ECW: They did a lot of new angles as the 10/23 Philadelphia ECW Arena show. The show opened with Sign Guy Dudley changing his name to Lou E. Dangerously, doing an old Paul E. Dangerously gimmick with the cell phone, wearing the same kind of an outfit that Paul E. would wear. He announced he was bringing back a former world champion to challenge Mike Awesome. It turned out to be Mikey Whipwreck, who Awesome squashed, including doing the over the top rope power bomb through the table spot. Nova beat Candido when Chris Chetti returned to kidnap Sytch and took her to the back. Danny Doring, Roadkill and Miss Congeniality came out for the angle to send Miss C to the WWF, where she should be starting soon since she was scheduled for a boob job this week. Cyrus came out with a new girl that was a hooker and said she'd even do Roadkill. Doring ended up telling Miss C that he had someone just like her in every town and they jumped her and beat on her until she was carried out. As she was carried out, Cyrus told her to say Hi to Vince for him. Super Crazy won a three-way over Little Guido and Spike Dudley in what was said to have been a good match. Simon Diamond and bodyguard Big Dick Hurtz laid out Jazz. The latest Big Dick got over with the crowd doing a bunch of lines relating to having a big dick that was hurting him. Tajiri pinned Jerry Lynn after blowing mist in his eyes in what was said to be the best match on the show. David Cash went to a no contest with Tom Marquez in a match which had a ton of interference, led to Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney vs. Spanish Angel & Tony DeVito, which also had lots of interference and was a no contest finishing with an angle where Angel used the staple gun on New Jack to set up a six-man on PPV. At this point Da Baldies are Angel, DeVito and Vito Lograsso, but in this angle, they may get P.N. News involved and dump Lograsso. Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam was at first a 20:00 draw, and then they did five more minutes with no winner, and a second five minutes with no winner until they did a pull-apart and the match ended. As it was described, the first 20:00 were like their PPV match of last year, or a big letdown. The first 5:00 of overtime was said to be great with the crowd popping for everything, and the final 5:00 was said to be good, but not at the level of the first five. The main event was Raven & Dreamer vs. Storm & Credible, ending with the Sandman return
Vic Grimes was backstage at the show. He had a try-out before the show. Paul Heyman said he wasn't sold one way or the other on him but that he'd probably come to Ohio this week for a second look
Mark Coleman as it turned out never came to New Orleans for a try-out. Heyman said that he may come to Philadelphia for the next ECW Arena show in late November, although Coleman had told people in the MMA world that after seeing what the guys in ECW do to their bodies, he wasn't interested in it at this time
Sytch passed out backstage before she was scheduled to do this week's promos after the ECW Arena show
Taz has two matches left, at this week's TV taping, probably against Awesome, and the PPV match against Van Dam
The 10/22 TNN tapings in Poughkeepsie drew an estimated 2,500, and this time there was very little paper. In the top matches, Awesome beat News to keep the title. Sabu beat Taz in a good match scheduled to air this week on TNN. During the post match, Taz choked out Van Dam to set up their PPV match. Sabu also beat on Van Dam to set up a future program. Also scheduled for TNN was the Dreamer vs. Storm match. That match saw Credible interfere to lead to Storm winning. After the match, Raven made the save for Dreamer, but then DDT'd him. Credible cane'd Raven, who juiced. Dreamer then saved Raven, but then DDT'd him
Sandman's return at press time was scheduled to air this weekend in syndication and again on TNN on 11/5
The other house show this week was 10/21 in Schenectady, NY which drew 1,200 with Sabu over Rhino as the main event
ECW two months ago was trying once again, as it has been during much of the past six years, when it got on TNN to be what the big companies weren't. Since WWF basically became ECW, that meant to be different it would need some renovations. The idea was to present longer and better quality wrestling matches with winners and losers and strong storylines up and down the card, since Nitro had good matches but lacked the stories and wouldn't get the good matches over, and Raw had all the old ECW concepts but had short matches with a lot of non-finishes and as much T&A as possible. While ECW used a heavy dose of T&A, in fact as much as would be allowed on TNN, the meat of its product was attempting to present really good matches with the likes of Van Dam, Lynn, Tajiri, Crazy, Storm. But this resulted in weak ratings, and even with the TNN added exposure, the house show business was behind last year's levels and buy rates hadn't moved up. The last three shows, where the ratings finally took off, were built around T&A and Tammy Sytch's star power from a few years ago. This weeks show came off more like a lower budget Raw copy. Awesome beat New Jack in an ECW title match in 6:18 after a splash off the top. New Jack's music was kept on during the entire match which keeps the crowd up. It was a typical New Jack brawl. New Jack used the staple gun twice and Awesome bled. Jack gave Awesome the easiest guitar shot he's ever delivered. Finish saw Awesome throw Jack over the top through a table outside the ring, then splash him in the ring. Candido vs. Nova only went 2:18 before all the run-ins came. Sytch and Miss Congeniality brawled after Doring, Roadkill and Congeniality ran in. Nova and Doring's segment of the bawl looked real bad. Storm and Dawn Marie were up next. They pulled Sytch's dress up and Marie spanked her with a paddle. Marie and Congeniality hugged and when Congeniality turned her back, Marie laid her out as well. She then called out Francine, who came out with Dreamer. They hit the ring but Justin Credible cane'd Dreamer. Raven saved Dreamer and then DDT'd him. Dreamer later got up and challenged Raven to fight but he walked out. Rhino, who is getting the monster push, destroyed David Cash, who is a good worker, with a piledriver in 1:00. In the overstatement of the year, Joey Styles stated that Rhino could become a Hall of Famer in either football or wrestling. The main event saw Sabu beat Rhino in a match where the commentary was designed more to promote Rhino than Sabu.
WCW: Bill Busch told the wrestlers before the 10/25 show that it was official that Nitro will go to two hours in January, which with the style of show they are doing, is a change for the better. He never said which two hours would air and reports out of WCW are contradictory. Russo wants it 9-11 p.m. with the idea they can get more raunchy, but WCW if it gets hot would be giving up a great advantage by having an unopposed first hour to build angles for a strong second. But giving WWF an unopposed third hour pretty much guarantees a huge jump in Raw ratings because the second hour should do consistent 7s
The Nitro on 10/25 from Phoenix drew 9,630 paying $217,857 for a show similar to the previous week. Sting came out without his costume or make-up complaining about Goldberg getting the title. He said he helped the company out of a jam when the main event didn't take place but he never said it was a title match. J.J. Dillon came out and agreed with him, but then told him they were stripping the belt from him because he attacked Charles Robinson after the match. They announced a 32-man tournament beginning with this TV show and ending on 11/21 in Toronto. Sting then put Dillon in the scorpion until Dillon finally tapped out. I'm still waiting to see a bar fight where a guy taps the ground when put in a finishing hold. Maybe it'll take place next week on WWF. Goldberg ran in and he and Sting went at it 50/50 with neither man selling anything. Mike Graham told Nash & Hall they had to wrestle. They acted drunk and told some short man jokes. Smiley beat Bigelow (who actually isn't ready to work due to a back injury) in 1:23 of a hardcore match when Bigelow knocked himself out to continue the angle of Smiley being a pussy afraid of hardcore matches who lucks into winning them every week. The Filthy Animals & Torrie Wilson came out. Wilson looks like Andre the Giant standing next to Rey Rey and Kidman. They showed the Animals burying Flair in the desert (a scene from a real bad movie called "Very Bad Things" which is at least a recent movie as opposed to Nash who was copying his crap from really great 60s movies). Malenko & Saturn ran in and left all four Animals laying with foreign objects and Asya kidnapped Wilson. I guess Wilson gets kidnapped and then winds up falling for her kidnapper (the idea was to get her with Douglas) so they are doing Patty Hearst. They are doing an angle that if Hennig loses a match by pinfall, he's fired because the new writers think he's too old. So Hennig hit the ref and got DQ'd against Lash Leroux in 2:25. Hennig laid out Leroux and Disco Inferno with chair shots after the match. They did the Nitro Girls search but Jarrett ran them off, said the tournament is all a work and he's going to win because he's the closest with the mysterious superpowers. He also said he didn't bust the guitar on Liz' head. Saturn beat Guerrero in 3:39 with the RINGS of Saturn after David Flair laid out Guerrero with a crowbar, and he was selling the ribs. Nash said he'd strip naked on live TV at the top of the hour. If they had Kimberly say that, they'd probably keep their audience in the first quarter of the second hour. Douglas showed Wilson as a captive. Malenko went to the bathroom but on his way, Benoit jumped him and threw him into the most hardcore cardboard boxes ever made and stuffed his shirt in Malenko's mouth. Hall & Nash did their interview where they promised to do something to get censored. The most risque thing in this interview was Nash doing the same catch phrase he's done for the past year. Goldberg then cut a promo on them from in the crowd. Savage & Gorgeous George returned. Savage was supposed to bring up how the writers consider him different than Flair and Hogan which he pretty much said, and then he started talking about passing the torch (which I presume is to himself with a new character) but ended up going nowhere. Meng beat Madusa in 2:33 with the Tongan death grip. Meng no sold everything, but was stopped dead in his tracks when he took a gander at Madusa's bikini top and oversized implants. Madusa was wearing a short dress and this was clearly just a bad excuse to get some panty shots of Meng carrying her over his shoulder. Why THE MONSTER MENG didn't rip her clothes off and instead tried to kill her with his move was never explained. Evan Karagis helped Madusa up. He's probably young enough to almost be her daughter, uh, I mean son. Brad Armstrong was mad at the writers for telling him to call his brother and get a personality. Luger beat Steiner via count out in 2:55. Jarrett came out for commentary, then hit the ring to try and clock Luger with the guitar, but he moved and Steiner got it. Liz was selling being helpless and hurt. Steiner was outside the ring and Luger was outside the ring helping Liz. But at the count of nine, Lex dropped Liz limp on the floor and jumped in to beat the count. It was stupid but at least it was funny. Kidman beat Konnan in 1:52. Harlem Heat came out and laid both guys out. Guerrero & Misterio Jr. ran in and looked so huge and tough next to Heat, who laid them out as well. With Konnan and Kidman both dead, somehow Kidman got his arm on top for the pin. Konnan challenged Heat for a tag title match later in the show. As the ratings showed, the same guys can't wrestle twice on the same show on a competitive night without much damage being done. Bagwell did an interview talking about the writers. Buff said he wouldn't do any more jobs. Two huge bald guys in suits (Ron & Don Harris) destroyed him. Great, now they're recruiting the 6-8 guys who Titan doesn't even want. They ought to compare the quarter hours that DOA did with the quarter hours that Juvi did. Benoit beat Malenko in a street fight in 7:01. This was the only good match on the show but had a lame finish. Both guys were knocked down with a double lariat. Benoit beat the ten count and Malenko didn't. The Animals ran in and all attacked Malenko while Benoit walked out. Douglas and Saturn came out holding Wilson as a hostage (Asya held the single worst chicken wing crossface in history, with Wilson not selling being in a bit of pain from that poorly executed move) and made the Animals leave Malenko alone or else Wilson would get hurt. They then took Wilson and put her in a car and drove off. Misterio Jr. & Guerrero left to wind her, while Konnan & Kidman stayed in the building try and win the tag titles. There's something wrong with that picture. Sting pinned Knobs in :09 after two baseball bat shots. Actually, the bell never rang to start the match, only to end it. Kidman & Konnan beat Heat to regain the tag belts in 5:01 when Ray used a back suplex on Kidman with both guys shoulders down but Kidman got his up. Match wasn't any good, which says something because I can't remember Kidman's last bad match. The title change had no impact as before they could even celebrate their huge win, they cut away immediately after the pin to Goldberg in the back. The DDP vs. David Flair match never got started as Flair destroyed DDP's ribs with the crowbar. I guess this gives DDP the chance to tape his ribs for another year. DDP did a stretcher job and was taken out in an ambulance. Maybe he can come back after amnesia and pretend he's The Rock since he's borrowing his dress and mannerisms on his interviews already. Hall & Nash's surprise opponents were three strippers, one of whom was this tiny woman with breasts that had to weigh more than the rest of her body. Hall & Nash did a spoof on a match, with the sell and fiery hot tag spots. One of the semi-normal looking women was grabbing her own plants and shaking them in front of the guys. Hall had his face smothered in them and she also shoved her crotch in his face. The ridiculous looking one tagged in and basically told them she'd take her shirt off if they laid down for her. So they laid down. She teased showing her stuff forever until Goldberg ran in and speared Hall & Nash. The fans booed Goldberg for interrupting the strip tease. Hart, limping badly, then beat Goldberg to win the U.S. title making him a one-day champ in 7:48 when, after a ref bump, Hall, Nash and Sid all run in. Sid hit Goldberg with a high kick, Hall with a choke slam, Nash with a side slam and Sid finished with a power bomb. Hart, on the floor, crawled in and pinned him, although Goldberg lifted his shoulder before three but they counted it as a pin anyway and the show went off the air
As the bracketing in the tournament was released for the second round based on matches that aired on 10/25, are match-ups of Hart vs. Saturn, Smiley vs. Kidman, Meng vs. Sting and Luger vs. someone (since DDP vs. David Flair never took place)
There has been some talk of eventually putting Hart with Hall and Nash as another Outsider with the idea that Hart was never accepted in WCW
In regard to the babyface/heel confusion stemming from Nitro last week, Vince Russo said to various wrestlers something to the effect that there are no such things as faces and heels. The feeling among the wrestlers is that what they want out of the television matches are high spots with no psychology used although that hasn't been made totally clear, although Russo did make it clear holding any hold for more than 15 seconds he believes gives the viewer the excuse to hit the clicker. In the WWF, they used to mock the idea of faces and heels publicly saying they no longer exist, but any examination of the TV shows in 90% of the cases clearly delineated face and heel characters, even if faces often wrestle faces or heels wrestle heels. There is some confusion if they actually have no faces and heels playing roles for fans to get emotionally involved with, that it'll be difficult to get crowd reaction
The only thing notable about the taped Thunder that aired on 10/21 is there was a ****1/4 match with Juventud Guerrera & Silver King vs. Blitzkrieg & Kaz Hayashi which went 13:01 ending with Guerrera pinned Hayashi with the Juvi driver. Scott Hudson made an awesome call of the match, so much that Larry Zbyszko had little chance to tear it down, even exclaiming afterwards about it being a Match of the Year candidate. The match was so good it even had super heat, actually tons more than Steve Austin and Val Venis had for their main event on Smackdown going head-to-head
Shane Douglas had surgery to repair his torn bicep this past week. He's talking about being back in the ring in December, but that sounds like it may be rushing things. Douglas has been on the DL more time than not over the past few years partially because he's rushed back too fast from virtually every serious injury
With the movie filming in Los Angeles, wrestlers are working long hours (6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m every day) and frustrated with all the re-takes involved in a movie. DDP has been able to greatly increase his role in the movie to the point that he plays the heel world champion (the Shawn Michaels role in this movie which is a loose adaptation of the Hart/Michaels role with evil promoter screwing loyal long-time babyface theme). Vicious and Saturn play the promoters' enforcers, as sort of a menacing looking duo with scenes played up as comedy because of their height difference. The wrestlers, who are used to performing on one take, are frustrated because the actors continually do retakes. The general feeling is it's long and tedious work. The wrestling footage in the movie will probably be good as they apparently taped a hell of a match with Rey & Kidman vs. Juventud & Prince Iaukea
The proposed one hour Saturday variety show from 7:05 p.m. on TBS starring Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Mark Madden is very close to being finalized
Eric Bischoff was in Las Vegas over the weekend with Hulk Hogan as they went to the Tyson fight together but Bischoff was not at Havoc the next night. There has been talk of Bischoff returning either to manage Hogan or manage Nash & Hall. According to one of the aforementioned three, it was even considered to debut him this week but it was decided it hadn't been enough time since he was gone. The plan was also to keep Hall & Nash in the crowd and not do angles or wrestle until December, but that's been rushed as well
The plan for Flair at this point is to return in three or four months in some sort of an administrator role, perhaps a commissioner title. You can see where that one is going. In fact, you've probably already seen it in a failed angle this year. The idea would be for Flair to wrestle three or four times, limited to major PPV matches, in 2000, but if he's back, you know he'll wind up wrestling a whole lot more than that. In fact, after being told all that, he's since been told he's coming back to wrestle more regularly and feud with Kidman and Guerrero
It's amazing all the people talking about Nitro gaining a full ratings point for Russo and Ferrara's first show. A 3.30 after a 2.61 is a very good gain over one week and it can't be taken as anything but a positive that it rose again slightly the second week, but it wasn't a full point in a week. The 2.61 for Nash's last show was by far the lowest rating for Nitro in years, but it was also a lame duck show with little effort put into it. Nitro, with Nash as booker, averaged a 3.38 in September and the rating for Russo and Ferrara's first two shows was 3.40. The thing that was noteworthy about the 10/18 ratings was the gap noticeably closed with Raw's number significantly down both weeks
There are reports everywhere that Jarrett held McMahon up for a six-figure payoff to drop the title to Chyna at the No Mercy PPV. It's said that Jarrett has confirmed that he got a huge payoff ahead of time before he'd go on, but wouldn't confirm how large
The situation with Vampiro is that he's most likely going to be returning. After having interest early in the week, Paul Heyman didn't return phone calls and never made a legitimate offer. WCW slightly upped its original offer from $175,000 to $200,000, plus allowing him to do outside merchandise with ICP, saying that after six months at that rate they could bump his salary up more, but also wanting him to make a three-year contract commitment. The irony is that ICP walked out largely out of loyalty to him, and now he's back and they're SOL
Vince Russo said that Lenny Lane and Lodi would return to TV on the 10/25 Nitro. They weren't used, but people are now saying they'll be back in another week
Randy Savage was in Las Vegas but no-showed the Slim Jims corporate party (Ric Flair was the top headliner there instead)
In TV audience in the United Kingdom, the WCW World Wide show with specialized UK commentary is averaging about 850,000 viewers per week. For the Raw vs. Nitro Friday night head-to-head ratings, 10/1 saw Nitro at 300,000 viewers to Raw's 280,000, 10/8 saw Raw at 360,000 to Nitro's 300,000 and 10/15 saw Raw at 340,000 to Nitro's 190,000
The only house show of the week was 10/22 in Oakland before 3,697 paying $95,366. Main event was Flair & Hart over Sting & Luger in a cage with a combination figure four and sharpshooter double submission. As usual, virtually the entire advertised card (aside from the main event) didn't take place.
