after the
incident over the house mic said he didn't care if the mf bled to death, which is true to
character portrayal but people took it the wrong way. Or did they. This past weekend
backstage, with no fans around, when a tape of the same incident played, reports are
that New Jack was laughing about it. This led to people saying New Jack should be fired,
which it seems is something always on the verge of happening at any given moment
anyway. Forgetting track record before pro wrestling or in SMW, New Jack was dumped
by ECW in late 1995 for the first time for allegedly hiding behind the dressing room door
and clocking another wrestler who wrestled as D.W. Dudley, with his billy club, splitting
him open. Paul Heyman brought him back a few months later saying that everyone in
the dressing room agreed to it. It is pretty well known a lot of the wrestlers weren't
exactly thrilled about it and that Dudley is no longer with the company although I don't
believe that's the reason. Heyman needed not only an opponent for Public Enemy's
farewell, but a team to replace them as the resident hoodie tag team, telling everyone
that one mistake and they'd be gone. Through Heyman's creativity in hiding their
weaknesses by having them generally work short matches, do little wrestling, and
keeping their music on for the entire length of their matches unless they were in with a
good team to carry them, Heyman made them one of the most popular acts in the
promotion. Just a few weeks after their return, New Jack wound up in jail for a short
period of time, which would be the one mistake in any other promotion, but admittedly,
if ECW has a consistent policy, they couldn't fire him for that because others have
missed shows due to being in jail and to the best of my knowledge, none have been fired
over it. Besides, it only made him a bigger babyface to the local crowd. The incident with
Brian Pillman could have been the one mistake, but Heyman explained that one away
saying New Jack never actually put his hands on Pillman (he was blocked while going
after him, going out of control when Pillman used the dreaded N word, although it was
in reference to a fairly well-known rap band NWA, and New Jack in Heyman's own
words pretty well killed the show later that night by doing a shoot never-ending
interview in the ring before his main event match). A few weeks back there was an
incident where he got into a fight with a fan. Heyman said that the fan hit him first and
had also called him the dreaded N word, both of which are different from eye witness
versions of the story we'd heard. Apparently even New Jack laughed about the comment
about the fan saying the N word, saying that he was pushed on the way back by a fan and
had to attack him to protect his character, which again, would not have been unique in
ECW because other top guys with the "I don't give a crap about anything" gimmicks,
when fans stand up to them, have shoved and even punched fans. Besides, if you wait,
you could wind up like Devon Storm taking a weapon to your eye if the fan makes the
first move and you never know what kind of fan you're coming across. There was a
videotape of that incident and card, but Heyman took the video and it isn't for sale,
lending one to become more suspicious about the incident. I have yet to see the video of
the 11/23 deal, but Heyman has no problem with anyone viewing it. There have even
been accusations New Jack did the deal on purpose although that's hard to believe.
Those who have seen the videotape are split in the opinion as to whether the video
showed the kid moved as New Jack was cutting him which led to the ridiculous six-inch
long cut, or whether you couldn't truly tell by the video. The public response by New
Jack on the mic at the arena was someone staying in character, although Kulas and his
father were both pretty upset later in the week when New Jack went on the ECW hotline
and said he wasn't apologizing, although again that's a position where one stays in
character, but neither of them seemed to know the difference. About the only difference
in Heyman's story and Kulas' story is that Heyman said the kid asked New Jack to blade
him while their side is that the kid wanted to blade himself but New Jack insisted
because the kid had never done it before. Having an experienced wrestler blade a rookie
who has never done it isn't as unusual as some people seem to think, and happens as a
fairly routine practice on bloody indie groups. Heyman also said that the kid told him he
was 19 and was trained by Killer Kowalski, neither of which was true (the kid was
trained by some local midgets and came to the building with the midgets hoping to do a
gimmick match where the fat kid wrestles two midgets, but then the midgets
disappeared and he was asked if he wouldn't mind working against The Gangstas), while
the father said everyone knew his son was 17. The combination of the amount of blood,
the fact that the authorities nearly arrested the father later that night in the hospital for
child abuse, not believing the story that he was cut so deeply in a pro wrestling match,
the age and lack of training of the kid, the reaction of New Jack at the building, New
Jack's own track record, all turned it into an emotionally charged issue. The family has
no plans to take any legal action in the incident, and truthfully, in their own way seem to
be enjoying their 15 minutes of fame.