WWF: Terry Taylor's future remained questionable. He and Vince McMahon had a meeting on 10/20. Taylor was pushing hard for Russo's position of head writer. He spearheaded the writing team for the previous two weeks of television and was apparently mad because he thought he wrote good TV and McMahon changed most of it. There was apparently also a problem because McMahon was insistent on Taylor signing a contract clause where if he were to quit or be fired that he couldn't work for any Time Warner company for one year and Taylor wasn't going to sign it. The meeting ended with Taylor being sent home for a two week sabbatical
Very early figures for the No Mercy PPV indicate about a 0.8 buy rate and 300,000 buys
Vince is now pretty much the head writer for television, with Tony Blacha and Kevin Kelly helping out and Shane McMahon handling a lot of the pre-tape segments and there is also influence coming from Bruce Prichard and Jim Ross among others
Raw on 10/25 in Providence, RI before a sellout 9,555 paying $287,045 opened with backstage challenges leading to Outlaws vs. Rock & Austin and HHH vs. Mankind for the title. Viscera beat Godfather in a match with the ho's at stake. Viscera told Henry if he won, he'd let him have the ho's 24 hours a day seven days a week. A sign in the stands read "this match is a cure for insomnia." Henry distracted Godfather and Viscera pinned him in 2:11 with a splash. All the ho's but two left, and two stayed to check on Godfather. Viscera splashed one and powerslammed the other. The EMT's had to help them, giving Kathy Dingman her weekly TV time. The Dudleys laughed as the ho's went out in the ambulance. Edge & Christian beat Hollys via DQ in a tag title match when they were on the verge of winning when Brian Christopher & Scott Taylor interfered for the DQ and Hardys made the save. Moolah said she was going to have a major announcement. I figured she was going to have to vacate the title because she was pregnant. Instead, she announced her retirement. Ivory came out and ripped on Moolah, bounced Mae Young around for one final over the top rope bump, and pinned Moolah to win back the belt in 16 seconds. I still can't figure how Mae Young lived through another bump. I think that was the same bump that ended Ricky Steamboat's career. The cameras cut away from this one immediately. So much for giving Moolah some respect on her final appearance. Show vs. Albert ended in 47 seconds with no finish. Bossman came out and magically the bout was over. He was holding supposedly a watch from Show's dad that he stole from him. Bossman said he was ready to pull the plug. Show went after him but Bossman hit him with a hammer and he took a bump off the ramp with Albert distracting Show. Bossman then destroyed the valuable family heirloom by smashing it up with the hammer. Chyna & Brown beat Jericho and a transvestite in the crowd, who was revealed to be Richards in 2:44 when Chyna pinned Richards after a Pedigree. Jericho turned on Richards and gave him a double power bomb and Wall of Jericho. Mankind beat HHH via DQ in a title match in 7:29. HHH mainly worked on Mankind's shoulder. They had a near fall that everyone in more than 100 countries thought was a title change when Mankind hit him with the belt but HHH kicked out. Mankind used the claw and everyone turned their heads away from believing there was a chance of a title change, to the back. With everyone looking elsewhere, it seemed like forever even though it was only a matter of seconds before Venis interfered. Austin did an interview and actually got a smattering of boos when he started ripping on Rock. Dudleys destroyed X-Pac & Kane with garbage cans and Buh Buh stole Kane's speaking device. Kane told X-Pac to not help him no matter what. What kind of sense does that make. Okay best friend and tag team partner. No matter how many guys jump me, just stay in the back and let them break my neck. But you've got to promise to let them. Kane beat Buh Buh via DQ in 3:23 when D-Von interfered. Guess what, they doubled on Kane and were killing him. Buh Buh did the world's clumsiest boston crab. Tori, who I guess will wind up as Kane's love interest, told X-Pac to save him and he did. Test beat Bulldog via DQ in a cage match in 2:58 when the Posse interfered. The fans chanted "USA." Who in this match is American? This was notable for two amazing spots. First, Test did an elbow drop off the top of the cage onto Bulldog. Second, Shane McMahon did this incredible plancha off the top of the cage to save Test from a beating onto the Posse. They shut the door on Test's head but he didn't even bother to sell that one. The least Test could have done was gotten temporary amnesia from that one. Stephanie is starting to get her memory back which means we may see a wedding. They did the spot where the redneck guys were calling Faarooq racial names and he and Bradshaw cleaned out the bar. Main saw Outlaws over Austin & Rock in 9:31 in a good match when X-Pac interfered with a spinning heel kick on Rock, who was pinned. DX beat up Rock and Austin after with HHH putting Austin down with a Pedigree and Gunn laying out Rock with a jackhammer
The whole idea behind the DX getting back together was because WWF was so thin on the heel side. They were going with Venis and Bulldog as top heels because they had nothing but HHH, so this was their answer to give that side some depth
Smackdown taping on 10/26 in Springfield, MA. Shoe opened with Steve Bradley beat Tim Towers in a dark match in which both looked very good. Heat for 10/31 opened with Posse over Head Bangers when Thrasher had the ignominious task of doing a job for Pete Gas. In a no holds barred match, The Acolytes beat Hollys when Hollys simply walked away after getting a really stiff beating including Crash blading big-time. Godfather beat Meanie followed by Mideon over Sean Stasiak. Smackdown opened with DX telling Vince that they run the company now and they don't take orders from anyone. Too Cool (Brian Christopher & Scott Taylor) beat Edge & Christian when Crash Holly hit Edge with the scale. Lots of missed moves and no heat. Show did an interview with J.R. saying he was going home to be with his father. Richards, dressed as Chyna, pinned Jericho when Jericho was distracted by Chyna & Kitty. After the match Chyna beat up Richards and then Jericho whipped Richards. Said to be a bad segment. DX beat up Rock, put him in the trunk of his car and drove off. Bulldog won the European title from Brown in a match where the Posse interfered freely. Another match with no heat. Dudleys beat X-Pac & Kane when X-Pac turned on Kane giving him a low blow and he was pinned. DX beat up Kane after the match and said he wasn't DX material. The live crowd was even dead for this segment. Hardys beat Viscera & Mark Henry in a fast match when Henry did a clean job. Viscera then turned on Henry after and left him laying after a splash to set up their feud. Remember how bad that feud was the last time? Bossman, with Prince Albert in the corner, beat Snow in a really bad match. Snow challenged both to a parking lot match. Mankind beat Venis via pin when Snow threw Mr. Socko to Mankind. Throughout the show Austin was setting traps and injured both Road Dogg and Billy Gunn. In a segment that wasn't taped, Lawler did an interview with Foley to push the book, saying it was on the New York Times best seller list. It hasn't been on it yet but from what we're told it probably will be in another two weeks. Show ended with a confrontation with DX against Austin. Austin came out, even though he was outnumbered, when a net fell from the ceiling trapping everyone in DX and Austin beat them all up. The show ended, and this was probably off TV, with Austin, Rock and Kane all celebrating together. They invited HHH to drink beer with them and all ended up laying HHH out. There were numerous other elements to the show pre and post-taped that the live crowd didn't see
Before the PPV last week, Jarrett, who blamed Ross for his leaving, cut a promo on Ross and there was a situation with Road Dogg, a long-time friend of Jarrett, at the same show yelling at Bruce Prichard over the powers causing Jarrett's departure by not getting Austin to change his feelings about working the program. It appears the heat, at least on the surface, with Road Dogg has since blown over
Steve "Dr. Death" Williams was not the father of the child he had been ordered to pay back child support for in California. The DNA results released on 10/25 said there was zero percent possibility that Williams was the father. A grand jury in Sacramento had him under indictment for a felony charge of non-support and he was facing a possible two years in prison and a $250,000 fine
Some notes from the 10/19 show in Louisville which was a taping for Heat (which they did much more first run material for since the ratings have started to dip) and Smackdown. For Heat, Jericho challenged Chyna to a match, but she said she was suffering from PMS (she didn't use those words but that was basically what she said) and refused. X-Pac & Kane beat Head Bangers when the Dudleys cost the Bangers the match. Kanechoke slammed Buh Buh after the match. Gangrel beat Blackman. So much for his push as the silent assassin. Faarooq beat Curtis Hughes in a match where the winner got to perform various sodomizing tasks on Howard Finkel (okay, they didn't quite say that, but it was pretty much implied). Prince Albert beat Stevie Richards, who dressed up as Meat, while Blue Meanie returned and dressed up like Prince Albert. McMahon finally told Jericho he'd grant him his wish of a title match on the show, but it would be a European title match. Brown beat Jericho when Chyna interfered, hitting Jericho with the IC belt, and Brown scored the pin after a power bomb off the top ropes. For Smackdown, Mankind, plugging his book heavily, challenged Rock to a No. 1 contenders match. He was cutting a tremendous promo. Vince and Rock ended up out there with Rock talking about an injury to the people's testicles. Rock complained about wrestling Mankind since Austin, the other No. 1 contender, didn't have to put up his ranking. McMahon said that nobody had issued a challenge to Austin, when Venis came out and did so. Austin came out and punched Venis out and accepted the challenge. They also set up HHH defending the title against Al Snow. Edge & Christian & Test beat Bulldog & Pete Gas & Rodney. Moolah vs. Mae Young went to a no decision for the womens title when Tori, Jacqueline, Ivory and Luna all showed up to apparently set up a six-way match at Survivor Series. The match was horrible, like a joke that is going on long after the punch line has been hit. Mankind went to a no contest with Rock when Venis attacked Mankind with his loaded book. Shouldn't that mean Mankind won via DQ? I guess not, because then he'd be in the main event. HHH laid out Rock after the match. HHH then beat Snow in a match where they tried to make Snow into more of a serious wrestler by giving him a lot of offense in a title match. Hollys kept tag titles beating Hardys in 3:24 when Bob pinned Matt after a dropkick when Matt was leaping off Jeff's back. Outlaws attacked Hardys afterwards. Bossman vs. Big Show saw Bossman and the naughty cop who told Show his dad had died, were laughing about their ruse. This is still one of the worst angles around. Bossman took a powder when Show came in, causing him to choke slam the evil cop three times. Godfather & Mark Henry beat Mideon & Viscera in 1:29. Main event saw Austin pin Venis after a stunner in 9:53. Venis also was given a lot of offense. There was a lot less heat for this match than you'd expect. It didn't appear the fans were ready to accept Venis as being serious competition for Austin. They had a good match anyway
Kurt Angle's appearance at the 11/5 Seikendo show at Yokohama Bunka Gym was canceled. Actually, I don't believe it ever was a finalized deal although it was discussed. Satoru Sayama, President of Seikendo, announced that Angle had failed to get a visa on time (this guy has wrestled all over the world as an amateur so the idea he doesn't have a visa is a pretty lame excuse)
The Charlotte Observer (the same newspaper that insists to this day that Ric Flair's heart attack, while not a heart attack, was also not a pro wrestling angle) had a front page story on Vince and Linda McMahon and the fact both grew up in Eastern North Carolina. The story was positive regarding their business acumen and did interview people they knew and family members who revealed--get this--that Vince may have publicly embellished tales of a difficult childhood to enhance his tough-guy image. No way! They said he did have troubles and his mother-in-law said the stories about Vince as a youth were true (he definitely got into some major trouble at military school, that's been known for years) but at Eastern Carolina University Associate Dean who has known the couple for three decades plus called the stories of Vince's childhood "folklore," saying "they probably want to protect their evil-empire look and feel of things.
Mick Foley did both Conan O'Brien and Howard Stern on 10/21 to push the release of his autobiography. There wasn't anything on the shows that you wouldn't have known other than on Stern, where he was on with Fred the Elephant Boy (Fred Schreiber, a long-time fan and Stern regular who got Cactus Jack on the Stern show many years ago when Stern had steadfastly refused to ever book a wrestler, but did so as a favor to Fred, with the first two being Foley, who was great, and Rick Rood, who came off horribly) he noted that lawyers made him to take out derogatory things about Marc and Rena Mero (if you read closely, you'll see very subtle remarks in there) due to the settlement terms of their lawsuit with WWF. He did say that he used to get along with both but that he sensed a change in Rena after she did the "Donny & Marie" show and all of a sudden felt she was a major star and stopped being friendly toward him
Terri Boatwright confirmed that her divorce from Dustin Runnels was finalized this week
For those interested in sending get well wishes to Darren Drozdov, they can be addressed to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital at 1513 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19102
Entertainment Weekly this past week had a list of the 101 most influential people in the entertainment world. Nobody in wrestling made the top 100 but they listed both McMahon and Austin together at 101.5, whatever that means. How in this day and age McMahon isn't in the top 100 is beyond me
House shows for the past week saw Smackdown on 10/19 in Louisville draw 12,963 paying $316,270 and house shows on 10/23 in Chicago drew a sellout 17,114 paying $481,219 to the All-Star Arena (formerly the Horizon) and 10/24 in St. Louis at the Kiel Center drew 8,929 paying $253,631. The Chicago show was the ninth consecutive WWF sellout at the building so Chicago still remains probably the hottest wrestling market in the country. We don't have complete merchandise sales for the week (didn't get Louisville) but what we have totals $297,767 or $8.36 per head which is a huge increase over what they've been doing for months, which says there is a new item just released that's
really hot, but I don't know what it would be yet. Austin returned to doing house shows this weekend as the shows were headlined by Austin over HHH via DQ. Debra, who hasn't been on television since doing the angle where she was going to be in Chyna's corner against Jarrett, which was never followed up on, was at the house shows in the role of a guest ring announcer for a prelim match. Jericho beat Mankind at both shows. They were, of course, pushing the book with Jericho complaining that he was never mentioned in the book (actually he was) and Mankind saying he wanted to write a chapter on his matches with Juventud but took it out because those matches suck. Jericho won after hitting Mankind with his own book. Hollys kept tag titles beating Outlaws when the Dudleys cost the Outlaws the belts. Rock beat Val Venis. HHH-Austin ended with HHH DQ'd for hitting Austin with a chair. After the match, HHH & Venis beat on Austin until Rock made the save. The two ended the show drinking beer together. At the end of the show in Chicago, a fan deposited his drink all over HHH, and HHH retaliated by giving the fan a pounding
They are raising the top price for the major PPVs starting with Royal Rumble at MSG to $400 ringside (they had been going with either $200 or $300 tops). The remainder of the Rumble price structure is $90, $70, $50, $30 and $20. Tickets go on sale at the MSG house show on 12/4
Among teenage boys, Smackdown is now the fourth highest rated network show
WWF the Music Volume Four comes out on 11/2, while WCW will be releasing an album entitled Mayhem on 11/16 though Tommy Boy. The WWF album will feature new entrance songs for Austin, Rock and Undertaker. The WCW album will contain outside music of established musicians plus a few WCW entrance themes (Goldberg, Sting and Hogan) along with a song by DJ Ran (now that's going to make it gold for sure) and the song "Rap is Crap.
Steve Blackman is on the cover of this month's Inside Kung Fu magazine
Although the actual role hasn't been finalized, Debra should be back on television shortly with a new role.
eWrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN1083-9593 November 1, 1999
WCW HALLOWEEN HAVOC
Thumbs up 37 (43.0%)
Thumbs down 39 (45.3%)
In the middle 10 (11.6%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Eddie Guerrero vs. Perry Saturn 23
Bill Goldberg vs. Sid Vicious 15
Ric Flair vs. Diamond Dallas Page 8
WORST MATCH POLL
Berlyn vs. Brad Armstrong 20
Hulk Hogan vs. Sting 11
WWF NO MERCY FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 95 (93.1%)
Thumbs down 2 (02.0%)
In the middle 5 (04.9%)
BEST MATCH POLL
Christian & Edge vs. Matt & Jeff Hardy 97
WORST MATCH POLL
Fabulous Moolah vs. Ivory 81
Godfather vs. Mideon 8
Based on phone calls, fax messages, letters and e-mails to the Observer as of Tuesday, 10/26.
The autobiography of Mankind wasn't supposed to be anything special. The idea was that Regan Books would take advantage of the WWF's popularity to mass market quickie autobiographies on the company three most popular wrestlers. Mankind barely made the cut, but they probably figured because his more than dozens...and dozens of fans were so loyal they'd probably buy a book, behind the expected big sellers, Steve Austin and Rock. The books would be autobiographies actually penned by long-time wrestling magazine writer Lou Sahadi, this one entitled "Have a Nice Day! A tale of blood and sweatsocks," and would take the tact that pro wrestling was real and reveal things like that Cactus Jack was still upset about how Robert Fuller turned on him in Memphis more than a decade ago and what his favorite food was.
As everyone knows by now, what turned out was something special. Aside from the embarrassing title, nothing remains from the original idea. The book, which will become the standard wrestling books will be judged by for decades, is already hovering in the bottom half of the top ten best selling books on Amazon.com in its first week, making it the first legitimate best seller ever written on pro wrestling. Mick Foley, one of the few men in wrestling who would be embarrassed to have his name associated with a book he really didn't write and definitely wouldn't like, decided to write it himself. But there were a few problems. He wasn't computer literate. And while he knew how to type, at least with two fingers, his last typewriter broke five years earlier and it would be a hassle buying a new one and carrying it with him for eight weeks on the road. Foley himself noted that the reports of him writing 14,000 words per day were exaggerated, although on one specific day, a series of flights from England to his home in Florida, he approached that number. But he estimated he hand wrote about 4,000 words, every day, while on the road, over a period of less than eight weeks. Someone brilliant enough to write a compelling 503-page book in that short a period of time probably could learn to use a computer, but in its own way, it's probably more apropos it happened this way. The story of Mick Foley's life is that his pain becomes our pleasure. It's a part of his life that this book doesn't shy away from, and that he often questions. But in this case, probably the most valuable work he'll ever do, the pain was simply throbbing hand cramps from handwriting 760-pages, filling countless notebooks, with his remembrances of a sometimes very normal, but often very much not, life. Unlike what may be the end result of his vaunted career, the pain that produced this book will be temporary, and the result, the most honest story of a man and this business ever written, will be referred to for as long as even his Hell in the Cell match will be remembered.
What's refreshing about the book is its candor in discussing the business and himself. Unlike what you'd expect from a book by a star in an ego-driven business, there was no attempt made to embellish his accomplishments. His perspective and thoughts are tremendous. He goes through his major matches, and calls a spade a spade. He isn't hesitant to say the ones that were good, the ones that were great, and the ones that were nowhere close to either. The perspective on the business over the pat 15 years is something any fan who watched wrestling during the time period could relate to. He takes you through his great matches, some of which have become legendary. And he takes you through some angles he's been involved with, many of which have been long since forgotten, and jars your memory into remembering some of the lamest crap ever put forth on television. Even though he admits to not always being an honest person, noting that when he was training to be a wrestler, he lied to all his friends back home and said that his weekend trips to Pittsburgh (where he was trained by Domenic DeNucci) were visiting a girlfriend, the book is honest, often brutally so. He gets back at the bookers who never took him seriously and the promoters who thought he'd never amount to anything, getting the last word in as he became, a term he actually writes about in almost a joking fashion, the hardcore legend.
While some will love the blow-by-blow descriptions of his WWF matches over the past few years, long-time serious wrestling fans will take solace in the fact that history, names, legends and his perspective on wrestling in general aren't watered down to be more palatable to a general public with only casual interest in the business. Unlike "Beyond the Mat," the movie he's the star of that coincidentally was released one day later, which probably makes its message stronger to non-wrestling fans, this book, while it can be enjoyed because of its humor and candor by a non-fan, would, because of the depth of his perspective and detailed look at wrestling, without question, would be best appreciated by someone either working in the business, or someone who has spent the past ten years reading the Wrestling Observer. Perhaps the most fascinating writing in the book is his feelings on wrestling fans, in one specific weekend making a 180 degree change. Maybe the book was even more special to me. I saw virtually all of his crowning moments either on television, videotape, and a shockingly high percentage live, including being there and sharing his exact emotions, while at no point ever actually discussing them with him or knowing about them until this week, on that same weekend many years ago.
But there is plenty for the non-fan. His recounting of his college years, and his inability to "close the deal" with women, would entertain anyone. And you certainly don't have to be a fan to be entertained by the way he describes his career, as you feel you're living through his training while sleeping in his car every Friday night to save money, and his start in territories like Memphis, Texas and Alabama making, breaking his back for a few hundred dollars a week. When you finish reading the book, you don't feel so much like you've read a lengthy book as much as you'll feel like you've bonded trading great childhood stories with your best friend. If there was one thing I found, and disappointing isn't the word, but that I'd have changed, is that he was very specific about the ridiculously little amount of money he earned early in his career (probably less than $30,000 total in his first five years working in the business, the last year or two of which he actually had a pretty strong small promotion star name) for the ridiculously high amount of physical punishment, and was even specific about his WCW and Japan earnings (did you know he didn't receive a bonus for appearing on the multi-promotional Tokyo Dome show in front of 60,000 fans or for his brutal King of the Death match tournament at Kawasaki Stadium before 28,000). He wasn't specific about his early years in the WWF but did note with something less than pride that even as a headliner he was earning less than Marc Mero. But when he really made it big, and his income reached the high-six figures, at that point there is little or no talk about money. You'll read about Foley's friendships with Brian Hildebrand (who hadn't passed away at the time he wrote the book) and Owen Hart, who he considered the finest human being in the WWF (who did while he was in the middle of writing it) and word-for-word of some of his most famous ECW and WWF interview segments. His perspective on Vince McMahon, his boss, was most interesting, because in most cases with McMahon, there are two camps, people who fawn all over him and make excuses for him, and people who don't like him at all. Foley clearly respects his accomplishments and considers him a genius and despite a few hints of dishonesty, even considers him a man of his word. But there are more than a few accounts of the WWF making some very lame booking decisions, not the least of which was their annual appraisal that he would never make it there and it wasn't until Jim Ross got a major role in the company that McMahon was able to be talked into even considering him. That's far more than you'd expect from someone working in a company that doesn't really encourage divergent viewpoints. Foley's perspective on continuing the show after Owen Hart's death, and on Bret Hart's departure (and his reasons for returning to the company afterwards) from WWF also hardly went along company lines.
The thoughts about wrestling's biggest names were most interesting. You'll read about his personal respect for Ross as a wrestling announcer and as the person responsible for most of his career breaks, Steve Austin, who he first met while he was in training under Chris Adams, and of course his almost mentor-like figure, Terry Funk. You'll read about his feelings about Paul Heyman and ECW, and some surprising questions he wrestled in his own mind starting with his final days in ECW, through his entire WWF career, regarding fans. You'll almost empathize with him when, after his Hell in the Cell match at an autograph session, people were buzzing by him, telling him quickly that his match was the greatest one they had ever seen, while rushing past him for something more important, autographs from the talentless Sable. You'll feel for him as, even after he'd made a huge name for himself, the nights he'd be on indie shows selling $5 polaroids to limited response and overstaying his welcome. You'll hear his mixed feelings on Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair (both of whom he respected greatly as performers, but not necessarily as people), his thoughts about the Bill Watts reign in WCW, about Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson as bookers, about going to Puerto Rico and having to shake hands with a native star, the same man who years earlier killed his idol Bruiser Brody, and his complete lack of respect for Mexican idol Mil Mascaras. But most of all, you'll hear his thoughts about so many different aspects of the business. You'll probably agree with most of them, but even the ones you don't, will require you to question your own views on them.
Other reviewers, the ones that would have no clue what he was talking about when he throws in a name like Satoru Sayama out of the blue, will probably focus on his detailed description of the night he lost his ear in Germany. But I wanted to almost cry being reminded of how the one person in the world who really saw the bright side of that dark experience and was, at the time, I wouldn't say happy about it, but certainly saw the up side from it, had the up side ripped away probably as violently as the ear itself by inept management who couldn't put together an angle that would draw if they were given an etch-a-sketch. Or they'll focus on the books climax, the night he won the title from The Rock, or the details of his multitude of injuries and his nine concussions. But for me, after all the pages reading about an amazing wrestling career, my lasting thought was the night he was in college with a girl he had a huge crush on, and suddenly, after holding hands, the farthest he'd ever gotten with a girl by that time in his life and kissing her, she said, "Good night....Frank." In its own way, that may have been the most important moment up until that point in his life, because it, as you'll read, let to him doing a series of home movies, which included the videotaped roof dive that gave him a chance to train to be a wrestler.
In the first of three cable network television bio specials on pro wrestling personalities, MSNBC ran its "Headliners and Legends" feature on Vince McMahon on 10/22.
The show, first scheduled for 10/13, then moved to 10/20 before finally airing for the first time two nights later, precedes A&E bios scheduled for 11/15 and 11/16 on Steve Austin and Owen Hart, following the strong ratings A&E did for its "Unreal History of Pro Wrestling," its Andre the Giant biography special and "Wrestling the Shadows."
The show itself can best be compared with the A&E history piece, right from its opening with the statement that McMahon took what was a dying sport into prominence. Like that statement, much of the history was borderline fabricated and in virtually every case poorly researched. Some of that would be understandable for the A&E special, since it was dealing with pre-1980 history, which there is little true recorded reporting on and most of that history, like the ancient history taught in schools, are versions of the truth created by "the winners." However, post-1980 pro wrestling history isn't that hard to research and most of the key players are still alive and with the changes in the industry, no longer shy about talking. In at least one case, which is a total embarrassment to the network and its news division, things were presented as wrestling history with full knowledge by the producers they weren't true. While it's actually a somewhat minor point to a non-wrestling fan, the fact it was done in that way was nothing short of a black eye to show. The show was largely based on interviews with Vince McMahon, with wife Linda by his side, who came across well in presenting his side of various issues although his credibility was suspect as expected at times and one statement he said was an unbelievable whopper, Bert Sugar as the wrestling historian whose statements ranged from good to really clueless at various points, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post and TV Guide as a McMahon adversary who was the only one of the main players on the show whose credibility held up and Greg Fagan, also of TV Guide, to talk about his achievements within the world of television.
The show talked about McMahon's history, from childhood through to the present, largely presenting a story that could best be described as vaguely accurate semi-fiction of the history of McMahon and wrestling and doing a very strong job on the subject of the current product and the contradictions of its adult themes and being marketed to children. While no new points that haven't been beaten to death here and elsewhere were brought up in the final 15 minutes, that part of the show was the strongest, and fair to both sides. It was the one part of the story where it's clear the writers were not at all sympathetic to McMahon's side, but everyone involved was given a fair enough forum to get their viewpoints over.
There's no point in getting into the stories about McMahon's childhood because his life story has changed so many times over the years, and whatever it really is has little to do with the current pro wrestling scene or the history of the game. There was no explanation given (although there probably is a good one) for what on the surface seems like the contradiction of someone who purportedly grew up in a small trailer park in Pinehurst, North Carolina (an upscale town noted for its championship golf courses) and was beaten with all sorts of tools by a series of evil stepfathers (his mother, who he wasn't close with, did marry several times) and the fact he attended a private military academy and as a teenager hung with his future wife at the tennis club. McMahon's entree into wrestling was again stated as being given the city of Bangor, ME to promote by his father, with the idea that if he didn't make it he'd have to get a real job outside of wrestling, as an example of starting from the bottom with the idea that he'd fail rather than being the son of the boss groomed for the position from the start. This inference ignores that his father gave him the wrestling announcer position, dumping highly popular announcers Ray Morgan (who was almost a Gordon Solie/Lance Russell local institution calling wrestling) and Bill Cardille, from basically his start in the company. Shortly thereafter, in a highly publicized story, his father simply refused to send talent any longer to successful long-time Boston Gardens promoter Abe Ford and gave the promoting rights to one of the WWF's strongest arenas to his son.
The piece claimed wrestling was dying when McMahon took control of the WWF, and while he did make it more lucrative than ever before, business was record setting in 1983 in much of the country, the year before McMahon went national, with numerous territories setting box office records. That year, approximately 13 million fans attended live pro wrestling events in the United States and Canada, well more than double the figure for this year when the business is in many ways at its all-time peak (because there was far more major arena events running nightly around the country because of 20 full-time territories, most of which were doing strong business). Sugar then talked about how Gorgeous George with his flamboyance changed wrestling forever, and while it would be more accurate to say it was television that caused the changes, George was the most popular performer in the early days of television and their contributions at that point went hand-in-hand. The story claimed pro wrestling hit a low in the 70s, which in some ways when judged against the popularity levels of today would be true, but most of the various regional companies were doing very profitable business during that period, particularly in the early 70s.
In a new piece of history, the new story is that business had gotten so bad that Vince Sr. wanted to sell and get out of wrestling, and Vince Jr. bought it from his dad (with no mention made of his fathers' business partners). McMahon continued claiming that his father would never have sold him the business if he knew what his plans were regarding expansion, which is very unlikely given all the things that went on during 1983 and 1984 that Sr. was fully aware of and his behind-the-scenes role in the expansion. The fact is, Sr. had already expanded the WWF from its Northeast base and was regularly running shows in Los Angeles, and had raided Georgia Championship Wrestling, the company with the most national television exposure because of its three weekly hours on the Atlanta Superstation, of some of its top talent months before raiding and national expansion had become part of the vernacular of the business.