House shows this weekend were 11/29 in Downingtown, PA and 11/30 in Bensalem, PA
before 679 and 250 respectively. First night was said to have been a really good show
with a hot crowd. Second night was said to have been a bad show, lasting only 90
minutes, with the only highlight being a Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Candito match, and fans
leaving complaining about the lack of blood (live by the sword) and how short the show
was. Sandman beat Raven in both main events. Taz missed the second show with a high
fever but they announced it before the show and offered refunds.
They are coming out with Blue World Order t-shirts probably as soon as this coming
weekend. Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie and Super Nova continue to do the BWO
gimmick "taking over" during one spot on every show. They are also coming out with EC
F'n W foam hands in which the middle finger is the one that shows, which is sure to be
an item confiscated at WWF and WCW television events in a town near you.
Big Dick Dudley (Alex Rizzo) is currently in jail on a probation violation. They are
expecting him to be released after a hearing on 1/8. They did a TV angle where he was
arrested based on the fact there was a good chance he'd go to prison, but when his
lawyer told them it wasn't going to happen, they brought him back on the 11/16 ECW
Arena show to moonsault Joel Gertner. But it did happen after all.
Paul Heyman said he's looking at either 3/2 or 3/30 as potential dates for the first PPV
show. 3/30 is Easter Sunday, but they can get a favorable deal if they take the date, and
truthfully, if it's held at night, that shouldn't be a negative as wrestling has a long history
of drawing some of its best gates on holiday evenings. The plan is to run a two-and-ahalf
hour show starting at 8:30 p.m.
12/6 in Jim Thorpe, PA has Sandman & Gangstas vs. Raven & Eliminators, Shane
Douglas vs. Tommy Dreamer for the TV title, Chris Candito vs. Mikey Whipwreck 2 of 3
falls, Pit Bull #2 vs. D-Von Dudley (who they are billing as undefeated as whenever he
loses, Joel Gertner runs in and announces him as the winner anyway) and Brian Lee vs.
Louie Spicolli.
HERE AND THERE
Sandy Barr on his 11/24 television show aired a video of his son Art and began singing a
song that he said he used to sing to him when he was little, mentioning it had been two
years since Art died.
Bart Sawyer is now back wrestling for Barr's CWUSA group.
The province of Manitoba has deregulated pro wrestling.
A newspaper called Grip ran a story about former pro wrestler Steve Musulin (Steve
Travis), who was the wrestler who introduced Dr. George Zahorian to strength coach Bill
Dunn, who turned into the Government's key witness in the Zahorian trial. Musulin
blamed drug addictions for killing his best friend, former wrestler Rick McGraw and said
his own drug addictions led to his 1986 auto accident that left him paralyzed and killed
someone in another car which caused him to spend eight months in prison. The story
was a basic expose, talking about doing jobs, selling, blading, drug use, etc. He said that
Hulk Hogan used to room with McGraw on the road and Rick told him the two had a
ritual that every morning before they went to the gym they would "pop speed or do a line
and the Hulkster would pop a syringe (steroids) into each tricep."
AWF will be taping on 12/15 at Treasure Island near Las Vegas.
Century Wrestling Alliance on 12/6 in Chelsea, MA with Kevin Sullivan vs. Tony Atlas
and Cash Money Boys vs. Bushwhackers.
UFC
UFC will be doing a taped PPV show on New Years Eve from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. showing the
best matches of the past three years. The four matches never before shown are alternate
matches that haven't made the air in the past.
Kevin Jackson, who won a wrestling gold medal in the 1992 Olympics and world
championships in 1994 and 1995 is a likely entrant in the first under-200 pound UFC
tourney on 2/7. In addition, there is at least one Japanese Pancrase fighter under
consideration, whom I'm assuming is Yoshiki Takahashi.