In one of the most hilarious stories, Sugar, when explaining how McMahon expanded the WWF, talked about him coming into new cities against the existing promoters by buying television, advertising in the new market, and coming in with shows featuring all his major stars, all basically true, but then when listing the stars only gave one name--Antonino Rocca. Rocca, who was one of the biggest drawing cards in wrestling in the 50s, last wrestled for the old WWWF in the early 60s, and died nearly ten years before McMahon went national. Sugar also credited McMahon with the concept of taking television tapes and sending them from the markets they were taped in, into new markets and then running live shows in those markets, a concept in wrestling that dated back to the 50s, and by the time McMahon Jr. was even involved in wrestling, syndicating the same television show in numerous markets and splicing in localized house show interviews (known as "specs," short for market specific interviews) was a routine part of the majority of the wrestling territories.
Then, in the most embarrassing statement of all, the script read that of the 20 regional wrestling companies in operation during the 70s, due to McMahon's expansions "only a handful remained" in 1984. While there were companies from the 70s, most notably Roy Shire's promotion in San Francisco, Mike LeBelle's in Los Angeles, Leroy McGuirk's in Tulsa and Dick Murdoch's in Amarillo, that were all out of business by 1984, McMahon's expansion had nothing to do with any of them going out of business and they were long since gone before McMahon had taken control of Titan Sports. They went out of business due to a lack of marketable talent and an inability to draw created by expansion of television through satellite (and this was not McMahon's television at this point) where local fans were able to see more charismatic stars and better produced television than their local promoters could afford (either from rival promotions invading their territories, and while there was some truth about territorial boundaries being protected before McMahon, there were constant attempts to bend and break those unwritten bylaws and there were always local promotional wars, some legendary, going on at all times within the business) and thus made them less likely to attend the local matches. Promotions were regularly being created and failing throughout wrestling's history for similar reasons. At the same time, after the mid-70s, some new companies that had huge success were created, most notable being Bill Watts' Mid South Wrestling and Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler's Championship Wrestling. Actually, in 1984, there were approximately 20 major regional wrestling companies in operation.
The original plan on the show was to graphically illustrate the territories by airing a map of the United States and Canada, showing geographical breakdowns of how pro wrestling had changed, using the years 1975 and 1984. MSNBC came to me to graphically give territories and boundaries from both those years with the idea of showing the mass difference. When they found out the breakdown for 1984 contained far more than "a handful" of operational territories, instead of changing the script, the decision was made not to air the maps as graphics and ignore that the point wasn't true.
The story noted early 80s rock superstar Cyndi Lauper's involvement in wrestling bringing a new kind of fan, and her appearance, arranged by her manager David Wolfe and Vince McMahon, the trademarked "Rock and Wrestling Connection," was a hugely successful marketing campaign. Lauper's appearance was not the first celebrity involvement, as Andy Kaufman, a huge television star at the time, had two years earlier run a series of angles with Lawler in Memphis. It can be noted that Kaufman originally approached McMahon Sr. with his idea of being a heel pro wrestler, but McMahon Sr. wanted nothing to do with it feeling it would make a mockery out of pro wrestling. Bill Apter, who may have been involved in making the connection with McMahon Sr., when it didn't happen, definitely was the one who directed Kaufman to Lawler for what turned out to be a legendary series of wrestling angles that achieved mainstream publicity at the time.
It presented the story that after Lauper came, next came Hogan, which is actually incorrect. Lauper's angles started in the late spring of 1984, roughly six months after Hogan jumped from the AWA to WWF. Hogan, who everyone interviewed listed as the key player in the early success of the WWF, was called by McMahon a guy whose career was "dying on the vine" in Minnesota when he signed him. The reality was that Hogan had been the biggest drawing card in U.S. wrestling for the previous two years as the top star for Verne Gagne's AWA (many credit his appearance in Rocky III for being the catalyst of his huge drawing power and while the movie helped as far as giving him attention from the media, Hogan's unique at the time size and muscularity was such that he already established himself in the Midwest as a huge box office draw before the movie was released), plus being a huge star with New Japan Pro Wrestling, before McMahon raided him. Hogan was already probably, along with Andre the Giant, Ric Flair and Bob Backlund, one of the top four money earning performers in the game before ever going to the WWF (where his income quickly skyrocketed), and his schedule working for Gagne was far easier than the other three in his income bracket.
They then stated how McMahon Jr. made superstars out of Andre (who was a huge drawing card internationally and one of the most well-known athletes in the world by the mid-70s), Sgt. Slaughter (whose babyface turn and popularity peak were under McMahon's watch) and Jesse Ventura (who actually achieved far more fame as a wrestler working for the AWA than his tenure with the WWF, but his greatest national fame was as a WWF television announcer).
They then talked about the original Wrestlemania in 1985, how it was a make or break night for the company. It is true that if Wrestlemania had bombed it could have ruined the McMahons as they risked everything they had on the show and it was a huge gamble at the time. Even a week before the event with a lot of poor advances at the closed-circuit locations with several dozen being canceled just days ahead of time, and the show looked like it would be a failure. Linda joked on the show that they had hocked almost everything they owned, saying they had even hocked Shane but not Stephanie. A tremendous job of last week publicity combined with the huge television appeal of Mr. T, who teamed with Hogan in the main event against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff, led to very strong walk-up business in most, but not all the buildings that weren't canceled, and in hindsight it has to be considered a huge success. It was, as presented, a huge gamble that paid off big and that show established the WWF as the national wrestling leader on a night that could have just as easily spelled the end of the promotion. The show claimed the show drew one million fans in 200 closed-circuit locations (real numbers were 400,000 fans in 133 locations).
Next up was Saturday Nights Main Event, fairly regular late-night NBC specials that drew some remarkable ratings, even in weaker time slots drawing numbers far greater than Raw and Nitro combined do now on Mondays and the McMahon connection with Dick Ebersol. Fagan must have thought SNME aired on MTV, since he talked about how wrestling was airing in a slot that was normally reserved for music videos (it actually was a monthly or bi-monthly replacement for Saturday Night Live) and thus attracted more fans of pop music to wrestling. It then noted the success of Wrestlemania III.
Next brought up was the 1989 admission by Titan Sports in an attempt to get wrestling deregulated in New Jersey that it was "fake." McMahon stated that the states that did regulate wrestling really didn't anyway is largely true, although there were exceptions. In some states, it was illegal to blade (at that point that didn't effect WWF, which almost never used the blade and had officials testify in many states against companies that did calling such tactics primitive and barbaric, but was a factor in the rival NWA, which used blood frequently to compete by drawing the more hardcore type fans) and a few commissions enforced that law and two states even would stop matches at the first sign of blood. In histories, it's rarely noted that the New Jersey admission, designed to get wrestling away from a huge PPV tax on events that emanated from the state, was a failure in achieving its goal, and its sole purpose was to rid itself of a tax and not designed to change the product, how they did business or how they were viewed by the media. In fact, several WWF wrestlers in the wake of the publicity stemming from the admission went on national media shows saying that the admission match outcomes and storylines were predetermined was the story that was fake, saying it was just something the company decided to say to get out of paying steep athletic taxes. As virtually no story on the subject ever notes, the admission that got all that publicity didn't result in the state dropping regulation of wrestling, nor dropping the tax, until finally in 1997, Governor Christine Todd Whitman did sign the law, thereby eliminated that tax (and at about the same time wrestling was eliminated from virtually all commission regulation in New Jersey), and the WWF responded by scheduling the SummerSlam event that year at the former Meadowlands Arena. Over the past decade, the admission was a key factor in getting wrestling deregulated in about a dozen states. Mushnick stated McMahon wanted out of regulation not only because of the tax issue, but also the drug testing issue. The truth was that no states were drug testing wrestlers at the time, although it was a subject that came up in many states in the wake of the Zahorian case, but Oregon and Florida (which had a strong movement to establish a commission largely due to the drug issue, which was voted down in legislature after both WCW and WWF threatened to no longer promote in the state if the commission was established) were the only state to ever look at doing so seriously.
It was also true that McMahon's admission did anger a lot of old-timers in the business, although anyone who was even halfway up with the times at that point recognized it would have no negative effect on business. As it turned out, 1990 was a strong business year for the WWF, which some in the media attributed to the admission but in reality that had nothing to do with it.
In a name rarely brought up in current historical stories, because neither WWF nor WCW, for different selfish reasons want to admit he ever existed, it was Sugar who brought up the name of Jim Crockett, McMahon's biggest promotional adversary of the 80s. According to this history, Crockett sold his company to Ted Turner. The story claimed up until this point, the WWF aired on Turner's station. Actually, it was Crockett's wrestling that aired on Turner's station at the time of the sale. McMahon's wrestling appeared on TBS for a one year period in 1984-85 (which, combined with his USA network exposure gave him a virtual monopoly when it came to the highest rated TV wrestling time slots during a period where wrestling was getting major media pub, virtually 100% devoted to McMahon) , when McMahon bought a majority interest in Georgia Championship Wrestling, then folded the company, and put his own television tapes in the nation's most watched wrestling time slots on Saturday and Sunday early evenings. While McMahon's version of history has erased this fact, the truth is the ratings for McMahon's tapes were considerably lower than those for the Ole Anderson promotion that preceded him in the same time slot despite wrestling having far more national publicity during the 1984-85 period. McMahon and Turner had a major falling out in 1985, the declining ratings probably being a very small part in it. Almost immediately after McMahon had purchased GCW, McMahon felt double-crossed when Turner, due to a flood of mail and phone calls from wrestling fans who favored the "Gordon Solie wrestling" added a new hour of a new low-budget Georgia promotion run by Anderson in the early morning. In 1985, Turner added another hour on Sunday for Bill Watts' Mid South Wrestling (which embarrassingly drew better ratings then the WWF in a worse time slot on the same station and immediately became the highest rated weekly television show on cable television). By the spring of 1985, the problems had gotten large enough that McMahon sold the rights to his TBS time slots to Crockett, who was given complete control of all the wrestling hours on TBS, and used them to become McMahon's only real national competition during that period. Crockett shortly thereafter bought out Watts, who had the third strongest promotion during that time, whose company by this point was losing money with no turnaround on the horizon while trying to expand nationally.
The decline of McMahon was described as starting with what was described as a sexual harassment lawsuit by a ringboy with claims against a WWF announcer in early 1992. Actually the suit, quickly settled out of court by McMahon without any admission of guilt, named three people, ring announcer Mel Phillips and more importantly, two Vice Presidents, Terry Garvin and Pat Patterson. As part of the agreement in the settlement with Cole, it was said none of the three would ever work for the WWF again. A few months later, Cole was approached and gave the okay to hire Patterson (who some at the time thought was a scapegoat in all this) back, although in hindsight, virtually nobody close to the situation believes Patterson was every actually gone and his resignation is generally believed to have been more cosmetic than real.
The next step in the story of his decline was the indictment of McMahon on steroid charges in 1993. To mention the story of McMahon's steroid indictment would be impossible to do without bringing up the two key points that led to it, the trial of Dr. George Zahorian, and Hulk Hogan's appearance right after the trial on the Arsenio Hall show. Somehow, neither of these items were mentioned. Zahorian, in the summer of 1991, was convicted of dealing steroids to several WWF wrestlers. The actions of Zahorian, dealing steroids and downers out of the WWF dressing rooms in Eastern Pennsylvania for years (ironically there as the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission appointed physician), were hardly secretive to McMahon, since he regularly purchased steroids from him. Hogan, who also did, and was subpoenaed for the trial, through work of his attorney Jerry McDevitt (who gained fame later from his work there as the personal attorney for Vince McMahon), didn't have to testify in the trial, and then went on television on the Hall show and in other media claiming that what Zahorian said in the trial about selling him steroids was a lie, that the only reason his name came up was because Zahorian had a fan boy photo of him in his office and that he had only used steroids three times in his entire life, all in 1983 to rehab a bicep injury. Later, under oath in the McMahon trial, Hogan admitted his statements to the media during this time period regarding his use of steroids were lies. There was a loophole at the time, in that it was illegal to distribute steroids, but not illegal to purchase them or use them (that loophole closed in 1991 when usage was made a felony, although use in pro wrestling remained rampant after the law changed, and is still very prevalent today).
It talked about McMahon being offered a plea bargain, which he turned down, which is a true story, because the Government had a weak case. In fact, one aspect of the case was every bit as embarrassing as this MSNBC report in regard to presenting facts that simply couldn't be true and going with them anyway.
McMahon was largely charged with two crimes, conspiring with Zahorian to distribute steroids to the wrestlers. The weakness of the case was that McMahon and Zahorian had no financial arrangement together, although the argument was made McMahon profited greatly by the revenue he garnered marketing these steroid bodies. Even Zahorian as a government witness couldn't provide any accounts of detailed conversations between the two of them at any time so it would have been difficult to prove the case. In hindsight, however, the difference between conviction and acquittal was razor thin. After Pennsylvania law changed to where the commission no longer assigned the doctors to wrestling shows, it fell under the auspices of the WWF to hire doctors. Long before his indictment, Zahorian's name was well-known as the WWF drug doctor within wrestling and it was an inside joke about how well-muscled Southern performers would suddenly gain 20 new pounds of muscle upon signing with WWF, and all the heels in particular needed it almost as necessity because they physically had to look threatening against the massive Hogan. The woman who headed the department to assign local doctors, Anita Scales, specifically wanted nothing to do with Zahorian because of his well-known rep. She was told in no uncertain terms by higher-ups--according to trial testimony--that being Linda McMahon and Patterson, that she had to hire Zahorian. This was actually the government's strongest evidence for conspiracy, but the knot couldn't be tied because Linda McMahon, at a business function, was tipped off by people in the Pennsylvania government that Zahorian was "hot," and the WWF immediately broke all ties with him, cancelling his bookings and technically, never hired him on their own. If the WWF had hired Zahorian, who they knew was a drug doctor, as opposed to of all people, a government agency sending Zahorian to them (and the company had they hired him would have been in deep shit because they knew exactly what he was being that McMahon himself was a client and the drugs were being dealt in their own dressing rooms), that may very well have been, in fact probably would have been, strong enough evidence for a conviction.
It also should be noted that both the New York Post and Village Voice had very detailed stories about allegations of improprieties, including the secret husband of one of McMahon's attorneys approaching the Government's main witness in the case, a former secretary who actually kept McMahon's own steroid supply in her office and later when the subject became hot, in her home, as an agent claiming he could get her potential book or movie deals (and attempting to garner other incriminating information against McMahon from others claiming to be a producer from the TV show "60 minutes"). As it was, the supposed agent's wife cross-examined the secretary in a manner at the time so eerie it almost seemed she had ESP and did quite a number on her credibility.
The other charge was distributing steroids to Hogan, which in hindsight was nothing short of scary that it went as far as it did. In the trial, it was pretty clear that Hogan received steroids from Zahorian at three different locations, his home, the home of a long-time friend named Dan Brower, and at Titan Sports' headquarters. Zahorian would send steroids to McMahon's office and Hogan would pick them up. The distribution charge against McMahon was from those packages. Whether going to the office and splitting packages of steroids would constitute an illegal distribution (which seems like a very weak charge to begin with) is a question that didn't have to be answered, because the technicality of the case was that it was tried in the Eastern District of New York, and the office was in Connecticut, outside that court's jurisdiction. The government had to prove venue, so it claimed that on one occasion, McMahon sent a steroid package received from Zahorian with his limo driver, to the Nassau Coliseum, which was within the Eastern District, where Hogan received it. The problem with that argument, not including the mysterious disappearance of limo driver Jim Stuart who failed to testify as scheduled, is that the package in question was sent by Zahorian to McMahon on October 24, 1989. The Nassau Coliseum show where it was supposedly distributed to Hogan took place on October 18, 1989. Nevertheless, the main thing whitewashed about the trial which has been used to vindicate that there was never a steroid problem in the WWF is that testimony totally backed up all the media claims about steroid use in his company. Hogan testified that maybe more than 75 to 80 percent of the WWF wrestlers were doing steroids and Jim Hellwig pegged the figure at 90 percent.
The new history of wrestling claimed with the trial over, Ted Turner took advantage of his beaten down foe to immediately raid him of all his top talent. Of course the truth hardly backs that up either, and McMahon's complaints about losing talent whose contracts had expired (except in the case of Lex Luger where apparently McMahon had breached his contract in some form which allowed him to claim free agency) are silly when put in context. It's the same person who did the same thing a decade earlier to all the regional promoters signing up their top stars, while they all complained publicly, despite not having locked the performers up in most cases with contracts, in many cases long after it was clear how the game had changed.
The biggest supposed raid, Hogan, wasn't even a raid at all. Hogan quit the WWF in July 1993 when McMahon wanted to move him down from the top position. He spent nearly one year wrestling a few big shows for New Japan Pro Wrestling and doing a television series. In May 1994, he signed with WCW. If anything, he was raided from New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he was wrestling at the time. The real time line with Hogan doesn't make nearly as nice a story as the McMahon claim, and in fact, WCW likes the story they stole him from WWF better as well so nobody contradicts it. Randy Savage did sign a few months later, but he was considered by McMahon at the time to be no longer a serious active wrestler, let alone a headliner, and thus was allowed to be working without a contract. Savage at the time was virtually retired by McMahon as an active performer, working mainly as a goodwill ambassador for the company and as a television color commentator (a job he wasn't very good at) when Bischoff, at the urging of Hogan, made an offer to revive his career in a headline spot. Luger, in 1995, was also not a WWF headliner, as he was working as part of a mid-card tag team called the Allied Powers, after failing when given the biggest marketing push up to that point in time in company history. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall absolutely were WWF headliners when they jumped, but that didn't take place until the spring of 1996, a full two years after the trial was over and had absolutely nothing to do with any trial. Roddy Piper, who came even later that year, also hadn't worked in the ring for the WWF except on very rare occasions in years and only made sporadic television appearances.
After talking about the debut of Nitro and its success, crediting it to Turner, and not Bischoff (whose name was also never mentioned except with one quote from him about McMahon taking the product in the gutter because he was losing so badly in the ratings), the story continued with McMahon on the ropes, he changed his product. It talked about the current product. This final 15 minutes of the show were very good. MSNBC even noted that some of what they would air was questionable material, with the claim he turned to upping the racial, violent and sexual material. They gave him credit for this new direction of the business, never once mentioning the basic idea really came from Paul Heyman, and at least the violent aspects of what Heyman did were popularized years earlier by FMW in Japan. Even those who were partial to him earlier in the piece like Fagan were unnerved at the current product of the WWF and how it's marketed to children. McMahon himself didn't even disagree when presenting his viewpoint, saying he felt the product (it wasn't pointed out that he probably based on previous statements and virtually everything he said here was the same basic answers he's given to the same questions for the past year, meant Raw and not the WWF product itself) wasn't appropriate for those 11-and-under. However, this part of the show also saw McMahon tell an incredibly transparent whopper, with his claim that the most risque characters, noting Val Venis and Godfather in particular, are rarely allowed to appear on television before 10 p.m. Even the slightest bit of research would have exposed that statement but the story let it stand as a valid argument that there is at least some concern exercised. The whole 10 p.m. argument is so bogus to begin with for reasons clear to anyone who reads this publication. I think there are two things pretty clear right now. Wrestling's ratings are fueled by raunch, and nobody, not wrestling promoters, not sponsors and not television stations, are going to do a thing when it comes to tampering with aspects of the problems that mean ratings, unless there is a gun put to their head.
The story talked about the death of Owen Hart, and then finished largely with McMahon talking about an end-justifies-the-means philosophy.
The new WCW direction became even more apparent with the Halloween Havoc PPV show on 10/24 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The direction is throwing a lot of angles and surprises at the fans with a lot of last minute card changes, and concentrate a lot less on bell-to-bell or natural logical progression. For example, on the finishes, it seems more important to surprise fans with the results (Brad Armstrong over Berlyn as the best example but also Lex Luger over Bret Hart although there was at least an argument about logic to that one) even if the reason fans would expect the loser to win was because it would make more logical progression based on who is getting the immediate push. The pushing of Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara, although to their credit, they push the idea of themselves (the new hotshot writers who came from the WWF seems to be the going phrase) more than their names, was evident throughout the show. The argument that WCW is swimming in negative momentum and needs a face-lift is strong, but even on WWF, you wouldn't get hit with the idea constantly during the shows regularly about the hot writers that were just hired.
In many ways, from the formatting and pacing, this seemed more like a WWF PPV show with the crowd being dead for most of the show unlike WCW, which often has hotter PPV crowds, except with far lower production values and lack of a strong 20:00 main event to generally make up for weak undercards.
To make up for the fact they weren't going to deliver the advertised main event, they added a Goldberg vs. Sting match at the end, partially to begin a Sting babyface turn, and did the old Verne Gagne trick of sending fans home thinking they had seen the world title change only to watch TV to find out it wasn't the case. In looking at Gagne's business, and admittedly how fans reacted to the same angles two decades ago is not for the most part relevant to how they would act today because it's neither the same world or the same business, it was okay in the short run but eventually grew tiresome and hurt at the end.
The Hogan angle, of which part two went down exactly as it was scripted weeks ago (to their credit, a lot of people who should know better also thought this was unscripted) is at this point supposed to lead to a Hogan hiatus with the idea that he's not getting along with management, and come back as an anti-management Steve Austin figure, probably early next year, with the talk being he'll come back as a real person--ring name Terry Bollea--as opposed to the caricature of Hulk Hogan he's become, and return to do shoot style promos. The negative of that is that to make this work, it has to be made clear on television that Russo and Ferrara ordered him to do the job and he refused since he had creative control and this was the end result. At least it gives him time to rest his knee.
The show drew a paid attendance of 8,464 paying approximately $314,000 along with another $68,898 in merchandise, which are strong numbers for WCW at this point, particularly compared to the previous PPV in Winston-Salem where they couldn't sell tickets, though they still can't be credited yet to any changes since this show got off to a strong advance before the new changes were implemented.
A lot more happened faster than a usual WCW PPV show, but the match quality was well below usual company standards, which wasn't lost on the live crowd because the only match that got strong heat was Goldberg vs. Vicious.
1. Disco Inferno (Glen Gilbertti) retained the WCW cruiserweight title pinning Lash Leroux in 7:35. Leroux has shown a lot of potential but these two simply did not work well together. Leroux nearly killed himself on a flying huracanrana off the top rope. Not much heat, particularly since WCW PPV openers usually get easy heat. After Inferno used a piledriver, and Leroux came back with a nice one arm power bomb, Disco hit the last dance (stone cold stunner) for the win. After the match, Leroux dropped Inferno with a firemans carry into a form of a Michinoku driver. *1/4
They showed Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko coming to the building, telling Perry Saturn they had quit the revolution.
2. It was announced before the show that Rey Misterio Jr. was injured, so the tag titles were held up, and would be decided in a three-way match with Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) regaining the belts for exactly one night beating Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) & Billy Kidman (Peter Gruner) and Brian Knobs (Brian Yandrisovitz) & Hugh Morrus (William DeMott) in 5:02. It was announced as a falls count anywhere match with two referees, stips needed to be added based on the finish idea. Konnan & Kidman still came out wearing the belts. These belts really don't matter since they are going to be changing hands every week. It was a decent brawl, but too short with a WWF-style finish. There was a funny spot where they were brawling outside and Knobs crashed into a female photographer with her back turned not paying attention, and she totally no-sold it. So much for the illusion of high impact movement. Heat and Knobs wound up fighting backstage with them breaking thin wood strips on Knobs' head. Morrus pressed Kidman and dropped him on a chair. Morrus also moonsaulted Konnan through a table, to set up a Konnan shoulder injury angle. Backstage, Stevie Ray hit Knobs with what appeared to be a very light foam mannequin and T pinned him. Since it was backstage, the crowd didn't see it. The camera work then missed the second key spot when Kidman pinned Morrus maybe 15 seconds later in the ring (the pins were supposed to happen simultaneously), and it was never made clear what Kidman did although I was told it was scheduled to be a shooting star press but ended up being a face jam. One ref counted one pin backstage and the other counted the one in the ring. The refs conferred and the fans booed when they gave the belts to Heat. Konnan sold a shoulder injury big-time and the announcers played it up as well, with the first part of the storyline being that he and Misterio Jr. left together to go to the hospital. *1/2
DDP & Kimberly came out for an interview and the Flair vs. Page match ended up a strap match, because they said Flair spanked Kimberly 14 times. DDP came out with an expensive shirt and was doing gestures exactly like The Rock talking about Flair liking to spank it, whack it and jack it. Standards and Practices must have had fun with that stuff.
3. Eddie Guerrero beat Perry Saturn (Perry Satullo) in 11:12 via DQ. Guerrero came out wearing Flair's rolex from Nitro and gave it to Bobby Heenan at ringside. This was the best match on the show, but was hurt by a lame finish. Match didn't have much heat either. Guerrero was dropped on the ring steps early. Saturn limped early, but eventually seemed fine, and even did a quebrada after limping. Saturn also did a one-arm power clean into a back suplex. Saturn's second quebrada ended with Guerrero getting his knees up. Saturn tried a third quebrada after Guerrero missed a frog splash, but Guerrero caught him with a dropkick. Saturn used a head and arm suplex off the top rope. After a really good sequence of moves ending with a superplex off the top by Guerrero, Flair came out with a tire iron and destroyed Guerrero for the DQ. Kidman tried to help Guerrero but Flair laid him out as well. Torrie Wilson came out next, but Flair threatened her, then started dancing and kissed her and she sold it like she liked it. Flair then got his watch back from Heenan and left. ***
Buff Bagwell came out next, saying he had a problem with the writers. It was a line delivered to get a pop, and nobody in the audience reacted. When he brought up Jeff Jarrett, there was a reaction. Jarrett came out and they had a short brawl. Lex Luger came out, mad at Jarrett for him KOing Elizabeth backstage at Nitro. Luger got the guitar from Jarrett and went to hit him with it but he moved and Luger gave Bagwell this totally lame shot with a guitar so gimmicked it seemed like it was made out of cardboard. The guitar didn't break as it was supposed to, and Luger then tapped it, I mean lightly, on a turnbuckle pad and it fell apart showing everyone just how gimmicked it was. Jarrett ran off. Guerrero, selling the attack from Flair, called Misterio Jr. on the cell phone telling he and Konnan to come back to the building. Sid was bloodied earlier in the show by a Goldberg attack.
4. Brad Armstrong (Robert James Jr.) pinned Berlyn (Alex Wright) in 4:23 after Berlyn went for his neckbreaker, Armstrong held onto the ropes and Berlyn took the bump himself. They seemed like they were building a good match until they went to a finish out of nowhere. Match had no heat. After the match the bodyguard, who is in for a big push, punched Armstrong who sold it big. 1/4*
5. Rick Steiner (Robert Rechsteiner) regained the WCW TV title from Chris Benoit in 12:50. This was Benoit's worst PPV match in a long time, which speaks volumes about Steiner. Benoit was actually great opening with a superplex off the top and a tope. After Steiner kicked Benoit low, he started working on him. This was so exciting you could hear loud boring chants during a Benoit match. Benoit made his comeback with the three straight german suplexes for a near fall. Ref Mark Johnson went down. Steiner picked up a chair but Benoit nailed him and gave him the Jushin Liger shoda (palm thrust) to the chair to the face. Benoit came off the top with a diving head-butt but Steiner got the chair and Benoit crashed into it. Malenko then ran in and grabbed the chair, teased as if he was going to hit Steiner, but instead hit Benoit and Steiner got the pin. Malenko then hugged Saturn in the aisle after the match. *3/4
6. The Total Package (Larry Pfohl) beat Bret Hart in 7:46. Nothing much to this match. Hart came out selling a bad ankle from Monday, but he pounded on Luger the entire match until the ankle went out and Luger used a half crab for the submission. Nobody believed that as a finish. *
Madusa came out in a bikini. Her body looks great for her age but you don't see a lot of 37-year-old strippers and there's a reason why. The implants look ridiculous but this is a business of excess. She came out with Nitro cologne. It was the weirdest thing as Heenan was getting over just how horrible smelling the cologne is. It's a WCW product and they were pushing how bad it smelled (apparently it was a Bischoff idea and they decided to "bury it" in the angle). Madusa started screaming it was bullshit (parading around as a T&A showpiece) and threw the cologne on Heenan who reacted like it smelled like cow manure. In fact, they actually used the word manure to describe the smell of the cologne. This was weird to say the least.
They did the Hogan-Sting angle next so fans would boo it heavily but still have three more matches left in the show to forget about it. Hogan at first didn't come out even though his music played. Finally he came out, in street clothes, whispered something to Sting and laid down and Sting covered him and the ref counted three. No bell sounded to start the match. They immediately cut to a clip of Goldberg with the abrupt cut designed to make people think what happened wasn't supposed to. The idea as this was designed would be Sting's later agreeing to wrestle after this fiasco showed he was a babyface all along and a fighting champion. It wasn't made as clear to the fans what this was all about (ie writers ordering Hogan to do a job) as it needed to be and with no follow up on television the next day, came off like a silly exercise in masturbation. The feeling from those in the building live is that nobody understood what this was all about, and because it was never referred to on television the next night (that was a Russo call because if it was referred to, it was his belief that people would think it was an angle, forgetting that it is an angle and the Hart-McMahon thing that every angle is now based on got over so well because WWF spent one straight month of television after the fact getting it over at first to justify its position, and later, when McMahon couldn't turn the crowd with him through television, kept on it to go with the flow to create the heel character) so by now, nobody understands and few probably remember it amid the morass of angles they have to digest every week.
7. Bill Goldberg beat Sid Vicious (Sid Eudy) to win the U.S. title, also a one-night title reign, in 7:11. Vicious came out all bloody. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash jumped Goldberg before the match. Match had a ton of heat, the only match that could make that distinction. Sid bled heavily, and mainly took punishment, but would never quit. The announcers really played up Sid's guts and toughness until finally Mickey Jay stopped the match. They gave Goldberg the belt. Who knows what the rules are regarding matches stopped on blood and titles changing hands nowadays since rules change as they go along. Goldberg also acted like he didn't want the belt, but eventually took it. Rick Steiner helped Sid to the back, but he turned around and wanted more. The announcers did a great job with this match. **1/2
8. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenburg) beat Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) in 12:49 of a strap match. This turned out to be a lot more heated outside the ring. Flair was really upset all week with the plan to retire him and end his career (although he was told there would be another comeback early next year) with this match, and against Page of all people. This also blows the Flair-Benoit planned program. Anyway, the company had to make a deal with standards and practices over the Sid match because of showing the blood so graphically on the show, since it needed to be seen to justify the stoppage. That was supposed to be the only blood on the show. Flair bladed, and wound up bleeding far more than Sid, making the Sid stoppage make no sense since there was no stoppage here, not to mention freaking out the guy from standards and practices. To the fans, this was a strap match with very disappointing heat. It wasn't any good although they did whip each other hard with the straps. The only real pops were the crotch shots and the figure four. The finish saw Page choke Flair out with the strap and give him the diamond cutter. Ref Charles Robinson held up his count at two. The bell rang anyway and it was announced as a pinfall, please don't ask me why. Page then laid out Robinson with a diamond cutter and continued to choke Flair with the belt. David Flair showed up with a crowbar to make the save, but he was beaten up by Kimberly (remember what that did for Marc Mero's wrestling career). Page got the crowbar and destroyed Flair even more, finishing with a low blow with the crowbar. Flair was carried out on a stretcher. Backstage, the Filthy Animals all jumped a helpless Flair and a hopeless David, threw him in the back of an ambulance and drove away in the ambulance. It was funny seeing Konnan, arm in a sling, attacking Flair with the arm in the sling. *
9. In the height of what appeared to be disorganization, Goldberg pinned Sting (Steve Borden) and was given the WCW heavyweight title in 3:08. No ref showed up and Sting seemed visibly upset by the lack of organization backstage. Finally Robinson, who was beaten up the previous match by Page, came out showing no signs of battle weariness nor even with a hair out of place. Tony Schiavone then announced this as a non-title match. The show was already running long by this point so they had to rush and didn't have time to do much. Sting hit three Stinger splashes, but Goldberg did a leap frog into a spear, which looked good and then pinned him after a jackhammer. Goldberg was then given the belt and announced as the new world champion. Go figure. Sting ended the show dropping poor Robinson with a scorpion death drop. 1/2*
The return of the Sandman (James Fullington) to the ECW Arena in a surprise on 10/23 drew what was described as one of the largest pops in the history of the promotion. While Paul Heyman had been burying Fullington even before he was fired by WCW and claiming at one point just a few weeks ago that under no circumstances would he ever bring him back, the feeling always was among everyone close to him that if available he'd be back immediately.