WCW
Nitro on 12/2 from Dayton, OH drew a sellout of about 3,800 paying $52,383. It was
one of the hottest crowds to date on Nitro which is saying something because they didn't
give them much to be hot about. Nitro now starts at 7:55 p.m. each week to counter
Raw's 7:57 p.m. start. There were a bunch of meaningless squashes on the show with a
few exceptions. Glacier returned, basically doing his ring entrance complete with laser
show. The ring entrance is cool. Match itself only went 1:00. Arn Anderson did a great
interview talking for Roddy Piper saying the Horseman would back-up Piper next week
in Charlotte when Piper and Hogan will both be at the live show. Kevin Sullivan did a
hilarious interview with this exchange with Gene Okerlund--Kevin:"You've had your
problems in the past, Gene." Gene:"You can say that again." Kevin:"You've had your
problems in the past, Gene." The rest was the typical stuff saying he was going to bury
Chris Benoit alive and continued talking about all that stuff that nobody but he can
figure out. Dean Malenko beat Billy Kidman in a cruiserweight title match that wasn't as
good as their previous Nitro match some months back as Kidman looked a little rough
around the edges. Jeff Jarrett dropkicked the megaphone Big Bubba was holding, so the
megaphone hit him in the face. I swear I thought I was going through deja vu seeing
them set up and do exactly the same finish with the same two wrestlers as they did just a
few weeks back. Thank God the NWO came out at that point to save a really boring
show. I don't know what percentage of the insider stuff Scott Hall and Kevin Nash talk
about that the average fan can figure out, but it was hilarious. They talked about the gofer
that Roddy Piper takes on the road with him and called him his "Bruti" (in reference
to Ed Leslie for Hogan), talked about Jim Powers and Scott Steiner being all jacked up
(gym lingo for steroided up), laughed about ECW saying that at least you can play bingo
after watching the matches and made some funny references to the Four Horseman
being like the Beatles in that they were hot in their day. Eric Bischoff seems like he's
having way too much fun but it comes off as a negative to the angle. By the way, they
didn't clue anybody in that they were going to take over the show ahead of time and
when I say anybody, I mean anybody. Chris Benoit and Steve Regal had a U.S. title
tourney match that Benoit won with a dragon suplex. The two worked inhumanly stiff
with each other leading to Regal being busted open within a few seconds. It appeared
they had a great match but the camera, at the sight of blood, pulled away so it appeared
it was shooting from somewhere in New Zealand and for the most part the announcers
were telling jokes and not calling anything. They did a Horseman interview sans
Woman, and Arn Anderson, Debra and Steve McMichael started complaining to Benoit
about Woman and Benoit said she's 100% Horseman, which of course means she isn't.
Rocco Rock returned and was racked by Lex Luger. Rick Steiner challenged Sting earlier
in the show based on the angle from last week, and had Scott in his corner. Sting came
down and within 24 seconds, used the reverse DDT on Rick. He then pulled out a
baseball bat, shoved Rick (who Hall & Nash were calling "Robby" which is his real first
name), handed him the bat and turned his back on him. Rick was about to hit him with
the bat but Scott stopped him. Bischoff, Hall and Nash spent the entire match talking
like Sting had joined the NWO, which, of course, means that he hasn't. They were also
complimentary to all the wrestlers on the show and talked about wanting guys like
Regal, Benoit, Dave Taylor, Luger, Eddie Guerrero, etc. to join the NWO.
The Nitro on 1/20 in Chicago at the United Center sold more than 2,600 tickets for
$48,000 the first day they went on sale.
Tickets were supposed to go on sale for Starrcade on 11/29, however there was a
computer failure which wiped out the seating chart so tickets don't go on sale until 12/6.
Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Jushin Liger is confirmed for that show.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono are scheduled for some dates in January.
Yuji Nagata, who is a hell of a worker, is scheduled to come to WCW for all of 1997
similar to the Kurosawa deal. This guy is ten times the wrestler Kurosawa is, which,
given WCW's track record, means he'll get one-tenth the push.
They are attempting to get some Mexicans back on Nitro for 12/9 and/or 12/16.
NWO Nitro was supposed to start on 12/2, and I guess that was the pilot of sorts, but no
word on an official start.
Harlem Heat is said to be negotiating with WWF.
Ultimo Dragon's plan now is to start full-time with WCW except for maybe two Japan
tours per year and a few dates in Mexico, in February.
The WCW hotline has talked about Kimona Wanaleia coming in. They also talked about
Raven coming in, but that was a 100% work. Gene Okerlund was looking for a name to
use because the scam about a wrestler jumping promotions usually does well and hotline
business has sagged a great deal of late (down 40% according to one source). So he made
up the story and someone else came up with the idea that Raven would be a good name
to use.
On TV they talked about Sting being rusty since his match with Rick Steiner was his first
match SuperBrawl, which would be true if you ignore that Sting has worked at most of
the house shows. Of course, WWF is no less silly talking about Bret Hart being off for six
months before his match with Steve Austin, when their own TV publicly showed and
talked about him wrestling in South Africa in September. Better yet, even insiders were
remarking about how amazing it was Hart could do a match like that after being off six
months.