With Fullington still under contract to WCW through 12/7 (his actual contract figures were a three-year deal at $245,000 per year plus he received a $10,000 signing bonus last September--with 90 day cycles that would give the company the right to terminate him and the contract would become void). So at $4,700 per week, if the WCW fires him immediately because of the breach of appearing at the ECW show he was walking away from more than $28,000 of money he'd get just sitting home. The idea that Heyman was bringing him in for only around $1,500 per week on the surface sounds more than suspicious when you're talking about a wrestler with a family. Heyman had constantly used Fullington as an example of someone who walked out with no notice that would never be welcomed back as an example to the rest of the boys that if they took offers elsewhere and couldn't cut it, there was no job waiting for them. But the reality always figured to be that wrestlers who can draw money, and Sandman was a huge merchandise draw for ECW, can always get back in to a company that's struggling, particularly one looking to replace both its long-time tag champs and heavyweight champ.
Sandman arrived with no advance warning at the 10/23 ECW Arena show after a Justin Credible & Lance Storm vs. Raven & Tommy Dreamer match ended with no decision and a lot of run-ins. After Credible had laid Raven and Dreamer out with cane shots, followed by Storm giving Dreamer a cradle piledriver and Credible giving Raven the spinning tombstone, the ref was about to count the pin when lights went out and Sandman, who had dropped considerable weight, losing his gut and with larger shoulders, showed up on the stage with a beer and cigarette and ran to the ring and cane'd Jason, Steve Corino and Jack Victory among others to a huge pop, maybe the biggest pop in company history, coming face-to-face with Raven, who backed off, and funny hugging Dreamer to end what was described as a hot show.
This all sets up the new November to Remember main event on 11/7 as Sandman & Raven & Dreamer vs. Credible & Storm & Rhino (who in the angle didn't back off from Sandman's cane and was pulled away from Sandman by Credible & Storm).
The ratings gap on Mondays is closing, which means, expect hot-shot booking designed for short-term shock value on both sides to increase greatly, if that's even possible.
For 10/25, Raw broke new ground with race baiting (two rednecks in a bar scene calling Faarooq "darky" several times and "boy" leading to a pretty good bar fight scene) drew a 5.58 rating (5.54 first hour; 5.62 second hour) and a 8.2 share. Nitro was up to a 3.51 rating (3.99 first hour; 3.34 second hour; 3.24 third hour) and a 5.2 share. Monday Night Football did a 12.52 rating and 20.8 share. For the head-to-head two hours and six minutes it was Raw with a 5.52 rating to Nitro's 3.29. Probably the most significant stat of all is that Raw's rating didn't increase from last week where it was well below its average over the past few months, which could be explained by both the Yankees in the playoffs on FOX and New York Giants on ABC being in important games on network television. This week, the only explanation is that Nitro is starting to close the gap.
Raw's doubling Nitro head-to-head was down to a 45 minute period in the two plus hours. The strongest ratings segment for WWF was a 6.19 rating for the Chyna & D-Lo Brown vs. Chris Jericho & Transvestite Stevie Richards match, going head-up with a 2.70 for Nitro's Bagwell interview. The doubling continued with a 5.89 for the Mankind vs. HHH title match going against a 2.92 for Benoit vs. Malenko. The other doubling segment was Buh Buh Ray Dudley vs. Kane (5.55) beating Harlem Heat vs. Konnan & Kidman tag title change (2.35).
In the main event battle, it was Rock & Austin vs. Outlaws drawing a 5.66 final quarter and a 5.55 over-run (which, since Raw went longer than Nitro, was probably closer to a 5.4 head-to-head); beating Nitro's Hart vs. Goldberg U.S. title change which did a 3.68 final quarter and a 3.71 over-run, which was the peak head-to-head rating for WCW. WCW also had a strong segment early with a 3.54 for the Madusa vs. Meng match, again showing the drawing power of women wearing little clothing. The other segment involving apparent stripper types, with the Hall & Nash vs. strippers match saw the rating slightly rise from the 3.50 for DDP vs. David Flair (who for whatever reason generally does strong quarter hours, although there was a lot of Kimberly in that segment) to the 3.68 for the Hall & Nash match.
The other weekend ratings saw Livewire at 1.5, Superstars at 1.8 and Sunday Night Heat for a show will a full slate of first-run matches at a 3.45. WCW Saturday Night did a 1.5.
For the 10/21 battle, Smackdown set its all-time record audience with a 4.83 rating, making it the first time in history that Smackdown actually had more viewers than Raw. Smackdown may have finished as high as third in its time slot among network programming with that number. Thunder remained in the toilet for a taped show which included a match of the year candidate that nobody saw doing a 1.89 rating.
ECW slightly increased from its record rating from the previous week, doing a 1.20 on 10/22 with a 2.1 share. The show opened with a 1.22 quarter, dropped to 1.10 and 1.03 before finishing at 1.31 for the debut of Sabu and a music video featuring the women. The two-hour RollerJam show that followed did an 0.69.
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RESULTS
10/19 Louisville (WWF Smackdown tapings - 12,963): X-Pac & Kane b Head Bangers, Gangrel b Steve Blackman, Faarooq b Curtis Hughes, Prince Albert b Stevie Richards, European title: D-Lo Brown b Chris Jericho, Edge & Christian & Test b British Bulldog & Rodney & Pete Gas, WWF womens title: Fabulous Moolah NC Mae Young, Mankind NC Rock, WWF title: Hunter Hearst Helmsley b Al Snow, WWF tag titles: Bob & Crash Holly b Matt & Jeff Hardy, Godfather & Mark Henry b Mideon & Viscera, Steve Austin b Val Venis
10/19 Fukuoka International Center (New Japan - 4,500): Hiro Tanahashi b Wataru Inoue, AKIRA & Michael Wallstreet b Hiro Saito & Satoshi Kojima, Koji Kanemoto b Dr. Wagner Jr., Kendo Ka Shin b Dean Malenko, Jushin Liger & Wild Pegasus b Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani, Manabu Nakanishi & Shiro Koshinaka b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Tadao Yasuda & Genichiro Tenryu b Yuji Nagata & Kensuke Sasaki, NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono b Keiji Muto & Hiroyoshi Tenzan
10/19 Tokyo Ota Ward Gym (Michinoku Pro - 2,612): Masaaki Mochizuki b Kazuya Yuasa, Tanny Mouse & Chihiro Nakano b Yuka Nakamura & Yoshiko Tamura, Gran Hamada & Mens Teioh b Curry Man & Suwa, Cima (Shima Nobunaga) b Minoru Fujita, Jinsei Shinzaki & Magnum Tokyo b Sumo Dandy Fuji & Yoshikazu Taru, Tiger Mask b Great Sasuke
10/19 Nagano (All Japan - 1,050): Daisuke Ikeda b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Makoto Hashi & Tamon Honda b Masamichi Marufuji & Yoshinari Ogawa, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Takeshi Morishima & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Satoru Asako & Jun Izumida b Maunukea Mossman & Johnny Smith, Mike Burton & Johnny Ace b Masao Inoue & Akira Taue, Mitsuharu Misawa & Masahito Kakihara b Giant Kimala II & Stan Hansen, Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama & Gary Albright b Kentaro Shiga & Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi
10/19 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL - 5,400): Sombra de Plata & Alacran b El Jeque & Principe Negro, Americo Rocca & Mogur & Guerrero del Futuro b Olimpus & Solar II & Filoso, Fishman & Karloff Lagarde Jr. & Arkangel b Starman & Mascara Magica & Solar, Mask vs. mask: Tiger Blanco b Super Cacao (unmasked as Kadoorde Nosawa), Cien Caras & Blue Panther & Black Warrior b Tinieblas Jr. & Ringo Mendoza & Rayo de Jalisco Jr.
10/20 Kumamoto (New Japan - 3,200): Katsuyori Shibata b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinya Makabe b Wataru Inoue, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Koji Kanemoto b Black Cat & Dr. Wagner Jr., Dean Malenko & Kendo Ka Shin b El Samurai & Jushin Liger, Wild Pegasus b Shinjiro Otani, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Kido b Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka, Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi b Tadao Yasuda & Minoru Fujita, Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto b Takashi Iizuka & Kensuke Sasaki, Hiro Saito & Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Keiji Muto b AKIRA & Michael Wallstreet & NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono
10/20 Hamamatsu (All Japan - 1,800): Kentaro Shiga b Masamichi Marufuji, Giant Kimala II b Takeshi Morishima, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Makoto Hashi & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Daisuke Ikeda & Masahito Kakihara b Satoru Asako & Jun Izumida, Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori & Gary Albright b Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda & Akira Taue, Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama b Stan Hansen & Maunukea Mossman, Jinsei Shinzaki & Yoshinari Ogawa & Mitsuharu Misawa b Johnny Smith & Johnny Ace & Mike Burton
10/20 Jyoetsu (FMW): Kaori Nakayama b Emi Motokawa, New Head Shrinkers b Naohiko Yamazaki & Yoshinori Sasaki, Chris Youngblood d Hiskatsu Oya, Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda b Kintaro Kanemura & Kodo Fuyuki-DQ, Fake Hayabusa & Koji Nakagawa & Gedo b H & Ricky Fuji & Flying Kid Ichihara
10/21 Miyazaki (New Japan - 2,400): Wataru Inoue b Katsuyoshi Shibata, Black Cat b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Kendo Ka Shin & Shinya Makabe, Kengo Kimura & Tadao Yasuda b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto, Dean Malenko & Wild Pegasus b El Samurai & Jushin Liger, Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi b NWO Sting & Michael Wallstreet, Kensuke Sasaki & Shiro Koshinaka b AKIRA & Masahiro Chono, Hiro Saito & Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Keiji Muto b Kazuyuki Fujita & Takashi Iizuka & Osamu Kido & Tatsumi Fujinami
10/21 Schenectady, NY (ECW - 1,200): Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney b C.W. Anderson & Bill Whiles, Jazz b Jason, Chris Candido b Simon Diamond, Super Crazy b Tony DeVito, Nova & David Cash b Dupp Brothers, Spike Dudley b Little Guido, Lance Storm & Justin Credible b Danny Doring & Roadkill, Sabu b Rhino
10/21 Fukushima (FMW): Yoshinori Sasaki d Naohiko Yamazaki, Kaori Nakagawa b Ricky Fuji, Kaori Nakayama b Emi Motokawa, Head Shrinkers b Kintaro Kanemura & Jado, Masato Tanaka b Chris Youngblood, H & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hisakatsu Oya b Kodo Fuyuki & Gedo & Fake Hayabusa
10/21 Fukushima (Arsion): Mikiko Futagami b Yumi Fukawa, Rie Tamada & Aja Kong b Linda Starr & Mary Apache, Candy Okutsu b Gami Metal, Mariko Yoshida & Yumi Fukawa b Ayako Hamada & Michiko Omukai
10/21 Matsumoto (JD): Saya Endo b Harumi Torii, Bloody b Kazuki, Megumi Yabushita & Sumie Sakai b Sachie Abe & Hiroyo Muto, Yuko Kosugi b Fang Suzuki, Lioness Asuka & Yuki Morimatsu b Cooga & Runmaru
10/22 Oakland (WCW - 3,697): Billy Kidman b Chavo Guerrero Jr., Meng b Hugh Morrus, Konnan b Disco Inferno, Perry Saturn b Eddie Guerrero, Buff Bagwell b Berlyn-DQ, Sid Vicious b Booker T, Cage match: Ric Flair & Bret Hart b Sting & Lex Luger
10/22 Poughkeepsie, NY (ECW TNN tapings - 2,500): Spike Dudley b Simon Diamond, Nova & David Cash NC Spanish Angel & Tony DeVito, Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney b C.W. Anderson & Bill Whiles, Jerry Lynn won three-way over Little Guido and Super Crazy, ECW title: Mike Awesome b P.N. News, Sabu b Taz, Lance Storm b Tommy Dreamer, Raven b Justin Credible, ECW TV title: Rob Van Dam b Rhino
10/22 Niage (New Japan - 2,500 sellout): Wataru Inoue b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinya Makabe b Katsuyori Shibata, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Kendo Ka Shin b Black Cat & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Osamu Kido b Michiyoshi Ohara, El Samurai & Jushin Liger b Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Yuji Nagata & Tadao Yasuda, Takashi Iizuka & Shiro Koshinaka b Hiro Saito & Keiji Muto, AKIRA & NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono b Manabu Nakanishi & Kengo Kimura & Kensuke Sasaki
10/22 Chiba (All Japan - 2,300): Takeshi Morishima b Masamichi Marufuji, Masao Inoue b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tamon Honda & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura b Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Maunukea Mossman & Johnny Smith b Daisuke Ikeda & Masahito Kakihara, Mike Burton & Johnny Ace b Giant Kimala II & Gary Albright, Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa b Akira Taue & Jun Izumida, Stan Hansen b Jinsei Shinzaki, Kentaro Shiga & Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi b Satoru Asako & Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori
10/22 Hakata Star Lanes (Neo Ladies): Tanny Mouse b Yuka Nakamura, Misae Genki d Saya Endo, Takako Inoue b Yoshiko Tamura, WWWA super lt title: Chaparita Asari b Momoe Nakanishi to win title, WWWA title: Yumiko Hotta b Kyoko Inoue to win title
10/22 Mexico City Arena Mexico (EMLL TV taping): Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b Alan Stone & Motocross, Brazo de Oro & Pantera b Violencia & Valentin Mayo, El Satanico & Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero b Olimpico & Super Astro & Tony Rivera-DQ, Negro Casas & Felino & Mr. Niebla b Shocker & Scorpio Jr. & Bestia Salvaje, Brazo de Plata & Tarzan Boy & Emilio Charles Jr. won three-way over Apolo Dantes & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 and Villano III & Pierroth Jr. & Fuerza Guerrera
10/23 Chicago All-State Arena (WWF - 17,114 sellout): Godfather & Mark Henry b Mideon & Viscera, European title: D-Lo Brown b Prince Albert, Big Show DCOR Big Bossman, Edge & Christian b Dudleys, Chris Jericho b Mankind, WWF tag titles: Bob & Crash Holly b New Age Outlaws, Test b British Bulldog, Rock b Val Venis, Tornado match: X-Pac & Kane b Acolytes, WWF title: Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ
10/23 Philadelphia ECW Arena (ECW - 1,400 sellout): ECW title: Mike Awesome b Mikey Whipwreck, Nova b Chris Candido, Super Crazy won three-way over Little Guido and Spike Dudley, Yoshihiro Tajiri b Jerry Lynn, Tom Marquez NC David Cash, Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney NC Spanish Angel & Tony DeVito, ECW TV title: Rob Van Dam d Sabu, ECW tag titles: Raven & Tommy Dreamer NC Justin Credible & Lance Storm
10/23 Naoya Aiichi Gymnasium (All Japan - 6,000): Maunukea Mossman & Masamichi Marufuji b Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kentaro Shiga, Giant Kimala II b Satoru Asako, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Makoto Hashi & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura, Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda b Daisuke Ikeda & Masahito Kakihara, Johnny Smith & Mike Burton & Johnny Ace b Jun Izumida & Akira Taue & Stan Hansen, Takao Omori b Jinsei Shinzaki, Yoshihiro Takayama b Gary Albright, PWF & Intl tag titles: Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama b Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa
10/23 Memphis (Power Pro TV): Steve Bradley b Robbie D, Derrick King b Kid Wikkid, Blade b Alan Steele-DQ, Brian Christopher b Tommy Rich-DQ
10/23 Tupelo, MS (Power Pro Wrestling/CWA - 94): Smoke Dog b Tony Dabbs-DQ, War Machine & Dabbs b Mike Todd & Dog, Young Guns title: Derrick King b Alan Steele, Hollywood Jade b Jaguar, Steele & Bulldog Raines b Mic Tierney & Glen Kulka, Tommy Rich & Mega Man b Romeo Valentine & Hoss Williams-DQ, Power Pro title: Steve Bradley b Robbie D
10/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Gaea - 1,500): Meiko Satomura b Saika Takemura. Chikayo Nagashima & Rie b Sugar Sato & Kaori Nakayama, Toshie Uematsu b Sakura Hirota, Kaoru & Satomura b Lioness Asuka & Sonoko Kato, Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki b Chigusa Nagayo & Toshiyo Yamada
10/23 Takayama (FMW): Gedo b Yoshinori Sasaki, Kintaro Kanemura b Naohiko Yamazaki, Jado b Flying Kid Ichihara, Fake Hayabusa & Kodo Fuyuki b Hisakatsu Oya & Ricky Fuji, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Masato Tanaka & H b Chris Youngblood & Samu & Mashu
10/23 Nishine (Michinoku Pro - 500): Beef Wellington b Kazuyu Yuasu, Sumo Dandy Fuji & Curry Man DDQ Sasuke the Great & Fake Naniwa, Yoshikazu Taru b Yuasu, Cima & Suwa b Gran Hamada & Minoru Fujita, Great Sasuke & Masaaki Mochizuki d Tiger Mask & Magnum Tokyo
10/23 Colonial Beach, VA (Maryland Championship Wrestling): Qeenan Creed b Chad Austin, Cue Ball Carmichael b Gregory Martin, Earl the Pearl won Battle Royal, Gillberg b Pearl, Adam Flash b Quinn Nash to win MCW cruiserweight title, 2 Dope & Sydeswype b Platinum Nat & Rich Myers, Bruiser b Dino Divine, King Kong Bundy b Romeo Valentino
10/23 Pine Hill, NJ (NWA New Jersey): Trent Acid b Dave Misterio Jr., Big Slam b Jackhammer, Twiggy Ramirez b Harley Lewis, Giant Leprechaun won three-way over Rocco Dorsey and Biggie Biggs, Inferno Kid b Kevin Knight, Iron Sheik b Rik Ratchett
10/23 Elizabeth, PA (Steel City Wrestling): Vince Viper b Super Hentai, T.Rantula b Powerhouse Hughes, Shirley Doe b Sage & Bigg Playa, Little Jeannie b Lexy Fyfe, Mike Quackenbush b Tracy Smothers, Julio Fantastico b Don Montoya, Cody Michaels b Dennis Gregory, George Steele b Notorious Norm
10/23 Cleveland (Cleveland All Pro Wrestling - 237): Matt Roth b Joe Courage, Chief b Enigma, Canadian Bad Boy b Guido, Widowmaker b Goliath, Nate Matson b DBA, Wild Things b Brian O & TNT, J.C. Ice b 8-Pac, J.T. Lightning b Wolfie D
10/23 South Plainfield, NJ (Independent Wrestling Federation): Biggie Biggs b Keith Konway, Rik Ratchet b Brad Scott, Donnie B b Bobcat, Kevin Knight b Steve Corino, Twiggy Ramirez b Inferno Kid, Nova NC Danny Doring, Corino & Doring & Ratchet b Nova & Ramirez & Knight
10/23 Mexico City La Carpa Astros (EMLL): El Pegasso b Magaza, Sombra de Plata & Ricky Marvin b Sangre Azteca & Fugaz, Los Rayos Tapatios I & II b Alan Stone & Motocross, Tigre Blanco & Mr. Hoy & Triton b Dr. O'Borman Jr. & Americo Rocca & Rencor Latino, Brazo de Plata & Brazo de Oro & Mr. Niebla b Shocker & Mr. Mexico & Scorpio Jr.
10/24 St. Louis Kiel Center (WWF - 8,929): Mark Henry & Godfather b Mideon & Viscera, European title: D-Lo Brown b Prince Albert, Edge & Christian b Dudleys, Big Show DCOR Big Bossman, Chris Jericho b Mankind, WWF tag titles: Bob & Crash Holly b New Age Outlaws, Test b British Bulldog, Rock b Val Venis, X-Pac & Kane b Acolytes, WWF title: Steve Austin b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ
10/24 Kashima (All Japan - 2,000): Masahito Kakihara b Makoto Hashi, Giant Kimala II & Gary Albright b Takeshi Morishima & Jun Izumida, Maunukea Mossman & Johnny Smith b Kentaro Shiga & Jinsei Shinzaki, Johnny Ace & Mike Burton b Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue, Stan Hansen & Akira Taue b Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa, Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori & Satoru Asako b Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama & Daisuke Ikeda
10/24 Tokyo (IWA Japan): Yuji Kito b Takashi Uwano, Viking Taniguchi b Hiroki Niikura, Katsumi Hirano & Takeshi Sato b Keizo Matsuda & Phantom Funakoshi, Captains hair vs. hair match: Great Takeru & Asian Cougar & Yuki Nishino & Bloody b Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono & Cacao & Etsuko Mita, Jason the Terrible (Roberto Rodriguez) b Freddy Kruger (Doug Gilbert), Street fight: Tiger Jeet Singh b Mr. Pogo-COR, No rope barbed wire electrified dynamite barbed wire board death match: Tarzan Goto & Kendo Nagasaki & Ichiro Yaguchi b Jason & Doug Gilbert & Yoshiya Yamashita
10/24 Mexico City Arena Coliseo (EMLL): Ultimo Dragoncito & Bracito de Oro b Sombrita de Plata & Tritoncito, Mr. Hoy & Mano Negra Jr. & La Flecha b Sangre Azteca & Damian El Guerrero & Reyes Veloz, Pantera & Triton & Astro Rey Jr. b Rencor Latino & El Hijo del Gladiador & Guerrero del Futuro, Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 & Blue Panther b Felino & Ringo Mendoza & Emilio Charles Jr., DF hwt title: Violencia b Brazo de Oro to win title
10/24 Naucalpan (IWRG TV taping): Volador Jr. & Turbo b Black Thunder & Maligno, Multifacetico & Zonick b Neo & Caballero Azteca, Moon Walker & Black Dragon & El Suicida b Los Super Payasos, Ultimo Vampiro & Skayde & Kung Fu Jr. b Mega & Super Mega & Maniac Cop, IWRG IC middleweight title: Bombero Infernal b Mr. Mexico to win title
10/24 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 370): Beef Wellington b Kazuya Yuasu, Magnum Tokyo & Kendo b Fake Naniwa & Yoshikazu Taru, Tiger Mask b Yuasu, Cima & Suwa b Sumo Dandy Fuji & Curry Man, Great Sasuke & Masaaki Mochizuki b Gran Hamada & Minoru Fujita
10/24 Osaka AM Hall (Osaka Pro Wrestling - 280): Naohiro Hoshikawa b Super Demiken, Oriental & Tsubasa b Ebbesan & Azteca, Ultra Ace b Bear, Policeman & Buffalo & Dick Togo b Demiken & Monkey Magic & Kuishinbo Kamen, Super Delfin b Daioh Qualtt
10/24 Koshigaya (Battlarts): Mohammed Yone b Mach Junji, Katsumi Usuda b Takashi Hijikata, Yuki Ishikawa & Minoru Tanaka b Alexander Otsuka & Ikuto Hidaka
10/24 Toyama (JWP): Carlos Amano b Kayoko Haruyama, Azumi Hyuga b Akyuto Sae, Runyuyu & Yoshiko Tamura b Misae Genki & Haruyama, Hyuga & Runyuyu & Misaki Kana b Dynamite Kansai & Commando Boirshoi & Amano
10/24 Greensburg, PA (Steel City Wrestling): Dennis Gregory b Cody Michaels, Julio Fantastico (Sanchez) b Tracy Smothers, George Steele b Drew Lazario, Trevor Lowe b Powerhouse Hughes, Mike Quackenbush b Don Montoya, Little Jeannie b Lexi Fyfe
10/25 Providence, RI (WWF Raw is War - 9,555 sellout): Ho's at stake: Viscera b Godfather, WWF tag titles: Christian & Edge b Bob & Crash Holly-DQ, WWF womens title: Ivory b Fabulous Moolah to win title, Big Show NC Prince Albert, Chyna & D-Lo Brown b Chris Jericho & Stevie Richards, WWF title: Mankind b Hunter Hearst Helmsley-DQ, Kane b Buh Buh Ray Dudley-DQ, Cage match: Test b British Bulldog-DQ, New Age Outlaws b Steve Austin & Rock ***
10/25 Phoenix America West Arena (WCW Nitro - 9,630): Norman Smiley b Bam Bam Bigelow, Lash Leroux b Curt Hennig-DQ, Perry Saturn b Eddie Guerrero, Meng b Madusa, Lex Luger b Rick Steiner-COR, Billy Kidman b Konnan, Chris Benoit b Dean Malenko, Sting b Brian Knobs, WCW tag titles: Konnan & Billy Kidman b Harlem Heat to win titles, U.S. title: Bret Hart b Bill Goldberg to win title
10/25 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pancrase - 2,000 sellout): Daisuke Ishii b Katsuomi Inagaki, Osami Shibuya b Daisuke Watanabe, Genki Sudo b Hansenka, Kosei Kubota b Alessio, Sanae Kikuta d Travis Fulton, Ikuhisa Minowa b Adrian Serrano
10/25 Nagasaki (New Japan - 2,600): Kazuyoshi Shibata b Wataru Inoue, Shinya Makabe b Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido b Black Cat & Takashi Iizuka, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto b Dr. Wagner Jr. & Kendo Ka Shin & Jushin Liger, AKIRA b Hiro Saito, Tatsutoshi Goto b Kengo Kimura, Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi b Shiro Koshinaka & Kensuke Sasaki, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Keiji Muto b Michael Wallstreet & NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono
10/25 Nagaoka (All Japan - 1,800): Yoshinobu Kanemaru b Masamichi Marufuji, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Makoto Hashi & Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura, Gary Albright b Takeshi Morishima, Mike Burton & Johnny Ace b Jun Izumida & Akira Taue, Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori b Stan Hansen & Giant Kimala II, All-Asian tag title tourney final: Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue b Johnny Smith & Maunukea Mossman, Daisuke Ikeda & Masahito Kakihara & Yoshinari Ogawa & Mitsuharu Misawa b Jinsei Shinzaki & Kentaro Shiga & Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi
10/26 Yamaguchi (New Japan - 2,100): Kendo Ka Shin & Dr. Wagner Jr. b Black Cat & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani b Jushin Liger & El Samurai, Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara b Shiro Koshinaka & Tadao Yasuda, Satoshi Kojima & Hiro Saito b AKIRA & Michael Wallstreet, Keiji Muto & Hiroyoshi Tenzan b Kensuke Sasaki & Takashi Iizuka, Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata b NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono
10/26 Miyagi (All Japan - 1,100): Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tamon Honda & Jinsei Shinzaki b Yoshinari Ogawa & Masamichi Marufuji, Masa Fuchi & Haruka Eigen & Jun Izumida b Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota & Makoto Hashi, Gary Albright b Daisuke Ikeda, Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori & Satoru Asako b Giant Kimala II & Johnny Smith & Maunukea Mossman, Johnny Ace & Mike Burton b Mitsuharu Misawa & Masahito Kakihara, Stan Hansen & Akira Taue & Masao Inoue b Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama & Kentaro Shiga
10/26 Osaka (FMW): Jado d Chris Youngblood, Koji Nakagawa b Flying Kid Ichihara, Fatu & Mashu b Ricky Fuji & Hisakatsu Oya, Kaori Nakayama b Emi Motokawa, H & Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Yoshinori Sasaki b Gedo & Kintaro Kanemura & Fake Hayabusa & Kodo Fuyuki
10/26 Fukushima (Michinoku Pro - 256): Beef Wellington b Kazuya Yuasu, Chaparita Asari b Yuka Nakamura, Masaaki Mochizuki & Kendo b Curry Man & Yoshikazu Taru-DQ, Tiger Mask & Magnum Tokyo b Sasuke the Great & Fake Naniwa, Cima & Suwa & Sumo Dandy Fuji b Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Minoru Fujita
Special thanks to: Bryan Alvarez, Pete Theophall, Larry Lee, Mike Rodgers, Ken Jugan, Bobby Baum, Dan Parris, Jim McNerney, Chuck Morris, Jim Davis, George Wren, Cory Van Kleeck, Ray Gore, Bill Henson, James Haase, Justin Ramey, Pete Maguire, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims, Harry White, George Epstein, Dennis Reed, Zack Arnold, Mr. Mike, Beau Hajavitch, Chuck Langerman, Blaine DeSantis, Dominick Valenti, Mike Omansky, Dan Reilly
JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/19 ALL JAPAN: 1. Kobashi pinned The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) in 19:09. They aired the final 12:00 and this was pretty good, but not great. Gladiator did his big tope and an awesome bomb on the floor. However, while beating on Kobashi, he lost momentum because his clubbing punches look pretty bad. He then did a lengthy camel clutch. Kobashi got near falls down the stretch with a dragon sleeper and moonsault. Awesome hit a spear when Kobashi went for a lariat. Awesome used his Awesome bomb for a good near fall. The finish saw him go for a power bomb off the top, but Kobashi blocked it. Awesome ended up landing on the mat by himself and turned it into an attempted regular power bomb, but Kobashi rolled that into a huracanrana, then hit the lariat for the pin. The finish wasn't executed quite as hot as it reads. ***1/2; 2. Akira Taue pinned Hiroshi Hase in 15:11. The match was just so-so, but built to a really hot finish. The climax where Taue and Hase traded choke slams and uranages (rock bottoms) popped the crowd big. After each did two of their moves, Taue went for his third choke slam, but Hase turned it into an armbar while Taue made the ropes. Taue went for a power bomb and Hase again turned it into an armbar and rope break. Hase hit the Northern Lights suplex for a near fall, but Taue used a DDT after blocking the second NLS. Finally Taue used a high kick, a lariat, a choke slam off the middle ropes and a regular choke slam for the pin. ***1/4
10/9 NEW JAPAN: 1. Don Frye & Genichiro Tenryu beat Brian Johnston & Kensuke Sasaki when Tenryu pinned Johnston after a lariat. Frye didn't do much here and Johnston didn't look good. There was a good flurry leading to the finish with Tenryu and Sasaki. *1/2; 2. Shinya Hashimoto & Meng beat Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka in 10:58. This match was notable for Koshinaka doing the worst Russian leg sweep ever on Hashimoto. Hashimoto made the big comeback for the finish, threw down the ref, and caught Koshinaka in the sankakujime (headscissors armbar combination) for the submission. *3/4; 3. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima in the match to determine which team faced Keiji Muto & Scott Norton in the tag tournament finals. Really good. Nakanishi didn't look bad and the other three are very good and the crowd was into it. At one point Nagata got a facelock on Tenzan while Nakanishi racked Kojima, but Kojima escaped the rack and used the Kojima cutter (diamond cutter) on Nakanishi and saved Tenzan. Nagata eventually pinned Tenzan after an enzuigiri and bridging back suplex in 13:42. ***1/2; 4. Muto & Norton won the Super Grade tag team tourney beating Nagata & Nakanishi in 21:32. A hot match, luckily since Norton was almost never in. Of course Muto and Nagata were great working with each other. At one point Nagata got the facelock on Norton while Nakanishi racked Muto. Muto got out of the rack and made the save. The other guys were so good down the stretch even Norton couldn't screw it up. Muto made the comeback doing his regular spots, the missile dropkick, dropkick to the knee and the figure four. Nakanishi racked Muto but Norton saved. Finish saw Muto get the armbar in the middle on Nakanishi. ***3/4
10/16 NEW JAPAN: This was a 90-minute special covering the 10/11 Tokyo Dome show. At least it was a huge improvement over Jingu Stadium. 1. They aired the main event first, where Naoya Ogawa retained the NWA title beating Hashimoto in 13:10. This was worked to look like a shoot. Antonio Inoki was the ring announcer. Ogawa came out to the traditional NWA title theme song music that people like Harley Race and Ric Flair used in the 80s n Japan. The fans went wild, particularly for Hashimoto's kicks and his facial expressions were unbelievable. Ogawa didn't have much charisma as a traditional pro wrestler but with his size, background and tremendous job of marketing him plus his development of some great fire, people believe he's real. It was interesting because the crowd went crazy whenever Hashimoto would make comebacks with kicks, but nobody believed in Hashimoto when he clamped on a heel hold on the ground. Hashimoto threw two back suplexes that got huge pops. When both were standing up, Ogawa kept taking him down with his trademark STO (a judo takedown). As the story went, as the match got longer, Ogawa kept his stamina and Hashimoto lost his stamina, but not his desire, and kept getting picked apart. Ogawa was brutalizing Hashimoto at the end when Inoki ran in and hit Ogawa and told him to stop and ordered the match stopped. The fans really didn't react badly to the finish. I didn't hear any booing and it seemed they accepted that Hashimoto was getting creamed badly and it was the humane thing to do even without the pinfall or submission at the end. Inoki and Hashimoto hugged in mid-ring and Hashimoto then collapsed, and had to be helped backstage. It wasn't a traditional "great" wrestling match, but it was great for what they needed to do to keep the feud alive. It's still a mystery why after all the mainstream attention why this show wasn't a bigger draw, but it sure points to have much New Japan has fallen this year. ***1/2; 2. Liger regained the IWGP jr. title from Kendo Ka Shin in 16:08 using a brainbuster off the top rope. This was a good wrestling match by normal standards, but a disappointment by standards of an IWGP jr. title match. Liger seems to have physically been taken down by injuries at this point to where even his great sense of how to build a match has a hard time compensating for it. **3/4; 3. Kimo beat Yuji Nagata in 3:54 with a choke in the middle after Nagata turned being pounded from the mount position. Nagata did a tremendous job in carrying Kimo in his first pro match. It's funny, because you think of Kimo as this huge powerhouse, but he's actually a physically smaller man than Nagata, who is considered a small heavyweight in pro wrestling. Kimo, with the physique, face and tatoos and the gimmick of carrying the cross into the ring has a great look for a pro wrestler. In a worked shoot, he was effective but only because Nagata was good. Nagata launched him once with one of his suplexes and it was a give-and-take exciting match with the fans popping for everything they did before Kimo went over. **1/4; 4. Muto beat Nakanishi in 20:00 to retain the IWGP heavyweight title. Even with bad knees and an even worse opponent, Muto proved himself to be one of the top workers around. This was a hell of a match. It was mainly built around the one thing Nakanishi can do, the torture rack. He'd continually get Muto up there, and Muto would continually find a way out. Due to injuries limiting his flying moves, Muto now concentrates on spots building to armbars but since the people believe in the move, it works. Fans believed Nakanishi could win the title, which also helped, as they popped for his racks every time and there was a big pop when he hit a german suplex as fans believed it could have been the finish. At one point Nakanishi racked Muto, who then maneuvered from that position into a choke, but Nakanishi broke the choke with a back suplex in a real good sequence. At another point, Nakanishi racked Muto and dropped him over the top rope to the floor and hit a pescado, which looked good considering Nakanishi is blown up to about 270 pounds. Nakanishi at the finish hit four spears and went for another rack, but this time Muto maneuvered it into the armbar for the submission. ***3/4