House shows for the first weekend of the New Year in Little Rock, Shreveport and
Alexandria are headlined by Outsiders, Nastys, Faces of Fear triangle matches plus
Luger vs. Arn, Guerrero vs. Benoit, Malenko vs. Misterio Jr., Jarrett vs. Konnan, Page vs.
Syxx, Steiner vs. Bubba and Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera vs. La Parka & Villano IV.
Luger, Heat, Alex Wright, American Males, Jim Duggan and M. Wallstreet are touring
Germany through 12/16.
This past weekend's WCW Saturday Night was taped on 11/13 in Orlando. Highlight
matches saw Chris Jericho over Parka (average, Parka didn't really do much to make
him look different from any other jobber), Regal beat Bobby Eaton, Gaea women Kaoru
beat Sonoko Kato (not much), Konnan beat Eddie Guerrero via DQ (not as good as Nitro
match), Chris Benoit pinned Juventud Guerrera (actually several missed spots) and
Diamond Dallas Page pinned Scott Norton after hitting him with an object which
probably means they were afraid to ask Norton to do the Diamond Cutter finish since
Page's entire gimmick is to get the hold over.
Because of Thanksgiving weekend, no Sunday or Monday ratings are available at press
time, but on 11/30, Main Event did a 1.3 and Saturday Night did a 2.7.
Early estimates are that World War III did about an 0.5 buy rate, which would be along
the same lines as what Survivor Series did.
Weekend house shows saw 11/30 in Charleston, WV draw 3,000 fans and $38,289 and
12/1 in Wheeling, WV drew 1,849 and $26,299.
According to reports we've received, the Marcus Bagwell movie "Day of the Warrior"
makes Hogan movies look like Masterpiece Theater. Bagwell plays a character known as
"The Supreme Warrior" (I guess that tells you who they wanted for the movie) in a loin
cloth and face paint building to a 30 second final fight scene against a Penthouse
Playmate who he head-butts in the breast and gets knocked out by and pinned.
Speaking of Bischoff having too much fun, this was from the 11/24 Charleston Post-
Courier, regarding Bischoff being told that Vince McMahon didn't remember him from a
1990 job interview where McMahon interviewed Bischoff for an announcing position.
"In June of 1990 I was down there for an interview and audition and talked to Vince for
probably half an hour. If he doesn't remember it, perhaps he was engaged in some of his
admitted chemical activity during that time. But I was there. He was there." In the same
article Bischoff said, "The nonsense and perception of reality that Vince McMahon, a guy
who has admitted using steroids to try to beef up what was otherwise a scrawny, frail
little individual, I think when he wakes up in the morning, he looks in the mirror and
still sees that 80-pound birdface punk that nobody wanted to play with, and he has to
deal with that every day. And the way he's trying to deal with is trying to create this
perception. And I just hope people are smart enough to see through this nonsense and
deal with reality." As if the lawyers aren't busy enough as it is.
David Sammartino was scheduled for a try-out at the TV tapings on 12/4 in Gainesville,
GA.
WWF
The local TV promos that aired this week in this market did list Sid as the new
champion.
The biggest angle of the past week, which they aired on Raw on 12/2, was shot 11/27 in
London, England. Sid was defending against Steve Austin and Austin KO'd him with the
title belt. Davey Boy Smith then did a run-in attacking Austin. Sid then got mad at Smith
because the ref DQ'd him because of Smith's interference, and was about to choke slam
him when Bret Hart saved Smith, doing him the favor since Smith saved Hart on Raw.
Austin then hit Hart with a chair and Sid choke slammed Hart. It wound with interviews
where Austin was mad at Smith for costing him the title by interfering, Sid was mad at
Smith for costing him the match, Bret was mad at Sid for choke slamming him and
Austin for hitting him with a chair, Smith was mad at Austin saying he has a score to
settle with him, and Owen was mad at Smith for not being focused on the tag title match
with Razor & Diesel on 12/15. The London show and the Birmingham, England show the
next night both sold out 7,000-arenas. In Birmingham, Sid beat Faarooq in 2:00 in the
main event and fans left really pissed off about how short and bad the main event was.
Sid was booed as champion in both London and last week in Montreal in matches with
Austin. They also gave the impression that Sid and Bret had a hotel room brawl after the
London match, which is tacky since it's playing off the real-life England hotel room
brawl where Sid nearly killed Arn Anderson a few years back.
The triangle matches in late January at the big arena house shows with Sid, Bret and
Shawn Michaels will be title matches.