MEXICO: Aaron Alvarado Nieves, who wrestles as Brazo Cibernetico (one of about a dozen wrestling brothers in the famous family) was in grave condition at last report suffering from pancreatic failure. Alvarado Nieves, 30, was rushed to a Mexico City hospital at 7 p.m. Saturday night. Alvarado Nieves was also well known earlier in his career as part of a high flying trio going by the ring name of Robin Hood
The situation with Felino got hairy as Antonio Pena threatened to sue EMLL if they were to have used him this past weekend. EMLL and Felino called his bluff by working his scheduled shots, returning on 10/22 at Arena Mexico. Pena backed off on his threat after claiming that he owns the character because he created him. The deal with all this is that when Pena was the booker for EMLL, he created all these characters, many of whom got over huge when television hit Mexico City in the early 90s. Mexico City was probably the hottest wrestling market in the world when there was no television allowed in for fear it would kill the golden goose. Finally Pena got network TV for EMLL, which only made things hotter and created a slew of new-TV created stars--this is the point that Konnan and Vampiro hit it big. Pena then quit EMLL and form AAA with the help of Televisa, the network and the war began which continues to this day, with both sides having network Sunday morning television. Felino was one of the characters Pena created, but Felino had used the name in EMLL for the past nearly ten years around the world. When Felino joined AAA, Pena wanted him to sign the rights to the name over to him as the creator and he refused which is why their relationship fell apart. Pena also booked Felino for shows on 10/24 in Monterrey and 10/25 in Nuevo Laredo and claimed he would get Felino suspended if he misses the shots, which he did
Latin Lover beat Cobarde to win the Mexican national heavyweight title on 10/19 in Ciudad Acuna in two straight falls. Ovaciones reported the place went so crazy after seeing the title change that the fans carried Latin on their shoulders around the building
Brazo de Oro, the older brother of Brazo Cibernetico, just hours after he had heard the news about his brother, still worked his scheduled main event on 10/24 at Mexico City Arena Coliseo and dropped the Distrito Federal heavyweight title to Violencia
In a really weird match in Tijuana, Halloween (WCW former Ciclope) beat Super Parka in a hair vs. hair match. The deal is, both of these guys are masked men and they retained their mask, so they covered up Parka's face while shaving his head, and then allowed him to put back on his mask
The Head Hunters debuted on the AAA TV taping on 10/18 in Nuevo Laredo at the baseball stadium during Los Vipers Primera Clase's cage match win over Los Vatos Locos. All of the Vipers had escaped from the cage, so Histeria was the only one left in with three Vatos Locos and he was getting destroyed. The Hunters then ran in to help him
Tigre Blanco won a mask vs. mask match over Super Cacao from Japan on 10/19 at Arena Coliseo in Mexico City with a figure four leglock in the third fall. Cacao was unmasked as Kadoorde Nosawa. The match was completely scientific and the fans gave both men a big ovation at the finish
The 10/22 Arena Mexico show drew a very small crowd with the three-way trios match on top with Brazo de Plata & Tarzan Boy & Emilio Charles Jr. winning over Apolo Dantes & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 and Villano III & Pierroth Jr. & Fuerza Guerrera
Bombero Infernal won the IWRG IC middleweight title over Mr. Mexico at the 10/24 TV taping in Naucalpan.
ALL JAPAN: Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama won the PWF & International tag titles from Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa in 27:25 on 10/23 in Nagoya before 6,000 fans when Kobashi pinned Misawa with the Burning hammer, which is a torture rack dropped into a death valley driver. It was said to have been an outstanding match and one report we got called it a match of the year candidate. After the match, Akiyama said that the match on 10/30 at Budokan Hall with he and Kobashi against Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori would be a non-title match, but they did an angle the next night to turn it into a title match. On the 10/24 show, Omori & Takayama & Satoru Asako beat Kobashi & Akiyama & Daisuke Ikeda in the main event with Ikeda being the one to do the job, but after the match, Takayama & Omori left Kobashi & Akiyama laying which led to a title match being challenged and accepted. Takayama & Omori won in the top two singles matches on the 10/23 Nagoya show. Takayama beat Gary Albright with a chicken wing submission in 8:32, a result which must have thrilled Albright because it shows just how far he's dropped, while Omori pinned Jinsei Shinzaki in 21:11 with his axe bomber in what was reported as a very good match
The other title change this week was that on 10/25 in Nagaoka before 1,800 fans they had the finals of the All-Asian tag team title tournament with Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue beating Maunukea Mossman & Johnny Smith in 26:18 when Inoue used the torture rack to make Mossman submit. They made a big deal afterwards about it being the first title that Inoue has ever won in a nine year career. Smith & Mossman went to the finals beating Kentaro Shiga & Jinsei Shinzaki on the 10/24 show in Kashima
It is expected for a third title switch later this week in the Misawa vs. Vader Triple Crown match on 10/30 at Budokan Hall. The 10/31 TV show covering the Budokan show will be expanded from 30 minutes to 90 minutes and Kenji Wakamatsu, the TV announcer from the glory days of the promotion who has since gone on to bigger and better things, is being brought back for this show
Stan Hansen & Akira Taue look to be a tag team for the annual tag team tournament which starts in two weeks. Originally this was going to be the first year that Hansen wasn't part of the tournament, since Hansen hasn't been pushed as a serious wrestler since they stopped teaming him with Vader. But with Toshiaki Kawada out, they had a hole to fill. To give Hansen back some credibility, on the 10/24 show, Hansen & Taue beat former tag champs Misawa & Ogawa just one day after losing the title when Hansen pinned Misawa in 12:57 after a lariat
10/17 TV show did a 3.8 rating.
NEW JAPAN: They are now doing an angle where Shinya Hashimoto wants to join up with Antonio Inoki with Inoki as his trainer looking for a rematch with Naoya Ogawa for the 1/4 Dome show. On 10/20, at the Narita Airport with Inoki flying back home to Los Angeles with Ogawa and Kazunari Murakami, Hashimoto showed up and asked Inoki to train him. They also began building up what we wrote about last week with Keiji Muto vs. Masahiro Chono in a singles match for the Dome which would end their feud of Team 2000 vs. NWO Japan. There is a lot of talk that the New Japan/WCW relationship would end with this show, and seeing how both companies are going in different directions, I could see where it could fall apart (although New Japan really kept Chris Benoit strong as he scored clean pins on both Liger and Otani and didn't do a job to anyone in singles or tags). If that becomes the case, the NWO name, which is WCW property, would end on that show (there was talk of ending the NWO name as soon as the end of this tour but it now appears to be January)
New Japan ran a major show on 10/19 in Fukuoka drawing a poor 4,500 (roughly a half house) for a show headlined by NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono over Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Keiji Muto. Jushin Liger & Wild Pegasus (Benoit) teamed together for the first time in years on the show beating current IWGP jr. tag team champions Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Otani in a non-title match in 15:10 when Liger pinned Takaiwa. Pegasus remained unbeaten on this tour, as on 10/20 in Kumamoto he pinned Otani in a singles match with the diving head-butt finisher. Dean Malenko lost a singles match in Fukuoka against Kendo Ka Shin with the armbar. Pegasus & Malenko on 10/21 in their last night in beat Liger & Samurai when Malenko pinned Samurai in Miyazaki
The 10/16 TV show, which aired the Tokyo Dome matches, drew a 4.9 rating which is a phenomenal number for a 90 minute show that aired from 2:10 to 3:40 a.m. on a Saturday night.
OTHER JAPAN NOTES: As expected, Ultimo Dragon announced his retirement on 10/20 because of his hand was never able to recover after a botched up elbow surgery more than a year ago that at the time was supposed to be minor surgery. Dragon was officially fired on 9/7 by WCW. Since it was the WCW doctor who botched up the surgery that ended his career, it is considered likely that he'll file a lawsuit against the company
Yumiko Hotta regained the WWWA title beating Kyoko Inoue on the Neo Ladies show on 10/22 at Hakata Star Lanes before a poor crowd (announced at 1,240), using the shoda (palm blow to the face) for a pin in 18:07. The win was something of a surprise as they had been already pushing the first Inoue vs. Manami Toyota in several years (they had numerous Match of the Year level bouts in the past) for 12/8 at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym in AJW's final big show of the year. The match may still take place, but the main event looks to be Hotta vs. Takako Inoue for the WWWA title. They did something of a trade, as the semifinal saw Chaparita Asari win the WWWA super lightweight title beating AJW's Momoe Nakanishi in 13:55
Michinoku Pro ran a major show on 10/19 at Tokyo Ota Ward Gymnasium before 2,612 fans with Tiger Mask pinning Great Sasuke in the main event. Mens Teioh, who had been wrestling with Big Japan, returned to Michinoku Pro for this show
A correction from the 10/10 Toryumon results, the Mochizuki who teamed with Magnum Tokyo in a tag match was Masaaki Mochizuki and not Susumu Mochizuki (both work for the group)
The Head Shrinkers tag team in FMW contains neither of the original Shrinkers. From photos, they are two younger Samoans, one of whom looks around 300 and the other around 400 and he may be Matthew Anoia. FMW is doing a short 11/4 to 11/10 tour with the big show on the final day in Hakata with Fake Hayabusa & Kodo Fuyuki vs. Masato Tanaka & H in a lumberjack match with Shoichi Arai as referee
They did an awesome spot on the 10/17 Michinoku Pro/Battlarts combined show in the main event. Basically, Alexander Otsuka was behind Great Sasuke, and Jinsei Shinzaki was behind Otsuka. Shinzaki lifted Otsuka up, who lifted Sasuke up, in a dual german suplex spot that I've never seen before. Judging from the landing, it looked dangerous as well as Otsuka looked to land somewhat dangerously and Sasuke very dangerously almost straight down on his head
Top matches on the 11/5 Seikendo show are Satoru Sayama vs. Alexander Otsuka, Mikahil Abitenshan (?) vs. Igor Vovchanchin and another Russian against Mitsuya Nagai
IWA Japan ran its big show at Tokyo Ariake Rainbow Space running a series of shoot angles. The main event was a no rope barbed wire electric dynamite barbed wire board death match. It was Jason the Terrible & Doug Gilbert & Yoshiya Yamashita representing Kiyoshi Asano (IWA Japan owner) against heels Tarzan Goto & Kendo Nagasaki & Ichiro Yaguchi representing outside promotions. The stip was in Yamashita's team, which was the IWA team lost, Asano would have to leave IWA and without him the company would be forced to fold. So it was obvious they weren't going to lose--and then they did. After the match with Asano forced to leave his company (ala McMahon), Tiger Jeet Singh came out with a briefcase with approximately an alleged $500,000 to keep the promotion operational. Earlier in the show Singh beat Mr. Pogo in a street fight. Asano was in Singh's corner. Asano blew a fireball at Pogo outside the ring and counted out. It was said that Asano, in learning how to blow a fireball, actually swallowed the kerosene three days earlier and got so sick he was hospitalized.
HERE AND THERE: The "Beyond the Mat" movie had an impressive one week limited release opening this weekend. As mentioned before, the movie was released to the theaters largely to quality for possible Academy Award nominations. Universal was skeptical about its marketability but recognized it's an excellent movie and received unanimously tremendous reviews thus far. The opening night in Century City, CA at a mall multi-complex saw the 130-seat theater about 2/3 full for a 1 p.m. matinee show, which is a very strong showing on a Friday matinee, and it was packed both the 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. showings. It was moved to the largest theater in the mall on Saturday and drew about 250 for each prime time showing. The movie also did tremendously in the exit polls. I was in attendance at the 9:30 p.m. showing on the first night as they did a post-show Q&A with Producer Barry Blaustein, Terry Funk and myself. The audience, which according to a show of hands, was approximately one-third people who said they were not wrestling fans, gave the movie a big ovation at the finish. Based on the Q&A, reactions from myself watching, from other readers watching other shows and a little from Blaustein who gauged audience response at many of the airings this weekend, the movie seems to do as well if not better among non-wrestling fans but it leaves everyone thinking when they leave. Virtually nobody, even those who weren't wrestling fans, left the theater before the end of the Q&A even though it was already about 11:30 p.m. when it started. There is an aspect of the movie, which is basically the most powerful message of the movie and that is the toll wrestling often takes on the families of the participants, that is very tough for
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