Ahmed Johnson will be programmed with Goldust to give him wins on his return.
Goldust is pretty much being phased down.
They are running two different West Coast swings in early January. The first will be 1/3
in San Diego, 1/4 in Stockton (Spanos Center), 1/5 returning to the Los Angeles Sports
Arena (WWF pulled out of the Sports Arena in 1994 when the building started booking
AAA shows) and 1/6 in Fresno, and then back 1/10 in San Jose, 1/11 in Anaheim at the
Pond, 1/12 in Las Vegas and 1/13 in El Paso before breaking until the Rumble. Los
Angeles and Anaheim are in a sense the same television market which is kind of strange
they'd run them a week apart, although that has been booked successfully like that in the
past. The first weekend will be Sid vs. Undertaker for the title, Michaels vs. Austin, Bret
vs. Vader (speaking of Vader, Bischoff on Nitro for no apparent reason other than having
too much fun showed a clip of Hogan beating up Vader who he called a tub-of-lard),
Helmsley vs. Mero for the IC title, Hart & Smith defending tag title against Mankind &
Executioner, Bart Gunn vs. Billy Gunn, Savio Vega vs. Faarooq, Doug Furnas & Phil
LaFon vs. Razor & Diesel, Jesse James vs. Justin Bradshaw and more. The next weekend
shows will be Sid vs. Austin for the title, Michaels vs. Mankind, Helmsley vs. Bret,
Undertaker vs. Vader, Hart & Smith & Billy Gunn vs. Godwinns & Bart and more. What's
interesting about that the first two episodes of Shotgun Saturday Night will be live on
1/4 and 1/11, and as you can see by who is on the house shows, that none of the big guns
will appear on the first two shows (Johnson and Goldust are the biggest names not
booked for Stockton).
There will be a Germany tour in February.
We don't have results yet, but the Dubai tour were four shows in the same 18,000-seat
arena from 11/29 through 12/2. The first night was all tag matches since the guys were
flying in from England, the second night was going to be a series of eight man
elimination matches (The Dubai Survivor Series), the third night a Royal Rumble and
the fourth night the Dubai King of the Ring tournament.
11/30 TV ratings saw Blast Off at 0.5 and Live Wire at 1.2.
Achim Albrecht debuted on the tour which started on 11/30 in Lowell, MA. The first two
nights he used the name Argo, the third night in Utica, NY he was called Barracus. His
foe all three nights was trainer Tom Prichard, as Dr. X, who it was said carried the
match. Reports were that he was huge, the match was limited to him doing a few power
moves that Dr. Tom sold well for, had no crowd interaction but appeared to have some
athletic ability. At the Lowell show, they announced a 6/10 Superstars taping in the
same building.
11/30 in Lowell, MA drew a sellout 2,678 and a city record $47,249 gate, while 12/1 in
Poughkeepsie, NY drew 1,737 and $28,746 and 12/2 in Utica, NY drew an estimated
1,600. Michaels beating Goldust and Mero over Helmsley via DQ headlines the
Northeastern tour with most of the big names overseas.
Jerry Lawler spent most of Raw on 12/2 making fun of Tiny Tim, who he did an angle
with a few years back.
Curt Hennig's match in the karate fighters tournament was erased because of his jump.
There's a good chance Mil Mascaras will be in the Royal Rumble. I guess some people
don't realize that card will be held in 1997 rather than 1972. Mascaras & Jose Lothario
were big draws as a tag team against people like Black Gordman & Goliath in San
Antonio some 25 years ago and there was a time in the 70s where he was one of five or
six biggest drawing cards anywhere in the world. With the generation that runs wrestling
today, he is the one Mexican name that everyone is familiar with and most grew up
seeing as a major attraction. But if they want to draw Mexicans today if it's even possible
to do the mix and the more it's tried, the more it doesn't work. It did work in the 50s,
60s and 70s in Texas but that was also when the Mexicans were used as babyfaces on top
and they virtually always won their matches which is the main reason Mascaras got over
in his generation far bigger than Konnan, Juventud, Misterio Jr., etc. are getting over in
their generation. The guys to use today from AAA if it would be possible to use anyone
from that company to sell tickets would be Octagon and Perro Aguayo, not that they'd be
able to work, but at least they are names that were over in this decade. Wednesday night
wrestling on the Spanish International Network from the Olympic Auditorium is a thing
from the 70s. Mascaras meant nothing in San Antonio by the early 80s, let alone the late
90s